Out of the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  He didn’t see the two eggs the dragon dropped, either, not till they fell far enough to make them look larger. “Looks like they’ll land on the redheads,” one of his men said, pointing. “Serve ‘em right, the bastards.”

  But it did not do to depend on the Algarvians to be fools. As the eggs neared the ground, they suddenly seemed to swerve in midair, and those swerves brought them down square on the bridge over the Skamandros. A long length of it tumbled into the river. “What sort of sorcery is that?” Leudast howled.

  He got no answer till that evening, when he put the same question to Captain Drogden. “The redheads have something new there,” the regimental commander replied, with what Leudast reckoned commendable calm. “Steering eggs by sorcery is hard even for them, so they don’t do it very often, and it doesn’t always work.”

  “It worked here,” Leudast said morosely. Drogden nodded. The Unkerlanters stayed on the west bank of the Skamandros a while longer.

  Hajjaj was glad to return to Bishah. The Zuwayzi foreign minister was glad he’d been allowed to return to his capital. He was glad Bishah remained the capital of the Kingdom of Zuwayza, and that Unkerlant hadn’t chosen to swallow his small, hot homeland after knocking it out of the Derlavaian War. But, most of all, he was glad to have escaped from Cottbus.

  “I can understand that, your Excellency,” Qutuz, his secretary, said on the day when he returned to King Shazli’s palace. “Imagine being stuck in a place where they wear clothes all the time.”

  “It’s not so much that they wear them all the time,” Hajjaj replied. Like Qutuz, he was a lean, dark brown man, though his hair and beard were white rather than black. And, like Qutuz, like almost all Zuwayzin, he wore only sandals and sometimes a hat unless meeting with foreigners who would be scandalized at nudity. He groped for words: “It’s that they need to wear them so much of the time, that they would really and truly die if they didn’t wear them. Until you’ve been down to the south, you have no idea what weather can do--none, I tell you.”

  Qutuz shuddered. “That probably helps make the Unkerlanters what they are.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Hajjaj answered. “Of course, other Derlavaians, ones who don’t live where the weather’s quite so beastly, wear clothes, too. I wouldn’t care to guess what that says about them. And the Kuusamans have a climate every bit as beastly as Unkerlant’s, and they are, by and large, very nice people. So you never can tell.”

  “I suppose not,” his secretary said, and then, in musing tones, “Kuusamans. We haven’t seen many of them in Zuwayza for a while.”

  “No, indeed,” Hajjaj agreed. “A few captives from sunken ships, a few more from leviathans killed off our shores, but otherwise . . .” He shook his head. “We’ll have a lot of closed ministries opening up again before long.”

  “Ansovald is already back at the Unkerlanter ministry,” Qutuz observed.

  “So he is,” Hajjaj said, and let it go at that. He despised the Unkerlanter minister to Zuwayza, who was crude and harsh even by the standards of his kingdom. He’d despised him when Ansovald served here before Unkerlant and Zuwayza went to war, and he’d despised him down in Cottbus, when Ansovald had presented King Swemmel’s terms for ending the war to him. Ansovald knew. He didn’t care. If anything, he found it funny. That only made Hajjaj despise him more.

  “Kuusamans,” Qutuz repeated. “Unkerlanters.” He sighed, but went on, “Lagoans. Valmierans. Jelgavans. New people to deal with.”

  “We do what we can. We do what we must,” Hajjaj said. “I’ve heard that Marquis Balastro did safely reach Algarve.”

  “Good news,” Qutuz said, nodding. “I’m glad to hear it, too. Balastro wasn’t a bad man, not at all.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Hajjaj agreed, wishing the same could be said of the cause for which Algarve fought.

  Having the Algarvian ministry standing empty felt as strange as imagining the others filled. Not even Hajjaj could blame Swemmel of Unkerlant for requiring Zuwayza to renounce her old ally and cleave to her new ones. He’d never liked many of the things Algarve had done; he’d loathed some of them, and told Balastro so to his face. But any kingdom that could help Zuwayza get revenge against Unkerlant had looked like a reasonable ally. And so ... and so Zuwayza had gambled. And so Zuwayza had lost.

