The only person whose name he didn't know was the caucasian woman who'd come with Leaping Elk, a newborn infant in her arms. A shield concealing her, he couldn't even consult the flow to learn her name.
Reaching her, he said, “I'm Easing Comfort, Lady. Infinite be with you. May I ask your name?”
Dark brown hair framed her intelligent face and widely-spaced, hazel eyes. “I'm Fawning Elk, Lord Comfort.” Nodding, she couldn't make a proper obeisance because of the child at her breast. She'd attached the portable shield to the infant's blanket.
She looks familiar, Easing Comfort thought, wondering where he'd seen her face before. Wishing she wasn't using the shield, he wanted to know more about her. She had the carriage of an Empress, the beauty of a courtesan and the tongue of a linguist. The Wizard-medacor had overheard her speaking with both Leaping Elk and Bucking Stag in their respective native tongues. Easing Comfort knew nothing else about her. She'd remained shielded during the walk north, not wanting to expose the newborn to the terrible grief on the flow.
Easing Comfort nodded curtly, evincing no surprise at her name. Unusual that she'd taken the patronym when she mated. Unusual that she'd mated a man easily twenty-five years older. Unusual that Leaping Elk hadn't mentioned having a mate when he'd last visited the fortress. Unusual that he hadn't said she was pregnant. Very unusual, Easing Comfort thought.
“Thank you for coming, Lady Elk,” he said. “Infinite bless you for being here. Travel with a child can't be easy, Lady Elk. On behalf of the Lord General Scowling Tiger, I extend welcome and gratitude.”
“Thank you, Lord Comfort. If my mate and I can do anything within our humble means, please ask. Your tragedy is ours. Your grief, ours.” Suddenly, handing the shielded child to Leaping Elk, she stood and excused herself. She walked away crying.
He watched her go, belatedly recognizing her. She was Trickling Stream, and he'd met her at Gentle Hand's clinic nine months before. “I seem to have upset the Lady, Lord Elk,” he said to the Southerner. “I didn't intend to cause her sorrow.”
“Lady sorrow own has, eh? Not your fault be, Comfort Easing Lord.”
Easing Comfort nodded, detecting at the edge of her mindshields a personal grief beneath the collective grief, but not its cause. He guessed her exmatriation had been terrible for her. “Please, would you extend my apologies when she returns, Lord Elk?”
Leaping Elk said something to Slithering Snake in the Southern tongue. The large sectathon translated. “The Lord Elk says he'll happily do so, Lord Comfort. He invites you, if you'd like, to return and express the apology yourself. Of course, the Lord Comfort's always welcome at the caves of the humble bandit.”
“Thank you, Lord Elk, this humble bandit feels honored.” Bowing to Leaping Elk, Easing Comfort moved on.
He greeted the next man, Peeking Ocelot, the leader of six thousand bandits, continuing around the fire. Flame was hot on his back.
He greeted Spitting Wolverine, the leader of eight thousand bandits, reaching the place whence he'd started. At Scowling Tiger's feet lay the domesticated tiger, purring contentedly.
“May I borrow your sword, Lord?”
Nodding, Scowling Tiger pulled the weapon from his sash. Immediately, Raging River tried to give the bandit general his blade. “I'd feel much better if you kept it, Lord River,” Scowling Tiger said.
Reluctantly, the retainer acquiesced.
Facing the fire, Easing Comfort held the sword above his head. “Infinite be with you all, Lords and Ladies,” he said, his voice resonant. “I am the Wizard-medacor Easing Comfort. I have at one time or another met each of you. Each of you knows and respects my integrity, poor though it is. Therefore, I ask that you allow me to mediate here, at this, the first meeting of the Bandit Council.”
Lowering the sword, he looked around the assembly.
Many bandits nodded and none objected.
“Represented here at this gathering are over fifty thousand bandits. Bandits who share a common problem and seek a common solution. The problem all bandits share is Empire.”
Laughter greeted this comment.
When it died, he continued. “A few days ago, six Wizards and a thousand Imperial warriors invested the Tiger Fortress. The psychic attack was like nothing we've seen in our history as bandits. Imitating an Imperial Sword, the Wizards penetrated our electrical shielding, then put to sleep over ten thousand bandits.”
