The Fortress of Glass coti-1

by David Drake

  Tenoctris' smile had a hint of fatigue. She put her right hand on the floor to brace her as she rose, but Cashel instantly squatted and supported her. For the most part Cashel ambled along at the pace of the sheep he'd spent most of his life caring for, but he moved with amazing speed when he needed to.

  "This comes from the moon," Tenoctris said, dipping a finger toward the glass bead she'd left within the five-pointed star drawn in powdered charcoal. She wasn't using the figures Cervoran had inset in the floor any more than she was using an athame carved from a dragon scale. "It'd fallen into the sea, struck off the moon's surface by a meteor. Cervoran located it through his art and sent divers to bring it up for him."

  "What does it do, Tenoctris?" Sharina asked, looking at the vaguely greenish bead with greater interest. "Does it increase your powers?"

  "It doesn't do anything at all, dear," the old woman said, smiling faintly. "But it's from the moon."

  She gestured toward the shelves and bookcases which covered the workroom's outside wall. They were a hodge-podge of objects, codices, and (in pigeonholes) scrolls. None of the jumbled contents were labeled.

  "That's generally the case with Cervoran's collection," she explained. "Many of the objects I've examined are quite remarkable, but they're not reallygood for anything. They're not important."

  Sharina cleared her throat. "Tenoctris," she said, "King Cervoran wants to go out to where the meteor fell as we approached the island. Chalcus is ready to take him if I agree. Should I let him go?"

  Tenoctris stood motionless for a moment; then she dipped her head three times quickly like a nuthatch cracking a seed. 'Yes, I believe so," she said. "But I'd like to go along."

  "To see what Cervoran's searching for, Tenoctris?" Cashel said. "Or to watch Cervoran?"

  Tenoctris chuckled. "A little of both, I suppose," she said. "He's a greater puzzle than any of the objects in his collection. The divinatory spells I've attempted haven't helped me to understand him better."

  Sharina's right hand touched the Pewle knife. The cool horn scales settled the gooseflesh that was starting to spring up on her arms.

  "I wonder if he was always like he is now?" she said. "I don't see how he could've been. I think he changed during the time he was, well, the time heseemed dead."

  "I don't know, dear," Tenoctris said in a regretful tone. "The wizard who amassed this collection was of considerable power but no real focus. He was a scholar of a sort, one who preferred to use his art to learn things rather than to search them out in books as I've always done for choice. But he wasn't a man with interests beyond his studies, and he certainly didn't have an enemy who would send a creature like that plant to kill him.'

  She gave Sharina one of the quick, bright smiles that took twenty years off her apparent age. "And before you ask, no, I don't know who the Green Woman is either."

  "Maybe we'll learn today," said Cashel. He looked at Sharina.

  "I know you have to stay here and, well, be queen," he said. "But do you mind if I go with Tenoctris? I think there ought to be somebody with her that was, well, hers."

  "I think that's a good idea," Sharina said. She stepped quickly to Cashel and hugged him, careful to hold the knife out in her hand so that the sheath didn't prod him in the back. "We need Tenoctris. But Cashel?"

  "Ma'am?" Cashel said, his voice a calm rumble like the purr of a sleeping lion.

  "Be careful of yourself, too," Sharina said, still holding herself tight against his solid bulk. "Because I needyou, my love."

  ***

  Garric awakened in shocked awareness that something was wrong. Somebody shouted! he thought.

  Somebody screamed, but Garric was already worming his way out from under Marzan's house. The dog was gone and an angry yapping sounded from the direction of the village gate. That was where the scream'd come from, too.

  It was dark: cloud-wrapped, moonless, starlessdark. Even so the house had a presence in the darkness.

  Garric reached up the sidewall, groping. The fishnet hung where he remembered it. He jerked it down, pulling a wall peg out in his haste. The size of the house showed that Marzan was a great man for this village, but that didn't save him or his wife from having to catch their own fish. He wondered if they had to work in the raised fields as well, or if wizardry at least saved them from that back-breaking drudgery.

