by David Drake
Leemay began chanting under her breath. Using the splinter as a wand, she worked her way around the symbols surrounding the entwined hairs. Cashel couldn't hear her words any more than he could see what she'd drawn.
He didn't think anybody could see them, Leemay included. The only light was from the hearth across the room, and the ale had slid back into pools following the wood's natural valleys. The important thing was that she had drawn them.
Cashel held his staff upright in his right hand, glad of its feel. He tried not to squeeze the hickory till his knuckles stood out white.
The stool in the chimney corner creaked; the local men were moving to where they could watch also. None of them spoke.
Flecks of wizardlight, both red and the blue that made eyes tingle, appeared above the bar. The snapped alive so suddenly that Cashel's mind supplied a crackle to the sparks' silence. Paling, they swelled into interlinked figures the size of a child's straw poppet.
“Hey, good job, Leemay!” a local said.
Cashel felt hot. The images were so sharply detailed that he didn't have any difficulty in recognizing his face on the blue figure and Leemay as the red one. There wasn't any doubt about what the images were doing, either.
Tilphosa threw the rest of her beer in Leemay's face. The landlady jerked backward, and the illusion vanished.
Tilphosa picked up the twined hairs, wet with ale, and stuffed them into her purse. “Your exhibition insulted me!” she said in a ringing voice.
Leemay stared at her silently. It'd been a long time since Cashel saw the face of anybody so mad.
“We'll be going now,” he said. “We won't trouble you further.”
Putting his arm around Tilphosa so he knew where she was, he started backing toward the door. The locals who'd watched the funeral were gone, so worst case Cashel was going to throw the girl out into the street while he and his quarterstaff took care of business in the common room.
None of the men looked like they wanted a problem, though. Three of them crouched, their hands ready to turn the tables over as shields if anything started happening. The two fellows at the bar had backed to the wall, from which they watched Cashel with the expression of rabbits trapped by a fox.
The landlady put down her wand. “My mistake!” she said. “The lady was right to show me that I'd made a mistake. Go if you want—”
She pointed to the door. One panel was closed again; that was going to be a problem for haste.
“—but the nights are dark here in Soong. I'll give you my room.”
Nobody spoke. Leemay shrugged, then smiled. “To make up for what happened a moment ago. Shall we be friends?”
We've already paid, Cashel thought. He knew it didn't matter anymore, but three coppers was more than he'd earned most weeks when he was a boy.
“Cashel?” Tilphosa said in a small voice. He glanced at her. She looked white, and her cheeks were hollow. “Can we stay? I'm really...”
She was almost dead on her feet, was what she was trying to say. It'd been a long day, even for Cashel, and he was used to them as Tilphosa was not. Her burns and the hike and now this, the sort of fuss that swallows up all the energy you've got even if it doesn't come to blows at the end after all...
“Sure,” Cashel murmured. To the landlady he went on, "We'll take your offer, mistress. I, I'm sorry about the mess.”
Not that a little splashed beer was going to change this place a lot, but it was polite to say something. Cashel always tried to be polite, especially when it looked like he might be knocking heads in the next instant. That way spectators didn't feel they maybe ought to pile in on the other fellows' side.
Leemay took the stick of lightwood from the firedog, then went back behind the bar. “It's this way,” she said to Cashel.
“Hey, don't leave us in the dark,” one of the men complained.
“Light another billet, then!” snapped Leemay. She unlatched the door in the end wall. Cashel motioned Tilphosa ahead of him—his body would shadow her if he was in front—and they followed along after the landlady.
Beyond the door was a storage room. Tuns of beer stood along one wall, and lesser items in crates and storage jars were stacked on the other. The aisle between was a tight squeeze for Cashel. He frowned, then realized that Soong was so low-lying that the buildings couldn't have cellars the way Reise's inn did back in Barca's Hamlet.
Leemay opened the door at the far end, then lit the candle in a wall bracket just inside. She gestured Tilphosa through, saying, “There you go, missy. If it suits your ladyship's tastes, I mean.”
