Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  When the first two got clear of each other, he grabbed them both and shoved their heads together with a crack that echoed even over the noise of the brawl. One went down; the other didn't.

  He was stunned, though—stunned just long enough.

  Alberich grabbed his shoulder and spun him around to face forward; pulled back his fist, and delivered a gut-punch that made the fool's eyes bug out as he toppled to the floor.

  He looked around for the trio's friends, the ones he'd seen in his vision, but they, seeing that the cash snatchers were down and out and there was no reason to continue the fight any further, began breaking free of their little knots of combat and scuttling away.

  He thought about pursuing. His blood was up now, and he was ready to chase down half a dozen of the young thugs.

  :Chosen. Enough. You've ended the problem; that will do for now.:

  Kantor's demand cut across the fire in his veins, and chilled it.

  He shook his head and backed up out of the way, against the wall. With the instigators gone, the bouncers were managing to quell the remaining belligerents without any help from him. He slipped his knuckle guards off his hand and back into his pouch.

  Part of him regretted that the fight was over. Most of him sighed with relief. When the last of those still trying to fight had been tossed into the street, he gave the bouncers a hand with sending the unconscious after them. The three he'd done for were among them, but he saw no point in saying anything about what might have happened. After all, there was no proof.

  He accepted a somewhat better tankard of beer as his reward for helping out, and stayed only long enough to drink it before returning to Kantor. His glee was gone; his guilt had started, and besides, nothing more was going to happen tonight. If anyone was thinking of hiring Aarak, they wouldn't do it tonight. The men he'd downed might have friends watching, who would take it amiss if someone "rewarded" Aarak with a job.

  The moon was down by the time Alberich got to his hiding place, and he had to feel carefully for the keyhole to let himself inside. He discovered bruises he hadn't felt when he changed back into his gray leathers.

  :Maybe you didn't, but I did,: Kantor sniffed as he mounted.

  :They'll heal,: he replied, sending Kantor back up the street toward the Palace. He felt as he always did after a fight; weary and with emotions dulled except for a fierce and bitter satisfaction. The weariness was welcome; he'd sleep well tonight for a change.

  :There was someone watching you from the corner,: Kantor went on, giving him a flash of something that the Companion had noted through Alberich's eyes. :I think you'll be offered a job next time you go there.:

  The bitterness eased a little; Alberich recognized that vague glimpse. It was someone he'd been watching for some time now, a legitimate businessman who somehow seemed to have more goods in his warehouse than he'd actually purchased.... Now—now he might find out just where those goods came from.

  "Good," he said aloud. :That is why we come there, isn't it?:

  :Not entirely,: Kantor retorted. :At least, you don't.:

  Alberich started to reply, and thought better of it. Kantor was infinitely better at warring with words than he was. He let his silence speak for him, letting Kantor come to his own conclusions.

  Eventually, the ears flattened, and out of the silence came—

  :I apologize.:

  :And you are also right,: Alberich acknowledged. :I do seek out fighting more often than necessary. I could go about the same business without getting involved in altercations at all. But it is what I need, right here, right now.:

  Kantor sighed, but his head nodded. :So be it. If you need it, then we will continue to seek it, and I will say no more about it, except to ask you to take care.:

  Alberich closed his eyes for a moment. :Perhaps, someday, we will no longer need to go hunting trouble for trouble's own sake.:

  It was all he could offer. But Kantor seemed to find it enough.

  9

  DETHOR had invited Talamir to his quarters tonight, in a way that had been less "invitation" and more "demand." Talamir was fairly certain that he wanted to discuss the current situation with his Second. Alberich, the probable subject of those discussions (now officially a full Herald, though he kept stubbornly to those peculiar gray leathers of his) was gone when Talamir arrived.

  Dethor interpreted his curious look correctly; not a surprise, considering how well he and Talamir knew each other.

