by David Drake
Shecouldn't 've been more than 20 years old. "Tenoctris, it worked!"
The young Tenoctris got to her feet. She bumped the coffin and the whole front of it crumbled like a wall of sand in the tide. Laughing merrily, she stepped down from the bench. "So…," she said. "Do you like me, Cashel?" Raising her arms overhead, palms out so the fingernails touched, Tenoctris pirouetted. She was so small that she didn't touch the ceiling, even on tiptoe. Cashel blinked. This was really amazing. Tenoctris still had fine bones, but her face was rounder than it'd been when age wrinkled her cheeks. He couldn't tell the color of her hair, but it fell in long curls instead of being in a tight bun on top of her head. "That's really good, Tenoctris," he said. "That's really you, then? I mean, it's not just changing how you look?" "A glamour, you mean?" she said. "No, no-this is how I looked when I was twenty-one. If you'd like a glamour, though…" She turned her palm toward her face and murmured. Part of it was,
"… brimo maast," or something like it. Scarlet wizardlight twinkled. When Tenoctris lowered her hand, she had lustrous black hair, full lips, and a bosom that noticeably bulged her silk brocade robes. "Do you like this better?" she said. The voice was still Tenoctris, but nothing of the woman Cashel'd known so well for two years was there in the features. Smiling, she lifted her hand again.
"Or this?" The dusting of wizardlight was blue again this time, mild compared to the glare that'd dissolved the stone coffin but still bright enough to leave afterimages on Cashel's eyes. Tenoctris lowered her hand. Cashel's mouth opened in amazement. Sharina, tall and blond and as perfect as she'd been when he saw her a few hours before, smiled back at him. "You're really something to do that!" he said. "I think we'd best get back to the gig, though. We're losing the light, and there's some bad potholes till we get back to the main road."
"So…," said Tenoctris. "You don't find me attractive, Cashel?" He couldn't have said how the change happened, but what hadn't been Tenoctris slumped away or soaked in or something. She was back to being herself, only young. "What?" said Cashel. "Sure I do. You're really pretty, as yourself or any of the other ways. But I don't want us to break a wheel on the way out." He smiled. "Though I guess we could walk back if we had to now," he said. "Since you're young again." Tenoctris gave a funny little laugh. "Yes," she said. "That was the point, after all, wasn't it? And you're right, we need to get started. We have a great deal to do, my friend." She picked up the satchel herself and walked out of the tomb. Her strides were quick and birdlike, and her back was very straight. *** The three men would've been more than happy to open the mound themselves, but Ilna insisted on joining with the digging stick which Karpos had cut for her from a cedar as thick as his wrist. The fresh cedar oozed sap so her hands were now sticky, but that just gave her a better grip. She stamped the wedge tip into the dirt and levered upward. Asion's mattock clinked on rock; he worked it sideways. "I've got something here," he said. "It's not pebbles, it's fitted stones!"
"Here," ordered Ilna. "Let me." They'd carved down to the depth of her forearm through the turf at one end of the mound. It was certainly artificial, made of topsoil instead of changing quickly to the yellowish clay that underlay the surrounding meadow. That didn't prove the truth of what Merota'd said, that the Youth who'd sucked Ilna into that dream world was buried here, but it made that more likely. Had it really been Merota? And Chalcus, his arms as strong and supple as they'd been before the cat beasts'd swarmed over him slashing and stabbing…? "What is it you expect to find, Ilna?" asked Temple.
They'd been piling loosened earth onto Ilna's outer tunic. The big man had lifted each bundle out of the excavation and dumped it well from the mound where it wouldn't get in the way later. Ilna chopped fiercely at the dirt, opening a crevice between two large rocks. She didn't have to spare her implement the way Asion did the mattock: if she broke the end off the stick, Karpos would simply sharpen it again.
