by David Drake
The Ersa twitched in great agitation. A pair of males, much shorter and perhaps younger than Graz, linked arms and began to keen wordlessly.
“Go back!” Graz shouted, jabbing his spear toward Tenoctris' eyes. “This is blasphemy! Go back now!”
Garric stepped in front of the old woman and linked his hands behind his back. “Give us access to the object,” he said quietly, ignoring the needle of iron quivering a finger's breadth from his throat, “and we'll take all the humans out of the Gulf. You'll have this world to yourselves.”
The words had fallen into a pattern in his mind even as he started to speak them. He didn't know whether the plan was his or that of King Carus.
“Yes,” said Tenoctris, moving to Garric's side again. “I'll seal the opening so that it no longer swallows down folk from the outer world to start the problem again.”
Garric knew—and perhaps the old woman did too—that if the Gulf were once emptied of humans, the next group of stragglers to arrive would be murdered at once instead of being bound into gentle slavery. Still, the Ersa had less of a bent to slaughter than men did, so a way that they could avoid the need would seem a benefit to them.
The Ersa's state changed from outraged horror to something equally tense but at the same time hopeful. The wailing pair calmed and faced the humans. The group signaled furiously with its ears; all but Graz. The Ersa leader remained as still as the trees of the windless forest.
“Can you open the way for us?” he said. “Can you send us home?”
“I can take you through the gate,” Tenoctris said simply, “but you can never go home. The place you came from is nowhere I can reach. And I'm afraid you're better off in the Gulf than you'd be in a world of all humans.”
It wouldn't have occurred to the old wizard to lie. Garric wouldn't have lied either, though he didn't know whether a politic answer, an answer that offered hope, might not have been—
No. The truth was always the better choice. Evil isn't done by evil people, most of the time. Evil is done by basically decent people who decide that a little lie, a little theft, a little slide down the black slope couldn't do any harm.
Graz thumped his spear butt on the soft soil. “Yes,” he said. “You may use the Hand if you remove all humans from the Gulf.”
Garric breathed out in a great sigh. “All right,” he said. “We'll go now to explain the situation to the others.”
He didn't need Liane's worried frown to remind him that convincing the Gulf's human community was likely to be a much more difficult task than negotiating with the Ersa.
The 12th of Heron
Ten donkeys with wicker panniers of cloves plodded just ahead of Cashel and Zahag; a similar train was not far behind. Traffic into the city was already brisk, though the sun was still a whisker's breadth beneath the cloudless eastern horizon. Local travelers looked at Cashel and the ape with friendly interest.
Cashel smiled. The pair of them probably looked like buskers planning to entertain in the city's squares. “The strong man and his trained monkey,” he murmured to his companion. “Maybe we could earn the price of a meal while we get our bearings.”
“Right,” the ape said. The breadth of his lips emphasized his sneer. “You can lift a donkey over your head while I explain that you're a rare two-legged ox I captured on a distant island.”
Cashel chuckled. “Sorry,” he said. “My trained ape.”
The limestone gates were twenty feet high. Carvings commemorated something or other, but they were low relief and the stone was too weathered for Cashel to make out more than the fact that they showed figures. The walls were plaster over mud brick. Where the plaster had cracked, crumbled brick dribbled out in rich brown fans.
Fields of cloves and other spices came up close to the city walls. Folk of both sexes tended the crops; leaves bruised during harvesting filled the air with a heady odor.
The scene was wholly alien to Cashel. It didn't make him uncomfortable, but he'd have liked to see...
“Do they have sheep here?” he asked Zahag. “Well, did they have sheep on the Pandah we came from?”
“What do you want with a sheep?” the ape said in amazement. “I've known frogs with more brains than the smartest sheep ever born!”
“I'm used to them, is all,” Cashel said apologetically.
Zahag blatted his lips. “That figures,” he said. “Well, I never saw a sheep since Halphemos took me from Sandrakkan, and I can't say I'm sorry about that.”
