Striking Chains

by Kris Schnee

  That morning, one of the older men begged Dominic to come out to the burial field, which still smelled of decay. Dominic showed up alert and worried of what the problem was, but found only the Duke's head priest, speaking over the long, shallow grave trenches. The deserter said, "You were a Servant. Can't you give them a proper burial?"

  Dominic stood a respectful distance away from the priest at work and said, "This is their way. Mine too, now."

  The man spoke loud enough to interrupt the priest and draw the attention of the other soldiers watching. "But it isn't ours or theirs! These men gave their lives for the Holy State. Even if we end up turning against that, they can't be blamed. They deserve better." He stuck out his chin. "Well, Servant? I need you to do this chore for me."

  The priest stopped murmuring about "service to Light" and visibly suppressed a glare at them. "The dead deserve better than to be argued over."

  Dominic stepped toward him, thinking of the souls who'd given their lives for a foul cause, through no fault of their own. And of the men who knew in their hearts that Baccata's cause was foul, and who needed comfort that foreign words in a foreign tongue could not provide. Dominic began to pray in the tradition he'd been trained for. He made slow triangular gestures and said, "In the name of the State we commend you for your sacrifice..."

  The priest glared in earnest now but said nothing. Soon Dominic got to the part that jabbed most at his conscience. "They fell that others might live. They toiled that others might be safe and secure. Their courage is proven and their strength..." He couldn't go on. The next words were, Their strength shows the power of a people united for the common good. What good? What had they died for, besides the bladed wheel of the State's mutually abusive castes? He finished lamely, "Their strength... will not be forgotten. Amen."

  "Amen," said the soldiers.

  It had been the Holy State that threw his people into the meat grinder, three times now! Yes, his treachery and the might of the westerners had been key, but these men would have faced slaughter and ruin even if they'd found victory here. What use was a State that had so little regard for its own people? Then again, what about this western nation that saw valor in cutting down men from behind? Dominic stomped away from the city and the battlefield alike to think in solitude.

  He found Rose instead, at the edge of a grove of trees. Her ears flicked and she stood up quickly from a crouch. "Were you looking for me?"

  "No. What are you doing?"

  She hesitated, ears hanging low. "Praying."

  "Sorry. Should I leave you?"

  "You'd probably be offended. It wasn't just my morning devotion, but the prayer for taking human lives."

  Dominic said, "It weighs on me too. They were my countrymen."

  "Human lives, I said." Rose faced away from him with her hands clasped behind her back, around her tail. "I left behind a husband and children for this. I'd been a boring farmer last life, and this time I wanted to go do exciting things instead, but family happened. And... a certain policy from home shrank that family." Her grey tail-fur bristled.

  As alien as she was, he could guess at some of what she meant. "So you came here to get away from how things are in the north?"

  She'd been facing in that direction, toward the forests beyond the tribes he knew. "Yes, and I was bloodthirsty about leaving. A little."

  "I thought you were here for farm talk and looking around and checking on magic. You have a lot of hobbies."

  "Heh. I do. I imagined that at some point I'd 'be a hero' and find some 'bad guys'. Now I have, right?" She looked at her hands. "I don't feel any better for having helped the race strengthen its ties to the hum... the Mithraians against their enemies. I could say I scratched that itch to go adventuring."

  "Had you killed anyone before?"

  "No. Damn awful thing to boast about, isn't it?" She shook her head. "Back home, the targets we practice on are human-sized. Why are you fighting, anyway?"

  Dominic sat on the grass so he wouldn't loom over her. She sat, too. He said, "I keep telling the men that the westerners' way is better than ours. But I've only seen a little and the men know even less. How much do you know about the Mithraians, as an outsider yourself?"

  Rose shrugged. "We get along. It's tough to hate people that you trade with, and we think each other's kids are cute."