"I don't know," she said. She didn't look around, concentrating instead on the task she had in hand. As usual, of course; as she'd done all her life. "Perhaps bones, perhaps nothing." The chest-sized stones under the layer of turf hadn't been shaped by tools, but they'd been laid with a good deal of care. She drove the digging stick into a crack she'd cleared, then put her weight against it. The cedar was too supple to make a good crowbar, but she lifted the upper stone enough to notice those around it crunch and grate. This wasn't simply a heap: the individual rocks were wedged together into a dome of sorts. "What will you do when you find what you're looking for, Ilna?" Temple said.
Ilna jerked out the digging stick and turned. "I don't know that either!" she said. The sun shone from directly behind Temple's head, turning his blond hair into a cloud of blazing light. The hunters stood back slightly. Their expressions showed they were afraid that no matter what they did or didn't do, Ilna was going to flay the skin off them. Ilna glared and opened her mouth; they cringed. She closed her mouth again. She'd been about to snarl at them simply for existing, which was precisely what they'd been afraid she was going to do. Ilna barked a laugh. It wasn't a very good laugh, but she didn't have much experience with the process. "We're going to have to lift the rocks off carefully before I can see what's inside," she said in a calm voice. "Otherwise the dome will collapse into a worse mess." "I can lift this stone, Ilna," Temple said. He leaned forward and tapped the block whose edge she'd cleaned with her stick. "Then you can look inside." Ilna felt her anger returning. There was something soassured in the man's tone that it made her want to snap at him-or worse. She placed the yarn back in her sleeve. She'd started to knot a pattern that would've doubled the big man over retching; nobody could sound self-assured while vomiting his guts up. "All right," Ilna said.
"Since you believe you can." Shedidn't believe he could do it; neither did the hunters, judging from the sidelong glances they offered one another. Temple smiled faintly and bent to the stone block, easing his fingers into the cracks on either side. "You're going to have the weight of the ones it's touching to lift too, you know," Karpos warned, frowning. He'd locked his hands together and was flexing the fingers hard against one another. "Yes," said Temple calmly. "It's going to be difficult." His shoulders bunched; the tendons stood out on his arms. Ilna stepped farther off to the side. Temple had the same calm assurance as her brother Cashel. Though she couldn't believe he was really strong enough to pull the block out by himself…
Temple stood like a sun-drenched statue, bent and motionless save for drops of sweat dribbling from his hair. They ran down his back and massive arms. Stone ground on stones. Temple began to straighten, his arms withdrawing toward his body by a hair's breadth at a time. "It's coming!" said Asion. "By the Lady, it's coming!" The hunters scrambled up opposite sides of the mound, obviously expecting Temple to let the stone bounce away wherever its angles and gravity took it. Instead he dropped to one knee, rotated his palms upward, and tilted the block onto them. Straightening his legs cautiously, he set the block on the turf to the side of where they'd cut into the mound. "May the Lady shelter me," Karpos said softly. "I didn't think anybody… I just didn't think anybody could lift…" Karpos, who was more than ordinarily strong himself, was even more amazed at what Temple had been able to do than Ilna was. Ilna didn't know what the stone weighed; more than three men certainly, and perhaps a great deal more.
Temple turned, flexing his hands. His fingertips were bright red with the fierceness of his grip. He smiled and said, "You may look inside now, Ilna. And make up your mind." She stepped past him without speaking. Though irregular, the block had come out as neatly as a cork from a bottle; the stones around it remained as firm as a window casement. Those who'd built the mound were quite skilled despite their crude materials. Ilna smiled tightly. She'd always give craftsmanship its due, even when the craftsmen had used stone. She looked down into the chamber. The sun shone past her, and the crystal coffin within spread its light throughout the interior. It was indeed a tomb.
Despite the dust of ages and the scattering of dirt that'd fallen in w
hile they prized at the stones, the coffin was clear enough for her to see the body of the man within. His skin was the hue of ivory, and there were no signs of decay. Ilna looked at her companions. "Chalcus was right," she said. "It's the man who took me…" She shrugged angrily, trying to find the right word. "To wherever it was," she snapped at last. "To a dream world. It's the Youth." "Did the Youth harm you, Ilna?" Temple said. It was just a question; there was nothing more in the words or tone than Ilna'd have expected if he was asking for a water bottle. Despite that it took conscious effort to keep her voice level as she said, "I told you: he snatched me away."