All the traffic this early in the morning was toward the city: peddlers carrying garden trucks to markets within the walls, and larger-scale growers bringing spices to the docks for export. The gates constricted the flow, but the guards, wearing kilts and leather caps, appeared ceremonial rather than arrayed against a real threat.
The road bent to pass along the shore for the last fifty paces. Cashel glanced into the harbor as he waited for the congestion ahead to clear. There was an island, a low jut of rock, in the center of the harbor basin. On it was a windowless tower of pink stone that looked more like a confection than it did a real building. Red flames rose from the surrounding water.
“That's a funny thing,” Cashel said. “What is it?”
“What's what?” the ape said. He followed Cashel's gesture and shrugged mightily.
“Well how would I know?” he said. “There isn't one like it in the other Pandah. No tower, no island. It's a stupid place for an island anyway. See how the boats have to work around it?”
Traffic shuffled forward. Cashel continued to look at the island. He supposed there was an entrance on the side he couldn't see, but that didn't explain the lack of windows. And where did the flames come from?
A figure appeared on top of the tower—a girl with auburn hair. She was a little thing, a doll of a girl, though pretty enough if you liked dolls. Sharina was slender, but she was nearly as tall as Cashel...
The last of the donkeys clopped over the stone threshold. Cashel started to follow. He could see the houses within, narrow-fronted and three or four stories high. Wooden balconies jutted out from walls covered in pastel plaster.
Cashel eyed the houses uneasily. Streets built as narrow as this one made him feel like he was entering a cave, and he'd always preferred the open air.
“It's them!” said a guard in excitement. He put his lips to the mouthpiece of a set of bagpipes and wheezed a three-note call. Civilians looked surprised, and a donkey brayed a near equivalent to the Bagpipes' sound.
Other guards came running, some of them were settling helmets on their heads or refastening sword belts they'd loosened for comfort while seated.
Cashel stopped and set his feet. He missed his quarter-staff. He'd like to hold it crossways in front of him to warn people that he didn't intend to be pushed.
Zahag bared his teeth, snarled, and tried to turn. Guards surrounded them. If Cashel had to fight, he'd grab one of the lightly built local men and use him as a club on his fellows...
An officer with a fish-shaped tin medallion on his leather helmet appeared from a cookshop just up the street, sloshing the last of the wine from the drinking bowl he still held. “Sir!” he cried when he saw Cashel. He noticed the bowl and tossed it down in the street “Sir! Oh, the Mistress God has answered our prayers after all!”
Cashel looked over his shoulder to see if the fellow was talking to somebody on the road behind. Guards were blocking traffic so that the following train of donkeys didn't crowd him and Zahag. One of the men caught Cashel's eye and bowed in salute.
“What's all this about?” Cashel asked. Zahag had calmed; he sat on the packed dirt and searched his fur for fleas. Cashel himself was even more ill-at-ease than before when he'd thought they were being attacked. In a fight he knew how to behave.
The officer, a pudgy little man, was giving instructions to a subordinate. That man ran down the street shouting to be given right-of-way. The officer turned, knelt, and dipped his head to Cashel. “Sir,” he said, “our court diviner Tayuta sa
id that a great wizard accompanied by a monkey would appear to rescue Princess Aria.”
“I'm not a—” Cashel began.
“I'm not a monkey!” Zahag shrieked. He leaped at the officer.
Cashel caught Zahag by the neck and jerked him back. “Behave!” he thundered. “I'll not have you embarrass me like this!”
Zahag hunched up, chastened. Cashel set the ape down and said, “I'm sorry,” to the gaping officer. “He isn't really a man, you see.”
“I see indeed,” the officer said. He drew himself up—facing Cashel he looked like a sheep trying to be a plow ox—and went on, “Today is the last day before Ilmed comes to claim Aria as his bride. Please, if you'll come with us quickly to the palace? There's very little time.”
“I—” Cashel said. He didn't have the faintest notion what the man was talking about. Certainly they couldn't have been waiting for him and Zahag because they'd—
The illogic of what Cashel was thinking froze his tongue. The fellow said some girl was in danger, and it sounded like time was short.
“Let's go,” he said.
