by David Drake
Holding the scroll in his left hand, Bossian extended his right. A wand appeared in it, its color the now-familiar red verging on black. Cashel wasn't sure whether the wand was solid or simply a brief shaft of light.
Bossian pointed at the figure surrounding Cashel and said, "Bittalos isti bakion…"
Words on the floor flared and vanished. The scroll shifted, one rod taking up its portion of the roll while the other spooled more out. Cashel heard echoes from a place vaster and less cluttered than the room in which he stood.
"Zogenes rake bakion," the wizard said as the light and sound expanded to fill Cashel's awareness. He couldn't see Bossian any more, but there were other figures beyond the wall of light as deep as a dying coal. He wasn't sure they were human, or at least wholly human.
…chuch bain bakaxi… the throbbing redness echoed. The sound no longer seemed to have anything to do with a human throat. Cashel's skin prickled as it always did in the presence of wizardry. There was a freezing flash.
Cashel was back in the cellar, dark now save for wisps of rosy foxfire that outlined Bossian. "Iosalile!" he shouted.
A thread of pulsing scarlet linked the fourth finger of Cashel's left hand with the table behind which the wizard stood. "There!" Bossian cried, dropping the scroll. He thrust his wand down where the thread touched the array of objects.
The room shone with a soft yellow light that had no source Cashel could locate. The thread of light, the symbols on the floor, and all other signs of wizardry had vanished when the room brightened. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with his left hand.
Bossian reached out, but reaction to the spell he'd just worked caught him. He sagged, his out-thrust arms barely able to keep him from sprawling across the table.
Cashel picked up the object the thread had indicated. It was a lump of coal the size of his fist. As the wizard's dizziness passed, his eyes focused on the coal. He glared with what looked like the same puzzlement that Cashel felt.
"What does it do?" Cashel said, handing the lump to Bossian. People in Valles heated with coal, so he knew what it was. Everybody on Haft burned wood or charcoal.
"It has a virtue," Bossian said, turning the piece as he peered at it. "Every item in this hall has been gathered by me or an ancestor of mine because of the power that our art has shown to lie in it. This particular piece was found in the tomb of a great wizard from the time before the Visitor's first arrival."
The coal was smoothly shiny top and bottom, with jags and facets on the sides. The image of a leaf which flared like a trumpet was pressed into the top. The all-directional light cast no shadow, making it hard to get a real feeling for the shape. Cashel frowned, wondering if there was anything somebody like himcould see; maybe you had to be a wizard.
"But what does itdo?" Cashel repeated. It was good-quality coal; gleaming black on all surfaces. There were none of the gray speckles of shale he'd seen in cheap stuff.
"To be honest…," Bossian said in a muted voice. He set the lump back on the tabletop. "To be honest, I haven't been able to determine that."
He gave Cashel a defensive glare. "But itis an object of power, and there's no question that the spell marked it out for you. Why, you saw that yourself!"
"Yes," said Cashel, "but I don't know what it means."
He took the coal again between his thumb and forefinger and looked at it without learning anything more than he had the first time. It was coal; it had a slick feel, and it was lighter than a flint of the same size.
"Well, you're the best one to determine that, sir," Bossian said. He made a gesture with his bare right hand; his wand had vanished. A pastel yellow tunnel suddenly twisted away through the vast hall, while the rest of the room went dark. "I was unable to divine the object's powers when I had leisure to try, which assuredly I do not at this time."
He gestured down the corridor of light. "The path will take you to an exit from the manor," he said.
Cashel looked at Lord Bossian, the coal in his left hand, his quarterstaff in his right. He weighed the lump in his palm, silent as he decided what to do. He didn't like Bossian's attitude, but Bossian grimaced. "Master Cashel," he said in a raspy voice, "if I were in a position to help you further I would do so. I am not. I suggest you leave here and work out your own destiny, while we determine ours. And I tell you with all sincerity that I wish the task facing me were as simple as the one facing you-howeverdifficult it may seem to you!"
Cashel nodded. "All right, I see that," he said.
