Out of the waters

CHAPTER 12

Anna wiped her knife on the cock's feathers, then flung its drained body to the ground. Her voice had become more resonant. Alphena couldn't be sure, but she thought the words of the incantation were the same as those she had heard earlier in the night.

The blood settled at the bottom of the bowl. Anna was looking into it, so Alphena glanced down as well. The moon was reflected in the black fluid.

The garden became dark. Alphena heard shouts and in the distance a wail of despair. Anna's voice had slowed and deepened into thunder through which other sounds sank.

Alphena looked at the sky in surprise. The stars still sparkled, but the full moon had vanished-except for its reflection in blood. Anna continued to chant.

The bowl was a window into another sky. A mist separated Alphena and the witch from the city outside. Anna's lips moved. Instead of hearing sound, Alphena felt the world tremble.

The reflected moon swelled and blurred and suddenly coalesced into the figure of a coldly beautiful woman glaring at her with a furious expression. The garden was still, but a wind whipped the woman's garments.

The woman held in either hand the leashes attached to a pair of three-headed vultures. When the birds opened their long beaks, their tongues quivered. Alphena heard no sound except the surrounding thunder.

The woman and the vultures faded into pale light. The gryphon on the rim of the bowl shrieked and flapped its wings tentatively. It twisted its eagle head around to stare at Alphena.

Light filled the bowl; Alphena could no longer see blood or the glazed pottery, just the four animals hanging in the air. Three-the chimaera, basilisk, and mantichore-groomed themselves, but the gryphon seemed to be struggling to break free of unseen bonds.

Alphena thought she could make out Anna's form on the other side of the window, but she wasn't sure; the light was swelling. An image formed within it: a series of ring islands nested within one another like ripples in a pond spreading from a dropped stone.

The islands sharpened into focus. They were forested, but crystal buildings glittered on crags. The city of the vision in the theater spread along the shore of a deep bay.

Mother's been taken to Atlantis. But how will I get there myself?

The gryphon called in high-pitched triumph. Either it was growing or Alphena was shrinking. Atlantis hung in the unimaginable distance, though she still saw it clearly.

Anna and the garden vanished, but Alphena and the gryphon stood on solid air. The creature's body was much larger than that of the lion it resembled; it was more the size of an ox.

It lifted a birdlike foreleg and began cleaning the gaps between its toes, extending its great claws as it did so. It watched Alphena with eyes as bright as spearpoints. Her hand hovered close to her swordhilt, but she didn't draw the weapon.

The gryphon lowered its paw. "Well?" it said, speaking in a haughty tenor voice. "Will you get on my back and ride, or shall I carry you to Poseidonis in my talons?"

It laughed, opening a hooked beak that could have snapped the head off a calf-or a man. Despite the shrill overtones, the creature's voice reminded Alphena of the way Lenatus and Pulto discussing their army service.

"You'll be more comfortable on my back, I think," it said. "But it's all one with me, mistress. I will serve you as you wish."

"I…," Alphena said. "I'll ride you, then."

She stepped close to the gryphon; it had a warm, animal odor, strong but not unpleasant. It hunched down, lowering its withers and folding its feathered wings tightly against its torso.

"You'll need to sit just below my neck, I'm afraid," the creature said. "If I'm to fly, that is, and there's not much point in this excercise if I don't."

Alphena put both hands on the gryphon's neck. The fur was as stiff as hog bristles, though the feathers into which it blended had a silky texture.

This isn't going to be comfortable, she thought. She grinned wryly. But there may be worse to come.

She vaulted aboard. The scabbard slapped her left leg, but she got her seat easily enough.

Alphena straightened. The gryphon rose to its feet and stretched like a cat before looking back at her. "Hold tight, mistress," it said. "If you fall, it will be a long way."

It laughed again; not cruelly, but with a hard carelessness. "A very long way," it added.

"All right," Alphena said, digging her fingers into the fur. It was long enough to give her a grip, though not a very good one.

What am I going to do when we reach Poseidonis?

The gryphon sprang upward with the strength of all four legs. Its wings beat with a fierce suddenness, more like the release of a catapult than that of a bird flying.

The ground fell away into a gray blur. The islands of Atlantis hung in the sky, seemingly as far as they ever had been.

But first we have to reach the city.

Because there were seven slaves to be freed at one time and Varus knew that other slaves would want to watch, he had suggested that his father hold the manumission ceremony in the courtyard instead of in his office. Saxa stood with his back to the central pool. His chief lictor was to his left holding one of the rods which, bound around the helve of his axe, were the symbol of his authority.

Varus and Tardus were off to the right side, witnesses rather than participants in the process. The recording secretary sat cross-legged in front of them.

The entire household, as well as Tardus' considerable entourage and very probably servants from nearby buildings, crowded around. They filled the courtyard, pressed against the second story railing, and-younger males in particular-sat on the roof looking in with their bare legs dangling.

"I, ah…," said Tardus. He glanced toward Varus, then looked down again quickly when the younger man tried to meet his eyes. "I must apologize for the way I behaved when I visited the other day. I wasn't in control of my actions, of course, but even so I'm embarrassed at what I remember. The very little that I remember."

Varus lifted his chin in solemn agreement. He hadn't been sure how Tardus was going to react to the invasion of his house by a gang of slaves. The wrath of a senior senator would be no slight thing, even if the senator was regarded as a superstitious fool by most of his colleagues. It appeared that Tardus primarily wanted to distance himself from the business, which Varus-and Saxa-were more than willing to help him do.

"It must have been awful to be under the spell of foreign magicians that way," he said sympathetically. "I'm glad father was able to devise a way of freeing you-"

Would Pandareus approve of me lying in that fashion? Still, an orator should phrase an argument in the fashion which his audience was best able to appreciate. That's all Varus was doing when he attributed the plan to another senator instead of to a youth from the frontier whose father was merely a knight.

