by Larry Niven
Boerab grunted at this understatement; but courtesy forbade outright mention of a king’s death. “Made me dizzy to watch him, Dirrach; climbing like a squirrel to fetch grapes that were still unripe.”
A king, engaged in such foolishness! Dirrach’s face mirrored the thought.
“It wasn’t the climb that impressed me, so much as the fall,” Gethae said, her hand tracing the tumble of a falling leaf. She went on to describe Bardel’s acrobatic ascent, the gleam of the hydrophane on his breast as he sweated to the topmost extent of a vine high in a beechtree.
Bardel, deluded that such childish heroics made the right impression: “I don’t think I missed a branch on the way down.”
“Brought enough of them down with you,” Boerab snorted. “What a thump you made!”
Dirrach picked at his food, wondering how much of the tale was decoration. Taking it at half its face value, Bardel should now be lying in state—and in a basket, at that.
From Gethae: “I’ve never seen better evidence of a wardspell.”
At this, Bardel thanked his shaman for his coronation wardspell, now several years old and, in any case, known by Dirrach to be pure counterfeit. Or was it? Dirrach silently enumerated the scars and bruises sustained by Bardel since the coronation; rejected his wardspell out of hand. Still, something was accountable for a flurry of bizarre events—and all since the previous evening. Was the woman teasing him with covert hints? Dirrach allowed himself to wonder if one of the outlanders was a true shaman, and felt his flesh creep. Forewarned, a wise man would take careful note of further anomalies.
Mindful of royal duties, anxious to show himself equal to them in the very near future, Dirrach suggested a brief attendance to local matters before the open-ended negotiations. While emissaries lounged at one end of the chamber, Bardel settled several complaints from citizens of Tihan and vicinity. The runner, Dasio, rounded up petitioners quickly—all but one, for whom Dasio had promised to plead.
When a squabble between farmers had been concluded, Bardel stood up. “Is that the last, runner?”
“Yes, sire,…”
“Well then,…”
“And no, sire,” Dasio said quickly. “I mean, there is one small matter, but of great import to the girl, Thyssa.” Dasio saw the king’s impatience, felt the cold stare of Dirrach. Yet he had promised, and: “She begs the special attention of the shaman but dared not leave her work to make petition.”
Bardel sat back in obvious pique. Dirrach opened his mouth to deny the petition; remembered the visitors. “Quickly then,” he said.
“The girl fears for her brother, Oroles. She thinks he is suddenly possessed; and truly, the cub is not himself. Thyssa craves audience with our wise shaman, and is prepared to pay in menial labor.”
“Thyssa? Oh, the daughter of Urkut,” Bardel said.
Dirrach’s eyes gleamed as he recalled the girl. Prepared to do services for him, was she? But time enough for that when Dirrach occupied the throne. “Next week, perhaps,” he muttered to Bardel.
“But her brother was the pup I rewarded last eve,” Bardel mused. “He seemed only too normal then. What exactly is his trouble?”
Alarms clamored in Dirrach’s mind as Dasio blurted, “He thinks he talks with animals, sire. And to truth, it seems that he does!”
The shaman leaned, muttered into the royal ear. “The shaman will make compassionate treatment before this day is done,” Bardel said, parroting what echoed in his ear. So saying, he concluded the session.
* * * *
Following Dasio to the girl’s cottage, Dirrach applauded himself for the delay he had caused in negotiations. The outlander runners, in search of boundary clarification, would need three days for round trips to Shandor and Moess. In that time, a crafty shaman might learn more of these evidences of true occult power and perhaps even circumvent the luck of a king.
Dasio had alerted Thyssa to expect the shaman; traded worried glances with her as Dirrach strode into the cottage. Dirrach waited until the girl and Oroles had touched foreheads to his sandal before bidding Dasio leave them.
“The boy knows why I come?” Dirrach kept the edge off his voice, the better to interrogate them. The more he looked on Thyssa, the more honeyed his tones became.
Thyssa had told the boy, who rather enjoyed his sudden celebrity. “He’s never acted this way before,” she said, wringing her hands, “and I thought perhaps some fever—.”
