Mist’s heart fluttered. How could he know so much? Did he? Was he shooting in the dark? Was he giving her more rope? Using his well-known obsession with the eastern peril as a tool? “I see. You want guarantees. What did you have in mind?”
The King smiled thinly.
She had made a tactical error. Hehad been fishing this time. And he’d caught her. Damn! Why did he have to be so astute?
“Not now. Not here,” he said. “We both need time to think it over. And I’ll want witnesses. Varthlokkur and the Unborn should do.”
She pretended amusement. “You don’t trust anybody, do you?”
“Not now. Not anymore. Why should I? Your scheme is only one of my problems. I mean to walk light and careful till it’s all under control.”
She laughed a genuine laugh. Her confidence began to return. He responded with a smile. She said, “You should have been born an easterner. You would’ve made a great Tervola.”
“Maybe. My mother was a witch.”
She had heard it before, of course, but still she was startled. Was that it? Was he doing a little magical snooping? Perhaps with Varthlokkur showing the way? She started to ask, was interrupted by a servant who said, “My Lady, there’s a gentleman here looking for His Majesty.”
Mist looked at Bragi. He shrugged. “Send him in,” she said.
The King’s adjutant bustled in. “Sire, I’ve been looking all over. We need you back at the palace.” The man looked grim.
“What is it, Dahl?”
“An emergency, sire. Please?” The young officer gave Mist a glance so melodramatic she was tempted to laugh.
“We’ll talk later,” the King told her. His look said as much as all of his conversation.
She would have to walk very carefully for a while. Matters had reached a stage too delicate for risk-taking. All her fault, of course. She had gotten too eager, had begun looking too far ahead, to deal properly with all the little things cropping up now. “Overconfidence, get thee behind me,” she murmured.
The hour was late. The King and Varthlokkur were seated on steps in a dark and otherwise deserted courtyard. Neither man was wholly awake or alert. Ostensibly, they had come out to watch a spectacular meteor shower. “There goes a big one,” the wizard said. “All the way down past the wall.”
“I saw one one time that broke up in about twenty pieces. Really something. There’s another one.” After a few seconds, “I saw Mist. She was too evasive. Made me more suspicious.”
“So?”
“So she’s into some scheme to get her throne back. In a lot deeper than she’ll admit.”
“And?”
“Damnit, you’re not contributing a whole lot here.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Give me a guess. Am I wrong? Is she really involved in something?”
“Hell, you know the answer to that. Why ask? Of course she is. Once you attain a throne, you don’t give it up without a fight. Consider her viewpoint. There isn’t much here for her since Valther was killed. Her children, of course, but she isn’t the maternal sort. She once had something big in Shinsan. Now she wants it back.”
“She’s vulnerable, though. Through the children.”
“Aren’t we all.” The wizard turned bitter. “They’re hostages to fortune.”
“Can she make the comeback?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t know what’s happening in Shinsan’s politics. And I don’t want to know. I just want to ignore them, and have them ignore me.”
“But they won’t.”
“No. They won’t. Not forever.”
They watched shooting stars for a while. Then Varthlokkur said, “It won’t matter if she does win, you know. Shinsan is Shinsan.”
“You don’t think she’d change anything?”
“She couldn’t if she wanted. She wouldn’t be allowed. You and I and Kavelin have earned their special attention. Someday they’ll come again.”
“Look at that one! Almost like a comet for a second.”
“Uhm.” Musingly, the wizard continued, “It should be a while coming. They’ve had some bad years, and they’re staring trouble in the eye in Matayanga. They haven’t fully pacified the territories they occupied during the war. Right now they’re hoping like the one-legged whore the day the fleet came in.”
Bragi chuckled and looked the wizard askance. That was not a Varthlokkur figure of speech. “If they’ll give me a decade, or even another year, I’ll be grateful. I’ll take it and be happy because I don’t think we can turn them back again. I think having Mist in charge might set the day of reckoning back a little, and soften the blow when it falls.”
