Mistress of the Catacombs (44 page)

"Thank you, mistress," she said as she entered. "This will be very satisfactory."

Cashel glanced past the landlady and agreed beyond a doubt. The wooden bedframe was big enough for three people Cashel's size, with pillows and at least two feather beds as well as the straw mattress. Tilphosa tested the softness with a hand, less in doubt than as an acknowledgment of the fine bedding.

"Sleep well, then," Leemay said. She started back. Cashel turned sideways and thumped his staff in front of him so it was what the landlady had to squeeze by.

She did that, giving a throaty chuckle as she passed. Cashel didn't hear much humor in the sound, though.

Cashel waited till the door to the common room had closed, then said, "Give me one of those comforters, will you, Tilphosa? Ah, unless you need them both?"

"No, of course not," the girl said. Her face was unreadable. "What do you intend to do, Cashel?"

"I'm going to lie down in the doorway here," he said, nodding. "We'll leave it open, but I don't guess anybody's going to get to you without me waking up. Just in case."

"But the floor's hard," Tilphosa said.

He laughed. "Every night I wasn't out in the pasture back home, I slept on the floor of the mill," he said. "That was stone. Don't worry about me, miss—Tilphosa, that is."

She turned her head away. Cashel spread the featherbed on the floor. He'd lie at an angle with his head out in the storage room and his legs slanted past the foot of the bedframe. Now, should he pinch out the candle or—

"Cashel?" Tilphosa said, still looking away. "I don't have any claim on you, you realize. If you did want to see that woman tonight...?"

"Huh?" said Cashel. He thought hard, trying to fit the girl's words together in a fashion that made sense. "Sleep with Leemay? Duzi, mistress! What do you take me for?"

"I'm sorry," Tilphosa said, though she sounded more relieved than apologetic. "Ah, let's get some sleep."

She turned quickly and blew out the candle. Cashel heard the bedclothes rustle as she pulled them over herself.

"Right," he said, settling into his bed as well.

He didn't have any trouble getting to sleep, but he had bad dreams during the night. He kept hearing someone chanting, and Leemay's face hovered over him like a gibbous moon.

* * *

Ilna dreamed that she stood on a hilltop as a storm howled about her. Thunderbolts struck close, filling the air with a sulfurous stench. She felt the wind tug her legs and knew that in a moment it would carry her away, rending her apart in the lightning-shot darkness. She opened her mouth to scream but her swollen throat wouldn't allow sounds to pass.

Something flung her violently. She didn't know where she was. There was rock all around her. Moonlight through a transom showed her sharp angles and something thrashing, but her eyes wouldn't focus and she couldn't get her breath.

Alecto was shouting. She jerked the crossbar out of the staples holding it and shoved the temple doors open to let in more light. Ilna sucked gulps of the fresh, cool air that flooded in with it. Her throat relaxed and she could see clearly again.

A creature half out of the cave twisted and flailed four legs that seemed too small for a body the size of a cow's. It slammed the temple walls in its convulsions. Besides the eyes bulging on either side of its huge blunt skull, it had a third orb in the center. The hilt of Alecto's dagger stood up from that middle socket.

Ilna pulled herself onto the temple porch with her hands and elbows, dragging her legs behind her. She had a burning sensation in her right calf, though she thought she'd be able to stand in a moment when the dizziness passed.

People were coming out of the houses scattered along the valley slope. Somebody in each group carried a torch or a rushlight, a pithy stem soaked in grease to burn with a pale yellow flame.

They've been expecting this, Ilna thought. They wouldn't have been able to rouse so quickly at Alecto's shout if they hadn't been waiting for it.

She twisted her legs under and sat up, though she wasn't yet ready to squat or stand. She brought the hank of cords out of her sleeve and began plaiting them. No pattern she wove in the light of torches and a partial moon would dispose of all those approaching, but you do what you can.

