Act of Will wh-1

by Andrew James Hartley

  Mithos was the oldest of the group, though he could be no more than forty, a bit more than Orgos. I couldn’t say if the darkness of his skin was just tan from the sun or it was something in his blood. The blackness of his hair (long enough to flow down to his shoulders) and eyes suggested the latter. He was the tallest of the group and stood well over six feet, his physique less obviously powerful than Orgos’s, but well defined. His arms could have come off the athletic statue that stands at the entrance to the Cresdon arena. It seemed like he brooded a lot. He didn’t say much, but when he did, everyone stopped what they were doing and got out their notebooks.

  “While you’re with us,” said Mithos, “the party will cover your costs.”

  “What?” I said. “A party? When?”

  “Give me strength,” muttered Garnet. Renthrette gently rested her hand on his forearm in a soothing gesture. So, I was right! That charmless streak of thunder and rainy weather? He didn’t deserve her.

  “We are what I meant as ‘the party,’ ” Mithos explained. “The group. And so long as you are with us, we will pay.”

  I didn’t need any further explanations.

  “Right. Great. Er. thanks, I mean. Well, then, I think I’ll go for the charcoal-grilled duckling and mushrooms in garlic and black pepper sauce. Sounds good to me. And some strong blue cheese. And I’ll have another pint, or perhaps a good strong cider if they have one. We’ll worry about dessert later, yes?”

  “Quite,” said Mithos dismally. Renthrette and Garnet stared at me wide-eyed and ordered the cheese, bread, and pickle salad that was here termed the “harvester’s lunch.” I hadn’t been able to afford to eat like this for months and hadn’t actually eaten like this for rather longer. I looked around the room with interest and pretended not to notice that the price of my duckling would feed three harvesters and their children. Orgos beamed again and showed his teeth. When he smiled I forgot he was a ruthless killer, which was, I suppose, a disconcerting thought.

  The “cider” came in a dusty green-glass bottle that looked like it had been ignored for a very long time. I raised it to my lips, caught the acrid vapor of strong alcohol in my nostrils, and sipped. The others, including the barman, watched with horrified curiosity while Renthrette muttered darkly about how no one should be drinking whatever it was that I was drinking. It went down like warm oil and tasted like apple syrup, crushed glass, and the kick of a Hrof ostrich. This was my kind of adventure. I finished it, wondering aloud if I should continue with more of the same or a dram from that nameless, ancient keg at the back of the shelf. The innkeeper said he thought it was one of those beers made by monks in the mountains, flavored with coriander and orange. How could I resist?

  The room had begun to oscillate slightly by the time the duckling arrived, but settled down once I’d got some food inside me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had so enjoyed eating. I had a sensitive palate and Mrs. Pugh’s culinary horrors had been a real strain, as I told them. Renthrette paused in her lettuce chewing and made knowing eye contact with Garnet. Orgos tried some of the duck and joined in the laudation with extravagant gestures worthy of the Cherrati tradesman he had been earlier. Garnet stoically refused to sample any of it and remarked that his cheese was “really rather good.”

  “Consider it an inauguration then, Will,” said Mithos. “We can’t afford to feed you like this indefinitely.”

  I tried to respond but my mouth was full. Stuffed, actually.

  “Also,” he added, “this will be the last decent meal we get before Stavis, since I’d like to cover some mileage before nightfall. We’ll be under canvas most of the week.”

  “Why Stavis?” I asked. I had asked before, but I felt that now that they knew I was going with them I might get an answer. Also, though it was largely due to the food and the alcohol, I was feeling better disposed to them, all things considered, and expected them to feel something similar.

  “We must consult with our party leader about a job,” said Orgos.

  “I thought Mithos was party leader,” I said.

  “No,” said Mithos. “And keep your voice down. The party leader went ahead to Stavis to learn the details of the mission. Our leader’s identity is a closely guarded secret.”

  “I need another drink,” I decided.

  Garnet tutted as I motioned to the barman, pointing at a bottle on the back shelf. He stared, first at me and then at the bottles, and chose the wrong one. I nodded enthusiastically.

  “And this job,” I continued, since they were being helpful. “What is it? Assassinating an Empire officer, poisoning a garrison? What?”

  “It’s nothing like that,” said Mithos firmly. The others seemed to be letting him do all the talking, as if to make sure they gave nothing away that he thought wasn’t my business.

  “It does not involve the Empire at all and will take us far out of Empire territory to the east of Stavis. More than that I cannot say.”

  East of Stavis? What was east of Stavis? I sipped my beer and then tried one more question. “This party leader of yours-”

  “Forget it,” said Garnet with a malevolent scowl. I looked to Mithos but he merely smiled softly, so I shrugged it off and finished my drink.

  “Can you ride?” asked Orgos.

  “Ride? Ride what?” I said.

  “A horse?” suggested Garnet with lazy condescension.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Great,” he breathed heavily. “Mithos, Hawthorne can’t ride.”

  “Then he can ride on the wagon with me,” said Orgos with a smile at me and a fixed look at Garnet. We all rose to leave.

