Chapter 2. Talis

 

To never take for naught life’s loan

To kill for food and food alone

To battle death in all her guises

To this I pledge my spirit.

--Guide to Canadian Drugs, “The Pledge”

 

          “I was a bandit for sixteen years,” began Talis. She had stood up, squinting into the dark canyon as though she saw her story there. “Have you heard of Fenrah of Ausla?”

The admiral let out a low nicker. “Ahhh… Those Raiders.”

          “Yes, that was the name of our pack.”

          “Fenrah and her mate are the new king and queen of Canadia now…”

          “Yes, now that there is a Canadia again. When I was a cub we had no country. The cats had conquered Sardor-de-lor, and we were living as outlaws in wood faun territory. They hated us, partially, I suppose because we killed their deer. There was a bounty on wolves and wolflings. Most merely hid and tried to survive, but we Raiders fought back. Fenrah was determined to make middle Panamindorah remember us, to prove that wolflings were still a force to be reckoned with.”

          “You are fond of your pack leader,” observed Linsy.

          “She was like a mother to me,” said Talis. “My real mother died when I was five, killed for bounty by wood fauns. Fenrah and Sham saved me. I grew up in the Raider pack—just eight of us altogether. They taught me to use a weapon, to see a trap, and to tell poison from food.”

          “Rumors have made your pack into a legend.”

          “Yes.” Talis smiled. “We foiled the fauns again and again. When the great war came, we helped them to defeat the wizard Gabalon, and we won back for the wolflings our country.” Talis made a bitter expression. “These past two years have been hard for Fenrah, though—rebuilding a capital that’s laid in ruins over twenty years, dealing with nations who distrust us, trying to make honest citizens out of wolflings who’ve been outlaws all their lives.”

          Talis laughed nervously and examined her hands. “I suppose that I haven’t been much help to her in that respect.”

          “’The water of peace is hard to stomach after the wine of war’?”

          Talis could tell that Linsy was quoting, and she heard a note of sarcasm in his voice. The wolfling turned her copper eyes at him—hard as plate metal in the moonlight. “Are you mocking me, Admiral?”

          “No. Personal frustration, that’s all. I—“

          “We lived the way we lived to survive,” said Talis with the venom of a shelt who was accustomed to defending her position. “Wolflings know no other way. The gentle ones died during those years when we were nothing but vermin to be exterminated. Free and peaceful nations can talk about artists and poets and idealists. We had not the luxury. We grew up fast and bloody, and only the cunning and the strong survived.”

          “So survival is to be purchased at any price?” asked Linsy flatly.

          Talis could feel herself bristling. “Fauns and their beasts…!” she growled, but then remembered himself. Am I about to argue with an animal whom I only just met? He may not be worth the effort!

          Linsy seemed to have had the same revelation. “Forgive me. I am thinking of my own nation, not of yours. Please continue.”

          “Fenrah had principles,” said Talis quietly. “If I have not lived up to them, it is not her fault, but mine.”

          She leaned back against the wall. “I got into trouble with some faun villages on the edge of the forest. (I grew up there, not in Canadia, and I suppose I still considered it my home.) I and my friends killed deer. The fauns… They shot my wolf, Solstar.” Talis stopped. She did not want to make a fool of herself.

          “The death of a mount is hard,” said Linsy, and Talis was impressed that he sounded genuinely sympathetic.

          “He was the only wolf friend I’d ever known,” said Talis. “He was old and probably would have died of natural—“ She shut her mouth, then tried again. “Arrow wounds are not—“

          A terrible pause.

          “So you came here?”

          “Yes,” Talis took the cue gratefully. “A recruiter came to Sardor-de-lor, saying that the Shavier were looking for mercenaries, that you had plenty of mounts but not enough riders, and that we would be paid. I decided to go. However, Canadia is far from here.”

          Linsy smiled. “You would know better than I.”

          “You must travel across my country, through the wood faun forests, down the great cliff, through Danda-lay of the cliff fauns, through Kazar swamp, across the desert of the Centaurs in order to come at last to this pass.”

          Linsy nodded. “Even here we are still a long journey from Clyperion. This is but the entrance to the Pendalon Mountains.”

          “So I’ve been told,” said Talis. “I started my journey from Sardor-de-lor, which, as you may know, is the ancient capitol of Canadia. Fenrah did not like the idea of my fighting for pay. Laylan, her mate, was more sympathetic, but even he thought I was going for the wrong reasons.” Talis clenched her fists. “He does not know what it is like to lose a mount. If I’d not gone, I would have killed the faun who killed Solstar.”

          Linsy’s dark liquid eyes looked at her questioningly, and he finished the thought that she had not intended to finish. “And you did not want to kill him?”

          Talis stiffened. “No.” She hurried on. “That faun and others were not satisfied with the restitution Fenrah made them for the deer. When my company of recruits got near the border, they began receiving threats that if they harbored me into wood faun territory, they would be waylaid and killed. My group leader, Shavier recruiter, suggested that I strike out on my own, since I knew the wood well, and meet them in neutral territory in Port Ory. This I did. However, the fauns attempted to track me with hounds, and I was longer getting to Port Ory than I’d expected.

“When I arrived, my company had already gone, and I could find no others leaving that season. It is now high summer in middle Panamindorah, and many wanted to wait until fall, when the milder temperatures would make the desert passage safer. My enemies, however, were still hunting me, and I needed to leave at once or else go home.