"-from their domination."

"All present attend the tribunal of Gaius Alphenus Saxa, Consul of the Republic!" boomed the chief lictor. He had trained his voice to silence the crowd when court was being held in the forum, so the relative constraint of this courtyard was no challenge whatever. "Let the first petitioner state his business!"

The first-the only, of course-petitioner was Agrippinus. The major domo stepped through the line of lictors arrayed in front of the consul and said, "I come to the magistrate to proclaim the formal manumission of seven slaves who are the property of myself alone."

"I had understood that Saxa would be freeing his own slaves today," Tardus said in a puzzled tone.

"That's correct," Varus explained, "but father first sold them to our major domo for a copper each. That way he can act as magistrate in the manumission without questions being raised about the owner and magistrate being the same person."

Agrippinus took the first of the slaves by the hand and brought him in front of Saxa. He said, "I declare this man to be my slave Himilco."

The lictor touched Himilco-a North African; short, swarthy, and muscled like a statue of Hercules-on the head with his rod and said in his resonant voice, "I declare Himilco to be free from this day onward!"

"Surely no one would have objected?" Tardus said doubtfully.

"I assent," said Agrippinus, releasing Himilco's hand.

"My father is a stickler for the correct forms," Varus said. He started to smile, but that would have projected the wrong image. Tardus was if anything more focused on foolish detail than Saxa was… though apparently not the same details. "He deemed this to be the safest route."

"It is hereby noted that the former Himilco, now Gaius Alphenus Himilco, is a free man," Saxa said. The secretary duly jotted the information down on a wax tablet.

Himilco stood with his mouth open. Instead of showing enthusiasm, he looked as though he had been thrown bound into the arena with half a dozen lions.

He'd probably be more comfortable with the lions. They would be more in keeping with his past experience than being stood before a pair of senators, one of whom was also consul.

Agrippinus leaned over to whisper in Himilco's ear. A smile of understanding spread across the new freedman's face. He threw himself onto hands and knees, lifted the consul's foot and placed it on his neck, and then shambled back to where he had been before Agrippinus brought him forward. He hadn't overbalanced Saxa in his enthusiasm, as Varus had rather feared he might.

"I would say…," Varus murmured to Tardus. "That the willingness to grasp a sword and charge armed enemies does not require a high intellect."

Before he met Corylus, he would have said that it couldn't be paired with high intellect. Still, he suspected that his friend was the exception.

"You freed me, Gaius Varus," Tardus said. He made a small gesture with his left hand as the second slave was brought forward. "From a worse servitude than that. Me, a Senator of the Republic and a Commissioner for the Sacred Rites!"

Varus considered the unexpected confidence. He said, "I'm glad we were able to offer you a service, Lord Tardus. That is, to a man of your stature, and to the Republic through you."

That certainly didn't sound like the admission of a man who had invaded the house of a senator with a band of armed slaves. Pandareus would be proud to see the effects of his teaching.

When we find Pandareus.

Agrippinus was bringing the third slave forward now. After the ceremony was complete, Saxa would be providing each of the new freedmen with a gift of a thousand coppers, the amount the Emperor had given each legionary upon his accession at the death of Augustus. Lenatus and Pulto would be given property worth 400,000 coppers: the requirement for becoming a Knight of Carce.

Corylus-when he returned-would be offered nothing, at Varus' insistence despite his father's protests. That saved his friend from embarrassment and saved Saxa from worse embarrassment when Corylus refused the gift.

There wasn't enough money to have induced Corylus to plan and execute the raid on Tardus' home. By the same token, Varus knew Corylus wouldn't accept money for doing what friendship and the needs of the Republic had made necessary. Saxa, to whom money meant nothing, couldn't understand the logic of a principled man to whom money was important-but not overwhelmingly important.

"The Sages brought me the murrhine tube," Tardus said, lowering his eyelids as he looked back in memory. "They said that it was an artifact of great power. They burned herbs in it, drawing the smoke out through a reed tube at one end."

Varus lifted his chin. "That's what they were doing when we broke in on them and Pandareus," he said, frowning. "The one with the censer blew smoke onto Corylus-he was the first one of us through the doorway. There was a flash and I couldn't see anything-none of us could. When we could, Corylus was gone as well as the Sages and Pandareus."

"One of them blew smoke at me too," said Tardus. He was turned toward the manumission ceremony-the fifth slave was being freed-but his mind was clearly in another place. "I couldn't move except by their choice after that-until you freed me."

He shook his head as though trying to cast out the memory. "They said the murrhine pipe was half the representation of an amphisbaena. It had great power."

"The snake with a head on each end of its body," Varus said, speaking to solidify the reference in his mind. "Yes, I understand now. And father has the other half."

"They knew that Lord Saxa has it," Tardus said. "They took me to your house to gain it. I was a slipper and they were the foot that wore me, whether I would or no. I was less than a slave to them."

"Father and I sympathize with you, Lord Tardus," Varus said in a suitably solemn tone. It was a relief to learn that the senator was more concerned with forgiveness for his own behavior than redress for what Varus and his friends had done. "Were you present when the Sages discussed their plans, perchance? Though-"

He frowned at his error.

"I suppose they would have been talking in their own language, even if you could hear them."

Tardus looked at him, frowning in concentration. "Yes, I suppose they were…," he said, "but I could understand them perfectly well. I hadn't thought of that."

He shook his head. "I wasn't myself, you see," he said. "That is, the Sages were me; but that means I was them too, I suppose. But-"

He shrugged. "But I can't tell you where they took Master Pandareus," he said. "From what you describe, they must have acted in the crisis. Certainly they didn't plan anything of the sort when I was with them."

