Darkness Descending

Seven

Cornelu pulled his socks up above his knees. He wished they were thicker wool, so they might keep his legs warmer. The wind that blew into the hills above Tirgoviste came from the southwest, off the Narrow Sea and die land of the Ice People, and carried the chill of the austral continent with it. Snow wouldn’t have surprised him.

He stared down from the hills toward the harbor town. With three Algarvian officers quartered in her house--my house, too, curse them, Cornelu thought--Costache would assuredly be snug and warm, and so would Brindza. The Sibian naval officer consigned the Algarvians to the powers below all the same.

“Come on, you lazy bugger,” shouted the boss of the woodcutting gang for which he’d been working the past few weeks. “Swing your axe or I’ll throw you out on your cursed arse.”

“Aye,” Cornelu said, and then again, wearily, “Aye.” The weariness was more of the spirit than of the body, though the work made a man sleep every night like one of the logs made from trees he cut down. But Cornelu had lived his whole life in polite company, and was used to politely phrased orders. He found few of those here.

He returned his attention to the pine he’d been attacking. When he swung the axe, he imagined it bit into the Algarvian’s neck rather than the dark, scaly bark of the tree, and that blood spurted in place of dribbles of fragrant, resinous sap. The gang boss, a wide-shouldered bruiser named Giurgiu, grunted in something approaching satisfaction and went off to shout at another woodsman who wasn’t working so hard as he might have.

To give Giurgiu his due, he did almost as much work as any two of the men in the gang. He handled an axe as if it were light as a schoolmaster’s switch and did far more than his share on a two-man saw. His hands bore calluses half an inch thick, and looked and felt hard as rocks.

Cornelu’s hands had bled the first several days after he’d joined the woodcutters. He’d never used them so roughly before. Rubbing them with turpentine made him want to shriek, but it had also helped him gain calluses that gave him some protection. By now, swinging the axe was just work, not torment.

Chips flew as he struck the tree again and again. “Come on, you whore!” he panted. Having been reviled, he in turn reviled something that could not argue back. He let out a snort. Maybe this work wasn’t so much different from the Sibian navy after all.

He heard a crackling deep inside the tree, a crackling and a groan. He struck harder than ever, looking up toward the crown of the pine as he did so. The tree stood straight for another couple of strokes. Then it began to lean.

“She falls!” he shouted. Woodcutters near him scattered. He hadn’t known to let out a warning cry when he first joined the gang. The second tree he felled had almost driven Giurgiu into the ground like a sledge hitting a spike. He’d had trouble blaming the boss for cursing him then.

With a louder crackling, the pine went over. Cornelu stood on the balls of his feet, ready to leap out of the way if it looked like falling on him. He’d almost driven himself into the ground two or three times. Here, though, he put the trunk right where he wanted, a skill he’d acquired without quite knowing how. The pine thudded down into yellowing grass near the edge of the wood.

Giurgiu came over and examined it. He nodded. “I’ve seen worse jobs,” he rumbled at last--from him, high praise. “Now we turn it into stovewood. They’re going to get chilly down in the city before too long, and they have to cook even when they aren’t chilly. As long as the hills still have woods on them, the likes of us won’t go hungry.”

“Aye,” Cornelu said. He wondered how much longer the hills would have woods on them. In earlier times, forests had covered far more land than they did now. Before the days of iron ships that coursed the ley lines, great trees were essential for the timbers and masts of the merchantmen that had made Sibiu rich and the galleons that had made her strong. Great stretches of forest had been royal preserves then. Things were different nowadays. Cornelu doubted they were better--with the Algarvians occupying the kingdom, they couldn’t very well be.

Giurgiu brought over a big two-man saw. “Come on,” he said. “Act lively. We’ll cut the trunk into wheels, and then you can split the wheels into wedges. Don’t stand there gawping, curse it--it’s not like you’ve got a lot of time to waste.”

“Aye,” Cornelu repeated. But for his foul mouth, Giurgiu did think like a naval officer. Cornelu grasped the handle of the saw and lowered it to the tree trunk.

Round after round of wood leaped off the trunk. Manning a saw with Giurgiu was like manning it with a demon--he never seemed to tire. Cornelu tried his best to keep the boss woodcutter from doing too much more than his share of the work. Giurgiu noticed, too. “You’re not the handiest fellow I’ve ever seen,” he remarked when even he had to pause for a blow, “but you can pull your weight when you set your mind to it.” That left Comelu absurdly pleased.

A boy of about fourteen scooped up sawdust--and a little dry grass and dirt with it--and stuffed it into a leather sack. It got sold for kindling. So did pine needles, after they were dry.

“There!” Giurgiu said after a surprisingly short time. “You can deal with the wheels yourself, like I said before. And lop the branches into short lengths, mind. Don’t leave ‘em as long as you did that one time.” He didn’t wait for Cornelu’s agreement, but strode off to see how some of the other woodcutters were doing.

That one time had been weeks before. Giurgiu hadn’t forgotten, and made sure Cornelu didn’t forget, either. He was indeed very much like an officer in some ways.

By the time Cornelu finished turning the tree into wood, darkness was falling. This far south, days quickly got short as autumn wore on. Here in the woods, that made itself more obvious to Cornelu than it had back in Tirgoviste. There, light to hold night at bay had been easy to come by; Tirgoviste sat on a power point. Simple firelight couldn’t come close to matching it.

Cooking over a simple fire didn’t measure up, either, not to Cornelu. Meat came out burnt on the outside and raw in the middle when held over the flames on a stick. The porridge of beans and barley and peas would have been boring no matter how it was cooked. But appetite made a wonderful sauce.

