by David Drake
The panes of the casement were diamonds the size of Sharina’s palm, set in lead. The glass had been blown and rolled out flat before being cut. It was as clear as expert craftsmen could make it, so in daylight she could’ve looked out with only slight distortion on the boxwood hedge separating this bungalow from the nearest building.
At night and doubled, the casements were at best translucent. When Sharina glanced down, she saw her blurred reflection. Except—
She stepped back and stared at the image. The images. She could see herself, but there was someone else with her.
Sharina glanced over her shoulder, raising the comb to strike. She was alone in the room. She peered again at the reflection, wondering if she saw herself in both casements simultaneously. But though she moved, the hazy other seemed to remain steady. She squinted, trying to make out the face of the second figure—
And she was hanging in space. She shouted, dropping the comb as she tried to fling herself back.
Her shoulders hit a wall that wasn’t in her bedroom. She was in an apartment with high, peacock-patterned walls and swags of gold cloth. Smiling at her was an androgynous-looking man in a long crimson robe; behind him were two man-seeming creatures of featureless, silvery metal.
“Greetings, darling Sharina,” the man said in a voice as smoothly pleasant as his face. “I’ve brought you here to save you.”
Chapter
5
FINE,” SAID SHARINA, twisting for a quick glance behind her. She was in a rotunda and had backed into one of the eight fluted gold pillars supporting a dome of crystal and gold above her. From the smooth coolness to the touch of her hand, the pillar might’ve been real gold. “Then take me back. I don’t need to be saved, by you or by anyone else.”
“Please, Sharina,” the stranger said, spreading his hands palm-upward at waist level. “You’re free to go back any time you wish, but I hope you’ll first listen to what I have to say.”
Sharina considered. She didn’t have even the comb for a weapon because she’d dropped it when she began toppling here. She often wore the Pewle knife as a talisman under her outer robe, but a meeting with the commissioner of sewers was tiresome rather than being stressful. She’d have taken off the knife and its heavy sealskin belt as soon as she entered the safety of her bungalow anyway.
“Quickly, then,” Sharina said, darting glances to either side without seeing anything that seemed to offer a better solution than taking the fellow at his word.
“Of course,” the man said. “And I do apologize for my presumption, but I had no choice. I’m Prince Vorsan, by the way.”
“Quickly, I said!” Sharina repeated. The shrillness of her voice warned her that she was nearing the limits of her control. Vorsan was her height and a bit heavier, but he didn’t look muscular. She wasn’t sure she could throttle him with her bare hands, but she’d try if she had to.
“I built this asylum because I saw that my world was going to be destroyed,” he said, gesturing with his left hand. “Your world in turn is about to be destroyed, so I’m offering you safety and immortality. I’ve never granted this to anyone else in all the ages in which I’ve lived here, dear Sharina. Won’t you sit down while I explain?”
The outer wall of the rotunda was four double paces beyond the ring of pillars. There were eight doors in the gorgeously painted wall and two impossibly perfect mirrors. Beneath each mirror was a low couch, seemingly upholstered with peacocks’ tail feathers to match the walls. The floor was a translucent blue-green. It shone and shifted, suggesting onyx chips or possibly real ocean beneath a smooth, invisible barrier.
“I don’t care to sit,” Sharina said. She spoke harshly because otherwise her voice might’ve trembled. It was as much fatigue as fear working on her; in fact, she wondered if this might all be a dream or a hallucination. “Send me back to where I belong, if you will!”
“Please, a moment only, Sharina,” Vorsan said, frowning in frustration. “The Last will wash over your world as the seas did mine. There’s no way to stop them. Your only hope is to save yourself, and I offer you that safety. You will have food, wine, books.”
At each word, he pointed to a different door. The valves had the same golden sheen as the pillars and were molded in high relief. The figures on them were delicate and so perfect they seemed to move.
“And we’ll have all eternity to enjoy them,” Vorsan continued. “There’s no age or sickness or infirmity in this sanctuary which my genius has created.”
