The Fortress Of Glass

by David Drake

  “All right,” said Sharina. Cashel felt the emotion that she kept out of her voice. “We’ll wait in my suite.”

  There was a shuffle as folks, mostly soldiers, got turned around and shuffled into what’d been the Queen’s bedroom. Chalcus, smiling on the surface and as angry underneath as Cashel’d ever heard him, said, “And your copy that we went to the tomb to get you, Master Cervoran? Does that one go or stay?”

  “I go,” the double piped, sounding exactly like Cervoran himself. “My time is not yet come, but soon.”

  They left the room. Sharina turned in the doorway and said, “Cashel? May the Lady be with you.”

  Then she shut the door behind her. She’s so very beautiful…

  “Come here,” Cervoran said, walking heavily across the room. He stopped and bent, placing the crown on the floor.

  Cashel’s eyes had adapted well enough he could see the lines inlaid on the stone floor. The jewel was in the center of a triangle, and a circle scribed the triangle’s three points.

  Cervoran shifted so he was standing in the scoop of floor between the inside of the circle and one flat side of the triangle. He pointed—with his hand, he still wasn’t using the athame or another pointer—at the side to his left and said, “Cashel, go there. Protas, clay of this clay—”

  He pointed with his other hand.

  “—go there. Kneel, Cashel and Protas, and put your fingers on the talisman.”

  Protas hesitated. Cashel squatted, keeping the staff against the floor as a brace. He didn’t ordinarily kneel and he wasn’t going to now unless Cervoran said he absolutely had to do it that way. If Cashel had a choice, he wasn’t going into this business in a posture that made him uncomfortable.

  He smiled at Protas as he touched the topaz with his fingertips. It felt warm, which surprised him a little.

  Protas squatted also, then had to bob up and pull some slack in his trousers to give his knees room. The boy wobbled for a moment, then had to touch the floor to keep from falling backward.

  “Just go ahead and kneel, Protas,” Cashel said, trying not to smile. “I’m used to squatting, but you ought to do what you’re used to.”

  Protas knelt. He looked doubtful, but Cashel knew that the boy would try if he told him to stand on his hands. He touched the back of Cashel’s fingers, then slipped his fingers down onto the topaz.

  Cervoran dropped to one knee, then the other. He moved like a doll on strings. Cashel didn’t flinch when the wizard reached out, but he was just as glad their fingers didn’t touch.

  “Horu wo awita…,” Cervoran chanted. “Siwa sega sawasgir…”

  The room went completely black, as black as soot on fire irons, but the topaz kept the same slight glitter as before. Cashel could see the tips of his own fingers and the others’ too, but he couldn’t tell where the windows were except from memory. Protas’ hand trembled, but the boy didn’t whimper or jerk away.

  “Phriou apom machri…,” said Cervoran. “Alchei alchine cheirene…”

  The topaz blazed with yellow fire that didn’t light anything. Cashel couldn’t see his hands any more; he couldn’t feel Protas or the staff. His body tingled all over.

  MONZO MOUNZOUNE, thundered a voice. It wasn’t Cervoran speaking because Cashel was completely alone in a universe of pulsing yellow light. IAIA PERPERTHOUA IAIA!

  The light was sunlight. Cashel fell onto his side in a meadow because he’d lost his balance during the incantation. Flowers growing in the short grass scented the air.

  “Cashel!” Protas cried, jumping up from his sprawl. The crown lay between them. The topaz was its usual yellow color with muddy shadows from the flaws inside the stone. “Cashel!”

  Instead of answering, Cashel rolled to his feet and slanted the quarterstaff crossways before him. In a grove of trees nearby a woman with a horse’s skull for a head played the harp. Accompanying her on a lute was a rat standing upright; it was the size of a man. Their music screeched like rocks rubbing hard against each other.

  A winged demon with tiny blue scales for skin and a tail as long as its body faced Cashel. It was standing where Cervoran had been in the room during the incantation, but Cervoran was nowhere to be seen now.

