by Colin Kapp
‘What plan?’
‘Hers—she told me of your intent—’ Taw had the look of a man betrayed.
‘That bitch T’Ampere,’ said Ren. ‘She’s behind this. She thought by now to have me in her pocket.’
‘But you aren’t?’ inquired Catuul anxiously.
‘I agreed to nothing more than to send for her men as and when I required them against Magda. Di Guaard wasn’t even mentioned. In fact, she kept me at the chateau until Castle Di Guaard was well in flames.’
‘Good. Then we aren’t compromised. Tonight’s work has no reflection on our feud with the Imaiz. You’re a man of good sense, friend Tito. And our fallen castellan here will find few to mourn hill passing.’ Catuul bent forward again with the dagger.
Ren intervened.
‘Send your men to deliver him to Di Irons. He’s more the prefect’s concern than he is ours. I think a few days at the hands of Di Irons’ tormentors will be valuable to his education—and we’ve no time to lose over killing him.’
‘No time?’ The Scribe regarded Ren curiously. ‘Your meaning escapes me.’
‘A hundred men from Magda came to Firsthill. A hundred of the same we’ll have to fight if we storm the castle. Doesn’t it make sense to see that as few as possible get back to Magda? They’re on our territory and they’ve a river to cross. We have them at quite a disadvantage.’
Catuul considered for a moment, then leaped to his feet, shouting orders and calling for men. His acceptance of Ren’s point was immediate once he had explored the implications. He was secretly furious with himself for not having realized so vital a matter earlier. Much valuable time had been lost and the men from Magda must by now be dispersed through the city and be making their way down to Firstwater. Leaving the hapless castellan in the company of armsmen charged with the duty of delivering him to the prefect, Catuul collected Ren and they sped out into the night.
NINETEEN
A system of messengers and signals had alerted all the Pointed Tails, including those who acted as guards at the slave compounds on the edge of Firstwater. The first priority was to try to locate the boats the men from Magda would try to use for their return. The second was to locate and harass the enemy itself.
Ren found the whole operation confusing. Traveling at a steady run, usually by torchlight but occasionally by starlight alone, Catuul was a veritable mobile headquarters. Out of the darkness messengers would gather to exchange a few quiet words and be dispatched again to carry out some new command. Just how the messengers located Catuul Gras in the first place was quite beyond Ren’s comprehension—the scribe was constantly on the move. But the system appeared to work and gradually some semblance of order grew in the middle of apparent chaos.
Resignedly Ren settled into a labored jog-trot, the nearest approach he could make to the Ahhn’s effortless style of running. Nevertheless he found the going hard. At the foot of the Trade Road the scribe motioned the breathless agent to rest for a while.
‘We’re in luck, friend Tito. The news is that they’ve not yet crossed back over the water. Some were seen coming through the town and down the Blackslope. Others escaped down Sidepath and must now be crossing the plain to join their fellows near the Black Rock. We’ve secured all the slimboats along Firstwater, but it looks now as though they must have made the crossing farther west. Now we must drive along the riverbank as far as T’Empte Crossing and try to separate them from their boats.’
‘Will we be in time?’
‘Some are reported only a few minutes ahead of us and they may not yet realize we’re after them. They’ve only to stop and wait for their comrades on the other route and we shall trap them.’
Ren nodded. He felt the excitement of the chase and this piece of harassment would be an excellent chance to even the score with the Imaiz. He turned and followed Catuul eagerly toward the river.
The whole scene was so utterly devoid of sounds or people that he found it nearly impossible to believe that only a short distance ahead were a hundred men from Magda and a large attacking force of Pointed Tails determined to stop their escape into boats and across the river. After ten minutes Ren became seriously worried. He was almost within sight of T’Empte Crossing and along the bank the slimboats used by the ferrymen were neatly drawn to cover and undisturbed—but there still was no sign of Catuul or the enemy.
