Master of the Cauldron (45 page)

Ilna'd reached the worm's slowly writhing tail. She could jump to the wall of the cocoon easily enough and climb down, the reverse of the way she'd gotten here; but that meant having her hands free.

She smiled grimly, then pulled the neck of her tunic out and squeezed the jewel down the front of the garment to where the tie around her waist held it. The stone's warmth against the skin of her belly was vaguely unpleasant, like the heat rising from freshly turned compost.

She jumped to the cocoon, catching double handfuls of silk. After hanging for a moment to kick footholds, she slanted crosswise and down toward the path to the cliff. There must be a similar tube floating out to sea, siphoning in fresh, cool air to expel what the worm had breathed.

Ilna started up the tube with the wind at her back. Its soughing and the splash of the creatures swimming in the worm's wastes were the only sounds behind her. She'd rarely been more willing to leave a place.

She smiled. If it came to that, there weren't a lot of places she'd wanted to remain, either. She was going toward Chalcus and perhaps Merota if—luck, fate; perhaps another word that her mind shied away from. Toward Merota too, if the universe was willing that they find her.

Ilna went upward at the same quick pace by which she'd gone down into the cocoon. She wondered why Chalcus and Davus hadn't been able to see the silk and wondered why she could. She didn't often think about her mother. Her father, Kenset, had left Barca's Hamlet for adventure. He came back with two infants and no ambition but to drink himself to death. No one else had seen her mother, and Kenset never talked about her.

Ilna's unknown mother wasn't an answer, only a longer series of questions. It was empty nonsense to think about things that nobody could answer!

She saw daylight and walked out into it. Her heart lifted to a degree that surprised her, certain though she'd been as she climbed that she'd be glad to be out of the cocoon forever.

The tube ended high enough above the water that the worm wouldn't be drowned when storms lashed the pale violet sea. Ilna continued sure-footedly up the sheet of silk that would shortly split into bundles, then individual cords. She was tempted to take the jewel out of her tunic so that she'd have an excuse to walk up the final line instead of using her hands to crawl, but that would mean putting her dignity ahead of Chalcus' concern for her safety. She wouldn't do that.

Chalcus shouted and waved. Davus was waving also. Ilna raised her hand to wave back, a little puzzled that her companions were so demonstrative.

Davus wasn't waving: He was launching a large stone from the sash in his right hand.

Ilna looked over her shoulder in sudden realization. The giant bird, larger than a warship, was sailing toward her on rigid, silent wings. Its toothed beak was open, and its eyes glittered like the sun on polished coal.

The right eye
splashed
and went dull. The left wing convulsed, and the huge bird tilted sideways, then plunged toward the sea without making a sound. It was so close that its death throes flapped a storm wind that almost lifted Ilna off the cord.

She walked the rest of the way to the cliff's edge as steadily as she'd begun, but she was breathing quickly through her open mouth. As she neared the rock and her friends, she heard the shrill voice of Arrea calling, “The jewel! Bring me the jewel!”

 

“I stood the regiment to when that black monster appeared in the sky, your highness!” Lord Rosen said as Garric and the Blood Eagles came to a clattering halt at the main gate of the palace. He leaned closer to Garric, and added, “Truth to tell, I figured the men'd be steadier shoulder to shoulder with their mates than they would sitting around and wondering about what all this wizard nonsense meant.”

The Blaise armsmen were drawn up in four ranks, the whole regiment together in front of the building. That meant there were no squads in the Audience Hall and other important rooms the way Garric had directed when he left for the temple that morning.

Rosen had been right to change the troop dispositions. Garric had scattered squads throughout the palace to remind Wildulf's intimates that they were part of the kingdom. Now that open rebellion had flared, splitting the royal forces was asking for them to be massacred in detail.

Liane was talking to one of her clerks, a mousy little man of indeterminate age. He nodded and went into the palace. He was unlikely to arouse attention even though he was walking quickly.