The officer trotted off with only a hand signal to his men. When the guards ahead and behind pushed the pace, Cashel scooped up Zahag—the ape wasn't built for running—and jogged with him along the narrow streets. Residents of the city crowded to either side of the narrow way, watching them go by with expressions of hope. A little girl and her mother even threw chrysanthemums plucked from a window box.
The streets of Pandah were a mixture of dirt and animal droppings. Cashel was glad of that, because walking—let alone running—on cobblestones or bricks jarred his joints all the way to the base of his skull.
The buildings here probably didn't last very long. The few that were stone-built and genuinely old—temples, all of them; one was circular with pillars on the outside—sat several feet down from the surface of the street and the surrounding structures. The whole city was raising itself on a mound of the last generation's ruins.
Zahag rode on Cashel's back, gripping his waist with feet as flexible as human hands and shifting his weight from side to side as he viewed the city. “Nothing like where we came from,” the ape said. He didn't sound concerned, just interested. “The people look pretty much the same, but not the houses or anything else.”
Cashel heard bagpipes and trumpets blare ahead of them. The street doglegged to the right—it'd never been much wider than a sheep track—and entered a paved square. There were stone buildings on either hand and a colonnade across the front to join them. At the far end of the pavement was another colonnade, this one on the harborside.
Guards and functionaries wearing bright silk and cotton were spilling from the buildings. They began to cheer when they saw Cashel.
A stately woman came out of the building on the right, wearing a fanlike headdress made of rainbow silk to match her gown. Two handmaids, dressed well but less expensively, attended her. A step behind was a fourth woman in a severe black woolen robe.
The officer of the gate guards, puffing and blowing from the run, saluted her and managed to cry, “Lady Sosia! Your daughter is safe!”
The handmaids babbled in theatrical joy. The woman in the headdress—Sosia, beyond reasonable question—turned and hugged her black-clad companion.
“Pray!” that woman said. Cashel judged her to be older than Sosia by a half a dozen years, though both were middle-aged. “Give thanks to the Mistress God that She sent us both a true sign and a champion!”
Together they sank to their knees. The handmaids threw themselves down on the flagstones as well. It looked awfully uncomfortable to Cashel, who'd stopped at the edge of the pavement.
“Come forward!” the officer said, trembling between deference and haste. “Please, sir! The evil Ilmed may take the princess away at any moment!”
Cashel set the ape down and snarled, “Behave!” Zahag had become his responsibility when he said the ape could join him. Sheep were stupid, right enough, but you didn't have to worry about your ewe biting the queen...
“Sir,” said the officer, still struggling to get his breath, “may I have your name? Then I can present you to Sosia, Successor and descendant of She to whom the Mistress God entrusted Pandah when She returned to the heavens.”
“There's no need of formalities, Gason,” Sosia said. She'd risen with her companion but now bowed to Cashel's increasing embarrassment. “I'm a mother today, not the Successor.”
She took Cashel's hands and continued, “Will you come within the palace, sir? We'll get you anything you require for your activities.”
“I'm Cashel or-Kenset,” Cashel said. “Please don't call me 'sir.' Please, I'm Cashel.”
He wanted to jerk his callused hands away from Sosia's amazing delicacy. Nobody in Barca's Hamlet had skin as soft as the Successor's.
The woman in black touched the arms of both Sosia and Cashel. “Come inside please,” she said. “I'm Tayuta, Master Cashel. Not a wizard like yourself, but the diviner who foretold your arrival.”
They entered the building from which the women had come. Zahag ambled along behind. Cashel supposed that it was best that Zahag be inside where he could keep an eye on him. Now he had to worry about the ape climbing expensive draperies, though—or worse.
The thick double doors were pieced together from small sticks, none of them bigger than Cashel's arm. Pandah must not have big trees, or maybe the folk here just liked the look of cabinetry. Over the wood was bronze filigree, a single pattern repeated over and over again. If Sharina were here, she'd know if it was writing.
Thought of Sharina made Cashel's chest tighten. He'd find her, though.
