There were supposed to be nearly 50, 000 of the Little People encamped on the Plain already—nearly two-thirds of the entire Firvulag population. About half of this number were fighters, and they outnumbered the Tanu knights and their human auxiliaries by about two to one. Eventually, almost the entire chivalry of the Many-Colored Land would be arrayed against this concentration of the Foe.
Firvulag hawkers importuned Katlinel as she rode among the campfires and the jolly groups of feasters and dancers. She was offered jewelry and precious trinkets on every hand, since this was the craft that the Firvulag excelled in above all others; there were also vendors of sweets and salted nuts and hard cider and strange fortified wines. But she resisted their pleas. Only when she reached the end of the long avenue and circled around among the squat black tents of the humbler folk did she succumb at last to temptation in the shape of a goblinesque little maiden with thick blonde braids and a pert scarlet hennin, who offered flagons of carved myrtlewood filled with a marvelous perfume distilled from forest flowers.
"Thank you, Lady." The diminutive seller bobbed a curtsy as she accepted payment. "It's said among us that the Dame's Hesperis breathes forth a scent that even the most reluctant swain finds impossible to resist."
Katlinel laughed. "I'll remember to wear it with caution."
"Well, I've heard," was the saucy retort, "that some of your Tanu gentlemen need all the help they can get."
"We'll see about that at the games," Katlinel said, and rode on, smiling.
Another chaliko fell in beside her own as she passed through an area crowded with dining and drinking tents. When a drunken ogre came carousing out and seized the reins of her mount, the rider on the other beast closed in even before she could spin a defensive illusion. One mental bolt sent the Firvulag oaf staggering into the arms of his jeering mates, who dragged him away with a breezy apology to Katlinel for the imposition.
"I am in your debt, Exalted Lord," she said, bowing her head to her rescuer.
He was a handsome figure, tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a close-fitting coif beneath a visored cap adorned with a small golden coronet. The coif hid his hair and throat and fell over his shoulders in a very short cape, all scalloped and jeweled at the edges. His hose and doublet were deep violet.
"It is my pleasure, Exalted Lady. I'm afraid that some of my countrymen take their celebrating too seriously, too far in advance."
She studied him with frank surprise as they rode on together. "You amaze me, Lord. With your neck covered, I mistook you for one of my own people."
"And which are they?" inquired the other, the faintest taunt in his fine voice.
Katlinel flushed and gripped her reins, ready to spur the chaliko away from the upstart. But the man reached out a hand and the animal stood still.
"Forgive my impertinence, Lady. It was unforgivable. But it is obvious that your beauty derives from human as well as Tanu blood. And I perceive from your silver and green gown that you are—as I—of the illusion-spinners, and one of rare power. If you will forgo your just annoyance at my crude banter and think instead of the small service lately done for you, perhaps we may yet ride on for a few moments and speak together. I have a great curiosity about your people."
"And a clever tongue as well, Firvulag Lord!...Very well, you may ride with me for a short time. I am Katlinel, surnamed the Dark-eyed, and I sit at the High Table in the very lowest chair, being the least among the Tanu Great Ones."
"Surely not for long!" He doffed the crowned cap; the purple coif covered his skull. "I am known as the ruler of Meadow Mountain. My domain lies far to the north, on the fringes of the Firvulag realm. Never before this have I attended the Grand Combat. My people are so occupied with the daily problems of survival that they have scant heart for religious games."
"A heretical notion, to be sure. But one that I can sympathize with."
"There are those among you who are not ardent members of the battle-company?"
"Many," she admitted, "especially among the hybrids such as myself. But the force of tradition remains strong."
"Ah. Tradition. But of late the old ways seem shaken. Humanity, once so docile and useful, rises up in revolt against your High King."
"In alliance with you Firvulag!"
"The Tanu were the first to use humans. Shouldn't we as well? We Firvulag are, it's true, more hidebound than you. Why—most of my people will not even mount an animal such as this, preferring to march on their own sturdy legs."
"But you have no such scruples?"
"I've been forced to be a realist, Lady. Tell me—is it true that human scientists are honored and fostered among the Tanu? That you've used their specialized knowledge to enhance your own technoeconomy?"
