by Glen Cook
Obviously, the sword that had gotten away from the youth who had come through ahead of him.
While stooping to recover the sword he became aware that every muscle and joint he owned now ached. He might not be puking up his soul but he had acquired a world of hurt al his own.
Carrie tried to say something.
He promised, “Nothing wil get you. I won’t let it.” And he meant it.
He shuffled toward the portals.
Someone began to emerge from that same portal where the panicked boy had been pul ed back. This one wore shreds of clothing similar to that boy’s but was more nearly naked than dressed. Babeltausque did not recognize that pale face. That was not anyone from Karkha Tower.
He raised the sword like a club. He had no idea how to employ the Eastern weapon.
The newcomer desperately dragged two-thirds of her body length out into the cold. Her? Oh, definitely, yes! Though she wore tatters of boy’s clothing, there could be no doubt.
She had been wel -blessed by Nature.
She could not get any more of herself free of the transfer’s grip.
Her desperation touched Babeltausque. Blade held high in one hand, he extended his other, let her grab hold, pul ed.
Out she popped. Wel , most of her did. Part of a fine right leg, from just above the ankle down, did not emerge. There was no bleeding. Babeltausque noted that she wore scraps of a boy’s clothing.
Carrie gasped, “Bee Boss, you got to wreck them damned gates!”
Wel , yes, he did have to get on with that, even if he and Carrie were way down on Old Meddler’s list, if just to deny that vil ain a possible escape route from the Karkha Tower.
Carrie was up now, hunched, in pain, muttering about hoping being pregnant was al in her head because no fetus ought to go through what they just had. Babeltausque did not quite grasp that right away. He dragged his attention away from eternity’s most marvelous set and attacked the portal whence their owner had come.
The one cal ed Lein She said, “Strike lower, to the right.
Your other right. The right side of it. Hit the orange and yel ow hashes.” Babeltausque understood every word. At the moment he did not wonder how that could be.
Carrie stumbled to the stranger, helped her remain upright.
The girl stared down at herself, plainly thril ed. She cupped her breasts, then commenced a slow blush. Carrie said,
“One of these perverts wil give you his jacket.” Babeltausque was not alone in being thoroughly impressed.
His sword stroke fel where Lein She said it should.
A whine went out of the world, a sound the sorcerer had not recognized was there til it went away.
Tang Shan gasped, “Silence the others, too!” He was on his knees, now, eying the footless girl, baffled.
As a boy Babeltausque often fantasized himself an unstoppable swordsman, even then knowing it would only ever be a fantasy. He was not an athlete in any sense. But here he was, swinging a long eastern blade like he knew what he was doing. Clang! Clack! Ring! It was a magic blade, a singing sword!
“Enough!” Tang Shan yel ed. “We want them damaged so nothing can come after us, not busted beyond repair.”
“Working off some fear energy,” Babeltausque admitted.
“And now I’m exhausted.” He understood most everything Tang Shan said. Lein She, too. Was that a byproduct of their passage through the transfer stream? Instead of them being mashed together into a two-headed human crab?
“Settle down. Relax. Sleep if you have to. We’re safe. Its dark out. We can’t go anywhere now, anyway.” There would be no more transfers. They were on foot for now.
Babeltausque settled beside Carrie, snuggled in for the warmth, physical and emotional. He slid the sword across to its owner. It was in bad shape. The nicks might never get polished out. Carrie teased, “I saw you lick your chops when you saw those boobies.”
“I can’t help being alive. But your sweet booblets are the only ones for me.”
“It’s al right. They’re so excel ent I’d want to get my hands on them myself if I was that kind of girl.” Babeltausque looked at the mystery woman. “Who are you?” As though she might understand. Hel , she might.
Tang Shan did.
He was sure she was the presence he had felt in the transfer stream.
...
Ragnarson joined the crowd looking over Scalza’s shoulders. People babbled in several languages. Old Meddler had found some way to get at the Karkha Tower through the transfer stream. That was unexpected. The Tower was lost, no doubt about it. Those who had not gotten out quickly had become part of the red layer now coating everything inside the transfer chamber.
