by Doris Egan
"Yellow headbands, robes, jackets, boots. Gold jewelry, too."
"They won't like that. What are they going to do with it so it doesn't get lost?"
"They can bury it in the damned ground for all I care. I don't give a kanz." He almost never used profanity, and certainly not twice in a row. His attention wasn't really on any of us, though; he was more like a man about to disarm a bomb than one working up a feat of magic. He'd been defining and shaping for hours, just in case, and now that it was all straight in his mind he had to get rid of it or he'd go crazy. So far as I know, this is not a law of magic. It's just the way Ran's work twists him up into knots. In a sense he was as obsessive as the Governor of Tuvin Province, but being less reform-minded he was more socially acceptable.
Lord, Ran must have been playing with ideas and formulae for months to have gotten this involved.
And he'd never said a word to me.
Stereth opened the door to the stairs and called, "Komo! Carabinstereth!"
A second later Carabin appeared. "Komo's downstairs setting a good example," she said. "Want me to drag him up?"
"Just pass this along. Tell your groups to take off any yellow clothing and all their gold jewelry. Tell them their lives may depend on it—Sokol's planning something big."
Carabinstereth's wide smile lit her odd blue eyes. Her searchlight grin hit Ran and me, then she turned and I heard her clomping almost cheerfully down the stairs. I don't know if you can understand this, but at that moment I felt badly about her trust in us, because I didn't know that we could justify it. Ran was certainly giving no guarantees.
Ran's troubled gaze swept the hilltops. "Tell her to get some rope, too."
"Rope?"
He swallowed again. "You'd better tie me up."
Stereth took this in. "May one ask why?"
"Because I might start to thrash around and hurt myself. And because I'll be less of a nuisance tied up." Stereth started to open his mouth and Ran cut in impatiently. "They're bound to have mirror-spells set up. I can get through the cracks—I know tricks they've never heard of." This was spoken without pride, as a statement of fact. "But anything I give them will rebound on me, too."
Stereth's logic was unhindered by concern for his sorcerer. "I take it from this that whatever effect you generate won't be lethal. I thought you were going to kill them."
"Does it matter to you, as long as you win?"
"No," said Stereth, "It doesn't matter to me. Do whatever makes you happy." He gestured to Lex. "You heard the gentleman; tie him up." And our gangster Robin Hood left the roof.
Even at a time like this, when Stereth absented himself from a place it was like an engine hum suddenly going silent.
Lex cast us both a sulky look and said, "I'll get the rope."
"Hurry." Ran's voice was tense.
"They're starting to move in," I said. Tiny men in tan uniforms were stepping leisurely out of hiding on the horizon.
"I know. Don't talk to me, Theodora."
Half a minute later Lex was back with a dirty hemp rope on his shoulder. Heaven knew what it had been used for previously. "Give me your hands," he told Ran.
He was very efficiently trussed hand and foot like a steer-mod for slaughter. That seemed bad enough, but he said, "Better tie me to the door. I might jump off the roof."
"Jump off the roof?" I repeated, loudly. "What the hell are you going to do to yourself?"
He continued speaking to Lex. "When it starts, Tymon had better be downstairs."
"Wait a minute—"
Just then Stereth reappeared. "They're ready down below, I'm going to send them out. How are you up here?"
Ran said, "About to go. But Tymon will be happier downstairs."
I said, "I want to stay with you."
He turned to me, tiredly, and said, "/'// be happier if you don't have to watch."
Stereth said, "Take her downstairs, Lex."
No doubt he didn't care if I stayed or not, but he wasn't going to have anything interfere with Ran's concentration. I backed toward the other end of the roof, Lex following. "Hey! No reason I can't stay till it gets bad, is there?"
Ran sighed. "All right. Back off, Lex, and could everybody shut up and ignore me?"
Stereth at once turned to the parapet. "Care to join me for the view, Tymon?"
