by David Drake
The hunters exchanged glances. Asion started toward the forested slope to the northeast. "I'll follow," Karpos said to Ilna, turning to watch the ridge behind them. It'd be fully light by the time they reached the catmen's day camp. That'd be helpful if there was more to do there-as Ilna suspected there would be. *** Cashel squatted with his back against one of the two columns still standing near the southeast corner of the ruin. There was a stretch of the stone foundation course for a mud-brick wall, and the bases of other columns that'd fallen over. Otherwise, the Temple of the Mighty Shepherd was a lot of loose stones. Cashel'd seen enough temples by now that he could guess at what it might've looked like, but that was just guessing. Tenoctris sat cross-legged way down at the other end, where the statue would've been in the days there was a statue. Cashel was uncomfortable about them being so far apart in case something happened, nearly two tens of double-paces as he judged.
She'd said it'd be all right, though, and that having him close might be a problem because he was so solid. Cashel didn't understand what she meant by solid-sure he was, but she was sitting on a slab of stone. There were lots of things he didn't understand, though; he'd do what Tenoctris said. If more of the Last popped out of the ground the way they'd come from the pond the night before, well, he'd see how quick he could get to her. When he had to, he moved faster than people generally expected. He held the quarterstaff crossways on his thighs as he polished it, smiling softly. He and the staff had surprised people, yes they had. They'd surprised people and things that weren't people at all. Sparks of wizardlight sizzled blue above Tenoctris, then vanished. Cashel watched intently for a moment, but it'd happened before and not meant anything. At each pop and crackle the tree frogs fell silent, but they were starting up again as usual. Cashel listened to the frogs and the night birds, and he eyed the heavens. Once already tonight a shrew had perched on his foot and chittered as it ate a beetle; the wings and then bits of the beetle's shell had tickled his bare skin before the shrew'd scurried off into the night to find something else to kill. Shrews were bloody little fellows, for all that they weren't much longer than a man's finger. Tenoctris mumbled, or maybe somebody else spoke near where she was. Nobody Cashel could see, anyway. The old wizard's eyes were closed. She wore a calm smile, but Cashel'd seen her smile when she thought Evil was going to overwhelm her and everybody she cared about. Folks who thought courage had something to do with being willing to hit other people needed to spend a little time around Tenoctris. There were wispy clouds in the high sky, but mostly the stars shone clear. A shepherd spends a lot of time looking at the stars while other people sleep. They're his clock as well as his companion: they keep better time than folk in the palace get from the clepsydra dripping water and a trumpeter blowing the hour when a cup filled and turned over. The constellations were pretty much what he was used to. The Seven Plow Oxen were strung out a little, and a middling reddish star was in the place of the blue one in the head of the Farrier's Hammer; nothing more major than those things. Except in the south, where the new white star was so much brighter than anything but the moon. Cashel looked over his shoulder at it, then looked back. He figured that star was part of the problem, but it wasn't for him to worry about till somebody told him it was. A cardinal started singing merrily, though what it was doing up so late was more than Cashel could guess. It'd been dark for hours; Duzi, it'd been dark by the time Tenoctris stopped the gig here on the eastern outskirts of Valles. Of what Valles was today, anyhow. Cashel was pretty sure that when he'd been driven through this part of the city before the Change, it'd been solid with many-story tenements. Cashel didn't miss the buildings-they were dovecotes for people; he couldn't imagine how folks were willing to live like that-but he sort of wondered what'd happened to those who'd been in them. He hoped they were all back in their own time, as happy as anybody could be in tenements. It was probably good there weren't as many people around as he'd expected, partly because wizardry bothered folks. What Tenoctris was doing now seemed a lot like wizardry, even if she wanted to call it dreaming or meditation or whatever. The sparkles and the sounds showed that. The other reason-and probably the bigger one-was that this way folks didn't botherher. There was no way Cashel could've kept everybody away from Tenoctris if they'd been in the middle of buildings full of people, especially since he had to stay a distance back from her himself.
