Pendant of Fortune (28 page)

“
You told me.” They were running abreast again, and down the side of the mountain Volle could see the town of Ikling, red-roofed amidst the green and yellow fields. It was quite pretty, and he wished he could lose himself in it rather than go back up the mountain to the castle and face Dereath. He still wasn’t sure he could bring himself to agree to the rat’s terms.

The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t see what course to take. He discarded plan after elaborate plan to distract the guards and get into the cell, because he kept reminding himself that the door would be locked. He briefly wondered whether he could get in through the tower roof, then scoffed at himself. There has to be another way, he told himself, but he couldn’t think of one.

By the time they finished the second circuit of the mansion, his legs were tired and he had stopped thinking. He vaguely registered that a second buggy sat outside the mansion gates, but he didn’t look at it, just rested with his paws on his thighs and his head down and said, “Hef, what am I going to do?”

The weasel, likewise panting, said, “Go down to Ikling, I suspect.”

“
Wha—” He wondered for a moment whether he’d voiced his wish to go to the town aloud, and then he saw Lord Dewanne walking toward them.

“
Lord Vinton. Lord Ikling.” The fox was dressed informally for once, in a loose tunic and undyed pants. He still held his tail arched and walked like a noble, despite his casual clothes. “I thought I’d come up in person to see the mansion. I’d heard a lot about it but only saw it in passing.”

Helfer looked warily at Dewanne as Volle straightened up. “I was just getting in some exercise, Dewanne,” Volle said. “Let me go clean up, and I’ll be right with you.” He didn't want to go to the spa today, and hoped that with a little more time he could think of a way to get out of it.

“
Don’t be silly. You’re fine, and besides, you’re just going to be getting wet again. No point in cleaning up now. Here, I brought a spare tunic because I wasn’t sure you had anything suitable.” He tossed a tunic to Volle. “Don’t want to be leaving expensive clothes lying around the spa.”

Volle caught the tunic and examined it as Helfer said, “My people aren’t thieves.”

“
Of course not,” Dewanne said. “But there are thieves about.”

Helfer glanced at Volle, then back at Dewanne, and didn’t say anything. Volle held the tunic out to Dewanne. “I do have my own, but thank you. Let me just go get it.”

“
Actually, Vinton, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to leave as soon as we can. I left Delia by herself, and Ilyana had promised to be there by the time I left.” His tail’s tip twitched. “I told her I’d be right back.”

Volle sighed and slipped the tunic over his head. “All right.”

As he was pulling it down, he heard Helfer say, “So what do you think of the mansion?” His tone was slightly belligerent, but Volle wasn’t sure Dewanne would notice. Even though he’d known Helfer for five years, he could barely tell.

“
It’s nice,” Dewanne said. Volle adjusted the tunic, noticing that Dewanne was appraising the mansion as he talked. His ears were still perked up, so he wasn’t reacting to Helfer’s tone at all. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before. The houses in Ikling are similar, but not on that scale.”

“
We like it,” Helfer said, less angrily than before. Volle suspected that he was having trouble staying mad at Dewanne because the fox was so blithely unaware that he was giving offense.

“
All right, Hef,” he said, stepping to the weasel and putting a paw on his shoulder. “I’ll see you later tonight. Thanks for the talk.”

“
Anytime,” Helfer said, patting Volle on the hip. “Just relax, okay? Don’t get so overexcited about it.”

“
I’ll try. I’m having trouble relaxing these days.”

“
The spa will help with that,” Dewanne said, walking back to the buggy. Volle followed him and got in after him.

“
So you really like this place?” He waved to Helfer as the buggy pulled away from the mansion.

“
It’s not the best we’ve been to, but it’s adequate. Delia likes it.”

