by Andre Nolton
"They just up and changed march, Little Mother," the swarthy, squat young human told her, as she kept refilling his glass and his plate. The "boys" tended to forget about eating and drinking while they were out there, and came back starved and ready to drink a lake. "It's as if they got different orders last night."
Lady Moth considered this information for a moment, then made up her mind. "Lasen, on a fast horse, how long do you think it would take me to catch up to the army?" she asked. The man stared at her, understanding slowly coming into his brown eyes; his brow wrinkled with concern so that he looked like a worried hound.
He knew her; he knew better than to try and dissuade her. He didn't have to read her thoughts to know what they were— although, if he had cared to, he probably could have, since he was one of the four with wizard-powers.
He won't though; those boys think it's impolite to hear thoughts without permission, if you 're a friend. He probably wouldn't even think of doing it unless my life or his was at stake, the dear child. There was nothing in her thoughts she cared to hide from anyone these days—though when she'd been younger...
"You could catch them by sundown," he told her, slowly. "But the question is, can you come at Lord Kyrtian through all of his army and come away again back to us?" A fleeting ghost of fear traveled across his face then, and it was that fear she answered before she addressed the spoken question.
"I have no intention of abandoning all of you, my lad," she said fondly, and tapped his shoulder in mock-admonition with the book she was holding. "Never fear that; you and the rest are all the family I have now, and all the family I want. I want to talk to Kyrtian, that's all; I think I can do a lot for all of us if I can just talk to him."
Lasen looked skeptical, and Lady Moth smiled. "Little Mother, this is the Army Commander, not one of your Young Lords."
"He's no older than the Young Lords, my lad, and what's more, if you think I'm good to my people, you should see his! I pledge you my word for it."
Lasen nodded slowly. Moth didn't often pledge her word; all her humans knew that when she did, she was beyond certain of what she promised. A little of the concern cleared from his face.
"As for getting in and out—" she chuckled "—no fear there, either. So long as there isn't another Elvenlord I have to outwit, I'll get in and out again."
"I'll have Starfoot saddled and waiting—and it's myself that will come with you, then," Lasen said, in a voice that told her that he would be just as stubborn as she on that point. She inclined her head in tacit agreement, and went off to tell Viridina what she intended, and to change her gown for something more suited to the task at hand.
Lasen waited at the door of the stable, Starfoot and another horse saddled and ready, when she arrived, clad in breeches and somber tunic of brown doeskin. Starfoot was a mare so named, not because she was lovely (for in actual fact she was as ugly as a mud-pie and scrawny as a sapling), but because she was fleet as any shooting-star. She was perfect for such a task; her mud-color would hide her, just as the brown of Moth's clothing would serve the same purpose. Lasen had chosen another mud-colored, swift horse, a gelding that was Starfoot's half-brother, and already wore dust-grey tunic and breeches for the same camouflaging purpose.
And Lasen had one other advantage as her guide and guard; he had the human magic of speaking and hearing in thoughts. No one would get near to them without him knowing, and they could avoid the army's own scouts and sentries easily. That was the one thing that idiot Elvenlords always forget, Moth thought sourly, as she mounted Starfoot a little stiffly. Human magic makes it possible for them to know long before an enemy arrives.
It was a long, hard ride, even for Moth, who was used to riding the bounds of her own estate every day. They did not stop except to rest the horses and allow them to drink and snatch a mouthful of oats. And it was after sunset when they finally saw the campfires of Kyrtian's army from the top of a hill, like strange, yellow stars sprinkled across the hillside opposite them.
Lasen stared at the encampment. "The password is 'A fine satin sheep,'" he said, after a moment's pause.
"Sheep? Not sheet?" she asked, nonplused.
"Definitely sheep," he replied. "They're using nonsense phrases just to make things a bit more secure."
Moth dismounted; no need to order Lasen to watch the horses and lie concealed while she made her way into the army. He vanished into the darkness behind her; she worked her magic on herself.
