Master of the Cauldron

by David Drake

  "Right," said Garric. The ammonite in the sky had dissipated while he and his troops jogged back through streets deserted due to terror of the omen. It'd been another illusion, an empty threat; but a threat nonetheless. "Hold them here in readiness. I'm taking Attaper's men into the palace to arrest Balila's wizard and at least discuss matters with Balila herself. I don't know how Wildulf's going to react to that."

  "It's going to happen no matter how he reacts," Lord Attaper said in a bleak voice.

  Garric looked at his guard commander sharply. "Yes it is, milord," he said. "But I trust you and your men haven't forgotten that we're in Erdin not to start a war. If you have, I'll take Lord Rosen and a section of his men in with me."

  "Honored to accompany you, your highness!" Rosen said, stiffening to attention. The Blaise nobleman looked pudgy, but there was real muscle under the layer of fat and a quicker intelligence than Garric was used to finding among soldiers.

  "Don't get above yourself, Rosen," Attaper said. There was a chuckle rather than a snap in his voice, the tone you'd use to reprove a puppy who wanted to play at an inappropriate time. "Your highness, we kept the lid on at the temple an hour ago. We'll do the same here till you give us different orders. Let's go talk with Dipsas, shall we?"

  Several of Wildulf's mercenaries guarded the palace entrance, but there wasn't the full squad that'd usually been on duty. Garric wondered if others had run away when the image appeared in the sky. In any event, those present got out of the way as he and his escort of Blood Eagles trotted through the archway and into the central plaza.

  One of the Sandrakkan courtiers stood there alone, hugging himself with his eyes turned to the ground. Garric remembered him from the levee following the coronation.

  "Lord Ason," Liane said—trust her to remember a name she'd only heard once. "Where are the Earl and Countess?"

  The courtier twitched and continued staring at the stone pavers. "Wildulf's in his Audience Hall right there," he said. "I don't know where she is."

  He looked up at last. With a flare of anger he added, "But if she and that wizard of hers are behind the things that're happening, I hope they're in Hell! I don't care how much Wildulf thinks of her, I hope they're in Hell!"

  "Can't say I disagree with him," said Carus, who'd stayed watchfully quiet in Garric's mind since the fighting ended. The ancient king was a constant presence and resource, but he knew better than to be distracting when Garric had to concentrate.

  Nor do I, Garric agreed silently as he and his escort double-timed across the courtyard. The Blood Eagles' boots made a sparkling cacophony on the stone. And it may be we'll be sending them there very shortly.

  Somebody'd started to shutter the colonnade between the courtyard and Audience Hall. Only a few of the hinged partitions had been closed, though. They formed a fourth wall during severe weather, but under normal circumstances the open plaza was additional space for the public to hear the Earl's pronouncements.

  The threat hadn't been weather this time, but the thing in the sky. Earl Wildulf sat slumped on his throne, leaning on his left elbow. A score of courtiers and servants remained in the big room, but others must've fled.

  The pair of servants who'd started to shutter the room were sobbing by a half-closed partition. They'd worked blindly until a pin had stuck in its track. Terror hadn't left them enough courage or intelligence to overcome even a trivial setback; instead they'd broken down completely.

  The priestess, Lady Lelor, stood by the throne. She turned on Garric and shouted, "You don't know what it's like! You've only seen them a few times. If you'd had to live with those things in the sky for a month, you'd understand why we're, why we're...."

  She couldn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to, of course.

  "Earl Wildulf," Garric said without ceremony. "Where's your wife, and particularly where's the wizard Dipsas?"

  "She hadn't anything to do with it," Wildulf said, straightening. Anger replaced his previous dispair and he regained some of his manhood. "They were both here when it started. They weren't responsible!"

  "Dipsas may not be behind the apparitions," Garric said, "but she was in league with Tawnser. I'm not going to give her another chance to bring the kingdom down. You say she was here? Where's she gone, milord?"

  "You can't talk like that in my court!" Wildulf said. His belt and sword hung over the back of the throne; it wasn't practical to wear the long blade while seated in an armchair. A pair of Blood Eagles stepped behind him and removed the weapon.