He smiled. “Try a glass of wine, why don’t you?” he said. “I have a thousand vintages, all bottled at the perfect moment.”
A faceless silver statue stepped solemnly toward Sharina. On a salver that appeared to grow from its hand rested a squat bottle of green-glazed earthenware.
“No!” Sharina said, reaching behind her for the Pewle knife which of course she wasn’t carrying. With careful calm she continued, “Prince Vorsan, you’ve convinced me that you’re a great wizard, but I don’t want your wine or food. I want to go home.”
On the salver which the other metal figure—they weren’t statues, clearly—was holding were a round loaf and a slab of cheese the color of old ivory. That figure hadn’t moved, and Sharina’d be just as happy if it didn’t.
“As you wish, Sharina,” Vorsan said. He didn’t give a noticeable signal, but the figure with the wine stepped back and froze again into metallic stasis. “Please don’t call me a wizard, though; wizardry is mummery or madness. I am a philosopher of natural science, achieving my triumphs by knowledge and application rather than whimsical thrusts with powers I don’t understand and can’t really control.”
“Oh,” said Sharina, startled and not fully able to comprehend what she’d just heard. Her opinion of most wizards—all wizards except Tenoctris—was in complete agreement with Vorsan’s, but she didn’t see the difference between wizardry and making statues walk.
After clearing her throat and still not coming up with a useful way to continue that discussion, she said, “Well, I thank you for your concern, Your Highness, but as you noticed, my kingdom—my world, if you prefer—is being threatened by invaders. I have duties, especially in such a crisis, and I need to get back to them.”
“Sharina, there’s nothing to be done,” Vorsan said forcefully. “Will you watch my projections of the end of your world? I’ve calculated all the factors, just as I did with the Flood. Others tried to stem the waters, but I knew the only hope was to create a cyst in the fabric of the cosmos. I can show you!”
“I’m not interested in seeing your fancies!” Sharina said. “I have duties and I have friends, and I’m away from both of them so long as I’m here! I want to go home, Prince Vorsan.”
“Sharina, please try to understand,” Vorsan said, opening his hands toward her. “My studies have generally been enough for me, but I’ve occasionally sought other companions. Never, though, never have I offered what I’m offering you. I want you to be my eternal consort, immortal and immaculately safe.”
His crimson robes moved easily as though they were tissue thin, but bronze plates couldn’t have concealed his body more completely. She wondered if he was heavier than she’d thought at first.
“Prince Vorsan, I’m asking for the last time,” Sharina said, stepping toward her host. The stoneware wine bottle would make a satisfactory weapon, though striking Vorsan down wouldn’t in itself get her home. And would the living statues take a hand if she attacked their master?
“Wait!” Vorsan said, holding his left palm up in bar. “Go back, then; I’ve never wished to keep you against your will.”
“How—”
“Stand where you were when you came,” he said sharply. The anger furrowing Vorsan’s high forehead was the first emotion to break through the mask of waxen good humor he’d been wearing. “Yes, that’s right.”
She glanced behind her to make sure all was as she remembered it being, then stepped almost against the pillar.
“Now look into the mirro
r.”
“Which—” Sharina said.
“Either mirror!” said Vorsan. “It doesn’t matter. Just concentrate. As you did when I brought you here.”
The mirror on the far wall of the rotunda was so clear that Sharina had half-believed it was really an opening. She saw herself against the gleaming pillar, her face composed and regal. What am I supposed to concentrate on? she thought, glaring at her own fierce eyes—
And she was back in her bedroom, its moon-cast shadows muted after the bright rotunda. The silver comb she’d dropped when she fell toward Vorsan rang on the floor like a bell.
THE CROWD INSIDE the gate must be half the palace clerks and servants besides all the high officials, and judging from the noise coming over the high brick walls there were more people than that in the street outside. Cashel felt a trifle itchy, though the line of Blood Eagles between the spectators and Garric’s immediate friends meant he didn’t have to use his weight and quarterstaff to keep folks from squeezing against Sharina. It felt like he might have to, though.