“Right,” said Garric. The ammonite in the sky had dissipated while he and his troops jogged back through streets deserted owing to terror of the omen. It'd been another illusion, an empty threat, but a threat nonetheless.
“Hold them here in readiness. I'm taking Attaper's men into the palace to arrest Balila's wizard and at least discuss matters with Balila herself. I don't know how Wildulf's going to react to that.”

“It's going to happen no matter how he reacts,” Lord Attaper said in a bleak voice.

Garric looked at his guard commander sharply. “Yes it is, milord,” he said. “But I trust you and your men haven't forgotten that we're in Erdin
not
to start a war. If you have, I'll take Lord Rosen and a section of his men in with me.”

“Honored to accompany you, your highness!” Rosen said, stiffening to attention. The Blaise nobleman looked pudgy, but there was real muscle under the layer of fat and a quicker intelligence than Garric was used to finding among soldiers.

“Don't get above yourself, Rosen,” Attaper said. There was a chuckle rather than a snap in his voice, the tone you'd use to reprove a puppy who wanted to play at an inappropriate time. “Your highness, we kept the lid on at the temple an hour ago. We'll do the same here till you give us different orders. Let's go talk with Dipsas, shall we?”

Several of Wildulf's mercenaries guarded the palace entrance, but there wasn't the full squad that'd usually been on duty. Garric wondered if others had run away when the image appeared in the sky. In any event, those present got out of the way as he and his escort of Blood Eagles trotted through the archway and into the central plaza.

One of the Sandrakkan courtiers stood there alone, hugging himself with his eyes turned to the ground. Garric remembered him from the levee following the coronation.

“Lord Ason,” Liane said—trust her to remember a name she'd only heard once. “Where are the earl and countess?”

The courtier twitched and continued staring at the stone pavers. “Wildulf's in his Audience Hall right there,” he said. “I don't know where she is.”

He looked up at last. With a flare of anger he added, “But if she and that wizard of hers are behind the things that're happening, I hope they're in Hell! I don't care how much Wildulf thinks of her, I hope they're in Hell!”

“Can't say I disagree with him,”
said Carus, who'd stayed watchfully quiet in Garric's mind since the fighting ended. The ancient king was a constant presence and resource, but he knew better than to be distracting when Garric had to concentrate.

Nor do I,
Garric agreed silently, as he and his escort double-timed across the courtyard. The Blood Eagles' boots made a sparkling cacophony on the stone.
And it may be we'll be sending them there very shortly.

Somebody'd started to shutter the colonnade between the courtyard and Audience Hall. Only a few of the hinged partitions had been closed, though. They formed a fourth wall during severe weather, but under normal circumstances the open plaza was additional space for the public to hear the earl's pronouncements.

The threat hadn't been weather this time, but the thing in the sky. Earl Wildulf sat slumped on his throne, leaning on his left elbow. A score of courtiers and servants remained in the big room, but others must've fled.

The pair of servants who'd started to shutter the room were sobbing by a half-closed partition. They'd worked blindly until a pin had stuck in its track. Terror hadn't left them enough courage or intelligence to overcome even a trivial setback; instead they'd broken down completely.

The priestess, Lady Lelor, stood by the throne. She turned on Garric, and shouted, “You don't know what it's like! You've only seen them a few times. If you'd had to live with those things in the sky for a month, you'd understand why we're, why we're…”

She couldn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to, of course.

“Earl Wildulf,” Garric said without ceremony. “Where's your wife, and particularly where's the wizard Dipsas?”

“She hadn't anything to do with it,” Wildulf said, straightening. Anger replaced his previous despair and he regained some of his manhood. “They were both here when it started. They weren't responsible!”

“Dipsas may not be behind the apparitions,” Garric said, “but she was in league with Tawnser. I'm not going to give her another chance to bring the kingdom down. You say she was here? Where's she gone, milord?”

“You can't talk like that in my court!” Wildulf said. His belt and sword hung over the back of the throne; it wasn't practical to wear the long blade while seated in an armchair. A pair of Blood Eagles stepped behind him and removed the weapon.

