City of Death (25 page)

Leech watched enviously as Lady Sudarshane slid an arm around her daughter. “We can help you carry out your mission but not with Her. I wish we could though.”

Her father hooked a thumb in his belt. “All She wants is the arrows, right?”

“I think so,” Scirye admitted. “But I can't be sure. She's never been clear about what She wants.”

“It's really frustrating, isn't it?” Leech sympathized.

“Hmm, maybe She's just as frustrated,” her mother said. “Just imagine if you were trying to talk to a spider? Your words would just be meaningless sounds to it. And even if it understood your language, it wouldn't have your knowledge and memories, so it still wouldn't understand.” Lady Miunai had said much the same thing to them when they had talked to her about the goddess.

They made camp there and Bayang told them of her adventures after her kidnapping, and they told her about theirs.

Then Scirye turned to the Pippalanta. “Did you have any trouble getting to my parents?”

Kat and the other Pippalanta looked like walking arsenals with their swords hung in sheaths slung diagonally across their backs, daggers hanging from their waist, and rifles slung over their shoulders—and that didn't include the lances they had left in the saddle sheaths. And yet, despite all the weight of their gear, they looked far more comfortable than they had when they only had brooms.

Kat slapped her thigh with a laugh. “Who pays attention to servants? We just walked right into the citadel like we figured we could.”

Oko grimaced. “Though it made me grind my teeth to have to ask as meek as a mouse.”

It was hard, Leech thought, to see how anyone could ever mistake Oko for a mouse, no less a meek one.

“Among other things, the princess will demand our reinstatement,” Wali said. “We'll be Pippalanta again.”

Kat nodded to Bayang. “So you're Bayang.”

“We've seen each other before. I was at the museum too, but in disguise,” the dragon explained. “I was the elderly woman with the chain.”

Oko chuckled. “I was wondering how San Francisco bred such strong old folk.”

*   *   *

For the few
hours before dawn, they tried to rest while each of them took a turn keeping watch. Leech, though, was too excited to sleep and kept touching his armbands to make sure they were still there.

The next morning they breakfasted on cheese, dried fruits, nuts, and some dried bread, and then they mounted again. Leech, of course, mounted his flying discs.

Even if it meant a delay, they circled around the paradise because of the rifles of the vizier's guardsmen. When they had found the old dirt road to Riye Srukalleyis, Bayang gestured for them to go lower and they descended so they could all see the numerous ruts. When they landed, the tread marks were unmistakable.

“Roland's caravan must have made those,” Scirye said. “I hope he doesn't find the arrows before we get there.”

“He's not the goddess's friend,” M
ā
ka said simply.

Leech glanced at her to see if she was being sarcastic, but she looked perfectly confident.

Scirye squirmed. “I'm nothing special.”

It was like his friend to be modest—or perhaps uncomfortable with her role. “You've gotten us this far,” Leech assured her.

“We've done it together,” Scirye insisted.

Soon the land began to rise as they reached the foothills of the Astär Mountains. They were about twenty miles to the west of the Tarkär Eyrie and no one wanted to delay to go there for help. Nor did they want to deplete their small party even further by sending a messenger there. So they continued on in a straight course.

Most of the rolling land was wrapped in a dense skein of leafless vines like brown ropes that Lord Tsirauñe said were the former vineyards of the Greeks who had lived here before the Kushans. The veterans of Alexander the Great's army, they had been just one of the many groups who had settled here. “These hills were special to them,” he explained, “because their god, Dionysus, was said to have been born here.”

Leech thought of Princess Catisa's warning. “He sounds dangerous.”

Lord Tsirauñe studied the land below as if looking for the god. “I'd be careful what I said about him, especially here. And above all, always show him respect.”

Here and there, groves of wild pistachios, almond, and redbud trees struggled out of the tangle like swimmers trying to crest a wave. Leech tried to imagine what it would be like in the spring. “The hills must look like the green waves of an ocean.”

