“Cells?” Tobble squeaked.
“Never fear,” Ferrucci said. “You will be rewarded, Khara. Handsomely rewarded.”
“But why must Byx to be taken to the dungeon?” Khara demanded.
Dungeon. The word alone was terrifying.
I’d never seen one, but I knew, from Dalyntor’s lessons, its purpose. Panic swept through me, hot, then cold. I could not seem to find enough air.
“I’ve committed no crime,” I cried.
Ferrucci ignored us. “Luca, note this well: this conversation never took place.”
“Yes, Gharri,” said Luca. He unlocked a second door at the back of the little room. “Byx, come with me.”
“I don’t understand,” Khara said, desperation creeping into her voice. “Please, Ferru, explain.”
The old man patted her hand. “Trust me, my dear. I’m doing what’s best. This is the only way.”
“Byx,” Luca said again. “Please follow me.”
“I’m going too!” said Tobble.
“Impossible,” said Ferrucci. “You’ll stay here. With Khara.”
“Patience, Tobble,” Khara said. She exhaled slowly, sizing up the situation. “Byx, we have no choice but to trust Ferru.”
From trust to dust.
I looked from Khara to Tobble and back again.
Would this be the last time I saw them?
I hugged Tobble briefly. “Be strong,” I said, although my own voice was trembling.
“No, Byx—” he whimpered.
To Khara, I said nothing. What was there to say?
She gave me a bleak smile.
Ferrucci beckoned Luca close and whispered something in his ear. I caught some of the words, but unfortunately, they were in an unfamiliar language, probably Nedarran.
Once again on all fours, I followed Luca down a dank hallway. Behind me, the sound of Tobble’s sobs and Khara’s questions echoed softly against the black walls.
27.
Imprisoned
Reluctantly, I followed Luca around a circular interior stairwell that led downward, lit by wall-mounted torches.
A braver dairne, I thought, might try to escape. But I saw no path: no doors, no windows, no corridors. And nothing that could be used as a weapon.
In any case, there was no point. I might, perhaps, evade Luca for a moment, but only for a moment. I didn’t know this place. Indeed, I knew very little about the nature of human buildings at all.
I tried to picture the vast tower in my mind. Would the dungeon be belowground?
At one point Luca paused and turned to me. “I’d tell you not to be afraid. That you’re safe. But if what I’ve learned of dairne abilities is true, you’d know I was lying.”
I didn’t respond, although I was seething at his calm, almost smug tone.
Luca continued walking. I stayed on all fours, walking beside him. “My focus of study here at the Academy is dessag fauna,” he said.
Again, I said nothing. But that didn’t seem to dissuade Luca from continuing.
“It’s a new term in the Imperial Lexica Officio, the Nedarran dictionary approved by the Murdano,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Every edition, it seems there are new words to learn. Like ‘eumony,’ a funeral for a species. Or ‘endling,’ the last member of a species.” He gave a wry laugh. “We humans are good at naming our mistakes.”
We paused at a small landing, then continued down the winding stairs. The circle they traced had grown larger, spiraling like a sea shell.
Think, I told myself. Look for an opportunity, then take it.
At the same moment, I recalled my father’s words: to rush is not necessarily to arrive. A moment might come for action. But for now, I would have to bide my time.
Luca was still babbling. “Dessag fauna,” he continued, “are species that are in danger of becoming extinct. There are designated levels of threat, based on resources available, number of members left alive, that sort of thing. The Carlisian seal, for example. They were considered Level Three until last year. Then, like that”—Luca snapped his fingers—“they were moved to Level Five. Officially extinct.”
As was too often the case, my curiosity got the better of me. “Do they have these . . . eumonies . . . for every species that’s lost?”
“Small ones. More informal. Nothing like the one planned for the dairnes.”
“What an honor,” I said bitterly.
“Dairnes are one of the great governing species. That level of extinction has never happened before.” Luca laughed. “And seeing you by my side, it’s clear it still hasn’t.”
