"We went overland from Valles," Ingens said. "Hervir's plan all along was to find a suitable ship for our return via the river. I simply followed his intentions. Though without the saffron, of course." And without Hervir, which is all that concerns me, Ilna thought. She wondered if it concerned Ingens. There was nothing in his words or expression to suggest that it did, but on the other hand hehad started back to find his employer immediately after delivering word of his disappearance. "The channel is constantly changing, Sairg says,"
Ingens said. He pointed with his whole arm toward the near shore.
"Even I can tell that. See that stand of cypress?" "Yes," said Ilna, when she was sure that she did. "There's only three trees left," the secretary explained. "I remember counting seven when we were coming upriver. Four were undercut and fell into the river. I don't think the others will survive much longer. The whole world is still in flux."
Ilna sniffed. "Trees have always fallen into rivers," she said.
"Things have always died." "Yes, buteverything is new now," Ingens said. "This whole river is as new as the lands it drains." He paused, then added, "Hervir was adamant about that. He said there was no end of what a bold man could achieve in this new world. Hervir was a very ambitious man. Marrying the sister of an Ornifal nobleman was barely the start of it." "Are you a bold man looking to better yourself, Master Ingens?" Ilna said, watching the secretary's face. How he chose to respond to the question would tell her more than the mere words he used. He snorted. "Me?" he said. "Boldness isn't enough, mistress, if you don't have money to back it up with. I have my salary; which is adequate to my needs, but not the sort of stake I'd need to set up as a spice merchant on my own." "Did you think of asking Hervir for a loan?" Ilna said. "You say that he valued you and respected your abilities." "Hervir valued me as an employee," Ingens said. He didn't try to hide the bitterness, perhaps realizing that he wouldn't succeed anyway. "He saw no benefit to himself or to Halgran Trading in having me as a rival. He laughed, in fact. 'I haven't spent six years training you, Ingens my boy, in order to have you undercutting me with my suppliers.'" The secretary's face worked; another man would've spit into the brown water. "Him trainingme," he said. "I see," said Ilna.
She might've said more, but at that moment Sairg chittered an order to the crew. "He's telling them to move us farther out into the channel,"
Ingens translated. "We're over a flooded forest here, and brushing a treetop the wrong way could tip the boat over." The oarsmen quickened their stroke. One started what was obviously a chantey even though Ilna didn't understand the words. Her mind flashed bright with an image of Chalcus bending over the stroke oar, his tenor voice floating, "To me, way, haul away-" And Merota's clear soprano answering, "We'll haul and hang together!" Ilna wasn't crying, shedidn't cry; but she closed her eyes and rubbed her face in the sleeve of her tunic until the moment was past. *** When Liane said she needed to meet with him and Rasile, Cashel asked her to do it sitting on the walls of Pandah. He was about as comfortable here as he would've been in any city: he could look out and see green. It wasn't the right pale green of the sheep-cropped meadows south of Barca's Hamlet, but it was close enough he could pretend. There hadn't been a lot of building here on the west side because the ground was so boggy. There were tussocks of grass and sometimes willows, but the road to the North River had to be the next thing to a bridge for most of its length. Crews had laid tree boles for stringers and pinned cross-logs to them with treenails. Putting up houses would've taken pilings, or maybe boats. "Dariada is the largest city state in Charax," Liane said. She'd opened her little portable desk and had three unopened books and a scroll laid out on it. "It's not the capital, though-the island, the region it is now, doesn't have a capital. There're seventeen states, and for the most part they don't get along well. Usually some of them are at war with one another."
Pandah was growing so fast that if the army-there was a city watch, but they weren't up to the job yet and the army was here-hadn't kept the battlements clear, there'd have been folks camping on them and in the streets below, for that matter. Lord Tadai wasn't going to have that, which Cashel was glad of for as long as he had to be in the city. For right now, a squad of troops blocked the staircase to the tower Liane had picked. Cashel smiled at a thought. Given half a chance, folks'd pack in as tight as sheep in a byre. Since sheep ate grass instead of meat, sheep manure didn't make near the problem human manure did. It was a good thing it rained a lot in Pandah, but that was another reason not to build in the bogs which storms washed the streets into. "That is…," Liane said, angry because she hadn't been as clear as she thought she ought to be, "that was true of Charax during the first three hundred years of the previous millennium. What we in our day call the Old Kingdom, though the cities of Charax were independent at the time. That's the situation since the Change, too."
