by David Drake
Pitre's eyes surveyed the floor during the interruption, looking for the pieces of his puzzle. The bits of pale wood were hopelessly concealed among the black and white tesserae of the mosaic.
Waldron grimaced. “Go on,” he said to Pitre. To Garric he added, “Pitre was there.”
“Valence and I were great friends at one time,” Pitre said softly, toward the stones of the flooring. He continued, “He needed to marry because, unless there was a clear succession there was a certainty of more trouble from men who were positioning themselves for the future. Rather than a wife from one of the great houses of Ornifal—”
“Which would have made all the other nobles his enemies,” Tadai said. Garric already understood that, from reading history and from Carus' own vivid recollections.
“—Valence accepted the offer from Sirimat, quite outside the struggles for power over the past millennium,” Pitre continued. “Azalais brought an enormous dowry, and she was strikingly beautiful besides.”
A pale smile flickered over Pitre's lips. “Not that her beauty was a matter of great concern,” he said. “Nor that Valence saw much more of it than any other wedding guest did, as matters worked out. Certainly there are no offspring.”
“She was a wizard,” Waldron said. “She used wizardry to get Valence to marry her.”
Pitre shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said, “but not all bad decisions come from wizard's work. At the time some of us thought it was quite a brilliant way out of the tangle of Ornifal nobles struggling for advantage.”
“My niece—” Waldron said. He stopped when he saw the broad, hard grin Royhas was giving him. Sourous tittered nervously. Waldron slammed the edge of his fist into the wall, shaking the candle.
Garric nodded to show that he understood what he'd been told. “The first task is to remove the queen's people from the government of Valles,” he said. He smiled faintly and went on, “I don't see how that can be done without me winding up the way Erengo did, but as tired as I am I'm doing well to see the table.”
He patted it. The smooth wood felt good beneath his fingers.
“One of my friends will have some ideas,” he said. “Both of them, I shouldn't wonder.”
Liane had lived in Valles as a wealthy outsider. Her experience might provide insights that the conspirators missed simply by being too close to the problem.
“We have a plan—” Royhas said.
Garric stood, feeling his head spin at the sudden movement. He needed food, and he particularly needed sleep.
“Not now,” he said. “I want to be able to go over matters with a clear head and with my companions present to advise me. It may be that planning you've done in my absence will have to be modified now that you've met me in person.”
Now that you know I'm not going to get burned alive by a fire wraith if there's another way to defeat evil, he thought but did not add.
“Kings die, just as other men,” whispered a voice in Garric's weary mind. “And sometimes a king dies that his people may live.”
Garric smiled, though the nobles facing him wouldn't have understood the reason. Wouldn't have agreed either, he guessed.
The conspirators looked at one another. Royhas nodded curtly and said, “Yes, all right. I'll have Maurunus put you in my private suite on the top floor. And your companions, if they've turned up.”
Pitre bent and picked up a piece of his puzzle, then placed it on the black wood of the table with an unfathomable expression. “Call us when you're prepared to act,” he said to Royhas.
“With a real leader instead of Valence,” Waldron said harshly, “the Kingdom of the Isles could be very different. We could return to a Golden Age as it was during the Old Kingdom.”
He strode to the door, the first to leave as he had been the first to arrive. Garric had noticed that Waldron said “a real leader” instead of “a real king.”
Through the waves of fatigue filling Garric's mind, a voice murmured, “The Golden Age they dream of looked a lot like this one when I was living in it; and it'll take some work to keep this age from going the same way mine did. But we'll manage.”
Ilna supposed she must have been unconscious. She came awake prickling as though someone had filled her skin with live coals. It took a moment for her to realize that the buzzing she heard wasn't the sound of blood in her ears but rather Scaled Men chanting. Their voices rasped like those of mating toads, harsh and insistent.
Ilna could see again, though her head throbbed and slow ripples drifted across the field of her vision. The pain brought on nausea. She fought down the surge of vomit, but it burned the back of her throat before it subsided.
