The Fortress of Glass: Chapter Eight

    Cashel opened the door of the chamber and stepped through first. He held his staff at the balance in his right hand. He wasn’t exactly poised to bash anybody waiting inside to attack them, but—

    Well, if somebody inside was waiting to attack them, Cashel would bash him. There were people who jumped at shadows and that was silly, but recently some shadows had been doing the jumping. Cashel wasn’t going to let anything happen to his friends because he hadn’t watched out for them. That’s what a shepherd did, after all.

    There was pretty much nothing inside, just the cases of books and oddments along the back wall. The windows were shuttered and the door to the rest of Sharina’s suite was closed. Light bled through the cracks, but not enough to properly see the figures laid into the floor. The tapestry on the west wall was a square of shiny blackness.

    While the others came in, Cashel walked across the room to throw back the shutters. Protas had scooted up right beside him, which was all right now. The boy’d had the good sense to stay out of the way when Cashel got ready to open the door, though, which not every adult would’ve done.

    “Leave the windows as they are!” Cervoran said. His voice didn’t get any deeper in here, but it echoed in a funny way. “There is light enough for my art.”

    Cashel didn’t say anything, just turned. “Light enough” he’d grant; but that was different from saying more light would be a bad thing. Creatures that scuttled when light fell on’em generally weren’t good company in darkness, either.

    He didn’t like this room. There wasn’t anything specific wrong, it just felt like all sorts of things were pushing for space. Which was funny since it was near as empty as a barn in springtime, but Cashel guessed that meant there were more things here than his eyes were seeing. That stood to reason.

    Sharina came in with Attaper and a double handful of guards standing so close that Cashel could scarcely see her through all the black-armored bodies. What did they think they were going to do that I couldn’t of?

    But Cashel held his tongue. That was something he’d learned young and never forgotten, even after he’d got his growth and pretty much could say what he pleased.

    Cervoran raised his hand. He wasn’t holding the athame, but the topaz crown winked in a way that made him look bigger than he had in full sunlight.

    “Stop!” he said. “No one may be present while I build a portal. I and Cashel and the clay will perform the rites without interference.”

    “What does he mean, ‘the clay,’ Cashel?” Protas whispered.

    Cashel touched a hand to the boy’s shoulder to reassure him, but he kept his eyes on Cervoran. The way the wizard talked wasn’t much to Cashel’s taste, but words weren’t enough to get upset over.

    “Lord Cervoran?” Tenoctris said quietly. A couple of the soldiers were probably her guards, but they gave her more space than Attaper did Sharina. “I would—”

    “No one!” Cervoran said. He always sounded angry or at least out of sorts, but there was more than usual of it now. “I and Cashel and the clay Protas, no one else!”

    Sharina must’ve said something testy to her guards, because a couple of them moved sideways to let her step between them and face Cervoran directly. “Milord,” she said, “I remind you again: you do not give orders in this kingdom.”

    She looked at Cashel. He drew himself up another fingertip of straightness. Sharina was so very beautiful. His Sharina....

    “Cashel,” she said. “I know you’re willing to do this. I want your opinion as a friend: should I allow the ceremony to go ahead with only the three of you present? I’m asking because I trust your instinct.”

    Cashel thought for a moment. “Ma’am,” he said, formal because it was a real question she was asking. “I don’t see how it could hurt. I mean, it may go wrong but nobody else being near could help, right Tenoctris?”

    Tenoctris gave a quick dip of her chin. “I agree,” she said simply.

    “We must be alone,” Cervoran said shrilly. He didn’t bother to turn to look at Cashel behind him. “It is necessary!”

    “All right,” said Sharina. Cashel felt the emotion that she kept out of her voice. “We’ll wait in my suite.”

    There was a shuffle as folks, mostly soldiers, got turned around and shuffled into what’d been the Queen’s bedroom. Chalcus, smiling on the surface and as angry underneath as Cashel’d ever heard him, said, “And your copy that we went to the tomb to get you, Master Cervoran? Does that one go or stay?”

    “I go,” the double piped, sounding exactly like Cervoran himself. “My time is not yet come, but soon.”

    They left the room. Sharina turned in the doorway and said, “Cashel? May the Lady be with you.”

    Then she shut the door behind her. She’s so very beautiful....

    “Come here,” Cervoran said, walking heavily across the room. He stopped and bent, placing the crown on the floor.

    Cashel’s eyes had adapted well enough he could see the lines inlaid on the stone floor. The jewel was in the center of a triangle, and a circle scribed the triangle’s three points.

    Cervoran shifted so he was standing in the scoop of floor between the inside of the circle and one flat side of the triangle. He pointed—with his hand, he still wasn’t using the athame or another pointer—at the side to his left and said, “Cashel, go there. Protas, clay of this clay—”

    He pointed with his other hand.

    “—go there. Kneel, Cashel and Protas, and put your fingers on the talisman.”

    Protas hesitated. Cashel squatted, keeping the staff against the floor as a brace. He didn’t ordinarily kneel and he wasn’t going to now unless Cervoran said he absolutely had to do it that way. If Cashel had a choice, he wasn’t going into this business in a posture that made him uncomfortable.

    He smiled at Protas as he touched the topaz with his fingertips. It felt warm, which surprised him a little.

    Protas squatted also, then had to bob up and pull some slack in his trousers to give his knees room. The boy wobbled for a moment, then had to touch the floor to keep from falling backward.

    “Just go ahead and kneel, Protas,” Cashel said, trying not to smile. “I’m used to squatting, but you ought to do what you’re used to.”

    Protas knelt. He looked doubtful, but Cashel knew that the boy would try if he told him to stand on his hands. He touched the back of Cashel’s fingers, then slipped his fingers down onto the topaz.

    Cervoran dropped to one knee, then the other. He moved like a doll on strings. Cashel didn’t flinch when the wizard reached out, but he was just as glad their fingers didn’t touch.

    “Horu wo awita...,” Cervoran chanted. “Siwa sega sawasgir....”

    The room went completely black, as black as soot on fire irons, but the topaz kept the same slight glitter as before. Cashel could see the tips of his own fingers and the others’ too, but he couldn’t tell where the windows were except from memory. Protas’ hand trembled, but the boy didn’t whimper or jerk away.

    “Phriou apom machri...,” said Cervoran. “Alchei alchine cheirene....”

