by Dave Duncan
“Hot water too?” Vixi said. “Oh, I could use that! It’s been weeks.”
“I can tell. You want it now, or wine and talk first?”
“All three now.”
“Fine. I’ll join you. Haven’t had time to try it myself yet.”
Addis opened the door to his bedchamber and peered in. A team of cleaners looked around in alarm. He ordered the bathtub filled. Then he took Vixi back to his private sitting room, where they could sit and sip wine and make coherent conversation. The time had come to explain to his friend and mentor a miracle he was only just starting to understand himself.
“He’s a fine old boy, really. He reigned well for a very long time, but as his strength failed and his blindness closed in, he become too reliant on a corrupt reeve. He’s in constant pain. He wanted no change, refused to trust advice from anyone else, couldn’t understand why he’d become so unpopular. Pollex and Grand Wizard Krandrak were the ones with reason to fear the coming of the Tryst, and they poisoned his mind against it. He was obsessed by the coming failure of his line. He foresaw his orphaned daughter being forced into marriage by some ruthless swordsman. With Pollex as a model for swordsmen, that was not unreasonable. He may even have been serious about putting me to death because Dad Returned the prince. So I was fetched. He couldn’t see me, but he heard my voice.”
“Always a nasty shock.”
“Shut up, commoner. Then I produced Angie’s hairclip… As a priest, he convinced himself that his son had been returned to him by a miracle. As a king, thinking dynastically, he could marry his daughter to the son of the most powerful man in the World and the kingdom would be protected. Under the circumstances, his ‘son’ can marry his daughter and solve all his problems at a stroke. My Uncle Katanji always says if you can find out a person’s dearest wish, then you’ve got them by the short hairs.”
“Which you obviously did. Technically, you need my permission to adopt new parents or even marry.”
“But you’ll give it,” Addis said happily, “or I’ll have your head chopped off. Where was I? Yes, this morning he dragged me out to a roof terrace overlooking half the World and proudly showed me ‘our’ ancestors— Arganari the Benevolent, Arganari the Just, and the rest of the gang. He even pointed out his own future location, and mine beyond it. That’s Arganari XIV the Merciful and Arganari XV the Fraudulent. How did you wangle that orange kilt?”
“I cut off the grand wizard’s head.”
“Swoosh? Just like that?”
“He pissed me off. I’ve queered your promise to your dad, though. You swore to avenge what happened to him, but Krandrak was behind it all and I got to him first.”
Addis drained his silver goblet and reached for the bottle. “I’ll forgive you; just don’t do it again. I’m thinking of hiring a reeve for my personal bodyguard. Care to be interviewed? You seem very young to be an adept, adept. What experience…”
Chapter 5
Two days later, the same two young men met in that same private room with an older man, Lord Shonsu. This, too, was a happy reunion, but it had somber undertones. The king had taken badly to news of the battle and had taken to his bed. Addis was deathly worried. He was also much annoyed that the queen had taken well to Lord Joraskinta and had taken him to her bed, although Princess Argair had told him not to worry about it, because everyone knew of Daimea’s shortcomings and the king didn’t mind. Besides, the queen was a strong Addis supporter, seeing him as a guarantor of her daughter’s future.
Addis had formally welcomed his oath uncle to the kingdom. After his meeting with Quarlaino, Wallie had sent word back to Yoningu at Soo to pay off the army and send everybody home. He had completed his ride over the hills to Cross Plo, where he had spent a day interviewing sorcerer prisoners and giving orders about the captured guns and ammunition. He had then sailed across to the city and prepared to take the weight of the World on his shoulders again. Meanwhile it was family reunion time.
On a handsome chalcedony table the same height as an earthly coffee table, lay the fourth and seventh swords of Chioxin, while three swordsman admired them.
“The first time they have been reunited in eight hundred years?” Vixini said.
“We don’t know they have ever been together before,” his father said. “But I suspect they have. According to the legend, Chioxin won seven more years of life from the Goddess to make the set. You’ve seen the fragment in the lodge, of course?”
