The Fortress Of Glass

by David Drake

  “I was the different one,” the Bird said, apparently ignoring the question. “The daring one, a human might call it; but we are not human. To my people and myself, Garric, I was mad.”

  The rain had stopped and the sun was a broad bright circle in a dove-gray sky. The Bird fluttered above a creek too wide to jump. The water was black and opaque. Garric tried it with his foot; Donria simply strode across.

  Garric followed feeling a little embarrassed. The water was mildly cool and only ankle deep. Well, I didn’t know what might be living in a stream like that. “I went into the depths of the cave,” the Bird continued. “This is the shape I wear now—”

  It fluttered its gauzy wings.

  “—but I can take any shape I choose. I followed the fracture into the rock until I was a sheet of crystal with granite pressing to either side. I wanted to experience separation, you see. I was mad.”

  Garric’s lips shouldn’t have been dry in this sodden air. He had to lick them anyway.

  “I could barely feel my people,” the Bird said. “They missed me, but they did not object to my choice. My people did not coerce: they were part of the cosmos and lived in their place and their way. They had no power because using power would have been out of place and therefore mad. As I am mad.”

  “Were,” Garric said. He didn’t amplify the word or put any particular emphasis on the way the Bird had used the past tense in referring to his people.

  “Before I decided to return to the bubble and my fellows, my birthmates, my other selves,” the Bird said, “two wizards arrived. My people ignored them, continuing to contemplate the cosmos and their place in it. The wizards killed them and took away their bodies to use in their art.”

  Garric licked his lips again. “I’m very sorry,” he said. When you’re told of a horror, words may not be any real help to the victim; but words, and the bare truth, were all there was. “Who were the wizards?”

  “They were not of this world,” the Bird said. “They were not human; they were not even alive as humans judge life. They came and they killed my people, then they left with our crystal bodies. I wanted to sense separation. For five thousand years now I have known only separation.”

  He gave his terrible rattling laugh again. “Is it a wonder that I am mad?” he asked.

  A breeze bringing a hint of cinnamon rippled the standing water to either side, clearing the air briefly. Ahead was a solid belt of cane waving ten or twelve feet in the air. The stems were as thick as a big man’s finger, and the bark had scales. We’ll have to go around, Garric thought; but the Bird fluttered into the cane, weaving between the closely spaced stems.

  Donria continued forward without hesitation, plowing into the wall of vegetation, breaking the canes like so many mushrooms. Either there were no windstorms in this place—and Garric hadn’t experienced any, now that he thought about it—or these plants grew to full height in a day or two. Perhaps both things were true.

  “Bird,” he said aloud. “You’ve helped me escape from Torag. If I can help you, I’ll do my best.”

  “I have purposes, Garric,” the Bird said. “Your survival suits my purposes. I am not human.”

  A stone’s throw down the path was a plant whose trunk looked like a pineapple with four leaves crawling from the top and across the ground. The Bird lighted on it and rotated its crystalline head to face back at Garric.

  “Thank you for treating me as though I were human, however,” the Bird said. “It does not matter to my people, but it speaks well of you and your race; and perhaps that matters to me after all. After so many years alone I am no longer wholly one of my people.”

  “I smell smoke,” said Donria abruptly.

  “Yes,” said the Bird, shimmering back into the air again. “Before sundown we will reach Wandalo’s village.”

  In a mental voice that wasn’t attenuated by distance, the Bird added, “The cave in which my people were created and died still focuses energies. The Coerli wizards use that cave to come to this place far in their past where they hunt. Some day I will revisit it myself.”

  The Bird clicked its laugh. “I have purposes, Garric,” it said.

  Cashel backed a step and raised his staff as the demon leaped into the air, beating its wings strongly. Something so big—and all right, the demon was thin as a snake, but it was still man-sized—shouldn’t have been able to fly on wings no longer than Cashel could span with his arms spread, but it did.

