Out of the waters bote-2 Read online

  Serdain was motionless also, but the stone in his hands spat light which occasionally seemed to coat the stern. It faded from Hedia's sight as it wicked forward along the deck. She felt the hair on the backs of her arms rise for just an instant.

  She grimaced. Alphena would understand-or at least experience-whatever was going on to make the ship move. The girl had a natural talent for magic, according to Anna.

  To Hedia it was all a blank, like the literature Varus got excited about or the mathematics that the engineer planning an irrigation tunnel at her first husband's estate in Calabria tried to interest her in. She smiled, remembering the engineer; she hadn't thought of him in years.

  Hedia had talents of her own. She wouldn't trade them for magic or literature or mathematics or anything in the world… nor, she was sure, would any of the men she'd gotten to know want her to trade.

  The sails were carried on a pair of booms butted to opposite sides of the mast. Hedia hadn't paid much attention to ships, but that was unusual enough to have caught her eye when she first saw the ships flying above the city of the vision. There was a double thump above her and a gust of wind. She twisted-her body was free-and looked upward. The sails were beating like a bird's wings, just as she had seen them in the vision.

  The ship hopped once and a second time on the ground, then lifted from the glade. The "wings" weren't big enough relative to the hull to do that, at least not as slowly as they were flapping.

  But the ship is flying, she realized, looking over the side. There's no question about that.

  Hedia itched. She was extremely hungry, and she would have liked something to drink. Thirst during the night had caused her to slurp water from the up-turned leaves of a plant rooted in the trunk of a great tree, but there hadn't been much even of that.

  She wasn't going to beg, though; not yet. And if Serdain's apparent concentration was real-as it may well have been, if he was responsible for the ship flying-he might not have been able to respond to any request she made anyway.

  She rubbed the deck with her big toe. It appeared to be ordinary wood, though with an oily slickness. Its broad grain showed sharp contrast between the white softer wood and the almost black divisions.

  Does the kind of wood help the ship fly?

  Hedia quirked a bitter smile. That question didn't matter in the least; except that it saved her from thinking about the questions that did matter.

  How can I escape? How can I get back to Carce even if I do escape? Am I going to spend eternity being tortured in the Underworld alongside Calpurnius Latus…?

  She had no answers to those questions either, of course. Still, her worst enemies-and there was a long list of them, for one reason or another-had never claimed Hedia was a coward. She would focus on escaping, and after that on return to Carce.

  What happened after she died could take care of itself. As no doubt it would.

  When she had been stumbling among the lightless tree trunks, Hedia had thought of the forest as degrees of blackness and greens so dark as to be black themselves. Looking down on the same expanse, she was delighted by the amount of color.

  Several of the giants emerging from the canopy were sending up spikes covered with bright yellow flowers. Butterflies with blue, transparent wings flitted among them like chips of brilliant glass.

  The second ship was paralleling theirs about fifty feet to the side. A tiny monkey looked up at them and flung itself to cover deeper in the foliage. The ships were so quiet that Hedia could clearly hear its cheep! of alarm.

  They were flying at about the speed of a trotting horse-faster than Hedia had ever been carried on a ship, though within the capacity-for a brief dash-of the triremes she had seen exercising in the sea off Misenum. Under other circumstances, this could be a pleasant, mildly exciting interlude.

  She giggled, causing the nearer servants to look at her with concern. It would be interesting to see what Serdain looked like stripped to the buff. He can't be more than forty, and he moves well despite that clumsy armor.

  They passed within a long bowshot of crystal buildings surrounded by ordinary huts which spilled down the hill from them. People, dressed and looking like Serdain's human servants, were at their occupations in the terraced yards between the ordinary dwellings. Most of them didn't bother to look up at the ships.

  One of the crystal structures was a squat dome. The other, attached to it, was a tall cylinder whose thin walls fully displayed the contents. A sloping ramp wound from the bottom to the top of the interior. In layered beds grew grains, vegetables and fruit, often of types which Hedia had never seen before.

