She and Liane had known this would happen if neither Garric nor Cashel was present, so they'd made preparations. Sharina nodded, and Liane struck the eight-inch brass gong in front of her. Though her mallet was wood rather than metal, the gong's plangent note nonetheless silenced all the voices at the table.
When those arguing had all closed their mouths—the more perceptive in embarrassment, the others with looks of puzzled irritation—Liane stilled the gong between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand. Sharina smiled faintly and said, "Lord Waldron, would you state your objections first, please."
"Your highness, we don't know what the supply situation on the route to Pandah is," the army commander said. "Before the Change we could load supplies on merchant ships and sail them to where they'd meet us. Now, we either forage on route or we pack them along—which means the draft animals eat up more than they leave."
"I see the practical problems," said Sharina. "Admiral Zettin, would you state your objections now?"
"I don't mean my men can't do it," Waldron added hastily. "But it's not going to be easy."
"I'll return to you shortly, milord," Sharina said, trying to put steel in her tone the way she'd heard Garric—or anyway, King Carus—do in the past. She wasn't sure she'd succeeded, but at least Waldron subsided. "Admiral, succinctly if you will."
"Pandah's a nest of pirates and cannibals," Zettin said with a nod. He was pushy and young in more ways than being thirty years Waldron's junior, but he was also very clever. "The Last aren't human. The longer they fight each other, the stronger the kingdom is. We shouldn't interfere."
"Very good," Sharina said. "Rasile, please respond to the admiral's point."
Chancellor Royhas looked up from his close conversation with Lord Hauk, presumably discussing payment and procurement for supplies if the army marched on Pandah. "Your highness," he said, "I don't think it's appropriate for an animal to address us. Even if it does speak like a human now."
"As you please, milord," Sharina said, trying to stay calm. It seemed to her that the Chancellor'd spoken more sharply than he would've to Garric. "Lord Tadai?"
The plump, perfectly groomed nobleman sat across the table from Royhas; he'd been whispering urgently with two clerks, scratching notes on a sheet of sycamore bark. He met Sharina's gaze and lifted an eyebrow in question. "Your highness?"
"Lord Royhas is giving up his portfolio," Sharina said. "Are you willing to accept the duties of Chancellor?"
"Your highness, wait!" Royhas said, rising from his chair abruptly and catching his knees under a table that was lower than he was used to. He flopped back down. "Please!"
"I've willingly served the kingdom in whatever position you or your royal brother appointed me to, your highness," Tadai said unctuously. He carefully avoided letting his eyes drift toward the discomfited man across the table. "I would be honored if you chose to use me in the capacity of chancellor."
"Your highness," Royhas said, calm once more. He stood and bowed low, then straightened to meet her eyes. "I apologize. I misspoke because I'm tired. But your highness, if I cannot claim to be tireless in carrying out my duties, I've certainly been honest and efficient. I believe even—"
He turned to glance at his rival, then faced Sharina again.
"—Lord Tadai would grant that. I made an error of speech. It will not recur."
He bowed and sat down again.
Sharina nodded. "Well said, Chancellor," she said. "Lord Tadai, I'm fortunate to be able to retain you as head of my civil affairs section when I march with the army."
She gave Waldron a hard smile and added, "As I expect to do shortly. Rasile, please explain why you believe we must go to Pandah."
She hadn't threatened Royhas about what would happen if he—not to put too fine a point on it—insulted her again. He knew, everyone at the table knew what would happen. So did the guards and so did the clerks and the servants and the courtiers watching events through the open sides of the gazebo.
Sharina smiled with her lips pressed tight together. She didn't like being regent, but she hadn't liked emptying chamber pots at the inn, either. Garric depended on her, and she supposed the kingdom did too—though it made her very uncomfortable to think in those terms. Therefore she
would
be regent.
"The Last are without number," Rasile said. "They do not grow weaker, warrior, any more than the sea is weakened by striking against a cliff. But it wears the cliff down as the Last will wear down Pandah; and while they are doing so, they're fortifying the pool by which they enter this region. If you do not stop them while you can, you will speed their conquest of this world by two years—or perhaps three."
