In the depths beneath him stood the tiny figure of Milady, bathed in unquenchable fire. She laughed like a madwoman. A man with the face of the other bust in the vestibule was coming across the bridge toward Cashel. He held a long crystal wand in either hand and chanted words of power. *** "First Section with me!" bawled Prester, who'd trotted to the front as the company approached a plaza where five streets met. He slanted the leading troops to the right rather than following the boulevard they'd been jogging down thus far. A group of men-mostly men-were sitting and drinking on the display windows of shops they'd wrenched the shutters from. When the troops appeared, most of the looters either ran up the street or vanished into the gutted shops in hope of hiding among the debris. The exceptions were two men lying on their backs with their arms linked, singing, "She was poor but she was honest…" Sharina kept close behind Pont, jogging to the side of the second section. As his portion of the company started around the plaza he shouted, "Guide left, Selinus, Sister take you! Come on, Second Section, don't embarrass me in front of the princess!" The stone curb of the fountain in the middle of the plaza was crude, but the centerpiece was a delicate bronze statue of a nymph pointing one hand to heaven and the other toward the basin at her feet. She'd originally been gilded; swashes of gold remained as highlights in the folds of her tunic. The pirate chiefs of Pandah had looted the lovely nymph, but brute force didn't give them the skill to place her in a worthy setting. "Are they going to get lost?" asked Burne, leaning forward in the cradle of Sharina's arm. She wondered if the rat was worried or if he was just keyed up with excitement like her. Like all of them, she suspected, though the two camp marshals certainly didn't give any sign of it. "Naw, not Prester," Pont said, dropping back slightly to return titular command to the ensign who'd stayed with this section. "Me, now, I'm no good in cities and neither's Selinus, the file closer, but-" He gestured with his javelin. "Abreci there in the first file, he's from Valles and he never gets lost in a city, not even in a back alley when he's blind drunk." "There shouldn't be a problem for us since this street takes us right past the temple,"
Sharina said. "But Prester trying to arrive from behind." Pont chuckled. "Don't you worry about Prester," he said. "And if anything should happen, well, I figure me and the boys can handle whatever a passel of priests throw at us." Sharina started to object, then shut her mouth again. That was the right attitude. They had a plan, a good plan: to divide their force and surround the temple before those inside were aware of the troops' presence. If it went wrong, and even good plans did sometimes go wrong, they'd carry on with the force available. And yes, thirty soldiers trained by Prester and Pont ought to be able to handle as many priests as you could cram into a temple, even a big temple like that of the Lady of the Grove. As the troops jogged, they held their shields out from their bodies. Simply hanging by their straps, the cylinder sections of laminated wood would have battered the men bloody by the time they'd gone a mile. Each soldier's slanted javelin pumped back and forth, and the studs on their leather aprons jangled together with each stride of their hobnailed boots. The section clashed into Convocation Square. The court building, a basilica whose eaves were decorated with painted terracotta dragons, was to the right. The walled compound that'd been the slave lines-slaves were most of the loot which pirates captured-was to the left; the contents had been sold weekly at auction in the square. Now it had been converted into barracks for the laborers engaged in Pandah's expanding building trade. Directly across the plaza-it wasn't a square or even four-sided-was the Temple of the Lady of the Grove, now without a tree in sight. The sanctum was a narrow building surrounded by a pillared porch. There were six sharp-fluted pillars across the front and the shadows of six more just behind them. "All right, troopers!" Pont roared, lengthening his stride to put himself ahead of the front rank where the whole section could see him. "Follow me! Prisoners if you can get them, but nobody escapes!" "Yee-ha!" somebody called in the near distance. Prester's section appeared from a side street behind the building. They rushed toward it with their javelins lifted. The troops were in shadow, but their boots kicked sparks from the cobblestones. A door thudded shut beyond the rows of pillars. Sharina drew her knife. She had to be careful not to sprint out ahead of the soldiers as they spread into a skirmish line. Even against priests, she ought to leave the fighting to the men in armor if she possibly could. Pont's right arm came forward in a smooth, swift motion, loosing his javelin at the peak of the arc. Why's he throwing at a building? Sharina wondered. A man wearing a priest's black robe-but without the usual white sash-lurched from the shadows between the pillars. He'd flung away his bow when the javelin transfixed his upper chest; his quiver spilled arrows as he sprawled down the three-step base. "For the princess!" Pont cried, drawing his sword. At the back end of the temple, Prester was shouting, "Come on troopers, show the princess what you're made of!" The dead archer had been the only man outside the sanctum. The leading soldiers jumped over his body and bashed their shield bosses at the closed door, making peevish thuds. Several men dropped their javelins to draw their swords, but instead of hacking at the wood, Pont sheathed his blade.
