Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  Ahryn shoved himself angrily back in his own chair, looking out the tavern’s windows into the sodden night’s bone-gnawing chill. He knew Ahndru was right. For that matter, he knew Archbishop Arthyn was right. If the cycle of violence and reprisal continued, the community around him would never heal.

  But what Ahndru didn’t seem to grasp was that Ahryn didn’t care. This wasn’t “his” community anymore … assuming it ever had been. He was still in Lake City for one reason, and one reason only: to sell the Tohmys family farm for something remotely approaching a fair price. His parents would need that money in Charlz—or in the Temple Lands, if they chose to continue farther west, put more distance between themselves and the Republic they’d once called home. They’d need it to care for a son who would never walk again without crutches, who would never again read one of his beloved books.

  Familiar rage bubbled in the pit of his belly as he thought about that. Thought about Rychyrd’s vain attempt to hide his despair when the healers told him his right eye was permanently blind and that even with the best spectacles anyone could grind for him, he would never again see anything but blurry images out of the left. It hadn’t been enough for Tyzdail and the other bastards to cripple his baby brother, they’d taken away the one thing that might have made his shattered life bearable.

  That had been the final straw for Clyntahn and Danyel Tohmys. As soon as they could safely move Rychyrd, they’d taken him away from the hateful city in which their son’s life had been broken. They hadn’t cared about selling the farm anymore. In fact, Clyntahn had blamed himself for having stayed too long, for trying to get a better price for the land his family had owned for so many years, so many generations. If he’d only taken what the speculators had offered, gotten his family out of Tarikah sooner.…

  Ahryn understood, but he was grimly determined his parents were going to have what they needed to care for his brother. He knew how much that farm was truly worth, and he’d promised his father he’d get it. Both his mother and father had argued with him at first. They’d wanted him safely out of Lake City, as well. Danyel had looked at him, eyes wet with tears, and begged him to come with them. Begged him not to let Lake City take her other son from her.

  But Ahryn had been adamant, and eventually, they’d relented. His mother had demanded that he promise to be careful, to avoid trouble, and he’d given her that promise because until he did, his father had refused to deed the farm over to him. But Clyntahn Tohmys had registered the new deed in the end, given Ahryn authority to negotiate its sale, and for the last two months, that was what he’d been doing.

  He’d helped his family pack, delivered the crates of books Rychyrd would never read again to the Lake City Public Library. There’d been tears in his own eyes as he loaded those crates into the cart but he’d managed to keep them out of his voice because the last thing Rychyrd had needed was proof of his own grief, his own anger. Rychyrd was right, of course. If he couldn’t read them anymore himself, he could at least pass them on to a home where other booklovers could read them, and it had seemed to ease his pain, at least a little. Nothing would ever truly take it away, though. Ahryn knew that as well as Rychyrd did.

  And then he’d ridden the freight wagon down to the canal station with his parents, helped them stow everything aboard the barge his father had chartered, hugged and kissed everyone, waved goodbye, returned the freight wagon … and gone hunting.

  His friend Ahndru didn’t know the real reason no one had seen Byrt Tyzdail for the last eight or nine five-days. No one did, although the fish at the bottom of East Wing Lake might have given them a clue.

  Ahryn intended to keep it that way, however he might long to tell Tyzdail’s cronies what had become of him. Or, for that matter, however he might long to send them along to keep him company. But Tyzdail had been only one of the two tasks he’d assigned himself. The more important of them, he admitted, but still only one, and he had yet to accomplish the second. Somehow he had to find a buyer, provide his parents with the nest egg they needed.

  “Anything more from Ovyrtyn?” Ahrdmor asked, and Ahryn stiffened as the question unintentionally flicked his raw emotions.

  “No.” He managed to bring the single word out almost normally, not in the snarl he’d wanted to unleash.

