Through the Darkness

by Harry Turtledove

  “Ah, well, if you want to get technical, I’ve never seen a Gyongyosian, either,” Ethelhelm admitted. “I’m just going by what everybody says.”

  “People do that too often,” Ealstan said. If Forthwegians didn’t go so often by what everybody said, the Kaunians in the kingdom would have had an easier time. He wished he could say so to Ethelhelm’s face. He didn’t dare, especially not after the bandleader had seen Vanai in her Forthwegian semblance and drawn his own conclusions from it.

  Ethelhelm fed him olives and crumbly white cheese that went well with the wine. Then he said, “Now you’d better see if I’ve got any money left.”

  He’d made that joke before. The more often he made it, the more he seemed to prosper. Ealstan assumed the same would hold true again. But when he finished casting Ethelhelm’s accounts, he stared at his client. “Powers above, where’s your silver going?”

  “You’re the bookkeeper. You tell me.” Ethelhelm’s voice had an edge to it. So did his smile.

  “That’s hard to do when you haven’t got much in the way of receipts, and when you’re calling most of what you’ve spent ‘miscellaneous expenses.’ ” Ealstan studied the books he’d just worked up, then glanced at the musician. He’d seen that sharp, sour smile on other people, his father among them. When he’d seen it on Hestan’s face . . . “Are you paying the redheads that much?”

  Ethelhelm started, then let out a rueful chuckle. “Well, I knew you were clever. I wouldn’t want you working for me if you weren’t clever. Now I have to live with it. Aye, I’m paying the redheads that much.” He bared his teeth in what wasn’t a smile at all any more. “I’ll probably be paying them twice as much before too long, too.”

  “But why?” Ealstan asked, bewildered. “Up till now, they weren’t hitting you anywhere near this hard.”

  With seeming irrelevance, Ethelhelm answered, “When I saw you in the park with your Forthwegian lady friend—her name’s Thelberge, isn’t that right?—I thought you were a pretty clever fellow. You’d had a liability, or I think you had, and you disposed of it. Times like these, that’s what you’ve got to do . . . if you can.”

  A liability. He was talking about Vanai, of course. She wasn’t a person in his mind, only a problem. Ealstan glanced at his wineglass. It was empty. If it hadn’t been, he might have dashed its contents in Ethelhelm’s face.

  “What’s Thelberge got to do with . . . this?” he asked, tapping the ledger cover with a fingernail.

  “You disposed of your liability,” Ethelhelm repeated. He stood up. He was several inches taller than Ealstan, if narrower through the shoulders. “Aye, you disposed of yours. How do I get rid of mine?”

  No matter how sharp he was, Ealstan needed a couple of heartbeats to understand. When he did, ice ran through him. He said, “They’re squeezing you on account of your blood?”

  “Nothing else but,” the bandleader agreed mournfully. “And once Algarvians start garbage like that, it never gets better. No, it never gets better. It just gets worse.” His laugh might have had broken glass in it. “Of course, if I don’t like them squeezing me, I can always go to the Kaunian district. That’d be jolly, wouldn’t it?”

  “Jolly.” It wasn’t the word Ealstan would have chosen. He tapped the ledger again. “If they squeeze you a whole lot harder than this, you’re going to have trouble holding on to the flat here, you know.”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me different, because that’s how it added up to me, too,” Ethelhelm answered. “I’m taking the band out on tour again as soon as I can—as soon as the redheads let me. I make more money touring than I do sitting here, I’ll tell you that. Can’t play Eoforwic every day. I’d wear out my welcome pretty cursed quick if I tried.”

  That made sense. Ethelhelm was a good businessman as well as a good musician. Ealstan had seen as much. But the bandleader had made his accommodations with the occupiers, and what had it got him? Only more trouble. Thinking aloud, Ealstan said, “You’d have to sing whatever they wanted you to.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Ethelhelm said sourly. “Sometimes I wish I’d never . . .” He didn’t finish, but Ealstan had no trouble doing it for him. I wish I’d never started bending in the first place—he had to mean something like that. He went on, “I do think they will let me tour. Why shouldn’t they? The more I make, the more they can steal from me.”

