David Drake - Out of the waters

Some had penetrated closer: the wreckage of three vessels lay on the outskirts of the burning village. Each was charred around a hole the size of a bushel basket which had been burned through its hull.

A single flying ship moved slowly, bow-on, toward the fortress. The other vessels had hulls and masts of wood, but this one was of the same fiery metal as the armor of the figure in its stern. There were no other crewmen.

A bolt ripped from the fortress: not fire like what the ships had squirted on Typhon as it rent Poseidonis but rather a jet of white channeled lightning; the air glowed in its wake. The ship gleamed as if every surface was covered with ghostly corposants; it staggered, then resumed its slow progress.

A second bolt hit the vessel, then a third. The figure in the stern raised its hands to the flaring helmet, then lifted it off. Instead of a human head beneath the armor, Varus saw a grinning diamond skull.

Purple light flashed from the skull and licked across the face of the fortress. The wall crumbled like a streambank during a freshet.

The light cut off; the ship wallowed closer. Overhead, what had been a clear sky now roiled with lightning and stormclouds.

Again the purple glare ate into the heart of the fortress, revealing an armored figure in a bubble of clear light against which the purple raved. In one metal gauntlet he held a murrhine bar crossways toward the attacking vessel.

The murrhine split; the halves flew out of sight in either direction. It had been a hollow tube.

Instead of blasting the figure as it had the fortress which sheltered him, a third spurt of purple light plucked the armor off like a diner shelling a crayfish. The mouth of the diamond skull opened: the victor was laughing.

The vision blinked away. Varus fell forward, but his father caught him.

Saxa's expression was as blank and frightened as Varus himself felt.

Hedia gasped, trying to get her breath. She thrashed for a moment, but that was pointless. The creature grasping her waist from behind had let go, but the two beside her each held a wrist. Their glassy hands were not uncomfortably tight, but they had no more give in them than if they had been carved out of stone.

She twisted to look at them. The creatures had opposable thumbs, but their fingers were fused into flat paddles. They were translucent, as though made from a dozen sheets of mica stacked together; she could see her wrists faintly through them.

She straightened again. The creatures seemed to pay her no attention. In silhouette they would have seemed human, but all the detail had been smoothed off. Hedia thought of statues worn by windblown sand.

She felt a smile twist the corners of her mouth. At least they don't terrify me now, the way they did in my nightmares.

She forced her body to relax. "Do you have names?" she demanded.

The figure on her left turned its head toward her, then turned back. It didn't speak, if it was even able to. The curves of its lips met in a shallow Vee and were seemingly carved from a single block.

"Where are you taking me?"

That brought no response at all. Well, she hadn't expected it to. She looked about her for the first time.

Hedia and her captors stood as though in clear air. At first she had thought she was falling, but now she wasn't sure. Things half-glimpsed swirled about them the way bubbles dance below a mill flume.

A man covered only by his gray beard and long hair suddenly was close: she didn't see movement. From the way his face contorted as he shook his fist, he was shouting curses; Hedia couldn't hear them; she heard only the shush of her own pulse in her ears. The figure shrank to a point and spun away, vanishing as suddenly as he had appeared.

Could he have touched me? Would the glass men have protected me if he tried?

A snake squirmed into view. Her captors faced it as stiffly as gladiators preparing to salute the Patron of the Games.

Why are they afraid? Hedia wondered. It seemed an ordinary blacksnake like the one in every temple of Apollo, fed by the priests on bread and milk when worshippers paid to receive the god's attention.

The snake looked toward Hedia; its forked tongue quivered from between its closed lips. As suddenly, it loomed like an avalanche before them; its jaws opened wide enough to swallow a cart and oxen. Releasing Hedia, the glass figures raised their arms at angles like the Egyptian dancers painted on the walls of a temple of Isis.

Hedia felt a wrenching. The snake was no longer visible. She sank to her knees, raising her hands to her face but not-quite-covering her eyes. She began to sob loudly.

Her misery was perfectly believable; it always was. Hedia was young and fit, but she wasn't large, and she tended to favor men of an athletic turn. Knowing when and how to weep had saved her from a beating or worse a number of times in the past, generally when a man entered unexpectedly and found her occupied in a fashion to which he took exception.

Once in fact she had been with the messenger who had brought a mistaken message saying his master, a military tribune, would be detained. The tribune had unfortunately hastened when his schedule had cleared again almost immediately. Hedia suspected things had gone very badly with the servant later that night, but she herself had come out of it with nothing worse than a bruised cheek and a table to replace.

It worked this time too. Her captors hedged her closely on three sides, but they didn't take her wrists again as she knelt weeping.

A blue sphere took form below them, growing denser the way fog rises from a pond on a cool evening. It swelled as it came into better focus, becoming a mass of forested islands. The surrounding sea was ultramarine in the distance, but the water was pale and greener where it fringed the curving shores of an island.

The figure behind Hedia began to gesture with its hands while the other two remained still. Her head was at the level of his knees; she wondered what would happen if she lunged against him.

Very likely I would cut myself as badly as if I'd slammed into the Temple of Jupiter. Certainly their hands are like stone. Hedia smiled in her mind, though she was careful not to let the humor reach her lips. She began to sob as though her pet kitten had died.

The island now looked as solid as if she were viewing it from a high tower. She and her captors slid over the tops of giant trees, still descending at a flat angle. The air was humid and thick with the smell of rotting leaves.

When Hedia first had glimpsed the forest, it had seemed a solid green mass. Close up she could see not only different shades of green but also masses of yellow blooms among the leaves or even purple and bluish white. Birds shrieked at them; once a lizard as long as a canoe barked an angry challenge from the top of a tree limb. Her captors didn't react.

Ahead was a hilltop which had recently been burned clear. It was enough higher than the ridge to either side that even bare it rose above the surrounding trees. The line on which they were moving passed very close above the crag.

Sunlight reflected in a dazzle. A building had stood here, but it had been shattered to stub walls and glittering debris over which the fronds of great fern were already curling.

A red-furred ape clambered through the wreckage; it turned and looked up at them. Its head was human with a pentacle tattooed in blue on its forehead. It screamed in fury.

The line of travel flattened still further; now Hedia and her captors were coursing parallel to the treetops ahead. There won't be a better time.

Without hesitation, she threw herself forward. The figures to either side grabbed for her, but they were too slow. Hedia somersaulted in the air and hit the slope feet-first. She couldn't stay upright, but she somersaulted again. Bouncing up, she threw herself into the shadows among the giant trees.