Sure, most folks were scared of a wizard, but there'd always be a few, kids especially, who weren't or were more curious than scared. A girl stepped into the temple from the front. She looked at Cashel when she passed, though she didn't say anything or even look interested. She was heading toward Tenoctris. Isn't that just what you get when you tell yourself things are going fine! Cashel thought as he scrambled to his feet. "Ma'am?" he said. "I wish you wouldn't go any closer to my friend. She's busy with, well, a thing that she's got to think about really hard." The girl stopped in her tracks and turned to stare. She was older than he'd thought, but still not very old; sixteen, maybe, was all. She had flowing dark hair that spread like a cape over the thin shift that seemed to be all she was wearing. "You cansee me?" she said. Her voice was as thin and high as the trilling of chorus frogs.
"Yes, ma'am," Cashel said. She had very fine bones; that and the way her legs moved made him think of a bird. "I know I'm not from around here, but I'd really be grateful if you didn't talk to Tenoctris till she's done." If the girl didn't listen to him when he was being polite, he guessed he'd hold her. It wasn't something he wanted to do, grab a stranger and make her do something because he was stronger, but Tenoctris was depending on him. The girl just stared. Had he done something wrong? "Ah, my name's Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "I'm just here with my friend Tenoctris, Lady Tenoctris, that is. I carry things for her." "You see me!" the girl cried. She touched her hands to her face, covering her open mouth. "It's been… why, nobody's ever been able to see me! Not since the flood." "Ah, flood, ma'am?" Cashel said. "I'm not from Ornifal; I mean, I'm from Haft. I hadn't heard about a flood here, I guess." "No, theFlood," the girl said. "When the waters covered everything and everyone died." Her tongue touched her lips; Cashel couldn't begin to read her expression. "I died then, but I didn't go away like the rest of them. I've stayed here for ever so long. I don't know why." "Ma'am, you're a ghost?" Cashel said. She didn't look like a ghost. He wondered if he could touch her if he stretched out his arm, but he didn't try. It'd be impolite, and anyway it didn't matter. "Am I?" said the girl. "Perhaps I am." She licked her lips again. "Your name is Cashel," she said wonderingly. "I used to have a name too. I don't remember what it was, though. It was ever so long ago." "Do you live around here?" Cashel said. "Stay, I mean, if you're not…" "I think I came here after the Flood," the girl said. He couldn't believe that she was a ghost; she seemed just as real as real. "I don't think I lived here before, but I don't really remember." She shook her head, then gave him a rueful smile. "I don't remember anything from when I was alive," she said, "except that I had a name. I'm sure I had a name." A thread of ruby sparks trickled out of the sky to vanish again above Tenoctris' head. She didn't move or even notice it as best as Cashel could tell. From what the old wizard'd said on the drive here, she wasn't making things happen any more than the flume makes the water that turns the mill. She just put herself where things would happen and maybe pushed them a bit to one side or the other. The girl was staring at Tenoctris. "Can she see me too, Cashel?" she said suddenly, turning to face him. Her eyes were very dark, but they seemed like real eyes. "Ma'am," Cashel said, "I don't know. When she's done we can ask her, I guess." "Oh, it doesn't matter," the girl said, brushing the thought away with a sweep of her hand. "Nothing matters really, not if you take the time to look at it.
Do you-" She raised a hand and traced the line of Cashel's cheek without quite touching him. "Do you have feelings, Cashel?" she said coquettishly. "Love and hate, things like that?" "I wouldn't say I hated anybody, ma'am," he said, feeling a little uncomfortable. Still, the girl wasn't bothering Tenoctris and that was all
that mattered.
"I've fought people and I guess I will again. People and other things.
But I don't know about hate." "I used to feel things," she said, turning away again. Whatever'd possessed her for a moment was gone now; thank Duzi. "I remember that too. When I'm around people I sometimes imagine I can feel again, but mostly I'm alone." The ground trembled, though the motion was so faint that afterwards Cashel wasn't sure he'd felt anything more than a distant wagon with a heavy load.
"Now I feel sadness," the girl said, her eyes fixed on Tenoctris.
"Everyone in this world is going to be killed the way the Flood killed everyone in my world." She looked at him abruptly. "That's right, isn't it?" she said. "Ishould feel sad about that? Or should I feel something else?" Cashel's lips felt dry. "Ma'am," he said, "that'd be sad, but Tenoctris and the rest of us aren't going to let that happen.
