Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles)

by Robert Brady

  D’gattis’ eyebrows dropped like two anvils over his eyes. “Of course we obtained him.”

  “I had hoped you would,” I said. “Can he be transported, or do you need to contain him some how?”

  “Contain him?” D’gattis asked.

  “Keep wards on him to contain his magic.”

  “There are no such wards.”

  “So, how are you keeping him from making himself look like one of our sailors and just walking off of the ship?”

  The other two Uman-Chi looked at each other with alarm. D’gattis looked down for a moment, then at the two Uman-Chi, then down the dock.

  “You will excuse us,” he said. “There are things to unload, if you would.”

  They left down the dock. I sent the Wolf Soldiers into the ship to unload it. There were some neatly stacked crates that rattled when they were moved, and these were loaded into a cart to be relocated to the palace. By the time we had the cart back into the royal courtyard, D’gattis and a guard of Uman dressed in the red Trenboni livery were manhandling a Man in a torn purple robe through the palace gates.

  A person with no cornea has a tough time shooting a dark look, but D’gattis managed it. Seeing as I had pointed out the mistake, it had become my fault, and of course had I forgotten then D’gattis would remind me of it.

  “Glad you got him back,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Who knows how much damage he would have done?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need me to take him?” I asked, looking as sincerely as I could into his eyes.

  “No.”

  “It might be a good idea. I have resources here -”

  “I can manage him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “Because –“

  He looked me right in the face. You could see that he had been exerting himself.

  “I am over two centuries old, Lupus,” he said. “I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t funny.”

  “Is, too.”

  He sighed. “You have somewhere to bring him?”

  “Follow the Wolf Soldiers,” I said. “Is it safe to have him in the same room as this stuff?”

  “It is,” D’gattis said. “There are things I want to ask him about.”

  “You haven’t interrogated him?”

  “Not successfully,” he said, directing his men to follow him, who were unpacking crates. “I know your woman has some talent in that regard.”

  I nodded. “She does,” I said. “But it is more of a last resort with me.”

  “Between the two of you, then,” he said.

  I sent two more Wolf Soldier guards to summon the rest of the Free Legion and the Lady Shela.

  As we quick-stepped after the Trenboni Uman and their prisoner, D’gattis asked me, “Why do you insist on calling her that?”

  We passed through the palace gates to an outer entrance to its lower floors, where we had cells with bars and more experienced jailers. Glennen had captured Dorkan wizards before.

  “What should I call her?”

  “She is your slave, Lupus,” he said. “If I know Andaran culture, you can’t marry her, so she is neither Duchess, Lady nor anything else.”

  I hadn’t thought of that and Shela hadn’t brought it up. I think that she liked the idea of being noble, after Alekanna had her influence with her.

  This would require some investigating.

  We arrived in a torch lit room within the bowels of the palace. There were thick, iron bars set in the ceiling and the floor, with manacles on the walls and rings in the floor and ceiling. We pulled open a gate and shoved the wizard inside, the Uman already pulling off the prisoner’s clothes.

  His build looked the same as Ann’s. Hair covered his paunchy belly, hanging over his genitals. He had very little hair on his head, saggy jowls, and angry brown eyes. His teeth were yellow, but he had them all.

  We chained him by the wrists to rings in the ceiling, and by his ankles to rings in the floor. Then the Uman guards slammed the iron door to his cell and a blue light flashed through the bars all around his cell.

  According to the local Oligarchs he could cast any spell he wanted to (we had no way to prevent it without robbing him of his ability to speak) but the magic in the bars would reflect his magic back at him. I told this to him as he hung there.

  “So when you test it, use a glamour, not a fireball, because I’m not ready to kill you yet,” I said.

  “Although I assume that day is coming,” he said. His voice sounded effeminate like Ann’s, although it had sounded masculine coming from a woman.

  “I wouldn’t make any long term plans, no,” I said.

  “You don’t plan to torture him to death?” Ancenon said, entering behind us.

