Darkness Descending

by Harry Turtledove

  He had never been a man to look away from trouble, but he looked away now, trying to distract King Swemmel from a large concern with small ones: “Where would we get the victims?” he asked. “We had but a handful of Kaunians on our soil, and even if you thought to use them for such purposes, they’re in Algarvian hands now. And if we start slaying redheaded captives, they’ll murder ours in place of the Kaunians.”

  Swemmel’s shrug chilled the marshal with its indifference. “We have plenty of peasants. We care nothing--nothing at all--if only one of them is left alive when the fighting’s over, so long as the very last Algarvian is dead.”

  “I don’t know if we can quickly match them in their magecraft,” Addanz said. “As with so much else, they have been readying themselves for long and long. Even if we are forced to this thing to survive”--he shuddered--”we have much learning to do.”

  “Why did you not begin learning before?” the king demanded.

  His archmage looked back at him in harassed fury. “Because I never imagined--no one ever imagined--the Algarvians would be so vile. I never imagined anyone could be so vile. And I three times never imagined I could be forced to be so vile.”

  Rathar had seen that defiance sometimes got Swemmel’s notice in a way nothing else could. Sometimes a defiant man found he didn’t want Swemmel’s notice once he had it, but that didn’t happen here. In surprisingly mild tones, the king asked, “And would you rather go down to ruin because the redheads were vile and you couldn’t stomach matching them?”

  “No, your Majesty.” Addanz had to know his head would answer for any other reply.

  “Nor would we,” King Swemmel said. “Go, then. You and your mages had better learn how to do as the Algarvians do, and you had better learn it soon. We promise you, Archmage: if we do fall before the redheads, you will not last long enough for Mezentio’s men to finish off. We shall make certain of that. Do you understand us?”

  “Aye, your Majesty,” Addanz said. Swemmel made a peremptory gesture of dismissal. Addanz fled. Rathar did not blame him. The marshal would have liked to flee, too. But the king had not dismissed him.

  Swemmel said, “Your task, Marshal, is to make sure the Algarvians cannot finish us before we find out how best to fight back. How do you aim to do that?”

  Rathar had been thinking of little else since word of the disasters reached him. He began ticking points off on his fingers: “We are spreading our men thinner, so the Algarvians cannot catch so many of them with one sorcerous stroke. We are making our positions deeper, so we can attack the redheads even if they pierce our front.”

  “This will slow Mezentio’s bandits. It will not stop them,” Swemmel observed. He wasn’t stupid. Often, he would have been easier to deal with had he been stupid. He was shrewd, just shrewd enough to think himself smarter than he really was.

  Here, however, he was also right. Rathar said as much, and then continued, “The weather also works for us. Try as they will, the Algarvians cannot go forward as fast as they would like. We trade space for time.”

  “We have less space to trade than we did,” the king growled.

  And you were on fire for charging straight at King Mezentio. Rathar thought. He couldn’t say that. He did say, “Winter is coming. Advancing will get no easier for them. And, your Majesty, we are also doing all we can to send parties behind the enemy’s position to sabotage the ley lines coming out of Forthweg. If the cursed redheads can’t bring the Kaunians forward, they can’t very well kill them.”

  Rathar seldom won out-and-out approval from Swemmel, but this was one of those times. “Now that is good,” the king said. “That is quite good.” He paused; his approval never lasted long. “Or is it? Can the redheads not slay them back in Forthweg and bring the power of the magic forward?”

  “You would do better asking Addanz than me,” Rathar said. “My answer is only a guess, but it would be no. If the Algarvians could do that, why would they put the Kaunians in camps near the front?”

  Swemmel fingered his narrow chin. But for being dark of hair and eye, he did look like an Algarvian. He grunted. “It could be so. And if we overrun any of those camps, we can dispose of the Kaunians in them instead of using our own folk. That would be funny, having the redheads do our gathering work for us.”

  He had a rugged sense of humor. Rathar had seen as much over the course of many years. The marshal said, “We might do better to turn them loose and let them try to get back to Forthweg.”

  “Why would we want to do such a wasteful thing as that?” King Swemmel said.

  “If any of them make it back to their own land and tell the truth about what the Algarvians are doing to them, don’t you think Forthweg might rise against Mezentio?” Rathar asked.

