Storm Rising

But it was that last thought that stopped him because revenge was the last thing Ulrich would have wanted. What was being proposed meant that vengeance was enacted, not upon the perpetrator, but upon people—soldiers—who had no idea what evil had been wrought here. Ulrich had once commanded demons—and gladly renounced that power when Solaris decreed it anathema. The demons were the next thing to mindless, and too often, like a hail of arrows loosed at random, they killed those who were innocent along with those who were guilty.

These soldiers, far from home and desperate, were not the real enemy. The real enemy was the one who had commanded those magical weapons, and the one who had sent the assassin. They had caught the original assassin, after all. What would be the point of going after anyone else now—unless, perhaps, they in their turn specifically targeted the commander of these forces, assuming he had been the one who had ordered the assassin to strike in the first place.

Others joined Jarim in calling for action, or opposed him, cautioning that it might be better to let the full force of winter take its toll before acting. But Karal sat and clasped cold fingers before him, wondering what had happened that he was no longer able to see things involving humans as day or night, good, or evil.

He knew when it had begun; something had changed when he entered the barrier at the border with Iftel, and it had continued to affect him in the days he had spent recovering from the experience. He had the feeling, always humming in the background like the blood in his veins, that he had been welcomed by something extraordinary. Karal lived in a time of wonder and strangeness, yet the feeling he had was not, at any time, that of being a spectator. He was a part of it all, an active player in whatever game the fates set the board for, and that feeling itself was beyond anything he'd prepared for.

I can't help it; present me with a situation, and I have to think about both sides of it. I can try to suppress it, but I cannot shut off the way I think. Once knowledge is gained, there's no going back to ignorance. I think about what the other feels. I can't stop it, and I don't think Vkandis Sunlord, Solaris, or Altra would want me to. Or Ulrich, far away in Vkandis' arms.

Ironically enough, it had been Ulrich himself who had planted the seeds of this change, back when he and his mentor had first crossed into Valdemar. Ulrich had asked a slow but steady progression of perfectly logical questions that had ultimately forced him to see his former enemies as people, and not as a faceless horde. Because of Ulrich's patient coaching, he now knew, at the deepest level of pure reaction, that the impersonal and evil army of nameless demons that lay across the border of Karse was nothing of the sort. It was Heralds and Companions, farmers and townsfolk, soldiers of the Queen and ordinary citizens; people very like those he had known all his life.

Now he could no longer see an enemy impersonally. The great and mindless 'they' were nothing more nor less than people, and he saw them that way. While the others spoke of wiping out the Imperial Army, he saw ordinary fighting men, suffering unseasonable cold and demoralizing doubt, wondering if they would ever see home again. He even imagined faces, for the faces of fighters came to look much alike after a few seasons in the field: tired, unshaven, with lines of suppressed fear and dogged determination about the eyes and mouth.

'They' were just doing their jobs. They didn't know anything about Valdemar. Conditions in Hardorn had been so dismal when they first crossed the border, they had been welcomed as liberators. Ancar had abused his people to the point that they were happy to see even a foreign invader, if that meant that Ancar would be deposed. Now the Imperials were probably wondering why the welcome they'd gotten had turned so sour. Things they had come to depend on were no longer working, and by now word must have filtered down that no one had any contact with their headquarters back home. Strange and misshapen beasts had attacked them, and they had seen a 'weapon' at work that no one understood.

If any of them had the slightest notion that their superiors had assassins working in Valdemar, a few of them might even be horrified. Certainly, since the professional soldier generally had the deepest contempt for the covert operator, they probably would be a bit disgusted. But it was unlikely that any of them knew or even guessed what had happened in Valdemar's Court, that one of their leaders had assassinated perfectly innocent people.

So why should perfectly 'innocent' soldiers suffer for the action of what was probably a single man?

They were already under more privation than they had any right to anticipate.

They're far from home and all the things they know. They have no idea if they will ever find their way back again. They may not even be able to retreat in a conventional way. They must be afraid—how could they not be afraid? And winter is coming, more mage-storms. The storms created some terrifying creatures here before we built the breakwater. What can they possibly be making in Hardorn?

Since he was alone and far from home himself, he couldn't help but have some fellow feeling for them. Perhaps it was foolish, but there it was.

For that matter, it was only presumption on their part that the assassination orders originated with someone commanding the forces in Hardorn. There was no real reason to assume that was actually true.

After all, Talia and Selenay's old nemesis, Hulda, had been getting her orders directly from the Imperial capital, possibly even from one of Emperor Charliss' personal spymasters. Charliss was accustomed to sending in operatives who worked at an extreme distance, for with the magics the Empire used routinely, distance was no object. So who was to say that the assassin hadn't been sent directly by Charliss or someone just below him, and had nothing to do with the forces in Hardorn at all?

The Imperial Army itself had never done anything overtly against Valdemar; they had only moved to take over a disorganized and demoralized country after its own ruler had been killed—

—by Valdemarans. Valdemar assassins, not to put too fine a point upon it.