As they paused at Harbor Street, Sharina massaged her left calf where a thorn had caught her as she left her suite by means of the window. Her foot had slipped on the terra cotta pipe and she'd flailed her leg into one of the roses trained up the palace wall.
"Aye, there they are," said Chalcus, gesturing with his open left hand toward the three large vessels in the reed-choked water just beyond the stone embankment. "Before I'm hanged, I'll be able to navigate the nasty, narrow lanes of a city as well as I do the sea."
"I thought we were going to a warehouse," Sharina said, eyeing the ships. "Though I don't mind, of course."
This morning she wore an eared bonnet and matching beige muslin shawl, both garments borrowed from her maid. Even so she'd decided to climb down the pipe which funneled rain water to the cistern in order to avoid the guards who'd otherwise insist on coming with her. The Princess of Haft had the power to do many things, but she had a lot less control over herselfthan plain Sharina os-Reise had taken for granted.
Sharina didn't think it was a good exchange, but when it was important she could work around the problem. She'd decided that joining Ilna and Chalcus to see a merchant, three friends together on an outing, was important; especially in her present mood.
"Master Sidras is a clever fellow," Chalcus said, sauntering along with Ilna on his right and Sharina on the other side. "Instead of a building on shore, he bought a hulked transport and dredged a trench for it into the mudflats. The bridge to the embankment is easy to guard. Save for that, you can't reach his store by land or by boat either one, at least not a boat big enough to carry off any amount of loot. And as he prospered, he bought two more hulks to increase his space."
The broad waterfront pavement would allow the largest goods wagons to pass in opposite directions. Ages without maintenance had tilted the paving blocks one from the next, but since there was little other traffic this morning the trio walked toward the hulks with reasonable ease.
Less than half of the ancient harbor was in active use. The northern portion where the river entered had become a mudbank. The huts of eel fishermen and birdcatchers stood on stilts over the vegetation, and freshwater streams meandered across the mud to reach the brackish water of the harbor proper. Small animals-probably rats-scurried and splashed among the coarse reeds, and once Sharina saw what she thought was a snake slither across the mud like a riffling breeze.
She didn't mind snakes, particularly. She'd faced more danger from human beings than from any other animal she'd met.
At the landward end of the bridge to the hulks was a wicket gate and behind it a guardhouse. The watchman hadn't rung his large brass gong in the shape of a lion's face, but he must've communicated in some fashion as he watched the trio approach: two more men came out of the hulk and walked down the bridge. The well-dressed one was on the other side of middle age, while his younger companion was a squat troll carrying an iron-bound club.
"There's a cord running under the wharf," Ilna said without pointing. "It must ring a bell in the ship."
Trust Ilna to notice a line… but Sharina should've seen it herself, since she'd known it must exist.
"Hello, good sirs!" Chalcus called, still ten feet short of the gate. "We've been told that Master Sidras or-Morr handles the Serian trade here, so we've come to see him."
"Have you?" said the well-dressed man, Sidras himself by his demeanor. His hair had been blond and his beard a deeper red when he was younger; now there was more gray than not in both. He set his left hand on the wicket and glared out at his visitors. "Maybe you're here to tell me to stop dealing with foreign devil-worshippers?"
"We are not," said Chalcus, his tone no longer cheerfully bantering; at best that would inflame Sidras' obvious hostility. "And while I've had my problems with the Serians in years past, they do not worship demons, sir."
"Huh!" said Sidras. "From the look of you, lad, it wasn't the Serians who caused the problems."
The watchman had gotten his crutch under his left arm and lifted himself off his stool. He held a mallet in his free hand and tried to look threatening, though without much success. The bruiser with the club was another matter, though, and Sidras himself looked like he could give a good account of himself in a fight despite his age and fat…
Sharina smiled at the way her mind was running. She'd learned to size up strange men quickly when she tended bar in her father's inn during the Sheep Fairs. Today she and her friends were here to do business, not to brawl.
Chalcus had halted a double-pace back from the gate to make clear that he didn't intend to push beyond his welcome. Sidras looked from him, to Ilna, and finally to Sharina. The situation obviously puzzled him.
"Who are you, then, mistress?" he said, nodding to Sharina.
"I'm Sharina os-Reise," she said, making the choice of words in the split second between the question and her answer. "My friend is Ilna os-Kenset, and we're accompanying Master Chalcus, who wishes to bargain with you."
She didn't know Chalcus' father's name. For that matter, she wasn't sure that Chalcus himself knew.
"Huh!" Sidras repeated. "I suppose I'm to think you're Princess Sharina of Haft, am I, because you're tall and a blonde?"
"You're to think I'm a respectable woman from Barca's Hamlet on the east coast," Sharina said. "Because I'm telling you that, and you needn't flatter yourself that I think you're worth lying to!"
