by David Drake
"Sir?" said Garric. "Lord Alman?"
Alman had started back toward the palace. At Garric's call, he turned. He looked surprised to see other people.
"Sir, won't you please come back with us?" Garric said. He gestured toward the horizon of sand. "This is no place for a human. It's no place for anything that's alive."
"Leave?" Alman said. He smiled faintly. "You're trying to be kind, I see, but you're quite wrong. Here I can sit on the throne and watch the sun set. I'll continue to do that until the night that the sun no longer rises, for the world or for me. It's all the same, you see. And there's nothing else anywhere--nothing but darkness or the promise of darkness."
Alman resumed walking toward the palace. Garric watched him for a moment, then lifted Tenoctris in his arms.
"I'll carry you," he said. He was strong enough for this, for the brief distance involved. "It'll be quicker that way. And I want very much to get out of this place. I don't like what it does to human beings."
A pair of men with yellow stripes on their sleeves were watching the bird perform when Sharina returned to the plaza. One of them tossed down an iron wedge to clink against the two already on the cloth. Talking of dinner, the men walked on.
The bird stopped dancing and squatted, startling Sharina subconsciously because its knees bent backward. It began folding the cloth by the corners.
"Wait," Sharina said, stepping close to the dancer with her thumb and index finger in her purse. "I watched you earlier but I didn't have money then. Here."
She brought out a short copper strip, its edges smoothed by the touch of those among whom it'd been passed and repassed. She offered the metal, uncertain whether to hand it to the dancer or to wait for him to reopen the cloth to avoid direct contact. Sharina had seen enough of the world to know that customs differed from place to place. She'd also seen that people kept to customary ways with a determination that they rarely granted their laws.
The bird stood, holding the cloth as neat bundle in both hands. It was taller than Sharina by a hand's breadth, but most of that difference was a feather crest. A circle of down petalled outward from either round eye, making the orbs seem larger than they actually were.
"No thank you, mistress," the bird said. "I have earned sufficient money today."
She hadn't been sure it could speak. In fact its voice could pass as that of a Valhoccan, at least to Sharina's foreign ears. Its words were half a tone higher than the goldsmith's, still well within normal human range.
"Yes, but I want you to have this," Sharina said, raising the copper a trifle to call attention to it. "I watched you earlier and I was unable to pay you. Now I'm paying my debt."
She knew that the strip was at least twice the value of the three bits of iron the dancer had collected. There was a small wicker basket on the ground, apparently the bird's only possession beyond its harness and the square of cloth for donations. Perhaps it had transferred earlier takings there, but Sharina doubted it. The basket's lid was knotted on with pale hemp cords which would have been discolored if they were tied and untied every day.
"I am Dalar, the youngest son and bodyguard of Rokonar," the bird said. "I guarded my sister as she sailed to become Testig's bride. I could not save her from the storm that engulfed the ship. It blew me to this far land on the wreckage, when I might better have died."
Dalar raised his face to the twilight and hooted like the scream of a black sea-eagle, once, twice and again. People in the plaza looked around, startled, and a barrow-woman shouted curses as she picked up quinces she'd spilled to the ground.
"Because I choose to live," the bird said in his normal voice, staring eye to eye at Sharina again, "I humiliate myself by performing the Battledance of Rokonar. But I have not lost all honor, so I take only what I need to live, mistress."
He raised the fabric covering the iron wedges. "This covers my needs."
"Wait," Sharina said as Dalar turned away from her. His head rotated so that the bird's great eyes stared at her over his thin shoulders. "I'm a stranger in Valhocca. I come from even farther away than you do."
Dalar turned his body so that he and Sharina faced one another normally again. The tiny adjustments his feet made were themselves a dance.
"I don't know anything about the city, and I don't know how long I'll have to stay," Sharina continued, licking her lips. "My name is Sharina os-Reise."
She hadn't jumped away in horror when Dalar appeared to wring his own neck, but she hadn't missed doing that by very much either. She suspected the bird used his inhuman suppleness to create a barrier between himself and the curious.
