“I think you are right,” Pekka said. “You see through the show to the essential. That is what makes you a good mage.”
“Thank you,” Fernao said. “Praise from the praiseworthy is praise indeed.” That was a proverb in classical Kaunian. He brought it out as if he’d thought of it on the spur of the moment.
Kuusamans were swarthy; he couldn’t be sure whether Pekka blushed. But, by the way she murmured, “You do me too much honor,” he judged he’d succeeded in embarrassing her. He didn’t mind. He wanted her to know he thought well of her. Even more, he wanted her to think well of him. He wished he could come right out and say that. He knew he would ruin everything if he did.
He sighed, both because of that and for other reasons. “One way or another,” he said, “the world will not be the same after this war ends.”
Pekka thought about that, then shook her head. “No. One way and another, the world will not be the same after this war ends. We are changing too many things ever to be the same again.”
“True enough,” Fernao said. “Too true, if anything.” He waved in the direction of the blockhouse. “If all goes well, we help set the tone of the changes. That is no small privilege.”
“That is no small responsibility.” Pekka sighed. “I wish it were not on my shoulders. But what we wish for and what we get are not always the same. I know that I can deal with the world the way it is, no matter how much I wish it were otherwise.”
Fernao inclined his head to her. “We are lucky to have such a leader.” Part of that was flattery. A larger part was anything but.
“If we were lucky, we would still have Siuntio,” Pekka answered. “Whenever we run into trouble, I ask myself how he might fix it. I hope I am right more often than I am wrong.”
“You could do worse,” Fernao said.
“I know,” Pekka said bleakly. “And, one of these days, I probably will.” Try as he would, Fernao found no flattering answer for that.
When Istvan looked up at the night sky from the island of Becsehely, he had no trouble seeing the stars. The didn’t glitter so brilliantly as they did in the clear, cold air of his own mountain valley, but they were there, from horizon to horizon. “It almost seems strange,” he remarked to Szonyi. “After so long in the accursed woods of western Unkerlant, I’d got used to seeing a star here, a star there, but most of them blotted out by branches overhead.”
“Aye.” Szonyi’s fingers writhed in a sign to avert evil. “Me, too. No wonder I felt forsaken by the stars while I was there.”
“No wonder at all.” Some of Istvan’s shiver had to do with the night air, which was moist and chilly. More sprang from dread and loathing of the forest he and his companions had finally escaped. “There are places in those woods that no star saw for years at a time.”
“Can’t say that here.” Szonyi’s waved encompassed all of Becschely—not that there was a whole lot to encompass. “It’s not much like Obuda, is it? Before we got to this place, I always thought, well, an island is an island, you know what I mean? But it doesn’t look like it works that way.”
The gold frame to Captain Kun’s spectacles glittered in the firelight as he turned his head toward Szonyi. “After you had one woman,” he asked, “did you think all women were the same, too?”
He probably wanted to anger Szonyi. But the big trooper just laughed and said, “After my first one? Aye, of course I did. I found out different pretty fast. Now I’m finding out different about islands, too.”
“He’s got you there, Kun,” Istvan said with a laugh.
“I suppose so—if you’re daft enough to assume one island is like another to begin with,” Kun answered.
“Enough.” Istvan put a sergeant’s snap in his voice. “Let’s hope this island won’t be anything like Obuda. Let’s hope—and let’s make sure—we don’t lose it to the stinking Kuusamans, the way we lost Obuda.”
He peered west through the darkness, as if expecting to spot a fleet of Kuusaman ley-line cruisers and patrol boats and transports and dragon haulers bearing down on Becsehely. Gyongyos had lost a good many islands besides Obuda to Kuusamo this past year; Ekrekek Arpad had vowed to the stars that the warrior race would lose no more.
I am the instrument of Arpad’s vow, Istvan thought. An instrument of his vow, anyway. In the forests of Unkerlant, he’d often feared that the Ekrekek had joined the stars in forsaking him. Here, by contrast, he felt as if he were serving under his sovereign’s eye.
