“Exactly,” Pekka said. “And we have to go on with the experiments.” That blazed in her. Next to it, nothing else mattered.
The track to the hostel curved. As the horse rounded the bend, the sleigh tilted a little. Under the fur robes that warded them against the weather, Pekka slid toward Fernao. She was very much aware of her body pressed against his for a moment, and wished she hadn’t been quite so aware of it.
It’s harmless, she told herself, not for the first time. Nothing can come of it. That wasn’t quite the same thing, even if it sounded as if it were.
After the sleigh straightened again, Pekka took an extra moment to move away from Fernao. The Lagoan mage raised an eyebrow when she finally did. His eyes were shaped like hers, but green, not dark brown. Was it the combination of strange and familiar that drew her? Or was it just that she worked closely with Fernao every day, while she’d seen Leino for one brief leave since she came to the Naantali district and her husband went off to work on Habakkuk? Whatever it was, it disconcerted her.
She almost wished Fernao would do something overt. Then she could tell him no, as forcefully as necessary, and they could readjust as needed and go on. Of course, he’d saved her life two or three times, from Algarvian sorcerous assault and from her own botched spellcasting-and, this last time, he’d hurled strong sorcery back against Mezentio’s mages. Do I really want to tell him no?
But Fernao hadn’t done anything overt, and didn’t seem likely to. Ambiguity remained. Pekka laughed. It might as well be life, she thought.
“What’s funny?” Fernao asked.
“Nothing, really,” she answered, at which he raised that eyebrow again. Ignoring it, she took her mittened hand out from under the robes to point ahead. “We are almost there,” she said in classical Kaunian.
“So we are,” Fernao agreed. He didn’t expose any part of himself but his eyes to the frigid air. “I wonder how the driver stands it up there, out in the open.”
“We of Kuusamo do not let the cold trouble us quite so much as you do,” Pekka said, which was true-but only to a degree.
When the sleigh stopped, as it did a couple of minutes later, Fernao had no choice but to come forth. The furs he wore were of Kuusaman make; he hadn’t had anything in his own wardrobe to contend against winter in the Naantali district. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t known it’s like before. He remarked, “The only difference between this place and the land of the Ice People is that the sun does come up for a little while here, even in the middle of winter.”
“Er-aye,” Pekka said. The idea that winter could get worse than it did here was horrifying all by itself.
As soon as she got inside the blockhouse, she started to sweat, and started shedding her outdoor clothes one layer at a time. Braziers and, soon, the press of bodies heated the cramped chamber in which she’d incant.
Ilmarinen and Piilis came into the blockhouse together. Ilmarinen had always shared a sleigh withMasterSiuntio, but Siuntio was dead, slain by murderous Algarvian magecraft. Now Ilmarinen rode with the younger theoretical sorcerer. Pekka didn’t know when she would stop missing Siuntio, or if she ever would. Without him, this project would never have begun, would never had gained the backing of the Seven Princes.
Alkio and Raahe came in right behind Ilmarinen and Piilis. The married couple-both solid theoretical sorcerers-were about halfway between Pekka and Ilmarinen in age. Solid, Pekka thought. Aye, they ‘re very solid. So is Piilis. Nothing wrong with their work at all. Were the three of them together a match for Siuntio? Pekka shook her head. She knew better. She wasn’t a match for Siuntio as project leader, either. She also knew that. But she was what they had.
Secondary sorcerers hurried into the blockhouse, too. Some spells protected the animals at the heart of the experiment from freezing before they were needed. Others would transfer the spell Pekka and the other theoretical sorcerers had crafted to the animals when the time came. And with the secondary sorcerers came the protective mages. After two Algarvian attacks, Pekka knew how necessary they were.
But they didn‘t beat back Mezentio ‘s mages the last time, she thought. Fernao did that, Fernao and Ilmarinen and I. Three theoretical sorcerers who shouldn‘t be allowed to work magic like practical wizards. She smiled, recognizing the ironic pride in her thoughts.
The blockhouse had been built with theoretical sorcerers and secondary sorcerers in mind. It hadn’t been built to include the protective mages. When the weather got better, perhaps Pekka could prevail upon the Seven Princes to enlarge it. Meanwhile, people shoved and jostled and stepped on one another’s feet and got in one another’s way.
