by David Drake
A gleaming, turreted crystal mountain rose from the surface, throwing shattered sunlight back in as many shards as the stars of a winter night. The sea heaved, exposing or distorting three legs that shimmered into the depths.
The deepest trench in the Inner Sea, Chalcus had said. And this thing came out of it.
"The Fortress of Glass," Tenoctris said wonderingly. Ilna remembered the words from Cervoran's mouth as he rose from his trance in the depths of the topaz. "There's nothing in any of my records, but here it is."
Ilna put an arm around the older woman's waist and gripped the railing with her other hand; Cashel knelt and grasped a handful of Cervoran's collar. The spreading wave lifted the ship and flung it forward, but neither wizard went overboard.
There was confusion on the benches but at least half the crew kept their oar looms and at least a semblance of the rhythm. Blades cracked together, but not badly; the men who'd been thrown down returned to their seats and their duty. They were trained men, picked men; men fit for a leader like Chalcus.
TheHeron drove back toward harbor. Chalcus gestured to Panshin; the flute-player increased his tempo. They were drawing away from the fortress, but it was high enough to be seen even from the island's shore.
Things slipped from the crystal battlements and splashed into the sea. Flotsam, Ilna thought. Scraps of seaweed and muck from the abyss, lifted when the fortress rose.
Instead of bobbing at the base of the crystal walls, the blobs moved outward. They were hellplants like the one that had attacked the palace, and they were swimming in theHeron 's wake.
"Captain Chalcus!" Cashel called. He'd gotten to his feet again and was looking over the bow. "Look ahead of us, sir!"
Ilna bent outward to look also. Ahead of the ship, rising from the depths like foul green bubbles swelling from a swamp, were more hellplants. They moved toward theHeron on strokes of their powerful tentacles.
Chapter 6
Chalcus snatched a boat pike from one of the stern racks; the shaft was half again his height. Using it for a balance pole, he jumped to the rail. Looking out, he called, "Hard aport!" sharply. The steersman leaned into the tiller of the port steering oar.
TheHeron heeled toward the oar, making the blade cut deeper into the water and tightening the turn. Chalcus shifted his footing slightly, leaning further for a better view past the hull; the pike in his hands moved inboard to balance him.
The show was as good as any troupe of the acrobats who'd entertained at palace dinners, but here it was in dead earnest. The rail was the only place where Chalcus could both conn them through the gauntlet of swimming monsters and be sure the steersman could hear his orders instantly in the likely tumult of the next minutes.
"The plants ahead of us must've been going to attack the palace," Tenoctris said, pursing her lips. She spoke loudly enough for to be heard, but it seemed to Ilna that she was organizing her own thoughts rather than informing her friends. "The person, the thing in the fortress must really control them to send them against us instead."
"The Green Woman," Ilna said, though the name was only a sound without meaning. Did even Cervoran know what she was?
"Tenoctris, can you do something?" Cashel said. "To fight the plants, I mean."
He gave the staff a trial spin overhead where he wasn't going to hit anybody, then lowered it. They'd all seen the plant attacking the palace. A quarterstaff wouldn't be much good against more creatures of the sort.
Ilna's fingers had been busy with the cords while her mind was on other things, hopeless things. When she looked at what she'd knotted, her lips pursed with surprise. She knew her patterns were useless as weapons against the hellplants, but this was no weapon.
"I'll try," Tenoctris said. She grasped the railing with one hand and lowered herself to the catwalk. "I don't have a great deal of power, though."
Cervoran was extremely powerful. He hadn't been able to destroy the fortress in the depths, but saving theHeron from the creatures attacking was surely a smaller thing.
"Cashel, let me by," Ilna said. "To get to Cervoran."
Cashel stepped aside with the powerful delicacy of an ox lowering itself onto the straw. He didn't ask what she planned to do; he knew she'd tell him whatever she thought he needed to know.
Ilna smiled, though the expression barely reached her lips. Her brother had more common sense than most of the people who thought they were smarter than he was. In fact, thinking Cashel was stupid proved you didn't have common sense.
There was a suckingthwock from forward; theHeron staggered. A swatch of vegetation spurted up from the ram's curve before falling back into the sea.
