13

The Golden Dragon rubbed gently against the bumpers of old rope hanging between her hull and the stone dock. Mule-drawn wagons loaded with crates and bales and barrels clashed slowly down the street which fronted the river harbor. Erdin was a busy port, and the goods passing through it were packed in more fashions than Cashel could have imagined.

"They're talking about you," Mellie said. She clung to Cashel's earlobe and leaned out, pointing toward Frasa and the Serian who'd come to the dock to meet the Golden Dragon. "They'll want you to do something for them."

Cashel stood at the end of the line of Serian crewmen, whom Jen paid as they stepped from the vessel to the dock one by one. The Highlanders clustered on the foredeck around the Erdin customs inspector, apparently fascinated by the official's tunic with its border of gold lace and purple. Cashel was sure the little killers didn't mean any harm, but the resplendent inspector had drawn himself up as though he were in the middle of a pit of poison snakes.

The vipers would have been a safer alternative than Highlanders in a hostile mood, of course.

"I guess that'd be Master Latias, the factor," he said. The Serian was of the same physical type as the brothers. His robe was dark blue rather than brown, but it had the same silken luster.

"That's right," Mellie agreed. "What are you going to tell them?"

Cashel wondered what Ilna was doing now. She'd like all this silk. There were bales of it in the holds, beautiful stuff, but Cashel knew he couldn't appreciate fabric the way Ilna did.

He sniffed the air. "You couldn't graze sheep around here," he said, deliberately avoiding Mellie's question. "Their feet would rot."

The sprite giggled and hugged his neck.

The sailor in front of Cashel received his pay and went to join the group of his fellows chattering with the entourage which accompanied Master Latias. The factor's servants weren't Serians, but they apparently spoke the language well enough to communicate the sort of information a sailor with pay in his purse wanted to know.

Frasa and Latias joined Jen and Cashel. "I told you," Mellie laughed in Cashel's ear.

The brothers whispered together for a moment. Latias acknowledged Cashel with a polite bow; Cashel responded with an awkward smile and a nod.

Latias was probably in his late twenties, though the cool propriety common to all Serian nobles made him seem more mature at first glance. He stood with his hands clasped, waiting for the brothers to finish their discussion.

Frasa turned to Cashel again and said, "First your pay, Master Cashel." He counted out silver coins into the youth's palm—Haft anchors, not the bronze and Erdin silver in which the Serian crewmen had been paid. Without a tally stick, Cashel was lost after the tenth coin.

"They're giving you a bonus," Mellie said. "Serians are nice people, for human beings."

With laughter in her voice she added, "But they'll want you to do something that'll be really hard."

"That's too much," Cashel blurted as Frasa continued to add coins.

Jen and Latias exchanged glances. Within the limited range in which Serians displayed emotions publicly, the factor looked surprised and Jen wore a satisfied smirk.

"Latias has proposed a return cargo at very acceptable terms," Jen said. "Since you negotiated the original transaction with him, we're adding a finder's fee to your wages."

"Cashel," Jen explained, "I've told Latias of the abilities you've demonstrated on our behalf. I believe you might be able to help him with a problem that has previously proven intractable."

The factor made a full formal bow to Cashel. "Master Cashel," he said. "If you would come with us to my compound and listen to my proposition, I'll double the amount you were just paid. If you accept the proposition, I'll pay you very much more."

"Well, that's only if you survive, of course," Mellie noted in the detached tone she used for things she deemed serious. "Whatever they want you to do will be a really hard thing, Cashel. Can you see it in his face?"

Cashel looked at the money in his palm. He didn't think he'd ever seen so many coins in one pile before, let alone silver coins.

"Well, I guess..." Cashel said. "It can't hurt to listen."

Cashel accompanied the three Serians down one of the streets joining the frontage road. Part of the factor's entourage boarded the Golden Dragon to secure the cargo until it could be unloaded; coincidentally they freed the customs inspector from his jabbering audience. The rest of the entourage preceded or followed the nobles, clearing a path through the traffic.

Cashel ran a hand slowly up and down his polished quarterstaff, trying not to think about the number of people crowded around him. It'd be different if they were sheep....

