s
    
     t
    d
    n
    se:
    an
    
     ns
    uld
    
    out
    
    K~11.
    rec-
    er as
    
    oads
    men
    ians
    Why
    rnu S
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    349
    
     More by the lingering stench of war than anything else, Skarnu
    realized he was still in Algarvian-held country when dawn began to paint
    the sky ahead of him with pink. He and Raunu and a couple of other
    men still with them lay up for the day in the thickest patch of woods they
    could find. They shared the biscuits and hard cheese and chunks of blood
    sausage they had. Skarnu took the first watch. Midway through the
    morning, he shook one of the soldiers awake and lay down himself
     Next thing he knew, his dream of an earthquake turned into Ramm's
    hand on his shoulder. "Sun's down, sir," the veteran reported. "Time to
    get moving again."
     "Aye." Yawning, Skarnu wearily climbed to his feet. "If you hadn't
    got me up there, I could have slept another day around, I think."
     Raunu's chuckle was dry. "Couldn't we all, sir? But we'd better not."
     They went on as they had the night before. Once, they had to dive on
    to their bellies when a ley-line caravan full of Algarvian soldiers sped past,
    heading southeast. "They shouldn't be able to do that," Skarnu said
    angrily after the caravan had passed. "We should have done a better job
    of wrecking the grid."
     "We should have done a better job of a lot of things, sir," Raunu said,
    and Skarrm could hardly have disagreed with him.
     "How wide a sickle slice have they cut through us, sir?" one of the
    troopers asked, as the sickly-sweet smell of meat dead too long and the
      gerous reality of Algarvian
    
                    patrols went on and on and on.
     Too wide," Skarnu answered: a truth as obvious as Raunu's.
     After another hour or so, 'he spotted yet one more patrol, this one,
    unusually, in a field rather than going down a road. He needed a moment
    to realize these soldiers wore trousers, not kilts. When he did, his heart
    leapt within him. Without coming out from behind the bush that con-
    cealed him, he called softly: "King Gainibu!"
    
    "Who goes there?" one
    
    of them rapped out - in
    
     Mieran.
     Skamu's own language was sweet in his ears. He gave his name,

    




    adding, "My men and I have come across the Algarvian lines from the
    frontier force."
    
     "You're lucky, then, because cursed few have made it," the soldier
    answered. Bleakly, he added, "Cursed few have tried, come to that.
    Show yourselves, so we know vou aren't redhen(i mider-

    




    350
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Skarnu emerged from cover ahead of his men. He did it ostentatious
    so the Valmierans wouldn't take alarm and blaze him. One of the soldi
    came up, looked him over, talked with him, and called, "I think he's t
    real thing, Sergeant."
     "All right," the fellow in charge of the patrol answered. "Lead his P
    and him back to headquarters, then. We can use every man we find, a
    that's a fact."
     Headquarters gave Skarnu hope. When he reached them, though,
    discovered the senior officer there was an overage, overweight capt-,
    named Rudninku, whose command consisted of three understren
    companies.
     "Haven't got anything," he moaned. "Not enough men, not enou
    behemoths, not enough armor or weapons for half the ones we do hal
    not enough horses, no unicorns. I'm supposed to hold a couple of mi
    of front with this. I can't attack, not unless I want to kill myself I ca
    stop the redheads if they turn on me, either."
     "What can you do?" Skarnu demanded, hoping Rudninku would
    prodded, come up with something useful.
     He didn't. All he said was, "Sit tight and wait to see what happens
    the south. If we win, maybe I can pitch into the Algarvians' flank. If N
    lose - and things don't look good down there - I'll surrender. What el
    can I do?"
     "Go on fighting," Skarmi said. Rudninku looked at him as if he'd lo
    his mind.
    
     Some of the reports Hajaj used to mark the progress of the Derlavai
    War on the map in his office came from the Zuwayzi ministries
    Trapani and Priiekule. The two sets of reports didn't always gibe; tt
    Algarvians had a way of announcing good news for their side days befo
    the Valmierans admitted it was true.
     And some of Hajaj's reports came from the news sheets here i
    Bishah. Every once in a while, those were spectacularly wrong. Mor
    often than not, though, they got news from the far east faster and mo
    accurately than either ministry there.
     Hajaj* thrust a brass pin with a green glass head into the map east of th
    Valmieran town of Ventspils. Seeing just where Ventspils was made hi
    whistle softly: it lay well to the east of Priekule, and was almost as

    




    TNT-rr-~ TLjv; T) A Yy L-NTL~vz
    
    35
    
    north. The Algarvians had reached the Strait of Valmiera and made the
    Lagoans pull their men and dragons out of King Gainibu's land or see
    them cut off and killed or captured. The Lagoans had had to slaughter a
    lot of their behemoths, too, to keep them from falling into Algarvian
    
    hands
    
     And the Algarvians, having knocked Lagoas out of the fight for the
    time being, having trapped and reduced to impotence the main
    Valmieran army, were now executing a grand wheeling movement to the
    north and east against ... against not much, as far as Hajaj could tell.
     Shaddad, his secretary, came in and interrupted his contemplation.
    Shaddad, unusually for a Zuwayzi, was wearing a tunic and kilt that
    would have been stylish during Hajag"s university days in Trapani before
    the Six Years' War. Bowing to HajaJ, the secretary said, "Your
    Excellencv- I remind vou that the Marouis Balastro will be here in less
    
    than half an hour."
    
    "Meaning I had better shroud myself, eh?" Haijql' said
    
    Shaddad nodded. "Even so sir. It were better not to scandalize the
    
    Algarvian minister.
    
     "Oh, Balastro wouldn't be scandalized," HaJjaj said as he walked
    toward the closet from which he sometimes had to pull out clothes. "He
    is an Algarvian: he enjoys leering at the women here whenever he has
    occasion to come out on business. I admit he wouldn't be so glad to stare
    at my scrawny old carcass, though, and so I shall deck myself out for
    him " He ut on a tunic and kilt of somewhat more modern cut than
    
    Shaddad's
    
     Being of light, gauzy cotton, the clothing couldn't have made him
    much warmer than he was already. He imagined himself sweating mon
    all the same. His body felt confined, clammy. Clucking sorrowfiffly, he
    
    endured
    
    c in
     ore
    more
    
    of the
     c hull
     as far
    
     Marquis Balastro strutted in at precisely the appointed hour. The strut
    said he was happy with the world. The gleam in his eye said he had
    indeed eiljo\'cd the journey from the Algarvian ministry to King Shazli's
    palace. A serving woman dressed Zuwayzi-style - which is to say, in
    sandals and jewelry - brought tea and cakes and wine for him and Hajj aj.
    
    The gleam in his eye got brighter
    
     A cultivated man, Balastro accommodated himself to Zuwayzi
    rhvthms. Only after the serving woman had taken away the tray - and

    




    352
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    after he'd finished ogling her while she did it - did he say, "I have new
    of moment, your Excellency."
     "By all means, then, tell me what it is," HaJjaJ said. To his annoyance
    he'd spilled a drop of wine on his tunic. Another reason not to care fo
    cloth - it was harder to clean than skin.
     Balastro's eyes gleamed now in a different way. Leaning forward, away
    from the piled cushions against which he sat, he said, "Valnuera has asked
    for the terms on which we would consent to ending the war against her.
    She has, to put it another way, yielded."
     King Mezentio's minister spoke of Gaimbu's kingdom as if it were a
    woman. Aye, very much an Algarvian, HajaJ thought. Valmiera had yielded
    - yielded to force. Aloud HaJjaJ said, "This is a great day for Algarve."
     "It is. It truly is." Balastro's smile held anticipation no Vahnieran
    would have found pleasant. "We have plenty of scores to settle with the
    Kaunians, reaching back over many years. And settle them we shall."
     "What terms will you impose?" Hajaj* asked. He knew more than he
    liked about imposed terms. Unkerlant had given him painful lessons on
    the subject.
     "I am not privy to them all," Balastro replied. "I am not sure all have
    yet been set. Of a certainty, however, they shall not be light. Rivaroll will
    return to its rightful allegiance, that I know." He pointed to the map
    behind HaJjaJJ-
    
     HaJjaJ also turned to look at the map. The Zuwayzi foreign minister
    sighed as he faced Balastro once more. "Algarve is fortunate, to have a
    lost marquisate returned to her. We of Zuwayza, on the other hand, have
    had provinces tom away from their rightful sovereign."
     "I know that. King Mezentio knows that," Balastro said gravely. "The
    injustice you suffered grieves him. It surely rankles the spirit of every
    Algarvian who loves honor and night dealing."
     "If this be so" - HaJ'jaJ was glad he recalled how to use the Algarvian
    subjunctive, for he wanted Balastro to know he thought the proposition
    contrary to fact - "if this be so, I say, King Mezentio might have don~ a
    great deal more to show his gnief Forgive me for sounding tart, I beg you,
    but expressions of sympathy, however gracious, win back no land.',
     "I know that, too, and so does my sovereign." Balastro spread his
    hands in an extravagant Algarvian gesture. "But what would you have
    had him do? When Unkerlant began bullying you, we were at war with

    




    a
    CI
        Balastro had told an open secret after all. If the jelgavans couldn't figure
    e   out that Mezentio would try to deal with them next, they weren't very
        bright. Hajaj* didn't think the jelgavan nuinister to Zuwayza was very
    he bright, but that was jelgava's problem far more than his.
    on  He had more immediately urgent things to worry about, anyhow. "I
        also notice that, however giieved King Mezentio may be at what
    avc Zuwayza has suffered, he had no trouble sharing Forthweg with
    will Swernmel of Unkerlant."
    map "Again, not sharing Forthweg would have led to war with Unkerlant,
        and Algarve could not afford that," Balastro answered.
    ister                                                Listening carefully to the way Algarvians said things had its reward.
        "You could not afford it," Haijaj echoed. "Can you afford it now?"
    ve a
    have                                                 We are still at war in the east," the Algarvian minister replied.
        "Algarve fought in the east and west at the same time during the Six
    "The                                                 Years' War. The kingdom learned a lesson then: not to be so foolish
    every twice."
        "Ali," Hajaj said, and then, "Suppose Algarve were not at war in the
    arvian                                               east? What might she do in that case?" He did not want to ask the
    sitioll                                              question. It made him into a mendicant, hand out for alms. For his king
    done a dom's sake, he asked it anyhow.
    g you,                                               Balastro said, "For the time being we are at peace with Unkerlant. It
        would hardly be fitting for me to speak of an end to peace, which often
    proves so
    ead hishard to come by. For that reason, I shall say nothing." He
    u havewinked at the Zuwayzi foreign minister as if Hajaj* were a young,
    ar withshapely, naked woman.
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    353
    
    Forthweg and Sibiu, with Valmiera and jelgava. Should we have added
    King Swemmel to our list of foes?"
     "You have knocked out three of your foes now, even if you added
    Lagoas to the list," Ha~aj said. "And jelgava's fight against you, by all
    accounts, has been halfliearted at best."
     "Kaunians fear us." Balastro sounded very fierce. "Kaunians have good
    reason to fear us. We have won our greatest triumph over them since the
    collapse of the Kaunian Empire." By the fierce triumph on his face, he
    might have overthrown the Valmieran army singlehanded. Then he
    added, "Nor have we finished."
     Fla~aj would never have been so indiscreet. If he passed those words
    on to the jelgavan minister ... Well, what then? he wondered. Maybe

    




    354
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "I see," Hajjaj* murmured. "Aye, that is the proper practice." Balastro
    nodded, rectitude personified. HajaJJ went on, "Perhaps, though, you
    might send your attach& here to the palace, on the off chance that he
    should have something of interest to say to certain of our officers."
     "I find it very unlikely that he would," Balastro said, which dis-
    appointed Haijaj - had he misread the Algarvian minister? Balastro
    continued, "I think they should meet at some quiet place - a tearoom or
    a caf& or maybe a jeweler's - so they can have something pleasant to do
    should it turn out that their conversation is not mutually interesting."
     I 'It shall be as you say, of course," the Zuwayzi foreign minister
    replied, inclining his head. "You do realize, of course, that any meeting
    between one of your countrymen and one of mine will be hard to keep
    secret, however much we try."
     "Oh? Why is that?" Balastro asked, so innocently that HaJ'JaJJ started to
    laugh. Balastro looked mystified, which made Hajjaj laugh harder. With
    coppery hair and skins ranging from pink to tawny, Algarvians stood out
    in Zuwayza even if they went naked. Every once in a while, one of them
    would, which made them unusual among the pale folk of Derlavai.
    
     HajaJ said, "Aieweler's might be a good place to meet, come to think
    of it. If your attach6 happened to wear something other than a uniform,
    and if the officer with whom he spoke left off his ornaments of rank. .
     "Oh, certainly," Balastro said, as if he already took that for grante
    "Since they will not be meeting in an official capacity, they need not
    indeed, they should not - be dressed, or not dressed, in any formal way."
     "Nicely put," HaJjaJ said.
     "I thank you. I thank you very much." The Algarvian minister per-'
    formed a seated bow. "All this is moonbeams and shadows and gossamer,
    of course. Algarve is at peace with Unkerlant. As a matter of fact,
    Zuwayza is at peace with Unkerlant."
     "So we are." Now HaJjaJ did not try to hide his bit
    
                                     terness. "Wou
    that we had been at peace with Unkerlant this past winter as well."
     "If you cannot live at peace with your neighbors, or if the peace forcAl
    upon you is unjust, what better to do than take your revenge?" Balastr
    asked.
     "In this, you Algarvians are much like my folk," HaJjaJ* said,
    we are more likely to feud by clans than either as individuals, as you do,
    or as a united kingdom. But tell me, if you will, how Unkerlant Ins

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    355
    
    offended.                                  King Swernmel, curse him, did not move a stev over the
    
    border Unkerlant shared with Algarve before the Six Years' War."
    
    "But he wickedly prevented King Mezentio from conquering all c,
    
    Forthweg, which Algarve might easily have done after we smashed the
    armies King Penda sent into our northern provinces," Balastro replied.
     That struck Hajaj as a flimsy pretext. But a man looking for a fight
    needed no more than a flimsy pretext, if any at all. Unless Haijaj* alto-
    gether misread Balastro, the hot-blooded Algarvians were looking for a
    fight with Unkerlant, and looking for friends as well. Hajaj did not kn
    how friendly to Algarve Zuwayza ought to be. But Zuwayza was
    Unkerlant's enemy - he did know that. If Unkerlant had more enemies
    
    ... That will do, he thought.
    
    I
    
    d.    i
    
    Cr_
    
    er~
    
    act~
    
    uld
    
                                       rced
                                       strO
    
 ough
     do '
     has
    
    k:

    




    13.
    
    Talsu dug like a man possessed. Beside him, his friend Srrulsu also made
    the dirt fly. A few men over, Vartu, the late Colonel Dzirnavu's former
    servant, used his shovel with might and main. By the way they dug, all
    the men in the regiment might have suddenly imagined themselves
    turned into moles. All along the western foothills of the Bratanu
    Mountains, the jelgavan army was digging in.
     "SO much for meeting Forthweg halfway across Algarve," Talsu said,
    flinging a spadeful of dirt over his shoulder. "So much for taking
    Tn'carico." Another spadeful went. "So much for doing anything but
    waiting for the Algarvians to come and hit us." Another spadeful.
     Smilsu looked around to make sure no officers were within earshot,
    Then he said, "Powers above know I think our nobles are a pack of fools.
    This time, though, they may be right. What if the stinking redheads come
    and hit us the way they hit Valmlera? We'd better be ready for them,
    don't you think?" Like Talsu, he kept digging as he spoke.
     "How can they hit us the way they hit Valmiera?" Talsu demanded.
    He pointed back toward the east. "We've got the mountains to shield us,
    in case you didn't notice. I'd like to see the Algarvians try and go throu
    them in a hurry."
     Vartu put down his spade for a moment and rubbed his palms on his
    trousers. "That's what the Vahriierans said about their rough country too
    ng~tr
    he observed. "They were wrong. What makes you think you're i ,
     "More to the Bratanus than 'rough country'," Talsu answered. "Ho
    are they going to move fast through those passes?"
     "I don't know," Vartu said. "I'd bet a good deal that our generals don
    know, either. What I wouldn't care to bet is that the Algarvians don
    know.
    
    356

    




    I
    
    inu
    
    aid,
    ring
    but
    
    hot.
    bols.
    :onie
    hern,
    
    aded.
    Id us,
    
   on his
    too,
    W"
    "How
    
    ,s don't
    s don't
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    357
    
     "They aren't mages," Talsu said, and then amended that: "They aren't
    all mages, anyhow, any more than we are." Now he looked around.
    "Even with the stupid nobles we've got commanding us, we've pushed
    them back till now. Why should things change?"
     Smilsu gnawed at the rough skin by one fingernail. "They can aim
    their whole cursed army at us now, near enough. They beat Forthweg.
    They beat Sibiu. They just got done beating Valmiera and chasing all the
    Lagoans off the mainland of Derlaval. That leaves them - and us."
     "Hmm." Talsu hadn't looked at things from quite that angle. All at
    once, he started digging harder than ever. Smilsu laughed, took a swig of
    sour beer from the flask he wore on his hip, and also went back to
    digging.
     If the Algarvians were about to fall on the jelgavan army that had
    moved, however tentatively, into their territory, they gave no sign of it.
    Every now and then, a dragon would fly by from out of the west. No
    doubt the redhead aboard was looking down to see what the jelgavans
    were up to. But no eggs fell on the trenches Talsu and his friends were
    digging. No kilted Algarvian troopers milling out barbarous battle cries
    swarmed into the trenches, blazing or flinging little hand-tossed eggs or
    laying about them with knives. It was about as peaceful a war as Talsu
    could imagine.
     Like any sensible soldier, he enjoyed that while it lasted. He still won-
    dered how long it would last. That wasn't up to him. And, very plainly,
    his superiors had decided it wasn't up to them, either. That left it up to
    the Algarvians, a notion Talsu enjoyed rather less.
     But the lull did have its advantages. Mail came up to the front line for
    the first time in weeks. Talsu got a package from his mother: socks and
    drawers she and his sister had knitted for him. He also got a letter from
    his father, urging him, in harsh, badly spelled sentences, to go forth and
    conquer Algarve sing] ehanded.
     "What am I supposed to do with this?" he asked his friends. "My old
     man didn't fight in the last war. He doesn't know what things are like."
     "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if I were you," Smilsu said. "They
     tell all sorts of lies to the people back home. You can't blame the poor
     fools for belicving some of them. During the last war, my mother told
     me, they werc saying the Algarvians would slaughter everybody with
     blond hair if they won."

    




    358
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     "That's pretty stupid, all right," Talsu agreed. "I wonder what the
    Algarvians have to say about us."
     "Nothing good, that's for cursed sure," Smilsu said softly. "You ask
    me, though, it doesn't much matter to the likes of us which side wins the
    war, as long as we don't get blazed while it's going on."
     Talsu looked around again, to make sure he was the only one who'd
    heard that. "And you say I'm careless about the way I talk," he mur-
    mured. "Do you want to find out how dungeons work from the inside?"
     "Not so you'd notice," his friend answered. "But I don't think any-
    body would turn me in for the sake of licking some noble's backside."
    His mouth twisted into what looked like a smile. "Of course, I could be
    wrong. In that case, I'd probably have to try and kill the bastard before
    the nobles' watchdogs dragged me away."
     "How would you know who it was?" Talsu asked.
     "I'd have a pretty good notion," Smilsu said darkly. "Anyhow, I can
    think of a couple of people here who nobody would miss."
     "Don't look at me like that," Talsu said, which made Smilsu laugh.
    Then Talsu looked back over his shoulder. He started whispering again,
    and urgently: "Here. Stuff one of the socks from my mother in it. An
    officer's coming."
     Smilsu's mouth had been open to say more. He shut it with a snap and,
    alarm on his face, also turned to get a look at the newcomer. After a
    moment, he relaxed, at least to a degree. "It's not exactly an officer," he
    said. "It's only a mage."
    
     "Ali, you're right," Talsu said. Mages serving in the Jelgavan army
    wore officer's uniform to show they had the authority to command
    ordinary soldiers, but did not wear officer's badges, which would have
    shown they enjoyed that authority by right of birth. Instead, they used
    smaller, plainer badges that put them midway between true - noble -
    officers and the common herd of soldiers. Their authority was not a
    birthright, but rather a privilege granted by King Donalitu.
     Some sorcerers Talsu had seen enjoyed aping the arrogance of the
    nobility. Others realized they were 'ust jumped-up commoners, and
    didn't take themselves so seriously. This mage seemed a chipper enough
    fellow. As he drew near, he said, "You get on with your work fellov's
    and I'll do mine, and we'll all stay happy."
    
    Even Smilsu couldn't find anything to complain about there. "NoA0

    




    T
    
    d,
    
                                       the
                                       and
                                       ough
                                       ows,
    
    or SO
    
    IT,j-rn Tmv DAR WTIJ-Plq
    
    359
    
  bad," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, and went back to digging.
      Gninning, the mage went on, "Of course, we'd all be happier still if the
    
    war weren't on and we were sitting in a tavern drinking ale or wine laced
    with orange juice, but there's cursed little we can do about that, eh?"
     "Powers above " Talsu whisnered in astonishment. "He'd better be
    
    careful, or people will think he's a human being."
    
     "What have they sent you up to the front for, sir?" Vartu asked the
    mage. By his tone, he wondered if the mage had been forced to come up
    
    as a punishment.
    
     If the sorcerer noticed that, he gave no sign, answering, "I'm going to
    see what I can do to make it harder for the Algarvians; to detect exactly
    where these forward positions are. Can't promise it'll do any enormous
    amount of good, because the redheads will have mages, too, and what
    one maLye can do another can undo, but it may he some. The generals
    
    1-1- - the other side of the mountains think so a-how "
    
     "Fat lot of good magecraft did Valmiera," Smilsu said, but the soldierly
    gripe came out sounding halffiearted: this was more, and friendlier, atten-
    tion than the front-line soldiers had got up till now from the high nobles
    
    who led them
    
     And Talsu answered, "That's the point, I think. The king's got to be
    scared green that what happened to Valmiera will happen to us, too. If he
    cdii find anything that'll keep Algarve from niding roughshod over us,
    looks like he's going to try
    
     "Hitting the redheads harder from the start would have been nice, but
    you've been complaining about that for months," Smilsu said. He pointed
    at the mage with his short-handled spade. "What's he doing out there?"
     "Working magic, I expect," Talsu said. "That's what they pay him for,
    
    anyhow." Smilsu snorted and flipped dirt on to his boots.
    
     Out in front of the trench line, the mage paced back and forth. Had
    the Algarvians been in an aggressive mood, they would have had their
    line up close to that of the jelgavans, and could easily have blazed the
    blond sorcerer. But, for the time being, King Mezentio's men were busy
    elsmlicrc, wd seemed content to let the jelgavans; settle down in the
    
    fonfk1l],
    
     As the jc1gavan mage paced, he waved a large, fine opal that gleamed
    blue and green and red as the sun struck it at different angles. The charm
    he chanted - - a K-mi- dialect so archaic that Talsu who had

    




    360
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    learned the classical tongue as part of what schooling he'd had, could
    make out only a few words. That impressed him: great virtue would
    surely fill such an ancient spell.
     If it did, he couldn't discern it. When the mage stopped chanting and
    returned the jewel to a trouser pocket, nothing seemed to have changed.
    Talsu still saw the rolling hills ahead of him, and out beyond them the plains
    of northern Algarve, the plains the Jelgavan army hadn't quite reached.
     He wasn't the only one who saw them, and saw they remained as they
    had been. A soldier farther down the trench line called, "Begging your
    pardon, sit, but what did you just do?"
     "Eh?" The sorcerer seemed worn, as his kind commonly did after
    working some considerable magic. Then he brightened. "Ali. Of course
    - you can't see it from that side. Come out here and look at your posi-
    tion, those of you who care to."
     Looking at the trenches was easier and more enjoyable than digging
    them. Talsu scrambled up on to level ground. So did a good many of his
    comrades. He walked backwards toward the mage, staring at the entrench-
    ments. They kept night on looking Eke entrenchments. He wondered
    whether the wizard was as smart as he thought he was.
     Then Talsu's backward peregrination carried him past the sorcerer.
    He and several other soldiers exclaimed, all more or less at the same time.
    He could still see the trenches he'd helped dig, but at the same time he
    also saw the ground undisturbed. He took another couple of steps away
    from the entrenchments, and they grew less distinct to his eye. He took
    a few more steps, and they almost vanished.
     "There's a clever device - a Kuusaman discovery, actually - called
    half-silvered mirror," the mage said. "If what's in front of it is brighter
    than what's in back, it reflects like any other mirror. But if what's in back
    of it is brighter than what's in front, it lets light through and turns into a
    window instea
     Talsu said,
    
            d. This is sorcery on the same principle."
            "Pity we didn't have something like this to protect us when
    we were moving forward against the Algarvians."
     "No one's ever been able to make it a kinetic sorcery," the mage said.
    Seeing that Talsu didn't understand, he explained: "One that can move
    along with a party of soldiers. It's better suited to static defense. Eveii
    here, it's far from perfect. At too close an approach or at strong se--#
    sorcery, it falls. But it's better than nothing."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    r.
    e.
    e
    ay
    
    Iter
    ack-
    
    to a
    
    hen
    
    said.
    move
    Even
    search
    
    361
    
     "Aye," Talsu said. He walked back toward the entrenchments, which
    returned to clear view as he stepped within the inner limit of the spell. It
    was indeed better than nothing. It was certainly better than any protec-
    tion he and his comrades had had up till now. More than anything else,
    that told him how worried King Donalitu and his counselors were.
    
     On the mainland of Derlaval, spring was giving way to summer. In the
    country of the Ice People, winter reluctantly admitted spring might be
    coming. Such chill, gloomy weather perfectly fit Fernao's mood. He'd
    managed to smuggle King Penda of Forthweg out of Yanina, but the only
    ship on which he'd been able to gain passage for them had been one sail-
    ing south across the Narrow Sea to Heshbon, the chief town - indeed,
    almost the only town - in the seaside stretch of the austral continent that
    Yanina controlled.
     Here, Fernao was not Fernao. He styled himself Fernastro, and spoke
    Algarvian rather than Lagoan. Penda had shaved his beard and was going
    by the name of Olo, an Unkerlanter appellation. Forthwegian was close
    enough to the northeastern dialects of Unkerlanter to let him pass for one
    of King Swemmel's subJects. Fernao had also worked small sorceries on
    them, so neither looked quite as he had in Yanina.
     Pencla had not proved a good traveling companion. Used to palaces,
    he found distinctly less than appealing the grimy hostel in Heshbon
    where he and Fernao lodged. "Swernmel's dungeon would be more
    comfortable," he grumbled.
    
     Femao answered in Forthwegian: "I am sure it could be arranged."
     The fugitive king shuddered. "Perhaps I was rm'staken." His belly
    rumbled, loudly enough that he couldn't pretend Fernao hadn't heard it.
    Instead, he sighed and said, "We may as well go downstairs and eat some-
    thing, if the kitchen can turn out anything worth eating."
     "Or even if it can't," Fernao said.
     The odds, he knevv, were not much better than even money. Yaninans
    ran the hostel. They did their best to cook in the hearty style of their
    homeland, but what they had to work with was what the Ice People ate:
    camel meat, camel milk, camel blood, and tubers that tasted like paste.
    They came up with all manner of stews, but few of them, to Fernao's
    mind, were hearty.
    
      He at4 anyway, spooning up meat and boiled tubers, drinking a spin't

    




    362
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    the folk of Heshbon distilled from the tubers. It also tasted like paste, but
    kicked like a unicorn. He found he enjoyed most meals more with his
    tongue numbed.
     As quickly as they could, he and Penda left the hostel and headed for
    the market square. "Maybe today we shall find a caravan faring east,"
    Penda said, as he did every day when they headed for the market square.
     "Aye, maybe we shall," Fernao answered absently. For one thing, he
    was tired of hearing Penda say that. For another, he was looking south,
    toward the Barrier Mountains. Whenever he was on the streets of
    Heshbon, he looked toward the mountains. Tall andjagged, they serrated
    the southern skyline. Snow and ice covered them from their peaks more
    than halfivay down to the lower ground that ran toward the sea.
    Adventurers had died climbing those peaks. Others had pushed past them
    into the frigid interior of the austral continent. Some had escaped the Ice
    People and mountain apes and other, lesser, dangers and written books
    about what they'd found.
     About half the people on the street were short, swarthy Yaninans,
    most of them with wool cloaks over their big-sleeved tunics and tights.
    The rest, except for a scattering of aliens like Fernao and Penda, were Ice
    People. They wore hooded robes of fur or woven camel hair that covered
    them from head to foot. Their beards, which they never trimmed, grew
    up to their eyes; their hairlines started less than an inch above their eye-
    brows. The women, unlike those of other races, had faces no less hairy
    than those of the men.
     They never bathed. The climate gave them some excuse, but not, to
    Fernao's mind, enough. Their stink filled the cold, crisp air, along with
    that of the camels they led. Those camels were as unlike those of
    Zuwayza as beasts sharing a name could be. They had two humps, not
    one, and thick coats of shaggy brown hair. Only their nasty tempers
    matched those of their desert cousins.
     Ice People had nasty tempers, too. A woman cursed a camel in her
    own guttural language. Fernao had no idea what she was saying, but it
    sounded hot enough to melt half the ice on the Barrier Mountains. Penda
    stared at her. "Do you suppose they're that hairy all over?" Before Fernao
    could reply, he went on, "Who would want one of them enough to try
    to find out?"
     " I think they are," Fernao told him. "And because they are, they're

    




    I
    
    her
    it it
    !nda
    rnaO
    :) try
    
    ev're
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    363
    
    all the go for a certain kind of customer, shall we say, at the very
    fanciest brothels in Priekule and Trapani and, I have to admit, in
    Setubal too "
    
     Pencla looked revolted. "I wish you had not told me that sir mage
    Fernao hid a smile. By his standards, Forthweg was a provincial land.
    Compared to this miserable stretch of sen-iifrozen ground, though,
    
    Penda's kingdom sudden looked a lot better.
    
    Fernao sighed. "If it weren't for the cinnabar here, the Ice People
    
    would be welcome to the whole miserable continent."
    