  There was a small fire in the fireplace, although the weather was not yet so cool in the evenings that a fire was necessary. But the Weaponsmaster seemed to crave both the extra warmth and the emotional comfort of a fire more and more often of late.

  Come to that, they all craved extra comfort. The Wars seemed both too far away, and too near. A feeling of dreadful tension underlaid everything, no matter how trivial, a frantic feeling as if whatever was being done had to be done, or enjoyed, or dealt with now, for there was no telling what the next day, or even the next candlemark, might bring. Small comforts took on enormous importance, yet one indulged in them in a spirit of guilt, quite as if throwing on another log was somehow going to deprive the Guard on the Border of heat and light.

  Dethor had lit only two lanterns, one behind each of the two hearthside chairs; the fire provided the rest of the light in the room tonight.

  The Weaponsmaster's Second was nowhere to be seen. "He's out. In town," Dethor said, as Talamir looked inquiringly at the third seat that Alberich usually used. "He won't be back for a while. I believe he's got something on the boil tonight."

  "He's doing good work down there," Talamir observed as dispassionately as he could, and settled himself into the padded chair opposite Dethor's. It was difficult to be dispassionate about Dethor's bland statement. Every time Alberich had "something on the boil," there was usually a great deal of violence involved before it was over. Alberich was directly involved in that violence at least half of the time; if Talamir hadn't been aware of just how much he despised unnecessary force, he'd have suspected that the man was seeking out opportunities to thrash someone.

  But—perhaps he is, and he's simply making sure that the opportunity calls for necessary violence. That wouldn't be too difficult in the neighborhoods Alberich had to prowl.

  "I wondered how much you'd kept track of," Dethor said. "What with everything else you've got going on."

  "All of it, I think," Talamir admitted. "And he's as good as you ever were in the covert work, and better, far better, than I. We are, perhaps, too much the gentlemen. He fits in down there better than we ever could, no matter how much we deluded ourselves about our acting abilities."

  The words hung heavily in the air, and Talamir glanced out the window of the sitting room. It was moon-dark, and a Companion ghosted into and out of sight among the trees out there, a glimmer of white in the darkness.

  "There's too many bloody bastards taking advantage of the situation to make trouble. Or money. Or both," Dethor muttered. "You cut one down, and two more spring up to replace him. It wasn't like that when I was doing the dirty work. It was never that vile down by Exile's Gate."

  Talamir shrugged; they both knew that was true enough. Haven had been stripped of all but a skeleton staff of the Guard; constables and even private bodyguards had gone to join the army. The opportunities for the criminal and unscrupulous were legion. Alberich and a trusted handful of constables and the Palace and City Guard were accomplishing more than even the Council guessed. None of it had anything to do with being a Herald, of course—other than an occasional use of the Truth Spell and his communication with Kantor, Alberich never did anything that could not have been done by an ordinary constable.

  Providing, of course, that an ordinary constable had his knack for subterfuge and covert work. Which, of course, none of them did. There was only one Alberich.

  He couldn't rid the place of crime forever, but every time he removed a criminal from the streets, it look a while for someone else to fill the void left be
hind, a breathing space for the constables still at work on the street.

  Alberich had a real flare for working clandestinely, something he'd probably never explored back in Karse. Talamir wondered how Alberich felt about this new skill; it didn't seem to match the persona of a simple military man.

  As if Alberich would ever be a simple anything.

  "It was never that vile because there were never that many opportunities," Talamir pointed out. "And what are we to do? Demand some sort of certification of virtue from everyone who passes the gates? Haul them away and question them under Truth Spell as to their motives? I think not. The best we can do is what Alberich's doing, and thank the gods we have him."

  The fire flared, revealing Dethor's troubled expression.

  "You know the man's in a real mental state," Dethor said, leveling a long and accusatory look at his old friend. Talamir shifted uncomfortably, but his conscience forced him to meet Dethor's eyes. "I have the feeling that he's overworking, just so he can sleep at night. I have the feeling that he's looking for trouble just so he can work out his frustration on a legitimate object. The problem is, when you start looking for trouble, it starts looking for you."

