"No novices, I promise that. Probably four folk with an equal mix of youth and experience. And we won't send anyone who doesn't want to go. If, on the other hand, you'd like to volunteer, tell your Leader. I'd rather have volunteers, if it comes to that." She looked out into the dark, hearing people already moving carefully along the benches, eager for their beds. "Any more questions? No? Then good night to all of you."
* * *
Kitri was the last to arrive, and Felaras closed the door of the study after her, thinking, Thank you, oh gods, for Leaders I can work with.
The study was a little crowded with eight people in it, and a bit stuffy; the group included Felaras and the Trinity, of course (as her personal aides they were privy to everything and very good at being invisible when the time came), and the three chapter Leaders.
"Kasha, open the window, would you?" she asked, as the three Leaders arranged themselves around the hastily brought-in table. The desk was shoved up against the back wall, the room's two chairs on either side of it. Kasha threaded her way through the furniture to obey the request, then returned to the rear of the room for further orders.
Kitri led the Archivists; Diermud had held that position when Felaras had first taken the Master's seat, but he'd thrown it gratefully into Kitri's lap when Felaras had hinted it might be better for someone with more aptitude and inclination for worldly matters to have the Leader's badge. (Kitri's reaction had been hilarious. "Well," she'd said when Felaras handed her the badge of the open Book and the key to the Leader's study, "I appreciate the honor, but I thought we'd outlawed slavery here. . . .")
She was tall—taller than any man in the Order saving only Zetren. She was so thin that she kept a fire going in her study most of the year, for she felt the cold badly. She had large, spidery hands that could copy a text, make an inkbrush, or play a zither with equal dexterity. Her long grey hair would hang down below her knees if she let it; generally she kept it piled up on the top of her head in an untidy bird's-nest of a knot, stuck together with hairpins that she shed so constantly that one of the duties of her novices was to collect them and give them back to her at day's end. Deceptively mild hazel eyes were partially hidden by a contraption of wire and glass lenses—something Lisan of the Seekers had made to correct her failing eyesight—an invention so successful that a number of other members of the Order sported them now, and not just the older ones. She wore a long, loose tunic belted at the waist over breeches, both faded blue in color; clothing nearly identical in color and cut to every other piece in her wardrobe. One of Kitri's idiosyncrasies was that she searched until she found something she liked, and thereafter never altered it. This was a trait that endeared her to her novices, since it meant that they always knew what she would want and when she would want it.
Unlike Thaydore, sitting next to her—who never really knew exactly what he wanted when it came to his own needs. On the other hand, he would be satisfied by inexactitude in anything except his work, so it didn't matter to him if the fruit juice was warm, the soup cold, and his robe too short in the sleeves. He spoke for the Tower, the Seekers; and was himself a Flame rather than a Hand like Halun. He was nowhere near as old, nor as crazed, as he looked. His wildly untamed shock of hair had gone pure white in his twenties, and the vague, slightly demented look in his eyes was due more to preoccupation than anything else. He was supremely indifferent to his own physical surroundings, as witness his out-at-the-elbows, ink-stained robe, but he was implacable when it came to creating the best possible environment for the scholars under his authority. And there was one thing on which he and Kitri were in complete agreement—that the purpose of the Order was both discovery and education.
The one way in which they differed was on the point that Thaydore would assume without ever really thinking about it that those who wished to be educated would come to him. Kitri, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to load up a horse with books and go crusading for pupils.
And probably coerce them into learning whether they liked it or not, Felaras thought wryly, casting a glance over to her.
But these two would be getting exactly what they wanted out of a treaty with the Vredai. Given that, they'd let Felaras have about anything else she wanted.
The final chapter Leader, Ardun of the Sword, was an old friend, and had been one of Felaras's first novices when she'd reached full Watcher status. Bald as an egg, short, and bandylegged; he was, nevertheless, a man not even Zetren would willingly go against. He was the acknowledged expert in more forms of combat than Felaras cared to think about, for not only did the Order gather recruits from every corner of the civilized world, but one of the duties of the Sword was to actively seek out and master new martial arts. Most importantly, he was one of the calmest people she knew. This could be an asset in any meeting where Kitri was involved.
