One of the things Zatis had always said when Ennis had wished for something or other was 'be careful what you wish for, young Ennis - the Mothers might give it to you'. Which had seemed a bit dumb to Ennis at that time, because that was exactly the point of wishing for something, right? Why wish for something you didn't want to get?
But right now, sitting in his mother's house, brooding over some excessively boring homework, he began to appreciate the wisdom of his old teacher's words. He had wished long and hard that his mother would come back home - that they would live together again, like before.
Well, they were back together again now; maybe the Mothers had missed the part about 'like before'.
Ennis chewed at his quill and stared unseeingly at the scroll before him. His homework was some math problem concerning a farmer who was locked in competition with his neighbour, and the text slyly omitted the number of crops each farmer had harvested that year - that was for Ennis to figure out. As if he'd care about some dumb Gorillas one-upping each other with their turnips! This was just as bad as living with his father!
No - it was worse: although the door to his room wasn't locked (because he wasn't a prisoner, his mother had said; he was her son, after all!), a lot of grim apes were milling about the house at all times, and he wasn't even allowed to come near the walls surrounding the yard. Ennis had been relieved to learn that his mother had her own house, and that that prefect wasn't living here, too; but from what he had overheard from the guards, Aboro came by often enough, even at night. And here, Ennis couldn't escape into the mountains, or walk along the river, as he always had back home, when things got too... too...
No, here, he was grounded all day, probably for the rest of his life. Despite his mother's protestations, he felt more and more like a prisoner. And he was beginning to miss Zatis... and even his father.
But most of all, he missed Taris.
Poor Taris - how was he faring now, without his master? Ennis hoped that Zatis at least would be nice to him; his father would be ignoring his human just as he had always ignored him. Maybe he hadn't even noticed that his son had vanished.
And that healer would probably be nice to Taris, too - but not too nice, if she knew her place. Healers weren't allowed to get too lovey-dovey with anyone, that was against the rules. They had to focus on their work, and only on their work. But Taris probably didn't know that, or had forgotten it, like he had forgotten everything else. Ennis resolved to remind him when he came back. He didn't want his human to get in trouble.
And that other human would probably also be there - the dark one that belonged to that travelling doctor. Ennis bit harder on his quill and frowned. Dehni would use this opportunity of his absence to harass Taris about being his friend, and leaving his master to come back to him and the doctor, and to that Mila woman...
It was high time to go home! And this here wasn't his home, no matter what his mother said.
Ennis threw the quill onto the table with a huff and watched with a certain satisfaction how the ink spattered over the farmer and his turnip problem. Let the Gorillas sort it out themselves, if they were able to even count that far. He was going home now, no matter if his mother disapproved or n-
The door was yanked open, and two people stumbled in and almost fell over each other in their haste. They froze when they saw Ennis.
Ennis froze, too. The two people were humans.
The man recovered first; he softly closed the door and leaned against it. "You're not gonna yell for the guard again, will ya?" he said under his breath. It was the dark human... Dehni. And the woman was Laisa.
Ennis resisted the urge to pinch himself. He was pretty sure he wasn't dreaming.
"What are you doing here?" he said in the same subdued voice. "If anyone finds you, you'll be in big trouble!"
Dehni laughed, a short, unhappy sound. "No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think we're hiding in your room? Not that we knew it was your room..." He moved aside, away from the door, but still pressed against the wall. If the door opened, he and Laisa would still be hidden behind the door blade.
True enough, the door was yanked open again, and one of his mother's guards glared at Ennis. "Everything alright in there?"
Ennis glared back. The man had force-walked him away from the outer wall and into his room earlier. "As soon as you'll remove your ugly head from my sight."
The guard narrowed his eyes. "Have you seen some humans running around here?"
Ennis stared at him with disdain. "Are you stupid or something? We don't have humans here. Mother is against it."
The guard just grumbled something under his breath and slammed the door shut. The humans stared at Ennis, their eyes looking huge and dark in their pale faces.
Then Dehni grinned. "I like your style, kid."
But Ennis wasn't in the mood for flattery. "Are you stupid? What are you doing in my mother's house? These guards hate humans, and I don't know where my mother is right now - if they find you, she won't be there to protect you, and these thugs don't listen to what I say." It hadn't taken long for him to find out about either thing.
Dehni raised his brows at that. "An' why is your mom employing thugs?"
Ennis shrugged. "I dunno. She doesn't want humans in the house, because she says it's slavery, but most apes don't want to do all the work that humans ought to do, so it's hard to find people... my mother doesn't want humans in the house because she thinks you should live in the wild. But these guys" - he pointed at the door - "don't want humans in the house because they think you're vermin. And you still haven't told me why you're here."
