Master of the Cauldron Read online

  But not all Volita's ruins were those of time and weather, though....

  "Records of the Collapse aren't good," Sharina said. It seemed odd to be explaining what had happened a thousand years ago to a person who'd been alive then, but Sharina knew from her own experience that the person who lives an event often doesn't know more than a tiny shard of it. "Of course. But there's an account written in the monastery on Bridge Island, the Healing Brethren of Lady Erd. Nobody knows how accurate it is."

  She cleared her throat and repeated, "Of course."

  "Yes," said Tenoctris. "I understand. But there is an account?"

  "Sandrakkan was attacked by pirates who came from the Inner Sea," Sharina said, not letting her tone carry any emotion. "There was much raiding then, after Carus and his fleet were overwhelmed. These pirates were led by a wizard."

  She was surprised at how difficult it was to go on. When she'd found the codex with the story in a temple library in Carcosa, it'd been interesting enough to struggle through despite the copyist's awkwardly back-slanted hand—but it'd been merely an anecdote. Perhaps it was slightly more important than otherwise because it took place in Erdin, where the Royal Fleet would be going next; but only slightly.

  What had seemed a scrap of history in an old book took on a disquieting immediacy here, staring at the ruins of Volita. All the more reason to go on, Sharina thought with a grin.

  "The Earl of Sandrakkan had a wizard also," she continued. "The monk doesn't mention the wizard's name, but he was apparently more learned than he was powerful."

  Sharina and Tenoctris exchanged broad smiles. Tenoctris was an exceptional scholar irrespective of the subject on which she focused. She could appreciate better than most a wizard of former time with greater learning than power.

  "He summoned a third wizard from a distant place," Sharina said.

  "Distant in time or space?" Tenoctris wondered aloud. "Though I don't suppose a monastic chronicler would know the difference."

  "He didn't," Sharina agreed. "'From a far country' was what he said. This third wizard met the pirates on Volita and raised great giants to battle them. At last the giants defeated the pirates and pent them under the earth. Erdin and the rest of Sandrakkan were saved, but everything on Volita was ruined. The island spat red and blue lightning for all the year following."

  Tenoctris got to her feet with studied ease, barely touching a hand to the deck as she straightened. She smiled at Sharina, sharing with her younger friend a triumph over the insistences of age. She looked over the railing at Volita.

  "Yes," she said, "I can imagine there were flashes of wizardlight that even those who aren't sensitive to the forces involved would notice. And I'm not surprised that the houses haven't been rebuilt even today."

  She nodded toward the ruins marching up and down the beach. The location should've remained desirable for the same reasons it had been during the Old Kingdom, but the only present signs of human activity were wandering sheep and the beehive hut that a shepherd had built from fallen debris.

  "It'll be uncomfortable staying on Volita," Tenoctris continued, "though it won't do us any harm. The soldiers will probably feel itchy, some of them more than others."

  Sharina watched the troops and sailors scrambling over the shore of the island. Groups were moving up the slope, spreading the way spilled liquid does through a piece of cloth.

  She turned back toward the wizard. "What about you, Tenoctris?" she asked sharply. "'Some more than others,' you said.The sensitive ones, don't you mean? Then you most of all."

  Tenoctris chuckled. "Oh, child, I know what's happening," she said. "For me it's no worse than being out in the rain; and the land needs rain, you know. But what if you didn't know what rain is?"

  With a sad expression she watched the busy men. Sharina pursed her lips, understanding now why this landing seemed a little different from those she'd experienced before. The shouts were harsher, angrier than they should have been at the end of a successful voyage. The crews and soldiers were already on edge; that would only get worse the longer they camped here.

  "Perhaps I should've said something sooner," Tenoctris went on. "I didn't realize it would be quite like this."

  "It wouldn't have changed Garric's plan," Sharina said, glancing sideways toward her brother among his aides and black-armored bodyguards. "He didn't want to land on Sandrakkan proper because there might be trouble between our soldiers and the Earl's. Would be trouble."

