Out of the Waters-ARC

by David Drake

  The servants who had carried Anna down from the third floor apartment shifted their grips and now lifted her onto the couch. They weren't perfectly gentle, but Anna wasn't a hothouse flower who needed coddling.

  The men were Illyrians, enough alike to be brothers, and very possibly former pirates: both were heavily scarred, and one was missing his right ear. Regardless of how they looked, tonight Alphena had found them cheerful, helpful, and--frankly--quite reassuring. Your viewpoint changed when you suddenly had to consider the possibility of glass demons appearing out of thin air.

  Alphena sat on the opposite side of the vehicle, then swung her legs in. She performed the maneuver easily--it was child's play compared to the lunges and leaps she practiced on the training ground--but she found herself suddenly blushing.

  She'd seen Anna's look of shock and the way she raised her hand to her lips to cover a gasp. Alphena's short tunic was the right garment for violent exercise, but it did very little to cover a woman who was being carried on a litter with her legs stretched out in front of her.

  I'm not used to riding in litters! And anyway, Anna wouldn't be shocked if she didn't think I was a fine lady.

  Scowling at herself, Alphena drew the side curtains. "Take us home, Manetho!" she called through them to the steward who had attached himself to her escorting servants.

  The Cappadocian bearers lifted the heavy vehicle and started forward as part of the same smooth motion. "Oh, my...," said Anna, though Alphena wasn't sure whether she was commenting on the quality of the team or more generally on the situation.

  As a courtesy, Alphena had entered the building to announce herself to the older woman instead of sending the servants up alone. She had left the sword lying along the axis of the litter, like a divider between the two passengers. Anna tapped the metal scabbard with a fingertip, making it ring softly. She said, "Think this is going to be needed tonight, your ladyship?"

  "I know how to use it!" Alphena said, her voice sharp with a second cause of embarrassment.

  "Aye, I know you do," Anna said. "My boy has told me you do, and my Pulto has too. But that's not what I asked your ladyship."

  "I'm sorry, Anna," Alphena muttered. "And--"

  She leaned forward to squeeze the older woman's hand.

  "--please, call me Alphena. I don't mean to be.... Anna, I'm afraid."

  "There's good reason to be afraid," Anna said, nodding. The lanterns on the vehicle's front corners cast enough light through the gauze curtains that Alphena could read Anna's expression; she herself was in shadow. "My boy told me that you're brave, too; but I didn't need him to tell me what I saw myself when we first met."

  "It's not monsters or glass men or, or those sorts of things that I'm afraid of," Alphena said, realizing that she had to explain. She smiled wanly. "Anna, I have to save mother. And I'm afraid I won't be able to. I know what she did for me."

  The older woman's face grew unexpectedly hard. In a rasping voice she said, "You're a good girl and you mean well, but don't say you know that. Even if her ladyship told you what she'd done, you wouldn't know what it meant until you'd done it yourself."

  Anna had straightened as she spoke. With a grimace she settled back--she didn't look relaxed, but at least she no longer looked as though she was going to lunge at Alphena in fury--and added, "Which you may have to, child. I'll help as I can, but I'd no more be able to go in your place than I could have in your mother's."

  "I'm sorry," Alphena said. In a matter of heartbeats she had gone from embarrassed to furious--What does this servant mean to be lecturing me?--to calm and apologetic before opened her mouth. "I used the wrong words. I know that mother risked a great deal to rescue me. I'll help her now in any way I can."

  Anna remained sunk in thought for some moments. The litter bearers changed on the move. The only reason Alphena was aware of what was happening was that briefly there were eight voices rather than four calling cadence at the corners of the vehicle. Their chantey was in what might either be Cappadocian or nonsense.

  "I'm sorry, your ladyship," Anna muttered. Her eyes remained downcast. "I know you'll help as it takes, that you won't funk it. You come to fetch me, after all. And if you don't know all of it, then--"

  She smiled, weakly but honestly.