Dehni glanced at Laisa, who seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment. "We wanted to see how you're doing... now that you're living with your mother," she said finally. "And bring you greetings from Taris. He misses you a lot."
Ennis swallowed heavily. "I miss him, too." He turned back towards his desk to put his quill back into the ink pot. And so they couldn't see him fight back his tears. He wasn't a baby anymore, and he wouldn't embarrass himself like that. "I'd rather go home, but... Mother won't let me. She says Father had a whole year alone with me, and now it's her turn."
"Be glad she didn't screw your head off to spite your dad," Dehni muttered.
Ennis spun around, tears drying instantly from shock. "What?"
Dehni shrugged, his eyes twinkling. "It's what you do with dolls, if it's actually your turn, but your friend keeps playing with them."
Laisa slapped his arm. "Don't frighten Master Ennis, Dehni!"
Dehni rubbed his upper arm in mock pain. "C'mon, 'her turn'? How old is that woman, three?"
Ennis frowned. "Don't talk like that about my mother, she's an ape and you're a human!"
The mirth vanished from Dehni's eyes. "Right. Sorry, kid. No badmouthing your mom anymore. - Okay, so, we've given you our regards from Taris, I'd say we go home now, tell the ol' boy you're fine an' all."
He didn't really like Dehni, and he suspected the feeling was mutual, but Ennis could recognize an opportunity when he saw one. "Take me with you!"
The humans stared at him; Ennis stared back, struggling not to threaten them with calling the guards if they refused.
They didn't look as if they wanted to refuse him outright, though; Dehni was thoughtfully rubbing his mouth, Laisa was pressing her lips together in obvious worry. "This thing is more heavily guarded than Fort Knox," Dehni said at last. "Getting you out will be a helluva job... and once they discover you're gone, they'll be after us like beagles on a fox trail. If it's just me an' Laisa, we can probably sneak back to Chubla without ringing any alarms."
Despite all the confusing references, Ennis understood what Dehni was getting at; accompanying the humans would just endanger them. And if he let them go alone, they could bring word to his father that he hadn't gone with his mother of his own free will, and that he didn't want to stay in her house.
"If you don't take me with you, I'll call the guards," Ennis said, feeling miserable.
The humans just stared at him, Laisa looking disappointed, Dehni looking... absolutely bland, which was frightening, somehow.
"Fine," Dehni said after a long pause. "It's already dark, maybe we can sneak you out. But let's wait until the excitement out there has died down a bit before we try our luck."
"The guards are out after dark, too," Ennis muttered.
Dehni smiled, and Ennis felt his fur rise against his will. "Yeah, but they can't see as well in the dark." He wandered over to Ennis' bed and flopped down on it. "Gonna be some time before they'll give up looking for us. Do you have anything to kill time? Cards, a tiska board?"
"No," Ennis said, and cautiously sat down at his desk again. "Mother wants me to study all day, or work around the house..." There was a lot to do if you didn't have humans who did all those chores for you. Doing the dishes was pretty high on the list of things Ennis despised.
"Damn." Dehni crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes. "Poke me when I start snoring. Don't wanna alert one of your thugs."
Ennis stared at him with disdain; Dehni hadn't taken off his shoes when he had taken possession of his bed.
He turned to Laisa. "You can tell me a story. Of the White City."
Laisa shook her head. "Why that one? It's a human story."
Ennis shrugged. "I like it all the same."
It was the story Taris liked best; his human had never tired of hearing it, and now, as Laisa's quiet whisper filled the room, Ennis imagined that the human lying on the bed and listening with him to the story wasn't Dehni, but Taris.
"When the great Cesar had defeated the armies of Man," Laisa began, "he declared that all the human wizards had to bring their weapons and tools to the Holy Grove to have them destroyed. And everyone who came to that grove, and laid down their weapons, and swore a holy oath to accept the apes as their master, and to obey them, and to never say 'no' to any ape, would be spared; and they would be taken in by the apes and would get fed and clothed and taken care of."
Dehni snorted softly, revealing that he was just pretending to sleep. "Fucking slavers!"
Laisa hesitated for a moment before she continued.
"And the humans came to the holy grove and fell on their knees and laid down their weapons and bowed their heads before their masters. And great Cesar was true to his word and was full of mercy and spared their lives, just as he had promised."
"The whole concept of owning people is a fucking abomination," Dehni growled without opening his eyes. "I'm a free human, no damn monkey owns me. Don't understand how anyone could agree to that back then..."
