Through the Darkness d-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “I don’t mind,” Hajjaj said. “We’re old men, Ikhshid and I; he wouldn’t make me walk without good cause.”

  Soldiers bustled in and out of Ikhshid’s headquarters, which was certainly a busier-looking place than the foreign ministry. The stocky, grizzled general bowed Hajjaj into his own office and closed the door behind them. “Sit- make yourself comfortable,” he said, and waited till Hajjaj had arranged a mound of pillows on the floor. Then, with military abruptness, Ikhshid came to the point: “Well, your Excellency, what won’t you talk about over the crystal now?”

  “You know me well,” Hajjaj said.

  “I’d better, after all these years,” General Ikhshid replied. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I shall, never fear,” Hajjaj said. “His Majesty and I were discussing the Algarvians’ chances of taking Glogau either with or without our aid.”

  “Were you?” Ikhshid’s eyebrows rose. “And what were your views on the subject?”

  Hajjaj did his well-honed best to keep his face from showing anything. He said, “I would sooner have your unvarnished opinion, if you please.”

  Ikhshid’s grunt might have been laughter or anger. “Afraid I’ll turn weather-vane on you? Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.” Hajjaj shrugged and held his face still. After a wordless grumble, Ikhshid said, “They can’t do it this campaigning season, that’s certain sure. They’ve stripped the north and center bare as a Zuwayzi to free up dragons and behemoths and egg-tossers for the push to the Mamming Hills.”

  “They’ve made Unkerlant do the same, too,” Hajjaj pointed out.

  “I don’t deny it,” Ikhshid said. “But the Unkerlanters are just trying to hold on in Glogau. They aren’t trying to break out. You don’t need as much to hang on, because the country fights with you, if you know what I mean.”

  “All right,” Hajjaj said, more than a little relieved to find Ikhshid’s judgment confirming his own. “Another question: will the Algarvians take Sulingen?

  “They’ve already taken it, or taken most of it, anyhow,” Ikhshid answered.

  “That’s not what you want to ask. What you want to ask is, will they have anything left to throw across the Wolter once they’ve finished clearing the town, and will Swemmel’s men have anything left to throw at ‘em while they’re trying to do it?” He waited. Hajjaj obediently asked him those two questions. Ikhshid gave him a wry grin. “Your Excellency, I haven’t the faintest idea. If we knew ahead of time how a war was going to turn out, we usually wouldn’t have to fight it.”

  “I thank you.” Hajjaj inclined his head to the general. “Truly you are a font of wisdom.”

  Ikhshid waggled a forefinger at him. “You’re so cursed smart all the time, Hajjaj-did you know who would win when the redheads took on Valmiera? They tried going east in the last war, too, and it bloody well didn’t work. The Valmierans didn’t think it would work this time, either. Turned out they were wrong.”

  “So it did.” After some thought, Hajjaj nodded again. “Very well. I take your point. Since we cannot know what happens till it happens, we had best be as ready as we can for all the possibilities.”

  “There you are.” Now General Ikhshid beamed at him. “I always knew you were a smart fellow, your Excellency. And you do keep proving it.”

  “Do I?” Hajjaj scratched his head. “Easy enough to see what wants doing. How to do it? That is a very different question, General.”

  “You’ll find a way,” Ikhshid said. “I don’t know what it is yet, and you don’t, either, but you will. And Zuwayza will be better off with you as foreign minister than we would be without you.”

  Hajjaj considered that. Without false modesty, he decided Ikhshid was likely to be right. He gave the general a seated bow. “You pay me a great compliment.”

  “You’re likely to earn it.” Ikhshid opened one of his desk drawers. Like Hajjaj’s, his desk stood low to the ground, so he could work at it while sitting on the floor. From the drawer he took a squat jar of Forthwegian apricot brandy and a couple of earthenware cups. He poured them both full, then handed Hajjaj one. “And now, your Excellency, what shall we drink to?”

  This time, Hajjaj replied at once: “To survival.” Ikhshid nodded and raised his cup in salute. They both knocked back the potent spirits. When Ikhshid offered the jar again, Hajjaj did not say no.

