Wartorn Obliteration

words off the tops of the musical undulations. Another drearily predictable tirade against Callah's interlopers. Aquint's hope was that these songs would attract members of the Broken Circle. After these tunes had circulated awhile, as they most certainly would, perhaps the rebels might approach her and Deo. Then they could make their arrests.

As Radstac sang, she was at the same time detached from her performance, thereby able to observe the audience closely. She watched them picking up the chorus, learning it, memorizing it, singing along with it. Yes, these silly songs would indeed circulate. But wouldn't they, in the course of being repeated and passed around, hopefully to be heard eventually by someone in the Broken Circle, wouldn't such songs inevitably incite certain thoughts and attitudes in these Callahans? Wouldn't they generate rebellious inclinations? Wouldn't they, despite Aquint's plan, actually do more damage to the Felk... and lend more aid to the rebels?

It wasn't her problem. She could go along with this charade of being an Internal Security agent for as long as necessary. At some point a means of escaping this city would present itself, and she and Deo would take it.

So she continued singing. And when the room turned very suddenly and very disconcertingly blue, she kept the song moving, digging her fingers into her legs and trying to control her pounding heartbeat. The urge, of course, was to get up and flee. Simply run. Actually outrun. For what was coming for her was terrible. A great terrible beast that hunted her footsteps.

Deo sensed that something was wrong, but he was the only one. He cut short the song and turned to her.

How blue he was...

Radstac reached for the water jug, but her hand was wavering beyond her control. She returned it to her lap. The audience was applauding and cheering once more. The matted-haired old woman was the nearest one.

She would have to do. Radstac caught her good eye, motioned her even closer, and said in a tight, aching, very earnest voice, 'I shall need some mansid leaves. As quickly as possible.'

* * *

The popular narcotic in Callah, it seemed, were phato blossoms. These were pink and delicate, and they were smoked in a pipe and produced effects not entirely unlike those one could get from alcohol. Radstac had no interest in the drug. It was mansid or nothing. And for a while it appeared she was going to have to settle for nothing.

She had chewed the final tiny rationed fragment of her last leaf two days ago. She had made efforts to replenish her supply, but all the likely places she visited had nothing to offer. Whatever drug dens there were in Callah had evidently been cleaned out during the Felk invasion. Legitimate narcotic trade had continued in the marketplaces awhile, but, she had learned, the supplies had dried up. There were no traders on the roads anymore. Nothing was getting into the city.

But addicts, Radstac knew, weathered all calamities. No matter what the circumstances, they could always find what they absolutely required.

Which meant that someone in Callah, some other user, had what she needed.

So various members of their audience, caught up in the spirit of revolutionary camaraderie, volunteered to help find her what she required. They scattered half-drunkenly out of the tavern, whistling and humming and muttering those songs she'd been singing.

Meanwhile, Radstac's world was blue.

She handled it. It was a very unsettling experience, but she had faced physical terrors on battlefields that would shrink most men and women just to hear of them. She remained in her chair and maintained a calm veneer, even as the lack of clarity engulfing everything around her deepened, so that the sense of things broke apart at a more profound level with nearly every passing moment.

She had certainly experienced this before. She came north habitually, traveling from the Southsoil to seek out the Isthmus's petty little wars, so to sell her sword to one side or the other. It never mattered who she fought for. She had survived many of those trifling skirmishes between Isthmus states.

What mattered was the procurement of her leaves. Fresh and potent. In quality, far beyond the dried specimens the trade caravans brought back home from the Isthmus. And while she was here, pursuing her mercenary livelihood, she enjoyed the awesome penetrating clarity that came from chewing mansid.

But she did not remain here on this Isthmus year-round. Eventually she would return home, taking with her as much of her drug as would last before losing its potency. And, just as inevitably, those supplies would be gone, and she would undergo this same withdrawal. And she would handle it. And survive it. And live her life in Dilloqi without the daily stimulus of mansid. Until it was time to once more go north.

Radstac was aware, in an increasingly abstract way, that Deo was by her side trying to comfort her, while maintaining his imbecilic pretense. She was finding herself less and less able to understand words. She still recognized them individually, but whenever someone spoke to her, she could barely manage to put them into a coherent order.

Even so, she sat and waited and did not behave in the way pathetic wretches who couldn't handle their addictions behaved.

When her leaf was finally procured and delivered to the tavern, she couldn't hold her hands still enough to get it to her mouth to bite off a piece. Deo held it for her. Deo, by now, was a shifting, erratic, almost ethereal presence who she could not quite identify any longer.

She bit away a quarter of the leaf and knew by the ache that sang through her teeth that it was of the proper potency. After that it was just a matter of waiting for the blue to recede and the clarity to assert itself. It happened quickly enough.

Radstac, with much composure, thanked her deliverer and counted out the necessary Felk scrip from her pocket to cover it. Next to her Deo was pale. He tried to lead her out of the tavern. But there was still half a watch before they needed to think about curfew, so Radstac sang another passel of songs and Deo accompanied on the vox-mellifluous. Once again their audience became enthralled and enthused. The songs took hold.

* * *

Criers were calling the first notice. Curfew in a quarter of a watch. She and Deo were on the streets, heading to their lodgings. Evening had brought an unpleasant snap to the air. A damp wind was blowing in irregular irritating gusts.

Between them was silence. Strained on Deo's part, uncomfortable, embarrassed, concerned. Radstac merely said nothing. From her deliverer she had learned where she could likely obtain more leaves.

The streets were emptying rapidly and orderly. These Callahans knew the rules of occupation, and they obeyed them. If not for the Broken Circle, this would surely be the model of a conquered city.

On a deserted stretch, just a short distance from their destination, Deo, taut and uneasy, suddenly erupted in a tense whisper, 'When we find the rebels, I'm going to join them.'

Radstac looked at him sidelong and wordlessly. They didn't speak again until they were indoors, up on the third level, in their shabby room.

She hadn't taken too large a bite from her leaf. The mansid had stabilized her, but the clarity wasn't so intense as to be distracting.

'Why?' she finally asked.

Deo propped the stringbox in a corner. 'Because it could make a difference against the Felk.'

'Like assassinating General Weisel might have?'

'It might have. It would have.' His fists bunched at his sides.

'I know,' she said. Her tone was flat, but she had meant it to sound softer. Instead of trying again, she crossed to him, put hands to his shoulders. At first his lips were unresponsive; then they did respond.

Later, after curfew was official, there came a knock on their door. Later still, they learned of the audacious feat the Broken Circle enacted that night.