Relics of War

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Sammel paid him no attention as he focused on Garander and Ishta. “You do understand that demons lie, don’t you?”

  “So do ordinary people,” Ishta pointed out.

  “I don’t think he was lying,” Garander said.

  “He might just be wrong,” Azlia suggested. “Maybe he thinks he has the demon under control, but it could take over if the circumstances call for it.”

  “Excuse me,” Grondar said, “but what does it matter? What can you do about it, in any case?”

  Sammel and Azlia exchanged glances as Hargal replied, “Lord Dakkar sent us to determine whether you really saw something dangerous in the woods, and to deal with it appropriately.”

  “We didn’t think it was really a shatra,” Sammel added, “but we thought it might be a monster of some sort, and we were authorized to kill it if we thought it posed a threat to anyone.”

  “You think you can kill a shatra? The four of you?” Grondar asked.

  “We don’t know,” Azlia admitted. “We don’t have the sort of high-order destructive spells that the old combat wizards had during the war, and we don’t have any dragons handy, but I’m a wizard, and Sammel is a sorcerer. I think we might have a decent chance.”

  “I don’t,” Grondar said.

  “Can you even find him?” Garander asked.

  “Now that we know what we’re looking for, I believe we can,” Sammel said. “I have talismans that can track anyone if I can find a trace to start with, and there are probably still traces around that tree.”

  Ishta threw Garander a worried look at that.

  “We haven’t seen Tesk all winter,” Garander said. “He may not even be in the area anymore.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” Sammel said.

  Azlia was staring at Ishta. “You really do like it, don’t you?”

  “Yes!” the girl replied. “He’s nice! And he keeps the mizagars away.”

  “He…what?” Azlia looked to Sammel for an explanation.

  “Mizagars,” Sammel said. “Another Northern monster. They weren’t remotely like people, though; they were crawling horrors, about the size of steer but with much shorter legs, a little like giant lizards. And they had plenty of teeth and claws—they ate people, if they could get them.”

  “You’re saying ‘had,’ not ‘have,’” Grondar said. “Why?”

  “So far as I know, they’re extinct,” Sammel replied.

  Grondar looked unconvinced. “There’s a lot of unexplored country out there.”

  “Tesk says there are still mizagars in the hills,” Garander said. “We don’t see them because he ordered them to stay away.”

  “Is that possible?” Hargal demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Sammel said. “I don’t know if anyone knows. We don’t know much about Northerners or their creations, not really.”

  “Tesk says mizagars were trained to obey Northern officers, and shatra were all officers,” Garander said. “He showed us his rank talisman.”

  “It glowed,” Ishta added.

  “It could be true,” Sammel acknowledged. “We just don’t know.”

  “If it is, and you kill Tesk, you’ll be letting dozens of mizagars come down from the hills and attack us.”

  Sammel glared at Garander.

  “That’s right!” Ishta said. “You can’t hurt Tesk, or the mizagars will get you!”

  Garander suppressed a sigh. Ishta was not helping her own cause. “Listen,” he said, “Tesk has been out there in the woods for twenty years and he’s never hurt anyone. Why is he suddenly a problem just because a couple of us saw him?”

  “Because the baron says it is,” Hargal answered.

  “But what if we could show you that he really is harmless?”

  Hargal snorted. “A shatra is not harmless.”

  Garander could hardly deny that. “All right, not harmless, but what if we could prove he doesn’t want to hurt anyone? I mean, if you’re right, and he’s dangerous, and you try to kill him, you might just make him angry. You don’t know whether you can kill him—you said so yourself.” He gestured toward Azlia. “You might get yourselves killed, instead.”

  “How would you prove he’s not dangerous?” Azlia asked.

  “I…I would just…” Garander stopped. He had not thought this out yet.

  “You could talk to him, and see for yourselves!” Ishta exclaimed. “You’d see that he’s nice and doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “We might just see that it wants us to think it’s harmless,” Hargal said.

