David Drake - The Gods Return

Ilna glowered at her; Perrine jerked her hand away. "Please, we're very sorry if anything's happened to Hervir," Perrin said. "I don't know how we can convince you that he was in rude good health when he left us. Perhaps if you'd care to visit the plantation yourselves…?" "Oh, please!" said the princess. She grasped Ingens' hands, only to drop them quickly under the lash of Ilna's eyes. "Our father would be so glad to meet you both!" "Mistress Ilna," said Perrin. His hands lifted slightly, but he jerked them back to his sides before she could react. "I… it's painful to me that you doubt our good faith. If you would come with us, you could see that we're innocent farmers, unarmed-" He gestured with both hands to the broad golden sash holding up his pantaloons. Neither sword nor dagger were thrust through its wraps. "-protected only by our separation from the waking world." Ilna glanced at the apes seated on the ground nearby. One was combing the fur of another for fleas; a third had found hickory nuts and was cracking them at the side of his massive jaws, then spitting out the debris. As best Ilna could tell, he wasn't swallowing the contents; ordinarily, any nut that the squirrels left was wormy. The last scratched both armpits simultaneously and hooted softly to herself. "All right," she said. "We'd like to see your farm.

Perhaps we'll find some clue to Hervir's disappearance." Perrin and Perrine gabbled their pleasure. Again their hands lifted but were snatched back before they touched Ilna and Ingens. "Oh, father will beso pleased!" the princess said. "Yes, come this way," said Perrin.

"It's quite simple, really, and perfectly safe." "Come along, Ingens,"

Ilna said. The secretary looked less than enthusiastic until the delicate princess stood on tiptoe to whisper into his ear. Ilna frowned but said nothing as she followed Perrin around the big oak.

Usun was a solid weight in the rolled cloak, but he remained silent and as still as a sandbag. He was a hunter, all right. So was Ilna, she supposed. She wasn't sure what her prey was this time, but she expected that she'd learn before long. *** Garric walked into the temple, holding both fillets in his left hand. Behind him Tenoctris sat cross-legged on the ground, chanting into a circle she'd outlined in finely divided metal-silver, he thought, but he hadn't asked. The amber athame rose and fell as she spoke the words of power. King Carus was poised in Garric's mind, keyed to the edge of berserk violence. Carus had never been comfortable with wizardry, and being drowned in a wizard-raised maelstrom hadn't made him like it better. He knew that Tenoctris was a friend and he accepted that what she was doing was necessary- But he still didn't like it. It bothered Garric that Tenoctris used an athame now. She'd always done her incantations with slivers of bamboo which she discarded after using only once. She'd said that because athames and wands collected power with each further spell, they were likely to muddle the work of all but the greatest wizards. By risking her life and soul, Tenoctris had become one of the most powerful wizards of all time. Her bobbing athame reminded Garric both of the danger she'd undergone and of the danger to mankind which had driven her to take that risk. His boots tapped on the marble floor. The stone was highly polished, which meant it didn't get much use-if any. Marble is soft.

The golden nymphs watched Garric from just outside the entrance, standing beside the plinths on which they'd been set as caryatids.

Were they real women who'd been turned to metal, or were they metal brought to life? But that didn't matter. Garric looked down at the massive skeleton. The bones were completely disarticulated; not even shreds of cartilage bound the joints together. How long had Munn lain here? But that didn't matter either. Rather than simply lift the bone of the upper arm, Garric worked one of the fillets over the fingers and wrist, then up the forearm. Only then did he slide the silver band onto what would've been the biceps of a living man. Tenoctris had told him what to say, but she hadn't suggested how he should place the fillets. This just had seemed right to him when he faced the task.

When he faced the bones of the ancient hero. He walked around the foot of the catafalque, holding the remaining fillet. He thought he heard the bones rattle. Perhaps there'd been an earth shock, perhaps it was just his imagination. The light which curled through the solid panel was disturbing as well as deceptive. Garric had thought that he'd be more comfortable facing away from the rainbow flood so it couldn't trick him with what healmost saw in its light. Having it behind him was actually worse. Carus' instincts kept trying to spin him around with the sword ready, certain that something hostile was poised to leap. "Thereis, lad!" the ghost said. "There's something and it's an enemy!" That may be, thought Garric. But my job is to put these arm rings on the skeleton, and I can only do that with my back to the light. I will do my job. King Carus laughed. "Death isn't so bad," he said as Garric worked the fillet up Munn's left arm as he had the right. "Maybe running away because you're afraid to die wouldn't be too bad either, but people like you and me are never going to know that. Sorry, lad." With the second fillet in place, Garric returned to the entrance. He stood just inside, where he could see both Munn and the panel of light without blocking the wizard's view. She continued to chant, shifting now onto a rising note. The nymphs looked back at him with cold, sad eyes. "Eulamo!" Tenoctris shrieked in a near falsetto. Instead of thrusting her athame into the ground as Garric had expected, she turned the point straight up. A blast of scarlet wizardlight suffused the interior of the temple, glowing in and through the walls. Garric stepped back reflexively, bumping the doorpost. He blinked, though he knew it wasn't his physical eyes that the flash had dazzled. Lord Munn rose from the bier, hefting his great iron sword. He wore a simple garment of green wool with a black zigzag along the hems. A carved wooden pin over the left shoulder closed it, leaving his right shoulder bare. The marble catafalque shivered into dust motes, dancing and settling in the illumination of the wall panel. Munn raised the sword high and boomed out laughter. His hair and beard were black and full and curling. He lowered the sword and let his eyes rest on Garric. "So…," he said in a voice that rasped like thunder. "You, boy? Are you the one who called me from the sleep that I have earned?" He was a giant, easily seven feet tall; the crude sword was in scale with him. Garric laughed in turn. It wasn't an act: Carus was in his element here. They wouldn't have needed Tenoctris' coaching to know how to handlethis. "Lord Munn," said Garric, standing arms akimbo. "When you speak to me, remember not only that you speak to a king, but that you speak toyour king. I am Garric, prince and ruler of this world. I have called you to do your duty."

"And what is my duty, then?" Munn said. There was nothing pacific in his tone, but he lowered the sword and rested its rounded tip on the floor in front of him. Even for him, it was a two-handed weapon. "When you speak to your king, milord," Garric said, "do so with proper courtesy!" Munn bowed over his sword, then rose to meet Garric's eyes again. "What do you say my duty is, your majesty?" he said. In Garric's court and when he addressed the citizens of the kingdom he ruled, he kept the fiction that the king was still Valence the Third, who lived in a dream of the past in his quarters in Valles. Here, though, he accepted the honorific "your majesty" due a reigning monarch. "Milord," Garric said. "The Gate of Ivory is open. The sleep of the dead is being disturbed to aid the forces of Evil against the Good. Close the gate." The big man's laughter boomed. "What doI know of good and evil?" he said. "You know your duty, do you not, Lord Munn?" Garric said. He didn't try to out shout the giant, but no one could doubt either the power of his voice or the authority in it.