by David Drake
"You never know, lad," King Carus said with resignation. "You can plan and hope and pray, but you never know till it's over."
"They are necromancers, seven of them," Colva said. "They've raised Yole from the sea, but they do their works of real power in Klestis. They captured me after my husband Landure the Guardian entered the Underworld with a stranger named Cashel. I think they intended me for a blood sacrifice."
"Cashel's all right?" Garric blurted. He'd had no idea that Colva would have met his friend.
"Nothing in the Underworld can harm Landure the Guardian," Colva said with an odd smile. "They know that by now. They may try to escape past Landure to the waking world, your world, but few manage even that."
Garric grimaced. Apparently Landure had left his wife unprotected to go off with Cashel. That wouldn't have happened except that Garric had allowed his sister to be snatched away from his presence.
Liane touched the back of Garric's hand, just for the contact. He wished that Tenoctris were here so that she could tell him what was waiting on the other side of the bridge; but in his heart of hearts, he knew he'd rather have Liane's presence than Tenoctris' knowledge. He grinned wryly at the realization.
"The necromancers have an army of the dead," Colva continued. "Eventually they will have an army of all the dead of all times. Perhaps that's why they wanted your friend: to sacrifice a wizard for even greater power than they'd gain from a child, say, or from me."
"Eight minutes, your majesty!" the astrologer called. The bridge already had form, though it tended to blur into cloudy evanescence.
Garric wondered what would happen to a man who was standing on the structure of wizardlight when it vanished. He'd fall, certainly; but Garric suspected the victim would drown in something worse than the muddy waters of the Beltis.
"You're so brave to attack them, Prince Garric," Colva said. Her black eyes met Garric's with a molten intensity. "When I saw you fight the ice beetle, I knew there'd never been a hero like you."
"Don't say that!" Garric said, more harshly than the comment justified. The woman's flattering nonsense was understandable in someone whose life had been saved, after all.
The trouble was that although Garric knew the words were nonsense, it warmed him to hear Colva say them. He didn't need Carus glaring in his mind, nor the sudden hardness around Liane's eyes, to warn him how dangerous it would be to like flattery.
Lord Waldron strode over to Garric. Half a dozen aides followed like a swirl of dry leaves. Attaper saw Waldron coming and approached from where he'd been waiting ten feet away with the hundred-and-seventy Blood Eagles fit for duty.
"The army is ready for your command, your majesty," Waldron said with hard-lipped precision.
"Four minutes, your majesty!" called the astrologer as another of the waterclock's bowls filled and overturned.
Garric looked past his officers to the ranks of soldiers. The uplifted pikes stood like groves of twenty-foot saplings planted as far as eye could see, up and down the waterfront. The men's faces were bleak and frightened.
Garric grimaced, bitterly aware of his own fears. Afraid of failing Tenoctris and the kingdom. Afraid of what'll happen to Liane and everybody who depends on me if I fail.
"I don't know how many will refuse to advance," said an aide, a blond young man with fine features and enough wealth that his armor was gilded. He shook his head. "They're afraid of wizardry."
"By the Lady, they took an oath!" Waldron said. "A soldier who isn't afraid is a fool, but they'll follow orders regardless--or they'll stay here decorating gibbets! I swear it on my honor!"
"They'll obey," Colva said with her odd, expectant, smile. "They'll follow Prince Garric. Everyone in the army's heard how he fought the ice beetle alone."
Attaper nodded. "She's right, Waldron," he said. "If Garric leads, they'll follow."
"We put plowmen and shopclerks in our phalanx, lad," Carus said. Memories of a score of battles seen through the king's eyes, against men and things not men, cascaded through Garric's mind. "They'll follow you to Hell, because you said they were as worthy to defend the kingdom as nobles like Waldron. And the other battalions of landholders and the noblemen's retainers--they'll follow too, because they're afraid of being shown up as cowards by plowmen and shopclerks."
Garric laughed, looser than he'd been since he'd stumbled back from the ice world and realized what he'd have to do to rescue Tenoctris. "Then it's easy enough, isn't it?" he said. "Because I'm surely going to lead."
