Lord of the Isles (29 page)
Authors: David Drake
T
he gates used to be painted red,” Mellie said from Cashel's shoulder. “That was when there were gates, I mean. And all those niches above had statues in them, King Itaku and his family.”
he gates used to be painted red,” Mellie said from Cashel's shoulder. “That was when there were gates, I mean. And all those niches above had statues in them, King Itaku and his family.”
Cashel looked up. The monumental triple gateway was of a rusty sandstone unlike anything on the east side of Haft. He supposed it must be common locally though; even the ancients couldn't have carried such staggering amounts of stone from other islands ⦠.
Or could they? Was the city built by wizardry?
“Is the rock from around here?” he asked. His companions were too gogglingly aware of the city they entered behind Benlo and his guards to be concerned that Cashel was talking to himselfâif they even noticed it.
“Most of it,” Mellie said equably. From the corner of his eye Cashel could see her sitting cross-legged, combing out her brilliant hair with the prongs of a tiny weed seed. “The best marble for building came from the hills to the south. They barged it down the Stroma River and along the coast, then landed it in the harbor.”
The gate panels were gone now; so were most of the fittings that had embellished the high structure. Two pillars of yellow-and-brown stone flanked a niche in the third level, and the statue of a woman in flowing garments graced the pergola at the peak. Perhaps she was meant for the Lady; a thousand years had weathered the face featureless.
The streets were crowded with folk wearing dyed clothing who talked loudly, constantly, and in harsh voices. Cashel felt as though he were in a tree under a flock of blackbirds chattering ill-tempered nonsense, all at the same time.
Every few steps a local plucked the sleeve of Cashel's tunic with an offer of some sort. Cashel ignored them except to shift his quarterstaff from one hand to the other. The hucksters and touts went away and usually didn't fasten on any of the others in Cashel's group either.
Garric walked beside Tenoctris on the gelding, just behind Benlo. Ilna and Liane followed them; Liane regally prim, clearly no mark for the sort of city folk who battened on rubes from the country, while Ilna glanced about with the fierce glare of a mother cat defending her kittens. Cashel knew that anybody grabbing his sister would be lucky to get his hand back, and the hustlers seemed to have picked up on that as well.
Cashel was alone at the end of the line. The streets were narrow and he took up a lot of room. His wages in silver coins were in a wash-leather pouch hung from his neck on a thick strap. Even if a thief managed to cut the strap, the purse would drop into the bosom of Cashel's tunic and be held by his belt. It would take more than light fingers to rob him, and nobody taking a look at
this
rube would think of using force.
this
rube would think of using force.
When they reached Benlo's inn and the drover paid them
the last day's wages, Cashel would be really alone; and alone forever. He turned and smiled toward the point of his shoulder. “Except for you,” he said aloud.
the last day's wages, Cashel would be really alone; and alone forever. He turned and smiled toward the point of his shoulder. “Except for you,” he said aloud.
“Except for me,” Mellie agreed cheerfully, as if she knew what he was talking about.
She waved toward the hillside to their right. A high brick wall, featureless except for simple brick pilasters at intervals to break the sheer line, fronted the street. Over the top of it Cashel could see manicured trees and pavilions with fanciful roofs climbing the slope.
“That all used to be palaces for the King of the Isles and his chief ministers,” she said. “Now the buildings are fallen and some new rich man has turned the grounds into a garden. Humans change as fast as clouds do.”
Mellie giggled. “Of course, before the kings,” she said, “when Carcosa was a fishing village, the whole hillside was covered with black walnut trees. I used to tease the squirrels when I visited. I'd pull their tails and skip under the branch before they could turn around.”
A tile-arched walkway zigzagged down into the gardens proper from the hill's craggy top. Cashel thought about how old his companion really was. “Aye, I can see that,” he said. “A big old walnut on the ridge and she'd roll her nuts down till they owned the whole slope. Poison other plants out, a walnut will. There's people like that too.”
A farrier's stall stood between a pair of open-fronted taverns. Hot iron and the sulfurous smell of coal smoke filled the air. An apprentice walked a treadmill to drive the wheezing bellows, and the street rang with the smith's measured blows. Horses waiting to be shod half-blocked the street; a carter hauling three huge hogsheads of ale shouted threats to drive on through the obstructing animals if they weren't moved.