“
How’s she feeling?” Volle only asked the question because he knew full well that Dewanne would spend the remainder of the half-hour ride detailing his wife’s latest ailments (a small but persistent cough, headaches, and rheumatism—that last was a new one that Volle suspected was a reaction to not having visited a steam spa in many years). He listened with one ear, nodded politely, and watched the scenery going by. Whatever he might decide to do, he would have to do tomorrow. He probably wouldn’t be able to get away from Dewanne until that night.

To get to Burning Waters, they drove all the way through the city to the other side, and by the time they arrived, the combination of the lower altitude and the higher sun had made the buggy uncomfortably hot. Both foxes were panting, but Volle let Dewanne exit first. The older fox nodded in thanks, waved an instruction to the driver, and padded quickly for the entrance to the spa.

Volle took a moment to look around. A low brick wall, with a large stone archway beneath which Dewanne was now passing, surrounded the resort. The ground was dusty and surprisingly bare of greenery. Or maybe not so surprising, considering the strong sulfurous tang in the air. His nose wrinkled, but the scent was not entirely unpleasant. The warm dirt felt good on his paws as he followed Dewanne inside.

“
Smell takes a little getting used to,” Dewanne said when Volle caught up to him. “But it’s not bad.”

“
I’ve smelled worse,” Volle agreed. The inside of the compound featured a number of low-sitting buildings, flat-roofed, that gleamed whitely in the sun. The heat and the brightness of the buildings and ground made Volle feel as though he had traveled hundreds of miles from the cold, rainy castle walls last night. Still tired from his run, the heat had him panting again as he and Dewanne approached one of the taller buildings. Volle saw the symbol of Canis on the side of the door, painted in some brownish tint. He glanced around at the other buildings, but couldn’t make out any marks on them. The lower ones, he supposed, were for mustelids or rodents, and the tallest one, to his right, was either for the ursids or the herbivores. They weren’t in the canonical order, unless he was mistaken about the heights and the ursids they had around here were all raccoons.

He expected darkness as he walked inside, but looked up to see skylights in the roof, which kept the interior bright. The smell of sulfur grew stronger too, even though he couldn’t see any of the pools for which he assumed the resort had been named.

A young male weasel dressed only in shorts smiled at them as they entered. “Lord Dewanne. Welcome back. Your wife is in the third pool with her guest.” He turned to Volle. “And this is your guest?” His accent was thick and marked.

“
Yes. Lord Vinton.”

The weasel bowed. “A great pleasure to have your noble presence grace our humble resort, sahr.” He carried several towels slung across his arm that hung almost to the ground, and he offered one to Volle.

Volle took it and inclined his head to the weasel. “Thank you.” The weasel grinned back at him, and Volle flicked an ear. Something in the weasel’s scent told him that if he wanted them, other services could be available. He was very fit and cute, in a weaselish sort of way, sort of like a younger Helfer with lighter fur, and he was eyeing Volle with a look and a pose that said that he was getting similar messages from Volle’s scent.

It was a tempting thought, considering how long it had been since Volle had had any contact (
an afternoon in the rain
), but he didn’t think he really wanted to indulge here, and Dewanne wouldn’t approve anyway. Normally that wouldn’t bother Volle, but he was a guest of the older fox. He smiled politely to the weasel and then turned back to Dewanne, who was waiting at the doorway to the third pool. After a moment’s pause to test the scents of the air and see if he recognized any of the other residents of the various pools (he couldn’t make out their scents over the sulfur, though he could tell there were others there), he joined Dewanne and held the curtain aside for the other fox to enter.

The first thing Volle noticed as he walked in was the sulfurous smell, even stronger here and now bordering on unpleasant. He wrinkled his nose, but as he did he noticed that although Dewanne was standing just in front of him, he could barely smell him. Beyond the little room they had entered was a larger room in which two foxes lay in a pool of steaming water, and despite the fact that they were only thirty feet away, Volle had to guess that they were Ilyana and Lady Dewanne. He couldn’t smell them at all, nor could he see them clearly through the steam. Further along the pool, a solitary wolf or coyote rested in the water.