After a while, he wrapped himself in a blanket and slept. When he woke, he wondered if Ekrekek Arpad had blinked: a thick fog covered Becsehely. All the Kuusaman ships in the world could have sailed past half a mile offshore, and he never would have known it. More fog streamed from his nose and mouth every time he exhaled. When he inhaled, he could taste the sea almost as readily as if he were a fish swimming in it.
Not far away, a bell began ringing. Istvan’s stomach rumbled. “Follow your ears, boys,” he told the troopers in his squad. “Try not to break your necks before you get there.”
His boots scrunched on gravel and squelched through mud as he made his own way toward the bell. The fog muffled his footsteps. It muffled the bell, too, and the endless slap of the sea on the beach perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Becsehely was low and flat. Had it not lain along a ley line, it wouldn’t have been worth visiting at all—but then, as far as Istvan was concerned, the same held true for every island in the Bothnian Ocean.
There was the cookfire—and there was a queue of men with mess kits. Istvan took his place in it. The man in front of him turned and said, “Good morning, Sergeant.”
“Oh!” Istvan said. “Good morning, Captain Frigyes. I’m sorry, sir—a man wouldn’t know his own mother in this fog.”
“Can’t argue with you there,” his company commander replied. “You’d almost think the Kuusamans magicked it up on purpose.”
“Sir?” Istvan said in some alarm. “You don’t suppose—?”
Frigyes shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose that. Our mages would be screaming their heads off were it so. They aren’t. That means it isn’t.”
Istvan considered. “Aye. That makes sense.” He peered out into the fog with new suspicion just the same.
A bored-looking cook filled his mess tin with a stew of millet and lentils and bits of fish. He ate methodically, then went down to the beach and washed the tin in the ocean. Becsehely boasted only a handful of springs; fresh water was too precious to waste on washing.
Toward mid-morning, the fog lifted. The sky remained gray. So did the sea. Becsehely seemed gray, too. Most of the gravel was that color, and the grass and bushes, fading in the fall, were more yellowish gray than green.
An observation tower stood on the high ground—such as it was—at the center of the island. Sentries with spyglasses swept the horizon, not that they would have done much good in the swaddling fog. But dowsers and other mages stood by to warn against trouble then. Istvan hoped whatever warning they might give would be enough.
A dragon flapped into the air from the farm beyond the tower. Istvan expected it to vanish into the clouds, but it didn’t. It flew in a wide spiral below them: one more sentry, to spy out the Kuusamans before they drew too close to Becsehely. Sentries were all very well, but …
Istvan turned to Captain Frigyes and said, “I wish we had more dragons on this stars-forsaken island, sir.”
“Well, Sergeant, so do I, when you get right down to it,” Frigyes answered. “But Becsehely doesn’t have enough growing on it to support much in the way of cattle or pigs or even”—he made a revolted face—“goats. That means we have to ship in meat for the dragons, same as we have to bring in food for us. We can only afford so many of the miserable beasts.”
“Miserable is right.” Istvan remembered unpleasant days on Obuda, mucking out dragon farms. With a frown, he went on, “The stinking Kuusamans bring whole shiploads of dragons with’em wherever they go.”
“I know that. We all know that—much t
oo well, in fact,” Frigyes said. “It’s one of the reasons they’ve given us so much trouble in the islands. We’ll be able to do it ourselves before too long.”
“That’d be about time, sir,” Istvan said. We’ll be able to do it before too long was a phrase that had got a lot of Gyongyosian soldiers killed before their time.
“We are a warrior race,” Frigyes said, disapproval strong in his voice. “We shall prevail.”
“Aye, sir,” Istvan answered. He couldn’t very well say anything else, not without denying Gyongyos’ heritage. But he’d seen over and over again, on Obuda and in the woods of western Unkerlant, that warrior virtues, however admirable, could be overcome by sound strategy or strong sorcery.
Despite the tower, despite the dragons, despite the dowsers, no one on Becsehely spied the approaching Kuusaman flotilla till it launched its dragons at the island. Mist and rain clung to Becsehely, thwarting the men with the spyglass, thwarting the dragonfliers, and even thwarting the dowsers, who had to try to detect the motion of ships through the motions of millions of falling raindrops. Dowsers had techniques for noting one kind of motion while screening out others; maybe the Kuusamans had techniques for making ships seem more like rain.
