Authors: David Drake

Lord of the Isles (59 page)

BOOK: Lord of the Isles

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“Didn't your brother know that a demon guarded the images, Latias?” Jen asked.

The factor shook his head. “No,” he said, “though I can't say it came as a surprise. My father was a private man and, I'm sorry to say, a very suspicious one. He worked with foreign traders all his life until becoming head of the clan five years ago.”

Latias stepped to the side of the table so that he could kneel to Cashel in full obeisance. He rose and added, “Obviously I've inherited some of the same attitudes, Master Cashel. Otherwise I wouldn't have doubted the abilities which Frasa and Jen assured me you have.”

“Look,” Cashel said. Without really thinking about it, he took his staff in his hands again. “I know you folks don't kill or anything, but couldn't you hire somebody local to, you know, be waiting when you open the box?”

“I tried that, yes,” Latias agreed. “Points of steel, stone and bronze don't bite on the demon's flesh. A wooden club shattered, and the creature snapped a silken strangling cord. While it was killing all the hirelings, of course.”

“Him, not it,” said Mellie. She was back on his shoulder again, looking pensive. “Derg is male.”

“Did you give them proper obsequies?” Cashel asked, pronouncing the word carefully and wondering what it meant. He'd thought they wanted him to use the quarterstaff.

The Serians looked at one another. Frasa said, “Well, the guards didn't have familiesâ”

“Serian families,” his brother interjected hastily.

“Serian families,” Frasa repeated with a nod. “But I'm
sure their dependents were compensated for their loss.”

“Ah?” the factor said. “Yes, I, ah, compensated the victims' dependents. But the demon remains on guard within the chest.”

“What do you want me to do about Derg?” Cashel said. “I don't understand.”

“We didn't even know the demon's name,” Latias said. “You just
named
him?”

“He's Derg,” Cashel said, more embarrassed by the Serians' look of awe. “He's male.” He swallowed. “I think.”

“Oh, he's male, Cashel,” the sprite said coolly. “Just like you.”

“Our father died too suddenly to pass his authority over the demon on to my brother,” Latias said. “Let alone to myself.”

He took a deep breath. His face showed more emotion than Cashel had previously seen on a Serian noble, even when the brothers were in immediate danger of being beaten to death in Carcosa.

“Sir,” he said. “A wizard of sufficient power can overcome the demon. The only alternative is to have the chest exorcised by whichever priesthood protected it in the first place. There isn't time to return it to Seres for that.”

He knelt in submission. “Sir,” he went on, “if you can free the images from their guardian, I'll willingly sign over half my personal fortune to you. The peaceful repose of my ancestors rests on you.”

Cashel swallowed. “I still don't see how I can help,” he said. “I knew a wizard, but she was back on Haft. And she said she wasn't very powerful anyway.”

“You aren't a wizard the way they think,” Mellie said. She sat with her arms crossed on her raised knees, glowering at the garish chest. “Not the way you think of the word either, Cashel. But you could fight Derg if you wanted to.”

Cashel twisted his head to look directly at the sprite. “Mellie?” he said. He didn't care what the Serians thought about him talking to empty air. “Should I do this?
Can
I do this?”

The factor started to speak. Jen hushed him with a hand gesture. The brothers watched Cashel intently.

Mellie turned her face up to his. “I don't know what you should do, Cashel,” she said. “I think you're very strong â¦ stronger than Derg. But Derg is very strong.”

Cashel didn't understand any of this. Somebody ought to give him a flock of sheep to mind; but then, if he'd wanted to herd sheep he should have stayed home in the borough. He'd wanted something different; and this is what he had.

He chuckled. Even if he didn't understand it.

“Sir,” Latias said. He'd gotten up again, so at least Cashel was spared the embarrassment of having somebody kneeling before him like he was a statue of the Shepherd. “Apart from the material rewards I can provide, the man who defeats the demon can demand a wish from it. From him.”

“No, no, he's wrong,” Mellie said. “What Derg will grant you â¦”

She raised one leg almost straight in the air while she balanced on the toes of the other. Cashel couldn't imagine anybody being as limber as the sprite obviously was.

The Serians stared at him. He ignored them.

