Chapter 13 A trumpet calling Assembly awakened Sharina. The weeks she'd spent with the army on campaign made the sound familiar, but hearing it in Pandah threw her tired mind into deeper confusion. She had the odd feeling besides that it was an echo. She got out of bed, wondering what time it was. She hadn't been sure she'd be able to get to sleep again after they'd found Platt's body, but she'd dropped off as soon as her head hit the pillow. Having both her previous responsibilities and Garric's left her exhausted. Besides, she no longer found sudden, horrible death an unfamiliar experience. Another trumpet sounded. There was smoke in the air, drifting through the slatted jalousies. What was going on? Lady, aid us in our time of need . "Your highness?" said Diora, stumbling from her alcove with a bleary expression. She held the lamp she'd borrowed from a hall bracket to replace the one Sharina had smashed into the mass of scorpions. "I just heard a second regiment called to arms," Sharina said. The maid didn't understand military signals; why should she? "That's half the capital garrison. I'm going to check on what's happening." "That's the fourth trumpet, Sharina," said Burne from the floor. "And there've been horns." "Hop up," said Sharina, curving her left arm into a cradle for the rat. She jerked the hall door open. To the waiting guards as well as Burne she said, "We're going to the City Prefect's office at once." Tadai's suite was at the far end of the same corridor. Its outer door was open, spilling light from the interior. A courier tried to exit as the leading Blood Eagles arrived; they pushed him aside without ceremony. Sharina winced, but the courier knew better than to resent it-and in fairness to the soldiers, there wasn't a lot of time for politeness. The waiting room of the large office was already crowded. Tadai sat behind a clerk's desk instead of in his well appointed private chamber. "Lord Quernan," he was saying, "Put three regiments at the disposal of the city watch. They're to be under the command of the district captains, not their own officers, and they're to use only the butts of their spears. They're not to use the points, and they're not to carry swords." "Look here, Tadai!" Quernan said. The military advisor's back was to the door; he didn't see Sharina enter, though Lord Tadai struggled to his feet to greet her.
"First, you're wrong about putting real soldiers under the watch, and second, you can't disarm them in the middle of riots like this. It's not safe!" "Your highness," said Tadai, bowing. He was as close to being disheveled as Sharina had seen since earthquakes and an army of monsters had destroyed Erdin while he was present. "What?" said Quernan, turning. "Oh!" "Lord Quernan," Sharina said, "follow the prefect's direction as to command. The troops are not to use points and edges unless their own lives are endangered, but they'll carry their full equipment including swords. And if you will, don't waste time. It's obvious that things are in a serious state." "Your highness," Quernan muttered as he stumped out of the office with a train of aides following. Lord Tadai grimaced. "Your highness," he said, "if you leave it to the soldiers themselves-" "They'll be making that decision regardless of what their orders are," Sharina said. She realized her mind was the same place it would've been if she'd been discussing how to deal with rats in the inn: weighing alternatives in terms of cost and effectiveness and ignoring all other considerations.
"This way they don't go into action thinking they're under the command of fools." She cleared her throat and added, "Besides, I'm more concerned about the safety of men putting their lives on the line for me than I am of people intent on burning down Pandah. That is what's happening, isn't it?" "Some of them are," Tadai said, sighing. He'd aged noticeably since their recent conversation in Dysart's office.
"There are riots in all parts of the city, and some involve fires. I have twelve separate reports, and there may be more." Sharina gestured Tadai back into his chair. He probably hadn't been to bed tonight, and his duties as prefect required more physical activity than had ordinarily been a part of his life. She said, "What caused the riots?
Do we know?" Tadai settled with another sigh. "According to prisoners from all four districts of the city," he said, "they've heard that you tortured to death a priest named Platt because he refused to recant his belief in Lord Scorpion, the true God." "May the Sister bite me!" blurted Trooper Lires. "Nobodycould think the Princess would do that!"
