The Cutting Edge

by Dave Duncan

  "You not feeling well?"

  "Oh, it's just Thrippy!"

  "Something bothering you?"

  "But, honestly, Dad, I didn't know the silly old man was going to throw an arm around me and I didn't really hear what he said and she'll make an awful scene!"

  "I think wed better get your mother ... Gath, what did you just say?"

  He knew he was going to cry, so he decided he might as well get it over with. He jumped up and across to his father's chair and was falling into his arms, except that Dad hadn't started to hold them out to him, but they soon got that straightened around ...

  He wept, or would weep, and was held, or would be held, or had been held ... He had felt, would feel, better after his weep, when they would go to Mom and he was telling them about Thrippy and what he'd whispered and of course they would know the old man had died would die was dying ...

  He was ever so mixed up.

  8

  Inos marched into the parlor and shut the door. The fire had shrunk to a few glowing ashes; the room was chill. Some of the candles had gone out and the others were guttering.

  Rap lay sprawled in one of the big pillowed chairs, looking as long as a jotunn. He glanced up at her gloomily. "Well?"

  "He's sleeping now," she said. "He was pretty distraught there for a while, but I think he'll be all right."

  Rap grunted in misery.

  "Not much we can do, really," she said, "except hold him tight and love him and stay cheerful. "

  Rap turned his mournful gaze back to the ashes in the grate. "No."

  She perched on the arm of his chair. She had never seen Rap give in to despair before, and she was not going to allow it now. "I know he's big," she said, "but he's only thirteen. A thirteen-year-old in trouble needs his mother. "

  Rap took a moment to react, then he looked up at her inquiringly. "I know that."

  "Oh, good. I thought perhaps you were sulking and feeling rejected. "

  But that did not win the indignant response she had hoped for. Rap just said, "No," and went back to brooding.

  She tried again. "You have a kingdom to run. You can't spend all your time nursing children. If it was anyone's fault, it was mine, because I was supposed to be minding the kids while you were away. "

  "It wasn't anyone's fault," Rap told the fireplace.

  She tousled his hair thoughtfully. Obviously there was more wrong than she knew and obviously Rap had given up pretending that there wasn't, or he would be trying to seem more cheerful. It must be bad, if he was taking this long to get around to it. Something had happened back about Winterfest, around the time Holi was bom. Rap had been wading deep waters ever since.

  "It wasn't deliberate," she said. "I'm sure of that. Gath wasn't deliberately trying to learn a word of power. He says he wasn't and he's not lying. He didn't know that Thrippy knew a word of power. How could he? No one did. Thrippy's never shown any occult ability at all that I know of. In fact, a little magic might have improved his work considerably." Thrippy had been a palace servant so long that she could not remember when he had not been old.

  Rap showed no amusement. "I went down there," he said. "He's in a coma now, and sinking. They don't think he'll live till morning."

  Poor old Thrippy!

  But the word that had done nothing for the old man had shattered the boy. Gath must have inherited his father's knack for magic, just as he had inherited his porcupine hair. Differentcolored hair; different talent.

  "So Gath has a sort of foresight? Your mother was a seer?" She waited a long time and finally Rap said, "So they say. I got the impression Gath was kind of a few minutes ahead of me all the time. He was answering questions before I asked them."

  "That's when he's upset. When he calms down, he's all right. I think he'll cope. When he gets used to it."

  "Yes."

  "It does take some getting used to," she said. "Magic does. I remember. You must remember that. It takes time."

  No reply.

  "Rap!"

  "I was even younger," he muttered. "I blocked it out altogether, somehow. I didn't know I had any power at all until I was older than he is."

  "Well, that was you. This is Gath."

  "It's tough enough on adults. It must be a hundred times worse for a kid." He shivered. "How can he live at more than one time? He'll go crazy!"

  "Phooey!" Inos said. "Children bounce like balls. He'll be all right, love. It's not him I'm worried about. "

  Rap sighed very deeply. "Sorry. I'm just tired. Let's go to bed."

