by David Drake
“Lord Thalemos will be in one of the cells,” said Metron. His voice was broken, but the sound of panting didn't reach Garric's mind the way the words did. “I can't tell which. Open the viewslits one at time and look in, but be careful.”
“What viewslits?” said Hakken. “I don't see—”
“The cords!” Metron snapped, angry at his own failure to communicate and taking it out, as people generally did, on those they'd failed. “Pull the cords, you fool!”
Garric pulled the nearest cord, a braid of gold-and-scarlet plush. It dipped easily; as it did, the section of wall beside it became transparent. Garric touched the space. He felt stone though his eyes told him there was nothing there. He looked in.
A child of no more than six sat on the floor playing with a pull toy, a painted pottery duck on clay wheels. The room was appointed with an ornate gilt bronze table and a chair inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. There was no bed.
“Go on, go on!” Metron squeaked. “We have to find Thalemos.”
“Why—” said Garric.
The child turned to look in his direction. There were pits of orange hellfire where its eyes should have been. Garric dropped the velvet cord and backed away. The stone was again unmarked.
“Hakken, you check the other side of the corridor,” Garric said. His voice was hoarse for the first few words. “I'll take these.”
He walked quickly to the next pull, this one purple with an ermine tassel on the end. He had to force himself to take the cord in his hand. He tugged it down fiercely to get it over with.
The cell on the other side of the window looked like the interior of a cave covered with the pearly translucence of flow rock. Garric couldn't tell where the light came from. Nothing moved, nothing in the room seemed to be alive. He lowered the cord and moved on.
There were four cells on Garric's side of the entrance corridor. Having gotten his breathing back to normal from the shock of the child's eyes, he opened the third window. Hakken was doing the same across from him.
A demon glared at Garric. It opened long jaws and hissed, its forked tongue quivering only a hand's breadth away. Garric jumped back, snatching at his sword hilt. When the cord slipped from his hand, the demon was a blank stone wall again.
Smiling wryly at his fright, Garric opened the next window. His belly was tight, but nobody watching him would have known how ready he was to flinch. Still, he kept his face as far back from the wall as he could and not be obvious in his fear.
Within, a man lay stretched on a rack. His limbs were taut, but as yet he hadn't quite been disjointed. His body was spare, his face ascetic. His eyes were wide-open, and his expression was patiently resigned despite what must be singeing agony. His gaze met Garric's with neither hope nor fear.
“Metron?” Garric said. “Can we let this fellow out along with Thalemos?”
“This one?” the wizard said. “This one? Boy, if I freed him, you would pray the Intercessor to lock him up again—and you would be too late!”
Garric grimaced but closed the window. He started to open the first cell down the left-hand branch but turned to check on Hakken first. The sailor stood transfixed at the window to the second cell on his side.
“Hakken?” Garric said. Hakken seemed paralyzed; only the throb of a vein in his throat proved he wasn't a statue.
Garric walked back and grabbed the man by the shoulder. “Hakken!” he said, glancing through the window as he spoke.
The woman inside was as searingly beautiful as the sun. Garric thought she was nude, but he couldn't be certain even of that. Lust hammered him, crushing his volition.
Reflex was his salvation. He wrenched at Hakken with all his strength, pulling the sailor back. The velvet cord broke; the attached end flopped like a live thing as the window closed.
Garric blinked and rubbed his eyes with his hands. “Duzi help me!” he muttered, still dizzy from the experience. “Hakken, are you all right?”
The sailor had fallen to the floor. He had a stunned look. Rising, he reached again for the broken cord.
Garric caught Hakken's wrist, and said, “Leave it alone! Go on to the next one. We've got to find Thalemos and get out of here!”
“I warned you to be careful,” Metron said. “The ones the Intercessors have imprisoned here over the ages are those dangerous to them, but some are dangerous to the cosmos.”
“Let me go,” the sailor snarled. His eyes were wild with passion. He tried to pull his arm free. When he couldn't, he raised the axe in his other hand.
