It was a golden summer evening when we entered Polycittara. The city is quite old, and justly famed for being picturesque. Many centuries ago it was some fierce war lord’s solitary castle, built of heavy stone atop a great mountain to stand against now-forgotten enemies. The castle was built larger and larger and then, with peaceful times, became a town and then a city, and sprawled down to the river and plain.
We’d stopped for a few minutes behind the last hilltop to brush off the worst of the travel dust to make a proper entrance.
We needn’t have bothered. The gates swung open as we approached — Domina Bikaner had sent riders ahead. But, ominously, there was no cheering crowd. In fact, there was no crowd whatsoever. There was a small army band, tootling away as hard as they could. They were Numantian, as were the guards and a handful of civil servants, and they shouted greetings that echoed against the stone walls.
Nevertheless, we made our grand entrance — and then the splendor came to a rather embarrassing end as a regiment of cavalry, seven hundred horsemen, the two hundred men of the Red Lancers, plus some fifty carriages and wagons, my staff plus our household servants, tried to fit down one street.
I heard Karjan’s voice from atop the coach, where he rode: “Goin’ out of a city’s like birdshit comin’ out of a bird. Now we’re attemptin’ to put th’ shit back in.”
Marán and I laughed, and then everything ground to a complete halt. Officers bellowed orders, warrants screamed threats, and enlisted men muttered in their beards. I pulled on my plumed helm as I opened the coach door. The postilion whose keenness had saved us earlier dismounted, no doubt eager to further improve his reward, and hurried toward me.
I heard a scream of “Death to the emperor!” from above, and a huge chunk of rock, nearly the size of my chest, pinwheeled down from the roof of a house. I didn’t have time to duck, but the boulder missed by inches — and crushed the postilion. The boy’s head and chest were smashed, and he returned to the Wheel without ever knowing what happened.
“Get him!” I shouted, pointing up. Four Red Lancers jumped from their saddles and clattered up the house’s steps, but Karjan had already leapt down and was at the door. He put his back against the railing and smashed a boot heel against the door, and it fell open. Saber snaking out of its sheath, he ran inside, the others behind him.
Captain Lasta was beside me. “I saw him, sir, after you shouted. He ran across the roof and jumped to the next building. Almost fell but recovered, damn his eyes. Young, black hair cut short. He was wearing light blue pants, tight, kind of dirty, and a white shirt. I’ll know him when next we meet.”
I nodded, knelt over the postilion’s body, and whispered a silent prayer for Saionji to grant him the reward in his next life I had been unable to grant in this.
There was a scuffle and Karjan and the Red Lancers came out of the house, pushing an old man and two middle-aged women.
“This was all we found,” Karjan said. “We missed th’ shitheel. Stairs t’ th’ roof were blocked an’ th’ door was nailed shut. Took us forever t’ break through.”
“We’ll take them, soldier,” someone shouted. Ten men, oddly wearing the uniform of Nician wardens, ran up. Then I remembered the warders of Polycittara had refused their duties, and so the imperial government had to import patrols from the capital.
The wardens wore helmets and breastplates and carried pikes, daggers, and heavy truncheons, more like riot soldiers than upholders of the law. The man who’d shouted wore the emblem of a sergeant and waved a sword about.
“Glad to be rid of ‘em,” one of the Red Lancers said.
“We saw what happened, sir,” the sergeant said to me. “We’ll enforce th’ law without wastin’ any of your time. Over against that wall’s a good a place as any.”
Three wardens muscled the trio against the bricks. The others took bottles of a colorless fluid from belt pouches and went into the house.
The old man moaned and one of the women screamed for mercy.
“You’ll go first, bitch,” the sergeant said. “By th’ authority vested in me,” he muttered perfunctorily, and drew back his sword.
“Sergeant!” My barracks-square bellow froze him. “What in Isa’s bloody name are you doing?”
“Like I said, sir. Enforcin’ th’ law. Th’ prince regent’s orders’re quite clear. Anyone attackin’ a Numantian or a representative of the imperial government’s guilty of crimes against th’ state, and there’s only one penalty.”
“Sorry, Sergeant,” I said. “But those three had nothing to do with what happened. The man that tried to kill me came and went over the rooftops.”
“Doesn’t matter, sir. My orders are clear. Aidin’ or abettin’ an attack’s equally guilty, and their lives and property are forfeit. Soon as we execute these bastards we burn the house. I’ve already sent a man for the fire brigade, make sure the blaze don’t spread, although it’d matter none to me if the whole gods-damned city burnt. Those are orders direct from the prince regent.”
I hesitated. Orders were orders, and it was certainly not the brightest way to begin a new posting by breaking one of your leader’s commands. But something begun wrong seldom rights itself. And what kind of peace was Reufern trying to keep? That of the grave? Marán was waiting to see what I’d do.
“Sergeant, I understand your orders. But I’m Tribune Damastes á Cimabue, Kallio’s new military governor, and your superior-to-be. I’m countermanding that order to you right now, and I’ll rescind it for the entire province before the morrow. You may release those three and return to your duties. Their home will go unburnt.”
He hesitated, then his jaw firmed. “Sorry, Tribune. But, like you said, orders’re orders. Stand aside, sir.”
