The Brothers' War

by Jeff Grubb

  Finally Urza said, “It is good to see you are well.”

  Mishra replied, “I am well enough. And you?”

  Urza nodded briefly, then added, “I am surprised to see you among the Fallaji delegation.”

  “I must confess that I am not surprised to see you among the Argivians,” returned Mishra.

  “Yotians, actually,” corrected his brother.

  Mishra nodded smoothly. “Ah. Of course. That would explain why the Yotians are suddenly so interested in raiding for power stones and Thran devices.”

  “Exploring,” said Urza. “Yotians do not raid.”

  “Of course,” repeated Mishra, a tight smile appearing on his face. “It must be as you say. We shall let the diplomats parse the words for us.”

  Urza gave a stiff nod. “I had heard that the Fallaji had unified with surprising speed. But I had not heard your name mentioned.”

  Mishra gave a pronounced bow. “I am but a simple raki, a servant of the qadir, his name be most revered, his thoughts be most wise.” Another silence followed his words.

  Urza let the pause play out, as if unsure what to say next. “I am the Chief Artificer of Kroog,” he said finally.

  Mishra allowed himself another smile. “How very nice. I thought I recognized a metal soldier among your ranks. One of yours?”

  Urza nodded, and Mishra added, “Clearly influenced by the su-chi you studied as a lad. It shows in the knees.”

  Urza said, “I built it as a challenge,” but did not elaborate.

  Another uncomfortable silence grew. This time Mishra broke it. “I trust you have been well?”

  “Very well,” said Urza; then his eyebrows shot up. “I am married, you know.”

  “I did not know,” returned his brother. “I am surprised to find there exists a woman who could tear you away from your books and researches.”

  “Her name is Kayla. She is the warlord’s daughter,” said Urza.

  “Ah,” said Mishra quietly, but said nothing else.

  Another silence. Behind Urza, most of the delegates had dissolved into tight little groups. The warlord remained in the pavilion, watching the two brothers talk.

  Finally Urza said, “That young woman who was with you. Is she…?”

  “Ashnod?” Mishra shifted as if uneasy. “She is my apprentice. She is very talented.”

  “Most likely,” replied his older brother. “I too have an apprentice. Tawnos. Another Yotian. And a school with about twenty students.”

  “Ah,” repeated Mishra, his face very cold. “Very good for you. It sounds as if you are thriving.”

  “And you,” asked Urza, “do you have a school?”

  Mishra shook his head. “The desert does not allow such luxuries. We must fight to stay alive. Learning is what you pick up as you go along.”

  “You seem to have picked up an interesting device as well,” remarked Urza.

  “Yes,” said Mishra, and this time the smile was genuine.

  “It does not look like any Thran device we ever uncovered,” said Urza. “Where did you find it?”

  “Beneath the sand,” returned his brother. “I had a hunch. It just came to me.”

  “You always had a talent for such things,” said Urza. A tentative smile shaped itself on his lips. “Perhaps later you’ll tell me the full story and favor me with a chance to look at it.” He added quickly, “I’ve made some changes to Tocasia’s original ornithopter. I’d like to show them to you as well.”

  Mishra was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I would like that very much. Later, perhaps, when this conference is resolved.” He bowed deeply and backed away a step, lowering his head to indicate the conversation was over.

  Urza half-turned away. The Mightstone around his neck felt heavy. He touched the stone, then turned back. “Mishra?”

  Mishra looked up. His hand was touching the pouch resting on his chest. “Yes, Brother?”

  Urza’s face twisted for a moment, and his next words were halting, “It…is…good to see you again.”

  “And you,” said Mishra smoothly.

  “After this is all finished,” said the older brother, “we need to talk. You and I. About what we have been doing. About the past.”

  “The past exists all around us,” said the younger brother calmly. “The only question is whether we choose to dig it up or not.”

  * * *

  —

  The warlord summoned Urza at once when he returned to the Argivian camp. As the artificer entered the warlord’s tent, the ruler was seated in his camp chair, flanked by the Captain of the Guard and Rusko.

