by Dave Duncan
“Just gossip, sir. Just common bazaar gossip, no importance. Now, that report from the priest… priestess. I think that one’s genuine.”
The tribune was still glaring, not listening. He was very minor grit in the aristocratic mill — youngest son of a baron, or something. In Hardgraa’s experience, the more senior a noble, the easier he was to deal with. Shandie himself had been the best example; they came no higher than the prince imperial, which was how Hardgraa liked to remember him, and as man and officer Shandie had been without flaw. Grass-roots aristocrats like Tribune Hodwhine were obsessed with protocol and social standing and correct behavior and decorum. But of course those concerns could be exploited.
Which was why Hardgraa had just hit this one below the belt.
“I want to know why you were smirking that way!” Hodwhine stormed, almost purple now.
“Nothing, sir.”
Veins bulged. “I order you to tell me!”
“Yessir. Ylo bragged more than once that he’d been… had slept with every officer’s wife in the legion. All those he could get his hands on, he said. A couple were not in Gaaze, of course.”
“He’s a lying bastard!”
“I’m quite sure he is, sir,” Hardgraa said, and he was, although as far as he knew Ylo had never made the boast just credited to him. “Now, this report from the priestess. I think it’s the most reliable we’ve had.”
Hodwhine licked his lips and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He was still wild-eyed. “Why?” he barked.
“Several factors, sir. The fact that we had to enlist the help of her bishop before she would talk. The fact that clergy dislike lying. The fact that she heard the child named.”
“Mm? Missed that. What name?”
“Maya, sir.”
Even a minor aristocrat could catch the implications. “You mean short for Uomaya or some such name? Well, this woman Ylo’s supposedly abducted has been using the name of the new impress, so it would be a joke to use the name of the princess imperial for her dau… Wouldn’t it?” the tribune asked uneasily.
In the ensuing silence, color faded from his face until he was pale as a jotunn. He made a choking sound. “Whose wife did you say she was, Centurion?”
“I am not at liberty to say, sir. Obviously the matter has potential for scandal, or his Majesty would not be so grievously concerned.”
“But if… The child would be the heir presumptive!”
Hardgraa shrugged. “Can’t comment, sir.”
Tribune Hodwhine grabbed up his goblet and drained it. Then he set it back on the table with a shaking hand. “What do you want me to do?”
That was more like it.
“Well, I suspect the target is heading eastward, sir. I can line up most of the best sightings. He’s obviously avoiding military personnel, so he may not know yet that the XIVth’s been withdrawn and the XIIth’s sector extended to include Angot.” Hardgraa eyed the tribune’s glazed expression and decided he need not waste time on explanations. “I want the guards on the passes tripled. I want maniple signifers assigned to those posts and at least one of them on duty at all times. None of them can claim not to know him by sight. Double-check all shipping.”
“We’re already undermanned! How can I possibly requisition men from other cohorts without a —”
“Shall I ask Legate Ethemene to assign someone else. Tribune?”
“No! That will not be necessary, Centurion! I’ll speak to him. What else?”
“Post a reward.”
“How much?”
“A thousand imperials. Any more and we’ll be flooded with false sightings.”
Hodwhine grunted. “Getting that sort of money out of the bursar would be like skinning hedgehogs.” A sly gleam brightened his normally vacuous eye. “My fa— I mean, I could put up that sort of cash personally…?” His voice trailed off in appeal.
“A very noble gesture, sir. I shall see his Majesty is informed of it.”
The tribune brightened considerably. “Anything else?”
Hardgraa rose and paced over to the trellis. “Someone tipped him off.” He spun around and headed back toward the gate.
Hodwhine opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Whether he was concerned about the accusation or his lawn remained unclear.
“It had to be the messenger at West Pass. Target did not go through Pinebridge.”
“What do you want?” the tribune said uneasily.
“Seventy lashes.”
“Flog him to death, you mean. Bad for morale.”
Hardgraa stopped beside Hodwhine’s chair and looked down at him with all the contempt he had been hiding hitherto. “I am not playing games, sir. The imperor is not playing games, sir. But some of his legionaries are, sir. I want them to know that this is not a game! Sir.”