"One minute, your majesty!"
Though the bridge of stone and timber had washed away centuries before, the abutments still remained. Garric grinned at his closest companions and jumped atop a waist-high buttress. Everyone in the army could see him even if they couldn't hear his voice. Blue wizardlight, grown firm and steady as the color died out of the sky, lit his features from the left and silhouetted him to the troops on his right.
"Men of the Isles!" Garric shouted. He drew his sword and waved it like a banner. "Fellow soldiers! Our kingdom, our families, and our honor lie across this bridge of light. Follow me!"
"Sunset!" cried the astrologer. Garric saw the man's lips move, but his voice was inaudible against the approval bellowing from the throats of eight thousand soldiers.
Garric jumped onto the structure of light. It was as solid as granite. Platoons of Blood Eagles double-timed past him to either side, shouting, "Garric and the Isles!"
Liane was at his side; Garric grinned at her. He hadn't even bothered to tell her not to come. They both knew there was danger on the other side of the bridge, but there was no safety anywhere in the Isles if this attempt failed.
He glanced over his shoulder. The regular army was behind him with a battalion of the phalanx in the lead. The front rank saw Garric's glance and cheered.
Colva was coming also, a step behind Garric and Liane. She smiled. Garric turned from her expression, blinking. He couldn't read the emotions on the woman's face.
The towers of Klestis gleamed in the distance. Garric raised his sword again and swept it forward.
Klestis and what waited there was enough to worry about for now.
Cashel recognized the cliff. He guessed he ought to, since he'd seen it in Valles and then at the entrance to each of the Underworld's to previous levels. This time a boulder had been rolled across the mouth of the cave in place of a proper gate.
"Is this the last one, Master Krias?" he asked, leaning on his staff as he eyed the situation. The stone would take a bit of effort, but nothing he couldn't handle.
"I told you it was!" the ring said. "Do you want me to tell you there's three more layers now? Or is the problem that you can't count to three?"
Cashel smiled. He could hear Elfin singing somewhere in the forest, close enough that you could just about make out the words. The youth seemed to be moving nearer each night since Cashel killed the King of the Forest.
"I can count to three," Cashel said. He leaned his quarterstaff against the bluff and let his hands explore the boulder. Touch would find them a better grip than his eyes would.
"I can move that," Krias said. He sounded hopeful.
"That's all right, Master Krias," Cashel said. He settled his left buttock against the face of the bluff to brace him, then leaned into the boulder.
It didn't come at once, but he hadn't expected it to: a stone so large would've dented a nest for itself into the ground. Cashel felt his face flush and the ligaments stand out on his neck.
"I don't know why you even bothered to bring me--" said Krias; and as the demon spoke, the boulder started to roll. Once Cashel had broken the soil's grip, it was no more effort than rolling an egg. He walked it two short paces to the side, gasping for breath.
He rubbed the ring affectionately. "I brought you for the company, Master Krias," he said, "and for what you know. But I also remember it was you that saved me from Elfin's folk."
Cashel brushed his palms together, then got off the last of the grit on the breast of h
is tunic. He picked up his staff, twirled it once, and stepped into a world of cold, purple light.
"They weren't his folk," the ring said in a pleased mutter. "They just kept him for a pet, though he didn't have sense enough to see it. Still doesn't, I'll bet."
Cashel started down a slope that had become as familiar as the bluff itself. There weren't any trees this time. There was no vegetation at all; things that Cashel thought at first were plants always turned out to be lumps of rock. Even what looked like vines snaking across the landscape were really veins of crystal.
There wasn't a watercourse at the base of the cliffs on this level of the Underworld. An undulating plain, broken only by outcrops, stretched for as far as Cashel could see into the purple distance. He wasn't hungry, but....
"Is there anything to drink down here, Master Krias?" he asked. "Ah, that's safe to drink, I mean. For me."
