David Drake: The Mirror of Worlds

SHARE. A vast sigh stirred the air of the chamber. Perhaps it came from the assembled creatures, things once human but fallen from that state when they reached the Messengers. It seemed, though, that the world itself had breathed out its despair. YOU WISH TO KILL THE COERLI, the voices said. WE WILL SHOW YOU HOW… She was no longer seeing the whirling lights. Instead- A band of Coerli, two handsful less one, ringed a human family. The father held a spear. He lunged at a warrior who leaped aside with contemptuous ease. Warriors to either side spun out hooked lines. One wrapped around the man's throat and jerked him backward; the other line lashed the spear shaft to the man's wrist while the beast who'd thrown it pulled in the opposite direction. The man thrashed and choked until a third warrior stabbed him up through the diaphragm with a flint knife. Then- A group of Coerli chieftains-grizzled, bearing the scars of age and harsh living-sat on a circle of rocks. Around them stood more of the beasts, too many to count. They were howling in blood-maddened passion. Then- A female Corl even older than the chiefs stood in a roofless wicker enclosure. She chanted and marked time with an athame carved from slate. Around her paraded images, ghosts of ghosts to Ilna's eyes.

Most were man-shaped black creatures like the corpses Ilna'd seen when they found Temple. In the distance, though, a nude woman poised at the edge of a pool. The black things seemed to ignore her. Then- Coerli were devouring their prey. The band's fur was subtly different from the spots and striping of the first catmen the Messengers had shown her, though few other humans would've been sure of that. A beast stuck an infant's arm into his mouth and drew it out, stripping the flesh from the bones the way a man might eat a chicken wing. Then- The Messengers hung in the center of the cavern again, pulsing at the rhythm of blood. Their voices said, BRING HER A KNIFE. "A knife for the wizard," chorused the rat voices. There was motion in the carpet of hunched foulness. "She must have a knife, and we will bring it." "I have a knife if I need one!" Ilna said, taking the bone-cased paring knife from her sleeve and drawing the blade. It was fine steel, worn thin but sharp enough to split hairs. A golden sickle appeared at the entrance to the passage; it shimmered forward from hand to unseen hand. One of the creatures bent closer, depositing the blade in the cleared space around Ilna. He shrank back into the mass of his fellows. The curved blade reflected the light of the Messengers as a putrescent hue that Ilna wouldn't have thought possible from gold. "I said I have a knife!" she repeated. BRING HER THE SACRIFICE, the Messengers said. The light they cast clung like treacle to everything it touched. SHE WILL GAIN HER DESIRE. SHE WILL KILL ALL COERLI. Ilna used her foot to deliberately shove the sickle back into the crowd of servitors. She looked up at the spinning pink blurs. "Why must I sacrifice to you?" she said harshly. "She will kill them all!" mewled the servitors. "Oh, such power, power beyond any other's!" YOU DO NOT SACRIFICE TO US, WIZARD, said the voices. THE BLOOD IS POWER. YOU STAND WHERE THE WORLDS TOUCH, SO YOU ACT THROUGH ALL WORLDS. Ilna heard a rustle. She turned to see the gray once-men handing toward her what she first thought was a bundle of fur. It stirred in the pink light: it was a Corl, a kit no more than four or five weeks old. Its eyes were still closed. When the servitors deposited it in the cleared space, it mewled uncomfortably. TAKE THE SACRIFICE, the Messengers said. CUT THE CORL'S THROAT. Then they repeated, THE BLOOD IS POWER.

"She will kill it," the servitors whispered exultantly. "She will drain the blood of the Coerli, every one of them!" A gray creature pushed the kit with an arm or leg, Ilna couldn't be sure which. The little victim yowled and tried to bite. "Get away!" Ilna said, bending forward. If the servitor hadn't instantly flung itself back into the crowd of its fellows, she'd have slashed it open with the knife she still held. Ilna paused, then scooped the kit up with her left hand.

