The Mirror of Worlds (25 page)

"My sons are dead," she said. Her voice cracked; perhaps she hadn't spoken since the Change. "I thought they were still alive, but I was wrong."

Bistona was filthier than the wyverns because unlike them, she didn't lick herself clean. Ilna kept from sneering only because she had a great deal of experience in holding her tongue. That would've surprised many of those who knew her, but they couldn't see what was going on in her head.

"I'm sorry about your sons," Ilna said. "We've killed the animals responsible."

After thinking for a moment—the priest's house was close by, but it was probably as squalid as the shrine's compound—she added, "Mistress, let's go to your home. You need to lie down, I'm sure."

The villagers had returned. Most of them were going first to their own houses, but Breccon, Graia, and the elder with the mutilated hand had entered the compound. The men were muttering bitterly about the disorder.

Bistona turned and reentered the shrine. Something inside croaked harshly.

Ilna frowned but walked in behind the woman. She was mad, just as Asion had said, and it was possible that her seeming normalcy would vanish into murderous rage at any instant. Still, they'd determined to help her, so Ilna didn't have any choice.

The interior of the shrine was lighted only through the front doors, but that was enough for the small room. A mosaic of the Lady spreading her hands was set into the back wall; it was made with bits of colored glass, not stone, and She wore the broad smile of a simpleton.

There wasn't a statue, however. Where it should've been was a couch. It looked real, but even the bolster and the tucks in the mattress were carved from marble. Bistona lay on it as though it was stuffed with goose down.

Open trusses supported the roof. The raven perching on the end beam croaked again, startling Ilna. She hadn't noticed the bird in the shadows.

"No!" she said sharply to Karpos, but he was already relaxing the bow he'd drawn in surprise. She smiled: it hadn't been just her.

The shrine's interior smelled like a snake den in winter, though the wyverns hadn't fouled it with their droppings. The plastered walls had been painted deep red, but the beasts had worn much of that off. Scratching themselves, Ilna supposed. Sheep did the same.

"Have you found the demonspawn Bistona?" Breccon demanded.

Ilna turned. Breccon stood on the porch with his wife and the other elder. They might've tried to follow her and the hunters in, but Temple had drawn his sword and slanted it across the doorway.

"There's no need for that," Ilna said tartly to Temple.

"Perhaps," said the big man with a smile. He sheathed his purplish blade with the smooth ease of water poured from a ewer, but the villagers remained where they were. As he'd intended, obviously; and perhaps he was right after all.

"Bistona's lying on the couch," Ilna said to Breccon. "She's not responsible for the monsters, and from what she said a moment ago she may be coming back to her right mind."

She paused, feeling her face harden. "You're to treat her as one of your own," she continued. "I may never return to your village, but if I do and Bistona's been mistreated, I'll consider you no better than the monsters we rid you of this morning."

Bistona called, "
Lamo eararacharraei anachaza!
"

"What did she say?" Asion demanded, looking from the reclining woman to Ilna. "I didn't understand it."

"
Richar basumaiaoiakinthou anaxarnaxa!
" Bistona said. Her eyes were open but unfocused; her hands were crossed over her chest like a corpse.

"It's wizardry," Ilna said. The words meant nothing to her, but she'd heard Tenoctris and others speak words of power often enough that by now that she recognized the tone and rhythms.

And a very inconvenient time for it
, she thought, though she didn't add that opinion out loud. Bistona's chanting was bound to make the villagers uncomfortable, and they obviously blamed her for their misfortunes already.

"Breccon, she's speaking for the Lady!" Graia said excitedly. "Redmin's dead, but the Lady's made Bistona Her oracle in his place!"

"How's that an oracle?" Asion said. "Can you understand it?"

"
Phameta mathamaxanrana echontocheritha!
" said Bistona.

"No one understands it, not even wizards," Ilna said contemptuously. She'd seen this sort of fakery before. No doubt Bistona would shortly "awaken" and announce to the village that she was now their priest and they should honor her. Well, that was the sort of result Ilna'd wanted, but it still irritated her to see it done through a lie.