“Are we ready?” Pekka asked at last. But even herat last proved too soon; the mages were nowhere near ready. When she spoke again, it was in some exasperarion: “Sooner or later, we shall have to go into the field. The Algarvians will not wait for us, and neither will the Gyongyosians.”
Ilmarinen snapped his fingers. “That for the Gongs. They’re honest foes, which means we can beat them without folderol, knock ‘em back across the Bothnian Ocean one island at a time. As soon as the Algarvians started killing Kaunians to make their magecraft mightier, they put themselves beyond the pale.”
Privately, Pekka agreed with him. Even so, she said, “Whichever way we aim the magic, we’ll have to be able to do it in our time. The sooner we learn, the better.”
Not even contrary Ilmarinen could quarrel with that. And Raahe said, “She is right. Let no one complain that we women are slow here.” That made people laugh. More of the mages in the blockhouse were men than women, but only a few more. Kuusamans were emphatically aware of the differences between the sexes but, unlike Lagoans and most folk on the mainland of Derlavai, didn’t think those differences applied to what each sex could do well.
When Pekka asked, “Are we ready?” again, she found that her colleagues were. “Before the Kaunians came, we of Kuusamo were here
…” she said, and her fellow mages-all of them but Fernao-recited the ritual phrases, the phrases that moved them toward readiness for conjuration, along with her.
He has to feel very much alone, a foreigner, a stranger, whenever he listens to us, she thought. /know I would if I were in Lagoas, say, and mages, just brusquely started to enchant without preparing first.
But then such small thoughts slipped out of her mind, driven from it when she focused like a burning glass on what lay ahead. She took a deep breath to steady herself, let it out, and said, “I begin.”
Every time she used the spell, it became sharper, more powerful. All the theoretical sorcerers tinkered with it between experiments. One couplet, one sorcerous pass, at a time, it grew closer to what it had to be. Had she seen this version a year before, it would have astounded her. She couldn’t help wondering how much further they had to go.
If we come as far in the next year as we have in this past one, I’ll be able to shatter the world like a dropped egg without even lifting a finger. She knew that was an exaggeration, but maybe it wasn’t an enormous one. By the nature of things, spells that exploited the inverted unity she’d helped discover at the heart of the laws of similarity and contagion had the potential to release far more sorcerous energy than cantrips based on one or the other of the so-called Two Laws.
How close mortal mages could come to tapping that potential was one question. Another, more urgent question was how much attention she could give to such irrelevant quibbles before making a hash of the spell she was casting now and endangering herself and everybody in the blockhouse with her. She didn’t like remembering Fernao had had to save her from the consequences of dropping a line in one of these spells.
Which is why practical mages make jokes about what happens when theoretical sorcerers go into the laboratory, Pekka thought. Too much of their kidding wasn’t kidding at all, but sober truth.
But then even embarrassment and worry fell away as she lost herself in the intricacies of the spell she was casting. Getting the words precisely right; making s
ure the passes matched and reinforced them; feeling the power build as verse after verse, pass after pass, fell into place… It was almost like feeling pleasure build when she made love. And then she madethat thought fall away, too-not without regret, but she did it.
Power built, and built, and built-and then, as she cried, “Let it be released!”, itwas released. She felt the secondary sorcerers take hold of what she’d brought into being, felt them hurl it forth to the banks of animal cages set far from the blockhouse, and felt it kindle there.
And then she needed no occult senses to feel it, for the ground shuddered beneath her feet. A great roar rumbled thought the air. She knew that, when she and the other mages went to examine the site, they would find another huge crater torn in the frozen ground. The Naantali district was starting to look like the moon as seen through a spyglass. Its wide stretches of worthless land were the main reasons experiments had moved here.
“Nicely done,” Fernao said. “Very nicely done. When we measure the crater, we will be able to calculate the actual energy release and see how close it comes to what the sorcerous equations predicted. My guess is, the discrepancies will not be large. It had the right feel to it.”
Pekka nodded-wearily, now that the spell was done. “I think you are right,” she replied, also in classical Kaunian.