Pausing, Easing Comfort began to circle the fire. “Imperial Warriors then breached the fortress walls, and thirty-two hundred bandits died in less than an hour. Nothing but an act of the Infinite could have stopped the siege. More bandits would've died without the menagerie animal, who escaped the Wizards' attention and defended the fortress until the earthquake struck.
“At this point I'd like to express the gratitude of seven thousand bandits for the actions of the tiger and for the events that brought the tiger to the fortress.”
Easing Comfort smiled at Leaping Elk. “Divining the need, the Lord Leaping Elk, humble bandit though he be, suggested the plan that eventually brought the wizardly animal to us. For that, Lord Leaping Elk, I humbly offer the fealty of the Tiger Raiders.”
Easing Comfort knelt before the Southerner, offering the sword.
“Humble bandit not do, Comfort Easing Lord,” Leaping Elk said. “Humble bandit tool of Infinite be.”
“Please, Lord, on behalf of us all, I insist,” Easing Comfort said.
Leaping Elk had no choice: To refuse would be an unpardonable insult. Sighing, he grasped the sword but didn't take it. “Humble bandit in name of Infinite accept, Comfort Lord. Humble bandit respectful ask, Raider Tiger sword now keep. Humble bandit not now need. When need, say will. Humble bandit for honor not deserve thank.” Releasing the sword, he bowed low, holding his bow to honor the offer.
Easing Comfort nodded, acknowledging that honor had met with honor, the forms satisfied. Rising, the medacor bowed again. Tossing Scowling Tiger the sheathed sword, he turned to face the group. “We each know the meaning of this tragedy. I'll state the meaning for the group to hear.
“Every band faces possible annihilation!”
Easing Comfort walked around the fire, looking into the face of every bandit leader. “What,” he asked gently, “keeps it from happening?” He continued to pace, letting the tension mount.
“We're children of the Infinite, subject to its inscrutable whims and desires. We all live with certain hazards. We do what we can to avoid those hazards, but we can't avoid Empire.
“Does a band among us have a shield not manufactured in the Eastern Empire?” Easing Comfort asked.
No one spoke.
“During the attack, one Wizard disabled the shields. If one can do it, others will surely learn. Everyone in all four Empires saw what happened here. None of us is safe any longer behind Imperial electrical shielding. Therefore, we must manufacture our own shields. Would a bandit here not donate personnel and materials toward the design and manufacture of a shield impervious to an Imperial Sword?”
No one spoke.
Easing Comfort nodded, appreciating the solidarity. “This has never happened before, Lords and Ladies. We, bandits all and subject only to laws of our own, have reached an agreement. Does anyone doubt that we can reach further agreements?”
No one spoke.
He wondered how long solidarity would last, knowing specific attitudes much stronger than general attitudes. For instance, a person claiming equality for all races, a general attitude, might object to his or her progeny's mating a person of another race, a specific attitude. Specific attitudes almost always superseded general attitudes.
“Lord Leaping Elk, can you, in all matters involving the Bandit Council, set aside your enmity for the Lord Bucking Stag, as you have done today?”
“Comfort Easing Lord, humble bandit can,” Leaping Elk said.
“Lord Bucking Stag, can you do the same?”
The Westerner looked through the flames at the Southerner, his epican
thic eyes unreadable. Before becoming bandits, the two men had clashed in the mountains dividing the Western and Southern Empires. Bucking Stag had been an outlaw and the Heir Leaping Jaguar had tried to hunt him down.
“Lord Easing Comfort, I can,” Bucking Stag said, his pronunciation of the Eastern language very good.
The two enemies bowed to the same depth for the same duration.
Easing Comfort smiled. “Does any bandit leader here have reservations about another leader that would interfere with future agreements?”
No one spoke.
Easing Comfort nodded, circling the fire like a cat stalking game.
“We're at the turning point, Lords and Ladies. From here, we can scatter like pigeons from a hawk plummeting into our midst, or we can all raise our claws to fight the common menace.
“I want to propose a vision of the future, Lords and Ladies. I don't see each of our separate bands clawing out an individual, miserable existence. I don't see our bands duplicating each others' efforts. I don't see our bands fighting each other. Finally, I don't see us sucking forever on the Empire's blood. As we know, when the host dies, so does the parasite.”
