Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Thinking back on it, he recalled something else he hadn't paid a lot of attention to at the time. That tree, which had a trunk as big around as two men could reach with their arms, had been torn up by the roots. It hadn't simply washed down into the river, it had been torn up and flung there. He really didn't want to think about the kind of weather that tore up trees by the roots and sent large rivers into flood in a matter of hours.

  Once they'd crossed the bridge, they'd found there were no rooms to be had at any of the inns. Everything was full up, in no small part due to the effect the weather was having in disrupting travel during the heaviest months for trade in the year.

  So they had pressed on, knowing that once they reached Haven, at least there would be rooms and meals waiting for all of them. But once the sun set, the going had gotten a lot rougher than Karal had thought it would. It was a moonless night, and heavy clouds obscured the stars—that might not trouble a Companion, but poor little Trenor found it rough going, and so, probably, did Honeybee. A couple of handfuls of grain and some grass snatched as they rested was not a satisfactory substitute for his dinner and a good rest in a stall.

  Karal's mood matched his horse's, even if he knew the reasons why they were moving on through the middle of the night. At least it was better for Ulrich to ride than to rest beside the road, perverse as it might sound. Honeybee had carried him on all-night rides in worse conditions than this, and while he was riding, his joints stayed warm and flexible because they were being exercised. If they stopped beside the road to rest until the sun came up, he'd be too stiff to move after a night without shelter.

  The thick darkness smothered sounds because there were so few visual reference points; even the insects by the side of the road sounded as if they were chirping behind a wall.

  "I promise, I've sent messages on ahead of us," Rubrik continued. Karal believed him, even though there was no way he knew of that messages could be racing ahead of them. Except magic, of course, there was always that possibility. Ulrich had been taking it for granted that their escort was reporting regularly to his superiors somehow, so it must be by magic. "There are servants waiting for us, and the Queen's own farrier will be taking care of your gelding as soon as we reach the Palace."

  Karal patted Trenor's neck without replying. Tired as the gelding was, he wasn't winded or strained yet. For all of his stumbling, he hadn't actually taken a fall or an injury. A good hot mash inside him, a good blanket covering him, and a warm stall to sleep in, and Trenor should be all right in the morning.

  For that matter, I wouldn't turn down a hot mash, a good blanket, and a nice thick bed of straw right now.

  "Thank you," he said at last. "I'd rather take care of him myself—but I'm as tired as he is, and I'd do something stupid, like let him drink too much or too fast."

  I'm babbling. I'm too tired, and I'm babbling. It's a good thing Rubrik's probably too tired to notice, or he could get anything he wanted out of me right now, just by starting a conversation and letting me run on. Ulrich is too tired to pay any attention to anything I say.

  "This is the last rise," Rubrik promised. "It's a long slope downhill from here."

  Well, I hope so. Or I will get off and walk.

  Rubrik's promise was good; a few moments later, from his vantage point in Trenor's saddle, the lights of Haven appeared as they crested the long hill they'd been climbing for the past half mark and more. There weren't many of those lights, late as it was, but it was obvious from how spread out they were that Haven was a good-sized city. It was possible to guess the general shape and size from here, in fact.

  Large. Quite large.

  A few years ago, Karal might have been gaping with amazement, but that was before he'd been taken to Sunhame, the capital of Karse and the site of the first and biggest Temple, as was proper for the Throne of Vkandis. Sunhame was at least the size of Haven, and might even be bigger. So he wasn't impressed, except by the fact that the city was closer than he had thought.

  "Not long now," Rubrik repeated. "We're almost at the outskirts. With no traffic, we should make excellent time through the city streets once we're within the walls."

  Trenor lifted his head and sniffed; he must have liked what he scented because he arched his neck tiredly and picked up his pace a little. Beside him, Honeybee did the same, though her call was not a soft whicker but an asthmatic bray.

  "They probably smell the other horses, and possibly the river down there," Ulrich murmured to himself, clearly not even aware that he had spoken aloud.