"I belong to the High Faculty of the Creator Guild. Most science, excepting that of healing and psychobiology, falls within our province. We have many human scientists at work in our College, educating our young people as well as engaged in practical application of their knowledge. Agriculturalists, earth scientists, engineers of every sort, even specialists in the social sciences—all have placed their talents in the service of the Many-Colored Land."
"And geneticists?" the Lord of Meadow Mountain inquired softly.
"Most certainly."
He said, "If only we were not Foes. If only we were free to cooperate, to have a free interchange of ideas and resources. I know that we Firvulag would have much to offer you. And you ... could do so much for us."
"But that is not the way," she said.
"Not yet. Not so long as the stern old battle-company rules your High Kingdom."
"I must leave now," Katlinel said.
"Will you come again and talk? There is still more than a week before the Combat begins and we officially become Foes once more."
She held out one hand and he took it and saluted her in the classic manner. His lips were cold. A flash of metapsychic insight told Katlinel that they were also illusory. But the mind that opened to her in momentary hope—that was not cold at all.
"I'll come again tomorrow night," she said. "Shall I ask for you among your friends?"
"Few here would call me that." His smile was both rueful and cautionary. "Ride here and I will find you. It would be better if none of your people knew that you condescended to have converse with Sugoll, Lord of Meadow Mountain—which humans of Elder Earth call the Feldberg."
"We of the High Table do as we please," said Katlinel. She spurred the chaliko up the trail leading from the salt plain to Aven.
14
GOMNOL PANNED the infrared spot slowly over the blackness of the Catalan Gulf. "Still nothing. And the Flying Hunt will be moving their search into this area in another hour if they stick to their grid. Are you certain the saboteurs planned to land tonight?"
"Goddammit, yes," growled Aiken Drum. He squatted in an embrasure between a pair of battlements, peering through an ordinary lens-ocular. He and the Lord Coercer were on the highest turret of Guild Headquarters. "Arrive tonight, farspeak me to whatever rendezvous seemed safest, confer about the best way to crash this place, then mount the assault during the wee hours Monday morning after a day's rest and recon. Don't dump on me if your spies were too incompetent to locate 'em."
"I believe your friends are here already," Gomnol said. "They could have come in obliquely along the coast with the traffic from Tarasiah and Calamosk and Geroniah and the rest of the Spanish cities. Suppose they sailed southwest into the Catalan backwaters after shooting the Glissade, then simply doubled back along the Aven shore? If they're down on the coast now, we'll never spot them—and neither will Nodonn and the Host, airborne or not. There are half a hundred little creeks and inlets along this northern side of the peninsula, and all full of caves where they could hole up out of farsense range." He shut off the power of his big viewer. "You'll just have to wait for their hail, even if it does increase the chance that the Host might find them first. What a pity your saboteur friends didn't trust you to fly out and meet them as soon
as they reached the Basin."
"Aw, shut up," said Aiken. "I'm trying my seekersense on Felice's pattern. She might not be too good at screening yet."
"And then again, she might! We'll have to be very cautious with that one ... And that great booby, Stein! If our block in his mind doesn't hold—if Culluket recognizes it and gets other redactors of the Host to join in a multiphase probe—Stein is going to open up! I can't risk the Host knowing my involvement in this affair and neither can you. We're going to have to put Stein out of the way."
"Gumball, will you stop griping my ass?" Aiken's button eyes held a vicious glitter. "Stein's mental block will hold. You just try killing him or Sukey and the whole thing's off between us. You grab?"
"Only too well. But I must point out the risk we're running. If the Host obtains firm proof of our treason, we will be declared outlaw humans. No rules of Truce or other precepts of the battle-religion will protect us. I know how powerful you've become—that's why I agreed to follow your leadership in this affair. But the massed minds of the Host are capable of annihilating both of us if they act in full concert under Nodonn. I've had forty years of experience with the Tanu and you've been here three months! If you won't listen to my advice, you'll end up with your head on a pike—for all your high metafaculties!"
