Mistress of the Catacombs by Drake David Read Free Book Online

her stool and strode into the bungalow's central hall. She heard the sailor from the porch beyond, his voice lilting a complex joke to the pair of guards on duty. Even at this moment Ilna found herself hoping that Merota wasn't listening in also.
    "Chalcus!" she called. "Garric will be in the water garden. We've got to warn him. Now!"
    She swept out the front door. The Blood Eagles stiffened to attention; Chalcus by contrast looked as supple as the long silken cord around Ilna's waist, a sash for now and a noose at need.
    Ilna wasn't much of a runner, but she broke into a trot. This accursed palace was bigger than the whole of Barca's Hamlet, and she didn't know the terrain nearly as well.
    Chalcus was just as quick and agile on dry land as on shipboard. He swung along beside her. The only sign that he too felt the tension was the way his left hand reached down to steady the curved sword that he wasn't wearing at the moment.
    Chalcus didn't ask what the danger was, only grinned at her as they ran through a tunnel of pleached ironwoods. Maybe he didn't care.
    What Ilna saw in her fabric was Garric frozen in a cavern. Around him, holding him so there was no escape, were the eight legs of a huge female spider.
    And her mandibles were poised to suck Garric's life out.
    * * *
    "A quarter past the seventh hour!" said the crier standing like a colorful statue on his podium beside the flagstoned pathway. As Sharina waited for Garric, she glanced through the columns of the pergola toward the call. The servant turned his eyes aside so that he wouldn't seem to be spying on Prince Garric and his companions even though it was his job to call the time in their direction.
    On hot days Garric often worked in this corner of the compound with its tall hedges and fountains. Now he bent over the table, signing short parchment documents one at a time as Liane put them before him. A gaggle of aides and runners waited against need just outside the pergola, and a dozen Blood Eagles stood just beyond.
    Half the guards were turned outward, watching for threats which might lurk among the structures and plantings; the other six kept their eyes on those inside the pergola. Sharina smiled sadly. It wouldn't occur to Garric to worry that his sister might try to assassinate him; it wouldn't occur to a Blood Eagle not to worry.
    Fountains on each of three superimposed terraces splashed and gurgled as they fed a stream running in a channel of cut stone. The landscaping was as old as the palace compound, but recent repairs meant that some blocks of the soft volcanic rock were clean though most wore beards of moss that wobbled in the gentle current.
    An ascetic-looking man in sea-green silk knelt on the other side of the streamhead, apparently in prayer. He was a stranger to Sharina but from his dress not a servant.
    Garric finished the last of the patents and looked up; his eyes followed Sharina's. "That's the ruler of Laut," he said. "My next meeting." He shook his head in frustrated wonder. "I'm supposed to be talking to him now."
    "Echeus, the Intercessor of Laut," said Liane, amplifying Garric's statement rather than correcting him. She filed the sheaf of completed documents and closed her little desk. "I'll ready the next group for your signature while you're with Echeus; those will be the judicial appointments for the three Ataras."
    "Garric, if this isn't a good time—" Sharina said, a little irritated despite herself. She knew the demands on her brother's time, but the only reason she was here now was that he'd said he wanted to hear about Moon Wisdom as soon as possible.
    Her brother raised his hands. "Sharina, without the weight you take off me, and the organization Liane provides...," he said. He covered Liane's hand on the table; she turned it palm up and squeezed back fiercely.
    "Without those things," Garric went on, "the kingdom could better run itself than be in the muddle I'd make of it. I don't mean to complain about the part of the job