Out of the Darkness

he’s been thrown into a dungeon,” Fernao replied. “She asks if Leino can do anything to get him out.”

“A Jelgavan dungeon.” Pekka winced. Jelgavan dungeons had an evil reputation. Leino, she remembered, had met King Donalitu aboard the Habakkuk, met him and despised him. Helping anyone who’d fallen foul of his men seemed worth doing. She asked, “Who is this fellow?”

“His name is Talsu. He’s from a town called Skrunda-whereabouts in Jelgava that is, powers above only know. I know I don’t, not without a book of maps,” Fernao said. “His wife’s called Gailisa.”

That name meant nothing to Pekka. Talsu, on the other hand.. “Aye, Leino said something about him in a letter. He helped our men slip through the Algarvian lines in front of this Skrunda place.”

“You probably ought to see what you can do for him, then,” Fernao said. Pekka smiled and nodded, glad he was thinking along with her. Leino had done a lot of that; if Fernao could, too-and if she could with him-that struck her as promising. Fernao’s next question was thoroughly practical: “Do you think you can do anything?”

“By myself? No. Why should any Jelgavan want to listen to me? But I’ve got connections, and what good are they if I don’t use them?” Listening to herself, Pekka had to laugh. She sounded very much like a woman of the world, not a theoretical sorcerer from a town that looked southwest toward the land of the Ice People. She’d seen Fernao smile a couple of amused and tolerant smiles in Kajaani, though he’d done his best to hide them.

He nodded vigorously now. “Good for you. At least half the time, knowing people counts for more than knowing things does.”

Pekka’s supper arrived then. She ate quickly, for she wanted to get to the crystallomancers’ chamber as soon as she could. When she walked in, she said, “Put me through to Prince Juhainen, if he’s not too busy to talk.”

“Aye, Mistress Pekka,” said a crystallomancer: the same woman who’d summoned her to this chamber to hear Juhainen tell her Leino was dead. Pekka tried not to think of that now. The crystallomancer went about her business with unhurried precision. After a couple of minutes, she looked up from the crystal, in which the prince’s image had appeared. “Go ahead.”

“Hello, your Highness,” Pekka said. “I have a favor to ask of you, if you’d be so kind.”

“That depends, Mistress Pekka,” Juhainen answered. “One of the things I’ve learned the past couple of years is not to make promises till I know what I’m promising.”

“I’m sure that’s wise,” Pekka said, and went on to explain what Talsu’s wife had asked of her.

“A Jelgavan dungeon, eh?” Prince Juhainen’s mouth twisted, as if he’d just smelled something nasty. “I don’t believe I would wish my worst enemy into a Jelgavan dungeon. And you say this Talsu fellow actually helped our men?”

“That’s right, your Highness.” Pekka nodded.

“And they’ve flung him into one of these miserable places anyhow?” Juhainen said. Pekka nodded again. The prince scowled. “That is not good,” he declared, which, from a Kuusaman, carried more weight than screamed curses from an excitable Algarvian. He continued, “Thank you for bringing it to my notice. I shall see what I can do.”

“Will the Jelgavans heed you, sir?” Pekka asked.

“If gratitude means anything, they will,” Juhainen answered. But his smile was wry. “As often as not, gratitude means nothing at all between kingdoms. Truth to tell, Mistress Pekka, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know whether anything will happen. But I do mean to find out.” He turned and nodded to someone: to his own crystallomancer, for the sphere in front of Pekka flared and then, to the eye, became once more nothing but glass.

The crystallomancer on duty at the hostel said not a word. Of course she’d heard everything that passed between Pekka and Juhainen, but the secrecy inherent in her craft kept her silent, as it should have done.

When Pekka went upstairs, she went to Fernao’s room, not to her own. “Well?” the Lagoan mage asked.

“Pretty well,” Pekka told him. “Prince Juhainen says he’ll see what he can do.”

