Darkness Descending

worse luck, Waddo saw him, too, saw him and waved and limped toward him, putting a lot of weight on his stick.

“Hello, Garivald!” the village firstman exclaimed, as if he hadn’t seen the other peasant for the past ten years.

“Hello,” Garivald answered warily. He and Waddo were bound together because of the buried crystal. He wished with all his heart they weren’t. He didn’t trust Waddo; the firstman had been King Swemmel’s hand in Zossen, and had always sucked up to inspectors and impressers when they came to the village.

Of course, the Algarvians despised and harassed Waddo for that very reason. Here and there in the Duchy of Grelz, they’d hanged firstmen who did things that didn’t suit them. Garivald didn’t suppose he wanted to see Waddo dancing at the end of a rope. On the otlier hand, Garivald had just thought about how Waddo had maintained his tiny authority by aiding those who had more power. If he decided to bend the knee to the redheads’ puppet King Raniero rather than to King Swemmel, how could he best ingratiate himself with the Algarvian garrison?

By throwing me to the wolves, Garivald thought. As if he were a mage, a wolf began to howl, somewhere off in the distance. Every few winters, Zossen or some nearby village would lose somebody to a hungry pack that came prowling close. It hadn’t happened this year. No, Garivald thought. This year, we have Algarvians instead. That’s worse.

Waddo heard the wolf, too, and grimaced. “I hope he finds a whole company of frozen redheads to eat.”

“Aye,” Garivald said. He agreed with Waddo--he hoped the wolves found a whole regiment of frozen redheads--but wished he didn’t have to answer the first-man at all. Anything he said gave the other man a greater hold on him.

He needed a moment to realize he now had a greater hold on Waddo, too. Realizing it brought him little joy. To use that hold, he would have to betray Waddo to the Algarvians. He couldn’t imagine anything that would make him want to do that. No matter how much he despised the firstman, he loathed the invaders far more.

“May next spring and summer be better,” Waddo said.

“Aye,” Garivald repeated. He started to look back toward the woods in which he’d met the Unkerlanter soldier, but checked himself before the motion was well begun. He didn’t want Waddo wondering why his eyes went that way. He revealed as little to the firstman as a fellow cheating on his wife told her.

Waddo limped closer. He spoke in a hoarse whisper: “When the ground gets soft, we’ll dig up that crystal and get it out of here.”

“Aye,” Garivald said for the third time, now with real enthusiasm. “The farther, the better, as far as I’m concerned.” Getting the crystal away from Zossen would reduce the danger that he’d wind up on the end of a rope.

“Maybe,” Waddo said softly, “just maybe, we can even activate it again and get word back to Cottbus of what’s going on in these parts.”

Now Garivald stared at him as if he’d gone crazy. “Whose throat will you slit to power it?” he demanded. “Not mine, by the powers above.”

“No, of course not yours,” the firstman said, twisting his fingers into the gesture people used to turn aside words of evil omen.

“Whose, then?” Garivald persisted with peasant common sense. “It’d have to be someone’s. We’re not close to a ley line. We’re not close to a power point, either. They’re few and far between in these parts.”

“I know. I know.” Waddo sighed. “Maybe we could draw enough life energy from sacrificing animals. They used to do that in the old days, if you believe the stories the grannies tell.”

“We might, I suppose.” But Garivald remained unconvinced. “If Cottbus thought we could power a crystal with animal sacrifices, why did they send us captives to kill and guards to kill ‘em to keep the thing going?”

The firstman sighed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “All right, maybe we can’t make it work. But we can get it out of here and bury it in the woods somewhere so the Algarvians don’t stumble over it.”

“That would be good,” Garivald said. “I already told you that would be good. I don’t want the cursed thing around here anymore than you do.” Unlike Waddo, he’d never wanted the crystal in Zossen. He’d liked living in the middle of nowhere. That let him pass his life with only minimal interference from the grasping hands of everyone who served his king.

But the Algarvians had grasping hands, too. And they weren’t just trying to seize his crops. They wanted his land and