The Mirror of Worlds-ARC Read online

  He grinned. We've survived this long by accepting Tenoctris' judgment. I'm not going to stop doing that now.

  "All I need at the moment is your permission to leave," Tenoctris said, flashing a brief smile that returned her face to its usual cheerful optimism. "I'd like to go to the Temple of the Mighty Shepherd. When I've done that, perhaps I'll have a better notion of what the next step will be."

  "That temple's in ruins, is it not?" Liane said. She stiffened in sudden embarrassment. "That is, it was before the Change. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken."

  "It was in ruins in my day too, dear," Tenoctris said. "I intend to meditate or perhaps dream, I suppose, rather than sacrifice. And if I may . . . ."

  She touched Cashel's shoulder again. He didn't turn to look at her.

  "I'd like Cashel to accompany me," she went on. "In part because he is a mighty shepherd."

  "If Cashel agrees—" Garric said, but it was toward his sister that his eyes shifted. She gave a quick nod of agreement, though her expression had frozen for a moment. "—then yes, of course."

  "Sure, Garric," Cashel said quietly. His staff was upright beside him, as usual. "I like to help, and you don't need me here."

  Though maybe Sharina does, Garric thought, but that was a matter between her and Cashel; and anyway, she'd agreed.

  Tenoctris stepped carefully down from the bench, bracing herself on Cashel's arm. Garric looked around the assembly. "In that case, counselors," he said, "let's rough out the details of the administration during my absence."

  A thought struck him; he glanced toward the aegipan at his side. "That is . . . how much time do I have to prepare, Master Shin?"

  Shin chuckled, making his beard dance though his feet were still for the moment. "You have all the time you wish to take, Prince Garric," he said. "But I would advise you not to take very long if you wish your world to survive."

  * * *

  "Oh, Shepherd, hear me!" Ilna wailed hoarsely. "Guide my husband to the Realm of Peace. Protect him with Thy staff."

  Her voice had a right to crack: she'd been calling in false grief since just before sunset and by now they were well into the fourth watch of the night. The moon had set, and within an hour the light that precedes the dawn would tinge the northeastern sky. Despite Asion's assurance, the catmen had waited.

  Ilna glanced at the pattern her fingers were knotting and unknotting, just to keep themselves occupied during the delay. They wouldn't wait much longer, though.

  "Oh, Lady, my daughter was a good child," she cried. "Hold her safe beneath the hem of Thy mantle."

  To the best of Ilna's knowledge, the catmen couldn't understand human words any better than she could make sense of their yowls and shrieks. Though her present grief was as false as the belief in the Great Gods that she implied, she sang real words because they were part of the pattern she was weaving.

  Chalcus would've understood what she was doing, and perhaps Merota would as well. Merota had learned from her and Chalcus to see the patterns that most people didn't, couldn't, see. Patterns in the way a sword blade shimmered, patterns in the way leaves rustled in a forest . . . .

  Merota was a clever girl, smarter than either her or Chalcus, rich and educated. She'd have gone far.

  Merota was dead, her skull crushed by a catman's axe. Chalcus was dead, pierced through by several points; dead on his feet but nonetheless cutting down his slayers and the girl's before he let himself fall. And Ilna os-Kenset had died also, killed by the same strokes that slew her family.

  She caught herself. Her eyes were open, but for a few instants she'd seen only the past. The wordless cries which grief had torn from her memory were real.

  Ilna tossed three billets of dry, pitchy pine knots on the sunken fire, the light-wood she'd kept ready for this moment. The waiting was over.

  "They're coming," she said, speaking to the hidden men. She grasped the hem of the blanket she'd hung across the front of the cabin and waited.

  The fire flared, its sudden light winking from the eyes of the four catmen who'd approached to the edge of the farmyard. One of the beasts snarled in angry discomfort, rising from his crouch. He carried what looked like a fishing spear, its two springy points spreading from where they were bound to the shaft. The thorn barbs were on the inside so they'd grip instead of killing the victim quickly.

  The Corl stalked closer, bending his course to skirt the fire by more than his own height. His three companions rose also, though they were careful not to rush past their leader. The beasts hunted in packs, but from what Ilna'd seen they weren't much more social than cockerels. They fought for dominance frequently, brutally, and to the death . . . which saved Ilna a little trouble, though a kind of trouble she didn't mind.

  The Coerli didn't like fire, but they'd followed the haze of smoke back to this farm which they must've thought was abandoned. The blaze in front of Ilna wouldn't help them from leaping on her from the sides, of course.

  She smiled with anticipation: the fire was to illuminate, not to protect.

  The leader growled deep in his throat. His muscles were heavier than those of an ordinary warrior and his mane had begun to sprout, but that was true to a lesser degree of the three Coerli accompanying him. In a fully fledged pack the chieftain limited the amount of meat his warriors ate, since without it the males remained sexually neutral and didn't threaten the chief's dominance. This hunting party probably ate only meat, so the members were on terms of dangerous equality.

  The beasts weren't going to live long enough to kill each other in dominance battles, however. Ilna jerked the blanket from its pegs, uncovering the pattern she'd laid against the wall.