The six Scaled Men squatted in a circle on the after-deck. In their midst was a small pot buried in a tray of sand. It was the sort of simple brazier used on shipboard to keep live coals without risk to the vessel. They'd brought it out of the small aftercabin where the tray was normally pinned between frames.
The ship rocked in a sluggish current. The yard was raised with the sail furled about it. Ilna couldn't see over the gunwale, but an owl calling in the darkness indicated they were still within the river's winding course.
A Scaled Man wearing a headband of red and green silk pinched powder from an alabaster jar and threw it onto the fire. Purple smoke rose, as luminous as the throbbing afterimages caused by looking directly at the sun.
The creature added more powder as his fellows chanted. Though the powder came from the same container, the second plume was as orange as a fire's heart.
The Scaled Men chanted louder. Rising to their feet and joining hands, they began a grotesque step-dance circling the brazier.
Instead of dissipating, the plumes wove together like breeding serpents. The colored elements remained distinct in the merged column. It rotated sunwise, opposite to the dancers' motion.
The column began to swell, losing definition. The vessel shuddered. Ilna thought they must have gone aground, but she could tell by the motion of stars against the ship's mast that they were still moving. Her flesh tingled, much as it had in the moment when she'd regained consciousness.
Thin smoke enveloped the ship. Ilna sneezed at the dry, astringent odor, but it wasn't anything she would have described as unpleasant.
In the glowing mist the Scaled Men continued to circle, raising and lowering their arms as they stepped to the rhythm of their chanting. Ilna could still see a few bright stars above her.
The ship yawed. The motion had a greasy feel, like stepping on a flagstone coated with black ice. Ilna thought they were capsizing. She tried to sit up, but her wrists and ankles were tied behind her back. She managed to twist to where she could see through a scuttle, though nothing was visible except the haze.
A wave of distortion shimmered through the sky. Something cold as a knifeblade touched Ilna’s marrow, then vanished before she could tense for the scream she would never have uttered.
The fog was gone. The hull rocked gently. The cloudless sky had an odd twilight appearance. None of the many stars were in constellations that Ilna recognized.
Muttering among themselves, the Scaled Men loosed the sail with a rattle of blocks. They worked expertly, sailors in all truth as well as in their manner of dress.
Ilna didn't feel a wind. Another pair shook out the small triangular sail on the foremast. It too expanded in the unfelt breeze.
The sea was faintly phosphorescent. The light had color, but it was so pale that not even Ilna’s trained senses could be certain whether she saw green or yellow.
Spikes of rock stuck out of the calm sea. Some towered hundreds of feet in the air; others were little more than fangs, black exclamations against the luminous water. The tallest were flat-topped and looked like the metal nails which saw only occasional use in Barca's Hamlet, where wooden tenons served their place.
The ship got under way with a smooth motion that the gusty turbulence of a normal breeze could never impart. Froth curled around the cutwater, drawing eddies in the patch of surface Ilna cou
ld see through the scuttle.
The Scaled Man at the steering oar began to sing. His voice was the same shrill toad-croak as the chanting had been. The words weren't meant for any human throat.
The ship slid onward, carrying Ilna through the twilight. She was tied too tightly for her fingers to find purchase on the ropes, but by slacking and tensing individual muscles she was able to affect the knots minusculely.
Everything had a pattern. Eventually Ilna would find the pattern that would free her. What would happen then depended on circumstances, but the image in her mind involved six nooses slowly tightening.
The 21st of Heron
The causeway was corduroyed, but the logs had rotted so badly that at each step Cashel's feet crunched through after a momentary hesitation. It was as bad as walking on a snowdrift. The bark, like a snowcrust, gouged at Cashel's legs as he withdrew them for the next step. His shins were bleeding.
“Oh, Mistress God, thank You!” Aria cried, raising her hands sky-ward in joy. “Oh, please forgive me for taking so long to understand Your plan!”
