It irked Radstac. They were paying for this deserter's lodging and board out of the money that Aquint was paying them to act as Internal Security agents. The money didn't quite stretch that far, particularly since Nievze was consuming enough food and wine to fill the bellies of three men.
Granted, he did appear half-starved. His gaunt face was trimmed with greying stubble, and his eyes bulged from his skull. He was perhaps four tenwinters old, but looked older. He had a slight frame and wasn't especially tall. He was a man one wouldn't normally notice and a man who evidently didn't want to be noticed.
Nievze's deceptions had been successful. When his fellow Felk had invaded this city-state, Nievze wasn't recognized. To the occupiers he was just one more Callahan who was too old to absorb into the army. He had blended in with Callah's poorer inhabitants, eating scraps when he had to, sleeping where he could. This last hadn't been so bad during the summer, but as autumn deepened, it had grown more and more problematical.
Nievze was very grateful for the room. He was also grateful for the food. And the wine. Deo seemed to be enjoying the man's perpetual expressions of gratitude as much as his stories of the inner workings of the Academy, which was some school for magic training in the city of Felk.
"So, you deserted because you were ill-treated at your school," Radstac said, putting a slight but hard edge to it. "I've got that right, don't I?"
"Radstac—" Deo started. But she returned him that same flat look, and he quieted with a shake of his head.
Nievze took a more measured swallow of wine this time. He was aware of Radstac's animosity but was hardly in a position to take offense at it.
"Actually," he said, his tone civil, "it was after I had graduated."
"And what happens after a magic student graduates from your Academy?"
Nievze made a breezy gesture with one hand. "Well, there are a number of possibilities. Matokin had uses for wizards in quite a few capacities, so..." He dropped his hand and his eyes. "After graduation you go into the army."
Radstac let her teeth show in her unnerving version of a grin. "So, really, you ran away because you didn't want to go to war."
He didn't lift his gaze. "Yes," he said simply.
Radstac shrugged. Despite her career as a mercenary, she had no strong opinion about deserters. Cowardice on a battlefield was a very understandable condition.
Nievze's faked death had been one of opportunity, he'd said. An accident had occurred at the Academy on the same day he was scheduled to leave to join the ranks of the Felk army. A wizard with a particular forte for fire magic—and not enough control over her talent—had managed to incinerate herself and four others nearby. Nievze, the first one on the scene, recognized that one of these was a visitor who had, at great peril, infiltrated the Academy to see his young lover, the fire producing magician. Nievze seized the opportunity, knowing that no record of the young man's visit would exist. He stuffed a few of his own personal effects into the man's seared clothing, fled the scene, and later escaped over the Academy walls.
Deo looked embarrassed for Nievze. Seeking to change the subject, he asked, "What sort of magic did you learn at the Academy?"
Nievze finally looked up. "Actually it's only technique that you learn there. Some people have an innate talent for magic. Most don't. Whatever capabilities you have are all you'll ever possess. They can only be refined."
Deo nodded. "That's very interesting. So, what techniques were you taught?"
"I specialized in blood magic."
Radstac had accompanied Deo when he'd brought the food and wine to Nievze's room, meaning only to make sure Deo didn't pass the man any more money. Now she was regretting coming along. Nievze was an irrelevancy. He could do nothing to help them and was in fact only a burden. Radstac felt no especial sympathy for him or his plight. He had been resourceful enough to contrive his own death, but he'd been barely able to survive on the streets of Callah.
"Blood magic?" Deo's brows raised. "What's that?"
Nievze pushed away his plate and settled back in his chair with his cup of wine. "Human blood has certain individual properties," he said, adopting an oratory tone. "These specific characteristics are very susceptible to magic. The blood can be influenced, so to speak. In a number of counterproductive ways."
"Fascinating. How does it work?"
"If I were to take a sample of your blood and dab it onto a cloth and store it," the wizard said, "then later, whenever I wished, I could cast a spell that would affect the living blood in your body. More, your physical proximity would have no effect on the magic. In essence, you could flee to the far end of the Isthmus, and I would still be able to reach you."