  “We might see that the man means us no harm,” Sammel said, “but what of the demon?”

  “He controls the demon!” Ishta insisted.

  “You don’t know that!”

  “What if we could prove he does control the demon?” Garander asked.

  “How would you prove that?” Hargal asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Garander admitted.

  “Well, you think of a way to prove it, and we can discuss it further,” Hargal said. “Right now, I see our duty as determining whether the shatra is still in the area, and if it is, we need to either kill it or drive it away.” He looked at Azlia, deep in the root cellar. “Have you got the magic to do that?”

  “I can find it,” Sammel said from beyond the cellar door. “I’m not sure I can destroy it.”

  “I don’t know what I can do,” Azlia said. “I have things I can try, but whether they’ll work on something that’s half-demon, I don’t know. Other kinds of magic sometimes interfere with wizardry.”

  “You’ve never fought a demon?” Garander asked.

  “Of course not,” the wizard said. “I’ve never seen a demon. Since the end of the war the only demons in the World are the ones demonologists summon.”

  “And left-over shatra,” Hargal added.

  “And left-over shatra,” Azlia acknowledged. “Anyway, there aren’t any demonologists around here. I’ve never met one, or a shatra, so I’ve never seen a demon.”

  “Are there other shatra nearby?” Ishta asked.

  Azlia shook her head. “Until your father warned your neighbors,” she said, “we didn’t think there were any shatra left anywhere. Now, can we get out of this cellar and get on with our business?” She gathered up her black box and other belongings and started toward the door.

  “Of course,” Hargal said, stepping aside into the barn.

  Garander watched the soldier and the wizard leave, joining his father and the others in the main part of the barn; then he clambered out of the vegetable bin.

  On the far side of the cellar Ishta was climbing out of her bin, as well, and the two of them met in the central passage. There they both paused, looking out the open door at the adults.

  “We need to warn Tesk,” Ishta said.

  Garander nodded. “We need to find out what he thinks about all this,” he said.

  “If we warn him, he can go hide up in the hills.”

  “I hope so,” Garander said.

  He did not say anything to Ishta of what might happen if Tesk was unwilling or unable to hide, but he was thinking about it. Tesk might think he was in control, and he might know the war was over, but when it came down to the facts, shatra were created to kill people. Could Tesk really overcome his own nature if these magicians and soldiers attacked him, or would he fight back and slaughter them all?

  “We need to find him before they do,” Garander said.

  “I can do that,” Ishta said.

  Startled by her confidence, Garander turned to look at his sister. “You can? You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Any time you want?”

  Ishta hesitated, then said, “I think so.”

  Garander started to ask how, then caught himself. If she wanted him to know, she would have already told him. He looked out at the adults again. They did not look as if they were going to take immediate action, and the day was wearing on.

  “If they haven’t done anything by bedtime
,” he said, “I think we should slip out and find Tesk. If we try to get away now, though, they’ll notice.”

  Ishta nodded. “All right.”

  “I’ll wake you. When I do, be very quiet—we don’t want to wake Shella.”

  Ishta nodded again.

  “Now, let’s get out of here before they realize we’re up to something.”

  Ishta nodded again, and hurried up the three steps to the barn. Garander followed close behind, trying to look innocent.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Garander did not need to worry about rousing Ishta without waking Shella; Ishta was still wide awake and waiting for him when he slipped into the girls’ room.

  Fortunately, the baron’s agents were sleeping in the barn; at first Garander had feared one or more might have been stationed in the house, but they had arranged otherwise. Slipping out of his own room in the attic would have been difficult if Hargal or the other soldier, whose name appeared to be Burz, were sleeping on his floor.

  He was grateful that their father had taken pains to lay the floorboards straight and tight throughout the house; there were no creaks or pops that might have wakened Shella or his parents as he walked.

  “Come on,” he whispered.