Benlo's guards held the horses against the wall long enough for their employer's entourage to pass. Cashel brushed the animals with no great affection. He'd always thought horses were too flighty as well as needing an expensive
diet of grain, while oxen got along fine on grass and coarse fodder. Horses were quicker at their business, sure; but speed wasn't a virtue about which Cashel troubled overmuch.
diet of grain, while oxen got along fine on grass and coarse fodder. Horses were quicker at their business, sure; but speed wasn't a virtue about which Cashel troubled overmuch.
“You know ⦔ Cashel said. “Walnut's a pretty wood, I grant you. But give me honest oak any day.”
Mellie laughed so hard that Cashel lifted his hand in fear that she'd roll off his shoulder in a spasm of silver trills. “What's the matter?” he asked, trying to keep the puzzled hurt out of his voice. “Don't you like oak?”
The sprite stood to pat his earlobe reassuringly. “I like oak very well, Cashel,” she said. “I was laughing because you thought you had to tell me that
you
did.”
you
did.”
The street the group was following joined what Cashel supposed was a “square”; though it wasn't square and it was
huge
âprobably as big as all the houses and yards in Barca's Hamlet put together. It wasn't smooth; outcrops of rubble and worked stone stuck out of the ground in several places, debris of the Old Kingdom. Even so, the space was large enough that for the first time since they'd entered Carcosa, traffic didn't crush the drover's party into a long line.
huge
âprobably as big as all the houses and yards in Barca's Hamlet put together. It wasn't smooth; outcrops of rubble and worked stone stuck out of the ground in several places, debris of the Old Kingdom. Even so, the space was large enough that for the first time since they'd entered Carcosa, traffic didn't crush the drover's party into a long line.
Garric turned and spoke to Liane; the girl called something between a request and a demand to her father. The group closed up beside a slab which once had been a transom of fine-grained limestone. Now the corner had been broken off and the stylized vine-leaf carvings were worn to shadows of themselves.
Garric was surveying the square with a look of amazement. “These are all new,” he said in wonder.
The surrounding buildings didn't look new to Cashel, but they were of a type he'd never seen beforeâeven on his winding progress through Carcosa's streets. They were mostly three floors high. The bottom story of each was windowless. Foliage showed over high parapets, indicating that they had roof gardens.
The front doors were solid and set back within narrow entryways. There were liveried guards in front of each house;
solid men in half-armor, very much of a type with the folk who guarded Benlo himself.
solid men in half-armor, very much of a type with the folk who guarded Benlo himself.
“Are they new?” Cashel murmured to Mellie. He didn't see anything he wouldn't have guessed was as old as Reise's inn.
The sprite poised on the toes of one foot and raised the other leg vertically. Cashel decided that acrobatics were Mellie's equivalent of a shrug. “They weren't here when I last visited Carcosa,” she said. “But that hasn't been for a couple centuries. Even longer, I guess.”
Benlo clucked impatiently to his mare. The group started around the square, still close enough together to talk to one another as they walked.
Liane pointed to the nearest building. “These are the houses of the nobility,” she said. “There's been trouble in Carcosa, worse even than in Valles. They build this way so that if there's a riot after the midweek sacrifice the mob won't be able to break into their houses and loot them.”
Benlo led them out of the square by another of the dozen or so streets feeding it. This one was a broad boulevard with a median divider. The shops of fabric-sellers and dressmakers lined both sides. Cashel saw his sister's interest perk like that of a fox sighting prey.
“After the sacrifice?” Garric repeated. “Why then?”
“Generally in Carcosa the nobles and their retainers support the Lady,” Liane said, “and the laborers follow the Shepherd. It's the same in Valles, though in Erdin it was just the opposite. If somebody wants to make trouble, he can usually stir things up when people gather at the temples for the sacrifice.”
“Is that true?” Cashel said to Mellie. Garric and Ilna looked as shocked as Cashel felt.
“Oh, yes,” the sprite agreed as she pirouetted. “Sometimes they fight each other, but mostly the mobs go smash things in a district where the other side lives. It's very exciting to watch.”
“It's evil!” Cashel said so loudly that everyone heard him.
Garric and Ilna nodded agreement; Liane looked sober. “Fighting in the name of the Lady and the Shepherd!”
