Upland Outlaws

by Dave Duncan

  The king pursed his lips and glanced at the warlock as if seeking agreement. “With respect, Majesty, I prefer to sidetrack that question at the moment.”

  Lord Umpily made a noise like a boiling pot. “Come, Sire! Either you trust us or you don’t!”

  “Oh, I do trust you! I trust all of you-today. But tomorrow you may think differently. The same is true of everyone, including myself. So we shall not discuss tactics, not yet.”

  Shandie was displeased. “Then the council of war is completed?”

  “By no means! ” The faun smiled and strode over to a chair. “No tactics, but we can discuss strategy.” He settled himself and stretched out at ease. The dwarf left the window, waddling to a bench, and some of the tension and anger seemed to seep out of the meeting.

  “Our first requirement,” Rap said, “is information. We need a set of ears and eyes in Hub.”

  He was calling for a volunteer. The room stilled, and there was no sound except the quiet creaking of the ship and the drip of melting snow on the roof.

  Shandie frowned. “How could such a person report?”

  “There is a way,” the faun said. “This ship is shielded, you understand, which is why we have escaped detection. We can’t escape any farther in it-I am sure the mouth of the Ambly is being well watched. But we can use sorcery on board. The warlock made breakfast, for example, and arranged for you all to keep it where it belongs. He has also crafted a device called a magic scroll. It is a very minor sorcery, and will enable our spy to send reports with very little risk of detection, and no chance of betraying our whereabouts.”

  Shandie turned and looked at Lord Umpily. Everyone looked at Lord Umpily.

  The fat man shied like a startled horse. “Wh-what’s involved?”

  “Just go home,” the king said. “Listen, and observe. And report. At worst, you will be converted to a Zinixo supporter, but that will not upset you, once it has happened. There is no physical danger that I can see.”

  “B-b-but then they will ask me where you are!” The chief of protocol was understandably pale.

  “There will be no torture,” the faun said. “You will willingly tell them all you know. So you must not know where we are, obviously. Nothing personal.”

  “I will not order any man to do this!” Shandie snapped. “No,” the king said, “it must be voluntary. If you agree,. though, my lord, then we shall put you aboard one of those fishing boats. You will make your own way back to Hub, and discover as much as you can about the present state of affairs in the capital. That is all. “

  Umpily licked his lips and nodded to Shandie. “If that is how I may best serve you, your Majesty. “

  “It may be. ” The imperor sounded doubtful.

  “Good!” the king said cheerfully, as if everything was decided. “There is another matter we must discuss, and it is no secret. Indeed, we must strive to advertise our purpose as widely as possible! Warlock Raspnex and Sailor Jarga and myself … Doctor Sagorn. You have three sorcerers and one genius, Sire. Zinixo has hundreds! Possibly Lith’rian and the other wardens can be inspired to come out of hiding and aid us, or perhaps not. If those were mundane odds, how would you rate your chances?”

  “Hopeless!” Shandie said sharply.

  “And if force will not work, what else remains?” The faun was making a guessing game out of the problem. Frowning, the imperor looked to his advisors.

  Ylo’s stomach rumbled loudly. No one paid any attention. “Diplomacy is out of the question?” Umpily muttered. “Completely. ” King Rap sighed. “You cannot negotiate with a craven despot. You could never trust him and he would never trust you. He does not even trust himself !”

  Acopulo shot a suspicious glance at Sagorn and said, “Subversion, then?”

  The dwarf rumbled impatiently. “A votary cannot be bribedoccult loyalty is absolute! If we can catch one alone and can bring greater power to bear, then yes, we can turn him, but that is the same as using force, isn’t it?”

  “The same odds,” Shandie agreed, staring impassively at the faun’s quiet amusement. “Hunt down the noncombatant sorcerers, then? The free ones you mentioned?”

  “But Zinixo has been doing that for years and has vastly greater resources to continue doing so,” the faun said blandly. “Do you see? Our cause is hopeless unless we can find another weapon! We need something that Zinixo does not have!”

  Sprawled in the big chair, Sagorn had bared yellow teeth in his gruesome smile. “Bribery?”

  “You can’t bribe a votary!” Acopulo protested.