Tilphosa glanced up at the landlady's renewed hostility, but she didn't rise to the bait. Tilphosa'd seen men killed now, and she was smart enough to understand that she might've seen more die because she'd flown hot at Leemay.
“Thank you, mistress,” she said as she entered. “This will be very satisfactory.”
Cashel glanced past the landlady and agreed beyond a doubt. The wooden bed frame was big enough for three people Cashel's size, with pillows and at least two feather beds as well as the straw mattress. Tilphosa tested the softness with a hand, less in doubt than as an acknowledgment of the fine bedding.
“Sleep well, then,” Leemay said. She started back. Cashel turned sideways and thumped his staff in front of him so it was what the landlady had to squeeze by.
She did that, giving a throaty chuckle as she passed. Cashel didn't hear much humor in the sound, though.
Cashel waited till the door to the common room had closed, then said, "Give me one of those comforters, will you, Tilphosa? Ah, unless you need them both?”
“No, of course not,” the girl said. Her face was unreadable. “What do you intend to do, Cashel?”
“I'm going to lie down in the doorway here,” he said, nodding. “We'll leave it open, but I don't guess anybody's going to get to you without me waking up. Just in case.”
“But the floor's hard,” Tilphosa said.
He laughed. “Every night I wasn't out in the pasture back home, I slept on the floor of the mill,” he said. “That was stone. Don't worry about me, miss—Tilphosa, that is.”
She turned her head away. Cashel spread the feather bed on the floor. He'd lie at an angle with his head out in the storage room and his legs slanted past the foot of the bed-frame. Now, should he pinch out the candle or—
“Cashel?” Tilphosa said, still looking away. “I don't have any claim on you, you realize. If you did want to see that woman tonight...?”
“Huh?” said Cashel. He thought hard, trying to fit the girl's words together in a fashion that made sense. “Sleep with Leemay? Duzi, mistress! What do you take me for?”
“I'm sorry,” Tilphosa said, though she sounded more relieved than apologetic. “Ah, let's get some sleep.”
She turned quickly and blew out the candle. Cashel heard the bedclothes rustle as she pulled them over herself.
“Right,” he said, settling into his bed as well.
He didn't have any trouble getting to sleep, but he had bad dreams during the night. He kept hearing someone chanting, and Leemay's face hovered over him like a gibbous moon.
Ilna dreamed that she stood on a hilltop as a storm howled about her. Thunderbolts struck close, filling the air with a sulfurous stench. She felt the wind tug her legs and knew that in a moment it would carry her away, rending her apart in the lightning-shot darkness. She opened her mouth to scream but her swollen throat wouldn't allow sounds to pass.
Something flung her violently. She didn't know where she was. There was rock all around her. Moonlight through a transom showed her sharp angles and something thrashing, but her eyes wouldn't focus, and she couldn't get her breath.
Alecto was shouting. She jerked the crossbar out of the staples holding it and shoved the temple doors open to let in more light. Ilna sucked gulps of the fresh, cool air that flooded in with it. Her throat relaxed, and she could see clearly again.
A creature half out of the cave twisted and flailed four le
gs that seemed too small for a body the size of a cow's. It slammed the temple walls in its convulsions. Besides the eyes bulging on either side of its huge blunt skull, it had a third orb in the center. The hilt of Alecto's dagger stood up from that middle socket.
Ilna pulled herself onto the temple porch with her hands and elbows, dragging her legs behind her. She had a burning sensation in her right calf, though she thought she'd be able to stand in a moment when the dizziness passed.
People were coming out of the houses scattered along the valley slope. Somebody in each group carried a torch or a rushlight, a pithy stem soaked in grease to burn with a pale yellow flame.
They've been expecting this, Ilna thought. They wouldn't have been able to rouse so quickly at Alecto's shout if they hadn't been waiting for it.
