Out of the Darkness d-6

by Harry Turtledove

  “If you insult me here, it will only go harder for you,” the blond warned, flushing with anger.

  “Ah. Splendid!” Lurcanio gave him a seated bow. “I thank you for admitting that what I did and did not do during the late war has in fact nothing to do with what will happen to me.”

  “I said nothing of the sort!” The Valmieran turned redder still.

  “I beg your pardon.” Lurcanio bobbed his head once more. “That was what it sounded like to me.”

  “Guards!” the officer said, and several Valmieran soldiers took one step forward from the places against the wall where they’d stood. The interrogator pointed to Lurcanio. “Back to his cell with this one. He’s not ready to tell the truth yet.”

  A Valmieran sergeant pointed his stick at Lurcanio’s belly. “Get moving,” he said. Him Lurcanio obeyed without backtalk and without hesitation. A confused or frightened ordinary soldier was liable to get rid of his confusion and fear by blazing. Games that tied the earnest and rather stupid interrogator in knots would be useless or worse against a man for whom simple brutality solved so many problems.

  We thought simple brutality could solve the problem of the underground, Lurcanio thought as he marched along in front of the guards. Were we any more clever than a simple sergeant? Valmieran captives snarled curses at him when he went past their cells. He strode by as if they didn’t exist. They threw things less often then. They weren’t supposed to have anything to throw, but he knew those rules could bend when authorities wanted something unfortunate but also unofficial to happen to a captive.

  Today, he reached his own cell unscathed. The door slammed behind him.

  A bar outside the cell thudded down. The sergeant muttered a charm to keep anyone from magically tampering with the bar. Lurcanio wished he were a mage. He shrugged. Had he been, he would have gone to a more sorcerously secure prison than this one.

  As cells went, he supposed his wasn’t so bad. It was certainly better than the ones his own folk had given Valmieran captives during the war. His cot was severely plain, but it was a cot, not a moldy straw pallet or bare stone. His window had bars, but it was a window. He had a privy, not a stinking slop bucket. He would have fired any cook who gave him food like the stuff he got here, but he did get enough to hold hunger at bay.

  But what did this mild treatment mean? Did he have some chance of getting back to Algarve because the Valmierans weren’t sure of exactly what he’d done? Or were they keeping him comfortable now because they knew how harsh they would soon be with him? He didn’t know. By the nature of things, he couldn’t know. Brooding over it would have gone a long way toward driving him mad, and so he did his best not to brood. His best wasn’t always good enough.

  Presently, they fed him again. Light leaked out of the sky. He had no lamp in the cell. The hallways had lamps, but not much light came through the small window in the door. He lay down and went to sleep. This was an animal sort of life, and he tried to store up rest against a time when he might badly need it.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, the door flew open. Guards hauled him out of bed. “Come on, you son of a whore!” one of them growled. Another gave him a roundhouse slap in the face that snapped his head back.

  Ah, he thought as they hustled him along the corridors to a room where he’d never gone before. At last, the gloves come off. He was afraid-he would have been an imbecile not to be afraid-but he was oddly relieved, too. He’d been waiting for a moment like this. Now it was here.

  The guards slammed him down onto a hard stool. A bright light blazed into his face. When he involuntarily looked away, he got slapped again. “Face forward!” a guard shouted.

  From behind that blazing lamp, a Valmieran rasped, “You were the one who sent some hundreds of folk of Kaunian blood south to the Strait of Valmiera to be slain for your kingdom’s foul sorceries.”

  “I do not know anything about-” Lurcanio began.

  Yet another slap almost knocked him off the stool. “Don’t waste my time with lies,” warned the blond behind the lamp. “You’ll be sorry if you do. Now answer my questions, you stinking, worthless sack of shit. You were the one who sent those people to die.”

  It wasn’t a question. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the Valmierans knew how to play the game of interrogation after all. His head ringing, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, Lurcanio fought to gather himself. If he admitted the charge, he was a dead man. That much he could see. “No,” he said through bruised and cut lips. “I was not the one.”