Dirrach made a few stately passes in the air. A faint cluttering reached them from outside. The opal of Oroles nestled in the boy’s waistpouch unseen and, somewhere in the distance, a dog howled in terror. Kneeling, Dirrach took the boy’s arms, then his hands, in his own. No trembling, no fever, no perspiration; only honest dirt. “His fever is in his bones, and will subside,” Dirrach lied, then pointed to a cricket at the hearth. “What does the insect say, boy?”
“Bugs don’t say much, ’cause they don’t know much,” was the prompt reply. “I tried earlier; they just say the same things: warm, cold, hungry, scared—you know. Bugs ain’t smart.”
“How about mice?”
“A little smarter. What does ‘horny’ mean?”
Dirrach would have shared a knowing smile with Thyssa, but saw her acute discomfort. To Oroles he said, “It seems that your ability comes and goes.”
“It went today while I was working under Panon’s raft. You have to strip and swim under. You know those baitfish he keeps alive in a basket? Not a word,” Oroles said in wonderment.
Dirrach persisted. The boy showed none of the fear or caution of a small boy perpetrating a large fraud; but to ensure Dirrach of the sister’s pliant services, Oroles must seem to be mending. The shaman hinted broadly that cubs who lied about mana could expect occult retribution, adding, “Besides, no one would believe you.”
Oroles said stolidly, “You would. A raven told me he watched you running to and fro from your bed to your window this morning.”
“The raven lied,” Dirrach said quickly, feeling icy centipedes on his spine.
“And the ferret is angry because Dasio is standing between him and a rat nest, right outside.”
Dirrach flung open the door. In the dusk he saw Dasio patiently waiting nearby, his feet less than a pace away from a well-gnawed hole in the foundation wattling. No sign of a ferret—but then, there wouldn’t be. Dirrach contained a mounting excitement, sent the girl away with Dasio, and began testing the boy further. Though lacking clear concepts of experimental controls, the shaman knew that he must verify the events, then isolate the conditions in which they occurred.
An hour later, Dirrach stood at lakeside with a shivering and very wet Oroles, smiling at the boy. He no longer doubted the gift of Oroles; had traced its mana first to clothing, then to waistpouch, finally to proximity of Oroles with the tiny stone in the pouch. Such knowledge, of course, must not be shared.
Teeth chattering, Oroles tugged his leather breechclout on and fingered his waistpouch. “Can I have my gleamstone back?”
“A pretty bauble,” said Dirrach, eyeing its moonlit glitter; “but quite useless.”
“Then why can’t I have it back?”
Dirrach hesitated. The boy would complain if his treasure were taken, and no breath of its importance could be tolerated. If the boy should drown now? But too many people would wonder at Dirrach’s peculiar ministrations. Ah: there were other, larger stones; one of which just might explain much of young Bardel’s escapes from death. Imperiously: “Take the gleamstone, cub; I can get all of them I want.”
“The raven told you, I bet,” Oroles teased.
Dirrach led the boy back to the cottage, subtly leading the conversation where he willed. Before taking his leave, he learned that Oroles’s winged crony had admired the gleamstone, had claimed to know where a great many of them could be found near a warm spring in the northern mountains. It was not difficult to frighten the lad into silence, and to enlist him in the effort to locate a spring whose warm waters might have curati
ve power. Dirrach returned to the castle in good spirits that night, resolved to keep his curtains drawn in the future.
* * * *
After a dull morning spent on details of safe-passage agreements, the outlanders were amenable to an afternoon’s leisure. They groaned inwardly at Bardel’s proposal, but the deer hunt was quickly arranged. Dirrach would have preferred to wait in Tihan, the sooner to hear what his small conspirator might learn of the thermal spring; but the shaman had been absent from state affairs too much already; who knew what friendships Bardel might nurture with outlanders in the interim? Dirrach’s fingers itched for a mana-rich hydrophane; the sooner he could experiment with them, the better for him. The worse for others.
A series of small things suggested to Dirrach that the great stone at Bardel’s throat was constantly active. When Boerab stood in his stirrups by the king’s side and waved their beaters toward a ridge, both men found themselves unhorsed comically. They cursed the groom whose saddle knots had slipped; it was Dirrach’s surmise—a lucky guess—that knot-loosening spells were easy ones, even by accident. Far better, Dirrach thought, if he could surreptitiously try spells while within arm’s reach of Bardel—but the king was much too alert and active during the hunt, and at the negotiation table such incantatory would be even more obvious. And always the kept one eye on the winged motes that swept by, and thought of ravens.