Lires had been part of Sharina's guard in several hard places, and they'd saved one another's life on occasion. That familiarity made him even less concerned about formal courtesy than most Blood Eagles, and propriety was well down Lord Attaper's list when he was choosing men to replace those who'd fallen. "Of course they could, Lires," Sharina said, jumping in quickly so that nobody'd try to discipline an uppity guard. "Even in Pandah, not one in a hundred people have seen me closer than on the dais at an assembly. How difficult wouldyou find it to believe a noble you didn't know would torture prisoners?" "Well, even those I do know, Princess," Lires said in embarrassment. "But notyou." Sharina quirked a smile at him. To Tadai she said, "Milord, what do you want of me?" Tadai shrugged. "The trouble's widespread, but I don't think it's very deep," he said. "With the help of the garrison, we should have it under control shortly. By dawn, at any rate. I suggest that you get some rest, if you can." "Thank you, milord," Sharina said, "but I tried that and wound up here. I think I'll take a look from the roof." "I'll accompany you if I may, your highness," said Master Dysart. He must've entered behind her. She nodded, already moving. Tadai needed his office. The guards swept them through the crowd the way the hull cuts the water around a ship's passengers. Captain Ascor allowed Dysart to walk beside Sharina, though she wasn't certain that Lord Attaper would've approved had he known. "The riots must've been planned at the same time as the murder of the captured priest, your highness," Dysart murmured as they mounted the stairs. "They broke out in all parts of the city simultaneously." "Yes," said Sharina. She considered options silently.
There were really only two choices: to quit or to go on. She would go on, no matter how tired and frustrated she was. They all would. Aloud she said, "The next time we capture a priest of the Scorpion, we'll know we have to guard against his former master murdering him."
Howcould they protect the prisoner? If they even managed to get another one. Their enemy and its minions were sophisticated and learned quickly. Sharina looked out over the city. The moon had set, but several plumes of smoke rose into the starlit sky. Lanterns winked in the streets, but at least the fires weren't burning out of control.
"Ah…," Dysart said. "I've directed my agents to look for the headquarters of the cult, rather than to spend their efforts in capturing another functionary." "There may not be a headquarters!"
Sharina said, more sharply than she'd intended. "All the Scorpion's worshippers may get their instructions in dreams and never see one another." "Yes, your highness," Dysart said quietly. "In that case, nothing we do here will be of any real value. I prefer to assume that my actions have meaning." We're all trying, Sharina thought. We're all doing the best we can. She noticed something. "Master Dysart?" she said. "Ascor, any of you? Have you seen Burne? He's not with me."
"Your rat, princess?" said Trooper Lires. "He went out through the window down in the prefect's office." "Oh," said Sharina. "Well, I suppose he knows what he's doing." Silently she added, I only wish that the rest of us did. *** Brincisa took a deep breath as she finished her second set of chants, then moved to the final side of the triangle in which Ilna and Ingens stood. Space was tight, so Usun sat on Ilna's left arm. The secretary was restive. Wizardry made most people uncomfortable, but the fact that they'd been standing in the symbol for long minutes without anything happening might bother him as well. It certainly bothered Ilna. "Erek rechthi-" Brincisa said, gesturing with the athame she'd chosen for this work. It had been carved from jade with a faint greenish cast. The words of power broke off in mid syllable. The world outside Ilna's eyes went black-shapeless and opaque. Her grip on the coil of fine blond hair tightened. If it was as strong as she suspected, a hard tug would slice the loop on the other end through the wizard's neck. There was light. They stood in a grove of mature hardwoods: a pair of shagbark hickories, a white oak, and directly before them a huge red oak. Dogwoods and white birches grew outside the large trees, but the area within the stand was covered by knee-high fern. The red oak stretched out a limb thicker than most tree boles. It grew from a point on the trunk that was a little higher than Ilna could reach by stretching to her full height. From it hung a stone gong supported by two bronze chains. Usun hopped from the crook of Ilna's arm but climbed onto a fallen limb to see over the fern. He sniffed deeply. "Rabbits, squirrels, and a fox," he said. He giggled and added, "Mistress Brincisa hasn't put us in a tiger's den, at least. Or found another ghoul for us to dispose of." "This is the grove where Princess Perrine came to us," Ingens said in a dull voice.
He walked away, keeping his back to Ilna. The ferns he brushed through gave off a faint odor of fresh hay. "The gong there…" He gestured. "Master Hervir tapped the center of it with his knuckles, and she came through the woods with four servants. The servants were apes but they wore clothes." "Apes, now?" said Usun. He tested the air again. "Well, they haven't been here recently." Ilna looked about.
There was no sign of the way Brincisa had sent them to this place. The hair stretching from the coil in her hand vanished somewhere in the air behind her, but she couldn't be sure exactly what that point was.
