Wartorn Obliteration

RADSTAC (3)

The words became awkward in her mouth, too many, piling up, their corners bumping, so she revised them then and there. She sang the altered bridge, knowing as she heard herself croon the simpler improvised phrases that she had improved Aquint's words, while keeping their spirit.

That spirit was, of course, one of treason against the Felk, the masters of Callah.

Some of the tavern's patrons had vacated the premises immediately on hearing the nature of the songs she and Deo were performing. But the others had remained, huddling instinctively closer to the corner where they played, their eyes big, tongues anxiously licking lips as if to taste the taboo words.

Radstac thought the songs silly. Or at least trite. Deo was playing the serviceable melodies on that cumbersome vox-mellifluous, an Isthmus instrument, obviously a larger cousin to the more graceful musical implements of Southsoil.

He was certainly passable on the instrument. More than that actually. As with most things, so it seemed, Deo had a flair, a grinning gusto that was hopelessly charming, even while he was inhabiting this persona of an idiot. He kept up a dazed, mildly giddy expression, obviously happy with the music he was producing and the vocals Radstac was providing.

Radstac, for her part, had had no trouble maintaining the fiction of a maimed leg. Their pretenses excused them both from combat, in the eyes of anyone who observed them. Aquint would be pleased the ruses were working.

Aquint was plainly a dubious character. Internal Security agent he might be, yes... but he was no Felk fanatic. Radstac didn't sense in him any special loyalties, except to himself and possibly to his young companion, Cat. She had first thought the two were lovers, then had revised her opinion. They seemed more like associates in crime.

She was uncertain what their ultimate game was, though most certainly they were playing one, probably against the Felk occupying Callah. And yet their efforts to capture the Broken Circle rebels did seem genuine, at least on the surface. But Aquint also seemed intent on maintaining his position, which would become moot when the rebels were in custody and the threat was through.

So Radstac had to be concerned how she herself fit into this game. Deo, too. Internal Security agent, so far, was a far better alternative to being arrested as the attempted assassin and accomplice of General Weisel.

She sang the song to its insipidly "inspiring" end. Vocal lessons had been a part of her upbringing. Such training was customary on the vastly more civilized Southern Continent and specifically in the Republic of Dilloqi, her home state. Hynnsy was the city of her birth, and there she had learned about art and philosophy with the same vigor with which she was taught practical matters. It was not the Southsoil way to separate such elements of life.

The patrons of the tavern applauded Radstac's finely modulated singing as well as the crowd-baiting revolutionary doggerel that she sang. Deo nodded a cheerful witless bow at their audience.

She and Deo had followed Aquint's advice and, for the most, had purloined their melodies from already existing songs, replacing the lyrics with those Aquint had concocted. The songs were all very much alike, condemning the Felk and celebrating native Callahan culture above all else.

There had been several times when Radstac had to furtively pinch her arm to keep herself from laughing in the middle of what she was singing.

The elderly man and wife who owned the tavern had at first been shocked and upset by the songs, more so when a segment of their patrons immediately evacuated. But those that had remained were apparently eating and especially drinking enough to keep the proprietors content.

They had, however, quietly pulled to the tavern's shutters and thrown the door's bolt.

The patrons clustered even closer now, scraping chairs toward Radstac and Deo's corner. They murmured in an excited hush. Radstac understood their anxious caution. If the Felk patrols raided this place and learned the sort of songs that were being played here, the consequences would be dire. Only, there wouldn't be consequences. Not for her and Deo. They were, after all, verifiable agents of the Internal Security Corps, a bureau that evidently had power over just about every other branch of the Felk Empire.

Besides, they had informed Colonel Jesile's office that they would be operating at this tavern until curfew today. They expected no interference. They had actually said this to the same pinch-faced officer who had made their arrival in Callah so difficult only a few days ago. Radstac had felt a mild satisfaction from that, though punching the man in the nose or leaving him a scar or two would have been even more gratifying.

Radstac paused to take a swallow from the jug of water sitting on the table next to her. She didn't drink wine. She did not drink spirits. If there was a faster way to turn a functional being into a driveling dimwit, she didn't know what it was.

Callah's tainted water had all been replaced, probably at some cost and inconvenience. But what the tactic implied was more disturbing than what the Broken Circle had actually accomplished; it insinuated that the rebels could wreak a much greater havoc if they so chose.

"Are you..." a woman with matted grey hair whispered, edging closer than the rest, her one good eye brightly alight. "Are you... friends of... of..."

