The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2) (45 page)

The servants took their places at the dining room wall and stood in silence as the Patriarch gave thanks to the Lords of Aereoth and Kreta, Guardian of the City.  Over the soup he remarked about the falling price of the Parsian rugs that he traded as a merchant.  Over the main course, he suggested that they visit a hot springs resort during Winterfeast.  Over desert, it was the youngest daughter who finally blurted the subject of barbarians at gates. 

“There is no cause for worry, dear,” the Patriarch replied.  He smiled warmly.  “Many years ago, before you were born, the Romans attempted to overcome the walls and despite their long siege, they had to return home in failure.”

“If they cannot succeed, why are they here?” she demanded.

“The news is that half their fleet has been destroyed and with the heel of Rome lifted from their necks, the captive provinces are festering with rebellion.  This attack is likely only a desperate show, to impress that Rome is still a force in the world.  But if they couldn't breach our walls before the disaster, they certainly aren't able to do so in their reduced state.”

“Father,” the elder daughter said.  “How is it that half the Roman fleet came to be destroyed?”

“The story that I heard through my western distribution agent is that the new emperor neglected to make propitiation to Atafon, the god of the volcano who lives over their city.  As punishment, the god poked his fiery mid-finger through the clouds and set the ships ablaze with his touch.  See why we must be devout in prayer and ritual.  As the proverb goes, 'Sing her lullabies and Kreta yet slumbers.'”

Nilla wondered why Kresidalans prayed to a sleeping goddess, but it wasn't her place to speak.

Before anyone else could speak, the Matriarch clanked her goblet onto the table, spilling wine. 

“A siege,” the Matriarch said loudly, slurring.  “The old servants would have known to go to market and purchase supplies at first sight of invasion.  These new servants – well, it's too late now.  The market will be stripped bare.”

“The royal storehouses are stocked for such emergencies,” the Patriarch replied calmly.

“Yes, if you enjoy living exclusively on preserves and grain for months without end.” 

The Matriarch grumbled, but her glance stopped short of the servants.  At meals, by a practice that apparently went back for generations, the family pretended the servants simply weren't there.  Even impending war, it seemed, wasn't about to change that tradition. 

After dinner came clearing the table and the three servants returned to the kitchen for clean up.  Mola worked at the same efficient speed as she always did, her face placid, a blank tablet.  Gwinol was unreadable too, but Nilla readily sensed where her sister's thoughts were.  She wondered if Gwinol's stomach churned as much as her own.

In the evenings, the servants were expected to confine themselves to the lower floor, but Nilla's curiosity drove her to sneak upstairs to the deck.  However, it was already occupied by the daughters.  The eldest was surveying the eastern seascape with a spyglass while there was still twilight.

“The Romans have the bulk of their troops carrying a great deal of material to the summit of Little Brother,” the eldest daughter observed.  She meant, Nilla knew, the bulge on one side of Emerald Head the rose to a flat mesa about one-third the way up the volcano's slope.  “I see no logical reason for their behavior.”

“Might they be constructing a catapult?” the youngest daughter asked.

“No catapult can strike the city all the way from the isle of Kret.  Father is right, they have grown desperate, and descended into futility and madness.”  The eldest lowered the glass and swept its gaze along the fortifications.  “It's quiet below, but they are well-amassed on the beach as well.”   

“Why do the Romans want to attack us?  We've done nothing to provoke them, have we?”

“Men don't need provocation to resort to violence.  It's the nature of men to compete violently for power.  The more brutal their competitive spirit, the higher they rise in the world.”

“Men are fools.”

“Oh!  There by the south tower – it's that lieutenant you like!”

“Let me see!  Let me see!”

The eldest daughter handed over the glass and started to turn.  Nilla retreated in time to avoid being noticed, but then felt a hand clamp on her shoulder.  She suppressed a gasp and whirled.  Mola was glaring.

“The Matriarch wants a bath poured, and this time I won't rescue you.”   

