Master of the Cauldron loti-6 Read online

  "Now…," she said, speaking to bring her concentration to the precise spot. She chopped into the center of the notch, twisted the hatchet free, and chopped again. Changing the angle, she made a third cut that spat out a chunk of wood the size of her fist.

  The stem above the notch shook convulsively. Ilna bent it back with the flat of her left hand, then chopped a final time with all her strength. The stem broke, toppling sideways under the pull of its heavy foliage.

  "There!" Ilna cried. She set the hand axe down.

  The statue shifted. It twisted its face up, no longer basalt but a stocky man lying nude on the ground. "Get back!" he shouted. "You'll be caught when-"

  Ilna plunged forward as the world around her blurred. She thought she heard Merota scream, but she couldn't be sure because the very fabric of the cosmos was shrilling about her.

  The last thing Ilna saw in this world was the great granite spike glaring down at them. It looked almost human.

  ***

  Cashel hadn't exactly been following the ewe, but he'd wandered around the granite spike alongside her, keeping two or three double-paces away. Now and again you'd find a ewe that was jumpy about lambs she'd suckled, let alone human beings. This was one such. Some sheep were just like that, and some people too, of course.

  The ewe had a stye in her left eyelid that ought to be drained, but it didn't seem her regular shepherd had managed to do it. Cashel figured he would, at any rate if they stayed on this little island for a few days. It was a way to make it up to the shepherd who'd had to run when the fleet arrived; and anyway, the ewe would appreciate it.

  A wren hung upside down on the trunk of a dogwood, singing with the loud determination of his kind. Other birds sing and maybe sing to you, but there was never any doubt that a wren was singingat the whole world. They were smart, talented little birds, pretty though without the flashy colors that got the attention; and they were also just as hard as the cracked boulder in which the dogwood tree had rooted.

  Cashel smiled. Wrens reminded him of his sister Ilna.

  He paused beside the boulder. The ewe stopped also. For a moment she stared at Cashel with one eye, then the other. At last she lowered her head and began to graze.

  From here Cashel could look out over the island's east shore, the same view across the Inner Sea that he'd had from the pasture south of Barca's Hamlet. Ships were drawn up all along the beach below. Soldiers were setting up camp like ants scrambling to rebuild the hill an ox had trod on.

  There was no end of ruins, houses fallen into rock piles and overgrown with brush. They'd been built with fancy stones, some of them, pinks and greens and yellows that showed through the alders and euonymus if you knew how to look. They were all knocked down, now. Sails for tarpaulins spread up and down the shore to shelter the soldiers and sailors from the forest of ships.

  The ewe suddenly turned and bolted, her jaws still working with the sidewise rolling motion sheep and cows too used to grind up their food. Cashel heard the scrunch of boots to his right and leaned around the corner of the boulder to see.

  A soldier was walking up the slope. There was no doubt what he was from the hobnailed boots, but he was using his spear, the only piece of equipment he carried, as a walking stick the way Cashel did his quarterstaff.

  "Hello there," Cashel said, stepping into full sight so it wouldn't look like he was hiding behind the boulder. The soldier was a sturdy fellow, built like Cashel though on a smaller scale. His face and forearms were wind-burned, and there was a dent across his forehead where his helmet would rest.

  "Hello yourself," the soldier said, looking startled. Cashel guessed the fellow was four or five years older than his own 19, though he'd noticed time in the army could do different things from ordinary life. "That your sheep?"

  "No," said Cashel. "I'm a stranger here myself."

  He heard the challenge in the other man's tone, but he wasn't going to let it put him out. Cashel felt cramped and uncomfortable on shipboard, and he knew that the common soldiers were packed in a good deal tighter than Garric and his friends were.

  "Because if she is, she's got a stye on her left eye that oughta be taken care of," the soldier said.

  "I noticed that," said Cashel patiently. "I figured the regular shepherd went to the mainland when the ships came, so I was going to drain it for him. I still will, when I get close to her again."

  The fellow'd come up so they were both standing on the same stretch of level ground. He was a hand's breadth shorter than Cashel and probably that much narrower across the shoulders, but he was a husky man by most standards.

