Commander Lusius'Defender was similar enough to theFlying Fish that they might have been built in adjacent slips. Ilna hadn't liked travelling on theFlying Fish, but it was as clean as you could expect of a wooden box that carried so many men.
TheDefender was stinkingly filthy. Even Freya, the wife of Ilna's uncle and as lazy a slattern as ever was born, would have said the ship was disgusting.
Ilna smiled faintly. It would've been embarrassing if a man she disliked as much as she did Lusius turned out to share her passion for cleanliness. Not that she'd foreseen much danger of that.
A seawolf was following close astern. It was a big brute, twice the length of a tall man. It swam with lazy sweeps of its tail, back and forth.
Chalcus chatted in the stern with Lusius as one man to another. As one pirate to another, very possibly, so Ilna had made her way to the far bow where her presence wouldn't constrain the discussions. Like her, Chalcus was gathering information which would fit into a pattern-eventually.
Besides, standing in the bow meant she breathed the sea air instead of theDefender 's stench.
The fishing fleet was in sight, many handfuls of boats whose crews were a few men apiece. Though they were no more than half the size of theBird of the Tide, they had small central cabins; a skiff was tied to the stern of each one. The crews groped over the sides with long poles.
The Sea Guards rowed theDefender, cursing, sweating, and fouling one another, but moving the vessel forward nonetheless. Most people weren't very good at their jobs; Ilna wasn't surprised to find that was true of oarsmen as surely as it was plowmen or weavers. It was neither accident nor charity that caused other women to bring the yarn they'd spun to Ilna, who did the weaving for all Barca's Hamlet. For the most part people arranged things so that a lot of them did the same thing. That way it got done well enough that everybody survived; more or less, and for a time.
A crack crew of men chosen and trained by Chalcus could do much better than these Sea Guards managed, but they were goodenough. There was only one Chalcus; and one Ilna, for that matter.
And one Prince Garric, Ilna was quite sure. They each had their place in the pattern Someone was weaving.
"The shallows are just ahead!" cried the lookout clinging to the masthead. Neither the spar nor the sail were aboard, but theDefender 's mast was stepped to provide a vantage point. Lusius hadn't bothered to fit a platform, though. The sailor shinnied up unaided and clung to the stay rope with his legs wrapped around the pole. "We're entering the shallows!"
Chalcus and the Commander walked forward, Lusius in the lead because there wasn't room enough for two to walk abreast on the catwalk between the oarbenches. He carried a light buckler in his left hand.
"The Commander says that the bottom rose into these shallows when the Rua appeared for the first time," Chalcus called cheerfully, indicating the water with a wave fo his hand. "I've seen such a shade only once, in a lagoon far to the south."
The railing didn't extend to the far bow; Ilna touched a forestay and leaned over. Though clear, the sea had a violet cast and seemed to be no deeper than the height of a tall man. Pinkish sea lilies waved their jointed tentacles; holes for the breathing tubes of clams pocked the sand covering most of the bottom. She saw no fish.
"It doesn't look like the water I saw on the way north from Donelle," Ilna said, speaking for the sake of politeness rather than because she thought she had any useful knowledge to add. "I've never seen plants like these either."
"Plants?" repeated Lusius. "Not a one of them, mistress! All these are animals, whatever they look like."
Rincip, the one-eyed man who commanded the Sea Guards and acted as Lusius' chief lieutenant, snarled an order from the stern. Ilna couldn't understand the words, but the crew seemed to. The rowers of the upper bank brought their oars aboard and began arming themselves with weapons stored under the walkway. Most of them strung bows, short but stiff-looking.
"I've got Guards aboard the fishing boats too," Lusius said, "but they're not much use-as you'll see, I shouldn't wonder. Sometimes they'll keep the Rua away till theDefender can come up, but mostly they're just there to make sure the men are really bringing up the shell. The bloody cowards are afraid that if they make a good haul, they'll be attacked!"
TheDefender continued toward the fishing boats, driven by the lower bank of oarsmen. Though they were obviously trying to keep together, the boats had drifted some ways apart. A man couldn't shout from one side of the straggle and be understood on the other.
"What happens if the Rua attack before theDefender joins the fishing fleet?" Chalcus asked, his voice a little flatter than usual. He and Ilna had expected to go out at first light when the fishing fleet did, but the warship wasn't ready till midmorning. If Chalcus hadn't been careful, his tone would've held a sneer for the indiscipline of the Commander's force.
"Oh, they never do that," Lusius said, scanning the heavens. "They've no reason to attack till the boats have a good load of shell, so we sleep in ourselves."
The sea had become even shallower than when Chalcus called Ilna's attention to it, and the bottom now was coral. She still didn't see fish, but there were any number of odd-looking creatures both crawling and attached to the rock. Among them were the little belemites, walking on clumps of tentacles and dragging their brilliant shells behind.
The reason that patrol vessels wobbled so unpleasantly was that they drew very little water, but even so Ilna wondered if theDefender would grind a hole in her hull on the coral. As shallow as this was she could probably stand on the bottom and breathe even though she couldn't swim, but it would be a very long walk to dry land.
"I'd thought your Red Wizard might be with us today," Chalcus said, blocking the sun with his left hand as he surveyed the upper sky. "Struggling with the wizard-demons as he assures us he does."
The Commander looked at him sharply, thought there'd been nothing of open mockery in Chalcus' tone. "Gaur has his sanctum in the castle," he said, still frowning slightly. "He works there. Never fear, he's doing whatever he can."
"When do the-" Ilna said, but she swallowed the remainder of the sentence, "-Rua arrive." She suddenly understood what the dots Chalcus was watching really were. "I see," she corrected herself. "The Rua have been here all along."
"Aye, the devils!" Lusius said with real venom in his voice. "They pick their time, too. They must have eyes like hawks!"
TheDefender passed within a stone's throw of a fishing boat, close enough that Ilna got a good look at what they were doing. Two men used small nets on the end of poles to scoop belemites out of the coral. The little shellfish didn't move fast enough to evade the nets, but they were still hard to winkle out from between the coral and hard-shelled anemones. When a fisherman succeeded, he whisked the belemite aboard and dropped it into a large wickerwork basket in front of the deckhouse.
The third man in the boat was a Sea Guard with a strung bow and three arrows stuck through his sash. He watched with a morose expression as theDefender sloshed past.
Now that Ilna had recognized the dots in the high heaven as winged men circling, it was she who noticed when their motion shifted. "Something's changed!" she said. "The Rua are diving, or…"
The Rua dipped, then rose instead of plunging down on the fishing fleet. They'd modified their ceaseless circling, but that didn't mean they were attacking.
"They're dropping something!" Chalcus cried. "They've each one let something go as they dived!"
Rincip shouted angry orders; the flutist blowing time for the rowers in the stern swung into a faster tempo. Both helmsmen leaned into their tillers; with only one bank of oars manned, theDefender didn't accelerate quickly enough to heel the outside-starboard-steering oar out of the water even in a sharp turn.
"They drop chunks of volcanic glass," Lusius explained grimly. "Big chunks, some as long as your forearm, and the edges sharper'n knifeblades. From that height, they can stave in the decking when they hit."