"Selinus, with me!" he said, unstrapping his shield so that he could hold it by the edge. "The rest of you scuts keep back!" Sharina watched in puzzlement as the two non-coms faced one another, turning the shield endwise and gripping what had been the top edge. "On three," Pont said. They leaned back together, one leg forward against the lintel and the other well back to brace them. "One, two, three -"
Together the men used used the whole strength of their upper bodies to slam the shield into the right-hand door valve, just inside the edge where a stiffener would be. The panel was massive but centuries old; the curved shield was of triple-ply birch, inches thick and bound with gilding metal. It smashed a hole a hand's breadth deep where it struck the door. Instead of rearing back to batter the door again, Pont dropped the shield and thrust his sword through the split in the panel. Sharina frowned, at a loss as to what the veteran thought he was doing. Pont gripped the sword hilt with both hands and jerked upward, lifting the crossbar from its track before the priests inside understood what was happening. "Hit it, boys!" he shouted. Six soldiers threw their shoulders against the valves, shoving them inward. There was a brief struggle in the doorway. The priests had swords or iron-studded cudgels, but the troops' armor and superior training ended the fight before it began. Sharina jumped the wrack of bodies as she followed the first squad into the anteroom. She thought there'd been four or five priests, but she couldn't be sure: the short, stiff infantry swords made terrible wounds when driven by excitement and strong arms. She burst into the nave with the troops.
The lanterns hanging from brackets on either side still burned, but pre-dawn light, entering through the rose window in the pediment over the entrance, dimmed them. At the back was a pierced bronze screen which could be opened to display the tall statue of the Lady. Sharina hadn't been in this temple before; she wondered whether the image would be an old one of painted wood or if that had been replaced by a gold and ivory masterpiece. How ready had the pirate chiefs been to spend their looted wealth on the Queen of Heaven? There were half a dozen priests in the nave. Three with swords had been running toward the entrance when the soldiers appeared: javelins sent them sprawling on the mosaic floor without an order. Sharina already knew that Prester and Pont taught their men always to use missiles when that was an option: it wasn't as heroic as wading in hand to hand, but it did the job and saved the right kind of lives-your own and your buddies'.
The remaining priests were unarmed, an old man with wild white hair and two young aides. They halted when they saw the troops. The old man raised his hands in the air and cried, "Sacrilege! Sacrilege!" "We want prisoners!" Sharina said as she sprinted toward them. Burne sprang from her bosom and hunched over the floor even faster than she did. The nave was easily a hundred feet long, and the soldiers' hobnailed boots skidded dangerously on the polished stone. The priests started back toward the wicket in the bronze screen. Sharina closed on the old man. One of the aides threw himself at her. She swatted him across the forehead with the square back edge of the Pewle knife; the heavy steel rang, knocking the priest to the floor, stunned and bloodied. The old man flung his arms out and pitched onto his face with a gabbling cry. Burne jumped clear of his legs. The remaining priest ran through the wicket into the sanctum. Sharina was only a hand's-breadth behind him. The screen was perforated, but it shadowed the interior. For a moment Sharina couldn't identify the dark mass crouching where the image of the Lady should have been. It started toward her. It was black and the size of an ox, and it was a scorpion.
Sharina retreated through the wicket. "Get back!" she screamed. "It's a scorpion! Get-" The bronze screen ripped open. The scorpion, its huge pincers high, stepped over the ruin and into the nave. Its claws clacked on the mosaic floor. *** Ilna watched the leading apes push in single file between two clumps of evening olive, then fade away. It was as though night had fallen and shadows had swallowed them. Perrin walked after them and also vanished; the stiff, upslanting olive stems closed behind the youth's body, but that body was no longer in the waking world. Ilna made a sour face and followed. She hadn't known what to expect, and now that it was happening she wasn't any wiser. She ducked instead of spreading her arms to keep the olive from slapping her cheeks. She had to keep both hands on her pattern to be able to open it instantly. Her skin prickled. She was behind Perrin again. The liveried apes led them down a track toward a sprawling mansion a furlong away at the base of the hills. For as far as she could see to either side, there were planting mounds between shallow irrigation ditches. On them grew crocuses in purple profusion, and occasional pistachio trees. Widely scattered among the rows were apes bending to pick the flowers and toss them into baskets. Ilna stopped. She started to count the laborers, then realized it was a hopeless task. The whole broad valley was a single field. There were more tens of tens of apes visible than there were sheep in the borough where she'd grown up. Perrine, Ingens, and the remaining pair of apes walked out of the air behind her. There was nothing to see where they appeared except the rows of plantings stretching into the misty distance. The princess was leading Ingens by the hand. Ilna wasn't sure he even noticed that they weren't in the world where the gong hung. "You see, Mistress Ilna?" Prince Perrin said, turning with a welcoming smile. "We are at peace here in our valley, because we've withdrawn from your world. No one can threaten us, and we threaten no one." "Except the flowers," said his sister with a pleasant giggle. She waved her free hand across the purple expanse. "But they grow back from the bulbs and we tend them, so I don't think they grudge us their pollen." Ilna stepped two rows away and laid her rolled cloak in the ditch; it was dry at the moment, though when her feet disturbed the stony soil she noticed that the undersides of flat pebbles were wet. They must run the water at night.