He had on a pair of tunics which his sister’d woven. They were simpler than the clothes that just about everybody else present wore to see Garric off, but Ilna’s work always impressed the people who saw it.
Sometimes Cashel wondered what he’d do when he ran out of her tunics, but the other thing about Ilna’s cloth was that it wore like iron. He’d make do. Mainly he hoped that Ilna was all right. She’d had a hard time, what with Chalcus being killed and just the problem of being Ilna. There wasn’t much anybody could do about either one.
“Garric didn’t want anything like this,” said Sharina. She sounded worn and looked worn too, though the first thing anybody thought when they saw Sharina was that she was beautiful. “Word must’ve gotten out, and people are so afraid of the prince leaving now when everything’s happening.”
Sharina hugged Cashel’s arm and gave him a wan smile. “And they’re right,” she added. “I dread to think what’ll happen to the kingdom if he doesn’t come back.”
She’d still been awake when Cashel returned with Tenoctris from the Temple of the Mighty Shepherd. That wasn’t uncommon—they liked to wait up for each other when they’d had to spend the day apart—but Cashel didn’t think Sharina slept during the rest of the night either.
He didn’t know what was wrong since she hadn’t told him. He hadn’t asked, of course. Sharina’d let him know when she was ready to. He was sorry to see her looking so tired, though.
“I guess Garric’ll come back fine from this trip to see the Yellow King,” Cashel said. “He’s done harder things. And you’ll run things till he comes back just the same as you’ve done before, with Liane helping and all the other people. There won’t be any difference this time.”
What he was saying was the simple truth. Somebody as smart as Sharina ought to be able to see it: everybody else, Garric especially, did. But Cashel’d learned that Sharina needed him to say that sort of thing, which was easy enough to do.
They’d kept back from the crush right around Garric, but now a servant came out of the circle of high officials, nodded politely to Cashel, and said to Sharina, “Your Highness, Lady Liane would appreciate you joining her and the prince, if you would.”
“Right,” said Cashel, smiling. Making a passage for Sharina through folks who were too excited to be polite was something he could do better than most.
Though the servant leading back into the mass of gorgeous tunics and gleaming breastplates didn’t do a bad job either. Liane employed two sorts of people for her work as spy master: bookish ones and tough ones. This fellow was as courteous as could be and wore a tunic appliquéd in the latest fashion with a scarlet phoenix, but he wasn’t a scholar.
Lord Waldron and two other soldiers were talking to Garric—or talking at him, anyway, because he seemed to be paying more attention to Liane and the small man in leather breeches holding a sabretache—sort of a saddlebag but for him, not the horse—in both hands. Cashel would’ve expected Attaper to be there too, just because his rival Waldron was if he didn’t have a better reason. He was nowhere to be seen, though.
Cashel grinned. He wasn’t sure Attaper or Waldron either one thought there was a better reason to do something than because the other of them was doing it. Anybody who’d watched two rams in the same meadow knew what was going on, but Cashel didn’t have to look any farther than his own heart to understand it.
Garric had people around him on one side and on the other the horse he’d be riding: a rangy brown gelding. It looked strong, which Cashel supposed was the main thing. He wasn’t wearing armor for the journey, just the new sword and a wicker shield, but he was a big man regardless and there was a packed bag hanging on either side from the crupper.
The horse made a nasty wheezing sound when it saw Cashel. That probably didn’t mean anything, but Cashel didn’t like horses in general and there wasn’t anything about this one to change his opinion of the breed.
Sure, they moved faster than oxen so you could plow a longer furrow in a day; but they were skittish, you had to feed them grain, and they were apt to take sick for no better reason than the wind changed. Cashel’d take an ox to a horse any day.
He realized his face’d gotten hard; that made him smile all by itself. Imagine letting something as puny as a horse make you angry! And it wasn’t as though anybody was asking him to ride.
