Whole families were coming to the city; young children, mostly tired and restive, were the only exceptions to the general rule. Many were being dragged along screaming with no more ceremony than the occasional goat on a tether. Mothers looked more drawn than the men did, but all the adults shared an attitude of gray determination.
Ilna thought of the numbers whose prayers Alecto said had been aiding last night’s ceremony. Close proximity to the rites wasn’t necessary, but it seemed to be desired.
Flocks, herds, and pack animals carrying grain made up much of the traffic, but even so a city this size couldn’t sustain the increased population for long. The rites would climax shortly.
Ilna smiled coldly. The rites would climax one way or the other. She recalled what the wild girl had said about the Pack turning before long on those who had freed them.
Alecto was now repeating the words she’d used at the start of her chant. The sounds were nonsense to Ilna, but their repetition meant Alecto was ready to act. Ilna watched the travellers with a different intent.
A small flock of sheep ambled past. The beasts were more interested in her than the badger driving them, a solid young man whose full moustache must once have been his pride. There was nothing in his expression now but intent tempered with fear.
Ilna thought of choosing the badger, but following the flock was a welldressed horseman who seemed frowningly poised to ride either around or through the sheep. Someone garbed and mounted like him should have had attendants, but an impatient man might have pressed on ahead of his retinue.
Ilna stepped aside. “All right,” she said in an aside to the girl behind her.
Reflected light flickered across the horseman’s eyes. He straightened and stared in the direction of the flash. For a moment the reins slackened, and his body seemed on the verge of slumping from the saddle. Then he jerked his gelding’s head to the side and rode directly toward the pentacle.
The horse shouldered to the ground the old woman in its path. She squalled. Turnips spilled from the tapering basket on her back, but the rider paid her no heed. He dismounted in front of the grinning, sweating Alecto and stood with his hands loosely crossed in front of him.
“He’s yours,” Alecto said to Ilna in triumph. “Ask him anything you please.”
She got up shakily, trying to conceal the effort she’d spent in working her art. That was boasting, but it was the sort which Ilna preferred to that of those who’d claim whatever they did was hard beyond the understanding of mere mortals.
“What’s this city?” Ilna said crisply, starting with a question that might arouse suspicion but was innocent in itself. The gelding wasn’t trained to stand untethered. When it realized it was loose, it first edged, then walked toward the base of the wall where dew running down the stone watered rank grass.
“This is Donelle,” the man said. His eyes were downcast, fixed on the pentacle, and his voice had the slurred lifelessness of one talking in his sleep.
Donelle on Tisamur, much as Garric—probably Liane—had guessed. Ilna’s smile would have gone unnoticed except to those who knew her very well. This was where she’d meant to come. She’d just reached the place sooner and in an unexpected fashion.
“Why are you coming to Donelle?” she asked.
“The Mistress has called all Her servitors to Donelle,” the man said, “to help with the great work of returning Her to the throne of the world. We will join and pray at midday of the full moon, and She will reascend Her throne.”
Ilna frowned. The moon last night was near its first quarter. Seven days, as Garric would say; a handful of days and two days.
“How did the Mistress call you?” she said. “Did a priest tell you to come here?”
“Priest?” the man said. He blinked twice, slowly, as though his numbed mind was trying to find meaning in the word. “The Mistress called me. As I slept, She told me to come to Donelle to aid in the great work.”
Dreams, then; but more than just dreams, for the crowd of travellers was too large and too varied to be made up solely of religious fanatics. This fellow wore a cape embroidered in red, and his high leather boots were as well made as the slippers of courtiers in Valles. The band of his broad-brimmed hat was saffron silk and trailed behind him, and he wore a three-tiered gorget of gold and translucent stones.
A wealthy man might drop everything to follow God’s call, but Ilna very much doubted that a fop—who remained a fop—would do so.
“Who’s in charge of the, the great work?” Ilna said. She didn’t know how much help the names of the chief conspirators would be to Garric and the others, but she might as well ask.
“Lord Congin!” a man called from the road. “Where’s your horse, milord?”
“There it is!” another called, this time a woman. “Look, it’s over by the wall!”
“The Mistress is in charge of the great work,” the man said. “We are servitors doing the Mistress’s bidding.”
Three men and a woman wearing saffron ribbons from their shoulders trotted purposefully toward Ilna and their master. Several more men, coarsely garbed without the ribbon livery, continued to drive a train of packhorses toward the gate. They glanced only occasionally at their superiors.
Alecto wiped the pentacle away with a swift motion of her foot. Lord Congin looked wide-eyed first at her, then Ilna. He would’ve fallen backward if a retainer hadn’t caught him.
“What have you done to his lordship?” shrilled the female servant. “He has no business with an animal like you!”
Ilna caught Alecto’s wrist before it came up with the bronze dagger—as it surely would have done. To the servant Ilna said, “Go on your way. Now.”
She stepped in front of Alecto so that she could release the wild girl’s wrist and take the hank of cords into her hands instead. Her eyes met the servant’s. Lord Congin had his color back and was talking in puzzlement to the male retainers. The woman backed to rejoin them, and the whole party resumed their course to the gate.
“Can we leave this city now?” Alecto said.
“No,” said Ilna. “We’ll go in and see what more we can learn.”
She had no money, and Alecto probably didn’t know what money was, but it shouldn’t be hard to find work with all this influx to care for.
There might not be time before the full moon to get a message back to Garric and Tenoctris in Valles, but that didn’t mean Ilna’s presence here was useless. Not if this Mistress had a neck that a noose could wrap.
Only six of the bandits besides Garric, Vascay, and Hakken had come out to the boathouse to hear Metron describe his plan for releasing Thalemos from the Spike. The others preferred ignorance to being close to wizardry when they didn’t have to be.
Hakken wouldn’t have been present either if he weren’t one of those who’d be entering the prison.
Metron stood on the dock with the bandits facing him in a semicircle. Tint was splashing in the shallows nearby, pulling up cattails and stripping out the pith to eat. Garric looked around the willow-bordered lake. It was a sad place, even by daylight. He said, “Why here?”
It might be that the reason involved the creature Metron had been speaking to in the night. Garric wore his sword, and Hame carried the signal horn since Halophus was back in the stables.
The wizard shrugged. “To make my task easier,” he said. “I worked a great spell here when I hid underwater, and last night I came back while you all slept—”
Did Metron know he’d been watched? He didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
“—and worked another, gaining us allies for later in our quest. A place holds some of the power that’s evoked in it, so this little demonstration will take less effort.”
He seated himself cross-legged at the foot of the dock, his back to the lake’s reed-choked margin, and began scribing the planks with his athame. Vascay looked at Garric; Garric gave a brief nod.