by Dave Duncan
"Would Mokth and Nurz accept him? Will they put their armies under his command?"
Labranza thought for a moment. "They might possibly trust Zorg himself, if he gave them his warrior's oath. The situation is bad enough, after all, that even the Wesnarians don't seem so fearsome any more. But they will never accept him as long as he is loyal to Hexzion."
I think you and I have to have a little chat about Hexzion Garab. The Voice was persistent now, almost a nuisance. It was a sign that she had accepted her destiny, she supposed. As Niad had explained, motivation was what mattered.
"I think I know what you mean," she retorted, "and I don't like it one bit! Can we persuade Hexzion to release the dreadlord from his service so he could serve the coalition?"
Labranza just shook her head in disgust. The lamps were swaying even more wildly now.
Tibal Frainith chuckled to attract attention. "As I precall, the problem there is that friend Hexzion indulged himself a little too far in disposing of potential rivals. He had killed off all his immediate family before he realized that he had thereby promoted Cousin Zorg to the post of Heir Presumptive. He's fairly safe—a warrior will never break his oath. But Hexzion would be crazy to release him from it. He is crazy, but not that way."
The Voice had known all this.
Ziberor put the thought into words. "But if Hexzion dies, then Zorg becomes king of Wesnar?" She winked and twitched at Gwin, as if to hint where she had found that evil notion.
Labranza slammed her fist on the table. The lamp above her head twisted like a mad bug. "No! Hexzion has a contract with us! If we break our word to him, then none of the kings will trust us ever again. We lose everything we have worked on for a hundred years."
Gwin sat for a moment, scanning the six faces in the gloom. Ordur was almost asleep, and she needed a break. She ought to adjourn until morning. She had already collected many things to think about.
"What advisors have we provided to the king of Wesnar?"
"A Jaulscath and an Ivielscath. He is trying to hire a Muolscath also."
"Why a Muolscath, for fates' sake?"
Baslin grunted. "Orgying, I expect."
Feeling as if she were edging toward a precipice on a very windy day, Gwin said, "What are the Jaulscath's duties?"
"To interrogate suspected traitors, to warn him of assassins."
"Assassins? Is that the actual word?"
Labranza's eyes narrowed. She glanced across at Ziberor. Then she said, "I believe the contract specifies traitors."
Gwin sighed. Surely it would not come to that?
It will, you know! When you are planning a wholesale war, why should one murder bother you?
She ignored the Voice. "Meeting adjourned. We shall resume our discussion in the morning. Thank you."
56
With all the patience of a vulture at a seniors' outing, Ching Chilith lounged on a very uncomfortable stone bench in an alcove. He could watch the doors of the council chamber from there without being close to the disgusting ostiary, who stank of old age and treated him with a signal lack of respect. The meeting was likely to go on all night, and the mere fact that Gwin Tharn had not been evicted long ago showed that she had won her battle. There had been a change of leadership. She truly must be a Poulscath.
From time to time people would wander along the dark corridor. Most of them carried lanterns. Most of them wore crude Zardan smocks and breeches, even here in Raragash, but some were better clad—livery, or Nurzian robes, or old-style Qolian tunics. They usually reacted to Ching with surprise, not at first recognizing him out of official dress. Then they would walk past without a word, sneering if they dared. They would probably sneer much more if they knew that his mentor had been dethroned. Let them! He sneered best who sneered last. Ching Chilith was not done for yet.
The doors swung open, creaking on their ancient hinges, catching him by surprise. He had expected the meeting to go on much longer. He rose and headed that way, watching the ostiary fumble with lanterns.
Labranza emerged first. She glanced along and saw him, then turned and grabbed up a lantern. She stalked off in the other direction, without a word. He had not expected her to do anything else.
The Ziberor bitch was next. He concentrated hard on an image of her being roasted alive in a pestilential dungeon. Probably she could see through that, down to the thoughts he did not want her to know, but he hoped she appreciated the picture. She followed Labranza.
The Muolscath went alone, too. Then Ordur and the old woman, pausing to thank the desiccated ostiary for the lanterns, chattering excitedly within their globe of light as it moved away through the shadows.
