Queen of Demons (20 page)

Read Queen of Demons Online

Authors: David Drake

BOOK: Queen of Demons
7.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“I thought it was the air,” Liane said. “I thought I'd breathed poison and it was going to kill me.”
Garric shrugged uncomfortably. “I don't know why I cut the Hand,” he said. “I guess because I'd never seen anything like the, well, ghost or the Hand either one. I smashed the one because I couldn't stop the other.”
It had been his own decision, not that of King Carus. A peasant learns as surely as a king that the worst thing to do in a crisis is to do nothing at all; but the action Garric took could have meant—
“I could've trapped us all in the Gulf, couldn't I?” Garric said miserably. “Or between there and here, in the darkness.”
“Garric,” Liane said. She rose and put her arms around him, leaving the emptied leaf with Tenoctris. “It was killing me. I would have died if you hadn't smashed that evil thing.”
“Yes,” said Tenoctris, struggling for a moment before both young people helped her to her feet. “Though I suspect that would have been less unpleasant than what the. creature had in store for Garric himself.”
“You know who she was?” Garric asked.
Tenoctris shook her head. “No,” she said, “but I think I know
what
she was.”
The old woman grinned with a wry enthusiasm that meant she really had recovered. “It's all a myth, of course,” she said, “and if I'm going to believe in demigods like the Temptress sent to lure the Shepherd from his duties, then I'd have to believe in the Great Gods themselves, wouldn't I? Where does my rational belief system go then, if you please?”
Garric examined his sword. Just below the tip, where the taper of the point merged into the straight blade's full width, something had eaten a piece out of the edge. The steel wasn't chipped or notched. Rather, a raised lip
showed that metal had flowed under enormous heat. It looked as though Garric had tried to cut a lightning bolt instead of pearl and ancient bone.
“The Ersa who created the Gulf was more powerful than any human wizard,” Tenoctris said musingly. “He or she was perhaps more foolish than any human would have been also. Though I've certainly seen my share of humans with more power than sense, we all have.”
Her face hardened into an expression as implacable as that of Justice. “But to have used something as evil as that thing in order to create a sanctuary—that's utter madness!”
Garric thought about Rodoard and his henchmen; about the men, and particularly about Lunifra. They couldn't any of them have been saints before the Gulf swallowed them; but for that many people to have sunk to beasts so quickly—perhaps the cause was in part external.
“Maybe I did Rodoard an injustice,” he said softly. “And Lunifra.”
“No,” said Liane, “you didn't. He was a monster and she was a worse one. However they got that way.”
Graz started toward the humans. He walked with a stiff-legged gait that would mark him as alien at distances far greater than the Ersa features were visible.
“Tenoctris?” Garric said. “Do you know where we are?”
“Yes,” the old wizard said. “The sort of place it is, at any rate; a bridge, I suppose you could call it. And I think we can return to our world from here. I'll have to study matters and choose the correct location from which to take the next step.”
“What will happen to the people in the Gulf?” Liane asked quietly. She was tense, but Garric couldn't tell from Liane's tone whether she was afraid for the humans living in that green twilight or simply concerned that they would follow the escapees here.
“Nothing will happen to them,” Tenoctris said. “Nothing
that they don't do to themselves, I mean. That may be bad enough.”
“They chose,” Garric said. He thought of Josfred, dreaming of the day humans would slaughter the Ersa. “All of them chose, not just Rodoard.”
“Yes,” said Tenoctris. She shrugged. “When you destroyed the Hand, you sealed the Gulf forever, from both sides. The Gulf will no longer suck in people from our world, and those living in it can never leave. Not even if a wizard far greater than I am is born to them.”
“I thank the Lady for Her mercy,” Liane said as Graz joined the three humans.
S
harina awakened in darkness, choking the scream in her throat. She didn't remember what she'd been dreaming, but she held the Pewle knife in a grip that threatened to numb her fingers.
She waited, taking slow, deep breaths until her heart stopped pounding, then crawled out of her tent. She still held the big knife, though no longer in a death grip.
“Mistress?” said the sailor outside the flap of her shelter.
“It's all right!” Sharina said, angry again that Nonnus kept a guard near her at all times, even the most private.
She glanced at the sky. The Oxen were above the eastern horizon, but only the great blue star of the Plowman's head had risen. At this time of year it meant that dawn was still an hour away, though the sky would brighten enough to tell dark from light well before then.