  "She and the Countess went off together," Lady Lelor said in a harsh voice. "Toward the Countess's apartments. They left as soon as the thing appeared in the sky."

  She turned to Earl Wildulf and said, "Milord, I've pretended there was nothing happening for as long as I could. That Dipsas is a demon from the Underworld and she's tricked your wife into helping her!"

  "They couldn't have done this!" Wildulf shouted. "They were here in the chamber when it started!"

  "They may not be behind the things in the sky," Lelor said, "but they roused whatever it is that's doing it. Doing that and worse things. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything in the world."

  She shook her head and added miserably, "I don't know what else there is I can be sure of now. Not even the sunrise, the way those things cover more of the sky each time they appear. And they last longer besides."

  Garric glanced toward Liane. She was at an inner doorway, talking to the clerk she'd sent as messenger and to a younger man in the sash and tunic of a palace servant. The servant was protesting volubly.

  The spy, Garric realized. The spy who marked the route for us to follow through the tunnels beneath the palace.

  Aloud to Lady Lelor he said, "Were the Countess and her wizard alone?"

  "They had her boy with them, that was all," Wildulf himself said. "The boy and her bird."

  In a tired voice Wildulf added, "She brings the boy to bed with us. It's not natural and I know it, but I can't say no to her."

  "Your highness?" Liane said. "Master Estin knows the direct route to where Dipsas has probably gone. I suggest that we go with no more than a squad of soldiers—"

  She didn't bother to say "you send" because she knew full well that Garric wasn't going to leave the task for others.

  "—to arrest her, because a larger force will be dangerously cramped in some of the passages."

  "Right," said Garric. He turned to his guard commander and continued, "Lord Attaper, pick an officer and ten men who aren't bothered by tight places—"

  He grimaced.

  "—and wizardry to accompany me. We'll go immediately."

  "I'm the officer," Attaper said, as Garric knew he would. "Ensign Attarus, a squad from your section."

  "Yessir!" said a boy who wasn't having much luck growing a beard yet. "Squad Three, form behind me!"

  "I didn't say—" Attaper started angrily.

  Garric put a hand on Attaper's wrist. "It's all right, milord," he said, "your son can come with his men."

  If Attarus was man enough to command a doomed rear guard, then he can have what he and all his fellows consider a place of honor now.

  "You lied to me!" Estin said bitterly. "You've unmasked me before the whole court. What's my life worth now, do you suppose?"

  "It's worth less than the kingdom's safety," Garric said. He was repeatedly amazed at the way people saw themselves at the center of the universe. "As is my life. Take us to Dipsas and I'll make you a palace gardener in Valles if you're looking for safety."

  "Go," Liane said crisply. "We may not have much time."

  The spy led them into the north wing of the palace at a trot. Servants with frightened expressions squeezed into wall niches or stared at the running soldiers through doors that were barely ajar.

  "Her suite's to the left of the corridor," Estin said. He appeared to have gotten over his anger at being identified in public; that, or it'd been put on to begin with. "The Earl's suite's across from it. There, the one covered in
blue leather."

  The door was set in an ornamental frame like the entrance to a miniature temple. No soldiers were guarding it, but it'd been barred from the inside.

  Garric stepped back to kick the panel. Attaper touched his shoulder and said, "A job for boots, your highness. Attarus, on three. One, two—"

  Father and son raised their hobnailed right feet together.

  "Three!" and they smashed the door open in splinters and torn leather facings. Estin slipped through behind the Blood Eagles with Garric and Liane following closely. The remainder of the squad brought up the rear.

  A few of the Blood Eagles carried javelins. Garric and the others had drawn their swords.

  The ground level was a reception area and servant's quarters; Balila's bedroom and intimate chambers would be up the stairs. A maid in silk tunics knelt over a chair seat with her face in her arms, weeping in terror.

  "Through to the back," the spy said. "The entrance is in Dipsas' quarters, and you can bet nobody but her and her mistress go there."

