Elements 03 - Monsters of the Earth

by David Drake

  “Let the ivory gate open a path!” Melino and the demon said together. Hers was the voice Hedia had heard in the ring. It was stronger and fuller now, but it had the cold timbre of stone striking stone.

  The orichalc mirror changed from solid to a clear depth with highlights of blue. Hedia remembered a grotto on Capri, which she had seen when she was visiting one of the Emperor’s advisors. This color was the same, but the light was as cold as the demon’s voice.

  Melino took his staff in his right hand. He and the demon chanted, “Let there be easy access to the shadows!” The mirror became a window onto a forest of strange trees. In the distance something monstrous stalked into sight and vanished again behind the trees.

  “Let us cut a track to our goal!” Melino cried, with the demon singing a descant to the verse. The mirror was alive with flames whose heat made Hedia flinch back.

  As suddenly as the flames had appeared, they were gone. Instead of a mirror, Hedia stood in front of an opening into another reality. A breeze with the odor of warm compost ruffled her tunic.

  “Come!” Melino said. He gestured toward the window with his staff.

  Hedia paused. The magician glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t speak, but the demon piped, “Faster!” again.

  The rippling light holding the lizardwoman shifted to a bright yellow. She gave a hissing moan and her body arched as though she had been poisoned.

  “Sister Venus!” Hedia whispered. She stepped through the window onto soft loam. Melino followed her as the demon sucked back into the ruby.

  Sister Venus!

  CHAPTER IX

  A hired porter followed with the bundle as Corylus returned to the rear of Melino’s house. He could have used one of his father’s servants, but keeping as close to his assumed identity—a Gallic gentleman in straitened circumstances—seemed better.

  Leaving Pulto behind had been difficult. There had been a very loud discussion in which both parties had used the term “Duty” a great deal.

  Corylus had won, but only by hinting at the thing he and his servant both wanted to avoid mentioning: Pulto’s knees weren’t up to the quick, silent movement a scouting expedition might require. Melino’s house and grounds were just as uncertain and dangerous as the German side of the Rhine.

  “Attention!” shouted Xerxes as the new guard captain approached. He and the other outside man—a fellow Corylus had rented from a gladiatorial school this morning—braced, though they handled their spears differently. Both had military training, but not in the same military.

  “Stand easy,” Corylus said. He paid the porter with a ten-bronze coin and took the bundle from him. “Has anything happened since I got my gear?”

  “The four new hires arrived,” Xerxes said. “One’s inside with Glabrio; the other two’s at the front with Admetus.”

  Corylus unwrapped his cloak from around a simple helmet of spun bronze, a breastplate of glued linen, and a sword with a dagger to balance it on the belt. The weapons had no identifying markings, but anyone who saw them would know that they belonged to an auxiliary cavalryman in the Republic’s service.

  Xerxes gave his fellow guard a nod and a knowing look.

  “Want to say something, Xerxes?” Corylus said in a cool voice.

  “I told Hicafrith here that the new captain knew his way around a battlefield or I missed my bet, sir,” Xerxes said. “That’s all.”

  “You don’t miss your bet,” Corylus said as he cinched the sword belt around his waist. “Carry on.”

  Glabrio had opened the gate a crack at the sound of Corylus’ voice. Now he pulled it back to pass the captain into the garden.

  “Anything new?” Corylus said, looking around as Glabrio slammed the gate behind him. Another of the gladiators hired this morning stood nearby; two more guards were at the porch. No one stood close to the umbrella pine.

  “Just the reinforcements,” Glabrio said. “Xerxes sent the other two around to the front. Ah—we don’t go through the house, you know, sir? We take the path around the garden wall. Lord Melino didn’t say anything, exactly, but … we just do.”

  “There should be four more recruits in the course of the day, and I plan to hire the rest tomorrow,” said Corylus. “And you’re wise not to enter the house.”

  He didn’t add that anyone trying to leave through the front door would have to pass a pair of baboons. He might be facing the same problem. Because of where the baboons were chained, they guarded the stairs to the upper floor as well as the front door.

