Mistress of the Catacombs (23 page)

Ilna knew her own limitations. She hung the noose over two separated stone acanthus flowers, drew it tight, and lowered herself hand over hand to the floor. Going down her body twisted on the rope, but at least she didn't bang into the pillar as heavily as when she'd climbed.

Alecto was already at the inner door. Instead of peering around it, she stood at the hinge side. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed at the gap between the jamb and panel. She held her dagger by her side, the bronze blade concealed against her bare tanned thigh.

Ilna cleared her noose with a flick. She was a little piqued that Alecto didn't notice the trick, and much more irritated to realize that the wild girl's opinion mattered to her.

Alecto looked around. "There's nobody in the hall," she said, speaking in a low voice. She stared at Ilna appraisingly. "So," she continued. "Are you going to stick with me, then?"

Ilna frowned despite herself. "If you mean am I willing for us to continue on together," she said, "then I suppose so. For the time being. Do you know where we are?"

"All I know is it's a place I want to be far away from," Alecto said. She glanced back at the air above the reflecting pool, now empty except for moonlight. "Raising the Pack! They're insane!"

She faced Ilna abruptly with her eyes narrowed. "What were you doing where I found you, eh?" she said. "Are you fooling with the Pack as well?"

"Perhaps," Ilna said, her hands shifting minusculely on the cord that she hadn't yet wrapped around her waist again. "I may have been sent here to drive these creatures back where they belong. If you mean did I have anything to do with raising them, no."

She suspected Alecto would be very quick and very deadly with her bronze dagger. If Ilna herself wasn't quick enough to catch the girl's neck and knife hand in her noose before the blade got home, well, then she deserved to die.

Instead of lunging, Alecto snorted and said, "You're going to drive the Pack? You're crazier than this lot!"

She spat, then rubbed the gobbet into the marble with the ball of her bare foot. "Still, it's no business of mine—if you don't try anything so stupid when I'm anywhere around you. Agreed?"

"I'll see to it that you're warned," Ilna said. "Now, shall we leave? Or shall I leave?"

The words were empty: Tenoctris had sent Ilna into the dreamworld to search. Ilna—and Tenoctris as well, most likely—had no idea of what to do to prevent those reptilian creatures from invading Carus' sleep. Still, the statement had the desired effect of making Alecto relax and turn her attention to the passageway outside. Ilna supposed that sometimes it was better to mouth foolishness than to have to strangle somebody.

Alecto slipped into the passageway, moving with the silent grace of a cat. The passage was windowless. Some moonlight slipped past the inner door, but she hadn't bothered to swing it fully open.

Ilna followed, wrapping the gathered noose back around her waist as an additional belt. Though... the temple faced south, into the full moon. There should be light enough outside the entrance for any guards present to see whatever design Ilna knotted. She took the hank of short cords out of her sleeve, smiling faintly as her fingers worked. "I'll deal with the guards," she said.

Instead of replying Alecto merely looked back over her shoulder with an expression that was unreadable in the shadows. In a sharper tone Ilna said, "Don't attack them, I mean! I'll take care of anyone out there quietly."

The outer door was heavy, bronze or bronze-covered like the inner one. There were staples and a heavy crossbar to lock it from the inside, but for now all that held it was a spring catch at the upper edge. A drawstring was reeved through a hole in the panel to open it from outside.

Alecto reached for the catch with her free hand. Ilna caught her arm. "I don't want you stabbing somebody," she said, each syllable a needle point. "Put your knife away."

Ilna didn't know why it mattered to her. Perhaps because as she'd watched the rabbits butchered, she realized that her companion was just as quick to offer blood sacrifice as the priests had been.

Alecto tossed her head dismissively. "All right," she said, sheathing her blade with a quick motion. "I won't kill anybody if you're so squeamish."

She tripped the catch and put her shoulder against the door to ease it open. Ilna waited, suppressing her frown. She'd meant to go out first, but it probably didn't matter.