"Yes, and you returned," Temple said. The hunters were watching the discussion warily. "I assume you were allowed to return. That's not surprising, since he appears to be a God of peace. You lost a few minutes of your time with us, then?" "He…!" Ilna said. She stopped and felt a wry smile lift one corner of her mouth. "He gave me a chance to forget my duty," she said. "That's what you mean, isn't it?" "I don't mean anything, Ilna," Temple said, but he smiled also.
"I was just asking a question." "And if an opportunity was all I needed to forget my duty," Ilna continued, "then I'd be a poor excuse for a human being." She sniffed. "Well, there's enough of that sort in the world already," she said. "So no, I wasn't hurt." "Mistress?"
Asion asked. "What do we do now?" "Do?" said Ilna. "Cover up the tomb again, I suppose. Temple, do you want help in replacing the stone?" "I don't think that will be necessary, Ilna," the big man said, flexing his hands again with his palms out at arm's length. His smile was very broad now, and as warm as that of a mother looking at her newborn.
Ilna turned and walked a few steps away from the men as they started undoing the work of the afternoon. "Goodbye, Chalcus," she whispered to the setting sun. "Goodbye, Merota. I hope you understand." But in all truth, Ilna wasn't sure that even she really understood. *** Sharina stood near the marsh, watching Rasile take knuckle-sized chips of quartz from a leather bag and space them in a circle on the wet soil. The Corl wizard glanced at her and said, "I'm marking the points of a twelve-sided star around us." "Ah," said Sharina, nodding; a polite response to a polite explanation. Then she said, "Is this better than drawing the lines out the way, ah, others do?" She'd started to say, "the way Tenoctris does," but she'd caught herself. She didn't know Rasile-or the Coerli more generally-well enough to know what might be read as an insult. Sharina smiled. It was bad enough dealing with human beings whom you didn't know very well; and often enough you could say the wrong thing with people youdid know. Rasile smiled also, though her pointed teeth made the expression a trifle equivocal. "The figure in this world doesn't matter, Sharina," she said, "except for what it evokes in the wizard's mind."
The Corl gave her growling laugh. "For someone as powerful as your friend Tenoctris," she said, "I doubt any material symbol would be necessary to perform a task as simple as this." "Ah," Sharina repeated. She almost said that Tenoctris hadn't always been so powerful, but on consideration she let the thought rest unspoken.
Sharina knew she didn't begin to understand wizardry, despite having been close to Tenoctris for years and having beentoo close to other wizards during that period. She decided she was better off not offering opinions to Rasile, who quite obviously understood a great deal. The sun was fully down; stars would've been visible in the west if the mist hadn't already risen so thickly from the surface of the marsh. The fishermen Cashel had mentioned weren't out tonight; the only lanterns were those of the soldiers escorting Sharina and the wizard. Sharina smiled faintly again. Attaper hadn't wanted her to accompany Rasile. When she'd insisted, he'd asked Lord Waldron to send a company of skirmishers from the regular army along with his Blood Eagles. He wanted to be prepared for threats that heavy infantry couldn't fight hand to hand. The black-armored bodyguards waited in near silence, but the skirmishers-javelin-throwers from northern Cordin, shepherds in civilian life-squatted around small fires and chattered cheerfully. They'd melted cheese in a glazed pot and were dipping chunks of barley bread into it for supper. Water dribbled from the pool from which the Last had attacked Cashel, though it'd been piled high with brush to prevent the white star from reflecting on its surface. Lord Waldron had been ready to tear the curb down and block the spring with boulders, but Tenoctris had said not to; it might be useful. Sharina tugged her short cloak tighter around her; it was a cold night. She grinned at herself: anyway, it was a cold business.
She looked toward the southern sky but didn't see the white star.