  "--I guess you know that it won't be easy or good either one."

  She reached out and squeezed Alphena's hand; Alphena returned the clasp with a feeling of relief.

  "The truth is...," Anna said. She was barely whispering, though no one could have overheard them through the singsong drone of the litter bearers. "That I'm afraid myself, for what my part is. But I'll help your mother and I'll help you. I'll do it for my duty."

  She chuckled, deep in her throat, and raised her eyes to Alphena's. "Anyway," she said, "I don't guess anything that happens to the three of us is going to be worse than what'll happen to all the world if somebody doesn't stop it. And getting Lady Hedia back is at least a step that way."

  "We're coming to the house, your ladyship!" Manetho called from ahead of the vehicle.

  Alphena squeezed the older woman's hand again. "We'll bring her back, Anna!" she said, wishing that she really believed her own words.

  CHAPTER 10

  Hedia awoke. She supposed that it was near morning, but she knew that she might be deceiving herself because she so desperately wanted this night to be over. Surely it was at least after midnight?

  Sunrise wouldn't leave her much better off, but perhaps she could find something to eat. That was becoming one of her more serious concerns. She hadn't eaten since dinner with the two senators. Though she couldn't be certain how long ago that had been, it was certainly longer than she would usually have gone between meals.

  Hedia heard a quick clicking from the branches above her. She didn't know what was making it. It wasn't threatening, just peevish; which was unfortunately how Hedia herself felt. She was bruised, scratched and hungry, and she certainly couldn't threaten anybody.

  The canopy had been as dark as a vault when she raced into the forest, though at the time the sun had still been above the horizon. The edge was a tangle of brambles, saplings and vines. Hedia wriggled through and staggered on, bleeding on her thighs, the insides of her arms--she threw them up to cover her eyes--and most painfully her bare breasts.

  Why didn't I leave my bandeau on? But that hadn't really been a choice: Saxa loved her breasts, and she had no intention of shorting him of anything that he really desired. He's just a big baby, the poor dear.

  She grinned to realize that she in her present condition was feeling sorry for her husband. He generally seemed to be at sea, though, whereas Hedia always saw a course and followed it with no more hesitation than a rock has in falling when dropped.

  The forest within the sunlit edge had been relatively open, but "relatively" was damning with faint praise. Trees as large as those still standing lay scattered on the ground, though they had fallen long enough ago that Hedia had not been able to find gaps in the canopy when she looked up. The downed giants were covered with mushrooms and even saplings, but their wood remained firm.

  The trunks channelled her course, though she wasn't going anywhere in particular--just away--so she didn't suppose it mattered. It still made her uncomfortable.

  She had kept going as long as she could; she couldn't ignore the pain, but she struggled on despite it. The cuts on her limbs and body were unpleasant, but the real problem was the soles of her feet. Thorns, broken twigs, and stones buried in the leaf litter had gouged them several times, but she had no choice except to go on.

  They would have to grab me when I was stark naked! Hedia thought, then giggled. The garments she ordinarily wore even when she was going out--thin shifts and delicate silk slippers--wouldn't have been much more useful. If I'd had a little warning, I could have borrowed a pair of heavy boots from Alphena.

  There hadn't been any sign of pursuit, but Hedia wasn't sure she would have noticed. Occasionally she looked over her shoulder, but sweat a
nd the stinging tips of her hair--since her coiffure was down--would have made it difficult for her to see on a promenade ground. This jumble of vines, saplings, and fallen branches could have concealed an army, let alone three glass figures who had been perfectly silent during the time Hedia had been aware of them.

  She had finally collapsed beside a fallen tree which was thicker than she was tall. Fine loam, sticky and damp, filled the angle between the trunk and the ground. Hedia didn't know whether it had blown there and been trapped or if it was the product of the tree itself, rotted bark and the excrement of wood-boring beetles.