Sidras smiled faintly, though the unsettled look didn't leave his eyes as he switched his gaze to Ilna. "If your father's name's Kenset…," he said. "And you come from Barca's Hamlet too…?"
"I do," Ilna said. From Ilna's expression, Sharina judged she wasn't best pleased to be interrogated this way, but she was holding her temper. Ilna had a lot of experience not being pleased, after all.
"Would you chance to know a fellow named Cashel, then?" Sidras said, surprising Sharina as much as if he'd suddenly jumped off the dock.
"He's my brother," said Ilna simply. "Though we're not a great deal alike."
"Huh!" said Sidras. "That's not whatI see, mistress, despite him getting all the bulk of the family. Unlock the gate, Mattion."
As the watchman fitted the four pins of his key into the slots in the padlock, Sidras looked his visitors over again and shook his head. "I'm letting you in," he said, "because if you two trust Master Chalcus I'll trust him too. But we may all three of us be the greatest fools ever born!"
Chalcus laughed. He bowed and gestured the women ahead of him with his left arm.
The bridge to the nearest of the three ships was wide enough for carts and as solid underfoot as the stone pavers of Harbor Street. Sidras walked alongside his three visitors while the guard stumped behind the group.
Sharina glanced at him over her shoulder; the fellow's expression was sullenly angry though she couldn't tell whether he was still worried about Chalcus or if he were simply a sullenly angry person. The Lady knew there were enough of them in the world, and the attitude was probably less of a handicap in a bodyguard than in most professions.
"We're here to see the goods you trade to the Serians," Chalcus said. "Not the silks and ceramics they bring to Carcosa, Master Sidras. I'm on a voyage to Valles by the northern route, and there's a few trifles I want to take along to make up my lading."
The freighter's original deck had been raised two levels with wood framing, increasing the enclosed volume considerably. It had already been a large vessel, much bigger than anything anchored normally in Carcosa Harbor now.
Echoing Sharina's thought aloud as they entered through the open doorway, Chalcus said, "She was in the grain trade from Tisamur to Blaise, was she not?"
He bent to scratch the deck with the nail of his index finger, illustrating his question and probably checking the soundness of the wood at the same time. "Great wallowing pigs, but as sturdy as the rocks of the shore itself, to be sure."
"Aye," said Sidras, not displeased. "She was to be broken up for her wood. I bought her in Blaise and had her towed here in the summer when the winds were as much to trusted as ever you can."
"As ever you can," Chalcus agreed. He put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room the factor had brought them into. It was a vast echoing hall, open save for wooden piers and the frames holding goods in bales and baskets.
Sharina's eyes took a moment to adjust to the light filtering through side windows. Half a dozen clerks, men and women both, were at work among the shelves; one of them was using a lantern.
"I'm readying a back cargo for the Serian ship docked at Clasbon's Factory," Sidras said, leading the way through the racked merchandise. The cross-aisles were offset from one another, so crossing the width of the ship was like walking a curving forest path. "Otherwise you'd have to come down into the hold if you wanted to see my Serian stores."
Sharina could only guess at most of the goods stacked about her. She walked around a pile of sacks whose contents had been emptied into wide storage jars. Ilna paused to run her fingertips across the coarse fabric; then she jerked her hand away and shook it with a look of distaste, as though something foul was sticking to her skin.
"Here, then," Sidras said with a gesture toward a row of pallets. Though it was morning, Sharina's eyes had adapted well enough to see by the light diffused through the broad windows in the west sidewall. "Anything in particular you're looking for, or do you plan a general cargo?"
The odors of the goods in the vast hall mixed with the miasma of the mudflats on which the vessel stood. The combined smell was a thing Sharina felt she could touch.
The pallet nearest to her held a pile of small sharks; they'd been sliced down the middle, sun-dried, and pressed flat. Blotches of orange mold grew on their dull gray skins. Next to them was a pallet stacked with dried sea cucumbers whose salt pungency reminded Sharina of the marsh grasses along Pattern Creek in the borough. The goods farther down the line continued the varied assortment of the sea's produce. Few of the items were food in Barca's Hamlet-or, Sharina suspected, in Carcosa either.
Chalcus and Sidras were examining a large unglazed pot which sat on a tray sealed with pitch to hold an inch of seawater. The bottom of the pot was dark because water was wicking through the raw earthenware.
Sidras lifted the lid; the smell of camphor breathed over the air around. The men bent forward cautiously, keeping well back from the opening as they looked within. Sharina hadn't heard their discussion; she stepped closer.
"Careful!" Sidras warned. "The camphor keeps them quiet, but you don't want to take chances with these."