"Do we agree that Brincisa has taken us where we asked her to?" she said to her companions. "And that there's no immediate danger?" Ingens nodded, his back still turned. "Yes," he mumbled. "No danger, certainly," Usun agreed. "But if you want to pull on the hair and take Brincisa's head off, then there won't be many mourners. Not even those servants of hers, I'll wager." "What I want to do," said Ilna, "is to keep my word. Of course." She gave the coil an underhanded toss in the direction the strand tended. It vanished in mid air, a golden flash in the leaf-filtered grove. "All right," Ilna said. "I'll ring the gong, then. You said that I can ring it with a finger?" "Before you do that, mistress," Usun said, "There's one thing we might check. There, midway between the two hickory trees. The ground's been disturbed." "Has it?"
Ilna said. She'd been walking toward the gong, but out of politeness she glanced where the little man pointed. So far as she could tell, the ferns grew in a feathery, unbroken surface across the floor of the glade. Cashel might've been able to tell more, but neither them had been a forester. Oh. Ilna stopped. "Master Ingens," she said. "Face me." The secretary buried his face in his hands. He didn't speak or look at her. Ilna had taken yarn from her sleeve and was knotting it.
That was more reflex than a conscious act, the way she'd have grabbed her weaver's sword if it slipped from her hand. "Master Ingens," she repeated, "faceme!" The secretary turned slowly and lowered his hands.
Tears streaked his cheeks, but his expression now was defiant. "Hervir was completely healthy when I last saw him," he said. "I didn't kill him!" Usun cackled. He stood arms akimbo on his low perch. "Very well," said Ilna. She was coldly furious. She'd regarded Ingens as… not a friend, of course, but an ally who'd help to the limited degree he was able. It now appeared that- Well, better to ask than to speculate. "Tell us what really happened to Hervir," she said.
Her voice was calm. "Tell us everything. Or I will not only tear the information out of you, I will tear your eyes from their sockets."
"Yes, mistress," said Ingens. He sounded like a dead man. "I buried the money there." He gestured. "I was going to bury it beside a tree, but I couldn't because of the roots. I had only my stylus to break the ground and a wax tablet to scoop it away. I didn't plan to do this! It just happened." "What happened to Hervir?" Ilna repeated, though this time without her previous anger. Ingens was weak, but almost everyone was weak. Ilna os-Kenset was weak at times, which she hated as she hated few other things. "It was just as I told you," said Ingens, getting control of himself better. "Hervir met the princess and her apes. They talked. He told me he was going with her but that he'd be back in the evening. I was holding the money he'd brought to buy the saffron." He took a deep, shuddering breath. He was looking at Ilna's feet, not her eyes, but he didn't try to turn away. "The guards didn't know that," he explained. "Hervir always had me carry the money in a belt between my tunics. He didn't like the weight, and it chafed his hipbones." "He trusted you?" said Usun, laughter not far beneath the surface of the words. "He was right to trust me!" Ingens said. "I'd no more steal than I would have killed and eaten him!" He licked his lips and grimaced, trying to wet them. "He went with Perrine, just walked out of the grove-" He pointed with his full arm, toward the gong.
"They were out of sight behind this big tree," he said, "so I walked around it to see where they were going. I couldn't see them. I couldn't see anything, and neither could the guards. Just as I told Lady Zussa. They were gone!" "And then?" said Ilna. She could hold her pattern in front of the secretary's eyes and drag his very soul out, just as she'd said, but he seemed to be talking freely. Ingens licked his lips again. "We waited till evening," he said. "Hervir didn't come back. Nobody did. We had a room in Caraman-rooms, one for the guards and I slept on a truckle bed in Hervir's room. In the night I came back to this grove-alone. I didn't plan to… I just came to see if Hervir had returned. It was moonlight." He turned away. Ilna didn't jerk his head toward her. Ingens was talking; forcing him to meet her eyes would merely be punishment. That wasn't her business. "Hervir wasn't here," Ingens said. "He might have been! But I thought…
And I buried the money belt here between the trees. I still had the travelling expenses, the guards' pay and food and lodging. But I hid the gold we'd brought to buy saffron." "Why didn't you just carry it with you to Pandah?" Ilna said. "Or back to Valles, for that matter?
Since you were stealing it anyway." Ingens winced but looked up. "I thought if I had the gold with me on the journey back, the guards might have suspected. We'd have had a different relationship without Hervir." He gave her a crooked smile. "I was Hervir's dog, you see," he explained. "The guards believed that I thought I was better than a group of illiterate thugs with a modicum of skill at injuring people.