  Ishta did not hesitate or argue, but slid out of her bed. She hissed, “Turn around,” and Garander obeyed. He heard a rustling, and when he turned back she had doffed her nightgown and put on a thick red woolen tunic.

  Garander had simply gone to bed in his clothes, and pulled on his boots before coming to fetch Ishta, but he did not share his attic, while Shella would have noticed if Ishta did not change. He nodded approvingly, then pointed at her feet.

  She pulled on slippers; her boots were by the front door. Garander frowned, then turned up a palm and gestured for her to follow him as he headed out into the main room.

  Ishta shook her head vigorously, and grabbed his hand. Startled, Garander stopped and stared at her.

  She pointed to the window.

  “Why?” he asked, with a wary glance at Shella.

  “You can see the door from the barn,” Ishta said. “They might be watching.”

  Garander paused, considering. He had not thought about that, but she might be right. The baron’s people might well have a guard posted. “Then how do…” he began.

  Ishta raised a silencing finger, then pointed at the window. Garander had doubts about whether he would fit through the opening, and what they would find outside it, but Ishta seemed very sure of herself, and definitely had a more successful history of sneaking out than he did, so he followed as she cleared hairbrushes and nail files from the top of the heavy chest of drawers she and Shella shared, then pulled out a drawer of the wooden chest and used it as a step to climb onto the top, where she silently opened the shutter and casement and slid out into the night beyond.

  Garander was much heavier than his sister, and held the window frame firmly with both hands as he clambered up onto the chest of drawers, so as not to tip it over. He gained the top without incident, and squeezed through the narrow window.

  The drop to the ground was only a few feet, but it was longer than he had expected. He had been unable to see anything clearly and had not noticed that the ground outside the window was still snowy, so he landed badly, his feet sliding out from under him and his shoulders slamming back against the wall. His head struck as well, but not as hard.

  “Shhh!” Ishta hissed angrily.

  Garander sat up, rubbing his head, and was suddenly aware that he was sitting in muddy snow in his breeches and tunic; his coat was still hanging on its hook by the front door. Suppressing a growl he jumped up, brushing himself off.

  “Come on,” Ishta said, and he followed her bright tunic around the corner of the house, down the ditch behind the kitchen, and past the washhouse.

  A moment later they were in the woods. It was becoming very obvious that Ishta had done this many times before, and Garander wondered just how much of her activities Ishta had hidden from the rest of the family.

  The lesser moon was bright in the eastern sky and a sliver of the greater moon shone in the west, so the darkness was not complete, but Garander still marveled at how his sister could find her way so readily in the dark. Even she surely could not see Tesk’s usual markers in this gloom, though—how did she hope to find the shatra?

  And then a hiss from above brought brother and sister to an abrupt halt. Garander stopped in his tracks and looked up into the branches of a big oak, unsure whether he expected to see a bird, or a snake, or some other creature—did mizagars climb trees?

  But instead he saw Tesk, squatting on a limb perhaps twenty feet off the ground, his body almost invisible in his black clothing, but his face somehow lit as if it were in full daylight. Something glowed green on one wrist.

  “Tesk!” Ishta called happily. “We were looking for you!”

  The Northerner seemed to slide sideways. The light vanished from his face and wrist for a moment, and Garander could see nothing but a faint outline, black on black, as the shatra moved down the trunk of the tree, to reappear standing before them. His face was once again illuminated, though Garander still could not see where the light was coming from, and again, a talisman glowed green on his wrist.

  “I conclude there is a problem,” he said.

  Garander looked at Ishta, but she was looking expectantly at him. He turned back to Tesk. “The baron,” he said.

  Tesk seemed to take a second longer than usual before responding. “A local administrator?”

  “Lord Dakkar, Baron of Varag,” Garander explained. “He claims this land as his.”

  Tesk cocked his head slightly. “Which land?”

  “All of it,” Garander said, waving an arm. “The forest, our farm—he says it’s all part of his domain.”