"Maybe it was their only chance of survival?" Laisa suggested. "Anyway, some humans did not obey the command of the great Cesar, and kept fighting the apes in the woods and in the deserts. But in the end, they were too few, and Cesar and his generals killed many of them, until just a handful of them was left."
"Can't imagine how that could've been possible," Dehni murmured from the bed. "I mean, we had nukes... Eh, don't mind me," he added when Laisa glared at him. "Go on, tell that story. I bet it's been written down in some super-secret book that I'll never get to read, so I'd like to hear what happened back then from an alternative source."
Laisa exchanged a confused look with Ennis, who just shrugged and gestured for her to carry on. "Uhm, where was I... And the great Cesar showed again mercy to the humans, and made them the same offer as before. But the humans were wilful and proud, and told him that they would rather die in the wasteland than bow to the apes."
"Damn right," Dehni muttered, but this time, both Ennis and Laisa ignored him.
"So Cesar declared that if they preferred the wastelands, into the wasteland they would go; and no ape would follow them there and lay a hand on them. But if they returned, Cesar would kill them all.
"So the wizards and the warriors of Man turned their backs to the woodlands and meadows of the East and went into the wasteland. They saw many wonderful and horrible things in those lands, and they had to fight many dark beings. And many of the humans died. But that is a story for another day."
Dehni pushed himself up on one elbow and peered down at Laisa, who had sat down on the floor and was leaning against the beframe, with sudden interest. "They went West? Into the Forbidden Zones?"
"It's just a story, Dehni," Laisa murmured tiredly. "A legend. - They always went west, and farther west, through the wasteland, following the sun. They went until they couldn't go any farther, because they had reached the end of the world. And so that nobody falls off the world, the Mothers had lifted a great mountain there."
Dehni whistled softly, and Ennis felt his irritation grow. Taris had always just listened with rapt attention, and never interrupted with comments. It broke the flow of the tale, but telling Dehni that would probably be a waste of breath.
"The Rockies," Dehni was murmuring to himself. "They reached the Rockies."
"But the humans despised the Mothers and their wisdom," Laisa ploughed on, "and wanted to go even farther, beyond the edge of the world. So they climbed the mountain, and went to see what was behind it. And behind it was a big water, with no land on the other side. That's when the humans finally saw that they couldn't defy the Mothers, even if they had defied the great king Cesar in the East.
"They couldn't go on, but they couldn't go back either, or certain death would await them. So they talked among themselves, and said to each other: 'Let us build a great city on this mountain, greater and fairer than the city of the great king Cesar. Are we not better than the apes? Are we not wiser, with our magic and our weapons?' And so they built a great city, as bright as the morning star, and full of the wonders of their magic.
"But there was another ape kingdom in the south..."
Dehni scoffed. "Of course there was."
"There was another ape kingdom in the south," Laisa repeated, "and they heard of that human city, and went and destroyed it. Because Man is not greater than Ape, and can never be."
"Bullshit," Dehni growled, and for the first time, Ennis began to understand why some apes thought that some humans could use a flick with the whip now and then.
"And the humans had no means to defeat the apes, which just goes to show that their magic is not greater than the apes, either," Laisa said with a hint of defiance in her voice; "and they had to flee again, but the only way they could go was deeper into the mountain. And that's what they did.
"The king of the South followed them ever deeper into the mountains, and the humans began to despair. It seemed that no matter what they did, the ape scouts always found their scent again. So the wizards came together again and talked about what to do. And they decided to use their magic again, but this time, it was very dangerous, and would maybe even cost their lives. But their situation was so desperate that they saw no other way-"
The door flew open with a bang, and guards came piling in as if the corridor was vomiting them into Ennis' room. They rushed past Ennis like a black wave, choking Laisa's terrified shriek and Dehni's curse, engulfing both of them in a flurry of snarls and slaps.
Ennis sat frozen on his chair and watched as one of the thugs yanked Laisa to her feet by her hair, only to hurl her towards the door with such force that she fell to the floor again and lay there curled up and whimpering, her arms shielding her head in expectation of more assaults.
A painful shout from the bed made Ennis whip his head around to the second battle zone; but it hadn't been Dehni shouting. A guard had broken down on the floor and lay there, unmoving; a second one was clutching his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. It had been him who had shouted when Dehni had wounded him with... what? Had he bitten through the guard's armor?
No, he had a knife, Ennis saw when the other two dragged him from the bed; it fell from his limp fingers as one of the apes squeezed his wrist so hard that Ennis could hear the bones crunching under the skin. They threw him to the floor, and Ennis swallowed when Dehni didn't jump up immediately. He seemed dazed, as if he had gotten a hard slap to the head.
