Ширли Мерфи - Nightpool

Teb’s family had picnicked in Nison-Serth sometimes, the king and queen and the children leaving the palace at dawn and galloping out, followed by old Pakkna and a pony laden with hampers and rugs. That was before the dark raiders began their attacks, before anyone thought of war.

After they had explored the caves, they would come together to picnic in the vast central cave. Its stone walls were blazoned with an immense and ancient painting that showed a fierce black unicorn, a herd of pale unicorns, and moving among them, the badgers and great cats and maned wolves, the sleek, dark otters, the winged owls, and the pale silver kit foxes. Here in the great cave Pakkna would lay out a delicious meal of roast chicken and smoked trout, fresh baked bread, and the special white cheese Auric was famous for, fruits from the orchards and hot spiced mint brew and pastries filled with honey and nuts. Teb grew ravenous, thinking of those picnics. His mother had loved the caves. She had explored deep into them, eagerly touching the ancient faded wall paintings and the carvings.

The caves of Nison-Serth were like a maze. A child could lose himself there—or hide. Teb could hardly keep from staring forward to where the stone ridge rose in a little hump that marked its entrance. But Blaggen was watching him, and he lowered his eyes and tried to look sullen and hopeless. Nison-Serth was there, though, and he would have a chance, now that Garit and Lervey were with him, and Pakkna, too. The old man was crippled and slow, but he could ride, all right.

When Blaggen moved his horse ahead of Teb’s into single file, where the trail narrowed, Teb turned to look back at Pakkna.

He rode at the rear behind the servants, leading three ponies laden with bags and clanging pots. His grizzled gray beard blended against the mountain’s gray stone. Teb looked at him, and Pakkna’s eyes held steady and kind. He studied Teb a minute, a little frown of concern touched his brow; then a small twinkle of smile lit his gray eyes.

Teb faced forward quickly. He imagined just how he would slip out of the camp at night and rehearsed in his mind the caves and tunnels of Nison-Serth. They clustered and wound from one side of the mountain through to the far side, to come out above the Bay of Dubla. If he could make his way through the mountain, he thought he could swim the width of the bay to Fendreth-Teching. And in Fendreth-Teching surely he could find shelter. Though it was a wild land, the dwarfs and picthens who mined the rocky mountains of the Lair were not evil, only secretive and clannish. He would not like to climb high into the Lair mountains, though, if there were indeed dragons about again on the land, for the Lair was their nesting place.

He did not doubt he could escape Sivich, once Garit cut him free; he didn’t dare to doubt it, or to think of failure.

Chapter 4

Sivich made camp at dusk, on the wet, high meadows. Off to their left, in the west, the bare granite ridge ran away north like the backbone of a great, sleeping animal, the sun dropping low behind it. Blaggen left Teb astride the tethered horse while he unsaddled his own, then changed into dry clothes. There was a stand of saplings at one side of the meadow, and Garit and Lervey began to stretch ropes between the trees to serve as hitch rails for the horses. There were dead pitch pines, too, and one of these was dragged to the center of the meadow, the dry heart of it cut out for firewood and then set alight with oil-soaked moss.

When Blaggen was finished making himself comfortable, he untied Teb’s feet and hands. “Get down. Hurry up.”

Teb threw a leg over to dismount, and his hands slipped on the wet leather. He fell and landed on his backside in a shower of mud, sending the horse shying away. Blaggen snorted with laughter, then booted him and shoved him toward a small oak sapling. Here he locked the chain to Teb’s leg, locked the other end around the tree, and dropped the key into his pocket.

Teb leaned shivering against the little tree, wondering if Garit could smash the lock. Or could he steal the key? The last thin rays of the setting sun touched Teb’s face before it dropped behind the ridge. He could hear distant bells and could see a herd of tiny sheep grazing far down the hills, near a stone cottage the size of a doll’s house, and a stream that wandered off toward Ratnisbon. If those folk down there knew he was captive, would they dare to help him? But Teb thought not; this was Mithlan, a country cowed and obedient to Sivich. It had been the first to fall to the dark raiders.

Ratnisbon was different. That country had been hard won by Sivich in desperate battle against Ebis the Black, and many of Sivich’s men had died on the battlefield. Ebis had been thought killed. But he lived and he secretly brought together an army of infiltrators—servants and grooms and other innocuous townsfolk—an army that soon enough overthrew the captains Sivich had left behind and took back their land.

Would Sivich try to recapture Ratnisbon? Surely Quazelzeg, the dark lord Sivich served, would try.

Teb had only a vague knowledge or understanding of the structure of the dark forces, but he knew they employed many pawns such as Sivich, common soldiers lured to the ways of the dark, swearing fealty to the dark rulers. He knew, from his father’s words, that only by use of such ordinary, inconspicuous people could the dark forces hope to rule completely. Sivich, who had served his father’s army since he was a youth, had seemed well above suspicion, doubly so because of the vehemence with which he always spoke of the dark raiders and their ways. He had seemed an adamant enemy of the dark.

The fire was blazing now, and Pakkna had laid his big metal grill across one end and was putting on strips of mutton. The great black soup kettle stood beside the blaze. The smell of cooking meat soon began to fill the air, making Teb wild with hunger. He drank from a puddle cupped in the sapling’s roots, then lay back against its thin trunk. . . .

The next thing he knew, Pakkna’s hand was on his shoulder, shaking him awake.

The fire had burned down, and the men were gathered around it eating. Pakkna handed Teb a plate heaped with mutton, boiled roots, and bread. Pakkna had flour on his gray beard and streaking down his dark-stained leather apron. He leaned close as he handed down the plate. “Knife under your meat. Late tonight, cut the sapling down. Take the chain off. Don’t let it crash when it falls. Tie the chain to your leg.” He dropped some leather thongs into Teb’s lap.

“But Blaggen will hear. He—”

“He’ll be very drunk by that time.”

‘The jackals . . .”

“Drugged. Maybe dead, I hope.” Pakkna moved away. Teb watched him slicing meat on the grid. What would the old man put in Blaggen’s drink? In all the drinks? He had heard of deermoss being used that way, to make men sleep. But would it work on jackals? He slipped the knife from his plate and hid it under his leg, then tied into the mutton and roots with both hands. Nothing he could remember had ever tasted so good, hot and meaty and rich. When he was finished, he sopped the gravy with his bread until his plate was clean, ate the bread, then leaned back against the oak sapling. He felt warmer now, and hopeful again.

*

He woke to darkness, the fire only embers, and the camp silent except for snoring. He hadn’t meant to sleep, not for so long. He fumbled for the knife. Where was Blaggen? Where were the jackals? He could see nothing in the darkness. He listened for the hoof-sucking sound of a horse walking the muddy ground, for surely Sivich had set a guard. But he could hear no guard. Maybe the guard was drugged, too? Were all the men drugged? He couldn’t hear the jackals’ rasping snore, but sometimes they were silent as death. He took up the knife at last, turned his back on the sleeping camp, and began to cut into the tree in angled, silent strokes, pressing down.