—Chief of Laven-lay’s Guild of Masons to Danda-lay’s Guild Chief
Corry had an idea that wine had made Syrill more talkative than he intended, because the next morning he was uncharacteristically quiet. They rode along, listening to the twitter of birds and the clip of deer’s feet on old stone. Corry watched the other travelers—mostly wood fauns, with an occasional cat—and he noted with interest the busy little towns they passed. Toward evening they came to the bank of a broad river. “The Tiber-wan?” asked Corry.
Syrill nodded. “Not far now to Port Ory.”
The road paralleled the river. Soon Corry caught sight of a barge moving with the current, piled high with crates. Fauns moved to and fro on the deck.
Corry squinted. “Syrill… What’s that in the water?”
He looked where Corry pointed. “I don’t see anything.”
“Beside the barge, there’s something swimming.”
“Oh.” Syrill looked away. “Just a cowry catcher.”
Corry shook his head. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“There aren’t many in middle Panamindorah. They’re manatee shelts, native to the sea and the jungle streams of the Pendalon mountains. I’m told that fauns use them at sea to find cowries. Here they’re used for catching fish, towing small loads, boat maintenance, that sort of thing.”
“Used?” echoed Corry.
Syrill had the grace to look embarrassed. “They’re slaves…all those in Middle Kingdoms, at least. I suppose there are free ones in the Pendalons.”
“I thought slavery was illegal in Middle Panamindorah.”
Syrill shrugged. “Yes, well, we don’t extend that courtesy to deer and burros. We buy and sell animals that can’t talk.”
“Cowry catchers can’t talk?”
“No. I’ve been told they can’t make the sounds of our language. They seem to understand it well enough. I’ve never owned one, Corellian, and I’ve never lived on the riverfront.”
Corry shook his head. “But not even wolflings are sold as slaves!”
“No?” Syrill raised his eyebrows. “And what do you think happens in the deep forest when a faun farmer comes upon a den with a couple of strapping youngsters? He could collect a few dozen white cowries in bounty for their tails. Ah, but perhaps they could work for him? Then he keeps their secret and they keep their lives.”
Corry said nothing, but his disgust must have shown on his face.
“Some would call it merciful,” said Syrill, “on the part of the faun, I mean. He does run a risk. He could be heavily fined. The wolflings, of course, stand to lose a good deal more.”
“But that’s not the same,” persisted Corry. “I know it happens, but it’s not legal, like what you’re describing with the cowry catchers. They’re shelts, aren’t they? What’s the difference between making slaves of them and making slaves of wolflings?”
Syrill sighed. “Nauns—they don’t look as much like us, do they?” He allowed his buck to a canter. “Blix has been trying to tell me for the last quarter league that he wants to run.”
The smell of spring was in the air, and the deer were anxious to move. They only stopped running when Syrill judged the crowd too thick, which was a good deal later than Corry would have judged it. The deer were far more agile than horses and liable to shoot straight into the air when they encountered barriers in the form of other riders and wagons. Syrill only chose to slow when Corry’s doe landed inside a cart, nearly on top of a number of ragged children. Corry shakily offered the cart’s owner his apologies and several cowries, but the owner only shook his head, watching Syrill wide-eyed over Corry’s shoulder.
“I’m the dashing cavalry commander,” said Syrill out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m supposed to be reckless.”
“Well, I’m the stuffy royal clerk,” panted Corry, “and I don’t want to kill any children on my way to Lupricasia.”
Towards evening, Corry caught sight of a stone wall which continued on the other side of the Tiber-wan. “What good is a city wall?” asked Corry, “if anyone can come through the river.”
“Inspections,” said Syrill, “tariffs, that sort of thing. Port Ory is a merchant city.” He laughed. “Who would want to attack it? Everyone does business here.”
As they drew closer, the traffic thickened, and Corry saw a gate swung wide and shelts with merchandise lined up for inspection. He and Syrill were waved through with barely a glance. Beyond the wall, narrow streets wound between tall buildings, all hung with garlands of early flowers and colored paper. Colored lanterns winked in the dusky twilight. Booths on wheels came and went, trailing smells of food. Corry could hear flutes and tambourines and the thump of dancing feet. Children yelled back and forth across the rooftops.
