David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

"What do you mean, 'the First Cycle'?" Syl asked, looking at the toad on Cashel's left shoulder.

"This is the Seventeenth Cycle," Evne said. "I can't imagine why you would ask, except to satisfy intellectual curiosity… which rather surprises me, given the source."

Syl smiled at her. "Thank you, Mistress Toad," she said. "Pray continue."

"The manors are built on the peaks," Evne said. "The streams which flow inward drain into the bowl and form a swamp because there's no outlet. More than water sinks toward the center and collects, so human arts aren't sufficient to allow the airboats to fly into the swamp. You will go on foot from the edge, master."

"There's power in the air above the Great Swamp, Lord Cashel," Syl said. "Our boats rise or fall or simply come apart if they venture there… But of course there's no reason to go there at all."

"There's no reason to leave the manor!" Getchin snarled. Lapsing into a desperate whine he added, "Oh, why did this happen to me?"

"One answer might be that it spared some useful person from discomfort," said Evne. "Though I don't expect that that's true."

Cashel smiled. When he noticed that Syl was smiling also, at him, he blushed.

Clearing his throat he said, "But the Visitor flies there?"

"The Visitor does as he wills," Evne agreed. "Or so he has always done."

They'd risen considerably higher. Cashel could see the ridges curving beneath him the way ripples spread on a pond. There wasn't enough forest to color the general gray rock background, but creeks glittered jaggedly. On more peaks than Cashel could count with his fingers stood manors built of a variety of gleaming materials.

Several of them were in ruins. The manors had no enemy except the Visitor, but he seemed sufficient.

A sea of fog rose over the ridge ahead. "The Great Swamp," Evne said. "You'll find the air there warmer, master. A great deal of power has settled in the basin."

"There's monsters in the swamp," Syl said. "Sometimes the mist clears and they've been seen. But you slew the dragon of Portmayne, Lord Cashel. You don't fear monsters, do you?"

Cashel smiled. "I don't guess I do," he said. Maybe it was bragging to say that, but he wasn't going to lie; and anyway, Syl was a pretty thing in her way.

"I'm setting us down," Getchin said in a hoarse voice. "I don't dare go any closer. It isn't possible!"

"Not for him, at any rate," Evne said with an audible sniff. "But this is good enough, master. The ground here on the south edge of the basin is firmer than that to the east and north, though there's little enough to choose."

The boat slid downward and past the tops of trees clinging to cracks in the rock. There were hardwoods here, oaks and beeches, and down on the valley floor grew a few tall, straight-trunked trees with shiny, oval leaves and big flowers.

Ahead was a patch of warm mist. They drove into it, slowed, and set down on a plain of pulpy grasses. There were low banks a stone's throw to either side. The trickle meandering down the center of the plain must be a roaring freshet in the spring.

"All right, get out," Getchin said, standing with his wand upright before him. "Please, Mas… that is, Lord Cashel. It's not safe here!"

Cashel rose and stepped out of the boat. Though it rested on a narrow keel, it didn't topple over the way an ordinary ship would do if the tide left it on dry ground. He wondered how they made it do that.

"Wait," said Syl, getting out behind him. She untied her hair ribbon, a pretty violet color like the last band of the rainbow. Cashel had never seen cloth of that shade before.

"Syl, we mustn't-" Getchin whined.

"Shut up, you fool!" said Syl, stretching the ribbon between her hands. Evne laughed from Cashel's shoulder.

"Lord Cashel," the girl said. "Stretch out your left arm, if you would be so good."

"Ma'am…?" said Cashel, but he obeyed. Syl looped the ribbon over his sleeve above the biceps and tied it into a quick square knot. It wasn't tight around his arm, but the friction of cloth to cloth would hold it against his tunic unless things got too active… as of course they might.

"I'd like you to wear this token as you go forward," Syl said. "In memory of Manor Bossian, let us say. It shouldn't get in your way."

Cashel frowned. "It's likely to get lost, mistress," he said. "I'll have other things on my mind, and-"

"Then it gets lost!" Syl said. "It's only a ribbon, after all. But you'll wear it till then?"

"I guess I will, yes," Cashel said. "Evne, I think we'd best-"

"Am I holding you up, master?" the toad snapped. "Are you waiting for me to pick you up and walk off with you?"

"Right," muttered Cashel as he turned, giving his quarterstaff a slow spin. Glancing back over his shoulder, being careful not to meet Syl's eyes, he said, "Thanks for carrying me this far. I hope things go well for you."

He started off, walking faster than he'd usually have done. He didn't want any more conversation. He heard Getchin ask Syl to get back into the boat-and her snarl at him in a voice like an angry cat.

But she didn't call to Cashel, and he was just as happy about that. He wouldn't have answered, but he wouldn't have been happy not to

"Atten-shun!" bellowed a voice with the twanging accent of Northern Ornifal as Garric walked into courtyard of the barracks of the 4^th Company of the Carcosa City Watch. A squad of Blood Eagles were in front of him, another squad behind, and the remainder of the demi-company had taken key positions in the barracks before Lord Attaper would permit Garric's visit to go ahead.

"Permit!" snorted Carus in Garric's mind. "Every bodyguard is born an old lady, it seems to me."

Perhaps, thought Garric. But it's generally easier to go along with them, and in this case Attaper may have a point.

Liane walked primly to his left. A Blood Eagle-one ofher guards-was a pace behind her, carrying the travelling desk with her documents. The guards had explained that they'd rather carry the gear themselves than worry about a servant being that close, and everybody from Liane on down had insisted that Prince Garric couldn't do servants' work in public.

"Generally easier to go along with them," Carus parroted back with a gust of laughter.

"Your highness!" shouted the commander, a former cavalry decarch named Pascus or-Pascus. "The 4^th Company is all present to receive you!"

Garric smiled faintly. Normally the report would' ve been, "All present or accounted for," because there were always men on sick leave or detached service. Not today: every man on the muster rolls of the newly-constituted company was here to greet their prince.

"Some of them look like they'll be on their backs in bed as soon as you've left the compound, though," Carus noted with amusement. That was true enough, and their commander himself had a febrile brightness that suggested he was still suffering from his injuries.

Pascus had been among the first troopers to batter their way through the back wall of the Temple of the Mistress in Donelle; he'd lost half his left foot in the fighting there. His family had been retainers of Lord Waldron's family for as far back as parish records went, but even without the army commander's enthusiastic recommendation Pascus would've been an obvious choice for promotion to a job in the City Watch.

"Captain Pascus," Garric said, "tell your men to stand easy."

His voice rang across the courtyard loudly enough that Liane winced. Garric hadn't learned to call orders through the clangor of a battlefield the way Carus had, but a shepherd shouts most of the time if he expects to be heard by another human being.

"Stand easy!" Pascus ordered, just as loudly. "Your prince will address you!"

Until the morning before, these barracks had been the stables and servants quarters of one of the private houses owned by the priesthoods-the priests of the Lady, as it happened, but it made Garric's blood boil to attach Her name or the Shepherd's either one to gangs of thugs. Lord Anda had donated the buildings to the kingdom on behalf of his priesthood; without protest, which was just as well.