Sharina glanced over to see that Ilna was examining bolts of dyed linen which had probably come from Blaise. Nodding-Why do I feel responsible for Ilna, who's managed her life with as little help as anyone I know?-Sharina peered into the pot. For a moment she saw only slick iridescence; then a small oval head rose.
"Enough," said Sidras, straightening up. He replaced the lid.
"Reef snakes," Chalcus explained. He grinned, but there was sweat on his brow. "They're little things that live on the reefs west of Haft and hunt fish. I've never heard of one longer than a man's arm."
"If they bite your hand," said Sidras, "it feels like you've stuck your arm in molten bronze. You start to swell right away, and after an hour or so you die."
"If you're bitten, you die," Chalcus said. His fingers were twitching where his swordhilt would've been if he'd not left the blade behind to seem less threatening. Some men fear spiders, some fear cats; and some men, even unquestionably brave men, are terrified by snakes. "And you're screaming to the end."
"The Serians eat these too?" Sharina asked. Compared to the sea cucumbers, a meal of snake meat didn't strike her as particularly disgusting.
"I think their healers use the poison," Sidras said, shaking his head. "They buy the snakes live and pay well enough for them, let me tell you. They have to, for there's few enough fishermen willing to risk the bite. I've heard men say that there's no real danger if you're careful, that they're sluggish devils and near-sighted besides. But I've never known anyone to gather them unless he was in more need of money than usual."
Ilna hadn't seemed to be paying attention, but as Chalcus looked up from the container of snakes she opened her hands to display the pattern she'd woven while she was turned away. Sharina caught a flash of it and felt momentarily warm, as though a cat had brushed her leg. Chalcus looked fixedly into the knotted cords for a moment, then hugged Ilna tight.
"You must think I'm a weak, frightened man, Master Sidras," he said with a laugh. He stepped away from Ilna and bowed to the factor.
"I do not," said Sidras. "An assistant of mine reached into the container on a dare once. He was a clumsy boy, and a fool, and a pilferer besides I shouldn't wonder. But he didn't deserve that death. Nobody does."
"Now these…," said Chalcus, moving to wicker baskets of conical seashells packed in straw mats to keep them from chipping one another. "Are new to me. You fish them from these waters?"
"We do now," said Sidras, pulling out one of the shells. It was slender and only a little longer than the merchant's middle finger. When he held it to catch the light, it shimmered with the colors of a brilliant sunset: purples and magentas and reds that shaded suddenly into indigo. "Lusius does, at any rate. Three years back the sea bottom rose west of the Calves-"
He glanced at Sharina and raised an eyebrow.
"Those are the three islands north of Haft," Chalcus explained. "Commander Lusius has his base on the easternmost, Corse."
"Aye," agreed Sidras. "And if Idid refuse to deal with folk because of the way they live, it wouldn't be the Serians and their idols I'd start with. But Lusius controls the belemite shell, and there's no lack of buyers for it."
He handed the shell to Chalcus, then drew out another one and offered it to Sharina. It was as delicate as eggshell, with a faint spiral pattern. She could see the shadow of her finger through the side.
Chalcus held the shell up and turned it. He said, "So the bottom rose and these-the belemites?"
"Aye," said Sidras, nodding. "They're little squids with shells, and that's what Lusius says they're called. He's got a wizard with him who learns things, I don't know how."
Sharina heard the strong implication that Sidras didn't want to know what wizards did. Sharina knew more about wizards than most people did-and based on her experience, Tenoctris was the only one who didn't deserve Sidras' prejudice.
"And the winged demons came at the same time?" Chalcus said.
"The Rua, right," said Sidras, scowling thoughtfully. "I don't know about them being demons, but they fly. They're sure not men like live around here."
He barked a laugh. "They fish for the shell too," he added, rummaging between baskets and coming up with a swatch of coarse fabric.
A net, Sharina thought, but Sidras shook it out and she saw it was a bag. The meshes were open enough hold objects the size of belemite shells but nothing smaller.
"Lusius fights the Rua for the shell," Sidras explained. "From what I hear he doesn't do a lot better than he does keeping them from raiding ships, but one of them dropped this bag when an archer pinked him."
"May I look at that?" Ilna said. Everybody turned, startled to be reminded that she was still present. Grinning wryly she went on, "I'm not interested in snakes or seashells, but cloth is another matter."
"Of course," said Sidras. Chalcus had already swept the bag from him and offered it to Ilna. She held it in one hand and ran the tips of the other fingers along the loose meshes.
Chalcus and the factor began talking about the Commander of the Strait and his troops. Sidras seemed to have lost his wariness of Chalcus, and their mutual dislike of Lusius added to their warmth.
Sharina examined the shell again. Then, turning her head, she glanced toward Ilna. Her friend was motionless; her eyes were open, but they weren't looking into anything in this world.
Sharina looked away, licking her lips. Ilna had a talent for fabric; it told her things that no one else could hear.