  She sniffed. Of course, to her food was something that appeared on serving tables, frequently in forms so modified that a farm manager wouldn't be able to determine the original.

  Hedia turned to look off the right side of the ship; to starboard, seamen called it, though she had never understood why. She saw glints on top of a hill in the distance. Those must be the ruins where I escaped.

  "What are those?" she said to Serdain in a crisp voice, pointing as much to emphasize her question as to indicate the shattered crystal.

  The Minos seemed oblivious of all except the pebble in his hands. That continued to spit sparks like amber rubbed with silk.

  As I expected, Hedia thought. She gestured to the servants along the railing. The ship was so narrow that if she had bent over and stretched out a hand, she could have touched several of them on the shoulder.

  "You!" she said. "Why are those buildings broken that way? What happened there?"

  The servants didn't move away-perhaps they couldn't without making the ship wobble in a dangerous fashion-but they lowered their eyes. One began singing a counting song as if to block out Hedia's voice.

  "Do you want me to turn you all into toads?" Hedia said on a rising note. She was afraid, and she let that come out as anger in her voice. "Is that what you want? Is it?"

  She straightened and pointed her right arm toward a hunter slightly astern of where she was fastened; her index and middle fingers were extended. He turned his head, but he couldn't help seeing the threat in the corner of his eyes.

  I'm going to look like a complete fool if he calls my bluff.

  "It's Procron's keep!" the servant blurted. Fear made his wretched dialect almost unintelligible, but at least he was trying. "Don't turn me into a toad. Don't turn me into a toad."

  The rest of what he was trying to say was lost when he began to blubber. Hedia thought she could guess the words easily enough, though. She lowered her arm.

  "It's not Procron's keep," said the hunter just ahead of Hedia's target. "It's Lann's, that Procron destroyed before the Council drove Procron out. Procron was a mile farther west."

  He cleared his throat and risked looking directly at Hedia; from the scars on his chest and right shoulder, he must have tangled with a lizard like the one that she saw just before she was recaptured. The hunter added, "I was in the Council fleet."

  I wonder what happened to the ape that saved me? Hedia thought. Aloud she said to the hunter, "Thank you, my good man."

  That tiny bit of information raised her spirits enormously. The Minoi fought one another… and she already knew that at least some of the Minoi were male. She smiled kittenishly at Serdain, though he was too lost in his magic to notice her; for the moment.

  There would be other times and other male Minoi. Hedia was no longer without resources.

  They slanted out over water-one of the bands of water which separated the ring islands she had seen as she approached with the Servitors who had snatched her from her bed. That certainly provided Saxa with an unexpected thrill, she thought. She snorted a laugh which she throttled with her hand. I do hope Saxa is all right.

  Mats of vegetation floated in the broad lagoon. At first she took them for islands, but they drifted in the sluggish current. Flowers rose on long stalks, following the sun; there were animals, too, popping up and vanishing to leave only green undulations behind.

 
And there were fish as well. Anyway, something was swimming so deeply under the water that Hedia saw only a huge shadow.

  Ahead was the city of the vision in the theater, a jewel glittering against the dark green hills surrounding it. A dozen ships circled lazily over the crystal towers, their sails beating slowly; many similar ships bobbed in the lagoon, tied up at the seawall below the city.

  The ships weren't in the wide plaza facing the temple, because that was full of spectators: many thousands of people, including as many as a hundred of the armored Minoi. Most of them had their helmets off. With each Minos was a band of retainers in distinct livery. The dyes were vivid enough to bring a fortune in Carce to anyone who was able to duplicate them.

  Serdain's ship sank toward the sea front; the ship that had been escorting it joined those circling above the city. The hunters murmured in animation to one another, though Hedia couldn't catch words.

  She drew herself up with as much dignity as circumstances allowed. More than when they caught me in the forest, she thought. I will get out of this and return home. I will!

  Hedia had half-expected cheers from the crowd as the ship they waited for approached. Instead, she heard frightened whispers magnified many thousands of times.

