Mistress of the Catacombs

24

When Garric sat very still, the sunlight felt good. The sun was well down in the western sky, though, and “very still” meant without swelling his lungs to breathe. None of his wounds was serious, but there wasn’t a palm’s breadth of his legs which hadn’t been covered by his studded leather apron, or of his arms, which didn’t have a slash or a puncture. His chest was bruised front and back, and his face was so battered that he looked out through tunnels in swollen flesh.

“Being around your ancestor…” Sharina said, smiling at Garric as she spoke, “was a lot like leading a leopard on a chain. It’s a very lovely creature with many virtues, but—”

She snuggled against Cashel in a kittenish fashion that Garric had never expected of his sister.

“You see your sister,” said Carus, his image grinning as it lounged against a parapet in Garric’s mind. “Speaking as the man she was close as a shadow to this past week—she’s a woman, lad, and I’d guess enough woman for any man she chooses.”

“—it made me even more pleased to have someone whose strength isn’t quite so…flashy.”

Cashel put his arm around her shoulders. He didn’t look at Sharina or say anything, just smiled a little broader than he’d been doing. Cashel no longer blushed at times like this, but you wouldn’t say he was perfectly comfortable with it either.

Garric had decided it was important for his troops and the populace of Tisamur to see him up and moving, but he didn’t have any intention of tending to real business until he’d recuperated for another day yet. He sat on a terrace of the Citadel, looking down over Donelle to the sea beyond. Cashel, Sharina, and Tenoctris were with him; Ilna was welcome to join them if she cared to; and a line of Blood Eagles kept everybody else at a distance.

All of the bodyguards were battered, and several looked as if they must hurt as much as Garric did. A Donelle aristocrat had been insistent about his need to see Prince Garric. Two Blood Eagles had hurled him twenty feet back, across the terrace. The fellow was lucky they hadn’t tossed him over the railing instead.

At the nearby temple site, another section of wall toppled inward with a crash and a mushroom of debris. Men were shoveling broken stone and concrete into baskets, dumping them into oxcarts on the west side or giving them to porters to carry away by the steep slope to the east. Only a fraction of the temple’s massive sidewalls remained after a day of concentrated effort.

Tenoctris had been watching the work over her shoulder. She turned to her companions, and said, “I’m always amazed at what people can accomplish when they join together.”

She grinned, and added, “Not necessarily for good ends, of course. No single wizard could have opened a passage for the Mistress.”

Local civilians were carrying out the demolition. Garric had put Count Lerdoc in charge of the work, so there were a few Blaise officers present to oversee the business. They could’ve stayed in their billets without decreasing the enthusiasm with which the crews worked.

Lord Lerdain was one of the officers—by choice, Garric had no doubt. The youth strutted like a fighting cock, wearing the helmet that’d been hammered when he followed Garric—followed Carus—through the mass of Archai. The boy was lucky he’d been knocked silly at the start of the rush; otherwise, he’d probably have been killed. But he’d paid his dues, and now he displayed the damaged helmet with rightful pride.

Cashel watched with the professional interest of a man who’d done his share of heavy labor. “They’re trying to prove to you that they’re loyal,” he said, looking amused. “They don’t know the tricks of moving big rocks, but they’re as willing as any folk I’ve seen. They’ll be lucky if they don’t kill themselves, though.”

“Convincing me they’re loyal is pretty much a lost cause,” Garric said. His smile was more cynical than it would have been in the days before he became a prince. “What I do believe, though, is that Moon Wisdom’s as dead as the Children of the Mistress who were leading it.”

He nodded toward the workmen. “They’re at least making an effort to seem loyal.”

“The Children weren’t leading Moon Wisdom,” Tenoctris said, her eyes focused on a place beyond her present surroundings. “They were just its human face.”

Garric remembered the blackness of a cave and the hairy limbs, stiff with age but still living, which held him for the Mistress’s fangs. “Sure, that’s true,” he said.

But if any Children had survived the carnage in the temple, he’d have hanged them as soon as the fighting was over. People who gave themselves over to something so unutterably evil had no business walking the Earth in the company of decent folk.

