David Drake: Master of the Cauldron

After a moment's consideration, Tenoctris relaxed where she was. "Not quite yet," she murmured, mostly to herself.

When Sharina was a child who'd never met a wizard, she'd imagined that wizardry involved muttering a few words and having all manner of wonders appear from the thin air. Now she'd seen wizards of many different types and abilities. The one thing they all had in common was the bone-deep exhaustion that they felt at the conclusion of a spell.

A powerful wizard could do things that a lesser one couldn't even attempt, just as Cashel could lift a stone that wouldn't tremble if Sharina strained against it. That didn't mean lifting a heavy stone wasn't work for Cashel, though: just that it was work within his very considerable capacity.

Tenoctris was a little old woman with limited physical strength and similarly slight ability to influence through her art the forces she saw so clearly. Even minor spells were an effort for her. At need, she could function on sheer willpower for longenough in every case which Sharina'd had occasion to observe; but there was no need for Tenoctris to do anything just now except to sit on the deck as sailors completed berthing arrangements.

Volita lay in the Bay of Shelter. This western shore faced the mainland of Sandrakkan and the city of Erdin, the capital of the Earls of Sandrakkan from the founding of the Old Kingdom two millennia before. The surrounding water buffered the climate. Volita was close to one of the most vibrant cities of the realm, so during the Old Kingdom it'd become a summer resort for wealthy folk from the length and breadth of the Isles.

Today the remains of those homes lined the island's western shore and, as Sharina had seen as the fleet approached, the eastern side as well. Most'd had a slip for the owner's yacht, but the waves of a thousand stormy years had crumbled the pilings and stonework. They wouldn't have been large enough to berth warships two and three hundred feet long anyway.

But not all Volita's ruins were those of time and weather, though…

"Records of the Collapse aren't good," Sharina said. It seemed odd to be explaining what had happened a thousand years ago to a person who'd been alive then, but Sharina knew from her own experience that the person who lives an event often doesn't know more than a tiny shard of it. "Of course. But there's an account written in the monastery on Bridge Island, the Healing Brethren of Lady Erd. Nobody knows how accurate it is."

She cleared her throat and repeated, "Of course."

"Yes," said Tenoctris. "I understand. But thereis an account?"

"Sandrakkan was attacked by pirates who came from the Inner Sea," Sharina said, not letting her tone carry any emotion. "There was much raiding then, after Carus and his fleet were overwhelmed. These pirates were led by a wizard."

She was surprised at how difficult it was to go on. When she'd found the codex with the story in a temple library in Carcosa, it'd been interesting enough to struggle through despite the copyist's awkwardly back-slanted hand-but it'd been merely an anecdote. Perhaps it was slightly more important than otherwise because it took place in Erdin, where the Royal Fleet would be going next; but only slightly.

What had seemed a scrap of history in an old book took on a disquieting immediacy here, staring at the ruins of Volita. All the more reason to go on, Sharina thought with a grin.

"The Earl of Sandrakkan had a wizard also," she continued. "The monk doesn't mention the wizard's name, but he was apparently more learned than he was powerful."

Sharina and Tenoctris exchanged broad smiles. Tenoctris was an exceptional scholar irrespective of the subject on which she focused. She could appreciate better than most a wizard of former time with greater learning than power.

"He summoned a third wizard from a distant place," Sharina said.

"Distant in time or space?" Tenoctris wondered aloud. "Though I don't suppose a monastic chronicler would know the difference."

"He didn't," Sharina agreed. "'From a far country' was what he said. This third wizard met the pirates on Volita and raised great giants to battle them. At last the giants defeated the pirates and pent them under the earth. Erdin and the rest of Sandrakkan were saved, but everything on Volita was ruined. The island spat red and blue lightning for all the year following."

Tenoctris got to her feet with studied ease, barely touching a hand to the deck as she straightened. She smiled at Sharina, sharing with her younger friend a triumph over the insistences of age. She looked over the railing at Volita.

"Yes," she said, "I can imagine therewere flashes of wizardlight that even those who aren't sensitive to the forces involved would notice. And I'm not surprised that the houses haven't been rebuilt even today."

She nodded toward the ruins marching up and down the beach. The location should've remained desirable for the same reasons it had been during the Old Kingdom, but the only present signs of human activity were wandering sheep and the beehive hut that a shepherd had built from fallen debris.

"It'll be uncomfortable staying on Volita," Tenoctris continued, "though it won't do us any harm. The soldiers will probably feel itchy, some of them more than others."

Sharina watched the troops and sailors scrambling over the shore of the island. Groups were moving up the slope, spreading the way spilled liquid does through a piece of cloth.

She turned back toward the wizard. "What about you, Tenoctris?" she asked sharply. "'Some more than others,' you said. The sensitive ones, don't you mean? Then you most of all."

Tenoctris chuckled. "Oh, child, I know what's happening," she said. "For me it's no worse than being out in the rain; and the land needs rain, you know. But what if you didn't know what rain is?"

With a sad expression she watched the busy men. Sharina pursed her lips, understanding now why this landing seemed a little different from those she'd experienced before. The shouts were harsher, angrier than they should have been at the end of a successful voyage. The crews and soldiers were already on edge; that would only get worse the longer they camped here.

"Perhaps I should've said something sooner," Tenoctris went on. "I didn't realize it would be quite like this."

"It wouldn't have changed Garric's plan," Sharina said, glancing sideways toward her brother among his aides and black-armored bodyguards. "He didn't want to land on Sandrakkan proper because there might be trouble between our soldiers and the Earl's. Would be trouble."

There always was trouble: between soldiers and civilians, even when the soldiers were in permanent barracks at home, and between soldiers of different regiments even in the same army. Dropping an army of twenty thousand, armed and full of themselves and secretly frightened, onto an island which had fought them during the lifetime of many on both sides, meant the inevitable drunken insults and brawls over women were very likely to escalate into full-scale warfare.

Sharina knew that a bloody war between the Royal Army-which was still the Ornifal army in the minds of many-and the army of any of the major islands was likely to doom the kingdom no matter who won that particular battle. King Carus had fought a score of usurpers and secessionists, winning every time. Even if wizardry hadn't destroyed him and his army, there'd still have been a final battle that Carus lost if only because there were no longer enough able-bodied men to stand beside him.

The Old Kingdom had died with Carus. The New Kingdom would die just as surely with Garric if he started down the path of ruling by his swordarm.

Sharina looked at her brother in silence, feeling love and pride.

She also felt an embarrassing degree of relief. No matter how willing she was to help him for the kingdom's sake, the final responsibility was Garric's, not hers.