Alecto stepped outside. Ilna couldn't see much except moonlight past the other girl's shoulder, but that meant there wasn't a covered porch that would keep a guard from seeing the pattern knotted into her cords.

"It's clear," Alecto said, stepping out of the building so that Ilna could follow. Then, "What is this place? These are houses!"

They were on a hill from which two and three-story buildings marched down to a harbor. Patches of lamplight, yellower than the moon, shone from windows onto the winding streets; music trembled on the breeze.

Not long ago Ilna too would have been startled, but she'd seen far larger cities in the months since she left Barca's Hamlet. "Come on," she said crisply to Alecto. "We don't want to stay around here."

She shoved the door closed. Its weight resisted her, but the hinges pivoted smoothly. Too late Ilna remembered the bell note with which it had closed behind the crowd of priests and worshippers. She grabbed the long horizontal handle; even so the door, several times as heavy as she was, bonged against its jamb.

Lamplight flared beside of the steps leading down from the entrance. The caretaker's room was built under the staircase. "Who's there?" a man called as he stepped into view.

It was the servant who'd opened and closed the doors for the ceremony. He held his belt in his left hand and was drawing his hook-bladed sword from its scabbard.

"Hey, don't worry," said Alecto, unpinning her wolfskin cape with her left hand. "There's room for you at the party too, handsome."

She swept the cape off her torso, twirling it in a quick figure-8. Her breasts were full but firm, standing out proudly from her hard-muscled chest. She sauntered down the steps, dangling the cape from the fingers of her left hand.

Ilna was cold with fury, though not even she could have said whether she was angrier at herself or at her companion. The caretaker stared transfixed at the wild girl's naked chest. The spell Ilna had knotted into her cords was as useless as it would have been on a blind man. Of course, the fellow was frozen as rigid now as Ilna's pattern would have left him.

Alecto glanced at Ilna, grinning in a mixture of mockery and open lust. "So, fellow, are you man enough to handle both of us?" she said to the caretaker.

He swung his heavy sword up for a chopping blow. "Harlot!" he screamed. "Profaning the house of the Mistress! I'll—"

Alecto was just as skilled with the knife as Ilna had expected; her right hand dipped to the ivory hilt and came up to thrust the long blade through the fellow's throat, choking the rest of the words in his blood. He'd only begun his own stroke.

The caretaker stumbled backward, continuing to swing the sword. He was dead but his body didn't realize it quite yet.

Alecto toppled with him, cursing; her dagger was caught in cartilage and she didn't want to let go of it. Ilna's noose settled over the caretaker's wrist and jerked his arm harmlessly to the side. The sword, a clumsy thing better suited to pruning than war, clanged a sad note against the lowest step.

Alecto set her left foot on the caretaker's chest and tugged her blade free. Blood gushed from both the wound and his mouth. His eyes stared at Ilna as she freed her rope.

Alecto lifted the man's kilt to wipe her dagger. When he guarded the door during the service he'd worn a leather vest and cap as well, but he'd taken them off in his lodgings.

"Too bad," she said, grinning at Ilna again. "He's hung like a pack pony. I wouldn't have minded a little fun with him. First."

Ilna looked at the other woman with a loathing that made her stomach roil... but she'd let Alecto lead, and Alecto's actions when the caretaker appeared showed a quick mind—though a disgusting one.

Ilna had alerted the caretaker by slamming the temple door. There was no question of whose fault the sprawled body was.

"Let's get out of here," Ilna said quietly. She nodded toward the countryside visible beyond the squat blocks of houses. "There's woodland out there to the west. We can hide until daylight and then...."

Then what?

"Then make plans," Ilna concluded. After all, that was what most of life was about: going on until, she supposed, you couldn't go on any more.

