by Tim Jones
Within the week, Dinazhe was installed in a house neighboring Tesek's. He spent most of his time on his own research, the precise nature of which Tesek did not care to learn, but he was always available when threats of a magical kind, real or imagined, troubled Tesek. With Dinazhe's aid, Tesek's position within the town became impregnable. He began making plans for the palace at the top of the hill and the statue in the town square.
As his influence grew, so did the reserves of fawning adulation and no-questions-asked obedience that he could use to fill the aching gap in his soul. He increased his control over the lives of the citizens by greatly expanding the Guards. He extended his sway over the villages to the north of the town, and thereby began to come to the attention of House Ishkarat. He grew fatter, and he grew foolish—for only a fool feels invincible.
Not everyone did his bidding. Dinazhe was his own master. When, one day, Dinazhe announced that he would soon look thirty years younger, and wished the story to be put about that Dinazhe had died and left his son, Niatos, to provide magical advice in his stead, Tesek did not demur.
In addition to his regular nightly entertainments, who were paid to please and be pleased, Tesek had for some time been conducting a dalliance with a swordswoman whose leather skirt and pleated bodice concealed, in his practiced opinion, a body that approached perfection. He knew he was not her only lover, but for her sake, he did not have his rivals killed—although several found that their luck was always bad in Borzim. When the woman announced that she planned to marry and become a respectable citizen, Tesek gave her his blessing and a gift: two blue stones, which he had long ago ceased to need. Once or twice a year, for old times' sakes, she left the marital bed—her husband, a dull but worthy man, snoring peacefully—and went up to the palace for a night of rekindled pleasures. Tesek liked those nights best of all.
So matters had continued, Tesek and Dinazhe alike prospering in their endeavors, until the t'skrang spy ring—with a dwarf at its head—had been unmasked, the t'skrang army had arrived at his gates, and now, worst and most unexpected of all, Dinazhe had vanished, without word or explanation. Something had happened to the Wizard, something terrible, connected to those accursed envoys of the t'skrang.
Now Tesek shuffled with slow steps through the corridors of his palace, his guards before and behind him. He turned into the office of the frequently interrupted clerk, who resignedly, without being told, packed up his papers and moved into the corridor to work while Tesek's entourage took over his office. Tesek's private air force—his two windling guards—rose up from the balcony to search the air and the ground for threats. Devlit, Tesek's personal magician in Dinazhe's absence, looked worried and wrinkled his brow impressively. Apparently, he was searching for magical threats. Tesek thought that the young fool would not know a magical threat if he tripped over it, but, with Dinazhe gone, he was the best on offer.
Pronouncing himself satisfied, the commander of Tesek's guards allowed his master to go out onto the balcony. A chill wind from the North swept across the city, scudding clouds before it. Tesek could see almost all the town from here, and hear, borne on the wind, the cries of commerce, anger, and pleasure that rose up from its citizens. Borzim was starting to strain up against its walls. If Tesek came through this battle of wills with the t'skrang, he would have to tear down the northern wall and rebuild it further out into the plain. He thought about building a new and grander North Gate beyond the wall, with twice as many gibbets, and was comforted.
The t'skrang. His gaze found the silver ribbon of the Opthia, and beside it, the muddy discoloration that was the t'skrang encampment. If they thought he was about to cede the city to them, they were in for a rude awakening. He would ...
A shadow distracted him. He looked up, alarmed, but it was only one of the windlings, setting out on another swoop over the houses of his neighbors.
He would what? The depressing truth was that he had no idea what to do next. There was still food, wood, and water (stored in great cisterns; he had long feared the river being poisoned) for, in truth, perhaps two months. The citizens were anxious, but not so anxious as to rebel. He clung to the hope that the t'skrang would not be able to stomach two more months dawdling in the fields. If the Ishkarat could keep their army together that long, then they were a formidable foe indeed.
