by David Drake
"And my goodness, there's Lord Bossian," said Evne, pointing her long foot at a particularly ornate airboat approaching from the west. It looked like three hulls joined together and the whole thing covered by a canopy of rainbow-colored fabric. "I was wondering when he'd decide to show his face."
Cashel watched the big airboat slanting down at a majestic pace. "I wouldn't have guessed Bossian wanted to come around," he said. "I'd have thought he'd be embarrassed, to tell the truth."
Evne sniffed. "Embarrassed? Him?" she said. "Anyway, he's just as much afraid of you as he was of the Visitor. He's coming to see what he can do to keep you from destroying him."
Her long tongue licked out. She chuckled and added, "From squashing him like a bug!"
The airboat settled to the ground close enough that Cashel could've thrown a rock to it if he'd had any need to. It held more people than Cashel could count on his fingers. He recognized a few of them from dinner at Manor Bossian all that time ago, though he didn't recall their names if he'd even heard them. Except for Lord Bossian, of course.
"He doesn't need to be afraid of me," Cashel said.
"Doesn't he?" said Evne. "No, I don't suppose he does. But he needs to be very much afraid of your friend Kotia, master."
Lord Bossian got out of his airboat. He looked a good ten years older than he had when Cashel last saw him, worn and gray. He was wearing clean clothes, but he had a line of angry blisters on his left cheek: something hot had splashed him in the recent past.
Bossian looked at Kotia, then deliberately turned and started walking toward Cashel. A man and a woman followed, but the rest of those from the airboat hung back.
"Lord Bossian!" Kotia said. The nearly spherical Lady Raki and two lords of manor were standing near Kotia. They quickly shifted so they weren't between Kotia and Bossian.
Bossian glanced over his shoulder. The man and woman with him stopped where they were.
"Lady Kotia," Bossian said in a loud voice. "I'm going to offer my congratulations to Lord Cashel, the great wizard who has conquered the Visitor!"
He took another half step. Kotia stretched out her right hand and spoke under her breath. A ring of crackling fire, bright as Kakoral's heart, roared up around him.
Bossian screamed and stopped where he was. The vividly-dressed crowd gave a collective gasp and fled outward. Some people threw themselves into airboats or behind them.
Cashel got up and walked toward Bossian, leaning his staff over his right shoulder so it wouldn't look like he was planning to do anything with it. He'd been really tired after all the business in the Visitor's ship, but he figured he was back in shape now. That was a good thing, seeings as Kotia was her full prickly self.
The ring of fire vanished in an eyeblink, just as it'd appeared. The ground it'd sprung from wasn't scorched.
"The girl formed an illusion rather than real flame," Evne said in a tone of appraisal. "As she could easily have done, of course. Her father and the Visitor between them have awakened what was already in her."
Maybe the fire hadn't been real, but even after it disappeared Bossian couldn't have been more afraid if he'd had a knife point pricking his eye. He stood trembling, unwilling even to turn his head to look squarely at Cashel.
Kotia was walking over from the other direction. "Indeed, Lord Cashelis master here, Bossian," she said, plenty loud enough for others to hear even after they'd scrambled back. "Therefore politeness dictates he not be disturbed unless he requests to be; and if politeness fails, his friends have other means!"
"It's all right, Kotia," Cashel said. "Bossian, you can relax. Nobody's going to hurt you."
He gave Kotia a friendly smile. He didn't care for people talking about him like he wasn't there, but Kotia had a right to be angry. Bossian hadn't owed anything to a stranger like Cashel, but he'd taken Kotia under his protection-until there was something to protect her against.
"He isn't worth anybody's concern, is he, milord?" Kotia said. She stepped to Cashel's right side, looking at Bossian with the kind of expression you'd give a scrawny ewe who wasn't worth pasturage even until fall. Cashel noticed that Kotia was being a lot more deferential to him than she'd been when it was just the two of them and Evne.
The toad padded softly around Cashel's neck and squatted on his right shoulder; he shifted the quarterstaff. Evne's feet tickled, but this probably wouldn't be a good time to laugh.
