Rulers of the Darkness Read online

  Pekka was already in there, sitting alone at a table drinking a mug of ale. A couple of secondary sorcerers sat at another table, arguing about the best way to focus a spell at a distance from where it was cast. Not so long before, Fernao wouldn’t have known what they were talking about. His Kuusaman got a little better every day.

  Seeing him, Pekka set down the mug and clapped her hands together. “You really are making progress,” she said in her own language. And, because he was making progress in that, too, he understood her.

  With a nod, he said, “Aye, a bit,” also in her tongue. He lifted the cane into the air and stood on his own two feet and nothing else for a few heartbeats. Pekka clapped again. Reveling in his Kuusaman, Fernao asked, “May I join you?”

  That was what he thought he asked, anyhow. Pekka giggled. Switching to classical Kaunian, she said, “Several words in Kuusaman may be translated as to join. You might be wiser not to use that one to a woman married to another man.”

  “Oh.” Fernao’s cheeks got hot. “I’m sorry,” he said, as he had to the physician.

  Pekka returned to Kuusaman. “I’m not angry. And aye, you may join me.” She used a verb different from the one he’d tried.

  “Thank you,” Fernao said, and asked a server for a mug of ale of his own. He had that request quite well memorized.

  When his mug came, Pekka raised hers in salute. “To your full recovery,” she said, and drank.

  Fernao drank to that toast, too—who wouldn’t? If he doubted the wish would be fully granted … then he did, that was all. And he enjoyed what he drank; the Kuusamans were good brewers. Then he said, “I hope you are well.”

  “Well enough, anyhow.” Pekka said something in Kuusaman he didn’t catch. Seeing as much, she translated it: “Overworked.” She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Does the name Habakkuk mean anything to you?”

  “It sounds as if it ought to come from the land of the Ice People,” he replied in the classical tongue. “Other than that, no. Why? What is it?”

  “Something I heard somewhere,” Pekka answered, and Fernao hardly needed to be a mage to realize she wasn’t telling him everything she knew. But when she went on, “I do not know what it is, either,” he thought she might be telling the truth.

  “Habakkuk.” He tasted the word again. Sure enough, it put him in mind of a caravanmaster hairy all over and stinking because he’d never had a bath in all the days of his life. Fernao’s opinion of the nomadic natives of the austral continent was not high. He’d seen enough of them for familiarity to breed contempt.

  He wasn’t altogether surprised when Pekka changed the subject. “In a few days, I will be going away for a week or two,” she said. “I have got leave.”

  “You will put Ilmarinen in charge again?” Femao asked.

  “For a little while,” she answered. “Only for a little while. I have got leave to see my husband and my son. And I have got leave to see my sister, too. Elimaki is expecting her first child. Her husband got leave not so long ago, you see.”

  Fernao smiled. “So I do. Or maybe I do.” He wondered if Pekka would come back from leave expecting her second child. If she didn’t, it probably wouldn’t be from lack of effort. He said, “I wonder whom I would have to kill to get leave for myself.”

  As the physician had before, Pekka took him literally. “You would not have to kill anyone,” she said. “You would have to ask me. You would ask, and I would say aye. How could I refuse you leave? How could I refuse you anything, after you have saved the project—saved me?”

  Be careful, he thought. You don’t know what I might ask for, and it wouldn’t be leave. He rather suspected she did know. He hadn’t tried to push things. He hadn’t used the wrong verb on purpose. He saw no point to pushing, not when she was so obviously eager to go home to her husband. But the notion wouldn’t leave his mind.

  He said, “Whatever we do, the project needs to go forward. After you come back here, I can think about leave. I wonder if I speak Lagoan anymore, or if I will go through the streets of Setubal trying to use classical Kaurrian with everyone I meet.”

  “Many people would understand you,” Pekka said, “though you might surprise them—or, with your eyes, they might take you for a Kuusaman with a lot of Lagoan blood. When I return, you tell me what you want, and I shall give it to you.”

  To keep from saying anything he would regret later, Fernao took a long pull at his ale. Having the mug in front of his face also kept Pekka from seeing him go red again. Maybe a few passages with a friendly woman, or even a mercenary one, would let him keep his mind on business when he got back.

