David Drake - The Fortress of Glass

The initial line of monsters squelched closer. A second battalion was already marching up from the sea.

"Olar akra!" Double shouted, suddenly agitated. "Zagra orea!"

The mirror shook violently and smoothed itself, bursting vegetable fibers and flinging them aside. For a moment the dot of light steadied again on a hellplant, but more threads wriggled through the air and took the place of those which'd been broken.

Though Double continued to chant, the fibers poured up on the wind in ever-increasing quantities. First like chaff on a threshing floor, then thicker yet and knotting into a mat which covered the silver. Only when the fabric was opaque did it begin to squeeze again, this time inexorably.

"Audusta!" Double snarled. The mirror collapsed, though the vegetable mass continued to twitch and tremble where it'd been. Double turned away and clumped back toward his ancient oak work chest.

On the plains below the mist grew thicker, and the plants marched on.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mistress Auta," said Chalcus with a sweeping bow. "Who is it that you're to be saved from, if I may ask?"

The sailor's gestures were always excessive by anybody else's standards, but somehow he carried off what would've made a courtier look absurd. If I made the world, Ilna thought, gray and brown would be all the colors needed, and people would behave as if they too were gray and brown. There'd be no Chalcus in that world… and very little for me, despite that's what I think I'd want.

"Why, from the Princes!" said another little man. He'd edged into plain sight, sitting cross-legged on a holly branch near where Ilna'd caught and released his fellow. Therewere differences among the little folk: this one's hair rose in a pronounced widow's peak, for example. Because they were so small and quick, distinguishing marks were hard to catch.

"From the other Princes!" Auta said instantly, shooting the man a fierce glance. "Prince Ilna, did the One bring you here to rid the garden from those who have preyed on us from time out of mind?"

"We're here because someone wanted us out of his way," Ilna said. "I doubt he intended to help you or anybody besides himself. He may not even know that you exist."

She hadn't snarled, but she'd probably frowned as she considered the situation. She hadn't meant anything by it; she generally frowned when she considered the world and the things that happened in it. Auta'd taken the expression personally, though, so she'd shrunk back toward the hedge.

"Our main concern's to get out of this place and back to the world of our friends, that's so, little lady," said Chalcus. "We're glad to meet you, but no one sent us to be saviors."

Ilna walked to a birch tree growing out of the Osage orange, taking out her paring knife. She hadn't seen the little people use tools, but there were rocks in the soil of the hedges. Even without skill the little people could hammer stones together till they chipped an edge on one.

"Is Dee all right?" Merota asked, squatting on the grass. "Really, we weren't going to hurt him."

Two of the little people, a man and a woman, dropped to the ground instead of watching from the hedges. Their heads were just on a level with the kneeling child's.

Ilna pulled down a branch and nicked it. She peeled away the papery outer covering-it was of no use to her-and stripped off four strands of the fibrous brown inner bark.

"Dee, come show yourself!" Auta called commandingly. "Our Princes think they've hurt you. Come out!"

Ilna could understand the little people's language, but besides having very high-pitched voices because they were small, they had an accent that reminded her of the clipped way people spoke on Cordin. She wondered who'd woven the tapestry and how long ago that had been. Perhaps when she got back to the room where it hung in Mona, she'd have time to examine it properly.

The couple who'd left the hedge minced over to Merota. The woman reached out with one hand, holding her male companion's wrist with the other. More of the little people stepped onto the grass.

"Go ahead," Merota said soothingly. "You can touch me, little person."

Ilna wiped the blade of her knife and slid it again into its bone case. She returned to the gathering, now crowded around Merota like doves feeding on grain beneath their cote. The woman who'd first come forward was running her fingers through the child's fine hair while the others watched admiringly.

"Prince Merota," Auta said, though Ilna noticed that her eyes were really on Chalcus. "Can you not help us, great Prince? The Princes, the other Princes, take us one at a time or several together. We who escape hear screams and then the bones of our friends breaking. We are helpless, but you are strong and can save us."

"You can save yourselves," Ilna said sharply, moving to Merota's side. The little people skittered away, again like doves; their behavior made her angry. Unreasonably angry, she knew, but she felt the flush regardless. She held out the four ribbons of bark. "Watch what I do with these."

As Ilna spoke, she began to knot the strips into a grid. She forced herself to let her fingers move slowly and deliberately so that the little people could see exactly what she was doing. When she'd completed the demonstration, she had a neatly woven net no bigger than the palm of her hand.

Ilna held it out to Auta; after a moment, the tiny woman took it and bent close to puzzle over the joinings. They were simple reef knots, easy for even the untutored to make.

"But what is this, Prince Ilna?" said the man sitting on the holly branch.

"It's a net," Ilna said. "A very small one, of course, but there's trees enough in this garden to make a net any size you please. Now, how many of your folk are there? All of you together."

Auta looked at the circle of her folk in consternation. "Great Prince," said the seated man, "we are simple folk. We couldn't answer such a question."

"Many and many," said Auta. "The Princes prey on us every day, but still we remain."

"So I thought," said Ilna with a crisp toss of her head. "Well, it's time for you to prey on Princes. I've seen you crawl through the hedges like fish swimming. You can hang nets before and behind these so-called Princes, then drop another net on top of them. Catch them one at a time."

"Oh-h-h!" said the crowd, gasping as a single tiny person.

"There's rocks here," Ilna continued, grim-faced. "You can kill the creatures with rocks."

"Aye," said Chalcus with grinning animation. "And as a hint, tying a thong the length of your arm onto a rock for a handle'll give enough speed to your blow that you'll break bones instead of just bruising the devils when you hit them."

"Oh, we could never do that, great Princes!" said Auta. She dropped the net and backed as if it was soaked in filth. "You're so brave and strong, but we are small."

"You'll save us, Prince Merota," cooed the woman stroking the child's hair. "You're great and strong. It would be nothing to you to save us from the other Princes. You'll save us, won't you, great one?"

"So many of us are gone," said a little man, his head bowed low. "A pounce and a crunch and then gone, nothing but a splotch of blood on the grass."

Merota looked at the sailor. "Chalcus?" she said. "We could, couldn't we? You and Ilna could, I mean?"

Chalcus laughed, but Ilna saw the veil go up behind his eyes. Talk of killing brought not only wariness to his expression but also a degree of professional calculation: Chalcus had always been a sailor, but for part of life he'd been one of the Lataaene pirates. He had a great deal of experience with killing, and from the scars on his body he'd repeatedly come close to learning about being killed as well.

"We're not here for hunting, dear lady," he said with his tongue and his lips; not with his eyes, though, not so that Ilna couldn't tell the truth. "We're here only till we leave; and the sooner we leave, the better for ourselves and our friends back home. Though perhaps if Mistress Auta can tell us where the way out of the garden may be, we could do her and her friends a favor or two before we left, eh?"