  She felt a touch of disquiet. They didn't bring me here for a human sacrifice, did they? The Gauls and Scythians did that, and Varus had told her that as recently as the war with Hannibal, the Senate of Carce had made human sacrifices.

  I'll deal with the situation as it develops. And if some priest comes toward me with a golden sickle, I'll hope that my hands are still free.

  The ship dropped below the seawall to settle into the lagoon. Hedia looked up. All she could see of the city was the top of the high temple. The ball gleaming there was the one she had last seen while shopping in Carce, on top of the obelisk of Psammeticus.

  ***

  Rather than using a brazier on a tripod, Anna had built a small fire on the ancient well curb at the side of the back garden. She fed it with splinters of maple wood and regularly dropped pinches of different powders onto the flames. Occasionally it spat sparks, and once Alphena had seen a bright glow in the shape of a cat form around the fire.

  Alphena wore heavy sandals, a short tunic, and a belt from which hung the sword she had battled demons with. She was nervous and tired and occasionally dizzy, though she thought the dizziness was just from standing upright and not moving from the spot for so long.

  Anna chanted in Oscan. The rhythms were more or less the same as those of Latin, but Alphena could only catch the occasional word. She smiled slightly: she was guessing about even those words. Maybe it wasn't Oscan, maybe it was all gibberish and Anna was playing a joke on her.

  Alphena pressed her lower lip between her teeth. Part of her hoped that nothing was going to happen, except that afterward she would feel like a fool.

  Heavy wagons rumbled along the Argiletum all night, their iron-shod wheels smothering other sounds. Even Anna's cracked voice only flecked that dull background, like bubbles on the sea after a storm. Somewhere a man shouted curses, repeating himself and slipping into a singsong pattern before finally falling silent again.

  Alphena dried her right palm on her tunic, then gripped the sword again. She had thought of wearing armor and carrying a shield, but the weight would be a useless burden under most circumstances. She was going to find her mother, not to stand in ranks and battle Germans! Though it might be worse than Germans who were holding Hedia.

  At least if demons started rising from the ground, she wouldn't feel so useless. I don't want to just wait!

  Anna broke off her chant and rocked back on her seat, sighing. Instead of using a bench or having a stool brought out, she sat on a large upended mixing bowl from the kitchen. It wouldn't have been Alphena's choice, but-she grinned-it hadn't been her choosing.

  "Is it time, mistress?" Alphena said, trying very hard to keep the quaver out of her voice. I'll be fine when I have something to do.

  "It is not," the older woman said. Her tone made Alphena's breath draw in.

  Anna must have shocked herself to hear also. She grimaced, pausing with a miniature billet of maple wood in her hand, and looked up at Alphena; she would probably have risen if her knees had been up to it.

  "I misspoke myself, your ladyship," she said. "I'm tired to the marrow and the job isn't over yet. I'm tired and I'm frightened, may Venus protect me."

  "You have nothing to apologize for, Anna," Alphena said. That was a lie, but it should have been the truth. Anna was a freewoman doing a favor at great personal risk. Lady Alphena should have been ready to accept a certain lack of deference as a result of strain. "And I'm still your friend, not some 'ladyship', I hope."

  Anna sighed again and brought a skin of wine out from under her tunic. "I'm still sorry, dear," she said as she undid the lace clamping the wooden plug into the throat. "I'm old enough that I ought to be able to do better. And it's not like I've never done this before, though not often since I met Pulto."

  She took a deep draft of wine. Lowering the skin, she added, "And maybe not quite this far into the shadows as this time. Except for, you know, for your mother."

  Sending mother into the Underworld in order to save me. Alphena took a deep breath, feeling better. She wasn't taking any risk as great as what Hedia had taken for her.

  "Oh, Venus forsake me, where's my manners?" Anna said. She leaned toward Alphena, holding out the wineskin. "Here, girl, I wasn't thinking. Truly, I been that dry with saying the invocation over till I felt it start to take."

