The Gods Return (46 page)

With throaty chuckles that certainly sounded golden, the caryatids shut their books and stepped out from under the transom. The stiff marble beam remained where it was, bound in place by the weight of the roof resting on the walls.

"Oh, it feels good, doesn't it, Calixta?" said one. She executed a complex dance step on her toes, then pirouetted away. Reaching up, she removed the fillet so that her hair swirled as she moved. Her tunic was still gold, but it belled out like diaphanous silk.

"I missed the grass between my toes, Lalage," said Calixta, executing a mirror image of the same dance. Her loosened hair was noticeably longer than her partner's. Each woman—each nymph? They certainly weren't statues any more—held her silver fillet in one hand to balance the closed codex in the other. "But I knew it would be waiting for me."

Tenoctris waited with her arms folded in front of her. Garric stood at her side. He noticed with wry amusement that he stood straighter than usual and sucked his belly in. The nymphs had golden skin and eyes, but they were very attractively female.

"Come, Lalage," Calixta said after a final delicate swirl. She transferred her book to the same hand as the fillet so that she could touch her partner's wrist. "Our visitors asked us for help, after all."

Obediently Lalage walked with Calixta to face Garric and Tenoctris. "How can we help you, friends?" they asked in pure, melodious voices.

"Our enemies . . . ," Tenoctris said. "Enemies of life, really, have opened the Gate of Ivory. They're calling out the spirits of the dead to animate the bodies of monsters which they create. We have come here to ask Lord Munn to close the gate again."

"He won't listen to you, lady," said Calixta. "Not a woman."

"He won't listen to any woman," Lalage agreed. "No matter what you threaten him with."

"With your help, I will raise him," Tenoctris said firmly. "And then we will see who he obeys."

Lalage gave her deep chuckle again and handed her fillet to Tenoctris. "Put this on his right arm, then," she said. "And wake him."

"And this on his left," Calixta said, offering her fillet also. "We'll see, just as you say."

Tenoctris bowed to the nymphs, then stepped into the temple with Garric at her side. The golden women were whispering, and in Garric's mind King Carus watched with the grin he wore in battle.

* * *

"Liane!" Cashel shouted. "Ma'am, where are you?"

Something called, " Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!" in the distance. Cashel didn't suppose it had anything to do with Liane's wandering off, but he looked that way into the darkness anyhow.

"Liane!" he called.

With his staff crossways before him, Cashel shoved through a clump of plants whose sword-shaped leaves stuck up from a common center. He didn't think they were grass, though they might be. The edges of the leaves were light against a dark core; yellow and green, he supposed, but he couldn't tell by moonlight.

He stopped. He hadn't gone far from the trough he'd dug for Rasile, but already the forest was different. Here, instead of trees with boles like snakes, there were waist-high trunks with scaly bark supporting flower heads a full arm's length across. Some of the petals were darker than others, but again he couldn't tell the real color.

"Liane?" Cashel called again, but this wasn't doing any good. He turned to go back to Rasile.

He wasn't worried about getting lost himself—he didn't get lost outdoors, not even when the trees were strange and the stars were like none he'd ever seen before. He'd lost Liane, though, by not paying attention. He was responsible for Rasile too, and he'd best get back to her before something else happened.

The foliage rustled. Cashel cocked the quarterstaff to slam it forward like a battering ram, but he said quietly, "Rasile?"

"Yes, Cashel," the wizard said, slipping between the standing leaves instead of pushing through them the way he'd just done. "I let the elementals have the sacrifice."

Cashel grimaced. "Ma'am, I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have run off like I did. I . . . ."

He'd made one mistake, and then he'd made another right on top of it. There wasn't anything he could do now except go on and try to make things right in good time.

"Ma'am?" he said. "Do we need to go back and fetch another goat?"

