Servant of the Dragon (12 page)

Garric was still wild-eyed. He'd spun on the balls of his feet as though he expected to find the bird behind him. It was simply gone, spit from present existence the way the faun had been. He shuddered.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to get used to that sort of thing," he said mildly. "Though I suppose it's better than trying to fight something bigger than a trireme."

Cashel gave a great sigh. He set one end of his quarterstaff on the ground and leaned against it. He looked as weary as if he'd just tried to lift the world on his shoulders.

Sharina stepped close and clasped his right arm between both of hers. Cashel's skin was hot, and she could feel the hairs on his arm raised and prickly.

"I didn't see where it went," he said. "I don't remember exactly...."

"It just disappeared," Garric said. He sheathed his sword and seemed doubtful as to whether he should offer Cashel a hand in support. "Tenoctris, do you know what it was?"

"Something else that got in through the crack the bridge is causing," Tenoctris said. "There'll be other visitors coming; and more frequently, I'm afraid, until we remove the burden from the cosmos."

"I thought it was coming for us," Liane said in a calm voice.

Ilna gave a minuscule nod. "Us, or one of us," she said. "I thought that too."

"Well, we'll get back—" Garric said.

People screamed hoarsely. Sharina looked up. The bird sailed toward them over the tenements. It had circled in whichever plane of the cosmos to which it had faded; now it was returning from behind them. A flash of scarlet wizardlight shivered over the vast, dark-hued form. Its braying call shook foam-tipped wavelets from the river.

Sharina turned, trying to put herself between the monster and Tenoctris. Cashel swayed, lifting his staff again; Garric was drawing his sword. If anything happened to the old wizard, the rest of them wouldn't know what to do, let alone be able to do it.

The sky went black. Air sliding past the monster's scaly wings whispered like a forest in springtime.

"Sharina!" Cashel cried.

Horny talons the size of human arms clenched about Sharina from behind. She tried to draw her knife, but the pressure clamped her arms to her sides.
Like a vole snatched by an owl
, she thought; but the claws held her instead of piercing her through the way an owl's would have done its victim.

She looked down. The ground lurched away. The Beltis was below, the bridge a shimmering mirage on its surface.

The bird's leathery wings stroked, and the whole universe vanished in a thunderclap.

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

Sharina squirmed as gray mist swirled in the stroke of the creature's wings. The bird's talons were harder than horn; harder even than iron, perhaps. They held her as securely as millstones did a wheat kernel in the moment before they crushed it.

The haze congealed into a reality again, though not anything of the world from which Sharina had been snatched. The sea tossed close below them. The sun was low on the horizon, though Sharina couldn't be sure whether it was rising or setting.

The bird's pinions were reflected in the black water. She could see herself as a pale blur clutched close to the dark body.

Something rose slowly from the sea ahead. It had the streamlined shape of the seawolves which Sharina knew from their rare forays onto the shores of Barca's Hamlet: marine lizards with flattened tails and jaws which could crush a sheep's hips—or a man's.

A big seawolf might be twelve feet long. This creature was the size of a ship, or even bigger. Its fangs winked in the red sun.

The bird's wings stroked in their slow rhythm. The sea and the monster on it broke into scatters of rainbow light which faded to gray. Sharina was alone with the vast creature which had caught her. Its scaled, leathery skin never lost definition, though all else blurred away.

She wriggled again, but the talons meshed like the wards of a lock. They weren't so tight that they hurt her, but she couldn't even get a hand free to sweep her hair back.

The wings stroked slowly down. Sharina thought of her friends. The sting of her whipping hair was bringing tears to her eyes....

* * *

Ilna sat straight-backed and prim in a corner of the pavilion while the others reacted in their several ways.
She
was still and calm; all except for her fingers, which wove and picked loose the yarn of designs which could have blasted minds if she'd chosen to display them.

