Shandie gritted his teeth. “I have a horrible suspicion that I am imagining all of this! I am convinced I am actually chained to a wall by my ankles.”
The goblins were leering at him. Even the dwarves seemed amused. The two djinns were listening intently, though. Like him, they were mundane.
“Well, you’re not!” the warlock said with all his old grumpiness. ”What you see may not be all real, but it’s a lot closer to reality than what the jailer sees. If you want anything, just ask-wine? Roast pheasant? A woman, maybe?”
Before the imperor could answer, the taller of the two djinns roared, ”Is that possible?” His red eyes shone like hot coals. Raspnex turned a sour gaze on him, having to look up although he was standing and the djinn was sitting on a soft divan. “Strictly speaking, no. But we can arrange it so you won’t know the difference.”
Both djinns leaped to their feet.
The dwarf sighed and waved a shovel hand at the door that led to their quarters. “Go ahead, then.”
The djinns vanished at a run and the door slammed.
“Last we’ll see of them for a while!” Moon Baiter remarked with a leer of fangs.
“You organize it, then,” Raspnex growled. “Give you a chance to be inventive! You, too?” he demanded of Shandie. For a moment the imperor thought of Eshiala, but his heart screamed at the thought of associating her with this vile dungeon, even an illusionary Eshiala.
“No. But I do want to know what’s happening to Inos!” Raspnex scowled and looked away. “She’ll be all right! Azak knows her of old and she’s Rap’s wife. Even the caliph won’t dare hurt Inos! Expect she’s living in real luxury, not just this occult artifice.”
“You don’t know that!”
“No. But I know that anything we do about it is more likely to make things worse than better for her. Don’t accuse me of cowardice, imp!”
Shandie clenched his fists. “I still don’t see why we can’t risk sending out a scout! I can walk through the shielding. If you made me some tools I could pick the locks—”
“You’d be the only imp at large in the city and the Covin may still be watching. I’ve told you—we stay here until Longday. Then we’ll break out in force and join in whatever’s happening. Until then, read your damnable poetry.”
Raspnex turned on his heel and stamped off into the quarters he shared with Jarga. The door clicked shut.
Shandie sat down angrily, avoiding the amused looks on the others’ faces.
Come to think of it, what was the old warlock up to with the jotunn? Shandie hadn’t seen her in days.
2
Bluerock had been a major city until the hurricane of 2953 caused the Pearlpool River to change its course and find a new mouth several leagues to the south. The harbor silted rapidly. Sailors departed first; merchants soon followed. Finding themselves without clientele, the artists and artisans went, also, and so did the harlots and the clergy. Teachers failed to find scholars, doctors ran out of patients. Within a generation, Bluerock shriveled from a great trading port to a shabby fishing town. Within another it was almost deserted.
Many of its buildings stood empty, inhabited only by bats and vermin, until the great hurricane of 2999 flattened them, and thereby completed the work the earlier storm had begun.
On the morning after the hurricane, Sister Chastity was out gathering windfalls—bananas, oranges, breadfruit, and many others.
The grounds of the convent were a shambles of branches and toppled trees, steaming in the hot sun and reeking of mulch. One chicken coop had disappeared and the dairy had lost half its roof, but the main building had survived unscathed. It had seen many hurricanes, for the Refuge of Constant Service had originally been built as a fortress. Its walls were cubits thick and its roof lead-coated. The Sisterhood had taken it over when shifting tides of politics had made a fortress at Bluerock unnecessary, some centuries ago. Since then the Refuge had served as a home for the religious and a hospice to the needy.
Chastity straightened and rubbed her aching back. To clear up this mess and restore the grounds to tidiness was going to take months. It was a task for an army of able-bodied gardeners, not eight aging women. She stooped with a grunt to lift her laden basket. There must be some good in hurricanes, for Holy Writ insisted that there was good in everything. There must be some good in all this waste and destruction, if she could only see it. Perhaps the exercise would be beneficial. The ways of the Gods were inscrutable. That was what faith was for.
Picking her way through the debris, she headed for the root cellar. The basket seemed to grow steadily heavier with every step. At the gate of the herb garden she paused to catch her breath, resting her burden on the wall.
She was disconcerted to discover that she could see the river from there, as the floral hedge had totally vanished. Oh, dear! The estuary was a swamp of floating wreckage. Beyond it stood the remains of the city. It was too far off to make out much detail, but many temple spires had disappeared. Tragedy! ”It’s a mess, isn’t it?” boomed a hearty voice.
Chastity turned, carefully not loosing her grip on the basket. Sister Docility was approaching, a rake slung over her shoulder. Docility was a large and energetic woman, with an infectious cheerfulness. She was just a teeny bit wearing at times, but no one could dislike Sister Docility.
“It is a disaster!” Chastity said. “I keep feeling that we should be over there, ministering to the injured.”
Sister Docility guffawed. “And just how do you propose to get there?”
“You don’t mean the bridge is down?”
“So Sister Humility says.”
Oh, dear! Sister Humility was a mere forty-five, the youngest of the eight remaining Sisters. She had the best eyesight of any of them, and reminded the others of it at every opportunity.
“But . . . Then we are cut off from the city?”
“What city?” Docility demanded, standing her rake upright and leaning on it. “Bluerock hasn’t been a real city since I was a girl, and even then it was failing. There’s precious little left of it now.”
“But if the bridge is down, then there will be no travelers coming by!”
The big woman shrugged. “We had two visitors last year and none the year before. I doubt the difference will be noticeable.”
Chastity sighed. What use was a Refuge without refugees, or oaths of service when there was nobody to serve? What good did eight elderly women do when they sang praise to the Gods and nobody heard? The Gods Themselves surely did not need to be reminded of Their goodness. When the sick were out of reach there could be no healing. When no new initiates came there could be no teaching—and there had been no initiates at the Refuge for many, many years. Chastity felt guilt at thinking such negative thoughts, but Constant Service seemed to be serving no useful purpose at all now. If the bridge was down, it was virtually cut off from the entire world on its little headland.
“Why,” Docility demanded in a stern voice, “are you out here anyway?”
“Why are you?” Chastity inquired with mild reproof.
The big woman pulled a face. Then her eyes twinkled. “To build up an appetite, I suppose.”
Chastity suppressed an unseemly snigger. Docility was not merely tall, she was buxom, also, and she enjoyed her food. Today was Sister Virtue’s turn to be Mother Superior. Virtue enjoyed cooking, so she almost always assigned herself kitchen duties, usually with disastrous results. Chastity was the most skilled cook among the eight of them—that was not vanity, it was acknowledged fact. She enjoyed cooking, which possibly was vanity. But the Acting Mother Superior had told Sister Chastity to gather up the deadfall fruit before it rotted, so that was what she must do, bound by her vows of obedience.
She must not complain at that, because yesterday she herself had been Mother and had sternly kept everyone at work when they had all been tempted to stand and stare out the windows at the hurricane.
It was seven years since old Verity had died. The sisters had written to the Matriarch of their order, asking her to name a replacement Mother Superior. The letter had perhaps gone astray, but at any rate no answer had ever come, so the sisters had continued to rotate the office among themselves ever since. Seven years ago, each sister had been Mother every fifteenth day. Now it was every eighth. One day there would be only one of them left and she could be Mother Superior all the time.
The arrangement worked quite well and no one ever suggested changing it. If the sisters ever did decide to choose a permanent leader, it would certainly be Docility. She was the only one of them with any real knack for leadership. She always took charge when there was a crisis. Like coping with yesterday’s hurricane, for instance—Docility had done all the thinking and planning and then dropped hints to Chastity so she could give the actual orders.