"There's water," the demon said. "The water of life itself, sheep-boy; water that will cure your ills and make you immortal if you bathe in it every day. But first you have to reach the fountain, and I doubt you'll be able to do that."
"I'd settle for plain water," Cashel said as he started off with his staff over his right shoulder. "But I'll take what I get, I guess."
To tell the truth, Cashel would a lot rather have plain water. If Krias said this 'water of life' wouldn't hurt him, then it wouldn't; but though the fruit from Tian hadn't hurt him either, he could've done without the dreams he'd had that night.
The good thing about the empty landscape was that Cashel didn't have to pick his way through undergrowth and around trees like in the woods of the upper levels. He felt cold, though; cold enough that he sort of expected to see his breath when he opened his mouth and puffed out. He didn't, though.
"Does anybody live here, Master Krias?" Cashel asked as he surveyed the bleakness again. He hadn't seen any animals either, though that might be just as well.
"Colva lived here, sheep-boy," Krias said. "Before you let her loose, I mean."
"Ah," said Cashel, nodding. He hadn't exactly let Colva loose, but it was his fault she stayed loose. He wasn't going to quibble about words when the truth at the bottom of them was that he'd made a bad mistake.
There was somebody ahead of him. A couple shaggy looking fellows at a campfire.
They stood up slowly, laughing from deep in their chests. Cashel could feel the ground quiver. The strangers weren't right over the slight rise he was climbing. They were farther away than he could fling a stone.
Which meant they were as tall as trees. The clubs they carried were trees.
One of the giants took a bite out of the human leg in his left hand; it looked no bigger than a pigeon drumstick. Juices dribbled down his bushy beard.
"Well, brother," the other giant said, "more dinner's coming before we've even finished what we had."
Cashel continued walking onward. His first thought was to bring his quarterstaff down across his body, but he didn't like to act hostile till he was sure there was need. He'd have plenty of time for that if things went on the way they looked they were going to.
Also he wasn't sure how much good the staff was going to be.
"Master Krias?" he asked. "What do you think I ought to do now?"
Even as Cashel spoke, he braced himself for Krias to give him a smart answer instead of a real answer. To his surprise, the ring demon said, "Since they're illusions, sheep-boy, what you ought to do is ignore them. Do you think you can do that?"
As if repenting the fact he'd spoken clearly, Krias added, "Using 'think' loosely, of course!"
Cashel chuckled. "Ignore them?" he said. "Sure. That's a lot easier than what I had in mind."
"We'll play bowls with his skull, brother," said the giant who'd spoken before. "After I've sucked his brains out, I mean."
The other giant stripped the calf muscle off the leg he was holding and tossed the limb away. Tendons still articulated the bones. "Say!" he said. "You got the brains of the last one!"
Their voices were like nearby thunder. Though... if the giants weren't real, then Cashel guessed their voices weren't real either. But maybe that didn't follow in this place.
"How far is it to the water, Master Krias?" he asked. He was walking right between the two giants. They stunk awful. It was as bad as the summer Old Todler hung himself and nobody thought to look in his hut for three days.
"A lifetime if you flinch, sheep-boy!"
Todler hadn't been much for baths even when he was alive, either.
"Oh," Cashel said aloud. "It isn't that bad."
One of the giants slammed the head of his club straight down in front of Cashel. It'd been a pine bole, though use had worn away half the scaly bark.
Cashel walked through it. He didn't feel anything at all, though for a moment he couldn't see. Then he was past and the giants had vanished, leaving him and Krias alone in the rocky wasteland.
"Will there be more of them, Master Krias?" he said.
The jewel in the ring sparkled brighter for a moment. The light down here brought the sapphire's color out better than the sun had back above ground.
"There might," said Krias. "I doubt it, though. You've passed the test, after all."
"Ah," said Cashel, nodding. "That was a test?"
"They're all tests, sheep-boy!" the demon said. "Do you think just anybody can visit Landure's castle?"
"I didn't think about it one way or the other," Cashel said truthfully. He thought he saw something on the far horizon. It might be a tree, which would be a nice change; but he didn't want to get his hopes up.