"Ilna os-Kenset!" croaked the raven. "The straight path is crooked, the crooked path is straight."

Its voice was harsh but completely understandable. There was no chance Ilna was misinterpreting the sort of sounds birds ordinarily made.

Graia gave a shout of delight and clutched her husband. The other elder knelt and touched his forehead to the floor of the porch. He crossed his hands, whole and maimed, over his head.

"You must turn aside," said the raven, "or you will not reach your goal."

Bistona stirred on the couch. She blinked twice and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'd never heard a bird talk before," said Karpos, not frightened but wondering.

"Yes, yes," said Graia, "the Lady always speaks through the Servant, good sir. Well, when she does."

"A lot of times Redmin says the Servant told him the answer and the suppliant has to leave his gift for the Lady," Breccon explained. "But sometimes it's like this."

"Graia?" said Bistona, sitting up on the stone couch. "How did I get here?"

Then, with a hint of shrillness as she touched her filthy garment, "What's happened to me?"

Temple gestured the old woman inside. Graia hesitated a moment, then scurried to Bistona and grasped her hands. She began speaking, quickly but in a low voice.

The raven croaked and spread a wing to preen its feathers. The bird had the mangy look of extreme age.

The elders whispered to one another, but Temple and the hunters were looking at Ilna. "Do you expect me to say something?" she said angrily. "There's nothing to say. I don't have a goal!"

Her companions didn't speak. Ilna brushed past Temple and went quickly down the temple steps. She knew that she was leaving the shrine lest the bird say something more to her. That showed weakness and made her even angrier.

Ilna faced around. Temple and the hunters had come out onto the porch.

"I've never turned aside," Ilna said. "I'm not going to start now!"

But as she spoke, she remembered that once long ago she'd given herself over to evil, to Evil. She
had
turned aside from that.

If she hadn't, if she'd continued the path she'd set for herself, this world would be an icy desolation . . . as she had seen.

* * *

The screaming horse awakened Garric, but his sword was in his hand before his own senses were alert. King Carus had the instincts of a cat and the reflexes of a spring trap; he never forgot where his sword was, and anything untoward sent his hand to it.

That complicated Garric's life, because it generally wasn't appropriate for a prince to snatch out his sword. There'd been times it'd kept him alive, though, and this might be one of those times.

The horse screamed again. The sound cut off with a snap of bone, though other animals continued kicking and braying in the stables below Garric's window.

The shutters of Garric's room were barred, but the right-hand one sagged and let in moonlight. He laid the sword across the mattress stuffed with corn shucks and pulled his boots on quickly. Stepping on a pitchfork in the dark could be the last mistake he ever made.

"Do you know what you'll be getting into if you go down there?" Shin asked.

"No," said Garric. His belt was still hung from the peg at the head of the bed; he buckled it on. Not only might he need his dagger, he was likely to want to free his hands while keeping the sword available in its scabbard.

"You could wait here," Shin said. "The room's sturdy. You have no idea what creatures roam this region."

The private rooms of the Boar's Skull Inn were at the back of the second floor. They were built for merchants who wanted to lock themselves, their guards, and their baggage in for the night. There was plenty of space for Garric and the aegipan, though the latter'd chosen to curl up on the floor rather than share the mattress with its coverlet of sewn sheepskins.

Garric threw open the shutters and looked out over the slanting stable roof. He didn't reply. He wouldn't like himself if he'd been a person who thought in Shin's terms; and anyway, Shin hadn't asked a question.

The boy, Megrin, stood at the edge of the forest bawling something. Garric couldn't make out the words; perhaps they weren't words at all, just terror given voice. The next window over opened. Master Orra looked out, met Garric's eyes, and ducked in again. His shutters banged.

The ghost in Garric's mind laughed. "
There's no lack of folk wanting someone else to do their fighting
," Carus said. "
I never minded being that someone
."

Garric's shield leaned against the wall below where his sword had hung; he picked it up by its twin handles. It was wicker waterproofed with a covering of waxed linen, meant for skirmishers. It felt uncomfortably light compared the line infantryman's brass-bound round of birch plywood that Garric had worn in battle, on his arm and far more often in Carus' memory, but even so it was more than most travellers would have.

