Through the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  “I’m here, aye,” she said. “As for feasts, I don’t know about any except the one I just finished in my room.”

  Ilmarinen rounded on Siuntio. “Powers above, you quack, didn’t you tell her?”

  Siuntio shook his head. “No. I wanted her to approach the question with an open mind—which she will do now.” But, despite plainly doing his best to sound assured, he also sounded a little embarrassed.

  “What didn’t you tell me, Master Siuntio?” Pekka asked sharply. “Whatever it was, I wish I’d known about it.”

  Ilmarinen started to answer. Siuntio held up a hand. For a wonder, that made Ilmarinen hesitate. To Pekka, Siuntio said, “Nothing you won’t find out now: that I promise you. If you come along with this excitable fellow and me, you’ll see as much for yourself.”

  He led her toward one of the meeting chambers off the main lobby. Quietly, she said, “Don’t ever keep things from me again, if you please.”

  “I did what I judged best,” Siuntio answered.

  “And she’s worth three of you because of it, you old fraud,” Ilmarinen growled. He wasn’t enjoying Siuntio’s discomfiture, as he would have most of the time. He was too angry for that. Pekka wondered what could have caused the rift between them, and how she’d somehow landed in the middle of it.

  Siuntio opened an ornately carven door. When Pekka saw people already at the table, she expected they’d been Raahe and Alkio and Piilis, the other theoretical sorcerers on the track of the relationship between the laws of similarity and contagion. She and Siuntio and Ilmarinen had outdistanced them, but they weren’t far behind.

  Instead, though, two tall men rose from their chairs and bowed to her. Siuntio said, “Mistress Pekka, I present to you Grandmaster Pinhiero of the Lagoan Guild of Mages and his secretary, Brinco.”

  “Good day, Mistress,” Pinhiero said in good, almost unaccented Kuusaman. He was in his late middle years, his hair more gray than red. Brinco, younger and plumper, contented himself with bowing again.

  “Good day,” Pekka replied, automatically polite. But then she began to wonder why she and her colleagues were meeting with two of Lagoas’ leading mages. She didn’t wonder for long; the answer seemed only too obvious. Nodding to Pinhiero and Brinco, she said, “I hope you gentlemen will excuse us for a moment. We have something that wants discussing.” She stepped out of the meeting chamber. Ilmarinen seemed glad to go with her, Siuntio rather less so.

  “You see?” Ilmarinen said—to Siuntio, not to her, for he went on, “She wants no part of this, either. Letting the Lagoans share what we’ve found . . . It’s madness, nothing but madness.”

  “Is it?” Siuntio shrugged and then shook his head. “They’re at war with Algarve no less than we are. They have skilled mages, too, and—”

  Ilmarinen’s snort cut him off. “Those two? I know their work, such as it is. They’re skilled politicos, but that’s about all. And aye, Lagoas is at war with Algarve—now. What happens when Lagoas is at war with us again, as it’s liable to be one day? The Guild of Mages will use what we teach ’em and beat us over the head with it.”

  “If we do this,” Siuntio said patiently, “we shall do it with precautions. Just as we show the Lagoans what we’ve learned, so shall they be bound to share with us whatever they may discover.”

  Ilmarinen threw back his head and laughed so loud, a waiter carrying a tray of smoked whitefish into another chamber stopped and stared. “Did you ever stop to think the Lagoans might cheat? If I were in their boots, I would.”

  Pekka wondered if that thought had crossed Siuntio’s mind. He was such a good man himself, he might well reckon others better than they really were. But no, not this time, for he replied, “Aye, they may cheat. So may we. They may be dangerous to us in time to come. The Algarvians are dangerous to us now. Which of these carries the greater weight?”

  “You know my answer,” Ilmarinen said. “Were it up to me, I’d tell Pinhiero and Brinco to go chase themselves. Remember that other mage they sent to spy on us, that Fernao? He went away with a flea in his ear, thanks to me.”

  “I remember Fernao,” Pekka said. “He wrote to me, trying to find out what I was up to. I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Well, then, let’s send these buggers home, too,” Ilmarinen said. “It’s two to one against you, Siuntio. You can’t go on dickering with them by yourself—or you’d bloody well better not, anyhow.”

