David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"I miss you being able to read Celondre to me in the evenings," Liane said with a soft smile.

"I miss being able to get a good night's sleep," Garric muttered, rubbing his temples. He'd said what he meant without thinking, and he cringed even as he heard his response to his lover's gentle romance.

Acting quickly, he turned to Liane and took her small, shapely hands in his. "Liane," he said, ignoring the guards and petitioners and officials andeverybody else watching. "Tonight I'll read you Celondre. Maybe getting back into old habits will help me sleep without dreams that tell me to make a fool of myself, besides."

Liane looked at him with a shocked expression. What did I say now ? Garric thought, frustrated and a little angry that he didn't seem to be able to do the right thing even when he tried his hardest.

"Garric?" she said. "You mentioned your dreams. Did you suggest using the Shrine of the Prophesying Sister because of a dream?"

"Well, not that shrine, I didn't even know about it," Garric said, trying to call back the memories. "But yeah, it was a dream that made me think of the Sister at all!"

He could see where Liane was going-where she'd gotten ahead of him-and excitement had washed away his depressed lethargy of moments before. This was progress, this was a way forward that might lead past the wall between Cashel and his friends!

Garric stood. The usher at the door watched eagerly, ready to let through the first of the petitioners.

"Citizens of the Isles!" Garric said in the voice King Carus would have used to bellow orders through the clamor of the battlefield. "I've been called away by a sudden opportunity-"

He'd started to say "emergency" but he'd changed the word as it started to roll off his tongue. A prince can start a panic by an unfortunate choice of phrase.

"-greatly to the benefit of the kingdom! This audience is cancelled!"

"Close the doors!" Liane called to the guards. They probably couldn't hear her over the sudden uproar in the hall, but they got the idea. The usher squeaked, pressed between the door and the petitioners, but the soldiers put their backs into it. They slammed the valves closed, then slid the bronze bar through the staples to make sure they stayed closed.

Liane had already snapped shut the travel desk in which she carried important papers. She was at Garric's side as they turned to the door at the back which opened onto the courtyard. "To Tenoctris?" she said, less a question than an affirmation.

"Right," said Garric, stepping through the door which one of the guards on the portico had already thrown open. He took the desk out of Liane's hand into his own, his left. She could carry it, but they were moving fast and to him it weighed almost nothing.

Keeping his right hand free for his sword was a reflex from King Carus. It came to the surface when Garric was excited, even at times-like this one-when it wasn't necessary.

Though you never knew for sure when it would be necessary.

All the suites around this small garden were held by Garric and his immediate entourage-his friends, not members of the staff. The guards looked surprised but properly held their posts while Garric and Liane ran up the stairs that led to Tenoctris' suite on the second floor. The six guards from the reception room followed, their equipment belts and studded leather aprons clattering.

The noise-meant to frighten enemies when the royal army charged-brought Sharina out onto the landing with the Pewle knife in her hand. She and Garric both had learned hard lessons since they left Barca's Hamlet.

Garric thought of Ilna and Cashel. They'd changed as well, perhaps even more.

"It's all right," he said, stepping into the study as his sister hopped back from the doorway when she saw who was coming. "Liane had an idea and we need to tell Tenoctris."

"Yes?" said the wizard, looking up from the tile floor. She sat on a cushion, probably Sharina's idea because Garric had never seen Tenoctris pay attention to comfort when she had work to do. She'd drawn a large six-pointed star in cinnabar, then written words of power around its margin. On the floor inside the figure were codices, scrolls, and a few loose manuscripts.

"Tenoctris," said Liane, closing the door in the face of the guards following, "it was a dream that led Garric to suggest going to the Shrine of the Sister. I think it was a sending."

"I thought it was just…," Garric said. He was embarrassed because the idea hadn't occurred to him immediately. "I'd been worried about the two priesthoods and looking like I was taking sides. And I had a dream of the past, a fantasy I know-the sort of Golden Age that Celondre or Rigal would describe, a sunny day and happy peasants worshipping the Great Gods. But the priest of the Sister was there too, and I thought…"

"There's only one active temple to the Sister in Carcosa," Liane said, taking out a notebook that she didn't need. "Someone who wanted Garric-or Garric's friends-to enter a temple of the Sister wouldn't have to specify any particular temple."

"Wonderful!" said Tenoctris. She started to get up, then changed her mind and sank onto the cushion again. Leaning forward she started to shift the books out of the hexagram but paused again.

"I think it would be better for me to do the directional spell from where you were when you had the dream, Garric," she said. "Could we-"

"Yes," said Garric, hoping he didn't sound curt. "What do you need with you?"

"Well, my satchel," Tenoctris said, "and-"

Garric snatched up the satchel and the pot of cinnabar sitting open beside it.

"-perhaps Cantorf'sDream of Scio, which should be-"

"I have it," said Sharina, reaching under an open scroll and coming up with the small codex which had been completely hidden beneath it.

"Then let's go," Tenoctris said, rising with Liane's help. "I wasn't able to trace the attack, but a wizard of my limited powers should be able to determine the source of the dream."

"Power's the easy part of any job," said King Carus, watching as Garric jerked open the door to the inner hallway and his own suite beyond. "Directing it to the right point is what wins battles-and saves kingdoms, if our luck's in!"

"The Bird of the Tide," said Chalcus, beaming at the ship lashed to the quay on which he stood with Ilna and Merota. "She's old, I grant you, but still tight as you please. In her day they built with pegs and tenons instead of just trenails holding the strakes to the frames. I'd trust theBird in storms that'd swamp any of the light-built coasters being tacked together on this coast in the past thirty years!"

Six solid-looking men stood together in the stern. They'd stopped murmuring among themselves when Chalcus and the three females appeared, but none of them had spoken to the visitors. Mistress Kaline stood two paces back in prim disapproval.

"She looks trim," said Ilna, which was closer to a lie than she liked to hear come from her mouth. "And of course I trust your judgment on ships as far as I do mine about fabrics, Master Chalcus."

That last was the simple truth, and why Chalcus made her say something as obvious as sunrise was beyond her. "Men!" she was tempted to say; but it wasn't men, she'd heard women as often being fools in the same way.

As for the ship-The Bird of the Tidehad a deck, which was something, and a single short mast in the middle of it holding a yard that was longer than the vessel itself. At sea the yard would be raised at a slant to spread the triangular sail to the wind. There was a tiny cabin in the stern, enough to hold a tile hearth but no shelter for the crew. In bad weather Ilna supposed they'd all need to be on deck anyway, doing things with sail and ropes and anchors.

TheBird was indeed old, so old that the grain of the deck stood out in ridges above the softer, paler sapwood. Four oak planks ran the length of the vessel's sides, sticking out from the pine hull. They were there to rub against stone docks, as they were doing now. They'd been patched at several places with fresh timbers, but the patches were themselves badly worn by now.