  “Good,” said Mithos. “Be careful how you swing that crossbow about, Will. We restrung it with gut last week. It’s more powerful than you might think.”

  “Really?” I said, cocking it and studying the thing with apparent carelessness, allowing it to point squarely at Garnet’s chest.

  I didn’t hear Mithos draw but I felt the edge of his broadsword against my throat.

  “Humor has its place, Master Hawthorne,” he whispered into my ear, “but I think you should tread a little lighter until you know the ground is firm.”

  I got the message and lowered the bow. Mithos sheathed his sword in a single deft motion and stood silently. I smiled as if nothing had happened, which, I suppose, it hadn’t. But if I thought I would get out of it with what little dignity I had still intact, I was wrong. I didn’t know how to uncock the bloody thing and as I wrestled with it I must have caught the trigger.

  The bolt slammed into the wall above the bar. The barman dropped a glass as he jumped back, ducked under the counter, and leapt up again, a crossbow of his own raised and aimed at my head.

  “Sorry!” I called cheerfully as sweat broke out all over my body. “I’m really sorry about that. It just sort of. went off. I’m not very good with things like this and it just seemed to, well. you know, go off. And, er. sorry.”

  There was a moment of stillness; then Mithos, hands above his head, approached the bar as the innkeeper stared murderously. I apologized again and made soothing noises as Mithos wrenched the bolt from the wall and the rattled barman slowly lowered his weapon, looking at each of us in turn. Mithos drew some coins from his purse and put them on the bar with some quiet, friendly words. When he rejoined us he presented me with the bolt and hissed, “Learn how to use that thing before you cock it again. Orgos!” he said with a hard look at the black man. “Teach him. And, Master Hawthorne: One step out of line, just one, and you fend for yourself or worse. We are making a long and difficult trip in which we cannot afford to carry imbeciles with more pride than common sense. Not one step, Master Hawthorne. Remember.”

  As the boy showed us to our wagon and horses, Garnet pushed past me, shouldering me into the inn wall. He watched me regain my balance with absolute scorn, his right hand resting on the ax in his belt. I gave him a pointedly courteous bow and climbed up next to Orgos. We set off, heading east, without saying a word.

  SC
ENE IX The Road East

  I shouldn’t have had that last beer,” I said, holding my stomach as the wagon rocked me from side to side.

  “Renthrette will feel vindicated,” Orgos laughed.

  “No doubt.”

  He laughed again and I groaned softly to myself. She was riding twenty yards ahead of us next to Mithos, who was astride a black mare and wearing ring mail with a light helm. Renthrette looked the part too, in heavy scale and a blue-grey helm of riveted plates, which hid her hair and face completely. Garnet was riding his dappled mare behind the wagon, ax at the ready. I suppose I should have felt secure, seeing as how they were all armed to the teeth, their eyes constantly flicking around them, but this show of strength merely served to remind me that we were outlaws in dangerous country. In Cresdon the Diamond Empire’s embrace was strangling, but at least it kept predators at bay. Out here we were deer in tiger country.

  For the next week or so there would be few patrols, and the wolves and bandits of the Hrof country would know how to avoid them. Orgos told me that wolves never attacked people and that it was all some kind of myth. So that just left the bandits. I asked him if they were bedtime-story material as well. He didn’t answer.

  I started to fiddle with the small crossbow nervously. Orgos noticed and, taking the reins in one hand, showed me how to load, aim, shoot, and uncock it. I drew the slide back a dozen times until it felt like I knew what I was doing.

  “Good,” he said, never lifting his eyes from the road, “and that shouldn’t be the only lesson you learn today. Garnet is not always an easy man to deal with, and Mithos takes self-restraint very seriously.”

  “I didn’t notice Garnet being all that restrained,” I said defensively.

  “I think he suspected you were deliberately annoying him. And your sparring with his sister didn’t help.”

  “His sister?!”

  “Yes, didn’t you guess? They are virtually identical.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “In appearance, I mean, though they share a certain. earnestness.”

  “There’s a euphemism if ever I heard one,” I said.

  “They have had hard lives,” said Orgos, “and they take our profession very seriously.”

  “Yeah? Well, my life has been no bed of roses either. What made theirs so difficult that the rest of us have to pay them back?”

  He glanced at me quickly, irritated, then looked back to the road and said, “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”

  Great. There wasn’t a lot you could say to that.

  Around us the ground looked paler, less fertile. Trees were becoming scattered and small, as if drained by the sun. It was getting hotter and the air was thick and heavy. Sweat broke out all over me but didn’t evaporate, leaving me sticky and uncomfortable. We swatted at sprightly little mosquitoes that whined around our ears, drank from our forearms, and then hopped into nothingness. Little swine. Soon I could see the pinpricked pimples they left in their wake, and my temper declined. I began to mutter curses under my breath, and twice Orgos turned to me as if he thought I was talking to him. In the end, to occupy my mind, I did.

  “So how did you get into this game?” I asked him.

  “Another grim story,” he replied, “to be saved for another day.”

  He stared ahead in silence and I let it go.