  Hanging like a hummingbird over Cashel and the boy, it called angrily, “Fly, then! You can fly, can’t you?”

  “Cashel, what do we do?” Protas said desperately.

  He’s afraid of failing, Cashel thought. He can’t do what the demon just told him to.

  Knowing that, and knowing that the demon didn’t really believe they could fly—it was bullying them, making them feel guilty—Cashel said harshly, “Come down, you! You’re to guide us, you say. Stop playing the fool and come do your job.”

  “You can’t command me, human!” the demon said, still hovering.

  “Maybe not,” Cashel agreed. “That’s between you and whoever set you to guide us. But as Duzi’s my witness, you can’t give us orders. If you won’t come down and do what you’re told, we’ll go our own way.”

  “Fools!” said the demon, but it cupped its wings and landed beside them. “We’ll go on foot, then. But it’d be easier to fly.”

  The business’d gotten Cashel’s back up quicker than it ought to’ve, maybe because of the noise the musicians were making. He wouldn’t call it music, not a bit.

  Instead of letting the demon’s posturing go, Cashel reached out quick with his left hand and pinched the flat scaly nose between his thumb and forefinger. The demon shrieked on a climbing note and tried to jump backward, which it had no more chance of doing than a snared rabbit has until Cashel opened his hand.

  “Remember who set you the job of guiding us, fella,” Cashel said, breathing deeply to calm himself down. He’d had his staff poised in his right hand so that he could use the short end as a cudgel if the demon’d tried to bite him. “And remember I’m Cashel or-Kenset, so keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to me and my friend.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the demon, sounding conciliatory now. A man would’ve massaged his bruised nose with a hand, but the scaly blue thing just shook its head. “Let’s get it over with, then. There’s risk for me too in this, you know.”

  They set off walking—eastward, judging from the way the sun’d moved in the little while since Cashel had come here. Protas put the crown on his head. It fit there, which surprised Cashel a good deal. It’d fit the much larger Cervoran as well.

  When they got a bowshot away from the grove and the musicians, Cashel felt a little embarrassed at the way he’d gone after the demon. All it’d been trying to do was save face.

  A fellow as big as Cashel was got a lot of that, people pretending they weren’t going to fight him just because they didn’t feel like it. He’d learned to let it go, mostly from temperament but also because if you humiliated or knocked silly everybody who got too much ale and started mouthing off, you got the reputation of being the sort of man Cashel didn’t like.

  This time the demon’d gone after the boy, though. Bullying kids was the wrong thing to do. Doing it in front of Cashel was really the wrong thing to do.

  “Master Demon?” Protas said. He was a courteous little fellow, which wasn’t true of every nobleman’s son Cashel’d met since he left the borough. “How far are we to go?”

  “An hour, walking,” the demon said. It turned to glower over its narrow shoulder at Cashel and Protas. “If nothing happens.”

  Cashel nodded, just showing he understood. He figured the demon might be trying to scare them over nothing, but in this place it wasn’t hard to imagine there were real dangers. He’d have been keeping his eyes open regardless.

  The ground was dry red clay. Grass grew on it on it in a sere yellow blanket; seed heads scratched at Cashel’s knees.
Trees were sparse, and their gray leaves curled around their stems.

  Because Cashel was busy looking in all directions, it was Protas who first saw the town on the southern horizon. “Look, Cashel,” he said, pointing.

  At first Cashel thought it was a range of low hills, but as they walked along a little further he decided the humps were just too regular to be natural; they must be domed buildings. Something glittered on top of one, but it was too far away for even Cashel’s excellent eyes to tell any more than that something was shining.

  “Who lives in that city, Master Demon?” Protas asked. At least for as long as they held up, his trousers were better for this country than Cashel’s tunics and bare legs.

  The demon looked back again. “We have no business with them,” it said. “You’d better hope that they have no business with us, either. If you believe in Gods, boy, pray that reaching toward them doesn’t call them to us!”

