by David Drake
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 determinedly not 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. There isn’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. The Heron 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.
Cervoran’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 the Heron didn’t carry marines, the oarsmen had swords or spears and wicker shields under their benches. The Heron 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 the Heron 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 the Heron into the harbor.
“Pay me master sailorman!” Chalcus sang and the men ran the ship the rest of the way out. “Pay me my money down!”
The Heron 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. The Heron 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.
The Heron passed between the jaws of the harbor and into open sea. The surface was a bit choppier, but the rowers had the beat and th
e 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.
“A volcano under the sea, do you think, milady?” Chalcus added in what somebody who didn’t know him well might’ve thought was a nonchalant voice.
“I don’t know,” Tenoctris said simply. She smiled for fellowship, not because there was anything funny. “I don’t think so, but I really don’t know.”
“Ah, well,” said Chalcus, putting his arm around Ilna’s waist and hugging her close for a moment. She didn’t respond, but she smiled and didn’t pull away either. “We’ll all know shortly, will we not?”
Cashel followed his eyes, not toward the vapor this time but to Cervoran standing motionless in the bow.
“That one knows, though he won’t tell us, eh?” Chalcus said.
Ilna continued working her knots as she looked at Cervoran. She looked coldly angry, but for Ilna that didn’t mean a lot.
“He thinks he knows,” Ilna said. “For most wizards, that isn’t the same thing as knowing.”
Chalcus nodded curtly. He set his hands on his hips and stood arms-akimbo. “Master Cervoran!” he called. “I’m going to halt a bowshot short of the smoke and bring us around.”
Cervoran turned, giving Cashel again the feeling that the bits and pieces of the wizard’s body weren’t working together quite the way they ought to. “I must be close,” he said. “It is necessary.”
“You’ll be as close as I’m willing to come and pretend the ship’s safe,” snapped Chalcus. “Which is a bowshot out!”
He walked back to the stern, moving more like a cat than a cat does. Cervoran didn’t do anything for a moment. His eyes remained fixed on where Chalcus’d been instead of following the sailor away.
The cloud of steam was getting close. It covered a considerable patch of the sea, enough to swallow the Heron if they’d gone into it. Cashel was just as glad they weren’t going to, but he’d trust Chalcus on something like that if he’d said it was all right—or Tenoctris did, of course.
Tenoctris hadn’t argued with Chalcus.
Chalcus shouted an order that didn’t mean anything to Cashel. The stroke oars on both levels called something too, and the flute player changed his rhythm. The rowers all lifted their oars together; then the ones on the port side backed water with a measured stroke while those to starboard pulled normally. The ship began to slow and turn like a fishhook.
“That isn’t steam,” Ilna said. “The water’s not boiling, and besides the color’s too yellow.”
They had a good view of the column now. Cashel could even see it wobbling up from the depths, twisted by currents but curling back like a corkscrew for as far down as he could follow it. Far below even that was a speck of light. It must be really bright and big to be seen, but it didn’t have any more detail than a star does.
Cervoran opened his oak case. First he placed the topaz crown on his head, then he brought out a small brazier made of filigreed bronze. He pointed at the brazier and spoke an unheard word. A scarlet spark popped from his finger, striking the sticks of charcoal instantly alight.
Cashel moved a trifle to put himself between the two women and the man in the bow. Cervoran took a bowl out of his case and held it out to Cashel. “Fill this with sea water,” he said. “At once.”
Cashel glanced at Tenoctris; she nodded. Cervoran opened his mouth again as Cashel handed his staff to his sister to hold. He didn’t often speak sharply, but this time he said, “Don’t say that, if you please, Master Cervoran. I don’t care if it’s necessary or not, I’m coming t’ do it!”
Cashel took the cup. It was bone, mounted in silver but the top of a human skull beyond doubt. He’d handled dead men’s bones, and he’d cracked bones to kill men if it came to that; but Cervoran having such a thing for a toy wasn’t a thing to make Cashel warm to the man, that was a fact.
He gripped the railing and swung himself over, feeling the narrow hull rock. Chalcus shouted in a voice like a silver trumpet, “Bonzi and Felfam, get to port now!” The two men closest the bow on the starboard outrigger jumped from their benches and shifted to the other side as Cashel let himself down where they’d been.
Only a few men on either side were rowing now, slow strokes to keep the ship from drifting back into the column of smoke. It smelled like brimstone. There were fish floating on their sides around it, a lot of them kinds Cashel had never seen before. There should’ve been gulls and all kinds of seabirds, but the sky was empty.
