Chapter 3. Laven-lay
Walking the streets of Laven-lay, one finds it difficult to imagine that this city has been embroiled in so many wars. It is a national capitol that looks more like a garden, sleeping in the sunshine, asking only to be left alone.
--Lasa, Tour the Endless Wood
Corry had not been following the
smeared footprints for five minutes before he noticed something odd happening
to the grove. The rows were becoming more crooked, the trees wilder. Corry
rubbed his eyes. The world felt cluttered, overlapping. His ears rang with a
sound on the edge of hearing, like wind in a door. He thought he saw things out
of the corners of his eyes—taller trees, ferns and rocks, a whole forest. But
when he turned, they were gone.
He knew he was coming to a wood. He
knew it long before the rows vanished, before the sand became soil, before the
last of the wild orange trees disappeared among taller, darker furs. Around
dusk he lost the trail of the cats and deer, but he kept moving. Unfamiliar
birds sang in the twilight. The noise in his ears had ebbed away. He caught the
scent of the warm earth, perfused occasionally with the delicate scent of
flowers.
Darkness fell and a mist rose. Corry
found it difficult to see any distance. He thought uneasily of leopards. His
shoes were full of sand, and he took them off to empty them. He sat still,
letting the sweat dry on his body and listening to the strange birds and
insects.
The moon was rising above the trees.
Corry stared at it. The disc was blood red and about three times the size of
the moon should have been. On the opposite side of the sky he saw another moon.
This one was yellow and smaller than Earth’s. It shone in a golden sickle above
the trees. Something deep inside Corry stirred. “Runner,” he said aloud. He did
not say it in English. He looked at the full red moon for a while and finally
said, “The Dragon.”
* *
* *
“Rise slowly. No sudden movements.”
Corry opened his eyes. Early morning
sunlight dazzled off a cluster of swords pointed in his general direction.
Front and center stood the faun with the green-plumed hat. The faun was shorter
than Corry, slim and dressed in a dark green tunic and black belt. He had a
scar across his right cheek and several more running up his left arm.
“Who are you and where do you come
from? Be quick.”
Corry sat up, wincing at stiff
muscles. The faun with the hat poked him. “Answer me.”
Corry scowled. He didn’t trust his
command of the language and wasn’t sure what to say in any case. “My name is
Corry.”
One of the fauns behind him
snickered. He heard someone whisper, “Half-wit.”
The lead faun spoke again, slowly,
as if to a small child. “What kind of shelt are you? Why are you here?”
“Perhaps he’s drunk,” offered
someone, but the lead faun only snorted.
Still speaking to Corry, he said,
“Why do you wear shoes and such outlandish clothing? Are you a wolfling? Where is your sword…or
are you a female?”
Corry’s head was throbbing with
fragmented memories, brought suddenly to life by the fauns and the language
they spoke. He wanted to tell them to be quiet and let him think.
The lead faun poked him again with
his sword. “Come, little filly, tell us whose mother sent you to the market,
and perhaps we’ll let you go.”
This time Corry’s hand flew to the
sword and closed around it. Blood welled between his fingers. “Beware you touch
me again!”
The faun jump back as though at a
snake.
Corry blinked and looked down at his
own blood.
The faun darted forward, caught one
of Corry’s shoes, and wrenched it free.
Gasps of horror. “It’s a wizard!”
whispered someone.
But their leader shook his head. “A
weak-blooded iteration, spying for the cats. If it had powers, it would have
used them by now. Its threats are empty. Tie it.”
Fauns swarmed forward and bound
Corry, who did not resist. He felt stupid and sluggish. Why did I provoke
them? Why do they care about my feet?
“Shall we hang him here, Syrill?”
Corry looked up sharply. Too late,
he realized exactly how much trouble he was in.
Syrill shook his head.
“We take him back to Laven-lay. He
will tell us what he knows, even if we have to torture it from him.”
*
* * *
They traveled all morning. If not
for his predicament, Corry might have enjoyed the ride. The deer were larger
than Earth deer, flying over the forest floor like shadows.
About noon, they stepped from the
trees into a clearing in front of iron-banded gates in a white stone wall. The
gates were closed and guarded, but they opened at Syrill’s hail.