Alecto shouted, this time in surprise. She jumped out the doorway. An instant later the creature hurled itself onto the porch also, then rolled onto its side. Each of its legs and its thick tail twitched in a separate rhythm. The final lunge had been as mindless as the running of a headless chicken.

The local people's approach had slowed. Ilna took the time to view the monster instead of just reacting to its presence. It was a lizard or—

She prodded the thick neck with one hand. The skin was slick and moist, that of a salamander rather than a lizard. The lolling jaws were edged with short, thornlike teeth.

Ilna rubbed her right leg, noticing now the line of punctures. Her fingers smeared the drops of blood welling from the holes. Her injuries wouldn't be serious, though, unless the bite was poisoned.

Alecto poised as though steeling herself to snatch coins from a fire. She reached out, gripped the hilt of her dagger, and yanked back with enough strength to have lifted a millstone. The creature's head jerked upward, then slammed against the limestone so hard that bones crunched. It slid a bit farther out so that its head hung off the porch.

"You shouted and woke me up," Alecto said, breathing hard. She tore her eyes away from the quivering monster and scanned the villagers. They'd resumed their approach, though cautiously.

"I woke you up?" Ilna said. She was trying to remember what had happened before she crawled out into the air. She'd been dreaming, she knew, but she didn't remember what the dream was.

"Yeah," the wild girl said. "You were staring at it. The air stank so bad it made me dizzy, but I think the eye there in the middle was doing something to you too."

She looked at her dagger; the blade was covered with translucent slime. She swore and wiped it on her leather kilt, then hurled the garment away.

"Thank you," Ilna said. She lurched to her feet; her right leg felt as though somebody was running a branding iron up and down the calf, but it held her. "For saving my life."

Alecto grunted, her eyes now on the villagers. The priest, Arthlan, had waited till a group of his fellows reached his hut before starting toward the temple with them. The women and children were coming also, mixed in with the adult men. They whispered among themselves, but none of them called to the strangers.

The pain of Ilna's leg subsided to a dull ache. She faced the torchlight coming toward her, expressionless. Alecto had saved her, yes; but the wild girl had waited to strike until the monster was locked onto Ilna's leg and couldn't turn its numbing gaze on her.

Ilna understood the logic. As with much of what her companion did, she didn't care for it.

"Do you suppose we're in trouble for killing their God?" Alecto muttered. "That's what it was, right?"

"I suppose it was," Ilna agreed. "And I, at least, am in less trouble than I'd be if you hadn't killed the thing."

"Are you safe, great wizards?" Arthlan said in a quavering voice from the foot of the porch. He was wearing his diadem and robe of office.

"No thanks to you!" Ilna said. "You put us here to die, didn't you?"

"No, no!" said a woman; the priest's wife Oyra, Ilna thought, but it was hard to tell in the torchlight. Her vision was blurring occasionally besides, probably as an aftereffect of the salamander's third eye or its poisonous breath. She hoped the problem was temporary.

"Mistress Wizard," Arthlan said, spreading his hands before him, "we couldn't trouble God, do you see? For many generations He was content with an occasional goat or the conies we smoke out of their lairs. But recently...."

"He took my baby ten months back," called a young woman. She held a torch, and her tears glittered in its light. "Came into the hut and tipped him out of his cradle. We were getting ready to name him the very next day, and he was gone!"

"And my wife!" said another man. He'd carried an axe when Ilna and Alecto arrived in the village, but he held only a rushlight now. "I woke up when our daughter screamed, but God already had her by the leg. All we could do was watch."

"What do you mean, all you could do was watch?" Alecto snarled. She stood with her arms down but a little out from her sides. The muscles of her legs and bare torso were corded with tension. "You could've took its head off with your axe, couldn't you?"

"Couldn't you have blocked the cave?" said Ilna. She wasn't really angry; the business was too puzzling for a normal emotion like that. "Six or eight of you could slide a slab of rock into the narrow part that this thing couldn't push out again."

