Through the Darkness

She wasn’t the smoothest incantor Fernao had ever seen, but she was a long way from being the clumsiest. Because the spell was in Kuusaman, he couldn’t tell whether it went as it should-she’d been right about that. But she sounded confident, and both Siuntio and Ilmarinen nodded approval every now and then.

The Kuusamans hadn’t been lying about the magnitude of the forces they were manipulating. Fernao felt that at once. The air of the laboratory seemed to quiver with the energy that built as Pekka chanted on. Ilmarinen and Siuntio weren’t sitting back and taking it easy, either. They quivered, too, with tension. If something went wrong here, it would go horribly wrong. And it would go horribly wrong in the blink of an eye.

Even the rats felt something was strange. The young animals in one row of cages scrabbled frantically at the iron bars, trying to break free. One gnawed at the bars till its front tooth broke with an audible snap! The older rats in the other cages burrowed down into the sawdust and cedar shavings from which they made their nests, as if trying to hide from the building sorcerous storm. It would do them no good, of course, but they didn’t know that. The only knew they were afraid.

Fernao knew he was afraid, too. He realized Ilmarinen and Pekka hadn’t been joking when they talked about generating almost enough sorcerous energy to sink Yliharma in the sea. And that from a few rats.

What would the Algarvians do, he wondered, if they tried this experiment with Kaunian children and grandparents? How much sorcerous energy would that yield? And Swemmel of Unkerlant was already killing his own peasants. Would he worry about killing a few, or more than a few, more? Not likely.

Will there be anything left of the world by the time this cursed war is done? Fernao wondered. The more he saw, the less hope he had.

It was building to a peak. Without understanding the words of the spell, Fernao could tell that from Pekka’s intonation … and from the feeling in the air, like that just before lightning flashes.

Hardly had that thought crossed his mind before Pekka cried out one last word. Lightning did crackle between the rows of cages then, and went on and on. Once, fast as a striking serpent, Siuntio rapped out a word, right in the middle of that spectacular discharge. Fernao couldn’t see that it made any difference, but Ilmarinen patted his fellow mage on the back as if he’d done something more than considerable.

At last, the lightnings faded. Pekka slumped, and held herself up by hanging on to the table in front of which she stood. “Well, we got through another one,” she said in a gravelly voice. Through dazzled eyes, Fernao saw the sweat on her forehead, saw the skin stretched tight on her high cheekbones. Casting that spell looked to have aged her five years, maybe ten.

Fernao started to say something, but drew in a breath and coughed. The breath was ripe-rank-with the odor of corruption. Ilmarinen coughed, too, coughed and said, “We ought to do more work with the windows open.”

“Or else work with a convergent series,” Siuntio put in.

“These are the older animals?” Fernao asked.

“A lot older now,” Ilmarinen said. “Actually, you’re smelling the way they were a while ago, so to speak. They don’t stink at all now; they’re long past that.”

“I… see,” Fernao said slowly. “This is what the mathematics said you would be doing, but seeing the mathematics is not the same as seeing the thing itself.”

“It should be.” Siuntio’s voice held a touch of disapproval.

He was a master mage indeed, a master at a level to which Fernao could only aspire. If he truly did see the mathematics and the reality as one and the same-and Fernao was willing to believe he did-his powers of visualization were also well beyond those of the Lagoan mage. Somewhat cowed, Fernao said, “And what of the younger rats?”

Siuntio clucked again. He said, “You know what the mathematics say. If you must have the confirmation, examine their enclosures.”

“Aye, Master,” Fernao said with a sigh. He knew what he would find when he walked over to that row of cages, and find it he did: they were empty. There was no sign that rats had ever lived in them. He whistled, one soft, low note. “ Were they ever really there? Where did they go?”

“They’re gone now, by the powers above-that’s where the energy discharge came from,” Ilmarinen said. “And suppose you define real for me, when you’ve got a year you’re not doing anything else with.” No, he had no trouble being colloquially rude in classical Kaunian.