  He's babbling, too. Well, good, if he's that tired, he won't be up first thing in the morning. I may get a chance to sleep in.

  The first building that could properly be said to belong to the city appeared on the right; it was too dark to make out what it was, but from the scent of cold, damp clay, smoke, and heated brick, Karal guessed it might belong to a large-scale pot maker or something of the sort.

  That, too, was similar to the way that Sunhame was set up; a lot of tradesfolk on the outskirts, warehouses, even mills and the like. Smiths and manufactories. Not too many people wanted to have their houses where there was noise from people going about their trades, so those trades tended to get shoved to the outskirts of the city.

  Other buildings appeared soon after, mostly just unlit shapeless bulks against the sky on either side of the road. One or two candles or lamps burned behind curtains, but not enough to cast any kind of light. The hooves of their beasts echoed dully in the silence, a silence broken only by the occasional bark of a dog or creak of wood from an unseen sign swaying in the scant breeze. A few insects called, but no birds, and no other animals. They might have been riding in a city of the dead.

  Karal shivered; he did not like that particular image at all.

  A few more lights appeared up ahead, lights which proved to be lanterns mounted on posts outside closely-shuttered shops. There were still more of these lanterns up ahead, evidently placed along the road at regular intervals. As they passed the third set, Karal finally saw a living, waking person approaching—a young man leading a small donkey laden with a pair of stoppered pots and a short ladder.

  Now what is that all about?

  Karal's question was soon answered. The man took the ladder down off the donkey's back just as they neared him, and propped it against the lantern-post. He waved as soon as he spotted them.

  "Evening, Herald!" the man called in a soft, but cheerful voice, without pausing in his climb up to the lantern.

  "And a fine evening to you, sir lamptender," Rubrik called back. "They told me wizard-weather is coming in tonight—"

  "So I was told, so I was told. I'll be finishing here in a candlemark, I hope. I'd like to be indoors when it hits." The man lifted the pierced metal screen that shielded the lamp wick from wind, and carefully trimmed it, then filled the base of the lamp from a smaller jug at his hip. "This is like to be a nasty storm, the mages say. At least we've got warning now, though they don't seem to be able to do much about it. More's the pity."

  Huh. Well, maybe that's why everything is so quiet; everybody's shut their houses up, waiting for the blow. They passed the man as he started down his ladder. He waved farewell to them, but was clearly anxious to finish his job for the night.

  Why can't the Valdemaran mages do something about the weather? We can....

  "Too much to do, and not enough mages," Rubrik said, his shoulders sagging. "For some reason, weather-working seems to be one of the abilities we don't see often. Weather-witches, the people that can predict weather, we have in plenty now that we know how to train them, but not too many that can fix problems without making them worse elsewhere."

  "We have something of a surplus of weather-workers," Ulrich said, very carefully. "It seems to be a talent we Karsites have in abundance. Perhaps it is because our climate would be so uncertain without them."

  "I know," Rubrik replied, his voice so tired that Karal couldn't read anything into it at all. "That is one of the first things that Sele
nay wants to discuss with you. We thought that we would have everything under control once Ancar stopped mucking about with unshielded magic, but things are getting worse, not better. You saw the bridge—"

  "Hmm." Ulrich said nothing more, but Karal knew what he was thinking. Aside from all other considerations, Valdemar was a wealthy land by Karsite standards—in the only real wealth that counted, arable land. Karse was hilly, with thin soil that was full of rocks. Valdemar had always had a surplus of grain, meat, animal products. Karse would not be at all displeased to acquire some of that surplus in return for the service of a few weather-workers. That sort of thing hadn't come up in the truce negotiations, and the tentative arrangements for the alliance that followed.

  That sort of thing was why he and Ulrich were here now.

  That sort of negotiation would be impossible if it weren't for the presence of the Empire looming in the East, an Empire whose magics were legendary.