Rasile watched Liane intently, which bothered Cashel a little to see: it reminded him of the way a vixen tenses toward a tuft of grass that she'd just seen move. As for Cashel himself, well, he was listening.
He'd learned long since that not much of what folks as smart as Liane said made a lot of difference to him, though. People didn't expect Cashel to talk politics or philosophy. The sorts of things they did take up with him, well, those weren't a problem. He knew how to deal with them, good or bad. "Dariada is the most important city of the region, though, because the Tree is there," Liane said. "It's sacred to all Charax, but it's still in Dariada." "Ma'am?" said Cashel, because trees were something he understood. "What kind of a tree, if you please?" Liane scrunched her face up over an unhappy thought. "I don't know," she said. "The ancient descriptions-" She lifted the scroll from the table and waggled it. "-aren't clear, and my agents haven't been permitted within the separate enclosure within the city walls. From the accounts, the Tree Oracle is a pod with the face of a man, and it gives responses to questions. The priests choose who can address the Tree, but the petitioner him or herself puts the question." Cashel frowned. "Rasile?" he said. "Do we need to talk to the oracle, or are we just going to the city to start out with?
Because I don't guess they've seen a lot of your folk on Charax, Coerli I mean. And it seems like they may get, well, perturbed." One thing Cashel learned the first time he came into a city is that people in cities talked a lot; really a lot. Also stuff took a long while, especially if there was a lot of people needing to agree before things happened. What with one thing and another, it seemed like the pirates might be up to the city walls before a shepherd and a Corl wizard got anybody to listen. "I must speak to the oracle, Warrior Cashel,"
Rasile said. "I did not understand why I saw a tree on the path till you told me that." Her smile didn't disturb Cashel now that he'd gotten used to it, but he hoped she wouldn't try it on suspicious strangers in Charax. They were going to have problems enough as it was. "Cashel," Liane said, setting down the scroll she'd picked up as an illustration. "Wizard Rasile. I will be accompanying you on your journey. Neither of you-" "Ma'am?" Cashel blurted. He blushed when he realized he'd broken in on a woman talking-and her a lady besides-but he'd just had to! "You shouldn't be doing that. It's not right." "It's not only right, it's necessary," Liane said. She didn't snap the way Ilna would've done if somebody talked to her like Cashel just had, but he didn't hear any more give in Liane's voice than there'd have been from his sister. "To begin with, neither of you can read. It's more than probable that you'll need to read in the course of this business." "Ma'am, I know you're right," Cashel said. "But a clerk could do that." He wouldn't like it even if she wasn't Garric's girl, because she was nice and this wasn't going to be a nice business. He'd seen what happened to women in Ombis when the pirates got through the hole in the walls, and what the male pirates were doing wasn't the worst of it. "Or an officer, I didn't want soldiers but maybe that'd be a good idea." Liane was Garric's girl. Cashelwasn't going to take her along! "And as you've already understood, Cashel," Liane continued, her voice smooth as polished diamond and just as hard,
"we'll have to negotiate with the Priests of the Tree. Neither of you are suitable for that task. I am the best person for it in the government, with the possible exception of Prince Garric. Even Garric would have a great deal to learn in a short time, though, and I'm already familiar with the business." "Ma'am…," Cashel said. He felt awful, his guts twisting themself tighter every time he breathed in. He couldn't think of anything to say that would change her mind.
Nothing he said: Lady Liane said she was coming, so she would come. He sighed. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Female Liane," Rasile said. She'd never stopped looking at Liane, and Cashel hadn't seen the old wizard's expression change from beginning to end. "I will take Warrior Cashel and myself to Dariada by a shorter route than walking through the waking world. If you come with us, you will take the same route."
