David Drake: Mistress of the Catacombs

For many years now Dan Breen has been reading the rough drafts of my prose and making it better. Mistress of the Catacombs is the latest beneficiary of his attention.

I didn’t, for a wonder, blow up another computer while writing this novel. Nevertheless, my wife, Jo, found me a backup and my son Jonathan set it up for me. (Mark Van Name and Allyn Vogel, who I believe have been cited for computer help in every book of mine for the past decade, will doubtless be back in the next one.)

Many friends provided this or that bit of information which will show up in the text of Mistress . Thanks very much to everyone who helped. Two whose contribution was even more considerable are Karen Zimmerman, my webmaster, and Sandra Miesel.

Stephanie Lane, my liaison with the machinery of Tor, is a continuing delight to work with. Contact with Stephanie is clear and pleasant, and she invariably follows up her end of whatever business.

And, finally, I owe many debts to historians and to other fiction writers. Readers who are familiar with the work of Clark Ashton Smith will realize that I owe him in particular. Readers who aren’t familiar with Smith should correct that gap in their education at their earliest convenience.

The common religion of the Isles is based on Sumerian cult and ritual. That is, the Lady equates with Inanna; her consort the Shepherd equates with Dumuzi; and the Sister fills the place of Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld.

Religion in the Isles (and generally, except perhaps in fantasy fiction) is separate from magic. The magic in Mistress of the Catacombs is based on the practice of the Mediterranean Basin in Classical times. The wellspring was mostly Egyptian, but there were admixtures from many other cultures (particularly the Jewish). What I’ve referred to as “words of power” are formally voces mysticae , words in the language of the demiurges who act as intercessors between humanity and the Gods.

I don’t myself believe in magic, Classical or otherwise, but I know that reality doesn’t always conform to my opinion of what it should be. Just to be on the safe side, I prefer not to pronounce the voces mysticae aloud.

As in the past, I’ve used Classical authors as part of the cultural underpinning of the Isles. Pendill is Ovid, who’s given me much pleasure over the years and has also educated me as a writer; Tincer is Tacitus, about whom I would say the same; and I was thinking of Gildas by the reference to Ascoin. I suppose a writer can learn from everything he reads, but I do hope that less of Gildas stuck than others.

ATTAPER: Chief of the Blood Eagles, the royal bodyguard regiment.

CARUS: Last and greatest ruler of the Old Kingdom; dead a thousand years, but a laughing, hardhanded ghost in Prince Garric’s mind.

CASHEL: Ilna’s brother, Garric’s friend, and Sharina’s fiancé a stronger man than any who’ve tried conclusions with him thus far.

CHALCUS: A sailor, pirate, and red-handed killer; a friend of Ilna.

GARRIC: A peasant and scholar, now Prince and real ruler of the Isles.

ILNA: A skilled weaver, now returned from hell with inhuman powers.

LERDOC: The ambitious and powerful Count of Blaise.

LIANE: Garric’s amanuensis; his guide to present-day politics; and his lover.

MEROTA: Ilna’s ward; nine-year-old girl with a penchant for singing inappropriate songs.

ROYHAS: Chancellor of the Isles.

SHARINA: Garric’s sister and alter ego, but a person in her own right.

TENOCTRIS: A wizard saved from the wreck of the Old Kingdom; less powerful than most wizards, but more skilled than any other.

WALDRON: A warrior and aristocrat, commander of the royal army.

ALECTO: A young wizard from a far place—and a very savage one.

ECHEA: A wizard, savior of Laut in ancient times.

ECHEON: A wizard, tyrant of Laut in future times.

ECHEUS: A wizard, ruler of Laut in present times.

GAR: A youth who might have been Garric’s double, had a lizard not bitten into his skull.

METRA: A wizard; companion and advisor to Lady Tilphosa.

METRON: A wizard; companion and advisor to Lord Thalemos.

METRUS: A wizard with a taste for antiquities.

THALEMOS: A descendant of the Earls of Laut.

TILPHOSA: An orphan raised by the Children of the Mistress; the intended bride of Lord Thalemos.

TINT: A beastgirl and friend to Gar; a pet and drudge for bandits calling themselves the Brethren.

VASCAY: Leader of the Brethren.

The spy, a stocky shipping agent named Hordred, looked at Garric and Liane with haunted eyes as he whispered what he knew of the planned secession of several western islands. His restless gaze flicked about the room with the randomness of a squirrel surprised on the ground.

“There’s priests in it too,” Hordred said. “They call themselves Moon Wisdom and have ceremonies in the Temple of Our Lady of the Moon in Donelle. It’s not just prayers and temple tithes, though. This is…”

He swallowed. Liane had found Hordred through associates of her late father, a far-travelled merchant before his wizardry first ruined, then killed him. In the normal course of things the agent must have been a man well able to take care of himself. A falling block might as easily have been the cause of his broken nose as a rival’s cudgel, but the scar on his right forearm had to have been left by a knife. Mere physical threats wouldn’t have frightened Hordred into his present state.

“I think there’s something real,” he said. He stared at his own hard-clasped hands on the patterned wood before him. “Something that comes in…dreams.”

They sat at a round cedarwood table in a small conference room, part of Prince Garric’s private section of the palace compound. A row of louvers just below the tile roof let in air and muted light, but no one could see those inside. Members of the royal bodyguard regiment, the Blood Eagles, stood unobtrusively in the surrounding gardens. Garric had told the guard commander not to let anyone pass while he and Liane interviewed their visitor; therefore, no one would pass, not even Valence III, though he was in name still the King of the Isles.

“In your dreams, Master Hordred?” Liane said to jolt the spy out of his grim silence. “What is it that you see?”

Hordred looked up in bleak desperation. “I don’t know , mistress!” he said. “There’s not really anything, it’s all gray. I’m dreaming, but it’s just gray; only I know there’s things there reaching for me and I’ll never see them because they’re gray like everything else. And then I wake up.”

“You’re safe now, Master Hordred,” Garric said, hoping to sound reassuring. He reached out, touching the spy’s hand with the tips of his strong, tanned fingers. “You can stay here in the palace if you like, or you can go to any of the royal estates on Ornifal if you think you’d be less conspicuous out of the capital. The conspirators won’t bother you here.”

In Garric’s mind, the spirit of his ancestor King Carus scowled like a cliff confronting the tide. “ And if I could put my sword through a few necks ,” the king’s ghost said, “ the Confederacy of the West wouldn’t bother anyone. Except maybe dogs fighting over the carrion .”