She expected it to snarl, but instead it writhed against the warmth of her bosom. YOU MUST LET OUT THE BLOOD OF THE SACRIFICE, said the thunderous voices. ONLY WITH ITS DEATH CAN YOU GAIN YOUR WISH AND GO FREE. Over the years Ilna had killed unnumbered animals-mostly doves from her own cote, but sometimes chickens bartered from other householders in the borough. Since she'd set off on her mission of wiping out the catmen, she'd killed them too, old and young; as young as this. She'd mostly knocked the kits' brains out against rocks; their teeth were too sharp to hold by the head and snap their necks as she did with poultry. She could use the paring knife easily enough, though she'd have to hold the kit so that its blood didn't spurt on her tunics. Ilna looked up at the Messengers. "I won't make a blood sacrifice!" she said, thrusting her knife into its case and putting it away in her sleeve. She took out a hank of yarn. "Tell me another way or I'm leaving here." YOU MUST LET OUT THE BLOOD OF THE SACRIFICE, said the voices. YOU CAME TO US. YOU CANNOT RETURN UNTIL YOU CARRY OUT YOUR TASK. "She must kill the Corl," the servitors cheeped. She heard laughter in the high-pitched tones. "She must comply or she will join us-s-s…!" Ilna held the kit in the crook of her left elbow. Its presence was a handicap, but not a great one; she began knotting a pattern. The gray creatures had eyes. Her skill could reach them, paralyze them as she ran back up the passage that had brought her here. The passage that had returned her to Hell… She held up the pattern. HER WEAKNESS HAS BETRAYED HER, the Messengers boomed. SHE IS YOURS. The pink light vanished, leaving total blackness. "She is ours!" squealed creatures as numerous as waves in a storm. Warm, probing foulness swarmed over Ilna in the dark. *** "Run for the cliff!" Cashel shouted. The crabs could climb, but at least it'd slow them down a bit. Here on the shingle they were nigh as fast as a man. From the top of the corniche, he and Tenoctris could figure out what to do next. They could try to, anyway. If they let those crabs get hold of them, there wouldn't be anything left but picked bones. Tenoctris had said something here didn't like them. That was true enough, not that he'd doubted her before. The low cliff was less than a stone's throw away, but even though Tenoctris was young again, she wasn't much of a runner. It wasn't something ladies did as often as village girls like Sharina, Cashel supposed. He kept behind her, which was a good thing because she tripped just short of the cliff. She'd have slammed straight into the rock if Cashel hadn't grabbed a handful of tunic right between her shoulder blades. He yanked her back. Crab pincers carved into his heel. That hurt, which didn't matter; but they could've caught him a few fingers' breadth higher and cut his hamstring, which'd cripple him for life. There wasn't time to talk or plan or do anything but act. One-handed-the other held his staff-Cashel straightened out his right arm fast and threw Tenoctris onto the corniche the way he'd have flung a heavy stone. He turned, stamping on the crab that'd caught him. It was good to feel it splash his callused foot with juices as cold as the sea it'd crawled from, but there was more crabs than he could count coming right after it. He'd raised his staff, thinking he might be able to smash the crabs as they came toward him, but they were way too close and too many. A crab closed both pinchers on his right calf, well above the ankle. More crowded close beside it. There was no time to plan… Cashel slammed a ferrule down on the crab that was holding him. He jumped upward, using his grip on the staff to lift him as he twisted his body around. If he'd had a running start, he might've been able to swing over the lip of the corniche. Flat-footed he was lucky to grab the top with his left hand. He hung there by one arm, supporting half his weight by the other balanced on the quarterstaff like it was a pillar. Tenoctris was chanting. Cashel didn't know what she had in mind, but it was going to have to happen quick for it to do him any good. His right leg was bleeding and felt like he'd been whacked with a club. A pincher was still clamped in the muscle though the rest of the crab was mush down there on the shingle.