ROAD TO CORDIA (31 page)

     “Really? You said you could identify him.”

     O’Keeven, catching the unspoken implications, studied the wolf intently. “Yesss, I would say it’s the same wolf. Same color, same size, same gold ring on its toe.” Both men stared at the wolf’s right front paw.

     “So it’s true,” said Lord Raptor. “Those of The Clan of the Golden Wolf really are shape changers.”

     “Strictly speaking,” said O’Keeven, “I’ve never actually seen him change.”

     Lord Raptor tossed some gold and red colored coins on the floor. “Get out,” he said to O’Keeven.

     O’Keeven’s dark handsome face hardened for a moment, then resumed his usual cheerful expression. He carefully picked up all the coins. The last one was near Ja’Nil’s feet. She backed up to get away from him.

     He jiggled the coins in his hand, winked at her, and moved to the door. “If I can be of any further assistance, my Lord,” he said to Lord Raptor.

     “Get out.”

     O’Keeven left.

     Lord Raptor moved closer to the wolf, but stayed safely beyond the wolf’s reach. “So you creatures really do exist.”

     The wolf snarled at him.

     “I wonder why you don’t change back into human form. Why is that?”

     Another wolf snarl.

     “Why is that?” Lord Raptor had raised his voice. He turned to look at Ja’Nil. “Answer me.”

     “You’re asking me?”

     “At the moment, your furry friend is incapable of speech. Why hasn’t he changed back into human form?”

     “I don’t know. Maybe the neck-cuff is too tight.”

     “On the contrary, it would be looser.”

     Ja’Nil had wondered herself. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not even sure…” She died off.

     “You’re not even sure what?”

     “He’s an unusual wolf,” agreed Ja’Nil. “Very large and all that, but...”

     “Well?”

     “Maybe he can’t change. I mean, just because O’Keeven said he could doesn’t mean anything. O’Keeven lies just for the sake of lying.” She smiled slightly, but only slightly because Lord Raptor scared her to death. “You probably paid him for nothing. He’ll do and say anything for money. Anything,” she added sadly.

     “Nobody cheats me,” said Lord Raptor.

     Ja’Nil took a page from Ee’Rick’s book and just shrugged.

     “Are you saying that you’ve never actually seen this creature change shape?”

     “That’s right,” she lied. Well it wasn’t really a lie. She thought she had seen him change, but on the other hand, since she didn’t believe her own eyes, it wasn’t really a lie. Besides, lying to someone like Lord Raptor was probably a virtue. She felt an uncomfortable twinge at that particular rationalization. The Lord of the Circle would not be happy with her right now.

     Lord Raptor swerved suddenly from his study of the wolf to fix her with a nasty stare. “How did you escape from the dungeon?”

     Ja’Nil said nothing.

     “Who helped you?”

     “Nobody helped us.” After all the work they had done to get out of that hole, she wasn’t about to let anyone else take the credit.

     Lord Raptor raised an eyebrow. “You fly, then?”

     “Of course not.”

     “It’s said that marginal people have all sorts of strange abilities.”

     “I’m not marginal!”

     “Fisherfolk,” he sneered.

     She glared back at him, forgetting for the moment that he terrified her.

     “Show me how you fly.”       

     “What?”

     “Fly around this room,” he said. “I want to see.”

    
The man was crazy.
“If I could, I’d fly so far away, I would never see Cordia again.”

     His face seemed to swell and darken with rage. “Fly,” he screamed. “I want to see you fly.”

     “I can’t!”

      He suddenly became very calm. “Imagine my soldiers flying,” he said. “No one would be able to stand against me, even…”  He suddenly seemed to recall where he was.  “You’re all against me,” he said bitterly. “I am the ruler of Cancordia. It’s your duty as a loyal citizen to aid me.”

    
He was crazy.

     “The Princess--”

     “The Princess is under my command!” He was screaming again.

     Ja’Nil said nothing. She could feel all his hate and rage washing over her like a moving wall pressing on her, pushing her somewhere she didn’t want to go.

     The soldier standing guard by the door shifted uneasily. Ja’Nil looked at him imploringly, but he refused to meet her gaze.

     The chained wolf crouched down, as if getting ready to spring, or hide. The clinking chain drew Lord Raptor’s attention.

     “Does he fly, too?” Now his voice was pleasant, his manner calm and agreeable.

