by David Drake
There was little in the landscape but rock and heat and the sulfurous wind. On the horizon something pulsed orange-red, possibly a volcano. Except for that, Ilna couldn’t see anything farther away than she could fling a stone. The sun was a huge dull blur through clouds ranging from sepia to a yellow so dark it could scarcely be called a color.
Something shrieked in the distance; or maybe it was just wind through the rocks.
“What happens now?” Tellura asked, his voice muffled. He was holding the bosom of his tunic over his mouth and nose to breathe. “Are they going to smother us? Is that it?”
Ilna doubted that a layer of coarse wool would help much with the brimstone; besides, she needed her hands for other things. Her fingers formed knots in yarn with the flawless certainty of raindrops falling on a pond.
“Not that,” Chalcus said. He held his incurved sword in one hand, the dagger in the other. “There’ll be company, have no doubt, my friends.”
Hutena was the only crewman who’d seen the fragments of human bodies on the Queen of Heaven. Bad though this air was to breathe, no one could imagine it had caused that slaughter.
Chalcus gestured toward the higher railing. “Kulit and Nabarbi,” he said, “keep watch to starboard side. We don’t know which direction it’ll come fr—”
Pointin screamed piercingly. Ilna turned.
A huge thing shambled out of the swirling darkness. It walked on two legs and had two long arms as well, dangling near the ground as it hunched forward. Nothing else about it was manlike. Hard, smooth plates like insect armor covered its limbs and body.
Shausga drew his bowstring to his right ear and loosed. The arrow cracked against the creature’s narrow chest and glanced off.
The creature raised its arms, opening the pincers in place of hands. It came on, gurgling like the last wine from a bottle.
Chapter 18
Ilna stepped over the railing, lowering herself carefully to the ground. She could’ve jumped, but she wasn’t sure of the footing—and she was quite sure that she couldn’t afford to fall on her face at this juncture.
“It’s twenty feet tall!” Ninon cried. “By the Gods, it’s a demon from Hell!”
Ilna smiled faintly. The creature might or might not be a demon, but it wasn’t from anywhere: it had stayed home. The Bird of the Tide and her crew were the ones who weren’t where they belonged. She walked forward, holding the knotted pattern between her hands.
Another arrow, then two in quick succession, struck the creature. Two skidded away like rays of light from polished steel; the third whacked the ridge between the creature’s bulging, faceted eyes. The shaft shattered and spun off in the wind like a handful of rye straw.
Ilna kept walking. She hoped there was enough light for the creature to see her pattern. Animals didn’t see things the same way humans did.
She smiled more broadly. It would be—briefly—a pity if this thing’s eyesight wasn’t good enough to slip into the trap she’d so skillfully woven for it.
The air had been hot, but the ground was oven hot. Ilna almost stepped on one of the cracks zigzagging across the rough stone; heat radiating up from it struck her callused foot a punishing blow. When she glanced down, she saw a tremble of orange light at the bottom of the narrow crevice: molten rock flowed between the solid plates.
The creature rubbed its elbows against the sides of its torso, making a shrieking sound like that of a cicada hugely magnified. It stretched a jointed arm toward Ilna’s face, the pincers opening fully. Each curved blade was as long as a sickle’s.
Ilna spread her knotted pattern above her head. If it didn’t work, she didn’t want Chalcus to think that her last act had been to hide her eyes from the sight of death reaching toward her.
The creature staggered. Its arm froze in mid air and its mouth opened slightly; the jaw plates spread sideways, not up and down. Its breath reeked like a tanner’s yard, rotted foulness and the savage bite of lye.
Ilna didn’t move; her eyes were blind with tears from the brimstone. Behind her Chalcus shouted words that the wind whipped in the other direction. Men ran past Ilna on either side; they were blurs of movement, not individuals.
An axe rang; Hutena gave a high-pitched cry of triumph. Ilna blinked; bringing the scene into sudden focus. She realized she’d been afraid to take her eyes off the creature for fear that it too would look away and break the binding spell.