Then he stopped, rubbing his eyes with disbelief. At first he thought his vision tricked by the dim light, but the continuous shine across and above the surface of the water was no chimera—it persisted and was real. Yet the image seemed to have no connection with the circumstances in which he found it. Then, even as he watched, a sudden burst of flame on the far side of Secondwater reared upward and spread out along the curious shining thing spanning the river. The image began to collapse and Ren heard the shouts and calls of the Pointed Tails a little farther up the riverbank.
Passing Magda Crossing, where the slimboats were now well secured by grinning armsmen, they advanced along the bank of Secondwater. This part of the way was clearer, there being no wharves or buildings along the bank. Here open fields led to a line of trees at the water’s edge and there was little concealment for men save the blanket of darkness. A series of trade calls began to sound from the direction of the Black Rock, now to their left across the fields, and Catuul answered them without hesitation.
‘Magda’s men are still on this side of the river,’ the scribe told Ren. ‘They gather near the old T’Empte Crossing about a kilometer hence. There’ll be fighting—I’ll leave you here. Make your way to the crossing carefully. I think our trap is sprung.’
Catuul called his men around him and together they trotted ahead. Ren, whose occupation and outworld training had ill prepared him for such marathon running, regretfully watched them go. Although he was in excellent physical condition by outworld standards, he lacked schooling in the style that enabled the native Ahhn to continue running for hour upon hour with little sign of fatigue. He sat on a large projection of rock and rested for some minutes before continuing to walk slowly toward the appointed place.
Ren had thought to hear sounds of battle ahead, but all was silent. This made him. wary—perhaps the men from Magda had avoided the contact and were even now moving back across the fields. The light from the stars was insufficient for him to see more than a short distance around him. Every tree had the capacity to be a potential point of ambush. He walked as near the river’s edge as he dared, sword drawn and fully prepared to fight or run as the occasion might require.
Intrigued by this mystery, Ren hastened forward. He should, he thought, by now be able to hear the sound of steel on steel, or the slap of an Ahhn crossbow. Instead all he heard were voices and the unmistakable trade calls of the Pointed Tails carrying reports to those farther afield.
A rustling at the treeline made him stand, sword ready, until the call of a nightbird he recognized as Catuul’s signature sounded close to him.
‘The Imaiz has beaten us.’ Catuul Gras appeared suddenly at Ren’s elbow. ‘Didn’t I tell you he was a wizard?’
‘What happened?’ asked Ren. ‘Didn’t you catch them?’
‘They got away from us, all of them. Dion’s magic made a bridge of mist across the river and they ran over it. We could have taken some of them, but none of us dared approach such a terrible thing.’
‘Damn! How did he manage that?’
‘I know nothing of the ways of wizardry,’ said Catuul, slightly affronted.
‘A rhetorical question, I was thinking out loud,’ said Ren. ‘Dion is no more a wizard than I am. And I tell you there’s no such thing as a bridge of mist that can bear the weight of a man. There has to be some rational explanation.’
Despite Catuul’s obvious reluctance to follow, Ren moved along the river bank to where he had seen the curious shining thing on the water. Something submerged appeared to be distorting the surface of the river. He called for torches, but none were available.
‘Mark this spot,
Catuul, and guard it. At first light I want boats here to explore both banks and drag out anything in the water. The river here is best part of a hundred and fifty meters wide—and a thing that could carry a hundred men across it in a few minutes can’t possibly have vanished without trace.’
‘Except a bridge of mist,’ said Catuul, still unconvinced.
Weary, Ren allowed himself to be escorted back to his chambers. Though his body was thoroughly tired, his mind persisted in wrestling with the problem of the intangible bridge. He could in no way reconcile a shine across the water and the scribe’s description of a bridge of mist with anything capable of hearing the weight of a hundred men across the water yet able to vanish and leave no trace. Ren’s education had prepared him with a good grounding in what physical parameters he could normally expect to encounter, but none of his knowledge of physics appeared relevant to the case. He was unwilling to admit that some unknown scientific principle might be involved, yet he was incapable of finding a satisfactory answer by employing any known principles.
