The Chernagor Pirates tsom-2

by Dan Chernenko

  Even if the Chernagor wizard in Nishevatz—or was it the Banished One himself?—had not laid Pterocles low, Grus would have had no enormous confidence that he had the answer. Avornan wizards had wrestled with curing thralls for centuries—wrestled with it and gotten thrown, again and again and again. Alca seemed to have had the beginnings of some good new ideas… but Alca was gone, and she wouldn’t be coming back. Pterocles was what the king had to work with.

  “What do I see?” the wizard echoed. Grus hadn’t bothered holding his voice down. Pterocles spoke in a hoarse, worried whisper. “I see emptiness. I see emptiness everywhere.”

  That didn’t surprise Grus. He asked, “How do we go about filling the emptiness with everything people have and thralls don’t?”

  “Fill the emptiness?” Pterocles laughed. That wasn’t mirth coming out, or no sort of mirth with which Grus wanted to be acquainted. Pterocles went on, “If I knew how to fill emptiness, Your Majesty, don’t you think I would fill my own? I wish I could. I wonder if I ever will.”

  “Have you learned anything by watching the thralls?” Grus asked. “Would you like to go in among them and study them at close quarters?”

  “Empty. So empty,” Pterocles said, and then, “If I went in, how would you tell me apart from them?”

  “It wouldn’t be hard,” Grus answered. “You would be the one acting like an idiot. They wouldn’t be acting. They really are idiots.”

  Again, the laugh that came from Pterocles only raised Grus’ hackles. The wizard bent, backside in the air, and peered down at the thralls again. His face bore an expression of horrified fascination. He might have been asking himself whether he was or was not one with them.

  After a little while, Grus elbowed him out of the way and looked down at the thralls again on his own behalf. He expected them to be doing what they usually did, which was not very much. Like cats, they spent a lot of time sleeping. Several of them stretched out on couches, snoring or simply lying motionless. One, though, stared up at the peephole with as much interest as Grus showed looking in the other direction.

  Alarm ran through Grus. This wasn’t the way thralls were supposed to behave. Thralls that acted like thralls were harmless, pitiable things. Thralls that didn’t were deadly dangerous, not least because no one expected them to strike.

  This one turned away after meeting his eye. It was as though the thrall cared nothing for him. It had been interested when Pterocles was looking down at it, though. What did that mean? Grus hoped it didn’t mean the Banished One looked out through the thrall’s eyes.

  When he asked Pterocles about it, the wizard gave back a vague shrug and answered, “We understand each other, he and I.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Grus demanded. Pterocles only shrugged again.

  Grus asked more questions, but Pterocles’ answers only got vaguer. At last, the king threw his hands in the air. He went off to his desk to get some work done. If he didn’t keep a thumb on Avornis’ pulse, who would? Lanius? Grus didn’t want his son-in-law getting experience at running the kingdom. He also didn’t want Pterocles staying close to the thralls if he wasn’t there. He made sure the wizard came away with him. Pterocles looked unhappy, but didn’t argue.

  When Grus sat down behind the great marble-topped desk from which Kings of Avornis had administered their realm for years uncounted, he found a leather courier’s sack on top of it. A note on a scrap of parchment was tied to it. Brought back from the land of the Chernagors, it said. Letters inside with seals still intact.

  “What the…?” Grus muttered. Then he snapped his fingers. This had to be the bundle he’d gotten just before learning the Chernagors from the eastern city-states were marching on his army. What with everything that had happened since, he’d forgotten all about it. Some diligent clerk hadn’t.

  He thought about chucking the sack. What were the odds any of the letters would matter? In the end, though, sighing, he poured the parchments out onto the broad desktop. I can go through them in a hurry, he told himself, and popped the wax seal off the first one with his thumbnail.

  A moment later, that letter lay in the trash bin by the desk. It touched on something Lanius had long since dealt with. The second letter followed the first. So did the third. The fourth had to do with a land-tenure case down in the south that had dragged on for years. Grus set it aside to add to the stack he already had on that case.

