Master of the Cauldron

by David Drake

  The Made Men seemed to shrivel individually as they broke and tried to run. They'd come in like the tide and now like the tide they were washing back. They left behind only blood-soaked ground and a wrack of bodies.

  The citizens of Ronn surged after them. The men who'd fought in the front line stumbled, too exhausted to follow their routed enemies for more than a few steps. Other men poured through their lines, though—and women as well, come down from the parapet and balconies, wielding kitchen implements and hurling stones wrenched from the ornamental walkways meandering across the terraces.

  The King squatted in a dome of ruby light, hunched like the pale, wizened pupa of a grasshopper which the plowshare turns up into daylight. He was mouthing words of power as he beat the air with his athame. His minions had fled or died, but the citizens of Ronn avoided him they way they'd have gone around a glowing oven.

  Cashel glanced at Mab, expecting to see her looking triumphant. Mab's hands were the only part of her moving. Her body was as rigid as a statue's, and her face was twisted into a grimace of agony.

  This is the real fight. Not the bumbling slaughter of men and not-men now finishing in an equally bumbling race.

  Cashel shrugged to loosen his tunic again, then strode down the slope onto the second terrace. There'd been a fountain here; fed by pipes coming out of Ronn, he supposed, but that must've ended when the King's influence oozed back into the rock-cut levels of the city. Now it was a coping whose tiled roof had filled the basin when the four stone maidens supporting it fell.

  Cashel felt a twinge of sadness for the statues. They'd never been alive, of course, but it still bothered him that pretty things meant to make people happy lay broken and covered by corpses. Well, maybe they'd be raised and repaired rather than replaced. It wasn't their fault what'd happened to them, after all.

  At the place where the two lines had stood and fought the longest, there were enough bodies to make Cashel choose his footing with care. The Made Men's corpses squished underfoot and turned like bladders full of wet mud. Cashel tried not to step on real men, but sometimes he had to. He figured they didn't care any more, or anyway that they understood that there's things that happen even when you'd rather they didn't.

  Cashel approached from the side of the King in his shimmering dome. He didn't know what'd happen if he put himself between Mab and the King, but the best result of that was nothing. The worst... well, Cashel had seen enough of wizards that being blasted to bits wasn't at the bottom of what he thought might happen.

  The King watched with tiny eyes as Cashel approached, but his athame kept stroking the air toward Mab on the higher terrace. Cashel thought he felt hatred through the protective red glow, but he guessed the King was one of those people who hated whatever it was they saw. It didn't make Cashel special, and it sure wasn't just wizards who acted that way.

  Citizens were watching Cashel too. An overweight fellow who must be sixty knelt on the ground in front of his helmet. Sweat gleamed on his bald scalp. He looked so tired that he couldn't move, even to sit down properly, but there was blood on the blade of the sword he still held. His eyes tracked Cashel.

  So did those of the woman cross-legged on the ground not far away. She was probably as old as the exhausted man, but she was tall and slender and looked every inch a queen. Her robes were white, but whites of several different shades that swirled together into a pattern that Cashel knew would've impressed his sister.

  Blood stained the garments and continued to drip from the open mouth of the young man whose head she cradled in her lap. Cashel guessed the fellow must've bitten his tongue in half when a Made Man thrust his barbed bronze sword through the human's visor. The wound itself wasn't bleeding. The woman looked like she'd cry when she'd had time for what'd happened to sink in. Mothers did that, even mothers who looked like queens.

  There were more dead and many more wounded. There'd been too many of both, today and in the years before. It was time to end the business.

  Cashel stepped toward the King, keeping the length of his staff from the dome of wizardlight. The hairs on Cashel's arms and the back of his neck prickled the way they always did when he was around wizardry. He began to spin his quarterstaff sunwise in front of him, building speed.

  The King glared at Cashel. He was a tiny little thing, shrunk with age till he was barely a child in size. Cashel didn't recall ever seeing hate quite that bright in anybody's eyes before.

  The quarterstaff was spinning faster; the ferrules trailed sparks of blue fire. Cashel could feel power shivering through his limbs. It wasn't something in him or of him, it was a thing that wore his flesh the way he wore a tunic. It was almost time—

  The King pointed his athame toward Cashel's face. His mouth was open to shout words of power.

