Rulers of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  When he took Janira out to a band concert, though, he stuck to Sibian, saying, “Mezentio’s men are finally starting to pay for their folly.”

  “Good,” she answered in the same language. She had an odd accent—part lower-class, part Lagoan. Her father, Balio, was a Sibian fisherman who’d settled in Setubal after the Six Years’ War, married a local woman, and started an eatery. Janira was in fact more fluent in Lagoan. That she spoke Sibian at all helped endear her to Comelu.

  “Aye,” he said fiercely, and squeezed her hand. “May they be driven back on every front. May they be driven from Sibiu.”

  “May they stop dropping eggs on Setubal,” Janira said. “Father’s only just starting to get back on his feet.” An Algarvian egg had wrecked the eatery where Balio had cooked and Janira served. She went on, “Everything is more expensive in the new place.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cornelu said. And he was: that meant she had to work even more than she had before, which meant she had fewer chances to see him. Since his own duties often kept him from seeing her, their romance, if that was the name for it, had advanced only by fits and starts.

  Of course, Cornelu was also a married man, at least technically. He hoped his little daughter Brindza was doing well back in Tirgoviste town. He hoped no such thing for his wife, not after Costache had taken up with at least one of the Algarvian officers who’d been billeted on her.

  Standing in line with Janira, Cornelu tried to put all that out of his mind. The line snaked forward in the darkness. He passed through a couple of black curtains before emerging into light and paying the fee for himself and Janira. They both held out their hands. One of the fee-takers stamped them with red ink to show they’d paid. Then they hurried into the concert hall.

  It was filling fast. Cornelu spotted a couple of seats. He went for them as ferociously as if charging on leviathanback. “There!” he said in something like triumph as he and Janira reached them just ahead of a Lagoan couple.

  Janira smiled. “I can see why all your enemies must fear you,” she said, sitting down beside him.

  Cornelu smiled, too. “The main reason my enemies fear me is that they do not know my leviathan and I are there till too late. Sometimes they never find out what happened to them. Sometimes they do realize, and it is the last thing they ever know.”

  “You sound so … happy about it,” Janira said with a small shiver.

  “I am happy about it,” he replied. “They are Algarvians. They are the enemies, the occupiers, of my kingdom. They are the enemies of this kingdom, too.”

  “I know. I understand all that.” She hesitated, then went on, “It’s only that … I haven’t heard you sound really happy very often. It’s … strange when you sound that way and it has to do with killing.”

  “Oh.” Cornelu contemplated that for a moment. “I should probably be ashamed. But, aside from that, I have not had much to be happy about lately.” Just before he turned the evening into a disaster even as it began, he redeemed himself with a handful of words: “Present company excepted, of course.” Janira, who had started to cloud up, relaxed and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  They both applauded when the musicians came out on stage. Lagoan music was on the whole delicate, like that of the other Algarvic kingdoms. It didn’t thump and harangue, the way Kaunian music did. A couple of things set it apart, though. For one, it was generally more cheerful than anything Cornelu would have been likely to hear in Sibiu. Of course, the Lagoans had more reason to be cheerful—they lived farther away from Algarve. And, for another, they’d borrowed triangles and bells from their Kuusaman neighbors, which gave their pieces an almost fantastical feel to Cornelu’s ears.

  Janira enjoyed the music; that was plain. Cornelu applauded a little more than dutifully when the concert ended. Seeing his companion having a good time let him have a good time at one remove. That was almost as good as the real thing.

  Even in the darkness imposed on it to keep from offering targets to Algarvian dragons, Setubal remained a busy place after dark. The Lagoans seemed to think they could use noise to make up for the lack of light. Everybody shouted at the top of his lungs. Carriages carried little bells to warn other carriages they were there. Ley-line caravan cars moved slowly and clanged big, deep-toned bells, as ships would during thick fog. From what the news sheets said, people walked in front of them every so often anyhow. Walking in front of even a slow-moving caravan car usually produced a funeral. But the alternative to going out in pitch darkness was staying at home, and the folk of Setubal didn’t fancy that.

