by Ian Irvine
2
* * *
A COURSE IN
LEADERSHIP
Something crashed against the door. Maigraith jumped, thinking it was the Ghâshâd coming for her. Only days after Rulke’s apparition, Thyllan, who had overthrown Men-dark and set himself up as Magister before the disaster of the Great Conclave, sailed across the sea with an army, intent on taking the city back. A fortnight had now gone by. Thurkad was besieged and looked set to fall. The Ghâshâd, their subversion done, were hurrying to escape before that happened. If they took her to Shazmak she would never get away.
And the way Rulke had looked at her. Hold her until I return, he’d said. Protect her with your lives! What did he want of her? The thought of him was frightening, yet exhilarating too. She could not work out why she was drawn to him, for everything she’d ever heard about Rulke had made him a monster—a violent, brutal, treacherous man. Yet that hadn’t matched what she’d seen in his eyes.
The noise, when Maigraith went to her peephole, turned out to be someone moving a chest. She paced the room. Yggur’s empire was falling to pieces. How had it happened so quickly?
In two bloody battles outside the city last week, all his generals and half his senior officers had been slain. The armies of Thurkad were now commanded by Vanhe, once the most junior of Yggur’s marshals. A stolid, unimaginative man, Vanhe was well out of his depth. He did not know how to deal with the seductions of sinful Thurkad, much less Thyllan’s propaganda war or the Ghâshâd subversion.
Maigraith knew what was going to happen—bloody war for the city, street by street. The dead would be piled as high as houses. She remembered last winter’s war only too well, huddling in that freezing shed with just a few wormy turnips to eat. That reminded her of the youth who had carried her and Faelamor away from the Conclave, who had been so kind to them, only to immolate himself on the bodies of his slain mother and brothers. The image was wrenching. How many more orphans, as miserable as herself, would this war create?
“I won’t let it happen again!” she said aloud.
All her life Maigraith had been under the thrall of Faelamor, doing her bidding mechanically, hardly noticing the troubles of the world. She’d always had difficulty making decisions, for she could never believe in herself. But Faelamor had gone through the gate to Katazza, then Yggur. In their absence Maigraith had begun to think for herself.
First she must escape. Being a master of the Secret Art, she had power enough to work the lock, or even break the door if she had to. But the old fortress, once Yggur’s headquarters, was now swarming with Ghâshâd. She could not beat all of them.
How would Faelamor get away? Maigraith asked herself. She had often seen her liege use illusion to get herself into, or out of, guarded places. Faelamor had brought them both out of Fiz Gorgo unseen, but she was a master of illusion, possibly the greatest on the Three Worlds. Maigraith, though not unskilful, knew that she could not do the same here.
She’d have to use something much stronger—perhaps a spell of transformation, though that was getting into un charted territory. The spell she knew was only a partial transformation—it would give her a different external form but not actually change her inside. A full transformation, to physically change her into someone else, was the most difficult of all spells. As far as she knew it had never been done successfully, though plenty had died horribly attempting it. And though she knew how to work a partial transformation, she had never done so.
Another problem—who to transform herself into? Here, any stranger would be attacked instantly. She daren’t disguise herself as one of the Ghâshâd, for she did not know them well enough. The only person she did know well was Yggur.
Maigraith sat up suddenly, cracking her head on the sloping ceiling. She had been his lover, so it was not improbable that he would come after her. But Yggur was a tall and muscular man, twice her weight. Such physical differences would be a nightmare to overcome.
More yelling along the corridor, and the awkward slap of running Ghâshâd feet. Not much time left. Maigraith began to sketch Yggur in her mind, starting from the inside out. She began with what had attracted her to him in the first place—the cool intellect that weighed every detail before making any decision, and the pain inside him, which found an echo in her own loneliness and emptiness. She recalled to mind his stern but impartial justice, though that had disappeared once the occupation of Thurkad went wrong. Adversity weakened him—he had become mean-spirited, almost brutal to his people.
