by David Drake
Garric turned to his right and hacked again at the tentacle on that side, this time cutting it through. The severed end flopped and quivered, then fell away. Kore had waded up behind Garric. She'd braced her feet to either side of the monster's maw and was chewing on the tentacle holding his left leg. Her long arms were spread, gripping the lower blades of both huge pincers so that they couldn't close. The chitin edges weren't as sharp as metal and apparently couldn't cut without the upper blades for an anvil. Some of the monster's tentacles writhed on the ogre's legs, trying to pull her loose. She was holding for the moment, but it wouldn't be long. Garric was free. He stepped onto the boss, sprang upward, and thrust the full straight length of his sword into the great eye. The creature lurched backward with all four paddles. Garric's legs flew up in the air, but he didn't lose his grip on the sword. His torso slammed into the headshield, but he continued to hang on while his blade twisted in the creature's skull.
The pincers clashed beneath him; Kore'd lost her grip. He hoped she'd been thrown clear instead of being crushed or engulfed, but everyone dies andhe might die in the next heartbeat. The paddles on one side lashed forward again, but the other pair flailed the surface like women washing clothes. The creature's right side lifted, then slammed down. Garric swung like a pendulum. The blade pulled out. He slid down the creature's headplate and bounced from its lip. A tentacle lashed him but couldn't hold; he hit on his back in a spray of mud. His right arm and chest were slick with clear humors that'd leaked from the monster's eye, and the feeling that was beginning to return to his body was solely pain. If I'd fallen on stone instead of into the bog, Garric thought, I'd probably have been killed. He started to laugh. It was agony, and that made him laugh even harder. He still held the sword, but he had to let go of it because he was afraid he'd slash himself as the pain drew his arms close to his chest. The ogre lifted him in the crook of her left arm. Holding him as gently as a mother, she paced toward the peel tower where Shin waited. "My sword," Garric whispered. Had it sunk out of sight already? But hecouldn't have kept holding it. "I have it," said Kore. She kicked the dead servant into the bog instead of stepping over him again. "You'll want to wipe it, I'm sure, but Shin has rags." "And fresh clothing," said the aegipan, holding up a drab tunic. "No doubt you can sew one of these into breeches as well." "I can walk," Garric said. He sounded like rattling death even to himself, but he knew what'd happen to his bruised muscles if he let them stiffen. "I think I'd better walk." Kore handed the slimy sword hilt-first to the aegipan, then lowered Garric's feet to the pavement at the base of the tower. She held his shoulder till they both were sure he could stand unaided, then released him. The monster's hindquarters were slewed into the bog, sinking slowly, but the sunken causeway supported its head. The lower blade of the nearer pincer had been wrenched from its socket; it hung by a strand of pale muscle. Kore splashed toward the huge corpse. "Kore?" Garric said.
"Where are you going?" The ogre turned. "To get my dinner, master," she said. "I only helped you because I didn't fancy another meal of pork. Are you going to tell me that seafood such as this-" She gestured toward the monster. Her arm was incredibly long when she stretched it out at full length. "-is forbidden your faithful mount also?" "The last time I told you what you could eat," Garric said,
"that thing came out of the sinkhole. I'm not in any shape right now to deal with another one, so you go right ahead and eat your fill." He started laughing again. Though he tried to hold himself upright on the side of the tower, he still sank to his knees. Pain proved that he was alive. That thought made Garric and the ghost in his mind both laugh even harder and more painfully. *** The huge brickwork cylinder was several miles west of Valles. Cashel didn't know why Tenoctris had brought them to it. He entered ahead of her. He'd expected it to be full of vagrants or at least choked with their trash, but instead there was only echoing emptiness and the smell of bird droppings. Pigeons cooed nervously; two lifted off with the familiar rattle of flight feathers. The building was windowless, so the only light was what the moon cast through the doorway. By it Cashel could tell that the interior was domed instead of being straight-sided like the outside, though even so it was very large. Tenoctris walked in, carrying her satchel. Cashel'd asked her to wait with the gig till he looked the place over, but he hadn't really expected her to listen to him. Even before Tenoctris called up the demon, she'd been a lot less cautious about danger than he'd liked. Cashel was used to it, of course. Sheep were the same way.
