The Fortress of Glass (19 page)

Tenoctris was examining the crown, turning it by the band but eyeing the play of light in the heart of the stone. Ilna wondered if she should've thrown the jewel into the sea, but if she'd done that.... It must've had something to do with Garric's disappearance, so it was the best chance they had for returning the prince to his kingdom and Garric to the friends who needed him just as surely as the kingdom did.

Cashel kept his back to the two women; his quarterstaff stood upright like a supporting pillar. Cervoran sprawled ahead of him on the catwalk, his eyes open but unseeing. He might have been dead, Ilna thought; and smiled grimly. Dead again, that is.

The sea leaped with violent ripples centered on the place in the near distance where Cervoran had stood to chant. Violent blows hammered the Heron's keel. Oars clattered as a few of the rowers lost the stroke, but they picked it up again almost instantly. When Ilna looked down on the benches she saw faces set in fear and stony determination.

Water bubbled, mounded, and finally climbed to the sky in the Heron's wake. The rowers faced backward, so all of them could watch. This time they kept the rhythm, taking themselves farther from what was happening behind them with every stroke.

The roar filled the sky and flattened the chop. The sea mounded in a huge circle, spreading outward from the rising dome. Fish and flotsam and yellow foam danced in the churning water.

A gleaming, turreted crystal mountain rose from the surface, throwing shattered sunlight back in as many shards as the stars of a winter night. The sea heaved, exposing or distorting three legs that shimmered into the depths.

The deepest trench in the Inner Sea, Chalcus had said. And this thing came out of it.

"The Fortress of Glass," Tenoctris said wonderingly. Ilna remembered the words from Cervoran's mouth as he rose from his trance in the depths of the topaz. "There's nothing in any of my records, but here it is."

Ilna put an arm around the older woman's waist and gripped the railing with her other hand; Cashel knelt and grasped a handful of Cervoran's collar. The spreading wave lifted the ship and flung it forward, but neither wizard went overboard.

There was confusion on the benches but at least half the crew kept their oar looms and at least a semblance of the rhythm. Blades cracked together, but not badly; the men who'd been thrown down returned to their seats and their duty. They were trained men, picked men; men fit for a leader like Chalcus.

The Heron drove back toward harbor. Chalcus gestured to Panshin; the flute-player increased his tempo. They were drawing away from the fortress, but it was high enough to be seen even from the island's shore.

Things slipped from the crystal battlements and splashed into the sea. Flotsam, Ilna thought. Scraps of seaweed and muck from the abyss, lifted when the fortress rose.

Instead of bobbing at the base of the crystal walls, the blobs moved outward. They were hellplants like the one that had attacked the palace, and they were swimming in the Heron's wake.

"Captain Chalcus!" Cashel called. He'd gotten to his feet again and was looking over the bow. "Look ahead of us, sir!"

Ilna bent outward to look also. Ahead of the ship, rising from the depths like foul green bubbles swelling from a swamp, were more hellplants. They moved toward the Heron on strokes of their powerful tentacles.

Chalcus snatched a boat pike from one of the stern racks; the shaft was half again his height. Using it for a balance pole, he jumped to the rail. Looking out, he called, "Hard aport!" sharply. The steersman leaned into the tiller of the port steering oar.

The Heron heeled toward the oar, making the blade cut deeper into the water and tightening the turn. Chalcus shifted his footing slightly, leaning further for a better view past the hull; the pike in his hands moved inboard to balance him.

The show was as good as any troupe of the acrobats who'd entertained at palace dinners, but here it was in dead earnest. The rail was the only place where Chalcus could both conn them through the gauntlet of swimming monsters and be sure the steersman could hear his orders instantly in the likely tumult of the next minutes.

"The plants ahead of us must've been going to attack the palace," Tenoctris said, pursing her lips. She spoke loudly enough for to be heard, but it seemed to Ilna that she was organizing her own thoughts rather than informing her friends. "The person, the thing in the fortress must really control them to send them against us instead."

