Limits (19 page)

They trudged down the hill, trying to avoid twisted ankles or worse. Sparthera paused to catch her breath and caught a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye. It was headed for the animals.
“Sung!
What—”

Twilight whinnied in terror. He tossed his head, pulling loose the reins Sparthera had looped over a bush, and bolted downhill. The unicorn had splayed his front feet and lowered his head, as if he thought he still owned a spear. The winged packbeast, filling the air with a bedlam of sound, was bounding rapidly away in two-pace-long jumps, tiny wings beating the air frantically.

Sung let out a yell and charged up to the top of the ravine, swinging a heavy branch he’d snatched up on the way. Sparthera clambered up beside him, swearing as she saw her animals heading off across the landscape. There was a loud wailing sound that put the wingbeast’s efforts to shame, and then silence. The thing had vanished.

“What was
that!
”

“I don’t know. I’m more interested in where it went. Keep an eye out, love.” Sung pulled his sword from the pack and wandered about the shattered rock.

Sparthera’s nose picked up a heavy musky animal odor. She followed it, heart pounding,
knife
in hand. They were too close to the treasure to stop now.

The odor was wafting out of a black gap in the rocks, less than a yard across.
Sung clambered up to look.

“That’s it,” he said. “It’s not big enough, though. If we crawled through that, the thing—whatever it is—would just take our heads as they poked through. We’ll have to move some rocks.”

Sparthera picked up a heavy boulder and hurled it away. “I feel an irr
a
tional urge to go home.”

“I can’t go home. Let’s move some rocks,” said Sung, and she did. The sun had dropped a fair distance toward Rynildissen, and every muscle in her body was screaming, before the dripping, panting Sung said, “Enough. Now we need torches.”

“Sung.
Did it…occur to you…to let me rest?”

“Well, why didn’t you…oh.” Sung was disconcerted. “Sparthera, I’m used to giving orders to women, because I’m supposed to be the immortal Sung. But it’s just for show. I’m also used to being disobeyed.”

“I can’t.” She was crying.

“I’ll be more careful. Shall we rest, have some tea?”

“Good. Offer me a swallow of wine.”

“That’s not—”

“For Khulm’s sake,
Sung
, do you think I’d go in there
drunk
? It’s in there. I know it. I kept waiting for it to jump on me. Don’t you have a spell to protect us?”

“No. We don’t even know what it is. Here—” He turned her around and began to massage her neck and shoulders, fingers digging in. Sparthera felt tensed muscles unravelling, loosening. It was a wonderful surprise.

She said, “It must have half-killed the Sung women to let you go.”

“Somehow they managed.” She barely heard the bitterness; but it
did
bother him.

It was dark in there. The late afternoon light only reached a dozen paces in. They stepped in, holding the torches high.

There was a rustling flurry of motion and a loud whimpering cry.

If one of them had run, the other would have followed. As it was, they walked slowly forward behind Sung’s sword and Sparthera’s dagger.

The cave wasn’t large. A stream ran through the middle. Sparthera noted two skeletons on either side of the stream, lying face up as if posed—

Another cry and a scrabbling sound. Something huge and dark moved just outside the perimeter of light. The animal odor had become sickeningly strong. Sung held the light higher.

Off in a corner, something huge was trying to pack itself into a very narrow crevice. It looked at them with absolute panic in its eyes, pulled its long scaly tail closer under its legs and tried fruitlessly to move away.

“What in the world is it?”

“Nothing from this world, that’s certain,” Sung said. “It looks like something that was conjured up out of a bad dream. Probably was.
Gar’s guardian.”

The creature was partly furred and partly scaled. It had a long toothed snout and broad paddle-like front paws with thick nails. There was a rusted iron collar around its neck, with a few links of broken chain attached. Now its claws stopped grinding against rock, and its tail came up to cover its eyes.

“What is it trying to do?” Sparthera whispered.

“Well, it seems to be trying to hide in that little crack.”

“Oh, for the love of Khulm!
You mean it’s scared!”

The beast gave a long wailing moan at the sound of her voice. Its claws resumed scratching rock.

“Let it alone,” Sung said. He swung the torch around to reveal the rest of the cave. They found a torn and scattered pack, with the remains of weevily flour and some broken boxes nearly collapsed from dry rot. Two skeletons were laid out as for a funeral. They had not died in bed. The rib cage on one seemed to have been torn wide open. The other seemed intact below the neck; but it was still wearing a bronze helmet bearing the crest of a soldier of Rynildissen; and the helmet and skull had been squashed as flat as a miser’s sandwich.

Aside from the small stream that ran between them, and assorted gypsum deposits, the cave was empty.

“I’m afraid the Regent’s army got here first,” Sung said.

Sparthera bent above one of the bodies. “Do you think that thing did this? Did it kill them, or just gnaw the bodies? It doesn’t seem dangerous now.”

“It probably wasn’t all that scared in the beginning.” Sung was grinning. “Gar must have left it here to guard the treasure, with a chain to keep it from running away. When the Regent’s soldiers found the cave, it must have got the first ones in. Then the rest piled in and pounded it into mush. Conjured
beasts like that are practically impossible to kill, but did you notice the scars on the muzzle and forelegs? It hasn’t forgotten.”

“I feel sorry for it,” Sparthera said. Then the truth came home to her and she said, “I feel sorry for us! The treasure must have been gone for years.
Except—the talisman led us
here
!”

Sung walked forward, following the talisman. He stopped above the skeleton with the flattened skull.
“‘Ta netyillo—’ Yes.”

He reached into the rib cage and came up with a mass of color flickering in his hands. Sparthera reached into it and found a large ruby. There were three others besides, and two good-sized emeralds.