  "Leggy devil, ain't she?" the soldier said, looking in the direction the ewe'd run off. "Putting horse legs on a sheep just wastes good feed that could go to wool and mutton."

  "You'd be from Ornifal, then?" Cashel said. Ornifal sheep were short-legged butterballs, all right for flat meadows but nothing he'd have wanted to watch on the slopes of the borough. They went to market by water, he'd heard, because you couldn't drive them ten miles in a day.

  "Aye, I am," the soldier said in surprise. "You know sheep, then, master?"

  "Aye," Cashel said, not bragging exactly but letting his spreading smile tell the other fellow that he could've said a good deal more on the subject and not told a lie. "I'm from Haft, myself."

  "Ah," said the soldier. "I've seen Haft sheep. They're three colors all on the same animal, ain't they?"

  "That's so," Cashel agreed. "And a finer, softer fleece you couldn't hope to find."

  The soldier hawked and spit. "Well, there's tastes and tastes," he said. "My name's Memet or-Meisha."

  Memet leaned his spear against the boulder and thrust out his right forearm. Cashel took it, clamping his hand just below Memet's elbow.

  "Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "Did they send you up here to find something, Master Memet?"

  "No, I'm off-duty," the soldier said. He turned his face away with a frown of embarrassment. "I ought to be sleeping, I guess, I'll have guard duty tonight, but…"

  He let his eyes follow the ewe. She'd stopped a few double-paces away and was grazing again. The poor thing's scared, Cashel thought. She'd like to have that stye drained but she's too afraid to come to us.

  "I saw the sheep up here, you see," Memet said. "I was a shepherd back in County Hordin, but my mum died and dad and me'd got to where neither of us could say three civil words to the other. I figured I'd go for a soldier and be paid in silver. I'd come back with more money'n anybody else in the county 'cepting the Squire and marry who I pleased. That's what I figured."

  "Ah," said Cashel without putting any weight on the word. He leaned against the sun-warmed boulder and used the stone to rub him where he couldn't reach, just the way a sheep would've done. "Most folks think money's a fine thing, or so it seems."

  "So I hear," Memet said with a wry smile. "May the Sister strike me if I know where mine goes from one pay parade to the next, though."

  He faced his palm out. "I'm not complaining, mind," he said. "I spend it myself, I know that. And if I've got help spending it, well, I pick the ones who help me."

  He shook his head at the memory. "There's something about blondes," he said. "We never had blondes in County Hordin except the Squire's lady."

  "I miss sheep too, since I've been travelling," Cashel admitted. "You know, if we just wait here a bit, I'll bet she'll come over to us. She must be really scared with the rest of the flock gone off and her left behind."

  "Aye, that's so," Memet agreed. He glanced at the rock beside him, then said, "Say, take a look here. What do you figure this is that's carved here?"

  Cashel moved around to the soldier's side of the boulder. It was carved, no doubt about that. It looked like the lines'd been touched with ochre, too, though most of the red had been washed away during rainy winters. But what it was A tall triangle, base down. A shorter triangle, base up below the tall one. A round ball, or as round as you can carve even in limestone with simple tools. The work'd probably been done
with an iron knife a lot like the one Cashel and every other man in the borough hung from his belt. Lines from the open sides of each triangle, maybe meant for arms and legs.

  "We had a stone up in the South Pasture where we offered bread and cheese to Duzi on feast days," Cashel said carefully. "Of course Duzi was just a little god who couldn't help me since I've left the borough. But you know, I still sometimes…"

  "There's an oak where we'd hang offerings to Enver," Memet said in the same tone of quiet embarrassment. "I thought of that too."

  "You're correct in your assumptions," said a female voice from behind them. Cashel turnedfast and took a step back. That was a mistake because it put him onto the slope. He jabbed his quarterstaff down, digging one ferrule into the soil to keep from falling.

  "Shepherds worship the nymph Serkit here," said a woman with tightly-braided black hair and a face like polished ivory. The nails of her right hand were enameled sapphire blue, while those of her left were ruby. "She wards off lightning and protects the flock from scrapie."

