Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

Pezi brushed the icicles from his runny nose and gazed upward in dismay. “Oh, no!” he moaned, distraught. “It’s blocked!” For days he’d been able to maintain his hold on Chim’s horn only by imagining his triumphal entry into the High City. The acclaim! The honors! The food! Now his dream was shattered—delayed, anyway—and Pezi was heartbroken. This was the last straw, the final indignity, a gratuitous kick in the groin from the same sadistic powers of nature that had dogged his steps for the last two years. It was just too much. Pezi clung tightly to Chim’s horn, and sobbed.

Chimolitha rolled her giant eyes back to look up at Pezi curiously. She didn’t like this fat fellow, but she did understand tears. And Chimolitha, for all her tough old hide, was the most soft-hearted of tugoliths.

“Don’t cry, Man,” she said quietly. “I’ll go up.” She lowered her head and wedged her long snout into the snow that had drifted against the cliff face. Then she started forward, and upward. She pushed a mound of snow before her, and the higher she climbed the larger it got. Soon a part of it began dropping down off the road. Chimolitha was using her body as a plough.

If she expected any thanks, she didn’t get it. Not that Pezi wouldn’t have felt grateful if the circumstances had been a bit different. But since he sat astride her horn, and her horn was just above her nose, and it was her nose the tug was using as the point of her wedge, Pezi suddenly found himself buried under a suffocating blanket of snow. “Wait!”

“Stop!”

“Help!” he cried whenever he could spare enough breath to do so. That was infrequently, however, and it was many minutes before he could get the well-meaning beast’s attention long enough to get her to stop.

Chimolitha rolled her eyes up to look at him again and petulantly explained, “I’m going up.”

“But I’m going under! Can’t you let another tug go around us and—” Pezi’s words froze on his lips as he caught a glimpse of the valley below. There was no need for the tug to answer his question. She clearly took up all the road between the mountain and the dropoff.

“I can’t go back,” she explained unnecessarily.

“No! Don’t try!” Pezi said quickly as he sat licking his lips and reviewing his options. Then he had it.

“Why don’t I just climb over your back and get onto the tug behind you?” he asked.

The question startled Chim, and her eyes grew wide. Was she supposed to know the answer? “I don’t know,” she said anxiously. By that time Pezi was already clambering over her back—by no means an easy task for a man of his ample girth.

Then he stopped. He’d suddenly found a very good reason why he ought to stay put right where he was.

Thuganlitha smiled up at him wickedly and said, “Ride my horn!”

It was a cold, breathless ride to the top of the Down Road, but Pezi clung tight to Chimolitha’s tusk and he made it. Suddenly they burst through a drift into a cleared area, scattering a half dozen shovel-wielding slavers in the process. Two men were so shocked by the abrupt appearance of the beasts that they cast themselves off the precipice and were never seen again. The rest had plenty to talk about at supper.

Pezi and his column garnered few cheers but plenty of awed

stares as they moved up the main street toward the High Fortress. At least part of Pezi’s dream came true, however. Once inside, he quickly found his way to a table, and a platter of hot, steaming meat was set before him.

The only trouble was, he couldn’t taste it. His nose was stopped up. He wrestled with severe depression over that, but did manage in spite of his despair to clean the plate, refill it, and clean it again. It had been a very long time since he’d had a decent meal, and he wasn’t about to let a head cold interfere any more than was necessary.

When he rose, he still wasn’t quite satisfied. However, there were matters of great importance that he needed to tend to. Besides, suppertime was not that far off.

He waddled importantly along the corridor leading toward Flayh’s tower and started up the steps past the guard.

The little man leaped nimbly to his feet and blocked the stairs. “Are you crazy? You can’t go up there.”

Pezi stepped back, propped his hands on his fat hips, and snarled, “And just what is going to stop me?”

“This might,” Tibb grunted, and Pezi noticed that there was a dagger blade scarcely an inch from his navel.

“Oh,” he said. He took a generous step backward.

“The question is, why would you want to?” Tibb asked as he sheathed his knife and sat back down on the step. “Do you have any idea what he’s like?” Tibb jerked his head meaningfully up the ascending spiral.

“Why, indeed I do! He’s my uncle!”

“Oh,” Tibb said. It was his rum to be surprised.

Thinking that had settled the matter, Pezi again started up the steps past Tibb, and once again stopped abruptly. The dagger was out and aimed a little lower this time. Pezi stepped backward—quite quickly for such a tubby man. “You’re very quick with that thing,” he harrumphed.

“I practice a lot.”

“Why can’t I see my uncle?”

“Flayh’s orders. Nephew or not, no one goes up those stairs until Flayh’s summoned him.”

“How can he summon me if he doesn’t even know I’m here?” Pezi thundered.

A chill ran up his back as a steel-cold voice behind him answered, “He knows.”

Pezi choked and turned around very slowly. One glimpse was plenty to assure him of the speaker’s identity, and he gulped and quickly looked away.

“Are those your beasts in the stable?” Admon Faye asked flatly, and Pezi nodded. “Then get down there. One of them’s out of control.”

“Thug!” Pezi yelped and he started rumbling down the dark hallway. Admon Faye met Tibb’s eyes and smiled disdainfully. Then he turned and followed Pezi toward the stables. When the slaver reached the wooden landing above the cavern, Pezi was already halfway down the stairway. Pezi stopped there, and looked tentatively downward, ready to climb back up at the slightest hint that Thuganlitha might charge him. “Chimolitha!” he squawked. “Can’t you do something?”

Chimolitha watched as Thug demolished a third stall in search of something to eat. She thought a moment, then answered, “Yes.”

There was a loud crash as Thuganlitha splintered the timbers of a fourth stall with his horn. Pezi stared, dumfounded. Then he shouted, “Well then, do it!”

Chimolitha looked mournfully up at Pezi and asked, “What thing shall I do?”

“Stop him!” Pezi screeched. “Stop him from destroying this castle!”

“Oh,” Chim said, understanding at last, and she looked sternly at Thuganlitha. “Stop it,” she ordered.

Thug paused in the destruction of a nearby hay wagon, and looked at her. “Why?” he growled.

Chimolitha rolled her eyes back up at Pezi and repeated the question. “Why?”

“Because it isn’t nice!” Pezi trumpeted and he stamped his foot. That wasn’t smart: The stairway was unstable, and he was inordinately heavy. Thirty feet below him an enormous horned monster scowled up at him in frustration. The stairway shook, and Pezi quickly grabbed the railing to steady himself.

“Why are you angry?” Admon Faye asked calmly, looking directly into Thuganlitha’s eyes.

The tugolith was surprised, and the reaction showed on his massive features. He thought for a minute, then rumbled, “I’m hungry!”

Admon Faye nodded and said, “Fine. What would you like to eat?”

Thuganlitha filtered the question through his tiny brain, then a wicked gleam came into his eyes and he turned his gaze on Pezi. He grinned. “Him.”