  “Maybe, but then again maybe not,” the king replied. “Forthwegians love Kaunians hardly better than the redheads.” Swemmel shrugged. “We suppose it might be worth a try. And it would embarrass Mezentio, which is all to the good. Aye, you have our leave to do it.”

  “Thank you, your Majesty.” Something new occurred to Rathar. “If the Algarvians slaughter their thousands for the sake of sorcery and we slaughter as many to stop them, the war will come down to soldier against soldier once more. I wonder if Mezentio thought of that before he set this fire.”

  “We do not care,” King Swemmel said. “Whatever fires he sets, we shall set bigger ones.”

  Try as she would, Pekka could not enjoy the Principality. She knew Master Siuntio had meant nothing but kindness when he booked her into Yliharma’s finest hostel after calling her to the capital. But she would have come to the capital whether he’d summoned her or not. The cold fear and horror in her would have pushed her out of Kajaani.

  She hadn’t been the only mage riding the ley-line caravan north to Yliharma.

  She’d spotted three or four other women and men with set, worried faces. They’d nodded when they saw her and then gone back to their private woes, which were, no doubt, much like hers.

  But Siuntio had arranged to have the Seven Princes of Kuusamo also gather in Yliharma. Pekka could not have done that on her own. She was glad the Seven Princes took the business as seriously as their mages did. She’d been far from sure they would.

  A knock on the door sent her hurrying to open it. There in the hallway stood Siuntio. “A good day to you,” he said, bowing. “I have a carriage waiting to take us to the princely palace. Ilmarinen will ride with us, too, unless he’s gone off chasing a barmaid while I came up to get you.”

  “Master Siuntio, you didn’t need to come here to bring me to the palace,” Pekka said sternly. “I could have found my own way. I intended to find my own way.

  “I wanted the three of us to come before the Seven Princes together,” the elderly theoretical sorcerer answered. “Prince Joroinen, I know, has been keeping his colleagues apprised of our progress, when we have any. If we join together in a show of alarm, it will have weight for all of the Seven.”

  “You flatter me beyond my worth,” Pekka said. His face as serious as she’d ever seen it, Siuntio shook his head. Flustered, she turned and took a thick wool cloak from the cabinet that stood in the little entry hall. As she settled it on her shoulders, she spoke in a rough voice to cover her own embarrassment: “Let’s go, then.”

  When she got downstairs, she discovered Siuntio hadn’t been joking. Ilmarinen was chatting up a pretty young woman whose slanted eyes, swarthy skin, and broad cheekbones were all Kuusaman, but who had auburn hair far more typical of a Lagoan. He blew her a kiss as he went off to join Siuntio and Pekka. “Just making certain she’s not a spy sent out from Setubal,” he said airily.

  “Of course you were,” Siuntio answered. “I’m certain you intended to probe her very deeply.”

  Ilmarinen started to nod, but Pekka’s giggle told him he’d missed something. After a heartbeat, he gave Siuntio a dirty look. “You think you’re funny,” he growled. “I think you’re in your second childhood, is what I think.”

 
“I almost wish I were,” Siuntio said. “Then I could have gone on living my life instead of screaming like a man on the rack at the supper table a few days ago. I alarmed the whole eatery, but not so badly as I alarmed myself.”

  Ilmarinen grimaced. “Aye, it was bad,” he said. Pekka nodded. The memory of that moment would stay with her all her days. Ilmarinen sighed and went on, “We’d best be at it. The wench will wait. This business won’t.”

  Chill air smote Pekka as she and Siuntio and Ilmarinen left the warmth of the Principality. A little snow lay on the sidewalks and in the streets of Yliharma. It was half melted and gray with soot. Kajaani lay on the southern side of the Vaattojarvi Hills. It took the full brunt of the storms rolling up from the land of the Ice People. The snow there was unlikely to melt till spring.

  Horses’ hooves clopping, the carriage bore the three mages to the princely palace. It stood on the highest ground in Yliharma, having begun its history as a hill fort centuries before the Kaunians crossed the Strait of Valmiera farther west. Savants still dug below the far more splendid buildings gracing the hilltop these days, and sometimes came up with fascinating finds.

