Sartor by Sherwood Smith
So Lilah sat there, feeling dismal and stupid, until she noticed Merewen watching with the painful concentration of someone who is trying her very best to make sense of a conversation in a foreign tongue of which she knows a few words.
So I’m not the only one, then.
o0o
Dejain made her way up to the command tower. When she reached one of the landings with the right angle, she stepped up on tiptoe to peer out the air-slit and saw that all Zydes’s windows were lit, giving off a faintly bluish cast that indicated lots of magic.
She turned away and found herself face to face with Kessler.
She controlled the instinct to recoil, but shock was like a dagger of ice as he stood there, still, hands at his sides, blocking her path. Though she had magic and he had no visible weapons, he didn’t need any weapons to be a danger. He was too near for her to speak any spell before he could close his hands around her throat.
“Zydes didn’t tell anyone the brat is a surviving Landis,” she said.
“No.”
“The field reports,” she said. “From the Sartor attack a hundred years ago. I want to see—”
Another shock: “Hidden,” he said, his pale blue gaze as always devoid of any expression.
But he wasn’t trying to kill her. “You sought them out?”
“A week ago,” Kessler said. “And again. No access.”
“Who took them? Where are they?” Dejain considered this new wrinkle as her heart thumped wildly. “Not in the Garden of the Twelve!”
He said, “Do you want to go there to find out?”
Horror gripped her at the idea of entering the center of Norsunder, where They had created their own paradise—a place where time and space responded only to the strongest will. And no one’s will was as strong as that of the Host of Lords.
Not even Detlev’s, who had surrendered to them, four thousand years ago.
“No,” she said.
Kessler smiled faintly, and then he said, “I believe Vatiora has those reports.”
“Vatiora?”
But he said nothing more.
Dejain stepped aside, her heartbeat a fast drum of fear—and he walked past, the sound of his footsteps diminishing rapidly. Vatiora was as insane as she was powerful. She also had a reputation for making her victims linger extraordinarily long.
Dejain shuddered and hurried on her way, hating the distances she had to cover—but she dared not transfer, lest Zydes have mirror-wards against transfer anywhere on her route. He was certainly capable of it.
When she reached the tower, she completed the transfer, and Wend appeared. “Get the rest of my men,” he said.
“Not until the plan is complete,” she retorted.
He said, “We don’t have supplies for a long search. Those brats have gone to ground, and my people need rest and food.”
She looked into that ugly face and knew two things: that he would not report in more detail until he had his team, and second, that he was up to something, and she did not know what it was.
Fighting the urge to scream and curse, she began the transfer spells. One by one she brought his people in, until the last had arrived and her head buzzed with magic reaction.
o0o
“Fog’s come down hard. Like night,” Pouldi said, reappearing after a careful, scouting check on his hands and knees.
“And none of the enemy in sight or hearing,” Sin added. “I think they went away.”
Hinder nodded.
“Then everyone take hands,” Atan said. “We’re going to leave.”
In silence, except for the crunch of footfalls on gravel and the occasional skittering of rocks, they slunk to the surface again, and pushed past the shrubs into a world of soft, cold whiteness.
Hinder’s white head, pale skin, and his light-colored tunic made him nearly invisible, though he was only three people in front of Atan. On her right Lilah toiled, her breathing loud after the long upward climb, her small, square hand warm and strong. On her left was Sin, her thin, strong fingers cool and dry to the touch, the talons flexed away from Atan’s flesh.
“Stay in line,” Sin murmured. “Pass it down.”
Atan heard Lilah whisper to whoever was beyond her.
They kept moving.
And while the kids snaked slowly up a hill away from the river, Dejain stood on the tower, fighting anger and nausea, her eyes closed—until she heard a shout echo up from the courtyard directly below:
“Now!”
FIVE
And she almost missed it.
She stared down into the torchlit courtyard. In the time it takes for the heart to drum once, she marked the ring of waiting conspirators facing Detlev.
Where did he come from?
Wend, Xoll, and a couple of his particular followers had joined with Vatiora, whose hair and clothes still billowed, lifting slightly in the weird, lightning-charged wind that came with long transfers directly from Norsunder.
Dejain took an involuntary step back, but lunged forward in recovery. She had to watch, for two things were now clear: that this was an ambush that someone else had planned, and that Detlev was the intended prey.
Vatiora raised her hands, teeth bared in her death’s head grin, the torchlight reflecting red and bright in her distended eyes. Dejain felt the hum of building magic. Her skin roughened, and as the faint glow of power flickered around Vatiora’s hands, Wend and three others closed in together, two from the side and one forward, hands full of steel. Others in the ring circled as backup.
Detlev took a single step, with deceptive slowness, then he moved in a half-circle, his arms a blur. Blink. Three were down, Wend rolling back and forth in helpless agony, Xoll and the other motionless, and only Detlev still standing. The outer ring of fighters faded back.
Detlev raised his head.
Vatiora had inexplicably frozen, her chin up at a strained angle. For a long moment, Dejain looked down into that narrow face, its furrows carved by unmeasured years of insatiable cruelty, twin torches reflecting in the wide, staring dark eyes, and then Detlev made a gesture, and Vatiora staggered as though released from an invisible hold.
