Calling Up the Fire

by Lori Martin

  He jerked upright and tried to rise. A stain of blood seeped through his bandage. “The relasii ring has come to me. If you think –”

  “I don’t want it!” she screamed at him. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want it. This is not my task. This is not my war. Oh, yes, of course, I’m with you! And I’ll do whatever you say. But we need more, as Lindahnes we need more, than just the birthright of our land. We need the birthright of our gods, too. Do you never think why the goddess gave us both to Dalleena our mother?”

  They stared at each other, kin of blood and womb, strangers. Paither said slowly, “Sometimes when we’re speaking, even when there are other people here and talking, I look at you and think, She’s not listening.”

  “I’m listening for Nialia. Sometimes I can’t hear anything else.” She shivered in her wet clothes. “Brother, forgive me. I can’t be what you seem to need.”

  He shook his head. After a moment he could smile. “Maybe you can bring me a prophecy of victory, mother priestess.”

  She smiled back, wan now that the flush had receded. The rain droned on. “Right now I can bring you a fresh bandage.”

  “No, just call Jessa for me, please. You’d better bring in your poor horse, he’s still out there. I’ll see you at supper.”

  She hesitated on the threshold. “I’ll see you at the war council. I had a few thoughts on improvements for the companies I inspected.”

  He said easily, “I’d like to hear them.”

  She closed the door.

  Heavy tramping feet. Soldiers marching. Her father’s home in blackness.

  Pillyn woke to the darkness of the Mendale holding-house. Heavy footfalls really were approaching. Little Calli, curled into her side, was breathing deeply. She moved slowly, so as not to disturb her. “Nichos?” she whispered.

  “I hear them.” His cot was on the opposite wall. On the cold floor between them Baili was sleeping, wrapped in blankets, because the legs of his own cot had broken and the Mendales had never replaced it. The alcove where the queen had slept was still hung with a forlorn curtain.

  They heard the sentries present arms. A candle flared up in Nichos’s hand. She blinked. “What do you –”

  “Be still.”

  Suddenly the door crashed open. A dozen torches stabbed at their dark-filled eyes. A giant shadow barked, “On your feet! Now!”

  She scrambled up, hushing Calli’s protests, and nearly tumbled over Baili, dazed and floundering in his bedsheets. Nichos reached down and hauled him to his feet.

  Nichos said, “What is it? What has happened?”

  “You’re to be moved.” They had never seen this soldier before. “Get dressed. Let’s go, all of you! Tribune Haol’s orders.”

  “Are we to stand trial?”

  “Are you deaf?” the Mendale shouted at Pillyn, who was standing motionless. “I said now!”

  Nichos repeated, “Are we to stand trial?” Calli broke from her mother’s hand to clutch at his legs.

  “Take them out,” the first man ordered.Three guards came forward, hands outstretched; Nichos stared them down. “This way, sir,” one said nervously.

  Nichos lifted his daughter into his arms. “You must wait a moment.” His wife had moved to the deserted alcove and was fumbling among the queen’s books. He knew what she was after. Queen Ayenna, who had known as well as they that she was dying, had written a loving letter to Paither and his unknown sister. Pillyn had been charged with its delivery.

  The Mendales had been decent, though her death had cheated Haol of his grand execution, if indeed he had still contemplated it. They had permitted Pillyn to give her proper Lindahne rites, but she had wept bitterly.

  “Can we bring the cat?” Calli asked in his ear.

  “I don’t think so, little one. The soldiers are fond of him, they’ll look after him.”

  “Come on, come on!” the Mendale shouted. “Hurry up there!”

  “I’m ready,” Pillyn said. Baili, ever practical, had bundled together their blankets. Who knew where they were going, or how cold it would be?

  Nichos was not surprised to be taken to MenDas, but he expected their cart to take the turn to the Hall of Merits. Instead they rattled through the Northeast Gate of the Assemblage House itself. There were old below-ground imprisonment cells in the House, which as far as he knew had not been used in a lifetime or more; nowadays the Assembly preferred to keep its enemies at a distance. But the cells had been swept out, and were ready to receive them. He exchanged puzzled looks with his wife, but they stayed silent; they had learned not to discuss important matters in front of the guards. They were allowed to settle themselves in. Barely a half-day later he was brought up to see Tribune Haol.