The others walked past, putting Ilna's body between them and the cloak. She knelt and looked closely at a crocus to explain why she was delaying here. Ilna had never been interested in flowers. Their bright colors didn't fade, which was impressive; but they couldn't be transferred to cloth either, and besides-she preferred earth tones and neutrals. People didn't appreciate how pleasing neutrals could be until they'd seen a garment Ilna'd woven solely from gray shades. The crocus petals pleased her well enough, but the yellow and deep red pistils from which the spice came thread by tiny thread were garish and intrusive even by themselves. In combination with the purple flowers- Ilna smiled-broadly, for her. Feydra, her aunt by marriage, would have found the yellow/red/purple combination attractive. There might be a more damning comment about the flower than that a fat, cloth-headed slattern would have liked it, but that would do. "Aren't they lovely?" Prince Perrin said, kneeling across the mound from Ilna.
He smiled. "I was just thinking how much you remind me of a crocus, mistress, with your grace and beauty." Ilna looked at him without expression. She might have gotten angry at his attempts to make himself agreeable, but he was so remarkably clumsy at it that she was on the verge of laughing instead. In a mild voice she said, "My colors are more muted, I believe." She stood, fluffing her tunics slightly, and picked up the rolled cloak. As she'd expected, the bundle was lighter now. She didn't look back to call attention to Usun, though she doubted that even she could've found the little hunter if he'd had a few moments to conceal himself. "Shall we go?" she said. "Of course," said Perrin. He seemed to have no expressions but a half-smile and a smile, though it seemed to her that a hint of fear underlay the jollity. He offered his arm. "May I take your hand, mistress?" he said. Ilna glowered. "Certainly not," she said, returning to the track by stepping from ditch to ditch in two long strides. Ingens and Perrine were in close conversation a few paces beyond. They broke apart as Ilna approached; the secretary with a look of embarrassment, the princess turning her face away. "Our father will be so pleased to see you both!" Perrine said brightly as she and Ingens led the way toward the house. The sprawling mansion of stuccoed brick was probably no more than one story high, but a tall false front over the central section made it look more imposing. The pillars of the full-length colonnade were each of three twisted strands supporting arches, and the roofline had curlicues that suggested battlements but served no purpose but decoration. Which meant no purpose at all, so far as Ilna was concerned. Well, her taste rarely jibed with that of other people. More apes in livery were holding open the valves of the front door. They were of fruitwood, carved in a pattern of acanthus vines growing through a lattice. The design was a trifle florid for Ilna, but it had been well executed and she liked the shades within the russet wood. The field hands hadn't looked up as the entourage passed. Ilna wondered what they-and the attendants-thought of the human beings they labored for. They seemed completely placid, but not even sheep were really spiritless if you knew them well. Sheep generally had unpleasant personalities. Well, so did human beings, in Ilna's experience. A middle-aged man with a worn face stepped onto the porch. He bore an obvious family resemblance to the twins. "Father," Perrine called. "We're back with Master Ingens.
You remember me telling you about him? Oh, I'm so happy!" "And this is Mistress Ilna, father," said the prince. "She's even more wonderful than I'd thought when we saw her through the glass." The older man bowed, then rose with his hands extended; that seemed to be the fashion among these people. Ilna was uncomfortable with the idea of being embraced by strangers, though this time the distance made it symbolic. "Ilna and Ingens, I'm King Perus," he said. "We're honored by your visit. I've had refreshments laid out, and I hope you'll be able to stay with us for a few days to see every part of our little kingdom." "Oh, father!" said the princess, leading Ingens up the two broad steps to the porch. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if they could stay with us always? That would be marvelous!" "We've come to find Master Hervir and return with him," said Ilna harshly. "If you'll please bring him out, we won't trouble you further." "But mistress…,"
Perus said, turning his palms up in apparent consternation. "Hervir was only with us for a few hours, and that was weeks ago." "I thought if we brought Ilna to the valley," said Perrin, "and showed her everything, then she could be sure Hervir is no longer here." "It's understandable," his sister added sadly. "Things are so terrible in the outer world that even decent people-" "Wonderful people!" Perrin put in. "-like Ingens and Mistress Ilna have to doubt the word of those they meet." "Well, at the very least," said Perus, gesturing toward the open door with both hands, "do take refreshment with us. As I'm sure you've noticed, though one's mind perceives the journey from your world to ours as merely a blink of time, your body is aware that much greater effort was required." "Thank you," said Ingens, bowing to Perus as he followed Perrine into the house. "I'm indeed hungry and thirsty. And very tired as well." "Mistress?" said the prince.
"Please, whatever you wish will be granted. But at least do us the courtesy of letting us try to demonstrate our valley's innocence."