"All right, friends," Felaras said, when everyone had been seated around the table she'd set up, after cups of chava had been handed round by her aides. This done, the Trinity had settled unobtrusively on or around the desk at the back of the room. "Do we want to talk about the treaty first, or the delegation?"
"Let's get the delegation out of the way," Kitri replied, a hairpin clattering to the tabletop as she reached for her cup. "That's the easiest. I'd like your young Teo on it for Archivist; that gives you and me a direct eye on the proceedings, and he asked me last night if I thought you'd let him volunteer."
"Did he, now?" Felaras looked over her shoulder, and Teo blushed. "I have no objections at all, seeing as he's the closest we have to a knowledgeable authority on these people. Thaydore, do you have anyone in mind for Seekers?"
Thaydore coughed, and looked a little embarrassed. "Well . . . yes. And I hope you won't think I'm suggesting him because he's troublesome—"
"Great good gods—you mean Halun volunteered?" Ardun exclaimed, eyes widening with unconcealed glee. "How amazing!"
"Well . . . yes."
"Nice balance," Felaras observed, making no effort to conceal her cheer. "Teo for youth, Halun for experience—I'd say fine, personally."
Kitri spread her hands wide. "No objections here. How about for the Flame side of the Tower?"
"I thought Eriel? I admit she's rather—uh—mystical—"
Thaydore's expression as he pronounced the last word was something between exasperation and extreme distaste. Eriel's star-charts were miracles of exactitude, for which she had Thaydore's admiration, mathematician to mathematician. The trouble lay in her attempts to calculate formulae that would enable her to contact the "spiritual entities" she was certain were guiding the stars on their appointed tracks. No amount of gazing through Lisan's finest far-seeing tubes would convince her that she was viewing anything other than a kind of festival lantern held in the hand of one of those invisible creatures.
On the other hand, if Eriel had volunteered, it would satisfy the "signs-and-portents" faction, and might give her a much-needed dose of medicinal reality.
"Ardun?" Felaras asked.
He shrugged. "Better than some—and puts a female in the mix. I can't think of anybody I'd suggest as an alternative."
"Kitri?"
"No common sense, but I'd trust Teo to keep her out of trouble."
"All right, Eriel's in. Ardun, who for the Sword?"
He grinned crookedly. "I know who I'd like—but she hasn't volunteered, and—" He craned his head around and grinned at Kasha, who began glowering, though she didn't seem inclined to say anything, "—don't get your hackles up, Sparrowhawk!—I was about to say that the Master needs you too much."
"That I do, and I'll not part with her. So who?"
"Remember a woman named Mai? Scouts, mostly."
"I think so; not pretty, not plain, sort of a face-shaped face. Very quiet. Very good at being a piece of the landscape."
"Or of the furniture. Aye, that's the one; she thought that talent of hers at being unnoticed might come in handy, and she's been one of the scouts out shadowing these folk. She's curious as hell about them, wants to
see them up close. Sounded good to me, and I trust her."
"And as a scout she has to have a good memory," Kitri mused. "Sounds to me like a very good choice."
Thaydore nodded.
"Well, that's it, then. Halun, Teo, Mai, and Eriel. Next business: what Jegrai is likely to want and what we're willing to trade him."
"Felaras, what trouble can he give us?" Thaydore wanted to know. "Granted, he knows where we are now, and I'm certain he saw a great deal he'd like to have in his hands, but he can hardly take it by force—"
"The boy may be young," Felaras said slowly, "but he isn't dense. He's going to be thinking about the positioning of this Fortress—he's going to realize eventually that the reason we didn't hit him with the fire-throwers is because we couldn't—and he's also going to realize that even wizards have to eat. He could make life very unpleasant for us if he wanted to, and I'm relatively certain he'll have figured this out by the time we meet with him to talk this treaty."