  “I would not,” Siuntio said. “The choice of whether or not we proceed lies with Mistress Pekka, as you say. But she has not yet stated it, so you may be speaking too soon. I also note that you have not answered the question I set you: which is more important, more dangerous—what Algarve is doing now or what Lagoas may do later?”

  He looked toward Pekka. So did Ilmarinen. To Siuntio, she said, “You would have had a better chance of getting me to do what you wanted if you’d talked with me about it first.”

  “I suppose so,” he answered. “But then Ilmarinen would be screaming I’d seduced you. However pleasing that prospect may be, it’s not what I had in mind. Do what you think is right. You have an instinct for it. I rely on that.”

  An instinct for rightness? Pekka wanted to laugh in the senior theoretical sorcerer’s face. If she had such a gift, why weren’t the experiments going better? She glared at him and at Ilmarinen. They were both older and wiser than she; why were they leaving the choice in her hands?

  Because, with all their age and wisdom, they can’t agree. The answer came back as clearly as if she’d shouted the question. She shook her head. But if I’m wrong . . . oh, if I’m wrong! And they were waiting for her, waiting with impatience that grew as she looked from one of them to the other. A snap decision—her snap decision—might turn out to be crucial to the way the war turned out, and to the fate of Kuusamo for generations to come.

  She almost hated them for putting that burden on her shoulders. But there it lay, and she had to bear it. Slowly, hesitantly, she said, “They are our allies. If they can help us do this thing, they had better know what we know.”

  Ilmarinen scowled. Siuntio beamed. Pekka angrily turned away from both of them. They’d forced this choice on her. Now, whether she was right or wrong, she—and everybody else—would have to live with it.

  Istvan trudged east along a forest path. He didn’t know what had made the path. Whatever it was, he didn’t think it was a man. The path wandered and doubled back on itself more than a man-made track would have. It hadn’t been improved as a man-made track would have, either. Istvan’s leggings were muddy all the way up to mid-thigh in proof of that.

  “Accursed be the Unkerlanters,” he growled as his boots went into yet more mud. Each one made a wet, sucking sound as he pulled it free. “This stinking forest is bigger than most kingdoms, and harder to get through, too.”

  “My guess is, they keep it this way on purpose,” Kun said. “With the mountains in front of it, it shields everything beyond from us.”

  Szonyi grunted. “May the stars never shine on me again if I’ve seen even a single piece of Unkerlant worth having. What do you want to bet the rest of the kingdom is just as worthless?”

  “Wouldn’t touch it,” Istvan said at once.

  “I would,” Kun said. “Somewhere in Unkerlant, there’s country that grows pretty good soldiers. They’ve been using them against us, and they’ve been using them against the Algarvians, too. Those goat-eaters have to come from somewhere.”

  As far as Istvan was concerned, the Unkerlanters might have come out from under flat rocks, like any other worms and grubs. They certainly seemed to come out from under flat rocks in the forest, striking the Gyongyosians and then slipping away again. Every few miles, they would form a line and fight—either that or, when the wind was with them, they would start a forest fire and let Istvan and his countrymen worry about that instead of any merely human foes.

  Something moved in the woods off to Istvan’s left. His head whipped around toward it. “What was that?” he sai
d sharply, raising his hand to keep his squad from moving forward into what might be an ambush.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Szonyi said, almost stepping on his boot heels.

  “Neither did I.” That was Kun. Though he’d gained corporal’s rank, he still thought enough like a common soldier to enjoy the chance to tell someone superior to him that he was wrong.

  But Istvan didn’t think he was wrong, not this time. “Use your little magic,” he told Kun. “You’ll know when someone’s moving toward us, not so?”

  “Aye,” Kun said, a little sulkily. “But I won’t be able to tell if he’s friend or foe. You know about that.”

  “I’d better,” Istvan said. “You almost blazed me for a Kuusaman when we were out on that island in the Bothnian Ocean instead of stuck here in these accursed woods.”

  “All right, then,” Kun said, and worked the small, quick spell—one of the sort a mage’s apprentice might learn even if his master wasn’t inclined to teach him much. After a moment, he let out a soft grunt of surprise and glanced over to Istvan. “It is a man, Sergeant—not a beast and not a bit of fluff from your imagination.”

