by David Drake
He stepped forward to keep Tilphosa clear of the staff if he had to move quickly. Cashel and his seven feet of iron-shod hickory took up a lot of room.
The ball of light was the size of a man's head. It half floated, half bounced; never quite touching the ground, but never rising a hand's breadth above it. It was a blue haze just bright enough to show the texture of the pebble-strewn sand it crossed.
“It's all right, Cashel,” the girl said. She grunted softly as she stood. “That's just Metra trying to find me.”
“Lady Tilphosa!” called another female voice from the shelter of the wreck. “Are you all right?”
“I'm all right, Metra!” the girl said. She started up the beach, wobbling for the first few steps but then getting full control of her legs. The glowing ball dissolved like a shadow in sunlight.
Cashel followed, grimacing because he'd been worried about something that wasn't a threat after all. Still... he slanted his quarterstaff across his chest instead of leaning it on his shoulder as he walked. Metra might not be a danger, but there was danger enough in this place: the great serpent writhing out beyond the breakers for one.
Coming toward them was a youngish woman, in her early twenties perhaps. She was plump, dark-haired, and wore a black robe slashed white across the front. The garment was much the worse for the abuse it had taken during the wreck.
Cashel's eyes narrowed. The light wasn't good, but the woman looked a lot like the fellow who'd set the workmen on him this morning.
“Lady Tilphosa!” the woman said. “Thank the Mistress you're safe!”
Tilphosa embraced her, and said, “Yes, She saved me through the agency of Master Cashel here. Cashel, this is Metra, Daughter of the Mistress. She's an acolyte at the Temple of the Lady, Mistress of the Moon, in Donelle—and accompanies me as advisor until the marriage.”
“I'm Lady Tilphosa's guardian,” Metra said in a distinctly cool tone as she appraised Cashel. “Who are you, sir?”
“I'm Cashel,” Cashel responded, setting his feet a little wider. His voice was growing hoarse again, but his bath in seawater was no longer the cause. “I'm from Barca's Hamlet. Do you have an older brother, lady? The sort of guy who thinks if he can't buy what he wants, he'll buy toughs to take it for him?”
“What?” said Metra in surprise. “I have three sisters, two stillborn and one died as an infant. What are you talking about?”
She held a knife-shaped thing covered with symbols in the Old Script. It was a wizard's tool, an athame. Well, Cashel already knew Metra was a wizard, even if she claimed to be a priestess besides.
“I met a man in Valles,” Cashel said, still harsh but now embarrassed again; this time by the women's identical expressions of puzzlement. “He looked like you. And he was dressed like you, too.”
Metra lifted her chin in a gesture of denial. “I know nothing of Valles,” she said curtly. “As for my robe, it's what the Children of the Mistress wear. Perhaps another of us has journeyed to Valles, but he wasn't a relative of mine.”
Her eyes locked with Cashel's again. “Now, sir,” she said, "tell us what you're doing here.”
“I'm not sure,” Cashel said, wishing that he didn't feel so defensive. Other survivors were moving in groups. Light winked; not wizardry this time but an honest bonfire kindled with handfuls of dry grass and fed with pandanus stems. “I went to help a friend who'd fallen into a pond, and then I was here.”
“Where is 'here'?” Metra demanded. “Are we on Laut?”
One of the men around the fire stood up. In a loud voice he called into the darkness, “Did the priestess get to shore? Get her over here if she did! I want to talk to her.”
One of his companions called in an equally loud voice, “I don't want to talk to her. If there's any justice, she's feeding that demon snake that wrecked us. You know it was because of her!”
Metra turned toward the fire, her lips forming a hard line. Her expression reminded Cashel again of the fellow who'd tried to take the statue from him in Valles. She didn't speak.
The sky had continued to clear. Cashel could recognize most of the constellations, but they didn't look quite right. The space between the Calves was too wide, and the feet of the Huntsman were above the Drinking Cup instead of below the way they should've been.
Metra's eyes focused again on Cashel. “Well?” she said. “Are we on Laut?”
