"Does the Visitor have guards out here in the swamp, Evne?" Cashel asked as he probed the bottom of the stream. It was only a hand's breadth deep, but the water was so black with dissolved leaves that he could no more see through it than he could've seen into a stone wall.
"Jump over this," the toad said. "Don't put your foot in it."
Cashel butted his staff in the water and pivoted over it to the other side instead of crossing in two steps as he'd otherwise have done. He landed on a sprawling mat of cypress roots and picked his way over them carefully; his mud-slick feet were likely to slide on the smooth bark.
"There's a flatworm in the water," Evne said. Cashel hadn't been going to ask for an explanation, though he was interested to hear it. "Even if I had a chance to talk with it, which I wouldn't because it never comes above the surface, it probably wouldn't listen. Flatworms are very stupid, even by human standards."
The trees, mostly cypress though there were others Cashel didn't recognize, crossed branches. They didn't exactly hide the sky, because the warm mist did that. In the few open patches above, the sun was just a brighter blur than the vapors around it.
"The Visitor neither knows nor cares what humans are doing until he has a use for them," the toad said, getting around to answering Cashel's question. "He doesn't have guards because he doesn't see a threat… which is not to say that you'll be able to walk straight into his ship. That is protected against enemies he fears as he fears nothing onthis world."
"Evne?" Cashel said. He was frowning. "Why does the Visitor come here, anyway? And if he comes, why does he leave, then?"
The toad snorted. "Why does Lord Bossian have dinner now in the West Tower, now in the Plaza?" she said. "Whim, that's all. Merely the whim of one who thinks he's all-powerful."
They'd reached another body of water, this one too broad to jump. Bubbles rose to the surface and hung there as a dirty froth before finally bursting; there was no current at all.
Cashel checked; he didn't find bottom at what would've been mid-chest if he'd jumped in. The water jet-black water drained cleanly off his quarterstaff, leaving the hickory wet but not gummy.
"There's a fallen log to the right," the toad said. "There, where the yellow iris grows on the bank. It's under water, but only ankle deep."
"All right," said Cashel, making his careful way toward the nodding yellow flags. "Ah, that's a snake on the branch overhead."
He didn't add, "isn't it?" to make a question out of the observation, because he had no doubt at all once his mind had registered the fact that one gnarled, blotchy tree limb was twice as thick as the others. Even so he wasn't sure which way the snake lay until the flicker of an inner lid wiping its gleaming black eye caught his attention.
"I wondered when you'd notice him," the toad said, but Cashel thought he heard approval in her tone. The truth was he'd noticed the snake as soon as there was any reason to; if he'd been able to cross where he first struck the water, the long body wouldn't have been of any more importance to him than the branch on which it sprawled.
"Ho, serpent!" Evne called. "Do you know me?"
The snake turned its head, lowering it slightly to hang on an S-curve of its neck. "What if I do?" it said. Its forked tongue took several quick, nervous sips of the air. "You have no power over me here!"
Cashel didn't like the snake's tone-Duzi! he didn't like the fact he was listening to a snake talk!-but he kept walking forward along the overgrown bank, picking his footing carefully among the roots and knotted bog plants. It wasn't a time he'd choose to hurry, regardless.
"You're lucky I don't have any reason to show you that you're wrong!" said Evne with the archly superior tone she used when she was being formal instead of insulting people in a common fashion. "Am I correct that there are no creatures of a sort to be threatening in the waters near your ford?"
"You know there's not," the snake said, letting more of his body loop down. It moved as smoothly as oil spreading. "You know I'd have killed them if there were."
"So I hoped," the toad said. "And I also hope you'll let us pass on our way without a problem."
Cashel paused and wiped his quarterstaff with his wad of raw wool. It might be that he needed a clean grip on the hickory soon.
The snake hissed its laughter. "You may hope that all you like, but you've no reason to expect it," it said. "This is my ford and my hunting ground."
Cashel started forward again. They were getting pretty close. He wasn't sure how far the snake could launch itself, but it was avery big snake.
"I've two reasons," said Evne. "First, because I've asked you politely-"
The snake hissed even louder. Its head began to sway back and forth, swinging a trifle lower with each movement.
"-and second," Evne continued, "because my master will smash your head in if you don't!"