And exhaustion made a wonderful sleeping draught. Cornelu had discovered that in the navy, and now was reminded of it again. Though the night was long, Giurgiu had to shake him awake at dawn. He was not the only one to be treated so, which spared him embarrassment. He gulped down more of the bland porridge.

Giurgiu said, “I’m going to send Barbu and Levaditi into town with the wagons today.” He eyed Cornelu as he spoke.

Sure enough, Cornelu jerked as if stung by a wasp. “What?” he yelped. “You told me I’d get to drive one of those wagons.”

“And now I’m telling you something different,” the boss woodcutter answered. “Barbu’s got a sister who’s sick down in Tirgoviste town, and Levaditi’s our best haggler unless I go myself. I didn’t much care for the price you brought back on that last load you took in.”

“But...” Cornelu said helplessly. He ached to see his wife. More than that, he ached to touch her. He didn’t know whether he could have managed either of those things, especially the latter, but he wanted the chance to try. Thinking of Costache under siege from three lecherous Algarvian officers--and what other sort was there?--ate at him. Next to that, haggling seemed of small import. So did anyone else’s troubles.

Giurgiu folded massive arms across his massive chest. “That’s what I’m telling you now, and that’s how it’s going to be.” He looked Cornelu up and down. “If you don’t like it, you can leave, or else you can make me change my mind.”

The rest of the woodcutters chuckled. Giurgiu wasn’t the gang boss only because he knew the business inside and out. He was also stronger and tougher than any of the men he led. From what Cornelu heard, no one had challenged him for a long time. But Cornelu knew skill counted for as much as strength. He set down the bowl from which he’d been eating and got to his feet. “All right, I’ll have a go at that,” he said.

Giurgiu stared. So did the other woodsmen. Giurgiu walked out onto the meadow. “Come on, then,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ve got stones in your bag, anyhow, but I don’t think it’ll do you much good. And you’ll go out and work after they throw water in your face, too.”

“No, I won’t,” Cornelu said. “I’ll drive the wagon instead of Levaditi.” He wondered how foolish he’d just been. Giurgiu moved more like a cat than a bear, and he was a lot bigger than Cornelu. The woodcutters gathered in a circle around the two men.

“Come on,” Giurgiu said. “You want me, come and get me. Either that or pick up your axe and get back to work.”

With a silent sigh, Cornelu approached. No, it wouldn’t be easy. But he couldn’t back down now, not unless he wanted to lose all his pride. He rushed at the boss woodcutter, deliberately making his attack look clumsy. Fooling Giurgiu into overconfldence seemed his best hope.

And it worked. Giurgiu let fly with a haymaker that would have knocked Cornelu through a boulder had it landed. But Cornelu seized the woodcutter’s beefy arm, bent his own back, and threw Giurgiu over it and down to the dying grass. He started to leap on the bigger man. But Giurgiu didn’t land like a falling tree, as he’d hoped. The boss woodcutter rolled away and bounced to his feet while the rest of the gang exclaimed in astonishment.

Giurgiu eyed Cornelu. “So you know what you’re doing, eh? All right. We’ll see who’s left standing at the end.” Now he advanced with grim concentration.

In the unpleasant minutes that followed, Cornelu hurt his opponent several times. He blacked one of Giurgiu’s eyes and landed a couple of solid kicks in the ribs. But the head woodsman gave more than he got. Blood poured from Cornelu’s nose, though he didn’t think it was broken. His own ribs gave eloquent testimony of how Giurgiu’s had to feel. Somewhere in the middle of the brawl, he spat out a small chunk of tooth, and counted himself lucky not to lose most of a mouthful.

At the last, Giurgiu got round behind him, seized his arm, and bent it back. “You won’t be able to work if I break something in there,” he remarked. “Had enough, or shall I go ahead and do it?” He bent the arm a little farther. Cornelu’s shoulder screamed.

“Enough,” Cornelu mumbled through swollen lips and even more swollen self-disgust.

Giurgiu let go of him, got up, and hauled him to the feet. Then he slapped him on the back and almost knocked him down. “Well, you do have stones,” he said, and the other woodcutters nodded. “You made me sweat for it.” The men nodded again. Giurgiu went on, “Now wash your face and get to it. You’re not taking a wagon down to the city today and that’s flat.”

“Aye,” Cornelu said. Someone brought him a bucket. Before splashing away the blood, he looked at his reflection. He was not a pretty sight. Maybe it was just as well Costache wouldn’t get the chance to look at him.

“Your Majesty . . .” Marshal Rathar licked his lips, then said what he had to say: “They have broken through in the north. They have broken through in the south, too, though not so badly. The weather hampers them worse there.”

King Swemmel’s dark eyes burned in a face as pale as that of a Kaunian kept out of the sun his whole life long. “And how did this happen?” he asked in a deadly voice.

“It was magecraft, your Majesty,” Rathar answered. “I am only a soldier; I can tell you no more than that. If you would have the details, you must have them from Archmage Addanz here.”

Swemmel’s burning gaze swung toward the chief sorcerer of Unkerlant. “Aye, we will have the details, Addanz,” he said, even more harshly than he had spoken to Rathar. “Tell us how you and yours failed Unkerlant in her hour of need.”

Addanz bowed his head. Like Rathar, he was in the flower of his middle years. Most of the old men who might have served Swemmel were dead. Some, the lucky ones, had died of natural causes. Others had chosen the wrong side in the Twinkings War or displeased Swemmel afterwards. Their ends, commonly, were harder.