  “That’s what they do,” Ealstan said. “That’s what they’ve done to the whole kingdom.” You thought you could stay free of it because you were already rich and famous. All you had to do was make a little deal. But bargains with the redheads always have more teeth than you see at first.

  “Be thankful your problems are smaller than mine, Ealstan,” Ethelhelm said. “Smaller now, anyhow.” Ealstan nodded. He didn’t laugh in the bandleader’s face, but for the life of him he had trouble figuring out why not.

  Seventeen

  Snow clung to the branches of pine and fir and spruce in the endless woods of western Unkerlant. Snow covered the leaves fallen from birch and beech and poplar. Snowflakes danced in the air. They were very pretty—for anyone who could take the time to watch them. Istvan couldn’t. “Have a care,” he called to the men of his squad. “The Unkerlanters will be able to spy our trails.”

  “We’ll see theirs, too, Sergeant,” Szonyi said. “And we’ll make them pay for it.”

  Corporal Kun took off his spectacles so he could blow a snowflake from one of the lenses. When he set them back on his nose, he cursed. “They’re fogged up,” he grumbled. “How am I supposed to see when they’re fogged up?”

  “What difference does it make?” Istvan asked. “Half the time, you don’t pay attention to what you do see.” He grinned at Kun.

  “For one thing, that’s a lie.” Kun wasn’t grinning. He enjoyed ruffling other people’s feathers, but didn’t care to have his own ruffled. “For another, I see more than you know.” He peered at Istvan through the possibly befogged spectacles, doing his best to look clever and mysterious.

  That best only made Istvan snort. “You were a mage’s apprentice, Kun, not a mage on your own hook. If you saw as much as you want us to think you do, you’d have all the privileges of an officer, like that dowser named Borsos back on Obuda.”

  “I can see some things about you.” Kun sounded hot. “For instance—”

  Istvan’s temper kindled, too. “Can you see that I’m a sergeant? You’d better be able to see that. By the stars, you couldn’t even see that . . .” He looked around. Everyone within earshot already know, was already part of, the dread secret the squad shared. “You couldn’t even see we were eating goat before we did it.”

  “Don’t you blame me for that,” Kun said furiously. “You were the one who wanted to knock over the Unkerlanters for what they had in their stewpot.”

  “Stuff a legging in it, both of you,” Szonyi hissed. “Somebody’s coming up to the line.”

  Kun and Istvan fell silent at once. Istvan hoped his secret would stay secret till he took it to the grave—and afterwards, too, for they sometimes exhumed goat-eaters and scattered their remains. He knew a certain amount of relief when he saw Captain Tivadar coming up to the front. He couldn’t betray the secret to his company commander, for Tivadar already knew it.

  But the captain had someone with him, a tubby fellow who looked nothing whatever like Kun but put Istvan in mind of him even so. As soon as Istvan saw the sorcerer’s star pinned to the stranger’s tunic, he understood why. “What’s up, sir?” he asked Captain Tivadar.

  “I don’t know,” Tivadar answered. “Nobody knows, not exactly. But the Unkerlanters are up to something. That’s what’s brought Colonel Farkas here up to the front: to see if he can find out what it is.”

  A mage with the nominal rank of colonel was an important fellow indeed. Istvan wasted no time in saluting. He said, “We haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, sir.” His eyes slid to Kun, who’d been bragging about how much he could see. Kun had the grace to look down
at the snow between his boots.

  Breath smoking as he spoke, Szonyi asked, “It’s not the horrible magecraft the Unkerlanters threw at us a while ago, is it? When we looked like breaking through, I mean.” He sounded anxious. As far as Istvan was concerned, he had a right to sound anxious. Istvan couldn’t imagine any man wanting to go through that terrible sorcery twice. He couldn’t imagine anybody wanting to go through it once, either, but he’d had no choice about that.

  Farkas’ jowls wobbled as he shook his head. “No, I do not think this would be so dramatic as the accursed, murderous spell Swemmel’s men used there. This would be something subtler, something more devious, something the average man, even the average mage, might have trouble noting till too late.”

  Kun sent Istvan a look that said, There! Istvan ignored him. He said, “Sir, the Unkerlanters are a lot of different things, but devious isn’t any of them, not the way you mean. They’re sneaky fighters, but their mages don’t know about anything but hitting us over the head.”