  There always was trouble: between soldiers and civilians, even when the soldiers were in permanent barracks at home, and between soldiers of different regiments even in the same army. Dropping an army of twenty thousand, armed and full of themselves and secretly frightened, onto an island which had fought them during the lifetime of many on both sides, meant the inevitable drunken insults and brawls over women were very likely to escalate into full-scale warfare.

  Sharina knew that a bloody war between the Royal Army—which was still the Ornifal army in the minds of many—and the army of any of the major islands was likely to doom the kingdom no matter who won that particular battle. King Carus had fought a score of usurpers and secessionists, winning every time. Even if wizardry hadn't destroyed him and his army, there'd still have been a final battle that Carus lost if only because there were no longer enough able-bodied men to stand beside him.

  The Old Kingdom had died with Carus. The New Kingdom would die just as surely with Garric if he started down the path of ruling by his swordarm.

  Sharina looked at her brother in silence, feeling love and pride.

  She also felt an embarrassing degree of relief. No matter how willing she was to help him for the kingdom's sake, the final responsibility was Garric's, not hers.

  * * *

  The Sandrakkan mainland was crowded with people, standing on the shore or already in the barges which would bring them across to Volita as soon as they'd gotten permission. Even a mile away they could see Prince Garric of Haft, Regent of the Kingdom, in his dazzling silvered breastplate and the silvered helmet from which flared wings of gilded bronze.

  Inside that splendid armor was Garric or-Reise, the peasant son of the innkeeper of Barca's Hamlet. There were many things Garric would rather've been doing than the job he had before him. They started with reading verse by the great Old Kingdom poet Celondre while he watched a flock of sheep on the hillside south of the hamlet, because that was a job he understood.

  "You understand being ruler as well as any man does, lad," said King Carus, the ancestor who'd shared Garric's mind ever since his father gave him Carus' coronation medal to hang around his neck on a thong. "Better than I ever did, as the Gods well know."

  Carus laughed, his presence unseen by others but to Garric as real as his own right hand. In life Carus had been a tall man with a ready smile and a swordsman's thick wrists. That was how he usually appeared to Garric as well, leaning on the rose-wound railing of a balcony in an indeterminate place. Carus' features and those of Garric, his descendant after a millennium, could have been those of the same man some decades apart in age.

  We don't know what history'll say about me after I'm dead, Garric said in his mind.

  "We know that if you don't continue to do better than I did," said Carus in what was for him an unusually crisp tone, "there won't be any more history."

  "That's Marshal Renold's standard, a crow displayed," said Liane, slitting her eyes as she peered toward the waiting barge with a cloth-of-gold canopy shading the passengers amidships. "If he's present, he'll be in charge of the negotiations. The Marshal traditionally commands the Earl's professional troops, and he leads the left wing in a battle."

  Garric followed the line of Liane's gaze. He could see the standard, a pole supporting a gilt bird with its wings spread. His eyes were as good as anybody in the borough's, but he couldn't have told it was a crow. Liane was probably guessing.

  But possibly not. It was never a good idea to underestimate Liane.

  Lady Liane bos-Benliman
was dark-haired, gently curved, and as obviously aristocratic as she was beautiful. Her father Benlo had been a successful merchant, widely traveled in the Isles and perhaps beyond.

  He'd been a wizard as well. Wizardry had cost him his honor, his life, and finally his soul.

  Liane had gained a fine education before her father's disgrace. She retained that, along with a powerful intelligence and Benlo's network of contacts throughout the known world. She'd made herself Garric's confidential secretary and his spymaster, carrying out both sets of duties with a skill he couldn't imagine anyone else equaling. That Liane loved him was to Garric a greater wonder than the fact he shared his mind with his ancient ancestor.

  "Is Renold a sensible man?" Garric asked. "Because if he is, he'll see immediately that my offer—the Kingdom's offer—is reasonable given the balance of forces. If he does, then this can be a basically pleasant meeting."