“Your Majesty,” Addanz said, still not looking up, “I did not expect the Algarvians to do as they did. None of us expected the cursed Algarvians to do as they did.” He freighted the adjective with more than its usual mild weight of meaning. “When they did as they did, the world shuddered, for those with the wit and training to sense such things. By the powers above, your Majesty, the first time they did as they did, I almost fell over dead.”

“Better if you had,” Swemmel snarled. “Then we could appoint someone of some wit in your place.” He turned back toward Rathar. “And yours.”

“Mine?” Rathar said--yelped, rather. He’d hoped that, with the king’s wrath turned on the archmage, he might escape unscathed. No such luck, he saw. He let out a muted protest, the only kind safe around King Swemmel: “What did I do?”

“Nothing--which is why you are in part to blame,” the king answered. “You should have known the stinking redheads would try some such ploy when straightforward war began to fail ‘em.”

“Your Majesty, none of us dreamt they would do--this,” Addanz said. Rathar nodded to him in grateful surprise. For the archmage to defend him took more courage than he’d known the other man to possess. Addanz went on, “You surely know, your Majesty, how life energy is a very potent source of power for magecraft--how soldiers whose sticks run low on blazes may recharge them with the death of a captive or of a brave comrade.”

“Aye, we know this,” Swemmel said. “How could we not know it? The soldiers in the far west, particularly, have used the life energy of some few of their number to help the rest hold back the louse-ridden, fuzzy-bearded Gongs.”

Addanz nodded. “Even so. Of some few of their number, your Majesty, is the critical phrase. For life energy is the most potent, most concentrated form of sorcerous energy. And the Algarvians, you might say, went suddenly from the retail to the wholesale use of such energy. They gathered together a couple of thousand Kaunians in one place--in each of several places, actually--and slew them all together, all at once, and their mages turned the energy from those slaughters against our armies.”

“That is the way of it,” Rathar agreed. “The mages who aid our soldiers against the foe did everything they could to hold back the great storm of sorcery raised against ‘em”--as Addanz had defended him, he returned the favor--”but they were overwhelmed.”

“It is a great wickedness, the greatest of wickednesses,” Addanz said in a voice filled with dread. “To take men and women who have done nothing, to use them so, to slay them so as to steal their life energy... I did not think even Algarvians could stoop to such a thing. They fought hard in the Six Years’ War, but they used no more vileness than anyone else. Now . . .” He shook his head.

King Swemmel heard him out. Indeed, Swemmel listened intently. That relieved Rathar, who had feared the king would burst into one of his rages and start shouting for executioners. Then Swemmel’s eyes swung back to him, and he wondered if relief had come too soon. “How do we stop ‘em?” the king asked. Now his voice was calm, dangerously calm.

It was the right question. It was, at the moment, the only question. Still, Marshal Rathar wished his sovereign had not asked it. Though he knew it might cost him his head, he answered with the truth: “I do not know. If the Algarvians will massacre by the thousands those they’ve conquered, we facing them are like a man in a tunic with a knife facing another in chainmail with a broadsword.”

“Why?” Swemmel asked in startled curiosity--so startled, it took Rathar by surprise.

“Because they have no scruples about doing what we will not,” the marshal replied, setting forth what seemed obvious to him.

Swemmel threw back his head and laughed. No, more: he howled. A small drop of spittle flew across the table at which he and his subjects sat and struck Rathar in the cheek. Tears of mirth rolled down the king’s face. “You fool!” he chortled when at last he could do anything but laugh. “Oh, you milk-fed fool! We never knew we had a virgin leading our armies.”

“Your Majesty?” Rathar said stiffly. He hadn’t the faintest notion what King Swemmel meant. He glanced over to Addanz. The archmage’s face held horror of a different sort--to Rathar’s amazement, horror of a worse sort--than it had while Addanz was explaining what the Algarvians had done: That deeper horror told Rathar everything he needed to know. He stared at Swemmel. “You would not--”

“Of course we would.” Laughter dropped from the king like a discarded cloak. He leaned forward in his seat and brought the full weight of his presence to bear on Rathar. “Where else, how else, shall we get chainmail and a broadsword of our own?”

That was another question Rathar wished Swemmel had not asked. Having fallen into the abyss themselves, the Algarvians would now pull him in after them.

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 Highness. 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.

“You know perfectly well, or you cursed well ought to.” Krasta tried to hold on to her defiance. Against Lurcanio, that was next to impossible. He had the edge on her, just as Algarve’s army had had the edge on Valmiera’s a year and a half before.

And he knew it. “Suppose you tell me,” he repeated. “Suppose you tell me in great detail. Come in and sit down; do make yourself comfortable. And close the door behind you.”

Krasta obeyed. She was very conscious of obeying, of following his will rather than her own. It chafed at her, like trousers too tight in the crotch. Trying to get a little freedom, a little breathing space, she gave Lurcanio a saucy smile and said, “Your men will think I came her for another reason.” She’d done that once, on a whim, and certainly had distracted Lurcanio from whatever he’d been working on.

She did not distract him today. “Let my men think whatever they please,” he said. “You came down here to tell me you had heard . .. certain things. Now you do not seem to want to tell me what these things are. I need to know that.” He waited, looking at her.

Again, Krasta felt herself obeying. Because she was obeying and not doing as she wanted--as she did whenever she was not around Colonel Lurcanio--she gave it to him full in the face: “Is it true that Algarve is taking Kaunians out of Valmiera or Jelgava or ... or wherever”--she’d been shaky in geography, as she’d been shaky in a good many subjects at the academies she’d sometimes (often briefly) graced--“and doing horrible things to them off in barbarous Unkerlant?”