Again he readied his sword, and the woman, whose face had begun to show hope, whimpered.
“Curti!”
“Sir!”
“If that warden moves one muscle, shoot him dead!” “Sir!”
“Captain Lasta, send a squad in after those policemen and bring them out. By force, if necessary.”
“Yes, sir!”
The warden looked at Curti. The archer’s bow was drawn to his ear, the four-cross warhead aimed steady at the policeman’s throat. There was a small grin on Curti’s face. They both wear uniforms and enforce the state’s wishes, but there’s no love wasted between policemen and the army. Perhaps being on different sides in too many drunken brawls is the reason, or perhaps most soldiers feel the police are little but poseurs at danger, and actually pass their days in cozy taprooms, inveigling the proprietors into letting them drink on the cuff.
The sergeant’s fingers opened, his sword clattered to the street, and he flushed scarlet. I walked forward, picked the blade up, and slipped it into the man’s sheath.
“Now, as I said, go about your duties.”
He began to salute, caught himself, spun on his heel, and pushed his way through the watching soldiery. His men trailed behind him, pointedly not looking at anyone.
I heard a bit of laughter, broken off as men realized there was still a body sprawled in the street, a boy not many weeks off a farm who’d been pointlessly murdered by a cowardly dog.
“We’ll bury him with the honors due a Red Lancer,” Captain Lasta said. He unstrapped his cloak from behind his saddle and spread it over the corpse.
I got back in the coach and closed the door.
“This is not good,” Marán said.
“No,” I agreed. “Now, let’s continue on to the castle and find out how much worse things can get.”
• • •
“Did the sergeant of police inform you that those were my direct, personal orders?” The prince regent’s voice quivered a bit, but he was trying to remain calm. There was no one but the two of us in the small private audience chamber off the main throne room.
“He did, my lord.”
“But you still countermanded them.”
“I did, sir. May I explain?”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, I’m to be your military governor. As such, I’ll be responsible for enforcing the law. I know the emperor wants Kallio to return to normal as quickly as possible.”
“As do we all,” Reufern Tenedos said.
“If the law in Kallio is entirely different than that of the rest of Numantia, except on certain very special occasions, how can normal times ever come? We might as well be an occupying army.”
“There are those who say we are that now,” the regent said. He heaved a sigh, then forced a chuckle. It rang falsely. “I suppose I should find it amusing.”
“What, my lord?”
“Well, here you are, Damastes the cavalryman. Damastes the Fair, I’ve heard you called. Hero of a thousand battles, the emperor’s finest soldier.”
“I doubt that, sir. I can name a thousand better, and point out a thousand more whose names I’ve never learned but whose feats I’m familiar with. But what makes you find that funny?”
“Today there were two attempts on your life, both nearly succeeding, and you manage to maintain a peaceful air. Perhaps it should be Damastes the Kind, and you should serve a gentler god than the war god Isa, as a priest.” There was no humor in his voice, but rather bitterness.
I said nothing, but remained at attention. He looked out a window into the huge courtyard where the Seventeenth Lancers and my Red Lancers were drawn up, awaiting his review. Then he looked back at me.
“Damastes, for so I wish to call you since I hope our service will be combined with the warmest of friendships, perhaps you’re right. I’m assuming, though, that what happened was unique and you don’t plan on questioning all my commands.”
“I don’t plan on questioning any of your commands, sir, not ever,” I said firmly. “You rule at the wishes of the Emperor Tenedos, and I have sworn a blood oath to him. My family’s pride and honor is that we have never broken our word or vow.”
“Very good.” Once more, he sighed, something I learned was characteristic whenever a situation grew too complex, which happened frequently. “Let us forget about it.
“Now, I’m most eager to renew my acquaintanceship with your lovely wife, the countess. Shall we return to the main room, then descend into the courtyard so I may welcome your rather impressive soldiery?”
I bowed, and we left the chamber.
“How was my brother when you last saw him?” the prince inquired.
“Healthy. Well. Working too hard.” I didn’t tell him how concerned Tenedos was about his brother’s inability to quiet Kallio.
“He’s always been like that. And my sisters?”
I sought for exactly the right words, for they were also quite busy. Dalny and Leh, ten and twelve years younger than the emperor, seemed determined to ensure that the city of Nicias spent more time talking about them than about any other member of the family, including the emperor. They’d achieved this in a series of outrageous liaisons, from handsome young army officers to distinguished noblemen to diplomats both Nician and from the outer provinces. A goodly number of their lovers were married. It was hoped by half of the noblewomen of Nicias, Marán told me, that the sisters would soon marry, and cease poaching, although no one could wish on her worst enemy a bride like either of them would likely be.
“I don’t have many dealings with them,” I said truthfully. “But my wife tells me they’ve been quite successful helping others reach the ends they desire.”
Reufern gave me a sharp look, and I realized I’d come a little close with my jape. He was, after all, a Tenedos, and couldn’t be entirely dull-witted.
• • •
The castle atop Polycittara was enormous. But even the huge staff Prince Reufern had brought with him from Nicias hadn’t been able to fill it. The Kallian administrators had vanished or, if tracked down, refused to return to their duties.