"The Green Woman," Ilna said, though the name was only a sound without meaning. Did even Cervoran know what she was?

"Tenoctris, can you do something?" Cashel said. "To fight the plants, I mean."

He gave the staff a trial spin overhead where he wasn't going to hit anybody, then lowered it. They'd all seen the plant attacking the palace. A quarterstaff wouldn't be much good against more creatures of the sort.

Ilna's fingers had been busy with the cords while her mind was on other things, hopeless things. When she looked at what she'd knotted, her lips pursed with surprise. She knew her patterns were useless as weapons against the hellplants, but this was no weapon.

"I'll try," Tenoctris said. She grasped the railing with one hand and lowered herself to the catwalk. "I don't have a great deal of power, though."

Cervoran was extremely powerful. He hadn't been able to destroy the fortress in the depths, but saving the Heron from the creatures attacking was surely a smaller thing.

"Cashel, let me by," Ilna said. "To get to Cervoran."

Cashel stepped aside with the powerful delicacy of an ox lowering itself onto the straw. He didn't ask what she planned to do; he knew she'd tell him whatever she thought he needed to know.

Ilna smiled, though the expression barely reached her lips. Her brother had more common sense than most of the people who thought they were smarter than he was. In fact, thinking Cashel was stupid proved you didn't have common sense.

There was a sucking thwock from forward; the Heron staggered. A swatch of vegetation spurted up from the ram's curve before falling back into the sea.

"Stroke, lads!" Chalcus shouted. "A cable's length and we're through the devils!"

Ilna squatted at Cervoran's head and spread her knotted pattern before his staring eyes. For a moment nothing happened; then a shudder trembled the length of the wizard's body. The design had penetrated to his stunned consciousness and wrenched him back to the present.

Cervoran closed, then opened his eyes again. His irises were muddy and stood in fields of pale gold. The swollen lips moved, but no sound came out.

"Stroke!" Chalcus shouted. As the word rang out, oars on the port side clattered together and the ship slewed toward them.

Ilna glanced to the side, continuing to hold the tracery of fabric in front of the wizard. The Heron's hull had cleared the nearest hellplant, but the creature grasped an oarblade as the ship drove past. The tentacle held, dragging the oar back into all those behind it in the bank.

"Overboard with it!" Chalcus bellowed, springing from the deck to the outrigger. "Shove it out, we don't need the bloody oar!"

Chalcus' dagger, curved like a cat's claw, flashed; he bent and cut through the twist of willow withie that bound the oar to the rowlock. The rower pushed his oar through the port, but the hellplant's tentacles had grabbed more blades. The Heron wallowed: the starboard oars were driving at full stroke, but half those on the other side were tangled. The hellplant's bulk tugged at the ship like a sea anchor.

Cashel stood amidships. He'd picked up the pike Chalcus dropped when he jumped from the deck railing. Some of the shepherds in the borough carried a javelin instead of a staff or bow, but Ilna didn't recall having seen her brother with a spear of any sort in his hand before.

Cashel cocked the pike over his shoulder, then snapped it forward as though it was meant for throwing instead of having a shaft thick enough to be used to fend the ship's fragile hull away from a dock. The pike wasn't balanced: the rusted iron butt-cap wobbled in a wide circle.

The point and half the long shaft squelched into the hellplant, tearing a hole the size of a man's thigh. The barrel-shaped body quivered, but the plant continued to pull itself up the oarshafts toward the ship.

Half a dozen more oars slid through the ports as crewmen jettisoned anything the plant's tentacles had caught. The Heron was under way again, limping but moving forward. The steersman had his starboard oar twisted broadside on, fighting the ship's urge to turn to port where the hellplant lashed the water in a furious attempt to renew its grip.

"Where is the jewel?" demanded a voice that drove into Ilna's mind like a jet of ice water. "I must have the topaz from the amber sarcophagus."

Ilna looked at Cervoran, whom she'd forgotten for a moment. He'd raised his swollen body onto one elbow. His eyes had returned to the febrile brightness that'd been normal for them at least since she brought him off the pyre.

