Mickey Reichert: The beasts of Barakhai

"Hey!" someone shouted from the ground. A horse whinnied wildly. "Hey, you can't-"

Collins was not listening. He reached the parapets and turned sharply left, toward the garden and the dog, who had slowed to a lope.

"Stop," Collins yelled, trying not to look down. "No! Bad dog!"

To his relief, the dog whirled toward him.

"Bad dog!" Collins shouted again. "Leave that cat alone. Come here."

The dog obeyed, soaring toward Collins at a perilous gallop. Collins tensed to brace himself; but, at that moment, something sharp smacked into his left cheek. Thrown offbalance, he took a step to regain it. His foot came down on a soft object that screeched, then disappeared from beneath his boot. Collins staggered backward, the world spinning dizzily beneath him. The dog hurled itself into his arms, throwing him and itself out over the parapets.

Air slammed Collins, slinging his scream back into his face. He flailed wildly, panic overwhelming thought. He saw the moat rushing up to meet him, the dog twisting in midair. Then, he slammed into something much harder than water, incapacitating pain arching through his gut, agony spiking through him and overwhelming logical thought. He felt the world moving beneath him and grabbed on to keep from falling into black oblivion. His fingers winched around rope, holding him in place, and water splashed his face. A highpitched voice sounded in one ear, over a disharmonious chorus of ringing, "Hold on, and you'll be all right. I promise."

Dazed and disoriented, Collins did as the voice told him. It reminded him of his tonsillectomy, awakening from anesthesia memoryless and suffering inexplicable pain. Then he had yelled for his mother, worsening the anguish in his throat, and he had cried for a long time afterward. "The cat," he croaked out.

"She's fine." The voice stayed with Collins, vaguely familiar, soothing, and the only thing he had on which to ground his reason. "You're fine. Lie still, and don't try to talk."

Collins closed his eyes, still clinging to the rope, and let his body go limp. He concentrated on tactile sensations, the steady movement and velvety surface beneath him. He tried to put the whole thing together. I was in an accident. A fall. They're taking me to surgery. Memory trickled back into his mind, and it did not fit the scenario at all. Anesthesia dreams, he reassured himself, but it did not ring true. He opened his eyes. The ground scrolled out beneath him: sticks, stones, grass, and dirt. He lay slumped across something hard, his legs dangling and his hands wound beneath smoothly braided ropes. This is no hospital; I'm outside. That discovery led to more. He smelled damp air and the distinct odor of horse. Shouts massed behind him, and birdsong wafted from in front. Finally, it all came properly into sync. I'm lying across Falima, and she's carrying me away from the castle.

Once Collins found the truth, it all seemed ridiculously obvious. Dyed as black as the horse, Korfius ran alongside them, and the voice in his ear could only belong to Zylas. Ialin had deliberately flown into his face, he had stepped on Zylas, and Korfius had completed the task by knocking them both from the parapets. The audacity of the plan floored him back to speechlessness. We could have been killed. He dared not move for fear of rolling beneath Falima's flying hooves. He knew they could crack open his head like a melon, and he could not take any chances. If he attempted escape, he might be worth more to them dead than alive.

The trailing shouts grew distant, then disappeared. Unable to fight for the moment, pain shocking through his body with every stride, he surrendered to the unconsciousness he had fought moments earlier. Blessed darkness gradually overtook him.

Benton Collins awakened with clear thoughts and a near-total lack of pain. Both of these realizations surprised him. Moving only his eyes, he glanced around an irregular, dimly lit cavern that smelled densely of musk. It reminded him of driving down a highway after a previous motorist had run over a skunk. Though a bit unpleasant, it compared favorably with the time he and some friends went hiking and one of the black-and-white striped animals ambled from the foliage. Before anyone could stop him, Collins' dog had leaped for the creature. So close, the resulting odor had burned Collins' eyes and throat. One of his companions had vomited, and the dog ran yelping to the car, tail wedged between its hind legs.

Zylas the man appeared from one of Collins' blind spots, circling to his head. The albino crouched, pale eyes studying Collins, hair falling in a milky curtain across his left cheek, features tensely sober. "Feel better?"

Much, Collins admitted grudgingly, but only to himself. "What did you do to me?"

Zylas blinked, but otherwise remained still. "Rescued you?" Clearly, the rat/man did not know whether or not he answered the correct question.

Collins had meant what had Zylas done to take away his pain, but he saw no reason not to continue the conversation from Zylas' response. "Rescued me?" He pushed up on one elbow. "Rescued me from going home? Or from a life of castle luxury?"

Zylas attempted humor. "Both?"

It was exactly the sort of thing Collins would have tried, but this time he saw nothing funny about it. "You tricked me to Barakhai. You lied to me. You put me in dangerous situations, then pretended to rescue me." He glared. "Why am I even talking to you?"

Zylas swallowed, still answering Collins' rhetorical questions. "To find out why I did those things to you?"

Though somewhat flippant, the response satisfied Collins. "All right, I'll bite. Why did you do those things to me?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Rage warmed Collins' blood. He wanted to tell Zylas to go to hell, to leave him alone and get out of his life; but curiosity would not allow it. He did have to know. "I deserve an explanation." He added bitterly, "But why should I believe anything you say?"

Zylas' shoulders slumped, and his head fell. "I'm sorry."

Collins gave no quarter. "Sorry I caught you? Or sorry you did it?"

"Sorry… I involved you in this." Zylas carried the expression Collins' mother wore when he disappointed her with his behavior. It never failed to make him feel guilty.

Now, Collins shook off the snap reaction. He had every right to wallow in spite and anger. "So you admit you lied to me."

Zylas sighed. "Let's say misled. I don't think I ever actually lied." Wrinkles creased his forehead. "So you're saying the king wasn't going to execute you?"

"Would I have been strolling freely around in the outer courtyard if he was?"

"That did seem odd," Zylas conceded. "Made things a lot easier for us to… to…"

"Kidnap me?" Collins suggested.

"But I thought-"

Collins did not wait for the rest. "You thought wrong."

"The others-"

This time, Collins let Zylas finish, but he did not. Instead, he went off on a different tack.

"Ben, the king wanted you to think you had some freedom. Had you tried to escape-"

"-the guards would have stopped me," Collins finished. "I know. He told me that."

"Once the king got the information he wanted from you, he would have executed you."

"I don't believe that."

"It's true."

Collins had proof. "He didn't execute Carrie Quinton."

Zylas went utterly still.

Collins sat, raising his brows in expectation.

A genuine grin broke out on Zylas' face. "Carriequinton is alive?" He did not wait for confirmation, but leaped to his feet and ran from the cave shouting, "Carriequinton is alive! Carriequinton! She's alive!"

Collins shifted to a cross-legged position, uncertain what to make of the whole situation. Out of his company, it had seemed so easy to surrender Zylas and his friends to the king. Now that they had come together again, the idea seemed heinous. Traitor or not, Zylas was still a human being. He did not deserve to die.