"I'll get the rest, Tenoctris," he said as he walked out to the gig.
Tenoctris had dropped the reins tied to a piece of iron no bigger than a clenched fist. The bay horse could've run off easily, but instead it just backed as far as it could get without moving the weight. It rolled its eyes at Cashel as he lifted the sword and bronze tripod from the back of the vehicle, but it seemed afraid even to whinny.
Cashel frowned slightly. They didn't want the horse to wander away, and there wasn't a good place to tie it. Still, the fear in the animal's eyes bothered him a bit. Tenoctris was always polite and kindly, but under the surface… The horse made Cashel realize that he'd never seen the wizard hesitate to do anything or use anything she had to get her job done. He grinned. Tenoctris was on their side. He guessed that was all that really mattered. "Set the tripod here," Tenoctris said, gesturing to the center of the floor.
She'd swept away leaves that'd blown in and placed a handful of twigs with rough, scaly bark on the cleared space. "Over the fireset." It didn't look like a fireset to Cashel, not to heat a tripod with a bowl big enough for Ilna to do the wash in. He obeyed without arguing, though: there were lots of things he didn't understand but other people did. He trusted Tenoctris. She waited while he positioned the tripod, then nodded approval. She'd unstoppered a tiny bottle-it wasn't but the size of Cashel's thumb-and now poured its contents into the bowl. It was way too dark to be able to tell the color of what she'd poured out, but he'd have been willing to swear that it had a violet tinge. "What kind of place is this, Tenoctris?" Cashel asked, looking around him. There were niches in the ceiling, but they seemed just to lighten the structure. The pigeons liked them, that was true.
Tenoctris gave him a quick smile. "Another tomb," she said. "This one's the wife's of a rich man of the Old Kingdom. Tombs concentrate the powers better than anything except a battlefield, and there are problems with battlefields." Her grin widened. "They attract other things as well, you see," she said. "That's also why I chose not to return where we'd been before. A mouse that uses the same hole too often will one day find a cat waiting." Tenoctris touched the rim of the tripod, then stretched her hand out toward him. "Now the sword if you please, Cashel," she said. He gave her the sword he'd brought back to the palace after the fight with the Last. She drew it and tossed the scabbard toward the distant wall. The gray metal gave back the moonlight as a distant shimmer. "Stand close to the tripod," Tenoctris said, looking down the blade with a critical eye. As Cashel obediently moved, she pointed the sword toward the gritty floor and said,
"Siskibir kebibir." A spark snapped from the sword point, touched the floor, and lit the point blue. Tenoctris swung the sword sunwise in an arc. "Knebibir sadami samomir." Wizardlight as pale as sulfur flames quivered and continued burning. Tenoctris walked around the tripod, chanting as she went. Cashel moved to keep out of the way, though she was far enough out that it'd probably have been all right. "Merych rechar-" The clamps holding the tripod's legs to the bowl were shaped like lions. As the blue light reflected from them, their manes rippled and Cashel thought he saw their forelegs move. "Paspar!" Tenoctris said and stood breathing deeply. The circle of light was complete. She looked at Cashel and smiled with satisfaction. Despite her young face, Tenoctrisseemed a lot older than she had before the demon. "I'm not used to being able to command such powers," she said. "I find that I like the experience." Tenoctris held up the oddly-shaped sword and examined it in the flickering light of the circle. Cashel cleared his throat and said, "You didn't us
ed to use metal wands, Tenoctris. Just the bamboo slivers that you threw away." She chuckled, stroking the flat of the blade with her fingertips. "Yes," she agreed. "I worried that I wouldn't be able to control the forces I was working with if I let them build on previous spells. I needn't worry about that, now."
Still smiling, Tenoctris pointed the sword toward the stook beneath the tripod. Again a spark popped, briefly coating the twigs like a blue corposant. They began to burn much brighter than such little bits of wood should've been able to. They had a sweet, pungent odor; Cashel sneezed. "It's cassia," Tenoctris said without taking her eyes from the bowl. "From Tisamur." Pointing the sword at the bowl, she began to chant. At first it was so soft that Cashel couldn't hear the words. He smiled at the thought. He wouldn't understood them anyway, of course.
