David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

The pincers clashed beneath him; Kore'd lost her grip. He hoped she'd been thrown clear instead of being crushed or engulfed, but everyone dies andhe might die in the next heartbeat. The paddles on one side lashed forward again, but the other pair flailed the surface like women washing clothes. The creature's right side lifted, then slammed down. Garric swung like a pendulum. The blade pulled out. He slid down the creature's headplate and bounced from its lip. A tentacle lashed him but couldn't hold; he hit on his back in a spray of mud. His right arm and chest were slick with clear humors that'd leaked from the monster's eye, and the feeling that was beginning to return to his body was solely pain. If I'd fallen on stone instead of into the bog, Garric thought, I'd probably have been killed. He started to laugh. It was agony, and that made him laugh even harder. He still held the sword, but he had to let go of it because he was afraid he'd slash himself as the pain drew his arms close to his chest. The ogre lifted him in the crook of her left arm. Holding him as gently as a mother, she paced toward the peel tower where Shin waited. "My sword," Garric whispered. Had it sunk out of sight already? But hecouldn't have kept holding it. "I have it," said Kore. She kicked the dead servant into the bog instead of stepping over him again. "You'll want to wipe it, I'm sure, but Shin has rags." "And fresh clothing," said the aegipan, holding up a drab tunic. "No doubt you can sew one of these into breeches as well." "I can walk," Garric said. He sounded like rattling death even to himself, but he knew what'd happen to his bruised muscles if he let them stiffen. "I think I'd better walk." Kore handed the slimy sword hilt-first to the aegipan, then lowered Garric's feet to the pavement at the base of the tower. She held his shoulder till they both were sure he could stand unaided, then released him. The monster's hindquarters were slewed into the bog, sinking slowly, but the sunken causeway supported its head. The lower blade of the nearer pincer had been wrenched from its socket; it hung by a strand of pale muscle. Kore splashed toward the huge corpse. "Kore?" Garric said.

"Where are you going?" The ogre turned. "To get my dinner, master," she said. "I only helped you because I didn't fancy another meal of pork. Are you going to tell me that seafood such as this-" She gestured toward the monster. Her arm was incredibly long when she stretched it out at full length. "-is forbidden your faithful mount also?" "The last time I told you what you could eat," Garric said,

"that thing came out of the sinkhole. I'm not in any shape right now to deal with another one, so you go right ahead and eat your fill." He started laughing again. Though he tried to hold himself upright on the side of the tower, he still sank to his knees. Pain proved that he was alive. That thought made Garric and the ghost in his mind both laugh even harder and more painfully. *** The huge brickwork cylinder was several miles west of Valles. Cashel didn't know why Tenoctris had brought them to it. He entered ahead of her. He'd expected it to be full of vagrants or at least choked with their trash, but instead there was only echoing emptiness and the smell of bird droppings. Pigeons cooed nervously; two lifted off with the familiar rattle of flight feathers. The building was windowless, so the only light was what the moon cast through the doorway. By it Cashel could tell that the interior was domed instead of being straight-sided like the outside, though even so it was very large. Tenoctris walked in, carrying her satchel. Cashel'd asked her to wait with the gig till he looked the place over, but he hadn't really expected her to listen to him. Even before Tenoctris called up the demon, she'd been a lot less cautious about danger than he'd liked. Cashel was used to it, of course. Sheep were the same way.

"I'll get the rest, Tenoctris," he said as he walked out to the gig.

Tenoctris had dropped the reins tied to a piece of iron no bigger than a clenched fist. The bay horse could've run off easily, but instead it just backed as far as it could get without moving the weight. It rolled its eyes at Cashel as he lifted the sword and bronze tripod from the back of the vehicle, but it seemed afraid even to whinny.

Cashel frowned slightly. They didn't want the horse to wander away, and there wasn't a good place to tie it. Still, the fear in the animal's eyes bothered him a bit. Tenoctris was always polite and kindly, but under the surface… The horse made Cashel realize that he'd never seen the wizard hesitate to do anything or use anything she had to get her job done. He grinned. Tenoctris was on their side. He guessed that was all that really mattered. "Set the tripod here," Tenoctris said, gesturing to the center of the floor.

She'd swept away leaves that'd blown in and placed a handful of twigs with rough, scaly bark on the cleared space. "Over the fireset." It didn't look like a fireset to Cashel, not to heat a tripod with a bowl big enough for Ilna to do the wash in. He obeyed without arguing, though: there were lots of things he didn't understand but other people did. He trusted Tenoctris. She waited while he positioned the tripod, then nodded approval. She'd unstoppered a tiny bottle-it wasn't but the size of Cashel's thumb-and now poured its contents into the bowl. It was way too dark to be able to tell the color of what she'd poured out, but he'd have been willing to swear that it had a violet tinge. "What kind of place is this, Tenoctris?" Cashel asked, looking around him. There were niches in the ceiling, but they seemed just to lighten the structure. The pigeons liked them, that was true.

Tenoctris gave him a quick smile. "Another tomb," she said. "This one's the wife's of a rich man of the Old Kingdom. Tombs concentrate the powers better than anything except a battlefield, and there are problems with battlefields." Her grin widened. "They attract other things as well, you see," she said. "That's also why I chose not to return where we'd been before. A mouse that uses the same hole too often will one day find a cat waiting." Tenoctris touched the rim of the tripod, then stretched her hand out toward him. "Now the sword if you please, Cashel," she said. He gave her the sword he'd brought back to the palace after the fight with the Last. She drew it and tossed the scabbard toward the distant wall. The gray metal gave back the moonlight as a distant shimmer. "Stand close to the tripod," Tenoctris said, looking down the blade with a critical eye. As Cashel obediently moved, she pointed the sword toward the gritty floor and said,

"Siskibir kebibir." A spark snapped from the sword point, touched the floor, and lit the point blue. Tenoctris swung the sword sunwise in an arc. "Knebibir sadami samomir." Wizardlight as pale as sulfur flames quivered and continued burning. Tenoctris walked around the tripod, chanting as she went. Cashel moved to keep out of the way, though she was far enough out that it'd probably have been all right. "Merych rechar-" The clamps holding the tripod's legs to the bowl were shaped like lions. As the blue light reflected from them, their manes rippled and Cashel thought he saw their forelegs move. "Paspar!" Tenoctris said and stood breathing deeply. The circle of light was complete. She looked at Cashel and smiled with satisfaction. Despite her young face, Tenoctrisseemed a lot older than she had before the demon. "I'm not used to being able to command such powers," she said. "I find that I like the experience." Tenoctris held up the oddly-shaped sword and examined it in the flickering light of the circle. Cashel cleared his throat and said, "You didn't used to use metal wands, Tenoctris. Just the bamboo slivers that you threw away." She chuckled, stroking the flat of the blade with her fingertips. "Yes," she agreed. "I worried that I wouldn't be able to control the forces I was working with if I let them build on previous spells. I needn't worry about that, now."