Liane looked at her coldly. "Thank you, mistress," she said, clipping the words in a way Cashel hadn't heard her do before. "I am familiar with wizardry. My late father was a wizard himself. I'm not concerned with the means by which you accomplish the task in which I assist you." "Tomorrow morning," Rasile said quietly. She looked at Cashel.
"I would like a wooded grove for my incantation. Can you lead us to such a grove, warrior?" "There aren't real groves anywhere near the city," Cashel said, mulling the question in his mind. "There's been too much building going on, you see." "The palace has a roof garden," said Liane. "Will that be adequate?" "It will," said Rasile, wagging her tongue in agreement. Liane rose to her feet. "I have more business to attend," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at the palace."
Cashel offered Rasile a hand, mostly for courtesy. She was spry enough she didn't really need it. They didn't speak as they watched Liane disappearing down the stairs into the guard room below. It was true that Liane knew about wizardry: her father had trussed her for a sacrifice. If she was willing to go where and however Rasile led, then she was even braver than Cashel had already thought.
Chapter 5 Cashel hadn't been here in the garden before. There were three small trees in pots: a weeping willow which must've been a trial for the servants carrying water to it and a pair of silver birches.
The grape arbor was nice, and there were terracotta planters with flowers. Anyway, Rasile seemed satisfied as she placed the yarrow stalks she used to lay out her figures. Cashel was used to being around animals whose legs bent the wrong way so it didn't bother him when she hunched, the way it did some folk looking at the catmen. When Rasile stood up, though-well, a sheep never did that. Liane stood like she figured to be hanged by midday. She wore sturdy tunics that must've been from Ilna; nobody else Cashel knew could weave cloth so practical and still have designs that seemed simple until you looked at them close. The sleeves and torsos mated perfectly. "These myrtles seem full grown even with being so small," Cashel said quietly. It took a moment for Liane to understand he was talking to her. When she did, she jumped like he'd poured ice water down her back. She flashed a wide, embarrassed smile. "Yes," she said, "they're a dwarf variety from the mountains of Shengy. One of Mistress Gudea's tutors grew this kind. It's hard to imagine a pirate with the same tastes as Mistress Lassa, but I suppose it makes a change from drinking blood and cutting people's fingers off." Cashel laughed. He had a notion of what it was like in Liane's head right now, and it wouldn't have been right to let her wallow there. If she'd been Sharina, Cashel would've put an arm around her-or more likely, Sharina would've put an arm around him.
Cashel wasn't comfortable doing that, but sometimes it was the best thing there was. "I guess," Cashel said. "I think I'd rather have peonies, though." He kept on smiling, but mention of pirates made him think of Ilna's friend Chalcus. They'd never talked about the things Chalcus had done before he met Ilna, but you could read from the scars all over his body that he hadn't been the kind of sailor who took a tub from Shengy across the Inner Sea with a load of oranges ripening aboard. Had Chalcus cut off fingers and drunk blood? Not without a reason for it, but Cashel guessed there wasn't much Chalcuswouldn't have done if he'd had to. Because Ilna wouldn't have been happy with a man who wasn't that way, since she surely was herself. "Cashel?" Liane said, looking at his smile and maybe seeing what was behind it. She was smart, just as smart as Garric. "I was thinking about my sister, ma'am," Cashel said. He didn't talk much, but he'd answer a question if somebody asked him. It was easy when you were willing just to tell the truth. "She's gotten a lot mellower since we left home-even after she lost Chalcus and Merota, I mean, though for a while there she was something else. But you still wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of her." "No," said Liane, "I wouldn't. But I don't think anybody could be a better friend." Cashel smiled. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "But she's not a good friend to herself." Rasile got to her feet, looking like a toy unfolding. "Are you ready, Cashel?" she said. "Yes, ma'am," he said. Rasile's eyes were a little harder as she turned them on Liane.
The expression reminded Cashel that the wizard's jaw was long and full of pointed teeth. "And you, female Liane?" "Just Liane, please," she answered pleasantly. "Yes, I'm ready." "Then join me in the heptagram, Cashel and Liane," the wizard said. "The star of power, we of the True People call it." She waggled her tongue in the equivalent of a grin.