The creature began to topple sideways. The bosun wrenched his axe out of its right knee in a wave of syrupy blood. The other sailors hacked with their blunt-tipped swords, aiming at the knees and ankles. Their blades generally clanged and bounced back, leaving lines scored across the creature’s hard casing.
The creature hit the ground with the point of its shoulder, cracking the rock. It continued to stare at Ilna, its eyes like those of a landed fish. Chalcus stepped close, judged his victim, and stabbed through the creature’s open mouth with the quick skill of a wasp paralyzing a spider.
The creature leaped like a beheaded chicken, both legs spasming; the right one flailed sideways at the broken knee. Chalcus wouldn’t let go of his sword, so it pulled his feet off the ground. He kicked at the creature’s chest with a great cry and jerked his blade free.
The creature toppled again. It half turned, its eyes sightless when the brain behind them died. It crashed into a needle of wind-carved rock, wavered there for a moment, then flopped onto its back. Its limbs waggled like a dying beetle’s.
“Back to the ship, my lads!” Chalcus called, hoarse from the searing atmosphere. “We don’t want to be left here when Lusius and his fellows call the Bird home, as they surely will.”
Ilna lowered her hands, bunching the pattern together between them again. Hot as this place was, she’d felt a chill as the creature died. She hadn’t killed the thing with her art—she doubted that she’d have been able to kill it or she would have tried—but there’d been a link between her and her giant victim there at the end.
Everyone was all right. Chalcus and the six sailors were, at least; she didn’t see Pointin, but the supercargo would be in the hold out of sight unless he’d become a different man from the one who’d survived the attack on the Queen of Heaven.
“You took no harm in the business, my dear one?” Chalcus said, suddenly at her side. He’d sheathed his dagger so he could wipe the swordblade with the tail of his silk sash. The creature’s blood had congealed to a tarry smear.
“No,” Ilna said, “though I’ll be glad to leave this place. I wonder if Lusius and his wizard know where they’re sending ships or if it’s just that they’re ready to be looted when they come back?”
“Sir!” cried Shausga, pointing with his sword toward an arch which the wind had carved from the surrounding rock. He was left-handed. “Mistress Ilna, there!”
A monster like the first came through the arch. In the whirling shadows Ilna thought it was smaller, but once clear of the rock it rose onto its hind legs. Tall as the first creature had been, this stood half again as high.
“Right, well, we know the job now, lads, so it won’t be so hard,” said Chalcus. He hacked to clear his throat, then whipped his sword in a shimmering figure-8. The steel was as clean as it’d been when he boarded the Bird in Carcosa. “But I think we’ll wait here close by our good vessel, as we know now how the business will go.”
Another shrilling cry sounded, very close though Ilna couldn’t tell the direction in this waste of rock and fire and darkness. The creature walking toward them hadn’t made the terrible sound. Its arms were lifted, the elbows splayed out to the sides.
“What’s that?” Kulit said, his voice rising. “Where is it? What are we going to do?”
“Master Chalcus!” Ilna said. “Take this, if you will. You’ve seen how to use it.”
She held the pattern to him, bunched; Chalcus sheathed his weapons with quick understanding, then reached for the fabric. Ilna placed it in his hands deliberately, making sure the correct side would be outward when
he spread it to the monster.
“All right, lads,” Chalcus said, turning with a grin that might well be genuine. “We know the drill, so Mistress Ilna is letting us handle it ourselves. Let’s get on with it, hey?”
The ground shuddered; Ilna turned. She’d thought the sheer rock to the left was a butte. Now she saw that it was two walls standing close together; between them lurched a third monster.
Ilna walked toward the creature, smiling faintly. She’d taken more lengths of yarn out of her sleeve and was knotting them. At worst, devouring her might delay the creature long enough that Chalcus and the crew could dispatch their opponent and turn their attention to the new threat.
“All right, boys!” Hutena snarled behind her. “You heard the captain!”
Ilna’d thought of giving the fabric to the bosun or another of the crewmen, freeing Chalcus to do whatever was most important—
But holding the pattern steady before the oncoming monster was the most important thing, beyond question. The sailors’ courage went beyond the standard even of brave men, but Ilna knew from her own experience just how heavy the weight of the creature’s eyes felt. Chalcus wouldn’t fail.