     Ja’Nil stared at him in horror. Lord Raptor’s evil and powerful, she thought, but most of all, he’s crazy. It doesn’t get much worse.

     “Well,” said Lord Raptor, “Can he fly?”

     “He’s a wolf, for crying out loud,” she said. Her lower lip trembled. “Just a wolf and I’m just a girl. I can’t fly. He can’t fly. Ee’Rick can’t fly.”

     “Motivation,” said Lord Raptor.

     “What?”

     “Motivation is everything.” He was speaking very calmly, almost pleasantly. “Don’t you agree?”

     “I don’t know.”
What was he up to now?
     

     “For instance,” he went on as if Ja’Nil had not spoken. “I imagine you were highly motivated to leave my dungeon, weren’t you?”

     Ja’Nil didn’t answer, which was all right, because he obviously didn’t expect an answer.

     “I won’t punish you for flying, you know. I merely want to see it.”

     “I can’t--”

     “If I were to set your pet wolf on fire, would that motivate you enough?”

     “What!”

     Lord Raptor turned to the soldier. “Give me your fire starter.”

     Slowly the soldier unfastened a flask from his belt and handed it to him.

     “Soldiers always carry fire starter, did you know that?”

     She shook her head, no.

     “They carry a remarkable number of handy things.” He was smiling.

     “Believe me, please. I can’t fly. I’ve never flown. I’ve never known anyone who could fly. We escaped because Ee’Rick lifted me up until I could open the trap door. That’s all. It had nothing to do with flying.”

     “No,” said Lord Raptor, almost gently. “Not possible. I’ve had others down there, you know. No, the only way you could have gotten out was by flying.”

     His calm, reasonable smile was freaking her out.

     “Please,” she begged. What exactly was she begging him for, to be reasonable, to be sane? To not be Lord Raptor?

     He opened the flask, turned abruptly and threw the liquid contents all over the wolf, who responded by giving a bloodthirsty howl and leaping at his tormentor, only to be brought up short by the chain.

     “You don’t have to fly very far,” said the madman to Ja’Nil. “Just around this room.” Then to the soldier, “Get one of the lanterns.”

     The soldier reluctantly left his post by the door and positioned one of the rickety chairs under a lantern. He stepped up on the chair, which teetered for a moment, then held steady as the soldier took down a lantern and offered it to Lord Raptor.

     “Are you sure you won’t fly?” Lord Raptor asked her again.

     “I can’t fly.”

     “Pity,” he said, taking the lantern and turning toward the wolf that was soaked in fire starter. The wolf’s eyes blazed with hatred as he crouched low, never taking his yellow eyes from Lord Raptor.

     “Wait,” said Ja’Nil desperately, “I lied.”

     “I knew it.” He turned to her, eyes gleaming in triumph, the burning lantern hanging carelessly in his hand.

     “We did have help.”

     “What?”

     “One of the soldiers. After the others had gone, he came back. I…I traded some gold beads I had and he let down a rope. Ee’Rick climbed it and pulled me up. That’s all it was.”

     “You’re lying! Don‘t lie to me. I won‘t be lied to.”  Suddenly, with a reptilian swiftness, he turned and threw the open lantern at the captive wolf.

     “No!” She knew she was screaming, but the sound seemed to take forever to be heard. In the meantime, the wolf, desperation in every part of his body, bunched his muscles and tried again to spring, but ohhhh sooo slooowly toward Lord Raptor. All the while, the lantern was languidly tumbling end over end, on its way to deliver its message of agony and death.

     “Open,” she yelled. For just a second, everything seemed to freeze. Then the wolf’s neck-cuff snapped open, allowing him to complete his leap, as the lantern continued on past, smashing into the wall, its fire greedily licking up the splashed fire starter trailing from the soaked animal. The wolf, now free of the imprisoning neck-cuff, transformed himself in mid-air. The animal that landed on Lord Raptor was two legged, human and really, really angry.

     “Get him off me. Get him off me,” Lord Raptor yelled. “He’s on fire, get him off me.”

     The guard, who had started forward to obey Lord Raptor, stopped short, obviously afraid of dealing with a man who was on fire. At the same time, Ja’Nil was frantically eyeing the two men. Was Ee’Rick on fire?  Lord knows there was plenty of fire in the room. It was soaking up the oxygen, turning the locked room into a death oven.

     Not a good way to die.