    "Were there no Derlavaians here, we should have had a much harder
    
    time escaping from Yanina," Pencla said.
    
    "That is so." Fernao admitted what he could scarcely deny. "Now,
    
    instead, we are having a hard time escaping from Heshbon."
    
     They strode into the market square. It was something like the lively
    one in the center of Patras, the capital of Yanina, but only something. As
    in much of Heshbon, camels remained the dominant theme. Ice People
    and Yaninans bartered flesh, milk, cheese, hair, the beasts themselves, and
    what they brought into Heshbon on their backs: furs and cinnabar, which
    
    came packed in camel-leathcr sacks.
    
     Yaninans and Ice People dickered in different ways. Yaninans were, as
    usual, even more excitable or more sincerelv excitable, than Alvarvians.
    
    They clapped their hands to their foreheads, rolled their eyes, jumped up
    
    and down, and often seemed on the point of suffening fits of apoplexy.
     "Call this cinnabar?" one of them roared, pointing to a sack full of the
    
    crushed oran e-red mineral
    
     "Aye," answered the man of the Ice People with whom he was dealing.
    Every line of his body bespoke utter indifference to his opponent's fury.
    I That on1v made the Yaninan more furious. "This is the worst cinnabar
    
    E- 'in the history of cinnabar!" he cried. "A dragon would flame better if you
    
    fed him beans and lit his farts than if you gave him this stuff."
     "Then don't trade for it," the man of the Ice People said.
    
    "You are a thieP. You are a robber!" the Yaninan shouted. The nomad
    
    in the long dirty robe just stood there, waiting for the allegedly civilized
    man from Derlavai to make his next offer. After the Yaninan calmed
    
    down enough to stop screeching for a moment, he did
    

    




    Penda said, "Most of the cinnabar the Yaninans buy here goes straight
    
    to Ahrarve."

    




    364              Harry Turtledove
    
     "I know," Fernao said unhappily. Before the Six Years' War, Algarv
    
    had held trading towns along the coast of the austral continent, to the ea
    of Heshbon. Now those towns were in the hands of Lagoas or Valmier
    (although, with Vahniera fallen to King Mezentio's men, who coul
    guess what would happen to the towns the Kaunian kingdom had con
    trolled?). If Fernao and Penda could get to Mizpah, the closest Lagoan
    ruled town, they would be safe.
     If. The war on the mainland of Derlavai had disrupted caravan route
    down here. Yanina remained formally at peace with Lagoas, but was s
    close to alliance with Algarve that she had all but cut off commerce wit
    her larger neighbor's foe.
     But there stood a man of the Ice People with laden camels he was no
    unloading in the market square. Fernao and Penda went up to him. "D
    you speak this language?" Fernao asked him in Algarvian.
     "Aye," the nomad answered. His dirty, hairy face was impossible t
    read.
     "Do you travel?" Fernao asked, and the man of the Ice People nodded
    "Do you travel east?" the Lagoan mage persisted. The nomad stood silen
    and motionless. Given the way things were in Heshbon these days
    Fernao took that for affin-nation. He said, "My king will pay well to see
    my friend and me installed in Mizpah."
     He did not say who his king was. If the man of the Ice People assumed
    he followed Mezentio, he was willing to let the fellow do that. After a
    moment I s thought, the fellow said, "The big talkers" - by which, Femao
    realized, he meant the Yaninans - "will not make such a trip easy."
     "Can you not befool them?" Fernao asked, as if inviting the man
    the Ice People to share a joke. "And is profit ever easy to come by?"
     A light kindled in the nomad's eyes. One of those questions, at least
    had struck his fancy. He said, "I am Doeg, the son of Abishal, the son
    Abiathar, the son of Chileab, the son of. The genealogy contirm
    for several more generations. Doeg finished, "My fetish animal is the
    ptarmigan. I do not slay it, I do not eat of it if slain by others, I dwnot
    allow those who travel with me to do it harm. If they do, I slay thern to
    appease the bird's spirit."
     Ignorant, superstitious savage, the mage thought. But that was beside the
    point now. He asked, "Do you tell me this because my friend and I are
    traveling with you?"

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ed
    
    n of
    
    11
    
    least,
    on of
    i nu e d
    is the
    0 riot
    ern to
    
    ide the
    Id I are
    
    365
    
     "If you wish it," Doeg answered with a shrug. "If you pay enough to
    satisfy me. If you are ready to move before the sun moves far."
    
     They dickered for some time. Fernao did his best not to burst into
    Yaninan-style hysterics. That seemed to make a good impression on
    Doeg. Good impression or not, the nomad was an implacable bargainer.
    Fernao fretted; what the man of the Ice People wanted was about as
    much as he had, and Doeg seemed uninterested in promises of more gold
    and silver after reaching Mizpah. He saw only what lay right before him.
    "I am a mage," Fernao said at last, an admission he had not wanted to
    make. "Bring your price down by a quarter and I will work for you on
    thatjourney."
     "You would anyway, if danger came," Doeg said shrewdly. "But you
    may have some use, so let it be as you say. But be warned, man of
    Algarve" - a misapprehension Fernao did not correct - "your sort of
    sorcery may not work so well in this country as it does in your own."
      "It works here in Heshbon," Fernao said.
     "Heshbon is in my country. Heshbon is no longer of my country,"
    Doeg said. "So many Yaninans and other hairless folk" - his dark eyes
    swung to the clean-shaven Penda - "have come that its essence has
    changed. Away from the towns, the land is as it once was here. Sorcery
    is as it once was here. It does not look kindly on the ways of hairless
    ones
     Fernao didn't know how seriously to take that. It accorded with his
    own experience, but not with what some of the theoretical sorcerers of
    Lagoas and Kuusamo had been saying Just before the war broke out. He
    shru-,ed. "I will do what I can, whatever it proves to be. And you will
    be seeking to evade the Yaninans, whose magic is not so different from
    nilne."
    
     11 This is true. This is good." Doeg nodded. He thrust out his filthy
     hand. Fernao and, a moment later, Penda clasped it. The man of the Ice
     People nodded once more. "We have a bargain."
    
     Krasta was going from one shop on the Avenue of Equestrians to the
    next when the Algarvian army staged its triumphal procession through
    Prickule. That the procession could have anything to do with her had not
    crossed her mind. She was glad she had so many of the shops to herself,
    but anno~ed that about every ttiird one was closed.

    




    366
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     She had just bought an amber brooch from a shop girl obsequious
    enough to suit even her and was coming out on to the sidewalk with the
    new bauble pinned to her tunic when a blast of martial music made her
    turn her head. Here came the Algarvians, the band at the head of the pro-
    cession blaring away for all it was worth. The sun gleamed off their
    trumpets and the metal facings of their drums. Like a jackdaw, Krasta was
    fascinated with bright, shiny things. She started to stare because of the
    reflections from the instruments. She kept staring because of the soldiers
    who carried those instruments.
     When she thought of Algarvians, the word that echoed in her mind
    was barbarians. She was a typical enough Valmieran - a typical enough
    Kaunian - there. Maybe the troopers marching along the Avenue of
    Equestrians toward her were King Mezentio's finest. Or maybe I was wrong
    all along, she thought: a startling leap of imagination for her.
     The Algarvian troopers - first the band, then a couple of companies
    footsoldiers, then a squadron of unicorn cavalry, then warriors mount
    on snorting, lumbering behemoths, then more footsoldiers, and on an
    on - impressed her much more favorably than she'd imagined they could,
    and also much more favorably than the Valmieran soldiers she'd seeil
    coming through Priiekule on the way to the war. It wasn't that these war-
    riors were tall and straight and handsome: the same held true for many of
    her countrymen. It wasn't that th eir kilts displayed admirable calves; she
    knew all she needed to know about how men were made.
     No, what struck her was partly their discipline - not something's
    was used to thinking about when she thought of Algarvians -
    their attitude. They strode down the Avenue of Equestrians as if cerj
    beyond the possibility of doubt that they deserved the victory they h
    won, deserved it because they were better men than the Valmierans 11
    had beaten. The Valmieran soldiers she'd seen hadn't looked that way.
    They'd seemed sure they were heading for trouble - and they'd been
    right.
     Having known that feeling of lordly superiority all her life,
    naturally responded to it in others. She even let Algarvians - surely co
    moners, almost to a man - stare at her as she stared at them without sho
    ing (indeed, without feeling) the furious resentment such lascivious lo
    from Valmieran commoners would have roused in her. But ever) these
    stares were well disciplined, especially by Algarvian standar&

    




    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    soldiers' eves turned toward her but not their heads
    
    367
    
     A handful of other Valmierans stood on the sidewalk watching the
    procession, but only a handful. Most of Priekule was doing its best to pre-
    
    tend the conquest had not happened and the conquerors did not exist.
    Krasta had intended to act the same way if and when she encountered any
    Algarvians, but this display of might and splendor caught her by surprise.
     At last, though the procession was far from over, she tore herself away
    and went down the side street where her carriage waited. The driver was
    swigging from a flask he hastily put away when he saw his mistress. He
    descended from the carriaoe and handed her un into it "Take me home "
    
    she said
    
     "Aye, milady." The driver hesitated, then volunteered speech, some-
    thing he rarely did: "Was you watching the redheads pass by, midady?"
     "Aye," Krasta answered. "Things may not be so dreadful as the doom-
    
    s ers have been quacking.
    
    "Not so dreadful?" the driver said as he got the horses going. "Well,
    
    here's hoping you're right, but nothing good comes of losing a war, I
    
    Pf
    
    tly
    
    'In
    
    iad
    iey
    ray.
    
    CCII
    
    -asta
    
    orn-
    
    ow-
    
    ooks
    these
    
    fear."
    
    "Just drive!" Krasta snapped, and her servant fell silent
    
     The streets were almost deserted. Many of the men Krasta saw on
    them were more Algarvian soldiers, moving into place to take possession
    of Pn'ekule. hey were also well behaved. Unlike their parading com-
    rades, they did turn their heads to look her over, but that was all they did.
    They didn't say anything, and they didn't come close to committing any
    
    outrages on her person. Frightened rumor in the city had credited King
    
    Mezentio's men with savagery to match their ancient ancestors'.
    
     By the time Krasta neared her mansion, her mood was as good as it
    ever got. All right: Valmiera had lost the war (she did hope Skarim was
    hale), but the Algarvians looked to be far more civilized victors than any-
    one had expected. After things settled down again, she expected she
    would be able to enjoy good times with her fellow nobles once more.
    

    




     As the driver swung the carriage off the street and on to the path that
    led up to the mansion, that good mood blew out like a candle flame. She
    pointed angrily. "What are those horses and unicorns doing there?" she
    demanded, as if the driver not only knew how they'd arrived but could
    do something about it. He only shrugged; with Krasta, least said was

    




    368
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Then she saw the kilted Algarvian soldier standing by the animals.
    Before she could shout at him, he turned and went into the mansion.
    That only made her angrier - how dared he go in there without her
    leave?
     "Bring me right up to the front entrance," Krasta told the driver. "I
    aim to get to the bottom of this, and night away, too. What business do
    these intruders have in my ancestral home?"
     "I obey, milady," the driver answered, which was the best thing he
    could possibly have said.
     He halted in front of the Algarvians' unicorns and horses. Krasta sprang
    from the carriage before he could come around and hand her down. She
    was storming toward the mansion when the door opened and a pair of
    Algarvians - officers, she realized by the badges on their tunics and hats
    - came toward her.
     Before she could start screarming at them, they both bowed low. That
    surprised her enough to let the older of them speak before she did: "A
    splendid good day to you, Marchioness. I am delighted to have the honor
    to make your acquaintance." He spoke fluent Valmieran, with only a slight
    accent. Then, surprising her again, he shifted into classical Kaunian: "If you
    would rather, we can continue our conversation in this language."
     "Valmieran will do," she said, hoping her haughty tone would keep
    him from realizing his grasp of the classical tongue was considerably
    better than hers. Anger welled up through surprise: "And now, I must
    require that you tell me the reason for this intrusion upon my estate."
     Servants stared out from the windows on either side of the doorway, and
    from those of the second story as well. Krasta noticed them only peripher-
    ally; to her, they were as much a part of the mansion as the kitchen or the
    stairways. Her attention was and remained on the Algarvians.
     "Allow me to introduce myself, milady," the older one said, bowi
    again. "I have the honor to be Count Lurcanio of Albenga; my milita
    rank is colonel. My adjutant here, Captain Mosco, has the good fortune
    to be a marquis. By order of Grand Duke Ivone, commander of the
    Algarvian forces now occupying Valmiera, we and our staff are to be
    billeted in your lovely home."
    
     Captain Mosco also bowed. "We shall do our best to keep from incco-
    veniencing you," he said in Valmieran slightly less fluent than A
    Lurcanio's.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    369
    
     Billeted was not a word Krasta often heard; she needed a moment to
    realize what it meant. When she did, she marveled that she didn't leap on
    the Algarvians with nails tearing like claws. "You mean you intend to live
    here?" she said. Lurcanio and Mosco nodded. Krasta threw back her
    
    head, a magnificent gesture of contempt. "By what right?"
    
     "By order of the Grand Duke Ivone, as my superior told you,
    Captain Mosco replied. He was earnest and good-looking and patient,
    
    none of which, right this minute, mattered a iot to K sta.
    
     "By night of the laws of war," Colonel Lurcanic, added, still polite but
    unyielding. "Valmierans billeted themselves on my estate after the Six
    Years' War. I would be lying if I told you I did not take a certain amount
    of pleasure in returning the favor. My adjutant had the right of it: we shall
    inconvenience you as little as we can. But we shall stay here. Whether you
    
    stay here depends on your getting used to that idea.
    
     No one had ever spoken to Krasta like that in her entire life. No one
    had ever had the power to speak to her so. Her mouth opened, then
    closed. She shivered. The Algarvians weren't acting like barbarians in
    Priekule. But, as Lurcanio hadjust reminded her, they could act like bar-
    
    barians if they chose, and like triumphant barbarians at that.
    
    Ve well, she said coldly. "I shall accommodate you and your men,
    
    Colonel, in one wing. If you wish to inconvenience me as little as pos-
    sible, as you claim, you and your men will have as little to do with me as
    
    nossible "
    
     Lurcanio bowed again. "As you say." He was willing to be graciou
    now that he'd got his way - in that, he was much like Krasta. "Perhaps
    
    as time goes by, vou will come to change vour mind."
    
    ,con-
    olonel
    
     ing
    tary
    tune
    f the
    to be
    
    1 doubt it," Krasta said. "I never change mv mind once I mike it
    
     Mosco said something in Algarvian, a language Krasta had never had
    the least interest in learning. Lurcanic, laughed and nodded. He pointed
    to Krasta and said something else. They're talking about me, she realized
    with no sniall outrage. They're talkinv about me, and I don't know what
    
    flicy'rc saying. How rude! They are barbafians after all
    
     She stalked past them, back stiff, nose in the air. Out of the comer of
    her eye, she saw their heads swivel to watch her backside as she strode
    toward the door. That made her nose go higher than ever. It also gave
    a small, sneaking satisfaction of a different sort. Let them watch, she

    




    370
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    thought. It's the only thing they'll ever have the chance to do. To inflame them,
    she put a little extra hip action in her walk.
     When she got inside, the servants converged on her as if they were
    children and she their mother. "Milady! What shall we do, milady?" they
    cried.
     "The Algarvians are going to quarter themselves here," she said. "I see
    nothing to be done about that. We shall put them in the west wing - first
    removing anything of value there. After that, as best we can, we shall
    ignore them. They will not be welcome in any other part of the mansion,
    which I shall make quite clear to their officers."
     "What if they come anyhow, milady?" Bauska asked.
     "Make them so unwelcome, they will not wish to come again," Krasta
    said. "They are nothing but Algarvians - not worth the notice of civilized
    people." She rounded on a couple of redheaded troopers who were look-
    ing at pictures and knickknacks. "Get out," she told them. "Go on, get
    out." She gestured to show what the words meant.
     They left slowly, and laughing as they went, but they did leave. The,,
    servants looked gratified - all but one, whom a soldier patted on the bot- I
    tom as he went by. And she didn't look so irate as she might have.
     Krasta shook her head. What would she do if a servant let an Algarvian
    have his way with her? How could she stop it? If Bauska was any indica-
    tion, commoners these days had no moral fiber whatever. Krasta clicked
    her tongue between her teeth. One way or another, she'd Just have to.
    manage.
    
     Marshal Rathar threw himself down on his belly before King
    Swernmel. He made the usual protestations of loyalty with more than the
    usual fervor. He knew the king of Unkerlant was angry with him. He
    knew why, too. The king often got angry at his subjects for reasons no
    one but he could see. Not this tinic.
     Swemmel let - made - Rathar stay on his belly, his head knocki
    
    against the carpet, far longer than usual. At last, evidently decidiii',
    Rathar was humiliated enough, the king spoke in a deadly voice: "Ge
    up.
    
     "Aye, your Majesty," the marshal of Unkerlant said, climbing to his
    feet. "I thank you, your Majesty."
     "We do not thank you," Swernmel snarled, stabbing out a finger

    




    I
    
    ;et
    
    'he
    
    ot-
    
    Ilan
    
    ica-
    :ked
    e to
    
    King
    n the
    1. He
    ns no
    
    Ocking
    ciding
    : "Get
    
    - his
    
    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    371
    
    Rathar as if his fingernail were the business end of a stick. Had it been,
    he would have blazed his marshal down. His voice, already high and thin,
    went higher and thinner as he mocked Rathar: ... Wait till the Algarvians
    are tied down against Valmlera,' you said. 'Wait till they're fully com-
    mitted in the east Then strike them when thev cannot easllv move
    
    reinforcements against us.' Were those your words, Marshal?"
    
    "Those were my words, your Majesty," Rathar said stolidly. "I judged
    
    that the most efficient course It seems I was wronp, "
    
     "Aye, it seems you were." Swemmel returned to his normal tones.
    "Had we wanted a fool, a dunce, to lead the armies of Unkerlant rest
    assured we could have found one. We hoped we had chosen a marshal
    who would know what might happen, not one who was wrong." He
    
    made the word a curse
    
     "Your Majesty, in my own defense, my only possible reply is that no
    one here, no one in the east, and, I claresay, no one in Algarve imagined
    the redheads' armies could overthrow Valmiera in the space of a month,'
    Rathar answered. "Ave, I was wrong, but I am far from the only man
    
    who was "
    
     He waited for Swemmel to sack him, to order him sent to di al
    salt or brimstone, to order him killed on the spot. Swerrimel was capable
    of any of those things. Swernmel was capable of things much worse than
    any of those. Anyone who served him lived on the edge of a precipice
    
    Sooner or later an one who served him fell o How the crows and vul-
    
    tures would aather to tear nieces from the fallen Rathar!
    
     King Swernmel said, "Not that you deserve it, but we will give you
    tiny chance to redeem yourself before meting out punishment. What wil
    Mezentio do next? Will he strike Lagoas? Will he strike Jelgava? Will h
    
    strike our kingdom?"
    

    




     Rathar's first thought was, I had better be right. Swernmel allowed fe'A
    men the chance to be wrong twice. That he would allow anyone to be
    wrong three times struck Rathar as absurd. Picking his words with grea
    care, he said, "I do not see how Algarve can attack Lagoas without con-
    trol of the sea between them, which her navy does not have. The Lagoan
    win not be fooled as the Sibians were. And there are no signs in Forthwe
    
    that Mezentio is building to assault us.'
    
    "Jelgava, then," Swernmel said, and Rathar reluctantly nodded. No
    he was oinned down. Swemmel could - Swernmel would - hold him t(

    




    372
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    what he said here. The king went on, "And when Algarve fights Jelgava
    - what then?"
     "Your Majesty, the war should be long and difficult," Rathar said.
    "But then, I said the same about the war against Valmiera, and the
    Algarvians surprised their foes with a thrust through rough country. I do
    not see how they can surprise the Jelgavans - there are only so many
    passes through the mountains between them. But that I do not see some-
    thing does not have to mean Mezentio's generals are likewise blind."
     "Your advice, then, is to wait for Algarve to become fully embroiled
    w1thJelgava and then strike?" Swernmel asked.
     "Aye, that is my advice," Rathar answered. He knew better than to
    say, That is what I would do ifI were king, as some luckless courtier had done
    a few years before. Swernmel took that to mean the poor, clumsy-
    tongued fool was plotting against him. That poor fool was now shorter
    by a head, and no one had made his mistakes since.
    
     Swemmel said, "And what if Algarve beats Jelgava as quickly and easily
    as she beat Valrru*era? What then, Marshal?"
     " Then, your Majesty, I will be surprised," Rathar said. "Algarvians
    have the arrogance to make good soldiers and good mages, but they are
    
    only men, as we are, as the Jelgavans are as well."
     "Why not fling our armies at them the minute they start to fight with
    Jelgava, if this be so?" Swemmel said.
     "Your Majesty, you are my sovereign. If you order this, I will do iny
    best to carry out your orders," Rathar replied. "But I think King
    Mezentio's men will be ready and waiting for us if we try it."
     "You think we will fall." Swemmel sounded like an inspector accusing
    a peasant in a law court.
    
     What happened to peasants haled before such tribunals was usually am~-
    thing but pleasant. Nevertheless, Rathar said, "The best plan in the world
    is useless at the wrong time. We struck too soon against the Zuwayzin,
    and paid a high price for that. We would pay more and suffer worse if
    struck the Algarvians while they were ready and waiting for us."
     "You have already complained that we struck too soon aganisr
    Zuwayza," King Swemmel said. "We do not agree; our view is that ~C
    struck years too late. But never mind that. Because of your COMPIdints,
    we delayed ordering our armies for-ward against Algarve, and the roti!,,
    has been worse than if we had attacked."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ns
    
    re
    
    373
    
    Lny-
    
    orld
    ~zin,
    f vje
    
    ,ainst
    it we
    ai nts,
    result
    
     "Not necessarily," Rathar replied. "We might have been badly beaten.
    The Zuwayzin hurt us badly when that war began, but they were not
    strong enough to follow up on their early victories. That does not hold
    with Algarve, especially not after what the redheads showed first in
    Forthweg and then in Valmiera."
     "A moment ago, you said the Algarvians were only men," Swermnel
    said. "Now you say you fear them. Are Unkerlanters, then, suddenly
    made into mountain apes in your mind?"
     "By no means, your Majesty," Rathar said, although for hundreds of
    years Unkerlanters had felt the same blend of admiration and resentment
    for Algarvians that Algarvians felt for folk of Kaunian stock. Gathering
    himself, he went on, "When we attack, though - if we attack - I would
    want it to be at the moment I judge best."
     "Will you ever judge any moment best?" Swernmel asked. "Or will
    you delay endlessly, like the old man in the fable who could never find
    the time to die?"
    
     Rathar risked a smile. "He didn't have such a dreadful fate, did he?
    And the kingdom is at peace for now, which is also not such a dreadful
    fate. As a soldier who has seen much of war, I say peace is better."
     "Peace is better, when those around you grant your due," Swernmel
    said. "But when we should have been raised to the throne, no one
    would recognize what was rightfully ours. We had to fight to gain the
    throne, we had to fight to hold the throne, and we have been fighting
    ever since. During our struggle with the usurper" - his usual name for
    his twin brother - "the kingdoms neighboring Unkerlant took advan-
    tage of her weakness. We have made Gyongyos respect us. We have
    humbled Forthweg. We have taught Zuwayza half a lesson, at any
    rate."
    
     "All that you say is true, your Majesty," Rathar replied, "yet Algarve
     has done us no harm during your glorious reign." Like other courtiers,
     he'd had to learn the art of gently guiding the sovereign back from his
     memories - real or imaginary - of injustice and toward what needed
     doing in the here and now."
      Sometimes King Swemmel refused to be guided. Sometimes he had
     his reasons for reffising to be guided. He said, "Algarve harmed us gravely
     during the Six Years' War. The kingdom requires vengeance, and the

    




    374
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Algarve had indeed gravely harmed Unkerlant then. Had the redheads
    been fighting Unkerlant alone rather than all their neighbors, they m ight
    well have paraded through the streets of Cottbus in triumph, as they had
    just paraded through the streets of Priekule. If the Algarvians fought
    Unkerlant alone now, they might yet parade through the streets of
    Cottbus. Rathar understood the danger, which King Swenimel pretty
    plainly did not.
     Again speaking with great care, the marshal said, "Taking vengeance
    is all the sweeter when it's certain."
     "All our servants tell us reasons why we cannot do the things we must
    do, the things we want to do," Swernmel said testily.
     "No doubt this is so: it is the way of courtiers," Rathar said. "But how
    many of your servants will dare to tell you there is a difference between
    what you want to do and what you must do?"
     Swernmel looked at him from hooded eyes. Sometimes the king could
    stand more truth than most people thought. Sometimes, too, he would
    destroy anyone who tried to tell him anything that went against what he
    already believed. No one could be sure which way he would go without
    making the experiment. Few took the chance. Every once in a while,
    Rathar did.
     "Do you defy us, Marshal?" the king asked in tones of genuine
    curiosity.
     "In no way, your Majesty," Rathar replied. "I seek to serve you as well
    as I may. I also seek to serve the kingdom as well as I may."
     "We are the kingdom," Swernmel declared.
     "So you are, your Majesty. While you live - and may you live long -
    you are Unkerlant. But Unkerlant endured for centuries before you were
    born, and will endure for hundreds of years to come. " Rathar was pleased
    he'd found a way to say that without mentioning Swemmel's death. He
    went on, I seek to serve the Unkerlant that will be as well as
    Unkerlant that is."
     King Swemmel pointed to his own chest. "We are the only propeh
    judge of what is best for the Unkerlant that will be."
     When he put it like that, Rathar found no way to contradict him with-
    out also seeming to defy him. The marshal bowed his head. If Swenunel
    demanded anything too preposterous from him, he could either thre,a
    to resign (although that was a threat best used sparingly) or pretend

    




    ng -
    were
    cawa
    1. VA e
    S the
    
    roper
    
                                       with
                                     cintriel
                                      reaten
    
    tc,LAa W
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    375
    
    obey and try to mitigate the effects of the king's orders through judicious
    insubordination (a tactic with obvious risks of its own).
     Swernmel made an impatient gesture. "Go on, get you gone. We do
    not wish to see your face any more. We do not wish to hear your carp-
    ing any more. When we judge the time ripe for attacking Algarve, we
    shall order the assault. And we shall be obeyed, if not by you, then by
    another. "
     "Choosing who commands the armies of Unkerlant is your Majesty's
    privilege," Rathar answered evenly. Swernmel glared at him. His calm
    acceptance of the king's superiority left Swernmel's anger nowhere to
    light - and left Swernmel angrier on account of it.
     Rathar prostrated himself once more. Then he rose and bowed him-
    self out of the audience chamber. He retrieved his ceremonial sword from
    Swernmel's guards, who stood between him and the door to the audience
    chamber while he belted it on. As he left the anteroom, he allowed him-
    self a long sigh of relief. He'd survived.again - or thought he had. But all
    the way back to the office where everyone else in Unkerlant imagined
    him to be so powerful, he kept waiting for a couple of King Swernmel's
    human bloodhounds to seize him and lead the way. And even after he got
    back there, he still shivered. That Swernmel's bloodhounds hadn't seized
    him didn't mean they couldn't, or wouldn't.
    
     Whenever Leofsig went out on to the streets of Gromheort, he kept
    waiting for a couple of King Mezentio's human bloodhounds to seize
    him and lead him away. I won't go back to the captives' camp without afight,
    he told himself fiercely, and carried a knife longer and stouter than the
    Algarvians' regulations allowed to Forthwegians in the area they
    occupied.
    
     But the redheaded soldiers who patrolled his city paid no more atten-
    tion to him than to any other Forthwegian man. Maybe that was because
    his father knew whom to bribe. No doubt it was, in part. A bigger part,
    though, was that the Algarvians seemed to have little interest in any
    Forthwegians save pretty girls, to whom they would call lewd invitations
    in their own language and in what bits of Forthwegian they'd learned.
      That made the girls' lives harder, but it made Leofsig's easier. Before
     entering King Penda's levy, he had been training to cast accounts, as his
     father did. These days, Hestan barely had work enough for himself, and

    




    376
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    none for an assistant even of his own flesh and blood. When Leofsi~
    worked - and he needed to work, for food and money were tight - h(
    worked as a day laborer.
     "Coming on! Doing better!" an Algarvian soldier bossing his crev
    shouted as they cobblestoned the road leading southwest fron
    Gromheort. The fellow spoke Forthwegian in two-word burst!
    "Coming on! You lazy! Like Kaunians! Working harder!" Several me
    in the gang were Kaunians. As far as Leofsig could see, they worked ,
    hard as anybody else.
     "Screwing you!" he muttered to Burgred, one of the other young me
    in the work gang, doing his best to imitate the redhead's way.of speal
    ing.
     Burgred chuckled as he let a round stone thump into place. "You're
    funny fellow," he said, also in a low voice. The laborers weren't suppos(
    to talk with one another, but the Algarvian, a decent enough man, usual
    didn't give them a hard time about it.
     "Oh, aye, I'm funny, all right." Leofsig also dropped a stone in t
    roadway, "Funny like a unicorn with a broken leg."
     Burgred headed back toward a cart piled high with cobblestones a
    rubble. The animals that drew it were not unicorns but a couple
    scrawny, utterly prosaic mules. Returning with a new stone, Burg]
    said, "It's all the cursed Kaunians' fault, anyway." He fitted the stone ii
    place. "There we go. That whore's in good."
     Leofsig grunted. He swiped at his sweaty forehead with a tunic slee
    "I don't quite see that," he said. A moment later, he wished he'd k
    quiet. Even so little might have been too much.
     "Stands to reason, doesn't it?" Burgred said. "if it wasn't for
    Kaunians, we wouldn't have gotten into the war in the first place. If
    hadn't gotten into it, we couldn't very well have lost it, now could'A
     Broadsheets plastered all over Gromheort said the same thing in aln
    the same words. The Algarvians had put them up; a Forthwegian N
    presumed to put up a broadsheet in his own city was liable to be ~xeci
    on the spot if the redheads caught him doing it. Leofsig wondere
    Burgred even knew he was spitting back the pap the Algarvians fed I
     Burgred went on, "And a plague take the Kaunians, anyway. I
    may live here, but they aren't Forthwegians, not really. They keep I
    own language, they keep their own clothes - and their women d

    




    en
    
     and
    le of
    rgred
     ;-to
    
    eeve.
    kept
    
     r the
     if we
    d we?"
     almost
    an who
      -1ted
    dercci if
    fed him.
    v. They
    eep their
    en don't
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    377
    
    come close to dressing clecently - and they hate us. So why shouldn't we
    
    hate them? Powers above, I haven't had any use for Kaunians since I first
    
    knew they were different than regular people."
    
