David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

Just ahead of Cashel the cavern narrowed to a knife-edge. The walls stepped back a bit at every level rising to the dimly-glimpsed ceiling, but down where he followed Mab and the Sons it was going to be tight. Cashel figured he'd have room to spin his quarterstaff crossways but only just, and that because a staff didn't wobble whenhe spun it the way it did for most folks.

"Mistress Mab?" he said. "Ought I to lead here, or maybe…?"

He stopped because he didn't even know how to ask the question. Truth to tell, it seemed to Cashel he ought to beall places in the line, since the only direction he didn't worry about things coming at them from was up through the floor. And if there turned out to be a floor grate in the crevice, he'd be looking down between his feet too.

"I'll make a light and lead, Cashel," Mab said. "Shall we have…"

She made a sign in the air before her with her right hand; a blob of blue wizardlight bloomed. After an instant's pause, Mab signed again, this time with her left hand and a completely different gesture. Red light swelled beside the blue.

"The crimson, I think," Mab said. The blue light vanished and the red flooded soft color over everything within a stone's throw ahead and behind her. "Neither's more natural than the other, but the crimson makes things look more natural to our human senses, don't you think?"

"Thanks for giving us light, mistress," Herron said. All the Sons had taken to carrying their swords in their hands instead of wearing them in their belt scabbards, but only Herron held his with the point up where it might be good for something against a sudden attack. "I was… I wondered how much darker it was going to get."

"Algae grows over the light pipes," Mab said, not sounding very concerned about it. "It's natural, but the way it grows isn't."

"Like the mushrooms we saw," Orly said.

"And the rosebush that tried to follow us," said Enfero.

And also like the big spider you didn't see, Cashel thought. And probably a lot of things I didn't see besides.

But he didn't say any of that aloud. They were decent boys, trying hard to be brave doing something they didn't begin to understand. Cashel didn't understand either, but he was used to that and the Sons weren't.

"I see something," Orly said. "On the fifth terrace above us. To the left."

He pointed with his sword, then jerked it back. Cashel guessed he was afraid of calling attention to himself.

"They're white!" Stasslin said. "It's the Made Men!"

Cashel saw not figures but the pale shadows of figures, watching from just above where the glow lighted. There were a lot of them, many times more than he could count without a tally stick. They moved back and forth along the edge overlooking the crevice.

Stasslin turned to face Mab. In the tone of angry accusation that seemed to be pretty usual for him, he said, "You told us the Made Men couldn't get in, but here they are waiting!"

Before Cashel could act, Mab flicked her left index finger. The rosy haze expanded suddenly, filling the whole vast cavern and the passage ahead. A treefrog hung with its mouth open on the wall just below the terrace where the figures'd been, blinking at the light. Its webbed feet were much broader than those of frogs Cashel was used to, and its body was as large as a lamb's.

But the figures had vanished.

Mab shrank the light down to what it'd been a moment earlier. Cashel couldn't see the big frog any more, but the white shapes came capering back.

"The Made men were gone," Athan said, "and now they're there again."

"They never existed except as ghosts in your minds," Mab said coldly. "They have no physical presence, and they can do you no physical harm."

She looked at Stasslin and smiled. Her lips could've cut glass.

Stasslin glowered and turned his head away. "I didn't know!" he said in an angry voice. "I'm not afraid of ghosts."

"There's reason to fear these," Mab said, her voice gentler as she glanced across all those with her. "The King's spirit never really left these depths, and in the past decades his power here has increased to levels it's not reached in a thousand years. He can't touch your bodies, but he can trick your minds into seeing things that aren't there. He can make you feel things that're to his benefit. Not your benefit or the benefit of the citizens of Ronn."

"Lady Mab," said Herron, pretty much succeeding in keeping his voice steady. "What are we supposed to do?"

Mab smiled and raised an eyebrow at Cashel, passing the question to him. He shrugged, uncomfortable with everybody looking at him; but that'd happened to him before, and worse things had happened too. And the answer was always the same.

"We go on," Cashel said. "We go to the Shrine of the Heroes, and we wake them to come back with us."

He cleared his throat. "Or anyway, we try."

"Yes," said Mab, "that's what we'll do. As I said, I'll lead."

She walked forward, the light moving with her step by step. Several of the Sons started after her right away, but Herron glanced over his shoulder at Cashel.

Cashel smiled, pleased that Herron'd been concerned about him. They were good boys; most of them, anyhow.

"I'll bring up the back, Herron," he said. "That gives me a little more space if I need it."

So speaking, he spun his staff slowly. Just the simple sunwise turning made him feel better right away, so he crossed his arms behind him and reversed his spin to widdershins.

The Sons all gasped. Cashel didn't see why. He was showing his skill, but these fellows didn't know enough about quarterstaffs to see that.

Then he brought the hickory around before him again. The ferrules were trailing blue wizardlight.

"Oh," Cashel said, feeling his cheeks flush. He twisted his staff to a halt and butted it on the ground beside him.

"Master Cashel, how did you do that?" Manza said in amazement. The Sons were staring at him. Mab watched too, but she had a crooked smile.

"He's a wizard, Manza!" Enfero snapped at his friend. "How else would he do it?"

"I'm not a wizard!" Cashel said, looking at the deep passage they were supposed to be going down. "Anyway, let's get going."

He made a shooing motion with his free hand. Since he wanted to be at the back of the line, he couldn't very well stride off down the crevice the way he'd have done otherwise to get them moving. He felt like Stasslin had a moment ago, embarrassed at what he'd done and having no idea what to say about it. He didn't understand the power that came over him sometimes, but hewasn't a wizard.

Mab walked on. The Sons followed, most of them right on her heels, though Herron and Stasslin both tried to keep a decent separation. Cashel couldn't pretend he liked Stasslin-and unlike Ilna, Cashel generally found hedid like people-but even Stasslin was doing his best. That counted for more than the results did.

Well, it did to Cashel. Ilna, well, Ilna didn't have much time for failure either, even when it was somebody besides herself who was failing.

"Master Cashel believes a wizard is a person who uses spells and symbols to work changes in the waking world," Mab said. She spoke in a normal voice without looking back over her shoulder, but Cashel at the end of the line heard her clearly. "That defines many wizards, of course."

They were well within the crevice, now. The walls oozed, but the way the drops ran made Cashel wonder if they were something thicker than water. The floor was slimy, and the air had the musty closeness of something long dead but covered up. He remembered the time he'd opened the tarred seal of a storage jar and found that a rat had managed to hop in with the oats before the jar was closed the August before.

He heard something ahead, different from the dismalplink of water falling into water. One of the Sons was whimpering. There weren't any words to what was coming out of his mouth, just cold misery.