by Robin Hobb
The liquid Soldier’s Boy had swallowed seemed to have fled my mouth. Likari hastened back with another cup. I could smell it and Soldier’s Boy could not keep my eyes from being drawn to it. But Dasie’s outstretched palm denied the boy access to me. Soldier’s Boy could not think of anything at that moment except the cup of lifesaving moisture, just out of reach.
“Speak!” she commanded Soldier’s Boy and I felt a feeble spark of his temper.
He tried to clear his throat and could not. He rasped out the words “If…a trick…stupid to…abandon now. ”
Anger flared in her eyes. She had pushed him too far. “Then I’ll just kill you now. ”
He coughed. His throat was thick, as if he’d been ill for weeks. “That’s your…answer for everything. Kill it. Better kill me then. You don’t have patience. For strategy. ”
“What strategy?”
He shook his head. He could barely lift his hand but he pointed a trembling finger at the cup Likari held. His lips remained closed.
Dasie gave a snort of disdain. “Very well. Your ‘strategy’ seems to be that you will keep silent until I allow you food and drink. I shall. Because I know that at any time I need to do so I can kill you. You will keep. Right now, I have other things to attend to. ”
She straightened up and looked around. In that moment, she looked to me more like an officer assessing a situation than a Speck mage. She spoke to her feeders. “Bring me fresh food and drink. I have need of it. Necessary as the iron is, it still leaches strength from me to be around it. Have all of the swords put safely away, except for two. I wish a man with a sword to remain here, at an appropriate distance from Kinrove. He should be aware of the iron while taking no harm from it. The same for Intruder Mage here. He”—and she gestured toward Jodoli—“may leave as soon as his feeders have him ready to travel. I go now to speak to all the dancers. Those of our kin-clan will travel to our winter grounds with us. Others who have saviors among our warriors may go with them. But I want everyone enslaved by the magic and forced to dance to know that they are now free, and that if they require help to return to their own kin-clans, we will give it. ”
Olikea held a piece of soft bread to my mouth. It had been dipped in oil and honey. As Soldier’s Boy chewed, my body rejoiced at the sweetness. Strength from it came into me.
A young warrior had been standing by one of her feeders as Dasie spoke, obviously waiting to report to her. The moment her words paused, he made an obeisance to her and then said, “Great One, we have already given that news to every dancer. We have told them they are free to go, and that if they need help, we will give it. But some of them—”
“Some of them will stay with me. And dance again. Because they have felt what they are doing and know what they are doing is within the design of the magic. ”
The interrupted warrior made another brief obeisance. “Even so, Great One,” he said in confirmation of Kinrove’s words.
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“You have twisted their minds!” Dasie accused him.
“The magic has spoken to them,” Kinrove countered. He still rested on his dais. Several of his feeders stood near him, offering food and drink. He handed a cup back to one of them, drew a shuddering breath, and spoke. “The dance is the work of the magic, Dasie. How can you think it comes from me? The magic has always spoken to me in dance, that is true. When I was younger and less filled with the magic, I danced myself, danced until my feet bled, because that was when the magic spoke most clearly to me. ” He accepted a cup from one of his feeders, drained it, and handed it back. He spoke more strongly. “To each of us, the magic comes in its own way. My dance is not something I created to enslave our people. The magic gave me the dance as a way to hold the intruders at bay. And it has worked. ”
“The dance must not be stopped. ” I had not known that Soldier’s Boy was going to speak. I was as startled as Dasie was. Firada had Jodoli on his feet and they had begun to help him out of the pavilion. At my words, he froze and looked at me strangely. I gave an emptied cup back to Olikea. Likari was trying to hand me a piece of fruit. Soldier’s Boy made a small gesture with my hand, bidding him wait. He drew a deep breath and tried to put strength into his words. “The dance protects us. That shield must not be dropped now. It will take time for me to prepare my war. ”
Even that brief run of words had tired Soldier’s Boy. Olikea handed him a cool glass; it was not water, but a very pale golden wine. He drank from it and felt some energy come back. I alone knew of Soldier’s Boy’s hidden flash of anger at what Dasie had done to him. She had drained him of the magic he had so painstakingly built up. Drained it to no good ends when it was what they all would need most in the weeks to come! But he let nothing of that show on his face as he gave the glass back to Olikea. All eyes were still on him. He knew the power of his silence and was not quick to end it, despite the anger kindling in Dasie’s eyes. He tipped the glass again, draining the last of it, and handed it back to Olikea. “I need meat,” he said quietly. “And the mushrooms that have the orange circles inside the stems. And dried cirras berries. Fresh would be better, but I do not think anyone will have those. ”
“I will get them,” Olikea replied in a low voice, and rose from her place beside him.