Hodwhine pouted. “We’ll bring him in, then, and do it here in Gaaze. Full muster of the legion, as far as we can. Proclamation?”
“Just general, dereliction of duty. No need to mention Ylo by name — they’ll find out.” Hardgraa realized he had dug his nails into his palms. “If the target’s heading into the eastern foothills, we’ll need at least two more cohorts. We must continue to downplay the child, sir. But as you have so astutely guessed, the child is the key.”
“Gods!” the tribune said.
The idiot did not know the half of it. Sick at heart, Hardgraa resumed his pacing. Whatever his moral shortcomings, even Ylo would not mock the Gods with bigamy. That marriage ceremony buried the last shreds of doubt. The tale he had told at Yewdark must be true — Shandie really was dead. So the infant was the rightful impress of Pandemia, and Hardgraa would stop at nothing to get her back.
3
“Tell me more about Keef,” Kadie said.
She was sitting outside the cottage with Thaïle. They had just finished eating and started telling stories. They both enjoyed stories. It was Kadie’s second evening in Thume — a soft, warm evening with pink clouds. The air was drowsy with the scent of trees and flowers, and the clearing so full of peace that she could almost see it.
“There isn’t much more to tell,” Thaïle said, nibbling a strawberry. “It was a thousand years ago, remember. She was certainly a pixie, and the first Keeper. She overthrew Ulien’quith and founded the College.”
“Killed him?”
“Probably.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” Thaïle’s golden eyes twinkled. “Nastily, I hope.”
Kadie frowned. True stories were always full of annoying gaps like that. “But if he was such a powerful warlock and had an army of sorcerers… like Zinixo?”
“Very much like Zinixo.”
“Then how did Keef manage to kill him?”
Thaïle hesitated. She glanced in disapproval at the dirty dishes on the table between them, and they all vanished. “Keef was what your father was once.”
“And what the Keeper now is? So she can kill Zinixo?”
“She says she can’t.” The sorceress smiled oddly. “You know, Kadie, you are almost the only nonsorcerer in the whole world who knows that five words make a demigod! I couldn’t tell you if you didn’t, because it hurts me to talk about such things to a mundane.”
“My mother told me.”
“Yes. If she could then it was only because she isn’t a sorceress anymore! I’m sure the Keeper could defeat Zinixo if they had a straight-up fight, just the two of them, but he is the Almighty and has his Covin to aid him.”
Kadie wondered if she was being too nosy. She did not want to hurt her rescuer and friend, but it was an important subject. “Don’t talk about it anymore if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll tell you if it hurts.” Thaïle sighed. “Won’t tell you, I mean!”
She was very pretty, with her golden eyes and curly brown hair. Kadie had decided she approved of pointed ears. Standard ears were a ludicrous shape, when you thought about it Were all pixies as trim and graceful? One day she would like to mee
t more of them — but not yet. No, definitely not yet! For the present, a quiet life at Thaïle’s cottage was what she wanted, what she needed. Eat and sleep and exchange stories.
“Well, the Keeper has an army, too. Scores of sorcerers in the College, you said.”
Thaïle shrugged. “We are not bound by the same sort of loyalty spell, although of course we are all loyal and we would fight to the death. There just aren’t enough of us. The usurper’s been gathering votaries for twenty years, all over Pandemia. The Keeper says if he ever finds out about us there will be a battle and we shall lose.”
That was a subject Kadie would not pursue any further. To the rest of the world Thume was the Accursed Land. The tiny piece of it she had seen so far seemed more blessed than cursed, a secret paradise hidden for a thousand years behind an aversion spell. Zinixo would never think about Thume unless something drew his attention to it very strongly, Thaïle had said. But Kadie could see now that she was probably going to be a prisoner here for the rest of her life.