He bent over the outrigger and dipped the skull full. The sea looked pale green, but the water in the cup was just water, nothing different to the eye from what bubbled up in the ancient spring-house where most of Barca’s Hamlet fetched its water.
Cashel stood and raised the cup in his hand. Cervoran had taken the crown off and was looking into the topaz again. His lips were moving, but no sound came out.
“Master Cervoran?” Cashel said. He couldn’t climb up holding the cup, not without spilling the most of it. Didn’t the fellow see—Tenoctris took the skullcap from Cashel and held it out to Cervoran. He didn’t react until she raised it so that it was between the topaz and his eyes; then he took the cup and replaced the crown on his head. As Cashel lifted himself onto the catwalk—the sturdy railing squealed and the Heron bobbed violently—Cervoran held the cup over the charcoal fire and chanted, “Mouno outho arri…”
Cashel took his staff. He didn’t exactly push the women back, but he kept easing toward them and they in turn moved down the catwalk to the middle where the mast’d have been. They could hear Cervoran chanting there, but as a sound instead of being words.
“Do you know what he’s doing, Tenoctris?” Ilna asked. She seemed curious, not frightened, and she spoke like she didn’t have a lot of use for the fellow she was asking about. Pretty much normal Ilna, in fact.
“He’s gathering power to him,” the older woman said. “And channelling it onto the surface of the sea. I don’t know why or what he intends by that. And I don’t know what the thing in the abyss is, though it’s more than a simple meteor.”
She smiled. “We knew that before we came, I suppose, didn’t we?” she added.
“Could you say a spell yourself and learn, ma’am?” Cashel asked. He kept his face half toward the women, but he made sure he could watch Cervoran out of the corner of his eye.
The water in the cup was bubbling, which it shouldn’t’ve been without the bone charring-which wasn’t happening. No man Cashel knew could’ve kept holding the cup like that close above a charcoal fire. No matter how brave you were, there was a time that the heat was too much and your fingers gave way. Cervoran’s seemed to be sweating yellow fat.
“Perhaps I could,” Tenoctris said, her eyes on the other wizard, “but I think I’m better off seeing what my colleague is doing. If I concentrate on my art, I’d be likely to miss things. I’m also concerned that—”
She met Cashel’s eyes. “I’m afraid that if I sent my mind down to that light,” she said, “either I wouldn’t be able to get back or I’d bring something back with me. Cervoran may not be our friend, but I’m quite sure that the thing he’s fighting, the Green Woman, is our enemy and mankind’s enemy.”
“Kriphi phiae eu!” Cervoran shouted. The sea was suddenly glazed with red light. The ship jolted upward. When the light faded, the surface had frozen to ice the hue of the wizard’s topaz crown.
The rowers shouted in terror and jumped from their benches. The Heron trembled as the floor of an inn would when men were struggling on it, but it didn’t heel and pitch: the hull was set solidly in t
he ice.
Cervoran dropped the skullcap. Still chanting, he lifted himself over the railing and slid down the bow’s outward curve to the ram. He landed like a sack of oats, but he got up immediately and stepped onto the ice.
“Iao obra phrene…,” he chanted as he walked stiffly toward where the smoke had risen.
The light in the depths shone through, despite the thickness of the ice.
While Ilna watched the former corpse stumping across the yellow ice, her fingers knotted lengths of twine and her mind danced along the vast temple of connections that her pattern meant. People thought that things stood apart from each other: a rock here, a tree here, a squalling baby here.
They were wrong. Everything was part of everything else. A push at this place meant a movement there, unimaginably far away; without anyone knowing that the one caused the other.
Ilna knew. She saw the connections only as shadow tracings stretching farther than her mind or any mind could travel, but she knew. And she knew that the pattern of action and response centered on this point—on Cervoran, on the thing beneath the sea, and on Ilna os-Kenset—was greater and more terrible than she could have imagined before this moment Cervoran stood in the near distance with his hands raised; the jewel on his brow pulsed brighter than the pale sun hanging at zenith. The rhythm of his chant whispered over the ice like the belly scales of a crawling viper.
The frightened oarsmen shouted angrily. Ilna could see the men brandishing swords they’d taken from beneath their benches. One fellow jumped out of the ship and began hacking at the ice. He’d have done as much good to chop at a granite wall; the ice was thicker than the Heron was long. The oarsmen couldn’t tell that, but Ilna knew.
Chalcus spoke to calm his crew, then asked Tenoctris a question with a flourish of his hand. She answered and Cashel said something as well, calm and solid and ready for whatever came.
