by David Drake
Cashel smiled at a memory.
“Did Master Leisin amuse you?” Tenoctris asked with a guarded expression.
“No, ma’am,” Cashel said, embarrassed now. He kept looking across the strait so he didn’t have to meet her eyes. There was another headland about a mile distant, rising higher than it did on this side. “I was thinking that though I didn’t have my full growth when I was twelve, I was still too big for Leisin to threaten whipping me if I didn’t get off his farm without my pay.”
“Ah,” said Tenoctris. “I suspect Leisin and the Telchines would’ve understood each other better than you or I understand either one of them.”
She glanced toward the strait again; Cashel followed her eyes. The slab rose waist-high above the surface, but they’d need to wade a furlong of water to reach it. There was no way of telling how deep it was.
The salt water’d make his cuts sting, though folks said a salt bath helped them heal quicker too. Cashel thought about the crabs and whether they’d be waiting just out from the shore. He’d know quick enough, he guessed.
“I can carry you over,” he said. “It might be best if you rode my shoulders, so I’ll have both hands free. If they need to be, you know.”
“I’ll walk, Cashel,” Tenoctris said. She gave him a funny sort of smile. “I’m not an old woman anymore, you know. I won’t shrink.”
She turned to the sea again. “A wizard standing there can shift the worlds,” she said. “Just as the Telchines said. If she’s powerful enough.”
She raised an eyebrow toward Cashel.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. It wasn’t really a question, but it seemed she wanted him to say something. “That’s why you wanted to be here, isn’t it?”
“Many wizards have wanted to be here!” Tenoctris said. She sounded angry, though why at him he couldn’t imagine. “For a wizard with sufficient power and the proper tools, everything is possible. She could rule worlds. All worlds, Cashel! Not just this one.”
Cashel looked around, moving his hands a little on his quarterstaff. The water was a dirty gray and colder even than the air, which he knew from stepping through leads the tide’d left. The corniche behind them and the hills on the other side of the strait were volcanic and too raw for anything to grow on. The big dog thing that’d saved them must live on what the sea cast up, if Tenoctris hadn’t brought it here from someplace else entirely.
He thought of getting out his swatch of raw wool and polishing lanolin into the pores of the hickory, but Tenoctris might think he was pushing her to get on with things. She seemed in a bad mood already.
“You’d have to want to rule things awful bad to be willing to live here,” Cashel said. “I guess I’m not the one to say. Though there’ve been times I wished I could get sheep to show a little better sense.”
“I don’t think the world has much to fear from you, then, Cashel,” Tenoctris said softly. She raised the alien sword and looked at it critically, then lowered its point to the ground again. She was smiling as she met Cashel’s eyes again.
“We’ll cross to the Fulcrum now,” she said. “And I think I’ll have you carry me after all. In the crook of your arm. There’s no danger in the water, I assure you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cashel said, making a seat of his left arm. She reached around his neck and he gripped the inside of her knee so she didn’t roll off.
He splashed in. The water was cold, sure, but nothing that’d be a problem for a short hike. It didn’t come up to the middle of his calves. The only problem was he had to walk slower than he’d have liked to because otherwise he’d be splashing onto Tenoctris’ legs.
Cashel grinned. He was used to following sheep, so walking slow wasn’t a new thing either. He strode on.
GARRIC STEPPED ONTO the high tor. Shin’s altar must be the cube of quartz beside the opening that gave down into the cavern. The broken rocks of the ridgeline were beige and russet, and the dry grass in cracks between them had a sere absence of color. The sun was setting in the west, and on the southern horizon the strange white star gleamed like a demon’s eye.
The wyvern looked out from the edge of the cliff fifty feet away, peering into the wind that roared up the rock face. From Garric’s viewpoint it looked like a gigantic bird of prey. Its tail was rigid, trembling up and down to adjust the creature’s balance. Its hide was the color of sullen flames.