  “No,” the jotunn said complacently. “But you can bribe civilians to enlist.” His pale eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “He has it!” The faun chuckled. “Listen! In straight contest we cannot outdo Zinixo’s press gang, because we are hopelessly outnumbered. The Covin will catch a dozen for every one we catch. But we may be able to coax the free sorcerers out of hiding and persuade them to aid your cause voluntarily.” Shandie leaned back and stared at him for a while, and no one else interrupted. “How?” he asked eventually. “What do I have that I can offer?”

  Nothing, Ylo thought. No mundane could ever offer anything a sorcerer could need. But obviously there must be something. He was annoyed that the big rustic faun had seen something he could not. Acopulo was scarlet with frustration and Umpily almost as bad.

  “Freedom,” Rap said. “And security.”

  “Safety from Zinixo? Restore the Protocol, you mean?”

  The faun shook his head. He glanced briefly at the dwarf, as if seeking consent to continue. “That’s not good enough, Shandie. We’re not going to restore the Protocol! Raspnex and I have talked it over, and we’ve decided that Emine’s Protocol has failed. It served the world and the Impire well for three thousand years, but now it’s dead. So we’re going to make a new one, a better one. Emshandar’s Protocol, we’ll call it. We’ll write it, and if you want your impire back, you’ll sign it.”

  It took time to assess the idea. It was big! Ylo felt a sense of history stirring. The Conference of… of whatever this stinking hulk was called. Umpily was rubbing his pudgy hands in delight.

  Ropes and spars creaked, waves rushed along the hull, and no one spoke for quite a while. Young Maya methodically hammered a wooden block on the floor, unaware that her entire future was being planned over her head.

  “What new protocol?” Shandie demanded eventually.

  The faun had been waiting for the invitation. “First,” he said, holding up a thumb, “we’ll outlaw votarism! No more loyalty spells! Not even the wardens will be allowed to enslave other sorcerers. “

  The imperor smiled for the first time. “Carried. That one was easy!”

  Forefinger. “Second, sorcery will be declared a weapon. We’ll outlaw not only the political use of magic, but any harmful use of it.”

  “Won’t that be hard to define?”

  “Is an ax hard to define?” Rap demanded, starting to sound excited. “In Krasnegar the queen’s subjects may use axes to chop wood, but not to chop one another. “

  The imperor nodded. “Fair enough. Third?”

  “We’ll still need the wardens, to supervise all this. We also need a Court of Sorcery! When I cut off the supply of magic, I left West without a prerogative, so maybe West can be authorized to keep the peace and discipline transgressors. Or something. “

  “And fourth?”

  “Well … That’s about as far as we got.” The king flashed a sheepish and oddly appealing smile, as if ashamed of his enthusiasm.

  Shandie looked to the dwarf, who was swinging his little legs on the bench, his pebbly teeth showing.

  “It’s got promise,” the little man growled. “Grunth will like it. Don’t know about East, ‘cause he needs his votaries to tie shoelaces for him. Hate to say this, but I think even Old Yellowbelly may support the idea.”

  Sagorn had been rubbing his chin, displaying little of his usual scom. “Can you do something about the wardens themselves? I wish there were some w
ay of keeping them honest!”

  The dwarf bristled menacingly.

  “They won’t have votaries to back them up,” King Rap said. “If they breach the peace, they’ll be vulnerable to prosecution like other sorcerers.”

  Ylo thought that sounded like the wildest sort of hare-brained optimism he had ever heard. He could imagine his father’s contempt. Consul Ylopingo had been a crafty, cynical politician, and he would have dismissed such wishful dreaming out of hand.

  And yet … There were crafty politicians here in this stuffy, shabby deckhouse, and they were not laughing. Shandie was being his usual inscrutable self, but Acopulo looked impressed, and so did Umpily. The old count was beaming.

  Abruptly the imperor rose and stalked over to a pile of discarded cloaks on a chair near the door. All eyes followed him. He rummaged for a moment, then pulled out a roll of vellum. “Lucky I brought this along, then, isn’t it?”

  Old Sagorn straightened in his chair with remarkable agility. “That’s it?” he barked.

  “This is it,” Shandie agreed, holding up the roll. “The Protocol itself.”

