The Dark Glory War (48 page)

That they were misshapen was patently obvious to anyone who cared to look, for their ratty clothes barely covered them. Still, it took me a second or two to figure out what the problem really was. I recalled Faryaah-Tse mentioning that changing shape was tiring and consumed energy. To me they all looked underfed, so I suspected they had become stuck between changes.

One, bearing a rusty spear and what once might have been a round shield, stepped forward to challenge us. “Who dares open the way to Boragul?”

Faryaah-Tse swept her stick-thin yellow arm out and pressed her hand to her breast. “I do. I am Faryaah-Tse Kimp, come far from Tsagul. I ask for me and my companions the hospitality of Boragul.”

Though the lead urZrethi gave no sign of being impressed by Faryaah-Tse, his trio of seconds began to quake. They studied her legs and right arm, then their eyes grew wide as she shrank her arm down to fill her sleeve and match the other arm. They watched her, then pointed to the sky and jabbered among themselves.

The leader whirled around and smacked one of them on the back of the head with the haft of her spear. “Be quiet. Still your tongues or they’ll be shrunk in your heads. This is a matter for the queen.”

The leader came back around and stumbled for a step, then righted herself. “The queen will decide. Follow.”

We dismounted and led our horses into the heart of the mountain. Seethe gasped and pressed her hand to her throat as she looked about. I could see little, as shadows shrouded what must have been tall galleries with high arches and intricate carvings worked throughout, but even what I saw down low impressed me: friezes of battles so intricately carved that the figures in them seemed to shift position as we moved along. From every corner and recess a playful face grinned or a warrior scowled. I saw statues representing urZrethi as normally shaped as Faryaah-Tse and yet others mutated into forms suited to combat or mining or any of countless other occupations.

Other things in the halls of Boragul did not impress and, in fact, prompted pity, surprise, and anger. The halls could not be described as anything but filthy. Half-gnawed bones and shards of broken crockery lined the walkways. Feathers and dust and hair all rolled together into little balls that trailed in our wake. Flies hovered over mounds of offal, and likewise circled piles of dung. Mangy curs snarled from the darkness and feral cats—easily spotted by the glow in their eyes—spat hisses. Bird guano stained statues and streaked the floor, while somewhere in the darkness above I heard the leather flap of bats’ wings.

I wondered for a moment at the feathers and bird droppings, then got the shock of my life as miniature temeryces came trotting out in a pack to pace beside us. I dropped a hand to Tsamoc’s hilt and would have drawn the blade, but our guide reached out with a hand and chuckled one under the chin. The little creature, which had a uniform color matching the brown of a bruised mushroom, tootled contentedly at this treatment.

Our guide led us along through series of halls, twisting and turning through smaller ones where I could almost make out the ceiling, then back into larger, more grand ones. It did become apparent that as we headed toward wherever the queen made her lair, things seemed cleaner and were even better lit. Even so, I still maintained the impression that garbage was merely hauled to the nearest convenient passage that saw little use.

The increased lighting allowed me to see what Seethe had looked at before. In the hallways the urZrethi had worked massive mosaics that displayed grand battles, scenes from romances and history, and even myths such as the progression of urZrethi from their earliest form up to taking flight. Each tiny piece of the mosaics seemed to be made of gemstones, with any small portion of it being enough to allow a man to live well for decades. Even as that thought came to me, though, I couldn’t imagine despoiling such beauty.

Finally we reached another round portal that glowed with golden light. A number of urZrethi accepted the reins of our horses and led them off while we advanced to the queen’s throne room. I refer to it as a room because that’s what the round chamber was, though once inside it was easy to forget that fact.

The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of gold present. There was no area that was not gilded, no flat surface that did not have piled on it a golden urn or statuette or have golden mail draped over it. Even the throne, which had the aspect of being a giant egg with one side carved out, had been layered in gold and encrusted with gemstones. Gold velvet pillows filled it.