    Leofsig sighed and didn't answer. He saw no oint to it Bur ed
    
    plainly, hadn't needed the redheads to shape his opinion of Kaunians.
    Like a lot of Forthwegians - maybe even most Forthwegians - he'd
    despised them long before the Algarvians overran Forthweg.
    
     "You work!" the Algarvian straw boss yelled. "No standing! No talk-
    ing! Talking - trouble!" He spoke Forthwegian with a horrible accent.
    He had no grammar and next to no vocabulary. No one ever had trouble
    
    understanding him, though.
    
     As the day wound to an end, Leofslg queued up with the rest of the
    laborers to get his meager pay from an Algarvian sergeant who looked as
    pained at handing out the silver as if it came from his own belt pouch. At
    first, the Algarvians hadn't paid anyone even a copper to work for them.
    
    In tones of dry amusement, Hestan had said, "They didn't take long to
    discover people will work better if they have some reason to do it."
     Wearily, Leofslg and the others in the gang trudged back toward
    Gromheort, the Kaunians (who earned only half as much as
    Forthwegians) a little apart from the rest. Most of the men walked by the
    side of the cobblestoned road, not on it. "Stupid redheads," Burgred
    remarked. "A road like this is harder on people's feet than a regular one
    
    made of dirt. Harder on horses' hooves, too, and on unicorns'."
    
    "They can use it during the rain, though, when a regular road turns to
    
    mud," Leofsi2 said. With a certain sardonic relish. he added- "The
    
    Kaunian Empire had roads like these."
    
    th'a was."
    
     "And much good it did the cursed Kaunians, too," Burgred said, a
    better comeback than Leofsig had expected from him. "May it do the
    cursed Algarvians as much good as it did the blonds however long ago

    




    
     Inside Gromheort, the work gang scattered, each man heading off
    toward his own home - or toward a tavern, where he could drink up in
    an hour what he'd made in a day. Some of the men who did that were
    their families' sole support. Being very much his father's son, Leofsig
    
    looked on th- wid, othi 1, f
    
    Not that h- ---1A t- A
    
    U1_ U - . a3a 0 Wine - or a coup e o asses
    
    of wine - when he got home But no one would go without food or

    




    A
    
    378              Harry Turtledove
    
    firewood because he had some wine. He could even have afforded to
    spend a copper at the public baths beforehand. But the baths were always
    short of hot water these days. The Algarvians starved them for fuel - what
    did they care if Forthwegians stank? Leofsig didn't care so much as he
    would have before the war. He'd discovered in the field and in the cap-
    tives' camp that no one stank when everyone stank.
     Leofsig was almost home when a Kaunian youth in ragged trousers
    darted out of an alley and past him, plainly running for his life. Four or
    five Forthwegian boys pounded after him. One of them, Leofsig saw, was
    his cousin Sidroc.
     Tired though he was, he started running after Sidroc before he quite
    realized what he was doing. At first, he thought he was mortified because
    he was Sidroc's close kin. After a few strides, he decided he was morti-
    fied because he was a Forthwegian. That hurt worse.
     Because it hurt, he wanted to hurt Sidroc, too. And he did, bringing
    his cousin down with a tackle that would have got him thrown off any
    football pitch in Forthweg - or even in Unkerlant, where they played the
    game for blood. Sidroc squalled most satisfactorily.
    
     "Shut up, you little turd," Leofsig said coldly. "What in blazes do you
    think you were doing, chasing that Kaunian like a mad dog foaming at
    the mouth?"
     "What was I doing?" Sidroc squeaked. He was bleeding from both
    elbows and one knee, but didn't seem to notice. "What was I doing?"
     "Has someone put a spell on you, so you have to say everything
    twice?" Leofsig demanded. "I ought to beat you so you can't even walk,
    let alone run. My father will be ashamed of you when I tell him what
    you've done. Powers above, I hope Uncle Hengist will, too."
     He thought Sidroc would cninge. Instead, his cousin shouted, "You're
    crazy, do you know that? The little blond-headed snake cut the belt
    pouch night off me, curse him, and now I bet he's got away clean. Of
    course I was chasing him. Wouldn't you chase a thieP Or are you too
    
    high and mighty for that~"
     "A thieP" Leofsig said in a small voice.- So often, people chased
    Kaumans through the streets for no reason at all. That people might chase
    a Kaunian through the streets for a perfectly good reason had never
    crossed his mind. If Forthwegians could be thieves, Kaunians certainly
    could, too.
    
    I

    




    INTo THE DARKNEss         379
    
    wtiat
    
    ou'rC
    
    , I-)Clt
    n. Of
    
    U too
    
    chased
    t chase
    
    never
    rtainly
    
     "Aye, a thief You've heard the word?" Sidroc spoke
    Leofsig's father might have envied. He also realized he'd
    "What were you trying to do, murder me? You almost did
     Since Leofsig had been trying for something not far sho
    he didn't answer directly. He said, "I thought you were goi
    for the sport of it."
     "Not this time." Sidroc got to his feet and put hands on
    trickled down his forearms. "You're worse than your brot
    know that? He's a Kaunian-lover, too, but he doesn't ki
    account of it."
    
     "Oh, shut up, or you'll make me decide I'm glad I flatten
    all," Leofsig said. "Let's go home."
     When they got home and went into the kitchen, Leofsig's
    sister both exclaimed over Sidroc's battered state. They excl
    when he told them he'd had his belt pouch stolen, and once
    he told them how he'd come to get battered. "Leofsig, yo
    questions before you hurt someone," Elfryth said.
     "I'm sorry, Mother - there wasn't time," Leofsig said. H
     hadn't apologized to Sidroc yet. That needed doing, howe
     relished it. "I am sorry, cousin. Kaunians get the short end o
     often when they don't deserve it, I just thought this was onc
     "Well, I can understand that," Conberge said. Leofsig set
     grateful glance. Sidroc sniffed loudly.
      As she might have to one of her own sons, Elfryth said,
     Sidroc. Let's get you cleaned up." She wet a rag and a
     Sidroc. "This may sting, so stand still." Sidroc did, but yelp
     to work.
    
      Drawn by the yelps, Ealstan came in to find out what w
     "Oh," was all he said when he found out why Sidroc w
     "That's too bad."
    
      Leofslg had expected more from him, and was obscurely
     not to get it. After supper, when the two of them went out t
     yard together, Leofsig said, "I thought you'd figured out th
     Nxcre people, too."
    
      "They're people, all right." His younger brother did not t
     bitterness. "When they get the chance, some of them lick the
      boots the saiii           e of our people do."

    




    380
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Leofsig had already seen how some Forthwegians were perfectly con-
    tent to do business with the occupying redheads. That disgusted him, but
    didn't especially surprise him. But Kaunians - "Where could you find an
    Algarvian who'd want a Kaunian to lick his boots?" He could think of
    some other possibilities along those lines, but forbore from mentioning
    them in case his brother couldn't.
     "It happens." Ealstan spoke with great conviction. "I've seen it hap-
    pen. I wish I hadn't, but I have."
     "You've already said that much. Do you want to tell me about it?"
    Leofsig asked.
     His younger brother surprised him again, this time by shaking his head.
    "No. It's not your affair. Not mine, either, really, but I know about it."
    Ealstan shrugged, a weary motion Hestan might have used. Leofsig
    scratched his head. Some time after he'd gone into King Penda's levy, his
    little brother had indeed turned into a man, a man he was beginning to
    realize he barely knew.
    
     "Come on." Hestan shook Ealstan out of bed. "Get moving, sleepy-
    head. If you don't go to school, what will you be?"
     "Asleep?" Ealstan suggested, yawning.
     His father snorted. "If you won't wake up for me, you will when the
    master for your first class brings the switch down on your back because
    you were tardy. The choice is yours, son: my way or the master's."
     "Forthweg has a choice, too, these days: Algarve's way or
    Unkerlant's," Ealstan said as he got to his feet and stretched. "If they had
    a true choice, the Forthwegians would take neither the one nor the other.
    If I had a true choice, I would go back to bed."
     "Forthweg has no true choice. Neither do you, however well you
    argue." Hestan no longer sounded amused. "You are the last one in the
    house up and moving. If you don't make up for it, you may get my wj
    and the master's switch both."
     Thus encouraged, Ealstan put on a clean tunic and his sandals atid
    hurried to the kitchen. Conberge gave him porridge with almond Slit
    stirred through it and a cup of wine flavored with enough resin to put fir
    on his tongue, or so he thought. "If I can't speak Algarvian today, I'll
    
     "Better to blame it on not studying enough," Hestan said. Ily
    
    blame it on this horrible stuff," he said.
    
    0

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ig
    his
    to
    
    n the
    
    Cause
    
     or
     had
    
    otlIcr.
    
    11 you
    in the
      way
    
    als and
    d slivers
    
   0 put fur
    day, I'll
    
    381
    
    should be learning Kaunian instead, but you can learn whatever your
    master sets before you." He turned to Ealstan's cousin. "The same applies
    to you, young man."
     With his mouth full, Sidroc had an excuse for not answering. He took
    advantage of it. Ealstan's marks had always been higher than his. Lately,
    they'd been a good deal higher than his. Sidroc's father was imperfectly
    delighted with that.
     Despite having sat down later than Sidroc, Ealstan finished his porridge
    and wine before his cousin did. He did not rub that in, which rubbed it
    in more effectively than anything else could have done. Hengist almost
    threw Sidroc out the door after him. They hurried off to school together.
     They'd gone only a couple of blocks when they passed four or five
    Algarvian soldiers half leading, half dragging a Kaunian woman into an
    empty building. One of them held a hand over her mouth. Sidroc
    chuckled. "They'll have a good time."
     "She won't," Ealstan said. Sidroc only shrugged. Angry at his cousin's
    indifference, Ealstan snapped, "Suppose it was your mother."
     "You keep my mother out of your mouth, or I'll put my fist in it,"
    Sidroc said hotly. Ealstan thought he could lick his cousin, but this wasn't
    the time or place to find out. He didn't know why he bothered trying to
    make Sidroc see things as he did. Sidroc didn't and wouldn't care about
    
    Kaunians
    
     Ealstan stopped caring about Kaunians for the time being the moment
    he walked into Master Agmund's class. On the blackboard, someone had
    written - in what looked to him like grammatically impeccable Algarvian
    - KING MEZENTIO HAD NINE PIGLETS BY THE ROYAL
    SOW. "Powers above!" he cn*ed. "Get rid of that before the master sees
    . it and beats tis all to death." He tried to figure out whose script it was,
    but couldn't; whoever had written it had done so as plainly as possible.
     Echoing that thought, one of his classmates said, "It was up there when
    we started coming in. Somebody must have snuck in during the night
    
    and put it up."
    
    Maybe that was true; maybe it wasn't. Either way, though    "It
    
    doesn't matter who wrote it. Erase it!
    
    0110(
    
    "You think we haven't tried?" Three boys said it at the same time

    




    "Haven, t tried what?" Master Agmund strode into the classroom
     11, nswerd Nobody needed to answer When the master's hea

    




    382
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    turned, he naturally saw the message on the blackboard. Despite
    swarthy skin, he turned red. "Who wrote this seditious trash?"
    rumbled. His finger shot toward Ealstan. "Was it you, young man?"
     That meant hejudged Ealstan did not love the Algarvian occupiers.
    was right, but Ealstan would sooner not have made such an obvious t
    get. He was lucky here; he had only to tell the truth: "No, Master.
    cousin and I just came in now, and saw it there as you did. I said we oug
    to erase it."
     Agmund's thick, dark eyebrows lowered like stormclouds, but seve
    of Ealstan's classmates spoke up in support of him. "Very well, then," t
    master of Algarvian said. "Your suggestion was a good one. Those w
    came in earlier should have acted on it." He seized the eraser and rubb
    vigorously.
     But, however hard he rubbed, the message refused to disappear. If a
    thing, the white letters got more distinct against their dark backgroun
    "Magecraft," someone said softly.
     Agmund also spoke softly, but his quiet words held only dan
    "Anyone daring to use magecraft against Algarve will pay dearly, for th
    occupiers reckon it an act of war. Someone - perhaps someone in
    chamber now - will answer for it, and may answer with his head." H
    stalked out.
     "Maybe we ought to run," somebody said.
     "What good would it do us, unless we took to the hills?" Ealstan s
    "Master Agmund knows who we are. He and the headmaster will know
    where we live."
     "Besides, if anyone runs, Agmund will think he did it," Sidroc adle
    He had a gift for intrigue, if not for scholarship. Once he'd sp4e.
    everyone could hear the likely truth in his words.
     Footfalls in the hall warned that Agmund was returning. The stu&
    sprang to their feet, not wanting any show of disrespect to feed his suspi
    clons. That proved wise, for with him came Swithulf, the headmaster of
    the academy. Agmund looked as if he disapproved of everythin,~ and
    everyone. So did Swithulf, as he'd practiced the expression for twetlt~, or
    twenty-five more years, his gaze was downright r
     He read the graffito aloud to himself Had he
    
    eptillan.
    been a student, Agmu
    would have corrected his pronunciation, probably with a switch. As thin
    were, the master of Algarvian said only, "The students deny responsibdiv.

    




    nd
    ngs
    ty-
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    383
    
     "Aye - they would," Swithulf grunted. As Agmund had, he tried to
    erase the rude words. As Agmund had, he failed.
     "Because of the magecraft I mentioned and you have now seen for
    yourself, sit, I tend to believe them in this instance." Agmund sounded
    anything but happy at having to admit such a thing. That he admitted it
    anyhow made Ealstan, though equally reluctant, give him some small
    credit.
     Swithulf spoke to the scholars for the first time: "No gossip about this,
    mind you." Ealstan and his classmates all nodded solemnly. He worked
    hard to keep his face straight. Swithulf nuight as well have ordered the
    boys not to breathe.
     "What shah we do about this, sir?" Agmund asked. "I can hardly
    instruct with such a crude distraction behind me."
     "I shall go get Ceolnoth, the magecraft master," Swithulf answered.
    "He is no first-rank mage, true, but he should be sorcerer enough to put
    paid to this. And he is discreet, and he win charge no fee." The head-
    master departed as abruptly as he'd arrived.
     Agmund made a good game try at teaching in spite of the comment
    about King Mezentio's taste in Partners - or, perhaps, his taste in pork.
    With nine piglets in back of the master, though, verbs irregular in the
    imperfect sense did not sink deep into the students' memories.
     Master Ceolnoth stuck his head into the chamber. "Well, well, what
    have we here?" he asked. "The headmaster didn't say much." Agmund
    Oointed to the blackboard and explained. Ceolnoth came all the way
    111side so he could read the offending words. "Oh, dear," he said. "Aye,
     we need to be rid of that, don't we? I doubt anyone in Gromheort would
     be in a position to know any such thing, I do, I do."
      Ealstan looked at Sidroc. That was a mistake. It meant he had even
     more trouble not snickering than he would have otherwise. Sidroc
     looked about ready to burst like an egg.
      "That doesn't matter," said Agmund, whose sense of humor had been
     strangled at birth. "Just get the filth of my blackboard."
      "Quite, quite." Ceolnoth started out the door
      "Where are you goingF' Agmund demanded.
    
    I "Why, to get my tools, of course," Ceolnoth replied. "Can't work
    without'em, no more than a carpenter can work without his. Swithulf
    just told me to come in here and look at what you had. Now I've looked

    




    384
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    at it. Now you've told me what the trouble is. Now I know I need to do
    something about it. So." Out he went.
     "More comings and goings here than I've seen since the redheads ran
    the Forthwegian army out of town," Ealstan whispered to Sidroc.
     His cousin nodded and whispered back: "I wonder if Ceolnoth
    worked that sorcery himself He could look important that way, and say
    what he thought about the Algarvians at the same time."
     Ealstan hadn't thought of that. He didn't get much chance to think of
    it, either, for the smack of Master Agmund's switch coming down on
    Sidroc's back made him jump. "Silence in the classroom," Agmund
    snapped. Sidroc glared at Ealstan, who'd spoken first but hadn't got
    caught. The glare grew more pained when Agmund went on, "Since you
    enjoy talking so much, conjugate for me the verb to bear in all tenses."
     Sidroc floundered. Ealstan would have floundered, too; the verb was
    one of the most irregular in Algarvian, its principal parts seeming unre-
    lated from one tense to another. Agmund kept after Sidroc till Ceolnoth
    returned. After that, he apparently decided Ealstan's cousin had an excuse
    for being distracted and left off grilling him.
     "Let's see, let's see," Ceolnoth said cheerily. He produced a couple
    stones, one pale green, the other a dull, grayish pebble. "Chrysolite
    drive away fantasies and foolishness, and the stone called adamas in the
    classical tongue to overcome enernies, madness, and venom."
     "Adamas," Agmund echoed. "What would that be in Algarvian"'
      I neither know nor care," Ceolnoth answered. "Not a very usefu
    language, not for magecraft it isn't." Agmund looked furious. If th
    master of magecraft noticed, he didn't care. Ealstan snickered, but to
    care to snicker silently.
     Ceolnoth rattled the two stones together and began to chant in clas~-
    cal Kauman. That made Agmund look even angrier. The mage poin
    to the offending graffito and cried out a word of command. The lett
    on the blackboard flared brightly. Ealstan thought they would disappear.
    Instead, they kept right on flaming, in the most literal sense of the w4.
    Smoke began to pour from the blackboard,- or from the timbers on which
    it was mounted.
     Ceolnoth cried out again, in horror. So did Agmund, in rage. 11Y
    blundering idiot!" he bellowed.
     "Not so," Ceolnoth said. "This was a spell set under a spell, so

    




    assi-
    nted
    
    tters
    pear.
    ord.
    hich
    
    O that
    
    of
    
    to
    
    e
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    385
    
    quelling the first one set off the second."
     They would have gone on arguing, but Sidroc shouted "Fire!" and
    dashed out of the room. That broke a different sort of spell. All his fellow
    scholars and the two masters followed him. Everyone was shouting
    "Fire!" by then, that and "Get outside!" As Ealstan ran, he got the idea
    that he wouldn't have to worry about the Algarvian imperfect tense for
    some time to come.
    
    I
    
    I

    




    14.
    
    Garivald hated inspectors on general principles. Any Unkerlanter peasant
    hated inspectors on general principles. Tales that went back to the days
    when the Duchy of Grelz was a kingdom in its own right had inspectors
    as their villains. If any tales had inspectors as their heroes, Ganivald had
    never heard of them. As far as he was concerned, inspectors were nothing
    but thieves with the power of King Swernmel's army behind them.
     He particularly hated the two inspectors who had come to Zossen to,
    put a crystal in Waddo's house. For one thing, he did not want Waddo
    getting orders straight from Cottbus. For another, the inspectors were
    swine. They ate and drank enough for half a dozen men, and paid
    nothing. They leered at the village women, and even pawed at them.
     "They might as well be Algarvians," Annore said after one of th
    inspectors shouted a lewd proposition at her while she was walking horn
    from visiting a friend. Unkerlanters were convinced Algarve was a sink
    of degeneracy.
     "If they touch you, I'll kill them," Garivald growled.
     That frightened his wife. "If anyone in a village murders an insPecto
    the whole village dies," she warned. That wasn't legend; it was law a'
    somber fact. Some kings of Unkerlant had been known to show mer
    in applying it, but Swernmel was not one of them.
     "They deserve it," Garivald said, but inside he was glad Annore ha
    reminded him of the law. That gave him a chance to back away from 1~s,
    threat without sounding like a coward.
     "I just wish they'd go away," Annore said.
     "We all wish they'd go away," Garivald answered. "Waddo may even
    wish they'd go away by now. But they won't. Any day now, we're g6ng
    to have to start making a cell to hold prisoners in till they get round to
    
    386

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    cutting the bastards' throats to make the crystal work.
    
     "And that's another thing," his wife said. "What if these robbers or
    murderers or whatever they are get loose somehow and start robbing and
    
    murdering us? Will the insnectors care? Not likelv!"
    
    I asked Waddo about that very thing the other day " Ganivald said.
    
    "He told me they're going to bring in a couple of guards to make sure
    
    that doesn't happen."
    
    "Oh " Annore said. "Well that's a little better."
    
     "No such thing!" Garivald exclaimed. 'A crystal to tie us to Cottbus,
    guards here all the time ... We couldn't breathe very free before. We
    
    won't be able to breathe free at all now."
    
     Annore found another question: "Well, what can we do about it?"
     "Not a cursed thing," Garivald said. "Not a single cursed thing. The
    only thing we could ever do about orders from Cottbus was retend we
    
    never ot them No -- won't even be able to do that "
    
     A couple of days later, he was one of the villagers the inspectors com-
    mandeered to build the cell to hold the condemned prisoners whose life
    energy would power the crystal. He couldn't work in the fields. He could-
    n't tend his garden or his livestock. The inspectors didn't care. "This has
    to be done, and it has to be done on time," one of them said. "Efficiency."
     "Efficiency," Garivald agreed. Whenever anyone said that word,
    everyone who heard it had to agree with it. Dreadful things happened to
    those who failed to agree. Ganivald worked on the cell with a will, saw-
    ing and hammering like a man beset by demons. So did the other peasants
    dragooned into building it. The sooner they got it done, the sooner they
    could get back to work that really needed doing, work that would keep
    them fed through the winter That was the sort of efficiencv Garivald
    
    understood
    
    ad
    his
    
    jell
    
    i to
    
     After a couple of hours of offering suggestions that didn't help, the
    inspectors wandered off to find something to drink, and maybe some-
    thing to eat, too. Ganivald wouldn't have expected anything different;
    since the inspectors weren't devouring their own substance, they made
    
          I
    free witli th- vdl-'~
    
    He said, "The really efficient thing to do would be to put the criminals
    
    in Waddo's house. He's the one who wants the crvstal so much so we
    
    ought to let him deal with what having it means."
    
    "Aye," said one of the other t)easants a scar-faced fellow named

    




    388
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Dagulf He glanced over toward the firstman's home, which stood out
    from the others in Zossen, and then spat on the ground. "Would hardly
    put him out, even. After all, he built that cursed second story, didn't he?
    He could put the captives up there and slit their throats right by the
    cursed crystal."
     "Now, that would be efficient," somebody else said.
     "Who's going to be the one to tell Waddo to do it, though?" Garivald
    asked. Nobody answered. He hadn't expected anybody to answer. He
    went on, "He'd bawl like a just-gelded colt if anybody had the nerve to
    tell him he ought to do that. All that precious space is for his family, don't
    you know?"
     "Like anybody needs that much space," Dagulf said, and spat again.
     Everyone working on the cell grumbled and complained and called
    curses down on Waddo's head and the heads of the inspectors. But all the
    curses were so low-voiced, no one more than a few feet away could have
    heard them. And no one would have guessed the peasants were com-
    plaining from the way they worked.
     Not even the inspectors could find anything to complain about over
    the speed with which the cell went up. "There, you see?" one of them
    said when it got done two days sooner than they'd demanded. "You cart
    be efficient when you set your,minds to it."
     Neither Garivald nor his fellow carpenters chose to enlighten them.
    Annore had been doing much of Garivald's work along with her own.
    The work had to get done. Who did it mattered less. That was efficiencyi,
    too, efficiency as the peasants of Unkerlant understood it.
     Once built in such a driving hurry, the   cell stayed empty for threo,
    weeks. Every time Ganivald walked past it, he snickered. That was effi
    ciency as King Swernmel's men understood it: do something fast for 14
    sake of nothing but speed, then wait endlessly to be able to do whateA
    came next.                                i
     At last, a column of guards marched up the road from
    town. There were a dozen of them to protect the villagers froffi foui
    scrawny captives whose chains clanked and rattled with every step thej
    took. Half the guards headed back toward the market town. The oth el
    prepared to settle down in Zossen. The first meal the villagers sc C
    them showed they were even more ravenous than the inspectors.
    
     "Now all you need is the crystal and the mage to work the sac'

    




    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    389
    
    and give it life, and you'll be connected with the rest of the world, one
    
    of the inspectors said, his tone somewhat elevated by strong drink
    
    "Won't that be grand for you?"
    
    Garivald thought it would be anything but grand. The inspectors
    
    however hal long since made it plain they cared nothing for his opinion
    
    I
    
    or that of anyone else in Zossen. He kept quiet.
    
    Sha -tongued old Uote, though, was moved to speak up: "You mean
    
    you haven't got a crystal here?"
    
    "Of course we haven't," the insvector answered. "Do we look like
    
    mages?"
    
    Uote rolled her eves. "Call that efficiencv?" she said. Maybe she'd had
    
    a good deal to drink herself, to dare to ask such a question.
    
    Both insvectors and 0 six auards stared at her. A great silence fell over
    
    the village square. The inspector who'd spoken before snapped,
    
    "Efficienc is what we s it is vou uolv old sow "
    
    "Sow, is it?" Uote said. "You're the pigs in the trough "
    
     The silence got louder and more appalled. "Curb your tongue, old
    woman, or we shall assuredly curb it for you. When the crystal does come
    here, would you have King Swernmel learn your name?" The inspector's
    
    snifle said he looked forward to informing on her.
    
     Gan'vald had no use for Uote; even sober, she was a nag and a scold.
    But she was from his village. Hearing that gloating anticipation from the
    inspector - the king's man, the city man - made him feel like a piece of
    livestock, not a man. And Uote crumpled like a scrap of paper. She
    sneaked away from the gathering in the village square and stayed inside
    her house for several days afterwards. Garivald did not think it would do
    her any good, not unless the crystal came so late, the inspector found
    
    other villagers at whom to be angry in the meanwhile.
    
    When the crystal did arrive a week or so later, it too was escorted by
    a squid of guards. So many strangers didn't come to Zossen in the course
    of in ordinary year. Along with the guards came a mage. His red nose and
    cheeks and red-tracked eyes said he had a fondness for spirits. So did the
    
    y
    
    d
    
    way he gulped from the flask at his belt
    
    Annore watched in distaste. "They've sent us a wreck, not a wizard."
    "Must be all they think we deserve," Garivald answered. He shrugged.
    
    "It doesn't take much of a mage to sacnifice a man."
    
    He never found out how they chose which condemned prisoner to

    




    390
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    sacrifice first. He'd done his best to pretend the prisoners and the guar
    and the mage weren't anywhere near the village. Some of the village
    had got friendly with the condemned men, bringing good food to the ce
    instead ofiust enough swill to keep them alive till they were used up. H
    thought that pointless; odds were the guards ate the meat andjam instea
    of giving them to the captives.
     The guards staked the prisoner out in the middle of the village square
    "I didn't do anything," he said over and over. "I really didn't do any
    thing." No one paid any attention to his feeble protests. Ganivald stoo
    and watched along with a lot of other villagers. No one had been sacri
    ficed in Zossen for a long time. What was strange was always interesting
     Up came the wizard, wobbling as he walked. He set the crystal on th
    condemned criminal's chest, then took a knife from his belt. Ganival
    wouldn't have wanted to handle a knife while that drunk. He would hav
    been as likely to cut himself as what he was supposed to be cutting.
      I really didn't do-" The condemned man's words faded into a wet
    choking gurgle. Blood spurted from his neck, just as it did from that of a
    butchered hog. The mage chanted, hiccuping in between the words.
    Garivald wondered if he was too drunk to get the spell right, but evi-
    dently not: through the blood that covered it, the crystal began to glow.
     One of the inspectors picked it up and carried it over to a bucket of
    water to wash it off. The other inspectors pointed to the criminal's body;
    which was occasionally twitching. "Bury this carrion," he said, and
    pointed to several men. "You, you, you, and you."
     Garivald was the second you. As he pulled up one of the stakes
    which the condemned man had been tied, the inspector with the crys
    said, "I've got Cottbus inside there." He sounded pleased. Ganva
    wasn't. That he wasn't pleased changed things not at all. He picked up
    the dead man's leg and helped carry him away.
    
     Leuclast tramped along the western bank of a small stream th
    some of the border between the part of Forthweg Unkerlant
    and the part Algarve held. On the other side of the river, an
    patrol mounted on unicorns drew near his squad.
     One of the Algarvians waved to his squad. Not
    
                              knowing whether
    wave back, he glanced toward Sergeant Magnulf. Only when the sq
    leader raised a hand did he do the same. The Algarvians reined in. Th

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ie
    
    ~d
    ~e
    
    1W -
    
     of
    dy,
    ind
    
    ; to
    ,stal
    Vald
    
    ~ "P
    
    rked
    pied
    -vian
    
    er to
    quad
    1711cir
    
    391
    
    mounts were painted in splotches of dull brown and green. Unkerlant did
    the same thing, as had Forthweg when Forthweg had unicorns with
    which to fight. It made the beasts harder to see and to blaze. It also made
    them much uglier.
     "Hail, Swernmel's men," an Algarvian called in what might have been
    either Forthwegian or Unkerlanter. "You understanding me?"
     Again, Leudast looked toward Magnulf He was a corporal, but
    Magnulf was the sergeant. Unkerlant and Algarve remained at peace. But
    they had been at war before, many times, and they might be again before
    long. All the drilling Leudast had been through lately made him think that
    likely. What if a military inspector found out he and his comrades had
    spoken with the almost-enemy?
     "You understanding me?" the Algarvian called again when no one
    answered right away.
     Magnulf must have been worrying about the same things as Leudast.
    The other side of the goldpiece was, what if the Algarvians had some-
    thing important to say, something his superiors needed to know? "Aye, I
    understand you," the sergeant said at last. "What do you want?"
     "You have burning water?" the cavalryman asked. He tipped back his
    head and put a fist to his mouth as if it were a flask.
     "He means spirits, Sergeant," Leudast said.
     I know what he means," Magnulf said impatiently. He raised his
    voice: "What if we do?"
     "Want to tread?" The Algarvian smacked his forehead with the heel
    of his hand. "No - want to trade?"
     "What have you got?" Magnulf asked. In a low voice, he added to his
    comrades, "It had better be something good, if they want us to trade
    spirits for it."
    