  “You are Cashel and Protas,” the demon said. It was so thin it looked like the blue hide had been shrunk over a skeleton, but its voice was a booming bass. “By the decision of one who has the power to command me, I am to escort you to the next stage of your journey.”

  The demon threw its head back and laughed thunderously. “I would rather tear the flesh from your bones!” it added, and it laughed again.

  Protas had jumped around behind Cashel, closer than he ought to be if there’d been a fight; but there wouldn’t be a fight. Cashel raised the staff upright in one hand and put the other on the boy’s shoulder. “Better pick up the crown, Protas,” he said.

  “Cashel?” said the boy. The demon had stopped laughing, but the lute and harp continued to make their ugly sound. “He said he was going to eat us?”

  “He said he’d like to,” Cashel explained. “But somebody bigger ‘n him is making him help us.”

  “All right, Cashel,” Protas said. He ducked down and grabbed the crown, but he didn’t look at the demon again till he’d skipped back to Cashel’s side.

  “Anyway,” Cashel said, speaking for the boy’s sake and not just to brag, “what he means is he’d try to eat us. Folks’ve tried that in the past, and some of them—”

  He smiled at the demon, the sort of smile he’d used lots of times just before a fight started.

  “—were a good bit bigger than that fellow is.”

  Donria took Garric through the gate while the neck-bound women waited uncertainly. Beyond was a single long hut and, in the gray distance, either a number of larger buildings or more likely raised beds like those the people of Wandalo’s village used to drain the roots of their crops.

  “You lot, pick up the other male and drag him in with you!” one of the escorting warriors said as the women started through after Garric. The line shuffled to a stop.

  “Bend down!” Soma said. “Bend down, you fools!”

  By half-dragging the women nearest her in the coffle, Soma got enough slack in her neck ropes to get her arms under Crispus. She rose, holding the groaning man’s right arm over her shoulders and clasping him about the waist with her left hand. The line resumed moving.

  Soma’s strength was impressive, though that didn’t surprise Garric since he’d grown up in a peasant village. Women in Barca’s Hamlet worked as hard as the men did and often for longer hours.

  Women who’d been waiting inside the wall crowded around Garric. He couldn’t be sure of the number in this foggy darkness, but there were at least twenty and perhaps half again as many. They chattered among themselves and threw comments and questions at him as well: Where did you come from, Garric?/You’re so big, I’ve never seen such muscles/Oh, your hair’s all bloody, did Crispus hurt you? Fingers plucked at him, testing and caressing.

  The last of the coffle moved through. The gates groaned shut on their rope hinges. A bar squealed into place on the other side, where Nerga and Eny stayed. Sirawhil was outside also, but the Bird gave a chirrup and flew from her shoulder to settle in a glitter of wings on the ridgepole of the longhouse.

  “It wouldn’t take much to open the gates,” Carus observed. “Just cut the hinges. Even without a proper knife that wouldn’t be hard to arrange. Of course there’s the guard in the watchtower…”

  He was just thinking aloud, not planning anything for the time being. It wasn’t idle speculation, though. Garric had learned that the way Carus always thought about the military possibilities of a situation meant he reacted instantly to threats that would’ve taken most generals completely by surprise.

  “Give us room here!” Donria said. “Newla, if you touch him again, I’ll break your fingers. Do you hear me? Move back!”

  The women moved a little, enough that Garric could shift into a wider stanc
e without stepping on somebody. Donria’s authority had to be based on more than the physical threat she’d just made: she was a small woman, and though she was obviously fit it would’ve been remarkable if that weren’t true of most of the others. He’d seen in Wandalo’s village that the Grass People didn’t have enough surplus to keep fine ladies in pampered leisure.

  “Here, Newla,” Donria said, giving her pointed dowel to a rawboned woman half a head taller than she was. “Get the new arrivals loose, won’t you? You know what it’s like when you’re first brought here. And Brosa? You and the other girls in your section, start dishing food out. Bring Garric’s to the headman’s room, he’ll stay there now.”

  “What about Crispus, Donria?” asked a woman Garric couldn’t see in the crowd.

  “Well, what about him?” Donria said sharply. “You saw, didn’t you? Garric’s our headman now!”

