The cryolite urn had been even more delicate than Garric thought: the pieces shattered on the tile floor were eggshell thin. Liane knelt in the debris, supporting Sharina's weeping maid with one arm and holding up a rushlight in the other hand. The tallow-soaked reed pith burned with a pale yellow flame; Liane carried a bundle of them as reading lights in her document case.
"We broke in quick as we could, I swear we did!" said the officer of the guard. "When we heard the screaming, we put our backs to it. I figured if it was just the lady having a good time, well, I'd rather go back to following a plow than make a mistake the other way."
The hall door had been of sturdy beechwood. The overlay of bronze filigree, though meant for decoration, would've slowed the troops who were trying to break in. They'd splintered the panel, half of which still hung from the hinges. The bronze was a lacy tatter trailing into the room.
"You were correct, ensign," Garric said, his hand clenching and unclenching on his swordhilt. "What did you see?"
The guards had brought their lantern with them; that and the rushlight were the only illumination in the reception room. Soldiers and servants were squeezing in from the hall, and troops from the courtyard hammered on the outer door now that they realized there was something wrong.
The screams hadn't been loud enough to alert them. It'd been the sound of soldiers battering down the door with their spear butts that'd warned Garric something was wrong, though his suite was adjacent.
"Just the girl there crying on the floor and the vase all in pieces," the ensign said. "To tell the truth, I thought the girl'd broke the thing and was afraid she'd be whipped to an inch of her life, but then I saw the bed empty-"
He gestured toward the bedroom with the sword in his right hand. The point almost skewered the under-housekeeper who'd run in to see if her staff was the cause of the commotion.
"-and I said, 'Where's your mistress?' to the silly bint, and she starts crying louder than she'dbeen doing, which is plenty loud."
Liane rose to her feet with a supple motion; the maid immediately sank back into the sobbing puddle as she'd been when Garric followed the guards into the room. She'd come from Valles in Reise's entourage, chosen by him and therefore as trustworthy as human judgment could determine.
"Beara said a servant she didn't recognize put a lamp inside the urn," Liane said, speaking loudly enough for Garric to understand over the increasing volume of noise. Lords Waldron and Attaper arrived together from opposite corners of the palace, both trying to take charge. "In the middle of the night she woke up because there was something wrong with the light coming through her curtain."
Liane nodded to the patterned muslin hanging that shadowed the maid's alcove from the rest of the suite.
"She said it was awful," Liane continued with the dry humor that was so much a part of her, even in a crisis. "She can't explain what she means, but judging from her state I'm willing to accept the assessment. She tried to put out the lamp and couldn't, then Sharina did something-"
"Poured water onto it," said Garric, pointing with his bare toe. Fragments of etched glass were mixed with the urn's ice-stone shards.
"Yes, of course," said Liane approvingly. "Sharina poured in water. The urn broke, and Beara says it sucked Sharina somewhere as it did so."
She frowned with concentration and cocked her head toward the door. Garric heard the familiar voice also, barely a chirp among the raucous, angry men.
"Waldron and Attaper!" he roared, determined to be understood. "Bring Lady Tenoctris to me at once, if you please!"
There was a stir by the door. Soldiers moved aside quickly, cursing their fellows who kept them from getting out of the officers' way. The commanders walked Tenoctris the two steps from the doorway, one to either side of the frail old woman. Without their bulk and angry authority, she might as well have been on the other side of the moon for all her chances of reaching Garric.
"Tenoctris," Garric said, so coldly furious that there was no emotion at all in his voice. "Sharina's been attacked or taken away by this urn. Can you learn anything about it here, or is there someplace you might better be?"
"I can possibly determine something here," the old wizard said. "Though…"
She looked around doubtfully. "Not, I think," she went on, "while there's so many people around."
"Right," said Garric calmly. In a bellow that rattled the windows he went on, "Clear the room! I want all the soldiers out and all the servants except the girl on the floor. Now!"
There was an immediate shuffle and whispering, then a shift toward the door. It couldn't be called a stampede, but he was being obeyed. That was good, because he was in no mood to be balked…
He looked at Liane. "Will you stay here with Tenoctris, please?" he said. "Help her as she requires?"
"Yes, of course," Liane said. She lit the overhead lamp with her rushlight, then said to Tenoctris, "You left your equipment in your room? I'll fetch it and be right back."
Garric watched Liane slip out with the last of the Blood Eagles. Many amazing things had happened to him in the past year; Liane was both the most amazing and the most wonderful.
"Lord Attaper," Garric said. "I'll take two companies of the Blood Eagles. Lord Waldron, I want whichever regiment is on standby to come with me also."
"That's Lord Rosen's regiment, your highness," said Waldron with a frown. "They're a Blaise regiment, though."
"Are you saying they're not to be trusted, Waldron?" Garric snapped. Tendons in his throat stood out with his fury.
"What?" said Waldron. The commander of the royal army had spent most of his long life fighting or in preparation to fight. He was stiff-necked, arrogant, and extremely competent. "Of course I trust them, or they wouldn't be on duty!"
"Then I don't care if they're bloody demons from Hell and the Sister commands them!" said Garric. "They'll come with me to the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset. I'm going to turn the place upside down until I get answers about this urn they sent-and I learn what they've done with Sharina!"
Sharina lay on the floor, trembling from a chill greater than that of any winter wind. Her eyes were closed, though it was a moment before she realized that and opened them. She'd been close to death; she'd thought shewas dead.
