Chapter 13. The Stone is Tossed

The delicate scent of flowers, the freshness of dark earth, the cool of shade, and the warmth of color are the hallmarks of Danda-lay’s gardens. They are the most peaceful places in the world.

—Lasa, Tour the Sky City

Corry’s hands flew out instinctively, and he managed to catch hold of two bars of the railing of the balcony on which Capricia had stood. He could feel his fingers slipping. Someone was shouting behind him, and the next moment hands grasped his legs from below, and fauns he didn’t recognize hauled him onto the lower balcony. They were all patting him and making sure he wasn’t injured and saying things like, “Well, that was a near miss” and “No more wine for you, young sir!”

Turning, Corry saw Syrill leaning over the edge of the dancing platform.

Someone just tried to kill me. Corry had felt no fear while hanging from the balcony, but now he began shaking all over. Someone tried to push me over the edge. Looking down, he saw that, even from this story, the ground was deadly distant. “There, there,” an old fauness was guiding him to a bench. “Have a sit, and then go back to your room and lie down. I always said they should put railings on those platforms. A few shelts fall every year.”

I didn’t fall. I was pushed.

Several moments passed before Syrill was able to bull his way through the press up to the balcony. By the time he arrived, Corry was sitting alone. “Corellian, are you hurt?”

Corry shook his head. “Someone pushed me, Syrill.”

Syrill didn’t seem to hear. His face was pale. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the room.”

The long walk back to the palace helped Corry to calm down, and by the time they reached the room, he was no longer shaking.

“Syrill, someone tried to kill me!”

“I know,” muttered Syrill.

“Did you see who did it?”

“No. There were all kinds of creatures up there—cats, fauns, alligator shelts—”

“Centaurs?” asked Corry.

“I don’t remember seeing any.”

“Syrill, someone is trying to do something to Capricia. I had just finished talking to her when they tried to push me off. I think it may have happened because I was talking to her.”

“Capricia?” Syrill’s head came up sharply.

“Yes, she told me she was in trouble and that I needed to meet her tomorrow on the roof of the Unsoos at sunrise. She was afraid to talk in the plaza, and now I can see why. After she left, I saw Ounce following her.”

Syrill’s expression turned black. “I told her to stay away from them! Now they’re…they’re blackmailing her, perhaps. Or worse. If Capricia were to die, Lexis could perhaps maneuver a more cooperative or more stupid faun onto the throne. And if he were to hold her for ransom, Meuril would give practically anything.” Syrill began to pace. “Did she say anything else?”

“She said to come alone.”

“Hmmm… Do you know how to handle a sword, Corry?”

“A little.”

“Ever against a cat?”

“No.” Or a centaur, either.

“Would you be offended if I offered to come with you?”

“No, I’d be relieved, but Capricia—”

“Listen: you go tomorrow just as she said. I’ll take a walk of my own, earlier. Then I might just happen to drop by the Unsoos. If you get into any trouble, yell.”

Corry smiled. “Thank you, Syrill.”

* * * *

Corry slept fitfully that night. In his dreams, he was being attacked by an enormous blood-red centaur. It had wings like a pegasus, and all he had to fight with was a unicorn’s horn, which kept shrinking until it was no longer than a needle. He woke to the sound of Syrill’s voice. The faun was standing by the bed, fully clothed. A single candle burned on the bedside table. The drapes were still drawn, and no hint of light came from around their edges.

“I’m leaving now, Corellian.”

Syrill hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes when Corry started out of the palace. When he reached the courtyard, the water clock told him it was only a half past the second night watch—almost two hours until dawn. He passed a few merchants preparing their shop fronts. Corry could see lights in a few windows, and one or two street vendors were setting up in the pre-dawn chill. Corry could smell bread and pastries baking, but he still felt alone.

When he reached Port Ory, he found that a thick fog had risen from the river. Street lanterns and lighted windows inhabited fuzzy hallows of brightness surrounded by dense gloom. Corry was glad he had left early. The Unsoos sat on the bank of the Tiber-wan, and he passed it three times in the fog before he recognized it. By the time he found the door, the sky had brightened to a pearl gray, and the mist had sunk so that he could at least see the outlines of roofs above his head. Corry opened the door to the foyer and stepped into total blackness. “Hello?”

No one answered. They ought to keep some kind of light at the front desk. Is there no night clerk or watch shelt? Corry waited uneasily for several minutes, but when he heard no sound from the room and his eyes had adjusted enough to catch the glint off the banister, he let go of the door and groped his way to the stairs.

Click.

Corry stopped, heart pounding. He had distinctly heard the sound of a key turning in a lock. It came from one of the rooms, he told himself. It’s just a guest locking his door. But he knew better. The sound had come from the main door. Almost running, he bounded up the stairs, flight after flight until he came to the top. Corry pushed open the door to the roof and stepped out into the deer garden.

Instantly, the soft light of dawn broke around him. Up here, the mist was not nearly so thick. Corry shut the door with a sigh of relief and looked around. I should have made her specify where on the roof it meet, he realized. Corry wandered along the garden paths, becoming increasingly impatient. At last he called, “Capricia! Capricia, where are you? It’s Corry!”

His voice seemed to fall heavily in the moist air. The hair along the back of his neck rose, but when he turned around, he saw no one. Finally Corry rounded a corner and found himself on the edge of the building. The guardrail came only to his knees, and he stared past its polished surface into the misty city. He turned again to the garden. “Capr—!”