  Talamir sighed, deliberately looking down at the plate of fruit on the table between their chairs. Slowly and methodically, he picked up an apple and began to peel it. "I know," he admitted. "I wish there was something that I could do about it. But even if we hadn't promised we would never ask him to do anything against Karse—"

  "—the Council won't allow him out of Haven." Dethor snorted, and Talamir looked up from his apple with reluctance. The creases and wrinkles of Dethor's face turned his frown into something demonic, and the firelight only amplified the effect. "Dammit, Talamir. Can't you do anything about this? I know he wants to do something about the Wars, and I see his face every time he watches another batch of youngsters going south. It's tearing him up!"

  "What? Vouch for him? I have, a hundred times and more," Talamir replied, nettled that Dethor would even think he'd been doing less than he could for Alberich. "Then there's the little matter of what he calls his honor."

  "Which he's damned touchy about," Dethor growled.

  "Exactly so," Talamir agreed. "So what are we going to do? Truth here—I'd give both legs for a dozen Alberichs, all willing to go spying back there among his own people. Damned insular Karsites! Strangers stand out among 'em like a chirra in a herd of sheep. Accents, mannerisms, what they know without even knowing that they know it—" He threw up his hands in frustration. "—you just can't teach those sorts of things!"

  "Tell me something I don't know," Dethor said, throwing an apple core into the fire in a gesture of exasperation. "Just how many agents have we lost?"

  "Too many." Talamir was just glad that none of them had been Heralds. He had argued—successfully—that the Heralds were too few to risk inside the borders of Karse. But the fact was, from the beginning he had doubted the ability of any of them to pass as Karsite, and when the Sunpriests got their hands on Heralds, the results were traumatic for every Herald. It wasn't just the Death Bell tolling that sent everyone into a spate of mourning, it was that everyone knew what happened to Heralds that got caught in Karse. There was a sick fear behind the mourning, and the same kind of frustration and anger that sent Alberich out looking for a fight.

  The Lord Marshal had been perfectly willing to send in his own people, however, and when he did, exactly what Talamir feared, happened. Karse devoured agents as a child devours sweets. They seemed to last about a moon before they were discovered; certainly not much longer. What happened to them after that, Talamir was all too aware; he preferred not to dwell on it, for at least all the men had been volunteers and knew precisely what awaited them if captured. Certainly, no more than a handful had returned.

  Horrible. And there didn't seem to be a great deal they could do to change that. No matter how much information they gathered on Karse, no matter who they spoke to or how many old books they read, they were not able to fool real Karsites for long.

  If at all.

  "What we need," Dethor said glumly, "is what we can't get. Real Karsites. Someone who's got all the little nuances, habits, all the things you just can't study. Someone who fits. Someone who can't give himself away, because what's second-nature to him is all based on real Karsite memories. But the few folk who've come over are all too frightened to go back, and I can't say as I blame 'em." The scent of burning apple, sweet and bitter at the same time, added a strange nuance to his words.

  Alberich wouldn't be too frightened to go, if he could; Alberich had everything they needed in an agent. If only they could use him—

  And—the other stumbling block—if only his sense of honor would allow him to be so used.

  It was so intensely frustrating. Sometimes Talamir just wanted to howl with the frustration.

  If it was bad for him, it must be worse for Alberich. He was facing enormous pressure from those who didn't know about the covert work and saw only that he spent little time in the company of the other Heralds and less doing anything that might help the war effort. There was even more social pressure from those who had no idea that the Council had effectively shackled Alberich to Haven. There was a feeling from some that he had somehow betrayed the land that had taken him in, the brotherhood into which he had been admitted.

  But what could they do to change that? Nothing. Everything he was doing, other than his position as Dethor's Second, was covert, and had to remain so.