“Oh. That.” Lurcanio gestured dismissively, as if flicking a speck off his tunic. “I thought you were talking about something important, my sweet. No, it is not true that we are taking people out of Valmiera or Jelgava or doing anything to them anywhere. There. Is that plain enough?”

She didn’t notice he hadn’t answered quite all of her questions; had she paid closer attention at one of her academies or unfinished finishing schools, perhaps she might have. But his assertion didn’t lay a fortnight’s rumors to rest at a stroke, either. “Then why do people say you are?” she persisted.

“Why?” Lurcanio sighed. “Have you not seen for yourself that most people--especially most common people--are fools and will repeat anything they hear, as if they were so many trained jackdaws?”

That, aimed at Krasta, was a shrewder stroke. “I certainly have!” she exclaimed. “The commoners who aren’t fools are commonly knaves. Commoners... commonly.” She laughed. She made jokes mostly by accident, and didn’t always recognize them even then. When she did, she felt uncommonly pleased with herself.

Lurcanio laughed, too, more than the feeble wordplay deserved. “There--you see? Out of your own mouth you convict these liars. Have any of your friends disappeared? Have any of your servants disappeared? Have any of their friends disappeared? Of course not. How could we hope to keep such a thing secret if it were so? It would be impossible.”

“Aye, so it would,” Krasta admitted. Had anything truly been going on in Valmiera, the rumors would have been juicier, full of more details. Now that she thought about it, she saw that plain. Still. . . “Why does Kuusamo war on you, then?”

“Why?” Colonel Lurcanio raised an elegantly sardonic eyebrow. “I’ll tell you why, my sweet: because the Seven Princes are jealous of our triumphs, and look for any excuse to tear us down.”

“Ah.” Again, that made sense to Krasta. She’d done the same thing to social rivals and had it done to her. She nodded.

Now Lurcanio’s smile was charming again. He pushed his chair back and away from his desk. The chair was Algarvian military issue; its brass wheels squeaked. “As long as you are here, do you care to give my men something to gossip about?”

This time, his voice held no command. He never tried to force Krasta in such matters: not overtly, anyhow. Had she chosen to walk out the door, he would never have said a word about it. Not least because she was free to refuse, she decided not to. Knowing the other Algarvian officers would be jealous of Lurcanio didn’t hurt, either. She sank to her knees in front of him and flipped up his kilt.

Having eased her mind (and her body; Lurcanio was scrupulous about returning such favors), she went back to her bedchamber to choose a cloak for the day’s journey through the shops of Priekule. Bauska was no help. With her, what people called morning sickness lasted all day long. She was liable to gulp and flee at any moment. If that was what carrying a child meant, Krasta wanted no part of it.

Her driver, also muffled against the chill of approaching winter, took the carriage to the Boulevard of Horsemen. As soon as he handed her down onto the street, he took a flask out of his pocket and swigged from it. That would help keep him warm, or at least make him stop caring he was cold.

Krasta was more intent on what she would do than on what her servitor was doing. The Boulevard of Horsemen, which held Priekule’s finest shops, was not what it had been before the Algarvians came. Far fewer people walked--paraded, really--along its splendid sidewalks. Many who did were redheaded soldiers in kilts. Shopkeepers did good business with them, at any rate; as often as not, packages filled their arms. Krasta’s smile was nasty as she watched a couple of Algarvians emerge from a shop that sold lingerie. Would the silks and lace they’d bought adorn their Valmieran mistresses or go home to keep their wives happy and unsuspecting?

She wished Lurcanio would buy her presents there. If he didn’t, though, the world wouldn’t end. Several earlier lovers already had. The dainties rested in a drawer in her bedchamber, smelling of cedar to hold the moths at bay.

A few doors past the lingerie shop stood a clothier’s Krasta enjoyed visiting. She peered past the peeling gold leaf in the window to see what new things he was displaying. If she didn’t stay up with fashion, Lurcanio might decide to buy lingerie for someone else.

She stopped and stared. The nearly military cut of the new tunics and trousers on display wasn’t what caught her eye. She had never imagined a Valmieran clothier would put kilts out for sale after Algarve beat her own kingdom in war. It struck her as indecent--no, worse, un-Kaunian.

But out of a dressing room stepped a young blond woman wearing a kilt that stopped a couple of inches above her knees and left the rest of her legs bare. “Indecent,” Krasta muttered. She’d worn kilts before the war, but now? It seemed a far more public admission of defeat than taking an Algarvian lover. But the clothier’s assistant clapped her hands in delight, while her customer reached into the pockets of the trousers she wasn’t wearing any more and paid for the kilt.

I won’t shop there again, Krasta thought, and walked on, discontented. She stepped into a jeweler’s, looking for earrings, but he had nothing that suited her. She reduced the shop girl to tears before leaving. That restored most of the good humor she’d lost standing in front of the clothier’s.

And then, walking up the street toward her, she saw Viscount Valnu. He waved gaily and went from a walk up to a trot. Krasta stiffened and turned away. Valnu was wearing a kilt.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, and leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.

She turned away again, not playfully as she so often had, but in grim earnest. “What’s the trouble?” she echoed. “I’ll tell you what’s the trouble. That’s the trouble.” She pointed in the general direction of the kilt. On a man even more than on a woman, it seemed an admission--even a celebration--of defeat.

Valnu pretended not to understand. “What, my knees?” Wicked laughter filled his thin, handsome face. “My pet, you’ve seen a great deal more of me than my knees.”

“Never on the street,” Krasta ground out.

“Oh, you have so,” Valnu said. “That time you ended up shoving me out of your carriage--we weren’t just on the bloody street, we were in it.”