  Dominic smiled at that. "Could I bring my people into the Mithraic fold so that they're not treated as cattle, and their lives are actually better than before? Or am I missing some horrible truth about Mithrol that would make things even worse?"

  "Not that I've heard. Came here by way of their town of Suncove, myself. Big cave city, lots of crystals. Pretty. The people had their gripes about Duke Gerard, but they were basically free."

  "They were what?" The Mithraic word was unfamiliar.

  "Free." She saw him blinking, and laughed. "Oh Lord, you people are messed up. It means... uh... not being owned, you know? Like me; I can go where I want and do what I want."

  "But aren't you some kind of wizard's familiar? Isn't he your master?"

  "Well... The Great Lord of the Forest doesn't own me. If He told me to do something, sure I'd do it, but not because I had to. I got to meet Him in His throne room in the Great Oak, and asked Him for something to do. I wanted to get away and be important, remember. He called me 'beloved daughter of the forest'." Her whiskers twitched and she clasped her hands to her chest, treasuring the memory. "That's not how you talk to your cattle or your pets."

  Dominic frowned. "Back home we talk in terms of 'the national family', or 'the bonds of love'. Cooperation."

  "Ugh! But that's like someone making up cute pet names for someone they've got chained up in the cellar! What kind of cooperation is it if you can be bought and sold by the people 'helping' you?"

  Over the years he'd come to see Baccatan terminology ironically, and even the Bound often were sarcastic about it. Situations like Citizen Hanse "ordering" him around were rare cases of the nominal rules actually applying. Dominic said, "Does it ever do slaves a favor to have a master? Our people are organized around assuming so, and maybe that's what they want. In return for being taken care of, I mean."

  "The Mithraists kind of think so. They have some kind of law that some mages get enslaved for military service in return for education. But it's a blurry rule, and the nobles like to talk around it. I guess feeling guilty about something stupid is a step toward not doing it, anyway."

  Dominic felt weary, and rubbed his face. "Is your church accepting applicants?"

  She gave a chittering laugh. "You could come live with us to get away from the craziness. Most people in our country are human anyway."

  "I'd like to visit, but I've got other business to attend to." He sighed and looked across the eastern plain. "There's no point in anything I've done unless it carves out a land where people are treated decently. Where they're... free."

  * * *

  "Sir Dominic!" Duke Cecil of St. Wylan slapped him on the back and ushered him into a room with a grand wooden table, spread with maps. The walls were painted like warm, cloudy skies over the sea.

  "Excuse me?"

  "There's an opening for a new vassal, now that the eastern men have been cleared out from that border fort. The battle front will move eastward. Effectively I'll be adding a new chunk of land to my eastern holdings, changing it from a threat into an asset. It'll need a manager with a noble title. That can be you."

  Duke Gerard of Suncove was here too, looking skeptically at Dominic. The man wore a fine silver chain studded with gems, with crystals all over his ceremonial breastplate. "Not every officer can end a battle with more men than he started with. Nice magic trick." He introduced a third man in simpler clothes of red and gold, some noble who'd brought soldiers too.

  Dominic looked between them and decided not to give offense. "Thank you. I need to think about my next move."

  Cecil said, "That much is obvious. With the Baccatans not only repulsed but scattered, we have an op
portunity to rout them on the strategic scale." He pointed to the map. "The enemy's border forts are the site of much of that high-and-mighty force. But now One is gone and Two is barely holding out. We'll finish Two and take Three next. Their men represent a good chunk of Baccata's western-front fighting ability. By the time they can muster a significant force away from their center or their north front, we'll already be dug in for the winter again, many miles east and south from the old border. I'd been getting tired of the stalemate."

  Gerard joined in on Cecil's excitement. "Meanwhile the men from Invictus can harass them on the sea all down the peninsula, if they ever show up. We can seize whole coastal regions. It will be wonderful!"