  Since Orgos was about as entertaining as a juggler with no arms, I watched the vegetation grow still sparser and the ground more arid as the miles passed. It was pretty gripping stuff. It was also hotter than a swamp rat’s armpit, which didn’t help. I remember disinterestedly watching a finch tugging seeds from a thistle as we rattled past. After that, nothing.

  It shouldn’t be boring, being an adventurer. I knew because I was, you might say, a bit of an expert on heroic stories. My portrayal of the princess in A King’s Vengeance had played a couple of times a month for a year and a half. There was nothing in the story about sitting around on a wagon for hours at a time.

  Orgos woke me three hours later. Thanks to the quality of the road, for which I suppose we must thank the bloody Diamond Empire, we had put over thirty miles between us and Cresdon. We had passed only a couple of caravans thus far, but Orgos had woken me for a reason. Behind us was a mounted Empire patrol, closing fast.

  “Get in the back,” he said. “There’s bolt of silk you can hide under-”

  “I’m not hiding,” I said.

  Orgos gave me a look.

  “If they stop us, they’ll search the wagon, find me, and then we’re done.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “Other than them leaving us alone? Not yet,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

  I looked back: a full platoon of Empire troops, numbering about twenty-five with an officer riding hard. They pulled ahead of us and waved us to a halt. Then they formed a single line, circled the wagon and our outriders, and stopped, spears leveled at us.

  Hiding in the back suddenly seemed like a good idea.

  “We are looking for one William Hawthorne,” barked the officer, “a notorious rebel. Dismount and stand clear of the wagon.”

  We did so, and eight soldiers climbed cautiously down from their mounts and held us at the tips of their spears while four others searched us and removed our weapons. Orgos gave me a reproachful look. No one spoke and I felt a wave of nausea washing over me. The officer, a large, tanned man with the hardened features of a soldier whose authority comes from experience in the thick of things, spoke to a younger man in the uniform of the town guard. There was a long silence and they just looked at us while someone opened the tailgate. A moment later one of the soldiers emerged from the back of the wagon and said, “Captain.” He held a heavy scale tunic in one hand and a battle-ax in the other. “The vehicle is laden with weaponry, sir.”

  The officer turned back to me, and a thick smile spread slowly across his scarred leathery face. The Cherrati-merchant story wasn’t going to cut it this time.

  “Which one of you is Hawthorne?” said the officer, pleased with himself. “Or would you rather identify yourself on the rack in Cresdon?”

  SCENE X Improvisation

  It’s a curious thing, the way language works. You tend to presume that you form an idea and then put it into words, but this is often not the case. Words seem to have a life of their own. They start, and your brain follows like a schoolboy, trying to keep up. This was what happened here. The plan was unformed, the ideas completely undeveloped, but when I opened my mouth, words came out.

  “I suggest, Captain, that you get back on your horse and return to the garrison before you make the kind of mistake that could end your career.”

  The officer looked momentarily knocked off balance, but then he smirked.

  “Identification papers, if you please, sir,” he said.

  “I think that if anyone should be producing paperwork,” I said, “it’s you.”

  The smirk was still there, but his patience was thinning fast. “And why would that be, sir?” he said, leaning in so that he loomed more effectively.

  “Because if I don’t see something with Harveth Liefson’s seal on it within the next couple of minutes, you are going to find yourself in very hot water.”

  Liefson’s name hit him between the eyes like a half-brick.

  “Commander Liefson?” he spluttered. “Why would I need Commander Liefson’s signature to take you in?”

  He was trying to be defiant, but there was a slightly hunted look on his face.

  “That’s something you’re going to have to ask him, aren’t you?” I said. “Or, I suppose,” I added thoughtfully, “you could take it up with Section Four.”

  Another half-brick. The captain shrank a little and his voice went a little up in pitch and down in volume.

  “Garrison intelligence?” he said. “They only handle internal operations.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation in private.”

  There was a pause, and then a
light seemed to go on inside the captain’s head and his mouth fell open. “But how do I know if you are really.?”

  I climbed down from the wagon and started walking away, and a moment later, he followed. When we reached the circle of soldiers, he gave a hurried nod and they parted for us. I kept walking away from the road till we were safely out of earshot.

  “Now, just a moment,” said the captain, recovering a little of his former poise. “Where do you think you’re going?. ”

  “You call him Commander Liefson,” I said, turning quickly and speaking urgently. “And he has a seat on the council, but you might also know that he’s really Central Intelligence’s witch-finder general: something the most well-informed rebels have never guessed.”

  That wasn’t so much a half-brick as a ton of them. The captain took another step back and his mouth began to move as if he was searching for words that wouldn’t come.

  The captain paused, knowing that this was true and that this was far from common knowledge.

  “I am William Hawthorne,” I confessed. “I am also Major Johan Twiness, Section Four, Special Agent Eighty-three. You’re thinking I’m young to be a special agent, I’m sure. Recruited from Homewood Prep at age twelve. You know it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t attend, unfortunately, but yes, I know it.”

  “Well,” I said, moving on, “I think my cover for this mission is now well and truly shot. And Liefson is going to hit the roof when he finds out that the regular infantry have sabotaged an internal espionage mission because they didn’t bother to consult with high command before turning the dogs loose.”