  Not even for food would some of those stiff-necked old sticks be willing to negotiate anything with the Demon-spawn. Only Vkandis and the threat of complete annihilation managed to get them to agree. Well, if we start getting these little incidental negotiations through, perhaps by the time the threat is disposed of, either the old sticks will be dead, or they'll be so used to having deals with the "Demon-spawn" that it won't matter to them anymore.

  Still, it seemed odd that Valdemar should be having more magically-induced problems, not less. They had Adept-level mages enough to teach the proper ways of handling and containing magic, and now that Ancar wasn't spreading his sorcerous contamination everywhere, things should have been settling down. Shouldn't they?

  Unless there was something else stirring things up.

  "I wonder if the Empire has anything to do with this," he wondered aloud, not thinking about what he was saying before he said it.

  "To do with what?" Rubrik asked sharply.

  Karal flushed hotly, glad that the darkness hid his embarrassment. Stupid; that was twice in a row, and he was going to have to watch himself. And school himself not to talk when he was so tired—his thoughts went straight to his lips without getting examined first. "The—this bad weather, sir," he replied. "The Empire is full of mages, so they say. Could they be sending bad weather at you, to soften you up as a target?"

  "It's possible—it's more than possible. I just didn't know something like that could be done at such long distances." Rubrik cursed quietly for a moment. Then he stiffened, stifling a gasp, and Karal realized that the man must still be in a tremendous amount of pain. This business of pressing on was as hard on him as it was on any of them, for all that his Companion seemed as fresh as when he started out this morning.

  "It can be done in theory, though no one in Karse ever tried that I know of," Ulrich told him. "There's some mention of such things in older texts on magic, but using magically-induced or steered weather as a weapon is generally considered too unreliable to count on, since it is too easy to counter."

  "Unless, of course, your enemy is known for not using magic." Rubrik cursed again. "The Empire's spies surely picked that up, at the very least. They must be laughing up their sleeves at us, if this is their doing. I'll make sure and mention it, just so that someone considers the idea."

  "Even if it's sent-weather, a reliable weather-worker can deal with it," Ulrich offered. "The worker doesn't even need to be particularly powerful. I can't tell you if your 'wizard-weather' is sent or created myself; at least not at the moment. I'm too tired, and the probable distance between us and any Empire mages is too great. But if it is something the Empire is causing, that very distance works for us far more than it does the Empire. As far away as they'd be working, they wouldn't be able to stop a minimally-talented weather-worker from getting rid of anything they could send at us. In fact, a minimally talented worker, casting close to the target, can disperse the sendings of someone much more powerful than he is."

  "That is good to know." For all his weariness, Rubrik sounded grateful. "Please, in case I forgot to tell this to someone, make sure you do."

  "Take note, Karal," Ulrich told his aide, who filed it carefully away in his memory. He would, some time within the next two days or so, make certain that this whole bit of conversation was included in the notes that Ulrich would take into a discussion with Valdemar's leaders.

  "What is that?" Ulrich asked, as Karal repeated everything to himself once, just to be certain he had it all. Karal looked up; there seemed to be something awfully large across their path, and it was much too big to be a building. There were lights across the top of it, lights that might be torches or lanterns. How high was it? Several stories, at least. Well, this part of Haven rated some admiration, at least.

  "The old city walls," Rubrik replied, with relief in his voice. "They mark the boundary of the original city of Haven. We are almost home."

  The walls were impressive; quite thick, as demonstrated by the tunnel beneath them with gates at either end.

  And manned by competent, alert Guards, as demonstrated by the ones that stopped them. They were detained at the gate long enough for the Guard Captain to look through a set of papers, scratch something with a stick of graphite, and wave them through.

  "Efficient," Ulrich noted. Rubrik only nodded.