I thought, considering the way we non-Kallians were hated, the prince would have had trouble finding servitors, but the buildings swarmed with smiling hirelings eager to do the bidding of the humblest Nician. I shrugged, guessed there was little other work to be found, and forgot about the matter.
The prince told me to find quarters where I would, and it took Domina Bikaner, Marán, and myself most of the day to find an appropriate spot. It was a separate division of the castle that jutted out from the main complex on a rocky outcropping. It was a six-story polygonal keep, connected to the main buildings by a thick-walled spur. This spur had barracks built into its walls, which made it perfect for my Red Lancers and the Seventeenth Lancers. There was even a separate gate between the main castle and “my” section, which I had manned by sentries. I separated us in this way because I wished all Kallio to remember that they were governed by the prince and the Emperor Tenedos, and my soldiers and myself were only here temporarily, as outsiders, ensuring the laws of Numantia were obeyed.
Marán’s and my chambers were gorgeous, with huge many-paned windows that looked over the city, the river winding toward the horizon, and the distant plateau that led toward Kallio’s eastern border. The stone walls were warmed with thick tapestries and each room had its own fireplace and an attendant to keep the fire blazing on a dank day.
And, if nothing else, this keep was infinitely defensible. I had no wish to test my life on whether the old superstition about third attempts being successful was true.
• • •
Beyond the servants and the Nicians, there was a scattering of Kallian gentry in the castle, some of the oldest and most respectable names in the province.
Their noblest member was Landgrave Molise Amboina, every inch a grandee. He was tall, slender, and his silver mane matched his exactly curled beard. His mind and wit were keen, and he had the rare gift of paying exact attention to whoever was speaking. Marán wondered whether he was actually listening, or busy composing his next line of brilliant dialogue. He’d been widowed recently, for the second time, with a son and young daughter who spent most of their time at the Amboinas’ country estate of Lanvirn.
Disbelieving in perfection, I determined to watch him closely, especially after I found that Prince Reufern trusted him completely and confided in him far more than I thought wise, although he appeared an absolutely loyal subject of the emperor’s.
• • •
Our biggest problem was that Kallio was lawless. I don’t mean that it was anarchic. It was worse. Prince Reufern ruled by caprice. One day a man accused of a crime might be sentenced to death, on the next another accused of the same offense would be let off with a reprimand, or a third would have all his property confiscated and himself sold into slavery.
I asked the prince how he determined the guilt or innocence of someone hailed before him, and he announced that he had a way of sensing honesty, of knowing whether he was dealing with a villain or an honest man. “An innocent man has a way about him that’s easy to see, Damastes. I can sense truth in a man. Just watch what I do, and perhaps you can learn it as well.” There was no proper reply to be made to that, so I withdrew.
I came to the conclusion that if law, an evenhanded merciful law, ruled Kallio, peace might return. And there was something I could do to bring this about. I proposed to use the army. The idea of soldiers being anything other than the bloody-handed enforcer of a tyrant’s will sparks disbelieving laughter, with some justification.
Armies are hardly to be considered peace-bringers. Isa, god of war, is correctly a manifestation of Saionji the Destroyer. But armies, and soldiers, are very strange beasts. They can be impossibly ruthless, leaving a countryside in smoking ruin and the only landmarks the piled skulls of its people, but they can also be absolute purveyors of justice.
Many of us become soldiers because we wish to live in a world where there is right and there is wrong, with not much between them, and the military obligingly gives us a set of absolutes to live by. Soldiers are mostly young, and there’s no greater thirster for absolute right than the young. Only with age does subtlety and the wisdom of respecting other ways of thinking and behaving come.
Give a soldier laws, tell him to enforce them equally, watch him closely so he doesn’t become corrupted by his authority … well, that may not be a perfect system, but it’ll be as good as most, and far better than some I’ve experienced. It certainly couldn’t be worse than what passed for law in Kallio.
I already had the legal grounds to do almost anything I wanted, under the martial law that had been proclaimed.
On the frontiers of Numantia we already used roving tribunals, soldiers who went from village to village hearing complaints and settling them on the spot, or, in the event of serious crimes, taking the accused, accusers, and witnesses to a proper court, where wizards could determine the truth. The members of these tribunals were above the local corruptions and attempted to give the best judgments possible. I’d gotten some of my first — and best — training as a leader riding out on these justice patrols.
I had somewhat more than seven hundred men, six troops, and a headquarters element in the Seventeenth. Each troop was divided into four numbered columns. Bikaner, his troop commanders, and I considered each section leader of the Seventeenth. We ended with fifteen legates or warrants we felt could be trusted to provide drumhead justice — more than I’d expected. These fifteen leaders were given a two-day intensive training session in the law by my staff.
When all was in readiness, I offered my plan, of course as a suggestion, to Prince Reufern. He thought it capital, and hoped it actually might slow those damned rebels down a bit if they saw a Numantian soldier wherever they turned. He also hoped any traitor would be swiftly dealt with by my soldiery. I said that while my teams would be primarily concerned with enforcing the law, they would have no authority to punish capital offenses, such as rape, murder — and treason. Anyone accused of these sins would be brought back to Polycittara, to face high justice from either the prince or myself. He muttered that “it didn’t take more than a ranker’s judgment to know when a damned Kallian needed hanging,” but looked away as he said it and didn’t countermand my instructions. I almost sighed aloud in relief — having an eighteen-year-old soldier arbitrarily saber someone accused of cursing the emperor would hardly bring peace.
