Darkness Descending

by Harry Turtledove

  “Now we have done our duty,” Lurcanio said. “We can enjoy ourselves the rest of the evening.”

  “Aye,” Krasta said, though she had seldom felt less like enjoying herself. “Excuse me for a moment.” She hurried over to the bar. An expressionless servitor gave her another glass of the wormwood-flavored brandy. She gulped it down with reckless speed.

  “Have a care, there,” Lurcanio said from behind her. “Will I need to carry you up the stairs to your bedchamber tonight?” An eyebrow quirked. “I do not think I need to make you pass out drunk to have my way with you.”

  “No.” Melancholy and insight were not natural to Krasta. Ingenious lubricity was. She ran her tongue over her lips, tilted a hip and gazed saucily up at the Algar-vian officer. “But would you enjoy it that way?”

  He considered. Slowly, he smiled. “Once, perhaps. Everything is interesting once.” Krasta needed to hear no more. She turned back to the bar and began to drink in earnest.

  Three

  Pekka was beginning to hate knocks on her office door. They always seemed to come in the middle of important calculations. And the last thing she wanted was to discover Ilmarinen, or even some other theoretical sorcerer, standing on his head in the hallway, as she had once before. Maybe it would be a Kajaani City College student. She could, she hoped, get rid of a student in a hurry.

  She got up and opened the door. That done, she had to fight back a gasp of dismay. The smile that appeared on her face was an excellent job of conjuring. “Professor Heikki!” she exclaimed, for all the world as if she were delighted to have her department chairman visit her at that moment. “Won’t you come in?”

  Maybe Heikki would say no. Maybe knowing Pekka was here and working would satisfy her. But she said, “Aye, I thank you,” and strolled in as if it were her office and Pekka the visitor. Pekka, in fact, waited for her to sit down behind the desk. But Heikki planted her rather broad bottom in the chair in front of it.

  Retreating--and it felt like a retreat--to her own chair, Pekka brushed a strand of coarse black hair away from her narrow eyes and asked, “What can I do for you this afternoon?”

  Whatever Heikki wanted, Pekka was sure it had nothing to do with the project that had engrossed her for so long. Heikki had got to be the chairman of the Department of Sorcery more for her bureaucratic talents than for her magecraft. Her specialty was veterinary sorcery. In unkind moments, Pekka thought she’d chosen it to make sure she knew more than her patients.

  “I am disturbed,” Heikki said now.

  “In what way?” Pekka asked. By the chairman’s expression, it might have been dyspepsia. Pekka knew she would get herself in trouble if she suggested stomach bitters. Knowing just made the temptation harder to resist.

  “I am disturbed,” Heikki repeated. “I am disturbed at the amount of time you are spending in the laboratory of late and at the expense of your recent experiments. Surely theoretical sorcery, being, uh, theoretical, requires less experimentation than other forms of the art.”

  In lieu of picking up a vase and smashing it over the department chairman’s head, Pekka replied, “Professor, sometimes theory and experiment have to go hand in hand. Sometimes theory proceeds from experiment.”

  “I am more concerned about our budget,” Heikki said primly. “Suppose you tell me what the nature of your experiments are, so that I may judge whether they are worth the time and money you are expending on them.”

  Pekka had not told her about the assault on the relationship between the laws of similarity and contagion. No one without the most urgent need to know heard anything about that project. All the theoretical sorcerers working on it agreed that was too dangerous. And so, doing her best to look regretful, Pekka murmured, “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “What?” Heikki leaned forward. Had the matter been less important, she might have succeeded in intimidating Pekka. As things were, Pekka had to fight hard not to giggle. The department chairman spoke in portentous tones: “When I ask a simple question, I expect an answer.”

  You don’t know any other kind of question, Pekka thought. She smiled sweetly. No.

  “What?” Heikki said again. “How dare you refuse?” Though her skin, like Pekka’s, was golden rather than pink, a flush darkened her cheeks. Pekka said nothing more, which seemed to disturb the chairman further. “If that is your attitude, your laboratory privileges are hereby revoked. And I shall bring your insubordination to the attention of the academic council.” She got to her feet and made a stately exit.