  “Liar!” the interrogator shouted. One of the guards punched Lurcanio in the belly. He groaned. For one thing, he couldn’t help himself. For another, he wanted them to think him hurt worse than he was. “So you weren’t the one, eh?” the Valmieran sneered. “A likely story! Well, if you say you weren’t, who was? Talk, powers below eat you!”

  That question had as many eggs buried in it as a field on the western front. Another slap encouraged Lurcanio not to take too long answering. He didn’t know how much the Valmierans knew. He didn’t want to betray his own countrymen, but he didn’t want the charge sticking to him alone, either. He’d had something to do with sending blonds south, but he was a long way from the only one.

  “Our orders came from Trapani,” he said. “We only followed-”

  This time, the slap did knock him off the stool. He thudded down onto stone. The guards kicked him a few times before they picked him up. The interrogator, still unseen, said, “That won’t work, Algarvian. Aye, those whoresons in Trapani’ll get the axe for what they did. But you don’t get off for following orders. You know the difference between war and murder. You’re a big boy.”

  “You are the victors,” Lurcanio said. “You can do with me as you please.”

  “You bet your balls we can, redhead. You just bet,” the Valmieran gloated. “But weren’t you listening? You’ve got a chance-a skinny chance, but a chance-of saving your lousy neck. Name names, and we just might be happy enough with you to keep you breathing.”

  Is he lying? He probably is, but do I dare take the chance? Lurcanio thought, as well as he could think with pain pouring through him. And if I name the names of others-or even if I don t-who will be naming me? One more thing he didn’t care to dwell on.

  “Talk, you fornicating bastard,” the interrogator snarled. “We know all about your fornicating, too. She’ll get hers-wait and see if she doesn’t. You have this one chance, pal. Talk now or else don’t. and see what happens to you then.”

  Would all his captive countrymen keep quiet? A bitter smile twisted Lurcanio’s lips. Algarvians were no less fond of saving their own skins than the folk of any other kingdom. Somebody would name him-and even if someone didn’t, how many documents had the Valmierans captured? There’d been no time to destroy them all.

  “Last chance, Algarvian; very, very last,” the fellow behind the lamp said. “We know what you did. Who did it with you?”

  Lurcanio felt old. He felt tired. He hurt all over. Had they been toying with him up till now, to make this seem harsher when it came? He had no answers, save that he didn’t want to die. That, he knew. “Well,” he said, “to begin with, there was …”

  Sixteen

  Cottbus had changed. Marshal Rathar hadn’t seen the capital of Unkerlant this gay since. Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen Cottbus so gay. Gaiety and Unkerlanters seldom went together.

  He’d seen the capital gray and frightened before the Derlavaian War, when nobody knew whom King Swemmel’s inspectors would seize next, or on what imagined charge. And he’d seen Cottbus past frightened the first autumn of the war against Algarve: he’d seen it on the ragged edge of panic then, with functionaries burning papers and looking to flee west any way they could, expecting the city to fall to the redheads any day. But Cottbus hadn’t fallen, and he’d also seen it grimly determined to do to King Mezentio what he’d come so close to doing here.

  With Algarve beaten, the city itself seemed on hol
iday. People in the streets smiled. They stopped to chat with one another. Before, they would have reckoned that dangerous. Who could say for certain whether a friend was only a friend, or also an informer? No one, and few took the chance.

  Unkerlant remained at war with Gyongyos, of course, but who took the Gongs seriously? Aye, they were enemies, no doubt of that, but so what? They were a long way off. They’d never had a chance to get anywhere near Cottbus, no matter how successful they were in the field. They could have been nuisances, but no more. As far as Rathar was concerned, that made them almost the ideal foes.

  What made them even more perfect as enemies was the war they were fighting against Kuusamo through the islands of the Bothnian Ocean. They’d been losing that war for some time, and pulling men out of western Unkerlant to try, without much luck, to tip the balance back their way. They’d got away with that, because Unkerlant had been busy elsewhere. Now. .

  Now Rathar walked across the great plaza surrounding the palace at the heart of Cottbus. The square was more crowded than he ever remembered seeing it. Women’s long, bright tunics put him in mind of flowers swaying in the breeze. He laughed at himself. You’ll be writing poetry next.