She kicked the huge corpse with her bare foot, then regretted the contact. One of the children shrieked in excited horror.

"Mistress wizards," Arthlan said, bowing deeply. "God is God. We couldn't act against Him, do you see? But if He chose to bring your powerful selves to the gateway, then—His will be done."

"His will be done!" cried all the villagers in a ragged chorus. Their voices echoed from the slopes in a diminishing whisper.

"His will?" shouted Alecto. "How about my will, Sister take you?"

Jumping down like a cat, she grabbed Arthlan by the throat and punched the dagger just beneath his breastbone, striking upwards for the full length of the blade. The priest gasped and remained standing for an instant as Alecto withdrew the bronze.

Only those closest could see what had happened. Oyra screamed and clawed at Alecto's face. Alecto gave the woman a backhand slash across the eyes.

"They've killed Arthlan!" cried a man. He swiped at Alecto with his torch. "Don't let them get away!"

Torches glittered in all directions. There were villagers on the slope both above and below the temple.

"Inside!" Ilna cried. She jumped over the God-thing's corpse. The shock of her right foot coming down on stone was like a bath in fire, but that didn't matter.

Alecto was inside with her. Together they slammed the panels shut.

"Here's the bar!" Alecto cried, banging it through the staples despite the bad light.

"There!" she added. "That'll hold them."

"Yes," said Ilna. She didn't add, "And then what?" because the question wouldn't have done any good.

At this point, she wasn't sure anything would do her and her murderous companion any good.

* * *

Garric was saying, "Lord Thalemos, before you met Metron did you—"

The driver jumped to its feet and began screeching like a tortured cricket. Instead of guiding with gentle touches on the millipede's neck, the Archa jabbed the creature violently with the solid end of the rod.

Garric ran forward, though he wasn't sure what he intended to do there. He had his hand on the swordhilt, but he didn't draw the weapon. Vascay trotted with him, as lightly as a one-legged canary.

Thalemos came also. He might as well; there'd be as much safety with Garric and Vascay as there was anywhere in this place.

Metron didn't stand, but he lowered his book and craned his neck to see past the driver's leaping form. The Archa's movements looked wildly spastic to Garric, but they were apparently proper for a six-limbed creature. At any rate, the driver looked to be in less danger of falling from the millipede's back than the seated wizard was.

A pool gleamed through the great grassblades off to the right side. Water, Garric thought, catching the sun....

And then knew he was wrong, because the pale, pearly glow wasn't sunlight—and because water wouldn't slosh itself out of its basin and flow in the direction of the millipede.

"It can't have been the Intercessor!" Metron said, opening the case which held the instruments of his art. He dropped his scroll carelessly inside and snatched out a small flask; he didn't bother close the case. "It's chance! It's bad luck!"

The millipede ambled on at its same steady, ground-devouring pace, though it was turning slightly but noticeably leftward. The terrain became furrowed. The creature climbed without difficulty, but the angle and rocking motion made Thalemos wobble.

Garric grabbed the youth and steadied him. They took the millipede's movements the way Garric had learned to ride a ship's storm-tossed deck.

Vascay bent so that he could grip the linked gold netting with his left hand, but he kept his eyes turned to the right. From where Garric stood, the liquid from the pool had disappeared in the trees; perhaps, perhaps there was a distant gleam as the millipede started down the far side of the furrow.

Metron's flask was of clear glass with gold-filled etchings on the inside. It held a yellowish powder, too pale to be sulfur. As the wizard spread the contents in thin lines to form a hexagram, the powder darkened to the angry red of dying embers.

The driver squatted again but kept turning its triangular head to look back the way they'd come. Its sharp-edged upper limbs twitched out and in, folding like shears, as if the Archa were slashing something only it could see.

The millipede's foreparts were on level ground; ahead another furrow loomed. Vascay released the safety net and straightened.