"Well, we've got to rescue Sharina," Cashel said. At a casual glance he seemed calm, but his was the tense stillness of an ox when a great horsefly buzzes back and forth about it, choosing a place to land. At any moment Cashel might burst out in a fury that would tear down everything in his path.

"I don't think Sharina is in immediate danger," Tenoctris said. She didn't know Cashel as well as Garric or Ilna herself did, but she was still trying not to offend the big man. "I can't tell who sent the creature, or what his purpose in taking Sharina could be—"

Tired as she was, the old wizard had worked a spell at the riverside before she allowed them to take her back to the palace. She'd said that the bridge of wizardlight gave her incantation greater effect, though it also required even more than her usual care.

At the end of the whispered spell, Tenoctris had collapsed. Ilna and Liane had cradled her between them on the carriage seat during the trip back, trying to lessen the wheels' hammering vibration for the older woman.

"—but he has a purpose beyond simply doing her harm," Tenoctris concluded.

Cashel snorted. "It's not Sharina's purpose," he said. "And by the Shepherd! it's not mine. I'm going to bring her back, and I don't care what it takes to do it!"

Oil lamps with silver reflectors hung from each pillar of the colonnade supporting the pavilion's slate roof. Moths blundered into the reflectors and made the flames flicker with the beat of their wings. Ilna marveled to see so much light during nighttime.

"It might be best to close the hole first," Garric said. He'd been pacing but he knew how nervous that made him look. Now he sat on the stone bench running along the center of the pavilion, squeezing his fists together knuckle to knuckle. He still looked as tense as drawn bow. "Get rid of the bridge I mean. When Tenoctris recovers, we can plan what we're going to do."

Cashel looked at his friend. "I told you what I'm going to do," he said in a quiet voice blurred slightly by its growling undertone. "I'm going to find Sharina and bring her back. If I was half the man she deserves, I'd have moved fast enough to stop that bird."

He turned and slammed his fist into a pillar. It was stuccoed wood, not stone as Ilna had thought. The column shuddered violently, shedding its plaster in flakes and dust. The projecting lamp flailed wildly, showering drops of oil. There was a smudge of blood on the shaft.

Ilna stood and stepped quickly to her brother. The others remained wisely motionless. Cashel gripped the column in both hands as if the shaft was a throat he wanted to throttle. Ilna put her hands on his cheeks, turning his head toward her by touch alone. No amount of force could have diverted Cashel's anger.

"It was my fault," he said in a choked whisper.

"If the worst thing on your conscience," Ilna said in a harsh voice, "is that when you'd worn yourself out guarding your friends something managed to slip in behind you—then you're a saint, not a man! Are you a saint, Cashel or-Kenset?"

He stiffened in embarrassment. "No ma'am," he said. "No, Ilna, you know I'm not."

Ilna kept her face stern as a knife's edge, her natural expression, but a cold smile played at the back of her mind. If a saint was someone so blessed by the Great Gods that he could walk through fire and over the sea, the way the hymns to the Lady said the righteous could—no, Cashel wasn't a saint. But being righteous—as best Ilna could tell from the way the priests from Carcosa behaved when they led the images of the Lady and the Shepherd through the borough at the annual Tithe Procession—was a matter of offering the Gods more money than either of Kenset's orphan children could even imagine until they left Barca's Hamlet.

You couldn't ask for a kinder, gentler fellow than Cashel, unless you went well out of your way to make him an enemy. He and Ilna were twins. It seemed to her that they'd each gotten more than their share of emotions that other people had in moderate proportions. Different emotions, of course.

She put her hands down and stepped back. "Then stop beating on the house," she said more mildly. "That doesn't do it any good, or you either. Liane, will you look at my brother's hand, please? Or should we call a healer?"

"It's all right," Cashel muttered, his embarrassment even deeper. Ilna took his wrist in both hands and tugged it toward Liane; Cashel didn't fight her, though he was obviously unhappy to be fussed over.

Liane turned his hand palm-down. Her fingers positioned Cashel's bloodied knuckles under one of the lamps so that she could view them.