  “Your brother is Fallaji?” spat the warlord.

  Urza shook his head. “My brother is not Fallaji, but he serves their qadir, as I serve you.”

  “Why did you not tell me?” demanded the sovereign.

  “Until today, I didn’t even know he was still alive,” returned Urza.

  “I see,” said the warlord, leaning back in his camp chair, Rusko, watching quietly from his side, thought the ruler did see, though not necessarily what Urza intended. The warlord’s enemies had an ally obviously every bit as talented as his son-in-law. The taste of that revelation was sour.

  “What has he been doing with them?” asked the warlord.

  “I do not know,” returned Urza, shrugging expressively.

  “How did he end up with them?” continued the warlord. His feet kicked restlessly at the stool in front of him.

  “I do not know,” repeated the Chief Artificer.

  “What can that mechanical behemoth do?” demanded the warlord. His voice was rising in volume, and Rusko felt the temperature in the tent growing hotter.

  Urza held up his hands before him to show his lack of knowledge. “We spoke of it only briefly.”

  The warlord rubbed his lower lip; his fingers came away stained with blood. “Here’s one I hope you can answer. Can you build one like it?”

  Urza thought for a moment. “Probably. If I get a chance to examine it. Mishra says that he found it in the desert. But it is much more advanced than any Thran device I’ve ever seen. I do not think it is Thran at all.”

  The warlord muttered half to himself, half to the captain and Rusko, “We have patrols scouring the sand for stones, and his brother finds an ancient mechanical behemoth, fully functional.”

  “He says he found it,” said Urza stoically. “I don’t know if that’s the truth.”

  “You don’t know if your brother is truthful?” said the warlord quickly, raising an eyebrow.

  “I didn’t say that, either,” said Urza, hotly. “We…we did not part on the best of terms.”

  “So Rusko has told me,” said the warlord.

  “Later, we will talk, he and I,” offered Urza.

  “If there is a later,” said the chieftain, shaking his head. “These Fallaji played a trick on us, with their behemoth. We were prepared to show them our power, demonstrating our ornithopters and the mechanical man. Instead they roll up with a legendary beast the size of a ship. The Argivians are all ready to bolt, and the Korlisians want to thank everyone for coming, take their ornithopters, and go home. No, those desert raiders aided by your brother pulled a fast one on us. And we have to respond.”

  Urza did not question the warlord’s words, even when he was dismissed and Rusko and the young captain remained behind. He did not even visit the ornithopters, which were the hub of much additional activity. Instead he went to his own quarters and lay in his hammock, waiting for the meetings to begin and for a chance to see his brother again.

  * * *

  —

  A table had been set up beneath the pavilion, four-sided, with great chairs on three of the sides. The one on the west was occupied by the warlord, flanked by Urza and the mechanical man. The Yotian ruler’s mood had not improved since his talk with Urza, and the old man seemed on the verge of exploding.

  The chair on the south was occupied by the lord of Korlis, flanked by two mercenary guards from diffe
rent units. The eastern chair was occupied by a nervous Argivian diplomat, with two equally nervous bureaucrats at his side.

  The northern seat was a low bench, desert style, set for the Fallaji qadir. He arrived in his litter and half rolled, half waddled onto his seat. He was supported by Mishra on one side, and the red-haired staff-wielder, Ashnod, on the other. The Fallaji had left their brass behemoth back at their camp, though its serpentine neck was clearly visible behind them.

  The Korlisian lord began the meeting softly. “We welcome the representatives of the Fallaji to the conference. I hope we may be able to resolve matters that have vexed us all individually and to come to a mutually beneficial compromise.”

  “With your kind permission,” interrupted Mishra, “on behalf of His Most Eminent Qadir I have a statement to read.”

  The Korlisian lord’s mouth flapped open for a moment. Then she nodded. The warlord sputtered a protest.

  Mishra began without further encouragement, his words louder than the complaining warlord. “We, the Fallaji people, welcome the opportunity to speak with the men of the eastern coastlands. Know that we are a unified people under our qadir, and our empire stretches from Tomakul to the Argivian border, from ice-fed Ronom Lake to the warm Zegoni coast. We are many gathered together, and as such we are mighty.