The second inescapable aspect of the room was how a bird theme tied everything together. The walls, from floor to the top of the wainscoting, had been covered with a screen of golden twigs and branches. They’d been fashioned well above life-size, but woven together the way a bird might interlace them to form a nest. It even widened at the base to suggest the bowl of a nest, and the gold inlay on the floor continued this theme. Above, hanging down from the ceiling on nearly invisible wires were golden leaves, and above them were stars and the moon and sun. Feather patterns covered rugs and pillows, while the statuary and other appointments were birds, had birds on them, or touched on some other bird attribute.

Even the gown the queen wore was made of cloth of gold and embroidered with birds. It took me a moment or two to recognize that fact, however, because where her sleeves ended I could see arms covered with feathers. They matched the grey of her face and other exposed flesh, so I assumed they were part of her. She had none of the dignity or bearing of the Gyrkyme I had seen in Okrannel and Fortress Draconis, but she did have feathers.

Our guide ran forward and slid to an uneven stop on her knees at the foot of the throne. She spoke quickly to the queen, who answered with a sharp, crowlikecaw! Our guide recoiled, then spun herself about and knelt with head pressed to the floor as the Queen stood.

“I am Tzindr-Coraxoc Vlay, Queen of Boragul.” The queen, who stooped at the shoulders and had a figure like a brandy cask, glanced at our guide. “I have been told that you, one of the outcasts who resides in Tsagul, has asked for our hospitality.”

Faryaah-Tse stiffened with the word outcast, but merely bowed her head. “The generosity of Boragul and its queen is well known, even in far Tsagul, though we tremble so at your greatness that we dare not speak your name.”

Tzindr-Coraxoc seemed mollified by that comment. “I shall consider your petition. For now I will grant you an abode. You are bound on your word to remain there until summoned.”

Faryaah-Tse nodded. “It shall be as you wish.”

The queen snapped an order at our guide, who immediately herded us back out of the throne room and led us down a dark corridor. We mounted a wide stairway and went up several flights, then were pointed to a round doorway. “You will wait within.”

Faryaah-Tse led us into the doorway which, on the other side, broadened and grew into a round tunnel perhaps ten yards in length. A stripe down the center of the ceiling began to glow a yellow-orange, providing me with enough light to see the images painted on the walls. They reminded me of the ancestral statues in Alcida and I assumed they were all of a family. Despite my being unable to read urZrethi runes, I did notice the repetition of a pattern that I took to represent the surname of those depicted.

The portraits, despite the grime and spiderwebs covering them, were quite heroic, showing people with enemies crushed underfoot or flowers growing around them with the blossoms facing them as they might face the sun. Flesh color varied on all of them, and the light was not the best for picking it out, but most of them did seem to be very similar to Faryaah-Tse in skin tone.

The tunnel ended in a curious chamber made of two spheres linked like soap bubbles in the middle. The entry sphere was big and featured a large hearth to the immediate left of the entryway. A ring of glowing panels surrounded the room beyond my head height, passing just above the circular portal that marked the intersection of the two spheres. A flat floor made of set stones cut the bottom off both spheres, but the floor level of the second one was a good three feet higher than that of the entry sphere. Both spheres had round portals that led off into side rooms and the painted designs in both had representations of flowers and animals—including but not limited to birds—woven together in intricate braids of legs, tails, and bodies. Following any one line was a hypnotic pursuit that could have occupied me for hours.

Faryaah-Tse moved to the center of the entry sphere and stones in the hearth began a soft red glowing that pulsed out heat. She smiled, that warm, familiar sort of smile that comes from fond memories or unexpected discoveries. She held her hands out toward the hearth, then nodded to the rest of us.

“Welcome home.”

Wp’H snrpaH throughout the room and started to strip off our heavy winter clothing. Lord Norrington unfastened his woolen cloak and shook off droplets of melted snow. “You say ‘home’ as if you recognize this place.”

“More that it recognizes me.” She turned and silhouetted herself against the hearth’s growing glow. “There were magicks worked into this chamber a long time ago, magicks that would be triggered in the presence of one of the Kimp bloodline. When we left ten generations ago to head south, we never expected to return—or so I am told. That the queen has placed us in this chamber either is a sign of respect, or she mocks me for being a pureblood returning.”

Brencis Galacos stroked his white goatee. “Pureblood?”

