Roger Taylor - Arash-Felloren

The pain scattered all other responses and he cried out and dropped on to one knee, massaging his leg frantically and cursing. Even as he did so he became aware of a clattering sound. It was the key! He saw it bouncing on the stone floor. The implications of losing the key flashed before him, stark and uncompromising, dismissing in its turn the pain in his leg. Quite unnecessarily, for the key had stopped moving, he lunged after it, sending himself sprawling full length across the floor as he slapped his hand down on it.

He lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, before curling his fingers tightly around the key. His leg began to hurt again. Slowly he sat up and began rubbing it with the hand that was holding the key. As the worst of the discomfort left him, he levered himself on to the chair and carefully put the key back in its special pocket.

Still rubbing his leg, he cursed himself for a profound fool. What had he been thinking about, crashing around like that? The table had been knocked clear across the room, so violently had he struck it. What if the key had bounced into one of those damned grilles? He went cold. He did not want to think about it. The only solution to that would have been to take Ellyn’s advice and flee this part of the city completely – and very quickly at that!

As he became calmer, he asked the question again. What had he been thinking about? What had possessed him to behave like that? But he knew the answer. Indeed, as his thoughts turned again to the escaped dog, he could feel the presence bubbling inside him, threatening to burst out again. It was the creature. Some remnant of its night-time joining with him still lingered. But as the realization came to him, so did another, leaking up in some subtle way from the creature itself. This time, he was in control of it. He was master here. It would bend to his will, just as it had bowed to him in the arena. He knew now that it had drawn him into its killing spree because he was unprepared for it and because it was long starved of its true sustenance and near-frantic with excitement at finding him. Now however, the true balance of their relationship was established. A thrill passed through him.

Feed, he heard himself saying to it. Take your fill, I need you strong. Come to me when I call.

Then the presence was gone and he was more himself again. A little breathless, and with an extremely painful leg, he was Pinnatte, the one-time street thief on the way up. The joining with the creature no longer disturbed him; nor what it was doing. It was the way things were, the way they had to be. It was the inevitable working out of his destiny. Calmly, he picked up his buckets and rags and, carefully removing the key from its pocket again, left the room.

The area around the Mirror Room was, as usual, deserted, but he was soon part of the bustling activity that marked Barran’s intention of developing the Jyolan to its full. He noticed with some amusement that many of the people he was encountering appeared to be lost. He noticed too that he was barely using the marks he had made for himself. It was as though he had some natural affinity for the place. Almost as though he already knew it.

He made a few such journeys that morning, deliberately taking a different route each time, fulfilling his promise to himself to learn his way about the place as quickly as possible. With each excursion he became more at ease. While being lost in the Jyolan would be a legitimate source of panic for most people, it held no terrors for Pinnatte – it was more of an amusing challenge. There was an order here which he sensed and worked to, even though he could not have explained it to anyone or marked it on a paper. Once or twice he sensed the nearness of the escaped dog, and it gave him some pleasure to deny the will of the creature as it responded to him.

Returning again to the Mirror Room he put down the buckets and inserted the key in the lock. To his horror it did not turn. As he twisted it the other way, the door locked. His hands began to shake. He must have left the room unlocked! Surely not. He’d been as meticulous about locking the door as he had been about securing the key. He cursed himself even more roundly than he had when he banged into the table. He must concentrate on everything he did here. This was no Den, full of petty thieves. This was a place full of dangerous people, not the least of whom was Barran. He unlocked the door and pushed it open with his knee as he picked up the buckets. The image of a raging Barran filling his mind coincided with that immediately in front of him, and it was a tribute to his quick-wittedness that he did not cry out and drop both buckets. The Barran waiting for him however, was not raging, but actually looked rather amused by the flustered appearance. For Pinnatte was not quick-witted enough to prevent his mouth from dropping open.

‘I thought I’d left the door unlocked when the key didn’t turn,’ he blurted out, wide-eyed.

Barran shook his head and held out his hand. ‘Yours isn’t the only key,’ he said casually. ‘But give it to me now and come back in a couple of hours. I need to be in here for a while.’ He looked at the mirrors. Pinnatte had cleaned four rows.

‘You’re not working very quickly,’ he said with a frown. ‘I’d like this finished today.’

Pinnatte performed the demonstration he had prepared earlier, showing conclusively the difficulties he was dealing with and eventually wringing a grunt of acceptance and approval from Barran. He decided to risk taking advantage of it and pointed to the ring on which Barran had put the key.

‘That’s not a good idea,’ he said.

Barran looked at him quizzically. Pinnatte stepped close to him, pointed to one of the mirrors and said, ‘Look.’

‘What?’ Barran demanded irritably as he glanced at the mirror and back again.

‘This,’ Pinnatte replied, handing him the ring of keys. Before Barran could respond, Pinnatte was giving him sterling advice about how he should best carry the keys, and anything else that he valued, so that they would be safe from such as himself.

As he finished his lecture, Barran nodded knowingly. Then he snapped his fingers and said, ‘Look.’

Pinnatte started and turned even as he realized he was being caught by his own trick. Except that Barran’s trick was different, for as Pinnatte turned, it was into the edge of a knife against his throat. ‘Good advice for good advice, Pinnatte,’ Barran said quietly, bringing his face close. ‘I like your enthusiasm and your ideas. Don’t be afraid to tell me about them. But tell me softly and more circumspectly. And be very careful how close you come to people around here.’ He nodded towards the door. ‘Two hours,’ he said.

Pinnatte leaned against the door after he had closed it, breathed out noisily and put his hand on his chest as though to stop his heart pounding. Not for the first time, Barran’s simple purposefulness had terrified him, more by its mundane ordinariness than by any overt menace. He could see that he had indeed been given good advice for good advice, and it had taught him several lessons about life in this new world, not the least of which was to be more careful with his new master. But something else had happened, for even as Barran had released him, a manic rage had welled up inside him – a rage that had almost made him lash out at Barran for his insolence in handling him thus. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, and it terrified him to think how close to being expressed it had come.

He moved unsteadily away from the Mirror Room. Cold thoughts formed to quell the heat of the rage as he walked, though they were no less alien to him. Some other time, they said. Patience is everything. Great forces are gathering within you.

With nothing specific to do, he began occupying himself by continuing to find his way about the Jyolan. In the course of this he succeeded in finding a bed and a couple of chairs which he dragged to his room. He also found a better room, nearer to both the Mirror Room and Barran’s quarters – the Jyolan was awash with vacant rooms – but he made no attempt to occupy it. It would be better to wait until a suitable opportunity presented itself for him to ask for it. He had no desire to walk inadvertently into any more ‘lessons’.