She was already as thin and bony as many human men, and her loose tunic concealed what there was of her figure. With her long hair knotted on the top of her head and hidden beneath a cap, she needed only to alter her appearance a trifle to pass as a slave: round her ears, darken her skin, and so long as she kept her head down, simply darkening her eyes would suffice to hide what she was.
And the magic of elven women, after all, was to alter small things....
It hurt; that was the worst of it. Her ears burned as if she had dipped them in boiling water as she rounded the points, and she bit her nether lip until it bled to keep from crying out. Then it was the turn of her eyes—not so difficult, this, to change the color, and not as painful.
Then, following the whispered conversation that Lasen had given her before he vanished, she walked into the army encampment. Thanks to Lasen she had the password she needed to pass the sentries quite as if she was part of the army herself. No one even gave her a second glance.
As she strode stiffly among the campfires, in the flickering light from fire and torch that made it possible to pull off the next part of her ruse, she kept a sharp eye out for something she could use to get up as far as, and even into, Kyrtian's tent. One piece at a time, she managed to pilfer a tray, a plate, and a rough-hewn wooden cup; with a breath of her own magic, they acquired a patina of silver. Water took on the rosy hue of wine, and a couple of chunks of wood became meat, cheese and bread, at least on the surface. A snatched handful of weeds transformed into tasty-looking "garden" greens put the final touches on. This all looked edible (although it wasn't) but by no means more than a scant touch above the ordinary soldiers' ra-. tions. She knew her nephew; knew that was what he would eat by choice. She didn't want her excuse for entrance to be snatched away by the officious servant of some lesser Elven-lord just because it looked tasty enough to be appetizing to his master!
By this time she was well up to the cluster of tents of the commanders; the larger size of Kyrtian's made it obvious which was his. There were guards on the tent, but her age, size, and burden made her status and errand obvious, and they gave her the merest of cursory once-overs to ensure that she wasn't armed before holding the flap aside and sending her in.
Kyrtian and his human shadow Gel were bent over maps, seemingly oblivious to anything else. She cleared her throat ostentatiously.
Neither of them turned around, or even so much as started. "We know you're there," Gel said crossly—which relieved her somewhat, since she'd been a little alarmed at how easily she had gotten close to her nephew, unchallenged. "Put it down and get out."
"That's a fine way to talk to your Lord's aunt," she replied, loudly enough so they could hear her, but softly enough that her voice shouldn't carry to the guards outside.
They pivoted so fast to look at her, their eyes so wide and shocked, that she chuckled.
"Moth? Moth?" Kyrtian squeaked. "Voice just now starting to break, boy?" Moth replied with a grin, putting down her inedible burden. "Always knew everything about you was slow to grow but your mind, but isn't that a bit much?"
"So, that's the situation, then," Kyrtian finished. The arrival of his aunt on his very doorstep—and disguised as a human slave, no less!—had been something of a shock. A pleasant shock, however. "And I don't mind telling you that I've been scrambling to find some excuse not to rescue you." He and Moth had been talking nonstop for so long that they were both hoarse, and once he got over his surprise, he had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.
"Well," she ruminated
. "You can see why I was in no great hurry to be rescued. These young rebels are still not the best answer to our troubles, but they're a damn sight better than their fathers."
He reached for a pitcher of something she had conjured up out of water, a handful of blossoms and a bit of magic and poured cups of the stuff for both of them. Whatever it was, it had as good an effect on a hoarse throat as honeyed tea. "I don't know what to do," he admitted. "I can't stop commanding the army—it will just mean humans slaughtering humans. At least this way I'm keeping bloodshed to a minimum. But if I defeat the Young Lords, mother thinks the Great Lords will turn the army against the Wizards, and never mind the treaty."
"Your mother's right," Moth said sourly, her mouth twisted up into a scowl. "There was never an agreement reached by any of the Great Lords that wasn't broken as soon as one or the other of them could manage it, and that's a fact you'd better get used to. There's no honor among them; your cousin is just a bit more open about his treachery than most of them are. If he was good, he'd have had your estate years ago."