Deo gaped. Radstac, for the first time, shared some part of his astonishment.
"That's... diabolical," he breathed.
Nievze nodded his agreement.
Radstac frowned. "But what is the practical application of this magic?"
They both turned to look at her. Radstac could see in Nievze's eyes that he knew she wasn't trying to provoke him this time.
"It was a security measure," he said. "One dreamed up by a highly placed, politically powerful mage named Abraxis. You've heard of him?"
Radstac and Deo shook their heads. When Nievze had shown up at their door after curfew, having followed them from the tavern where they'd played that night, the two of them had maintained the pretense of being anti-Felk troubadours. Deo dropped the charade of being mentally deficient, and Radstac didn't fake her limp around Nievze, but otherwise the Felk deserter had no clue that they were actually working for Internal Security.
"Abraxis is a ruthless man," Nievze continued, "and his commitment to the success of the empire is equally fearsome. He arranged for samples of blood to be taken from each and every student who entered the Academy. Some of those students completed their training there, and some did not. But only the successful emerged alive. So now Abraxis has—inside that little red bag he always has, they say—the blood specimens of every wizard in the entire military. It's meant to ensure the total loyalty of the army's magicians. None of them dares turn against the empire, no matter how powerful they might be individually."
Radstac had seen many wars in her day, petty though they were in comparison to this conflict. She had seen brutality. She had seen abundant bloodshed. But she had never imagined that magic could be perverted so, turned into such a vicious instrument.
She rose from the room's only other chair. Deo was sitting on the foot of the bed. The space was windowless and, if anything, even shabbier than their own quarters.
"We should go," she said to Deo. "We have to go play soon."
He nodded reluctantly and stood. Nievze rose as well and said in that servilely thankful voice he seemed able to summon at will, "Once more I give you my humblest thanks for the kindness you've showed me. Your humane nature is inspiring."
Deo waved all this off. Back in Petgrad he had been renowned for his philanthropy. Radstac supposed it was simply his disposition that had led him to aid this wayward magician so generously. Nevertheless, Deo took the bottle of wine with them, Radstac noted, pleased.
They exited the room, made for the building's third level. Deo needed to collect his vox-mellifluous.
He paused on the groaning stairs, looked at her. "You think I'm being foolish for supporting that man?"
Radstac nearly answered with a curt and simple yes. But she reconsidered and went through the unfamiliar process of allowing for another person's feelings. She finally said, "Foolishly altruistic." She even spoke it in a softer tone.
Deo pressed a smile from his lips. He nodded. "He thought we were connected to the rebels that night he saw us play. He wanted to join up."
Radstac shrugged. That was far less remarkable, in her view, than the fact that Nievze had scraped together on his own the price of a drink at that tavern. Apparently Nievze had undergone a change of heart regarding fighting; now, after having lived under the Felk occupation, he was ready to join the r
ebels.
Deo leaned nearer. The stairwell was dim, but his blue eyes seemed to have a light of their own at the moment. "A rebel wizard. Don't you think that would be a valuable asset in this movement against the Felk?"
"I thought we were working for the Felk," Radstac said with a tiny smirk.
"Aquint's playing his game, and I'm playing mine. Should I ask which game you're participating in?"
"Not if you ever want a feel of my flesh again in this lifetime," she said facetiously; and even so, she was remotely stung that Deo would question her loyalty even in jest. She still considered her contract to him operative.
"I think he'll be... useful," Deo said.
"And in the meantime you can keep him as a pet. Let's get your stringbox. We have songs of protest to perform and Callahan hearts to swell. Let's not disappoint anyone."
* * *
It was called "Callah Forever Free," and it was among their catchiest songs, the melody borrowed from a bawdy ballad that concerned the endowments of a certain young female of frivolous sexual fidelity. Radstac sang the substitute words, and Deo made the music, and the patrons in the tavern gathered close as if to a warming fire.
