David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

Two of the men were arguing with Syl; one put a hand on her shoulder, turning her so that she faced the mound "Lord Cashel?" she called.

"Shall I order them away?" the toad said with no emotion at all.

"No, no," Cashel muttered. "That's all right."

Loudly to Syl he said, "Mistress, you can come up if you like. But I don't think I can help you."

He hadn't meant for the whole group of them-six, a handful and the thumb of his other hand-to come, but they all did. That was maybe a good thing: two of the men carried a crystal hamper between them. More of that wine and some food-Cashel's stomach rumbled in excitement-would go down a treat.

Manor Ansache destroyed, the toad had said, and Syl here from Manor Bossian. Well, it wasn't his world and these folksure weren't his friends.

Their clothing was just as fine as it'd been at the banquet the night before, but it'd now seen harder use than it was meant for. The tall, blond man who'd been most insistent about Syl calling to Cashel had lost the sleeve of his tunic; there was even a scratch on his bare shoulder. The rest were tousled looking, and the long aquamarine gown of the other woman-older than Syl by quite a lot-was seared across the train.

"My master will accept your gift of further viands," Evne said. Listening to her voice you'd think she was looking down her nose as spoke, but she didn't have a nose. "And scraps of chopped meat for his loyal servant wouldn't come amiss… though the pair of damselflies that fell my lot as he rested will suffice if they must."

The men with the hamper immediately set it down; it started to slide. Cursing, the blond man blocked it with his foot and jerked the lid open.

"Lord Cashel…," Syl said. She hadn't been injured, but she looked like she'd been dragged through a drain pipe. Her eyes flicked nervously, and there was nothing in her expression to remind Cashel of the haughty, elfin girl she'd been when he met her. "We didn't realize that Lord Bossian had summoned you to destroy the Visitor. If we seemed less than attentive previously-"

"If you seemed like a nitwit who was more worried about the shade of her hair ribbon than the fact her world was ending, you mean," said Evne. "As of course you were."

Syl instinctively reached up to touch her hair. The ribbon was a green so faint it might have passed for white. She realized what she'd done and grimaced.

"Whatever," she muttered. ''Anyway, we've come to say that we'll put everything we've managed to escape with at your service."

Which was different from, "ourselves at your service," thought Cashel as he took a flat loaf from the hamper while one of the men refilled the crystal cup. He couldn't imagine any service this lot could be, of course; to him or to anybody, themselves included.

"Ma'am…," he said as he bit down and found to his surprise that the loaf was meat or anyway tasted like meat instead of being bread. Duzi! but he was hungry. "Ah, what I meant to say is that Bossian didn't summon me anywhere. He helped me some but that was because he wanted to be shut of me."

Cashel paused, both to swallow what he'd been chewing and to collect his words. He knew what he meant, now and most times, but often he had a hard time finding the right words.

"It was Kotia who brought me here," he said carefully. "To your world, I mean. And now I'm going back."

"But milord…," said the blond man. His face twisted up in a funny way; Cashel thought for a moment that he was going to spit at him. That had happened to Cashel before, though it'd never turned out to be a good idea for the fellow spitting…

Instead the blond man sank down on his knees and started to cry, and it was absolutely the first time in Cashel's life thatthat had happened. If he'd had to pick between the experiences he guessed he'd have taken the spitting, because then he knew exactly what to do.

"Milord, milord, please," the fellow blubbered. "You slew the dragon, surely you can slay the Visitor also. Milord, if you abandon us we have nothing, no one."

The others weren't crying but they looked like they were ready to, all but Syl who patted her hair ribbon with a distant expression. Shuving or-Gansel had that kind of look on his face when the oak he'd been felling split partway up the trunk and leaped back on him. It didn't change even when he died, an hour or so after Cashel and Shuving's son had gotten the tree off him.

Cashel gulped the wine; it tingled all the way to his toes. Pretty soon he'd be ready to stand up; Duzi, he was probably ready now. He said, "Sir-"

Before he could come up with a way to continue, the fellow grabbed Cashel's knees with soft, clammy hands. Cashel jumped to his feet, spilling the refill of wine that another of the locals was pouring from a bottle with a serpent neck.

"Don'tdo that," Cashel said. He slammed his staff into the dirt, holding it vertically in front of him like a narrow wall.

The blond man jerked back. Now the older woman started to cry, a little soft, "Whoop, whoop, whoop," through the hands covering her face.

"Kotia brought me here," Cashel went on. He had a flash of dizziness, but nothing worse than what generally happened if he stood up quickly after squatting. "She saved my life, I guess-"

The place he'd been before Kotia took him out wasn't somewhere he'd have wanted to live much longer, even if he'd been able to.

"-and I paid her back by bringing her safe to Lord Bossian to marry. She and I are quits, now, and for the rest of you…"

He shook his head, wishing he could find a better way of saying what he felt. "Look, I'm sorry about your troubles, but I can't fix everything. Even if I could fight your Visitor, which I don't see that I could."

Cashel bent down. He set his cup on the ground-the slope wasn't quite too steep for it to stand on its base-and turned his palm up before the toad.

"Come on, Evne," he said. "We'll be leaving now. I think you'd best ride inside my tunic while I climb onto the tank."

The toad didn't hop into his palm as he expected. Syl looked at Cashel, her face as calm as a corpse's, and said, "Lady Kotia won't be marrying Lord Bossian. The Visitor came to Manor Bossian after he'd destroyed Manor Ansache. He destroyed the Crimson Tower and demanded Kotia or else he'd destroy the whole manor."

"He…," Cashel said, trying to get his mind around what he'd just heard. "What… what did Lord Bossian do?"

The blond man had gotten to his feet again. "What did he do?" he repeated in a shrill, half-mocking tone. "What could he do? He sent the girl to the Visitor, of course!"

Cashel didn't speak. He'd been stroking his quarterstaff with his left hand, but he stopped that too. The felt a vein in his throat throbbing.

"She didn't object," Syl said. She was no longer detached; she watched Cashel closely. "She was walking toward the Visitor's ship even before Bossian sent to bring her."

"Yeah," said Cashel at last. He couldn't have recognized his own voice. "She'd have done that."

He licked his lips; they were very dry. "Lord Bossian's a wizard. Why didn't he stop the, the Visitor?"

"He couldn't!" crowed the blond man, coming closer to being hammered into the ground like a tent peg than he probably realized. "Nobody can stop the Visitor!"

"Then why didn't he try!" Cashel shouted and they all but one stumbled back; all of them except Syl, and she was smiling now.

"The Visitor stays in the middle of the Great Swamp when he's on this world," said Evne, sounding like a teacher. "All the streams on this side of the hills drain into it, and there's no outlet."

"I can't fix everything," Cashel said, starting to get his normal voice back. He reached down again and this time Evne hopped into his palm. He straightened.

"I can't fix everything," Cashel repeated, "but there's things Iwill fix regardless. Now-"