  Protas jerked his hand down. Cashel frowned, then decided to let it pass. From the way the demon turned its sharp-featured face away it’d seen the frown and knew what Cashel’d been thinking. Maybe it’d remember to be more polite the next time it warned Protas.

  A grove of trees lay close by to the left of the line they were taking. They were bigger than those Cashel’d seen when they arrived here, but they were dead instead of just dry: most of the bark had sloughed away from the trunks and branches.

  Something could still be hiding behind the trunks, though. Cashel didn’t let the trees keep his whole attention, but he made sure his eyes flicked back to them often enough that nothing could rush out unnoticed even when they were within a stone’s throw.

  A woman’s hiding in that hollow trunk!

  “Halloa, mistress!” Cashel called, bringing his staff up crosswise. In a lower voice he growled, “Protas, get clear of me but don’t go too far!”

  She was clutching the trunk with her hands, her body pressed against the wood. She lifted her face in surprise, then smiled broadly. She’s not wearing any clothes!

  “Who are you, stranger?” she said, speaking to Cashel and completely ignoring his companions. She moved a step out from the hollow. “My, today blesses me as I never thought to be blessed again in this life!”

  Duzi, the tree’s been making love to her! Or likely she’s been…

  Cashel turned away. “Demon,” he said, “let’s walk on. This is no place for decent people.”

  “Where are you going, stranger?” the woman said. Her voice’d started out a pleasant coo like doves in a cote but it went all shrill. “You’ve come here and you’ll not leave until you’ve pleasured me!”

  “Demon, I said go on!” Cashel said, because their guide was standing on one leg with the other foot resting against his knee. He had clawed toes like a bird’s.

  “Go ahead and service her,” the demon said. “We’re not short of time, and it’s too dangerous not to now that she’s roused.”

  “I said go on!” Cashel said, thrusting the iron butt of his staff at the demon’s face. It jerked back or its nose’d have gotten a knock and no mistake.

  “Are you mad?” the demon cried incredulously. It sprang into the air again, hovering like a sparrow over a sunflower. “If you’re killed, what will happen to me?”

  Cashel poised the quarterstaff to prod again. The demon flapped higher, then turned and flew off in the direction they’d been going.

  “You must run, then,” it shrilled over its shoulder. “You’re a fool and worse than a fool!”

  “I guess we run, Protas,” Cashel said. “It shouldn’t be too far to where we’re going, given what he said at the start.”

  “Yes, Cashel,” the boy said. He put a hand up to hold the crown and started sprinting, though before Cashel could say anything he’d slowed his pace to a gentle lope.

  They didn’t know how far it was; lying on the ground throwing up at the end of your strength was the wrong way to be if something really was chasing them. Though Cashel figured his staff could deal with the woman if he had to.

  He looked back. The circle of dead trees were pulling their roots up out of the ground. The one she’d been making love to had bent down a big branch and lifted her up in it.

  “It’s too late now!” the demon cried. “You’ll regret this for the rest of your short life!”

  “I don’t guess I will,” Cashel said as he stumped along beside Protas. “Short or long, I don’t guess I will.”

  He concentrated on running. It wasn’t something he’d ever been good at, though he could move quick enough when he had to. Not for long, though; he wasn’t built for it, and watching sheep hadn’t given him practice.

  Cashel looked over his shoulder, just a quick glance. He faced front again so he wouldn’t stick his foot in what might be the only gopher hole in shouting distance.

  There wasn’t much he wanted to see going on behind them anyway. There were more trees than he could count on both hands. They didn’t seem to move fast, but their roots were each longer than he was tall. There were covering ground as fast as Cashel did trotting, and maybe covered it a little faster.

  He glanced back again. Faster for sure.

  “Run!” the demon called. “Run! You have to reach the rocks!”

  There was an outcrop up ahead, a lump roughly a man’s height in diameter every way. It looked natural, but the top and one side were flattened. Most of it was pebbly gray, but the hot sun’d flaked a slab off. Where that’d happened, the surface was pale yellow.