The next morning, at dawn, the heralds rode out. In each village and hamlet they shouted the people together and announced there would be a magistrate’s forum within a week. All those with crimes to report, complaints of injustice done, disputes to be settled, were advised to be present. Broadsides were tacked to trees or glued to walls, and the heralds rode on to the next settlement.
But the Kallians also had their plans.
• • •
The first Ureyan Lancer to die was a new recruit who, we guessed later, had seen a young woman wink. A word, a quick promise, and he slipped away. We found him in an alley, stripped naked and mutilated. The Lancers growled threats, but they’d seen worse in the Hills, so I had no fear of murder gangs.
Three days after that, a patrol was nearly ambushed. It was the fault of the legate in charge — he’d fallen into the comfortable sloppiness of taking the same route back as he went out on. Fortunately his lance-major felt something untoward and was able to rein in just short of the killing zone. The Kallians were taking our measure.
Some action had to be taken. I could have done as my predecessors and ordered some hapless district to be cordoned off and any male whose looks I disliked cast into prison. But we were trying to end this nonsense, not prolong it.
The violence might have been anarchic, but there had to be areas, people, the disorders were centered around, just as a wildfire has hot spots that must be first stamped out. But I didn’t know who or where they were. The intelligence provided by Prince Reufern’s wardens and agents was useless.
As for sorcery, which most people think can know all and tell more, that, too, was nearly worthless. Prince Reufern had been given one of Nicias’s more gifted seers, a cheery, bustling middle-aged man named Edwy. I asked what results he’d had from his magic, and he admitted to nearly none. Astonished, I asked why, and he awkwardly explained that his spells hadn’t been “taking” here. Perhaps he hadn’t as yet determined the proper methods or ingredients, although he said he saw no reason magic that worked well in Nicias wouldn’t do the same in Kallio.
I set my own seer, an ambitious woman from Varan named Devra Sinait to work, although I wasn’t sure what to expect of her, since she’d only been with me for a short time.
My previous magician had been fairly competent, and I’d grown use to his grumbling ways over the past five years. But old Maringnam had miscalled what would face me in Khoh, saying a mere witch couldn’t be that much of a problem. It had been fortunate — for him — that he’d died in the wild flight before that “witch’s” half-men.
It’d been Marán who suggested I might consider a woman for his replacement, saying, dryly, that a woman might fool a man, but not another woman, at least not often.
Sinait had been the fourth to interview, and I saw no reason to talk to another magicker. Sinait had been a buyer for one of Nicias’s most successful milliners, somehow able not only to purchase no more than the quantities needed for a year, but also to anticipate what the rich and vagaried of the capital would find stylish. She’d never considered sorcery, until Tenedos’s reign brought a fresh wind to the field, and someone suggested that anyone who could predict what foolish nobility would like should be able to predict anything — or make something desired come to occur.
She was, as I’ve remarked, ambitious, which was good for someone serving any high member of court. She was also very qualified, although she’d only discovered the talent in her thirties, and was still very much hot and cold in her capabilities. Sometimes she could cast a spell I thought the emperor himself would marvel at; other times she appeared the crassest beginner.
I might have found an older, male sorcerer, but he would no more likely have had experience with military magic than Seer Sinait. Magic had changed and was still changing since Seer Tenedos had taken the throne, and too often older, more staid men found it impossible to accept these new ideas — starting with the principal that sorcery was every bit as important as any other military skill, no longer a by-the-way, while-you’re-at-it thing that served, at best, to call up rainstorms to drench the enemy or send discouragement spells when the foe had already weakened.
But while Sinait learned her field, and explored the new arena of Kallio, I was fairly helpless.
I needed help, help from the emperor.
Back in Nicias, Tenedos had told me he wished to try something new in the event I needed to communicate with him directly, instead of using coded messages, couriers, and, from Kallio’s borders on, heliographs.
He wanted to use the Seeing Bowl, which was the second magical ritual I’d ever attended in my life, long ago in Kait. Tenedos had told me this device depended less on equipment than on training. He wasn’t sure if it would work or not, since one end of the link would be in the hands of a non-sorcerer, but it was worth trying.
“I’m hoping,” he said, “proximity produces perfection. You’ve been around me, and my magic, long enough to hope there’s been some fertilization.”
I doubted that — the stupidest man I’d ever met was someone who’d spent half a lifetime cleaning the chalkboards at a great lycee.
“Be silent, unbeliever. Magic needs no skeptics. Remember you used my spell in the castle yard to bring up … that creature who destroyed Chardin Sher. That worked, did it not?
“Besides, what have we to lose? If this works, we’ll save the life of more than one dispatch rider who would have been waylaid by those bastard partisans who interdict my highways.”
He gave me exact instructions and had me rehearse them a dozen times. Twice the Bowl worked, but I still felt no confidence, since the seer was hanging over my shoulder. What would happen when some thousand miles separated us?