"You wish me to direct you to a guide, Sharina os-Reise?" Dalar said. He spoke with a studied lack of inflexion.
"I wish to employ you as a bodyguard," Sharina said. She forced herself to stare straight at Dalar because that appeared to be his choice of interaction. The bird's eyes were amber around wide black pupils. "I didn't have money earlier; now I do, and I need protection in this strange city."
She'd meant no more in approaching the bird than she'd said at the time: to offer a unique performer a mite from her bounty. The plan had rooted and blossomed at she spoke with him. Sharina didn't know what Dalar would be like in a fight--though she for one wouldn't choose to be kicked by those clawed toes--but she was certain that a warrior whose honor forbade him to take more than bare life from strangers wasn't going to cut her throat for a wallet of silver.
The sun was setting. Oil lamps gleamed from a few east-facing windows, though those across the plaza were still making do with sky glow.
"I am Dalar son of Rokonar," the bird said. He spoke quietly, though the words had in them a hint of the proud scream of moments before. "The wind blew me north for thirty days. I drank the rain that soaked my feathers, and I ate fish that surfaced beside my raft of decking. There is no one in Valhocca who came from farther away than I did, mistress."
"And yet I have," Sharina said. "We're both strangers. I may need your strength, Master Dalar, but I need your honor more. Will you serve me?"
"I will take from you a warrior's scot of meals and lodging, Sharina os-Reise," the bird said. "And each Year Day you will provide me with new silver bindings for my toes. It's traditional in the house of Rokonar to offer the chief bodyguard one of the females from your harem as a mark of special respect after a victory, but I think--"
Dalar opened his short beak amazingly wide and clucked like an angry hen. It was a moment before Sharina realized that the bird was laughing.
"I think, as I say," Dalar resumed, "that we can pass over that for the time being."
Sharina let out her breath, surprised at how relieved she felt. She did need a guard, that was true enough; Milco had been an honorable man, but she had no doubt that Valhoccans included a normal human percentage of thieves and worse. A lone woman leaving a goldsmith's with a full wallet was likely to arouse interest of the wrong sort.
But there was more to it than material need. Sharina was just as much a stranger as she'd told Dalar she was. The presence of someone who belonged with her was more important to Sharina than the bird's ability to kick a footpad into the middle of tomorrow.
"Well," said Sharina, "I'll begin my duties with the food and lodging--and I hope to find a sufficiency of the same for myself. Especially the food. Is there an inn of any quality in Valhocca?"
A further thought struck her. Before Dalar could reply, she added, "An inn that won't object to strangers from far away, that is."
The bird clucked with laughter again. "I sleep in the stables of the Golden Tunny for an iron stiver a night," he said. "They are clean, as stables go. They have rooms that would be suitable for a lady of the quality expressed by the weight of your purse, mistress; and they will not quibble at a warrior of Rokonar sleeping on his employer's doorsill."
Sharina nodded. "Let's go, then," she said. "Ah--Dalar?"
"Mistress?" the bird said. He'd started to unknot the crossties binding the lid of his wicker basket. Includi
ng the 'thumb' Dalar had four fingers. Like his arms, they were shorter than would be normal for a man of his height.
"I'll be leaving Valhocca, I don't know when," Sharina said. "And I don't know where I'll be going, except that it'll be another long way. I've been told that there'll be risk, which I can readily believe."
She grinned, then wondered if Dalar recognized human facial expressions. He probably did.
"Anyway," she went on, "if it were possible for you to accompany me, would you be willing to do so?"
Dalar laughed again. "A warrior of Rokonar is willing to stick his arm in a furnace if his master desires it, mistress," he said.
"Yes, well, I hope it won't come to that," Sharina said, though her words made her wonder just what the Dragon did have in mind when he warned her. "Let's get me some supper, shall we?"
"One moment, mistress," Dalar said. He loosed the final knot and removed the lid of his basket. He took out the contents and dropped the wicker at his feet.
"When I was a street entertainer," he said, pouring the contents from one hand to the other, "I had no right to touch these. Now I am a warrior again."