  Taigys Ovyrtyn and Grygory Hahlys were currently the two biggest “investors” in Tarikah real estate. Hahlys was a native of Old Province, not Tarikah. He’d been part of the original “land rush” after the Jihad, and he’d arrived with a purse full of ready marks. His reputation for driving hard bargains had been well earned in those early days. It had also made him even more bitterly disliked than most of his ilk, but he’d had the wit to partner with Ovyrtyn, a native of Tarikah whose family had stayed fiercely loyal to the Republic. More than a third of that family had died, and Ovyrtyn stood high in the local community’s esteem because of their sacrifice. He’d become Hahlys’ entry port for many of his land deals and permitted the interloper to continue buying up distressed properties.

  “You know, my dad says Ovyrtyn drives harder bargains with people like us,” Ahrdmor said, and Ahryn grunted.

  He’d heard the same thing himself, and seen evidence enough to prove it. And, probably, it wasn’t too surprising that someone who’d lost as many cousins as Taigys Ovyrtyn had would feel especially satisfied screwing bargain prices out of “Temple Loyalists.” Unfortunately, there were few other avenues available to Ahryn. The Tohmys farm was too big a purchase for anyone besides Hahlys and Ovyrtyn’s purse. Unless he wanted to break it up into smaller parcels, at least. And if he did that, he wouldn’t find a buyer for all of them—not under current circumstances.

  “I’m sure he does,” he growled after a moment. “I know the best price he’s offered me so far is maybe a quarter of what the place’s really worth.”

  “Only a quarter?” Ahrdmor looked distressed. He knew why Ahryn was selling. More to the point, he knew how much the farm was truly worth.

  “That’s what he says,” Ahryn replied. He started to add something else, then stopped himself and sipped cherrybean, instead.

  Ahrdmor looked at him curiously for a moment, but decided not to press the point. Instead, he leaned back and began describing the attractive—and available—young lady with whom he intended to spend the evening. Ahryn listened, chuckling appreciatively at all the proper spots, but his mind wasn’t really on his friend’s amatory adventures.

  He was remembering that last conversation with Ovyrtyn. The one in which Ovyrtyn had cut his offering price. Ahryn hadn’t been completely truthful with Ahrdmor, because Ovyrtyn’s current “take-it-or-leave-it” offer was actually only about twenty percent of the farm’s appraised tax value, and appraised tax values were almost always lower than actual values. He’d pointed that out to Ovyrtyn, and the land buyer had shrugged.

  “Best I can do,” he’d said. “In fact, you’d probably better jump now, really. It’s only going to go down.”

  “Why?” Ahryn had asked tightly.

  “Because we’re running out of money,” Ovyrtyn had said frankly, and grimaced. “I’m not saying I’d offer you any more than I thought I had to. No point either of us pretending I would. But the way things are headed now that Maidyn’s Shan-wei–damned ‘Central Bank’ is mucking around, nobody knows what the credit market’s going to be like next month. Hell, nobody knows what it’s going to be like next five-day! All we do know is that it’s going to get tighter, and, the truth is, Grygory and I are overexposed as it is. Eventually, all this land’s going to come back to its pre-Jihad values, but for right now, we’re land-rich and money-poor, and that’s just the way it is.”

  Ahryn had looked at him, jaw clenched, and Ovyrtyn had shrugged.

  “Look,” he’d said, “I heard what happened to your brother. I’m not going to pretend I don’t have … issues of my own with people who ran for the hills instead of standing and fighting, but you and he were only kids. Wasn’t your idea, and it’s not right. Beating
the hell out of a kid his age, it’s not right.”

  To his credit, he’d sounded as if he actually meant it, and Ahryn’s jaw muscles had relaxed just a bit.

