The Sage (32 page)

“Centuries?”
Kitishane looked about her. “To tend this garden of rock so long, and abandon
it?”

“They
left when Wauhanak came, I doubt not,” Yocote said, his voice harsh, “and I do
not wish to think by what magic he drove them out.”

Lua
laid a gentle hand on his. “Perhaps they did not wait to be driven.”

Yocote
nodded, still curtly. “Likely enough. They would have known when an Ulharl was
near, and did not hesitate in departing. Yes, they would have fled, no matter
how lovely their creations. Life is worth more than art.”

“I
have known some who would have said otherwise,” Illbane mused.

“Then
their art was their lives, but their lives were not art,” the gnome-shaman
said. “Gnomes' lives are. That does not mean,” he added reluctantly, “that all
of us succeed in art.”

There
was a note almost of despair in his voice. Lua gazed at him, eyes wide and
moist, and slipped her hand into his. He did not thrust it away.

Out
from the grotto they went, on down through another spiral, then into a cavern
where the torchlight was swallowed by the darkness and diminished, where that
darkness was absolute and their hushed footsteps set up thousands of echoes.
Kitishane was about to ask if they were at all close to the treasure when
Yocote held up a hand. “Hist!”

They
all stilled, listening, and heard, ever so faintly, the susurrus of water,
moving ever so gently.

“This
is odd.” Yocote scowled up at Culaehra.

The
warrior was surprised to see the gnome's huge eyes in the light of the torch,
then realized it was because he was unused to seeing him without his goggles. “What
is odd?”

“The
water. Underground lakes are not uncommon, mind you—but I fear the treasure may
have been caught inside the rock when the cracks closed.”

“With
the chest splintered, and the gold spread to a foil within the stone!” Lua
cried.

“No.”
Culaehra shook his head. “I had not thought, but now I remember that I did hear
a splash.”

“Why
did you not say so!” the gnome said sharply, but with relief.

“But
you said it was a lake!”

“Aye,
which means it is deep enough so that the chest is probably not broken—and what
is sunken can be raised. Come, let us see if this is a puddle or a sea.” He
turned away and went toward the sound.

They
stepped through a huge irregular archway—and came out to see the most eerie
sight they had ever encountered. The water rolled away from them in a cavern so
vast they had no hint of its size, except for echoes. The waves, perhaps a foot
high, washed the rocky ledge near their feet and receded—but they bore with
them a strange light of their own, an eldritch glow that served to give the
companions some notion of how vast a water it was. There seemed no end to
it—the surface undulated into the distance until it disappeared.

“It
fell into
this?”
Culaehra felt his stomach sink. “How shall we ever find
it?”

Yocote
shrugged. “One league or a hundred makes little difference, warrior.
It
will find
us.”

Culaehra
turned a blank stare of incomprehension upon him—until the little man knelt by
the water, took one of the spare sticks, and laid a torch upon it to make a
small fire, then took powders from his belt and sprinkled them into the flames,
chanting arcane verses. In spite of himself, Culaehra's nape hair prickled; he
stepped back, bumped into someone and spun to see it was Illbane. “What does he
do?”

“He
commands the waters to yield up what they have swallowed, and summons the chest
to rise of its own accord.” Illbane frowned. “It is a good thought, and he does
the spell correctly, but I must tell him .. .” At the thought, his eyes
widened, and he stepped quickly toward the gnome—

But
not quickly enough. The water rose with a roar like a cascade, drawing together
and swelling up to tower over the companions, parting and coalescing to form a
huge, glowing, angry face. “WHO DARES COMMAND THE WATERS!”

A
wave reached out, washing high, to fall upon Yocote's fire, and he leaped back,
crying, “Illbane! What have I done?”

“You
sought to command the waters, not to beseech them!” the sage called. “Their
spirit has risen in anger! Calm it, shaman! Apologize!”

“WHO
DARES SEEK TO COMMAND THE HIDDEN WAVES?” the huge face demanded. Slowly, its
cavernous eyes turned toward the companions. “YOU DO!” It rushed toward them,
looming above them, its vast maw opening wide, and within they saw a whirlpool
about to fall on them and pull them in.

“Your
pardon, Great One!” Yocote cried. “I had not meant to offend!”

