Mistress of the Catacombs (51 page)

* * *

"Ready?" said Carus, hunching in the shadow of the boats.

"Yes," said Sharina. She grinned. "And honored to accompany such a distinguished young officer as yourself."

Sharina felt as though she was racing down a steep hill. If she ever paused, she'd stumble and maybe break her neck, but for now it felt exhilarating. Running had always been a talent and a delight for her, so the emotions that came with the fancy were good ones.

Carus chuckled, though tightly. His mind would view this risky piece of acting in terms of battle, not of a race. He might laugh in the midst of slaughter, but it wouldn't be the same carefree humor as Sharina's when she ran.

Carus donned the bronze helmet he'd carried in his bundle. He'd clipped on a crest of feathers dyed red and white, the colors of Blaise.

"Let's go," he said, rising to his feet with a smooth motion. His left hand rested on the pommel of his long sword to keep it from swinging as he walked. He strode out of the scatter of boats and up the beach. Sharina, covered head to ankles with a caped cloak of blue silk, matched the king stride for stride on his left.

Sharina expected a shout, but nobody noticed them appear. The moon lit only one side of a figure, and beyond a short distance firelight glittered from fittings and equipment rather than illuminating the whole person. Two paces on from where they'd hidden, she and Carus were part of the confusion of a military camp in darkness.

"Watch out!" Carus said as his heel brushed a sagging guy rope that he hadn't noticed till he touched it. "I swear I'm tempted to launch a night attack after all. If nothing else, half these idiots'll break their necks running around the mare's nest they call a camp!"

He chuckled at the thought. Sharina smiled also, though she was glad the king hadn't burst into caroling laughter that would've drawn the attention their appearance did not. She'd never met anyone else who laughed with full throated humor the way Carus did—except for her brother, even before Garric began sharing his mind with his ancient ancestor.

They tramped on, making their way through the litter and filth. Count Lerdoc's forces hadn't bothered to dig latrines, let alone garbage pits.

"Not here a day and look at the state of this pig sty!" Carus fumed. He wasn't shouting, but neither did it seem to Sharina that he was aware—or that he cared—that they were in the middle of a hostile army. "If I threw siege lines around them, they'd be dying of disease inside a week...."

He sighed. "Which would spread to our troops," he added. "And anyway, we're not going to do it that way."

The mess disturbed Sharina in a different way. Where she grew up, organic waste was composted to become next year's fertilizer. The Blaise camp's disregard for any future beyond the next moment was a metaphor for war itself.

She smiled faintly, wondering if the Old Kingdom historian Tincer had said something like that. It would fit his tersely judgmental prose well enough. If she'd really been with her brother, she'd have asked if he remembered the line; but King Carus hadn't had the time or the inclination for scholarship.

They passed close to a fire. The men drinking around it hunched away from Carus' presence and averted their eyes.

When he was a few steps beyond, Carus murmured in an amused tone, "They think I'm one of their officers, all right. Every common soldier learns that his own officers are going to give him more trouble most of the time than the enemy ever thought of doing."

Besides the helmet, the king wore a waist-length red cloak and a molded cuirass with silver-filled engraving. The cuirass, borrowed from a sub-captain in a regiment of heavy infantry, didn't quite fit him—he'd had to replace the original side-laces with longer ones—but junior officers often made do with hand-me-downs. The king's tunic was of good quality wool, and on his feet were an infantryman's heavy sandals instead of high cavalry boots.

They were nearing the camp's central gate. The Blaise forces hadn't thrown up a proper rampart and fighting step the way the royal army had done, but a combination of ditches, stockades made from farm buildings and fences, and piled baggage, formed a boundary to the camp. The entrances were angled passages closed with looted carts tilted up on end. It struck Sharina that Count Lerdoc's troops were doing about as much damage to the local countryside as the royal forces were.

A detachment of heavy infantry guarded the entrance. The men didn't seem especially alert, but they were wearing swordbelts and full armor; they'd tilted their eight-foot spears against the wall beside them.

"Ready?" Carus said, but it was a warning rather than a question. He strode forward, just as he would've done had Sharina cried, "No!" instead of murmuring, "Ready," as she did.

"Officer of the Guard!" Carus said, not shouting but with a whipcrack in his voice. A youth Garric's age was already rising from the section of treetrunk where he'd sat beneath the lantern.

"Just who are you?" the youth said, trying to sound belligerent. His voice broke on the second syllable.

His men watched without concern. Sharina noticed that most of the interest was for her rather than Carus. She'd have grinned, but that would be out of character; instead she threw her head slightly back so that she could look down her nose.