They passed a two-story building with an arcade on the lower floor. "The Fellowship Hall," Latias said, noticing Cashel's interest. "Many shippers and merchants in the overseas trade have offices there. The courtyard serves as a hiring hall for sailors. My family's office is combined with our living quarters so we have a separate compound nearby."

His eyebrows indicated the blank brick wall just across the next street. An arched gateway formed the compound's near corner. Serian servants threw open the gate. Its panels were lacquered a blue indistinguishable from Latias' robe, and the servants' tunics bore a blue stripe also.

Cashel saw three and perhaps the roof of a fourth separate building within the compound, and there were probably more. Pillared archways ran between them, though it didn't seem to him that they'd be much protection from a blowing rain.

Near the Serian doorkeepers were two husky local men carrying knobbed cudgels. They watched Cashel with looks of professional reserve. Cashel figured he and his quarterstaff could handle both of them together—and they figured the same thing. Clearly Serians in Erdin didn't face the sort of hostility Cashel had seen in Carcosa.

The attendants led the party to a tile-roofed building whose windows were made of colored glass. The individual panes were almost as small as the chips used in a mosaic, and the leading between the bits was much finer than anything Cashel had seen in Carcosa.

The interior was a single large room. Folding panels concealed doors in the sidewalls; servants entered on silent feet with trays of varicolored juices and fruit sliced into tidbits.

There was a low table in the center of the room with a chair on one side and three chairs on the other. Strongboxes of metal and metal-strapped hardwood rested against the walls; some of them were ornamented with fanciful moldings and painted designs.

Latias gestured his guests to the trio of chairs and took the one opposite. Cashel leaned his staff carefully against the wall and sat on the right end.

"Ooh..." Mellie said. She pointed toward a particularly garish chest on the back wall. A dog-faced demon in red enamel glared out from each of the iron panels. "Look at that one, Cashel. They'll want you to open it. Ooh, this will be hard!"

Servants, all of them women with long oval faces, knelt to offer refreshments. Cashel took a glass of pale green juice; it was tart and had a taste that he couldn't describe.

Latias tented his fingers. "Perhaps you already know why I would like to hire you, Master Cashel?" he said.

That was a test, a game. Cashel sensed Frasa stiffening in disapproval on the chair beside him. The factor's test reflected on the brothers' honesty as well as on the youth's.

Angered mainly by the insult to Jen and Frasa, who'd treated him well and paid him well beyond belief, Cashel put the juice glass on the floor. He stood. "If you wanted me to open that box there," he growled, nodding his head toward the enameled chest, "then you could be man enough to say so. I guess I'll leave now."

Latias gaped as if he'd been stabbed through the heart. He threw himself prostrate on the low table and laced his hands over the back of his neck in abject surrender.

Frasa and Jen rose to their feet. "Master Cashel," Frasa said, "my countryman's youth is no excuse for his behavior, but the fate of an entire clan depends on the accomplishment of the task he faces."

"Please," Jen added, "accept the apologies of my brother and me for Latias' boorish behavior, but hear him out."

Mellie laughed and clapped her little hands. "He'll know better than to play with my Cashel again!" she caroled. "Oh! That was just the thing!"

"Sir," Latias said, pressing the table. "I offer you any amends you choose. I have lived so long among folk without honor that I have dishonored myself!"

"Oh..." Cashel said, blushing fiercely. "Look, just tell me what you want me to do, all right? I don't know why I got my back up like that anyway."

Though he supposed he did know. People in Barca's Hamlet were as likely to lie and boast as people anywhere else, but nobody back home would think of doubting Cashel's word—or Ilna's either, if they knew what was good for them.

He wasn't home now. He'd likely never see Barca's Hamlet again. He had to get used to people calling him a liar, just as he'd gotten used to the fact that he didn't think very fast.

Latias stood but he kept his eyes cast down on the floor. "Master Cashel," he said, "my father was head of our family in Seres. When he traveled, as he did recently to visit the holdings which I administer on Sandrakkan, he brought with him the clan images so that he could carry out the necessary sacrifices on the anniversary of our descent from the gods. That will be tomorrow."