  “I wish it had been,” Istvan said unhappily. “Now we’re going to have to hunt the bugger down and find out who he is.” He waved to his squad. “Into the woods, boys. No help for it.”

  Some of the troopers cursed, not at him but at their luck. Kun said, “I hope it’s one of our officers, some popinjay of a captain or even a colonel.” By his tone, he didn’t hope that because he feared to fight an Unkerlanter. No, he hoped to get a chance to give an officer a hard time without fear of punishment.

  And Istvan chuckled and said, “Aye,” hoping for the same chance himself. But he stopped chuckling the instant he stepped off the track. If the man he’d spotted was an Unkerlanter, as seemed more likely, he’d have to hunt the fellow down. He would almost have sooner gone unarmed after a tiger. In this trackless forest, the Unkerlanters were better at moving unseen and unheard than most Gyongyosians.

  If that was an Unkerlanter there, why had he let Istvan see him? Had he made a mistake? Swemmel’s men seldom made that kind of mistake. If it wasn’t a mistake, what was the Unkerlanter trying to lure him into?

  The first thing he found himself lured into was mud up to his knees once more. Cursing wearily, he dragged himself out. After a considerable search, he and his comrades found nothing. “Are you sure your magic knows what it’s talking about?” he asked Kun.

  “Aye,” the sorcerer’s apprentice answered. “Someone was moving around here, Sergeant, but I don’t know who and I don’t know where.”

  “Oh, huzzah,” Istvan said sourly. “The son of a whore could be sitting somewhere close by gnawing on a big chunk of goat meat, and we’d never know the difference, eh?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Kun said. “I can cast the spell again, if you like. If he’s still moving toward us, I’ll know. But I don’t think it’s very likely.”

  Istvan didn’t think it was very likely, either. But, since he couldn’t think of anything better to do, he said, “Go ahead.”

  Kun went ahead. After a couple of minutes, he spread his hands. “Nothing. Nothing I can find, anyhow.”

  “Huzzah,” Istvan repeated. “So he’s past us, is he?”

  “Either that or he’s sitting tight and not moving toward us,” Kun answered. He slapped at a fly that landed on the back of his hand, then asked, “What now?”

  It was a good question. Istvan wished he had a good answer for it. He wanted to say, Let’s go back to the path and keep on and forget about it. Then this whoreson, if he is an Unkerlanter, will be someone else’s worry. He wanted to say that, but discovered he couldn’t. He had a stubborn streak that refused to let the words pass his lips. What came out instead was, “We keep looking.”

  Kun nodded. A chance streak of sunlight glittered off the gold frames of his spectacles. “All right, Sergeant, we keep looking.” That wasn’t perfect submission, as it would have been in a different tone of voice. As things were, Kun couldn’t have been more emphatic about calling Istvan an idiot if he’d held up a sign.

  Istvan knew he was probably wasting his time, and his squad’s as well. What with all the ferns and brambles and thorn bushes on the ground, the Unkerlanter had so many places to hide that the only way to find him would be to stumble over him.

  That thought had hardly crossed his mind before one of his troopers gave a shout that abruptly turned into a cry of pain. “Come on!” Istvan said, and scrambled toward the soldier.

  The Gyongyosian was down on the ground, but not badly hurt. “That way!” he said, and pointed east. Istvan heard someone running through the woods. He blazed in the direction of the noise. It kept on, so he must have missed. The wounded soldier said, “I never would have known the goatbugger was there, but I tripped over his foot.”

  “Luck,” Istvan muttered. It hadn’t been good luck for the soldier, but it had been for the Gyongyosians as a group. Istvan raised his voice: “After him! Keep him running and we’ll run him down!”

  Either that or we’ll run straight into trouble, he thought. But the Unkerlanter was fleeing, whatever he’d planned disrupted. And so Istvan and his comrades pounded after him.

  A beam hissed through the forest. Steam spurted from a pine bough not too far above Istvan’s head. He threw himself flat—and landed on his belly in a bramble bush. “There!” Szonyi shouted from off to his left. “I saw where he blazed from.”

  “Well, blaze him, then,” Istvan shouted back. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he crawled through the brambles and briars as fast as he could go. If the Unkerlanter blazed at the sound of his voice, he wanted the fellow blazing in the wrong place.