One of the soldiers, a grizzled fellow with dragons tattooed the length of both forearms, put his fists on his hips and laughed at her. The young officer gave him an angry glance but didn't try to push his authority.

"Carus bor-Rasial," Carus said briskly. "I'm part of the Haft contingent. I'm supposed to escort this lady back to Donelle and return, but that means I'll need the password and countersign to get back through. What is it tonight?"

"Well, I don't know if I should...," said the officer, blurting the truth because he couldn't invent a statement that would make his confusion look any better.

"What's she going to Donelle for?" the grizzled soldier asked. "The king's got siege lines around the city, right?"

"The business of a Child of the Mistress is not your business, soldier," Sharina said. In a more appraising tone she added, "If you wish to learn the Moon Wisdom, I can arrange for you to be taught. The Mistress has uses for strong backs."

Unexpectedly the soldier turned his head away and muttered a prayer to the Shepherd. The Blaise army had heard things about Moon Wisdom also, and they must not like the rumors any better than the royal forces did.

"Yes, all right," the officer said. He was standing straighter and speaking in a firm voice after seeing Sharina cow his subordinate. "The password is Moon and the countersign is Stars. Got that?"

"Right," Carus said, giving a hitch to his swordbelt. "Well, I'll be back—"

"Lord Carus," Sharina said, picking up her cue. "I have to return to the Count at once."

"What?" said Carus in feigned surprise. "Look, if we don't start now there isn't going to be enough time for me to get you into Donelle and come back before dawn!"

"Then you'll have to stay in Donelle, won't you?" Sharina said, mimicking an upper-class sneer. It wasn't hard to do: her mother Lora had the temperament—if not the breeding—of the aristocrats she'd once served in the palace at Carcosa.

She turned on her heel and added, "Come along, sir!"

Carus grimaced. "Yes, milady," he muttered. He followed Sharina toward the heart of the camp, lengthening his stride to catch up. Sharina expected to hear laughter from the guards, but none came. What did they know of Moon Wisdom?

"Nicely played, girl," Carus murmured in her ear. "Now, let's see what kind of act you can put on for Lord Lerdain of Blaise!"

* * *

Garric knelt in the graveyard, eyeing an entrance set into a granite ramp that was almost flush with the ground. The bronze doors had warped when the jamb shifted in some past age. Through the crack Garric could see spiderwebs and the glint of eyes.

"He's still...," said Thalemos, eyeing Metron with a worried frown. "Still asleep, that is."

Garric translated: Still unconscious. Still comatose. Still breathing but no more than that. Aloud he said, "He'll be all right, Thalemos. But staring at him won't make him come around any sooner."

The young nobleman walked around the slab toward his companions, looking unhappy. He may have felt more affection toward the wizard than Garric and Vascay did, but regardless of personal opinion they all wanted him to awaken. Metron was the only person who knew why they were here in Wikedun.

"What do you think?" Vascay said, using his javelin butt to trace the design molded into the doors' surface. "My bet is that it's the catacombs where the priests were buried. Likely there'd be grave goods like you wouldn't believe down there."

The door's decoration was a moon in the grip of a spider whose web spread across the lower portions of both valves. Even distorted, it was artwork of the highest order.

Garric's personal feeling was that melting the cursed thing or throwing it into the sea would be the proper response to it, however.

One of the gang hooted cheerfully. The Brethren were scattered across the plain, though everyone was in sight of the others except when he crawled into a tomb.

"It wouldn't do any good," Garric said. He pointed to the overgrown depression in the ground just behind the entrance. "The passage is blocked just beyond, even if we could get through the door."

He stood. His own guess was that there'd been a small earthquake; the rigid granite block had focused the shocks on the softer limestone through which the catacombs were carved. It'd be hard to open the twisted doors with the tools the Brethren had available, and removing wedged slabs of rock would be next to impossible.

"How would we carry gold back with us?" Lord Thalemos asked. He bent to peer through the opening. Changing the subject he added, "There does seem to be a great number of spiders here, don't there?"

"Yeah," said Vascay as he turned away with a grimace. He'd been irritated when Thalemos mentioned the difficulty of men on foot carrying any quantity of gold. That was a rich man's point, but the bandit chief knew it was a valid one nonetheless.

Vascay tapped the bronze again with his javelin. "Maybe that's why they worshipped spiders, do you think?"

"No," said Garric. He didn't like the subject. "I think it's the other way around. And Vascay, I think we ought to get out of here. Quickly."

He'd noticed holes in the cliff face; either Vascay hadn't, or he hadn't understood their significance. The chief of the Brethren was both learned and clever, but he hadn't been born and raised a countryman.