"We will see if it hasenough power," she said. "The power…," said Liane as she stepped over the jagged line of yarrow stalks. "Is in you, Rasile, not in your symbols. And you have power enough." "The Wizard Tenoctris trusts me more than I trust myself," said Rasile.
"But in this, I think she is right." There was room enough in the star for Cashel with the two women, but it was pretty tight. Since there was time, Cashel counted the points: there was a handful and two fingers. It'd seemed like more just to look at; it must be that the yellow stalks were tricking his eyes. Rasile began to chant, wagging her slate athame side to side in front of her. She sounded like a catfight instead of wizardry unless you paid attention to the rhythms, but if you did that, you knew it was just the same as Tenoctris. Liane was standing really stiff. Part of that might be how close they were together, but she relaxed a trifle when Cashel gave her a slow smile.
She carried a bag of waxed linen with a broad strap over her shoulder.
It wasn't big, but it looked heavy. Cashel would bet anything that there was books in it. Garric generally carried a book with him, too.
Sharina said that she read for pleasure, but her brother was the real scholar of them. That was another way he and Liane were well matched.
Cashel had his usual leather wallet, the one he'd used when he was watching sheep or doing any other job that would keep him away from the mill at lunch time. In it was hard bread, whey cheese, a gourd of ale with a wooden stopper, and a couple onions. It would keep for a week and not be the worse for the wait. It wouldn't be any better either, of course, but that had been what he'd eaten for most of his life. Nobody could look at Cashel or-Kenset and say simple food wasn't enough to keep a man healthy. Rasile yowled her incantation. The sky looked bright when Cashel glanced at it, but it didn't seem to throw as much light down on the roof slates as it had a moment before. The shadows of the flowerpots were blurring into general darkness. Rasile shrieked something that ended with a spitting sound, pft-pft-pft! The yarrow stalks burned with red wizardlight, and a razor of ice shaved Cashel's marrow. The landscape beyond them changed. Tufts of grass, yellow and dry, sprouted from gritty soil. The wind was harsh and cold and terribly thin. Cashel drew a deep breath, but it felt like he was being smothered with a feather pillow. In the distance was a great mountain, its slopes glittering with ancient snow. From its peak trailed steam with a sulfurous tinge. Cashel had been holding the wizard's woven satchel in his left hand and his quarterstaff in his right at the balance. Now he slipped the looped handles up over his shoulder so that he could spread both hands on the staff. He didn't swing it horizontal, though, because the ferrules would've stuck out beyond the edges of the star. Rasile called out again, rousing another pulse of wizardlight. Liane stood with her eyes closed and her face set. Bone-chilling cold cut again. They were on a shore. Basalt spikes, one of them hollowed into an archway by the surf, stood up from black sand; the landscape for as far as Cashel could see had no other features. The water was bright blue where it rolled onto the beach, but in the middle distance it changed sharply to the dusty green of olive leaves. Something on the horizon curled up, then back into the depths. Cashel wondered how anything alive could be so big.
Rasile called, and ice carved deep again. The sea vanished and the sand they stood on was red. The air smelled wet. Soft-bodied plants sprouted around the margins of a pond near the figure of yarrow stalks. There wasn't any grass and the tallest plants were horsetails that Cashel could touch the tops of by stretching his arm up. Rasile sank onto her haunches. Cashel and Liane both reached to grab her, but she hadn't collapsed; she was just settling. "Our route is over these sands, companions," the wizard said, looking out over the waste.
Sandstone ridges slanted across it; there were more plants in their lee. Cashel felt a breeze, but it didn't smell of anything in particular. "Where is this place?" said Liane. Now that they'd arrived she sounded calm, the way she usually did. "That is, is it in our world?" "Perhaps," said Rasile. "Not our time, though; your time or mine either one." "Ma'am?" Cashel said. "Give me a moment, if you will." He stepped out of the star so that he had room to limber up with his staff. He began to spin the iron-shod hickory in slow circles. Having the wizard's satchel over his shoulder cramped him, but it was all right if he kept his arms up a little more than usual.