  “Got a religious problem with that?” I asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “You might want to leave, then,” I said.

  “Surely there are other ways,” Ancenon said. “I know he can evade the truth-saying, but perhaps we could pay him off.”

  “Well, offers are going to be very attractive to him soon,” I promised. That drew a scowl from the Uman-Chi.

  “Got any problem with not feeding him?” Nantar said, coming in with Arath and Thorn.

  “How long?” Ancenon asked.

  “Until he dies or tells us what we want to know,” Thorn said.

  “No good,” I said. “If he makes it through the first couple days, his systems start to shut down and he doesn’t feel pain anymore.”

  “Really?” Arath said. I nodded.

  “Perhaps a spell that just makes him feel that hunger?” Nantar said.

  “Someone would have to create it,” Dilvesh said, entering. “And that is more difficult than you would think.”

  “Not more than I think,” I said. “I know nothing about it.”

  “Clearly,” D’gattis said.

  “Perhaps I could tell you what you want to know,” the wizard said. We all looked at him. “I am not averse to trading information for my freedom.”

  “The problem is that I wouldn’t believe you,” I told him frankly. “And I know that a truth saying won’t work on you.”

  “Only if I seek to protect myself,” he said.

  “And how will we know if you are not?” D’gattis said. “The spell prevents detection. It cannot itself be detected.”

  “I will agree to a binding,” he said. I hadn’t thought of that. “I will swear to Eveave not to take action against you, or to lie to you.”

  D’gattis smiled. “And you would, then, have the same from me.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, either. A binding became mutual.

  “The least you can do is not to harm me, were I to capitulate to you,” the wizard said.

  D’gattis looked at me, then Ancenon, then back at me. “I think that I will take my cousin back to Trenbon,” he said, “while you and your woman discuss this situation with our guest.”

  The wizard’s eyes widened. He had been with me for a long time. He knew full well what Shela would do to him, and how little it would bother her to do it.

  The Andarans, I learned over and over, were not particularly empathetic.

  “I appeal to the god Adriam,” the wizard said, looking right at Ancenon. “And I ask for His protection.”

  “You are not of His children,” Nantar said.

  “We are all the children of the All-Father,” Ancenon said.

  Politics was bad enough without throwing in religion.

  I didn’t need to ask to know that Ancenon wouldn’t just scurry off oblivious, and I sure as hell couldn’t make him. The wizard knew all about the Fire Bond.

  So we can’t hurt him, we can’t force him – it came to me so quickly and so suddenly that I actually laughed out loud, drawing a stern look from Ancenon and surprise from the rest.

  “You would not mock -,” Ancenon began, but I interrupted him.

  “I can get the inform
ation from him, and I won’t do so much as scratch him,” I said.

  Fertilizer isn’t hard to get in an agrarian society. Fertilizer with a good amount of ammonium nitrate is, unless you know where there are sheep, which I did.

  Put that in a copper pot with a lid, and boil it with some water. Move it through a ‘clapper’ or one-way valve, so that as pressure changes in the pot, it doesn’t suck the fumes backwards through the system.

  Move the fumes through a second pot of cool water, and contain the fumes into a long metal vial, which you want to keep cold, so that it keeps a negative pressure.

  It didn’t work the first few times, so I had to make a little foot pump with a bellows. Then it worked really well. The stink of the water in the second pot told me that I had probably done it right. The contents of the vial were at high pressure, but I had anticipated that and made a butterfly valve so that I could seal it and release its gas when I wanted to.

  “You are going to disgust him into telling you what you want to know?” D’gattis asked me, making a face next to the second pot.

  “I am going to make him happy,” I said. Ancenon and he had watched the four-day procedure with interest. Arath, Thorn, Nantar and Dilvesh had taken the Free Legion soldiers, the Legionnaires, to Sental. Karel of Stone had left for Andurin.

  “Happy?” Ancenon asked.

  “Happy,” I said. “So happy that he doesn’t care about anything.”