One of the guards pulled a crop from his belt; it was the ugly guard from before, Ennis realized. "I'll beat the fear of your masters into you before I cut your throat," he wheezed, and raised his arm.
When he struck, he had to bend down to reach to the floor, where Dehni was still lying, limbs twitching weakly as he tried to come to his senses; but Ennis thought that the guard was using that movement to put some extra force into the strike. The crop hit Dehni's back with a resounding crack, and Dehni spasmed with a yell.
From then on, the guard didn't bother straightening, he just stayed in that half-bent crouch and covered Dehni's back with bleeding stripes, whooping and hollering at both humans' - and Ennis' - screams of horror and pain. His comrades grabbed Dehni's wrists and ankles when he tried to crawl away, and kept him in place.
Ennis forced himself to come to his feet; his body felt strange, numb and sluggish, as if it didn't belong to him. He's killing him! He's killing Dehni, and I'm watching!
He waded towards the scene, his arms and hands feeling heavy and swollen, as if they had been filled with water. "Stop! Stop, you're killing him! I forbid that! I FORBID THAT!"
"Outta my way, brat!" The guard shoved him aside. He was stinking of blood, and his face... his face...
Ennis had never seen such ecstasy. It made him want to throw up. Maybe throwing up on that maniac would make him stop...
"Stand down right now, all of you! What is going on here?"
His mother's voice cut through the storm like a knife, and wonder of wonders, everyone stopped moving. Even the maniac.
Ennis stood where he was, panting as if he had run for miles. The air was damp, somehow, reeking, and somewhere to his left, Laisa was still sobbing hysterically, and Dehni was too silent, and the guards were panting right along with Ennis and that was wrong, wrong, because it made him feel as if they had done something together, something terrible...
He lifted his eyes to his mother's face, trying to find something calm, something reassuring in this wasteland.
Aelia didn't look at him; her blazing eyes were boring into those of the lieutenant, freezing him to the spot. "Are you out of your mind? Were you going to abuse and kill a human in my own house? In front of my son? Out!" She stepped aside and pointed towards the corridor. "Don't you dare show your face here again! I will not stand for animal abuse, no matter what position you have in Aboro's guard!"
She turned to the others. "Take the humans into one of our vegetable cellars - their doors can be locked. And bring them hot water and bandages, and some herbs. This one is a healer, she can look after the other's wounds."
She waited until the guards had left with the humans before she looked at Ennis. "Are you hurt?"
Ennis mutely shook his head.
Aelia drew a deep breath. "Thank the Mothers! I'm so sorry you had to witness this... But now you've seen with your own eyes why I'm against human husbandry. These poor beasts simply have no chance to protect themselves against abuse - apes are just too strong. If I hadn't happened to be nearby..."
... then Dehni would've been killed.
And he would've stood by and let it happen.
And then Ennis did throw up.
"There is an old saying that my teacher loved to quote," Zorya gasped. Her voice was almost inaudible, though Zana couldn't say if that was due to the Orangutan's breathlessness, or the wind that was whipping past both their heads, just like it was whipping the clouds across the sky above them, rapidly hiding and revealing the full moon. "'If you are in a great hurry, walk very slowly'."
"Well, we're not walking, so I'm not sure that wisdom is applicable here," Zana shouted back, and leaned forward to give the horses more line. From the corner of her eye, she could see Zorya grabbing the railing even harder.
"Well, she always quoted it in connection to the story of the fool and the coach that broke down because the driver hurried the horses too much..." Zorya said through clenched teeth.
"Are you calling me a fool?" Zana threw a quick glance at her; the Orangutan was holding on for dear life, her long, fine hair pressed flat to her body. The cold light of the moon turned the fiery orange into dull silver.
"No... no, the fool was the one who told the driver that he should drive slowly if he wanted to reach the town quickly," Zorya groaned. "The driver thought he was talking crazy, drove at a slightly slower speed than we right now, and broke a wheel in a pot hole..."
"Then let's hope that Voltis keeps his roads in better condition, because we cannot afford to slow down," Zana yelled over the cacophony of clattering hooves, thundering wheels, and the howling wind. A storm was rising, and if they were unlucky, it would overtake them on their way to Sultok.
They were driving at breakneck speed, she admitted to herself; but they were so far behind everyone else that she feared they would only arrive to a bloodbath if they slowed down now. As sorry as she felt for the travel-sick Zorya, she couldn't accommodate her today. At least the icy wind also prevented the clouds from hiding the moon, so that she could see the road they were racing down.