Radstac finished her drink, set it down, waited. She herself would never live so long as to become a doddering husk like this creature. Radstac would not outlive her usefulness.

"Of... of... of..." The gibbering lips were pale and fine.

"Of whom?" Radstac barely managed not to growl it.

The good eye blinked solemnly. "Of the Minstrel." The crone clamped tight those thin lips after she'd said it, anxiety quivering her bony shoulders.

Behind her, the others huddling near were waiting for the answer.

The Minstrel was a folk legend, then, Radstac thought, shooting Deo a fast glance. He gave her a scarcely perceptible nod.

She studied the faces, noting that the entire room had gone quiet. At last she said, "Maybe we are friends of the Minstrel. But that doesn't mean we know him."

The patrons tried to absorb that. They had the same faces and demeanors one could find in any drinking establishment. Vaguely vacuous. Adult countenances reduced to the simplistic expressions of children. Emotions, too, were diminished in their complexity. It was why fights could start so easily when alcohol was liberally present. Anger was a hot and simple emotion, and it came readily to the surface when all the civilized checks were removed.

"Do you know anything about the uprising in Windal, then?" another asked, a small shrunken man who appeared to be accompanying the crone.

Windal. The name was familiar. Vaguely so. Some Isthmus city, presumably already conquered by the Felk. Rumors of an uprising there? It sounded like more of the inciting gossip from the Minstrel. In fact, hadn't she read of this very rumor in the report Aquint had first shown her?

"I don't know anything about that," Radstac said.

There was a small collective groan of disappointment.

Radstac hid an appreciative smile. She understood in that moment just how effectively and subtly the one called the Minstrel had spread dissent. These people were receiving no news whatsoever from beyond the borders of this city. So it was that a rousing story about an uprising in Windal couldn't be refuted. The Minstrel had no doubt plucked it entirely from his imagination, giving these downtrodden Callahans the very news they most wanted to hear—that someone somewhere was successfully resisting the Felk invaders.

"I do know," Radstac added, "that Governor Jesile and his whole garrison haven't been able to find the Minstrel. Or stop the Broken Circle from doing whatever they please."

They grinned at her for that. They slapped tables and applauded and ordered fresh drinks and congratulated each other for feats they themselves had nothing to do with. The tavern's owners looked pleased, too.

Deo was fiddling with the stringbox, snapping random chords. No one in their audience had questioned that someone so obviously mentally flawed could be so deft on the instrument. Deo made it look natural.

"Ish it time to play shome more?" he asked her in a giggly voice, his mouth slack and wet.

Radstac nodded. Deo started winding and plucking. It was a faster tempo, and she leapt on it, skimming the words off the tops of the musical undulations. Another drearily predictable tirade against Callah's interlopers. Aquint's hope was that these songs would attract members of the Broken Circle. After these tunes had circulated awhile, as they most certainly would, perhaps the rebels might approach her and Deo. Then they could make their arrests.

As Radstac sang, she was at the same time detached from her performance, thereby able to observe the audience closely. She watched them picking up the chorus, learning it, memorizing it, singing along with it. Yes, these silly songs would indeed circulate. But wouldn't they, in the course of being repeated and passed around, hopefully to be heard eventually by someone in the Broken Circle, wouldn't such songs inevitably incite certain thoughts and attitudes in these Callahans? Wouldn't they generate rebellious inclinations? Wouldn't they, despite Aquint's plan, actually do more damage to the Felk... and lend more aid to the rebels?

It wasn't her problem. She could go along with this charade of being an Internal Security agent for as long as necessary. At some point a means of escaping this city would present itself, and she and Deo would take it.

So she continued singing. And when the room turned very suddenly and very disconcertingly blue, she kept the song moving, digging her fingers into her legs and trying to control her pounding heartbeat. The urge, of course, was to get up and flee. Simply run. Actually outrun. For what was coming for her was terrible. A great terrible beast that hunted her footsteps.

Deo sensed that something was wrong, but he was the only one. He cut short the song and turned to her.

How blue he was...

Radstac reached for the water jug, but her hand was wavering beyond her control. She returned it to her lap. The audience was applauding and cheering once more. The matted-haired old woman was the nearest one.

She would have to do. Radstac caught her good eye, motioned her even closer, and said in a tight, aching, very earnest voice, "I shall need some mansid leaves. As quickly as possible."

The popular narcotic in Callah, it seemed, were phato blossoms. These were pink and delicate, and they were smoked in a pipe and produced effects not entirely unlike those one could get from alcohol. Radstac had no interest in the drug. It was mansid or nothing. And for a while it appeared she was going to have to settle for nothing.

