Godess of the Ice Realm loti-5 Read online

  Ilna smiled at an idle thought. She gave her completed patterns to oarsmen and soldiers, common people. She'd been around the rich and powerful enough in recent days to know that they had problems also, but somebody else could worry about them. Ilna would take care of her own first.

  She'd always had a talent for fabrics. As a young girl she'd woven so skillfully that the other women in the borough surrounding Barca's Hamlet brought Ilna the thread they'd spun and instead of weaving themselves took a share of the profits from the cloth she finished. That as much as her brother's early strength explained how two orphans had survived in a community which, while not unkind and fairly prosperous as peasant villages went, had no surplus for useless mouths in a hard winter.

  Ilna's talent was natural or at least passed for it, but when Ilna left Barca's Hamlet she'd taken a wrong turning that had led her to Hell. She'd met what looked like a tree there. The skills the tree had taught her gave Ilna the power to let or hinder souls, to change a heart or steal a life. She'd used her new abilities for what she thought at the time were her own ends but which she knew now were the purposes of Evil alone.

  While Evil ruled her, Ilna had done things that she couldn't forgive and which couldn't be put right. She knew that she'd never be able to make amends for the evil she'd done casually, callously, if she spent the remainder of her life trying.

  So be it. Ilna would try anyway, in small ways, in all the ways that she could. Eventually she'd die with her job undone. She assumed death would end her responsibilities. If it didn't, well, she'd deal with what came then.

  Chalcus sauntered back from where he'd been talking to the captain. His stride anticipated the deck's motion with the same unconscious ease that Ilna's fingers demonstrated when weaving. TheFlying Fish was short, narrow, and relatively high. She carried fifteen oarsmen in the upper tier on either side with ten more below them in the center where the hull was wide enough-barely-for them to work. Chalcus said the design made the patrol vessel nimble and fairly fast, but she wobbled like a slowing top.

  "There's a shipload of Blood Eagles gone ahead to make sure things are safe for Master Garric," Chalcus said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the trireme which was already driving through the harbor entrance. "Not that the lad showed much need to be protected the timesI've seen him with a sword in his hand."

  Ilna wasn't a seaman, but she could judge patterns like few other people: the men on the trireme's flashing oars were strong and willing, but their timing wasn't as smooth as that of other vessels in the fleet. The bodyguards were picked men, but they weren't pickedoars men.

  She smiled again, recognizing a familiar truth. Every task has its special skills, rowing and weaving no less than the sweep of words that poets use, or that wizards speak for other purposes.

  Merota took Chalcus' left hand in hers and began to sing a her clear soprano, "Lord Lovel he stood by his ship so fine, a-rigging her snow-white sails…"

  The sailor himself had taught Merota the ballad along with many others. For a wonder this one wasn't as bawdy as those the child usually chose to sing in public. Perhaps she didn't think any of the folk aboard theFlying Fish would care; except for Mistress Kaline, perhaps, but as sick as the governess looked, probably not even her.

  At another time Chalcus would have joined in with the child, singing about the nobleman who came back from a long voyage just in time for his true love's funeral, but the admiral's trumpeter sounded another signal. "Chalcus!" Lord Rhamis called, trotting up the deck toward them. "What do they want us to do?"

  Chalcus slipped his hand from Merota's, tousled her hair, and gave Ilna a quick nod of regret before turning back to the dithering captain. Chalcus was determined that the ship he'd brought Ilna and Merota aboard should proceed smoothly, or at any rate without needless embarrassment. It was a responsibility he'd accepted without having sought it, much as Garric was ruling a kingdom though Ilna was sure that he'd have been happier helping his father run a village inn and reading the verses of Old Kingdom poets in his free time.

  Garric's big ship began to draw ahead of the other vessels. Prince Garric of Haft would enter the harbor in solitary state, with the rest of his mighty fleet following at a respectful distance.

  Ilna's fingers wove twine. She knew that Merota was speaking, but for the moment she didn't have attention to spare for the child.

  Being a prince was a great burden, she was sure. Ilna didn't care about 'the Isles' as a thing in itself; but she cared about people because it was her duty to care about people, and she knew that the people of the Isles were far better off with Garric ruling the kingdom than if he hadn't been.