  The fifth letter was from Pelagonia, a medium-sized city down in the middle of the southern plains. From a king’s point of view, Pelagonia’s chief virtue was that not much ever happened there. Rulers needed places like that, places they didn’t have to worry about. Grus couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten a petition from Pelagonia. And yet the script on the outside of the parchment, the script that addressed the letter to him, looked somehow familiar.

  “No,” he said as he broke the seal. “It can’t be.” But it was. Estrilda had insisted that he send Alca away from the city of Avornis when she discovered his affair with the witch. He’d picked Pelagonia for her, not least because it was such a quiet, sedate town.

  Your Majesty, Alca wrote, I send this as from a worried subject to her king, not because of anything else that may have happened between us. Grus grunted at that. As soon as Alca mentioned it, even to disclaim it—maybe especially to disclaim it—she also claimed it. He sighed. He couldn’t do anything about that. And if he’d known how big a disappointment Pterocles would prove, he would have thought twice about sending Alca away at all.

  She continued, I am afraid the investigation of the thralls may not be going as well as it should. I should have left more behind in writing, to guide those who would come after me. I would have, if I had known I was leaving the capital so suddenly. Grus mumbled something under his breath. If that wasn’t a dig, he’d never run into one.

  I hope that all is well for you and for yours (the last three words were inserted above the line, with a caret to show where they should go) in the city of Avornis. I hope also that wizards are still studying the thralls. I have heard how two thralls turned on you and Lanius. I rejoice that you are both safe. The thralls still in the palace, I think, can be as dangerous as the ones who already attacked. Unless I am altogether mistaken, the Banished One reaches them in this way.

  The sorcerous charms and calculations that followed meant nothing to Grus. He hadn’t expected them to. He knew nothing of magic. Alca went on, I hope you will show this to a wizard you trust. He will be able to judge whether I am right.

  “I can do that,” Grus said, as though she stood there before him. He wondered what Pterocles would make of those scribbled symbols. He also wondered if Pterocles was in any condition to make anything of them.

  What I have shown here may also give new hope to returning thralls to true humanity, Alca finished. The spells will not be easy to shape. Here is a new road, though, and Avornis has long needed that. What I need… is something I may not have. I knew that when we began. I cannot imagine why, all this time later, it comes as such of a surprise. With — A scratched-out word, and then a scrawled signature.

  He stared at it for a long time. Because of the calculations, he couldn’t even throw the letter away. He made a fist and brought it down hard on the marble desktop, over and over again.

  “What did you do to yourself?” Lanius asked Grus; his father-in-law’s right hand was puffy and bruised.

  “Banged it,” Grus said uninformatively.

  “Well, yes, but how?” Lanius asked.

  “Oh, I managed,” Grus answered.

  Lanius sent him an exasperated look. Why couldn’t Grus just say he’d dropped something on it or caught it in a door or whatever he’d really done to himself? How could you be embarrassed about hurting your hand? Grus evidently was.

  Too bad he didn’t hurt it knocking some sense into Ortalis, Lanius thought. But then he remembered Grus had done his best to knock sense into Ortalis. He probably would have done better if he’d started years earlier. He
had tried this time, though. And Ortalis had done his best to stay invisible ever since. That suited Lanius fine.

  He tried another question, asking, “What are you going to do when spring comes around again?”

  Grus didn’t evade there. “Go back to the country of the Chernagors with a bigger army,” he answered. “I’m not going to let Vasilko keep Nishevatz any longer than I can help it. That would be like letting someone carrying a plague set up shop across the street from the palace. Life hands you enough troubles without your asking for more.”

  “Can you take enough soldiers north to beat all the Chernagors?” Lanius inquired.

  “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?” Grus gave him a quizzical look. “While you’re at it, why don’t you ask me about my love life, too?”

  “How’s your love life?” Lanius said, deadpan.

  “Certainly nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Grus answered, just as deadpan.

  They eyed each other. Then they both started to laugh. “All right,”

  Lanius said. “I asked for that, and I think you enjoyed giving it to me. I assume you have something in mind against Prince Vasilko and the rest of the Chernagors and the Banished One?”