"But can they hit?" Ilna said, frowning. "Surely the Rua can't really aim from that far up?"
"Can't they?" said Lusius. "They'll split your eyeball if you're fool enough to stand watching it come at you!"
With a curl of his lip he said to Chalcus, "Tell me, captain-will you fill our demons up there with arrow fletching?"
"That I cannot," Chalcus admitted easily. "And do your Rua reach down long nets and snare the shell from your boats, now?"
The crew-the two fisherman and the archer as well- off the stern of a boat that'd drifted to the northern fringe of the fleet. The Sea Guard swam in a noisy crawl, keeping his head above water till he reached the skiff. The fishermen couldn't swim, so they pulled themselves hand over hand along the painter.
Four Rua dived like stooping hawks. TheDefender continued to wallow forward, but Ilna could see that the Rua would reach the boat long before the patrol vessel came within bowshot.
The chunks of glass smashed into the vessel with the sharp crack of lightning bolts. Shards flew in all directions, catching the sun. A broken plank lifted and spun over the side. Ilna nodded, now understanding why the crew had abandoned the vessel before the missiles struck. Flying pieces would've badly gashed anybody on deck, and she was quite sure that each missile hit within a handsbreadth of where a man had been standing.
There was a stir behind her. The Sea Guards were lifting wicker shields like siege mantlets out of the hull. Ilna eyed them critically. The woven willow-splits would stop missiles like the ones the Rua were dropping and cushion the impacts besides, but she didn't see how the men on the narrow deck expected to fight with all this defensive truck in the way.
Well, that was probably the answer: the Sea Guardsdidn't expect to fight, any more than the archer aboard the boat that'd been attacked did. Lusius and his men were putting on a show-for the fishermen as well as for her and Chalcus, the spies who Prince Garric had sent. The last thing Lusius really wanted was to defeat the winged men; they alone justified his continued power as Commander of the Strait.
The Rua came out of their dive by arching their chests as if they'd plunged into water, not air; their wings spread only after their bodies had started to curl upward. Quicksilver sunlight danced over the vanes which stiffened the wings' thin membranes.
"Beware to starboard!" Chalcus shouted toward the stern. Because the vessel being attacked was a little off the port bow, Ilna hadn't been paying attention to what was happening on the right side of the ship. Neither had theDefender 's officers, apparently, because the fishing boat a stone's throw ahead of them couldn't possibly get clear despite the desperate efforts of the two fishermen on their oars and the Sea Guard who screamed and waved his arms toward the patrol vessel.
Rincip was gabbling something Ilna couldn't understand-she doubted anybody else could, either-and Lusius bellowed, "Sister eat your livers, you fools!" to the fishermen. The men clogging theDefender 's deck raised their own racket, trying to see what was happening or just trying to learn from somebody else. None of that was going to help.
"Back port oars!" Chalcus called in a voice that could've doubled for a rock drill.
Only about half the rowers obeyed, and even those didn't all react at the same time. Nonetheless dragging blades and fouled oars pulled theDefender enough to the left that she didn't smash straight into the fishing boat. A bow oar struck the boat's stern; the shaft broke just above the blade, and from the scream under Ilna's feet the loom must've slammed into the oarsman's chest hard enough to break ribs. That was a cheap alternative to a crash that could've sunk both vessels.
A splinter of ash from the oar shaft spun into the air. Chalcus reached up without seeming to look and caught the piece. It was the length of a pick handle and sharp as a spear on either end. Lusius grunted in surprise. Chalcus grinned at him and tossed the splinter overboard.
"Well, captain," Lusius said. "Maybe I should hire you in Rincip's place, do you think? You saved us a bad knock when those fools got in the way."
"Ah, I'm a terrible man when the drink's in me, Commander," Chalcus said with a light laugh. "I'd not wish a scapegrace like me on so nice a fellow as yourself."
Ilna wasn't sure which way the conversation might have gone then-she began knotting a pattern in case it went the wrong way-but the unexpected happened on the far side of the fishing fleet. TheDefender was only just getting under way again and couldn't possibly reach the attacked vessel in time to take a hand, but several of the other boats were quite close to it. As the Rua flared to land like giant pigeons, the Sea Guard on a nearby boat drew his bow.
The crew of the attacked vessel had gotten aboard the skiff and cast off the painter. One of them-Ilna thought it was the soldier-screamed a horrified warning. The archer loosed nevertheless. Accuracy with a bow takes more training than the Sea Guards probably got, but it was a decent shot aided by the fact that the Rua's wings spread like blankets. The arrow snipped through one of them and thudded into the boat's far gunnel, leaving a neat hole in the wing membrane.
The fishermen on the second vessel immediately jumped over the side. The one who could swim thrashed toward the trailing skiff. The other couldn't and bobbed under the clear water. He got his foot on a coral head and jumped from it in the direction of the skiff as well.
The four Rua launched themselves from the boat on which they'd just landed. The one the arrow struck showed no sign of distress, flapping in a shallow curve that skimmed the calm water. The archer nocked a second arrow, then turned in panic without loosing it; the winged men swooped on him from four directions, arriving simultaneously.
Their wings folded as they hacked at the Sea Guard, flinging bits of flesh into the sea. He continued to scream for a surprisingly long time.
"They've got glass knives," Lusius muttered as he watched the business with a look of disgust. "Sister take them!"
The sea spouted around the fishermen in the water: missiles dropped from the cloudless sky had struck the men squarely. Their mangled bodies sank in spreading clouds of blood. One man's arm had separated.
TheDefender 's flutist leaned over the railing, staring in amazement at the slaughter. Rincip didn't order him back to his post even though the oarsmen were losing the stroke. Wood clattered as the shafts fouled one another and the patrol vessel began to wallow. The rest of the fishing fleet pulled eastward at the best rate the crews could manage on their oars.
The seawolf drove in purposefully, snapping up body parts and raising its triangular head from the water to swallow. "Our Brother," one of the Sea Guards muttered.
"Eh?" said Chalcus.
Lusius glowered and said, "Just a name."
The skiff tied to the stern of the second boat was sinking: a block of glass had struck it squarely and smashed the bottom out. Ilna was no longer sure the wicker mantlets would stop the missiles-and the Sea Guards were obviously doubtful as well.
"Well, you see," Lusius said in a subdued voice to Chalcus. "It's not so straight and simple as maybe you thought it was."
"Aye," Chalcus said, "there's much thinking to be done on the matter. Much thinking indeed."
The Sea Guards were nervously uncomfortable, and the faces of surviving fishermen showed blank-eyed terror as they rowed past theDefender on their way back to port and safety. Ilna supposed the scene she'd just watched was uncommon. Usually the human players would know to flee without the resistance that would lead, as surely as sunrise, to this sort of massacre.
Rua transferred belemites from the cages on the boats they'd attacked into mesh bags like the one Ilna had examined back in Carcosa. They took off with difficulty, beating their wings hard and staying low above the water until they'd gotten their speed up to that of a running man. Finally they rose and curved away toward the northwest, clutching their loot.
Two boatloads of shell were scarcely a tithe of the fishermen's haul, though. It was a cheap price for Lusius to pay, particularly since the attacks confirmed him as Commander of the Strait. But what had this to do with the merchantmen which were being plundered?