Sultok wasn't that far away, but Zana had no idea when Voltis had left Chubla, or at what speed he and his guard were traveling. What worried her more was that she knew exactly when Galen and Alan had left, and that they must've been in a great hurry to reach Peet... who had left Chubla even earlier. Her fiancé and her humans had to be already there, and Mothers only knew what trouble had found them in the meantime.
The thought made her grip the lines harder, and urge on the horses, although that was useless - they were already racing along the lonely eastern road to Sultok at a speed that neither the now topless coach, nor the horses had been made for. At least the road was still dry, though only the Mothers knew for how long, before the storm would break loose.
"Mila, please!" Zorya moaned. "What good will we do in Sultok, if we never get there?"
"Trust me, I know how to drive a wagon," Zana tried to reassure her.
Zorya wasn't placated, though. "But this isn't a wagon, it's a coach... a, a modified coach, and I don't think your husband ever let you drive your wagon so fast!"
Zana chose to ignore that last objection. "Do you have any idea where Aelia will most probably be now?"
Something clacked with a sharp, loud sound under the coach's platform, and the whole construction's right side jumped at least an ell high before it slammed down on the cobblestones again.
"That must've been a rock or something," Zana shouted after a moment of stunned silence. "But the wheels are still rolling. All good!"
Zorya's expression told her that nothing was good, nothing would ever be good again, and that she could forget about showing her face at the shelter ever, not to mention working there as a mentor; but they were already in Sultok prefecture now, and anyway, somethings were simply more important than...
Zana swallowed heavily. I'll find something else to do. Some other worthwhile work.
"If she's not with Aboro, she will probably be at home right now," Zorya said after a long pause. It took Zana a moment to catch up mentally - they were still talking about Aelia.
"She's either at home or with Aboro? No other places she could be, things she could do?" she wondered.
Zorya shrugged. "At least that's how it was when I last visited her."
Zana turned her head to stare at her in surprise. "You visited her in Sultok?"
Zorya urgently gestured for her to keep her eyes on the road. She didn't answer until Zana had obediently turned her attention back at the inky horizon before them.
"Yes, once or twice," Zorya admitted. "Shortly after she had separated from Voltis. She could have changed her routine by now, of course, but back then, she was so enamoured with Aboro, it was either him, or nothing."
"You said she'd be with him, or at home," Zana remarked. "They don't live together?"
"No, she has her own house - a gift from Aboro."
Maybe he didn't want her around all the time, Zana thought, especially in the beginning, before he had turned her to seeing things his way.
"Why did you stop visiting?" she asked.
"She stopped inviting me. I, I had a lot of other engagements at that time, anyway..." Zorya sounded a bit uncomfortable.
What a coincidence. "Oh," Zana said innocently. "Did you say something against Aboro?"
"No, not at all. I never even saw him, he was never there when I visited. And we talked about other things, mainly about our respective campaigns regarding human protection..." Zorya trailed off.
Zana glanced at her from the corner of her eyes, but decided to let her think things through without interrupting. Losing a student this way had to be painful; she didn't need to poke her finger into that wound.
There was a sharp curve ahead and for the next moments, Zana's attention was focused on slowing down the horses without toppling the coach. When they rounded the bend, Sultok suddenly lay at their feet in the valley below - a small town with human-style houses, crowded together behind a sturdy stockade; here and there, the first lamps were being lit in the windows.
Zana pulled at the lines and the horses stopped, snorting and shaking their heads; the heat from their bodies rose in steaming clouds around them. She drew a deep breath; she felt as if she had run all those miles herself. "I need directions now. We won't bother with the prefect's office, we'll go straight to Aelia's home."
Beside her, Zorya was panting almost as badly as the horses. "Yes," she wheezed, "but not straight to her front door. If what you believe is true, we might just arrive to Voltis' guard cordoning off her house."
"True," Zana agreed. "So what do you suggest?"
Zorya hesitated; then she sighed deeply, or maybe just gasped for air, and said, "There is a secret passageway to her house - or away from it; it was meant as an evacuation route, in case of... Aelia couldn't really tell me in what case. She said it had been Aboro's idea. We would arrive directly in the inner yard... That is, if she hasn't banked it up in the meantime. She was a bit dismissive of it when she showed it to me."
"Only one way to find out," Zana said, and flicked the lines.
"The exit is on the other side of town, in some grove," Zorya added. "Please, please drive slowly now - I can't see a thing, and neither can you."
She was right - night had overtaken them on their way even more quickly than the brewing storm, and the moon was now hidden behind a heavy cover of clouds. Zana gripped the lines in frustration, but forced herself to let the horses go at a walk. By the looks of it, Sultok wasn't yet under attack. Maybe they had arrived in time.
She wondered where Peet was now.
