Ilna waited with her palms closed before her, holding a neatly folded pattern between them. She hadn't woven the yarn for Princess Perrine's arrival: her fingers had woven it because she had time and the situation might become unpleasant.
Ilna found most situations more or less unpleasant. The only time she was regularly content was when she stood at her loom with no concerns but the work before her. Even before her trip to the Underworld she'd been able to create wonderful pieces, pieces that she could look on with pride.
But instead of doing that, she was in a grove on northern Blaise, looking for a man she'd never met to help a man she didn't particularly like. Well, be fair: she didn't particularly like most people, men or women both. And though this was uncomfortable, she was usually uncomfortable.
Ilna os-Kenset liked to make things work. She was so skilled a weaver that even a complex fabric didn't really stretch her talents. Making people fit together properly was much more of a challenge—
She gave Ingens a cold smile that made him stiffen.
—and one where she was by no means sure of her success.
A pair of apes wearing peaked caps and red vests walked through the dogwoods on their hind legs, lifting the lower branches out of the way for those following. Even upright they were shorter than a man—shorter than her, as a matter of fact—but their shoulders were broad. Ilna knew from experience that the apes' muscles were more like wire ropes than they were to the flesh of humans.
The apes looked as dull as field hands in the middle of the harvest. Not harmless, exactly: in Barca's Hamlet there'd been brutal fights in the evenings every fall, some of them ending in cracked skulls or fatal stabbings by the knives all peasants carried. Well, the apes weren't drunk at the moment.
A youth and girl of twenty or so—they looked younger, but Ilna suspected their delicate features were fooling her—followed the leading apes. There were as alike as twins. Another pair of apes shambled behind them on all fours.
"That's the Princess Perrine," Ingens whispered hoarsely. "I don't know who the man is."
"I'm Ilna os-Kenset," Ilna said. "I'm here to return Master Hervir or-Halgran to his family in Pandah. Will you bring him to me, please."
No one listening to her tone of voice could've mistaken the final sentence for a question.
"Mistress Ilna!" said the youth in apparent delight. The leading apes stopped and dropped forward onto the knuckles of their hands; he strode past them with his arms out and his hands spread. "I'm Prince Perrin and this is my sister Perrine. We're so glad to meet you!"
"And Master Ingens," said the girl, mincing toward the secretary with quick little steps. She too extended her hands, but her arms weren't spread so wide. "I was so afraid I'd never see you again. Oh, it's wonderful that you've returned, Ingens."
Brother and sister wore matching shirts with puffed sleeves, red vests like the apes' outfits, and baggy pantaloons. Their scarlet slippers had up-curling toes; there were little silver bells on Perrine's, the only difference in their garb.
"Master Perrin!" Ilna said, raising her hands slightly; she didn't open them yet. "Please don't come closer!"
The youth halted as abruptly as if she'd pointed a pitchfork at his eyes. Either her tone had drawn him up, or more likely he at least suspected what the pattern between her palms would do to him if she displayed it.
"Please, mistress," the girl said, dropping onto one knee and tenting her hands toward Ilna before rising again. "We didn't mean to offend you. We were just delighted to have visitors so pleasant as yourself and Master Ingens."
"Princess, we're here to find Hervir," Ingens said. "He didn't return after he went off with you."
"Why, of course he returned," Perrin said in apparent surprise. "We offered him refreshment and showed him the crocus fields, but he went back to the waking world by mid afternoon."
"He was supposed to visit us again before nightfall," said Perrine. "To have dinner with us and our father."
"And to close the deal," said the prince. "He said he'd bring the money when he came back."
"Though . . . ," said Perrine, turning her face away but looking sidelong at the secretary. "I shouldn't say this, but . . . I was hoping that he might send you instead, Master Ingens. There was something about you that, well . . . I'm embarrassed to say what I thought. What I'm thinking."
"Hervir didn't come back," Ilna said. "Fetch him to us now."
Part of her mind wondered what she'd do if the couple simply walked through the brush the way they'd come and vanished; she very much doubted that their plantation was on the other side of a band of dogwoods and aspens. But the fact they'd come in the first place showed that they wanted something from her and Ingens.
"But mistress," Perrin said, his face scrunched with worry. "We can't 'fetch,' as you say, someone who's already left us."
"Brother?" said Perrine, looking even more concerned. "You don't suppose . . .?"
She looked from Ilna to Ingens and turned her palms up. "We offered to escort him to the waking world, Perrin and I," she said earnestly. "There are . . . well . . . ."
"There can be dangers between the planes of the universes," said Perrin, "but not often. Still, we offered to guide Master Hervir."
"Hervir wouldn't hear of it," said Perrine. "Why, you know how headstrong he was, Master Ingens. He slapped his sword and said he didn't need a nursemaid."
"I think he was showing off for my sister," Perrin said sadly. "Master Ingens, I don't want to say anything against a friend of yours, but Hervir was clearly taken by Perrine. Understandably, of course, but he was distressed, distraught even, that she didn't reciprocate his affections."
"He was a nice enough boy," the princess said. "If I hadn't met him first at your side, Ingens, I might not have found him so hopelessly callow."
She touched the secretary's wrist, her face shyly turned to the side. Ilna glowered at her; Perrine jerked her hand away.
"Please, we're very sorry if anything's happened to Hervir," Perrin said. "I don't know how we can convince you that he was in rude good health when he left us. Perhaps if you'd care to visit the plantation yourselves . . .?"
"Oh, please!" said the princess. She grasped Ingens' hands, only to drop them quickly under the lash of Ilna's eyes. "Our father would be so glad to meet you both!"
"Mistress Ilna," said Perrin. His hands lifted slightly, but he jerked them back to his sides before she could react. "I . . . it's painful to me that you doubt our good faith. If you would come with us, you could see that we're innocent farmers, unarmed—"
He gestured with both hands to the broad golden sash holding up his pantaloons. Neither sword nor dagger were thrust through its wraps.