    The topaz blazed with yellow fire that didn’t light anything. Cashel couldn’t see his hands any more; he couldn’t feel Protas or the staff. His body tingled all over.

    MONZO MOUNZOUNE, thundered a voice. It wasn’t Cervoran speaking because Cashel was completely alone in a universe of pulsing yellow light. IAIA PERPERTHOUA IAIA!

    The light was sunlight. Cashel fell onto his side in a meadow because he’d lost his balance during the incantation. Flowers growing in the short grass scented the air.

    “Cashel!” Protas cried, jumping up from his sprawl. The crown lay between them. The topaz was its usual yellow color with muddy shadows from the flaws inside the stone. “Cashel!”

    Instead of answering, Cashel rolled to his feet and slanted the quarterstaff crossways before him. In a grove of trees nearby a woman with a horse’s skull for a head played the harp. Accompanying her on a lute was a rat standing upright; it was the size of a man. Their music screeched like rocks rubbing hard against each other.

    A winged demon with tiny blue scales for skin and a tail as long as its body faced Cashel. It was standing where Cervoran had been in the room during the incantation, but Cervoran was nowhere to be seen now.

    “You are Cashel and Protas,” the demon said. It was so thin it looked like the blue hide had been shrunk over a skeleton, but its voice was a booming bass. “By the decision of one who has the power to command me, I am to escort you to the next stage of your journey.”

    The demon threw its head back and laughed thunderously. “I would rather tear the flesh from your bones!” it added, and it laughed again.

    Protas had jumped around behind Cashel, closer than he ought to be if there’d been a fight; but there wouldn’t be a fight. Cashel raised the staff upright in one hand and put the other on the boy’s shoulder.

    “Better pick up the crown, Protas,” he said.

    “Cashel?” said the boy. The demon had stopped laughing, but the lute and harp continued to make their ugly sound. “He said he was going to eat us?”

    “He said he’d like to,” Cashel explained. “But somebody bigger ‘n him is making him help us.”

    “All right, Cashel,” Protas said. He ducked down and grabbed the crown, but he didn’t look at the demon again till he’d skipped back to Cashel’s side.

    “Anyway,” Cashel said, speaking for the boy’s sake and not just to brag, “what he means is he’d try to eat us. Folks’ve tried that in the past, and some of them—”

    He smiled at the demon, the sort of smile he’d used lots of times just before a fight started.

    “—were a good bit bigger than that fellow is.”

 

---

 

    Donria took Garric through the gate while the neck-bound women waited uncertainly. Beyond was a single long hut and, in the gray distance, either a number of larger buildings or more likely raised beds like those the people of Wandalo’s village used to drain the roots of their crops.

    “You lot, pick up the other male and drag him in with you!” one of the escorting warriors said as the women started through after Garric. The line shuffled to a stop.

    “Bend down!” Soma said. “Bend down, you fools!”

    By half-dragging the women nearest her in the coffle, Soma got enough slack in her neck ropes to get her arms under Crispus. She rose, holding the groaning man’s right arm over her shoulders and clasping him about the waist with her left hand. The line resumed moving.

    Soma’s strength was impressive, though that didn’t surprise Garric since he’d grown up in a peasant village. Women in Barca’s Hamlet worked as hard as the men did and often for longer hours.

    Women who’d been waiting inside the wall crowded around Garric. He couldn’t be sure of the number in this foggy darkness, but there were at least twenty and perhaps half again as many. They chattered among themselves and threw comments and questions at him as well: Where did you come from, Garric?/You’re so big, I’ve never seen such muscles/Oh, your hair’s all bloody, did Crispus hurt you? Fingers plucked at him, testing and caressing.

    The last of the coffle moved through. The gates groaned shut on their rope hinges. A bar squealed into place on the other side, where Nerga and Eny stayed. Sirawhil was outside also, but the Bird gave a chirrup and flew from her shoulder to settle in a glitter of wings on the ridgepole of the longhouse.

    “It wouldn’t take much to open the gates,” Carus observed. “Just cut the hinges. Even without a proper knife that wouldn’t be hard to arrange. Of course there’s the guard in the watchtower....”

    He was just thinking aloud, not planning anything for the time being. It wasn’t idle speculation, though. Garric had learned that the way Carus always thought about the military possibilities of a situation meant he reacted instantly to threats that would’ve taken most generals completely by surprise.

    “Give us room here!” Donria said. “Newla, if you touch him again, I’ll break your fingers. Do you hear me? Move back!”

    The women moved a little, enough that Garric could shift into a wider stance without stepping on somebody. Donria’s authority had to be based on more than the physical threat she’d just made: she was a small woman, and though she was obviously fit it would’ve been remarkable if that weren’t true of most of the others. He’d seen in Wandalo’s village that the Grass People didn’t have enough surplus to keep fine ladies in pampered leisure.

    “Here, Newla,” Donria said, giving her pointed dowel to a rawboned woman half a head taller than she was. “Get the new arrivals loose, won’t you? You know what it’s like when you’re first brought here. And Brosa? You and the other girls in your section, start dishing food out. Bring Garric’s to the headman’s room, he’ll stay there now.”

    “What about Crispus, Donria?” asked a woman Garric couldn’t see in the crowd.

    “Well, what about him?” Donria said sharply. “You saw, didn’t you? Garric’s our headman now!”

    Garric let Donria walk him along, guided by her hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be headman of this slave community, but he was very sure that he didn’t want Crispus to be headman over him.

    The longhouse was similar to the houses in Wandalo’s village, built of thatch instead of shakes, wicker, and a floor of puncheons—logs flattened only on the top side. The construction was cruder, though, and the design was nothing like what the Grass People built on their own. This was a copy of the Coerli chieftain’s hut, constructed by slaves from common materials.

    Donria led him inside. Garric hadn’t been able to see much in the open air; here he was stone blind. The floor had been roughly shaped with a stone adze but smoothed only by those walking on it. Garric’s feet didn’t pick up splinters, but it felt as though he were stepping onto the shingle beach of Barca’s Hamlet.

    “Donria, I can’t see inside,” he said, stopping where he was.

    “Your room is right here, Garric,” Donria said. She pressed against him, a reasonable way to direct him to the left. More was going on than that, of course, but Donria seemed considerably more intelligent than Soma was.

    But—Donria had to be aggressive or she wouldn’t be leader here, and she knew she wouldn’t remain leader without the support of the headman. Garric smiled faintly. The ram of the flock. The concept wasn’t new to him, but its application to human beings certainly was.