Of all times
, Nilla thought.  She hurriedly returned to the kitchen and poured water from the faucet (an innovation she had once thought unique to Archimedes but was common in the households of Kresidala) and filled the pot and set it over the hearth fire to boil.

“
Where is my bath?
” the Matriarch hollered a few minutes later.  She rang her little bell furiously.  “
Where is my bath?
”

Nilla dipped in the pail and hauled it up the steps.  As Nilla poured the pail into the washtub, the Matriarch sat cross-armed in a bathrobe, scowling and muttering inaudibly in semi-drunken stupor.  Nilla bowed profusely and retreated.   

She rushed through the hallway and spared a glance outside as she again passed the deck.  The daughters had been joined by their father, who was calmly pointing out the details of the defense.  Nilla meant to hurry on, but then she heard the roar of a multitude of voices coming from the city.  She stopped and looked over the deck, across the sea, to where the Patriarch and his daughters were staring. 

There was a moving shadow among the clouds, like a hole in the sky. 

It was no mere cloud, for it was black and round and growing.  While all the other clouds were still, it was hurling as if blown by a gale.  It approached Little Brother, whose flat summit was lit with torches.  The glow of torch light revealed that the hole was not a hole but a material object of proportions that dwarfed almost every building that Nilla had ever seen.  And yet it flew!

The apparition turned sideways, becoming a bar in silhouette and evidently a cylinder in overall shape.  Judging by the size of the people at the same distance, the monstrosity could have swallowed triremes as dainty snacks. 

It hovered over Little Brother and descended upon the summit, and the torches twinkled in a flurry of responsive activity.  Nilla watched raptly, until she became aware that the Patriarch was gazing at her directly, the first time he had so acknowledged her presence in days.

“What do you know of this?” he asked, making never-before eye contact. 

“I – I don't know anything of it,” she replied.

Ring ring ring!

“
Where is my bath?
” bellowed the Matriarch, impatient for the next pail of hot water.

The Patriarch returned his attention to the scene, speaking to his daughters with such detachment that he might have been discussing weave patterns in a new fashion of rug.  Nilla hurried to the kitchen.  She added more water to the pot and wood to the fire.  While she was stirring the embers with the poker, she heard the noise. 

She didn't pay any attention to it at first, because it was so quiet and she was preoccupied.  But by the time she got up the steps with steaming pail in hand, the noise had intensified so that it reverberated through the walls of the entire house.  It seemed to be coming from the sky above, yet its rhythmic throbbing certainly didn't sound like thunder.

Ruh ruh ruh ruh
, Nilla mimicked. 
Where have I heard that before?

Gwinol was transfixed at the entrance onto the deck.  She was staring upward.  Consumed by curiosity mixed with fear, Nilla stopped alongside and followed her gaze.  In the sky, having departed Emerald Head and approaching the walled city, was the finger of a god.

But that was only a first impression.  Careful inspection in the dusk light revealed that in truth the apparition was no less fantastic:  it was a monstrous ship of the air.  It had three windmills on each side that churned furiously despite the lack of wind.  Beneath the great sausage-like shape was slung a long house, through whose windows gleamed lights, and in front of the lights moved the silhouettes of men. 

Nilla felt a vise-like grip on her arm.  Gwinol dragged her into the hall. 

“We must leave as soon as we can,” Gwinol said in a loud whisper. 

“What do you mean?” Nilla whispered back. 

“We're escaping the city, before it's too late.”

“
Too late?
  Gwin, what do you know of this?  I recognize the sound it's making.  It is the same kind of  sound that came from the basement back at – ”

Gwinol raised her hand as if to slap Nilla's mouth, then glanced warily.  “Don't tell anyone of that!  If they believe we have any connection with what is about to happen – “

“What
is
about to happen?”

“Nilla, are you so empty-skulled!  What do you think is about to happen?  It's not here to deliver toys!”

