by David Drake
Over the squish of his feet settling into leaf mold--the soil beneath was slick, dense clay--Cashel thought he heard Elfin's lute at last. A good thing it had silver strings. Gut would stretch like the truth in Uncle Katchin's mouth.
"Thanks to you, sheep-boy," the ring snapped, "what Landure does is fertilize a patch of forest. And he never fought Malkar, since he had better sense. What he did was to keep monsters of the Underworld in the Underworld instead of them invading the waking world."
"Could he have, well, made things better down here?" Cashel said. "If he'd tried to?"
"Don't you listen?" Krias shrilled. "There's a balance, the Sun and Malkar, Light and Dark. You can't have one without the other, you just try to keep them as much apart as you can!"
Sort of like Ilna and her patterns, Cashel decided. If she'd mixed all her threads together, the cloth would be a muddy gray. She didn't do that, of course.
"Master Krias?" Cashel said. "Who weaves the patterns of good and evil?"
He didn't talk about the Sun and Malkar, or even dark and light. That was all right for a scholar like Tenoctris who had to see things from every direction, but Cashel wasn't a scholar. He was a shepherd, and if something was bad for his flock--or his friends, or his world--he called it by its right name: evil.
"Pattern?" said Krias. "There's no pattern, sheep-boy, it's all random chance!"
"But you just said that there had to be balance, Master Krias," Cashel said in a reasonable tone. "Balance doesn't just happen. If it did, farming would be a lot simpler than it is. Who keeps the world's balance? The balance of all the worlds, I suppose?"
"You're talking nonsense!" the ring demon said. "What, do you expect me to build an altar to the Lady here in my spacious apartments?"
"No, but I guess it wouldn't hurt for me to offer the Shepherd a little of my next meal," Cashel said. "Before, I always crumbled a bit of bread and cheese to Duzi when I ate my lunch. I don't know if a little God like Duzi would, you know, hear me down here."
"Nobody can hear you!" Krias said. "It's just you and me, sheep-boy."
"I guess I'll set up a stone and make an offering anyway," Cashel said. He didn't want to argue with the demon. Krias knew a lot of things, sure, but he thought he knew things that nobody could know for certain. Cashel figured to keep going along the way he always had, no matter what other people--or demons--said. That had worked for him in the past.
For most of today the forest had been as flat as the best plow-land in the borough, but just ahead was a hill that looked rugged though not especially high. Cashel hadn't been following a trail, exactly, but what he'd judged to be the natural course was apparently the right one. Anyway, Krias hadn't objected.
This, though....
"Master Krias?" Cashel asked. "Should I go over this hill or work my way around it?"
"How do I know what you should do?" the ring said. "Go back to your home and herd sheep, I suppose."
After the pause Cashel had learned to wait for, Krias went on, "Tian here is wider than it's tall. And if you go around, you'll find yourself in places that you may not want to be. Not that I pretend to know what goes on in a minuscule brain like yours."
"Thank you, Master Krias," Cashel said as he started up the hill. Instead of clay, the ground was all blocks and outcrops of stone with a thin layer of dirt. He raised his feet high for each step. Though he sometimes braced his quarterstaff behind him, the going was never so steep that he had to use his hands to climb.
It was getting darker. The rain--wet air? Whatever you ought to call it--was slowing down, but there didn't seem much chance of dry wood for a fire.
The vegetation was a little different from what Cashel'd been walking through earlier. The trees had normal bark, for one thing. There were vines, too, with fist-sized translucent fruit hanging in bunches. They looked a lot like grapes except for the size.
Cashel said, "Can I eat these, Master Krias? Without it hurting me, I mean."
"That depends on what you mean by hurting you, sheep-boy," Krias said. "Fruit from Tian may expand your mind, which isn't an experience you could have had very often before. It hasn't hurt other people in the past."
Cashel reached what he judged was the top of the hill, though he couldn't be sure with the forest as thick as it was. A hollow at the base of the roots of a big oak looked as dry a place as he was going to find to sleep.