  “A good businessman doesn’t let sympathy interfere with business,” Ovyrtyn had continued, “and I’m not going to tell you I’d pay you what your family’s place will be worth in a few years, no matter what. That’s not my job, and I’d be lying if I suggested I’d do anything of the kind. But I’m not the senior partner; Grygory is, and he’s the one setting policy. Under other circumstances, I might have been able to buy at my previous offer if you’d taken me up on it then. Now, I don’t have a choice. Your family’s already left, and I know you want the cash out of the farm for them. I understand that. But you’re a young man with no family of your own to support, and I’ll be honest. In your place, I think I’d find myself a job here in the city to make ends meet and wait a while. If you think you’re in a position to hold onto the farm for another—I don’t know, three or four years?—land prices will probably recover to a point that will let you drive more of a seller’s bargain. You can’t now. And if this ‘Central Bank’ does what a lot of people are afraid it’ll do, it’s going to be a hell of a lot longer before land prices start going up again. If you do decide to sell now, I can pay you in cash, money on the barrel head. It’s not what your property’s worth, son, it’s just all you can get for it right now.”

  Ahryn had sat there in the quiet warmth of his office for several minutes. Then he’d stood and held out his hand across the desk.

  “Let me think about it,” he’d said. “I understand what you’re saying. And I think you mean it.” He’d been a little surprised to hear himself say that, and even more to realize it was true. “But I just can’t sign it away for that price. Not without thinking about it long and hard, first.”

  “Understood.” Ovyrtyn had clasped forearms with him. “And my current offer’s good till the end of next five-day. After that, I’m afraid it may drop again. Not saying that to twist your arm, although I might anyway, but because it’s true.”

  “I understand,” Ahryn had repeated, and left.

  Now, as he listened to Ahrdmor’s glowing description of his lady friend’s athleticism, he remembered that conversation and felt the slow, steady burn of despair-fueled anger smoldering in the pit of his belly.

  * * *

  “I think we may actually be making some genuine progress,” Henrai Maidyn said as he and Arthyn Zagyrsk rolled towards Saint Gryg’s once more.

  It wasn’t raining today, and the two of them were heavily bundled against the cold wind humming in off the lake. It was going to be even colder inside the church than for their previous meetings, but that was fine with Maidyn. He’d been cold before in his life, and the sense that both sides of the commission the archbishop had impaneled genuinely wanted to find ways to decrease the tension was far more important than mere physical warmth ever could have been.

  “I believe you may be right, My Lord,” Zagyrsk conceded. “And I’m certainly enheartened that almost everyone we asked to serve has agreed to take a seat on the commission. Nothing we’ve come up with so far is going to just knock all this hostility on the head, though. And as soon as the commission openly sets up business, people on both sides are going to start trying to tear it apart.” He smiled sadly. “That whole human nature thing you and I were talking about before the first meeting.”

  “But that was over a five-day ago,” Maidyn replied with a lurking twinkle. “Surely human nature’s evolved to a new pinnacle of greatness in that much time!”

  “I see you are a man of extraordinarily deep faith, my son,” Zagyrsk said.

  “Either that or extraordinarily deep desperation.” Maidyn’s tone was more sober. “On the other hand, I think they really do want to do something about the problem.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about at least that much,” Zagyrsk said with matching seriousness. “My concern is that there are too many people with a vested interest in not doing something about it.”

  “People like Ohraily and Trumyn, you mean.”

  “Certainly, but, to be honest, I’m more concerned about people closer to home. Like Grygory Hahlys. The last thing he wants is for the situation to stabilize and let land prices do the same thing! If I could, I’d emulate Seijin Brahntly and drive the speculators out of Lake City with a whip.”

  From his tone, he wasn’t even half-joking, Maidyn reflected.

  “Well, since neither of us are seijins, Your Eminence, I’m afraid we’ll just have to do our best. And at least I may be a little less unpopular in the West when I go home.” He smiled whimsically, looking out the window on his side of the carriage. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

  * * *

  Ahryn Tohmys stood in the cold wind, huddled deep inside the warmth of his thick coat, and watched the street through empty eyes.

  The frigid day was far, far warmer than his heart, and the hand in his left coat pocket clenched around the crumpled letter. The letter from Wyllym Styrges, telling him what his mother had not yet found the strength to write herself.

  Telling him what his brother Rychyrd had decided.

  They took it all away from you, Rychie, he thought bleakly. Everything. And I’m not really surprised. But, oh, how could you do this to Mom? How?