  “Carry on,” Corylus said without looking back at Glabrio. Eye contact would have given the guard an opportunity to prolong the conversation. Corylus walked to the pine tree, stepping carefully over the plantings. The guards were watching him, but none of them chose to—dared to—speak.

  Corylus was as much on edge as he would have been while waiting for dark before he crossed the river on patrol. He wanted to talk with the pine sprite as much for her feeling of deep calm as for any information that she might have.

  Information would be nice, though.

  As before, Corylus laid his left palm against the rough trunk. The green coolness drank him in, absorbing the doubt and tension that had ruled him since Varus prophesied cataclysm in the beast yard.

  The dryad smiled with the amused ease of several hundred years of experience. She said, “You fidget like a squirrel, Cousin. But you are as welcome as a squirrel also, because you remind me of how good the peace of my life is.”

  “If you’re right about the Worms of the Earth destroying everything unless they’re stopped…,” Corylus said. “Then your peace will end as surely as my fidgeting, Cousin. I want to stop them and save us both for our chosen lifestyles.”

  The sprite laughed. “The magician here wants to stop the Worms also,” she said. “He has left the Waking World to halt them. But the Worms will come if it is their time, or they will not come. And if they do, well, all things die.”

  Corylus focused on the critical part of what the pine sprite had just said. “Melino isn’t in the house now?” he said. “That is, he isn’t in the Waking World?”

  “The magician passed through his mirror,” she said. Behind her spread a forest panorama, firs and hemlocks and pines. They grew so thickly together that when one died and tilted, its neighbors continued to hold the trunk upright. “Out of the Waking World, out of my world. I know no more, Cousin.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Corylus that Melino would leave the house. Corylus wasn’t sure what he should do with the opportunity, if it really was one. I’m not sure of anything!

  “Do you know how long the magician will be gone, mistress?” Corylus said. He saw an elephant—a line of elephants covered with long black hair—walking through the trees behind the dryad. Despite the beasts’ size, they didn’t disturb the tightly sewn trees.

  “Perhaps as long as a cloud takes to pass the sun,” she said with a quiet smile. She shrugged. “Perhaps he will be gone until the sun burns out. I am neither a magician nor a prophet, and I do not care.”

  Corylus laughed in sudden realization. “I came here as a scout,” he said. “Anyone listening to me would have thought that I was afraid to do my job.”

  He bowed. “Thank you, mistress,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

  His soul turned and stepped out of the pine tree. He stood in the garden again. The guards were all looking at him, but they glanced away as soon as he moved.

  If people didn’t offer you information, you went out and got it. That meant danger on the river frontiers, the Rhine and the Danube both; and if it meant danger here, what of it?

  Corylus loosened his sword and dagger in their sheaths, then walked into the arbored porch of the house. He didn’t acknowledge the guards’ interest.

  He stepped past two empty bedrooms and through the office to the reception room. The baboons sat, facing the front door. When they heard his step, they turned their heads to look over their shoulders at him. Their manes swelled as th
e individual hairs stood on end.

  Corylus touched his sword hilt, then took his hand away. He continued toward the stair alcove with a firm stride. Aloud he said, “If you want a problem, I’ll give you one.”

  Neither baboon moved in his direction, though one growled deep in its throat. Corylus took the stairs normally instead of backing up them so that he could continue to face the animals.

  They had seen him with Melino, which was enough reason for them to have let Corylus go without violence this time. He gave a sigh of relief when he was sure that he was beyond the reach of their chains, though.

  Of course, there was always the matter of getting past the baboons when he left. He grinned. It would be time enough to worry about that if he survived to leave.

  Corylus had left his sword sheathed while he was downstairs so as not to show weakness to the baboons. At the head of the stairs he drew the long cavalryman’s blade before he used his left hand to open the room where the lizardwoman was imprisoned.

  He walked in behind the tongue of sharp steel. He hadn’t seen any dangers when he viewed the room with Melino, but it would be only common sense for the magician to arm a trap when he left.