She was wearing the shift in which she'd gotten out of bed. It was night and the air was bitter, but even so she was warm by contrast with the place she'd been. She turned her head slowly, afraid that a quick movement would cause the tangled rubble around her to shift and crush her.
When this building's outer wall collapsed, the roof had tilted down to form a lean-to. The tiles had cracked off. Though the substructure of lathes and trusses remained, enough moonlight streamed through the gaps for Sharina to identify her surroundings.
She was in the reception room of her suite-but the palace was a ruin overwhelmed by time and the elements. The floor humped like a tilled field, and only memory told Sharina she was lying on a mosaic instead of a scatter of sharp-edged gravel.
There could be no doubt, though. A patch of fresco remained on the inner wall from which rain had flaked most of the plaster. The moon shone on it-fittingly, for it showed the face of the Lady who was the Moon in one of Her guises. In the world Sharina'd just left, the same painted visage smiled from a couch in Her garden of peace and delights.
The passage to the hall was blocked by debris. The other doorway had skewed when the wall shifted but it hadn't fallen in. Sharina could see into what had been her bedroom, where now an open fire burned on the floor. The three creatures squatting around it would've looked like gangling, raw-boned men from a distance, but upright each would stand more than twelve feet high.
The creatures' foreheads sloped; their noses were broad and flat, and coarse reddish hair covered their bodies. They didn't wear clothing, but one had a necklace of some sort. Occasionally they made noises, but Sharina couldn't tell whether they were speaking or simply grunting like dogs rolling on the ground. Meat was cooking on the fire; Sharina smelled pork and heard the regular pop and sizzle of dripping fat.
As her eyes adapted, Sharina realized that the objects around her included loot along with the debris of ruin: the creatures in the next room used this half-fallen alcove as a storehouse for the baubles they'd collected, sorting them by type. Beside Sharina was a jumble of gold and silver plate: platters, goblets, and the gilt frame of a handmirror set with glass beads.
Piled partly on the floor and partly on fallen roof tiles was a tangle of fabric, chosen for shiny threads rather than art. A border decorated with gold braid had been cut or torn from a woolen tapestry; the corner cartouche of the Three Graces dancing remained. Even by moonlight Sharina thought that Ilna would've been interested in the weaver's skill.
On the slant of rubble blocking the hall doorway were swords and daggers whose hilts were decorated with jewels and gold wire. The blades were masses of rust; many of them had been broken. A glaive of perforated brass, some usher's symbol, had survived exposure, but it had never been a weapon.
At the bottom of the pile, visible because of its soft gleam in the moonlight, was a narrow-bladed war axe with gold inlays whose complexity and beauty probably meant nothing to the creatures which had collected it. A spike in the shape of a long nose balanced the axe's single bitt. The blade was a work of art in uncorroded steel, the stylized head of a sharp-featured man with an angry expression.
The creatures in the other room began to eat, tearing chunks of flesh from the carcase without removing it from the fire. Sharina watched them for a long moment, then with a grim expression turned her attention to finding a way out before the owners decided to gloat over their hoard after dinner.
The reception room's only surviving doorway was the one between Sharina and the creatures. The maid's alcove was packed with more of the gathered loot: unguent bottles, jewel boxes, and a few larger containers with shiny metal or sparkling inlays-brass, tin and glass as well as what humans would've called precious. Even if the door beyond weren't blocked, the treasure would clatter down like a deliberate alarm.
The only possibility of escape was the slanted roof. The beams were spaced a foot and a half apart, far enough for Sharina to wriggle between them easily. The lattice of laths laid across them was the problem. She could easily tear her way through the thin wood, but that'd make noise-particularly if she dislodged one of the few remaining tiles.
Sharina slowly rolled over on her back to survey the roof without getting a crick in her neck. The creatures weren't paying any attention to this room as they grunted and slobbered their way through the meal, but there was a risk one of them might catch a flash of her white face moving in the moonlight.
The back wall, which had originally separated the room from the interior hallway, remained upright. It was the fulcrum supporting the roof beams when the outer wall collapsed. When the tiles slipped downward, they'd pulled the laths some distance with them.
Sharina was sure she could worm through the gap. To reach it, though, she'd have to climb the slope of rubble which had poured through the hall doorway, debris from the other side of the building. That should be possible; and anyway, she didn't have a choice.
She rolled onto her belly again, slowly and carefully, then crawled to the slope on all fours. Tufts of coarse grass grew from the rubble. She could at least hope that their roots had cemented debris into a solid mass that wouldn't slide noisily when she put her weight on it.
She paused, looking at the assortment of weapons in front of her. The only one that remained useful was the axe. It was on the bottom of the pile, and Sharina had no experience with anything bigger than the hatchet by the kitchen door for chopping kindling. Work that required a real axe had been Garric's job from an early age.
The dagger blades were lumps of rust, though, and she was certainly going to need a tool if not a weapon when she got out of this dreadful lair. Reaching carefully into the stack of rusted iron, she worked the axe out-first the head, then the two-foot long hardwood helve which ended in an iron knob. The sculptured face glared at her.
Gripping the axe in her right hand, just below the head, Sharina started up the slope. The rubble was as firm as she'd dared pray. The moonlit opening above her was narrower than she liked, but she "Masters!" screamed the axe. "Masters, a thief is taking me! Masters, I'm being carried away!"
A triple bellow filled the night. Sharina looked over her shoulder. The creatures had risen from the fire and were picking up clubs the size of her body. One of them still held in his free hand the side of ribs he'd been gnawing with massive yellow teeth. They were from a human being, not a pig.