“He says he's a stranger too,” Tilphosa said, frustrated and a little angry because of her advisor's attitude. “Metra, he saved my life. He pulled me from the sea!”
Cashel cleared his throat, “I was in Valles,” he said. “Something ... brought me here. I don't know what.”
“You're a wizard?” Metra said. She took a half step back and made an obscure movement with the athame. A splutter of blue wizardlight picked out the symbol the point had drawn in the air. “You are a wizard!”
“Cashel?” said Tilphosa in surprise, raising her eyes to look at him.
“I'm not,” Cashel said. He'd growled, and he didn't mean to. He planted his staff firmly in front of him and twisted it as if he was trying to screw the ferrule into the gritty soil. “I'm not a wizard, but I've been told... Well, sometimes stuff happens when I'm around, that's all.”
Cashel didn't want to think about what he was. He'd done fine being a shepherd and a man folks in the borough called on for heavy lifting. That's all he wanted to be: normal.
He sighed. The world had never much cared what Cashel wanted. This business was just another example of that.
“Mistress Metra!” bawled the leader of the men around the bonfire. “If you're alive, get over here or may the Sister take me if you don't wind up back in the sea!”
The fire was drawing the survivors together. Sailors from farther down the beach straggled by, eyeing the two women and Cashel as they passed.
“That's Captain Mounix calling,” Tilphosa said. It was obvious that in a few moments someone would tell the captain that Metra was standing close by.
“Do you want me to go along when you talk to them?” Cashel said. He swung his staff level and brushed the ferrule clean with the hem of his inner tunic. He felt calm again, both because the subject had changed and because it looked like he'd have a chance to do something he understood.
“To handle them?” Metra sneered. “No, I'll take care of those fools myself.”
“We're going to Laut because I'm betrothed to Prince Thalemos," Tilphosa said, in explanation but with a hint of understandable pride. “He's the ruler of Laut.”
“Thalemos?” said Cashel. “I thought the ruler was named Echeus. I just saw him in Valles, talking to Garric.”
Metra had started for the bonfire, but she was still close enough to hear Cashel's words. She turned sharply, holding the athame in a fashion that reminded Cashel it was a weapon—though not a material one.
“What did you say?” she demanded. “What do you know of Echea?”
“Echeus,” Cashel corrected. His hands slid apart on the shaft of the quarterstaff, one to either side of the center, where they were ready to make it spin and strike. “And I don't know anything about him, lady, just that he was talking to my friend Garric.”
There was a moment's tense silence. Tilphosa put her hand on Cashel's forearm. “Echea was an enemy of ours,” she said calmly. “An enemy of the Mistress, really. But she's dead now. You're sure of that, aren't you, Metra?”
“I was sure,” the priestess said, with slight emphasis on "was." ”You saw someone named Echeus in Valles, you say? Was he the wizard who sent you here?”
Cashel made an angry gesture with his right hand, then gripped his quarterstaff again. “I don't know who put me here,” he said. “I don't know where I am.”
Instead of shouting, Captain Mounix crunched over the sand toward Metra and her companions. Most of the gathered survivors came with him.
Cashel looked up at the skewed constellations. “Who's the King of the Isles?” he said. “Do you know?”
“Th
e king?” Tilphosa repeated. “Why, King Carus, of course. Who did you think it was?”
The arriving sailors saved Cashel from answering that question.
Chapter Four
Sharina held back instead of plunging into the water ahead of Cashel as she could easily have done. There wasn't time to discuss plans, and having someone Cashel's size land on top of her flailing a quarterstaff wouldn't help the trouble. She knew Cashel couldn't swim, but she trusted him to do the right thing by instinct.
Now Cashel leaped with all his considerable strength, a graceful arc despite him looking like a broad-jumper rather than a diver. Garric sprawled limp, sinking slowly on the weight of his sword.
Cashel should have landed next to him; Sharina paused on the mossy coping stones, waiting for a splash like that of a boulder dropping in the sea. Instead, Cashel vanished the way water soaks into hot sand.
The look of the pond changed. Sharina hadn't noticed the rosy haze over the water until now, when it disappeared.
