by David Drake
"Look, I'm not afraid!" said Asion. The high pitch of his voice made a lie of the words, but Ilna didn't doubt that he and his partner would act the part of fearless men.
Temple didn't reply. He wasn't arguing with the hunters, of course.
Ilna turned and took eight strands of yarn from her sleeve. She began to knot them. "Temple," she said, "how deep is this? Should I take a torch?"
"There'll be light before you go much farther," the big man said. "You'll have a long way to go, but being able to see won't be one of your problems."
She'd never asked Temple how he knew the things he did. She disliked people who asked personal questions, and she had no intention of behaving that way herself.
"All right," she said, backing into the cave. She held up the pattern she'd just knotted so they all saw it, then dropped it across the entrance. "You three can wait a reasonable length of time for me. Temple, you probably have a better idea of what that would be than I do. If I don't return, then go on your way. I, ah, I've been glad of your company over the past weeks."
"Look, I'm coming with you!" Karpos said, climbing the last of the slope. He stopped in mid-stride, short of the entrance. Asion, just behind, would've collided with his partner if he hadn't been as quick and agile as a sparrow.
"No, you're not," said Ilna. "I've put a blocking spell here. It'll work in pitch darkness in case you were wondering, since I've showed it to you in the light."
She cleared her throat. "Temple?" she said. "Asion and Karpos may need a guide if I don't come back. Can you do that?"
Temple shrugged. "I'll lead them if the situation arises, Ilna," he said.
She turned. To her back Temple added, "May the Gods accompany you, Ilna."
"There are no Gods!" Ilna said. Her voice echoed between the stone walls. She shouldn't have gotten angry, but the man had an incredible talent for saying the thing that would reach all the way to the cold depths of her heart.
Ahead, Ilna saw a hint of light. She smiled as widely as she ever did. What a weaver Temple could've been with an instinct like that!
Chapter 15
Cashel was pretty sure that if he'd been able to close his eyes, he wouldn't have felt any motion at all. He couldn't do that while he was guarding Tenoctris, so he felt a twitch of vertigo when the world stopped spinning beyond the edge of the perfect circle she'd drawn in the middle of an oak grove.
The oaks were gone. The sun'd been directly overhead when Tenoctris began her spell, but now it was close to the southern horizon. Its light brought no warmth.
Cashel and the wizard stood on a beach of rock broken from the ragged cliff, the corniche that the sea battered against during winter storms. The water was too quiet even to show a line of foam, but the low sun lighted it to gleaming contrast with the dull black shingle.
Tenoctris looked about her with a critical expression. "I'm sorry I couldn't come closer than this," she said. "The altar's a focus of great power, but that in itself prevents me from using my art to bring us directly onto it. We'll have to walk."
Cashel smiled faintly. "I don't mind walking, Tenoctris," he said.
He stepped aside and gave his staff a tentative spin, sunwise and then widdershins. Mostly he was loosening his muscles, but it didn't surprise him to see that the ferrules trailed wizardlight in spirals which faded slowly when he put the staff up.
"Something doesn't want us here," Tenoctris said. She looked out to sea, then at the sky. The sunlight was so faint that Cashel, following her eyes, could pick out constellations from knowing their brightest stars.
Cashel spun the quarterstaff again. "That's all right," he said. "Do you know which way we're going, or should we climb that—"
He nodded to the corniche. Though barely higher than he could reach, it was what passed for a vantage point in this barren landscape.
"—and take a look around?"
Tenoctris looked at him. She wasn't angry, but her eyes went all the way to his heart.
"We'll see the altar when we reach the angle of the cliff ahead of us," she said calmly. "It's just around the headland and quite obvious."
They started along the shore. A pair of gray-headed gulls had been looking out from the edge of the sea. One, then the other, flapped into the air and circled to gain height. They shrieked at Cashel and Tenoctris, sounding peevish as gulls always did.
The black shingle wanted to turn under Cashel's bare feet, but other than that he preferred it to the brick or cobblestone pavements he walked on in cities. These stones were rough, but they didn't have spikes or sharp edges.
He glanced at Tenoctris. She wore wooden-soled clogs, though the high uppers were of leather tooled with fashionable designs. She met his eyes, smiled, and said, "Yes, I dressed for what I expected to find."
Her expression sobered. "I should've warned you," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm used to you being able to deal with anything."
Cashel beamed at her. "Yes ma'am," he said. "I am. Or anyway, I'll try to."
He cleared his throat and said, "I shouldn't 've spoken about you knowing where we were. I knew you did."
"You wanted me to get on with our business," Tenoctris said. She wore a faint smile, but he wasn't sure of what was under it. "You were right to remind me of that. We both have things we want to return to."
"Yes, ma'am," Cashel said, thinking of Sharina and feeling warm all the way through. "But I still shouldn't've said it."
A crab longer than Cashel's foot came out of the surf ahead of them. Its shell was the dirty yellow-brown color that sulfur gets when you heat it.