“That’s different,” Krasta said, though she couldn’t have told him how. Then she asked the question that was really on her mind: “How can you stand to wear it?”

“How can I stand it?” Ever the opportunist, Valnu rested a hand on her hip. “Sweetling, the way things are, I should hardly dare not to don the kilt, wouldn’t you say? It’s protective coloration.”

Krasta might have heard the phrase once or twice, but it made no sense to her here. Impatiently, she said, “What are you talking about?”

“What I said,” Valnu answered. “You know, the butterflies that look like dry leaves when they fold up their wings and the bugs that look like twigs, all so the birds can’t eat ‘em. If I look like an Algarvian ...” His voice trailed away.

“Oh.” Krasta wasn’t the cleverest woman in Valmiera, but she saw what he meant. “They aren’t really doing that. I don’t think they’re really doing that. Lurcanio says they aren’t doing that. If they were, we’d have heard about people who went missing, don’t you think?”

“Not if they didn’t go missing from Valmiera,” Valnu said.

“We’d have heard about Jelgava, too, or the Jelgavan nobility would have, and they would have started screaming their heads off. We’d have heard that,” Krasta said. It was Lurcanio’s argument, but it had convinced her, and she made it her own.

If it didn’t convince Valnu, it made him thoughtful. “Maybe,” he said at last. “Just maybe. By the powers above, how I wish it could be true. Still and all, though”--he ran the hand that wasn’t on Krasta’s hip down his kilt--”better not to take chances. Law of similarity and all that. And don’t I look splendid?”

“You look grotesque.” Krasta exercised tact only around Colonel Lurcanio. “As grotesque as an Algarvian in trousers. It looks unnatural.”

“You say the sweetest things. I’ll tell you what it is, though.” Valnu leaned toward her, almost close enough for his tongue to touch her ear as he whispered, “It’s bloody drafty, that’s what.”

He startled a laugh out of Krasta, despite her best intentions. “Serves you right,” she said. This time, when Valnu tried to kiss her on the cheek, she let him. He went on his way cheerfully enough, but she found she could get no more pleasure out of shopping and rode back to her mansion in a glum and dour mood.

“Coming on!” an Algarvian soldier shouted in bad Unkerlanter. “More firewoods!”

“Aye, more firewood,” Garivald said, and dumped his bundle at the redhead’s feet. Every branch the Algarvians burned was one the villagers of Zossen couldn’t, but anyone who complained got blazed. No one complained, then--not where the Algarvians could hear.

It could have been worse. Only a squad or so of Algarvians garrisoned the village. The men of Zossen could have risen and wiped them out. The men of a village a few miles away had risen and killed all of Mezentio’s soldiers there. That village was gone now. The Algarvians had brought in more soldiers, behemoths, and dragons, and wiped it off the face of the earth. The peasant men were dead. The women . . . Garivald didn’t want to think about the women.

His friend Dagulf thumped a load of firewood at the Algarvian’s feet. The fellow nodded and gave a theatrical shiver. He might not speak much Unkerlanter, but, like a lot of redheads Garivald had seen, he had a gift for gestures. “Cold,” he said. “Very cold.”

Garivald nodded; disagreeing with the occupiers didn’t pay. Dagulf nodded, too. They caught each other’s eye. Neither laughed or even smiled, though Garivald knew he felt like it. It was only a little below freezing, and might even get about it by the middle of the day. If the Algarvian thought this was cold, he hadn’t seen anything yet.

After they’d got out of earshot of the redhead, Dagulf said, “He hasn’t got the clothes he needs for this kind of weather.”

“No,” Garivald said, and then, “Too bad.” He and Dagulf did laugh now. Garivald scratched. His calf-length wool-tunic was twice as thick as the one the Algarvian wore. Beneath it, he had on a wool undertunic, wool drawers, and wool stockings. He was perfectly comfortable. When winter came on, he’d add a thick wool cloak and a fur hat. He wouldn’t be perfectly comfortable then, but he’d manage.

“Wouldn’t catch me wearing one of those little short kilts,” Dagulf said.

“Curse me if I’ll argue with you,” Garivald said. “First blizzard comes, it’d freeze right off.” He paused meditatively. “Might be the best thing that could happen to the whoresons, eh?”

“Aye.” Dagulf pulled a sour face. “They’re a lickerish lot, Mezentio’s buggers. Looks like they’ll swive anything that moves--and if it doesn’t move, they’ll shake it.”

“That’s so,” Garivald said. “We’ve already had more scandal since they came than for years before. And afterwards, the women say the soldiers made ‘em do it and they didn’t have a choice, but a lot of ‘em look pretty cursed contented while they say it. All this Algarvian swaggering and hand-kissing and what have you spoils ‘em, you ask me.”

Dagulf said something vaguely related to hand-kissing. He and Garivald let out loud, coarse laughs. Then he said, “You ought to make a song about it--a song that’d keep our women from lying down with the redheads, I mean.”

“Nothing will keep them from lying down if it’s that or be blazed,” Garivald observed. “You can’t blame ‘em for that. But the other . . .” His voice trailed away. His expression went slack and distant. Dagulf had to nudge him to get him to keep walking. He murmured, “We’d have to be careful where we sung it.”

Dagulf grunted. “So we would.” He pointed toward Waddo, the firstman, who was limping toward them across the village square. With the ground pardy frozen, Waddo’s stick got better purchase than it had when everything was knee-deep in mud. Dagulf went on, “Algarvians aren’t the only reason we’d have to be careful, either.”

“He wouldn’t betray us to the redheads,” Garivald said, but then softened that by adding, “I don’t think.”

