by Dave Duncan
“So?”
“So he’d be a pushover for any good sorcerer who came along, who could sense his use of power and enslave him; make a votary of him.”
“Then you’ll have to have a serious talk with your son!”
“I suppose so.”
“Leave Kadie out of it!” Inos said firmly. “If she finds out, she’ll pester all the old folk in the kingdom to death.”
Rap sighed. “I never knew my father. I’m no good at this being-a-father thing.”
That was absurd. The children worshipped him and so did all the dozens of other children around the palace.
“I’m sure you can handle it, dear,” Inos said sweetly. “Compared to killing Thaïle Kalkor, it won’t be difficult at all.”
5
It was all wrong, Frial thought, wrong, wrong, wrong! What should have been a precious, once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime joy had been soured by the curse of Faculty and turned to tragedy. A priceless moment had become a torment.
The roiling Feelings had given her a skull-splitting headache. She was angry at Thaïle, who should have told the boy the truth right away and should never have brought him home to the Gaib Place. She was angry at Gaib, who was being awkward and stubborn because he was frightened and wouldn’t admit it. She was even angry with that lovesick runt of a boy with his ridiculous batwing ears—especially angry with him, for being so utterly, witlessly smitten by her daughter. Angry because he looked so wrong and Felt so right.
Angry, also, at the news Thaïle had brought back. That shiftless Wide had never Felt right to her, but Sheel had refused to listen. Now what had her stupidity brought her? Any girl should trust her mother’s feelings, especially if they were Feelings, as hers were. But Sheel was another problem, to be suffered later, at leisure.
The sun was just setting behind Kestrel Ridge, the moon just rising over the mountains, golden and almost full. It was a beautiful evening; even the bugs were tolerable. Only the Feelings were wrong. If they were giving her a headache, what must they be doing to Thaïle?
Four people sitting outside the cottage, in misery—she and Gaib on the bench with their backs to the wall, the young lovers cross-legged on the ground opposite, close but not quite touching.
He had found his dream Place and a dream girl to share it with. She wanted to hide from the recorders…
Leéb had never even heard of Gifted families, or Faculty, until now. Gaib had explained, very clumsily. Frial herself had gone over it all again.
The boy was distraught. Thaïle was close to tears.
As she should be!
Now Gaib had fallen into angry, baffled silence, out of his depth. He kept twitching, as if he expected the Jain sorcerer-recorder to materialize out of the trees.
“How long until your birthday?” Leéb asked, turning to Thaïle.
She sniffed. “Half a year. First new moon of the rainy season.”
He nodded glumly and picked at a blister on his toe.
“Yours?” she asked tremulously.
“Another month. I’ll be eighteen.”
He looked younger, but he gave off no Feelings of lying. He was giving off nothing but massive frustration, plus the underlying infatuation, of course.
“Mother!” Thaïle moaned. “What are we to do?”
“Do? You know quite well what you have to do! You have to wait here for another month or two and then we’ll take you to the College.” Frial tried to imagine Gaib going on a long journey away from the Place. Her mind shied like a startled doe. “Or we’ll find someone to go with you. Goodman Leéb will stay the night here and tomorrow he’ll be on his way.”
Twin blasts of pain threatened to tear her head apart.
Leéb reached out and took Thaïle’s hand defiantly.
That didn’t help any.
“There are lots of pretty girls in the world, lad,” Frial said coldly.
More pain.
“This Place of his,” Gaib growled. His anger was growing stronger, hotter. “You’ve not seen it yet?”
“No, Father,” Thaïle said patiently. They’d explained that several times. “But I believe what Leéb says about it.”
“Lots of bugs down in the valley,” Gaib mused. He’d never been there, of course.
“I’m a lowlander, sir,” the boy said nervously. “I know some things about bugs.”
Frial bit back an angry comment. Anyone would think bugs were the problem.