The trickster came down from the battlement, a conciliatory smile making his teeth shine in the dark. "Gumball—baby! I told you we'd be buddies. I know I need you. Hellfire, man, even if you weren't Lord Coercer and the craftiest intriguer in the whole kingdom— you're the boy who knows the torcs. Who the hell wants to be king without subjects? You gotta keep those collars rolling out, sweetie! Jeez, I almost blew my cortex when old Elizabeth gave me the marvelous news about these turkeys coming south to sabotage your place. And they want to close the time-gate! Not only cut off the supply of warm bods, but their futuristic goodies, too! No more real Scotch for you and me. Sweet houghmagandy!"
Gomnol laughed. "There's scant chance of either happening now. You and I and the Tanu may have our differences, but the valuation of the gate and the factory is hardly one of them. Not even Nodonn would dare go against the King and public opinion by treating these sabotage threats lightly."
"But he might try to muscle in on our act," Aiken warned. "Just like he did with the Delbaeth Quest. He'll try to make it look like he's the one who sniffs out the plots and snuffs 'em, and we can't let him grab face from us. We've gotta catch these human saboteurs red-handed doing their thing so we can show what loyal citizens we are."
"It would be more prudent to take the factory saboteurs as soon as we discover their hideout. But your idea does have PR advantages. I've arranged for neutral observers—Lord Bormol of Roniah and the Lord of Swords—to witness our brilliant defense. Both of them belong to the Coercer Guild and they'll be able to vouch for my zeal in case that scheming hothead, Imidol, attempts to say later that I was in league with the invaders."
"I wish I could be here to help." Aiken spoke with every evidence of sincerity. "But you can't fly, and one of us has to handle the time-gate operation personally. We can't just warn the castellan and hope for the best. This Madame Guderian isn't any dummy, the way she orchestrated Finiah. She'll have something sneaky planned. Probably wild diversions while she creeps up on the gate invisible. But with me waiting to pop her illusion—have no fear!" He added quietly, "Just be sure you do as well with Felice, Gumball."
The Lord Coercer was replacing the protective pod over the infrared scanner. "I'll have my best human golds ready for her. Iron weapons won't do the saboteurs a bit of good against them." In a nonchalant manner, he asked, "What do you suppose became of the Spear and the aircraft after Finiah?"
Aiken lifted his golden shoulders. "Haven't the faintest! Sure as shit the rebels would've kept on using both of 'em in other attacks if they were still operational. I thought Velteyn claimed to've shot the plane down."
"He said he penetrated the craft with his ball lightning," Gomnol corrected. "But no one saw the flyer crash and no wreckage was ever discovered. We certainly must find out what happened. If the weapon and the ship are still usable, we could be in very serious trouble, my boy."
"Aaah," Aiken scoffed. "If they still had a zapper and an aircraft, would they come down south by riverboat and try this lamebrain attack on your fortress?" Aiken was reasonable. And his mind was artistically screened. "You got nothing to worry about. We'll worm the whole thing outa Felice and her ragtag commandos and you can have your reception committee and observation team all primed and ready ... And save a few prisoners for questioning—okay? Even if the bird and the zapper they used on Finiah are a terminal fewk-out, it would be awfully nice to know where they came from. There might be others!"
The strange bedfellows eyed one another for a long minute. Neither one could detect the presence of any suspiciously screened chicane in the other. They were both experts.
"Well—guess I'll do a little eyeball scan," Aiken said at last. "I'll get down to the shore and be ready when Felice and her gang give a shout." He flipped a hand at the Lord Coercer in farewell.
A longtailed moth, lime-green with windowpane eyespots, went fluttering from the high tower, down the northern cliffs, and over the dunes and badlands to the shore of the Catalan Lagoon.
***
O Aiken.
Hey! That you sweets? Longtimenothink! Thought you long gone.
How could you Stein/Sukey trapped Cullukettorturer?
