by David Drake
Syl instinctively reached up to touch her hair. The ribbon was a green so faint it might have passed for white. She realized what she'd done and grimaced.
"Whatever," she muttered. ''Anyway, we've come to say that we'll put everything we've managed to escape with at your service."
Which was different from, "ourselves at your service," thought Cashel as he took a flat loaf from the hamper while one of the men refilled the crystal cup. He couldn't imagine any service this lot could be, of course; to him or to anybody, themselves included.
"Ma'am…," he said as he bit down and found to his surprise that the loaf was meat or anyway tasted like meat instead of being bread. Duzi! but he was hungry. "Ah, what I meant to say is that Bossian didn't summon me anywhere. He helped me some but that was because he wanted to be shut of me."
Cashel paused, both to swallow what he'd been chewing and to collect his words. He knew what he meant, now and most times, but often he had a hard time finding the right words.
"It was Kotia who brought me here," he said carefully. "To your world, I mean. And now I'm going back."
"But milord…," said the blond man. His face twisted up in a funny way; Cashel thought for a moment that he was going to spit at him. That had happened to Cashel before, though it'd never turned out to be a good idea for the fellow spitting…
Instead the blond man sank down on his knees and started to cry, and it was absolutely the first time in Cashel's life thatthat had happened. If he'd had to pick between the experiences he guessed he'd have taken the spitting, because then he knew exactly what to do.
"Milord, milord, please," the fellow blubbered. "You slew the dragon, surely you can slay the Visitor also. Milord, if you abandon us we have nothing, no one."
The others weren't crying but they looked like they were ready to, all but Syl who patted her hair ribbon with a distant expression. Shuving or-Gansel had that kind of look on his face when the oak he'd been felling split partway up the trunk and leaped back on him. It didn't change even when he died, an hour or so after Cashel and Shuving's son had gotten the tree off him.
Cashel gulped the wine; it tingled all the way to his toes. Pretty soon he'd be ready to stand up; Duzi, he was probably ready now. He said, "Sir-"
Before he could come up with a way to continue, the fellow grabbed Cashel's knees with soft, clammy hands. Cashel jumped to his feet, spilling the refill of wine that another of the locals was pouring from a bottle with a serpent neck.
"Don'tdo that," Cashel said. He slammed his staff into the dirt, holding it vertically in front of him like a narrow wall.
The blond man jerked back. Now the older woman started to cry, a little soft, "Whoop, whoop, whoop," through the hands covering her face.
"Kotia brought me here," Cashel went on. He had a flash of dizziness, but nothing worse than what generally happened if he stood up quickly after squatting. "She saved my life, I guess-"
The place he'd been before Kotia took him out wasn't somewhere he'd have wanted to live much longer, even if he'd been able to.
"-and I paid her back by bringing her safe to Lord Bossian to marry. She and I are quits, now, and for the rest of you…"
He shook his head, wishing he could find a better way of saying what he felt. "Look, I'm sorry about your troubles, but I can't fix everything. Even if I could fight your Visitor, which I don't see that I could."
Cashel bent down. He set his cup on the ground-the slope wasn't quite too steep for it to stand on its base-and turned his palm up before the toad.
"Come on, Evne," he said. "We'll be leaving now. I think you'd best ride inside my tunic while I climb onto the tank."
The toad didn't hop into his palm as he expected. Syl looked at Cashel, her face as calm as a corpse's, and said, "Lady Kotia won't be marrying Lord Bossian. The Visitor came to Manor Bossian after he'd destroyed Manor Ansache. He destroyed the Crimson Tower and demanded Kotia or else he'd destroy the whole manor."
"He…," Cashel said, trying to get his mind around what he'd just heard. "What… what did Lord Bossian do?"
The blond man had gotten to his feet again. "What did he do?" he repeated in a shrill, half-mocking tone. "What could he do? He sent the girl to the Visitor, of course!"
Cashel didn't speak. He'd been stroking his quarterstaff with his left hand, but he stopped that too. The felt a vein in his throat throbbing.
"She didn't object," Syl said. She was no longer detached; she watched Cashel closely. "She was walking toward the Visitor's ship even before Bossian sent to bring her."