          “I had almost despaired of coming here when I met a Shavier faun named Gwain and his mount, Coran. Gwain said that he was the Shavier ambassador to the cliff faun court in Danda-lay. He said that Coran was flying back to the Pendalons soon to deliver the results of his conferences, and that I might ride him.

          “I was elated. Not only would I ride my first pegasus, but the whole journey, which normally takes thirty days on burrow-back, would take only three days on Coran.”
          Talis glanced at Linsy and was started by the expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”

          “I think I know who you are after all,” he muttered. “Nevermind. Continue.”

          “I flew back with Coran, carrying an envelope that I was to deliver. Coran flew fast and high, mostly by night. I thought his behavior odd, but since I’d never been around pegasus before, I wasn’t sure. When we finally reached the Orelion pass, he brought me to the inn in the cliff at the mouth of this canyon. It was then third watch of the night, and he told me I must wait until morning to contact the authorities about joining the mercenary recruits. He said that I should not wake the shelt who needed the envelope, but if I simply slipped it under his door, that would be sufficient. Coran told me the room number and flew away. I got a room for myself with a little gold I’d brought, then did as he said with the envelope and went to bed.”

          Talis paused. “The rest is hazy. I remember waking with fauns holding me down, someone tying a cloth over my eyes and shouting that they’d found the spy. They cut me…” Talis pulled up her left sleeve as if she’d just remembered. True, a barely healed wound about the length of her finger marked her upper arm.

          “I think the knife was drugged,” said Talis. “I remember waking again and again in a dark place and never being sure whether it was day or night. Someone asked me questions… Over and over the same questions.” Talis shut her eyes to concentrate.

          Linsy said nothing.

          “I think the shelt who was asking me questions used a translator…or perhaps he only wished to disguise his voice.” Talis spoke slowly, as if the telling and the remembering were the same. “The fauns used a torch in front of my face to keep me from seeing or smelling them. They gave me a drug to dilate my eyes… Yes, I remember now! And he kept asking who I was and where I’d come from and why I was here. He asked about a blue paper…or parchment maybe. He asked about Gwain and Coran and the shelt I delivered the envelope to. I don’t think he believed me when I said I never saw the shelt.” Talis licked her lips, her eyes moving rapidly as if seeing something invisible.

Linsy swished his hock-length tail. “Well, if that’s all, I—“

          “Gwain must have been a spy,” whispered Talis. “Yes, and he tricked me into delivering that envelope for him. But I never looked inside it! I trusted him. ‘We have no Shavier ambassador in Danda-lay at present.’ I remember the one who asked me questions said that. Is it true?”

          Linsy inclined his head faintly. “Yes.”

          Talis looked at him. “You know all this, don’t you? You know who interrogated me and why.”

          The pegasus shifted his massive weight. “Not exactly. It’s more complicated than you think. I knew that a recruit was held for questioning in a matter of theft.”

          Talis could smell his discomfort. You know a great deal more than that, Admiral. But she held her tongue, reminding herself again that she did not know this animal well. Still, looking at his dark, sad eyes in the moonlight, she could not hate him. In fact, she rather liked him.

          “If you were released,” said the pegasus quietly, “then the authorities have decided that you were innocent or at least that you are not dangerous. Take my advice: start fresh. Don’t dig further into this incident. It doesn’t really concern you.”

          “Forget,” murmured Talis. “Yes, that’s what he said too—the one who asked me questions. I think they gave me a drug that makes the whole thing difficult to remember. I woke here in the bunkers. I’m not even sure how many days it’s been since I came to the pass.”

          “Three,” said Linsy without looking at her.

          Talis glanced at him. “Are you suggesting or telling?”

          “I’m telling you. And now that you’ve let me know why you’re out here, I suggest you stop thinking and go back to bed. Placement tests for the recruits are tomorrow, and those are very important.”

          “’Stop thinking,’” repeated Talis disdainfully. “That’s one thing Fenrah taught me never to do.”

          Linsy smiled. “Think about something else, then.”

          “At least tell me whether I’m right about Gwain being a spy.”

          Linsy hesitated. “Yes. Now go to bed.”

          “And the envelope? Was it stolen? Is that what you meant by ‘theft’?”

          Linsy allowed an irritated smile. “If you were this much trouble in middle Panamindorah, I can see why they sent you away.”

          Talis decided that he was a friend. “I’m only trouble to fauns.”

          “Shavier are fauns.”

          “Hapspaw^[1].”

          Linsy flexed his wings. “Did you say earlier that you’re a healer?”

          “Yes, the best in the Raider pack. But I can fight too,” she added quickly.

          “That’s well. We’ve a dearth of good healers.” He turned his head to the right. “There’s a door about twenty paces that way.” He smiled. “It’s easier than climbing. The Lori-con blows a little in this pass, so I advice you use the door.”

          “’The Lori-con’?”

          “The down draft.” Linsy opened his wings at that moment with a sound like a sail being unfurled. Talis ducked, but she needn’t have worried. The smoke gray pinions rose high above her head—each about the same length as the animal himself. “Fair winds, Talis.” And he dropped from the ledge, falling heavily for a moment, before the air currents caught his feathery sails.

          Talis watched him disappear into the night, then started for the door. Not until she was almost back to her bunk did she think to wonder why Admiral Linsy had been on the ledge that night.