offense.
«You know the Videssians have invaded the land of the Thousand Cities;« Abivard said. «You may also know they've beaten the army I command. I want to drive them off, if I can find a way.»
«Battle magic,» Glathpilesh said scornfully. «He wants battle magic to drive off the Videssians. He doesn't want much, does he?» His laugh showed what he thought of what Abivard wanted.
In a creaking voice Utpanisht said, «Suppose we let him tell us what he wants? That might be a better idea than having us tell him.» Glathpilesh glared at him and muttered something inaudible but subsided.
«What I want is not battle magic,» Abivard said with a grateful nod to Utpanisht. «The passion of those involved will have nothing to do with diluting the power of the spell.» He laughed. «And I won't try to explain your own business to you anymore, either. Instead, I'll explain what I do want.» He spent the next little while doing just that.
When he was finished, none of the magicians spoke for a moment. Then Falasham burst out with a high, shrill giggle. «This is not a man with small thoughts, whatever else we may say of him,» he declared.
«Can you do this thing?» Abivard asked.
«It would not be easy,» Glathpilesh growled.
Abivard's hopes soared. If the bad-tempered mage did not dismiss the notion as impossible out of hand, that might even mean it was easy. Then Yeshmef said, «This magic has never been done, which may well mean this magic cannot be done.» All the other wizards nodded solemnly. Mages were conservative men, even more likely to rely on precedent than were servants of the God, judges, and clerks.
But Utpanisht, whom he would have expected to be the most conservative of all, said, «One reason it has not been done is that the land of the Thousand Cities had never faced a foe like this Videssian and his host. Desperate times call out for desperate remedies.»
«Can call out for them,» Mefyesh said. To Abivard's disappointment, Utpanisht did not contradict him.
Kidinnu said, «Grandfather, even if we can work this magic, should we? Will it not cause more harm than whatever the Videssian does?»
«It is not a simple question,» Utpanisht said. «The harm from this Maniakes lies not only in what he does now but in what he may do later if we do not check him now. That could be very large indeed. A flood—» He shrugged. «I have seen many floods in my years here. We who live between the rivers know how to deal with floods.»
Kidinnu bowed his head in acquiescence to his grandfather's reasoning. Abivard asked his question again: «Can you do this thing?»
This time the wizards did not answer him directly. Instead, they began arguing among themselves, first in the Makuraner language and then, by the sound of things because they didn't find that pungent enough, in the guttural tongue the folk of the Thousand Cities used among themselves. Mefyesh and Yeshmef didn't find even their own language sufficiently satisfying, for after one hot exchange they pulled each other's beards. Abivard wondered if they would yank out knives.
At last, when the wrangling died down, Utpanisht said, «We think we can do this. All of us agree it is possible. We still have not made up our minds about what method we need to use.»
«That is because some of these blockheads insist on treating canals as if they were rivers,» Glathpilesh said, «when any fool– but not any idiot, evidently—can see they are of two different classes.»
Falasham's good nature was fraying at the edges. «They hold flowing water,» he snapped. «Spiritually and metaphorically speaking, that makes them rivers. They aren't lakes. They aren't baths. What are they, if not rivers?'
«Canals,» Glathpilesh declared, and Yeshmef voiced loud agreement. The row started up anew.
Abivard listened for a little while, then said sharply, «Enough of this!» His intervention made all the wizards, regardless of which side they had been on, gang up against him instead. He'd expected that would happen and was neither disappointed nor angry. «I admit you are all more learned in this matter that I could hope to be —».
«He admits the sun rises in the east,» Glathpilesh muttered. «How generous!»
Pretending he hadn't heard that, Abivard plowed ahead: «But how you work this magic is not what's important. That you work it is. And you must work it soon, too, for before long Maniakes will start wondering why I've stopped here at Nashvar and given up on pursuing him.» Before long Sharbaraz King of Kings will start wondering, too, and likely decide I'm a traitor, after all. Or if he doesn't, Tzikas will tell him I am.
Kidinnu said, «Lord, agreeing on the form this sorcery must take is vital before we actually attempt it.»
That made sense; Abivard wasn't keen on the idea of going into battle without a plan. But he said, «I tell you, we have no time to waste. By the time you leave this room, hammer out your differences.» All at once, he wished he hadn't asked Beroshesh to set out such a lavish feast for the mages. Empty bellies would have sped consensus.
His uncompromising stand drew more of the wizards' anger. Glathpilesh growled, «Easier for us to agree to turn you into a cockroach than on how to breach the canals.»
«No one would pay you to do that to me, though,» Abivard answered easily. Then he thought of Tzikas and then of Sharbaraz. Well, the wizards didn't have to know about them.
Yeshmef threw his hands in the air. «Maybe my moron of a brother is right. It has happened before, though seldom.»
Glathpilesh was left all alone. He glared around at the other five wizards from the Thousand Cities. Abivard did not like the look on his face—had being left all alone made him more stubborn? If it had, could the rest of the mages carry on with the conjuration by themselves? Even if they could, it would surely be more difficult without their colleague.
«You are all fools,» he snarled at them, «and you, sirrah—» He sent Yeshmef a look that was almost literally murderous.'—fit for nothing better than bellwether, for you show yourself to be a shambling sheep without ballocks.» He breathed heavily, jowls wobbling; Abivard wondered whether he would suffer an apoplectic fit in his fury.
He also wondered whether the other wizards would want to work with Glathpilesh after his diatribe. There, at least, he soon found relief, for the five seemed more amused than outraged. Falasham said, «Not bad, old fellow.» And Yeshmef tugged at his beard as if to show he still had that which enabled him to grow it «Bah,» Glathpilesh said, sounding angry that he had been unable to anger his comrades. He turned to Abivard and said «Bah» again, perhaps so Abivard would not feel left out of his disapproval. Then he said, «None of you has the wit the God gave a smashed mosquito, but I'll work with you for no better reason than to keep you from going astray without my genius to show you what needs doing.»
«Your generosity, as usual, is unsurpassed,» Utpanisht said in his rusty-hinge voice.
Glathpilesh spoiled that by swallowing its irony. «I know,» he answered. «Now we'll see how much I regret it.»
«Not as much as the rest of us, I promise,» Mefyesh said.
Falasham boomed laughter. «A band of brothers, the lot of us,» he declared, «and we fight like it, too.» Remembering the fights he'd had with his own brothers, Abivard felt better about the prospects for the mages' being able to work together than he had since he'd walked into the room.
Having wrangled about how to flood the canals, the wizards spent a couple of more days wrangling over how best to make that approach work. Abivard didn't listen to all those arguments. He did stop in to see the wizards several times a day to make sure they were moving forward rather than around and around.
He also sent Turan out with some of the assembled garrison troops and some of the horsemen Tzikas had brought from Vaspurakan. «I want you to chase Maniakes and to be obvious and obnoxious about doing it,» he told his lieutenant. «But by the God, don't catch him, whatever you do, because he'll thrash you.»
«I understand,» Turan assured him. «You want it to look as if we haven't forgotten about him so he won't spend too much time wondering what we're doing here instead of chasing him.»
«That's it,» Abivard said, slapping him on the back. He called to a servant for a couple of cups of wine. When he had his, he poured libations to the Prophets Four, then raised the silver goblet high and proclaimed, «Confusion to the Avtokrator! If we can keep him confused for a week, maybe a few days longer, he'll be worse than confused after that.»
