David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

Mab walked toward the watercourse which cascaded over the rim of the gallery and fell by a series of pools into the far distance. Cashel followed, balancing his staff crossways before him. As he'd expected, the Sons fell in behind-Herron leading and the rest following after.

He looked across the cavern again. He wasn't sure he could see the other side, the place was that big, but white arrows in the distance were the flumes of more little cataracts like the one near by where they'd come out of the rock-cut tunnel leading from the shaft that'd dropped them through the crystal part of Ronn.

The great cavity wasn't completely empty, though: paths slanted out into it. Some were wide enough for a cart, often with water running through a channel down the middle, but a lot of them looked so narrow that people'd have to walk one ahead of another. Sometimes they crossed each other like the cords of a spiderweb, and generally they dropped either by gentle ramps or a flight of stairs and another waterfall.

The Sons were whispering among themselves, wondering if they'd be going down that way soon. Cashel supposed they would, though of course Mab might have another notion entirely. He didn't bother asking her; they'd learn soon enough.

Mab knelt at a stone coping more like the mill flume in Barca's Hamlet than a stream bank. She dipped her cup full of water. It looked clear as it ran down the channel-you could see bits of leaf litter from the upper levels tumbling along in the swift current-but it started to bubble when it filled the cup. Cashel smelled brimstone and a hint of decay.

Mab held the cup out in her right hand and stroked the air with her left index finger. Cashel could've repeated the pattern himself-he was good with those things, just as good as Ilna, though he didn't have his sister's feeling for fabrics.

He couldn't have described what he saw in words, though, and he wasn't sure that even somebody who reallyknew words like Garric and Sharina could've done that thing. Mab's tracery was something that you had to feel, not hear about.

The water flashed red. A skim of ice appeared on the top. For just an instant the veins in the ice were the same as the figure Mab had drawn. The bad smell vanished like thistledown in a flame.

Mab handed the cup to Cashel, smiling archly. He took it and sipped; the ice had melted to a rind even before his lips touched it.

He wasn't sure what the water'd taste like, not that it really mattered. On hot summer days while plowing he'd drunk ditchwater, kneeling beside his oxen. In fact it was cool and sparkled, as refreshing as a long draft of bitters from Reise's inn. His eyes met Mab's; her smile had grown wider like she knew what he'd been wondering.

"Really good, ma'am," he said, turning to hand the cup to Herron.

"You've only had a mouthful," Mab said. "Drink more."

"Ma'am, there's a lot of us," Cashel said. "And it's not a big cup."

"Nor has it gone down any from the drink you've taken, you might notice," Mab replied tartly. "Drink your fill, then pass it on."

Cashel couldn't help looking into the cup, but that was just reflex: if Mab said he could walk over the edge of this gallery without falling, it'd be the truth. He drank more, not his fill but three big swallows taken slowly. Then he passed the cup to Herron, saying, "Don't drink too much the first time, any of you. We'll pass it around again, after the first settles in our stomach."

The Sons drank deeply, ignoring his advice. Well, he'd thought they would. It shouldn't matter.

"When we start down…," Mab said as the cup went to Orly, the last. "Be careful of what you may meet. And of course don't fall. The paths are solid, but the railings may not be. They weren't part of the King's plan, and the citizens who added them after the King's exile weren't able to build for the ages the way he'd done."

"Why did you tell us not to wear our armor if we're going to be meeting the Made Men?" Stasslin said. Cashel wouldn't have used that tone to anybody, let alone the lady who was helping them.

Cashel had one butt of his quarterstaff on the floor by his right foot. He leaned the staff forward and said in a loud voice, "I'll have another drink now, Orly, if you're done with the water."

Orly had paused with the cup halfway to his lips. Instead of handing it to Cashel, he said, "She didn't say we'd be fighting Made Men, Stasslin. She said to be careful."

"Yes," said Mab. She looked at Stasslin with a cold expression much more threatening than Orly's anger. "If you're going to put words in someone's mouth, make them pleasant ones; boy."

The deliberate pause before 'boy' made Stasslin flush. "Look, I just meant…," he began; and stopped, probably because he couldn't think of where to go from there.

Cashel took the cup from Orly's hand, mostly to cool things off a bit. He drank and said, "Stasslin, I learned when I was a boy that if you're stupid, you're best off keeping your mouth shut. I try to live by that."

Cashel offered the cup to Herron, who waved it away. "Anybody want more?" he said. Nobody spoke.

"Then we're ready to start down," Mab said. She gestured to a path, one of the wider ones, that slid into the cavern some fifty double-paces away on the other side of the little creek. With her left hand she lifted the cup from Cashel's hand and folded it flat again. Though she didn't pour out the water first, nothing splashed on the pavement.

There was a hump-backed bridge over the creek, but Cashel jumped the channel since it wasn't as wide as he was tall. He glanced back as Mab followed, then frowned in surprise. She didn't jump, exactly; at least it didn't look like she had. She scissored her legs and she was across, that was all.

The Sons were all going to the bridge, so Cashel and Mab walked to the path alone. "Who told you you were stupid, Cashel?" she asked.

"Lots of people, ma'am," Cashel said. He let a slow grin spread over his face. "Not after I got my growth, though. Not twice, anyhow."

"Sometimes people need to have their errors beaten out of them," Mab said in a quiet voice trembling over fury. "I'm afraid there aren't enough of us to do all the necessary beating, but we have to try."

Cashel looked at her in concern, but her face was calm enough. They'd reached the walkway before the others, so he paused.

Mab nodded. "Yes, we'll wait," she said. Pointing down she added, "Do you see the fish hanging in the air below that broad catwalk? Midway to the surface."

Cashel squinted to see better. "I think so, yes," he said. It was fish-shaped, anyway, but as far down as it was it must've been bigger than he was. It was moving, squirming furiously and rising headfirst toward the path. That wasn't just a trick of the bad light.

He puzzled the question through in his mind and said, "Ma'am, do fish fly in this place?"

"No, though we may well see stranger things," Mab said. "There!"

A spider dropped along a strand of silk unseen in the dimness, scrabbled at the fish for a moment with its four front legs, and climbed quickly out of sight again beneath the walkway. The fish resumed its jerky upward journey, but it'd stopped wriggling.

"The King's influence has leaked into these lower levels during the millennium of his exile," Mab said. "The way filth drains into the bilges of a ship. Neither the King nor his creations have entered Ronn, not yet; but here in the lower levels the insects and plants and the fish in the ornamental pools have changed. In the directions that the King would've wished."

The Sons had caught up to them again. They'd been whispering among themselves as they crossed the bridge, but now they fell silent as they listened to Mab and Cashel.

Cashel looked at them, feeling his face grow harder than usual when his eyes fell on Stasslin. The burly Son frowned for an instant but then looked away.