Master of the Cauldron

by David Drake

  "Certain, you say, my dear friend?" Chalcus said, his voice a song like the ringing whisper of a blade drawn from its scabbard.

  "As certain as the rock—"

  Davus rubbed the ball of his right foot against the basalt, an oddly sensuous gesture.

  "—beneath us, friend Chalcus," he replied. "We must find the price she demands, not the one we wish to pay. Whatever that demand may be."

  "Then for Merota's sake..," Chalcus said, suddenly relaxing. "That is what we shall find. What is your great price, milady?"

  Arrea laughed in a voice as cold as the winter moon. "I need a task performed," she said. "Look into the sea and tell me what you see. It may be that none of you is fitted to carry it out."

  "I've looked at water before," said Chalcus as he swaggered to the edge. "So far I can go with you, milady."

  Davus walked after him, tossing and catching the chip of stone as if his hands were wholly separate from the man himself. He glanced at Ilna with a soft expression; turned then to Chalcus and twisted his mouth into a broader, harder smile.

  Ilna faced Arrea squarely. It was like looking at a snake, though the woman's features had the chiseled beauty of a temple statue. Ilna turned and followed her companions. Behind them, Arrea laughed triumphantly.

  The men were looking down from the cliff. The fierce updraft ruffled their hair into the liquid curves of candleflames. Ilna stepped between them and peered over, holding her tunic to her thighs with her hands.

  The cliff was sheer—undercut, even—but at present the lake a furlong below had only waves enough to dapple the light reflecting from it. It was deep, much deeper than the Inner Sea off Barca's Hamlet.

  Chalcus scowled, then composed his face into a smile and looked over his shoulder at Arrea. "I look and I see water, milady. Water and a bird in the distance, a very large bird to look as big as a gull within bowshot but in fact be so far away. Is that what we're to see?"

  Ilna frowned. In a voice meant for the sailor's ears alone she said, "Surely she means the cloud there in the water, don't you think? That cloud in the depths, and the silk strands glued to the rock and running down to it."

  Wrist-thick cords, tens and tens of them, were anchored to the rock face for as far as Ilna could see in either direction. They looked like the lines supporting a spider's web, but these were as heavy as a ship's cordage. They slanted toward the water and wove themselves into a hollow tube just above the surface.

  "What is it, dear heart?" he said, obviously puzzled. "The water's clear as a baby's conscience, I'd have said."

  "Davus, what do you see?" Ilna said, irritated to hear a desperate undertone to her voice. "There, where I'm pointing? And the lines running down to it!"

  "I see nothing, mistress," Davus said calmly. "The same nothing that Master Chalcus sees. But if you see something, then it's there and it's you who must go the next part of the way."

  He stepped back so that he could look straight at Chalcus without Ilna between them. He crossed his arms behind his back, leaving his chest open to a blow or a sword thrust. "As I feared might be the case, though I hoped it would not. Still, the price is the price; and it has to be paid."

  Ilna turned and walked the ten double-paces back to where Arrea faced them over the masonry wall. She could've shouted to the other, but Ilna didn't like to raise her voice; particularly when she was angry.

  She grinned. She had more experience with being angry than most people did—or anybody should, she supposed.

  "I see a cloud in the water," Ilna said. "A cloud or a silk bag, I suppose it must be, since silk cords hold it to the cliff. Is that what you wanted to know?"

  Instead of answering directly, Arrea gave her a broad, tight-lipped grin and said, "You'll do, then. It's not a sack, it's a cocoon. In it you'll find a great jewel. Bring the jewel to me and in exchange I'll open the passage for you and your friends."

  "I can see the cords," Ilna said, speaking in a cold tone to hide the anger blazing within her. "That doesn't mean that I can breathe water, mistress. Nor can I swim!"

  That last was a little more tart than she'd intended. She couldn't swim, and the thought of suffocating as the waters closed over her filled her with a disgust that wasn't the same as fearing to die.

  "The larva needs air," Arrea said in an arch tone. "It's a white bloated thing with no eyes and no limbs and no mind, so it will neither know nor care that you're breathing some of what was meant for it."