  A prince deserved a wife worthy of him; a well-born, well-educated, beautiful woman like Liane bos-Benliman. It was far better for everyone that Garric should marry Liane than that he throw himself away on a peasant girl who couldn't write her own name; even if the peasant happened to have a talent for weaving.

  "Ilna?" called a child's voice from far away. "Please Ilna, what's wrong?"

  And Ilna's fingers knotted a pattern that would bring warmth and calm to the man she offered it to.

  ***

  "It's more like standing on the seawall at Barca's Hamlet than it's like being in a boat," Sharina said, looking down at the sea almost a dozen feet below the level of the deck on which she stood to the left of Cashel and Tenoctris. Foam boiled back as theShepherd 's bronze ram dipped and rose minusculely at the thrust of the oars. The water was gray today; all Sharina could see in it was an occasional bit of weed churned up as the quinquereme's huge weight slid past.

  "We're moving," said Cashel simply. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. I don't mind, but it's not like being on solid ground."

  Sharina laughed. "Cashel," she said, "so long as you're around, everything seems solid."

  She hugged herself to him, a great, warm boulder. He didn't respond-they were in public, after all-but he smiled as he continued to watch the approaching shore. The great stone moles which extended Carcosa's fine natural harbor had survived the thousand years of neglect following the collapse of the Old Kingdom. One of the lighthouses which originally framed the entrance remained also, streaming a long red-on-white pennon to welcome the fleet, but the other had fallen into a pile of rubble.

  The lighthouses had been built in the form of hollow statues: one of the Lady wearing the crescent tiara of the moon, the other of the Shepherd holding the sun disk. Celondre had written a poem when the lighthouses were dedicated, likening them to the children of King Carlon, the hope of the Kingdom's future.

  Sharina's arm was still around Cashel's waist. She felt it tighten involuntarily, drawing her to Cashel's solidity in an inconstant world. She'd first read Celondre's verse as a child in Barca's Hamlet where she and Garric were tutored by their father Reise. The twin statues, decorated with gold-washed bronze, had seemed the most wondrous objects in the world, and the kingdom when Celondre lived and wrote was the next thing to paradise. She'd never dreamed that some day she'd see the statues herself.

  But these weren't the shining triumphs of a child's imagination. One had fallen and time had so worn the other that Sharina couldn't be sure which deity it was meant to represent. The twin children Celondre praised in the same lyric had both died within a year: the boy had drowned on a sea voyage, while the girl was carried off by a fever. Carlon had died old and bitter, withdrawn from the world and his duties to the kingdom; and a generation later, when the forces which turned the cosmos rose to their thousand-year peak, the Golden Age had fallen in mud and slaughter.

  And those forces were rising again…

  "Is anything wrong, Sharina?" Cashel asked. He'd felt her tremble, so he shifted his quarterstaff to his right hand in order to put his left around her. His strength was more reassuring than stone walls or a sheet of iron.

  "No, nothing that we can't take care of," she said, sorry to have caused the big man to worry. "I was just thinking about a poem Celondre wrote a thousand
years ago."

  Cashel nodded. Sharina knew that he wouldn't understand what she meant, but now he knew that it wasn't anything he needed to be concerned about. If it was about books, then there were plenty of other people around to take care of it. "Well," he said, "that's all right, then."

  In Barca's Hamlet, few people could read or write well. Reise came from Valles on Ornifal, the royal capital, and had been unusually well-educated even there. He and the children he'd taught were unique exceptions. Cashel and Ilna were almost completely illiterate-able to spell out their own names, and that with difficulty. As best Sharina could judge, Cashel regarded books much as he did the depths of the sea: they were vast, hidden reservoirs of the strange and wonderful.

  Tenoctris glanced at Sharina, leaning over the bow railing to see past Cashel's bulk. The old woman raised an eyebrow in friendly question at the concern she'd heard in Sharina's voice.

  "Celondre wrote a poem about the lighthouses," Sharina explained, embarrassed to have brought the matter up. "And now they're, well…" She waved her hand at the timeworn figures.