"Put about!" Lusius called to Rincip in the stern. "We may as well go back to Terness. This lot-"
He gestured dismissively toward the fishermen.
"-are done for the day." In a quieter, sneering tone he added to Chalcus, "We'll have trouble enough getting them to go out in the morning. Mark my words!"
Chalcus didn't reply; he was watching the crew of the first boat paddling back to it. The second bobbed empty, apparently abandoned for good. The archer's blood was a red splotch on the near side.
There was colorful movement on the reef. The belemites clustered around the two corpses and the bits of the third, scavenging a bounteous meal. The sun flared in gorgeous beauty from their shells.
Cashel blinked at the toad. It'd spoken to him, no doubt about that. "I, ah…," he said. "Sir, I don't know who the King of Kish is. I've never heard of Kish. Before."
A shooting star streaked across the sky. Its trail was gold, not silvery, and partway into its course it split into two tracks which spat down together. Cashel wondered if that had something to do with the Visitor, then decided that it didn't matter to him either way.
"'Sir?'" the toad repeated in shrill mockery. "Sir! How would you like it if I called you 'Mistress,' boy?"
Cashel pondered the question. "I don't know that I'd care much, ah, ma'am," he said. "How would you like me to call you?"
"Well, you might try Evne, since that's my name!" the toad said. "Though as my master, you're free to insult me any way you choose. I have no right to take offense; no, no, not me!"
Cashel set the two pieces of coal on the ground in front of him, the top beside the bottom in which Evne still sat. His staff leaned against the rock behind him. He took it in his hands, letting his fingers caress the polished wood. He'd felt a tingling as the block separated; the touch of the hickory erased it.
"Evne…," he said.
The toad turned her head so that she looked straight back at him, disturbing to see. Of course he was talking to a toad, which was pretty disturbing too when he stopped to think about it.
"I never meant to insult you," Cashel said. "And I'm nobody's master, ma'am. Not that I'd insult you if I was."
"You mean you're not the wizard who freed me from my confinement?" the toad said, her head twisting one way, then the other. Her bulging eyes probably saw most everything around her whichever way her face was pointed. "Who did, then?"
"Well, I broke the block open, ah, Evne," Cashel said. "I'm not a wizard, though. The fellow who gave me the coal, Lord Bossian, he's a wizard. Maybe it's him you're looking for?"
He was starting to smile at her antics. The toad chirped about like a banty rooster, all prickles and fear of insult. With little men who acted that way, you had to watch that they didn't get too much ale in them and start swinging at the biggest man around-which was always Cashel. Evne wasn't going to do that, so her fuss was just funny.
The toad turned in the hollow so she faced Cashel squarely. She moved with the deliberation of a brood sow rising from the muck, positioning each leg carefully before shifting her body above it.
"You say you're not a wizard," she said, "but you opened my prison?"
"Yes, ma'am," Cashel agreed. "I squeezed till the halves broke."
"And you really don't know who the King of Kish is?" the toad said.
"No, ma'am."
The toad scratched the back of her head with her webbed right foot, continuing to stare at Cashel. "I suppose you expect me to think you're too dumb to lie, is that it?" she said.
"Ma'am," Cashel said, "I don't lie."
He wondered what he ought to do next. Find a place to sleep, he supposed. He'd been looking forward to proper bedding instead of a second night in the open, but he'd survive.
"Well," he said, rising to his feet. "Unless there's something more you need from me, I'll be on my way."
The sky over the peaks behind him brightened with sheets of azure wizardlight. Lord Bossian was at work on something, likely enough. For lack of a better direction to go, Cashel decided he'd head the other way-west, judging from the course of the stars.
"Wait!" Evne said. "Do youreally not need me? Didn't you free me because there was a question no one else could solve, so you had to come to me?"
Cashel looked down in surprise, then squatted again with his staff balanced across his thighs. "Well, ma'am," he said. "I'm trying to get back to my friends, that's true. But I don't have any notion where they are. Any more-"
He grinned. She was such a funny little thing!
"-than I know about the King of Kish."
"Ah!" said the toad. "Now we come to it! You shouldn't be ashamed to state your problems openly, young man. Who knows what would've happened if you hadn't finally admitted the truth?"
Cashel frowned. "You mean you can help me get back, Evne?" he said. It didn't seem likely, but it wasn't likely he'd be sitting here in a rocky valley talking to a toad either.
"Of course, of course!" the toad said. "There had to be something!"
Cashel didn't know Evne well enough to be sure, but it seemed to him that she was relieved. There were plenty of people who talked about how put upon they were with everybody wanting their help, but who got really huffy if youdidn't need something. Apparently toads were built the same as people in that way.
"We'll need a mirror," the toad said, looking around again. If she thought she was going to find a mirror in this landscape, she was more at sea than Cashel was. "Quite a large mirror, big enough to reflect your whole body, my man. And it should be as nearly perfect as possible."
"I don't know where there'd be a mirror, Evne," Cashel said. He thought for a moment. "I guess Lord Bossian has one, but he wouldn't be pleased to see me come back."
He looked over his shoulder, up the slope of shadowed crags and cedars. The blue glare had sunk to occasional flickers, but as Cashel watched a great bolt shot up into the sky. Clouds absorbed it, shimmering as bright as a huge blue sun for a moment.
"Besides," Cashel said. "His palace wouldn't be a good place to be tonight."
"Well, what could I expect from you?" the toad said. She didn't sound put out, not really. "I shouldn't have expected any better. We'll use water, then. A good-sized pool, perfectly still."
Scratching her head with the other leg the toad added, "There's often insects around a pond." She looked up sharply and went on, as fiercely as a funny little thing like her could be, "Not that I'm putting my convenience before the duty I owe you for freeing me! I would never do that."
"I'm sure you wouldn't, Evne," Cashel said, having difficulty in keeping the smile from his lips. He found it hard to believe that the toad could really help him return to his own world, but she must know something. She'd lived for ever so long in a block of coal, after all.
He cleared his throat. "Ah…," he said, reaching into his wallet and feeling for the remaining jewels. "I'm a stranger here so I'm not sure about where water is, but I've got a jewel, sort of, that'll tell us."
Cashel knew it was going to sound like he'd been lying when he said he wasn't a wizard. It shouldn't matter to him what a toad thought, but it did.
"A fellow gave them to me. A demon did."
Evne made a shrill sound, the sort of call ordinary toads give on summer nights. She didn't speak further.
Grimacing, Cashel rose to his feet. He didn't need to be standing when he did this, but he felt better if he was. The sparks were parts of Kakoral, and Cashel wouldn't have wanted to be squatting down whenthat one came for him.
He threw the ruby against the rock, pretty much the same place that the previous one had hit. He couldn't be sure of that, because when the jewels burst all the bits vanished like dew in the sunlight.
"Ah!" cried the manikin this time. "You didn't need me, that was what you thought, wasn't it? That's what you said, at least!"
Cashel wondered if there was one sparkling little creature or if each ruby freed a different one. They sure didn't act the same; but neither do people, depending on when you catch them and what their day's been like so far.
"I still don't need you," Cashel said quietly, "but I'd appreciate your help if you'll give it. We're looking for a pool of water we can use for a mirror. Can you direct us, sir?"
