The Fugitive Prince (Bell Mountain) (12 page)

“We might as well go home,” Jack said. “There’s not much we can do here.”

“Fnaa will have to get out of bed soon and take up some of the duties of the king,” Gurun said. “We were hoping you would help him.”

“Maybe we’ll be back soon,” Ellayne said.

That night Wytt busied himself in sniffing out Ryons’ trail, beginning at the door of the bedchamber. He darted from shadow to shadow like a rat, hiding from servants and bodyguards. It was late, and most of the people in the palace were in bed.

Very little remained of Ryons’ scent. But there was another scent that went along with it, starting a few steps from the bedroom door, that the Omah followed eagerly. He could not have told you what kind of scent it was—just something mysterious, that elated him and made him want to know more. He thought it might be the scent of the shining man that the dogs and birds had seen; yet he hadn’t been able to detect it inside the bedchamber. The anomaly sharpened his interest.

He followed it all through the palace. Outside, he picked up Cavall’s scent and followed it out the city gate and down to the river. That was as far as he could go: it seemed the dog and Ryons had gone into the river. He scurried back to the palace, woke Ellayne in her bed, and told her all about it.

In the morning Gurun saw them off, making sure their packs were loaded with provisions and their pockets with money.

“I have already sent your letter on ahead of you, Ellayne,” she said, “and I sent a letter of my own with it, telling your father that you have performed an important service to the king, but begging him not to ask you what it was. I don’t want him to be very angry with you—as my father will be with me, if I ever see him again.

“The fewer who know our secret, the better. I wish you would let me send you home in a carriage, with a soldier for an escort.”

“Thanks, but we won’t need it,” Ellayne said. “It’s very peaceful all along the river, and the weather has been so fine. Besides, we like hiking.”

Gurun let them go. Had they been older, they might have guessed they hadn’t entirely deceived her. But the ferry service took them to the south bank of the river, and instead of following the road, they plunged into the reeds and pools beside the river and let Wytt out of Ellayne’s pack. He whistled impatiently.

“Yes, yes—you won’t be stuck in the pack for a while now,” Ellayne answered him. “Now we’re on the other side of the river. See if you can pick up Ryons’ trail.”

He gave her a big piece of his mind, but soon set out through the tall grass, sniffing it and peering at the roots. The children got their feet wet and muddy, and more than a few bug bites, following him.

By and by they came to a place where the reeds thinned out and the river had piled up a smooth, pebbly beach. A rowboat lay baking in the sun. Wytt hopped inside it and chirped triumphantly.

“Boy and dog were here!” he reported.

“So they crossed the river in this boat,” Jack said. “Can you follow them from here, Wytt?”

“Dog makes strong smell—easy to follow,” Wytt answered.

“We just might do it!” Jack said, as Wytt led them away from the boat—and away from the road, too, in a southeasterly direction. “As long as it doesn’t rain and wash out the trail, and as long as we aren’t caught by bandits, we just might catch the king.”

“I hope it’s not bad luck to say a thing like that,” Ellayne said. “But at least,” she thought, “we’re doing something.”

Chapter 15

How Ryons Escaped the Bandits

Angel, the hawk, found her master the king and recognized Cavall when she saw him. But they were traveling with a man, a stranger, and a gigantic bird that didn’t fly. Angel stayed high up in the sky where she was safe, content to follow Ryons. She didn’t care how much time passed. She wouldn’t come down while that man was with him.

“There’s a hawk up there, been following us all day,” Perkin said, as he and Ryons trekked across the plain. It was their second day together. Cavall and Baby were at peace with one another, although neither got too close to the other.

Ryons looked up and just barely made out a little black dot circling overhead. He almost blurted out, “I have a hawk,” but didn’t. “Why should a hawk want to follow us?” he asked.

“It’s not something a hawk would normally do,” Perkin said. “You don’t see many of them out here on the plains. Buzzards are more likely: looking to feed on something that’s died. But hawks prefer wooded country.”

“How far are we from Lintum Forest?”

“Still four or five days, if the good weather holds.”

Ryons liked Perkin, partly because the man asked so few questions, sparing him the work of inventing lies. Had he been a little older, the man’s lack of curiosity would have struck him as strange.

Perkin was deadly with his sling. He killed a plump rabbit for their supper, dropped it with a single stone when it was a good fifty paces from them and scampering around. He bagged another rabbit for Cavall and some strange kind of animal that he gave to Baby. It looked like an overgrown woodchuck or an under grown bear.

“I’ve seen a lot of strange animals, the last two years or so,” he said. “They all seem to be coming up from the South. I wonder what made them move.”

Obst said it was God who’d brought the strange animals into the country as a sign of the times, a sign of change. “He will not let the world remain the way it is,” Obst said. “He brought down the Temple and He made you a king. And it’s only the beginning.”

Around the middle of the afternoon, Baby grew restive. He pranced around with his head held high, yellow eyes glaring, tiny wings fidgeting.

“He smells something that he doesn’t like,” Perkin said. “Bandits on horseback, probably.”

“But Cavall hasn’t scented anything,” Ryons said.

“These big birds have better sniffers than any dog. Besides, they’re higher off the ground and get a better taste of the wind.”

But then Cavall barked; he’d caught a scent, too. Perkin surprised Ryons by lying down on his belly and pressing an ear to the ground.

“Horsemen, all right,” he said, “and plenty of ’em, too.” He pushed himself up onto his knees. “Too many for the four of us.”