"Does he think that?" rasped the snake. When its jaws were closed, it seemed to smile, but the two fangs that unfolded whenever it spoke were as long as Cashel's hand.
"Ithink that, serpent!" said the toad. "Do you doubt me?"
Cashel raised his staff to mid-chest with his hands spread a comfortable distance for thrusting with one ferrule or the other. Nobody moved for a moment.
"Faugh!" said the snake. Its body slid back up on the branch as easily as it'd lowered. "I ate just the other day. Somebody else can have the pleasure of swallowing you."
"We can go on now, master," Evne said. Cashel was already picking his way forward, not fast but fast enough. His toes found the log and started forward, balancing with his staff.
He kept his face turned up, watching the snake. It stayed as still as the branch it lay on. Walking like this it was better not to look down anyway.
The ground on the far side was higher and a lot firmer than what Cashel had just come through. When he'd put a moss-draped pin oak between him and the snake, he said, "Do all the animals in this swamp talk, Evne?"
"None of them talk," the toad said. "Not so that you could understand, anyway."
"But-"
"Except that you're with me, of course," she added. "That was too obvious to bother mentioning."
"Ah," said Cashel. There was a spiderweb in his path. He started to brush it away with his staff, then decided to go around the other side of the tree instead. A web that big would be a lot of work, even for a spider the size of both Cashel's hands spread.
"Evne?" he said. "Who are you?"
The toad laughed without humor. "Me?" she said. "I'm your servant, great master. Your guide and humble companion."
Cashel sighed. He didn't suppose it mattered. He didn't doubt that Evne was on his side… in her own way.
A damselfly glittered past, an iridescent blue body and shimmering crystal wings. Cashel snatched with his right hand, then brought the trapped morsel close to his left shoulder.
"I thought you might be hungry," he said as he opened his fingers. The toad's long tongue patted his palm before the insect could flutter free.
They continued on for a time in silence broken only by the occasional slosh of Cashel's bare feet. After a while Evne began to sing about a frog who went a-courting.
She had a pleasant voice, for a toad.
Alfdan's band climbed aboard the Queen Ship. Their air of quiet resignation reminded Sharina of peasants heading for the fields on the third day of the harvest-tired from what has gone before and well aware that this day too will be long and hard, but that it must be faced.
Ordinary folk didn't like wizards or wizardry. These men were here because Alfdan was the closest thing they had to a hope of safety.
Scoggin was among the first to board. Sharina reached out to pull him up, but Scoggin had braced his spearbutt in the ground. To her surprise he stretched back his free hand to help Franca. They seated themselves to either side of Sharina, linking their hands around the mast to keep from sliding off.
Beard chuckled, muttering things that Sharina couldn't hear clearly and probably wouldn't have wanted to. Like Alfdan, the axe was a valuable associate but not a completely comfortable one.
"What do we do now, Mistress Sharina?" Franca asked.
"I've promised to help the wizard find a key," she said. "I don't have any more information than that. He'll take me where I request after I've found the key. I don't know where that is yet."
Scoggin snorted. "Suits me," he said. "Away from here is a good start."
He looked at the men now crowding the ship's deck. There were seventeen in the band and Alfdan himself; plus now Sharina and her two companions. "They aren't a bad lot," Scoggin went on in a low voice. "The rest of 'em, I mean. I haven't had anybody around since, well, for a long time."
It struck Sharina that Scoggin and Franca had attached themselves to her for the same reason the wizard had been able to gather his entourage. She and Alfdan were willing to lead in a world where most of the survivors had lost purpose.
Alfdan stood in the stern of the vessel. Though the deck was crowded, there was a clear space in front of him for as far as he could have swung his bone staff. He tapped the deck and said, "Aieth." There was a quick flicker of crimson.
Keeping a hand on the mast, Sharina stood to see over the heads of the men seated between her and the wizard. Scoggin cursed under his breath, but he braced her foot with his own.
A many-pointed symbol had appeared on-in-the shimmering deck before Alfdan. The figure and the words of power crawling around its perimeter were spaces in the plane of light, chill air through which Sharina saw the rocky beach without the intervening glow.
"Thotho squaleth ouer," Alfdan called. His staff was upright and motionless on the deck. The words of power spun around the symbol faster as he spoke them. "Melchou melcha ael."