  “Well, it’s no use threatening me.” Nichos blew a pull of smoke, his tongue savoring his first taste of good pipe tobacco in moons. He might have been a friend at ease with his host, legs crossed, tapping ashes on to the rich carpet. “I don’t know where Paither is, I don’t know what his plans are. I couldn’t tell you if I would. Not that I would indeed.”

  Tribune Haol patted his plump fingertips together. His pale round hands were cat’s paws, claws retracted. “We believed for some time that he was in Lindahne. I had a most peculiar dispatch from the Shadow’s watchtower on the river, and I thought perhaps... however, I recently received an even stranger message from Ullini-town. It’s a tiny place, north of us. The message was brought by a child, if you please, in the name of the relas of Lindahne.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Perhaps your charming wife might know something of it.”

  “She’s been under lock and key, too, Tribune. I’m sure you know more than either of us.”

  “A pity. Knowledge is always valuable.” Nichos felt the first prickle of claws. “Sometimes one owes one’s life to it.”

  He said calmly, “Are we to be put on trial in the Hall of Merits?”

  “My dear man, in the Hall of Merits you would be condemned and summarily hanged. I have only to call a guard to bring you there, and your life is as good as over.”

  “No doubt you’re right, Tribune.”

  “Let us assume we would both like to avoid that.”

  “Would you?”

  “Nichos, please, please. We’ve been friends. Now, as for this message –” “Tribune, I am a Mendale. I’m not privy to the secrets of the Defiers.”

  Haol gave a gruff, calculated laugh. “Loyalty! So touching. From a man who raised and sheltered this lin royal right under our noses. Perhaps that was not a Defier secret, eh? A loyal Mendale!”

  “I’ve never considered myself to be anything else.”

  “Oh? Surely you see some difference between us?”

  The question hurt him. Only once, in the first year of their marriage, had he ever broken a promise to Pillyn. He had decided to remain in Assembly life, and keep his prestigious position as herald. Lindahne was shattered; food supplies were scarce; both countries seemed in need of a capable man’s service. So he had argued. Pillyn had seen no difference between this and joining the brutality of the Oversettle.

  “The difference, Tribune, is that I understand the Lindahnes.”

  The claws dug deeper and pierced skin. “And I understand that this supposed son of yours has incited the lins to rebellion. I understand that some sort of foolish insurrection and wild tale-telling is going on not a week’s journey from here. I understand that these lins of yours – your wife, your assistant, all of them! – have been a party to it. So now you be sure to understand something: I expect answers from you.”

  “Tribune –”

  “He’s yours, isn’t he?”

  Nichos removed his pipe from his mouth. He was bewildered. Haol said impatiently, “You don’t think I believe this absurd resurrected royalty story, do you? Governor Nesmin took good care during the War that none of that line was left living. Paither is your son, truly your son. And you’ve decided to give your son a kingdom.”

  Nichos clamped his teeth
together, relit his pipe, and sucked on the stem. He felt light-headed. “Haol, I congratulate you. That interpretation never occurred to me. I repeat again, I’m a Mendale. I wouldn’t do such a thing to my country. Or to theirs.”

  “Then will you kindly explain to me how this boy came into your household?”

  As it could do no harm now, Nichos complied. He willingly told him most of the story, leaving out, however, the existence of Paither’s sister. Haol’s disbelief, coupled with his ignorance of Lindahne history, brought them to halt after halt. The sun had drifted far westward before he neared the end.

  As he spoke he wondered if his family’s fate was already sealed. Once convinced they were of no more use, Haol would certainly want to be rid of them, and would send them on to trial. He must be made to think that there was a value in keeping them alive. So Nichos hinted delicately at things left unsaid, unconfessed. He smiled knowingly when Haol again mentioned the message from Ullini-town (whatever that was all about) but repeated, with a teasing lack of conviction, that he knew nothing. Haol watched him with cold feline eyes. Suddenly he said, “Perhaps you’d be interested to hear how we’re dealing with the rebels. Governor Nesmin has been quite forceful.” In cool hard words he told Nichos of the destruction of the temple on the Fourth. He said nothing of the Lindahne counter attack and victory.

