“Still, we’re here,” murmured Queynt. “Let not the time pass us by. Peter, learn what you can, will you, my boy? And you, Chance. Meantime avoiding those crystals as though they were Ghoul Plague! We should all be back here shortly after noon when the procession arrives.”
Obediently we scattered, Queynt and I staying together as we walked the streets of Fangel. All the large, blank-faced buildings opened off secluded courtyards, and these courtyards had guards posted outside them. “By noon,” murmured Queynt, “Peter will have investigated a dozen places in as many shapes, I doubt not. You may be right about their crystal factories, though the probable methodology escapes me.”
“I envision it having something to do with that silvery stuff the crystals grow in. Crystal milk, Buttufor called it.”
“Is it the wize-art tells you this, Jinian Footseer?” He sounded amused.
“It is my troubled heart tells me this, Queynt. That and what I saw at that little mine outside town.” Before I could go on, we were accosted.
“Jambal! Are you enjoying Fangel? Sweetning Horb, remember? We met this morning! Oh, my, have you left those great brutal sweet birds alone? Oh, tisk, they’ll eat half the populace by the time you get back. I hope you tied them tightly!”
“I did, yes. May I present Abstimus Baffle, Merchant’s man from Bloome. We traveled more or less adjacent from Bloome. Abstimus Baffle, Sweetning Horb.” I stepped back to let Queynt take over, which he did, bearing the woman off on a flood of words that put the quantity of her own to shame. I didn’t follow them. All day my discomfort had grown, my skin crawling in a spontaneous writhe of escape, convinced that someone was watching me. It was impossible to go on moving and acting as though nothing were wrong. I turned back to the wagon.
“Was a twit here, Jinian,” said Yattleby. “I stomped him, only a little. Tried to poison us each with some pink thing.”
“The whole town’s a trap,” I mumbled. “Keep watch, will you. I’m going to sleep in the wagon. I’m exhausted.” Peter had not been the only one to spend a troubled night.
I fell into sleep as into a pit, disturbed by pertinent dreams of crystals and mines and dead bodies along the road, wakening when the others returned along about noon.
“The lady wanted to be sure I shared the town’s need to honor the Duke,” Queynt confessed. “I came very close to tasting this pretty pink crystal, friends, though I managed to avoid it with a minor Wize-ardry. They are persistent here.”
Peter was very white-faced and not in a mood for this jocularity. “Jinian was wrong,” he said. “The buildings I could get into are all full of people. Laid out on the shelves like so many sacks of grain. Children. Men. Women. And creatures, lizardy things. Furry things. Asleep, I think. When the gong goes, some of them must get up, but the others just stay there. There’s nothing in those houses but storage. And all of them have crystals in their mouths.”
“Gods!” I had not even imagined this. “What do they have the look of, Peter? An army, perhaps?”
“Could be.” He pursed his lips, thinking, making quirky wrinkles around his eyes. “Come to think of it, most of those on the shelves are fighting size—big. Men or other things, both big. Some smaller ones, but I’d say nine out often could be warriors.”
“Gamesmen?”
“It would explain where they’d all gone.” That was a disquieting thought. We didn’t have time to worry over it, however, for there was a trumpet blast that spun us around facing the avenue. Heralds rode toward us, horns in hand, tabards gleaming. “All those within sound of my voice give ear! All those give ear! His Grace, the Glorious Duke of Betand. Her Highness, Valearn, Queen of the High Demesne. Her Worship, Huldra, Heiress of Pfarb Durim. Her Eminence, Dedrina, Protector of Chimmerdong!”
“Heiress of Pfarb Durim,” stuttered Peter. “Still claiming the city, is she? Not damn likely.”
“Protector of Chimmerdong,” I snarled obstinately, even while my body melted in a sweat of terror. “Over my dead body.”
There was no time to say more. The first of the procession was passing, a sonority of trumpets, a frenzy of drums, so loudly bellicose as to drown all other sound and all thought. Then striding banner bearers, then muzzled pombis shambling in formation with small, frightened shapes tied to their backs.
“Shadowpeople!” hissed Peter. “And not here of their own will.” A huge cage on wheels with a gnarlibar inside, asleep: twelve chained krylobos who screamed such a cry as could have been heard in Schooltown far to the south when they saw Yattleby.
“Rescue! Rescue!” they cried.
“Wait! Wait!” cried Yattleby in return, a vengeful shriek. “We will!” Several of the guards along the route turned at this, scowling.
“Hush,” I hissed at them in their own language. “You will betray your purpose.” The great bird subsided, his anger shown only by the huge toenail tracks he was scratching in the earth. “Shhh,” I said again.
“All honor to the Duke of Betand,” piped Queynt, giving us cautionary looks out of the sides of his eyes. “All honor to the Duke of Betand!” He waved his fists, smiling as the cart came toward us on which the corpulent hulk of the Duke rode, canopied with silken draperies and jeweled like a Tragamor’s helm. He bowed from side to side, waving a puffy, negligent hand. Behind him marched his retinue, and behind them a line of captives in chains, both men and women. Most carried treasure on display. One stalwart couple carried a huge woven basket between them.
Just behind them was a young woman in rags, carrying a child. She was a pretty thing, little more than a child herself, and I was
