"Jumping." His last experience with Jumping had been a dreadful one, and he had pledged that it would be the last time he let Altra jump him anywhere. For one moment, Karal contemplated giving up—
No. I have to know. I can't make a decision unless I know!
"All right," he said, and was rewarded by Altra's cars flattening in dismay. "Now. Tonight. Before I change my mind."
:I'd prefer that,: the Firecat said sourly.
"I know you would," he retorted. "That's why I want it to be now."
Tremane rubbed his aching eyes and glanced at what was left of his candle. It had been a long day, and a longer night, but he and the Mayor's Council were working on consolidating Imperial Law and Hardornen Law into a single codex that both Town and Barracks would be living by. He wanted to be sure they understood all the nuances of Imperial Law; the laws of Hardorn didn't seem to be as specific, which was no great surprise. Simpler society, simpler laws.
Nevertheless, the Imperial forces had brought a more complex society with them, and in some ways the people of Shonar were going to have to learn how to cope.
And in some ways, we are. A hundred compromises every fortnight.
He wondered what time it was; well past midnight, certainly. He'd dismissed all of his orderlies, aides, and clerks several hours ago. Just because their master chose to short himself on sleep to work like a maniac, that didn't mean they should. It was good to work like this, deep into the night, in the quiet of a building in which most people were asleep. Outside, the only men awake were the ones on the walls. The city of Shonar slept, too—there would be no more emergencies tonight, and he could work without interruption, secure in the knowledge that he was completely alone in his offices.
But suddenly, he was no longer alone.
His skin shivered; the hair on the back of his neck stood up in an atavistic reaction to the power flaring up in this room.
Power? But it isn't time for a mage-storm!
He looked up from his papers in startlement, just as a boy in an outlandish set of elaborate black robes appeared in front of his desk, his arms burdened with a huge orange-and-white cat that to his shocked eyes looked to be the size of a small calf.
He tried to reach for the dagger on the top of his desk; tried to shout to alert the guards patrolling outside his quarters. With a chill of panicked terror, he found he could do neither.
The cat glared at him with widened blue eyes, eyes whose pupils reflected greenly at him, as he struggled against the invisible bonds imprisoning him. Its eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he gave up the unequal contest, and it began to purr audibly.
It's the cat! That cat is doing this! He stared at it in astounded disbelief, and yet at the same time he was absolutely certain his conclusion was the right one. The cat held him pinned in his place! What was going on here?
The boy cleared his throat self-consciously. "I am here to be asking you some queries, sir," the boy said, clearly enough; although the words in the Imperial tongue were thick with the inflections of several accents warring with one another. Tremane switched his gaze from the cat to the boy—and saw that the "boy" was not as young as he'd thought. This was a young man about the same age as most of his aides, although his slight build and childlike face left the impression that he was much younger than his years. "You will not be permitted to speak above a whisper, and only in answer to the question I ask." He looked a bit green, and his eyes were not quite focusing, as if he was a bit ill.
Questions? He wants to ask me questions? He transports himself here by magic and holds me prisoner in my own office to ask me questions? Am I mad, or is he? Who is he? What is he?
"This, my first question is. When you loosed forth the man in the Valdemar Court whom you had sent to murder folk by stealth, the man who was the art-maker, did you send him forth with instructions exact? Had you made a choice of who he was to kill?" The young man stared at him as if he would, if he could, bore a hole in Tremane's head with his eyes and extract the answers directly.
The paralysis eased a little, and Tremane found that he could speak. "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," he tried to say, but his mouth would not speak what he intended to say! His lips moved, but he could not push himself to speak the untruth he thought. When his voice finally worked, the patterns it made were not the ones he had set it to! At first he stammered, and then he relaxed into speaking the truthful things he had tried to veil moments before.
"Not precisely," he heard himself whispering, to his own horror. "Not precisely, no. I ordered that people of a certain rank or station be eliminated. I really have no idea of the identities of people over there; my agents are simply not that good. Actually, at this point, they might as well not exist at all, since they can't get through to me with their information. I ordered that envoys and allies be removed; people vital to the continuance of the Alliance. I also ordered that the Queen be eliminated, but I frankly did not think that would succeed, as she is too well guarded."
He listened to himself, appalled. How was the young man doing this to him? His heart froze with fear—not because of the magic itself, but because of the implications. If this boy could do this, now, what would he be able to do later? Or was it the cat who was doing it?
The boy stared at him with eyes full of anguish. "Why?" he asked, his voice tight with emotion. "Why did you order such a thing?
I have to speak the truth. It might as well be truth of my phrasing and choice—the whole truth instead of parts. There is something more to this boy than—than an assassin, or an agent sent to capture me. Something personal; this boy would be a poor choice to send to interrogate an enemy commander, powers or not! His lack of composure betrays his extreme agitation and emotion. There is something larger here than one might first think. And with this compulsion to speak only what is true....