Unwillingly, his gaze traveled northwards. He could see Murt, and beyond it, the gray line of a squall of rain, marching south across the plains. On the clearest of days, he could see the glint of water in Lake Vors from here, and the silver thread of the Serpent. There, beyond his reach for the present, the chiefest of his enemies, the shivalahala of the Ishkarat, plotted. He looked forward to the day he got his hands around her scrawny neck.
Another shadow moved overhead. By the time he realized that it was neither windling nor cloud, it was too late. He saw two broken windling bodies fall uselessly to the ground below, and was confronted by two massive figures, clad in crystal armor, descending with eye-watering speed on ropes. Before he could act—before he could defend himself—he was seized by hard hands and borne upwards to the already-departing drakkar. His bowmen rushed to the balcony and started firing, until Tesek screamed at them to stop: he was in far more danger from the arrows than were the crystal raiders. As the two trolls drew him upwards, he saw Devlit appear on the balcony, hands forming patterns in the air. Before the spell could take effect, Devlit jumped backwards with a curse and a scream; a crystal raider spear had pierced his leg. Then Tesek could see nothing but troll, as he was seized ever tighter by his captors, dragged over the railing of the ship, and thrown on the floor.
He was bruised, dazed, and bleeding, and in no state to defend himself, but his captors did not finish him off. The two trolls who had seized him returned to their oars. The drummer started up his beat, and the ship began to sail north into the wind.
It was not the first time Tesek had been confronted by crystal raiders. Not long after Dinazhe had gone on Tesek's payroll, two Firescale drakkars from the Scol Mountains had paid a visit to Borzim. While the people ran and screamed, and Tesek took cover in a cellar with his guards about him, Dinazhe had gone forward, quite calmly, to meet the raiders. The few close enough to bear witness said there had been words of power, a glowing mist, and the sight of raiders scrambling back into their airships and disappearing rapidly to the northwest. Dinazhe refused, afterwards, to say what he had said or done. "I convinced them to leave," was all he said—a reticence that only enhanced his reputation. Tesek lived in fear of the raiders coming back, but they had not.
Not until now, when there was no Dinazhe close at hand to save him.
Tesek wished he had paid more attention to what Dinazhe had told him of the crystal raiders, their clans, their divisions, their tactics. This drakkar was nowhere near as imposing as the two Firescale ships. It had but a single sail, currently furled, and only eight oars per side. His spirits began to rise a little. Surely these trolls could be reasoned with, bargained with ...
A female troll was giving the orders. He approached her, opened his mouth, said "I can pay—"
He got no further. A hand harder than his father's swung round and hit him in the face. He fell to the floor of the drakkar and banged his head. Blood spurted from his cut lip. He sat up, shook his head, and spat a tooth from his mouth.
Surrounded by trolls, he had never felt more alone. He stared up at the mast, then, wincing, stood up and walked to the prow. No-one tried to stop him. He looked down through half a league of air at his town, his city, the place he had built up from a few rude huts at the bend of the river. They were almost over the northern wall, to the left of the North Gate. Now he could see the t'skrang encampment. Were they taking him there? He shuddered. He would rather take his chances with trolls than fall into the clutches of the t'skrang.
As they passed over the encampment, two strong arms seized him. He opened his mouth to protest, but the protest turned into a long, despairing wail as the troll picked him up and threw him
headfirst over the railing. The ground approached with shocking speed. He cried out one last time for his mother, and then there was only silence.
Chapter 19
"To be a leader," Vulumensthetika instructed Kendik, "is to be one whom the people will follow. You are such a one. Akil was a keen judge of dwarfs, and of humans; why else do you think we paid her good t'skrang coin to lead our spy network in Borzim?"
"Her eye must have dimmed by the time she met me," said Kendik. "I am no duke."
"She wanted someone to make a fool of himself on Tesek's behalf in front of the villagers of Pust, and she saw in you a young man who could play the part. Tesek's crop of young dukes and duchesses are proverbial for their foolishness. But now—". She paused in her pacing to look at him. "Now you have grown into the part, I think."