  Ealstan and Vanai walked hand in hand through the streets of Eoforwic. He was still bemused whenever he glanced toward her; with her sorcerous disguise, she could have been his sister new-come from Gromheort. But that she looked like Conberge was in the eyes of the world a small thing. That she looked like a Forthwegian, any Forthwegian, mattered far more.

  In her free hand, Vanai was carrying a wickerwork basket. She held it up and smiled. “I wonder what sort of mushrooms we’ll find,” she said.

  “Me, too.” Ealstan also carried a basket. “We’re probably out too early, though. The fall rains have hardly started. Things will be better in another couple of weeks.”

  “I don’t care,” Vanai said. “We can go out then, too, if you want. I’ll never say no to going after mushrooms. But I want to get an early start.”

  He squeezed her hand. She’d been trapped inside the flat for most of a year. He couldn’t blame her for going out at any excuse or none. And they weren’t the only people on the street with baskets in their hands and looks of happy anticipation on their faces. In Forthweg, people thought any chance of getting mushrooms was worth taking.

  “There’s that park I was telling you about.” Ealstan pointed ahead. The grass in the park hadn’t been trimmed in a long time-probably not since the Unkerlanters took Eoforwic, almost certainly not since the Algarvians drove the Unkerlanters off to the west. “See-it’s a good big stretch of ground. We might find almost anything in here.”

  Vanai looked discontented. Ealstan knew why she did. Before he could say anything, she did it for him: “I know we can’t go out into the countryside. Things won’t last long enough to let us.”

  Things. She wouldn’t talk about the spell, not in so many words, not where other people could hear. Ealstan had no doubt that was wise. A couple of Algarvian constables came by just then. Vanai started to flinch. Ealstan kept on holding her hand and wouldn’t let her. He found a way to harass the redheads: holding up the basket, he smiled and said, “Shall we get some for you?”

  The constables understood enough Forthwegian to know what he meant. They made horrible faces and shook their heads. “How can they eat those miserable, nasty things?” one of them said to the other in their own language. The second constable gave an extravagant Algarvian frown. Ealstan didn’t let on that he’d understood.

  “That was wonderful,” Vanai whispered, which made Ealstan feel twice as tall as he really was, twice as wide through the shoulders, and as heavily armored as a behemoth. He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. It wasn’t at all like kissing Conberge.

  “We may do as well in the park as we would anywhere else,” Ealstan said. “We don’t know the good hunting spots here, the way we did around Gromheort and Oyngestun.”

  “Maybe.” Vanai didn’t sound convinced. But then she brightened. “Look. There’s a little grove of oaks.” When she smiled that particular smile, she didn’t really look like Conberge, either; no smile from his sister had ever made Ealstan’s blood heat so. With a small sigh, Vanai went on, “In the middle of the city, it would probably be too crowded.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Ealstan said, and the regret in his voice made Vanai laugh. When he thought about it, he laughed, too. They could always go back to the flat, where they would be sure of privacy, and where the bed was far more comfortable than grass and fallen leaves. Even so, looking toward the scrubby trees, he had the feeling of a chance wasted.

  “Well, even if we can’t find a chance for that here, let’s see what we can find,” Vanai said. She scuffed through the grass, head down, eyes intent: the pose of a mushroom hunter on th
e prowl. Ealstan had the same posture. So did a good many other people going through the park by ones and twos and in small groups.

  They’re all Forthwegians, Ealstan realized. Every year before this, he’d noticed occasional blond heads among the dark ones: Kaunians in Forthweg loved mushrooms as much as Forthwegians did. But now the Kaunians in Eoforwic remained shut up in the district into which the Algarvians had forced them. They were easier to round up that way, whenever the redheads needed to steal some life energy to power their sorceries aimed at the Unkerlanters.

  Vanai stooped, almost as if she were pouncing, and came up with a couple of mushrooms. “Meadow mushrooms?” Ealstan asked-almost as common as grass, they were better than no mushrooms, but that was all he’d say for them. Vanai shook her head and held up the basket so he could get a better look. “Oh,” he said. “Horse mushrooms.” They were near kin to meadow mushrooms, but tastier, with a flavor that put him in mind of crushed anise seeds.