"—protected only by our separation from the waking world."
Ilna glanced at the apes seated on the ground nearby. One was combing the fur of another for fleas; a third had found hickory nuts and was cracking them at the side of his massive jaws, then spitting out the debris. As best Ilna could tell, he wasn't swallowing the contents; ordinarily, any nut that the squirrels left was wormy. The last scratched both armpits simultaneously and hooted softly to herself.
"All right," she said. "We'd like to see your farm. Perhaps we'll find some clue to Hervir's disappearance."
Perrin and Perrine gabbled their pleasure. Again their hands lifted but were snatched back before they touched Ilna and Ingens. "Oh, father will be so pleased!" the princess said.
"Yes, come this way," said Perrin. "It's quite simple, really, and perfectly safe."
"Come along, Ingens," Ilna said. The secretary looked less than enthusiastic until the delicate princess stood on tiptoe to whisper into his ear.
Ilna frowned but said nothing as she followed Perrin around the big oak. Usun was a solid weight in the rolled cloak, but he remained silent and as still as a sandbag. He was a hunter, all right.
So was Ilna, she supposed. She wasn't sure what her prey was this time, but she expected that she'd learn before long.
Garric walked into the temple, holding both fillets in his left hand. Behind him Tenoctris sat cross-legged on the ground, chanting into a circle she'd outlined in finely divided metal—silver, he thought, but he hadn't asked. The amber athame rose and fell as she spoke the words of power.
King Carus was poised in Garric's mind, keyed to the edge of berserk violence. Carus had never been comfortable with wizardry, and being drowned in a wizard-raised maelstrom hadn't made him like it better. He knew that Tenoctris was a friend and he accepted that what she was doing was necessary—
But he still didn't like it.
It bothered Garric that Tenoctris used an athame now. She'd always done her incantations with slivers of bamboo which she discarded after using only once. She'd said that because athames and wands collected power with each further spell, they were likely to muddle the work of all but the greatest wizards.
By risking her life and soul, Tenoctris had become one of the most powerful wizards of all time. Her bobbing athame reminded Garric both of the danger she'd undergone and of the danger to mankind which had driven her to take that risk.
His boots tapped on the marble floor. The stone was highly polished, which meant it didn't get much use—if any. Marble is soft.
The golden nymphs watched Garric from just outside the entrance, standing beside the plinths on which they'd been set as caryatids. Were they real women who'd been turned to metal, or were they metal brought to life?
But that didn't matter.
Garric looked down at the massive skeleton. The bones were completely disarticulated; not even shreds of cartilage bound the joints together. How long had Munn lain here?
But that didn't matter either.
Rather than simply lift the bone of the upper arm, Garric worked one of the fillets over the fingers and wrist, then up the forearm. Only then did he slide the silver band onto what would've been the biceps of a living man.
Tenoctris had told him what to say, but she hadn't suggested how he should place the fillets. This just had seemed right to him when he faced the task. When he faced the bones of the ancient hero.
He walked around the foot of the catafalque, holding the remaining fillet. He thought he heard the bones rattle. Perhaps there'd been an earth shock, perhaps it was just his imagination. The light which curled through the solid panel was disturbing as well as deceptive.
Garric had thought that he'd be more comfortable facing away from the rainbow flood so it couldn't trick him with what he almost saw in its light. Having it behind him was actually worse. Carus' instincts kept trying to spin him around with the sword ready, certain that something hostile was poised to leap.
"There is, lad!" the ghost said. "There's something and it's an enemy!"
That may be, thought Garric. But my job is to put these arm rings on the skeleton, and I can only do that with my back to the light. I will do my job.
King Carus laughed. "Death isn't so bad," he said as Garric worked the fillet up Munn's left arm as he had the right. "Maybe running away because you're afraid to die wouldn't be too bad either, but people like you and me are never going to know that. Sorry, lad."
With the second fillet in place, Garric returned to the entrance. He stood just inside, where he could see both Munn and the panel of light without blocking the wizard's view. She continued to chant, shifting now onto a rising note. The nymphs looked back at him with cold, sad eyes.
"Eulamo!" Tenoctris shrieked in a near falsetto. Instead of thrusting her athame into the ground as Garric had expected, she turned the point straight up. A blast of scarlet wizardlight suffused the interior of the temple, glowing in and through the walls.
Garric stepped back reflexively, bumping the doorpost. He blinked, though he knew it wasn't his physical eyes that the flash had dazzled.
Lord Munn rose from the bier, hefting his great iron sword. He wore a simple garment of green wool with a black zigzag along the hems. A carved wooden pin over the left shoulder closed it, leaving his right shoulder bare.
The marble catafalque shivered into dust motes, dancing and settling in the illumination of the wall panel. Munn raised the sword high and boomed out laughter. His hair and beard were black and full and curling.
He lowered the sword and let his eyes rest on Garric. "So . . . ," he said in a voice that rasped like thunder. "You, boy? Are you the one who called me from the sleep that I have earned?"
He was a giant, easily seven feet tall; the crude sword was in scale with him.
Garric laughed in turn. It wasn't an act: Carus was in his element here. They wouldn't have needed Tenoctris' coaching to know how to handle this.
"Lord Munn," said Garric, standing arms akimbo. "When you speak to me, remember not only that you speak to a king, but that you speak to your king. I am Garric, prince and ruler of this world. I have called you to do your duty."
"And what is my duty, then?" Munn said. There was nothing pacific in his tone, but he lowered the sword and rested its rounded tip on the floor in front of him. Even for him, it was a two-handed weapon.
"When you speak to your king, milord," Garric said, "do so with proper courtesy!"
Munn bowed over his sword, then rose to meet Garric's eyes again. "What do you say my duty is, your majesty?" he said.