Ilna grimaced again. She'd come to find out where Hervir was. Buried under a pistachio tree, might well be the answer, but she had no evidence even of that as yet. Further, shewas hungry and thirsty. And tired. The sun was low over the western end of the valley, and her weariness was as great as if she'd been walking the whole time from morning when they entered the grove till the evening which was falling here. "Yes, thank you," Ilna said, forcing herself to be polite. She was here by her own decision, not because the prince and his family had forced her. She mounted the steps and walked briskly into the building, again ignoring Perrin's offered arm. A broad hallway pierced the middle of the house, drawing a breeze from the hills. The archways opening off the main hall were open also; the walls above were a filigree of fine masonry, joined by tiles with swirling designs in blue and white. The patterns weren't writing in any form Ilna had seen before, but she was sure they had meaning. She smiled wryly.
Everything had meaning. Everything was part of a pattern, if you were only wise enough to recognize it. She was better at that than most people were, but she didn't pretend that she was very good. "We have wines and a light repast waiting in the arbor," said Perus, following them down the hall. His silk slippers whispered on the cool flooring, making no more sound than Ilna's bare soles did. At least the floor was tile, not stone. Apes, all of them silent and wearing livery, waited or cleaned in some of the rooms she passed. Occasionally one happened to look in her direction, but even then they didn't appear to register the presence of a visitor. The arbor was a frame of braided pillars and brick arches covering a grassy lawn. The broad leaves of the grape vines planted at the base of each pillar shaded the ground, but many tiny droplets of sunlight leaked through. When Ilna looked up, she could see the hills rising steeply only a stone's throw away.
In the center of the lawn was a low table. Instead of chairs, cushions had been laid along both sides and at the far end; apes waited behind each of the five places. Fruit and nutmeats waited on platters, and in a water-filled tub of brass and copper stood a tall earthenware jug.
Ilna looked more closely at the tub. Chips of ice floated in the water. "We bring ice down from the peaks to make sherbets and cool our wines," said King Perus, noticing Ilna's surprise. "Mistress Ilna?" said Perrin. He lifted the wine-thief, a deep-bellied ladle with a long vertical handle, from the narrow throat of the jug. "Allow me to serve you myself." He filled a goblet, then handed it to her with a bow. "Our finest vintage," he said, "for the most lovely woman ever to enter our valley." Ilna frowned. Ingens was frowning also, she noticed, though no doubt-and the thought brought a hard smile back to her lips-for different reasons. She sipped as Perrine showed the secretary how to recline alongside her on the cushions. The first touch of the wine seemed all right-too thick and too strong, but wine was normally diluted for drinking in those parts of the Isles where it was the usual beverage. Ilna swallowed. Before she took a second sip she noticed the aftertaste of the first and grimaced. She put the goblet on the table and said, "I'm sorry, I don't have a taste for wines. Do you have ale? I'm not-" What did she mean to say? I'm not rich? I'm a poor orphan who drank stale beer most of the time but water often because she couldn't afford anything better. Though nobody in Barca's Hamlet had drunk wine. "Ale?" said Perus. "Why, no, we don't brew any kind of beer in the valley." "Water, then," said Ilna. She was beginning to become irritated. She'd never have demanded something rare or expensive for her meals, but it ought to be possible to get something simple even in a palace. "I'm so embarrassed, Mistress Ilna," Perrine said. She'd taken a filled goblet from an ape and was holding it for Ingens as he drank. "You see, the water here isn't safe. Our servants, I'm afraid, aren't very fastidious about their natural functions." "We have other wines, Ilna," the prince said with a worried expression. "Perhaps you'd like a white?" Now shewas irritated. She took the goblet waiting at Perrin's place and scooped it full of melt water from the brass tub. "I trustthis is safe?" she said, then drank deeply before her hosts managed a reply. "Well, yes, if that's what you want, Ilna," the prince said after an exchange of silent looks with the rest of his family. "Whatever you like, of course." "Thank you," Ilna said, refilling the goblet. "And if you don't mind, I'll sit instead of lying down. I've never learned to eat one-handed on my side, and I have no desire to make myself foolish in front of you." "Of course, mistress," Perus said. He sounded gracious, but he had the look of a man who'd been kicked in the stomach. "Our only wish is for you to be comfortable here." "And to convince you of our good intentions," Perrin said with his usual smile. "We'll do anything we can to achieve that." As Ilna sat primly, Ingens said,
"Well, I must say I like your wine very much, King Perus. I don't believe I've ever drunk a finer one." He glared across the table at Ilna as an ape refilled his goblet. She ignored him and took a pear from the tray before her. "Try this plum, Ilna," the prince said, plucking one from another tray. He took out a knife with a tiny gold blade and added, "Here, I'll peel it for you. I think you'll find it amazingly sweet." "Thank you," Ilna said, making an effort to prevent the words from accurately reflecting her thoughts at the moment. Could they notleave her alone?"This pear is delicious." Indeed, it was. So was the hard-boiled egg whose yolk had been ground with spices before being returned to the cup of its white. The ape serving her was silent and alert, bringing bowls of water to cleanse her fingers between courses. Rose petals floated in them. The lace table covering and the napkins which followed the finger bowls were linen. Their quality was as good as anything Ilna had seen that she hadn't woven herself. As for the food-food wasn't important to her, but craftsmanship was. The cooks in this valley were as skilled as the weavers. The base of all the dishes was mutton, rice, and lentils, but the spices turned what might have been simple fare into remarkable works of art. The prince kept offering her dainties. Ilna kept refusing, as politely as one could be in the situation. Perrin was trying to use her courtesy as a way to bully her to his will, which of course made her more coldly certain in her refusals. Ilna smiled. She was treating it as a game, she supposed. If she stopped feeling that it was a game, she'd snatch the pattern from her sleeve and display it. She hadn't picked out the knots. Apes hung lanterns whose parchment screens had been dyed in attractive pastels. The sun had dropped below the rim of the mountains and the sky had faded enough for stars to appear. The constellations weren't familiar to her. The servants brought pistachios, shelled and arranged in swirling patterns on their silver trays. As they carried them away after the guests had eaten, King Perus said, "I've had rooms prepared for you. It wouldn't be entirely safe to return to your own world after sunset, though of course you're welcome to do so if you prefer." "Oh, I hope you'll stay," said Perrine, covering one of the secretary's hands with her own. "Oh, please stay, Ingens." "Of course!" Ingens said. He'd drunk a fair amount. There was a challenge in his tone as he went on, "It's my duty to stay until we find Hervir.