"Stroke, lads!" Chalcus shouted. "A cable's length and we're through the devils!"
Ilna squatted at Cervoran's head and spread her knotted pattern before his staring eyes. For a moment nothing happened; then a shudder trembled the length of the wizard's body. The design had penetrated to his stunned consciousness and wrenched him back to the present.
Cervoran closed, then opened his eyes again. His irises were muddy and stood in fields of pale gold. The swollen lips moved, but no sound came out.
"Stroke!" Chalcus shouted. As the word rang out, oars on the port side clattered together and the ship slewed toward them.
Ilna glanced to the side, continuing to hold the tracery of fabric in front of the wizard. TheHeron 's hull had cleared the nearest hellplant, but the creature grasped an oarblade as the ship drove past. The tentacle held, dragging the oar back into all those behind it in the bank.
"Overboard with it!" Chalcus bellowed, springing from the deck to the outrigger. "Shove it out, we don't need the bloody oar!"
Chalcus' dagger, curved like a cat's claw, flashed; he bent and cut through the twist of willow withie that bound the oar to the rowlock. The rower pushed his oar through the port, but the hellplant's tentacles had grabbed more blades. TheHeron wallowed: the starboard oars were driving at full stroke, but half those on the other side were tangled. The hellplant's bulk tugged at the ship like a sea anchor.
Cashel stood amidships. He'd picked up the pike Chalcus dropped when he jumped from the deck railing. Some of the shepherds in the borough carried a javelin instead of a staff or bow, but Ilna didn't recall having seen her brother with a spear of any sort in his hand before.
Cashel cocked the pike over his shoulder, then snapped it forward as though it was meant for throwing instead of having a shaft thick enough to be used to fend the ship's fragile hull away from a dock. The pike wasn't balanced: the rusted iron butt-cap wobbled in a wide circle.
The point and half the long shaft squelched into the hellplant, tearing a hole the size of a man's thigh. The barrel-shaped body quivered, but the plant continued to pull itself up the oarshafts toward the ship.
Half a dozen more oars slid through the ports as crewmen jettisoned anything the plant's tentacles had caught. TheHeron was under way again, limping but moving forward. The steersman had his starboard oar twisted broadside on, fighting the ship's urge to turn to port where the hellplant lashed the water in a furious attempt to renew its grip.
"Where is the jewel?" demanded a voice that drove into Ilna's mind like a jet of ice water. "I must have the topaz from the amber sarcophagus."
Ilna looked at Cervoran, whom she'd forgotten for a moment. He'd raised his swollen body onto one elbow. His eyes had returned to the febrile brightness that'd been normal for them at least since she brought him off the pyre.
"I'll get it," Ilna said. She put her knotted pattern in her left sleeve; it'd served its purpose by bringing the wizard out of his coma. Now the question was whether Cervoran would servehis purpose, and they'd know the answer to that before long.
Tenoctris had set down the crown when she started her own spell. Ilna leaned past the three-cornered figure her friend had drawn in charcoal on the pine decking. Grabbing the wire band she drew it to her, trying not to disturb Tenoctris.
The stone was awkwardly heavy; she couldn't imagine wearing such
a thing herself. Nobody was asking her to, of course. She gave the crown to Cervoran with a cold expression.
Oars rattled. TheHeron twisted, then shuddered to a stop. Two more hellplants had swum close enough to grab the leading oars on either side, binding the ship to them hopelessly. A third creature, the one that they'd struggled clear of moments before, swam up in theHeron 's wake and would catch the stern in a matter of seconds.
"All right, lads!" Chalcus cried. "Swords out and show these vegetables what it means to play with men!"
Cervoran rose to his feet. The great topaz winked on his forehead as if it was alive too. He picked up the silver-mounted skullcap that lay where he'd dropped it after the earlier spell froze the sea into yellow ice.
A sailor screamed. A flat green tentacle started to lift him from the ship. Chalcus scampered down the outrigger like a squirrel, slashing with his incurved sword. The slender blade slit the tentacle neatly, leaving only the leafy fringe remaining. The sailor twisted with desperate strength and tore that apart also, tumbling back aboard theHeron.