    Donria opened a door and led him into a separate room. His eyes must be adapting a little, because the open gable was noticeably brighter than everything around it. There was a flutter as the Bird landed there, a blotch of shadow and highlights.

    “Here’s the couch,” Donria said. He heard withies creak as they took her weight. He eased himself down also, then regretted it. The bolster was damp; probably damp with the former headman’s urine, judging from the smell pervading the room.

    Garric jumped up. He wasn’t fastidious by the standards of city folk, but his father had kept a clean inn. Besides, well-rotted waste from all animals was the best manure you could put on a field: Crispus was not only a pig, he was a wasteful pig.

    “Get this out of here!” he said jerking the bolster off the bed. It was coarse sacking stuffed with straw. Donria’d gotten up when he did, backing slightly away till she learned what was bothering him. “If there isn’t a clean one, I’ll sleep on the slats.”

    Donria pulled open the inner door and hurled the bolster into the main hall. “Newla, bring our headman a fresh mattress. Quickly, before he gets angry!”

    “I’m not angry,” Garric said quietly. “Well, not at you. This is a terrible way for people to live!”

    There were slave pens in the Kingdom of the Isles too. Not officially, but the lot of a tenant farmer on Sandrakkan or in the east of Ornifal could be very hard if he fell behind to the landowner... and they all fell behind to their landowners in a bad year, which meant forever after. That was something he’d deal with as soon as he got back....

    A pair of women appeared in the doorway with a wooden bucket and a platter. Either could’ve carried the load by herself, but the way other women crowded behind them in the open hall showed that Garric was a matter of general interest.

    Garric wondered how long it was till dawn. He couldn’t get a feeling for his surroundings till there was more light.

    “The sky will brighten in three hours,” said the Bird silently. “Full sunrise is another hour beyond that. It still won’t be as bright as you’re used to, of course.”

    Of course, Garric agreed, but I’ll never accomplish anything if I wait for perfect conditions.

    Which left open the question of what he planned to accomplish. Well, getting out of this slave pen as a start, and then getting back to his own world as quickly as possible. He didn’t have any idea how he was going to accomplish that, but he’d find a way or die trying; which wasn’t a figure of speech in this case.

    “Let me past!” someone called. “Make way or I’ll make one!”

    The big woman, Newla, shoved her way through the spectators with not one but two bolsters to lay on the bed. They had the smell of fresh straw, a hint of sun and better times in Garric’s memory.

    “Donria?” she said, a hint of hopefulness in her voice. “Could I stay tonight too? For after you, I mean.”

    “Please,” said Garric, trying to be firm without sounding angry. He could only hope that the Bird translated tone as well as it did words. “I want to be alone. I need to be alone. I’ve got to rest. And I will rest.”

    Donria had taken the food from the women who’d brought it. She looked at Garric, though he couldn’t read her expression in this light.

    After a moment she said, “You are our headman, Garric,” and put the pail and platter on a ledge built out from the interior wall. “Your will is our will.”

    She motioned Newla out of the room, then added quietly, “But Garric? Torag won’t keep a headman who doesn’t service his herd. The Coerli will eat any of us, but they prefer infants.”

    She closed the door behind her.

    Garric took a deep breath, then sampled the food. What he’d thought was porridge was a mash of barley bruised and soaked but not cooked; the Coerli didn’t allow their herd to have fire. The fish on the platter had been air dried.

    And the Coerli ate their own food raw.

    I’ll find a way out, or I’ll die.

    “Aye, lad,” said the warrior ghost in his mind. “But right now I’m more interested in killing cat beasts first.”

 

---

 

    Wizardlight as red as the heart of a ruby shot through Ilna’s soul and the universe around her. She’d been squatting as she knotted small patterns. She wished she’d brought a hand loom, since it was hard to judge how long they’d be.

    The light and the thunderclap which shook Cervoran’s Chamber of Art jolted her to her feet. She folded the fabric back in her sleeve and uncoiled the noosed cord she wore in place of a sash.

    “Cashel!” Sharina cried.

    Lord Attaper and the under captain with him kicked the connecting door together, as smoothly as if they were practiced dancers. It was a light interior door whose gilded birch panels were set in a basswood frame. The hobnailed boots smashed it like a pair of battering rams. The soldiers rushed through, drawing their swords.

    Impressive, Ilna thought dryly, but scarcely necessary. The door hadn’t been locked or barred.

    The interior was still dark. As Ilna and Chalcus slipped through in the midst of more soldiers, Attaper wrenched a set of shutters down with a crash, frame and all. The guard commander was angry and taking it out on the furnishings. Garric had disappeared, fighting was taking place a few miles away while Attaper’s duties kept him from the battle, and three more people had vanished more or less under his nose.

    Because there was no doubt that the room was empty. Cashel, Protas, and the wizard who’d said he was ‘opening a portal’ were gone.

    Guards in the foyer opened the other door. “Did they go out past you?” Attaper shouted at them, and their blank looks were proof of the obvious.

    The air had a faintly sulfurous smell. Ilna touched the floor in the middle of a triangular inlay where the stone looked singed. It was warm, at any rate.

    “Do you see anything, Ilna?” Sharina murmured. Her face remained aloof, but she’d wrapped her arms tightly around her bosom.

    “Nothing useful,” Ilna said straightening. “What do I know of wizardry?”

    She cleared her throat. “My brother doesn’t know anything about wizardry either,” she said. “But I’d trust him to take care of anything that could be taken care of. He’s proved that many times.”

    “Yes of course,” said Sharina and hugged Ilna, hugged her friend. In their hearts they both knew that it wasn’t really ‘of course’ that Cashel would come safely through wherever Cervoran was taking him.

    The copy Cervoran had made of himself entered the chamber, walking with the same hitching deliberation as the wizard himself had done. He silently stared around the chamber. Men edged away from him and dropped their eyes to avoid his gaze.

    Ilna deliberately glared back at the fellow, angry even at the thought that she might be afraid of him. The copy’s lips smiled at her, though his eyes were as flat as mossy pools.

    “Where is the topaz?” he said. “Where is the amulet that Bass One-Thumb found?”

    Nobody else seemed disposed to answer, so Ilna said, “Cervoran had it with him when he came into this room. He and it both have vanished, so common sense suggests he still has it.”