The altar was nearly as tall as Garric and apparently equal in all dimensions. From a distance he’d have said it had to be artificial, but with the cube in reach he couldn’t see any seam between its milky presence and the sandstone it rested on.
Garric started to his left, keeping his distance from the wyvern. It must’ve heard him, though, because it spun around and for a moment reared upright, spreading its stubby wings to make itself look bulkier. It glared, then stretched its long neck toward Garric and screamed. Its tongue was black, and its teeth were the color of old ivory.
“It doesn’t really need wings to look big,” Carus said calmly. “It’s the size of a thirty-oared ship already. Well, nearly.”
They were eye-to-eye with the wyvern. In turning it’d halved the distance between them. Garric kept his sword slanted across his body. His dagger was low and out to his left, ready to strike upward.
The wyvern’s body lowered as its legs contracted to spring. Garric continued to circle slowly. He was just as tense as the monster, but his feet glided like snakes. His smile mirrored that of the warrior-ghost in his mind.
Kore stepped up from the staircase. Garric’d been wondering if the ogre’d thought better of her offer to fight the wyvern with him, but she’d simply waited to make her entrance when it’d most disrupt the creature’s timing.
The wyvern screamed, angry this time instead of threatening; the second opponent had confused its small brain. It hopped sideways along the edge of the cliff; despite its size, it was as agile as a robin.
The ridge shook when the clawed feet landed. Sunset deepened the creature’s natural color into that of drying blood.
The ogre slouched to the right, slanting minusculely toward the wyvern the way Garric did from the other side. The beast jerked its head from one to another. It had the narrow face and forward-focused eyes of a predator; with its opponents so close, it couldn’t keep them both in its field of view.
“He’s not used to being hunted,” Kore said with a laugh. “The change’ll be good for him.”
Shin came up from the cavern and mounted the altar. He moved almost tentatively instead of calling attention to himself with acrobatics.
“Not if things go as I intend,” said Garric. He moved closer to the wyvern. If he and the ogre separated too far, the wyvern would leap on one before the other could intervene.
The aegipan raised both hands as if pointing to the sky and began to chant. Wizardlight rippled between his index fingers.
Kore laughed again, then hunched. The wyvern lunged at her, pivoting on its left foot. Its splayed claws gouged the sandstone surface, scattering grit and pebbles.
Kore leaped twenty feet backward from a flat-footed stance. Garric drove in, thrusting into the side of the wyvern’s knee. He missed the cartilage because the leg was flexing, but the sword’s impossibly keen point ripped into the thighbone.
The beast screamed and whirled on Garric. Instead of dodging back, he slashed across its beak. It lifted its head out of range, spraying blood from where the cut had reached the quick.
The wyvern sprang at Garric, leading with its right foot. He dived to the side. The beast twisted in the air to follow him, but Kore seized its stiff tail in the air. The ogre’s weight snapped the tail around, and the wyvern crashed down on its left hip.
Garric got up. The creature buffeted him against the rock with its wing. The pinion was stubby in comparison to the long body, but it was still a ten-foot club of bone and cartilage.
Garric blinked. He’d almost stabbed himself with his dagger when he fell. Had it not been for Carus’ reflexes, he’d b
e bleeding like a stuck pig and dead within minutes even if the wyvern didn’t bother to finish him off.
A line of wizardlight sizzled from horizon to horizon, supported on Shin’s raised index fingers. Though the sun had almost set, the blue glare lit the ridge as clearly as noonday.
The wyvern lashed its tail, trying to batter Kore loose. The ogre didn’t let go at first, but the second stroke flung her to the edge of the cliff. The wyvern lurched to its feet.
If Garric’d been in better shape, he’d have doubled his legs under him and sprung up immediately. Instead he rolled onto all fours, then rose to one knee. The wyvern shrieked and stamped to crush Garric like an olive in the press. Garric thrust into the descending foot, driving half his long blade up into the ankle bones.
The wyvern’s claws clenched reflexively, contracting on edges sharp as sunlight. The creature gave a great cry and sprang upward, pulling itself off the sword.