Finally came the new president with the despicable Shoolscath at her side. Ching hesitated. He did not want to endure another bout of abuse from Tibal Frainith, not in front of Gwin Tharn. One day that elongated prescient bundle of bones was going to suffer drastically for his loutish behavior yesterday. Shoolscaths could not be outwitted like normal people, but they might be trapped into changing the future. That disaster they could not foresee. It would be hard to arrange, but should be possible with the aid of a Jaulscath. Even if that were not possible, then Tibal's emphatic dislike showed that Ching was going to get the better of him sometime. In fact, it was almost a promise of success.
Reassured by that thought, Ching approached.
"Oh, fates!" Frainith said. "I thought I could smell something bad."
Tharn frowned. "We're all going to have to get along if we hope to pull this off, Tibal."
"I do not understand your dislike of me, Councillor," Ching said sadly. "I am sure it will be due to a misunderstanding."
"I'm going to throw up. I see you tomorrow, Gwin." Without bothering to take the lantern the ostiary was holding out, Frainith went striding away into the dark.
Tharn accepted the light and thanked the stinky old man. Ching took another and followed her.
"I am the new chairman, as you predicted," she said.
"I am delighted to hear it, Madam President. The fates have blessed all of us tonight."
"The fates act through people, and I am very grateful for your help. I shall need all the help I can get, from everyone. I did not seek to depose Labranza Saj. I bear her no personal ill-will. I hope you will consent to act as my secretary, and that you will give me the same detailed and efficient assistance you gave her."
"I shall be honored beyond words, Madam President. I look forward to serving you to the best of my abilities. Labranza was not an easy woman to work for." That ought to qualify for some sort of prize as the understatement of the post-imperial era. None of this sewage would have fooled Labranza for an instant, but it was working beautifully on the Poulscath.
She smiled. "I hope I'll be easier. Don't let me work you too hard!"
"I wish only to serve, Saj. My every moment is at your command. I anticipated your success. This is a resolution confirming your authority, so that you will have no trouble tonight. Tomorrow we can announce it formally, of course."
She took the scroll with her free hand. "Is this by any chance signed by my predecessor?"
"It looks that way," he admitted.
"Mm? Does it? Ching, until we have had some experience working together, I prefer to do all my own signing, right?"
He could soon cure her of that ambition three or four hundred unnecessary documents a day for a week ought to do it nicely. Perhaps she was the sort who would respond to humor?
"Of course, Madam President! I need to practice your handwriting anyway."
She laughed. Laughed! Labranza would have stunned him.
They reached the top of the steps and began to cross the Western Atrium. Stars filled the sky, the Milky Way ending in a jagged line at the lip of the crater.
"I am going to turn in," Tharn said. "Tomorrow will be a busy day. I suppose this forgery of yours will remove the guards at the guest house?"
"I already dismissed them, Madam President. I assured your husband that you were in n
o danger, but very busy."
"You anticipate my every wish!"
"That is my duty, Madam President."
"Well, here's one you won't have thought of. It's rather urgent."
"Yes?"
"One of the Cursed who came to Raragash with me was an Awailscath named Vaslar Nomith. Can you send for him tonight, or must that wait for morning?"
No, he would not have thought of that. An Awailscath? Why would anyone want an Awailscath? You could never count on getting the person you expected.
"With no moon, I hesitate to send a horseman, Saj. It may not be too late to signal by lantern, although the attendants don't always take their duties seriously enough. If the message doesn't go through tonight, then we can use flags at dawn. I can signal to South Gate and they can send a rider to the Awail Village. The man... you did say 'he?'... should be here by noon."
"That's wonderful! I think he may be very useful."
For a moment Ching wondered if she were deliberately torturing him, then remembered that she was not Labranza. This was a nice woman, and she could not know how he reacted to secrets.
"An Awailscath, Madam President? I didn't think anyone had ever found a use for Awailscaths!" Labranza used them as spies, of course. They could go back time and again to the same place and become familiar with it without being recognized. Whatever this Poulscath was thinking of did not sound like that.