  Dominic couldn't help starting to see the situation in terms of strategic puzzles. The noblemen were nudging wooden tokens around on the map like children at play. Suddenly he imagined the tokens bleeding. He grimaced. He reached out and made all of the game pieces flick over the table into an open chest. "These are people you're proposing to push around. I wanted to help the Baccatans, not slaughter as many as possible!"

  The Dukes scowled at him and Cecil said, "This is war. Or can you conjure up some spirits to do battle for us?"

  "Maybe he can walk into the capital and make everyone defect," said Gerard, deadpan.

  "The men and women in the lands you're talking about are busy tending crops and preparing the early harvest. Those who aren't fighting, that is. Your forces sitting around in a line of border forts for the rest of the year is going to leave those villagers in chaos, unsure who to turn to and who will kill them for making up their mind to help either side."

  Duke Cecil said, "He does raise a good point. Fort One is ash, but should we destroy Two and Three or only occupy them?"

  Gerard noted, "You'd need to reorient their defenses. With a mage we could salvage the wood quickly to do that. Then contact the villages and announce who they're working for now."

  Cecil said, "Their Citizens will probably fall in line, especially if it's Dominic as their new local lord. I'm still open to using Rose, too."

  Gerard smiled. "And from there we can take the next towns eastward, or burn them if we can't."

  "Nibbling territory one village at a time," Dominic muttered.

  "Then what do you suggest, to spare the poor peasants some heartache?" Gerard's tone had become mocking.

  Dominic slapped the map table. "We take the entire city of Seaflower. And everything around it."

  The two enthusiastic Dukes suddenly looked taken aback. Their game hadn't gone quite that far. Dominic grinned fiercely at them. "Are the stakes too high for you, gentlemen? Let me sell you the Dolphin for your sea campaign, and in return, help equip my force of deserters to make a lasting difference. We know the terrain better than you, and we'll be fighting for our homeland, just not for the Three Castes or for the Boundless One."

  "But how?" said Cecil. "The Flower Walls..."

  "I'll think of something. Rampage all you like across the border forts, but leave the villages in peace until it's time for them to deliver their harvest. Be ready to take the whole city and use that as your new base, so that the whole region between here and there can be left alone for once."

  * * *

  Rose had a few copies of a pamphlet with her, written in Mithraic. She handed them out to pass around among the Baccatan recruits. Those men (and a few women among the new batch) were in their tent city outside the walls, which had already upgraded from a barely tolerated group of "turncoats" to a decently supplied camp in friendly territory.

  Rose said, "This is called the 'Invitation To Arcana'. The second page is printed with enchanted ink. How many here can see the Weave?"

  "What are you doing?" said Dominic, who'd just come out to the open training ground among the tents.

  "Seeing who has the potential!" said Rose, tail high. "You want them to go into battle? Then give them a chance to use their heads. Your people are letting magical ability go to waste. That's part of why they're getting their tails kicked."

  "So your mages go around showing this pamphlet to people to judge them?"

  Her tail wiggled and she tilted her head in confusion. "We print this -- the Blackthorn clan does, that is -- and sells it at a loss, for anybody to read if they want. Yeah, the Blackthorns profit off the advanced lessons and they want to recruit people for their group, but mostly it's their way to spread goodwill about magic."

  "And your people can read," Dominic said.

  "Most of 'em."

  A few civilian volunteers from within St. Wylan had been working on the camp, to help the men live comfortably and train. One was the son of a baker who was under contract to sell as much bread as he could produce. One of these workers, a magic-working woman, said, "I've been talking with Miss Rose here. Magic instruction is no more forbidden among her people than for ours. Their mortal rulers seem to be aggressive about making sure people learn if they can."

  Rose's eyes narrowed for a moment. "Sore subject. But yes, and it sounds like the humans... the Mithraists, are trying to help more people be literate these days too. It helps that we're starting to get more printing presses."

  Dominic knew of those, but they were very rare in the State because of how dangerous an uncontrolled copying device could be. "I'd like to see one of those. So you use them for printing magic instructions?"