Thaydore chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then nodded, slowly. "So what are we likely to have that we want to put in his hands? Idealism aside, I really would not want to put the secret of the explosives in the hands of a nomad we know nothing about. Later, perhaps—but not at this bargaining session."
"Maps," said Ardun succinctly, and two of the other three heads at the table swiveled to look at him in surprise. "My bet is that if he has maps, they're the ones he got off traders; inaccurate, not terribly detailed, not reliable—traders are known for putting mistakes in their maps. Certainly not reliable for a military campaign, which, if he was chased here, he may be planning on facing. And I would bet that every 'map' of the territory he's come through is in his head, not on paper. Whereas we know every gopher hole from here to Targheiden, and halfway to Azgun."
"Good. I can think of things he likely doesn't have that could be useful; springs, ballistics, western forging and smelting technique, the transverse cog." She thought back to her brief confrontation with Jegrai. "He asked if we did healing, and his face lit up for a minute when I said yes. There's things under that category I think both sides of this negotiation would like to see."
"There's a great deal he could probably offer us—" Kitri said slowly, drawing little pictures on the tabletop with her fingertip.
"Oh, agreed. I'd like to be able to stop importing all our wine, for one, and I'll bet he doesn't have a blamed Vintner's Guild keeping wine-making a secret! We've got some medicines and techniques I'm sure he would want badly if he knew about them—and I'd bet it's going to be vice versa."
"About explosives—should we even let him know it isn't magic?" Ardun asked.
"Morally I'm against not giving it to him," Thaydore said doubtfully, "but practically speaking—great good gods, I wouldn't put a loaded fire-thrower in the hands of a novice—"
"But keeping him from that information is perilous close to betraying our whole philosophy," Kitri snapped. "Certainly, letting him think it's magic is a betrayal of that philosophy!"
"Steady on, Kitri," Ardun replied calmly. "Nobody's suggesting any such thing. At least not in the long run. We're only talking short run here."
Kitri took a deep breath and subsided, nodded a reluctant agreement.
"The question may be out of our hands," Felaras said with equal reluctance. "I told you, my impression is of a very sharp young man. As he keeps the peace over the next few weeks, the land-folk may well come in and talk to him. He'll find out sooner or later that it isn't magic. I think the question is going to be how long we can hold out against his desire for it."
"As long as he doesn't need it . . ." Kitri said slowly.
"Good point," Felaras replied, relieved. "We can always claim our gods would be very angry at us if we gave the secret away when there was no need to use it. Good; that should stall him until we think he's ready for it. Now, think hard; we should be making some demands too—in fact, a lot of them, or he's going to reckon us for weaklings. What do we ask for?"
"You mentioned wine-making. All that herb lore and medicinal lore," Kitri responded. "I know Vider will want that."
"These people are experts in making things portable," Thaydore put in. "We may need that knowledge some day again, and it's beyond price."
"Their entire martial tradition. I want that, Felaras," Ardun's face was determined. "Their tactics alone—under the right circumstances, those strike-and-run maneuvers with horse-archers could be absolutely devastating! Can you imagine them up against an Ancas shield-wall? And weapons construction. The scouts say those little bows of theirs are powerful out of all proportion to their size—"
"Enough, Ardun—you're preaching to the converted," Felaras said with a laugh.
"What Zorsha said last night," Kitri began after a moment of silence. "Was that something of what you had in mind?"
"You mean about giving this boy something more than a set of specifics? Really educating him, making him into the kind of enlightened ruler we've all prayed for and never yet seen?"
Kitri nodded, and sipped at her cooling chava.