The Corl spoke in a mix of clicks and labials, but due to Tenoctris' remarkable feat of wizardry the listening humans understood her perfectly. The thought jerked Sharina's mind to wonder about Tenoctris as she now was—and to concern over what Cashel might be facing to protect the wizard.
"I don't see how these Last get into the water," said Lord Hauk, looking at the mass of documents spread on the table before him. "Do they swim here, is that it?"
"Rasile?" Sharina said. "Please explain the matter."
She'd asked the wizard the same question, but rather than retail the information she thought she'd let it come from the original source. Among other things, that might raise Rasile's status in the eyes of the councilors. Royhas certainly wasn't alone in distrusting and disdaining their Coerli allies.
"The Last do not touch the water," Rasile said. "They cross from reflection to reflection. If you distort the surface of the site they choose, you block them."
She coughed and paused.
How old is she? How old do Coerli get?
"They cannot use every body of water as their mirror," Rasile resumed. "There must be a focus for their art, a dense braiding of power. Save Pandah, you've blocked every such focus already in your portion of this world."
The Corl laughed, a bestial sound that probably wasn't meant to be threatening. "Your Tenoctris is a very great wizard. I am not fit to be her lowliest slave . . . and yet she chooses to serve your kingdom instead of gaining hegemony over this universe."
Her shrug was identical to that of a puzzled human. She laughed again and added, "It is almost as if Tenoctris were me, only vastly more powerful."
"I don't understand what the cat means," said the Minister of the Post plaintively to her neighbor, the burly Commandant of the Valles Night Watch. The latter's deep frown didn't suggest to Sharina that he was going to be much help with the question.
The Minister of Post felt eyes on her and looked up in horror, then clapped both hands over her mouth. It was a charmingly innocent gesture, but one which reminded Sharina that the lady was a political ally of Chancellor Royhas.
Sharina rose to her feet. "What it means," she said, though she knew the minister'd been asking a much more basic question than the one she chose to answer, "is that however difficult it may be to root out the incursion of the Last at Pandah, we must do so in order to buy time till others to deal with the creatures in a permanent fashion. Is there anyone at the table who disagrees with that assessment?"
There was silence. They were intelligent people—well, most of them were—and pragmatists. Given the facts, they'd come to the same conclusion she had.
"Lord Waldron?" she prodded, looking down at the old soldier.
"My men are talking to Master Baumo's men now," Waldron said, nodding toward the tax office clerk. "We'll have an operational plan ready before morning."
He smiled grimly and added, "If I'd been looking for an easy life, I wouldn't have been a soldier. And if any of my men had thought it was going to be easy, I'd have run them out or ground them under."
Sharina felt a sudden wash of contentment. It was late at night, but the guests' bed linen was clean, the common room had been swept, porridge for the morning was simmering on the kitchen fire—
And the chamber pots had been emptied.
"Very good, Councilors," Sharina said. "We will do our jobs here so that Prince Garric and Lady Tenoctris can save us by doing theirs."
And Cashel can save us
, she thought.
Before he comes back to save me from lonely darkness
.
* * *
Ilna and Temple joined Asion on the limestone ridge, looking down at the land spreading below. The valley behind them was a waste of blowing dust and woody plants sheltering in the lee of outcrops; ahead was tussock grass, not the lushest of vegetation but proof of
some
water. Stretching toward them up the gentle slope were broad fields irrigated from the creek lying at the base of steeper hills across the valley; cottonwoods grew on the banks.
Asion turned and signalled to his partner. Karpos was less than a furlong behind, much closer than usual because the landscape they'd just crossed was too barren and dusty to conceal a stalking enemy.
"That's odd," said Temple. He pointed toward the southern end of the valley, where the creek spilled down from a notch in the rock wall. "Impressive, at least. That's a dam. If the watercourse on the other side of it flowed naturally, the whole valley would flood."