  “I do not think this is an Unkerlanter spell,” Colonel Farkas answered. “I fear it may be the same one the Kuusamans used this past summer to help drive us off the island of Obuda.”

  Istvan, Kun, and Szonyi all exclaimed then. It was the first any of them had heard that Gyongyos had lost the island. Tivadar was nodding; he must have already known. To Farkas, he said, “These men previously fought on Obuda.”

  “I see,” the mage said. “But they have been here in the east for some time?” Tivadar nodded. Farkas looked disappointed. “Too bad. They might have helped me detect the cantrip were things otherwise.”

  “How did the Unkerlanters get their hands on this spell, sir, if the Kuusamans were the ones who made it?” Istvan asked.

  Farkas scowled. “All our foes hate us. All our foes plot against us. It was to be hoped that our Algarvian allies, who also war on Kuusamo and Unkerlant both, would have been able to keep them from joining hands to harm us, but such was not the case. Whether by way of the broad oceans of the north or through the Narrow Sea, the evil knowledge was passed.”

  “What is the nature of the spell, sir?” Kun asked.

  Farkas seemed to notice him for the first time. “You have some small measure of the gift,” he said. It was not a question. Kun bowed, showing the military mage more respect that Istvan had ever seen him give anyone else. Farkas said, “Perhaps you can assist me.”

  “Sir, it would be an honor,” Kun replied.

  Farkas tugged at his beard, which showed gray streaks in the midst of the golden brown. “Aye, perhaps you can indeed. You have not met the spell, but you have come to know this great, brooding wood.”

  “Tell me what you would have me do, and I will do it with all my heart,” Kun said. Istvan hadn’t heard him sound so eager, either.

  Farkas tugged at his beard again, considering. After a moment, he nodded, and his jowls shook again. “Very well. It is not without risk, but risk you are acquainted with. A lucky star must have shone on your captain when he chose to bring me here. Now hearken to me. As I said before, the nature of the spell is subtle. It is a lulling, a dimming, a weakening of the senses, so that the deceitful foe may glide past our outposts and seize positions of advantage.”

  “The Unkerlanters ought to use it against Algarve, then, not just us,” Szonyi said. “Why have we got all the luck?”

  “Because it was crafted against us.” Behind the curly tangle of Farkas’ beard, the corners of his mouth turned down. “The Algarvians are strong in certain sorceries, weak in certain others, as are we. In most cases, the differences between what one folk and another knows are of little import. Here . . .” His expression grew more sour still. “Here the Kuusamans are strong where we are weak, and exploited our weakness with nasty cunning.”

  “Have we learned how to cope with it since they turned it on us?” Istvan asked. He cared nothing for the fancy details, but he had a good eye for what really mattered.

  Farkas’ voice was dry: “We have hope, Sergeant. Aye, we have hope.”

  “Would they have brought the distinguished colonel here if he could not stop the miserable Unkerlanters?” Captain Tivadar asked in reproving tones.

  Who knows? Istvan thought. Back there in Gyovvar, does Ekrekek Arpad have any notion of the kind of war we’re fighting here, so far away? He didn’t know the answer to that question. He did know he’d end up in trouble if he opened his mouth out of turn. And so he only shook his head and waited to see what the high-ranking mage would do.

  What Farkas did, at first, was put his head together with Kun. The sorcerer’s apprentice pointed east and a little south. Farkas nodded. He said, “Aye, I gauge that to be the proper direction, too. Now—you will be so good as to procure for me a spiderweb.”

  Behind the lenses that helped them see better, Kun’s eyes widened. He gestured at the snowy landscape. “In this, sir?”

  Farkas merely looked impatient. “Will you help me with all your heart, as you said, or will you fume and complain?”

  Off Kun went, muttering under his breath, to paw through ferns and bushes and examine pine boughs. Istvan guessed he would be a long time volunteering again. To the sergeant’s amazement, he did find a web. “Here you are, sir,” he said, turning the mage’s title of respect to one of reproach.

  Farkas said, “My thanks,” as if he’d expected nothing less from Kun. Istvan wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of the look Kun blazed at Farkas. But the military mage got to work without even noticing it. That made Kun angrier than ever. It would have angered Istvan, too. As far as the rich and powerful were concerned, common folk might as well have been beasts of burden.