Garric saw Sharina and Cashel coming toward him. “Excuse me, milords,” he said, and pushed between Lord Waldron and a younger fellow also dressed in cavalry boots and a short cape.
Putting his arms around his sister, Garric looked over his shoulder and said, “Lord Waldron, would you and your men please give me a moment with the princess and Master Cashel before I take up my new duties as ambassador to the Yellow King?”
He grinned. In that expression Cashel saw the happy young fellow he’d been friends with all his life.
Lord Waldron backed up because he had to and bumped somebody, which also he didn’t have much choice over with things being so tight. He clapped his hand to his sword hilt and shouted, “By the Lady, sir!”
The other fellow was a civilian who Cashel thought had something to do with the roads. “Move aside and give His Highness some room!” Waldron said. “Move or I’ll make the room myself!”
The aegipan, Shin, came around from the other side of the horse. Because he was so short, the people crowding didn’t pay much attention till his hairy shoulders brushed their bare forearms; then they jerked back, some of them mouthing curses. The little fellow cleared space about as well as Waldron did, and he did it without shouting.
Shin saw Cashel watching and lolled his tongue out. “So, Master Cashel,” he said. “Do I remind you of your former charges, then?”
“Sir,” said Cashel, “I tended sheep, not goats. There’s folks who think they’re the same, but they never tended either. And anyway, you’re not a goat.”
Nor was he. Besides not really looking like one, the aegipan didn’t smell any more like a goat than he did a man. Cashel’s nose wrinkled as he considered. What his smell most resembled was a chicken, which wasn’t anything he’d have guessed before getting this close to Shin.
“Sharina,” said Liane, touching the courier’s pouch. “You’ve been busy too, and I haven’t kept you informed as I should’ve done. The Last have appeared at seven other places that we know about, all cities. At Lady Tenoctris’ suggestion, Prince Garric has sent urgent warnings to all the cities of the kingdom—”
“I’ve signed my name to warnings that my able secretary composed,” Garric said, putting his hand on Liane’s shoulder. She reached up and pressed it firmly.
Liane’d been crying, though she seemed composed now. The powder and rouge on her cheeks—usually she didn’t wear makeup—couldn’t hide the puffiness around her eyes.
“I simply transcribe what His Highness requests,” she said firmly, looking at Sharina. “In any case, we’ve sent warnings that these appearances have to
be crushed immediately and the reflecting pools which the Last are using must be blocked off from the sky. From the star—”
She nodded toward the south. The new white star wasn’t bright enough to see in daylight, but everybody knew what she meant.
“—that is. In some cases our messengers have crossed with reports from the localities which’ve been attacked, as with these dispatches from Erdin.”
The courier thrust forward the sabretache, but Liane gestured it away with a flash of irritation. That wasn’t any more usual for her than the makeup was.
“Thus far, there’ve been no reports of attacks in places which we haven’t warned, however. We can hope that will continue, but His Highness—”
She broke off and looked at Garric. The silliness of talking about Garric as “His Highness” while she stood there with his hand on her shoulder had choked her.
“Right,” said Garric easily. “Sharina, you’ll be handling this while I’m gone, but there may not be anything more to do. Still, I thought I’d tell you myself before I left.”
“Yes,” said Sharina in a funny sort of voice. “I suppose I’ll have to delegate my usual duties. I wonder what will happen about the Valles sewers?”
“I can loan you two trustworthy clerks,” Liane said, her head close to Sharina’s. “They can meet with petitioners and précis requests, though you’ll still have to make the decisions.”
“Yes, I’d appreciate that,” Sharina said in the same low murmur. She looked at Garric again and said in a normal voice, “We’ve warned the cities, you say; but what if the Last appear somewhere else? There’re ponds and pools everywhere, lots of them in places which nobody but a herdsman or a hunter would ever see.”
“We’re doing what Tenoctris told us to,” Garric said with a shrug. He looked worried, though.