Ширли Мерфи - Nightpool

He remembered his mother best in the walled garden, for it was there the children could be alone with her away from her duties in the palace. She wore red often, and he could see her in his mind sitting before the bright flowers of the flame tree. They often had tea there, with seedcakes and fruit. It was here she would sometimes sing to them songs that filled them with wonder, songs that seemed more than songs, that made scenes from the past come vividly alive. After she sang, though, she was quieter and seemed sad. Sometimes she seemed to Teb as if she did not quite belong—to the palace, or even to them as a family. Her other great pleasure was when she rode out across the hills on one of Garit’s new skittish colts, a pleasure she looked forward to eagerly when training began in the spring. At those times, the children’s own ponies would trail behind her snorting mount as she directed, and she would seem gone in a wildness and freedom where they could never follow. Something seemed to call to her then, and when they returned to the palace, Teb’s father would kiss her as if she had been away a long time, as if he saw something wild in her that was reluctant to return at all.

It had been a fall morning, very cold, when their mother rode out for the last time on her bay mare, leading a provisioned packhorse. The children had stood amazed and silent, filled with her brief good-bye. They had waited for a long, long time there at the palace gate, but she did not turn back. Then their father came to get them, locking the great iron gates in silence.

Had their mother and father quarreled? Was that what made her go away? They hadn’t quarreled often, or severely. But before she left, Teb and Camery had heard the rise and fall of their voices late into the night. Whether in argument or only in grown-up talk, they could not tell.

After she went, their father was preoccupied and restless. Then months later the sheep farmer came, telling of her drowning and bringing her cape and her boot. Somehow her death seemed a twin horror now, with the threat of war increasing violently as new fighting broke out in many countries. An even greater evil seemed to take hold across Tirror, too, for returning soldiers spoke of dark warriors without expression on their faces, with only darkness reflected in their eyes, warriors they called the unliving. It was with the coming of the unliving that the last traces of magic, the small, bright remains of a once-great power, began to vanish from Tirror. The soldiers spoke of simple pleasures turning to evil, simple folk embracing evil ways. The unliving took great numbers of slaves, and their treatment of the slaves was terrifying.

The tapestries in the palace showed scenes of past wars and enslavements. The tapestries hung in the hall and private chambers, intricate pictures made of embroidered silk, once as brilliant as color could be.

They were filled with other scenes, too, besides war, scenes of the speaking animals and of places the children could only dream of. The tapestries had been their mother’s dowry when she married their father. They warmed the palace both by holding real warmth against the stone walls and by warming, with their rich and intricate pictures, the mind and spirit of all who looked upon them.

After Sivich had killed Teb’s father and brought new troops from the northern countries to mingle with those of the old palace guard, Sivich’s warriors had defiled the tapestries, stained and torn them, knocking one another against them, spilling ale against them as they jostled, and even urinating on them. Palace windows were left unshuttered, so rain came to soak them and wind to lash them until now they were dull and ragged. This hurt Teb, because there was something of his mother there, something secret and touched with wonder.

A horse nickered, Teb’s mount answered, and ahead of the troops, grazing sheep moved away at their approach. The three jackals rose, flapping, to lunge at them, but Blaggen called them back. A colt shied at the heavy flying creatures, and Blaggen sent the jackals to the rear of the troops with a shout and a lash of his whip. His horse pressed against Teb’s, bruising Teb’s leg. Teb turned in the saddle to look behind him, clumsy with his hands and feet tied. He watched the pack horses and servants that made up the rear of the long line. There were ten great draft horses, led by grooms and loaded with bundles of chain from the river barges, for the dragon trap. Two horses carried crosscut saws and building tools, axes and sledges and spikes.

Down the hills on his left, to the south and west of Auric Palace, lay the roofs of the fishing and commercial towns of Bleven and Cursty and Rye, brown thatched roofs dotted between green garden patches, the harbors thick with little fishing boats and with the barges that plied the two rivers and the inland sea. Teb thought, No one there knows I am to be killed. Would anyone even care? They are all slaves to Sivich now. Sivich’s warriors walk their streets and give them orders, and take the riches of trade they earn, and kill them if they don’t do as they’re told. They haven’t any king anymore. He felt within himself a betrayal of Auric’s people. His father had loved Auric’s families as equals, and had always felt a duty to them, to keep the land safe, to keep it free of men like Sivich. Teb knew that if he died, he would betray that heritage. A heavy sadness rode with him, and anger stirred him as well as fear.

He listened to the slop, slop of hooves in the mud and shivered in his wet clothes. The trail was rising steeply, the horses moving up the highest slope of Auric’s stony hills. Above rose the bare spine of raw granite that marked the border between Auric and Mithlan.

Beyond this spine they would ford two rivers—two rivers where men and horses would be floundering across, lines broken, the colts balking amid shouting and confusion. Could he find a way to escape there?

Oh, yes, he thought bitterly, why not fall off his horse, for instance? With his hands and feet tied, he could be drowned at once and escape the dragon forever. Though he could not be much wetter than he was. His clothes were soaked through, and the horse was dark from the rain that had at last moved off northward.

It was not until they had crossed the divide and forded both rivers, and were climbing again, up the steep mountain pass toward Shemmia, that Garit turned out of the mass of horses ahead and moved back along the troops, reining in his sorrel mare beside Blaggen. “Sivich wants you, Blaggen. I’ll take the boy if you like.”

Blaggen nodded sullenly, untied the halter rope that led to Teb’s mount, and handed it to Garit. Teb remained silent and watching, surprised that Sivich would send Garit to lead him, for surely their friendship had been suspect. When Garit was sent to the coast to train the colts there, young Lervey had been sent, too, and Teb thought it was because they had all three been friends.

Now Garit’s face was tight, impatient. “Listen well,” he said softly, reining his mount close to Teb’s. “Be ready tonight. We’ll get you away if we can. Pakkna, Lervey, and I. Be ready for whatever we tell you. . . .” They could see Blaggen galloping back, scowling. Garit moved his horse away, handed the rope to Blaggen. Teb felt happier and began to look around him with interest as he imagined his escape.

The stony mountain flanked them now on their left, and several hours’ ride ahead, inside that rocky ledge, lay the ruins of Nison-Serth, the old broken walls and the caves and secret pathways. Teb thought if he could escape to Nison-Serth, he could hide there nearly forever.

Nison-Serth had been a temple-shelter in the old civilization. The speaking animals had used it as much as humans had, taking shelter in their travels, coming together there for song and camaraderie, all the species and humans mingling happily. Now, though the speaking animals still existed, they kept to themselves and secret, and stayed hidden from humans. Of all the speaking animals, it was the kit foxes who had most often visited the sacred caves as they traveled across the land in their big, restless family groups.