    The copy smiled again, this time toward a blank patch of wall. He turned his head to Sharina and said, “You are the ruler. You will take me to where the creatures the Green Woman makes from seaweed are coming ashore. I must see them to defeat them properly.”

    “The Princess doesn’t take you anywhere, creature!” Attaper said sharply. “If she decides you can go, we’ll arrange an escort to get you there.”

    “Milord?” Sharina said. “I’d already decided to view the invasion for myself. We’ll set out as soon as I’ve arranged a few details with Lord Tadai. And if the....”

    She paused, her face expressionless as she looked at the copy.

    “... person here wishes to accompany us, I can see no objection.”

    “As your highness wishes,” Attaper said. He looked away and shot his sword into its sheath with a squeal and a clang.

    Tenoctris appeared at the door behind Cervoran’s double. Instead of rushing into the chamber of art with the rest of them, she’d remained in Sharina’s bedroom. Apparently she’d worked a spell there, since she was holding one of the bamboo splits she used for her art. She tossed it to the floor when she noticed it.

    “What is your name?” Tenoctris said.

    The copy turned to face her. “Who are you to ask?” he said.

    “I am Lady Tenoctris, once bos-Tandor,” Tenoctris said clearly and forcefully. “My line and my very epoch have perished utterly. What is your name?”

    “Do you think I fear to tell you?” the copy said. “You have no power, old woman. I am Double. I will be Cervoran.”

    Double gave a horrible tittering laugh. He said, “I will be God!”

 

---

 

    Tenoctris couldn’t ride as far as Calf’s Head Bay on horseback and arrive in any kind of condition, so Lord Martous had found her a light carriage. Tenoctris could drive the single horse herself, though—that was a proper accomplishment for a noblewoman, along with fine needlework and accompanying her own singing on the lute.

    Sharina rode with the old wizard. Horses had been rare visitors in Barca’s Hamlet when she was growing up, and the training she’d gotten since then didn’t make her either a good rider or a comfortable one.

    “I smell smoke,” Tenoctris said as the gig climbed a track meant for hikers and pack mules. She gave a quick twitch to the reins. “It’s making the horse skittish.”

    “They’ll be burning the hellplants,” Sharina said. “That’s all they can do, I suppose. I wonder if—”

    She started to glance over her shoulder at the similar gig following theirs, but she changed her mind before her head moved. “I wonder if Double will be able to help?” she went on quietly. “Is he really a wizard himself, Tenoctris?”

    A second gig followed theirs, driven by Attaper’s own son. The Blood Eagles were a brave and highly disciplined body of men, but Attaper hadn’t been certain that any one else in the unit would’ve obeyed an order to drive the vehicle in which Double rode.

    The guards who’d watched Double being created had described the experience to their fellows. The story had gotten more colorful when they’d passed it on, though the bare reality that Tenoctris described was horrible enough.

    “Yes, dear,” Tenoctris said. “Easy, girl, easy. Lord Cervoran created a true duplicate of himself to hold his enemy’s attention while he himself left this world. Double has to be a wizard to succeed as a decoy; and besides, I can see the way power trails from him.”

    It took Sharina a few heartbeats to realize that, “Easy girl, easy,” had been directed to the horse. Nervous from the smoke and perhaps other things—the hair on the back of Sharina’s neck had begun to rise—the animal was threatening to run up the backs of the soldiers immediately in front of them on the narrow track. The hills framing Calf’s Head Bay weren’t high, but they were steep.

    Three troops of Blood Eagles marched ahead of the gigs, and another troop brought up the rear. The soldiers were on foot but trotting along the rutted track double-time. Sharina hadn’t thought that they could keep up the pace with three miles to cover, but with a few exceptions—men recently wounded and not fully recovered—they did. The royal bodyguards had been trained to be soldiers equal to any they might meet, not just a shiny black backdrop for the king on public occasions.

 

---

 

    Sharina looked at the older woman. “I don’t trust Cervoran,” she said. “That means we can’t trust Double either, if he’s the same as his creator.”

    “They each have their own agendas,” Tenoctris said, her eyes on the bay mare she was driving. “And as you say, their purposes aren’t ours. But when I said Double was the same as Cervoran, I didn’t mean they’re allies. Double is as surely Cervoran’s rival as each of them is opposed to the Green Woman. That gives us some....”

    She let her voice trail off, then glanced at Sharina with a wry smile and went on, “I was going to say that it gives us some advantage, dear, but that isn’t correct. It gives us a certain amount of hope, though.”

    Sharina laughed and squeezed her friend’s shoulder. Despite the situation, she felt more comfortable than she had for longer than she could guess. She’d changed into a pair of simple tunics under a hooded military cape, and she wore the Pewle knife openly in its heavy sealskin sheath. At the moment, being able to move—and fight if necessary—was more important than impressing people with the majesty of the Princess of Haft.

    The leading guards disappeared over the top of the ridge. A man shouted. Sharina touched her knife hilt, but the cry had been startlement rather than fear and there was no clash of weapons with it.

    Tenoctris clucked the horse over the rise. They drove out of bright daylight into a dank gray mist and the smell of rotting mud; the change was as abrupt as going through a door. No wonder a soldier had called out in surprise.

    “Hold up!” somebody called angrily. “Hold up! And by the Lady, what’re civilians doing here!”

    Tenoctris was already drawing the horse around to get the gig off the track. A Blood Eagle ran back to them and called, “Your highness? Lord Attaper says not to take the cart any closer, if you please.”

    Attaper was talking to—shouting at—one of Lord Waldron’s aides. The topic probably involved the respect owed to Her Royal Highness Sharina, Princess of Haft. That wasn’t fair: the mist blurred details, and she and Tenoctris really were civilians, after all.

    “Milord Attaper!” Sharina said, jumping down from the gig while Tenoctris was still maneuvering it. “As I’ve heard my brother say, worse things happen in wartime. Where is Lord Waldron?”

    And where’s Liane, who’d be more forthcoming and probably more knowledgeable. Liane and the army commander were probably together; if not, Sharina could make further inquiries.

    The shoreline and the barley field a hundred double-paces inland crawled with hellplants. Liane’s estimate of three hundred seemed reasonable, but the gray undulations of mist prevented certainty.

    A hundred fires burned on the curved plain below; some had dimmed to red glows. All had bodies of troops behind them. Through the swirling mist Sharina saw thirty men march forward carrying what’d been a full-sized fir tree, possibly one of those whose stumps grew in a circle where Tenoctris had halted the gig.