All the servants must have left the palace at the announcement of Cashel's arrival. Now the pair of handmaids and at least a dozen servants of the ordinary sort rushed in after their mistress and bustled with furniture.
The main part of the building was a single room whose walls and ceiling were painted with geometric patterns in red and blue over a background of brilliantly white lime plaster. There were no tapestries or fabrics, but Cashel thought Ilna would like the interwoven symmetries of the walls.
Sosia sat on a high-backed chair of gilt wood. Tayuta stood behind and whispered in her ear. Cashel looked in confusion at the chair a servant offered him—styled like the Successor's but less ornate and without the gold leaf.
Zahag didn't have Cashel's instincts for politeness. The ape hooted in laughter and said, “Are all you humans stupid? Or do you just need kindling for a fire? That's all you'll have if my chief sits on that flimsy toy!”
“I'll stand,” Cashel said. “I, ah...Look, what do you want me to do? So I can do it and go find my friend. Friends.”
Sosia and Tayuta exchanged glances. “My daughter Aria was born eighteen years ago,” Sosia said without further delay. “Eighteen years ago this evening. Three days later a man who called himself Ilmed appeared in my chamber. And I mean appeared; the usher swore he didn't enter by the doorway.”
“I wasn't on Pandah at the time,” Tayuta said. She stroked Sosia's hair below the splendid fan of Silk. “Poor dear Sosia didn't have anyone skilled in the art to help her.”
Cashel grunted. He didn't much like the airs Tayuta was giving herself. Also he couldn't help wondering who Aria's father was—and where he'd been when wizards were walking into the palace.
“So, you're a wizard?” he said to Tayuta with no more expression than a stone wall has.
Tayuta's lips tightened. She clasped her hands at her waist. “No,” she said in a steady voice, “I'm not. I've studied the art, but my only ability is to divine the future. I foretold your arrival, Master Cashel, but I can be of no direct help to the Successor.”
Cashel scowled at his own behavior. He hadn't any business getting his back up just because Tayuta had a good opinion of herself. “Look, I'm just Cashel,” he said. “I herd sheep.”
A pair of servants entered the room with trays of fruit and drinks. Zahag bounced toward them by leaping throug
h his long arms. He reached up and began cramming his mouth with refreshments from both trays simultaneously.
The servants goggled. One of the handmaids cried “Stop that!” and stepped toward the ape.
“That's quite all right, Ivris!” Sosia said. “I'll tell you when I need someone to decide how food should be served in my presence.”
The handmaid looked, stricken. She ran out of the room, blubbering into her hands.
Cashel stood a little straighten The girl had been wasting time when there wasn't much to waste, but Cashel didn't like to see one person treat another like a fool even though it was deserved. He knew folks would do that to him if it wasn't that he was so big.
“Ilmed said he'd decided my daughter was to be his bride,” Sosia continued as though nothing had happened. “They'd be betrothed at once, but the marriage wouldn't be performed until Aria became eighteen. He was a powerful wizard, so we should feel honored—he said.”
She smiled coldly at the memory. “I was in a bad temper from the pain,” she said—and Cashel could imagine she had.been, three days after giving birth. “I told the servants to flog Ilmed within an inch of his life and throw him into the harbor. Instead he disappeared. Into thin air.”
Zahag shambled between Cashel and the women, slurping white fluid from a glazed cup. The contents were too thin for milk, even if it had been skimmed. Some sort of sap or juice, Cashel guessed.
“That night at full moon,” Sosia continued, “Ilmed returned. I watched him but I couldn't move. None of us could move. He had several monsters with him.”
“Scaled Men,” Tayuta said. “They're the size of normal men, but—”
“I know the scaly men,” Cashel said. “They took the baby, then?”
The diviner fell silent. For the first time her expression was tinged with surprise as well as respect for the power she hoped Cashel could wield.
“Yes,” said Sosia. “They took Aria. When we could move again, there was an island in the middle of the harbor and a tower on it. The flames surrounding the island come out of the water, but they burn anything they touch—wood, metal; stone even. And flesh. We've tried everything over the years, but we can't pass through the flames to rescue Aria.”