David Drake: The Mirror of Worlds

"Now," she said, "I will deliver the First Stone a person who's capable of using it properly, Princess. Because I certainly am not."

"Your ladyship?" said Trooper Lires, a man who'd regularly stood beside-and in front of-Sharina in bad places. He was offering a chammy, probably the one he'd used to bring the blackened bronze of his armor to a mirror gloss. "Use this. It'll wash out." Sharina reached for the swatch of goathide. Another face was reflected beside hers on the shield boss. She jerked back. "Sharina, you must come with me now!" cried Prince Vorsan. "There're only minutes remaining for you. You've loosed the creature that the First Stone drew to it. Dear Princess, it's grown beyond anyone's control!' "Get away from me!"

Sharina shouted. Lires had been looking puzzled, trying to find where Vorsan's voice was coming from. Shocked by Sharina's words, his jaw dropped and he straightened to attention. "Sorry, mistress!" he mumbled. "Shouldn't have spoke, won't happen again." "Not you, Lires, the-" "Sister take you, Lires!" shouted Attaper as he came up the ladder. "You've got a face on your shield and it's talking!" "Sharina, there's no time to waste. You must-" The fortress of the Last burst outward with a deafening crash. Plates that no human agency could harm now split and buckled, breaking across rather than where seams joined the individual pentagons. A cloud of opalescent smoke was rising from the wreckage. Sharina blinked: it wasn't smoke. It was the carapace of a crab bigger than she'd have dreamed possible. It wasn't really a crab. Tentacles around its mouth writhed, and the single eye at the top of the headplate was larger than the pool from which she'd taken the First Stone. The creature squirmed toward the human camp. Each pincer was the size of a trireme. One of the small ballistas remaining on this end of the siege lines snapped out its bolt. If it hit, the impact was lost in the immensity of the target. "Sharina, you must-" cried Vorsan. Lires spun his shield off the parapet into no-man's-land. "Guess not having that won't make much difference now," he said nonchalantly, drawing his sword. "And the talk was getting on my nerves." "Sharina, on your life, come!" cried Vorsan from beneath the wall. The shield had landed with the mirrored boss upward. "I don't want to live eternity without you!" The creature came on.

Sharina glanced at Rasile, who chanted in a four-pointed star and held out the First Stone. Wizardlight played about her, blue and then scarlet. I wonder if she'll have time to finish the spell, Sharina thought. She looked at the Pewle knife. She still hadn't wiped the blade, but it didn't matter now. Lady, be with me. Lady, gather my soul to you when I leave this body. The creature lurched forward, far overtopping the parapet.

Chapter 16 "The Telchines stole the sign that takes a user to the Fulcrum," Tenoctris said, looking toward the slab of black stone which the water lapped. "They didn't dare use it themselves, of course. They just wanted tohave it." "Leisin of Hardloom Farm was a miser," said Cashel. It seemed a very long time ago that he'd lived in the Borough and hadn't seen any city bigger than the straggle of huts making up Barca's Hamlet. "He didn't exactly steal, but he'd short your wages if he thought he could." He'd never understood Leisin, a wealthy farmer who didn't eat any better than Cashel himself or even as well. They started with the same cheap fare-whey cheese, oats or barley, and root vegetables-but Leisin didn't have Ilna to prepare and season it with wild greens. Still yet he'd cheat a twelve-year-old orphan who'd spent three summer days resetting a drystone wall that'd collapsed in a storm. Cashel smiled at a memory. "Did Master Leisin amuse you?"

Tenoctris asked with a guarded expression. "No, ma'am," Cashel said, embarrassed now. He kept looking across the strait so he didn't have to meet her eyes. There was another headland about a mile distant, rising higher than it did on this side. "I was thinking that though I didn't have my full growth when I was twelve, I was still too big for Leisin to threaten whipping me if I didn't get off his farm without my pay." "Ah," said Tenoctris. "I suspect Leisin and the Telchines would've understood each other better than you or I understand either one of them." She glanced toward the strait again; Cashel followed her eyes. The slab rose waist-high above the surface, but they'd need to wade a furlong of water to reach it. There was no way of telling how deep it was. The salt water'd make his cuts sting, though folks said a salt bath helped them heal quicker too. Cashel thought about the crabs and whether they'd be waiting just out from the shore. He'd know quick enough, he guessed. "I can carry you over," he said. "It might be best if you rode my shoulders, so I'll have both hands free. If they need to be, you know." "I'll walk, Cashel," Tenoctris said. She gave him a funny sort of smile. "I'm not an old woman any more, you know. I won't shrink." She turned to the sea again. "A wizard standing there can shift the worlds," she said. "Just as the Telchines said. If she's powerful enough." She raised an eyebrow toward Cashel. "Yes, ma'am," he said. It wasn't really a question, but it seemed she wanted him to say something. "That's why you wanted to be here, isn't it?" "Many wizards have wanted to be here!" Tenoctris said. She sounded angry, though why at him he couldn't imagine. "For a wizard with sufficient power and the proper tools, everything is possible. She could rule worlds. All worlds, Cashel! Not just this one." Cashel looked around, moving his hands a little on his quarterstaff. The water was a dirty gray and colder even than the air, which he knew from stepping through leads the tide'd left. The corniche behind them and the hills on the other side of the strait were volcanic and too raw for anything to grow on. The big dog-thing that'd saved them must live on what the sea cast up, if Tenoctris hadn't brought it here from some place else entirely. He thought of getting out his swatch of raw wool and polishing lanolin into the pores of the hickory, but Tenoctris might think he was pushing her to get on with things. She seemed in a bad mood already. "You'd have to want to rule things awful bad to be willing to live here," Cashel said. "I guess I'm not the one to say.

Though there've been times I wished I could get sheep to show a little better sense." "I don't think the world has much to fear from you, then, Cashel," Tenoctris said softly. She raised the alien sword and looked at it critically, then lowered its point to the ground again.

She was smiling as she met Cashel's eyes again. "We'll cross to the Fulcrum now," she said. "And I think I'll have you carry me after all.

In the crook of your arm. There's no danger in the water, I assure you." "Yes, ma'am," Cashel said, making a seat of his left arm. She reached around his neck and he gripped the inside of her knee so she didn't roll off. He splashed in. The water was cold, sure, but nothing that'd be a problem for a short hike. It didn't come up to the middle of his calves. The only problem was he had to walk slower than he'd have liked to because otherwise he'd be splashing onto Tenoctris' legs. Cashel grinned. He was used to following sheep, so walking slow wasn't a new thing either. He strode on. *** Garric stepped onto the high tor. Shin's altar must be the cube of quartz beside the opening that gave down into the cavern. The broken rocks of the ridgeline were beige and russet, and the dry grass in cracks between them had a sere absence of color. The sun was setting in the west, and on the southern horizon the strange white star gleamed like a demon's eye. The wyvern looked out from the edge of the cliff fifty feet away, peering into the wind that roared up the rock face. From Garric's viewpoint it looked like a gigantic bird of prey. Its tail was rigid, trembling up and down to adjust the creature's balance. Its hide was the color of sullen flames. The altar was nearly as tall as Garric and apparently equal in all dimensions.