  Ilmarinen came into the dining hall and walked over to the table where Fernao and Pekka were sitting. Nodding to Pekka, he said, “Do I hear right? I’m going to be in charge again?” He spoke Kuusaman, but Fernao followed well enough.

  Pekka nodded. “Aye, for a little while,” she answered in courteous classical Kaunian. “Try not to destroy the place while I am gone.”

  “I thought destroying as much of Naantali as we could was the reason we came here,” Ilmarinen said, also in the classical language. Then he switched back to Kuusaman and called to the serving woman: “Another mug of ale over here, Linna!”

  “Aye, Master Ilmarinen,” Linna said. “You can have anything you want from me, as long as you just want ale.”

  Ilmarinen winced. “Heartless bitch,” he muttered in Kaunian. His pursuit of the serving girl had gone exactly nowhere. Fernao winced, too, in sympathy. He was glad—he supposed he was glad—he hadn’t tried pursuing Pekka anywhere except inside his mind.

  As Linna brought the mug, Pekka told Ilmarinen, “If you want to carry out the experiments while I am away, please do. The more we get done, the sooner we can take it into battle.”

  “We have a ways to go before we manage that.” Ilmarinen swigged at the ale, then wiped his wispy mustache on his sleeve. “And we’ve been hitting the Gongs pretty hard just in the ordinary way of doing things.”

  “Gyongyos is one kind of fight,” Pekka said. “When we go onto the Derlavaian mainland against Algarve, that will be another kind. Tell me I am wrong, Master.” She stuck out her chin and looked a challenge at Ilmarinen.

  He only grunted and drank more ale by way of reply. Gyongyos was far away, and her soldiers being driven back one island at a time. Algarve had already proved she could strike across the Strait of Valmiera. All the mages who’d been in the blockhouse were lucky to be alive.

  Fernao said, “Unkerlant will be glad to have more company in the fight on the ground when we do cross to the mainland.”

  “Unkerlant.” Ilmarinen spoke the name of the kingdom as if it were the name of a loathsome disease. “The measure of Unkerlant’s accursedness is that King Swemmel’s subjects fight by the tens of thousands for murderous Mezentio against their own sovereign.” He held up a hand before either Fernao or Pekka could speak. “And the measure of Algarve’s accursedness is that practically every other kingdom in the world has lined up with Swemmel and against Mezentio.”

  “That is not a very happy way of looking at the world,” Fernao said: as much protest as he was prepared to make.

  “The world is not a happy place to look at nowadays,” Pekka said.

  “Too right it’s not,” Ilmarinen said. “Do you know the state we’re reduced to? We’re reduced to hoping the Algarvians and the Unkerlanters do a right and proper job of slaughtering each other so we can pick up the pieces without getting too badly mauled ourselves. Aren’t you glad to be living in a great kingdom?” He drained his ale and shouted for a refill.

  Fernao said, “I would rather live in a kingdom still fighting the Algarvians than in one that had yielded to them.”

  “And so would I,” Ilmarinen agreed. “What we have here isn’t the best of things, but it’s a long way from the worst of things.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Pekka said. “We could be Kaunians in Forthweg. That’s one of the reasons we’re fighting, of course: to keep Mezentio�
��s men from having the chance to use us as they use those Kaunians, I mean.”

  Ilmarinen shook his head. “No. That’s not right. Or it’s not quite right, anyhow. We’re fighting to keep anybody from using anybody else the way the Algarvians are using those poor cursed Kaunians.” He held up his hand again. “Aye, I see the irony of our being allied to Unkerlant in that fight.”

  Linna brought him a full mug and took away the empty. “You people would be happier if you stuck to Kuusaman all the time,” she declared. “All this chatter in foreign languages never did anybody any good.”

  With almost clinical curiosity, Pekka asked Ilmarinen, “What on earth do you see in her?” She made a point of using classical Kaunian.

  After coughing a couple of times, the master mage answered, “Well, she is a pretty little thing.” He glanced toward Fernao, perhaps hoping for support. Fernao only shrugged; the serving girl wasn’t ugly, but she didn’t do anything for him. With a sigh, Ilmarinen went on, “And besides, there’s something cursed attractive about such invincible stupidity.”