“And in the autumn, they burn yellow and red like fire.” The griffin master looked over his shoulder at his daughter. “When we were courting, your mother and I used to come here all the time to picnic.”

By afternoon, the grape vines disappeared, and the pistachio and redbud trees gave way to what M
ā
ka said were forests of junipers. Though there were still some almond trees even at the higher altitudes, these were wild ones so they were of a smaller, scragglier size.

It was here that Leech began to have trouble flying. He dipped when he meant to fly level and strayed into the path of a griffin when he intended to go straight.

I thought you could handle the flying discs,
the Voice complained.

Nothing escaped the griffin master's watchful eyes. “The air's thinner at this altitude,” Lord Tsirauñe explained, “so it makes flying trickier. The griffins grew up here so they're used to it, but you're not.”

Leech's chest heaved in and out as he took several large breaths. “But I can still breathe okay.”

“There must be a breathing spell that's part of Pele's charm then,” Kles reasoned. “It did let us breathe while we were surrounded by lava.” That had been when Pele had taken them up through a volcano.

“Take your time and allow more space for maneuvering,” Lord Tsirauñe advised.

“But sometimes the wind shifts quickly,” Leech said.

“Sometimes you can find clues before that happens.” Lord Tsirauñe pointed at puffs of snow blowing off a cliff face. “That tells me the winds are going to change and what way they are going to move.”

The griffin master had other tips about flying that Leech drank in thirstily.

Even the Voice was impressed.
I thought I knew a lot, but he knows more.

He's a true lord of the air,
Leech agreed.

Leech tried his best to put the lessons into practice, but it was during one of his many failures that he found the first sign that Roland had passed this way. Though he scanned the sky and land diligently for hints about the wind's intentions, a sudden twist of the capricious winds sent Leech plunging downward.

He pulled out safely at about thirty feet above the ground, and as he leveled off, he spotted the dark shape off the side of the road. Remembering to do things slowly and carefully, he circled around to see that it was a truck tumbled on his side.

When he called the others' attention to it, they spiraled down to the ground. Tute immediately jumped off the griffin he was riding to examine the road.

He pointed to a huge hole in the middle of the road that was full of rocks and gravel and then swung his claw toward the truck's broken front axle. “
That's
what wrecked the truck. It must have been in the lead. When it lost an axle, they dumped it off to the side”—he indicated the numerous footprints and the skid marks—“and then filled the hole with the debris around here so the others could get by.”

He padded back and forth studying the tracks. “I'd say this happened two days ago.”

“So they're not that far ahead,” Leech said.

The whole company's spirits rose at the news and they flew on eagerly as the foothills gave way to the steep slopes of the mountains themselves, not even the hardiest trees could find enough space for their roots. The only plant life were weeds poking up through the snow on narrow ledges or out of crevices. The road itself snaked back and forth up the face of the mountainside like a long snow-covered ribbon.

The nearly barren mountains, their shoulders dusted with snow, towered over them like monsters waiting to crush them. Leech felt as if he were a bug flying around over their toes.

They found more evidence that trucks were a poor choice for a caravan. In one spot, a landslide obliterated the road and down at the bottom of the cliff was the burned-out hulk of a truck that must have gotten caught in it.

Roland's expedition had to dig a path over the rubble so the other trucks could get by. A few miles on, they found another truck with a broken axle—this one caused by a huge rock. Roland even had to begin jettisoning supplies because there were fewer vehicles to carry them. They also found several cairns of stones that hastily covered a body. With his typical ruthlessness, Roland was pushing his men and machines to the breaking point.

Lord Tsirauñe frowned as he saw Leech bob up and down in the air like a cork in a stormy sea. Despite Leech's best efforts, it was all he could do to stay upright.

“For now, I think you'd better ride with Oko again,” Lord Tsirauñe ordered. When the boy opened his mouth to object, the griffin master held up a hand. “We'll need you when we meet Roland so we can't afford to have you break a leg or worse.”

