The Chernagor Pirates

“What is it, then?” Lanius asked stiffly.

“It’s the idea,” Grus said. “It’s not you.”

It’s my idea, Lanius thought, still offended. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Why—” Grus started to be glib, but caught himself. He did some thinking, then admitted, “I don’t know that anything’s wrong with it. It’s still funny, though.”

When Lanius went to bed that night, the Banished One appeared to him in a dream. Before that cold, beautiful, inhuman gaze, the king felt less than a moncat himself. The Banished One always raised that feeling in him, but never more than tonight. Those eyes seemed to pierce the very center of his soul. “You are plotting against me,” the Banished One said.

“We are enemies,” Lanius said. “You have always plotted against Avornis.”

“You deserve whatever happens to you,” the Banished One replied. “You deserve worse than what has happened to you. You deserve it, and I intend to give it to you. But if you plot and scheme against me, your days will be even shorter than they would otherwise, and even more full of pain and grief. Do you doubt me? You had better not doubt me, you puling little wretch of a man.”

“I have never doubted you,” Lanius told him. “You need not worry about that.”

The Banished One laughed. His laughter flayed, even in a dream. “I, worry over what a sorry mortal does? Your life at best is no more than a sneeze. If you think you worry me, you exaggerate your importance in the grand scheme of things.”

Even in a dream, Lanius’ logical faculties still worked—after a fashion. “In that case,” he asked, “why do you bother appearing to me?”

“You exaggerate your importance,” the Banished One repeated. “A flea bite annoys a man without worrying him. But when the man crushes the flea, though he worries not a bit, the flea is but a smear. And so shall you be, and sooner than you think.”

“Sometimes the flea hops away,” Lanius said.

“That is because there is very little difference between a man and a flea,” the Banished One retorted. “But between a man and me—you shall see what the difference is between a man and me. Oh, yes—you shall see.” As he had once before, years earlier, he made as though to reach out for Lanius.

In the nick of time—in the very nick of time—the king fought himself awake. He sat bolt upright in his bed, his heart pounding. “Are you all right?” Sosia asked sleepily.

“Bad dream. Just a bad dream,” Lanius answered, his voice shaking. A bad dream it was. Just a bad dream? Oh, no. He knew better than that.

In the nick of time—in the very nick of time—the king fought himself awake. Grus sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding. “Are you all right?” Estrilda asked sleepily.

“Bad dream. Just a bad dream,” Grus answered, his voice shaking. A bad dream it was. Just a bad dream? Oh, no. He knew better than that. The Banished One had been on the very point of seizing him when he escaped back into the world of mundane reality. And if the Banished One’s hands had touched him, as they’d been on the point of doing…

He didn’t know what would have happened then. He didn’t know, and he never, ever wanted to find out.

Little by little, his thudding heart and gasping breath slowed toward normal. The Banished One had come too close to scaring him to death without touching him. But Grus had also learned more from that horrid nighttime visitation than the Banished One might have intended.

Fortified by the thought the exiled god had never come to him more than once of a night, he lay down and tried to go back to sleep. Try as he would, though, he couldn’t sleep anymore. He let out a small sigh of frustration. The dream the exiled god had sent remained burned on his memory, as those dreams always did. He wished he could forget them, the way he forgot dreams of the ordinary sort. But no. Whatever else the Banished One was, he was nothing of the ordinary sort.

Estrilda muttered to herself and went back to sleep. Grus wished again that he could do the same. Whatever he wished, more sleep eluded him. He waited until he was sure his wife was well under, then poked his feet into slippers, pulled a cloak on over his nightshirt, and left the royal bedchamber. The guardsmen in the corridor came to stiff attention. “As you were,” Grus told them, and they relaxed.

Torches in sconces on the wall guttered and crackled. Quite a few had burned out. Why not? At this hour of the night, hardly anyone was stirring. No need for much light. Grus walked down the hall. He was and was not surprised when another guarded door opened. Out came Lanius, wearing the same sort of irregular outfit as Grus had on.

After telling his own guards to stand at ease, Lanius looked up and down the corridor. He seemed… surprised and not surprised to discover Grus also up and about. “Hello, Your Majesty,” Grus said. “You, too?”

“Yes, me, too… Your Majesty,” Lanius answered. Grus nodded to himself. Whenever Lanius deigned to use his title, the other king took things very seriously indeed. As though to prove the point, Lanius gestured courteously. “Shall we walk?”

“I think maybe we’d better,” Grus said.

Behind them, guardsmen muttered among themselves. The soldiers no doubt wondered how both kings had happened to wake up at the same time. Grus wished he wondered, too. But he had no doubts whatsoever.

Neither did Lanius. The younger king said, “The Banished One knows we have something in mind.”

“He certainly does,” Grus agreed.

“Good,” Lanius said. “Next spring—”

Grus held up a hand. “Maybe next spring. Maybe the spring after that, or the spring after that. As long as the Menteshe want to keep doing part of our job for us, I won’t complain a bit.”

“Well, no. Neither will I,” Lanius said. “We ought to use however much time we have wisely. I wish we could lay our hands on some more ordinary thralls.”

“So do I,” Grus said. “But we’d have to cross the Stura to do it, and I don’t want to do that while the Menteshe are still in the middle of their civil war.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Lanius sounded regretful but not mutinous. “Pterocles should start teaching other wizards the spell he’s worked out. When we do go south of the Stura, we’ll need it.”

“We’d better need it,” Grus said, and Lanius nodded. Grus went on, “I have had work for Pterocles up in the Chernagor country, you know.”

“Oh, yes.” Lanius did not seem in a quarrelsome mood. After facing up to the Banished One, mere mortals seldom felt like fighting among themselves. The younger king continued, “But he’s not up in the Chernagor country now. And he can teach more wizards here in the capital than anywhere else in Avornis.”

“More of everything here in the capital than anywhere else in Avornis,” Grus said.

Lanius nodded again. This time, he followed the nod with a yawn. “I think I can sleep again,” he said.

“Do you?” Grus looked inside himself. After a moment, he gave Lanius a sad little shrug. “Well, Your Majesty, I’m jealous, because I don’t. I’m afraid I’m up for the rest of the night.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Lanius yawned again. He turned around. “If you’ll excuse me—”

“Good night,” Grus told him. “Don’t snore so loud, you wake up my daughter.” Laughing, Lanius headed back to his bedchamber.

Grus wandered down the hallway. The soft leather soles of his slippers scuffed over the floor’s mosaic tiles. How many times had he walked along here, not noticing the hunting scenes over which so many craftsmen had worked so hard and so long? Tonight, he noticed. Tonight, he had nothing to distract him.

Another man’s footsteps came from around a corner. Grus realized he had not even an eating knife on his belt. Had the Banished One come to Otus as he’d come to the two kings? Was the thrall on the prowl? Would his guards let him go because they thought him cured?

Did he have murder on his mind? Did he have a mind, or was he but a reflection of the Banished One’s will?

The other man came into sight. For a moment, in the dim torchlight, Grus thought it was Otus. Then he saw with his eyes, not his late-night fears. “Hello, Pterocles,” he called. “What are you doing up at this ghastly hour?”