At last, she was able to say, “I apologize, general.”
But to Clement’s surprise, Ellid said, “General, if I may speak, it does seem that what Clement has learned is quite urgent.”
Cadmar glared at her, then turned a suspicious look on Gilly, who managed to be preoccupied with trimming a pen. Cadmar said reluctantly, “Tell me again what you’ve learned, lieutenant-general.”
Clement told him again. When she finished, he was staring at her with such disbelief that her heart sank. She had thought she was prepared to battle him into comprehension, but her will simply failed her.
She said hopelessly, “Whether I’m right or not, general, we must have some kind of plan—”
At that moment, a shame-faced soldier came in, carrying a glittering knife that was cautiously wrapped in a piece of leather. Gilly had taken custody of the storyteller’s glyph cards, and Clement had told the soldiers on guard there to search the storyteller, and to block the cell window to prevent any further conversations with ravens. The soldier gave Clement the knife he had found on the storyteller’s person, saying, “Careful, lieutenant-general. It’s got a wicked edge on it.”
As the soldier left the room, Cadmar, still in a temper, began vehemently stating the various reasons why it was impossible to develop a strategy without any solid information about the enemy’s plans. Of course he was correct; but that their task was impossible did not alter the fact that they needed to do it. It would be easiest if Cadmar could argue himself into accepting that fact, so Clement pretended to listen to him, while with feigned abstraction she unwrapped and examined the little knife.
It was the most beautifully crafted blade she had ever set eyes on. The metal shone like polished silver, and though its surface was smooth as glass Clement could see wavery lines, like ripples in sand on a beach, as though the molten metal had been folded and hammered flat, over and over. Clement was no expert in metal -craft, but the skill displayed here seemed, simply, beyond possibility.
Clement stepped over to Gilly and showed the knife to him. He stared, and muttered, “No mastermark? A metalsmith of such skill, working in secret?”
Cadmar paused in his argument to glare at them. Clement had not taken off her coat, so she dropped the blade into her pocket. And then she noticed a stinging in her fingertip, and a swelling bead of blood. She could have sworn she had not even touched the blade’s edge.
One of the Paladins had brought in a plate of hot dumplings for Karis, but the plate remained untouched. Garland picked up Emil’s teapot and re-filled Karis’s cup: a bit of porcelain the size and weight of an empty egg shell.
Karis gave a flinch. “How hard is it to avoid cutting yourself?”
“What?” Garland said.
“Zanja’s knife. Every time someone touches it, it draws blood.” Karis poked the raven-scavenged file with her fingertip. “Even an act so innocent as making a knife, or a file, isn’t innocent at all. Blood is shed. People die.”
The file, rolling away before her fingertip, struck Emil’s watch with a metallic ring.
“And yet I must act,” said Karis heavily.
The door opened. Mabin, apparently immune to weariness, came briskly in. “How long does it take to read a handful of symbols?” Karis did not even look at her.
The old councilor sat down, and looked at the ticking watch. “When do we run out of time?”
Karis said, “When I go mad.”
“A little before that, I hope.” Mabin picked up the file and rubbed its rough surface lightly with her fingertips. She said, “Karis, it’s not your fault: they could have cut through the padlock with any file.”
Karis turned to her. She said in some astonishment, “Are you trying to be kind to me?”
Cadmar seemed to think he was making a speech. “Over twenty years have passed since our people in a decisive victory became the rulers of Shaftal. At great risk we destroyed every last one of these so-called witches—fire bloods, dirt bloods, and all the rest of them. There’s been not a hint, not a whisper, of magic as long as I can remember!”
Clement watched him pace and gesture. No doubt he was imagining the shouts of praise and bursts of applause that would greet his resonant words. Willis was dead, and Cadmar was not particularly clever, but she could think of no other important difference between the two leaders.
