A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Shandie saluted. Ylo froze, but fortunately that was what he was supposed to do. Then his knees began shaking.

  A God? But people who had seen Gods didn’t describe Them as looking like that. The crest on the helmet was gold. There was no rank in the army that merited a gold crest, not even the imperor himself. This was the largest imp Ylo had ever seen, as big as a jotunn, or a troll…

  God of Terror! A sorcerer! The warlock of the east, of course. The giant returned the salute, muscular forearm across chest. “You nearly screwed up!” he said, his voice deep as thunder, thrilling as a bugle call. Ylo wondered how women would react to this marvel. Of course all that would matter would be how he wanted them to react—a warlock got whatever he fancied.

  “You could have helped!” Shandie snapped.

  Ylo almost moaned aloud. How dare the prince lip a warlock?

  Then he remembered that the Protocol forbade anyone to employ sorcery on the imperor or his family, and Shandie was certainly family. So he was safe. But that didn’t mean that Ylo wasn’t in danger. The wardens were laws unto themselves. Sweat streamed down his ribs, his legs shook wildly. He had reached the limits of his endurance. The sorcerer scowled. “I chose not to help.” Shandie shrugged his armored shoulders. “Your Omnipotence, may I present —“

  “An Yllipo? The old bugger will disown you!” the giant said, striding across to the chair. “You trying to kill him with an apoplexy?”

  “Of course not!”

  Protocol or not, how could Shandie dare use such a tone to a warlock? Or such a giant? Of course a sorcerer was not necessarily what he seemed, and Warlock Olybino was mentioned in the stories Ylo’s family told of his grandfather and the Dark River War, and that had been forty years ago.

  He could not possibly be as young as he looked.

  “He’ll breathe fire! An Yllipo?” The hostility seemed to be mutual. The warlock’s black eyes locked onto Ylo. “So you want me to tell you whether the traitor’s spawn is going to be loyal, or whether he’s planning to stick —“

  “No!” Shandie barked. “That is not what I want. I told him I’d trust him, and I will trust him. That is not what I want.”

  “What then? Why’s he here?”

  “Part of his education. Was his father a traitor?”

  “No. One of his brothers was being stupid, but nothing serious.”

  Shandie said, “Ah!” sadly, but he did not turn to look at Ylo. “Besides, even if he planned to cut my throat in the next hour, you couldn’t warn me, could you?”

  East scowled. He leaned back and crossed one massive thigh over the other. “Don’t say 'Couldn’t' around me, sonny. ’shouldn 't,' maybe. That’s not quite the same. ’sides, there are precedents for handing out warnings. That’s not direct use of magic.”

  “My apologies.” Still Shandie did not turn. “Signifer, this is Warlock Olybino, warden of the east.”

  Ylo saluted. If military etiquette required anything more than an ordinary salute for a warlock, the details lay beyond Ylo’s ken. He was far more concerned by the realization that the Protocol, while it forbade the use of magic against the Imperial Army, made exception in the case of East. The Imperial Army was the prerogative of the warden of the east. So Warlock Olybino could use sorcery on Signifer Ylo any way he liked, although no one else could, not even the other three wardens. He could pry into Ylo’s mind and discover whether he was truly loyal or was planning revenge. Ylo would like to know that himself.

  But the warlock was now ignoring him. “So—you want me to report your great victory to the Old Man?”

  “I’d be grateful if you would,” Shandie said respectfully. “And that I’m well. He worries.”

  “He should. Want me to tell him how that second javelin almost made a two-month baby heir apparent?”

  “Better not, your Omnipotence. I did wonder if you’d bent that one a little?”

  The golden horsehair waved as the warlock shook his head. “No.”

  “Or organized our young friend’s feat with the standard?”

  “No. I stayed out totally.”

  Now why would the warlock of the east have refrained from influencing the Battle of Karthin? Why let the XXth Legion be demolished, and three others badly savaged, and all for no real gain?

  Shandie did not ask, and Ylo certainty wasn’t about to.