"Can I?" said the little man. "CanI? Of course I can! But can you face the truth about the woman you protected, master?"
"Yes," said Cashel, holding his staff upright at his side. There was no point in saying more when a simple word would do.
The manikin snapped its fingers. A lightning-bright spark flashed into images in place of the solid rock.
When he watched the demon's earlier pictures, Cashel thought he was looking at a scene from the past. This time Cashel watched events that must've taken hours, but he felt no passage of time himself.
The murderer was butchering Laterna's body in the cellar. He'd brought down heavy knives and a stiff-bladed saw since the previous vision, but he was working in a stone tub which had been there beforehand. He'd dumped the dirt and lace-bodied fungus that'd been growing there into a pile on the floor.
The murderer worked with practiced skill, jointing the body and throwing the portions into the hearth that remained the cellar's only light. Fat blazed brightly at each new addition; after it burned away, the flesh continued to blacken and shrivel. The bones remained longer, but they too slowly crumbled.
The murderer never added fuel, nor did the coals change from the sullen red presences they'd been at the beginning. The occasional sparks and flares were always bits of the corpse: a bone cracking, or a globule of fat slipping onto the hearth.
Higher in the cavity a mechanism of pulleys and chains turned a spit. The rib roast there was cooking, not burning. With only the look of the meat to go by, Cashel might have thought it venison.
The silent heat of the hearth had devoured the body almost completely. The murderer took the roast from the spit and arrayed it on the serving platter he had waited to take it.
The last thing he did before leaving with the covered platter was to change his clothes, throwing the blood-soaked garments onto the coals where they blazed like tinder. Their flickering yellow light showed Cashel parts of the cellars hidden till then by the shadows. Laterna had collected statues and implements which he'd just as soon not have seen.
As the murderer left, the garments finished burning themselves out. Laterna's bare skull remained in the hearth, shrunken but not quite disintegrated, and the hinted face of Kakoral lowered from the coals.
The scene shifted. Cashel couldn't look away, couldn't even blink, though he wasn't sure that time had passed in the waking world. He couldn't feel his own heart beat, and the sky at the edge of his vision was a frozen painting.
The murderer stood before a round table; seated at the table were Kotia and a youth of Kotia's age but sharing the murderer's own features. Everything in the large room was of the same black, glassy substance, as smooth as the crystal walls of Manor Bossian but as opaque as granite.
There were no servants present. Rolls and vegetables waited on individual serving tables beside each place, but the murderer himself carved thin slices from the roast and set them on the others' plates. They ate, their expressions sullen and distrustful.
Evil glee transfigured the murderer's face. He threw his head back and began to laugh.
Kotia looked at the murderer in wild surmise. She spat out her second bite of meat; the youth looked from her to the murderer, still chewing as he frowned with puzzlement.
The scene faded to rock. Cashel stood in a nighted valley as thin clouds trailed across the sky above him.
"You see?" cried the capering manikin. "You see! Yousee!"
"I saw," said Cashel. "Where can we find a pool of water, sir?"
The little figure spluttered like a cauldron overflowing. "Don't you care, boy?" it cried. "Even a beast would care!"
"I care," said Cashel. "It was a terrible thing to do to Kotia. Was that Ansache? The man she thought was her father?"
Thinking about Kotia after what he'd seen gave Cashel a queasy feeling, but that wasn't anything he was going to admit to the little demon. He couldn't help how he felt, even if it was wrong, but he could make sure he didn't let that affect what he said or did.
"He was Lord Ansache," said the manikin. "With all the sins that blacken his hands, yet he isn't a cannibal-as the woman you defended is!"
"You have a duty to my master, poppet," Evne said, surprising Cashel and the little demon as well. "Fulfill that duty, or I will send you to the heart of a dead star for all eternity!"
Cashel turned to look at the toad. She'd climbed from the block of coal and had walked up beside him. He lifted her onto his shoulder so there wouldn't be any problem of him stepping in the wrong place. Somehow that latest threat didn't strike him as funny the way Evne's earlier fussing had.
The manikin must have thought the same thing, because in a flat voice it said, "In the hollow of the next valley is Portmayne, a manor vacant since the Visitor arrived a thousand years ago."
A streak of light raced from its tiny arm, off up the slope to the northwest. The line broke into separate glowing dots, then faded completely like the flash of a lightning bug.
"Portmayne had a pool, and it remains," said the manikin. "I tell you this because of my duty-but you will sweat, master, if you go there. Out of friendship I suggest that you follow this valley down to the river for your water."
Cashel looked in the direction the demon had pointed. None of the hills in this range seemed exceptionally higher than the others. It meant a climb no worse than that to Lord Bossian's manor and then downhill-which could be tricky, sure, but still easier than the climb.
"How far is the river?" Cashel asked, because he wasn't in a hurry to decide and he knew the right answer might not be as obvious as it seemed to him right now.
"Three days hike," said the manikin. "I say that because you'll be pushing the pace; but if hunger slows you, then four or even five."
Cashel shrugged. "I guess I don't mind sweating some to save my feet that long a scramble over rock," he said. "We'll go to Portmayne."
Cackling with hysterical laughter, the manikin extended his arm again. This time the line of light remained, though the demon vanished.
The night was still. The flashes and sizzle of wizardlight in the east had ceased, and no more shooting stars fell across the heavens.
Cashel let his eyes trace the streak that would guide him in the morning. He thought he could still hear the little demon's laughter.
"Good of you to join me, Lady Estanel," Garric said, bowing to the chief priestess of the Temple of the Shepherd of the Rock. He gestured her to a cushion-spread chair at the corner of the roof garden. An ancient sand myrtle spread above her.
Estanel swished back her white robes and sat gracefully. Bees buzzing among the myrtle's small flowers seemed attracted by the lady's perfume; she ignored them with impressive aplomb.
"My fellow servants of the Shepherd and I are glad to save your time, your highness," she said. She had plump cheeks and her mouth smiled easily, but her eyes were as hard as those of Lord Attaper, who watched from Garric's side. "I'd have said the same even without the example of what happened to my colleagues who serve the Lady of the Sunset."
Lady Estanel had arrived at the palace with the retinue that both her position and her rank as a wealthy noble required. A dozen ordinary servants had walked beside and behind her sedan chair, and four senior priests followed her in chairs of their own.
There were also thirty burly men, the Little Shepherds; thugs for all their priestly robes. No noble would've been seen in public without their equivalent-but for this visit, the Little Shepherds didn't carry their iron crooks. Garric was quite sure that if he'd had the guards stripped and searched, they'd have been found to be completely unarmed.
He hadn't bothered to do that, because Estanel had entered the palace with only her four aides; the rest of the entourage waited in the street under the eyes of the regiment on guard duty. Estanel was an impressively intelligent woman.
"I suspect that's true, milady," said Garric with a faint smile. "And that should make this interview go more easily than might otherwise be the case."
The aides, three men and a tall, thin woman with a furious expression, were ill at ease. They carried document cases that would ordinarily have been in the hands of servants; there wasn't a table where they could set them down, nor had they been offered seats.