  Again, he wondered if the enemy soldier was leading his comrades and him into a trap. He’d seen no signs of it, but he wouldn’t, not if the Unkerlanter knew what he was doing. In an odd way, it didn’t matter. With the chase on, he and his men could hardly abandon it.

  He scuttled over to a tree, ignoring the scratches on his face and arms and the burrs clinging to his tunic and leggings. Cautiously, he peered out from behind the trunk—only for an instant before jerking his head back. He wasn’t so foolish as to peer twice from the same place; that was asking for a beam right between the eyes. Instead, he crawled over to another tree and took a look from behind that one.

  He got lucky: he spied the flash from a stick, and it wasn’t aimed at him. He threw his own stick to his shoulder and blazed. A harsh voice cried out in pain. Istvan didn’t break cover to finish off the wounded Unkerlanter. He wasn’t sure the fellow really was wounded, and he wasn’t sure the enemy soldier didn’t have friends close by, either. The most he would do was hurry to another tree closer to the bushes among which the Unkerlanter had hidden himself.

  Something thrashed in those bushes, something the size of a man. Istvan blazed again. His was not the only beam biting the bushes, either: here and there, they withered and turned brown, as if stricken by the drought that never came to this forest. After a while, the thrashing stopped.

  “Got him!” somebody said in Gyongyosian.

  Istvan wasn’t so sure. He’d seen too many wounded Unkerlanters who stayed alive for no other reason than the hope of taking a couple of Gyongyosians with them. King Swemmel’s subjects weren’t a warrior race—as the stars proclaimed, no folk but the men of Gyongyos were true warriors—but they weren’t soldiers to be despised, either. Gyongyos was learning that the hard way.

  Kun strode forward. Before Istvan could shout a warning, the mage’s apprentice went in among the bushes, stooped, and then rose and waved. “He’s dead,” he called.

  “Where are his friends, though, you fool?” Istvan called back. Kun started as if jabbed by a pin, then dropped down into the bushes again. This time, he didn’t get up right away.

  But no Unkerlanters hot for revenge came charging at him. He made his way back to the rest of the squad. “Just one of the goat-eaters,�
� Szonyi said. “Just one, and now he’s not there any more, either.”

  “Just one,” Istvan agreed. “But he tied us up for quite a while. He wounded one man, and we’ll have to hustle to get back to the path, and hustle even harder to catch up with the rest of the company. He caused almost as much trouble as if he’d blazed us all, may the stars be dark on his spirit.” He trudged back toward the path. No one would ever put this down in a history of the war. He didn’t even know whether to reckon it a success. He didn’t know whether the war was a success, either. Success or not, it went on.

  Sunlight sparkled off the greenish blue waters of the Strait of Valmiera. To the north lay the Algarvian-occupied mainland of Derlavai, to the south the great island that held Lagoas and Kuusamo. Cornelu looked up into the sky, watching for dragons.

  For the moment, he saw none. He and his Lagoan leviathan might have been alone in the ocean, and that ocean might have stretched unchecked to the end of the world. He wished that were so. He knew too well it wasn’t.

  He still hadn’t given this new leviathan a name. One day, he told himself. One day I’ll know. Meanwhile, keeping the beast nameless was one more way for the Sibian exile to keep Lagoas at arm’s length. The leviathan didn’t care one way or the other. So long as it got plenty of squid and mackerel and, those failing, sardines, it stayed happy. Cornelu wished the notion of a full belly cheered him as readily.

  At his command, the leviathan reared in the water, working its great tail to propel the front of its body—and him with it—higher above the surface of the sea. But even with that widened circle of vision, he spied no ships. That suited him fine.

  He checked the sky again—a beautiful sky, full of puffy white clouds that drifted across it the way dumplings drifted in soup. It remained empty of dragons. He wondered how long it would stay that way. Algarvian beasts flew against Lagoas and Kuusamo, while Lagoan and Kuusaman dragons visited destruction on the mainland of Derlavai.

  Sometimes, high overhead, opposing flights met and fought. Sometimes a heavy stick or another dragon would wound a dragon over land, either before or after it dropped its eggs, and the beast and its flier would go into the sea. Fliers hoping for rescue could live for a while in the water.