In Garric's court and when he addressed the citizens of the kingdom he ruled, he kept the fiction that the king was still Valence the Third, who lived in a dream of the past in his quarters in Valles. Here, though, he accepted the honorific "your majesty" due a reigning monarch.
"Milord," Garric said. "The Gate of Ivory is open. The sleep of the dead is being disturbed to aid the forces of Evil against the Good. Close the gate."
The big man's laughter boomed. "What do I know of good and evil?" he said.
"You know your duty, do you not, Lord Munn?" Garric said. He didn't try to out shout the giant, but no one could doubt either the power of his voice or the authority in it.
"Yes, your majesty," Munn said. "My worst enemies have never denied that."
He smiled, an expression that Garric had seen often on the more chiseled features of the ghost in his mind. It had no humor, but there was a fierce, unquenchable joy.
Lord Munn raised his sword to a slant across his chest, his right hand leading. Turning, he strode toward the flood of light. His bare feet whipped swirls from the exiguous remains of what had been a block of marble.
Tenoctris was chanting again. Garric wasn't sure she'd ever stopped: he'd been so focused on Lord Munn that anything less threatening—
"I've seen bloody few things that were more threatening than that fellow," Carus said.
—might have gone on without his notice.
Munn halted, his massive body silhouetted against the radiance, and shrugged to loosen his muscles. He hunched slightly. Then to both Garric's surprise and his ancestor's, Munn strode forward and vanished in the blaze of light.
Garric opened his mouth to call, but closed it in silence. Shouting at a rainbow-lighted slab of marble seemed pointless even in his present state of surprise. He turned to speak to Tenoctris. She sat as she'd done from the start, chanting in the soft rhythm of a lullaby. He shouldn't—and probably couldn't—disturb her.
I could ask the nymphs.
"Watch the place he went through the wall," said Carus harshly. "It may not be him that comes out. And it wouldn't hurt to have your sword ready."
Garric grinned wryly. He left his sword in the sheath, knowing how swiftly his ancestor's reflexes could clear it if need arose, but Carus was right that they weren't here to ask questions.
There was a change. At first Garric thought that it was his imagination or an overload on his eyes, but the stream of light through the wall really was growing fainter. He risked a glance back at Tenoctris. Her eyelids slumped and her body swayed, but she continued to chant softly.
Lord Munn stepped out of the wall. He too swayed. Without thinking, Garric strode to the big man's side and steadied him, a hand on his left elbow and a hand on his right hip. The play of sinews and muscles beneath Munn's skin was more like that of a horse's body than a man's.
The light stopped, leaving only its memory and darkness. The wizard's incantation ceased as well.
"Have I done my duty, your majesty?" Munn said in a voice of rusty thunder.
"Yes, milord," Garric's lips said, but it was the king in his mind who was speaking. "The ones who send our sort know that we'll always do our duty, don't they?"
Lord Munn laughed. "Help me outside, your majesty," he said. "It's been a long time."
He laughed again. "It's been ages, hasn't it?"
They shuffled through the doorway. Garric was supporting much of the big man's weight, but Munn still carried his sword. It had come back with a violet sparkle on both edges, but that faded by the time they were out of the temple.
Tenoctris got carefully to her feet. Normally Garric would've been helping her, but his present duty was to Lord Munn.
"I'll sit here," Munn said. Garric squatted, continuing to take more than his own weight on his shoulders. The big man bent with a caution that was painful to watch.
"Milord?" Garric said. "What can I get you?"
"You can return me to my rest, your majesty," Munn whispered. He leaned back, at first on his elbows, then lowering his back to the turf. He sighed and closed his eyes.
He said, "Take off the armlets. You have to do it yourself—I can't."
"Yes, milord," Garric said. He was whispering too. He carefully worked off one silver band; Munn took that hand from his sword hilt, then gripped the weapon again when his arm was bare.
"Give the armlets back to the girls, though, your majesty," Munn said. His voice was scarcely audible. "Because you may need me again. I will do my duty if you call me."
Garric pulled the second fillet clear; the muscular body fell again into a rack of bones. Garric rose to his feet.
"Of course, milord," he said softly. "Your worst enemies could never doubt that."
Garric held out the fillets to the nymphs. They giggled and traded the bands; he'd offered each the wrong one. They whispered among themselves, but Garric turned his back on them: he only wanted to get out of this place.
"Tenoctris?" he said. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, Garric," she said. "Though you may have to help me."
"Yes," said Garric, putting his arm around the wizard's waist and letting her grip his shoulder. "That's my duty, after all."
Together they walked through the woodland to where the boat would be waiting to return them to the waking world.
Up close, Cashel saw he was looking at more of a palace than a castle, though just the same it was built to make it hard for anybody to break in. The windows on the ground floor and the one above were too narrow for anything bigger than a cat to squirm through.
Those on the top floor used to be barred with thumb-thick iron. Now several grills sagged in the moonlight, meaning the hinges had rusted through. Cashel didn't have to worry about climbing up there and wrenching an entrance, because the front door was ajar. The edge stood a hand's breadth out from the jamb, and blue light flickered through the crack.
He grinned. It'd been a stout door when it was new, but age and lack of care had been hard on it too. There were statues in niches to either side of the doorway, slender stone demon-looking figures with pointy faces and nasty smiles. One was male, the other female; and while Cashel didn't think much of them as art, either one would make a fine battering ram for a man strong enough to lift it off its base and slam it through the swollen wood and corroded iron straps.
Cashel guessed he was that strong.
He glanced down at Rasile. "Ma'am, are you ready?" he said. He noticed the Corl's nose was wrinkling, so he added, "Do you smell anything?"
"Besides the brimstone, you mean, warrior?" Rasile said. "Not to notice. Apes have been here, but your little friend had told us that."
"Right," said Cashel. Instead of putting a hand to the door, he worked the end of his staff between the panel and the stone doorpost, then pulled it fully open. There was a short alcove, just wide enough for a doorman to stand. Nobody was there, and the inner door was already swung back into the vestibule beyond.