  Garric let Donria walk him along, guided by her hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be headman of this slave community, but he was very sure that he didn’t want Crispus to be headman over him.

  The longhouse was similar to the houses in Wandalo’s village, built of thatch instead of shakes, wicker, and a floor of puncheons—logs flattened only on the top side. The construction was cruder, though, and the design was nothing like what the Grass People built on their own. This was a copy of the Coerli chieftain’s hut, constructed by slaves from common materials.

  Donria led him inside. Garric hadn’t been able to see much in the open air; here he was stone blind. The floor had been roughly shaped with a stone adze but smoothed only by those walking on it. Garric’s feet didn’t pick up splinters, but it felt as though he were stepping onto the shingle beach of Barca’s Hamlet.

  “Donria, I can’t see inside,” he said, stopping where he was.

  “Your room is right here, Garric,” Donria said. She pressed against him, a reasonable way to direct him to the left. More was going on than that, of course, but Donria seemed considerably more intelligent than Soma was.

  But—Donria had to be aggressive or she wouldn’t be leader here, and she knew she wouldn’t remain leader without the support of the headman. Garric smiled faintly. The ram of the flock. The concept wasn’t new to him, but its application to human beings certainly was.

  Donria opened a door and led him into a separate room. His eyes must be adapting a little, because the open gable was noticeably brighter than everything around it. There was a flutter as the Bird landed there, a blotch of shadow and highlights.

  “Here’s the couch,” Donria said. He heard withies creak as they took her weight. He eased himself down also, then regretted it. The bolster was damp; probably damp with the former headman’s urine, judging from the smell pervading the room.

  Garric jumped up. He wasn’t fastidious by the standards of city folk, but his father had kept a clean inn. Besides, well-rotted waste from all animals was the best manure you could put on a field: Crispus was not only a pig, he was a wasteful pig.

  “Get this out of here!” he said jerking the bolster off the bed. It was coarse sacking stuffed with straw. Donria’d gotten up when he did, backing slightly away till she learned what was bothering him. “If there isn’t a clean one, I’ll sleep on the slats.”

  Donria pulled open the inner door and hurled the bolster into the main hall. “Newla, bring our headman a fresh mattress. Quickly, before he gets angry!”

  “I’m not angry,” Garric said quietly. “Well, not at you. This is a terrible way for people to live!”

  There were slave pens in the Kingdom of the Isles too. Not officially, but the lot of a tenant farmer on Sandrakkan or in the east of Ornifal could be very hard if he fell behind to the landowner… and they all fell behind to their landowners in a bad year, which meant forever after. That was something he’d deal with as soon as he got back…

  A pair of women appeared in the doorway with a wooden bucket and a platter. Either could’ve carried the load by herself, but the way other women crowded behind them in the open hall showed that Garric was a matter of general interest.

  Garric wondered how long it was till dawn. He couldn’t get a feeling for his surroundings till there was more light.

  “The sky will brighten in three hours,” said the Bird silently. “Full sunrise is another hour beyond that. It still won’t be as bright as you’re used to, of course.”

  Of course, Garric agreed, but I’ll never accomplish anything if I wait for perfect conditions.

  Which left open the question of what he planned to accomplish. Well, getting out of this slave pen as a start, and then getting back to his own world as quickly as possible. He didn’t have any idea how he was going to accomplish that, but he’d find a way or die trying; which wasn’t a figure of speech in this case.

  “Let me past!” someone called. “Make way or I’ll make one!”

  The big woman, Newla, shoved her way through the spectators with not one but two bolsters to lay on the bed. They had the smell of fresh straw, a hint of sun and better times in Garric’s memory.

  “Donria?” she said, a hint of hopefulness in her voice. “Could I stay tonight too? For after you, I mean.”

  “Please,” said Garric, trying to be firm without sounding angry. He could only hope that the Bird translated tone as well as it did words. “I want to be alone. I need to be alone. I’ve got to rest. And I will rest.”

  Donria had taken the food from the women who’d brought it. She looked at Garric, though he couldn’t read her expression in this light.