Well, it was a wonderful prison. She loved the romantic little cottage in its private glade. It held all sorts of magical wonders, like spigots that put out scalding hot water and lamps that lit when you asked them to. In two days there had been no visitors except squirrels and jays. But never to see her parents again, or Gath, or Eva, or Holi…
“Thaïle? Is there any way to find out what is going on Outside? My family, I mean?”
The pixie shook her head sadly. “Nobody ever goes Outside. Well, a few do. Sometimes the Keeper will send out appraisers. Spies, I suppose, is what they are. That is rare. And the Keeper herself, of course. That’s her main duty. She can walk the world undetected. No one else can.”
Kadie did not like the idea of spies. Skulking around everywhere, being invisible, listening and watching and then reporting back to Thume? Perhaps they even came to Krasnegar sometimes! Who knew what they might not have pried into in the last thousand years?
“So tell me more about Keef. She was a demigod, too. She did not destroy her words?”
“No. Keef killed her —” Thaïle stopped and shook her head. She looked appealingly at Kadie, inviting her to finish the sentence.
“Killed?” No! “You don’t mean her husband, er, goodman? Her lover? She killed her lover?”
Thaïle nodded again, but she was very tense now, her face pale and screwed up with pain.
“Let’s talk about more cheerful things,” Kadie said quickly. She did not like the way the Keef story was going. “My mother escaped from Thume on a magic carpet.”
Thaïle relaxed gratefully. “That was during the reign of the last Keeper. I expect it’s all recorded in the Library somewhere. We can go and look it up sometime, if you want.”
Thaïle had mentioned the Library before. It sounded as if there would be all sorts of interesting storybooks there. Kadie wondered if she could borrow some.
“Not now!” she said firmly.
Thaïle laughed. “Kadie, you are turning into a real pixie! You just want to stay here, at my Place, hiding out in the forest, never going anywhere — don’t you?”
Kadie nodded guiltily.
“You’ve had a hard time,” Thaïle said sympathetically. “You’ll get over it. I expect you’ll become ghastly bored soon.”
That might be true one day, but it wasn’t true yet.
“I don’t mind,” the pixie said. “I’m happy to be back.” She did not look happy, though. “This is my Place and no one will disturb us here. I was just thinking that it might be fun to introduce you to some people and watch their reactions.”
“Your friends?” Kadie asked uneasily.
“I don’t have any real friends. I was a novice until just a few days ago. Now I’m a sorceress, I’ll have to make new friends. How would you like to go to the Meeting Place?”
The answer was “Not at all,” but Kadie felt ashamed of that reaction. She was perfectly safe here — in spite of the nasty experience Mama had gone through when she had visited Thume — because she was the guest of a sorceress. And she couldn’t hide out in the woods forever. That would not be princessy behavior at all.
She nodded nervously. “If you think it will be all right.”
Thaïle smiled a very thin smile. “It should be fun, watching their faces. You’re the first visitor in a thousand years! The language has changed, but I can give you that with sorcery, and most of the people you’ll meet are sorcerers anyway, so they could understand you.”
“Can I wear my sword?”
The pixie laughed aloud. “In Thume? What do you plan to kill, Great Warrior?”
Kadie felt herself flush. Mama had met danger in Thume! Mostly, though, her rapier had been her constant companion for so long that she could not bear the thought of being without it. It had been her sole comfort among the goblins. It was a reminder of Gath, her twin, and Krasnegar. It was the only thing she had that had come from Krasnegar, and it had saved her from the ravens.
“Let me see it.” Thaïle held out a hand.
Kadie drew the sword reluctantly and passed it across the table. The pixie took it and closed her eyes for a moment.
“It’s very old. Very subtle. It was made for someone called… Olliano? No, Ollialo.”
“Inisso’s wife! He was the sorcerer who founded Krasnegar.”
“And a very powerful warlock. Almost the only warden who ever resigned his throne.” Smiling, Thaïle passed the sword back. “It’s all recorded in the Library.”
“Is everything recorded in the Library?”
“Just about everything. Keeps people busy.”
Kadie gasped, seeing the rapier changed. All its silver filigree was clean and shiny, and the one blind dolphin had a ruby eye again to match its sisters. “You’ve mended it! Thank you!”