Feathers slapped, blowing dust from the floor over his feet; he turned. It wasn't a pigeon but a raven, big as a cat even with its black wings folded. It sat just outside the circle and cocked its head, staring at Tenoctris with an eye which reflected the blue flames. A second raven flew in the door and lighted an arm's length from the first. It hopped a double pace sideways around the circle.
Cashel darted a glance to see what Tenoctris was doing. The cassia blazed like dry honeysuckle, but it didn't burn itself up. The liquid started to steam. There was only a thimbleful of liquid in the bowl, but the cloud curling up started to fill the great vault. It was faintly violet. A third raven flapped in, opened its chisel-shaped beak, and croaked. Cashel heard only a faint whisper of sound before the circle of flame roared into a solid wall of light. He felt like he was falling, but he and Tenoctris stood on the solid stone floor where the fire burned under the bubbling bowl. The wizardlight grew paler, finer; it had the texture of moonlight on a pond. The ravens had vanished, but things moved in the shadows. The smoke curving from Tenoctris' tripod swelled into the face of a man. He looked upward and screamed, "Time, just a day more of life!" He was gone, vanishing like the splash of a raindrop. The smoke shrank into another face and another and then a thing that wasn't human, could never have been human: a lizard's head with fangs the length of a finger and an eye as cold as the ravens'. Then that was gone too. "Nakyar sisbe," Tenoctris said, pointing the sword at but not into the curling smoke. "Kayam!"
The face of a man, as still and perfect as a statue of the Shepherd, rippled. It seemed to suck all the vapor into it and grow solid. "Why do you call me?" it thundered. The words echoed from much farther away than the brick dome. "I must have the key for which the Telchines have searched these many ages," Tenoctris said. The voice was certainly hers, but it had an unfamiliar harsh certainty. "That is not permitted!" said the face of smoke. "Trouble me no more!" Tenoctris drew a symbol in the air with the point of her sword. The face bellowed in pain and rage. "Where is the key!" Tenoctris said.
"Speak!" "It is not yours to grant!" the face shouted. "Only He Who took the key from the Telchines can-" "Speak!" and the sword twisted again. Cashel felt his eyes squeeze together with a stabbing pain even though he saw the motion only from the side. The face cried out wordlessly, then said, "On the Tomb of the Messengers! And may you never know release from agony for what you have done!" Tenoctris dropped the sword with a clang. Bending, she seized the tripod by one clawed leg and picked it up. Cashel frowned, but he remembered she was no longer a frail old woman. Tenoctris upended the tripod over the fire, smothering it instantly. The ring of wizardlight blazed up, then vanished to leave only darkness. Cashel faced outward, holding his staff crosswise. He couldn't tell where danger might come from.
Moonlight streamed through the doorway. Tenoctris swayed. Cashel reached out to steady her, but she caught herself without help.
"You'll have to bring my bag, I'm afraid, Cashel," she whispered.
"Yes, Tenoctris," Cashel said. "What are we going to do?" "We'll go back to the palace and sleep," Tenoctris said. "Tomorrow we have to go even farther, and I must be prepared." She laughed triumphantly. The sound echoed from the brick vault of the tomb. *** Sharina'd set tonight's council meeting in the large gazebo overlooking the water garden. The plash of water-routed from the River Beltis through an aqueduct which'd been restored by Garric after being out of order for a generation-reminded her of waves rustling against the seawall beneath her father's inn. It'd rained earlier in the afternoon, though, and the frogs screaming among the lilies weren't the same varieties as those she'd heard in Barca's Hamlet. She smiled and found that the expression felt good. It'd been too long since she'd last done it, she realized. "Councilors," she said, looking around the table of seated magnates. Their aides stood among the pillars supporting the gazebo's roof, more hidden than illuminated by the hanging lanterns. Most of the military men were eyeing Rasile unhappily. Some even fingered the lips of their empty scabbards-they weren't permitted to be armed in the presence of the Regent. "Lady Tenoctris is carrying out other duties on behalf of the kingdom,"
Sharina said. "In her absence she's deputized Rasile here-" She gestured to the Corl wizard. "-to advise us in her place. Through the use of her art, and in my presence, Rasile has received information indicating that the army must move at once to relieve Pandah, which is being besieged by the Last." "I say let them kill each other!" said Admiral Zettin, and his was only the first voice in the chorus of protest. At least six of the fourteen councilors were objecting, and several of the others glared at Rasile while they whispered to aides.
