The Prophet of Panamindorah, Book One Fauns and Filinians (9 page)

“You’ll find I don’t respond well to
threats,” snapped Capricia.

“Alright. Don’t try to force me, and I won’t
try to force you.”

A heavy silence. Then Capricia laughed.
“There’s not much to tell. You’ll be disappointed.”

“I’m never disappointed with the truth.”

“When the Raiders attacked our caravan, my
doe bolted. We were in unfamiliar country, and by the time I
stopped her, we were lost. As we were finding our way back to the
road, someone dropped out of a tree and tried to pull me to the
ground. It was the smallest member of the pack, the one that
doesn’t speak.”

“Huali?” guessed Corry.

“Hualien, yes. In the struggle, I caught hold
of something hanging around his neck. I tried to strangle him with
it. In the end, he broke free and fled, leaving the thing in my
fist. It was the flute. I took a day finding my scattered traveling
party. You see? Not a very revealing story.”

“But it’s worth knowing.” Corry thought a
moment. “Is Hualien really one of the eight? I saw him in the
forest, but I thought he was only one of their children.”

Capricia shook her head. “There are only
eight Raiders. Lyli and Xerous are mates, but they have no living
offspring. Hualien is an orphan, seven years old. Chance and Laylan
have copious dossiers on all of them. The Raiders don’t have many
secrets, except their den, of course. I’ve read everything
available on them and come up with nothing to explain the flute. I
concluded that Hualien found it or stole it, so I turned my
attention to the wizards.”

“Do you think your father would have complied
with their ransom demands?”

Capricia arched her brows. “Lift the bounties
laws? Of course not. The wood fauns would revolt.”

Corry pursed his lips. “Fenrah makes these
demands for her nation? There’s nothing she stands to gain, other
than freedom to live in wood faun territory?”

Capricia sighed. “Fenrah Ausla is of royal
blood. Chance believes she would be heir to the throne…if there was
a Canid throne to claim, which of course there isn’t since the
Filinian conquest.”

“I can see why Syrill seemed sympathetic to
the Raiders.”

“Syrill lives for the present. He’s too young
to have been involved in any of the wars with Canisaria before it
fell. Wolflings and fauns have always been uneasy neighbors. My
mother was killed by wolflings, but that is beside the point.”

Capricia stood and circled the table. “I
spent last night looking at my books about the flute, and you will
be gratified to know that there is some mention of…of stopping
time, or—I don’t quite understand it—of traveling in time.”

“Then you believe me?”

“The manuscripts speak of moving forward, but
never
of moving back. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you
are
an iteration or even a wizard from Panamindorah. You
certainly have a wizard’s way of meddling. Perhaps you
have
known fauns and wolflings and other shelts in a time when shelts
and wizards still knew the ancient script. Perhaps you lost your
memories in the process of changing worlds. However, you cannot
reclaim your lost place in Panamindorah. You cannot solve the
riddles you want to solve, because they would have happened
hundreds of years ago to people who are all dead.”

Corry’s eyes dropped. He traced an aimless
design on the table top. “Capricia—”

“Hundreds of years
dead
,” she
reiterated, “and you can’t ever go back.”

“And your point is?”

“You can’t get back your lost place, but you
can make a new one. My father is impressed with you. So is Syrill.
You are a hero to the citizens of Laven-lay. You’ve drawn so much
public attention to yourself that it would be difficult now to
explain your disappearance. Very well. Stay in Panamindorah. Make a
life for yourself.” She paused. “Of course, I would like your help
to translate the old script.”

Corry’s eyes brightened. “I would very much
like to—”

“However, the books are mine, and you will
handle them only as I allow. Is that clear?”

“Naturally. What about the flute?”

“The flute is no longer your concern.”
Capricia moved towards the door. “I will help you acclimate. Money,
by the way, is still called cowries, even though we use coins.
Try
not to appear totally ignorant. Along those lines, the
public and royal libraries here in Laven-lay may be of interest to
you. First, though, I’ll send someone to take your measurements.
You’ve been invited to the king’s table for dinner, and
the…uh…
garments
you’re wearing will not do.”