The Corl's tongue wagged her laughter. "That wouldn't do any good, I'm afraid," she said. "Had I thought that I could force the answer out of them, I would not have left the work to find you. Desperate as they were for the blood, they would not speak against Gorand. I do not think that even Tenoctris could have dragged that from them."

Cashel nodded. He was sorry that Rasile hadn't gotten the information they'd come here for, but part of him was glad that he wasn't the reason it hadn't worked.

"Well," he said. "Before we go look for Gorand some more, we need to find Liane. Or I do, anyhow, because I should've been watching her while you were busy."

"She left one of her shoes in the clearing," Rasile said. If she had any opinion about whether going after Liane was a good idea, she kept it to herself. "With that to work from, I believe that I can determine a direction. Or better."

They went back through the glade. Cashel had intended to lead and clear the way, but Rasile didn't need help and didn't give him the chance, either one.

The clearing was the same as it'd been when they arrived, except for the scar Cashel had dug in the sod. The gray hungry things were gone, the elementals; he was glad of that.

Blood no longer glistened in the moonlight. He guessed that if he'd touched the bottom of the trough, he'd have found it dry as a skull in a desert. Not that he cared, or that he had any intention of checking.

Rasile picked up the sandal and examined it critically, uppers and sole. She looked at Cashel and said, "I could probably get a clearer image if I placed this where the blood was to work my spell, but I don't think I will."

"No, ma'am," Cashel said. "Liane wouldn't like that, so we won't do it."

He was glad Rasile had decided that herself, but he'd have told her just as clear as he needed to. He figured Liane would rather die than be saved by blood magic. Cashel didn't feel that way himself, but he could see that she had an argument on her side.

"We'll put it where she dropped it, then . . . ," the wizard said as she placed the sandal back on the sod. She reached into her basket and brought out the yarrow stalks.

"Why do you want to find her anyway?" asked a woodsprite unexpectedly.

Cashel looked up. She was perched in the crotch of a sumac bush just inside the circle of trees. She rose and stretched, giving him a pixie grin.

"You could do
much
better, you know," she said. "A bull like you deserves the best."

"Ma'am," Cashel said. "Liane's my friend, and she's the intended of my best friend. Do you know where she's gone?"

The sprite hopped to the ground and sauntered toward Cashel through the grass blades. "Then you're free?" she said. "Come with me, bull man!"

"No ma'am," said Cashel, straightening up. She wasn't any taller than his ankle, but size didn't mean much here. He'd been in these places often enough before to know that. "Tell us where Liane is, please."

The sprite made a face at him. Small as she was, he saw her clearly. He supposed he wasn't seeing with his eyes.

"You're no fun!" she said. "Well, you can just forget about your skinny little girlfriend. Milady's servants took her, so you'll
never
get her back!"

"Do you mean that Gorand took her?" said Rasile. She'd set her basket on the ground, but she still held the yarrow stalks.

"Keep away from me, cat!" the sprite said, darting between Cashel's feet. "Don't let her hurt me, big man!"

"Rasile isn't going to hurt you," said Cashel, wondering if that was true. Well, it shouldn't be necessary. "But ma'am, you need to tell us where Liane is."

"Milady isn't Gorand," the sprite said scornfully. She moved out from cover warily, but she still kept to his other side from the Corl. "She's here, and Gorand just
rules
. Gorand wouldn't care about the skinny girl!"

Rasile bent close to the ground and wrinkled her nose. Cashel misunderstood for a moment, then realized that the Corl was catching a scent.

"The apes were here recently," she said, rising. "I should have noticed that before. While I was busy with the elementals."

"Of course Milady's servants were here," the sprite sneered, bending forward to watch the cat woman while keeping Cashel's body between them. "I
told
you that. They took her to Milady in the castle, and you'll never get her away again."

"Where is the—" Cashel started to ask. He looked up, following the line of the sprite's eyes. A tower and a crumbling wall stood against the sky.

The ruin can't have been as much as a bowshot away. Maybe it was the angle so that Cashel now saw through a notch between the tops of the funny trees; but maybe it really hadn't been there before.

