by David Drake
But she wasn't sure they'd been human hands.
"Aye, that's the question, isn't it?" Chalcus said. "We'll puzzle over it for years, I'm sure, after we've gotten away from this place. Not so?"
"I'll let you know after we've gotten away," Ilna snapped. The chanteyman's attitude irritated her in more ways than she could number, but it was good he'd come with them. He calmed Merota, after all.
She reached the bottom of the staircase and waited for her companions. The water had an ancient smell, nothing like that of other harbors Ilna had known--nor even that of mud flats drying at low tide.
"I hadn't noticed this from above," Chalcus said in a tone of mild wonderment. He gestured toward the nearest stone slip. "The water's just a fathom down, do you see?"
"I see," Ilna said, "but what of it?"
"The tide's out by now," Chalcus explained, "or nearly so. The doors at the cliff face--they're lock gates, they are. Otherwise the basin here would be dry as an oarsman's throat."
He gestured with the curved sword. "Let's view the ships," he said. "It strikes me that one of those merchanters might have a dinghy on deck, and at this point I'd think of that as the better choice than spending any longer in this place."
"The island's named Yole," Ilna said. "That's what Ewis called it."
After a moment she added, "And I agree with you."
The cavern had both slips for sailing ships and ramps for drawing oared warships out of the water between voyages. The numbers of each available were far beyond Ilna's limited ability to count.
At present the ramps held only the two triremes that Mastyn's directions had brought to Yole, and in the slips were a double handful of the merchant ships whose hulls could hold cargo instead of expensive oarsmen.
The ships were grouped together near the entrance. After Ilna and her companions had walked some minutes toward them around the curving quay, she had a new appreciation of the size of the enclosed harbor.
"I feel little here," Merota said.
"Aye, we're small folk in a big world, child," the chanteyman said easily. "It's like the seashore, don't you think--all that sound, the surf or here the walls' echoing; and it doesn't mean a thing."
He reached over and rubbed Merota's scalp; salt air and sand hadn't been kind to what once had been a primly-lustrous coif. "We're small, but we're together," Chalcus said. "And we've faced the sea already, haven't we, milady?"
"Yes, Chalcus," Merota said. "Sometimes I forget, is all."
Ilna's mouth was tight, her eyes questing for... she didn't know what. She felt exposed here, as indeed the three of them were on a featureless waterfront, but she wasn't searching so much for threats as for patterns.
She grinned. The threats would come without her looking for them.
Tunnels entered at half a dozen places around the cavern's circumference. Most were at the level of the waterfront, but a few opened partway up the wall and were reached by flights of steps. On the far side of the basin was another stairway to the gallery.
"No lack of ways to get out of here, is there?" Chalcus said brightly. Or enter, he must be thinking, as Ilna was; but the chanteyman spoke to ease Merota's mind.
"But we want to take a ship, don't we?" Merota said.
Ilna smiled tightly as the girl proved she wasn't a fool. Aloud Ilna said, "Yes, but we may have to wait till the tide is right, and we've learned how to open the doors to the sea. Until then, we want to be able to run like mice in the pantry."
The chanteyman grinned at the women.
Water seeped between layers of rock, forming gleaming sheets on the walls. Though the cavern had been carved from one large block rather than built, even the hardest stone can have flaws.
There were vertical cracks as well. A blanket of dry warmth puffed from one as the trio passed. Ilna paused with a hand signal to Chalcus. The right side of the crack was a hand's-breadth higher than the left, as the faintly-striped layers of stone showed clearly. A narrow triangle wide enough for a human to squeeze through had opened at the bottom.
"Something interesting?" the chanteyman asked, trying to disguise his tension with the lilt in his voice.
"Something that wasn't made by whoever made the harbor," Ilna said. "Since the wizards using the harbor aren't any friends to us--yes, I think it's interesting. But let's go on."
When Ilna stepped away from the split in the rock, she was back in the cavern's natural dank atmosphere. She shivered, then scowled at her body's uncontrollable reaction.
