Goddess of the Ice Realm (17 page)

Cashel tossed Tenoctris to the soldier. “Get her out!” he shouted, his voice echoing louder than the rumbling after-shocks.

Cashel didn't wonder whether the passage was blocked, whether Suivaz would obey, whether the half-stunned soldier would even be able to catch the wizard so casually thrown to him. He didn't wonder about anything, just
did
the only thing that might help—slamming his quarterstaff end-wise into the serpent's flat head.

The staff's ferrule struck the glowing smoke. A roar of blue wizardlight flung Cashel into the wall behind him. He didn't notice hitting the rock, but both his hands tingled where they gripped the staff.

The serpent of smoke jerked upright, releasing its victim. Horife bounced off the ceiling and dropped to the floor. His limbs were still rigid and his face was turning black. The serpent
didn't show any injury, but it'd felt the stroke; now it wove slowly side to side as it watched Cashel. Its head was as long as a horse's but wedge-shaped and much broader at the back.

“Ready!” Suivaz shouted, hunched over Tenoctris whom he held in both arms.

The iron buttcap Cashel struck the first time still glowed red hot from the impact. He rotated his staff a half-turn and shouted, “Go!” He struck again, his quarterstaff a battering ram crashing into the serpent's skull.

Azure thunder surrounded him. He didn't feel the staff strike, but the stone floor was no longer beneath his feet. He was falling and his lungs burned. He fell for a lifetime until—

A figure stepped through the fiery darkness to face him. A woman, Cashel thought, though it might have been a boy; she wore a shift of some shimmering material.

“Who are you?” he said. His throat felt like it'd been rasped.

“I'm Kotia,” she said, her voice more clearly female than her form. “I've come to find a champion. Will you follow me and do my will?”

The serpent had disappeared. So had the cave and anything but the sparkling whirlwind encircling them. “I want to go back to my friends!” Cashel croaked.

Kotia shrugged. “You can come with me or you can stay and die,” she said. “You can't go back. If you choose to stay, I'll find someone else. There are many souls in this place.”

Her eyes narrowed as she examined Cashel again. With for the first time a touch of emotion she added, “Though you would be very suitable.”

Cashel paused, his big hands squeezing hard on the quarterstaff. He didn't know what being Kotia's champion would mean; but he did know about death, at least from this side of existence, and the rest could wait at least a little longer.

“All right,” he said. “I'll come with you.”

Kotia reached out a hand. Cashel took it in one of his. Together they stepped through the wall of wizardlight.

Cashel stepped out of a cave in a hillside, coughing and wheezing. His eyes watered from the bitter smoke. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his left wrist. When he opened them again, he got his first look at an unfamiliar valley. The sides were steep, particularly the opposite wall. Everything had a jagged rawness, though the slopes were green with shrubs and spiky grasses.

Kotia lay crumpled at the entrance to the cave, in the middle of a many-sided figure. Words were written around the outside in the curvy letters of the Old Script. Cashel couldn't read them, but he'd helped Tenoctris often enough to be able to recognize the shapes.

So Kotia was a wizard. Well, it wasn't a surprise, given what she'd plucked him out of.

Thinking about that, Cashel looked back into the cave. The smoke was disappearing swiftly, vanishing like frost in the sunshine rather than drifting out in a haze that spread through the still air.

Cashel clenched and unclenched first his left hand, then his right, working out the numbness. His fingers tingled a little, but his grip was back to full strength. He checked the buttcaps of his quarterstaff. The iron of both showed a dull rainbow discoloration and was warm to the touch, but it hadn't been blasted away by the wizardry it'd channeled back in the shrine.

Cashel didn't know where he got the power that filled him when he faced wizards. He didn't think about it, didn't
want
to think about it.

But he was glad it was there. Especially when he stood between his friends and evil.

Kotia was beginning to stir. Cashel squatted close by but he didn't touch her. Wizardry was just as hard work as breaking
rocks, and the incantation that'd brought the girl to Cashel's side must have wrung her out. She'd recover by herself; and anyway, there was nothing Cashel could do to help.