She tried harder to understand him, as she must if her disguise was to succeed. His anguish at being unable to communicate his feelings had at first drawn him to her, until she realized that he was frozen inside. His terror of being possessed by Rulke again had aroused her sympathies until she saw that he wallowed in his fears rather than trying to overcome them.
After their awkward attempts at coupling, the first in her life, Maigraith had almost thought she’d loved him. Then he shied away from her Charon eyes—lying beside her, Yggur could think of nothing but his enemy. Later, as she grew in her own strength he further diminished, until she began to lose respect for him. Then in a moment of desperate courage or supreme self-sacrifice, he had hurled himself into Tensor’s gate and disappeared.
A complex man, Yggur! Hard to come to terms with; impossible to know. Maigraith still cared for him but now knew that she could never love him. More immediately, she felt that she understood him well enough to attempt the spell. It was a dangerous business, normally requiring weeks of preparation. From the sounds outside she would be lucky if she got an hour.
Closing her eyes, Maigraith brought back the memory of his long scarred body lying against hers, the feel of his skin under her hands. His embraces had been as clumsy as her own. Concentrating on her spell of transformation, striving with all her intellect, a likeness began to grow around her. It hurt very much, as if her flesh and bones were being stretched to match his larger dimensions.
When the spell was complete, Maigraith stood up. She promptly fell down again, the top-heavy man’s body over balancing her. The feel of those long legs was all wrong. She tried again, more carefully, supporting herself on the bed. A pain ran up her right leg as she moved it. It did not want to support her weight. She’d done her work too well, crippled herself as Yggur was crippled. No time to undo it now.
The body did not suit her at all; she hated it. It was too big, too heavy and clumsy. She wanted her own slim form back, wanted to be rid of the mass of muscle she knew not how to use.
She practiced for hours, limping across the room the way Yggur walked: the halting steps, the rigidity of the right arm, the weak right knee. The imitation was far from perfect—it would take ages to master him.
Someone pounded up the corridor, shouting. Maigraith heard the guttural yelling of the Ghâshâd, then more running feet and crashing sounds. Time had run out. Panicking, she put her hands on the door plate and broke the lock. Calm down! She stuck her head around the door. Two people were hurrying along the corridor. They turned the corner. The way was clear.
Tossing an illusory cape over one shoulder, Maigraith strode down the hall as confidently as Yggur at his best. With every movement of her right leg pain jagged up to her hip, as if the nerves were afire. At the corner she collided with a Ghâshâd woman. The impact almost gave her away, for the woman’s forehead struck parts of Yggur that were not really there.
“Out of my way!” Maigraith snapped, knowing that she had to keep the initiative, to treat them exactly as Yggur had when they had been his Whelm.
“What are you doing here?” growled Yetchah. She glared at Maigraith, instinctively hostile.
“I’ve come for my woman,” Maigraith said arrogantly, already having trouble with Yggur’s deep voice. It was beyond her vocal cords to imitate, and she had to use a form of illusion to disguise it—never very effective with voices. “Where is Maigraith?”
Yetchah let out a cry, half-heard, half-sending, that induced a spiny
ball of pain behind Maigraith’s temples. The cry was answered and half a dozen more Ghâshâd swarmed around the corner, moving with their awkward ratcheting gait. Several were armed with short spears.
Maigraith’s heart turned over. She’d never keep the disguise up before so many. A spasm froze her right leg solid. She tried to speak but the strain paralyzed one side of her face, as if she’d had a stroke. Yggur, my poor man, I begin to understand what life was like for you.
Paradoxically, this seemed to convince them that she was Yggur; all but Yetchah, who still stared at her.
“How dare you enter this place!” said a woman she had never seen before. She had a fuller form than the others, and a protruding belly—the only pregnant Ghâshâd Maigraith had ever seen.
“Out!” cried Japhit, running up.
Their voices merged into a muddy clamor. A thicket of spears were aimed at her chest. She froze.