Frasa and Jen looked very solemn. Cashel nodded, because he was expected to do something. All he felt was a mild puzzlement, like when Garric read a passage from a book that really excited him and all Cashel could hear was words.

"I've never seen a god," Mellie said, combing her hair with the teeth of a tiny burr as she sat cross-legged on his shoulder. She grinned. "Do you think they're something you humans see instead of seeing my people, Cashel?"

"My father died unexpectedly at sea," Latias said. "He—"

"Oh!" Cashel blurted, more embarrassed than ever about the way he'd come down on the poor fellow. He didn't remember losing his own father, but he'd often seen how it hit sons and daughters in the borough. "I'm sorry about the way I acted. I didn't know you were upset."

The three Serians looked at him in guarded puzzlement. After a moment Latias said, "All the obsequies were carried out properly when the ship docked last week. There was no difficulty with that."

"Oh," Cashel said. He blushed again. He was missing something that the others thought was obvious. It wasn't a new experience, but Mellie rolling with laughter on his shoulder didn't help matters.

"My elder brother accompanied Father from Seres," the factor continued. "He became head of the clan with Father's death, so three days ago he opened the chest to prepare the images for tomorrow's sacrifice. The demon which Father had set to guard the images tore my brother to pieces and closed the chest again."

Mellie dropped down Cashel's side at her usual dizzying speed and trotted across the mats of woven grasses on the floor. Cashel hadn't seen cats around the Serians either here or back in Carcosa, but he still worried to see the sprite wandering that way.

"A demon killed your brother?" he said, trying to make sense of what the factor was telling him. He wished they were still sitting down; squatting, better yet. He thought best when his head was closer to the ground, it sometimes seemed.

"Yes, but we carried out his obsequies also," Latias said. "There was some difficulty finding all the pieces for the funeral pyre, but fortunately it happened in a closed room. I am therefore head of the clan, but I can't remove the images from the chest."

He smiled minusculely.

"Not and remain in condition to carry out the sacrifice, that is."

"Your father and brother were killed and all you're worried about is a, a sacrifice?" Cashel said in amazement. He wondered if this was the room where Latias' brother was torn apart. Those could be recent stains on the ceiling, scrubbed but not quite removed....

Mellie returned from her exploration of the iron chest. She did a backflip on the table, but her heart wasn't in the acrobatics. "The demon's name is Derg," she said nonchalantly. "Cashel, he's very strong."

"My father and brother and all our ancestors can be assured of a peace- ful afterlife," Latias said, speaking with the care of a man answering a question that he hadn't fully heard, "so long as the annual rites take place as scheduled. There's no time to make and consecrate a set of replacement images, you see."

"Didn't your brother know that a demon guarded the images, Latias?" Jen asked.

The factor shook his head. "No," he said, "though I can't say it came as a surprise. My father was a private man and, I'm sorry to say, a very suspicious one. He worked with foreign traders all his life until becoming head of the clan five years ago."

Latias stepped to the side of the table so that he could kneel to Cashel in full obeisance. He rose and added, "Obviously I've inherited some of the same attitudes, Master Cashel. Otherwise I wouldn't have doubted the abilities which Frasa and Jen assured me you have."

"Look," Cashel said. Without really thinking about it, he took his staff in his hands again. "I know you folks don't kill or anything, but couldn't you hire somebody local to, you know, be waiting when you open the box?"

"I tried that, yes," Latias agreed. "Points of steel, stone and bronze don't bite on the demon's flesh. A wooden club shattered, and the creature snapped a silken strangling cord. While it was killing all the hirelings, of course."

"Him, not it," said Mellie. She was back on his shoulder again, looking pensive. "Derg is male."

"Did you give them proper obsequies?" Cashel asked, pronouncing the word carefully and wondering what it meant. He'd thought they wanted him to use the quarterstaff.

The Serians looked at one another. Frasa said, "Well, the guards didn't have families—"

"Serian families," his brother interjected hastily.

"Serian families," Frasa repeated with a nod. "But I'm sure their dependents were compensated for their loss."

"Ah?" the factor said. "Yes, I, ah, compensated the victims' dependents. But the demon remains on guard within the chest."

"What do you want me to do about Derg?" Cashel said. "I don't understand."