  That vase sprang into Pekka’s mind again. But chasing Heikki down the hall and braining the department chairman would only get her talked about. A different revenge, more vicious if less bloody, occurred to her. A distant ancestor might have smiled that smile just before he sneaked into an enemy clan’s camp to slit a warrior’s throat. Pekka activated her crystal, spoke briefly, and then went back to work.

  She had not been working long when another knock on the door made her set down her pen. The fellow waiting in the hall was Professor Heikki’s secretary. “And how may I help you today, Kuopio?” Pekka asked with another of those sweetly bloodthirsty smiles.

  “The chairman would see you in her office right away,” he answered.

  “Please tell her I’m busy,” Pekka said. “Perhaps day after tomorrow would do?”

  Kuopio stared at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking one of the clicking, coughing languages of tropical Siaulia. She looked back without another word. Shaking his head, the secretary departed. Pekka returned to her sheet of numbers and abstruse symbols.

  If she’d miscalculated--not on the problem of the two laws, but on the knottier one of the Kajaani City College bureaucracy--she’d be in hot water. When a third knock came, she jumped, then hurried to the door. There stood Professor Heikki. “Hello again,” Pekka said. She’d know in a moment.

  Heikki licked her lips. She looked even more dyspeptic than she had earlier in the afternoon. From that, Pekka knew she’d won even before the department chairman said, “Why did you not tell me your experiments had Prince Joroinen’s patronage?”

  “I could not tell you anything about them,” Pekka answered. “I cannot tell anyone anything about them. I tried to tell you that, but you would not hear me. I wish you did not know I was experimenting at all.”

  “So do I,” Heikki said bitterly. “Such ignorance would have spared me a great deal of the abuse I suffered just now. I have been instructed to tell you”--she spat out each word as if it tasted bad--”that the department is to offer you every possible assistance in your work and--and to accept unchallenged any budgetary requisitions you submit.” Plainly, that hurt worse than anything else.

  No one this side of the princely mints had such untrammeled access to money. For a heady moment, Pekka wished she were a woman of extravagant tastes. But Joroinen would not have given what he gave had he reckoned her likely to abuse it. She said, “What I want most is to be left alone to do what I need to do.”

  “Then that is what you shall have.” Heikki backed away, as if from a dangerous animal. And Pekka was a dangerous animal. Had she not been, could she have caused one of the Seven Princes of Kuusamo to turn on the department chairman, who reckoned herself a princess within her realm?

  Pekka stood in the doorway and watched Heikki retreat. That helped turn the retreat into a rout. By the time Heikki reached a corner, she was all but running--and was looking over her shoulder as she went, so she nearly slammed into the far wall.

  After Heikki did successfully negotiate the corner, Pekka went back to her desk and got some of her calculations to an interesting point before yet another knock on the door, this one from her husband, ended the day’s work. When she opened the door, Leino looked at her with curiosity flashing in his dark eyes. “What did you do to our distinguished chairman?” he asked as he and Pekka walked across the campus to the caravan stop.

  “Kept her out of my hair,” Pekka answered. “These are moder
n times. There are cures for head lice.”

  Leino snorted. “I think your cure was to drop an egg on her. I saw Kuopio in the hall. He flinched as if he thought I’d hit him, too.”

  “I didn’t hit him. I just told him no. He’s not used to that.” Pekka smiled again. “I did hit Heikki--with Prince Joroinen.”

  “Ah, so you did drop an egg on her,” Leino said, and then he said no more. Pekka blessed him for having better sense than Heikki--not that that made much of a compliment. But Leino, himself a mage of a more practical bent than Pekka’s, could not help knowing she was working on an important project. Her trips to Yliharma proved it. Ilmarinen’s recent visit to Kajaani proved it. But he hadn’t asked questions. He knew her well enough to know she’d tell him what she could. If she didn’t tell him anything, she couldn’t tell him anything.

  They bought a news sheet from a hawker at the caravan stop. Leino frowned at the lead story. “Curse the Gongs, they’ve sunk half a dozen of our ships off Obuda. We’ve thrown more into that fight than they have, but they keep hanging on.” With reluctant admiration, he added, “They are warriors.”