“Move aside, treacherous dogs!” she roared, putting the contempt into her voice that Yggur had always shown for his faithful Whelm servants. It was the first thing that had bothered her about him. “I’ve come for my own. Not all of you together can stop me!”
“My spear in your heart will stop you,” grated Japhit, though she could see the fear in his eyes. “Go back!”
Maigraith dared not turn her back on them. Dared not go forward either, for the spear was at her breast. Worse, she could feel her hold over the transformation slipping. “Where is Maigraith?” she demanded, barely keeping the squeak out of her voice.
“She’s gone!” Japhit lied, evidently not wanting to force a confrontation either. “We’ve sent her to Shazmak.”
Maigraith allowed the broad shoulders to slump. “Shazmak!” she said, putting on a dead voice. “I should blast the fortress down.”
The Ghâshâd stared at her. Maigraith whirled and stalked away, down the long hall toward the front door.
She did not look back—did not dare, for it would show how afraid she was. She could feel their eyes burning into her all the way, wondering how she had got in undetected, trying to understand what it was about her that was not quite right.
“That’s not Yggur!” shouted Yetchah.
A ghastly pain spread out from the marrow of her leg bones, a series of contractions. The spell had failed; she was shrinking back. The floor went out of focus; she felt herself toppling. By an effort of will she recovered, suddenly closer to the ground.
“It’s Maigraith!” shrieked Yetchah. “Stop her!”
Maigraith broke into a staggering run, trying to get used to her own body again. Her legs hurt as much as Yggur’s had. The best she could manage was a lurching jog.
Ahead was the guard post and the front door. Two Ghâshâd stood there, blocking the way with their spears. Another group came racing up to the right. Even the ones behind were moving faster than she could.
Had she been fit, Maigraith might have used the Secret Art to blast them down, but now she couldn’t have blown a gnat out of the air. Then, to her left she saw a series of narrow windows. She clawed her way up onto the sill, kicked out the lead-framed panes and fell through, not knowing whether it was one span to the ground, or ten.
It was far enough to bruise her from hip to shoulder. Japhit appeared at the window, but was too big to get through. Maigraith limped up the street, out of Ghâshâd-controlled territory toward the safety of the military headquarters.
That was only a few blocks, but she was half-dead before she reached it and an angry swarm of Ghâshâd were overhauling her two strides to one.
“Help!” she croaked, still a long dash from the gate.
Neither of the guards at the gate post looked up. “Codgie’s offering three-to-one on Squeaker,” she heard clearly, “but I think I’ll go for Old One-Tooth again.” They were discussing the mid-week rat races!
“Help!” Maigraith cried despairingly. They ignored her. Then, like a miracle, in the yard beyond the gate she saw a familiar squat officer addressing a parade. “Vanhe!” she screamed.
Good soldier that he was, Vanhe reacted instantly. He pounded through the gate, the squad just behind him. Vanhe snatched Maigraith out from under the nose of Japhit and threw her over his shoulder like a roll of carpet.
The soldiers formed a phalanx before the gate, others running up to support them. The Ghâshâd froze. Maigraith saw their staring eyes on her. Rulke had ordered them to hold her and they had failed. For a moment it seemed they were going to hurl themselves onto the spears in their desperation to take her back. One man broke free, attempting to do just that, but another tackled him right in front of the soldiers. They faced each other. Maigraith could feel them calling her, their cries tap-tapping at her skull like a chisel-bird after wood grubs.
Yetchah stood at the very front, panting. Hate glittered in her dark eyes. She would have disobeyed Rulke’s command right there, had she been able to get to Maigraith.
Reinforcements began to pour through the gate. Japhit took Yetchah’s arm. “Come!” he said. “There will be another time!”
The Ghâshâd were shamed and humiliated. Maigraith knew that they would do everything in their power to get her back, to make up for this disgrace.
Her legs hurt for days after, and the narrow escape made Maigraith realize how unfit she was, mentally and physically. Since taking up with Yggur she had been coasting. Having through her life been accustomed to rigid discipline and unending toil both mental and physical, she began an old regimen to get fit again.