Isn't that true, Mistress Ilna?" Ilna looked at him. This wasn't a game any more, but that meant it was even more important that she not lose her temper. "Yes, I suppose it is," she said evenly. "For tonight, at least." "Then allow me to conduct you to your room, Ilna," said the prince as he hopped to his feet. Ilna rose, ignoring the offered hand, as usual. "Yes," she said, "I'm ready to sleep." The room she'd been given was off a cross-hall, midway down the palace's right wing. Rugs and cushions were arranged for a bed; she'd certainly slept on worse. Perrin, as expected, tried to delay her at the door.
Also as expected, she dismissed him without difficulty. The full moon shone through the row of windows just below the roofline. Ilna glanced at it, then used a tripod table to wedge the door. It wouldn't hold long, but it would awaken her. She left a lamp burning. She'd sleep with a pattern bunched in her left fist. Any person who saw it would wish that they were being disemboweled with hooked irons, becausethat would eventually be over. Ilna smiled grimly as she lay down. Of course, she could be completely wrong about the danger here. And perhaps one day pigs would fly.
Chapter 15 "Tomorrow…," said the voice at Ilna's ear. She jerked upright, raising her hands. Usun stood beside her pillow; she tucked the pattern into her sleeve. "… you won't be able to drink the melt water either," the little man said, grinning like a fiend from the Underworld, "but I don't think we'll be here long enough for that to matter. Are you ready to go, mistress?" "When I dress," said Ilna, getting up with an easy motion. From the position of the moon she couldn't have been asleep very long. She'd slept in her inner tunic. She slipped the outer one over her head, then cinched the silken lasso around her waist. "Shall I take the cloak?" "No," said Usun. "We'll be going down, so you'll want to bring the lamp. Another cave, I'm afraid, but you seem to do well in them for all your dislike." Ilna sniffed. "I dislike most things," she said. "I certainly wouldn't find that an acceptable excuse for doing them badly." "We'll go out through the door," said Usun, noticing her glance toward the missing lattice in the row of high windows. "I came in that way because I figured you'd have blocked it from this side.
They didn't put guards in the halls, and they'll wait till the third watch, I'd judge, before they come for you." "All right," said Ilna, lifting the table and setting it out of the way. She took the lamp from the terracotta ledge built into the wall. "Ilna?" the little man said. "Is there any acceptable excuse for bad workmanship?" She looked at him. "No," she said. "There isn't. Not to me." Usun giggled.