  “I do not understand that at all,” Pekka said.

  “I do not, either,” Fernao knew he would have been much less interested in Pekka if he hadn’t thought at least as much of her mind as he did of her body.

  “Sometimes things should be simple,” Ilmarinen insisted. “No competition, no quarrels, no—”

  “No interest in you whatever,” Pekka put in.

  “Besides which,” Fernao said, “while you would not quarrel about your work with an invincibly stupid woman”—he used Ilmarinen’s words even though he was far from sure Linna deserved them—“you would be likely to quarrel with her over everything else. Or do you think I am wrong?”

  Ilmarinen gulped down his ale, sprang up from his seat, and hurried away without answering. “You frightened him off,” Pekka said.

  “Only from us. Not from Linna,” Fernao predicted.

  “Unless he decides he would rather go after some other girl,” Pekka said. “As for me, I am glad my heart points in only one direction.” Because of his cane, Fernao couldn’t spring up and hurry away. He didn’t shout for more ale—or, better, spirits—to make him forget he’d heard that, either. He hoped Pekka never realized how close he came to doing both.

  When Krasta went into the west wing of her mansion to ask something of Colonel Lurcanio, she noticed more empty desks there than she’d ever seen before. It didn’t take much to knock a thought right out of her head, and that was plenty. Among the empty desks was that of Captain Gradasso, Lurcanio’s adjutant. Captain Mosco, Gradasso’s predecessor, had already been sent off to fight in Unkerlant. Krasta wouldn’t have been brokenhearted to see the same fate befall Gradasso, who embarrassed her by speaking far better classical Kaunian than she did.

  But, with Gradasso’s desk empty, there was no one to keep her from barging right into Lurcanio’s office. Rather to her disappointment, she found Gradasso in there. He and her Algarvian lover were standing in front of a large map of eastern Derlavai tacked to the wall, and were arguing volubly in their own language.

  They both jumped a little when Krasta came in. Lurcanio recovered first. “Later, Captain,” he told Gradasso, switching to Valmieran so Krasta could follow.

  “Aye, later, an it be your pleasure,” Gradasso replied in what he thought was Valmieran. He hadn’t known the modern language till being assigned to Priekule, and mixed in a lot of classical constructions and vocabulary when he spoke it. With a bow to Lurcanio, he strode past Krasta to his usual station as the colonel’s watchdog.

  “What was that all about?” Krasta asked.

  “We don’t see eye to eye about what Algarve ought to do in Unkerlant once the mud dries up,” Lurcanio answered.

  “Whatever it is, does it account for all those desks with no people sitting at them?” Krasta asked.

  “As a matter of fact, it does,” Lurcanio said. “When we strike Swemmel’s soldiers this year, we shall strike them with all our strength. On that Gradasso and I agree—we can do nothing less, not if we intend to win the war, and we do. But on what to do with our strength once mustered …” He shook his head. “There we differ.”

  Interested in spite of herself, Krasta asked, “What does he want? And why do you think he’s wrong?”

  Lurcanio didn’t answer directly. Krasta often thought Lurcanio incapable of answering directly. Instead, the Algarvian colonel said, “Here, come look at the way things are for yourself.” Not without trepidation, Krasta walked to the map. Geography had never been a strong subject for her, not that many subjects in her brief and checkered academic career had been strong ones. Lurcanio pointed. “Here is Durrwangen, in southern Unkerlant. The Unkerlanters took it away from us this winter, and we could not quite get it back before the spring thaw down there turned the landscape to soup and stopped both sides from doing much.”

  Krasta nodded. “Aye, I remember you complaining about that.”

  “Do you?” Lurcanio bowed. “Will marvels never cease?” Before Krasta could even wonder if that was sardonic, he pointed to the map again. “You see, though, that to both the east and west of Durrwangen, we have pushed some distance south of the city.”

  He waited. Krasta realized she was supposed to say something. She nodded again. “That’s plain from where the green pins are, and the gray ones.” Her tone sharpened. “It’s also plain this wall will need replastering when your precious map comes down.”

