The Mirror of Worlds-ARC

by David Drake

  "It'll do, lad," said Carus in a husky whisper. "It's what we have, so it'll do."

  Garric stepped onto the roof, the shield in his left hand and the shimmering gray sword in his right. His smile mirrored that of the ghost in his mind.

  The stable roof was of arm-thick poles laid side by side. They hadn't been dressed, let alone squared, but enough bark had sloughed away that if there'd been light in the stables Garric would've been able to look through them and see what was going on.

  And if I had a hundred Blood Eagles with me, I could let them take care of the problem, he thought, grinning. This would do.

  The stable doors had been opened outward. Garric judged the ground below—it was clear—and jumped with his knees flexed to land in the shelter of a door valve.

  The doors were built on the same massive scale as everything else about the inn. If he'd dropped in front of the opening, something could've leapt on him before he turned to face it. Judging from the way the horse'd screamed before its neck broke, that would've been the end—and a nasty end.

  Garric made sure of his footing, got his breath, and swung into the doorway with his shield raised. He stood there, letting his eyes pick out forms in the dappled shadows instead of rushing straight in. The pause would've been suicide if he'd faced human foes who'd have him as a silhouetted target for an arrow or even a thrown knife, but the grunts and slobbering gulps from the gelding's stall weren't human.

  The creature which'd been crouching over the dead horse turned toward Garric. It was a distorted image of a man, very broad and too tall to stand at full height though the ceiling was ten feet high at the rear of the stables. Its face was long and flat; when its jaws opened, they dropped straight down instead of hinging at the back.

  "Ho!" it bawled. "This horse was stringy, but here's a morsel come to offer itself as a tastier dinner!"

  A lantern from behind threw its light over Garric, then past him into the stables. The creature's hide was faintly green where it hadn't been bathed in the gelding's blood, and it was female.

  "May the Shepherd help us, it's an ogre!" squealed Hann. "Milord, run! No man can fight an ogre!"

  King Carus laughed. It was only when Garric heard the sound echoing from the stable rafters that he realized he was laughing too.

  "Milord!" the innkeeper repeated, this time in a scandalized tone.

  Garric backed a step. Carus was plotting the next move and all the moves to follow, a chess master who gamed with real humans and himself at their head.

  "I'll lick the flesh off your thigh bones, little man!" the ogre said. Her four breasts, flaccid but pendulous, wobbled as she bent forward slightly. "And you'll still be alive when I do it!"

  "The ogre reads minds, Master Garric," said Shin from somewhere behind him. Garric wondered if the aegipan had jumped from the roof as he had or had come out a door on the ground floor with the innkeeper. "Not my mind, of course."

  "Then she knows exactly how I'm going to kill her," Garric said. The words came out in a growl; his mouth was dry. "She'll have to hunch to get through this doorway, and when she does I'll put my sword through her. It'll cut stone, you know, Shin; it'll slice that ugly skull of hers like a cantaloupe."

  The ogre roared and rushed forward—but toward the door, not through it. Garric stayed in his waiting crouch. He laughed, at the trick and at the way he and Carus had anticipated it.

  The ogre's arms were long, even for a creature so big. If Garric'd lunged to meet her, she'd have snatched him while he was off balance and dragged him inside, probably slamming him a time or two against the doorposts along the way. By standing his ground a little way back from the opening, Garric had time to meet a clutching hand and lop it off. This sword's edge would make nothing of the ogre's big bones, and if she read his mind she was sure of that.

  The ogre backed and bellowed again, flexing her arms at her sides. It was like watching a crab threaten a rival. The arms were amazingly long, eight feet or so; her knuckles'd scrape the ground if she hunched over.

  "Bring a bow and arrows!" Garric shouted into the night. He turned his head slightly, but he could still see the ogre with both eyes. Hann had left his lantern on the ground and vanished, but Garric was sure everybody in the Boar's Skull was listening to him. "Javelins, any missiles! I'll keep her from coming out while you shoot her full of arrows!"

  "So you think you can stop me, my little morsel?" the ogre said loudly. "Do you doubt that I'll pull your head off even if you manage to find my heart with your sword?"

  Carus barked a laugh. Garric said, "No, I don't doubt that. But I will find your heart."

  He tossed his shield down and drew the dagger with his left hand. The wicker wouldn't be any use if the ogre rushed, but he might drive the dagger home even if she tore the sword from him after his first stroke. It wouldn't matter to him, of course, but the quicker the ogre bled out, the less chance there was of her killing anybody else.

  Somebody has to do it. This time that somebody is me. That was the decision you made when you became a shepherd, or a soldier, or a prince.

  The ogre reached up and tore at the roof; the poles crackled in her grip. Garric poised. She could break out of the stables, but the roof and walls were too sturdy for her to do so easily. When she gets her head and shoulders through the hole, I'll lunge. I'll put the point in through her diaphragm and rip down to spill her guts on the stable floor. It's not as quick as a stroke to the heart, but it'll kill—and I might even survive the encounter, unexpectedly.