“My lord,” Addis said, “I am told that no one ever challenges a First. Is that a sutra?”
Wallie thought for a moment. “I don’t recall it being totally forbidden anywhere, but to kill a First to win his sword would be a major breach of honor. You’re worried about wearing this?”
“Mm?” Vixini said thoughtfully. “A First can’t own anything. Maybe it’s my sword?”
“It belongs to the kingdom,” Addis said. “I just wear it. Provided I have some bodyguards around, I should be safe from challenge, yes?”
“Only as long as you remain a First,” Wallie said.
Addis looked at him appraisingly. “Why can’t I stay a First all my life? Kingship is not a craft. A king is superior to everyone by definition. Arganari XV, the First.”
That was rank heresy, making Wallie wonder if his own un-Worldly thinking had infected these natural-born leaders of the next generation. The coming of the Tryst was already changing the People, and would do so much more as the industrial revolution gathered speed. But why not? It was often a good thing to break the mold, and the young were always the first to do so.
“That is very ingenious. You know the Tryst doesn’t allow swordsmen to be rulers, but we could make an exception for a novice swordsman, because Firsts aren’t bound by the third oath.”
Vixini looked shocked. “You going to trust this smart-ass yearling to rule a kingdom, Dad?”
“What has he done wrong so far?” Wallie asked, confident that the answer would be ‘nothing’.
“Nothing,” Vixini admitted, and pretended not to see his protégé’s leer of triumph.
Now Wallie understood why he had been prompted to bring these two young wonders along to the war. Between them, they had won it for him. That he had been made to seem an idiot in the process did not bother him in the slightest. The gods were within their rights when they played jokes on mortals. And he had been an idiot, in that he had taken so long to see what his real mission was.
“Of course he will need a first-class bodyguard. A king must surround himself with good councilors, Addis, and listen to them, but he must not let himself get boxed in, not by them, nor by priests and palace officials. If you recruit some hotshot youngsters for your guard from among the locals, they can provide you with, not just protection, but also an independent source of information about your people.”
Addis was nodding. “I think the present king honestly hadn’t realized that Pollex was the source of his unpopularity. I was the first person to tell him so.”
“Brave of you!”
“Just ignorant. And lucky.”
“To lead your guard you’ll need a respected swordsman, a man they’ll be proud to serve under. How would you feel about Valorous Giant of Mighty Thews Vixini?”
Addis grinned wickedly. “He’d do, if I could be certain his knowledge of the sutras was adequate. Test him on Number 981, will you?”
“Dad,” said the valorous giant, “I know a mere adept shouldn’t threaten a Seventh, but if you keep throwing those crazy epics at me, I may start trying to live up to them!”
“Mercy, mercy! I promise never to mention them again for the next ten minutes. I shall appoint a first-class reeve for Plo, and of course Addis will listen to his advice also… Won’t you, your Highness?”
“I pray that XIV the Merciful will live another ten years.”
“How about Joraskinta? He was a king himself until your father walked in on him.”
Addis pulled a face, which did not surprise Wallie.
“You hav
e someone else in mind, Dad?” Vixini asked suspiciously. He did know his stepfather very well.
“Possibly me,” Wallie said and two young faces flashed from incredulity to delight.
“You?” they cried in unison.
“Well, I am thinking of sending for Jja and the kids to come and join me, and staying on in Plo, although probably not as reeve. Jja was born here, you know. The Tryst has grown too big to govern from Casr alone. We need at least two centers. Casr in the north and Plo in the south would be a good match. Or perhaps Kra.”
The bantering mood vanished. “What will you do about Kra, my lord?” Addis asked.
“Joraskinta has already moved about five hundred men there, so no one is getting in or out. Tomorrow I’ll ride over there. Either it surrenders or we sack it.”
“Can I come?” asked two voices together.