* * * *

When Capricia left Corry’s room, she went
straight to her own chambers and shut the door. Her attendants came
running, but she ordered them all away and went out to her private
garden. Her hands were trembling.
I had to let him stay. There’s
nothing else I could do, except have him assassinated. If that’s
even possible.

She’d noticed uncharacteristic vagaries in
Syrill’s narrative of their escape.
There’s more to that story.
I need to get Syrill alone.

Capricia glanced at the monument in the
center of her garden—a white pillar about waist-high, crowned with
golden wings arched in a protective shield around a kneeling
fauness. Flames licked at the wings, kept alight by an invisible
feed of oil from beneath. She had specifically requested that it
remain unadorned with words. The servants said that she did so was
because she was pious, and she let them say it. In reality,
Capricia disliked inscriptions about the Creator. She’d never felt
safe since her mother died, and the protective wings of the statue
seemed like a mockery to her.

Capricia turned away from the Monument.
Probably the name in the old text is not Corellian’s. Likely
he’s is just the son of some wizard that Gabalon deposed. In that
case, I think I can handle him. I think.

Chapter
11.
Aspects of a Dinner Conversation

This is a bright day for my enemy and for me
one of the blackest.

—journal of Syrill of Undrun, Summer,
1700

Corry woke to see late afternoon sunshine
streaming through his window. Capricia had sent an army of tailors,
who’d measured him and taken away his clothes. He hoped they
planned to bring more by the time he was expected at supper.
Corry’s eyes strayed to a leather-bound book beside his bed.

A Concise Illustrated History of
Panamindorah
by Capricia Sor. He reached for it and began
flipping through the pages. The characters were not the same as
that of the old book in Capricia’s study, yet he found he could
read them.

A Note on Terminology

Presently, the sentient beings of
Panamindorah are divided into three groups: beasts, shelts, and
iterations. These terms are more or less universal and require no
explanation. More problematic are the terms for the three groups of
shelts: fauns, nauns, and panauns. These are known by various slang
throughout Middle Panamindorah. For this text, I will define a faun
as a hoofed shelt, a panaun as a pawed shelt, and a naun as a shelt
with neither hoof nor paw.

At the date of this writing, the only common
panauns in Middle Panamindorah are wolflings. Fox shelts have grown
uncommon, and cat shelts (known as Fealiday) are extinct. In Kazar,
one may still find alligator shelts, but they rarely venture out of
the swamp. For practical purposes, the word “panaun” has become
nearly synonymous with wolfling and has fallen out of use. However,
when writing of times when other types of pawed shelts were in
abundance, it is necessary to use the word in its original
meaning.

Likewise, naun has become redundant with
manatee shelt, because these are the only non-hoofed, non-pawed
shelts living in Middle Panamindorah, and even they are an import.
However, in the past, there was a greater variety. Even today,
merchants from the western sea talk of selkies, seal shelts, living
in on the far beaches.

The term faun is still in common
circulation, since three types of hoofed shelt are in abundance—the
dear shelts (wood fauns), the sheep shelts (cliff fauns), and the
goat shelts (swamp fauns). Centaurs are source of dispute among
taxonomists, but are generally classified with the fauns, as they
do have hooves.

The Beginning of Things

Unfortunately, the age of accurate
scholarship in the middle kingdoms begins around the year 1440,
after the great fire in Danda-lay. Stories of our history before
this are based largely on oral tradition and grow more uncertain
the further back one goes.

The reason is simple. The knowledge of the
ancient picture language has been lost. It is said that this
language was old even in the time of the wizards. The more wieldy
phonetic letters were replacing it in both common and scholarly use
in Gabalon’s day. Sometime after his defeat, scholars in Danda-lay
grew concerned that the knowledge of the old script was fading, and
they translated large portions of important texts into the phonetic
script. However, the great fire in Danda-lay destroyed the library
in 1438.

Some of the originals of the very old texts
were kept here, in Laven-lay. However, all of the translations
burned. I have a few partially legible commentaries salvaged from
the fire, but they are badly damaged, and no shelt whom I have been
able to contact has a full knowledge of the ancient characters.

