by Chris Bunch
It was like currying a horse. The army had been the coarse comb, now the fine-toothed one swept the capital.
Not only the poor died. I saw a face I recognized, blackened as it was. Count Komroff, the man who’d renounced his title and thought everyone should live in poverty and on milk, had evidently found a more dynamic philosophy, since the yellow silk cord dangled from his elongated neck.
Nicias, even in ruins, was close to normal. Only the docks were still deadly. We had not even been able to send full-size units into these warrens without taking heavy casualties. But we — and they — knew the end was only a few days away.
Tenedos summoned me to the tower late one afternoon.
“Tomorrow night we shall end this nightmare,” he announced. “Kutulu’s agents have discovered that the last elements of the Tovieti, their leaders and their most fanatical, plan a last stand, taking down as many soldiers as they can, when we assault the docks. I suppose they think such a blood sacrifice will bring Thak to life.”
“Why hasn’t he already made an appearance? Surely the massacre of his disciples can’t be pleasing.”
“Why shouldn’t it be? He’s but a demon, hardly capable of real reasoning, at least not as we know it. I’d imagine that death, any death, even those of his own people, gives him drink and meat. I doubt if he’d feel any personal threat until the last of his believers faces doom.
“Perhaps he’s even abandoned this city and returned to the Border States, or other places where he’s worshiped. Not that I plan on taking any chances.
“I cast some careful spells, and found that the Tovieti are still using that smuggler’s den you and Kutulu found as their headquarters.”
“I can’t believe that, sir,” I said. “That’s completely foolish. That hideout was exposed. Wouldn’t they find another?”
“I agree they’re hardly showing much intelligence, at least from our viewpoint. Perhaps they think Thak killed the intruders, or perhaps that the invader was nothing but my animunculi, under sorcerous command. Or, just as likely, they’re as arrogant about our faults as the Rule of Ten were about them before the murders started.
“At any rate, I’d like a raiding party made up from your regiment. Perhaps some of those stalwarts who were with us on the retreat from Sayana might wish to put a bit of adventure in their lives.
“No more than twenty men. And yes, I’ll be accompanying the raid, which is an absolute necessity, not adventurism, Domina. Let me show you why.”
He took out a box, and opened it. Inside were the fragments of shattered glass I’d seen a few nights earlier.
“You remember how angry I was trying to get those idiots in the Chare Brethren to work together and produce a single Great Spell? Well, I ran out of time, although I still think it’s a possibility. Instead, I had glass bottles blown from a single vat of molten glass, and given to each member of the brotherhood. I had each of them cast a single, identical spell. When they’d succeeded, I broke the bottles, then took a bit of this glass, which was the results of the spell.
“I already had the Law of Association working for me, and I created another spell, using the Law of Contagion, and overlaid a third incantation on top of that.”
“And the result is?”
“Damastes, I’m a bit ashamed of you. I shall not tell you, not out of any desire to be mysterious, but out of personal pique that you’re not assembling the evidence your own eyes have gathered.
“If you haven’t figured it out by tomorrow night, then perhaps you’ll get a chance to see it being cast for real.”
I had one final question: “What about Kutulu? Will he be coming with us?”
“Why should he?” Tenedos said. “His work will begin after the raid. Until then, there’s no need to risk his abilities.
“Now, go prepare your troops. I’ve several other spells to prepare for emergencies.”
• • •
Of course there were more than twenty men from the Lancers who wished to volunteer — there were twice that many just from the men of Cheetah Troop who’d recovered from their injuries and sicknesses gained in the retreat from Kait and returned to the regiment.
Every officer in the Lancers volunteered, and I’m afraid I made the party rank-heavy, since I took Captain Yonge and Legate Bikaner as well as myself. Captain Petre gave me a dark look when I refused him, but I wanted at least one officer I knew well to remain with the Lancers.