  As far as Cornelu was concerned, the cacophony of shouts and most unmusical bells of all sizes and tones might as well have canceled the concert. “Powers above,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Algarvian dragonfliers could hear Setubal, even if they can’t see it.”

  Janira had a Sibian father, aye. She spoke the language of the island kingdom, aye. But she proved herself a true Lagoan by the way she navigated the dark streets back to the flat she shared with Balio. “Here we are,” she said at last.

  “If you say so,” Cornelu answered. “For all that I can tell by looking, we might be going into King Vitor’s palace.”

  Janira laughed. “No,” she said. “That’s down the street. And it’s not half so fine a place as this.” She laughed again. “Why, you can see for yourself.”

  To Cornelu, a sober, literal-minded man not much given to whimsy, that meant nothing for a moment. Then he got the joke and laughed, too. He took her in his arms. Their lips had no trouble finding each other in the darkness. His hands slid along the length of her. She let him lift her kilt and stroke her there, but then she twisted away. “Janira—” he said hoarsely. They could have done anything at all right there, and no one but the two of them would ever have known.

  “Not now,” she said. “Not yet. I’m not ready, Cornelu. Good night.” He heard her footsteps on the stairs. The door to her block of flats opened. Then it closed.

  He kicked at the slates of the sidewalk. She wasn’t teasing him, leading him on. He was sure of that. One of these days, when she was ready, they would go further. “But why not tonight?” he muttered, kicking at the sidewalk again. In the blackness, he could have reached under his own kilt and relieved some of his agitation, too, but he didn’t. Instead, he set out for his dockside barracks.

  Not being a native of Setubal, he didn’t unerringly find his way to them. He did manage to get aboard one of the many ley-line caravans gliding through the streets of the city. It wasn’t any of those that went down to the harbor district, but it took him to a stop where he could catch a caravan that would carry him where he needed to go. He felt pretty good about that.

  He didn’t feel so good when reveille pried him out of his cot the next morning. Yawning, he staggered to the galley and gulped cup after cup of strong tea. One of his fellow exiles teased him: “You’ll be pissing all day long.”

  “I probably will,” Cornelu agreed, yawning again. “At least all the running to the jakes and back will keep me awake.”

  “Must have been quite a night last night.” His countryman sounded jealous.

  “Not so bad,” Cornelu said. Janira, had she heard that, would have been irate; it implied he’d had his way with her, which he hadn’t. But she wasn’t there and the other Sibian was, and so Cornelu boasted a little.

  He was going back for yet another mug of tea when a Lagoan officer he’d never seen before strode briskly into the mess hall. Suspicion flamed in Cornelu; an unfamiliar Lagoan with something on his mind was the last thing he wanted to see early in the morning—or any other time of day, either.

  Sure enough, the Lagoan spoke up in his own language: “How many of you understand me?” About half the Sibians raised their hands. Cornelu followed well enough, but kept his down. The Lagoan switched to Algarvian: “How many of you understand me now?”

  This time, Cornelu raised his hand. So did most of his countrymen. One of them called out in his own language: “Wh
y don’t you speak Sibian, if you want to talk to us?”

  The Lagoan ignored that. Lagoans were generally good at ignoring anything they didn’t want to hear. In Algarvian, the fellow continued, “You will all report to the Admiralty offices after breakfast for an important briefing.”

  “What’s it about?” Cornelu called.

  He got no answer. He hadn’t really expected one. Having delivered his message, the Lagoan officer turned on his heel and marched away. Muffled curses followed him—and some that weren’t so muffled. “High-handed son of a whore,” one of the exiles said, and everybody else nodded. Lagoans were like that.

  But the Sibians all tramped over to the Admiralty offices at the required time, too. Cornelu wondered what sort of orders—or lies—they would hear from the Lagoan officers in charge of getting the most out of them. Cornelu sometimes thought the Lagoans were as intent on using up the Sibians as they were on using them. He shrugged. He couldn’t do anything about that.

  At the Admiralty, a grizzled Lagoan petty officer whose ribbons and medals declared that he’d fought bravely during the Six Years’ War spoke to the Sibians: “Down the hallway to the conference room.” Unlike a lot of his countrymen—including plenty with fancier ranks and fancier educations—he spoke Sibian, not Algarvian. He even had a Facaceni accent.

