David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

He was long remembered as the greatest man ever to live in Barca's Hamlet.

The prism slipped from Garric's fingers. For an instant he was back in the ruined garden; the moon was near the horizon and the eastern sky was pale enough to hide stars. Two figures, immense but unseen, hovered beyond the heavens Garric was awake, stifling his shout behind clenched teeth. His muscles were taut and sweat soaked his sheets.

Liane murmured and shifted in the bed. Garric would have gotten up to rinse his face in the wash basin across the room, but he was afraid to waken her. He'd have to explain his nightmare, and no words he used could convey thehorror of what he'd just lived.

"What did they do to you, lad?" King Carus asked, a wild look in his eyes. His fists knotted and opened, dropping to his hilt and coming away again. "Did you see them? I did. There were two of them, and they were playing me like a puppet!"

I was innkeeper in Barca's Hamlet, Garric said in his mind. Immediately he began to relax. He wasn't alone; and even if he had been, the memory of Carus reminded Garric what a man very like him could face and had faced. But that life couldn't have been. The forces that we've been fighting ever since I left Haft would've overwhelmed Barca's Hamlet and the rest of the Isles long before I died in bed in my old age!

"Aye," said Carus, smiling at a grim memory. "I commanded the bodyguard of King Carlake. He put us where it was hottest, and we never failed him. The day an arrow struck me down during the siege of Erdin, my boys went over the wall and took the city. They buried me under a pyramid of ten thousand severed heads!"

His eyes met Garric's eyes in his mind; both men shuddered. "Lad," Carus whispered. "A thing like that could have happened. But it never did, I swear that."

I don't remember King Carlake, Garric thought. Was he a usurper?

"Carlake was the elder brother of Carilan, the King of the Isles who adopted me as his heir," Carus explained. "Carlake might well have made a better king for hard times than his brother did, but the same fever carried him off as did their father and left Carilan king in his place. That world couldn't be, inourworld."

Garric rolled out of bed carefully. He was calm now, able to reassure Liane if she woke, but she continued to sleep soundly.

I saw the figures you're talking about, Garric thought as he poured cool water into the tumbler on the wash stand. Felt them, at any rate. Who do you suppose they were?

"They're not Gods, of that I'm sure," Carus said. "I don't believe in Gods, and there's enough trouble without Them meddling too!"

I believe in the Great Gods, Garric thought as he drank greedily. But I don't believe They were who I saw. I believe we saw something verydifferent. And very evil.

The banquet had more courses than Cashel had fingers to count them on. All the food was good and most of it was better than that, though he found often enough that he was happier if he avoided looking at stuff before he ate it.

There was wine, too. Cashel had drunk ale when he and Ilna could afford it and water when they couldn't, which was often enough. He'd never had so much as a sip of wine till he left home and he hadn't much liked it when he did… but what Lord Bossian served was different, sparkly instead of tasting like juice that'd gone bad in the heat.

Syl and Farran pretended that Cashel wasn't at the table. They ate with their right hands only and kept their left raised at funny angles that they adjusted with each new course. Cashel supposed it meant something; to them at least, and the gestures were no more empty than their silly chatter.

Kotia talked to the others with an easy reserve. Cashel guessed she didn't have much use for Syl and Farran-he couldn't see any reason she ought to-but she was polite when she spoke to them and really friendly to Bossian.

The problem was that when Kotia said something to Cashel, Bossian puffed up like a cat when a strange dog comes into the room. She noticed it, all right, and while it didn't seem to make any difference to her, Cashel got uncomfortable. It made him want to pick Bossian up by the seat and scruff, then toss him a few times into the stream till he came to a better understanding of who he was glowering at…

And that wouldn't be right, seeings as Bossian was the host here and he wasn't doing anything wrong, just sort ofoozing the fact that he'd like to. Cashel started avoiding Kotia's eyes and concentrating on his food. And the wine, of course.

There was music playing, soft pipes and bowed strings; Cashel couldn't tell where the musicians were, but they made a lovely sound. The sky had grown dark but the palace itself glowed with light of the same color as the walls themselves: silver and rose and the pale green of drying hay. The water purling down its channel was steel blue; Cashel could see fish the length of his arm swimming in it.

He was content. Oh, soon he'd start wondering about how to get home, but Lord Bossian had said he'd take care of that. Cashel didn't figure there'd be much delay, what with the choice being to have Cashel for a guest until he did.

It felt good not to be hiking over bare rock and good to have a full belly after a day of hard work and fasting. Cashel swigged his wine and looked up at the stars, wondering if he'd be able to recognize any of the constellations tonight.

The stars began to vanish slowly from one side of the sky to the other, the way an eclipse devours the moon. Cashel blinked and rubbed his eyes with the back of his free hand, wondering if the wine had been even stronger than he thought. He felt a vibration too low to be sound; it trembled up throught the chair legs and the soles of his feet, and the walls of the manor shivered with the deep throb.

Syl rose to her feet and screamed. She pointed at the blank heaven, screamed again, and fainted. Cashel lurched up to grab her, knocking over the table as he reached across it. He grabbed the diaphanous sleeve of the woman's tunic, but it tore like spiderweb and left him with wisps as she fell face first on the pavement.

Farran clutched his throat with his left hand, perhaps to choke off a scream of his own. Diners were reacting in various ways, all of them fearful. The raised terraces emptied as they fled babbling, stumbling blindly over one another and the furniture.

Kotia rose and put her hand on Cashel's shoulder, standing close to him. "The Visitor has arrived," she said. "As I'm sure you realized."

Cashel lifted the quarterstaff that he'd laid on the ground behind his chair for want of a better place. He'd been afraid servants would kick it as they attended the tables, but they'd danced around the length of hickory nervously like it was a snake with a bad temper.

"What do you want me to do, mistress?" he asked Kotia quietly.

The blankness overhead flared with azure wizardlight. The stars hadn't disappeared: they'd been hidden behind vastness, a flying mountain passing overhead. But not a mountain either, for the whorls and ridges outlined in light were as surely artificial as the crystal magnificence of Lord Bossian's manor.

The light faded, leaving an afterglow like the smell of decay. The vast darkness passed on and the stars returned. The rumble continued long after the visible cause was gone.

Only Kotia and Bossian remained in the courtyard with Cashel; the three of them and Syl, sprawled unconscious among the tangle of dishes which spilled when Cashel knocked over the table. Kotia trembled, squeezing Cashel's shoulder fiercely. Her eyes were closed, and her lips moved silently.

Bossian looked at Cashel. "Our first business must be to send you home, sir," he said. "If you'll come with me to my workroom, we'll set about the matter immediately."

Kotia's eyes opened. She stepped partly away from Cashel but left her fingertips on his arm.