Easing Comfort approached Scowling Tiger and the other Tiger Raiders. At their feet, dozing lazily, was the tiger, as if bored with the doings of humans. Opening her eyes to a slit, she looked at him as he approached.
Suddenly, she jerked her left paw to her mouth and gnawed the heel, then abruptly lowered the paw to the ground.
Where have I seen that motion before? Easing Comfort wondered.
“I've told you, Lords and Ladies, what I don't see in our future. I'd like to tell you now what I do see. The Infinite hasn't blessed me with prescient sight, so please don't take me literally, eh?” He got a chuckle from some.
“What I do see in our future, Lords and Ladies, are interdependent city-states, trade agreements, ambassadors, messenger services, cooperative farms and factories, itinerant teachers and medacors, labor pools, inter-camp apprenticeships, institutes of learning.”
Easing Comfort strolled around the fire one last time, looking at each bandit there, whether leader, mate or lieutenant. Only the Infinite knew which would be the future leader.
“What I see, Lords and Ladies, is an Empire without an Emperor.”
He stopped near Scowling Tiger. “Now, Lords and Ladies, I wish to step aside for my friend and colleague, the Lord Wizard Melding Mind. My hope is that you lend him as polite an ear as you have me. Thank you, all of you, very much.” Bowing to the assembly, Easing Comfort retreated.
Melding Mind stepped forward. “Lords and Ladies, my esteemed colleague the Lord Wizard-medacor Easing Comfort has proposed a Bandit Council. A pleasant place we've chosen for our impromptu conference here, eh? What say you all to the proposal that we set up here a permanent settlement for the Bandit Council? In sight of the mass grave of bandits killed by Empire? Does anyone object?”
No one spoke.
Easing Comfort listened with half an ear. The courier! he thought, glancing sharply back at the tiger. The courier who'd come whence only the Infinite knew had paused in delivering the message to gnaw at the heel of his left hand—as the tiger had done moments ago. I can't bring the matter to Scowling Tiger's attention now, Easing Comfort knew. He stilled his turmoil to focus on the present.
The bandit leaders' coming together heartened him, their gathering spontaneous. Tragedy and a common problem had brought them here. Easing Comfort didn't doubt they'd solve the immediate problem of an impervious electrical shield. They'd have to manufacture their own, since all shields built by Empire disabled themselves when they detected the signature of that Empire's Sword.
Whether they'd accomplish anything else was in the hands of the Infinite. The future he'd proposed was Scowling Tiger's vision. When the bandit general had first suggested it to him, Easing Comfort had understood immediately that the raids would eventually have to stop.
The bandits would have to stop their banditry.
Easing Comfort hadn't said this to his liege lord.
The bandit general wouldn't have listened.
Chapter 27
The bandits want the Imperial Sword. Flying Arrow would rather die than give it up. When the inexorable force and the immovable object meet, chaos reigns. No one knows the result. In the year of the Infinite 9303, we had only the illusion of safety. We had to rely on nothing except ourselves. Where we went from here, only the Infinite knew.—The Political Geography, by Guarding Bear.
* * *
“It would've happened anyway, eh?” Leaping Elk said. “Remember what the Matriarch said? 'One would be too few.' ”
“I remember,” Fawning Elk replied. “I still think the Traitor finally betrayed Flying Arrow, as we all knew he would.”
Slithering Snake nodded. “Of course, they'd incur too much shame as an Empire ever to admit it.”
In the rebuilt central cavern of the Elk Raiders' cave, the three bandits sat around the fire. The first fifty feet of the lava tube had collapsed in the earthquake. The band had simply moved further into the tube. Their resident chemathon had dug a corridor through the rubble. No one had died, thank the Infinite. Life had returned to a semblance of normalcy.
“Why else did they wait a day between announcing the boy's death and the Traitor's?” Slithering Snake continued. “They'll always say the boy died a crib death and won't ever admit that Lurking Hawk killed him.” The Sectathon shook his head. “I don't understand why he didn't kill them both.”
Fawning Elk smiled at the sectathon. “The Empire quietly announced Lurking Hawk's death yesterday from 'natural causes'! I think he did kill one. I also think he did something else to the other.”