I had a separate room set aside in the castle, and guards set at the door, with orders to admit no one but myself. This was one of the emperor’s orders. No one, not Seer Sinait, not even Reufern, was to know of this unless he ordered otherwise. I had asked why the prince shouldn’t be told. Tenedos hesitated.
“I’ll tell you the truth, Damastes,” he said finally. “I want my brother to learn to govern, and if he knows he can call on my wisdom, such as it is, any time there’s a problem, well, I might as well go to Kallio and rule those shitheels myself.
“I’ll add, even though I don’t think I need to, the caution applies to you as well. You’re capable of reaching decisions without me, so the Bowl is only to be used in the event of an extreme emergency.”
“If it works at all,” I said.
“Damastes!”
“Sorry, sir. I’ll not doubt its wonders ever again.”
Yet I did just that as I took a bolt of black velvet from a case and unrolled it on the floor. The velvet had strange characters in different colors of thread woven into it. Onto it I placed the Bowl, which was actually a wide tray with a raised lip. Into the tray I poured mercury from a bottle until it covered the bottom of the tray.
I set up three braziers around the Bowl and sprinkled exact amounts of incense into each one, then lit them with a small taper. Three candles were set between the braziers and also lit. I unrolled a scroll, and read the few words that were written on it, then I put the scroll aside. Finally, I held my hands out, palms down with the fingertips curled over the tray, and moved them back and forth in a pattern he’d taught me.
Nothing happened.
I repeated the motions. There was still nothing but shimmering gray mercury. I muttered an oath, not surprised that magic wasn’t for me, but still a bit angry at making a fool of myself. Of course it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. Damastes á Cimabue was a soldier, not a damned wizard!
I started to bundle the pieces up, then remembered a final suggestion. “If it does not work at first,” the emperor had said, “try at night. Try within an hour or two of midnight. The skies will be clear, and for some reason the night favors magic.
“I shall not be sleeping,” he said. “I find it hard to sleep these days,” and for just an instant I heard self-pity in his tones, then he grinned. “If I’m not alone, of course, I’ll be too busy to even know you were trying to contact me.”
Once again I thought, What could I lose by trying? I came back after the castle was quiet and settling down for sleep. Again I lit the candles, found fresh incense for the braziers, said the words, and moved my hands in that certain pattern. Once, twice — it wasn’t working — and then the mirror became silver, and I was looking at the emperor himself!
He was sitting at his desk, buried in papers, as I’d seen him all too often in the depths of the night. He must have felt my presence, if that is the correct way to describe it, for he looked up, then jumped to his feet, grinning.
“Damastes! It works!”
His voice came hollowly, then as clearly as if we were in the same room.
“Yes, sir.”
“I assume,” Tenedos said, “this is not an experimental use of the Seeing Bowl. You have problems?”
“Sir, it’s a mess. From top to bottom.”
“My brother?”
“He’s doing the best he can.”
“But it’s not good enough?”
I didn’t answer. Tenedos frowned. “So the situation is as chaotic as others reported. Can it be fixed?”
“I assume so. Nothing is a complete wreck.”
Tenedos half-smiled. “One of your many virtues is your constant optimism, Damastes. Very well. I’ll assume the problem can be resolved. My next question — can it be resolved with my brother still in charge?”
“Yes, sir. I think so, sir. But I need some help.”
There was relief on Tenedos’s face.
“Thank Saionji,” he said. “Kallio must be pacified, and quickly. Now, what do I provide to make your task easier?”
I told him what I needed: a section of skilled police agents who could provide the answers we needed to strike to the center of the madness.
“I’ll do better than that,” Tenedos said grimly. “I’ll send you Kutulu, and he’ll bring his team with him.”
He noted my surprise.
“I said Kallio must be brought to heel,” he said. “The hour draws close.”
“What is going on?” I asked, worried that something had transpired since I’d left Nicias.
“I cannot answer that directly,” he said. “Magicians can hear other magicians. But I will give you a clue: Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia. We must be ready to confront it.”
I began to say something, and he held up a hand.
“No more. Kutulu will leave as soon as he can ready himself. I’ll order a fast packet to take him upriver to Entotto. He’ll go on fast from there, by horse, with no supply train.”
“I’ll have two squadrons of the Ureyan Lancers waiting at the Kallian border as escort.”
“No,” Tenedos said. “Post them along the main road, as a screening force. Kutulu will have his own troops. I’ll send a heliograph at dawn to Renan, and have the Tenth Hussars come south to meet him at Entotto. They’ll join your command as reinforcements.”
I blinked. Like the Lancers, the Tenth was an elite border regiment. For the emperor to strip them from Urey, where their normal duties were keeping the rapacious Men of the Hills from raiding the province, reaffirmed what he said was the seriousness of the situation.
“One thing you must do, while waiting his arrival,” the emperor continued. “Find a local wizard, one who was high in the councils of Chardin Sher. Ask him why our magic is so unsuccessful at predicting what is happening in Kallio. I want that question answered, and I don’t care how gently or harshly you ask it. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
I heard the sound of a door opening and closing, and the emperor looked “past” me, beyond his Bowl. His eyebrows lifted in surprise, then he quickly controlled his expression.