  “An authentic copy?”

  “I think it’s the original. It has Emine’s seal on it.”

  King Rap was squinting. “There’s sorcery on it, certainly.”

  “Preservation spell,” the dwarf rumbled. “There’s one like it in the White Palace.”

  Shandie smiled. He walked over to Sagorn and passed him the scroll. The old man grabbed it, began unrolling hastily. Acopulo jumped up and hurried across to read over his shoulder. «Ylo?

  “Sire?”

  “Remember some of the dreadful things Warlock Lith’rian said last year? About the Protocol?”

  Ylo thought back to that rainy night in the forest of Nefer Moor and shivered at the memory. “Vaguely.”

  The imperor frowned. “He was quite right! The Protocol has been perverted. It doesn’t give East a free hand with the legions. It says that only East may use sorcery on them, but the context is that he must use it to restrain the legions. That is his duty!”

  “Then the dragons …” Ylo said.

  “Yes! South is supposed to restrain the dragons. Lith’rian was equally at fault. And North is supposed to restrain the jotnaryou don’t see much of that in history!”

  The two scholars were engrossed in reading the Protocol. Umpily was on his way to join them, but everyone else automatically looked at Raspnex. He scratched his beard, then shrugged like a boy caught in mischief. “They haven’t been misbehaving too badly lately, have they?” Inasmuch as dwarves ever smiled though, he was smiling.

  “Did you ever read that copy in your palace, your Omnipotence?” Shandie asked, and his eyes had found their old brilliance.

  “No… your Majesty.”

  “Obviously the wording needs to be made more explicit,” the faun said, and chuckled. “The wardens’ responsibilities will have to be defined more strictly. Well, your Imperial Majesty? What do you think of our proposal?”

  “Your New Order?” Shandie said dryly. “Your plan to reform the world?” He glanced around. “Lord Ionfeu?”

  “It is a staggering concept, Sire,” the old man said. He exchanged smiles with his wife. “But a worthy one!”

  “Do I understand correctly, though?” Eigaze said. “This new protocol would prohibit only evil use of power? Wellmeaning sorcerers could practice healing, or build bridges, or banish famine? Sorcerers need no longer hide? Sorcery could become a source of positive good in the world?” Her plump face bulged in an excited smile.

  The imperor turned to the king of Krasnegar, who shrugged and nodded at the same time. “Why not?”

  Shandie smiled. “Doctor Sagorn?”

  The jotunn did not take his gaze from the ancient scroll he was studying. “Brilliant!”

  “I agree, Sire,” Acopulo said without waiting to be asked. He pointed at some wording on the vellum, and his two companions nodded excitedly.

  “Ylo?”

  Ylo nodded-what choice was there?

  “It appears to be unanimous! ” the imperor said. “Ma’am?” the faun asked, rising to his feet.

  Eshiala had apparently been engrossed in entertaining Maya, but she looked up at the king. “A just cause is a nobler purpose than mere survival,” she said hesitantly, and blushed.

  Shandie drew a long breath. “Well put, my dear. So, my sorcerous friend! My own view is that it’s a mirage of absurd idealism. It’s the most impractical, visionary, utopian dream 1 ever heard of. But, as my wife says, it is worth fighting for! “

  “It’s also the only chance we’ve got!” Rap said.

  “That, too!” Smiling, the imperor walked across to him and shook his hand.

  “Certainly!” Inos said. “Of course there are some things worth fighting for. “

  Could a thirty-five-year-old mother and a fourteen-year-old son ever agree on what those things were?

  Gath was in his bed, and she was seated on the edge of it. Despite her thick fur robe, she was chilled. Her breath hung in the air like steam. Ice coated the leading between the black little casement panes. Yet many bedchambers in Krasnegar were colder. Peat glowed brightly in the hearth here, but few citizens could afford that princely luxury, especially this winter, when peat was scarce.

  Only the tip of Gath’s nose protruded between his woolly nightcap and a huge drift of downy quilts. Even in the tiny candlelight, the tip of it was visibly pink, but at least it was undamaged. Hostile and suspicious, one gray eye peered up at her out of nests of many-colored swellings. The other was covered with a slab of steak. The broken tooth annoyed her most, though, and he was keeping that out of sight.