“It’s your choice. Just don’t forget O Shing.”
“O Shing?” O Shing was the prince who had overthrown Mist and driven her out of the empire, only to be overthrown himself.
“He didn’t want to come west. He fought it all the way. And that’s why he’s no longer with us.”
“I know. But the people who pushed him out are gone now too. Holy...! Did you see the size of that one? All right. I’ll take a few days to poke around and to think about it. Then I’ll get Gjerdrum and you and a couple others together and we’ll decide whether we should help her. And if we do, how visible our help should be.”
“It’s your choice, as I say, but you’re just asking for grief if you do it. You have problems enough at home. Problems more deserving of your attention. Also, watch who you include in your `we.’ I have no intention of getting involved with the Dread Empire again. Unless they come after me first.”
“Pardon me for jumping to conclusions. I thought it might be a way for you to make contacts who could check out your Ethrian questions for you.”
The wizard stiffened. He turned slowly, gazed at the King. After a moment, he nodded and said, “Maybe it would, at that.”
Three men had gathered in Mist’s library. Two leaned over her silver divining bowl. Her bowl did not contain the common water. She was wealthy. She could afford the far more expensive and reliable quicksilver coveted by every seer.
Aral Dantice shifted restlessly, nervous as a youth on the brink of losing his virginity. Mist watched him as closely as she did her bowl. She had made a mistake, telling him how much the King suspected. He had the Michael Trebilcock shakes. If this went the wrong way, he might crack... She did not want to think about that. Heroic measures might be required.
Cham Mundwiller filled the air with clouds from his pipe. The third man occupied a chair against one wall. His eyes were halfway closed. Neither his stance nor expression betrayed any emotion. He was as patient as a snake.
His coloring and mien matched Mist’s. His clothing was western. He seemed uncomfortable with it. Though duskier than Dantice or Mundwiller, his face had a pallid look. He was accustomed to wearing a mask.
Mist’s breath caught, sounding a little gasp. The easterner’s eyelids twitched. “Aral!” Mist said. “Come here.”
Dantice stared down into the bowl, at four minute human shapes seated round a table. For a long time now the four had been arguing, pounding the table, pushing bits of documentary evidence at one another. Nothing seemed changed. “What?” he asked.
“It’s going our way.” She grinned at herself. Her voice had picked up a high, musical squeak of excitement.
“How can you tell when we can’t hear what they’re saying?”
“Hush. Just hush and watch.”
They watched the figures argue. Suddenly, Mist leapt away from the table. She yelped happily and threw her arms around Dantice. “It’s official. The King got his way. We don’t have to hide and sneak anymore.” She kissed him.
He responded with a vigorous male salute. Mist stepped back. Head tilted, unable to control a lopsided smile, she said, “That might be nice too, Aral.”
He blushed. He stammered.
Mundwiller exhaled a blue cloud and smiled knowingly. Aral turned redder still.
The third man saved him. He rose, st
ared into the bowl. His face remained arctically cool. He nodded once, returned to his chair. “It’s good.”
Dantice shuddered. Mist smiled, mildly amused. Lord Ch’ien Kao E always got that reaction when first he spoke. His throat had been injured long ago. He retained just a ghost of a voice, a dry husk that grated like salt in a raw wound.
Mist asked, “What troubles you, Lord Ch’ien?”
The man steepled thin fingers before his narrow chin. “The move suggests acceptance of the inevitable. It suggests that your King is well aware of what we’re doing. It suggests that our secrets aren’t nearly as secure as they should be.” His obsidian eyes met theirs in turn.
I’m losing control, Mist thought. If I don’t grab it back I’ll soon be a spectator in this game.
“There haven’t been any leaks at this end,” Aral declared. He met that snakelike gaze without wavering. He was not intimidated by Ch’ien Kao E the man, only by what the man symbolized. He had met Tervola during the Great Eastern Wars. Aral Dantice, the caravan outfitter’s son, was still alive.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. Wait. I do know one roundabout way for there to be a leak. Through my friend Michael Trebilcock. It’s more circumstantial than deliberate. We share a few couriers.”