One reason for his intense preoccupation with the problem was his projected scheme for the storming of Castle Magda. He sensed in Catuul a superstitious awe of the works of the Imaiz that had to be dispelled if the campaign against Magda were to be a success. Unless Ren could prove to the Pointed Tails that the vanishing bridge was only a clever trick, they would carry the attack against Magda burdened with the fear of some new manifestation of the Imaiz’s magic. It was easy to see that such a condition would give any maneuver a rather precarious chance of success.
Firstlight seemed to come all too soon. Ren had taken his problem to bed and had lain awake with it for several hours despite his tiredness. When he finally succumbed to sleep it was for a few hours only. A servant came to wake him with the reminder that Catuul Gras would be waiting for him at T’Empte Crossing. Cursing the scribe for his apparent ability to do without sleep, Ren rose and washed but refused the delay of breakfast.
Unable to face the long walk involved, he sent for stavebearers and took the cushion-craft, fretting all the way down the Trade Road amid the morning traffic of carriers’ carts. Once past the Black Rock and free from the restrictive attentions of the stave-bearers, he turned off toward T’Empte Crossing. For the last part of the journey he went directly across the fields to where he could see a group of Pointed Tails on the riverbank.
Catuul Gras received him with enthusiasm. Several men were in the river, diving deep to recover volumes of some substance they hauled ashore in a continuous strand and piled for Ren’s inspection. Boats from the farther shore were fetching back a curious item found abandoned on the sandy beach, the purpose of which was completely obscure to the native Ahhn.
When the collection was complete, Ren inspected it briefly and the concept immediately fell into place. The shine across the waters, the idea of a bridge of mists, the carrying of a hundred men across the river—all these puzzles suddenly had an explanation. Ren swore mightily when he realized the nature of the objects before him. Behind his comprehension was an absolute certainty that the Imaiz was nothing more than a clever technician with a typically Terran training.
The items with which he had been presented consisted of a continuous length of heavy-gauge polythene sheet formed into a tube of a diameter more than sufficient to admit a standing man, and a primitive large-capacity air bellows. Some sort of rush matting had additionally been provided to spread the weight of a man traversing the interior of the tube over water.
A quantity of rope had been recovered which presumably had been used to haul the flexible ‘tunnel’ across the river and to secure it in place.
‘Tell me how it works,’ implored Catuul Gras.
Ren pursed his lips. ‘It’s an old Terran device. That large elastic tube, when filled with air, will float and will easily bear the weight of a man on the water. Fitted with flaps through which a man can enter without losing too much air and an air pump sufficient to keep it filled, it makes a floating bridge. It’s cheap, simple, and expendable—you can afford to set fire to it if you fear your enemies might try to follow you across.’
‘Then it isn’t magic?’ asked Catuul. He sounded almost disappointed.
‘Far from it. In a smaller and modified form it’s used in a common Terran water sport—men tie themselves into large plastic bubbles and run races over lakes and rivers. It’s simply the clever application of a common outworld principle.’
‘Which reinforces your suggestion that the Imaiz is a Terran?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ren thought about his answer carefully. His words were colored by a new caution. ‘There’s a Terran influence, certainly—but that could be acquired from books. The main factor that emerges from this affair is that Dion and his men are effectively policing Anharitte. They seem to be trying to prevent a catastrophic breakdown of your society even as they are undermining it. A restructuring without a revolution. Quite a trick—if you can achieve it.’
‘But didn’t Dion break faith with his own at Di Guaard yesterday? Slave against slave was something no one had expected.’
‘He broke faith only if you assume that his interest is the emancipation of the slaves. But perhaps his real policy is a larger purpose—that of emancipating the Ahhn as a race. But in any event I can’t see that either free trade or the societies can survive the transition. We’re both part of the old pattern.’