Then she screamed. A horrible, long scream, the sound echoing in ear-flaying agony as her spell mirrored back onto her, and she was consumed by fire. Real fire. Smoke rose. The stench of cooking flesh made Dejain’s guts heave and her eyes water, but she dared not look away.
Light shimmered: transfer. Dejain realized belatedly that Zydes had been standing on the edge of that crowd. None of the rest could escape by magic, for they were all military.
Detlev stepped over Xoll, whose neck was obviously broken, and reached down to Wend. The bigger man recoiled, but Detlev took his forearm in a firm grip, put a foot against Wend’s ribcage, and yanked.
Wend let out a gasp and then flopped back, limp and sweaty. Dejain had just enough time to realize that she was not witnessing further play with the fallen but resetting of a dislocated shoulder, and then Detlev spoke at last.
“Go get that wrapped up. You might also contemplate, before you decide your next move, the observation that fools can give only foolish advice.”
He looked up at two of Wend’s lurking people, pointed, and they sprang to haul Wend up and take him off. The rest backed away farther, some glancing down at the smear of soot and grease where Vatiora had stood, the rest sending furtive glances back at Detlev, as one by one they retreated into the barracks. The two dead trackers lay where they had fallen.
“Dejain.” Detlev lifted his head and nodded toward the row of windows comprising the command office.
How could he have seen her? He had not looked up once.
Dread, anticipation, and reaction made her joints go watery, as if she really were twenty again, instead of just looking it. For a moment she leaned against the wall, cold as it was, and forced herself to consider that still-smoking smear on the court stones. The wretched smell lingered in her hindbrain, if not in her nostrils, but she made herself acknow
What frightened her most was how he could have smoked out that ambush from an entire world away.
It wasn’t mere trickery, it was eternal vigilance. Habit made one unheeding, Kessler had told her early on in their alliance.
Kessler. Where was he?
She saw no one as she made her way down to the command rooms, though she knew that word had to be ricocheting through the fortress faster than a cross-bolt. Three dead, one wounded. Two had been trained assassins, and Detlev hadn’t even used a weapon, just his hands, nor a spell. He hadn’t touched Vatiora, but she’d reacted as though held in some invisible grip. Mental grip.
This was more evidence that he was, after all, one of Them.
She reached the door. Hesitated.
Heard his voice: “Come in. The wards are gone.”
And how long had that taken? Zydes had laid wards over the wards; she’d felt them from a distance the one time she had come in this wing without his sanction.
But Detlev stood in the middle of the room, the glowglobes illuminating him from the side. He looked neat and calm in his customary gray tunic and dark trousers, a man just over medium height, maybe in his thirties—but then They controlled the aging process from within. Brown hair, hazel eyes. He never dressed flash, like the Black Knives or some of the other war-branch commanders. In fact, you rarely saw him with a weapon at all. Yet here he was after that ambush, not the least bit sweaty or disheveled.
She stepped in, her tongue working in her dry mouth. Excuses—explanations—denials winged through her mind like the bats on the rocky heights.
Detlev said, “What do you want?”
The bats squeaked and were gone, leaving her brain empty and hollow.
Questions she had expected, but not that one.
Her lips shaped the word: “What?”
Get some control! she commanded herself, and she drew in her breath. Reaching for the motivation behind the question, she said, “I was not part of—”
Detlev lifted a hand. “Everyone is conspiring. Part of the sport. Vatiora’s recent gamble was only a feint for someone else, whom I will have to address presently. First I wish to stabilize the problems here. Now I ask you again, what do you want?”
Why don’t you just read my mind? she thought.
But she didn’t speak it—nor did she meet that steady gaze as she wondered if the question was a trick. Maybe he expected her to reveal herself by thinking one thing and saying something else. Everybody did that.
“Power,” she said. Her inner voice said, Order.
“To win.” Inside, And no one, ever, can take me by surprise again.
Memory flooded her brain, too strong to suppress: the village after the Brotherhood of Blood had sacked it, burning all the houses; the helpless worry caused by rumors of imminent war; seeking magic to learn to defend herself, because she knew she would always be too small for steel, and after her long, arduous search the mage cautioning her that learning magic took years and years, and she would be expected to sit in some cave somewhere, and watch caterpillars turn into butterflies.
Light magic. Sartor had fallen, yet they hadn’t changed their ways. That was not power, it was weak, sentimental foolishness. So she had to find her way to the magic of power, of strength...
She blinked away the memory. Detlev was still waiting. She wondered if he’d somehow read her memory, and hatred burned inside her. If he had, there was no way to withstand that. She said, “Is that enough, or do you want specifics?”
“No.” As usual, he was utterly unreadable. “As I said, everyone is plotting. So am I. Understand this: I have no interest in anyone’s plans, except as they concern me. Then I interfere.”
‘Interfere.’ That was not how she’d characterize what she’d just seen. She recognized how the lack of threat in his choice of words, or in his tone, was so very much more sinister than rants and raves and overt threats could ever be.
