“Where are we, Dray Prescot? How did we come here?”
I gathered the rest of the slaves about and told them what had happened. They were, as was to be expected, exceedingly enraged, and a Relt, ordinarily one of the kindest of peoples, began threatening to have the guides tossed into a neighbor’s pit back home. The neighbor, he informed us, was a Rapa of some wealth and power. We all agreed. The guides deserved such a terrible fate, for their duplicity and heartlessness as much as for their cruelty.
After that, with a flier at their disposal, the slaves began a volatile and acrimonious wrangling as to our destination.
I said to Tulema: “Where in all of Kregen do you wish to go, Tulema? Where is your home?”
She laughed, and the tears stood in her eyes.
“I have no home since I was abducted from Herrell, and I have no wish to return there. Where you go, Dray Prescot, there will I go, also!”
Chapter Eleven
This was a right leem’s-nest.
I stood gawping at Tulema who had once been of Herrell.
She said it again, stamping her foot.
“Where you go, Dray Prescot, there will I go, also!”
She meant it; that was perfectly plain.
She could not go with me; that, too, was perfectly plain.
What had the Gdoinye meant, that I was playing games here in Faol, that my antics amused them? If I was to rescue Tulema for the Star Lords’ devious purposes, did that mean I had to take her back to Vallia?
What, then, would Delia say?
As to that, I had no doubts. No other woman in two worlds means anything beside Delia. But I still had a duty to perform, and Tulema, because of that — and because she was young and frightened and alone
— must be cared for.
Deciding that the most prudent course was to say nothing more of our destination to her — and seeing that that, too, was the cowardly way and thereby, as may surprise you, feeling a gust of amusement rather than of anger — I set about sorting out the halflings. They had to be told what I intended to do. If left to themselves they would have begun fighting bitterly over the different places they insisted on reaching immediately.
The only justification I can offer for my decision was that these halflings, escaped slaves, did not have the Star Lords breathing down their necks.
Those that had necks, that was.
Sammly, from distant Quennohch, for instance, only with extreme kindness could be said to have a neck, his head, as it did, sprouting from between his two upper limbs. But he was a good-hearted fellow, and said he wouldn’t mind being set down somewhere convenient in Havilfar. He could work his passage home aboard any of the regular voller lines. His left center limb scratched at his carapace as he spoke.
“Does anyone,” I said over the hubbub, and quieting them by the rasp in my voice, “know the way to Hyrklana?”
“I do,” said the youth who said he was Nath na Thothangir.
“Then that is where we shall fly.” I silenced the immediate babble of protest. “If anyone wishes to alight earlier, they will of course be allowed to do so.”
By Zim-Zair, I said to myself, with another uncharacteristic chuckle, I was running a coach service!
Tulema grabbed hold of me and started in slapping. I fended her off, astonished.
“What, Tulema? What the blue blazes is the matter with you?”
“The matter, indeed! I know! You lust after that yellow-haired Lilah, that calls herself a princess!”
“By the Black Chunkrah! What other friends do we have in Havilfar if you won’t damn well go home?”
Also, although I did not tell her so, I wanted to make sure Lilah had indeed reached safety. None of them seemed to consider my warning about the guides; they refused to face up to the fact that those people they had seen leave the slave pens in such high hopes were all dead. Tulema simply assumed that Lilah was free. I devoutly hoped that was so, remembering those vicious men and the pen of fluttrells waiting to be mounted and sent in whooping pursuit of the golden-haired princess. Without arguing further I went up to the flier and we ate what little food there was and drank from the river and then I shouted: “I am leaving now. All aboard who’s coming aboard.” That was enough to make them pack themselves in as best they might. They settled down with a considerable amount of flutter and argument as I inched the voller out over the river, turned her, and sent her streaking skyward. The direction we needed to travel was southeast, according to this Nath na Thothangir, who sat up at the controls with me. We had to strike due east for some way before risking turning south. We had no wish to fly directly over the slave pens, for we knew other fliers would rise to challenge us.
“Hyrklana is on the east coast of Havilfar. It is a large and powerful kingdom.” Nath spoke with a bitterness in his voice I had no explanation for, and I had no inclination to find the reasons. Then, with a fleeting sideways look at me, he said: “That dopa-den dancing girl. She mentioned a name-”
About to snub him for speaking in such a way about Tulema, for I did not miss the scorn in his voice, I paused for two reasons. One was that I was surprised he should reach the same conclusions about Tulema as myself; the other that, after a pause, as it were, to gather his breath, he went on: “She mentioned the name of the Princess Lilah.”
“And if she did?”
“You know her? That is why you wish to travel to Hyrklana?”
“Perhaps.”
I did not believe in giving away information.
“You will be sorry if you venture into Hyrklana uninvited. As in Hamal, the arenas there are ever hungry for fresh fodder.”
“As to that, we shall see what we shall see.”
And with that pompous reply this redheaded young man who claimed he was Nath na Thothangir had to rest content.
We crossed a stretch of sea and left Faol to our rear, at which, I confess, I felt much relief. New land spread out before us, and this youth Nath told me it was Hennardrin. We turned and flew south, along the coastline. Presently, with much of the day gone, and a smooth eight-point turn to starboard we flew over the White Rock of Gilmoy. So, if Lilah had not been caught this was the way she would have flown. We went on and Nath began to fidget as our southerly course swung us inland. Below unrolled a massive forest, with clearings here and there in which towns had been built. No one so far wished to get off this aerial excursion. We were all hungry and thirsty by now, and so I said we would descend and hunt for our supper.
One of the halflings pushed his way through the jumbled passengers at my back and, puffing a little, smoothed down the yellow fur around his eyes and mouth and polished up the laypom-colored fur beneath his chin.
“If you will continue for another four or five dwaburs, on this course,” he said in his smooth honeylike voice, “you will come to a fine city built by a great orange river. That is Ordsmot. There, I believe, you will find all the food and wine you may require. You see,” he finished, and I detected a huge relief and happiness in him, “I am Dorval Aymlo of Ordsmot”