"Masters!" cried the axe. "Kill the thief and drink her blood!"
"Oh," said Cashel as they came around the angle of rock. He'd thought the gleam on the peak above was snow or a concentration of quartz. "Oh!"
"Lord Bossian's manor," said Kotia with a smug smile at having finally managed to impress Cashel. "We've arrived, or very nearly so."
The manor was huge. Maybe the buildings scattered over the acres of the palace compound in Valles put together would've added up to this, but Cashel doubted it-and anyway, these towers and blocks and terraces were all in one place, one structure.
And though of many different colors, the whole thing was made out of crystal. No wonder sunlight glinting from and through its angles shone for miles above the surrounding crags.
The beads of wizardlight guiding them continued up the hillside, but now the route was paved with textured blue-gray glass instead of being a waste of boulders and pebbles. Cashel cleared his throat. "Ah…?" he said. "Will Lord Bossian be glad to see us, mistress? If you're having trouble with your father and all?"
"I'm having trouble with Lord Ansache, whom I thought was my father, you mean," Kotia said, starting up the pavement with brisk strides. "He and Bossian aren't friends, I assure you. As a matter of fact, Lord Bossian offered to wed me last year, but my-but Ansache refused him."
Her back was straighter than it'd been for most of the morning's hike. Cashel was barefoot, but his soles were hardened to any kind of use. Kotia's slippers hadn't fallen apart on the journey-whatever they were made of was tougher than the light suede it looked like-but they couldn't have cushioned her steps much either. If there'd been much farther to go, Cashel would've been carrying the girl.
Kotia looked at Cashel with an expression that he still couldn't read, though it was becoming familiar. "I doubt Bossian would've taken me in if Kakoral were still pursuing me," she said. "Bossian is a great wizard but he couldn't have protected me against the demon, so he wouldn't have tried. But I had nowhere else to go."
Cashel shrugged. He knew a lot of people felt that way. For himself, he figured people could generally do a lot more than they thought they could; and if something was bad enough, you did all you could to stop it even if youdid figure it'd roll right over you.
He glanced sidelong at Kotia. Despite the way she'd made the statement, he got the notion that her opinion of how people ought to behave was pretty close to his own.
Chimes and trilling flutes sounded from the manor. Faces were lining the battlements to watch him and Kotia trudge up the roadway. Goodness, but this was a huge place! Every twist of the path showed Cashel another marvel.
Though all a single structure, the manor was built in at least a double-handful of styles-each in crystal of a different color. The foundations were a drab stone color, yet as clear as sea water on a calm day. The huge block to the east was pink with square towers, arched windows, and tiny round turrets with pointed cupolas on the corners. West of it was a lower, pale yellow, mass of open-topped round towers with colonnaded porticos cantilevered out at several levels.
The central portion was the same blue-gray as the path and had a fusty, antique appearance. The towers flanking the gateway had three sides visible and probably as many behind; tassels and curlicues of contrasting colors draped the walls between circular windows, and the door panels seemed to represent a frozen waterfall.
They opened as Cashel and his companion approached. A middle-aged man stepped out.
The fellow had a short black beard and an air of self possession; behind him came any number of men and women, servants by the look of them. The leader's clothing was peacock-colored but hemmed with the same rich blue as the sashes cinching the servants' white tunics.
He extended his arm in a sweeping gesture. "Kotia!" he cried. "What an unexpected pleasure! May I hope that your stay will be a long one?"
"As long as you wish, Bossian," Kotia said. "And as your wife, if you still wish that. You should know that Ansache has driven me out of his manor."
"I had heard something about your difficulties," Lord Bossian said smoothly. He took Kotia by the hand. "I've had my own troubles with Ansache, as you know."
He looked at Cashel, who'd halted at arm's length behind the girl and stood with his quarterstaff vertical in his right hand. Turning again to Kotia, Bossian continued, "You brought a servant with you, my dear? Or perhaps it's an automaton you created with your art?"
"No," said Cashel, his voice a growl. He'd met Bossian's type before, the ones who felt little beside him and decided to make themselves bigger by insults. They seemed always to figure that Cashel wouldn't drive them into the ground like so many tent pegs; and they were right, not for as little as a few words. But Cashel wondered if any of them realized how easily hecould do that, and how quickly hehad the times somebody went beyond words to a blow or a gobbet of spit…
"I summoned Master Cashel to scotch a demon who was becoming importunate," Kotia said with the ladylike hauteur that hadn't been in her voice since Kakoral appeared. "He did so in an able fashion."
She gave Bossian a thin smile. "A remarkably able fashion, milord. I told him that you were skilled in the art yourself, and that you could perhaps send him home now that he's accomplished the purpose for which I brought him here."
"Ah!" said Bossian, looking at Cashel in a very different fashion from before. "Indeed. Ah."
Cashel met Bossian's eyes, thinking about what Ilna might have said-or done-to the fellow. Cashel wasn't that way himself-it wouldn't be right for the biggest, strongest man in the borough to act the same as a small woman did-but he wouldn't have minded seeing it happen. Thinking that, he smiled.
Bossian's mouth dropped open and he took a step backward. Kotia must've wondered what was going to happen next also; she touched the back of Cashel's hand on the quarterstaff and said, "Bossian, my friend and I have had a difficult day and night. If you could provide us with refreshment…?"
"Yes, of course!" Bossian said. He clapped the fingers of his right hand against the palm of his left.