As he waited, he looked into the cave. He couldn't tell for sure because of the changes stonemasons had made on the shrine in Carcosa, but he'd be willing to bet that the original cave there was as like to this one as twin lambs.

The rock wasn't, though. This valley's walls were granite, not basalt like the ridge above Carcosa. Chunks of mica glittered coldly in the stone.

Though the sky was bright, the sun was about to dip below the sawtoothed crags across the valley. The night would be pretty cold, and the only shelter Cashel could see was the cave they'd just come out of. He figured he'd rather stay out here on the slope if that was the choice.

Kotia rolled over and raised herself on an elbow. She stared at Cashel with the expression of a drover buying mutton on the hoof.

“Mistress,” he said simply, since she didn't seem ready to start a conversation.

“You really are a big one, aren't you?” Kotia said musingly. She twisted her legs under so that she was sitting upright, facing him. “I thought it was just the image your soul projected. You don't see real bodies in that realm, you know.”

“I don't know anything about that, mistress,” Cashel said. So long as he remained squatting, their heads were pretty much on a level. “Where am I, please?”

Kotia got up with a fluid motion that meant she'd recovered completely. She was young and seemed in good health, but Cashel suspected she was also a very powerful wizard. He rose also, holding his staff out crosswise in front of him to balance his weight.

“You're in my world, where I brought you,” Kotia said. “My father cast my brother and me out of our manor. I intend to go to our neighbor, Lord Bossian, but there's a . . . a spirit hunting me. He's already killed my brother. I need you to protect me from the spirit.”

Cashel frowned. “Spirit?” he said.

“All right, then, a demon!” Kotia said with a flash of
anger. “His name is Kakoral. But you're sworn to protect me. I warn you, your oath has power here!”

“I don't need threats to make me keep my word, mistress,” Cashel said. “I just needed to know what I'd be dealing with.”

He took the wad of raw wool out of his belt wallet and began rubbing his staff down with it. The hickory felt as smooth as glass to his familiar touch.

“If you help me . . .” Kotia said, sounding a little unsure of herself. Cashel had noticed lots of times it bothered people because he didn't get upset and carry on when they thought he should. “That is, Lord Bossian is a great wizard. He may very well be able to send you back to your own world. But you'll have to save me from Kakoral first.”

“I've already said I'm going to help you, mistress,” Cashel said quietly. He looked at the sky, indigo in the west and in the east a silky violet in which stars already glittered. “Is Lord Bossian's place close enough that we can get there before dark? Because we don't have much time if we're going to do that.”

“No, no,” said Kotia. “I'm too exhausted to travel farther anyway. We'll stay here for the night, then in the morning . . .”

She knelt beside the pack leaning against the rock at the cave mouth. It was a small thing, no bigger than the satchel in which Tenoctris carried the books and tools of her wizardry. Kotia took out a bundle no bigger than her clenched fist, then bit her lip and looked up at Cashel again.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “My shelter is only big enough for me alone. Will you be all right. . . ?”

“I'll be all right,” Cashel said. And he would. It was going to get nippy, of that be was sure, but at least he didn't have to contend with rain or sleet. “I probably wouldn't be sleeping anyway, seeing's as this Kakoral's hunting you.”

“Oh, he won't attack tonight,” Kotia said briskly. She'd undone her little bundle and was spreading it into a tube as long as she was. It was as fine as gossamer and of the same shimmering material as her shift. “He'll come in the light. My brother and I built a fire. When the flames burned a particular
shade of red-orange, Kakoral appeared and . . . took my brother. While I ran.”

“Oh,” said Cashel. He gave his staff a practice spin. When he and the hickory reached the right rhythm, there was no finer feeling in the world. It was like the way sunlight sparkles on a waterfall, all shimmering beauty and
he
was a part of it . . . “Well, we don't have a fire, so we'll be all right.”

“He
will
come,” Kotia insisted angrily. “I went into the Place of Souls when I knew I couldn't reach Lord Bossian before morning, but I doubt you'll be able to really help. I was desperate, that's all!”

“Well, I'll do what I can,” said Cashel.

