The House of Yeel (9 page)

Is this what it’s like to
be a statue?

She blinked.
No…statues can’t blink
,
she told herself.

She lifted her head and turned this way and
that, looking for light. She saw some illumination coming from
directly above, through a screen of leaves and roots.

“I must have fallen through
that hole,” she said. She felt her limbs, checking if her bones
were intact. She felt something warm and sticky…blood…in her hair.
She didn’t seem to be seriously injured.

“How will I get out?” Jymoor considered the
monster Slevander. Did she want to get out? Maybe she would be
safe, here. Until she starved.

Jymoor heard something. A familiar voice came
to her in broken pieces of conversation. She struggled to catch the
words.

“I tell you that she is
invaluable…my guide and personal aide…drew me from my fortress…so
many of us…comb the flora…the serpent has consumed her…search for
her corpse…”

“Yeel!” Jymoor called out. Her voice
reverberated loudly in the tunnel. “Yeel, can you hear me?”

“What…that I heard…listen!
listen!”

“Yeel, I’m down here! Help
me!” Jymoor yelled at the top of her lungs.

The voice grew louder.

“Ah, of course, such a
simple explanation! She’s fallen through that gap in the earth’s
surface! A natural cavern of some sort, and thank gravity for the
rest. It has greedily sucked her into the bowels of the planet. It
occurs to me that such a fall may have inflicted injury on my
friend—”

“Yeel, I’m fine! Please get
me out of here.”

“Ah, she awaits rescue! We must immediately
devise a means by which we could—”

“Drop me a rope…or a
vine!”

“Now that’s an interesting
plan. A long flexible cord of some sort of…wait a second! Wait,
that’s giving me an idea. Jymoor, close your eyes. I think I can
effect your escape from there. Halt your visual reconnoiter for but
a moment!”

“What?”

“Just stand still and close
your eyes, my friend. Close your eyes for a second and I shall use
a…a rope, as you say, please just do as I say and I will take care
of the rest. Release your anxiety and trust in me.”

Jymoor felt confused, but she trusted the
tall, wordy mage. She closed her eyes, standing uncertainly in the
dark.

“I have my eyes closed.”

The barest whisper of a
scraping…or slithering…noise came from above. Suddenly a cordon of
taut material encircled her waist and rocketed her upward through
the nest of roots above.

“Ack! What!” Jymoor spat.
She couldn’t open her eyes as the roots whipped over her face. Then
she felt warm sunlight and her feet found the ground again. Jymoor
took a peek and found herself next to Yeel, in the garden. All
about them people stood looking as confused as Jymoor
felt.

“A most dangerous opening in the earth, my
friend. I shall have to make an effort to remember it, lest others
fall victim to the pit.”

“What kind of a rope was
that? It felt almost…alive!”

“Ridiculous! The fall has
scattered your mind, my friend. It’s good to see you alive! I
thought you consumed by the beast. Gone forever, as it were, well
not gone in the sense of removal of your substance, but of course
in the sense of your mental faculties, your intellectual essence,
the operation of your bodily functions in the manner intended
as—”

“What happened to the black
serpent? All the people, they’re free now?”

Avorn stepped forward. “We
have Jymoor now. We should continue as soon as possible. Now that
we have a larger group, we’ll have to organize ourselves to hunt
and gather food more efficiently.”

“Slevander is dead thanks to
the Crescent Knight,” Yeel said. “It was a close battle,
but…”

“It was not me,” the knight
interrupted. “It was that monster that you summoned. I thank you
for my life, wizard. I doubted you before, I admit, but I’m glad to
have you on our side.”

“Well, I should hope that
I’m no longer considered facinorous by Your Knightship. This is a
most welcome advance in the state of our relationship. I’d like to
be accepted as one of your most valued allies against these
barbarous hordes that plan to desecrate your knowledge storage
centers.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched as Jymoor
struggled to absorb this speech.