It'll be all right." The girl trilled golden laughter. "Yes," she said, "I remember now. There were scholars in my day who were going to stop the Flood, but the Flood came anyway. You'll see that it doesn't really matter, Cashel. When you look back as far as I do, nothing matters. And you feel nothing." There was a pop near Tenoctris, a dull sound. The air was suddenly clearer, though Cashel hadn't noticed a haze beforehand. The old woman slumped, barely managing to catch herself on her arms. Cashel trotted to her, holding his staff crosswise before him. Tenoctris looked up and smiled when she heard his feet thumping on the turf. She stayed where she was until he was there to help her up. "Tenoctris?" he said when he was sure she was all right and firm on her feet. "There's somebody who'd like to meet you." Cashel looked toward where he'd been standing, but the girl wasn't there any more. For a moment he thought she might've hidden behind one of the pillars, but that probably wasn't it. "I guess she's gone," he said in embarrassment. "We were talking while you sat here, is all." Tenoctris nodded and started toward the gig. She touched Cashel's wrist but didn't really lean on him. "The girl was local, then?" she asked. Cashel grinned. Tenoctris wanted to know more, but she didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. "I don't know if she was," he said. "She said she drowned in a flood so long ago that she couldn't remember her name. She looked just like a girl, though. A pretty one." "Indeed?" Tenoctris said in delight. "The Primal Flood, then? My, that's quite interesting, Cashel. And she'd become the spirit of this place, agenius loci." She smiled. "Agenia loci, I suppose, since you say she was still a girl to look at." Cashel shrugged; the words didn't mean anything to him. Not even "spirit of this place." "She couldn't remember much," he said, looking to both sides as they passed between the pair of pillars that were still standing. "She told me-" He stopped and took a moment to reframe his words. He said, "I told her that you were going to stop the trouble that was coming now. Like her flood." "I see," said Tenoctris, looking at him sharply. He guessed she really did see what he hadn't said.
"Well, while I myself can't stop the Last, I think I've learned how to get the ally we need." She paused, still watching him as they neared the gig. "I'll need your help again tomorrow, Cashel," she said. "If you're willing." "Yes ma'am, I am," Cashel said. "When will you want me?" He took the horse's reins in his left hand and gripped the frame of the light vehicle in his right so that it wouldn't skitter forward while Tenoctris climbed aboard. She didn't need his help for that, though. Tenoctris took the reins. "Around midday, I'd judge," she said as he walked around the back of the gig to get in on the other side.
"There are a number of things I'll need, and they aren't all in my apartments. We'll be going to the old tombs in the palace grounds." "I didn't think people were buried inside Valles, ma'am," Cashel said, mounting with the care his weight required. He was a good load for one horse to pull, though the roads back to the palace were smooth enough and flat so he wouldn't have to get out and walk. "The palace wasn't part of the city when the tombs were built," Tenoctris said. "The family, the bor-Torials, weren't even Dukes of Ornifal at the time."
She clucked to the horse and twitched the reins; he clopped forward immediately. It looked simple. Cashel was pretty sure ifhe tried it, the horse would either look at him or run off in some other direction.
"Well, I'll help however I can, Tenoctris," Cashel said. He'd have said the same thing regardless, but maybe listening to the girl made him put a little more force into the words. *** The catmen had been sheltering from daylight in a ravine between two knobs of limestone that'd been a little harder than the surrounding rock. They'd built a low dome of boughs broken from the neighboring pines. "There's caves all over here," Asion said in a tone of mild reproach. "Why d'they want to take the trouble to build a hut, d'ye suppose?" "Maybe they don't like rock," Ilna said, speaking more harshly than the question required. She looked down at the shelter while lying on a slab of cracked, gray stone. Sun and frost had broken the surface into rough pebbles that anybody'd find uncomfortable, but no Corl couldpossibly dislike rock more than Ilna herself did. "How many are inside, do you know?" Karpos looked at Asion. The smaller man shrugged. "There's one," he said, "but I don't think more than that.