“You seek to rebuild your magic reserves,” Dasie accused him.
“As should you. As should Kinrove and Jodoli. It will take all the magic that we can muster if we are to prevail against the intruders. But the first magic that we will require is that Kinrove reconstructs his dance. The intruders are resilient beyond your imagining. Even a day or so without fear and sadness, and they will rekindle their ambitions to cut the trees and build their road. The magic I did before I left there will occupy them for a time. And the winter snows will slow them. But I know them, Dasie. Without fear and sadness to weigh them down, they will push onward, in any weather, to achieve their aims. You need Kinrove’s magic to keep them corralled like herd beasts. It will be greatly to our advantage if they are huddled within their town and fort when we move against them. ”
“No!” I shouted within him. I could feel his thoughts forming. Something Epiny had said long ago drifted through his thoughts. “Fire fears no magic. ” He smiled. “No!” I cried out again, but it was not my voice he heard.
“Like corralled beasts,” Dasie said slowly. She licked her lips as if she were thinking of a favorite food. She took a slow breath. “You do have a strategy. Don’t you?”
He let the smile reach his lips and widen. “I do,” he confirmed. The memory of the coppersmith’s tent drifted through his mind. “But you will need me for it to work. And I will need my magic. Even more, you will need what I have that is not magic. You will need the knowledge I have that can work in places where iron makes magic fail. ”
She was silent for a time. Her feeders, her warriors waited on her words. Inside Soldier’s Boy, my agony burned me. Traitor, traitor, traitor. Kill him now, I begged her. Do not listen to him. Just kill him and let it be done.
“You shall have it. For now. You shall have your magic, and I will have my iron always near you, at the ready. If I think you have lied to me, at any time, I can kill you. Remember that. ” She glanced at her own feeders. “Bring his feeders food. Whatever he wishes. ” Her gaze moved to Kinrove. “You. I will leave with you whatever dancers wish to remain. Use them as they wish to be used. But any who wish to leave, I will allow to leave. I go to speak to them now. When I return, we will take counsel together, we three. ” She smiled. “The intruders will be banished from our lands. Or they will die. ”
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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BOXED
Dasie kept her word. I had expected that she would quickly depart Kinrove’s encampment after she had freed the dancers. I still believe that was her original plan, but discovering Soldier’s Boy had changed it. She stayed, and she schemed with us for the next ten days, as both
Soldier’s Boy and Kinrove grew fat again.
It was alarming to me how quickly Soldier’s Boy regained both his girth and his magic at Kinrove’s table. I do not think he could have fattened his body so quickly on any other foods. Kinrove’s phalanx of feeders gathered, cooked, and served the foods that were most powerful for our magic. Soldier’s Boy ate almost constantly. That he did so with evident enjoyment, even relish, only made me angrier at him. He consumed the food of the Specks that would most quickly restore his magic, and all the while, he plotted with Dasie against my own people.
Kinrove, poor man, had become a guest at his own table. Dasie had broken his power. Despite how quickly he regained most of his flesh, Dasie dominated him, not just by iron but with her unpredictability. In bringing iron swords into his encampment and attacking other Great Ones, she had done the unthinkable. All feared her. Kinrove’s extended kin-clan kept their distance from the Great Man’s pavilion, I think out of fear of what Dasie might do to Kinrove if they appeared to threaten her. His kin-clan provided for us, food and drink and tobacco, and his feeders served us, but Dasie was the commander of our days, not Kinrove. Dasie had a proprietary air toward not only Kinrove’s feeders and possessions but toward the Great Man himself. She did not say that she intended to use the Great Man’s powers for her own ends, but she did not need to. Her cavalier attitude said it all.