  Lurcanio ignored that. He was good at ignoring things he didn’t want to hear. In that, he resembled Krasta herself, though she didn’t realize it. He waved at the map. “You are quite the most charming military cadet I have ever seen. If Algarve’s fate lay in your pretty hands, how would you take Durrwangen when the fighting starts anew?”

  The day was mild and cool, but sweat burst out on Krasta’s forehead. She hated questions. She always had. And she particularly hated questions from Lurcanio. He could be—he delighted in being—rude when her answers didn’t satisfy him. But she saw she had to answer. After examining the map, she drew two hesitant lines with her forefinger. “If you move your armies here so they meet behind this Durrwangen place—it doesn’t look like you’d have to move them very far—you could come at it from every which way at once. I don’t see how the Unkerlanters could keep you out of it then.”

  To her astonishment, Lurcanio took her in his arms and did a good, thorough job of kissing her. “Nicely reasoned, my sweet,” he said, and pinched her on the backside. She squeaked and leaped into the air. “You have reached exactly the same solution as Captain Gradasso, exactly the same solution as King Mezentio himself.”

  “You’re teasing me!” Krasta said, wondering what kind of foolish, obvious blunder she’d made. Whatever it was, Lurcanio would enjoy pointing it out. He always did.

  But he solemnly shook his head. “By the powers above, milady, I am not. You have seen the very thing that caught the eye of some of the ablest officers in the kingdom.”

  Krasta studied him. He remained solemn. When he felt like slapping her down, he didn’t usually wait so long. But his voice had had an edge to it, even if not one aimed at her. “You were arguing with Gradasso,” she said slowly. “Does that mean you didn’t see this move? If I saw it, couldn’t anyone—any soldier, I mean—see it?”

  Lurcanio kissed her again, which left her more confused than ever. “Oh, I saw it,” he said. “I would have to be far gone in my second childhood not to have seen it.” Sure enough, the sarcastic sparkle was back in his voice. “But if the king saw it, if I saw it, if Captain Gradasso saw it, if even you saw it, would you not suspect the Unkerlanters might see it, too?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Krasta tossed her head. “I’ve never had anything to do with Unkerlanter barbarians, nor wanted to, either. Who can say what they’d see and what they wouldn’t?”

  “There is something to that,” Colonel Lurcanio admitted. “Something—but how much? When we went into Unkerlant, we did not think Swemmel’s
men could see the sun when it was shining in their eyes. We have discovered, to our sorrow, that we were mistaken.”

  Which is why you started killing Kaunians from Forthweg, Krasta thought. She almost blurted that aloud. But Lurcanio would be on her like a hawk if she did. The Kaunians of Valmiera weren’t supposed to know anything about that. Discretion didn’t come easy, but she managed it. She asked, “What will happen if the Unkerlanters do see this?”

  “What looks easy on the map will get much harder,” Lurcanio replied. “That is why I wish we were doing something else, anything else.”

  “Have you told anybody?” Krasta asked. “You are an important man. What you think carries weight.”

  “I am an important man in Priekule,” Lurcanio said. “In Trapani, where these decisions are made, I am nothing in particular. Only a colonel. Only a military bureaucrat. What could I know about actual fighting? I have sent my superiors a memorial, aye. Much good it will do me. Either they will read it and ignore it or they will not bother reading it before they ignore it.”

  Krasta gaped. Lurcanio often mocked her. He mocked other Valmierans, too. She’d even heard him mock his countrymen here in Priekule. But never till now had she known him to sound so bitter about his superiors. Slowly, she asked, “What will you do if they turn out to be right?”

  “Take off my hat and bow to them.” Lurcanio suited action to word, which made Krasta laugh.

  But then she asked, “And what will you do if you turn out to be right and the generals back in Trapani are wrong? They won’t take off their hats and bow to you.”

  “Of course they won’t.” With a lifted eyebrow, Colonel Lurcanio cast scorn on the idea. “What will I do if things come to such a pass? Most likely, my dear, I will get my marching orders, I will pick up a stick, and I will go where my colleagues have gone before me: off to the west, to do my best to throw back the Unkerlanter hordes with my body.” He looked Krasta up and down, undressing her with his eyes. “There are, I confess, other things I would sooner do with my body.”