  “I’ll saute them in olive oil tonight,” Vanai said, and Ealstan smiled in anticipation. Someone else, not too far away, bent and tossed mushrooms into his basket, as Vanai had tossed the horse mushrooms into hers. Nodding toward the man, she murmured, “He could be a Kaunian, you know.”

  The fellow didn’t look like a Kaunian. He looked like a Forthwegian about halfway between Ealstan’s age and his father’s, but further down on his luck than they’d ever been. But Vanai was right. Quietly, Ealstan said, “You did something wonderful when you passed that on through the apothecary.” He wouldn’t mention the spell where anyone else might hear, either.

  “I hope I did,” Vanai answered. “I can’t know, not for certain. Maybe he didn’t do what he said he would. But oh, I hope!”

  Perhaps buoyed by that hope, they did wander into the oak grove. Ealstan kissed Vanai there, but that was all. He found some oyster mushrooms on the trunk of an oak, and cut them off with the little knife he wore on his belt. Kicking at the tree’s gnarled roots, he said, “There might be truffles growing down there.”

  “Aye, and there might be a hundred goldpieces buried there, too,” Vanai said. “Do you think it’s worthwhile digging?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But if there were some big truffles along that root, they’d be worth a lot more than a hundred goldpieces.”

  When they came out on the far side of the oak grove, they walked toward a marble equestrian statue, twice life size, of a warrior king facing west, toward Unkerlant. “That’s Plegmund, isn’t it?” Vanai asked.

  “No one else.” Ealstan’s mouth tightened. His opinion of the great Forthwegian ruler had plummeted when the Algarvians named their puppet brigade after him, and then again when Sidroc joined it. “There should be a plaque on the base telling what a hero he was.”

  But there was no patinated bronze plaque, only an unweathered rectangle on the stone to show where one had been. And a couple of stone bases that had supported bronzes now stood alone, supporting nothing. Vanai figured out why before Ealstan did. “The Algarvians must have taken the metal, to use it in their weapons,” she said.

  “Miserable thieves,” Ealstan growled. After three years of war, he hadn’t imagined Mezentio’s men could give him new reasons to despise them, but they’d done it.

  And then, from beyond the statue of King Plegmund, someone called his name. He jumped a little; few people in Eoforwic knew him well enough to recognize him. But there was Ethelhelm, coming out of a group of mushroom hunters. A couple of them started to come with him, but he waved them back. “Hello,” he said with a broad, friendly smile, and clasped Ealstan’s hand. His gaze swung toward Vanai. “And who’s your pretty friend?”

  His voice had an edge to it. What that edge meant was, So you‘ve dumped your Kaunian lady and found yourself a nice, safe Forthwegian girl, eh? You’d better not sneer at me anymore for cozying up to the Algarvians, then.

  “This is Thelberge,” Ealstan answered: the first Forthwegian name that popped into his head. He hadn’t expected to meet anyone who knew him, and he really hadn’t expected to meet anyone who knew anything about Vanai. He wished he’d told Ethelhelm less. Since he hadn’t, he had to make the best of it. “Thelberge”-he wondered how Vanai would feel about his giving her a name-”do you know who this is?”

  “Why, no,” Vanai answered. Maybe she was even telling the truth; she’d seen Ethelhelm only once, after all. Truth or not, though, she sounded politely curious, not frightened, and Ealstan admired her coolness.

  He also thought he could get away with overacting here. Striking a pose, he said, “Well, sweetheart, I told you I cast accounts for the famous Ethelhelm. Here he is, in the flesh.”

  Grinning, Ethelhelm struck a pose, too, as if about to hunch over his drums. Vanai’s eyes-brown now, not blue-went wide. “Really?” she breathed, and then started babbling about how much she loved Ethelhelm’s songs. Ealstan marveled at her performance, not least because he knew what she really thought of Forthwegian music.

  When she stopped gushing, Ethelhelm smiled at her and nodded to Ealstan. “I won’t keep you,” he said. “Just wanted to let you know I spied you there, and to meet your friend.” On the last phrase, that hard edge returned to his voice. Ealstan wondered if Vanai noticed it. Had she just been Thelberge, a sweet bit of fluff, she wouldn’t have. Ealstan was sure of that.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you,” she gushed, for all the world as if she were nothing but a bit of fluff. “Good luck with your mushroom hunting.” Ethelhelm chuckled and waved to her as he ambled back toward his… friends? Entourage? Ealstan wondered whether the band leader knew the difference these days.

