by David Drake
A splinter of ash from the oar shaft spun into the air. Chalcus reached up without seeming to look and caught the piece. It was the length of a pick handle and sharp as a spear on either end. Lusius grunted in surprise. Chalcus grinned at him and tossed the splinter overboard.
“Well, captain,” Lusius said. “Maybe I should hire you in Rincip’s place, do you think? You saved us a bad knock when those fools got in the way.”
“Ah, I’m a terrible man when the drink’s in me, Commander,” Chalcus said with a light laugh. “I’d not wish a scapegrace like me on so nice a fellow as yourself.”
Ilna wasn’t sure which way the conversation might have gone then—she began knotting a pattern in case it went the wrong way—but the unexpected happened on the far side of the fishing fleet. The Defender was only just getting under way again and couldn’t possibly reach the attacked vessel in time to take a hand, but several of the other boats were quite close to it. As the Rua flared to land like giant pigeons, the Sea Guard on a nearby boat drew his bow.
The crew of the attacked vessel had gotten aboard the skiff and cast off the painter. One of them—Ilna thought it was the soldier—screamed a horrified warning. The archer loosed nevertheless. Accuracy with a bow takes more training than the Sea Guards probably got, but it was a decent shot aided by the fact that the Rua’s wings spread like blankets. The arrow snipped through one of them and thudded into the boat’s far gunnel, leaving a neat hole in the wing membrane.
The fishermen on the second vessel immediately jumped over the side. The one who could swim thrashed toward the trailing skiff. The other couldn’t and bobbed under the clear water. He got his foot on a coral head and jumped from it in the direction of the skiff as well.
The four Rua launched themselves from the boat on which they’d just landed. The one the arrow struck showed no sign of distress, flapping in a shallow curve that skimmed the calm water. The archer nocked a second arrow, then turned in panic without loosing it; the winged men swooped on him from four directions, arriving simultaneously.
Their wings folded as they hacked at the Sea Guard, flinging bits of flesh into the sea. He continued to scream for a surprisingly long time.
“They’ve got glass knives,” Lusius muttered as he watched the business with a look of disgust. “Sister take them!”
The sea spouted around the fishermen in the water: missiles dropped from the cloudless sky had struck the men squarely. Their mangled bodies sank in spreading clouds of blood. One man’s arm had separated.
The Defender’s flutist leaned over the railing, staring in amazement at the slaughter. Rincip didn’t order him back to his post even though the oarsmen were losing the stroke. Wood clattered as the shafts fouled one another and the patrol vessel began to wallow. The rest of the fishing fleet pulled eastward at the best rate the crews could manage on their oars.
The seawolf drove in purposefully, snapping up body parts and raising its triangular head from the water to swallow. “Our Brother,” one of the Sea Guards muttered.
“Eh?” said Chalcus.
Lusius glowered and said, “Just a name.”
The skiff tied to the stern of the second boat was sinking: a block of glass had struck it squarely and smashed the bottom out. Ilna was no longer sure the wicker mantlets would stop the missiles—and the Sea Guards were obviously doubtful as well.
“Well, you see,” Lusius said in a subdued voice to Chalcus. “It’s not so straight and simple as maybe you thought it was.”
“Aye,” Chalcus said, “there’s much thinking to be done on the matter. Much thinking indeed.”
The Sea Guards were nervously uncomfortable, and the faces of surviving fishermen showed blank-eyed terror as they rowed past the Defender on their way back to port and safety. Ilna supposed the scene she’d just watched was uncommon. Usually the human players would know to flee without the resistance that would lead, as surely as sunrise, to this sort of massacre.
Rua transferred belemites from the cages on the boats they’d attacked into mesh bags like the one Ilna had examined back in Carcosa. They took off with difficulty, beating their wings hard and staying low above the water until they’d gotten their speed up to that of a running man. Finally they rose and curved away toward the northwest, clutching their loot.