  Regardless, it was soft and cool. It had pillowed her head and had even, to her amazement, allowed her to fall asleep. It had been a busy day, and the stress of capture by demons and escape had drained her utterly.

  Hedia got to her feet, pressing her hand against the tree bole more for mental than physical support. Something crawled over her toes. She froze where she stood. That was probably the right decision, because whatever it was--mouse? snake? insect?--vanished into the night, having left no more than a slight tickle on her skin.

  Hedia stumbled on. The alternative was to huddle where she was. She wasn't going to do that. Many men--she smiled--could testify to the fact that she was not of a passive temperament.

  The sun must have risen, because she was beginning to be able to make out shapes though not yet colors. She itched all over, and whenever a drop of sweat oozed into a scratch, it stung like a hot wire.

  Birds called to one another in the canopy. They didn't for the most part sound very musical, and the cries of one in particular sounded like sheets of bronze rubbing.

  Of course they might not be birds. Hedia was beginning to regret that she knew so little about plants and animals. She'd never really liked the outdoors, even in circumstances as controlled as the garden of a close friend. Afterward she generally found nicks and bruises that she had ignored in the throes of passion.

  She saw a human figure and stopped where she stood. It was little more than an arm's length ahead of her, but because it was completely motionless she had almost walked into it before she noticed its presence: a bearded man, looking back over his shoulder in terror. It was stone, but it wasn't a statue.

  Ahead of the male figure were a woman and a child. They had fallen over: their limbs stuck up from the ferns and leaf litter. None of them wore clothing, but the man had a bandolier woven from withies which had survived weathering better than cloth had.

  Hedia turned in sudden reflex. She glimpsed a face watching her through a screen of the spindly saplings which grew until, light-starved, they died. The face vanished so quickly that she might have thought she imagined it, save for the blue pentacle tattooed on the forehead.

  She was being watched--followed--by the man-faced ape which she'd seen clambering through the ruins just before she dived away from her captors.

  Hedia began to run, which was pointless; and looked for a branch that she could use for a club, which was even more foolish. Any branch she could break off would be useless against the muscles beneath the ape's russet fur.

  She didn't hear the creature following. Well, she hadn't heard it before, either, but it obviously had followed her from the ruins. If it wanted to harm me, it could have done anything it pleased while I was asleep. Or now, for that matter.

  She had been aware of the slow thumping in the sky for some while, but as the sound became louder, she realized that it wasn't a bird's call. Understanding struck her; she stopped dead, wishing that she were closer to the petrified family so that she might be confused with them.

  She craned her neck upward. Can they see through the trees? What they're doing is a waste of time if they can't, though... even if they can see me, that doesn't mean they can land in this forest.

  The beating sails passed overhead. The thumping faded, then swelled again as a second vessel followed, slightly farther out than the first. Hedia couldn't see anything, not even a deeper shadow on the canopy.

  She heard people on the ships speaking. Though she was sure the voices were human, she couldn't make out the words clearly enough to know whether the language was familiar to her.

  Hedia set her hands on the trunk of a great tree and leaned against it; she closed her eyes. The men in the flying ships were hunting her: it can't have been a coincidence that they flew directly overhead. The glass men who captured her might be following her track; at any rate, she didn't dare go back the way she had come for fear that she would find them waiting.

  And then there was the ape; she didn't know what its plans were, but she was certainly part of them. What his plans were: the creature's human face was masculine. Rather ruggedly handsome, as a matter of fact.

  There was no point at all in her going on but she did regardless, pushing her way through more of these accursed saplings. Several were dead; their dried twigs scratched her no matter how careful she tried to be. She came to another fallen tree; she couldn't see over the trunk. I'll turn left when I get past it so that I'm going the way I was before. Otherwise I'll be walking in circles, which--

  An eight-foot long lizard hopped to the top of the great tree bole; it cocked its head to stare down at her. Half the lizard's length was tail, so it probably didn't weigh much more than a large hunting dog.