Whatever the explanation, the first thing the garrison knew of the flotilla was eggs falling out of the sky and bursting all over the island. The observation tower went down in ruin when a lucky hit smashed its supports. More eggs burst near the dragon farm, but the dragonfliers got at least some of their beasts into the air to challenge the Kuusamans.
Frigyes’ whistle wailed through the din. “To the beach!” he yelled. “Stand by to repel invaders!”
“Come on, you lugs!” Istvan shouted to his squad. “If they don’t make it ashore, they can’t hurt us, right?”
More eggs burst close by, making all the Gyongyosians dive for holes in the ground. As dirt pattered down on them, Szonyi said, “Who says they can’t?”
“Come on!” Istvan repeated, and they were up and running again. He and Kun—and Szonyi, too—had spent a lot of time harping on how important it was to keep the Kuusamans from landing. He knew a certain amount of pride that the rest of the squad took them seriously. Everybody loved the stars, but no one wanted them to take and cherish his spirit right then.
The Kuusaman dragons had already given the trenches by the beach a pretty good pounding. Istvan wasn’t fussy—any hole in the ground, whether a proper trench or the crater left by a bursting egg, would do fine. He jumped down into one, then peered out again, wondering how close the invasion fleet was, and what sort of defending vessels Gyongyos had in these waters. He remembered only too well how the Kuusamans had fought their way onto the beaches of Obuda.
He spied no enemy ships gliding along the ley line toward Becsehely, no landing boats leaving larger ships and approaching the island on a broad front propelled by sails or oars. Corporal Kun saw—or rather, didn’t see—the same thing, and spoke with some relief: “Just a raid from their dragon haulers.”
“Aye.” Istvan sounded relieved, too. The dragons might kill him, but without landing boats in the water there wasn’t the certainty of a life-and-death struggle for the island. Sooner or later, the accursed beasts would fly back to the ships that had brought them, and the raid would end.
“Demon of a lot of dragons overhead for just a raid,” Kun said.
That was also true. Istvan shrugged. “They must have brought more of those ships along than usual. Aren’t we lucky?”
And then they were lucky, for one of the heavy sticks mounted on Becsehely blazed a Kuusaman dragon out of the sky. It fell into the sea just offshore and thrashed out its death agony there. Painted pale blue and light green, it might almost have been a sea creature itself. If its dragonflier hadn’t been dead when it smashed down, its writhings would surely have crushed him.
Eventually, a soldier managed to blaze the dragon through one of its great, glaring eyes. It shuddered and lay still. A moment later, another dragon plunged into the sea, and then one onto the stony soil of the island behind Istvan. He shook his fist in triumph. “By the stars, nothing’s going to come cheap for the stinking Kuusamans here.”
The foe must have decided the same thing, for the dragons flew off toward the west. Only later did Istvan pause to wonder whether Becsehely was worth having for anybody at all.
Talsu walked through the streets of Skrunda thinking about spells of undoing. There had to be a way to get more out of them than he’d yet seen. He was convinced of that. But he wasn’t yet sure what it might be.
A news-sheet vendor waved a leaf of paper at him. “Gyongyos crushes Kuusaman air pirates!” the fellow called. “Read the whole exciting story!”
Instead of answering, Talsu just kept walking. If he’d said no, the vendor would have done his best to turn it into an argument, hoping to entice him to buy the news sheet that way. But silence gave the fellow nothing to grip. He glared at Talsu. Talsu ignored that, too.
As soon as he turned a corner, though, he cursed under his breath. The vendor had made him fall away from the ley line his thought had been following. Whatever the answer he’d sought, he wouldn’t find it right away.
FINE SILVERSMITHING BY KUGU, a shopfront sign said, and then below, in smaller letters, JEWELRY MADE AND REPAIRED. CUSTOM FLATWARE. POTS & BOWLS OUR SPECIALTY. The shop was closed.