  "Now!" she cried to her companions. Her right hand loosed the silken lasso she wore around her waist in place of a sash.

  The leading catman had started his leap, his arm poised to pin Ilna's throat with his spearhead before he glimpsed the pattern of threads against the wood in the bright flames. His muscles locked, spilling him onto the ground sideways. The beast directly behind him fell also, as did the one who'd stayed farther out in case Ilna tried to run.

  Ilna's lasso looped from her hand, filling a pattern she knew though she didn't yet see it. The catman farthest to the left shrieked like a hawk as he loped toward her. He leaped, a stone axe raised in his right hand and a dagger carved from root stock in his left. He moved quicker than a human could respond—

  He shrieked again, tangled in the noose that hung in the air through which he'd tried to spring. Ilna jerked hard, turning.

  The catman twisted, but the silk's pull spun him into the cabin wall. He lost his axe at the impact but still had the poignard when he slammed the ground.

  He gathered his legs under himself to spring toward Ilna. Temple's long sword slipped in above his breastbone and out through his spine at mid back.

  The warrior's arms spasmed. He coughed a bubble of blood and, as it burst over his face, went flaccid.

  Ilna let out her breath in a gasp. Asion rose, withdrawing the knife he'd thrust through the kidney of a paralyzed beast. The head of the most distant catman was cocked at right angles to the rest of its spine. As Ilna looked up, Karpos wrung the neck of the pack's leader the same way: one palm on the beast's chin and the other at the top of his skull.

  Temple wiped his sword with the edge of the blanket which'd hidden Ilna's trap. "Don't look at this," she snapped as she snatched the sketchy fabric off the wall, bundling the yarn and support poles to break their pattern. She didn't want to take time now to untie the knots and coil the strands into a skein.

  "I didn't know how powerful you are, Ilna," Temple said as he continued to polish the hard bronze. "You have a remarkable ability."

  Ilna shrugged. She supposed she could toss the snare on the fire; it was of no further use, to her or to others. She chose not to do that, though it'd be the most efficient way to rid the world of something that'd be dangerous until it was destroyed.

  The wool and the sticks were nothing in themselves,
but they'd helped her kill four catmen. She'd disarm her trap, but if she decided not to destroy the materials that'd served her well—who could tell her she was wrong?

  "I wondered when the one kept on coming, mistress," Karpos said. He'd scalped the catmen's leader, using his long dagger with the delicacy of a much smaller knife; now he was walking toward the more distant of his victims to take that trophy also. "I guess you just wanted the kill for yourself, huh?"

  "No," said Ilna, walking to the body of the beast Temple had stabbed. "My pattern didn't work on him for some reason."

  She lifted the catman by the scalp lock, the ridge of long hair down the back of his neck. One of his eyes was a normal muddy brown, but the other was as milky and dead as a chip of marble.

  "Ah," Ilna said, dropping the beast's face in the dirt again. Nothing to be done about a half-blind attacker who didn't see the same pattern as his fellows. Though if she'd adjusted two threads on the far left end of the fabric, she might've been to—

  Well, she'd keep that in mind the next time. There'd be many more next times, until she was dead or all the catmen were dead.

  Ilna dusted her palms together, then slipped free the noose with which she'd caught the beast when her pattern didn't work. She'd been afraid that Temple's thrust had nicked the cord, but on examining it she found the blade had entered the chest above her lasso and exited below the back of the loop. The silk was untouched.

  If the thrust had been calculated, it was a very pretty piece of work; and from what Ilna had seen of Temple, it'd probably been calculated. "Thank you," she said. "My noose wouldn't have kept him from jumping straight toward me."

  She cleared her throat. "And I appreciate you not cutting my noose, either. Though I could've spliced it if necessary."

  "There's very little about fabric that you couldn't do, Ilna," the big man said. His voice was pleasant, but he didn't mean the words as a question. "Yours is a remarkable power, whatever you choose to use it for."

  "Right now I choose to kill beasts," Ilna snapped. The hunters had wiped their knives on the pelts of the dead catmen. They stood easily, bow and sling in their hands, waiting for her to tell them what to do next.

  "We can go straight to the camp and end the business," she said harshly. "Leave your packs; we'll come back here."

  The hunters exchanged glances. Asion started toward the forested slope to the northeast. "I'll follow," Karpos said to Ilna, turning to watch the ridge behind them.

  It'd be fully light by the time they reached the catmen's day camp. That'd be helpful if there was more to do there—as Ilna suspected there would be.

  * * *

  Cashel squatted with his back against one of the two columns still standing near the southeast corner of the ruin. There was a stretch of the stone foundation course for a mud-brick wall, and the bases of other columns that'd fallen over. Otherwise, the Temple of the Mighty Shepherd was a lot of loose stones. Cashel'd seen enough temples by now that he could guess at what it might've looked like, but that was just guessing.

  Tenoctris sat cross-legged way down at the other end, where the statue would've been in the days there was a statue. Cashel was uncomfortable about them being so far apart in case something happened, nearly two tens of double-paces as he judged. She'd said it'd be all right, though, and that having him close might be a problem because he was so solid.