  “Where did you learn my language?” Cornelu asked him.

  “Always a bit of dealing going on,” the Lagoan answered, and said no more. Smuggler, Cornelu guessed. Whether he was right or wrong, he couldn’t do anything about it now.

  Gold letters over the entrance to the conference room proclaimed that it was named for Admiral Velho, one of Lagoas’ heroes in the last naval war against Sibiu a couple of hundred years before. Assembling Sibians here to listen to whatever the Lagoans had to say struck Cornelu as less than tactful, but the Lagoans had been less than tactful ever since the Sibian exiles arrived.

  Cornelu turned to complain to one of his countrymen as he started into the conference room, but stopped with the words unuttered. One look at the map on the far wall swept them out of his head. The other Sibians were pointing and staring, too. Their talk rose to an excited buzz.

  A Lagoan officer in tunic and kilt darker than the Sibian sea-green stood beside the map. “Have we got your attention?” he asked the exiles—in Algarvian. For once, Cornelu didn’t care. With that map in front of him, he would listen to anything.

  Fifteen

  To sing a song of victory.” Words bubbled inside Garivald like stew bubbling in a pot over a hot fire. “The day they thought they’d never see.” He paused, waiting for the next couplet to form. “They thought they’d hit us hard in summer. But now we know their days are numbered.” He shook his head. That wouldn’t do, not even with music to make the bad rhyme and scansion less obvious.

  He cast about for a better line. Before he could find one, the Unkerlanter regular named Tantris came up to him. Whatever line might have taken shape flew away instead. He gave Tantris a dirty look.

  The regular ignored it. He said, “We need to strike the followers of Raniero the pretender, to show them they aren’t safe even though his Majesty’s troops haven’t yet started taking Grelz back from the invaders. Can we do it?”

  “You’re asking me now?” Garivald said, intrigued. Tantris nodded. Garivald persisted: “You’re not giving orders? You’re not saying you know everything and I don’t know anything, the way you did before?”

  “I never said that,” Tantris protested.

  “No?” Garivald glowered at him. “Where’s Gandiluz, then? Dead, that’s where. Dead because you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you Sadoc could no more work magic than a bullfrog can fly. You had it all planned, the two of you. But you weren’t quite as efficient as you thought, were you?”

  Tantris gave him a long, expressionless look. “You do want to have some care in how you speak to me.”

  Garivald wanted nothing of the sort. Tantris put him in mind of all the inspectors and impressers he’d had to obey his whole life long. But he didn’t have to obey this whoreson. The band of irregulars in the woods west of Herborn was his, not Tantris’. One word from him and the regular soldier would meet with an unfortunate accident. Garivald smiled. Power was heady stuff.

  Tantris nodded as if Garivald had spoken his thoughts aloud. “Everything gets remembered, you know,” Tantris said. “Everything. With his Majesty’s armies moving forward again, debts will be paid, every single one of them. Before very long, Grelz will find out exactly what that means.”

  Birds chirped. Leaves were green. The sun shone brightly. But, just for a moment, winter lived in Garivald. He held the whip hand right now. But behind him stood only his irregulars. Behind Tantris stood the whole great apparatus of Unkerlanter intimidation, reaching all the way back to the throne room in Cottbus and to King Swemmel himself. Which carried more weight in the end? Garivald knew too mournfully well. With a sigh, he said, “We hate the redheads and the traitors worse than we hate each other. We’d better, anyhow.”

  “Aye. We’d better.” Tantris’ smile was crooked. “And we’d better show the traitors that we’re still in business around these parts. Their hearts will be down in their boots anyhow, with the Algarvians falling back toward the borders of Grelz. A lot of them will be looking for ways out of the fight. Their hearts won’t be in it anymore.”

  “Maybe,” Garivald said. “Some of them follow King Raniero—”

  “False King Raniero,” Tantris broke in.