“Smugglers.”
Aral bowed slightly. “Sometimes they tell me what they think Michael is doing. I imagine they tell him what they think I’m up to. Lately, they’ve hinted that he may have developed an agent inside Lord Hsung’s headquarters. It looks like he has. The King’s actions make me think that agent might be aware of us.”
Damn your eyes, Aral, Mist thought. Why did you have to tell him that?
“I see.” Kao E turned her way. His reptilian eyes narrowed. “Princess?”
“You have some idea whom such a man might be?”
“I believe so.”
“Does a weak link matter at this point?”
“Trebilcock obtained leverage. A lever is a tool any hand may wield.”
She nodded. “Too true. Speak to him. Find out what the leverage was, and the extent of the compromise. Use your own judgment afterward.”
“As you wish, Princess.”
Dantice got a cold, pale look. He stared at the bookshelves, shuddered.
Cham Mundwiller sucked on his pipe and said nothing. His face remained a mask of stone.
Mist glared at Aral and tried to force a thought into his mind. This isn’t a game, Aral. We’re playing for an empire.
“Where is this Trebilcock?” Kao E asked. “His testimony might be enlightening.”
“Nobody knows,” Aral replied. “He disappeared a while back. Somebody attacked General Liakopulos one night. Hurt him bad. Next day Michael was gone. Nobody knows if there’s a connection.”
That was the night the King visited me, Mist reflected. The night that Haas creature dragged him away, acting like he thought I was the villain of the day. “I’ve looked for him,” she said. “I like to keep track of him. He’s a dangerous man. I can’t find a trace.” She frowned at Aral, who could not conceal his distress. She wondered how he had become professionally successful with so little aptitude for conspiracy.
Aral asked, “Do you think he’s dead? That maybe he found something and it was too much for him to handle?”
Not a good conspirator at all. He let his concern for his friend distract him completely.
“I wouldn’t know, Aral. Lord Ch’ien, don’t interfere with Trebilcock. The King and Varthlokkur are much too fond of him.”
Kao E rose, nodded. “As you will. I’d best return. I do have my duties. And I have to relay the news to our friends.”
“By all means,” Mist said, concealing her delight at his going.
Kao E strode toward one comer of the room. He vanished as he was about to collide with the bookshelves. A column of air coruscated momentarily.
“That’s one spooky critter,” Aral said. “I don’t like him at all.”
“Don’t let him put you off,” Mist replied. “He’s stuck with me a long time. He’s one of the few Tervola I trust.”
“You know your own people.” And, “What he is to you and what he is to me aren’t necessarily the same thing. He probably thinks of me as a useful trained dog.”
Mist turned quickly, hoping he missed her surprise. That was exactly the way Lord Ch’ien would view a western collaborator. “Master Mundwiller. You haven’t said a word since you got here.”
Mundwiller looked down at the silver bowl. The scene therein continued, mouse-sized players arguing in silence. He harrumphed. “I’ll say good-bye, then. I’m not needed here.” His eyes twinkled.
Aral started to say something, thought better of it. Mist, too, found herself short on words.
Mundwiller paused at the library door. “I’ll leave you with a thought. My friends and I will be more comfortable knowing you’re working with the King.”
“What did he mean by that?” Aral asked once the door closed.
Mist smiled. She ran her tonguetip along the edges of her perfect teeth. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I care.” But she did, of course. Those old moths tumbled and giggled in her stomach. She had dodged fate’s hammer today. Obviously, Mundwiller had allowed himself to be drawn in only so he could apprise the King of the course of her plot. She shivered and concentrated on Aral.
He took a backward step, then retreated round the table. Sudden sweat moistened his face. He looked like a man running from a dream.
He did not escape.
Mist smiled wickedly. From this dream he would never recover. Nor would he want to. She would see to that.
Varthlokkur glanced up as the King stepped into the small room where he held his most private conferences. Bragi seemed smugly pleased. He said, “Mist will be here in a few minutes.”