He lifted his staff and pointed it out toward the distant sea. Though he continued to chant, a rushing sound like the winds of an approaching storm blurred the words. Sharina could no longer hear them clearly.
The deck came level. The prow rotated seaward in line with the staff as though the vessel were pivoting on its mast. The deck now had a tacky grip on the rabbitskin boots when Sharina shifted her feet.
"Pissadara!" Alfdan shouted. The unfelt wind roared around them, making Sharina's marrow tremble; the Queen Ship slid forward.
She'd expected to hear the crunch and scrape of shingle against their keel as she would've done if an ordinary vessel were being dragged into the water, but the only vibration was the high tremble of the wind. She and the others on the ship's deck were in an existence of their own, cut off from the world around them as if by thick diamond walls.
The ship accelerated, moving faster than any real vessel could have done. They reached the new shoreline, at least a mile beyond where the coast had been when Sharina was growing up in Barca's Hamlet. The water had a sluggish, gelid appearance, and the surf seemed to cling a long time to the beach before rolling back. The Queen Ship sped outward, leaving the swells as unmarked by its passage as the land had been.
Alfdan pointed his staff southward; the vessel obediently followed the wizard's direction. Sharina braced herself, expecting to be flung toward the outside of the curve as she would have been in a carriage, but she had no feel of them turning-beyond what her eyes told her about the way the world moved around her.
Alfdan's band was beginning to relax. Men talked among themselves in the manner of old associates in familiar surroundings. Several took food out of their packs or swigged from skins of liquid-wine, beer or water, Sharina couldn't tell. Franca watched them longingly.
Neal, the big auburn man, was seated on the other side of the mast from Sharina. She leaned sideways and called, "Neal? As we're a part of your band now, you need to feed us. We left our rations back at Barca's Hamlet when you waylaid us."
"Oh, good eating for Beard in Barca's Hamlet," said the axe, jolted out of his low-voiced litany by the key wordfeed. "Blood and brains, blood and brains and rich marrow for Beard!"
Neal looked disconcerted, then switched his gaze from Beard to Sharina herself. "Food?" he said. "Oh, food."
"We had a whole bear," said Franca. "Mistress Sharina killed it. We could have dried the meat and lived on it for months!"
"Here, mistress," said Neal, rummaging in his wallet. "It's smoked fish, that's mostly what we have. We build weirs and Alfdan calls fish into them. He has a lure. Lugin, give the mistress some of that wine."
"And for my companions," said Sharina sharply. "We're all together now."
She squatted to take the packet, a slab of dark, oily fish wrapped in an unfamiliar large leaf. After she broke off a chunk-it flaked when she twisted-she handed the rest to Scoggin. He started to bolt it, then caught the sudden hardening of Sharina's eye. He quickly divided the piece with Franca.
Neither of her companions was used to being part of society. They'd been surviving in a harsh world where being quick was the difference between life and death. They had to readjust to caring about other human beings.
"How long have you been with Master Alfdan?" she asked Neal through a mouthful of fish. It tasted wonderful, but the oily richness hitting her empty stomach made her gorge rise. She paused, hoping she wouldn't vomit.
"Me?" said Neal, chewing on a similar fillet. "Three years, near enough. He found me on Tisamur, when he was searching for the Stone Mirror."
He nodded toward Alfdan, standing statue straight. He held out the staff as he mouthed inaudible words of power. The script at the wizard's feet continued to turn in silent regularity like thin clouds scudding across a summer sky.
"He uses the mirror to find things," Neal explained. "Just a little pebble, you'd think, no different from any other that you'd turn up with your plow. But Alfdan sees things in it."
"Burness's been with Alfdan from the start," Neal said, nodding to a balding, older man talking volubly and with hand gestures to two others in the bow. "They were both rooming in a tenement on Erdin when She first came. Alfdan told fortunes and made charms, you know the sort of thing."
Sharina nodded. "I know," she agreed.
She looked over her shoulder at Alfdan. She wondered how long he could keep the staff out straight.
Alfdan would've been a conjurer, a hedge wizard; but not altogether a charlatan. There was somebody like him in every neighborhood of the larger cities; similar folk travelled through the borough, setting up their booths during the Sheep Fair and occasionally in other seasons as well.