Cashel walked in, his staff slanted and ready to strike in any direction. The wall facing the vestibule had a doorway to both the right and left; the blue light was coming through those openings.
Between the openings was a solid wall painted to look like a view into a garden. The plants looked like they'd been shaped from human bodies, and instead of birds flitting among them, there were lizards with a lot of teeth walking on their hind legs.
On low pillars were marble busts of a man and a woman, facing each other instead of looking toward visitors coming through the doorway. They'd been handsome people, both of them, but they had nasty expressions.
"Ready, ma'am?" Cashel said, glancing toward his companion. Rasile held her athame in a fashion that reminded him that it really was a knife even though it'd been carved from black stone.
She nodded curtly. Cashel strode through the right-hand door into the circular room beyond. The floor was onyx. There were several closed doors off it, framed in colored marbles. The walls were otherwise plain, and there wasn't any furniture.
A woman's head was set into the center of the floor. Flames as blue as sulfur blazed from her nostrils as she breathed; that was what the light came from. She'd been the model for the marble face in the vestibule.
Another statue. It only seemed to breathe.
"Have you come to help me?" the head demanded, spurting blue fire with each syllable. "Help me and I will help you . . . but you must help me."
"We were told Milady had taken our friend Liane," Cashel said. "We're here to bring Liane back."
Milady laughed like glass breaking. "I'll let your Liane go when I'm ready to, hero!" she said. "The woman came to me, and she'll stay with me till you've done my bidding. Help me and I will help you!"
Cashel looked at the head, just looked at it and thought. Rasile was standing back a little from him, but he didn't say anything to her till he figured things out for himself.
"Don't think you can strike me!" Milady said. From the way her voice went up in pitch, she thought he could do that and also thought he might try. "It wouldn't help you anyway! My servants will hurl her from the top of the tower if anything happens to me."
Every time Milady's mouth opened, another gout of flame licked out and the sharpness of brimstone got thicker. It might have been a mercy to dish in her skull with the quarterstaff, but Cashel wasn't going to do that to a woman without better reason than she'd given him so far.
Then again, he wasn't sure that smashing Milady's head would kill her. More was going on here than ordinary life and death.
"Ma'am?" Cashel said. "What is it that you want me to do for you? If I can, I'll do it. But you have to let Liane go."
Milady spat half of a coin onto the floor; it chimed cheerfully on the polished stone squares. Breaking a coin in two was a common way to seal a pledge in Barca's Hamlet, but Cashel had always seen bronze used when it was done there; this coin was silver.
"The matching half is through the door to your right," Milady said, turning her head and nodding. "Bring it to me and I will release your Liane."
Cashel picked up the coin. It was so hot that despite his calluses, he bounced it a few times in his palm. It had a man's head on one side and a pillar with two wings sticking out of it—they looked like wings, anyhow—on the other. He didn't say anything for the moment, but he tucked the pledge into a fold of his sash. As a boy he'd have carried something as valuable as this in his mouth, but—
He grinned.
—he'd seen a lot more silver now than even a rich man would in the borough. Besides, even if he cared about money, he didn't think he'd put this coin in his mouth.
This door and the one across from it had white panels set out with gilt borders, the sort of fancy thing you'd expect in a place like this. It hadn't weathered at all, though, despite the door standing ajar and the house on the edge of falling down.
Cashel pulled it open. The room on the other side looked pretty much like this one, though it was a rectangle instead of round and the floor was a pattern of brown and tan tiles instead of squares of black stone. There was a little marble shelf sticking out of the far wall, supported by scrollwork. The glitter on it was likely the rest of the coin in his sash.
Cashel looked back at the head; it had turned to watch him. "All right, ma'am," he said. "I'll do my best to fetch you the pledge, but you have to let Liane go now. She can stay with Rasile till I come back."
"You'll get your friend when you bring me the coin!" Milady said. She had a voice like an angry squirrel. "Go on, hero! Get the coin!"
"No, ma'am," Cashel said. He turned and spread his feet out to the width of his shoulders. Rasile was watching from just inside the doorway from the vestibule. She'd laid her yarrow stalks but she wasn't using them for anything just now.
Her tongue wagged in a laugh. The Coerli sense of humor was a good fit for this sort of business.
"Ma'am," Cashel said to the head, "you'll bring Liane back now or I'll look for another way to get her free."
"There is no other way!" said Milady, even more of a squirrel.
"Maybe, maybe not," said Cashel. "But you won't be around to learn which of us was right. Now, bring Liane down to us, please."
"Are you threatening me?" Milady shrieked, her face a mass of anger.
"No, ma'am," Cashel said. "I'm telling you to hand Liane over to Rasile here and then I'll go fetch your pledge."
"Doomed one?" Rasile said. "You picked this warrior because of his strength. You will underestimate that strength at your peril."
"Bring the woman here!" Milady said. She spoke in the same voice she'd done before, no louder, but Cashel wasn't surprised when the door on the other side of the circular room opened.
An ape shambled in on its hind legs. It reached one long arm behind it to hold Liane's wrist. She walked as straight as she could, but the second ape behind had the other wrist and they weren't in step with each other.
Cashel's face went very quiet. He'd swipe the head in the floor as he brought the staff around, then take two strides and with the second ram a butt cap into the—
"Let her go!" Milady said.
Her voice wasn't any more pleasant than it had been, but at least she was saying the right thing. The apes obeyed quick as quick, dropping down onto their knuckles.
Liane darted around the beast in front of her and started toward Cashel. She'd lost the other sandal too, or more likely kicked it off because she could move better barefoot than half shod.
"No ma'am!" Cashel said. She stopped: he hadn't meant to shout like that.
"Ah, Liane," he said. "I've got business to tend to in the next room. Stay with Rasile, please, and I'll be back just as soon as I can."
