The Cutting Edge

by Dave Duncan

  And Shandie was the sort of commander who might think to put himself at the head of the First Cohort and investigate in person. If he did that, Ylo would be lead man.

  That might get his name in the history books. If there were any more history books.

  Drumbeats throbbed through the camp and armored men poured from the tents into the half-light. Even seasoned campaigners woke easily on the morning of a battle, and it was no secret that the legions had brought the elves to bay at last. The weeks of marching in circles on Nefer Moor were over.

  Reveille was the worst time of the day for Ylo, when all his varied responsibilities seemed to scream for his attention at the same moment. He had to attend to his own toilet, dress himself, help Shandie with his armor, see that the necessary signals were being issued, and wrestle a dozen lesser snakes before he could even give a thought to breakfast. The most important task of all was the trooping of the standards. All the lesser signifers of cohort and maniple brought their own standards to be blessed, as well, but it was Ylo who saluted the Gods each dawn, Ylo who swore that the legion would serve the Good-a commitment that he always felt should more fittingly be made by the legate who would give the orders. In this camp, he was senior of four legionary signifers and everything took four times as long. The bunting on the standards snapped impatiently in the gale. Halfway through the invocation, he began to cough. His eyes had been tingling for some time. In the distance, horses were screaming in terror. Wet wood generates much smoke.

  He was facing northwest, toward Hub. He could see the snowy majesty of the Qobles out of the corner of his eye. They were even more spectacular than he had expected. He could detect very little but smoke to his left, but at times he was sure there were flickers of fire visible there now-no dragons in sight yet, thank the Gods! He could hear the roar of flames, hear trees exploding in the heat. That soggy glade where he had met the warlocks might be ablaze already. Cough! He was many days' march into a forest and downwind from an inferno.

  He had been worrying about the dragons themselves. He had forgotten the intense heat a dragon gave out.

  Cough! "Signifer!"

  Ylo blinked tears away and spun around in astonishment. To interrupt the invocation of the Gods was a major break in discipline, whatever else it was, and not something he would have expected of Shandie. "Sir?"

  "Strike camp!" the prince commanded, and then he, also, was convulsed with coughing.

  Ylo grabbed the standard from its socket and made the signal. Legates and tribunes and signifers were running already.

  The warlock had won.

  Shandie strode back to his tent with a face black as a cave. Perhaps, like Ylo, he was wondering how many days' march lay between the legions and the edge of Nefer Moor. True, not all the Moor was heavily wooded, but most of it was. Forest fires traveled at night, as well as by day.

  Would Warlock Lith'rian offer quarter, or would the elf do to the imps what they had planned for the elves?

  A runt. He had looked about fifteen.

  The roar of flames was quite audible now, the fire visible. Whole trees were exploding into flame. Where was Warlock Olybino?

  Shandie charged into his tent and headed for the chests where the secret documents were kept. He threw up the lid and then began to cough again. Even within the tent, the smoke was thick enough to see.

  He turned to Ylo. "Get a bugler!" Ylo ran, almost colliding with Centurion Hardgraa as he led up the proconsul's horse. Despite its blindfold, it was struggling and thrashing, insane with terror. Normally a horse wrestling Hardgraa would be an interesting match to watch.

  Striking camp in a gale was never easy; it was impossible in a choking fog of woodsmoke. The mules were as terrified as the horses and could not be loaded. Shandie probably recognized the inevitable as fast as any man there and admitted it much sooner than most commanders would. He abandoned the baggage, called for column of route. Even then he was too late. Withdrawal became retreat. Retreat became rout.

  The flames were coming faster than a man could walk; the smoke alone was a killer. Before the dull red sun was clear of the horizon, four legions had been reduced to a panic-stricken rabble, fleeing eastward. Time and again men found their way blocked by flooded streams. Time and again men crested a safely grassy hilltop only to see fingers of fire already curling into the valley ahead. Some claimed to have seen dragons, but the claims were doubted-in that brutal smoke, a man did well to see his own boots. Whatever was making the forest burn, the fire alone was enough to save the elves.