Gilly sat on his stool, gray-faced with pain. His hooded gaze was hard, bitter, and even contemptuous. He had been a desperate street beggar once, and Cadmar had ridden past on a fine horse, and noticed him, and given him a ride, a meal, a place to shelter from the cold. For such minimal kindness, a crippled child might sell his soul, and not be blamed for it. Clement could not so easily excuse herself.
She said abruptly, “General, I’ve neither slept nor eaten since yesterday.”
Cadmar glanced at her, then at Gilly who had not yet been able to take his morning tincture, then at Ellid, whose breakfast was probably congealing in her quarters as her lieutenants wondered what had become of her. “Come back in half an hour, all of you,” said Cadmar. “And I want to hear what you imagine might be done to avert this supposed threat.”
Dismissed, Clement started for the stairs. She heard Gilly’s door close quietly, and then the distant slam of the outer door behind Ellid. But Clement remained at the foot of the stairs. She could not take the first step up that long climb to her quarters, where the hysterical girl watched over the dying infant. She simply could not do it.
She finally walked back down the hall to the outdoor door. The soldier on duty opened it with a smart salute, and politely advised her that since it was bitter cold she had better button her coat.
She did so, standing at the top of the steps, squinting in the pallid light. The rising sun could be spotted between rooftops. The road was empty, the construction work halted by cold, everyone not on guard duty huddled indoors. She went down onto the ice, which made secret, crunching sounds under her boots.
After a few steps, she could not continue. She could not see. She stood in the blank, cold light of day where anyone could have observed her, with tears scalding her cheeks.
Something black flapped across her vision. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she said harshly, “Tell the G’deon I’m a weakling. I don’t care.”
The raven gazed at her through one eye, and then the other. The bird’s lack of expression and attentive energy seemed to invite her to further explain herself. Clement said, “My son is five weeks old. He doesn’t even have a name. And he is dying.”
The raven maintained its illusion of interest.
Clement tried to imagine what the bird might want from her. And then, she reached very cautiously into her pocket for the storyteller’s knife, found a bit of string in another pocket, and used it to bind the leather around the blade. She laid it on the snow, and stepped back.
The raven walked to the slim packet, hooked a claw into the loop of the string, and lifted off. In a long, gradual climb, the bird swam through bitter air to the rooftops, over the rooftops, over the garrison wall, and out of sight above the city, with the storyteller’s blade dangling from his claw.
Gods of my mother, thought Clement. The G’deon is already here.
Karis raised her head sharply from where it rested in the support of her palm.
Garland lifted his head from his arms. He had, though it seemed impossible, been dozing.
Karis said fiercely, “I need some milk!”
“If you’ll eat one of those dumplings, I’ll go get some,” said Garland.
Karis picked up a dumpling, and took a bite. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Chew,” he said. “Swallow. All right, I am going.”
Clement was the last to re-enter Cadmar’s room. She had a hot roll in her hand and a half dozen more crammed into her pockets. She gave one to Gilly, who had washed and shaved, but did not seem much improved. His gaze asked her a question she could not interpret. She offered one to Ellid, who appeared only more worried, now that
she had taken some time to think.
Cadmar said sarcastically, “Well, Clement, what do you think we should do? Shall we send out our soldiers? To where? To attack what?”
Clement said, “We don’t have to go out looking for the Lost G’deon. She’ll come in person to rescue the storyteller, like she did before when the storyteller was Mabin’s prisoner. And she’s going to do it soon, for she’s already in Watfield.”
Gilly gave her a startled look. “If the G’deon—the supposed G’deon—is in the city . . . And she wants to be sure of the storyteller’s safety—and you’ve made it impossible for that bird to keep an eye on her—”
“She’ll be at the gate at any moment,” Clement finished for him.
Ellid grunted with dismay, but Cadmar’s face lit up.
Clement said, “What will we trade the storyteller for?”
Cadmar said, “If a woman claiming to be the G’deon shows up at our gate, do you really think I’ll bargain with her?”
