by Peter Yard
"No, I will see the Queen and if you obstruct me I will tell her about it. Do you understand?"
“Hmm. I see. It appears the Queen does want to see you. I hope you understand I was only trying to ease the Queen’s duties.” He bowed.
Mikel thanked him but when he had left he could only think that he was dangerous and creepy. An obvious agent, not very smart, probably only alive because he was being fed false information.
The Queen was holding court in the same banquet hall that he had last seen her. He approached and bowed, hoping he got it right. She had a look of exhaustion in her face that makeup could not hide.
“So Wizard. What have you learned since we last met? Have you filled your journal?”
“I’ve learned quite a bit your majesty. More than is probably safe to know these days. I have come to offer assistance with a particular problem you may be having.”
“What problem would that be?”
Mikel looked about. “Perhaps we can discuss this somewhere less public.”
She gave a nod to someone he couldn’t see, and a flick of the hand. Immediately most of the non-essential listeners, possibly non-loyal, were ushered from the room. They seemed to be used to this.
“Wizard, I have a Lindin force at my doorstep. They are demanding that the city be turned over to them and that I become a puppet of Bethor. You had better conjure up a miracle if you want to stay out of my prison.”
“My forces, are camped nearby. We have seen the Lindin forces and discovered that they are small in number. It is a ruse to force you to surrender.”
“There will be reinforcements however, from Lindin, or Bethor,” she said.
“There will also be reinforcements from Tanten.”
That got her attention. She leaned forward. “Can Tanten’s forces defeat Bethor?”
“What do you think will really happen to you if Bethor takes control?”
“They will end my family line, all of my family. And our culture and ideals.” Her head sagged for a moment. Then it lifted as she found some strength.
“How would you deal with my problem then?”
Sanfran was still considering the surrender terms. He had advised the Queen not to tell her advisors about the plans because he and Tei suspected at least one of them was working for Bethor. He had also asked and got permission to address Sanfran’s military leaders.
Just after sunrise, the sun low in the east, the Trader forces were hiding. Mikel sent the 'Go' signal by means of a metal mirror, in fact it was the shiny metal fragment he found earlier. He used the Morse which the Traders also knew. He hoped the enemy didn’t know it and didn't see the signaling. He found a place high up in a tower on the edge of the city and in direct sunlight, it was dangerously unstable. He flashed the message continuously until he got a reply. The plan required a set of signals. If they didn’t work properly then everything could go disastrously wrong. He noticed through his telescope that more Lindin troops had arrived but still not the main force. He estimated they now numbered about 200. A dangerous increase but with surprise they could still win.
A small party of horsemen carrying three red and yellow banners came out of the main gate of the city. These men were dressed in the clothes of the advisors who would be offering the surrender. The three banners was a signal to Tei that everything was ready.
The party on horseback stopped at a point about one third of the distance to the Bethor forces. This was the signal to Tei that it was time to attack.
Tei gave the hand signals ordering the attack, it was passed down the line. The path was through long grass so they had been able to get fairly close to the camp without being seen especially with the sun behind them. But now they had the order to advance. The last 100 meters were in complete silence creeping through the long grass. The Lindin troops were too busy looking at the Sanfran envoys. Some saw something flashing from one of the towers earlier on, they thought that funny, probably glints from swords or spears. None of them were looking at their rear. Some were already shaking hands and laughing.
Eighty meters.
Fifty meters.
They were now exiting the cover and coming into plain sight. One of the guards turned and saw them, but it was too late, as he started to scream, a crossbow bolt through the neck silenced him. Immediately, the air was filled with bolts fired at medium range. Whole rows of Lindin soldiers went down, some screaming. The others turn stunned in time to get another wave of bolts. Some of the Lindin troops didn’t even have their swords on them. Another volley, and another volley. The first row of Trader soldiers waded in with swords swinging, glittering in the sun.
Adele rushed forward sword and shield, slashing at the panicked defenders.
The party on horseback lowered their banners as they heard the first screams of battle. That was the signal for Sanfran cavalry to assault the Lindin camp. The horses streamed out of the city gate and rushed towards the backs of the desperate Lindin contingent. Some Lindin soldiers heard the hoofs and turned to see something beyond their worst fears, cavalry charging and almost upon them. The Lindin soldiers scattered in panic. It was every man for himself. A rout.
Some got away on horseback but 8 out of 10 would never return. The numbers at the camp were greater than they suspected but they had been caught completely by surprise. Sanfran had agreed with Mikel that the survivors would be looked after, though there were very few of them. Fortunately, casualties for the Trader and Sanfran forces were light.
Later, Mikel came out to meet Tei and Adele on the battleground. Mikel felt sick as he looked about at the blood and the waste. When was he going to get used to it? Did he even want to? He also knew this surprise attack would not be repeated. Next time they would likely face the combined forces of both Lindin and Pareth without the element of surprise. He didn’t know the size of the Lindin army but suspected it was small, they simply did not have the resources, so these would have been their best, deployed as the advance force. Now that force no longer existed. He assumed Lindin would press gang the peasants into fighting, they would be easy to panic. But Pareth was an unknown, perhaps they could be intimidated if they knew Lindin was out of the picture. But what about Bethor? Bethor was the largest, most belligerent, the best armed, and best trained of all of them and they were spoiling for a fight. They also had troops stationed in Lindin. He remembered the troops in Bethor, they looked mean and professional, not like the relatively undisciplined forces he had seen from the Cities.