“Only one alternative more appealing than death.” Leaping Elk frowned. “Lurking Hawk was, after all, a Wizard.”
“Why didn't he kill them both?” the sectathon asked again.
“Lord Snake,” Leaping Elk replied, “you do know Flying Arrow launches pointless arrows, eh? If he arranged one insemination—or merely looked away while his Consort cuckolded him—he wouldn't hesitate to do the same again. That's why the Lady's right. We all know the Traitor abused his talents throughout his life, and he probably died from the abuse of those talents.” Leaping Elk tried to keep his voice down, not wanting to wake the baby in his arms.
Normalcy didn't include bandit fear of Imperial attack, however. Leaping Elk had sent the band's chemathon to the Tiger Fortress to help design and construct an impervious shield. Until they manufactured and distributed a working shield to all, not a single bandit would feel safe.
Normalcy didn't include a Succession Assured. The birth of the Arrow Twins and the death of one had changed the attitude of Empire. At the moment the twins were born, celebrations had begun across the land. The earthquake's stopping the siege and destroying Burrow Garrison hadn't dampened their joy. In fact, the joy had seemed more fervent for the tragedy. When one twin had died in his crib three days later, though, the Empire had grieved but had taken solace that one twin remained. Like heat-tempered metal, the fire of their mourning had forged their resolve to protect and nurture the remaining boy. In seeking a catharsis for their sorrow over the dead twin, they'd made a cathexis of the living.
Normalcy did include bandit and Empire being disputatious. The earthquake had resulted in little cooperation between bandit and Empire, despite the common tragedy. Though the tiger and Guarding Bear had helped each other from the rubble in the fortress core, they'd parted later with curses and invective. That incident was the only known cooperation between the adversaries. The shared tragedy had only divided bandit and Empire further. At Burrow Garrison, the Empire had pulled a total of six hundred ten bodies from rubble. An additional one hundred sixty-three had died in the siege. At the Tiger Fortress, over three thousand bandits had died. The Empire blamed the bandits. The bandits blamed the Empire. That, at least, hadn't changed.
Leaping Elk looked down at the infant in his arms, the boy sleeping peace
fully. Half negroid, half caucasian, and all bandit, the boy was the future, the confluence of three worlds. Conceived of Southern sperm and Eastern ovum, and Northern born, he was their infant world, crying weakly in humanity's first moments of life. Out of the darkness hurled, and into the blinding light of the Infinite, he was a herald of their destiny…
Stinging and ringing reached him. A face focused in front of him.
“Are you all right, Lord?” Slithering Snake mumbled, sucking on a finger.
His face stung and his ears rang. Leaping Elk pushed himself to sitting, looking for the infant.
Rocking the crying baby, Fawning Elk scowled at her mate.
“What happened?” Leaping Elk asked, wondering how he'd fallen.
“You … passed out, Lord,” the sectathon said.
“Did I drop him? Is he hurt?” he asked Fawning Elk.
“I caught him before he struck anything,” she replied.
Leaping Elk sighed, relieved. “I'm sorry, my mate. One moment I was holding him and … I don't remember what happened.” Shaking his head, he rubbed at his eyes.
“You don't remember speaking, Lord?” Slithering Snake asked. “The words were clear, but made no sense. You said, 'They will put down the sword and pick up the staff.' ”
Leaping Elk shook his head, not remembering. He wondered if the Infinite had just blessed him with a waking vision. He'd told them about his prescient dreams. The vision he'd just had was highly unusual. When he was awake and the Infinite blessed him with vision, he didn't stumble or lose consciousness, as some prescients did. He'd never lost control of his body during a prescient vision. Until now.
His visions often came to him in dreams. Before the twins were born, he'd dreamt almost every night. Dreams of a bronze-haired man bearing a striking resemblance to the traitor Brazen Bear. Dreams of blood shed by bandit and Empire. Dreams of hard times for bandits. Dreams of change for the Elk Raiders. Dreams of death for the bandit general. Dreams of death for an Eastern general. The dreams had made no sense. The same man had killed bandit and citizen without discrimination, in some dreams leading armies, in others assassinating in stealth. Since the twins' birth, he hadn't dreamt at all.
The Bandit (Fall of the Swords Book 2) Page 30