"How do you—" Ilna said, then scowled at her stupidity. She disliked stone so much that it was apparently robbing her of intelligence. "Yes, I see that the dam's high, and that the water spills over the top."
She returned her attention to the village on the other side of the creek. The walls were drystone, blocks laid without mortar, and the buildings were thatched with tussock grass. There were more houses than she could count on both hands; but not, she thought, twice that number. The line of shadow from the sun behind her was beginning to darken the tawny roofs as well.
"Seventeen huts," said Temple. "I'd judge they were of a size to hold six or eight family members each, wouldn't you guess?"
"Where's the people?" Karpos said as he joined them. "And where's the goats too? I don't see any."
Asion pointed. "There's a door," he said. "In the rock there."
It took Ilna a moment to realize that he wasn't pointing at a rock among the houses but rather to the side of the hill beyond. There
was
a door, braced like a city gate though not nearly as big. The man standing in it was far enough back in the shadow that she hadn't noticed him till he moved, but the hunter had.
She smiled slightly. There were many people in the world who had special skills. Asion and Karpos wouldn't have remained in her company had they not been among those people.
She glanced to her side. And Temple had skills as well. Temple very definitely had skills.
A different man came out of the door and waved toward them. He cupped his hands into a megaphone and shouted.
"He's saying, 'Quickly,'" said Asion, frowning. He looked at Ilna.
"Yes," she said. "There's no point in our staying here."
"I'll lead," said Karpos, moving down the slope at a swinging jog. He kept both hands on his bow with the nocked arrow slanting to his left. He didn't seem to hurry, but he covered the ground very quickly.
"And we'll move quickly," Ilna said, breaking into a trot. "Since the fellow calling us knows more about this valley than we do."
She wondered if she'd embarrass herself; running wasn't a skill she'd cultivated. On the other hand, there were worse things than falling on her face in front not only of her companions but also the locals. More of the latter had come out of the cave, a handful and one—six.
"Run!" they cried. They were shouting all together now. She could hear the words even over the pounding of her feet on the loose soil. "Run!"
Those worse things might be about to happen.
Ilna smiled. That would be all right. She wasn't good at running, but she knew how to stand and fight.
She took a handful of yarn out of her sleeve and knotted it as she jogged. It wasn't for a weapon against the unnamed
Something
that the locals were concerned about, it was just to occupy her with something she did well and found relaxing.
Ilna's stride fell into a pattern. She no longer worried about tripping or the way the bindle pounded her back. She should've tightened the straps before she started down, but it didn't really matter.
The wheat in the fields was flourishing; the soil here must be very good. She supposed that was why the villagers had gone to all the effort of damming the river: the silt that'd settled out of slow water over the years would be far richer than that of valleys that'd been sun-baked and wind-scoured for centuries.
She glanced over her shoulder. Temple smiled faintly when he caught her glance. He ran on his toes, holding his shield and scabbard to keep them from swinging. He could obviously keep up this pace—or a quicker one—for a very long time. Well, so could Ilna if she had to, but they'd reached the cottonwoods and Karpos had already crossed the creek.
She was glad of the wooden bridge. It wasn't necessary, but fist-sized stones in the streambed might've turned or slipped beneath her if she'd tried to splash across at a run. She didn't
like
stone.
The sun was below the horizon. The sky was still bright, but there'd been change. Ilna didn't look back again. There'd be time for that when she reached the cave. She could see the door now, even more massive than she'd thought at a distance. The staples on the inside would hold a bar as thick as her thigh.
Karpos had joined the locals. They seemed ordinary farmers, much like the people Ilna'd grown up with on Haft. Their tunics were goat wool rather than sheep's wool, but someone less familiar with fabric wouldn't have noticed the difference.
"Inside quick!" cried a burly man with a ginger beard. He held a simple spear. His fellows were armed with similar spears, save for the pair with clubs.
Ilna reached the villagers standing outside. Beyond them were women and children watching nervously from well within the cave. Karpos grimaced a question to her.
"Quick, before the demons get here!" cried Ginger-beard. Instead of obeying, Ilna turned to see what was pursuing them.