Garric punched Hakken hard in the pit of the stomach, then wrenched the axe away as the man doubled up. “Check the cells on your side!" Garric said. “Shout if you find Lord Thalemos. And don't make me come back for you, Hakken.”
The sailor glared at him. He jerked at the next pull in line, glanced within, and let it go. He shambled to the fourth, gave the cell's interior a cursory glance, and looked back over his shoulder at Garric before starting down the branch corridor. Hakken's expression was furious, but he seemed to have recovered from the compulsion he'd felt moments before.
Garric shoved the axe helve under his belt and strode to the branch corridor he'd claimed. He'd return the weapon when they left the prison, though he'd watch his back until he was sure the sailor had buried his wrath. There hadn't been a lot of choice, though.
Garric opened the next window. Unlike previous cells, the only light in this one was a sullen red glow. He thought he saw something flutter within, but as he squinted for a better view he heard Hakken shriek.
“Hakken!” Garric shouted, drawing his sword. He rounded the junction and almost collided with the sailor.
Hakken's face was contorted. He held his right arm out as if he were trying to point. There was nothing in the corridor beyond him. His mouth opened and spewed yellow froth.
Hakken's spine suddenly curved. He pitched backward, dead and rigid before his head hit the floor.
“Metron, what did it?” Garric said, looking behind him and then again down the corridor where Hakken died. There was nothing save for the flaring sconces.
“How would I know?” Metron piped. “It wasn't wizardry, that I swear. Wait and I'll draw the image from his eyes. But it wasn't wizardry!”
Hakken's right arm stuck stiffly into the air. His balled fist and forearm were already black and swollen. There were two raised punctures on the underside of his wrist.
“Don't bother,” Garric said tightly, advancing in a shuffle with his sword raised at his side. “I've got it.”
The cord that Hakken would have pulled to open the next window was of red-and-black bands separated by thin yellow rings. It hung as still as any of the others—now. Only close examination showed that the two black beads on the end were eyes.
Garric's sword whistled, taking off the serpent's head without touching the stone against which it hung. Fangs glittered in the light of the sconces as the tiny jaws yawned in death.
The body twitched and knotted harmlessly. Garric pulled it, clearing the stone. The reptile continued to squirm, wetting his left palm with its blood.
A young man in silk tunics sat inside the cell, playing with a set of ivory game pieces on a board of inlaid wood. Unlike some of the other prisoners, he showed no awareness of being watched through the solid wall.
“That's him!” Metron said. “Don't move, now!”
The wizard paused, then resumed in a singsong, “Triskydin amat lahaha... .”
Thalemos—even without Metron's statement, Garric would have recognized the youth from the statue he'd disinterred on Serpent's Isle—rolled an ebony dice cup, checked the throw, and moved a piece. His face was drawn and resigned.
“Genio gidiba,” Metron chanted. “Loumas!”
The blank wall between the hangings dissolved in a vanishing sparkle. Thalemos jumped up, spilling the game board. He grabbed the stool he'd been sitting on but fumbled as he tried to lift it as a weapon.
“Come on!” Garric said, grabbing the youth
's sleeve. In terms of years lived, Thalemos was probably older than Garric himself. In all ways that mattered, though, he seemed younger and as malleable as wax. “We're getting out of here!”
“Yes!” Metron chirped. “I've rescued you, Lord Thalemos!”
Which was only one way of putting it, but this wasn't the time to argue. Tugging the boy along with him, Garric sprinted down the corridor. A flash of blue wizardlight touched the curved section of the roof dome at the end. It went black and was gone without the delay and chanting which Metron had required when he won entry.
Hakken's stiff corpse lay behind them. All men die, and the flesh doesn't matter... . But Garric would have brought the sailor along if he possibly could have.
“You'll have to carry Lord Thalemos,” the wizard said. “I don't have time or the power to prepare him. Quickly, quickly!”
“What?” said Thalemos.
Garric caught the youth around the shoulders, knelt to put his left arm behind Thalemos' knees, and toppled him backward. There was no point in explaining; mere action was sufficient. “I've got him.”
“Belhorwa!” Metron said, only that. Garric felt gravity shift again. He stepped out onto the tower, ignoring Thalemos' cry and clutching fear.
