Xavega laughed and shook her head. But suddenly, as Leino began a new charm, he felt another upsurge of sorcerous energy from the west, this one far stronger than the one before. I’ve been outfoxed, he thought as the ground shuddered beneath him. Xavega screamed. The Algarvians used one sacrifice to get us to show where we were, then had more Kaunians and more mages waiting to strike us when we revealed ourselves. Now how do we get out of this?
Red-purple flames shot up all around them. The crystallomancers’ tent caught fire. Xavega screamed again. Cracks in the ground yawned wide beneath her and Leino. Leino screamed, too, as he felt himself falling. The cracks slammed shut.
Ilmarinen’s bones creaked as he got off the ley-line caravan in the western Jelgavan town of Ludza. Carrying a carpetbag heavier than it might have been because it was full of papers and sorcerous tomes, he descended to the platform. The depot was battered but still standing, which proved the Algarvians hadn’t turned and fought here, as they’d done in a good many places he’d seen on his journey across King Donalitu’s realm.
A Kuusaman mage about half Ilmarinen’s age stood waiting on the platform. “Welcome, Master!” he exclaimed, hurrying forward to take the carpetbag. “It’s a great privilege to make your acquaintance, sir. I’m called Paalo.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ilmarinen answered. “You have a carriage waiting?”
“I certainly do, sir,” Paalo said. “And we may speak freely as we go. My driver is cleared to hear secrets.”
“I’m so sorry for him,” Ilmarinen murmured. Paalo gave him a puzzled look. Ilmarinen stifled a mental sigh. Another bright young man born without a funny bone, he thought. Too many of them these days. But he would have to deal with this one, at least for a while. “I heard in-Skrunda, was it? — that something had gone wrong up here. What can you tell me about it?”
“I’m afraid that’s right, sir,” Paalo said. “It doesn’t do to depend on the Algarvians to keep trying the same thing over and over. They caught a couple of our mages-well, actually, one of ours and a Lagoan-in as nasty a trap as you’d never want to see.”
“Started killing Kaunians for a lure, then killed a bunch more once we’d begun the counterspell, the second time aiming at our mages?” Ilmarinen asked.
“Er-aye.” Paalo frowned. “Did you hear that back in Skrunda, sir? They weren’t supposed to know that much about it. If somebody back there is asking questions where he isn’t supposed to, I want to know who. We’ll put him someplace where he can ask questions of the geese that fly by, and of nobody else.”
“No, no, no-nothing like that.” Ilmarinen shook his head. “I had all that time to think while I was sailing up from Kuusamo. One of the things I was thinking about was, if I were one of fornicating Mezentio’s mages, how could I get back at the nasty Kuusamans and Lagoans who were giving me such a hard time?”
Paalo stared. “I hope you won’t be angry at me for saying so, sir, but you seem to have outthought the entire sorcerous high command of our army and that of the Lagoans, too.” He slung Ilmarinen’s carpetbag in the carriage, then turned to see if the master mage needed a hand getting in himself. When he discovered Ilmarinen didn’t, he asked, “How did you do that?”
“I suspect it wasn’t very hard,” Ilmarinen answered, and Paalo’s narrow, slanted eyes got about as wide as they could. Ilmarinen went on, “No doubt all the army mages were so full of themselves-and so full of what their fancy spells could do-that they never bothered thinking about what the other bastards might do to them. Stupid buggers, but I don’t suppose it can be helped.”
“Er. .” Paalo said again. Ilmarinen realized he might have sounded too harsh; criticizing military mages to another military mage was almost bound to prove a waste of time. Perhaps to disguise what he was feeling, Paalo gave the driver minute instructions on how to get back to a place he’d surely come from. Then, sighing, he went on, “I wish Leino and Xavega had foreseen such consequences as accurately as you did, Master Ilmarinen.”
“They probably should have-” Ilmarinen broke off. “Leino?”
“That’s right.” Paalo nodded. “Did you know him, sir?”
“I’ve met him a few times.” Ilmarinen shook his head in bemusement. “I’ve done a good deal of work with his wife, though. They had-they have-a little boy.” And what will Pekka and her Lagoon lover do when they find out about this? I wish I were back there in the Naantali district, so I could see for myself. A better piece of melodrama than most of the playwrights come up with, by the powers above.