"I know she could be dead," Cashel said. He stared out through the portico. Nothing moved in the darkness except the yellow-green flicker of fireflies. "I know that Sharina could be dead."

* * *

Sharina hung in a gray haze that had no temperature. The bird's wings stroked and reality coalesced again about her. The air was cool with a hint of recent rain. They were overflying plains. The landscape spread as broadly as the sea had earlier, and it seemed to have as little in the way of distinctive elements.

The tall grasses were yellow, and auburn seedheads weighed many of the stems into arcs. The vast shadow of Sharina's captor sent waves of lesser birds fluttering from the autumn bounty with calls of peevish concern.

Grazing animals, some of them shaped like horses but only a little bigger than sheep, looked up at the giant bird. A score of mixed herds began fleeing in as many different directions. The animals called out in a chorus of blats and neighs, unpleasant individually and hideous in combination.

The great bird flew on. The landscape dissolved into colorless mist.

The wings were silent. The talons clutched Sharina so close to the leathery belly that she couldn't see the bird's head. Could the creature think? Could it even hear?

"Where are you taking me?" she shouted. Her words were flat and echoless. "Who are you?"

The sound of her voice was worse than the silence it replaced. In this gray limbo Sharina was alone in a way that no one in waking reality could be alone.

She and the bird swept into a vision of light and springtime. Spires of sunstruck crystal rose from a landscape of pools and gardens. Pavilions gleamed in the air, each dangling from a gossamer tendril so fine that only the quivering light showed how it was attached to a nearby tower.

There were people here, the first she'd seen since the bird snatched her away. They strolled through the gardens, wearing flowing robes and laughing as breezes blew spray from the fountains over them. Some reclined in the pavilions, drinking from goblets. A dozen youths danced and wound ribbons about a pole rising from a serpentine lake. Their feet were supported only by air.

"Help me!" Sharina cried. She could hear the laughter of the folk below, so she knew they must be able to hear her. "Help me get free!"

Some of the people looked up. A girl Sharina's age was standing in a crystal eyrie hundreds of feet above the ground. She waved a scarlet ribbon and smiled.

The youths continued to dance. The bird's wings beat again, lifting it and Sharina out of this reality.

"Help me!" Sharina repeated, though she alone could hear the words.

* * *

"Cashel," Garric said, "I may need your help here. The kingdom may need your help."

Cashel looked at his friend, feeling embarrassed again and frustrated. Things seemed obvious to him. He didn't know how to explain them to Garric if Garric didn't see them already.

"I have to find Sharina," he said. "I'll come back as soon as I can, but I need to find her first."

"The kingdom—" Garric said. He was frowning like he had a heavy job to do and wasn't sure how to go about it. People did that a lot when they were talking to Cashel.

"I don't know about the kingdom," Cashel said. He shrugged. "I know about sheep, that's all. And I know what
my
duty is. Garric, you're the king and you have to worry about everything. I'm Sharina's friend, and I guess she needs my help worse than you do."

Cashel had left his quarterstaff outside the pavilion because he'd known he shouldn't have it in his hand when he was angry like he'd been. He'd calmed down now that he'd figured things out, and the familiar smoothness of the hickory would have felt good.

But he didn't need it. He didn't
need
anything but to get Sharina back.

Garric suddenly laughed and clapped Cashel on both shoulders. They were back to being friends who'd grown up together; friends who knew each other better than maybe either of them knew himself.

"If I were as sure you were wrong as I am of the sunrise," Garric said cheerfully, "then I still couldn't change your mind. And I'm not that sure."

"Sometimes I wonder about the sunrise," Liane said, sitting on the central bench with her hands folded in her lap. She gave Cashel an affectionate smile. Liane was about as nice a person as you could ask to meet.

Garric sat down again, a little closer to Liane than he'd been before he got up this last time. He gave a weary sigh, and when the laughter left his face he looked frustrated enough to chew on rocks.