  He tried to pull himself up in the chair and she pushed him back.

  "There's more to this than you're letting on! What are you hiding? "

  He rolled his eyes to stare up at her in abject misery. "I've never kept secrets from you, Inos."

  "Good. Why start now? Out with it."

  "There's nothing to `out' with."

  "Rap, I'm tired, too, but you don't get out of this chair till you talk. You may start losing eyes or skin very shortly. And don't just say, `There's more bad news but you'd be happier not knowing!' That's a sure way to make me fear the worst. Speak! "

  He clasped her hand and squeezed. "You couldn't fear the worst! "

  "Tell me anyway. "

  "I made an error, darling."

  "When? How?"

  "That's the trouble-I don't know when. Or how. But somewhere in our adventures, when we were kids, I fouled up badly. And now the ravens are coming home to roost."

  She felt a tremor of real fear. "What ravens?"

  "Don't know that, either. Something to do with the end of the millennium. " Rap looked up at her bleakly. "The night Holi was born, I talked with a God and They said ... They told me ... They said that one of the children ... now I think They were talking about Gath . . . "

  Hostages to fortune:

  He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune.

  — Francis Bacon, Essays

  INTERLUDE

  All over Pandemia, spring ripened into summer.

  In Krasnegar the king spent less time on the mainland than was his custom at that season, and more with his children. Gradually a certain very frightened boy began to adjust to his uncanny new talent. He did not go insane, as his father had feared.

  In the splendor of the Opal Palace the imperor clung to life, weakening steadily and rarely seen. Rumor-and there was always rumor in Hub-contended that he was failing and could no longer cope with the immense workload he had always handled so easily. Recalling an unhappy regency eighteen years previously, the wags whispered jokes about a pressing need for faun sorcerers.

  Princess Eshiala continued to decline almost all social invitations, while pursuing her studies in elocution, music, deportment, jurisprudence, literature, equitation, poetry, history, interior design, piscation, geography, constitutional law, theology, venery, and all the many other matters with which a future impress was expected to be conversant.

  The curious term "covin" came into more general use, although no one would admit to knowing to what it applied, or even whether its new popularity derived from some particular conspiracy.

  In Qoble the prince imperial fretted. Agonizing months passed after Eshiala's note told him of his grandfather's decision. When the old man did finally issue a formal recall and appoint a successor, he was adamant that Shandie must not return by ship. That refusal was both inexplicable and ominous.

  Admittedly the sea routes from Qoble led around either Zark or IIrane. Shandie knew he must not set foot in either, but shipwreck was a rare thing. Any decent sorcerer could raise a storm, of course, but to do so against the heir apparent would be a flagrant breach of the Protocol, which should call down the wrath of the Four. No sane sorcerer would dare. So what did the imperor fear? Was he totally senile?

  Unseasonable blizzards in the Qoble Range kept the passes closed far later than usual.

  In Thume a boy and girl had consecrated their Place in the way of the pixies and begun to build their cottage. For
them the days were filled with joy and the nights with love. Time flowed by unnoticed, and no one came near to disturb their idyll.

  In Zark the legions continued their slow retreat before the advance of the caliph's rebuilt army.

  The harvest ripened and brought thoughts of fall. In retrospect, the Impire was to look back on that last summer of Emshandar's reign with longing.

  SIX

  Strange intelligence

  1

  The clouds were dazzling white on limitless blue and they trailed their shadows over the sunlit hills. Below them, straight as an arrow, the Great East Way ran onward to the horizon, pointing the way to Hub. It was the most welcome sight Shandie had seen in months. The horse's hard muscles moved smoothly between his legs, iron shoes rang on the stones, and the wind cooled his face. At the end of the road was home, with his wife and the daughter he had never seen and soon the Opal Throne.