"Food and drink in the Summer Plaza!" he cried to the troupe of aides behind him. At once several of them sprinted back into the manor. Shortly after they'd disappeared, bells began to ring in what was either a code or discordant music.
Bossian bowed to Cashel and said, "Sir, I assure you that I'll do everything in my power to speed you to wherever you choose to go. We'll discuss the matter as soon we've eaten. Kotia, my dear?"
He crooked out his elbow.
"May I have the honor of escorting you to dinner?"
Kotia didn't reply, but she took Bossian's arm with practiced courtesy. Together they walked through the fanciful archway; people watching from above began to cheer and wave ribbons.
Cashel followed, feeling a bit funny about the situation. When he thought about the words he'd use to describe what was going on-a pretty young girl thrown out by her father and forced to marry her rich older neighbor-it sounded pretty terrible. The truth, though, to somebody who'd had a day's experience of Kotia, wasn't nearly so one-sided. Or anyway, wasn't one-sided in Bossian's favor.
They walked down a tunnel whose walls were rippling blue; it was like stepping dryshod through the depths of the sea. Kotia and Bossian chatted to one another; Cashel could hear most of the words, but they were discussing things and people that meant nothing to him.
Cashel thought about the world he'd been taken from, feeling sad in a way that didn't often happen to him. Maybe it was the strange fashion light bent in this place. It wasall strange, and it wasn't where he belonged. He hoped that Tenoctris was all right; and he wished that Sharina was here to explain the parts of this place that she'd understand. It was wonderful the things that Sharina and Garric knew, and they talked to Cashel about them without talking down…
Beyond the tunnel mouth was a courtyard full of people in gorgeous colors, though none quite so brilliant as Bossian himself. The walls and pavement were golden-were pure gold, Cashel would've said from a distance, but close up he could see it was transparent crystal just like the rest.
Instead of shouting, the folk in the courtyard pressed up to Bossian, clasping hands with him while bowing and simpering to Kotia. Other people looked down and smiled from the balconies terraced back from the foundations of the surrounding buildings.
Bossian waved away the mob of greeters and turned to Cashel. "Does the Visitor prey on the regions you come from, sir?" he asked in a friendly enough tone. "I ask because we see portents of his return, and I thought your presence might be connected."
"What are you saying, Lord Bossian?" said Kotia in a voice that could break rocks. "Do you think that I'd have brought a harbinger of the Visitor into our world?"
"Of course not, my dear!" Bossian said, sounding like he was surprised. Maybe he was-though if he hadn't expected Kotia to go for his throat if he played games with words thatmight be insults, he didn't know her as well as Cashel did already. " I just thought we should explore whether he might be a portent, that's all."
The ground started to rise.
Cashel brought his staff over his head, the only place he could hold it crosswise and not bash a lot of people. Even so his left elbow jabbed a solid-looking fellow who caromed back with a shout of amazement. The crowd stopped chattering and stared at Cashel instead.
"Cashel?" Kotia said, calmly but with an artificially blank expression.
The ground-the plate of golden crystal, it wasn't ground!-continued to rise. One edge remained in contact with the tall, smooth-sided cone across from the gateway. The plate curved around the cone and settled into place on the opposite side, several stories higher than it'd been when Cashel first walked onto it.
"I'm sorry, mistress," Cashel said. He lowered his staff, making a little nod of apology to the fellow he'd elbowed. "I just wasn't expecting that to happen."
Then, as the locals started chattering and Bossian mouthed false regrets for not having explained what was going to happen, Cashel said, "And as for the Visitor, I've never heard of anybody who goes by that as a title. If my coming here has something to do with him, it's without me knowing about it. Who is he?"
He thought for a moment and added, "Or she, I guess."
"We'll take the Linden Walk, I think," Bossian said. He looked disconcerted. "Unless you…?"
Cashel gestured brusquely with his left hand toward the broad path bordered with what he would've called basswood trees. "Walking's fine," he said.
Cashel was tired and hungry, and Bossian seemed set on playing tricks on him. He'd have turned around and left if he had any better place to be, and he was just about ready to do that anyway.
Kotia said something sharply into Lord Bossian's ear, then stepped back and took Cashel's arm instead. "Manor Bossian's trees are famous," she said in a coolly cheerful tone. "At Manor Ansache, our parks have a prairie theme."
Her smile was as hard as Ilna's might have been. She added, "And my mother had an extensive fungus garden in the cellars, though Ansache had it grubbed up after she disappeared."
Cashel cleared his throat as they walked along the boulevard. Lord Bossian was a step ahead, talking with several locals and being very careful not to look over his shoulder. There was a little cocoon of open space separaating Cashel and Kotia from the others, which suited Cashel fine. He wasn't used to crowds. He said, "Thank you, mistress."
Kotia patted his arm with her free hand. "Is there anything you'd like to see while you're here, Master Cashel?" she said. "There's no reason that you have to rush off, you know."
Cashel noticed Lord Bossian hunch as though somebody'd just hit him on the back of the head. Grinning-Kotia was alot like Ilna, which was a fine thing if you were on her side-he said, "No, mistress, there's people waiting for me back where I was. But thank you."
He'd wondered where the fields supplying this huge building were, but he saw them as he walked along-on roofs and terraces covering the whole manor. As the tree-bordered road curved around a huge tower, Cashel noticed to the north a many-layered pyramid that seemed to be of plantings at every level.
