An Ill Fate Marshalling

5

Year 1016 AFE; Mystery Attackers

Ragnarson pushed into the room where General Liakopulos lay. The Guildsman was as pale as bone china. „How is he?"

Doctor Wachtel, a grisled old man who had been Royal Physician forever, replied, „He's resting."

„Will he make it?"

„It could go either way. He lost a lot of blood. The wounds aren't that bad. Nothing vital injured. But when you've been cut so many times... ."

„This the dead man?"

„The assassin? Yes."

Ragnarson lifted the linen covering. He saw an unprepos­ sessing young man of medium height, slightly overweight. He tried to imagine the man on his feet, moving around. He reminded himself that they looked smaller and meeker when they were dead. „Where's Trebilcock?"

„The General came to an hour ago. He described his assailants. He'd cut the other two. Michael went looking for wounded men."

„Uhm. You talk to Varthlokkur about this?"

The doorway sentries stirred. Wachtel shrugged. „He may know. I haven't told him. Didn't see any need."

„Maybe he could give you a hand."

The old man scowled. „Am I incompetent?" He was the best physician in Kavelin, and jealous of his reputation.

„Guards. One of you get the wizard. He's in the brown guest suite." To Wachtel, Ragnarson added, „Who better to question our friend?" He indicated the dead man.

„Uhm." Wachtel put a world of disgust into his grunt. He and the wizard had collaborated before. He had a profound loathing for sorcery in every form, though he grudgingly admitted that Varthlokkur was a master of life magicks, and occasionally offered hope when his own science failed him.

He did not protest much. He was a truly good man, incapable of a spiteful or wicked act. If there had been no other hope for Liakopulos, he would have summoned the wizard himself.

It would not have occurred to him, though, to yield the corpse to the sorcerer. He only concerned himself with the living.

He was quite civil when a sleep-fuddled Varthlokkur arrived. He quickly accounted the locations, depths, and severity of his patient's wounds. He controlled his scowl as Varthlokkur ran his hands over the General, making anoth­ er examination.

„You've done all you can? Hot broth, and so forth? Herbs for the pain?"

Wachtel nodded.

„He ought to recover. Might have trouble using the one arm, and there'll be scars. No point me getting involved."

Wachtel's scowl lapsed into a somber smile. He turned it on Ragnarson.

„Check this one," Bragi told the wizard. „This's the man Liakopulos killed."

„One of the assassins?" Varthlokkur peeled back a lid and stared into an eye.

„Presumably." Of the room in general, Ragnarson asked, „There couldn't be any mistake, could there?"

„The General identified him while he was conscious," Wachtel replied.

Varthlokkur looked at Bragi, said nothing. Ragnarson's skin felt crawly. „The Unborn?" he suggested softly.

The wizard nodded. „That's the easiest way. Down in one of the closed courts where we won't disturb anybody."

„Guards. One of you find your sergeant. Tell him I need four men and a stretcher."

Four Guardsmen came. One was Slugbait. He gave Ragnarson a big grin and rattled a pocket filled with coins before assuming a more businesslike manner. He was a soldier here, not a Captures captain. He and his compan­ ions rolled the corpse onto the stretcher and awaited in­ structions.

„The back exercise court," Ragnarson told them. „Just take him down and leave him."

Their eyes went to Varthlokkur, slid away. The color left their faces. They had guessed what would happen.

„Did anyone interrogate Gales?" Bragi asked.

„Trebilcock," Wachtel replied. „I didn't pay attention. Varthlokkur. Does his breathing seem easier?"

The wizard bent over the General. „I think so. He's definitely past the worst. He'll make it."

Ragnarson and the wizard followed the stretcher-bearers. Bragi said, „I saw Mist tonight. I'd stumbled across a couple things I was curious about. She answered my questions, but she was evasive."

„And?"

„She's involved in some scheme to get her throne back. She claims a group of Tervola approached her, but nothing would come of it. She's in deeper than she'll admit."

„And?"

„You're not contributing much."

„What do you want me to say?"

„Your best guess about her. Is she really involved? Can she do anything if she is? What would the consequences be, from my viewpoint? Both if she pulled it off and if she lost out."

„Is she involved? Of course. Once you attain a throne, you don't give it up without a fight. She felt constrained while Valther was alive. Now she doesn't. Consider her viewpoint. There's nothing here for her since Palmisano. There once was there. Her need for a feeling of self-worth will make her grasp for what's hers by right."

