Part 5 (1/2)

Oblivious to the turn of Collins' thoughts, Korfius continued, ”I like tug-of-war, and you don't have to worry that it'll make me vicious, despite what Maia says.” He referred to one of Collins' neighbors, a long-legged redhead who considered herself the dorm authority on animal training. ”I like the big biscuits, the brown ones-not the little multicolored ones. I'm not the one who took Bernice's shoe; it got kicked under the common room couch. I like Tom, but I wish he'd quit ruffling my back fur the wrong way.

Dan's got the perfect touch on car scratching.” Korfius rolled his gaze directly onto Collins. ”You could learn from him. I would never p.o.o.p or pee inside, so tell Nita to stop worrying. Nick smells too much like a cat not to be hiding one. And, by the way, you have huge roaches; and they're delicious.”

Collins laughed. ”Slow down. I don't have anything to write this down with.”

Korfius continued in the same tone, as if he did not hear. ”Now, if you don't mind, I need a nap.”

Without further ado, he paced a circle, curled into a ball, and closed his eyes.

Collins rose from his haunches and took a scat on one of the chests, trying to remember all of Korfius'

revelations. He now knew that his long-lived dog was intelligent and not color-blind but, nonetheless, a dog and Korfius had no desire to become human again. It seemed strange to Collins who, if given the option of reincarnation would definitely choose to, once again, be a man. Though he might enjoy trying out an animal form for a short time, he had no desire to become one for a lifetime, quick-witted or otherwise.

Zylas came up beside Collins. ”Did you find out what you wanted to know?”

Collins bobbed his head noncommittally. ”I suppose.”

”Not what you expected?” Zylas guessed.

Collins' wishy-washy gesture morphed into a clear shrug. ”I don't know what I expected. Korfius is happy with his life, which is all I really needed to hear.”

Zylas studied Collins through his pale blue eyes. ”You're not happy?”

”I'm... happy, I guess. I just... ” Collins paused, uncertain what he wanted to say. ”Talking about Korfius' life got me thinking about my own.”

Zylas gestured for Collins to continue.

But Collins shook his head. ”It's silly, really. My world has so much compared to yours. And yet... ”

He shook his head again. ”Don't mind me. I'm a fool.”

Zylas slapped his forehead in mock horror. ”Great.

Now I've got my life depending on a fool.” He looked stern. ”I picked you for a reason, Ben. And it wasn't because you're a fool.”

Collins laughed, his somber mood lifted by Zylas' even more serious one. ”I didn't mean I'm apermanent fool. I just meant I was being foolish about this.”

”Ah.” Zylas' cheeks turned pink.

”But that was pretty good. Save that motivational speech for later. I might need it.”

Zylas glanced at Prinivere, who was lumbering into a deeper, darker portion of the cave. ”Riches come in many forms, Ben. They can buy a lot of happinesses, but they can't fill the empty places in your soul.”

This time, Zylas. .h.i.t the problem directly, but Collins no longer wanted to talk about it. ”Did she go to... change?”

Zylas followed the direction of Collins' stare. ”Yes. Prinivere went to find privacy while she takes switch form.”

Takes switch-form? Collins considered, then remembered that Prinivere had started as a dragon, then had the human-time inflicted upon her. Over the centuries, she had narrowed her switch time. By Collins' reckoning, she took human form from three to seven p.m., which reminded him to set his watch the moment Prinivere revealed herself as human. ”And then what?”

”We let her eat. Which might take a while.” Zylas pursed his lips and looked toward the chest where they had taken lunch and now Aisa busied herself setting out a feast for Prinivere.

”Then we discuss the details of tomorrow's castle break in?”

”Right,” Zylas confirmed. ”Mostly how to convincingly take on the personalities of the guards we're imitating. The rest we'll have to play somewhat by ear.”