"
It'll do, lad
," said Carus in a husky whisper. "
It's what we have, so it'll do
."

Garric stepped onto the roof, the shield in his left hand and the shimmering gray sword in his right. His smile mirrored that of the ghost in his mind.

The stable roof was of arm-thick poles laid side by side. They hadn't been dressed, let alone squared, but enough bark had sloughed away that if there'd been light in the stables Garric would've been able to look through them and see what was going on.

And if I had a hundred Blood Eagles with me, I could let them take care of the problem
, he thought, grinning. This would do.

The stable doors had been opened outward. Garric judged the ground below—it was clear—and jumped with his knees flexed to land in the shelter of a door valve.

The doors were built on the same massive scale as everything else about the inn. If he'd dropped in front of the opening, something could've leapt on him before he turned to face it. Judging from the way the horse'd screamed before its neck broke, that would've been the end—and a nasty end.

Garric made sure of his footing, got his breath, and swung into the doorway with his shield raised. He stood there, letting his eyes pick out forms in the dappled shadows instead of rushing straight in. The pause would've been suicide if he'd faced human foes who'd have him as a silhouetted target for an arrow or even a thrown knife, but the grunts and slobbering gulps from the gelding's stall weren't human.

The creature which'd been crouching over the dead horse turned toward Garric. It was a distorted image of a man, very broad and too tall to stand at full height though the ceiling was ten feet high at the rear of the stables. Its face was long and flat; when its jaws opened, they dropped straight down instead of hinging at the back.

"Ho!" it bawled. "This horse was stringy, but here's a morsel come to offer itself as a tastier dinner!"

A lantern from behind threw its light over Garric, then past him into the stables. The creature's hide was faintly green where it hadn't been bathed in the gelding's blood, and it was female.

"May the Shepherd help us, it's an ogre!" squealed Hann. "Milord, run! No man can fight an ogre!"

King Carus laughed. It was only when Garric heard the sound echoing from the stable rafters that he realized he was laughing too.

"Milord!" the innkeeper repeated, this time in a scandalized tone.

Garric backed a step. Carus was plotting the next move and all the moves to follow, a chess master who gamed with real humans and himself at their head.

"I'll lick the flesh off your thigh bones, little man!" the ogre said. Her four breasts, flaccid but pendulous, wobbled as she bent forward slightly. "And you'll still be alive when I do it!"

"The ogre reads minds, Master Garric," said Shin from somewhere behind him. Garric wondered if the aegipan had jumped from the roof as he had or had come out a door on the ground floor with the innkeeper. "Not my mind, of course."

"Then she knows exactly how I'm going to kill her," Garric said. The words came out in a growl; his mouth was dry. "She'll have to hunch to get through this doorway, and when she does I'll put my sword through her. It'll cut stone, you know, Shin; it'll slice that ugly skull of hers like a cantaloupe."

The ogre roared and rushed forward—but
toward
the door, not through it. Garric stayed in his waiting crouch. He laughed, at the trick and at the way he and Carus had anticipated it.

The ogre's arms were long, even for a creature so big. If Garric'd lunged to meet her, she'd have snatched him while he was off balance and dragged him inside, probably slamming him a time or two against the doorposts along the way. By standing his ground a little way back from the opening, Garric had time to meet a clutching hand and lop it off.
This
sword's edge would make nothing of the ogre's big bones, and if she read his mind she was sure of that.

The ogre backed and bellowed again, flexing her arms at her sides. It was like watching a crab threaten a rival. The arms were amazingly long, eight feet or so; her knuckles'd scrape the ground if she hunched over.

"Bring a bow and arrows!" Garric shouted into the night. He turned his head slightly, but he could still see the ogre with both eyes. Hann had left his lantern on the ground and vanished, but Garric was sure everybody in the Boar's Skull was listening to him. "Javelins, any missiles! I'll keep her from coming out while you shoot her full of arrows!"