Garric was still sinking. Several guards were dragging Echeus from the bridge. One had jumped into the pool, and others looked ready to follow him. Wearing armor, they wouldn't be able to swim any better than Cashel, and Sharina had no reason at all to trust their judgment.
Sharina made a clean dive. The water was shockingly cold—she'd forgotten that it had bubbled from the spring-fed fountains only fifty paces away. She reached under and caught the front of her brother's gold-embroidered collar. Her grip rolled Garric's face out of the water as they broke the surface.
Sharina kicked despite her hampering garments and stroked for the shore with her free hand. She wished she'd taken a moment to remove the court robe, though it didn't matter much.
She didn't let herself think about Cashel. Tenoctris could explain or—
But anyway, Sharina couldn't let herself think about it now.
One of the soldiers on the margin held out his javelin so his fellow floundering in the water could grab it behind the point and be dragged to safety. Voices all around babbled. Several Blood Eagles lifted Garric away from Sharina with the care owed a priceless treasure; they laid him on the grass.
Sharina grimaced. She didn't need help getting out of the water, but she had to swim two paces down the coping to clear the out-turned hobnails of the soldiers bending over her brother. The pool was deeper than she was tall, and the several feet of mud on the stone bottom didn't help matters.
A few minutes ago this corner of the palace had seemed as sparsely inhabited as a stretch of plowland. Now scores of soldiers, servants, and officials descended from all directions. Most of them were shouting.
Garric lay belly down on the grass, his face to the side. Blood Eagles surrounded him; one was making a clumsy attempt at artificial respiration.
Sharina slipped between a pair of black-clad soldiers to her brother's side. A Blood Eagle grabbed her shoulder. She turned her head back, and snarled, “No, you cur!” as though he'd touched her importunately as she served in her father's inn.
“Princess!” the soldier blurted. “My pardon!” He snapped his head around to face the gathering crowd.
“Here, let me have him!” Sharina said to the fellow massaging Garric's back muscles in apparent hope of restoring the victim's breathing. Garric's chest rose and fell without help, though the deep, shuddering nature of those breaths showed that something was wrong.
Garric's eyes opened. For a moment his expression was blank; then—
Sharina couldn't have said what the change was. She only knew that the soul behind those eyes wasn't her brother's.
Blood Eagles returned from the bridge to the circle of their fellows, holding Echeus. The Intercessor wore the expression of calm dignity appropriate to a gentleman buffeted by circumstances.
Garric put a hand on the grass and lifted his torso, coughing up a swallow of pond water. He looked at Sharina, saw her stricken horror, and smiled. “It's all right,” he whispered. “It'll be all right.”
Lord Attaper, the commander of the Blood Eagles, pushed through the crowd of jabbering civilians. His tunic was short—military-style—but it was embroidered in gold and purple, and he didn't wear armor.
“What's happened to the prince?” Attaper said in a tightly controlled voice. He asked the way he would have demanded word of a flanking attack sure to overwhelm his line. Attaper's left hand was on the ivory pommel of his sword, holding it tight for a charm.
“We got him!” said one of the guards holding Echeus. “This is the guy who—”
The soldier stopped. He didn't know what had happened; and since he'd been watching when Garric fell, he knew that Echeus hadn't been within arm's length of the prince.
Eyes turned to the Intercessor. “Prince Garric greeted me on the bridge,” Echeus said. He spoke in a high tenor, not an unpleasant voice but thinner than the man's bearing suggested. “I replied, and his eyes suddenly turned up. I'm afraid the prince may have had a fit. Before I could catch him, he'd toppled into the water.”
Garric reached toward Sharina; their eyes met again. She took his hand, supporting him as he rose dripping to his feet. A Blood Eagle tried to help; Garric angrily shook him away. He looked at Echeus.
“Are you all right, your majesty?” Attaper said. The guard commander had faced death a dozen times without quailing, but he was frightened now.
Sharina understood the grim logic in Attaper's mind. If Garric died, Attaper had failed in his duty. And if Garric died, the Isles would crash into ruin.