“Is there anything more, Damastes?”
“No, sir.”
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I have a late conference that’s very important.”
I stood, saluted, and made the motions of negation. As the silvered mirror blanked to gray, I heard the ghost of a giggle across the leagues.
I had never heard a giggle from his wife, the Baroness Rasenna. Rather, she had a wonderfully sensual low laugh I’d always delighted in. Most likely I was wrong, for it took a remarkably evil imagination to think a man couldn’t meet a woman other than his wife at a late hour in his private chambers without lewdness as the intent. On the other hand, I recollected Laish Tenedos’s fondness, when single, for bedding every beauty within range, and I’d always marveled at how successful Rasenna had been in keeping him faithful since their marriage, after he’d taken the throne. Lately I’d heard gossip about Tenedos’s displeasure with Rasenna for not having given him an heir, but I’d seen no such signs myself.
Not that it mattered whether the woman I’d heard was Rasenna or someone else — an emperor could futter whoever he wished, and it was none of my concern.
I was dwelling on this probably imaginary happening because I didn’t want to think about the real surprise.
Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia. Beyond Kait to the north was Maisir, ruled by the great king Bairan. Numantia had always been at peace with Maisir, although Tenedos had once told me “Kings always look beyond their borders. I do, so why shouldn’t I expect that of others?”
But Maisir was huge, nearly half again as big as Numantia, with millions of people of many cultures and a great standing army. I didn’t know which was worse — King Bairan having designs on Numantia, or the emperor Tenedos wishing to expand his own borders. What reason either nation might have for conflict was completely unknown.
I suddenly thought, or, rather hoped, I was seeing gloom in everything. First the emperor was being unfaithful, then there were problems with Maisir …
Pfah! as Tenedos was want to say when thoroughly disgusted. There is a time for thought and a time to shut off the mind.
Marán was sleeping, lying on her side in the high-framed bronze bed. She’d kicked a leg over the coverlet, and I admired the sleek curve of her calf and thigh on the silken sheet, lit by our bedchamber’s two candles. She rolled onto her back as the door clicked shut. One hand moved down between her legs, and a smile came to her lips.
I remembered a game we’d played from time to time, a game she’d taught me, learned from her great friend Amiel, Countess Kalvedon.
I silently undressed, then crept to one of her trunks, made to sit on end like a bureau once we arrived at a destination. I found four long scarves and tied a loop in the end of each of them. I slipped one over each of her wrists and ankles, and snugged them.
Very gently I drew her arms up, until they were extended at full length. If Marán awoke, she gave no sign, but her smile was a bit broader.
Quickly I tied her hands to the bedstead, then seized one ankle scarf and lifted her leg straight up, until her buttocks were almost clear of the bed. I tied a quick hitch to the top of the headboard.
Now she allowed herself to awake, and struggled, thrashing about as I seized her other leg, lifted it, and tied that scarf to the opposite side of the headboard.
Her eyes were open.
“I have you now,” I hissed, in my best imitation of a villain in a spectacle.
Her mouth opened.
“Do not scream, or I’ll be forced to gag you.”
Her tongue came out, slowly, to sensuously lick her lips.
“You can’t move, can you?”
“No,” she whispered. “I’m at your mercy.”
“I can do anything I want, can’t I?”
“Anything. I deserve your punishment in any way you wish.”
I climbed onto the bed, pinched one nipple, then the other. She gasped, and pushed her breasts against my hands. I knelt between her thighs, ran my tongue up her sex, then into her. Her thighs tensed against my cheeks as I moved, and she groaned.
I kept moving in and out of her, as her gasping grew louder and quicker. Her hips began rotating. “Oh yes, oh yes, oh please yes,” she moaned, but I paid no heed. Her hips jerked up, she squealed, and tremors ran through her body. I didn’t stop caressing her with my tongue until the trembling slowed, then I rose over her.
“Now,” I said, “now I’ll make you really come.”
I slid the head of my cock just into her wetness, then held still. She tried to move against me, but I moved back.
“Please,” she said. “Please fuck me. Fuck me hard!”
“Like this?” I took her thighs in both hands, and pulled her to me, driving full into her, and she cried out again. I came back, then forward, moving hard, brutally, and each time she shrieked in near-wordless ecstasy, sometimes my name, sometimes obscenities. I held as long as I could, but at last let go, and with a great shout spattered inside her, feeling the Wheel’s turning not far distant.
I was half-lying across her, braced on my hands, when I came back to myself. Marán slowly opened her eyes.
“Let me taste you now.”
I slipped out of her and moved under her legs until I crouched next to her head. She turned toward me, slipped her tongue out, and licked the head of my cock. “I am still your prisoner, Great Tribune,” she said. “I demand more severe penalties,” she added and took me in her mouth.
Between then and dawn, I cannot recollect having one coherent thought, especially about emperors and kings.
• • •
The emperor’s command to find and interrogate a high-ranking magician became a wearying task. Most of the Kallian seers had died either in the civil war or when the demon brought down Chardin Sher’s final redoubt. The survivors, as far as I was able to discover, had either fled the province or were hiding, and I suspected finding a sorcerer who didn’t want to be found might be like looking for a black cat after midnight on a moonless night.