“Long way,” Gaib muttered. Under his blank exterior, he was more angry than she could ever remember Feeling him. She hoped he wouldn’t hurt the boy, who’d done nothing worse than fall in love, which was his duty.
“Yes, it’s a long way, Goodman,” she snapped. “What difference does that make?”
“Might never find them,” he said quietly.
Outbursts of Feelings all around made her wince—hope and fear and astonishment. The astonishment was her own, she realized. And some of the fear.
“The recorders will find them!” Recorders came around every year or two, asking about new Places and who lived in them.
“Ah, there’s that,” Gaib agreed.
“I never heard of recorders!” Leéb said suddenly. “Well, I’d heard of them, but they never came near the Leet Place. Never that I heard of. Seems it’s only where there’s these Gifted families around that they bother much.” His excitement began to boil up like milk.
Frial felt a deep surge of satisfaction from her goodman.
“There, then,” Gaib said. “Maybe they won’t find you at all. Any rate, you’ve got half a year, lass. Ain’t breaking the law until then. Half a year in a good Place with a good man would be worth taking, I’d think. Gods give some folks a lot less.”
Frial was stunned. She had forgotten he could be like this. She had forgotten that there had been a spark there once. Jain of the College had wakened something in old Gaib.
“What about us, when they ask us?” she demanded, suddenly fearful.
Gaib turned and leered at her with what teeth he had left. “You know where this Place of theirs is?”
“Not exactly.”
“Me, neither.”
“Oh, Goodman!” she said. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
Thaïle and Leéb were staring at each other.
“Oh, would you?” Leéb said. “Would you?”
Thaïle didn’t say a word. She just laid a hand on his knee and the two of them seemed to fall together at the same moment, into a tight embrace. Then they toppled backward in a flurry of straightening legs, locked in each other’s arms.
Frial felt dazzled by the waves of joy.
“Here, now!” Gaib barked. “Remember your manners! Time enough for that tomorrow, when you get there. Or whenever you get there…”
The lovers broke apart reluctantly, flushed and starry-eyed.
“Now, Goodwife,” he said. “What can we give them to get them started? I’ve got a spare spade and a mallet and I think Phoan’s got an ax he’d trade for a brace of piglets…”
Thaïle scrambled to her feet and ran to hug her father. Leéb rose more circumspectly and came to Frial, hesitant… wondering if she approved. His eyes were pure gold.
May the Gods be with us!
She spread her arms to hug him also and let her tears flow.
6
A legion had its own standard. So did every one of its ten cohorts and every one of its thirty maniples. Add in the cavalry and the specialty troops and the total came to well over fifty standards, each one sacred, each borne by its own signifer.
When Shandie’s four legions were routed by dragons on Nefer Moor, the imperor’s official report to the Senate described the incident as a rapid withdrawal necessitated by forest fires. Militarily the results were not too serious. A lot of equipment had been abandoned, of course, but the loss of life was surprisingly low. Nor had there been any loss of territory—“The integrity of the Impire’s borders had not been jeopardized,” as the communiqué put it, carefull
y not mentioning that the legions had been trespassing in Ilrane at the time.
Forest fires in the middle of the rainy season?
The army itself knew better and word spread through the legions like an epidemic, from Julgistro to Zark and from Pithmot to Guwush, seeming to travel instantaneously, as only bad news could. Dragons were mentioned, but dragons were almost too fearful to discuss, unthinkable. What really caught the army’s attention was the rumor that almost two hundred standards had been lost. Many other battles had cost more lives or lost much ground, but for sheer humiliation Nefer Moor had not been equaled in centuries. The army could guess what sort of rapid withdrawal had led to the loss of two hundred standards.
Of the four legionary standards themselves, only two were among the saved. The XXVth’s had been rescued from a flooding river by a young legionary named Ishilo, who had thereby become something of a hero. Its signifer was later apprehended and put to death with traditional cruelty. The other legionary signifers were condemned in absentia to suffer the same fate, and many lesser signifers did.