"That's what I thought," he said. "Brincisa wassuch a fool when she tried to make a pawn of you." "Are you ready to go?" Ilna said flatly, her hand on the latch lever. "Yes, mistress," Usun said. He giggled again. "We'll turn right and go almost to the end of the hallway." He trotted past her as soon as she had the door open a crack. He wasn't tall enough to reach the latch even by jumping, though she didn't doubt that he could've gotten up there if he'd had to. He prowled along the right-hand side, blending amazingly well with the painted band at the base of the wall. Usun held a stick the length of his outstretched arm. It had a short, sharp iron point and looked useful either for throwing or stabbing. She had no idea where it came from, because the little man hadn't had it when they were in the burial cavern. Apes curled up, often two or three snuggling together, on rugs on the floors of rooms that Ilna passed. One smacked his lips in noisy delight at something in his dreams. A few may have been awake, but even so they didn't track her with their eyes. Usun reached the second door from the end on his side of the corridor. Facing it, he thrust the point of his staff into the lower panel and lunged upward. The staff braced him as he turned the latch. The door swung inward on his weight. Usun's arms were quite strong despite being as spindly as a spider's. The steps beyond led downward. The little man took them in a series of controlled jumps, going down off his left leg, striding to the edge of the next step, and then down again. Ilna hadn't needed the lamp in the hall since plenty of moonlight came through the open doorways. It was pitch dark after she closed the door behind her and followed Usun, however. The stairs were made of bricks which had originally been glazed. Lamplight gleamed on edges where the finish had been protected, but elsewhere they'd been ground to their coarse rusty core. Ilna wondered just how old the stairs were. Her feet whispered. Usun bobbed down ahead of her. He made less sound than even the bird he resembled as he hopped and paced and hopped. What he was doing required a good deal of effort, she realized, imagining herself going down steps of comparable size. He was certainly a wiry little fellow. A moan came up the passage. Ilna thought it was some natural sound, a steam vent or the rush of air through a crack, distorted by its own long echoes. She had to admit that it sounded like a living thing in pain, though. Ilna'd gotten into the rhythm of the descent, so that it was her feet rather than her eyes that told her when the steps changed from brick to being chipped from stone. It was granite and unexpectedly slick. Though the rock was hard, feet had polished it to a high gloss which the porous brick wouldn't take. How many feet, and how many centuries, had been down this passage? Usun led onward.
He'd shifted so that he stepped off his right leg, letting the left side of his body lead. Ilna nodded in approval: she'd learned to vary her posture when she was throwing a heavy loom. You could hurt yourself badly with repetitive work like that; and it was work, no mistake, for the little man. The passage had been squared to begin with; farther down it became rough save where generations of shoulders had brushed it. She didn't think it had been cut with metal tools: at this depth the stairs seemed to have been battered through stone by other stones. Had there been a crack or a natural vent which the human builders had merely enlarged? She didn't know much about rocks-by choice-but she didn't remember ever having seen a vent in granite.
"Master Usun?" Ilna said. How long had it been since they started down? She was never good with time, and the stone all around had robbed her of such facility as she'd ever had. "How much farther does this go?" "It goes this far, Ilna," the little man said. "We've arrived." The stairs ended in a small anteroom, not a landing as Ilna had thought at first. She stepped out to stand beside Usun, facing an iron door. It was at least double her own height, but it was relatively narrow because it had a single valve instead of being double like most doors raised on this scale. She couldn't see either latch or hinges; indeed, from the look of it this might be a panel set in the living rock as decoration or to be worshipped. A polished smear along the left edge at shoulder height suggested that it had been pushed open regularly, but how did you unlock it? Ilna frowned. With only the light of a single lamp wick, the details of the full-length design cast into the black iron weren't very clear, but she could see enough to make her dislike it. A woman in closely fitted armor glared at them. Her face and form were strikingly beautiful, but the expression on the molded features was cruel beyond anything Ilna could recall. One iron hand was closed into a fist; the other held a short trident whose points were barbed. "That's Hili, Queen of the Underworld," said Usun. "A handsome wench, isn't she?" He giggled.
Ilna's frown tightened into a grimace. "How do we open the door?" she said. "Since I presume we need to get to the other side." "Just open it, Ilna," said the little man. "Or here, I will." He put his left hand on the edge of the massive iron panel and pushed. She knew the little man was strong beyond his size, but the way the door swung on hidden hinges was only possible if it had perfect balance.
Yellow-green light, the color of a will-o'-the-wisp or the mold on a corpse, crawled out the opening. With it came the dying echoes of a sound Ilna had never imagined, a rustling that was initially louder than any thunderclap. "Come, Ilna," Usun said. "We must go in." He knows more about this than he's telling me, Ilna thought; and smiled.
She wasn't one to discuss her plans either, and the little man had shown himself to be a friend at every past occasion where it mattered.
If Usun had worn clothing, she could have stroked its fabric with her fingers and learned a great deal about him. She doubted that she'd have learned anything to change her belief that he was skilled, determined, and completely trustworthy; all the virtues she saw and cultivated in herself. Ilna strode into the green glow. The door closed behind her. The scale of the chamber was beyond her eyes' ability to grasp immediately. Faces turned toward her. The only time she'd seen so many people together was in great plazas when Garric was addressing the whole city. Their clothing was of all manner of styles, many that she'd never seen before, but their expressions were uniformly dull and empty. They-mostly men but some women, and a mixture of ages from children to doddering oldsters-stood around the edges of the chamber, rubbing the walls. "Is Hervir or-Halgran here?"