Echeus looked at Attaper and pitched his voice for the gathering crowd, as though Garric himself weren't present. He said, “From the expression I saw as the prince fell, I'm afraid he may have lost his mind. Occasionally even a youth like the prince may have a stroke and—”
“No, traitor,” Garric said. The words came from his mouth, but they weren't in the voice of the brother Sharina had grown up with. Garric's right hand closed on the grip of his long sword. “I haven't lost my mind, despite your wizard tricks!”
“Your majesty?” Attaper said. The guards holding Echeus stepped back instinctively. Echeus opened his mouth but he seemed to be too startled to speak further.
Garric drew his sword with a smooth motion that continued as a long cut. Water danced from the shimmering edge.
“No!” the Intercessor shouted, trying too late to leap back. The sharp steel caught him on the right side of the neck and continued through. Echeus' head spun away, wearing a startled expression; his body crumpled where it stood.
Garric's powerful arm carried the blade on for another several feet of arc. Now it slung drops of bright blood.
* * *
Ilna watched Garric's arm and sword come around in a backhand stroke without a quiver or waste motion. The green-clad stranger's head leaped away; his vivid blood spurted higher than where his hair had been in the time his head was still attached.
“Now there's a man who knows his work!” said Chalcus, voicing Ilna's thought as well. She was too much a craftsman not to focus first on the skill of what she'd just seen, regardless of the act itself.
The act—the killing—didn't touch her. Ilna didn't know the man whose body sagged on the other side of the little stream, but she didn't worry that Garric would have killed someone who didn't need killing.
Ilna herself, on the other hand... Well, she hoped she'd learned from the mistakes she'd made in the past, but that didn't change the fact she'd made them.
For a moment Ilna didn't understand Chalcus' posture. The sailor was poised in a near crouch, his hands slightly raised with the palms outward. He saw her glance and crooked a grin, still concentrating on the scene before him.
Chalcus is showing that his hands are empty. That he's not the next threat the killer across the water should deal with. A sign of respect, from one craftsman to another... .
Garric knelt, his head raised and alert. He gripped the dead man's sleeve and jerked hard. Ilna knew Garric was strong, but not even he could tear silk brocade
barehanded.
The shoulder stitching popped. Garric rose, wiping his swordblade with the swatch of lustrous fabric. Ilna winced.
The single swift blow had silenced the crowd, those on Garric's side of the stream as well as those near Ilna who'd gotten a better view of what had really happened. Garric looked around like a hawk on its kill, his eyes suddenly lighting on Ilna—across the channel but only a few paces away. For an instant her heart leaped at what she saw in his gaze—for an instant, no more.
“Garric?” said Sharina, motionless where she'd been when her brother stepped forward into his cut. To move would have been to risk not only being maimed but also getting in the way. Ilna had seen only danger in the pattern she wove, not this quick slaughter. Sharina and the others here in the garden knew even less of what was going on.
Tenoctris, healthy but hobbled by old age, made her way from the gazebo to where the others gathered about Garric and the corpse. The Blood Eagles of the wizard's escort had abandoned her at the threat to Garric; now, angrily abashed, they opened a path for her through the spectators. Garric saw her and nodded.
“Princess Sharina,” he said in a ringing voice. “Lady Liane—and you, Lady Tenoctris, you for I must have you. We'll meet now in the small council room, we alone. Attaper, keep all others out!”
“Garric?” called Ilna.
She lifted her inner tunic knee high to jump the artificial stream. Chalcus, seeing more or sensing more, put a hand of restraint on her shoulder.
“Not her!” Garric snarled to his guard commander.
He looked at Ilna again. His sword, so sure a moment before when it took off the stranger's head, began to tremble in his hand.
“Mistress,” Garric said in a voice that Ilna had never heard from her old friend's lips, “I will speak with you, I promise that. But not now, not yet.”
He turned his back to Ilna and started to walk away.
Ilna brought out the hank of short cords she kept in her left sleeve against need. Her fingers started to knot them.
She felt nothing at all. Looking at herself from the outside, she saw her eyes focused on the back of the man she had grown up loving. They were pits of black hellfire.