"Alfdan took Burness with him," Neal said. "There were two other guys too, Burness says. One I never met, but Tadli was the man the faun killed just now on the shore. He'd lasted a long time, though."
Neal grimaced and chewed in silence for a time, his eyes on the horizon. Sharina thought she saw something moving there, on the surface of the gray sea or in the sky just above it. Neal's attention was on his memories.
When She came, when the weather chilled and the night sky began to ripple with wizardlight, Alfdan learned he could find objects of power. Perhaps the talent had always been in him but too weak to be noticed; perhaps Her power and the changes She wrought in the world squeezed Alfdan's mind into a pattern completely new to it.
"He's Alfdan the Great, now," Neal said in a wondering voice, still looking beyond his present company. "He does amazing things. I've seen him do things that I couldn't imagine being done. Wonderful things!"
"And Alfdan will freeze," said Beard, "andyou will freeze, and all the wonderful toys your great wizard is collecting, they'll freeze also. Because they're just toys-he gathers them to have them, not to use them. But my mistress-"
The axe laughed as musically as an infant watching a hanging bauble turn in the wind.
"-she'll use Beard. Beard will drink his fill many times more before the ice comes!"
Neal shivered. "Does it have to talk?" he muttered.
"Beard tells me things that I need to know," Sharina said, though she understood Neal's discomfort. "But perhaps, friend axe, you can keep your opinions more to yourself while we're in such close quarters?"
"Hmpff!" said Beard. "It won't change anything, whether I say things or I don't, you know."
Though the axe did subside with that remark. He began to sing in a low voice, "They struck with swords and hard they struck till blood ran down like rain…"
Neal sank into gloomy introspection, his eyes on his hands folded in his lap. He obviously didn't want to think about a doom he couldn't avoid. Sharina didn't have any better answers than Neal did-neither to his problems nor to the more complicated business of getting herself back to the worldshe knew; but she hadn't given up trying.
She smiled. She wasn't going to give up, but she didn't see even a path to an answer to anything. It was funny if you thought about it in the right way.
Men in the bow murmured, nudging one another and looking toward the southwest. Nobody spoke. Sharina turned, squinting to sharpen her vision.
Something was coming toward them, either on the sea or flying just above it. At first she thought it was a bird with long, sparkling wings, but when it changed course slightly she saw that it was a fish whose pectoral fins were each as long as its body. A figure rode on its back and waved a wand or spear. It wasn't human, though at first she'd thought it was.
Alfdan moved for the first time since they'd started south: he pointed his staff a few degrees to the right of its previous bearing. The great fish squirmed through the air in a desperate attempt to follow, but it fell inexorably behind. Finally it vanished in a haze of crimson wizardlight.
"What was that?" Sharina said to Neal. "Have you seen it before?"
Neal remained silent, lost in his bleak considerations.
"We've seen that sort of thing, sure," said another man. "They're not real, we figure. They're mirages, because lots of times they just scatter away after a while."
Beard laughed. "Oh, they're real," he said. "As real as you are when you're here on the Queen Ship. The ship doesn't sail in the world you're from, you know; and the place your great Alfdan has taken you has its own residents."
The man who'd told Sharina that what they'd seen was a mirage gaped. He must not have heard the axe speak before.
"Are those things dangerous, Beard?" Sharina asked. She turned back in the direction she'd last seen the fish and its rider. The sky was empty and the sea was its usual turgid gray. "The residents?"
"Not unless they catch you, mistress," the axe said with its usual enthusiasm. "If they catch you, they'll kill you all! Beard will be alone in this place with nothing, no blood to drink ever again."
Did the axe think he'd frighten her, or did he just have a wry sense of humor? Well, Sharina'd been places before where if you couldn't laugh at horrors you had nothing whatever to laugh at.
"We'll hope that they don't catch us, then," she said with a faint smile. "I'd hate to leave so good a friend as you, Beard, in such a terrible place."
The axe laughed merrily. His voice was a pleasant tenor when he was at ease, but when he saw the hope of slaughter his tones rose till they were indistinguishable from a small brass bell ringing a tocsin.
"Oh, yes, mistress," he said. "You'll treat Beard well, he's sure you will. Ah, Beard hasn't had a master like you in thousands of years, thousands."