  The dome protecting the King collapsed inward, leaving nothing but a blue spark where he'd squatted. There was a thunderclap and a jet of azure light spiking through the pale heavens.

  The shockwave threw Cashel onto his back, stunned and deafened. Above him shone the stars of a normal night, as brilliant as powdered jewels.

  * * *

  Valgard and the wizard Hani walked through the whirling ring together. Sharina hesitated.

  "Go on, milady," Bolor said, gesturing her toward the portal. In the temple cellar, Tenoctris reacted to the men's arrival with no more than a smile of greeting. Valgard put one heavy hand on her shoulder. Sharina stepped through the ring, wincing as her left foot came down on the cellar's stone flooring.

  Bolor and his two henchmen arrived a moment later. From this side Sharina saw only empty air until the men appeared. It was as if they'd walked from shadow into bright light. Their striding legs, their arms swinging forward—and then they were as solid as they'd been on the island a moment before.

  "Let her go!" Sharina snapped at Valgard. "She's an old woman. She can't do you any harm!"

  Valgard glanced at her without emotion. He continued to hold Tenoctris by the shoulder till Hani said, "Yes, you can let her go. I thought she was a threat because she was a wizard—but she's not much of a wizard, that's clear to me now."

  "I'm not very powerful, if that's what you mean," Tenoctris said easily. "I sometimes see things that others have missed, but I'm afraid I'm rarely strong enough to act on what I see."

  She smiled warmly at Sharina. "Hello, dear," she said. "I was worried about you. I should never have asked you to look at the ring until I'd examined it more closely myself. I didn't realize it was self-actuating."

  "You didn't know what a great wizard I am, eh?" Hani said with a cackle of delight. "So great that my tools give ordinary dogs the power to work wizardry!"

  Wilfus and Mogon entered the cellar. The room was beginning to fill up, since so much space was taken up by the stone table. The pair of thugs sidled to the left, putting that table between them and the three Ornifal nobles.

  The People resumed their march out of the air in double columns and continued up the stairs to the sanctum of the temple. By now they must be spilling onto the street.

  "Hani?" said Bolor. He'd been frowning more sternly with each passing moment. "I ought to be with the army now. Uncle Waldron isn't the sort of man to dither about. He might decide to attack at once if I'm not there to suggest a parley."

  Hani grunted in irritation. "You think what I do is easy?" he said. "That wizardry is all waving a wand around with no labor?"

  "I think if I'm not with the army shortly," Bolor snapped, "I might better never have been born! If this conspiracy turns to disaster for my family and friends because you weren't able to do what you claimed, then be assured, Master Hani, that I'll take your head off before I fall on my sword."

  Calran and Lattus faced the lines of marching People with their hands on their swordhilts, their backs to Bolor and the wizard. They couldn't stand for more than a moment if the People turned against them, but a moment was as long as it'd take Bolor to accomplish his threat.

  "Don't be a fool," Hani muttered. "You'll
be there in plenty of time. All we need to do is chip the plaster off the wall. Come, we'll go upstairs now."

  People stopped appearing for a moment, opening a gap in the line. Hani and Valgard started up the steps. Tenoctris started forward also, gladly taking the arm Sharina offered for support.

  Hani looked over his shoulder. "I'll show you something you didn't know about this temple, hedge wizard!" he said to Tenoctris.

  Tenoctris smiled. "I don't have much experience with hedges," she said, "but I take your point. And I'm always pleased to learn new things."

  Hani didn't realize Tenoctris was mocking him, but Sharina did. That and the old woman's general composure proved that the situation was going as planned—as Tenoctris had planned, that is. Sharina couldn't imagine what that plan was, but she didn't have to know or else Tenoctris would've found a way to tell her.

  "I created the island from a chip I took from the wall of this temple," Hani said. Valgard steadied him as they climbed the stairs together. "Grew the island and grew men on it. Has there ever been so great a wizard as I?"

  "As if that was something a decent man'd brag about!" growled Bolor, following the women along with his cousins.