Ilna called. She raised her voice with each syllable till by the end she was shouting, but even so she could scarcely hear her own words in the vast chamber. So many people breathing in an enclosure made a sound like the rage of a windstorm. "I am Hervir," replied a middle-aged man standing not far from the entrance. He lowered his hands; they held a rounded block of stone which was about half the size of his head. He walked deliberately toward Ilna and Usun. The big room had been cut out of the living rock. It was granite here, just as it had been on the higher levels through which the stairwell descended; Ilna could tell that from the speckles of quartz and other things mixed with the basic material. It was a dense, supremely hard mass. The granite itself was the source of the glow whose shadowless presence filled the chamber. Ilna set her lamp on the floor. She might need it again, but at present she wanted her hands free to knot a pattern. She'd have pinched out the wick, but she hadn't brought a flint and steel to light it again. The oil would either last or it wouldn't; she was concerned with more important things now. "What are you doing in this place?" she demanded. A thought turned her face stiff; she reached behind her to the massive iron door and pushed. It shifted noticeably: it would be as easy to open from the inside as it had been from the anteroom. "We are building the throne room for the King of Man," Hervir said with mild unconcern. He lifted his stone slightly to call attention to it. "Expanding the room, that is.
Rubbing away the walls to make room for more worshippers until the King of Man becomes the God of All. Have you come to join us?" "I've come to take you back to your family," Ilna said, thinking, And how am I going to manage that even now that I've found him alive? "But why haven't you escaped yourself? All of you? Why do you stay down here?"
"It's necessary that we enlarge the throne room," Hervir said. "Though there may be enough of us now worshipping the King of Man; the time is near." He looked toward the center of the circular room. A granite pillar with steps circling it like the threads of a screw stood there, looming over the crowd. Because of the green light filling the stone, Ilna saw it clearly. "The King has been gathering worshippers for many ages, waiting for this moment," Hervir said in a musing tone. "I was the last to join him, till you came. I thought perhaps it was my destiny to be the final worshipper, the one who brought him to godhead, but that was not to be." "I'm not a worshipper!" Ilna said.
"And you're not staying here. None of you should stay here!" "But it's our duty," said Hervir with a faint smile. "Some of us have worshipped the King for millennia, but the time wasn't right until now. Until after the Change." Ilna looked at the assembly. Some had been sleeping while others ground at the walls or swept powdered rock into sacks of sisal fiber. They too were awakening to stare at her and Usun. "Don't you die?" she said. "There can't be people thousands of years old!"
"No one dies here, mistress," Hervir said, smiling again. "The King of Man must be worshipped, and the dead can't do that." "What do you eat?" Usun said. He was twirling his staff slowly through the fingers of his right hand; the iron point winked each time it came around.
Hervir looked down and frowned in puzzlement. "What a strange little man," he said. "I saw pigmies on Shengy in the days, in the days before… But they weren't so small as you." "What do you eat?"
Usun repeated. "The King's servants bring us wine and rice," Hervir said. "It's a wondrous vintage. Like nothing I'd ever drunk before I came to worship the King." "A drug in the wine, wouldn't you say, Ilna?" Usun said, turning his head toward her. She shrugged. "I suppose," she said, "but that doesn't explain people living forever.
Or anyway, for however long." She looked sharply at Hervir. "Come along," she said. If her hands had been free, she'd have gripped him by the shoulder. "You're coming with us. And when we have you safe in the waking world, perhaps Master Usun and I will return to find this King of Man." "You needn't look for the King, mistress," Hervir said with his gentle smile. "He's here now." The swirl of air warned her.
She turned quickly to see the tall door opening on its silent hinges.
Perrin and Perrine came in, holding hands. They gaped in surprise.
"Mistress Ilna!" the princess blurted. "We thought you'd left the Valley of the King!" "I thought I'd failed," said Perrin. The bleak horror of his tone suggested what failure would mean. Two liveried apes entered in single file; Ingens walked between them. His face tightened when he saw Ilna. "Have you come to worship the King of Man also, mistress?" he said. "No," Ilna said. "I've come to dispose of him and free the lot of you!" Her fingers were knotting again at the pattern she'd already formed, adding to it as the situation changed and became clearer. "Will you indeed?" said a great voice. A huge ape paced into the chamber on his knuckles, then stood upright. He was dressed in crimson silk and wore a golden crown set with rubies; a silken strap passed beneath his brutal chin. He was several times as massive as the ape servants. "The King!" whispered the assembly thunderously. "The King of Man has come!" *** Cashel looked at the squat, angry-looking wizard advancing toward him along the shimmering bridge. The fellow's elbows were out and he held his crystal wands like knitting needles. Skeins of scarlet wizardlight spun from them, forming a pattern beyond the tips. "Sir?" said Cashel. "I don't wish a problem with you. I just need to get the pledge coin on the other side." He put his quarterstaff into a slow spin. Duzi! there was a lot of room. He couldn't see anything to right or left except a black horizon, and there was nothing overhead. Below, pale blue flames licked across the bottom of the chasm and gave the air the dry rasp of brimstone. The wizard kept weaving his spell like Cashel hadn't spoken. He was chanting words of power, too, which was pretty much to be expected. A snake of plaited wizardlight curled slowly toward Cashel the way a honeysuckle vine stretches along a pole. Cashel stepped forward and thrust one tip of his staff to where the strands of ruby light wrapped together and formed the snake. There was a bright blue flash and the aircrack ed like nearby lightning.