  It wasn’t far away, but it was too far for Cashel to make before the trees reached him. Well, he didn’t much care for running anyhow.

  “Keep going, Protas!” Cashel shouted. The boy was pulling ahead anyway; he ought to be fine.

  Cashel turned and faced the oncoming trees, spinning his quarterstaff in front of himself. Each of the however many trees there was had branches thicker than his hickory staff, but he’d do what he could. They squealed low like a forest flexing in a windstorm.

  The trees’d strung out some on the chase, but the big one that the woman rode on was closer even than Cashel’d feared. She stood in the crotch, laughing and gesturing, as the tree loped along. Its long branches had twice the reach of his staff.

  The demon let out a screech like a hog being gelded. Cashel didn’t look over his shoulder; the trees were plenty to occupy his attention. As he readied to step forward and bring his staff straight out of its spin into the tree bole, the demon swooped in front of him.

  The demon swept its arms apart. Blue wizardlight streaked from its fingertips to draw a blazing arc between Cashel and the tree. Grass flashed into soft orange flames. The roots skidded the tree to a stop, plowing furrows in the hard soil. Dirt and gravel sprayed over Cashel’s feet.

  “Begone!” the demon screamed toward the trees. “I will! I must preserve them!”

  Which it hadn’t said before. If Cervoran was the reason this was happening, then he was a powerful enough wizard to scare even demons.

  The woman swayed awkwardly when the tree stopped the way it did. She likely would’ve fallen if it hadn’t reached up a branch to give her something to grab onto. The rest of the grove was dragging to a halt too. Cashel didn’t relax, not yet, but he drew in a deep breath. He hadn’t seen any good way for things to work out.

  The crouching demon poised with its arms still spread. It turned its head and cried, “Get on, then! To the top of the rock. You can do that, can’t you, climb onto the rock?”

  Cashel turned and started jogging again. He wobbled for the first couple steps; he’d been closer to being winded than he knew. Stopping something and starting up again was a lot harder than just to keep going the first time.

  Protas was waiting with his back to the rock. Cashel thought the boy was clenching his fists in fear, but when he got close he saw he had a stone in either hand.

  Cashel grinned broadly. Sure, flinging rocks wasn’t going to do much good against trees the size of the ones chasing them, but neither was the quart
erstaff he’d been ready to use himself. He was glad to see the boy thought the same way he did.

  “What do we do now, Cashel?” Protas said. His voice higher than it had been, but he was being brave just the same.

  “Drop the stones and let me boost you up!” Cashel said. He ought to’ve leaned the quarterstaff against the rock to free both hands, but instead he used just his left to grab Protas by the back of his garments—tunic, sash and trousers all together in a tight handful—and swing him up the side of the boulder. When Cashel let go, he realized he’d swung harder than he’d meant to, but the boy managed to grab on and not go sailing off the back side as he’d nearly done.

  Cashel looked back as he planted his staff arm’s length out from the boulder. The trees stood in a tight arc just beyond where the grass still smoldered. When the demon saw Cashel and Protas had reached the rock, it spun and sprang into the air. The trees surged forward again, at first looking like they were bending in a storm.

  Cashel jumped with a twist of his shoulders on the staff to swing his feet to the top of the boulder. There he straightened and brought the staff up across his body again. The stone’d been scribed with a star so long ago that the grooves were the same dirty gray as the flat surface.

  He grinned. Mounting that way was a neat piece of work. It took timing as well as strength, but it took more strength than most any two other men could’ve managed.

  The demon circled them, glaring fiercely. “You’ve cost me a kalpa of torment to save you as I did!” it cried. “But better that than all eternity. Get on with you and bring misery to some other wretched creature!”

  Hovering, it stretched out its clawed hands toward Cashel and the boy. Cashel tensed, remembering the blast of blue flame that’d halted the grove now rushing down on them again; dust rose in a dirty plume as their roots scraped over the ground.