The city was still in night, but the moon had begun to rise. Garric jogged toward the bushes at the base of the tower, no longer nervous to see the ground so far below. Tint was where he'd left her. She was as still as a statue, now; and, thank Duzi, silent.
“Quickly!” Metron pleaded. No longer was the wizard pretending to be unfazed by the work of wizardry. “Even with the ring I won't be able to hold very much longer.”
The bushes quivered. Something rose out of the foliage. A man's been hiding there, Garric thought; but as the shadow continued to extend up the wall of the tower, he knew he was wrong.
It was a snake. From the size of the head rising toward him, it was a snake as long as the tower was high.
“Metron!” Garric said. “Stop that thing!”
He tried to draw his sword and almost dropped Thalemos. The youth cried out again and wrapped his arms tightly around Garric's neck. That took care of the problem of dropping him, but trying to fight the creature while burdened with this terrified weight would be an exercise in futility.
Terrified. Garric remembered the effect the viper on Serpent's Isle had on Tint. No wonder she was silent: she was paralyzed with fear!
“Quickly!” the wizard wheezed. “I'm losing you!”
“Gar!” Tint screamed despairingly, and leaped. She touched the sheer wall twenty feet above the ground and got enough purchase from it to spring another dozen feet upward. She grasped the serpent behind the head with all four limbs and bit viciously into the neck.
“Quickly!” said Metron.
Garric felt the beginning of another shift, of down preparing to become a plunge of fifty feet to the base of the tower. He sprinted forward, clearing his sword. If Thalemos couldn't hold on by himself, Thalemos was going to have to learn how to fly.
The snake twisted like a straw touched by flame. It couldn't reach Tint, but it battered her against the side of the tower. She hung on at the first impact, but the second flung her loose. She sailed through the air, already balling her limbs beneath her for a safe landing.
The snake struck, snatching the beastgirl out of the air. Her bleat ended in a crunch of bones. The snake curled its forebody to the ground, lifting its head slightly. It tossed the frail corpse and caught it again, headfirst this time for easy swallowing.
Garric felt the ground rising to meet him. He jumped, flexing his knees, and fell the last ten feet without harm. The shock pulled Thalemos away from him, but that was a side benefit. Garric stepped toward the snake.
“Get over the wall!” Metron was saying. “It won't climb the wall!”
The snake's jaw hinge dislocated, letting its mouth open still wider. Its left eye glittered at Garric beneath spike-scaled brows. A membrane slid sideways, wiping the cornea. Only Tint's feet were still visible.
Garric slashed as though he were splitting wood, striking the small scales on the back of the snake's neck; bone grated beneath his edge. A spasm rippled down the whole long body, throwing distant plantings about as if a tornado had struck the garden.
The snake twisted onto its back, exposing its broad, pale belly scales. Its midbody struck the tower with a whack like cliffs meeting. Someone in the street shouted.
Tint's feet vanished. The slight bulge of the beastgirl's body shivered farther down the serpent's throat, drawn by reflexes inexorable even in death. Garric paused with his sword lifted for another blow; he shot the blade home in its scabbard instead.
He turned. Thalemos was watching aghast. Garric caught his arm.
“Follow me!” he said as he started back the way he'd entered the garden. “Put your feet where I do!”
As Garric ran, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. If he missed his path for the tears, then Tint would have died for nothing.
Though Sharina stood beside the flutist who blew time for the sailors launching the nearby trireme, even she could scarcely hear the notes over the bedlam of the fleet loading. Either the sailors had better hearing or, more likely, they could have kept pace in their sleep by virtue of their repetitive training.
Across the U-shaped Arsenal, another trireme splashed into the water. The men who'd launched her with block and tackle gave over to a separate crew on tow ropes, drawing the ship to the boarding quay. There most of the hundred-plus crewmen waited, holding their oars upright like a thicket of blighted saplings. Only the helmsman and a dozen rowers were aboard, ready to fend the lightly built vessel away from trouble.