Sharina continued to smile. It was always good to have friends; and in this world, Beard wasn't a bad friend to have.
"Look, mistress," Franca said. Instead of touching her shoulder, he extended his pointing finger past her face, then lowered it.
Sharina turned and saw trees on the horizon. "Are there islands here?" she said. There hadn't been-she hadn'tseen -islands in this portion of the Inner Sea when she'd crossed it in her own world, but if the sea level was dropping perhaps…
"They walk on water, mistress," Beard said. "They came down from where the Ice Capes were. Now it's all ice there for hundreds of miles south, so the trees have had to move."
"How do trees walk?" Scoggin demanded. "They can't! They never did before!"
"Did you think it was only wizards who gained power when She came?" the axe chuckled. "It wasn't. Some wizards, and some-other things. Perhaps they now call themselves Larch the Great, do you think?"
"Look, Layson," said Scoggin, leaning sideways so that he could see the man who'd been speaking. They must have exchanged names while Sharina was talking with the wizard. "What is it that that fellow-"
He waggled a finger toward the stern. Like many other people Sharina'd met, Scoggin didn't choose to name wizards-any more than they would demons-for fear of what they might be calling to them.
"-plans to do? Is it like the axe says, he's just sailing around till we all freeze?"
Neal turned, awakening from his state of detachment. "Do you have a better idea, Scoggin?" he said. His tone was questioning, not a sarcastic snarl. "Because he's keeping us alive, it seems to me."
"He didn't keep Tadli alive just now," Franca said unexpectedly. Because he was so quiet, it was easy to forget his presence-and the fact that he heard and understood things.
"He didn't keep any of you alive just now!" Beard said. "My mistress and I kept you alive!"
"What do you say, mistress?" Layson said. "What would you do?"
Alfdan had adjusted his wand again, returning them to their previous course. Did he have some tool of art to tell him where to steer? Sharina saw another grove of trees to the west, but they were too far away for her to make out any details before the Queen Ship left them behind.
Alfdan stood fixed by the strain of his art; everyone else was waiting for her reply. It didn't make sense except in human terms, but Sharina'd learned since she left home that the answer to the question, "Why me?" was always, "Because you will." These men wanted her to lead them, because they knew she was willing to lead.
"You talk about Her," Sharina said. "WhenShe came, whenShe made things change. Where is She?"
Men looked at one another or at their hands. She wasn't sure they'd have given her an answer even if they had one. "Maybe Alfdan knows," muttered someone seated behind her.
"She is in the north," said Beard, speaking in a precise, pedantic voice. "She is in the farthest north, from where everything is south. She is in a palace beneath the ice, and there She weaves the fate of the world. Ice and death and silence!"
"Then…," said Sharina. There was no other answer, after all, though her mouth had gone dry. "Then I think that's where we should be going, or at least I should."
"And Beard should go, mistress!" the axe caroled. "Oh, so very much blood to drink before they slay you, mistress, so many monsters and halfmen and so much blood!"
Alfdan's wand thumped against the shining deck before him. The Queen Ship slid to a silent halt at the base of a craggy headland. The narrow cliff beyond and that of the similar headland opposite were nearly vertical; they framed a narrow fjord. Here and there grasses sprouted from cracks in the rock.
They'd reached their destination without anyone except the wizard being aware they were approaching land.
Alfdan wavered with the effort of the task he'd just accomplished. He tried to sit but he was already collapsing when two of his men caught him with the skill of experience.
The deck was again as slick as the film over melting ice; men slid off, then scrambled out of the way of their fellows. Sharina let herself follow, holding Beard up in both hands to avoid an accident. The axe chuckled.
She landed on her heels, flexing her legs to take the shock. Even so she winced: her makeshift boots were thin protection against bare rock.
Sharina walked down to the narrow shoreline, looking into the fjord. The water was dark blue but clear; she could see the rock wall continue to slope jaggedly into an abyss.
"There's where you're going, mistress," Beard said happily. "There's where you and Beard are going soon!"