"Master Cashel!" Cervoran piped. "I have need of you!"
***
Cashel was frowning, not because of the situation but because there didn't seem to be anything for him to do. The quarterstaff was no use on plants, though it felt good in his hands. It reminded him of the days he sat with his back against a holly tree, watching the sheep on the slope below him and listening to Garric play a pipe tune. Cashel couldn't sing or make music himself, but he loved to hear it when others did.
Feeling good wasn't going to beat these plants nor would happy memories. The spear he'd thrown didn't seem to have done much good either. Besides, the plant that'd attacked the palace had looked like a pincushion from the soldiers' spears by the time he and Cervoran came up from the cellars, and it didn't even slow down till the fire got burning good.
Regretfully, Cashel laid his staff on the catwalk. The wicker mat hanging from the rail would keep it there unless the ship sank. Until the ship sank likely enough, but the crew'd fight till then and Cashelsure would be fighting.
A sword'd really be the best thing, but Cashel was hopeless with them. He hadn't seen any call to learn to use one despite not liking them the way he'd done with other things.
A broad-bladed hatchet with a square pein stood in a hole in the mast partner-the piece where the mast would be stepped. Cashel drew it out. He'd rather have a full-sized axe, but the hatchet would do. The haft was short but it'd let him grip with both hands; if he had to get close, well, he'd get close. He'd been in fights before.
Hellplants pulled themselves toward the bow from either side, using their grip on the leading oars like men crossing a span hand-over-hand by a pole. It wouldn't have done any good for the crew to cast the oars loose the way they'd done before, since this time the monsters were in front of the ship. Backing water wouldn't help either, since the plant they'd gotten past was swimming up in the wake.
The one behind was the one Cashel'd probably try to deal with, seeings as Chalcus was in the bow-one foot on the outrigger, the other on the ram-waiting for whichever of the front pair came in range of his sword first. Cashel stayed where he was for the time being. He figured his job was to protect Ilna and Tenoctris the best way he could, and just now he wasn't sure what that'd be.
You didn't win fights by being too hasty. Of course this time Cashel didn't expect to win, but he wasn't going to change ways that'd served him well so far.
"Master Cashel!" Cervoran said. That high voice was as nasty to hear as a rabbit screaming, but like the rabbit it sure did get heard. "I have need of you!"
Cashel hadn't thought about the wizard since he'd carried him aboard. Cervoran was holding out that piece of skull again. "Fill this with sea water," he said when he saw Cashel was looking at him.
Ilna nodded agreement, but Cashel hadn't been going to hesitate anyhow. Nothing he'd come up with for himself to do was going to be much good. The first plant he got close to would've known it'd been in a fight, but the monsters were the size of oxen. They didn't have a head or a heart you could split with an axe, either.
Cashel took the cup and dropped it down the front of his tunic. He could climb down one-handed, but just now he figured the other hand had better be holding the hatchet.
He swung over the railing, pushed a couple standing crewmen aside with his feet, and dropped. The bench he came down on creaked angrily and threatened to split; he'd landed heavier than he'd meant.
TheHeron dipped like a lady doing a curtsey: a hellplant had grabbed the outrigger with more tentacles than a hand has fingers and was pulling its huge body out of the water. Chalcus slashed, his sword twinkling like lightning in the clouds. Feathery tufts of green fluttered up.
The ship's bow lifted, but another tentacle snaked around Chalcus' ankle from behind. Without seeming to look, the sailor jerked his leg up against the plant's strength and flicked his dagger across. The plant's tough fibers parted, and the curved sword whirled in an arc of its own through a couple more gripping tentacles.
The plant behind them had reached the stern. Crewmen there started hacking at it. Most used swords, though one fellow shoved in a pike. He was still holding the shaft when two tentacles lifted him screaming into the air and pulled his limbs off one by one.
In the bow, chips flew from the outrigger as oarsmen swung their swords with more enthusiasm than skill. Somebody was bound to cut a friend's hand off the way they were acting, though Cashel didn't suppose it'd matter much in the long run.
