what they did with the old magic. If the new is what we think it is, and if they learn it-”
Ilmarinen interrupted her: “We don’t know how close they are. We don’t know if they’re working on it at all. We do know the Lagoans will find some way to diddle us if they learn what we know.”
“No, we don’t know that,” Pekka replied in some exasperation. “We’ve been down this ley line before. And we don’t know enough to make the new magic work for us, not yet. Maybe the Lagoans will help us find the rest of what we need.”
“More likely they’ll steal it from us,” Ilmarinen said.
Instead of arguing any more, Pekka strode past him off the platform and toward the gateways leading out of the depot. That made him hurry after her and kept him too busy to complain. When he leaped into the street to wave down a cab, she smiled sweetly and said, “Thank you very much.”
“You’d have taken a whole bloody week before you got one,” Ilmarinen said-grumbling about one thing seemed to suit him as well as grumbling about another. He raised his voice to give the hackman an order: “The Principality.”
“Aye, sir,” the fellow said, and flicked the reins to get his horse going.
Workmen on scaffolds and in trenches still labored to repair the damage Yliharma had suffered in the sorcerous attack the winter before, but there were fewer of them than there had been on her latest visit. More and more Kuusamans went into the service of the Seven Princes every day. Pekka knew that all too well; every night she slept alone reminded her of it.
She slept alone in the Principality that night, in more luxury than she would have enjoyed back home. It failed to delight her. She would have traded all of it for Leino beside her, but knew she would have had to make the trip to Yliharma even if her husband had stayed at his Kajaani City College post.
In the morning, she ate smoked salmon and rings of red onion on a hard roll in the hotel dining room. Hot herb tea went well with the delicate fish. It also helped fortify her against the chilly drizzle that had started falling during the night.
As she was eating, Master Siuntio came into the dining room, accompanied by a tall, redheaded man who used a pair of crutches and one good leg to move himself along. The elderly theoretical sorcerer waved to Pekka. “Hello, my dear,” he said, hurrying toward her table. Then he switched from Kuusaman to classical Kaunian: “Mistress, I have the honor to introduce to you the first-rank mage, Fernao of Lagoas.”
“I am honored to meet you, Mistress Pekka.” As any first-rank mage would, Fernao spoke the universal tongue of scholarship well. He went on, “I know several languages, but I fear Kuusaman is not among them. I apologize for my ignorance.”
Pekka rose and extended her hand. A little awkwardly, Fernao shifted his crutch to free his own hand and clasp hers. He towered over her, but his injuries, his courteous speech, and his narrow, slanted eyes made him seem safer than he might have otherwise. She said, “No apologies needed. Everyone is ignorant of a great many things.”
He inclined his head. “You are kind. I should not be ignorant of the language of a kingdom I am visiting. Corresponding with you in classical Kaunian is well enough, but I ought to be able to use your tongue face-to- face.”
With a shrug, Pekka answered, “I read Lagoan well enough, but I would not care to try to speak it. And”-she smiled-”when we corresponded, we had little to say, no matter how long we took to say it. Will you both sit down and take breakfast with me?” Another thought occurred to her; she asked Fernao,
“Carefully,” he answered. “Slowly. Otherwise I end up on the floor, without even the pleasure of getting drunk first.” Siuntio pulled out a chair for him. He sat exactly as he’d said he would, too. A waiter hurried over. The fellow proved to know Lagoan, which didn’t greatly surprise Pekka-travelers from many lands stayed at the Principality, and the hostel staff had to be able to meet their needs.
Siuntio said, “Fernao has already offered several suggestions I think good; our experiments will go forward better and faster because he is here.” He spoke classical Kaunian as if he were big and blond and snatched by sorcery from the heyday of the Empire. Pekka was sure he spoke fluent Lagoan, too, but he didn’t use it here.