He'd drop the gear if there was time, of course. But there might not be time. Cashel brought the staff around in a figure-8, spinning faster. He wasn't surprised that the tips left sparkles of blue wizardlight behind them. The landscape looked simple enough, but something here was making the hair on the back of his arms and neck prickle. He slowed to a halt and slanted the quarterstaff in front of him with his left hand high. Looking back to the women, he said, "I guess I'm ready now, Rasile." The wizard rose from her crouch. "And I am ready to lead, Cashel," she said. "This is not a place to tarry."
Rasile started off to the southeast, her legs taking quick, steady strides. She seemed to have recovered from the wizardry, though she was still pretty old. Liane glanced at Cashel. When he nodded, she followed Rasile by a double pace behind. She wore sturdy sandals that even had cleats; they weren't anything like her usual footgear. Cashel hoped they wouldn't blister her feet. Liane usually kept an ivory-mounted case knife in her sash. The finger-long blade was etched and gold-filled, but both edges were sharp and the steel was the best Cashel had ever seen. She held it bare in her hand now. Cashel brought up the rear, looking in all directions. Not looking for anything in particular, just for things that might be a problem. Which was anything at all in this world, he figured, from the way his skin tingled. He smiled. And that was true where they were going as well.
It made him feel good to know he mght useful. *** Diora paused in the bedroom doorway and looked back at Sharina in her nightdress. "Your highness, are you really sure you wouldn't like me to stay tonight?" she said. "Hachon will understand."
The maid frowned, apparently thinking about what she'd just said.
"Well, it doesn't matter what he thinks anyway, does it?" she said.
"You being the princess and him just a captain. But he would." "Thank you, Diora," said Sharina as she stepped forward to close the door herself if the maid didn't do it. "I prefer to be alone." Well, of course what she'dreally prefer was for Cashel to be with her, but that wasn't possible. The needs of the kingdom came first. Sharina was too… flat, she supposed. She wasn't physically tired, not unusually so at any rate, but after watching Cashel vanish she had no mental energy left to protest. She'd be all right again soon. She always was. Sharina walked to the window looking down on the courtyard. It wasn't a real garden, but four stubby palm trees stood in pots to punctuate benches which were empty at this hour. The quarter moon showed everything clearly, though without color. She hadn't been with Cashel when he went off this time. Rasile had said that many passages would be opening. Those protected within her seven-pointed star could choose the path they wished to take, but others who stood too close would find themselves in some uncertain elsewhere. There was a bird nest in the top of the palm nearest Sharina's window. A chick peeped and a muted cooing responded; it must be a dove. Sharina had watched Rasile's incantation from the fire tower, two furlongs from the roof garden but tall enough to give a good view of what was happening. She'd been alone, though her escort of Blood Eagles had been below in the tower just as they stood outside the door of her suite now. Cashel and his companions hadn't moved, though the ruby wizardlight swelled and waned about them in response to the Corl's chant. Sharina looked away from the window. The bed had curtains but it was far too warm to need them tonight. Diora had turned down the sheet before she left, but for a moment Sharina considered throwing an extra rug from the storage chest onto the floor and sleeping there. Well, she could do that later. She got into the bed. She'd expected a flood of wizardlight to blaze around her friends at the climax of the incantation. Instead, the heptagram had grown fainter and the three figures had slowly dissolved as though they'd fallen into a vat of acid. For an instant Sharina thought she could see Cashel's skeleton holding his hickory staff upright. She knew that was an illusion, but even so she had to step away from the parapet in fear that she'd topple over in a sudden wash of blackness. Cashel will be coming back. I have to keep things going here so that there'll be comfort and safety when he returns. Sharina was sure she wouldn't be able to sleep. She knew that if she tried to work, though, she'd just stare at tasks without doing anything useful. She might've been able to accomplish something if Liane were with her. They worked well together, better than either did alone-and that was better than most people, she'd learned by going over documents prepared by others, even experienced clerks. She missed Liane, but she missed Cashel more. She missed Cashel so much that her chest hurt with longing. She wouldn't be able to sleep- And Sharina was asleep. She floated above an enormous city. She recognized it from drawings by the architects Lord Tadai had engaged to plan Pandah's rebirth as capital of the kingdom.