Whether Ilna would succeed in knotting a second pattern in the time she had—that was another matter. If she didn’t—her smile was broad—she wouldn’t have to worry about listening to reproaches on her performance.
The creature walking toward her wasn’t as tall as the other two, but it looked as broad as both of them together. Its chestplate was flat instead of having a keel down the center. A different breed or simply the other sex? She didn’t suppose it mattered.
The thing’s arms unfolded toward her with the smooth certainty of a pair of bluefish driving their prey together for the kill. The pincers clacked open; the inner edges were black and undulating.
Ilna raised the new pattern high. For an instant she didn’t know whether the figure her fingers had knotted was complete, only that she’d run out of time to do more.
The creature froze. If Ilna’d believed in the Gods, she’d have thanked Them. Smiling wryly, she whispered a prayer of thanks anyway. She’d much rather seem a fool for thanking nonexistent beings than she wanted to seem ungrateful.
There were shouts and cries behind her, then the clang of steel on armor that was very nearly as hard. Ilna’s eyesight blurred from the rasping sulphurous wind. She blinked repeatedly but didn’t notice much improvement. Well, there was very little in this place that she wanted to see anyway.
She felt the ground shake through the soles of her feet. There was a tremendous crash, then a lesser shock and crash. The sailors had brought down the creature Chalcus held for them. It had hit the rock like a felled tree and bounced.
“Come on, boys!” Chalcus croaked in a voice scarcely his and scarcely human. “If anything happens to the mistress, then Sister take my soul if I’ll bother to go back!”
Ilna felt herself swaying. She continued to stare at the monster, but it’d become a pulsing haze whose color shifted from orange to purple and back.
Polished swordblades flashed brighter than the yellow light they reflected. The creature lowed like a bull, the first sound Ilna had heard come from the mouth of one of them.
“Get her clear!” Chalcus shouted. “Don’t let the green devil—”
Hutena caught Ilna around the waist and dragged her back. “You numbskull!” she shouted, her voice trembling an octave higher with fury. “You’ve killed us—”
The monster fell forward, smashing the rock. Had Ilna not moved—had Hutena not moved her—she’d have been pulped as surely as a fool of a woodsman who trips in front of the tree he’s toppled.
The bosun set Ilna on her feet again. “Aboard the Bird!” a voice called from a great distance. “Quick! You can feel it coming!”
Ilna took a step, wobbled, and felt Hutena lift her again in his left arm. He had the axe in the other hand, its head black and gummy with the blood of the monsters it had brought down.
Now that Ilna no longer focused on her own art, she felt the ripples of power which’d warned Chalcus that Lusius’ wizard was at work again. Once she even thought she saw an azure flicker, but that could’ve been a trick of her eyes or mind rather than Gaur’s doing.
Hutena lifted Ilna over the Bird’s railing, passing her to Kulit. She felt a flash of anger at being treated like an invalid when she could’ve boarded by herself—
And so she could’ve done, but the men hadn’t been sure and therefore hadn’t taken any chances. There wasn’t time for a mistake, and there wasn’t time for the pride of Ilna os-Kenset either. There was never time for that!
Chalcus brought up the rear, his sword and dagger out. He’d wrapped Ilna’s loose fabric of knots around his waist. The sash fouled with monster’s blood lay crinkled on the ground behind him.
Chalcus caught Ilna’s eyes and grinned; but he stumbled as he jumped to the railing and had to catch himself. “I’ve a better appreciation for your work now, dear heart,” he said, not whispering but in a voice few others could hear. “And I’ll take all day as stroke oar on a trireme before I’ll play at being you again.”
She smiled in acknowledgment, but the comment made her imagine being at a warship’s oar all day. It was an absurd notion... and yet she’d do it if she had to, poorly beyond question but do it regardless.
Another wash of power made Ilna’s skin prickle. The blue quiver on the masthead and the tips of the spar couldn’t have been her imagination this time.
“Into the hold, lads,” Chalcus ordered, his voice gaining strength as he returned to his familiar occupations. “No sound, now, till I give the word.”