Syrill kept stopping to talk and laugh with shelts Corry had never seen before. Quite a few of them were female. At last they reached a gaudy-looking hotel on the waterfront, called the Unsoos. The lobby was paved with dressed stone, and the rugs were large and elaborate. The roof turned out to be a park-like deer garden, complete with trees and small waterfalls.
Syrill requested a double room at roof level. As soon as they were inside, he dropped his pack and said, “I’m going out. Are you hungry?”
Corry had an idea Syrill didn’t want him along. “No, I’m tired, actually.”
“Well, if you change your mind, there’s a common room downstairs. The food here is excellent.” Syrill slipped out the door without another word.
Corry found his way to a lavishly appointed bedroom with windows opening on the deer park. He took off his boots, lay down, and dozed off almost at once. When he woke, the night was full dark, but he could hear distant sounds of merrymaking through the window. He didn’t think he’d been asleep very long, but he was ravenously hungry. Corry got up, put his boots back on, and went out into the hall. Voices, music, and the odor of food drifted up the staircase and he followed them. On the ground floor, he paused beside the common room entrance. He could see a fire and something roasting over it. Shelts were eating at tables, talking and laughing. Corry hesitated. He reached into his pocket. I have enough cowries to buy food outside. He didn’t feel like trying to make conversation with strangers right now.
In the street, Corry bought a warm, thick drink and an unidentifiable hunk of meat on a stick. Chewing and slurping happily, he started up the incline of the street. All three moons were up and nearly full—Dragon high overhead, Runner a little below, and blue Wanderer just visible between the buildings. Dancers and acrobats were performing here and there. He saw minstrels and fire-eaters and magicians and even a cat who could balance knives on his nose. Gradually he noticed the streets he walked were rising higher. Finally the road came out on a massive stone bridge. Near him, a larger-than-life statue of a cliff faun in battle dress atop a magnificent ram reared against the velvet sky. On the far side of the bridge, stood a similar stone image of a wood faun on a stag, illuminated by flaming torches. Flags of Laven-lay and Danda-lay flew from the tops of their spears.
Far below the artificial layers of the city, the Tiber-wan delivered its never-ending death-roar as it plunged over the abyss. Corry stopped to admire the view. He could see the gushing, hissing turmoil of whitewater churning around a lattice of vertical iron bars, anchored in the belly of the bridge and the riverbed. All of Port Ory spread out below him—the river full of boats at anchor and the walls and buildings winking with red, green, orange, and purple lights.
Corry dragged his eyes away and moved to the outer side of the bridge. Beneath him the river appeared to plunge into a sea of cloud. It was like the end of the world.
“Pretty, eh?”
Corry turned to the speaker. “Shyshax. What are you doing here?”
The cheetah laughed. He had his front paws on the side of the bridge, but now he dropped to all fours. “Same thing everyone else is doing, I suppose: eating and dancing and filling up on new wine. How do you like Port Ory?”
“It’s beautiful.”
&nbs
p; Shyshax smiled. “You haven’t seen Danda-lay yet, have you?”
“No. Listen, I never got to thank you properly for carrying me back to the city last summer. I was distracted, and I’m afraid I behaved ungraciously. You were very kind.”
The cheetah’s wide amber eyes twinkled. “It was no trouble. How did you end up wet and lost in the wood anyway?”
I was chased by a centaur assassin into some kind of dungeon dimension full of extinct shelts and animals. Lucky for me, I somehow popped up in a river a month later than I left. Corry almost wished he hadn’t brought it up, but he liked Shyshax and had been wanting to thank him. “I’m not sure. I have these spells sometimes where things happen, and I can’t remember.” That sounds almost worse than the truth, coming from an iteration. Corry could have kicked himself. Laylan knows I can shift. He probably told Shyshax. Now he probably thinks I turn into something horrible and kill people.
But the cheetah only looked at him curiously. “Well, take care of yourself at Lupricasia. Lots of shelts here would like you not to remember what happened to your money belt.”