The woman arrived ten minutes later, ushered in by Dahl Haas. Aral Dantice ran at her heel like a faithful pup. The wizard observed through hooded eyes. Something had changed. There was a new shyness between them. He looked over at the King, who had been acting that way himself. Over a bit of fluff young enough to be his daughter. Must be something going around, he thought.
“Sit down,” the King suggested. “Let’s get to it. I’ve been cooped up in the castle all day, so I don’t feel like arguing. We made a decision. You already know what it was. Now we implement it, Mist. But first, I want to know who the Tervola was and what he was doing in Kavelin without my permission.”
Even Varthlokkur was startled. And a little disgusted. This young man had started with such promise. Now he had spies everywhere, like the worst tyrant.
If he was startled, Dantice was stricken. He made a sound, half belch and half mouse squeak. His eyes widened. And Mist, for one of the few times Varthlokkur could recall, was taken completely off guard.
That amused him. He enjoyed watching a colleague caught short.
“I have my resources too,” the King said. “The Tervola is important to me. Call it a gesture of good faith.”
Mist recovered. She spoke honestly and, Varthlokkur noted, said a few things which surprised Dantice.
The King glanced at the wizard, soliciting an opinion. Varthlokkur had detected no outright falsehood. He nodded. Bragi said, “It sounds good. Assuming Kuo isn’t in on the planning from the other end. What’s your timetable?”
“It’s still iffy. We move when Lord Ch’ien thinks the Matayangan attack has peaked. We seize the key points of the empire. We don’t bother Southern Army till the Matayangan attack ebbs. Only then do we replace Lord Kuo.”
“Right. If he lets you. What if he negotiates his way out of trouble with Matayanga? If he doesn’t attack?”
“The plan isn’t perfect. I’d lose.”
“You wouldn’t try to force that war, would you?”
“No! No more than Lord Kuo is. Shinsan can’t stand much more warfare.”
The King glanced at Varthlokkur once more. Again he could only indicate that he believed she was t
elling the truth.
The King nodded. “All right, Mist. What can I contribute?”
“You’re doing it. Giving us a safe springboard. The only other thing might be the loan of a few shock troops for the strike itself.”
Varthlokkur studied Dantice, and in his little twitches read what his part in the plot was to have been-before the King had become involved. He was to have gathered the financing for mercenary forces meant to do the job now in the hands of royal soldiery. The lad is a fool, the wizard thought. But this is a woman who can make fools of men far wiser.
The King said, “Sir Gjerdrum, put together the forces she needs. And keep it quiet.”
Varthlokkur turned to the young knight. Poor Gjerdrum. He was bitterly opposed to this venture. None of the King’s arguments had swayed him the least. Yet he was going along, because it was the King’s will.
He’s probably right, Varthlokkur reflected. When you come right down to it, we’re all going along because that’s easier than arguing. And chances are Bragi is being a damned fool. He can’t separate his private feelings from what is politic. If he doesn’t learn soon, Kavelin is in for hard times.
Nepanthe stalked the bounds of her apartment like a thing caged. She was tormented by a diffuse, inconquerable certainty that her world had shifted around her, that suddenly she was a foreigner in her own time. Nothing seemed quite real anymore.
She knew why. All her lost anchors, all the missing friends and loves. She had no more family, and few friends-just no anchor left. Except her husband, and hers was a marriage of convenience, from her viewpoint. She needed a protector. She had accepted the protection of a man who wanted her. Any romance existed only in Varthlokkur’s imagination.
These days she just drifted above and away from everything. Her lack of touching points ached. Sometimes she wondered if she were quite sane.
Her life was one long necklace pearled with dissatisfaction and unhappy moments. There had been good times, but those she had to struggle to remember. She had no trouble recalling the misery. Indeed, she dwelt upon it.
She paused to stare out her window. The sky was a heavy grey. More bad weather? It seemed the sun had vanished with their arrival. Did gloom follow her like a doleful hound?