She twisted her legs under and sat up, though she wasn't yet ready to squat or stand. She brought the hank of cords out of her sleeve and began plaiting them. No pattern she wove in the light of torches and a partial moon would dispose of all those approaching, but you do what you can.
Alecto shouted, this time in surprise. She jumped out the doorway. An instant later the creature hurled itself onto the porch also, then rolled onto its side. Each of its legs and its thick tail twitched in a separate rhythm. The final lunge had been as mindless as the running of a headless chicken.
The local people's approach had slowed. Ilna took the time to view the monster instead of just reacting to its presence. It was a lizard or—
She prodded the thick neck with one hand. The skin was slick and moist, that of a salamander rather than a lizard. The lolling jaws were edged with short, thornlike teeth.
Ilna rubbed her right leg, noticing now the line of punctures. Her fingers smeared the drops of blood welling from the holes. Her injuries wouldn't be serious, though, unless the bite was poisoned.
Alecto poised as though steeling herself to snatch coins from a fire. She reached out, gripped the hilt of her dagger, and yanked back with enough strength to have lifted a millstone. The creature's head jerked upward, then slammed against the limestone so hard that bones crunched. It slid a bit farther out so that its head hung off the porch.
“You shouted and woke me up,” Alecto said, breathing hard. She tore her eyes away from the quivering monster and scanned the villagers. They'd resumed their approach, though cautiously.
“I woke you up?” Ilna said. She was trying to remember what had happened before she crawled out into the air. She'd been dreaming, she knew, but she didn't remember what the dream was.
“Yeah,” the wild girl said. “You were staring at it. The air stank so bad it made me dizzy, but I think the eye there in the middle was doing something to you too.”
She looked at her dagger; the blade was covered with translucent slime. She swore, and wiped it on her leather kilt, then hurled the garment away.
“Thank you,” Ilna said. She lurched to her feet; her right leg felt as though somebody was running a branding iron up and down the calf, but it held her. “For saving my life.”
Alecto grunted, her eyes now on the villagers. The priest, Arthlan, had waited till a group of his fellows reached his hut before starting toward the temple with them. The women and children were coming also, mixed in with the adult men. They whispered among themselves, but none of them called to the strangers.
The pain of Ilna's leg subsided to a dull ache. She faced the torchlight coming toward her, expressionless. Alecto had saved her, yes; but the wild girl had waited to strike until the monster was locked onto Ilna's leg and couldn't turn its numbing gaze on her.
Ilna understood the logic. As with much of what her companion did, she didn't care for it.
“Do you suppose we're in trouble for killing their God?” Alecto muttered. “That's what it was, right?”
“I suppose it was,” Ilna agreed. “And I, at least, am in less trouble than I'd be if you hadn't killed the thing.”
“Are you safe, great wizards?” Arthlan said in a quavering voice from the foot of the porch. He was wearing his diadem and robe of office.
“No thanks to you!” Ilna said. “You put us here to die, didn't you?”
“No, no!” said a woman; the priest's wife Oyra, Ilna thought, but it was hard to tell in the torchlight. Her vision was blurring occasionally besides, probably as an aftereffect of the salamander's third eye or its poisonous breath. She hoped the problem was temporary.
“Mistress wizard,” Arthlan said, spreading his hands before him, “we couldn't trouble God, do you see? For many generations He was content with an occasional goat or the cony we smoke out of their lairs. But recently...”
“He took my baby ten months back,” called a young woman. She held a torch, and her tears glittered in its light. “Came into the hut and tipped him out of his cradle. We were getting ready to name him the very next day, and he was gone!”
“And my wife!” said another man. He'd carried an axe when Ilna and Alecto arrived in the village, but he held only a rushlight now. “I woke up when our daughter screamed, but God already had her by the leg. All we could do was watch.”
“What do you mean, all you could do was watch?” Alecto snarled. She stood with her arms down but a little out from her sides. The muscles of her legs and bare torso were corded with tension. “You could've took its head off with your axe, couldn't you?”