First things first: he tilted up a block and used his knife pommet to scratch the outline of a face onto the moss. It was a simple thing, but so was the stone dedicated to Duzi back in the pasture. Duzi wasn't a fancy God for fancy worshippers.
"Please help me find Sharina, Duzi," Cashel said. "She probably doen't need our help... but please help me if you can."
He sighed and twisted one of the big fruit loose, then squatted and cut two slivers with his knife. He set one before the crude image. The flesh of the fruit looked a little like creek water after a storm, more clear than not but with dark bits swirled into it.
"Guess I'll give it a try if others have," Cashel said, biting into the slice. It was both tart and sweet, like a segment of orange, and it was deliciously cool. He'd figured to slurp rainwater from the hollow of a stone, but the fruit ought to take care of his thirst better than water.
Cashel ate the whole fruit, and then plucked another one. He couldn't complain about his meals here in the Underworld--he'd never gone hungry, at any rate--but this was the first time that he'd eaten something because it tasted good rather than just to fill his belly.
Smiling and feeling pretty comfortable despite the occasional drop from the oak that splashed him, Cashel curled up and went to sleep. And began to dream....
Chapter Seventeen
Cashel or-Kenset, his quarterstaff slanted back over his right shoulder, sauntered between fields of swaying wheat toward the city that floated in the air. The road's clay surface sloped into gutters on either side. It was well-made, but it didn't seem to get much traffic.
The bright sun glinted from the city's conical golden roofs and the helmets of soldiers on the battlements. Rainbow-colored pennons fluttered from the spires.
There was something puzzling about it all.
Cashel blinked, then chortled at himself. There was a city, all shimmer and beauty, hanging high in the air with no support but a slender, serpentine ramp from the ground to the main gate. Of course it was puzzling!
But even so he glanced at his left little finger, somehow expecting to see a sapphire ring there. He'd never worn a ring; why should he think he had one now?
A horn called from a gate tower. A second horn from deeper within the city echoed it. Cashel continued at his usual pace. More people appeared on the battlements, some of them leaning over for a better look as Cashel drew near. The women's silken head-scarves trailed in the wind like pastel bunting.
Two double-handfuls of armed men quick-marched through the gateway and rattled down the ramp. Their helmets and the shoulders of their armor flared fantastically, and they'd painted monstrous faces on their jointed breastplates. Most wore scabbarded swords which they gripped with both hands as they ran; one man, by far the largest of the troop, carried a glaive.
Cashel kept walking, though he slowed his already-leisurely stride a tad so that he'd reach the bottom of the ramp when the warriors did instead of just ahead of them. They seemed more nervous than you'd expect, but maybe they didn't get many strangers.
Cashel frowned. He couldn't remember whether he'd met anybody on his way here.
He frowned more deeply. He couldn't even remember why he was here at all. He'd been going somewhere to meet Sharina; but she wasn't in this place, surely. Was she?
The warriors slid to a halt in front of Cashel. The ramp was wide enough for all these men to stand abreast. It seemed spindly only because Cashel was looking at it against the hanging majesty of the city.
The ramp wasn't made of metal the way he'd thought, either. It was some kind of glittery crystal that scattered light or passed
it, depending on the angle, and the whole bottom of the city was the same material. It was so smooth that when Cashel looked up, he saw a reflection of wheat fields and the hills far beyond to the west. The road stopped here.
"Halt, monster!" called the leader of the troop. Gold tassels streamed from both his shoulders; the others only had one. "If you try to enter Tian, we will slay you!"
Cashel straightened up and planted his staff vertical at his side. "My name is Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "I wasn't raised to push in where I'm not wanted. If you don't want me in your Tian or whatever, I'll just keep on my way."
He cleared his throat. Trying to keep the growl out of his voice but not succeeding very well, he added, "But I'm no monster. And this isn't how we treat people where I come from."
"He's not the giant of the prophecy," one of the men said to the leader.
"He's pretty big," another man said. "We can't take a chance."
The warriors facing Cashel weren't children--the leader's face in particular had the lines of considerable age around the eyes--but they weren't any bigger than boys. Even the biggest, the one with the glaive, would've passed for ordinary in the borough--unlike Cashel himself, or Garric who was even taller.