Sharina smiled again. In the epics, kings gave orders and everyone obeyed, unless perhaps a boorish villain was set up to be humiliated for questioning the king's wisdom. The reality that she'd seen, under Garric as surely as now, was that people who were fit to manage the chief bureaus of the kingdom were also more than willing to give the monarch the benefit of their opinions when they disagreed. "A moment, please," Sharina said in a normal tone. None of those speaking paid attention. She didn't try to shout over the tumult: first, because she wouldn't have succeeded and at best would've added one more voice to the babble. Second and more important, though, she didn't shout because that would've reduced her status. If she didn't project herself as Princess Sharina, these powerful soldiers would mentally relegate her to the status of a barmaid. She and Liane had known this would happen if neither Garric nor Cashel was present, so they'd made preparations. Sharina nodded, and Liane struck the eight-inch brass gong in front of her. Though her mallet was wood rather than metal, the gong's plangent note nonetheless silenced all the voices at the table. When those arguing had all closed their mouths-the more perceptive in embarrassment, the others with looks of puzzled irritation-Liane stilled the gong between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. Sharina smiled faintly and said, "Lord Waldron, would you state your objections first, please." "Your highness, we don't know what the supply situation on the route to Pandah is," the army commander said. "Before the Change we could load supplies on merchant ships and sail them to where they'd meet us. Now, we either forage on route or we pack them along-which means the draft animals eat up more than they leave." "I see the practical problems," said Sharina.
"Admiral Zettin, would you state your objections now?" "I don't mean my men can't do it," Waldron added hastily. "But it's not going to be easy." "I'll return to you shortly, milord," Sharina said, trying to put steel in her tone the way she'd heard Garric-or anyway, King Carus-do in the past. She wasn't sure she'd succeeded, but at least Waldron subsided. "Admiral, succinctly if you will." "Pandah's a nest of pirates and cannibals," Zettin said with a nod. He was pushy and young in more ways than being thirty years Waldron's junior, but he was also very clever. "The Last aren't human. The longer they fight each other, the stronger the kingdom is. We shouldn't interfere."
"Very good," Sharina said. "Rasile, please respond to the admiral's point." Chancellor Royhas looked up from his close conversation with Lord Hauk, presumably discussing payment and procurement for supplies if the army marched on Pandah. "Your highness," he said, "I don't think it's appropriate for an animal to address us. Even
if it does speak like a human now." "As you please, milord," Sharina said, trying to stay calm. It seemed to her that the Chancellor'd spoken more sharply than he would've to Garric. "Lord Tadai?" The plump, perfectly groomed nobleman sat across the table from Royhas; he'd been whispering urgently with two clerks, scratching notes on a sheet of sycamore bark. He met Sharina's gaze and lifted an eyebrow in question. "Your highness?" "Lord Royhas is giving up his portfolio,"
Sharina said. "Are you willing to accept the duties of Chancellor?"
"Your highness, wait!" Royhas said, rising from his chair abruptly and catching his knees under a table that was lower than he was used to.
He flopped back down. "Please!" "I've willingly served the kingdom in whatever position you or your royal brother appointed me to, your highness," Tadai said unctuously. He carefully avoided letting his eyes drift toward the discomfited man across the table. "I would be honored if you chose to use me in the capacity of chancellor." "Your highness," Royhas said, calm once more. He stood and bowed low, then straightened to meet her eyes. "I apologize. I misspoke because I'm tired. But your highness, if I cannot claim to be tireless in carrying out my duties, I've certainly been honest and efficient. I believe even-" He turned to glance at his rival, then faced Sharina again.