Two boatloads of shell were scarcely a tithe of the fishermen’s haul, though. It was a cheap price for Lusius to pay, particularly since the attacks confirmed him as Commander of the Strait. But what had this to do with the merchantmen which were being plundered?
“Put about!” Lusius called to Rincip in the stern. “We may as well go back to Terness. This lot—”
He gestured dismissively toward the fishermen.
“—are done for the day.” In a quieter, sneering tone he added to Chalcus, “We’ll have trouble enough getting them to go out in the morning. Mark my words!”
Chalcus didn’t reply; he was watching the crew of the first boat paddling back to it. The second bobbed empty, apparently abandoned for good. The archer’s blood was a red splotch on the near side.
There was colorful movement on the reef. The belemites clustered around the two corpses and the bits of the third, scavenging a bounteous meal. The sun flared in gorgeous beauty from their shells.
***
Cashel blinked at the toad. It’d spoken to him, no doubt about that. “I, ah...,” he said. “Sir, I don’t know who the King of Kish is. I’ve never heard of Kish. Before.”
A shooting star streaked across the sky. Its trail was gold, not silvery, and partway into its course it split into two tracks which spat down together. Cashel wondered if that had something to do with the Visitor, then decided that it didn’t matter to him either way.
“ ‘Sir?’ ” the toad repeated in shrill mockery. “Sir! How would you like it if I called you ‘Mistress,’ boy?”
Cashel pondered the question. “I don’t know that I’d care much, ah, ma’am,” he said. “How would you like me to call you?”
“Well, you might try Evne, since that’s my name!” the toad said. “Though as my master, you’re free to insult me any way you choose. I have no right to take offense; no, no, not me!”
Cashel set the two pieces of coal on the ground in front of him, the top beside the bottom in which Evne still sat. His staff leaned against the rock behind him. He took it in his hands, letting his fingers caress the polished wood. He’d felt a tingling as the block separated; the touch of the hickory erased it.
“Evne...,” he said.
The toad turned her head so that she looked straight back at him, disturbing to see. Of course he was talking to a toad, which was pretty disturbing too when he stopped to think about it.
“I never meant to insult you,” Cashel said. “And I’m nobody’s master, ma’am. Not that I’d insult you if I was.”
“You mean you’re not the wizard who freed me from my confinement?” the toad said, her head twisting one way, then the other. Her bulging eyes probably saw most everything around her whichever way her face was pointed. “Who did, then?”
“Well, I broke the block open, ah, Evne,” Cashel said. “I’m not a wizard, though. The fellow who gave me the coal, Lord Bossian, he’s a wizard. Maybe it’s him you’re looking for?”
He was starting to smile at her antics. The toad chirped about like a banty rooster, all prickles and fear of insult. With little men who acted that way, you had to watch that they didn’t get too much ale in them and start swinging at the biggest man around—which was always Cashel. Evne wasn’t going to do that, so her fuss was just funny.
The toad turned in the hollow so she faced Cashel squarely. She moved with the deliberation of a brood sow rising from the muck, positioning each leg carefully before shifting her body above it.
“You say you’re not a wizard,” she said, “but you opened my prison?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cashel agreed. “I squeezed till the halves broke.”
“And you really don’t know who the
King of Kish is?” the toad said.
“No, ma’am.”
The toad scratched the back of her head with her webbed right foot, continuing to stare at Cashel. “I suppose you expect me to think you’re too dumb to lie, is that it?” she said.
“Ma’am,” Cashel said, “I don’t lie.”
He wondered what he ought to do next. Find a place to sleep, he supposed. He’d been looking forward to proper bedding instead of a second night in the open, but he’d survive.
“Well,” he said, rising to his feet. “Unless there’s something more you need from me, I’ll be on my way.”
The sky over the peaks behind him brightened with sheets of azure wizardlight. Lord Bossian was at work on something, likely enough. For lack of a better direction to go, Cashel decided he’d head the other way—west, judging from the course of the stars.