"I understand," said Varus; and he did, though he'd hoped that Tardus would be able to help them. "Well, we'll have to find Pandareus-"

And Corylus, but no reason to emphasize that.

"-in some other fashion. Will these Sages stay here in Carce, do you think? If they do, perhaps they'll reappear and we'll be able to find them."

"I suppose they will remain," Tardus said. "Their business is here, after all."

"Their business?" said Varus, irritated at himself for not having asked the most obvious question before Tardus reminded him of it. "What are they doing here, your lordship?"

"They don't think they can hold Uktena where he is for very much longer," Tardus said. As he spoke, his voice became thinner and his face began to look gray. "They plan to gain time by releasing himhere in Carce, a long distance from the Western Isles, while they either create defenses or find a way to bind the monster again."

The manumission ceremony had just concluded. Hundreds of servants shouted, "Yo, hail Lord Saxa!" waving caps and pieces of cloth in the air.

The cheering smothered Tardus' voice, but his lips and the obvious logic left Varus in no doubt that Uktena terrified the old man.

It terrifies me as well.

Corylus couldn't move and he couldn't see his own body. He wasn't sure that he had a body in this place.

"Where am I?" he said to the slim, straight woman. Her hair was a lustrous dark brunette, but there were green highlights in it.

She laughed with friendly amusement. "You're here, cousin," she said. "That's all one can ever say, I think. Though I know you humans have other ideas about it."

That was the answer I should have expected when I asked a dryad about geography, Corylus realized. Though he wasn't sure that "geography" was the right word.

The inhuman creature squatted on its haunches. Its narrow mouth opened enough to let its tongue loll out between hedges of small, sharp teeth. It rested its arms on its thin thighs; its hands stuck out before it.

"Mistress…," Corylus said, looking at the woman but really concentrating on the creature beside her. Standing, it would be no taller than the sprite and it wasn't nearly as heavily built as Corylus himself. Its bite could be unpleasant but no more dangerous than that of one of the mongrel dogs which lived on Carce's streets, and its claws were as blunt as a dog's also.

Despite that, Corylus really hoped that the creature wouldn't decide he was an enemy. He recalled Caesar's description of Germans laughing the first time they saw the soldiers of Carce who were so much smaller than the barbarians themselves.

They didn't laugh after the first battle, though; those who were still alive. Corylus wasn't laughing at this creature.

"I am Gaius Cispius Corylus," he said. "May I ask your name?"

"Of course you're Corylus, cousin," the woman said with another trill of laughter. "And I'm Coryla, silly. My tree was struck by a rain of burning glass from the moon. The rest of it perished in the fire, but the glass sealed the air away from one nut, so I still survive. As for the Ancient-"

She ran an affectionate hand through the fur over the creature's spine. It writhed toward her touch but continued to keep its unwinking eyes on Corylus.

"-I don't know what his name is; I don't know if he has a name. My tree grew over his grave, but he wasn't with me until the glass fell."

Corylus would have touched the tektite amulet if he could have moved his hand. Or if he'd had a hand to move, which might be closer to the real situation.

"Is the glass, ah, magical?" Corylus said. He was speaking and she was understanding him, but he couldn't feel his lips move.

"What?" the sprite said. She bent to rub the base of the creature's ear. It tilted its fox-like head toward the touch, but it never took its eyes off Corylus. They had the same golden cast as its fur, but the pupils were slitted horizontally instead of vertically like a cat's. "I shouldn't think so, no."

She gave the creature a final pat over the ribs and straightened. "But he is, of course," she added. "He's a great magician. Did he bring you to him, do you suppose? I'm not always sure what he's planning, even though he's part of me, in a way."

"Him?" said Corylus in amazement. "It? But it's just an animal, isn't it?"

The sprite's laughter was as sweet and musical as a nightingale singing in the dusk. "Of course he's an animal, cousin," she said. "You're all animals, you and him and the squirrels in the branches of my tree. Didn't you know that?"

"I mean…," said Corylus. "It doesn't think the way a man does. Or you do. It, he, isn't he your pet?"

The creature made a clicking sound at the back of its throat and stood up. It continued to stare at Corylus. Its hind legs folded the way a man's did, not a dog's.

"Pet?" said Coryla. He thought she would laugh again, but the look she gave him had nothing of humor in it. "Him? Are you mad, cousin?"

The creature reached toward Corylus; toward where his face should be, if he had a face. It had four slender fingers. One was opposed to the other three like the hind claw of an eagle, not a human thumb.

I am a soldier of Carce. I will not flinch.

Fingertips as gentle as a fly's wing touched Corylus' cheek.

I can feel it! he realized, and as he did, light bloomed around him. He was lying on his back on the cliff top where he had fought the Cyclops. He breathed with a gasp of surprise-and shouted with the sudden pain of it. My ribs are broken!

Coryla and the creature were looking down at him. She seemed sympathetic and perhaps a little concerned; the creature…

It wasn't safe to read the expression on a face as inhuman as that of the creature, but it certainly seemed to be laughing at him. How did I ever imagine that it wasn't intelligent?

"You can sit up, can't you?" the sprite said. "Because there are other giants besides the one you killed. And worse things."

"I don't know," Corylus said. He touched his chest gently, trying not to move his body. He must be bruised as badly as he ever had been in his life, but there wasn't the stabbing, grating pain that would have meant that he had broken ribs. "You said I killed the Cyclops?"

Coryla offered him her hand. He took it carefully, expecting the lightly built sprite to stagger forward when he started to put real weight on her. Instead, she remained as fixed a support as a deeply rooted hazel tree.

After a flash of blazing agony, the pain in Corylus' chest subsided to a throbbing ache, as though he were sitting too close to a hot fire. Several of the catches of his breastplate had popped. He undid the remaining one, then dropped the dented armor to the ground. That done, he turned slowly. He was looking for the Cyclops and hoping to see its body.