  Nichos put away the pipe, as if it had lost its flavor and comfort. He said sadly, “You really don’t know the Lindahnes, Tribune. Not one man or woman in this government ever took the trouble to know them.” He raised his dark face to Haol’s round fair one. “And now another generation will spend its blood for it.”

  The Tribune looked at him steadily for long silent minutes. Then he called the guard to take him back to his cell.

  In a wind-battered tent in the valley, Ennilyn stood very still, suppressing a fierce urge to scream aloud. On her right in the little enclosure Paither, along with Samalas and three senior officers, was bent once more over maps; Nhy loomed like a dark shadow on her left. She had been in four battles in six days. After the third, when Paither had seen her abilities, she had given in and accepted leadership of her own Squad. A woman called Scayna had crossed the borders, hoping not to be forced to kill Lindahnes. A woman named Ennilyn had taken the field against those she had once called her companions. They would be driving westward soon, and her own former Mendale Band might stand in their way. She had a nightmare vision of coming face to face with her old friend Pirri on the field. Surely the goddess would spare her that?

  And in the meantime she was hemmed in and weighed down by the wrong task. Well, she had promised Paither. They had a war to win, and these councils were necessary. But did the Feimenna have to be forever at her side? “Can’t we lift the flap?” she blurted, interrupting a point Samalas was making. “It’s very close in here.”

  “Close,” Paither repeated in disbelief. They were all shivering. He motioned to the servant. The tent flap was lifted and a draft of ice rushed in. The officers shot her angry looks.

  They were in control of the Fourth and Fifth Hills, and the eastward end of the valley. Paither-relas wanted to drive straight for the First, skirting the Second and Third Hills. From there they would be able to liberate Marlos-An, the ancient palace currently defiled by the boots of Governor Nesmin. They would also take command of the open passage, blocking quick reinforcements from Mendale; their enemies would be forced to scramble over the foothills.

  “We’ll be spread thin,” Samalas said, objecting as usual. “With the Second and Third left in Mendale hands we’ll be vulnerable all across the valley. I still think we should take it Hill by Hill, starting with the Third.”

  “That would give the Mendales too much time to consolidate,” argued Rayla, a tall woman with drooping eyes. She had taken an arrow two days before, and was only alive because Ennilyn knew the herbal antidote to the poison the Mendales used on their arrow tips. The remedy recipe had spread through the army; the Lindahnes had never known it before. Rayla had been thankful but uneasy. They all knew where Ennilyn had gotten her knowledge.

  “But if Squad leader Mejalna is doing her part –” Ennilyn’s lungs ached from the cold but she welcomed the free air. Nhy leaned over and said in her ear, “Pardon, mistress. The Mother’s cult is on this Hill they speak of, the First?”

  “Yes,” Ennilyn said, too loudly, and glanced at him with renewed respect. He’d come right to the crux of it. The officers turned to her. She cleared her throat. “Our first goal should be Nialia’s temple. Every day it stays in Mendale control it’s in danger. Nesmin might make it his next target. We have to save the temple.”

  “And we have to save the palace,” Paither said with finality. “They’re both our heritage. And they’re both on the First.”

  He was gratified that his sister was concentrating once again. As they talked on she had several good suggestions. With the exception of Samalas, who was painfully correct, the officers were at once too familiar and too aloof with her. If she’d only take a title, he thought. She’s too detached. Listening for the Mother, she said. I can’t argue against that. At least she fights well, and she’s skilled with her bow.

  “It’s taking a risk, relas,” Fanis said. He was older, one of the veterans of the War whom Paither had gladly taken into the ranks of officers, though it made Samalas unhappy to have his former Defiers answering to them. Like Hri, another battle-hardened veteran standing beside him, Fanis was uneasy over the state of their army.