Somehow Leech managed to right himself. “I'm okay.” Almost immediately, he was turned sideways and sent rolling along.

“This is no time to be proud, boy,” Lord Tsirauñe insisted sternly and turned to the blond Amazon. “Oko.”

Oko swung out of formation, angling beneath Leech and then, careful as a mother hawk with a fledgling, rose slowly to meet him.

He can't treat us like a baby,
the Voice fumed.

Even though the dragons had been wrong abou Lee's motives, they had been right about his hot temper.

It's tough enough feuding with all dragon-kind. Now you want to pick a fight with Scirye's father?
Leech asked.
Did you know about all those ways to tell shifts in the wind?

Well, no,
the Voice admitted.

Leech could sense the Voice beginning to pout.
I have to treat him like the kid he is,
Leech thought to himself and then to the Voice he said,
You know a lot about flying, but Lord Tsirauñe knows more. If we don't listen to him, we might not live much longer.

Leech sensed a hunger in the Voice.
I want to do all the things I never got to do. If he can help us, then I say, “All right.”

As Leech carefully banked toward Oko, the Amazon caught him with one arm and slung him up behind her, all in one smooth motion.

Bayang yelled, “I wish you could teach me how to get him to listen to me.”

“I will when I get my stubborn daughter to do what I say,” Lord Tsirauñe shouted back and then squirmed. “Don't tickle me,” he scolded his daughter.

Scirye smiled politely. “I was merely adjusting my grip.”

My father would have hit me if I'd done something so disrespectful,
the Voice said.

At least you had a father,
Leech said.

Yes, but I might have lived longer without one,
the Voice said.

As Leech rode behind Oko, he thought over what he had just sensed from the Voice. The Voice could be so selfish sometimes, but that's what you had to expect from a small kid. And when the Voice said some of the vicious things it did, it wasn't because it was a cruel monster but because it was a small, frightened person who was desperate to live.

But how much could he tell Bayang about his suspicions? And how would she react?

Leaving the flying to Oko, he had a chance to think about what to do. He was still pondering the matter at sunset when they heard the voices moaning.

“Wazzat? Wazzat?” Koko demanded, twisting his head this way and that anxiously.

“We're nearing the Maenads' Pass,” Kles said.

“Those were the crazy woman who followed Di … Di…,” Leech struggled with the god's name.

“Dionysus,” Kles said.

“The one Princess Catisa warned us about,” Leech said.

Koko's eyes widened. “Is that the maenads' ghosts wailing?”

“No, the wall of the pass is honeycombed with the eyrie's tunnels,” Kles explained. “That's just the wind whistling through the passages.”

“Turning it into one big flute,” M
ā
ka said, nodding her understanding.

“Well, I would have put it more elegantly, but in effect, yes,” Kles agreed.

The higher they climbed, the louder the moaning grew. Leech kept telling himself that it was just the wind, but he couldn't help thinking that it sounded too mournful to be just a natural phenomenon. At any moment, Leech expected crazy-eyed spirits to leap out at them.

I don't like this place,
the Voice whimpered.

Leech thought of the Voice as a small frightened boy, crouching in the darkness. He wished he could have given him a hug, but all he could say was,
None of us do.

 

47

Scirye

The pass was about a half-mile wide, and as different as could be from the steppes, and yet the bleak terrain made her feel just as lonely and insignificant.

Seen from above, the snow-covered floor of the pass looked like a frosted cake, except for the ragged gash where Roland's men had dug a path for his truck convoy. And despite their prayers to Oesho, the winds tugged and pulled at them as if determined to unseat the riders. Sometimes the winds felt like invisible serpents coiling about them and then trying to yank them aloft.

It took all of the griffin master's skills to keep them more or less on course, and even he could not keep the griffins from veering the wrong way or plunging up and down as if on a roller coaster.