  Up front rode Ylo with the shining standard. Hardgraa followed, flanked by two others. Then came Shandie and fifty on his tail. Other traffic heard the hooves and saw the glitter of bronze and made way. As the company thundered through hamlets or toll gates, small boys waved and citizens cheered. Probably few of them noticed his emblem on the standard; perhaps few even knew that he wore a legate's insignia. They were cheering the idea of Impire.

  He was going home at last!

  The passes had opened at last, and Shandie's party had been the first to cross, fighting through drifts. Unwelcome business in South Shimlundok had delayed him another month, but now he had reached the Great East Way, which ran from Hub to the Morning Sea- "a thousand leagues without a bend," one of his ancestors had boasted. That was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Only five hundred leagues separated him from Eshiala now.

  Already the fields on either hand were turning gold and the hay had been gathered ... a good crop, too.

  Eshiala, with her serenity, her sweet voice, her perfect features! Her body was smooth as a rockdove's breast and flawless. There was not a mole on her skin anywhere. Her hair is black as the raven's wing ... He had never seen a woman move as she did-she floated.

  His favorite memory of her was the first time she came to court. Amid all the frippery and ostentation, she had wom a simple apricot-colored sheath and a thin coronet of diamonds. She had drifted through the aristocrat rabble in all their finery and she had cut them down like a scythe.

  Others might think her cold, but he knew she was merely shy. She was not a passionate person, but then neither was he. Passion made him uncomfortable; fire and ice would not do well together. They were well matched and they had shown they could make children together, which was what mattered, especially for a future imperor. And perhaps there would be a little passion when they were reunited ...

  Common sense said he should be taking his time on this journey, inspecting the cities and garrisons, because it might be years before he could make a personal tour through these parts. Common sense be damned!

  As soon as Shandie shouted to him, Hardgraa seemed to know why. He let his mount drop back and the two cantered side by side. The centurion was scowling already.

  "You're going to make a run for it?"

  "Did you ever doubt I would?" A company of fifty could not travel at top speed, for no post ever held fifty good mounts. Tonight Shandie was going to push on ahead with just a handful of men.

  "You're being predictable," Hardgraa growled, "and that's asking for trouble."

  All his life Shandie had been guarded and it was true that there had been attempts on his life, although never anything very efficient. On the road he was far more vulnerable than he was in camp or palace. A couple of times he had outwitted conspiracies accidentally, by sheer speed, only to learn of them later. But now he had a reputation for speed.

  "How much warning would you need to set up an ambush against a troop like this?" he demanded, shouting over the hooves.

  Hardgraa spat while he thought over the problem. "Don't need to. Just one good bowman."

  "Good suicidal bowmen are scarce. But it would still need time and a fair idea of when I'm due to ride underneath, wouldn't it? You can't keep bow or man strung tight for days on end."

  Hardgraa grudgingly nodded agreement to that. "So?"

  "So we'll outrun our news."

  Even the imperturbable centurion was shaken by that suggestion. "Outrun the mail?"

  A fit rider with money and good weather could ride three posts a day. If he was desperate enough, he could even fourpost, although few could keep that up for long. By law the imperial posting inns were supposed to stand eight leagues apart, and on average they did. A man on foot could walk from one post to the next in a day, and even a pack train could usually manage two. Four-posting meant more than thirty leagues a day, usually employing eight or even twelve horses; it was fast travel and slow suicide.

  The Imperial Mail went faster than that, but a mail pouch changed men as well as horses. A courier blew his post horn to warn of his arrival, and another rider grabbed his sack before he even slowed down. No mundane rider could outrun the mail.

  "State of emergency," Shandie said with a grin. "A proconsul can stop the mail. "

  What he was suggesting was so close to blasphemy that he seemed to have shocked his chief of security, for the first time ever. Shandie jerked a thumb to indicate the men following. "You think Okratee can handle it?"

  Hardgraa nodded confidently. Optio Okratee was his handpicked deputy, so of course he could handle anything. "How long? "

  "Three or four days will do it," Shandie said. "Then the government stuff will take precedence, so any private letters will be held up longer. "

  The centurion was grinning now, as the idea seized his imagination. "Who do we take?"