“Those people have their own reasons for tearing the temple down,” Carus noted with a grim smile. “Having their own allies hack hundreds of them apart for a blood sacrifice makes the rule of a king from Valles seem not such a bad thing.”

Another section of wall came down in a crackling roar that almost drowned the screams of the woman who’d been caught in it. Cashel winced.

“I wouldn’t bet it was a woman, lad,” Carus said, neither smiling nor frowning. “When they’re hurt bad, anybody’s likely to sound that way. Even the brave ones, unless they go numb instead.”

A trumpet sounded in one of the squares below. Men shouted in cadence, then stepped off with a clash of hobnails on cobblestones.

Lord Waldron was re-forming his battalions, mixing four companies of the old royal army with two composed of the mercenaries who’d garrisoned Donelle during the rebellion. Most of the organization took place outside the city walls where there was more room, but…loyal or not, it was good for the people of Tisamur to see the highly trained royal army up close.

Garric looked at his sister, smiling faintly at how painful the simple movement was. Every muscle of his neck had been strained by the effort of holding his head straight while blows raining on one side or another of his helmet tried to twist it.

“Sharina, does Lord Tadai have things under control?” he asked. “I should’ve gone to see him myself, but…”

It felt remarkably good to sit with his friends. The days he’d been alone seemed like a lifetime…as indeed it had been, for Gar.

“When he arrived with the supply fleet, he went straight to the municipal palace,” Sharina said, smiling at the memory. “He didn’t even bother getting a night’s sleep before he and his aides started going over the accounts from both the city and the temple.”

“They had accounts?” said Cashel with a frown. “I thought they were wizards.”

“Wizards need to eat too,” Tenoctris said. “Though for some of us, that’s not much of a priority.”

“They were running a rebellion,” Garric said. “That means messengers, clerks, supply departments—and the mercenaries themselves, to be paid and billeted.”

“None of which happens at the wave of an athame,” Sharina agreed. “At any rate, I think Lord Tadai takes more pleasure in that sort of thing than he does in wine and dancing girls.”

Carus laughed with an amusement that spread to Garric’s own lips. As the others looked at him, Garric explained, “I don’t imagine going over financial records will ever replace reading Celondre as the way I like to relax. But my ancestor”—he lifted the cord holding the coronation medallion of King Carus to emphasize it—“was never really as much himself during peace as he was in the middle of a battlefield.”

“And I saw more battlefields than I did days of peace, lad,” the king’s spirit agreed. Suddenly sober, he went on, “I was so afraid that I’d fail you this time, the way I’d failed the kingdom before in my anger and my arrogance. Thanks to your sister and the Lady, I did not do that quite.”

“They’re blocking the conduit that fed the temple pool?” Tenoctris asked suddenly. She’d been watching the workmen again. “Not that it was the water itself that…”

“Yes,” said Garric forcefully. “Blocking the tube and diverting the aqueduct that fed it. I told Waldron to get a squadron of cavalry out to trace the route. We’ll block the inlet too when we’ve found it.”

“It was salt water,” said Sharina. She nodded eastward over the city. “The sea’s well below our level here.”

“Yes,” said Tenoctris. “It is. And Garric, I’m not sure your men are going to find the inlet.”

She smiled. “Though I don’t think that really matters, because of what your army did here and what you did where you were.”

Garric started to nod toward the demolition work; the pain made him dizzy. Smiling ruefully at his weakness, he instead gestured with a hand. That hurt too, but not nearly as much.

“There’ll be a new temple built on the site,” he said. “A small one.”

“To whom will it be dedicated?” Tenoctris said, suddenly tense. “That is, I don’t believe…I’ve never believed in the Great Gods; but sites have power.”

“Right,” said Garric, “and for that reason I plan to build and endow a temple to the Restoring Shepherd. Whatever’s built here will be more than stones and frescoes, so I thought it was important to control where it started at least.”