"Yeah," said Cashel at last. He couldn't have recognized his own voice. "She'd have done that."
He licked his lips; they were very dry. "Lord Bossian's a wizard. Why didn't he stop the, the Visitor?"
"He couldn't!" crowed the blond man, coming closer to being hammered into the ground like a tent peg than he probably realized. "Nobody can stop the Visitor!"
"Then why didn't he try!" Cashel shouted and they all but one stumbled back; all of them except Syl, and she was smiling now.
"The Visitor stays in the middle of the Great Swamp when he's on this world," said Evne, sounding like a teacher. "All the streams on this side of the hills drain into it, and there's no outlet."
"I can't fix everything," Cashel said, starting to get his normal voice back. He reached down again and this time Evne hopped into his palm. He straightened.
"I can't fix everything," Cashel repeated, "but there's things Iwill fix regardless. Now-"
He eyed the group of locals without affection.
"-how do I get to the Great Swamp?"
Chapter 14
TheBird of the Tide moved with the same heavy ease as the rolling sea. Ilna didn't like boats, but theBird was a part of the sea in the same fashion that her shuttle became part of the fabric it wove. The oarsmen kept up a deliberate pace that nonetheless drove them toward Terness with surprising speed. The Queen of Heaven and the barges looting it were already out of sight.
"Captain Ohert had doubled the watch," said Pointin, sitting with his back to the deckhouse. He'd sipped from the sack of wine Chalcus offered him as soon as they got aboard, but now he was cradling the sewn goatskin like it was all that kept him from sinking into the deeps.
"The regular sailors, I mean," he went on; mumbling, exhausted from fatigue and fear. "Half the guards were awake too, and the other half were sleeping armed and with their boots on."
"Land in sight, sir," called Kulit from the bow. Hutena stood near enough to Ilna, Chalcus, and the supercargo that he could have helped if called to, but not so close that he had to overhear.
Ilna smiled faintly. The crewmen had conducted themselves all this night with skill and quiet courage, but they were deathly afraid of wizardry. Hutena didn't want to hear the details of what had struck theQueen of Heaven, and the oarsmen let their eyes rest anywhere but on Pointin's face.
Chalcus had chosen his men well. Of course.
"I was asleep," Pointin said. "Why shouldn't I be? I didn't think that thieving rogue Lusius would dare anything since he knew we were on our guard, and anyway I wouldn't have known what to look for."
He lifted the wineskin, then stared at it as if he wasn't sure what it was or what its purpose might me. He lowered it again, frowning and silent. His eyes had gone unfocused.
"What awakened you, Master Pointin?" Chalcus asked in a mild voice. He hadn't spoken much, letting the supercargo tell his story in bits and pieces as they came to the surface of his mind. Imposing a form on the telling might have thrown the man into shock and locked his tongue.
Ilna could see that Pointin was on the verge of collapse, even with delicate handling. She'd said nothing at all, but the patterns which her fingers knotted in the light of the now-risen moon were as soothing as the glow of embers to an awakened sleeper.
"It was the light," Pointin said, frowning now with concentration. "It came through the walls of my cabin. It was blue; I guess I'd call it blue, but I've never seen anything like
it."
He looked up with a desperate expression. "I don't know how to describe it!" he said.
"We know the sort of light you mean," said Ilna quietly. She spread a pattern, then folded it between her palms and began to unpick the fabric as quickly as her touch had formed it. "We know why it would awaken you."
"I heard people shouting on deck," Pointin went on. "I ran out immediately; I thought the ship had caught fire and I'd burn."
He shook his head, then deliberately raised the wineskin to his lips and sucked at its contents. He looked calmer as he lowered the skin, but a muscle in his left cheek was twitching.
"It was worse," he said. "Fire I could've understood."
The rocks framing the entrance of Terness Harbor loomed ahead of theBird of the Tide; the oarsmen had stroked their way back with no more than an occasional glance over the shoulder. Kulit began calling low-voiced directions; Hutena lifted the boarding pike which lay on the deck beside him and held it ready for fending off.