  He slid open a black velvet curtain. Attaper reached past left-handed and tore the hanging off its rod, then flung it to the side. There was a second curtain just inside the first. Estin wasn't able to tear it free, but again Attaper did.

  The windows of Dipsas' room were shuttered. The only light was from a lamp of scented oil. Rugs piled in the center of the room must serve as a bed. The only other furnishing was a tall cabinet standing in a corner.

  "The entrance is through that!" Estin said, pointing. Garric jerked it open. The cabinet had hidden brick steps leading downward.

  "Wait!" said Liane, who'd pulled a pair of rushlights from her case. She held one in the lamp till the waxed pith ignited into pale yellow flame. She stepped to Garric's side and smiled, saying, "Now we can go."

  They started down the stairs. Garric was a step ahead with his sword forward, but Liane stayed close to give him the benefit of her fluttering light. Estin from immediately behind said, "We go right in the passage at the bottom."

  "Your highness—" said Attaper.

  "I've been here before," Garric said. "Just not by the short route. I belong in front."

  "With all respect, you do not belong in front," Attaper said in a tired voice. "But I won't knock you over the head and drag you out of here, so I've got to live with your bad decision. Your highness."

  "He's right," chuckled Carus. "But so are you, lad. These aren't times for a king who thinks about ways he could hang back. If there ever was that kind of time."

  They reached the passage, an interior hallway that survived from the building that'd been here a thousand years before. There were niches for decorative objects, but all had been removed except an alabaster urn that lay broken on the floor. There must have been people in every age prowling these tunnels, for loot or simply curiosity.

  "Dipsas might've been told about the chamber below," Garric murmured. "Instead of searching it out herself."

  "I wonder if we can block this up?" Liane said. Then, regretfully, she added, "I don't suppose so. There's just too much of it."

  "Left at the end," Estin said. "And watch it, it's steep."

  At the bottom of a natural cleft, Liane lit her second rushlight some moments before the first crumbled to orange embers. They went on, more quickly now because Garric recognized the route. In the darkness to the left was the way he and Liane had taken from their bedroom the previous night.

  "I hear something," Attaper said quietly. "Voices, or...."

  "Yes," said Garric. "I hear it too."

  He couldn't make out the words, but there were two voices. One was the deep rumble that he'd heard when they entered the caverns before, the sound that hadn't come from anybody present in the vault. The other was high-pitched and scarcely human. It shrieked words in counterpoint to the thunder of the deep voice.

  "By the Lady!" said a soldier farther back in the column. "By the Lady!"

  Occasionally Balila's pet screamed. The bird didn't like this business any better than Garric did....

  Violet light quivered through the vault's egg-shaped opening. Garric had seen hints of it before, but he'd told himself that it'd been his eyes tricking him in the near darkness.

  He glanced over his shoulder. "Master Estin," he said, "you can go back now if you like. I'll see to it that you're compensated for the dangers we've subjected you to."

  "I'll see it through," the spy said. He didn't have a weapon. "I'll make sure you get back so you can take care of that compensation."

  Garric shrugged. He crouched at the opening and looked through. Attaper moved Liane back with his arm and knelt beside Garric. He swore softly.

  A lamp burned from a niche in the sidewall, but a violet shimmer filled the air itself. It trembled as the bass voice thundered words of power.

  The great bird paced back and forth at the rear of the chamber, opening and closing its hooked beak. The horny edges clopped together, but the bird had ceased to scream. Its eyes flashed with rage.

  Balila and Dipsas stood on opposite sides of a circle chalked on the vault's basalt floor. In the center, hanging by his blond hair from a tripod made of wooden poles, was Balila's cherub. He still wore his gilt wings. When the bass voice ceased its thunder, the boy's lips began to shriek a response in a high treble. As he spoke, his dangling body rotated slowly.

  "They're demons," Liane whispered. "They're not human to do that to a child!"