    Under other circumstances the tree would’ve made a good battering ram. This one had a torch of oil-soaked fabric, probably a soldier’s cloak, wrapped around the small end of the pole. On command, the troops slammed their weapon into a hellplant. The flames billowed, then sank beneath a gush of black smoke roiling from the point of contact.

    The hellplant staggered back. Two of the tentacles that curled to wrap the pole shrivelled in the flame, but a third gripped closer to the men carrying the weapon. Squads of waiting infantry darted in and hacked the tentacle to green shreds.

    Hellplants advanced with greasy determination on either side of their smoking fellow. The troops holding the pole retreated; the flame had sunk to a sluggish ghost of what it had been. Other soldiers came closer and threw hand torches which bounced off the barrel-chested plants. The creatures changed their course to avoid torches burning on the ground, but they continued to advance.

    For a moment, the injured plant remained where it was, the wound steaming and bubbling thick fluids. Then that hellplant too advanced, though it was slower than its fellows.

    Like trying to fight the sea, Sharina thought. Her guts were tight and cold.

    “Your highness, my sincere apologies!” the aide said. “I didn’t see—”

    “Understood, Lord Dowos,” Sharina said. The name had come to her unexpectedly, but at a particularly good time. “Now there are real problems. Where’s Lord Waldron?”

    “Lord Drian,” Dowos snapped to one of the boys at his side to carry messages. Drian was probably Dowos’ relative or the relative of some noble friend. “Lead her highness to the commander immediately.”

    To Sharina he added, “They’re down by the pile of timber, your highness. Well, what used to be a pile. Most of it’s been burned, I’m afraid.”

    The second gig pulled in beside the first. Double sat next to the driver, who was as stiff as the statues of the Lady and Shepherd which priests from Valles drew through the borough during the annual Tithe Procession.

    Tenoctris joined Sharina, her arms over the shoulders of the two soldiers who were carrying her. Their shields were strapped to their back and they used their spears butt-down in their free hands as walking sticks. That wasn’t necessary here, but it would be as they descended the slope which thousands of cleated boots had already chewed to slippery mud.

    A third man, Trooper Lires, carried the satchel with the wizard’s equipment in it. Sharina beamed at him and said, “I thought you’d been discharged wounded, Lires. After the fight in the temple in Valles.”

    The Blood Eagle grinned, delighted to be recognized. “Well, ma’am, I’m on light duty,” he said. “But I figure a sword, that’s not very heavy; and I guess Captain Ascor, you remember him, don’t you? He felt the same way. Because he’s here too.”

    In truth, she’d thought Lires had been killed in the wild slaughter while the guards protected Tenoctris as she closed the portal from which creatures would otherwise have overrun the Isles. It was amazing that a man could survive such serious wounds, but that he’d willingly return to the same dangers was more amazing yet.

    Thank the Lady that men did. And thank especially the Shepherd and all the human shepherds, with their swords and their quarterstaffs and their courage.

    Laughing in relief, Sharina followed the impatient Lord Drian, a thirteen-year-old who showed signs of growing out of his gold-inlaid armor. The situation was just as bad as it’d been when she was in despair a moment ago, but if ordinary men soldiered on cheerfully, how could their leader do less?

 

---

 

    The slope wasn’t as bad as Sharina’d feared, though she was glad Tenoctris was being carried. The mist smelled of salt and decay, like a tidal flat but worse. It didn’t get thicker as she went down the way she’d expected, and the whorls and openings in it didn’t seem to be connected with the light breeze off the water.

    “Your highness!” Waldron said. “Your highness, I don’t think this is a safe place for you. Though we’re holding them at present, as you see.”

    “I’ve given directions in your name to Lord Tadai, your highness,” said Liane in a cold, flat voice unlike her usual pleasant tones, “to scour building sites in Mona for quicklime and to start burning any limestone he can find. Marble statues as well.”

    “Will quicklime be more effective than using the same fuel in open flames, the way you’re doing here?” said Sharina.

    She kept her voice calm, but she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret at the notion of statues being reduced to the caustic powder that was the basis of cement. The only statues in Barca’s Hamlet had been simple wooden ones of the Lady and the Shepherd in the wall shrines of the better houses. Sharina’s first view of lifelike humans carved in marble was a treasured memory of her arrival in Carcosa.

    “We can use pots of quicklime in our ballistas,” Waldron said. He nodded at Liane. “It was her idea. Stones don’t do much, and we can’t shoot firepots at full power or it blows out the flame through the air holes. Before now I haven’t had much use for artillery except for sieges, and I haven’t had much use for sieges either; but quicklime driven into those plants to where they’re full of water, that’ll take care of them!”

    “Admiral Zettin is taking the ballistas from the ships and sending them here also,” Liane said. “The problem’s transport, getting enough wagons and baggage animals together in Mona Harbor.”

    Three fit-looking men in civilian tunics stood nearby, separate from the aides and couriers around Waldron. Lady Liane bos-Benliman was the kingdom’s spymaster. She alone controlled the movements of the agents and received their reports. She’d based the operation on her father’s banking and trading contacts, and she paid for it entirely out of her considerable personal wealth.

    When something more than information gathering was needed, Liane had men—and perhaps women for all Sharina knew—to accomplish that too. The trio waiting here looked like they knew as much about weapons as any soldier.

    In anybody else’s hands, the spy apparatus would be a huge potential danger to the kingdom. Under Liane, it along with the army and Tenoctris were the three pillars on which Garric’s rule rested.

    And on which Princess Sharina’s rule rested, for what Sharina hoped would be a very short time.

    “Why can’t the warships stand offshore and bombard the plants?” Sharina said. She frowned. “In fact, why weren’t there warships here before the attack started? I’d have thought there’d be a squadron at least on the beach, it’s so close to Mona.”

    “There’s a mud bar at the mouth of the bay, your highness,” said a young soldier Sharina didn’t recognize. The short horsehair crest on his helmet was dyed blue, indicating he was one of the fleet officers under Admiral Zettin. “We’re looking into dredging it so that warships could get through, but with the creatures swimming....”

    “I see,” said Sharina. She looked at Liane and Lord Waldron, feeling her guts freeze tightly again. “That means the person sending the hellplants knows the terrain, and knows at least something about war.”

    Double joined the group, helped by Lord Attaper himself. The guard commander had no expression as he withdrew his arm from the wizard’s grasp.