He opened his stubby hands to Sharina. There was an eight-faced weight made like two pyramids joined base to base in either palm. A length of fine chain joined them. Everything was made of the same dark metal. Sharina couldn't tell the length of the chain, because it flowed like a liquid.
Dalar spun out the weight in his right hand on a yard or so of chain. It blurred in the air, visible only because the lamps of passersby waked glints from its luster. There was a whack and the basket leaped off the pavement, sawn into two ragged pieces of wicker.
Dalar reached out; the spinning weight vanished into his closed palm. The links of the chain whined minusculy against one another.
"What's it made of?" Sharina said, forcing herself to say something. She shouldn't have been surprised. She'd seen Dalar dance, after all. "I don't recognize the metal."
"A kind of bronze," the bird said. He clucked softly. "A very hard kind of bronze. As hard as steel, mistress, but it will not rust."
He held the two weights and chain in one hand; the combination took up as little space as a pair of hen's eggs. Sharina smiled and said, "I'll let you lead us to The Golden Tunny, Dalar. Since you know the way."
The bird nodded. Very deliberately he opened his bundle of cloth with his free hand, flicking the bits of iron into the night. He dropped the cloth on the ground and strode down the street, his crest erect. Sharina walked at his heels; Dalar appeared to have better night vision than she did, besides knowing where he was going.
Well, Sharina knew where she was going also: she was following Dalar. She chuckled.
Barrowfolk were trundling their rigs off the streets, and most of the shopkeepers lowered shutters across the front of their establishments. Cookshops and taverns were just gearing up for the night's activities, and down a cross-street Sharina saw women in gaudy outfits seating themselves in windows.
A narrow alley led between two shops, both closed for the night. Dalar paused at the opening and said, "Mistress? If you'd rather, we can go around, but this leads directly to the inn."
"The shortcut is fine," Sharina said. She touched the hilt of the Pewle knife which still hung under her arm for concealment's sake. The gesture was reflex, not because she was worried about the route.
A baby was crying in the second-floor apartment to their right. There were no real windows, just bamboo-grated ventilators near the roof line. Somebody was boiling cabbage in the building to the left. She could see Dalar's gangling form ahead of her, silhouetted against the faint light from the street beyond.
The dry reptilian odor warned her. She stopped. "Dalar!" she called. "Wait!"
The Dragon sat in an alcove to her left, which a moment before had been a blank wall from which most of the stucco had flaked. "Greetings, Sharina, my servant," he said. "You're ready to continue with your journey?"
Dalar had turned back. "Mistress?" he said. "Is something wrong?"
"Your companion isn't aware of me," the Dragon said. "Reassure him if you will, so that I can get on with the instructions."
"Dalar, I'm having a vision," Sharina said quickly. She supposed that was more true than not, though just now she was willing to shade the truth in order to simplify the situation. "I need to concentrate for a moment."
"Very good," said the Dragon with a nod. His voice was within her mind as she'd heard him before. "Just before you reach the head of this alley, you'll see a block of white stone used in the foundation course of the building to your left. It was once the seat of my throne."
He gave a clicking laugh. "That was a very long time ago. It will slide out of the wall despite the efforts of the folk of this day to mortar it into place. You must remove the stone and crawl through the opening."
"Sir?" said Sharina. She'd been extremely hungry a moment before, but now her stomach was too knotted to think of food. "I have a companion. He'll be coming with me--if that's all right?"
The Dragon laughed again. "So long as my servants carry out their duties faithfully," his cold soundless voice said, "I don't care how they live their own lives. Farewell for now, Sharina."
The pattern of light--volume holding a creature--dissipated like the constellations at sunrise. Sharina faced the blank wall again. Dalar stood beside her, his body turned toward the end of the alley but his eyes watching his employer.
"We aren't going to The Golden Tunny after all, Dalar," Sharina said. She was trembling. Too much had happened too suddenly, and she needed food even though she doubted that she'd be able to get anything to stay down right now. "We're looking for a block of white stone in this foundation."
She tapped the wall behind her with her foot.
