Act of Will

by A. J. Hartley

  The governor of Verneytha snapped his fingers and gestured brusquely to his military advisor, who placed a bag of coins on the table. The governor pushed it across to Mithos, holding him with his rat eyes. “And for a further two hundred silvers,” he said, very quietly, “you will bring a progress report to my palace in Harvest, two weeks from today.”

  “If the count has no objection? . . . ” said Mithos coolly.

  “No,” said Arlest, “though I expect you to keep us informed as a matter of course.”

  The duke of Greycoast did mind. He rubbed a pink hand over his red face and wheezed noisily. “I see no reason to pay extra for what we will all learn together,” he said, eyeing Treylen frankly.

  “It’s my money,” said Treylen. “My people’s money. My lands are a little more distant. I just want to be sure I am kept properly abreast of all developments.”

  He said the last two words looking pointedly at Mithos. Raymon scowled but said nothing.

  “Due to the widespread nature of the attacks,” said Mithos, in a businesslike manner, “we will be moving around all three regions. Though the keep is a worthy and secure base for our investigations, we cannot expect to operate solely from here. When we are in Grey-coast we will pass on whatever we know. Likewise in Verneytha. If there are major developments, we will ensure that word reaches all of you.”

  The duke of Greycoast relaxed slowly, apparently satisfied. Mithos gave him a reassuring smile and closed his hand around the bag of coins that Verneytha had given him. Treylen considered him closely, as if trying to decide whether to demand the return of the money. For whatever reason, he didn’t.

  The count, hesitantly, added, “My men are at your service, but you would do well to operate without them until you have the enemy’s identity and whereabouts in your grasp. Frankly, I don’t wish to send them out to be attacked without good reason.”

  “Are you suggesting,” said Treylen, “that there is anything to learn about their identity? That they are not simply bandits?”

  “Bandits?” scoffed Duke Raymon. “This is an army. How many cavalry units must you lose before you see that this is a tactical war with a careful and deadly enemy?”

  Treylen smiled humorlessly and, speaking softly and carefully, said, “Whoever they are, they come from south of the Verneytha border.”

  “How dare you!” growled Greycoast, dragging his bulk up from his chair.

  “If they are an army,” said Verneytha, still cool, “then they belong to somebody. They aren’t mine.”

  “Gentlemen!” said Arlest, rising to his feet with a pained look. “This is not the way. My land is too crippled by poverty and hunger for me to waste time harboring suspicions about my neighbors. We must pool our resources, not squabble amongst ourselves.”

  The two men fell silent, resentfully accepting the authority of their host.

  “You may need each other more than you know,” said Mithos. “Troops of the Diamond Empire are massing in Stavis. Whether they have some involvement in your recent troubles or not, they may soon show themselves ready to capitalize on them. That weakness can only be increased by your mutual distrust. I hope you will excuse my being so candid.”

  That last piece of diplomacy was instigated by a glance from Lisha.

  “The Empire has always ignored us,” rumbled Duke Raymon thoughtfully during the ensuing pause. “Why should that change?”

  “Perhaps they have noticed your iron foundries and silver mines,” said Edwyn Treylen with a hard-edged smile.

  “Or your acres of crops and grazing land,” returned Raymon.

  “Whatever the reason,” said the count, “we must bear the possibility in mind. Thank you, Mithos, for bringing it to our attention.”

  Mithos nodded slightly and then said, “You have said nothing of assassination attempts indoors like the one we saw today.”

  “It has not happened before,” said the count, heavily. “The army of Shale is the most significant force in the area, the military backbone of the three lands, and I am its leader. But why they should choose this moment to strike at me, I cannot guess.”

  “The body of the assassin was not identified?”

  “No,” said the count. “A cavalryman went missing on maneuvers two weeks ago. It seems to be his armor, though the red cloak and the axlike weapon are the hallmarks of the crimson raiders. The man who used them is completely unknown to us.”

  “May we see the body, the cloak, and the weapons?” asked Mithos as he rose to leave. “Unless there is more to discuss?”