But Sharina herself had learned that not all secrets are good to know.
"Your highness…," said the servant, his face lowered so that he wasn't actually looking at Garric. He was one of the staff Lord Tadai had summoned from Valles, not a member of Count Lascarg's establishment. "The delegation from the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset has arrived under Senior Priest Moisin bor-Sacchiman."
The room Liane and Reise had chosen for Prince Garric's public business was on the ground floor of Lascarg's palace; Garric supposed it was meant for small entertainments or the overflow from large ones. The high ceiling had scenes painted in each coffered cell, though even now in daytime there wasn't enough light to be sure of the subjects. They weren't terribly well drawn, either: the Counts of Haft didn't attract artists as able as those who decorated the palaces of nobles on the more powerful islands.
From above shoulder height the sidewalls were frescoed with a design of birds on a seashore, but the lower walls were wainscoted in age-darkened oak. During a party there'd be crowding and drunken spills; rough usage wouldn't harm the wood, but plaster would flake off with the expense of repairs.
"His highness will see them now, Master Bessin," Liane said coolly, then returned her attention to the three stacks of documents laid out on the long table before her.
During the intervals between petitioners, she and Garric were going over proposed lists of officials for the new royal government on Haft. All of Garric's senior staff had clients and relatives to place, so the decisions had to be made as much on politics as merit.
Garric would've been happier to answer the servant himself-by Duzi, he'd rather have opened thedoor himself!- but everybody else seemed to want things complicated. Part of the point of his travels through the capitals of the western islands was to convince people that Garric was a prince, not some mumbling shepherd from the boondocks as they might have heard. That meant he had to act like a prince, however silly and uncomfortable he felt doing it.
"A lot of life is play-acting, lad," remarked the grinning image of Carus. "The silver plate on your armor won't turn a blade one whit better than plain bronze, but you have to wear it so that all your men can see you there leading them."
Behind Garric trilled birds in a silver cage, a gift from the Shepherd's priesthood earlier this morning. The birds were literally gold: four creations of metal which fluttered on their perches and sang with undiminished musicality so long as anyone was present in the room. A system of weights powered the device; the priestess who delivered the automaton said that it should be wound every the morning, but that the task could be performed by any scullion capable of turning a spit. The birds' song was oddly soothing, more so than the music alone should have been.
The servant made a signal to the ushers on the other side of the door; they drew back the double panels and bowed. Moisin, a tall man in silken robes, entered. He was flanked by a pair of Blood Eagles. The priest was bald to mid-skull and had an ascetic expression, belied perhaps by the fact his garb must have cost as much as a good horse. Behind him, four underlings carried a large object draped in brocade on a hand barrow.
Moisin bowed deeply. "Your highness," he said, "the congregation of the Lady asked me to bring this token of our joy at your visit to us here in Carcosa."
He turned and nodded an order to his juniors; they set the barrow on the parquet floor and stepped aside. With a conjuror's flourish, Moisin whipped off the cover. Beneath was a wide-mouthed urn more than four feet high. It was made of translucent, gray-green stone polished to a mirror sheen.
"It's lovely," murmured Liane under her breath. She got up from the table where she'd been working on accounts and walked toward the urn as if entranced. Moisin smirked minusculely. "The pattern is… lovely!"
Garric rose also, even more impressed than he'd been by the mechanical birds. Neither gift would change his behavior toward the priesthoods of Carcosa, but they were marvelous things beyond question.
Light from the room's north windows behind him struck a pattern through the walls of the urn. The gray to gray-green to green shadings were as faint as the mergings of color within a rainbow, but they made Garric feel happier andsafe; as safe as when he was an infant wrapped in his featherbed, knowing his parents would protect him.
"The stone is cryolite, ice spar," Moisin said, anticipating the question which Garric hadn't gotten around to asking. "It's only found on the Ice Capes and rarely in blocks so big as this one. Some say that it's ice from the bottom of glaciers, compressed into stone."
"It's lovely," Liane repeated. She reached out but didn't quite permit her fingers to touch the smooth walls. They had the sheen of liquid light; it was hard to tell where the stone ended and the air began.
"I want to be very clear," Garric said, raising his voice beyond what his arm's length separation from Moisin required. "My government will almost certainly make major changes in the structure and power of the priesthoods in Carcosa. You already know that. Absolutely nothing you give me, not this-"
He gestured without looking. It was hard to keep his train of thought and his necessary harshness if the urn were in his line of vision.
"-not a pile of gold as big as this palace, nothing, will affect the decisions of my government."
"That much gold would pay the army's wages for three years…," mused Carus. His image was smiling, but his reminder that everything-even rectitude-required moderation was serious.