  But Ylo had grown up in a very political family. Politics, his father had told him once, was a matter of layers. If you could see it, it probably didn’t matter, and vice versa. The bottom layer was always the wardens. Their schemes were the real schemes, he had said. The Four got what they wanted, and they ruled by majority.

  Olybino had been bought off, or scared off, but no one but the wardens themselves would ever know which, or why, or how.

  “Fine,” Olybino rumbled. “I’ll tell him. It will ease the news about Guwush.”

  “What about Guwush?” Shandie snapped.

  The warlock bared his teeth. “Oshpoo has taken Abnilagrad. Razed it. Yesterday.”

  The prince groaned.

  “Everything you won has gone,” Olybino said meanly.

  Shandie muttered a curse and walked over to one of the chests. He sat down and glared at his boots. Ylo stayed where he was, wishing he was not now so exposed to the warlock.

  “If I could just get the XIIth up there!” the prince muttered.

  “No way,” Olybino said. “It would take a month or more to sail around Zark. I doubt that the caliph would give you safe conduct to march through.”

  Shandie looked up. “We could go across Thume?”

  Ylo gulped, and even the warlock seemed startled. He glowered.

  “Not if you’re in your right mind, you can’t! The Protocol doesn’t apply in Thume, you know that! I can’t help there!”

  “Seems to me an Imperial Army crossed Thume back in the XVth Dynasty.”

  “And I can think of three that tried it and vanished without trace. Thume is totally unpredictable.”

  Shandie sighed. “Then Hushipi will have to handle the gnomes without me. Omnipotence… tell me about the caliph.”

  “What about the caliph?”

  “Is it personal, his feud with the Impire? When my grandfather dies, will he relent? Gods know, I don’t want a war with a united Zark!” Without looking around he said, “Sit down, Signifer.”

  Gratefully Ylo tottered over to a chest.

  The warlock was shaking his head. “I don’t think so. He’s spent sixteen years making himself overlord. No one’s ever managed to unite the djinns before, except after the Impire’s invaded and they want to throw us out again. Yes, he has a personal grudge against your grandfather, but I don’t think he’ll stop now.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Olybino chuckled. “After all, you were there, too.”

  Shandie looked startled. “Where?”

  “In the Rotunda. You were only a child, but you were a witness when Emshandar insulted him.”

  “Stole away his wife, you mean?”

  “Exactly. The woman who is now queen of Krasnegar.”

  “And that’s what’s been driving the man all these years?”

  “Djinns never forget an insult, and Caliph Azak is no ordinary djinn.”

  “No, he isn’t,” Shandie agreed mournfully. “The Impire is being stretched very thin, Omnipotence.”

  “A few more victories like today’s and it will be stretched much thinner.”

  “Exactly!” the prince snarled. “As I said—you could have helped!”

  Ylo held his breath, but the warlock merely smiled. He stretched like a great bear; lamplight flickered on the jewels of his cuirass and rippled on the muscles of his forearms. “Why should I help in every little feint?”

  “Feint? Karthin was a feint?” Shandie leaped to his feet. “What’s he up to?”

  No more! Certainly Ylo would like to see the caliph taught a lesson, a real lesson, but not now. Not with this army. In a month or two, maybe…


  Olybino was grinning big while teeth. “Ever heard of the Gauntlet?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a traders’ pass through the foothills, just outside of Ullacarn. While you’re licking your wounds here, the caliph is pushing his army through it. He’ll take the city, cut you off… The harbor at Garpoon is all silted up, of course. Four legions —“

  “God of Slaughter! Tell me!”

  “I’m trying to, sonny! As far as I know, no one’s ever brought an army through there, because it’s got more good ambush sites than there are fleas on a camel, but the caliph happens to know it personally —“

  Shandie stamped a foot. “We can intercept?”

  Olybino rubbed his hands together in a gesture that seemed totally out of keeping with appearance, something an old man might do, not a youthful giant. “He’ll be all strung out in column of route, and you can come in on a side track and cut him like a snake.”

  “A map! I need a map!”

  The warlock shrugged and held out a roll of vellum that he had not been holding a moment earlier. Ylo’s gut tightened at this evidence of sorcery.

  Shandie took it, but he did not open it.