  “And then he will tell you what you want to know?” D’gattis said.

  “That is the theory, yes,” I said.

  D’gattis looked at Ancenon, who looked at D’gattis. “You can’t say that Adriam doesn’t want him happy,” D’gattis said.

  “I would think just the opposite,” Ancenon said.

  “And if it doesn’t work,” Shela said, sniffing at the middle container as I disconnected it, “Do we pour this vial brew on him?”

  “That vial brew,” I said, “is probably one of the most effective cleaners you will ever find.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is it?” she asked.

  “Don’t breathe it,” I said. “But if you use it in an open space, it will clean anything. You will want to wear something to protect your hands.”

  She regarded the container skeptically.

  Meanwhile, we took the vile and returned to the wizard.

  We found him in the cell where we left him, the worse for wear. Apparently he hadn’t taken our advice about the bars. His face had been burned and cracked, his naked body singed, and he’d lost some hair. The chains that held him to the floor and ceiling where scorched but intact.

  “Perhaps we should just leave him to his own devices,” D’gattis said. “He can torture himself until he is ready to reveal his secrets.”

  The wizard grimaced at him. Ancenon placed a holding on the door to the cell, so that two Wolf Soldiers could open it and not be attacked by him.

  “How do I do this?” D’gattis asked.

  Entering the cell with the wizard had become too dangerous. He had taken to attacking his jailers and seriously hurt one of them. As a result, no one fed him and the floor around him lay slick with his waste.

  I had a copper tube that led from the vial to a cup. The tube stretched long enough to be flexible but strong enough not to leak. The bindings were wrapped in cloth and hog fat, but I barely trusted them.

  “Put this cup over his mouth and I will open this valve,” I said. “Make him breathe it, and try not to do so yourself.”

  “It will harm me?” he asked, concerned.

  I shook my head. “I just don’t want to deal with you happy,” I said. I met his eye as best I could. “Actually, maybe that would hurt you.”

  He shook his head, took the cup, and walked into the cell.

  The wizard attacked him, but D’gattis stood on his guard, and the wizard had been sorely weakened. The floor bothered the Uman-Chi more than the occupant.

  He forced the cup over the wizard’s mouth and then held the back of his head so he couldn’t pull away. I waited for the wizard to turn red before I cut the gas on. I knew he would hold his breath, so why waste it?

  He finally exhaled, then inhaled. The gas carried no odor, so he knew nothing but the breeze he felt on his face. I watched him as he breathed, thinking it nothing more than air.

  Spells either work or they don’t. Nitrous oxide takes its time to do what it has to.

  In three minutes, perhaps less, he relaxed visibly in his chains and grinned to himself. I cut the gas off, and indicated to D’gattis that he could lower the cup.

  “How are you, my friend?” D’gattis asked him.

  He lowered his head, and then looked up drunkenly at the Uman-Chi. “Oh, I’m fine,” he said.

  “And what is your name?” he asked. “You never told me.”

  “Shhhhh!” he said, and grinned. “A wizard must not tell his name!”

  “You may whisper it, if you like,” D’gattis said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Mmmmmm, I don’t think I should.”

  D’gattis held the cup up to his mouth, and I gassed him a little more. His knees bent a little and he hung more in his chains.

  Nitrous oxide isn’t any type of truth serum, if there is such a thing. It’s an anesthetic. I’d had it when my wisdom teeth were removed years ago.

  After the fact I told my doctor all sorts of things about me that he thought were very funny, but didn’t actually believe. They were all true. Just like a drunk will confess things he doesn’t really want to, the nitrous will lessen inhibitions. That gave us the best shot we had to interrogate him.

  Thank all of those sailors in the automotive hobby shop at 7th street base in San Diego. They had told me how to make nitrous for when they went street dragging in Tijuana. The shop kept the ammonia that we created as a by-product for cleaning.

  It can blow up in your face if you do it wrong, so I didn’t do it wrong.