They'd landed on this nameless islet after sunset. The little vessel lay tipped sideways on the shore, resting on
its port gunwale and a fence of oars thrust blade-down into the sand on the starboard side. Most of the crew slept under the sheltering hull, but Sharina had a cover of canvas hung on a brushwood frame.
The sailor guarding Sharina put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. She turned on him. “Why did you do that?” she snapped.
“Sorry, mistress,” the man said. It wasn't an answer, but she knew by now it was as much answer as she'd get from him. She strode briskly along the shore in the direction Nonnus had gone after they ate together.
The Inner Sea was dotted with tiny islands. Few of them had freshwater, but they provided places for ships to lie overnight and their crews to sleep on dry ground. Many were covered in vegetation to the tide line. This one had a luxuriant growth of fig bushes, though the fruit would probably be small and bitter even in late summer when it had ripened.
Sharina noticed the flicker of red light only when it ceased. She stopped. She couldn't let herself understand what it meant, not yet. For a moment she wriggled her bare toes deeper into the sand for the familiar gritty feeling; then she walked on.
When Sharina had crawled from her tent there'd been a rosy haze toward the islet's northern edge. It was too faint to have crossed the threshold of her consciousness, but her country-trained senses were aware of it.
When the guard whistled, the light had vanished. That
change
in the previous ambience struck her though the mere fact of the light had not. The light was the sort of tremble-at-the-back-of-the-eyeball Sharina had seen in the past when a wizard worked.
She clasped both her hands about the hilt of the Pewle knife: not as a weapon, but as though she were in prayer.
A figure came out of the darkness ahead of her. “Sharina?” Nonnus said. “You're up early, child.”
“We both are,” Sharina said. The brush rustled. Some islets had populations of goats or pigs, landed in former
times to provide meat for future travelers. This place had only rats. “I was having a dream, so I got up.”
Nonnus nodded. “I was checking the weather,” he said. His voice and manner were those of the man Sharina had grown up with, the hermit who prayed every day to the Lady to be forgiven for his past. “We'll have another fine day. We should make good time.”
“As before?” Sharina said. “With half the rowers resting and changing shifts on the hour?”
“Yes, that's the best way to cover a long distance quickly,” Nonnus said. “It's hard on the crew, but these men are trained for it.”
“Where are we going, Nonnus?” Sharina said. “Please, can't I know now?”
They'd rowed east ever since they left Pandah, but Sharina couldn't guess how far they'd traveled. This driving progress by men rowing watch-and-watch would confuse even an experienced sailor, she thought.
“Not yet, child,” Nonnus said. The sky had become enough lighter that she could see the square, familiar lines of his bearded face. “You'll have to trust me.”
He gestured Sharina to turn. The arc of his arm cautiously avoided the Pewle knife she held before her. “Come, we'll see if there's porridge on the fire, yet.”
“Nonnus?” she said in sudden surmise. “Don't you want to take your knife back? I only carry it in … because it helps me remember you.”
“I don't touch iron since I returned to help you,” Nonnus said smoothly. “You keep it if you like, though my men and I will make sure nothing happens to you.”
As the sky brightened Sharina saw a shape under the rope belt of Nonnus' tunic. “You have another knife,” she said.
“This?” Nonnus said, lifting the weapon slightly between his thumb and forefinger. His tone barely hinted at irritation. “Yes, but it's stone. Fossil bone, rather. Now let's go back to the ship.”
“Yes, of course,” Sharina said as she turned obediently.
The guard stood close behind her. She sheathed the Pewle knife but continued to rest two fingers of her right hand on its black horn hilt.
The stone knife was no weapon: its hilt and blade were carved with symbols of power shaped in the curving style of the Old Kingdom. Sharina felt sick with fury. Did this creature who pretended to be Nonnus think that she wouldn't recognize a wizard's athame?
He hadn't intended her to see it, of course. She'd interrupted him while he was working an incantation, perhaps trying to foresee the weather. As if Nonnus—or any peasant in Barca's Hamlet!—couldn't have told without wizardry that the morrow would be fair!
Sharina had given herself into the hands of an enemy claiming to be the person above all others that she would trust. This islet was too small to hide on, even if she managed to escape for the moment from the men on either side of her.
But Sharina would escape. For her own sake. For the sake of Cashel, whom she'd abandoned because a lying wizard called to her.
And most of all, for the sake of the dead man whose memory she had stained by trusting an enemy who wore his semblance.
 