  "And has it a mouth, milady?" said Chalcus, come to Ilna's side now as she had come to his. "A mouth to swallow those who've come to steal its jewels?"

  Arrea laughed. "Have you nothing to worry about on your own account, Master Chalcus?" she said. "The larva is squirming blubber which eats nothing and knows nothing about the jewel. It will not be aware that your slip of a girl here has come and gone."

  "On your life!" Chalcus said, the planes of his face rigid.

  Arrea laughed again.

  Ilna turned on her heel and walked to the cliff, eyeing the task she'd taken on herself. Davus, who hadn't moved from the edge, said, "The threads weave themselves into a floor you can walk on before you're a hundred feet out, and they twist over in a tube well above the water."

  "And the larva isn't danger?" Chalcus said, come up on Ilna's other side.

  "Not the larva," Davus said, "but there may be parasites in the cocoon sucking its blood."

  He shrugged. "They're not lions or wolves, Master Chalcus," he said. "There'll be danger, but there's danger in life. And we cannot go in her place or even go with her, because we're blind to what must be seen."

  "Yes," said Ilna. "And while I regret seeming to agree with Arrea, whom I neither like nor trust—"

  Chalcus chuckled and even Davus, who hadn't known Ilna long, smiled.

  Ilna grinned also, pleased that the unplanned joke had broken the tension. "Yes, I suppose that does put Arrea with the great majority of the people I've met," she agreed. "Nonetheless, I don't see that my going down to a room in the sea, for that's all it is, is so greatly more dangerous than you waiting for me up here."

  "We'll keep our eyes open," Chalcus said. He stepped close and kissed her, then turned. "I'll watch our backs, Master Davus," he said. "You keep an eye on her and tell me if there's anything I should do. That way we'll come out all right, I think; or anyway, come out best."

  "Right," said Davus, fitting a good-sized rock into the pocket of his sash. He swung it idly, watching the far horizon where the bird soared.

  Ilna touched the nearest line, attached only a handsbreadth below the top of the cliff where she was standing. The cord appeared to have melted onto the stone in a splotch wider than Ilna could circle with both hands. Given that the strand was strong enough to tow a trireme, and as best Ilna could estimate there were more strands than there were rowers in that trireme, the risks she was taking didn't include the chance of the cocoon breaking loose with her in it.

  Turning backwards and wrapping her legs around the silk, she started down. The slope was gradual and the cord so thick that she could probably have walked it like a rope dancer, but she didn't need to do that now.

  That would've been showing off, behavior Ilna disliked and particularly disliked in herself. Besides, her companions both knew what she really was; and respected her, for what she was and—she felt—despite it.

  I know what I am too. And if there was a God to forgive me, I would still never forgive myself.

  Above her Chalcus began to sing, "Don't bury me here, in the cold gray sea...."

  "Where the seagulls cry...," Davus joined in with his pleasant baritone.

  Ilna reached a point that three strands joined. She turned and stood, walking down the widening pavement and luxuriating in the feel of the silk against her soles.

  "... so mournfully...," her companions sang.

  Ilna began to laugh, a thing she did rarely and would never have imagined doing under the present circumstances. She'd been alone most of her life, for all that there'
d generally been people about her.

  She wasn't alone any more.

  * * *

  Just ahead of Cashel the cavern narrowed to a knife-edge. The walls stepped back a bit at every level rising to the dimly-glimpsed ceiling, but down where he followed Mab and the Sons it was going to be tight. Cashel figured he'd have room to spin his quarterstaff crossways but only just, and that because a staff didn't wobble when he spun it the way it did for most folks.

  "Mistress Mab?" he said. "Ought I to lead here, or maybe...?"

  He stopped because he didn't even know how to ask the question. Truth to tell, it seemed to Cashel he ought to be all places in the line, since the only direction he didn't worry about things coming at them from was up through the floor. And if there turned out to be a floor grate in the crevice, he'd be looking down between his feet too.