     "Aye," Leudast said, the same thought having crossed his mind. All he
    wantcd to do with spirits was drink them himself.
     The Algarvian who was doing the talking held up something that glit-
    tered in the warm northern sunlight. Squinting across the stream, Leudast
    saw it was a dagger. "Fancy knife," the redhead said, evidently not know-
    ing how to say dag~er in a language the Unkerlanters could understand.
    "Taking from Forthwegians in war. Got plenty."
      Magnulf rubbed his chin. Speaking to his fellow Unkerlanters, the
     sergeant said, "We ought to be able to trade fancy daggers for more spirits

    




    392
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    than we give the Algarvians to get 'em, eh?" The soldiers nodded. Magnulf
    started shouting again: "All right, come on across. We'll see what we can
    do." He waved to invite the Algarvians over to the west side of the river.
     "Peace between us?" the redhead asked.
     "Aye, peace between us," Magnulf answered. The Algarvians urged
    their unicorns into the river. Magnulf spoke to his own men: "Peace as
    long as they keep it. And don't let your cursed jaws flap, or the inspec-
    tors will pull out your tongues by the roots." Leudast shivered, knowing
    the sergeant wasn't likely to be eitherjoking or exaggerating.
     The river was shallow enough that the unicorns had to swim only a
    few yards in midstream. They came up on to the western bank, dripping
    and snorting and beautiful in spite of paint splashed over their hides.
    Their iron-shod horns looked very sharp. Some of the Algarvians dis-
    mounted; others stayed on the unicorns, alert and watchful. They were
    veterans, all right. Leudast, a veteran himself, wouldn't have taken any-
    thing for granted, either.
     "Let's see these daggers close up," Magnulf said.
     "Let us seeing-" The Algarvian spokesman made that drinking
    gesture again.
     Magnulf nodded to the soldiers in his squad. Leudast let his pack slide
    off his shoulders. He opened it and took out a flask. He was unsurpnised
    to see that every one of his squadmates had a similar little jug. Such flasks
    were against regulations, but keeping Unkerlanters and spirits apart was
    like keeping ham and eggs apart when the time to cook supper came.
     Leudast held out his flask to an Algarvian. The redhead was several
    inches taller than he, but several inches narrower through the shoulders.
    Leudast had never seen anyone from Mezentio's kingdom before, not
    close up, and curiously studied the Algarvian. The fellow pulled the stol
    per from the flask, sniffed, and whistled respectfully. He took a couple of
    staggering steps, as if drunk from the fumes. Leudast chuckled. Maybe the
    Algarvians weren't so fearsome as people said they were.
     This one put the stopper back in the flask, hefted it and shook it to
    how much it held, and then took two knives off his belt. He pointed t~.
    one and then to the spirits before pointing to the other and the spinij,
    Leudast understood: the Algarvian was saying he could have one o
    
    other but not both.
    
     He examined the daggers. The blade on one was an inch or so long

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ng
    
    ere
    
    ny-
    
    ng
    
   ck slide
    rprisecl
    ch flasks
    
    I)art was
    
    came.
    s several
    oulders.
    
    fore, not
    
    I
    
                                     the stop
                                    couple of
                                     aybe the
    
                                   k it to see
                                    onitcCi to
                                   he spirits.
                                    nc or the
    
    - 1011(rcr
    
    393
    
    than that on the other. The one with the shorter blade had a hilt
    decorated with what looked like jewels: red, blue, green. If they were
    jewels, that dagger was worth a lot. But if the dagger was worth a lot, the
    redhead wouldn't swap it for a flask of spirits. The other knife had a hilt
    of some dark wood, highly polished, with Forthweg's stag stamped into
    it and enameled in blue and white.
     "I want this one," Leudast said, and took the less gaudy knife. He
    closely watched the Algarvian as he did so. The man from the east made
    a good game try at not looking surprised and disappointed, but not good
    enough. Leuclast didn't smile, not on the outside of his face, but he was
    smiling inside. He handed the Algarvian the flask of spirits. That made the
    man in tunic and kilt look a little happier, but not much.
     Leuclast looked around to see how his comrades were making out in
    their bargains. Two or three of them had chosen the daggers with the
    colorful jewels. They were men he'd already tabbed as greedy. Now he
    did smile. Greed would get them what greed usually got. He had no
    doubt he'd done better.
     Sergeant Magnulf, now, was not a man to be easily fooled. He and the
     M%wt,i~m who had a smartening of Unkerlanter and Forthwegian were
     still dickering. At last, the redhead threw up his hands. "All right! All
     right! You winning!" he said, and gave Magnulf not only a knife Leuclast
     thought quite fine but also a couple of Algarvian silver coins. He angrily
     snatched the flask of spirits from Magnulf s hands.
       'If you don't want it, I'll give you back your stuff," Magnulf said.
     "I wanting!" the Algarvian said. He seemed to get excited about
     everything, and clutched the flask to his bosom as if it were a beautiful
     woman. Then, relaxing a little, he asked, "We fighting war, you
     Unkerlanterians and we?"
    
      Luidas, could cough or otherwise warn Magnulf the question
      had teeth, the sergeant showed he'd figured that out for himself He
      shrugged and answered, "How should I know? Am I a general? I hope
      uot, is all I can tell you. Nobody who's seen a war can like one."

    




      "Here you talking true," the Algarvian agreed. He turned to his men
      and spoke to thern it) their own language. The ones who were on foot
      swung up into the saddle. Again, they looked like soldiers who knew
      exactly what they were doing. In a real fight, though, the unicorns would
      suffer terribly before they could close with dwlir Co-

    




    394
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     The Algarvians forded the river once more and resumed their p
    on the eastern bank. The trooper who could make himself understo
    the Unkerlanters turned to wave to Sergeant Magnulf s squad. Ma
    waved back. The Algarvians rode behind some bushes and disappea
     "Not bad," Magnulf said to the men he led. "No, not bad at all.
    these are Forthwegian daggers, nobody needs to know we were tra
    with the Algarvians."
     "What would happen if somebody found out?" one of his men as
     "I'm not sure," the sergeant said. "I don't think trying to see wou
    the most efficient thing we could do, though." No one disagreed with
     But after they'd walked on for another half a mile or so, Leudast
    up to Magnulf and spoke in a low voice: "Sergeant, maybe we oug
    let somebody know we did some talking with the redheads. That
    Algarvian was spying on us, curse me if he was doing anything else. D
    you think our officers need to know the Algarvians are worried abo
    attacking them?"
     Magnulf looked him up and down. "I thought you were a s
    soldier. You came through the mountains in one piece. You c
    through the desert in one piece, and with a stripe on your sleeve.
    now you want to stick your own sausage into the meat grinder?
    don't you just cut it off with your pretty new knife instead?"
     Leudast's ears got hot. But his stubbornness was one of the reasons
    come through the fighting he'd seen, and so he said, "Don't you t
    our officers would forgive us for trading with the Algarvians when
    find out what we learned?"
     "Maybe they would - maybe the line officers would, anyho
    Magnulf answered. "But this is intelligence information, and that ni
    it would have to go through the inspectors. We couldn't very well
    them where we got it without telling them we broke regulations, c
    we? When have you ever heard of an inspector forgiving anybody
    breaking regulations?"
     "Not lately," Leudast admitted, "but-"
     "No buts," Magnulf said firnily. "Besides, what makes you
    we've been able to find out anything the inspectors don't already k
    If ordinary soldiers are asking other ordinary soldiers about what's go
    to happen next, don't you think the spies on both sides are keeping bu
    too?"

    




    I
    
    or
    
    Lnk
    
    1W?
    
    ing
    asy,
    
    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    "Ah." Leuclast nodded. That made sense to him. "You're likely right,
    
    Sergeant. That'd be the efficient thing for 'em to do, anyhow.
    
     "Of course it would," Magnulf said. "And so, my most noble and
    magnificent corporal" - his ex ression was as jaundiced as that of a
    Zuwayzi camel - "is it all right with you that we keep our mouths shut?
     11 Aye, Sergeant, it is," Leuclast said, and Magnulf pantomimed enor-
    mous relief Leudast went on, "Sergeant, do you think we'll be fighting
    
    the Algarvians next?"
    
     That was not only a different question, it was a different sort of
    ques I tion. Magnulf walked on for several strides before saying, "Do you
    
    suppose we'd have done all that drilling against behemoths and such if we
    weren't going to fight them? Our generals aren't always as efficient as
    
    they might be, but they aren't that inefficient."
    
     Leudast nodded. That also made sense to him: all too much sense. H
    said, "What's your guess? Will they hit us, or will we jump them first?"
     Now Magnulf laughed out loud. "Answer me this one: when have
    you ever known King Swernmel to wait for anything or anybody?"
     "Ali," Leudast said again. He looked east across the little river into
    Algarvian-occupied Forthweg. From a distance, the countryside over
    there looked no different from the chunk of Forthweg Unkerlant held.
    Leudast got the feeling he'd be seeing that distant countryside up close
    
    before too Ion
    
    Vanai had not enjoyed going out on to the streets of Oyngestun since
    the Algarvians occupied the village. (She hadn't much enjoyed going out
    on to the streets of Oyngestun before the war began, either, but chose
    not to dwell on that now.) But, with Major Spinello paying court to her
    grandfather these days, going out on to the streets of Oyngestun had
    
    become an impossible ordeal
    
     Before the war began, before the Algarvian major and scholar began
    calling at Brivibas's home, the Kaunians of Oyngestun had been well-
    Mclined to licr, even if the Forthwegians sneered at her because of her
    blood and leered at her because of her trousers. The Forthwegians still
    sneered and leered, as did the Algarvian troopers of Oyngestun's small
    
    garrison. Vanal could have dealt with that; she was used to it.
    
    These days, though, her own people also rejected her, and that was
    like a knife in the heart. When she walked through the district in which

    




    396
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    most of Oyngestun's Kaunians lived, the politer folk turned their backs
    on her, pretending she did not exist. Others - mostly those closer to her
    own age - called her more filthy names than she'd found in the searniest
    classical Kaunian texts.
     "Look out!" The cry raced up the street ahead of her as she walked
    toward the apothecary's. "Here comes the redhead's dnipholder!"
     Laughter floated out through the small windows opening on to the
    street. Vanal held her head up and her back straight, however much she
    wanted to cry. If her own people pretended they could not see her, she
    would pretend she could not hear them.
     The apothecary, a pale, middle-aged man named Tamulis, liked
    money too well to pretend Vanai did not exist. "What do you want?" he
    demanded when she came inside, as if anxious to get her out again as soon
    as he could.
     "My grandfather suffers from headache, sir," Vanal answered in a low,
    polite voice. "I would like a jar of the willow-bark decoction, if you
    please."
     Tarmilis scowled. "You and Brivibas make all the Kaunians of-
    Oyngestun suffer from headache," he said coldly. "Who else sucks up to
    the Algarvians as you do?"
     "I do not!" Vanai said. She started to go on to defend her grandfather'
    but the words stuck in her throat. At last, she did find something she
    could truthfully say: "He has brought no harm to anyone else in the vil-
    lage. He has accused no one. He has denounced no one."
     "Not yet," Tamulis said. "How long will it be before that com
    too?" But he bent and searched the shelves behind the high counter until
    he found the decoction Vanal wanted. "Here. That will be one and six.
    Take it and get out."
     Biting her lip, she gave him two large silver coins.
    
    He returned hal
    
    dozen small ones. She put them in her pocket. After a moment, she ptl
    the jar of willow-bark decoction in another pocket. When she walked
    down the street carrying something, boys had been known to run by and
                                              t
    
    strike it out of her hand. They thought that great sport. Vanal didn't.
     Tamulis spoke more kindly than he had before: "Have you nowhere
    you might go, so your grandfather's disgrace does not stick to you?" 11
     "He is my grandfather," Vanal said. The apothecary scowled, but th
                                             I
    
    reluctantly nodded. Were Kaunian family ties not strong, no recogniZabIC

    




    Kaunians would have been left in Forthwe Vanal added "Nor have
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    ever heard that pursuing knowledge brought disgrace with it."
    
    397
    
     "Pursuing knowledge, no," Tamulls admitted. "Pursuing food when
    others go hungry - that is a different matter. And you may tell Brivibas I
    
    say so. I have said as much to his face."
    
    "He has not pursued food," Vanai said. "By the powers above, he has
    
     "Your loyalty does you credit: more credit than your grandfather
    deserves," Tamulis said. "Tell me also that he has not accepted the food
    the redheads give him to keep him sweet." When Vanai stood mute, the
    apothecary grunted and gave another of those reluctant nods. "You are
    honest, I think. You may discover, though, that being honest does you
    
    d-
    
    If a
    
    P'Lit
    ked
    and
    
    here
    
    then
    zab1c
    
    less good than you might expect."
    
     "You need not fear, sir." Vanai let her bitterness come out. "I have
    already discovered that." She dipped her head in what looked very much
    
    like resnect then left the anothecarv's shot).
    
     Going back to the house in which Brivibas had raised her, she ran the
    gauntlet again. Some people ignored her, often ostentatiously. Others
    shouted abuse at her or about her. Her strides grew longer and more
    determined as she neared her house. If her fellow Kaunians could not see
    
    that they'd hurt her, then in some the way they hadn't.
    
     Her heart sank when she saw a bored-looking Algarvian trooper stand-
    ing in front of the house. That meant Major Spinello was inside, and also
    meant her grandfather's reputation - and hers - would sink even lower,
    if such a thing was possible. Blood started pounding at her temples and
    behind her eves. Maybe she would take some of the willow-bark decoc-
    
    tion herself.
    
     The Algarvian soldier stopped looking bored the instant he spotted
    lier. Instead, he looked like a hound that had just had a pork chop waved
    in front of it. He blew Vanai a loud, smacking kiss. "Hello, sweetheart!"
    
    he said in loud, bad, enthusiastic Forthwegian
    
     "I am sorry. I do not understand what you are saying," Vanai answered
    in Kaunian. The redhead did not seem the sort who would have studied
    the classical tongue in school. Sure enough, he looked blank. Before he
    could make up his mind whether she was lying, she walked rapidly past
    him and into the house. The door had been unbarred when she went out.
    
    She made sure she barred it behind her now

    




    398
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     Brivibas's voice, and Spinello's, too, came from the direction of her
    grandfather's study. As quietly as she could, Vanal went into the kitchen
    and set the jar of medicine on the counter there. Regardless of whether
    or not her grandfather had a headache, she did not want the Algarvian
    major with a passion for ancient history to know she was there. He'd
    never tried to do anything with her or to her, but, like all Algarvians, he
    watched her too hard.
     "But, sir," he was saying now in his really excellent Kaunian, "you are
    a reasonable man. Surely you can see this would be in your own best
    interest and in that of your people here."
     "Some people may well find lying to be in their best interest. 1, how-
    ever, am not any of those unfortunate individuals." When Brivibas
    sounded stuffiest, he was also stubbornest. "And how a lie can benefit my
    people is also beyond me."
     Major Spinello's sigh was quite audible; from it, Vanai guessed he a
    her grandfather had been arguing for some time. The Algarvian said,
    my view, sir, I have asked you for no untruth."
     "No, eh? The Algarvian occupation of Forthweg and Valmiera is iii
    your view a positive good for Kaunianity?" Brivibas said. "if that be yo
    view, Major, I can only suggest that you see an oculist, for your visi4
    has suffered some severe derangement."
     Vanal hugged herself for joy. She wished her grandfather had ken
                                           spol
    thus to Spinello at his first visit. But Spinello hadn't talked of anythi
    but antiquarian subjects then, and Brivibas enjoyed playing the master
    a bright student, even a bright Algarvian student. It was, in a way, the role
    he played with Vanal.
    
     "I think not," Spinello answered. "Tell me how wonderfully the
    Forthwegians treated you Kaunians when they ruled here. Were theyfot
    as barbarous as their Unkerlanter cousins?"
     Brivibas didn't answer night away. That meant he was thinking it
    analyzing it. Vanal did not want him bogged down in an argument, 0
    details, where the main point would get lost. Hurrying into the study , ,
    
    said, "That has nothing to do with the way the Algarvian army overran
    Valmi'era."
     "Why, so it doesn't, my dear child," Major Spinello said, which ma
    Vanai see red that had nothinLy to do with his hair "So fyoo
    
                                  a to see you
    again," he went on. "But had we not overrun Valn-iiera, King Gainibu'~

    




    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    Cr
    
    ier          and let your elders discuss this business."
    
    399
    
    army would have overrun us, is it not so? Of course it is so, for that is what
    the Valmierans did dutinz the Six Years' War. Now do t)lease run alonL,
    
    "There is nothing to discuss," Brivibas said, "and Vanal may stay if she
    
    so desires this bein her home M~ior anJ not unijr, "
    
    I   I
    
     Spinello bowed stiffly. "In this you are of course correct, Sir. My
    apologies." He turned and bowed to Vanal as well, before giving his
    attention back to Brivibas "But I continue to maintain that ou are bein
    
    wst
    
    ~bas
    
    my
    
    and
    "in
    
     in
    ~our
    ,Sion
    
    Dken
    hing
    ~er to
     role
    
    y the
    ~y not
    
    over,
    t ("'Cr
    [y, she
    vcrrail
    
    [ 111ade
    
    CC y(Li
    
    anibu's
    
    unreasonable "
    
    I "And I continue to maintain that you have not the faintest notion of
    
    what you are talking about," Brivibas said. "If occupation by King
                             I
    
    I   Mezentio's soldiers be such a boon for us Kaunians, Major, why have you
    
    Algarvians ordered that we may no longer set our own language down in
    writing, but must use Forthwegian or Algarvian? This, mind you, when
    Kaunian has been the language of scholarship since the days of antiquity
    
    you say you love so well."
    
    Major Spinello coughed and looked embarrassed. "I did not give this
    
    order nor do I annrove ofit. It strikes me as ove ealous As vou bear
    
    have no objections to your language: on the contrary."
    
    "Whether it be your order does not matter," Brivibas said. "That it is
    an Algarvian order does. The Forthwegians never restricted us so: one
    more reason I fall to view the present order of things as beneficial to
    
    Kaunians "
    
    '1
    
     "Oh, good for you, my grandfather!" Vanai exclaimed. At his best
    Brivibas aimed logic like the beam from a stick, and, she thought admir-

    




    
    ingly, with even more piercing effect
    
     "Your reasoning is elegant, as always," Spinello said. "I have, how-
    ever, another question for you: do you view the present order of things
    as beneficial to yourself and your charming granddaughter, as compared
    to other Kauni ans here in Forthweg? Think hard before you answer, sir. "
     Vanai sighed. So this was what Spinello had been after all along. She'd
    had a pretty good notion he was after something. Turning her grand-
    father into an Algarvian tool made excellent sense from his point of view.
    But Brivibas's integni while on the fusty side, was real - and Brivibas
    
     How much did he care for a full belly? Vanal wondered how muct
    she cared for a full belly herself She'd learned all she cared to abou

    




    400
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    hunger before Major Spinello started paying court to her grandfather.
    Maybe it was just as well Spinello hadn't asked her.
     Bri'vibas said, "Good day, sir. If you care to discuss the past, we may
    perhaps have something to say to each other. We do not appear to view
    the present in the same light, however."
     "You will come to regret your decision, I fear," Spinello said. "You
    will regret it very soon, and very much."
     "That is also part of life," Brivibas answered. "Good day." Spinello
    threw his hands in the air, then bowed and departed.
     As the door to the street closed behind him, Vanai said, "My grand-
    father, I am proud of you. We are free again.,,
     "We are free to starve again, my granddaughter," Bnivibas said. "We
    are free to endure worse than hunger, too, I fear. I may have made a niis-,
    take that will cost us dear."
     Vanai shook her head. "I'm proud of you," she repeated.
     Her grandfather smiled a small, slow smile. "Though it may be unbe-
    comingly immodest to say so, I am also rather proud of myself
    
     Cornelu wished the land ahead of him were one of the five islands of
    Sibiu. Had the Lagoans ordered him to strike a blow at the Algarvians
    occupying his own kingdom, he would have felt more useful. He tnied
    to console himself with the thought that any blow against Algarve wa"
                                             s
    blow toward eventually freeing Sibiu. He had never before realize d wh
    a melancholy word eventually was.
     He patted Eforiel, bring the leviathan to a halt a couple of hundr
    yards from the southern coast of Valmiera. If she came any closer to laA
    she ran the risk of beaching herself. That would have been a disaster p
    repair - not for the war, no doubt, but for Cornelu.
     He turned and spoke in a low voice: "You go now.
    in Lagoan, a command he had carefully memorized.
    
                                     The words were
    
     "Aye." That word was almost identical in Lagoan and Sibian and, for
    that matter, Algarvian, too. Half a dozen
    on their feet let go of the lines wrapped
    
    Lagoans with rubber flivo
    around Eforiel to which tfiq
    had clung while the leviathan ferried them across the Valmieran Strait.
    Eforiel also carried some interesting containers under her belly. No ori,
    had told Cornelu what those held. That was sound doctrine; what he
    didn't know he couldn't reveal if captured. The Lagoans undid the,~

    




    I
    
    We
    
    [is-
    
    be-
    
    ls of
    ,ians
    xied
    vas a
    what
    
    idred
    land,
    r past
    
    id, for
    [ippers
    11 they
    Strait.
    ,4o one
    vhat he
    did the
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    401
    
    containers and swam with them toward the beach.
     No shouts of alarm and anger rose from the land. Whatever the
    Lagoans were going to do, they could at least begin it without inter-
    ference. In a way, that made Cornelu glad, as would anything that hurt
    the Algarvians. Still, he sighed as he urged Eforiel back out to sea. Had
    something gone wrong, it would have given him an excuse to ignore his
    orders to return to Setubal. He wanted an excuse to fight King
    Mezentio's men, and resented the Lagoans for making war out of what
    seemed no more than a sense of duty.
     I "Why should they care?" he asked Efoniel. "War has not come to their
    kingdom. I do not think war can or will come to their kingdom unless
    Kuusamo attacks them from the east. How Algarve would get an army
    across the Strait of Valmiera is beyond me."
     Then he slapped the surface of the sea in his own alarm and anger. No
    one in Sibiu had imagined the Algarvians could get an army across the sea
    to overrun their islands. Algarvian imagination, Algarvian ingenuity, had
    proved more flexible, more capacious, than those of King Burebistu's
    generals and admirals. Could a like misfortune befall Lagoas?
    "Powers above grant that it not be so," Cornelu muttered. Exile was
    :d - How bad exile was, he knew to the bottom of his soul. However
    b d it was, conquest would be worse. He knew that, too.
     Beneath him, Eforiel's muscles surged as the leviathan swam south.
    Every now and then, the leviathan would twist away from the exact
    course back to Setubal to pursue a mackerel or squid. She'd fed well on
    the way up to Valmiera; had Cornelu wanted to keep her strictly to her
    work, he could have done so without hani-iing her in the least. But he let
    her have her sport. If he returned to his cold, gray barracks an hour later
     than he might have otherwise, what of it?
      One of those twists probably saved his life. He watched the sea for
     leviathans with Algarvian riders and for Algarvian ships sliding along the
     ley lines. He looked up at the sky, too, but only when he thought to do
     it, which was less often than it might have been. When he rode Eforiel,
     the water was his element. The air was not. Had he wanted to be a
     dragonflier, he would never have gone to sea.
      Some Algarvian youth who had wanted to be a dragonflier released an
     egg from a great height. Had Efoniel not turned aside to go after squid, it
     Yould have burst on top of Cornelu and her, whereupon the small

    




    402
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    creatures of the sea would have feasted on them rather than the other
    round.
     As things were, they almost did. Even a near miss from an egg
    kill, the outward pressure from the burst jellying a man - or a levia
    - the burst of energy itself did not reach. Cornelu did not quite k
    how close he and Eforiel came to beingJellied, but he and the levia
    could not have escaped by much.
     Eforiel gave a pained, startled, involuntary grunt when the egg b
    as a man might have done if suddenly and unexpectedly hit in the p
    the stomach. Cornelu felt as if he were being crushed in an olive p
    but only for one brief, horrifying instant. Then, as she had been trai
    Eforiel dove and swam away from the burst as fast as she could. Cor
    had only to hang on to the lines that moored him to the leviathan; La
    spells for breathing under-water were quite as effective as those Sibiu
     Another egg burst, this one farther away. Efoniel swam harder
    deeper - than ever. Cornelu's guiding signals grew more urgent.
    with his sorcerous aids, the weight of the sea would crush him befo
    harmed the leviathan. If Eforiel gave way to panic and forgot that,
    egg might as well have done its work, at least as far as he was conce
     But the trainers at Tirgoviste had known their business, and E
    was a clever beast, little given to panic. After the first few frantic
    from her flukes, she realized Cornelu was giving her signals, real
    and obeyed. Her plunge to the depths of the sea slowed, then stop
    She angled up toward the surface once more.
     Cornelu wished the Lagoan mages had used a spell to let the leviat
    breathe underwater. So far as he knew, no such spell existed, th
    adapting the one the mages had used on him didn't strike him as like
    be difficult. Till this war, though, no one had seen the need, just as
    one had seen the need to keep watch against sailing ships or to
    swarms of behemoths or. .
     When Eforiel spouted, Cornelu twisted his body to look up at the
    He let out a startled grunt of his own, and ordered the leviathail to
    once more. That Algarvian dragon was stooping like a hawk, tryi
    get close enough to flame. He did not know whether dragonfire c
    kill a leviathan. He knew all too well that it could kill him.
     He'd hoped the dragon would flame even though he and Efo
    already submerged. If it ran out of flame, the leviathan and he Wo

    




    ~jv
    kn
    
     f
    ~,SDS,
    
    )MA
    
    ;ed.  , I
    
    ind
    
    ven
     it
    the
    ned.
    Driel
    flaps
    lized
    )ped.
    
    athan
    
    ~OA,1911
    
    ely to
    as no
     11-lass
    
    ie skY.
    o dive
    Ting to
    ! could
    
    -1cl had
    
    3uld be
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    403
    
    safer. But no blast of flame boiled the sea above his head. He mumbled
    curses. The Algarvian up there, unfortunately, knew what he was about.
    And he would be able to watch for Eforiel to rise, where Cornelu would
    not, could not, know where he was until already exposed to danger.
     Exposed or not, though, sooner or later Eforiel would have to breathe.
    Comelu ordered her to swim north; going back the way he had come
    seemed likeliest to put distance between her and that cursed dragon.
    North and south, east and west, were all one to the leviathan. Cornelu
    sometimes thought his insistence on going this way or that way as
    opposed to any which way annoyed Eforiel. Sometimes, by the wiggle
    she gave when obeying his commands, he thought it amused her.
     He let her swim as far as she could before surfacing. When she spouted,
    Cornelu looked around anxious for the dragon and the Algarvian flying
    it. He spotted the creature and its rider well off to the south, and nodded
    in no small satisfaction: he'd outguessed the dragonflier this time.
     But his satisfaction did not last long. He'd wanted to give Eforiel a little
    while to rest, but the dragonflier spotted her almost as soon as Cornelu.
    saw him, On came the great beast, the thunder of its wingbeats growing
    
    in Comelu's ears above the plashing of the strait.
     He sent Eforiel down below the surface well before the dragon got
    close enough to flame - and was glad he did, for a couple of sharp hisses
    above him said beams from the Algarvian's stick were boiling bits of
    ocean. They would have burned through him and the leviathan, too.
     Comelu sent Efon*el east this time, now worrying in earnest. Children
    in every kingdom played hiding games. When they lost them, though,
    the worst that happened was that they had to search next. If Comelu lost
    this game, tiny fish would nibble the flesh from his bones.
     After a long run under the protecting mantle of the sea, Efon'el came up
    to breathe once more. Comelu looked around, trying to scan every direc-
    tion at once. He spied the dragon off to the north. The Algarvian riding
    the stupid creature was anything but stupid himself. He hadn't stayed
    around and waited to see what Cornelu would do, and had nearly guessed
    right - Cornelu had thought hard about having EThis time, the Sibian exile took the leviathan underwater as soon as
                                     e
    she had breathed. He didn't know whether the dragonfli r had spotted
    this surfacing or not. With a little luck, he would lose the Algarvian in
    the immensity of the sea.

    




    404
    
    Harry Ttirtledove
    
     Efori'el swam southeast; Cornelu wasn't yet ready to return to th
    straight course toward Setubal, the likeliest track on which the drago
    would be hunting for him. So long as he reached the Lagoan coast any
    where, he could find his way back to the capital and its harbor.
     But the dragonflier, realizing he'd been outfoxed, had gained altitud
    so he could survey a broad stretch of ocean. And, when he spotted Eforie
    and Cornelu, he sent his mount winging after them.
    
     My doesn't he give up? Cornelu thought resentfully. It's not as if I'v
    done anything to him personally, the way he has to me, the way his kingdom ha
    to mine. Back in Tirgoviste, he had a son or daughter. He did not know
    which. He did not know how his wife was. Not knowing ate at him; it
    left an empty place where his heart should have been.
     When Eforiel twisted and turned after fish, he let her. If he didn't
    know in which direction she was going, how could the dragonflier
    guess?
     Logically speaking, that was perfect. Logical perfection didn't keep
    Cornelu and the leviathan from almost dying a few minutes later. When
    Eforiiel surfaced, her spout nearly soaked the dragon's tail. However he d
    done it, that cursed Algarvian had gauged almost perfectly where the
    leviathan would rise.
     Cornelu watched the dragon's head start to twist on its long, sna
    neck, back under its body. He sent Efoniel diving, hard and fast as he
    could. The sea above them turned to a sheet of flame. That terrified the
    leviathan, which, a creature of water, knew nothing of fire. She sw
    farther and faster than Cornelu would have dreamt she could.
     Her fear might have saved her, for the hunting dragon could not draw
    near enough to flame or for its nider to blaze when she surfaced again,and
    guessed wrong on the direction of her next run, so Cornelu was at last
    able to escape the stubborn dragonflier's pursuit.
     "Routine," he said back in Setubal, when his Lagoan superiors asked
    how the swim to Valmiera had gone. "Nothing but routine." He did
    think they were able to tell he was lying.
    