“Couldn't you have blocked the cave?” said Ilna. She wasn't really angry; the business was too puzzling for a normal emotion like that. “Six or eight of you could slide a slab of rock into the narrow part that this thing couldn't push out again.”
She kicked the huge corpse with her bare foot, then regretted the contact. One of the children shrieked in excited horror.
“Mistress wizards,” Arthlan said, bowing deeply. “God is God. We couldn't act against Him, do you see? But if He chose to bring your powerful selves to the gateway, then—His will be done.”
“His will be done!” cried all the villagers in a ragged chorus. Their voices echoed from the slopes in a diminishing whisper.
“His will?” shouted Alecto. “How about my will, Sister take you?”
Jumping down like a cat, she grabbed Arthlan by the throat and punched the dagger just beneath his breastbone, striking upward for the full length of the blade. The priest gasped and remained standing for an instant as Alecto withdrew the bronze.
Only those closest could see what had happened. Oyra screamed and clawed at Alecto's face. Alecto gave the woman a backhand slash across the eyes.
“They've killed Arthlan!” cried a man. He swiped at Alecto with his torch. “Don't let them get away!”
Torches glittered in all directions. There were villagers on the slope both above and below the temple.
“Inside!” Ilna cried. She jumped over the God-thing's corpse. The shock of her right foot coming down on stone was like a bath in fire, but that didn't matter.
Alecto was inside with her. Together they slammed the panels shut.
“Here's the bar!” Alecto cried, banging it through the staples despite the bad light.
“There!” she added. “That'll hold them.”
“Yes,” said Ilna. She didn't add, “And then what?” because the question wouldn't have done any good.
At this point, she wasn't sure anything would do her and her murderous companion any good.
Garric was saying, “Lord Thalemos, before you met Metron did you—”
The driver jumped to its feet and began screeching like a tortured cricket. Instead of guiding with gentle touches on the millipede's neck, the Archa jabbed the creature violently with the solid end of the rod.
Garric ran forward, though he wasn't sure what he intended to do there. He had his hand on the sword hilt, but he didn't draw the weapon. Vascay trotted with him, as lightly as a one-legged canary.
Thalemos came also. He might as well; there'd be as much safety with Garric and Vascay as there was anywhere in this place.
Metron didn't stand, but he lo
wered his book and craned his neck to see past the driver's leaping form. The Archa's movements looked wildly spastic to Garric, but they were apparently proper for a six-limbed creature. At any rate, the driver looked to be in less danger of falling from the millipede's back than the seated wizard was.
A pool gleamed through the great grassblades off to the right side. Water, Garric thought, catching the sun... .
And then knew he was wrong, because the pale, pearly glow wasn't sunlight—and because water wouldn't slosh itself out of its basin and flow in the direction of the millipede.
“It can't have been the Intercessor!” Metron said, opening the case which held the instruments of his art. He dropped his scroll carelessly inside and snatched out a small flask; he didn't bother to close the case. “It's chance! It's bad luck!”
The millipede ambled on at its same steady, ground-devouring pace, though it was turning slightly but noticeably leftward. The terrain became furrowed. The creature climbed without difficulty, but the angle and rocking motion made Thalemos wobble.
Garric grabbed the youth and steadied him. They took the millipede's movements the way Garric had learned to ride a ship's storm-tossed deck.
Vascay bent so that he could grip the linked gold netting with his left hand, but he kept his eyes turned to the right. From where Garric stood, the liquid from the pool had disappeared in the trees; perhaps, perhaps there was a distant gleam as the millipede started down the far side of the furrow.
Metron's flask was of clear glass with gold-filled etchings on the inside. It held a yellowish powder, too pale to be sulfur. As the wizard spread the contents in thin lines to form a hexagram, the powder darkened to the angry red of dying embers.
The driver squatted again but kept turning its triangular head to look back the way they'd come. Its sharp-edged upper limbs twitched out and in, folding like shears, as if the Archa were slashing something only it could see.
The millipede's foreparts were on level ground; ahead another furrow loomed. Vascay released the safety net and straightened.