"Any notion what the excitement's about, boy?" he asked Thalemos in seeming nonchalance. He gave a minuscule nod toward the crest behind them; the millipede's segmented body was still crossing it.

The youth shook his head vehemently. "I don't know any more about this place than you do!" he said. Then he managed a wry smile and added, "And I don't like it any better than you do either."

Vascay chuckled. "Maybe so," he said. "Maybe so."

"Chief?" Hame called from the midst of the other men on the third segment. "What's going on?"

"Nothing we need worry ourselves about," Vascay replied in a cheerful tone. "Though I'll tell the world I'm going to be glad to get back to a place I've been before, even if there's Protectors in it!"

Turning his face away from the bandits, Vascay added under his breath, "Nothing we need worry about, because there's not a single damned thing we can do about it, eh?"

Metron began chanting in time with the motions of his athame. He'd stoppered the flask again. Around the hexagram the wizard had drawn words in the Old Script, using the brush and bottle of cinnabar as previously. In the center of the figure glittered the sapphire ring.

"Maybe the... the glow, maybe it can't get over the hill that we just crossed?" Thalemos suggested.

Garric shrugged, looking toward the rear. The ground was less heavily forested here, but now that they were on the level he'd lost sight of the crest behind them.

"I'm afraid," he said, "that if it were that simple, your advisor there wouldn't be working so busily at...."

He nodded toward Metron, chanting words of power over the hexagram.

"Sadly true," said Vascay calmly. He bobbed his javelin's head off to the right. Light glimmered through the trees in that direction, stretching well back the way they'd come.

Driven by a grim need to know the worst, Garric turned his head and looked to the left. As he'd expected—as he'd known, for he had known as soon as he saw the gleam coursing them to the other side—the light showed in that direction as well. The pool must have been very deep to be able to form horns about the millipede in the fashion it was doing.

The pearly liquid slid over the ground like beer spilled on a polished bar top. It had no depth, rising only a finger's breadth as it flowed around the giant grassblades and dead vegetation littering the dirt. The horns began to draw in, preparing to circle the millipede.

"Here it comes...," Garric said.

"Get ready, boys!" Vascay called. The Brethren had seen the fluid also and held their weapons poised. "I figure our best bet is to cut through it on our own if we lose our ride the way it looks like we're going to."

There's no chance at all, Garric thought. There's nothing to cut and there'll be nowhere to run.

He drew his sword, smiling at himself and at mankind's unwillingness to surrender. He wondered what it'd feel like when the glowing liquid flowed over him.

Metron shouted in a crackling voice, "Akramma chammari!"

Garric's head jerked around by reflex. The athame poised motionless above the ring. A red spark spat from the ivory tip, merging midway with a blue one from the sapphire.

There was a flicker of white light. The hexagram caught fire with the rushing sound of flame flooding a pool of oil.

Metron jerked his hand and athame back. Saffron fire leaped toward the heavens, then paled and spread outward soundlessly. Ademos cried out.

Garric felt a constriction in his chest as the flash passed through him; then it was gone and he drew in a normal breath again. Vegetation shimmered as if reflected on a wind-ruffled pond.

The yellow tinge had faded so that it was barely distinguishable from air by the time it reached the glowing fluid. Red and azure wizardlight sizzled at the line of contact, dulling the pearly gleam like frost on a silver mirror. Cracks appeared in what had been a surface as smooth as the sky; the rushing encirclement shuddered to a halt.

Metron collapsed over the figure, which had become no more than ash on the purple-black chitin. Garric knelt at his side and held him steady.

"He did it!" Thalemos cried. "Master Metron, you've saved us!"

Vascay didn't speak. Like Garric, he continued to look back at the thing which had pursued them. Before they passed out of sight, Garric saw that the cracks were widening and beginning to leak glowing liquid. The fluid came on again, tentatively at first.

Garric massaged the wizard's cheeks. "Wake up, Master Metron," he said. "We're going to need you again soon."