The lump was too big to fit in his wallet. He pulled out the neck of his outer tunic and dropped the coal inside; it slipped down to where the sash cinched his garments to his waist, leaving both hands free for the quarterstaff.
Nodding to Bossian, Cashel turned and started down the lighted pathway. His bare feet shuffled on the pavement; that sound was his only companion for a long time, longer than he was sure of. He was glad he'd eaten, but he wished he'd taken a round of bread with him when they left the outdoors banquet.
While Cashel was wondering, not for the first time, how long this was going to last, a stride put him abruptly out on a moonlit slope. He looked across a broad valley. Judging by the vegetation around him, it was better watered than the one where he'd met Kotia.
He turned. In the far distance was a shimmer of light. That might be the gleaming towers of Lord Bossian's manor, or it might not.
Cashel thought for a time, leaning on his quarterstaff. Then, smiling faintly at his recollection of Kotia insisting they save the gems Kakoral had thrown down, he rummaged one out of his wallet.
Quite a lady, Kotia was…
He hurled the ruby into a ledge of rock.
***
Ilna stood stiffly upright, one hand on the tiny deckhouse asThe Bird of the Tide eased to an empty quay. As usual on shipboard, her major concern was to keep out of the way of the sailors while they were busy. Four of the men worked the long sweeps; Kulit stood in the bow, looking straight down, and Hutena held a boat pike to push off with if necessary.
"Port side up oars!" Chalcus shouted from the tiller. "Ninon, a dab now-just a dab, laddie, and pat us in."
The harbor at Terness was tight, and the passage between lava cliffs to enter had been tighter yet. The largest vessel Ilna saw was a two-deck warship like theFlying Fish; the other ships were part-decked fishing boats.
"Now it may be you're wondering why I didn't sail in, dear heart, rather than stretch the lads' backs by sculling," Chalcus said in a conversational tone as they slid slowly as cold honey toward the quay on the gentle push of Ninon at the starboard bow oar. "It's the way the winds eddy and the entrance, you see, and me being a stranger to these waters. OurBird is a fine, sturdy ship, but I wouldn't care to knock her against those rock walls-"
He crooked a finger back over his left shoulder, toward the harbor narrows.
"-and think of the embarrassment I'd feel with all those folk watching us, eh?"
"Yes," said Ilna, "I see those folk."
The quay was crowded with as many people as it would hold, most of them either servants with scarlet sashes as livery or soldiers in bronze caps but padded jerkins instead of metal body armor. There was a party of their betters as well, folk who thought themselves better, at any rate-a double handful of men in silk and furs and gilded metalwork. In the center of these last, wearing a silvered cuirass set with red stones that might possibly be rubies rather than lesser gems, stood a tall man with black hair and a full pepper-and-salt beard.
"Commander Lusius, as I recall," Chalcus murmured. "And there's no greater rogue unhung, unless it be myself."
Ilna stepped closer to him, reaching instinctively into her left sleeve for the hank of cords she carried there. "Will he recognize you, do you think?" she asked, her voice calm but her mind dancing over possible ways out of the situation if it turned bad.
"I think not," Chalcus said. "I was only one of Captain Mall's crew, many years ago; and when Mall's ship and crew became mine, we did no more business
in the Haft trade. But if he does-"
One of Lusius' attendants blew his trumpet and the crowd cheered-half-heartedly, it seemed to Ilna. Hutena'd racked his pike by the mast; he dropped a leather fender stuffed with straw between stone and the hull while Kulit positioned a second fender at the bow. TheBird of the Tide thumped the quay without needing the men on shore to draw them in by the mooring ropes.
"-it'll only mean that we each know the other man."
"Captain Chalcus!" Lusius cried, standing arms-akimbo as he looked down into theBird. "Welcome to Terness. I'm Lusius, and I hope you and your lovely companion will accept my hospitality while you're here."
The Commander gave Ilna a broad grin. She tented her fingers very carefully; if she hadn't, they'd have knotted a pattern that-some time in the future-she'd regret having used even on this man. Her mind recalled with satisfaction the greasysnap of a chicken's neck as she twisted.
