The Fortress of Glass coti-1

by David Drake

  "The wizard Marzan summoned you," said the Bird's voice. Garric's eyes flew open. "Summoned one like you, that is. He knew the Grass People, his race, can't stand against the Coerli, so he used his art and the power of the crystal to bring a hero to help them."

  I haven't done much good thus far, Garric thought; but the weight of hopelessness had lifted. He'd killed two cat men, and so long as they kept him alive there was a chance of doing better than that. Ideas were forming below the surface of his mind. His experience and that of his warrior ancestor were blending to find solutions to a very violent problem.

  "Where do the Coerli come from?" Garric asked. He spoke aloud though he obviously didn't have to. It didn't seem natural to look at something, someone, close enough to touch and talk to him without moving his lips.

  "This place," the Bird said. "This Land. But from the far future. There's a cave in a chasm some fifteen miles from where we are now. It's a focus for great power. Coerli wizards have learned to use it to carry them back to this time to hunt."

  "They're trying to conquer their own past?" Garric said, hoping to gather enough information that he'd be able to make sense of it… which the fragments he'd heard thus far certainly didn't permit him to do.

  "The Coerli don't make war," the Bird said. "They skirmish over boundaries with neighboring bands, and they hunt. They've hunted out their own time, so they come here for game. Torag and other chiefs have built keeps in this time. Many more will follow as their own world becomes more crowded, but they don't think of it as conquest the way your people would."

  Torag wiped his muzzle with a hand which he then licked clean. He and the other cat men were lost in their own affairs, though some of the captive women watched in puzzlement as Garric talked. Unless the Bird translated them, his words were as meaningless to them as to the Coerli.

  "They have no reason to overhear," the Bird said. "Don't think that because you're the same species that your fellow slaves are your friends."

  It stretched one wing, then lowered it and stretched the other. They were small, no bigger than Garric could span with one hand, but when he looked into the light that shimmered through them he had a momentary vision of infinite expanses.

  Garric grinned. "I'm not a slave," he said quietly.

  He lifted his hands slightly to indicate his bound wrists. "For the moment I'm a prisoner," he said. "But they'll never make me a slave, Bird."

  Sirawhil stopped chanting and slumped forward. Garric was so used to helping Tenoctris that he reflexively reached out to catch the exhausted wizard. Even without full use of his hands, he kept her from rolling off the hummock as she'd started to do.

  The motion drew Torag's attention. He was on his feet, raising his club with the sudden snapping movement of a spring trap releasing.

  "I'd wondered what would happen if we jumped him while he was full of food and relaxed," Carus observed with a wry smile. "Your knees broken is what'd have happened, I suppose."

  In good time, Garric thought. Aloud he said, "Your wizard worked a great spell, Torag. Should I have let her drown in a puddle?"

  The warriors looked up also. They'd finished their meal for the most part, though one was still gnawing a rib. The corpse was reduced to scattered bones and a pile of offal on a patch of bloodstained ground.

  Instead of replying to Garric, Torag growled, "You, Sirawhil! What have you learned?"

  The wizard lifted herself upright, but she splayed her legs on the hummock instead of making the greater effort to squat. She rubbed the back of a hand over her eyes and tried to focus on the chieftain.

  "I'm not sure, Torag," she said. "He comes from very far away. There's a great deal of power involved in his presence."

  "There's no chief in the Land more powerful than I!" Torag said.

  "It's not that kind of power," Sirawhil said wearily. "It's wizardry, Torag, and it's greater wizardry than I can fathom. It isn't-"

  She glanced toward Soma, who tried to burrow out of sight behind the other captives. The women had learned what it meant to be singled out in this company…

  "-anything that the wizard in the warren we raided could've done by himself. I think we should take him back home for the whole Council of the Learned to examine."

  "Are you mad, Sirawhil?" Torag said. He sounded more amazed than angry, the way he had when Garric treated him as an equal. "If I leave here, some other chief will take my keep. Or-"

  And here the growling threat was back in his tone.

  "-do you think I'll let you and the Bird go back without me? And take a valuable animal?"