“His. . wife?” Paalo said. “Are you sure, sir?”
“I’ve been to their home. I’ve met their boy. He looks like his father,” Ilmarinen replied. “I never saw them naked in bed together and screwing, if that’s what you mean, but I have no doubt they were guilty of it. Why?”
Paalo turned as red as a golden-skinned Kuusaman could. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but. . ”
“But you’re going to,” Ilmarinen said. “After a buildup like that, my friend, you’ll blab or I’ll turn you into a sparrow and me into a sparrowhawk. Talk!”
Instead of talking, Paalo suffered a coughing fit. “Well, sir, it’s only that. . Anyone who knew Leino and Xavega here in Jelgava knew they.. they.. ”
“Were lovers?” Ilmarinen suggested.
Paalo nodded gratefully. “So they were. And so we all assumed Leino had no, ah, impediments that would have kept him from. .”
“Screwing her,” Ilmarinen supplied, and got another grateful nod from Paalo, who struck him as a very straitlaced man. “Xavega,” Ilmarinen murmured. “Xavega. I saw her at a sorcerers’ colloquium or two, I think. Bad-tempered woman, if I recall, but pretty enough to get away with it a lot of the time.”
“That’s her,” Paalo said. “Drawn straight from life, that’s her.”
Ilmarinen hardly heard him. “And put together?” he added, his hands shaping an hourglass in the air. “I wouldn’t have thrown her out of bed, even if I’d been married to two of my wives at the same time.” He eyed Paalo, who’d gone from red to a color not far removed from chartreuse, and patted him on the back. “There, there, my dear fellow, I’ve upset you.”
“It’s nothing, sir,” the other wizard said stiffly. He was plainly lying through his teeth, but Ilmarinen rather admired him for it here. After a moment, gathering himself, Paalo added, “You aren’t. . quite what I expected in a master mage, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I’m a raffish old son of a whore, is what I am,” Ilmarinen said, not without a certain pride. “What you expected was Master Siuntio-but even he had more juice in him than people who didn’t know him would guess. But, juice or no juice, plaster or no plaster, he’s dead now, and you’re bloody well stuck with me. And if I don’t match what you think a master mage should be-I am a master mage, so maybe you’d do better revising your hypothesis.”
“Er. .” Paalo said yet again. He laughed a nervous laugh. “You aren’t what I expected, not at all.”
“Too bad.” Ilmarinen leaned forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “How much longer till we get where we’re going?”
“Half an hour, sir,” the fellow answered, “if the Algarvians don’t go and drop any eggs on our heads.”
“Are they in the habit of doing that?” Ilmarinen glanced at Paalo. “Your head still looks moderately well stuck on.”
He’d expected the younger mage to go, Er, for the fourth time. Instead, solemnly, Paalo said, “I do begin to wonder, the more I sit by you.” That startled a laugh out of Ilmarinen. Paalo went on, “No, the Algarvians haven’t got many dragons in the air here. We rule the skies. They’re trying to hold our beasts on Sibiu away from Trapani and the south, and most of their dragons that aren’t doing that are fighting the Unkerlanters.”
“Ah, the Unkerlanters,” Ilmarinen said. “Swemmel’s paid the butcher’s bill for this war, even if we islanders may come out of it looking better than he does. I’m sorry for him. I’d be even sorri
er if he weren’t such a nasty, miserable bastard in his own right. An ally, aye, but a nasty, miserable bastard all the same.”
“Best thing that would happen would be for Mezentio’s men to wreck Unkerlant as badly as Swemmel’s men wreck Algarve,” Paalo said. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about either one of them for a generation.”
That fit in quite well with Ilmarinen’s view of the world. But all he said was, “How likely is it? The things we want most, the things we need most-those are the things we’re least likely to get.”
“What do we do, then?” Paalo asked, his tone not far from despairing.
Ilmarinen set a hand on his shoulder. “The best we can, son. The best we can.” He cocked his head to one side. “Do I hear eggs bursting up ahead? The first thing we’d better do is, we’d better finish whipping the Algarvians. What they think is the best thing that could happen isn’t what we want, believe you me it isn’t.”