    Another time Attaper would be able to order one of his men to perform the service—because they’d seen him do it this once. Sharina knew that Attaper would rather face death than touch a wizard, but he’d done his duty regardless. Courage came in many forms.

    “The Green Woman knows the shape of this world because she intends to rule it,” Double said. “She will fail, because I will defeat her.”

    Waldron looked at Double with distaste, then said to Sharina, “Your highness, I’ve summoned a section of the phalanx from where they’re billeted on the east coast. Ordinary spears don’t do any good against the creatures, but I hope that the mass of long pikes will kill them, destroy them. Fire works to a degree, but there are so many of them that we’re forced back when we attack one.”

    “I saw that,” Sharina said. She took a deep breath. “What do you need from me?”

    “Your highness?” said Liane in a careful voice. “I carry Prince Garric’s signet, as you know, and I’ve been giving orders in what’s now your name. If you acquiesce—”

    “Yes,” said Sharina, “I do. Lord Waldron, do you have any requests?”

    “They’ve stopped coming out of the sea,” Waldron said, getting to the question indirectly. “We can take care of the ones here in the bay if that’s all there are. It’ll cost men, but that’s what an army’s for.”

    “She will send more of her creatures,” Double said. His voice was a sharper—and if possible, more unpleasant—version of Cervoran’s own. “She will send her creatures till they have killed me, or I kill her, or weed stops growing in the sea, and the weed will never stop growing.”

    “Then we’ll keep on killing them!” Waldron said. He was partly angry and partly afraid of the wizard; and because he hated fear, especially in himself, he was becoming more angry.

    “Look at the land her creatures hold,” said Double, stretching out his left arm toward the bay. “The sea swallows it down. Every day more hellplants will attack, and every morning this island will be smaller with fewer men to protect what remains. Only I can defeat the Green Woman!”

    Sharina followed the line of the wizard’s arm. Knots of soldiers battled hellplants with fire and their swords, trying to destroy the creatures by force of numbers before the lashing tentacles could destroy them all. Occasionally they succeeded, but the hills behind the plain echoed with despairing cries. Sharina saw bodies and body parts fly into the air.

    Close to the shore... Double was right. Rows of barley were sinking into the marsh. Sharina had never seen Calf’s Head Bay before, but she knew that even salt-resistant barley couldn’t have grown with sea water gleaming in the furrows as it did now. The hellplants were a material enemy, but they weren’t the only threat the Green Woman posed.

    “Tenoctris?” Sharina said. She tried to keep her voice neutral, but she was afraid that there was a hint of pleading in the word.

    “No, dear,” said the old woman. “Though I’ll try, of course.”

    “I must go back to my chamber of art,” Double said. He touched the amulet hanging around his neck. “I must have the help of Ilna os-Kenset and her companions. I will defeat the Green Woman.”

    “Liane?” Sharina said. “Lord Waldron? Is there anything I can do here that you want me to stay for?” Liane shook her head minusculely. Her face was as still as a death mask of the cheerful, smiling woman she had been.

    Waldron said, “I have a regiment throwing up earthworks on the slopes. I’m not worried during daylight, but if they attack at night, I, well, I want a barrier even if it takes time to shift troops to the point that’s threatened.”

    Double looked at him. “Her creatures will not advance in darkness,” he said shrilly. “They will wait in the marsh and attack again when the sun rises.”

    They’re plants, Sharina realized. With the weaknesses of plants as well as plants’ lack of a vulnerable brain or heart.

    She nodded. “All right,” she said, “we’ll go back. Tenoctris, will you come or...?”

    “Yes,” Tenoctris said. “I have a manuscript that might be useful; I’ll read it carefully.”

    She smiled wistfully. “It’s a manual of spells and potions to aid crops,” she said. “There might be something.”

    Double laughed. He turned and started up the track toward the gigs.

    Sharina felt an urge to slap the creature and keep slapping him until she’d worked off the wash of anger and frustration that suddenly filled her. After a moment she sighed and said, “Carry on, Lord Waldron. Tenoctris, we’ll return to the palace.”

    At least there’d be sunlight as soon as they got out of this accursed plain.

 

---

 

    Garric awakened slowly. He ached in many places and this bed was the most comfort he’d felt since he came to wherever he was now.

    He opened his eyes. The sun was well up, making the room reasonably bright. Though the roof thatch was opaque, the walls were wicker without mud and plaster to make them solid. The eaves sheltered the triangular vent at the top, but quite a lot of light—as Garric was learning to judge things here—came in that way.

    The wall separating his room from the hall was woven bark fabric on a lattice of finger-thick poles. Garric heard women speaking in normal tones on the other side of it. With a smile at the incongruity realized that he couldn’t see through the inner wall the way he could through the much thicker outer ones.

    He carefully raised his torso, then swung his legs out of bed. He wrapped the coverlet around him and stood.

    His head didn’t throb as badly as he’d expected, but it felt odd. He touched his scalp, expecting to find hair matted with his blood, and found instead a linen bandage holding a pad where Torag’s mace had cut him. The nurse—Donria beyond reasonable question—must’ve sponged him clean while he was asleep, because he remembered his face’d been crusted with a mixture of mud and his own blood despite the frequent drizzle he’d marched through.

    “Not all of it your own blood,” said King Carus. The balcony on which the smiling ghost stood might never have existed in reality, but for now its sunlit stone was a memory to cherish. “Some of the other folks in those fights were bleeding pretty freely, remember.”

    Garric reached for the latch, a simple rotating peg that held the frame of the door panel to the jamb. There was no lock. It bothered him that he’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t thought to try to lock it, though. He had Crispus for an enemy here and no certain friend except Donria.

    “She’s your friend while it suits her purposes,” Carus said. “That may not always be true.”

    I think she’s my friend regardless, Garric said firmly. As it is with Cashel, or Ilna; or me.

    The ghost laughed, but there was more sadness than humor in his voice as he said, “The only thing I ever trusted was my sword, lad. You’re in a better place; you are, and the kingdom is with you ruling it.”

    A flutter behind Garric threw highlights over the room. He spun, realizing what’d happened even before he saw the Bird perching in the vent as it had the night before. By daylight—and it wasn’t even raining—the Bird looked more like the scrap pile at a glass foundry than it did anything living. This time the creature balanced on one glittering foot and grasped a cord and some wood in the other.