He closed his eyes for a moment and was surprised by the sense of privacy he felt. Normally he could smell other people around him or recently near, but the sulfur overwhelmed all that, and the tiled walls and large spaces of the pool hall played with the sounds he heard, so that he could believe they were coming from far away and that there was nobody near him.

Lord Dewanne had his tunic off and was smiling at Volle when he opened his eyes. “Nice, isn’t it?” he said. “Close your eyes and you’re alone.” He slipped his pants off without any trace of embarrassment and inclined his head toward the pool. “Come join us when you’re ready.”

Volle watched him walk naked to the poolside, bend and say something to a figure Volle assumed was his wife, then slide into the water opposite the two vixens. He smiled to himself. Dewanne had always seemed a little bit stuffy, but given the right environment, he could apparently loosen up some—though not all the way; he noticed that the older fox’s tail was curled modestly around his waist, beneath his paunch. Volle smiled, stripped off his own clothes and left them piled on the bench beside Dewanne’s.

He had barely taken two steps after Dewanne when he heard the patter of footsteps to his right. The sound stopped abruptly and he found himself ten feet from the small form of Volyan. The cub was looking right at him, but didn’t seem to recognize him. Volle smiled and knelt down just as Ilyana called over, “Don’t you remember your father, Voly?”

The cub took a few steps forward, sniffing the air, clearly disoriented by the sulfur, then smiled and padded the rest of the way, throwing his arms open. Even though he was clearly soaked through, Volle accepted the hug and then let go, giving him a lick on his small nose. Volyan giggled, his tail wagging. “Hi, Daddy,” he said. “This place is hot and it makes my fur sticky.”

“
Mine too.” Volle rubbed his arms and chest where the cub had pressed against him. “Why don’t you go back in the water?”

“
I got hot and Mommy said I had to get out for a bit.”

“
He was panting,” Ilyana called over.

“
You feel pretty warm,” Volle said.

“
You don’t.” Volyan smiled at him and then looked him up and down.

Volle noticed the cub’s gaze pass over his sheath and then flick downwards to his own groin, and vague memories flashed through his mind of seeing older boys naked at the pools in the city. Back then, of course, he hadn’t been interested except in how they compared to him, and he suspected Volyan’s thoughts ran only along those lines. He patted the cub’s ears and smiled. “No, I’m not. So I’m going to go sit in the water for a while. You can come talk to me if you want.”

“
Okay!” The cub padded happily behind him, feet making little wet slapping sounds on the tile floor. Volle waved to Ilyana and Lady Dewanne and walked over to where Lord Dewanne was relaxing in the water. He was sitting on a bench, it seemed, though it was a rather low one; his chin was just above the water. His head rested against the inside of a graceful arch that began flush with the pool, met the ceiling at its apex, and descended to meet the pool on the other side where Lady Dewanne and Ilyana were. A similar arch began just to the left of the entrance to the room and descended to the other side; Volle had to walk behind it to join Dewanne. In front of it sat a pair of coyotes, talking to each other in low tones; because of the arch, he hadn’t been able to see them from the changing room.

“
Hello, Volyan,” Dewanne said as they approached. “Do you remember me?”

“
Uh-huh. You’re Lord D’wan.”

“
Dewanne.” But he was smiling as he corrected the cub.

“
Duwan.”

“
Close enough. Volle, come on in.” He gestured toward the water next to him, and Volle saw the bench more clearly now. He slid into the water, gasping at first as the heat touched his pads, and again when it soaked through his fur. Halfway in, his sac hanging just above the water, he hesitated.

Dewanne chuckled at him. “Just go all the way in.”

“
Easy for you to say,” Volle retorted, but lowered himself into the water. The heat stung his sheath at first, but that faded into a pleasant warmth all over. The bench, he thought as he sat, was probably designed to accommodate any canid. His chin actually touched the water when he sat down.