Clement sat in a chair, tore open a roll, and made herself take a bite. Even fresh from the oven, the bread was dry and tasteless.
Cadmar said, “You thought it would be so complicated. But all we have to do is kill her.”
Frowning worriedly, Ellid looked at Clement. Although Ellid was an inadvertent ally, unused to this alliance, she already seemed to have learned that it was Clement’s job to contradict Cadmar.
But what could Clement say to him? Her son was dying, Kelin was dead, those children in the garrison would never see their homes again. Why was her heart still torn like this? Why not kill the G’deon? Why did she want to make an argument she herself did not believe?
She said nothing. In silence, she ate her roll.
When Garland returned, the room was cold with a recent draft, and Karis was forcing shut the window sash. The plate of dumplings was empty. Garland said accusingly, “You fed your meal to the ravens?”
Karis held up a glittering blade.
“The knife? How did the raven get it?”
Her smile was tight, and her eyes were a bit strange: focused, but also intensely preoccupied. Garland gave her the small bottle of milk he had purchased. She put it into the inside pocket of her long woolen doublet, lay the glittering little blade in her toolbox on the floor, and picked up Emil’s watch. She crossed the room, opened a door, and tossed in the watch. There was a startled exclamation. Emil came out with the watch in his hand, having apparently managed to catch it before it met its demise. He said, “Are we out of time? Or merely out of patience?”
“I’m going to the garrison now,” Karis said.
He blinked at her, rubbed his eyes, and blinked at her again.
Wild-eyed and gaunt with weariness, Medric came out of the room. Glancing in, Garland saw the glyph cards arranged carefully on the floor. Karis said to Medric, “Tell me how you read the storyteller’s glyph pattern.”
“So our torture is finally to end? Well, what shall we decide this pattern means, Emil?”
Emil looked very unhappy. “If we could have some semblance of certainty!”
“Pretend that you’re certain,” said Karis.
“We believe we need to kill someone, and we are only guessing who. Wouldn’t you rather we could be positive?”
There was a silence, but not a particularly long one. Karis said, “I have with me a very small assassin. Who shall I kill?”
Clement finally brought herself to say reasonably, “If the woman is the G’deon, she may not be easy to kill. Isn’t that right, Gilly?”
“Not easy,” said Gilly morosely. “And certainly we would not be wise to try.”
Cadmar said, “But we are soldiers and I don’t see why this storyteller’s scars convince you of anything other than that she’s had a dangerous and lucky life.”
“A recovery from paralysis,” said Clement. “Regrown body parts.”
Cadmar snorted. “Impossible.”
“Well, general, that’s exactly my point.” Doomed to keep repeating the arguments that Cadmar would not ever become able to hear. Clement said, “This Lost G’deon may be able to do anything!”
“But we don’t know that.”
“If we let her demonstrate her power so that we become certain, then it will be too late to negotiate,” she said impatiently.
“What would you have me do?” His voice, gaining volume again, had also gained an edge of sarcasm. “The first woman who tells me she’s the G’deon, should I bow to her and give her the keys to the garrison?”
Clement cried recklessly, “General, if she is the G’deon, you’ll wish you had!”
Cadmar loomed over her, his face flushed red with anger.
Fists clenched, Clement forced her voice to plead rather than shout. “Talk to her first,” she said. “General, just talk to her first.”
“General!” The gate captain looked in the door. His expression was one of bafflement.
Cadmar’s big hand clenched Clement’s shoulder painfully. “What is happening at the gate?”
“General, three people are asking to speak to you. One is that cook who deserted some years ago.”
Of course it would be the cook, thought Clement wildly.
“He says one of the people with him is Councilor Mabin. And the other he introduces as the G’deon of Shaftal.”
Cadmar’s not inconsiderable strength was crushing Clement into her chair. “What do they want?”
“The cook says they are here to make peace.”