“I know that,” Paalo said. “Every single Kuusaman has known it since they used their filthy magic against Yliharma.”
“And ever single Kuusaman should have known it since they started using their filthy magic against the Unkerlanters,” Ilmarinen said. “Killing people for the sake of their life energy is just as nasty aimed at the Unkerlanters as it is when it’s aimed at us.”
“I suppose so,” the other mage said. “It doesn’t hit home the same way, though. I guess it should, but it doesn’t.” Since he was right, Ilmarinen didn’t argue with him.
The carriage rolled past olive trees and almonds and the oranges and lemons the Jelgavans used to flavor their wine and the vineyards in which they raised the grapes for that wine. None of those crops would have grown in Kuusamo. Oh, a few cranks raised a few grapes on north-facing hills in the far, far north of Ilmarinen’s homeland, and in warm years they got a few bottles of thoroughly indifferent wine from those grapes. They were proud of themselves. That didn’t mean they weren’t cranks.
Ilmarinen enjoyed the spicy, aromatic scent of the citrus leaves. Even in wintertime, birds hopped here and there through the trees, searching for bugs. That would have been plenty to tell the master mage he wasn’t home any more. Pink-flowered oleanders added their sweet, slightly cloying scent to the mix. Then the breeze shifted a little. Ilmarinen’s nose wrinkled.
So did Paalo’s. “Dead behemoths,” he explained. “The Algarvians had a few around here. We surrounded them and pounded them with dragons, and that’s what you smell. They’re very good with the beasts. Our own behemoth crews go on and on about that. They’ve had plenty of practice fighting the Unkerlanters, I suppose. But all the practice in the world won’t help you if you’re as outnumbered as they were and if you haven’t got any dragons of your own overhead.”
“Good,” Ilmarinen said. “Nobody ever said the Algarvians weren’t fine soldiers. Nobody ever said they weren’t brave soldiers. That doesn’t mean they don’t need beating. If anything, it means they need beating more than ever, because it makes them more dangerous than they would be otherwise.” He pointed ahead, to a ragtag collection of tents. “Is that where I go to work?”
“It is, sir, aye,” Paalo said. “I’m sorry. I wish it were finer.”
“Don’t worry,” Ilmarinen said. “Let the Algarvians worry instead.” He hoped they would.
Four
When the knock on the door to Fernao’s chamber came, Pekka and he had just finished putting on their clothes. In a low voice, one that, with luck, wouldn’t carry out into the hallway beyond, Pekka said, “It’s a good thing he didn’t get here a few minutes ago.”
“I think it’s a very good thing, sweetheart,” Fernao replied as he headed for the door. His voice was so full of sated male smugness, Pekka started to stick out her tongue at his back. But she was feeling pretty well sated herself, and so she didn’t. Fernao opened the door. “Aye? What is it?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the crystallomancer in the hallway said. “I need to speak to Mistress Pekka. I checked her chamber first, and she wasn’t there, and. . well, this is the next place I looked. Is she here?”
“Aye, I’m here,” Pekka answered, coming up to stand beside Fernao. That the two of them spent all the time they could together was no secret from the folk at the hostel in the Naantali district. If it still was a secret in the wider world, it wouldn’t stay one for long. Sooner or later, word would get to Leino. Pekka would have to deal with that. . eventually. For now, she just asked, “And what’s gone wrong, or what does somebody think has gone wrong?”
“Mistress, Prince Juhainen would speak to you,” the crystallomancer said.
“Oh!” Pekka exclaimed. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Fernao-no, no secrets here, not any more-then said, “I’ll come, of course.” A call by crystal from any of the Seven would have got her immediate, complete attention, but Juhainen’s domain included Kajaani and the surrounding districts-he was her prince, or she his particular subject. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, Mistress Pekka,” the crystallomancer replied. She turned and started down the corridor. Pekka hurried after her. She looked back over her shoulder once. Fernao waved and blew her a kiss before shutting the door. She smiled and went on after the crystallomancer.
“I hope he won’t be angry because he’s had to wait,” she said when she and the crystallomancer reached the chamber that kept the hostel linked to the outside world no matter how beastly winter weather in the Naantali district grew.