  “What sort of man is Prince Rustolainen?” Pekka asked. “Living down in the south, I hear less of him than I’d like.”

  “He’s not the sort to think the doings of the Prince of Yliharma belong in the news sheets, anyhow,” Siuntio said, at which Ilmarinen nodded. Siuntio went on, “He’s a solid sort, and far from a fool.”

  “Less forward-looking than Joroinen,” Ilmarinen added. “He sees what is, not what he wants to be. But Siuntio’s right--he’s solid about what is.”

  The Seven Princes of Kuusamo went in for less in the way of gaudy ceremonial than did the kings on the mainland of Derlavai--or Bang Vitor of Lagoas, for that matter. The usher who brought the mages before the Seven announced them as matter-of-factly as if he were presenting them to seven prominent merchants. Pekka went to one knee for a moment; Siuntio and Ilmarinen bowed.

  Prince Joroinen said, “We need stand on no special ceremony here this morning.” He looked along the table behind which the Seven sat. No one contradicted him. The princes dressed more like prosperous merchants than rulers, too.

  Prince Rustolainen sat in the center of the group, since they were gathered at his castle. Being the prince whose domain included Yliharma, he was the most powerful among the Seven no matter where he sat. He leaned forward, nodding to Siuntio. “Master mage, you have persuaded me to call my comrades together. I have explained the business as best I can, but I am no sorcerer. Tell it to them plain, as you told it to me.”

  “They will have also heard from mages in their own domains, I expect,” Siuntio said, and some of the princes nodded. Siuntio went on, “In any case, it is less a matter of magecraft than of simple right and wrong. The Algarvians have turned to murder in their war against Unkerlant.”

  “War is about murder,” Rustolainen said.

  Siuntio shook his head. “So you said when I first brought this to your notice, your Highness. I told you then and I tell you now, war is about killing. A soldiers foe has a chance to slay him. The Algarvians took folk who could not possibly fight back and killed them for the sake of their life energy, which they then turned against King Swemmel’s armies. They go forward once more because of it, where they had been stopped.”

  “How strong a magic can they make this way?” asked Prince Parainen, whose lands were in the far east, looking across the Bothnian Ocean toward Gyongyos.

  “How many Kaunian captives do they care to kill?” Siuntio answered bluntly. “The greater the murder, the greater the magecraft.”

  “Killing is easier than it used to be in the old days, too,” Ilmarinen added. “They don’t have to go up to each captive and smite him with a sword or an axe. They can beam the victims down one after another with sticks. Ah, the modern age we live in!” His glee was savage and sardonic.

  Prince Joroinen asked, “How does the power of this magic the Algarvians are using compare to the force of the new magecraft the three of you and your colleagues are investigating?”

  To Pekka’s surprise, both Siuntio and Ilmarinen looked toward her. She said, “Your highness, no wood fire can burn hotter than a coal fire. We are looking at coal, or at something hotter than coal. But a large wood fire will do more harm than a small coal fire. The Algarvians have kindled the largest wood fire the world has ever seen, and the one with the foulest smoke.”

  “A good figure,” Siuntio murmured. Pekka smiled her thanks.

  “We summoned the Algarvian minister to Kuusamo before us yesterday,” Rustolainen said, and the rest of the princes nodded. “He denied that his kingdom has done any such thing--says it’s a lie put about by King Mezentio’s enemies. How say you?”

  “Your Highness, I say Algarve has a bad conscience,” Siuntio replied. “The thing was done. They could not hide it, not from those with the senses and training to feel it. They can only pretend to innocence they no longer have.”

  “They say that if anyone worked such a magic, it was the Unkerlanters, trying to hold them back,” Rustolainen said.

  Pekka, Ilmarinen, and Siuntio all laughed bitter laughs. “Oh, indeed,” Ilmarinen said. “That’s why Swemmel’s troops go back in triumphant retreat, while the Algarvians advance in fear and chaos and disorder.”

  “Results speak louder--and truer--than words,” Pekka agreed.

  Joroinen asked, “How soon will you have your hotter fire ready to burn?”