    “It’s midday,” the Bird said silently. “You’ve slept long. Are you able to fight and run, Garric?”

    “I’m able,” Garric said. “I don’t expect to do either of those things for at least another day or two, until I have a better idea of the circumstances.”

    The Bird made an audible Cluk/clik/clik/clik with its beak. In Garric’s mind it said, “Wait and learn, then.”

    Garric didn’t know where he’d run to. All he could think of now was to run away from Torag’s keep. That was all very well, but Torag had captured him once and could quickly capture him again. Unless, of course, he happened to stumble into the arms of another band of the Coerli who were spreading into this land.

    Sirawhil wanted to take him to the place the cat men came from. It was at least possible that Garric’d find it easier to get home from there than from this gray swamp. Aloud he said, “Where is Sirawhil, Bird?”

    “The Coerli are asleep, all but the guard in the watch tower,” the Bird said. It fluffed its wings into a rainbow shimmer like the play of light on a dew drop. They were thin crystal membranes, not really wings like a bird’s or even a bat’s. “Torag slaughtered another of the recent captives. His folk feasted except the warriors who were here with Ido. They had to eat fish, and they’re keeping watch today while Torag and his raiders sleep with full bellies.”

    Was it Soma who’d been eaten? Garric thought. The whole business of the cat men butchering people for food disgusted him, but since it’d happened he could hope that Marzan’s wife was the victim. That might make his life in Torag’s keep—and escape from it—considerably simpler.

    “The victim was named Jolu,” the Bird said. “She was seventeen, plump, and had a high laugh. She was unmarried, but Horta whose wife had died in the Spring planned to ask her father for her. Horta died in the raid, though Jolu never knew that.”

    Garric felt a wash of dizziness. Jolu was a complete stranger to him. Hundreds of people like her must die every year back in the Kingdom of the Isles: drowned or carried off by fevers, dead in childbirth or any number of other ways. Death wasn’t horrible in itself; it was part of life.

    But Jolu had been eaten by catlike monsters. If somebody didn’t stop them the Coerli would eat many more people, until they’d eaten all the people there were in this world....

    “I’m going to get something to eat,” Garric said, reaching for the door latch again. He needed to know more before he could act, because based on what he knew at the moment there was nothing he could do. Except, he supposed, throw his life away with nothing to show for it except taking a few Coerli with him.

    “Killing cat beasts isn’t a small thing,” Carus murmured. “And maybe we could get more than a few of them.”

    The latch turned before he touched it. “Garric?” said Donria, pulling the thin panel open. “Did you call?”

    “Thanks for cleaning me up last night,” Garric said. It was disconcerting to hear the woman’s words clearly in his mind while at the same time seeing her lips form completely different sounds which came to his ears in the same tone as those in his mind. “Ah, can I have something to eat? And I’d like to see things outside.”

    He had only the vaguest notion of the compound’s layout. It’d been dark, he’d been woozy from the fight and the march, and when he arrived murderous violence had pretty quickly absorbed his whole attention.

    Donria took his hands and pulled him gently toward the door. “Whatever you wish, Garric,” she said. “Newla! The headman wants food! Bring him porridge from the smaller tub. I put the herbs in that one.”

    Half a dozen women were in the open hall of the large building. Two were villagers Garric had seen in the coffle captured with him in the raid. Newla was watching as they cleaned the far end of the hall where the food was prepared. The new arrivals went to the bottom of the pecking order, here as in any society.

    Though here the hierarchy could be disrupted at any moment by Torag’s choice for a meal. Which, thinking about it, was how chickens lived in the inn yard too.

    Garric’s whole youth had involved the care and feeding of domestic animals, but he was getting a different view of the process now. He smiled, because his discomfort wasn’t primarily because of the risk he’d be killed and eaten.

    They walked outside. Behind them, Newla shouted gruff directions to the slaves she was managing.

    It surprised Garric to see thirty or forty women sitting or lounging in the relative sunlight. Many were weaving on handlooms, but it looked to him like a friendly activity rather than work imposed by the Coerli.

    There were a number of children as well, girls of all ages but no boys old enough to walk on their own. Behind the first longhouse was a separate building. Pregnant women and mothers must be relegated to that one, explaining why Garric hadn’t seen children the night he arrived.

    Soma sat at the kitchen end of the first longhouse. She met Garric’s eyes without expression. He didn’t see Crispus. That was good in itself, but it made him wonder where the other man was.

    Fishnets hung beneath the eaves, just as they had in Wandalo’s village, and a separate thatched shelter covered hoes, rakes and sickles set with chips of clamshells. Nobody seemed to be working in the raised fields north of the dwelling, though, nor fishing in the surrounding moats.

    Donria followed Garric’s glance. “We get a holiday when the masters feast,” she said. “We take one, anyway. They’re all asleep except the one in the tower. And anyway, they’re not hungry.”

    “I see,” said Garric. The mud in front of the gate to the Coerli side of the compound had been raked since the rain stopped. Blood still showed at the edges of the patch. The cat men must’ve killed and gutted Jolu there before carrying the carcass out to be devoured.

    Garric looked up at the watchtower, a platform on thirty-foot poles. Two of the three poles were supports for the fence dividing the Coerli from their slaves. A warrior glared down at Garric.

    When Garric held his eyes, the Corl snarled and shouted, “Go on about your business, beast!” He looped his thorn-toothed cord down and up again in a quick arc.

    “Come this way, Garric,” Donria said, leading him around the end of the longhouse. Under the eaves they were out of sight of the tower, and vice versa.

    Garric squatted with his back to a support post, breathing deeply and trying to wash the anger out of his system. There was nothing to be done at the moment. Maybe there’d never be anything he could do!

    He balled his fist to slam it into the wall, but he realized how silly he was being. He opened his hand and laughed instead. The sun was shining—all right, above the overcast, but it was shining—and so long as the Coerli kept him alive he had a chance of escaping and maybe even doing something about the plague of monsters overrunning this land.

 

---

 

    Women congregated around him and Donria in a polite arc, the way students did in Valles before their teacher. There were no schools in Barca’s Hamlet. Most children learned basic letters and how to count from their mothers, but the only books in the community were those Reise had brought with him from Carcosa.

    Reise perhaps would’ve been willing to teach other children while he taught his own, but none of the other parents valued the sort of education he was giving Garric and Sharina. What did it matter who were the rulers of the Old Kingdom and what wars they fought?