"Why don't you come with me, handsome?" the sprite said. "Just for a little while, if you like."

Figures moved on top of the tower. Two were hulking apes. Between them—

Haze shrouding the moon drifted away. The apes were holding Liane.

"Cashel!" she called.

He was already striding toward the ruin, his quarterstaff slanted across his body. Rasile was beside him.

* * *

Leaves brushed Sharina's cheek. She sat upright and flailed mentally for an instant, trying to remember where she was.

She'd been sleeping on the bench in the roof arbor, a soldier's cloak rolled under her head for a pillow. It was near dawn; the eastern stars had faded, though the sun was still below the horizon. The grape leaf had tickled her because—

"Hey, what's that!" a Blood Eagle said.

"Belt up, bonehead!" said Trooper Lires. "That's the princess's pet rat, don't you see?"

Burne, squatting on a wrist-thick vine on the back of trellis, lowered the scorpion he'd just trimmed to harmlessness. "I prefer to think of myself as her colleague," he said, then finished his meal with two more clicking bites. He disposed of the remains over the porch railing.

"Was it about to sting me?" Sharina said. She kept her voice calm, but that was an effort of will. She recalled the chitinous mass writhing on Platt.

Burne squirmed onto her side of the trellis. Sharina's slender hand wouldn't have fit through the diamond-shaped openings, but the rat had no difficulty.

"Oh, no," he said. "He was listening, spying. They all were. There were three of them when I came back, so I disposed of them before I told you what I'd learned."

The guards were watching in all directions, including the pair at opposite ends of the trellis. They hadn't noticed the—three, apparently—scorpions creeping along the brickwork, but Sharina didn't imagine any human being would have. Except for the Blood Eagles, no one else was present.

Sharina had taken off the Pewle knife when she stretched out to sleep. Now she stood and wrapped the belt around her waist again. She still wore her sleeping tunic as an undergarment, but Diora had brought up a pair of sandals and an outer tunic.

"Tell me," she said quietly.

"The cult's headquarters is the temple of Our Lady of the Grove," Burne said. He sounded. "Clever, weren't they? All the priests used to worship the Shepherd, but the leaders are in the oldest temple of the Lady here in Pandah."

"Oh, they're clever," Sharina said grimly. She fitted the tongue of the sealskin belt through its loop. "But thanks to you, Master Burne, not clever enough."

"If you send troops quickly, you may catch them inside," the rat said. "But every scorpion is a spy, and they share each others' minds."

"I'm not
sending
anybody," Sharina said. "Captain Ascor, a company of Ornifal infantry was with us on last night's raid. Where are they billeted?"

"Right here in the palace, your highness," Ascor said. "What with the riots, Lord Tadai thought there ought to be more than just the usual guards on duty here. I think, ah . . . it might've been the regiment's camp marshals who suggested that to him."

"Yes," said Sharina. "I rather think it may have been also. Well, Captain, let's go find Prester and Pont. They already know the route."

Prester and Pont often said that they'd become old soldiers by not taking chances, but they weren't men who'd hide if it looked like there was a prospect of action. The fact they'd chosen to be on duty here meant either that they'd thought somebody was likely to attack the palace, or that they'd expected something like what was happening. They'd seen the Princess Sharina use her big knife, and they probably figured that she'd use it again given half a chance.

They were right about that.

Three aides stood at attention outside the first landing. The sound of voices on the roof had brought them to alertness, but the courier hadn't buckled the lid of his sabertache; a dice cup poked out of it.

To him Sharina called as she went past, "Tell Lord Tadai I'm going out with the ready company!"

That was as much information as she was willing to give openly. She doubted it would be of much value to Tadai, but at least she would have something to point to when the city prefect complained bitterly that she'd disappeared without warning. The notion that a princess could do anything she pleased was only true for epic characters who didn't live in a real human society.