  Especially the work with the Lord Marshal's agents—though for all the candlemarks he spent with them, there was little enough to show in the way of success.

  But then, the agents were only men—clever men, facile men, but just ordinary men. They couldn't be him for a day, or a week, or somehow pluck the deep memories that made him Karsite out of his head and plant them so solidly in their own minds that they became Karsite themselves.

  Which brought him back to the problem all over again. If only they could make all those agents into little Alberichs... if only they could link those agents into Alberich's head, so that every time they did something wrong, he would catch them and correct them.

  And a blinding revelation hit him.

  "Good gods—" Talamir exclaimed, staring unseeingly at his reflection in the window. "I do believe I have the solution."

  "To which problem?" Dethor asked skeptically.

  "To the problem of how we can get effective agents into Karse," Talamir replied, holding his half-peeled apple tightly. "And to the problem of Alberich contributing to the war. You know how MindHealers are able to get into someone's head and do things with their memories? Extract ones we need from someone who's unconscious, and all that?"

  Once again, he found it unnecessary to explain to his friend where he was going. "MindHealer. You think they'd be willing to get into our Karsite's head and get his memories out, then plant them in someone else's head?" Dethor looked interested, but skeptical. "They're damn near as touchy about what's moral and what's not as he is about his honor."

  "If he agrees, I can ask," Talamir replied. "I lose nothing by asking, and if I already have his consent, what can they object to?"

  "And will those memories be real?" Dethor continued. "I mean, you know how faulty even trained memory can be. Memory isn't reliable—especially not childhood memory."

  "Which doesn't matter!" Talamir responded triumphantly. "Not in this case. What matters are the little things that make him Karsite, not the particulars. In fact, I wouldn't be at all averse to some inaccuracy, even a little childish fantasy; if we can make agents who aren't Alberich but are common Karsite folk, all the better."

  Dethor brooded over the idea for a while. "I'm not sure that could be done with the Lord Marshal's men," he began, sounding very dubious indeed.

  But Talamir shook his head. "I'm not talking about the Lord Marshal's men," he replied. "If this works, we can risk Heralds. And we'll have to; I suspect it will only work with those who've got Mindspee
ch."

  "Ah, hellfires." Dethor was clearly dismayed. After a moment, however, he scratched his head and shrugged. "I suppose you're right. And I have to think we'll get volunteers."

  "I'd be shocked if we didn't." It was a depressing thought, actually—his yearmates, students, teachers, people he knew, rushing eagerly into the worst danger. It was bad enough for the Lord Marshal to send spies, but if the Karsites found Heralds on their soil—

  Yet if those Heralds could pass as common Karsites and be able to discover and pass on what the Tedrels were going to do well in advance—

  The alternative, though, was not to be contemplated. Alberich was not the only one who thought that the Tedrels were engaged in a campaign to drain Valdemar until it was so weak that one tremendous push would collapse everything.

  They don't know us very well if they think we'll just collapse, Talamir thought, grimly.

  :They know us not at all,: Taver said, although Talamir had not deliberately used Mindspeech, sounding just as grim as Talamir felt. :But the cost of holding against them, never knowing when the push is coming—:

  It didn't bear thinking about. :So we must know what they are about to do before they do it, so that we can appear to weaken without actually doing so. Then we can lure them into making then final push while we are still strong.:

  That, really, was the only possible option. Sendar and the Council had weighed all the others, not that there were many. By emptying the treasury and conscripting every able-bodied man and woman in the Kingdom, they might be able to mount a counter-campaign. There wasn't enough money in the entire Kingdom to hire a force equivalent to the Tedrels....

  :There is not enough money in all of Karse twice over to hire the Tedrels,: Taver reminded him. :They are fighting for themselves, not Karse. Karse has not hired them, per se—or at least, they offered them something more than just gold. Karse has merely provided them with a platform from which to launch a campaign to conquer a new homeland and the resources to support them while they do so.: