David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"-but it would be more expensive yet to let the Rua take the ship and your lives as well, would it not? What is it that you're carrying, captain?"

"It's none of your business what our cargo is!" Pointin said. "Now, you've got your answer, so take yourself back to your own ship and let honest men be on with their business."

"You're carrying tapestries," Ilna said, scarcely aware that she was speaking until after the words had come out. The aura of the woven goods in the vessel's several holds had flooded her ever since she'd boarded the freighter. She didn't think she'd ever been around such amass of fabric before.

"They had a spy in Valles!" the captain cried in distress. Lusius turned toward Ilna with a frown of amazement; Chalcus stepped between them with a vague, friendly smile.

Images cascaded through Ilna's mind: armored heroes, women dressed in gold and silver threads, and animals from myth. Forests and gardens and cities with high walls and fanciful turrets…

She shook her head, trying to return to her present surroundings. The tapestries' workmanship was generally mediocre and not infrequently poor, distorted figures on gapped, ill-woven grounds; but occasionally, burning through the trash like the sun on a hazy day, there was a piece-often a single panel or a cartoon in a hanging of slight merit otherwise-whose craftsmanship took Ilna's breath away.

And it was all in her mind, hidden from her eyes in burlap-covered bales beneath the freighter's thick deck timbers. All in her mind…

"All right, you know we're carrying tapestry!" the supercargo said. "With the Prince of Haft ruling the Isles, there's going to be a market for the best sort of furnishings in Carcosa. Palace furnishings very likely, and the Pollin family will be there with the goods to sell long before anybody else sees the opportunity. We'll not pay a third the cargo's value to put your thugs on board, either. We've got real soldiers to deal with anybody who thinks he can rob us!"

"The Strait isn't like the valleys of Blaise," Lusius said, bobbing his bearded chin in acknowledgment of the leader of the freighter's guards. "My men understand the demons and know how to deal with them."

From what Ilna had seen, the Sea Guards understood well enough to avoid fighting the Rua whenever it was possible to run away instead. But shipswere being stripped, and she didn't see how Lusius could be responsible for that. This freighter's crew was probably equal in number to the Sea Guards; between the vessel's high decks and the Blaise armsmen-realsoldiers, as the supercargo had said-they could beat off theDefender with ease.

"We've listened to you," Ohert said. "Now get off my ship. And you needn't think half our crew'll be coming ashore in Terness when we anchor off the harbor tonight-everybody's staying aboard, and there'll be a proper watch kept, I promise you!"

"I've warned you and that's all I can do," Lusius said with a sad shake of his head. "My guests and I will return to Terness."

He started for the ladder, then looked back over his shoulder. "I hope you and your crew have a good night, Captain Ohert," Lusius added. "But I greatly doubt that you will."

Ilna smiled minusculely. The first half of the Commander's statement was a lie, but she was inclined to believe the second part.

"Do you think we can trust Kakoral?" Cashel said as he climbed the slope, stepping sideways because it was so steep. Every so often he switched so the other foot led; otherwise he'd likely get a cramp in the leg that'd been higher. Cashel figured this was a place he'd best be in good shape.

"Trust him?" said Evne, riding on Cashel's left shoulder. She could've been in his wallet or in a fold of his tunic, but he'd thought this way was most companionable; she'd seemed satisfied with the suggestion. "Trust him to use us and deceive us and cast us away when it suits him, the way males generally do? Is that what you mean?"

"Well, no," said Cashel. 'Companionable' wasn't the word everybody'd have used about Evne, but because he'd grown up with Ilna, the toad's manner made him feel right at home. "I meant, would this red line-"

The dots of wizardlight climbed the slope ahead of them, faint but as visible now against the bright sun as they'd been when they first appeared at night. Cashel'd found that the track the light plotted either sloped less or had firmer footing than any of the alternatives nearby.

"-take us to the nearest water, like he said?"

The toad snorted. Her hoarse voice was louder than Cashel would've expected from a little toad, but she seemed to talk normally from her lipless mouth. Her throat sack fluttered as she spoke.

"Oh, that he has no choice about," she said. "You bested him, didn't you? You're his master, just as you're mine. But he's not your friend, Cashel. The demon serves you because he must and because it suits him; don't ever imagine that he helps because it suitsyou."

Cashel thought about it. After a moment he said, "I guess that's true for most people, Evne. It's true for me, anyway. If I help somebody, it's because I feel better for doing it than I would if I didn't help."

"Faugh!" said Evne. "It's nothing like that. You're a fool. Most men are fools; but they aren't most of them fools the wayyou are, master."

Cashel chuckled. It really was like being home with his sister.

The track had actually been more down than up, but there'd been a lot of both. They'd hiked-well, Cashel had-from morning to mid-afternoon in getting from where Bossian put him out to where they were now. This was the steepest rise of the trek so far.

Evne didn't know how much farther they had to go either; Cashel figured they'd just keep on till they got there. It was pretty much the way he did most things in life, by putting one foot in front of the other till the job was done.

He gripped one of the dwarf birches rooted in the rock to help him up the last step to what he thought was a broad ledge. It was a flat-topped ridge instead. Filling the broad valley beyond was a jumble of shattered marble. From it grew pines, cottonwoods, and clumps of spiky silkgrass waving stalks of yellow-white flowers.

"Oh!" he said. "I guess we're here."

"Brilliant," said the toad. "Do you guess the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning, too?"

Cashel smiled broadly as he surveyed the vast ruins. Portmayne must have been as large as Manor Bossian, but its walls had been built of vari-colored marbles instead of crystal. There'd been a central tower whose stone was brilliantly white with a blue undertone. It must've been higher than any tree gets, because when it toppled it reached almost to where Cashel stood.

He eyed the fragments carefully. The tower had shattered when it hit the stony ground, but it seemed to have been all one piece till then-like an eggshell rather than a building constructed from carved blocks. Lightning had burned a ragged line down the side of the tower, turning the stone a powdery white like a leper's skin. The bolt had torn its way from the battlements to the ground; maybe that was what threw the tower down.

"The tank is there to the north," Evne said. "Just beyond where the travertine wing collapsed."

It wasn't just the tower, of course: the whole manor was flattened as thoroughly as a stomped-on ant hill. He'd done that when he was younger; stepped on anthills…

"Yes, ma'am," Cashel said. "Where the sedges are growing, you mean. I just wanted to get a look at things before I went wandering down into them, you know; in case."

He gave his quarterstaff a spin, then reversed its direction. It felt good to swing the iron-shod hickory, Duziknew it did. Cashel wasn't a lazy man, but he walked from necessity rather than pleasure. It seemed like walking was most of what he'd been doing since Kotia brought him to this place, so using his arms and shoulders for a bit was a special treat.