Lady Estanel nodded cautiously. In her hands was a miniature devotional text written on plaques of ivory. Her left thumb turned the leaves one by one, but her whole attention was on Garric.
"You will order…," Garric went on calmly. He didn't say, "I want you to order," or "Please will you order," or any other phrasing that might suggest he was giving the priestess an alternative. "Your enforcers, the Little Shepherds, to assemble at noon tomorrow in the Cattle Market. There they will be disarmed and inducted into the royal army as individuals, no more than one man to an existing squad. If things work out, they'll become useful citizens of the kingdom at an honest wage for the work."
"I'm afraid that some of those in the minor orders of the Shepherd wouldn't make good soldiers, your highness," Estanel said. She continued to smile, and her tone showed only mild concern. Her male aides frowned like thunder, and the woman looked as though she were ready to chew rocks.
"Well, milady…," Garric said, smiling off into the blue heaven. It was a gorgeous afternoon; daily rainshowers for most of the past week had cleared the air and given the sky a gemlike quality. "My understanding is that it works like this: the other men in the squad, the fellows whose lives depend on all the folks around them doing their jobs when Hell's out for breakfast, they hammer on the new guy until he fits into a hole shaped like a soldier. Or else he breaks; they breakhim."
He met her eyes. His smile changed. "It'll be a pity if your thugs mostly wind up in the broken category, but war's a hard business."
King Carus looked on from Garric's mind with an expression that a berserker would've found frightening. "If training doesn't teach your soldiers hard lessons," he said, "battle will teach them harder lessons yet."
"Your highness is a stranger," said the youngest of the aides. "You may not appreciate how dangerous a city Carcosa is!"
"You haven't disarmed the Lady's gang!" the female aide shouted in the same heartbeat.
"I have a very good idea of how dangerous Carcosa is," Garric said. The priest to the side of the man who'd spoken had seized his arms as if to restrain him, though the fellow himself seemed shocked by his own outburst. "I came here a few months ago as a simple peasant. That's why I'm taking steps, of which this is one, to change the situation."
He looked at the female aide. "As for the so-called Lady's Champions," he continued, "they'll be mustered the day after tomorrow. Because I have a regiment billeted in the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset, Lord Anda's thugs would assume I was planning a massacre if I called them together first. Since that'snot my intention, I'm starting with you."
"A massacre would be less trouble than trying to make men of this lot," Attaper growled. It wasn't true and Attaper-unlike Lord Waldron had he made a similar comment-probably didn't mean it, but it was a useful way of reminding the priests of just who held power now and how great that power was.
"Perhaps," said Garric, "but we're going to avoid that if possible. Lady Estanel, do you have any further questions?"
"I will of course give the orders," the priestess said, enunciating every syllable precisely. A bee was crawling along her eyebrows; she didn't twitch or even blink. "Of course, since it's your wish, your highness. But I think it very probable that some of the Little Shepherds will choose to leave the temple's service and go their own way rather than obey me."
Purple and yellow pansies fluttered. Garric let the rising breeze cool the sweat on the side of his neck before he responded.
He was tense, from this interview and from his need to hold in his fury and frustration. He wanted to smash things, to draw his sword and hack an enemy apart… but that wouldn't get Cashel back, or Sharina; and it wouldn't help weld the kingdom into a peaceful whole. He had to keep focused on his duty, not his anger.
In Garric's mind, Carus nodded with a wry smile. Few men knew better than the ancient king what it was like to let anger rule you; and how much trouble that could cause for even a strong man.
"My aide, Lady Liane, is going over the roster of the Little Shepherds now," Garric explained quietly. A spy in the temple administration had copied out the names and was now providing descriptions of each of the two hundred and twelve thugs on the payroll. "While I hope your servants will obey you-and me-without question, those who do not will be treated as traitors to the kingdom."
He cleared his throat into his hand. "I'd thought of offering rewards for information on where they're hiding," he went on, "but Liane tells me that this won't be necessary. The citizens of Carcosa so widely detest your gang that all we need do is put out the word that we're looking for the fugitives to hang. We'll have plenty of help in locating them."
Garric blinked. He was gripping his sword so fiercely that his knuckles were mottled. He took his hand away, shaking his head in mild amazement at how angry he really was.
"I see," said Lady Estanel as she rose to her feet. "Then with your permission, your highness, my fellows and I will return to our temple immediately. We have a good deal to prepare."
"I have nothing more to discuss," Garric said, giving the priestess a half-bow. "The kingdom appreciates your cooperation."
Lady Estanel's smile was humorless. "The temple's senior priests will lead the Little Shepherds to the Cattle Market tomorrow," she said.
"What?" gasped one of her aides.
Estanel turned and looked at him. "That's correct, Lord Dittic," she said. "I know of no better way to show that my colleagues and I have full confidence in Prince Garric's good faith."
She met Garric's eyes. "As of course we do."
She started for the stairs leading down to where her attendants waited behind the line of guards.
"Lady Estanel?" Garric called to her back. She looked back over her shoulder.
"If you ever decide a secular career is more to your taste than your current religious vocation," Garric said, "please inform me. I assure you that in all I've seen and read of history, I've never heard of a commander conducting a more skillful retreat from an untenable position!"
Even Attaper smiled, and in Garric's mind King Carus laughed in full-throated delight.
Sharina didn't try to stand; she was sure she couldn't manage anything that coordinated. The bear had thrown her onto her left arm, and she'd scraped her elbow badly. Blood from that gouge dripped down her forearm and spread across her palm; she left a line of smudged handprints as she crawled toward the bear on all fours.
"Mistress?" Franca called. He sounded some distance away, but her head had thumped the ground hard. Her vision alternated between being ordinarily sharp and blurring to the point that she had to close her eyes to avoid vertigo.
"Mistress!" Franca repeated. "Where are you?"
The youth's nagging made her furious for an instant, but the surge of anger steadied her. She suddenly started laughing. The best bet on where I am is halfway down a bear's gullet, she thought. And since she wasn't, the whole business seemed funny.
"I'm out here, Franca," she said. She didn't have either the strength or the inclination to shout, so she doubted he could hear her. "It's all right to come back, now."
Sharina rose to a kneeling position and gripped Beard's helve. "Lady help me!" She muttered and lurched to her feet, dragging on the axe with both hands. The bear's hind legs kicked violently. The blade came loose from the skull. Sharina staggered backward, holding the axe out in front of her.
"Oh, good work, mistress!" Beard said. "Oh, you're the one I've been waiting for all these years since I wakened. Straight to the brain, that's you, sucking his life out quicker than spit!"
A man looked out of a second story window of the mill. He was shaggy and rough looking, but Sharina didn't suppose she was in shape for a palace reception just now herself. "Hello?" the fellow called.
"The bear's dead," said Sharina. She didn't know if the stranger could hear her either, but the ton of bear sprawled at her feet pretty well spoke for itself. "You can come down, now."
She hoped he would. She didn't think she could climb a flight of stairs to reach him. At the moment she wasn't sure she could walk as far as the mill's doorway, though her strength seemed to be coming back.
The breeze shifted just as Sharina drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the stench of the bear's wastes. She doubled up, then vomited her most recent meal of half-cooked rabbit. Immediately she felt better, though she went down on one knee until she was sure she'd regained her balance.