Garric staggered upright and backed away. He was seeing double and he’d lost the dagger, Duzi knew where. It might be sticking in him for all he knew. He didn’t think his left shoulder and ribs could hurt more if there was a long knife buried in them.
“Frog-brain!” Kore shouted. She waggled her arms out to the side, palms-backward. “Pimple-brain!”
The wyvern turned and pecked down, using its hooked beak like an assassin’s dagger. Kore slammed both sides of the birdlike head with the chunks of sandstone she’d concealed in her huge hands.
The wyvern stumbled. Garric minced two steps to put himself in position, then thrust at the right knee again. This time he got home in the joint.
The wyvern tried gracelessly to snap at Garric; Kore hurled the stone in her right hand, bouncing it off the back of the creature’s skull. The wyvern tottered.
Garric advanced and thrust again, aiming this time for the left knee. He missed because the wyvern stepped back.
As it put its the weight onto its right leg, the knee buckled. The creature gave a despairing cry and toppled sideways. The ogre stepped out of the way and fell also; a claw had torn deeply into her left leg.
The wyvern crashed onto the sandstone, rolled, and rolled over the edge of the cliff. Garric could hear it screaming in frustrated rage for what seemed an impossibly long time.
The ground trembled when the wyvern struck an outcrop partway down, then trembled again when it hit near the base and was thrown well outward. The third impact was on the track at the bottom of the valley.
Garric sank to one knee again; it took less energy than remaining upright did.
Shin stood like a furry statue on top of his altar. The line of light he balanced had grown to a tube in which a man could stand upright. Astride the horizon at either end was a colossal figure. To the north was an ancient Corl female holding a glowing ball of quartz. To the south stood a young woman who reached toward the ball.
The woman’s features were hauntingly similar to those of Tenoctris.
THE CREATURES CRUSHING Ilna down wailed like a fetid wind. The weight came off her. As it did, clear white light flooded the chamber.
She staggered to her feet, squinting against the dazzling brilliance and her tears of rage. The kit wriggled deeper into the crook of her arm. She saw blurred figures approaching and tried to spread the pattern she’d knotted for defense.
Karpos closed his big hand over the fabric before Ilna could stretch it to life. “Mistress, it’s all right,” he said. “We’re here. We’ll get you out.”
“What are those things?” Asion said in obvious disgust. “They’re filthy as possums, by the Lady, they are!”
“Temple’ll get us out, I mean,” Karpos added. “Say, is that one of the cat things you got there?”
“They would’ve made me one of them,” Ilna said.
She opened her eyes; when they were closed, she thought of the future she’d just avoided. The light was that of noon on a sunny day, bright but not unusually so. It was only by contrast to the pink dimness that it’d been so shocking.
Ilna put her yarn away, then tucked the loose fabric of her sleeve over the little cat beast, not so much for warmth as to protect it from the hunters’ eyes. She said, “Don’t worry about the kitten. It’ll be all right.”
The light came from Temple’s shield. He’d slung it on his left shoulder, so its brilliance blurred from the walls of the cavern instead of blazing directly on Ilna and the hunters. Even when reflected from colored sandstone it kept its white purity.
“How do you do that?” Ilna blurted. “And how did you get here?”
Temple smiled. “I think we’d best leave now,” he said. “Since I don’t think there’s any reason to stay, is there?”
“No,” said Ilna, suppressing a shudder. “Nothing’s keeping us here.”
Temple gestured her toward the passage back to the surface. “I’ll follow the rest of you,” he said. “That’ll be best.”
Two of the servitors lay on the stone floor, ripped by Asion’s knife. The clean light shrank their bodies to twists of gray rags, and it’d driven the remainder of the creatures into the depths of the cave. Asion wouldn’t have needed to strike any of them, but Ilna well understood why he’d chosen to.
She forced herself to look at the Messengers. All she could see was a shimmer in the bright air. They’d cursed her to an eternity of foul oblivion; where had their power gone now?