     Bembo peered east, toward the Bradano Mountains, with nothing but
    relief The jelgavans didn't look like breaking out on to the plains a
    all, which meant the emergency militia wasn't drilling any more. N
    marching under the eye of that fearsome sergeant warmed Bembo's he

    




    I
    
    the
    
    am
    
    sked
    d not
    
                                       Not
                                     licart.
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    If Algarve needed a pudgy constable to help hold back her foes, the
    
    kinadom was in desDerate straits indeed.
    
     A broadsheet showed one blond in trousers running away from an
    Algarvian on a behemoth, with another blond cowering in a trench. The
    first trousered soldiers was labeled VALMIERA, the second JELGAVA.
    COWARDLY KAUNIANS, declared the legend below the picture.
     Hardly knowing he was doing it, Bembo nodded as he swaggered by
    the broadsheet. Kaunians had always been cowards, even back in the
    ancient days. If they hadn't been, Tricanico would still be a city of the
    Kaunian Empire, and the Alzarvians ninned back in the forests of the far
    
    south
    
     He kept an eye out for blonds who weren't on posters. Orders to take
    nothing for granted when it came to Kaunians had gone out to every
    constable in town - and, Bembo suspected, to every constable in the
    kingdom. Such orders made sense to him. It was, he supposed, possible
    for folk of Kaunian blood to be loyal to King Mezentio. Possible, aye
    
    but how likely? Not very, in his judgment.
    
     That Balozio, for instance, remained locked up. He hadn't been able
    to prove he wasn't a Jelgavan spy, and nobody felt like taking a chance
    
    on him. That also made sense to Bembo. How loyal would Balozio be
    after spending a while in a cell? Again, not very, not so far as the con-
    
    stable could see,
    
     Bembo's eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth. He spied only
    couple of blonds on the street: Kaunians weren't going out much these
    days. One was an old man hobbling along with the help of a cane, the
    other one of the ugliest, dumpiest women he'd ever seen in his life. He
    didn't bother either of them. The old man would have had trouble being
    dangerous to a snail, let alone a kingdom. As for the woman - had she
    been pretty, he probably would have found some questions to ask her.
    Since she was anything but, he pretended - and did his best to pretend to
    
    himself, too - he hadn't noticed
    
     He marched past a hair-dressing salon, then stopped. He'd been in
    there not long before the war started, to investigate a burglary. He never
    had tracked down the thief, even though the man and woman who ran
    the place slipped him some cash to look extra hard. They were both
    
    Whistling, he turned and walked back to the doorway. If they'd paid

    




    406
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    him back then to look for a burglar, they would likely pay him even more
    now to leave them alone. Constables never made enough money. Bembo
    didn't know a single colleague who would have disagreed with him. He
    opened the door and went inside.
     The husband of the pair was trimming a customer's goatee while the
    
    w'f                              I
     i e curled a woman's hair. Another woman sat reading a news sheet,
    waiting to be served. They all raised their heads to stare at him.
     He stared at them, too. The man and woman doing the work had red
    hair, as did all their customers. Had he come into the wrong place? He
    couldn't believe it. Maybe the Kaunians had sold the business. That made
    better sense to him.
     Before he could apologize and leave - bothering ordinary Algarvians
    might land him in trouble - the man with the little scissors in his hand
    said, "Look, Evadne, it's Constable Bembo, who tried so hard to catch
    that miserable burglar." He bowed. "A good day to you, Constable."
     Automatically, Bembo returned the bow. The woman - Evadne -
    said, "Why, so it is, Falsirone." She dropped Bembo a curtsy. "A very
    good day to you, Constable."
     Bembo bowed again. These were the people he'd seen about the bur-
    glary. They had ordinary Algarvian names and spoke Algarvian with an
    accent like his own. But they'd been blonds the last time he saw them.
    "You've dyed your hair!" he blurted as realization struck.
     "Aye, we have." Falsirone nodded. "We got plumb sick and tired Of
    people cursing us for dirty Kaunians whenever we struck our faces out
    the door. Now we fit in a mite better."
     "That's right," Evadne said. "Life's been a lot simpler since
     Their features still had a Kaunian cast, being rather sharper than those
    of most Algarvians. And their eyes were blue, not green or hazel. BLIt
    those were details. The color of their hair wasn't. They could pass for
    ordinary Algarvians in the street, no questions about it.
     Which meant ... Bembo's jaw dropped when he thought about what
    it meant. "You, you, you!" he snapped to the other three people - the'
    other three redheaded people - in the salon. "Are you Kaunians, too"'
     He watched them all think about lying - as a constable, he had 11.,0
    trouble recognizing that expression. As he looked at them, he realiz"
    they were of Kaunian stock. They must have seen as much on his face,
    one by one, they nodded.

    




    bur-
    th an
    then,.
    
    rect of
    es out
    
    did It."
    11 those
    C1. But
    pass for
    
    'Lit NN'l-lat
    Ic - the
    
       -11
    S, too~
    e had no
    realized
    face, for,
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    e -
    very
    
    407
    
     "It's like Falsirone told you," said the man in the chair in front of the
    barber. "All we want is for people to leave us alone. With our hair red,
    they mostly do."
     "Powers above," Bembo said softly. He pointed to Falsirone. "How
    many Kaunians have you turned into redheads?"
     "I couldn't begin to tell you, sit, not exactly," Falsirone answered. "A
    fair number, though, I'd say." Evadne nodded. Her husband continued,
    "All we want to do is get along, not make any trouble for anybody and
    not have anybody make any trouble for us. Nothing wrong with that, is
    there, sit? It's not against the law."
    
     "No, I don't suppose it is," Bembo said abstractedly. The law hadn't
    considered that Kaunians who found trouble as blonds might reach for
    the henna bottle. The law could be pretty stupid.
     "Are we in trouble, sit?" Evadne asked. "If we are, I do hope you'll
    give us the chance to make it right."
     She meant she hoped Bembo would take another bribe. Like most
    Algarvian constables, he was seldom known to turn one down. This,
    though, looked to be one of those rare times. He thought he could get
    more from his superiors for telling what he'd learned than he could from
    the Kaunians for keeping quiet.
     "I don't think there's any problem," he said, not wanting to give the
    game away. Evadne and Falsirone and their customers looked relieved.
    They looked even more relieved when Bembo left. Only after he headed
    back to the constabulary station did he realize he could have taken their
    money and that from his superiors. As constables went, he was relatively
    honest.
    
      "What are you doing here, Bembo?" Sergeant Pesaro demanded when
    
    he came into the station. "You're supposed to be out there protecting our
    poor, endangered citizens from each other."
     "Oh, bugger our poor, endangered citizens," Bembo said. "Bugger
    em with a pineconc, as a matter of fact. This is important."
     "It had better be, after a buildup like that," the fat sergeant said.
    "Come on, give forth." He spread his hands in anticipation.
     And Bembo gave forth. As he did, Sergeant Pesaro's expression
    changed. Bembo smiled to himself Pesaro had been waiting for him to
    come out with something not worth interrupting his usual beat to
    Jdl%,cr, Had he done so. the sergeant would have taken unholv glee in

    




    408
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    roasting him over a slow fire. But if what he had to say wasn't wort
    mentioning, he didn't know what would be.
      "Why, those dirty, sneaking whoresons!" Pesaro burst out when h
    was through. "Going around hiding what they are, are they? We'll pu
    paid to that, and bugger me with a pinecone if we don't."
      'Right now, there's no law on the books against it," Bembo said. "FE
    only too bloody sure of that. Used to be, the cursed Kaunians woul
    flaunt what they were: wave their hair in our faces, you might say. The
    can't get away with that any more, so they're doing their best to turn int
    chameleons instead."
      "They won't get away with it." Pesaro heaved his bulk out of the chal
    behind the front desk. "I'm going to have myself a talk with Captait
    Sasso. He'll know what we can do about the miserable yellow-hairs, lam
    or no law."
      "Aye, so he will." Bembo picked his next words with care: "Let me
    come along with you, Sergeant, if you'd be so kind. The captain will
    surely want to hear the details straight from the man who found them."
    
      Pesaro glared at him as if he were half a worm in an apple. Bembo
    knew what that meant: the sergeant had been planning to grab all the
    credit himself If he were a heartless enough bastard, he could still do it.
    For a moment, Bembo thought he would. But that would infuriate not
    just Bembo - which wouldn't have bothered Pesaro in the slightest -
    all the other ordinary constables, too. Still looking sour, Pesaro nod
    andierked his head toward the stairs leading up to Captain Sasso's offi
    "Come on, then."
      Sasso was a lean, middle-aged man with a startling streak of
    his cinnamon hair. He had a scar on his scalp from a knife fig
    youth, and the hair along it had been silver ever since. He looked
    paperwork as Pesaro and Bembo stood in the doorway waiti
                                          white
                                          lit .
                                           t in
    
    noticed. "AN right, boys, come on in," he said. "What's going 0
     "Constable Bembo here noticed something I think you ought
    know about, sir," Pesaro said: if he couldn't take all the credit, he'd
    some. He nudged Bembo with an elbow. "Go on, tell the captain what
    the dirty Kaumans are up to."
    
     "Kaunians, eh?" Sasso leaned forward, his form almost silhoue
    against the window in front of which he sat. "Aye, do tell me."
     Before Bembo could begin, shadows dappled the street outside. "A lot

    




    aw
    
    me
    will
    
   mbo
    the
    o it.
    
    e not
    - but
    acled
    
    office.
    
    ite in
    ill his
    P from
    g to be
    n?"
    
     ht to
    C'j take
    ain what
    
    110"IcUcci
    
    e "A lot
    
    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    409
    
    of dragons flying these days," he remarked. "Powers above be praised
    
    they're ours, and not the cursed jelgavans'.
    
      Aye. Captain Sasso s smile displayed sharp teeth. By the way his eyes
    gleamed, Bembo got the notion he knew more than he was saying.
    Bernbo got no chance to ask questions; Sasso gestured impatiently. "Out
    
    with it Constable
    
    "Aye, sir." As Bembo had for Pesaro, he told Sasso how the Kaunians
    
    were dyeing their hair to become less conspicuous in Tricarico.
    
     "Well, well," the constabulary captain said when he was through. "I
    heard a natural philosopher talk once about spiders that looked like
    flowers, so the bees and butterflies would come right up and get eaten.
    Sounds like what the Kaunians are doing, doesn't it? And if they're doing
    
    it in Trican'co, sure as sure they're doing it all over Algarve."
    
     "I hadn't thought of that, sir," Bembo said, which was true. Officers
    got paid to worry about the whole puzzle; he had enough trouble trvinQ
    
    to keep track of what was going on in his own little piece.
    
    "We'll put a stop to it, though - curse me if we don't," Sasso said, his
    
    voice thoroughly grim. He nodded to Bembo and Pesaro. "And your
    name will be remembered, Constable, for ferreting this out, and yours,
    Sergeant r bringimy it to mv notice On that vou both have rnv solemn
    
    I
    
    word."
    
    "Thank vou sir " the t o men chorused Thev beamed at each other

    




    
    Bembo was willing to share the credit, so long as he got some. So was
    Pesaro, even if he had tried to steal it for himself That made them both
    
    uncommonlv generous for Alvarvian constables.
    
     Fekka had always maintained that a mage's most important tools were
    pen and paper: a fitting attitude for a theoretical sorcerer. Now she was
    in the laboratory rather than behind her desk. Instead of the abstracted
    expression she usually wore while practicing her craft, the look on her
    
    face at the moment was one of intense frust tion.
    
     She glowerccl at the acorn on the table in front of her. "Better you
    should have been fed to a pig," she told it. It lay there, mute, inert,
    
    unhelpful. it might also have reproached tier for clumsy technique - and
    she was far more frustrated than she'd imagined, if she invested an acorn
    
    with the power to reproach.
    
    She felt like reproaching the little brown nut far more loudly and

    




    410
    
    Harry Turtledovc
    
    stridently than she already had. Kuusaman restraint won out, but only
    barely. The foreign sailors whose loud foreign oaths sometimes spilled
    out of the harbor district of Kajaam never left any doubt of how they felt
    about things. Pekka envied the release they gained so easily.
     "Let me learn the truth," she murmured. "That will release me."
     If the acorn knew the truth, it wasn't talking. She'd thought she'd
    found a way to coax the truth from it, but hadn't managed that yet. She
    muttered again. She had no doubt Leino would have seen half a dozen
    
                                1             Id
    ways to improve her experiment. Any mage with a practical bent wou
    have. But she wasn't supposed to let her husband know about the work
    she was doing. She wasn't supposed to let anyone know but her col-
    leagues - and they were theoretical sorcerers, too.
     She gave the acorn another glare. For good measure, she walked across
    the laboratory and glared at the other acorn in the experiment. It sat on
    a white plate identical to that on which the first acorn rested. The two
    plates sat on identical tables. The two acorns themselves were tightly
    similar - Pekka had picked them and several more from one branch of an
    oak - and had been in contact not only through the tree but also in a
    single jar here in this chamber. She knew they'd touched. She'd ma
    sure they touched.
     And all her care had got her . nothing, so far. She strode back to the
    table that held the first acorn. Angry footsteps on the stone floor served
    her almost as well as angry curses served foreign sailors. She wanted to
    pick up the acorn and fling it out the window With more than a lit
    effort, she checked herself
     "It should have worked," she said, and then laughed in spite of
    anger and frustration. That was the sort of thing Uto might have said.
    one would have, no one could have, blamed a small boy for thinking
    way. Pekka, however, was supposed to know better.
     "But it should have," she protested, and laughed at herself again. Avc.
    she sounded very much like Uto.
     Sounding like her son didn't necessarily mean sh
    
                                               e was wrong. If sic
    wanted to get to the bottom of the relationship between the la\vs
    similarity and contagion, till now reckoned the basic laws of sorccl~.
    what better way to approach it than through acorns, the basic forins Of
    oaks? She'd thought herself very clever to come up with that. It see!IC6
    the sort of notion a seasoned experimenter might devise.

    




    'd
    
    he
     en
     ld
     rk
    ol-
    
    ross
    
    t on
    
    two
    tly
    f an
    in a
     a'd
      e
    
    o the
    erved
    ed to
    a little
    
                                      of her
                                      d. No
                                     ng that
    
    ii. Aye,
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    411
    
     Sometimes, of course, even seasoned expenimenters failed. Up till now,
    Pekka certainly had. For all she'd learned, the laws of similanity and conta-
    gion rruight as well not have existed, let alone any relationship between
    them.
     "And wouldn't that be grand?" she said with a small shiver. "Nothing
    but the mechanic arts forevermore?" She imagined disproving the laws of
    similanity and contagion and, as knowledge of the disproof spread, mage-
    craft grinding to a halt. Then she shook her head, so violently that she
    had to brush her coarse black hair back from her face. It couldn't happen,
    and she was heartily glad it couldn't.
     But what had gone wrong here? She still couldn't figure that out.
    When she'd done something to one acorn, nothing had happened to the
    other, even though they were similar and had been in contact. That made
    no sorcerous sense.
     Pekka snapped her fingers. "I'll try something different," she said. "If
    that doesn't work ... Powers below eat me, I don't know what I'll do if
    that doesn't work."
     She carried a bucket and a trowel outside and scooped up some moist
    soil. Then she went back to the laboratory chamber and stirred the soil
    around as thoroughly as she could before dividing it into two equal piles.
    Using a tossed coin to make sure she chose the piles randomly, she buni ed
    One acom in the first and the other in the second.
     That done, she began to chant over one of the acorns. The chant
    sprang from one horticultural mages used to force fruits and flowers to
    floun*sh out of season, but she'd spent some time strengthening it so she
    could see results more quickly. One day, if she ever found the time - and
    if the chant proved useless to her present project, and so would not be
    reckoned a princcly secret - she thought she might license out the
    improvements, which could well bring in enough money to make her
    brothcr-in-law smile.
      Unlike some of the others she'd tried, this spell seemed to perform as
     it should have. An oak sapling sprouted up through the soil and stretched
     toward the ceiling, compressing several months' growth into half an
     hour. Satisfied, Pekka stopped the chant and looked over toward the
     other table, NvIiere the other acorn should have shown similar growth.
    

    




    . if she
    laws of
    sorcery,
    foryns of
                        But it had
    t seemed
                  wowri, mav
    
    n't. P
       ,eal fear ran through Pekka. If the other acorn hadn't
    bc the laws of similaritv and contamon weren't so universal

    




    Now
    1,
    
    412
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    as she'd thought. Maybe nothing lay beneath them, and she'd reached
    through the fabric of belief to grasp it. Maybe magic really would start
    falling apart.
     "Avert the omen," Pekka murmured. She hurried over to the other
    table, wondering what was wrong with the acorn on it.
     There lay the white plate, with a mound of soil on it but with no
    sapling coming up. Pekka spread the soil aside to get at the acorn. Maybe,
    she thought hopefully, it was infertile. If it was, that would explain why
    her experiments kept going awry: it wouldn't be truly similar to the
    other. A very simple sorcerous test would tell her whether that was so.
     "Where is the cursed acorn?" she said. She knew she'd buried it: about
    a thumb's breadth from the top of the mound of soil. It wasn't there. She
    sifted through all the soil, spreading it out till it slopped off the plate and
    on to the table. Still no sign of the acorn.
     Careless of the dirt on her fingers and palms, Pekka set hands on hips.,
    She knew perfectly well that she'd set an acorn in the pile of soil. She
    couldn't have cam* ed it over to the other pile and put it in there along
    with the other acorn - could she? She did that kind of thing around the
    house now and again. Everybody did. But she couldn't have been so
    careless in the laboratory ... could she?
     "Powers above," she said. "If I did that, Leino would never let me fo
    get it. If I did that, nobody ought to let me forget it."
     She walked back to the first table. If she had somehow - she couldn't
    imagine how - set both acorns in one pile of dirt, she should have g
    two saplings springing up toward the ceiling. If she'd made a major blun-
    der and the other acorn was somehow infertile ... She shook her head.
    How slim were the odds that two improbables had both gone wrong at
    the same time.
     "But if they haven't, where's my acorn?" she demanded of the
    laboratory chamber. She got no answer. By then, she wouldn't hav b
    too surprised had one of the tables up and spoken.
     She sifted through all the dirt in the pile from which the sapling
    sprouted. She did not find the missing acorn. She didn't know whe
    to be relieved or not. On the one hand, she hadn't done anything
    donably stupid. On the other hand, if she hadn't done a
    unpardonably stupid, the earlier question recurred: where had the bloody,
    acorn gone?

    




    SO.
    
    about
     She
     and
    
    hips.
    1. She
    along
    nd the
    een SO
    
    e for-
    
    ouldn't
    ave got
    r blun-
    er head.
    tong at
    
    of the
    
    ave been
    
    ling had
    whether
    9 unpar-
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
     "I know where it should be," Pekka said, and went back to the pile of
    dirt in which she had - she knew she had - planted the acorn now
    missing.
     Could it have fallen off the table? Pekka couldn't see how, but she
    couldn't see how it had disappeared, either. She got down on hands and
    knees and, backside in the air, stuck her nose down to the stone floor and
    looked all around. She still couldn't find the acorn. It had been there. She
    was sure of that. It wasn't any more. She was becoming sure of that, too.
     "Then where is it?" she asked herself and the world at large. "How am
    I supposed to write up my experimental diary if I don't know what to put
    in it?"
     She started a list of all the places the acorn wasn't: in the soil, on the
    plate, on the table, on the other plate or table, anywhere on the floor -
    anywhere in the chamber, as far as she could tell. That was all good, solid
    information. It belonged in the diary, and she put it there.
     It was, however, information of a negative sort. Where was the acorn?
    Positive information was a lot harder to come by. The acorn, she wrote,
    was canied off by Gyongyosian spies. Then she made sure that was too thor-
    oughly scratched out to be legible, even though it made as much sense as
    anything else she'd thought of, and more sense than most of the things.
    
     She tried again. The parameters of the experiment were as follows, she ,
    wrote, and set down everything she'd done, including the alterations
    she'd made to the horticultural magic that formed the basis for her spell.
    The control acorn performed as expected in every way. The other acorn, although
    emplaced in a setting attuned to thefirst through both similarity and contagion, did
    notgerminate as a result of the spell and, injact, could not be located despite dili-
    gent search at the close of the experiment.
     There. That told the truth, even if in a bloodless way. She didn't know
    what it meant. Maybe one of her clever colleagues would be able to
    figure it out after seeing exactly what she'd done. Maybe, on the other
    hand, all her clever colleagues would laugh themselves silly at her clumsy
    technique.
    
      "Suppose," she said to the air, "just suppose, nuind you, that my tech-
     -que wasn't clumsy. Suppose something did happen."
       bued with fresh purpose, she nodded. Odds were, she had done
     omet ng foolish. Repeating the experiment as exactly as she could
     would tell her, one way or the other.

    




    414
    
    Hany Turtledove
    
     To reduce the risk of magical contamination, she used different tables
    different plants, and fresh soil for the new trial. Obviously, she used ne
    acorns, too. This time, she took care to note where each of them went
    She chanted over one. A sapling duly sprouted. No sapling grew at the
    other table. She went back there and sifted through the dirt. She found
    no acorn.
     "It's real," she breathed. Then she started to laugh. It might have been
    real, but she had no idea what it meant.

    




    I
    
    I~Wlll
    
    I
    
    415
    
    15.
    
    Sergeant jokai clanged a gong that sounded like the end of the world.
    Gyongyosian soldiers tumbled out of the barracks, rubbing sleep from
    their eyes. Istvan clutched his stick, wondering what sort of new and
    fiendish drill his superiors had come up with this time.
     "Come on, you lugs, down toward the beach," jokal shouted. "The
    cursed Kuusamans are paying us another call."
     Istvan looked around for Borsos. The dowser was nowhere to be seen.
    Maybe he was the one who'd raised the alarm. Whether he was or not,
    Istvan had no time to find him, not with jokai and the officers set above
    jokal screaming at the top of their lungs for every soldier to hurry down
    to the beaches and throw back the invaders. The Kuusaman attack had
    turned him into an ordinary warrior again. For that if for no other reason
    - and he had plenty of others - he cursed the Kuusamans as vilely as he
    could.
      Along with his comrades, he stumbled down a path toward the sea.
     Stumbled was the operative word; the eastern sky behind him had gone
     gray with the beginnings of morning twilight, but dawn still lay most of
     r
     a, hour away. The Gyongyosians could hardly see where they were
     putting their feet. Every so often, someone would go down with a thump
     and a howl. As like as not, somebody else would trip over the luckless
     soldier before he made it to his feet again.
    
     And then, before the Gyongyosians had got off the wooded slopes of
    ''Mt. Sorong, eggs began falling around them. "The stinking slanteyes
     have brouglit another dragon transport with them," somebody yelled.
      Wlicii Iswaii came out from under the trees for a moment, he looked
     up into the heavens. It was still too dark for him to see much, but he did
     spy a couple of spurts of fire. That meant Gyongyosian dragons had got

    




    416
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    into the air, too, and were contesting the sky above Obuda with the
    Kuusamans.
     He came down on to the flatlands that led to the Bothnian Ocean. H
    knew exactly which trenches his company had to occupy. Serving Borsc:
    had got him out of a lot of exercises, but not all of them. He discovered
    he still remembered such basics as taking cover and making sure no dirt
    fouled the business end of his stick.
     "By the stars!" said one of his comrades, a burly youngster named
    Szonyi. "Will you look at all the ships!"
     Istvan did look, and then cursed some more. "The Kuusamans
    brought everything they've got this time, didn't they?" he said. He
    couldn't begin to guess how many ships were silhouetted against the
    brightening sky, but he was certain of one thing: that fleet was larger than
    the one the Gyongyosians had in local waters.
    
      "Don't despair!" an officer down the trench shouted. "Never despai
    Are we not men? Are we not wam'ors?" In more practical tones, he went
    on, "Have we not got our great garrison on this island as well as our ships?"
     That did help steady Istvan. He stopped feeling as if he were alone and
    facing the Kuusaman fleet without anyone to aid him. Egg-tossers on a
    near the beach began flinging their deadly cargo at the foe. Plumes
    water mounting high in the air told of near misses A burst of fire and
    plume of smoke told of a hit. Istvan yelled himself hoarse.
     But the Kuusamans had brought heavy warships east along the ley lines
    to Obuda. They carried egg-tossers that matched any the Gyongyosians
    had mounted on the island. Eggs came whistling in, some aimed at
    tossers opposing the Kuusamans, others at the trenches where Istvan
    his comrades crouched. He felt trapped in an earthquake that would
    end. Not far away, wounded men walled.
                                            ,avi
     Like any others, Kuusaman cruisers also mounted sticks far he
    than a soldier or even a behemoth could bear. Where their mighty be
    smote, smoke sprang skyward. A soldier caught in one of them b
                                            urn
    like a moth flying through a torch flame. Istvan hoped the poor JFello*
    hadn't had time to realize he was dead. -
     "Look!" Szonyi pointed. "Some of our dragons have b
    through!"
     Sure enough, several dragons were diving on the Kuusaman fleet.
    Szonvi wasn't the only one to have spotted them. But those great sticks

    




    I At
    
    ts
    od
    irt
    
    ~ns
    He
    the
    
    ian
    
    )air!
    rent
    
    S.
    
    arid
    and
    ~s of
    nd a
    
    lines
    ~sians
    t the
    i and
    d not
    
    iroken
    
    I fleet.
    t sticks
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS         417
    
    could point to the sky as well as toward Obuda. Dragons could not
    withstand their beams, as they could the ones from the common soldiers'
    sticks. One after another, Gyongyosian dragons plunged burning into the
    sea.
     Yet the dragons were fast and agile. Their fliers were fearless, they
    themselves too stupid to be afraid. Not all were struck before the fliers
    could release their eggs and even pass low above the warships' decks. The
    dragons flamed, enveloping Kuusaman sailors in fire, then flapped away.
     "For all the good we're doing here, we might as well have stayed
    asleep in the barracks," Istvan said. "It was like that the last time the
    Kuusamaiis tried to take Obuda away from us, too."
     "I don't think it will stay that way this time," Sergeant jokai said. "I
    wish it would, but I don't think it will. Those sons of goats have brought
    a lot more ships and a lot more dragons than they did last time."
     The offshore battle went on for most of the morning. The
    Gyongyosian admiral in command at Obuda threw in his ships a few at a
    time, which meant they were defeated a few at a time. Had he hurled the
    whole fleet at the Kuusamans, he might have accomplished more, As
    things were, the would-be invaders slowly beat down the Gyongyosian
    defenses.
     Somewhere around noon, a new cry arose, one in which Istvanjoined:
    "Here come the boats!"
     Not all the Gyongyosian egg-tossers had been wrecked. Indeed, some
    had not taken part in the earlier fight against the Kuusaman naval expe-
    dition, and so had given the foe no clue about their position. Istvan
    shouted with glee as eggs fell among the boats carrying Kuusaman
    soldiers, wrecking some and overturning others.
     Gyongyos painted her dragons in gaudy stripes of red and blue, black
    and yellow. They dove on the invaders. The small boats carried no sticks
    strong enough to slay them as they dove, and some of those boats began
    to burii.
    
     But most kept on coming toward the beaches of Obuda. A few, the
    larger ones, glided swiftly along the ley lines whose convergence at the
    Wand inade it a bone of contention between Gyongyos and Kuusamo.
    The rest advanced as they might have in the ancient days of the world,
    pushed by the wind or pulled by oars.
      Small, stocky, dark-haired soldiers crowded the boats. "They don't

    




    418
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    look so tough," said Szonyi, who hadn't been on Obuda long enough t
    have seen Kuusamans before. "I could break one of them in half "
     He was on the weedy side as Gyongyosians went, but that didn't mea
    he was wrong. It also didn't mean being right would do him any goo
    which he didn't seem to realize. Istvan made things as plain as he couk
    "As long as the slanteyes have sticks and know what to do with them
    and they do, curse 'em, they do - you won't get close enough to bre
    em in half
     "That's the truth." Sergeant jokal sounded surprised to be agreein
    with Istvan instead of harassing him, but he did. "Don't think for even
    minute that those ugly little bastards can't fight, because they cursed we
    can. And don't think they can't take this stinking island away from us
    because they've done that, too. The thing is, we'd better not let 'em
    it again, not if we want to go on looking up at the stars."
    
     The Kuusaman captives the Gyongyosians had taken when they I
    seized Obuda were slave laborers back on the mainland of Derlavai or
    the other islands Ekrekek Arpad ruled. Something similarly unpleasant
    doubt befell captured Gyongyosians in Kuusaman hands. An enslav
    captive might still look up at the stars, but how much joy could he ta
    in doing it?
     Istvan hoped he would not have to find out. Kuusaman boats beg
    beaching. Soldiers jumped out of them and ran for what cover they co
    find. Istvan and his comrades blazed away at them, and knocked doa,n a
    good many. But not all the Kuusamans came ashore in front of positi
    that hadn't been too badly knocked about. Criies of alarm warned that
                                          ,rs.
    some of the invaders were outflanking the Gyongyosian defende
     "Fall back!" an officer shouted. "We'll make a stand on Mt. Sorong."
     Retreat was galling to any troops, and more galling to the
    Gyongyosians, who fancied themselves a warrior race, than to most. If
    the choice was retreating or being attacked from the front and flanks at
    the same time, though, even the fiercest fighters saw where sense la)-.
    
     Eggs burst not far from Istvan and his comrades as they fell 6a
    "Curse the Kuusamans all over again," jokal snarled. "They've gone
    fetched light tossers along with 'em."
    
     "We did the same thing when we took Obuda back," Istvan said,,
    
     "Curse 'em anyway," his sergeant replied, a sentiment with whi
    could hardly disagree.