  "Reasonable or not," said Liane with a sniff, "your offer's the Earl's only chance of survival. Unfortunately from what I can gather Renold is very similar to his master, and Earl Wildulf is barely intelligent enough to pull his breeches on before his boots!"

  She cleared her throat, keeping her eyes toward the far shore, obviously embarrassed at her outburst. Liane had a personality flaw with some other smart people Garric knew: she became genuinely angry when she had to deal with folks who refused to demonstrate common sense.

  "She wouldn't do for a politician, lad," Carus commented from the back of Garric's mind. "But then, neither did I. She's not in charge, as unfortunately I was."

  "I think we'll be able to work matters out with the Earl in adequate fashion," Garric said, smiling toward Liane but speaking to his ancestor as well. "I don't doubt his pride, but he didn't rebel when we—"

  And by 'we', he meant the Royal Fleet and Army.

  "—had other things to occupy us during the past year. He and I will manage to agree."

  Carus laughed cheerfully, seeing the mass of fears and indecision that roiled in Garric's mind while he calmly predicted success. Garric smiled also, at himself. He'd said the politic thing, after all. That it was more likely than not true was in a way beside the point; and that the uncertain future terrified him had nothing to do with the matter at all.

  Ordinarily Garric expected to meet local dignitaries in their mansions or in public areas designed for the purpose. Negotiating among the ruins of Volita created some problems that Garric's staff had solved with impressive professionalism. A crew under the bosun of Admiral Zettin's flagship was raising a great marquee under which Garric and the Sandrakkan envoys could negotiate.

  The fleet was equipped strictly as a fighting force; it didn't carry tents for the common soldiers, let alone the trappings of luxury that some nobles thought were required even while on campaign. The marquee'd been stitched together from the mainsails of several triremes and trimmed with signal flags for color. The sailors—soldiers weren't used to working with spans of fabric so great—used the concave ruin of a domed building for a back wall and had supported the front of the canvas with spars. The work of raising it was almost complete.

  Garric turned to his aide, Lord Lerdain—a husky youth of fifteen, and said, "Lerdain, tell the signalers to summon the Sandrakkan delegation. By the time their barge gets here, we'll be ready to meet them."

  "Right!" said Lerdain, resplendent in gilded armor even gaudier than Garric's own. He stepped onto the port outrigger, then jumped straight to the beach—a youthfully boastful thing to do. Lerdain's helmet fell off, probably after banging his head a good one. He thrust it back in place and scrambled toward the flagship whose raised mainmast provided the fleet's signal station.

  Lerdain was the eldest son of the Count of Blaise. He was here at Garric's side in part as a pledge of his father's continued good behavior, but he'd made an excellent aide nonetheless. He had the arrogance of youth and the occasional pig-headedness of his class, but pride made him keen and he'd shown himself quite capable of thinking for himself.

  There was another benefit to having a ruler's son as an aide. Garric'd found it useful to send a messenger who had no hesitation in passing on the Prince's orders just as forcefully as the Prince himself would've done, no matter how lofty the person receiving those orders might be.

  Garric looked toward the shore of the mainland. Hundreds of barges lined it, ready to put out for Volita with provisions and recreation for the Royal Army as soon as Garric allowed them to. The Royal Army under Garric—as had been the case under Carus—carried silver to buy supplies locally so that it didn't have to proceed with a train of lumbering store ships.

  The river Erd drained central Sandrakkan, bringing produce from the northern mountains and the plains alike to Erdin, where an extensive system of canals distributed it without the heavy wagons whose iron-shod wheels clashed deafeningly through most cities. Canal and river boats weren't meant for the open sea, but in reasonable weather they were adequate for the narrow waters between Volita and Sandrakkan.

  "I should've given the traders come as well," Garric said, frowning at his oversight. There were too many things to keep track of. Many of those that weren't of life-or-death importance slipped through his mind, and he had the nagging fear that some that were critical were going to get past him also.