He heard distant thunder but couldn’t see any clouds yet. He hoped for rain to wash the traces of this away, wash away the blood. He had learned so much in such a short time, had he also unlearned the respect for life which helped define him? He feared what he was becoming.
Mikel walked into the throne room. His presence was 'requested'. He had hoped to sleep in. But sleep wouldn’t cure what was troubling him.
“Mikel! Come here.” The Queen called.
Even Mikel, the product of a stubbornly egalitarian society, thought that was a bit casual for a royal court.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“One of our prisoners from yesterday turns out to be an advisor to the Regent of Lindin, he's from Bethor. What do you think about that?”
Before he could say anything Queen Elena continued.
“He had in his possession a very odd map. He refuses to explain what it means. I would torture the wretch but I really don’t have time for that. Here, you and Tei figure it out. It seems to indicate Tanten. I have a feeling this is in our mutual interest to solve.”
Mikel took the map from a young Sanfran army officer. Tei had also arrived, just in time to overhear the conversation. She took the map from him and opened it up. He looked over her shoulder.
“This is a map of the northern regions. North of the Plains, the forbidden lands of Xan, and extending east to the north of the Uuten Mountains.” She pointed to some landmarks on the southern end that he could recognize. A dotted line traced a path from near Lindin th
rough the northern valley and through a pass to the east, then south. And there, south of the Uutens, at the end of the dotted line was Tanten.
“Shit!” Tei looked pale.
“What is it?”
“This is a map that shows how to get to Tanten via the northern mountain pass. We are pretty much defenseless from that direction. And look at these marks along the way. I know what they are, waypoints for an army, those are likely places with abundant game and water.” The notations on the map were in Bethorese style.
“Bethor is taking an army to assault Tanten. We can’t match Bethor, Lindin and Pareth together.” She had spoken too loudly. She looked up to see the Queen looking at her with an impenetrable look. She knew what that meant: they better win or they were all dead.
Mikel took the map from her and looked at it in detail. “While we are fighting Lindin and Pareth you will have to deal with Bethor. Some of these notes are in code. I will have a look and see if I can crack it.” He said.
He had not raised his head, analyzing the map was becoming his sole focus.
"Tei? What is this?"
He was pointing at another path leading north off the route, winding through more northerly mountains, past representations of cities.
“This is an old Trader map. Or one from before the Cities fell. That path is the path to the Citadel of Zeus, Olympus.”
The hairs on his arm and the back of this neck stood up.
"Wow. There is also text here. It doesn't make sense, I think it is encrypted."
"Precisely. That is your forte Wizard," the Queen said.
Tei couldn't wait, she wrote a brief note to Master Levin, informing him of an attack from the Northern Pass and sent it by her best messenger. She took a deep breath and went to Mikel's room, this was probably going to be a long night.
He and Tei worked on the map through the night. Trying various ciphers. Going for walks now and then to clear their heads. At first he thought it might be a Caesar Cipher. If there had been more text he would have looked for the frequency of letters, then try to match it the common letters, but with the little he had he would just have to do it the hard way. He tried using various offsets from the letters in the alphabet, going backwards to reverse the effect. He presumed they used a small offset, so a small offset in the reverse direction of just the right amount should suffice. Didn't work. What else? He noticed that there were numbers mixed in so they likely used an alphanumeric set rather than pure alphabet. There were spaces and punctuation but that was regular from one waypoint note to the next so it had not been encrypted. That was potentially useful information that suggested there were abbreviations. It was starting to get late and they had made no progress at all but that is often the way it is with some codes; it is all or nothing. He decided to try a Vigénere approach.
"Perhaps it is a Vigénere Cipher."
"What does that mean, Mikel? Is that harder?" She was tired and her eyes were hoping, or praying, for him to say it was easy.
"Yes, harder. A Caesar Cipher is just the simple cipher you play around with as a kid. Well, in Lind anyway. Just shift the letters along a certain amount. So if the offset is five, then 'A' becomes 'F', 'B' becomes 'G' and so on, just jump five characters along in the alphabet. With a Vigénere you have a keyword where every letter of the keyword acts like an offset, so every character in the message is shifted by the amount represented by a character in the keyword. You just cycle through the keyword and each of its characters becomes the offset based on assigning it a number in the alphabet. That is harder but if we can find the keyword it becomes easy. Unfortunately, we don't have enough text here to do statistical tests or look for patterns as the keyword repeats."
"So we need the keyword."
"Any ideas?"
"They probably thought they were so clever. Perhaps they were. Or maybe …"
"Huh? Is there a clue here because I do not see it."
"What is a likely keyword that they would use?"
"'BETHOR'? Too obvious."
"Still worth trying." He said.