  Even inside the palace, courtiers and flunkies went about their business with their heads up. A lot of them were smiling, too. They didn’t look as if they were sneaking from one place to another, as they so often did. “Come with me, lord Marshal,” one of them said, nodding to Rathar. “I know his Majesty will be glad to see you.”

  What Rathar knew was that King Swemmel was never glad to see anybody. And when he got to the anteroom outside the king’s private audience chamber, age-old Unkerlanter routine reasserted itself. He unbelted his ceremonial sword and gave it to the guards there. They hung it on the wall, then thoroughly and intimately searched him to make sure he bore no other weapons. Once they were satisfied, they passed him in to the audience chamber.

  Routine persisted there, too. Swemmel sat in his high seat. Rathar sank down on his knees and his belly before his sovereign, knocking his forehead against the carpet as he sang the king’s praises. Only when Swemmel said, “We give you leave to rise,” did he get to his feet. Sitting in Swemmel’s presence was unimaginable. The king leaned forward, peering at him. In his high, thin voice, he asked, “Shall we serve Gyongyos as we served Algarve?”

  “Well, your Majesty, I doubt our men will march into Gyorvar any time soon,” Rathar replied. “But we ought to be able to drive the Gongs our of our kingdom, and I think we should take a bite out of them, too.”

  “Many men hereabouts have told us that Gyongyos will be utterly cast down and overthrown,” the king said. “Why don’t you, who command our armies, promise the like or even more?”

  Courtiers, Rathar thought contemptuously. Of course they can promise everything: they don’t have to deliver. But I do. “Your Majesty,” he said, “I can tell you what you want to hear, or else I can tell you the truth. Which would you rather?”

  With King Swemmel, the question had no obvious answer. Swemmel had punished plenty of men who’d tried to tell him the truth. Whatever fantasies went on in his mind must often have seemed more real to him than the world as it was. He wasn’t stupid. People who thought he was commonly paid for that mistake in short order. But he was.. strange. He muttered to himself before coming out with something that astonished Rathar: “Well, we don’t want Gyorvar anyhow.”

  “Your Majesty?” The marshal wasn’t sure he’d heard straight. Grabbing with both hands had always been Swemmel’s way. To say he wasn’t interested in seizing the capital of Gyongyos was. . more than strange.

  But he repeated himself: “We don’t want Gyorvar. There won’t be anything left of the place before long, anyhow.”

  “What do you mean, your Majesty?” Rathar asked cautiously. He could usually tell when the king drifted into delusion. He couldn’t do anything about it, of course, but he could tell. Today, King Swemmel was as matter-of-fact as if talking about the weather. He was, if anything, more matter-of-fact than if talking about the weather, for he rarely had anything to do with it. He was a creature of the palace, and came forth from it as seldom as he could. His journey to Herborn to watch false King Raniero of Grelz die had been out of the ordinary, and showed how important he thought that was. If I’d captured Mezentio, he would have come to Trapani, too, Rathar thought.

  “We mean what we say,” Swemmel told him. “What else would we mean?”

  “Of course, your Majesty. But please forgive me, for I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  King Swemmel made an exasperated noise. “Did we not tell you the cursed islanders, powers below eat them, can keep nothing secret from us, no, not even if they work their mischief in the middle of the Bothnian Ocean?”

  Rathar nodded; the king had said something like that in one of their conversations by crystal. But the marshal still failed to see how the pieces fit together. “I’m sorry. What does whatever the Kuusamans and Lagoans may be up to out in the Bothnian Ocean have to do with Gyorvar?”

  “They will do it there next,” Swemmel replied, “and when they do. .” He made a fist and brought it down on the gem-encrusted arm of his high seat. “No point to spending Unkerlanter lives on Gyorvar. The Gongs will spend lives, by the powers above. Oh, aye, how they will spend them!” Sudden gloating anticipation filled his voice.

  Sudden alarm filled Marshal Rathar. “Your Majesty, do you mean the islanders have some strong new sorcery they can work against Gyorvar?”

  “Of course. What did you think we meant?”