Garric and Ilna nodded agreement; Liane looked sober. “Fighting in the name of the Lady and the Shepherd!”
“It's a symptom of the forces becoming greatly stronger, just as they did in my day,” Tenoctris said. “Nothing to do with the gods or religion of course; just dynamic tension too extreme to remain in perfect balance.”
“It's evil!” Cashel repeated fiercely.
“Nonnus would certainly agree with you,” the old woman said, looking back toward Cashel. “And in human terms you're certainly correct.”
She smiled faintly, sadly, and added, “I just don't believe the cosmos thinks in human terms, Cashel.”
O
n their way through Carcosa, Garric noticed that they'd passed several inns catering to folk from the eastern boroughs of Haft. The Red Ox was near the northern boundary of the present city where most arriving guests would be from the flat north of the island.
n their way through Carcosa, Garric noticed that they'd passed several inns catering to folk from the eastern boroughs of Haft. The Red Ox was near the northern boundary of the present city where most arriving guests would be from the flat north of the island.
Northerners raised more cattle than sheep and by the standards of Barca's Hamlet they were a coarse lot besides. The inn's standard was a red-painted ox skull on a pole: most of the gilt had flaked from the horns. Garric tried to imagine his father putting a sheep's skull over the gates of his inn; he shook his head in disgust at the image.
Carcosa wasn't what Garric had expected. Unlike what he knew his friends from the borough were experiencing, the city was strikingly less than what Garric had thought he'd find. He remembered in his dreams riding through a metropolis of marble and fountains, triumphal arches and the pillared buildings where the whole government of the Isles transacted its business.
King Carus watched from the back of Garric's mind, more sober now than at any time since the night he entered a boy's dreams and drove away the nightmares. Over the days since Garric put on the medallion, the king had continued to stride closer through the planes that separated the two of them. Sometimes even when he was awake Garric thought he could hear King Carus' voice, and the king's memories lay in a haze over Garric's own.
The buildings of today's Carcosa grew like mushrooms on the stump of a fallen elm, covering the surface but with nothing like the density or magnificence of the original. The city had merely a barbaric sparkle, the sort of thing that was well enough in a provincial backwater with no pretensions to greatness.
But what had been great could become great again.
Benlo dismounted in front of the inn. The servant who took the mare spoke in terms of obsequious acquaintance; the drover must have stayed at the Red Ox while he was in Carcosa before.
The place was big and well kept, but it wouldn't have been Garric's choice for accommodation. The roof was of terra-cotta tiles; he supposed thatch wasn't a practical roofing material in a city. Neither that nor the ox skull was sufficient to make Garric feel so uncomfortable about the inn, but his discomfort was real.
He glanced up to speak to Tenoctris and saw that the old woman peering intently not at the inn but rather toward the enclosure wall across the road. “What's that?” Garric asked. All he could see from his level were the stone roofs of small buildings above the stone perimeter; Tenoctris at saddle height had a better view.
“It's a graveyard,” Tenoctris said. “A very old graveyard. Old even in my day, though the tombs are still being reused.”
She dismounted stiffly, using Garric's shoulder as a hand brace and his laced fingers as a step. Riding was easier than walking, but neither had been a skill she'd cultivated.
An inn servant whisked the mare into the stables in the
rear. Benlo walked toward the group from Barca's Hamlet with a broad smile that Garric was sure was forced if not faked. “Well, lads,” the drover said. “I've arranged for all of us to stay here for a few days.”
rear. Benlo walked toward the group from Barca's Hamlet with a broad smile that Garric was sure was forced if not faked. “Well, lads,” the drover said. “I've arranged for all of us to stay here for a few days.”
He nodded at Tenoctris, then to Ilna as well. The smile slipped slightly. “The women too,” he said. “I promised you that I'd ⦠gain information when we reached the city, so it's only fair that I put you up at my expense.”
Garric opened his mouth to speak. Before he could do so, Tenoctris said, “Thanks for your offer, but I believe I'll have to decline it. I don't care for some of the neighbors here.”
She nodded her tight gray bun of hair toward the cemetery.
Benlo's face grew darkly furious. “Are you one of those old fools who's afraid of death?” he said. “Best get used to the thought, mistress. It'll be coming for you soon enough!”