  Holding the scrap of web above his head, Farkas looked up to the sky through it. Part of his chant was in the old hieratic language of Gyongyos, which Istvan recognized but did not understand. Part was in another tongue altogether. In an interested voice, Captain Tivadar asked, “Is that Kaunian, from out of the east?”

  “Aye,” Farkas answered, on reaching a point where he could stop. “It is a subtle tongue, and painful experience on the islands has taught us that we need subtlety to detect and neutralize this sorcery.”

  He kept looking through the spiderweb. Istvan wondered if it let him see the holy stars despite daylight and cloud cover. If it did, what were the stars showing him?

  Istvan got the answer to that in short order. “There are mages familiar with the nasty Kuusaman spell on that bearing.” Farkas pointed toward the southeast, not quite in the same direction Kun had before. He did some more incanting, this time all in hieratic Gyongyosian. Kun joined him in a few of the responses. If there was risk in what he did, Istvan couldn’t see it. At last, Farkas said, “The distance is just over a mile. Have we egg-tossers far enough forward to reach them?” His tone said Tivadar had better be able to produce such egg-tossers.

  And Tivadar nodded. “Sir, we do.” He took a map from his belt pouch, studied briefly, and made a mark on it. When he showed Farkas the mark, the military mage nodded. Tivadar gave Szonyi the map. “Take this back to the tossers in the clearing. Tell ’em to pound that spot with everything they have.”

  “Aye, Captain.” Szonyi saluted and hurried away, the map clutched in his big fist.

  Farkas said, “I notice that several men here have the identical scar on their left hands. What does it mean. Sergeant, would you tell me?” His golden-brown eyes speared Istvan.

  Istvan spluttered and stammered. Ice walked up his back. Telling the truth was the last thing he wanted to do. His face heated; taken by surprise, he had trouble coming up with a plausible lie. Captain Tivadar did it for him, speaking in casual tones: “Some few of these veterans have sworn blood brotherhood, one with another. You see the marks from the wounds that went with the oaths.”

  “Ah.” Farkas inclined his head in grave approval. “The marks of warriors.”

  “The marks of warriors.” Istvan found his tongue. “Aye, sir.” A few minutes later, eggs started bursting
on—he hoped they were on—the Unkerlanter position. He hoped they slew those devious mages. Even so, he had the feeling he’d escaped worse danger from Farkas than anything the Unkerlanters could have given him. Goat-eater. No, the mark inside him would never go away.

  Leudast’s leg twinged under him. He had the feeling he would be able to foretell bad weather with his wound as long as he lived. He still limped. But he could get around on the leg, and so the Unkerlanters had handed him a stick and thrown him back into the fight against the invaders.

  As a sergeant, he’d been given a platoon, here in the low, rolling hills northeast of Sulingen. His company commander was a very young lieutenant named Recared. Recared was either impeccably shaved where most of his countrymen were bristly, or else, more likely, couldn’t raise a beard no matter what. Leudast missed Captain Hawart, missed him and wondered if he still lived. He doubted he’d ever find out.

  Recared liked to hear himself talk. As night slowly and reluctantly yielded to day, he said, “You men know that, when the sun rises behind us, we attack.”

  “Aye,” Leudast chorused along with the rest of the soldiers Recared was haranguing. He wished the lieutenant would shut up. If they didn’t know what they were supposed to do by now, one more lecture wouldn’t get it through their heads.

  But Recared went right on. Maybe he used lecturing to fight the fear that went with battle. “We attack to the west,” he said. “We—not the cursed Algarvians. We and all the egg-tossers and behemoths and dragons we could gather here, brought through the Mamming Hills and up over the Wolter. We attack to the west . . . and Marshal Rathar’s other army, miles and miles away, will attack to the east. We will meet in the middle, and cut off all the stinking redheads down in Sulingen.”

  “Aye,” the men chorused again, this time with fierce hunger in their voices. If everything went the way it should, they would make Mezentio’s men sorry they’d ever thrust their noses into Unkerlant. If . . . But with Algarvians, you never could tell. Leudast had seen that too often, to his sorrow and nearly to his destruction.