The slopes Cashel'd hiked over for the past day weren't green enough to pasture sheep, so he wondered whether the rainfall was enough for the melons and squash he'd seen among the rows of maize. People who made courtyards move could pump water from deep wells, he supposed.
The slimly-handsome man and woman now walking to either side of Lord Bossian talked about the Visitor in airy voices. Neither of them believed he was coming-or at any rate, they denied they believed that. Bossian made neutral comments. He could've been too high-minded to trouble himself with the matter, but Cashel got the impression that Bossian was afraid to speak clearly, for fear whichever choice he made would bring the Visitor down on him.
"Ah, Kotia?" Cashel said. "Who's the Visitor? I really don't know anything about him." He paused, then added, "At least under that name."
A magnificent waterfall poured from the cleft between two towers-one rosy and decorated with turrets stuck to the sides, the other green and stark, without so much as window ledges to mark its smooth sides. The stream gurgled under the road, twisted, and vanished into a hulking silvery mass whose colonnades seemed to have been spun from cobweb. There was no sign of where so much water could have come from.
"For as far back as history records," Kotia said quietly, "a being has come down from the sky, stayed for a time, and then vanished in the same way as he appeared. We call him the Visitor. Sometimes there's a generation between his visits, sometimes longer than that. While he's here, he does as he wishes-he has that much power."
She turned to meet Cashel's eyes. Without raising her voice she added, "The Visitor remains for varying lengths of time, generally a month or a few months. About a thousand years ago, the Visitor stayed for five years. Everything that happened before then is lost to us now, because civilization ended at that time."
Cashel frowned. "You fight him when he comes?" he said.
Kotia shrugged. "Some have fought," she said. "Some flee. And there have always been some who tried to serve him. The Visitor does as he wishes."
They'd arrived at an array of tables and chairs on half-round terraces. They were set with food and drink, and servants in white tunics were poised discretely to add more.
Lord Bossian gestured Cashel and Kotia to the circular table at the lowest level. The couple who'd been walking with him took places there also, but they remained standing till Bossian gave them leave.
The male of the pair looked at Cashel and said, "Really, you mustn't get worked up about the Visitor, you know. There's always somebody talking about omens and portents and doom in the stars. It always turns out to be fancy."
"If you've looked at the night sky in the past month, Farran," Kotia said in voice that was too disgusted to be angry, "you'd have noticed that the stars themselves are different. The constellations in the southeast have changed their alignments! That's no more fancy than sunrise is."
"Ah," said the fellow, turning to the woman with him. "Are you planning to attend Lady Tilduk's gala, Syl?"
Lord Bossian pulled out his own chair; the whole gathering followed his lead, seating themselves in a rush that filled every place on the terraces. Cashel sat carefully, as he always did when he wasn't sure how sturdy his chair would be.
As Kotia settled beside him, she muttered, "The Visitor does as he wishes."
But as she spoke, she eyed Cashel.
Ilna sat with her back to the little cabin and the sun on her left side. Nabarbi was at the steering oar on the opposite railing, so she was as much out of the way as she could be on a small vessel.
She was working on the hand frame in her lap, weaving a cartouche that could become part of a tapestry or set off a garment as need arose. Its measured curves drew the eye and left the beholder feeling marginally more optimistic. Ilna smiled grimly as she worked: the design had a positive effect even on her.
Because theBird of the Tide 's hold was nearly empty, Ilna could've carried any loom she wanted. She couldn't possibly use anything larger while they were at sea, though, and they'd be returning immediately to Carcosa when they'd dealt with this trouble in the Strait.
If they survived, of course. She smiled again. Shewas feeling optimistic.
Their bow was chopping into the sea, a change from the first day out when slow swells from astern lifted theBird in long, queasy arcs. Ilna didn't like the chop, but she hadn't liked the swells either. In all truth she didn't like ships, which put them in the same category as most people and most things. And because of the way she was feeling, she grinned even wider atthat thought.
"You're a cheerful one today, lass," said Chalcus in a tone of pleased puzzlement. He'd come around the cabin from where he'd been talking to Nabarbi. "I'd feared that bucking the current would've made you uncomfortable."
As compared to what? Ilna thought, but because she was feeling positive-and because she liked to see the pleasure that brought into Chalcus' eyes-she said, "It's not so very bad. I can work-"
She tilted the hand frame as a gesture.
"-and so long as I can work, nothing disturbs me very much."
Chalcus nodded in understanding, though she caught a flash of regret in his expression also. "Most of the northbound traffic takes the Haft Channel and hugs the mainland," he explained, gesturing to starboard. "That's how the current flows, so even if the wind's from the northeast you can make headway."
He grinned. "If you know what you're doing," he added, "and you're not sailing a pig, which ourBird here assuredly is not."
Chalcus patted the railing. He was dressed in tunic and sash, ordinary garb for the captain of a small vessel who expected to help the crew in a crisis; but the sash was bright red silk matching the fillet that confined his hair, and his curved dagger wasn't an ordinary seaman's working blade. Chalcus wasn't a man to pass unnoticed in any company, so he didn't bother trying.
"Ships bound for Carcosa take the Outer Strait and pass north of the Calves," Chalcus continued, "riding south on a current that comes all the way from the Ice Capes. It's those ships that the Rua take, or anyway somebody takes-"
He gave her another grin; Ilna nodded coldly.
"-so we'll be calling in to see Commander Lusius in Terness on the north coast of Corse, that's the northeast island of the Calves. To get there we're slipping between the other two islands, Betsam and Bewld; and that means fighting the current."