  “Certainly nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Grus repeated.

  That annoyed Lanius. Maybe Grus didn’t have anything in mind but didn’t want to admit it. Maybe he did, but didn’t want to tell his fellow king for fear that Lanius might use it against him or for some other reason, darker still. “What is it?” Lanius snapped. “Do you think I’ll take whatever you’ve got in mind straight to… to the Banished One?” He almost said Milvago, but decided he didn’t want to voice that particular name.

  This time, Grus paid him the courtesy of a serious answer. “No, Your Majesty, I don’t think that,” he said. “What I do think is, the Chernagors and the Banished One are bound to have plenty of spies and plenty of wizards trying to find out what I’ve got in mind. The more I talk, the more help I give them. I don’t want to do that, thanks.”

  “Oh.” Lanius considered. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Yes, all right.” It wasn’t altogether; he still suspected Grus feared he would use the knowledge himself, and didn’t want to give it to him for that reason. That being so, he went on, “But we’re the ones who worry the Banished One, aren’t we? The ones he comes to in dreams. The two of us, and Alca the witch.”

  Grus slammed his bruised hand against the wall. He hissed in pain, and then cursed. “Sorry,” he said in a gray voice. “You caught me by surprise there. I don’t want to remember those dreams.”

  “Or Alca?” Lanius asked.

  Instead of replying, Grus turned away. Did that mean he didn’t want to remember Alca or that he didn’t want to forget her? Lanius could guess, but a lot of his guesses about Grus had turned out to be wrong. Maybe this one would, too.

  Lanius also guessed Grus would storm out of the chamber. That turned out to be a mistake. In fact, the other king turned back. He said, “For whatever it may be worth to you, you have my sympathy on Queen Certhia’s passing.”

  Now Lanius was the one who got angry. “You say that? You’re sorry my mother’s dead?” he said, his voice rising with every word. “You’re the one who sent her to the Maze!”

  “I’m sorry she’s dead anyhow,” Grus answered. “She might have died if she’d stayed in the city of Avornis, you know. She wasn’t an ancient granny, but she wasn’t a young woman, either.” That was true, and hadn’t occurred to Lanius. Even so, it did very little to quell his fury. But Grus went on, “I know you don’t care to be reminded of it, but she tried to slay me by sorcery—nasty sorcery, too. If it weren’t for a strong amulet and Alca’s magic, I wouldn’t be here now.”

  Again, Lanius imitated Grus, this time by turning his back. Remembering Alca had probably made Grus remember Queen Certhia. He hadn’t said anything about her death up until now. Lanius started to blame him for that, but then checked himself. His mother had tried to kill Grus, and Grus hadn’t killed her in return. Didn’t that count for anything?

  With a long, wary sigh, Grus said, “Politics only make families more complicated. You’ve seen that since you were a baby.”

  “Politics, yes.” If not for politics, Lanius wouldn’t have wed Sosia, wouldn’t have had Ortalis as brother-in-law or Grus as father-in-law, wouldn’t have seen Grus’ bastard as Arch-Hallow of Avornis… wouldn’t have had the Banished One for an enemy.

  Grus is the Banished One’s enemy, too, Lanius reminded himself. However much he sometimes detested Grus, that was worth remembering. Nobody the Banished One wanted horribly dead could be all bad. One way to know people was by the friends they made. Another was by their foes. Lanius often thought the latter gave the clearer picture.

  Then Grus said, “And speaking of politics, how did you like sending soldiers out against that noble last summer?” His voice was oddly constrained.

  He’s as nervous with me as I am with him, Lanius realized. That was something new. Up until now, Grus had effortlessly dominated him. I’m growing. The balance between us is shifting. Lanius answered, “It needed doing.” He didn’t want Grus too nervous about him. That could prove hazardous.

  “I never said it didn’t,” Grus told him. “I asked how you liked it.”

  How much do you want power? How much do you enjoy using it? Lanius gave back a shrug. “I wish the nobles didn’t cause trouble in the first place.”