Carus chuckled in Garric’s mind. Garric, smiling in harmony with his ancestor, went on, “I’d thought of dedicating it to Duzi, but I decided people wouldn’t understand.”

“Duzi doesn’t belong in a big stone temple,” Cashel said quietly. “Though I’ve called on him in worse places than that, I know.”

A platoon of Blood Eagles was marching up from the lower city to replace the detachment now guarding Prince Garric. Garric didn’t turn to watch them, but Carus cocked his head and smiled. They were keeping step despite most of them being wounded.

A cheerfully whistled tune drew Garric’s eyes and those of his companions. The young Lady Merota approached the line of Blood Eagles, flanked on one side by Ilna and the other by Chalcus.

“So fare you well, my own true love,” Merota sang, caroling the chorus of the tune Chalcus whistled. “So fare you well a while….”

The sailor wasn’t wearing his own weapons, but he carried a long silk-wrapped bundle; the guards stiffened at the sight of it. A reflex Garric borrowed from his warrior ancestor made him reach for his sword.

The sword was gone, missing since healers from both the bodyguard regiment and Lord Waldron’s staff cut Garric’s armor and equipment away in their haste to get at his wounds. Realizing that, Garric relaxed and started to chuckle. That was very bad for his cuts and strains, but the laughter did wonders for his state of mind.

“I’m goin’ away but I’m comin’ back….”

“Let them pass, Captain Lancar,” Garric said, glad he remembered the name of the officer in command of the guard detachment.

The captain turned. He was an old soldier, promoted from the ranks because of courage distinguished even in the company of this regiment of chosen men.

“Yes, all of them,” Garric said. “And Master Chalcus can bring his package through as well.”

“No, your highness,” Lancar said. “He can’t bring the sword he’s got in that wrapper any closer than where I stand.”

Ilna snapped, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say none of you were older than Merota here. But I suppose being a male and being a child are much the same thing.”

Merota looked between her guardians instead of finishing the chorus, “If I go ten thousand miles.”

Chalcus laughed and handed the packet to Lancar balanced on two fingers of his left hand. “Here you go, captain.”

“These three can pass,” Lancar said, motioning his men to step aside.

If the captain was concerned about what Garric would do, or about anything other than his duty, his stolid face gave no sign of it. He waited for Merota to lead the adults into the guarded area, then walked around Chalcus and gave the package to Garric.

Chalcus grinned past Lancar’s shoulder, and said, “Let him be, your highness. He’s a good soldier doing his job, and who can have too many of them?”

“Not me,” Garric said, struck grim by the thought. “Not now especially. Attaper’s interviewing volunteers to fill at least fifty places in the Blood Eagles, and it may well be a hundred and fifty depending on how lucky we are with gangrene.”

“How’s Attaper himself?” Sharina asked. “Do the healers think they can save his arm?”

“Yes, they will,” said Ilna, drawing eyes to her. Lancar himself looked over his shoulder in surprise, then locked his gaze to the front again.

Ilna drew the hank of cords from her sleeve just far enough to acknowledge them.

“I don’t often do fortune-telling,” she said. Embarrassment turned her voice unusually cold, even for her. “In this case I thought it might help Attaper if I could truthfully tell him he’d not lose the arm, so I checked.”

“She wove a pattern for the warehouse where all the wounded are, too!” Merota said. “They’re all going to get better!”

Chalcus tousled the girl’s hair. “No, child,” he said, “they’re not all going to get better. But more will, I think, than otherwise. Though it’s not as a healer I speak, but from the other end of the business.”

Garric finished unwrapping his sword and dagger. He’d wondered why Ilna hadn’t joined him and the others now that things had settled down. There could have been other reasons, but with Ilna you were usually safe in guessing that duty had determined whatever she was doing.

He pulled the sword an inch from the sheath, saw what he expected, and drew it clear. When he held the blade at a slant to the light, a serpent seemed to squirm up and down the layered steel of the blade.

“As fine a job of sharpening as I myself could’ve done,” Carus noted approvingly. “And a working edge, too; not something razor thin that’ll turn or break on armor.”

