The Thousand Cities ttot-3

by Harry Turtledove

  «You could do that.» Though Tzikas continued to speak Makuraner, even without his accent Abivard would have had no doubt he was dealing with a Videssian. Instead of bellowing in outrage or bursting into melodramatic tears, the renegade sounded cool, detached, calculating, almost amused. «You could—if you wanted to put the realm in danger or, rather, in more danger man it's in already.»

  Abivard wanted to hit him, to get behind the calm mask he wore to the man within… if there was a man within. But Tzikas, like a rider controlling a restive horse, had known exactly where to flick him with the whip to get him to jump in the desired direction. Abivard tried not to acknowledge that, saying, «Why should removing you from command of your force here have anything to do with how well the troopers fight? You're good in the field, but you're not so good as all that.»

  «Probably not—not in the field,» Tzikas answered, sparring still. «But I am very good at picking the soldiers who go into my force, and, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, I am positively a genius when it comes to picking the officers who serve under me.»

  Abivard had learned something of the subtle Videssian style of fighting with words while in exile in the Empire and later in treating with his foes. Now he said, «You may be good at picking those who serve under you, eminent sir, but not in picking those under whom you serve. First you betrayed Maniakes, then me. Beware falling between two sides when both hate you.»

  Tzikas bared his teeth; that had pierced whatever armor he had put around his soul. But he said, «You may insult me, you may revile me, but do you want to work with me to drive Maniakes from the land of the Thousand Cities?»

  «An interesting choice, isn't it?» Abivard said, hoping to make Tzikas squirm even more. Tzikas, though, did not squirm but merely waited to see what Abivard would say next—which required Abivard to decide what he would say next. «I still think I should take my chances on how your band performs without you.»

  «Yes, that is what you would be doing,» the renegade said. «I've taught them everything I know—everything.»

  Abivard did not miss the threat there. What Tzikas knew best was how to change sides at just the right—or just the wrong– moment. Would the soldiers he commanded go over to Maniakes if something—even something like Maniakes, if Abivard handed Tzikas to him—happened to him? Or would they simply refuse to fight for Abivard? Would they perhaps do nothing at all except obey their new commander?

  Those were all interesting questions. They led to an even more interesting one: could Abivard afford to find out?

  Reluctantly, he decided he couldn't. He desperately needed that cavalry to repel the Videssians, and Tzikas, if loyal, made a clever, resourceful general. The trouble was, he made a clever, resourceful general even if he wasn't loyal, and that made him more dangerous than an inept traitor. Abivard did his best not to worry about that. His best, he knew, would not be good enough.

  Hating every word, he said, «If you keep your station, you do it as my hunting dog. Do you understand, eminent sir? I need not give you to the Avtokrator to be rid of you. If you disobey me, you are a dead man.»

  «By the God, I understand, lord, and by the God, I swear I will obey your every command.» Tzikas made the left-handed gesture every follower of the Prophets Four used. He probably meant it to reassure Abivard. Instead, it only made him more suspicious. He doubted Tzikas' conversion as much as he doubted everything else about the renegade.

  But he needed the horsemen Tzikas had led down from Vaspurakan, and he needed whatever connections Tzikas still had inside Maniakes' army. Treachery cut both ways, and Tzikas still hated Maniakes for being Avtokrator in place of someone more deserving—someone, for instance, like Tzikas.

  Abivard chuckled mirthlessly. «What amuses you, lord?» Tzikas asked, the picture of polite interest.

  «Only that one person, at least, is safe from your machinations,» Abivard said. One of Tzikas' disconcertingly mobile eyebrows rose in silent question. With malicious relish Abivard explained: «You may want my post, and you may want Maniakes' post, but Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, is beyond your reach.»

  «Oh, indeed,» Tzikas said. «The prospect of overthrowing him never once entered my mind.» By the way he said it and by his actions, the same did not apply to Abivard or Maniakes.