At dusk I kissed Marán good-bye, went upstairs to get Seer Tenedos. I approved of his dress: dark, tight-fitting tunic and pants, a matching watch cap, and boots that laced to midcalf. He had a belt-pouch with magical supplies in it. Like the rest of us, he was armed with a dagger as his primary weapon. He also carried a shallow wooden box about two feet by one foot, closed with a clasp. Fortunately, it weighed less than five pounds. I assumed this contained the elements of this special spell he was so proud of.
He’d also devised a plan on how we would reach the waterfront undetected. It was a bit elaborate, involving a diversion from the ring of soldiers sealing the docks off from the rest of the city and using that excitement to mask our party’s moving through the lines.
“Have you already asked the army for the diversion?”
“I have. It’ll be the Tenth Hussars, and I’ve given the domina a duplicate of this.” He held up a hand, and showed me a rather ugly brass ring. “When I rub it, he’ll feel a tingling on his own ring, and know it’s time to begin his feint. We’ll move forward from the lines of the Humayan Foot.”
“I think I have a better idea … although your idea of the diversionary attack is good.”
“Go ahead,” Tenedos said, with just a bit of frost, “I’m still learning to be a tactician.”
“Sir, I think you missed the easy way.”
“Which is?”
I pointed, and he swore at himself. “Of course! I should have seen it for myself. I’ll summon a courier and tell the Humayan Foot not to expect us.”
• • •
I’d pointed to the Latane River, gleaming in the setting sun, and had already procured five flat-bottomed boats whose sides barely stuck up above the waterline. We loaded into them, untied the moorings, and let the current take us into the heart of the enemy. All of us were dressed in dark clothing, wore daggers on our belts, and carried small packs with the other tools necessary for our strike.
There was enough light so we were never in doubt of where we were. I had the men stay low in the boats. When we neared the Tovieti headquarters, I whispered to Tenedos to rub his ring. In a few moments, I heard the screech of battle as the Hussars launched the diversion, and we brought out oars, rowed to a ramshackle pier, and moored our boats.
We made sure we hadn’t been spotted, then went straight toward the pier. The warehouses around us were fire-blackened, and I could smell the stench of unburied bodies.
The Tovieti may have been foolish about not abandoning their burrow, but at least they’d set human sentries out this time. There were three, and I almost felt sympathy for the poor, untrained fools. One actually whistled to himself in boredom, and the other moved back and forth in a regular manner, and the third stood close to the edge of the dock, staring fixedly across the river.
I touched sleeves — Yonge … Karjan … Svalbard — and they went forward, knives out. All I heard was one quiet splash as the third sentry’s body was dropped into the river. The other two corpses were eased to the wood, and my three assassins were back beside me.
We found the hole where the lever should be inserted. Tenedos held up a hand: Wait. He touched his temples, touched the wood, and nodded. I should proceed. He’d sensed no magical alarms. Once more I felt with the butt of my dagger, found the socket and pried, and the hatch lifted noiselessly.
I still could not believe this wasn’t a trap, but after a few seconds, when nothing happened, I started toward the ramp. Tenedos stopped me, and shook his head. He handed me his case, and went down the ramp first. For a moment I thought t
his was mere bravado, but then I realized, seeing him move so carefully, arms spread in front of him like a drunk trying to keep the world steady as he walks, that he was the right one to lead, the only one with a counterspell to stop any waiting Tovieti sorcery.
He stopped twice, each time taking something from his pouch and whispering a spell. The first time I saw nothing, but the second time the darkness glowed purple for just an instant, or perhaps it was an illusion.
The Tovieti masters had done a better job of guarding themselves than before.
We moved down the tunnel, then saw light and heard voices. There was no sentry at the mouth as before. Evidently the Tovieti felt that magic was a more reliable guardian than steel. Tenedos took the case, and I crawled forward a few feet until I could peer into the chamber.
