Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

The Elder’s head lay in Bronwynn’s lap, and she stroked his bald pate in shock. He smiled at that, but it was a pained smile. He was bleeding freely from a wound in his chest. The girl was sobbing.

“It wasn’t Serphimera’s people, really,” the little man murmured rapidly. “It was an ugly fellow out of your master’s past.” He was almost babbling, smiling a strange, excited smile as he struggled to impart this last bit of information and advice. “You need to go. The fellow—someone called him Admon something—is hunting you too, little lady. And though I wouldn’t tell him of the caverns, some of the other brothers may not be so bullheaded as I. Please,” he asked, shuddering with pain. “Go now, quickly.”

“Admon…” Bronwynn murmured, dazedly. Then the name sprang up at her and gripped her attention. “Admon Faye! Admon Faye!” she yelped, and Rosha realized she was edging toward hysteria. He grabbed her chin tightly and turned her face to look him in the eyes. Quickly, she regained control of herself. “Admon Faye has killed the Elder!” she cried, her heart breaking at the thought.

“He’s n-not d-dead!” Rosha snarled, but the little man between them chuckled, and interrupted them.

“Oh, but I am, lad,” he mumbled. “I am. But don’t look so horrified. I think I might like it.” Tears filled his eyes, and he continued, “They’ve taken all my books… they’re going to scatter my brothers.” He muttered again, through the tears. “What business do I have staying in this life?” He would have wept then, as the senseless tragedy of it closed around him, but he would not let himself. His instincts as a teacher went . too deep. As he looked up into the crying face of this proud young lady, and watched her curly-haired warrior fight to control his own feelings, he could not resist the opportunity for a lesson that might truly stick. “Why weep then, my children? You’ve read the Prophet’s book. You know there’s a Power, you’ve watched it work! Now… I’ll get a chance to know that Power.” The old man’s eyes seemed to lose contact with this world and gazed elsewhere. Rosha thought he had passed from them. He lifted the body from the floor of the cave, and began to mount the ladder again.

The aged eyes focused again. “No, no, leave me here. You run… run…” Rosha looked down at those lined cheeks, and wracked his mind for something Pelmen would say. Then it came to him, and he forced a smile onto his severe young face. “What? And leave you to the b-bbears?” The old man smiled thinly in appreciation… then the life was gone. Rosha carried him into the library with great tenderness, and stretched his body along one of those shelves that had held his treasured books. Then he glanced around, as if to be sure no one was watching—though he knew no one would be—and kissed the old man on the cheek, as he remembered his mother kissing him, long ago.

Bronwynn waited for him at the foot of the ladder, her eyes red and swollen but her tears now dried. That was good, Rosha thought to himself. They would both need to be fully alert now. They would be traveling in a region that belonged to the cavern bears. Better that, he reasoned, than to meet with Admon Faye. For the first time in his life, Rosha knew what his father meant by fear.

General Asher stood on the King’s Dock. It was named so because it was where the King of Lamath embarked when he traveled anywhere along the Lamathian waterways. It was an ornately decorated mooring, with reviewing stands and thick carpets standing under a vast canvas canopy. Usually the stands were empty and the canopy frame bare, but today the place was alive with color, and the victory celebration had drawn a large crowd.

The Seachief stepped first from the boat, and was greeted by thunderous applause. He was being touted as the newest in a long line of naval geniuses, and Asher greeted him with the dragon salute and an affectionate, if awkward, embrace.

“Well done, my friend,” he murmured in the Seachief s ear. He was startled by the Seachief’s uncharacteristically modest reply.

“Thank you. General Asher,” the Seachief whispered back, “but I really cannot claim the credit. You were right about the Prophet. It was he who set up the victory!”

“You are very modest, Seachieftain,” Asher said as he stepped back.

“I’m certain that your contribution was far greater than you insist.”

“Well… I did follow the man’s suggestions.” The Seachief smiled, his vanity getting the better of him. He certainly didn’t refuse it when Asher hung a diamond studded pendant around his neck and proclaimed him the Dragon’s Friend. It was the highest honor any commander in Lamath could hope to attain, save of course the title of Chieftain of Defense and Expansion. But Asher had a stranglehold on that position, and the General was a relatively young man. If the Seachief chose to bask in the crowd’s adulation for a time, it was because he realized how fleeting that love could be.

The crowd reacted differently, however, when Pelmen appeared. There were those who cheered, of •course, for the story of his advice and the wind he had summoned had been shared a hundred times by sailors calling to friends on the shore. But most muttered curses and raised their crossed arms in an angry gesture usually considered obscene by Lamathian society. In different comers of the assembled crowd chants arose, one group shouting, “Proph-et, Proph-et!” while another group answered, “Doom, doom, doom!” The noise grew so loud that few people witnessed the exchange that now took place, or marked how unusual was Asher’s greeting of the Prophet. Soon the lesser leaders of the victorious navy stepped off the boat to receive their own accolades, and the Prophet was forgotten.

A carriage was ready to carry Pelmen directly to the palace of the King. He was thrust in, to sit between two stony-faced guards who spoke neither to him nor to each other. Only one person in the great crowd seemed really to grasp what was taking place, and he ran alongside the carriage for several yards, trying to understand.

“Prophet, ho. Prophet! Where are they taking you?” Erri the sailor stopped and listened, but if Pelmen answered him he didn’t hear it. All he heard was the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones and the bouncing of the carriage springs.

Then Pelmen was gone.

Talith was talking and eating at the same time. This was not unusual for the King, and General Joss had trained himself to understand the garbled words regardless of what chewed foods they had been forced to struggle past on the way out of Talith’s mouth.

“Do yoummsupposemmwemwon?”

“I don’t know what the naval situation is, my Lord. As I said, I’ve not had any decent intelligence since we left the golden city.”

“I got a letter today,” the King observed, none too precisely. What he had received was a tiny blue-flyer scroll that simply reassured him of Ligne’s continued love and support.

“From your mistress, of course.”

“Of course! You don’t think my wife would write me, do you?”

“She would not be capable, my Lord, locked as she is in her apartments.”

“Her own fault,” the King muttered, chomping into a chicken leg. “Why haven’t you heard anything from the navy?” Joss interpreted the question from among the grunts and smacks of the King at table. “I am concerned, my Lord. I fear some change has taken place in the palace that has altered the national political situation. I fear…” Here Joss paused for emphasis. “… that you have been overthrown.”

Talith stopped chewing and stared. Then he closed his mouth and chomped angrily. He took a long draught of wine to wash it all down, his menacing eye never leaving those of his Chief of Security. Then he stood, and leaned across the table. “I said I received a letter from Ligne this morning!”