“ â¦ is what you'd wish for if you knew everything Derg does,” Mellie said, switching legs in a scissors motion as sudden as the movements of a hummingbird's wings. She grinned at him. “And Derg knows a lot more than you do.”

“Everybody knows more than I do,” Cashel said. He grinned also. “Except about sheep.”

“Of course,” the sprite added, “first you have to defeat Derg.”

“Master Latias,” Cashel said, “I don't need your money. I've got more money now than I thought there was in the world.”

That was only a small exaggeration. His pay crammed the purse around his neck tighter than a sausage fills its skin. He'd either have to get a bigger purse or change some of the silver into gold. Cashel or-Kenset with gold of his own!

“I guess this is pretty important to you, your ancestors and
all,” he went on. “And I guess Jen and Frasa want me to do this andâ”

“Please, Cashel!” Frasa said. “This can't be anyone's decision but your own. If you would prefer to stay with us, my brother and I will gladly continue to employ you at your previous wage.”

“Sure, I know,” said Cashel. “But you wouldn't have brought me here if you didn't want me to help. I understand. You two've been good to me and I don't mind doing you a favor.”

“The death of a clan by neglect of its rites is a terrible thing, Cashel,” Jen said, his hands hidden in the opposite sleeves.

“Anyway,” Cashel said, “you've been straight with me and you say Master Latias here has been straight with you.”

He met the factor's gaze, wondering as he did so what Mellie was really thinking. He didn't understand the sprite any better than he did people; any better than he did a girl like Sharina, he supposed.

“I don't need your money, Master Latias,” Cashel repeated. “But where I come from, people get by themselves by helping each other. I guess I'll help you now, since it seems like you need it.”

“Well, I thought you would, Cashel,” Mellie said with a tone to her voice that he couldn't identify. “After all, a flock has only one ram â¦ .”

P
art of Garric's mind wanted to draw his sword and cut through the men facing him behind the lantern. That feeling didn't come
only
from the part of him where King
Carus strode in bloody majesty across remembered battlefields.

But the men were a squad of the City Patrols investigating lights and noises from a tomb in a good section of Erdin. They had every right to be here; but then, so did Garric and Tenoctris.

“Good evening, officers!” Garric said. “We're servants of Mistress Liane bos-Benliman. She sent us to inspect the family tomb for her.”

“I want you to arrest them!” said a pudgy man behind the row of patrolmen. “They're plotting to break into my house!”

There were six City Patrolmen. They wore brass helmets and tabards bearing the Sandrakkan horsehead quartered with the wavy symbol of Erdin. Two patrolmen had catchpoles, forked shafts with a spring closure that could be thrust over a suspect's neck or limbs from a safe distance. The others carried cudgels, and all of them wore short swords.

“This property is owned by the Benlimans,” Tenoctris said imperiously, speaking as a noble to commoners. That's just what she was, of course, though her family estate had probably vanished a thousand years before. “My master retained it when he sold the remainder of his Sandrakkan properties. Who is this person who disputes his title?”

The officer leading the patrol wore a plume of white feathers in the tube on the right side of his helmet brim. He looked at the pudgy man standing behind him and said, “Is that true, sir?”

“Here's the key to the enclosure,” Garric said, reaching into the wallet hanging from his belt to find it. The key had been lying on the floor of the tomb; Liane must have lost it when the corpse carried her away.

“Well, I â¦” the man said. He was obviously the owner of the house and grounds. His wealth was sufficient to get vagrants jailed, even if they weren't trespassing on his own property; but demanding the arrest of agents of another nobleman
while on their master's proper businessâ
that
was another matter.

“If you'd care to look inside, officers,” Tenoctris said in a tone of tolerant superiority, “I believe you'll find matters in order. No stash of housebreaking implements or loot, I assure you.”

“We're staying at the Ram and Ewe near the river,” Garric said. “We can be found thereâthough Mistress Liane may send us back to her property with further instructions, of course.”

“Well â¦” the officer said.

“Corporal?” said a patrolman with one of the catchpoles. “I think he's the one in the picture.”

The officer reached into his scrip and brought out a tablet made of two thin wooden plates. “Bring a light!” he ordered peevishly.

