Nightpool (6 page)

They had not traveled far over the rough
shingle when Garit moved his horse up beside Teb. It was lighter
now, for the clouds were blowing away, and the pale constellations
of Mimmilette and Casscassonne shone above the ridge. Garit leaned
down as if to study the gait of Teb’s mount.

“Your horse has gone lame; can’t you feel
it? Picked up a stone, likely. Pull him up and let’s have a look.
Go on, Hibben. We’ll catch up.”

Teb and Garit dismounted as the others moved
ahead, and soon stood alone as Garit lifted the gelding’s near
front foot.

“I didn’t feel him go lame,” Teb
whispered.

“Shh. He’s not. I wanted you alone. Now
listen well. I am going to give you some instructions pretty soon,
in front of the others. I don’t want you to follow them.”

Teb nodded, puzzled.

“What I do want you to do is this. Go to the
caves of Nison-Serth as I will tell you. But go on through them,
clear through and out the other side, above the Bay of Dubla. Make
sure there is no one on the coast to see you, stay hidden, get down
the coast and back into Auric. Stay near the shore; keep to the
brush and rocks. You can get into Bleven all right, but do it at
night. Go directly to the cottage of Merlther Brish on the back
street. You’ll know it by the big dray horses in the side yard and
the pile of barrels and the smell of malt—he’s the brewer. Give him
this note.” Garit pressed a piece of paper into Teb’s hand. “He
will hide you. You are to stay there, Teb. Safely hidden. You are
to wait there until I can bring you an army. Merlther will do the
best he can for you.”

Teb stared at Garit in disbelief.

“You will retake Auric one day. I promise
you. I will bring you all the armed men I can muster.”

“But how can I stay there so long and not be
discovered? For years, until I grow up? So close to the palace
. . . just stay—with a stranger?”

“He is your subject, Teb. Merlther will take
the best care of you. And there are ways of hiding someone—cellars
no one has seen, passages between the houses . . .”

“I never heard of—”

“Such things can be built in four years.
Auric, young prince, has taken a lesson from Ebis the Black. Auric,
too, will rise again. Do you think I got myself sent down to the
coast for nothing? All it took was a little judicious criticism, a
little too much complaining. I know my value as horsemaster well
enough to be pretty sure he wouldn’t kill or imprison me, just get
me out of his hair. And he did need the colts from down there. Now
mount up, lad, before they get curious. I don’t trust any of them,
except Pakkna. But they all wanted to be free of Sivich. Maybe
they’re all right—time will tell me.”

“But you—what will you . . .
?”

“We’ll get away. When Sivich trails us, it
will not be you he follows, but us. And we’ll lose him all
right.”

“What about the jackals? Did you kill
them?”

“Only one. I couldn’t find the other two in
the dark; they dropped down to sleep somewhere, full of
deermoss.”

“How long will they sleep?”

“Eight or ten hours.”

“The men, too?”

“Yes. You should be deep in the caves by
that time, maybe through them.”

It was not long after they joined the others
that Garit called a second halt, and the riders moved close
together, their horses nosing one another, as Garit gave Teb the
false instructions. They had moved up behind boulders now, where
sight and sound were shielded from the plain below. Starlight
touched the cliffs, and now Teb could see that the sixth rider was
a tall, thin soldier called Sabe, a pale, saturnine man whom Teb
had never liked. Six riders and seven horses, the seventh laden
with pack. Garit put a gentle hand on Teb’s shoulder.

“Sivich’s men will follow us as soon as they
wake and see we’re gone. There was no way to hide our tracks in the
wet meadow. They will follow our trail, Teb. You must leave us now.
You must go to the caves of Nison-Serth and hide there. Pakkna
tells me you know the caves well.”

Teb nodded.

Garit pulled at his red beard. “The plan is
this. You will go on foot from here up across the rocks, where you
will leave no trail. You will wait in the caves of Nison-Serth and
watch the meadow and the camp from there.

“You must wait until Sivich has sent out his
trackers and the two jackals after us and has himself moved on
toward Baylentha. I don’t think I misjudge; I think he will take
the main party there, he’s that eager for the dragon. He’ll want
the troops who trail us to kill us, all but you, and bring you
there to him.