  The ogre suddenly backed and leaned against the sidewall, making a sound like rocks grating. After a moment, Garric realized she was laughing.

  "Well, you're a brave one," she said affably. "And a clever one besides. I've never met a man like you before, I'll tell you that. "

  She cocked her head to the side and let her jaw drop; her front teeth looked like a wolf's, but behind them were great molars that could crush a horse's thigh.

  "She's smiling, if you wondered," Shin said. "She doesn't have lips like a man's, so she's trying to make an expression that suggests a smile. Personally I don't think it's a very good copy, but I suppose she deserves something for making the effort."

  "I'll give her something," Garric said in a thick voice, mouthing the words Carus spoke in his mind. If he rushed, he was almost certain to get home with the dagger as the ogre concentrated on the longer blade . . . .

  "Here!" said the ogre sharply, straightening. "You're a king, you have a whole nation depending on you. There's no point in the two of us killing each other. I made a mistake coming here, I freely own it. You go your way and let me go mine, and I'll never trouble you again."

  "No," said Garric hoarsely. "You're right, I'm a king. I'm not going to loose you on people who trust me. Tomorrow it might be a child, it might be Liane . . . ."

  His mouth was dry as ashes, as dry as hot sand. He trembled with the need to act, to move. He'd thought he could wait for someone to bring a bow and arrows, but he couldn't; he was going to rush very soon now and kill this monster as it'd killed his horse, as it'd killed who-knew-what in the past.

  "Prince Garric, I wronged you!" the ogre said. She knelt on one knee—her legs were in normal human proportions to her body—dipped her head slightly, and touched her fingertips to her forehead. That was a sign of obeisance among the Serians. "I killed your horse."

  "You've killed more than my horse," said Garric, as startled as if the monster had begun to sing a hymn of praise to the Lady.

  "You know nothing of my past," the ogre said. "Besides, the world before the Change was a different place—for you, for me, for everyone. What happened in this world is that I killed the horse which you needed to reach the Yellow King. I will be your horse, Prince Garric. I will carry you as surely and safely as that stupid quadruped could ever do."

  The absurdity of the situation made Garric dizzy. He would've laughed, but his mouth was too dry. "Do you have a sea wolf friend that I could sail across seas on too?" he croaked. "Wh
y in Duzi's name do you think I'd trust you?"

  "Oh, her oath is binding, Garric," Shin said cheerfully. "Though far be it from me to dissuade you from being torn limb from limb. I'm sure that's what a proper hero like your ancestor would insist on doing, isn't it?"

  "How can that be?" Garric said in amazement. "Trust that monster?"

  He almost turned his head to look at the aegipan but caught himself. Big as the ogre was, he'd seen how quickly she moved.

  "You're surprised?" said Shin. "I don't know why. Your oath is binding, isn't it? Even if you gave it to an ogre?"

  Shin walked in front of Garric, eyeing the kneeling ogre with the cool judgment of a drover pricing sheep. "You couldn't use your saddle, of course, but I'm sure you could improvise harness from hides. There's no lack of hides in this place, is there? After all, we have a longer way to go than I'd care to walk in those clumsy boots of yours."

  He gave his gobbling laugh. "Though of course that won't matter," he added cheerfully. "She'll certainly tear you apart off if you fight. It will be a very heroic death, no doubt."

  Garric coughed, started to laugh, and coughed again. His sword was trembling. He was going to have to do something.

  "Ogre!" he said. "Do you swear . . . what do you swear by? Do you have Gods?"

  The ogre mimed a distorted smile again. "What do the Gods care about the affairs of humans like me or creatures like you either one?" she said. "I give you my word, Garric or-Reise, that I will bear you like a horse, that I will not harm you, and that I will not harm others whom you wish me not to harm."

  Garric shot his sword home in its scabbard. "And I swear to you, ogre," he said, "that I'll treat you as well as I would a horse or a good servant for so long as you keep your word to me."

  "Her name is Koray," said the aegipan, out of the doorway. "Spelled K-O-R-E. Though I suppose you can continue to call her ogre. You didn't have a name for the horse, did you?"

  "Come out, Kore," Garric said, "and let me look at you in better light. Besides, you must be cramped in there and I promised I'd treat you properly."

  He still had the long dagger in his left hand; he must've forgotten it. He sheathed it as the ogre ducked low to pass under the door transom and then rose to her full height, easily twelve feet.

  Kore stretched, then said, "While I realize this may be an indelicate question, master, I broke into these stables because I was very hungry. If you don't have a better use for the corpse of your former steed, may I resume my meal?"

  Garric began to laugh, but the ghost of Carus laughed even harder.

  Chapter 7

  Cashel would rather've been outside under the stars, but he didn't mind waiting in the tomb with Tenoctris. He had his back to the threshold with the quarterstaff across his knees. There was enough oil to keep the lamp at the other end of the chamber burning all night, and it'd be all right even if it went out.

  When the breeze was right he caught snatches of the soldiers talking. Instead of standing around the trench, they'd moved onto the top of the hill. From there they could see anybody coming toward the tomb but still keep a little ways away from the wizardry.