Ilna smiled back at Lusius. The Commander's grin melted away.
"Well now, Commander Lusius…," said Chalcus nonchalantly as he fitted a rope loop over the tiller to keep the steering oar from flapping in a current. Shausga and Kulit handed hawsers to attendants on the quay who'd bend them around bollards. "The crew and I will spend our nights aboard the few days we're here fitting a new mast, but I thank you for your offer."
"But you'll dine with me tonight, surely?" Lusius said. "We flatter ourselves that we eat well on Terness, though the food may not be up to the royal banquets you're used to."
He looked around the men close about him, the sneering grin back on his face. Though Terness was a small place by any standards beyond those of Barca's Hamlet, this handful of courtiers was dressed with as much expense-if not taste-as those crowding Garric's receptions in Valles.
"Indeed," said Chalcus easily, standing in a relaxed posture. "I'm a student of the world, Commander; always pleased to meet new folk and sample new fare. What time would it be that you'd wish us to arrive?"
Lusius threw back his head and laughed, resting his left hand on the pommel of his short curved sword. Ilna had learned much about weapons since she left the borough; the Commander's was a real sword with a sturdy blade, capable of lopping off limbs with a strong man swinging it. The sword and the scar trailing down Lusius' neck proved that he hadn't been-and probably wasn't-a man who let others handle all his violence.
He fingered his beard and measured Chalcus with his eyes. "Well, then, shall we say at the eleventh hour, Captain?" he said. "The castle's at the head of Cross Street, that's the one that stretches south from Water Street here. We're simple folk in Terness, so two named streets are all we need."
Lusius turned on his heel and stalked off. His underlings must have been used to his abrupt habits for they instantly leaped aside to form a passage, then fell in behind him.
TheBird 's crew relaxed as the local delegation strode away. Ninon set down the short axe he'd been holding behind the mainspar. Hutena had been leaning against the mast; now he wiped on his tunic the hand that'd rested against the boarding pike he'd just racked.
Ilna began plaiting a complex pattern of cords, with no other purpose than to occupy her fingers while she thought. Lusius had a bull neck, but a noose thrownjust so and twisted would snap it as surely as that of a chicken in the dooryard.
"They know who we are then, cap'n?" Hutena said. He looked uncomfortable speaking, but the eyes of the other men were on him; the bosun's rank meant it was up to him to ask the question that worried all of them.
"Aye, but I never expected to fool Lusius," Chalcus said, watching the last of the Commander's entourage disappear around the corner. Ilna couldn't see up Cross Street from where theBird was docked, but the battlements of a structure on the hill to the south loomed over the roofs of the buildings fronting Water Street. "The only question I had was how he'd react to our arrival; and open acknowledgment of who we are isn't a bad way to react. Not a fool, our Lusius."
"But you'll take him down anyway, cap'n," Hutena said; his words neither quite a statement nor really a question.
"Oh, aye, we'll do that thing," Chalcus said cheerfully, dusting his palms together briskly. "I will; and you will, my fine lads…"
He turned and laid a fingertip on Ilna's cheek. "And Mistress Ilna will with her art, which I much expect will be the greatest help of all in the business!"
Chapter 11
"Tenoctris," Garric said, facing the old wizard beneath a wicker lattice covered with grape vines, "I had a dream. Another dream."
He reached out and touched Liane's hand without meeting her eyes. This was the first she'd heard about the business also.
The roof garden was the closest thing to a private park available to Garric in Carcosa. Trees and brambles covered the mounded ruins of much of the Old Kingdom city, but those tracts were pathless and far more dangerous than a rural woodland like the one which the householders of Barca's Hamlet owned. Rats, feral dogs, and humans as degraded as those beasts lurked in holes they'd dug into ancient tombs and palaces. At night they came out to scour the streets.
Garric had always been more comfortable outside than in, whether he was doing manual labor or reading one of the Old Kingdom texts his father had taught him to love. Rather than discuss the matter in a palace room, he'd asked Tenoctris and Liane to join him in the garden. The dream had made him uncomfortable, so he was easing the process of talking about it by choosing the setting he found most congenial.