The princess and Zahag were light enough to walk on the logs so long as Cashel's weight hadn't smashed them to pulp and splinters first. Cashel had made them go ahead of him ever since the path turned into this causeway across a slough. Aria kept drawing back. Cashel had already decided that he was going to prod her the next time she stopped, and he wasn't going to be overly delicate about where he prodded her.
This transport of joy was about as unlikely as Aria sprouting wings. Instead of extending the quarterstaff, Cashel said, “Understand what, mistress? And try to keep moving, please.”
Aria turned and threw her arms around Cashel's neck. “I understand that you're testing me, silly! Like Patient Muzira!”
“There's not been enough sun for it to be sunstroke,” Zahag called down. “My guess is that one of the bugs bit her and she's delirious.”
The ape was searching for eggs in the nest in an upper fork of a tree growing out of the slough twenty paces ahead. Or beetles, Cashel supposed; Zahag wasn't a particularly delicate feeder.
Cashel carefully detached Aria. Zahag's guess about why the princess was behaving this way seemed likely enough, but there weren't any swellings or hectic spots on her skin that Cashel could see.
“Let's keep walking,” he said in a neutral voice. He made a little shooing motion with his left hand.
“Of course, Master Cashel,” Aria said. She attempted a delicate curtsy. Her right foot was on a log that had already crumbled under Cashel's weight. The rim of bark gave way as the princess bent forward; her leg plunged into wood pulp, swamp water, and the insects that thought a mush like that was a great place to live.
Aria's expression went from shock through fury—to a bright smile that wasn't entirely forced. Cashel was amazed to see how she took the mishap, though he kept his own face blank. He lifted the girl out so that she wouldn't scratch her leg as well as covering it with muck.
“Of course, Mistress God,” Aria said to the dull blue sky. “I understand that the test must go on longer.”
She patted Cashel on the cheek—for a horrified instant he'd thought she was going to kiss him—and danced on off down the causeway. Shaking his head, Cashel resumed crunching his way along behind her.
Something belched in the stagnant water. Cashel glanced toward the sound. In a normal swamp it would have been a bubble of foul-smelling gas bursting to leave ripples and a flag of mud in the water. Here he stared back at a creature with human arms and its head and body all together, like a face drawn on an egg. It picked its triangular teeth with a fingernail, grinning like a human after a satisfying meal.
Cashel sighed. There wasn't any law against being ugly, especially here. If the thing crawled up the causeway at them, Cashel would see if it smashed like the egg it resembled. None of the other monsters in the water had attacked, though, so he didn't expect this one would.
Zahag hopped from the tree and ambled to Cashel's side. His jaws worked on the last of whatever he'd found in the nest. The ape was their forager. He had a better eye for potential food than Cashel, and several times his broad, flat nose detected poison in fruits and mushrooms. Zahag made sure to gulp down particularly tasty bits before he brought the remainder to be divided.
That was fair. The ape's idea of “particularly tasty” wasn't Cashel's, and offering Aria her choice of—for example—a handful of grubs would give her dry heaves for the rest of the day.
“Have you got a good look at the bugs here?” Zahag asked. He eyed a miniature squadron buzzing low enough over the marsh to riffle the black water.
“Yes,” said Cashel. He didn't want to talk about it. They weren't insects, though a number had lacy wings or jointed legs like the bugs in Barca's Hamlet. Some of them had riders who looked awfully human, except they were about the size of a fingernail.
“They're quick,” Zahag said, “but they're not as quick as me!” He smacked his lips with gusto.
Cashel grimaced and stumped onward. The line of smashed logs in his wake stretched all the way to the western horizon. He wondered if anybody repaired the causeway. Somebody'd built it, after all.
“So who's this Patient Muzira that you're testing?” Zahag asked. The ape was walking with a rolling gait on his short hind legs alone. He stayed a half step ahead so that he wouldn't be on the next log when Cashel's foot plopped through it like a battering ram.
“Never heard of her,” Cashel said. Garric would probably know, or Sharina. Not that his friends were much like the princess in any way except that they'd all read a lot of books.