The old quarter remained, though the city walls had been razed to form boulevards and the tenements of the poor had been replaced by splendid public buildings. The greatest was a soaring black temple; the dream-Sharina curved toward it. The colonnaded plaza was paved with the same polished granite as had been used for the structures. In the center of it stood a tall man in a hooded black robe. "Your gods are dead, Sharina!" he called. His voice came from everywhere. Storm clouds began to pile up as suddenly as foam covers a mug of ale. "Come to me and worship Lord Scorpion!" the man said. Sharina felt her dream-self drawn toward him like a straw in a millrace; she struggled.
"Worship the One Which rules this world and will rule it for eternity!" the man said, lifting his arms toward her. Her dream-self was so close now that she could see the scorpion on the shoulder of his velvet robe, perched there like a trained magpie. "Worship Lord Scorpion!" Sharina willed her arms to drag her away, but she had no form to fight the current dragging her. Nonetheless she felt the fabric of the dream tearing about her. "Worship Lord Scorpion!" The clouds were black as starless night, twisting and shaping into a monstrous scorpion. "Worship!" Sharina lurched out of her bed. The sky had begun to hint at false dawn. The Pewle knife lay on the small bedside table. She gripped the sealskin sheath with her left hand and drew the long blade. There was no enemy to face with the weapon, but its presence settled her. Her mind still echoed with, "Worship!" *** Lord Attaper was an Ornifal noble and as good a horseman as anyone in the royal army. Places in the Blood Eagles he commanded, however, were filled by soldiers who'd proved their courage inany of the regiments, most of which were infantry. It didn't surprise Garric when a trooper in the squad trotting ahead of him and Tenoctris wobbled, grabbed his saddle horn, and fell off anyway. He hit with more of a thud than a crash of armor, since the ground was soft. "Get up and rejoin us, Mitchin!" Attaper snarled, furious that one of his men had embarrassed him. "And quickly!" "That seems a little unjust," said Tenoctris, riding beside Garric with ladylike grace-she was sidesaddle-and perfect skill. "This may be the first time he's ridden a horse in his life." The wizard's family hadn't been wealthy, but theywere noble; Tenoctris had learned to ride and, for that matter to drive a coach and four. That latter skill had proven useful in the past, because it certainly wasn't one people raised in a peasant village were going to have. "I don't think 'justice' is one of the concepts Attaper dwells on when he's doing his job," Garric said.
"Which is every bloody minute he's awake," Carus said. "And I'd bet half his dreams are about guarding you, too. You don't make his life easy, lad." Then, in what was for the warrior king a reflective tone, he added, "I don't think he's ever been as happy before." The cornicene of the cavalry troop they were riding with blew an attention note on the horn coiled about his body. The captain wigwagged his arms in a field semaphore, signaling the ten troopers of his lead section.
They spread to left and right as they disappeared over the next rise.
Lord Zettin's scouts ranged far and wide across the continent, but the army's own cavalry was responsible for its close-in reconnaissance.
Garric needed to see the terrain himself if he were to dispose his troops properly in event of a battle, and there wasn't likely to be margin to cover any mistakes he made. Trooper Mitchin thundered past on his way to rejoin his squad. His shield, a section of cylinder, banged against him every time the horse gathered its legs. The Blood Eagles were equipped as infantry. Attaper had mounted this platoon only to allow them to keep up with the prince. If they had to fight, they'd dismount. Lord Waldron hadn't liked Garric riding off with a troop of cavalry and a platoon of Blood Eagles, but he understood the logic of the plan. More to the point, he understood that it was his duty to obey when his prince ordered. Attaper wasn't nearly as clear on the latter point. He simply would have ignored Garric telling him to stay behind, so Garric hadn't bothered. "Tenoctris?" Garric said.