But eventually I found one. Much to my embarrassment, he was in my own — or, rather, Prince Reufern’s own — dungeon. According to his file, he was less a practicing magician than a philosopher and teacher. But he had been a friend of Mikael of the Spirits, Mikael Yanthlus, Chardin Sher’s magician, and might help me understand those who would rise against their rulers.
He was Arimondi Hami, a respected member of Kallio’s highest intellectual circle. He was imprisoned because he refused to acknowledge Numantian authority and, worse, he’d been very vocal about his treason.
I’d often wondered how a magician, even a fairly minor one, could be held captive. Hami wasn’t kept in some dank, slimy underground cell, but in a very clean, very sterile chamber directly below the citadel’s guard room, and his cell was searched at unpredictable intervals, at least once a week. He had been permitted pen, paper, and any books he wished except those dealing with sorcery. He could have any visitor on the prince’s approved list. His food was prepared by his own chef, and his clothing consisted of freshly woven woolen or cotton robes, without adornment. Any request was carefully examined by Seer Edwy, so he could never assemble the materials for an escape spell.
A mere scholar instead of a great wizard he may have been, but I still had two guards with drawn swords behind the chair I ushered him into, their orders to seize him if anything went awry, or kill him if that couldn’t be done. He looked at the soldiers and trembled slightly. I asked him to be seated and inquired if he would care for a glass of wine.
“I would, Tribune á Cimabue,” he said, and his voice had the mellow tone of a born orator.
I poured and handed him a goblet.
“You are not drinking with me?”
“I drink but rarely,” I told him honestly. “I never came to favor the taste of alcohol, and its effects on me are embarrassing.”
He looked skeptical. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Two men with swords … you won’t share my wine … it would be easy to think that you’ve unwoven the skein that’s puzzled Prince Reufern and those who came before him.”
“I was never the finest student, Seer Hami,” I said. “Too often my teachers were able to fuddle me, as often for their own pleasure as to bring home a point. I liked it little then, I like it less now. Please explain.”
The scholar peered at me. “I assumed, when the guards brought me here, you’d decided to have me killed.”
“Why would I do a thing like that? You may be a traitor, but you’ve done little except talk dissent.”
“Which it’s my understanding can get a man shortened by a head in these times.”
“Not by me,” I said. “Nor by anyone under my command. I need something else. But why do you think I planned to kill you? What is this skein you talked about?”
Hami drained his glass and smiled. “That is a good vintage, Tribune. Perhaps I may have another?”
I refilled his glass.
“The skein is the web of confusion about my fate. Consider it: I have refused to acknowledge the authority of the Seer Laish Tenedos, who’s styled himself emperor. I hold the rightful rulers of Numantia are the Rule of Ten.”
“Those incompetents?” I said. “Those that lived through the Tovieti Rising and the civil war have been put out to pasture. And why would you wish them to rule? They were as incompetent a group of dunderheads as ever sat a throne. None of them could pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were graven on the heel.”
“But they were the legitimate authority.”
“You think Numantia should have doddered down the path they were taking until we fell completely apart?”
“As a Kallian, I care little about what happens to the rest of Numantia. I found Chardin Sher’s rule dynamic, progressive.”
“How odd of you to say that,” I said. “He was certainly as much a dictator in this province as you claim the emperor is now in Numantia.”
Arimondi Hami smiled a bit. “That may be the case. But, to use language a soldier might, he may have been a son of a bitch, but he was our son of a bitch.”
“Who happens to be very dead,” I said. “Leaving, as far as I know, no heirs or relatives in the immediate bloodline. Would you have your kingdom ruled by any dolt who decides to seize the throne?”
The scholar laughed. I realized with a bit of chagrin that what I’d said could be easily misconstrued to apply to someone else who’d carved his way to a throne not long ago.
“I shall not further embarrass you and follow up on that,” he said. “Let me only say that I think Kallio should be left to its own devices, as I think all mankind should. Perhaps you’re right, and we’d end up ruled by some bloody-handed despot. I’ll freely concede that your emperor is far from the most unjust man I’ve ever read about.
“I chose to stand against him because I wish to see what could happen if the men of the sword were driven off. Perhaps other sorts — poets, saints, men of peace — would be chosen to rule instead.”
“I doubt that would happen,” I said. “Men of the sword seem predestined to succeed over men of words. The emperor himself needed the army to reach his throne.
“But we have gone astray. Continue explaining this web that you thought I was going to cut through.”
“My apologies. You’re right. I stand in implacable opposition to your emperor and am unwilling to hold my tongue as to what I think of his rule. Therefore, by his laws and lights, I am a traitor and should be executed.
“However, those who govern Kallio have had the sense to realize a murdered scholar also can provide an excellent martyr and rallying point. That is why I’ve been permitted to live and never even brought to trial.
“I thought, when I was summoned and saw these two, you’d decided on a soldierly solution of dealing with today’s problems today and tomorrow’s when they arrive.”
“I think, Seer,” I said, “you’re being very naive about soldiers, at least those who command.”
“Maybe,” he said, and I could hear disinterest in his tones. “I’ve spent little time with them.”