We reached a grim stone chamber, vaguely circular, with six massive iron doors around the perimeter. I smelled rot and mold and heard sounds behind three of the huge doors: sniffling, muttering, sluggish movements.
“Master jailer!” Luca called.
A strange creature appeared from the shadows. He was human—at least I thought he was—but more muscular by far than any human I’d yet encountered. Broad in shoulder and chest, his legs thick and lightly furred. He wore clothing, but it was a mere leather skirt. The rest of him was bare but for dark drawings that I’d gathered from Khara were called “tattoos.” Tattoos of human faces.
“What do you want, boy?” the jailer said. He had a higher voice than I expected from such a terrifyingly bulky man.
“My master, Gharri Ferrucci, directs that this dog be locked up.”
“Lock up a dog?” the jailer demanded. “But dogs ain’t for locking up in no dungeon. Dogs need to run free!”
“If you value your own life, master jailer, you will lock up this dog and speak nothing of what you may see or hear.”
With a quick nod the jailer complied, wielding a fat ring of iron keys.
Luca followed me into a chamber with no window, no light, and vile, vermin-ridden straw on the floor. “Close the door,” he instructed the jailer. “I’ll summon you when I’m ready to depart.”
“All right, then.” The jailer slammed the iron-barred door shut with such force that I shuddered.
Luca leaned close once the jailer was out of earshot and asked, “Do you recall when Gharri Ferrucci whispered something to me before you and I departed?”
I nodded. “I heard but couldn’t understand. I don’t speak Nedarran, just the Common Tongue.”
“That was deliberate,” said Luca. “He didn’t want you to understand.”
“But why?”
“Because,” said Luca, “he ordered me to have you killed. Killed, and then burned, so there’s no evidence you ever existed.”
Killed. Burned. The words stung like fresh wounds.
My throat was so tight I could barely swallow. I looked Luca in the eyes. Was it pity I saw there? I couldn’t be sure.
But I was certain of one thing.
Luca was telling the truth.
“The jailer’s not a bad sort, really,” Luca continued, “but he will do it if I tell him to.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, my trembling voice betraying me. “What I have done wrong?”
“Done? You’ve done nothing. But you exist, and that is a crisis.”
The jailer walked past, and I waited till he was gone. “But why?” I asked. “Shouldn’t the existence of a dairne—even just one dairne—be a good thing?”
Luca looked away, groaning. When he looked at me again, this time I knew it was pity in his eyes. “Oh, poor dairne, you really don’t understand humans, do you? Araktik, the Murdano’s Seer, is coming. That’s a huge honor for the isle. The only reason she’s coming is because Gharri Ferrucci certified to the Chief Scholar that the dairnes are, indeed, gone.”
“I still don’t—”
“The Chief Scholar then told the Murdano that the dairnes are extinct. How do you suppose they would enjoy being humiliated? Do you think Araktik—who’s had hundreds of people drowned, impaled, or burned at the stake—will like having her time wasted? Being made to look a fool?”
I had no answer. I could only st
are at Luca in disbelief.
But slowly it dawned on me that Luca must be taking a great risk saying these things, things his master, Ferrucci, clearly did not want me to know.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “Do you intend to help me?”
“Don’t be so sure I’m helping you,” he replied. He rubbed his chin, staring at the iron bars that marked the boundary between freedom and imprisonment. “I am a scholar, first and foremost, Byx. I’ve watched species disappear. Do you know what’s in the cellar of this monument to knowledge?”
I shook my head. I doubted I wanted to know.
“The stuffed remains of dozens of endlings. Endlings, just like you. Mounted, labeled, gathering dust. Dragged out once a year for a natural history class.” Luca cleared his throat. I wondered if he might cry. “I am a scholar above all, Byx. My loyalty is not to you. My loyalty is to science. You may be an endling. But you will not die because of me.”