  "And where'd you be without him?" Mogon said in a shrill voice. "Lord Hani's the one who found and freed our gracious Prince Valgard from the dungeon where his brother Valence imprisoned him!"

  Sharina glanced over her shoulder at Bolor. "Is that the story, Lord Bolor?" she said. "Do you really believe that?"

  "Valence isn't right in the head," Bolor said, but he didn't meet her eyes. "It's proper—necessary, in fact—that his brother succeed him."

  Valgard laughed like an iron bell tolling. "Don't you believe I'm Stronghand's son, lady?" he said in his heavy voice. "Who else could I be with this face and form, eh?"

  They entered the sanctum. The doors were open; scores of People who'd gone up the stairs ahead of them were forming in plain sight in the street below the temple. Hani—or more likely Bolor—was showing his forces in order to sow panic in the city garrison.

  The cult statue had been removed from its base and leaned against the sanctum's front wall, under a tarpaulin for protection. The plaster had been chipped off the back wall, leaving the underlying stone clear. Set into the wall of rough-cut limestone was a six-foot-square panel of polished granite ashlars, like a painting in its frame.

  The broken plaster had been swept to the sides. On the floor someone—Tenoctris, almost certainly—had drawn a star with four points; words of power were written in a circle around the figure.

  Tenoctris' satchel lay open nearby. Three scrolls, a codex, and a stoppered bottle of wine sat to the right of the figure, while on the left was a bundle of the disposable bamboo splits that Tenoctris used in place of an athame.

  Hani took two steps into the sanctum and turned with a look of mingled fury and amazement. "What?" he shouted at Tenoctris. "You knew about the Mirror?"

  Sharina moved to put the older woman slightly behind her, in case Hani lashed out. He was certainly that angry.

  "I told you that I see things," Tenoctris said calmly. "I saw how power was focused here, so I asked Captain Rowning's soldiers to clear the wall before they left the city. But—"

  She gestured to her scattered paraphernalia.

  "—as you see, I haven't the strength to open the portal even though I could identify it. No doubt you are strong enough, Master Hani."

  "No doubt I am!" Hani snarled. "As you'll see soon enough. Mogon and Wilfus, hold them—both the women. I can't risk them interrupting me during the incantation."

  Wilfus stepped toward Sharina; she held out her right hand for him to take. He reached for her waist instead. She slapped him hard.

  "You—" Wilfus said, cocking his fist to repay the blow. Lord Lattus shoved him away with his swordhand.

  "Get back, scum!" Lattus said. "That's not needed."

  "No, let him hold my wrist," Sharina said. "But just that. I won't pretend to approve of this horror, milord, so I can't accept your parole."

  Lattus glared at her, then shrugged and turned. "All right, hold her," he muttered. Then he added, "There's more than you as don't approve of this, milady. But we don't have any choice."

  All the true humans who'd come with Hani were in the sanctum now. The lines of People in polished armor resumed their march up the stairs and into the street. Sharina had an image of liquid bronze leaking into Valles, eventually to fill the city.

  Hani seated himself on the floor, a simple mosaic of white and greenish tesserae in waving lines. He started to wipe away the figure Tenoctris had drawn in red lead, then paused instead to check the words written around the circle.

  "Come on!" Calran muttered, showing his nervousness by letting his anger out. "You can stare at the dirt any time!"

  Hani looked up at Tenoctris in puzzled irritation. "This is all correct," he said. "You did know about the Mirror."

  "Yes," said Tenoctris equably. She didn't seem aware of Mogon's grip on her right arm. Even the thug seemed a little embarrassed. "I didn't have the power to open it, though. Besides, it wouldn't have done me much good, since only the members of your party have amulets made of the same stone to link with the Mirror here, not so?"

  "You think you're smart!" Hani said, a growl but with a hint of underlying fear. What Hani meant was that he'd begun to realize how smart Tenoctris was.

  He bent over the figure, tapped his athame, and began chanting, "Ereschigal aktiophi...."

  Calran muttered, "By the Sister!" He raised his sword as if to hack at the wall. Lattus touched his arm; Calran shivered and lowered the sword. The cousins stood close together with their backs to the wizardry, pretending to look at the army of People forming below the temple.. Lord Bolor forced himself to watch Hani, but the fury and loathing in his expression were unmistakable.

