David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

I searched them out myself." "And I went with him!" said a third fellow. He nodded with enthusiasm. "I went, and they weren't there."

"But when the barons were gone, the demons came," Gressar resumed, shooting a sour glance at the fellows who'd butted in on his recitation. The Change had probably weakened the village structure; and even before, if this valley was like Barca's Hamlet, no one man would've had the power to give orders unchallenged to his neighbors.

"The first night they killed seven people-" "Anda dozen goats," the second man said. "Three of them mine." "Sister take you, Kardon!"

Gressar snapped. "If they'd killed you instead of your goats, perhaps you'd be able to keep your mouth shut while somebody's talking!"

"Gently, friends!" said Temple. He didn't sound angry, but he raised his voice enough to give it authority. "We're here to help you out of your problem. Stay calm and it'll be right again before much longer."

"Well, they did kill the goats," Kardon muttered, but he was at least pretending to be speaking to himself instead of interrupting. "The demons came back the three nights of the new moon after the Terrible Day," Gressar said. "We knew the signs this time, so we sheltered here in the cave. And we'd rebuilt the door, though not as well as we have since. Still, they didn't force their way in." "The cats are lazy brutes as well as vicious ones," Ilna said. "They won't go to any effort even to kill." Temple glanced appraisingly toward her. "The Coerli use their quickness rather than strength," he said. "And they try to avoid enclosures where they'd be at a disadvantage." He nodded to the villager and went on, "You're fortunate to have had this shelter, Master Gressar, and you've done a very good job strengthening it. But it's time to end the Coerli attacks once and for all." "It's past time," said a young woman in a savage voice. "It won't bring back my Mira, will it? And you and my worthless husband didn't do a thing to save her, Gressar!" "Now, Stuna, there was nothing to be done," said the headman with the sort of deliberate reasonableness that you use when you're trying to calm a child on the verge of a tantrum. It didn't work with children as Ilna knew from watching over the years, and itcertainly didn't work with the distraught mother. She gave a wordless shriek and threw herself at Gressar with her hands clawed. He backed a step, then turned and hunched over to escape Stuna's nails.

Two men took her by the arms, looking uncomfortable with the task.

When she subsided into tears, they immediately let her go. "Mira wasn't but four," said a man who hadn't spoken before. "It wasn't her fault, she was just too young to know better. She couldn't find her puppy inside, so she slipped out again while we were closing the door.

It's so heavy it swings slow, you seen that. And the demons were already on us, or nearly. There was nothing we could do!" He kept his face turned away from Temple as he spoke, which meant that Ilna got as good a view of his features as the dim light allowed. She'd spent time in one sort of Hell herself; this man was in a different place, but it was just as dark. "Temple?" Ilna said. "The way to my goal is through the place those beasts come from; that my pattern tells me. I don't know what that place is, but I intend to go there." "It's a cyst in time," Temple said, while the villagers listened in wonder. "A valley like this one-perhaps this very one-but in its own universe." He smiled with a touch of sadness. "It might be much like the one in which you found me, before the Change brought it back into the present world. At an unfortunate time, one might say, but the Last themselves may have been responsible for the timing. There must be a wizard, a Corl wizard that is, who formed the cyst. That wizard rules the hunting pack that comes out when the conditions are right here." "How do you recommend that we enter the beasts' world, soldier?" Ilna said harshly. Her fingers were knotting and unknotting yarn. Each pattern she created was more terrible than the last. She knew exactly how the girl Mira died, because she'd watched the beasts kill Merota. In this valley they'd survived long enough to eat the child, unlike the band which had only seconds to savor Merota's slaughter before Ilna took a vengeance more terrible than their cat minds could've imagined before it happened. Merota's killers had died, and these would die also. Not soon enough, as the child's mother had said; but soon. "We'll go through their doorway," Temple said calmly. "But first we'll place ourselves in front of it while the warriors are at the far end of the valley. They have to get back into their enclave before the sun rises, so they'll come to us." He gestured to the hunters. "And when they do, we'll kill them," he said. "Since there's no other way to deal with this band." "There's no other way to deal withany of the beasts," Ilna snapped. "But why will they all be at the other end of the valley?"

"Ah," said Temple, nodding. "That's where the men of the village come in. If they're willing to help, that is. Otherwise I'll have to handle that part of the business myself while the three of you block the warriors' way home." "Our men will help you," said Stuna. She gave a croaking laugh. "Or I swear by the soul of my Mira that I'll kill every one of them as he sleeps. Every one!" "Lord Temple," said Gressar formally. "Tell us what we have to do."

Chapter 12 Metal clinked outside the tent, probably a buckle tapping against the bronze cuirass of the officer of the guard. It was a harmless sound, but Cashel felt Sharina stiffen in the darkness. He didn't speak. Sharina suddenly began to sob. Cashel still didn't say anything, but he stroked her shoulder with one hand and held her firmly with the other. He wished she'd tell him what the problem was, but he wasn't going to badger her. She was having a hard enough time as it was. Sharina sat upright. The bedding had been laid on the ground, which'd horrified the servants. She'd held firm, though, insisting that she as regentwas going on the expedition to Pandah and that she wasnot going to burden the army with a gilded brass bed frame. "Cashel, somebody's watching me," she said quietly. "His name is Vorsan, Prince Vorsan, and he's a wizard from before the Great Flood. Which apparently isn't a myth. I always thought the Flood was a myth." Her voice broke with the last word and she started crying again. Cashel put his arms around her. "What did Tenoctris tell you?" he asked, taking it as a given that she'd talked to Tenoctris if a wizard was giving her trouble. "She said not to worry!" Sharina said.

"Cashel, he's taken me into his world. If I look into a mirror or any kind of reflection the wrong way, I'm there in his palace with him!"

"You told Tenoctris that and she just said not to worry?" Cashel said.

What Sharina'd said didn't fit. There was something he didn't know, which was common enough, but this time it seemed like it was something he could learn. "I said-" Sharina said, but the fright and anger in her voice faded by the end of the second syllable. Much calmer she went on, "Tenoctris said she didn't believe Vorsan would hurt me. And Rasile said she didn't think we should try to destroy him, because she couldn't tell the future perfectly." Cashel rose to a crouch-the tent of even the Princess was a small one; common soldiers simply wrapped themselves in their cloaks at night-and pulled on his tunics. He was used to dressing in the dark; a lot of a shepherd's business was done in the dark and in the worst storms you could imagine. His quarterstaff lay alongside the mattress stuff with horsehair rather than straw like a peasant's. He touched it. The hickory made him think of the borough; he smiled. "That means Rasile thought she could tell the futuresome," Cashel said. "And maybe there'll be a time she wants Prince Vorsan around." "You think I should just let him, well, do the things he does too?" Sharina said. "I'vetold him to leave me alone, but he doesn't." They bumped elbows as she shrugged into her own tunic. She was trying to keep the irritation out of her voice, but Cashel heard it regardless. "No, Sharina," he said calmly. "But I think I ought to talk to him myself. Do you have a mirror?" They'd need a light, too. The guards outside the tent had a lantern he could borrow, but he'd just as soon leave them and everybody else out of this. Cashel didn't often get angry, but he was angry now. He took the flint and steel from the tarred leather cylinder hanging from the tent's ridge-pole and struck sparks into a pile of mushroom spores.