That was true. In parts, at least. But I sensed it was not the whole truth.
Luca strode to the iron gate. “Jailer! Let me out.”
The door opened for him and closed again.
A rat skittered over my tail. I listened to Luca’s footsteps fade away.
I wondered if Tobble knew how to find me. Could he even try?
He might. Sweet, silly Tobble. Just the thought of him made my heart ache.
And what of Khara? Was she already long gone, her pockets heavy with coins?
I curled up in a corner, my back to the wall, and covered myself as best I could with the rank straw.
It was going to be a long night.
But then, I was getting used to those.
28.
The Felivet
I had finally dozed off when I woke to a nearby voice.
“Oh . . . doggie?”
The sound was not human. I was sure of that. What it was I didn’t know, but it was too hoarse, too low, too oozing with sardonic menace.
I sniffed the air.
“Doggie?”
A felivet! In the cell next to mine.
“Oh, doggie,” it said in a chilling, singsong voice.
“Y-y-yes?”
“Ah, it is a talking doggie,” said the felivet.
“I’m not a dog. I’m a dairne,” I said, too fearful to sound as defiant as I’d hoped.
“A dairne, are you? Have you come to witness the funeral of your species?” I knew nothing of felivets, aside from the usual horrifying stories of how quickly they could pounce, crushing your skull in their brutal jaws. But I felt certain the felivet was teasing me. Mocking me.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think of an answer.
“Prove to me that you are a dairne,” the felivet said.
“I am,” I replied simply.
“They say dairnes are infallible when it comes to separating truth from fiction.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Let us test the notion, shall we?”
I sighed.
“My name is Elios Str’ank, but my friends call me Gambler. Or. Or, my name is Hadrak the Third, Lonko of the Dread Forest.”
The felivet waited.
I said, “But . . . both are true.”
The felivet let out a slow hiss. “Well done, dairne. I’ve been trying to convince these so-called scholars of this for weeks.”
“Why don’t they believe you?”
“The same reason they don’t want to believe you exist, dairne. There are many scholars, but few seekers after truth. Humans believe the things that make them feel safe. They care little for difficult facts.”
“My name is Byx.”
“Call me Gambler.”
“I’ve never met a felivet before,” I admitted.
“But you fear us?”
“Of course. You eat dairnes.”
“We eat many things. Deer, cotchets, antelope, mirabears, some types of serpent—only the tender ones, of course—wobbyks, badgers. And, occasionally,” he added with a dramatic pause, “humans.”
“And dairnes!”
“Nonsense,” he replied. “We are not humans. We felivets keep our promises. In two hundred years, no felivet has knowingly killed a dairne. We’ve needed your kind. It’s true that in the old days, before the Coimari Treaty, we did hunt dairnes. But as we came to deal with humans and natites, your usefulness was apparent. Humans are such very good liars, you see, and natites are no better.”
“And the others?” I asked.
“Terramants will not lie. Raptidons will keep silent and conceal truth, but they’re too proud to lie. As we developed dealings of a nonfatal variety with humans and natites, we needed dairnes to act as truth tellers.”
“But we were taught to fear felivets.”
Gambler laughed, which in felivets sounds a bit like a cough. “Who rules the forests, Byx the dairne? Do you not wonder that you have never seen one of us except perhaps briefly, at a distance? For many years we kept your kind safe from humans. But . . .” He sighed. “But our numbers dwindle, too. We are a quarter of what we once were. Humans hunt us, though they deny it. They train huge mastiffs that track us in packs. They poison our waters, sickening us, so we cannot bear kits. All the while, the Murdano pretends ignorance.”
I let this shocking news sink in. The idea that felivets might be endangered, just like dairnes, was hard to fathom. “But why would humans want to destroy dairnes and felivets?” I asked.