Bossian cleared his throat. The two people who'd started toward Cashel with him were now with the rest of the group behind the big airboat. "I came to congratulate you, milord," he said. "Ah, to thank you for driving away the Visitor."
"Drive the Visitor away?" Evne said in rising incredulity. "Is that what you think? You worm! Master Casheldestroyed the Visitor. As though he never was!"
"Well, it wasn't really me…," Cashel muttered, but he didn't try to make himself heard. It was all pretty complicated, and he didn't guess he needed to explain things to Bossian. 'Worm' was a good enough description for the man, though it occurred to him that when a toad used the word it might mean something a little different.
"I beg your pardon, Lord Cashel," Bossian said, licking his lips and looking about as nervous as he had when Kotia looped the fire around him. He was staring at the air between Cashel's right shoulder and Kotia without meeting the eyes of either of them. "I didn't mean… that is…"
He cleared his throat and tried again, this time looking straight at Cashel. "The collection of objects of power here in the Basin is quite remarkable," he said. "I suppose they were gathered by the Visitor?"
"Of course they were gathered by the Visitor," Evne said in a mocking falsetto. "On some twenty worlds besides this one, I might add. Perhaps more-I haven't had a chance to do a proper inventory yet."
Bossian stared at her. For the first time he seemed to have taken in the fact that a toad was talking to him.
"Her name's Evne," Cashel said. "You gave her to me in the lump of coal."
He paused, then added, "Thank you. I wouldn't have gotten very far without her."
"With the objects I see here…," Bossian went on, looking to one side and then the other reflexively. "You'll be able to raise an impressive manor-"
"A unique manor," Kotia corrected. "A manor beyond any other in the world!"
Bossian grimaced. "Yes, I'm sure that's so," he said. "A unique manor. With these objects, your power is greater than that of all of us combined."
"I should've thought that became obvious when my master destroyed the Visitor," Evne said, rubbing the back of her head with her forefeet. "Even a worm should've realized that."
"I'm not going to build a manor," Cashel said. "Even if I knew how, I mean. I just want to go home."
He shook his head, trying to clear the nonsense out of it. He didn't see why he had to explain stuff like this. It was bad enough any time when people jumped to conclusions about him, andthese conclusions didn't make a bit of sense. Why would he want to stay here?
"Look, when I first got here," Cashel continued before any of the others jumped in with another comment, "Kotia thought you could send me back home, Lord Bossian. Is that right? Can you?"
"Ican, Lord Cashel," Kotia said. Her face was unreadable. "If that's what you really want."
With a sudden, fierce expression, she put her hand over the back of Cashel's right hand. She said, "There's nothing in this world that the man who conquered the Visitor can't have, you know. Nothing!"
Cashel shook his head. He didn't pull his hand away, though Kotia's touch made him feel uncomfortable. "There's nothing here that I want, mistress," he said. "Except to go home."
Kotia met his eyes for a long moment. She stepped back, perfectly the lady. "Yes," she said, "I see that. I'll take care of the matter as soon as you wish, milord."
"Since you won't be able to take away all the objects that you, ah, fell heir to," said Lord Bossian, "I suppose those of us holding existing manors should divide them among-"
Evne laughed incredulously. Her
voice was really a lot louder than ought to come from a little toad.
"No, I am not going to divide Lord Cashel's property with you, Lord Bossian," Kotia said with sneering emphasis. She looked around the huge gathering. It seemed to Cashel that there were more airboats than he'd seen of anything except wavetops in a storm. "Nor with the others. Some of you are cowards andall of you are weaklings compared to Cashel. And compared to me!"
"Where will you build your manor, girl?" the toad asked. "Right here in the middle of the Basin, I suppose?"
"It won't be my manor!" Kotia said. "I'll build it for Lord Cashel. If ever he chooses to return, it'll be waiting for him. Everything will be waiting for him!"
"He won't come back, girl," said Evne. There was more in her voice than a simple statement, but Cashel couldn't be sure quite what it was. "You know that, don't you?"