"I was certain at the time that the mage-storms that have been laying waste to the land originated in Valdemar," he told the boy. "They left me and my men cut off from the Empire, with weapons and protections we depend on for our lives utterly disrupted. Our supply lines were cut, our communications nonexistent, our organization fragmented. My men were in a panic, my mages helpless, and we were strung out along a line we could not possibly defend. If an opposing force had come against us, they could have slaughtered us. I was absolutely certain that these storms were a new weapon of the Alliance, made possible only because the mages of the Alliance were all working together. Disrupting the Alliance was the only way I could see to stop the storms."
The boy continued to stare at him in anguish, and although he no longer felt the compulsion to say anything more, that anguish urged him to continue.
"These are not men I had chosen, nor is this a command I would have picked if I myself had a choice," he said. "But the moment I accepted this command, these men became my personal responsibility. I must see to their safety, even before I see to my own. They must be fed before I eat, sheltered before I sleep, and although they are soldiers and expect to face battle and death, it is my job to see that their lives are not thrown away—if possible, to see that victories are with a minimum of bloodshed. At the time, I saw disaster overtaking us, and I had to do something before it caught us. If these storms had indeed come from Valdemar, they were a terror-weapon, and one tailored to strike particularly at us, because so much of what the Empire depends on in turn depends on magic. I thought, at the time, my action was justified if it saved my men. This was not something they could meet in combat or face over the edge of their shields."
Did this boy understand? At least he was listening, and Tremane was still able to speak.
"This is something I did not know when I first commanded men—when I was your age, in fact. Command is more than issuing orders, it is knowing what those orders might mean to the lives of your men and knowing that you and you alone are the one responsible for the outcome." These were the things he had never discussed with anyone else; in the spy-haunted milieu of the Empire, he w
ould not have dared. "The men look to me to get them through each encounter; no man enters the army assuming he will die! They put their trust in me; I have to be worthy of that trust. To a good commander, no lives lost are 'acceptable.'"
The boy's gaze flickered, as if something he had said had touched a responsive nerve.
He gestured at the windows, as a cold blast shook them. "Look what these storms have wrought! Tell me I was wrong to fear for the lives of my men! I think that if it had not been for the walls we built here and the organization we gave them, the people of Shonar would be fighting monsters in the streets by night, and starving by day!"
The boy's eyes flickered toward the windows and back.
"As for what I ordered—my own mages have since told me that Valdemar did not send out the storms. I was wrong, I didn't wait for verification of my assumption, and as a result—I ordered something that was completely unjustified." He felt himself flushing hotly, and wondered at his own reaction. "If Valdemar had sent the storms, I am not certain now that what I did would have been justified either. Sending one weapon of terror in response to another is not a moral answer—but as a commander I don't often deal in moral answers, I deal in expediencies. I'm not used to moral answers, or moral questions. That is a failing of life in the Empire." He paused and added a final statement. "That is not meant to stand as an excuse, but as a reason. It is difficult to think in terms that one is not habituated to, and the center of life in the Empire is expediency."
True enough as far as it goes. There is no point in going into detail about Imperial life. Could anyone from Valdemar—I assume he must be from Valdemar—ever understand the Empire?
He had hardly admitted any of that even to himself, and he was surprised that he had poured it all out to a total stranger.
But this—young man—with the look of a priest has appeared in my office, with a cat in his arms that paralyzes me, with a look. A single thrown knife, and I would be dead, and with my life goes the organization of my troops. Perhaps that is why I am explaining all of this. Perhaps it needed to be said so that I could acknowledge it to myself, too.
The cat's eyes were on his, gazing at him with such intensity he almost expected the beast to speak. The young man's face bore a thoughtful expression; the pain was still there, but it was secondary to the sense of introspection.
Finally, the young man nodded and put the cat down for a moment. Once his hands were free, he drew something from his sleeve about the size of a dagger. He placed it on the desk.
It was a message-tube.
He picked up the cat again, and stepped back a pace as Tremane stared at the tube, perplexed. But the young man's next words solved his perplexity.
"If you wish to open a dialogue with Valdemar and the Alliance," he said quietly, "place your opening message in this. It will go where it needs to. I can assure you that the Queen and the Son of the Sun will see it, once it has been judged safe."
That peculiar shivering came over Tremane again; his eyes suddenly refused to focus. And when he could see again, the boy and the cat were gone.
He shook his head violently; he could move again perfectly well. Had it all been a hallucination brought on by too much work and too little rest? Had he fallen asleep over his papers and dreamed the whole incident?
But when he looked down at his desktop, the message-tube was still there.
It was real. It happened. Someone from Valdemar magicked himself into my office, without the use of a Portal, and interrogated me.
Not only that, but he must have "passed" his verbal examination, for here was the way to end at least one of the Conflicts facing him and his men.
Truce with the Alliance. Perhaps even membership in the Alliance?
Certainly the Allies were not suffering as Hardorn was. They had not originated the mage-storms, but they had a defense against them, a defense that the Imperial forces did not have.