"Well, you did and he did himself, I suppose," she said. "He stumbled after you stabbed him and broke his neck. But if you hadn't stabbed him, he probably wouldn't have fallen, don't you think? So I said you killed him."

Corylus walked cautiously to the edge of the crag and looked over. His chest hurt and his left leg was as stiff as a statue's, except for the hip joint. That felt like the blazing pit of Aetna.

Two ships lay on their sides just above the water; their decks were tilted at a thirty-degree angle. That much was the same as the mural he had seen in the instant before the smoke swept him here. Close up he now saw that the vessels were winged craft like those of the vision, not ordinary fifty-oared galleys as he had assumed.

The mangled bodies of their crews were scattered on the shingle. On the ground near the Cyclops' cave was an iron-bound club the length of a ship's mast. The monster's strength would have made it devastating.

Among the dead were two figures whose bright armor hadn't saved them from crushing blows. One's corselet had been dished in; the other's helmet was flattened so completely that blood and brains oozed through the grill that covered the face.

Directly at the base of the crag was the Cyclops, sprawled on his face with his head cocked sharply to the right. Corylus frowned. Any of the Scouts could have jumped the twenty feet to the shingle and expected-reasonably hoped, at least-to have staggered off without serious injury, but the giant weighed more than an ox. Even the bones of its short, thick neck couldn't take the shock of that hard landing.

"I told you he was dead," the sprite said chidingly. "Don't you suppose we'd better leave? That you should, I mean. It's all the same to us, you know."

Corylus looked at her. The slope rising above the Cyclops' cave wasn't nearly as steep as the escarpment to the beach, but he wasn't sure he could climb it in his present condition.

He was sure that he couldn't get down to the beach, unless he did it the way the Cyclops had. And probably with the same result, since he couldn't land with flexed legs and roll as he'd learned to do with the Scouts.

"Mistress," he said, "I can't go anywhere until I've recovered some. If I ever do: my leg may be permanently injured. If you can save yourselves, you'd best go do it."

The furry creature stood a pace behind her, its torso leaning forward and its hips thrust back for balance. It clicked in its throat and stepped to Corylus' side. He couldn't jerk away-he stood on the edge of the crag-and if he tried to run, he suspected he'd faint with pain.

"What's he doing?" the sprite said. She cocked her head quizzically.

And by Haides, how would I know? Corylus thought, but he kept his face impassive.

The creature touched Corylus' left hip; moved its slender hand down to his knee; and then dropped into a near squat to touch his ankle as well. The fingers pressed, but instead of greater agony, they brought relief.

The creature straightened. Its tongue waggled from the side of its jaw again; perhaps it really was laughing. It reached out with both hands and caressed Corylus' chest through the sweat-soaked tunic. The pain in his ribs vanished like chaff in a windstorm. Its tongue still lolling, the creature backed to where it had been behind the sprite.

Corylus swallowed. "Thank you, master," he said as formally as if he were addressing a magistrate, not something frighteningly inhuman. To the sprite he added, "I believe I can walk normally now. Where do you suggest we go? Since you appear to be more familiar with this place than I am."

She shrugged. "Let's take one of the ships," she said. "I suppose it shouldn't matter to me, being as I am now-"

She gestured toward the amulet now hanging outside Corylus' tunic.

"-but those hills are bleak, not fit for anything but tamarisk and bergamot. And besides, you'll need to eat. There'll be food and water on the ships."

"I can't-" Corylus began, then stopped himself. I don't need to push the ship down into the water; it flies. But- Correcting himself aloud, he said, "Mistress, I'm not a magician; I can't make the ship move. Though we can take the food and water, or some of it. Maybe I can make a cart."

In a bemused tone the sprite said, "You are such a silly, cousin."

She turned to the creature and chirruped like a hen on her eggs. It-he-didn't reply in a fashion Corylus could see, but the sprite beamed and stroked the golden fur of his throat. He writhed toward her, even more like a serpent than before.

"Which ship shall we take?" she asked Corylus.

"We'll take a look at them before we decide," he said. "Ah, can you make it down the slope by yourself?"

The sprite ran her fingers through his hair in the same affectionate fashion as she had just petted the creature. Without answering, she started down the escarpment facing forward, as though she were descending a staircase. Corylus felt his eyes narrow; then he smiled. Of course the soles of her feet would be able to cling to crevices too tiny for his eye to see.

The furry creature watched him. Corylus thought about asking if it too could get to the beach unaided, then simply turned around and started down himself. He'd been called silly quite a number of times since he met the sprite, and he was beginning to wonder if she wasn't correct.

His body no longer hurt the way it had immediately after the fight with the Cyclops, but he had taken enough of a pounding to leave anybody groggy. Maybe that was an excuse for being slow to understand what was happening.

The cliff was limestone, steep but corroded by salt and storms. There were plenty of hand- and footholds, though Corylus had to test each one before he put his full weight on it. He simply kept going down until his hobnailed sandal clashed on the beach.

He looked up. The creature was peering over the edge at him. When it saw that he had reached the ground, it leaped like a squirrel.

Corylus flattened against the escarpment reflexively. His first thought had been to try to catch the creature, but keeping out of the way was a better idea.

Its narrow feet sprayed shingle. It bounced up as part of the same motion, spun in the air, and landed again: lightly this time, and facing Corylus.

It's laughing. I'm sure it's laughing.

Whether the creature was or not, Coryla certainly laughed merrily. "You males," she said affectionately. "Always posturing to each other."

She turned and walked toward the nearer ship. She was still giggling.

Instead of following the sprite and her companion, Corylus walked to the man in armor with his skull crushed. He had been killed very recently, but the fierce sun was already beginning to rot the blood and other leaking fluids.