“Wait!” Evne said. “Do you really not need me? Didn’t you free me because there was a question no one else could solve, so you had to come to me?”
Cashel looked down in surprise, then squatted again with his staff balanced across his thighs. “Well, ma’am,” he said. “I’m trying to get back to my friends, that’s true. But I don’t have any notion where they are. Any more—”
He grinned. She was such a funny little thing!
“—than I know about the King of Kish.”
“Ah!” said the toad. “Now we come to it! You shouldn’t be ashamed to state your problems openly, young man. Who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t finally admitted the truth?”
Cashel frowned. “You mean you can help me get back, Evne?” he said. It didn’t seem likely, but it wasn’t likely he’d be sitting here in a rocky valley talking to a toad either.
“Of course, of course!” the toad said. “There had to be something!”
Cashel didn’t know Evne well enough to be sure, but it seemed to him that she was relieved. There were plenty of people who talked about how put upon they were with everybody wanting their help, but who got really huffy if you didn’t need something. Apparently toads were built the same as people in that way.
“We’ll need a mirror,” the toad said, looking around again. If she thought she was going to find a mirror in this landscape, she was more at sea than Cashel was. “Quite a large mirror, big enough to reflect your whole body, my man. And it should be as nearly perfect as possible.”
“I don’t know where there’d be a mirror, Evne,” Cashel said. He thought for a moment. “I guess Lord Bossian has one, but he wouldn’t be pleased to see me come back.”
He looked over his shoulder, up the slope of shadowed crags and cedars. The blue glare had sunk to occasional flickers, but as Cashel watched a great bolt shot up into the sky. Clouds absorbed it, shimmering as bright as a huge blue sun for a moment.
“Besides,” Cashel said. “His palace wouldn’t be a good place to be tonight.”
“Well, what could I expect from you?” the toad said. She didn’t sound put out, not really. “I shouldn’t have expected any better. We’ll use water, then. A good-sized pool, perfectly still.”
Scratching her head with the other leg the toad added, “There’s often insects around a pond.” She looked up sharply and went on, as fiercely as a funny little thing like her could be, “Not that I’m putting my convenience before the duty I owe you for freeing me! I would never do that.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t, Evne,” Cashel said, having difficulty in keeping the smile from his lips. He found it hard to believe that the toad could really help him return to his own world, but she must know something. She’d lived for ever so long in a block of coal, after all.
He cleared his throat. “Ah...,” he said, reaching into his wallet and feeling for the remaining jewels. “I’m a stranger here so I’m not sure about where water is, but I’ve got a jewel, sort of, that’ll tell us.”
Cashel knew it was going to sound like he’d been lying when he said he wasn’t a wizard. It shouldn’t matter to him what a toad thought, but it did.
“A fellow gave them to me. A demon did.”
Evne made a shrill sound, the sort of call ordinary toads give on summer nights. She didn’t speak further.
Grimacing, Cashel rose to his feet. He didn’t need to be standing when he did this, but he felt better if he was. The sparks were parts of Kakoral, and Cashel wouldn’t have wanted to be squatting down when that one came for him.
He threw the ruby against the rock, pretty much the same place that the previous one had hit. He couldn’t be sure of that, because when the jewels burst all the bits vanished like dew in the sunlight.
“Ah!” cried the manikin this time. “You didn’t need me, that was what you thought, wasn’t it? That’s what you said, at least!”
Cashel wondered if there was one sparkling little creature or if each ruby freed a different one. They sure didn’t act the same; but neither do people, depending on when you catch them and what their day’s been like so far.
“I still don’t need you,” Cashel said quietly, “but I’d appreciate your help if you’ll give it. We’re looking for a pool of water we can use for a mirror. Can you direct us, sir?”
“Can I?” said the little man. “Can I? Of course I can! But can you face the truth about the woman you protected, master?”
“Yes,” said Cashel, holding his staff upright at his side. There was no point in saying more when a simple word would do.
The manikin snapped its fingers. A lightning-bright spark flashed into images in place of the solid rock.