  But he knew the answer, of course. There was a limit to the pain someone could bear, and Ahryn hadn’t been there to help him bear it. Hadn’t been there to make Rychyrd talk to him about the things their mother wouldn’t have pushed him on because it would have hurt him so much. Hadn’t been there to see the warning signs, to watch him, to keep him from hobbling off into that barn with that length of rope.

  And now he was gone, and Ahryn hadn’t been there because he’d been here, too focused on selling the family farm to keep his kid brother alive.

  The pain went through him once again, colder and far sharper edged than any wind that had ever blown, and he felt the tears on his half-frozen cheeks.

  He should have taken Ovyrtyn’s offer before the land buyer had to prune it back. He shouldn’t have delayed after Ovyrtyn expressly warned him he could only go down, not up. He should have taken it and sent a letter by semaphore to his parents, told them—and Rychyrd—he was coming to join them, that he’d be there within the five-day. Maybe that would have been enough to keep his brother going until he’d gotten there. But he’d gone on hoping, lying to himself, delaying himself from accepting the inevitable when he should have known it was inevitable in the face of so much uncertainty about credit and banking laws. Ahryn didn’t understand those esoteric details himself, but he understood enough. He understood who’d destabilized them all. Who’d created the conditions which had kept him here instead of in Charlz where his brother had needed him to be.

  A part of him knew he was focusing his own self-anger on others. That he hurt so much, the pain was so deep, he had to find someone else to bear the weight of his fury. But it was a tiny part of him, and he wasn’t listening to it. He didn’t care. His family had suffered enough, been broken too terribly, for him to feel anything but the rage, the volcanic lava seething just under the surface.

  The world had crushed his brother, his parents, under its uncaring heel, and Ahryn Tohmys would find a way to punish the world for that.

  He heard the sound of approaching hooves and grating wheels and looked up.

  * * *

  The carriage drew up before The Church of the Holy Martyr Saint Grygory and one of the escort’s cavalry troopers dismounted to open the door.

  Henrai Maidyn nodded his thanks as he started down the carriage’s steps to the pavement. Then he heard a shout. His head turned in its direction.

  The last thing he ever saw was the muzzle flash of the revolver in a brokenhearted older brother’s right hand.

  .II.

  Protector’s Palace, Siddar City, Old Province, Republic of Siddarmark.

  “Mister Ambassador.”
<
br />   Chancellor of the Exchequer Klymynt Myllyr stood, extending his hand in greeting, as his secretary escorted Mahlkym Preskyt into his office.

  It was the Chancellor’s working office, not the one he reserved for more formal occasions, Preskyt noted. Then again, he and Preskyt were old friends.

  The day was cold and blustery, but Preskyt didn’t mind that as much as some of his colleagues in the Charisian diplomatic service might have, because he’d grown up facing far worse. A native Chisholmian who’d been born and raised in the foothills of the Snow Crest Mountains, he stood almost six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. Indeed, he looked considerably more like the stereotypical idea of a Siddarmarkian than his host did. Myllyr was two inches shorter than he was, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a badly scarred left cheek only partially concealed behind his full beard.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, My Lord,” Preskyt said formally, mindful of his official office as he clasped forearms with the Chancellor.

  “I’d rather talk to you than pore over another column of figures any day!” Myllyr said feelingly, releasing the ambassador’s forearm and waving him into the comfortable armchair on the other side of his desk. He waited until his guest had sat, then seated himself again and folded his hands on his blotter.

  “But the fact that I’d rather talk to you than deal with more numbers doesn’t mean I don’t have a pretty shrewd—and unhappy—idea about why you wanted to see me, Mahlkym,” he continued, and Preskyt nodded. Myllyr might not be in Henrai Maidyn’s league when it came to the finer points of the Republic’s economy, but he was no fool.

  “I’m afraid you probably do, My Lord,” he conceded. “First, though, Their Majesties have specifically instructed me to assure you of their continued faith in Lord Protector Henrai and the ultimate outcome of his reforms.”