He built a matrix representing the effects of the offset. Tedious but necessary. It yielded nothing.
"No luck there."
"How about 'MAXIMILIAN?"
"As in the Emperor. I don't think the military would care about the Emperor." He said. He tried it anyway, without success.
They tried several more with each one failing and leaving them more drained and desperate.
"'MARKHAM'?" Tei said.
He just looked at her, mouth open, unable to reply.
"Liz Markham. She is …"
"I know her."
"She is the Chief Military Commander of Bethor. Very dangerous. Try it." She seemed pleased with herself. Mikel was sweating slightly, hoping Tei didn't see it.
Mikel constructed a table for the calculated offsets of 'MARKHAM', as applied to each letter of the alphabet and each digit. It took time. The Bethorese agents would have their own version, for the correct keyword. He tried the first waypoint note which had the visible text
5D651T P1OX RINR SFWO OP1Q S6LL PX E1.CQM
After a few minutes he had readable text. It was exciting and worrying
SCOUTS CONF GAME FEED GOOD ROAD OK 10.UFE
"The tenth of Ufemi? That was four days ago!" Her jaws tightened. Mikel could see the muscles near her ears and at her temples bulge, like a pulse.
He rapidly deciphered the other three waypoint notes.
XAN OK FOOD STORE 14.UFE
XAN WESTERN PASS ENTRY FINAL PREP 19.UFE
STAGING BRIGADES B C D ATTACK 23.UFE
"They are already in Xanadu at the second waypoint. In nine days they will be at Tanten. Three brigades, thousands per brigade." Her voice was quickly rising in pitch. Tension edging towards panic.
"Hey. Relax. We can figure this out." He said.
"RELAX? What have you been drinking? This is a nightmare. No one has attacked Tanten before, our defenses have never been tested. Holy crap. Shit." Her face flushed red, the candlelight casting grim shadows across her twisted features.
"Tei. Tei. Get some rest. In the morning you can form a strategy. You now know when and where they will attack, that is a major advantage." He told himself he had to sound positive, he had to lie because he wasn't positive at all. It was grim.
She paced back and forwards getting more agitated.
He took her in her arms and hugged her. She sobbed. Now she just needed to be comforted past this peak, after that he knew she would gain composure and recover.
After a few minutes, she gave a shudder. Almost like a shiver and he felt her muscles relax. Her body's wisdom had come to the fore and demanded she rest. He escorted her to her room, took off her boots, and tucked her into bed. She was asleep before he could say 'goodnight'. Then he returned to his own room.
"Liz Markham, small world."
It was the last time he would be at the Markham's. The parties were much smaller than the Palace but the same inflexible rules still applied. He was returning an empty tray to the kitchen to swap it for a new one. She was there. Sitting in an ordinary chair. Red eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks, smudging her spare makeup. She saw him. Sobbed and reached for one of the napkins.
"You aren't the only slave here, boy. If you live and earn your freedom, never give it up. It doesn't matter who you have to kill. Sometimes to be free you just have to kill everyone in your way. Society expects me to do its bidding, I have other plans."
There was a fierceness, or madness, in her gaze that troubled him, more than the threat of pain, or even what he had seen. It was the vision of what he might become.
"I have reached an age when I can be independent. They think they can solve that by marrying me off, change one chain for another. Keep me in check. Well, I will give them a 'mate' that they aren't expecting."
She smiled, staring at no one. "A check mate. Or is it a checked mate?"
Her gaze drifted back to him. "You look so innocent but you know. We both kn
ow, we're kin in suffering. Remember child, do what you have to do if you get the chance."
She slipped out from somewhere that curved dagger. He shivered. Inside he prepared himself for death. Instead she held it vertically, pointing at the ceiling.
"This is our bond, don't forget it."
She stabbed it into the top of the table.
He left the room with a new tray. He was too young to understand what had caused the scene, he still didn't, but he understood too well what she meant. There was an odd bond between them, like fellowship corrupted. It almost made him physically sick. Yet he pitied her, he wished he could rescue her, but perhaps she had already become her own jailer.
“I am sorry Mikel, I can’t stay with you. I have to go to the defense of Tanten.”
Not the best 'good morning', but he expected that response. However, he was in no mood to just give up.
"Can't you send a messenger back with a copy of the map? I need you Tei. We make a good team."
"We make a great team but I can't stay. You can have some fellow Traders stay with you. They will keep you safe."
That momentarily diverted his attention.
"Do you regard me as a Trader?"
"It was a slip. I suppose so, perhaps you are a Wizard and a Trader." She smiled as she patted his right shoulder like a colleague.
He got back on track.
"But. When I said I need you I meant …"
"I know."
"No. I have to say it. I love you Tei, and I need you with me. I'm also worried about you."
"I know. Don't worry, the Valis clan is made of stern stuff. I can't stay with you, this is about duty. You have a duty to the Truth, I have a duty to Tanten."
He stopped and looked down, defeated. Waiting for the troubled sea of thoughts to calm, for the storm to pass by. Eventually, he looked up at her. She saw his shoulder suddenly relax. He saw tears in her eyes.
