David Drake - Out of the waters

"Is that Procron's keep, mistress?" he said. "Or is there another Minos in this place?"

"This is where Procron hides," the Sibyl said. She continued to walk forward; Varus kept pace. "This is your enemy, Lord Wizard."

His feet crunched on the sere vegetation. Something small-perhaps a rabbit, though it didn't move like one-scurried ahead of them; Varus thought he heard it squeal. The air was thin, and it didn't seem to fill his lungs.

"Why did-" Varus began. He caught himself, grinning with what he thought was a pardonable degree of self-satisfaction.

"Sibyl…," he said, a philosopher and a lawyer now instead of a youth too frightened to use his education. "Did Procron abduct my mother? Because I know that the Sages took Corylus and Master Pandareus. I was there when it happened."

The old woman glanced toward him. He thought she was smiling again, but he couldn't be sure.

"Procron did not take Hedia," she said, "but those who took her are for others. Your duty is to deal with Procron, for no one else can."

The Sibyl made a chuffing sound that Varus thought was a laugh. "And even you may be unable to stand against Procron, Lord Wizard; though your world will end if you fail."

Varus sniffed; for a moment he was solely a son of Carce. "My world will certainly end if I fail," he said in a haughty tone, "for I will have died in the attempt. Of course."

They had come within a furlong of the crystal fortress, the length of a foot race. The high-arched door at ground level remained sealed, but the top of the spire split open. The angled sides moved soundlessly, catching sunlight and scattering it across the bleak landscape in a shower of orange droplets.

A figure in fiery armor slid from the fortress, standing on the air. He did not wear a helmet. In place of his head was a skull carved from diamond.

"Who are you who dares come to me?" the figure said. "I am Procron, Lord of the Atlantis! Submit or I will crush you as I crush all my enemies!"

"I saw you run from your fellow Minoi, magician!" Varus said. The words leaped to his tongue without his conscious volition. "And you must have run again, or I wouldn't find you here. Bow to Carce or take the consequences, barbarian!"

Procron raised a hand, but it was from his glittering skull that purple fire leapt at Varus and the Sibyl. The ground in a circle about them flashed into steam and bitter smoke.

Varus started back, but the bolt had halted at arm's length from him and splashed in all directions. The Sibyl stood, smiling faintly. The sparse vegetation could not sustain the fire.

Am I physically here in this cold wasteland?

Embarrassed to have recoiled from the purple fire, Varus strode forward. He didn't know why it hadn't incinerated him, and he certainly didn't know whether he'd be as lucky the next time. Besides which, the Atlantean wizard was a hundred feet in the air; unless Varus had developed an unexpected ability to fly, he couldn't get at his enemy even if Procron failed to blast him to ash in the next instant.

No matter. I am a citizen of Carce. If I don't know what to do in a crisis, I will go forward.

The flame-scoured moorland was hot beneath his feet. He was wearing silk slippers, suitable for a gentleman doing research in his family library. He grinned wryly. Blistered feet were the least of his worries.

Procron's diamond jaws opened as if to shout, but no sound came out. He spread his hands. Light the color of orichalc danced from his gauntlets. It formed walls in the air, tumbling and joining until they locked suddenly into a faceted sphere. It surrounded Varus and the Sibyl, slanting into the hard soil beneath their feet.

"Did you think you were safe because you could block my spells?" Procron said. "Stay here and starve! You cannot return to the world from which you came. I will watch you die and rot and crumble to dust-and even the dust will remain, for all eternity!"

Varus reached out with his left hand, touching the tip of his little finger to the amber gleam. The light was as solid as bronze. It had neither texture nor temperature, but he could no more step through it than he could the doors of the Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest.

"Die, you puppy!" Procron said.

The Sibyl said, "May the doors-"

"-of heaven be opened to me!" Varus said, completing the phrase in a cracked, ancient voice which caused his father to jump back in alarm.

"My son?" Saxa said. "I don't understand."

Varus rubbed his forehead, then bent and picked up the book he had dropped: a copy of the Aetna, the Stoic response to Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. He had always been in sympathy with Lucretius' Epicurean disbelief in the gods, but recent events had made him think the Stoics might be right after all.

"I don't understand either, father," Varus said. "And I'm afraid I don't know what has happened to mother. But I know what I must do."

Unfortunately, I don't have the faintest notion of how to do it.

Corylus awakened when he felt the ship begin to tremble. The sky had brightened, and the sails were quivering.

Corylus ached pretty much everyhere. He had slept on the ground beside the tilted keel, using a biscuit-or whatever they were-to cushion his head. They did better for that than they did as food, though he supposed they would sustain life.

He'd had a few bites of one to supplement the raw fish. He would probably eat more today, because he didn't trust the remaining fish to be safe without smoking or at least a drying rack. Though being doubled up with the runs didn't seem quite as terrible as it would have been if the alternative were something other than the chalky blandness of the ship's stores.

Coryla was watching him. "Good morning, cousin," he said politely. She pouted.

The Ancient had stopped shrieking some time in the middle of the night, but he still sat in the ruins. Under other circumstances, Corylus might have built the scattered stones into a shelter; the ship lay almost crossways to the prevailing wind, which was as bitter as that of the Hercynian forest in November. It was better to feel chilled to the bone than to cannibalize the Ancient's shrine, however.

The same concern, perhaps even more strongly, had convinced Corylus not to use the sprite's warmth to shelter him. He needed the Ancient as an ally if they were ever to get off this needle of rock. Even without that, he was sure that the result of provoking the golden-furred wizard into a rage would be unsurvivable, and he'd seen more than one man knifed or battered to death because of a disagreement over a woman. The sprite's pique was a cheap price to pay for avoiding that risk.

Water slapped loudly, then rebounded from the base of the rock. The eel hadn't slept during the night either. Judging from the sound, none of his leaps had equalled his first attempt. Corylus hadn't looked over the edge again, however, for fear of spurring the creature to a sufficiently greater effort.

The Ancient squatted with his wrists resting on his knees. His fingertips dangled almost to the ground. He watched as Corylus approached.

Corylus bowed. "Master Magician?" he said. He doubted whether the Ancient could understand his words, but he thought it was better to speak directly rather than to use the sprite as an intermediary. "I would like to leave as soon as you determine that there is light enough to lift the ship."

He gestured toward the brightening east without turning his head. He bowed slightly. The Ancient simply stared.

I depend on his good will, Corylus thought. He turned his back and began walking toward the ship. When both parties know that one cannot force the other to his will, then only a fool attempts to threaten.

There was a scrape on the dirt behind him. Corylus started to look over his shoulder. The Ancient shot past him in a flat leap that carried him to the stern of the ship. He slammed into the deck and straightened, his claws biting the wood. He grinned at Corylus.