  That drew a laugh from Grus. “Wish for the sun to rise in the west while you’re at it. They wish we weren’t on the throne, so they could do as they please.”

  “Yes, no doubt,” Lanius said. “They can’t always get what they want, though.”

  “You’re right.” Now Grus spoke with complete assurance, and addressed Lanius as one equal to another. “What we have to do is give them what they need. And do you know what else?” He waited for Lanius to shake his head, then finished, “When we do, they’ll hate us for it.” Lanius wanted to tell him he was wrong. His experience and reading, though, suggested Grus was only too likely to be right.

  When the first snows of winter fell, Grus wondered whether the Banished One would send blizzard after blizzard against Avornis, as he’d done more than once in the past. Had the king had it in his power, he knew he would have used the weather against his enemies.

  But winter was only… winter—nothing pleasant, but nothing out of the ordinary, either. Changing the weather couldn’t have been easy, even for a being who’d once been a god. The couple of times the Banished One tried it, Avornis had come through better than he’d expected. Grus knew that was largely Lanius’ doing; thanks to the other king, the capital and the rest of the cities had laid in supplies well ahead of time. The smaller towns and the countryside didn’t need to worry so much.

  Because the winter stayed on the mild side, Grus used it to gather soldiers and horses and supplies around the city of Avornis. This time, when he went up into the land of the Chernagors, he would lack nothing a general could possibly bring with him. An afterthought also made him summon wizards from the provinces to the capital. He didn’t know how much good they would do him—from what he’d seen, most wizards from small towns and the countryside knew a lot less than those who succeeded in the city of Avornis—but he didn’t see how they could hurt.

  If anything, the tent cities that sprang up around the walls of the capital were healthier in winter than they would have been in summer. Sicknesses that would have flourished in the heat lay dormant with snow on the ground. Latrines didn’t stink the way they would have when the sun shone high and bright and warm in the sky. Flies were nowhere to be seen.

  When spring came, Grus was ready to move. He hoped he would catch Prince Vasilko by surprise. Even if he didn’t, he thought he could beat Prince Vsevolod’s ungrateful son. If I can’t beat him with what I’ve got here, I can’t beat him at all, he thought. He knew what Vasilko and the other Chernagor princes could throw at him. He thought his chances were go
od.

  “Gods keep you safe,” Estrilda said in the quiet of their bedchamber the night before he left for the north.

  “Thanks.” Grus set a hand on her hip. They lay bare in the royal bed. They’d just made love, which had left both of them almost satisfied. Something had broken after Estrilda found out about his affair with Alca. It was repaired these days, but the broken place and the rough spots where the glue held things together still showed, were still easy to feel. Grus wondered if they would ever smooth down to where he couldn’t feel them. After more than a year, he was beginning to doubt it.

  She said, “Be careful. The kingdom needs you.”

  Grus grunted. Estrilda didn’t say anything about what she needed. There were bound to be good reasons for that. Almost too late, he realized ignoring her words except for that grunt wouldn’t be good. He said, “The one thing that worries me is, I won’t be able to lay proper siege to their cities, the way I could to Avornan towns.”

  “Why not?” Estrilda asked. Talking about cities and sieges was impersonal, and so safe enough.

  “Because I can’t take a fleet north with me,” Grus answered. Here, at least, he could talk. Estrilda wouldn’t blab, and the royal bedchamber was as well warded against wizardry as any place in Avornis. “The Chernagors can fill their big seagoing ships with more than trade trinkets, curse them. When my army stood in front of Nishevatz last summer, Prince Vasilko brought grain in by sea, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I don’t see how I’ll be able to stop it this year, either. I’ll have to take their cities by storm. I won’t be able to starve them out.”

  “That will cost more men, won’t it?” Estrilda said. “That’s… unfortunate.”

  “Yes it will, and yes it is,” Grus agreed. “I don’t see any way around it, though. Most of our galleys sail the Nine Rivers. Some of them scuttle along the coast, but I don’t see how I could bring them up to the Chernagor country. One storm along the way and…” He shook his head.