Though Collins would have preferred an airtight plan, he was not dumb enough to expect one. Only so much of the kingdom was predictable, and no renegade but Collins had ever set foot in the rooms on the upper floors of the castle. His thoughts betrayed him. No renegade but me. I'm here a few hours, and I already consider myself one of them. Oddly, the realization seemed more comforting than shocking, and he could not find it in him to laugh. It reminded him of the night he had dreamed that his Great Aunt Irene, ten years dead, had called and requested he repair the porch of an elderly couple on a fixed income because an elephant's foot had broken through the steps. In the dream, it had all seemed natural and plausible, and he had only questioned why the couple had chosen to paint the wood olive green. He had felt useful and needed, the one his wise old aunt turned to in a crisis. He looked from Zylas to the ma.s.sive s.p.a.ce Prinivere no longer occupied, to Aisa shooing Ijidan from the feast. The squirrel chittered angrily in the parrot/woman's direction, and Collins wondered dully whether he would survive what his desire to feel wanted and appreciated had gotten him into this time.

Chapter 4.

THREE hours later, Benton Collins perched on a boulder outside the hidden cave, watching the sun dip toward the horizon he considered west and wis.h.i.+ng he had brought a compa.s.s. He wondered if magnetic north would even exist here as a concept and realized it did not matter. He could just as arbitrarily call it magnetic southeast. If it made him feel comfortable to consider the sun's pa.s.sage east to west, like home, it made little sense not to do so.

Gaze fixed on brilliant blue sky, broken only by white puffs of cloud, Collins enjoyed the fresh scentof damp greenery and natural pine, untainted by the greasy odor of rotting garbage or the bitter tinge of carbon monoxide.

He knew from experience that the sunsets here dwarfed anything he had seen back home, the colors vivid and alive, undiminished by artificial lights or by plane trails. Everything seemed brighter here, as if an omnipotent haze grayed every part of his world and it took seeing Barakhai to bring the realization. The cliff tops pointed sharply upward, treelined and spreading as far as he could see by eye or with the binoculars. Zylas had said they would leave for the castle from a much closer hiding place than this.

Clearly, Prinivere would have to carry them there again. Even if a climb were possible, it would take weeks to get to the lowlands.

Without fondness, Collins remembered the stomach-churning flight that had brought them here. He appreciated that Prinivere had brought him to a truly safe haven where the king's men could never reach them. Nevertheless, the idea of what had to follow seemed raw agony: whizzing through the air without the body of an airplane coc.o.o.ning him or even a safety harness to keep him in place against gusts or sudden movement. He had enjoyed some of the roller coasters on his senior cla.s.s trip to Busch Gardens, but no one would consider him an adrenaline junkie. Still, he planned to take part in an excursion only a stuntman could relish.

”Don't you think you should give Falima some privacy for her switch time?”

The voice, so near Collins' ear, startled him. He loosed a noisy breath and skittered sideways, banging his s.h.i.+n against an outcropping. He glared at Zylas. ”What did you do that for?”

Hunkered on a rock, cloth bundled under his arm, Zylas blinked, expression genuinely bewildered.

”What did I do this time?”

Collins put a hand over his pounding heart. ”Snuck up on me.”

”I'm in man form. I figured you'd heard me.” Zylas looked at his shoes, composed of thin wood and string.

”I'll practice making more noise when I walk from now on, okay?”

Collins suspected walking lightly came naturally to an outlaw, let alone a rat, with good cause. He believed Zylas, attributing most of his startlement to his own deep concentration, ”Don't go stomping around on my account.” He considered. A touch would surprise him at least as much as talking, maybe even result in someone getting hurt if his mind registered it as an attack. ”Maybe you could just start speaking from a little farther away.”

”Deal,” Zylas said. ”Anyway, what about that privacy for Falima?”

Collins looked at the horse grazing placidly, black mane striping the golden fur like spilled ink. ”She doesn't look too upset.”

”Agreed. But remember the other time you came to Barakhai and saw her human form naked?”

An image rose in Collins' mind of Falima's magnificent, muscular curves that complimented her high cheekbones, spare lips, and even her generous nose. ”Yeah,” he said dreamily. Thirteen or fourteen hours ago, she had emerged, unclothed, from the portal; but he had barely noticed, more concerned about their survival. Finally, he recalled Falima's previous discomfort. Accustomed to nakedness, the denizens of Barakhai seemed not to notice one another or to feel conspicuously vulnerable in a state of undress.

Collins' l.u.s.tful stare, however, had bothered Falima. She had seen it as hungry.

Apparently unimpressed by Collins' answer, Zylas pressed, ”And remember how you paid for it?”