He turned his back and walked a few steps away to where the slope wasn't so steep. He resumed whirling his staff, a full series of exercises this time: in front of him, then overhead and jumping to use the shaft's spinning weight to turn him so that he was suddenly gazing back into Kotia's furious eyes.

“Are you a wizard?” she demanded. “You had to be a wizard to have survived as long as you did in the Place of Souls!”

“I'm not a wizard, mistress,” Cashel said, working the staff in a figure eight—back under one armpit, then up over the opposite shoulder, then reversing. “My friend who was with me's a wizard, but I think she got clear before—”

Before what?

“—before things happened.”

“I don't . . .” Kotia said. She probably meant “I don't understand,” but she didn't bother to finish when she heard what she was saying.

Cashel nodded approval. He'd long ago decided most people didn't listen to themselves or they couldn't possibly talk all the nonsense they did. Kotia had her ways, but she was better than that.

She cleared her throat. “You're sure you'll be all right, then?” she said.

“Yes, mistress,” Cashel said. “Though if you had something to eat in your wallet, I wouldn't turn down a bite of it.”

“No,” said Kotia. “I'm sorry, there isn't . . . I didn't have much time to prepare, you see.”

“Sure,” said Cashel. “Good night, mistress.”

It was solid dark by now. The moon wasn't up, if there even was a moon over this place. Cashel heard a rustle as Kotia got down into her cocoon.

The stars were diamond points in the clear sky. The constellations weren't the ones Cashel was familiar with, though one in the north was close enough to the Seven Plow-Oxen that he could imagine it was familiar if he squinted.

A horn called, then another one from a much greater distance. The sounds were silvery and seemed to echo for many miles.

For a time, Cashel squatted with his back to a rock, looking out in the darkness. Then he got up and resumed his slow pirouettes with the quarterstaff. The exercise kept him warm.

And for all he hadn't let himself react to Kotia's warning, he didn't in the least doubt that come morning he'd have more than just the empty air to swing the staff at.

The bay horse skidded on the cobblestones as Garric negotiated the final left-hand switchback below the shrine. It might've gone down in a clash of bones and equipment if King Carus's reflexes hadn't taken over at the critical moment. Garric leaned right, jerking the reins and the bay's head with him. It got its hooves under it again and hunched up the short remaining distance to the plaza.

On this stretch of roadway there wasn't room for two to ride abreast, so Lord Attaper, a noble from northern Ornifal and a horseman from early childhood, was following immediately behind. He grunted with approval at what he took for Garric's horsemanship.

In all truth Garric didn't like to ride, but it was faster than running a mile uphill in armor to the Shrine of the Prophesying Sister. If it'd been his decision alone he wouldn't have paused to put on his helmet and cuirass, but the Blood Eagles wouldn't have allowed their prince to get within bowshot of trouble without the armor.

The dozen bodyguards ahead of Garric were dismounting
in front of the shrine. He leaped from his saddle before the bay had drawn up. His boots skidded on the cobblestones but he kept his balance with the same borrowed skill that made him a rider.

“Your highness, the lady's safe but your friend Cashel has vanished!” said the officer standing with his sword drawn.

Tenoctris was all right; she sat cross-legged on the floor of the porch where she'd drawn a hexagram across the mosaic in vermilion. The officer of her escort had sent one of his men as a messenger back to his palace; the rest of the squad surrounded the wizard.

Tenoctris chanted an incantation while tapping the symbols with one of her disposable bamboo splinters. These Blood Eagles probably didn't like to be around wizardry any more than most other non-wizards did. They stood with Tenoctris because it was their duty to stand; and they would stand until they died or were relieved.

“Vanished where?” Garric snarled, drawing his long sword. He didn't bother Tenoctris—what she was doing was probably more important than anything she had to tell him—but instead headed toward the carved entrance to the sanctum. He could see a body sprawled on the floor inside.

“Your highness!” said Attaper, but he followed rather than trying to get in the way. In Garric's present mood, that was a good thing. Cashel had been here because Garric sent him on a mission which both Liane and Sharina had warned was a bad idea.