Beyond the wall, Corry saw grassy
turf, dotted by clumps of trees and tiny pools fed by twinkling brooks. Deer
grazed everywhere, and the faun soldiers turned their own mounts lose to join
the others. Syrill took charge of Corry as they started up the road on foot.
“Welcome to Laven-lay. Enjoy the sunlight while you can.”
Corry wondered again how to explain
himself in a way that made sense. The more he thought, the more panicky he
felt. The grassy
At last his escort reached the city
center. They crossed a paved drill yard and stopped before the steps of a
sprawling castle. Syrill turned around, and Corry saw that all but three of the
soldiers had peeled off. “Take him to the dungeons. I’ll be there shortly.”
The fauns took Corry inside and
along several corridors as fast as he could trot. Then his guards halted
briefly while one fumbled with the keys for another door. Whereas the previous
passages had been dingy, they were now standing on white marble in a hallway
bright with sunlight. The air wafting from the windows smelled of flowers. The
guard finally found the right key, and the door swung back with a leaden groan
to reveal a windowless passage, leading downward. One of the soldiers took a
torch from a bracket in the wall and lit it. Another took Corry’s arm and
propelled him forward.
If I let this go any further, I’m
lost. “I’m not a spy!” Corry braced his feet. “I’m a guest in your kingdom!
I refuse to be imprisoned without speaking to your king.”
The fauns seemed surprised. From the
forest until now, he had come unresisting. “You may speak to General Syrill
about that,” said one. “His orders—”
All three fauns let go of Corry so
abruptly that he fell backwards out of the doorway and landed on his rump. A
faun said something quickly that Corry did not understand. Then one of the
fauns said, “Your highness, we are sorry, but the passage to the dungeons
requires that we enter the castle at some point—”
“Who is the prisoner?”
Corry was still facing the mouth of
the passage, but he went taut at the voice.
“An iteration of diluted blood, your
highness. Syrill caught him in the wood and suspects him of spying for the
Filinian army. Syrill intends to—”
“Turn him around.”
“Of course, your highness.” The
soldier pulled Corry to his feet, spun him around, and pushed his head into an
awkward bow. “Give proper respect to the regent and Princess, Capricia Sor.”
It was the fauness! Corry felt weak
with relief. She was dressed differently—a coat of pale blue over frilly, white
silk, snug around her slender waist. Corry could see why the sight of her had
startled the guards. She looked ready to devour someone. With a visible effort
at control, she said to the guards, “I know this person. Release him.”
“But, your highness, Syrill said—”
“Syrill was misinformed. Release the
prisoner to me, and go about your business.” With a scowl at Corry, the guards
cut the rope from his hands and withdrew.
The fauness rounded on him. “Where
is it?” she hissed.
“What do you mean?” Corry had been
on the verge of thanking her.
“The thing I threw into the lake in
your world!”
“Oh, the flute?” Corry reached into
his pocket, but Capricia waved her hands.
“Put it away! You— You—! Why—?
How—?” Her face turned a shade of lavender that did not match her dress. She
seemed to be choking on something.
“Are you alright?” asked Corry.
“No!” she exploded. “You dare—? You
had no right to take it!”
“You did throw it away,” said
Corry. “You nearly brained me with it.”
She was still speaking. “How did you
leave your world?”
“The same way you left it, I
suppose. And anyway, it’s not my world. Didn’t you say yourself that I spoke
your language? I came from this world, only…I seem to have lost my memory.” He
watched her jaw working. “What’s so important about the flute?”
“Silence!” Capricia drew a deep
breath. “The hall is no place to speak of this.” She took his arm as though she
meant to have it off at the elbow and led him at an uncomfortably speed along a
maze of corridors.
At last they started up the winding
steps of a tower. Corry was panting by the time they reached the top. He saw a
little room, lined on three sides with bookshelves. In the remaining wall, a
large window gave an open-air view of the city. Before the window stood a desk,
piled with books and serviced with a comfortable looking chair.
“Whose library is this?” asked
Corry.
“Mine.” Capricia closed the door behind her and clicked the bolt into place. “Now tell me everything!”