Out of the Darkness

Mine didn’t smash into the ground, and didn’t crush me after I got out of the harness. Luck-except for my leg.” He couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened, no matter how much he wanted to.

His wife nodded. “I’m very sorry.”

It was more than polite, less than loving: exactly what he might have expected from Gismonda. “How did you finally find out Orosio had it wrong?”

“A mad rumor went through Trapani a couple of weeks ago-a rumor that the Unkerlanters had offered to make some wounded dragonflier King of Algarve, or of what they held of Algarve, and that he’d turned them down flat.”

Gismonda’s green eyes glinted. “I know you, my dear. It sounded so much like something you would do, I started asking questions. And here I am.”

“Here you are,” Sabrino agreed. “I’m glad you are.” He held out his hands to her. They still hadn’t touched. That was very much like Gismonda, too. But she did take his hands now. She even bent down by the side of the bed and brushed her lips across his. He laughed. “You are a wanton today.”

“Oh, hush,” she told him. “You’re as foolish as that healer of yours.”

He patted her backside-not the sort of liberty he usually took with her. “If you wanted to shut the door. .”

“I wasn’t supposed to make you tired,” Gismonda said primly.

Sabrino grinned. “You just told me the fellow was a fool. So why pay attention to him now?”

“Men,” Gismonda said again, maybe fondly, maybe not. “You’d sooner have lost your leg than that.”

“No.” The grin fell from Sabrino’s face. “I’d sooner not have lost anything. This hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t been fun, and I’ll thank you not to joke about it.”

“I’m sorry,” his wife said at once. “You’re right, of course. That was thoughtless of me. When do they think you’ll be able to leave here?”

She was clever. Not only did she change the subject, she reminded him what he would be able to do when he healed, not of what he’d lost. “It shouldn’t be too much longer,” he answered. “I am on my feet-on my foot, I should say. I’d just gone out and about not long before you got here. They’re talking about fitting a made leg to the stump, but that won’t be for a while longer. It needs to heal more.”

“I understand,” Gismonda said. “When you do get out, I’ll take the best care of you I can-and I’ll do what I can for that, too, once we’re someplace where no one is likely to walk in on us.”

“I appreciate it.” Sabrino’s tone was sardonic. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that was a mistake. If he was to get any pleasure from a woman from now on, from whom would it be but Gismonda? Who else would be interested in a mutilated old man? No one he could think of.

Half a lifetime earlier, such a reflection would have cast him into despair. Now … At just this side of sixty, he burned less feverishly than he had when he was younger. The decoctions he drank to hold pain at bay helped dampen his fire, too, and the brute fact of the injury he’d taken also reduced his vitality.

He sighed. “Even if you had shut the door there, I wonder if anything would have happened.”

“One way or another, I expect we’ll manage when you’re well enough to come home,” Gismonda said. “In your own way, Sabrino, you are reliable.”

“For which I thank you indeed,” he replied. “It may be flattery-in my present state of decrepitude, it’s bound to be flattery-but you mustn’t think I’m not grateful to you for keeping up the illusion.”

“Isn’t that part of what marriage is about? Keeping up illusions, I mean. On both sides, mind you, so husband and wife can go on living with each other. Or maybe you’d sooner just call it politeness and tact.”

“I don’t know.” Sabrino groped for a reply, found none, and let out a small, embarrassed laugh. “I don’t know what to say to that. But I can use the distillate of poppy juice as an excuse, and count on you to be polite enough not to let me see you don’t believe a single, solitary word of it.”

Gismonda smiled. “Of course, my dear.”

The healer bustled in. “Well, well, how are we doing?” he asked in a loud, hearty voice.

“No we, my dear fellow. I turned the kingship down,” Sabrino said grandly. The healer laughed. Gismonda smiled again. Sabrino was gladder for that; he knew she made a more discriminating audience.

In the refectory, Pekka raised her mug of ale in salute. “Powers above be praised that we aren’t teaching teams of mages anymore!” she said, and took a long pull at the mug.

“I’ll certainly drink to that.” Fernao did. Setting his mug on the table, he gave her a quizzical look. “But I’m surprised to hear you say such a thing. How will you go back to Kajaani City College if you feel that way?”

Pekka cut a bite from her reindeer chop. Chewing and swallowing gave her time to think. “It’s not the same,” she said at last. “That won’t be an emergency. And”-she looked around the refectory before she went on, making sure none of the mages they’d worked with was in earshot-”and I won’t be trying to get through to so many stubborn dunderheads. Some of the people we tried to teach must still be sure the world is flat.”

“I ran into that, too,” Fernao said. “You wouldn’t expect it from mages-”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Pekka broke in, “but now I’m not so sure. Mages know the world is full of sorcerous laws. When we showed them the ones they thought they knew weren’t really at the bottom of things, some of them didn’t want to hear that at all.”

“They certainly didn’t,” Fernao agreed. “Some of them didn’t want to believe the spells I was casting actually worked, even though they saw them with their own eyes. But even so, the ones we did manage to train went out and stopped the Algarvians as if they’d run into a wall.”

That was true. Pekka couldn’t deny it, and was glad she couldn’t. “Have you read the interrogation reports from some of the captured Algarvian mages?” she asked.

“Aye.” Fernao nodded. His smile might have belonged on the face of a shark: it was all teeth and no mercy. “They still haven’t figured out how we did what we did. They know we did something they couldn’t match, but there are about as many guesses as to what it is as there are mages.”

“And not very many of them are even close to what we really did,” Pekka said. “That makes me happier, too, because it’s likely to mean the Unkerlanters aren’t close to figuring it out, either. I hope they’re not.”

“So do I.” Fernao said. “As long as they don’t figure it out, we still hold the whip hand. The longer we can keep it, the better.” He took another sip from his mug, then asked, “Anything new from Gyongyos?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” Pekka answered with a mournful shake of the head. “If they don’t decide we meant that warning demonstration, we’ll have to show them it was real. I don’t want to do that. So many people. .”

“It will end the war,” Fernao said. “It had better, anyhow.”

That made Pekka drain the rest of her ale in a hurry. The notion that the Gongs might try to keep fighting even after having horror visited on them had never crossed her mind. No one rational would do such a thing. But, were the Gyongyosians rational, wouldn’t they have quit already? They’d surely seen by now that they couldn’t hope to win. . hadn’t they?

“What would we do if they didn’t quit?” she muttered.

“Smash another city of theirs, I suppose,” Fernao answered. “Better that than invading-or do you think I’m wrong?”

“No.” Pekka waved to one of the serving women and ordered more ale. “I don’t want to have to cast this spell once, though. Twice?” She shuddered. When the new mug of ale got there, she gulped it down fast, too.

Her head started to spin. Fernao wagged a finger at her. “Am I going to have to carry you up to your bedchamber?”

She laughed. It sounded like the laugh of someone who’d had a little too much to drink. “Ha!” she said, feeling very witty-and slightly tongue-tied. “You just want me defenseless”-she had to try twice before she could get the word out-”so you can work your evil will on me.”

“Evil?” Fernao raised a gingery eyebrow. “You thought it was pretty good the last time we tried anything.”

As best she could remember-none too clearly, not at the moment-he was right. “That hasn’t got anything to do with anything,” she declared.

“No, eh?” Fernao said. “I-”

A commotion at the entrance to the refectory interrupted him. “What’s that?” Pekka said. Kuusamans didn’t commonly cause commotions. She got to her feet to see what was going on.