Everyone was enjoying the performance. Everyone was properly stirred.
But it was during the second chorus of "Callah Forever Free," which the audience took up with her, that one figure rose to his feet and shot an accusing finger and shouted, "Traitors!"
Deo continued winding the instrument's knob, but Radstac left off her singing, eyeing the man, more amused than startled. The patrons murmured among themselves. Radstac finally gestured to Deo, and the music went silent.
"Your treachery disgusts me!" the man roared.
Radstac took a swallow of water from the cup on the table next to her. The man was large, gruff of voice, but also rather aged, at least six tenwinters. Still, he was heavy across the shoulders, and his bearded face was contorted into a fierce visage.
"Why do you shay that?" Deo asked in that labored lisping voice. Radstac could feel his sudden tension, very much like someone ready to defend his lover from insult. She wanted to tell him not to take it personally.
"All your pretty prattling about how evil the Felk are. What good is it? Do you even know what you're talking about? Do you honestly believe conditions here in Callah are so bad now? I remember the times before they arrived. I remember how we were always wondering if this was the year we would go to war with Windal. Well, that's not likely to happen now, is it? Windal is under the same protective control as we are. One Felk city isn't going to attack another."
"Oh, Saigot, either sit down or go away," someone among the patrons said.
But Saigot wasn't done. Radstac doubted he had ever been a man who ceased talking before he'd said all he had to say.
"The Felk are probably still sweeping southward. We hear all kinds of rumors, of course. But if the Felk had been stopped—and who, I ask, could do that?—then I think we would know about it, even as isolated as we are. That means they are busy conquering more of the Isthmus. And I say that is the best thing that could happen!"
The patrons jeered, but no one stepped up to challenge Saigot directly. Radstac continued to watch and listen, interested. Here was a viewpoint she'd not yet encountered.
"I am a Callahan," Saigot went on. "Born and bred to this city and proud of it. But I am also an inhabitant of a greater state—that of the Isthmus itself. And that Isthmus has, for virtually all its history, been struggling and divided, teetering on the brink of internal destruction. Now the Felk will end all that. We will have one rule. We'll have final unity."
It was, Radstac thought, as articulately bombastic as the inane songs she sang. This Saigot was simply arguing the other extreme end of the political gamut.
"And so," he said, "I say you two are traitors. And anyone who listens to this treasonous music is a traitor."
Radstac set down her cup of water. The tavern was tensely silent as she stepped down from the small raised space in the corner. She was prepared for his bodily strength, not deceived into confidence by Saigot's age. But the big bearded man produced a knife from his coat and held it and swung it in a way that demonstrated he knew what to do with it. The appearance of the weapon made up Radstac's mind for her, of course. She and Deo would have lost considerable credibility if Saigot's accusations went unanswered. Now, she would have to do something more than merely batter him.
Deo said later that he barely saw the two prongs that flashed out of her left leather glove. Quite suddenly Saigot was holding the side of his face and howling and bleeding profusely. The other patrons were shocked and impressed.
One of them, a woman with amber-colored eyes, came to Radstac and Deo and said quietly that the Minstrel would want to meet them. She named a time and place for a rendezvous tomorrow, then she left the tavern.
PRAULTH (4)
"Thank you, Xink."
"My pleasure, General Praulth."
She accepted the tallgreen tea, served in a delicate sunset pink ceramic cup, properly honeyed and at the very temperature she liked. She accepted Xink's ministrations, accepted his desperate need to care for her. She even accepted his apparent conviction that with enough coddling and nurturing he could undo all her wounds.
The deeper truth was that Praulth's wounds were healing, physically and in every other significant manner. Xink, however, had been damaged as well, and he seemed wholly unable to admit to this.
It was a dilemma, and a dire one, but it was also taking up precious space that she simply couldn't spare right now. Her ultimate purpose was coming to fruition, her day against Dardas. She had a war to consider, one that could permanently change the fabric of the Isthmus. That was where her concentration needed to be.