The Star Rider sent a demon through, somehow, though that should not have been possible. It kil ed everyone, opened the way for its master, who made adjustments to a freight portal and brought an iron statue through. But not the Windmjirnerhorn. Passage through the transfer stream would destroy that.
Old Meddler had to do without while his winged mount made the long real-world journey from the farthest east.
Mist said, “Lord Yuan, it’s gone wel enough, so far, despite the surprises. Dare I hope that something there might nail him?”
“No, Il ustrious. But he won’t be able to transfer out.”
“Then with Varthlokkur’s help we might be able to smash the place with him inside. Where is Varthlokkur?” Scalza said, “Almost here, Mother. But he won’t be much help til he and the Unborn recuperate.” Ragnarson glanced at Mist’s daughter. She seemed unhappy about the Unborn’s situation.
Lord Yuan refused to be distressed by the disaster. He said, “Let’s locate those who managed to get away.” Scalza snapped, “Want to tel me where to look?” Lord Yuan did have suggestions. He knew exactly where each Karkha Tower portal should have taken someone before having been sabotaged by his lost technicians. He was quite proud of his “children.”
He did admit, “This wil take time. The strange couple wanted to go to Kavelin. But…”
The boy said, “I checked our old house, Mother. They didn’t go there.”
Ragnarson lost interest. He joined Haroun and Yasmid against a wal . Haroun had withdrawn completely. Yasmid was almost as remote. Their hosts had no interest in Hammad al Nakir anymore. Anything could have happened there.
The same was true for Kavelin.
It was al about Old Meddler, now, and only about Old Meddler.
Haroun asked, “Have we been hornswoggled?”
“Huh?” Bragi could not recal his friend ever using that word before. “How so?”
“Were we col ected just to get us out of the way of the Dread Empire’s grand design?”
“Not intentional y. This is real.” The effect might be the same, though, if Old Meddler miraculously lost the round.
“She’s probably just gotten everything from us that she wanted.”
Yasmid stirred but said nothing. She clung to Haroun constantly now. She had nothing more to do with her father.
Ragnarson had not seen El Murid for days. His handlers kept him isolated somewhere, safe from the specialists responsible for Ethrian and the Old Man. Curious, that. If the Disciple had given Mist anything useful Ragnarson had missed the transaction. The only positive contribution El Murid made anymore was to stay the hel out of the way.
He could shut the hel up, too.
Everyone else would happily deal with God’s concerns once they met Him face to face—including the Disciple’s presumptive heiress.
“You going to fight when he shows?” Ragnarson asked.
Haroun gave him a look that asked if he was stupid. “The choice is between dying fighting and dying whimpering.” He was not happy about being caught in those jaws.
“Ideas?”
“None. But I have an advantage. I know he’s coming. I didn’t have that with Magden Norath. And he won’t be expecting me.”
Ragnarson did a slow turn, ended up staring at Mist as she bent over Scalza.
“He doesn’t know about most of us.” How deliberately had that woman worked to make this come together the way it had?
She sensed his regard, turned, frowning slightly. He shifted his attention back to Haroun. His thoughts had begun to drift away from business. “I need to make peace with Inger.” Bin Yousif was as monogamous as any creature that ever lived but he understood. “At your time of life? That would be smart. Not to mention an act of political wisdom.”
“Yeah.” He glanced at Mist. The charge had gone neutral but the curve of her behind stil reminded him of Sherilee.
He shivered. “There a cold breeze in here?”
“Actual y, yes.”
Varthlokkur had brought it. The man appeared to have aged two decades. He was exhausted. He had failed to close the door behind him.
Mist’s daughter touched Nepanthe’s boy lightly, then made a quick departure. No one paid any heed.