    It mattered to Reise’s son, who’d become ruler of the Isles. It mattered not only because Garric didn’t have to repeat mistakes thousand years old, it meant that he could relax with the simple beauty of, “Oh Bandusian spring, shimmering like glass; worthy of being mixed with sweet wine at a party....”

    Garric laughed, suddenly able to focus on what he had: youth, strength, friends, and a good mind. And also he had the Bandusian spring, gleaming as clearly in his mind as it had in the eyes of the poet Celondre a thousand years before. As long as Garric lived he’d have the Bandusian spring, one of Reise’s greatest gifts to his children.

    “Donria,” said the Bird from the transom above them, “come to the headman’s room immediately.”

    Donria jumped up, looking around in amazement. “Who said that?” she cried.

    “Donria, what’s wrong?” a spectator called. Other women were getting to their feet, looking surprised and fearful. Surprises in Torag’s compound were generally going to be unpleasant, Garric supposed.

    “The Bird spoke, Donria,” Garric said, wondering if he should get up too. “Haven’t you heard him before?”

    From the look Donria gave him, that was one of the sillier things Garric had said since he came to this place. “The Bird?” she said, looking up and gaping at the glittering distortion.

    “Yes,” said the Bird. Its mental voice was a mechanically crisp as the tick of a metronome, but Garric thought it held an undertone of impatience. “Come into Garric’s room immediately. Newla can feed him without your presence.”

    “I didn’t know...,” Donria said, staring at Garric again. “Headman, did you make it do this?”

    “Do as it asks, mistress,” Garric said. “The Bird isn’t one of our enemies here.”

    He grinned at the Bird. “I don’t think so, at any rate.”

    The Bird clucked audibly again. “I do not have friends or enemies,” it said in Garric’s mind. “Only purposes. Your present survival benefits my purposes, Garric.”

    “Go along with him,” Garric said, giving the trembling Donria a gentle pat. She bolted around the corner of the building, almost colliding with Newla and her two flunkies holding pails and a trencher of dried fish.

    Did Donria think the Bird was a God? Hmm; was the Bird a God?

    The Bird had hopped with its assortment of sticks and cord into the interior of the building. Though unseen its words rang with tart clarity in Garric’s mind: “I am not a God.”

    Garric stood out of courtesy for the women bringing the food, then settled again. The pails were cut from the stems of a jointed grass—bigger than bamboo from the island of Shengy, but something like that. The smaller pail held a sour fermented beverage. It had a reddish cast, so he supposed it was wine rather than beer. His lips puckered when he sipped it, but it was better than water polluted by run-off from human slaughter.

    Crispus stepped around the corner. He held a wrist-thick log the length of his forearm. It was cruder than the cudgel that he’d tried to use on Garric the night before, but it’d do.

    Garric scrambled to his feet, holding the pail. He’d left the cudgel behind in the headman’s room. He thought of shouting to Donria to throw it through the vent to him, but the chances were he’d lose the fight if he turned away from Crispus to grab a wildly flung weapon.

    The women scattered like frightened chickens, though Garric saw them only as motion at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t blame them. This wasn’t their fight, and he was a stranger with no claim on their loyalty anyway.

    Crispus shuffled forward, holding the club vertical in both hands. He hadn’t spoken. His nose was purple and swollen, and his eyes were bloodshot.

    What would happen if I ran? Garric wondered. He wouldn’t, though. There was the risk his leg’d cramp because of the way he’d been tied on the march from Wandalo’s village, and anyway he didn’t like the thought of running.

    In the back of his mind King Carus weighed options with the cold skill of a born warrior. Crispus wasn’t going to get a third chance to kill the man who’d supplanted him as headman....

    “Hey, what’s going on down there?” the tower guard called. The Corl couldn’t see him or Crispus either because the building was in the way, but he’d noticed the women fleeing and could guess what it meant. “Torag will decide when you’ll be allowed to fight!”

    Crispus ignored the guard, edging closer by a dragging step. Garric smiled disarmingly. He was crouching, but instead of tensing he let his body rise slightly as though he’d relaxed.

    Arms clutched his torso from behind and lifted him off the ground. “Now, Crispus!” Soma screamed. She was as strong as an octopus.

    Crispus strode forward, bringing his club down in a whistling arc. Garric kicked back at the post he’d been leaning against, throwing himself and Soma both to the right.

    The club smacked the woman’s shoulder hard enough to stagger Garric too. Soma shouted and lost her grip. Garric sprang up, grabbing Crispus’ left wrist and the shaft of the club.

    Crispus bawled in fear and tried to pull away. Garric let go of his wrist and used both hands to wrench the club free. Crispus turned and ran around the corner of the building. Garric sprang after him.

    The gate between the slave and Coerli portions of the compound was open. The guard stood in it; he’d come down from the tower to end the fight. His weighted cord curled around Crispus’ neck, choking him silent.

    Garric’s left hand jerked Crispus back by the hair as he raised the club in his right. Crispus gave a strangled bleat. The Corl snarled and leaped the ten feet separating him from Garric, furious that the beasts were continuing to fight even after he’d immobilized the nearer one.

    Garric’s club slashed down. He wasn’t quick enough to follow the cat man’s action, but King Carus’ instinct had allowed him to anticipate it. The business end of the club cracked the Corl’s skull.

    Garric jerked the stone-headed axe from the warrior as he convulsed. Crispus began to thrash also; the cord in the Corl’s right hand was tightening on his neck. Garric didn’t have either the time or the inclination to worry about that. He hadn’t been thinking, just reacting as Carus would’ve reacted. That was the reason he was still alive.

    He drew in a deep breath and sneezed violently: the longhouse was on fire. Flames curled out of the transom, and the wet thatch was gushing smoke.

    Donria ran out of the front door of the building. She held the sticks and cord the Bird had appeared with. Linked as they were now, Garric recognized a fire bow. He’d seen others light a fire by friction when flint and steel weren’t available, though he’d never had occasion to do it himself.

    “Come, Garric!” she cried. “There’s a hole at the back of the stockade!”

    “But—” Garric said, then turned to follow Donria. Action might save him; argument certainly wouldn’t.

    A glitter at the corner of his eye drew his attention as he ran. The Bird whirled out of the smoke with a tag of burning mattress in its claws. It dipped to set the fire under the eaves of Torag’s longhouse, then sparkled through the white billows to join Garric and Donria as they fled.