Elizababe misread me not! Blame me not having done damnedest under friggertytough chew! Sukey leaked to Queen re Stein so Cull pounced. Options for me: [1] Let Cull take Stein; [2] fight & get us both taken. Yes? Yes! Threw good mindblock Stein won't betray others/me. He/Sukey secure for now Cull thinks he knows all. Before Combat I spring pair detorc ship off to safe lovenest + unborn Steinling happilyeverafter.
And Gomnol?
Elizacraftybeth you know.
AikenDrum + Gomnol = KingYou + GrandVizierHe.
Why not?
Permit probe implementation?
You can't probe longdistance and I'm too busy now to come. What matter no trust little ConnYankeeMerlin anymore?
Not allied Mordred.
Who he? And why you care anyhoo GrandDropoutMaster?
Aiken don't betray ourfriends! Beware not only for theirsake for yours O trickster-selftricked unto the end dear Aiken don't.
Relax Elizababeballooner. When I king all well but interfere not thwart not ambitions gods/superfolk lest juggernaut squish you grab?
O you Aiken do what you must but woe to you because of what you must do.
You oracles all alike anal pain. Keep aloof overflying like before whynot? You got balloon now so take off get lost! But let me alone nothing stops me now nothing not you not Brede not Archangel-Nodonn not old GroupGreen gangomine not even chocolatekryptonite by friggertydamn!
...
Elizabeth?
...
You gone?
...
(Laughter.)
***
The longtailed moth followed the call to a deep cavern on an inlet of the northern coast of Aven. The saboteurs, like the Firvulag, knew that the simplest way to escape detection by Tanu searchers was to hide underground. Felice guided Aiken to them by means of a gossamer mind-thread, tuned nicely to his intimate mode, which no other being could possibly farsense. And when the gold-clad little figure appeared with a silent snap on the other side of their shielded campfire, Felice was standing there in the looted blue-glass armor that Old Man Kawai had adapted to her small stature, the Spear gripped in one gauntleted hand—and murder in her eye.
"You tipped 'em off!" Her coercive power closed like a bear-trap.
"Me? Me?" He squirmed in her mind's clutches. She was stronger than he had expected. A lot stronger. He could break free—but was it wise to let them know how his powers had matured? And now what the hell had she done? A big muffer of a boulder plugging the cavern exit! Where had it come from, so silently, so soon? Godd
ammit, was she a creator, too—or had that been just a deft bit of the old PK?
"Felice, baby, you are making one helluva booboo. Yhhh! Lay off the marbles, kid, for chrissake! I didn't tell 'em! Give me a chance to explain!"
She relaxed her holds, both coercive and psychokinetic. A great cage of light-blue flame sprang up to encircle him. (Well, that was that. She could create.) For the first time he paid attention to the others standing behind Felice, disguised as guards and serving women. He only recognized the nun.
"Amerie!" cried the shining youth. "Tell her she's gotta let me explain!"
"Talk fast, Tricky-Pockets," Felice said.
He seemed to bare his innocence to the gold-torced fury. Stein and Sukey— they were the ones who had inadvertently blown the gaff—not him! Since the information he gave Felice was basically the truth (and since he was marvelously adept at concealing the seams that joined truth to semitruth and falsehood), the girl's redactive power, weakest of her five metafunctions, could find no fault with his recital. Still glowering, but reluctantly won over in spite of her deeper instincts, she turned off the cage of astral fire and set him free.
Aiken whipped a snowy handkerchief from one of his pockets and wiped his sweating face. "My sweet Lord, you're a brute, Felice! Really learned how to use your collar in a hurry, didn't you?"
She did not answer.
Aiken assumed his most ingratiating air. Addressing himself to the others, he said, "Everything's all set, guys. We've got an inside man—a gold-torc who's lived here for years pretending to be loyal, just waiting for a chance to strike a really valid blow for humanity. He's going to deactivate the lock on a very small service door that hasn't been used in years. They used to shovel their rubbish out of the keep and right over the edge of the cliff, see? There's a little narrow trail giving access to the door but you can walk on it all right. I checked. You'll have to come onto the trail from above, through town. But for the getaway, you can rappel right down the cliff face into the old dump and hightail it into the badlands. A little luck and there'll be such a reeraw going on that you can make it back to these caves before they even know you're gone."