If they decided to kick the dog in the absence of its master, they'd find the gold. Rather than lose both the gold and my life, I buried it here and planned to come back for it alone." He started to cry. "I'm glad you caught me," he said. "I'm not a thief. I should never have thought I could get away with this, this…" Ilna shrugged. "It sounds to me," she said, "as if your main concern was saving your own life. And while I don't put a high value on that-your life or mine either one-it's not unreasonable that you'd disagree." She took the remaining few steps to the gong. She studied it critically. It was made of greenish stone with gray veins crawling through it; at first glance, she'd thought it was corroded bronze. Looking back at Ingens, she said, "Did you try ringing it yourself after your master disappeared?" "Yes, mistress," Ingens said. "We came back on the next three days, the guards and I. I struck the gong in the morning when we arrived, then in the evening before we left. No one responded, so we hired Captain Sairg to carry us to Pandah to report." "They may not come for me either," Ilna said, eyeing the stone disk. It was about three handspans across and as thick as her index finger. "Still, we'll try this first." She raised her right hand. "Mistress?" the secretary said in a desperate voice. Ilna turned in irritation. She held strands of yarn in her left hand; before she caught herself, she'd started to knot them in a fashion thatwould silence the fool while she had work to do. "Yes?" she said. "What are you going to do to me?" Ingens said.
"About the money?" "I have nothing to do with money!" Ilna snapped.
Her mouth worked sourly. In a milder tone she added, "And I have nothing to do with Halgran Mercantile, either. If we find Hervir, you can give the money back to him. If we don't, I suppose you can take it back to Mistress Zussa. If you survive, of course." "Thank you, mistress," Ingens said. "That's what I'd decided to do anyway." He gave her the broken smile again. "I'm not cut out to be a thief, you see," he said. "No," said Ilna, "you're not. Now, if you're done with your questions, I'll get on with the business that brought us here."
"Before you bring Princess Perrine and her little beasties…," said Usun. His voice managed to sound mocking even when he didn't mean it to be. If therewere times he didn't mean it to be. "Why don't you roll me up in your cloak so that they won't see me?" Ilna looked at him, then knelt to open her slung cloak on the bed of ferns. "Yes," she said. "That's a good idea." The wizened little man arranged himself on the densely woven wool. He'd somewhere found a hollow reed which he thrust toward the open edge, just as though he planned to hide under water. "What do you expect to happen?" the secretary asked as he watched in puzzlement. "I don'tknow what's going to happen," said Ilna, rolling the cloak again. "That's why Master Usun's idea is such a good one. She hung the garment's strap over her shoulder. Usun was so scrawny that, even knowing he was there, she saw no change in its lines. Adjusting her tunics, Ilna faced the gong again. Taking a deep breath, she tapped the center with her knuckles. Though she disliked stone, she had to admit that the gong's note was cool and melodious. Before the tone had died away, she heard the rustle of feet approaching through the dogwood and birch leaves. *** Garric walked deliberately toward the circular temple. He wasn't gripping his sword hilt, but his right hand was closer to it than it would've been during a meeting with his council. The sky had a pearly radiance like nothing in his experience. The scattered clouds he'd seen through the trees while walking to the lake margin has been completely normal. Tenoctris walked alongside him, looking somewhat worn. Now in a youthful body, she worked to conceal the effort she expended in her art just as she'd done when she wore all her seventy years. That didn't mean the effort wasn't real. The temple had solid walls instead of a colonnade, set on a three-step base. It had been built from unblemished white marble, save for the gilded dome and the pair of golden caryatids supporting the simple transom over the entrance. Garric walked into the lighted interior. The dome didn't have an oculus in its center: the light, the same soft rainbow majesty as the sky, streamed from the circle of wall opposite the entrance. It swirled and diffused and seemed to seep through the stone. Garric frowned for a moment, then turned his attention to the marble bier in the middle of the room. It must have had velvet coverings once, but time had reduced them to greenish dust on the surrounding floor. Lord Munn was a skeleton, but the skeleton of a man with bones as dense as a deer's. In life he must've been seven feet tall. His two-handed sword was the most massive weapon Garric had ever seen. "I've never seen anything like it either, lad," said the ghost in his mind. "I'd use it if I had to, but I'll tell theworldI'd find it awkward." Garric grinned. If Carus had to-whenhe'd had to-he'd tear out throats with his teeth. The warrior king's standards for what constituted a practical weapon were broader than most people could imagine. "Garric, come out here if you will," Tenoctris said. The request was polite in form but peremptory in tone. And why not? They were here by Tenoctris' skill and in furtherance of her plan; if she thought he ought to be doing something, she didn't need put frills on her direction. "Yes, ma'am," Garric said, walking out to where the wizard stood examining the caryatids. The women who'd modeled for the golden statues were similar but not twins. The one on Garric's left had fuller lips and a broader nose; her companion was taller by an inch or two, though their hair, bound with silver fillets, was piled to level the transom which they supported. Each held a codex open to the viewer. The book on the left read ask in the fluid Old Script, while the other read and it will be given. "What do you think of them?" Tenoctris said, gesturing.