  “They’re stubborn,” Pekka said, and then wondered if there was any difference between her words and her husband’s. She pointed to a smaller story about a bigger battle. “The Unkerlanters are counterattacking against Algarve.”

  “They say they’re counterattacking, anyhow,” Leino answered. “They’ve said that before, too, but they keep getting driven back.” He turned the news sheet over to read the rest of the story. “The Algarvians say there’s heavy fighting, but they’re still going forward.” As the caravan came gliding up the ley line toward them, he asked, “Who do you hope wins that fight?”

  Pekka considered. “I hope they both lose,” she said at last. “Unkerlant is Unkerlant, and Algarve is bent on taking vengeance on everyone who ever wronged her. As best I can tell, that means the rest of the world.”

  Leino laughed, then shook his head. “That’s one of those things that would be funny if only it were funny, if you know what I mean.” He stepped aside to let Pekka get into the caravan car ahead of him.

  The sun still stood high in the southwest as they walked from the caravan stop up the hill toward their house and that of Pekka’s sister. In high summer, it dipped below the horizon only very late, and briefly. Even then, no more than the brightest stars came out, for twilight would linger till it rose again early the next morning. Kuusaman poets wrote verses about the pale nights of Kajauni.

  High summer did not incline Pekka toward poetry. It inclined her toward tearing her hair. Her six-year-old son was never easy to get to bed at any season of the year. With the house light at almost all hours of the day and night, getting Uto to bed turned as near impossible as made no difference.

  Elimaki handed him over to Pekka and Leino with every sign of relief. Leino’s laugh was rueful; he knew what his sister-in-law’s frazzled expression meant. “The house is still standing,” he remarked, as if that were some consolation.

  Some, perhaps, but not enough, not by the way Elimaki rolled her eyes. “I didn’t stuff him in the rest crate,” she said, as if that proved her extraordinary virtue. “I was tempted to, but I didn’t.”

  “And we thank you for that,” Pekka said, giving Uto a glare that bounced off him like a beam from a stick off a dragon’s silvered belly.

  “I don’t thank her,” Uto said. “I want to see what it’s like in there.”

  “Aunt Elimaki keeps her rest crate locked when she isn’t using it for the same reason we keep ours locked when we aren’t using it,” Leino said. “The magic in there is to keep food fresh. It isn’t to keep little boys fresh.”

  “Aye--you’re fresh enough already,” Pekka told her son. As if to prove her right, Uto stuck out his tongue.

  Leino swatted him on the bottom, more to gain his attention than to punish him. Elimaki rolled her eyes again. She said, “He’s been like that all day long.”

  “We’ll take him home now,” Pekka declared. Uto hopped off the porch and down the walk like a frog. Pekka’s knees ached just watching him. With a sigh, she turned to Leino. “Some kinds of magic haven’t got anything to do with mage-craft.” Leino considered, then solemnly nodded.

  In days gone by, Cornelu had strolled through the streets of the shore town of Tirgoviste in his uniform or in tunic and kilt of the latest style and the softest linen, always perfectly pressed and pleated. He’d been proud to put himself on display, to show off who and what he was: a commander in the island kingdom’s navy.

  Coming into Algarvian-occupied Tirgoviste now, he still wore his best clothes, such as they were: a much-patched sheepskin jacket over a sleeveless undertunic, with a wool kilt that had long since lost whatever shape it might once have owned. He looked like a shepherd from the inland hills down on his luck. Three days of ruddy stubble on his cheeks and chin only added to the impression. The first Algarvian soldier who saw him tossed him a coin, saying, “Here, you poor beggar, buy yourself a mug of wine.”

  By his accent, he came from the far north of Algarve; Algarvian and Sibian were closely related tongues, but a real shepherd from back in the hills probably wouldn’t have understood him. But the small silverpiece carried its own meaning. Cornelu bobbed his head and mumbled, “My thanks.” Laughing, nodding, King Mezentio’s soldier went on his way, for all the world as if Tirgoviste were his own town.

  Cornelu hated him for that despite his causal kindness. Cornelu hated him all the more because of his casual kindness. Toss a Sibian dog a bone, will you? He thought. Not showing what he felt ate at him. Algarvians played at feuds, made them into elegant games. Sibians nursed them, cherished them, never let them go.