Two patrolman held lanterns with glass lenses that could be shuttered to hide the light. They aimed their beams to illuminate the faces painted on the tablet's inner leaves.

Even from Garric's angle, the faces were recognizable as him and Liane.

“By the Shepherd!” the corporal said. “You're right, Challis, it is him.”

“Watch him!” a patrolman shouted.

Garric spread his empty hands. He might be able to break and run, but Tenoctris couldn't escape that way. He wasn't afraid to fight, but these were human beings, not liches to be killed without compunction.

There were six patrolmen and the homeowner, and he'd have to kill them all. He wasn't willing to do that.

A catchpole thrust for Garric's neck. He batted it away. “I'm going to unbuckle my sword,” he said in a loud voice. “Treat it well or it'll be the worse for you!”

He didn't know whether that was Garric speaking or the king shining through Garric's flesh at this crisis. Why were the City Patrols looking for him and Liane?

“Your name's Garric?” the corporal asked.

“Yes,” he said. “What's all this about?”

“Well, Garric,” the corporal said, “we're to behave with courtesy with you when we take you in, and we'll do just that. But we
are
going to take you in. Got that clear?”

Garric wrapped the sword belt around the scabbard and handed it toward the corporal. Challis, a young, sharp-looking man, took the weapon instead.

“I understand,” Garric said.

“How about her, corporal?” a patrolman asked. “She's not the right one, not by forty years.”

“Right,” said the corporal, putting the tablet away in his scrip again. “But we'll take her in too. It's a lot easier to explain why you arrested somebody than to explain why you didn't.”

He looked Garric up and down. “You'll come back to the Patrol hut with us and I'll send a runner to the people who want you. Then it's out of my hands.”

“Did the Earl of Sandrakkan order Master Garric's arrest?” Tenoctris demanded.

The corporal shrugged. “I don't know who ordered it,” he said. “All I know is that I did my job. But the runner â¦”

He looked at Tenoctris.

“The runner goes to a private house on Palace Square.”

E
veryone but Cashel and Mellie had left the room. The doors were closed and men waited outside with weapons Latias said were useless against the demon. Cashel set his staff against the wall regretfully. He believed Mellie when she said it was his bare hands or nothing, but the smooth, familiar hickory would feel good right now.

The sprite sat on the wooden chest next to the enameled
iron one which held the images. Her legs dangled over the edge.

The iron chest was two feet long and a foot wide and deep. Cashel didn't see how a demon hiding in a space so small could be dangerous. Was Derg poisonous like some snakes?

“What do I do?” he asked.

“You just raise the lid,” Mellie said. “And after that, well, it depends, doesn't it?”

She lifted her body off the wood with her hands and rotated her torso upward into an absolutely amazing handstand on the edge of the chest. “Or we could go out and see the rest of Erdin instead,” she added from an inverted position. “Though it seems what I thought it would be. Just another city.”

The hasp wasn't padlocked. Cashel flipped up the latch.

There was no point in waiting; like Mellie said, this was entirely his own decision. He threw back the heavy lid and straightened, expecting a demon to billow up at him like smoke from a chimney.

A cover of green silk brocade lay over the images within the chest; threads of gold, scarlet, and blue shot through the heavy fabric. A bright red, dog-headed demon no taller than Mellie stood in the center of the cloth looking up at Cashel.

Mellie swung her body in a graceful arc, clearing the iron edge of the chest and landing feet-first on the brocade. “Here or there, Derg?” she demanded.

The demon opened his jaws. The roar wasn't from Derg's throat, though, but from the whole cosmos. The room blurred white, gray, and finally bright flaming red.

Cashel fell. The only point that held firm in the flux was Derg's bestial face, swelling out of the fiery background.

Cashel's feet hit the ground. The soil was thin over a base of dense clay. Ferns and the leaves of pale saplings decorated the bases of giant trees. The air was hot and still.

Mellie was a full-sized woman. She stood with her hands on her hips, her pelvis thrust forward. Derg, as tall as Cashel
and so bright that he seemed to vibrate in this waste of green/ black/brown, leaped for Cashel's throat.

Cashel was big but not slow. He caught Derg by one outstretched wrist and forearm, then slammed the demon to the ground like a giant flail.