They'd reached the ships. Most were nondescript vessels of moderate size. Their spars and sails had been tumbled down so carelessly that when viewed from the gallery there might have been a dinghy concealed on their decks. From here, close alongside, it was obvious that Chalcus' hope was vain.
"Now let me see about this one," the chanteyman said in a nonchalant tone. "A pleasure yacht, I shouldn't wonder, for a rich man who isn't in such a hurry he wants the discomfort of oars."
The ships were berthed alongside one another, two to a slip, but in most cases at least six feet separated the side rail of one and that of the ship moored to the opposite quay. Instead of walking around the stone promenade to reach the small vessel two slips over, Chalcus jumped from one to the next.
He wasn't showing off--Ilna was sure the chanteyman didn't think there was anything remarkable in what he was doing. He continued to hold the sword. Obviously he was more concerned about what might be hiding aboard one of the ships than he was of having his hands free in case he fell.
"Chalcus, is there any sign of the men?" Ilna called. She noticed that she was resting her left hand on Merota's shoulder. The girl seemed happy enough with the contact, but Ilna suspected that it was her own desire to touch another human being that had caused her hand to move without her conscious intention.
"Not so much as a drop of blood," Chalcus said as he eyed the yacht critically. He disappeared briefly down the vessel's forward scuttle, then hopped back on deck.
"There's food aboard," he announced as he started back toward his companions. "The wine jars were opened with a hammer--there's bits of the necks and handles where they were stored--and dumped over the side empty, I'd guess. As with Ravager and Terror, no doubt."
He jumped to the stone before them. "What's left in the bottom of the water casks is so slimy that we'd have to eat it rather than drink it, but needs must it might last us till we landed somewhere with a spring. And I think I might be able to sail her myself, once we got her out of this cave."
Chalcus raised an eyebrow in question.
"Please," Merota said, staring at her clasped hands. "I'd like it if we left now. If we can."
Ilna stood silent for a moment as she considered their choices: bad and worse, though which was which....
"Yes," she said. "If we don't need the help of the crewmen, then I for one will be glad of their absence. I think the mechanism for the doors should be--"
Near the entrance, she'd intended to say to finish her comment. Merota interrupted with, "Someone's coming!" The girl pointed toward the nearest tunnel opening, a little farther away than Ilna could have thrown a pebble.
How can she possibly hear in this bedlam? Ilna thought, but she shook her noose out with a quick motion as she turned. Chalcus shifted his stance minutely. He held the sword a little higher, slanted across his breast. He was grinning.
A sailor stepped out of the tunnel carrying a cutlass. Ilna recognized the man, though she didn't know his name. More sailors were shuffling out behind him.
"Daltro!" the chanteyman called in barely-suppressed glee. "Piezo, Cant--you're a sight for sore--"
The sailors appeared to ignore him. There were scores of them, all of them armed. Ilna didn't recognize some of the faces, though the light wasn't very--
"Chalcus, their throats have been cut!" Ilna shouted.
A wizard in white robes and skin paint strode from the tunnel behind the walking dead . He pointed toward the trio. "Get them!" he cried in a voice as shrill
as a gull shrieking over the rumbling surf. "Kill them!"
"This way!" Ilna said. She reached for Merota but Chalcus had already flung the child over his shoulder like a sack of wool. "Into the crack! The corpses don't get tired!"
She'd seen that when they watched the harvesters, back a seeming lifetime ago. This pursuit wouldn't stop, and the minds of the dead couldn't be bound by Ilna's craft. The split in the rock was too narrow for more than one pursuer to come at them at a time. The passage led to a place where the air was warm and dry.
Not necessarily a route that humans could take, of course; but a bad chance was better than no chance.
"Take her!" Chalcus said, dropping Merota at the entrance, but there was no need to worry about the child--she scrambled through like a squirrel. Ilna crawled after on all fours. The chanteyman's feet brushed hers, but he was backing to face outward.
Chalcus grunted. Steel sang on steel, then crunched into something that damped the vibrations.