Wen-chin and the Old Man gave up their seats at the shogi table. The wizard col apsed into a chair. Mist settled opposite him. He eyed the Winterstorm, noting that it had been altered but showed no excitement about that. Mist said something that probably explained.
Haroun asked, “You going to go eavesdrop?”
“They won’t use a language I understand. They’l let me know what they want me to know when they figure I need to know it.”
“Hel of a way to run things.”
Ragnarson responded with a sarcastic snort. “It’s the way we al run things. Transparency is against the rules.” Haroun actual y chuckled. Yasmid smiled. Both were responses more positive than most Ragnarson had heard lately. He told no one in particular, “It can’t be long, now.
Even if I don’t real y get what’s going on.”
“You aren’t out in the wilderness by yourself, my friend. I’l bet nobody involved in this real y knows.” Yasmid whispered, “God Himself must be confused. No two of His creatures are pul ing in the same direction.” Haroun did the bizarre. He demonstrated affection publicly by kissing his wife’s cheek. “Precisely the truth, heart of my heart.” His expression dared his friend to even note such remarkable behavior.
Ragnarson winked.
Chapter Thirty:
Year 1019 AFE:
New Year Begun
Kristen watched the boys play. Fulk had a snobbish streak. He tried to lord it over his nephew. Bragi would not have it. He protested with punches. Fulk’s streak was fading.
Stil , they got on better than did their mothers.
The women shared a smal room with the boys and a maid whose principal task was to referee. Josiah Gales, Nathan Wolf, and others came and went as they dealt with routine business.
Kristen felt awkward but knew this was more so for Inger. Inger sprang from a rough and tumble political tradition. No doubt she was stil trying to come up with ways to twist things to her advantage.
Kristen saw no chance of that—unless Fulk fathered a potential heir. Bragi’s succession solution had broad support. Even the Estates had signed on—with limited enthusiasm. Ozora Mundwil er had decreed that the tapestry of tomorrow would be woven in accordance with the King’s wil . Sedlmayr and its commercial al ies would guarantee that. The monarchs of several neighboring kingdoms had recognized the arrangement formal y, too, perhaps made nervous by the interest the eastern Empress had shown toward this side of the Mountains of M’Hand.
Kristen and Inger also suspected the influence of Michael Trebilcock. Whenever anything not easily explained took place Michael usual y got the blame—
mainly in situations likely to produce a net positive result.
Old Meddler or assorted devils and witches got blamed when a worse tomorrow seemed likely.
Kristen read the letter Inger had brought, for the third time.
Not a word had changed. She had to speak to its contents eventual y, though there was little enough to say. “This does prove that Liakopulos survived.”
Inger grunted. She was not happy. She had the Greyfel s taint, which meant that she resented having any option denied her. “Any thoughts?”
“Not much to think, is there? We just need to not act like brats.”
The letter was from General Liakopulos, supported by the old men of High Crag. The Mercenaries’ Guild meant to guarantee Kavelin’s succession, as established by King Bragi, who was stil a Guild member. He had left the Guild but the Guild had not left him.
“No choice,” Kristen said. “Liakopulos was as much the King’s man as his Guild status let him be.” Inger muttered something that included several virulent Itaskian swearwords. In a more composed voice, she continued, “I imagine the old men are concerned about Shinsan’s ambitions, too.”
“Maybe they know something.”
“They know history.”
Kristen read the general’s letter again. It was not ambiguous. “It is what it is. Fussing won’t change it. It sets limits on how the tapestry of tomorrow can be woven.”
“I just hate… Forget it. You’re right. We’ve been told. Only Bragi can change it.” Inger put her embroidery aside, rose, paced, eventual y wondered, “When wil she send them back? She said she would.”
Mist had made no demands other than to ask that her lifeguard be treated wel . He had a family. They looked forward to his homecoming.
Inger was concerned more about her sorcerer than her husband. Without Babeltausque or money she was just an impoverished noble who had not yet abandoned her airs.
Having others acknowledge her status meant everything to Inger.
She had a ful ration of the Greyfel s inferiority complex.