  Tenoctris nodded, seeming to understand more than the younger woman had actually said. "I never visited Carcosa in my own day," she said. "It must have been marvelous. But what I think is important, dear, is the direction of things. A thousand years ago Carcosa and the kingdom were greater than either is now, but they were on the verge of ruin. Today we're rebuilding. It'll be a long time before we-"

  She gave a quick, flashing grin.

  "-before your children's children will have built a city as great as Carcosa was when Carus reigned, but we're going in the right direction."

  So far we've been going in the right direction, Sharina thought, because that was the whole of her fear. But she didn't say that aloud, because as soon as the words flashed into her mind she saw how silly she was being. So far was all you could say about anything, ever. Life was temporary; sun and rain and the seasons came and went and returned. Sharina's task was to help Garric and all the other people on the side of peace and order to succeed for as long as she lived.

  Wizards like Tenoctris directed onto human affairs the forces which turned the very cosmos and which waxed and waned on a thousand year cycle. Their peaks were neither good nor evil in themselves, but they gave greater scope to wizards who attempted evil-and greater effect to the mistakes of wizards whose pride was greater than their knowledge.

  As if responding to Sharina's thought, Tenoctris smiled wryly and said, "If all we had to worry about were a handful of conscious evildoers, life would be much simpler than it is in the present world of fools, wouldn't it? Though-" she frowned at her own comment "-I'm being needlessly unkind."

  Tenoctris was the first to admit that she wasn't a powerful wizard, even now when powers were far greater than they'd been for a millennium. But she didn't make mistakes; and so far as Sharina was concerned, Tenoctris had every right to condemn the powerful fools whose blundering imperiled the kingdom.

  A sailor-a petty officer wearing a broad leather belt over his kilt instead of a rope tie like the common seamen-ran out on the jib, shading his eyes with a hand as he peered into the sea ahead of them. He rode the ship's dips and risings with the practiced grace of a courtier making gestures in accordance with palace etiquette. He must have seen-or not seen-what he expected, because he turned and bellowed sternward, "Aye, we're clear, Master Lobon!"

  "Such a lot of people," Cashel said, shaking his head in pleased amazement as his eyes swept the moles. "I never knew there were so many people in all the world."

  The wealthy nobles of Carcosa would be on the quay to greet Prince Garric formally, but the common people had come out also. The nobles' retainers would keep them away from the quay, but by standing on the long, curving arms which enclosed the harbor they got an earlier view of the visitors. There were thousands of them-many thousands. Even as a shade of its former self, Carcosa remained a great city.

  "Waiting to see us," Cashel marveled aloud. He grinned broadly. "Well, waiting to see Prince Garric. And that's just as amazing a thing as, well, all the rest."

  He gestured clumsily with the arm that encircled Sharina, indicating the pomp and glitter of the royal fleet: flags and bunting, soldiers in gleaming armor; a hundred bronze rams glinting across the western horizon as the ships approached the harbor, and the sea running in jeweled droplets from the blades of thousands of feathering oars. The commander of theShepherd 's Blood Eagles was trying to array them, though the deck even of a quinquereme was so narrow that only two could stand abreast. Sailors hopped over the ventilator gratings above the oarsmen, cursing the soldiers but going on about their tasks regardless.

  The spectators started to cheer while the fleet was still a quarter mile from the mole. The sound was faint at first, from only a few throats and attenuated by distance; but it built, and soon the whole crowd was cheering. Scarves and sashes waved, improvised flags to greet the prince.

  "I wasn't sure they'd be glad to see us," Cashel said. "An army coming, after all; an army from Ornifal."

  "They're cheering for Prince Garric ofHaft," Sharina reminded him. "The people who've held power in Carcosa, Count Lascarg and his cronies, may not be happy to see us, but the common people are proud that a man from Haft rules the kingdom for the first time in a thousand years."

  "I guess the count'll keep his mouth shut if he has a problem," Cashel said. He spoke with a hint of quiet anticipation. Cashel was for the most part a gentle man; Sharina didn't remember him ever having started a fight. But he'd never quit one either while there was an opponent left who wanted to keep going.