The fellow's sword was still in its scabbard. Corylus drew it. The blade was made of the same fiery metal as the armor. It was slim, slightly curved, and a little longer than the infantry sword he was used to. He'd practiced with the horsemen's longer weapons, though.

It wouldn't be his first choice, but it was the only thing available here. Maybe he would have a chance to replace it with steel before he found himself in a real fight. He squatted to unfasten the sword belt. Instead of a buckle it had an unfamiliar latch that opened when he turned it.

"You should take orichalc armor for yourself too," the sprite said as she wandered back from the ship she had been looking at.

"Orichalc?" Corylus said, pinging the breastplate with his fingernail. "This?"

The orichalc he knew about was a copper alloy which could be polished to look like gold. Whatever this metal was, it certainly wasn't that.

"Yes, orichalc," she said, rocking what was left of the corpse's head back and forth with a toe. She giggled again and added, "You'll have to take the helmet from the other Minos, I guess, won't you?"

"Yes," said Corylus. The body armor had the same kind of catches as the belt; he began to turn them. He wasn't squeamish, but he didn't care to strip bodies quite so thoroughly dead.

The furry creature had prowled the deck of the nearer ship, then disappeared through a hatch into what must have been a very small hold. When it reappeared, it dropped to the beach and walked to the other ship.

It walked in a hunched posture. Its arms were long enough that it could have put them down without stooping further, but instead it kept them close to its chest.

Like a praying mantis, Corylus thought. Not a snake.

He grinned, remembering the sprite's comment about posturing. She was a perceptive little thing.

Corylus belted on the sword, but he carried the armor in his left hand as he walked to the second corpse; the second Minos, the sprite had called him. "What do you mean by Minos, mistress?" he said. "Are they a tribe?"

"They claim to be a different tribe from the commoners," Coryla said without particular interest. She continued to stand beside the corpse whose armor he'd taken. "They're probably lying, though. You humans always lie to make yourselves look bigger than you are, don't you?"

"Some men do," Corylus said. Getting angry because a comment had some truth in it would be childish and, well, silly.

He set down the armor and squatted by the figure whose chest had been flattened. The helmet seemed undamaged, though. The screen covering the face blurred the corpse's features.

"Well, anyway, the Minoi rule Atlantis," Coryla said. "They're magicians. When they're born, they get a tattoo on their foreheads. Not that you'd have been able to tell with this one."

She toed the corpse again. Her sense of humor was a lot like that of a veteran soldier, a fact that Corylus found oddly comforting in this place.

A single catch released the faceplate. Corylus lifted it up on the hinge to remove the helmet. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at the sprite.

"Mistress," he said. "This was a woman."

"The armor adjusts," she said. "It will fit you, even if you're not a magician yourself."

I suppose that's all that really matters, Corylus thought. He lifted the helmet off, supporting the dead woman's shoulders with his free hand; then he lowered her with as much care as he could. He wondered about burying her, but there were at least twenty bodies, some of them mangled beyond certainty that they were human.

Treat them like the German dead after a battle, he decided. Unless you're going to camp on the field, let the wolves and crows take care of the job.

The creature leaped thirty feet from the deck of the second ship back to the upper railing of vessel near to Corylus and the sprite. It squatted there, watching them. The shape of its face gave it a look of bright interest, but there was no real way a human could read the expressions of something so utterly inhuman.

"We can go, I suppose," Corylus said as he straightened. "That is, if you're ready."

He held helmet and corselet in his left hand. They weren't unmanageably heavy, and he preferred to keep one hand free.

Instead of answering, the sprite walked past him toward the ship. The creature watched her, moving only his head, and that just enough to follow her approach.

"Aren't you going to put the armor on?" she said. She didn't look back toward him. "It won't protect you if you're not wearing it."

It didn't help the Minoi who were wearing it before, Corylus thought, but of course there might be dangers besides the chance of being clubbed by a giant whose strength was all out of proportion to its considerable size.

Aloud he said, "It looks uncomfortable, mistress, especially the helmet. Is the armor necessary now?"

"Am I a soothsayer?" Coryla said. "If you know the future, cousin, then do as your wisdom directs."

She caressed the polished deck planks, then stepped aboard by the low side. She stood easily, despite the slope.

Corylus stopped, set the armor down, and took off the belt so that he could put the corselet on. When he closed and latched it, the metal seemed to flow against his ribs.

He lengthened the belt that he'd taken up to fit his waist under only a tunic, then donned it also. Finally he set the helmet on his head. It too fit, just as the sprite had said it would.

The orichalc equipment was less constricting than the mail and legionary helmet with which he was familiar. He didn't latch the grill. That would take only a sweep of his hand to complete, if necessary.

He climbed aboard. The sprite watched him with a smile.

"The flames that the projector in the bow throws…," she said, nodding toward the knotted apparatus that Corylus had taken for a stubby winch of some kind. "The armor will help you with them. And there are other things."

"Thank you, mistress," Corylus said. He bowed toward her.

The golden furred creature hopped to the deck and took three mincing strides to the stern. Its narrow tongue licked the air. The ship gave a shudder and rocked upright on its keel.

The silence of the crowd as Serdain and Kalpos marched Hedia across the plaza was disquieting. Their retainers followed in line. They wore their daggers, but their nets and poles remained in the ships.

Ropes of light rippling like molten glass bound Hedia's waist to the nearer hand of each Minos. They didn't hinder her so long as she kept in step with her captors, but when she deliberately hesitated in mid-step, the bonds jerked her forward with a jolt of pain. It felt as though she had been dropped into boiling water for an instant.

Well, she hadn't expected to be able to break free by force. Violence wasn't a tool she had ever found congenial.

The entrance was a slender triangle, echoing the design of the spire itself. It was twenty feet wide at the base, but it seemed narrow because its top was almost a hundred feet overhead. Hedia glanced up: the orichalc ball must be at least a thousand feet in the air.