She nodded.
“Then I leave you in charge here. Zydes will be back before long. Do what you want with him. Kessler Sonscarna is to take orders from you.”
No, he won’t. She nearly said it, but managed not to speak. Detlev could place her in command, but she’d have to hold that command herself. He clearly wasn’t going to stay around to back her up.
He waited just long enough to see her nod again, and then he was gone. She waited until the brief, wild breeze of displaced air had brushed her face, and then she turned to the door, to see Lesca leaning against it.
Shock rang in her ears. Lesca’s lazy smile, her languorous posture, all belied the intensity of the last few moments. It was unsettling.
“Any orders, O commander?” Lesca asked.
So Detlev had let her stand there and hear it all? Well, he did say he didn’t care—
That could wait. Dejain waved her hand around the room. “Zydes’s prison guard decoration does not appeal to me. Can you make this office more comfortable? I had better get Wend’s report.”
Lesca laughed, made an ironic bow, and then left. Dejain looked in distaste at that huge desk and forbore going through the papers on it. Most of it would be worthless. She might as well save herself the time and throw everything but the garrison status reports into the fire.
Right now she had to establish command, and then get her own information. The fact that Lesca had been eavesdropping, unpleasant as it was, would probably redound to her credit. Of course she could not even remotely match Detlev’s little demonstration. But she could make her own presence felt by two things: magic and immediate action.
Using the response adrenaline still firing her nerves, she envisioned Wend’s ugly face and transferred to him.
The moment she appeared she said, “Report.”
And then used all her strength, all her concentration, to hold herself still and mask the transfer reaction. Breathe, breathe. The vertigo began to dissipate. She hoped Wend and the two others hadn’t seen it. Wend lay on a bed, his upper half freshly bandaged.
“... no sign of any of the brats. When the fog got so bad we couldn’t see our feet, I sent the signal for transfer.”
She hadn’t heard everything, of course, but she’d heard enough. Her mouth tightened at his last words. Fog? Magical in origin? That meant someone was also running Wend.
But that, obviously, was over.
She searched her mind for something to say, decided that Detlev’s silence was more effective, and so she transferred back to Zydes’s old command chamber.
Two transfers so quick in a row gave her a mild headache. She wondered how Detlev could deal with long distance double transfers—then she saw Kessler.
She rushed into speech. “Detlev put me in charge.” As if that was a defense!
“Yes.” He sounded exactly as flat as always. “What did he say about me?”
“His exact words were, Kessler Sonscarna is to take orders from you.”
As she spoke them, she realized what she’d missed before, the implied threat there. She had no idea what hold Detlev had over Kessler. More important, she had no idea why he didn’t put Kessler in charge of this army—or any other—and loose him against the world. He had to know how good he was. Whatever that hold might be, it had kept Kessler running as hound for a fool like Zydes. What she didn’t know was if the same hold was strong enough to make him take her orders.
“Then what are your orders?” he asked.
She was going to lick her dry lips, was suddenly reminded of Xoll, and suppressed a shudder of disgust. “Our first objective is to recover Sartor. It’s going to be a matter for magery or I wouldn’t be here, is my reasoning. But we’ll also need field backup. You are in charge of that. All I want is the Landis girl, alive if you can. But removed from Sartor. She must not reach Eidervaen. This is why I need to see those fi
Kessler said nothing.
How could she get her own hold over him—maybe make him grateful? “As for Zydes,” she said, “you can do what you like with him.”
Xoll would have licked his lips in pleasure. Wend—a dozen others—would have grinned and rubbed their hands, or made some similar move. Kessler jerked his head, a slight movement, as though throwing off something. “Waste of time. The Landis girl was last seen heading north toward the capital. It’s a short distance, but it’s bad terrain, according to the map. Old volcanic area. Caves, cracks in the ground, hidden fissures and chasms. A search is going to require a sizable detachment. And you will have to transfer us all by magic, if you don’t want to lose three weeks of travel time.”
Dejain sat down, knowing that this first night and day were going to tax her strength to the maximum—but if she survived it, she would be able to hold the base. And then start on her plans again, this time with all its resources at her command.
“Get who you need and supply them,” she said. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.”
He left, his quick step diminishing.
Leaving her with a silent room, and relief that dealing with him—so far—had been so easy. And as for Zydes, why shouldn’t she have some fun, after all? Sword duels were disgusting, but a magic duel was very much to her taste.
o0o
“They’re back.”
Mendaen slid down the muddy hillside and landed next to Atan.
Everyone had to look. Atan didn’t try to stop them. She climbed as well. They all knew to keep their heads from creating a silhouette, and so they peered through scrubby hedges or low plants at the precisely spaced line of horseback riders crossing the hilltops as they searched.
Atan didn’t know much about horses—there weren’t any in Delfina Valley—but it didn’t take experience to recognize that this was nasty ground for riding, what with all the rocks, and cracks, and slides. But the line of Norsundrians rode fast, wheeling at once when the foremost one raised a hand, and for a brief time the group vanished over a hilltop—to reappear farther on.