  “There is no danger,” said a voice. “Melino doesn’t believe that anyone would have the courage to enter his domain uninvited.”

  The lizardwoman—the Singiri princess—had spoken.

  Even though he knew she was present, it took Corylus a moment to see the captive. Her bonds of light were brighter this time, almost yellow, but the light drew and held his eyes instead of illuminating the limbs it gripped.

  “Can all your people speak?” Corylus said. Those words replaced, “I didn’t know you could speak!” before that, his—foolish—original thought, had reached his tongue. “There are four of you, males, in the harbor.”

  “Not all, n—oh!” the Princess said, arching suddenly in an apparent convulsion. Then she said, “Not all of my people can speak Latin, but a few can.”

  She closed her eyes momentarily; the lids were a soft reddish hue that contrasted with the pale beige—almost cream—color of her skin. Her limbs appeared swollen above and below the bands of rippling light.

  She caught her breath and said almost in a whisper, “My people have come for me. I don’t know how, but they have come.”

  Corylus felt silly with the sword in his hand. He understood now who he was guarding against—and why. He slid the round-tipped blade home in its sheath. “Are the manacles too tight?” he said, reaching for the band above the lizardwoman’s right ankle.

  “Don’t!” the Princess said. She gasped and closed her eyes again.

  Corylus by reflex gripped his sword hilt again, then took his hand away. He waited stone-faced for the captive to resume speaking.

  She opened her eyes and said, “If you touch the gyres, they will burn you as they burn me. I would not have another being feel what I feel. But if my people have arrived to free me, I can continue to resist the pain.”

  “Why are you here?” Corylus said. He wanted to release her, but he had watched people suffer before. Sometimes that was necessary, as it was sometimes necessary to suffer oneself. He would know more before he acted.

  “I found the wizard Melino trapped in the Otherworld,” the Princess said. “I released him. When he was freed, he made me a prisoner as an aid to his own magic. He is a great magician.”

  But not much of a man.

  And because the lizardwoman hadn’t said that or made any other complaint, Corylus said, “How can I free you? Can I free you?”

  “Iron will cut the gyres,” the Princess said.

  Corylus gripped for his sword. The hilt was hazelwood from the grove his mother and grandmother had tended when she met his father.

  “No,” said the Princess, as gently as a sudden gasp of pain permitted her to speak. “Not a good sword, a warrior’s sword. The legs of the lampstand are iron.”

  Corylus took the adjustable lampstand in his hand. The shafts had been turned from delicately patterned walnut. The tripod legs were iron, as the Princess had said.

  “Melino begged me to free him,” the Princess said. “I do not beg you, warrior.”

  “Will you help Lucinus loose the Worms of the Earth if I free you?” Corylus said. It wasn’t a real question, and anyway, he’d already decided that he wasn’t going to leave the Princess to be tortured, by Melino, or by anybody else, but certainly not by Melino.

  “I do not know Lucinus,” the Princess said. She shuddered and her eyes closed, but she continued, “And I would not loose the Worms. We Singiri were happy on the Earth when we lived here. We would not destroy the Earth now, though we are in another place.”

  “Good,” said Corylus. He tried to force the lampstand between the band of light and the bronze bedstead to which it clamped the lizardwoman. He planned to lever them apart—and when that failed, as he expected it would, try something else.

  When the clawed iron foot touched the shackle, light spurted like a rainbow from a dolphin’s blowhole. The gyre vanished, and the stump of the iron leg glowed a red close to orange.

  The Princess gave a high-pitched cry. Her leg lashed out violently, but Corylus wasn’t sure whether the movement was intended or a spasm.

  He thrust the lampstand into the other leg shackle, this time creating a spray of white sparks as well as the rainbow mist. One of the floor tiles cracked at the touch of the blazing iron.

  The Princess hissed like water pouring on a stove. Her lower legs were swollen, but her knees flexed and Corylus didn’t see permanent damage. A little longer, though …

  “Close your eyes,” he ordered. “I don’t know where—no, wait.”