  "I'll make a light and lead, Cashel," Mab said. "Shall we have...."

  She made a sign in the air before her with her right hand; a blob of blue wizardlight bloomed. After an instant's pause, Mab signed again, this time with her left hand and a completely different gesture. Red light swelled beside the blue.

  "The crimson, I think," Mab said. The blue light vanished and the red flooded soft color over everything within a stone's throw ahead and behind her. "Neither's more natural than the other, but the crimson makes things look more natural to our human senses, don't you think?"

  "Thanks for giving us light, mistress," Herron said. All the Sons had taken to carrying their swords in their hands instead of wearing them in their belt scabbards, but only Herron held his with the point up where it might be good for something against a sudden attack. "I was... I wondered how much darker it was going to get."

  "Algae grows over the light pipes," Mab said, not sounding very concerned about it. "It's natural, but the way it grows isn't."

  "Like the mushrooms we saw," Orly said.

  "And the rosebush that tried to follow us," said Enfero.

  And also like the big spider you didn't see, Cashel thought. And probably a lot of things I didn't see besides.

  But he didn't say any of that aloud. They were decent boys, trying hard to be brave doing something they didn't begin to understand. Cashel didn't understand either, but he was used to that and the Sons weren't.

  "I see something," Orly said. "On the fifth terrace above us. To the left."

  He pointed with his sword, then jerked it back. Cashel guessed he was afraid of calling attention to himself.

  "They're white!" Stasslin said. "It's the Made Men!"

  Cashel saw not figures but the pale shadows of figures, watching from just above where the glow lighted. There were a lot of them, many times more than he could count without a tally stick. They moved back and forth along the edge overlooking the crevice.

  Stasslin turned to face Mab. In the tone of angry accusation that seemed to be pretty usual for him, he said, "You told us the Made Men couldn't get in, but here they are waiting!"

  Before Cashel could act, Mab flicked her left index finger. The rosy haze expanded suddenly, filling the whole vast cavern and the passage ahead. A treefrog hung with its mouth open on the wall just below the terrace where the figures'd been, blinking at the light. Its webbed feet were much broader than those of frogs Cashel was used to, and its body was as large as a lamb's.

  But the figures had vanished.

  Mab shrank the light down to what it'd been a moment earlier. Cashel couldn't see the big frog any more, but the white shapes came capering back.

  "The Made men were gone," Athan said, "and now they're there again."

  "They never existed except as ghosts in your minds," Mab said coldly. "They have no physical presence, and they can do you no physical harm."

  She looked at Stasslin and smiled. Her lips could've cut glass.

  Stasslin glowered and turned his head away. "I didn't know!" he said in an angry voice. "I'm not afraid of ghosts."

  "There's reason to fear these," Mab said, her voice gentler as she glanced across all those with her. "The King's spirit never really left these depths, and in the past decades his power here has increased to levels it's not reached in a thousand years. He can't touch your bodies, but he can trick your minds into seeing things that aren't there. He can make you feel things that're to his benefit. Not your benefit or the benefit of the citizens of Ronn."

  "Lady Mab," said Herron, pretty much succeeding in keeping his voice steady. "What are we supposed to do?"

  Mab smiled and raised an eyebrow at Cashel, passing the question to him. He shrugged, uncomfortable with everybody looking at him; but that'd happened to him before, and worse things had happened too. And the answer was always the same.

  "We go on," Cashel said. "We go to the Shrine of the Heroes, and we wake them to come back with us."

  He cleared his throat. "Or anyway, we try."

  "Yes," said Mab, "that's what we'll do. As I said, I'll lead."

  She walked forward, the light moving with her step by step. Several of the Sons started after her right away, but Herron glanced over his shoulder at Cashel.

  Cashel smiled, pleased that Herron'd been concerned about him. They were good boys; most of them, anyhow.

  "I'll bring up the back, Herron," he said. "That gives me a little more space if I need it."

  So speaking, he spun his staff slowly. Just the simple sunwise turning made him feel better right away, so he crossed his arms behind him and reversed his spin to widdershins.