  "I'll take the message, your highness!" said the next-senior in the cluster of noble youths detailed as aides to the Prince. This boy was a cousin of Lord Royhas, the Chancellor and at present the head of government back in Valles. He was just as keen as Lerdain—and not a little jealous as well.

  "Stop if you will, Lord Knorrer," Liane said. Her voice was emotionless but it was far too loud to ignore.

  The youth, already poised to leap ten feet to the sand the way Lerdain had done, teetered wildly. Garric grabbed Knorrer's shoulder, steadying him until he could reach back to the railing.

  "I believe your highness was correct to let the delegates arrive before you allow the traders to cross," Liane continued, smoothly and in a much quieter voice. "The traders will race one another for the best market, and it's very possible Marshal Renold and his companions would be overset in the turmoil. At the very least, they'd find the situation demeaning."

  "Which would put them in a bad mood," Garric said, smiling at the polite way Liane had contradicted him in the language of agreement. "Or perhaps a worse one. Thank you, milady. The troops can wait for their bread and wine."

  And women, of course. Some of the barges were laden with what looked from a mile's distance like a sampling of court society. Closer to hand the finery would be less impressive, but it'd serve well enough for the purpose. It would've dazzled folk in Barca's Hamlet, for that matter; except for Ilna, whose taste was as subtle as that of a great lady of Valles.

  Garric glanced at those standing with him in the stern of The Shepherd of the Isles. He'd chosen to wait here till it was time to meet the Sandrakkan delegation, because the quinquereme's deck was a much better vantage point than the ground anywhere near the shore. The spine of Volita rose enough that not even the worst winter storms could send waves from the Inner Sea surging across the mansions on the western shore, but the only portion that could really be called high was the knob of basalt that stuck up like a raised thumb a quarter mile inland.

  Sharina was talking to Tenoctris, but she met Garric's glance with a surprisingly warm smile. They'd always gotten on well, better than most siblings, but for a moment Sharina's expression suggested motherly concern.

  Cashel stood just behind the two women; his face placid, his staff upright in his right hand. It was disconcerting to look from the granite knob in the middle distance to Cashel close at hand. The rock looked something like a hunched human being when you compared it to a man of equal solidity.

  Ilna raised her hands, stretching the cords between her fingers into a sunlit web. Garric laughed aloud to see the pattern. There was just something about the way the cords crossed... it made him sure there was a way through all the tangles that were part of a
prince's life no less than a peasant's.

  Crewmen dropped a ladder over the quinquereme's stern. It was roped to the pintle of the steering oar at the top; a husky sailor braced the bottom rung with his foot so that it wouldn't shift in the sand. The barge from Sandrakkan was nearing the island.

  "Time to go, I think, friends," Garric said. "Cashel, if you'll help Tenoctris...?"

  Without comment or hesitation, Cashel scooped up the wizard as easily as Chalcus held Ilna's ward. Close behind, Sharina carried the satchel holding Tenoctris' books and paraphernalia—liquids, powders, and a few crystals of greater weight.

  Chalcus nodded to Garric. Then—still holding Merota—he followed after Ilna, who was tucking away her knotted pattern.

  Still chuckling, Garric said, "Lord Knorrer, take Lady Liane's case if you will." He nodded to the travelling desk in which Liane kept the documents for which he had immediate use.

  "I can—" she said.

  Garric lifted her in the crook of his right arm and strode toward the ladder, laughing again. He was bragging, about his strength and also that this beautiful, brilliant woman loved him as he loved her; but he had a right to brag. Life was very good.

  Earl Wildulf doesn't want a fight any more than I do, he thought, answering the grim speculation in the eyes of his ancient ancestor.

  "Aye lad," Carus replied, but he wasn't agreeing. "But fights can come even when neither side wants them to."

  Carus paused, then added reflectively, "I've been in more battles than I could count, and mostly at the end the only thing I could say I was happy about was the fact I was still alive. The day came I couldn't even say that. I pray to whatever Gods may be that you never have to say that while the Kingdom still has need of you!"