The knight grunted rudely
and said, “We’ll camp here tonight and leave first thing in the
morning. There are over four score of us altogether, soldiers,
knights, princes, and priests.” Then Avorn turned and walked away
toward another group of men and women who were milling about in
confusion.

“Amazing, to find such a varied selection of
your population that crosses both social strata as well as time
boundaries. I think you may find it difficult to reassimilate all
of these citizens back into your society unless there already
exists some sort of framework for absorbing these sort of temporal
castaways.”

Jymoor tried to understand again. She tried
to form questions in her mind, seeking some way to ask for
explanation. Her thought was interrupted when she noticed Master
Kasil striding confidently toward them.

“Yeel!” Jymoor hissed. “That
is…” then she stopped, realizing she was about to share her wonder
with another figure of legend. She shook her head.

“Let me thank you personally for saving me,
beautiful,” Kasil said, extending her hand to Jymoor.

“Beau-beautiful?” Jymoor
croaked. Had the words been directed at her? Yet Master Kasil’s
hand remained extended, awaiting her own. Jymoor started and thrust
forward her own hand to shake Master Kasil’s vigorously.

“It was Yeel that saved
you,” she said. “Or the Crescent Knight…”

“Oh, I’ll be sure and thank
him later,” Kasil remarked and winked at her. Jymoor struggled to
deal with the sudden familiarity exhibited by the famous sword
master.

“So you’re the mighty Yeel?”
Kasil said, turning to Yeel.

“Well, I am stronger than
the typical…oh, um, mighty is perhaps an overstatement. Perhaps
capable, or, oh, maybe clever. And inquisitive. Oh, I like that
one. Yes, I rather prefer perhaps Yeel the Clever and
Inquisitive.”

“Modesty. Good. I like that in wizards. Now
in my knights, I prefer a bit of egotism.”

“Your knights? Are you a queen of some sort?”
Yeel asked.

“Master Kasil is a sword
master,” Jymoor inserted, deflecting the question. “She’s renowned
for her skill. Well, she was renowned…”

“It’s been a while, I
understand,” Master Kasil said. For the first time, her bubbly
personality submerged. “Well, I’ll let you have your rest. You must
be exhausted after such a harrowing fight! Of course those of us
who were statues want nothing but to move around and enjoy our
freedom a bit first.”

Master Kasil walked away
toward the other survivors. Jymoor bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to
send Kasil away so quickly. Still, she’d now spoken to no less than
three legendary figures in the span of a week.

“There is something I’ve
been meaning to ask you. Remember when we fought that one named
Faverhind? I saw some sort of shadow in the green flame that danced
in the air,” Jymoor said. “Like something alive.”

“I don’t recall the most
recent incident, but it sounds like his art. Yakinzin-rali, it’s
called in his language. I don’t know if the common tongue has such
a word. The magic he summoned would create for him a powerful
fighting construct, seemingly alive as you said. I do remember that
in the end I neutralized him, so presumably I got him before the
process was complete.”

“You’ve mentioned that you
have certain memory issues. How is it that you know so much about
some things and can’t remember anything about others?”

“Ah, well, I remembered that
long and hard. It will be many seasons before it could pass through
my awareness. But I have only so much energy, after all. Surely
sometimes you find yourself too tired to remember? Or is it truly
as effortless for your kind as it seems?”

“Well, I have to pay
attention to remember something. I guess it gets tiring after a
long lesson, like if I have been learning things for
hours.”

“Learning for hours? I’d say
that you are quite my superior in that regard. I would be exhausted
in a matter of minutes if required to remember new material for a
long time. Of course, handling something in the short term is quite
a different matter.”

Jymoor nodded thoughtfully.
Perhaps that explained some of Yeel’s odd behavior. Jymoor had been
thinking of Yeel as an icon of wonder who left all mortals far
behind in every way. But it seemed that even the mighty wizard had
certain disadvantages. It made the man seem more human to her.
Somewhere in her mind, a part of her dared to think that she might
have a closer relationship with him than she ever dreamed
possible.