“I'm not afraid of death,” Tenoctris said simply. “I only fear for the living.” She bowed and stepped back, awaiting the decisions of others.
“Master Benlo,” Cashel said, planting one end of his quarterstaff on the ground beside him, “if you'll pay me my last day's wage I'll take my leave also.” He lifted the purse from beneath his tunic and cocked his head as if listening to someone. Tenoctris squinted, then frowned, at the big youth.
“Yes, all right,” Benlo said. He was clearly irritated at being balked even though he'd never cared what Cashel did except to the extent it affected Garric's actions. “Rald”âthe chief guard carried the purse of silver and copperâ“pay him an anchor.”
“As for me,” Ilna said with a curtness that would have been anger in another person; Garric knew her well enough to recognize it as her normal attitude, “we owe each other nothing and I don't require charity. I'll find my own lodgings.”
All eyes were on Garric. “Sir,” he said to the drover, “I'll go with my friends, thank you. Iâ”
“You can't run from it, boy,” Benlo said. Liane blushed. Her father's tone did Garric the further insult of treating him
like a recalcitrant beast instead of a human with the right to an opinion. “I don't care how much of a coward you are,
I'm
your only hope of safety!”
like a recalcitrant beast instead of a human with the right to an opinion. “I don't care how much of a coward you are,
I'm
your only hope of safety!”
Garric saw the same scene twice, through his own eyes and through others that stained everything a bright, pulsing red. He stood still, afraid of what would happen if he moved.
“I'm very sorry you think me a coward, sir,” he said. His voice quavered, but it was Garric or-Reise speaking, not the figure whose rage would splatter blood as far as the inn's high roof.
Liane stepped between Garric and her father. Her eyes caught Garric's and held them.
Garric's shackled anger turned inward, filling him with the sick trembling of hormones unburned. He wanted to throw up and he wasn't sure his legs would hold him much longer. He turned his back, squeezed his temples hard, and faced around again.
Cashel and Tenoctris were looking at him with concern, but Ilna's eyes were on the drover. She'd unbound the rope she wore around her waist and held the ends in her hands as she measured the distance to Benlo's throat.
“Be that as it may,” Garric resumed, ignoring the repeated catch in his throat, “I don't choose to stay in the present surroundings. It isn't that I fear the dead. Master Benlo; nor the living”âhe heard his voice trembleâ“if it comes to that.”
Garric gripped his temples again, trying to press a fresh surge of rage out of his skull. He opened his eyes. He hated not being his own man; but he was a man, not a boy, in the eyes of Benlo's guards. He could see they were afraid that nothing could save their employer if this dangerous man Garric chose to strike him down.
The drover himself didn't understand the danger; but his daughter did. “Garric ⦔ Liane said.
“Yes,” Garric said, speaking to himself as a separate person, then merging again to become a single soul in his own body. The spasm had passed. “Yes.”
He raised his eyes to Benlo's. “Sir,” he said. “I'll visit you again after I've found quarters to my satisfaction. At any rate I'll return before I leave Carcosa. Good day!”
Garric walked awayânowhere in particular, just away. His friends fell in behind him; Tenoctris quick-stepped to keep up until Garric noticed and in embarrassment slowed his pace.
He thought from the corner of his eye he saw Liane start to follow. Her father caught her by the arm.
“Garric?” rumbled Cashel as they turned the first corner they came to.
Garric looked around, finding to his vague amusement that he knew where they were: the buildings were mostly different or mere tree-grown piles of rubble, but the vast pillars of the Temple of Concord of the Isles still stood, even though the roof and most of the entablature had fallen ages ago. The harbor was half a mile south; the Summer Palaceâand what did it look like now?âwas half a mile north on the same boulevard.
“I'm sorry for the way I acted back there,” Garric muttered.
“Huh!” Ilna sniffed. “Sorry for what?”
“Garric,” Cashel repeated. “You too, Ilna. You've been good to me and I'll miss you, but I'm going now.”
He turned. Garric caught his arm. “Cashel, wait,” he said. “Where are you going?”
Cashel shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “Garric, I'd have gone as soon as he paid me, but I didn't want it to look like I was walking out on you. You didn't need me, I saw you with the liches; but I didn't want it to look wrong to other people.”