"Wefell," Pointin said. His plump face grew taut again and his arms began to tremble. Hutena had given the supercargo his bad weather cloak to cover the silk sleeping tunic, but the fellow still trembled uncontrollably.
"It wasn't really falling, not at first anyway," he said, "but it felt like…"
He looked from Chalcus to Ilna and back. "Did you ever take a step in the dark and the ground wasn't there?" he said. "That's what it was like, the feeling in your gut that the ground wasn't there."
Pointin drank again, this time slobbering wine over his face and throat. "The sky was dark and yellow," he said, his voice rising. "The sea was gone. There were rocks around us and the air was hot, blazing hot. It stank of brimstone. I can still smell it on my clothes. I can still smell it!"
"Yes," said Ilna, spreading a new pattern before the supercargo. "We can smell it too, but you're safe now."
She wondered if that was really true. Pointin was as safe as the rest of them were, she supposed. That was enough forher sense of honesty.
Pointin nodded three times with seeming determination. "The deck tipped and threw me against the cabin again," he said. "If it had tipped the other way it might've put me over the railing, but it didn't. We were on dry land and the ship had rolled to one side of the keel."
He giggled. "One side or the other, and it didn't throw me out."
"Did you know where you were?" Chalcus said, loudly enough to drag Pointin back from the brink to which his rising laughter was rushing. "Was it a land you'd seen before, my fellow?"
"Land?" said the supercargo. "It was no land, it was the Underworld! There was almost no light and what there was came came from the whole yellow sky. Clouds swirled all around us-thicker or thinner but neverthin. There wasn't any sun, that I know. I saw spires of rock, and the wind was blowing. I saw red fire on the horizon. I think it was a volcano, but I don't know for sure."
He slurped wine, then choked and sneezed some out of his nostrils. Chalcus whipped off the bandanna he used as a headband and offered it to Pointin. The fellow mopped himself, then handed the bandanna back with a grateful smile. Chalcus folded the cloth one-handed at his side.
"I saw something coming toward us," Pointin said. "Out of the fog, out of the shadows. It was on two legs but…"
The silence lingered. "Was it a man?" Chalcus asked softly.
"It wasn't human," said Pointin. "I don't think it was human. It glittered, even in that light, and it was huge. I… I went into my cabin and hid in the specie chest."
He looked up fiercely again. "We couldn't fight demons!" he shouted. Lowering his eyes he went on in a less angrily defensive tone, "Anyway, I'm not a soldier. I couldn't have done any good that way. But the chest was iron and iron has strength against demons, so I've heard."
"So I believe," murmured Chalcus, but the way his fingers stroked the eared pommel of his sword showed Ilna that he wasn't simply agreeing with the supercargo. "Could you hear what was happening before you got into the chest?"
Pointin shrugged. His shoulders were hunched and his knees drawn up as though he was still trying to hide in the iron box. "I heard shouts," he said. "Captain Ohert called something about getting the cover off the stern hold. The covers were cleated to stay firm in a storm; I doubt they'd have been able to get one open in time to hide below."
"Nor would it have done them much good if they'd managed," Chalcus said, his lips smiling faintly but his eyes focused on another time, another life. "There's always some who try, though, thinking it better to hide than to fight."
TheBird of the Tide had reached the harbor narrows. Ilna heard an oarblade scrape rock and a muffled curse from Nabarbi, but neither Hutena nor Kulit needed to push off with their pikes.
"I'd just closed the lid over me when I heard my cabin door open," said Pointin. "There'd been screams from on deck. I thought… whatever it was, whatever it was had come for me. I hadn't had time to tie the lid yet."
He licked his lips feverishly. His hands clenched the flaccid wineskin, squeezing an occasional drip onto his tunic. He didn't notice it.
"It wasn't that," Pointin continued, "it was men-two of the guards, I think. I couldn't hear the words but they were talking with Blaise accents. And then the door broke in and…"
He shrugged again. "There was shouting," he said. "The words didn't mean anything, just, you know, shouting?"
"I know," whispered Chalcus.