Garric was really smart. Nobody here in Valles had anything on him for brains... but that wasn't always the advantage people thought it was.

Garric and the rest could see all sorts of ways and twists and questions. A lot of times they weren't sure which way to go because they knew how many different paths there were.

Cashel just went straight on ahead. Like this business of getting Sharina back from whatever the thing was that took her. What did the kingdom matter compared to that?

Cashel didn't even know what a kingdom was. Even Barca's Hamlet, small as it was compared to Valles, wasn't
a
thing: it was a lot of families, a lot of people, all going their own way. Garric must see something more than that, and Cashel didn't doubt that whatever his friend saw was really there—

For Garric. But it wasn't anything that was going to turn Cashel away from a friend who needed his help.

"I know you think it's important that we all fight evil," Cashel said apologetically. "But you know, I'm going to take a lot of convincing before I believe that bird and whoever sent it are good."

Even Ilna grinned. Her face sobered when her gaze shifted to Liane and Garric together on the stone bench, though. Aloud she said, "Cashel's right, of course. The pattern is so vast that if you try to understand it completely you won't be able to do anything. And some things are worth doing."

She smiled without humor. "In human terms at least," she added. "For my own part, I'm going to complete a tapestry and then leave for Erdin. I have unfinished business there."

Garric grimaced, but he didn't protest. He knew as well as Cashel did that you'd have as much chance of teaching a tree to dance as you would of changing Ilna's mind once she'd decided what she ought to do.

"Lord Tadai is going to Erdin shortly as well," Garric said, "though he doesn't know that yet. He keeps late hours, so I suppose I'll see him tonight."

He gave Cashel a wry smile. "It's always best to do an unpleasant job first," he said, "so you don't have it hanging over you. Though Duzi knows, there's enough unpleasant jobs in being king that I don't think I'm going to run out of them any time soon."

Ilna stood and looked around the group, giving anyone time to ask for her help if they thought they needed it. Ilna didn't volunteer, but Cashel had never seen his sister turn down a request anybody made her. Mind, her tongue might flay the hide off the person asking, telling him why he was such an idiot to need the help—but he'd get the help regardless. It was a matter of what was important to you.

Nobody spoke now, though Garric and Liane rose to their feet. Ilna nodded to Cashel, to Garric, to Tenoctris—and then gave Liane a quick hug. Cashel blinked. That was the biggest surprise of the night, though it was a lot more pleasant than to see that huge bird coming out of nowhere to snatch Sharina. Ilna's set expression was the one Cashel had seen her wear while she cleaned the mill's dovecote, but she was really trying to be friendly.

Ilna started out of the pavilion. Cashel touched her shoulder as she went by and said, "Hey? Take care of yourself, all right?"

"And you too, Cashel," she said. She smiled, but there was a tear glittering at the corner of her eye as she walked swiftly toward the dwelling she and Cashel shared.

Garric and Liane were ready to leave also. Cashel gave his friend a quick signal and said to Tenoctris, "Mistress? Can I see you to your house? Ah—I could carry you if you liked."

"And not for the first time," Tenoctris said as she rose. "But I'm well enough tonight to walk home with your company."

Cashel gave the old wizard his right arm; the quarterstaff leaned against one of the entrance pillars and he took it in his left. A pair of servants waited with lanterns, ready to light the couple to where they were going. There was a first-quarter moon, plenty to see by.

"No, we don't need you," Cashel said gruffly. He hadn't meant to sound so unfriendly, but he didn't want ears around when he asked for help.

"I can't come with you to find Sharina, Cashel," Tenoctris said, answering a question that he wouldn't have dreamed of asking. "I wish I could, but the need here is too great."

"Oh, I knew that!" Cashel said. "I was hoping maybe you could get me pointed in the right direction, though. But if you can't, I'll understand."

They walked through an arbor overgrown by honeysuckle. The vines were a terrible pest; they'd choke even a tree if there was sunlight enough for them to grow the way they liked. But Cashel loved the smell of honeysuckle in early summer, so he was glad the gardeners hadn't gotten around to clearing this away.