"Oh bye-bye good woman, I'm gone," Chalcus chanted, leading his six crewmen down the dock. As they walked, hauling on a hawser reeved over the top of a pair of shearlegs, theBird of the Tide 's new mast rose in tiny jerks toward vertical. Without the shearlegs to give them leverage, they wouldn't have been able to start the pole from the horizontal.
"You gonna miss me, you'll see," Chalcus sang, taking another short step with each weighted syllable.
Ilna, waiting at the base of the mast with a wedge and maul, thought again how much his voice reminded her of liquid gold, smooth and pure and perfectly beautiful. No sign of the effort-and she knew how much effort it was for seven men without pulleys to replace a mast-could be heard in the chantey. She called, "Once more!"
"A rider, she's a rider I know," Chalcus caroled, and the mast quivered straight according to the plumb line tacked into the side of the mast partner that would shortly hold it.
"Enough!" called Ilna and dropped her wedge into the slot. She stepped back and brought the maul around in a three-quarters circle to slam the tapered oak home.
Hutena had insisted-insisted-that Ilna should stand back and let one of the crewmen or Captain Chalcus himself set the wedge. Ilna didn't flatter herself that she could be of any real help on the line; she was strong for a woman, but she simply didn't weigh enough to matter with what was more a job of lifting than pulling. But the notion that she couldn't use a mallet-or a hatchet either one-as well as any man in Barca's Hamlet or this crew, that she would not have.
She wasn't sure she'd convinced the bosun, but she certainly convinced him that he should keep his opinions to himself when they clashed with hers. All the while Chalcus had stood with his back to the pair of them, whistling a merry tune called, "I am a Noted Pirate," and juggling the knives of all five crewmen while they pretended to watch him instead of the argument.
Ilna smiled wryly. She supposed she'd been better entertainment than the juggling, but the men hadn't wanted her to catch their eyes when she was in a temper like that.
Four men continued to brace the hawser while the others ran back to catch the stay ropes already hanging from the collars. Ilna moved to the rail, giving the sailors as much room to do their work as theBird allowed. Chalcus ran the forestay to the bow, then set his foot against a bitt and tensioned the rope before he took a quick lashing through the deadeyes. Ilna heard the mast groan as it strained. Chalcus wasn't a big man, but she'd met few who were stronger.
With the stays temporarily fastened the men on the dock returned, coiling the hawser as they came. Chalcus swaggered toward Ilna, adjusting his sash. He was proud of the show he'd just put on and well aware that Ilna'd seen and understood how impressive it was.
She smiled wryly. She'd always felt it was wrong to boast, and maybe it was; but Chalcus wasn't any more proud than she was, of what she did and of what he did also. Maybe the willingness to flaunt what was fully worthy of pride was a more honest attitude than her own.
Anyway, she certainly wasn't going to change Chalcus. Nor would he change her, she suspected.
"I was beginning to worry about the good Commander," he said. "If he simply let us go on about our business we'd be lost, wouldn't we? But he's not so subtle a man as that, I'm pleased to see."
Chalcus nodded toward Cross Street, leading down from the castle, but the rattle of ironshod wheels on cobblestones would've drawn Ilna's attention anyway. A two-wheeled cart came around the corner, guided by four servants on the paired poles front and back. They must've struggled to keep the weight from running away from them on the slope, but now they got their footing properly and continued toward theBird of the Tide.
At a muttered command from Hutena, he and the men with him dropped the hawser on the dock and boarded the ship quickly. Hutena gestured to the deckhouse; Chalcus grinned and shook his head minusculely.
He sees no need for weapons, Ilna thought. And-being Chalcus-he was certainly right when he answered that sort of question. Nevertheless Ilna leaned the maul against the railing and unobtrusively readied the silken noose around her waist.
The servants rolled their rumbling burden up the dock to theBird 's stern lines. "Captain Chalcus?" called one of the men on the forepoles doubtfully, looking from the bosun to Chalcus.
Hutena gestured to Chalcus, who said, "We've not purchased stores in this port, my man. Your goods are for another vessel."
Ilna thought he was overacting the mincing innocent, but perhaps you couldn't do that so long as you played into the hopes of your audience. Certainly the servant looked relieved and said, "This isn't a purchase, sir, but a gift from the Commander for your aid last night. It's not everybody who'd have taken the risks you did to come out and help."