"I'll get it," Ilna said. She put her knotted pattern in her left sleeve; it'd served its purpose by bringing the wizard out of his coma. Now the question was whether Cervoran would serve his purpose, and they'd know the answer to that before long.

Tenoctris had set down the crown when she started her own spell. Ilna leaned past the three-cornered figure her friend had drawn in charcoal on the pine decking. Grabbing the wire band she drew it to her, trying not to disturb Tenoctris.

The stone was awkwardly heavy; she couldn't imagine wearing such a thing herself. Nobody was asking her to, of course. She gave the crown to Cervoran with a cold expression.

Oars rattled. The Heron twisted, then shuddered to a stop. Two more hellplants had swum close enough to grab the leading oars on either side, binding the ship to them hopelessly. A third creature, the one that they'd struggled clear of moments before, swam up in the Heron's wake and would catch the stern in a matter of seconds.

"All right, lads!" Chalcus cried. "Swords out and show these vegetables what it means to play with men!"

Cervoran rose to his feet. The great topaz winked on his forehead as if it was alive too. He picked up the silver-mounted skullcap that lay where he'd dropped it after the earlier spell froze the sea into yellow ice.

A sailor screamed. A flat green tentacle started to lift him from the ship. Chalcus scampered down the outrigger like a squirrel, slashing with his incurved sword. The slender blade slit the tentacle neatly, leaving only the leafy fringe remaining. The sailor twisted with desperate strength and tore that apart also, tumbling back aboard the Heron.

"Master Cashel!" Cervoran piped. "I have need of you!"

* * *

Cashel was frowning, not because of the situation but because there didn't seem to be anything for him to do. The quarterstaff was no use on plants, though it felt good in his hands. It reminded him of the days he sat with his back against a holly tree, watching the sheep on the slope below him and listening to Garric play a pipe tune. Cashel couldn't sing or make music himself, but he loved to hear it when others did.

Feeling good wasn't going to beat these plants nor would happy memories. The spear he'd thrown didn't seem to have done much good either. Besides, the plant that'd attacked the palace had looked like a pincushion from the soldiers' spears by the time he and Cervoran came up from the cellars, and it didn't even slow down till the fire got burning good.

Regretfully, Cashel laid his staff on the catwalk. The wicker mat hanging from the rail would keep it there unless the ship sank. Until the ship sank likely enough, but the crew'd fight till then and Cashel sure would be fighting.

A sword'd really be the best thing, but Cashel was hopeless with them. He hadn't seen any call to learn to use one despite not liking them the way he'd done with other things.

A broad-bladed hatchet with a square pein stood in a hole in the mast partner-the piece where the mast would be stepped. Cashel drew it out. He'd rather have a full-sized axe, but the hatchet would do. The haft was short but it'd let him grip with both hands; if he had to get close, well, he'd get close. He'd been in fights before.

Hellplants pulled themselves toward the bow from either side, using their grip on the leading oars like men crossing a span hand-over-hand by a pole. It wouldn't have done any good for the crew to cast the oars loose the way they'd done before, since this time the monsters were in front of the ship. Backing water wouldn't help either, since the plant they'd gotten past was swimming up in the wake.

The one behind was the one Cashel'd probably try to deal with, seeings as Chalcus was in the bow-one foot on the outrigger, the other on the ram-waiting for whichever of the front pair came in range of his sword first. Cashel stayed where he was for the time being. He figured his job was to protect Ilna and Tenoctris the best way he could, and just now he wasn't sure what that'd be.

You didn't win fights by being too hasty. Of course this time Cashel didn't expect to win, but he wasn't going to change ways that'd served him well so far.

"Master Cashel!" Cervoran said. That high voice was as nasty to hear as a rabbit screaming, but like the rabbit it sure did get heard. "I have need of you!"

Cashel hadn't thought about the wizard since he'd carried him aboard. Cervoran was holding out that piece of skull again. "Fill this with sea water," he said when he saw Cashel was looking at him.