  As soon as Ethelhelm was out of earshot, Ealstan said, “Maybe we ought to go back to the flat.”

  He wondered if Vanai would try to talk him out of it, but she didn’t. “Aye, maybe we’d better,” she said. They didn’t flee; that might have drawn Ethel-helm’s notice. But, after they’d drifted into the oak grove once more, she stopped and looked at Ealstan. “Thelberge, eh?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. To his relief, she shrugged. He went on, “I didn’t think anything like that would happen. Powers above be praised, we got away with it.”

  Vanai nodded. They walked on for a few steps. Then she said, “He thinks you’ve got rid of the Kaunian girl you used to know.” Ealstan could only nod. Vanai’s mouth tightened. “I don’t like what he’ll think of you on account of that.”

  “He’ll think I’m giving in, the same way he is,” Ealstan answered.

  “That’s what I meant,” Vanai said sharply. She took another few strides and shrugged again. “Maybe it’s for the best. Now he won’t think he has a hold on you because you’re with a blonde.” Ealstan had to nod again. He hated thinking in those terms, but anyone who didn’t only endangered himself.

  Not long after they left the park, he bought a news sheet, as much to distract them both from the alarm they’d had as for any other reason. The news sheet, of course, printed what the Algarvians wanted the Forthwegians to read. An address by King Mezentio topped the headlines. “I wanted to reach the Wolter, and so I have,” Ealstan read aloud. “We’re in Sulingen because it’s a vitally important city. It has a huge ironworks, and it’s a cinnabar shipping port. That was why I wanted to capture it and, you know, modest as we are- we’ve got it. There are only a few more tiny pockets left, and we’ll get those, too. Time doesn’t matter. Not a single ship comes up the Wolter anymore, and that’s the main thing.”

  “Is he right?” Now Vanai sounded worried.

  Ealstan was worried, too. “I hope not,” he said, and wished he hadn’t bought the news sheet.

  Pekka wished she hadn’t had to come up to Yliharma for her latest set of experiments. But she could hardly have asked Siuntio and Ilmarinen to come down to Kajaani, not when they were frail old men and she young and strong and healthy. The capital had far better libraries than Kajaani City College, too, and laboratories with fancier sorcerous apparatus. The trip made good logical sense.

/>   She still wished she could have stayed home. Now Elimaki had to watch Uto all day long; she couldn’t give him back to Leino in the evening, for Leino was learning the art of front-line magecraft. Pekka knew how much she was asking of her sister. Ihave to find a way to make it up to her, she thought, not for the first time, as her ley-line caravan pulled into the depot in the center of Yliharma.

  Ilmarinen stood waiting on the platform when she got off. “Welcome, welcome,” he said, reaching for her carpetbag. “With any luck at all, we’ll blast the whole world to a cinder this time-and then we’ll teach the Lagoans how to do it, too.” His smile was wide and bright and full of vitriol.

  “Would you rather have the Algarvians learn first?” Pekka replied. Her wave encompassed Yliharma. “Look what they did with the old magic. If the new is what we think it is, and if they learn it-”

  Ilmarinen interrupted her: “We don’t know how close they are. We don’t know if they’re working on it at all. We do know the Lagoans will find some way to diddle us if they learn what we know.”

  “No, we don’t know that,” Pekka replied in some exasperation. “We’ve been down this ley line before. And we don’t know enough to make the new magic work for us, not yet. Maybe the Lagoans will help us find the rest of what we need.”

  “More likely they’ll steal it from us,” Ilmarinen said.

  Instead of arguing any more, Pekka strode past him off the platform and toward the gateways leading out of the depot. That made him hurry after her and kept him too busy to complain. When he leaped into the street to wave down a cab, she smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you very much.”

  “You’d have taken a whole bloody week before you got one,” Ilmarinen said-grumbling about one thing seemed to suit him as well as grumbling about another. He raised his voice to give the hackman an order: “The Principality.”