"Oh, come on, Penya!" another man said. "How's he going to tear down the walls of Tian, tell me? Besides, according to the prophecy, the giant's supposed to appear tomorrow, not today."
"The prophecy might be wrong, Sia," said the leader. "We can't--"
"The prophecy might be complete superstitious claptrap that sensible people ignore!" Sia snapped back. "Look, King Liew, if you believe in the existence of Gods none of us have ever seen--"
"That's blasphemy!" cried the man with the glaive. The broad blade was etched in a pattern of clouds with silver inlays.
"I don't have an opinion on the Gods myself, Mah," Sia continued, "but I am of the opinion that killing farmers passing through the countryside is no way to get on the good side of any Gods that do exist."
"I'm a shepherd," Cashel said in a voice that came from the back of his throat. "And if you're talking about killing, I might have something to say about that myself."
He shifted his stance slightly and brought the staff up crossways before him. Cashel was used to people talking about him like he was a side of mutton, unable to think or speak for himself. He was used to it--but he'd never gotten to like the experience.
"Sia's right, you know," another warrior said. "He's not a giant, it's not the day of the prophecy, and anyhow, why are we threatening the first visitor Tian has had in a generation? We should be feasting him!"
King Liew sighed and lifted his helmet with his left hand. His hair was white and as fine as a baby's. "We can't dismiss the prophecy," he said in a troubled voice, "but you're right, Peng; this Cashel is a guest, and we should treat him as one."
He extended his hand to Cashel, clasping him forearm to forearm. For Cashel it was like greeting a half-grown child. "I am King Liew," he said, "and the men with me are the knights of Tian. We're having a banquet today on the eve of the prophecy, Master Cashel. I hope you'll join us."
Cashel cleared his throat again. His mouth had gotten dry when it sounded like... well, what it had sounded like. Now his muscles were trembling with the energy they'd stored for the fight that didn't happen.
"I'd be pleased to eat with you, sir," he said. "And especially I'd be thankful for a drink of water right now."
"Water!" said Sia merrily as he and the others swept off their helmets. "Only the best of wine for our visiting shepherd!"
Sia had sharp features and clever eyes. It struck Cashel that the fellow hadn't so much been helping Cashel in the earlier discussion as showing the others how much superior his mind was to theirs. Tian wasn't the only place Cashel had met fellows like that.
The warriors started back up the ramp with Cashel walking in their midst beside King Tiew. When he'd glimpsed the ramp from the side, he'd seen it was as thin as a knifeblade. It had no more spring beneath his weight than stone would have given, though.
"I don't think we should be taking him inside," muttered the man with the glaive, walking right ahead of Cashel. "The prophecy's a thousand years old. Maybe this was what a giant looked like a thousand years ago."
"Oh, brave Mah!" mocked Sia from the back of the group. "Determined to protect Tian from shepherds."
Cashel swallowed. He didn't like Sia much more than he did Mah; but then, he was a stranger here, and everybody was wary about strangers except in a big city where they were all strangers. Everybody was wary about everybody in a big city.
"I've never seen a place hang in the air like this one does," Cashel said to the king as a way to avoid the byplay between Mah and Sia. "How do you make it do that?"
"Tian is a gift of the Gods," Liew said seriously. "It's the only true paradise, formed by Sky and Earth for their most favored children. The first Priest of the City, Lan Tee, raised an altar to Earth and Sky; and Tian sprang from the smoke of that altar fire."
"And Lan Tee said that after a thousand years, a giant would destroy Tian," said Penya, turning to sweep Cashel with a deliberately aloof glance. "But we're bringing this Cashel inside anyway."
"What we ought to do," called a warrior from the back of the group, "is tear down the causeway. Let the giant do whatever he wants down below. We don't need grain when the orchards within the city give such bounty!"
"It's our duty as knights of Tian...," King Tiew said. More forcefully he continued, "Our duty and honor, Lau, to defend the causeway with our swords and our lives. If we fail, then those we died protecting can sever the causeway and find safety in that fashion."