“You are too generous,” Fernao said. The waited brought him salmon then, and a roll and butter for Siuntio. The Lagoan mage waited till the man had gone, then continued, “You folk here have a two years’ head start on the rest of the world. I hurry along as best I can, but I know I am still behind you.”
“You have done very well,” Siuntio said. “Even Master Ilmarinen has told me as much.”
“He has not told
He was right; Pekka had never tasted camel, and had no great desire to do so. In something else he’d said, though, he might well have been wrong. “We may have a two years’ start on you,” Pekka told him, “but are you sure we have a two years’ start on the Algarvians? I wish I were.”
Fernao’s grimace suggested he’d taken a bite of camel after all. “No, I am not sure of that,” he admitted. “I have seen no Algarvian journals dating from since Lagoas declared war, and Mezentio’s mages may not be publishing any more than you were.”
“My belief is that the Algarvians are not traveling quickly down this ley line,” Siuntio said, not for the first time. “They have put so much work into their murderous magic, I think it occupies most of their mages.”
“That makes good sense,” Fernao said, “but not everything that makes good sense is true.”
“I am painfully aware of it,” Siuntio said. “Were I not, Ilmarinen’s work would be plenty to prove the point.”
“He will be waiting for us at the university, I suppose?” Pekka said.
“Aye, unless he’s gone off in a fit of pique,” Siuntio answered. Pekka bit her lip. With Ilmarinen, that was anything but impossible. But Siuntio went on, “I do expect to find him there.”
Fernao ate fast, as if afraid an Algarvian mage might start experimenting while he savored his smoked salmon. Getting up out of his chair was an even more awkward process than sitting down in it. Pekka signed the chit for all three breakfasts. The Seven Princes could afford it.
She and Siuntio had to help Fernao up into a cab. He sighed, saying, “I have not got used to being a burden to everyone around me.” Pekka and Siuntio both assured him he was nothing of the sort, but he didn’t seem inclined to listen. He sat glumly for some little while as the cab horse clopped through the streets of Yliharma. At last, he remarked, “I had heard the Algarvians struck you a heavy blow, but I had not realized it was as heavy as this.”
“It could have happened to Setubal, too,” Pekka said.
“It nearly did,” the Lagoan mage answered. “Mezentio’s men had set up a murder camp across the Strait of Valmiera from our city, but we raided it and freed most of the Kaunian captives there. We keep close watch, lest they try again.”
Thinking aloud, Pekka said, “If they work out the proper spells, I wonder if they have to be as physically close as they seem to believe. Could they not transmit the force of the magic along a ley line?”
She sat squeezed rather tightly between Fernao and Siuntio. Both men sent her looks full of consternation. Fernao said, “They started using their magecraft in Unkerlant, where ley lines are few and far between. It may well be, we have the powers above to thank for that.”
“And what do the sacrificed Kaunians have for which to thank the powers above?” Siuntio asked. Fernao looked as if he’d bitten down on one of the sour citrus fruits Jelgavans used to flavor wine. He made no reply.
When they reached the sorcerous laboratory the Algarvian attack had almost destroyed, they did find Ilmarinen waiting for them. He tilted his head back so he could look down-or rather, up-his nose at Fernao. “Come to see how it’s done, have you?”
“Aye,” the Lagoan mage answered equably. “After all, what else am I but a thief?”
Ilmarinen started to come back with something sharp. Before he could, Siuntio took him aside and spoke to him in a low voice. By the way he suddenly stared at Pekka, she was able to make a good guess as to what Siuntio told him. Ilmarinen said, “That’s a nasty thought, my dear. I’m the one who should have come up with it.”
Pekka smiled her most charming smile. “I’m sure you would have, Master Ilmarinen, if you hadn’t been too busy fuming about Fernao here.”
They’d all spoken Kuusaman, but the Lagoan mage caught his name. “What was that?” he asked. Pekka translated for him. He said, “You need not defend me, Mistress; I can take care of myself. And I have spent some