  Hedia stopped in mid step. The creature stood on two legs; its thighs were disproportionately muscular, like those of the fighting cocks bred by the manager of Saxa's farm in the Sabine Hills.

  Balancing as delicately as a sparrow on its right foot, the lizard raised its left leg and cocked it back. It hissed at Hedia. The middle of the three toes was armed with a hooked claw the size and shape of a sickle.

  Something thrummed by close overhead. The lizard launched itself toward her, but a serpent--

  A rope! A bark rope weighted with fist-sized pieces of crystal on either end!

  --wrapped around the creature. Hedia ducked and the lizard crashed past, twisting its long neck to snap at her as it went by. It pulled a lock of hair, but she was already stumbling forward.

  Over Hedia's shoulder, the lizard and the great red-haired ape were rolling in combat. The reptile shrieked like steam shrilling from a covered pot, but the ape was as silent as death itself.

  Hedia ducked to shove her way through a shrub whose stems arched from a common center and touched the ground again with their tops. A day ago she couldn't have imagined plunging into such a mass; now it was only an obstacle to be surmounted as she fled.

  She burst out into a broad glade covered with flowers and rank grass that grew no higher than her knees. Two of the flying ships lay before her, canted on their sides when at rest. Several score of men carrying ropes and hand nets were starting toward the forest under the command of one of the figures in blazing armor. This time the armored man had taken off his helmet, so that Hedia could see that he had a tattoo on his forehead like that of the ape.

  Hedia turned to dodge back but stumbled to her knees from exhaustion. Three nets curled over her and tightened. The hunters would have caught her regardless before she pushed herself back into the brush.

  ***

  "Who are you here to see?" Alphena demanded. She was tired and was feeling the strain besides, but she doubted she would have been able to sleep even if she hadn't needed to remain in the back garden with Anna.

  The doorman and a carpenter's assistant held a wretched man who was clad in an uncertain number of layers. If they had been clean, he would have looked parti-colored; as it was, they were the uniform shade of filth.

  He mumbled something. Alphena couldn't make out the words. "Speak up!" she said in frustration.

  "Da noble Alpheno Saxo," the fellow said. He had a strong Gallic accent.

  Alphena grimaced. She glanced over her shoulder toward Anna, but there was no need to bother the older woman with this one.

  To the servants she said, "Beat him and throw him back into the street."

  The carpenter pulled the maul from beneath his sash. A
lphena snapped, "Don't kill him! Well, try not to kill him."

  The beggar squalled as Alphena slouched back onto the garden bench. He was the third one who had tried to slip into Saxa's house with the steady trickle of delivery people, some of whom looked just as disreputable as he did.

  Anna was busy with a growing array of paraphernalia. She had brought three small wooden chests from Corylus' apartment--members of Alphena's escort had carried them behind the litter--but she had sent a score of messengers out in the hours since they arrived here, to order more materials. Supplies, mostly in baskets or jars, arrived in response--sometimes with the messenger, but more often brought by unfamiliar men or women.

  Some of the beggars living in the cul-de-sac had thought that gave them an opportunity. They had been wrong.

  Alphena grinned at the recollection. At least the intruders had provided occupation for the considerable company of servants in the alley--footmen, messengers, watchmen. The deputy steward Callistus acted as paymaster, but he was under the observation of two clerks from the Accounts Division.

  Alphena had directed a pair of servants to carry a bench just inside the open back gate. Though wicker, it would have been an awkward load for one person. Alphena had decided not to move it herself, especially while wearing the long sword. The servants could have lifted marble furniture as easily: it just would have required more of them.

  There were scores lounging around nervously, after all. Nobody in the household seemed to have slept since Hedia was abducted.

  Alphena stayed by the gate not so much because Anna needed help--she didn't--but so that anybody who arrived got a hearing instead of a blow. Several of the people bringing the old woman's orders would have been lucky to escape with their lives if they came to Saxa's door under normal circumstances.