Out of the Darkness

Kaunians. He took savage pleasure in casting the rest of the spell and flinging it at the mages who had gone back to the most barbarous days of wizardry to try to support their kingdom in a losing war. Xavega’s hand rested on his shoulder. He felt her strength flowing into him, flowing through him, and flowing out of him against the Algarvians. And he felt the power Mezentio’s men had unleashed now crumpled, bent back, turned against them.

“This is easy!” Triumph filled Xavega’s voice. “It must be because we were ready in advance.”

“I suppose so,” Leino said when he could snatch a moment between cantrips. “It almost feels. . too easy?”

Xavega laughed and shook her head. But suddenly, as Leino began a new charm, he felt another upsurge of sorcerous energy from the west, this one far stronger than the one before. I’ve been outfoxed, he thought as the ground shuddered beneath him. Xavega screamed. The Algarvians used one sacrifice to get us to show where we were, then had more Kaunians and more mages waiting to strike us when we revealed ourselves. Now how do we get out of this?

Red-purple flames shot up all around them. The crystallomancers’ tent caught fire. Xavega screamed again. Cracks in the ground yawned wide beneath her and Leino. Leino screamed, too, as he felt himself falling. The cracks slammed shut.

Ilmarinen’s bones creaked as he got off the ley-line caravan in the western Jelgavan town of Ludza. Carrying a carpetbag heavier than it might have been because it was full of papers and sorcerous tomes, he descended to the platform. The depot was battered but still standing, which proved the Algarvians hadn’t turned and fought here, as they’d done in a good many places he’d seen on his journey across King Donalitu’s realm.

A Kuusaman mage about half Ilmarinen’s age stood waiting on the platform. “Welcome, Master!” he exclaimed, hurrying forward to take the carpetbag. “It’s a great privilege to make your acquaintance, sir. I’m called Paalo.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ilmarinen answered. “You have a carriage waiting?”

“I certainly do, sir,” Paalo said. “And we may speak freely as we go. My driver is cleared to hear secrets.”

“I’m so sorry for him,” Ilmarinen murmured. Paalo gave him a puzzled look. Ilmarinen stifled a mental sigh. Another bright young man born without a funny bone, he thought. Too many of them these days. But he would have to deal with this one, at least for a while. “I heard in-Skrunda, was it? — that something had gone wrong up here. What can you tell me about it?”

“I’m afraid that’s right, sir,” Paalo said. “It doesn’t do to depend on the Algarvians to keep trying the same thing over and over. They caught a couple of our mages-well, actually, one of ours and a Lagoan-in as nasty a trap as you’d never want to see.”

“Started killing Kaunians for a lure, then killed a bunch more once we’d begun the counterspell, the second time aiming at our mages?” Ilmarinen asked.

“Er-aye.” Paalo frowned. “Did you hear that back in Skrunda, sir? They weren’t supposed to know that much about it. If somebody back there is asking questions where he isn’t supposed to, I want to know who. We’ll put him someplace where he can ask questions of the geese that fly by, and of nobody else.”

“No, no, no-nothing like that.” Ilmarinen shook his head. “I had all that time to think while I was sailing up from Kuusamo. One of the things I was thinking about was, if I were one of fornicating Mezentio’s mages, how could I get back at the nasty Kuusamans and Lagoans who were giving me such a hard time?”

Paalo stared. “I hope you won’t be angry at me for saying so, sir, but you seem to have outthought the entire sorcerous high command of our army and that of the Lagoans, too.” He slung Ilmarinen’s carpetbag in the carriage, then turned to see if the master mage needed a hand getting in himself. When he discovered Ilmarinen didn’t, he asked, “How did you do that?”

“I suspect it wasn’t very hard,” Ilmarinen answered, and Paalo’s narrow, slanted eyes got about as wide as they could. Ilmarinen went on, “No doubt all the army mages were so full of themselves-and so full of what their fancy spells could do-that they never bothered thinking about what the other bastards might do to them. Stupid buggers, but I don’t suppose it can be helped.”