„She's vulnerable, though. Through her children."

„Aren't we all?" Varthlokkur sounded sour. „They're hostages to fortune."

„Can she make a comeback?"

„I wouldn't know. I don't know what's going on in Shinsan. I don't want to. I want to ignore them, and have them ignore me."

„But they won't."

„Of course not. Which brings us to consequences. My feeling is, it won't really matter if she wins or loses. Shinsan is Shinsan, and always was and will be. When the moment comes, it won't matter who rules there. You and Kavelin have earned special attention. Be it tomorrow, or a hundred years from tomorrow, a blow will fall. I think it'll be a while coming. They have to recover from a devastating couple of decades. They have to survive external threats. They have to preserve their new frontiers. They'll be hopping like the one-legged whore the day the fleet came in."

Ragnarson chuckled and looked at the wizard askance. That was not a Varthlokkur metaphor.

„Excuse me. You mentioned Mist. That reminded me of Visigodred, which made me think of his apprentice, Marco. I heard Marco say something of the sort once."

Visigodred was a mutual acquaintance, an Itaskian wiz­ ard who had helped during the Great Eastern Wars. He was a long-time friend of Mist. His apprentice, a foul-mouthed dwarf named Marco, had perished at Palmisano.

„Marco. That's funny. Every damned conversation today leads to somebody who died at Palmisano."

„We left a lot of good people there. A lot of good people. Victory may have cost us more than we could afford. It took the good people and left the blackguards. They'll start their power games before long."

They were in the back exercise court now, standing over the body. The soldiers had beaten a hasty retreat. Bragi said, „Maybe they've already started."

„Maybe. Move back. You don't want to be too close."

„I don't want to be in the same province," Ragnarson muttered. Nevertheless, he seated himself on some steps and waited.

Varthlokkur did not do anything flashy. He just stood there, head bowed, eyes closed, concentrating. Neither he nor the King moved for twenty minutes.

Ragnarson felt it before he saw it. He stiffened. His right hand strayed to the sword he always carried. He grimaced. As if mere steel could avail against the Unborn.

He hated the thing. Created by one of the Princes Thaumaturge, it had been insinuated into the womb of his Fiana. It had grown there, and grown there, and its coming forth had killed her.

Varthlokkur had delivered that child of evil, had made of it a terrible tool, and had turned the tool upon its creators.

It drifted over the east wall, looking like some new, bizarre little moon. It glowed softly, palely, the color of the full moon soon after rising. It bobbed gently, like a child's soap bubble drifting on the breeze.

It settled toward Varthlokkur, becoming more denned as it drew nearer. A luminescent globe about two feet in diameter. Inside, something hunched and curled... . Up close, clearly a fetus. Humanoid. But nothing human. Far from human.

Its eyes were open. It met Ragnarson's gaze. He battled a surge of hatred, an impulse to hack away with his sword, to hurl a rock, to do something to destroy that wickedness. That thing had killed his Fiana.

Varthlokkur had used it to terrible effect during the war. It kept the Tervola east of the Mountains of M'Hand even now. It was the one weapon in the western arsenal capable of intimidating them. They would find a way of destroying it before coming west again.

It made Ragnarson secure on his throne. At Varthlokkur's command it would drift through Kavelin's nights routing out every treachery. It could do countless wicked and wonderous things, and was almost invulnerable itself.

Ragnarson compelled himself to remain seated. He forced his eyes away from the bobbing globe. He did not want to see the mockery in that tiny, cruel face.

Varthlokkur beckoned his creation down, down, till it hovered over the dead assassin. He murmured. Bragi recog­ nized the language of ancient Ilkazar. He did not under­ stand it. It was the tongue of the wizard's youth. He used it in all his sorceries.

The dead man's skin twitched. His legs jerked. He rose like a marionette on uncertain strings. Once upright, he sagged against whatever force it was the Unborn used to support him.

„Who are you?" Varthlokkur demanded.

The dead man did not reply. A puzzled look did cross his face.

The wizard exchanged glances with Ragnarson. The corpse should have responded more positively.

„Why are you here? Where is your home? Why did you attack the General? Where are your comrades?" Every question elicited an equally uninformative silence. „Wait a minute," the wizard told his creature.

He sat down beside Ragnarson, elbow on knee, chin in the cup of his hand. „I don't understand," he grumbled. „He shouldn't be able to hide from me."