The answer, of course, was, “No.” The gods had now assigned the kids their lives’ work. Their campaigning days were over already.
Chapter 6
Wallie took Reeve Ozimshello with him to Kra, because he had local knowledge and any Seventh in the Tryst was a member of the council. The only swordsmen who had ever visited a coven and lived to tell of it were Nnanji and Thana, who had described Vul as a single vast, tentacled building of black stone. Wallie would not have been surprised to find only smoking ruins at Kra. Even yet, the obsessive secrecy of the sorcerers’ craft might lead them to choose suicide over surrender.
What he saw when he arrived within sight of the sorcerers’ lair, just after midday, was a sheltered, fertile valley and a sprawling walled complex of black stone buildings, reminiscent of a fortified medieval monastery. It had several towers of various heights, which he inspected with his telescope. He was especially interested in the tallest.
In front of Kra stood the tents of the army, and behind it the peaks of RegiKra. Joraskinta and three companions rode forward to meet him.
“They agree to a parley, my lord,” he said. “We can meet whenever you wish.”
“As soon as you like, and wherever you like, as long as there can be no hidden marksmen within at least two hundred paces.” Wally was acutely aware that the sorcerers knew how special he was, in that he understood more of their arcane arts than they did. He was the greatest danger they faced. A nice suit of Kevlar body armor might come in handy about now.
The parley took place under an awning that the swordsmen had erected on their side of the little river that watered the valley. As proof that the World had not yet fully adopted the ways of literacy, the only furniture was a pair of hard wooden benches, without a table. The three lords of the council rode there with a Second, who led the horses away. Two persons emerged from the gates of Kra, and when they drew close it was clear that one was only a child. The adult, in a blue gown, dismounted stiffly. The girl took both horses away, back to the gates.
The woman who came limping across the little stone bridge had pushed her hood back to reveal a strong, intelligent face and silver-streaked hair. The two embassies faced each other across the benches for a moment, and then she made the equal’s salute to Wallie, giving her name as Uzdrawun.
He responded, and presented Ozimshello, the elder of his two companions.
She smiled sourly. “The turncoat.” It was an old sorcerers’ trick to display superior knowledge, but how had she learned details of the battle? Easily, because anyone in Plo could be a sorcerer agent, and the swordsmen’s siege line would not keep out pigeons.
“And another member of our council, Lord Joraskinta.”
Another sneer. “The weakling who gave up a throne at sword point.”
Wallie was reminded of his long-ago negotiations with Rotanxi, sorcerer of the seventh rank. He had been a grouch too, but together they had hammered out the Treaty of Casr. It was too early to give up hope.
“Please be seated, my lady.” He sat opposite her, flanked by his companions. “I understood that sorcerer covens were always governed by councils of thirteen.”
“You were correctly informed. Nine of our members were at Cross Plo and are presumed dead. The other three are too old and infirm to attend, but they have granted me plenipotentiary powers. State your terms, swordsman.”
Not so fast!
“Lord Krandrak is dead, but we took forty-nine prisoners at Cross Plo, persons whose facemarks did not pass close inspection. They refuse to give their names or ranks.”
“That is decreed by our sutras.”
“We must change that. I have been studying your buildings through a telescope. That was a sorcerer discovery, although I taught Vul how to turn the image the right way up. I notice that you are now using lightning conductors. That was another secret I taught Vul.”
She shrugged, giving away nothing.
“Tell me, what are those wires on the roof of that tallest tower?” he asked.
“Perching wires for birds. You know how we use pigeons to send messages. It was you who gave that secret away to the World.”
“But pigeons do not perch on wires! They walk on the ground.” Just as crows usually did.
“We hold all birds sacred, as you can see from our facemarks.”
“Perhaps you do, but now you have better ways of sending messages. There are wires like that on the sorcerer tower in Casr. I have seen them a thousand times and failed to recognize them for what they are, but now I know. I inquired of the Plo garrison just when Lord Pollex began making preparations on the far bank, and they confirmed that your knowledge of my movements has been far too detailed to have been spooned out in pigeon droppings. That would have needed thousands of pigeons. Now you talk at a distance with those wires. What is your name for that device, Lady Uzdrawun?”