“HAD
NOT MEANT TO ANGER ONE MORE POWERFUL THAN YOURSELF, YOU MEAN!” But the face
turned slowly toward Illbane. “WHAT SPELLS DO YOU WORK, SAGE?”

“Charms
to calm the troubled waters, O Spirit—and I pray you, be calmed indeed! My
apprentice does not yet know all the spells . . .”

“APPRENTICE?”
The spirit turned back to stare down at Yocote.

“Less
than fully accomplished, I fear,” Yocote said in chagrin, hiding his fear. “I
pray you, O Mighty Wave, let us recover what we have lost to your immensity!”

“What
I
have lost, he means!” Culaehra stepped forward, coincidentally between
Yocote and the wave. “It was my carelessness by which it fell to your bosom!”

“Your
good judgment, you mean!” For a moment Illbane was the stern disciplinarian
again. “He had to choose between the gold and a comrade's life, O Spirit! He
chose the comrade's life, and let the gold fall to you!”

Yocote
stared up at the wave, trembling and aghast. Illbane had just told the spirit
that it had missed the eating of a living person!

But
the sage seemed to have judged well; the wave said, rumbling rather than
thundering, “I dislike the taste of flesh, and must praise you for letting the
only dead thing fall to me. Yet if you seek to command me, I shall take all the
living together!”

“Forgive,
O Mighty Water!” Yocote called. “I have only recently learned the shaman's
language, and am still uncertain as to which voice to use with which entity! I
did not know the waters have a spirit; I thought them devoid of life of their
own.”

The
spirit peered more closely. “Of course—you are a gnome, so would think that
only rock and earth have spirits. Do you know your mistake now?”

“I
do,” Yocote said fervently. “Oh, be most sure that I do!”

“Please,
O Spirit!” Lua stepped forward, holding up her hands in supplication. “Take
pity! Give us back what we have lost!”

“Pity!”
the spirit boomed. “What would the flood know of pity?”

“Water
is life,” Lua replied. “We speak of peace and mercy flowing in imitation of it.
Please relent, please give up what you have taken!”

“Give
it up?” the water roared in a sudden upthrust, and skeletons danced in its
flow, mixed in with waterlogged stumps, boulders, ironbound wheels, broken
pottery, worn stone axes, chipped bronze spearheads, and all manner of other
castoffs. With the voice of the flow, it thundered, “HERE IS WHAT

YOU
ASK! ALL THE SKELETONS OF THE DROWNED, ALL THE REFUSE THAT THE RIVERS HAVE
BROUGHT TO ME FOR CENTURIES! SHALL I THROW YOU THESE?”

The
gnome-maid shuddered, crying “No!” in tones of such distress that the upthrust
subsided on the instant. “Thank you, O Water,” she sighed with relief. “I do
not even ask that you raise the drowned to the surface—only that you allow one
of us to dive down to fetch it.”

“Lua,
no!” Yocote cried in alarm.

Culaehra
cast him a puzzled frown. “It would not be her who dives.”

But
the spirit was demanding, “Give me reason!”

“Because
the gold is not ours,” Lua said simply. “It would not even suffice for us to
dig up more gold to replace it; this very gold is the sacrifice we take to
Agrapax the Ulin in fulfillment of a vow King Oramore made to him years ago.”

“You
bear it for the king?” the spirit asked. “How foolish! Why do you do his work
for him?”

“Because
he is twenty years late in the task,” Lua replied, “and fears the Ulin's wrath.”

“Wisely
so!”

“And
because we did not trust him not to change his mind and bring the gold back to
his castle when we were gone,” Culaehra explained.

“Did
you not!” The spirit turned to regard him. “Why did you take others' burdens on
yourself?”

“Because—it
was right.” Culaehra spread his hands, searching for words to explain it. “Because
the same wicked councillor who persuaded him to forget his vow also persuaded
him to grind his peasants down lower than his hounds. It would have been wrong
to pass by, when we could bring about a change.”

“Yes,
that was our intent,” Yocote said.

“Fair
words, for one who sought to command a spirit!” the wave rumbled.

“I
said
I was sorry!” Yocote cried.

