David Drake: The Mirror of Worlds

"Well, I don't need it, Tenoctris," he said. "Are you comfortable here? I could take you ashore." Tenoctris laughed. "No, I suppose you don't," she said. "And after I rest a little while, I'll take us back home. Back to Sharina." Cashel beamed. "That'll be nice," he said. The gull called again. Funny. Even the bird's cry sounded cheerful to Cashel just now.

Epilogue The priest Nivers rose from a couch of green velvet so old that the pile was worn to the ground in many patches. "They're returning!" he shouted in a cracked voice. "If you're planning to invite somebody to dinner, Nivers," said Salmson, "then they'd better like turnips. The rats got at the last of the ham, but it was going bad anyway." Salmson was officially an underpriest of Franca, the Sky God; in fact he was Nivers' steward. He'd entered with a carafe of watered wine when he heard Nivers awakening from his prophetic trance.

Those two and an old cook who mumbled to herself in the dialect of the hinterlands were the only residents of the priestly mansion attached to the Temple of Franca. "No, you fool!" Nivers cried. "Franca and His Siblings are returning! There'll be blood running on the altars for Them to drink, and the finest delicacies for me!" He stumbled on the sash of his robe; it'd become untied while he sent his soul in quest of a future better than this ruined present. He went through the ritual at every new moon, but never till now had his dreams reached a destination. "Come!" Nivers said, hiking up his garments. "Help me find my sandals. The good ones, mind! I have to see the Emperor.

Palomir will be great again!" "And pigs will fly," Salmson muttered, but he set the carafe on a stone-topped table and followed his master down the corridor to the suite they lived in. This hadn't been one of Nivers' ordinary dreams fueled by sniffs of lotus pollen. Those fantasies didn't last as long as it took the priest to get up from his couch. Arched windows here on the third story looked out on the city of Palomir, set like a jewel against the dark mass of surrounding jungle. Light glittered from thousands of spires and peaks. Because the sun was so near the horizon, shadows and refractions concealed much of the ruin of the glass towers. But just perhaps…, thought Salmson. A rat ran down the corridor ahead of him. *** Garric stepped from a sunlit mountaintop into the shade of the tarpaulin covering the Regent, Princess Sharina, and her council.

The camp was behind very impressive field fortifications, but he didn't have the faintest ideawhere it was. "That's Pandah, but it was an island in my day," said Carus, whose eye for terrain was unmatched in Garric's experience. The ghost's image frowned. "In yours too."

"Prince Garric, you've returned!" Lord Tadai said enthusiastically. He was seated across the council table, two doors resting on trestles and covered with baize, so he saw Garric appear. "I'll bet he thinks you just walked into the tent, though," said Carus, grimly uncomfortable with wizardry even now. "Garric!" Sharina said, whirling and jostling the table as she tried to get up. Liane simply kicked her stool over and threw herself into Garric's arms. She wouldn't have done that if she hadn't been very much afraid… "And she had reason," Carus said. "Though it worked out pretty well. There's not much a good sword can't take care of when a man swings it." Spoken like a common trooper, Garric thought, but he was too happy to be tart. Carus was being ironic, after all. Hedid feel that way-but he knew he'd brought his kingdom down when he'd behaved that way as king. They were all babbling greetings and congratulations. Garric let it go on for a time because he was drained by the sudden relief from stress. Holding Liane was all he wanted to do, and letting other people talk permitted him to do that. But I've got a kingdom to run… Garric gave Liane a final squeeze and broke away. She righted the stool and seated herself primly. Sharina offered a chair-made here in the camp from stakes and wicker like the fascines, though covered with red baize-but Garric didn't want to sit just yet. "You've marched to Pandah to put down the renegades?" he said, remembering the reports about the island from before he went off with Shin. He hoped he'd kept disapproval out of his tone, but this wouldn't have been the wayhe'd have used such a large proportion of the kingdom's resources. "To put down a bridgehead of the Last, your highness," Lord Waldron said, forcefully enough to show that he'd understood the implied criticism. "We were meeting on how to deal with Pandah itself now that Princess Sharina has destroyed the Last." "Rasile destroyed the Last," said Sharina. There was something odd in the way she said it, though. Garric didn't know who Rasile was, but he was sure he'd learn soon enough. "And Tenoctris," said Cashel from beside Garric. "She just brought us back." Garric turnedfast. His ancestor's reflex took his hand to his sword, though he didn't draw the blade. His friend stood with a pert young woman whom Garric didn't recognize. This time it was Sharina knocking her chair over as she leaped up to hug Cashel. Garric moved aside, smiling and glad something'd happened to take folks' minds off the way he'd gone for a weapon when his best friend appeared. "My way you can apologize if you're wrong," Carus said, this time in dead earnest. "If something takes your head off because you thought it was harmless, you don't get a second chance." "Garric was as responsible for success as any of us," said the woman who'd arrived with Cashel. When he heard the voice, Garric recognized Tenoctris-butmuch younger. "The kingdom's very fortunate in its ruler." "Your highness," said Admiral Zettin. "I was just pointing out that we have an opportunity to make an example of Pandah by hanging everyone we find there." Despite Zettin's brashness he must've seen something in Garric's expression, because he quickly added, "Or all the males, of course, pirates and Coerli both."

"Milord," said Garric. Since Carus took residence in his mind, he'd learned that he didn't have to raise his voice to make it clear when he was angry. "I think we'll make a different sort of example of Pandah. We'll spare everybody, but we'll distribute the males among existing regiments with orders to the non-coms to watch them. And we'll hang the ones who don't take the warning." "We'll hang a great many of them, I shouldn't wonder," Lord Waldron said, but he wasn't arguing with the plan. He smiled as he glanced at Zettin, a protege of Attaper's and no friend of the army commander. "I shouldn't wonder either, milord," said Garric, "but it's important to give them a chance. You have Coerli units with you?" "We've got catmen," Waldron said, frowning. "I wouldn't call them units, but it seems to work all right for them to swan about in little mobs. They're under the sailor, there." He jerked his chin in the direction of Zettin. "Milord?" prodded Garric, because the admiral clearly wasn't going to speak-again-without being asked to. "Your highness, the Coerli make excellent scouts and foragers, especially at night," Zettin said, looking at some point beyond Garric's right shoulder. "Their discipline is improving rapidly since we started attaching petty officers, lead oarsmen or the like, to each, ah, war band." "Not a stupid man," Carus said with a chuckle. "For all he gets above himself." Garric smiled. He stretched, though not as high as he'd like to've done because there wasn't enough room under the tarpaulin. "Very good, then," he said. "Unless there's something critical for my eyes…?" No one spoke, though several councilors might've done so if he hadn't stepped on Lord Zettin so thoroughly. "Lady Liane, do you have anything?" "Nothing vital, your highness," the kingdom's spymaster said politely. "Our surveyors have reported an Empire of Palomir to the south." Garric frowned. "Palomir that the Scribe of Breen talks about?" he said, trying to recall just what he'd read in the chronicler from Cordin after the fall of the Old Kingdom.