"Some. Some was his. I stand behind it all. I think it's a damned good idea, and I'd like to see us try it; I think this young man may be bright enough to think for himself, but willing to learn from us. This is going to sound like heresy, I know, but we don't have to remain bound by Duran's strictures—we can change, we can evolve. There is no reason why we couldn't become the guiding hand behind the throne—"
"That's dangerous—" Thaydore said, unexpectedly. "That's a temptation to control—I don't know, it's perilous, perilous. One could have absolute control there, and isn't that why we divided the rule among all three chapters of the Order in the first place? To avoid absolute control?"
"I haven't worked it all out yet, Thaydore," she admitted. "I truly haven't. This is something that is going to take a great deal of thought, never doubt that I hadn't realized this. The decisions we make on it are going to involve all four of us. I can't and I won't make decisions that will bind the whole Order all by myself."
All three of the Leaders nodded—Ardun with a wry smile, Kitri and Thaydore with relief.
"All right, then, let's deal with the immediate future," she said briskly. "Teo, get your materials out." She raised her eyebrows at them. "Let's get exactly what we want, and exactly what we're prepared to lay on the table in writing. So there won't be any questions by anyone."
Least of all, she thought wryly, from Halun.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jegrai was dazed; at his easy escape out of the hands of the wizards, at the near-miracle of a truce, at the thought that the wizards might, indeed, be of the same brotherhood as the Holy Vedani, and therefore to be trusted as he had trusted no one but his four councilors since he had become Khene.
Dead men cannot speak, the strange old woman had said. And, We seek knowledge.
He hoped, and feared to hope. He feared and wondered if his fear was valid or foolish. He scarcely knew where he was going as he walked away from the woman, only realized after several moments that he was back among his riders and they were besieging him with questions.
He cut their babble short. "We have sworn truce for three days," he said curtly, handing the truce-staff back to Abodai and mounting his spent gelding. "After that we talk greater truce. Perhaps more; it may be that these folk are of the same brotherhood as the Holy Vedani. All that is for myself and my advisors to decide."
"And the cost to us?" Abodai asked shrewdly.
He looked over his shoulder at the tracker, the oldest man in the party. Was that a challenge?
No, he decided. It was just Abodai, who had to know the track he was set on. "No raids during truce-time," he told them, looking from one fearful face to another. "And—we move the Clan."
They clamored to know to where.
And when he told them, their faces went as white as when the wizards had thrown the lightning at them.
It took them most of the afternoon to bring their tired mounts to the camp, and the w
izard's mountain stood black against a bloody sunset when they finally reached that haven.
Jegrai had a great deal of time to think about what had happened during that slow progress. It occurred to him that the Vredai stood on the brink of either disaster or tremendous change. And he was Khene; ultimately it was up to him to lead them, whichever the outcome.
Wind Lords, he thought, cold in his gut as he looked back over his shoulder at the looming mass of the wizard's mountain. I don't want this. I wasn't afraid of death at the hands of Khene Sen—but I fear those wizards, I fear that strong old woman and her lightning. And yet—my heart tells me they can be trusted. Fear. Trust. Which path, Wind Lords?
But as he came to think about it, he began to wonder why the wizards hadn't used that lightning before this time. And the more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. Until gradually a thought began to creep in—
Could it be they hadn't used it—because they couldn't?
Could it be that their weaponry had its limitations, even as the most powerful of bows had its range? Could that be why they had insisted on the Vredai moving to the base of their mountain?
And could it be—could it possibly be—that they had not slain the raiding party out of hand because the Vredai had something they wanted?
But what?
Information; knowledge, perhaps?
Or even, as the old woman had said, the strength of the Vredai fighters?
Could it be that these truce-talks would not be so one-sided as they first appeared?
And could Jegrai even begin to hold his own in such talks against a canny, clever old wizard-woman?
The prospect of trying to do so was nearly as frightening as his first impression of godlike powers.
When they reached the camp in the crimson sunset, Jegrai sat in his saddle and stared at the wizard's peak long after the others had dismounted and had led their mounts away. The lore of the Wind Lords said that a red sky at days end was a portent of change; Jegrai found himself only hoping that the scarlet of the sunset did not betoken an omen of spilled blood to come.
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