Cashel walked to the door to where the pledge piece was waiting. He skirted the head without looking down at it.
It wasn't right that Milady take Liane hostage to make him do this, but Cashel was a peasant. Talking about what's fair isn't going to put food in your belly during the Hungry Time in March. This was something he could do that got Liane free, so he was doing it.
There wasn't anything about the room beyond that looked funny, but if it was as easy as it seemed, Milady would've sent her apes to fetch the coin. Cashel poked his quarterstaff through the doorway and tapped the floor. It clacked duller than it would on stone, showing it really was pottery like it seemed.
But it also popped a bright blue spark every time the iron touched. There was wizardry involved, which wasn't much of a surprise.
Cashel smiled, sort of, the way he generally did before a fight. He wasn't one to start trouble, but nobody'd seen him run away from it yet.
Sideways with his left hand leading on the slanted staff, he strode through the doorway. All his hairs stood up.
The room was gone. Cashel stood on a narrow crystal bridge over a chasm of blue flames. In the depths beneath him stood the tiny figure of Milady, bathed in unquenchable fire. She laughed like a madwoman.
A man with the face of the other bust in the vestibule was coming across the bridge toward Cashel. He held a long crystal wand in either hand and chanted words of power.
"First Section with me!" bawled Prester, who'd trotted to the front as the company approached a plaza where five streets met. He slanted the leading troops to the right rather than following the boulevard they'd been jogging down thus far.
A group of men—mostly men—were sitting and drinking on the display windows of shops they'd wrenched the shutters from. When the troops appeared, most of the looters either ran up the street or vanished into the gutted shops in hope of hiding among the debris. The exceptions were two men lying on their backs with their arms linked, singing, "She was poor but she was honest . . . ."
Sharina kept close behind Pont, jogging to the side of the second section. As his portion of the company started around the plaza he shouted, "Guide left, Selinus, Sister take you! Come on, Second Section, don't embarrass me in front of the princess!"
The stone curb of the fountain in the middle of the plaza was crude, but the centerpiece was a delicate bronze statue of a nymph pointing one hand to heaven and the other toward the basin at her feet. She'd originally been gilded; swashes of gold remained as highlights in the folds of her tunic. The pirate chiefs of Pandah had looted the lovely nymph, but brute force didn't give them the skill to place her in a worthy setting.
"Are they going to get lost?" asked Burne, leaning forward in the cradle of Sharina's arm. She wondered if the rat was worried or if he was just keyed up with excitement like her. Like all of them, she suspected, though the two camp marshals certainly didn't give any sign of it.
"Naw, not Prester," Pont said, dropping back slightly to return titular command to the ensign who'd stayed with this section. "Me, now, I'm no good in cities and neither's Selinus, the file closer, but—"
He gestured with his javelin. "Abreci there in the first file, he's from Valles and he never gets lost in a city, not even in a back alley when he's blind drunk."
"There shouldn't be a problem for us since this street takes us right past the temple," Sharina said. "But Prester trying to arrive from behind."
Pont chuckled. "Don't you worry about Prester," he said. "And if anything should happen, well, I figure me and the boys can handle whatever a passel of priests throw at us."
Sharina started to object, then shut her mouth again. That was the right attitude. They had a plan, a good plan: to divide their force and surround the temple before those inside were aware of the troops' presence. If it went wrong, and even good plans did sometimes go wrong, they'd carry on with the force available.
And yes, thirty soldiers trained by Prester and Pont ought to be able to handle as many priests as you could cram into a temple, even a big temple like that of the Lady of the Grove.
As the troops jogged, they held their shields out from their bodies. Simply hanging by their straps, the cylinder sections of laminated wood would have battered the men bloody by the time they'd gone a mile. Each soldier's slanted javelin pumped back and forth, and the studs on their leather aprons jangled together with each stride of their hobnailed boots.
The section clashed into Convocation Square. The court building, a basilica whose eaves were decorated with painted terracotta dragons, was to the right. The walled compound that'd been the slave lines—slaves were most of the loot which pirates captured—was to the left; the contents had been sold weekly at auction in the square. Now it had been converted into barracks for the laborers engaged in Pandah's expanding building trade.
Directly across the plaza—it wasn't a square or even four-sided—was the Temple of the Lady of the Grove, now without a tree in sight. The sanctum was a narrow building surrounded by a pillared porch. There were six sharp-fluted pillars across the front and the shadows of six more just behind them.
"All right, troopers!" Pont roared, lengthening his stride to put himself ahead of the front rank where the whole section could see him. "Follow me! Prisoners if you can get them, but nobody escapes!"
"Yee-ha!" somebody called in the near distance. Prester's section appeared from a side street behind the building. They rushed toward it with their javelins lifted. The troops were in shadow, but their boots kicked sparks from the cobblestones.
A door thudded shut beyond the rows of pillars. Sharina drew her knife. She had to be careful not to sprint out ahead of the soldiers as they spread into a skirmish line. Even against priests, she ought to leave the fighting to the men in armor if she possibly could.
Pont's right arm came forward in a smooth, swift motion, loosing his javelin at the peak of the arc. Why's he throwing at a building? Sharina wondered.
A man wearing a priest's black robe—but without the usual white sash—lurched from the shadows between the pillars. He'd flung away his bow when the javelin transfixed his upper chest; his quiver spilled arrows as he sprawled down the three-step base.
"For the princess!" Pont cried, drawing his sword.
At the back end of the temple, Prester was shouting, "Come on troopers, show the princess what you're made of!"
The dead archer had been the only man outside the sanctum. The leading soldiers jumped over his body and bashed their shield bosses at the closed door, making peevish thuds. Several men dropped their javelins to draw their swords, but instead of hacking at the wood, Pont sheathed his blade.
"Selinus, with me!" he said, unstrapping his shield so that he could hold it by the edge. "The rest of you scuts keep back!"