  Heartbeats after the scream, a dozen or morethings shrieked from around the whole eastern circumference of the village. They weren't human and they weren't in pain: they were beasts, hunting.

  "Coerli," the ghost of Carus said in Garric's mind. "They looked very quick."

  Neither he nor Garric had any doubt about what was going on, though thus far they'd only seen the cat men in silent topaz visions. This must be a larger band than the five who'd raided the field before, though.

  Garric stepped to the fence, moving by memory and instinct. He felt along the top rail to an upright and gripped it firmly. The railings were cane, but the support posts were wrist-thick and of a dense wood probably chosen to resist rot.

  Garric half-squatted, then straightened his knees and pulled the post up with a squelch of wet clay. The railings were bound on with cane splits. A quick shake right and left snapped them free.

  A sword'd be better, but even that probably wouldn't be good enough. The Coerli were inhumanly quick, impossibly quick; but you did what you could.

  Marzan's door opened and fanned out light, shocking in the previous darkness. Garric risked a glance over his shoulder. Soma stood in the doorway with a rushlight: a reed stripped to the pith, dried, and soaked with oil or wax. It lit quickly and wasn't as easy to blow out as a candle, though the flames didn't last long either. In her right hand was a knife made of horn or ivory.

  There were more screams in the night, all of them human. A pair of yellow-green eyes flared in the rushlight's circle, ten or a dozen feet from Garric. He spun the net out as though he were casting for minnows, keeping hold of the drag. He couldn't reach the Corl with it, but he saw the spinning meshes bell as the cat man's own hooked line tangled with them.

  Garric pulled his left arm backhard while swinging the sturdy post outward, a crushing blow directed at the empty air in front of him. He felt the weight as the slack came out and the net brought the Corl with it.

  The beast shrilled in startled fury. Like the cat men Garric had watched in the topaz, this one had wrapped the end of its casting line around its wrist for a more secure grip. Racing charioteers regularly did the same thing with their reins-and were regularly dragged to their deaths when they fell or their vehicle broke up beneath them.

  The cat creature was lithe and muscular, but its slight frame weighed less than a human female; Garric's furious strength could've overmastered an opponent twice as heavy. When this one realized it couldn't resist the pull, it twisted in the air and leveled its delicate spear at Garric's face. Garric's club brushed the light shaft out of the way and smashed the Corl's left arm and ribs.

  The cat man slammed to the ground, instantly curling face-up despite its injuries. Garric kicked at its face with his heel. He missed because the Corl ducked its head aside faster than a human could've thought.

  Garric spun the net widdershins. Despite its speed, the wounded creature couldn't completely avoid the spreading meshes. It yowled again and-Gods! it was fast-stabbed Garric in the thigh with its spear. His club stroke had broken the flint blade straight across, but this thrust was a strong one and tore into the muscle.

  Garric swung the club a second time. The Corl would've dodged but Garric scissored his arms, tugging the net toward him at the same time he brought the club down. The cat man's skull was large to give the strong jaw muscles leverage, but the bones were light and crunched beneath the powerful blow. The creature's saw-edged scream died in the middle of a rising note.

  There were glowing eyes to right, left and center. Garric flattened and heard the spitefulbwee! of a thorn-barbed line arcing through the air above him.

  He s
tarted to roll. A Corl landed on his back and looped his neck with a garrote.

  Garric's throat was a ball of white fire. He gripped the Corl's calf with his left hand, then swung the creature like a flail into the ground beside him. It bounced with a moan of pain, losing both ends of the garrote.

  Garric stabbed with his pole, using it as a blunt dagger instead of a club. Ribs cracked under the Corl's brindled fur.

  Garric's arm went numb; he saw the post drop from his hand though he couldn't feel his fingers release. The Corl standing above him raised its stone axe for a second blow like the one that'd already stunned his right shoulder.

  Garric kicked sideways. The Corl leaped over the swift attack with no more difficulty than Garric would've made in hopping from rock to rock in crossing a stream. Garric had saved his skull for a few moments, but perhaps only that.

  Soma threw her rushlight at the Corl in a blazing whirl. The cat man wailed, its eyelids blinking closed and its arms crossing in front of its face. The pithy stalk bounced away in a shower of sparks.