She almost stumbled again-in genuine shock-when she and her captors stepped inside. The spire's interior was the largest enclosed space Hedia had ever seen. Indeed, it was larger than her dreams of what was possible.

It was all a single room, from the glassy floor to the peak so high that it made Hedia dizzy when she looked up at it. The bonds dashed pain over her again, but because that pulled her back to the present, it was an almost welcome relief.

Almost. The shimmering fetters cut like the whips of the Furies. One more thing to pay back when opportunity presents itself…

Ramps like those of an amphitheater slanted around the interior in narrowing helixes. People stood against their railings for as far up as Hedia could see before the light through the crystal walls blurred everything into a bright haze. There were unthinkably many people present, perhaps as many as the crowd in the Circus Maximus for a full card of races.

They were all watching Hedia and the Minoi holding her. I'm scarcely looking my best, she thought as her captors led her to the center of the huge hall. Though since nobody else cared, she didn't suppose she ought to either.

Cool air rushed up through narrow slots in the crystal floor. It dried the sweat on Hedia's body and made her scrapes and scratches itch less. She would still give a year of her life for a bath; though-she smiled coldly-a bath wouldn't be at the top of the list if she were being offered wishes.

Of course, her life might not have a year remaining. Thought of the amphitheater brought to mind watching lions being loosed on prisoners who had been bound to posts and were as naked as she was now.

"Stand here," Serdain said. Hedia stopped. She couldn't see anything different about this patch of floor. It was translucent with a vaguely blue cast.

The Minoi each muttered something and stepped away. Hedia's waist was free, but the flowing hardness now gripped her ankles. She tried turning with care prompted by the vicious bite the bonds had given her when she fought them.

She was able to do that so long as she remained on the same patch of crystal. A tentative step forward caused the flowing light to bind her; she didn't try pushing beyond that point. She could stand such pain as she needed to, but it wasn't an experience she cared for.

Until she turned, Hedia hadn't realized that the crowd from the plaza had followed her into the hall. The scores of Minoi formed a circle around her. Their armor caught the light wicking through the crystal walls; the metal shone like cold fire in the cool blue ambiance.

They had taken their helmets off. Hedia could see that at least a dozen were women, but that left her with many possible ways to improve her situation. Retainers formed blocks behind individual Minoi as they had done on the plaza earlier.

"The Council of the Minoi is in session," said a voice. "Let all the world take notice and obey!"

Hedia couldn't tell who was speaking or even be sure of the direction from which the voice came. It was ordinary sound, not ideas forming in her mind, and the words hadn't been shouted.

From the way the whispers and shuffling stilled, everyone in the vast enclosure must have heard it. Perhaps it was magic, but it might have been simply an improvement on the excellent acoustics of the theaters with which Hedia was familiar.

"Our Servitors have succeeded in capturing and bringing to us the wizard who is the key of the threat to us," the voice continued. "All that remains to ensure our safety is to bring her to the notice of Typhon, then send her to the Underworld by the path that she has already traversed. Typhon will follow and be bound inextricably."

"The Servitors have made a mistake," said another voice, this time clearly a woman speaking. "Look at her! She's not a Minos."

Although Hedia couldn't identify this speaker either, she noticed this time in her survey that each Minos held an object and was gazing into it. The individual talismans differed: crystals of one sort or another were common, but some of the Minoi had what seemed to be common pebbles like the one Serdain had used to fly the ship that brought her here. Occasionally she saw a tiny orichalc machine or a sculpture.

"She doesn't have the mark, but that means nothing," said what might have been the first voice. "Her culture has its own forms; we mustn't be parochial in our views."

"But look at her aura!" said the female voice. "She cannot possibly be a Minos. She's as common as the serfs who spread night soil on the crops!"

If I learn who you are, dearie…, Hedia thought as she continued to smile. I may one day serve you out in a fashion that will make you less eager to insult a lady of Carce.

"She has visited the Underworld and returned," responded multiple voices in near unison. "No one but a great wizard could do that. None of us could do it: therefore we sent Servitors."

What if they decide I'm not a wizard? Hedia thought. If they think they're going to put me to spreading manure on flower beds, they're going to get an unpleasant surprise.

The alternative, being dangled before a monster like a strip of pork on a shark hook, wasn't ideal either, but Hedia had never assumed that monsters had snatched her from her bed for her own benefit. Being bait seemed to offer more possibilities.

Thought of being snatched from bed reminded Hedia of the Servitors. The glass men with the hunting party had remained aboard the ships, and she didn't see others here in the hall. Were the creatures really alive? Were they absent now simply because there was no need of their presence, or were they barred for the same reason women were not allowed to watch the Senate in session: out of fear?

That thought made Hedia smile wider and more harshly. Most men wouldn't have agreed with her assessment of the real reason women weren't allowed in the Senate chamber, but she had no doubt that she was correct. Men demeaned what they feared, and they were rightly afraid of women's power over them.

"And she is linked to Typhon," said another voice, male and elderly as best Hedia could judge. "She is best suited, perhaps uniquely suited, to draw the monster away from Atlantis and to that bourn from which it cannot return."

Why in heaven do they think I'm connected with that monster? But Hedia had to consciously smooth the frown from her forehead. Am I connected with it? There's so much I don't understand.

I don't understand any of this!

"We don't know that," said what was certainly the female voice which had objected to Hedia's aura-whatever an aura was. "The link is to the place but not to the person except by conjecture. I say the Servitors took the wrong person."

"The link from Typhon to her home is clear," said what must have been a majority of the Minoi present. "It is certain that this is the one whom the Servitors tracked back from the Underworld, where only a wizard could go and return. Logic indicates that one and the same person is responsible for both. We will offer her to Typhon and lead the monster to the Underworld."