“He might,” Dagulf said darkly. “Selling us out is about the only way I can think of that he’d get himself in good with the Algarvians.”

“He hasn’t pulled anything like that yet, powers above be praised.” Garivald knew something else that might make King Mezentio’s men happy with Waddo. If the firstman led them to the buried crystal, they might forgive him for having buried it. And if he wasn’t sure they would, he might try to blame everything on Garivald, who’d helped him hide it.

“Hello, hello,” Waddo said as he came up to them at last. “A very good day to you both, I am sure.” He didn’t sound so sure of anything as he had before the Algarvians seized Zossen. He remained firstman, and did their bidding when they gave him any bidding to do, but he’d lost most of the authority he’d had as the nearest approach to King Swemmel’s representative in the village. As far as King Mezentio’s men were concerned, he was just a dog slightly larger than the other dogs in Zossen--and much more likely to be kicked.

“Good day,” Garivald and Dagulf said together. Dagulf pointed to Garivald and added, “Our friend here may be in the way of coming up with a new song.”

Garivald wished he hadn’t said even so much. Waddo, however, beamed. “I saw him looking all dreamy, so I hoped he might be. A new song would help make the long, cold winter nights pass quicker.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Garivald said. Now he’d have to come up with an ordinary song as well as the one urging the village women not to give themselves to Algarvian soldiers. He hoped “Waddo wouldn’t hear that one, even if the firstman had a daughter of an age, if not of a beauty, to draw the redheads’ notice.

“If it’s half as good as a couple you’ve come up with, it’ll be twice as good as a lot of the ones we’ve known for years,” Waddo said. “A minstrel in our own village--a songsmith, no less. Who would have thought it?”

“I thank you,” Garivald said shyly. The idea that he could make songs still astonished him.

“No, we thank you. You do us credit.” Waddo was very effusive. Is he laying it on too thick? Garivald wondered. Is he trying to lull me to sleep so he can sell me to Mezentio’s men? He wondered if he ought to dig up the crystal and hide it somewhere only he knew or throw it in a creek. If he could do it without being noticed, that might prove wise.

Of course, if the Algarvians caught him digging up the crystal, they’d blaze him, or maybe just hang him with a placard round his neck warning others not to do as he had done. Did Waddo want him to try something foolish? That way, he’d be punished, leaving the firstman in the clear. Garivald shook his head, as if to knock such notions out of it. He hated having to think that way.

“Aye, a new song would be fine,” Waddo said. “Anything that takes our minds off our empty bellies would be fine.”

“It would have been a good harvest,” Dagulf said mournfully. “If we’d got to keep more of it, it would have.”

“The redheads--” Waddo’s head went back and forth in the automatic cautious gesture the rest of the villagers had always used to make sure he wasn’t around before they spoke some of their minds. He didn’t see anything untoward--Garivald knew because he looked around, too--but he didn’t say much, either, contenting himself with a sigh and the remark, “That can’t be helped.”

“Neither can grasshoppers,” Dagulf said. Garivald contrived to step on his foot; the other peasant wasn’t thinking enough before he spoke today.

Waddo nodded. Garivald didn’t trust him even so. The firstman might find favor with the Algarvians by betraying other villagers, too.

After as little small talk as he could get away with and still stay polite, Garivald went back to his house and told Annore, “I’m going out to the woods again. This time, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to cut some firewood for us, too, not just for the redheads.”

“That would be good,” his wife said. “If you could knock a squirrel out of a tree with a rock or club a rabbit or two, that would be even better.”

“If I’m lucky, I will,” Garivald answered. “Of course, if I were lucky, there wouldn’t be an Algarvian within a hundred miles of Zossen.”

“And isn’t that the truth?” Annore said bitterly. “Well, go on, then. Maybe some small luck will help make up for the big.”

“Here’s hoping. Hand me the whetstone, will you?” He took the hatchet off his belt and got the edge as sharp as he could. While he was working for the Algarvians, he didn’t care what state his tools were in; dull ones gave him an excuse for going slower and doing less. Working for himself, he wanted to do the job right.

He hurried out among the trees. Firewood and the chance to hunt weren’t all that drew him. There in the quiet, words shaped themselves in his head more readily than back in the village. He’d had a whole verse vanish from his mind when Syrivald asked him a question at just the wrong time.

Waddo expected a song to make winter nights pass more pleasantly. Garivald knew that was the piece he should have been working on. Naturally, the other one he had in mind, the one that urged Unkerlanter women not to give their bodies to King Mezentio’s soldiers, kept forcing its way forward.

He threw a stone at a gray squirrel on die gray bark of a birch. The stone slammed into the trunk a few inches to one side of the little animal. The squirrel scurried around to the far side of the tree, chattering reproachfully.

“Whore,” Garivald muttered. He chopped at a sapling. Unlike the squirrel, it couldn’t run away. He stuffed lengths of the trunk and the bigger branches into a leather sack he carried over his shoulder. As his body did the work, his mind roamed free. Two verses centered on the word whore shaped themselves before he quite knew what had happened.

He quietly sang them to himself, weighing the sounds, seeing if the rhythm was right, looking for ways to make the verses better. By the time he went back to Zossen, he’d have them just the way he wanted them.

After singing them, he changed a couple of words, then sang them again. He was about to change one of the words back when someone behind him clapped his hands. Garivald whirled in alarm, his hand tightening on the hatchet’s handle. Some of the villagers thought the best way to get along with the Algarvians was to suck up to them. Anyone who tried taking this tale back to them would be sorry.