"I'd noticed the air was cooler," Ilna said, tying off the completed design. She rose to her feet, looking at the sea for the first time since she'd placed herself against the cabin. The railing wasn't particularly high, but seated on the deck she could see only the sky over it. The water was a murky green as though it was mixed with powdered chalk.
"We'll dock in Terness before the middle of the afternoon, I'd judge," Chalcus said, eyeing the land ahead of them. Ninon stood in the far bow, his right hand on a stay, watching also. "Barring the untoward happening, which is no more a certainty on shipboard than it is with the rest of life, eh, lass?"
"Chalcus," said Ilna. She pointed to the sky high to the northeast. "Are those birds, or…?"
"Ah, you've good eyes, my dear," said Chalcus, following her gaze. "Indeed, it's the 'or' of your question, I would say. They're no birds of my acquaintance, for all that they're surely flying."
There were three of them, dipping and swooping in the clear air. Ilna couldn't estimate the distance closer than ' many miles away', but that was enough to prove that the creatures were huge. In a sudden simultaneous rush they vanished again over the horizon.
"Shausga and Ninon," Chalcus called. "Go string your bows, I think. Likely we'll not need them, but… have them ready regardless. Kulit, take over the lookout."
Chalcus grinned at Ilna with a wolfish good humor that had nothing funny in it. "And for me, my dear, I think I'll have my sword about me till we dock. Not that we'll need that either, but…"
"We'll need it before this voyage is over," said Ilna, folding a swatch of coarse fabric over the hand frame to protect it when she packed it in the hold. "That's why we're here, after all."
She was smiling also. It struck her that there probably wasn't much difference between her expression and that of Chalcus.
And because Ilna really was in a positive mood, she laughed at the thought.
"We should've come double-time," Attaper muttered to Garric as they reached the plaza in front of the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset. "My boys could've taken the gates and held them till the regulars came up."
Ten Blood Eagles were ahead of them; seventy more-companies in the bodyguard regiment were badly understrength because of recent fighting-were behind. Rosen's regiment followed, filling the street eight abreast and singing a Blaise warchant.
The hut beside the temple steps was empty, though the watchman's lighted lantern hung from the hook over his open door. The gates to the compound behind the temple were closed and barred; that might have been normal for the hours before dawn, but an alarm was ringing within and torchlight shimmered behind the walls.
"If you think we could've run ahead and not have those Blaise armsmen decide it was a race, Lord Attaper…," Garric said as King Carus in his mind grinned approval. "Then you've seen surprisingly little of the world. Besides, we're not dealing with foreign enemies. These are citizens of the Isles, although they may be a little vague at the moment regarding their duty to the crown."
"We'll sort 'em out," grunted the file leader close behind Garric. "By theLady, we will!"
It struck Garric momentarily as an odd oath. On consideration he decided it was exactly the right one.
The courtyard walls were ten feet high. A man squirmed over them from the other side, then dropped down into the plaza. There were angry shouts within the compound.
Attaper grabbed Garric by the shoulder and held him fast. "Blood Eagles!" he ordered. "Close ranks twenty feet from the wall!"
The wall-jumper trotted toward them, stopping with his hands raised, palms outward, just short of the guards' lowered spears. "Your highness!" he called. "My name's Birossa. I'm Lady Liane's man!"
"Bring him here," said Garric.
"Your highness," said Attaper, "I don't think-"
Instead of shouting in frustration, Garric laughed and twisted away from Attaper's hand, then slipped through the rank of Blood Eagles. The guards were doing their job as they saw it, but Garric's job was to rule the Isles. He wouldn't let his friends keep him from his duty, any more than he would his enemies.
"Master Birossa," he said, ignoring the curses behind him. "What are you doing here?"
"Commanding a squad of temple heavies until just a moment ago," Birossa said. He wore only the simple undertunic that would be covered by a priestly robe when he was fully dressed. "They call them the Lady's Champions, but they're thugs. Lady Liane sent me to Carcosa three weeks ago, and I didn't have any difficulty getting hired. I know how things're laid out inside, so I can guide you."
"That'll be helpful," Garric said quietly. Liane hadn't told him she'd placed a spy in the Lady's camp-and very likely the Shepherd's also; but gathering intelligence before Garric needed it was part of her job, and she did it very well.
"They were alerted by a messenger a few minutes ago," Birossa said, nodding to the compound. "They've called out all the Champions and issued swords."
"Have they indeed?" Garric said, his voice very light. His muscles trembled, and it was with effort he kept from drawing his sword. Attaper was at his side again, but this time the Blood Eagle didn't touch his prince.
The gate was made of heavy timbers with a hawser crossing each leaf diagonally to keep it from sagging. The left panel had an iron-barred window at eye height. Garric walked up to it; Lord Attaper accompanied him, mumbling curses.
I'm here to see Lord Anda," Garric said, his voice pleasant. The trill of emotion wasn't something the stranger looking out from the bars would find threatening. "Take me to him at once."
There was a brief conversation behind the gate. A different pair of eyes replaced the first. A woman said, "Lord Anda's at his devotions, your highness. As soon as he completes them, I'm sure he'll be glad to admit you."
Garric stepped back, still smiling. He toyed with the hilt of his sword. "Lord Attaper," he said in the same high, cheerful voice, "Open this gate, if you please."
"We've got it, your highness!" cried Lord Lerdain, Garric's 15-year-old aide and-significantly at the moment-the son of the Count of Blaise. Garric turned.