"I am Hedia, daughter of Marcus Hedius Robustus, consul and descendent of consuls!" Hedia said. The vastness seemed to drink her voice; she didn't know if anyone, even Serdain and Kalpos a few feet away, could hear her. "I am a lady of Carce! Return me to my home or face the anger of the gods who have raised Carce to the throne of nations!"

Instead of a response, she heard a burst of unintelligible chittering, like that of a frog pond during an evening shower. After a moment-a few heartbeats, no more-a chorus said, "The Council of the Minoi decrees that this female shall be offered to Typhon, then brought to the Underworld where she and it shall be sequestered forever. It shall be done!"

"I am Hedia, wife of Consul Gaius Alphenus Saxa! Release me and take me home!"

"She should be clothed," said the female voice. Hedia didn't know whether the woman was an ally in some fashion or if she simply enjoyed disagreeing with her peers. "We must provide her with a garment."

There was a further brief interval of wordless chirping. A number of voices-many, but not the great consensus of Hedia's condemnation-said, "She shall have a garment."

Almost immediately the Council in unison said, "Then she will be taken to the cells and held till we have made the necessary preparations. It shall be as we decree."

A youth, a commoner in a bleached white kilt, stepped between a pair of armored Minoi and trotted toward Hedia with his head lowered. He held a bundle which he tossed at her feet, turned, and scurried back the way he had come. He never looked up.

Hedia considered for a moment, then bent and opened the bundle. It was a shift folded from a single piece of cloth, with arm-holes in the sides and a head opening cut at the top. It was off-white with a dingy blue cast, but it seemed clean; its straight lines could be made attractive with a sash and a few judicious gatherings.

She shrugged it over her head. Though the garment was obviously utilitarian, the fabric itself was as soft as cobweb.

Hedia stood straighter, wondering if the female voice would demand that the prisoner be given a bath. Instead, and without warning, the floor beneath her feet began to sink. Her stomach flipped twice; for a moment she was afraid that she would disgrace herself by vomiting in public.

She wasn't in public. The floor of the hall was high above her; she could see only a glint of brighter light when she turned her eyes upward. The shaft in which she fell was as smooth and featureless as ice.

Hedia's descent slowed; weight threatened to buckle her knees. She stopped in a rotunda, facing two glassy Servitors.

"Where are you taking me?" she said.

Instead of answering-could they answer?-they bent and shifted the bonds from her ankles to her waist again. That done, they marched her down a corridor with cells to either side. Through the door gratings Hedia saw shapes moving. She didn't think they were all human, or at least fully human.

"When will I be released?" she shouted.

The Servitors shoved her into an empty cell. The flowing fetters vanished.

The door of the cell clacked shut before Hedia could turn around.

Alphena couldn't see very much from the gryphon's back. The sky was black and filled with stars, but they weren't the constellations of Carce. Indeed, they didn't seem to be grouped at all, just scattered as randomly as a field of daisies.

Straight ahead were a pair of larger, diffuse, blobs which didn't appear to be coming closer though the gryphon's wings beat strongly. Alphena thought she saw detail in what at first had been featureless blurs, however.

By leaning forward carefully, clamping her knees, and gripping the longer feathers above the eagle head, Alphena was able to look past the wings and see that her mount had folded its legs beneath it like a cat. Which it was, she supposed, so far as its body and hind legs went.

The gryphon turned its head to fix her with his right eye. "If you fall," he said, "you will probably fall forever. Unless I should manage to turn and catch you in time, which has its own-"

He stretched out his right foreleg and extended the claws. They were thicker at the base than Alphena's thumbs, and the points were vanishingly sharp.

"-difficulties for you."

The gryphon laughed, a croaking sound from deep in its throat. If a man had behaved the way this creature was doing, Alphena would have struck him. That wasn't a practical response here.

She felt her expression softening into a grin. I take myself too seriously. By now I should realize how little I matter to the cosmos.

Aloud she said, "I appreciate your concern, Master Gryphon. Do you have a name?"

The gryphon chuckled again. "Who is there who could name me?" he said. "And I have not chosen to give a name to myself."

The creature's wings were relatively short and broad, like those of a raven. Though they beat powerfully, Alphena didn't feel the slap of air that she would have expected if a tame pigeon had taken off from her wrist. She seemed to be breathing normally, but she was beginning to wonder whether this was real or a dream.

"Is the light ahead of us Atlantis, master?" Alphena said. She knew she was speaking to occupy her mind. She had decided it was better to react to her nervousness than let her thoughts about the near future spiral down into paralysis.

"It will be Atlantis," said the gryphon, glancing back. "And Poseidonis. And then my task is completed, is it not so?"

Alphena felt her chest constrict with terror. How will I get home?

She let out her breath slowly. Because she hadn't immediately reacted aloud, she'd had time to realize that blurting, "You have to take me and mother back to Carce!" would be as useless-and possibly as dangerous-as a similar shrill demand directed to the Emperor.

"I will not venture to tell you your duty, Master Gryphon," Alphena said. "You will act as your honor requires you to act."

The great eagle head faced front again; the gryphon chuckled. "Such a clever little chick you are," he said. "Such a clever little wizard."

Alphena swallowed. That could have gone very badly wrong if she'd reacted as she would have done a few weeks ago, before she really started observing the way Hedia moved in a world where men had all the public forms of power.

She whispered, "Thank you, mother."

The stars moved visibly though still without forming familiar combinations. The vague light directly ahead became a view of a glade in which women in flowing garments stood or walked, sometimes hand in hand. Alphena didn't recognize the place or the faces, though she scanned them intently, hoping to see Hedia.

A spring-fed pool sent a trickle out into the forest. Eyes watched the women from the leaf-dappled water, but nothing moved except the ripples.