"There was a fight," Pointin said. "I could hear things breaking. And there were more screams and, and…"
Ilna spread her latest pattern before the supercargo. When his eyes finally took it in, he lost some of his pallid tension and began to breathe normally again. "I heard crunching," he said. "It must have been very loud for me to hear it. And after a while the screaming stopped. Then there was nothing. I don't know for how long."
"How were you able to breathe?" Ilna said. What room there'd been in the treasure chest was scarcely enough for Pointin's doubled-up body.
"I'd tied the lid closed," he said, casual about the question because his mind was reliving horrors instead. "The silk had enough stretch for the lid to raise a crack when I needed to breathe. The air stank of brimstone, but I had to breathe."
Ilna wouldn't pretend she liked Pointin, but he was smartand quick witted, which was a different thing. The fact that he'd used his wits solely to preserve his own life shouldn't matter to her, since she couldn't imagine there was anything he could've done to affect what happened to the rest of those aboard theQueen of Heaven.
It did matter, though. Ilna knew other smart, quick witted people who wouldn't 've made the decision Pointin did. No more than she'd have done that herself.
He looked up, his expression puzzled again. "There was anotherchange," he said. "A fall like before, only a splash and I could feel the ship was floating again. And then I heard voices, but I was afraid t-t-to…"
"Did you see the wizardlight?" Chalcus said, his voice calm and calming. "Like what awakened you?"
"No," said Pointin. "I was in the chest, though. Perhaps the iron…?
"Perhaps the iron," Chalcus agreed softly.
"Ship the starboard oars!" Hutena ordered. TheBird of the Tide was easing back to the slip she'd left hours before. The eastern sky was almost bright enough to read by.
Ilna smiled. If you could read, of course; which the supercargo alone of those aboard the vessel was able to do.
"Well, Master Pointin," Chalcus said, "we're here in Terness. While I won't tell you what to do, I think you'd be wise to stay aboard theBird, cramped though you'll find her, until we've stepped our mast and are able to sail for Valles. We'll do that tomorrow morning, nothing else appearing."
"But what about Commander Lusius?" Pointin said. "When he comes back, won't he try to take me away?"
"That one?" said Chalcus as theBird of the Tide thudded gently into her berth. Kulit and Nabarbi hopped up to the dock, holding lines. "Not openly, not even in Terness. He thinks we have Prince Garric's ear, and he knows word w
ould get out if he slaughtered us. Something will come, I think; but not openly, and not till late night."
Chalcus laughed. He drew his dagger and threw it up, juggling it from hand to hand while he continued to watch the supercargo.
"He knows that his business is with us, now, not just you, my good fellow," Chalcus said.
"Yes," said Ilna as she looped her hank of cords away in her sleeve for use at another time. "And our business is with him!"
***
The crystal vessel-the Queen Ship, Alfdan had called it-was only a little more comfortable to sit on than it'd looked to Sharina from outside. The planes of blurry light were solid, but they were also slick as ice. The deck's slight angle-the beach sloped, and the ship hadn't nosed straight into it-meant that Sharina had to cling to the mast or she'd have slid back onto the shingle as surely as sunset.
Holding on wasn't easy either. The mast was of the same immaterial solidity as the deck, so it tried to slip through her fingers.
"I'm a wizard," Alfdan said, sounding more defensive than he had any reason to be. "A real wizard!"
He'd placed himself on the high side of the deck and braced himself against the mast with an outstretched foot. Sharina was sure that if she tried the same technique she'd slide just as she was doing now; it was a matter of practice and perfect balance.
"I never doubted it," she said. "You-you and your men, you were completely concealed. Even from Beard here."
"It wouldn't have stopped me from killing every one of them!" the axe muttered-also in a defensive tone, and with as little cause. "Arrows indeed! Beard would've drunk all their blood beforethey could bring my mistress down!"
Sharina smiled. The axe showed more enthusiasm about the prospect of her bleeding to death atop a mound of mangled corpses than she could muster, but that was true of many of Beard's enthusiasms.
"Yes, well…," said Alfdan, lowering his eyes. "I didn't want you to think that because I use devices like the Cape of Shadows-"