He drained his glass, rose, and, without asking, refilled it. I made no objection. If I could get him drunk, he might speak freely. I knew exactly what the emperor had meant when he told me to use any means necessary to get his question answered: There were torture chambers in the caverns below, and men, both Kallian and Nician, skilled at using the rusty-red implements in them.
“So I was in error,” Hami said. “I’ll admit, by the way, that I’m not terribly discontented with my lot. I’m well fed, I don’t have to worry about a landlord or tax collector, I have access to almost all books I need, save those that deal with sorcery, and my theories had already passed well beyond what’s in the grimoires. I’m well beyond finding my pleasures in a tavern or a wench’s arms, so that doesn’t matter. What, then, do you wish of me? I assume it has something to do with the fact we Kallians aren’t knuckling under to your emperor as we should.
“You know,” he continued without prompting, and I realized the wine was hitting him, “I was a friend of Mikael Yanthlus, Chardin Sher’s wizard, at least as much as he allowed a friend. Mikael was a man who was only interested in power and sorcery, and anyone or anything who didn’t add to his knowledge of either was a waste of time.
“I thought him the greatest sorcerer of all time. But I was wrong. The Seer Tenedos was his master. Although I wonder what price was paid.”
“Price?”
“I’ve read accounts of what happened in that final siege, and even talked to survivors of that awful night when the demon rose out of the mountain to destroy Chardin Sher and Mikael. Where do you think he came from?”
“I don’t think, I know,” I said. “He was summoned by the Seer Tenedos.”
“And at what cost?” Hami said, peering owlishly at me.
Tenedos had answered that before I volunteered to creep into Chardin Sher’s castle with a certain potion. I decided to tell Hami what the seer had told me that storm-ridden night.
“The emperor said that the force, the demon, required him to show some degree of sincerity, that someone he loved had to perform a service,” I said. “He said I was that someone, and so I did what was wished.”
“He told you no more?” Hami asked skeptically.
Tenedos had also said there’d be a greater price, but one that didn’t have to be paid for time to come. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told Hami this, but I did.
“What do you think that will be?” he said, a debater’s smile on his face as he followed up on his opening.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I know as little of demons as you do of soldiers.”
“Fairly put,” Hami said. “I don’t, by the by, suggest you remind the man who styles himself emperor about what we’ve been talking about, for horrors such as he summoned strike heavy bargains, and the magicians who strike such bargains generally don’t wish to be reminded of them.
“And I’m running on, and this has little to do with what you called me for.”
I asked him the emperor’s question: Why was all imperial magic being blocked, as a man’s vision is blocked by a fog bank?
He stroked his chin, picked up his wineglass, then set it down untouched.
“The war between Kallio and the rest of Numantia shook this world and beyond. There was greater magic used by man than ever before in history. Even I could sense this, with what small talent Irisu gave me.
“Before I was arrested, after the war ended, and brought into this dungeon I found great difficulty in working even minor spells. I assume I was in the backwash of greater energies than I can understand or evoke myself, energies, echoes if you will, from the confrontation between Mikael Yanthlus and the Seer Tenedos. And I can still feel them. The sounding of those days hasn’t disappeared yet.
“That would be my primary theory,” he went on, his dramatic tones fading into those of a pedant. “There might be another explanation, and this will shake your seer-emperor a trifle, and that is that there’s another great wizard in the world who wishes him harm. Perhaps someone previously unknown, in Numantia, or maybe someone beyond our borders. I can’t say,” he said. “But if you wish to give me access to certain materials, I could experiment.”
I laughed. “Seer Hami, I’m not so green-as-grass looking, so I’m most unlikely to let you work any spells of any sort.” I rose. “Thank you for your time.”
The man hid a smile of his own, then got to his feet, a little unsteadily.
“We should do this again. You have good taste in wine.”
• • •
Contrary to what the Kallian advised, I told the emperor exactly what had happened. Halfway through my report, the mercury image blurred, and I thought we’d lost contact, but the emperor’s image became steady once more. When I finished, he sat motionless, his face a blank. I cleared my throat, and he came back to himself.
“Hmm. Interesting,” he mused. “So there is something out there. Very, very interesting. I’ll wager it’s in the present, not the dead past, though.”
“You have a clue, sir?”
“I certainly do. But it’s not within Kallio, so you needn’t worry about it. That’s for me to deal with in the future. The very near future.”
After a time, I chanced it: “Sir, may I ask another question?”
The emperor’s expression grew cold. “I assume about this price the Kallian spoke of?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may not. Not now, not ever. Damastes, you are a good soldier and a better friend. You are the last because you don’t step beyond the limits of the first. Not that that bookish fool would know anything of what must be done, what must be paid, in the real world.”
He suddenly stood and strode out of the chamber.
Perhaps I should have pressed the question, then or later. Numantia was my country as well as his, and as commander of the armies this was something I should have known. Instead, a little frightened, I put the matter out of my mind.
The gods failed me at that moment: Irisu the Preserver; Panoan, god of Nicias; Tanis, my family god; Vachan, my own monkey god of wisdom — they turned their backs.
The only god present was Saionji, and now, in my mind, I can see her gleeful capering as she anticipated the horror to come.