Yet Kinrove had his own small triumphs and seemed to relish them. As he had predicted to Dasie, some of his dancers stayed. The majority left. They rested, ate, and regained the strength to travel, and then, over several days, they departed from his encampment to seek the winter grounds of their own kin-clans. A good part of Dasie’s force departed with them, to help them journey home. Some of their guides were brothers or daughters or other kin, who had joined forces with Dasie as a way to bring the stolen relatives home. Others had no relatives among the rescuers, but left on their own or in small groups.
Olikea took Soldier’s Boy on a brief walk in the fresh air on the morning after Dasie’s attack. I watched some of the dancers depart. Most were thin, a few emaciated. The faces were lined, their eyes haunted as if they had just wakened from a terrible dream and were not yet free of its grip. I’d seen expressions like those before, on the faces of the penal workers forced to endure the terrors of the forest on a daily basis. I recalled my own experience of “breaking a Gettys Sweat. ” They had danced to send that paralyzing terror and draining sadness down to Gettys. It had been horrible for us to experience it, but for it to come to us, these dancers had had to experience it first. I wondered that Kinrove and his magic could demand that of anyone he cared about.
Stranger still to contemplate were the dancers who stayed. I caught only a glimpse of them. They were a small group compared to the throng who had danced before, perhaps no more than three dozen. They hunkered together around the dais where their drummers had set the rhythm, and Kinrove’s own feeders brought them food and drink. Other feeders massaged their legs with oil and rubbed their backs. The eyes of those dancers were haunted but also determined. They reminded me of elite troops, taking a rest before joining the next bloody battle. They fought the intruders, at great cost to themselves, but it was a cost they paid willingly.
Someone had to pay the costs to win a war, he thought to himself. He turned to Olikea. “I have an errand for Likari. An important errand. You must give him whatever of Lisana’s treasure you think he will need. Send him back, quickly, to the coppersmith’s tent. I only hope he has not left the Trading Place yet. Likari must purchase for me as many of the basket arrows as the smith has to sell. And the resin, the stuff the smith said to put inside the baskets. Send him quickly, within the hour. Tell him that when I need them, I’ll ask for them. ”
“What for?” Olikea demanded, but Soldier’s Boy only replied, “Do as I ask, but tell no one else. ” He left her to find and send the boy, and returned alone to Kinrove’s tables. His words had filled me with dread, but not even I could pry from his mind what his complete plan was.
Before that day was out, I heard first a single drum thumping, and then others taking up the tempo. The horns joined in, and even through the thick leather walls of Kinrove’s pavilion I heard the thudding of their bare feet on the dust as they pounded out the magic that held Gettys in thrall.
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Dasie heard it, too. She was at table with us, eating as heartily as any of us. She had, I noted, grown rounder of face since first I had seen her. Her iron bearers, three warriors with swords, were seldom far from us, but did not come close enough for the iron to be painful. One stood by the door flap of the pavilion. As long as he was there, no Great One dared approach it without Dasie’s express permission. Two more stood against the wall of the pavilion, stationed where Dasie could always see them and they could watch her. At any sign of danger to her, all knew, their orders were to attack and slay both Kinrove and me. She lifted her head when the drums first sounded, and held still as the beat grew stronger. After the dancers had begun their circuit, she heaved a great sigh and motioned to one of Kinrove’s feeders to put more meat onto her platter.
“No one can save a man from himself. Or a woman,” she said wearily.
Kinrove set down his cup. “Those men and women are saving us,” he said. There was a touch of defiance in his voice.
“They have protected you for years,” Soldier’s Boy agreed, to Dasie’s annoyance. Then he added, “But their protection of you is not complete, and the intruders have found a way to defeat it. They drug their slaves so that their senses are dulled to the magic you send. That is how they were able to push past the magic and into the forest to cut more ancestor trees this summer. They will use those slaves far more ruthlessly than Kinrove drives his dancers. Unless we stop them before spring frees the forest from snow, they will cut deeply into our ancestral groves this coming summer. ” In his mind’s eye, I knew he saw Lisana’s little tree. How vulnerable she was, compared to the forest giants. Her tree’s grip on the forest floor was tentative; it still fed mostly through the root structure of her old tree. He had to protect her.