"Of course the congregation of the Shepherd understands your honesty and the needs of the kingdom, your highness," Moisin said, bowing again. "Our concern is only that you realize that those who worship the Shepherd rejoice as warmly in your visit to Haft as every other citizen does."
The priest smiled knowingly. His half-nodmight have been meant to indicate the birds twittering in their joy.
Garric cleared his throat. "Very well," he said. "You may assure your fellows that their gift has been accepted on the terms that they offered it."
Moisin bowed again and turned. His underlings continued to stare at the urn, as entranced as Liane herself. With an angry snap of his fingers Moisin recalled them to their duty; they trailed from the room with him. The Blood Eagles marched out also, though one darted a final glance over his shoulder at the stone's lustrous beauty.
Liane's hand sought Garric's. Only when she touched him did she meet his eyes and smile, then walked back to her duty.
"I'm leery about accepting gifts from the priesthoods," Garric said, "even if we're not going to change our minds because of them. But I guess these things may as well be here with us as in vaults in the basement of some temple."
"Yes," said Liane. "I think so too."
And the birds trilled music sweeter than anything that came from a living throat.
Ilna stood silent, her mind looking out over the warm, lush world where the net bag had been woven. A shallow sea stretched from horizon to horizon, marked by coral heads and masses of vegetation which hid whatever land there was for them to root upon.
A soft wind barely riffled the water. Through it, some as high as the sun itself while others skimmed the glassy surface, flew the winged men, the Rua. They were as inhuman as so many cats, but like cats their slimly-muscular bodies were beautiful and their movements were perfectly graceful.
Ilna's fingers stroked the bag, barely touching it. The long, strong fibers spun to form the meshes came from the inner bark of shrubs growing on the distant islets; sheknew that as she would know the sun was shining by the feel of its rays on her skin. Her body wasn't in this waking dream, but the senses that made Ilna a weaver like no other person alive saw and heard with a clarity that her eyes and ears could never equal.
The Rua called to one another in high, fluting voices. Had Ilna heard the sound in Barca's Hamlet, she'd have taken it for gulls' cries, but these were rich and didn't have the birds' metallic timbre.
When a flyer passed close to her vantage point, Ilna saw that its skull was more oval than a human's and that its teeth were small and blunt. Its wings stretched from little fingers longer than a human forearm and back to its thighs. The material was stiff though thin as air, like a fish's fin rather than the taut skin membranes of a bat.
Ilna was standing on-she was watching from; she had no body, only senses-the top of a volcanic cone which rose steeply from the water. Only a few shrubs with small waxy leaves managed to grow on the gray slopes beneath her.
One of the Rua coursed the sea just below Ilna's vantage, dipping its legs with the quick, precise motion of a bird drinking. After each dab the legs kicked forward, tossing a gleaming object into the bag the creature held in both hands.
After the fourth grab, the creature flew up the side of the cone with the short, powerful wingbeats of a hawk. It-she: the Rua had two flat dugs to either side of her deep breastbone-swooped past Ilna to drop into the volcano's sheer-walled interior. Her bag was full of belemites, their tiny tentacles writhing over their iridescent shells.
Ilna opened her hands, feeling the rough fibers fall from her fingers. With the bag, the world of her vision slipped away. She blinked in the dim light of Sidras' warehouse.
Sharina was watching her sidelong with a worried expression. Ilna smiled tightly, picked up the bag-it was only network of tough cord now-and handed it her friend.
"They'll be delivered to your vessel tonight, then, and I wish you joy of them!" Sidras said.
"Aye," said Chalcus with a laugh that wasn't as wholly carefree as it usually sounded. Ilna's eyes narrowed. He spat on his right palm and held his hand out to Sidras to grip, sealing the bargain they'd made while Ilna was in her reverie. "It may be that I'll find myself in a place where they'll be the only hope of joy there is. Though that's not a thought that pleases me, Master Sidras."
Chalcus threw up his outer tunic to reach the money belt he wore beneath it. Before he could open the supple leather flap, Sidras laid two fingers on his wrist.
"Hold a moment, lad," the factor said. "You mean this cargo for Lusius, is that not so?"
"It may be that I do," said Chalcus. Then with an edge of challenge in his voice as he went on, "Aye, if I deliver it at all, I'd judge it would be to your Commander of the Strait. What is that to you?"
"Just this," said Sidras, withdrawing his hand. "Take the goods on consignment for me, then, rather than paying for them. I'm an old man or perhaps I'd go with you myself to help with the delivery."
Chalcus laughed merrily and clasped arms with Sidras. "You're not such an old man now, Master Sidras, that I wouldn't press you to join us were not my crew full for the voyage," he said. "But aye, I'll deliver them in your name."
He turned with laughter bubbling behind his eyes and said, "Now, my fine ladies, let's take ourselves to the palace. You have your duties to attend, my blond friend; Mistress Ilna and I have good-byes to say and many a thread of business to tie up!"