The words or the statues? Garric wondered. The caryatids were smiling; smiling mockingly, one might reasonably think. Aloud he said, "Is it a code, perhaps?" "Perhaps," said Tenoctris, her tone meaning, "No." She looked from one statue to the other, then went on, "But I think…" She stepped back, motioning Garric with her. He was already following her lead. She bowed to each statue in turn, then said, "Mistresses, please help us in our trial." With throaty chuckles that certainly sounded golden, the caryatids shut their books and stepped out from under the transom. The stiff marble beam remained where it was, bound in place by the weight of the roof resting on the walls. "Oh, it feels good, doesn't it, Calixta?" said one. She executed a complex dance step on her toes, then pirouetted away.
Reaching up, she removed the fillet so that her hair swirled as she moved. Her tunic was still gold, but it belled out like diaphanous silk. "I missed the grass between my toes, Lalage," said Calixta, executing a mirror image of the same dance. Her loosened hair was noticeably longer than her partner's. Each woman-each nymph? They certainly weren't statues any more-held her silver fillet in one hand to balance the closed codex in the other. "But I knew it would be waiting for me." Tenoctris waited with her arms folded in front of her. Garric stood at her side. He noticed with wry amusement that he stood straighter than usual and sucked his belly in. The nymphs had golden skin and eyes, but they were very attractively female. "Come, Lalage," Calixta said after a final delicate swirl. She transferred her book to the same hand as the fillet so that she could touch her partner's wrist. "Our visitors asked us for help, after all."
Obediently Lalage walked with Calixta to face Garric and Tenoctris.
"How can we help you, friends?" they asked in pure, melodious voices.
"Our enemies…," Tenoctris said. "Enemies of life, really, have opened the Gate of Ivory. They're calling out the spirits of the dead to animate the bodies of monsters which they create. We have come here to ask Lord Munn to close the gate again." "He won't listen to you, lady," said Calixta. "Not a woman." "He won't listen to any woman,"
Lalage agreed. "No matter what you threaten him with." "With your help, I will raise him," Tenoctris said firmly. "And then we will see who he obeys." Lalage gave her deep chuckle again and handed her fillet to Tenoctris. "Put this on his right arm, then," she said. "And wake him." "And this on his left," Calixta said, offering her fillet also. "We'll see, just as you say." Tenoctris bowed to the nymphs, then stepped into the temple with Garric at her side. The golden women were whispering, and in Garric's mind King Carus watched with the grin he wore in battle. *** "Liane!" Cashel shouted. "Ma'am, where are you?" Something called, " Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!" in the distance. Cashel didn't suppose it had anything to do with Liane's wandering off, but he looked that way into the darkness anyhow. "Liane!" he called. With his staff crossways before him, Cashel shoved through a clump of plants whose sword-shaped leaves stuck up from a common center. He didn't think they were grass, though they might be. The edges of the leaves were light against a dark core; yellow and green, he supposed, but he couldn't tell by moonlight. He stopped. He hadn't gone far from the trough he'd dug for Rasile, but already the forest was different. Here, instead of trees with boles like snakes, there were waist-high trunks with scaly bark supporting flower heads a full arm's length across. Some of the petals were darker than others, but again he couldn't tell the real color.