“When the meadows are clear of him, you must
move down across the border to Ratnisbon at night, and seek safe
sanctuary from Ebis the Black. He will be happy indeed to shelter
the Prince of Auric, for he has no love for Sivich, as you well
know.”

Teb nodded again and swallowed. Who among
this group did Garit not trust, that he must lay a false trail?
Hibben? Sabe? Surely not Lervey; he was only a boy, hardly older
than Teb himself.

“It will be well if we leave a clue or two
for Sivich’s trackers,” Garit said. “We have a length of chain for
Lervey to wear when we camp, to drag through the dirt, for his feet
are like in size to yours. If you will take off your tunic, Teb, I
have a clean one for you in my pack. Yours will carry your scent
with us, for the jackals.”

Teb stripped off his brown cloth tunic. It
smelled pretty high, all right. He’d worn it a long time. He put on
the leather one Garit offered. It was warmer and well made, though
very big for him.

Garit settled his horse, which had begun to
paw. “You’d best go, Teb. Climb from the saddle onto the boulders
so you make no trail. Stay atop them along the ridge to the caves.
Here, we’ve fixed you a pack. Rope, knife and some cord, food,
candles and flint and a lamp. A waterskin.”

Teb climbed from the back of his horse up
the boulder, then reached down for the pack and waterskin and slung
them over his shoulder. Garit gave his hand a parting squeeze. He
stood watching as the riders turned away and faded into the night,
the sound of hooves growing quickly softer, then gone.

He turned and made his way alone toward
Nison-Serth.

He would be safe in Nison-Serth. He moved
toward it eagerly, feeling ahead of him in the darkness where, even
in the starlight, shadows could be chasms. Nison-Serth would
shelter him. He thought of his mother there, how she had loved its
beauty, and it seemed to him that something of his mother beckoned
to him now, a power of calm protection linked with the power of the
caves.

Clouds blew across the moon, so he had to go
more slowly in the dark and feel ahead carefully. He fingered the
pack and felt the reassuring hard curve of the candle lamp inside.
He longed to light it. He could imagine carrying the thick glass
chimney before him to show him the way and to warm his cold
hands.

But it would be a deadly beacon to draw
Sivich. Well, if he lost his way or the going got too rocky and
difficult, he would sleep among the boulders and go at first light,
before anyone could see him from below. He imagined the great stone
entrance of Nison-Serth, its rough triangular arch of pale stone,
and tried to guess how far ahead it was. It would be hard to miss.
He could picture the two standing boulders inside carved with the
ancient pictures of animals and birds.

Twice he heard a noise like something
slipping along behind him, and went cold with the thought of the
jackals.

But they were drugged; surely they were
drugged. He hurried ahead, scrambling and slipping. He had to climb
higher now, around a steep drop. He could not remember this part of
the cliffs near to Nison-Serth. He was tempted to light the
lantern, shield it with his pack. He climbed again, then found a
way down, afraid he would go too high and miss the entry. Just when
he thought he had missed it, there it was, towering before him in
the night, a pale vaulting arch pushing at the sky. He slipped
inside.

He stood staring into the darkness, touching
the carved boulders for reassurance; then he moved farther in, past
them, feeling out into the darkness. He was not afraid here. He
thought the caves welcomed him. He yawned, very sleepy suddenly. He
groped on in the darkness, feeling the walls and remembering the
curves, and the way he must go, knowing he could not light the
candle until he was well away from the portal.

Deeper in, there were two tunnels so narrow
and low that not even a jackal could get through. He hoped he still
could. He and Camery had explored there, with ropes tied around
their waists, so their parents could pull them out if they got
stuck. Camery had called one the crawling tunnel, because you could
go on hands and knees, and the other the wriggling tunnel, where
you went belly-down, pressed in by the stone. He did not look
forward to that, but it would stop any jackal.

Teb knelt, found a candle in the pack by
feel and fitted it into the lamp, then struck flint. The cave walls
leaped and twisted around him in the flickering light. He clamped
on the glass chimney, then pushed deeper into the grotto. But at
the great cave he paused. He knew he must stop here, must see the
painted animals.

