"Lady Hedia, isn't in Poseidonis any more," the gryphon said. "I could take you there, but Typhon has destroyed the city and-"
"Wait!" said Alphena. "My mother isn't in Poseidonis? Where is she, then?"
"I believe she has returned to Carce by now…," he said in a clearly guarded tone. "Though it isn't so simple as that, I'm afraid. I'm not avoiding your question, Alphena; I just don't know."
"Well, if you think mother is in Carce, then take me there!" Alphena said. She heard her tone and added, "I'm sorry, gryphon. I'm tired and, and upset. And I spoke without thinking. I would appreciate it if you would take me back to Carce or wherever Lady Hedia is. Ah, if you can?"
"Lady Alphena," the gryphon said. "It is not my place to advise you. I have agreed to serve you where I can, and I can certainly return you to the woman you refer to as your mother, if you wish. She is or shortly will be in the Field of Mars in Carce. But-"
"Go ahead, if you please," Alphena said more sharply than she had intended. She noticed that though the gryphon's wings were beating in a steady rhythm, neither Earth nor any other world was coming into focus they way it had when they flew up from her father's garden.
"There is a place where, if I understand your thinking, you would wish to be if you were aware of facts which it is not my prerogative to tell you," he said. "But if you direct me, I will take you to the Lady Hedia."
"You're as bad as my brother and his teacher, playing at words instead of saying what you mean!" Alphena said; but as she spoke, she knew she was wrong. The gryphon had said what he meant very clearly.
"I apologize again, master," she said, hoping he understood the sincerity with which she was speaking. "I'm tired, as I said, which isn't really an excuse. And I'm afraid my brother was the bright child of the family. I'm bright enough to take your advice, though. If you're still willing, please take me to the place you think I should be."
The gryphon gave his throaty chuckle. "With pleasure, little warrior," he said.
He banked toward one of the lesser blurs to which Alphena hadn't paid attention previously. She saw purple lightning crash.
I wish I had my sword, she thought. Or the copper axe.
But she felt excitement, not fear.
David Drake
Out of the Waters-ARC
CHAPTER 19
The sprite looked in disgust from the flame projector to Corylus. "That?" she said. "It makes fires. Why would I know anything about that?"
She shuddered theatrically. "It's ugly," she said. "You shouldn't use it."
Corylus felt a wash of frustrated anger, then despair. He gripped the starboard railing hard, wondering if his gauntleted hands would leave dimples in the wood.
He had no power over the sprite, no threat to offer that could force her to do what he wanted. More to the point, the worst torture imaginable wouldn't give her knowledge that she didn't possess. He didn't imagine that she was lying when she said she didn't know anything about the apparatus. Why would a tree nymph know how to operate a flame projector?
The ship circled as it rose, banking slightly to the right so that Corylus could look straight down if he wanted to. Wholesale establishments and market gardens lined the road into Carce, interspersed with the occasional tavern for travellers.
People looked up and pointed. A sailor was lazing on his back as mules hauled his wine barge against the current. He stared at Corylus, then shouted, "Baali!" He leaped to his feet and dived overboard.
The Tiber was a textured brown flood, trailing occasional lines of bubbles. Corylus had never seen the river from high enough up to appreciate its whole presence before. It wasn't the Rhine, let alone the Danube, but it had a personality which compelled respect.
He visualized the river god rising from the stream with flowing brown locks and challenging him. Perhaps Father Tiber would know how to use this flame projector, Corylus thought. He felt better for the whimsy.
The Ancient spoke in a querulous, demanding voice, ending on an up-note. Corylus turned, clinking the flare of his helmet against his armored shoulder.
The sprite said, "I don't want-"
The Ancient spoke again, briefly but with a snap in his tone. He was glaring at her.
The sprite made a moue. "The place that makes it work is there in the back," she said to Corylus. She gestured with her elbow toward at six-pointed star with curving tips imprinted in the back of the apparatus. "You turn it sunwise."
The Ancient was grinning at him. "Thank you, master," Corylus said. He turned his attention to the flame weapon.
The ship had risen higher than it had in the past. The ground was at least a thousand feet below, and Carce spread like a mosaic of tile roofs in the northern distance.
There was an unfamiliar shimmering disk in the sky beyond the Citadel; it seemed to rest on the granite pylon which Augustus had brought from Egypt for the gnomon of his sundial. As he watched, a bump in the center of the disk grew into the bow of a ship; a moment later, the whole vessel flew free into the air above Carce.
Corylus touched the star on his weapon with the fingers of his left hand, then turned it. He felt a clicking through the gauntlets.
The device had been as rigidly fixed to the structure of the ship as the mast itself; now it quivered into life, moving with greasy obedience when Corylus touched the left handgrip. A triangle of light four inches to a side appeared over the forward-pointing spout, framing a section of sky.
"When you push down with your thumbs," the sprite said grudgingly, "fire comes out the front."
She looked at the deck and shook her head. In a barely audible voice she said, "I don't know how you can think of doing that, cousin. Using fire!"
Corylus closed the mesh visor of his helmet. The thin orichalc wires cast a soft blur over his vision, but they didn't blind him as he feared they might.
He thought about what the sprite had said. For a moment, he visualized a world in which men recoiled in horror from the thought of burning other men alive; a world in which the Batavian Scouts didn't dry the ears of Sarmatian raiders whom they had tracked down east of the Danube.
That world was almost real to him, but not quite. Now he sighted along the spout of the weapon as their ship slid down through the sky of Carce. A second Atlantean vessel was pressing through the disk of rainbow light.
The wings of Corylus' own ship stroked hard, lifting the bow slightly. He tugged on the handgrips to keep the first of the two Atlanteans in the lighted triangle. The weapon was perfectly balanced, but it was heavy enough that adjusting the aim took some effort.
He kept the snout swinging, judging the Atlantean's course and their own. It was a matter of figuring out where the target would be and aiming there. Like launching a javelin at a Sarmatian riding across our front…
The decks of the Atlantean vessel were crowded with people. Most of them wore brightly colored off-the-shoulder tunics, but there were also archers and spearmen in simpler garb and a handful of exquisites-women and children-who glittered like spider webs frosted with dew.
Many Atlanteans stared at Corylus, but they didn't seem concerned. They must think he had come through the portal ahead of their ship, that was all.
A Servitor stood beside the armored Minos in the stern; another held the grips of the fire projector in the bow. The glass men were looking down at the plaza between the sundial and the Altar of Peace where citizens of Carce were gathering to see the wonders despite the threatening clouds. The Servitor in the bow slanted his weapon to sweep the crowd.
In another world, the Minoi would meet the Senate in peace and their people would settle in this world, another nation among the hundreds already within the boundaries of a peaceful empire.