"Liane?" Cashel called again, but this wasn't doing any good. He turned to go back to Rasile. He wasn't worried about getting lost himself-he didn't get lost outdoors, not even when the trees were strange and the stars were like none he'd ever seen before. He'd lost Liane, though, by not paying attention. He was responsible for Rasile too, and he'd best get back to her before something else happened. The foliage rustled. Cashel cocked the quarterstaff to slam it forward like a battering ram, but he said quietly, "Rasile?" "Yes, Cashel," the wizard said, slipping between the standing leaves instead of pushing through them the way he'd just done. "I let the elementals have the sacrifice." Cashel grimaced. "Ma'am, I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have run off like I did. I…" He'd made one mistake, and then he'd made another right on top of it. There wasn't anything he could do now except go on and try to make things right in good time. "Ma'am?" he said. "Do we need to go back and fetch another goat?" The Corl's tongue wagged her laughter. "That wouldn't do any good, I'm afraid," she said. "Had I thought that I could force the answer out of them, I would not have left the work to find you.
Desperate as they were for the blood, they would not speak against Gorand. I do not think that even Tenoctris could have dragged that from them." Cashel nodded. He was sorry that Rasile hadn't gotten the information they'd come here for, but part of him was glad that he wasn't the reason it hadn't worked. "Well," he said. "Before we go look for Gorand some more, we need to find Liane. Or I do, anyhow, because I should've been watching her while you were busy." "She left one of her shoes in the clearing," Rasile said. If she had any opinion about whether going after Liane was a good idea, she kept it to herself. "With that to work from, I believe that I can determine a direction. Or better." They went back through the glade. Cashel had intended to lead and clear the way, but Rasile didn't need help and didn't give him the chance, either one. The clearing was the same as it'd been when they arrived, except for the scar Cashel had dug in the sod. The gray hungry things were gone, the elementals; he was glad of that. Blood no longer glistened in the moonlight. He guessed that if he'd touched the bottom of the trough, he'd have found it dry as a skull in a desert. Not that he cared, or that he had any intention of checking. Rasile picked up the sandal and examined it critically, uppers and sole. She looked at Cashel and said, "I could probably get a clearer image if I placed this where the blood was to work my spell, but I don't think I will." "No, ma'am," Cashel said. "Liane wouldn't like that, so we won't do it." He was glad Rasile had decided that herself, but he'd have told her just as clear as he needed to. He figured Liane would rather die than be saved by blood magic. Cashel didn't feel that way himself, but he could see that she had an argument on her side. "We'll put it where she dropped it, then…," the wizard said as she placed the sandal back on the sod. She reached into her basket and brought out the yarrow stalks.
"Why do you want to find her anyway?" asked a woodsprite unexpectedly.
Cashel looked up. She was perched in the crotch of a sumac bush just inside the circle of trees. She rose and stretched, giving him a pixie grin. "You could domuch better, you know," she said. "A bull like you deserves the best." "Ma'am," Cashel said. "Liane's my friend, and she's the intended of my best friend. Do you know where she's gone?"
The sprite hopped to the ground and sauntered toward Cashel through the grass blades. "Then you're free?" she said. "Come with me, bull man!" "No ma'am," said Cashel, straightening up. She wasn't any taller than his ankle, but size didn't mean much here. He'd been in these places often enough before to know that. "Tell us where Liane is, please." The sprite made a face at him. Small as she was, he saw her clearly. He supposed he wasn't seeing with his eyes. "You're no fun!" she said. "Well, you can just forget about your skinny little girlfriend. Milady's servants took her, so you'llnever get her back!"
"Do you mean that Gorand took her?" said Rasile. She'd set her basket on the ground, but she still held the yarrow stalks. "Keep away from me, cat!" the sprite said, darting between Cashel's feet. "Don't let her hurt me, big man!" "Rasile isn't going to hurt you," said Cashel, wondering if that was true. Well, it shouldn't be necessary. "But ma'am, you need to tell us where Liane is." "Milady isn't Gorand," the sprite said scornfully. She moved out from cover warily, but she still kept to his other side from the Corl. "She's here, and Gorand justrules. Gorand wouldn't care about the skinny girl!" Rasile bent close to the ground and wrinkled her nose. Cashel misunderstood for a moment, then realized that the Corl was catching a scent. "The apes were here recently," she said, rising. "I should have noticed that before. While I was busy with the elementals." "Of course Milady's servants were here," the sprite sneered, bending forward to watch the cat woman while keeping Cashel's body between them. "Itold you that.
They took her to Milady in the castle, and you'll never get her away again." "Where is the-" Cashel started to ask. He looked up, following the line of the sprite's eyes. A tower and a crumbling wall stood against the sky. The ruin can't have been as much as a bowshot away.
Maybe it was the angle so that Cashel now saw through a notch between the tops of the funny trees; but maybe it really hadn't been there before. "Why don't you come with me, handsome?" the sprite said. "Just for a little while, if you like." Figures moved on top of the tower.