    




    to
    
    in -
    reak
    
     us,
    in CIO
    
    ey last
    or on
    
    ant no
   aved
    take
    
    s began
    y could
    down a
    
    ositions
    Ilea that
    
    c rs
    Sorong.
    to the
    most. if
    flanks at
    se lay.
    fell back.
    gone and
    
 an said.
     which he
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    419
    
     More eggs burst ahead of them, these large, throwing up great
    columns of riven earth. High in the sky, a dragon screeched harshly. jokai
    had been right; the Kuusamans were indeed far better prepared for this
    attack than they had been for the one the year before.
     Kuusaman eggs had already wrecked some of the defensive positions
    on the lower slopes of Mt. Sorong. As Istvan wearily stumbled into an
    undamaged trench, he asked the question surely uppermost in his com-
    rades' minds as well: "Will we be able to hold out here?"
     Whatever else Sergeantjokai was, he was forthright. He answered, "It
    doesn't really depend on us. If the stinking slanteyes can hold the sea
    around this miserable island, they'll be able to bring in enough soldiers to
    swarm over us and enough dragons to flame all of ours out of the sky. If
    our ships drive theirs away, we'll be the ones who can reinforce and
    they'll be out of luck."
     That made sense, even if Istvan didn't care for the notion that his fate
    rested in hands other than his own. Now that he wasn't on the move any
    more, he realized he was hungry. He had a couple of small rounds of flat-
    bread in his belt pouch, and wolfed them down. His belly stopped growl-
    ing. Some of his comrades had already eaten everything they'd brought
    from the barracks. No one from higher up on Mt. Sorong showed up
    with more in the way of supplies.
     Istvan wondered if Borsos was safe, and if the dowser had given t he
    Gyongyosians such warning as they'd had. Maybe Borsos was having to
    fight as a real captain would. Maybe, too, he was dead or captive by this
    time. Many Gyongyosians surely were.
     "Nothing I can do about it now," Istvan muttered. It was getting dark.
    Where, lie \N ondered, had the day gone? Unlike most on Obuda, it had-
    n't evaporated in boredom. He wrapped his blanket around himself and
    did his best to sleep.
    
     By the way Skamu swung a hoe, anyone who knew anything about
    firming and looked closely would have known he hadn't spent much

    




    time working in a field. Some of the Algarvian soldiers trudging along the
    dirt road surely came from farms themselves. But they didn't expect to
    see anything but farmers in the Valmieran fields, and so they didn't look
    closely.
    
     After the soldiers had vanished behind some walnut trees, Skamu

    




    420
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    leaned the hoe against his hip and looked at his hands. They too wou
    have shown he was no farmer. The calluses on his palms weren't years 0
    and yellowed and hard as horn; he still got blisters at their edges a
    sometimes even under them.
     His back ached. So did his shoulders and the backs of his thighs.
    sighed and spoke in a low voice: "Maybe we should have surrender
    after all, Sergeant. It would have been easier."
     Raunu spread his own hands. They were as raw as Skarnu's. He was
    commoner and a longtime veteran, but he'd never done work like th
    either. "Easier on the body - oh, aye, no doubt about it," he said. "B
    if it were easier on the spirit, we would have done it when most of t
    army gave up.
     "I couldn't stomach it," Skarnu said, "so I suppose that proves yo
    point.
     His coarse wool tunic and trousers itched. Back when he was livin
    the life of a marquis, he would never have let such rough cloth touch h
    skin. But he could not have kept up the fight against the Algarvians fro
    a captives' camp, and they would never have let him out of one unle
    they were sure he had no fight left in him. He didn't think he could h
    fooled them into releasing him - and so here he was, pretending to be
    peasant instead of pretending to be a collaborator.
     In a matter-of-fact way, Raunu said, "If they catch us now, they'
    blaze us, of course."
    
     "I know. They did that in the parts of Valmiera they occupied d
    the Six Years' War," Skarmi said. "I learned about it in school."
     "Aye, so they did," Raunu answered. "And afterwards, when we were
    holding some of the marquisates east of the Soretto, we paid 'em bac
    the same coin. Anybody even looked at us sideways, we figured the
    of a whore was a soldier who hadn't had enough, and we gave it to hirn."
     Skarmi hadn't learned about that in school. In his lessons, Valmiera 11ad
    always had right and justice on her side. He'd believed that for a lorig
    time. He still wanted to believe it.
    
     He stretched and twisted, trying to make his sore muscles relax. He
    hadn't learned farm work in school, though. Only a noble addled far P]
    mere eccentricity would have thought learning to till the soil in the I
    worthwhile.
     He swung the hoe again, and did manage to uproot weed rather.

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    wheat. "Good to know there are some folk besides us who stay loyal to
    
    king and kingdom," he said, and knocked down another weed
    
     "Oh, aye, there are always some," Raunu said. "What's really lucky is
    that we found one. If we'd asked for help from half the peasants around
    these arts - more than half' I shouldn't wonder - the 'd have turned us
    
    in to the redheads faster than you can spit."
    
    "So it seems," Skarnu said grimly. "That's not the way it should be
    
    ou kno "
    
    your
    
    iving
    -h his
    from
    unless
    I have
    0 J-)c a
    
    they'll
    
    during
    
    7c Nvere
    back in
    tile soil
    0 him. "
    dera had
    r a long
    
       He
    
    d far past
     'I" least
    
    Lther than
    
     Raunu grunted and went back to weeding for a while, attacking the
    dandelions and other plants that didn't belong in the field with the same
    concentrated ferocity he'd shown the Algarvians. At last, at the end of a
    row, he asked, "Sir - my lord - do I have your leave to speak what's in
    
    my mind?"
    
     He hadn't called Skarnu my lord in a long time. The title, in his mouth
    carried more reproach than respect. Skarnu said, "You'd better, Raunu
    
    I don't suppose I'll last long if you don't."
    
     "Longer than you think, maybe, but never rruind that," Raunu said
    "From everything I've been able to piece together, though, Coun
    
    Enkuru, the local lord, is a right nasty piece of work."
    
     "Aye, I think there's a deal of truth to that," Skarnu agreed. "But wha
    has it got to do with -?" He broke off, feeling foolish. "The peasant
    would sooner have the Algarvians for overlords than Count Enkur-u - 1
    
    that what you're saying?"
    
     Raunu nodded. "That's what I'm saying. Some of the nobles I've
    known, they never would have figured out what I meant." He took -.
    deep breath. "And that's part of the trouble Valmiera's been having, too
    

    




    don't vou see?"
    
    I
    
    "Peasants should be loyal to the nobles, as nobles should be loyal to th
    
    king," Skarnu said.
    
    "No doubt you're right, sir," Raunu said politely "But the noble
    
    should deserve loyal , don't you think?'
    
     Skamu's sister would have said no in a heartbeat. Krasta would hav(
    thought - did think - her blood alone was plenty to command loyalty
    She would have wanted Raunu flogged for presuming to think other-
    wise. Skamu's attitude had differed only in degree not in essence tin h
    
    took command of his company.
    
    Slowly, he said, "That does make a difference, doesn't it? Men will vc

    




    -r,Lz
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    as far as their leaders take them, and not a step farther." He'd seen t,
    
     "Aye, sir." Raunu nodded. "And they'll go as far in the other dire
    tion if their leaders push 'em to it - which is why we've got our lit
    game laid on for tonight. We have to show 'em what we're against alo
    
     Toward evening, the farmer who'd given them shelter came out to
    look over the work they'd done. Gedominu hobbled on a cane, and had
    ever since the Six Years' War. Maybe that was what made him dislike the
    Algarvians enough to keep working against them. Skarnu couldn't havc
    proved it, though; Gedominu said little about himself  -1
     He looked over the field now, rubbed his chin, and said, "Well, it's not
    
    too much worse than if you hadn't done anything at all." With that praise,
    such as it was, ninging in their ears, he led them back to the farmhouse.
     His wife served up a supper of blood sausage and sauerkraut, bread and
    home-brewed ale. Merkela, a second wife, might have been halfl
    Gedommu's age, which put her not far from Skarnu's. Skarnu wondered
    how the half-lame fanner had wooed and won her. He also wondered
    certain other things, which he hoped he was gentleman enough to keev
    
     After full darkness, Gedominu slowly climbed the stairs and as slo
    came down again, his cane in his right hand a stick in his left. It was", It
    potent a weapon as the ones Skarmi and Raunu had brought to the fa,
    being intended more for blaziDg vermin and small game for the pot
    
     Gedominu tucked the stick under his arm to blow Merkela a kiss, then
    led Skarnu and Raunu out into the night. They got their own sticks froni
    the barn. Gedorruinu moved well enough when he needed to, and took
    
    them along winding paths they couldn't have followed themselves
    
    night. Skarmi doubted he could have done it in broad dayligh
     At a crossroads, someone softly called out, "King Gainibu!"
    
     "Valmiera!' Gedorninu answered. Skarnu would have come up With
    a more imaginative challenge and countersign; those would the first oj)c
    to cross the Algarvians' minds. But that could wait for another n1fle
    
    Now four or five men Joined his comrades and hini Movin as uiql-
    
    as they could, they hurried on toward the village of Pavilosta.

    




    ng
    
    to
    had   11
    
    the
    ave
    
    s not
    
    raise,
    
    d and
     half
    dered
    dered
     keep
    
    slowly
    asn't so
    e farm,
    ot than
    
    ight not
    
    iss, then
    cks from
    and took
    selves at
    
    e up with
     first ones
    thcr time.
    as quietly
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    423
    
     "Pity we can't pay this kind of call on Count Enkuru himself," Skarmi
    said. Seven or eight men were not enough to storin a noble's keeD. not
    
    if his Ruards were alert - and Enkuru's. bv all accounts. were.
    
     "His factor will do well enough," one of the locals answered. "His fac-
    tor will do better than well enough, as a matter of fact. He's the one who
    collects the taxes Enkuru screws out of us, and as much more besides to
    make him near as rich as the count. And you can hear for yourself that
    he's in bed with the redheads. Everybody for miles around'll be glad to
    
    see the bastard dead "
    
     Before the war, such talk about a noble and his factor would have been
    treason. Technically, Skarnu supposed it still was. But it was also a chance
    
    to strike a blo at AlLyarve. That counted for more
    
     Gedoininu underlined the point, saying, "Folks have got to learn they
    don't just go ahead and do whatever some turd in a kilt tells 'em to - not
    
    without thev Dav the price for doin' it."
    
     "Let's be at it, then," Raunu said. He pointed to positions that covered
    the factor's house - much the largest and finest in the village - but
    remained in shadow. "There and there, and over there, too. Move!" The
    locals hurried to obey. Skarnu let his sergeant give orders. Raunu had
    proved he knew what he was doing. Nodding to Skarnu, he said, "Now
    we'll give 'ern what-for." He oried a cobblestone out of the P-round and
    
    flung it through one of those invitingly large windows.

    




    
     Furious shouts followed the crash of broken glass. The door flew open.
    A man in velvet tunic and trousers - surely the factor - and a couple of
    Algarvians ran out on to the street, as ants might run out of their nest if a
    boy stirred it with a twig. They probab thought some brat was bother-
    
    Ing thein.
    
    They soon discovered how wrong they were, but kept the knowledge
    
    only momentarily. The raiders blazed them down. They fell without
    sound: so quickly and quietly, in fact, that no one else came out to inves-
    tigate. Kaunu solved that by pitching another stone through a different
    
    wind-
    
     Two more Algarvians and another cursing Valmieran hurried out.
    They stopped in the doorway when they saw their friends lying in the
    street. That was a little too late. Skarnu blazed one of them; a couple of
    
    his comrad- knock-1 do th d,
    
    "Might be more inside," Raunu remarked. "Shall we go look?" That

    




    424
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    was strategy, not tactics, so he asked his superior instead of leading.
     After brief thought, Raunu shook his head. "We've done what we
    came to do. This isn't the sort of business where we want to take losses,
    I don't think."
     "Aye - makes sense," Raunu said. "All right, let's disappear."
     As silently as they'd entered Pavilosta, the raiders slipped out of the vil-
    lage. Behind them, more shouts and a woman's shrill scream said their
    handiwork had been discovered. "I think that other bugger in trousers
    tmght have been Enkuru his own self, come to visit the factor,"
    Gedonnnu said. "Here's hoping it was."
     "Aye, that'd be a good blow," Skarnu agreed. "Whatever we do next,
    we won't have such an easy time of it. They weren't wary this time. They
    will be."
     "Let 'em be wary," Gedominu said. "We'lljust go back to being peas-
    ants, that's all. Nobody ever pays peasants no mind. When the fuss dies
    down, we'll hit the redheads another lick." He looked over his sh
    "Keep moving, there. I want to get home to Merkela tonight.
    Skarnu did. Gedominu could not have given him a more effecti
    
     When Pekka went up to Yliharma this time, her colleagues didn' t put
    her up at the Principality. Instead, Master Sluntio lodged her in his o
    home. That he would even think of doing such a thing left her limp wi
    astonishment and awe. Staying in the Principality was a distinction.
    Staying with the greatest theoretical sorcerer of the age was a privilege.
     "Oh, you think so, do you?" Sluntio said when Pekka couldn't hold
    that in after they walked into his parlor from the street. "And what of
    your husband, young Leino? Is he back in Kaj'aam, fretting that 11 be
    
     "He would never imagine such a thing, Master!" Pekka exclaime .
    "Never!"
     "No?" Sluntio clicked his tongue between his teeth. "What a pity. I'm
    not so old as all that, you know."
    
     Pekka's ears got hot. Trying to salvage something from the emb ss-
    ing exchange, she said, "He knows you are a man of honor."
     "He's a clever young fellow, your husband," Sluntio said. "He'd h
    to be, to hold you to him. But is he clever enough to imagine what I
    like when I was his age, or maybe even younger? I doubt it; the clev
    
    a widower, would try and seduce you?"

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    425
    
    ness of the young seldom runs in such directions."
     As an exercise, Pekka tried to imagine Sluntio as a man her own age.
    She filled in wrinkles, darkened hair, added vigor ... and whistled softly.
    "Ali, Master, you must have cut a swath."
     Siuntio smiled and nodded. His eyes sparkled. just for a moment,
    Pekka thought he might try to seduce her - and, for that same moment,
    wondered if she might not let him. Then he smiled in a different way,
    and she relaxed (with, perhaps, the tiniest twinge of disappointment). "I
    would not seek the favors of a guest in my own house: that were unsport-
    ing," he said. "Next time, perhaps, you will stay at the Principality once
    more."
     "Perhaps I will - or perhaps I will come back to stay with you, where
    I know I am safe," Pekka answered with a sassy grin.
     She blessed Siuntio for letting it lie there. After a last chuckle, he said,
    "That might be for the best this time, too, as the lot of us will have a great
    deal to discuss when we assemble tomorrow."
     "Aye," Pekka said. "I do not deny being surprised to learn that you
    duplicated my experimental results."
     "Every one of us has done so," Siuntio replied. "Every one of us has
    done so repeatedly. If we repeated the experiment often enough, we
    might, I daresay, rid the world of a great many surplus acorns."
     He still sounded easy, amused, very much as he had when he'd teased
    her. Under that, she thought, eagerness quivered, the eagerness of a
    hound on a scent. Pekka could hear it. She felt it herself Like called to
    like, as surely as under the law of similarity. She asked, "What do you
    think is causing it, Master?"
     "Mistress, I do not know," Siuntio said gravely. "You have found
    something new and unexpected. It is another reason, aside from purposes
     of lechery, that I wish I were younger: I would have more time to go
     down this track. For now, I know it is there, and that is all I know of it."
      "I have tried my best to account for it, but it fits into no theoretical
     model with which I am familiar."
      "All this means, my dear, is that we shall need some new theoretical
     models by and by," Sluntio said. "There are dull times, when the sages
     were sure they know everything there is to know. The days of the
     Kaunian Empire were such a time, though it would not do to say so in
     Vkniera orjelgava. We had another one a couple of hundred years ago,
    
    ver-
    
    7
    
    CY
    
                                        Ive
                                        ad.
    
    )ut
    
    Nil
    
    ith
    
    311.
    
    e-
    old
    of
    ing
    
    ied.
    
    'ass-
    
    I aV 0
    
    was

    




    426
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    all over eastern Derlaval and on our island as well. Then we discovered
    ley lines, and nothing has been the same since. Now things will be dif-
    ferent again, different in a different way.,,
     "Different in a different way," Pekka echoed. "I like that. When will
    the others gather here?"
     "Midmorning, or perhaps a bit before," Sluntio answered carelessly.
    "Meanwhile, make yourself at home. It won't be the Principality, not for
    the bed and not for the food, either, but you may perhaps find something
    or other to read here that the Principality does not offer."
     Pekka knew she'd been eyeing her host's bookshelves. "You'd better
    search my bags before you take me back to the caravan station," she said.
    "I am tempted to wreak havoc here, as the Sibian pirates used to do along
    our coast." Boldly, she pulled out a classical Kaunian text on growth spells
    and began looking through it. Maybe someone had found the answer to
    her riddle back in the days of the Empire Sluntio hadjust mocked.
     He had to call her twice to supper; she'd got engrossed. The text did
    not have the answer - she hadn't really believed it would - but was inter-
    esting for its own sake. And Kaunian was such an elegantly precise lan-
    guage, even the most blatant nonsense sounded as if it ought to be true.
     Supper turned out to be mutton chops and mashed parsnips with but-
    ter: closer to what she would have made at home than to the delicacies
    in which the Principality specialized, but far from bad. "You do me too
    much credit," Siuntio said when Pekka praised him for it. "I stick to
    simvle thines. where even a bungler like me has trouble going wron,
     "I don't give you too much credit," Pekka said. "You don't give your-
    self enough."
     "Pah!" Siuntic, waved that away, which annoyed her. Then he would-
    n't let her help him clean up, which annoyed her even more. "You
    my guest," he said. "You would not work for your supper at a hostel,
    you will not work here." With an old man's mulishness, he got his wa~T.
     Next morning, she rose before he did (the bed wasn't all that coili-
    fortable, and she wasn't used to it) and had herrings grilling when-he
    came into the kitchen. He glared at her. She smiled back sweetly. "H4%,c
    sonic brcad and honey," she said, pointing to the table. "That will
    you look less sour."
     It didn't. Pckka made a point of eating faster than h
    
    springing up while he had a mouthful so she could set the kitchell M

    




                                        did
                                        iter
                                        .]an
                                       ,rue.
    
    :aCieS
    e too
    ck to
    
    Yom-
    
    101,11d-
    
    on are
    ri, and
    
    'S W ',IY
    
                                        corn
                                       aen he
                                       "Have
                                       R make
    
    ad then
    
    said.
    
    INTO          THE ARKNESS
    
    rights. He started glaring again, but took a swig from his pot of beer and
    laughed instead. "If you must do things, go ahead and do them," he said.
    I suspect it means your husband works you too hard, but it's his affair,
    and yours." Pekka refused to dignify that with even so much as a sniff.
     Piilis came to Siuntio's house first followed a cou le of minutes later
    
    by Alkio and Raahe. All the theoretical sorcerers were full of praise for
    Pekka. "You've given us something we'll be arguing about for year,"
    Raahe said with a smile so wide, she didn't seem cavable of arvultiv about
    
    anything.
    
     "Where is Ilmarinen?" Sluntio grumbled, pacing back and forth across
    his narlor "If anvone can un vel a nhenomenon too st nore to be
    
    believed he is the an e thinks left-handed '
    
    "If anvone can unravel this Master I think vou are the one " Pekka
    
    I
    
     But Sluntio shook his head. "I think more widely than 11marinen.
    think more deeply than Ilmaninen. 11marmen, though, Ilmaninen think
    more strangely than I do. Ilmarinen thinks more strangely than anyon
    
    does. Ilman'nen" - he sighed - "likely thinks it amusing to be late."
     After most of an hour, the missing mage did arrive. He offered nc
    
    apologies. Pekka thought he smelled of wine. If the others thought so
    
    too, they said nothing.
    
     Well, here we are, Ilmarinen said loudly. ' Theoretical sorcerers
    without any theories. Isn't that grand? And it's your fault." He leered at
    Pekka. "You turned the world ur)side down and vou didn't even know
    
    you were going to d
    
    "If anyone knew he was about to turn the world uDside down he
    
    would not do it," Sluntio said. "I hone he would not do it.'
    
     "You're right," Alkio said. "When we look for things that exteric
    what we know, we take small steps. It's only when we stumble anc
    
    almost fall that we need long strides to help us get our balance."
    
    "Ve ret- " Ilmarinen said "It would be all ffie lim-t~r 4""t- ii,q
    
    something, but very pretty lust the same."
    
    "Speaking of meaning," Pillis said with acid in his voice, "I suppos
    
    you're ready to tell us now what Mistress Pekka's experiment means."
     "Of course I am," 11marinen said, which niadc everyone stare at him

    




    Pekka wondered if Sluntio had known exactly what he was talkin~
    about llinarinen went on "It means e aren't so smart is - thou 1,
    
    I

    




    428
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    we were before she made it. I already told you that, but you weren't
    listening. "
     Pulls glowered. Ilmarinen grinned, no doubt having hoped to provoke
    him into glowering. Sluntio said, "In my opinion, we shall advance faster
    by discussing what we do know of this phenomenon than what we do
    not."
    "Since we don't know anything about this cursed phenomenon, we
    haven't got anything to discuss," Ilmaninen pointed out. "In that case, this
    meeting has no point." He turned as if to go.     A
     Raahe, Alkio, and Sluntio all exclaimed. When Ilman*nen turne
    back, he was grinning again. Pekka said, "Now that you've had your
    sport, Master, have we your leave to get on with things?"
     "I suppose so," Ilmarinen answered, something like approval in his
    eyes. Now Pekka smided. So Ilmarinen needed to be handled like Uto,
    did he? She knew how to take a firm line, whether with a crotchety four-
    year-old or an even more crotchety theoretical sorcerer.
     "Unfortunately, Master Ilmarinen is too close to being right," Raahe
    said. "We know what happens in Mistress Pekka's fascinating expen-
    ment, but we do not know why, which is of the essence. Nothing in pre-
    sent theory indicates that one of those paired acorns should disappear.
     "Nothing in the theory unifying similarity and contagion we haw
    been struggling to develop indicates such an outcome, either," Piihs said.
     Ilmaninen laughed. "Time to stand theory on its head, then, woul
    you say? That's what you do when things like this happen."
     "I should also point out that there is no proof similarity and contagion
    can be unified," Sluntio said. "If anything, Mistress Pekka's experiment
    seems to argue against unification."
     "I fear I must agree with you," Pekka said sadly. "I thought the mal
    ematics showed otherwise, but anyone who chooses mathematics over
    experiment is a fool. With no unity underlying the two laws, there seems
    little point even to these informal gathenings."
     She waited for Ilmaninen's sardonic agreement. The sour mage s
    "Anyone who chooses mathematics over experiment has done the
    mathematics wrong or the experiment wrong. The experiment is right.
    That means the mathematics have to be wrong. Sooner or later, sonle-
    body will find the right mathematics. The only reason I can see that 11
    shouldn't be us is that we're too stupid."

    




    A,
    
    ter
    
    (io
    
    aahe
    
    eri-
    
    n pre-
  ear.
    have
    s said.
    
    ouldn't
    
    ntagion
    eriment
    
    c inath-
    tics over
    re seems
    
     age said,
    done the
    it 'is right.
    er, sorne-
    see that it
    
    INTo THE DAPKNESS
    
    429
    
     "Maybe," Siuntio said, 11 just maybe, we aren't so stupid as all that.
    Whether we are or not might be worth finding out, don't you think?"
    
    Maybe, Pekka thought, just maybe, what Ifeel is hope.
    
     Lagoans had a saying: out qJ the pot and on to the stove. That would have
    fit the way Fernao felt about Mizpah, save only that he did not believe in
    stretching metaphor far enough to compare the land of the Ice People
    with anything having to do with heat. Even if Mizpah did lie under
    Lagoan domination, it was even smaller and slower and duller than
    Heshbon, somethinTa, the mave would have had a hard time imagining
    
    had he not seen it with his own eyes
    
    Where he was bored and restive, King Pencla, having gone from exile
    
    to exile, seemed not far from snavvimz. "Will we have to svend the win-
    
    ter here?" he demanded
    
     He'd been demanding that since the day oeg's caravan reached
    Mizpah. Femao had expressed his own opinion of the caravanjourney by
    buying a dressed ptarmigan carcass, roasting it, and devouring it, even if
    
    the flesh did taste of pine needles. By now, though, he was as sick of
    
    Penda's nagging as he had been of oeg's swaggering savagery. He
    pointed to the harbor that was Mizpah's reason for being and said, "Jump
    right in, your Majesty. You shouldn't need more than a month to swim
    to Setubal, provided the Algarvians patrolling out of Sibiu don't catch
    
    you as you splash past."
    
   Penda was slower on the uptake than he might have been; as king, he
    ably hadn't been exposed to much irony. He answered, "Lagoas
    

    




    should send out a shit) to take us to Setubal instead of leaving us here to
    
    rot "
    
    "It's cold enough that we're rotting very slowly," Fernao said.
    
    "EnouTz,h - Dowers above a surfeit - of vour feeble iests and iat)es!'
    
    Penda cried.
    
     That did nothing to endear him to Fernao. Nothing could have done
    much to endear him to Fernao, not when they'd had as much trouble
    nuttim, un with each other as was the case The ma e sna ed "Your
    
    t~ r r  I
    
    Majesty, Lagoas knows we are here. Getting a ship here is another mat-
    
    ter. My kingdoin is, I remind you, at war with Algarve. I also remind you
       slucc WIT did not seem to hear me the first time - that Algarve
    holds Sibiu Getting a shi into and out of Miz ah would be ve diffi-

    




    430
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    cult even in the best of times - and, as you point out, winter is Corning,
    which will add dn*ft ice to other difficulties."
     Penda's shiver struck Fernao as overdramatic. But then, Forthweg was
    a northern kingdom with a mild northern climate. Contemplating ice in
    any liquid larger than a bowl of sherbet had to feel wrong to Penda.
    "What is winter like here?" the exiled king whispered.
      I do not know for a fact," Fernao said, "for I have never been here
    before. But I have heard it said that winter in this country makes an
    Unkerlanter winter balmy by comparison."
     Was that a whimper, down there deep in King Penda's throat? If it
    was, he quickly choked it back. Fernao felt more sympathy for him than
    he was willing to show. In Forthweg, injelgava, in northern Algarve and
    Valmiera, summer lingered yet. Even in Sibiu, in Lagoas, in Kuusamo,
    
    the weather would still be mild, perhaps even warm.
     Here at Mizpah, days remained above freezing and nights, as yet, sel-
    dom dropped far below it. A hearty Lagoan merchant, a few days before,
    had stripped to his drawers, gone swimming in the Narrow Sea, and
    emerged from the chilly water to find a crowd of Ice People, men and
    women both, gathered on the rocky beach staring at him. It wasn't so
    much that he was nearly naked in a land where the natives swaddleA
    themselves: far more that he had plunged into the water and not coniJ
    out a block of salty ice.
     But Penda, as Fernao had already seen, was not interested in a dip in
    the Narrow Sea. He said, "You being a first-rank mage, can you n
    whisk us over the water to your homeland by sorcery?"
     "If I could do that, so could many other mages," Fernao answered.
    many others could do it, all our wars would have seen soldiers opping
    out of rmidair in unexpected places. I work magic, not miracles.
     He'd known Penda would scowl at him, and the king did. Like
    laymen, Penda did not distinguish between the two. Some an
    mages didn't, either. Because of those who refused to acknowledge
    distinction, sorcery had advanced since the days of the Kaunian Empi,
    The vast majority of them though had failed and a lot had paid for d1eir
    arrogance with their lives.
    
    Sulkily, Penda said, "What do you suggest that we do, then, sir mage?
    Fernac, sighed. "When there's nothing we can do, your Majesty, wt
    
    may as well make the best of doing nothing."

    




    INTc) THE DARKNESS        431
    
     "Bah!" Penda said. "I had nothing to do in Patras, for I rruight as well
    have been a prisoner. I had nothing to do in Heshbon, for there was
    nothing to do in Heshbon. I have nothing to do here, for there is less than
    nothing to do here. In Setubal, I would still be an exile, aye, but there, at
    least, I could work toward the liberation of my kingdom. Do you won-
    der that I pine?"
    
    it
    
    0,
    
    t so
    dled
    ome
    
     Do you wonder that I tire of yourpining? Fernao could not give the answer
    that first sprang to mind. Aloud, he said, "You cannot swim to Lagoas.
    You cannot hire a caravan to take you thither. Lagoas cannot send a ship
    hither, as I have already said. That leaves nothing I can think of I assure
    you, I am also anxious to return."
     Penda exhaled in exasperation; no doubt Fernao wore on his nerves,
    as he wore on Fernao's. "You are but a Lagoan," he said, as if to a back-
    wards child. "I am not merely a Forthwegian: I am Forthweg. Do you
    now see the difference between us?"
     What Femao saw was that, if he had to spend another moment with
    Penda just then, he would smash a chamber pot over the exiled king's
    head. He said, "I am going down to the market square, to see what I
    might learn."
     "You will learn that it is cold and bleak and nearly empty," Penda. said,
    carping still. "is that not something you already knew?" Perhaps
    fortunately, Fernao left instead of screaming at him or performing an
    earthenware coronation.
     Unfortunateiv r Ferriao Penda had s oken the truth
    
    p in
    not                                 P           P
    
    d. "If
    
    pping
    
        t square was cold and bleak and nearly empty. Ships still put in at
        eshbon, because they could trade with Yanina or Algarve or Unkerlant.
        Algarvian ships were not welcome here - although, had they not been
        busy in places more urgent to King Mezcntio, they could have snapped
        up the little town easily enough. Heshbon was far closer to Yanina and
        Unkerlant. And so Mizpah's harbor remained as empty as a poor man's
        cupboard.
    