"Do I?" said Kotia bitterly. Then, glaring at Bossian, she snapped, "Go away, milord. Go back to your manor. If I have need of you here, I'll summon you." She sniffed. "As well I may."
Bossian blinked at her, then backed away. When he was half the distance to his airboat he turned and trotted the rest of the way, calling to his companions.
"You could do better," the toad said, looking at Kotia.
Kotia shrugged. "No doubt," she said. "But the thought amuses me."
Her face went grimly blank again. "What about you, Mistress Toad?" she said. "I can return you to your own shape now, of course. Is that what you want?"
Evne stretched one hind leg, then the other. "I've been a toad so long…," she said. She turned her head toward Cashel. She was so close that he could only see her out of one eye.
She looked back at Kotia. "The emotions aren't as fierce in this shape," she said. "All I ever got from human emotions was to be locked into a block of coal." She laughed, only partly in amusement, then added, "Thank you, girl, but I think I'll leave things as they are. I'd miss the taste of flies, and my neighbors would speak harshly of me if I didn't give up the sport of catching them."
"I can see the advantage," Kotia said, smiling wryly as she looked from Evne to Cashel himself. "Well, if you change your mind…"
People were gathering the various bits and pieces that'd fallen to the ground when the ship burned. Now that Kotia wasn't flinging around flames and angry shouts, folks came up in groups with what they'd found. Kotia must've given orders when people talked to her as they arrived.
Even parts of things that'd broken seemed worth gathering up. The big glasssomething that hadn't missed Cashel by much when it fell was arriving in any number of fragments, carried reverently in the lifted skirts of servants' tunics.
There was a lord or lady at the head of each group, but they weren't doing the work of carrying things. Well, Cashel hadn't expected they would be.
"I guess I'm ready to go, mistress," Cashel said. He raised an eyebrow. "Unless there's more I need to do here?"
"No, we may as well get on with it," Kotia said. "The lingering ambiance of the ship will aid the process-not that it should be very difficult."
She looked at the assembly. The gold disk she'd taken before the Visitor's defeat was in her right hand. Cashel hadn't seen it there a moment ago, but he wasn't sure whether it'd appeared, enlarged from a seed of itself, or if he just hadn't noticed it.
"Return to your manors for the time being," Kotia said. The disk spun, lifting out of her hand. She didn't raise her voice, but Cashel heard her words echoing back faintly from the circle of distant hills. "I'll invite you back when it's safe to come, but right now I have work to do. What's about to happen will seriously endanger anyone who's too close to it and who lacks the power to protect himself."
"Which means all of you," said Evne. As with Kotia-but without any help from the disk-she was speaking to the whole huge crowd. "That's especially true for you who fancy yourself as wizards. Don't stay around or you may not even have time for regrets."
No question about everybody being able to hear the two, well, females. Even at the back of the crowd, ordinary people ran for the airboats. The lords and ladies with their courtiers started out being more dignified about their leaving, but the panic spread like fire in dry grass. Lady Raki running with her skirts hiked up was as comical as a fat lamb gamboling in springtime, and some of the other nobles were even funnier.
"I know you would've avoided them when you raised your manor, girl," Evne said, looking at Kotia. "But I wanted to see them scamper."
Kotia ran her left index finger over the rim of the disk, now at rest in her hand again. "Do youknow that?" she said nonchalantly. "Perhaps you're right, then."
She looked up, nodding to Cashel but then focusing her hard gaze on Evne. "You're welcome to stay with me, you know, Mistress Toad," she said.
"I'mwelcome to stay wherever I choose, girl," Evne said. "Don't mistake me for one of those."
She lifted her body on three legs to sweep the right hind leg in an arc across a portion of the spectators rushing off more quickly than they'd arrived.
"There was once one who could gainsay me," the toad continued. She spoke with certainty and an absolute lack of emotion. Again she reminded Cashel of his sister when she was very, very angry. "But not, I think, for seven thousand years."
Kotia stared at her, balancing the disk in her palm. "Yes, I believe you're correct," she said, as calmly as the toad. "But I don't intend that we should ever become certain."