Those weren't natural caves: they marked where the sea had sheared back the cliff face and opened tunnels which had been well inland. They'd provide an easy way into the catacombs—and if Vascay didn't realize that, Garric didn't intend to tell him.

An animal squealed. Garric jerked his head around, wondering if a hawk had stooped on a vole when his back was turned.

The victim was a vole, all right, a plump one as long as Garric's outstretched hand, but it was in a spider web instead of a hawk's talons. The vole's hind legs and stubby tail flailed furiously, stretching but not breaking the sticky silk holding its forequarters.

The spider, her orange and black body the size of a woman's fist, sidled toward the vole, holding a further loop of silk in her hind legs. She was preparing to bind her victim securely before stabbing her fangs into the warm body.

"Have any of you seen a lizard since we've been here?" Garric asked, watching the spider. Part of him wanted to crush her and free the vole, but nobody who'd kept a garden had much affection for voles, gophers, or any other rodent.

Besides, there were way too many spiders in this sunlit city of the dead for him to kill them all.

"Lizards?" said Vascay. "No, nor any snakes, praise the Lady. I didn't want to show it on Serpent's Isle when we were searching for your ring—"

He nodded to Thalemos.

"—but I'd rather just about anything than deal with a snake."

Garric looked at Vascay sharply. "You didn't show it," he said. "I didn't have any idea you felt anything about snakes except not wanting one to bite you."

Vascay smiled faintly. "Couldn't let it show," he said. "The Brethren were spooked enough as it was. If I'd let on I was scared...."

He shrugged. It struck Garric, not for the first time, that heroes were people who went on no matter how frightened they were; and that everybody was afraid of something.

Metron gave a racking cough and sat up, much as he had after Garric dragged him from the bottom of the pond. Thalemos was closest to the wizard, but Garric and Vascay reached him before the youth did.

Garric put an arm around Metron's shoulders for support. The wizard tried to stand.

"Maybe you'd better rest for a moment, Master Metron," Garric said.

"There's no time for that!" Metron said peevishly. He braced his hands in the coarse soil and pushed, rising to all fours. "The Mistress has been speaking to me. We have very little time, maybe not enough time."

He rose, wobbling and suddenly white-faced. Garric helped him get up, since that was what the wizard was determined to do.

"This is Wikedun?" Metron said. He gazed around the plain. "It is, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Thalemos. "I've read enough of the stones to be sure."

"It's Wikedun," said Vascay, "but I want to know why we're here, wizard. And how you propose to get us someplace else that we might want to be."

"I said there was no time!" Metron snapped. "Here, there should be a number of animals caught in spiderwebs nearby. Gather up as many as you can find—"

As he spoke, he noticed the vole that'd been trapped moments before. The little mammal was swathed like a corpse for burial, but it still scratched vainly against the silk. The spider had backed to the center of its web without poisoning the helpless prisoner.

Metron bent and scooped up the vole in his left hand, tearing the broad web. The spider watched impassively.

"—and bring them to me," he continued. "I'll be on the edge of the cliff since there's no beach here."

Vascay didn't react, but Garric felt his forehead furrow. Metron hadn't looked over the escarpment to see whether there was a beach or not, but he was quite correct.

Metron walked with quick, mincing steps toward the edge, pausing once to snatch up another victim bound in spider silk. Thalemos started looking around; Vascay did also, though he put his javelin point through a fat-bodied spider before he robbed her web of what was probably a shrew from its small size.

"What're you going to do with the animals, Master Metron?" Garric called. He already knew, knew what the wizard must have in mind. Garric knew also that he would have no part of it.

"I'm going to save our lives!" Metron said. "Get on with it! I'll need many more."

"Metron, there's no good that ever came from blood magic!" Garric said.

The wizard ignored him, instead walking to the cliff edge and settling there. He held the vole in his left hand as he scribed on the soil with the athame in his right. The sapphire winked on his middle finger.

"Brethren!" Vascay bellowed. "Brethren!"

The nearer bandits paused in their activities and turned. Halophus put the horn to his lips and blew, then pointed toward the chieftain when the more distant men looked around.

"Search spiderwebs for animals!" Vascay said. "Bring them to the wizard alive! Fast!"

He met Garric's eyes. "Gar," he said, "you live your way and I respect you for it. For myself, I'm not enough of a philosopher that I won't cut the throats of a few mice if that's what it takes to save my life."

Garric gave him a nod of understanding; his lips were tight. He didn't try to argue.

Vascay stumped off toward Metron. Thalemos gave Garric a shamefaced glance and followed, carrying a silk-wrapped packet in his left hand.