Corry drew a deep breath. “Yes, a picture
language. What I was reading in Capricia’s study had only partial
clues to pronunciation. The rest was memorized.” He glanced at the
front of the book and found the year, 1695. “The library burned two
hundred and fifty-seven years before she wrote this book, and I
must have lived before that.”

He had just settled down to read again, when
there came a knock at the door. Corry found a servant on the
threshold with something made of brown cloth over one arm. The
servant bowed. “King Meuril requests your presence at dinner.” He
pressed the clothes into Corry’s hands. “The tailors have made you
fresh garments. I will show you to the banquet hall when you are
ready.”

Corry was impressed. He’d been dreading the
arrival of the kind of long tunic the fauns wore, but instead he’d
been sent linen trousers and shirt. There were no shoes, but it was
warm enough to go without. “It’s the kind of clothes wizards were
said to have worn,” explained the servant.

In the dining hall, smells of bread and
spices mingled with the scent of flowers. Harpers were making music
in one corner. Long, low windows looked out onto a garden winking
with fireflies. Half a dozen fauns already sat near the head of the
long table, and servants were coming and going, setting out the
food. Corry’s escort ushered him to the seated group. He recognized
Syrill and was relieved when the servant directed him to a seat at
the general’s side. Capricia sat opposite Corry, although he didn’t
recognize her for a moment with her hair piled on top of her head,
braided with tiny pink flowers and two enormous lilies. Her ivory
robes were sleeveless, exposing her flawless mocha skin to
perfection. He wondered if he would have dared to argue with her if
she’d come into his room this morning looking like that.

Syrill was deep in conversation with Laylan,
who appeared to be building something from his eating utensils. On
Corry’s left sat Chance, the pale, golden-haired cliff faun prince
who had exchanged angry words with Sham yesterday in Meuril’s
antechamber. Looking at him more closely, Corry realized that
Chance was younger than he’d first thought, surely not much over
twenty. He was talking to Meuril at the head of the table. Capricia
appeared to be listening to their conversation, though a faun to
her left kept attempting politely to attract her attention.

“Shadock believes it might have been an
assassination,” Corry heard Chance say to Meuril. “The centaurs
have never been democratic.”

Meuril shook his head. “You speak as though
it were a coup.”

“But that’s just it! Targon was elected based
on military prowess. He—”

Meuril held up his hand. “Hush now; here they
come.”

Centaurs were coming through the doorway.
They were so tall they had to bend their human waists and stoop to
enter. Their glossy bodies shown in the torchlight, muscled like
draught horses, with heavily furred fetlocks. Their human bodies
were dark olive, their ears small and round like Corry’s. Unlike
the fauns, the males had facial hair, which they wore in pointed
beards. The mares wore a garment of a single piece of cloth, rather
like a large scarf, brightly colored and tied in elaborate twists
round their bodies. The stallions wore leather vests or nothing at
all. Stallions and mares alike wore a variety of jewelry and
practical items—gem-studded collars, bracelets on their ankles and
wrists, belts with jeweled daggers and scimitars.

As the centaurs entered the room, the faun
servants directed them to a section of the table without chairs,
where they first knelt. This brought them low enough to eat from
the table, though they were still head and shoulders above the
fauns.

Servants began setting food before the
diners. Syrill, who seemed to have finally noticed Corry’s
presence, leaned over and spoke in his ear. “See their battle
whips?” Corry did, although he hadn’t understood until now what he
was looking at—long leather coils, with elaborately carved handles.
“Good for bringing a cat to the ground,” continued Syrill, “before
you put a spear in him. I’m trying to negotiate for mercenaries.
The centaurs have been in conference all day with Meuril. There’s a
new king in Iron Mountain, and he—”

“Eh-hummm!” The faun on the other side of
Capricia cleared his throat loudly. “Your highness, I realize that
the matter with the centaurs has kept you out of court this
morning, but I have been waiting for some days to bring this item
to your attention—”