"Halt!" ordered the officer of the guard. The Blood Eagles in front of and behind Cashel and Tenoctris clashed their boots down on the flagstones. Cashel didn't see why soldiers had to do everything with flash and noise, but it wasn't his place to tell them their business.
The guards were with Tenoctris. Cashel figured that if he needed help, it wasn't something a bunch of soldiers could give him. Garric had agreed.
Temples weren't a part of Cashel's life before he left Barca's Hamlet less than a year before, so he hadn't had any clear notion of what the Shrine of the Prophesying Sister would look like. It turned out to be a trim little semicircle of pillars with a tile roof, built into the rocky slope. It looked down on Carcosa Harbor and what Garric had said was the oldest part of the city.
It all seemed pretty old to Cashel. The millhouse where he'd grown up dated from the Old Kingdom, but that was home; he'd never thought of it as being ancient, the way he did Carcosa's crumbling city walls and the weed-grown hills that once were buildings.
The two hired bearers set down the sedan chair in which Tenoctris sat reading a scroll. One man wiped his forehead with the dangling ends of the kerchief he wore as a sweat band. "It's heavy work," Cashel said in sympathy.
"Yeah, but she don't weigh nothing," said the bearer. He patted the seat back. "All the weight's in the chair, and that's a right plenty when the road's so steep they cut steps."
"We're there, then?" Tenoctris said, looking around brightly while her fingers rewound the book. It was a simple leather scroll wound on sticks of plain wood without the gilding and decoration some books had. It looked old, though, and if Tenoctris was choosing to read it now, it was probably important.
"Yes, milady," said the palace servant who'd been the party's guide up the path's steps and switchbacks. "The Shrine of the Prophesying Sister."
The roofed portion of the building was small, but Cashel could see that the rock had been dug out deeply beyond. A stern-looking man with a full black beard came from the doorway and bowed to the newcomers. Instead of priestly robes, he wore a pair of gray tunics-plain but of cloth tightly woven by a skillful craftsman.
Cashel grinned as he helped Tenoctris out of the chair. Ilna'd approve of the tunics, both of their workmanship and their simplicity.
"Lady Tenoctris," the bearded man said, ignoring Cashel as well as the guards and attendants, "it's an honor to greet a scholar of your stature! I'm Horife or-Handit and I've written a little work debunking the superstitious belief in prophecy. I'm sure you won't have read it…?"
He bustled toward them, apparently expecting to push past the soldiers. The officer of the guard grabbed a handful of Horife's beard and jerked him back. The priest-hewas a priest, wasn't he?-gave a startled squawk.
"I'm afraid I haven't read your book, Master Horife," Tenoctris said. A faint smile was her only acknowledgment of the way the guards had handled the fellow. "My reading is sadly out of date, which I regret. I used to wonder what it would be like to live an active life. Now that I'm living one, I find I have very little time to read, my greatest pleasure when I was a poor scholar."
"Ah," said Horife, smoothing the beard which the soldier had released when he stepped backward. "Well, of course, I didn't think you had…"
Though he'd certainly hoped it.
Horife cleared his throat and continued, "In any case, Lady Tenoctris, I'm happy to welcome you to the Shrine of the Prophesying Sister. Ours is, I'm proud to say, the oldest continuously-used religious structure in Carcosa."
He raised his right hand with the index finger extended. "Now, I know what you're thinking-that the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset is older, but in fact that temple has been rebuilt seven times since its original construction. The excavated portion ofour shrine dates back to the pre-dynastic settlement of the area. The-"
"Excuse me, Master Horife," said Tenoctris, politely but firmly. "While this history would be interesting in its place, we came here hoping to enter the structure and examining it. Would that be possible?"
"It sure would," growled the officer of the guard, who'd been promoted from the ranks. He was a scarred veteran, bald when he took off his helmet. "And if you'd like Master Fuzzy here to stop chattering in your ear, you just say the word and you won't see him again. All right?"
"What?" said Horife angrily. Then he must have realized what the soldier meant-and that hedid mean it. "Oh my goodness!"
"I'd like Master Horife to come with us quietly," Tenoctris said with her faint smile. "I'd like him to be able to answer any questions we have."
"I've got a question," said Cashel. He guessed he sounded like he was offering a fight; which maybe he was, if he'd heard what he thought he had. "You're a priest, right? And your shrine tells the future, that's what prophesy means, Sharina told me. So how did you write a book that says it's superstition?"
Horife blinked and turned to Tenoctris. "Pardon me, milady, but who is this person?"
"My companion, Cashel or-Kenset," Tenoctris said dryly. "I've never in our association found his judgments to be flawed. I'm sure that's more important to a scholar like you, Master Horife, than the fact he's Prince Garric's closest friend from childhood."