  Abivard watched glumly as, off in the distance, another of the Thousand Cities went up in flames. «This is madness,» he exclaimed. «When we took Videssian towns, we took them with a view to keeping them intact so they could yield revenue to the King of Kings. A burned city yields no one revenue.»

  «When we went into Videssos, we went as conquerors,» Turan said. «Maniakes isn't out for conquest. He's out for revenge, and that changes the way he fights his war.»

  «Well put,» Abivard said. «I hadn't thought of it in just that way, but you're right, of course. How do we stop him?»

  «Beat him and drive him away,» his lieutenant answered. «No other way to do it that I can think of.»

  That was easy to say, but it had proved harder to do. Being uninterested in conquest, Maniakes didn't bother garrisoning the towns he took: he just burned them and moved on. That meant he kept his army intact instead of breaking it up into small packets that Abivard could have hoped to defeat individually.

  Because the Videssian force was all mounted, Maniakes moved through the plain between the Tutub and the Tib faster than Abivard could pursue him with an army still largely made up of infantry. Not only that, he seemed to move through the land of the Thousand Cities faster than Abivard's order to open the canals and flood the plain reached the city governors. Such inundations as did take place were small, hindered Maniakes but little, and were repaired far sooner that they should have been.

  Abivard, coming upon the peasants of the town of Nashvar doing everything they could to make a broken canal whole once more, angrily confronted the city governor, a plump little man named Beroshesh. «Am I to have my people starve?» the governor wailed, making as if to rend his garment. His accented speech proclaimed him a local man, not a true Makuraner down from the high plateau to the west.

  «Are you to let all the Thousand Cities suffer because you do not do all you can to drive the enemy from our land?» Abivard returned.

  Beroshesh stuck out his lower lip, much as Abivard's children did when they were feeling petulant. «I do as much as any of my neighbors, and you cannot deny this, lord. For you to single me out—where is the justice there? Eh? Can you answer?'

  «Where is the justice in not rallying to the cause of the King of Kings?» Abivard answered. «Where is the justice in your ignoring the orders that come from me, his servant?»

  «In the same place as the justice of the order to do ourselves such great harm,» Beroshesh retorted, not retreating by so much as the width of a digit. «If you could by some great magic make all my fellow officials obey to the same degree, this would be another matter. All would bear the harm together, and all equally. But you ask me to take it all on my own head, for the other city governors are lazy and cowardly and will not do any such thing, not unless you stand over them with whips.»

  «And what would they say of you?» Abivard asked in a mild voice. Beroshesh, obviously convinced he was the soul of virtue, donned an expression that might better have belonged on the face of a bride whose virginity was questioned. Abivard wanted to laugh. «Never mind. You needn't answer that.»

  Beroshesh did answer, at considerable length. After a while Abivard stopped listening. He wished he had a magic that could make all the city governors in the Thousand Cities obey his commands. If there were such a magic, though, Kings of Kings would have been using it for hundreds of years, and rebellions against them would have been far fewer.

  Then he had another thought. He sat up straighter in his chair and took a long pull at the goblet of date wine a serving girl had set before him. The stuff was as revoltingly sweet as it always had been. Abivard hardly noticed. He set down the goblet and pointed a finger
at Beroshesh, who reluctantly stopped talking. Quietly, thoughtfully, Abivard said, «Tell me, do your mages do much with the canals?»

  «Not mine, no,» the city governor answered, disappointing him. Beroshesh went on, «My mages, lord, are like you: they are men of the high country and so do not know much about the way of this land. Some of the wizards of the town, though, do repair work on the banks now and again. Sometimes one of them can do at once what it would take a large crew of men with mattocks and spades days to accomplish. And sometimes, magic being what it is, not. Why do you ask?»

  «Because I was wondering whether—» Abivard began.

  Beroshesh held up his right hand, palm out. Bombastic he might have been, but he was not stupid. «You want to work a magic to open the canals all at once. Tell me if I am not correct, lord.»

  «You are right,» Abivard answered. «If we gathered wizards from several cities here, all of them, as you say, from the land of the Thousand Cities so they knew the waters and the mud and what to do with them…» His voice trailed away. Knowing what one wanted to do and being able to do it were not necessarily identical.