Garric took a deep breath. His throat was dry as sand, and he hadn't seen any water on this plain. "Duzi, help me," he whispered.

He hadn't been alone since he began wearing the medallion of King Carus a seeming lifetime ago. His fingers closed on the breast of his tunic, where the image hung when he was in his own body. Gar had nothing of the sort.

The Brethren were drifting toward Metron, some of them carrying loot they'd found in the tombs. Ademos had been particularly lucky: he had a gold brassard around either arm and a jeweled gold gorget bouncing from a neck chain.

Vascay had delivered his sacrifice and was casting around for more. His eyes met Garric's momentarily, then resumed their quest for prey. The foliage was festooned with silk; sometimes a single coarse bush anchored as many as three webs.

What would Carus do? Not sit around here moping, that was certain. Garric was already convinced they shouldn't stay in Wikedun any longer than necessary; watching Metron begin to pour the blood of little animals over his words of power only reinforced his conviction.

Garric laughed. Fine. If there were swamps on the other side of the hills, then there was water there. It might not be the best water, but the way his throat felt now he wouldn't quarrel with pond scum or even a floating corpse.

Giving his swordbelt a hitch to settle it more comfortably, Garric started southward. He'd scout the terrain, get a drink, and then return. Metron's business would've concluded one way or another; hunger and especially thirst would've brought the Brethren into a more reasonable frame of mind than the euphoria at gold and their escape from the millipede had left them.

He turned and called, "Vascay? I'm going to check the hills. I'll be back, as the Shepherd grants."

The chieftain looked up. He waved his javelin in acknowledgement.

There was a blast of crimson wizardlight. Metron's robes and flesh became momentarily transparent; his bones were eerie shadows against the sunlit horizon.

Grimacing, Garric started walking again. The flash had stopped the Brethren in their tracks. Vascay called in a snarl, "Come on, you fools! Are you going to let a little light scare you out of saving your lives?"

Garric didn't believe Metron's blood magic would save them. He'd seen wizards use the power that came from letting lives out, and every time the result had been a bad one for the wizards and those who'd put their trust in the wizards.

He hiked on, heading for the notch in the center of the arc of hills. He'd reach it in half an hour. He wasn't running away from Metron and Metron's magic, but he couldn't stay and watch what he knew was evil. Garric wouldn't try to stop Thalemos and the Brethren from making their own choice, but neither would he be a party to it.

Wizardlight continued to flare like sheet lightning, casting its vivid scarlet across the landscape even in this bright sun. Garric's shadow shivered ahead of him, an unstained blur framed by the ruddy touch of evil.

A trumpeter blew a long, silvery note. Garric thought it was Halophus, his call echoing from the hills. He turned his head and saw the Brethren looking south in amazement.

The trumpet sounded again; Halophus hadn't raised his own curved horn to his lips.

In the notch of the hills appeared the first elements of an army. The soldiers were on foot. Their commander hung in a litter between two huge monsters. He was anonymous at this distance, but the dragon banner fluttering above him was the standard of the Intercessor.

The soldiers pouring past into the plain in increasing numbers were lizards. They walked upright and carried bronze weapons, but they weren't men. Their trumpeter called again.

Garric turned back toward his fellows. He held his scabbard with his left hand to keep it from jouncing against his legs as he jogged. It didn't matter now what Metron was doing: Garric's place was with the other humans trapped in this ancient graveyard.

Wizardlight pulsed from Metron's circle of power, leaving afterimages of itself in Garric's eyes between flashes. Most of the Brethren ran east or west, trying to escape from between the lizardmen's hammer and the anvil of the sea. They couldn't possibly succeed.

"Vascay!" Garric called. The peg-legged chieftain wasn't running, and Lord Thalemos stood at his side with his arms crossed in aristocratic disregard for danger. The boy wasn't much use in some ways, but Garric hadn't seen any reason to fault his courage. "Hold where you are! There's a way out!"

He wasn't sure that the catacombs would save them, but a few armed men in a tunnel could hold off a thousand... for a time. Garric laughed as Carus would have laughed. That's all life was, after all, time added to time until there was no more to add.

Ademos had ducked over the corniche, perhaps hoping to hide among the broken rocks below. He reappeared, flailing his arms in his panic. He'd lost the golden brassards already, and as he stumbled onto the plain he flung away the looted gorget.

Behind Ademos, climbing the cliff like ants making their way up a step, came a score of Archai chittering in metallic voices. They marched past Metron, ignoring Vascay and Thalemos as well, and began to form a line facing the oncoming lizardmen.