  A broadsheet pasted on a brick wall drew Cornelu’s eye. It showed two bare-chested, sword-swinging warriors from ancient days. One was labeled ALGARVE; the other, younger and half a head shorter, SIBIU. Below them was the legend, SIBIANS ARE AN ALGARVIC FOLK, TOO! JOIN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST UNKERLANTER barbarism! Below that, a line of smaller type added, SEE THE RECRUITER, 27 DUM-BRAVENI STREET.

  Fury filled Cornelu. After a moment, it leaked away. A slow smile spread over his face instead. If Mezentio’s minions were trying to get Sibians to fight for them, how many men were they losing? More than they could afford, evidently.

  But men hawking news sheets did their best to tell a different story. They shouted about one Algarvian victory in Unkerlant after another. By what they said, Herborn, the biggest city in the Duchy of Grelz, was on the point of falling. Even if that proved a lie, that the Algarvians had come far enough to make the claim did not speak well for the fight King Swemmel’s men were putting up.

  Another Algarvian soldier strolled by, this one arm in arm with a girl who spoke Sibian with a Tirgoviste accent like Cornelu’s. They didn’t always understand each other, but they were having fun trying. The girl’s face shone as she looked up at the man who had helped bring her kingdom to its knees.

  Again, Cornelu had to fight to keep from showing what he felt. He’d already come into the city a couple of times since swimming ashore after Eforiel, his leviathan, was killed, and had seen the same kinds of things then. They tore at his heart. Some--too many--of his countrymen were willing to accept that they had been conquered.

  “Not I,” he muttered under his breath. “Not I. Not ever.”

  He made his way along the hilly streets till he came to an eatery that had been fine once but had gone down in the world. He nodded as he set his hand on the latch. He’d gone down in the world himself.

  Inside, the place was cool and dim. It smelled offish and the oil in which the cook fried them. A couple of old men sat at one table nursing glasses of pear brandy. A fisherman was demolishing a platter of fried prawns at another. The rest were empty. Cornelu sat down on a stool at one of those.

  A waiter came over with an expectant look. Cornelu glanced at the bill of fare chalked on a board behind the bar. “Fried cod, boiled parsnips and butter, and a mug of ale,
” he said.

  “Aye.” The waiter went into a back room. He didn’t come out right away; maybe he was the cook, too. He didn’t have so much trade that he couldn’t be both.

  Presently, the door from the street opened. Cornelu started to leap to his feet. A tired-looking fisherman came in and sat down with the fellow eating prawns. Cornelu sank back onto his stool.

  Out came the waiter, with his supper on a tray. He set it down, then took his new customer’s order. That fellow wanted prawns, like his friend. Cornelu started eating his fish. It wasn’t bad. He’d had better, but also worse. He sipped the ale. Like the fish, it was middling good.

  He ate slowly, stretching out the meal, making it last. That wasn’t easy. He felt hungry as a wolf. He’d come up onto the island without a copper banu to his name and stayed alive doing odd jobs. He really had herded sheep for a while. He’d spent a lot of time hungry.

  Coins clinked as the old men paid for their brandy. They got up and left. The waiter scooped their money into a leather pouch he wore at the front of his kilt. Cornelu raised a forefinger and asked for another mug of ale. The waiter looked him over, then raised an eyebrow. He understood the challenge, and set silver on the table. Mollified, the waiter gave him what he wanted.

  He’d almost finished the parsnips and was halfway down that second ale when the door opened again. A worn woman pushing a baby carriage paused in the doorway and looked at the handful of customers in the eatery.

  A worn woman pushing a carriage ... for a moment, to his shame, that was all Cornelu saw. He salved his conscience by noting she’d needed a moment to recognize him, too. Then he did leap up, as he’d started to do before. “Costache!” he exclaimed.

  “Cornelu!”

  He’d expected his wife to run to him. In his dreams, that was how it had been. His dreams, though, had left out the carriage. Carefully pushing it ahead of her, she made her way to his table. Then he embraced her. Then he kissed her. As if from very far away, he heard the fishermen sniggering. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, the powers below could swallow them both.