“Er. .” Paalo said again. Ilmarinen realized he might have sounded too harsh; criticizing military mages to another military mage was almost bound to prove a waste of time. Perhaps to disguise what he was feeling, Paalo gave the driver minute instructions on how to get back to a place he’d surely come from. Then, sighing, he went on, “I wish Leino and Xavega had foreseen such consequences as accurately as you did, Master Ilmarinen.”

“They probably should have-” Ilmarinen broke off. “Leino?”

“That’s right.” Paalo nodded. “Did you know him, sir?”

“I’ve met him a few times.” Ilmarinen shook his head in bemusement. “I’ve done a good deal of work with his wife, though. They had-they have-a little boy.” And what will Pekka and her Lagoon lover do when they find out about this? I wish I were back there in the Naantali district, so I could see for myself. A better piece of melodrama than most of the playwrights come up with, by the powers above.

“His. . wife?” Paalo said. “Are you sure, sir?”

“I’ve been to their home. I’ve met their boy. He looks like his father,” Ilmarinen replied. “I never saw them naked in bed together and screwing, if that’s what you mean, but I have no doubt they were guilty of it. Why?”

Paalo turned as red as a golden-skinned Kuusaman could. “I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but. . ”

“But you’re going to,” Ilmarinen said. “After a buildup like that, my friend, you’ll blab or I’ll turn you into a sparrow and me into a sparrowhawk. Talk!”

Instead of talking, Paalo suffered a coughing fit. “Well, sir, it’s only that. . Anyone who knew Leino and Xavega here in Jelgava knew they.. they.. ”

“Were lovers?” Ilmarinen suggested.

Paalo nodded gratefully. “So they were. And so we all assumed Leino had no, ah, impediments that would have kept him from. .”

“Screwing her,” Ilmarinen supplied, and got another grateful nod from Paalo, who struck him as a very straitlaced man. “Xavega,” Ilmarinen murmured. “Xavega. I saw her at a sorcerers’ colloquium or two, I think. Bad- tempered woman, if I recall, but pretty enough to get away with it a lot of the time.”

“That’s her,” Paalo said. “Drawn straight from life, that’s her.”

Ilmarinen hardly heard him. “And put together?” he added, his hands shaping an hourglass in the air. “I wouldn’t have thrown her out of bed, even if I’d been married to two of my wives at the same time.” He eyed Paalo, who’d gone from red to a color not far removed from chartreuse, and patted him on the back. “There, there, my dear fellow, I’ve upset you.”

“It’s nothing, sir,” the other wizard said stiffly. He was plainly lying through his teeth, but Ilmarinen rather admired him for it here. After a moment, gathering himself, Paalo added, “You aren’t. . quite what I expected in a master mage, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I’m a raffish old son of a whore, is what I am,” Ilmarinen said, not without a certain pride. “What you expected was Master Siuntio-but even he had more juice in him than people who didn’t know him would guess. But, juice or no juice, plaster or no plaster, he’s dead now, and you’re bloody well stuck with me. And if I don’t match what you think a master mage should be-I am a master mage, so maybe you’d do better revising your hypothesis.”

“Er. .” Paalo said yet again. He laughed a nervous laugh. “You aren’t what I expected, not at all.”

“Too bad.” Ilmarinen leaned forward to tap the driver on the shoulder. “How much longer till we get where we’re going?”

“Half an hour, sir,” the fellow answered, “if the Algarvians don’t go and drop any eggs on our heads.”

“Are they in the habit of doing that?” Ilmarinen glanced at Paalo. “Your head still looks moderately well stuck on.”

He’d expected the younger mage to go, Er, for the fourth time. Instead, solemnly, Paalo said, “I do begin to wonder, the more I sit by you.” That startled a laugh out of Ilmarinen. Paalo went on, “No, the Algarvians haven’t got many dragons in the air here. We rule the skies. They’re trying to hold our beasts on Sibiu away from Trapani and the south, and most of their dragons that aren’t doing that are fighting the Unkerlanters.”

“Ah, the Unkerlanters,” Ilmarinen said. “Swemmel’s paid the butcher’s bill for this war, even if we islanders may come out of it looking better than he does. I’m sorry for him. I’d be even sorrier if he weren’t such a nasty,