David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Was it a demon, Tenoctris?" she added, then frowned. "Isit, I mean. It's still there, after all."

"Not a demon," Tenoctris said, shaking her head. "It's an animal, but one that doesn't belong in this world or time. The wizard who could bring such a thing so far could have opened the way for a demon, of course; but demons are hard to control. Generally impossible to control. Though there's no end of fools with more power than sense who might have tried it anyway."

The old wizard smiled with a mixture of humor and disdain for those who had the great powers which she lacked, but who themselves lacked her judgment and knowledge. Sharina stepped close and hugged Tenoctris. She was inexpressibly glad to have a friend whounderstood the powers which were threatening to overwhelm the Isles.

The forces which turned the cosmos were neither good nor bad; but when they were at their peak, human evil and human error had an immense capacity for causing destruction. Mistakes as much as malice had shattered the Old Kingdom; similar mistakes and malice could grind the slowly-rebuilt civilization of the present too deep into the mud to ever revive.

"Sharina?" Tenoctris said, touching the back of the girl's wrist.

Sharina came to herself again; her fingers had knotted so tightly that her nails were cutting the backs of her hands. "Sorry!" she said with a bright smile. "I was thinking about things that we're not going to let happen."

"No, we're not," agreed Tenoctris approvingly. She patted Sharina's wrist again before looking over the scene around them.

The fleet that'd been arrayed like pieces on a chess board was now clumped like a crowd watching a street fight. At least a dozen warships were close enough that Sharina could've flung a stone aboard them. Officers shrieked to their own crews and to theSister-cursed idiots! on other vessels. She heard oars break as ships fouled one another, and the chance of accidental ramming must be making the sailing masters scream.

Sharina gave faint smile. She was an excellent swimmer; needs must, she could strip off her robes and make it to shore. She smiled even more broadly. If she had to pull Tenoctris along with her, she could manage that too.

Horns and trumpets began to call, issuing orders instead of just adding to the noisy chaos. Flutists blew time to the rowers, and on a trireme from Third Atara-not all the royal fleet was from Ornifal-a drummer beat a similar rhythm. The clot of ships edged apart, their prows pointing again toward the harbor mouth.

Big as quinqueremes were, they carried more of their weight above the waterline than a merchant captain would think was safe or even sane. TheShepherd 's deck wobbled when Garric and his entourage of Blood Eagles started forward. He grinned as Sharina raised her hand in greeting.

"We're heading for the harbor along with the whole First Squadron," Garric said conversationally, nodding toward the Admiral Zettin's flagship. "I don't know that we'll be any safer with ten other ships around us than when we were going to enter in lonely majesty-"

He grinned again. For the moment he was the brother Sharina'd grown up with, not the prince ruling the Isles with a quick mind and hard hand. Garric was both those things, of course; but when he was being a boy, Sharina could let herself be somebody younger and perhaps happier than the princess in court robes.

"-but Admiral Zettin made it clear that the only way I'm going to get rid of my escort is to sink every one of them. He's a former Blood Eagle, you know."

"And he's got the right bloody idea," the captain of the bodyguards aboard theShepherd muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Garric glanced at the man, paused, then smiled. "Yes, I think maybe he does," he said.

TheShepherd got under way again. The five banks of oars stroked together to get the rhythm, their blades barely rippling the sea's surface. On the next stroke they bit deeper and the vessel shuddered, though Sharina wouldn't have been able to say that it'd resumed forward motion.

"There won't be another attack today," Tenoctris said with a nod of certainty. "No matter how powerful the wizard who attacked you may be, he won't be able to follow that very easily. Though heis powerful. He is, or she is, or it is. And clever as well."

"That's good to hear," Garric said, in the absent fashion that people mouth pleasantries that aren't going to change their behavior in the least. "That there won't be another attack for a while, I mean."

He touched the pommel of his sword, and Sharina smiled brightly because at the same moment her fingers were outlining the hilt of the Pewle knife beneath her robe. They were brother and sister, and their instincts were the same. "Of course it leaves the ordinary business of dealing with Count Lascarg and the factions in Carcosa. That'll be unpleasant enough."

TheShepherd was moving at a walking pace; other warships stayed close by either flank. The harbor mouth drew rapidly closer. The sailing master shouted to the starboard vessel, "Watch yourselves, Capsana! We don't have a portside rudder any more!"

"Should we be leaving Ilna and Cashel?" Sharina said, bending over the rail to look toward the patrol vessel still wallowing beside the monster's carcase. Its oars had just begun to move again. "Are they damaged?"

"TheFlying Fish' s in fine shape, better than we are," Garric said. "Master Chalcus, who appears to have taken command-"

There was cynical humor in his smile. Sharina judged that Chalcus would take almost anything he chose to, and apparently her brother shared that opinion.

"-has decided that he wants to bring the whale to the quay in order to amaze folk. He's something of a showman, that fellow, but I think he's earned the right."

Garric's expression sobered. "As have you, sister," he added. "You saved my life when you shot. And Cashel's too."

"The crew-" she said, nodding her head to indicate the men in the fighting tower above "-cocked and aimed. But they were afraid they'd hit you. I was afraid too, but I knew that if I didn't take the chance…"

Garric nodded, grim and far older than his nineteen years. "Yes," he said. "The risk you don't take is the most dangerous one of all."

He cleared his throat, looking toward the harbor. TheShepherd and its consorts were passing through the entrance, the lighthouse and its time-wrecked twin were to the left and right of them. The crowds on the mole had fallen silent when the monster attacked; now they resumed cheering. The docks of the inner harbor were covered with spectators wearing their brightest and most expensive garments.

"Well," Garric said, hitching up his sword belt. "Count Lascarg won't try to swallow me whole. But I don't mind telling you, sister, that I'd be happier if Liane were here to keep me from making some terrible blunder in etiquette. Father gave us a wonderful education in the classics, but he didn't teach us how to behave when meeting counts."

"No," said Sharina. "But I doubt that matters. Lascarg will know how to behave when his king comes with twenty thousand soldiers at his back."

And as she spoke, she realized that Garric wasn't the only one who'd changed. That wasn't the observation of Sharina os-Reise, the girl who'd grown up in a village inn.

She gave her brother a smile-of a sort.

Carcosa's harbor was huge, more a lake than an anchorage to Garric's eyes. Barca's Hamlet had only a rocky, steeply sloping beach. Above that stood a seawall, built during the prosperity of the Old Kingdom and the only reason winter storms hadn't washed the village away during the past thousand years.

This harbor was magnificent: stone quays framed slips where merchant vessels of a thousand tons could lie. To the south were stone ramps where the crews of warships could drag their fragile vessels out of the water and pillared sheds to house those same warships safe from the weather.