“Good,” Fernao said. “If Donalitu and his flunkies will listen to anybody, they’ll listen to one of the Seven Princes of Kuusamo.” His smile, though, had the same wry edge as Juhainen’s had. “Of course, they’re Jelgavans. There’s no guarantee they will listen to anybody.”

“Ordinary Jelgavans aren’t bad. They’re just-people,” Pekka said. “I was up on the beaches of the north there once, on … on holiday.” The holiday had been her honeymoon with Leino. She felt an odd constraint-or maybe it wasn’t so odd-about talking too much with Fernao about her life with her husband.

“Their nobles, though …” Fernao’s chuckle held little mirth. “Most hidebound people in the world, bar none. They make Valmieran nobles look like levelers, and that’s not easy.”

“I hope Prince Juhainen can do something for that poor fellow,” Pekka said. “How terrible, to help his kingdom and end up in a dungeon anyhow.”

“Donalitu and his bully boys root out treason wherever they think they see it,” Fernao replied. “My guess is, they root it out whether it’s really there or not. Sooner or later, they’ll end up breeding real treason that way, whether it would have sprung up without them or not.”

“That makes more sense than what Donalitu’s doing,” Pekka said. “Leino wrote that some Jelgavans were fighting on King Mezentio’s side in spite of what Mezentio’s men were doing to Kaunians. Now that I hear what happened to this Talsu, that makes a little more sense to me.”

“Donalitu is a bad bargain, and nobody could possibly make him better,” Fernao said. “The only thing I would give him is that he’s better than Mezentio.” He sighed. “I’m not altogether sure I’d give King Swemmel even that much. He’s a son of a whore, no doubt about it-but he’s a son of a whore who’s on our side.”

“Any war that puts us on the same side as the Unkerlanters. .” Pekka shook her head. “But the Algarvians really have done worse.”

“So they have.” Fernao didn’t sound any happier about it than Pekka had. “Worse than the Unkerlanters-if that’s not bad, I don’t know what is.” He changed the subject: “Are we going to go ahead with the demonstration out in the Bothnian Ocean?”

“We certainly are,” Pekka said, also relieved to talk about something else. “That needs doing, wouldn’t you say?”

“If it works, certainly. If it doesn’t. .” Fernao shrugged. “Well, it’s certainly worth trying, the same as getting this what’s-his-name-”

“Talsu,” Pekka said.

“Talsu,” the Lagoan mage echoed. “Getting him out of the dungeon. The demonstration’s a little more important, though.”

“I should hope so,” Pekka exclaimed. “If the demonstration does what we want it to, it might even end this war.” The very words tasted strange to her. The Derlavaian War had gone on for almost six years (though Kuusamo had been in the fight for only a little more than half that time): long enough for death and devastation and disaster to seem normal, and everything else an aberration. It had cost Pekka as much as she’d feared in her worst nightmares, and, a couple of times, all but cost her life.

“When the war is over. .” Fernao didn’t sound as if he really believed in the possibility, either. “May it be soon, that’s all-and may we never have another one.”

“Powers above, make that so!” Pekka said. “Another war, starting from the beginning with everything we’ve learned during this one? With whatever else we learn afterwards, too? I don’t think there’d be anything left of the world once we got through.”

“You’re probably right,” Fernao said. “And do you know what else? If we’re stupid enough to fight another war after everything we’ve seen these past few years, we don’t deserve to live: the whole human race, I mean.”

“I don’t know that I’d go quite so far.” But then Pekka thought about it for a little while. Deliberately inflict these horrors again, with the example of the Derlavaian War still green in memory? She sighed. “On the other hand, I don’t know that I wouldn’t, either.”

Hajjaj stepped into the crystallomancers’ chamber down the hall from the foreign ministry offices in the royal palace. The crystallomancer on duty sprang to his feet and bowed. “Good day, your Excellency,” he said.

“Good day, Kawar,” Hajjaj replied. The crystallomancer beamed. Hajjaj had long since learned how important knowing and recalling the names of underlings could be. He went on, “What is the latest word from the south?”

“That depends on whose emanations you’re listening to, your Excellency,” Kawar said.