David Drake: The Fortress of Glass

"Sal salala salobre…," piped Cervoran's voice though his lips didn't move. His body was as stiff as a painting on the shining wall, but he and Cashel and the others in the mirror spun around a dimly-glimpsed dirt field where the center of the chamber had been.

Sharina stood there beside Tenoctris. A shield lay on the ground nearby. Sharina's there! The women looked up, frowning like they saw something nearby and couldn't be sure what it was.

"Sharina!" Cashel called, but his lips didn't move; he couldn't even feel his heart beating. Though the cry sounded only in his mind, he thought he saw Sharina smile in dawning understanding.

"Rakokmeph!" Cervoran shrilled, though his image in the mirror was as frozen as Cashel's own.

Red wizardlight, searingly cold, divided Cashel's body into atoms and reformed him on mud thawing under a bright sun. He staggered, paused to be sure of his balance, and took a single step forward to enfold Sharina in his arms. He held his staff clear so that it didn't rap her on the back of the head.

"Cashel," she murmured against his chest. "Cashel, thank the Lady you've come back!"

They were on a flat wasteland. Garric was holding Liane, both of them talking. Garric looked like he'd been between the millstones, but Cashel guessed whoever'd been making trouble for him looked worse. The bird on his shoulder was alive, turning its head quickly like a wren hunting dinner.

Soldiers, maybe the whole army, stood in noisy formations across the plain; the air stank of salty mud and rotting vegetation. There was Ilna, a knotted fabric in her hands and her face as thin and hard as an axe blade.

Cervoran looked around with dazed incomprehension. "Where…?" he said. "Why am I here?"

The double Cervoran'd made before he went off with Cashel and Protas stumped toward them. Both wizards held athames, but Double's was of old oak instead of a rib bone.

Tenoctris stood with an expression Cashel couldn't read, wary and reserved. She was looking out to sea. On the horizon, glittering brighter than it should've been even in this sunlight, was the Fortress of Glass. As Cashel followed the old wizard's eyes, he saw blue wizardlight flash from the crystal mass.

Sharina felt herself relaxing for the first time in days, safe within the circuit of Cashel's muscular arms. His presence made her feel as if she stood in a stone-walled castle. It wasn't just protection-though Cashel with his quarterstaff was protection enough-but also a feeling of solidity, of permanence.

Lords Waldron, Attaper and Zettin-the admiral of the fleet-were talking simultaneously to Garric; their aides stood in a ring about the commanders, looking eager but keeping silence in the presence of their superiors. If Lord Tadai hadn't been back in Mona, he and his clerks would be part of the scrum pressing Garric too…

Sharina squeezed Cashel's hand and stepped back from him. Aloud she said, "I felt sorry for my brother when I saw the way he was pestered before. Now that I've been regent myself, I pity him with the benefit of experience."

"I should be inside the Fortress!" said Cervoran, facing Double and glaring with his bulbous eyes. Double glared back, a mirror image on a slightly smaller scale. "Did you drag me here, you fool?"

Cervoran pointed his athame toward Ilna. "Come here, you!" he snarled. "I will teach this puny simulacrum what it means to thwart my plans. I will crush it! I am Cervoran!"

"I am Cervoran!" piped Double, tone and diction identical to those of the wizard who'd made him. "You cannot rule me now. No one can rule me!"

"No, by Duzi!" Garric said, blasting the words out like thunderclaps. "This willwait!"

He pointed to a junior officer, one of Admiral Zettin's aides. "Lord Dalmas, I'll take your sword if I may," he snapped. "If I may" was a polite form but the tone was an order. "Until I can get my own back. This-"

He held out what Sharina first thought was a tent peg, then recognized as a wooden knife of some sort.

"-was well enough when there was nothing better to be had, but I'll feel less naked with the weight of steel on my hip again."

Sharina touched Cashel again. Garric was her brother, but he was no longer the child of a rural innkeeper-and neither was she. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she so needed Cashel's presence: hehadn't changed from the solid, imperturbable youth she'd grown up with.

Dalmas and three other soldiers started to unbuckle their sword belts. Garric gestured curtly to the others, then took the gear-waist belt, shoulder strap, sword, and dagger sheathed on the other side for balance-from the named aide and put it on with remarkable ease. Moments like this reminded Sharina that Carus, the warrior-king, shared her brother's mind.

The commanders had moved back slightly. "A man's at a disadvantage without his clothes on," Cashel murmured to her. "And the clothes this lot cares about is a sword. Garric's really smart."

Sharina glanced at him. Yes, my love, she thought. And in this way and so many ways, so are you. You don't miss the things that go on between any kind of animals, people included.

Cervoran and his Double stood arm's length from one another, no longer speaking verbally but from the look of it communicating in some other way. Their expressions reminded Sharina of dead carp glaring at one another.

In the bustle and excitement of Garric's reappearance, Ilna continued to stand alone. Sharina stepped over to her friend and hugged her. Ilna was never demonstrative, but today Sharina felt as if she were embracing a marble statue. Something was badly wrong…

"Haven't you been able to find Chalcus and Merota yet?" Sharina said.

"I found them," said Ilna. Her voice was clear and precise, as always; and there was anger underneath it for a friend to recognize, again as always: this was Ilna os-Kenset.

But Sharina had never heard anger as cold and consuming as what was in these clipped, simple words.

"I wasn't quick enough," Ilna said. "They were both killed by things that looked like cats the size of men, on their hind legs. I wasn't good enough to save them."

"I-" said Sharina. She fell silent with her mouth still open, backing a step away. She felt as if she'd been drenched in ice water.

"The cat men attacked you?" Garric said, breaking away from the officers to stride over Ilna and Sharina. "The Coerli, they're called. Were you in the Land too, swamps and rain all the time?"

Sharina stared in horror: Garric was a prince, a leader, but this wasn't the time Garric's hard expression melted. He put his arms around Ilna and held her. For a moment she remained the same block of frozen anger that Sharina had held; then her arms went around Garric and she clung like a drowning woman to a float. Her face didn't change, except that she closed her eyes for just a moment.

Liane had followed Garric. She held a wax tablet and a writing stylus; a soldier walking behind carried her travelling desk. She looked at Sharina and mouthed the word, "Killed?"

Sharina nodded. She sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit it hard.

Liane turned and started to walk away. The soldier with the collapsible desk couldn't get out of the way in time; Liane bumped into him. She hurled her writing instruments at the ground, put her hands over her face, and began sobbing. Ilna watched her dry-eyed.

Cashel stiffened. He shifted his hands on his quarterstaff, spreading them as they'd be at the start of a fight.

"Master Cervoran?" he said. His voice trembled. Cervoran and Double remained where they were, locked in a silent staring match.

Garric glanced at Liane but he continued to hold Ilna. His eyes were anguished, but his lips were in a tight line.

"Cervoran!" Cashel shouted. "Look at me or I'll tear your head off!"