by Bunch, Chris
“Nor is the future graven in stone, obviously. Everything can change in an instant, as a result of the most minute events. A child, for example, might take a different way to the market and, instead of seeing something marvelous that sets his curiosity aflame and leads him to become a great wizard, he sees nothing but the dusty road and dull people, and grows to become no more than one of them.”
I waited, patiently, realizing the emperor was gathering himself. He looked at me hard, as if reading my thoughts. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll go directly to the matter. We must not go to war with Maisir.”
“Sir?” I blurted the word in utter surprise.
“Both of us thought such was predestined, that there was no other road for our nation,” Tenedos said. “But if we do declare war, all is doomed. Maisir will completely destroy us. That is what I was told by those demons, spirits, whatever, I consulted.
“We are still fated to march against Maisir, for there can be but one great nation in this world. But we must not do it for at least five years, until our country is far stronger and our army much greater than it is now.”
“May I speak frankly, sir?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“It would’ve been easier if you’d learned this back when King Bairan sent his reply to your first note, after that troop of the Twentieth Cavalry was butchered.”
“I know,” Tenedos said, showing no anger. “I overstepped my limits. Damned little good it does me, any more than regretting the past helps anyone. The question now is what to do next. What can we do to recover, to stall for time?”
“The king asked once for a meeting between you two,” I suggested after a bit of thinking. “If you reminded him of that, would that be a possibility? Or, perhaps, if you went to Renan and then asked for such a conference?”
“I can’t do that,” the emperor said flatly. “That would appear as if I were begging, and Bairan would see our weakness at once, and almost certainly strike hard. Let me correct myself. I can’t do that without preparing the ground. That is what I need you for. Damastes, I’ve asked you to go on some extraordinary missions since we’ve been together. This is the most dangerous.”
“Worse than creeping into Chardin Sher’s castle with a potion and a piece of chalk?” I half-joked. “I wasn’t supposed to even live through that one.”
“Yes,” Tenedos said. “Far worse. Because I’m asking you to take on a task that has nothing to do with a soldier’s skills and talents. I want you to go to the court of King Bairan as my plenipotentiary.”
“Sir, I’m no diplomat!”
“Exactly why I’m asking you to go. I’ve half a hundred men who can talk for an hour and you’ll be convinced you’re no longer Damastes á Cimabue, but a goat. And King Bairan’s got his own corps of smooth politicians. If you go to Jarrah, representing me, the king will realize my seriousness. If his most famous general showed up at my doorstep wanting to talk peace, I’d certainly listen.”
I considered. Tenedos was making sense. “But what would I say, what could I offer?”
“You’ll have complete powers to do whatever is necessary to stop the war from happening. Make any trade concessions that are asked for. If it’s necessary to concede part or all of the Border Lands, do that. If King Bairan wishes to press those ancient claims Maisir has for parts of Urey, very well. Everything is on the table, Damastes. We must have peace and keep this war from starting.
“I have it,” Tenedos said excitedly. “Return to your idea of my going to Renan. Once matters have been discussed, and it seems peace is reachable, then tell the king I’ll meet him in Renan … or even across the border in Maisir, given sufficient guarantees for my safety.
“Damastes, you must go, and bring back peace. What I’m asking — no, demanding — is the most important job any Numantian has been given since I took the throne.”
His eyes burned into mine, and I felt the truth in them. “Very well, sir. I’ll go … and I’ll do my best.”
Tenedos sagged. “Thank Saionji,” he whispered. “You’ve just saved our country.”
• • •
But how in the hells was I going to get to Jarrah? The only practical route I knew was through Sulem Pass, past the Kaiti capital of Sayana, and then across the border into Maisir, and along the traditional trading route to Jarrah.
But Achim Baber Fergana still sat the throne in Sayana, Kait’s capital. He’d have every warrior in his kingdom sharpening his sword in front of my image, and every jask atop mountains muttering spells to put a lightning bolt in my breeches.