* * *

Cashel heard pipe music, a skirling high-pitched sound very different from the golden tones of the wax-stopped reeds Garric had played to the sheep in Barca's Hamlet. He got to his feet with an easy motion, the quarterstaff crosswise in both hands; close to his chest, not threatening anybody but ready for whatever trouble chose to come.

"Cashel?" said Tilphosa. She was already standing, a pale figure in the shadows. "How did you bring us here? Where are we?"

"Mistress, I'm not sure," said Cashel. He was polite by nature, but since he didn't have any idea where they were or how they'd gotten here, he thought there were better uses for his time than talking about it.

Three sailors had come through with them: Hook, Captain Mounix, and a stocky fellow named Ousseau whose right arm and chest were bleeding from a deep cut. Ousseau cursed between moans; the two officers lay on the ground, turning their heads quickly in the direction of every noise. Mounix had retrieved the sword Cashel'd knocked from his hand; Hook was unarmed.

The pipe wasn't playing a melody, just sequences of notes that had the same mindless quality as a brook flowing over rocks. Perhaps it was a natural sound, something the wind did in a hollow tree or the song of a nightbird.

"Where'd the temple go?" Mounix said, rising to one knee cautiously like he was afraid that if his head came up the roof'd fall in on him. "And these trees aren't like what they were on Laut. Where are we?"

"The bark's smooth," Tilphosa said quietly as her left hand stroked the trunk beside her. She still held the block of stone close to her body; the weight must be straining her by this time, but she didn't seem ready to give up her only weapon.

They were in a forest with no sign of the temple or the Archai who'd surrounded it, and the many sort of trees were different from any Cashel had seen before. None of them were as tall as a crab apple. The trunks were straight, some as thick as Cashel's own body. Large leaves sprayed from the ends of branches that mostly kinked instead of curving. Some limbs carried balls that might be fruit, hanging just above easy reach.

He looked up. The sky was as bright as if the moon was full. The heavens were featureless—a gray-glazed bowl with neither moon, stars, nor the streaking of clouds to give them character.

Hook came over to Cashel; the carpenter's eyes held a new respect. "Did you bring us here?" he asked, glancing around with the nervous quickness of a woodchuck foraging when hawks are about. "Are you a wizard too, Master Cashel?"

"All I did was break a hole in the wall," Cashel said, maybe a bit harsher than he'd meant to. Tilphosa stood to his side and a little behind, her place and posture showing that she was with him and against the part of the world that included the sailors. "Well, I broke a hole in the light that Metra raised. I don't see any opening from this side, do you?"

"I watched you grow out of the empty air," Tilphosa said quietly. "First you were a shadow, then it was you all whole and you fell to the ground. And I thanked the Mistress that she'd returned my champion to me."

Cashel glanced at her in surprise. "I don't know...," he said; but the truth was, he didn't know much about the Mistress, so there wasn't any point in him talking about her.

"There's nothing there," Mounix said. He and Ousseau, the latter clutching the torn skin over his right biceps with his left hand, had joined Hook. "I hope to the Lady that means the wizard and her monsters can't come after us."

"I sure don't want to go back there!" Hook said, and even Cashel nodded agreement with that thought.

They were all looking at him. Cashel didn't think he was much of a leader, but the sailors had proved they were no good at trying to think for themselves. As for Tilphosa—well, Tilphosa hadn't any reason to complain about sticking with him.

Cashel cleared his throat. Mounix still held his sword. The blade was twisted sideways so he probably couldn't have sheathed it if he tried. "Straighten your sword out," he said. "It won't be much good like it is. And we better do something about that cut of yours, Ousseau. Maybe—"

"I've been taught some healing in the temple," Tilphosa said. She dropped her stone and brushed her hands on her tunic. "I wonder if the light's better over...."

The sailors turned their attention to the girl. Ousseau allowed her to guide him toward a tall tree whose spindly, needle-like foliage blocked less of the sky's faint illumination.