Ilmarinen said, “And, when we go out to the crater, we can see how much green grass and other out-of-season bits and pieces we find at the bottom of it.”
Pekka grimaced. So did Fernao. The spells they were working with twisted time, among other things. The equations made that very clear. Ilmarinen, ever the radical, kept insisting the twist could be exploited for itself, not just for the energy it released. The unanimous opinion of the rest of the theoretical sorcerers was that the energy release came first.
As Pekka and Fernao rode out toward the crater, an exhausted little bird-a linnet-came fluttering down out of the sky and landed on their sleigh. When Pekka reached out for it, it flew off again, and was soon lost to sight. She stared at Fernao in no small consternation. She’d never seen a linnet in wintertime. They flew north for the winter, to escape the cold. Maybe this one hadn’t escaped the cold. Maybe it hadn’t escaped the sorcery, either.
And if it hadn’t, what did that mean?
Hajjaj’s carriage rolled up to the dragon farm outside Bishah, the capital of Zuwayza. When the carriage stopped, the Zuwayzi foreign minister descended to the sandy soil: a skinny man with dark brown skin and gray, almost white hair he’d earned by lasting close to seven decades-and also by guiding Zuwayza’s relations with the other kingdoms of the world ever since his homeland regained its freedom from Unkerlant in the chaos following the Six Years’ War.
GeneralIkhshidcame bustling up to greet him. Ikhshid was paunchy, with bushy white eyebrows. He carried almost as many years as Hajjaj; he’d been a captain in the Unkerlanter army during the Six Years’ War, one of the few men of Zuwayzi blood to gain officer’s rank there.
Like Hajjaj, Ikhshid wore sandals and a broad-brimmed hat and nothing in between. In Zuwayza’s fierce desert heat, clothes were nothing but a nuisance, however much Zuwayzi nudity scandalized other Derlavaians. Ikhshid had rank badges on his hat and marked with greasepaint on his upper arms.
He bowed to Hajjaj, wheezing a little as he straightened. “Good day, your Excellency,” he said. “Always a pleasure to see you, believe me.”
“You’re too kind,” Hajjaj murmured, returning the bow. “Believe me, the pleasure is mine.” Aimed at a lot of men, Hajjaj would have meant that as no more than the usual pleasant hypocrisy. With Ikhshid, he meant it. He’d never been convinced Zuwayza’s senior soldier was a great general, though Ikhshid was a good one. But Ikhshid, like Hajjaj himself, commanded the respect of every Zuwayzi clanfather. Hajjaj could think of no other officer of whom that was true.
“You do me too much credit, your Excellency,” Ikhshid said.
“By no means, sir,” Hajjaj protested. Zuwayzi forms of greeting and politeness, if uninterrupted, could go on for a long time.
Here, an interruption arrived in the person of Marquis Balastro, the Algarvian minister to Zuwayza. To Hajjaj’s relief, Balastro was not nude, but wore the usual Algarvian tunic and kilt, with a hat of his own to keep the sun off his head. His bow, unlike Ikhshid’s, was deep and flamboyant-Algarvians didn’t do things by halves. “Good day to you, your Excellency,” he said in his own language.
“And to you as well, your Excellency,” Hajjaj replied in the same tongue. He’d been fluent in Algarvian for a long time: back before the Six Years’ War (an era that seemed so distant and different, it might have been a thousand years ago), he’d spent his university days in Trapani, the Algarvian capital.
Balastro struck a pose. “Now, sir, you will see that Algarve stands by her allies in every way she can.”
“I shall be glad to see it, very glad indeed,” Hajjaj said.
That gave the Algarvian minister the chance to strike another pose, and he made the most of it, pointing to the sky and exclaiming, “Then look now at the dragons summoned to Zuwayza’s aid!”
Hajjaj looked. So did Ikhshid. So did the writers from a couple of Zuwayzi news sheets summoned to the outskirts of the capital for the occasion. Sure enough, half a wing of dragons-thirty-two in all-painted in Algarve’s gaudy green, red, and white spiraled down toward the dragon farm.