  Alphena took the wine. She knew her face stiffened momentarily, but thank Mercury! it seemed that Anna had missed the reaction. Raising the skin quickly to hide her expression, she took a reasonable drink and sluiced it around her mouth.

  The wine was as warm as she expected. Goodness knew where the grapes had been grown, but the vintage had been mixed with not only resin but also sea water-the salty tang was noticeable even through the tar flavor-to stabilize it for travel.

  Resin and the dash of sea water were the only things it had been cut with. It seemed much stronger than the unmixed vintages which Alphena had occasionally drunk with her mother.

  She lowered the wineskin, then returned it to Anna. The drink certainly had cured her dry mouth. Numbed it, she shouldn't wonder.

  "We're waiting for the moon now, child," Anna mused. She stroked the trussed rooster; it was part of the paraphernalia that messengers had brought when she started her preparations. "We can't hasten the moon."

  The rooster tried to peck her. Its legs, wings, and beak were bound with rye straw, but it had been squirming like a hooked fish ever since Anna began chanting.

  Six birds had arrived in response to Anna's summons-all cocks, and all white or mostly white. Alphena wasn't sure how Anna had picked the one she did, but it wasn't pleased by the honor.

  The other five had gone to the cooks, so it didn't matter. It probably didn't matter. For an instant, Alphena was uncomfortably aware that being cooked and eaten wasn't necessarily the worst thing that could result from this night's business.

  Anna took another drink-a very long one-from the skin, then looked about the garden. The moon was well up, but it was still short of mid-sky; Anna hadn't said, but Alphena supposed that was what she was waiting for now.

  The witch laughed. "No gawkers, tonight. I thought somebody might be up on the roof-"

  She gestured toward the house proper. Somebody standing on the parapet of the second floor could look down onto the back of this garden, though he wouldn't be able to see more than possibly the top of Alphena's head. Anna was more visible, even though she was sitting down.

  "-watching."

  She spat into a rose bed. "They're welcome to, if they like. Anybody who wants to try this theirself has my blessing."

  Anna turned her head quickly. Alphena followed her eyes and caught a glimpse of a female figure. It faded like fog into the peach tree.

  "Would ye like a closer loo
k at this, girlie?" Anna snarled at the tree. "If not, then ye'd better keep your pointy little nose out of my way!"

  The garden was as still as street noise allowed it to be; the peach nymph didn't reappear. Anna grasped the rooster by its legs. She hunched, holding the bird out at arm's length, and rocked to her feet.

  "It's time if we're going to do it," she said with a lopsided smile. A small knife had appeared in her right hand.

  "Yes, of course," Alphena said. She was no longer gripping the sword hilt. Patting her hands together, she was pleased to notice that her palms were dry. "What would you like me to do?"

  "You just stand there, dearie," Anna said with a grim chuckle. "If this goes well, I'll summon something to take you to wherever her ladyship is. But girl?"

  She paused until Alphena looked up and met her eyes.

  "I can't do anything about it after you leave here," Anna said. "There's dangers, maybe worse ones than I know. And what I know is bad enough. That's for you alone to deal with, and I'm sorry to say that."

  "Yes, of course," Alphena said brusquely. "I don't expect others to fight my battles, mistress."

  Anna unexpectedly chuckled. "Spoken like a true officer," she said. "Line troopers have better sense."

  Before Alphena could respond-she had no idea of how to respond to that-Anna resumed chanting. Without changing the rhythm of the incantation, she brought her hands together and slit the rooster's throat. The bird continued to thrash as its blood gurgled into the glazed bowl.

  Drops splashed the animals molded onto the bowl's rim. It seemed to Alphena that a mist was starting to form.

  David Drake

  Out of the Waters-ARC

  CHAPTER 12

  Anna wiped her knife on the cock's feathers, then flung its drained body to the ground. Her voice had become more resonant. Alphena couldn't be sure, but she thought the words of the incantation were the same as those she had heard earlier in the night.