  No Imperial Army had faced sorcery since the War of the Five Warlocks. The casualties were surprisingly few, but the survivors staggered back to Qoble in tatters, a starving mob half crazed by terror. The other two legions were attacked by the elves under Sirdar Puil'stor and driven from IIrane with heavy losses.

  The Seven Victories had been followed by a crashing defeat. For the first time in nearly a thousand years, the Protocol had failed the legions.

  Voices prophesying:

  And mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

  Ancestral voices, prophesying war!

  — Coleridge, Kubla Khan

  FOUR

  Destiny obscure

  1

  The Gaib Place, on the western flanks of the Progiste Mountains, was known to everybody as one of the best there was. It had its own spring, which failed only in the driest of summers, and it was tightly enclosed by steep slopes on three sides. The only way to it was along a path winding through the plantation of coffee trees that Gaib tended so carefully. The Place also grew beans and pumpkins, sweet potato and bananas, corn and melons and a thousand other things-more variety than any other Place in the district.

  The only fault the neighbors could ever find with the Gaib Place was its isolation, for there were no other Places within a quarter day's walk. In Thume that was a very unusual criticism. Pixies were a shy and reclusive people, prizing privacy above all else.

  The very center of the Gaib Place was marked by a gnarled gray boulder about the size of a chair. When Gaib and Frial had built the first room of the cottage, they had enclosed that boulder within it, because it marked the exact spot where they had consummated their joining and thereby consecrated the Place to be their dwelling ever after. As Gaib had added other rooms around it, that one had remained their bedchamber. They slept there always, on a fragrant heap of fern fronds, laid on the packed clay floor. Such was the way of the pixies.

  As their family had grown, the cottage had eventually sprawled out into an untidy collection of four rooms. The construction was skimpy and patchy even by local standards, for Gaib was much more inclined to nurture trees than to cut them down and he had tried to make do with deadfall as far as possible. The poles of the walls were too narrow to hold chinking properly and the shingles leaked in the rainy season. So the cottage was nothing much, but it was a good Place.

  Gaib and Frial were distant cousins. Their family was recorded as Gifted, but that had never been a problem for them. Gaib had an undoubted talent for green things. When Gaib planted something, it grew. Some of that was experience, which he would share when asked. He could explain with great patience how one must transplant a coffee seedling with its taproot straight, else it would die before it even flowered, but sometimes his success was inexplicable, uncanny. The neighbors joked that Gaib could talk a sick tree better, or make an old ax handle sprout and bear fruit.

  Frial had Feeling, which was both a blessing and a curse to her and might explain why she had accepted a Place so remote from the clamor of others' emotions.

  Despite their respective abilities, neither she nor Gaib had ever been recorded as having Faculty, nor any of their ancestors, either, as far back as the great-great-grandparents they had in common. Oral traditional could reach no farther than that, but the recorders insisted that the family was Gifted.

  Three children they had reared there. Feen, their son, had gone off in his time and found a Place of his own amid the cedar groves of Kestr
el Ridge, and found a good woman to share it with him. Sheel, their older daughter, had toyed with several suitors until her easy-tempered childhood friend Wide had taken her to see a fine spot he had discovered some two days' walk to the north. She had accepted him there. Frial and Gaib saw little of Sheel now, but she was known to have at least one child.

  Now only Thaile remained at home. She was fifteen, gangly and awkward yet, but a loving, lovable girl, a joy to her aging parents. A year ago Thaile had kept Death Watch for Phain of the Keez Place and had received her word. That was when fear had entered their lives for the first time.

  The rainy season was almost over. Winter still ruled the high country, but the cool season was the most pleasant part of the year in Thume. The day was sunny and calm, although storm clouds hid the palisade of the Progistes, that comforting barrier against the terrors of Outside. The aromatic scent of coffee blossom had gone now, but there was a rich sort of greenish, growing feel to the air around the Gaib Place. Pigeons were purring tenderly to each other.

  Gaib had killed a pig that morning to replenish the dwindling larder. He sat on the bench by the door, enjoying the sunshine and scraping the porker's skin with a split rock. Frial was making sausage in the tiny kitchen.