Sung laughed long and hard.
“So, we have a greedy soldier to thank. He ran in, saw a pile of jewels, snatched up a fistful and swallowed them. He must have thought it would come out all right in the end. Instead, Gar’s pet got him.” Sung wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Fate is a wonderful thing. Here, give me those.”

She did, and Sung began tracing the curve on the talisman, one jewel at a time. She said, “They wouldn’t have left a talisman of levitation.”

“No, they wouldn’t.”

“And this stuff isn’t worth nearly my weight in gold.”

Sung stiffened, “The pointer!
It’s pointing into the wall itself!” He got up and began moving along the wall.

Sparthera grimaced but said nothing.

Sung called, “Either
it’s
cursed deep in there, or there’s another cave, or…why do I bother? It’s pointing to Rynildissen.”

“Maybe other places too.
There was a war with Sarpuree, seventy years ago. We lost, so there was tribute to pay. I don’t even have to guess where the Regent got the money to pay for it all. He may have sold most of the trea
s
ure.”

“Humph. Yes. And if there were any decorative items left, they could be spread all through the palace. And some of the soldiers probably hid a few little things like that diamond bird. Even if we were crazy enough to rob the Regent’s palace, we’d never get it all. It’s the end of our treasure hunt, girl.”

“But you said…Sung! How can I ever win my freedom if we don’t go on?”

“Oh, we’ll go on. But not looking for Gar’s treasure.” Sung scooped the jewels into his pocket and handed her the little diamond bird. “Keep this as a
memento. The rest…well, I’ve thought of opening a toy shop.
In Rynildi
s
sen, maybe.”

“A
toy shop
?”

Sung frowned.
“You don’t like toys, do you?”

“Everybody likes toys. But we’re
adults
, Sung!”

“Girl, don’t you know that human beings are natural magicians? I think it’s hereditary. The magic was always there to be used…but now it isn’t. And we still want magic.
Especially children.”

“Those toys aren’t—”

“No, of course not, but they’re as close as you’re likely to get these days, especially in a city. Toys from far places might sell very well.”

She was still angry.
Sung reached to run his fingers over the tawny stubble on her head.
“We’ll live well enough. Come kiss me, little thief. Seven years isn’t such a long time.”

Sparthera kissed him; she couldn’t help it. Then she said, “I wondered if a diamond bird could be your talisman of levitation.”

Sung’s eyes widened.
“I wonder…it’s worth a try. Not in here, though.” He took the bird and scrambled up scree toward the cave entrance.

Sparthera started after him. Then, holding her torch high, she looked up. The rock tapered to a high natural vault. It looked unstable, dangerous.
Something…a bright point?

Compelled, she continued climbing after Sung. But the diamond trinket (she told herself) was no flying spell. She’d been wrong: no soldier would have stolen that. It would be treason. By staying here she would be working in Sung’s best interests (she told herself, scrambling up the rocks). There was no point in shouting after him. If she were wrong, at least he wouldn’t be disappointed (she told herself, and at last the pull of her oath lost its grip).

Sung was out of sight. Sparthera scrambled back down and set to work.

The soldiers had taken all of their equipment before they turned the cave into a crypt for their brethren by pulling down the entrance. They had taken armor, but left the crushed helmet that was part of one corpse. They had taken the metal point from a snapped spear; but a three-pace length of shaft remained.

Sparthera dipped a piece of cloth into the stream, then into some of the mouldy flour scattered on the rock floor. She kneaded the cloth until it had turned gooey,
then
wrapped it around the broken tip of the spear. She
climbed scree to get closer to the ceiling, and reached up with the spear, toward a bright point on the cave roof.

It stuck. She pulled it down: thin gold filigree carved into a pair of bird’s wings, about the size of her two hands. It tugged upward against her fingers.

“Lift me,” she whispered. And she rose until her head bumped rock.

“Set me down,” she whispered, and drifted back to earth.

No castle in the world held a room so high that she could not rob it, with this. And she waited for the impulse that would send her scrambling out to give it to Sung.

Sung was bounding downhill with his arms flapping, one hand clutching the diamond bauble, looking very like a little boy at play. He turned in fury at the sound of Sparthera’s laughter.

“I’ve found it!” she called, holding the golden talisman high.

And as Sung ran toward her, beaming delight, Sparthera gloated.

For the instant in which she flew, Sparthera’s weight in gold had been far less than the value of the paltry treasure they had found.

She might stay with Sung long enough to take back the jewels, or at least the wings. She might even stay longer. If he were right about the toy shop…perhaps he need never learn that she was free.

If the starship’s arrival had done nothing else for Bronze Legs, this was enough: he was seeing the sky again.

For this past week the rammers had roamed through Touchdown City. The fifty-year-old colony was still small; everybody knew everybody. It was hard to get used to, this influx of oddly-accented strangers stumbling about with vacuous smiles and eyes wide with surprise and pleasure. Even the Medean humans were catching the habit. In his thirty-four earthyears of life Calvin “Bronze Legs” Miller had explored fifteen thousand square miles of the infinite variety that was Medea. Strange, that it took people from another world to make him look up.

Here was a pretty picture: sunset over the wild lands north of the colony. Peaks to the south were limned in bluish-white from the farmlands beyond, from the lamps that kept terrestrial plants growing. Everything else was red, infinite shades of red. To heatward a level horizon cut the great disk of Argo in half. You could feel the heat on your cheek, and watch sullenly glowing storms move in bands across the face of the red-hot superjovian world. To coldward, Phrixus and Helle were two glaring pink dots following each other down to the ridge. The Jet Stream stretched straight across the blue sky, a pinkish-white band of cloud from horizon to horizon. Thirty or forty mult
i
colored balloons, linked in a cluster, were settling to graze a scum-covered rain pool in the valley below him.