  "We'll end it now," Garric said, forcing the words out past the thick anger in his throat. He stepped through the opening, his sword before him. Dipsas had information which would be of value to the kingdom, but in his heart Garric knew that nothing the wizard could say would please him as much as the knowledge he'd rid the world of her.

  The boy continued to swing and chant, but both women turned to face Garric. The air was alive with swirling phantoms, coalescing in the edges of his vision but never directly where he looked.

  "That's enough!" Garric said, raising his sword.

  Dipsas pointed her athame at his chest and shouted, "Temenos!"

  Garric tried to take one further step to bring the wizard's throat within reach of his steel. He couldn't move. The word bound him in violet light.

  "Sanbetha rayabuoa!" the bass voice and the cherub chorused together. Dipsas broke into cackling triumph.

  The vault's basalt floor cracked across the middle. The halves tilted upward, knocking over the tripod and making the women stumble backward. Things as pale as the mushrooms growing on corpses began to crawl up through the cracks.

  The wizard's laughter changed to a scream as one of the things grabbed her ankle.

  CHAPTER 16

  Garric was deaf and frozen in a world of purple light. He couldn't swing his sword or blink, and his heart had stopped beating. He was fully aware of what was happening in the vault. Not happy about it, but aware.

  The creatures crawling through the crack in the rock looked as though a child had tried to mold men out of clay. They were hideous, maggot-pale travesties. As many had three limbs or six as had four. Some were headless, their eyes and mouth gaping from their chest; one hopped on a single leg and held an edged stone paddle in its single hand. Yet clearly, and most horrible of all, they'd been meant to be human.

  The Countess backed toward the opposite wall of the vault, wearing a stupefied expression. Even though Balila wasn't a wizard herself, she'd been enough involved in the spell that it'd numbed her to events in the waking world. She seemed only partially aware of her surroundings.

  A troupe of not-men rose from the crack the way spring sap bubbles from a cut in a mapletree's bark and shambled toward Balila. Their weapons were mostly of stone or bronze, but one carried what looked like the tusk of a monster in each of its four hands.

  Garric thought of the passage Liane had showed him just that morning: a thousand years ago the wizard Dromillac had trapped invaders under Erdin. Like the People who attacked Valles, the race that the chronicler called pirates hadn't been quite h
uman.

  After a thousand years in darkness, their descendents were very much less human than the originals had been.

  The thing that gripped Dipsas' ankle had one arm and no neck. Instead of legs it crawled on a nest of squirming tentacles. It grinned at the wizard, ignoring her wild struggles. She was probably part of the reason the monsters had broken free of the underworld, but she obviously hadn't known everything that her incantations were doing.

  Because Garric couldn't hear, he could only guess that when Dipsas pointed her athame at the creature holding her she was screaming a spell. If soit failed on the not-man.

  A creature with the head and torso of a handsome man minced toward Dipsas on the legs of a deformed goat. It held a copper trident with a short staff.

  Six not-men advanced on the Countess. Her bird opened its great beak; its tongue trilled a cry that Garric couldn't hear. It raised its crest, flapped its stubby wings, and lashed out with its right foot.

  The bird's three claws were blunt, meant for running instead of gripping prey the way a hawk does, but its leg was immensely strong. The blow disemboweled a not-man and flung its two-headed corpse across the chamber.

  The remaining five creatures converged, swinging their weapons. The bird grabbed a not-man in its hooked beak and shook violently, tearing an arm off before dropping the body and seizing another.

  A blow from the bird's wings had batted a not-man to the floor, but it gripped the bird's legs with bonelessly flexible arms. The bird stamped twice, ripping the creature open with its dew-claws, but other not-men struck from left and right with stone clubs. The bird's skull was large to give the beak muscles leverage, but the bones were still bird bones, lighter than a mammal's of similar size. The clubs smashed it like an egg.

  The bird leaped into the air, bouncing off the high stone ceiling. It fell on its back, flailing its four limbs, but somehow got its legs under it again and ran across the chamber. The bird's wild career knocked down several not-men before it slammed into the wall not far from Garric. Its wings and legs gave one more spastic twitch; then the corpse fell, limp and bloodless.