  "Torag," said the wizard, "this thing is too big for me. We need to take this Garric to someone who can understand him, even if there's a risk."

  "It's not too big for me," Torag said complacently. "We'll go back to my keep and I'll decide later."

  He looked at Garric, his ruff lifting slightly. "Nerga and Eny, tie him up again. Tie all the females too, just in case. I'm not taking any chances till I have him in the pen with the other animals."

  You're taking a big chance, Garric thought as the warriors came toward him with coils of hard rope. You're taking the last chance you'll ever take. But in good time…

  ***

  Sharina stood on the sea wall of Mona harbor, watching theHeron ease toward the quay on the stroke of ten oarsmen. The trim bireme that'd rowed off at mid-morning was now a shambles, the outriggers broken in several places and the hull scorched by the sky-searing blaze Sharina had seen leap from the sea about the ship.

  She'd been ready to die when she saw the fire, but it'd vanished as suddenly as it'd appeared and theHeron, though at first wallowing, still had figures on her deck. Cashel, big and as solid as a rock, was obvious among them, and Sharina'd breathed again.

  Admiral Zettin had manned and led out ten ships as soon as he saw something was happening to theHeron. They now passed back and forth at the harbor mouth.

  You couldn't keep warships at sea for long periods-there wasn't room for the crews to sleep aboard, let alone food storage and a place to cook. For now, though, it was important to Zettin to be seen to be doingsomething; a notion that Sharina understood perfectly. She only wished there was something she could've done besides wait and pray to the Lady-silently, because it wouldn't do for the Princess Sharina to show herself to be desperately afraid.

  She smiled. Attaper, leading her personal guard at this dangerous moment, saw the expression and grinned back. Did he realize that she was smiling at the fact her duty was to be seen to be unconcerned? Perhaps he did; but maybe even that experienced, world-wise soldier thought Princess Sharina reallyhad been confident, no matter how confusing and dangerous the situation seemed to others.

  Lady, make me what I pretend to be, Sharina prayed in her heart; and smiled more broadly, because she seemed to be fooling herself as well.

  Cashel used his staff to jump ashore while theHeron was still several feet out from the quay. It was a graceful motion but completely unexpected, though Sharina'd seen Cashel clear gullies and boggy patches that way frequently in the borough. Here it called attention to him, which Cashel never liked to do; but Sharina stepped toward him and he folded her in his arms. At last she could fully relax for at least a few moments.

  "Tenoctris is all right," Cashel said in a quiet rumble. "Ilna's sitting with her on the deck because she's so, you know, tired; and maybe you couldn't see with the wicker matting in the way."

  "I knew they were all right," Sharina said, simply and honestly. "Because you are."

  She stepped back and gave the battered bireme a real examination. The crew was climbing out, some of them helped by their more fortunate fellows or by men waiting on the dock. The benches and hollow of the ship were splashed with blood-paintedwith blood on the port bow where the fighting must've been particularly intense. It seemed to Sharina that nearly half the crew was missing, and many of the survivors had been injured.

  Cervoran was trying clumsily to get down from the deck. He held his wood
en case in one hand.

  "Your pardon, mistress," Cashel said with impersonal politeness. "I better get that."

  He jumped from the quay to theHeron 's outrigger and took the case in his left hand. "Careful or you'll fall," he said to Cervoran. "Would you like me to lift you-"

  Sharina supposed he was going to say "down," but the former corpse simply let go of the railing and dropped. He landed on his feet but toppled forward. He didn't raise his arms to catch himself, but Cashel shifted to put his body in the way as a living cushion.

  Cervoran steadied himself, then stumped to the ladder up to the quay without speaking. Several sailors who'd been waiting to climb up made way for him, though with respect rather than the frightened hostility Sharina'd seen in their expressions previously.

  "Plants like the one that came here yesterday attacked us," Cashel said, looking from Cervoran to the crewmen, then back to Sharina. "There was any number of them, swimming all over the sea. Master Cervoran made the water burn and saved us."