"Those pinchers could take your finger off," he said, bending to pick up a piece of shingle. He threw it, hard but not trying to hit: his missile cracked into similar stones a hand's breadth from the crab. For choice Cashel didn't kill things, even unpleasant things.
Instead of scuttling back into the water, the crab charged them side-on. Frowning, Cashel stepped forward, putting himself in front of Tenoctris. A double-pace from the ugly creature he shot his quarterstaff out like a spear. The crab hopped in the air, but it wasn't quick enough. The iron butt-cap crushed the edge of its shell and all the legs on that side.
The crab landed on its back, scrabbling with its remaining legs to turn over. Cashel stepped closer, judged the angle, and flipped the creature into the water with his staff.
He knew crabs. That one's fellows'd make a meal of it before any of the other predators got a chance to.
"That was funny," he said to Tenoctris. "I've had'em come for me plenty times before, but not from so far away. Do crabs get rabies, do you think?"
A double handful of crabs came out of the sea, all the same ugly color and just as big as the first. Their clawed feet clicked over the stones as they sidled toward Cashel and Tenoctris.
"I think we'd better—" Cashel said. More crabs appeared. The sea boiled with them. There were too many crabs to count, piling onto the shore like bubbles of filthy yellow foam.
* * *
The cold bit Garric's hands and ears. He laced his fingers and twisted them to get the blood flowing. He wondered if Kore thought he was nervous.
He chuckled. Shin looked back and raised an eyebrow. "I am nervous," Garric said over his shoulder. "But that's not why I'm wringing my hands, Mistress Kore."
The ogre laughed. The sound that made Garric think of bubbles rising through a swamp.
It'd gotten chilly during the night as they crossed the strait in the barge, but since the sun came up only heat had been of concern. It probably wasn't that cold here under the ice, but the contrast with the dry wasteland they'd just crossed made it seem a lot worse than it was.
The aegipan paused at a round-topped opening in the side of the rock. The edges were as smooth as those a cobbler made when he sliced leather. It didn't have a door nor could Garric see any sign that a door'd ever been fitted.
"You've reached the resting place of the Yellow King," Shin said. The portal was easily twelve feet high, but through a momentary trick of
the light Garric thought the aegipan's slim form was filling it. "Come in, then, Garric."
"And I'll come as well," Kore said. "I'm no longer your steed, man thing. We're agreed on that?"
Garric looked back at her. Was Kore warning that she was about to attack him?
No. And if she did, well, you couldn't live like a human being and still distrust everyone and everything you met. If the Shepherd chose that an ogre Garric trusted should pull his head off from behind, so be it.
"Yes, mistress," Garric said. "You've been a good companion and an excellent steed. You're released from your oath. I release you from your oath."
"Very well," said the ogre. She set the net of provisions down in the rubble-strewn track. "Then I'm free to become a spectator. I think Master Shin is about to show us wonders."
The aegipan laughed. "Wonders indeed," he said as he walked into the mountain with the others following.
Garric touched the side of the passage: it was as smooth as glass. There was light all around him, but he couldn't tell the source. It was blue, but a purer, clearer blue than what penetrated the ice outside in the valley.
It was wizardlight. And not only the illumination but the passage itself must've been formed by wizardry.
"That shouldn't be a surprise, should it, Garric?" said Shin without turning his head. "You knew the Yellow King was a wizard. That's why you came here, isn't it?"
Garric's mouth was dry. "I knew the Yellow King was a myth," he said. "That's what I really believed, as you must know. I came because Tenoctris told me to come."
He laughed without humor. "I came because Tenoctris gave me an excuse to walk away from the duties of being king, which I hate because I'm afraid I'm going to do the wrong thing and break everything. That's why I came, Master Shin."
"Well, I don't suppose the reasons matter, do they?" said the aegipan cheerfully. "The important thing is that you came."
He stepped into a chamber. Its ceiling rose so high that it was lost in a haze of wizardlight. A helical staircase circled it, rising out of sight. The floor was stone, polished like the walls, and over a hundred feet in diameter.
In the center, facing the entrance, was a huge throne on a three-step base. It'd been carved as a whole from the living rock. On its empty seat was a cushion of yellow fabric. There was nothing else in the great room.
Carus would've drawn his sword in an instinctive response to a situation he didn't understand. Garric kept his hands in front of him with his fingers tented, but he certainly didn't understand what was going on either.
"Ah, Shin?" he said. "Are we to wait here for the Yellow King's arrival? Or . . .?"
"Oh, as for that . . .," said the aegipan. He turned a double cartwheel to the base of the throne, then mounted it. At each step he appeared to grow larger. When he lifted the yellow fabric—it was a folded robe, not a cushion—he was of a size with the throne.
Shin smiled and bowed to Garric, then settled onto the stone seat. "I've arrived. More to the point, you've arrived to meet me, Garric."