Pulleys squealed; pine keels shrieked in a chorus against the polished limestone draw-ways, despite the buckets of water passed hand to hand up the ramps and poured at the top for lubrication; petty officers snarled commands at men who weren't where they were supposed to be or were sloppy in getting there; and louder than all the rest, the huge crowd of watching civilians chattering provided a deafening susurrus of excitement.
King Carus broke away from his circle of advisors and walked the short distance to where Sharina stood. He wore the field uniform of this day: short tunic, shoulder cloak with hood, and sandals laced to mid calf. He'd wanted to don the breeches and high boots in which he'd campaigned when he was in his own flesh, but Liane had pointed out that the best that would do was puzzle people. Other possibilities started at, “Prince Garric has gone mad,” and went downward from there.
“Are you impressed?” Carus said, bending his lips to Sharina's ear.
She didn't know what he expected her to say, so she told the simple truth: "It's confusing. And it's not just me; lots of people are confused, so it's taking a long time.”
She didn't point, but the clot of soldiers on the boarding quay across the harbor was self-evident. The two banks of oarsmen had boarded smoothly, but the heavy infantry who'd be riding as passengers in the inboard banks tripped angrily over their fellows and the oarlooms as they tried to reach places in the center of the vessel.
A flash of light made Sharina squint, then shade her eyes with a hand to see better. Lord Waldron himself was on the boarding dock, using his bare sword as a pointer. After she'd seen him, Sharina could even make out the rumble of the old soldier's furious commands.
“Right,” said Carus approvingly. “Though they're doing better than I'd expected. If efficiency were all that mattered, I'd have taken the ships downriver with just their crews and boarded the infantry off temporary stages at the Pool.”
An officer was trying to get past the Blood Eagles screening Carus; his breastplate was not only gilded but picked out with six very respectable jewels. The fellow's voice was rising.
Carus paused in what he was saying to Sharina and turned his head, glancing toward the guard commander and the irate officer beyond him. The latter cried, “Prince Garric—”
“Lord Ghosli,” Carus said, thundering ab
ove the general noise, “get aboard the Lady of Valles now or surrender your command—and surrender your honor as well, so far as I'm concerned! Do you hear me, milord?”
Sharina blinked. Lord Waldron across the harbor could hear that order. Ghosli looked aghast, then furious. He turned and stamped away.
Carus shook his head in disgust. “Shouldn't have said that, should I?” he muttered to Sharina. “Ghosli wants to take his horse aboard, can you believe that? But he uses his own money to buy extras for his men, and his regiment'd follow wherever he led them because of that. I shouldn't have snapped his head off.”
Sharina cleared her throat; she didn't have to repeat what Carus had already said, so instead she put her hand on his elbow, and remarked, “It's my duty to remind you to be Prince Garric, your highness, so the fault's mine.”
As she'd expected, Carus looked stricken at the thought his outburst had hurt her. Quickly, Sharina went on, “Why aren't you boarding at the Pool then?”
The just-loaded trireme moved away from the quay on short strokes by a dozen oarsmen. The slender hull wobbled badly as the infantrymen seated themselves on the cramped inner benches, but the noncoms were sorting matters out. A tow crew slid another vessel into place.
Carus didn't answer for a moment. Instead he put his fists on his hipbones and stood arms akimbo as he viewed the scene. A broad grin spread across his face. Though his laughter didn't boom out the way Sharina half expected, she knew it wasn't far beneath the surface.
Two vessels moving downstream on the push of the current started to converge; their officers' attention was turned to the disorder inboard. The crowd pointed and began to shout at increasing volume. The starboard trireme heeled as its helmsman leaned into the tiller of his steering oar; bellowed warnings from that ship woke the crew of the second to the danger also. Men in the bows of both vessels used oars as poles to fend off the other hull.
An oar cracked under the misuse, but the ships steadied on their separate courses with no greater damage than that. The crowd's concern turned to cheers.
“That's why I'm doing it, Sharina,” Carus said, pitching his voice to carry to her but not beyond. “I'm letting everybody, pikeman and swordsman, soldier and civilian, see that it's one army and one kingdom.”