David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"Anda," Garric said, his voice trembling, "a lie now will cost you your life. You sent me an ice-stone urn yesterday but I gave it to my sister. She vanished into it a short time ago. Tell me how to get her back unharmed."

Anda straightened; he didn't try to struggle with the men holding him. His jeweled tiara had slipped so that it now hung from his right ear, but he managed not to look ridiculous.

"Your highness," he said, his voice quavering despite an obvious attempt at control, "we didn't send you an urn. Our gift-"

Garric grabbed Anda by the throat with his left hand. He didn't squeeze, but his big hand was tensed to crush the old man's windpipe. "Liar!" he shouted. "Lord Moisin and four temple servants arrived yesterday with the urn as a gift from the Lady!"

"Your highness, we gave you a globe!" Anda cried. "Moisin was sent with a crystal globe from the Old Kingdom, etched with a map of the Isles and the world beyond!"

Garric stepped back, shocked as few other statements could have done. The chief priest was wrong, but he clearly wasn't lying. "Let him go!" he said to Rosen and the guard.

Anda turned to his aides. "Where's Moisin?" he said, his voice rising. "He should be here!"

"This way, your highness," Birossa said, gesturing toward the accommodations block beside Anda's detached dwelling. "Moisin's suite's the one on this side of the second floor."

"Bring Anda," Garric snapped as he started for the outside staircase.

The door at the head of the stairs was painted with an image of the Lady crowned by the setting sun. The soldier preceding Garric lifted his boot to smash though the thin wood; Birossa reached past and flipped the latch instead; it was unlocked.

The interior was dark until a Blood Eagle who'd grabbed a lantern entered and used its candle to light the wicks of a hanging lamp. Garric looked around him. Though there were variations in luxury, the priests of the Lady in Carcosa obviously lived well. Moisin as one of the highest ranking, lived very well indeed.

The walls were frescoed with hunting scenes, the ornate couches had cushions of lustrous fur, and a section of marble relief from the Old Kingdom was set over the door at the back. Garric thought of the tithes from peasants in Barca's Hamlet who ate bread made of hulls and moldy barley for a month before the first spring crops came in.

King Carus watched in grim silence through Garric's eyes. He hadn't been a peasant himself, but he understood very well what his descendent was feeling.

Garric took his hand away from his sword hilt. He deliberately avoided looking at Lord Anda as his guards-Lord Rosen had turned the duty over to a Blaise regular-hustled him through the doorway.

"Moisin!" Anda cried. He was winded, but his tone now showed anger instead of desperation. To the men around him he added, "Aren't the servants here either? There should be two servants."

Soldiers carrying lights pushed through the inner doorway. A torchflame licked the marble relief; Garric winced, then laughed at his reaction. When so much else was going wrong…

Indeed, a beautiful sculpture which had survived a thousand yearsdid deserve to be treated better than that; but Garric's first duty was to make the kingdom safe. That way more artists could create more beauty, and ordinary people could sleep soundly in their beds.

The rooms to either side of the inner doorway were for servants, though the beds hadn't been slept in. Beyond was Moisin's own bedroom, even more richly appointed than the reception room. The ebony bed frame was inset with gold and ivory reliefs, while the coverlet and canopy were of rainbow-patterned silk embroidered in gold thread. Along the walls were storage chests, some of inlaid wood and others of metal or metal banded.

"Open them," Garric said, but the soldiers were already throwing back the lids. If the chest was locked, a spearbutt or a stout swordblade levered into the catch or hinges opened it promptly, even the ones that were meant for strongboxes.

A Blaise soldier set his sword in the latch of an iron casket, smaller than the clothes stores. His partner slammed a bootheel into the unsharpened back of the blade, shearing the locking pins. The chest clanged open.

"There!" cried Anda. "There-don't break it, you fool!"

The last comment was to the armsman reaching one-handed for a crystal globe padded with silken tunics. It wasn't the smartest thing to say to somebody with a hooked sword bare in the other hand, but Garric understood.

"I'll take it," he said, pausing a moment between Anda and the soldier before bending over to lift the globe from its swathing. He raised it carefully. Though larger than a man's head, the crystal was as thin as a soap bubble. In the light of swinging lamps and hand-held lanterns Garric couldn't really view the pattern etchedinside the crystal, but the detail was obvious.

"That was what Moisin was to bring you, your highness!" Anda said. "I swear it was!"

What does a false priest swear by that would make anybody trust him? Garric wondered; but for all that, he didn't doubt that Anda was telling the truth. This globe was worth the throne of Haft to anyone who could appreciate its wonder… as Garric certainly could.

"Moisin should be here," Anda said, desperation returning to his voice. "I don't know where he's gone or what he's been playing at. I swear it!"

"Your highness?" said Lord Rosen, tapping the flat of his sword on his thigh. "What would you like us to do now?"

Garric wanted to rub his eyes, but he was afraid to put the globe down in a room crowded with restive soldiers. "Everybody out!" he said after a moment's thought. "Clear the room!"

As the troops filed out pushing later arrivals ahead of them, Garric set the globe back in its nest and closed the lid. To the trailing pair of Blood Eagles he said, "Carry this, and don't on your lives drop it! Carry it as if it held my soul!"

Then, to Lord Rosen who remained stiffly behind-wondering if he'd been insulted and wondering further how to react if he had been-Garric continued, "Milord, you and I will return to the palace with the Blood Eagles. I'll leave Attaper here to secure the compound and question everybody about where Moisin might have gone."

Now he rubbed his eyes. Smiling grimly he said, "I'm going to see what Tenoctris may have learned about Sharina. And I pray to the Shepherd that she's learned something!"

Sharina poised on the pile of rubble, analyzing the situation for a heartbeat. If she tried to crawl through the roof, the creature already hunching in the skewed doorway would grab her ankle with a hand the size of a bear ham and drag her back for a club stroke. Instead she twisted like a cat and leaped down, swinging the axe overhand.

"Blood!" screamed the steel mouth. "Blo-" and the edge sheared through the heavy-browed skull as easily as sunlight penetrates crystal. The rest of the word choked off in a gurgle.

Sharina landed with her feet under her. The axe moved easily; it was balanced like a dream. The creature whose skull she'd split convulsed violently, flinging its arms out to its sides; the club smashed into a sidewall hard enough to shatter into a fibrous broom.

A second creature stuck its arm down through the laths of the roof. Sharina pivoted, almost without thinking, and slashed through the creature's humerus. The bone was thicker than her own whole forearm, but the axe sliced it like gossamer.

"Yes, that's the way to feed Beard!" the axe cried in a throaty treble. "More blood! More blood for-"

The creature jerked back, tearing a barrel-sized hole in the latticework. The lower portion of its arm flailed on the triceps muscle which the narrow axe-blade hadn't severed. The roofbeams shifted with a squeal. Sharina leaped, catching a beam in her left hand and pulling herself up.