“She and the countess went off together,” Lady Lelor said in a harsh voice. “Toward the countess's apartments. They left as soon as the
thing
appeared in the sky.”

She turned to Earl Wildulf, and said, “Milord, I've pretended there was
nothing happening for as long as I could. That Dipsas is a demon from the Underworld, and she's tricked your wife into helping her!”

“They couldn't have done this!” Wildulf shouted. “They were here in the chamber when it started!”

“They may not be behind the things in the sky,” Lelor said, “but they
roused
whatever it is that's doing it. Doing that and worse things. I'm as sure of that as I am of anything in the world.”

She shook her head, and added miserably, “I don't know what else there is I can be sure of now. Not even the sunrise, the way those things cover more of the sky each time they appear. And they last longer besides.”

Garric glanced toward Liane. She was at an inner doorway, talking to the clerk she'd sent as messenger and to a younger man in the sash and tunic of a palace servant. The servant was protesting volubly.

The spy,
Garric realized.
The spy who marked the route for us to follow through the tunnels beneath the palace.

Aloud to Lady Lelor, he said, “Were the countess and her wizard alone?”

“They had her boy with them, that was all,” Wildulf himself said. “The boy and her bird.”

In a tired voice, Wildulf added, “She brings the boy to bed with us. It's not natural, and I know it, but I can't say no to her.”

“Your highness?” Liane said. “Master Estin knows the direct route to where Dipsas has probably gone. I suggest that we go with no more than a squad of soldiers”—she didn't bother to say “you send” because she knew full well that Garric wasn't going to leave the task for others—“to arrest her, because a larger force will be dangerously cramped in some of the passages.”

“Right,” said Garric. He turned to his guard commander, and continued, “Lord Attaper, pick an officer and ten men who aren't bothered by tight places”—he grimaced—“and wizardry to accompany me. We'll go immediately.”

“I'm the officer,” Attaper said, as Garric knew he would. “Ensign Attarus, a squad from your section.”

“Yes sir!” said a boy who wasn't having much luck growing a beard yet. “Squad Three, form behind me!”

“I didn't say—” Attaper started angrily.

Garric put a hand on Attaper's wrist. “It's all right, milord,” he said, “your son can come with his men.”

If Attarus was man enough to command a doomed rear guard, then he can have what he and all his fellows consider a place of honor now.

“You lied to me!” Estin said bitterly. “You've unmasked me before the whole court. What's my life worth now, do you suppose?”

“It's worth less than the kingdom's safety,” Garric said. He was repeatedly amazed at the way people saw themselves at the center of the universe. “As is my life. Take us to Dipsas, and I'll make you a palace gardener in Valles if you're looking for safety.”

“Go,” Liane said crisply. “We may not have much time.”

The spy led them into the north wing of the palace at a trot. Servants with frightened expressions squeezed into wall niches or stared at the running soldiers through doors that were barely ajar.

“Her suite's to the left of the corridor,” Estin said. He appeared to have gotten over his anger at being identified in public; that, or it'd been put on to begin with. “The earl's suite's across from it. There, the one covered in blue leather.”

The door was set in an ornamental frame like the entrance to a miniature temple. No soldiers were guarding it, but it'd been barred from the inside.

Garric stepped back to kick the panel. Attaper touched his shoulder, and said, “A job for boots, your highness. Attarus, on three. One, two—”

Father and son raised their hobnailed right feet together.

“Three!” and they smashed the door open in splinters and torn leather facings. Estin slipped through behind the Blood Eagles, with Garric and Liane following closely. The remainder of the squad brought up the rear.

A few of the Blood Eagles carried javelins. Garric and the others had drawn their swords.

The ground level was a reception area and servant's quarters; Balila's bedroom and intimate chambers would be up the stairs. A maid in silk tunics knelt over a chair seat with her face in her arms, weeping in terror.

“Through to the back,” the spy said. “The entrance is in Dipsas' quarters, and you can bet nobody but her and her mistress go
there
.”