  That was a joke. I had been sitting there in a kind of stupor, waiting for signs that this nightmare might show signs of improvement, but they apparently couldn’t wait to ride straight into whatever portion of Hell was reserved for the very, very stupid. But there was one more shortcut to self-destruction, and it was Duke Raymon who brought it up.

  “While you are investigating, we also expect you to try to reduce the effectiveness of the attacks against us. In four days a major cargo of coal is to arrive by barge in the port of Seaholme in southern Grey-coast. The cargo will be loaded onto ten wagons and taken north for the Hopetown market, where it is badly needed. It is both vulnerable and conspicuous. Some or all of you should be there to ensure its safety, though I will, of course, put a sizable force at your command.”

  Mithos merely nodded, and the duke looked away, aware that he was asking a hell of a lot.

  That was my limit. I finally spoke: “Are you sure there’s nothing else we can do for you? Heal the sick and raise the dead? Move the castle to the other side of the river? I mean, we’ve got a magic sword, so I suppose anything is possible. I’ll have to nip home for my fairy dust, but . . .”

  “I think,” said Treylen, “that our friend is being sarcastic.”

  “That’s the first observation in the last half hour that has made any sense to me,” I remarked.

  “Will . . .” began Mithos.

  “Ten wagons of coal!?” I exploded. “ ‘Vulnerable and conspicuous’ is right! This is a fool’s errand, and I’m not the fool you’re looking for. There are only six of us, or hadn’t you noticed? Six! What difference—?”

  I was about to go on, and in detail, when I felt the unmistakable cold of a knife blade pressed hard against the flesh of my groin. Renthrette. Her right arm was resting casually on the table, but her left had slipped under it and pushed her dagger just hard enough to pierce my breeches.

  I swallowed hard, shut up, and kept very still. No one else had seen anything and they seemed to be waiting for me to finish my tirade, but I had the sneaking feeling that she had been looking forward to castrating me in the name of party dignity for some time now. I said nothing till the eyes on mine and the fractional insistence of the dagger made me mew out a few words like a startled kitten.

  “Well, er . . . on second thought, it sounds quite reasonable, really. No problem at all. We’ll get right on it.”

  When we left them, the count and his wife were still exchanging glances of weariness and bewilderment, sensations that seemed to follow me about. Renthrette never even looked at me, and none of the others seemed to guess what had happened. I kept my mouth shut, having realized in that moment, when my genitals had been hanging in the balance, so to speak, that I was sitting next to a psychopath. Had I breathed a word of this to Orgos or the others, I was pretty bloody sure that if I woke up at all the next day, I’d be greeting the dawn in falsetto.

  But the situation was clearly out of control, and while Renthrette could shut me up, she couldn’t change the clarity with which I saw this crimson-cloaked gateway to the underworld. If I was going to get home in one piece, I would have to come up with a new way of playing this adventurer thing, since poking holes in the script didn’t seem to be helping. But, when it comes to acting, I’m nothing if not versatile.

  SCENE XX

  Beacons of Honor

  It doesn’t look like an ax to me,” I said, trying to sound interested.

  The
formalities over, and the dignitaries from Verneytha and Greycoast already on their respective ways home, the party had gathered together in a cold storage room on the ground floor of the keep. The dead assassin lay on a table, covered by a sheet. We had examined him and found nothing and, for the benefit of those who doubted my enthusiasm—like, say, Renthrette—I had led the search. The crimson cloak was of light, commonplace wool, but the weapons were more suggestive.

  “It isn’t an ax,” said Garnet, touching the head of the thing with his fingertips. It was a huge blade with a broad, sweeping edge, but where it met the socket of the three-foot wooden haft, it was only a couple of inches across.

  Orgos spoke, his voice low and reverential, as if he was in some dim temple surrounded by candles. “See how light it is?” he said. “Ideal for mounted men. The edge is razor-sharp, so it slices rather than hacks. You can see the lines and swirls where the steel has been beaten out and reheated, over and over again, for strength, flexibility, and a better edge than you will find on most swords: remarkable workmanship. I saw one of these in the Cherrat lands once, many years ago, an heirloom brought by a swordsmith from the west. He called it a scyax.”

