“The centaurs.”
“May their hooves rot.”
Still half entwined, they steered a course for the guest huts. These formed a square, and in the middle of the square two centaurs (the only ones to appear, although the whole family had been invited) were playing tug-of-war with one of the tables.
They had also gathered an enthusiastic audience. This would have made them reluctant to abandon the contest even if they’d been sober.
“Hold!” Krythis called. “You can’t break up the furniture. Guest rights don’t go that far.”
“Who says so?” the smaller centaur replied. His larger rival, a muscular roan with bells tied into his tail, was either less drunk or more sensible. He held up his hand.
“Oh, pardon, Krythis. But we do have to settle this insult before we leave. Peace in the family, and all that, I’m sure you know.”
Krythis had no intention of keeping peace in centaur families at the price of brawls in his own house, but a flat refusal could turn the brawl vicious in moments. Centaurs were as unpredictable as kender, but by the gods’ favor a great deal less numerous.
Then Tulia whispered what to others would have looked like an irresistible intimacy in her husband’s ear. Krythis nodded and grinned.
“My friends. This is a matter of honor, of course, so I will not prevent your settling it. But allow me to offer you a pair of good staves, padded to prevent injury but intended for just such quarrels as this. Moreover, if you will wait while they are brought, I will also see you given a flagon of the best brandy, to refresh yourselves between rounds. And for those who watch, another barrel of ale might be forthcoming, if the dwarves haven’t drunk it all!”
In the midst of the laughter, Tulia slipped away. She would return with servants, staves, and brandy. The brandy, Krythis knew, was from a special cask judiciously enspelled this morning by Sirbones. One drink from it would remove anyone’s willingness to fight. A second would remove the ability. A third would induce a deep sleep, from which the drinker would awaken hungry enough to eat a raw owlbear, but otherwise unharmed.
Tulia did not sway her hips as she departed, but to her watching husband she seemed more desirable than ever, if that was possible. He had been blessed in her, and said so in words and deeds whenever he had a chance, and she returned the compliment.
But had she been as blessed in him as he in her? If she had wed someone else, she might already have celebrated the coming-of-age of two or three healthy children, instead of singing old elven songs of sorrow before the shrines of three who had died young. Oh, Rynthala alone was worth two daughters, or even sons, but sometimes Krythis thought he saw an emptiness, deep within Tulia, visible only to one who knew her and could look into those blue eyes-
“Filth!” A man’s angry shout.
“I’ve no quarrel with-” a woman began. She was not shouting, so Krythis could only just make out the words, but there was something familiar about the voice.
The man’s next three words were even angrier and far harsher than the first.
The woman’s temper snapped. In a voice that carried like a battle cry, she shouted, “You, sir, are the bastard son of a she-ass who would weep with shame to see you lower yourself thus.”
Then what seemed a hundred voices were all shouting at once, few of them politely or sensibly. But Krythis was listening to none of them. He was drawing his sword, more to clear a path through the crowd than for defense, and moving rapidly toward the place where the woman’s voice had sounded.
That had been Rynthala speaking, and when she flayed someone’s hide off with her tongue that way, she was as angry as any mortal could be. Nor did the man she address seem a model of reason and amiability.
I hope Tulia can finish her business before coming to help me, thought Krythis, or that this affray takes the centaurs’ minds off their little argument.
Chapter 6
The mouth of the cave led at first only to a dark, minding passage, fitfully illuminated by torches in brazen holders of ancient elven work. The torches shed their light in several colors-yellow and red … and a green that made everyone look like something long dead and dragged from a swamp.
It made even Haimya ugly, a thing Pirvan would have sworn neither years nor gods could accomplish.
The dim light and the sinuous bends in the passage made Gerik uneasy. He walked with eyes wide, mouth trying not to gape, and a hand so near his sword that Pirvan watched him closely. The two Free Rider brothers were not watching their backs at all, which to Pirvan seemed either a grand gesture of trust or a sign that the passage was proof against treachery.
Eventually the passage stopped winding and became a series of short, straight tunnels, each at a nearly right angle to the one before. The course bent toward the left, so that attackers advancing would have their sword arms cramped against the wall. Pirvan knew the principles from spiral staircases in castle towers, but had not expected to find it here.
Nor had he expected to find any stone workings of such size among the desert dwellers. This underground meeting place had to be wrought by magic, or vastly ancient, from days when there were more people in this land.… Most probably, it was both.
It also had to have a quicker way to the sunlight, if the place were used often. With hand signals, Pirvan warned both wife and son to be alert for signs of that quicker way. It might be useful, if they came to need a quick retreat.
Haimya and Gerik had just acknowledged the signals when the last passage ended and they stepped out into the cave itself. It was hard to judge its size, for it seemed tall rather than broad, the far wall clearly visible, the roof lost in shadows. More torches burned in holders on the far wall, which was as much carved stone and sun-dried brick as natural rock.
From that natural rock, however, the ancient masons had carved two chairs, each large enough to comfortably seat two men the size of Darin. The chairs were elaborately decorated with carvings of flowers and trees that, to Pirvan’s knowledge, had not grown in this land in living memory.
Pirvan did not need to ask who occupied the two chairs. The man was plainly of the same blood as Threehands and Hawkbrother, and the woman had the air of one who can see into past and future, body and soul, and anywhere else she wishes-and against whom resistance was folly, crime, and waste.
In some magic workers, this was a pose that did not survive a serious challenge. Pirvan doubted that was the case with Skytoucher.
“Welcome, visitors to the home of the Gryphons,” Redthorn said. His voice was higher pitched than one might have expected from a man his size, but it carried well. He was also tall and stout-thewed enough to be a match for his sons, if he had remained fit and healthy.
“Greetings, chief and wise woman of the Gryphons,” Pirvan said. “We have come-”
“It shall be decided how,” Skytoucher said. “Speak, sons of Redthorn. It is our wish to know how you met these visitors.”
Storytelling was an honored art among the Free Riders, so Pirvan had heard. Certainly both of the chief’s sons told of their journeys as quickly and thoroughly as trained scouts reporting to their captain. Nothing in either story seemed to move Redthorn or Skytoucher, but Pirvan would have wagered his second-best sword that this was a pose.
Another of those lengthy silences followed the sons’ narrative. About the time Pirvan had begun to suspect he would be a grandfather before the two Gryphon leaders replied, Redthorn nodded to Skytoucher.
“From these words we have heard, it seems you are strangers but not, perhaps, enemies.”
“They cannot be-” Hawkbrother began, to be promptly silenced by a cough from his father.
“They may well not be,” Skytoucher chided. “Yet they have a wizard in their company, of which neither you nor they have spoken. What else might they be concealing? How might that wizard have wrought your memories, to make that concealment perfect?”