Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Into the Mar, yes. The question is, will they permit us to go our own way once we’re there?”

“What was that you just said about the mountain?” Serphimera asked, her eyes straight ahead but a sly smile playing on her lips.

Pelmen permitted himself a rueful chuckle. After a moment, he said, “There are some advantages to knowing some of the future.”

The seriousness of their circumstance settled slowly in on both of them. “Do we dare talk?” Serphimera whispered. “Is there some way Flayh could be hearing all our conversations through these?”

Pelmen studied each of their entourage in turn, twisting in his saddle as he did so. he didn’t know the answer to her question. In fact there was really no way of knowing if Flayh himself might not be one of their traveling companions. Pelmen shrugged at her. “I guess we could talk of other things. If he’s listening, it would at least waste his time while wasting none of our own. Why don’t you tell me everything that happened from the moment you left me at the edge of the Great South Fir?”

“I already did!”

“Then tell me again,” Pelmen urged her, his eyes upon one of the dogs. Serphimera proceeded to do that, Pelmen interrupting her frequently with questions. They came down out of the pass, making good time. Without saying so, Pelmen began angling northward. The dogs did not interfere, although he’d expected them to. In fact, it almost seemed that those ahead of them had anticipated his change of direction. The pack stayed right with them, moving soundlessly through the melting snow. And when Pelmen dared to spur his horse into a gallop, Serphimera trailing him closely, the pack silently matched the pace. There was no outrunning them and no eluding them, but neither did the hounds make any hostile advances nor attempt to turn Pelmen and Serphimera from their course. Within a few hours, they’d reached the edge of the Great North Fir and turned to ride parallel to it toward the northeast. Pelmen reflected that they surely made an unusual sight—a mounted man and woman, surrounded by a sprinting pack of bizarre hounds. It didn’t matter. Their horses were rested and willing to run, and every purposeful stride took them nearer to their destiny on the mountain of the Power.

Serphimera noticed it first. “It’s getting bigger.”

“What?” Pelmen asked her.

“Our escort. It’s getting bigger. Haven’t you noticed?”

“No, I haven’t.” Pelmen frowned.

“Watch the forest,” his bride said, pointing, and soon he began to see them—new dogs, just as black as those who’d led them from the pass, slipping out to join the others. It continued throughout the day and into the night. The pack that had numbered in the dozens threatened to swell into the thousands and moved like a black flood across the white landscape. They raced just inside the Great North Fir under a canopy of widely spaced evergreens, across ground still covered with pristine snow. In their wake they left a muddy swathe of dog prints a quarter of a mile across.

The riders didn’t slacken their pace, and the dogs did not complain. When their horses began to give out, however, Pelmen and Serphimera stopped and camped. It was only then that their normally silent companions began to whine, growl, and finally to bark impatiently.

“It’s as if they can’t wait,” Serphimera observed, and Pelmen nodded.

“Yes—but what is it they can’t wait or?” Night had fallen and firelike eyes ringed their campfire like row upon row of orderly fireflies. Pelmen didn’t cloak the camp. He saw no sense in it.

The next morning they rode on, upon mounts barely rested from the days of exhausting travel and still skittish of the unnatural beasts surrounding them.

“Have you noticed we no longer need to guide our horses?” Pelmen asked his wife.

She nodded. “I wonder what would happen if we tried to turn south?” Several nearby dogs turned their heads and looked up at her. “Not that we will,” she explained to them, and they all looked back at the trail. She shot Pelmen a wide-eyed, silent exclamation, and they both laughed. It was hearty laughter.

They had covenanted to enjoy their last few days.

Midway through the third day of their journey, Pelmen’s horse drew up lame. They could travel no further. The two riders dismounted, and talked over what to do next.

If the dogs seemed restless at night, they seemed frantic now. One beast tried to shove his muzzle between Serphimera’s legs, and she shouted in surprise and stomped on his head. The dogs persisted, surrounding them so tightly that the two humans had no place to step. Pelmen finally understood what they were yapping. “You want us to try to ride you?” A chorus of excited howls greeted his question, and two dogs turned their noses toward the mountain and waited patiently for the people to sit astride them.

“We’ll break your backs!” The shaper protested.

“Sit!” growled one hound menacingly, and Pelmen shrugged at Serphimera. They relieved their horses of the provisions they’d been carrying and distributed these on the backs of several willing dogs. Then Pelmen and Serphimera took three pyramids each, and mounted the waiting hounds.

The rest of the ride toward the mountain of the Power was hardly comfortable, and on more than one occasion the two humans had to fling themselves boldly off their mounts to get the pack to stop. But in due time, they arrived at the foot of that mountain that seemed so special to the Power. They were greeted there by a throng of dogs three times the size of the horde that accompanied them.

Serphimera stared at the sight, aghast. “How did Flayh have time to make them all!” she marveled.

Pelmen regarded the dogs stoically, and muttered, “I’m more concerned with why.” He hopped off his steed, collected their belongings, and started up the mountain. Serphimera followed behind him. After a moment, she stopped and looked back. “They aren’t following us.” In fact, from this vantage point she could see that the army of dogs had started to ring the mountain, each facing outward, teeth bared as if defending it from attack. “It’s odd,” she murmured.

Pelmen didn’t hear her. He didn’t hear anything. He climbed the peak with a feverish haste, drawing upon reserves of energy he’d been unaware were there. He climbed as a man possessed.

Serphimera turned back to see he was already far above her. “Wait!” she shouted in annoyance. But he didn’t wait. Then she realized that the process had already begun, and already it was taking Pelmen from her.and the young warrior saw a look of loss and despair in his host’s face that wrenched his own stomach. “What is it?” he asked fearfully, awe creeping into his voice. “It’s… not the dread returned, is it?”

Syth looked at the snow and breathed a long sigh. “Not any caused by magic. Or perhaps it is. I don’t know. It’s hard, these days, to put causes to things. Who can know what powers have been loosed upon us—or what powers we’ve loosed upon ourselves. Here. Read this.” Syth thrust a note toward Rosha, and waited for the younger man to come and take it. “The flyer arrived this morning,” he mumbled as Rosha took the letter from his hand.

Rosha woke to a cold, silent house. Puzzled, he rose and dressed, then went down to breakfast in the window-lined hall. He ate alone, served by a steward who seemed unusually subdued. They exchanged no words until the end of the meal. Rosha glanced up, caught the man’s eye, and asked quietly, “Where’s your master?”

The servant said nothing. He simply pointed out the window at a line of tracks in the snow. They led up the nearer of the island’s twin peaks.