“You obviously don’t know humans,” Gambler said sadly. “They are not great hunters, like us felivets. They don’t walk alone in the night, facing prey and predator alike. They issue forth in armies to make cowardly battle of the many against the few.”
Yes, I thought. I had seen the Murdano’s army. I had seen its handiwork. Armed humans against unarmed dairnes.
“It’s humans who hate your kind,” Gambler said. “They hate that you make it impossible for them to lie. And they hate us, the felivets, because we raise our voices against them in their mad wars for conquest. They have purged the world of dairnes, but we won’t be far behind. And then the raptidons will be brought down, and the terramants will find men with spears and arrows waiting for them at the mouths of their tunnels. In the end, humans will attempt to destroy even the natites, although there, they may have great difficulty. Still,” Gambler said with a heavy sigh, “never underestimate the human when it comes to duplicity and slaughter.”
We both fell silent. I shivered, not from cold but from fear.
Could it really be that dairnes weren’t the only species under attack? It meant this might be a far bigger, far darker battle than I’d dreamed.
I forced myself to speak. “How can you be sure of all this, Gambler?” I whispered. “Maybe you’re wrong.”
“Felivets range wide and far, dairne. We see all. We are not wrong.” He hesitated. “I wish we were.”
I could hear the jailer pacing back and forth, his slow, heavy steps accompanied by the rhythmic jangle of keys.
I could hear the whispered scurry of rats through straw.
I could hear the muffled sobs of some fellow inmate.
But above all else, I could hear the echoes of Gambler’s words to me: Never underestimate the human when it comes to duplicity and slaughter.
29.
Luca Returns
I dreamed that night of an eerie green light. I awoke with a start to see that it was no dream. Before me floated a glowing cloud, just outside the bars of my cell.
It was not sunlight. It was not a torch. I rose and moved closer, fascinated and disturbed.
I could just make out a human form beneath the light. I squinted, trying to discern features.
“Silence, dairne,” a voice said.
It was Luca.
He emerged from what could only be a theurgic light and showed me a key. He was clearly nervous, eyes darting left and right as he slid the key into the lock. The door swung open with a groan.
“My theurgy isn’t strong,” he said, voice hushed.
“I breathed in the jailer’s ear and put him to sleep. But a loud noise might rouse him.”
I crept to the door as quietly as I could. “Where are you taking me?”
“To Khara. She convinced me this is best.”
Again I felt not a lie, but a withheld truth.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I followed him a few steps into the gloomy passageway. But then I stopped. “There’s another we should free.”
“What?”
“In that cell. A felivet who—who knows useful things.”
“You made a friend in jail and now you want me to break him out?”
“Yes. Please.”
“A felivet,” Luca said. “A ruthless predator.”
I hesitated. How sure was I? “Yes.”
Luca shook his head in disbelief. “Are you insane?”
“Possibly,” I admitted. “But . . .” I recalled decisions I’d made that had seemed right but later turned out to be foolish. There were more than a few.
Yet some instinct, or maybe just a sense of gratitude for the company Gambler had given me, told me this was the right thing to do.
I went to the door of Gambler’s cell, stepping out of the miasma of light. “Gambler!” I called softly.
The felivet’s reaction was startling. In less time than it would have taken me to cough, Gambler’s pale blue eyes snapped open and he lunged with easy grace, landing at the cell door, teeth bared, claws extended. He was a lanix, huge and sleek, his coat pure black except for a series of delicate white stripes on his face. His long, muscular tail reminded me far too much of a serpent.
“What is this, then?” he asked.
“I’m escaping,” I said. “Would you like to come?”
“Escaping?” He tilted his great head and peered into the light. “Ah, there is sorcery here.”
“Yes,” I said. “I need you to tell me something.”
“Oh?”
“If I free you, will you attack me? Or any of my companions? One . . . or two, perhaps, are humans. One is a wobbyk.”
“If I’m freed, they will be safe. From me, at any rate.”
“You believe him?” Luca asked skeptically.