“In any case, where-or when-they may have gone is mathematically undefined, and so must be meaningless,” Siuntio said.

Femao made a discontented noise, down deep in his throat. “I have not been through the calculations as thoroughly as you have, of course, but this solution does not strike me as if it ought to be undefined.”

Pekka stirred. She didn’t seem quite so ravaged as she had just after she finished the spell. “I agree,” she said. “I believe there is a determinate solution to the question. If we can find it, I believe it will be important.”

“I’ve looked. I haven’t found one,” Ilmarinen said. He didn’t say, If I can’t find one, it isn‘t there, but that was what he meant.

“It may be just as well if we don’t look too hard,” Siuntio said. “The implications of the convergent series are alarming enough-how long before mages start robbing the young of time to give to the old and rich and vicious? But if you youngsters are right, the possibilities from the divergent series are even worse.”

“More paradoxical, certainly,” Pekka said. Fernao thought about the young rats. He nodded. The Kuusaman mage had found the right word.

“Sorcery abhors paradox.” Siuntio’s voice was prim.

“Most of the sorcerers here at the university abhor us,” Ilmarinen said. “We scare them to death, too: almost literally, after a couple of our experiments. This one didn’t even break any windows; we’re getting better control. Shall we go celebrate living through another one with some food and some spirits?”

“Aye!” Pekka said, as if he’d thrown her a cork float while she was drowning. Siuntio nodded. So did Fernao. But he ate and drank absently, for the distinction between the real world and the world of calculation blurred in his mind. By Pekka’s abstracted expression, he thought her mind was going down the same ley line as his. He wondered if it led anywhere.

Trasone stood on the northern bank of the Wolter and looked across the river toward the Mamming Hills beyond. He couldn’t see much of the hills; snow flurries cut his vision short. Chunks of drift ice floated down the Wolter toward the Narrow Sea.

Here in Sulingen, the snow that stuck on the ground was gray, ranging toward black. So much of the city had burned as the Algarvians battled block by block to seize it from King Swemmel’s men. Trasone turned to Sergeant Panfilo, who stood a few feet away. He waved a magnificent, all-encompassing Algarvian wave. “It’s ours at last!” he shouted. “Isn’t that bloody fornicating wonderful?”

“Oh, aye, it’s terrific, all right.” Panfilo pointed east. “We still haven’t got quite all of it.” Fresh smoke rose from the pockets where Unkerlanter soldiers still stubbornly hung on. The sergeant turned away from them, back toward the parts of Sulingen the Algarvians had won. Fresh smoke rose from them, too, here and there-Unkerlanter dragons and egg-tossers kept reminding the Algarvians the war went on. Panfilo gestured in disgust. “It wasn’t supposed to be a fight about Sulingen. We were supposed to take this place and then go on to the cursed hills and the cinnabar in them.”

Trasone spat. “You know that. I know that. Nobody bothered to tell the stinking Unkerlanters.”

“Now, boys!” That was Major Spinello’s cheery voice. Trasone didn’t know how the battalion commander did it. Had he not known better, he would have suspected Spinello of keeping his spirits up with nostrums and potions. But even food had a hard time coming into Sulingen, let alone drugs. Spinello went on, “Aren’t you proud of our magnificent victory?”

“One more victory like this and we won’t have any soldiers left at all,” Trasone answered. Spinello didn’t mind if his soldiers spoke their minds. He always spoke his.

Panfilo said, “Even if we do finally clean out the Unkerlanters, we won’t be able to cross the Wolter and get into the Mamming Hills till spring. That’s not how it was supposed to work.”

“How many things do work out just the way you want them to?” Spinello asked. “I can only think of-” He stopped, a surprised look on his face. In normal, conversational tones, he said, “I’ve been blazed.” He crumpled to the snow- and soot-streaked ground.

“Sniper!” Trasone screamed as he threw himself flat. Panfilo also lay on the ground; he was shouting the