The Legions of Fire (37 page)

Something hooted above her, then burst into a cackle. She looked up. A bird sailed away, dipping out of sight into the forest beyond. It looked like an owl, but Alphena had never known an owl to make a sound like what she had just heard. It carried something in its beak.

Deriades said, “Here we are.” He touched a globe the size of a thatched hut. Except for size, it looked like a spiny puffball. Darkness spun open in the side, a motion like that of water swirling down a hole in the bottom of a bucket.

Deriades glanced back. Then, instead of offering Alphena politely to precede him, he stepped into the opening with a sweep of his long robe. He had to duck to clear the lintel.

Alphena bent forward also, though intellectually she knew she needn't have. Many puffballs grew near the threshold, but they were no more than the familiar inch or two in diameter.

The interior of the hut was pitch dark until the opening reversed itself and spun shut. Light, a brighter version of the green tinge outside, flooded them.

The room was huge. Alphena stopped in wonderment. There were no straight lines; it was more like imagining the fibrous insides of a squash with all the seeds removed. There was furniture, but like the walls it appeared to have grown rather than been built; the pieces didn't seem to be intended for human beings.

“I have brought a guest, children,” Deriades called. A chorus of high-pitched cries responded. Only then did Alphena realize that what her light-struck eyes had taken for shadows were actually smaller versions of Deriades, all caped and hooded in gray. They streamed out of the great room, disappearing around partitions and into niches which might until then have been crinkled portions of a wall.

“Children, you are being discourteous to our guest!” Deriades said in a tone of reproof but not anger. “Alphena has saved me from a sphinx at great risk to herself. Greet her with the honor her selfless courage deserves.”

Gray figures, some of them as tall as Alphena herself, crept back into view. After a moment, the taller ones began to edge closer with their heads bowed. The others followed carefully, apparently in order of height.

“That's better, children,” Deriades said with satisfaction. He turned to Alphena and said, “You're more than our guest, Alphena: you are our friend. We will send you on your way better for the meeting, as we are certainly better for having met you.”

This was the first time Alphena had seen her host face-to-face in good light. Though Deriades remained hooded, she should have been able to make out his features; instead, she was looking into a gray fog in which two red coals glowed.

She restrained herself from jumping back. She was already disquieted because he knew her name, though she hadn't spoken it.

“I don't know what my way is,” Alphena said honestly. “I—I just want to get back to Carce. I don't know where I am.”

She tried to avoid sounding terrified, but she knew she hadn't been completely successful.

“We will put you on the way to your home, Alphena,” Deriades said with quiet assurance. “Through your skills and with the help of your friends, you have a very good chance of reaching it.”

Alphena's smile was wry. She supposed she should appreciate the candor, but at the moment she would have preferred some unfettered optimism. “Thank you,” she said. “I hope you're right.”

On the walls were what seemed to be washes of light when she looked straight at them, but out of the corners of her eyes she saw complex pictures: castles and rocky landscapes. Among them were figures too elongated to be human. When each time by reflex she turned to get a better view, the image vanished into flooding color.

The children, if that's what they were, came closer. Alphena heard them whisper among themselves, but the sounds were too faint for her to catch words. It was more like passing close to a hedge after sunset and rousing the birds nervously from their repose.

“We'd normally have dinner as soon as I returned home,” Deriades said. “Would you care to join us, Alphena? You'll find the meal nutritious; and I hope tasty as well.”

I
am
hungry,
she thought. She'd had only a few figs when she got up; she hadn't wanted her stomach full before a heavy workout in the gym.

She'd had a workout, certainly; and the tension of the past several hours had probably taken even more out of her than fighting the sphinx had. But to eat here—

“Yes, thank you,” she said. She had to eat somewhere unless she got back to her home very quickly. Deriades and his home were very strange, but the sphinx proved that there were stranger things in this—this dreamworld?—and that some of them were openly hostile.

“Children,” her host said, “lead our friend to the dining area.”

The family streamed out of the large hall with its members cheeping and chittering among themselves. The tallest led, but the smaller members—some barely came up to Alphena's knees—clustered around her like doves in hooded garments, urging her forward.

The children's touch was as light as that of leaves fluttering in a zephyr. Alphena went along with them, wondering what would have happened if she'd refused.

Nothing, she guessed. Some people would say that she couldn't afford to trust anybody in her present situation, but since she couldn't get out of this place—whatever it was—by herself, she couldn't afford
not
to trust others who weren't openly hostile.

She grinned. Deriades, walking at her side, noticed the expression. “Our dwelling pleases you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Alphena said truthfully. “But I smiled because I was wondering whether the sphinx might not have had the secret which would return me to Carce.”

“She may indeed have known that secret,” said Deriades solemnly. “But she would have imparted it only after she ate you.”

He paused, then added, “I can find another sphinx if you care to make the trial, Alphena. Though you'll pardon me if I keep my distance during the interaction. Since you won't be around to save me afterward.”

Alphena giggled. She felt better than she had since Persica tricked her into this place.

They entered a room paneled with glittering brightness. Here the furnishings were of precious metals. The low tables were shaped like clumps of algae in eddies; their tops were silver and their legs gold. The couches followed the sinuous curves of the tabletops. The cushions looked like bark but were firmly resilient to Alphena's touch, and the frames had a fiery luster like no metal she had ever seen before.

“That's orichalch,” Deriades said with quiet pride. “Not the brass that some folk in your world call by the name of the metal their ancient ancestors saw on the walls of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis was real?” she said.

“Yes, Alphena,” said her host. She was sure that if she could have seen his face, he would have been smiling. “As real as I am.”