  The Sons all gasped. Cashel didn't see why. He was showing his skill, but these fellows didn't know enough about quarterstaffs to see that.

  Then he brought the hickory around before him again. The ferrules were trailing blue wizardlight.

  "Oh," Cashel said, feeling his cheeks flush. He twisted his staff to a halt and butted it on the ground beside him.

  "Master Cashel, how did you do that?" Manza said in amazement. The Sons were staring at him. Mab watched too, but she had a crooked smile.

  "He's a wizard, Manza!" Enfero snapped at his friend. "How else would he do it?"

  "I'm not a wizard!" Cashel said, looking at the deep passage they were supposed to be going down. "Anyway, let's get going."

  He made a shooing motion with his free hand. Since he wanted to be at the back of the line, he couldn't very well stride off down the crevice the way he'd have done otherwise to get them moving. He felt like Stasslin had a moment ago, embarrassed at what he'd done and having no idea what to say about it. He didn't understand the power that came over him sometimes, but he wasn't a wizard.

  Mab walked on. The Sons followed, most of them right on her heels, though Herron and Stasslin both tried to keep a decent separation. Cashel couldn't pretend he liked Stasslin—and unlike Ilna, Cashel generally found he did like people—but even Stasslin was doing his best. That counted for more than the results did.

  Well, it did to Cashel. Ilna, well, Ilna didn't have much time for failure either, even when it was somebody besides herself who was failing.

  "Master Cashel believes a wizard is a person who uses spells and symbols to work changes in the waking world," Mab said. She spoke in a normal voice without looking back over her shoulder, but Cashel at the end of the line heard her clearly. "That defines many wizards, of course."

  They were well within the crevice, now. The walls oozed, but the way the drops ran made Cashel wonder if they were something thicker than water. The floor was slimy, and the air had the musty closeness of something long dead but covered up. He remembered the time he'd opened the tarred seal of a storage jar and found that a rat had managed to hop in with the oats before the jar was closed the August before.

  He heard something ahead, different from the dismal plink of water falling into water. One of the Sons was whimpering. There weren't any words to what was coming out of his mouth, just cold misery.

  "They're up above us again," Manza said. "They're coming closer, I think."

  "They aren't there!" Athan said. His head was bent forward
as if he needed to watch his feet for every step. "Just don't look and they'll go away!"

  "They will not go away," said Mab. "But they can't do you physical harm. Follow me and we'll make it through."

  One of the Sons clustering close behind her turned. Hard to tell what he was thinking, but when he saw Cashel bringing up the back with his quarterstaff across his body—and across the width of the crevice, which was just as tight as it'd looked before they entered—he jerked his face forward again and kept on the way he'd been going.

  Cashel wouldn't have sworn which of them it'd been; and anyway, Orly needn't be ashamed for being scared. He'd proved he was brave when he'd charged Cashel on the exercise ground after seeing what the quarterstaff'd done to his friends.

  They walked on, surrounded by Mab's light. Cashel knew from watching other wizards that it was a lot of work to keep up a steady thing like that light. Mab didn't seem to show the strain. She'd walked and talked with them just like always, but she must feel like she was carrying a load of timber.

  Yes, that was pretty impressive; but in the long run it wouldn't make any difference. The light would go out and Mab would sink under the effort, fall down right here in the ooze and darkness. She'd be the lucky one. Cashel and the Sons wouldn't die right away but there wasn't anywhere for them to go, neither forward nor back. They'd die slowly, covered by the slime that was slowly filling the crevice. It'd fill the greater hall in back of them, and eventually slime would own all the places that men had been.

  The world would be a better place when slime filled it.

  He stumbled into Enfero, who'd knelt on the narrow path and was weeping. Though Cashel's eyes were open he'd been putting one foot in front of the other, scarcely aware of his surroundings. The collision shocked him back to the present. Though the light was no fainter than before, it was losing the rosy tinge. It turned the stone walls and the thin-stemmed plants that still lifted their leaves in hope a pale gray.