I didn't really want to know about the view just then. But morbid curiosity got the better of me and I went over to Stereth. I glanced briefly back at Ran, who had closed his eyes and looked not like a sorcerer working a spell but a man in a fit of depression. Outside, the troops of the Tuvin militia were marching in with unmistakable confidence. "Fewer of them than I thought," I said to Stereth. There were only about a hundred.
"All that light show last night," he replied. "It was meant to rattle us."
I looked at his face. It still gave nothing away. And though I can't say I approve of Stereth's style—I see nothing wrong with occasional moderate displays of emotion, even negative ones like fear—I had to admire him for his incredible control. Myself, I was sweating ferociously and kept feeling as though I had to use the privy.
I said, "Where are the others?" Lord, my voice was embarrassing. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I thought they were coming out."
Stereth's voice was cool. "Komo and Carabinstereth? They'll be out in a second… there they are. I told them to wait till the militia were near enough to see clearly that they were surrendering. Good. This will give the bastards something to watch." The merest trace of viciousness was in that last sentence. Considering these soldiers were coming to torture and kill him, I suppose it was understandable.
A knot of people was forming below, hands clasped behind their heads. They kept filing out of the fort and spreading into a ragged line. I was distracted by them myself, and it took me a moment to register what was happening to the advancing militia.
They weren't advancing. The nearest of the tan uniforms were milling around uncertainly, as though faced with conflicting agendas. They were close enough to the fort for us to see faces, though not expressions—but there was one expression visible, an open mouth yelling something, and not happily. Then the yeller removed his helmet and put his hand on his head. A second later he was tearing off the jacket to his uniform, tossing it away… and scratching?
Within seconds the soldiers seemed to have forgotten us entirely, taken up with their private hells. Light-rifles were hitting the ground like summer rain. Stereth watched as though hypnotized, a look of open delight suffusing his features, the only time that I ever saw it. But I suddenly remembered what was happening and turned back to look at Ran.
His head was pushed against the stone at the side of the entrance to the stairway door. His eyes were closed. His inner robes were wet all over with sweat, and he was moaning. I left Stereth and went over to him.
"Ran?"
He was muttering under his breath. It couldn't be the
spell because whatever it was, he'd already placed it—to spectacular effect, as far as Stereth and I were concerned.
"Ran?"
"… hold on, hold on, can't take it back, can't take it back—"
He was straining against the ropes, pushing himself against the rough stone, saying the same words over and over and over again. Then he started hitting the back of his head against the wall. I grabbed it at once, frightened, but he fought me. He got in another good crack.
"Stereth!" I yelled.
He was too involved in the intoxicating sight of the At-valids' troops, who were, as he told me later, running for the hills at that very moment.
"Stereth!"
He turned reluctantly.
""Help me," I said, keeping my hands around Ran's skull. He cracked it against the wall one more time, nearly pulverizing my fingers.
Stereth was there in a second. He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around Ran's head while I tried to hold him still. "Lex!" He yelled. "Lex, bring a blanket!"
It took a while to get Lex's att
ention, too. Stereth met my eyes joyfully as we held onto the thrashing human being in our arms. "Like an army of invisible fleas," he said wickedly. "Their skin'U be coming off in strips if they keep up their rate of scratching."
I protested, "It can't just be an itch that's doing this!"
"The grandfather of all itches, it looked like to me. All over them, and with no possible relief. You can only stand a few seconds like that, Tymon, before you go crazy—owH That last was because Ran had kicked him in the knee, whether accidentally or deliberately was impossible to tell. It made no dent at all in Stereth's glow. "I wonder how long it will last. If it takes them to the nearest poison river, that would be fine with m—youch. Lex! Where the hell are you?"
Lex appeared shortly and Stereth had Ran incarcerated behind a mountain of pillows, where his efforts to smash various parts of his body onto the stone were impossible to satisfy. Stereth wiped sweat from his brow as he stood up from our mutual wrestling match.
"Well! I hope he's not going to be this way permanently, Tymon. It would create all kinds of moral problems."
"I never imagined you as having moral problems, Stereth."