  The chant Tenoctris had started when she lay in the stone coffin continued as a rhythm well below the level Cashel could hear it as words. It wasn't Tenoctris speaking now, or anyway her lips didn't move: he'd leaned close to make sure.

  Cashel smiled. Probably as well the soldiers had kept their distance. It'd been a treat to watch them dig the tomb open, but likely the sound would bother them if they'd been close enough to hear.

  The lamp dimmed to the blue glow of the wick. Cashel leaned forward as he stood. If he'd hopped straight to his feet he'd have cracked his head on the stone transom. He could stand upright in the tomb proper, though.

  It wasn't quite high enough for the quarterstaff, so he held it crossways. He didn't know what was coming, but he was as ready as he could be.

  The lamp brightened again. Cashel frowned; he was glad of the light, but it wasn't what he'd expected. The oil Tenoctris'd poured from her stoppered bottle ran thinner than any Cashel'd seen before. Maybe that was why it acted this way?

  A man stepped from the air toward the other end of the tomb. He didn't come out of a wall, Cashel was sure of that; there was an oval mistiness, then this fellow walking through it and standing at the foot of the coffin. He was young to look at, scarcely sixteen. His silk robes were so thin you could see the lamp through them; the cloth was bright blue with words embroidered on it in gold. Cashel recognized the curvy Old Script.

  "My but you're a big one, aren't you?" the stranger said, smiling in a way Cashel didn't like. "What's your name, pretty boy?"

  "I'm Cashel or-Kenset, sir," Cashel said, shuffling his feet slightly to be sure they were set right. "Are you the fellow who was buried here?"

  The lamp was burning brighter than ever, but the stranger's features were sharp even where they ought to have been in shadow. And speaking of shadows—

  Cashel glanced at the wall of the tomb on the other side of the stranger from the lamp. Instead of the shadow of a young man, it showed a spindly, lizard-headed demon. Lamplight shone through the wing membranes, casting lighter shadows than the body itself; they flicked open and closed as the stranger talked.

  "Buried?" said the stranger. "Dear me, what a thought. But your friend came here to find me, if that's what you mean."

  He looked down at Tenoctris and smirked. "I can certainly see why she wanted me to take charge of the business," he said. "My, if I'd been such a pitiable weakling, I'd just have hanged myself."

  He smiled at Cashel, obviously waiting for a reaction that didn't come. Cashel didn't let words get him mad, especially when that was what the other guy was trying to do—like here.

  Of course not being mad didn't mean he wouldn't take a quick swipe with the quarterstaff, slamming the fellow into the wall hard enough to break bones. Cashel wouldn't do that this time either, because Tenoctris really had come here to meet him. Thinking about it made Cashel smile, though.

  The stranger tittered, turned, and walked toward the back of the chamber before turning again. His shadow rippled over the rough-hewn wall with him.

  "I wanted the First Stone," he said musingly. "Well, of course I did—anyone would. But I knew where to find it and how to get it . . . almost."

  He laughed again but there was no humor at all in the sound, not even the joy of a torturer. "That 'almost' was expensive, pretty one," he said. "It cost me time, more time than you can possibly imagine. I was beginning to think that it'd cost me eternity; all the time there ever will be."

  Briskly, cheerfully, he walked toward Cashel with his left hand out. "But now your friend has come," he said. "I paid and paid well for my information, and at last I'm able at last to use it to get the First Stone. Give me the locket you're holding for me, my little flower, and we'll get on with the business I've waited so very long to complete."

  "No," said Cashel. He didn't raise his voice, but he heard it thicken. "Tenoctris gave me the locket. I'll keep it."

  "Do you think you can threaten me, you worm!" the stranger said. "Threaten me?"

  He was—he didn't become, he was—a lion bigger than any real lion, a beast whose open jaws could swallow Cashel whole. Its gape reeked with the flesh rotting between its fangs.

  Cashel hunched. He'd strike with his right arm leading in a horizontal arc, then bring the other ferrule around from the left in a blow that started at knee height. But not yet.

  The lion was too big for the tomb chamber to hold. Cashel faced it on a flat, featureless plain—but the plain might not be real; and if it wasn't, neither was the lion. A stroke at something that didn't exist would pull him off balance, and that could be the end of the fight. The stranger might not be a lion, but he was something—and something very dangerous.

  "Give me the locket, worm-thing!" the lion shouted.

  Cashel twitched the quarterstaff just a hair, widdershins and then sunwise. He'd said all he had to
say, so he didn't speak again. There were folks who thought blustering before a fight scared the other fellow, but Cashel didn't believe that. It didn't scare him; and besides, he generally didn't need help.

  The lion tittered and was the slender young man again. "Oh, the fun I used to have when I was alive!" he said in the arch tones Cashel heard around the palace when courtiers were each trying to be snootier than the other. "Happy days, happy days."

  He smiled at Cashel; and as he smiled, his body flowed through the side of the stone coffin and merged with Tenoctris. It was like watching honey soak into a slice of coarse bread.

  The lamp had sunk back to its usual flicker. There was no sign of the stranger. Tenoctris groaned.