"And then we're going somewhere else, you and I," Sharina added. "May the Lady shelter us with Her favor!"
"Shoals ahead!" the lookout at the Ravager's mast truck called across the water. His voice had the same high rawness as those of the gulls wheeling above the triremes.
"Shoals!" snorted Chalcus from the rail beside Ilna, two paces back from the prow. "Those aren't shoals, they're the shells of the Great Ones."
His expression hardened and he added, "Though I never saw so many on the surface together, that I'll admit. And I never saw an island in these waters before, I'll say that too."
Vonculo and his four lieutenants stood in the far bow. The Terror was proceeding on the pull of twenty oars, even those few at half-stroke. A common sailor had taken the tiller, freeing the helmsman to join the other leaders.
Ilna sneered. If 'leader' was a word that described any of this gang of buffoons.
"You've been here before, Master Chalcus?" Merota asked, leaning back from the rail so that she could see the sailor past Ilna's slim self.
"So I have, mistress," Chalcus said. "Though that was long since. A lifetime ago, you might say. Isn't that right, Ilna-girl?"
He grinned at her.
"I don't know anything about your life or lives," Ilna said coldly. "I know that I'd prefer you never call me 'girl' again."
She didn't add a threat. She wasn't sure what she'd do if Chalcus repeated his 'Ilna-girl', but she did know that if she spoke a threat now she'd have to carry it out later--whether she wanted to or not.
"Ah," said Chalcus with a nod. "Then I'd best be careful not to do that, hadn't I? But calling you 'Ilna', there's no harm in that?"
"It's my name," Ilna said. "Of course there's no harm in using it."
Chalcus was... interesting. He'd understood exactly what she'd meant: why she hadn't threatened to send him over the side screaming, for example. And also that Ilna might do exactly that thing without warning, if the occasion arose and she felt angry enough.
That would be a terrible overreaction, of course, but Ilna had done worse things than that in her life. And so, she was quite certain, had Chalcus. An interesting man.
The triremes were heading into the sunset. The sides of the
island ahead were covered with vegetation, but there was a muddy freshness on the land breeze.
The sea shimmered with sunlight on the opalescent shells of the Great Ones clogging the water. Garric called the creatures ammonites when he meant the sea-animal with tentacles and a coiled shell instead of the bogeys, the ancient Gods and now black evil. Looking at these, Ilna thought that Chalcus had been right: these were the Great Ones.
The triremes advanced, no faster than babies crawling. Men shouted to one another across the water between the vessels.
"They're trying to make each other feel better about this," Chalcus said with a chuckle.
"Yes, and themselves as well, I shouldn't wonder," Ilna agreed.
She didn't find the creatures frightening. A poor girl trying to keep herself and a brother growing to the size of any two other men learns to cook whatever's available and cheap. Sometimes that meant ammonites. Shelled and sliced into rings they weren't bad, once Ilna learned that if you did more than saute them lightly you'd find them as hard to chew as ox gristle.
Tentacles waved suddenly; the Great Ones vanished beneath the sea, leaving the water astir with foam. The swells tonight were sullen as though the waves themselves misliked their present surroundings.
Ilna didn't mind the Great Ones; but if the island ahead was Vonculo's destination, Chalcus' doubts that the mutineers would find a sailors' paradise were well-taken. From this angle the hills dropped to the water in darkly-wooded slopes; high bluffs overhung the sea not far to the south. There was nothing obviously threatening, but the landscape nonetheless made Ilna think of the temporary corrals built in the fall when Stallert the Butcher culled the borough's flocks.
Vonculo turned. "Get to your benches!" he ordered with a wave of his arm. The gesture was meant to be brusk but looked nearly desperate. "We'll bring her up within bowshot, then reverse onto the beach!"
"He'll do wonders," Chalcus murmured to Ilna with a grin. He patted Merota on the shoulder as he sauntered to the lead oarbench. Adjusting the sheath of his curved sword so that the hilt wouldn't foul his wrists as he leaned into his oarloom, he bellowed, "Bow section, out oars!"