  With a sigh, Hajjaj said, “And now we have to make the best of it.” The Unkerlanters had made Zuwayza switch sides. They’d made her yield land, and yield ports for her ships. They’d made her promise to consult with them on issues pertaining to their dealings with other kingdoms--that particularly galled Hajjaj. But they hadn’t deposed King Shazli and set up the Reformed Principality of Zuwayza with a puppet prince, as they’d threatened to do during the war. They hadn’t deposed Shazli and set up Ansovald as governor in Bishah, either. However much Hajjaj disliked Swemmel and his countrymen, they might have done worse than they had.

  And they would have, if they weren’t still fighting hard against Algarve--and not quite so hard against Gyongyos, Hajjaj thought. Well, if they’ve chosen to be sensible, I won’t complain.

  One of the king’s serving women came into the office and curtsied to Hajjaj. “May it please your Excellency, his Majesty would confer with you,” she said. But for some beads and bracelets and rings, she wore no more than Hajjaj and Qutuz. Hajjaj noticed her nudity more than he would have if he hadn’t just come from a kingdom where women shrouded themselves in baggy, ankle-length tunics.

  “Thank you, Maryem,” he replied. “I’ll come, of course.”

  He followed her to Shazli’s private audience chamber. He enjoyed following her; she was well-made and shapely. But I don’t stare like the pale-skinned foreigners who drape themselves, he thought. We may scandalize them, but who really has the more barbarous way of looking at things? He chuckled to himself. If he hadn’t studied at the University of Trapani in Algarve, such a notion probably never would have occurred to him.

  “Your Majesty,” he murmured, bowing as he came into King Shazli’s presence.

  “Always a pleasure to see you, your Excellency,” Shazli replied. He too was nude, but for sandals and a thin gold circlet on his brow. He was a slightly plump man--nearing forty now, which startled Hajjaj whenever he thought about it-- with a sharp mind and a good heart, though perhaps without enormous force of character. Hajjaj liked him, and had since he was a baby. “Please, sit down,” the king said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you, your Majesty.” Zuwayzin used thick rugs and piles of cushions in place of the chairs and sofas common elsewhere in Derlavai. Hajjaj made himself a mound of them and leaned back against it.

  Shazli waited till he’d finished, then asked, “Shall I have tea and wine and cakes sent in?”

  “As you wish, your Majesty. If you would rather get down to business, I shan’t be offended.” Zuwayzin wasted endless convivial hours in the ritual of hospitality surrounding tea and wine and cakes. Hajjaj often used them as a diplomatic weapon when he didn’t feel like talking about something right away.

  “No, no.” Shazli hadn’t had a foreign education, and clung to traditional Zuwayzi ways more strongly than his much older foreign minister. And so another serving girl fetched in tea fragrant with mint, date wine (Hajjaj actually preferred grape wine, but the thicker, sweeter stuff did cast his memory back to childhood), and cakes dusted with sugar and full of pistachios and cashews. Only small talk passed over tea and wine and cakes. Today, Hajjaj endured the rituals instead of enjoying them.

  At last, the king sighed and blotted his lips with a linen napkin and remarked, “The first Unkerlanter ships put in at Najran today.”

  “I hope they were suitably dismayed,” Hajjaj remarked.

  “Indeed,” King Shazli said. “I am given to understand that their captains made some pointed remarks to the officers in charge of the port.”

  “I warned Ansovald when I signed the peace agreement that the Unkerlanters would get less use from our eastern ports than they seemed t
o expect,” Hajjaj said. “They didn’t seem to believe me. The only reason Najran is a port at all is that a ley line runs through it and out into the Bay of Ajlun.” He’d been there. Even by Zuwayzi standards, it was a sun-blazed, desolate place.

  “You understand that, your Excellency, and I also understand it,” Shazli said. “But if the Unkerlanters fail to understand it, they could make our lives very unpleasant. If they land soldiers at Najran ...”

  “Those soldiers can make the acquaintance of the Kaunians who managed to escape from Forthweg,” Hajjaj said. “I don’t know how much else they could do. Even now, when the weather is as cool and wet as it ever gets, I can hardly see them marching overland to Bishah. Can you, your Majesty?”

  “Well, possibly not,” the king admitted. “But if they want an excuse to revise the agreement they forced on us ...”

  “If they want such an excuse, your Majesty, they can always find one.” Hajjaj didn’t often interrupt his sovereign, but here he’d done it twice in a row. “My belief is that this is nothing but Unkerlanter bluster.”

  “And if you are wrong?” Shazli asked.