  “Is it magic?” I asked, innocently.

  Orgos scowled at me. “Don’t be stupid, Will,” he said.

  “Ah, I’m the one being stupid,” I said, as if everything was clearer now. “Your sword is magic, but this one isn’t. Obviously. They probably messed up the—what would you call it?—enchantment? Sorcery? Spell? I want to get this right,” I explained, “because I wouldn’t want to be talking crap where magic weapons are concerned.”

  “What about the arrows?” said Renthrette, ignoring me pointedly.

  “Finely made, but apart from the red flights, not particularly distinctive.” Orgos shrugged, still glaring at me. “Their tips are of a steel hard enough to get through all but the thickest armor. They have long barbs on both flanges. You’d never get one of those out of you without making a hell of a hole. Too nasty to be a standard purchase, so probably made specially.”

  “Who stands to gain the most from these attacks?” Mithos asked.

  “No one, really,” said Lisha. “Not if we restrict our view to the three immediate lands. Incidentally, don’t be deceived. They call themselves dukes and counts and governors but they owe no allegiance to any higher authority, so they are, to all intents and purposes, the kings of three small countries. They depend upon each other economically, but Shale is obviously the poor relative.

  “According to the histories,” she went on, “Shale relied on income from shipping for many years, and its river estuary ports in the south were very profitable. Then the sandbars shifted and the rivers silted up. Soon, it was costing more to dredge the rivers than was being made by the commerce they brought in. The ports were closed, and now, apart from the tiny harbor where we docked and a few isolated fishing villages, coastal Shale is dead.

  “Combine that,” Lisha continued, “with the poor soil and lack of significant mineral deposits, and you get a country with almost no resources. The only things they have here are a well-grounded reputation for horse breeding and a sizable army, by local standards at least. Shale is getting by at the moment on the money that the other two pay it to keep that army strong and ready to defend them all.”

  “And the others?” Mithos asked.

  “Verneytha is the economic success story of the area,” Lisha answered. “It is a rich nation of landowners and farmers. Growing conditions are perfect and they supply the region with the majority of its food. Closing the trade routes is hurting Verneytha, but it has also closed off Shale’s and Greycoast’s lifelines.

  “Greycoast falls in the middle: better off than Shale, but not as wealthy as Verneytha. It produces its own barley and grazes a good deal of livestock, as well as exporting massive quantities of metal ores. Its seaports, though fewer than they were, are thriving, and produce enough for all three lands. Greycoast’s biggest asset, however, is the market in Hopetown, which has, for decades, been the area’s main trading site.

  “So who stands to gain the most?” she said, coming back to the original question. “Nobody. They all lose, one way or another. Shale gains in that ruining the markets of its neighbors makes its own produce more valuable, and it keeps its army employed, but scarcity increases prices and Shale can hardly afford what it needs from Verneytha and Greycoast already. Shale will starve within the year. Verneytha and Greycoast are both losing badly needed trade, and no price increases will compensate for that. Economically, no one wins.”

  “In any case,” said Mithos, “the attacks have been randomly distributed over all three countries and with equal savagery.” He sighed, and then said, “I didn’t want to seem unsure in front of the count, but I do think that we should move very carefully and be ready to acknowledge when the situation is beyond us. Thoughts?”

  There was a moment’s pause and the group looked pensive.

  “We have given our word,” Renthrette reminded us, a little defensively.

  “That’s true,” I said, “and we can’t tarnish our reputation.”

  Again Renthrette shot me an inquisitorial glance, searching for a sarcasm that was not apparently there.

  “I admit,” I went on thoughtfully, “that I am not truly one of you and my opinion doesn’t carry much weight. But I’d like to add something. I have seen in you, all of you, something I did not believe still existed, something I’m not sure I believed had ever existed outside a story. I mean, valor. Honor and dignity. Virtuous intent united with courageous action. It is a remarkable sight, and I would hate to see this mission’s admittedly daunting nature stifle this, what? . . . this flame. This beacon of principle. I know it sounds melodramatic, but that’s what it is.”