 
llna left her door open while she worked, so she heard Maidus running all the way down the hall from the stairwell. She tamped a last weft thread, closed the shed, and stepped out from behind the loom to face the boy when he burst into the room.
“Mistress llna!” Maidus said. “There's a man coming up for you. He's City Patrol for sure but he's not from this district. I think he's from the chancellor's office!”
Ilna glanced at the pattern she'd been weaving and saw nothing that concerned her. She frowned. If the chancellor sent an envoy to obtain Ilna's fabric directly instead of
going through Beltar's shop, he wouldn't pick someone who frightened Maidus as much as—
“Ah,” she said, smiling with appreciation. “A stocky man of forty or so? A solid fellow, and probably carrying a baton that's seen use?”
Maidus bobbed his head in furious agreement. “That's him, mistress,” he said. “A terrible man!”
“A hard one, at least,” Ilna said. “His name's Voder or-Tettigan. Well, I knew I'd see him as soon as he decided what he was going to do about me. You run along now, Maidus. I won't need you further today.”
She smiled like plaster cracking. “At least for today.”
“What's he going to do, mistress?” the boy asked.
“Go away, Maidus,” Ilna said with wintry calm. “I won't tell you again.”
The boy backed from the room, transfixed by Ilna's cold glare. She wasn't angry, but anger would have been easier to face than this detached analysis. It was like the look on the face of a cook determining where to start jointing a dead hen.
Voder came out of the stairwell even as Maidus vanished in the other direction. The patrol official clomped heavily on the sagging floor, deliberately warning of his presence. Doors along the corridor banged, leaving Ilna's the only one open.
Voder closed it behind him as he entered.
“Good morning, mistress,” he said, glancing around the room in a deceptively casual fashion. He could probably have reported the number of warp threads strung on the double loom in the corner. “The last time I came to see you, I didn't have to walk up stairs.”
He gave her a lazy smile. She didn't see any new scars, but Voder wasn‘t carrying quite as much extra weight around his belly as he had the day he visited her in the mansion on Palace Square she'd then rented. He'd probably lost the fat when Ilna had him imprisoned to prevent him from interfering with her schemes.
“The last time you saw me,” she said, “I didn't have so many debts to repay.”
She reached behind the loom and brought out the stool at which she worked. “I can't offer you a proper chair, I'm afraid,” she said, “but you're welcome to this. I don't cater to visitors here.”
Voder laughed. “I guess I get enough sitting done in the office, ever since they promoted me off the street,” he said. He rubbed his waistline. “I didn't used to have a belly like this. Of course, I'm not as young as I used to be either.”
Ilna straightened and crossed her hands behind her back. “Master Voder,” she said, “I wronged you. I apologize for that. You'll have to decide on any further recompense yourself.”
Voder shook his head, still smiling. “I threatened you,” he said, “and then I turned my back. I've been off the street too long or I'd have known better than to do that with somebody of our sort.”
He walked past Ilna to the window. He moved very softly now, despite boots with heavy soles and exposed nailheads. A man kicked with those boots would know it the next morning; or wouldn't, likely enough.
“We draped that hanging you sent us across the wall opposite the stove,” Voder said without turning around. “We spend most of our time in the kitchen, you know. When I'm home, I mean. The wife keeps a room for company, but the Lady help me and the kids if we stick a toe in and muss it up.”
“I gather there's a market for hangings of that size,” Ilna said. “At any rate, Beltar keeps raising his prices on the ones I let him have.”
“I could get a good price for one of my kids, too,” Voder said, turning with the easy grace of a man in control of his body. “Especially the middle daughter. Quite a little charmer, she is. Nobody in my family or my wife's either was that blond before, but I don't suppose that's a question I ought to be looking into too carefully, hey?”
More people than Voder's wife and children had gone through hard times or worse because of Ilna's actions. That didn't make it any less wrenching for her to look at the man and think about the others she'd hurt without being more than casually aware of their existence.
Voder smiled. He was a cheerful man, one who'd smile even when he slid his cudgel out from beneath his broad leather belt.
“The wife's got kin here in Erdin and so do I,” he said, answering the question Ilna hadn't asked. “They made out all right while I was away.”
He grinned even more broadly. “She always told me I'd wind up on the wrong side of the walls unless I learned to kiss ass better than I did,” he added. “I guess the only surprise for her was when they let me out again and promoted me.”
Voder faced the window again. He cleared his throat before he continued, “Which I wouldn't have come here to thank you for, but since I
am
here—”
“You've no cause to thank me,” Ilna said harshly. “For anything.”
“Thank you anyway,” Voder said without looking around. “What I came for was to say that there's a couple men asking around for you. Street conjurers, likely enough … but just maybe they're the real thing.”
He turned. This time his smile was forced. Voder wouldn't say the word “wizard,” because he was afraid of calling to himself the thing he named.
Ilna frowned in puzzlement. “I don't know any male wizards,” she said. Her expression changed to a smile of a sort that Voder, at least, could understand. “None that're still alive, I mean. What do they look like?”
The police official shrugged. “The older one, Cerix, doesn't have any legs,” he said. “The other one's a boy. He calls himself Halphemos but he was just Alos when he came here with Cerix a few years ago. Cerix had his legs then, too. They've been gone from Erdin for almost a year, but now they're back looking for you.”
Ilna shrugged in turn. “I haven't the least notion as to what they want,” she said. “You can direct them to me if you like.”
“If you think there's going to be a problem,” Voder said, turning sidelong so that he wasn't
quite
speaking directly, “they can leave town before they bother you, you know. What you've been doing these past weeks has helped a lot of people.”
“I'm not afraid of them, Voder,” Ilna said. She laughed harshly. “The only thing I'm afraid of are the things I'm capable of doing myself.”

Other books

Shadow's Stand by Sarah McCarty
The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer
Show No Mercy by Walkers, Bethany
Murder Is My Racquet by Otto Penzler
Lucinda's Secret by Tony DiTerlizzi, Holly Black
The Man Who Loved Dogs by Leonardo Padura
Die for the Flame by William Gehler
Cool Cache by Smiley, Patricia