Kyrtian could only shake his head. Since taking command, he had gotten one example after another of the duplicity of his own race, and he was still having a hard time getting used to it. What was the point of all this double-and triple-crossing, anyway? Wasn't the world wide enough for everyone to prosper?
Evidently not, or at least, not so far as the Great Lords were concerned.
Gel's sardonic expression and occasional sarcastic comments had made it very clear that he was not anywhere near as innocent as Kyrtian had been. And, all things considered, Lady Lydiell probably wasn't either.
"Look," Gel said, breaking into his thoughts. "We need a plan, and I think I have one, but it depends on Moth's ability to scare the whey out of these pet rebels of hers." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Can you?"
"Depends on what you and this army of yours can do," she temporized. "What's the plan?"
"You can go as yourself to this training-camp. The gladiators will trust your humans, I suspect; fighters tend to trust other fighters. Whatever it takes, see if you can get them to listen to you and agree to what you want to do."
She smiled. "It won't take much," she told them both, wearing an expression that told them she was mightily pleased with herself. "I can negate their collars; I've enough bits of iron to do that. We've done some experimenting, and all it takes is a thin sheet of it slipped in behind and around the lock and beryl, and you can pry the collar off without hurting the slave. I always carry a few pieces with me now, just in case."
"Hah!" Gel hit the table with his fist, greatly pleased. "Good! You tell 'em that when we attack, if they scatter instead of fighting, we'll open up our lines at a particular point inside the forest to let 'em through, then swallow them up into the army." Kyrtian immediately saw what Gel had in mind—they had a cadre of fighters that Gel trusted trained up now, who were actually loyal to Kyrtian. So even if, say, Lord Kyndreth was watching via magic, all he would see was that the enemy gladiators scattered and nothing more. He also had a good idea what Gel was going to suggest next.
"Then," he took over, "Moth, you go to your rebels, and suggest that they break up and get out of the estates; take to the hills with small groups to avoid being captured, and start a guerrilla war."
His aunt absorbed all this for a moment, then a smile broke out on her face. "I see! I scare the youngsters, by telling them what I personally witnessed of the slaughter of their best troops, and convince them that they can't possibly hold out directly. They abandon the estates, or at least the ones that still have older relatives among the Great Lords to claim them— which is half of what their fathers want. I can be 'rescued' and serve as their eyes and ears into what their fathers are up to— which gives you eyes and ears into what they're doing, so you can arrange things to your liking. You still have a war that you can fight in tiny skirmishes, without ever coming to a conclusion." Her grin widened. "I can even offer to hide the ringleaders and some of the rest on the property I hold now, and they can run their fight from there."
Kyrtian gave her a little bow of respect. She should have been a general. "Which means the Great Lords won't send me against the Wizards, at least, not for a while." He considered the next move in the plan. "We can delay things for a while, while I try and come up with a better solution."
Lady Moth laughed mockingly. "And my reward is to get my husband's estate back, which is no bad bribe for my complicity, boy."
"There has to be something in this bargain for you, my Lady," he demurred. She shook her head at him.
"I think this will work for a while, anyway," Gel voiced his own opinion. "I like it. And I've got no particular objection to patching together temporary solutions for the next two decades."
Lady Moth stood up. "Time for me to go. Boy, when you have the time, find an excuse to come to the estate—I've found some things in the library I think will interest you."
She didn't waste time on farewells; Lady Moth was not one to waste time on anything, as Kyrtian recalled. A brief embrace for him, and a sketchy salute for Gel was all she gave, then she was out of the tent and back on her way to her waiting human escort.
Gel followed her out, to be sure she got back safely through the lines. While he was gone, Kyrtian folded the maps, tidied the tent, and removed the bronze plaque from the teleson. He wanted to talk to Lady Lydiell about this while it was all still fresh in his mind. It was worth the chance of being "overheard," although given that this was a very odd hour to be talking to her, that was less likely this time.