When he watched the demon’s earlier pictures, Cashel thought he was looking at a scene from the past. This time Cashel watched events that must’ve taken hours, but he felt no passage of time himself.
The murderer was butchering Laterna’s body in the cellar. He’d brought down heavy knives and a stiff-bladed saw since the previous vision, but he was working in a stone tub which had been there beforehand. He’d dumped the dirt and lace-bodied fungus that’d been growing there into a pile on the floor.
The murderer worked with practiced skill, jointing the body and throwing the portions into the hearth that remained the cellar’s only light. Fat blazed brightly at each new addition; after it burned away, the flesh continued to blacken and shrivel. The bones remained longer, but they too slowly crumbled.
The murderer never added fuel, nor did the coals change from the sullen red presences they’d been at the beginning. The occasional sparks and flares were always bits of the corpse: a bone cracking, or a globule of fat slipping onto the hearth.
Higher in the cavity a mechanism of pulleys and chains turned a spit. The rib roast there was cooking, not burning. With only the look of the meat to go by, Cashel might have thought it venison.
The silent heat of the hearth had devoured the body almost completely. The murderer took the roast from the spit and arrayed it on the serving platter he had waited to take it.
The last thing he did before leaving with the covered platter was to change his clothes, throwing the blood-soaked garments onto the coals where they blazed like tinder. Their flickering yellow light showed Cashel parts of the cellars hidden till then by the shadows. Laterna had collected statues and implements which he’d just as soon not have seen.
As the murderer left, the garments finished burning themselves out. Laterna’s bare skull remained in the hearth, shrunken but not quite disintegrated, and the hinted face of Kakoral lowered from the coals.
The scene shifted. Cashel couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink, though he wasn’t sure that time had passed in the waking world. He couldn’t feel his own heart beat, and the sky at the edge of his vision was a frozen painting.
The murderer stood before a round table; seated at the table were Kotia and a youth of Kotia’s age but sharing the murderer’s own features. Everything in the large room was of the same black, glassy substance, as smooth as the crystal walls of Manor Bossian but as opaque as granite.
There were no servants pres
ent. Rolls and vegetables waited on individual serving tables beside each place, but the murderer himself carved thin slices from the roast and set them on the others’ plates. They ate, their expressions sullen and distrustful.
Evil glee transfigured the murderer’s face. He threw his head back and began to laugh.
Kotia looked at the murderer in wild surmise. She spat out her second bite of meat; the youth looked from her to the murderer, still chewing as he frowned with puzzlement.
The scene faded to rock. Cashel stood in a nighted valley as thin clouds trailed across the sky above him.
“You see?” cried the capering manikin. “You see! You see!”
“I saw,” said Cashel. “Where can we find a pool of water, sir?”
The little figure spluttered like a cauldron overflowing. “Don’t you care, boy?” it cried. “Even a beast would care!”
“I care,” said Cashel. “It was a terrible thing to do to Kotia. Was that Ansache? The man she thought was her father?”
Thinking about Kotia after what he’d seen gave Cashel a queasy feeling, but that wasn’t anything he was going to admit to the little demon. He couldn’t help how he felt, even if it was wrong, but he could make sure he didn’t let that affect what he said or did.
“He was Lord Ansache,” said the manikin. “With all the sins that blacken his hands, yet he isn’t a cannibal—as the woman you defended is!”
“You have a duty to my master, poppet,” Evne said, surprising Cashel and the little demon as well. “Fulfill that duty, or I will send you to the heart of a dead star for all eternity!”
Cashel turned to look at the toad. She’d climbed from the block of coal and had walked up beside him. He lifted her onto his shoulder so there wouldn’t be any problem of him stepping in the wrong place. Somehow that latest threat didn’t strike him as funny the way Evne’s earlier fussing had.
The manikin must have thought the same thing, because in a flat voice it said, “In the hollow of the next valley is Portmayne, a manor vacant since the Visitor arrived a thousand years ago.”