"I don't, and I would hate to start. Lex, stay here and watch him. When he recovers, bring him down so I can talk to him… Uh, if he doesn't recover in a couple of hours, you'd better arrange for shifts."
A couple of hours? That was an unpleasant thought. I said, "I can stay here, Stereth."
"No, I want you away from him when he comes out of it. He'll feel better that way, he didn't want you to watch."
Unexpected ruthlessness and unexpected consideration. Des could claim to understand Stereth's pattern, but I wasn't about to try. I nodded, though I knew I would be brooding about Ran every minute, and followed him down the stairs.
So Ran's method of "using sorcery as a weapon" did not involve any explosions, lethal illnesses, or hailstones the size of tennis balls falling from an angry sky. I didn't know that that would save us or the Cormallons when we were brought before the bar of Imperial justice, but clearly Ran was going for any technicality he could.
He came out of his fit after about an hour and a half, refused to move anywhere and lay there in his own sweat and torn clothes for another hour. Then he refused to talk to anybody until he'd washed.
Lex was uncharacteristically thoughtful enough to whisper this news to me as soon as Ran recovered, and by the time he actually appeared in the main hall I was nearly as giddy as everybody else.
And they were giddy. Our scouts told us that there were still observers set several miles away, but at the moment nobody showed any intention of coming a step nearer. Frankly, I wasn't sure what the band was so happy about, since the essential problem remained: They knew where we were, and if we left they would follow. But it was hard not to be happy about being alive, and about having scored off the militia, up till now a source of fear; and when I'd heard from Lex that Ran was heading for the waterjars to wash
up I found myself grinning as crazily as the people around me.
The wine came out again, not that anybody needed it to be drunk. A couple of people brought out some dice and tried to get up a game of Red Geese, but it was impossible to concentrate even on something as simple as that. Des had hugged me about a dozen times, and after the dozenth he suddenly looked over at Stereth and said, "Can I go see if the tah folks are all right?"
Stereth nodded. He had his feet up on a homemade rail by the hearth, and though Cantry was with him, neither of them were talking. Everyone else was on fire, but Stereth apparently had gone as far as he planned on going by letting himself enjoy today's rout. Usually I'm a pretty buttoned-down person, but in the euphoria following Ran's performance it was as though that layer of control lying on top of my mind had been cut smoothly away with a knife; I could have done anything. Des was lucky that for once it hadn't occurred to him to suggest a roll in the pillows. In fact, my mood was so alien, I was almost relieved when Ran came in, as much for the fact that he'd keep me from cutting loose like a balloon and sailing over the countryside as that I was glad he was safe.
Stereth may have asked for him, but he came to me first, which warmed me. To be honest, I nearly started crying then, which will tell you how odd I (and all of us) were feeling. I was sitting by the wall, having changed into my old robes again for no good reason. He took my hand and kissed my cheek, and I said, "You've got a bruise."
He touched his forehead. "More than one. You'll see some of the others when my robes are off."
That pressed a button. Down, girl; normalcy, try for a little normalcy. "Stereth's looking this way. He probably wants to hear about your spell. So do I."
He smiled. "As a layman, he wouldn't appreciate it the way you would."
He has a grand smile when he uses it. "So what was your limiting definition?"
"Wearing yellow, of course—because of the uniforms, and anybody too high for uniforms would have jewelry— and within a seven-kilometer radius—"
"—of the fort. I knew there had to be some geographical limit."
He shook his head. "A seven-kilometer radius of energy weapons. That way they had to leave their Tellys equipment behind."
"I'm surprised they would figure it out sufficiently to leave them."
"People who are suffering will experiment wildly to find relief. Believe me."
"Are you all right?"
He nodded. He looked exhausted, which wasn't surprising. "I'll go check in with Stereth." He frowned. "Was that his jacket I found tied around my neck?"
"It was around your head originally."
"Oh. It has blood on it now. I suppose I'd better apologize." He walked over to Stereth and sat down beside him, and they both began talking softly. The firelight played on their faces.