  Garric lunged upward, still seated but his torso straight and his left hand spearing out to grab the Corl by the throat. It struck clumsily with the axe, but he jerked its face down onto the anvil of his skull. A fang gouged Garric's forehead painfully, but the Corl's nose flattened with a crackling of tiny bones.

  Garric tried to lift his right hand to twist its neck like a chicken's; the muscles of his bruised arm didn't respond. He shook the Corl one-handed, showering blood from its ruined face for the instant before the world flashed in negative: charcoal shadows on a sepia background becoming white on pearl.

  I've been hit on the head…

  Garric turned and rose like a whale broaching from the depths. His world was silent and without feeling but he could move, did move. A Corl half again the size of the others faced him with a ball-headed baton lifting for another blow. This creature had a lion's mane and prominent male genitalia. Behind him Soma was being born down by another cat man.

  Garric lurched toward the big Corl, stumbling from weakness. The club's shaft rather than the knobbed end cracked him across the head.

  Light flashed. Garric saw the mud rushing up, but he didn't feel the smack of it against his face.

  Then there was nothing at all.

  ***

  Cashel stood on shore beside Tenoctris and Ilna, waiting for word to board. Chalcus walked down the line of oarsmen, chatting in friendly fashion but looking each man over as carefully as Cashel would the sheep walking out of the byre past him in the morning.

  "Is he worried about the men?" Tenoctris said. "They're his regular crew, aren't they?"

  Ilna looked at the older woman but didn't speak. Cashel nodded in understanding. His sister wasn't one to repeat things that she and Chalcus talked about in private, not even to a friend like Tenoctris.

  Cashel had only what he'd seen and what he knew from experience. Tenoctris was very smart, but she'd lived in a different world from that of men whose work took them into places they might not come back from. Cashel understood that sort of thing better.

  "I don't guess he's worried about the men, rightly," he said. "But they've been on shore and living pretty hard, I guess. If anybody's so hung over he'll be dragging on his oar, or he's got his head cracked in a tavern, Chalcus'll leave him ashore this time."

  He cleared his throat. "It's not the men, he's worried about," he added. "It's where we're going."

  "Ah," said Tenoctris. "Yes, I see that. I regret to say that I share his concern."

  They all three looked where the sailors were determinedlynot looking, at King Cervoran standing alone with a case of age-blackened oak on the sand beside him. Cervoran's complexion was so waxen that Cashel had a vision of him melting in the bright sunlight.

  "He's bringing objects from the collection in his workroom," Tenoctris said quietly. "Nothing of real power or significance, except for the diadem. Thereisn't anything else really significant in the palace."

  "He brought the big topaz?" Ilna said as her fingers knotted and picked out patterns. She glanced out through the mouth of the harbor to where a plume of vapor rose on the horizon.

  "Yes," Tenoctris said. "He said it was necessary… the way he does, you know."

  She shrugged and added with a faint smile, "I'm not sure what the stone is. It's important, but I can't find the key to how to use it. I've been reading the documents in Cervoran's library. I've learned many interesting things, but thus far nothing about the topaz."

  "All right, buckos!" Chalcus called in a cheerful voice. "Let our fine passengers board and we'll take them to visit a hole in the deep sea."

  He turned and flourished his right arm toward Cervoran and beyond. "Master Cervoran, Milady Tenoctris, and my dear friends," he said. "If you'll cross the gangplank and stand steady, we'll be shortly under way."

  Cervoran was stumping forward at the first words. Cashel was ready to help him across the narrow boarding bridge that ran from shore to the bireme's central catwalk, but he shuffled along without hesitation.

  That didn't mean he wouldn't fall off, of course. TheHeron was pulled up on the beach, and the catwalk was a full man's height above the sand.

  "A man could break his neck if he fell from that," Cashel murmured.

  "Yes," said Tenoctris. "And perhaps Cervoran could also, though I'm by no means sure that's true."

  She paused and added, "I may be being unjust."

  "We can go aboard now, I guess," Cashel said quietly.

