David Drake - The Fortress of Glass

He looked at Garric, his ruff lifting slightly. "Nerga and Eny, tie him up again. Tie all the females too, just in case. I'm not taking any chances till I have him in the pen with the other animals."

You're taking a big chance, Garric thought as the warriors came toward him with coils of hard rope. You're taking the last chance you'll ever take. But in good time…

Sharina stood on the sea wall of Mona harbor, watching theHeron ease toward the quay on the stroke of ten oarsmen. The trim bireme that'd rowed off at mid-morning was now a shambles, the outriggers broken in several places and the hull scorched by the sky-searing blaze Sharina had seen leap from the sea about the ship.

She'd been ready to die when she saw the fire, but it'd vanished as suddenly as it'd appeared and theHeron, though at first wallowing, still had figures on her deck. Cashel, big and as solid as a rock, was obvious among them, and Sharina'd breathed again.

Admiral Zettin had manned and led out ten ships as soon as he saw something was happening to theHeron. They now passed back and forth at the harbor mouth.

You couldn't keep warships at sea for long periods-there wasn't room for the crews to sleep aboard, let alone food storage and a place to cook. For now, though, it was important to Zettin to be seen to be doingsomething; a notion that Sharina understood perfectly. She only wished there was something she could've done besides wait and pray to the Lady-silently, because it wouldn't do for the Princess Sharina to show herself to be desperately afraid.

She smiled. Attaper, leading her personal guard at this dangerous moment, saw the expression and grinned back. Did he realize that she was smiling at the fact her duty was to be seen to be unconcerned? Perhaps he did; but maybe even that experienced, world-wise soldier thought Princess Sharina reallyhad been confident, no matter how confusing and dangerous the situation seemed to others.

Lady, make me what I pretend to be, Sharina prayed in her heart; and smiled more broadly, because she seemed to be fooling herself as well.

Cashel used his staff to jump ashore while theHeron was still several feet out from the quay. It was a graceful motion but completely unexpected, though Sharina'd seen Cashel clear gullies and boggy patches that way frequently in the borough. Here it called attention to him, which Cashel never liked to do; but Sharina stepped toward him and he folded her in his arms. At last she could fully relax for at least a few moments.

"Tenoctris is all right," Cashel said in a quiet rumble. "Ilna's sitting with her on the deck because she's so, you know, tired; and maybe you couldn't see with the wicker matting in the way."

"I knew they were all right," Sharina said, simply and honestly. "Because you are."

She stepped back and gave the battered bireme a real examination. The crew was climbing out, some of them helped by their more fortunate fellows or by men waiting on the dock. The benches and hollow of the ship were splashed with blood-paintedwith blood on the port bow where the fighting must've been particularly intense. It seemed to Sharina that nearly half the crew was missing, and many of the survivors had been injured.

Cervoran was trying clumsily to get down from the deck. He held his wooden case in one hand.

"Your pardon, mistress," Cashel said with impersonal politeness. "I better get that."

He jumped from the quay to theHeron 's outrigger and took the case in his left hand. "Careful or you'll fall," he said to Cervoran. "Would you like me to lift you-"

Sharina supposed he was going to say "down," but the former corpse simply let go of the railing and dropped. He landed on his feet but toppled forward. He didn't raise his arms to catch himself, but Cashel shifted to put his body in the way as a living cushion.

Cervoran steadied himself, then stumped to the ladder up to the quay without speaking. Several sailors who'd been waiting to climb up made way for him, though with respect rather than the frightened hostility Sharina'd seen in their expressions previously.

"Plants like the one that came here yesterday attacked us," Cashel said, looking from Cervoran to the crewmen, then back to Sharina. "There was any number of them, swimming all over the sea. Master Cervoran made the water burn and saved us."

TheHeron hadn't been backed onto the beach in normal fashion: the surviving sailors were too few and too tired to accomplish that. A replacement crew was boarding to handle the job. Ilna'd started to help Tenoctris down from the deck, but fresh men under Chalcus' direction grabbed the old wizard and passed her hand-over-hand to their comrades on the quay.

Sharina's face stayed calm, but her first notice of Chalcus since theHeron left harbor explained why he hadn't carried Tenoctris to land himself in the sort of flashy, boastful gesture he was used to making. He'd lost most of his clothing in the fight, and the hooked tendrils that'd torn it off him had gashed runnels across the many existing scars. He must've bathed himself in the sea since the fight because otherwise he'd have been completely covered with blood, but many of the fresh wounds were still leaking. The worst'd been bandaged with swatches cut from Ilna's own tunics, but the wool was now bright scarlet.

Chalcus hadn't bothered replacing his trousers, but he'd twisted a length of sailcloth around his waist for a sash. That gave him a place to thrust his sword and dagger. He'd lost the sheath for the latter, and the point of patterned steel winked like a viper's eye.

Tenoctris, looking weary but determined, joined Sharina. She nodded to the glitter on the horizon and said, "That's the Fortress of Glass that I was wondering about. What you see looks like crystal, but it's really the intersection of many planes of the greater cosmos."

She took a deep breath. "I've never seen such a nexus of power, Sharina," she added. "I never imagined that anything like it could exist. I've seen so many marvels since I was ripped out of my time and brought to yours."

Sharina took the older woman's hand in hers. "If you keep saving the world as you've done in the past," she said, "I'm sure we'll be able to show you still more wonders." Her tone was affectionately joking but the words the simple truth.

Cervoran had climbed the short ladder, moving one limb at a time instead of lifting a leg and an arm together. He walked toward Sharina with the awkward determination of a large insect. Cashel, who'd followed the wizard off the ship, now stepped past him. His presence forestalled the pair of Blood Eagles who'd otherwise have put themselves between Cervoran and Princess Sharina.

"Princess," Cervoran squeaked. "In her fortress, the Green Woman is too strong for me. I will enter by another path, but to do that I must take her attention off me. At dawn tomorrow I will go to the charnel house when they bring the fresh corpses and pick the one that best suits my needs."

Liane stood at Sharina's elbow. She'd stayed at a discrete distance while Sharina was praying for Cashel's safe return. Liane, better than most, understood what it meant to wait for the one you love…

"People of property here cremate their dead," Liane said, speaking to Sharina with the same unobtrusive precision that she'd used to inform Garric in the past. Her finger marked a passage in a slender codex, but she didn't need to refer to it. "The poor in Mona are placed in a cave at the eastern boundary of the city. In rural districts they throw the bodies into the sea with stones to weight them."

"It is necessary," Cervoran said. "She is too strong in her fortress, so I must deceive her."

Ilna and Tenoctris joined them, the older woman leaning on the arm of the younger. "Tenoctris?" Sharina said. "Master Cervoran wants to use a fresh corpse for, for his art."