"Shall we kill the fellow when he comes close, mistress?" the axe said. "He's probably dangerous, you know. You can't trust anybody you meet in these hard times."
"Beard," said Sharina. "Why didn't you tell me about the bear?"
"You killed the bear, mistress," the axe said with a desperate brightness. "Oh, nobody could've been quicker than you. Zip! and I was sucking out his brains!"
"Beard," Sharina said. She stood upright again, swaying only slightly. The weight of the axe in her hands helped her to balance. "You wanted a chance to kill the bear, but you were afraid I wouldn't risk my own life to save a stranger if I'd known what the danger was."
"Mistress," said the axe in a subdued voice, "you-"
"Shut up!" said Sharina. She took a deep breath. "I'd have gone. Even for a stranger. He's a human being and I'm human. That's enough."
The man now peered from the doorway, ready to run back to his upstairs shelter if there were any hint of danger. Anger touched Sharina again. Did the fool think the bear was shamming, lying here with its skull cleft to the neckbones?
"Yes, mistress," the axe said. "I'll-"
"Shutup!" Sharina said. "The other thing to remember is this: if you ever hide the truth from me again, forany reason, I will destroy you if I can. Anyway, I'll bury you where you'll never be found till the ice comes. Do you understand?"
"Yes, mistress," said the axe.
The man who'd been trapped in the mill approached to within ten feet of Sharina, then stopped. From a distance Sharina'd guessed he was in his forties, but close up he was much younger. He had the worn, grayish look of a plow that's spent decades out in the weather, and his breeches were freshly torn. A swipe of the bear's claw had raised a welt on his thigh without quite drawing blood.
"Mistress," he said, nodding acknowledgment. "My name's Scoggin and I guess I'm in your debt for my life."
Scoggin had an ordinary peasant's knife in his belt and a spear made by binding a similar knifeblade onto a short shaft. His eyes kept flicking to the axe; he carefully stayed beyond its reach.
He grimaced. "Mistress?" he blurted. "Are you human?"
"Of course I'm human!" Sharina said. Franca had returned from the woods and was sidling toward them, keeping Sharina between him and the stranger. "What did you think I was?"
Scoggin gestured toward the dead bear. "Mistress," he said, "I didn't know."
Sharina smiled despite herself. "Well, I am," she said. "I'm Sharina os-Reise. I was lucky and I've got a very sharp axe."
Franca crept close to Sharina's side, silent and shivering. How many people had the youth spoken to in the past nine years? Perhaps only his mother and Sharina herself.
She waggled Beard. The inlaid steel head was as bright as though she'd just polished it, though blood and brains smeared the helve-as they did her own forearms.
" I wouldn't say," she added coldly, remembering how Beard had tricked her into fighting the bear, "that owning this axe was necessarily part of my good luck."
"Mistress, it'll never happen again," the axe chirped. "Beard knows you'll feed him. He trusts you, mistress."
Scoggin stared at the axe in open amazement. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "It talks?" he said.
"Among other things," Sharina replied crisply. "Now, who else is living in Barca's Hamlet? If you're not sure, I want to search the town before we make further plans."
At the back of her mind she realized she was taking charge. Would she have done that six months ago, before she became 'Princess Sharina of Haft?'
She smiled. There was no way of telling, of course, but if she'd changed it was for the better. Given the shape this world was in, the people who'd been making decisions up till now could use some help.
Instead of answering, Scoggin stared in dawning horror and even backed a step. "Pardon, mistress," he said in a trembling voice, "but you're Sharina os-Reise? That would be the innkeeper's daughter?"
"Yes," Sharina said. Unexpected hope dawned. "You know my father? Is he-"
"Mistress, he'sdead," Scoggin said. "You'redead, everybody's dead who was in Barca's Hamlet the day She came! Mistress, who are you? Do you come from Her?"
Sharina sagged. Franca started to whimper and stroked her arm like a frightened kitten cuddling closer to its mother.
A fragment of memory returned to her. She looked at Scoggin and said, "You have a farm in the north of the borough, don't you? On Eiler's Creek?"
Scoggin frowned, but the homely question seemed to relax him. "Aye, I did," he said. "There's no farms now, just scrape for a meal and hope something bigger doesn't find you first; but that was my farm."
"Well," said Sharina, "I'm not the woman you're thinking of; but in another-place, I suppose, or maybe time. Anyway, I was somebody very like the person you mean. I'm not a ghost or a demon, either one."
She took a deep breath and managed a tremulous smile. "What I particularlyam now," she said, "is hungry. I suppose we could cut chunks off this bear, but if you've got something else, Master Scoggin, I'd prefer to leave the bear until I'm a little more distant from awareness of just whathe ate."
Scoggin smiled also. "I've a line of snares," he said. "I make a circuit of the borough from here to my old farm in the course of a year, so I don't hunt anyplace out. I just shifted here last night, so there should be plenty for three."
He turned and started toward the ruined inn. "I never saw anything like that bear before," he muttered. "If there's more of them, I don't know what I'll do. Unless you…?"
He looked at Sharina in sudden speculation.
"I don't know what my plans will be until I learn more about this world," Sharina said in a mixture of amusement and irritation. "I don't think it will involve creeping about eating rabbits and watching the ice grow thicker, though."
Scoggin looked away in embarrassment and cleared his throat. A man who'd stayed alive for the past decade by dealing with short term problems couldn't be blamed for continuing to think that way, Sharina realized. Aloud she said, "Were you in Barca's Hamlet when She came, Scoggin? If you don't mind telling me."
"I don't mind," he said. "You saved my life." But he didn't answer for several long moments.
The brick wall and gateposts on the south side of the innyard had fallen inward, but the culvert under the entrance lane remained. Scoggin knelt beside it and fished out a line of willowbark. The rabbit he'd noosed there had already strangled; he popped it into his game pouch and reset the snare.
"I was coming into town that day," Scoggin said at last. "From midnight on there'd been lightning, I thought it was, and my sheep wouldn't settle down."
He looked at her. "It wasn't lightning," he said. "I know that now. It's in the sky all the time now."
"Yes," said Sharina. "But of course you wouldn't have known that. Go on."
"I set off before dawn," Scoggin said, squatting at a snare across the mouth of a run through brambles along the fallen wall. This one was empty. "I left the sheep with my cousin and his wife; he owned the farm with me and his wife kept house for both of us. I was going to pick up some ale, that was all; for the house and for me."
Scoggin moved to the next snare, at the mouth of what had been a window of the inn's foundation course. Though the building had collapsed into a mound of rubble, the opening was still a trackway for small animals.
The set-a noose of twine with willow springs to snatch it tight when tripped-was obviously empty, but Scoggin knelt by it anyway. He was operating by rote while his conscious mind tried to deal with things he'd kept buried during the past long years.
Still kneeling, he turned his face to Sharina and went on in a stronger voice, "I heard the noise when I got to the big sheepfold. You know where that is?"
"Yes," Sharina said, nodding. The broad stone enclosure on high ground north of the hamlet's first buildings was used to count flocks for drovers taking them out of the borough. It was normally empty.