I was trying to decide which was the quickest and safest method to travel — escorted by a full regiment of cavalry, probably the Ureyan Lancers, or traveling fast and incognito, as I’d done before.
I sent for maps, which was my mistake. I had had barely two hours to study them when a visitor was announced. Tribune Yonge. It was imperative I see him at once. I hastily covered the maps and opened an innocent folder. Yonge came in, barely nodded at me, then went to the covered table, and sneered. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, Numantian?”
I was in the dark.
“How are you planning to cross Kait?” he asked.
“How the hells did you know?” I stammered, hardly the finest way to divert an inquiry.
“You are a fool even if you’re a tribune,” Yonge said. “You forget I am Kaiti. I serve Numantia — for the moment — but I am from Kait. I know everything there is to know about my country, and about anyone who’s interested in it. When the First Tribune, General of the Armies, asks for maps of Sulem Pass and the trading route past Sayana to the Maisirian border, and I happen to hear of his request, what do you think I’m going to think?”
“Yonge, no one is that sneaky.”
“Ha!” was his response. “And just because you’re a barbarian who can’t handle strong waters doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn how to be a proper host.”
“Third cupboard from the window,” I said. “There are glasses on that sideboard.”
Yonge poked through the assortment of liquors, found one to his choosing, tore the wax seal off, pulled the cork with his teeth, and spat it onto the floor.
“I assume you’re planning to drink it all.”
“Of course,” he said. “What other payment would be proper for a man who’s about to save your life?” He poured a glassful, drank it back, and grunted. “Good. Hog swill. Triple-distilled. You could clean rust from a sword with this shit.” He poured another glass. “Poor baby,” he crooned, going back to the table and pulling the cloth from the maps. “Trying to decide how he’s going to go through my country, all tippy-toe or with banners and bugles, eh?”
“Nobody lets me have any secrets,” I complained.
“With that stupid cowlike expression you carry around, you don’t deserve to have any. I think both ideas suck goat shit,” he said. “If you go with soldiers, unless you take a whole gods-damned army, Achim Baber Fergana will hunt you down with a bigger force. I understand that man, because I’ve taught myself to think like a pig. A clever pig, like Fergana, eh? He’ll do anything to put you in one of those little cages outside Sayana and watch you rot. After he finishes pulling off all the stray parts he can get away with.
“That first way is stupid,” he finished. “Pah.” He drank. “Next is to go a-secret, of course. Like the way we went into that demon Thak’s cavern and killed all those Tovieti. Dress like country droolers and pray a lot. That’s your other idea, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Pah,” Yonge said with even greater emphasis, and shoved the maps to the floor. “Now here is what you’re going to do, Numantian. You’re going to cross the border, but you’re not going to go near Kait.”
“I’m going to fly,” I said.
“No. You’re going to go where a mountain goat gets the drizzling shits just thinking of going. You’ll be so far above the clouds you can piss down through them, and your water’ll be frozen before it touches
the ground. I, Yonge, know a better way. A secret way. A way that’ll take you into the heart of Maisir.”
Evil pleasure shone on his face.
“Now can I keep the bottle?”
• • •
It was an hour after dawn, and the river street was deserted. I sat astride my horse, looking up at the five-story mansion that used to be my home.
On the top story, behind a balcony, in the room that had been our bedroom, a curtain moved slightly.
I thought I saw a figure behind it.
The morning breeze moved the curtain again, then the wind died. All was still, all was silence. No one came out onto the balcony.
I waited for a time, then clucked to my horse. He nickered, and I rode away, not looking back.
An hour later, I sailed for Maisir.
FIFTEEN
THE SMUGGLER’S TRACK
The Kan’an made swift passage upriver toward Renan. Coded heliographs had already gone to Renan, and couriers would speed the news to Jarrah, so I could be met at the appropriate point by the Negaret, Maisir’s border guards.