Derg bounced hard, spraying water from the saturated soil. Cashel stepped back. He'd expected Derg to close with him in a wrestling contest. Depending on how strong the demon really was, the fight might have lasted some time, but Cashel hadn't really considered that he might lose. He knew that Garric was smarter than most people; and he knew that Cashel or-Kenset was stronger than anybody he was likely to meet.

Derg rolled over and got to his feet. The demon's legs were relatively shorter than a man's; his torso and arms were longer. The dent in the ground where he'd hit was filling with water.

Derg laughed. In a low, gravelly voice he said, “That was very good, human. Shall I throw you, now?”

“You can try,” said Cashel. He and the demon stepped together with their arms outstretched. They struck chest to chest and their hands locked. It was like walking into an oak tree but Cashel didn't give way.

Derg growled a laugh and twisted to set his long jaws in Cashel's throat. Cashel head-butted the doglike muzzle. Fangs gashed his forehead, but the demon yelped and jerked his head away. Cashel turned, using his body as a fulcrum, and hurled Derg over his back.

The demon hit the ground just as hard as before, losing his grip on Cashel's hands. Cashel straightened, sucking huge breaths in through his open mouth.

This time he wasn't surprised when Derg rolled over and got slowly to his feet. The impact would have broken every bone in a human's body.

“You're very strong, human,” Derg said with obvious respect. “I'll be sorry to tear your head from your body and devour your entrails.”

Cashel was too involved with breathing to speak, and there
wasn't much to say anyhow. He didn't have a lot of use for men who talked about the things they were going to do instead of going out to do them.

A flock of robin-sized green-and-yellow parrots flew into the clearing, noticed Cashel and the demon, and swirled away squawking. Cashel started for his opponent again.

“Cashel,” Mellie said from the side of the clearing. “He takes his strength from the earth. Don't let him touch the ground.”

Derg snarled and charged him. They slammed together. Like hitting an oak tree, like hitting a boulder the size of an ox â¦

Cashel might have been wrestling one of the marble statues guarding the entrance to Latias' compound. There was no give in the demon's muscles. But Cashel
had
lifted boulders, and he'd once pulled a hickory sapling from the ground to brandish overhead roaring. No other man in the borough could have done that, but Cashel had; and he would do this thing.

He leaned backward, twisting at the waist, and dragged Derg with him despite the demon's attempt to pull in the opposite direction. Derg's legs were shorter than Cashel's. When both of them bent at the axis of the youth's hipbone, the demon's feet came off the ground.

Mellie laughed from the sidelines and turned a somersault in the air. Derg's teeth gnashed a whisker's width from Cashel's throat, but he couldn't force his jaws that slight degree closer.

Cashel started to laugh, a hacking, gasping sound of triumph. Holding Derg in the air was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he could feel the demon weaken in his grip.

Cashel bent the demon's left arm inexorably back. He didn't have any margin to relax, but he knew now that he was stronger than Derg by a measurable degree.

When the leverage was right, Cashel caught the demon's right ankle. He turned Derg and brought him down across his left knee, ignoring the way the demon's freed right arm
clawed him. The claws were short like a dog's, not a cat's rending talons; and not even that would have saved Derg now.

Mellie pranced closer and looked down into the demon's inverted face. “He'll kill you, Derg,” she said. “Cashel isn't one of us, you know. He kills things when they get in his way.”

The demon sprayed spittle in wordless desperation. He tried to roll sideways, but Cashel's strength prevented him.

Sweat plastered Cashel's hair to his scalp and ran down his chest. The top half of his tunic hung in rags; shredded by Derg's claws or burst from within by the flexing of his own massive torsoâhe didn't know the cause and it didn't matter. He continued to force the demon's shoulders and legs down on opposite sides of the blade of his knee.

“It's not going to be long now, Derg,” Mellie said cheerfully. She gave the demon's nose a little tweak. “Cashel doesn't stop when he gets started, you know. I wonder how loud it'll be when your spineâ”

“I yield!” the demon croaked.

Cashel barely heard the sound over the thunder of blood in his ears. He flung Derg away and started to rise.

All color left the cosmos in a white roar. The clearing dissolved. Cashel felt the ground receive him; then he felt nothing.

BOOK: Lord of the Isles

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