"I waited there," Scoggin said. "I didn't know what was happening. It sounded like screams and crashing… which I guess it was, but I couldn't believe it then. I waited at the sheepfold, just notcomfortable, you know?"
"Yes," said Sharina. She knew very well.
"I couldn't see the houses because the track curves," Scoggin went on, "but something lifted high enough I could see it. It looked like a beetle grub, only it had a man in its jaws. It was huge, just huge."
He grimaced and stared at the ground. "I don't know who he was, that man," he said. "It didn't matter, it was all of them before it was over. It was near over then, I guess, because a pack of things came up the track heading north. I heard them coming and hid in the brush, so they went past. Some were giants and some looked more like men; but they weren't."
Franca was crying openly now, his head in his hands. Scoggin's description must have been much like what happened in Penninvale a year later. Given the sort of destruction Sharina had seen in Carcosa, events there had followed the same pattern if on a larger scale.
"I started back," Scoggin said. He licked his lips. "Keeping in the woods. I'd seen the, them, going north. I didn't know what to do. They'd been to the farm and gone on by the time I got there. It was-"
He turned his hands up helplessly. "Everything was dead. Everybody was dead."
Scoggin rose and walked to where the curb in the center of the innyard had been knocked into the well it was meant to protect. The snare he'd set there had caught another rabbit; it was still struggling.
"Mine!" Beard called, but Scoggin snapped the animal's neck obliviously and bagged it. He was still operating by reflex, though he seemed calmer now than he had when he began speaking.
"I've been hiding in the woods ever since," Scoggin said. He was limping slightly; perhaps from the bear's swipe, perhaps from older injuries; now that Sharina had been with him for a time, she saw that Scoggin's left arm was crooked where a broken bone had been ill set. "The big packs have gone away-"
His face stiffened. "I thought they had, anyway, because there was nobody left to hunt. The bear, though-that was new. I don't know what it means."
"How did the Hunters arrive here, do you know?" Sharina asked. Her eyes instinctively searched the rubble for bones. There wouldn't be any, of course; the voles would've gnawed them all away in a single winter, let alone a decade. What her mind knew was one thing; what her heart feared was another.
"Oh, yes," Scoggin said. "It was on the shore, a tunnel of light. It was purple but solid. It was there for years after, but it finally faded away."
"Show me," said Sharina, walking toward the Old Kingdom seawall that protected the east side of Barca's Hamlet from the winter storms that wracked the Inner Sea. She looked out, expecting the view she'd seen every morning when she awakened in her garret bedroom.
The sea had vanished.
She must have gasped. Scoggin looked at her, misunderstanding the surprise, and said, "Yeah, that was Cranmer; he must've touched the side of the tunnel. He froze so solid that he didn't even start to thaw for years, and there's still his hand and some of his arm left."
Scoggin meant the pice of debris on the foreshore. Sharina had taken it for the driftwood and dismissed it from consideration.
"But thesea," she said; and then she found it, a glittering line on the horizon. It had drawn back miles from the familiar shore, leaving a waste of shingle which brush and coarse grasses were beginning to colonize.
"Oh, that," Scoggin said. "Yeah, it's been drying up ever since She came."
He shivered. "That's all right with me," he added. "There were things out in the water the first year or two, huge snakes. The farther away they keep from the land, the better I like it."
"It's the ice," said Beard. "It has to come from somewhere, you know. The sea becomes ice and the ice covers the land… but first there'll be more blood for Beard to drink, much more blood."
"What's that?" said Sharina, pointing south toward the glitter just visible beyond the curve of the seawall. She started in that direction, clambering over the rubble of what had been the stables at the back of the innyard.
"What?" said Scoggin. He leaned outward, learning as Sharina had already realized that he couldn't see much from where they stood. "It was never here before. It might be danger…"
He let his voice trail off and followed. To Sharina it didn't look any more or less hostile than the rest of this horrible place, and it was at least a change from stark ruins.
The seawall sloped back a foot for each of the twelve feet it rose from what had been sea level at a spring tide. At its base, drawn up on the rocky beach, was a framework of crystal rods which gleamed with more light than that of the hazy sun.
"It's a ship!" Sharina said. Though it couldn't be an ordinary ship: the rods outlined a vessel but didn't form solid ribs and bulwarks. The lines were too clear for her to doubt her instinct, though.
"But it's up on land," said Scoggin. "And I would've seen it if it's been here even last night!"
Sharina side-stepped down the seawall, touching the stone with her left hand in case she slipped. Beard, chuckling merrily to himself, was in her right. Franca crawled down the slope behind her, but Scoggin stayed at the top wearing a worried frown.
Sharina touched a crystal with the butt of the axe. It made a fainttick, more like stone than metal. A shimmer of light, too faint to have color, connected the rods like the skin of a soap bubble.
Scoggin cried out. He jumped down the slope, then turned to face upward with his spear raised.
"Mistress!" Beard shouted. "Mistress! We're-"
A line of men appeared on the seawall, looking down at Sharina and her companions. There were some twenty of them. Most carried bows with nocked arrows; several were already half-drawn.
"-attacked!"
"Good day, sirs!" Sharina called, holding the axe crosswise at waist level. Beard was no threat to the archers above them. "I'm Sharina os-Reise and these are my friends. May I ask who you are?"
Another man hobbled into sight, leaning on a staff of carved whalebone. He wore a short black cape and a peaked cap, both made of what looked like lustrous velvet. He gave Sharina a look of satisfaction; his staff sizzled against the ground with scarlet wizardlight.
"Ask or not," said the fellow, "I will tell you: I'm Alfdan the Great. Now, set the axe down and move away from it. Otherwise I'll have my men shoot you down and take it from your body."
Alfdan gave a cackle of triumph. "I've been waiting under my Cape of Shadows for almost a day but it's worth the effort-now that I have the axe!"
"Shall we attack, mistress?" Beard whispered. "Mistress, what shall we do?"
The archers began drawing their bows.
"Sail!" called the lookout at theDefender 's masthead. "She's a big one, she is!"
"Hey Lusius!" Rincip shouted from the stern. "The timing's right for the Valles ship that turned us down on Pandah. What d'ye want to do?"
"Bring us alongside so I can speak to her captain," Lusius said. His glance fell on Chalcus. With a nod and a half smile, he went on, "No, by the Sister, I'll go aboard and see if I can talk sense into him. And perhaps-"
His smile broadened.
"-our guests would care to board with me?"
"Yes," said Ilna before Chalcus could speak. Lusius was playing with them, pretending to conceal nothing about what was going on in the Strait. All Ilna was sure of was that the Commander was lying. She wasn't about to make the mistake of thinking he had nothing to hide in what he offered freely to show.
Petty officers relayed Rincip's shouted orders to the crew. The Sea Guards were manning both benches again, though their wicker shields cluttered the central aisle. You couldn't get between bow and stern except by walking on the rail itself-easy for Chalcus but probably beyond what most of this crew could manage. After watching the winged men attack, the ability to move around the vessel was less important to them-and their officers-than having protection immediately available.
"'Turned you down at Pandah', Master Rincip said?" Chalcus said with an eyebrow raised in question.