"We didn't even know the demon's name," Latias said. "You just named him?"

"He's Derg," Cashel said, more embarrassed by the Serians' look of awe. "He's male." He swallowed. "I think."

"Oh, he's male, Cashel," the sprite said coolly. "Just like you."

"Our father died too suddenly to pass his authority over the demon on to my brother," Latias said. "Let alone to myself."

He took a deep breath. His face showed more emotion than Cashel had previously seen on a Serian noble, even when the brothers were in immediate danger of being beaten to death in Carcosa.

"Sir," he said. "A wizard of sufficient power can overcome the demon. The only alternative is to have the chest exorcised by whichever priesthood protected it in the first place. There isn't time to return it to Seres for that."

He knelt in submission. "Sir," he went on, "if you can free the images from their guardian, I'll willingly sign over half my personal fortune to you. The peaceful repose of my ancestors rests on you."

Cashel swallowed. "I still don't see how I can help," he said. "I knew a wizard, but she was back on Haft. And she said she wasn't very powerful anyway."

"You aren't a wizard the way they think," Mellie said. She sat with her arms crossed on her raised knees, glowering at the garish chest. "Not the way you think of the word either, Cashel. But you could fight Derg if you wanted to."

Cashel twisted his head to look directly at the sprite. "Mellie?" he said. He didn't care what the Serians thought about him talking to empty air. "Should I do this? Can I do this?"

The factor started to speak. Jen hushed him with a hand gesture. The brothers watched Cashel intently.

Mellie turned her face up to his. "I don't know what you should do, Cashel," she said. "I think you're very strong...stronger than Derg. But Derg is very strong."

Cashel didn't understand any of this. Somebody ought to give him a flock of sheep to mind; but then, if he'd wanted to herd sheep he should have stayed home in the borough. He'd wanted something different; and this is what he had.

He chuckled. Even if he didn't understand it.

"Sir," Latias said. He'd gotten up again, so at least Cashel was spared the embarrassment of having somebody kneeling before him like he was a statue of the Shepherd. "Apart from the material rewards I can provide, the man who defeats the demon can demand a wish from it. From him."

"No, no, he's wrong," Mellie said. "What Derg will grant you..."

She raised one leg almost straight in the air while she balanced on the toes of the other. Cashel couldn't imagine anybody being as limber as the sprite obviously was.

The Serians stared at him. He ignored them.

"...is what you'd wish for if you knew everything Derg does," Mellie said, switching legs in a scissors motion as sudden as the movements of a hummingbird's wings. She grinned at him. "And Derg knows a lot more than you do."

"Everybody knows more than I do," Cashel said. He grinned also. "Except about sheep."

"Of course," the sprite added, "first you have to defeat Derg."

"Master Latias," Cashel said, "I don't need your money. I've got more money now than I thought there was in the world."

That was only a small exaggeration. His pay crammed the purse around his neck tighter than a sausage fills its skin. He'd either have to get a bigger purse or change some of the silver into gold. Cashel or-Kenset with gold of his own!

"I guess this is pretty important to you, your ancestors and all," he went on. "And I guess Jen and Frasa want me to do this and—"

"Please, Cashel!" Frasa said. "This can't be anyone's decision but your own. If you would prefer to stay with us, my brother and I will gladly continue to employ you at your previous wage."

"Sure, I know," said Cashel. "But you wouldn't have brought me here if you didn't want me to help. I understand. You two've been good to me and I don't mind doing you a favor."

"The death of a clan by neglect of its rites is a terrible thing, Cashel," Jen said, his hands hidden in the opposite sleeves.

"Anyway," Cashel said, "you've been straight with me and you say Master Latias here has been straight with you."

He met the factor's gaze, wondering as he did so what Mellie was really thinking. He didn't understand the sprite any better than he did people; any better than he did a girl like Sharina, he supposed.

"I don't need your money, Master Latias," Cashel repeated. "But where I come from, people get by themselves by helping each other. I guess I'll help you now, since it seems like you need it."

"Well, I thought you would, Cashel," Mellie said with a tone to her voice that he couldn't identify. "After all, a flock has only one ram...."