guidance. She shrugged.
We do not understand how to help you, she said flatly, to the air in general.
Yes, just a moment.
Another loud cracking sound. A couple of the marines jumped visibly. One whole quarter of the broken gray crust fell abruptly aside and lay there like a chunk of abandoned wasps nest. From the gap it left, the thing that had rocked back and forth within came scrabbling out like some gigantic crab looking for food.
Oaths laced the air. The soldiers backed up even farther. Archeth tried not to; it wouldn t have looked good.
The crab-like thing finished extricating itself and dropped to the floor, where it lay for a moment, feebly twitching one or two of its limbs as if exhausted. A pair of halberds swung down off marine shoulders and prodded inward.
That really won t be necessary, said the voice. Nagarn, Khiran, thank you. You can put those away.
The named halberdiers gaped at each other. Their weapons drooped in shock. The crab-like thing propped itself up and waddled sideways in the gap, then collapsed again. Archeth crouched to look closer. The new arrival was fully three feet across at the widest point, smooth and featureless gray on top, apart from a scattering of thumb-sized optics glowing softly blue or white. At a glance you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at some Kiriath-grown metallic giant mushroom until it moved. But even then, she saw, there was something awkward about the motion. The legs folded out from sculpted recesses in the lower half of the creature, but they seemed to work poorly, as if unused to supporting the thing s weight.
It will take three or four of you to pick me up. Briskly, as if it had heard her thoughts. I suggest we improvise some kind of sling.
She learned its name as they carried it, grunting and scuffling with the weight, up the slope of the crater. Later, once they d put together the suggested sling out of horse blankets and two halberd shafts and were on their way back to the river, she also got a vague, lengthy, and rather improbable sketch of its life story told in archaic High Kir, which she soon grew weary of trying to stay focused on. Like most Helmsmen of her acquaintance, Anasharal liked the sound of its own voice and seemed largely immune to modesty. and in return for which services, I was flung up into the heavens by the grateful king, set among the stars to gleam there in guidance for all travelers of good heart forever after.
Yeah? Archeth, riding alongside the sling and its carriers, slouched back in her saddle. So what are you doing back down here, then?
There was more snap in her voice than she d intended. Relentless desert heat and the constant darting glances from the men that wrapped her in with this burbling chunk of sorcery and iron it all added to her mounting irritability. But more than any of that was the dawning realization that when Manathan had spoken of messengers, she had assumed rushed to assume that he meant the Kiriath themselves, returning somehow, in some fairy-tale improbable fashion, from the veins of the Earth into which they had disappeared.
Instead, she had this.
I really don t think, daughter of Flaradnam, that you or any of your, uhm, friends here could remotely comprehend the complexity of decision making involved in letting me fall to Earth at this precise moment. Command decisions, I m talking about, taken in an arena so cold and empty that it would render your body a block of ice in a heartbeat and boil your blood in your veins.
I think you mean freeze.
Anasharal was silent for a moment, motionless in the sag and jog of the horse-blanket sling. Dry, metronome crunch of marching feet on either side but even the men carrying the sling looked down, surprised at the sudden quiet from their cargo.
You did say cold. Archeth, twisting the knife.
Think what you will. Like clockwork wound back up she couldn t be sure if the voice had turned sulky or was sneering. It won t affect anything that matters. Your perspective is as Earthbound as any mortal. I, on the other hand, have seen the rise and fall of kingdoms across the continents and through the ages, witnessed the passing of the Aldrain and the bloody, midwifed renaissance of Men, watched the brief, multitudinous lives of humans spinning by like dandelion seed on the wind, wrestled with the almost but actually not quite incalculable mathematics of it all, and I m telling you not to bother trying to comprehend any of it or me. Just follow my instructions and try to keep up.
We are carrying you, Archeth pointed out.
Yes, as your horse carries you but I doubt you ve tried to teach the beast basic algebra.
Seemingly satisfied with this retort, Anasharal lapsed again into silence and stayed that way until they reached the boats. There, it seemed to derive a childish satisfaction from startling the marines who crowded around the sling to see what their comrades had brought back. It called various of them by name, asked after their individual circumstances in perfect Tethanne Ganch, if the reptile peon bite wound in his shoulder still gave him trouble in winter, Hrandan whether he preferred assignment on the river frigate to his previous duties at Khangset, Shalag how he d found his time in Demlarashan and if things down there were as bad, in his opinion, as they were all saying. It was the most blatant piece of showing off Archeth could ever recall, even from a Helmsman and like all such tricks, it was spellbinding.
In the end, Senger Hald had to bellow for order over a drawn blade to get his men back about their tasks and everybody onto the small boats.
The good news, though, was that Lal Nyanar had succeeded in re-floating the Sword of Justice Divine. He met them at the hull door as they embarked the horses, rubbing his hands briskly, clearly pleased with himself. Hard sunlight slanted down through the open hatch, caught dust motes dancing in the damp gloom of the belowdeck. Painted a bright stripe across the satisfaction on Nyanar s face.
So then. What did you find?
They found me, said Anasharal. And it took them long enough.
Nyanar jumped. He stared at the inert chunk of metal the men were carrying onto his ship in its horse- blanket sling. You could see him struggling to make the connection with the irritable voice that had just spoken into his ear.
It s like a Helmsman, Senger Hald told him, stepping off the bobbing small boat and aboard the frigate.
A Helmsman fallen from the heavens, it says.
But so small?
Hald spread his arms eloquently. Both men looked at Archeth.
Great like I know any more about this than you do.
She faked a command confidence. We have no reason to doubt its word. We ll find out more when we get it back to Yhelteth.
Yeah just wait a minute. Nyanar gestured at the men carrying the sling, and they set it down on the planking with evident relief. We have no reason to trust it, either, whatever it is. This could be a, a trickster demon. An evil spirit enchained in iron.
Oh, charming.
It needed us to carry it here, Archeth said shortly. I really don t think we re in any danger.
No physical danger, perhaps. But what of our souls?
Lal Nyanar if Mahmal Shanta could only hear you now. What would he think of the man he once named his most promising student. His most promising collaborator?
Nyanar s gaze flickered back to the Helmsman. Now the fear was plain to see the mention of Shanta had only made matters worse. He faced Archeth with features set.
This is my vessel, my lady. My command. If I invite something demonic aboard, who knows what power I accord it over us all. I will not allow this.
The dust motes danced. The frigate s hull creaked softly around them in the sun-barred gloom. Men waited, stood there in the cool or crouched out on the bobbing small boats in the heat. They were all watching her.
As usual.
Archeth sighed. All right. Where s Galat? Let s get an invigilator s opinion on this, and then maybe we can all go home.
She'd expected him to insist on a closeted inquisition, a cabin alone with Anasharal, or maybe even to cleanse the frigate of any potentially demonic taint a tented retreat somewhere along the arid shoreline.