I shared that goal with him but, unlike Soldier’s Boy, I was not willing to sacrifice every soul in Gettys, and any who might come after them, to guarantee Lisana’s safety. I wondered if Dasie was, and resolved that at some point I would find out.
Dasie set her own cup down with a thud. “Unless we stop them? Did you not say to me that you would stop them? But your words were an empty lie, weren’t they? You don’t know how to stop them. But I do. With iron. With the same iron they have turned against us. Iron is the answer. ” She looked around, smiling at the shocked silence that her words had wrought. “Oh, yes. ” She nodded to their horror. “Iron. Pistols and long guns. I have traded for some, and I will acquire others. I have a plan. It will require the cooperation of all the kin-clans. All the furs the People take this winter will be traded only for guns. There is one among the intruders, a traitor to them, who will make this trade with us. And when we have the guns, we will turn them on the intruders. They will know what it is to fall when iron balls rip through their flesh. If our magic cannot bring them down, then we will turn on them the very weapons they have used against us. What do you think of that, Intruder Mage?”
Soldier’s Boy set down his mug with a great thump, as if to outdo Dasie’s gesture. “I think you are a fool,” he said deliberately. “You have accused me of mouthing empty lies. Now I accuse you of saying stupid things. Bring iron among the People, and we will not be the People anymore! Bring iron, and we will not need to fear that the intruders will kill our ancestor trees. We will do it ourselves as we walk among them. Bring iron into our villages, and do you think any children will grow to be Great Ones again? Do as you suggest, and we will not have to worry about the intruders anymore. We will have become the intruders, and we will kill ourselves. ”
Dasie’s face had reddened as he spoke. By the time he finished, her mouth wa
s pinched white in the middle of her face, but the rest of it was scarlet, save for the dark specks that patterned it. She gripped her glass so tightly I thought it would shatter in her hand. I think it had been a long time since anyone had spoken so harshly to her, let alone told her she was stupid. She had probably thought that no one would dare to speak to her so. I wondered if we would survive Soldier’s Boy’s rudeness. Olikea stood with her breath bated. Likari was frozen in the act of offering more food. I think their thoughts were as mine. But Soldier’s Boy seemed strangely still when I touched his mind, as if he were playing a game and awaiting his opponent’s next move.
For a moment, she was so enraged she could say nothing. When she finally found words, they were the dare of an angered child. “If you think you can offer a better plan, then you should do it now, Intruder Mage! And if you cannot, then I think you should be the first of the intruders to die! I will not wait and wait for you to speak the wisdom you claim to have. Out with it! What is your great magic that you will loose on them?”
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Soldier’s Boy remained strangely calm. At a gesture from him, Likari set down the platter of meat that he had been offering to him. Soldier’s Boy leaned close to the lad. “Bring to me now what you bought for me at the market. ” As he ran off to obey, Soldier’s Boy drew himself up straight, as if to be sure that all eyes were on him. When he spoke, his voice was soft. I knew the trick. The others leaned toward him silently, straining to hear what he would say.
“I know the start of it will please you, Dasie. For it begins with killing. It must,” he said. His voice was so gentle, it almost hid the razor’s edge of his words.
“No!” I shouted inside him. I suddenly knew what was coming. Why had Epiny ever spoken such prophetic words? He paid me no heed.
“It begins with killing,” he repeated. “But not with magic. No. And not with iron. Our magic will not work in their fort. And whatever iron we might use against them, they would use triple that against us. And with experience, which we do not have. We must use a force that fears neither magic nor iron. ” He looked around at his audience, as if to be sure he had them. With exquisite timing, Likari had arrived. His arms were filled by a doeskin-wrapped bundle. Soldier’s Boy let the boy continue to hold it as he folded back a corner of it and drew out one of the basket arrows. He held it up. “We will use fire. We cage it in this arrow. And we will use ice. We will attack them in the winter, with the fire that their iron cannot stop. And the fire will expose them to the cold that iron cannot fight. Magic will take us there, and magic will bear us away.