„Maybe he isn't."

„Uhm?"

„Maybe there's nothing there to hide."

„Everyone has a past. That past is stamped on body and soul. When the soul flies, the body remembers. I'll try something else." He stared at the Unborn, his face intense.

The dead man ran in circles. He leaped. He jumped an imaginary skip-rope. He turned tumblesaults. He did push­ ups and sit-ups. He flapped his arms, crowed like a rooster, and tried to fly.

„What's all that prove?" Ragnarson asked afterward.

„That the Unborn does have control. That this is a man."

„So maybe he's a hollow man. Maybe he never had a soul."

„You could be right. But I hope not."

„Why?"

„He would have to be a created thing, then. Something brought to life full grown and devoid of anything but the command to kill. Which means an accomplished enemy. Probably one we thought already destroyed. The question is, why would he go after the General? Why attack the lion's paw and waste what could have been a telling blow to the head?"

„You lost me. What the hell are you babbling about?" „I think we've been laboring under a mistaken presump­ tion of death."

„You're not telling me anything." The wizard had a habit of orbiting in on a subject, circling as a moth circles a flame. Ragnarson found it irritating.

„We accounted, directly or indirectly, for all the Pracchia but one. We assumed his body was lost in the heaps at Palmisano." That climactic battle had been hard on every­ one. Insofar as Ragnarson knew, the other side had lost every captain but Ko Feng.

He scratched his beard, listened to the hungry rumble of his stomach, wished he were somewhere snoring, and made several false starts at trying to unravel the riddle the wizard had posed. „Okay. I give up. Who are we talking about?"

„Norath. Magden Norath, the Escalonian renegade. The Pracchia's chief researcher and monster-maker. We never located a body."

„How do you know? I never met anybody who knew what he looked like."

Norath had been a wizard with a difference. His tools had not consisted of incantation and the demons of night. He had shaped life. He had created men and monsters every bit as dangerous as anything Varthlokkur, Mist, and their ilk, were able to summon from Outside.

„Can you suggest a better candidate?"

„You're making a hell of a long jump to a conclusion," Ragnarson said. „Even giving you the benefit of the doubt, why attack Liakopulos? You're spinning a nightmare out of moonbeams."

„Maybe so. Maybe so. But it's the only hypothesis that fits the facts."

„Find some more facts. Try another hypothesis. Say the man had his soul erased before he was sent. Whoever wanted the General dead would assume his people would cross your path, wouldn't he?"

„Possibly. I don't think an erasure could be done without destroying the brain completely. Let me try something else."

Varthlokkur rose and strolled over to the Unborn. He rested one hand on the thing's protective globe. He closed his eyes. His body became as slack as that of the dead man. He and the corpse leaned together, two drunken marion­ ettes buoyed by the Unborn.

Ragnarson struggled against the encroachment of sleep. He stood and stretched his aching muscles. He wondered what Trebilcock was doing. The materialization of assassins must have been a tremendous blow to Michael's pride. He would be savage in his effort to unearth something.

The wizard's tall, spare figure slowly straightened. Color returned to his face. He batted a hand before his eyes as if to scatter a cloud of gnats. He tottered toward Ragnarson, his gaze still unfocused. After a moment, he said, „I went inside him. It's amazing how little there is to him. The skills and cunning a killer needs, but without the background, without the years of growth and training... . He's maybe a month old. He came from somewhere to the west. He remembers crossing the Lesser Kingdoms to get here, but isn't clear about directions or geography. There was someone with him and his brothers. That someone knew what was going on and told them what to do. He has a vague memory of his father having lived near the sea. His sole purpose was to eliminate Liakopulos."

„Ah. Put that together and it sounds like a blow by the Guild against one of its own."

„What? Oh. I see. High Crag is west, and it overlooks the sea. No. I think my stab in the dark hit closer to the mark. He remembers his father. Or creator, if you will. The memory fits what's known of Norath."

„Why Liakopulos?"

„1 don't know. Usually you ask who would benefit. In this case I can't think of a soul. The General has no enemies."

„Somebody was willing to make a big investment in getting rid of him."

„The obvious conclusion would be Shinsan. But they're trying to get along. They're flashing the hand of friendship. And assassination isn't their style."

„Somebody trying to frame them? Somebody who doesn't want peace?"

Varthlokkur shrugged. „I couldn't name a soul who would be ahead by maintaining a state of tension."

