City of Death (20 page)

“I thought Nandi was human. But he's an ifrit?” Scirye asked the princess.

Two silvery eyes blinked at her from the cloud. “I'm Upach's little brother. Ifrits can take human form, as I do. It serves me well when I carry out my errands for the princess. But my sister is a purist who likes to keep the shape she was born with.”

Koko rubbed his paws together. “Boy, if I could do that, I'd never have to pay bus fare again.”

“When Upach transforms, she just dissolves into mist,” Scirye said. “Is your magic different, Nandi?”

Nandi laughed, his misty body swirling into a tangle of cloudy ribbons. “I like to think I have more showmanship than my sister, but perhaps it's merely my vanity.”

“You may indulge your vanity all you wish as long as you accomplish your tasks,” the princess said. “And once they are done, return to me.”

The cloud bobbed up and down slightly in assent. “As you desire.”

“No, it is not my desire,” the princess said sadly, “but my duty to send children into that serpent's lair. I wish it were otherwise.”

 

34

Scirye

Kat bowed to the princess and then to Scirye. “I think the ifrit will be worth a hundred Pippalanta, so if I may, I will take my leave now, lady. Between Nandi, Wali, and Oko, you should be fine.”

“Where are you going?” Scirye asked.

“I'll tell Princess Maimie and your parents exactly what happened and where you're going,” Kat promised.

“You're going back to the citadel?” Leech asked.

Kat chuckled. “They're searching outside the citadel, not inside.”

Wali gave him a wink. “Only an idiot would go back there.”

“Which certainly applies to me.” Kat grinned. “Don't worry. I'll lose myself among the servants.”

“What if one of them turns you in?” Leech wondered.

“We weren't the only ones who were angry over the way we were treated,” Oko explained. “We have many friends among the staff. They'll protect Kat.”

Scirye stroked Kles's leg as she thought for a moment. “I agree with you that it's vital the princess and my parents know the truth,” she finally said. “So all three of you should go.”

“I think Wali and Oko should go with you,” Kat insisted.

“This is not a request,” Scirye said firmly. “This is an order.”

The red-headed Amazon stared at her defiantly for a moment but then sighed. “Your sister used to look at me just like that when she was telling me to do something I didn't want to do.”

“I suppose she looked at me just the same way,” Scirye admitted.

“I still think—,” Wali began but Kat elbowed her.

Kat glowered at her friend. “Didn't we say we'd leave the thinking to her?”

“Well, that was then and this is now,” Wali grumbled but she fell silent.

“And tell my parents that I'm alive and well and…” Scirye hesitated, knowing it would be dishonest to say that she would be all right. They were facing too many unknown dangers for that. “Just tell them that I love them and that I'm carrying out the task the goddess has set for me.”

By the time they got the message, Scirye would be beyond their reach so they would not be able to command her to stay with them.

Oko took out the pistol. “Here, lady, you should take this.”

The two other Pippalanta offered their weapons as well and the princess offered to supplement those with more guns, but of the friends only Scirye had used one.

“And I didn't hit the target much,” Scirye said.

“Using a gun in a real fight is different from practice,” the princess observed. “So perhaps daggers would be more useful to you.”

Scirye was impatient to leave, but she had to wait while the princess's servants gathered up supplies and weapons for them. When they had been outfitted, they trooped after the princess and Nandi back to the open plaza at the center of the caravansary.

While the Pippalanta stood a little apart, Scirye and the rest of her friends stood in a line with Kles inside Scirye's robe. Then, raising one arm, Princess Catisa held the forearm just before her mouth as she began to murmur a spell. The next moment the bracelets began to jiggle as if they had come to life.

Tissue-thin wings sprouted from the moonstones and they suddenly exploded from the settings in the bracelet, fluttering about like pale butterflies as they swelled to about four inches long.

They hovered about the princess like the shimmering snowflakes in a blizzard—and Scirye shivered because that was like the magical trap that Roland had set for them in the Arctic. They had barely escaped with the help of some creatures of light called the Dancers.

Raising her other arm, the princess summoned more of the luminous insects until she was almost hidden in the cloud. Still more appeared so that the cloud seemed to expand until it had filled the tent.

The moon butterflies—which Scirye decided was as good a name as any—brushed her cheeks as if a breeze was planting baby kisses on his face, and the beating of thousands of wings made tiny clicking sounds.

“Oh, wonders of my heart and delights of my soul, take them where Nandi leads,” the princess called. As the moon butterflies began to settle on Scirye's skin and clothes, their legs tickled like thousands of baby eyelashes and yet were cool and soothing to the touch.

The butterflies felt more like a second skin than armor because she could move her arms and legs. More important, they left spaces over her mouth and nostrils so she could breathe. Because they also covered her ears, she only dimly heard Nandi say, “Come.”

The next moment she felt herself rise into the air, though she wasn't sure how high because the butterflies also covered her eyes. She floated slowly at first and then picked up speed as she angled upward.

She needed to see so she began blinking rapidly, trying to force the butterflies away, but they were just as determined to stay and kept fluttering back, each time blanking her vision. Still, she managed to glimpse the ground far below them.

In desperation, she tried to rub her eyes, but that only seemed to make it worse as confused butterflies switched from her fingers to her eyelids and vice versa.

“Let her see,” Nandi instructed, finally noticing her troubles. “Let them all see.”

The butterflies drew away from her eyes so she felt as if she were rimmed by shining goggles, but she was finally able to glance at her friends. Their bodies were encased in butterflies, glowing faintly as the moon overhead. Perhaps because he'd gotten used to aerobatics, Leech looked the most at ease, experimenting with a cartwheel and then a somersault. He looked the happiest and his friend Koko the most miserable. He floated along like a sack of potatoes, his forelegs and hind legs dangling beneath him.