  She came out carrying a bowl of offal and took it across to tip in the midden pit. Chickens rushed over to investigate the treat; they began games of grab and chase. As she came back, Frial stopped suddenly and stared off to where the path wound away into the trees. A shadow seemed to fall over her, although the rest of the clearing was filled with sunshine.

  Gaib said nothing, for he was a slow-spoken man, but he ceased his work on the hide and watched. She was still a fine woman in his eyes, although younger men might have remarked on her thickening body and the streaks of gray in the nut-brown hair tied tight about her head. Her woolen robe she had woven herself, the wool having come in trade from a neighbor in return for coffee. It was a dusty brown shade, coffee colored.

  Her chin was not as pointed as it once had been, or her neck as slender. The face that had once glowed with the innocence of spring dew had creased into lines of sadness as she aged, but that was the price of having Feeling-to sense the darknesses that lurked within everyone she met, as well as the joys and loves. Despite that burden, she was a happy-spoken person and still eager on the ferns beside the boulder.

  She came hurrying back to the door. "I think I shall go to the Feen Place," she said a little breathlessly. "Take them a hock and perhaps some ribs."

  Her eyes said more, then she glanced again at the path. "You will not make it back by dark," Gaib said softly. "You remember to coop the chickens, then!" She vanished into the cottage.

  Gaib frowned and continued his work on the hide. In a remarkably few moments, Frial came bustling out with her warm cloak on, and shoes, and a bonnet still untied. She had a basket on her arm. She bent to kiss his forehead and he reached up and touched her with the back of his wrist, which was clean. She scurried across to the trees and disappeared. She would double around to the path when she Felt it was safe.

  Trouble coming. He rose and tossed the hide up on the roof for safety. Then he went to the spring to wash the blood off his hands--noticing, as he so often did, that the water seemed warmer in winter than it did in summer. He liked to think that was a secret sign of approval from the Gods, a private little blessing on the Place.

  He strolled back to the door and seated himself on the bench to await the unwanted visitor's arrival. Meanwhile, he could listen to the whisper of the leaves and the remarks of birds passing through, hunting nesting sites.

  He did not know who the visitor would be. Frial would not, either, but clearly she had Felt unwelcome emotion on its way and they could both make guesses. There was an elderly widower who had lascivious ideas about Thaile; there were a couple of grouchy old women. None of those normally inspired Frial to quit the Place and none would likely come calling at this hour on a winter's day at the dark of the moon.

  Gaib never considered the possibility of violence or danger. He owned nothing worth stealing except perhaps food, all of which he would willingly share with a stranger. Any pixie would know that and none would outstay a welcome.

  The visitor came into sight on the path-a man, tall and slim, striding with an easy, youthful gait. His jerkin and pants were green, as was his broad-brimmed hat; his cloak was brown with fur trim. He bore a recorder's satchel slung on his shoulder. That was what Frial had feared, of course.

  He stopped and looked around the Place before addressing the owner. "Goodman Gaib?"

  Gaib bowed awkwardly. He had spoken with recorders maybe five times in his life and felt ill at ease with them. "I am Gaib and welcome you to the Gaib Place. "

  "I am Jain of the College. "

  Gaib tendered the bench, or food, or refreshment. The newcomer accepted only the bench and a dipper of water. He praised the Place, as was to be expected, but briefly. He chose the far end of the bench, where he would not bloody his boots with the results of the pigskin scraping; he removed his hat and laid it beside him, revealing curly brown hair and ears as pointed as Gaib's own.

  "Please sit, Goodman Gaib. You will forgive me if I go at once to our business? You will forgive me also if I mention that your Place is far from my planned path. I envy you the solitude, of course, but I hope to return to the Grike Place by sundown. "

  That was a long way, Gaib rejoined politely, repeating his offer of hospitality for the night. He salted his words with a hint of reproof at the unseemly impatience of youth.

  "I hope that will not be necessary." Jain's eyes were less slanted than most people's, amber colored and very bright. He smiled at his host for a moment, then tugged the satchel around to his lap and unlaced the cover.