"That'll slow them!" he said in a muffled voice. "You'll be pleased to know that being dead doesn't prevent our shipmates from being killed again, dear ladies."
"Yes," said Ilna as she followed Merota into a crevice so narrow it rubbed both her shoulders. "I am glad of that."
Ahead of her, the darkness seemed to breathe.
Sharina wriggled in empty air, then dropped with an echoing splash into a masonry chamber. The water on the floor only came up to her ankles, but it got deeper in a series of steps toward the far end. The blunt claws of Dalar's feet thrust from the square inlet above her head; she quickly sloshed clear. It was no surprise that the block forming one edge of the opening was the familiar piece of pale granite.
The bird landed with considerably more grace than Sharina had. Dalar's head rotated once, back and forth like a weathercock on a gusty day. His body remained poised; the weights were already humming in his hands. Sharina backed against a damp wall, more to stay clear of Dalar than as protection from an enemy. She could hear people nearby, and enough light crept in through the doorway behind them to indicate it was daytime.
Dalar relaxed noticeably. "We're in a cistern," he said. He clucked with good humor. "I am pleased that we came through at this end rather than the other--"
He gestured toward the wall opposite the doorway.
"--since I cannot swim."
"A cistern this big?" Sharina said in amazement. The millhouse which Ilna and Cashel split with their uncle's family had a cistern, built during the Old Kingdom. The slate roof channeled water through pipes into the cistern, a plastered brick pit at the inner corner of the building.
Ilna said rain was better for cleaning delicate fabrics than well water--and she should know--but this room was big enough to hold the millhouse and the inn combined. It didn't serve just a house or even a village.
Sharina took a deep breath. "If they've rebuilt Valhocca," she said, "then there shouldn't be ghouls waiting for us above. And--"
She tapped a reassuring clink from the wallet holding her silver.
"--we might find something to eat. I'd really like to find something to eat."
Dalar clucked merrily as he splashed with Sharina to the inward-opening door.
Which was locked. From the outside.
"Can we break it down?" Dalar said. The panel was heavily braced wood with no inside handle or lock. The builders would want to keep out everyone except the occasional cleaning crews. Quite occasional, from the level of mud and leaves Sharina could see on the stonework.
"We don't need to," she said, raising her knife in both hands. She chopped, severing the upper hinge strap with a clang and a spray of sparks. The door was already beginning to sag when she squatted and cut the lower strap.
"Indeed, I serve a hero," Dalar said. He clucked, then added, "I was jesting; but I need not have been."
They pulled the door toward them, wriggling it free of the bar and hasp. Sharina sheathed the knife beneath her cloak and started through. Dalar shifted his hips to block her and stepped out in the lead, his weights concealed in his palms.
Sharina followed, grinning faintly. Part of her chided herself for not pausing to sharpen the fresh nick out of her blade, but the demands of her ravenous stomach had first claim.
It was mid afternoon, and they were in a bustling cityof with a much more modern aspect than the Valhocca in which she'd met Dalar. The narrow-fronted buildings were three and four stories high, brick on the lower levels and lath faced with terracotta tilework higher up to save on weight. Some were set back slightly from the street with openwork walls enclosing small forecourts.
"Ah," said Dalar in a pleased tone as he surveyed the building from which they'd emerged. "Not a cistern, but a settling tank for an aqueduct. I never thought that while I was an exile I would see a water system to equal those of Rokonar."
A pair of prosperous-looking men with attendants at their heels strode down the pavement, so deep in conversation that they almost walked into Dalar. They stopped and gaped at the bird. One man flung wide his blue cape in theatrical gesture and shouted to passers-by, "Look! A portent! The Gods announce the arrival of Mykon the Protector!"
Sharina stepped in front of Dalar. "My friend is from a far country!" she said. She had no difficulty understanding the local accent, and she hoped the reverse was true. "We're strangers, but we have nothing to do with the Gods!"
At least not that we know of, she added in her mind.
A woman passing in the sedan chair stopped. She whispered in the ear of a footman, who pushed past the fellow still declaiming with flourishes of his cape. "Is he real?" the footman said to Sharina.
