David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"It wasn't that," Pointin continued, "it was men-two of the guards, I think. I couldn't hear the words but they were talking with Blaise accents. And then the door broke in and…"

He shrugged again. "There was shouting," he said. "The words didn't mean anything, just, you know, shouting?"

"I know," whispered Chalcus.

"There was a fight," Pointin said. "I could hear things breaking. And there were more screams and, and…"

Ilna spread her latest pattern before the supercargo. When his eyes finally took it in, he lost some of his pallid tension and began to breathe normally again. "I heard crunching," he said. "It must have been very loud for me to hear it. And after a while the screaming stopped. Then there was nothing. I don't know for how long."

"How were you able to breathe?" Ilna said. What room there'd been in the treasure chest was scarcely enough for Pointin's doubled-up body.

"I'd tied the lid closed," he said, casual about the question because his mind was reliving horrors instead. "The silk had enough stretch for the lid to raise a crack when I needed to breathe. The air stank of brimstone, but I had to breathe."

Ilna wouldn't pretend she liked Pointin, but he was smartand quick witted, which was a different thing. The fact that he'd used his wits solely to preserve his own life shouldn't matter to her, since she couldn't imagine there was anything he could've done to affect what happened to the rest of those aboard theQueen of Heaven.

It did matter, though. Ilna knew other smart, quick witted people who wouldn't 've made the decision Pointin did. No more than she'd have done that herself.

He looked up, his expression puzzled again. "There was anotherchange," he said. "A fall like before, only a splash and I could feel the ship was floating again. And then I heard voices, but I was afraid t-t-to…"

"Did you see the wizardlight?" Chalcus said, his voice calm and calming. "Like what awakened you?"

"No," said Pointin. "I was in the chest, though. Perhaps the iron…?

"Perhaps the iron," Chalcus agreed softly.

"Ship the starboard oars!" Hutena ordered. TheBird of the Tide was easing back to the slip she'd left hours before. The eastern sky was almost bright enough to read by.

Ilna smiled. If you could read, of course; which the supercargo alone of those aboard the vessel was able to do.

"Well, Master Pointin," Chalcus said, "we're here in Terness. While I won't tell you what to do, I think you'd be wise to stay aboard theBird, cramped though you'll find her, until we've stepped our mast and are able to sail for Valles. We'll do that tomorrow morning, nothing else appearing."

"But what about Commander Lusius?" Pointin said. "When he comes back, won't he try to take me away?"

"That one?" said Chalcus as theBird of the Tide thudded gently into her berth. Kulit and Nabarbi hopped up to the dock, holding lines. "Not openly, not even in Terness. He thinks we have Prince Garric's ear, and he knows word would get out if he slaughtered us. Something will come, I think; but not openly, and not till late night."

Chalcus laughed. He drew his dagger and threw it up, juggling it from hand to hand while he continued to watch the supercargo.

"He knows that his business is with us, now, not just you, my good fellow," Chalcus said.

"Yes," said Ilna as she looped her hank of cords away in her sleeve for use at another time. "And our business is with him!"

The crystal vessel-the Queen Ship, Alfdan had called it-was only a little more comfortable to sit on than it'd looked to Sharina from outside. The planes of blurry light were solid, but they were also slick as ice. The deck's slight angle-the beach sloped, and the ship hadn't nosed straight into it-meant that Sharina had to cling to the mast or she'd have slid back onto the shingle as surely as sunset.

Holding on wasn't easy either. The mast was of the same immaterial solidity as the deck, so it tried to slip through her fingers.

"I'm a wizard," Alfdan said, sounding more defensive than he had any reason to be. "A real wizard!"

He'd placed himself on the high side of the deck and braced himself against the mast with an outstretched foot. Sharina was sure that if she tried the same technique she'd slide just as she was doing now; it was a matter of practice and perfect balance.

"I never doubted it," she said. "You-you and your men, you were completely concealed. Even from Beard here."

"It wouldn't have stopped me from killing every one of them!" the axe muttered-also in a defensive tone, and with as little cause. "Arrows indeed! Beard would've drunk all their blood beforethey could bring my mistress down!"

Sharina smiled. The axe showed more enthusiasm about the prospect of her bleeding to death atop a mound of mangled corpses than she could muster, but that was true of many of Beard's enthusiasms.

"Yes, well…," said Alfdan, lowering his eyes. "I didn't want you to think that because I use devices like the Cape of Shadows-"

He plucked the hem of his sleeve. When he moved, the cape fluttered like an ordinary garment, but though the shape changed Sharina couldn't see folds or wrinkles. It was a swatch of blackness, not fabric.

"-and the Queen Ship, that I'm not a wizard. But it's true that my power would be… not great… without them to aid me. Except in one thing."

Up close, Alfdan was an ordinary looking man. He was thin and nervous, but so was Franca; so were most people in this world, Sharina supposed. Most of the few who survived.

"I can find objects of power," the wizard explained. "See them, feel them, know where they'll be. I knew the axe Beard would be coming here, so we waited for it."

He nodded. The axe lay across her lap with her left hand on the grip.

"Do you know what Beard is?" Alfdan said, his deep-set eyes focusing on hers.

"She knows that Beard could split you scalp to crutch, little man," the axe said with unexpected venom. "She knows that he'll beglad to drink your blood, thin and sour though he knows it'll be!"

"I know that Beard's the reason that we're still alive, most of us," Sharina said, "after the fauns attacked. That makes him my friend. I don't need to hear anything about him that he doesn't choose to tell me."

"Whatever you please," Alfdan said, licking his lips and turning his head to the side. "I hadn't expected the fauns. Did you…"

He met her eyes again.

"Had you seen the fauns before?" he said. "Had they been pursuing you?"

Beard cackled with glee. "Do you think you're the only one who can see things before they happen, wizardling?" he said before Sharina could reply. "They weren't following us, but they may have been waiting just as you were. Or they may have been waiting for you!"

Alfdan played with his hem again, staring intently as if he saw something important in its lack of being. "I found the Cape of Shadows," he said, "in a casket among the roots of an ancient tree that had fallen that morning. The roots pulled the casket up from the ground with them, and I was there to find it!"

"And this ship too, I suppose?" Sharina said. She'd have tapped the deck, but she needed both her hands. She felt Beard quiver with words too faint to hear; it was like having a purring cat on her lap, a cat of sharp-edged steel.

"Yes, the Queen Ship," the wizard agreed absently. "It was in a cave on Ornifal. The entrance had been under water for millennia, but I found it when the sea receded. In another day-"

He looked up fiercely again. Sharina wondered how much of Alfdan's jumpy behavior was from fatigue and how much was simply madness.

"-a glacier would have covered it and locked it away for all time. Except that I found it!"

"I see that," Sharina said quietly, stroking the axe in her lap as she thought of glaciers on Ornifal. "What has that to do with me?"