She smiled. "Lord Cashel?" she continued in a wholly different tone. "If you're ready, we can proceed."
"Sure," said Cashel. He cleared his throat. "Ah, do we have to find a mirror?"
"Yes," said Evne. She extended her hind leg again. There was aspat ! of blue fire. A circle of grass and dried mud nearby became as smooth and clear as the surface of a dew drop.
"Stand in the center, if you would, Lord Cashel," Kotia said quietly. "Mistress Toad, what is your will?"
Evne walked down Cashel's forearm to the back of his hand. "I'll accept your offer of hospitality, girl," she said. "I expect it to be interesting. If not-"
She turned her head to look up at Cashel.
"-quite as interesting as the past two days."
Kotia stretched out her left hand. Evne hopped to it. The toad looked graceless in the air with her four legs splayed in different directions, but she landed precisely in Kotia's palm and tucked herself back together.
Cashel cleared his throat again. "I guess I'll be going, then," he said. He nodded-twice, once to each of them, though with them both together it didn't make much difference. He stepped carefully onto the circle. He expected it to be slick because it was perfectly smooth, but his feet didn't slide at all. He felt like he was standing in empty air, but the surface was faintly warm as well as being solid.
Cashel turned, holding his staff crosswise. You never knew what you were going to run into when you were dealing with wizards.
"I'm ready!" he said, meeting the two sets of eyes. Kotia and Evne looked as cold and hard as crags in the winter sea. It was a really good thing they weren't his enemies.
"Ene psa enesgaph," they said, speaking together. "Selbiouth sarba…"
Cashel's surroundings began to spin, though he himself didn't move. Evne and Kotia faded from sight, all but their eyes; their eyes remained fixed like the constellation of the Seven Oxen in the northern sky.
"Thaoos sieche thur…," the voices said. Blue fire danced soundlessly about Cashel, concealing everything else but the eyes. "Spanton kwilm!"
Cashel was falling into himself. Everything vanished, light and sound and feeling.
In his mind someone whispered, "Farewell, Lord Cashel." He wasn't sure, but he thought it might be both women speaking together.
***
Garric's steps had been soundless from the moment he entered the lens of light in the garden; now his boots clacked on ice so cold and hard that it was dry. He saw the twins running ahead of him-or perhaps it was only one of them, his/her figure multiplied by reflection in the ice walls.
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The ceilings were as high as those of the audience chamber in the royal palace in Valles, ribbed and coffered with ice. Ropes of blue and red wizardlight twined in helixes at the core of each beam and plate; at any distance the ice looked purple.
The walls were sometimes clear, sometimes mirrors that might throw back either a perfect image or a distorted mockery of the original. When the man-shaped monster shambled out of a side-aisle Garric hadn't seen till that moment, his first thought was that he was seeing the reflection of a man, perhaps even himself.
The creature gave a high-pitched laugh and raised its club, the trunk of a fir tree split and slain by a frost beyond what even its cold-adapted fibers could bear. High as the ceiling was, the tree struck it: the monster was real and just as huge as it seemed.
"Haft and the Isles!" Garric shouted, rushing before the creature could come to terms with what for it were narrow confines. Its forehead sloped sharply from thick brow ridges. It was naked except for a coat of coarse reddish hair, incrementally thicker on its scalp and in a mane along its spine; and it was almost twenty feet high.
The creature swung a slanting blow at Garric. He flattened against the wall. The club struck the ice behind him and rebounded, scattering a haze of splinters. Garric cut upward, catching the monster's wrist with the sweet spot of his sword just a hand's breadth from the tip. His steel crunched through cartilage and small bones.
The monster jerked its arm back. When the fingers lost strength, the club slipped and flew against the opposite wall of the corridor. Garric hacked at the inside of the creature's right ankle, cutting deep again.
The creature screamed, grabbed at Garric with its left hand, and toppled forward when its leg gave way. It twisted in the air, still trying to seize him, but Garric jumped past, beyond the creature's reach.
He looked down the range of gleaming, branching corridors. It would've been a maze even without the reflection, but as it was…