“Thank you, Master Chalcus,” Garric said, grinning. He slid the blade home again. He didn’t notice his pain and stiffness while he handled the sword. “As good a job of sharpening as the finest warrior I know could have done.”

“The least I could do for the man who saved our lives, I thought,” the sailor said. With a slight extra brightness in his expression, he went on, “I was wondering one thing as I watched the fellow dancing across the battle to us—was that you, your highness, or the friend you share quarters with?”

Garric laughed. “The friend, sailor,” he said. “And I was glad to know him that day, for I don’t expect I’d have done as well at the task.”

Chalcus nodded pleasantly. “Aye,” he said. “You’re a brisk lad and very quick for your size; I’d not choose to fight you. But your friend, now—if I couldn’t stab him in the back, I’d lay my sword down and hope for mercy. And I say that knowing the hope would be very slight indeed.”

He and Garric both laughed, and in Garric’s mind, the laughing king said, “But don’t be fooled, lad—he wouldn’t want to face me, but face me he would. And we’d neither of us be quite sure of the outcome.”

The sailor cleared his throat. He looked around the circle, deliberately meeting the eyes of each of the others before saying, “It may be that you think Lady Merota would not have been offered for sacrifice had I not failed my duty to her—”

“You didn’t fail, Chalcus!” the child said. “You rescued me!”

“—and you would be right,” Chalcus continued. He showed his embarrassment only by the unusual precision of the words; his voice had none of the usual music in it. “I came back from the docks to the room we’d taken at an inn. The child was gone, and everyone there pretended they’d never seen her at all.”

“One of the men who took me was a priest!” Merota said proudly. “I could tell from his robes. I cut him with the knife Chalcus gave me!”

“Aye,” said Chalcus softly, “and later I cut him worse myself and took his robe, when I’d convinced the innkeeper that he was wiser to fear me than to fear the Mistress. But all that took time; and when I got to where they were holding milady, there was very little time left. Still, I thought since I was there I’d give them reason to wish they’d picked a different victim.”

“We can’t control results,” Ilna said without emotion. “We can only control our own actions.”

She looked at Chalcus, and went on, “But if I could have controlled the result, it would have been the same as what occurred.”

“Oh,” murmured Cashel. He gave Sharina an extra squeeze with his arm and rose gracefully to his feet, holding the quarterstaff close to his body. “That’s Tilphosa coming. I’ll go…”

“And Lord Thalemos,” Garric said. “Earl Thalemos now that I’ve confirmed him as ruler of Laut. He’s my old comrade in arms, though he probably doesn’t know that.”

He looked at Cashel. Sharina was standing now also; her expression was one of ladylike chill. Ilna watched Thalemos and the girl with disinterested assessment, while the grin on Chalcus’ face indicated he saw the same thing Garric did but was amused by it.

Well, it wasn’t Chalcus’ sister and closest friend who were in the middle of this tension.

“Ah,” said Garric. “I’ll of course pass them through, Cashel, but if you’d rather talk to them privately, that’s—”

“We’ll talk with them here, I think,” Sharina said. Garric had heard winter gales that sounded warmer.

Cashel shrugged, looking more resigned than perturbed. “Sure,” he said quietly. “If that’s all right with you, Garric.”

“Let the Earl of Laut and his lady through, Lancar,” Garric said. Even Tenoctris was standing now. He thought about rising from the stone bench, but when he’d tensed his muscles enough to realize what it would cost him, he changed his mind. In a few more minutes, perhaps…

Thalemos and Tilphosa were dressed in a style suitable to their station during private functions: overtunics embroidered in gold and silver thread, cutwork sandals of dyed leather. On Thalemos’ chest was a gorget knotted from cloth of gold, a placeholder for the ancient regalia of his office which there hadn’t been time to cast.

Tilphosa gave Sharina a queenly glance. Thalemos bowed, then stared at Garric in surprise before saying, “Your highness, I, ah…did you have a brother on Laut, by any chance?”

“He wasn’t my brother,” said Garric, “and that was a thousand years in the future besides; but I know who you mean, yes. May the Shepherd guard his soul.”