And he's got to be hurt or he would've gone after you with the others, right?" He and Karpos exchanged glances over Ilna's head. "I figure," said Karpos carefully, "that with just one there and laid up, we don't need to be fancy. Besides, it's broad daylight and they don't like that. I'll go down and finish him off, right?" "No," said Ilna. "I'll stand in front of the entrance. Asion, start a fire and get a torch going. When I'm in place, throw it onto the hut and I'll stop the beast when it tries to get out." While they waited, Ilna'd knotted a pattern. It seemed right to use yarn from the disemboweled woman's tunic to dispose of the beasts who'd killed her. It shouldn't have mattered, but there are more patterns than those woven in cloth. She looked past Asion to Temple. "Do you have an opinion?" she demanded.
"It's a good plan, Ilna," the big man said. He stretched. His sword was sheathed, but she'd seen how quickly he could draw it. "I'll stand with you in case the Corl is feverish and doesn't see as he ought to."
Ilna grimaced, but Temple hadn't said anything she could object to.
There was no excuse for her mood. The rock bothered her, she supposed, and being awake all night; but there was something irritating in Temple's attitude. He seemed to be judging her as dispassionately as she'd eye a hen while planning dinner. Ilna stood and walked half a furlong to the right so that she was at the head of the ravine, facing the hut's entrance. The door was merely a juniper bush pulled into the opening, but it was where the catman would come out. It was important to stop him in his tracks. If he headed up the far slope instead of attacking directly, there was no certain safety. Even injured, a Corl was dangerous if you let him pick his time. Temple paced her, keeping to the right so that he didn't block her view of the shelter. His sword was out and he'd released the strap so that the buckler was free in his left hand. His expression was one of mild interest, as though he was contemplating an attractive landscape. Karpos stood beside Asion with an arrow nocked. Ordinarily that would've been pointless: the catmen reacted so quickly that arrows were no more likely to hit them than a human soldier'd be knocked down by a flung bale of hay.
Sick or wounded, the beast might be more vulnerable, though. Besides, it gave the hunter a way to feel useful. Smoke trailed up between Asion's hands; he rose and whipped his torch to full life. He'd bound branches to a limb wind'd broken from a scrub chestnut a year or more before. Ilna met the hunter's eyes but started down the ravine instead of giving the signal immediately. She held the knotted pattern before her, where the Corl couldn't avoid seeing it if he looked at her at all. Only when she'd covered half the distance did she call, "All right, now!" She expected the catman to charge out of the dome when she spoke. Indeed, it should've been aware of the humans even earlier, from the sounds they'd made if not their scent as well. The beasts' hearing and sense of smell were sharper than those of any human being.
The shelter remained silent. Asion sent his torch spinning end over end into the woven
branches. They'd been drying in the sun for several days, long enough to become tinder. The torch bounced off the dome, but the sparks sprayed from the contact. Pitchy needles started burning. Still nothing from inside. Ilna walked forward, her face set in angry puzzlement. Brush threatened to trip her at every step, but she kept her eyes fixed on the opening. Her feet could take care of themselves. Had the beast died, or was Asion wrong about one of the pack staying behind? Or-and this was a real concern-had the catman tricked them? It could've left the bush in place over the entrance but hidden in the hills above, waiting to strike from behind when the humans were concentrating on the empty shelter. As fire crowned the dome, the bush flew back from the entrance. "It's coming!" Ilna cried, but for the hunters-and Temple as well, she was sure-that was like someone telling her a warp thread was broken. A catman came out of the shelter in a crouch, rose with a snarl, and froze in its tracks as Ilna'd intended that it should. It was two double-paces away. A part of Ilna's mind that was never completely absent considered the cat's russet fur and rejected it as too coarse for most weaving. As well use the long strands of aloe leaves. The beast was female. A kit, probably less than a week old, nestled against her chest. Karpos' arrow entered through the beast's right collarbone; the flared bronze point punched out below the ribs on the left side. The beast sprang wildly into the air. The shock had broken the pattern's effect, but that didn't matter now. It thrashed, spraying blood from its mouth onto the clumps of wormwood and broom, but it'd been dead from the instant the arrow hit.