  “False King Raniero,” Garivald agreed dutifully. “Some of them follow him for the sake of a full belly or a place to sleep at night. But some of them …” He paused, wondering how to say what needed saying without putting his own head in the noose. “Some of them, you know, really mean it.”

  Tantris nodded. “Those are the ones who really need killing. We can’t let people think they can side with the redheads and against our kingdom and get away with it. This isn’t a game we’re playing here. They’d get rid of every one of us if they could, and we have to treat them the same way.”

  Garivald nodded. Every word of that was true, however much he wished it weren’t. “What have you got in mind?” he asked. “If it’s something we can do, we’ll do it.” He couldn’t resist a last jab: “If it’s more of Sadoc’s magic, maybe you’d better think again.”

  Tantris winced. The lightning Sadoc had called down could have seared him instead of Gandiluz. It could have seared Garivald, too. Garivald knew what had saved him, though: Sadoc had aimed the lightning his way. And Sadoc had proved he couldn’t hit what he was aiming at.

  “No more magic,” Tantris said with another shudder. “What I have in mind is hitting one of the villages around the woods that the Grelzers garrison. If we kill a few Algarvians in the fighting, all the better.”

  “All right,” Garivald said. “As long as you don’t want to make us stand and fight if they turn out to be stronger than we expect going in.” King Swemmel was liable to reckon it efficient to get rid of men bold enough to be irregulars at the same time as he was fighting the Grelzers.

  If that had occurred to Tantris, he didn’t show it. He said, “Whatever you think best, as long as we strike the blow.”

  Garivald scratched his chin. Whiskers rasped under his fingers; he still shaved every now and then, but only every now and then, and he had the fair—or rather, the dark—beginnings of a beard. After some thought, he said, “Lohr. That’ll be the place we’ll have the easiest time hitting. It’s not very far from the woods, and the garrison there isn’t very big. Aye, Lohr.”

  “Suits me well enough,” Tantris said.

  “I was blooded in this band between Lohr and Pirmasens,” Garivald said. “We ambushed a squad of Algarvian footsoldiers marching from one to the other. I don’t think there are any redheads down there these days—they’ve mostly gone west, and they leave it to the traitors to hold down the countryside.”

  “Our job is to show’em that won’t work,�
� Tantris said.

  Two nights later, the irregulars left the shelter of the woods and marched on Lohr. Actually, it was more of a straggle than a march. They ambled along in a column, tramping down the dirt road toward the village. Garivald posted a couple of men who’d grown up by Lohr in the vanguard, and another at the rear. They were the best local guides in the darkness—and if something went wrong.

  Somewhere between the van and the rear, he would find himself walking beside Obilot. She said, “Fighting Grelzers isn’t the same as fighting Algarvians. It’s like drinking spirits cut with too much water.”

  “We hurt the Algarvians when we hit the Grelzers, too,” Garivald said.

  “I know,” she answered. “It’s still not the same. I don’t want to hurt Algarvians by hurting Grelzer traitors. I want to hurt Algarvians by hurting Algarvians.” She kicked at the ground as if it were one of Mezentio’s soldiers.

  Not for the first time, Garivald wanted to ask what the redheads had done to her. Not for the first time, he found he lacked the nerve. He kept marching.

  When they started to near Lohr, Tantris came over to him and said, “We ought to get off the road now, and go by way of the fields. If the traitors have sentries, they’ll be less likely to spot us so.”

  He still wasn’t giving orders. He’d lost some of his arrogance, sure enough. And his advice made sense. Garivald nodded and said, “Aye, we’ll do it.” He gave the orders.

  No sentries challenged them. Garivald’s confidence began to rise. No one had betrayed the attack to the men who followed King Raniero. He and his irregulars often knew what the Grelzers would do as soon as Raniero’s men did, but that coin had two sides. Who in my band is a traitor? was a question that always ate at him.

  Dawn had just begun to turn the eastern sky gray when they came up to Lohr. A man from the vanguard pointed out three or four houses. “Those are the ones the Grelzers use,” he whispered to Garivald. He spoke with great confidence. Garivald assumed someone in the village had told him. Sure enough, this business of civil war was as much a matter of listening and hearing as it was of fighting.