  Cashel didn't understand what she meant by solid—sure he was, but she was sitting on a slab of stone. There were lots of things he didn't understand, though; he'd do what Tenoctris said. If more of the Last popped out of the ground the way they'd come from the pond the night before, well, he'd see how quick he could get to her. When he had to, he moved faster than people generally expected.

  He held the quarterstaff crossways on his thighs as he polished it, smiling softly. He and the staff had surprised people, yes they had. They'd surprised people and things that weren't people at all.

  Sparks of wizardlight sizzled blue above Tenoctris, then vanished. Cashel watched intently for a moment, but it'd happened before and not meant anything. At each pop and crackle the tree frogs fell silent, but they were starting up again as usual.

  Cashel listened to the frogs and the night birds, and he eyed the heavens. Once already tonight a shrew had perched on his foot and chittered as it ate a beetle; the wings and then bits of the beetle's shell had tickled his bare skin before the shrew'd scurried off into the night to find something else to kill. Shrews were bloody little fellows, for all that they weren't much longer than a man's finger.

  Tenoctris mumbled, or maybe somebody else spoke near where she was. Nobody Cashel could see, anyway. The old wizard's eyes were closed. She wore a calm smile, but Cashel'd seen her smile when she thought Evil was going to overwhelm her and everybody she cared about. Folks who thought courage had something to do with being willing to hit other people needed to spend a little time around Tenoctris.

  There were wispy clouds in the high sky, but mostly the stars shone clear. A shepherd spends a lot of time looking at the stars while other people sleep. They're his clock as well as his companion: they keep better time than folk in the palace get from the clepsydra dripping water and a trumpeter blowing the hour when a cup filled and turned over.

  The constellations were pretty much what he was used to. The Seven Plow Oxen were strung out a little, and a middling reddish star was in the place of the blue one in the head of the Farrier's Hammer; nothing more major than those things.

  Except in the south, where the new white star was so much brighter than anything but the moon. Cashel looked over his shoulder at it, then looked back. He figured that star was part of the problem, but it wasn't for him to worry about till somebody told him it was.

  A cardinal started singing merrily, though what it was doing up so late was more than Cashel could guess. It'd been dark for hours; Duzi, it'd been dark by the time Tenoctris stopped the gig here on the eastern outskirts of Valles.

  Of what Valles was today, anyhow. Cashel was pretty sure that when he'd been driven through this part of the city before the Change, it'd been solid with many-story tenements.

  Cashel didn't miss the buildings—they were dovecotes for people; he couldn't imagine how folks were willing to live like that—but he sort of wondered what'd happened to those who'd been in them. He hoped they were all back in their own time, as happy as anybody could be in tenements.

  It was probably good there weren't as many people around as he'd expected, partly because wizardry bothered folks. What Tenoctris was doing now seemed a lot like wizardry, even if she wanted to call it dreaming or meditation or whatever. The sparkles and the sounds showed that.

  The other reason—and probably the bigger one—was that this way folks didn't bother her. There was no way Cashel could've kept everybody away from Tenoctris if they'd been in the middle of buildings full of people, especially since he had to stay a distance back from her himself. Sure, most folks were scared of a wizard, but there'd always be a few, kids especially, who weren't or were more curious than scared.

  A girl stepped into the temple from the front. She looked at Cashel when she passed, though she didn't say anything or even look interested. She was heading toward Tenoctris.

  Isn't that just what you get when you tell yourself things are going fine! Cashel thought as he scrambled to his feet. "Ma'am?" he said. "I wish you wouldn't go any closer to my friend. She's busy with, well, a thing that she's got to think about really hard."

  The girl stopped in her tracks and turned to stare. She was older than he'd thought, but still not very old; sixteen, maybe, was all. She had flowing dark hair that spread like a cape over the thin shift that seemed to be all she was wearing.

  "You can see me?" she said. Her voice was as thin and high as the trilling of chorus frogs.

  "Yes, ma'am," Cashel said. She had very fine bones; that and the way her legs moved made him think of a bird. "I know I'm not from around here, but I'd really be grateful if you didn't talk to Teno
ctris till she's done."

  If the girl didn't listen to him when he was being polite, he guessed he'd hold her. It wasn't something he wanted to do, grab a stranger and make her do something because he was stronger, but Tenoctris was depending on him.

  The girl just stared. Had he done something wrong? "Ah, my name's Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "I'm just here with my friend Tenoctris, Lady Tenoctris, that is. I carry things for her."

  "You see me!" the girl cried. She touched her hands to her face, covering her open mouth. "It's been . . . why, nobody's ever been able to see me! Not since the flood."

  "Ah, flood, ma'am?" Cashel said. "I'm not from Ornifal; I mean, I'm from Haft. I hadn't heard about a flood here, I guess."

  "No, the Flood," the girl said. "When the waters covered everything and everyone died."

  Her tongue touched her lips; Cashel couldn't begin to read her expression. "I died then, but I didn't go away like the rest of them. I've stayed here for ever so long. I don't know why."