  There was a thoughtful silence and I sensed a wave of pride in the room.

  “I’m not very good at expressing myself like this,” I continued, “but even at a time like this, that flame gives me courage, even if it cannot give me hope. Even as I anticipate the enemy bearing down on us in their red cloaks, I feel my strength renewed by that beacon. We will let the glow of honor illuminate the battlefield,” I went on, my voice building, “however much the merciless enemy throng about us. And when they shoot us down with their barbed arrows, we will sing our heroic defiance and the light of our beacon will shine in the blood that pours from us. However horribly they pierce our bowels with their spears, however savagely they mutilate us with their axes, we will die knowing that we fell with honor. Passersby will look at our corpses as they steam amongst the burning coal wagons from Seaholme, and they will know that we bore the torch of valor. And though the world will say we died in vain, that our arrow-riddled bodies mean nothing to the vast and brutal enemy that must eventually vanquish us all, we will know differently.”

  There was a long silence. I waited.

  It was—somewhat unexpectedly—Garnet who picked up the gist of the thought and took the next logical step.

  “But . . .” He faltered. “Don’t you think? . . . ”

  “Garnet?” said Lisha.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he sighed, unsure of how much to say. “I mean, honor is great and all, but . . . It just seems sort of futile to me. I mean, Will’s right about the valor and everything, but . . . well, how the hell can we defend ten wagons of coal from a hundred trained soldiers?”

  “We will have an armed escort—” began Renthrette, but he cut her off.

  “I know that, but what is to say they won’t just hit us with more men still? They always win, you know? They’ve never been beaten yet, did you notice? Our predecessors were valiant, weren’t they? It didn’t protect them. I mean, if the valor doesn’t produce results, what’s the point?”

  There was a long silence. I looked at the floor. His sister just stared at him.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a gesture of his pale hands. “It just seems sort of hopeless. We have nothing to go on and we could find a hundred soldiers waiting fo
r us as soon as we leave the castle. I say we go back to Stavis.”

  Another long silence followed, cold and sharp as the ax on the table before us.

  “No,” said Lisha gently but with enough conviction to show that there would be no further debate of the matter. “Not yet, at least. I appreciate you speaking your mind so frankly, Garnet, but we can’t say it is hopeless until we have begun our investigations. I suggest that we start with a journey to Seaholme. All of us.”

  Garnet fell silent, frowned, and then nodded, looking suddenly young.

  So this was where the party leader pulled rank on us, I thought, as everyone made for the door and bed. The others seemed content, so I couldn’t even complain that the decision wasn’t democratic. I didn’t know what to do or say. Even if I had wanted to go back to Stavis I wouldn’t dare attempt that journey alone, and Garnet would always jump back into line when Lisha cracked her whip. For the moment I was stuck with them.

  As I turned to go, Lisha caught my eye and smiled, a smile that was small and cool.

  “Bravo, Will,” she said, “a fine performance. And clever.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I stammered, but she was already leaving the room.

  I slept poorly that night, partly because of my long rest in the wagon but also because my mind wouldn’t stop turning the day’s events over and over. Moreover, I was afraid. A touch of bluish moonlight glowed through my barred window, giving an icy hue to the castle’s cold, grey stone. I lay there still and quiet, trying not to think of dukes and counts and the business we had undertaken, or those who had been hired to do the job before and now lay in shallow graves by the roads where the wagons had burned.

  SCENE XXI

  Stories

  Over breakfast, Lisha assigned tasks. Mithos was to speak with Arlest about the logistics of our trip to Seaholme and the coal that would await us.

  “Have you decided on a route yet?” he asked.

  “The most direct route is also the most inconspicuous,” Lisha answered. “We’ll go under the southernmost tip of the Iruni Wood. If the count asks, say we haven’t decided yet but we will probably take the Hopetown road.”