“What’ll we do?” Ryons cried: for the Thunder King had sworn to burn his eyes out and throw him into a dungeon forever. He couldn’t help remembering that more often than he liked.

“We can hurry to a place I know and go underground. Come on.”

Ryons couldn’t possibly keep up with the long-legged wanderer, so Perkin scooped him up and made him ride piggyback. Cavall stopped barking, but all the hair along his back was standing up, which meant the brigands were getting closer.

Perkin ran toward a low, grassy hill, not really high enough to be a hill at all. Ink bushes grew all around it.

At the base of the hill, the man forced his way through the bushes. Ryons saw a black hole in front of them. Perkin put him down and said, “Crawl in—the dog, too. I’ll be right behind you.”

“What about Baby?”

“He won’t fit. His speed will save him.” He turned to the bird and made a harsh sound. Baby squawked once and ran away; and Ryons crawled into the hole.

After the bright sunlight on the plain, he couldn’t see a thing. Instead of dirt, his hands made contact with something as hard as stone and as smooth as glass. Jack and Ellayne had told him about places like this; they’d been in some of them. They were places left over from ancient times. In one such place they’d met Wytt; but Ryons didn’t like the thought of running into wild Omah in the dark, underground. All he could do was to keep crawling and hope for the best. He heard Cavall behind him, panting, his claws clicking against the slick surface.

“Just in time,” Perkin said, somewhere behind him. “I can’t see them all, but there must be at least twenty riders out there. Be quiet now and keep on crawling—and don’t let the dog bark.”

Cavall wasn’t the kind of dog who barked at the wrong time. Ryons wished he could turn around and see. Before he could try, his hands shot out from under him and he slid down an incline. Somehow he managed not to cry out.

He didn’t slide far. It was over before he realized what had happened. He slid hands-first into a wall, and only just missed a nasty knock in the head. And then he discovered that it wasn’t dark around him anymore.

He was in some kind of chamber. Overhead, a round hole let in the light. It also let in the sound of horses’ hooves and men’s voices. He heard someone call out in Wallekki, “It’s no use, they must have gone another way—we’ve lost them.”

Ryons lay perfectly still. If he could hear the bandits, they would hear him if he made enough noise. He saw Cavall’s head and shoulders emerge from a narrow tunnel. Slipping and skidding, the dog slid into the chamber and sat down next to Ryons. There they stayed until they heard no more sound of men or horses.

“Stay there,” Perkin called. “I’ll make sure they’re gone.”

Ryons let out a sigh. His muscles were in knots without him knowing it, and now they relaxed. Now, too, he took some note of his surroundings.

There was just enough space for him to stand. He could touch the ceiling, but the hole was at the end of a circular shaft. A chimney? But no—this was too small for any kind of living space. It was empty, too. Ryons looked for writing on the walls, or pictures, but there wasn’t any.

Perkin came sliding down the tunnel and landed feet first. He was too tall to stand up in here.

“They’re gone,” he said.

“What is this place?” asked Ryons. “We would’ve been trapped if they’d seen us go in. They could have smoked us out like bees.”

“Good thinking, Ryons—you’ve got a head on your shoulders.” Perkin patted his arm. “But I know something about this place that nobody else knows. Stand aside.”

He crawled to the opposite wall, felt around until he found something, and suddenly slid it down like the lid of a jewel box. This revealed a dark shaft, and on the far wall of the shaft, the rungs of a ladder.

“See?” he said. “If we’d had to, we would have climbed down that ladder. The rungs are bolted to the shaft. I’d have pushed up this panel again, and they never would’ve found us.”

“But how did you ever find the secret passage?”

“I’ve spent a few nights here in bad weather. I get curious about things. I looked around, and felt around, until I found the sliding panel. I knew there had to be more to this place than what I saw.”

“What’s down there?” Ryons asked. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shaft.

“If you want to climb down with me, I’ll show you.”

“Won’t it be too dark to see anything?”

“You’ll see.”

Perkin maneuvered himself into the shaft, which took some doing, and began to climb down the ladder. “We’ll be back,” Ryons told Cavall, and followed Perkin down the shaft.

The rungs were made of iron or steel, and so firmly attached to the wall that they didn’t move at all. It was dark in the shaft, but not quite as dark as the darkest moonless night in the middle of a forest. Ryons climbed carefully, and with each step of his descent, it seemed just a little bit less dark. He climbed for what seemed a very long time before his feet touched a floor; and by then he could just make out Perkin waiting for him.

“Where does the light come from?” he wondered.

Perkin pointed upward. Ryons looked and saw a high ceiling studded with what looked like an uncountable host of little stars; but they weren’t by any means as bright as stars.

“I don’t know what those are,” Perkin said. “I haven’t found a way to climb up and get a closer look at them. All I know is, they give just enough light to see by.

“This is one of those places left over from old times, before the Day of Fire. It’s big—almost like an underground city. I don’t know how big it is. I’ve only explored a tiny bit of it. I’ve found some dead men’s bones, here and there. I’ve heard rats, although I’ve never seen them. There may be treasure down here, or there may be nothing. I think it would take a long time to explore this place.”

Ryons slowly turned, trying to see everything he could. Tall, rectangular columns supported the ceiling. The vast floor, what he could see of it, was bare. Except for their voices, silence reigned here. A Wallekki would have called this place the palace of a djinn, and died of fright. But in the wordless awe that filled the boy’s heart, fright had to stand aside, powerless to move him.