I counted seventeen men and women. They were gathered around a sand-table they’d used to model the dockyard area, talking in low tones, and pointing to various locations, obviously laying out the final attack, completely lost in their work. There were maps everywhere. If the seventeen had been in uniform, male, and a bit less disheveled, it would have looked exactly like any army planning session.
I slid back a few feet to my men, and held up a curled forefinger, thumb atop it. Everything was as it should be. The men drew their weapons. In one hand each of us had a knife, in the other a canvas tube full of sand. We’d kill if we must, but had hoped we wouldn’t have to — corpses would be of no use.
We crowded together at the mouth of the tunnel. The men’s eyes were on me. Breathe … breathe … breathe … my hand dropped and we charged into the room!
The Tovieti turned, saw us. There was a scream or two, and then we were on them, sandbags swinging. Only a few of them had time to draw weapons, and they were either cut or clubbed down before making more than a couple of wild slashes. Two women ran for an exit. Accurately thrown sandbags dropped them.
Then there was no one left standing in the room except Lancers. I saw only one of my men down, unconscious or dead; another in trouble, on his knees, gasping for air where a chance kick had winded him. A few others had minor wounds, swiftly bound by their mates.
Scattered around us were the dead, unconscious, or wounded bodies of seventeen Tovieti leaders. We’d been amazingly successful, and so far I hadn’t heard a hue and cry. But we had made some noise, and could have only a few more lucky moments.
The men were already taking precut lengths of rope from their packs, binding the hands and feet and gagging the twelve Tovieti who we thought would live. Of the others two were dead and the other three unlikely to survive. That was as Tenedos had ordered: Kill only if you have to. We wanted as many as possible able to talk.
The raid was, thus far, outstandingly successful, more so as the prone men groaned back to life and sat up. I was privately less content — I’d hoped the Kallian Malebranche would be among the Tovieti, but he was absent But then I saw the fat, bearded man who was the Nician leader of the sect lying bound on the floor, and next to him the Marchioness Fenelon, who glared hatred at us all.
I thought Tenedos would be happy, but he was looking about, worried. “Hurry,” he said. “I sense something. Something coming.”
We needed no urging, and in seconds had the bound men and women carried over-shoulder, and our own casualties were assisted back up the tunnel.
Then the ground rumbled and shook, as it had before, and I looked about, for signs of that fearsome mole-monster. I saw nothing, but the ground rumbled harder, bricks groaned and shrieked, and I heard the gush of water as the passageway was torn open and river water began to pour into it.
We went up the ramp at a run, the roaring torrent just behind us, and burst out into the night and safety, nothing behind us to show signs of the smuggler’s cave but a dark, swirling pool.
The ground kept shaking, the wooden dock creaking, about to tear apart.
I looked downriver, toward the sea, and saw Thak!
I don’t know where he’d hidden himself — underwater, in some warehouse or burrow or perhaps there was a door into his world somewhere out there.
On he came, clawed hands stretching for us, ready to crush, ready to tear, as he had in my nightmare, and I heard that screeching of unoiled metal and high shrilling I’d heard before in the Tovieti cavern in the Border States.
Now he was not orange and sun colors, but darkness and moonlight. Thak gathered enough light from the stars and sliver of moon to send darting slashes of illumination across the water and buildings as he crashed toward us. I heard cries of terror and joy as men and women saw their god, their destroyer.
A few of my men, those who hadn’t been in the cavern and seen the demon before, were wavering, about to flee.
“Stand fast!” I shouted, and my shout brought them back into the chains of discipline, and they dropped our captives and made ready to fight, pinprick knives against a monster.
Tenedos was busy opening that case. Flashing bits of light revealed those bits of glass, held somehow within the confines of a smaller circle and triangle.
Tenedos took a fragment in each hand, and stood, holding his arms toward Thak, who was now no more than a hundred yards distant, his hellish keening louder in expectant triumph. Tenedos began chanting, and his voice boomed across the river, louder even than the demon’s death song:
“Little voices
Little spells
Spells that broke
Spells that smashed.