  “Like Dad,” he said stubbornly. “Dad’s worth fighting for!” She sighed, searching for reasons that would make sense to him.

  Downstairs, the dinner party continued. It was turning out to be very subdued for an affair attended by twenty-five adolescents, lacking its host and one guest. The medics said Brak would be all right, but no one could mend a boy’s broken tooth except a sorcerer, and the one sorcerer she knew almost certainly wouldn’t. Most likely it would abscess and have to come out. All her life, she was going to recall this day every time her son opened his mouth.

  “Your father is worth fighting for, of course. But you weren’t fighting for him, Gath! He wasn’t there. If he was in danger from a bear, or goblins, or a gang of raiders, then you would be right to go to his aid and fight for him. That wasn’t what happened. You were fighting because someone called him names, and that’s not the same thing at all. “

  He stared at her stubbornly, saying nothing. This lecture was a father’s duty, not a mother’s. He probably knew exactly how long it was going to continue, and every word she was going to say. He was hurting, inside and out, his doubts worse than his wounds. Doubts about himself, doubts about her, doubts about his father.

  “What exactly did Brak say?”

  “He said … He said my dad had run away to live with the goblins. He said he had goblin wives.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Course not! ” But the pain in his solitary eye increased. Doubt.

  “Did Brak say he was a sorcerer?”

  Gath thought for a moment. “Not today.”

  “What do you answer if the boys say that about your father?”

  “I say, `What if he is? That’s his business.’ “

  “That’s a good answer, a very good answer, because it’s true. But your father’s a king, and if his royal duties require him to go away for a while, then that’s his business, too! Can’t you just say that? “

  Silence. Hurt, angry silence.

  “You could say that, Gath, and you know it! You weren’t fighting for your father. You were fighting in case they thought you were afraid to fight. And usually that’s very silly. “

  Except that this was Krasnegar, not the Impire. Gath looked like a jotunn so his peers judged him as they judged jotnar. And so did he. An imp they wouldn’t b
other with, but he was blond and big for his age, like a jotunn. He must think of himself as a jotunn, although he was normally the least quarrelsome boy she had ever known. Everyone knew that jotnar would accept any odds.

  She tried another tack. “You must have known what was going to happen when you went to meet Brak and the others.” Pause, then a grudging whisper: “Yes. I knew.”

  “Then why did you go?”

  “Because I knew I would go.” No hope there!

  “You won’t go anymore!” she said sharply. “From now on, you stay in the castle. Is that clear?”

  Even with so little of his face visible, the sullen, rebellious expression was obvious.

  “Is that clear?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  But the fight with Brak had happened within the castle, so house arrest wouldn’t do much to solve the problem. There were dozens of adolescent jotnar living in the palace, and townsfolk could stream in and out as they pleased. She couldn’t declare a state of siege just to stop kids brawling. Not in Krasnegar. And if word got around that the queen was protecting her son, then he would be fair game for everyone, even imps.

  “So your father is away on business? There’s nothing odd about that! Other boys’ fathers go out of town-trappers, whalers, fishermen-“

  “He didn’t tell anyone.”

  Ah! “Since when has your father had to ask Brak’s permission to go on a trip?”

  The humor didn’t work; she hadn’t expected it to. Gath’s permission was what they were discussing now, even if Gath himself didn’t know it.

  “He didn’t have time to say good-bye to you, dear. I told you-he had to leave on very short notice. He didn’t know he was going when you went to bed.” She thought back to that tragic evening. “Did you? Did you know?”

  Gath blinked. “I can’t see tomorrows.”

  “No, but I recall you looked sort of surprised at one point. Did you suspect?”

  “Maybe. I’m not sure. Wasn’t sure. Maybe a little, I did.” A big disappointment might throw a longer shadow than little things, and a father’s disappearance was a very big disappointment to a fourteen-year-old. Rap had promised the whole of the following day to the children and been gone when they awoke. She sighed. “Listen, you big lummox! Maybe one day you’ll be king of Krasnegar. Kings have to keep their private lives separate from their royal duties, and you’re going to have to learn that. Your father doesn’t go around fighting everybody!”