"But I have no noble blood," said Kendik.
"Do you think that Tesek's apparatus of dukes and dames and earls has a drop of what you call noble blood? That system was set up by Tesek as a cheap way to reward service and curry favor. It seems too subtle for Tesek; perhaps Dinazhe suggested it. In any case, it allowed him to buy loyalty without having to pay in coin. There is, in truth, no such thing as noble blood, except—perhaps— among the dwarfs."
"There is only one king under the mountain," said T'shifa, "and he is not a dwarf."
Vulumensthetika flicked her tail and kept on walking.
This mobile leadership seminar had being going for almost half an hour. Vulumensthetika patiently explained to Kendik that yes, she had meant that he was to be the new ruler of Borzim, and no, it wasn't a mistake, and yes, the t'skrang forces would withdraw once the terms of an agreement between themselves and Borzim had been hammered out. When she saw that the look of mingled fear and outrage remain on his face, she suggested that they walk. T'shifa, unbidden but unwilling to miss the chance to put her oar in, had joined them; and so they had walked about the muddied paths of the camp, and even strayed out of the main encampment, though always staying within the outer perimeter of guards.
As they went on, Kendik, although still profoundly disturbed by the turn of events, had calmed down enough to begin to pay attention to what Vulumensthetika was trying to tell him; and a small part of him was thinking that much could be done with Borzim, if one only had the means.
"The ability to lead can only be exercised if one has power," said T'shifa sententiously.
"This is scarcely a new discovery," said Vulumensthetika, flattening her ears a little. "And, should Dinazhe keep his side of the bargain, Kendik will have power soon enough."
"I will have no real power," said Kendik. "I will be beholden to a powerful magician who may come and go as he pleases on the one hand, and a foreign power on the other. I will be a weakling and a laughing stock."
Vulumensthetika lifted her snout in a gesture that Kendik now recognized as one of amusement. "A foreign power! Spoken like a true ruler of Borzim. But you will commence your rule as neither a weakling nor a laughing stock. With the throne comes a measure of respect, for a time at least, and beyond that, how you fare will depend on how you act. And we are only a foreign power if you treat us as such. We first sailed up the Opthia when Horrors could still be seen on its banks, and we lost ships and crews in doing so. We have every right to claim this entire region for ourselves. But we have not done so. We need trade, and others to trade with; and, so long as you do not make Tesek's mistake and foul our waters, then Borzim may have our approval and, if it wishes, our protection."
Kendik drew his tunic closer about him, and wished he had put on a cloak. The day was growing colder, and as he looked to the north, he could see cloud approaching, a shapeless garment of gray trailing loose threads of rain beneath it. The muddy streets of Pust, Lunusk, and Murt would be turning to puddles. Would it really be his job to bring some hope to those desolate streets, and their desolate people?
Their perambulations had taken them somewhat north of the encampment. Seeing the rain approach, Vulumensthetika turned on her heel and began to walk back towards the warmth of her tent. They had not gone more than ten paces when cries of alarm and a scurry for weapons told them that something was wrong.
"They're pointing upwards," said T'shifa. "What is it?"
"There!" said Kendik. Though he had never seen one in his life, he had heard enough stories to know what it must be. A crystal raider airship was flying high over Borzim, heading in their direction.
"Run!" said Vulumensthetika, her tail flicking furiously. Neither she nor T'shifa waited around to see whether he was following suit. He ran, but not until he had taken a moment to savor one of his dreams turning to waking life.
The ship was making good progress into the wind. Kendik could see the oars, looking like matchsticks at this distance, sculling through the air. He wondered why Vulumensthetika had been so alarmed, then realized that the t'skrang and the trolls—or at least, the mountain trolls—were probably enemies who had fought many battles over the years. Was this some trade dispute gone badly wrong, or had Tesek called up unexpected allies?