Ilna smiled grimly. The servant's last statement was as true as Chalcus' sword, of that she was certain. If Lusius had dreamed anybody'd dare row to the scene of a wizard's attack, he'd at least have posted sentries while he looted theQueen of Heaven.
"A gift?" said Chalcus, still acting the babe in the woods. "Why, that looks like a jar of wine?"
"Yessir," said the servant eagerly. "One of the best vintages from the Commander's cellars. Besides beef roast and boiled chicken, all for thanks."
Chalcus laughed merrily. "Why, Commander Lusius is a gentleman beyond compare," he said. "Speaking for myself, I've always found good wine to be as much of a meal as a sailor needs, but perhaps some of my men will find use for the meat as well."
He looked around the crew. They watched, grim-faced and worried.
"Now there's only one thing…," Chalcus went on, facing the servants again. "I hope Commander Lusius won't take it amiss that I intend to move theBird and settle near the harbormouth tonight. I've a new anchor line and I want to see that she doesn't chafe when she's fully paid out. Eh?"
The servants looked at one another. Finally the leader said, "Well, sir, there's no traffic in the harbor during darkness. If you don't want to be tied up to the dock, I guess that's your business."
"Aye, it is," Chalcus said. "But assure the Commander that it isn't that I fear pilfering thieves might slip aboard in his harbor while my men and I are at our ease tonight, will you?"
He turned to his crewmen. "Bring our dinner, boys," he said. "And then we'll unship the oars and shift the ship, as I said… before we eat, eh?"
Chalcus grinned. Ilna was the only one who smiled back at him, though the crew jumped to the dock without further direction. They began to unload the handcart.
Ilna trusted Chalcus, of course, but the men did as well. From her viewpoint, this was the opportunity she and Chalcus had been waiting for, the reason they'd kept Pointin aboard and held him cowering out of sight in the hold: he was the bait to force Lusius and his henchmen to act.
If Lusius struck and they weren't able to parry-well, then he was the better man and deserved to kill them. The crew, brave men though they were, might feel otherwise, but Ilna had too keen an appreciation of justice to believe that the weaker and less skillfulshould survive.
She was also sure, though, that even if Lusius won, he'd know he'd been in a fight.
The trunk of the pond cypress looked as dead as white bone, but tiny, dark green leaves sprouted from its branches. The trunk just beyond it surelywas dead, but an air plant growing from a crotch threw down sprays of much brighter foliage. Beyond were grasses, green mixed with the russet stems of last year's growth, spreading into the blurred gray blanket of air.
A shrill cry sounded. Cashel looked up. It sounded like a bird-a big bird-and might've come from overhead, but he couldn't see anything beyond the usual swirls of mist.
He stepped onto the meadow. It undulated away from his foot the way a slow swell trembles over the surface of the sea. By reflex Cashel held his staff out crosswise before him to spread his weight if he broke through. He'd had a great plenty of experience with bogs; sheepwould go after juicy green morsels on soil where their pointy little feet couldn't possibly support them.
"I'm not sure this will hold me, Mistress Evne," Cashel said. He didn't take another step for now, just made sure that he had his balance as the grasses continued to move.
"Oh, it would hold you, master," the toad said. "But unless you turn back now, there's a creature who'll dine on your flesh for anything I can do to stop her."
"I didn't come this far to turn back," said Cashel, hearing his voice turn huskier with each syllable. "And I don't guess I ever asked you or any soul else to do my fighting for me."
He stepped back into the scrub of turkey oaks, spaced well apart and none of them much taller than he was. He didn't doubt Evne when she said the meadow'd support him, but that didn't mean it was good footing in a fight.
The bird screamed again. Itwas a bird; he could see it now, fluttering toward him on wings that should've been too small to keep it in the air. It got bigger with every jerk of its wings. It wasn'tin the air; it wasn't even in the same world as Cashel yet, but it was coming toward him quickly.
Very quickly.
He braced himself to strike, but he wasn't sure of the timing because he didn't know where the bird It stood before him and kicked a three-clawed foot. The bird was half again Cashel's height and probably outweighed him, though he knew how deceptively light birds were with their feathers and hollow bones. Maybe not this bird, though.
Cashel shifted left and brought his staff around sunwise, leading with his left hand. The kick slashed past him, snatching away a length of the whorled border Ilna had woven into the hem of his outer tunic.