  Ilna looked at Tenoctris. "Do you think I shouldn't have saved him?" she asked with a touch of challenge.

  "I'm not sure Cervoran is an enemy," Tenoctris said. "He's certainly not our only enemy at present. You did what was right at the time."

  Ilna gave a little dip of her chin in acknowledgement. "I'm sure some of the people I hurt when I was doing evil's will were evil themselves," she said. "I suppose it's only fair that I save a few of them now to make up for it."

  She was joking but completely straight-faced. Well, maybe she was joking.

  Cervora'd reached the deck and gone forward. It was intended for the steersman, the ship's officers, and seamen handing the sails when they were set.

  Chalcus had told Cashel that although theHeron didn't carry marines, the oarsmen had swords or spears and wicker shields under their benches. TheHeron had a ram, but if they found themselves locked to an enemy vessel the crew'd leap over the other's gunnels with wild cries and their weapons out.

  Chalcus said that was how the pirates fought; and from the scars Cashel saw on the fellow's body, he should know. Cashel smiled: Chalcus was good for Ilna, and that was all that mattered now.

  Ilna led the way up the gangplank. Tenoctris followed, one hand gripping Ilna's sash. The older woman wasn't prickly about doing everything for herself; she knew she could lose her balance. Cashel was last in line, the satchel and quarterstaff in his left hand so that his right could grab Tenoctris if she slipped.

  The plank wasn't much, but even so it was for the landsmen only: Chalcus and his sailors would swarm aboard like so many monkeys. Cashel would just as soon of done that himself-he wasn't a sailor, but with his strength and the quarterstaff to brace him he could climb a sheer wall twice his own height-but he'd come for Tenoctris' sake, and that meant staying close to her.

  When the passengers were on the central catwalk, Chalcus shouted an order. A double handful of men scrambled onto the outriggers and thrust their oar looms down to brace the narrow hull. The steersman loosed the hawsers tying the sternpost to the mast and yard, rammed into the sand as bollards while the ship was out of the water. Chalcus was leaving the sailing paraphernalia on shore since theHeron was going no farther than they could see on the horizon.

  When the men aboard were set, Chalcus called, "Pay me or go to jail!" in a sing-song voice. "Pay me my money down!" The crew on shore surged forward, lifting and shoving theHeron into the harbor.

  "Pay me master sailorman!" Chalcus sang and the men r
an the ship the rest of the way out. "Pay me my money down!"

  TheHeron bobbed briskly, light without the weight of her crew to steady her. The oarsmen swung themselves over the outriggers from both sides, balancing the hull and sliding quickly onto their assigned benches to unship their oars.

  Cashel put an arm on Tenoctris' shoulder. It seemed to him the old woman was gripping the rail harder than the pitching really required.

  "All the sailing I did in the age in which I was born…," Tenoctris said. She was standing between Ilna and Cashel on the narrow deck, so she turned to touch both of them with her wry smile. "Was on merchantmen, and generally old tubby ones besides. I sometimes thought how much nicer it would be on a sleek, swift warship."

  She didn't put the rest of the thought into words, but she didn't have to. Cashel and his sister grinned back.

  The flute player in the stern with Chalcus played a pretty farandole as the rowers fitted their oars into the rowlocks. Then at a quickening two-step from the flutist, they began to stroke in unison. TheHeron slid forward, steadying as she moved. The wobbliness of the raised catwalk became a slick, slow yawing as the hull moved into and through the swells.

  Tenoctris relaxed slightly. Cashel took his hand off her shoulder, but he stayed ready to grab her any time.

  TheHeron passed between the jaws of the harbor and into open sea. The surface was a bit choppier, but the rowers had the beat and the short hull didn't pitch. Chalcus walked forward, whistling a snatch of the chantey he'd sung to launch the ship.

  "Milady Tenoctris," he said with a bow that was affectionate rather than mocking. "I have them on an easy stroke, one the boys could keep up all day needs must-which they won't, given how close the thing is."

  He nodded toward the plume of vapor off the bow. A light breeze bent the column eastward to thin and vanish, but already Cashel could tell it was rising from a single patch of surface.