  Beroshesh looked thoughtful. «I do not know whether such a thing has ever been essayed. Shall I try to find out, lord?»

  «Yes, I think you should,» Abivard told him. «If we have here a weapon against the Videssians, don't you think we ought to learn whether we can use it?»

  «I shall look into it,» Beroshesh said.

  «So shall I,» Abivard assured him. He'd heard that tone in functionaries' voices before, whenever they made promises they didn't intend to keep. «I will talk to the mages here in town. You find out who the ones in nearby cities are and invite them here. Don't say too much about why or spies will take the word to Maniakes, who may try to foil us.»

  «I understand, lord,» Beroshesh said in a solemn whisper. He looked around nervously. «Even the floors have ears.»

  Considering how much of the past of any town hereabouts lay right under one's feet, that might have been literally true. Abivard wondered whether those dead ears had ever heard of a scheme like his. Then, more to the point, he wondered whether Maniakes had. The Avtokrator had surprised Makuran and had surprised Abivard himself. Now, maybe, Abivard would return the favor.

  Abivard had never before walked into a room that held half a dozen mages. He found the prospect daunting. In his world, with the mundane tools of war, he was a man to be reckoned with. In their world, which was anything but mundane, he held less power to control events than did the humblest foot soldier of his army.

  Even so, the wizards reckoned him a man of importance. When he nerved himself and went in to them, they sprang to their feet and bowed very low, showing that they acknowledged he was far higher in rank than they. «We shall serve you, lord,» they said, almost in chorus.

  «We shall all serve the King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase,» Abivard said. He waved to the roasted quails, bread and honey, and jars of date wine on the sideboard. «Eat. Drink. Refresh yourselves.» By the cups some of the mages were holding, by the gaps in the little loaves of bread, by the bird bones scattered on the floor, they hadn't needed his invitation to take refreshment.

  They introduced themselves, sometimes between mouthfuls. Falasham was fat and jolly. Glathpilesh was also fat but looked as if he hated the world and everyone in it. Mefyesh was bald and had the shiniest scalp Abivard had ever seen. His brother, Yeshmef, was almost as bald and almost as shiny but wore his beard in braids tied with yellow ribbons, which gave him the look of a swarthy sunflower. Utpanisht, to whom everyone, even Glathpilesh, deferred, was ancient and wizened; his grandson, Kidinnu, was in the prime of life.

  «Why have you summoned us, lord?» Glathpilesh demanded of Abivard in a voice that suggested he had better things to do elsewhere.

  «Couldn't you have found that out by magic?» Abivard said, thinking, If you can't, what are you doing here?

  «I could have, aye, but why waste time and labor?» the wizard returned. «Magic is hard work. Talk is always easy.»

  «Listening is easier yet,» Falasham said so good-naturedly that even dour Glathpilesh could not take offense.

  «You know the Videssians have invaded the land of the Thousand Cities;« Abivard said. «You may also know they've beaten the army I command. I want to drive them off, if I can find a way.»

  «Battle magic,» Glathpilesh said scornfully. «He wants battle magic to drive off the Videssians. He doesn't want much, does he?» His laugh showed what he thought of what Abivard wanted.

  In a creaking voice Utpanisht said, «Suppose we let him tell us what he wants? That might be a better idea than having us tell him.» Glathpilesh glared at him and muttered something inaudible but subsided.

  «What I want is not battle magic,» Abivard said with a grateful nod to Utpanisht. «The passion of those involved will have nothing to do with diluting the power of the spell.» He laughed. «And I won't try to explain your own business to you anymore, either. Instead, I'll explain what I do want.» He spent the next little while doing just that.

  When he was finished, none of the magicians spoke for a moment. Then Falasham burst out with a high, shrill giggle. «This is not a man with small thoughts, whatever else we may say of him,» he declared.

  «Can you do this thing?» Abivard asked.

  «It would not be easy,» Glathpilesh growled.