  A piece of brocade covered the seat of Melino’s wicker chair. Corylus ripped it off and laid it on the lizardwoman’s face, covering her eyes. Only then did he poke the lampstand under the bedstead and raise it into the bond holding her right wrist. There was an even greater gush of sparks this time, but none of the iron flew or bounced upward.

  Half-rising on the bedstead, the Princess grasped the brocade herself and held it between the remaining gyre and her face. “Quickly,” she whispered, “for I am—”

  Corylus thrust, freeing her in a snarl of fire that devoured the remainder of the iron. He laid the paired shafts on the floor.

  “I am very weak,” the Princess said. She would have fallen backward if Corylus hadn’t managed to get his arm behind her. “I am weak, and I might have died; but you saved me, warrior. You saved me.”

  “Where do you want to go?” Corylus said. Burning iron had seared the air to an acid dryness that ate at his throat. “You can’t stay here.”

  “Can you take me to my people?” she said. She sat up with her own strength, allowing Corylus to step back. “If they have come for me, they will be able to take me back to our home.”

  “I think so,” said Corylus. He looked for garments and found a robe of Melino’s. It would do to get the Princess past the guards. After that it wouldn’t be hard to get her to Veturius’ compound. “Ah—but your fellows are in a cage.”

  The Princess got carefully to her feet. Corylus was ready to catch her if she toppled, but she managed to stand upright by herself and slowly relax. “They are bound as I was?” she said.

  “No, it’s an iron cage,” said Corylus. “With a padlock, a lock that has to be turned with a key through a hole in the side.”

  The Princess burst into hissing laughter. “Oh, my!” she said. “Iron bars and a lock with a hole in it? I think they will be all right.”

  She sobered and patted Corylus on the shoulder, though she winced as her arm straightened. “You are a warrior,” she said. “Those who have come for me will be warriors also … but did you notice if one of them was older than the other three?”

  “Yes,” said Corylus. Nobody likes to be laughed at—and he didn’t see the joke in what he’d said—but the Princess obviously wished him well. “One certainly was older.”

  “That will
be Tassk,” she said, “as I might have known. Tassk will not find a lock difficult, my friend; and he can speak your language and many languages, though the younger warriors with him probably cannot.”

  “Put this robe on and I’ll find you a hat,” said Corylus. “And I’ll take you to your friends.”

  He didn’t know what he would do after he turned the Princess over to her fellows. But it’s like a long march, he thought. One step at a time.

  * * *

  HEDIA STAGGERED AS HER FOOT plunged ankle deep in the loam. She braced herself against a tree trunk. Its green bark was smooth to the eye but felt like sharkskin to her palms.

  Melino stepped out of the air beside her. He paid no attention to her. Instead, he clenched his left fist and said, “Open!”

  The demon expanded from the ring; she was the same rosy hue as before. She seemed to be more solid than she had been on the other side of the mirror.

  Hedia couldn’t see the mirror from this side, not even as a shimmer against the forest background. She, Melino, and the demon were in a glade of waist-high grass through which grew strange trees like the one that had kept Hedia from falling.

  “Which direction, demon?” Melino said. The demon pointed slightly to the right of the direction the magician was facing.

  Hedia looked upward, then stepped back from the tree trunk to get a better view. Even so she couldn’t see the branches except as wobbling silhouettes far above, still thrusting skyward. And there was something else.…

  “The sooner we finish this, the better,” Melino said. He started in the direction the demon had pointed.

  “Wait!” Hedia said. “What’s that? Just above the joint in the trunk?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the magician. “Come along.”

  “I said wait,” Hedia repeated. A rounded brown lump the size of a bear bulged from the trunk. She might have thought it was plant gall of some kind had she not seen the six golden legs that clamped the body to the tree.

  “It is an animal drinking the sap of the plant,” the demon said. She was looking at Hedia. “It is no danger to you unless it should fall, and its beak is sunk so deep into the stem that it probably cannot fall.”