“Yes,” Thalemos said. “Ah, I’m honored that you’ve confirmed me as ruler of Laut, but…”

“My chief of staff Lord Tadai will provide some personnel,” Garric said, “and Chancellor Royhas in the capital will second some of his clerks shortly as well. You’ll have two battalions of the royal army besides, though I don’t expect you’ll have real problems. The Intercessor, Echeus, died recently—”

Carus chuckled in his mind.

“—and there’s been no one in charge since then.”

“Yes, ah…” said Thalemos. “Your highness, what I actually came to ask…”

His voice trailed off and he looked at the girl beside him—Tilphosa bos-Pholial, Garric knew, though he hadn’t seen the lady before this moment.

“Your highness,” Lady Tilphosa said, “you’ll find Laut a loyal bastion of your kingdom henceforth. We have one further favor to ask of you, however: in addition to the troops and staff you’ve offered, will you send Master Cashel or-Kenset with us? I know by experience that Master Cashel is a sturdier support than any number of soldiers.”

Thalemos looked at Garric and tried to smile. He wasn’t very successful. Garric knew from his life as Gar that Thalemos was a brave boy; but Tilphosa was very much a lady, not a girl.

So, of course, was Sharina.

Garric cleared his throat, and said, “Milady, I’m not in the habit of telling my friends what to do. Cashel’s free to come and go as he pleases. If he—”

“I don’t,” Cashel said. He didn’t look relaxed, exactly, but neither did he look like anything short of an earthquake was going to move him from where he stood. His left hand was on his staff, and Sharina’s left hand was on his shoulder.

He nodded to Thalemos and went on, “Mistress—Tilphosa, I mean…I said I’d get you to your Prince Thalemos of Laut if I could. That’s where you are, near enough. And I’m where I belong too, back with Sharina and my friends.”

Tilphosa said nothing for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, she made a deep curtsy to Sharina. Rising, she said, “Milady, I hope you know what you have.”

To Garric she continued, “Your highness, I thank you again for your trust and support. You will not find it misplaced.”

She turned and strode quickly out of the guarded circle. Thalemos followed, a little awkwardly because Tilphosa’s sudden movement had taken him by surprise. He looked greatly relieved.

“An interesting girl,” mused Carus. “Back when I wore flesh, I might have found better use for her than sending her to warm a throne in Laut.”

Fortunately, Garric added in the silence of his mind, your descendent is more focused on the provision of able leadership for the separate islands of his kingdom.

Carus laughed in his mind. “Fortunate indeed, lad,” he agreed.

Sharina watched Thalemos and Tilphosa go, then looked at her brother. “That’s Laut,” she said, her voice a little sharper, a little more challenging than usual. “And from what I’ve seen here, it appears that Count Lerdoc will have no difficulty in ordering matters on Tisamur. What about the other rebels?”

Garric shrugged and wished he hadn’t. “I’m planning to make a progress of Cordin and Haft,” he said, “putting loyal rulers in place. As soon as I can walk without a pair of canes, that is.”

“Will they fight, do you think?” asked Chalcus, the lilt back in his voice. He didn’t sound precisely hopeful; rather, he was interested the way one male dog becomes when another walks nearby.

“They’re fools if they do,” said Garric. “Which, of course, many men are, so I’ll be accompanied by as many troops as I brought here to Tisamur; though the mix will be different. It’s a good chance to integrate the new companies into their battalions.”

Tenoctris had seated herself again, but his younger friends remained standing. After glancing in the direction whence Tilphosa had disappeared, Sharina asked, “Where are you finding the new leaders, Garric?”

“The Tyrant of Cordin ousted the marquis five years ago, Tadai tells me,” Garric said. “We’re reinstating a nephew of the late marquis, under the guardianship of Tadai’s brother-in-law. Here on Tisamur, the Council of Elders will resume the government, with Count Lerdoc’s cousin as their liaison with Valles.”

“What about Haft, though?” Sharina pressed. “What about our home?”