Horife gaped at Cashel, his eyes lingering longest on the thick, polished length of the quarterstaff. Cashel wasn't even angry. Horife was a puppy; he didn't know how to behave, but you don't kick puppies.
"Ah," said Horife. "Master Cashel, I assure you that no one could be more faithful in the preservation and restoration of this wonderful cultural icon than I am. I've spent years…"
His voice trailed off as he realized that he wasn't answering the question. Starting over, Horife said, "The basin in which Carcosa lies is an ancient volcanic crater, you see. Gas seeps through cracks in the rock and into the cave that was the original sanctum of the Sister. I, ah, describe this fully in my book. The gas induces, ah, dreams which, ah, conventionally religious people have believed were prophetic."
Horife cleared his throat. "Ah, in recent generations there haven't been gas flows of the strength of those in the past, but if you'd care to enter the sanctum I'd be delighted to show you the cracks?"
"Yes, we would," Tenoctris said. To the officer of the guard she added, "I don't believe that Master Horife will be a danger to us, sir, and space inside is obviously limited."
"You've got that right," the soldier said, probably referring to both Tenoctris' statements. "Siuvaz, you're the smallest. You go in with them and the rest of us'll stay out here. Just take your sword."
A soldier who wasn't any taller than Ilna handed his spear and shield to his fellows, then took off his helmet as well and drew his sword. Cashel didn't see much need for a guard, but there probably wasn't need either for his quarterstaff, which he was going to take anyway. "Go ahead," he said to Horife.
The priest led them into the pillared porch. He paused and gestured to the floor, a mosaic of simple white rosettes on a black background. "When I became director, that ispriest…," Horife said, "of the shrine, I had the garish modern pavement taken up and restored the pattern which we found on the lowest level."
Tenoctris nodded and gestured him on. Horife bowed, then bowed again to Cashel when he recalled that Cashel was a person. He entered the square anteroom.
As Cashel followed Horife, he glanced at the black and white marble and wondered what the garish decorations had been. He liked pictures; they were the best part of living in cities, it seemed to him. Of course, to Cashel there weren't many other good parts about cities.
Horife pulled back the curtain of white linen which separated the anteroom from the tunnel in the back. It'd started as a natural cave, but it'd been squared up and the walls polished a long time ago. Somebody'd even cut fluted half-columns to either side of the opening to look like pillars.
"The curtain was black when I was appointed," Horife said in a disgusted tone. "I'm sure it'd been black for generations, but that's quite wrong. Rank superstition!"
Tenoctris looked about her with a bright, quizzical expression. When wizards spoke their incantations, the spells gave off a kind of light that anybody could see; but Tenoctris was able to view the raw forces with which she and other wizards worked. It was like being able to see the wind, not just watching trees move. Judging from her smile, she wasn't finding anything that bothered her.
"Now here," said Horife, "is the sanctum and the incubation couch."
He drew in his lips at a thought, then added for Cashel's benefit, "That is, the couch where the petitioner sleeps in order to receive dreams from the goddess, according to tradition. In some periods the priest recounted his dream to the principal, but as far back as records go there are examples of the principal himself sleeping in the sanctum. Either practice is quite authentic."
"I'd like to go in, please," said Tenoctris. She started forward, but Cashel held her arm till gently the priest had hopped in ahead of them. Cashel followed him, letting the little soldier bring up the rear.
It wasn't likely anything was going to happen. But things did happen sometimes, to sheep and to people besides. Cashel liked to be in the way of trouble if there was going to be any.
When you got in a double pace, the cave swelled to the size of a peasant's hut or a bit more. The inner walls had decorative carving, but the workmen hadn't had to open them out the way they'd done the entrance. This was hard rock, not limestone that dripping water could eat away. Cashel wondered if a bubble had cooled in lava back when Carcosa had been a volcano.
Wax candles burned in wall sconces, lighting things better than Cashel would've guessed. The black rock shone like polished metal and reflected each flame into many.
Across the back wall was a couch carved into the rock. Cashel judged he could lie there without knocking his head, but Garric-who was a hand's breadth taller-would have to bend his knees to fit. Not that either of them were likely to try.
"Now," said Horife, kneeling beside the end of the couch raised for a headrest, "if you'll look here, milady-run your fingers across the stone here if you will, that'll show you better. And Master Cashel too, if you'd like."
Tenoctris obediently sat on the couch, then bent to touch the floor with her fingertips. Cashel could see that there were little cracks all across the bottom of the chamber, like the glazing on an old pot. Frowning, he ran his hand over the wall. So far as he could tell, that was solid. He didn't want to be in here if there was a cave-in. They were well up the hill, but there was still enough rock overhead to squash them flat if it landed on them.
