People gasped and shrank backward when four men hauled in a monstrous hairy creature, tied with sturdy ropes and rags to muzzle it. The catlike beast’s matted hair and clawed hands were caked with blood, and it fought wildly to get free. I couldn’t understand why they had brought the animal indoors instead of caging it while they did their business.
“This creature has raged through the Gray Fastnesses for a manylight, Guardian,” said one of the four when the Guardian gave the group permission to begin. “It destroys weak fastnesses and rips up tappa, but does not eat or use it. Now matters have worsened. One Singlar was dead a twolight since, and another in the light just past. We found this beast… eating… the dead one. Our asking is to be allowed to slay the murdering creature before it eats us all.”
The beast growled and strained against its bonds.
“The Source has said Singlars must not kill creatures with minds,” said the Guardian, nodding. “But clearly a beast that eats a Singlar is mindless. Your petition is granted.”
Two Singlars held the writhing animal, while two of them forced back its grotesque head and bared its throat. But its struggles dislodged the binding across its mouth.
“I ate no Singlar!” cried the beast, snarling. “My den-mates will avenge this lie. And no Singlar in the Gray Fastnesses will live a tenlight more. They - ”
But the creature, whether monstrous man or intelligent beast, did not finish his threat. One of his captors plunged a sharpened stick into his throat. As they dragged the carcass out of the hall, the blood that streaked the slate floor appeared quite red and ordinary.
“This place is the damnedest… ” said Paulo.
“It’s part of the Breach,” I said. “All manner of strange creatures could exist here.”
The next petitioners were two Singlars together: one a dark-haired girl of perhaps my age, whose face on one side was fairly pretty, though the other side was horribly disfigured, and the other a man about Paulo’s age. The fellow looked very odd for this place in that he had no visible deformity. But when he began to speak, he could scarcely get out a whole word for his stuttering. He asked permission for the girl and himself to share a single fastness, a matter that didn’t seem too mysterious to me, but clearly shocked the Guardian and the crowd of other petitioners.
“We… we’ve feelings to… to be t… t… together,” said the young man. “But our headman says no Singlar has done so… ever… and w… w… we must make asking.”
“Feelings? Together?” The Guardian gaped like a particularly stupid fish and then exploded. “Inconceivable! Are we to throw out all our customs for Singlars’ feelings? How dare you propose such a thing? Maintainers! Take this villain and flog him ten. The female is to be taken to the Edge to see where she is headed if this insolence persists. Leave her there to make her own way back to her fastness. If these two speak even a single word to each other ever again, they are to be put over the Edge.”
Gasps rose from some observers. Others nodded their heads. The girl dropped her hands to her sides and wept silently as the youth was dragged away. But as he wrestled with the two thuggish maintainers who grabbed his arms, he cried out after her. “Denya!”
The crowd fell into stunned silence.
“Hog him fifty!” roared the Guardian, shooting out of his chair like a bird startled from its roost. “And bind him outside his fastness for a twelvelight. He must be an example. To throw him over the Edge would take his crime from our eyes. So is the judgment of the King’s Guardian.” He left the dais, sweeping through the gold fabric hanging behind it.
Two more of the maintainers, easily identified by the knotted rope belts about their tunics, led the sobbing girl away. The crowd broke up and straggled out of the room, murmuring in shock. A name! He’s named her! A portent… evil begets evil… inconceivable… should be thrown from the Edge… will unbound us all…
“Demons!” said Paulo as we walked toward the curtain. “Don’t leave me here. If a fancy for a lady gets you ten lashes and calling her by name fifty… ”
We stood unobtrusively in a corner, watching the crowd of Singlars file out of the audience hall and through the rotunda. I glanced at Paulo, wondering if his thoughts had wandered the same path as mine. Though most Leiran commoners were wed by eighteen, Paulo’s comments about the village girls near Verdillon had always concluded with an avowal that none of them could compare to some particular girl he had met in Avonar before he went to Zhev’Na. I guessed that a Dar’Nethi family wasn’t likely to welcome Paulo’s attention any more than the Guardian and his folk welcomed their two rebels.
When the hall was almost empty, I bade Paulo wait in the audience hall and grabbed the sleeve of one of the house servants who was hurrying past, licking his fingers and brushing crumbs and hair from his white ruffled collar. “Please take me to the Guardian. He agreed to meet with me when his audience session was over.”
Without a word, the servant bowed and led me, not through the gold curtain, but around through the passageway to a proper door - perhaps so I could see the two maintainers who stood beside the door holding quite normally efficient-looking swords and spears. The servant knocked, stepped inside at a growling summons, and, moments later, held the door open for me to enter.
The small room, furnished with a wide table, several chairs, and a shelf with cups and porcelain jars on it, was tucked away in an alcove behind the gold curtain. A retiring room, a Leiran noble would have called such a retreat adjacent to his audience hall. The Guardian sat behind the large table, hammering his fingers on the polished wood top, fuming. The morning’s events had clearly unsettled him.
When the servant closed the door behind me, the Guardian jerked his head toward one of the chairs, and then popped up and strode around the room, fingering the ruby-studded key about his neck. On every circuit his rapid pace billowed the heavy gold curtain that separated him from the audience hall. “Singlars… sharing a fastness… male and female… Disgusting! And names! I must report this to the Source… seek counsel to stop such perfidy. Fifty lashes were not enough. Should have been a hundred. Two hundred.”
“Your customs here are very different from those of other lands,” I said, folding my hands in my lap. The chair and its lumpy cushions were uncomfortable, but I tried not to shift or fidget.
“Question our customs, and I’ll show you and your insolent companion the same punishment as that wicked Singlar! We are satisfied with our ways, and you’ll not come here and muddle them. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you can do, or what any empty-headed Singlar thinks you are. I make the rules for the Bounded!” His distress seemed to have lowered his guard on his tongue.
“Remember, Guardian, all I want is answers.” Well, I also wanted to meet this Source, whoever or whatever it was, but this didn’t seem the time to mention the fact.
Abruptly, he stopped his pacing, returned to his chair, and began our interview as if nothing had happened. I had come to this meeting alone, not wanting his antipathy for Paulo to make an accommodation impossible. Paulo should be just beyond the curtain, close enough to come if I called, though I wasn’t sure how well he could hear.
“What answers do you seek, traveler? I have many responsibilities. The dwarf and his companions have clearly disrupted your life with their mistaken opinions. They will be disciplined for it, but not too severely, due to your kind interest in their welfare.” He smiled, but he could have cracked nuts in his jaw. “I would send you on your way as soon as possible with our apologies and good wishes.”
I played it just as he did. Answers were the important thing. “I appreciate your time and patience, Guardian. So, tell me, what is this land? Where do you and the other people come from, and why do you seek your king in my dreams? That should do to start.”