David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

"Very good," Sharina said. "Rasile, please respond to the admiral's point." Chancellor Royhas looked up from his close conversation with Lord Hauk, presumably discussing payment and procurement for supplies if the army marched on Pandah. "Your highness," he said, "I don't think it's appropriate for an animal to address us. Even if it does speak like a human now." "As you please, milord," Sharina said, trying to stay calm. It seemed to her that the Chancellor'd spoken more sharply than he would've to Garric. "Lord Tadai?" The plump, perfectly groomed nobleman sat across the table from Royhas; he'd been whispering urgently with two clerks, scratching notes on a sheet of sycamore bark. He met Sharina's gaze and lifted an eyebrow in question. "Your highness?" "Lord Royhas is giving up his portfolio,"

Sharina said. "Are you willing to accept the duties of Chancellor?"

"Your highness, wait!" Royhas said, rising from his chair abruptly and catching his knees under a table that was lower than he was used to.

He flopped back down. "Please!" "I've willingly served the kingdom in whatever position you or your royal brother appointed me to, your highness," Tadai said unctuously. He carefully avoided letting his eyes drift toward the discomfited man across the table. "I would be honored if you chose to use me in the capacity of chancellor." "Your highness," Royhas said, calm once more. He stood and bowed low, then straightened to meet her eyes. "I apologize. I misspoke because I'm tired. But your highness, if I cannot claim to be tireless in carrying out my duties, I've certainly been honest and efficient. I believe even-" He turned to glance at his rival, then faced Sharina again.

"-Lord Tadai would grant that. I made an error of speech. It will not recur." He bowed and sat down again. Sharina nodded. "Well said, Chancellor," she said. "Lord Tadai, I'm fortunate to be able to retain you as head of my civil affairs section when I march with the army."

She gave Waldron a hard smile and added, "As I expect to do shortly.

Rasile, please explain why you believe we must go to Pandah." She hadn't threatened Royhas about what would happen if he-not to put too fine a point on it-insulted her again. He knew, everyone at the table knew what would happen. So did the guards and so did the clerks and the servants and the courtiers watching events through the open sides of the gazebo. Sharina smiled with her lips pressed tight together.

She didn't like being regent, but she hadn't liked emptying chamber pots at the inn, either. Garric depended on her, and she supposed the kingdom did too-though it made her very uncomfortable to think in those terms. Therefore shewould be regent. "The Last are without number," Rasile said. "They do not grow weaker, warrior, any more than the sea is weakened by striking against a cliff. But it wears the cliff down as the Last will wear down Pandah; and while they are doing so, they're fortifying the pool by which they enter this region. If you do not stop them while you can, you will speed their conquest of this world by two years-or perhaps three." The Corl spoke in a mix of clicks and labials, but due to Tenoctris' remarkable feat of wizardry the listening humans understood her perfectly. The thought jerked Sharina's mind to wonder about Tenoctris as she now was-and to concern over what Cashel might be facing to protect the wizard. "I don't see how these Last get into the water," said Lord Hauk, looking at the mass of documents spread on the table before him. "Do they swim here, is that it?" "Rasile?" Sharina said. "Please explain the matter."

She'd asked the wizard the same question, but rather than retail the information she thought she'd let it come from the original source.

Among other things, that might raise Rasile's status in the eyes of the councilors. Royhas certainly wasn't alone in distrusting and disdaining their Coerli allies. "The Last do not touch the water,"

Rasile said. "They cross from reflection to reflection. If you distort the surface of the site they choose, you block them." She coughed and paused. How old is she? How old do Coerli get? "They cannot use every body of water as their mirror," Rasile resumed. "There must be a focus for their art, a dense braiding of power. Save Pandah, you've blocked every such focus already in your portion of this world." The Corl laughed, a bestial sound that probably wasn't meant to be threatening.

"Your Tenoctris is a very great wizard. I am not fit to be her lowliest slave… and yet she chooses to serve your kingdom instead of gaining hegemony over this universe." Her shrug was identical to that of a puzzled human. She laughed again and added, "It is almost as if Tenoctris were me, only vastly more powerful." "I don't understand what the cat means," said the Minister of the Post plaintively to her neighbor, the burly Commandant of the Valles Night Watch. The latter's deep frown didn't suggest to Sharina that he was going to be much help with the question. The Minister of Post felt eyes on her and looked up in horror, then clapped both hands over her mouth. It was a charmingly innocent gesture, but one which reminded Sharina that the lady was a political ally of Chancellor Royhas. Sharina rose to her feet. "What it means," she said, though she knew the minister'd been asking a much more basic question than the one she chose to answer, "is that however difficult it may be to root out the incursion of the Last at Pandah, we must do so in order to buy time till others to deal with the creatures in a permanent fashion. Is there anyone at the table who disagrees with that assessment?" There was silence. They were intelligent people-well, most of them were-and pragmatists. Given the facts, they'd come to the same conclusion she had. "Lord Waldron?" she prodded, looking down at the old soldier. "My men are talking to Master Baumo's men now," Waldron said, nodding toward the tax office clerk. "We'll have an operational plan ready before morning." He smiled grimly and added, "If I'd been looking for an easy life, I wouldn't have been a soldier. And if any of my men had thought it was going to be easy, I'd have run them out or ground them under." Sharina felt a sudden wash of contentment. It was late at night, but the guests' bed linen was clean, the common room had been swept, porridge for the morning was simmering on the kitchen fire- And the chamber pots had been emptied. "Very good, Councilors," Sharina said. "We will do our jobs here so that Prince Garric and Lady Tenoctris can save us by doing theirs." And Cashel can save us, she thought. Before he comes back to save me from lonely darkness. *** Ilna and Temple joined Asion on the limestone ridge, looking down at the land spreading below. The valley behind them was a waste of blowing dust and woody plants sheltering in the lee of outcrops; ahead was tussock grass, not the lushest of vegetation but proof ofsome water. Stretching toward them up the gentle slope were broad fields irrigated from the creek lying at the base of steeper hills across the valley; cottonwoods grew on the banks. Asion turned and signalled to his partner. Karpos was less than a furlong behind, much closer than usual because the landscape they'd just crossed was too barren and dusty to conceal a stalking enemy. "That's odd," said Temple. He pointed toward the southern end of the valley, where the creek spilled down from a notch in the rock wall. "Impressive, at least. That's a dam. If the watercourse on the other side of it flowed naturally, the whole valley would flood." "How do you-" Ilna said, then scowled at her stupidity. She disliked stone so much that it was apparently robbing her of intelligence. "Yes, I see that the dam's high, and that the water spills over the top." She returned her attention to the village on the other side of the creek. The walls were drystone, blocks laid without mortar, and the buildings were thatched with tussock grass. There were more houses than she could count on both hands; but not, she thought, twice that number. The line of shadow from the sun behind her was beginning to darken the tawny roofs as well. "Seventeen huts," said Temple. "I'd judge they were of a size to hold six or eight family members each, wouldn't you guess?"