Her face was a rock. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Joraskinta and Ozimshello must be wondering if he’d lost his mind. He did not take his eyes off the hard-bitten old sorceress.
“Yes you do. Well, let us go on to the terms. First, my lady, let me say that I am a man of peace, surprised as you may be to hear that statement from a swordsman. But you started this war. You struck down thirty men at Cross Zek, and murdered two heralds. You began the war and you lost it. Kra has fallen. My word rules. Tampering with facemarks is a capital offense among the People, as you well know, so either you surrender Kra to me unconditionally, or I shall put all our forty-nine prisoners to death and every adult I catch in those buildings. Every single one! And when I have done that, I shall move against the other covens, for they have obviously been supporting you. I know they aided the assassins Kra sent against myself and Lord Nnanji. Lord Rotanxi of Vul and I tried to prevent an all-out war between swordsmen and sorcerers, and for many years our treaty held. As far as I am concerned, the sorcerers have broken it, not the swordsmen. I ask you again, what is the name of your long-distance way of talking through the air?”
She sneered. “Kra never signed your treaty. You are planning to destroy the sorcerers’ craft, which, like all crafts, was established by the Goddess Herself.”
Wallie kept a firmer grip on his temper. He was frightened now that he had gone too far and she was going to call his bluff by telling him to begin the massacre, which he never could.
“I am going to transform it. I am going to make sorcerers into teachers—not teachers of children, for that craft exists already, but teachers of adults, adults of any craft. Your discovery of writing has already brought great blessings to the People. Traders, apothecaries, priests… almost every craft can benefit from writing, and yet you hoarded it for centuries. Telescopes, soap, lightning conductors—all of these are valuable to the People. I will see Kra opened as a great school, where adults can come and learn your wisdom.”
Now he thought he saw a flicker of interest in her eyes, and realized that it was a first spark of hope in a stygian darkness of despair. Perhaps she had been expecting the massacre.
“You will teach the People, for example, how to take a container of glass or ceramic and fill it with
plates of two kinds of metal, such as copper and lead; how to connect the similar plates together with wire; how to top it up with acid. What sort of acid do you use? Not vinegar. I know you have much stronger acids than that.”
She bit her lip. “The higher volcanic acid. Dilute, of course.”
She probably meant sulfuric, and sulfurous acid would be “lower volcanic”. Wallie had a whole new language to learn and he couldn’t wait to get started.
“And what do you call this device?”
Her name for a battery was god box. Electricity was god spark, and radio telegraphy—which she now admitted to having—was god speech. It would all make sense to worshippers of the Fire God, much more sense than Wallie’s terms, which were mostly based on the Latin name for amber, electrum.
“Those are my dictates, my lady. You will open Kra to the World and reveal your secrets. You will make your wisdom available to benefit all the People. But I promise that I will give you other secrets, just as I gave Vul the lightning conductor and the hot air balloon. I will swear that there will be no reprisals or trials, no blame for starting the war. We shall write out this agreement and bind our two crafts to observe its terms forever, and it will be known as the Treaty of Kra.”
She thought for a moment, fists clenched. She glanced at the other two unfriendly swordsman faces, then back to Wallie.
“I have no choice, do I?”
“Not really,” he said. “Starting a war and then losing it is a very good road to disaster. But I think you will find the future is better than the past. I can show you much better ways of making god spark than a god box.”
For the first time she smiled. “Bribery! Very well, my lord, I must agree.”
Three things Wallie insisted on being shown right away: the telegraph office, the foundry where gun barrels were cast, and especially the places where thunder powder was made and stored, because he wanted to put those under guard. He took Joraskinta with him and sent Ozimshello back to the camp as insurance against treachery. Uzdrawun acted as guide.