Corry smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Happy hunting.” Shyshax turned and moved away.
As they talked, Corry had been looking at the statue of the ram behind Shyshax, and without really thinking about it, he noticed a lion and leopard approach and stand in the shadow cast by the torchlight. Now as Shyshax trotted to the other side of the bridge, Corry noticed them step away from the image and glide through the crowd in the direction Shyshax had taken.
They’re following him. He walked quickly to the far side of the bridge, but of course the cats were gone. Corry didn’t like it. He could imagine what some Filinians would like to do to a cheetah who’d spied for Syrill during the wars. Still hoping to see Shyshax again, Corry left the bridge on the opposite side of the city. For a time he wandered among the shelts, but he grew tired of the noise.
Finally he strolled down to the banks of the Tiber-wan and walked along the riverfront, looking at the boats. He heard a splash. Corry glanced up in time to see a wide ripple well out in the river. Big fish, he thought, but the ripple did not go away. Something was moving in the water, making an arrow against the current. Corry walked forward along a wooden pier, trying to get a better look. Must be a cowry catcher.
The creature swam in place for a little longer, then moved towards a stretch of sandy beach several yards away from Corry. A head appeared. It was a shelt’s head, but it had no tufts on its ears. Corry had grown so used to looking at heads with furry ears that the sight seemed somewhat repulsive. The ears were naked and fleshy, pointed, and folded against the head. The dripping form came up slowly until the figure seemed to be sitting in the shallows. Then it stood. Corry took a step back. Definitely not a cowry catcher.
Something rose out of the river beneath the shelt. Corry gasped. It looked like an extremely ugly dragon. Corry realized that he must have made a noise, for the shelt whirled in his direction, stared a moment, then dove back into the river. The monster sank and disappeared.
Heart pounding, trying not to run, Corry trotted back to the base of the pier and up one of the paths that led to a road. He managed to slow to a walk as he reached the first building. Just before he turned the corner, he stopped and looked back. The river flowed dark and smooth and undisturbed.
Corry walked back toward the bridge. The night had gone sour. He felt like all of the shelts he passed watched him and whispered things that he could not hear. Instead of seeing the brightly colored lanterns, he saw the shadows they cast. Not nearly soon enough, Corry found the bridge, crossed without stopping to look down, and headed for the Unsoos.
He was nearly back, shouldering his way along a particularly crowded road, when he almost ran into a large snow leopard moving in the opposite direction. “Excuse me,” said Corry, then stopped. That was Ounce, Lexis’s lieutenant. He turned just in time to see the leopard stop beside a figure in a side street. The shelt stood in shadow, yet something about the form looked familiar. It turned, and Corry caught a flash of gold chain and the silhouette of long, thick hair.
“Capricia?” But she was already gone.
Chapter 8. The Sluice and the City
Danda-lay, Danda-lay,
city ancient,
hunter victim,
benevolent tyrant,
pearl of the sky.
—old wood faun poem
“Watch the road, Corellian! By the hoof! One would think you were the one who stayed out all night, and I was the one who went to bed early!” In the gentle wash of morning light Port Ory looked like a different city—calmer, emptier.
Syrill was giving a tour. “Up that lane is the official meeting hall for the guild of tanners, as I’m sure you can tell by the stench. Furs and skins pour into Port Ory every year to be processed. Fauns grow food along that side of the river, also on their rooftops. See the gardens?”
A fauness glided past them, carrying a wreath of flowers, and Corry did a double-take. Her fur was long and faintly curly, white like a cliff faun’s, but her skin was the nut brown of a wood faun’s.
Syrill grinned. “That woke you up!”
“What is she?” Corry asked in a low voice.
“A satyr—half wood faun, half cliff faun.”
“Oh…” Corry had read a few oblique references to satyrs, and he gathered they were a cross between two different shelts.
“Half-breeds can’t usually have children,” continued Syrill, “but they’re often beautiful. In fact, the unofficial ‘Guild of the Ladies’ is here in Port Ory. Families, especially old ones, frown upon mixed marriages for the obvious reason that such unions produce no fertile heirs. Most satyrs are illegitimate. This city is full of them, and the Guild of the Ladies attracts them. My home province is cliff-side, and I know a few from back then. If you like, I can introduce you this evening.”