“I must find my rest,”
Jymoor said. “It’s been a long and very scary day.” She took a step
closer to Yeel.

“Then I bid you good night,” he said. “I hope
that your rest is long and restorative. With luck you may—”

The sound of shouting
interrupted Yeel’s farewell. Yeel moved toward the noise with a
speed that Jymoor found surprising. The man’s tall frame didn’t
reduce his agility.

Jymoor followed Yeel toward
the disturbance. She saw that two groups of soldiers were squaring
off against each other in a nearby clearing of the garden. One
group had three men with halberds, the other had four sword-armed
soldiers.

“These men are in support of the usurper
Kalandrus! We are sworn to kill their kind!” said a sword-armed
man.

“Stop!” Jymoor said. “Kalandrus, did you say?
Please lend me your ear. This revolution ran its course many years
past! Kalandrus is dead and gone, and for that matter so are those
who resisted his rule.”

“Disorientation is common in situations of
temporal dislocation,” Yeel added. “Your best hope is to forget
your previous timeframe and learn the details of your current one.
Try to assimilate yourselves into the current culture. Set aside
your differences and strive for a more homogeneous structure.”

“Who’re you?” one of the men
demanded heatedly.

“This is the great Yeel!” Jymoor burst
out.

“Yeel of the night of flames? Who saved the
city from destruction?”

“Ah, I remember that,” Yeel said.

“Yes, this is he,” Jymoor
said. “And he will brook no dissension! We are all on the same side
now, us against the invaders who threaten the kingdom. It is, in
many ways, the same civilization that you remember. Don’t you all
wish to defend it?”

The leader of the larger group opened his
mouth, but stood for a moment as if he lost his train of thought.
Jymoor noticed a strong scent rise on the air, a pleasant
fragrance. She thought it must originate from one of the nearby
groups of flowered plants.

Finally the leader seemed to
recover. He smiled. “Of course you’re right. They’re of the same
glorious nation as we! I respect them for that…in fact, I love them
for it!”

The man threw down his sword
and staggered forward to embrace the nearest soldier in the other
group. Jymoor’s mouth fell open in shock.

“I had no idea that my skills as a negotiator
were so highly developed,” Jymoor said quietly, hoping that only
Yeel would hear. She took a deep breath and smelled the wonderful
aroma again, and a contagious smile found her own lips.

“But on the other hand, this
proud kingdom is a part of all of us…I can’t help but feel anything
but deep caring for all of our citizens! And for you, my
lord!”

Jymoor wavered slightly,
catching herself before falling to the ground. She experienced the
feeling of motion and she giggled as euphoria overcame her. Vaguely
she became aware of Yeel standing next to her, holding a bunch of
bright red flowers. For a moment the image wavered, as if it were a
mirage. Jymoor saw an image of the tentacled helper beast she had
encountered back in Yeel’s palace. She blinked rapidly.

“Ah, Yeel, our beloved
protector Yeel!” swooned Jymoor. “Tell me, is that unbelievable
smell coming from those tiny flowers? It is such a…peaceful,
wonderful smell.”

“Very perceptive, my friend.
That is exactly what you smell…these vapors are quite calming, are
they not? I distinctly remember that they sometimes have that
effect on your kind. I have always found tribal squabbles to be
fascinating, but I didn’t have the desire to learn more from a
vantage point of such extreme proximity.”

“Huh?” Jymoor smiled and
tilted her head. She reached out and grabbed Yeel’s arm, holding
herself up. She knew that everything would be fine.

“Well the complex interactions between—”

“No, I meant, why do you
keep saying, ‘your kind’? I know you’re a recluse, a powerful
wizard, but in a way we are all the same, are we not?” Jymoor
decided it would be fun to sit, so she plopped down on the plush
grass. “Setting aside a few memory oddities, of course,” she
added.

Yeel cleared his throat. “Of
course. I’m sorry, I meant to say, those of your
kingdom.”

“Of course you did, Great
Yeel,” Jymoor giggled, and collapsed back onto the ground, sound
asleep.