The bird-leaped/flew/shrankupward; Cashel wasn't sure of the movement, only that his quarterstaff sliced the air and the bird was now dropping on him claws first. He jumped to his right, using the staff as a brace and a pivot to bring him back around.
The bird kicked a scrub oak to splinters and strings of bark. It turned its head and long beak over its stubby wing as Cashel drove the butt of his staff like a spear toward its midsection. The bird hopped/flew/shrank away, but not quite quickly enough. The ferrule touched solid flesh in a flash and sizzle of blue wizardlight.
The bird jumped clear, leaving a stench of burned feathers in the air. It watched Cashel, turning its narrow head slightly so that first one eye, then the other, was on him. Cashel, gasping through his open mouth, stared back.
He'd thought the bird was golden as it came toward him, but now that it stood at rest its feathers seemed bronze or even black. Over them lay a rainbow sheen like that of oil on a sunlit pond. Its beak was long and hooked, but its nostrils were the simple ovals of a buzzard instead of complex shapes like eagles and falcons.
The bird's wings were shorter than Cashel's own arms. It couldn't have flown through the air with them.
"You've met your match, bird!" called Evne from a tuffet of grass some distance out in the open meadow. Cashel guessed he must've thrown her off as he swung and dodged, because she was farther away than he thought a little toad could jump. "Let us pass or it'll be the worse for you!"
The bird cocked its head toward Cashel. It raised a crest of feathers so nearly colorless that they shimmered like a fish's fins, then lowered them again.
"Does the toad let or hinder the phoenix?" the bird said. "Creep through the muck and eat bugs, slimy one!"
Cashel stepped forward. The bird drew its head back and leaped, striking with both splayed feet. Cashel stabbed, holding one end of his staff with both hands. The bird flew/jumped/shrank over him. For an instant it seemed no more than sparrow sized, a spot in the heavens; then it was on the ground behind him and he recovered his staff, thrusting backward instead of trying to turn.
The buttcap slammed into the bird's keeled breastbone with a crash and azure flare that numbed Cashel's arms to the elbows. The bird screamed wordlessly and staggered back. The feathers of its breast were blackened like a chicken singed for plucking.
"Have you learned manners, bird?" Evne crowed. She clung awkwardly to the grass stems, her legs stretched in four separate directions. "Does the phoenix now know who is master in this-"
The bird spun and struck at the toad, its wings lifting. Cashel's staff caught it in the upper ribs; he felt bones crack under his iron.
The bird's feet left the ground, lifted by the impact rather than conscious evasion. It gave a strangled squawk as it tumbled sideways over the crouching toad. She'd tricked the bird, drawn its attention to her so that Cashel could strike…
He staggered forward, wheezing and only half aware of his surroundings. The bird was at the far end of a tunnel, and even that view was through a red haze of fatigue. Cashel moved with the punctuated violence of a jagged rock rolling downhill, lurching from one side to the other but never changing its ultimate direction.
The bird eyed him. Its tongue quivered as gave another shrill scream. Its legs bunched, then straightened. Cashel thrust with his staff.
The bird shrank away into the heavens. For a moment it was a glitter in the mist; then it was gone, vanished like a rainbow when the air clears. Cashel sprawled forward as the meadow sloshed and rolled beneath him.
He didn't know how long he lay there. His first conscious thought was that breathing no longer felt like he was jabbing knives down into his lungs. He opened his eyes very carefully. Evne squatted within hand's breadth of his nose, rubbing her pale belly with a webbed forefoot.
"You've decided to rejoin me, I see," the toad said.
"The bird's gone?" said Cashel. He didn't try to move. He wasn't sure he could move just now, and he sure didn't see a good reason to.
"I'll say she's gone!" Evne said complacently. "Gone and wishing she'd never come, if I'm any judge."
"What do I do next?" Cashel said. It seemed a little funny to be carrying on a conversation with his cheek pressed down into boggy soil, but he'd been laughed at before.
"Next?" said the toad. "Next you try your luck against the Visitor himself, master. Unless you decide to turn and run instead."
She laughed. "Which you won't do," she added, "because you're very stupid, and very determined. Though it's just possible that you're even stronger than you're stupid!"