  That was more Pekka’s to answer than either of her colleagues. She said, “Your Highness, I was almost ready to make the experiment to see how the new fire would burn--or it if would burn at all--when the Algarvians . . . did what they did. We will know more after I finally do make it. How long we will need to control it, if there is anything to control, I can’t say, not yet. I’m sorry.” She looked down at the carpet. It was woven in a pattern of rushes, to imitate the rushes Kuusaman chieftains had strewn on their floors before they knew of carpets.

  “The Algarvian minister may talk prettier than we do. He may talk fancier than we do,” Ilmarinen said. “But there’s one other difference you had better remember, you Seven of Kuusamo: we tell you the truth.”

  As usual, Prince Rustolainen spoke for the group: “And what would you have us do?”

  Siuntio took a step forward. “It must be war, your Highness,” he said. “If we let them do this without punishing them, the world will suffer because of it. Men must know they may not do such things. I say it sadly, but say it I must.”

  “What of our war with Gyongyos?” Prince Parainen exclaimed. That war concerned him more intimately than any of the other princes, for his ports looked out toward the islands on which it was fought.

  “Your Highness, the war with Gyongyos is a war for Kuusamo’s advantage,” Siuntio said. “The war against Algarve will be a war for the world’s advantage.”

  “With Unkerlant for our partner?” Parainen raised an eyebrow, for which Pekka had trouble blaming him. He put his objections into words: “King Swemmel, I think, would sooner wreck the world than save it.”

  “Doubtless he would,” Ilmarinen agreed. “But what Swemmel would do, Mezentio is doing. What has the greater weight?”

  Swemmel might have taken the mage’s head for such lese majesty. Parainen bit his lips and, ever so reluctantly, nodded. Rustolainen said, “If we war against Algarve, we war without the new magic, is it not so?”

  “It is so, your Highness, at least for now,” Pekka said. “It may come. I don’t know how soon it will, and I don’t know how much good it will do when it does.”

  “A leap in the dark,” Parainen muttered.

  “No, your Highness--a leap into the light,” Siuntio said.

  “Is it?” Parainen remained unconvinced. “Swemmel will start slaughtering his own as soon as he thinks of it. Tell me I am wrong.”

  Pekka didn’t think he was wrong. She feared he was right. But she said, “Two things, your Highn
ess. What a man does to save himself is different from what he will do to hurt another. And Mezentio is leaving his own untouched. He has other victims, who can do nothing to make him stop.”

  The princes murmured to one another. Rustolainen said, “We thank you, Masters, Mistress. If we need to hear more of your views, we shall summon you.” Pekka left the conference chamber downhearted. She had hoped for more--she had hoped for a promise. But the news of the Seven Princes’ declaration of war on Algarve beat her carriage back to the Principality. She had never dreamt she could be so pleased about something that promised such sorrow.

  Rumors swirled through Priekule. Some were frightened. Some were furious. Krasta had no idea which of them to believe, or whether to believe any. She wanted to ignore them, but could not do that, either.

  If anyone would know the truth, Colonel Lurcanio would. He looked up from his paperwork when she pushed her way past Captain Mosco and stood in the doorway to the chamber he was using as his office--she didn’t quite dare bursting in on him. “Come in, my dear,” he said with his usual cruelly charming smile, setting down a steel pen. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is it true?” Krasta demanded. “Tell me it is not true.”

  “Very well: it is not true,” Lurcanio said agreeably. Krasta knew a moment’s relief, a moment shattered when her Algarvian lover’s smile grew broader and he inquired, “Now--what are we talking about?”

  Krasta set her hands on her hips. Her temper flared, as it had a way of doing. “Why, what everyone says, of course.”

  “ ‘Everyone says’ all manner of things,” Lurcanio replied with a shrug. “Most of them are stupid. Almost none are true. I think I stood on fairly safe ground when I denied yours, whatever it was.” He made as if to go back to his papers.

  Being brushed off, even by the formidable Lurcanio, was more than Krasta would tolerate. Voice whipcrack sharp, she said, “Then why did Kuusamo go to war against Algarve?”

  She succeeded in getting her lover’s attention. He set down the pen and looked her full in the face. His smile, now, was gone. The expression that replaced it made Krasta wish she hadn’t sounded so prickly: she’d got more of Lurcanio’s attention than she wanted. “You had better tell me just what you are saying, and where you heard it, and from whom,” he said softly; unlike every other man she knew, the quieter he was, the more menacing he sounded.