  Abivard's hopes soared. If the bad-tempered mage did not dismiss the notion as impossible out of hand, that might even mean it was easy. Then Yeshmef said, «This magic has never been done, which may well mean this magic cannot be done.» All the other wizards nodded solemnly. Mages were conservative men, even more likely to rely on precedent than were servants of the God, judges, and clerks.

  But Utpanisht, whom he would have expected to be the most conservative of all, said, «One reason it has not been done is that the land of the Thousand Cities had never faced a foe like this Videssian and his host. Desperate times call out for desperate remedies.»

  «Can call out for them,» Mefyesh said. To Abivard's disappointment, Utpanisht did not contradict him.

  Kidinnu said, «Grandfather, even if we can work this magic, should we? Will it not cause more harm than whatever the Videssian does?»

  «It is not a simple question,» Utpanisht said. «The harm from this Maniakes lies not only in what he does now but in what he may do later if we do not check him now. That could be very large indeed. A flood—» He shrugged. «I have seen many floods in my years here. We who live between the rivers know how to deal with floods.»

  Kidinnu bowed his head in acquiescence to his grandfather's reasoning. Abivard asked his question again: «Can you do this thing?»

  This time the wizards did not answer him directly. Instead, they began arguing among themselves, first in the Makuraner language and then, by the sound of things because they didn't find that pungent enough, in the guttural tongue the folk of the Thousand Cities used among themselves. Mefyesh and Yeshmef didn't find even their own language sufficiently satisfying, for after one hot exchange they pulled each other's beards. Abivard wondered if they would yank out knives.

  At last, when the wrangling died down, Utpanisht said, «We think we can do this. All of us agree it is possible. We still have not made up our minds about what method we need to use.»

  «That is because some of these blockheads insist on treating canals as if they were rivers,» Glathpilesh said, «when any fool– but not any idiot, evidently—can see they are of two different classes.»

  Falasham's good nature was fraying at the edges. «They hold flowing water,» he snapped. «Spiritually and metaphorically speaking, that makes them rivers. They aren't lakes. They aren't baths. What are they, if not rivers?'

  «Canals,» Glathpilesh declared, and Yeshmef voiced loud agreement. The row started up anew.

  Abivard listened for a little while, then said sharply, «Enough of this!» His intervention made all the wizards, regardless of which side they had been on,
gang up against him instead. He'd expected that would happen and was neither disappointed nor angry. «I admit you are all more learned in this matter that I could hope to be—».

  «He admits the sun rises in the east,» Glathpilesh muttered. «How generous!»

  Pretending he hadn't heard that, Abivard plowed ahead: «But how you work this magic is not what's important. That you work it is. And you must work it soon, too, for before long Maniakes will start wondering why I've stopped here at Nashvar and given up on pursuing him.» Before long Sharbaraz King of Kings will start wondering, too, and likely decide I'm a traitor, after all. Or if he doesn't, Tzikas will tell him I am.

  Kidinnu said, «Lord, agreeing on the form this sorcery must take is vital before we actually attempt it.»

  That made sense; Abivard wasn't keen on the idea of going into battle without a plan. But he said, «I tell you, we have no time to waste. By the time you leave this room, hammer out your differences.» All at once, he wished he hadn't asked Beroshesh to set out such a lavish feast for the mages. Empty bellies would have sped consensus.

  His uncompromising stand drew more of the wizards' anger. Glathpilesh growled, «Easier for us to agree to turn you into a cockroach than on how to breach the canals.»

  «No one would pay you to do that to me, though,» Abivard answered easily. Then he thought of Tzikas and then of Sharbaraz. Well, the wizards didn't have to know about them.

  Yeshmef threw his hands in the air. «Maybe my moron of a brother is right. It has happened before, though seldom.»

  Glathpilesh was left all alone. He glared around at the other five wizards from the Thousand Cities. Abivard did not like the look on his face—had being left all alone made him more stubborn? If it had, could the rest of the mages carry on with the conjuration by themselves? Even if they could, it would surely be more difficult without their colleague.