  TheHeron hadn't been backed onto the beach in normal fashion: the surviving sailors were too few and too tired to accomplish that. A replacement crew was boarding to handle the job. Ilna'd started to help Tenoctris down from the deck, but fresh men under Chalcus' direction grabbed the old wizard and passed her hand-over-hand to their comrades on the quay.

  Sharina's face stayed calm, but her first notice of Chalcus since theHeron left harbor explained why he hadn't carried Tenoctris to land himself in the sort of flashy, boastful gesture he was used to making. He'd lost most of his clothing in the fight, and the hooked tendrils that'd torn it off him had gashed runnels across the many existing scars. He must've bathed himself in the sea since the fight because otherwise he'd have been completely covered with blood, but many of the fresh wounds were still leaking. The worst'd been bandaged with swatches cut from Ilna's own tunics, but the wool was now bright scarlet.

  Chalcus hadn't bothered replacing his trousers, but he'd twisted a length of sailcloth around his waist for a sash. That gave him a place to thrust his sword and dagger. He'd lost the sheath for the latter, and the point of patterned steel winked like a viper's eye.

  Tenoctris, looking weary but determined, joined Sharina. She nodded to the glitter on the horizon and said, "That's the Fortress of Glass that I was wondering about. What you see looks like crystal, but it's really the intersection of many planes of the greater cosmos."

  She took a deep breath. "I've never seen such a nexus of power, Sharina," she added. "I never imagined that anything like it could exist. I've seen so many marvels since I was ripped out of my time and brought to yours."

  Sharina took the older woman's hand in hers. "If you keep saving the world as you've done in the past," she said, "I'm sure we'll be able to show you still more wonders." Her tone was affectionately joking but the words the simple truth.

  Cervoran had climbed the short ladder, moving one limb at a time instead of lifting a leg and an arm together. He walked toward Sharina with the awkward determination of a large insect. Cashel, who'd followed the wizard off the ship, now stepped past him. His presence forestalled the pair of Blood Eagles who'd otherwise have put themselves between Cervoran and Princess Sharina.

  "Princess," Cervoran squeaked. "In her fortress, the Green Woman is too strong for me. I will enter by another path, but to do that I must take her attention off me. At dawn tomorrow I will go to the charnel house when they bring the fresh corpses and pick the one that best suits my needs."

  Liane stood at Sharina's elbow. She'd stayed at a discrete distance while Sharina was praying for Cashel's safe return. Liane, better than most, understood what it meant to wait for the one you love…

  "People of property here cremate their dead," Liane said, speaking to Sharina with the same unobtrusive precision that she'd used to inform Garric in the past. Her finger marked a passage in a slender codex, but she didn't need to refer to it. "The poor in Mona are placed in a cave at the eastern boundary of the city. In rural districts they throw the bodies into the sea with stones to weight them."

  "It is necessary," Cervoran said. "She is too strong in her fortress, so I must deceive her."

  Ilna and Tenoctris joined them, the older woman leaning on the arm of the younger. "Tenoctris?" Sharina said. "Master Cervoran wants to use a fresh corpse for, for his art."

  Tenoctris looked at her fellow wizard with the sharp, emotionless interest that she showed for any new thing. "Does he?" she said.

  Cervoran didn't look around or otherwise acknowledge the newcomers' presence. Tenoctris shrugged and gave Sharina a smile tinged with sadness. "I've practiced necromancy myself, dear," she said. "When it was necessary. When Ithought it was necessary."

  "Yes, all right, Master Cervoran," Sharina said. "Tenoctris will accompany you on behalf of the kingdom."

  She raised an eyebrow at the older woman, since she hadn't actually asked if she was willing to go. Tenoctris nodded agreement.

  "She may go or stay," Cervoran said. He took off the diadem he was wearing and concentrated again on whatever he saw in the depths of the topaz. "It makes no difference. She has no power."

  Tenoctris nodded. "That's quite true," she said, "in his terms."

  Her voice was pleasant, but there was the least edge in the way she spoke the words. Tenoctris was both a noblewoman and the most accomplished scholar Sharina had ever met. There were various kinds of power, but knowledge was one kind-as Sharina knew, and as Tenoctris certainly knew.