The gryphon flew on; the scene blurred to a desert under moonlight. Trees as large as temple pillars threw shadows onto sand, rocks, and thorny brush. Their trunks and upraised limbs were covered with needles.

A slight, stooping figure walked across the landscape. It had a fox's head and was covered with lustrous fur. It reached out a startlingly long forearm and snatched a scorpion from a rock. It snapped off the tail with delicate jaws, then swallowed the remainder of the scorpion like a moray eel taking a shrimp.

"Master?" Alphena said. "What is that beast?"

"Do you pray, little wizard?" the gryphon said. "If you do, then pray that you never get close enough to him to learn what he is."

The scene blurred to a village near the seashore. Fields hacked from the forest were turning green with spring crops.

Alphena's focus swooped from the rounded huts to a reed mat at the edge of the clearing, then beneath it into an underground chamber. The light that seeped through the mat-covered entrance shouldn't have been enough for vision, but Alphena saw a man squatting in the center of the room. He wore only a breechclout, and his iron-gray hair was bound in two braids. He held a reed pipe to his lips as if he were playing it, but there were no finger holes in the tube.

At the other end was fitted a murrhine cylinder. If it wasn't the artifact from Saxa's collection, it was the mirror image of it.

The man lowered the reed and looked at Alphena, still-faced. Smoke curled from the end of the reed and from the murrhine cylinder in which chopped herbs smoldered. There was no threat-no emotion whatever-in his expression, but for an instant Alphena had the feeling that she had stepped around a corner and found a tiger waiting.

He's the man I saw in the theater! When the others said they saw a monster!

The man smiled at her. His lips barely quirked, but the change was as profound as that from cloud to full moonlight.

Then he and his chamber were gone. The crystal city, by now a familiar image, formed in the globe of light.

"Little wizard," said the gryphon, "we have company, and I do not think they are friends."

Alphena had been concentrating on the window into other worlds toward which the gryphon was flying. If she was honest, as she tried to be at least with herself, she was doing that not only because it interested and affected her, but also because that allowed her to forget all the other things that were happening.

When the gryphon called her into the wider present, she saw that what had been the second blob of light now had the face of the moon; it was silvered over with light that seemed to come from inside. On the sphere, like a statue on a rounded plinth, stood the cold, angry woman who had appeared when Anna chanted over the basin.

The woman no longer held the leashes of her vultures. Alphena wondered for a moment where they had gone; then the woman faded away and two specks rose from the moon's cratered surface.

As they swelled toward her, Alphena saw that they were the three-headed vultures and that a figure in orichalc armor rode astride the middle neck of each bird. She didn't have to wonder any more.

"Your magic won't help you against the Minoi, little wizard," the gryphon said. "Not while we are between worlds."

"I'm not a wizard!" Alphena said. She drew her sword. "Can we fight them?"

This time the gryphon's chuckle was deeper and there was a catch in it. He said, "Of course we can fight them. Of course."

The gryphon shifted. Alphena swayed with her mount, gripping the feathered neck again with her free hand.

The vultures and their riders were becoming rapidly larger. Judging from the size of the armored figures, the Minoi, the birds were at least as big as the gryphon.

The hanging image of Poseidonis rotated into one of raw jungle. Alphena couldn't tell if it was the forest beyond the crystal city or if the scene was as distant as that of the desert minutes before.

She supposed it didn't matter. Nothing mattered until they had settled their account with the vultures.

The birds were approaching from above and below. The higher one banked slightly, allowing Alphena to meet the stare of the rider. The Atlantean's mesh-fronted helmet blurred her view of his features, but she could see that he had a moustache.

The Minoi had proper saddles, and they held reins to their mounts' middle head in their gauntleted left hands. They had drawn their swords also; the orichalc blades curved slightly upward at the tips. Alphena wondered how that fiery metal would fare against the demon-slaying blade she had brought back from the land of dreams and spirits.

We'll know soon enough.

The vultures edged closer. "Watch yourself," the gryphon muttered. With the words he stooped on his lower opponent. His fore claws were extended, and his eagle beak opened. His challenge could have pierced stone.

The vulture twisted with unexpected agility, spreading its talons to meet the attack. Its rider held his seat; his legs were locked at the ankles beneath his mount's neck.

When the gryphon dived, the second vulture plunged down from the left. Alphena turned to meet it, slashing with her sword instead of trying to thrust. Her blade met the Atlantean's with a shock that numbed her arm and scattered ropes of blue fire through the starry firmament.

The Minos fell backward out of the saddle, but his mount collided with the gryphon. Alphena lost her sword. She grabbed at the gryphon's neck with her right hand, but her arm had no feeling and her fingers, as lifeless as a statue's, slid over the feathers.

The gryphon snapped, catching one of the vulture's necks with a beak big enough to shear a bull's haunch. The violent movement flung Alphena off.

The first vulture had circled, gaining altitude; now it slanted toward her. The Minos leaned over his mount's neck, his sword poised to strike as he drove past. Given the way a similar sword had resisted her own lost blade, he would probably cut her in half.

The gryphon screamed and dived again on the circling vulture. Locked together, the giants tumbled away in a confused melee that Alphena couldn't have sorted out even if she had leisure to try.

You will fall forever, the gryphon said. Well, this wasn't his fault, but Alphena didn't really blame herself either. Sometimes you lose. It was as simple as that.

She couldn't see either the gryphon or the vultures. The stars glittered and shifted as she fell. The window in darkness which had been their destination had faded again to a glow.

The same thing might have happened if I'd gotten there. How could I have fought an army of these Minoi?

The blur of light coalesced again. Alphena saw the seashore village and the man with braided hair. He held his smoking pipe in his left hand, but with his right he reached out and gripped her wrist.

Smiling minusculely, he drew Alphena toward him.

David Drake

Out of the Waters-ARC