“I restored it, too,” Thaïle said, standing up. “You almost wore it out killing ravens.” Her smile faded. “I can prophesy something about that sword, Kadie.”
“What?”
The pixie frowned, as if puzzled. “It will draw blood again soon, but not in your hand. Someone else wields it.”
“You?”
“No, not me. Someone I have never met — and who has never yet touched the sword. You give it to him… I think it’s a him.”
Kadie said nothing. She could not imagine herself ever giving her sword away to anyone, anyone at all.
Thaïle shrugged, and smiled. “There are strange times coming soon, times I cannot foresee. It would not be good manners to take a sword to the Meeting Place, I think.”
And what use would a sword be against sorcerers, anyway? Kadie reluctantly unfastened her belt.
4
The two of them had barely started along the white gravel path before Thaïle began to realize that she might be making a real error in dragging Kadie away from the safety of the Place. Her guest was a badly wounded fledgling who needed time to heal, and apprehension was burning up around her like a thicket of purple fire. She had taken Thaïle’s hand, and her own was damp and shaking.
“This is the Way,” Thane explained cheerfully. “It goes everywhere in the College, one road to anywhere. All you have to do is think where you want to be, and it will take you there.”
“Oh.”
“And that’s even more wonderful than you might think, because the College is scattered all over Thume. To go from my Place to the Meeting Place would take you a week on a horse.”
Kadie said, “Oh!” again, not sounding at all comforted.
“But it’s really only a Way Back, because it will only take you to somewhere you have been before. Notice how the vegetation has changed already?”
Time to heal… but that time might not be available. Old Baze, the former archon, had predicted that Thaïle would not be an archon for long. She could probably foresee such things for herself now — although not while shrouded within the Way’s shielding — but she had not done so and did not intend to do so. Prophesying one’s own future was a dangerous and ill-ad
vised thing to try.
Then the Way emerged from the trees and into the Meeting Place. The clearing was hot and bright with sunshine, a dell of flowered park land enclosing a small lake at its heart. Green was greener here, among the Progiste foothills on a summer evening, setting off the myriad bright colors of blossoms and tropical birds, of gay-clad people sprawled on the grass or conversing on benches and in shady cabanas. White swans floated among the water lilies and wading herons. A herd of small deer grazing on the bank jerked their heads up in alarm, apparently registering the arrival of a mundane. They had been oblivious of their human company until then.
Kadie stopped dead. “Pixies!”
“Of course.” Thaïle decided not to inform her young friend that she was one of the dark-haired demons mentioned in the Catechism. This intrusion was probably very unwise all round. Seeing the cold stare on every face, she realized that the few fragile friendships she had begun to build as a trainee were all lost to her. Archons could befriend only other archons.
Well, if she couldn’t woo them, she could awe them.
“Come! I’ll introduce you to some pixies.”
Kadie dragged her feet as she was led forward along the path. “They’re beautiful!” she muttered.
Perhaps they were, to her mundane eyes — graceful, youthful, tanned, all clad in fine garments of soft colors, mostly golds and greens. Few were less than full sorcerers, though, and Thaïle could see their true ages and shapes. Why did they bother to pretend? Only the lowly trainees would be deceived.
Talk had ceased all over the Meeting Place. A hundred golden eyes stared disbelievingly at the newcomers. Closest was a group of two women and three men, standing. One of them was distinctively clad in blue, instead of the forest shades most others preferred; he strode forward a couple of paces, flickering with anger and indignation.
“Trainee Thaïle?” he barked. Then he became aware of the solidity of her presence in the ambience. He stopped with a flash of alarm.
Give Teal his due, he made no claims to youth; he projected an image of fatherly middle years, silver hair and a mature figure. To sorcerer vision he was repulsive — old and fat, bald, curvaceous body coated with white fur. Despite the fur, he made Thaïle think of snakes. That he should be the first to greet the visitor might be pure coincidence. If not, it boded ill for Kadie’s chances of ever leaving Thume.