You are an echo
An echo of another
Who in turn
Reflects another’s voice.
Now come
Come together.
Touch your brother.
Feel your brother.
You are one
You are mine
Mine to hold
Mind to send.
You are mine
I fathered thee
Now you must obey.
“Ahela, Mahela, Lehander
“I hold you
I order you
I send you.
Seek your target
Seek your enemy.
Seek it out
As you were taught.
Strike now
Strike hard
Strike as one.”
I don’t quite know how to explain what I saw, but something rose from that case, just as I belatedly understood what the spell was, that each of those bits of glass had been the result of a shattering spell cast by one of the Chare Brethren, combined by Tenedos as symbols to create one enormously powerful incantation, which had smashed that marble statue in its test.
What I saw was barely visible, shimmering like heat above a fire, but this had a form, a shape, a rough V. I saw it, then I saw it not, but felt a wind rush, and barrels on the dock between us and Thak were bowled aside as the spell rushed toward its target.
Thak must have seen or sensed doom rushing upon him, for he reared back, holding up his hands in front of him. But the spell struck true, the crystalline “singing” crashed into discordance, like a million, million goblets crashing onto stone, and then it cut suddenly, and Thak exploded, exploded like a huge stone that had been cut by a master jeweler, examined and found flawed, and smashed with a great hammer in a fit of rage.
There was a rain of fragments, fragments that vanished even as they fell, and then Thak was gone.
“Now it is over,” Tenedos said in the stillness.
TWENTY-TWO
CIVIL WAR
But it wasn’t over. Not yet. There were still Tovieti to hunt down and destroy. Once again, Elias Malebranche had slipped away. Kutulu could find no traces of him in Nicias. Tenedos shrugged. “He’s fled to his last bolt-hole. He … and his master … don’t realize it, but their time has run out.”
It was still cruel, still nasty — the Tovieti who refused to vanish fought as bitterly as any fanged beast does when tracked to its lair. But we found them, and we killed them, although more soldiers died in the process. In these final days
, Tenedos’s hellhound Kutulu was given his own nickname by the broadsheets: The Serpent Who Never Sleeps. The fear his name brought was to grow and grow.
Nicias, a city half in ruins, was at peace once more. Now would come retribution and blame. I privately expected the people of the city to turn against the army and especially Seer Tenedos after the brutal suppression. But they didn’t. He was once more a hero, a great man. I puzzled, but Marán, who I was learning was far more perceptive than her age might suggest, said she wasn’t surprised. “The people did things they don’t want to remember doing, so whoever really did what happened, well, they’re someone else, someone different. All the seer did was destroy those horrible, different people so the common people can be happy again.” I realized that yes, people did think, or rather not think, like that. So I merely shook my head when the army was cheered every time it rode out, and once again I was Damastes the Hero.
The Rule of Ten proclaimed a “time of healing,” and no doubt would have gotten on with rebuilding with never a finger-point of blame, a convenient policy since they were far guiltier for the riots than any Tovieti or Kallian. But Tenedos would have none of that. He called for a tribunal, but the Rule of Ten quickly responded that they’d have hearings on whether or not that should be allowed.
Perhaps the matter might have ended there, but once again the Rule of Ten’s ineptness showed.
Nicias was starving to death, even though food was coming into the city by the day in great barge-loads. The rice, the meat, the fruit were being off-loaded into warehouses … and there it sat. Unless, of course, you had the right amount of gold. The rich, as always, ate well.
Once more the city rumbled with disquiet. This time, Tenedos didn’t wait for the Rule of Ten to fumble with a response. No one had rescinded his special orders, and so he sent out elements of the Frontier divisions with orders to smash into the warehouses and take the food. He set up distribution centers throughout the city, manned by other soldiers, and the city ate — for free. Tenedos was no longer a hero, but a demigod.