"Hup!" cried an officer of the Blaise regiment. Stone scrunched as a pair of armsmen levered an altar over on its side with their spearbutts; six of their fellows caught the toppling stone and lifted it to waist height.
"Hup!" repeated the officer.
"Hi!" cried the men as they started forward, shouting in unison at each stride. The officer ran alongside his troops. "Hi! Hi! Hi!"
The Blood Eagles opened a passage as they saw what was coming. Several of them cheered.
"Hi!" bellowed the officer. The altarstone was too stubby to use as a ram, but it made a very good missile for six strong men to throw into the center of the gate. The panels lurched open with a crash loud enough to wake the dead.
The six armsmen staggered through first on the inertia of their rush, but Garric with Attaper and a squad of Blood Eagles was immediately behind them. The bronze crossbar hadn't broken, but the stone's impact had torn loose the staples holding it to the gate leaves. The woman who'd spoken to Garric was stretched out with a startled expression and a bloody forehead; the bar had hit her as it spun back.
A large number-scores if not over a hundred-of armed priests had gathered in the courtyard; more were running to join them from the two-story barracks on the left side. Torches and the lanterns over doorways flickered, emphasizing the nervous haste of the scene. The Blaise troops drew their hooked swords as the Blood Eagles raised their spears to thrust over their locked shields.
Garric stepped between the forces. "Lord Attaper!" he said. "Count to three aloud. When you've finished, deal with any civilian still holding a weapon as a traitor to the kingdom!"
"One!" bellowed Attaper. The armed priests shuddered closer together. One of them shouted a question toward the ornate dwellings lining the right side of the courtyard.
"Monsayd!" called Birossa, who seemed to have squirmed in with the soldiers. A burly priest in the front rank looked up, surprised. "Throw down your sword, you bloody fool. Do youwant to die? Vaxus, Catual-save your lives, boys!"
Somebody in the rear dropped his sword. At the clang, half a dozen more fell. Monsayd looked at his own weapon as if wondering how it got into his hand, then hurled it across the courtyard.
"Two!" said Attaper, but nobody was likely to hear him over the raucous clamor of the rest of the 'Lady's Champions' disarming themselves.
Garric caught the spy's eye and said, "Good work Birossa!"
And good work, Liane. Without her help and her knowledge, the job of being prince would be beyond Garric's capacity. As well as what she brought to the private part of Garric's life…
"Back up, away from the swords!" ordered a young Blaise officer with gilt suns on his silvered helmet and breastplate. "Serjeant Bastin, I want those men tied with their sashes to await his highness' determination."
He wasn't formally under Attaper's command, a fact Garric had overlooked in his haste to reach the temple. To the normal rivalry between the Blood Eagles and the regular army was added hostility between Ornifal and Blaise. By the Shepherd! Garric snarled mentally. Do I have to worry about my friends as much as I do my enemies?
And the answer, of course, was that he did; that this was part of being a prince. So, because it was his job, he said, "Lord Attaper, take charge here."
He turned to the Blaise officer and went on, "You're Lord Rosen, I believe?"
"Yes, your highness," the fellow said, holding himself in a tense mixture of concern and belligerence. He'd been pushing and knew it; what he didn't know was how Prince Garric of Haft was going to react to his behavior. Lord Lerdain stiffened, midway between Rosen and Garric.
"Turn your troops over to Attaper and come with me," Garric said. "We're going to discuss with the leaders of this place exactly how their gift caused my sister to vanish. Attaper-"
He rotated his head yet again, feeling like a spectator at a ball game.
"-detach twenty of your men to come with us. That ought to be plenty. The ones we'll be talking to aren't the sort to dirty their hands on a sword hilt."
Attaper paused to fight down his urge to protest any time Garric announced he was going to do anything personally. "Yes, your highness!" he said. "Undercaptain Kolstat, take a section along with the prince. Serjeant Bastin-"
The Blaise officer who'd taken charge of battering down the gate.
"-you heard Lord Rosen. Get those men tied!"
"This way, your highness," said Birossa, leading the way toward the freestanding residence at the far end of the residence block on the right. The spy had picked up a sword in the confusion, and the Blood Eagles weren't arguing his right to carry it.
A group of real priests-the aides who'd accompanied Anda when he greeted Prince Garric on the harborfront-were clustered in the doorway, clucking among themselves like hens as a fox approaches. They scattered to either side as Lord Anda strode out, dressed in his full regalia and accompanied by a servant bearing an ornate lantern on a long pole.
"Greetings in the Lady's name, your highness!" Anda said, looking three steps down on Garric from the porch of his residence. "I apologize for my subordinates. They mean well, but they don't appreciate that sometimes temporal affairs take precedence over spiritual matters."
"Bring him to me," Garric said quietly. "Don't hurt him, but-"
Two Blood Eagles tossed their spears to their nearest comrades to free their right hands. Lord Rosen's hands were already free; he took the two lower steps in a single long stride and had Anda by the left arm before a Blood Eagle grabbed the priest's right. Together they jerked Anda down.
The servant with the lantern gave a startled cry and started forward. The Blood Eagle who hadn't gotten a piece of Anda knocked the fellow down with the boss of his shield. Aides twittered and fled as burning oil spread from the smashed lamp.
"Anda," Garric said, his voice trembling, "a lie now will cost you your life. You sent me an ice-stone urn yesterday but I gave it to my sister. She vanished into it a short time ago. Tell me how to get her back unharmed."