Not ten paces away stood a black leopard, head low, yellow eyes fixed on Corry.

At that moment he heard an answering call, soft, but urgent. “Corry? I’m over here. Keep your voice down. I think that we’ve been foll— AAAEEEHHHHH!”

Her scream made him jump. The cat sprang.

Corry dove to one side and pounded into the trees, shouting. “Syrill! Anyone! Help! Capricia!” He could hear a commotion somewhere to his right, and Capricia screamed again.

Corry blundered out of the shrubbery onto a footpath. Only then did it occur to him to draw his sword. Cursing himself, he ripped it from the scabbard and looked up and down the path. The leopard was nowhere in sight, but he could hear something in the underbrush. Then he saw Capricia. She was running down the path towards him at top speed with Lexis not six paces behind. Corry brandished his sword, but the tiger and the fauness shot past him. Capricia glanced over her shoulder. “Get out of here, Corellian! Go to Meuril; hurry!”

That’s lunacy, Capricia, you’d be dead by the time I get to Meuril! Corry looked back and saw Syrill sprinting after them with drawn sword. “Corry, get down to the street and get help. This is not going to end well. Go on, or you’ll be killed.”

Corry shook his head. “I think they’ve already locked us in. I heard—”

Another ear-splitting scream, followed by a great roar and snarling. Syrill sprang towards the sounds, and Corry followed. The faun was quicker, and Corry soon lost sight of him. Seconds later, he broke from the trees, again on the edge of the building. A short distance in front of him Corry saw Syrill and Ounce. The faun had drawn his sword, and the snow leopard’s lips rose above his gums, baring his long white teeth. Round and round they went, the cat lashing with its claws and Syrill with his sword.

Corry didn’t know what to do. Then a movement to his left attracted his attention. Lexis stood in the open grass between the railing and the trees. His white and black ruff bristled, and his lips rose in a snarl. Between his huge paws lay Capricia. Even from this distance, Corry could see that she was very still. Her brown hair fell in a cascade about her body like a broken doll’s.

Corry charged towards them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black leopard emerge from the shadow of the trees. He tried to turn, but the cat was already in the air, and then it’s weight punch into him. Corry felt the back of his knee smack the guardrail. The leg crumpled under him. He had a brief moment of satisfaction as he felt his sword enter flesh. Then it was jerked out of his hand as the leopard pushed away snarling, and he lost what little balance he had left. Corry got a brief, whirling image of several upright shapes hurtling out of the trees. Then he toppled backwards over the side of the building.

He had only enough time to wonder one thing: Am I over the river or the pavement?

Then he hit the water. Corry was conscious of scraping the bottom of the river, of turning over and over in the blackness, of swimming desperately for the surface and hitting his head on the bottom of a boat. Then he could no longer decide which way was up. He was drowning.

Next moment his head broke the surface and he gagged and spit water and gulped air. He was clinging to the slimy chain of a boat’s anchor. Gratefully, shivering, Corry began to climb up the chain. Something struck him in the kidneys, and he fell back with a cry. Corry caught a brief glimpse of a long, scaly tail. An alligator. Then it hit him again, and he lost his grip.

Corry slipped once more into the current, but this time he kept his head. He had already lost his boots, and he was able to tread water. He tried to swim towards shore or at least get hold of a boat or anchor chain, but each time, the alligator cut him off and sent him spinning back into midstream. It did not attempt to attack him or to bite him, but it would not let him gain the shore. The river looked much broader from eyelevel than it had looked from the bank, and the fog was dense. “Help!” he shouted. “Somebody help me! I’m in the river!”

But either no one heard him or no one could find him in the fog. The current quickened. Corry heard a gushing hiss, growing ever louder.

No! I didn’t come through all this to die now. He struck out hard for the shore, cutting across the current. He could just see the bank. His mind’s eyes described for him the things he could not see in the fog: the bridge arching over the river high above him. Perhaps even now shelts stood there talking as he and Syrill had talked yesterday morning.

Confused lights danced along the shore. Soon he would be in sight of shelts and then surely the alligator would not dare to keep harassing him. The creature was just playing with him. It was a joke, a cruel joke, but not a serious one. Perhaps it would even tow him to shore now that it had him so close to the waterfall.

Smack!

This time it picked him up bodily in its jaws and flung him back into midstream. He thought he saw a shelt rise out of the water on its back, and he thought he heard a voice float after him, “Give our regards to Danda-lay, iteration!”

And then he saw the bars. Looming up out of the fog ahead, the water seething white around them. Yes, the bars, thought Corry. I’ll grab one as I go by. Soon the sun will come up and burn off this mist, and then someone is bound to see me.

He steeled himself, trying to quiet his body in the chilly water, flexing his fingers. The bars were much larger than they had looked from the bridge, big around as the mast of a ship. Closer. Corry’s hands shot out. He wrapped his arms around a bar, then his legs. The current tore at him. He gasped. He could feel slime on the bar—slipping. “Help!” he shouted and got a mouthful of water. He clenched his whole body, but the current was prying him loose as a child might tease a shellfish off a rock.

Then Corry was free in the water, his muscles spasming. For the third time in two watches, he fell from a deadly height. This time, no one caught him.