The Mirror of Worlds by Drake David Read Free Book Online

gramps!" sneered the original speaker. "Dotty he were, Rebben, and you're dotty too if you think this fine lady's going to take the least note of what you say or your gramps ever said!"
    "Dotty am I, Hareth?" said Rebben, his voice rising immediately into something as shrill and harsh as a hawk's scream. "Well, he did say it! And I reckon he said it true, as he always said true. And anyhow, who are you to talk who falls asleep with his face in his porridge most nights if his daughter don't grab him quick, hey?"
    "Fellows, don't bump Lady Tenoctris, if you please," Cashel said, moving forward to crowd the old men away without having to touch them. He rotated his quarterstaff, bringing it across at an angle in front of him to make the same point as his words. "If you're going to argue, it'd be good if you went off a ways to do it."
    The men scattered like songbirds when a falcon strikes. Hareth and Rebben jumped to the same place, collided, and fell in a tangle with high-pitched cries.
    Cashel grimaced and put himself between Tenoctris and the men thrashing nearby. He'd been clumsy and almost caused what he'd been trying to prevent: one of the old fellows bumping Tenoctris into the pool.
    That hadn't happened though. Tenoctris walked past with a pert expression, avoiding the men on the ground with the same careless unconcern as she did the muddy patch from the overflow pipe.
    "I'm sure this is the place," the old wizard said cheerfully to Cashel, who followed her back to the circle she'd scribed beside the bank. "All I could tell from the spell I worked back in the palace is that the site would become important. I hope I can learn more now that I'm here."
    She settled herself cross-legged, facing the figure. She'd written things both inside and outside the circle, but Cashel could no more read the words than Hareth and his friends could've.
    Tenoctris raised the bamboo sliver. Before she started calling out the spell she glanced back at Cashel with a wry smile.
    "Of course this may not help either," she said. "I'm simply not a powerful wizard, as I've proved many times in the past."
    "You've never failed, Tenoctris," Cashel said quietly. "You've always done enough that we're still here. You are and the kingdom is, for all the people who fight evil."
    The old wizard's smile changed to something softer, more positive. "Yes," she said. "That's a way to think about it. Thank you, Cashel."
    She bent over the circle and began, " Stokter neoter ," tapping her wand on the written words of power as she spoke them. " Men menippa menoda ."
    Cashel looked away. Wizardry didn't bother him, especially when Tenoctris was doing it, but his job was to look out for her. Watching Tenoctris chant would be as silly as watching sheep crop grass instead of keeping an eye out for danger.
    And there was always a chance of danger when there was wizardry. Tenoctris said she could see the strands of power that sprang from certain places and twined among themselves. Those powers grew from temples and altars, especially old ones, but they came from graveyards and especially battlefields like this one. More men than Cashel could imagine had died here in blood and terror.
    Concentrated power attracted those that wanted power more than anything else, and they weren't all human.
    The local men had gathered by the side of the pool, standing tightly together and all watching Cashel and Tenoctris. They seemed angry and afraid, though maybe the moonlight exaggerated their expressions. Cashel smiled at them, hoping he seemed friendly, but he couldn't see that did any good.
    Tenoctris droned on. Sometimes Cashel caught a few syllables . . .  morchella barza  . . . but they didn't mean anything to him. The language a wizard spoke was directed of things—demiurges, Tenoctris called them, but that was gobbledygook to Cashel—that controlled the powers that the cosmos turned on.
    The bright star in the south continued to rise. The water of the memorial pool was