I looked around and saw that Des had returned— bringing his tah hostages with him. Oh, well, I thought, they probably aren't very dangerous. And they were accepting bowls of wine from him and Carabinstereth as though they had every intention of joining the band in reaching total oblivion.
The owner's agent, the black-and-gray-haired man who'd bargained for their lives, took a bowl and smiled at Carabinstereth. His diamond studs glittered in the firelight. He took a deep draught, returned the bowl to the table, and bowed and said something ultra-courteous to Carabin, for she dimpled and gave him her best bow and smile back. You had to grant the man knew how to talk to people. Then he walked past me, closer to the fire. As he passed I could tell that his perfume supply had run out.
He pulled something from the big outer pocket of his robe as he went. His hands fooled with it thoughtfully. He stopped, ran a hand over his head to smooth his hair, and then shook out what he was holding and set it on his head.
It was a blue hat of Imperial Favor. I knew, I still had one just like it. This one was crumpled, but if it wasn't genuine, it was a close copy. He raised his voice. "Excuse me! Ah, excuse me, great outlaw, Stereth Tar'krim, and my friends and captors. Could I have your attention?"
I was still staring, and by now so was everybody else. Stereth had brought his feet down from the railing. Ran looked completely disoriented.
The man smiled. "This unworthy one is Camerial Thu. I am the Prime Minister's Negotiator, the Voice of the Emperor. My word is His."
He paused, as though expecting some reaction. Nobody moved; there was only one reason why the Prime Minister's Negotiator would be here, the reason Stereth had had us working toward through the whole long summer of hope and death, thievery and treachery. And here he was, and all of our faces looked completely blank. I felt as though I'd taken a step that wasn't there. The Negotiator's practiced smile faded slightly.
"Urn, I can prove my identity easily. Governor Atvalid knows me well, for one thing, as before his present failure I was a frequent visitor to his House."
Even Stereth looked incapable of moving or speaking. The Negotiator pushed his smile back up another few watts and beamed at us kindly. "You do understand, do you not?" His voice took on a
ritualistic tone.
"The Emperor has sent me to ask, what it is that you want."
Chapter Twenty-One
We were "mustered out," as Grateth called it, in Shaskala.
The Negotiator went out to speak to one of the militia observers; he came back, a day and a half later, with an escort of a hundred men who accompanied us to that city.
The Atvalids were clearly in disgrace. I never saw them after that, but I heard that father, son, and grandfather were all asked to return their Blue Hats to the Emperor. No ceremony for that, they tell me; it's not like some ancient religious excommunication. A messenger in Imperial livery shows up at your door one day and asks ever so courteously for the hat, which he waits for in your anteroom like a mail carrier waiting for a reply to some engraved party invitations; then he bows when he gets it, and stuffs it into a bag and returns to court. A short little dance, but the Atvalids would probably never recover from it.
I was sorry about that in a way, but then they were alive, and most of my friends were alive, and from a barbarian point of view the outcome was perhaps the best we could have expected.
As for Stereth's crew, we all spent a long two weeks in Shaskala, readjusting to the heat of late summer off the Plateau, waiting to be processed. The temperature here was pretty much what I could expect back in the capital, Shaskala's height above sea level making up for its more northern location, and I borrowed a straw fan from one of the bailiffs in the Justice House.
Ran was quartered in a different place, but we met most days in the long room the officials of the Justice House used to process us all. Stereth wasn't there, but much of the band was. They sat, or slept, on the long wooden benches, and played endless hands of Thistle and Sleeping Dog—Des and Grateth and Lex and Juvindeth; most of the
original band was there. Not all of them had been at the fort that night, some were still out with the mixed bands Stereth had created, and didn't know yet about the pardon; but it was just a matter of time. We understood that Stereth was negotiating the details with Imperial officials, and left him to do it, although Lex was heard to say more than once that it was probably all a trick and our bandit chieftain's body was most likely rotting in this damned heat already.