Cashel thought about it. Common sense said Tiew should break down the ramp right now, but that'd mean the people in Tian would have to stay there all their lives. Of course if Sharina hadn't decided to leave home with King Valence's ambassadors, Cashel himself would have spent all his life in Barca's Hamlet. The hanging city wasn't a whole lot smaller than the borough.
The ramp snaked back and forth in graceful curves, but Cashel and the knights were finally nearing the gate. The long walk had worked the shivering out of Cashel's muscles, pretty much. The gate towers and walls to either side of them were stone, not the gleaming crystal of the ramp. Each block had an indented border around delicately-carved flower patterns.
From the walls above, men cheered and women waved scarfs. Their eyes were almond-shaped, and their hair ranged from the rich brown of sourwood honey to glossy black.
One of the most beautiful of the women tossed a wreath of roses and ivy down to Cashel. He snatched it out of the air without thinking. As he did so he caught a glimpse of Mah's face, contorted into a silent snarl.
The king and his knights entered the city to even wilder cheers. The gate at once began to close--the panels swinging shut from either side and a spiked grating sliding straight down from the arch behind them. The machinery was so quiet that Cashel didn't hear it groan or squeal over the human noise. And all this was a thousand years old?
Among the slender, languorous folk in pastel silk were shorter, much stockier people. The darker clothing and darker complexions of the second race set them apart even more than their stature did. They glanced down or aside when Cashel looked at them instead of meeting his eyes boldly like those in silk.
The band of knights continued straight along a boulevard between buildings whose upper stories jutted out slightly from the ground floor. All were built of the same dense, rust-colored sandstone; in fact, it looked as though there was only one building of many interlocked rooms, and that the outer walls of Tian were part of the same great structure. It was a huge beehive.
"Sir?" Cashel asked. "There's people in silk--"
He was Ilna's brother; he could identify fabrics at a distance as few women and fewer men could.
"--and there's people in linen and dark colors. What's the difference between...?"
"People in linen?" Tiew said. "Oh, I see what you mean. No, those are the
servants. They take care of the work that we citizens of course can't do--the food and the cleaning, those sorts of things."
"Ah," said Cashel, nodding to show he understood. He understood all right. Well, it was no different most other places he'd been.
The citizens were coming down from the walls and balconies to fall in behind King Tiew and his knights. Servants stepped aside for their betters, smiling and bowing to the willowy folk who paid them as little attention as they did the cobblestones.
Cashel half-smiled. The nobles didn't treat him that way--not that it was really a bad way--because he was a stranger in a place that saw very few strangers; and maybe because Cashel was as big as any two of them together.
The procession was headed toward a pillared entrance of the bulding at the end of the boulevard. The porch was gorgeously ornate, not in big ways but in the detailed floral carvings that covered every hand's breadth of the hard stone.
A woman who moved like a lavender breeze came up beside Cashel and took his arm. She plucked from Cashel's hand the wreath he held and set it on top of his head, leaning against him to reach so high. "Silly," she said in a liquid voice. "I didn't toss it to you to carry in your hand. My name's Lia."
Cashel cleared his throat. "Ah," he said. "I don't... I never wore flowers before. I, ah, I'm Cashel or-Kenset."
"I grew them myself, you know," Lia said. "You'll sit by me at the banquet, won't you, Cashel dear?"
Mah turned around and stared cold-eyed at them. Lia giggled and stuck out her tongue. Mah flushed dark red, then stumbled on the first of seven steps up to the porch. He dropped his glaive with a clang, causing the knights ahead of him to shout, "Hey!" and "Watch it, Mah, or you'll kill somebody!"
That's what Mah wanted to do, of course, and for a moment as the knight fumbled the glaive back into his hands Cashel thought he was going to try. Instead Mah pushed ahead of his companions and entered through the triple-arched doorway.
"I, ah...," Cashel said, wishing he was someplace else. He felt sorry for Mah--though not nearly as sorry as he'd be if Mah hadn't taken against Cashel from the first.