The hunt was not a total loss for Dirrach, who cozened a wager from his king early in the afternoon. “One of the Shandorian gems, is it?” Bardel laughed. “Fair enough! If I can’t capture my quarry intact, a stone is yours.”
“But if he does, Dirrach, you have an iron axhead to hone,” Boerab grinned. “Bit of honest labor would do you no harm,” and the warrior rode off with his king.
The deer they surprised in the small ravine amounted almost to a herd. His foolhardiness growing by the minute, Bardel was in his glory. His shaggy mountain pony fell on the slope but, with preternatural agility, Bardel leapt free to bound downward as deer fled in all directions. Gethae fumbled for an arrow, but with a savage cry of battle Bardel fell on the neck of the single stag from above, caught it by backsweeping antler tines, wrenched it crashing to earth beneath him in a flurry of brush and bellowing.
Scrambling to avoid the razor hooves, whooping for the joy of it, Bardel strove to choke the stag into submission, and king and quarry tumbled into the dry creekbed. Something arced away, butterfly-bright in the sun, and Bardel’s next whoop was of pained surprise. The stag found firm footing. Bardel, now impeded by a limp, was not so lucky. With a snort of terror the stag flew up the ravine and Boerab, bow drawn, feathers brushing his cheek, relaxed and saluted the animal with a smile. It had been too easy a shot.
While Boerab shared his smile with Gethae (for she had witnessed his act of mercy), others were hurrying to Bardel. It was Averae who found the great opal amulet adorning a shrub, its braided thong severed in the melee, and Dirrach who noted silently that possession was nine parts of the mana.
Bereft of his protection, Bardel had immediately sustained a gash below the knee. Bardel accepted the bleeding more easily than Boerab’s rough jests about it; jokingly questioned the shaman’s old wardspell; retted the gem at his throat; and resumed the hunt. But the king was sobered and his leg a bit stiff, and on their return to Tihan Bardel made good his wager. Boerab saw to the battle wound while Dirrach, pocketing an opal the size of a sparrow egg, retired to “rest” until evening.
* * * *
Trembling with glee, Dirrach set the opal on a tabletop to catch the late sun in his chamber. He discovered the knot-loosening spell after sundown, and wasted time gloating while a warm breeze dried the last of the moisture from the hydrophane. Dirrach became glum as the spell seemed less effective with each repetition. The knock at his door startled him.
“Dasio the runner, sire,” said a youth’s voice. “I bring the girl Thyssa and her brother, Oroles. They said it was your wish,” he finished tentatively. Unheard by the shaman, Dasio murmured to the girl: “If you should scream, many would hear. I’ve heard ill rumors of our shaman with—”
The door swept open to reveal a smoothly cordial Dirrach. With more expertise in sorcery, the shaman could have the girl at his whim; it was the brat who might hold the key to that darker desire for power. Affecting to ignore Thyssa: “I hope your mind is clearer tonight, boy, come in—but come alone.”
Thyssa, stammering: “Our bargain, sire, I uh—might sweep and mend as payment while you examine the boy.”
“Another time. The cub does not need distraction,” Dirrach snapped, closing the heavy door. He bade Oroles sit, let the boy nibble raisins, listened to his prattle with patience he had learned from dealing with Bardel. He approached his topic in good time.
Oroles trusted in the shaman’s power, but not in his smile. It became genuine, however, when Oroles admitted that the raven had pinpointed the thermal spring. “He brought proof,” said Oroles. “It’s at the head of a creek a few minutes west of Vesz. Is there a place called Vesz? Do ravens like raisins? This one wants better than fish guts. Do you have a pet, shaman?”
It was worse than talking with Bardel, thought Dirrach. “The village of Vesz is near our northeastern but several creeks feed the place.”
“Not this one. It disappears into the ground again. The raven likes it because humans seem afraid to go there. On cool mornings it smokes; is that why?” Oroles narrowed his eyes. “I think that’s dumb. How could water burn?”
Dirrach rejoiced; he had seen warm water emit clouds of vapor. Three ridges west of Vesz, the boy went on, now straying from the subject, now returning to it. Dirrach realized that such a spot should be easy to locate on a chilly dawn.