Only the XIIth’s had returned to Qoble in the hands of its own signifer, as it should. Ylo had not planned any heroics. He knew that he was never motivated by heroism. He had mostly been staying close to Shandie, in the belief that close-to-Shandie was the safest place to be. Staying close to Shandie, he had never had an option about lugging the fuddling standard along, because if he’d thrown it away, Shandie would just have made him pick it up again. So he’d still been holding the blank-blankety thing when they staggered out of the forest. Besides, he’d twisted his ankle early in the flight and the pole had been useful as a staff.
He was given no chance to explain that and was too smart to try. Shandie was in eclipse, having been routed on his first independent command, but the army desperately needed a hero. Shandie’s signifer was available.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Shandie warned him, but Ylo could not see why not. It wouldn’t last long, so why not enjoy it?
The surviving troops of the XIIth voted him one day’s pay apiece for saving them from disgrace.
From ancient Marshal Ithy in Hub came a signifer’s cape of pure white wolfskin, an honor not granted since the previous dynasty.
Patriotic citizens sent him purses of gold, and the councillors of Gaaze presented him with an illuminated scroll.
By day troops cheered him whenever they got the chance.
By night he found himself fighting off girls—not all of them, of course, just the plainer ones.
He let it go to his head. He let it go wherever it wanted.
Which was all very fine, Ylo reflected sleepily, but it wouldn’t save him from the imperor himself.
The old man had probably never realized that his grandson’s signifer was an Yllipo, the last surviving member of an attaindered clan. Shandie had not told him. Ylo had handled the reports on Karthin and Bone Pass and he knew what had been said—Prince Ralpnie had died in action and his replacement was a legionary named Ylo. That was all.
But now that Ylo was a one-day wonder, the old tyrant would certainly find out. There would be plenty of sly lips in Hub willing to shout the truth in the deaf imperial ear.
And Shandie was on the brink of rebellion. He might not lose his own head, but he was very likely to lose Ylo’s.
There it was in his own handwriting on Ylo’s desk:
My dearest and most revered Grandfather,
Much as it grieves me to address you in these blunt terms, I find myself driven to drastic measures. I have beseeched you for many months now to grant leave for my dear wife to join me here in Gaaze so that I may no longer be deprived of her love and comfort…
If Eshiala was not allowed to come at once, Shandie wrote, then he would resign his commission forthwith and deliver that resignation personally, in Hub.
Defiance! Treason! The blood-soaked old despot would have a homicidal fit. No one had sassed him like that in fifty years.
Shandie’s trouble, Ylo decided with a yawn, was monogamy. Gods! The man could have all the women he could handle if he chose to, right here in Gaaze. Principle could be carried too far. Much too far. What could possibly be so wonderful about one particular woman?
Heirs were a consideration, of course, and an important one to a future imperor, but Shandie already had a daughter. Another child could wait, surely?
Home life might possibly have some appeal—Ylo had never tried it and had no wish to do so at the moment.
And as for recreation, variety was a large part of it. Why sing the same song every night when there were so many beautiful melodies around to try?
Of course Shandie had political reasons for wanting to be back in the capital. The old man was showing increasing signs of irrationality, and he certainly could not last much longer. But return to Hub was not what the prince was demanding.
Ylo blinked again at the terrible document and read it through again. He glanced longingly at the door to Shandie’s office, wondering if he dared go and reason with the maniac. He reluctantly decided that a future decapitation in Hub was worth two immediate decapitations in Gaaze. Shandie would brook such gross insubordination no better than his grandfather did.
The scribbled note at the top was meant for Ylo. It said merely, “Confidential. Transcribe personally.”
The final document would be specially sealed and go in its own bag, weighted with lead in case the ship sank. It would arrive unopened in Emshandar’s hands. No one else would ever know that his grandson had delivered an ultimatum.