I took five men, with Captain Lasta as my aide and section commander. I thought of taking Seer Sinait, but Tenedos said that would be a violation of protocol. I wonder now if that was the truth, or if there were other reasons.
Out of pure malevolence, I promoted Karjan troop guide, but was disappointed. He merely looked at me with a baleful glare, muttered something about all things coming around in time, and went to our quarters to pack. The others with me were Lance-Major Svalbard, the morose roughneck; the archer Lance-Major Curti, another Lancer whose talents I well respected; and Lance Manych, whose skills with the bow I remembered from Kallio. I made him lance-major, to his considerable astonishment. Then he realized he was still the lowest ranker, and grumbled to Karjan.
Karjan chuckled. “Since y’re th’ junior one amongst us, there’ll be no need for searchin’ about when someone orders a fire t’ be built. An’ th’ reason y’re promoted, you’ll find, is m’ master buries as many as he promotes. P’raps more. Y’r widow’s death benefits’ll be greater. A kindly man, m’ master.” I withdrew, grinning, before Karjan could realize he was spied upon.
We would get horses and remounts in Renan, ride south and west, until we crossed into the Border Lands just west of the Urshi Highlands, and then strike for Yonge’s secret track.
Yonge and I had spent four days going over and over the route, not only using the sketchy maps of the areas around the Highlands, but also Yonge’s commentary, which was exact, in its way: “Turn off that trail when you come to the third fork of the creek. There’ll be a tall tree at the fork, with a limb near as big as the trunk, that hangs off to the left. You’ll know which one it is, because there’ll be remnants of a rope around the limb. I hanged an old friend of mine there for being discourteous in a business matter. Might still be some bones around the tree, if the jackals haven’t scattered them by now.”
Yonge grudgingly gave up the trail’s secrets, since he had meant to go with us, for flatlanders would never be able to find the trail’s beginnings, let alone hold to it over the mountains. I said no, flatly, and he argued, threatened, and even begged. But I held firm. He knew better than to think I’d allow a tribune, head of all Imperial scouts and skirmishers, to ride off into the unknown, no matter how important the emperor considered my mission.
He glared, then nodded once. “I hear your command, Numantian. Very well.” He appeared to drop the matter. I should have known.
I didn’t leave my cabin for the first two days after sailing from Nicias, having about three hundredweight of orders to read and sign. But at last there was nothing left to remind me of Nicias, desks, or paperwork, and I went on deck. It was misting, not quite rain, and I let the moisture wash my face, my mind, and my soul, putting everything behind me.
We were still in the Latane River’s delta, and the banks sometimes came quite close, although the channel was dredged deep. I was watching a particularly vivid waterfowl, marveling at its wonderful plumage, paying no heed to someone I took to be a sailor lounging nearby, back to me.
“That bird’s lucky, Numantian. If you were ashore, with a bow and arrow, it’d no doubt end up as plumage for one of your hats.” It was, of course, Yonge.
I started to ask questions, but caught myself. That would only increase the Kaiti’s glee. I remembered my drill instructor days and painted anger on my face. “How dare you, Tribune! You’ve broken my explicit orders!”
“This is true,” Yonge said.
“I could put you under close arrest, have you taken back to Nicias in chains.”
“You could try,” he agreed dangerously. “Or you could take what is done as done, and buy me a drink.”
At last I had him. “There’s none on board,” I said. “Since I don’t drink, and since we’re on imperial business, I specifically ordered the purser to bring no alcohol aboard.”
“You … you evil snake!” Yonge hissed. “You must’ve known! You must’ve guessed!” I put one finger beside my nose and looked wise.
• • •
We disembarked at a small dock on the far side of Renan, not particularly wanting to attract notice and lose a week being feted by every politician and officer in Urey. Our horses were waiting. We loaded our gear and rode through the beautiful city’s outskirts and into the rain-drenched countryside. The farther from civilization and the closer to the unknown and danger, the happier I became.