         Without overseas trade, the overland trade that went through the mar-
         et square also suffered. Doeg had taken one look around before shaking
         his shaggy head and faring back toward the west, and no caravan even
         Close to the S17C OfluS had come in since. Fernao saw neither cinnabar nor
         furs on display, and cinnabar and furs were the only reasons Lagoans and
    
    3 1  men from Derlavai came to the lAnd of the To- PeopIc
    
    e most
    rogant
     ge the
     nipire.
     r their
    
    mage?"
    esty, we

    




    432
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     A tinker repaired a pot. A buyer and seller dickered over a two-
    humped camel, as a buyer and seller might have dickered over a mule in
    a Lagoan back-country village. A woman remarkable only for her hairy
    cheeks was selling eggs from a bowl that looked a lot like the chamber
    pot Femao hadn't broken over King Penda's head. The market square
    would have seemed far less lonely had it not been six times as large as it
    needed to be for such humble trading.
     Another woman of the Ice People sauntered past Femao. She had
    drenched herself in enough cheap Lagoan perfume to mask the smell of her
    long-unwashed body; what she was selling seemed obvious enough. When
    Ferriao showed no interest in buying, she screeched insults at him in her
    language and then in his. He bowed, as if at compliments of similar ma,,-
    nitude. That only made her more irate, which was what he'd had in mind.
     Looking around the forsaken square, he wished he hadn't come. But
    when he thought about going back to the hostel and enduring more of
    King Penda's endless complaints, he realized he couldn't have done any-
    thing else - unless he wanted to head inland and climb the Bar,,
    Mountains, that is.
     And then, to his surprise, the square stopped being forsaken. The
    force of garrison troops Lagoas maintained in Mizpah paraded across it ih
    uniform tunics and kilts - with heavy wool leggings beneath the kilts as
    exercise; the
    faces were grinily intent, as if they were marching to war.
     "What's toward?" Femao called to the officer tramping along besi
    his men.
     He watched the fellow working out what to say - and, indee
    whether to say anything at all. A shrug meant the Lagoan decided keen-
    ing the news to himself didn't matter. "The cursed Yaninans have c0i
    over the border between their claim and ours," he answered. "King
    Tsavellas has declared war on Lagoas, and may the powers below cat him
    for it. We're off to see how many of his men we can gobble down, to
    
                                            A
     Now the officer didn't answer. Maybe he was too full of hi VM
                                           I Ow'
    
    thoughts to reply. Maybe he didn't feel like telling the truth wherehi
    men could hear it but was too proud to lie. Whatever the reason, hej
    kept marching.
    
    a concession to the climate. It d not look like an
    
    teach him treachery has a pnice."
     "Can vou hold the Yaninans back?" Ternao asked.

    




    er
    are
    as it
    
     had
    of her
    When
    in her
    mago-
    e
    
    mind.
     e. But
     ore of
    ne any-
     Barrier
    
                                     he small
                                    ross it in
                                    e kilts as
                                     e men s
    
    ng beside
    
    d, indeed,
    ided keep-
    have come
    red. "King
    ow eat him
    e down, to
    
     of his own
    th where his
     on he Just
    
    INTo THE ARKNESS
    
    43
    
     Yanina would have no trouble shipping troops by the hundreds - by
    the thousands - across the Narrow Sea. Fernao needed to be neither
    general nor admiral to see that at a glance. Lagoans would have endless
    trouble getting any troops into Mizpah. Even if the local garrison beat
    
    back the first Yaninan assault, what then?
    
     Mat then? had another significance for Femao, too. What would he
    and Penda do if the Yaninans triumphantly marched into Mizpah? An of
    a sudden, climbing the Barrier Mountains didn't seem like such a bad
    idea. King Tsavellas would not remember with Joy and glad tidings the
    mage who had spirited Penda out of his palace and out of his kingdom.
    
    He 1)robablv would not be so glad to see Penda azain either.
    
     Fernao did not give way to panic. Being a mage, he had more ways to
    disguise himself - and King Penda, too, he thought with a certain amount
    of reluctance - than the ordina mortal He'd alrea,1- used some He
    
    could use more. But disguises were of less use here in Mizpah than they
    would have been in crowded Patras or Setubal. Mizpah was woefully
    short on strangers. If he and Penda (or Femastro and Olo, as they still
    called themselves) disappeared and a couple of other men with new
    annearances started strollin around the town eo le would notice
    
    They might be encouraged to talk.
    
     When Fernao looked south, he saw black clouds spilling over the
    Barrier Mountains. Without the news he'd just got, the idea of a storm
    blowing up out of the interior of the austral continent so early in the year
    would have appalled him. As things were, he smiled benevolently. King

    




    Tsavellas's troopers wouldn't be able to move east very fast through
    
    driving rain or more likelv sleet and snow.
    
    Ma-be I have time " he murmured. He'd have to sneak bv crvstal
    
    with Setubal. Maybe, now that Yanina and Lagoas were at war, King
    Vitor would find King Pencla - and, not quite incidentally, Fernao -
    more worth rescuing. Fernao did wish he hadn't exi3lained to Penda in
    
    such exacting detail hv rescue seemed so unlikel
    
     After a triumphal procession through the streets of Trapani and
    reception hosted by King Mezentio, after another triumphal procession
    through Priiekule, capital of downfallen Valmiera - after those high points
    
    to his soldierly career, Count Sabrinc, found Tricarico, a provincial city
    
    W . ith a lou histo of unim ortance behind it distinctl uninterestin

    




    434
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    The women were plain, the food was dull, the wine . . . the wine,
    actually, was not bad at all. The dragonflier wished he had the chance to
    drink more of it.
     But he and the wing he commanded were in the air as often as their
    mounts could stand it. When they weren't flying, other wings were.
    Before long, no jelgavan dragons could drop eggs on Tricarico or, for
    that matter, on the Algarvian soldiers defending the kingdom east of
    Tricarico.
     "Easy work, this," Captain Domiziano said after another tour of flying
    where not a single jelgavan dragon had risen to challenge them. "More
    Kaunian cowardice, that's what it is."
     Sabrino shook his head and waggled a forefinger at the squadron con~-
    mander. "It's not so simple. I wish it were. The Valmierans were brave
    enough, but they didn't figure out what we were doing till it was too late
    for them. I don't see any reason to think the jelgavans are different."
     "Why aren't they fighting us, then, Colonel?" Domiziano asked.
    "They're like a turtle with its head and its legs pulled into its shell." He
    shrugged his own head down as far as it would go and hunched up his
    shoulders, too.
     Laughing, Sabrino said, "You should mount the stage, not a dragon.
    But consider, my dear fellow: together, Valmiera and jelgava are almost
    as big as we are. During the Six Years' War, they stuck together and made
    us pay. This time, we knocked one of them out of the fight in a hum.
    Do you wonder that the other kingdom is none too bold by its lone-
    some?"
     Domiziano considered, then gave Sabriino a seated bow. "Put thil'
    way, sir, no, I don't suppose I do."
     "They'll make us come to them," Sabrino said. "They'll make us pay
    the butcher's bill, the way the fellow who attacked did in the last war."
    I Ic looked east toward the Bradano Mountains from the dragon fani),
    one of many that had sprouted around Tricarico over the past few weeks
    He chuckled softly. "One day before too long, they may just find 0
    they're not so clever as they think they are."
     "Aye, sir." Domiziano's eyes glowed. "If this goes as it should, X465-
    sand years from now they'll be writing romances about us, the same
    everybody who can scribble nowadays is churning out stories about the
    Algarvian chieftains who overran the Kaunian Empire."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    435
    
    ine, "Bad stories - or the ones I've seen are, anyhow." Sabrino's hp curled:
    i e to                                                   he fancied himself a literary critic. He slapped his subordinate on the
         shoulder. "A thousand years from now, you'll be dead, and you won't
    ~eir know and you won't care what they're writing about you. The trick of
    rere.                                                    it is, you don't want to be dead two weeks from now, not knowing or
    I for caring what they write about you."
    ;t of                                                    "Aye - you're night again." Donuiziano laughed the robust laugh of a
         healthy young man who was at the same time a healthy young animal. "I
    ~ing aim to die at the age of a hundred and five, blazed down by an outraged
    Aore husband."
         "And here's hoping you make it, my lad," Sabrino said. "Such ambi
    tion should not go unrewarded.
    5rave                                                    A sentry came trotting up. "Begging your pardon, Colonel, but
    D late Colonel Cilandro is here to see you."
         "Well, good," Sabrino said. "Cilandro and I have a lot of things to talk
    ,sked.                                                   about. We're going to be in each other's pouches for the next little
    while."
        He
    ip hisColonel Cilandro, walked with a limp. "The Valmierans gave me a
         present," he said when Sabrino remarked on it. "It's not blazed down to
    ,agon.the bone, so it'll heal before too long. All it means is, I can't very well run
     dMostaway if we get into trouble. Since I wasn't going to run away anyhow, it
    made doesn't matter."
    hurry. Sabrino bowed. "A man after my own heart!"
      lone-The infantry colonel returned the bow. "And I have heard good things
         of you, my lord count. Let us hope we work well together. We haven't
    
      It that      much time."
           ""Ile can't hope to hold anything like this secret for very long,"
      us pay                                                 Sabrino igreed, "and what point to going on with it if it's not secret?"
      war."                                                  He pointed back toward his tent, one of many that had sprouted on the
      farm,                                                  meadow - a flock of sheep were probably annoyed at King Mezentio's
      weeks.                                                 forces. "I have some wine in there, and, as long as we're drinking, we can
      'nj out look at the maps.
           "Well put," Cilandro said. "Oh, well put!" He bowed again. "To the
      a thou- Wm,, tl,,,, Colonel - and, while we're a, A, the maps."
                                            as Sabrino had cer
               He took a glass of red. As Sabrino had expected
      rne way
      ,Out thetainly hoped - lie contented himself with the one glass, nursing it to make
    
    it last. Sabrino pointed to the map he'd tacked down on a light folding
    
    I

    




    436
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    table. "As I understand things, you'll be moving here." He pointed.
     Cilandro bent over the map. "Aye, that's about right. If we can go in
    right there" - now he pointed - "everything will be perfect." He chuck-
    led. "Last time I thought anything like that was when I was about to lose
    my cherry. But back to business, eh? This is the narrowest stretch, whi h
    it
    means it'll be the easiest to hold, and it's also got a power point iig~
    there, so we'll be able to recharge our sticks and egg-tossers without cut-1
    ting throats to do it."
    
     "Aye." Sabrino put his finger down on the star that symbolized the
    power point. "You won't find a lot of Jelgavan throats to cut there.
    You'd better not find a lot ofJelgavan throats to cut there, or else you'~..
    be cutting your own throats."
     "And isn't that the sad and sorry truth, my dear Colonel?" Cilan
    said. "No denying it's better to give a surprise than to get one, eh?" He
    tapped a fingernail against his wine glass. "The question that keeps eating
    at me is, can you get enough of my men into the right place fast enough
    to let us do what we're ordered to do?"
     "We'll do our best," Sabriino said. "And we'll keep on doing our est,
    as long as you have men on the ground there. We don't talk away fron
    what we start - we aren't Unkerlanters, after all. But that's just if thing go
    wrong. I think they'll go right. King Mezentio has had all the answers so.
    far.
     Colonel Cilandro nodded. "That he has." He raised his glass.
    to a king who knows what he's doing. If we'd had one like that durifi,
    the Six Years' War, we wouldn't be fighting this one now." He drained
    the last of the wine.
     Sabrino emptied his goblet, too. "And that's also the truth. 41
    after tomorrow, if the weather holds, you'll bring your reginienon ow,
    ti
    here - and then we'll find out exactly how smart King Mezen io is.
     "Aye and aye and aye again." Cilandro clasped Sabiino's hand, th
    swept him into an embrace. "Day after tomorrow, Colonel." He sho
    a fist at the sky - or Sabrino supposed it was at the sky, anyhow, rathe'r
    than at the canvas roof of the tent. "And the weather had better h
     It did. Cilandro's regiment tramped up to the dragon farm a little b ore,
    dawn. At a good many places along the border between Algarve Ind"
    Jelgava, regiments were marching up to wings of dragons. Along
    flier, a dragon could carry about half a ton of eggs to drop on t

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
     in
    ck-
    
    the
    
     ere.
    
    you'll
    
    andro
    ?11 He
    
    eating
    nough
    
    ur best
     from
     ng go
    wers so
    
    "Here's
    L during
    drained
    
     ell, day
    t on over
    
    . . 11
    lo IS.
    and, then
    He shook
    w, rather
    er hold."
    ttle before
    garve and
    jig with its
    n the foe's
    
    437
    
    head. If, instead of carrying eggs, each dragon carried five troopers ...
     "First three companies forward!" Colonel Cilandro commanded. The
    men of the dragons' ground crews had been frantically mounting har-
    nesses on their charges' long scaly torsos. The dragons had liked that no
    better than they liked anything else. Cilandro gave Sabriino a cheery wave
    as he took his place just behind the dragonflier. "If we live through this,
    it will be Jolly," the infantry colonel said. "And if we don't, we won't
    care. So let's be off."
     "My crystal man is waiting for the signal," Sabrino answered, hoping
    he sounded calmer than he felt. "Everyone will move at the same time.
    
    We don't want the Jelgavans getting too many ideas beforehand."
     Maybe Cilandro would have had something suitably impolite to say
    about the likelihood of Kaunians getting ideas. He never got the chance.
    A man came running up to Sabriino's dragon. He pausedjust out of range
    of the creature's long, scaly neck, raised to his lips the trumpet he was
    carrying, and blew a long, untuneful blast.
     Sabrino whacked his dragon with the goad. The dragon let out a
    screech and began to flap its wings. It screeched again when it didn't take
    off quite so soon as it had expected; it was used to carrying only Sabrino's
    weight. But the great wings beat faster and faster, harder and harder. Dust
    flew up in choking clouds. And then, at last, the dragon flew up, too, still
    letting the world know it was indignant at having to work so hard.
    Behind Sabrino, Cilandro whooped.
     As the dragon gained height, Sabriino also whooped, half withjoy, half
    with awe. The whole wing was rising. All the other wings were rising.
    Almost all the dragons in Algarve, save for those flying against Lagoas and
    some patrolling the sky on the border with Unkerlant in the west, were

    




    rising. Sabrino knew he could not see them all. The ones he could see
    were by themselves more dragons than he'd ever seen gathered together
    1)cfore. k " -
     Seven main passes pierced the Bradano Mountains. Cut the Jelgavan
    army west of the mountains off from the kingdom that supported it . . .
    do that and, with any luck at all, the Algarvians would be able to roll it
    up and then parade through the rest of the kingdom. The plan was
    audacious enough to work. Whether it was good enough to work, his
    men and Cilandro's would soon find out.
      Over the lines they flew, not so high as Sabrino might have liked. A

    




    438
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    squadron of jelgavan dragons with only their own fliers aboard could
    have wreaked havoc among the heavily laden Algarvian beasts. Almost all
    of them were freighted with soldiers, leaving only a scant handful to serve
    as escorts.
     One dragon did tumble out of the sky, blazed from below. But the rest
    of the men and mounts in Sabrino's flight kept going, up into the
    Bradano Mountains and through the pass Colonel Cilandro and his
    soldiers were charged with sealing. Sabriino's head swiveled back and
    forth as he gauged the landmarks. Even before Cilandro shouted at him,
    he was urging his dragon downward. The others in the flight followed.
    As soon as the dragon's claws touched the stone of the road through the
    narrowest part of the pass, Cilandro and his fellow soldiers sprang off,
    Other flights brought in the first companies of other rtgiments. A
    
     "We'll go back for your friends now," Sabrino shouted to Cilandro.
    
     "Aye, do," Cilandro answered. "And we'll start plugging the pass
    here." He waved.
    Waving back, Sabriino urged his dragon into the air once more. How
    swiftly, how effortlessly, he and his unburdened comrades flew back ta
    the dragon farm outside Tricarico. Three more companies of infant~
    boarded them, to be leapfrogged over the jelgavans and into the pass,
    Then they, almost all of them, returned yet again, and transported the rest
    of their assigned regiments.              I
     Once the last contingent of footsoldiers was on the ground ast
    jelgava's lifeline, Sabrino ordered his flight into the air once more.
    now, thejelgavans were beginning to wake up to what Algarve had doi1c.
    Egg-carrying dragons came winging out of the east to attack the men tb
    Algarvians had placed behind most ofjelgava's army. But they were,
    Sabrino's judgment, far too few, and, being burdened with
    swifter than the tired mounts he and his men were flying. Not more than
    handful got to drop those eggs on the Algarvians.
     Sabrino howled with glee and shook his fist. "The bottle is corke
    curse you!" he shouted to the foe. "Aye, by the powers above, the bottle
    is corked!"
    
     "Buggered!" Talsu said bitterly. "That's what's happened to us. Vie'
    been buggered."
     "Aye." His friend Smilsu sounded every bit as bitter. "That's \di~il

    




    serve
    
    rest
    the
    d his
    e
    
    0
    
    k and
    t him,
    wed.
    h the
    g off.
    
    dro.
    
    e pass
    
    How
    ck to
    
    fantry
    pass.
    e rest
    
    stride
    C. By
    done.
    n the
    
    re, in
    S, no
    than
    
   rked,
    ottle
    
    what
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    439
    
    happens when you keep looking straight ahead. Somebody sneaks around
    behind you and gives it to you right up the "
     "Pass," Talsu broke in. Smilsu laughed, not so much because it was
    funny as because it was either laugh or weep. Talsu went on, "We'd
    better do something about it pretty cursed quick, too, or this war goes
    straight into the chamber pot."
     "You think it hasn't gone there already?" Smilsu demanded.
     Talsu didn't answer night away. He did think it had gone there already.
    As long as the redheads held the passes - held all the passes, by what pan-
    kky rumor said - how were the jelgavans to get food and other supplies
    and charges for their weapons up to the soldiers who needed them? The
    plain and simple answer was, they couldn't.
     At last, Talsu said, "Maybe we should have pulled more men out of
    the front-line trenches to break through the Algarvian cork."
     Smilsu gave him an ironic bow. "Oh, aye, General, that'd be splendid.
    Thcn they'd have pushed us back even farther than they already have."
     Talsu waved his arms in exasperation. He stood behind a boulder big
    enough to make the gesture safe: no Algarvian could see him do it and
    blaze him for it. "Well, what did you expect? Of course the fornicating
    whoresons hit us from the front, too. They don't want to just cut us off
    - they want to bloody well massacre us." He lowered his voice. "And
    odds are we'd have done a lot better and gone a lot further in this stink-
    ing war if our own officers thought the same way."
     "Only one I ever saw who even came close was Colonel Adomu,"
    Smilsu answered, "and look what it got him."
     He also spoke quietly, which was wise on his part, for Colonel Balozhu,

    




    who had taken over for the able, energetic, but unlucky Adomu, came
    walking by to look over their position. Talsu shook his head. Walking was
    probably too strong a word to describe what Balozhu was doing.
    Wandering came closer. Balozhu looked dazed, as if somebody had clouted
    him in the side of the head with a bn*ck. Talsu had the nasty suspicion that
    most jelgavan officers looked the same way these days. Algarve had
    clouted the whole kingdom in the side of the head with a briick.
     Balozhu nodded to him and Smilsu. "Courage, men," he said, though
    he hadn't shown any enormous amount of it himself. "Before long, the
    Algarvians' attacks must surely lose their impetus."
      "Aye, my lord count," Talsu answered, though Balozhu hadn't given

    




    440
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    any reason why the Algarvians should slow down. Talsu and Smilsu bot
    bowed low; Balozhu might not have been a bold soldier, but he was
    stickler for military punctilio. Satisfied, he went on his way, that nuildl~
    confused expression still spread across his bland features.
     Very, very softly, Smilsu said, "Aye, he'll lead us to victory." In a dif
    ferent tone of voice, that might have been praise for Balozhu. As thing
    were, Talsu looked around to make sure no one but him had heard hi
    friend.
     He too spoke in a whisper: "I don't know why we bother keeping up
    this fight when it's already lost."
     "Another good question," Smilsu allowed. "Another question you'd
    better not ask our dear, noble colonel. The only answer he'd come up
    with has a dungeon in it somewhere, you mark my words."
     "I can do better than that for myself, thanks," Talsu said. "Staying alive
    comes to mind. You throw down your stick and throw up your hands in
    front of an Algarvian, it's not better than even money he lets you surre
    der. He's about as likely to blaze you down instead."
     "Aye, the redheads are savages," Smilsu said. "They always have bee
    I expect they always will be." He spat in glum emphasis.
     "That's the truth," Talsu said. But he recalled slitting Algarvian's,
    throats when sticks needed charging. Not all the savagery lay on
    Algarvian side.
     And then he stopped caning where the savagery lay, for the Algarvians
    started tossing eggs at his regiment's position. Dragons appeared over-
    head, dropping more eggs and also swooping low to flame jelgavans
    enough to be caught away from cover. Shouting like demons in th
    coarse, trilling tongue, the redheads swarmed forward.
     They flitted from rock to rock like the mountain apes of the distant
    west. But mountain apes were not armed with sticks. Mountain ape' di ,
    not bring heavy sticks and egg-tossers forward on the backs of arnio
    behemoths. Mountain apes did not have dragons diving to their aid,
     Along with the rest of the regiment, Talsu retreated. It was that or
    outflanked, cut off, and altogether wrecked. Spotting Vartu not far
    a cut on his forehead sending blood dripping down the side of hi:,faCe,
    Talsu called, "Don't you wish you'd gone home to serve Dzimavu's rela-
    t1ons?"
      Powers above, no!" the former regimental commander's servant

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    441
    
    answered. "There, they'd be paying me to let them abuse me. Here, if
    these stinking Algarvians want to do me a bad turn, I can blaze back at
    them." He dropped to one knee and did just that. Then he retreated
    again, falling back like the veteran he'd become.
     Talsu was unhappily aware that his comrades and he couldn't retreat a
    great deal farther, not with the Algarvians still blocking the pass through
    which the main line of the retreat would have to go. He wondered what
    Colonel Balozhu and the men above him would have them do once they
    were well and thoroughly trapped. Whatever it was, it would probably
    be some half measure that didn't come close to solving the real problem,
    which was that the Algarvians had more imagination than they knew
    what to do with and the jelgavans ... the jelgavans didn't have nearly
    enough.
     More eggs rained down on the beleaguered regiment. More
    Algarvians pushed forward against its crumbling front, too. Talsu began
    to wonder whether the officers above Balozhu would have much chance
    to do anything with the regiment at all. It seemed to be breaking up night
    here. Maybe his chances of living through an attempted surrender were
    better than those of living through much more fighting after all.
     Dragons stooped like falcons, flaming, flaming. Not far away from
    Talsu, a man turned into a torch. He kept running and shrieking and set-
    ting bushes ablaze till at last, mercifully, he fell. Talsu made up his mind
    to yield himself up to the first Algarvian who wasn't actively trying to kill
    him the instant they saw each other.
     Then Smilsu shouted, "Over here! This way!" Talsu, just then, would
    have taken any way out of the trap in which the regiment found itself The
    stink of his comrade's charred flesh in his nostrils, he ran toward the hide
    path leading up into the mountains that Snuilsu had found.
     He wasn't the only one, either. Vartu and half a dozen others sprinted
    toward that path. None of them, Talsu was sure, had the least idea where
    it led, or if it led anywhere. None of them cared, either; he was equally
    sure of that. Wherever it went could not be worse than here.
     That was what he thought till another dragon painted in white and
    green and red swooped toward his comrades and him. On that narrow
    track, they had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He threw his stick up
    to his shoulder and blazed away. He gave a sort of mental shrug even as
    he did so. If he was going to die, he'd die fighting. Given a chance, he
    
    I

    




    442
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    would have far preferred not dying at all. Soldiers didn't always
    choices like that.
     Sometimes - not nearly often enough, especially not among jelga
    these days - soldiers did get lucky. Talsu wasn't the only one blazin
    the dragon, but he always insisted his was the beam that caught the gr
    beast in the eye and blazed out its tiny, hate-filled brain. Instead of tu
    ing him into another human torch, the dragon and its flier slammed i
    the ground not twenty feet from him, cutting off the mouth of the pa
    The dragon's carcass began to burn then. The flier didn't move; the
    of his dragon must have killed him.
     Talsu was not about to complain. He had his life back when h
    expected to lose it in the next instant. "Let's go!" he said. He still did
    know where he was going. He didn't care, either. He could go, and
    he would.
    
     "Blazed down a dragon!" Smilsu cnied. "They'd give us a decorati
    for that, if only they knew about it."
     "Bugger the decorations," TaIsu said. He looked around. No, he h
    no officers, nor even any sergeants, to tell him what to do. He
    absurdly free, cut off not only from whatever was left of the rest of
    regiment but also from the army and jelgava as a whole. "Come on. Le
    see if we can get away."
     "We've already gotten away," Vartu said, which Aso held a great
    of truth. The ex-servant turned an eye to the sky, no doubt fea
    another dragon might turn that truth into a lie.
     But the Algarvians had more to worry about than a few fleeting foot
    soldiers. Their dragons rained death down on the jelgavans still trying
    push through their force plugging the pass. Talsu and his companions, o
    of the main fight, were quickly forgotten.
     "Do you know," Smilsu said after they trudged east, or as close to e
    as they could, for a couple of miles, "I think this track is going to let
    out into the foothills on the other side of the mountains."
     "If you're right," Vartu said, "it sure as blazes doesn't look like an
    body in a fancy uniform knows it's here. If the dukes and counts and NN,
    have you did know, they'd be moving men along it."
     Smilsu nodded. "Aye. If we come out the other side, we co
    heroes for letting the dukes know about it."
     They walked on a while longer. Then Talsu said, "If I had my c

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    et
    
   ans
    at
    cat
    
    m-
    
    foot-
    ng to
    S, out
    
    o east
    let us
    
                                       any
                                       what
    
    uld be
    
    choice
    
    443
    
    between being a hero and being out of the cursed war . . ." He took
    another couple of steps before realizing that might be exactly the choice
    he had. He spat. "What have the dukes and counts and what have you
    ever done for me? They've done plenty to me. They've done their cursed
    best to get me killed. Let them sweat." He kept going. None of the others
    said a word to contradict him.

    




    16.
    
    Tealdo and his company tramped down a road through fields fragran
    with fennel. The jelgavans used the spice to flavor sausage. Teald
    gnawed on a hard, grayish length of the stuff he'd taken from a farmhous
    a few miles back. At first, he hadn't been sure he liked it; it gave th
    chopped and salted meat a slightly medicinal taste. Now that he'd grow
    used to it, though, it wasn't bad.
     Here and there in the fields, jelgavan farmers stood staring at th
    Algarvian soldiers advancing past them. Tealdo pointed to one of them
    a thickset, stooped old man leaning on a hoe. "Wonder what's goi
    through his head night now. He never expected to see us on this side
    the Bradanos, I'll lay."
     "I wouldn't mind getting laid myself," his friend Trasone answered,
    That wasn't what Tealdo had meant, but it didn't strike him as the worst
    idea in the world, either. Trasone went on, "I bet the Kaunian bastard is
    hoping he locked up his daughters well enough so we can't find 'em or
    maybe" - he took another look at the fanner - "maybe his grand-
    daughters. "
     Sergeant Panfilo glared at both of them. "We don't have the time to
    waste for you cockproud whoresons to pull the pants off every jelgav
    slut we find. We finish this occupation, they'll set up brothels for us,
    lem up or more likely take over some that are already going. Till tbeii
    keep your pricks under your kilts."
     In a low voice, Tealdo said, "Panfilo's an old man. Doesn't rriatt
    him if he has to wait for his fun." Trasone laughed and nodde
    Unfortunately for Tealdo, his voice- hadn't been ~ quite low enou
    Panfilo spent the next imile and a half scorching his ears.
     By the time the sergeant was through, Tealdo thought he could
    
    444

    




    use
    the
    
    own
    
    the
    
    ered.
    orst
    rd is
    
    in or
    and-
    
    e to
    
    avan
    s, set
    then,
    
    ter to
    dded.
    ough.
    
    smell
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    445
    
    the organs in question sizzling. The only thing that kept him from being
    sure was the smoke already dnifting in the air. Behemoths and dragons
    had gone ahead of the main force of footsoldiers, following the same pat-
    tem in jelgava as they had farther south in Vallrmiera. Here, once they'd
    forced their way through the passes and down on to the plain, they'd met
    little resistance.
     Four or five jelgavans. got out of the road to let the Algarvian soldiers
    march past them. The jelgavans wore dirty, tattered uniforms, but none of
    them was carrying a weapon. "Sir, shouldn't we round them up and send
    them back to a captives' camp?" somebody asked Captain Galafrone.
     "I don't see any point to bothering," replied the commoner who'd
    risen from the ranks. "The war's over for them. They're heading for
    home, no place else but. When they get there, they'll tell everybody
    who'll listen that we're too tough to lick. That's what we want the
    jelgavans to hear."
     He showed a hard common sense a lot of officers with bluer blood
    would have been better off having. Tealdo nodded approval. These
    jelgavans weren't going to do any more fighting; they looked so tired and
    wom, they rmight have been some of the handful who'd made it back
    from the Algarvian side of the mountains. Indeed, why waste time and
    detail a man to escort them off into captivity?
     One of them shook his fist toward the east. "Blaze our noblemen!" he
    said in accented Algarvian. Then he dropped back into jelgavan to tell his
    pals what he'd said. Their blond heads bobbed up and down.
     "Don't worry about it, chum," Trasone said. "We'll take care of it for
    you.
     Tealdo couldn't tell whether the jelgavans understood his friend or
    not. It mattered little, one way or the other. King Donalitu hadn't sur-
    rendered yet, but the war was as good as over even so. Some more
    jelgavans would get blazed because their king was stubborn, and a few
    Algarvians, too, but that also mattered little, as far as Tealdo could see.
    Once the mountain shell was cracked, jelgava had proved easy meat.
     "Come on, you miserable, lazy bastards," Galafrone called to his own
    men. "Keep moving. The deeper we push the knife in, the less room the
    blonds will have to wriggle and the more they'll bleed." He did his best
    to drive his company forward with the force of his words and will, but
    Tealdo noted that he didn't sound so urgent as he had in the campaign

    




    t46
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    against Valmiera. Even he thought the Algarvians were on the point of
    wrapping things up.
     As if to prove as much, an hour or so later a few Algarvian guards led a
    great many more Jelgavans west toward captivity. The Jelgavans were not
    glum or downhearted. Instead, they smiled and laughed andjoked with the
    men who guarded them. To them, a captives' camp looked good.
     "Degenerate Kaunians," Trasone said scornfully.
     "Well, maybe," Tealdo answered, "but maybe not, too. I don't think
    it's against the law to show you're glad to be alive."
     "You could be right," Trasone said, but he didn't sound as
    believed it. "You're more generous than I am, though, I'll tell you that."
     Tealdo only shrugged and kept plodding east. Jelgavans weren't wo
    arguing about. But he remained convinced he had it straight. If he'd beell
    a Jelgavan soldier - especially a Jelgavan soldier east of the mountaim,
    who wouldn't have expected to do much fighting till just before tir
    fighting found him - he wouldn't have needed to be a degenerate to be
    happy he'd come through in one piece.
     Toward evening that day, a couple of diehard Jelgavans blazed at
    Tealdo and his comrades from a brushy field. Galafrone turned his com-
    pany loose, saying no more than, "You know what to do, boys. Hunt
    
    em down."
     Methodically as if they were digging a trench, the Algarvians did. The
    trouser-wearing foes were fine soldiers, and made them work hard, But
    two against a company was not betting odds, even if the two did hive
    good cover. One of the Jelgavan soldiers indeed died hard, blazed do~-i)
    from the flank as he in turn kept blazing away at the Algarvians in front
    of him. The other threw down his stick as the Algarvians closed in on
    him. He stood up with his hands high, smiling and speaking
    Algarvian: "All right, boys, you've got me now."
     He did not go west toward a captives' camp.
     "Can't play that kind of game with us," Trasone rumbled as he p
    his way through the bushes and back toward the road.
     "Oh, you can play it," Tealdo answered, "but you're a fool if y
    expect to win. It's not like football or draughts; - it's for keeps. You don
    just up and quit when it's not going your way."
     "Aye, by the powers above," Trasone said. "You blaze
    pals, you're going to pay."