“This is wonderful!” M
ā
ka said as she raised shimmering arms, and Scirye was glad her friend could experience such marvelous magic firsthand. Maybe it would encourage her to keep trying on her own.

“Lynxes were never meant to fly,” groaned a miserable Tute, who looked like a second potato sack.

Scirye had flown upon a straw mat, a dragon, and a griffin, but nothing had prepared her for this. She felt as if the moonlight were passing through the butterflies into her body itself, filling her insides until she glowed herself … until she was a moonbeam herself.

“Don't worry,” Nandi assured them. “You'll be all right flying with me. I must answer not only to the princess, but also to my sister, Upach, if anything happens to you.”

“Whom do you fear more, Nandi?” the princess asked, a smile teasing the corners of her lips.

“I pray that I shall never have to find out.” Nandi extended a tendril. “Now please follow me,” he said, more to the butterflies than the children.

They rose like balloons out of the plaza, bodies shimmering all silvery and restless under the pale moonlight. Then Nandi extended a tentacle and swept it toward the east before he flowed in that direction, and the butterflies followed him.

From far below, Scirye could hear the princess praying in formal Sogdian. “And may I remind thee, O Nana, that she is a mere child and will need more help than we adults.”

It seemed that even Sogdian prayers were in the form of business contracts, and the princess was more worried about Scirye than she had let on.

They swept quickly over the wall of the old city and across the shining ribbon of the river. Below them, the city lights sparkled like gems cast onto black velvet and Scirye's throat caught at how lovely the city looked at night. All too soon they were zooming over the irrigation canals beyond the city. They looked like lace draped over the snow-covered fields.

On and on they sped, following the gleaming cloud that was Nandi as he led them deeper into the darkness.

 

35

Leech

As the stars swept past overhead, Leech said, “These bugs are almost as good as the discs!”

“Once we find Bayang and stop Roland, I swear we'll get your armbands back,” Scirye assured him.

Koko grinned as he nudged Leech. “And you know how Lady Scirye keeps her promises. So don't worry, buddy.”

Leech rubbed his arms. “When I don't have my armbands, I'm just one more piece of gutter trash. So I don't know how much help I'll be.”

When Scirye shook her head, the butterflies encasing her head fluttered agitatedly. “Don't ever say that about yourself again. We've gotten this far because of you, not your magical trinkets.”

Kles's voice came muffled from within the layer of butterflies. “We need you just like you need us. We are stronger as a team than as individuals.”

I think they really mean it,
the Voice said wonderingly.

Leech thought back to the time when he had just run away from the orphanage. He'd been just as amazed when a stranger named Koko had helped him.

In some ways, the Voice was like the little brother he'd never had, so as the older brother Leech had to explain things and help the Voice mature.
You just haven't met good people before this,
Leech argued.
I didn't trust other people either until I met Koko.

Him?
the Voice scoffed.

Okay, not the best example,
Leech admitted,
but at least he tries to be a friend. And what about Scirye, Kles, M
ā
ka, and Tute? They've already risked their lives over and over for us.

They've surprised me up until now,
the Voice conceded.

It's nice to have people you can trust and depend on, isn't it?
Leech asked the Voice.
They're our friends. And friends are better than family because we choose them and they choose us.

Yes,
the Voice said softly.

And even Bayang has been trying to make up for what she did.
Leech said, and knew he had pushed too far when he heard how angry the Voice became.

Yes, she has. But I can't forget how she came for us all those times before,
the Voice said bitterly.
You'll never convince me she's changed.

This is a different time and a different place,
Leech snapped.
She's not the way she was and neither am I. Or at least I hope I'm not.

So you think I'm a monster too?
the Voice asked hurt.
Is that why you keep fighting with me?

I just meant that people change over time, and that includes Bayang and us,
Leech tried to explain.

Yeah, you're a lot dumber than the original,
the Voice snapped.

Leech tried to reason with the Voice, but it had lapsed into a sulky silence.

 

36

Scirye

After several hours, Nandi said, “We're near the vizier's summer palace so we must be silent from now on.”

They followed him downward until they were barely gliding a few feet above the ground, dodging around rocks and trees. An “ouch” from Koko indicated that he'd had a little less success at that than the others.

Several hundred yards ahead of them, gleaming in the moonlight, was a ten-foot-high wall that stretched to the left and the right as far as she could see. Here and there patches of plaster had fallen, revealing rows of mud bricks. Behind that wall, some large beast roared hungrily. Another creature screeched in answer. That touched off a chorus of howls and shrieks from more denizens.

Scirye drew her eyebrows together. “That sounds more like a zoo than a rich man's villa.”

“It's a paradise,” Nandi whispered.

“A what?” Leech asked, coming up on them.

“Paradise is what ancient Persian rulers called their own private parks,” Nandi explained. “The vizier has stocked it with all sorts of exotic wild animals that he hunts. In the center is a lake and on the lake is an island with his villa.”

That explained all the commotion from beyond the walls, and all the creatures sounded as nasty as their owner.

“I would have thought they'd be patrolling the walls,” Scirye said, studying the place. The breeze felt good on the bare skin of her face.

“His paradise is the size of a city so the wall that encloses it has to be even vaster. He would need a regiment to man such long walls, and even then there would still be gaps where someone could sneak across,” Nandi said grimly. “The beasts of his paradise are his best defense against intruders. He'd only need a token bodyguard at the villa itself.”

With Nandi in the lead, they flew over the wall, barely inches from the spikes at the top, and then into the paradise.

Compared to the orderly farmlands over which they had flown, the paradise was a lush place of weed-grown meadows, dense thickets, and sprawling stands of evergreen trees. There was a timelessness to the landscape, as if some enchantment had preserved a bit of the world when it was originally created.