  "Sir Acopulo and Lord Umpily, of course."

  Neither looked capable of surviving one of Shandie's mad rides, but he knew them of old.

  Acopulo, his political advisor, was a small, birdlike man, but his white hair made him look older than he really was, and he had one of the sharpest minds in the Impire. He could trace a strand of spider web a thousand leagues and name the spider. Acopulo could read all the patterns.

  Umpily, the chief of protocol, was twice Acopulo's size. He was riding near the rear, with the billows of his gray cloak making him look even more bladderlike than usual. The fat man had more curious sources of information than the entire imperial bureaucracy in Hub. Young Ylo thought he knew everything that was happening in the Impire because he read all the official correspondence, but those told only the official facts. Shandie learned many more important facts from Umpily's gossip, just as he learned what those facts really meant from Acopulo's devious reasoning. The flabby Umpily would find the trip hard, but he was much tougher than he appeared.

  "And me?" Hardgraa said, suddenly wary. "Of course."

  Shandie would not omit his bodyguard and chief of security, nor a couple of good swordsmen to back him up. They should not be required to do anything except look dangerous, but to travel with no guards at all would be plain stupidity-and also unkind to Hardgraa, the paradigm of the fighting man, old campaigner, ex-gladiator and loyal as they came. He ate granite for breakfast and bronze for lunch.

  "And Ylo."

  "Him? " Hardgraa barked, astonished and obviously wanting to add, "Why?"

  "Think of him as a mascot," Shandie said, smiling.

  Ylo was undoubtedly enjoying himself up front, holding the standard high and letting the ends of his white wolfskin flap in the breeze. The promiscuous young demon reveled in his good looks and his reputation for heroism because they brought him women. He probably did not realize how his legend inspired the legions, also, and thereby aided Shandie. If he did know, he did not care. There were very few things Ylo did care about, except Ylo. Ylo was loyal because he chose to be, but Shandie had some thoughts about using Ylo when they returned to Hub.

  Hardgraa, Acopulo, Umpily, Ylo. Yes, those few. At the next posting inn Shandie would stop the mail and lea
ve Okratee and the troop behind to see that it stayed stopped. He would carry on with his chosen few and Evil take the saddle sores!

  These same few were going to be the nucleus of the next imperor's court, the inner circle. The Impire was moribund and due for a shakeup such as it had not known since the morning his great-great grandmother Abnila threatened to abolish the Senate. Shandie was ready to do the shaking, with the help of his friends. He would start by winning justice for Ylo, so that there could be no doubts about what the next imperor stood for. The chosen few.

  A handful of men.

  2

  Oak House, official residence of the Prince Imperial, was located just within the northern wall of the palace complex, on the edge of a steep scarp. Its balconies offered a magnificent view of the city, with the ghostly towers of the White Palace in the distance and a silver glint of Cenmere on the horizon beyond. Eshiala had counted twenty-two temples visible from there, but she might have missed dozens more. Half of Hub lay spread out before her like a marble forest and it was very splendid, if one cared for great cities.

  She was not looking at the view at the moment, though. She was leaning on the balustrade with her sister and being nagged as usual.

  Ashia's idea of a suitable gown for a summer afternoon involved incredible quantities of taffeta and lace and whalebone. It represented months of work by skilled seamstresses. It was encrusted with pearls and intricate embroidery. Naturally, a lady could wear such a dress only once and must then discard it. Her hair was emblazoned with seashells and silk bows and more gems.

  The summer day was baking hot. Eshiala wore a simple cotton shift, with almost nothing underneath it, although no one knew that but she.

  "You do realize," Ashia said in her most venomous tone, "that when you become impress, everyone will have to dress as you do? "

  Eshiala mulled over the question and decided it was nonsensical. "No, I don't see that at all."

  "Well, you should! It is obvious."

  "Then let them. What I wear is a great deal more comfortable, I'm sure."