"I'm here to get a feel for the country." "So that you andIget a feel for the country, lad," Carus reminded him. The ghost smiled, but his words were true enough. Carus had been a formidable swordsman, but his armies wouldn't have won every battle they fought if he hadn't also been even more impressive as a tactician. Grinning at the silent comment, Garric continued, "But what are you here for? Are you looking for particular places to use your art?" Tenoctris laughed. "Not at all," she said. "In fact, this country is very peaceful. Pleasantly bland, I feel. It's unusual to be able to look from horizon to horizon and not see signs of mass slaughter or dreadful rites anywhere. Well, it's been unusual for me in the past, at any rate." This country in general ranged from bog to marsh, though the leading section had thus far been able to find ground firm enough for horsemen. It'd be a bad place to meet an enemy, since the soft ground would channel the fighting along a series of parallel causeways. "It'd be worse for the rats, though," Carus said judiciously. "They've got narrow feet."
"No," Tenoctris said, "I'm here because you are, Garric. I believe that whoever is ruling Palomir will sooner or later attack you personally. I want to be where the excitement is." She laughed merrily, but Garric didn't imagine her light tone took anything away from its truth. "I don't think I'm that important," he said carefully.
Tenoctris shrugged. "Ithink you are, lad," said the ghost in Garric's mind. "If a sword and an army could've held the Isles together, I'd have done it. But that's all I had, and it wasn't enough. Nobody I've seen in this age has even that much. Nobody but you." The main body-the Blood Eagles around Garric and Tenoctris, and the ten-man section with the cavalry commander-reached the crest of the ridge.
Garric saw the troopers of the lead element halfway down the swale, proceeding very slowly. Two of the horses were in mud to their knees, and a third man was backtracking from a bog he'd decided was impenetrable. The troop commander was changing his advance section every few miles, because the picking the trail required considerably more effort than following did. "The supply wagons are going to have the Sister's own time getting through this," Carus noted grimly. We're using oxen, not draft horses, Garric reminded him silently. Their hooves are broader, and they spread with pressure so they won't sink in as badly. Even as Garric's mind formed the thought, a trio of spiral-horned antelope sprang out of a willow copse and bounded across what looked like choking swamp. They made great leaps that seemed to be higher than they were long, pausing briefly between one and the next. Their feet must be adapted to the environment, though just how Garric couldn't imagine. A pity we can't saddle them, Garric thought.
That would give us an edge against the rats. Aloud he said,
"Tenoctris, if the Gods have vanished-or anyway, if They don't exist in this present… what does that mean for us? I mean, in the future?" Tenoctris shrugged again. "Well, possibly nothing," she said.
"After all, that's the world I lived in all my life until very recently: a world in which the Great Gods didn't exist." "But you said you were wrong?" Garric said, frowning. "Yes, but it's what I believed at the time," she said with a wry smile. "Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believed it. So I have no difficultly in imagining a world in which the Gods reallydon't exist, rather than them simply not existing in my mind." Garric considered a world without the Great Gods. He'd never doubted Their existence-people in Barca's Hamletdidn't doubt the Gods-but neither had They been a major part of his life. Reise offered a crumb and a drop of ale to the Lady at family meals, but any true worship Garric had done was to the rough stone carving of Duzi on the hill overlooking the south pasture. The Shepherd Who protected the world was far too grand to worry about real shepherds, but little Duzimight find a lost sheep or deflect the lightning from the elm which sheltered the shepherd against the sudden thunderstorm. So perhaps it really wouldn't make much difference.
Garric was uncomfortable with the thought, but there was no end of more serious problems facing the kingdom. "The difficulty is that I'm not sure the throne, so to speak, will remain empty," Tenoctris continued. The Blood Eagles had gone through this section single file, but there was room for two horses abreast, or almost so. Garric nodded and Tenoctris pulled ahead; he followed closely enough that his horse nuzzled her left thigh. "Certainly the Gods of Palomir hope to fill the void," she said. "And we hope, of course, to disappoint them. I rather doubt that they're the only powers who wish to rule this age, however. And they may not be the worst of the possible choices."