  After a moment she said, “You are our headman, Garric,” and put the pail and platter on a ledge built out from the interior wall. “Your will is our will.”

  She motioned Newla out of the room, then added quietly, “But Garric? Torag won’t keep a headman who doesn’t service his herd. The Coerli will eat any of us, but they prefer infants.”

  She closed the door behind her.

  Garric took a deep breath, then sampled the food. What he’d thought was porridge was a mash of barley bruised and soaked but not cooked; the Coerli didn’t allow their herd to have fire. The fish on the platter had been air dried.

  And the Coerli ate their own food raw.

  I’ll find a way out, or I’ll die.

  “Aye, lad,” said the warrior ghost in his mind. “But right now I’m more interested in killing cat beasts first.”

  Wizardlight as red as the heart of a ruby shot through Ilna’s soul and the universe around her. She’d been squatting as she knotted small patterns. She wished she’d brought a hand loom, since it was hard to judge how long they’d be.

  The light and the thunderclap which shook Cervoran’s Chamber of Art jolted her to her feet. She folded the fabric back in her sleeve and uncoiled the noosed cord she wore in place of a sash.

  “Cashel!” Sharina cried.

  Lord Attaper and the under captain with him kicked the connecting door together, as smoothly as if they were practiced dancers. It was a light interior door whose gilded birch panels were set in a basswood frame. The hobnailed boots smashed it like a pair of battering rams. The soldiers rushed through, drawing their swords.

  Impressive, Ilna thought dryly, but scarcely necessary. The door hadn’t been locked or barred.

  The interior was still dark. As Ilna and Chalcus slipped through in the midst of more soldiers, Attaper wrenched a set of shutters down with a crash, frame and all. The guard commander was angry and taking it out on the furnishings. Garric had disappeared, fighting was taking place a few miles away while Attaper’s duties kept him from the battle, and three more people had vanished more or less under his nose.

  Because there was no doubt that the room was empty. Cashel, Protas, and the wizard who’d said he was ‘opening a portal’ were gone.

  Guards in the foyer opened the other door. “Did they go out past you?” Attaper shouted at them, and their blank looks were proof of the obvious.

  The air had a faintly sulfurous smell. Ilna touched
the floor in the middle of a triangular inlay where the stone looked singed. It was warm, at any rate.

  “Do you see anything, Ilna?” Sharina murmured. Her face remained aloof, but she’d wrapped her arms tightly around her bosom.

  “Nothing useful,” Ilna said straightening. “What do I know of wizardry?”

  She cleared her throat. “My brother doesn’t know anything about wizardry either,” she said. “But I’d trust him to take care of anything that could be taken care of. He’s proved that many times.”

  “Yes of course,” said Sharina and hugged Ilna, hugged her friend. In their hearts they both knew that it wasn’t really ‘of course’ that Cashel would come safely through wherever Cervoran was taking him.

  The copy Cervoran had made of himself entered the chamber, walking with the same hitching deliberation as the wizard himself had done. He silently stared around the chamber. Men edged away from him and dropped their eyes to avoid his gaze.

  Ilna deliberately glared back at the fellow, angry even at the thought that she might be afraid of him. The copy’s lips smiled at her, though his eyes were as flat as mossy pools.

  “Where is the topaz?” he said. “Where is the amulet that Bass One-Thumb found?”

  Nobody else seemed disposed to answer, so Ilna said, “Cervoran had it with him when he came into this room. He and it both have vanished, so common sense suggests he still has it.”

  The copy smiled again, this time toward a blank patch of wall. He turned his head to Sharina and said, “You are the ruler. You will take me to where the creatures the Green Woman makes from seaweed are coming ashore. I must see them to defeat them properly.”

  “The Princess doesn’t take you anywhere, creature!” Attaper said sharply. “If she decides you can go, we’ll arrange an escort to get you there.”

  “Milord?” Sharina said. “I’d already decided to view the invasion for myself. We’ll set out as soon as I’ve arranged a few details with Lord Tadai. And if the…”

  She paused, her face expressionless as she looked at the copy.