Sharina watched in puzzlement as the two non-coms faced one another, turning the shield endwise and gripping what had been the top edge. "On three," Pont said.
They leaned back together, one leg forward against the lintel and the other well back to brace them. "One, two, three—"
Together the men used used the whole strength of their upper bodies to slam the shield into the right-hand door valve, just inside the edge where a stiffener would be. The panel was massive but centuries old; the curved shield was of triple-ply birch, inches thick and bound with gilding metal. It smashed a hole a hand's breadth deep where it struck the door.
Instead of rearing back to batter the door again, Pont dropped the shield and thrust his sword through the split in the panel.
Sharina frowned, at a loss as to what the veteran thought he was doing. Pont gripped the sword hilt with both hands and jerked upward, lifting the crossbar from its track before the priests inside understood what was happening.
"Hit it, boys!" he shouted. Six soldiers threw their shoulders against the valves, shoving them inward.
There was a brief struggle in the doorway. The priests had swords or iron-studded cudgels, but the troops' armor and superior training ended the fight before it began.
Sharina jumped the wrack of bodies as she followed the first squad into the anteroom. She thought there'd been four or five priests, but she couldn't be sure: the short, stiff infantry swords made terrible wounds when driven by excitement and strong arms.
She burst into the nave with the troops. The lanterns hanging from brackets on either side still burned, but pre-dawn light, entering through the rose window in the pediment over the entrance, dimmed them. At the back was a pierced bronze screen which could be opened to display the tall statue of the Lady.
Sharina hadn't been in this temple before; she wondered whether the image would be an old one of painted wood or if that had been replaced by a gold and ivory masterpiece. How ready had the pirate chiefs been to spend their looted wealth on the Queen of Heaven?
There were half a dozen priests in the nave. Three with swords had been running toward the entrance when the soldiers appeared: javelins sent them sprawling on the mosaic floor without an order. Sharina already knew that Prester and Pont taught their men always to use missiles when that was an option: it wasn't as heroic as wading in hand to hand, but it did the job and saved the right kind of lives—your own and your buddies'.
The remaining priests were unarmed, an old man with wild white hair and two young aides. They halted when they saw the troops. The old man raised his hands in the air and cried, "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!"
"We want prisoners!" Sharina said as she sprinted toward them. Burne sprang from her bosom and hunched over the floor even faster than she did. The nave was easily a hundred feet long, and the soldiers' hobnailed boots skidded dangerously on the polished stone.
The priests started back toward the wicket in the bronze screen. Sharina closed on the old man. One of the aides threw himself at her. She swatted him across the forehead with the square back edge of the Pewle knife; the heavy steel rang, knocking the priest to the floor, stunned and bloodied.
The old man flung his arms out and pitched onto his face with a gabbling cry. Burne jumped clear of his legs.
The remaining priest ran through the wicket into the sanctum. Sharina was only a hand's-breadth behind him.
The screen was perforated, but it shadowed the interior. For a moment Sharina couldn't identify the dark mass crouching where the image of the Lady should have been.
It started toward her. It was black and the size of an ox, and it was a scorpion.
Sharina retreated through the wicket. "Get back!" she screamed. "It's a scorpion! Get—"
The bronze screen ripped open. The scorpion, its huge pincers high, stepped over the ruin and into the nave. Its claws clacked on the mosaic floor.
Ilna watched the leading apes push in single file between two clumps of evening olive, then fade away. It was as though night had fallen and shadows had swallowed them. Perrin walked after them and also vanished; the stiff, upslanting olive stems closed behind the youth's body, but that body was no longer in the waking world.
Ilna made a sour face and followed. She hadn't known what to expect, and now that it was happening she wasn't any wiser. She ducked instead of spreading her arms to keep the olive from slapping her cheeks. She had to keep both hands on her pattern to be able to open it instantly.
Her skin prickled. She was behind Perrin again. The liveried apes led them down a track toward a sprawling mansion a furlong away at the base of the hills. For as far as she could see to either side, there were planting mounds between shallow irrigation ditches. On them grew crocuses in purple profusion, and occasional pistachio trees. Widely scattered among the rows were apes bending to pick the flowers and toss them into baskets.
Ilna stopped. She started to count the laborers, then realized it was a hopeless task. The whole broad valley was a single field. There were more tens of tens of apes visible than there were sheep in the borough where she'd grown up.
Perrine, Ingens, and the remaining pair of apes walked out of the air behind her. There was nothing to see where they appeared except the rows of plantings stretching into the misty distance.
The princess was leading Ingens by the hand. Ilna wasn't sure he even noticed that they weren't in the world where the gong hung.
"You see, Mistress Ilna?" Prince Perrin said, turning with a welcoming smile. "We are at peace here in our valley, because we've withdrawn from your world. No one can threaten us, and we threaten no one."
"Except the flowers," said his sister with a pleasant giggle. She waved her free hand across the purple expanse. "But they grow back from the bulbs and we tend them, so I don't think they grudge us their pollen."
Ilna stepped two rows away and laid her rolled cloak in the ditch; it was dry at the moment, though when her feet disturbed the stony soil she noticed that the undersides of flat pebbles were wet. They must run the water at night.
The others walked past, putting Ilna's body between them and the cloak. She knelt and looked closely at a crocus to explain why she was delaying here.
Ilna had never been interested in flowers. Their bright colors didn't fade, which was impressive; but they couldn't be transferred to cloth either, and besides—she preferred earth tones and neutrals. People didn't appreciate how pleasing neutrals could be until they'd seen a garment Ilna'd woven solely from gray shades.
The crocus petals pleased her well enough, but the yellow and deep red pistils from which the spice came thread by tiny thread were garish and intrusive even by themselves. In combination with the purple flowers—
Ilna smiled—broadly, for her. Feydra, her aunt by marriage, would have found the yellow/red/purple combination attractive. There might be a more damning comment about the flower than that a fat, cloth-headed slattern would have liked it, but that would do.