"Hook?" Cashel said. He didn't raise his voice much, but he spoke loud enough all the sailors had to hear him. "You weren't respectful to Lady Tilphosa back at the other place, on Laut, but I let you live."

"Yes, Master Cashel, we know we were wrong," Captain Mounix said before Hook decided what or whether to reply. "We—"

Cashel shifted the quarterstaff in his hands very slightly. Mounix' mouth shut in mid-babble; Hook said nothing but spread his hands to show, perhaps unconsciously, that they were weaponless.

"That's good," Cashel said. "Because I wouldn't leave you alive a second time."

He turned his back, mostly because he didn't want to look at the sailors for a while, but it was also a good way to end a conversation that had gone as far as he figured it needed to. He was pretty sure there was light ahead through the forest. It wasn't as sharp-edged as a lamp in an open window, just a glow that couldn't be the sky even though it was about the same texture and brightness.

A will-o'-the-wisp, maybe? Cashel worked his big toe into the ground to test it. The soil had a spongy lightness, but in his experience it wasn't wet enough to breed that sort of ghost light.

He didn't know how he felt about the sailors deciding he was a wizard. Ilna always said that what other people thought was their own business; but she really meant 'so long as they kept their thoughts to themselves', because she'd always had a short way with anybody she thought was lying about her or Cashel.

Cashel's own concern was a little different: he didn't want it to seem he was claiming credit he didn't deserve, and he knew that he wasn't a wizard the way Hook and the others meant it. He scowled into the forest, trying to grapple with the problem.

There'd be less trouble for Tilphosa if the sailors thought Cashel could turn them into monkeys. He didn't want to kill the trio, which he'd surely have to do if they did try something with the girl again. He guessed he'd let them think what they pleased; but he'd be really glad when he saw the last of them.

"I've done what I can for the wound, Cashel," Tilphosa said from close behind him. "I don't recognize any of the leaves, and I didn't find any spiderwebs to pack the wound, but I made do."

She paused, then added, "What... what do you suppose we ought to do now?"

Cashel shook his head slowly, mostly as a way of settling his thoughts. "The woods seem pretty open," he said. "Even though it's night, I thought we'd head toward the light there."

He nodded, suddenly wondering if what he saw was more than imagination.

"Anyway, I think it's a light," he went on. "Maybe we'll find a better place to bed down than here. And I don't feel much like sleeping."

He looked at the sailors. "That all right with you?" he asked.

"Let's go, Cashel," Tilphosa said, touching his elbow. She turned to Mounix again and in a cold voice said, "Captain, you were told to straighten your sword; do so at once!"

Cashel blinked. He'd started off when Tilphosa told him to, then stopped again when he heard her tell Mounix to fix his sword. Put it on a fallen log and hammer it with the heel of his boot, Cashel wondered? Because there wasn't a proper forge anywhere about, and no flat stones on the ground here either.

"Let's go," Tilphosa repeated, this time murmuring close to Cashel's ear. She gave his biceps a light pressure in the direction of the light.

Cashel stepped off on his right foot, smiling faintly. Now he understood. He'd warned the sailors in his fashion, but Tilphosa—Lady Tilphosa—was repeating the message by training them to jump when she whistled. Mounix was hopping around, trying to fix his sword and follow the others at the same time.

It wasn't the way Tilphosa preferred to be, not judging from the way she'd handled herself around Cashel. He'd seen before—when she hauled up Metra—that she could put on the Great Lady when it suited her, though. Of course....

In a quiet, apologetic voice Cashel said, "The thing about reminding people who's boss is, well... Metra came back with her own ideas, you know."

"Yes," said Tilphosa cheerfully. "I was glad that you and your staff were there to protect me, Cashel."

She stroked the hickory with the tips of two fingers.

"I'm even more glad that you're still with me," she added.

Cashel cleared his throat but didn't say anything. When he thought about it, there wasn't anything to say.