‘So you intend to go through with your march on Magda?’ asked Catuul gravely.
‘To Magda it is. And in view of Dion’s manumission bill this may well be the last chance we’ll get. I propose we strike Magda as soon as possible and with the largest force we can muster. Whatever happens, we mustn’t fail. A great many people will be watching the battle. If we lose, the Imaiz will not only gain Anharitte but probably his policies will win him all Roget as well. Our assault on Magda could have a great bearing on the shape of history. That’s why we must plan it well.’
, ‘What did you mean by the emancipation of the Ahhn?’ asked Catuul after a while.
‘It’s a relative concept that would only be apparent if you’d lived outworld,’ said Ren, realizing his mistake.
TWENTY
“At the head of the Trade Road the watchmen were waiting for Ren to return. Their interception of him was swift and deliberate. The stave-bearers were halted.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’
‘The prefect requires your presence, Agent Ren.’
‘Again? This is becoming too much of a habit. But it’s early and I’ve not yet breakfasted. Tell him I will come to him later.’
The leading watchman shook his head. ‘Our orders were to bring you in all haste. The Lord Di Irons is in a fury.’
‘Then I’m afraid his fury must wait for a proper time. Stand aside.’
Ren had observed that the stave-bearers had drawn to the side of the road and the way in front of him was clear save for the three watchmen. The craft’s cushions were still inflated and he doubted the law-enforcers would stand in the path of the vehicle if it began to move. He edged it forward, slowly at first to warn the men out of his way, then faster. He was gratified to note that they made no attempt to halt his progress, but retired to the road’s edge to discuss the situation.
Ren continued swiftly, having no thought of returning for the stave-bearers who still stood waiting for a decision from the watchmen. When he was out of weapon range, he began to breathe more freely. This had been a trial of strength between himself and the authority of Di Irons—and for the moment he had won. As he drove unescorted to the fruit market he honestly questioned his own motives for refusing to accede to the watchmen’s demands. He found his reasons not as clear as they had seemed moments earlier. As one of the prime movers of events in Anharitte, he had come to resent the prefect’s imperious demands on his time. Yet now he thought about it, it grew more plain that he was attempting to set himself up above the law—and the only persons above the law in Anharitte were the lords.
&nbs
p; He became interested—and slightly apprehensive—about how Di Irons would react. At worst, and if it suited the prefect’s purpose, Di Irons would be justified in detaining him and demanding his deportation. At best, Di Irons might overlook the slight and await Ren’s coming at a later hour. Ren’s surmises, however, in no way covered the actual reaction his stand had provoked.
Within the hour Di Irons himself was announced on his doorstep.
‘Didn’t you hear, Tito, that I needed words with you at once?’
‘My apologies, Prefect, but I was about early and was greatly in need of food. I was coming to see you soon.’
The prefect waved the matter aside impatiently and accepted a plate at Ren’s table.
‘First I have to thank you for sending me Sonel Taw. Under threat of torment he has told me much that explains last night.’
‘Did he kill Di Guaard?’ asked Ren.
‘The fool tried, though I doubt if he had the courage to perform the deed himself. Di Guaard died in the fire, nonetheless. But that wasn’t why I wanted words with you. Taw also hinted at a liaison between you and the Lady T’Ampere. Can this be true?’
‘Liaison’s too strong a term. She has offered me men to reinforce my society in feud against Dion-daizan.’
‘At what price?’
‘I struck no bargain on price. She claims Dion is out to kill her—which may or may not be true, though I hope it is—and she offered me help if I would lead a strike against him. This I’ve agreed to do, but on my own terms.’
‘How many men did she offer?’ Di Irons seemed angry, not with Ren directly but seemingly with all the world.
‘She suggested five hundred—if the society would find a like quantity.’
‘Five hundred? T’Ampere has five thousand to use if she chooses. If you should take Magda, what do you suppose will happen to the rest of Magda province?’