Leopard in Exile (31 page)

dawn, by a rumbling that shook their prison as the fox shakes a fat rabbit.

Meriel sprang upright at the first tremor. She recognized it for an earthquake, such as she had

experienced while in Spain, but this one was of a much greater intensity. Meriel was already on her feet,

running for the door across a floor that danced beneath her feet as the other maidens, awakening around

her, began to scream.

This is my chance
. Her own thought, yet one seemingly come from outside as much as the angel's voice

had. It was a chance mat was no chance at all, yet she could see no other way. If nothing else, she could

get out of the temple during this confusion to warn Sarah and the others of what would happen when

Shining Spear died.

She reached the doors of the dormitory only an instant before the others. The polished wood gave

beneath her hand, for they had been left unlatched to allow Gold Hands and White Knife to come and

go, Meriel guessed. The Red Cross Knights were nowhere in sight, and the vigil lamps had spilled upon

the floor, where the burning tallow gave off choking clouds of smoke. Another jolt, more powerful than

the preceding ones, nearly knocked her from her feet. She coughed, and realized the air was full of dust,

and more smoke than the spilled lamps could account for. Beneath her feet, the floor shook again, with a

frightening rolling motion like the deck of a ship in a storm, and she could hear the grinding of the stones

in the walls around her as they grated against one another like giant's teeth. The corridor was filled with

people rushing toward escape or rescue. Someone shoved her from behind and she fell, rolling quickly

toward the wall to protect herself. Using it as a support, she clambered to her feet again. In the distance,

the war-horns bawled their warning across the water.

Meriel hesitated. Some great disaster had struck, this much she knew. It might provide the chance for her

to escape with the Grail and free her friends as well—with her black hair and sun-bronzed skin, Meriel

could easily pass as one of them, and nobody would notice her in the confusion. Yet she could not

abandon Shining Spear without knowing what had happened to him.

The Men's Side was in darkness, though the indigo predawn sky showed through the slits in the walls.

Meriel found a basket of torches and lit one by the guttering blue flame of a spilled rushlight. The torch's

flame turned the haze of smoke white—the temple itself might be stone, but there were many things inside

it which could burn.

There were no guards watching before his door, and when Meriel entered, at first she thought the

chamber empty, then she saw Shining Spear still lying upon his bed. She set the torch into a wall bracket

and knelt beside him, and only then did she see the slow rise and fall of his chest, and the green gleam

beneath his sleeping furs.

Hardly daring to believe her eyes, Meriel turned back a fold of the blanket.

The Grail was here.

"It is said… that the cup gives eternal life, if one knows its secret. Gold Hands brought it to me, but her

magic was not strong enough," Shining Spear said, his voice frail.

"I am sorry," Meriel said. "There is nothing I can do. The Grail is a medicine not for earthly bodies, but

for souls."

With an effort, Shining Spear reached out and grasped Meriel's wrist. Carrying her hand forward, he

placed it upon the Grail.

She had always thought, when the moment she first touched it came, that there would be a great shock of

holiness, some numinous epiphany like her vision in the church in Baltimore. But all she felt was the

sensation of warm stone beneath her fingers.

"Take… take the cup, Green Stone. Fulfill your destiny. I am still Prester. While I live, my will is law, and

I say this. Take the cup."

Weeping, Meriel crossed herself, and kissed Shining Spear upon the forehead. Then she got to her feet

and wrapped the Grail carefully in her blanket. When she looked at Shining Spear again, his eyes were

closed, his face peaceful in death. Cradling her precious burden in her arms, Meriel hurried from the

room.

She did not know how long it took her to reach the front of the temple, for many of the passageways

were blocked by spilled goods, and in some, roof or walls sagged frighteningly, ready to collapse

completely. As she neared the entrance she could hear the wailing of the people outside, but she was not

prepared for the sight that greeted her.

The Numakiki city had been smashed, as if the earth upon which it stood was a blanket rumpled by a

fractious child. Two of the towers had fallen, pulling the log palisade down with them, and half the island

had simply been sheared away, flooding much of the city. Hundreds must have died at once, and the

survivors flocked toward the temple, crying out for help.

They are dead
—
Sarah and the others are dead
, Meriel thought sorrowfully, looking over the

devastation. And her own way of escape from the city was blocked—she'd thought of stealing a canoe,

or even of swimming, but the river was more turbulent than she had ever seen it—angry and brown, its

surface rippling with foam.

First Sword had survived, and was standing a few steps up from the bottom trying to calm the people.

And soon he will say that the Great Spirit has sent the earthquake because he is displeased at the

strangers in their midst
—
as if an execution could improve matters
!

She clutched the blanket-wrapped bundle of the Grail tightly. The priests who had instructed her had told

her always that God was not to be bargained with as if He were a heavenly tradesman, but she could not

keep herself from thinking:
I will do all I can, but You must help me
.

There was a way.

Reluctantly Meriel turned back the way she had come, into the labyrinth of the temple.

Sarah awakened sharply as Meets-The-Dawn shook her. She wasn't sure why: it was just before

sunrise, and all was silent in the Numakiki city. Even the dogs were still.

When he was sure she was awake, Meets-The-Dawn turned to the Sahoya, but before he could rouse

her, the ground began to shake as violently as a horse trying to dislodge summer blackflies. Sarah cried

out in surprise. She struggled to her knees, gazing about herself wildly, but she could see little in the

dimness. Beneath her the ground rolled like the deck of a snip, and the silence of the dawn was broken

by screams and clamor as the Numakiki city awoke to bedlam.