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    A
    
    IMF-
    
    he
    at."
    orth
    een
    ains,
    the
    o be
    
    ed at
    cona-
    I lulit
    
     . -the
    d. But
    d have
    down
     fcont
    
    ngr good
    
    he picked
    
                                   fool if you
                                   . You don't
    
    111C,jild illy
    
    447
    
     "This whole kingdom is going to pay," Tealdo said. His frie
    nodded, then threw back his head and laughed, plainly enjoying the ide
     They camped by a village where the jelgavans must have shown fi
    for about half of it had burned. Eggs had smashed a good many hous
    while others showed the scars of beams from the heavy sticks behernot
    carried. Along with the sour stink of stale smoke, the sickly-sweet sin
    of death clogged Tealdo's nostrils.
     A few jelgavans still slunk around the village, their postures as wa
    and fright-filled as those of the dogs that kept them company. Th
    weren't worth plundering; whatever they might have had before the fi
    waves of Algarvians went through their village, they had nothing now.
    couple of them, bolder than the rest, came up to the camp and begg(
    for food. Some of the Algarvians fed them; others sent them away wi
    curses.
     Tealdo drew a midnight sentry turn. For one of the rare times sin
    breaking into jelgava, he felt like a soldier on hazardous duty. If sorr
    stubborn Kaunians like the ones the company had met that afternoo
    were sneaking up on him, they might give him a thin time of it. Shake
    out of his blanket in the middle of the night, he should have been sleep
    He wasn't.
    
     Every rustle of a mouse scurrying through the grass made him start an
    swir
     ng his stick in that direction, lest it prove something worse than
    mouse. Every time an owl hooted, he jumped. Once, something in tf
    wrecked jelgavan village collapsed with a crash. Tealdo, threw himse
    fiat, is if a wing of wardragons were passing overhead.
     He got to his feet again a moment later, feeling foolish. But he kne
     W~ ~Latten out again at any other sudden, untoward noise. Better safe tha
      sorry made a good maxim for any soldier who wanted to see the end
      the war.
    
       A httle later, a jelgavan did approach him, but openly, hands held u
      so he could see they were empty. Even so, he barked out a sharp orde
      "Halt!" He had no reason to trust the folk of this kingdom, and eve

    




      reason not to.
    
      The jc1givin did stop, and said something quiet and questioning in th
      1001 lallgllagC. Only then did Tealdo realize it was a woman. He still kel
      his stick ainied at her. You never could tell.
        shc    "I don't know what you're saying," he answered.

    




    448
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
     She spread her hands - she didn't understand him, either. Then she
    pointed to her mouth and rubbed her belly: she was hungry. He couldn't
    have missed that if he tried. When he only stood there, she pointed else-
    where and twitched her hips, after which she rubbed her belly again. He
    didn't need words for that, either: if youfeed me, you can have me.
     Afterwards, he wondered whether he might have responded differ-
    ently had he not spent so much time marching and so little sleeping.
    Maybe - when he felt the urge, he satisfied it, even if he had to pay. But
    maybe not, too. Laying down silver was one thing. This was something
    else again. And he did feel worn down to a nub.
     He took from his belt pouch a hard roll and a chunk of that fennel-
    flavored sausage and held them out to the woman. Nervously, she
    approached. Even more nervously, she took the food. Then, with t I
    
    sigh of one completing an unpleasant but necessary bargain, she began to
    unbutton her tunic.
     Tealdo shook his head. "You don't need to do that," he said. "Go 0,
    get out of here. Go away and eat." He spoke Algarvian - it was the on,
    language he knew. To leave her in no doubt of what he meanthe ma
    as if to push her away. She got that. She bowed very low, as if e were
    duke, perhaps even a king. Then she did up her tunic again, leaned clok
    to kiss him on the cheek, and hurried away into the night.
     He didn't tell his relief what had happened. He didn't tell any of his
    friends the next morning, either. They would have laughed at him for not
    taking everything he could get. He would have laughed at one of thein
    the same way.
    
     Not long after sunrise, the long slog east began again. But the coill-
    pany hadn't been marching long before a messenger from Colon
    Ombruno, the regimental commander, rode up to Captain Galaftone..,
    Galaftone listened, nodded, listened some more, and then threw up Ills
    hands to halt the men he led.
     "We've licked 'em," he said. "King Donalitu has fled his palace, liki
    Penda did in Forthweg when the Unkerlanters closed in on him. I lio~e
    we catch the son of a whore; if we don't, he'll end up in Lagoas, sure as
    sure. But whatever duke or minister he left in charge has yielded up the
    whole kingdom to us. Let's give a cheer for King Mezentio - aye, and fi)r
    not having to fight any more, too.'
    
    "Mezcntlo!" Tcaldo shouted, along with his happy comrades.

    




   ~he
    dn't
    4se-
    'He
    
    Ter-
    
    ing.
    But
    iing
    
    nel-
     she
     the
     n to
    
    on,
    
    C)nly
    
    -iade
    ,re a
    ,lose
    
    f his
    - not
    
    hern
    
    oin-
    onel
    ,one.
    p his
    
    I like
    hope
    ;rc as
                                       61 C
                                      d for
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    Galafrone knew how an ordinary soldier thought, all right.
    
     "Fool!" King Swernmel cnied in a great voice. "Idiot! jackanapes!
    Bungler! Get thee gone from our presence. Thou hast fallen under our
    displeasure, and the sight of thee is a stench in our nostrils. Begone!" The
    second-person familiar was almost extinct in Unkerlanter. Lovers some-
    times used it. More rarely, so did people in the grip of other towering
    passions, as Swemmel was now.
     Marshal Rathar got to his feet. "Your Majesty, I obey," he said crisply,
    as if the king had given him leave to rise some while before, rather than
    summoning him not to the audience chamber but to the throne room
    and hurruiliating him by forcing him to stay on his belly before the assem-
    bled courtiers of the kingdom for that concentrated blast of hate.
     As if back at the royal military academy, Rathar did a smart about-turn
    and marched away from the king. Though he heard courtiers whispering
    behind their hands, he kept his face stolidly blank. He couldn't make out
    all the whispers, but he knew what the men in tunics covered with fancy
    embroidery would be saying: they'd be betting when King Swernmel
    would order his execution, and on what form the execution would take.
    Those questions were on Rathar's mind, too, but he was cursed if he
    would Pve anyone else the satisfaction of knowing it.
     Eyes followed him as he strode out of the throne room. He wondered
    if the guards would seize him the moment he passed through the great
    brazen doors. When they didn't, he clicked his tongue between his teeth,
    a gesture of relief as remarkable in him as falling down in a faint would
    have been in some other man.
     A hallway separated the throne room from the chamber in which the
    nobility of Unkerlant had to store their weapons before attending King

    




    Swerninel. Rathar stopped there and pointed to the blade that symbol-
    ized his rank. "Give it to me," he told the servitor who had no function
    but watching over all the gorgeous cutlery and looking gorgeous himself
      The fellow hesitated. "Uh, my lord Marshal-" he began.
     lUhar cut him off with a sharp chopping gesture. Had he had the
     ~word in his hand then, he might have used it, too. "Give it to me," he
     repeated. "I am the Marshal of Unkerlant, and the king did not demote
     me." Sweinmel had done everything but that. He had, in a way, done
     worse than that. But Rathar was technically correct. He went on, "If his

    




    450
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    Majesty wants my sword, I will yield it to him or to his designee. Yo
    sirrah, are not that man."
     He spread his feet and leaned for-ward a little, plainly ready to lay into.,
    the servant if he did not get his way. Biting his lip, the man took the mar-
    shal's sword from the wall brackets that held it and handed it to Rathar.
     I thank you," Rathar said, as if he'd been obeyed without question.
    He slid the blade on to his belt and went off.
     He created no small consternation as he tramped through the palace
    on his way back to his own chamber there. People stopped and stared and
    pointed at him: not only cooks and serving maids and other such lilght-
    rmnded folk but also guardsmen and nobles not important enot, hi
    have been invited to witness his excoriation. They might not have S~
    it, but they knew about it. Everyone in Cottbus doubtless knew about
    Peasants down in the Duchy of Grelz would hear about it no later thn
    day after tomorrow.
    
     He might have been a man who'd come down with a deadly cl"Cw
    but not yet perished of it. And so, in fact, he was, for the king's disfav r
    killed more surely and more painfully than many a plithisic against which:
    mages and healers might struggle with some chance of success.
     Even his own officers, once he was back among them, seemed at a loss
    over how to treat him. A few looked relieved that he had been al1mved
    to return from the throne room. More looked astonished. Still ni=,
    looked annoyed: now that he had been allowed to rHe had trouble telling whether his adjutant, a major named Merovec,
                                        e
    looked relieved or astonished. Merovec seldom showed expr ssi
                                         0" 0'
    
    sort; had he not chosen the army for his career (and had his blood
    been high enough to ensure a commission), he would have made some
    noble house in Cottbus a splendid majordomo. All he said
    "Welcome back, my lord Marshal."
     "For this I think you," Rathar answered. "You give me a warmcrml-
    come than I had in the throne room, which is, I daresay, a truth you wi
    already have heard."
     That got even the impassive Merovec to raise an eyebrow. "My I
    Around King Swemmel's court, such frankness was a commodity in sh*~
    supply.
    
    advancement would necessarily have to wait till the axe fell.
    
    Every now and then, Rathar tired of dissembling. He'd survivedsuch

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS         451
    
    ou,
    
    into
    
    ar-
    ar.
    
    tion.
    
    alace
    d and
    light-
    gh to
    seen
    
    ut it.
    than
    
     our
    which
    
    a dangerous eccentricity up till now. "Come with me," he said abruptly,
    and took Merovec by the arm to make sure his adjutant could do nothing
    else. Once they were inside Rathar's own sanctum, the marshal of
    Unkerlant closed and barred the door behind them.
     "My lord?" Merovec said again.
     "Are you wondering whether you'll have to pay for being too close to
    me, Major?" Rathar asked, and had the dour pleasure of watching
    Merovec flush beneath his swarthy skin. Rathar went on, "You may wen
    have to, but it's too late in the game to fret over it, wouldn't you say?"
     Merovec said nothing of the sort. Merovec, in fact, said nothing at all.
    He stood like a statue, revealing nothing of whatever went on behind his
    eyes.
     Aye, a perfect majordomo, Rathar thought. As often as not, never saying
    much was a good way to get ahead. No one could think you disagreed
    with him if you acted that way. Such was certainly the key to survival at
    Swernmel's court - as far as anything was the key to survival at
    Swemmel's court. But Rathar, though as stolid a man as any ever born,
    had dared tell Swernmel to his face he thought the king was wrong. He
    would not keep silent now, either.
    
    t a loss        Sweeping out a hand toward the map on the wall behind his desk, he
    owed          demanded of Merovec, "Do you know what my sin is in King
    more          Swemmel's eyes?"
    e else's        "Aye, my lord Marshal: you were wrong." From Merovec, that was
                  astounding frankness. After licking his lips, Rathar's adjutant added,
    
    rovec,
    of any
    od not
    
    e some
    d was,
    
    er wel-
    ou Will
    
     lord?"
    in short
    
    ed such
    
    "Even worse, my lord: you were wrong twice."
     Few survived being wrong once around King Swernmel. Rathar knew
    as much. No courtier in Cottbus could help knowing as much. "And
    how was I wrong, Major?" he inquired, not altogether rhetorically.
    
     Again, Merovec gave him a straight answer: "You underestimated

    




    Algarve. Twice, you underestimated Algarve."
     "So I did." Rathar pointed to the map, to the new crosshatching
    showing that Algarve occupied Valmiera. "His Majesty wanted to assail
    King Mezentio while the redheads fought in the southeast, but they beat
    Vahniera faster than I thought they could, before we were ready. I
    advised waiting until they were fully embroiled with Jelgava." He
    pointed to the even newer crosshatching that showed Algarve occupied
    Jelgava. "Now they have beaten King Donalitu faster than I thought they

    




    452
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    could. And his Majesty is furious at me for having held him back,
    having held Unkerlant back."
     "Even so, my lord Marshal," Merovec replied. "In your own wor
    you have stated the king's grievance against you."
     "So I have." Rathar nodded. "But consider this, Major: if Algarve w
    strong enough to overrun Valnuiera faster than anyone could have ima
    ined, if Algarve was strong enough to serve Jelgava the same way despit
    the mountains between them - if Algarve was strong enough to carry o
    those feats of arms, Major, what would have happened to us had we in
    assailed King Mezentio's men?"
     Merovec's face went blank. Now, though, Rathar could see below
    surface. Under that mask, his adjutant's wits were working. At last, c
    fully, Merovec said, "It could be, my lord, that the Algarvians would h
    been too heavily engaged in the east to stand against us."
     "Oh, aye, it could be," Rathar agreed. "Would you care to bet the
    of the kingdom on its being so
     "That is not my choice to make," Merovec answered. "That is the
    king's choice to make."
     "So it is, and he made it, and he is furious at having made i
    furious at me for having kept him from rushing ahead into a war of
    uncertain outcome," Rathar said. "If I fall, I will console myself with the
    thought that I may well have kept the kingdom from falling instead."
     "Aye, my lord," Merovec said. By his tone, he worried more
    himself than about Unkerlant. Most men thought thus.
     "I have not fallen yet," Rathar said. "His Majesty could have taken
    head in the throne room. Blood has flowed there before when the
    grew wrathy enough at a foriner favorite. I am still here. I still
    inand."
     "What you say is true, my lord," Merovec replied with another ~o
    That was a safe answer, safe and noncommittal. Rathar's adjutant vo
    on, "And long may you continue to command me, my lor hat
                                           T,
    showed a little more spirit, but only a little, for Merovec's contina
    good fortune - indeed, quite possibly, Merovec's continued survival -
    depended on Rathar's.
     "And, while I command, I do obey the king, even if he sometime,
    trouble seeing as much," Rathar said. "I have never said we should
    war against Algarve." No matter how much I think so, I have never said

    




    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    Le
    
    ent
    hat
    jed
    11 -
    
    "That is not my place. My place is making sure we win the war once it
    begins." ff I can. ff King Swernmel lets me.
     Merovec nodded. "The only one who could possibly disagree with
    you, my lord, is his Majesty." He paused to let that sink in. As it did,
    Rathar's mouth tightened. Merovec was, unfortunately, correct. If
    Swemmel took a different view of what Rathar's position should be - if,
    for instance, he took the view that Rathar's position should be kneeling,
    with his head on a block - that view would prevail.
     "You have my leave to go," Rathar said sourly. His adjutant bowed
    and departed.
     Rathar turned back to the map. Maps were simple, maps were
    straightforward, maps made good sense. This map said - all but shouted
    - that, come spring, he (or whoever was Marshal of Unkerlant by then)
    would have no excuses left for delaying the attack against Algarve. Rathar
    assumed he would still command then, for no better reason than that, if
    he turned out to be wrong, he would probably be dead.
     The war would come. Rathar saw no way of avoiding it. If he could
    not avoid it, he would have to win it. At the moment, he saw no sure
    way of doing that, either. But the sun was swinging farther north every
    day. Fall was here. Winter was coming. He would not have to fight then.
    That gave him half a year to come up with answers.
     In his desk sat a squat bottle of spirits. He took it out and looked at it.
    He wished he could stay drunk all winter instead, as so many Unkerlanter
    peasants did. With a sigh, he put the bottle back. For as long as King
    Swernmel let him, he had plenty of work to do.
    
    Bauska bowed to Krasta. "Here is the morning's news sheet, milady,"
    she said, handing it to her mistress.
    Krasta snatched it away from her. Then, peevishly, she said, "I don't
    know why I bother. There's no proper scandal in here these days. It's all
    
    pap, the sort of pap you'd feed a sickly brat."
    "Aye, milady," Bauska said. "That's how the Algarvians want it to be.
    If the news sheets are quiet, that helps keep us quiet, too."
    Such a thought had never crossed Krasta's mind. To her, what showed
    up in the news sheets simply appeared on those pages. How it got there,
    \vli\~ it got there, what else might have got there in its place - those were
    questions to trouble servants, or at most tradesmen: certainly not nobles.

    




    454
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
     And then Krasta's eye fell on a small item most of the way down the
    front page. It wasn't pap, at least not to her. She read it all the way
    through, in mounting horror and outrage. "They dare," she whispered.
    Had she not whispered, she would have shrieked. "They dare."
     "Milady?" Bauska's face showed puzzlement. "I didn't notice anything
    that would-"
    
     "Are you blind as well as stupid?" Krasta snapped. "Look at this!" She
    held the news sheet so close to Bauska's nose, the servant's eyes crossed
    as she tried to read it.
    
     "Mistress," Bauska said in a hesitant voice, "the Algarvians won the
    war in the north, the same as they did here. King Donalitu fled from
    jelgava. Of course the redheads would pick a new king in his-"
     Krasta's hand lashed out and caught her serving woman across the
    cheek. With a hoarse cry, Bauska staggered back across the marchioness's
    bedchamber. "Fool!" Krasta hissed. "Aye, the redheads had the right to
    name a new king in jelgava after Donalitu abandoned his palace. They
    had the night to name a king - from among his kin, or at most from
    among the high nobility of jelgava. But this? Prince Mainardo? King
    Mezentio's younger brother? An Algarvian? It is an outrage, an insult, that
    cannot be borne. I shall complain to the Algarvians who have forced
    themselves upon my household." News sheet in hand, she swept toward
    the bedchamber door.
    
     Bauska was rubbing at her cheek, already too late to have kept a red.
    handpriint from appeaning. "Milady, you are still in your nightcl-" s
    began. Krasta slammed the door on the last part of the word.     i
     Colonel Lurcanio, Captain Mosco, and their aides and guards and
    messengers were breakfasting in the wing of the mansion they had appro-
    priated for their own. They stopped eating and drinking as suddenly as if
    turned to stone when Krasta burst in on them. Waving the news shee
    she cried, "What is the meaning of this?"
     "I might ask the same question," Mosco murmured, "but I think I
    be content to count myself lucky instead."
     Krasta looked down at herself She wore a simple tunic-and-trousers
    set of white silk - was she a commoner, to endure linen or wool when
    she slept? If her nipples thrust against the thin fabric, it was from outrage,
    not from any tender emotion. She knew no particular embarrassment$
    displaying herself before the Algarvians, as she knew none displaying her-,

    




    hey
    om
    
    a red
    " she
    
    and
    
    pro-
    as if
    sheet,
    
    I -,vIII
    
    onsets
    when
    
    utrage,
    cnt at
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
    455
    
    self before the servants - they were all equally beneath her notice.
     What the Algarvians had done, though, was another matter altogether.
    She advanced on them, brandishing the news sheet like a cavalry saber.
    "How dare you set a barbarian on the ancient throne of jelgava?" she
    shouted.
     Colonel Lurcamio got to his feet. Bowing, he held out a hand. "If I
    may see this, milady?" he asked. Krasta jabbed the news sheet at him. He
    skimmed through the story then gave the sheet back to her. If his eyes
    lingered on her heaving bosom - heaving with indignation, of course -
    a little longer than they might have, she was too irate to notice. He said,
    "I trust you do not think I personally deposed King Donalitu or forced
    him to run away and installed Prince Mainardo in his place?"
     "I don't care what you personally did," Krasta snapped. "That throne
    belongs to a jelgavan noble, not to an Algarvian usurper. The royal farmi ly
    ofjelgava traces its line back to the days of the Kaunian Empire. You have
    no right to snuff out its claims like a stick of punk - none, do you hear
    me?"
     "Milady, I admire your spirit," Captain Mosco said. By the way his
    eyes clung, her spirit wasn't all he admired. "I must tell you, however,
    that-"
    
     "Wait," Lurcanio said. "I will deal with this." Mosco bowed in his
    seat, acknowledging his supenior's prerogative. Turning back to Krasta,
    Lurcanio went on, "Milady, let us understand each other. I care not a fig
    whether or not the king - the former king, the fled king - of jelgava
    traces his descent back to the days of the Kaunian Empire or, for that mat-
    ter, back to the egg from which the world hatched. Algarvians overthrew
    the Kaunian Empire, and our chieftains became kings. Now we have
    overthrown jelgava, and our prince becomes a king. We have the
    strength, so of course we have the right."
     Krasta slapped him, just as she had slapped Bauska moments before.
    The reaction was completely automatic. He had displeased her, and
    therefore deserved whatever she chose to give him.
     Her servants accepted that as a law of nature almost to the same degree
    she did. Lurcanic, was cut from a different bolt of cloth. He hauled off and
    slapped Krasta in return, hard enough to send her staggering back several
    steps.
      She stared at him in astonishment complete and absolute. Her parents
    
    I
    
    i

    




    456
    
    Harry Turtledove
    
    had died when she was quite small. Since then, no one had presumed to
    lay a hand on her, or indeed to check her in any way. Bowing to her'
    Lurcanio said, "I assure you, milady, that I would never be so rude as to
    strike a woman unprovoked. But I also assure you that I do not suffer
    myself to be struck, either. You would do well - you would do very well
    - to remember as much from now on."
     Slowly, Krasta raised a hand to her mouth. She tasted blood; one of
    her teeth had torn the inside of her cheek. "How dare you do that?" slic
    whispered. The question held more simple curiosity than anger: so novel
    was receiving what she'd been in the habit of giving out.
    
     Colonel Lurcanio bowed again, perhaps recognizing as much. When
    he replied, he might have been a schoolmaster: "It is as I said before,
    milady. I have the win and I have the strength, both in my own person
    and in my kingdom, to punish insults offered me. Having the strength
    gives me the right, and I am not ashamed to use it."
     At first, he might have been speaking the horrid language of the Ice
    People for all the sense he made to Krasta. And then, suddenly, his words
    hit her with a force greater than that of his hand. Valmiera had lost the
    Kras ta had already known that, of course. Up till now, though, it had bcen
    only an annoyance, an inconvenience. For the first time, what it meant
    crashed down on her. Up till now, she'd granted deference only to the tiliv
    handful above her in the hierarchy: counts and countesses, dukes and
    duchesses, the royal family. But the Algarvians, by virtue of their victorv,
    also outranked her in this strange new Valmiera. As Lurcanio had said - and
    had proved with his hard right hand - they had the power to do as they
    pleased here. That power had been hers and her ancestors' since time
    of mind. It was no longer, unless the redheads chose to allow it.
     Colonel Lurcanio might be a count in his own kingdom. Herein
    Valmiera, he counted for a prince or at least a duke, for he was Ki
    Mezentio's man. Krasta tried to imagine what would have become of
                                          ,h h
    had she slapped a duke in King Gainibu's palace: a duke, that is, W 0
    not tried to slide his hand inside her tunic or under the waistband of
    
    trousers.
     She would have been ruined. There was no other possible ansNver.
    Which meant she'd run the risk of ruin by slapping Lurcanio. He inight
    have done far worse to her than he had. "I - I'm sorry," she said. The
    words came hard; she was not in the habit of apologizing.

    




    er.
    
    d. The
    
    INTo THE DARKNESS
    
     She took a deep breath, preparatory to saying more. Colonel Lurcamo
    and Captain Mosco appreciatively watched her taking that deep breath.
    She saw them watching her, and looked down at herself once more. If
    they were her superiors in rank and she stood in dishabille before them
    ... She let out a small, mortified squeak and fled the dining hall.
     Back in the part of the mansion still hers, servitors gaped at her. Not
    tin she passed a mirror did she understand why. Printed on her cheek was
    the mark of Colonel Lurcanio's hand. She examined her image with a fas-
    cination different from the one it usually held for her. She'd marked the
    servants often enough. Why not? They had no recourse against her. Now
    she was marked herself And what recourse had she against Lurcanio,
    against Algarve.
     None. None whatever. Lurcanio had made that plain with a scorn all
    the more chillina for being so polite. If he decided to ravish her and have
    A his aides line up behind him, the only person to whom he would
    answer was Grand Duke Ivone, his Algarvian superior. Nothing any
    Valmieran said or did would affect his fate in the least.
     She shivered and brought her left hand up to touch the scarlet imprint
    of Lurcanio's palm and fingers. The flesh on that part of her cheek was
    hot, and tingled under the pressure of her fingers. She'd never been one
    to mix pain - not her own pain, anyhow - with lubricious pleasure. She
    still wasn't. She felt sure of that. What she felt now was ...
    
     Angrily, she shook her head. She didn't even have a word for it.
    Respect might have come close, but she was used to requiring that from
    others, not to granting it herself. Awe probably hit nearer still to the
    center of the target. Awe, after all, was what one gave to forces incom-
    parably more powerful than oneself Having dared lay a hand on her and
    having demonstrated he could do so with impunity, Colonel Lurcanio
    had proved himselfjust such a force.
     Still shaking her head, Krasta went upstairs. Bauska awaited her at the
    top of the stairway. Servant and marchioness stared at the marks on each
    other's faces. In a voice empty of all feeling, Bauska said, "Milady, I have
    set out a daytime tunic and trousers for you. They await your pleasure."
     "Very well," Krasta said. But instead of going in to change, she con-
      t~fte`outler convey to the Algarvians that from now on they
      are welcome to use every part of the mansion, not only the wing they
      have takcii for themselves."
    
    I
    
    I

    




    458
    
    Harty Turtledove
    
     Bauska's eyes went even wider than they had when she saw her
    mistress with a mark on her cheek. "Milady?" she said, as if wondering
    whether she could possibly have heard right. "Why, rmilady?"
     "Why?" Krasta's temper remained volatile. It would always remain
    volatile. Her voice rose to a shout not far from a scream: "Curse you, I'll
    tell you why, you stupid little twat! Because they won the war, that's why!"
    Bauska gaped, gulped, and incontinently fled.
    
     Mushroom season again. Vanal relished the chance to escape
    Oyngestun from sunup to sundown. For one thing, most of the Kaunians
    and many of the Forthwegians in her village still thought her and Brivibas
    traitors to their people - or traitors to the Kingdom of Forthweg,
    depending - for their association with Major Spinello, even though that
    association had broken up in acrimony. For another, because that associ-
    ation had broken up in acrimony, she and Brivibas were once more as
    hungry as anyone else in Oyngestun. The mushrooms they gatheredl
    would help feed them through the winter.
     Tramping with a basket under her arm through the stubbled fields
    through groves of almonds and olives, through thickets of oak, took Vanai
    back to the happier days before the war. She found herself whistling a tune,
    that had been all the rage the autumn before fighting broke out.
     In fact, she didn't find herself doing it. She didn't consciously notic
    she was doing it till Brivibas said, "My granddaughter, I am compelled
    tell you that your taste in music leaves a great deal to be desired."
     "My -?" Vanal discovered her lips were puckering to whistle some
    more. Feeling foolish, she forced them to relax. "Oh. I'm sorry, in
    
    grandfather. "
     "No great harm done," Brivibas said, magnanimous in his dusty
    "I do not disapprove of high spirits, mind you, merely of the monoto-
    nous and irksome expression of same."
     You think I'm monotonous and irksome, do you? went through Vanai
    mind. Have you seen yourse!f in a glass lately? She did not say it. She saw tio
    point to saying it. She had to live with-Brivibas. If she made an a d
    camp of the house they shared, she would regret it as much a's he 7'
     What she did say was, "Why don't we split up for a while? We'll Fir)
                                              C
    
    more and different mushrooms separately than we would stwkk~tl~
    together."

    




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    459
    
     Brivibas frowned. "You must understand, I have a certain amount of
    concern about letting you wander the woods by yourself Had I not been
    there to protect you from that Forthwegian lout last year-"
     "He was not a lout, my grandfather," Vanai said with an exasperated
    sniff. "All we did was trade a few mushrooms back and forth." Had the
    Forthwegian - Ealstan; aye, that was his name - tried to do anything from
    which she needed protecting, she did not think Bn*vibas would have been
    much help. She also remembered her humiliation when Ealstan had seen
    her with her grandfather and Major Spinello. That made her defend him:
    "He spoke Kaunian very well, if you'll recall."
     "He did no such thing," Brivibas said. "A typically barbarous accent.
    
     Vanal shrugged. "I thought he spoke quite well." Out came her claws:
    "Maybe not so well as the redhead you reckoned such a splendid scholar
    for so long, but quite well even so."
     "The Algarvian deceived me, deceitfully deceived me," Bri'vibas said,
    and then suffered a coughing fit. Once he recovered, he stopped arguing
    against their going separate ways. If anything, he looked glad to escape
    Vanai.
     She knew she was glad to escape him. Thanks to Major Spinello, he
    had the taint of Algarve on him, too - and, even were that not so, she
    didn't care to be lectured while looking for mushrooms. She'd got to the
    point where she didn't care to be lectured at all: unfortunate, when the
    lecture was Bn*vibas's usual form of address.
     Every so often, Vanal would see Forthwegians and Kaunians, sometimes
    in small groups, more frequently alone, plucking or digging up mushrooms
    or slicing them from tree trunks. She spied no Algarvians; the redheads did
    not care for mushrooms and could not understand why anyone else would.
    Not seeing Algarvians also helped give her the illusion of freedom. She

    




    would have enjoyed it even more had she not known it was an illusion.
     As she walked farther east from Oyngestun, some of the mushroom
    hunters waved when she went by. She knew what that meant: they
    't f
    weren rom her home village and didn't know of Brivibas's cozying up
    to Spinello. That also gave her a feeling of freedom, and one rather less
    illusory than the other. Among strangers, she didn't have to be ashamed
    of what her grandfather had done.
     She found some garlic mushrooms and then, not far away, a fairy ning
    in the grass. Like anyone with a modern education, she knew fairies had