He shone his light in and saw them leap up
as if they had just sprung to life, the rearing black unicorn
seeming to paw and turn, the pale foxes to slip deeper into the
stone. Even in the paintings, the animals’ intelligence showed
clearly. The way they held themselves, their expressions, showed
they were quite aware of their places in time, in the world, and in
the scheme of life. The sentient, speaking animals were aware of
death, too, his mother had said, and so were capable of
understanding the meaning of all life. The ordinary animals, living
only for the moment, did not deal with such meanings, and knew
death only at the instant it struck them.

Teb thought he would like to sleep in here,
among the pictures of these knowing creatures. But he went on. He
turned from the great cave reluctantly, robing the animals in
darkness once more, and went quickly, deeper in, toward the
crawling tunnel. When he reached it he tied the pack and waterskin
to rope, and tied that around his waist so they would drag behind
him. He went into the low hole on his hands and knees, pushing the
lamp ahead.

Crawl and push, crawl and push, the lamp a
yellow pool drawing him on. He thought of the other children who
had crawled here, generations gone, before there was need to flee
from soldiers, children playing tag with the foxes. He was through
at last and pushing past a row of small den caves; then his light
found the mouth of the wriggling tunnel. How small it looked, so
very low.

He lay down full length, pushed the lamp
ahead, and slid in. It was tight. He had grown. He wriggled and
pushed, and dragged himself ahead, the walls pressing in. He could
get stuck here. He could panic as Camery had panicked once.

He was soon very hot and uncomfortably
thirsty. He could not reach behind him for the waterskin. He pushed
deeper; the stone pressed his shoulders and arms. He began to sweat
under the weight of the stone. He wanted to thrust it away, pushing
at it with his elbows, sweating harder, his heart pounding; then at
last he lay still.

But he must go on. The middle was the
smallest; it couldn’t be much farther. He inched forward,
squeezing, his clothes catching on the stone. So hot, the walls
pressing in and in . . . Sweat ran down inside the heavy
leather tunic and matted his hair. He pushed ahead an inch, another
inch. Why had he come this far? He could never back up, never. He
was trapped here. He wanted to scream out and pound with his fists
but could hardly move his arms.

Then suddenly his outstretched hands felt
the walls give way, felt only space as the tunnel ended; and with
one final, straining shove, he shot out into the free, open
cave.

He stood up, sucking in air, then stretched
tall. He untied the pack and waterskin and drank, then stripped off
the hot tunic. He pulled off his boots and pants, working them free
of the chain. He stood naked and free, and only then able to
breathe again, fully.

Then very carefully, to see if he could, he
slid into the tunnel again, feet first, slipped back a little way,
then out again. Yes, it was easier naked. Scratchy, though. But he
knew he could get back all right, with his clothes off. He took up
the light and followed it into the first of the small den caves.
Here he drank again, then began to shiver in the cave’s chill. He
pulled on his clothes and lay down with his head on the pack. It
was then he remembered Garit’s note and pulled it from his pocket.
He held it close to the flame, but the words were only rows of
marks. He picked out his own name, nothing more. What if his life
were to depend on his ability to read such a message?

He was nearly asleep when he thought he
should blow out the candle, but knew he could not sleep in the
pitch dark that night, even if fire ate air. Besides, there were
small open portals in the caves higher up, and all these caves were
connected. He turned over, sprawling on the cold stone floor, and
gave in at last to sleep.

He did not know he was watched, and had been
watched since well before he climbed off his horse onto the
boulders.

When they were sure the boy slept deeply,
the foxes slipped into the cave, wary only of the burning lamp, and
stood watching him and drinking in his scent. Twelve pale
foxes.

They had started following Garit’s band when
first the six riders came up off the meadow onto the stony ridge,
followed and observed and listened. They knew everything Garit had
said, both to the group and to Teb alone. They understood quite
well who Teb was, son of the King of Auric, but to make sure they
crowded close, now, around him and nosed softly at his arm until,
in sleep, he turned it, so they could see the mark.