“Pest-holes and betrayals, our specialty,” Talsu muttered under his breath. He wanted to let his face show exactly what he thought of the silversmith. But he couldn’t even do that, because he was meeting Kugu for supper at an eatery that should be … He brightened. “There it is.” He’d walked past the Dragon Inn any number of times. He’d never gone inside, not till now. It came as close to being a fine eatery as any place Skrunda boasted.
His nostrils twitched at the smell of roasting meat as he opened the door. He didn’t suppose the inn cooked with a real dragon: stoves and grills surely gave better—to say nothing of safer—results. But food and flame did come together here. His belly rumbled. He didn’t eat much meat back home.
As if by sorcery, a waiter appeared at his elbow. “May I help you, sir?” The tone was polite but wary. He got the feeling he’d be out on the street in a hurry if the fellow didn’t like his answer.
But the waiter relaxed when he said, “I’m dining with Master Kugu.”
“Ah. Of course. Come with me, then, if you’d be so kind. The gentleman is waiting for you.” The waiter led him to a booth in the back where Kugu did indeed sit waiting. With a bow, the fellow said, “Enjoy your meal, sir,” and vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Kugu rose and clasped Talsu’s hand. “Good of you to join me,” he murmured. “Let me pour you some wine.” He did, then raised his goblet in salute. “Your very good health.”
“Thanks. And yours.” With straight-faced hypocrisy, Talsu drank. His eyebrows rose. He didn’t get to enjoy wine like this at home: a full-bodied vintage, with just a touch of lime to give it the tartness Jelgavans craved. He thought he could get tiddly on the bouquet alone.
“Order whatever suits your fancy: it’s my pleasure,” Kugu said. “The leg of mutton is very fine, if you care for it. They don’t stint the garlic.”
“That sounds good,” Talsu agreed, and he did choose it when the waiter came back with an inquiring look on his face. So did Kugu. Talsu had all he could do not to gape like a fool when his supper arrived. Aye, that much meat could have fed his father and mother and sister and wife—and him to boot—for a couple of days, or so he thought. It was tender as lamb but far more flavorful; it seemed to melt off the bone. In an amazingly short time, nothing but that bone remained on the plate.
“I trust that met with your approval?” Kugu asked as the waiter carried the plate away. The silversmith had also demolished his supper. Talsu nodded; he was too full to speak. But he discovered he still had room for the brandied cherries the man brought back. They were potent. After only three or four, his eyes started to cross. Kugu ate them,
too, but they didn’t look to bother him. He said, “Shall we get down to business?”
“Aye. We might as well,” Talsu agreed. He would have agreed to anything about then, regardless of how he felt about the silversmith.
Kugu’s smile reached his mouth but not his eyes. “You alarmed the occupying authorities, you know.”
“How could I have done that?” Talsu asked. “Powers above, I was in a dungeon. I was about as alarming as a mouse in a trap.”
“Mice don’t write denunciations,” Kugu said patiently, as if he’d had nothing to do with Talsu’s ending up in a dungeon. “You named people the Algarvians thought were safe. They did some checking and found out that some of those people weren’t so safe after all. Do you wonder that they started worrying?”
Talsu shrugged. “If I’d told them a pack of lies, I’d still be in that miserable place.” And I remember who put me there. Aye, I remember.
“I understand that,” the silversmith said, more patiently still. “But when they found out they’d trusted some of the wrong people, they started checking everybody they’d trusted. They even checked me, if you can imagine.”
Talsu didn’t trust himself to say anything to that. Any reply he gave would have sounded sardonic, and he didn’t dare make Kugu any more suspicious than he was already. He sat there and waited.
Kugu nodded, as if acknowledging a clever ploy. He went on, “And so, you see, we have to show we can work together. Then the Algarvians will know they can trust both of us. That’s something they need to know. There’s a lot of treason in this kingdom.”
He spoke very earnestly, as if he meant treason against Jelgava rather than treason against her occupiers. Maybe he confused the two. Maybe Talsu had come closer to getting him in serious trouble than he’d thought possible, too. He hoped so. He wanted Kugu in serious trouble, however it happened. He wasn’t the least bit fussy about that. “What have you got in mind?” he asked.
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