  Chalcus, limping slightly but wearing his usual expression of bright insouciance, sauntered up from the ship. He'd tied a portion of sail into a linen breechclout, and he'd found a red silk kerchief to twist into a replacement for the headband he'd lost in the fighting.

  Cervoran looked up from the topaz. He pointed a fat white finger at Cashel. "You will come with me, Cashel," he said. "At dawn, as soon as the night's dead have been brought in."

  He rotated his head toward Ilna, though his pointing hand didn't shift. "And that one, your sister," he said. "Your name is Ilna? You will come, Ilna."

  Chalcus didn't seem to move, but the point of his curved dagger hooked into Cervoran's right nostril. "Now I wonder," Chalcus said in a light, bantering voice, "what there is about common politeness that's so hard for some folk to learn? There's places a fellow'd get his nose notched for treating Mistress Ilna in such a way, my good fellow… and you're in one of those places now. Would you care to try again?"

  Ilna smiled faintly and placed her fingertips on the hand holding the dagger. "I sometimes fail to be perfectly polite myself, Captain Chalcus," she said. "But I appreciate your concern."

  "Master Cervoran?" said Sharina. When the wizard spoke, she'd had an icy recollection of white fire enveloping the sea where theHeron was floating. "You don't give orders to my associates."

  She paused to consider, then went on, "Nor, I think, do you give orders in the kingdom I administer in my brother's absence. Your ignorance has already cost the lives of citizens and endangered the lives of all those accompanying you on theHeron. I'll arrange for an escort of soldiers-"

  "That's all right, Sharina," Cashel said. He was rubbing the shaft of his quarterstaff with a wad of raw wool, working the oils into the pores of the wood. "I don't guess that thing-"

  He dipped the staff toward the glitter on the horizon, the Fortress of Glass.

  "-was Master Cervoran's fault. And anyhow, he was a big help out to sea. We wouldn't've got back without him."

  "Master Cervoran was the reason we were at sea in the first place," Ilna said waspishly. "Still, I see no reason why I shouldn't go with Tenoctris and Cashel in the morning. I can't imagine what I could do that would be more useful."

  She looked out at the fortress also. "And it's obvious," she added, speaking as crisply and precisely as she did all things, "thatsomething has to be done."

  Chapter 7

  Torag roused his band and their captives at dusk. It'd rained at least three times during the day, and the she
lter of twigs and brush the warriors'd woven was meant for shade, not to shed water. Part of Garric's mind doubted that he'd slept at all, but he knew he was probably wrong. The pain of his injuries, the drizzle, and the growing discomfort of his tight bonds kept him from enjoying rest, but there'd doubtless been some.

  Growling among themselves-Coerli voices sounded peevish to a human, even when they weren't-four warriors set off in the lead. Torag and Sirawhil paced along beside Garric, with Eny and Nerga on guard immediately behind him. The women, bound together by the necks, followed. Two warriors were with them, more to guide than to guard them: they obviously weren't a danger to anyone.

  That left four warriors. Garric supposed they were the rear guard, though he was well out of sight before they'd have left the temporary camp.

  "What are they worried about, do you suppose?" Carus wondered mentally. "I didn't see anything in the village that'd concern me-nobody even able to lead a rescue attempt except maybe Scarface. Do these cat-creatures prey on each other?"

  The Bird on Sirawhil's shoulder turned its glittering eyes toward Garric. "Every band is a potential enemy of every other band," it said silently. "They only attack if they have an overwhelming advantage, which isn't likely when every band is always on their guard against every other."

  You hear my ancestor, then? Garric asked, this time silently. As well as hearing my thoughts?

  The Bird said nothing. Garric grimaced. That'd been a stupid question, but he wasn't in good shape.

  They slogged on in the sopping darkness. Garric's wrists had been tied since capture, and when they camped the Coerli had lashed them to his waist as well. Garric worked at his bonds for want of anything better to do, but apart from wearing his wrists bloody he didn't accomplish anything.