Anda straightened; he didn't try to struggle with the men holding him. His jeweled tiara had slipped so that it now hung from his right ear, but he managed not to look ridiculous.
"Your highness," he said, his voice quavering despite an obvious attempt at control, "we didn't send you an urn. Our gift-"
Garric grabbed Anda by the throat with his left hand. He didn't squeeze, but his big hand was tensed to crush the old man's windpipe. "Liar!" he shouted. "Lord Moisin and four temple servants arrived yesterday with the urn as a gift from the Lady!"
"Your highness, we gave you a globe!" Anda cried. "Moisin was sent with a crystal globe from the Old Kingdom, etched with a map of the Isles and the world beyond!"
Garric stepped back, shocked as few other statements could have done. The chief priest was wrong, but he clearly wasn't lying. "Let him go!" he said to Rosen and the guard.
Anda turned to his aides. "Where's Moisin?" he said, his voice rising. "He should be here!"
"This way, your highness," Birossa said, gesturing toward the accommodations block beside Anda's detached dwelling. "Moisin's suite's the one on this side of the second floor."
"Bring Anda," Garric snapped as he started for the outside staircase.
The door at the head of the stairs was painted with an image of the Lady crowned by the setting sun. The soldier preceding Garric lifted his boot to smash though the thin wood; Birossa reached past and flipped the latch instead; it was unlocked.
The interior was dark until a Blood Eagle who'd grabbed a lantern entered and used its candle to light the wicks of a hanging lamp. Garric looked around him. Though there were variations in luxury, the priests of the Lady in Carcosa obviously lived well. Moisin as one of the highest ranking, lived very well indeed.
The walls were frescoed with hunting scenes, the ornate couches had cushions of lustrous fur, and a section of marble relief from the Old Kingdom was set over the door at the back. Garric thought of the tithes from peasants in Barca's Hamlet who ate bread made of hulls and moldy barley for a month before the first spring crops came in.
King Carus watched in grim silence through Garric's eyes. He hadn't been a peasant himself, but he understood very well what his descendent was feeling.
Garric took his hand away from his sword hilt. He deliberately avoided looking at Lord Anda as his guards-Lord Rosen had turned the duty over to a Blaise regular-hustled him through the doorway.
"Moisin!" Anda cried. He was winded, but his tone now showed anger instead of desperation. To the men around him he added, "Aren't the servants here either? There should be two servants."
Soldiers carrying lights pushed through the inner doorway. A torchflame licked the marble relief; Garric winced, then laughed at his reaction. When so much else was going wrong…
Indeed, a beautiful sculpture which had survived a thousand yearsdid deserve to be treated better than that; but Garric's first duty was to make the kingdom safe. That way more artists could create more beauty, and ordinary people could sleep soundly in their beds.
The rooms to either side of the inner doorway were for servants, though the beds hadn't been slept in. Beyond was Moisin's own bedroom, even more richly appointed than the reception room. The ebony bed frame was inset with gold and ivory reliefs, while the coverlet and canopy were of rainbow-patterned silk embroidered in gold thread. Along the walls were storage chests, some of inlaid wood and others of metal or metal banded.
"Open them," Garric said, but the soldiers were already throwing back the lids. If the chest was locked, a spearbutt or a stout swordblade levered into the catch or hinges opened it promptly, even the ones that were meant for strongboxes.
A Blaise soldier set his sword in the latch of an iron casket, smaller than the clothes stores. His partner slammed a bootheel into the unsharpened back of the blade, shearing the locking pins. The chest clanged open.
"There!" cried Anda. "There-don't break it, you fool!"
The last comment was to the armsman reaching one-handed for a crystal globe padded with silken tunics. It wasn't the smartest thing to say to somebody with a hooked sword bare in the other hand, but Garric understood.
"I'll take it," he said, pausing a moment between Anda and the soldier before bending over to lift the globe from its swathing. He raised it carefully. Though larger than a man's head, the crystal was as thin as a soap bubble. In the light of swinging lamps and hand-held lanterns Garric couldn't really view the pattern etchedinside the crystal, but the detail was obvious.
"That was what Moisin was to bring you, your highness!" Anda said. "I swear it was!"
What does a false priest swear by that would make anybody trust him? Garric wondered; but for all that, he didn't doubt that Anda was telling the truth. This globe was worth the throne of Haft to anyone who could appreciate its wonder… as Garric certainly could.
"Moisin should be here," Anda said, desperation returning to his voice. "I don't know where he's gone or what he's been playing at. I swear it!"
"Your highness?" said Lord Rosen, tapping the flat of his sword on his thigh. "What would you like us to do now?"
Garric wanted to rub his eyes, but he was afraid to put the globe down in a room crowded with restive soldiers. "Everybody out!" he said after a moment's thought. "Clear the room!"
As the troops filed out pushing later arrivals ahead of them, Garric set the globe back in its nest and closed the lid. To the trailing pair of Blood Eagles he said, "Carry this, and don't on your lives drop it! Carry it as if it held my soul!"
Then, to Lord Rosen who remained stiffly behind-wondering if he'd been insulted and wondering further how to react if he had been-Garric continued, "Milord, you and I will return to the palace with the Blood Eagles. I'll leave Attaper here to secure the compound and question everybody about where Moisin might have gone."
Now he rubbed his eyes. Smiling grimly he said, "I'm going to see what Tenoctris may have learned about Sharina. And I pray to the Shepherd that she's learned something!"