She had chewed the final tiny rationed fragment of her last leaf two days ago. She had made efforts to replenish her supply, but all the likely places she visited had nothing to offer. Whatever drug dens there were in Callah had evidently been cleaned out during the Felk invasion. Legitimate narcotic trade had continued in the marketplaces awhile, but, she had learned, the supplies had dried up. There were no traders on the roads anymore. Nothing was getting into the city.

But addicts, Radstac knew, weathered all calamities. No matter what the circumstances, they could always find what they absolutely required.

Which meant that someone in Callah, some other user, had what she needed.

So various members of their audience, caught up in the spirit of revolutionary camaraderie, volunteered to help find her what she required. They scattered half-drunkenly out of the tavern, whistling and humming and muttering those songs she'd been singing.

Meanwhile, Radstac's world was blue.

She handled it. It was a very unsettling experience, but she had faced physical terrors on battlefields that would shrink most men and women just to hear of them. She remained in her chair and maintained a calm veneer, even as the lack of clarity engulfing everything around her deepened, so that the sense of things broke apart at a more profound level with nearly every passing moment.

She had certainly experienced this before. She came north habitually, traveling from the Southsoil to seek out the Isthmus's petty little wars, so to sell her sword to one side or the other. It never mattered who she fought for. She had survived many of those trifling skirmishes between Isthmus states.

What mattered was the procurement of her leaves. Fresh and potent. In quality, far beyond the dried specimens the trade caravans brought back home from the Isthmus. And while she was here, pursuing her mercenary livelihood, she enjoyed the awesome penetrating clarity that came from chewing mansid.

But she did not remain here on this Isthmus year-round. Eventually she would return home, taking with her as much of her drug as would last before losing its potency. And, just as inevitably, those supplies would be gone, and she would undergo this same withdrawal. And she would handle it. And survive it. And live her life in Dilloqi without the daily stimulus of mansid. Until it was time to once more go north.

Radstac was aware, in an increasingly abstract way, that Deo was by her side trying to comfort her, while maintaining his imbecilic pretense. She was finding herself less and less able to understand words. She still recognized them individually, but whenever someone spoke to her, she could barely manage to put them into a coherent order.

Even so, she sat and waited and did not behave in the way pathetic wretches who couldn't handle their addictions behaved.

When her leaf was finally procured and delivered to the tavern, she couldn't hold her hands still enough to get it to her mouth to bite off a piece. Deo held it for her. Deo, by now, was a shifting, erratic, almost ethereal presence who she could not quite identify any longer.

She bit away a quarter of the leaf and knew by the ache that sang through her teeth that it was of the proper potency. After that it was just a matter of waiting for the blue to recede and the clarity to assert itself. It happened quickly enough.

Radstac, with much composure, thanked her deliverer and counted out the necessary Felk scrip from her pocket to cover it. Next to her Deo was pale. He tried to lead her out of the tavern. But there was still half a watch before they needed to think about curfew, so Radstac sang another passel of songs and Deo accompanied on the vox-mellifluous. Once again their audience became enthralled and enthused. The songs took hold.

Criers were calling the first notice. Curfew in a quarter of a watch. She and Deo were on the streets, heading to their lodgings. Evening had brought an unpleasant snap to the air. A damp wind was blowing in irregular irritating gusts.

Between them was silence. Strained on Deo's part, uncomfortable, embarrassed, concerned. Radstac merely said nothing. From her deliverer she had learned where she could likely obtain more leaves.

The streets were emptying rapidly and orderly. These Callahans knew the rules of occupation, and they obeyed them. If not for the Broken Circle, this would surely be the model of a conquered city.

On a deserted stretch, just a short distance from their destination, Deo, taut and uneasy, suddenly erupted in a tense whisper, "When we find the rebels, I'm going to join them."

Radstac looked at him sidelong and wordlessly. They didn't speak again until they were indoors, up on the third level, in their shabby room.

She hadn't taken too large a bite from her leaf. The mansid had stabilized her, but the clarity wasn't so intense as to be distracting.

"Why?" she finally asked.

Deo propped the stringbox in a corner. "Because it could make a difference against the Felk."

"Like assassinating General Weisel might have?"

"It might have. It would have." His fists bunched at his sides.

"I know," she said. Her tone was flat, but she had meant it to sound softer. Instead of trying again, she crossed to him, put hands to his shoulders. At first his lips were unresponsive; then they did respond.

Later, after curfew was official, there came a knock on their door. Later still, they learned of the audacious feat the Broken Circle enacted that night.