"Weren't you afraid?" Krias said unexpectedly.
Cashel shrugged. "You said they weren't real," he replied. "I guess I'd have been afraid if I thought they were real."
Cashel wasn't sure that was true, but he didn't want to sound like he was bragging. He'd been scared often enough, but it had always been for what might happen to somebody else--usually one of his sheep. He guessed he figured that he could handle most anything he ran into. And so far, at least, that'd been true.
"If you'd flinched, they would have been real," Krias said. "I didn't know what would happen if I'd told you that before we were past them."
Cashel laughed. "Well, I wasn't going to flinch, Master Krias," he said. "Whether they were going to eat me or not."
He thought about the situation for a moment and added in a sober tone, "Look, I'm not the brightest fellow around, and I don't even mean compared to Garric or Tenoctris. But I don't run away, Master Krias. I've never done that."
"No," said the ring demon in a voice Cashel didn't remember him using before, "I haven't seen any evidence that you would."
Krias made a metallic sound that seemed to be the way he cleared his throat. He said, "The Fountain of Life is right there ahead of us. You'll be able to eat and drink."
That really was a tree, then, growing on a little island in a pond. The branches were heavy with fruit, but it was fruit of all different sorts. Cashel had thought it was another illusion like the giants, though at least it was something he liked to look at.
"How long will it take us to get to Landure's palace?" Cashel asked. As best as he could see, the landscape on the other side of this little oasis was pretty much the same as what he'd crossed to get here. "I mean, if everything goes all right."
"It's gone all right thus far, hasn't it, sheep-boy?" Krias snapped. "At least it has since you decided that killing Landure the Guardian wasn't such a great idea after all."
Cashel didn't say anything. The little demon had as many moods as a ewe in the springtime.
Last week a lady in the palace had gushed to him about how placid sheep were. Cashel could only shake his head about how little some people knew.
"You should get there by midday tomorrow," Krias said as Cashel approached the oasis. "That's if you get up with the light and walk the way you've done in the past. If you hurry, you could get there even sooner."
Ankle-high vegetation covered the margins of t
he pond. Soft leaves caressed Cashel's feet; he squatted to look more closely. No two of the little plants were the same, and many looked like miniature versions of shrubs and trees.
He stood, wriggling his toes. It felt good. "Is there some reason we need to hurry special, Master Krias?" he asked.
"Not that I know of, sheep-boy," Krias said in a sneering voice. "But I thought you wanted to find your beloved Sharina?"
"I do," Cashel said, walking forward. "Thing is, I get along better by going steady than I do by rushing. And I break a whole lot less."
He prodded his staff into the pond to judge the depth. The bottom was firm. If it sloped at the rate it started out, the water wouldn't more than come up to his waist at the middle.
Cashel stepped in, keeping his staff slanted out in front of him. There was no point in taking chances of a sudden drop-off, after all. The water wasn't hot or cold either one, but it made him tingle.
The bottom rose just the same as it'd gone down, gentle and not even quite as deep as he'd figured. The island was covered with the same sort of vegetation as the pond's outer margin had been: real plants, but as soft and delicate as moss.
When Cashel lifted his foot, the foliage popped right up as well. He'd thought that he must be crushing the soft leaves flat, but you couldn't even tell where he'd been walking.
"The other possibility that you might want to consider...," Krias said. There was a lot of intensity in the demon's voice, but no anger for a wonder. "Is that you might want to stay here."
Cashel laughed. "Oh, I wouldn't want to do that," he said.
"You don't think so?" Krias said. "Look at your staff, sheep-boy!"
Cashel blinked. "Wow!" he said.
There was nothing in the world Cashel knew better than he did his quarterstaff. He'd felled a huge hickory tree for a farmer, taking one arrow-straight branch as his pay. He'd trimmed the branch down using first an axe, then a curved block with sand held in grease to smooth the wood better than a blade could; and finally he'd finished the job with wads of raw wool rich in lanolin, passing over and over the close-grained wood until the surface was as smooth as a stream-turned pebble.