Corry was looking desperately for a change of subject. “Are there any nauns at this festival?”
Syrill cocked his head. “Nauns?”
“Yes—shelts without hooves or paws. I saw something last night that looked like…I don’t know what it looked like, but not like a faun and certainly not a wolfling. It had legs, so it wasn’t a cowry catcher.”
Syrill looked curious. “Someone told me yesterday that we have alligator shelts at the festival this year. They don’t always come up for the festival. But when were you out last night?”
Corry breathed a sigh of relief. Alligator shelts. Of course. Not a dragon. An alligator.
He remembered now that he’d read about these shelts—”lizard riders,” the fauns called them. They lived in Kazar Swamp, technically citizens of the swamp faun nation, but the lizard riders were tribal and kept to themselves.
“I got hungry and decided to get food from a street vendor,” Corry told Syrill. “I saw an alligator and its shelt swimming in the river. They startled me.”
“Oh. Did you see anything else interesting?”
“Well…” Corry thought about the lion and the leopard following Shyshax. He thought about Ounce and Capricia. No good talking about cats to Syrill, though. He’ll get angry, and I’m not sure there’s anything to get angry about. “I saw a faun and fauness painted blue and green.”
Syrill laughed. “Yes, they do that sometimes. It’s the rutting season, you know.”
Corry did not know and wasn’t sure he wanted Syrill’s explanation, so he kept quiet. As they rode to higher and higher street levels, Corry recognized the bridge ahead. His eyes widened as he caught a glimpse over the western side. This morning the air was clear, and he could see the suggestion of a horizon far away.
When they reached the bridge, Corry stopped near the outer edge and dismounted. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the drop. Syrill looked amused. “When you grow up in a cliff-side town, you get used to it.” He followed Corry’s gaze. “All that green and brown near the foot of the cliff is Kazar Swamp. It rises into savanna along th
at greenish, goldish area, and there...” he made a broad arc with his arm, “is the Anola Desert.”
Corry stared at the sea of golden brown, stretching away and away to the horizon. Here and there tiny dots and ripples broke the desert’s monotony, but one point stood out above the rest. “Iron Mountain?” asked Corry. The dark spike reared like a tooth from the distant sand.
“The largest centaur city. Incidentally, Targon, their new king is supposed to be present for the festival. It will be his first meeting with Shadock and Meuril.”
“Are those mountains in the distance?” Corry squinted.
“Yes, the Pendalon range. Pegasus and their shelts live in the Pendalons, but they haven’t sent representatives to the festival in the last few years on account of their war with the griffins and Grishnards. Beyond the mountains is an ocean—a desert of water.
“This bridge,” he continued as he turned away, “is a monument to cliff and wood faun alliance, erected less than a hundred years after the wizard wars.”
Corry turned to the inner side of the bridge, overlooking the city. “What are those?” he asked, pointing to two dry shoots opening off the main river.
“Those are the alternate falls. Every few years, the cliff fauns turn the river into those channels and repair the cliff which the water has chiseled away.”
“And what’s the portcullis-looking-thing under the bridge?”
“An emergency measure to stop large boats. I once saw a ship sucked into the falls. All the fauns got off in time, but they couldn’t save the ship. It broke apart and went down to Danda-lay in pieces. Little boats go over frequently—stupid kids playing betting games. There’s been a push for years to double the number of bars in order to save smaller boats, but it costs money that so far the city council has seen fit to spend on other things.”
After an uncomfortable moment of staring into the churning water and wondering what it would be like to sail over the edge in a small boat, Corry got back on his doe. Syrill led them down through the other side of town until they came to a dry sluice that angled away from the river. A flight of steps took them to the bottom. They walked along the sluice, together with quite a few other travelers, until it turned into a tunnel. A round stone door stood open to the traffic. Two cliff faun guards stood beside it, flashing in their gilded breastplates. Corry recognized one of them.