Carus was calculating how to attack the aegipan, but that was Carus. Anything big enough to be dangerous was to him a potential threat. That was a useful trait in a subordinate, but not a good one for the person in charge.
Garric was in charge. He cleared his throat.
"Ah, your highness," he said, looking up at the great figure enthroned before him. "I came to ask your assistance in dealing with the Last, the invaders, as you know. I—"
The absurdity of the situation struck him. He laughed, knowing that he must sound a little hysterical. "Will you help us, your highness?" he said. "Will you help mankind, now that you've brought me all this way to ask you?"
"I've been Shin to you during the journey," the great figure said. "I'll remain Shin to you and Mistress Kore, if you don't mind. Shin has a more interesting life than the Yellow King does."
Garric bowed. "I came to like Shin," he said. "I'd be pleased to have him back."
The aegipan rose and walked down from the throne again, shrinking at each step just as he'd grown. At the bottom the neck of the robe slipped over his body. He walked out of the garment.
His tongue lolled in a smile. Garric wondered if he were going to cartwheel toward them.
"Another time, perhaps," said the aegipan, his hooves clicking on the floor.
"The test wasn't of how bold a warrior you were, Garric," Shin went on. "Though you certainly proved that well enough. What I needed to determine was how fit a ruler you'd be for a land in which 'people' means more than members of the human race. You satisfied me ably on that score."
And if I hadn't? Garric thought. He didn't voice the words and Shin didn't answer the unspoken question.
"You know the answer, lad," said the ghost in his mind. "This one's as hard as I am, and he has no more reason to love us than he does the Last."
"Perhaps a little more, Brother Carus," said Shin with his mocking smile again. "But that's of no concern now since your descendent has succeeded where a more physical ruler would not have. I'll go to my . . . well, you could call it an altar, on top of this ridge. Those are the steps to it."
He gestured toward the staircase circling the room.
"There's only one problem," Shin went on. "The wyvern we saw breaking out of the ice will make for the highest point also. And while I could deal with him, I can't both deal with the wyvern and accomplish what you've asked me to do. In the time that remains, I mean. In the time that remains for humanity."
King Carus began to laugh. His image stood arms-akimbo, looking merrily at the aegipan through Garric's eyes.
"I suppose you wouldn't fancy my chances of arriving here the way Garric did, eh, Master Shin?" Carus said. "To tell the truth, I don't fancy them either. I figure it'd have ended in a stable with a dead ogre and my head pulled off my neck."
He nodded toward Kore. The ogre squatted with an elbow cocked on her knee to support her chin. She nodded back, as comfortable in dealing with the ghost as she was with the Yellow King.
"So fair enough, I wasn't the man for that job," Carus said. The lines of his face hardened, though his smile remained. "But I've fought a wyvern. You get on with your business, wizard. I and the boy here'll keep the beast busy for you."
"You haven't fought a wyvern as big as this one," said Kore.
Garric shrugged. He didn't need his ancestor to tell him what to do now. "This is the best way to get to him?" he said, gesturing to the stairs circling the wall.
"Far and away the best," Shin agreed. "Even if you were a rock climber. I'll follow you up, then."
Kore stood and stretched. "Follow me instead, Master Shin," she said. "I think I'll go too."
Garric looked at her without speaking.
The ogre grimaced, an amazing expression on her long face. "It's my business what I do, you know," she said. "I'm not your horse any more!"
She made a dismissive gesture with her right arm. It looked like a derrick swinging.
"Wyvern flesh is quite tasty," she added. "The young ones are, at any rate. I've never eaten one this big myself, but I'm hopeful."
"Right," said Garric quietly. "I'm hopeful too, my friend."
He strode to the base of the stairs. He was nervous. He'd have liked to rush up them, but he was going to need all his strength and wind very shortly.
In truth, he and Kore were probably going to need more strength than they had; but they were going to try.
* * *
Ilna could no longer see light when she looked over her shoulder, and the gray glow ahead wasn't strong enough to help her choose her footing. She walked on, her face set and grim; more or less as usual, she supposed.
The worst thing that could happen would be for her to fall into a chasm and break her neck, and she wasn't disposed at the moment to consider that a bad result. She'd go on as long as she lived, but life had held no pleasure for her since she'd watched the catmen kill Chalcus and Merota.
The light was growing brighter. She'd he
ard things scuttling along the floor beside her for some minutes; now she was able to see distorted shadows the size of dogs. She didn't bother to pretend that they were dogs.
"Oh, she's very strong," whispered a voice.
"The Messengers will bow to her," another voice rustled. "Not like us, not poor weak failures like us."
The light was stronger. This time she could tell that the speaker was one of the scuttling things. For a moment it stood and she thought it was a man; but then it hunched again. There was nothing human about it, though there might once have been.
Ilna remembered what Temple had said about those who sought the Messengers but didn't have the strength to compel them. Asion and Karpos deserved better of her.