  Gaib knew that recorders were supposed to have strange powers, but he was not a worrying man. He waited placidly. Jain produced papers and perused them. Reading, that was called.

  "I do not wish to disrupt your family life any more than needs must, but it would speed our talk if Goodwife Frial and the child Thaile could join us." Again the bright amber inspection . . . "My goodwife has gone to visit our son and his family."

  "Ah? She left long ago?"

  He was pushing a little too hard, even for a recorder. Gaib considered the question for a while.

  "Some time ago. I don't know if she'll be back before tomorrow. "

  Jain nodded thoughtfully, pursing his lips tight enough to make grooves in the youthful smoothness of his face. "And the child? "

  "She shouts when we call her a child. Loudly. "

  "Come, now! I am sure you bring up your children to be more respectful of their elders than that." The recorder took another look at his bundle of papers. They were shabby and well worn. "Not much over fifteen. Well, I shall be considerate of her feelings when we speak. "

  "She went wandering off around lunchtime," Gaib said truthfully. Thane might well have left for the same reason as her mother had; her Feeling had a much greater range. "She did not say where she was going. It is possible that she, also, has gone to visit someone. "

  That last remark was so unlikely that it could be classed as a lie, and lying to recorders was unwise. The visitor was obviously trying to overawe him with his education and his wisdom. Gaib was very glad that the women had left. This was man's business.

  "You know what children are," he added. "Always rushing off to call on one another."

  "A moment ago you told me she was not a child any longer. "

  "I said she did not think she was, sir. Not that I did not think SO."

  Oh, this smart-aleck youngster thought he was very grand, with his important satchel and his College ways. Maybe he did know a lot of things and maybe he even had occult powers, but had he ever skinned a pig, or delivered piglets, or laid out coffee to dry in the sun? Had he ever built a home or raised children? Ever buried a baby? What was he compared to a real man, a loving father, a provider? Had he ever planted a crop of anything?

&nb
sp; Gaib could tell if a melon was ripe without cutting it open, and he had never met anyone else who could do that.

  The recorder sighed, staring across the clearing to where a rooster had just emerged from the undergrowth near the midden pit. It looked up from its foraging and began strutting purposefully toward him. When it drew near, he held out a hand at knee level. The bird hopped up on his wrist and cocked its head to study him with an eye as bright and yellow as his own. He stroked the shiny mahogany feathers of its breast. Then it jumped off and streaked away in alarm, wings spread and head out in front, appalled at what it had just done.

  Jain turned his gaze back on Gaib.

  The afternoon seemed much colder than it had before that demonstration. Gaib could not recall having felt so uncomfortable in many years. Perhaps never.

  "Where is she?" the visitor asked. "Up the hill, I expect."

  Jain frowned and raised his eyes to the encircling banks. Gaib thought of the rooster, his heart beating fast.

  "A long way!" the recorder muttered. "A very long way!" He stuffed the papers back in the satchel.

  "A year ago she kept Death Watch for a woman named Phain. "

  "Yes, sir."

  "Her grandmother."

  "Great-grandmother. "

  "Of course, forgive me." The recorder looked annoyed at his slip. "It is unusual to assign a relative for a Death Watch. A Watch is hard enough on a child without that. "

  "She and her mother just happened to be visiting relatives nearby." Gaib tried to make the matter seem unimportant. "When the old crone began to fail, there was the usual hunt for a suitable Watcher and she was the only one close. There are few Gifted families in the district. None of them had a child of the right age, except one boy, and he had already gained a word. "

  Jain smiled. The smile was curiously sinister. "She just happened to be visiting? Whose idea was the visit?"

  "I ... I do not recall. It was a year ago. "

  "You are quite sure you do not recall?"

  "Quite sure. Her mother's, I expect." In spite of the chill, Gaib was sweating. Why did such trouble have to enter his life now, at his age? What had he done wrong? He thanked the Gods every morning for Their blessings; he aided the old and the sick as he could. He wondered if Thaile was Feeling his fear, in her secret place, far away up the hill. He wondered if Jain could Feel his very thoughts. Lying to recorders was unwise. Everybody knew that.