"That's right," Lusius said with the falsely open expression Ilna had come to recognize. "I keep a detachment on Pandah so that the ships stopping there to buy supplies can take on Sea Guards as well if they're heading for the Strait. I have a boat meet them to take my men off when they're past the Calves and out of danger."
TheDefender was closing rapidly with the sailing vessel coming from the northeast. It wasn't as big as the hulks Sidras used as warehouses, but it was an impressively large ship nonetheless; it moved with the wallowing heaviness of a horse swimming. The men who lined the forward railing wore helmets and held spears.
"Lay to!" Lusius bellowed through his cupped hands. "The Commander of the Strait is coming aboard!"
"Will they obey?" Ilna asked.
"They'd best!" Lusius snarled. He must have thought his tone had been too open; he flashed his false smile again and added, "Not that any honest captain would refuse, you see?"
As he spoke, the freighter's huge square sail flapped loose, then began to flutter up to the spar. Horizontal wooden rods-battens-stiffened the fabric. The ship continued to slosh through the swell; it was far too heavy to do anything quickly.
"Why wouldn't a captain choose to have Sea Guards on board when he runs the Strait, Commander?" Chalcus said mildly. "If you don't mind my asking, of course."
Lusius made a sound that was half grunt, half throat-clearing. "There's some that claim the charges are high," he said while keeping his face toward the freighter so he didn't have to look at his guests. "They don't appreciate how much it costs to maintain the patrols."
Suddenly belligerent, he glared at Chalcus. "I have to fund it all myself, you know!" he said. "Not a stiver comes from the Count's treasury. That is, from the Prince, as I now serve him directly."
"Everything has a cost," said Chalcus, nodding as though in agreement. "That's the way of the world, Commander."
"You're bloody well right it is!" Lusius said. "And I'll tell you something else-not one ship with my men aboard has been taken by the Rua! If they want to risk the run themselves, well, it's no fault of mine if they all get their throats slit by demons, is it?"
"None whatever," Chalcus said. He laughed, a cheerful sound to someone who didn't know him as well as Ilna did; and cheerful to her as well, because it didn't bother her to learn that Chalcus viewed the Commander as prey.
TheDefender turned to starboard, doubling back to match speed with the larger ship as they came alongside. One of the freighter's crewmen tossed down a ladder of rope with wooden rungs; Chalcus caught it and used his foot to lock the lowest rung to theDefender 's railing. The freighter's deck was at least twice a man's height above the patrol vessel's, so boarding her without the crew's help-let alone against their resistance-would be extremely difficult.
"After you, Commander," Chalcus said politely. Lusius grunted and scrambled up. He'd eaten and drunk too much for too long to be fit, but he remained a strong man despite his dissipation.
Ilna followed, knowing that Chalcus wouldn't release the bottom of the ladder until she was safely on deck. The side-ropes were made of some coarse fiber, unfamiliar to her. As she climbed, gripping the ropes, she felt images of sun-blasted badlands where the dust blew about plants whose leaves were clumps of daggers.
She clambered over the railing to find herself midway along the big vessel's deck. A forest of heavy ropes slanted upward to brace the single mast, and the boat in the chocks forward was larger than the vessels in the Terness fishing fleet.
Chalcus sprang to the deck beside her. He landed on the balls of his feet, then touched Ilna's elbow to warn of his presence.
Lusius was facing a middle-aged man in a serviceable tunic of blue wool and a younger, softer fellow wearing silk and a thick gold seal ring. The spearmen stood to either side of them, Blaise armsmen with hooked swords in belt scabbards and tattoos on their right forearms.
"I'm Ohert, captain of theQueen of Heaven," said the middle-aged man, "and this is Master Pointin. I've taken you aboard so I can tell you to your face that we neither want nor need your louse-ridden drunks aboard."
"We wouldn't want them if they were free," the silk-clad Pointin chimed in. "That we'd pay the fee you demand-well, the notion's absurd."
The guards glared at Lusius, acting as hostile as they could without offering open threats. Much of the attitude was put on for the purpose, but Ilna didn't doubt that those fellows were willing to chop the Commander to fish bait if the captain told them to.
Lusius must also have recognized that. "Captain Ohert," he said without the bluster and mocking superiority which had been general with him previously, "You're making a mistake, and I only pray to the Lady that your mistake not be fatal. You've not sailed these waters since the demon Rua came up from the Underworld to loot ships and slaughter sailors. You may think our charges high-"
"I think they're absurd!" said Pointin. "I told you that, my man!"
"-but it would be more expensive yet to let the Rua take the ship and your lives as well, would it not? What is it that you're carrying, captain?"
"It's none of your business what our cargo is!" Pointin said. "Now, you've got your answer, so take yourself back to your own ship and let honest men be on with their business."
"You're carrying tapestries," Ilna said, scarcely aware that she was speaking until after the words had come out. The aura of the woven goods in the vessel's several holds had flooded her ever since she'd boarded the freighter. She didn't think she'd ever been around such amass of fabric before.
"They had a spy in Valles!" the captain cried in distress. Lusius turned toward Ilna with a frown of amazement; Chalcus stepped between them with a vague, friendly smile.
Images cascaded through Ilna's mind: armored heroes, women dressed in gold and silver threads, and animals from myth. Forests and gardens and cities with high walls and fanciful turrets…
She shook her head, trying to return to her present surroundings. The tapestries' workmanship was generally mediocre and not infrequently poor, distorted figures on gapped, ill-woven grounds; but occasionally, burning through the trash like the sun on a hazy day, there was a piece-often a single panel or a cartoon in a hanging of slight merit otherwise-whose craftsmanship took Ilna's breath away.
And it was all in her mind, hidden from her eyes in burlap-covered bales beneath the freighter's thick deck timbers. All in her mind…
"All right, you know we're carrying tapestry!" the supercargo said. "With the Prince of Haft ruling the Isles, there's going to be a market for the best sort of furnishings in Carcosa. Palace furnishings very likely, and the Pollin family will be there with the goods to sell long before anybody else sees the opportunity. We'll not pay a third the cargo's value to put your thugs on board, either. We've got real soldiers to deal with anybody who thinks he can rob us!"
"The Strait isn't like the valleys of Blaise," Lusius said, bobbing his bearded chin in acknowledgment of the leader of the freighter's guards. "My men understand the demons and know how to deal with them."
From what Ilna had seen, the Sea Guards understood well enough to avoid fighting the Rua whenever it was possible to run away instead. But shipswere being stripped, and she didn't see how Lusius could be responsible for that. This freighter's crew was probably equal in number to the Sea Guards; between the vessel's high decks and the Blaise armsmen-realsoldiers, as the supercargo had said-they could beat off theDefender with ease.
"We've listened to you," Ohert said. "Now get off my ship. And you needn't think half our crew'll be coming ashore in Terness when we anchor off the harbor tonight-everybody's staying aboard, and there'll be a proper watch kept, I promise you!"
"I've warned you and that's all I can do," Lusius said with a sad shake of his head. "My guests and I will return to Terness."
He started for the ladder, then looked back over his shoulder. "I hope you and your crew have a good night, Captain Ohert," Lusius added. "But I greatly doubt that you will."
Ilna smiled minusculely. The first half of the Commander's statement was a lie, but she was inclined to believe the second part.