„Matayanga. Michael's rebel friends in Throyes."

„I doubt it. Too much risk in the backlash if they got found out. And he did come from the west, not the east."

Ragnarson shook his head. „I'm getting groggy. I can't get anything to add up. Liakopulos just isn't that important. Valuable to me because he's a genius at training soldiers, but that don't especially make him a threat to anybody else. ... I can't go on with this now. It's been a brutal day. Let me sleep on it."

„I'll have this taken back to Wachtel, then have Radeachar find its brothers and master. Check with me tomorrow."

Radeachar was the wizard's name for his creature. In the tongue of his youth it meant The One Who Serves. In the days when Ilkazar had been great, Radeachar had been the title given wizards who served with the Imperial armies.

„All right. Damn! It's going to take five minutes to get this old carcass of mine moving."

As Ragnarson turned to leave, a shadow in the courtyard gateway withdrew. The silent observer had remained unno­ ticed even by the wizard's servitor. He vanished into the Palace halls.

Ragnarson took a couple of steps, paused. „Oh. I been meaning to ask you. The name, or title, or whatever you want to call it, of The Deliverer mean anything to you?"

Varthlokkur started as if stung. Stiffly upright, he faced the King. „No. Where did you hear that?"

„Around. If it don't mean anything, how come you're acting like. ..."

„How I act is my concern, Ragnarson. Never forget that. Forget only that you ever heard that name. Do not speak it again ever, anywhere near me or mine."

„Well, excuse me, your cranky-assed wizardness. But I got a job to do around here and anything that might affect Kavelin is damned well my business. And you and seven gods aren't going to tell me different when I think there's something I got to do."

„The thing you mentioned, whatever it might be, has nothing to do with you or Kavelin. Expunge it from your mind. Go, now. I have nothing more to say."

Bemused, Ragnarson forced his weary legs to carry him toward the kitchens. What the hell was with the wizard these days? The old grouch knew a damned sight more than he wanted to let on.

Concern began to fade. His stomach nagged. It was a hollow pit demanding something more before the body was permitted its rest.

He was trudging down a poorly lighted hallway, still frowning and slithering around thoughts about Varthlokkur's weirdnesses, when something crinkled be­ neath his foot. By night the castle was lighted only by a few fat-fueled lamps. One could barely see. One of his little economies.

The odd sound registered late. Bragi stopped, turned back, spotted the wrinkled piece of paper. Penstrokes marked it. Paper was a scarce commodity. It did not get wasted. Someone must have lost it. He picked it up and carried it to the nearest lamp.

Someone had written names in a terrible hand. Bragi could scarcely decipher some. The author's spelling wanted something, too.

LICOPOLUS with a check mark behind it, and the mark scratched out. ENREDSON. ABACA. DANTICE. TRIBILCOK. In another grouping, as if set aside, were the names Varthlokkur, Mist, and others of his supporters. The names of the three soldiers all had stars in front of them.

He leaned against the wall, sleep forgotten. He smoothed and folded the paper and slipped it into a pocket inside his jacket.

His three top soldiers first. Why? And why was his own name not on the list?

He thought about taking the paper back to Varthlokkur, decided it could wait. He resumed his stalk of the kitchens, muttering, „Bet the old spook-pusher doesn't find anything. The man running them was right here in the castle."

Something began nagging him. It took him a minute to recognize the crabbing of his survival instinct. That note! It could indict him as easily as the next guy. It could have been left for him to find.

He got it out, opened it again, stared, started to stick it into the nearest torch. Then he had an idea. He tore out the names Trebilcock and Varthlokkur and burned the rest. He would let Michael and the wizard follow up on their fragments.

The cooks had nothing but more cold chicken. He sat in a brooding silence, eating slowly.

Somewhere in the halls, approaching, a voice. „She said, ‘Oh, Gales, you can loan me a crown. You got a good job.' I said ‘Shit.' Yeah. I ain't lying. They know you got one penny... . She said, ‘Gales, loan me a crown.' I said, ‘Ain't this some shit.' Yeah. Young woman, too. Fine looking woman. ‘Gales, you got a good job.' I said, ‘Ain't this a bitch.'"

The sergeant stalked by the doorway. Accompanying him was a young Guardsman wearing the look of a man hard pressed to keep from laughing at someone.

„Yeah," Ragnarson murmured. „Ain't this a bitch."