  "Yes," said Sharina, thrilled to be reminded of the other side of her fiance, the part that was never directed at her. "I think he'll bevery quiet."

  She cleared her throat, then added, "And I think that the people cheering know that even if Garric were a tyrant, they're better off ruled by a bully who's in Valles most of the time than they are with the gang right in their midst."

  "Prince Garric…," called the crowd on the mole. They were shouting in unison now so that Sharina could make out their words. "Prince Garric…"

  "Garric's not a bully," Cashel said, his voice a soft rumble. His muscles had stiffened, and his thick hickory quarterstaff quivered slightly in his right hand. "And if the people running Carcosaare bullies, well, so much the worse for them now."

  Sharina felt a surge of pride: in her brother, in her friends, and in the Kingdom of the Isles that they and she were bringing back to life, so that there would be peace and justice for people like the ones cheering them on; peace and justice for the first time in a thousand years.

  No matter what wizards or usurpers tried to do to stop them!

  "Prince Garric of Haft!" the crowd called.

  ***

  Cashel stood by the forecastle rail, careful not to rest his weight on it. The hoardings were canvas over a wicker backing, and salt had dried the wood of the frame timbers, leaving long splits. The structure was meant to keep head seas from combing over the prow, not to support the weight of a man Cashel's size.

  Cashel could no more swim than he could fly. If he fell overboard he'd try to grab an oar as the ship drove past him, but he'd just as soon not put the question to the test.

  For display when they entered Carcosa, the fighting tower was set up in the bow. Its walls were canvas-covered wicker -they were painted to look like stone-but the cross-braced frame was of timbers as sturdy as any to be found on the ship. It had to be to take the recoil of the balista mounted on top.

  Today the weapon wasn't cocked, of course. Instead of serviceable iron the head of the bolt in the weapon's trough was of brass polished to look like gold. The four crewmen wore plumes on their helmets and dangled silver gorgets across their linen corselets. The padded linen gave them some protection but was flexible enough they could crank the windlass to draw back the balista's arms.

  Sharina seemed cheerful again. Her hand was on Cashel's left shoulder as she stood in companionabl
e silence, which suited him fine. Until he'd left Barca's Hamlet less than a year ago, he'd spent more time with sheep than with humans. Since then he'd learned that many folks thought that unless people were talking there was something the matter. For the life of him, Cashel couldn't understand that.

  Cashel was pretty much pleased with the world and with his part in it. That was mostly the case with him. He supposed that was because he didn't have big problems like Garric, who had to keep the kingdom from crashing into ruin and taking everybody's lives and hopes with it.

  All Cashel needed to do were simple things like keeping safe whatever he'd been told to take care of. Once that'd meant sheep; now as apt as not it was a person, and that was all right too. He squeezed Sharina gently with his left hand, just reassuring himself that she really was there.

  The only trouble that Cashel'd ever found too big for him was when he'd fallen in love with Sharina os-Kenset. She was beautiful, a scholar like her brother, and she'd inherit half the inn-making her by the standards of the borough a wealthy woman. Cashel had known that she was far too good for him.

  And so she was: he remained sure of that, as sure as he was that she loved him anyway. Cashel couldn't imagine why, but when he woke every morning he thanked the Shepherd for granting him a gift greater than any he would have dared to ask.

  Sharina leaned forward slightly, lost in her own reverie; the railing creaked. Wicker alone would be strong enough to support her weight-though tall, wasn't a blocky mass like Cashel-but his grip tightened reflexively. She patted his hand reassuringly and eased back to humor him.

  Thought of the way salt dried wood made Cashel glance at his quarterstaff, a wrist-thick shaft of hickory, seven feet long and as straight as a sunbeam. He'd made the staff himself as a boy, taking one perfect limb as his payment for felling the tree for a neighbor. He'd shaved and polished the wood, and in the years since he'd continued to wipe it down with wads of raw, lanolin-rich wool whenever he had the opportunity. The staff had taken hard knocks and given harder ones; but today its surface remained as ripplingly smooth as a wheel-turned jug.