Lydiell listened to his brief summary with her eyes alight. "If this had been anyone other than Moth, I would have said it was too good to be true," she said when he was finished. "But it is Moth, and frankly, it's exactly the sort of thing I would expect out of her. Well—look what she's done on her own, discovering how to negate the collar-spells and get them off without hurting the slaves!"
"Useful bit of information, that," Kyrtian murmured, thinking out loud. "It would have to be a human that did it, though; I wouldn't want to chance either poisoning by the metal or magical backlash. Mother, how am I going to keep Lord Kyndreth from suspecting that something is up when all resistance suddenly melts away?"
"By staging more of a rout at this next mock-battle than you're likely to get from the handful of former gladiators there," she said instantly. "You and I will create a Gate from here to there, and we'll send through all of our people that can fight. They'll pose as slaves of the Young Lords—they'll hold a line, then break and rout—straight back to the Gate and home. That will give you something to convince Kyndreth that you've won a conclusive victory."
"A Gate? Can I do that?" he asked doubtfully. "Am I strong enough?"
"Not by yourself—but remember what you discovered about combining magic from several people?" she countered. "You have me and the others here; together we will have quite enough to create a Gate."
He nodded, and began to feel more confident. "Perhaps I should invite Lord Kyndreth to observe?"
"At a distance," she answered. "With the Council. There's an old viewing-teleson in the Council Chamber; they probably haven't used it since the disastrous debacle with Lord Dyran."
"But if I choose where to put the teleson-sender, they'll see what I want them to see." This was coming out better and better. "And with all of the Great Lords jostling about, they aren't going to notice the Gate—"
"They won't notice it anyway," Lydiell said with confidence. "It's very noisy, but they won't be expecting it and they'll be too far away. They'd have to know something like that was going on."
"Oh, I can cover it with some levin-bolts anyway," Kyrtian decided. "They'd be expecting something of the sort. Mother— I think this is going to work—"
"I never doubted that you would find a way," she said serenely.
When they ended their conversation, and he had covered the teleson-screen again, he waited impatiently for Gel to return so that he could work out all the details of
this addition to the plan.
For the first time since he had taken over the command of the Great Lords' army, he began to hope he could save, not only his own people, but everyone involved. Or at least, almost everyone. And that was so much more than he had ever thought he'd be able to do, that he felt as if he had just drunk an entire bottle of sparkling wine.
Now, let's hope all this doesn't prove to be as ephemeral as wine-joy!
18
The ears outside Lord Kyrtian's tent are a lot keener than he has any reason to guess, Keman thought with glee, as he heard Kyrtian concluding the second conversation of the day with Lady Lydiell. So, Elvenlord, why haven't you figured out that you have dragons on your doorstep—literally? Keman, Shana's foster-brother, was, of course, that dragon. So was his partner in this spying endeavor, although she came from a Lair that had never known there were other dragons in the world until she met him. Dragons, with their ability to shapechange into virtually anything they chose, were uniquely suited to spying on the Elves, who could easily crack any disguise wrought with illusions. In spite of the fact that in his real form he was easily forty or fifty times the bulk of even the strongest and tallest male human (or Elf) he'd ever seen, the draconic gift of being able to push mass and weight elsewhere—they called it, "into the Out"—made it possible for him to masquerade as even a small child.
He and Dora had shapechanged themselves into human fighters and insinuated themselves into the Great Lords' army as soon as it became obvious that this new commander was just as brilliant as the old one had been incompetent. When they first began this task on Shana's behalf, they had gone from one Great Lord's household to another in the forms of various slaves—since no Great Lord ever bothered to take note of a mere human so long as he didn't disobey and had no hint of magic as an Elf understood it about him. They had actually been in Lord Kyndreth's household as a pair of pages when the first news of Lord Kyrtian's victories came in. From there it had been a matter of simplicity to insinuate themselves into the company of fighters the Great Lord sent to augment the army.