  I cut the gas off, and D’gattis took the cup away from his mouth. He had a grin on his pudgy face now, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes open. “Whuh wuz you askin’ me?” he slurred.

  “You’re name,” he said. “You can tell me your name, certainly.”

  “Makall ak Damaharr,” the Dorkan said. “Of the Black Fist.”

  I turned to Ancenon, crossing my arms in front of me. “The Black Fist?” I asked.

  He nodded, still watching the interrogation. “They are wizards who specialize in espionage,” he said. “It makes sense. We have caught them before in Outpost IX.”

  “Wow,” I said. “How do you detect them?”

  He turned his head toward me. I looked right into his silver-on-silver eyes, long enough to see the faint cornea. Then he turned back to D’gattis.

  Ancenon had no reason to give me state secrets.

  “Do you want us to help you get to Dorkan?” D’gattis asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Haff to – um, haff to get to Dorkan City. Haff to report on Outpost V.”

  “Outpost V?” D’gattis asked. “You said you wanted to tell me about Outpost V.”

  “I di’?” he looked blearily at D’gattis.

  “You were afraid you might be captured,” D’gattis said. “And you wanted me to also have the information.”

  “Capt’, capt’,” he mumbled. “There was a ship from Trenbon.”

  “Yes,” D’gattis said. “You don’t have much time.”

  I looked at Ancenon. “He is really good,” I said.

  “He has done this many times,” Ancenon said.

  “You can tell,” Shela commented, standing behind us. I felt her lay her hand on my shoulder.

  “Outpost V – it is Uman City!”

  He reached for D’gattis, and his chains held him. His face turned up toward the ceiling, then back to D’gattis, confused.

  “They have us,” he said. “We don’t have much time!”

  Makall seemed hesitant. We gave him more gas.

  “What izzat?” he asked.

&
nbsp; “It makes you stronger,” D’gattis lied. “You might be tortured, you will need your strength.”

  Makall looked worried, then stared blearily around the cell. He turned his face back to D’gattis.

  “I tried to get a message to them,” he said. “Through Klem.”

  Shela gripped my shoulder.

  “Klem, the former Earl?” D’gattis asked.

  Makall shook his head. “He is dead. His son, who took on his name.”

  I had suspected this much.

  “Shall I get him to safety?” D’gattis asked.

  Makall shook his head. “He is guarding the Duke. He is just biding his time.”

  “To kill him?”

  “To take his daughter.”

  Shela bolted out of the room before I could turn around. I yearned to join her, but I had to hear this, and no matter what they promised, I no longer trusted the Uman-Chi.

  “The Dorkans want this?”

  He shook his head. “The bunny hunters!” he said, and giggled to himself.

  “They are working with the Dorkans?”

  “They haff to. They haff to know about the Outposts.”

  “What about them?” D’gattis pressed him.

  Makall leaned closer in his chains, and whispered something. I couldn’t hear it, but D’gattis’ face reacted to it, and I’d never known a man more stoic.

  D’gattis nodded, and taking back the cup with him, he returned to the doorway, stepping around the mess on the floor.

  He left the cell, and he cleared the tube from the door. The two Wolf Solider guards closed and locked it, and Ancenon released his spell.

  He looked right into Ancenon’s eyes, and something passed between them. Ancenon looked thoughtful, frowning, and then nodded. D’gattis looked at me.

  “Those swords and tapestries and things you thought were useless,” he said. “They are in the crates we brought back to you. They are priceless relics of the Cheyak nation.

  “They are probably more than that,” I said, “or you wouldn’t be looking at me like you are.”

  He frowned, then turned his face away, back to the wizard. He probably wondered if I would be able to get the same information out of Makall that he had.

  If Shela had a say in it, I would probably get that and more. He would know that, too.

  “Those relics include art that verify that you are right, that there are more Outposts, and that Outpost VII is not on the Silent Island, but beneath the waves of the Bay. From them, we can find the other Outposts.”