But the old man was almost blind. Personal letters had to be written with a special brush and a special black ink, in huge letters like a poster, a dozen or so words to the page. That was Ylo’s job.
So the imperor would know that at least one man was witness to his shame. That was possibly a death warrant all by itself, and if the imperor was aware that the flunky in question was a hated Yllipo, his vengeance would be certain. The letter was Ylo’s death warrant, just for reading it.
Ah, duty! The perils of a military career! With a sigh, he reached for his brush and the ink bottle, selected the largest sheet of vellum he could find in his drawer.
Life had been unspeakably hectic in the two months since the XIIth had limped into Gaaze, scorched, filthy, and exhausted. Ylo had been exhausted ever since. With his army disarmed and scattered, Shandie had been faced with the enormous task of refitting it in winter, when the passes were closed, while trying to guard against an elvish counterattack, which fortunately had not materialized. He had rebuilt everything from the bottom up, even as rumors of dragons sparked desertions on an enormous scale. Shandie had worked himself to a shadow and his staff to less than that.
And Shandie slept nights. Ylo didn’t, much.
Ylo had his own grand office in the proconsular palace. A side door led through to Shandie’s office. The main door led out into a hall where a hundred scribes labored. Unofficially, he was probably the second most powerful man in Qoble.
Oddly enough, he had not been using his power for his own gain. There just had not been time in his life and he had no need for money at the moment anyway. He hoped the wraiths of his more notorious ancestors were not too ashamed of him. Later, when Shandie was installed on the Opal Throne and appointed Ylo praetor of a city somewhere, then he would loot the place and become rich. It was what was expected. It was the way things were done, and all Yllipos were born with a talent for jobbery. Meanwhile, he politely refused all bribes, moving the would-be donors to the bottom of the list. He had created considerable confusion in local affairs thereby, because no one had any experience of dealing with honest officials.
He yawned again.
“Sleeping sickness?” a waspish voice demanded. Little Sir Acopulo was standing in the doorway, pouting like a maiden aunt.
“No, it’s just that I was up all night.” Ylo displayed his most cherubic smile.
The pout grew to a scowl. “Signifer, you suffer from a complete lack of moral pro
bity!”
“Suffer from it? I enjoy it enormously!”
The scowl became a grimace. “Have you received any mail?”
“Two invitations to balls, one threatening note from a husband, and three thank-you letters, but I think I can handle —“
“Don’t play dumb, Signifer. Your performance is much too convincing.”
“I don’t understand what you mean, sir.” Ylo widened his eyes to indicate bewilderment. Their daily sparring had become a tradition. He suspected that the prudish political advisor took it much more seriously than he did.
“I was inquiring if there had been any mail for me?”
Ylo scratched his head. “Yes, there was something addressed to you… No, maybe that was yesterday, or the day before.” He yawned as widely as he could.
The scholar glared and seemed about to depart. “Try to get more sleep, boy. You’re quite confused at times.”
“Ah! I recall. The prince asked me to ask you if ‘Raspnex’ is a dwarvish name.”
Acopulo’s little eyes narrowed. “Why does he want to know that?” He much preferred to converse with Shandie in private and hated reporting through Ylo.
Ylo shrugged, smiled innocently, and waited.
The scholar admitted defeat. “Yes, it is.”
“Thank you. I’ll tell him.” Ylo picked up his brush again, as if the conversation were over. He knew it wasn’t.
“Why did he want to know?”
“I can’t remember.”
“I shall ask him myself, then,” the little man said suspiciously.
Ylo smirked. “Go ahead.” Meaning he had not invented the question, of course.
Acopulo snorted and turned to leave.
“Trade?” Ylo said softly.
“What does that mean?”
“I answer your question, you answer one of mine?”
“I am always willing to advance your education, as the need is so obvious.”
“Mm. I recall now that Lord Umpily had heard a rumor that Raspnex is the name of the new warden of the north.”