  “Ah,” Tesk said. “Lord Dakkar. I had not understood your government to operate in this fashion. I thought your father owned the farm.”

  “He does,” Ishta said. “He cleared the land himself!” She glanced uncertainly at her brother. “At least, that’s what he says.”

  “Our father owns the farm,” Garander confirmed. “He did clear it himself. But the baron collects taxes once a year, and protects the land from…well, from anything dangerous.”

  “My mother says that we shouldn’t be paying his taxes,” Ishta said. “She says Lord Edaran of Ethshar is our real overlord.”

  “Well…” Garander hesitated, as Tesk, clearly not yet understanding the situation, waited patiently for further explanation. The youth took a deep breath. “That part doesn’t matter. The point is, Lord Dakkar claims to be our ruler, and he heard there was a shatra here, so he sent some of his people to investigate.”

  “How did he hear this?”

  “Our father told the neighbors about you. The story got to Varag, and the baron heard it.”

  Tesk frowned. “This is unfortunate.”

  “Yes.”

  “This baron sent soldiers?”

  “Two soldiers,” Garander agreed. “And a wizard, and a sorcerer.”

  “Two?” Tesk held up two fingers. “Only two?”

  “They didn’t think there was really a shatra here,” Garander said, almost apologetic. “And he did send his two best magicians.” And quite possibly, Garander thought, his only magicians.

  “Yes,” Tesk said. He appeared thoughtful.

  “I…we thought you should know.”

  “Yes,” Tesk said again. “Thank you.”

  For a moment no one spoke; then Ishta asked, “What are you going to do? Will you kill them all?”

  Tesk shook his head. “I have no desire to kill anyone.” He seemed to shake himself, like a dog shedding water, then continued, “I was aware there were strangers, but I did not understand their nature. That was why I remained near your home, so that I might intervene if it appeared necessary. But now it appears that perhaps I would do better to go far away. If they are not certain that a shatra is here, then we do not want them to
find one. I can retreat to the hills until they abandon their search.”

  “No,” Garander said unhappily. “They do know you’re here. They know we spoke with you. The wizard cast a spell that showed them. And the sorcerer says he can find you.”

  “An Ethsharitic sorcerer says this? He boasts. But the wizard—I do not know what the wizard can do.”

  “Can’t you just tell them you’re nice now?” Ishta asked.

  Tesk smiled. “I do not think they would believe me.”

  “They wouldn’t,” Garander agreed. “There are too many stories from the war. Now they know you’re here, I don’t think they’ll ever give up on finding you.”

  “This wizard—is he very powerful?”

  “She,” Garander said. “Her name is Azlia. I don’t know how powerful she is. I don’t think she’s really strong, or she’d be living somewhere like Azrad’s Ethshar, not in a town like Varag.”

  “Perhaps,” Tesk acknowledged.

  “You could kill them all!” Ishta exclaimed.

  Appalled by his sister’s bloodthirsty suggestion, it took a few seconds before Garander could say, “That would just make it worse! Then they’d know he’s dangerous!”

  “And they would stay away!” Ishta insisted. “They’d be too afraid to bother you!”

  “No,” Tesk said. “They would not.”

  “They’d keep sending more and more powerful magic until they killed him,” Garander said. “Wizards, dragons, whatever it takes. They might even be able to get the theurgists to send gods after him.”

  “That is correct,” Tesk agreed. “If I killed the baron’s representatives, the baron could not permit me to live. I would be a threat to his authority.”

  For a moment none of them spoke; then Garander asked, “Do you really think the sorcerer is wrong when he says he can track you?”

  Tesk gave an odd little snort. “I am certain. I was designed to avoid such things! But my creators did not understand wizardry, and I do not know what wizards can do.”

  “I don’t know, either,” Garander said, “but maybe you could get away if you went far enough up into the mountains.”

  “My homeland lay beyond the mountains. I could return. But it is a wasteland now; I would be alone.”