Tenoctris nodded, pursing her lips. "Did this one tell you to do something?" she asked. She opened the satchel beside her on the bench and began to finger through the books within it.
A treefrog screamed from somewhere within the grape leaves; rain had fallen just before the dawn, making the frogs active. Garric marveled once again that a gray-green lump no bigger than the first joint of his thumb could make so much noise.
"No, nothing like that," he said. "I was standing in a garden. There was an altar and some offerings on it. I picked up a crystal and… saw, Ilived; I don't know how to explain it. I lived a life that somebody like me might have lived if things had been different. Had been normal."
"A nightmare?" Liane asked, folding her hands in her lap. What he'd said had worried her, so in response she was acting more than usually calm.
"No," Garric said, shaking his head. "Normal life. Taking over the inn, marrying a perfectly nice local girl-"
He grinned wryly; Liane loosened up enough to grin back.
"-and raising a lot of children. If the dream was right, I'd have made a better innkeeper than I do a prince."
"Then the dream was wrong," Tenoctris said calmly, "though I'm sure you'd have been a fine innkeeper as well. Did you recognize the garden, Garric? From other dreams or in the waking world, either one?"
"It could've been here, it could've been in Valles," he said. "Or somewhere that I've never seen at all. It was old and overgrown; there were bananas on an altar, and I thought that the things I saw worshiping were animals instead of men."
He rubbed his eyes, working to recall images that his mind had tried to shut out while he was dreaming. "I'm not sure what they were. I'm not even sure there were real figures instead of just shadows."
Tenoctris closed her satchel again. "I see," she said, getting cautiously to her feet. "I'll admit that this puzzles me, Garric. I'm certain that nobody is working an incantation against you now."
Liane frowned in disbelief; Garric frowned also, but he realized he hadn't felt threatened as he stood in the garden. It was wrong, and it'd disturbed him because he knew how wrong it was, but A world where he didn't have the responsibilities of a prince was attractive, even though that world didn't have Liane in it either. That thought was the real reason the dream made Garric so angry.
"Oh, yes," Tenoctris repeated. "Quite certain."
She shrugged. "I might well not be able to do anything about an attack," she explained, "but I'd know it was happening. Nothing of the sort is, not through wizardry, that is."
Gar
ric stood, clearing his throat in embarrassment. "I thought I ought to tell somebody about it," he said, "because I didn't the other time. And that one meant something."
"Oh, this dream means something too," Tenoctris said with crisp assurance. "I certainly don't think it's a coincidence, Garric; I just don't believe it was an attack on you or even directed at you… which is particularly puzzling."
She smiled again, then went on, "Lord Attaper's been kind enough to provide me with an escort to the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset. I'm told there's an extensive library there. If it doesn't hold the information that I'm searching for either, perhaps there'll be something in the Temple of the Shepherd of the Rock."
"Yes, there may be," Garric said. Liane had risen from the bench beside him; he put his arm around her and hugged her close while still grinning at Tenoctris. "I have some business with the priests of the Shepherd today too. I do, and the army does!"
***
When Sharina was twelve, she'd seen the Northern Lights in the depths of the coldest winter in the living memory of Barca's Hamlet. At first she'd thought that was what she was seeing now, but the sheets of azure and crimson flared too constantly across the heavens for that.
"Is it always like this at night?" she asked Franca as she added wood to the fire he'd lit with the bow drill he'd made. "The sky, I mean. There's no moon, but it's bright enough to read by."
"The sky?" the youth repeated. "Yeah, it's always like this."
He frowned. "Maybe it wasn't when I was younger, though. Mother used to talk about the stars. I remember seeing them, but not for a long time."
Franca wasn't any better clothed than she was, but he'd apparently become acclimated to the cold. Though he said it was late spring, the wind skirling through the walls of the dry-stone sheep byre seemed as bitter as anything Sharina had felt at the turn of the year at home.
"She makes it this way," said the axe. "Her power lights the whole world, but She drains away all warmth to do it."