"I may have."
Lousy slut! She wasn't going to tell him!
"There she is!" shouted a voice.
Ching swung around with a spasm of panic. Three men were running forward. His gut melted. Not violence! Please, not violence! No! No!
"Tigon!" Tharn said. "What're you doing here? Wraxal? And Vaslar!"
She knew them! Ching relaxed with a gasp, his heart still hammering like a starving woodpecker. He had not soiled his breeches, not quite. He raised his lantern.
The first was just a spotty, snub-nosed boy. The second was an ugly, weedy man with a broken nose and stick-out ears. The third displayed the unmistakable empty stare of a Muolscath.
"We came to see how you were doing, Saj!" the boy said eagerly. "We all met up on the road! Wasn't that strange!"
"It sounds like your doing, you young rascal!"
"Maybe!" He grinned. "No, it couldn't have been. Wraxal must have started first, and then Vaslar—"
"Well, I am delighted to see you all!" she said. "Ching, you can forget what I just asked you. This is Ching Chilith... Wraxal Raddaith, Vaslar Nomith, Tigon... I've forgotten your last name, Tigon! I'm sorry!"
Ching's brain churned, round and round. If the boy was an Ogoalscath, then the unexpected was the normal, even the Awailscath she wanted turning up on his own. But a Muolscath?
Apparently that thought had now occurred to Tharn. She peered at the corpse face. "What brings you here, Wraxal?"
"Much the same. I realized I had forgotten to thank you for all your help. And I was curious to know how you fared."
The world spun madly around Ching. A Muolscath sorry? A Muolscath caring about someone else—or anything at all?
"Well, I'm delighted to see you," Tharn said. "How are things at the Muol Village?"
"They cultivate vegetables."
"Not much else going on? And how is Jojo?"
There was a pause. Then the Wraxal man said, "I suppose I should have asked."
"Probably," Tharn said sadly. "But I can certainly use your military know-how. And you, Vaslar... What I want won't be easy. Tigon, you may be able to help him... Ching, I know the way from here. I'll take my friends over to the visitors' quarters. Forget about sending for Vaslar. I'll have lots more things for you to do in the morning."
Dismissed! And she wasn't going to tell him what use an Awailscath was! To hide his fury, Ching bowed obsequiously. He was good at that, although he rarely needed to use it. It didn't work on Labranza, and most other people had to bow to him.
He walked away, teeth clenched. Why did she want an Awailscath? How could an Ogoalscath help? That one couldn't even be trained yet! In ten years of watching Labranza at work, Ching had never heard of any way to manipulate Awailscaths.
As soon as he judged his lantern was out their sight, he began to run.
The lights were still on in Labranza's house when he arrived. He rapped on the door post. He was sweating and gasping for breath, and not all of that was from running. He waited for her word with a familiar mixture of dread and longing. With Labranza the question was never whether she would be in a good mood or a bad mood, just how bad. Tonight, after being deposed by that upstart meddling harlot, she ought to be worse than he could even imagine. The prospect was terrifying and also exalting. Tremors of fear and exhilaration squeezed his chest; his hands shook and his crotch ached with anticipation.
"Enter!"
He pushed through the drape eagerly. She had been washing. She was wiping her face with a towel, and she was bare from the waist up—taunting him. That probably meant she was going to send him away unsatisfied.
"It worked!" he said.
Labranza threw down the towel and glared at him. "You're in?"
"Yes! Yes! She bought it!" He walked closer, although he knew how dangerous that was when she had not told him to approach. "I didn't believe you, and I was wrong." He stopped, shivering at the expression on her face.
"So whose little boy are you now, Ching Chilith?"
He slumped to his knees, almost without meaning to. "Yours, of course! I despise her! She is weak, weak, weak! She is all smiles and please and thank you. I hate her for what she has done to you. She's a namby, interfering, fawning toadstool!"
Gripping his forelock, Labranza tilted his head back to study his face. "You prefer strong women?"
He tried to nod, but her grip on his hair was too tight. She was twisting it so hard that his eyes were watering already. "Yes," he whispered.