"I guess you think I'm doing the wrong thing," he added quietly. He hated to disappoint his friends.

Tenoctris chuckled. "I don't think you're capable of doing the wrong thing, Cashel," she said. "The choices you make are always going to be the right ones for you."

Cashel cleared his throat. A fountain plashed behind a boxwood hedge. He liked the waterworks here in the palace grounds. It reminded him of the way Pattern Creek rippled through the pasture south of Barca's Hamlet.

"Well," he said aloud. "There's a lot of things I don't understand."

"There are things you don't consciously understand," Tenoctris said. "I haven't seen you deal with anything important that you didn't understand at a basic level, though. I wish I could say as much about myself."

After a pause she added, "Cashel, if you feel that you need to leave us now, you're almost certainly right. I don't know why, but whatever you decide will be what we—what Good, if you will—need."

"You think the Shepherd's guiding me?" Cashel said bluntly.

"No," said Tenoctris. "But if I believed in the Great Gods, I
might
think that."

A handcart loaded with gravel lay across the walkway where workmen had left it when they quit work at sundown. Cashel lifted the old woman in the crook of his arm and carried her around the obstruction. There was no need for her to ask or him to offer his help: they'd worked together in the past. Cashel was used to being Tenoctris' legs and strong right arm.

Tenoctris had deliberately chosen a bungalow at a distance from the busy quarters of the palace. The workmen repairing decades of neglect hadn't gotten this far, and the overgrown surroundings meant she had greater privacy. Wizardry made normal people uncomfortable, even if they worked in a palace and thought they were sophisticated.

Cashel put Tenoctris down on the other side of the obstruction. They resumed walking side by side. "I think the best help I can give you...," she said. "Is to send you to someone who's probably better suited to what you need than I would be even if the bridge didn't require my presence here. His name is Landure."

"All right," Cashel said. "How do I find him?"

They were nearing the three-room bungalow Tenoctris had chosen for herself. Half the roof tiles had needed to be replaced, but it didn't matter to Tenoctris that water damage had cracked most of the plaster off the inside walls.

There should have been a lamp burning on the porch, but Rimara, Tenoctris' maid, had no virtue beyond staying calm at the thought of serving a wizard. Since Rimara was generally asleep, Cashel wasn't sure she even knew Tenoctris
was
a wizard.

"I'll have to send you to him," Tenoctris said. "He's not on this plane, but neither is Sharina herself, I'm sure. Landure is...."

As Tenoctris paused, searching for the right word, Cashel stepped ahead of her and opened the door. The porch overhang put the step in shadow. As weary as Tenoctris was, she could easily stumble.

"I've never met Landure," Tenoctris continued. "I know him only by reputation. He's a haughty and imperious man by all accounts, but he's also a fierce opponent of chaos and evil. And he's a very powerful wizard."

Cashel lifted her through the doorway. "Tsk!" she said. "I can still walk."

"Hoy!" Cashel said as he set the old woman on the bench he knew was just inside the door. "Rimara! Fetch a light!"

"Do you have to shout like that?" a sleepy voice protested from the side room. Iron clicked querulously against a flint.

"I think Landure will be willing to help you," Tenoctris said. For all her protest at being carried up the two entrance steps, she sounded as faint as the tinge of moonlight leaking around the window shutters. "And I'm afraid I don't have a better answer just now."

Wavering yellow light bloomed in the side room. Rimara came out wearing a dirty smock. She carried a tallow-soaked rushlight in one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other.

"That's all right," said Cashel, running his right palm along the quarterstaff. He was checking for cracks in the polished hickory, a familiar gesture and one that always calmed him. "I don't need a lot of help. Just someone to show me where Sharina is. I guess I can take care of the rest."

Just show me where Sharina is,
he repeated silently. The maid saw his face and, mistaking the reason for the grimness, began to gabble empty apologies.