"Aren't they lovely?" Prince Perrin said, kneeling across the mound from Ilna. He smiled. "I was just thinking how much you remind me of a crocus, mistress, with your grace and beauty."
Ilna looked at him without expression. She might have gotten angry at his attempts to make himself agreeable, but he was so remarkably clumsy at it that she was on the verge of laughing instead.
In a mild voice she said, "My colors are more muted, I believe."
She stood, fluffing her tunics slightly, and picked up the rolled cloak. As she'd expected, the bundle was lighter now. She didn't look back to call attention to Usun, though she doubted that even she could've found the little hunter if he'd had a few moments to conceal himself. "Shall we go?" she said.
"Of course," said Perrin. He seemed to have no expressions but a half-smile and a smile, though it seemed to her that a hint of fear underlay the jollity.
He offered his arm. "May I take your hand, mistress?" he said.
Ilna glowered. "Certainly not," she said, returning to the track by stepping from ditch to ditch in two long strides. Ingens and Perrine were in close conversation a few paces beyond. They broke apart as Ilna approached; the secretary with a look of embarrassment, the princess turning her face away.
"Our father will be so pleased to see you both!" Perrine said brightly as she and Ingens led the way toward the house. The sprawling mansion of stuccoed brick was probably no more than one story high, but a tall false front over the central section made it look more imposing. The pillars of the full-length colonnade were each of three twisted strands supporting arches, and the roofline had curlicues that suggested battlements but served no purpose but decoration.
Which meant no purpose at all, so far as Ilna was concerned. Well, her taste rarely jibed with that of other people.
More apes in livery were holding open the valves of the front door. They were of fruitwood, carved in a pattern of acanthus vines growing through a lattice. The design was a trifle florid for Ilna, but it had been well executed and she liked the shades within the russet wood.
The field hands hadn't looked up as the entourage passed. Ilna wondered what they—and the attendants—thought of the human beings they labored for. They seemed completely placid, but not even sheep were really spiritless if you knew them well.
Sheep generally had unpleasant personalities. Well, so did human beings, in Ilna's experience.
A middle-aged man with a worn face stepped onto the porch. He bore an obvious family resemblance to the twins.
"Father," Perrine called. "We're back with Master Ingens. You remember me telling you about him? Oh, I'm so happy!"
"And this is Mistress Ilna, father," said the prince. "She's even more wonderful than I'd thought when we saw her through the glass."
The older man bowed, then rose with his hands extended; that seemed to be the fashion among these people. Ilna was uncomfortable with the idea of being embraced by strangers, though this time the distance made it symbolic.
"Ilna and Ingens, I'm King Perus," he said. "We're honored by your visit. I've had refreshments laid out, and I hope you'll be able to stay with us for a few days to see every part of our little kingdom."
"Oh, father!" said the princess, leading Ingens up the two broad steps to the porch. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could stay with us always? That would be marvelous!"
"We've come to find Master Hervir and return with him," said Ilna harshly. "If you'll please bring him out, we won't trouble you further."
"But mistress . . . ," Perus said, turning his palms up in apparent consternation. "Hervir was only with us for a few hours, and that was weeks ago."
"I thought if we brought Ilna to the valley," said Perrin, "and showed her everything, then she could be sure Hervir is no longer here."
"It's understandable," his sister added sadly. "Things are so terrible in the outer world that even decent people—"
"Wonderful people!" Perrin put in.
"—like Ingens and Mistress Ilna have to doubt the word of those they meet."
"Well, at the very least," said Perus, gesturing toward the open door with both hands, "do take refreshment with us. As I'm sure you've noticed, though one's mind perceives the journey from your world to ours as merely a blink of time, your body is aware that much greater effort was required."
"Thank you," said Ingens, bowing to Perus as he followed Perrine into the house. "I'm indeed hungry and thirsty. And very tired as well."
"Mistress?" said the prince. "Please, whatever you wish will be granted. But at least do us the courtesy of letting us try to demonstrate our valley's innocence."
Ilna grimaced again. She'd come to find out where Hervir was. Buried under a pistachio tree, might well be the answer, but she had no evidence even of that as yet.
Further, she was hungry and thirsty. And tired. The sun was low over the western end of the valley, and her weariness was as great as if she'd been walking the whole time from morning when they entered the grove till the evening which was falling here.
"Yes, thank you," Ilna said, forcing herself to be polite. She was here by her own decision, not because the prince and his family had forced her. She mounted the steps and walked briskly into the building, again ignoring Perrin's offered arm.
A broad hallway pierced the middle of the house, drawing a breeze from the hills. The archways opening off the main hall were open also; the walls above were a filigree of fine masonry, joined by tiles with swirling designs in blue and white. The patterns weren't writing in any form Ilna had seen before, but she was sure they had meaning.
She smiled wryly. Everything had meaning. Everything was part of a pattern, if you were only wise enough to recognize it. She was better at that than most people were, but she didn't pretend that she was very good.
"We have wines and a light repast waiting in the arbor," said Perus, following them down the hall. His silk slippers whispered on the cool flooring, making no more sound than Ilna's bare soles did.
At least the floor was tile, not stone. Apes, all of them silent and wearing livery, waited or cleaned in some of the rooms she passed. Occasionally one happened to look in her direction, but even then they didn't appear to register the presence of a visitor.
The arbor was a frame of braided pillars and brick arches covering a grassy lawn. The broad leaves of the grape vines planted at the base of each pillar shaded the ground, but many tiny droplets of sunlight leaked through. When Ilna looked up, she could see the hills rising steeply only a stone's throw away.
In the center of the lawn was a low table. Instead of chairs, cushions had been laid along both sides and at the far end; apes waited behind each of the five places. Fruit and nutmeats waited on platters, and in a water-filled tub of brass and copper stood a tall earthenware jug.