But the fellow who’d clapped didn’t come from Zossen. Garivald had never seen him before. He was skinny and dirty and mean-looking. Once upon a time, his grimy tunic had been rock-gray. He carried a stick; Garivald’s hatchet wasn’t much against it. He wasn’t pointing it at Garivald, though. Instead, he was nodding in slow approval.

“Good song,” he remarked, and his accent proved he hadn’t been born anywhere near the Duchy of Grelz. “Did you make it?”

“Aye,” Garivald answered before realizing he should have lied.

“Thought so--hadn’t heard it before,” the stranger said. “Aye, a good song. Sing it over, friend, so I get it straight.”

Garivald did, this time all the way through. The stranger listened, then made a peremptory gesture for him to do it again. Now, the stranger sang along. He had a good ear; he made few mistakes.

“My pals will like that,” he said. “Aye, in a few months people will be singing that all over the countryside. Not everyone’s given up against the Algarvians, no indeed, not even after their behemoths ran over us. What’s the name of your village yonder?”

“Zossen,” Garivald answered.

“Zossen,” the stranger--a soldier who hadn’t surrendered?--repeated. “Zossen will hear from us one of these days.” He sketched a salute, as if to an officer, before slipping away between the trees. He was far better in the woods than Garivald and vanished almost at once.

Fernao didn’t know why he’d been summoned to the royal palace in Setubal. The bored functionary who’d linked crystals hadn’t explained, saying only, “All will be made clear upon your arrival, sir.” In a way, Fernao supposed his caution made sense: a good mage could spy on the emanations passing between two crystals. But not knowing why he had to go to the palace irritated him.

As he got off the caravan car in front of the palace grounds, an unpleasant thought crossed his mind: what if it had to do with the exiled King Penda of Forthweg? That was worse than irritating. It was downright frightening. He would have been perfectly happy--powers above, he would have been delighted--never to see Penda again.

He worried as he walked up the broad red-brick path toward the palace, worried so much that at first he paid little attention to the building itself. Having lived his whole life in Setubal played a part in that; he took die palace for granted, where a man who saw it but seldom would not have.

Even for him, it wasn’t easy. The Lagoan royal palace cried out to be noticed--cried out in a loud, piercing voice. It was built in the ornate Algarvian style of the century before last: the Algarvian style carried to an extreme only the royal treasury could have supported. Everything leaped toward the heavens, and everything was carved in incredible, maniacal detail. The entire history of Lagoas up till that time appeared on the walls and buttresses and towers, all of it perfect, much of it swathed in gold leaf. Fernao wondered how many stonecutters had gone blind while the palace rose.

If anything, the great bronze doors that led into the royal residence were even more astonishing than the building. On them was the Second Battle of the Strait of Valmiera--in which, not long before the palace went up, Lagoas had won a smashing victory over Sibiu--all picked out in enamelwork whose brilliance had not diminished a bit over the course of two centuries.

Muttering under his breath, Fernao passed through those brazen doors and into the palace. A dozen secretaries sat behind desks in the antechamber there. He went up to one of them and gave his name.

“A moment, sorcerous sir, if you please,” the fellow said. “Let me consult my list of appointments.” He ran his finger down the sheet. “Ah, here you are—and right on time, too. Your appointment is with Colonel Peixoto, in the Ministry of War. That is in the south wing, sir--go through this hall and take the corridor to your left.”

“Thank you very much,” Fernao said. The secretary bowed in his chair, almost as ceremonious as an Algarvian. Fernao walked through the antechamber with a new bounce to his stride. Only the splendor of his surroundings kept him from whistling as he walked. Whatever this was about, it had nothing to do with Penda. And if it has nothing to do with Penda, he thought, I don’t care what it is.

As he got farther from the parts of the palace where King Vitor actually lived, interior decoration grew less grandiose. By the time he reached the offices of the Ministry of War--a good ten minutes’ walk from the antechamber--he’d come to surroundings in which he could actually imagine men doing serious work.

A uniformed clerk took charge of him. After making him touch his Guild card--had he been an impostor, the spot he touched would have glowed red--the clerk led him to Peixoto’s office. The Lagoan colonel was younger and leaner than Fernao had expected: within a couple of years of the sorcerer’s own age. He was also more enthusiastic than Fernao had looked for in a soldier.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, a very great pleasure,” Peixoto said, springing from his seat to clasp Fernao’s hand. “Here, take a chair, make yourself comfortable. Will you drink a glass of wine with me?” Without waiting for an answer, he clapped his hands. The military clerk hurried in with a bottle and a couple of glasses.

The wine had the tang of oranges and lemons. “A Jelgavan vintage,” Fernao remarked without bothering to look closely at the bottle.

“Aye, so it is,” Colonel Peixoto answered. “The Algarvians make better, but I’ll be cursed if I want any of theirs now. I’d think I were drinking blood.” His face, which seemed sunny most of the time, clouded. “That’s a filthy trick they’ve pulled in Unkerlant.”

“You’re not a mage, Colonel--you have no notion how filthy it feels to me,” Fernao said. “If you’ve called me here to try to put a stop to it, I am your man, and with all my heart.” He emptied his wineglass, then poured it full again.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, sir mage, in a manner of speaking,” Peixoto said. “We aim to put a thorn under the wings of King Mezentio’s dragons, so we do. And from all I can see”--he rustled papers on his desk--”you are the perfect man--the perfect man, I tell you--for the job.”

“Say on,” Fernao told him.

“I’ll do just that,” Colonel Peixoto replied. “Curse me if I won’t. Now, then--I see you’ve served as a ship’s mage. You were doing that when the war broke out, weren’t you? Can’t very well hit the Algarvians a proper lick unless we cross the sea to get at ‘em, can we?”