  “Whatever else may be decided by this conference, we must make clear that it is our ultimate goal to regain all the land of the Fallaji people and to protect that land and the resources that it contains from all invaders, raiders, and would-be conquerors.”

  The warlord started at the words, and interrupted with a snarl. “Not a bad little speech for a race of invaders, raiders, and would-be conquerors. Do the people of Tomakul and Zegon agree with your statements, or are they just waiting for someone to strike your young puppy of a qadir across the snout on their behalf?”

  Mishra raised an eyebrow at the interruption, and even Urza was surprised by the heat of the warlord’s words. He put a hand on the ruler’s shoulder to calm him.

  However, it was the qadir who answered, in the clipped accent of an Argivian. “Have a care, old man. You do not wish to cross me.”

  Urza looked at Mishra, and Mishra nodded back at his brother. The qadir had learned Argivian from his raki and knew enough to realize when he was being insulted and to respond in kind.

  The warlord would not be dissuaded. “Have a care yourself, child warrior. Do not trifle with those who possess more experience and wisdom than you.”

  Urza started to speak. “Perhaps now would be a good time to adjourn and think about—,” but the qadir was already talking again.

  “Do you know who I am?” demanded the young Fallaji. “I am the Qadir of the Suwwardi tribe. Once, long ago, we lived in the Suwwardi lands north of Yotia. You called them the Suwwardi Marches.”

  “The Sword Marches,” shot back the warlord. “When I was a younger man, we cleaned that land of raiders and brought true civilization to it.”

  “It is Suwwardi land and belongs to the Fallaji people,” snapped the qadir.

  “There have not been any Suwwardi there since your great-grandfather’s age,” rejoined the warlord hotly.

  “Yes,” hissed the qadir. “You drove my great-grandfather from our land. My grandfather wandered the empty wastes. My father gathered the tribes. And now I come to you with my empire at my back and demand the return of my family’s land.”

  Urza looked at Mishra, but his brother had a blank expression on his face. Could it be he had not known about the qadir’s demands? The Korlisians and the Argivians were talking as well now, as chaos erupted at the table.

  “You are an old fool,” continued the qadir, with a contemptuous sneer, “to hope to prevail in the face of our obvious power.”

  “I’ll show you what I know of power,” replied the warlord. “Take a lesson, child!”

  The warlord made a gesture. The Captain of the Guard, waiting outside the pavilion, turned, raised his hand, and then dropped it. Out by the Yotian camp Rusko turned and waved to the ornithopter crews, already at their machines.

  In a matter of moments the sky around the pavilion was heavy with the beating of great canvas wings.

  The flight of eleven ornithopters (lacking only Urza’s new one with its double-bent wings) came in low over the pavilion. The qadir looked up in shock, but Mishra was already next to him, shouting something in Fallaji. Urza was yelling at the warlord as well.

  “What is this?” the artificer roared. “Why are my ornithopters in the air? Why wasn’t I told?”

  “It’s a lesson in power!” the warlord shouted in return, his teeth bright like a shark’s. “You would do well to pay attention to it as well.”

  The ornithopters banked over the pavilion and made a beeline toward the Fallaji camp. Three of the craft banked right, and three veered left. The remaining five headed straight for the dragon engine.

  Small objects fell from the ornithopters, jettisoned by their pilots. They were black bits of shadow that plummeted into the Fallaji camp. Where they landed the ground erupted in explosions of flames and smoke. There were screams as the flames spread, and more bombs dropped.

  Urza shouted, but his voice was drowned in another round of explosions. The five ornithopters that bore down on the dragon engine glided in low, trying to fling their bombs along the base of the great metallic creature. A string of eruptions blossomed beneath the beast, and it wheeled and gave a metallic scream but seemed otherwise unhurt.

  The dragon engine exhaled a huge gout of reddish mist directly in the path of one of the ornithopters. As the craft passed through it, the ornithopter came apart in mid-air. Its wings folded upon itself, and it crashed among the tents, releasing a larger gout of flame as the rest of its deadly cargo exploded.