Some of the taller figures had vanished into rooms beyond. Deriades gestured her to a bench. When she hesitated, he twisted onto one himself. Though he sat upright, she suspected that they were really intended to be curled up on.

Regardless, Alphena seated herself as decorously as she could at the other end of Deriades' bench. Four—at first she thought five—of the smallest offspring crowded opposite them, and the remainder took places around the room.

Immediately those who had bustled off initially reappeared with platters of food and drink, and place settings made of the brilliant orichalch that she'd remarked already. The plates were only slightly concave; their rims had the same organic outlines as the tabletops against which they blazed.

Alphena looked at the sole utensil she had been offered, seemingly an elongated spoon. “The back edge is sharp,” Deriades warned. “Though”—he broke a rounded cake on the platter between them and placed part of it before Alphena—“the nut loaf we're having this evening doesn't require cutting.”

He raised his portion to the blur within his cowl and lowered it with a bite gone. The little figures across the table began gobbling smaller chunks with enthusiasm.

Alphena, embarrassed at her hesitation but hesitant nonetheless, took a bite of hers. It was nut loaf, or she supposed it was; and it
was
delicious.

Deriades raised his mug and drank. Pausing, he said, “Would you care to finish this cupful, Alphena?”

“No, not at all,” she said. She snatched up her own mug and drank deeply. The liquid was water with a slight tang, as though a slice of lime or lemon had been rubbed on the rim of the vessel. She wondered if she was tasting the orichalch itself.

One of the little figures placed another chunk of loaf on her plate. It—he, she?—started back when she glanced toward it.
I don't need that much,
she thought; but she took a bite, and before she was done, she'd finished the
loaf. The nut loaf was very good, and she'd been hungrier than she had realized.

“If you're ready,” her host said, poised to get up, “we can take care of the other matter now. A sword to replace the one you lost, I mean.”

“Yes sir,” said Alphena, rising. She was uneasy at every suggestion, though each was reasonable and everything had gone exactly as she would have wished.
I have to trust somebody!

She left with Deriades through a doorway that she hadn't noticed when she came in. The offspring stayed behind, cleaning the dining room with the chirping bustle of a wave of birds browsing among dry leaves.

Her host stopped before a patterned wall and gestured. It swirled into darkness and vanished, opening as the dwelling itself had. Racks and piles of arms filled the interior; they seemed to be as tight as the catch in the hold of a fisherman's boat. At a glance, every sort of personal weapon was present, from a stone tied with rawhide onto the end of a branch, to a suit of silvery armor articulated at each joint and fully engraved.

“Where did all these come from?” Alphena asked in amazement. As she spoke, she realized that though the question was innocent, the answer might not be. She looked toward her host in concern.

Deriades stepped into the armory. She hadn't thought there was room for anything bigger than a dormouse to enter, but he slipped between stacks without touching the delicately balanced equipment.

“Not all our visitors are as polite as you, Alphena,” he said. “Indeed, over the years many have thought they could become wealthy beyond their dreams if they succeeded in robbing us … which would have been true, had they succeeded.”

Deriades reached the middle of the room. His head turned from one side to the other; then he stepped to his left with amazing aplomb.

“You found me in difficulties with a creature of great magical power, Alphena,” he said. “You mustn't imagine that my children and I are without resources in our own dwelling, however.”

He bent. Alphena couldn't see exactly what his long-fingered hand did, but it came up with a gold-hilted sword. Its scabbard seemed to have been washed by a rainbow.

“There,” he said in satisfaction. He displayed the short, leaf-shaped blade, then sheathed it and wormed his way back to her. The sword looked as delicate as an iris, and equally useless as a weapon.

“Ah,” said Alphena. “Sir, that sword seems very beautiful, but perhaps it's too valuable for me. I'd be happy with a simpler weapon, like the one that killed the sphinx.”

Deriades balanced the sheathed sword on the tips of two fingers of his left hand. For an instant his palm seemed abnormally long, but a fold of the cloak quickly covered it again. “This blade is sturdier than it looks, Alphena,” he said. “It could cut through a boulder and perhaps shave sunlight … if there were sunlight in this world.”

He advanced his hand slightly to emphasize the offer. “I have other reasons for saying that this is the sword you need now, however,” he said.

I have to trust somebody
.

“Thank you, sir,” Alphena said. Instead of reaching for the lustrous weapon, she unfastened the empty scabbard she'd brought to this place. The sheath of her military-pattern sword had hung from studs on the equipment belt; the new one had ribbons of some gleaming metal as flexible as linen. She tied them directly to the belt, then straightened.

“Alphena,” Deriades said. “You are very welcome to remain with us as long as you wish, but if you really want to return to your home despite the dangers that entail …?”

“I do,” Alphena said. It suddenly struck her that she'd fought and killed a sphinx.
She
had.

Deriades nodded. “Then I will show you the first step of the way,” he said. “Your friend Hedia is searching for you—”

Alphena stiffened in surprise.
Hedia is?
She didn't speak aloud.

“—and she won't find you if you remain here. Others who are not your friends search for you also, but your sword will take care of them.”

The surge of pride at having killed the sphinx was ebbing away, but it left Alphena's spirit warmer nonetheless. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I'm ready to go.”

“Then step forward, Alphena,” Deriades said. “And if you worship gods, may they be with you, my friend.”

I'll walk straight into him if I step forward,
Alphena thought. But she'd correctly trusted Deriades in the past, and she had nothing to complain about the result.

She stepped off with her right foot like a soldier and found herself in the strange forest outside. Deriades' dwelling was nowhere to be seen.