Cashel fished the cup out, then dipped it full. He turned to lift it to Ilna's waiting hand. His sister was one of those people who didn't wait around wondering what was going to happen next. Cashel could never figure why there were so few folk like her, but that made him happier for the ones he did meet.
With one hand on a deck support and the other holding the hatchet against the top railing, Cashel lifted himself up to where the women were. Tenoctris chanted over her little triangle on the decking. Cashel could see an occasional rosy gleam of wizardlight in the air, but anything else happening was beyond him.
Ilna had her paring knife out. Its blade was good steel, not like the knives forged from strap iron that every man back home in the borough carried. Cashel figured the tricks Ilna did with twine didn't work on the hellplants or she wouldn't have taken the knife from her sleeve. That was too bad, though he didn't doubt she'd give as good an account of herself with the little knife as any of the sailors would with their swords.
He grinned at her. She sniffed, looking peevish but resigned to a world that didn't work the way it ought to. That was so much his sister's normal expression that Cashel guffawed loudly. It took more than a whole army of plants to change who Ilna was.
Cervoran held the cup over his brazier and started chanting again. The charcoal hadn't gone out with all the tossing around it'd gotten, though the sticks were just ghosts of what they'd been, nested in a mound of white ashes.
Cashel couldn't figure how the wizard stood the heat that rippled the air above the cup in his hand. Maybe he just didn't have any feeling in his fingers.
Cashel looked down at the fight. He was itching to mix into it, but he knew there'd be time aplenty. They'd all get their bellies full of fighting today…
Timbers were crackling and theHeron rode way deep in the water, but it was next to impossible to make wood really sink. Chalcus cut like a very demon. He was bloody in a dozen places and'd lost his leather breeches; pulled clean off by a tentacle, Cashel supposed, but it hadn't slowed him a mite. Ilna'd found herself a man and no mistake.
From the height of the deck Cashel saw plants in all directions. There was a lot of seaweed floating in the Inner Sea. Once back home when the winds and currents were just right, he'd seen the whole bay on the other side of the headland from Pattern Creek filled with slowly turning greenness. This was the same, only the green swam toward them.
Cervoran's eyes were open but they weren't focused on anything, as b
est Cashel could tell. Thinking about previous times he'd seen the wizard, he wasn't sure there was a difference. Cervoran was alive, no question about that; but Cashel got the feeling he wasriding in his body instead of living in it the usual way.
A hellplant dropped away from the starboard bow. Chalcus had hacked its tentacles off, however many there were. That was a wonderful thing, but the plant on the port side was struggling with the crewmen there. Chalcus sat on a bench with his head bowed forward to make it easier for him to drag breaths in through his open mouth.
Cashel knew better than most what fight took out of you, even when you won. Chalcus'd be back in it soon, but nobody could keep up for long what he'd been doing.
Cashel looked critically at his hatchet. The blade was straight and as broad as his palm; it had a good working edge, put on with a stone some time since it was last used. Rust flecked it, which pleased him. Steel rusted quicker than iron did, he'd found.
The haft was hickory like his quarterstaff. He grinned. Hickory was a good wood for tools, hard but with more spring to it than cornelwood or elm. Besides, he liked the feel of it.
The sea around theHeron was solid green, a mass of waving fronds and bodies like fat barrels. There were more plants than Cashel could count with both hands, many more. Chalcus was back in the fight. Men cut and screamed and died in the grip of arms stronger than any animal's.
A hellplant had grabbed the outrigger to starboard. It'd driven the sailors back, and now a tentacle waved toward the raised deck. Cashel couldn't wait any longer. Instead of cutting at the arm-the plant had who knew how many more?-he lifted one foot to the railing. He'd leap on top of the plant and with the hatchet "Phroneu!" Cervoran cried, his voice stabbing through the ruck of noise. Cashel glanced instinctively toward the wizard. The water in the skull was at a rolling boil, frothing over the silver lip.
Cervoran's case was open at his feet. In his free hand he held a small velvet bag, the sort of thing a woman used to store a fancy ring or broach. Cervoran shook the contents, a dancing and glittering of metal filings, into the water. They burned with a savage white glare, and around theHeron the sea burned also.