  The human woman laughed. "Scripture and rumor-sheets, mostly. You'll be appearing in the second one soon, I bet!"

  Dominic considered. He turned to the Baccatans and said, "Here, there's no punishment for learning. There never will be again. So answer honestly: who can see the Weave?"

  One man said, "Will we have to become your Servants or something if we can cast?"

  "No. I promise it."

  Hesitantly, nearly half of the troops raised their hands. Typical.

  "Can anyone read? Again, it's fine."

  A few raised their hands for that.

  "All right. Now, can anyone here actually use a spell?"

  One timid-looking man eventually raised a hand. Dominic said, "Which?"

  "The one for mending wood and leather, sir. Used it in secret in the village workshop. Sometimes I let things go unrepaired, or worked for hours to do something I could have solved in minutes, because a Citizen was looking."

  Rose's ears perked. "Great! Look at the diagram here, then. How many leaves can you see? Three? That's pretty good."

  Dominic interrupted. "What's your scale?"

  "Zero to six."

  "Hmm. Same as ours."

  He browsed "Invitation To Arcana" himself, partly for Mithraic reading practice. It assured the reader that magic was a morally good force and that mages (such as the clan that printed it) were usually nice people worth hiring or working for. It also contained a very basic explanation of the Weave and a spell for creating tiny sparkles. Good for impressing your friends, maybe -- in a society where it was allowed.

  Rose went on with teaching, starting with the leatherworker. "I want you and anybody else who can learn it, to at least get that spike-flinging power you saw your ex-Servant using in battle. This is free instruction courtesy of the people of Great Oak..."

  Dominic smiled as he watched the foreigner strut back and forth in front of the troops, occasionally whapping the ones on the end with a careless turn of her tail. Letting people learn and grow without fear had immediately brought forth hidden talent among his people. How much more was there to find? The more he saw of this wider world, the more he felt glad to have left the cloistered Nether. Maybe this hasty instruction would even make the price in blood a little lower.

  * * *

  Ex-Servant Jakob was playing with a wolf, jogging around the city wall with no other escort. Dominic still noticed himself being shadowed now and then, as on today's trip outside the city.

  Jakob found Dominic and said, "You have to do something about Irene."

  Dominic clutched the armful of books he'd been taking from the city library to the camp. "I haven't
visited her since trying to convert the first batch of prisoners. Is she all right?"

  "She's in prison! I tried to have her work with Dormier to earn a little money with scribe work, but she refused even that. We have to get her out of there."

  He thought of her as she'd looked that last time. One-handed and bitter, compared to the enthusiasm she'd shown when she first left her home. "It's her choice to make. If we took her with us on campaign, she'd probably betray us to the State. So, she has to stay if she won't change sides."

  The wolf growled as though sensing Jakob's frustration. He said, "Then send her somewhere! It doesn't matter where. What sort of life is this for her?"

  Dominic sighed and felt the edges of the books dig into his chest. "I think the Duke also wants her there to ensure our good behavior."

  "But Marion said we could trust Duke Cecil!" Jakob had been spending a lot of time with Sir Marion for the familiar-related studies.

  "I think we can, so long as we don't switch sides again. Irene's right about one thing: they're using us. The more we hurt Baccata the happier the Mithraists are. I don't think they care whether it's by winning converts or by burning and killing."

  Jakob said, "I didn't expect to hear that from you. Marion says you won't shut up about the King's religion when you see him."

  "Ha. I guess I've asked him about it a few times. He's onto something by talking about familiars as a freely chosen relationship. He and the priests around here seem to understand the idea of what Rose calls "freedom" better than the actual rulers do."

  Jakob bounced on his feet. "Then you see why we need to get Irene out! What good is it to get her to convert, if that's the only way she'll be let out? How's that any different than keeping people locked up in a village with an owner? Maybe we're not so different from Baccata if that's how we treat people."