Nabarbi slid the hatch cover away; it’d lain part open when the crew returned to the vessel. “Captain!” he shouted.
Pointin lay on his back beside the iron-bound chest that was the Bird’s only cargo. The smell of camphor filled the hold, strong enough to be noticed despite this hellworld’s brimstone stench.
Ilna had seen many dead men, and no few corpses of men who’d died horribly. She had never seen a look of more consummate agony than that on the supercargo’s distorted face.
“May the shepherd save us if he’s let them out!” Hutena cried.
Chalcus hopped into the shallow hold. “He didn’t,” he said. “He reached in to empty the chest for his own use, but he got no farther. And if he had, we’d still have no choice but to take the risk. Briskly, lads! There’s not much time.”
Ilna helped herself into the hold by her arms. She could still see the ravaged landscape over the portside railing. A pair of creatures, similar to the others but half the size, had come out. They were tearing chunks of flesh from the last one slain. She wondered if they were the dead monster’s cubs.
“Shall we throw him out?” Hutena said, prodding Pointin’s corpse with his foot.
“He’s not in our way,” said Chalcus. “Given what he paid to avoid being eaten by our demon friends here, I think we can carry him back for a burial in the sea he knew.”
Two sailors lifted the hatch cover overhead and set it back askew on the coaming. Ilna could see wedges of the burning sky on all four sides.
There was a roaring azure flash. Ilna was falling again, gripped by wizardry.
***
“Ah, the great wizard is landing,” said Beard, jarring Sharina out of her reverie. Her eyes passed over the seascape and occasional islands which the Queen Ship sailed by, but the view meant nothing to her. Images struck her mind and glanced off like reflections from the surface of a pond.
“What?” Sharina murmured. Directly ahead was a gravel island which before the sea level dropped would have been only a few yards in diameter. It was several times as large now, but vegetation hadn’t had time to spread far from the small birches on the original rocky peak. Brush straggled downward in a ragged ring, and sea oats nodded in the easterly wind.
“Why?” Sharina said, correcting herself now that she’d really looked at the islet toward which the
ship was dropping. “There isn’t anything here.”
“That’s safer, mistress,” said Neal. “For us just stopping, I mean. We’ll sleep here and go on in the morning, when Alfdan’s had a chance to recover.”
“Oh,” said Sharina, looking over her shoulder. “Of course.”
The wizard stood upright by the help of two of his men. His features were as tight as a skull’s. Sharina knew how much effort went into wizardry, but because she wasn’t a wizard herself her unconscious mind discounted it unless she really thought about the matter.
She grinned. Maybe she could trick herself into thinking of wizards as people swimming long distances through a sea of power. She understood swimming.
The Queen Ship grounded with a soft crunch. Alfdan’s men were already on their feet. Franca remained asleep, rolled as tightly as a pillbug and muttering under his breath. Scoggin shook him.
“Wakey, wakey, lad,” Scoggin said. “It’s dry land for a while, which I don’t regret.”
Franca jerked alert as the ship tilted onto its side, but Scoggin still had to keep a hand on the youth to keep him from slipping onto the gravel. Sharina noticed the interplay with a slight smile. The disaster that was destroying this world seemed to be making men—these men, at any rate—behave better than she’d have expected of villagers during an ordinary winter in Barca’s Hamlet.
“Tasleen, get a fire going,” Neal ordered with nonchalant authority. Tasleen, a small, dark fellow from Dalopo, had an almost magical skill with a fire-bow. “Some of the rest of you gather driftwood.”
Franca grabbed the gray, salt-dried trunk of a tree whose bark had weathered off in the distant past. Scoggin gripped the piece by another stub branch and said, “There’s a righteous plenty of that here, even if there’s bloody little else.”
“Mistress lend me axe to split kindling?” Tasleen asked, reaching out to take the axe in anticipation of her agreement.
“Mistress split stupid savage’s skull so Beard eat brains!” the axe said indignantly. “Chew yourself some kindling, buckteeth!”
Tasleen’s face darkened with fury. Then he looked from Sharina to the axe and remembered who it was who’d spoken. He backed away, muttering a protective charm under his breath.