Should I? It could be a trap. Dare I risk it?
A howling buffet of wind shook the stone walls of his office; snow actually drifted down to the floor from the triply shuttered and glazed windows. And midwinter was not even here yet—
—and the mage-storms were getting worse. It was only a matter of time before they changed something or someone inside the walls of Shonar. It could have already happened, perhaps they just hadn't discovered it yet. What would he do if that happened? He didn't know; he hadn't been able to plan for it, though his new agents in the ranks told him that the men themselves had come up with an answer. If it was an animal, it would die, no questions asked. If it was one of their comrades, and he retained his mind, they would find a way to make him useful. If it was one of their comrades and he attacked them, they would cut him down like any of the other boggles.
I must risk it. There is too much at stake.
He picked up the message-tube and placed it carefully in a desk drawer; then he stood up and blew out his candle. There was also too much at stake to risk writing a document that important when he was half drunk with fatigue.
Tomorrow he would close himself in his office and send word that he was not to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. This might be the most important letter he would ever write in his life.
:I didn't think you'd be so sick,: Altra said apologetically from the foot of Karal's bed, where he lay curled up around Karal's feet, keeping them warm. :I wouldn't have brought you home so fast if I'd thought you were going to react this badly.:
"It's all right," Karal replied faintly, as he lay back against his pillows. "Once there's nothing in my stomach things seem to settle down a bit more. The tea is helping. This is a nasty way to get a rest, though."
Altra had not even allowed him a single breath between Jumps, and his nausea had become a single overwhelming force that took over mind and body. The moment he reached his suite he had been forced to the bathroom, where he had clutched at the convenience and retched until he thought he was going to throw up his toenails. When he could stand without retching, he had dragged himself to the bell pull and summoned a "servant." As before, the "servants" who tended to his needs, especially at night, were actually Heraldic students. That was why he tried so seldom to bother them—but this time he had no other choice. He couldn't have gotten any farther than the chair he collapsed into if he'd been prodded with a hot poker.
The young man who had appeared had been seriously alarmed at his appearance, and had gotten Karal into bed before summoning a Healer.
"Stomach cold," the Healer had decreed—although Karal could tell she was profoundly puzzled by his lack of other symptoms. She had left him with several packets of herbal tea and instructions to drink as much of it as he could; the young man had made some up immediately and left it at Karal's bedside. He made up a snowpack to ease Karal's headache, and had also left a stern admonition to pull the bell to call him if he felt any worsening of his condition, or if he needed so much as a dry cracker.
"I'll be all right in a day or so, and meanwhile this gives me an excuse to be alone and think," he told the Firecat.
:If you were anyone else, I'd be surprised you want to do anything except lie there.: Altra curled up around his feet a little tighter, and his icy feet finally began to warm up. It felt very good, and the snowpack the young man had made for his head was finally doing something about the throbbing in his temples.
"Well, that's the curse of being what you and Ulrich made me. I can't stop thinking even when I'm miserable." In fact, he was torn in so many directions that it was going to take some time to sort them all out.
I want to hate Tremane. His need to hate the man warred with the reality of the man himself, making him want to scream in frustration. It would have been so simple if the Grand Duke had been a liar, a fraud, a man who did generous things because it would put people into his debt. Unfortunately for simple solutions, Tremane was none of those things. Altra knew the Karsite equivalent of the Valdemaran "Truth Spell," and he had held it on Tremane once his first spell successfully co
ntrolled the Grand Duke's body. Tremane could not have spoken anything other than the truth as long as Altra held that spell active.
Which made things that much more difficult for Karal.
The problem was, he understood Tremane and Tremane's motives. It was just as he had said to An'desha; he was cursed with being able to see all sides to an argument, and the validity of each and every side.
I would not have done what he did, but I have never been in the position he was. And I was not brought up to power, nor in the Empire. It is my reflex to take the moral path, and it is his to take the path of expediency.
The worst of it was that, given what Tremane had honestly thought was true and faced with Tremane's situation, he could not in all candor say that he would not have made the same choice—and issued the same orders. By Tremane's background, what he had done was probably incredibly moral, as well as expedient—eliminating a handful of people, to possibly prevent the deaths of many hundreds of his own men and of the citizens of Hardorn.
It is easy enough to justify yourself by saying that something is in self-defense, or is called for because someone else did something heinous. He could not say that he would not have given in to that temptation.
He might never lose his dislike of Tremane's attitudes, and he might never be able to forgive him, but he understood the man, and so he could not hate him for being what he was—which was the product of a world full of more duplicity and deceit than anything Karal had ever known. How could Tremane have expected anything else but an opponent who would cheerfully sacrifice innocents to take out an enemy? He probably met opponents like that every day in the Emperor's Court!
It was hardly fair.
I know. Life's not fair. He sighed. And I'm putting off stating a decision I've already made. "You took my message to An'desha?"
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