Garric laughed. “Barca’s Hamlet never had much to do with the palace in Carcosa, did we?” he said. “I doubt that will change much, at least at first. Formally the island will be ruled from Valles under a nephew of Lord Waldron as Vicar. I’m giving him an advisor, however; not a local man, exactly, but he lived on Haft for a long time, and I can trust him.”

“You’re making our father the real ruler of Haft?” Sharina said in amazement. Garric smiled and nodded.

“Yes,” said Ilna while the others stood silent. “Reise is a very trustworthy man. Carcosa won’t warm to him, but I think it will learn to obey.”

Cashel laughed loudly. He hugged Sharina, then stepped to Garric and clasped arms with him. Garric braced himself for the pain, but Cashel more than most men knew how to be gentle; he’d have broken other people’s bones all his life if he hadn’t learned that.

“He’ll meet us in Carcosa,” Garric amplified as his friend swung away again. “I’m looking forward to that.”

Garric looked in the direction Thalemos had gone. “Tenoctris,” he said, “Lord Thalemos comes from the future—but in his past, Prince Garric died battling the Count of Blaise and waves of Archai conquered all the Isles except for Laut. His past never existed.”

Tenoctris pursed her lips. Ilna said in the silence, “Events that aren’t on the same thread may be knotted together, Garric. The remainder of their length is separate. Which is just as well in this case.”

“Tilphosa thought that the Intercessor Echea planned it all,” said Cashel. He shrugged deliberately, working the muscles of his shoulders; his hickory staff gleamed softly from its careful polishing with raw wool rich in lanolin. “That she knew everything that would happen when she made the rings.”

“Tilphosa is wrong,” Ilna said, her tone coldly analytical. Garric suspected Ilna didn’t like Tilphosa—putting Tilphosa in with the majority of humanity—but that wouldn’t color her judgment. “The pattern was too complex for any human mind to encompass, let alone plan. The…”

She paused, searching for a word. You didn’t often see Ilna indecisive, even about phrasing.

“The weaver, let’s say, Ilna,” Tenoctris said quietly. “That name will do as well as any other.”

“The weaver, then,” said Ilna with a smile so wry it looked bitter, “of this fabric wasn’t human. Of that I’m sure.”

“I’m not sure there really was an Intercessor Echea,” Tenoctris said in the same soft voice as before. “Someone, something, may have walked and talked in the flesh of a person named Echea, but I don’t believe the animating force was human.”

She smiled and rose. “I think it’s time we leave Garric,” she said. “It’s getting dark, and I suspect I understand better than you younger people how easy it is to become overtired when one isn’t in the best condition. Which I haven’t been for many, many years.”

“Right!” said Cashel, smiling at Sharina. His face sobered, and he said, “Ah, Garric? Want me to carry you to your rooms?”

“I’ll stay here for a moment to think, if that’s all right,” Garric said. “I have a litter to ride in. I feel silly, but it’s better than crawling—which is the choice.”

Laughing, Cashel led them out—Tenoctris between him and Sharina, Merota with Ilna and Chalcus. Ilna looked over her shoulder for a moment, nodded, and walked on.

Does she guess? Garric wondered.

“If she wants to know, she knows,” Carus said. His look was far away, on his own past and a woman there who had died. “Anyway, they’ll all know soon.”

Garric levered himself to his feet, using the stone railing as a brace. He turned and looked eastward, over the city that had returned to the Kingdom of the Isles for the first time in a thousand years.

The sun had almost set. Streaks of cloud on the western horizon cut its swollen redness into three segments. Light flared onto the bank of clouds far to the east, rosy columns mounting from the sea to the high heavens.

Liane would be coming across the Inner Sea on the squadron that brought Reise. A feeling of warmth eased the pain Garric felt from standing.

“I’m not going to move the capital from Valles back to Carcosa,” he said, speaking aloud but in a whisper that only he and the ancient king could hear. “But I think it’s a good place to hold the marriage.”

“Yes, lad,” said the grinning Carus. “It’s a fine place for the King of the Isles to wed!”