Labranza smiled. "Yes what?"
"Yes, please!" Ching said.
57
"If you plan to fight a war, you must first decide why. What do you hope to achieve if you win? What happens if you don't fight at all?" Wraxal Raddaith stared unblinkingly across the table at Gwin. Lit from below in darkness, his face seemed carved out of oak. "And what happens if you lose?"
Two candle flames danced above the plank table. Five people had squeezed in along either side. She was conscious of Bulion's comforting arm around her and the solemn faces opposite: big Jukion very somber, Wosion all nose and cynical smile, living-dead Wraxal, young Tigon wide-eyed and freckled, Vaslar Nomith ugly and crooked and worried. Insects whirled around the lights; outside in the night, crickets rattled and an owl hooted.
"Stop the Karpana," Gwin said. "That's our aim. Push them back into Nimbudia. They've wasted it already, so they may as well be allowed to keep it. If we don't fight, then I think we all die."
"They may just go by us," Bulion growled. "The western states offer better pickings for them."
Wraxal's dead eyes shifted to him. "Perhaps, but remember the people they displace. There will be torrents of refugees trying to get out of their path. Relatively empty lands like Da Lam and Esran will be overrun."
Wosion smiled mirthlessly. "It will snowball, won't it? One million Karpana dislodge two or three million Kuolians, who displace more."
When no one else commented, Gwin said, "The Mokthians are next—we can't just watch them be routed and ousted. As Labranza says, they must be more eager to join a coalition than anyone."
"If I were Quilm Urnith," Wraxal said, "then I would be negotiating with the Karpana already, offering them safe passage through my lands."
"Will that work?"
"Probably not, but it's worth a try." He paused, then continued with his usual bloodless objectivity. "If you choose to fight, then you must react quickly, but don't think in terms of a short campaign. You don't have the strength to roll the Karpana back. With those numbers, all you can hope to do is slow them, or turn them aside. If you can meet them in the fie
ld and survive, you will have won a remarkable victory. That will give you the prestige you need to rally the western kingdoms to your cause. You must trade land for time. You must use scorched earth tactics, burning crops and abandoning cities, and driving refugees back into the invaders' path. You must round up all the males between sixteen and sixty, put sticks in their hands, and march most of them to their deaths. You will spill blood like rain. When you are strong enough, the Karpana will sue for peace. They may trample you into the sand first."
"You paint a grim picture," Gwin said. "I don't question it, but it's all facts, in black and white. Now I want color! Men don't choose to fight or run because of facts. They decide with their hearts, not their heads. Jukion, you're an honest, peace-loving level-headed farmer. How do you feel?"
The big man scratched his head. "Me? You're asking me? Zanion, there, 'sgot more brains than—"
"No, I want your opinion."
Jukion was no thinker, but he tried. He scrunched up his face, tugged his beard, then shrugged. "Watch my kids die? Watch Shupyim be raped? Be driven out of the valley? Then die anyway? That's no choice."
"You'll fight?"
He grinned. "Like a cornered bear."
She glanced along the table. "Ulpion?"
"To the last drop."
"Thiswion?"
"And then some."
Bulion squeezed her, but did not speak.
"Anyone disagree?" She waited. She had wanted purpose in her life, but all she had expected was a peaceful life raising baby Tharns. Now she had all the purpose she could imagine. Too much? Too much to handle?
No. At least she must try, or she would be for ever a failure in her own eyes.
She loosed the hawk. "All right, we fight!"
About time!
She ignored the Voice. "Wraxal, who do we get to lead us?"
"You already told us—Frenzkion Zorg."
"But what do you do about the king?" Wosion demanded. "What do you do about Hexzion Garab?"
The owl whirred spookily outside.
One thing leads to another. Step by step, destiny was pushing her down a road she did not want to go. She looked across at Vaslar Nomith. When she had first met him, he had been a woman, big and angular. Then a smaller, older, motherly one. Now he was a man, but a weedy, unprepossessing one, a very unlikely hero. He claimed he had been a soldier. Could he be one again?