  “Then Swemmel’s men will do whatever they do, and we shall have to live with it,” Hajjaj replied. “That, unfortunately, is what comes of losing a war.” The king grimaced but did not answer. Hajjaj heaved himself to his feet and departed a little later. He knew he hadn’t pleased Shazli, but reckoned telling his sovereign the truth more important. He hoped Shazli felt the same. And if not. . . He shrugged. He’d been foreign minister longer than Shazli had been king. If his sovereign decided his services were no longer required, he would go into retirement without the slightest murmur of protest.

  Shazli gave no sign of displeasure. Hajjaj almost wished the king had, for the next day Ansovald summoned him to the Unkerlanter ministry. “And I shall have to go, too,” he told Qutuz with a martyred sigh. “The price we pay for defeat, as I remarked to his Majesty. Given a choice, I would sooner visit the dentist. He enjoys the pain he inflicts less than Ansovald does.”

  Hajjaj dutifully donned an Unkerlanter-style tunic to visit Ansovald. He minded that less than he would have in high summer. Calling on the Jelgavans and Valmierans means wearing trousers, he thought, and imagined he was breaking out in hives at the mere idea. Another sigh, most heartfelt, burst from him.

  Two stolid Unkerlanter sentries stood guard outside the ministry. They weren’t so stolid, however, as to keep their eyes from shifting to follow good-looking women going by with nothing on but hats and sandals and jewelry. With luck, the sentries didn’t speak Zuwayzi--some of the women’s comments about them would have flayed the hide from a behemoth.

  Ansovald was large and bluff and blocky. “Hello, your Excellency,” he said in Algarvian, the only language he and Hajjaj had in common. Hajjaj savored the irony of that. He had little else to savor, for Ansovald bulled ahead: “I’ve got some complaints for you.”

  “I listen.” Hajjaj did his best to look politely attentive. Sure enough, the Unkerlanter minister fussed and fumed about the many shortcomings of Najran. When he finished, Hajjaj inclined his head and replied, “I am most sorry, your Excellency, but I did warn you about the state of our ports. We shall do what we can to cooperate with your captains, but we can only do what we can do, if you take my meaning.”

  “Who would have thought you ever told so much of the truth?” Ansovald growled.

  Staying polite wasn’t easy. Ido it for my kingdom, Hajjaj thought. “Is there anything more?” he asked, getting ready to leave.

  But Ansovald said, “Aye, there is.”

  “I listen,” Hajjaj said again, wondering what would come next.

  “Minister Iskakis tells me you’ve got his wife--Tassi, I think the bitch’s name is--at your house up in the hills.”

  “Tassi is not a bitch,” Hajjaj said, more or less truthfully. “Nor is she Iskakis’ wife: she has received a divorce here in Zuwayza.”

  “He wants her back,” Ansovald said. “Yanina is Unkerlant’s ally nowadays, and so is Zuwayza. If I tell you to give her back, you bloody well will.”

  “No,” Hajjaj said, and enjoyed the look of astonishment the word brought to the Unkerlanter’s face. He also enjoyed amplifying it: “If Iskakis had her back, he would use her as he uses boys, if he used her at all. He prefers boys. She prefers not being used so. Unkerlant is indeed Zuwayza’s ally, even her superior. I admit it. But, your Excellency, that does not make you into my master, not on any individual level. And so, good day. Tassi stays.” He enjoyed turning his back and walking out on Ansovald most of all.

  Every now and again--more often, in fact, than every now and again--Istvan felt guilty about being alive. It wasn’t so much that he remained a Kuusaman captive on the island of Obuda. Gyongyosians reckoned themselves a warrior race, and knew that captivity might befall a warrior. But to have stayed alive after his countrymen sacrificed themselves to harm Kuusamo . . . That was something else, something harder to bear in good conscience.

  “We knew,” he said to Corporal Kun as the two of them chopped wood in the midst of a chilly rain. “We knew, and we didn’t do anything.”

  “Sergeant, we did what needed doing,” Kun answered. His next stroke buried his axehead in the ground, not in the chunk of pine in front of him. Maybe his conscience bothered him, too, in spite of his bold words. Or maybe he just couldn’t see what he was doing: he wore spectacles, and the rain couldn’t be doing them any good. Indeed, he muttered, “Can’t see a cursed thing,” before going on, “We didn’t get our throats cut, either, and that puts us ahead of the game. Or will you tell me I’m wrong?”