Dalar batted away the man's attempt to tug at his beak. Since the bronze weight was in the bird's palm, the footman understandably yelped.
"Of course he's real!" Sharina said. "He's a gentleman of Rokonar here for a visit!"
"Why is that?" demanded the man who'd first noticed them. "Are you in Port Hocc to meet Prince Mykon?"
Sharina had read about Mykon the Protector, Prince of Cordin, but that didn't mean she'd really believed he was a historical figure. That somebody named Mykon had united the island of Cordin in the age before Lorcan founded the Kingdom of the Isles--that she was willing to accept. The rest of the story claimed Mykon was younger brother to Brut the Storm God and that he sometimes ate in Brut's cloud palace. It seemed to Sharina that if part of the tale was fancy, then the rest likely was also.
Apparently not. And who knows? Maybe Mykon does visit Brut's palace.
"Come on, Garamon," said the companion of the fellow making the fuss. "Don't be a fool. This is some mountebank who's come to Hocc with the Boats. Mykon won't thank you for crowing that some feathered juggler is proof of the Protector's divinity.
"The Gods will smite you one day for your blasphemy, Malat," Garamon said in a pointedly sincere tone. He wrapped his cape around him, then said more quietly to Sharina, "Is that true? Are you from the Boats?"
"Yes," Sharina said decisively. "Where can we find a meal and an inn for the night?"
"Why do you ask me?" the local said with a surprised frown. "Down at the harbor with your fellows, I suppose."
Garamon and his companion hurried on with their flunkies. The rest of the crowd was breaking up also, though the heads of people walking by often swivelled to stare at Dalar--and at Sharina herself as well. They might have seen more tall blonds than they had intelligent birds, but they appreciated the blonds nonetheless.
"Unless the waterfront changed directions," she murmured to Dalar, "we need to go south."
She set off in the lead; traffic was too heavy for them to walk abreast. A fountain and pool quivered at the other end of the masonry tank, fed by a siphon inside. Women filled buckets of painted terracotta, chattering to one another and sometimes calling to friends on overlooking balconies.
In Sharina's ear Dalar said, "What are the Boats, Sharina?"
She grinned wryly over her shoulder. "I don't have the faintest notion," she said, "but I t
hink it's a better choice than being portents sent by the Gods."
The street they were following wasn't paved except for the gutter down the center, but the broad waterfront boulevard was completely bricked and had stone curbs. Troops wearing silvered equipment and carrying batons rather than spears kept open a travel lane along the landward curb, but the harborside was packed with people. Some were city residents in patterned garments, but the majority were rural folk wearing homespun and bearing the mud of a long journey well up the calves of their legs.
The harbor itself was clogged with sailing barges: broad, bluff-bowed vessels with low freeboards and a profusion of goods and manufactures on their flat decks. Even a quick glance showed Sharina poultry, textiles, and fruit in baskets--and several dram shops as well. A smith's hammer clanged from a barge moored with a safe span of water between its hull and those of its fellows.
"It may be," said Dalar in a tone too cautious to be described as hopeful, "that in this gathering there is another person of the Rokonar."
Sharina looked at her companion. "Dalar?" she said. "Remember we're here thousands of years after you were shipwrecked."
"Yes," said the bird with the same lack of emotion as before. "And in any event, Sharina, I have given you the bond of my honor. But if I could, I would speak to another of my fellows before I die."
He clucked laughter, though it sounded false to Sharina. "I will begin the process of deciding which of my ten thousand deities should receive my prayers."
The vessels themselves were for the most part an extension of the land, moored side to side so that no gangplanks were necessary for those wanting to walk from one to another. Sharina nodded toward a barge in the third tier back from the shoreline. "That looks like a cookshop," she said. Together she and Dalar squeezed through the crowd.
She'd seen hawkers working the land with barrows and trays, but as well as eating she wanted to learn something about the Boats. Nothing in the extensive reading Reise set his children had mentioned them.