Kendik could outrun t'skrang when he set his mind to it, and he caught Vulumensthetika and T'shifa before they made it back to the center of the encampment. Vulumensthetika was already shouting orders, getting everyone to leave the tents and spread out. "Unless other ships are on the way, I doubt they'll land," she told Kendik when she had got everyone moving, "so they must be planning to drop something on us. Find your people, but tell them to keep some distance around them. You may need room to run."
'His people' had sought each other out and were standing in a tight huddle, so Kendik told them to spread out. "She's worried they're going to attack us from the air," he explained. His boyhood dreams of the crystal raiders had been of them attacking Theran behemoths—islands of floating stone, kept aloft by powerful magic—against overwhelming odds; it had never occurred to him that they might fly unchallenged over lands and fields, raining destruction from above.
The airship was now nearly overhead, and it was slowing. Dark against dark clouds, it was surprisingly hard to see. He did not even realize they had thrown something overboard until it splattered at his feet. He leapt backwards from the filth and stench. He looked up to see if the bombardment was continuing, but the airship was already leaving, curving round towards the southwest.
No one moved for a moment. Then, bidding the others to stand back, a captain of the ork guard went to investigate. He bent down and poked at the mess.
"This was a Name-giver," he said. "Human. Wearing this." With the tip of his spear, the ork lifted a chain made of gold. It was an ugly thing, even without the splatters of blood and flesh that disfigured it. A diamond pendant hung at its base, intact, its brightness shining through blood.
"I recognize that," said Kendik. "Tesek wore it round his neck."
Qualia started forward and looked at the mess on the ground. "This is Tesek," she said, "or what's left of him."
A dry chuckle told Kendik that T'shifa was just behind him. "We better get that cleaned up," she said. "The new ruler of Borzim will be needing it." Taking the chain from the ork, she held it in one hand, and carried it towards the river.
Kendik spared one more look upwards. The airship was almost out of sight now. Despite the service the crystal raiders might be said to have done him, he now wished, most fervently, never to see the ship or its like again.
Then the rains came, sweeping in on the wind from the North. Kendik turned his back to the rain and the sky, and made for the warmth of Vulumensthetika's tent.
The unexpected visitor from on high was all the t'skrang could talk about. None of them thought a t'skrang could have set the whole thing up, because, as he was told many times and with varying degrees of force, no t'skrang would have dealings with crystal raiders.
"So who do you think arranged Tesek's little accident?" Kendik asked Vulumensthetika.
"I don't know. But can it be any coincidence that Tesek's Wizard leaves the town one day, and Tesek meets his dea
th the next? I think that Dinazhe has an unhealthy degree of influence over what transpires in Borzim."
"An influence he will soon exert over me," said Kendik.
"Leadership is the art of balancing competing influences," said Vulumensthetika. "And of making agreements, and keeping them. We will honor our agreement with you, so long as you do likewise."
"We haven't made an agreement yet."
"We shall make a binding agreement once you sit in the palace of Borzim, but we are prepared for it to be based on the proposal made by Dinazhe—though we reserve the right to argue what the finer points of such an agreement should be."
Kendik rubbed one hand through his hair and sighed. This talk of agreements and conditions and proposals wearied him. Was this what he would be faced with as a leader, this endless rattle of lifeless words?
"What do you want me to do?" he asked Vulumensthetika. "Rap my knuckles on the West Gate and demand admission?"
As he spoke, a t'skrang he did not know whispered in Vulu-mensthetika's ear.
"You will not need to," Vulumensthetika replied. "Come with me!"
She led him out of the tent and towards the small knoll over which Kendik and his companions had once escaped from the Falcons. With a thrill of dread, Kendik saw that a group from Borzim was approaching again, and that there were black-clad figures guarding its flanks; but there were other figures as well, portly and richly dressed, mounted on horses which they were plainly unused to riding; and at their front came a single rider with a white flag of truce.