  Looks as if they really were waiting for us—

  By now the lights along the side of the road were frequent enough that neither they nor their mounts had any trouble seeing, and once inside the walls, there were further signs of life. Taverns were still open—music and the sound of voices came from windows open to whatever breeze might happen by. Here and there an industrious tradesman burned candles to finish a task. The scent of baking bread told Karal that bakers in Haven were no different from those in Sunhame—they did most of their work late at night, when it was cooler. Here and there they even crossed paths with a huge, heavy cart hitched to a team of four or more enormous draft-horses, hauling wagonloads of barrels and huge crates about that could not be transported during the heavy traffic of full day.

  The streets here were paved, covered with something smooth that didn't resemble cobblestones or any other form of pavement Karal recognized. Rubrik looked around at the fronts of the buildings, though, and frowned.

  "This storm is likely to be worse than I was told," he said, after a moment or two. "Look how all the shutters are up, and I think they've been latched on the inside."

  Karal nodded, finally realizing why the place had seemed so dead and so quiet. Most windows were firmly shuttered against whatever weather was coming; shutters that would shut out light and sound from within as well as weather from without. "Is that unusual at this time of year?" he asked.

  "Very," Rubrik said shortly.

  Well, if they are expecting the kind of storm that ripped a huge tree up by the roots, if I lived here, I'd shutter my windows too. Better a night spent behind shutters than to have a window blown in—or worse, find something storm-flung coming through it.

  It seemed to Karal that they were spending a lot of time winding back and forth; far more time than was necessary. He started looking around, craning his neck, trying to see if there was a shorter way to the Palace anywhere. Great Light, he hadn't even seen the Palace, and if this was Sunhame, they'd be looking right down the Grand Boulevard straight at it!

  "Haven wasn't built like Sunhame," Ulrich said in a low voice, as he continued to search for some sign that they were nearing their goal. "It was built on strictly defensive lines. I'm told that the Palace was originally a true fortress, that it's not a great deal taller than many of the homes of the high-ranked and the wealthy. And the streets here were planned to make invasion difficult, even if an army penetrated the outer walls. The streets all wind around and around the city; there is no direct way to the Palace or to any other important building."

  Where Sunhame was built as a place of worship first; the Temple is the center of the city, the Palace of the Son of the Sun a part of the Temple, and all roads lead directly there. Su
nhame was planned as a stylized solar disk, in fact; the main buildings were placed in a circle in the center of the city, and the main streets all radiated from that circle. He could only hope that the minds of these Valdemarans were not as twisted and indirect as their streets.

  At least the quality of shops and houses was steadily increasing, which was a good sign that they were nearing their goal.

  Eventually the shops and taverns vanished altogether, leaving only the walled homes of the great and wealthy. Finally, just when he thought for sure that Rubrik was leading them in a circle, that they were hopelessly lost in this maze and that they would never find their way out again, they came to another wall.

  This one was much shorter than the first, a bare two stories tall. If it was manned, Karal saw no signs of guards, although there were lanterns hung high on iron brackets. They were high enough to be above the heads of any riders who followed the street beside the wall, and seemed easily within the reach of someone walking along the top to service them.

  There was a large building on the other side. Before Karal could ask anything, however, they came to a small gate—so very small that he could easily have passed right by it.

  "Heyla, Rubrik!" a cheerful young man in a livery of lighter blue than any Karal had seen before hailed their escort. "What, bringing the envoy in by the kitchen entrance? That's hardly the way to treat an ally!"

  Karal stiffened at the implied insult, but Rubrik just aimed a kick at the Guard. "You insolent idiot! This isn't the kitchen entrance, it's the Privy Gate, and well you know it, Adem! What are you trying to do, start another war with Karse for me?"

  Karal relaxed. The Guard just laughed and unlocked the gate. "Come now, those stiff-necked fellows probably don't speak a word of our—"

  "Oh, I speak your tongue well enough to know that you mean no harm, but you ought to learn to mind your manners, young lad," Ulrich said in a casual tone. "With so many foreigners coming to your Queen, you should learn never to assume they are ignorant of your language, and guard your tongue accordingly."