They were distracted to the outside by cries and shouts arising from the streets.  They watched as the airship floated effortlessly over the walls of Kresidala as if they were no more than the ridges made by a furrowing plow.  Against the now black sky, the glow of the city street lamps reflected off the underbelly of the hull. 

The Patriarch had set the spyglass on the deck rail, being that he was transfixed by the tableau of the panicking city. Being that she apparently was overcome by curiosity, Gwinol crept onto the deck, plucked the glass away and peered through it for a long moment.  She handed the device to Nilla.  Hesitantly, Nilla put lens to eye and aimed at the ship.

The fins bore the icon of an eagle in profile, which Nilla recognized as the symbol of the Roman Imperium.  On the bow of the ship were painted the words,
TRIUMPH OF ROME
. 

Neither wanting nor needing to see more, Nilla set the glass down inattentively.  It rolled off the deck rail and fell to the porch stones, shattering.

Without looking at her, the Patriarch said, “That will be a month's wages.”

Gwinol yanked Nilla inside and said in raised whisper, “We have to tell Mola.”

Nilla automatically grabbed the pail and followed her sister to the kitchen.  Mola was tending to the fire, rolled her eyes and stretched out a hand to Nilla.  Dazed by the course and speed of events, Nilla compliantly gave over the pail.

“Nilla, why did you delay?”  Mola sighed.  “Now the water is all but lukewarm!”

“Mola,” Gwinol said.  “We have to leave.”

Mola turned her back to them and ascended the steps with the pail.

“
Mola!  We have to leave!
”

“WHERE IS MY BATH!” boomed the voice in the bedroom.

“Look at what is happening, damn it!”  Gwinol cried. 

In the hallway, she grabbed Mola, pulled away the pail, and propelled the older woman onto the deck.  Unnoticed by their mesmerized employers, the three servants watched the airship slowing over the royal palace. 

Below was pandemonium.  The palace guard arrayed archers, who fired volley after volley at the ship, each falling short and arcing into the city where bystanders were likely being randomly impaled. 

Among the armored guard strode a bewhiskered man dressed in a white uniform with silver medals and a golden sash, directing the futile defense with emphatic gesticulations.  Nilla had only once before seen the King, and that from an even greater distance.  Yet he seemed smaller now – almost bug-like.

The ship hovered above the palace.  Then it seemed as if time stopped.  The crowds in the street were silent.  The archers ceased firing.  Nilla held her breath. 

Midway on the bottom of the ship's housing, a pair of doors slid apart, leaving a glowing rectangle as an opening into the interior of the ship.  Out of it fell a rain of black objects the size and shape of cabbages.  There were scores of them, hundreds of them.  It seemed to take forever for them to spray upon the palace. 

Like lightning and thunder, the flashes of the explosions came before the booms.  Flames and smoke rippled within the palace walls, engulfing the men and their king.  The golden domes reflected the light, then shattered and sank into the smoke.  With temperatures well above flashpoint, the fire spread rapidly through the wooden buildings, gutting those made of brick and stone.  Despite the distance, Nilla felt the heat against her cheeks. 

“Quickly!” the Patriarch said to his daughters, his voice for once raised.  “Inside!  We will be safe in the cellar!”

“What about Mother?” the eldest daughter asked.

“I'll get your mother.  Quickly!”

“Kreta wake and protect us!” the younger daughter wailed.  Almost shrieking:  “
Kreta – please we beg – wake and protect us!
”

The Patriarch gripped the hands of his daughters and brushed past the servants.  Nilla felt a sharp pain on her shoulder.  Gwinol was thrashing her.  Breaking from trance, Nilla followed her sister downstairs to the kitchen, where Mola had returned.  She was chopping radishes.

Gwinol spun Mola around, shook her and placed their faces within centimeters.  “Mola!  It isn't safe anywhere in the city.  We must leave now!  Where is the silver? 
Where is the silver?
”