Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

“Are you happy?” Dorlyth asked. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked the question tonight, but it was the first time Rosha really answered.

“I suppose so.”

Dorlyth grunted. “Then you are. For what you suppose, that’s what’s so.”

“And yet…”

“And yet you’re here. So you can’t be entirely satisfied.”

“I’m satisfied,” Rosha protested. “I just came because I was worried about you!”

“Come to protect your infirm old father?” The aged champion grinned, his eyes gleaming.

Rosha chuckled. “Come to protect your backside, anyway. Your reflexes aren’t what they used to be!”

“How could you know that?”

Rosha never answered. His mouth sagged open and he stared. Dorlyth proved his reflexes were still excellent as he whirled around, slipping sword from scabbard in the same fluid motion. Then he stared, too.

The moon clung to the horizon, peeking down at them through the firs. It was orange, and huge. The cloudy figure that stood beside the fire pit seemed to glow with that same apricot radiance. She regarded them passively, almost shyly. But Dorlyth had faced those regal, golden eyes before. They betrayed no hint of fear. “Mar-Yilot,” he whispered, and the wind stirred the fallen leaves and seemed to echo him.

She was not beautiful, nor even pretty in the ways that men normally evaluate women. Her auburn hair ringed a pale, thin face and hung limply to bony shoulders. She was slender, and her ochre gown draped upon her like curtains wrapped around a sapling. She still strongly resembled the wan, silent waif she once had been—vulnerable yet exceedingly wise.

But her carriage demanded respect. She was lordly. And Dorlyth knew her power and trembled before it.

“Where is he?” she asked at last.

Sparked to action, Rosha grabbed for his sword. “Stay it,” Dorlyth muttered. “She’s here, but her body’s not. Your blade can’t harm her.”

Mar-Yilot raised her eyebrows a barely perceptible fraction. “Your son?”

“He’s young yet.”

“May he live to grow old as you,” she said flatly. “Where’s Pelmen?”

“Why do you seek him?”

“Don’t toy with me, Dorlyth. That angers me. Tell me where he’s hiding.”

“I don’t think he’s hiding, really,” Dorlyth murmured. “I don’t know if he’s even in the Mar—”

“There’s shaping about that bears his stamp—or if not, at least the mark of his talent. Grave things are shifting, Dorlyth. Unless he’ll talk to me, I mean to make war upon him.” She spoke earnestly but dispassionately—a woman fully in control of herself, actively shaping her own destiny.

“How do you know it’s him?”

“Who else could it be?” she snapped.

“This evil Flavh has—”

“Flayh!” Mar-Yilot spat in disgust. “Who is this Flayh? A cloth seller! A trader in tools and cooking pans! When the seven shapers wrestled together and Pelmen battled me toe to toe, where was this Flayh? In Lamath of the dragon lovers, counting his money! Don’t speak nonsense, Dorlyth. Tell me where Pelmen is and let us reason or make war.”

Dorlyth chose his words carefully. “Am I a sorcerer, my Lady? Can I divine your hiding places?”

Her amber eyes gazed at him balefully, a stern mother about to rebuke a lying child. She paused a moment, then said very deliberately, “The old one is dead in the last conflict, and Terril murdered his twin. That leaves five. The twin-killer has declared for the lazy king, Mast is idle in retirement, Joooms waits in Gamabel, unemployed. And that leaves Pelmen and myself. Would you have me believe you uncovered?”

Dorlyth’s mouth was very dry. He said nothing.

“Very well.” The Autumn Lady nodded. “I know your lair— this glade of mod Carl is hardly a secret, and no one has cloaked you here. When I return, I will see Pelmen. Unless you truly are uncovered, in which case…” Her voice faded away and she permitted herself the slightest of smiles. “In which case I’m hardly responsible,” she finished. Then she disappeared with a flash of golden brilliance. The moon, too, had disappeared below the trees.

Dorlyth and Rosha stood in the darkness, stunned. Then the old warrior grunted. “I hope he decides to come find us. Otherwise, the next time she comes hunting him, she’ll kill us all. She won’t be trying to.

She just will.”

Pelmen couldn’t sleep. Throughout the night he agonized over the same question that had plagued him for weeks: Where was Serphimera? At the first sign of dawn, he bounded from his bed and took to the streets of Lamath. He didn’t expect to find her, but he needed to be doing something.

He left his blue gown in the room Erri had provided. He wanted to be able to move freely and talk to anyone. He went from the beautiful heart of the city quickly, intending to make a long sweep through the shanty townships that had mushroomed on its edge.

Barely a year before, a huge crowd had gathered in the city square to watch him being pulled apart by a pair of tugoliths. A few days later he had been publicly hailed as the Prophet of Lamath. Despite that, nobody recognized him now. Clothed in the simple garments of a Lamathian peasant, he walked briskly through crowded, dirty alleyways, visiting spots Serphimera had been known to frequent.

No one had seen the raven-haired priestess. Or if they had, they wouldn’t admit it. Several volunteered that they had seen the dragon, however, and that thought chilled his heart. Signs of the resurgence of the Dragonfaith were everywhere. By midmoming he’d passed a score of newly painted shrines, each bearing the two-headed icon above its open doors. Like a dead fire catching new life from a tiny ember, the Dragonfaith had returned. With his imitation dragon wings, Flayh was fanning the growing flame. Pelmen sank into a meditative despair.

Had Serphimera been duped anew? Had Flayh contrived to use her somehow in his scheme to reenslave Lamath? Although Pelmen could prove no connection between Flayh and Serphimera’s disappearance, the thought kept recurring, and he’d been unable to stifle it. His bitterness grew.

“Man?” someone called. Pelmen broke out of his deep reverie and looked around. Had this been addressed to him? “Man?” the voice called again, and Pelmen walked toward a tall, iron-spiked fence that lined one side of this broad avenue. He realized now where he was and who—or what—was speaking. He gazed down into the tugolith pit.

“Yes?” he replied to the gigantic animal that had summoned him.

“Dolna is gone and Thuganlitha is being mean.” The beast reported this dutifully, assuming that Pelmen would understand simply because he was human. Tugoliths tended to appear simpleminded. They were, in fact, the brightest of beasts, for they alone had mastered human language. But people who talked with them frequently forgot that, since the huge creatures used their limited vocabulary mostly to bicker childishly with one another.

“I am not!” Thuganlitha snarled. It was evident that he was lying. Not only did his guilty tone of voice give him away, but Pelmen could see that he had another tugolith wedged against a wall and was pricking the screaming animal’s hind-quarters with his horn.

“Stop that!” Pelmen ordered.

Thuganlitha left off the pricking and looked up at Pelmen suddenly. “I’m not doing anything.” He scowled.

“Oh yes, you are,” chided Chimolitha, the tugolith who had called for Pelmen’s intervention.

“Oh no, I’m not!”

“Oh yes, you are!”

“You told,” Thuganlitha snorted, yielding the point but raising a new issue.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Chimolitha explained.