Faryaah-Tse hesitated for a moment, then turned and stared into the hearth. “The urZrethi do not approach life as do men or elves. This place we have been given is called acork. Here the matriarch of a family would be in residence, back, up there, in one of the rooms off the inner chamber. Her daughters would live with her, as would her sisters, all working to help raise her children. On occasion, if alliances were wished with this family, other sisters or daughters would be allowed to bear children, creating ties between families.”

Seethe arched an eyebrow in her direction. “Males are sent to live apart, with each wife’s family?”

“Usually, yes, after they reach maturity.” She opened her arms and pointed to the rooms off the lower sphere. “These rooms house the males, both family and visitors who are here to get a female with child. Most males accept the way of things, but when they rebel, they are exiled. Tales you have heard of solitary urZrethi working mines or lurking beneath bridges, these are the outcasts.”

I frowned. “But those stories depict them as monsters.”

“So they are, and so they become.” Faryaah-Tse shrugged. “Cut off from civilization they become malignant, much as the urZrethi here have become, I fear.”

She turned her back to the hearth and moved to the side so we could see her face again. “Imagine if you abandoned a city—Yslin, for example—and all that were left in it were the halt, the lame, the beggars, and the scoundrels. In a thousand years, this is what you would have.”

Jeturna laughed aloud. “You underestimate the human capacity to distort society. We’d have this in a month or two.” We all laughed, men, urZrethi, and elves, breaking the tension. Faryaah-Tse’s explanations clearly had not been easy for her, and had revealed more to me about urZrethi than I had heard in a lifetime of living in the shadow of the Bokagul. The urZrethi were known for being very private. She had shared much with us, and I took that as a sign of how much she had come to trust us.

UrZrethi bearers soon brought us our baggage and we hauled it into our rooms. I shared one of the upper chambers with Seethe. Those rooms were more elegant than the long, blocky rooms given over to male urZrethi. While all the elements of it had been hewn from stone, in our chamber the edges had been rounded, and expanses had been painted. We had a small hearth that projected a little warmth into the room, and more than enough space under our sleeping platforms to store all of our gear.

The male rooms looked more like warehouses with shelves that served as sleeping space. There looked to be enough slabs to fit ten men—and twice that many urZrethi, I suppose—and the edges and corners had the hardness of weapons to them. These rooms were also unheated, but this deep in the mountains they never got that cold, so blankets and furs would be enough to keep people snug and warm.

After we had settled ourselves in, Tzindr-Coraxoc sent for us. A misshapen guide limped her way through corridors and brought us to another chamber that must have been linked to the Kimp family because it warmed immediately in Faryaah-Tse’s presence. The long room had a curved ceiling painted with images of urZrethi broken into panels by the same sort of twisted knotwork I’d seen in thecork. Running down the center of it was a stone table that clearly had been carved from the rock as the room was made. Wooden chairs and benches sat at it and thick candles had been run down its spine. Battered plates, bowls, and goblets of gold had been set at each place, and food—some of which I suspected had been pilfered from our stores—had been heaped steaming on platters large ~ -,.-,,„ „ thiolHs in hattle.

Tzindr-Coraxoc, rising from the tall chair set at the table’s far end, spread her arms wide. “You asked for the hospitality of Boragul and we give it to you. This is the best we have to offer.”

Each of us had our own bodyservant allotted to us. Mine took me by the hand and guided me to my place at the table. I seated myself in the chair there, and found my knees higher than my hips because the chair had been built to accommodate an urZrethi. This still left me ridiculously high in comparison to the table, so I just shifted the chair out from under me and sat on the floor.

The Boragul queen regarded me coldly and snarled something in a tongue I could not understand.

Faryaah-Tse, who had been seated at her right hand, leaned forward. “It is not a dishonor, my queen, but these men have taken an oath that they will only sit in a saddle until their mission has been accomplished.”

The queen nodded and the rest of our company also abandoned their chairs, though Seethe and Winfellis remained on the bench they shared. By shifting forward a bit, they tucked their legs beneath them and all but kneeled at the table. Drugi mumbled something about having the cold seep from the floor into his old bones.