This involved grueling exercise interspersed with periods of meditation. At the same time she set herself to solve an abstract problem involving both a chain of logic and leaps of intuition, while improvising a complex chant. In her youth Maigraith had taken refuge in these rituals, exercises and problems, and they helped her now.
About a week after her escape, there came a gentle knock at her door. She knew who it was—a messenger boy, a cheerful little fellow called Bindy, with a round face framed by dark curls. He came every day, always with the same question.
“What is it, Bindy?” she said.
He gave her an angelic smile. “Marshal Vanhe sent me. He wonders if you’ve heard news of Lord Yggur today?”
Vanhe grew more anxious every day. Maigraith gathered that the war was going badly. “I’m afraid not,” she said.
The boy’s face fell. “The marshal will be—”
“What’s the matter?” She stooped to his level. “Will you be in trouble?”
“Of course not,” said Bindy. “But yesterday, when no one was there, he was tearing his hairs out. I’m afraid we’re losing the war. My poor mother cries every night. Since father was killed—”
“How did he die?” she asked gently.
“In the first war, last winter. I have three little sisters, and mother can’t earn enough to keep us. If it wasn’t for the money I earn we’d starve.”
“How much does a messenger boy earn?” she asked him, touched.
“Two whole grints a week!” he said proudly. “And my meals and uniform. And when I grow up I’m going to be an officer in the army. I must report to Marshal Vanhe.” Swelling his thin chest, he ran off.
Maigraith went back to her exercises, still thinking about the boy. An hour later she was in the final, or nih phase, that involved a dance of martial movements, now faster than the eye, now with a dreamlike slowness, almost a parody of a ballet, and her chanting was pulselike, a counterpoint to the dance. Suddenly she felt watched. The solution to the problem that she was working on slipped from her mind. The nih ended discordantly.
She opened her eyes, panting, and saw Vanhe there. He was short, only her own height, thick-bodied with a square jaw and a hard skull. Not a kind man, according to rumor, nor a cruel one either. Subverted by the Ghâshâd the other armies were falling apart, but his troops had stayed loyal. Startled, she gestured to a chair and offered tea.
“Thank you,” he said, though his look said he would rather get straight to the point. His problems w
ere pressing. With the war at Thurkad’s gates, with no news of Yggur and the violent appearance of a host of Ghâshâd, events were beyond his control. Yggur had been the leader in every respect. Vanhe was adrift and not a little afraid. “Your exercises look… challenging,” he said.
“They are! When I began this regimen many years ago, I set out to solve the Forty-Nine Chrighms of Calliat. I work at these enigmas and paradoxes while I do my exercises.”
Vanhe said nothing for quite a while. When he spoke it was in a rather subdued voice. “And how far have you proceeded? Are there any solutions?”
There was no trace of pride or even self-satisfaction in her voice. “Of the Forty-Nine, I have solutions for twenty-seven. Six more are nested—that is to say, they cannot be solved until all the others on which they depend have been solved. The seventh nest rests on the whole—it awaits the resolution of the other forty-eight. Two are improperly formulated, apparently an error of Calliat or her disciples, and must be restated. I have not done that yet. One is a nonsense—I cannot understand it at all. The remainder I have not tried.” Her brow wrinkled as if she might even attempt a solution now.
Vanhe’s jaw dropped. What she had just said was impossible. Of the Forty-Nine, only one had ever been solved. It had taken a team of scholars a year, and even now their solution was disputed. But he did not doubt her.
Suddenly Vanhe sprang out of his chair, staring at her with the look of a man who had just found the way out of a desperate situation.
“What is it?” she said, rising as well.
“I think I may have the answer to my problem,” he said. ‘Tell me, have you had any news of Yggur?”
“Nothing,” she replied, wiping the sheen from her forehead with a silken rag. “What problem are you talking about? The war?”
“Yes! Thyllan outnumbers us greatly—”