  “Your Omnipotence, I ask a favor.”

  “I thought you might.” The warlock’s deadly gaze settled on Ylo, who cringed. He just could not take any more of this!

  “It’s his first battle,” Shandie said. “He’s beat, and I need him. I was hoping to go over his duties with him tonight, if you would help—and now I need him even more!”

  Olybino chuckled. “Perk him up a bit, you mean?”

  Aargh! Ylo sprang to his feet, feeling as if he’d been struck by lightning. The tent blazed brighter for him. Even the fur on his wolfskin seemed to crackle. A moment before he had been slumped down, trembling with exhaustion, and suddenly he was up and shaking with a fierce desire to do something, fight someone, run somewhere… His aches and weariness had vanished and he was as eager for action as a yearling colt.

  Shandie looked him over, and smiled. “Thank you, Omnipotence. Signifer, get me the proconsul! I don’t care how you do it, but get him here now!”

  Ylo shouted, “Yessir!” and raced from the tent.

  6

  Three days after the Battle of Karthin, as the Caliph’s forces threaded the deadly narrows of the Gauntlet, the Imperial legions stole in on their flank under sorcerous concealment, like an invisible razor moving to sever a sleeper’s throat.

  At the Keez Place, beyond the ranges, the old woman Phain lay still a-dying.

  The Blood Laws forbade anyone to remain within earshot of the Departing, except the Watcher, but a woman knew best where her own duty was. So Frial had found herself a convenient stump at the edge of the clearing, and there she sat and wove a basket. She had woven a heap of baskets these last three days, until her fingers were sore and she had denuded the area of withes. Her grandmother would die in her own good time, no doubt, as the old dear had always done everything in her own good time.

  Frial did not need to be there. There were many relatives and neighbors more than ready to keep an eye on little Thaïle for her, and the Gods knew that there were enough chores piling up back at the Gaib Place to keep her busy from dawn till dusk—but she was going to remain here, where Thaïle could see her anytime she wanted to look, and be comforted.

  The weather was remarkably good for so early in the year. The rainy season seemed to have tailed off into scattered showers, and there were thick trees to shield her from those.

  It was a pleasant enough Place, with the stream chattering and the great cottonwoods towering like guardians all around. Beyond them, the wall of the Progistes formed a jagged barrier against the sky, white on blue, and they were a comforting sight. The forested slope of Kestrel Ridge closed off the west. The glade was carpeted with cool ferns. She liked the Gaib Place better, set in its own protective little hollow, but she knew lots worse—cottages built out in the open, even, visible for leagues. Gave her the shivers, some of them.

  The Keez Place must have been even better, long years ago, when her grandfather had chosen it. A couple of others had crowded in since then, indecently close. Her own brother, Vool, now, and his snarly wife Wiek… the Vool Place was far too close, barely out of sight over the rise. Shameful!

  That same pestering brother had come to see how she was doing, hovering around her like a midge, sending out waves of discomfort. He’d been a fusspot as a child, Vool, and he was a fusspot now, at forty.

  “It could be a long time yet, Frial.” He had settled on a fallen log to be miserable in comfort.

  “I’m sure it will seem longer to Thaïle,” Frial said complacently. “She’s a very sensitive child.”

  “Like you,” he agreed. “You were always sensitive. Always the most sensitive of the family. Even before your Watch.”

  Vool himself wasn’t sensitive, she thought, eyeing her own busy fingers. If he’d been the least bit sensitive, he would never have married that born-miserable, complaining wife of his. His face had taken on a morose look right after his marriage and never lost it.

  “It’s not always a blessing,” she said. Like now, for instance.

  Frial was not merely sensitive; she had the talent they called Feeling. She could Feel people’s emotions farther than she could hear their voices, often. Right now she could mostly Feel Vool’s misery. He was unhappy because he lived closest to the Keez Place, where old Phain lived—and was now dying—and that made him feel responsible, although he wasn’t. He was unhappy because Frial was here and his irritable wife was just over there, and he knew they did not get along. And he was unhappy because he had two kids of his own who would be due for Death Watch very soon.

