“It is a dog whistle, Galen,” he explained serenely, “used for . . .”
“For calling dogs. Really, Brithelm, I know what the thing is and how it got there.”
“As do I, my brother, as do I,” Brithelm exclaimed blissfully. “It is a sign from Huma. A sign from Huma that urged me to come to the hermitage.”
Bayard smiled broadly and nodded encouragingly to my poor addled brother.
“For you see,” Brithelm went on serenely, “I had been meditating on whether to return to this hermitage after the bees drove me out.”
I remembered when that happened. My brother was all welts for weeks. Agion nodded in sympathy.
“Did you learn to sleep standing up?” he asked my mystical brother, who smiled and nodded, though I do not see how he could possibly understand what Agion had said to him.
“This whistle is the sign,” Brithelm continued. “I shall call to the animals, to the things of Nature, and they shall answer, shall come to me. Shall commune.”
There was a sound on the path, rising from the center of the swamp and coming slowly in our direction—the sound of reeds rustling, of splashing. I could guess that Brithelm had been bumbling delightedly in our direction for hours, blowing that whistle, alerting the entire swamp to the whereabouts of one fool at least. There was some chance that the oppressive silence we had been traveling through was the whistle’s doing. There was an even greater chance that now, with Brithelm in our midst, we were much more likely to commune with satyrs. Bayard signaled for quiet, so at the moment I had no chance to tell Brithelm that the whistle had come from my pocket instead of from Huma’s Breast, somewhere beyond the stars.
Not that it would have made any difference.
But we were speaking of satyrs. There were four of them crouching on the trail, each clutching a toothed scimitar. I could not imagine a more nasty-looking weapon.
Agion, crouched painfully low for a thing his size, peered through the bushes at the creatures, then turned to Bayard and whispered—much too loudly, I thought—”I think we can take four of them, Sir Bayard, even if the holy man carries no weapon and does not fight.”
“Fighting isn’t the point, Agion,” Bayard hissed. “At least not until we try to make the peace I promised Archala. The point is how to manage this so that the satyrs don’t attack out of sheer preference when they see us, so that we don’t have to fight them to get things calmed down enough to talk.”
“Why don’t you show them your armor, sir?” I whispered, tugging at Bayard’s sleeve. “You can tell them you’re just a knight and leave out the Solamnic part, and maybe they will escort us.”
“That would be just fine except for two things, Galen. One, the armor is probably still galloping through the swamp somewhere, on the back of our pack mare.”
I had forgotten that.
“Two, even if we do not have the armor beside us, I could not advance a lie, which is what you’re suggesting. The armor is Solamnic, forged in Huma’s name. I would dishonor it by resorting to falsehood, for every falsehood discredits the Order.”
“But, Sir Bayard . . .” I began.
“Fighting is not the point at all,” Brithelm interrupted. “Nor is imposture,” he pronounced in a loud and joyous voice. “For you are mistaken. These are innocent creatures, full of trust and altogether harmless.” He stood and walked toward the satyrs, his arms extended.
The rest of us hurried to our feet. Agion and Bayard followed my generous brother, scythe and sword at the ready. I started to follow, reluctantly drawing my own little sword.
It was then I felt it, that icy grip in my blood that held my feet in place, that sucked me down like the quagmires of the swamp will entrap the unwary traveler who steps into them.
Upon my shoulder I felt the prickling of talons. I felt the soft brush of feathers, smelled flesh and loam and the distant scent of decay and heard the voice again, unchanged from the night in the library.
“Follow me, little one,” it whispered. “The first payment of your debt has come due.” The wings fluttered at my ear, the weight on my shoulder was lifted.
All of a sudden, there seemed no choice. As I was bidden, I turned from the trail straight into knee-deep waters that slowed my retreat from the negotiations or impostures behind me, following the fitful path of the raven through the branches ahead of me.
Now there were only false trails and hidden places among the leaves. Those, and mud, and night approaching. And crocodiles, of course.
Now the bird had vanished. Diving through a tangle of broad-leafed plants, it had not emerged, evidently, and search though I might, I was left alone at this juncture. The light in the swamp was all but gone. I sat down upon a cypress tree in yet another large clearing—a clearing that branched into a dozen trails like it was the hub of an enormous wheel. I had no idea how far I had traveled, but I was sure to be out of earshot of my companions.
And within earshot of other things.
I took stock.
Perhaps I should try to go back. Perhaps my companions would believe that I had been protecting them from possible ambush by scouting the rear. At great personal risk, I might add.
Brithelm would buy it. After all, he believed that Huma was in the business of dispensing dog whistles. For my other two companions I could not speak, except to be sure that Agion would be easier to convince than Bayard, since the centaur was slow-witted to begin with.
But Bayard was another matter.
Perhaps I could cut myself. Only slightly, mind you, but enough to exhibit. Then perhaps I could invent a terrible knife fight with a satyr—no, two satyrs, I’d say—bent on circling around us for another ambush. Two small satyrs, since Bayard would be listening. Yes, it just might work.
Unless the satyrs had defeated them. Then I would be walking into the hands of the enemy. That would demand an altogether new set of lies.
Then, of course, there was the raven, which had conveniently dropped out of sight. Was I free to go, even if I could make up my mind? Would I be allowed to escape the summons of the Scorpion?
The cries of birds and reptiles around me seemed more hostile now, and branches and tree limbs leaned even farther over the dozens of paths that ended in nowhere or, even worse, ended in danger. What’s more, I was steering only by moonlight now and could see scarcely ten feet in front of me. I started down one trail, which narrowed into nothing scarcely a dozen yards from the clearing where I had picked it up. The next one I tried ended in a wide pool of bubbling and boiling mud like those we had seen only hours ago when we set off toward the satyr camp.
So I returned to the clearing, seated myself once more on the cypress tree, tried to calm myself and push down my rising voice of panic.
Lost. Lost. Spiralling down into the quicksand. Eaten by crocodiles. Snake bitten and poisoned, crawling down a trail to nowhere.
All of a sudden, the clearing grew quiet. To my left a covey of quail took wing, flying overhead in one of those brief, scrambling flights they make in the face of danger. I followed them with my eyes, watched them settle on the other side of the clearing.
When they were lost to sight, when I turned my eyes and thoughts back to the clearing in which I was sitting, he was only a few strides away.
It took a second more to make him out in the darkness. I was startled anyway. I gasped, fell backwards off the cypress tree, and managed only one word before I hit the ground, before I landed on my back, helpless as a capsized turtle. Before the familiar strong hands began to throttle me.
“Alfric!” I shouted, as he pounced.
Chapter Seven
Alfric’s grip tightened on my throat. He scrambled, trying to get footing on the wet ground, then suddenly was kneeling above me, pinning my arms beneath his knees, grinding them painfully into the mud. For a man whose highest ambition was Solamnic Knighthood, he was awfully skilled at dirty fighting. Struggle as I did against my brother’s strength and weight, the only thing I could raise from the ground was mud. My arms hurt under something edged and metal; Alfric was wearing Father’s armor, of all things. It made you feel as though you were being assaulted by your entire family tree.