"Hoy!" the wizard shouted. His arms flew apart and he staggered back.
He'd been angry before, but now he looked like he was ready to chew rocks. Nothing remained of the pattern he'd been weaving. Cashel took an easy step forward. This crystal bridge might look narrow to some, but it was a lot wider than some of the logs he'd crossed in thunderstorms, often enough carrying a ewe who'd gotten bogged. "Sir," he said, "I'll give you a fight if you want one, but that's not whatI want." The wizard wore flowing silver robes with symbols in black around the hem and the cuffs. Cashel couldn't read those markings-or anything else-but he knew from the shapes that they weren't the Old Script or the New Script either one. The wizard got his composure and began weaving his wands into the same pattern as before. He went back to mumbling words of power, too. He hadn't said a thing except to chant. Past the wizard's head, the gleaming bridge stretched farther than Cashel's eyes could follow. He wondered what he'd see if he looked over his own shoulder. The same thing, he guessed, but only for as long as it took the wizard to knock him into the fiery abyss because he hadn't kept his attention on the fight. Maybe that was it: maybe the only ways off the bridge were through the other fellow or down into the brimstone. Well, Cashel hadn't made this place. Chances were the man trying to knock him off the bridge had more than a little to do with why it was like it was, though. The snake of wizardlight crawled toward Cashel again. He'd struck high the first time, his left hand leading on the quarterstaff. This time he brought the staff up from below with his right hand forward; again there was a flash and acrack! The wizard jolted back in startled fury. Cashel felt a faint tingle all the way up to the bunched muscles of his right shoulder; he worked that out with a few more spins of his staff. The ferrules had glowed when they hit the wizardlight, but that faded in no time. The iron wasn't burnt through, as sometimes happened. He'd had to replace the butt-caps several times after fighting wizards, but that didn't matter so long as the hickory he'd shaped with his own hands remained.
"Are you frightened now, Allarde?" shrieked Milady from the chasm below. Her voice was as tiny and insistent as a mosquito in the night.
"You should be, husband! Youshould be afraid!" She was still wrapped in blue fire. Cashel shouldn't have been able to see her, let alone hear her voice from up on the bridge. She was as sharp to look at as a painted miniature he held in his palm, though. The wizard-Allarde, if that wasn't a curse word in some language Cashel didn't know; Milady had made it sound like a curse, for sure-backed a step and then another step. He started moving his wands again, though this time in a different pattern. Cashel supposed the wizard could retreat any distance on the bridge, though if you weren't used to backing on a narrow track it wouldn't be hard to go over. He stepped forward again, not rushing but making it clear that he was going to keep right on going to the other side unless Allarde managed to stop him-which he surely didn't look like doing so far. "You're doomed, husband!" Milady shrieked. "You were so clever, you thought. But I have you now!"
Cashel frowned. He didn't like it to sound like he'd hammer somebody just because Milady said to. It was sort of working out that way, sure, but only because Allarde wouldn't let him fetch the pledge piece without a fight. Instead of stretching a stout braided tendril straight at Cashel, the wizard was curling a pair of threads like calipers from the tips of his wands. They spread into a circle wider than Cashel could've touched with one tip of his staff reaching out at the end of his arm. He frowned, rotating his staff in slow figure-8s to keep his muscles loose. It looked like a crazy thing for Allarde to do, so it had to be a trap. Except- It was pretty clear by now that the wizard wasn't used to people who fought back and who knewhow to fight. No boy in the borough could grow up without knowing that, and a poor orphan who hadn't got his growth yet was going to learn quicker than most. It must not be the same way with wizards. "Numa quadich rua!" Allarde shouted. The scarlet curls started to hook back in.
Cashel strode forward, left foot and right foot, then lunged with staff out like a spear. Allarde crossed his wands before his chest to block the thrust. The ferrule smashed through them in a blue flash.
Bits of crystal flew in all directions, blazing as they fell like sapphires in sunlight. The staff punched the wizard in the breastbone, flinging him back for a double pace. He bounced onto the bridge, then slipped off and dropped into the abyss. He screamed all the way down.
Cashel recovered his staff. He felt like he'd fallen from a high cliff into the sea, shocked and stunned. He could still handle himself if push came to shove, though. He hadn't planned what he was doing, just did what seemed right at the time. Ithad been right, but there'd been a cost. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd been bruised and achy after a fight. "Join the halves of the coin, hero," Milady called.
She'd wrapped her arms around Allarde. Blue flames continued to lick from her mouth as she spoke and from the wizard's as he screamed without end. "There's a doorway in the back of the room you're in.
Give the coin to the man in the hut behind the castle. He'll show you to Gorand." Cashel spun the staff, sunwise and then widdershins; getting his balance, working the stiffness from muscles that'd felt like they'd been frozen when Allarde's wands shattered. He was all right now, or close enough. "Thank you, ma'am," he called to the tiny figure laughing in the hellfire. He started toward bridge ending in the far distance, wondering how long it would take him to get there.