Gradually, the shaman shaped his face into a scowl until the boy fell silent. “It’s well-known that ravens lie,” Dirrach said with scorn. “I am angry to find you taken in by such foolishness.” He paused, gathered his bogus anger for effect. “There is no such spring or creek. Do not anger me further by ever mentioning it again. To anyone! Pah! You ought to be ashamed.” he added.
Oroles shrank from the shaman’s wrath as he withdrew a nutshell from his waistpouch. “Maybe there’s no smoking water, but there’s this,” he insisted, employing the shell like a saltshaker.
“And where does the lying raven say he stole this?” Dirrach licked his lips as he spied, in the damp sprinkle of loam, a few tiny nodules of opalescence.
“Scraped from an embankment, fifty wingbeats south of the spring,” said Oroles. “Sure is slippery dirt; my pouchstring keeps loosening.”
Dirrach feigned disinterest, stressed the awful punishments that would surely await Oroles if he repeated such drivel to others. Dirrach could hear a murmur of male and female voices in the hall. “Your sister fears for your empty head, boy,” Dirrach repeated as he opened the door. “Do not worry her again with your gift of speaking with animals.” He ushered Oroles through, careful to show ostentatious concern for the boy, caressed the small shoulder as he presented Oroles to his sister.
And then Dirrach realized that the voices had been those of Boerab and the formidable Gethae, who strolled together toward the old warrior’s chamber, tippling from a pitcher of wine. Both had paused to look at Dirrach in frank appraisal.
The shaman dismissed the youngsters, nodded to his peers, said nothing lest it sound like an explanation. Gethae only glanced at the spindly form of Oroles as he retreated, then back to Dirrach. One corner of her mouth twitched down. Her nod to Dirrach was sage, scornful, insinuating as she turned away.
Dirrach thought, That’s disgusting; he’s only a little cub! But Gethae would have agreed. Dirrach returned to his chamber and his experiments, Bardel and his guest to theirs.
* * * *
The Shandorian runner was gone for two days, the Moessian for three; ample time for Dirrach to reassure himself that the fresh windfall of mana was genuine and resided, not in outlander sorcery, but in hydrophane opals. By tireless trial, error, and indif
ferent luck the shaman had enlarged his magical repertoire by one more spell. It would summon a single modest thunderbolt, though it was apt to strike where it chose, rather than where Dirrach chose. In that time he fought small fires, quailed at fog-wreathed specters, and ducked as various objects flew past him in his chamber. But as yet he had not been able to bring any of these phenomena under his control.
It was no trick to arrange a surface-mining expedition “on the king’s business”—Bardel rarely bothered to ask of such things—and to stress secrecy in his instructions to the miners. Ostensibly the men sought a special grit which might be useful in pottery glaze. Dirrach was adamant that the stuff must be kept dry, for he had learned two more facts. The first was that the things were potent only when damp. The second was that only so much mana lay dormant in an opal. Once drained by conversion of its potential into magic, the stone might still achieve a dim luster; but it would no longer summon the most flatulent thunderclap or untie the loosest thong. The specimen won from Bardel was still, after many experiments, mildly potent; but the pinpoint motes in the loam sample no were already drained of mana.
Dirrach saw his miners off from the trailhead above Tihan, giving them the exhausted grit as a sample. He regretted his need to stay in Tihan, but the outlanders required watching. The ten packass loads, he judged, would easily overmatch the mana of Bardel’s great amulet.
“If you succeed, send a messenger ahead on your return,” was Dirrach’s last instruction before the packtrain lurched away toward a destination a day’s hike to the north.
Dirrach turned back toward Tihan, imagining the paltry castle below him as he would have it a month hence, when he’d learned the spells. Stone battlements to beggar the ancient Achaeans; gold-tipped roofs; vast packass trains trundling to and fro; fearsome heraldic beasts of living stone, like those of legend, guarding his vast hoard of opals. And of course, a stockade full of wenches wrested as tribute from Moess, Shandor, Obuda,—it occurred to Dirrach that he was still thinking small. He must, obviously, conjure his great castle directly atop the thermal spring. It would stand on vapor, and soar into the clouds!