David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

They had their arms out, ready to take the block from him the way they'd've done if their friends had been lifting it. The soldiers moved fast when they saw what was happening, but it was still close.

Even Cashel couldn't hold that much weight with his fingertips alone when he'd started it flying, but he was able to brake it enough that the men all scrambled clear before it thumped the ground and tumbled away. "Sorry," Cashel said. His breath was coming hard, as much from almost crippling a couple people accidentally as the weight of the stone. "I didn't expect anybody to be there." "By the blessed Lady," said one of the soldiers who'd almost been in the wrong place. He didn't sound mad. "If you throw stones like that, maybe we can carry you along with us instead of a catapult, hey?" "Sorry," Cashel said in embarrassment. "I wouldn't make a good soldier." The men laughed.

Cashel realized it'd been a joke, but that was all right since they thought he was joking too. Tenoctris came down the opened trench, bringing her bag of gear and the quarterstaff both. Usually Cashel or somebody carried the satchel for her, but she was really a lot stronger than you might think to look at her. "Please go inside, Cashel," she said as she held out the staff to him. Though she smiled, she was also reminding him that he was in the way. "I'm quite sure I'd be more able to move the stone door than I would you." "Yes, ma'am,"

Cashel said. He took the satchel, holding it in front of him as he hunched through the doorway. "Careful, there's a step down here."

Though the air inside was cool, it was dry and musty rather than dank as Cashel'd sort of expected. The covered passage a double pace long, leading to a doorway with posts and a lintel. It was all cut from the living rock. Beyond was a step down into the tomb chamber. Cashel could stand upright there. Tenoctris followed him in. There was a low bench on either side. Each had legs and a frame, but all it was rock.

One was empty; the other had a stone coffin whose lid had been slid off. It'd broken when it hit the floor. Cashel peered inside. The box was empty. There was plenty of light in the tomb to see by for the moment. The doors and trench beyond lined up due west, so the low sun came right in. Tenoctris looked around with the perky cheerfulness of a wren. She peered at the ceiling, then touched the carvings on the coffin with her fingertips. "Where'd you like me to put the bag, Tenoctris?" Cashel asked. He hefted the satchel to call attention to it. "Oh, just set it on the other bench, if you would," she said with another quick nod. "I won't need tools to summon the former resident, I'm now sure. I hadn't fully appreciated just how powerful he was, Cashel." She smiled in a way that made her for just that moment look more like a puppy than a bird. She added, "How powerful heis, I should say, though for the moment he's not present in this world." "Is that a problem?" Cashel said. He spread his feet a little out of reflex. This'd be tight quarters to fight with a staff, but a straight thrust with the butt could finish things quick even if there wasn't room for tricks and spinning. "No, quite the contrary," Tenoctris said, but her smile seemed almost forced. "We came here to gain a powerful ally, after all." She cleared her throat and said, "I think I want something from the satchel after all; a lamp." As Tenoctris searched in the bag, Cashel eyed the coffin. It was made from alabaster carved so thin that you must've been able to see light through it when it was freshly polished. Even protected underground it had the frosty look marble gets when it's open to the air for a while.

The long side toward Cashel was decorated with people in a city. When he looked closely at the carvings, he saw they were all dead or dying; from a plague, it looked like. Some were sprawled at the altars in front of temples, some lay in bed or in the streets. A family held hands on a flat rooftop, all dead. Cashel generally liked sculptures as much as he did paintings. He didn't like this one, though, and he guessed he wouldn't have liked the fellow who wanted it on his coffin.

He stepped around to look at the end toward the doorway. The carvings showed dead people again, this time being torn to bits by weasels.

There didn't seem much point in looking at the other end, let alone worry about the side against the wall. Tenoctris's lamp was flat earthenware, the same as any house in Barca's Hamlet-or anywhere-had, except words in the curvy Old Script were molded around the oil hole in the middle. She'd filled it from a stoppered bottle, also in her bag. Now she pointed her finger at the wick, which lighted with a pop of blue wizardlight. "There," she said, turning to Cashel with a pleased smile. "Before I get into the sarcophagus, Cashel, I have a favor to ask you." Tenoctris brought out the locket again from under her robe. She looked at it for a moment in the palm of her hand, then lifted it on its thin gold chain over her head. "Please keep this, my dear," she said. She pursed her lips, then touched a catch on the bottom and spread the two leaves of the gold case. In each side was a face painted on a disk of ivory. They were small and the sun was setting fast, but Cashel thought they were a man and a woman. "My parents," Tenoctris said. She closed the locket and placed it in his left palm. "I didn't know them very well. I'm afraid I must've been a trial to them." She smiled with the touch of soft sadness Cashel'd seen before. "Not because I was bad, of course," she explained, "but because I was very different from them and the children of all their friends. I embarrassed them." "Tenoctris?" Cashel said. "How long do I keep it for you? Just tonight?" "Keep it until you feel it's the right time to give it back to me, Cashel," the old woman said. "And if ever I cease to be myself, destroy it immediately. Promise me this. There's no one else I could trust with this duty." "Yes, Tenoctris," Cashel said. He thought for a moment, then hung the chain around his neck.

Tenoctris hopped to the bench, then stepped into the coffin-the sarcophagus-by herself. She seemed brighter, stronger than she had been. "Now, Cashel," she said as she laid herself flat in the stone box, "all you have to do is wait and watch while I sleep." With her head on the stone bolster carved in the bottom of the coffin, Tenoctris began to chant softly. The words had the rhythm of words of power, though Cashel couldn't make out the separate sounds. He walked to the door to the chamber and stood there, watching the sky turn darker. He rubbed the shaft of his quarterstaff, but the familiar touch of the hickory didn't settle him. Cashel didn't mind not understanding what was going on around him; he was used to that. But this time he was pretty sure hedid understand, and that worried him a lot. *** "Yes, I'm sure I'd rather deal with a wyvern alone, Master Asion," Temple said. He gave "sure" just a hint of emphasis. "None of you are equipped to fight the beasts at close quarters, and I'm unable to fight them any other way." He bowed slightly to Ilna and added,

"This is your first experience with wyverns. You'll find the three of you have enough to do with the beast which doesn't go after me, I believe." "We'll know soon enough," Ilna said. To the hunters she added, "Come along." Dew congealing out of the clear air made the morning dank. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, however. The day'd shortly be hot enough and dry, for those who survived the next few hours. The villagers were up but silent save for whispers as they watched the strangers prepare to fight the monsters. They stood on the slope above their shanties as if to make clear that they weren't part of the business in case it went wrong. Occasionally a child wailed.

Ilna didn't think about whether Temple and the hunters were accompanying her. They were, of course; but once she'd set out to do this thing, the choices other people made no longer mattered. If she attacked two wyverns by herself, they'd kill her as surely as sunrise.