  “Till now, I didn’t know.” Rathar wished he’d learned a great deal sooner. Swemmel clutched secrets like a miser clutching silver. “If they can do that to Gyorvar, can they also do it to Cottbus?”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he should have kept quiet. Swemmel was sure everyone around him was out to get him and every kingdom around Unkerlant out to destroy it: and that in good times. In bad, the king’s fear could be like a choking cloud. But now Swemmel only nodded grimly. “They can. We know they can. We are not safe, not until we learn how to do the like to them.”

  “How long will that be?” Rathar asked. Kuusamo and Lagoas were not enemies to Unkerlant-not now. If they could badly harm this kingdom while Unkerlant couldn’t strike back, that limited how far Swemmel-and Rathar- dared go in antagonizing them.

  Swemmel half snorted, half spat in disgust. “That fool of an Addanz does not know. He spent the war chasing after Algarvian mageries, and now, when we ask him-when we order him-to switch ley lines, we find he cannot do it quickly. He calls himself archmage. We call him archidiot.”

  Rathar knew a certain amount of sympathy for Addanz. He’d done what he’d needed to do for the kingdom’s survival. Doing much of it had horrified him; he wasn’t a man who took naturally to murder. But he and his fellow wizards had to learn new things. Without a doubt, Swemmel was right about that.

  “Has he any idea how long this will take? Any idea at all?” Rathar tried again. He might have to try to head off Swemmel himself at some time in the future. One more war might be-probably would be-one more than Unkerlant could stand.

  “He speaks of years,” the king said. “Years! Why were the blunderers he leads not doing more before?”

  That was so breathtakingly unfair, Rathar didn’t bother responding to it. He stuck to what he could handle: “Will having the islanders know what they know, whatever it is, hurt our campaign against the Gongs?”

  “It should not.” Swemmel glowered down at Rathar. “It had better not, or you will answer for it.”

  “Of course, your Majesty,” Rathar said wearily. He tried to look on the bright side of things: “Kuusamo and Lagoas want Gyongyos beaten, too. And then the war-all of the war-will be over. Then we can go on about the business of putting the kingdom back on its feet again.”

  As far as he was concerned, that was the most important thing ahead for Unkerlant. King Swemmel gave an indiffer
ent sniff. “We have enemies everywhere, Marshal,” he said. “We must make sure they cannot harm us.” Did he mean we as the people of Unkerlant or in the royal sense? Rathar couldn’t tell, not here. He wondered if Swemmel recognized the distinction. The king went on, “Everyone who stands in our way shall be cast down and destroyed. Enemies and traitors deserve destruction. If only Mezentio had lived!”

  If Mezentio had lived, he might still be alive, alive and wishing for death. Thinking about what Swemmel would have done to the King of Algarve made Rathar shiver, though the audience chamber was warm and stuffy. To keep from thinking of such things, he said, “We’ll soon be in position to begin the attack against Gyongyos.”

  “We know.” But Swemmel didn’t sound happy, even at the prospect of beating the last of his foes still in the field. A moment later, he explained why: “We spend our blood, as usual, and the cursed islanders reap the benefit. D’you think they could have invaded the Derlavaian mainland unless our soldiers were keeping the bulk of the Algarvian army busy in the west? Not likely!”

  “No, your Majesty, not likely,” Marshal Rathar agreed, “unless, that is, they used this new strong sorcery of theirs, whatever it is, against Mezentio’s men.”

  He did want to keep King Swemmel as closely connected to reality as he could. If Kuusamo and Lagoas had this dangerous new magical weapon, Swemmel needed to remember that, or he-and Unkerlant-would fall into danger. But the king’s muttering and eye-rolling alarmed Rathar. “They’re all against us, every cursed one of them,” Swemmel hissed. “But they’ll pay, too. Oh, how they’ll pay.”

  “We have to be careful, your Majesty,” Rathar said. “While they have it and we don’t, we’re vulnerable.”

  “We know we do, and so we shall,” King Swemmel replied. “We shall pay the butcher’s bill in Gyongyos on account of it. But the day of reckoning shall come. Never forget it for a moment, Marshal. Even against those who play at aiding us, we shall be avenged.”