He lowered his armânot tugging it away, but removing himself from contact nonetheless. Garric realized that his friend was one of the few people who didn't see any point in talk when talk wouldn't change matters.
And talk clearly wasn't going to change Cashel or-Kenset's determination to go off by himself.
“You'll be all right?” Ilna asked sharply.
Cashel gave her a slow smile. “Yeah, I think so,” he said. He frowned in concern. “Oh,” he went on. “I have money. How much would you like? All of it?”
Ilna shook her head. “I'll be quite all right, brother,” she said. “I ⦠will miss having you to take care of.”
She turned her back and put a hand to her face.
Garric swallowed and gripped Cashel's hand; he felt like a grapevine wrapping an oak. “Good luck, friend,” he said. “I'll miss you.”
Cashel smiled, nodded, and walked away. The tip of his quarterstaff was visible long after the crowd had swallowed the rest of his big form.
“Raphik, the merchant from Valles who buys my weaving,” Ilna said quietly, “mentioned that in Carcosa he stays in the Captain's Rest near the harbor. Most of the guests are ships' officers. Raphik said it was quiet, clean, and not expensive.”
She smiled with uncharacteristic softness. “He compared it to your father's inn, as a matter of fact.”
Garric didn't react. He was trying to absorb all the things that had happened in the past few minutes. Losing Cashel, though his big friend had done no more than he'd said in Barca's Hamlet he planned to do; and almost losing his own mind in murderous rage ⦠that was even worse.
Ilna's face hardened when Garric ignored her pleasantry. “Of course,” she said with icy nonchalance, “you may already have decided to go back to the Red Ox to stay with your fine new friends.”
“No,” Garric said, recalling himself to his present company. “I'm sorry, Ilna, I was just feeling ⦠A lot's been happening. The harbor's straight down this way.” He pointed. “Ah, I think.”
He set off at a cautious amble that he thought Tenoctris could match without strain. The traffic here wasn't as bad as it had been near the square, but he walked slightly ahead of the women and to their left so that his shoulder took the shock of the occasional traveler too hasty for care.
“I expect I can find work at the Captain's Rest as I did on the road,” Ilna said in a mollified tone. “Tomorrow perhaps I'll see to selling my fabric.”
“Mistress Tenoctris?” Garric said. “Is it because of the liches that you want to keep away from the graveyard?”
This section of the street was given over to tinker's wareâpots and kettles of bronze and copper and pale white tin, silver's dull sibling. It shocked Garric to see so many metal utensils in one place. In the borough most kitchenware was of wood or cast iron, with other metals generally to mend splits in the
treen
, wooden, dishes.
treen
, wooden, dishes.
“It isn't the presence of skeletons that controls the raising of liches,” Tenoctris said. “It's the sea itself. I don't believe a lich could travel to the Red Ox so far from all water, much less be created there.”
She cleared her throat, aware that she was giving a lecture rather than an answer to Garric's real question. “Garric,” she said, “I was more worried by the spells I'm sure Benlo will use to learn who's working against him. There's a great deal of power centered in those ancient tombs, but it's not a clean single force. Strands are knotted in fashions that I couldn't separate and Benlo can't even recognize. I'm afraid he'll manage to do something very dangerous, but I can't even predict what the thing will be.”
Garric thought of Liane. He formed a question in his mind, then suppressed it unspoken; Ilna's behavior already made him uncomfortable, and he couldn't drag a girl away from her father without her even asking for help.
“Should we have warned him?” Garric said aloud.
“He wouldn't listen,” Tenoctris said. “And Benlo's very powerful, you know. I'd very much like to have the answer if he learns it. The force that's working against Benlo is almost certainly directed against you too, Garric; and I think against anything you would class as âgood' as well.”
“You think that Benlo is going to fall into evil by accident with his magic?” Garric said.
A tout for a corner cookshop stepped in front of him. Garric
stopped in polite surprise; no one would be so brazen in Barca's Hamlet. Una strode straight at the fellow, the end of her short carry-staff aimed at his face. He yelped and hopped back.
stopped in polite surprise; no one would be so brazen in Barca's Hamlet. Una strode straight at the fellow, the end of her short carry-staff aimed at his face. He yelped and hopped back.
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