Aria turned and continued walking—backward. That wasn't the best idea on a corduroy surface, but Cashel wasn't going to complain so long as the girl kept moving. She could turn somersaults if she liked.
“Patient Muzira was the most perfect lady ever,” Aria said. Her face shone with animation. “She was so perfect that the greatest king in all the land decided to marry her, but first he carried her off and treated her like a slave. He made her sleep on the ground and gave her only—”
Aria missed a step and toppled backward. Cashel stuck his staff put for the girl to grab, but she didn't know to do that. She landed on her back with a thump. Water spurted from the soggy logs.
“Eek!” she cried.
Cashel leaned forward and set her on her feet again. The good thing about Aria's dress being so filthy was that at least he didn't have to listen to a rant about this latest stain.
“My, wasn't that clumsy of me?” Aria said. She tittered a laugh. It sounded as false as the stories Katchin the Miller, Cashel's uncle, used to tell about his private dinners with Count Lascarg when he went to Carcosa.
Zahag stared at her, then looked at Cashel. Cashel shrugged.
“Anyway,” Aria resumed, “the king made Muzira scrub all the floors of the palace and didn't give her anything to eat except lentils with worms in them.”
“Yeah, that's a nice thing about lentils,” Zahag said reminiscently. “A lot of times you get your meat right along with your vegetable.”
“And after seven whole years,” Aria said, ignoring the comment or perhaps blessedly unaware of it, “the king called Muzira out in front of all the people and ordered her to kiss his feet before he beat her in public with a horsewhip. She did, and then he told her all the discomfort had been a test to see if she was worthy to be his bride. She'd passed, so he married her right then and made her queen!”
“That's disgusting!” Cashel said. There were bad husbands in Barca's Hamlet—more than there were good ones, if you listened to Ilna; not that she had any use for the wives either—but the sort of behavior Aria chirpily described was unimaginable. Even the biggest drunken brute had to sleep sometime, though the odds were that a few of the huskier men in the borough would have taught the fellow a lesson before then. In a rural village, everybody's business was everybody's business.
Aria started walking again. “I wonder, though, Master Cashel?” she said, this tim
e without turning to look at him. “You aren't the king yourself, are you? You're his faithful servant.”
Cashel cleared his throat. “I'm a shepherd,” he said. “I don't know any kings, Princess. Well, your mother's a queen, sort of, I guess.”
“I understand,” Aria said. “You can't say. Well, I won't tell anybody that I figured it out before it was time.”
“She's doolally, huh?” Zahag muttered.
Cashel shrugged again. “Seems that way, I guess,” he said.
Boy, he'd take it, though. Aria crazy was a lot nicer to be around than she was in her right mind.
In the far distance, the sun glinted on the peaks of high mountains. Last night Cashel thought he'd seen blue light winking from that direction. He didn't know how far it was, but he guessed they'd make it eventually.
He plodded on with a crunch/squelch at every step.
Eventually. Which was good enough.
A bird in the canopy trilled variations around a central theme as Sharina sharpened the Pewle knife. It never repeated itself and never—it seemed to her—took a breath.
Sharina drew the blade across a block of fine-grained basalt from the creek, edge toward her, in long, smooth strokes. She paused as she reached for the dampened wad of moss she used to keep the stone's surface wet. It struck Sharina that in this forest she couldn't be sure that what she was hearing was really a bird.
Haft was a backwater, and Barca's Hamlet was isolated from even the minor alarms and excursions that took place in Carcosa. Life in the borough went on much as it had done for centuries. Individuals were born and died, but the round of activities stayed much the same.
Now Sharina was out in the wider world where things were different to begin with and were changing besides. She couldn't assume things the way she had in the past. She might get killed by doing that—and worse, she might fail the ones she loved and who depended on her.
She'd assumed that a man who looked and sounded like Nonnus had to be Nonnus. She'd stopped searching for Cashel in order to follow the impostor.