  Cashel stepped up onto flat ground again, though he kept to the side so he wasn't crowding the lady. She wore the usual two tunics cinched with a sash. They were as lustrous as silk, but Cashel was sure that the fabric was something different. You didn't grow up with Ilna and not learn about cloth.

  "Lady?" said Memet. He was thinking as Cashel did: whoever the woman was and wherever she came from, she wasn't a peasant girl. "Aren't you afraid to be here with so many soldiers?"

  "Afraid?" she said. She sniffed. "Afraid ofyou?"

  "Not me," the soldier said, blushing. "But all these other people. Men."

  "No," the woman said, "I'm not."

  Cashel stood eyeing her closely, his staff planted upright at his side. She turned her attention to him but before she could speak, he said, "Lady, who are you?"

  From any distance he'd have guessed the woman was thirty years old. Something at the back of her eyes was much older than that, for all that her complexion was as perfect as a baby's.

  "You can call me Mab," she said, "but that doesn't matter. What matters, Cashel or-Kenset, is that your mother is in great danger. Unless you help her, she'll have no help and no hope. Will you come with me?"

  "Mymother?" Cashel said. He turned his head and looked down. The shore below was the same jumble of ships and bustling men that it'd been a moment ago. He wasn't dreaming, then. "Lady, I don't have-"

  He broke off before he finished what would've been as silly a thing as he'd ever said in his life. Everybody had a mother, whether or not they'd met her.

  "Lady," Cashel said. He swallowed. "I don't understand."

  Memet was looking from Cashel to the woman, his mouth slightly open. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, so he must've been wondering about being awake or dreaming too.

  "There's very little to understand," Mab said in a thin tone. "You'll come with me now, before the portal closes, or you'll leave your mother to her fate. If you choose the latter, you won't be man enough to help her in this crisis anyway."

  Cashel laughed. "I said I didn't understand, not that I was afraid," he said gently. "I still don't understand, but I'm used to that. When will we leave?"

  "We'll leave immediately, from this place," Mab said. "The shrine will make it easier. Are you ready?"

  "Yes," said Cashel. He smiled at the soldier and said, "I guess you'll have to take care of the ewe yourself, Memet. But before you do, please tell Sharina that I've gone-"

  He wasn't sure what to say next. "Well, tell her what you heard here," he said, "because that's as much as I know. That's Princess Sharina of Haft I mean."

  "Come now, or you won't be able to come," the woman said crisply. She stepped around to the side of the boulder where the carving was. Her bright nails traced a pattern in the air. "Here, stand facing the shrine."

  Cashel grimaced and obeyed. He'd rather a lot of things, but he knew there were times you had to act without worrying about the details. Mab didn't seem any more the sort to exaggerate than Ilna was, or Cashel himself.

  She was standing behind him, murmuring Words of Power. Her hands moved above Cashel's head, then to both sides of him. He felt the tingle of energies building.

  The air danced in a cocoon of red and blue wizardlight. The solid rock gaped into a doorway.

  "Tell Sharina I love her!" Cashel said. He strode into the opening with his quarterstaff before him.

  ***

  Sharina sat as primly as she could with the other specialists ready to advise Prince Garric. The servants had fixed her a throne of sorts: a wide-mouthed storage jar, upended and covered with a swatch of aquamarine silk brocade. Though backless, the result was attractive enough to pass muster in a real palace.

  Unfortunately the potter'd left a central lump when he cut his work off the wheel. Normally that'd just mean the jar rocked if it were set on a hard surface instead of being part-buried in sand. It was a real problem during the jar's present use, however. Sharina knew now to check with her hand the next time before sitting down to listen to hours of negotiation.

  One of Lord Waldron's aides was speaking to Liane. She'd turned her head sideways but continued to take notes in the tablet in front of her. Liane's expression showed mild interest, but her stylus scored quick, brutal marks in the wax.

  Lord Waldron was still missing. He'd gone off with the courier, his head bobbing in angry argument. He'd given no explanation, just snarled over his shoulder that his staff should remain under the marquee. Sharina'd seen Waldron in circumstances where he reasonably expected to die in a short time, but his expression had never before been so bleakly miserable.