At last the shaking stopped. The Daughter-of-the-Wind was at the door, but it was barred from without

Sarah glanced toward the window. Between them they could get the lattice off, and in the confusion the

sound would not be heard. She scrambled over the bedding and began shoving at it. The peeled willow

wands creaked, but held firm.

Then Meets-The-Dawn joined his strength to hers. There was a splintering sound, and the bars over the

window sagged free.

Meets-The-Dawn was first through the window, and Sarah slithered quickly after him, followed by the

Sahoya. The back of the so-called Guest House gave on a narrow alleyway. At the moment it was

deserted. There was a faint scent of smoke in the air.

"What has happened?" The Daughter-of-the-Wind demanded. She struggled through the window, and

Sarah helped her to the ground.

"What is called an earthquake, I think," Sarah said. "I have heard they can be very powerful."

"So the earth-folk aid us," Meets-The-Dawn said slowly. "That is well. I should not like to be their

enemy."

Sarah was thinking furiously. Meriel had told them that she slept in the temple at the center of the city.

Could Sarah get there, find Meriel, and escape in the confusion?

"Go—find us some way off this island—I will find you!" Sarah promised the others recklessly. "And if I

do not, then I thank you for helping me as you have."

"I will go with you," Meets-The-Dawn said, but the Sahoya held him back, saying, "One will travel faster

than two, and I will need your strong arm."

Sarah ran through the maze of alleyways and damaged buildings. The streets were flooded, and all

around her the devastation was more terrible than anything she had seen outside her visions. Fire had

taken possession of those parts of the city which were above water, and the sky was filled with smoke.

She had a good sense of direction, so while Sarah was not lost, precisely, she found herself going in

circles trying to find an unblocked way to reach her destination. From the numbers of people in the

streets, Sarah realized that many of the folk were fleeing the city, and she wondered if her decision to

look for Meriel had been a foolish one. What if Meriel were already dead—or looking for her as well?

They might both wander the city until they were recaptured.

As the sun rose higher, Sarah won free onto an unblocked thoroughfare. She was still a great distance

from the center of the city, and realized she had little hope of reaching Meriel, even if her friend
had

remained within the temple. A part of her found a certain gallows humor in the fact that she had sailed to

America armed in all the panoply of might that could be wielded by the Duchess of Wessex, only to

discover herself in a situation in which such exalted rank counted for nothing.

Sarah knew she was running out of time. She must escape herself while she still could, but her hardy

conscience stubbornly rebelled against such prudence. She had come in search of Meriel, and she would

not leave her. If she could do nothing else useful, she could find the others and urge them to escape

without her, then hide nearby and await another chance to escape with Meriel.

But the need to avoid recapture became ever more urgent as the people began to recover their senses,

and to her great frustration, Sarah found herself dodging back toward the prison-house near the gates of

the city. She ducked into a doorway as six warrior-priests marched by. They wore the short kilts and

red-painted crosses Sarah had seen before, and their presence was a sign that order was returning to the

city. She had tarried too long.

Just then she saw a flash of. green, brilliant as noonday sun on a mirror, from the alleyway across the

street Though Sarah stared in that direction intently she could see nothing that might cause it, but when

she looked away, the flash came again. Determined to solve this mystery, Sarah waited for an opening,

then fleeted across the wide avenue into the alley beyond.

There was nothing there.

But the flash came again, this time from a rooftop several hundred yards beyond, and once again Sarah

followed it. Time and again she resolved to give up the fruitless chase, but the conviction grew in her,

somehow, that the green fire was a message meant for her eyes alone, leading her onward—but to what?

At last she stood in a space between two buildings—little more than a shambles, now—that faced what

remained of the palisades that had surrounded the city. The wall's ancient architects had understood the

necessities of defense, for there was a wide open space between the last building and the wall… or

where the wall should have been.

The earthquake that had struck the city had twisted the stout pine logs like so many wooden toothpicks,

leaving only a row of shattered stumps between Sarah and the river. And at the water's edge, she saw a

flash of green.

When Shining Spear had shown Meriel the Numakiki treasure rooms weeks before, neither of them had

imagined that she would have any use for its greatest secret: a tunnel that led from the city to a sheltered

cove at the edge of the river. The tunnel offered no chance of escape, for the river was far too wide to

swim, and too fast for even a strong swimmer, but it did offer a place to hide, and so Meriel took it.

She was lucky enough to have light to guide her, for a lantern was among the treasure—booty from some

uncelebrated yet recent encounter between Europeans and the Numakiki—and a packet of Lucifers was

with it. She was able to easily strike a light. The tunnel was so low she had to go stooped over, and the

timbers that shored it up were black with age and damp. Her footing was treacherous, for the floor of the

tunnel was filled with water-rotted debris and the litter of the small animals that had made it their home.

The small folded forms of bats, like strange leaves, clustered along the walls in places, and Meriel

shuddered and closed her eyes, hoping the lantern-light would not disturb them.

Soon she could see daylight ahead and stopped to blow out the lantern. The passageway narrowed and

lowered, until Meriel had to abandon the lantern and go forward on hands and knees, her precious

burden awkwardly clutched to her stomach and her white robe girded immodestly high.

At last she reached the end, and peered out through a screen of bushes. The tunnel let out into a sort of

cove, and a fan of sand spread out around the tunnel mouth. Above, the bank overhung the entrance

sharply, so one would have to have keen eyes indeed even to see that there was a tunnel here, cut into

the blue clay of the bank.

There was no one in sight, but the river itself was thick with debris, for the Numakiki had a habit of

consigning to the river anything which they did not want, and were adding much to what it had taken from

them this morning. Freedom—the far bank—was tantalizingly close, yet she had no way of reaching it.