     After the fire starter was gone, the only fuel would be the two rickety chairs, the old desk, and of course, the four people.

     At least Ee’Rick seemed to have shed the fire starter along with his wolf persona.

Ee’Rick and Lord Raptor were rolling about on the floor trying to kill each other, but the fire was too distracting for both of them. They separated, panting and furious. Dealing with the fire came first.

     “Open the door, you fool,” yelled Lord Raptor to the soldier. “Get me out of here.”

     The soldier was frantically trying to insert the awkward size key, but he was so frightened of the fire that he couldn’t stop shaking. It didn’t help that someone on the other side was trying to break the door down. Unfortunately, it was a very well made door.

     Ja’Nil backed into a corner as far from the fire as she could get.

     Ee’Rick turned to her. “Open the door,” he ordered.

     “I can’t… oh.” She looked at the door. “Open,” she said.

     The door slammed open, tumbling several soldiers into the room and knocking Lord Raptor’s soldier onto his rear-end.

     The open door allowed more oxygen into the room causing the fire to flare up with a roar.

     “Everyone out,” yelled one of the soldiers. Lord Raptor pushed his way past the man and out the door. Ee’Rick grabbed Ja’Nil and pulled her out with him; they were followed by Lord Raptor’s hapless soldier. One of the new soldiers slammed the door shut, cutting off fresh oxygen to the fire.

CHAPTER 32

     These new soldiers were not wearing Lord Raptor’s colors. The man in charge, was a

Sky Person with ramrod straight posture, quelling blue eyes, smooth black skin, and beautiful bright red hair, which he worn in a long queue down his back. When he finished issuing orders on how to deal with the fire, he turned to examine the people he had rescued.

     “Jay’Ce, are these the two from the dungeon?” he asked a young woman in civilian clothes who had accompanied the soldiers.

     “I don’t know, Captain, I never saw the prisoners.”

     Ja’Nil, was in shock. Her father had been right; she did have a gift. She could move things with her mind!              

     Of course, Ja’Nil being Ja’Nil, doubts immediately crowded in. Wasn’t it more likely that Ee’Rick’s neck-cuff simply snapped under the strain of the lunging wolf? As for opening the door just now, obviously the soldiers had simply succeeded in finally ramming it open.

     Could she really open things like locks and doors and trap doors? What about that boulder after the Funnel Storm?

     Lord Raptor immediately took charge of the situation.  “Captain Y’Nota,” he said. “You are not supposed to be in the Palace. Your station is outside the walls. What are you doing here?”

     Y’Nota’s skin was so dark it was impossible to see if he flushed with anger at Lord Raptor‘s tone, but he answered calmly enough.

     “Following new orders,” he said.

     Lord Raptor drew himself up to his full height. “Who dared…? You will return to your station immediately.”

     “My authority comes from the royal family, the Queen Presumptive, to be specific,” said Captain Y’Nota in a mild voice.

     Lord Raptor positively sneered. “I am Regent of all Cancordia. Princess Lil’Li is too young to handle the reins of government. Also the Princess, and I are soon to marry. You take your orders from me.”

     For a moment, Captain Y’Nota hesitated, and then he shrugged. “Until the council tells me you are Regent, I must take my orders from the Queen Presumptive. Incidentally, your betrothed’s orders are to arrest you.”                     

     Lord Raptor actually laughed. “I see you have abandoned all plans for advancement, Captain Y’Nota. Do you intend to join your three brothers scratching out a miserable living on that useless bit of land they call a farm? Grubbing in the dirt, how appropriate. Does your family even own the land, or are they just pathetic tenants?

     Y’Nota’s face showed no emotion whatever. “Lord Raptor, you are under arrest.” He turned to his second in command. “Disarm him and take him to his cell.”

     “You wouldn’t dare.”

     The soldiers looked at Y’Nota uncertainly. Lord Raptor and Y’Nota studied each other for a long moment.

     “Arrest him,” Y’Nota repeated.

     As the soldiers closed in on him, Lord Raptor backed up to the wall, his hand going to his sword hilt. But the soldiers also had swords. It’s a daunting thing to have four sharp, heavy blades just inches away from stabbing into your vulnerable body.

     “Disarm him,” said the captain.

     One of the soldiers put up his own sword, stepped forward, and pulled Lord Raptor’s sword free of its sheath. He also took Raptor’s knife.