Ilna turned. “Thank you for rescuing me, Temple,” she said. “I should’ve said that sooner. Thank you all.”
“It was a pleasure,” said Temple. He smiled. “It was something that should’ve been done a long while ago. But now…?”
“Yes,” said Ilna, striding toward the passage.
“I’ll lead,” said Asion, uncoiling the strap of his sling.
“I’d like both of you to go ahead, if you will,” said Ilna. “I have some business to discuss with Master Temple.”
“Yes, mistress,” said Karpos meekly. He joined his partner so they entered the passage together. Despite shadows, the shield on Temple’s shoulder lighted the way as brightly as it’d been when Ilna came down this way.
“I never thought I’d get out,” she whispered. “I thought I was in Hell. Forever.”
The kit mewed and rubbed against Ilna’s arm. Temple said, “We wouldn’t have left you here, Ilna.”
He was walking beside her, his right shoulder to her left. She turned and said quietly, “How were you able to come? I’d blocked the mouth of the cave.”
When Ilna’d blurted similar words on first seeing her rescuers, they’d been more an accusation than a real question: How dare you come here when I forbade it? It embarrassed her to remember that, but her memory was very good. She had many things to recall painfully in the dark hours before dawn, so one more wasn’t a great additional burden.
Temple reached under his sash and took out a skein of cords. Ilna knew that if she spread it instead of simply picking out the knots, she’d find the pattern she’d left to close the passage.
“Would this have stopped you?” Temple said.
She frowned. “No, of course not,” she said.
“Nor did it stop me,” Temple said in the same mild tone as before. He handed the skein, twisted and harmless, to Ilna. Their eyes met as she took it from him.
Temple looked away, up the passage to the hunters several double paces ahead of them. Softly he said, “In a very distant…world, let us say, there were humans and Coerli, as there are in the Land. They’d fought and killed each other for generations.”
He turned slightly and met Ilna’s eyes. “Go on,” she said.
The kit kicked away the sleeve that covered it. She touched it with her right hand to calm it. She wondered if it’d been weaned. Probably not.
“A man was born,” said Temple to the passage ahead. “The greatest warrior of his time, perhaps of all time. This man decided that the fighting should stop, that humans and Coerli should live together in peace.”
“Did anyone listen to him?” Ilna sa
id. She too faced straight ahead. “I shouldn’t expect that they would.”
“Only a few did at first,” said Temple. “But he was a great warrior. He fought those who opposed him and crushed them, killed them often enough. Men and Coerli both. In the end, he had his peace, and his world had peace.”
Temple looked at her. “He wasn’t a saint, Ilna,” he said, his words taking on a harsh burr. “He was nothing like a saint. But he brought peace to his world.”
Ilna licked her lips. They and her mouth were dry as lint. “I know a man like that,” she said.
“I thought you might,” Temple said with a smile. “And perhaps the same thing will happen to him as happened to the warrior I’m speaking of. After he died, people—both humans and Coerli; they thought of each other as people now—put statues to him in their temples. They forgot he’d been a man, a very terrible man when he needed to be. He became a sun-god, with a priesthood to tell later ages about how he’d brought the light of peace to the world.”
Ilna could see the cave entrance close ahead of them, past the shoulders of the two hunters. “And then?” she asked.
“The Change sewed many times and places into a patchwork,” Temple said, still smiling. “Among them was a sacred pool from the warrior’s world. When the Last came there, the priests fought them. They prevented more of the creatures from arriving.”
Temple grimaced. “They were priests, not warriors,” he said harshly. “They didn’t have weapons or the skill to use weapons, but they had courage; which in the end was enough.”
He looked at her. “They prayed to their God, Ilna,” he said. “Not for themselves, but for this Land to which they had been brought to die.”
“Let me tell you!” said Asion cheerfully. “I am glad to see the open sky again. I surely am!”
“We all are, my friend,” Temple said. He gestured Ilna ahead of him, stepped through the narrow entrance himself, and turned.