“Still,
I cannot censure when the intention was noble,” the wave rumbled. “Very well,
you may dive within my waters to seek your gold. I shall withhold any grasping
tendrils or menacing water-dwellers; I shall see you return safely to the
surface. But be quick!” And with that last admonition, the spirit sank, the
waters flattening again with a huge roar. The companions leaped back from the
reaching waves, staring at the surging surface that was suddenly only a lake
again.

Yocote
went limp with a huge sigh of relief. “Thank heavens! Your pardon, my friends—I
mistook my spell!”

“An
easy mistake to make, but quite understandable,” Illbane assured him. “Never
seek to command the elements, for each has a spirit. Indeed, never seek to
command where you can petition. Now—who will dive?”

“I
shall,” Culaehra and Lua said in one voice, then turned to stare at one
another.

“You,
little sister?” Kitishane stared, too.

“Women's
bodies are better suited for diving,” Lua said, “if there are no dangers to
fight off, if it is only a matter of going down to fetch something, then coming
up—and gnomes are far better divers than humans, if the waters are underground.”

“I
would not know how to swim where the only light is the water about me,”
Kitishane admitted reluctantly.

Culaehra
scowled. “I do not like the sound of danger within it.”

“There
is no danger unless the chest lies deeper than I can swim,” Lua assured him. “The
water itself has promised us that.”

“It
is all true,” Yocote said, then visibly plucked up his nerve and stepped to the
edge of the water. He made passes with his hands, chanting.

“Yocote,
no!” Lua cried, running toward him—but Illbane stopped her with a hand on her
shoulder.

“He
only asks the water how deeply the chest lies, and where. Culaehra, give her a
coil of rope. Gnome-maid, tie an end through one of the chest's handles, then
leave it where it lies and bring the other end to us. Let Culaehra's be the
back that bends to haul the gold ashore.”

Culaehra
stepped to the pack, drew forth the coil, then handed it to her. “I lost it. It
is certainly my place to draw it up.”

Lua
took the rope, nodding. “As you will, then.”

Yocote
finished chanting, and huge bubbles floated up, bursting off to their left,
perhaps fifty feet out.

“The
chest lies there,” Yocote said, then counted bursting bubbles. “One ... two ..
. three . . . four .. . five ... six! It lies six fathoms down.”

“That
is easily within my depth.” Lua stripped off her furs, standing before them in
her shift, but not standing long; she waded through the little waves till she
was waist deep, then dove and swam.

“There!”
Yocote called, and Lua kicked her heels high, then disappeared beneath the
waves.

“You
do not seem at all concerned,” Kitishane said caustically.

“Concerned?
I am.” Yocote stared at the spot where Lua had disappeared, eyes fixed with an
intensity that seemed to will her safe return. “But I cannot argue with her
decision to go. Gnomes are good swimmers and good divers in underground water,
but we have always known that the women can dive deeper and more safely than
the men—so long as there are no huge fish to fight, or mermen, or buried snags
to catch and hold.”

“Can
we trust the—” Kitishane bit her lip in time to keep from saying the words
aloud. Surely they could trust the water spirit, when it had spared their
lives—but voicing the question might have angered the elemental and moved it to
revenge. She held to Yocote's shoulder, meaning comfort and not realizing that
she was seeking reassurance until she felt the little man wince under her hand.

“Here,
maiden.” Culaehra offered his great paw. She took it gratefully. “Squeeze as
hard as you please,” he rumbled, and she did.

The
water broke in a small fountain, and Lua jetted halfway out, gasping in a huge
breath. She fell back into the water and struck off swimming toward them.
Yocote cried out and waded into the water to catch her up in his arms in
relief, then turned quickly away to limit himself to holding her arm and
helping her through the little waves.

“You
found it, then?” Illbane asked, and Lua nodded, gasping and holding up the end
of the rope. Culaehra took it and began to draw.

C
ulaehra
hauled, and the pack erupted from the water. He pulled it ashore, water
streaming off its leather sides. “Quickly! Is it damaged?” he cried, tearing
the flap open.

“Peace,
warrior,” Yocote said. “Water cannot harm gold, neither salt nor fresh. If the
chest is not broken, the metal is safe.”

Culaehra's
panic ebbed; he threw back the flap and opened the lid of the chest without
wrenching it. Sure enough, the golden coins gleamed in the candlelight,
unspilled and unspoiled. He sagged with relief. “I have not yet failed in my
promise.”