Ilna looked more closely at the tub. Chips of ice floated in the water.
"We bring ice down from the peaks to make sherbets and cool our wines," said King Perus, noticing Ilna's surprise.
"Mistress Ilna?" said Perrin. He lifted the wine-thief, a deep-bellied ladle with a long vertical handle, from the narrow throat of the jug. "Allow me to serve you myself."
He filled a goblet, then handed it to her with a bow. "Our finest vintage," he said, "for the most lovely woman ever to enter our valley."
Ilna frowned. Ingens was frowning also, she noticed, though no doubt—and the thought brought a hard smile back to her lips—for different reasons.
She sipped as Perrine showed the secretary how to recline alongside her on the cushions. The first touch of the wine seemed all right—too thick and too strong, but wine was normally diluted for drinking in those parts of the Isles where it was the usual beverage.
Ilna swallowed. Before she took a second sip she noticed the aftertaste of the first and grimaced. She put the goblet on the table and said, "I'm sorry, I don't have a taste for wines. Do you have ale? I'm not—"
What did she mean to say? I'm not rich? I'm a poor orphan who drank stale beer most of the time but water often because she couldn't afford anything better. Though nobody in Barca's Hamlet had drunk wine.
"Ale?" said Perus. "Why, no, we don't brew any kind of beer in the valley."
"Water, then," said Ilna. She was beginning to become irritated. She'd never have demanded something rare or expensive for her meals, but it ought to be possible to get something simple even in a palace.
"I'm so embarrassed, Mistress Ilna," Perrine said. She'd taken a filled goblet from an ape and was holding it for Ingens as he drank. "You see, the water here isn't safe. Our servants, I'm afraid, aren't very fastidious about their natural functions."
"We have other wines, Ilna," the prince said with a worried expression. "Perhaps you'd like a white?"
Now she was irritated. She took the goblet waiting at Perrin's place and scooped it full of melt water from the brass tub. "I trust this is safe?" she said, then drank deeply before her hosts managed a reply.
"Well, yes, if that's what you want, Ilna," the prince said after an exchange of silent looks with the rest of his family. "Whatever you like, of course."
"Thank you," Ilna said, refilling the goblet. "And if you don't mind, I'll sit instead of lying down. I've never learned to eat one-handed on my side, and I have no desire to make myself foolish in front of you."
"Of course, mistress," Perus said. He sounded gracious, but he had the look of a man who'd been kicked in the stomach. "Our only wish is for you to be comfortable here."
"And to convince you of our good intentions," Perrin said with his usual smile. "We'll do anything we can to achieve that."
As Ilna sat primly, Ingens said, "Well, I must say I like your wine very much, King Perus. I don't believe I've ever drunk a finer one."
He glared across the table at Ilna as an ape refilled his goblet. She ignored him and took a pear from the tray before her.
"Try this plum, Ilna," the prince said, plucking one from another tray. He took out a knife with a tiny gold blade and added, "Here, I'll peel it for you. I think you'll find it amazingly sweet."
"Thank you," Ilna said, making an effort to prevent the words from accurately reflecting her thoughts at the moment. Could they not leave her alone? "This pear is delicious."
Indeed, it was. So was the hard-boiled egg whose yolk had been ground with spices before being returned to the cup of its white. The ape serving her was silent and alert, bringing bowls of water to cleanse her fingers between courses. Rose petals floated in them.
The lace table covering and the napkins which followed the finger bowls were linen. Their quality was as good as anything Ilna had seen that she hadn't woven herself.
As for the food—food wasn't important to her, but craftsmanship was. The cooks in this valley were as skilled as the weavers. The base of all the dishes was mutton, rice, and lentils, but the spices turned what might have been simple fare into remarkable works of art.
The prince kept offering her dainties. Ilna kept refusing, as politely as one could be in the situation. Perrin was trying to use her courtesy as a way to bully her to his will, which of course made her more coldly certain in her refusals.
Ilna smiled. She was treating it as a game, she supposed. If she stopped feeling that it was a game, she'd snatch the pattern from her sleeve and display it. She hadn't picked out the knots.
Apes hung lanterns whose parchment screens had been dyed in attractive pastels. The sun had dropped below the rim of the mountains and the sky had faded enough for stars to appear. The constellations weren't familiar to her.
The servants brought pistachios, shelled and arranged in swirling patterns on their silver trays. As they carried them away after the guests had eaten, King Perus said, "I've had rooms prepared for you. It wouldn't be entirely safe to return to your own world after sunset, though of course you're welcome to do so if you prefer."
"Oh, I hope you'll stay," said Perrine, covering one of the secretary's hands with her own. "Oh, please stay, Ingens."
"Of course!" Ingens said. He'd drunk a fair amount. There was a challenge in his tone as he went on, "It's my duty to stay until we find Hervir. Isn't that true, Mistress Ilna?"
Ilna looked at him. This wasn't a game any more, but that meant it was even more important that she not lose her temper.
"Yes, I suppose it is," she said evenly. "For tonight, at least."
"Then allow me to conduct you to your room, Ilna," said the prince as he hopped to his feet.
Ilna rose, ignoring the offered hand, as usual. "Yes," she said, "I'm ready to sleep."
The room she'd been given was off a cross-hall, midway down the palace's right wing. Rugs and cushions were arranged for a bed; she'd certainly slept on worse.
Perrin, as expected, tried to delay her at the door. Also as expected, she dismissed him without difficulty.
The full moon shone through the row of windows just below the roofline. Ilna glanced at it, then used a tripod table to wedge the door. It wouldn't hold long, but it would awaken her.
She left a lamp burning. She'd sleep with a pattern bunched in her left fist. Any person who saw it would wish that they were being disemboweled with hooked irons, because that would eventually be over.
Ilna smiled grimly as she lay down. Of course, she could be completely wrong about the danger here.
And perhaps one day pigs would fly.