“She’s probably too busy staying alive.”
“Understatement. You’re good at that, aren’t you? Of course she’s busy! That happens when you’re dim enough to try to play on the same field as… Ah! You almost got me to say it.
That would be one way to get around those dire warnings about what wil happen if…”
Kristen did not argue. There was no point. Inger was stressed. She would be who and what she was, only more so.
Inger punched herself in the forehead. “Stupid! Why do I go al whack job when it’s time to be sensible?”
“Suppose we get Ozora back?”
Inger stopped pacing. “Are you serious?”
“If she was here, neither of us would mouth off without thinking first. That dragon would lean on us so hard…”
“I couldn’t take it. The pressure would build up and I’d do something stupider than anything Dane would try. What I’l do, though, is ask myself, ‘What would Ozora do?’ when I butt heads with something real y tough.”
“I’l try that, too. What about your cousin? Is it real y safe to send him home?”
Inger shrugged. “His time in the cel ar won’t have changed him much but he might’ve grasped the fact that he has to at least fake it to survive. Plus the family needs somebody in Itaskia. Their problems are so awful, he won’t ever have time to bother us again.”
“That makes sense.” And, she was sure, Greyfel s would get his own unambiguous communiqué from High Crag.
“I’ve had a letter myself. From Abaca Enigara.” Kristen watched Inger think, realize, harden, but consider, What would Ozora do? before she asked, “Would that be the Colonel’s daughter?”
“That would. Being a girl, custom won’t al ow it official y, but, practical y, she’s chief of chiefs of the Marena Dimura now.
Some good soul let her know al about the Thingmeet. She wants to fol ow the path her father tried to blaze.” Inger drew on Ozora again before she suppressed her prejudices enough to observe, “This poor hagridden kingdom. I pity it if Bragi and Michael don’t come back.”
“Real y? My whole life women have been tel ing me how much better the world would run if the girls were in charge.”
“Pardon my cynicism. Show me a couple of examples.” Kristen shook her head. The only women she knew of, who had gotten famous, had been real y serious kickers of ass.
...
Babe
ltausque found himself second-in-command to his thirteen-yearold girlfriend, who could be precisely decisive even when she had no clue. She was one of those people who got things done.
“Lein She, we need firewood.” In seconds she had determined that the Candidate was the line officer while Tang Shan was only a senior technical specialist. “Send someone to find some. Then we’l inventory our resources, including skil s, before our ability to communicate goes away.”
It might. The easterners were becoming harder to fol ow. “Keeping warm is our main project for now.” Dawn came. They watched it from the portico of what seemed to be a temple. The world sprawled below was grey and white with tufts of brown weed showing through crusty old snow.
Carrie said, “Let’s figure out where we are. And find something to eat. I’m real y hungry.” Fire was no problem. A forest lay at the foot of the hil . The easterners had tramped a path already.
Tang Shan spoke slowly. The sorcerer said, “I can’t fol ow him anymore.”
“What he said last night. He’s been here before. Only now he says if we head straight south we’l come to a road.”
“You stil understand him?”
“You have to listen hard.”
Tang Shan said something more.
Babeltausque listened hard. This time he caught a few words. Something about smal game. Rabbit and bird tracks marred the snow. The crust had weathered til those were featureless depressions, but they did suggest that a clever hunter need not starve. “I can help with food.”
“We’re going to get cold,” Carrie said. “Them worse than us. They’re not used to our kind of winter. But we can’t stay here—unless we want to make it to spring by eating each other.”
Babeltausque asked, “Why do you say things like that?”
“Gal ows humor? Al right. It wasn’t funny. But it was true. If there’s a road we need to find it and let it take us somewhere warm.”
The sorcerer could not argue with that. “Let’s get out of the wind and get a plan worked out.” Carrie was right about them going to get cold. They had barely enough clothing amongst them to preserve the new girl’s modesty and their own. And they would have to help the woman travel. She did not do wel on one foot.