The soldier, Siuvaz, was looking around the same as Cashel was; there was no way for an enemy to come at them except by the way they'd entered. Cashel tried to figure out the reliefs carved into the walls, but no matter how he held his head the glint of light on the glassy stone kept him from being sure what he was seeing. It wasn't anything ugly or sick, anyhow. Some of the things he'd seen since he started to travel made him wonder about people, Duzi knew they did!
Horife was talking to Tenoctris about gas entering the chamber through the cracks in the floor. Cashel didn't see what that had to do with having dreams, let alone seeing the future, but so long as Tenoctris was happy it didn't matter. There was a funny smell in the room with maybe a hint of sulphur, but nothing so bad it even made his nose wrinkle.
Tenoctris got up from the stone couch. Cashel offered her a hand to grip if she wanted, but she ignored it. Nobody likes to be treated like they're helpless, and Tenoctris was pretty spry except when she was completely exhausted.
"I think we've seen what we needed to, Master Horife," she said. "Your shrine has interesting resonances, but there's nothing here that need concern Garric."
Except how you're going to make it hold more than a double handful of people, even if you do it out front, Cashel thought, just like Liane said. But that was no concern of his.
An earthshock threw Horife off his feet; Tenoctris bounced back onto the couch. When Cashel instinctively braced his staff against the sidewall to stay upright, the iron buttcap sparkled with red wizardlight. Rock squealed like ice cracking under enormous weight.
Cashel lifted Tenoctris and cradled her in his left arm. She was moaning faintly. He hoped she hadn't been badly hurt, but you couldn't tell with old people.
The cracks in the stone floor had widened. Smoke poured out of them, but it wasn't just smoke: it glowed with the same unearthly color as the sparks Cashel's staff had struck from the wall.
Siuvaz stood groggily, rubbing his eyes with his left hand. He'd hit the wall hard and dropped his sword, which he didn't seem to have noticed yet.
The strands were merging into something with the head of an enormous snake. It was between Cashel and the only exit from the stone chamber.
Horife was on all fours, shaking his head to clear it. He looked up and saw the serpent of wizardlight, growing increasingly solid as the vapors from deep in the earth congealed into its body. Horife screamed and sprang like a sprinter toward the exit.
The creature of smoke struck, sinking its glowing fangs into the priest's torso. His arms and legs shot straight out. Cashel expected Horife to scream, but only a froth of spittle came out of his mouth.
Cashel tossed Tenoctris to the soldier. "Get her out!" he shouted, his voice echoing louder than the rumbling aftershocks.
Cashel didn't wonder whether the passage was blocked, whether Suivaz would obey, whether the half-stunned soldier would even be able to catch the wizard so casually thrown to him. He didn't wonder about anything, justdid the only thing that might help-slamming his quarterstaff endwise into the serpent's flat head.
The staff's ferrule struck the glowing smoke. A roar of blue wizardlight flung Cashel into the wall behind him. He didn't notice hitting the rock, but both his hands tingled where they gripped the staff.
The serpent of smoke jerked upright, releasing its victim. Horife bounced off the ceiling and dropped to the floor. His limbs were still rigid and his face was turning black. The serpent didn't show any injury, but it'd felt the stroke; now it wove slowly side to side as it watched Cashel. Its head was as long as a horse's but wedge-shaped and much broader at the back.
"Ready!" Suivaz shouted, hunched over Tenoctris whom he held in both arms.
The iron buttcap Cashel struck with the first time still glowed red hot from the impact. He rotated his staff a half turn and shouted, "Go!" He struck again, his quarterstaff a battering ram crashing into the serpent's skull.
Azure thunder surrounded him. He didn't feel the staff strike, but the stone floor was no longer beneath his feet. He was falling and his lungs burned. He fell for a lifetime until A figure stepped through the fiery darkness to face him. A woman, Cashel thought, though it might have been a boy; she wore a shift of some shimmering material.
"Who are you?" he said. His throat felt like it'd been rasped.
"I'm Kotia," she said, her voice more clearly female than her form. "I've come to find a champion. Will you follow me and do my will?"
The serpent had disappeared. So had the cave and anything but the sparkling whirlwind encircling them. "I want to go back to my friends!" Cashel croaked.
Kotia shrugged. "You can come with me or you can stay and die," she said. "You can't go back. If you choose to stay, I'll find someone else. There are many souls in this place."
Her eyes narrowed as she examined Cashel again. With for the first time a touch of emotion she added, "Though you would be very suitable."
Cashel paused, his big hands squeezing hard on the quarterstaff. He didn't know what being Kotia's champion would mean; but he did know about death, at least from this side of existence, and the rest could wait at least a little longer.
"All right," he said. "I'll come with you."
Kotia reached out a hand. Cashel took it in one of his. Together they stepped through the wall of wizardlight.