Two were hulking apes. Between them- Haze shrouding the moon drifted away. The apes were holding Liane. "Cashel!" she called. He was already striding toward the ruin, his quarterstaff slanted across his body. Rasile was beside him. *** Leaves brushed Sharina's cheek. She sat upright and flailed mentally for an instant, trying to remember where she was. She'd been sleeping on the bench in the roof arbor, a soldier's cloak rolled under her head for a pillow. It was near dawn; the eastern stars had faded, though the sun was still below the horizon. The grape leaf had tickled her because- "Hey, what's that!" a Blood Eagle said. "Belt up, bonehead!" said Trooper Lires. "That's the princess's pet rat, don't you see?" Burne, squatting on a wrist-thick vine on the back of trellis, lowered the scorpion he'd just trimmed to harmlessness. "I prefer to think of myself as her colleague," he said, then finished his meal with two more clicking bites. He disposed of the remains over the porch railing. "Was it about to sting me?" Sharina said. She kept her voice calm, but that was an effort of will. She recalled the chitinous mass writhing on Platt. Burne squirmed onto her side of the trellis. Sharina's slender hand wouldn't have fit through the diamond-shaped openings, but the rat had no difficulty. "Oh, no," he said. "He was listening, spying. They all were. There were three of them when I came back, so I disposed of them before I told you what I'd learned." The guards were watching in all directions, including the pair at opposite ends of the trellis. They hadn't noticed the-three, apparently-scorpions creeping along the brickwork, but Sharina didn't imagine any human being would have. Except for the Blood Eagles, no one else was present. Sharina had taken off the Pewle knife when she stretched out to sleep. Now she stood and wrapped the belt around her waist again. She still wore her sleeping tunic as an undergarment, but Diora had brought up a pair of sandals and an outer tunic. "Tell me," she said quietly. "The cult's headquarters is the temple of Our Lady of the Grove," Burne said. He sounded. "Clever, weren't they? All the priests used to worship the Shepherd, but the leaders are in the oldest temple of the Lady here in Pandah." "Oh, they're clever," Sharina said grimly. She fitted the tongue of the sealskin belt through its loop. "But thanks to you, Master Burne, not clever enough." "If you send troops quickly, you may catch them inside," the rat said. "But every scorpion is a spy, and they share each others' minds." "I'm notsending anybody," Sharina said. "Captain Ascor, a company of Ornifal infantry was with us on last night's raid.
Where are they billeted?" "Right here in the palace, your highness,"
Ascor said. "What with the riots, Lord Tadai thought there ought to be more than just the usual guards on duty here. I think, ah… it might've been the regiment's camp marshals who suggested that to him."
"Yes," said Sharina. "I rather think it may have been also. Well, Captain, let's go find Prester and Pont. They already know the route."
Prester and Pont often said that they'd become old soldiers by not taking chances, but they weren't men who'd hide if it looked like there was a prospect of action. The fact they'd chosen to be on duty here meant either that they'd thought somebody was likely to attack the palace, or that they'd expected something like what was happening.
They'd seen the Princess Sharina use her big knife, and they probably figured that she'd use it again given half a chance. They were right about that. Three aides stood at attention outside the first landing.
The sound of voices on the roof had brought them to alertness, but the courier hadn't buckled the lid of his sabertache; a dice cup poked out of it. To him Sharina called as she went past, "Tell Lord Tadai I'm going out with the ready company!" That was as much information as she was willing to give openly. She doubted it would be of much value to Tadai, but at least she would have something to point to when the city prefect complained bitterly that she'd disappeared without warning.
The notion that a princess could do anything she pleased was only true for epic characters who didn't live in a real human society. "No, left!" Lires shouted from the back of the guard detachment as the leading squad turned right at the ground floor hallway. "They're in the west garden!" The little entourage changed direction with a degree of stamping and confusion. Sharina herself was in the lead for a moment before Ascor ran to the front, snarling a litany of curses.
Burne rode on Sharina's left shoulder with a tumbler's grace; he laughed, but she thought as much from excitement as for the humor of it. This was exhilarating, especially coming after the formless threat of riots. The loud scramble provided a useful warning to the Ornifal company. "Stand to!" bellowed a voice through the shuttered windows lining the hallway. Sharina was sure it was Pont speaking. The door at the end of the hall slammed open before the leading guard reached it.