  “No,” Istvan said, though he didn’t sound altogether convinced. He explained why: “Half of me feels we should have told the Kuusamans what was coming, so our comrades would still be alive. The other half . . .” He shrugged. “I keep wondering if the stars will refuse to shine on my spirit because I didn’t do everything I could to hurt the slanteyes.”

  “How many times have we been over this?” Kun said patiently, as if he had the higher rank and Istvan the lower. “Did Captain Frigyes really hurt the Kuusamans? Not bloody much. You can tell by looking--well, you could if it weren’t raining.” His precision was a hint that he’d been a mage’s apprentice in Gyorvar, the capital, before getting conscripted into Ekrekek Arpad’s army.

  Istvan sighed. Kunhegyes, his home village, lay in a mountain valley far in distance and even further in ideas from Gyorvar. He clung to the old ways of Gyongyos as best he could, not least because he hardly knew any others. He was a big, broad-shouldered man with a mane of tawny yellow hair and a thick, bushy beard a shade darker. Like a lot of his countrymen, he looked leonine. So did Kun, but he made a distinctly scrawny lion even when he wasn’t wearing his spectacles. Though he dwarfed the Kuusaman guards, he was neither tall nor wide by Gyongyosian standards, and his beard had always been and probably would always be on the patchy side.

  With another sigh, Istvan said, “A pox on it. Let’s just work. When I’m chopping wood, I don’t have to think. Since everything happened, I don’t much feel like thinking.”

  “Aye, I believe that,” Kun answered. In a different tone of voice, the words would have sounded sympathetic. Instead, as usual, Kun only sounded sardonic.

  “Ahh, go bugger a goat,” Istvan said, but his heart wasn’t in the curse. Kun was as he was, as the stars had made him, and no one could change him now.

  “You two lousy Gongs, you talk too much,” a Kuusaman guard yelled in bad Gyongyosian. The guards didn’t usually give their captives as much leeway as Istvan and Kun had; the patter of the rain and the curtain of falling drops must have kept them from noticing what was going on for a while. “To work harder!” the small, dark, slant-eyed man added. He carried a stick, which meant the Gyongyosians had to pay heed to him, or at least pretend they did.

  After a while, the wood-chopping shift ended. The Kuusamans collected the axes from the detail, and carefully counted them before dismissing th
e captives. They tried to take no chances--but they’d let the Gyongyosians turn loose a sorcery that had wrecked big stretches of Obuda, all through not paying quite enough attention to what their captives were up to. Kun said, “You’ve got your nerve, Sergeant, talking about goats to me.”

  Istvan looked around nervously before answering, “Oh, shut up.” His voice was rough and full of loathing. Goats were forbidden beasts to Gyongyosians, perhaps because of their lasciviousness and habit of eating anything. Whatever the reason, forbidden they were; it was perhaps the strongest prohibition the folk of Gyongyos knew. Bandit bands and perverts sometimes ate goat to mark themselves off from ordinary, decent people--and when they got caught at it, they were most often buried alive.

  Kun, for a wonder, did shut up. But he held out his left hand, palm up and open, so the rain splashed down onto it. Along with a woodcutter’s calluses, he had a scar on the palm, between his second and third fingers. Unwillingly, Istvan held out his hand, too. His palm bore an identical scar. He had a scar on the back of his hand, too, as if a knife had gone all the way through. It had. Kun bore a like scar there, too.

  “We’re the only ones left now, I think,” Istvan said. Kun nodded somberly. Neither one said what they were left from. Istvan wished he could forget. He knew he never would, not to his dying day.

  Back when the squad he’d led were fighting in the great pine woods of western Unkerlant, they’d ambushed some Unkerlanters in a little clearing, not least so they could take the stew Swemmel’s soldiers were cooking. It turned out to be goat stew. The whole squad had eaten of it before the company commander came up and realized what it was.

  Captain Tivadar would have been within his rights to blaze them all. He hadn’t done it. After they’d stuck fingers down their throats to puke up their appalling meal, he’d cut every one of them to atone for their inadvertent sin. Not a man had cried out. They’d all counted themselves lucky. To be known as a goat-eater in Gyongyos. .. Istvan shuddered. He hadn’t done it on purpose, but how much difference did that really make? He still often wondered if he was accursed.