  "I'm sorry, Marshal Renold," Garric said in the same calmly reasonable voice he'd have used on a merchant who was sure he could get a private room during the Sheep Fair if only he kept saying so long enough. "Three regiments is the minimum which Sandrakkan must supply to the Royal Army and provide the upkeep for."

  Lord Tadai leaned forward with a stern expression and added, "I'll tell you frankly that according to my estimate of Earl Wildulf's potential revenue and manpower, Sandrakkan should be providing four regiments. It's only King Valence's unwillingness to insult the Count of Blaise, who's supplying three regiments, that decided him to reduce the Sandrakkan levy."

  In her fatigued discomfort, Sharina took a moment to parse exactly what Tadai had just said. Because of that delay, she managed not to chortle in amusement. You couldn't even call Tadai's words a lie because nobody was expected to believe them. He'd been polite, but he'd made it perfectly clear to the Sandrakkan delegation the direction in which the Royal position would move if they kept belaboring the point.

  Lord Morchan thumped his fist on the table, making the Sandrakkan side bounce wildly. "Curse it, we shouldn't be here!" he blurted. "Everybody knows Volita's cursed. That's why none of this makes any sense!"

  It seemed to Sharina that the negotiations, though tedious, had been very productive. They'd involved the Sandrakkan envoys giving way on one point after another, of course, but that was primarily because Garric's position-the royal position-had been reasonable to begin with.

  Admiral Zettin drew himself up straight and said in the drawl affected by the Valles nobility, "Quite the contrary, my good man. We've made great headway and we'll make more. That's surely better than sweeping all Sandrakkan commerce from the Inner Sea and burning the estates within five miles of the shore. Not so?"

  "Look, I'm just saying that we ought to get off Volita," Morchan insisted truculently. "It's an uncanny place, that's all. Everybody knows that if you go up to the top of the Demon-"

  He bobbed his head, presumably indicating the granite spike that wasn't visible from under the marquee.

  "-you'll see a wonder-but you may never come down again!"

  "Morchan," said Lady Lelor in a poisonously calm voice. "If you'd give us just a little help, we'd all pretend to ignore the fact you're a superstitious ninny. Do you know a soul who's climbed-"

  "Everyb
ody knows what I say is the truth, milady!" Morchan snapped. Marshal Renold, seated between them, leaned back from the table with a sour look and his eyes unfocused.

  "Everybody isn't such a fool!" the priestess said. "Do you know even asheep who's climbed the Demon, Lord Morchan?"

  Morchan stood up, his face white. His mouth opened and closed silently. He repeated the process, then sat-collapsed into his seat like a pricked bladder-again, blushing furiously.

  Sharina looked at the embarrassed nobleman with a rush of sympathy which surprised her. Morchan was superstitious, and he was a ninny-which he'd proved amply in the course of the negotiations. But he was also more right than wrong in what he'd said about Volita.

  Sharina would've known that even without Tenoctris' warning as the fleet landed. Volita was a center of power. Sitting here was like being in a wind blowing sand too fine to see but which prickled through your tunics. Her eyes felt scratchy no matter how often she blinked.

  Tenoctris had said that some people were more affected than others. Sharina supposed that she herself might be one of the sensitive ones, if only because of the things she'd been a part of in the year since she left Barca's Hamlet. Everyone on the island must feel it to a degree, but…

  Sharina smiled. She'd learned a great deal about politics in the past year. Her brother was uncomfortable also, but by smiling and holding his position with bland insistence, he had an advantage over the less-disciplined Sandrakkan envoys. Their present loud squabble was an example of that, and their irritable fidgeting throughout had been made worse by an atmosphere charged with wizardry.

  "Lady Lelor," Garric said in a voice raised enough to end the bickering across the table.

  When everybody looked at him he went on, "Milords. We've decided the general form of Sandrakkan's future place in the kingdom. The details can be worked out over the next days or if necessary months. The only outstanding point is the fashion in which I enter Erdin."

  "What-" Marshal Renold said, then stopped.