“They are indeed a pleasure to see, your Excellency,” Hajjaj said, bowing once more. “Bishah shall be safer because of them. After the last raid, when the Unkerlanters pounded us from the air almost as they pleased, dragons to fly against those in Swemmel’s rock-gray are most extremely welcome.”
“I can see how they would be,” Balastro agreed. “Till lately, Zuwayza has enjoyed all the advantages of the Derlavaian War, but only a few of the drawbacks: you won land from Swemmel, yet paid relatively little for it because he was more heavily involved against us.”
That was imperfectly diplomatic, no matter how much truth it held. Hajjaj felt obliged to reply, “Do remember, your Excellency, that Unkerlant attacked my kingdom a year and a half before yours went to war againstKingSwemmel.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Balastro said. “But ours is the bigger fight with Unkerlant, even reckoning in the relative sizes of your kingdom and mine.”
Another undiplomatic truth. When Hajjaj started to answer this time, a landing dragon’s screech drowned out his words. Normally, that would have annoyed him. At the moment, it gave him the excuse he needed to say to Balastro, “Walk aside with me, your Excellency, that we might confer together in something a little closer to privacy.”
Balastro bowed again. “With all my heart, sir. Nothing could please me more.” That might well not have been true, but it was diplomatic.
WhenGeneralIkhshid started to follow the two of them away from the other dignitaries and the writers and the folk concerned with the mundane needs of dragons, Hajjaj sent him a quick, hooded glance. He and Ikhshid had served Zuwayza side by side for many years. The veteran officer stopped after a step and a half and began fiddling with a sandal strap.
Had Hajjaj and Balastro sought privacy among Algarvians, everyone close by would have swarmed after them: the redheads were powerfully curious, and also powerfully convinced they had the absolute right to know everything that went on around them. Hajjaj’s countrymen showed more restraint. They could hardly show less restraint than most Algarvians, the Zuwayzi foreign minister thought.
“How now, your Excellency?” Balastro asked once he and Hajjaj had put a little distance between themselves and the other folk who’d come out to see the Algarvian dragons fly into the dragon farm.
“If you have a grievance with my kingdom, please come out with it,” Hajjaj replied. “Your little hints and gives do nothing but make me nervous.”
“All right, that’s fair enough; I will,” Balastro said. “Here’s the grievance, in a nutshell: you expect Algarve to make you a perfect ally and come to your aid whenever you need
something from her, and yet you refuse to return the favor.”
“Zuwayza is a free and independent kingdom,” Hajjaj said stiffly. “You sometimes seem to forget that.”
“And you sometimes seem to remember it altogether too well,” Marquis Balastro said. “I tell you frankly, your Excellency, those Kaunian exiles you harbor have sneaked back to Forthweg and done us a good deal of harm there.”
“And I tell you frankly, I have trouble blaming them when I consider what you Algarvians have done to the Kaunians in Forthweg,” Hajjaj answered.
“When you consider what Kaunians have done to Algarve down through the centuries, you might well say they have it coming,” Balastro said.
Hajjaj shook his head. “No, your Excellency, I would never say that. Nor wouldKingShazli. I have made my views, and his, quite clear to you.”
“So you have,” Balastro agreed. “Now I am going to make something quite clear to you, and I am sure you will have no trouble making it quite clear to your king: if the Kaunians keep hurting us in Forthweg, they make it likelier that we lose the war against Unkerlant. If we lose the war against Unkerlant, you will also lose the war against Unkerlant. It is as simple as that. The more you want to deal withKingSwemmel afterwards, the more you should look the other way when the blonds climb into their boats and sail east to Forthweg.”
“We do not look the other way,” Hajjaj insisted. “Our navy is far from large, but we have turned back or sunk several of their boats.”
Balastro snorted. “Enough to show us a few: no more than that.”
The trouble was, he was right. Hajjaj’s sympathies, and those of his king, lay with the blonds who’d escaped from Algarvian occupation, and from the massacres the redheads inflicted on those blonds. As far as he was concerned, wars had no business being fought that way. Not even Swemmel of Unkerlant had fought that way till the Algarvians forced it on him. Waging war on the same side as the redheads made Hajjaj want to go sweat himself clean in the baths.
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