  "Berbiti baui io," said Hani. The four-pointed figure quivered. Sharina thought it was beginning to rotate, but it could be the red wizardlight was blurring the lines Tenoctris had drawn in cinnabar. "Ereschigal aktiophi...."

  Sharina hadn't understood what the two wizards meant by "the Mirror," but as the incantation continued she saw the granite blocks shimmer brighter than their polish and the chips of mica in their fabric explained. She stared, trying to make out the figures hinted within the stone.

  "Berbiti baui...."

  "Sister take me if I like this!" Wilfus muttered. His grip tightened on Sharina's wrist, but that was a sign of the man's fear rather than bullying.

  "It's like it was back when we worked for the Queen," said Mogon. "We had any woman we wanted, anything we wanted to eat and drink. Those were good days...."

  Wilfus cursed under his breath. Tenoctris moved slightly, brushing the wine bottle with the hem of her green silk robe. The contact wasn't quite enough to knock the bottle over, but it rocked on its base with a clicking sound.

  "Io!" Hani shouted. He'd have fallen back onto the floor if Valgard hadn't caught him by the shoulders.

  The star and writing were smeared into a blush of red lead over the cool curves of the mosaic. In place of the inset granite was a window onto a hillside filled with armed men and their horses. Goldenrod bloomed among the grasses, and on the upper slopes of the hill sweetgums and cedars were beginning to replace the lesser growth.

  The sound of the bottle caught Wilfus' attention. "What's that?" he demanded. "Is it wine?"

  A soldier on the hillside stared pop-eyed at Bolor and the others with him. He tugged furiously on the sleeve of the officer in gold-chased armor who was bending over marks he'd cut in the sod with his dagger. The officer gestured to half a dozen other men who had their own opinions on the subject under discussion.

  "The keeper of Stronghand's vineyard gave it to us," Tenoctris said, giving Wilfus a cheerful smile. "I had it in my bag—"

  She nodded to the satchel in which she carried the books and instruments of her art.

  "—and took it out a moment ago."

  The officer
on the hillside looked up with an angry expression, then saw why he'd been interrupted; his curly beard was jet black except where it'd grown in white over the scar that continued up his left cheek. He clutched the amulet dangling in front of his breastplate. Jumping to his feet, he cried, "Bolor! It is you. We were afraid...."

  "I'm here, Luxtus," Bolor said. "And the army Master Hani promised, that's here too. My uncle will know better than to fight."

  Bolor hadn't spoken as if he believed what he'd said—and from what Sharina knew of Lord Waldron, Bolor would've been a fool if he had believed it. Still, though Waldron would fight despite being trapped between a force of his friends and relatives on one side and a huge army of People on the other, Sharina didn't see how he could win.

  "Look, you're done with your chanting, aren't you, Hani?" Wilfus said peevishly. "There's not going to be more of that?"

  The wizard grimaced at him but didn't speak; couldn't speak, very likely. He was regaining his color, but the effort of the spell he'd just completed was obviously at the edge of his ability.

  Wilfus picked up the wine bottle. He kept hold of Sharina's wrist until he'd straightened again, but he had to let her go to twist off the wax-sealed ceramic stopper. "Hey, give me some!" said Mogon, still holding Tenoctris by the arm.

  "You wanted to join your army," Hani said. "Go on through, then. All you need to do is step through the mirror."

  The granite had vanished, but a quiver of crimson wizardlight framed the square where it'd been. Bolor and the cousins eyed the portal dubiously. The soldiers on the hillside backed slightly, all but the bearded man who'd spoken. Word had spread through the army, and faces were turning toward the tableau for as far as Sharina could see through the opening in space.

  "Just jump!" Hani snapped. He'd recovered enough to sound waspish. He put a hand on the floor to push himself up, smudging the film of cinnabar; Valgard silently lifted the wizard fully onto his feet. "You wanted to join your fellows—join them!"

  Bolor ducked, then stepped over what amounted to a sill of limestone with a sizzling, shimmering rim. The men waiting on the hillside gave a shout of wonder as Bolor crossed to their side of the square opening.