“No, indeed,” Fernao said. The wine lent his voice extra solemnity. “Although the research I’m working on now is important, if you think I could best serve the kingdom by going back to sea, I’ll do it.”

Peixoto beamed. “Spoken like a patriot, my dear sir. But that’s not precisely what we have in mind for you, by your leave. You’re not far off--don’t get me wrong--but you’re not quite on, either. Plenty of mages--plenty of Lagoan mages, anyhow--go to sea. But do you know--do you know, sir?--that only a handful of Lagoan mages, and fewer of the first rank, have ever set foot on the land of the Ice People?”

Fernao discovered he’d made a mistake, a dreadful mistake, when he’d decided he didn’t care why he’d been called to the palace so long as it had nothing to do with King Penda. “Colonel,” he said plaintively, “have you ever eaten boiled camel hump? Have you ever tried to gnaw through strips of dried and salted camel meat?”

“Never once, powers above be praised.” Colonel Peixoto sounded pleased that that was true, too, for which Fernao could hardly blame him. The mage wished it were true for himself. Peixoto went on, “But since you have, that makes you all the more valuable for this expedition. You must see that, mustn’t you?”

“What expedition?” demanded Fernao, who was not in the mood to see anything if he could help it.

“Why, the one we’re planning to the austral continent, of course,” Peixoto said. “With a little bit of luck--with only a little bit of luck, mind you--we’ll throw out the Yaninans and however many Algarvians they’ve got down there to give them a hand, and then where will they be? Eh? Where then?”

“Somewhere warm and civilized,” Fernao answered. Colonel Peixoto laughed heartily, as if he’d said something funny rather than speaking simple truth. The mage asked, “Why on earth are we mad enough to want to take the land of the Ice People away from the Yaninans? As far as I’m concerned, they did us a favor when they ran us out of it last year.”

“What’s on the earth there doesn’t matter, not a bit--no, not a bit. It’s what’s in the earth that counts.” Peixoto leaned forward and breathed a wine-smelling word into Fernao’s face: “Cinnabar.”

“Ah,” the mage said. “Indeed. But still--”

“But me no buts, my dear sir,” Peixoto said. “Without the austral continent, Algarve has not got a lot of cinnabar. Without cinnabar, her dragons cannot flame nearly so fiercely as they can with it. If we take it away, that makes fighting the war harder for them. Can you tell me I am mistaken in any particular there?”

“No,” Fernao admitted. “But can you tell me that whatever we have to spend to take the cinnabar from the land of the Ice People away from Mezentio’s men won’t be twice--three times--five times--what it costs them to do without?”

Peixoto beamed at him. The colonel really was too cheerful to make a typical soldier. “Ah, a very nice point, a very nice point indeed! But you must recall, we can think differently now that Kuusamo has joined the fight on our side and we don’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back. Algarvian folly there, nothing else but.”

“I do recall that, aye,” Fernao said. He’d hoped it would mean the Kuusamans would start sharing whatever they know of whatever they weren’t talking about. So far, it hadn’t; they’d kept blandly denying everything. Pointing to a map on the wall by the desk, he continued, “But I also recall that Sibiu sits over our route to the austral continent, and that there are a certain number of Algarvians and Algarvian ships and Algarvian leviathans and Algarvian scouting dragons in Sibiu.”

“It’s true. Every bit of it’s true.” Nothing fazed Peixoto. “I never said this would be easy, sir mage. I said we were going to undertake it. If we succeed in landing men and dragons on the austral continent, we will require sorcerers somewhat familiar with conditions there--and also with conditions in the waters thereabouts. Can you deny you are such a mage?”

After his journey by leviathan back from the land of the Ice People to Lagoas, Fernao was more familiar with those waters than he’d ever wanted to be. “I don’t suppose I can deny it, no,” he said, wishing he could. “Even so--”

Colonel Peixoto held up a hand. “My dear sir, your voluntary cooperation would be greatly appreciated--greatly appreciated indeed. It is not a requirement, however.”

Fernao glared at him. That was plain enough--unpleasant, but plain. “You will dragoon me, then.”

“If we must, we will,” Peixoto agreed. “We need you. I promise you this: the rewards of success will not be small, neither for the kingdom nor for yourself.”

“Nor will the penalties--for me, anyhow--be small if we fail,” Fernao said. “The kingdom, I expect, will survive it.” He sighed. “At least I’ll have till spring to prepare for this . . . adventure.”

“Oh, no.” Peixoto shook his head. “It will not be at once, but we aim to move later in the winter. The bad weather in the south will make it harder for the Algarvians to spy out what we’re doing, and we have more practice sailing in those waters during wintertime than they do.”

“Practice dodging icebergs, you mean,” Fernao said, and the colonel, curse him, nodded. The mage went on, “And I suppose you intend landing your army at the edge of the ice pack and letting everyone march to real ground.”

He’d intended that for sarcasm. To his dismay, Colonel Peixoto nodded. “Aye. Nothing better than taking the foe by surprise.”

“A blizzard at the wrong time would take us by surprise,” Fernao remarked. Peixoto shrugged, as if to say such things couldn’t be helped. Fernao tried again: “What do you propose that we eat once we get down there?”

“We’ll manage,” Peixoto said. “After all, the Ice People do.”

“You’re mad,” Fernao said. “Your superiors are mad. And you want me to help save you from yourselves.”

“If that’s how you care to put it,” Peixoto said. “I’m going along, when we go. I’m not asking anything of you I dare not do myself.”

“Oh, don’t turn Algarvian on me,” Fernao said crossly. “I’ll go.” He wondered how big a fool he was being. No--he didn’t wonder. He knew.