The trail was wide, inviting, and all of us, without orders or comment, loosened our weapons in their sheaths. “You flatlanders can learn, sometimes,” Yonge said. “This is an ambush route, for fools. Wise men use it as a marker, to reassure themselves they’re on the right track.”
I paid no attention to his insults, for I was intent on following the instructions I’d memorized. I spotted the cone-shaped rock, waited until it was aligned with the dimly seen grove of trees halfway up a slope, then looked for the turnoff. “Here,” I announced, and pulled my horse’s reins toward what looked like nothing more than a crevice. The crevice widened into the real trail, and Yonge grunted approval.
Ahead, the hills grew into treeless, forbidding mountains.
• • •
The temple loomed out of the blowing snowstorm quite suddenly, overhanging the narrow valley like a brooding eagle. It was built of dark wood, elaborately worked, and there were great stone statues of fabulous creatures unknown to any myth I’d heard. Statues of demons ornamented the uptilting eaves of the roofs. I wondered who’d built this temple, and when, for there was no way, even with an eternity to work in, the men and women who peopled the few dozen huts below it could have performed the labor, even with the strength of gods. I looked at the blank empty spaces of windows, innocent of glass or curtains, and shivered, without knowing why.
Yonge was staring at the huge building, or rather connected series of buildings, with an expression of baleful hatred. His instructions had said nothing about this place, other than that here was where we’d trade our horses for more surefooted animals. I dropped back beside him and began to ask what was wrong.
He shook his head. “No words,” he said. “Not now.”
I said no more, but signaled to my men, a tap on the pommel of my sword, and another on my gloved right hand. The signal went down the line, and we were ready for any surprise. A gong boomed across the valley as we rode up to the temple steps, and huge doors swung open. A man came toward us. He was very young, barely out of his teens, slender, shaved-headed, and wore, in spite of the storm, nothing but a light robe, shimmering with all the colors of summer. He walked as if he were royalty, surrounded by an invisible entourage.
He stopped, waiting, arms folded. “I greet you,” he said in highly accented Numantian, voice soft, almost feminine.
“We greet you, Speaker,” Yonge said.
“You know my title,” the man said. “You have been here before.”
“I have, but my friends have not.”<
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The young man looked carefully at each of us, and I felt his gaze like a wind more piercing, more chill, than the unheeded storm. “You travel light for merchants,” the Speaker said. “Or do you carry gold in your bags, to make purchases in Maisir?”
“We are on a different errand.”
“Ah,” the Speaker said. “I should have sensed that. You are soldiers. I can tell by your dress, by the way you sit your saddles. You desire …?”
“Pack animals,” Yonge said. “A resting place for the night. Perhaps food. We are prepared to pay.”
“You know the custom?”
“I do.” Yonge had said each of us must make a gift when we reached this village, a gift of warm clothing. I thought this more than reasonable.
“Then you are welcome,” the Speaker said. “But only until dawn. Then you must move on.”
“We shall obey,” Yonge said. “But why do you put limits on our visit? This did not happen the last time I was here.”
“I was not the Speaker then, nor do I remember you,” the young man said. “But I sense blood. Blood is about you, blood is behind you, far greater blood is before. I do not wish you to linger, lest you leave your mark on us.” He pointed at the village, and I saw two doors standing open, one of a hut, the other a stable. “Go now,” he said, not harshly, not kindly, and walked back inside the temple.
• • •
Two men helped us curry our horses and three women fed us, a thick stew of lentils, tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables, highly seasoned with spices I’d never tasted before. After we ate, we unrolled our bedrolls on the wooden benches we’d eaten on. Even though there was a thick wooden bar, I put my bench across the door, so no one could enter, and had my sword ready.
I slept poorly, and had bad, barely remembered dreams, dreams of strange monsters, snowy battlefields strewn with dead, rivers that ran red with blood, even redder flame, and the echoing screams of dying women. I awoke intermittently, listened dumbly for a time to the storm raging outside as if drugged, then fell asleep once more.