She sat among the tables that were atop the dais. The auditorium wasn't nearly so crowded and active as the last time she'd been here, but there were enough officials gathered to give the place an engaged atmosphere. Petgrad's Noble Ministry was not present.
The tables were still spread with maps and intelligence reports. Praulth was current on the movements of the Alliance army, which had assembled—and was still accumulating—on a wide prairie south of the fallen city of Trael. This area, she had learned, was called the Pegwithe Plains. The bulk of the forces were in place, though stray units continued to collect.
It might be generous on her part to regard this as the Alliance army. It was, quite literally, a hodgepodge of military companies of vastly unequal training and strength. Worse, these forces had had no time or opportunity to drill together in any manner. They would be tried and tested on their very first venture as a united military entity.
Holding them together was Cultat. And Praulth's plan to utilize the Battle of Torran Flats.
A desperate history being made...
The others here in the auditorium were secondary delegates who had remained in Petgrad and aides to these minor dignitaries. Praulth had brought Xink along in the capacity of her adjutant. He needed to be near her, and she understood that. Actually she felt very understanding toward him lately, a stark reversal from her previous attitude. She wasn't experiencing the hot reblooming of her one-time virginal love for him; rather, it was a calmer, more reasonable appreciation of his evident loyalty to her. He had, after all, stayed at her side despite the petty incivility and contempt with which she'd treated him too often since they had left Febretree.
Now, after all that had happened, Xink's deceptions didn't seem especially relevant. Even Xink working in cahoots with Master Honnis, blatantly manipulating her, didn't bother Praulth overmuch. Maybe Cultat had been correct; maybe manipulation wasn't so awful a crime.
She could certainly see the reasons for Honnis's artifices. Her old mentor had needed to be assured that she would stay entirely focused on the Felk war. Had he approached her openly, she might have hesitated, reluctant to risk the advancement of her academic career at the University. Xink had served as a distraction from her other studies.
; Honnis had been right to do it. This war outweighed all other considerations. It occurred to Praulth, as she sipped her tea, that she wanted very much to tell Honnis that.
Merse was here in the auditorium as well. He sat alone, out in the seats, slouched, a brimmed hat on his head pulled low to shadow his weathered features. Praulth sensed that he wasn't asleep; rather, was watching this small assembly atop the dais, watching her in particular. He was there to receive and relay any messages from the Far Speak scouts observing the Felk and accompanying the Alliance forces. It had been nearly two full watches since he'd said anything.
She wondered briefly what Merse thought of her new title, then she dismissed the thought. What did it matter what the cantankerous Petgradite wizard thought? She was pleased with how Xink pronounced it: "General Praulth." Without any hint of irony. With the full respect the title merited.
Her gaze fell to the maps, but she already had every square memorized. The configuration for the Torran Flats gambit was carefully drawn out according to her instructions. From the reports so far received, it appeared the Alliance might just have sufficient numbers to carry this off successfully.
It was, for the moment, the quiet agony of wait and see.
This was the first time Praulth had come out of her rooms since the Incident. Xink, capering about in an unproductive panic, had finally summoned a physician that night, then officials of the local police. These latter were a pair of elderly officers who had remained behind while the Petgrad army rode off to gather with the Alliance forces. Petgrad's police force was a meager complement these days, the ranks dangerously thinned. It was why patrols of the streets had been reduced and why crimes of opportunity were on the increase. Add to that the catastrophic influx of refugees, many hungry and destitute, and the situation was well out of hand.
Praulth, following the professionally thorough examination by the Petgrad physician, had told the police she understood the dire state of things. She had by then recovered her voice. It was Xink who insisted repeatedly that the individual who'd assaulted her be apprehended. He demanded that no effort be spared. He invoked her prominent standing and her personal favor with Premier Cultat. The police promised to do everything possible, but Praulth had recognized that a single scavenger, even mentally unbalanced as he probably was, could likely elude capture in this vast city.
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