Cadmar snorted. “Captain, have someone fetch Gilly’s horse. Tell those people that I am coming. Do they have weapons?”
“I don’t see any, general, but I haven’t searched them—they’re still outside the gate, of course.”
“Don’t let them in. And captain, let your soldiers be prepared for action.”
“We are always prepared,” said the captain stiffly.
As he left, Cadmar explained to Gilly, “I need you to translate.”
He was going to talk to the Lost G’deon.
Perhaps, thought Clement, we might yet survive.
It’s a little late to be wishing I’d never heard the sound of Karis’s ax that day, Garland thought, as he stood beside Karis at the garrison gate. Or he should have left these odd people the day the raven first talked to him, when Karis gave him money and told him to go his way. But he had fallen in with them instead, and now here he stood, with a half-dozen guns and crossbows trained on him by the armored guards in the towers.
“Ridiculous!” said Mabin, stiff and impatient at Karis’s other side. “How much weaponry do they think it takes to kill three unarmed people? Have they no skill, or art?”
She was comparing them to the stylish Paladins, Garland supposed. Certainly, these armored killers seemed no more subtle than an angry bear, or a deadly avalanche. But he could not imagine why Mabin found this fact surprising or worth commenting on. Perhaps, he thought, she was covering up her fear. He did not find this reassuring.
Since announcing she was going to the garrison, Karis had hardly spoken at all. Now she waited silently, with a gloved hand gripping one of the gate’s iron bars, as if she were about to utter a disparaging comment on its workmanship. She gripped the iron a bit too hard, though. Garland could see the tense muscles swelling under her coat’s heavy wool.
The dozen guards inside the gate, who bristled with guns, blades, and other weapons, and stood in a formation that seemed poised to go barging through the gate, snapped themselves into rigid attention. “The general is coming,” said Garland shakily.
Karis looked at him and then, very lightly, lay her left hand reassuringly on his shoulder. “The war is over, Garland.”
“I don’t think these soldiers have heard that news.”
“A big man, isn’t he,” commented Mabin skeptically as General Cadmar strode into view, with several soldiers trailing him, and his crippled Lucky Man riding behind on horseback. “Which one is his lieutenant?”
“That hungry woman,” Garla
nd said.
Mabin peered through the gate at the rigid, hollow-eyed, weary woman, who kept a few reluctant paces behind her superior. “Hungry,” she agreed. “And worried. Very worried.”
By contrast, the general, though he kept his face schooled to an expression of grim severity, showed no sign of having suffered lately. “He is complacent at his good fortune,” said Mabin, with no little sarcasm. “He can hardly wait to see us die.”
Karis’s hand had tightened on Garland’s shoulder. He glanced at her worriedly, for his frail courage was entirely propped up by hers. She was breathing too fast, her face was pale, her expression startled and dismayed. She stared at Cadmar.
“Karis?” said Garland.
Mabin glanced at Karis. “What is it?”
Karis pressed her lips together and gave a slight shake to her head. The general was approaching, his people holding a few paces back. Lieutenant-general Clement was staring at Karis now, seeming to share her mysterious startlement. Baffled, Garland turned his attention to the general who so many years ago had demanded that Garland cook badly. His glance passed over Garland without any sign of recognition. “General Mabin,” Cadmar greeted his old adversary.
Mabin looked distinctly disgusted.
Garland said in Sainnese, “General, this is Karis, the G’deon of Shaftal.”
The bottom half of the gate was solid iron, but, like Karis, the general was so tall that the metal shielded less than half his body. The iron bars divided his upper body into vertical segments: gray uniform under a heavy coat of wool-lined leather, a furrowed face that may once have been handsome. Karis’s thicket of hair curled manically, while his was straight and thinning, but his hair may have once been bronze like hers. Karis had his broad shoulders. He had her big hands. They stood eye to eye, and those eyes were blue, an eye color scarcely ever seen in Shaftal, outside the southern grasslands.
Earth Logic Page 38