Hadn't it risen yet, or was the mist just too thick to see it? The mist wasvery thick. "Are you ready, Sharina?" Sharina jumped; Rasile was standing at her side. "Yes," she said, smiling in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, I was woolgathering." Rasile chuckled deep in her throat.
She nodded toward Sharina's hand, which'd reached for the Pewle knife hidden beneath a placket of her outer tunic. "You are a female," the wizard said. "I feared that the females of your species were trembling breeders like those of the True People. I see you are not." Sharina's smile widened a little. "Not all of us," she said. "Of either of our races, I'd judge. I watched Tenoctris pick you." Rasile laughed again.
"I am not female," she said. "I am merely old, and soon I will be done with this world. However before that-" She walked to the center of the figure; it was about ten feet in diameter as best Sharina could judge in the rank grass. "Come stand with me, Sharina," the Corl directed.
"We'll go to a place that will test your courage in the fashion Tenoctris tested mine. I do not doubt that you'll pass." She grinned as Sharina stepped to her side. "It may well be that we both will die, but your courage won't be wanting." Rasile began to chant. The syllables weren't words as a human would understand them, even words of power, but the rhythm was that of every wizard Sharina had seen working. The soldiers grew silent; the Blood Eagles fell into tighter ranks. The skirmishers' cook-fire flared as they added fuel and stirred it to quick life, but the mist rising from the black water seemed to thicken also. The chips of quartz lit with sparks of wizardlight, blue and then red; the air grew charged. Incandescence too pale to have color quivered from the brush-covered spring. For a moment Sharina thought the nearby pond cypress and the oaks at a greater distance were waving; then she realized that the air was distorting them as it did on a hot day. She and the Corl wizard dropped into a glowing gray haze. She didn't feel motion or vertigo: the world, including the muddy grass under her feet, was gone. She hung in a palpablenowhere. Rasile continued to chant. Sharinaalmost found meaning in the wizard's wail, and the realization frightened her at a visceral level. I'm not meant to hear that! No one is meant to hear that! For the first time she realized that the difference between wizards and laymen like herself might be the ability to understand certain things without going mad. Shapes formed in the grayness. At first Sharina thought her eyes were tricking her into believing there was something more than endless fog around her; then she decided that she was seeing the moss-draped cypresses on the other side of the marsh, their shadows cast onto the mist as sometimes happens on mountain passes. A shadow swept closer. For an instant she saw fangs as gray as the blotched visage they were set in. The horror gave a despairing shriek and was gone. Rasile stopped chanting. She squatted, panting harshly. When she glanced toward Sharina, she lost her balance. She snarled and dabbed a hand down to avoid toppling sideways. Sharina dropped to one knee and put her left arm around the Corl. She'd seen many times how exhausting major wizardry was, and whatever Rasile'd done to bring them here was major. And how difficult will it be to get us back? But that was question for later, after they'd accomplished their business. Another of the shapes approached but darted away-silently, though Sharina could hear a distant chorus of wails. The creatures were shaped as uncertainly as icicles. She was sure she could've seen through the diaphanous forms if there'd been any light. Rasile looked at the Pewle knife and chuckled. "Sharina," the Corl said, "you are as brave as the mightiest chief of the True People, I do not doubt; bu
t put your knife away, if you please. You could as well cut moonbeams. And besides, you may need both hands to hold me." "Yes, all right," said Sharina. She sheathed the big knife with much more difficulty than she'd slid it out reflexively. She cleared her throat and said, "Rasile, what are they?" Rasile stood;
Sharina rose with her. She was ready to grasp the Corl by the arm or shoulders if she started to fall, but that wasn't necessary. Three more figures swelled out of the emptiness. Their mouths opened like those of carp gulping air in the summer, but these gapes were jagged with teeth longer than a sea wolf's. The one in the center screamed like a stooping hawk; the others joined a half-tone to either side of it. They drifted to the side and vanished. "They were men," Rasile said. "Now… now, they're what you see. These were your folk, but they are very old. When spirits've been here for as long as these have, there isn't much difference between man beasts and True Men."