“He shouldn’t be,” the other woman replied. “He’s been prince for a while now; he knows how these things work.” Juhainen’s uncle, Joroinen, had preceded him as one of the Seven, and had died in the Algarvian attack on Yliharma three years before. Joroinen was one of the main reasons her project had gone forward. Juhainen backed her, but not the way his uncle had.
His image looked out of the crystal at Pekka. “Your Highness,” she murmured, and went to one knee for a moment, a Kuusaman gesture of respect from a woman to a man that had a long and earthy history behind it. “How may I serve you, sir?”
Prince Juhainen was younger than she. He’d looked it, too, on first succeeding Joroinen, but didn’t any more. Responsibility was having its way with him. Pekka knew that weight, too, but Juhainen had more of it on his shoulders than she did. He said, “Mistress Pekka, I would give a great deal not to be the bearer of the news I have to give you.”
“What is it, your Highness?” Alarm flashed through her. Had the Seven somehow decided the project wasn’t worth continuing after all? That struck Pekka as insane, when magic she and her colleagues had created was used in Jelgava every day, and was one of the most important reasons the Kuusaman and Jelgavan armies had driven across the kingdom in less than half a year. She thought first of the project; that Juhainen’s news might instead be personal never crossed her mind.
Tiny and perfect in the sphere of glass in front of her, Juhainen’s image licked its lips. He doesn’t want to go on, Pekka realized, and fear began to edge its way into her alongside astonishment. The prince sighed and looked down at a leaf of paper on the table in front of him. Then, with another sigh, he said, “I regret more than I can tell you that, in operations west of the town of Ludza, your husband Leino fell victim to a sorcerous attack from the Algarvians. He and the mage with whom he was partnered both perished. They were resisting one sorcerous assault from the enemy when another, this one aimed specifically at them, struck home. For whatever they may be worth to you, Mistress Pekka, you have my deepest personal condolences, and those of all the Seven Princes of Kuusamo. We knew the work your husband did before the war; thanks to the behemoth armor he helped devise, many crews and many footsoldiers who might have died still live.”
Pekka stared at him. “No,” she whispered: not so much disagreement as disbelief. She’d hardly heard anything Juhainen said after he told her Leino was dead. Much more to herself than to the prince, she said, “But what will Uto do without his father?”
“What amends the Seven of Kuusamo can ma
ke, we will,” Juhainen promised. “Your son shall not lack for anything material. When the time comes for him to choose his course in life, all doors will be open to him. Of this you have my solemn vow.”
“Thank you,” Pekka said, almost at random. She felt as if she’d walked into a closed door in the dark: stunned and shocked and hurt, all at the same time. She believed Juhainen now, where she hadn’t a moment before. Disbelief was easier. Here, for once, she would have been happier not knowing the truth.
Ilmarinen would not approve, she thought dizzily. She knew her wits weren’t working the way they were supposed to: she knew, but she couldn’t do anything about it. People in accidents often behaved so; she’d heard as much, anyway. She wished she weren’t experiencing it for herself.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mistress Pekka?” Juhainen asked.
“No,” Pekka said, and then remembered herself enough to add, “No, thank you.”
“If ever there is, you know you have only to ask,” the prince said.
“Thank you, your Highness,” Pekka said. Prince Juhainen’s image vanished from the crystal as his crystallomancer cut the etheric connection. Pekka got to her feet, vaguely surprised her legs obeyed her will.
“Are you all right, Mistress Pekka?” asked the crystallomancer who’d brought her to this chamber.
“No,” Pekka answered, and walked past her. She would have walked through her if the crystallomancer hadn’t scurried out of her way.
The next thing Pekka knew, she was standing in from of the door to her own room. She went inside and barred the door behind her. She hadn’t run into anyone on the way-or if she had, she didn’t remember it. She threw herself down on the bed and started to weep. All the tears she’d held back or been too numb to shed came flooding out.
Fernao will wonder where I am, wonder what’s happened, she thought. That only brought on a fresh torrent of tears-these, tears of shame. Powers above, if the knock on the door had come a few minutes earlier, we’d have been making love. Wouldn‘t that have been a perfect way to find out Leino was dead?
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