There were various kinds of trees. Every one of them was a different sort, it seemed to Cashel, but that wasn't something he'd have wanted to swear to till he saw them by daylight.

"How long do you suppose it is before sunrise, Cashel?" Tilphosa asked in a falsely bright voice. In those words he could hear the question she really meant but was afraid to speak: "Do you think the sun ever rises here?"

"I don't know," Cashel said. "I've been wondering if we wound up underground when I went through that wall. But there's light enough to get along by, even if it never gets brighter."

"No," Tilphosa said, the tension gone from her voice. "Things growing in a cave don't have leaves and all these trees do. But you're right, Cashel, we have plenty of light now. I'm sorry to have been...."

She didn't finish the sentence. If the word she'd swallowed was "worried," then Cashel didn't see it was anything to have been ashamed of.

The bright blur was close now and the size of a house, but the edges were just as fuzzy as they'd been when Cashel first saw it. It wasn't in a clearing, exactly. The light took the place of trees that should've been there, even though the roots and upper branches showed outside the glowing field.

"Something's moving in the light," Cashel said, speaking a little quieter than he might normally have done. "I don't think it's just the trees."

"Cashel, I see Metra," Tilphosa said. Her voice was calm, but she gripped his arms fiercely. "If you look—"

"Right, I see her," Cashel said.

It was funny: when he squinted just right, it all fell into place. After that he could see the wizard even if he straightened and opened his eyes wide.

She knelt holding her athame on the porch of the temple which Cashel had defended not long ago. She'd spread one of her silk figures on the stones. The scene was washed out and ripply like Cashel was watching her on the bottom of a pond, but it was Metra all right. Around her stood—

"By the Sister, you fool!" Captain Mounix squealed. "You and the bitch've led us straight back to those monsters!"

Hook took one look at the light and another at Cashel's face as he shifted and brought his staff up. The carpenter grabbed Mounix by the shoulder and clamped the other hand across his mouth.

"Shut up, will you!" he screamed at the captain. "Did you doubt what he told us? I didn't! He don't need monsters to finish us if he wants to!"

Ousseau, looking misshapen in the dimness because of his bandaged chest, was still stumbling along after them. His head was lowered; he probably didn't know what was going on.

Mounix' eyes widened. He tried to scramble back. Hook twisted the sword out of his hand and let him go.

Cashel relaxed taking a couple of deep breaths. He nodded to Hook and said, "Yeah, she's there with the Archai, just like we left 'em."

"I don't think she can see us," Tilphosa said. She put her hand on Cashel's shoulder the way he himself might've calmed a plow ox who'd startled a wildcat in the stubble.

The thought made him chuckle. "I don't guess they can or they'd be trying to do something about us," Cashel said. "But there's no reason for us to hang around here regardless."

He nodded in the direction they'd been going thus far. "It looks like there's another light up there," he said. "Maybe if we keep going we'll find a place we want to be, huh?"

"Yes, let's go," Tilphosa said with a grateful smile. The hazy globe didn't make the woods around it any brighter, but Cashel wasn't having any difficulty seeing things by the light of the sky or roof or whatever it was.

Cashel held a hand up to stop her, then called into the darkness, "Hey Mounix! Give Ousseau here a hand, will you? We're not leaving anybody behind unless they want to stay, got that?"

They started forward. Tilphosa said very softly, "You're a remarkably gentle man, Master Cashel."

He snorted, but he was more pleased than not by the comment. "When you're my size, you better be," he said. "Otherwise you break things."

The second blur of light was much the same as the first, though this one appeared in a clump of saw-edged grass that Cashel wouldn't have tried to fight through. He cocked his head slightly; the shadows condensed into the image of a man in a green robe, seated on a couch spread with the lush, dappled pelt of some animal. Curtains hung on the wall behind him; the embroidered figures of strange beasts cavorted on the cloth, tossing six-horned heads or screeching from bird-beaks on antelope bodies.