  The truth, as they all knew, was that the Mendales had a well-supplied army of trained soldiers. Their Defier army had only squads of young rebels, backed by good advice from their elders and the rear-guard support of civilians who just now, when war had returned, taken to arms. Many of these had to scramble for weapons, since swords and daggers had been confiscated during the first days of the Oversettle, long ago. Many weapons had been hidden, stored away in hope and hate, buried in fields or under kilns or barns, while new ones had been forged in secret over the years. Still, there was a shortage of swords, shields, bows, arrows – and fighters who knew how to handle them.

  Paither consoled himself with the thought that each day they were fighting better, more professionally, though so many still had farm-dirt clinging to them. He’d heard of one recent recruit who had fed the pigs one day and stood to battle in the same field the next. Too often, in the chaos of fighting, there was a breakdown in discipline; once it had cost unnecessary deaths as the civilian fighters found themselves too frightened to face the enemy properly. But the Mendales were slow to take advantage of these lapses, still refusing to see the full picture of uprising before them. They persisted in the belief that one more “hard lesson” would teach the lin criminals to behave better. After all, weren’t they the conquerors, the rulers here? Oh yes, Paither thought, I know how you think. I know each one of you. I’ve been under the whip of your arrogance all my life. Your carelessness will cost you.

  He knew that the oppressed take refuge in silence, living an inward life, while the victors, easy in their power, take no trouble to hide anything. The master controls the servant, but does not know him. It is the servant who knows the master.

  Another burst of cold air whistled over them from the open flap. Fanis glared too plainly at Ennilyn. Paither’s look rebuked him and he flushed. Paither said, “Nhy, give me your best guess. If Mejalna is moving your country people along here – that would be from the landing points to MenDas – how long do you think that would take?”

  The Feimenna leaned forward willingly. The officers, entrusted with the secret of his origin, listened fascinated. Paither saw with tired anger that they were more accepting of this true stranger than they were of his own sister. They were wary of Nhy but also impressed. Ennilyn they suspected in some way.

  And she’s done nothing to deserve it, she’s... Her eyes had wandered away again. He said, “It’s too cold in here. Close up that flap.”

  Over the next three days the Lindahnes and Mendales cla
shed again and again, gaining a little land, falling back and losing it once more, regaining the same earth over and over. Beneath an ankle-deep layer of snow, the dead bengrass of the valley became brown with seeping blood and was trampled beneath hooves and plodding boots. From his moving headquarters Paither often saw columns of smoke: the chosen method of giving rites to the dead. An opportunity to drive towards Marlos-An was still eluding him, and there was something else he was waiting for.

  “Play your losses,” Paither said suddenly that evening. Samalas and Ennilyn were supping with him. “Play your losses,” he repeated, and smiled at them.

  Samalas looked puzzled but Ennilyn, looking at him, said quietly, “I’m surprised you know that.”

  Paither reminded her, “I was raised in Mendale.”.

  “I was raised as a Mendale,” Ennilyn said. Her voice was cold.

  “And?” Samalas asked.

  “Play your losses means put your losing cards out first, as can be done in the richetiy game.”

  “The – ?”

  “It’s a Mendale card game. My father – I mean, Nichos, and Baili used to play it in the evenings. Do you play it?”

  “No,” Ennilyn said shortly. She broke off a piece of bread and swabbed it around her plate. Quienos – a man she would never mistakenly call “father” again – had played it, got drunk over it, and lost bets on it.

  “And playing your losses – ?”

  “It’s a strategy for making your opponent think you’re weaker than you are. It may draw him out, into a move that’s too aggressive.”

  Samalas looked thoughtful. “Well, if you listen to Fanis and Hri, we are weak. You’re saying make ourselves look even weaker?”

  “Yes. Let’s say –” Paither paused. He had stopped eating all together. The stew was congealing in his bowl. “Let’s say you and I take our Squads in too fast, rushing forward, like we’re overeager. Then we seem to fall back in confusion, maybe even sound a retreat. When the Mendales try to take advantage, Ennilyn and some of the other Squads can come in from the sides – break up their lines and isolate their Bands –”