  Within the pavilion reaction among the delegates was instantaneous. The Argivians flung themselves under the table. The Korlisian mercenaries grabbed their lord by each arm and dragged her backward, away from the table, while she shouted orders and obscenities at them. The warlord was laughing now, taunting the young qadir.

  The Fallaji ruler rose from his bench with a speed that surprised Urza. His hand lashed out. The warlord saw the blow coming and tried to lean away from it, but the youth was too quick. Before either brother could react, a curved blade jutted from the old man’s chest, blood spouting from the wound like a fountain.

  “No!” shouted Urza, and felt his Mightstone heavy on his chest. He laid one hand upon it, and with the other activated his mechanical humanoid. “Stop him!” Urza shouted.

  The mechanical man lurched forward and grabbed the qadir by the front of his robes. The young man let out a choked cry as inhumanly long arms reached across the table and snared him with fingers of ironroot and metal. Simultaneously the red-haired woman lowered her staff and pointed it at Urza’s metallic creation. Lightning danced along the dolphin’s skull, and Urza felt a wave of nausea pass over him. It felt as if every part of his skin had become acutely sensitive. The movement of the breeze inflicted horrible pain. Gritting his teeth, Urza barked another command, and the mechanical being pulled the qadir toward itself across the corner of the table.

  Out on the battlefield, the Fallaji were attempting to regroup. Mishra had signaled his dragon engine, and now the beast’s serpentine neck dodged and darted among the diving ornithopters. It caught one and flung it to the ground, the canvas wings catching fire as it did so. On the ground, the Yotian troops charged, trying to kill any Fallaji who escaped the bombing. Some of the Korlisian mercenaries joined them in the assault.

  Ashnod shouted, and Mishra turned to see the qadir in the grip of the metal man. He spun toward the dragon engine to signal one last command, then wheeled to face Urza and his mechanical creation. Mishra gripped a thin hide pouch around his own neck, and green lambent power leaked out between his fingers. He concentrated that power on Urza’s machine.

  Urza caught the backwash of the energies and staggered. The mechanical creation was more grea
tly affected. Sparks danced at its joints, and steam began to seep from beneath its helmeted face. Its fingers loosened, and the qadir dropped free, clutching his throat and gasping for breath.

  Ashnod shouted something, and Mishra nodded. Suddenly the northern side of the pavilion was shattered as the dragon engine smashed its way onto the raised platform. Ashnod let her staff down, and its fires died. She tucked the staff under one arm, grabbing the qadir with the other, and dragged the ruler toward the engine as if he were no more than a puppet.

  Urza felt the pain subside. He focused his Mightstone at his metal creation. “Mishra,” he shouted, his head still spinning, “we have to stop this!”

  Dimly he heard his brother’s voice snarl back, “So you can betray us again, Brother?”

  Urza started to reply, “I didn’t know—” but the stress of the Mightstone and Weakstone proved to be too much for the mechanical beast between the brothers. It exploded at the waist, its torso spinning around its central pivot and its head jutting flames. Urza screamed as the flames arched around him. The last thing he saw was Mishra, running back toward his dragon engine, his creation framed by a wreath of smoke from the ornithopter bombs.

  * * *

  —

  The searchers found Urza in the shattered pavilion, cradling the dead body of the warlord. The blasted legs and hips of his mechanical humanoid still stood next to him, the fragments of its head and torso scattered around the lopsided platform.

  The Captain of the Guard arrived and saluted. “The enemy is in full retreat, sir.”

  Urza said nothing, and the captain continued. “We inflicted heavy casualties on the Fallaji troops with minimum losses to our own. We lost four ornithopters in the attack. Several of the Korlisian mercenaries joined in the assault and want to be paid for their contribution. The Argivians have already fled without drawing a sword.”

  Urza looked in the pale, quiet face of the captain as the soldier continued. “The enemy leader and”—he paused—“your brother have escaped with their engine into the mountains. We will scout for them with the remaining ornithopters.”