  Over in that ramshackle cottage, little Thaïle was dozing, most like. At any rate, she was less worried than she’d been for the last four days. The old woman was asleep, certainly, for Frial could Feel the confused, meaningless patterns of dreams.

  And in the distance, her ill-tempered sister-in-law was worrying as hard as always, and probably about nothing. There were happy children somewhere down the hill, and they helped.

  The cottage was a disgrace. Why hadn’t some of the family kept it in better repair for the old woman? Frial herself would have, if she had lived near, and Gaib would have helped, too, just for her sake. Gaib helped out lots of neighbors, not even relatives, sometimes walking half a day to take supplies to an elderly friend or fresh food to an invalid. Gaib was a truly kind man. Of course a woman with Feeling couldn’t have married any other sort. The thought of being married to a brooding type like Vool made her skin crawl.

  And now he was dredging up one of his worries to share with her. She held out her basket to admire, but before she could draw his attention to it, he launched into one of his frequent complaints.

  “I think all this is wrong! A kid shouldn’t have to do a Death Watch on a relative. Makes it a lot harder.”

  “You know there was no one else in the area qualified. Lucky we’d dropped by, really.”

  He was not deterred. “Well, Thaïle shouldn’t have to do a Watch anyway! It’s a waste of words, and we ought to tell the recorders so.”

  Frial sighed, having heard all this before. He was brooding about his own brood. “The recorders know best, Vool.”

  “Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they just think we’d be offended if our family was taken off the Gifted list. Maybe if we offered, they’d be glad to.”

  “Glad to what?” she muttered absently, wondering about the chickens back at the Gaib Place. They’d be laying all over the landscape at this time of year, and Gaib would be too engrossed with digging over the vegetable patch to give them a thought. When she got back, there’d be no eggs pickled, and the hawks too fat to fly.

  “Glad to take our family off the list, of course! None of our relatives have shown any real Faculty for generations.”

  That wasn’t true, she thought with a shiver. The recorders had been very interested in her Feeling. T
hey’d eventually decided it wasn’t quite strong enough to show she had a true Faculty, but for a while she’d been very worried, and her parents, also. They obviously hadn’t told Vool, or else he’d conveniently forgotten. Vool himself had neither Faculty nor any special talent at all, except perhaps for fussing.

  “If what you say is true, then we have nothing to care about.”

  “But it’s a waste of magic!”

  “That’s recorders’ business, Vool.” Their worry, not his.

  “You want to come over to our Place for some lunch?” he muttered, abandoning the argument.

  And be close to that grouch of a sister-in-law? “No, thanks. But I’d sure appreciate a bite if you could bring one again, like before.”

  “It’s sure to rain later,” Vool muttered, glowering up at the cloudless sky. “You’ll sleep at our Place tonight. All this sleeping out of doors’ll give you rheumatics for certain.”

  Her worry, not his.

  “I’ll survive,” she said, unwilling to admit to her sore hips. “And…”

  Pain! She dropped the basket.

  “What’s wrong, Frial?”

  “I think it’s come,” she mumbled, staring at the cottage. Wake up, Thaïle!

  “Grammy?” Vool demanded nervously.

  Frial nodded. The old woman was awake, and her pain and fear were rolling like thunder across the glade.

  Then Frial Felt her daughter awake, also. Confusion! Alarm! Oh, Thaïle, my darling! Fear! Terror!

  Terror from the dying Phain… terror from the child…

  Frial clenched her fists, fighting the urge to rush to the aid of a daughter in distress.

  Then calm intervening. Resolution. Sympathy. Thaïle was coping, good girl!

  “It’s going to be all right,” she muttered, conscious of perspiration wetting her face, aware also of Vool’s concern close to her. He jumped up and came across and hugged her, and for a moment his worry blanketed all the other sendings. She had never realized how much she mattered to him! She began to weep as the clamor of emotions rang again in her head.

  Panic. Agony! She cried out.

  Love, then, and help…

  It was over. Confusion from little Thaïle as the word registered. Huge torrents of concern from Vool. Relief and peace and almost happiness fading as the old woman passed away…