Darkness: Through The Darkness Part 10

That got the old man's notice. "Your p.r.o.nunciation is not all it should be," he said, "but what, in these wretched times, is! Since you do speak this language somewhat, perhaps you will not betray me. May I trouble you with a question before I go my way?"

"Your being here is trouble," Leofsig said, but then he relented. "Ask. Better you pick me than someone else."

"Very well, then." The Kaunian's voice, like his bearing, was full of fussy precision. "Ask I shall: am I mistaken, or is this the street on which dwells a young man of Forthweg named Ealstan?"

Leofsig stared. "I haven't seen Ealstan in months," he answered, startled back into Forthwegian. "He's my younger brother. What's he to you?" He wondered if he should have said even that much. Could the Algarvians have persuaded a Kaunian to spy for them? He knew too well they could--the promise of a few square meals might do the job. But if the redheads were after anybody in his family, they were after him, not Ealstan--he was the one who'd escaped from an Algarvian captives' camp. Maybe this would be all right.

"What is he to me?" the Kaunian repeated in his own language. "Well, I see I must ask another question beyond the one you gave me: did your brother ever mention to you the name Vanai?"

"Aye," Leofsig said in a faintly strangled voice. He pointed at the old man. "Then you would be her grandfather. I'm sorry--I don't recall your name."

"Why should you? I am only a Kaunian, after all." As Leofsig had gathered from Ealstan, the old fellow carried venom in his tongue. He went on, "In case your memory should by any chance improve henceforward, I am called Brivibas. Tell me at once whatever you may know of my granddaughter."

How much to tell? How much to trust? After a few seconds' thought, Leofsig answered, "Last I heard, she was well, and so was my brother."

Brivibas sighed. "There is the greatest weight off my mind. But, you see, one question does indeed lead to another. Where are they? What are they doing?"

"I'd better not tell you that," Leofsig said. "The more people who know, the more people who are likely to find out."

"Do you think I have a tongue hinged at both ends?" Brivibas demanded indignantly.

Before Leofsig could answer, somebody threw a rock that missed Brivibas' head by scant inches and shattered against the whitewashed wall behind him. A shout followed the rock: "Get out of here, you miserable, stinking Kaunian! I hope the Algarvians catch you and whale the stuffing out of you."

The look Brivibas sent the raucous Forthwegian should have left him smoking in the street like dragonfire. When it didn't, Brivibas turned back to Leofsig. "Perhaps you have a point after all," he said quietly. "My thanks for what you did tell me." He hurried away, his shoulders hunched as if awaiting blows only too likely to fall on them.

That could have been worse, went through Leofsig's mind as he walked on toward his own house. If Cousin Sidroc had come upon them, for instance, it could have been much worse. But Sidroc was away, training in Plegmund's Brigade with other Forthwegians mad enough to want to fight for Algarve. Or if Brivibas had come to the house and spoken with Uncle Hengist, Sidroc's father .. . Oh, the unpleasant possibilities had few limits.

When Leofsig rapped on the door, Hengist opened it. "h.e.l.lo, boy," he said as Leofsig stepped in. Leofsig was taller than he was, and thicker through the shoulders, but he didn't seem to notice.

"h.e.l.lo," Leofsig said shortly. He didn't mind his father and mother thinking of him as a child; it grated when Uncle Hengist did it. Leofsig strode past his father's brother and into the house.

As Hengist shut and barred the door, he said, "The Algarvians are on the move in Unkerlant again, no denying it now."

"Huzzah," Leofsig said without stopping. If all the Algarvians in the world moved into Unkerlant and got killed there, that would have suited him fine. But Hengist, like Sidroc, kept finding reasons not to hate the invaders so much. Leofsig thought it was because the redheads were strong, and his uncle and cousin wished they were strong, too.

Now, though, Hengist had a new reason for thinking well, or not so badly, of King Mezentio's men: "As long as the Algarvians move forward, Plegmund's Brigade won't be going into such danger."

"I suppose not," Leofsig admitted. If he'd been one of Mezentio's generals, he would have spent Forthwegians' lives the way a spendthrift went through an inheritance. Why not? They weren't Algarvians. But he didn't say that to his uncle. He couldn't afford to antagonize Hengist, who knew how he'd got out of the captives' camp. Muttering to himself, he left the entry hall and went into the kitchen.

"h.e.l.lo, son," his mother said as she pitted olives. "How did it go today?"

"Not too bad," Leofsig answered. He couldn't talk about Brivibas, not with Uncle Hengist still liable to be in earshot. That would have to wait. "Where's Conberge?" he asked.

"Your sister is primping," Elfryth answered primly. "She won't be having supper with us tonight. Grimbald--you know, the jeweler's son--is taking her to the theater. I don't know what they're going to see. Something funny, I hope."

"Most of the plays they put on these days are funny, or try to be, anyhow," Leofsig said. He paused in thought. "This isn't the first time Grimbald's come by for Conberge, is it?"

His mother laughed at him. "I should say not! And if you'd been paying any attention at all, you'd know how far from the first time it was, too. I wouldn't be surprised if his father started talking with your father before long."

That rocked Leofsig back on his heels. Thinking of his sister married . . . He didn't want her to be an old maid, but he didn't want her moving away, either. For the first time in his life, he felt time hurrying him along faster than he wanted to go.

Quietly, he said, "I have news. It'll have to keep, though." He jerked his chin toward the entry hall. He didn't know that Uncle Hengist was still hanging around there, but he didn't know that Hengist wasn't, either.

Elfryth nodded, understanding what he meant. "Good news or bad?" she murmured. Leofsig shrugged. He didn't know what to make of it. His mother fluttered her hands, looked a little exasperated, and went back to the olives.

When someone knocked on the door a few minutes later, Leofsig opened it. There stood Grimbald. Leofsig let him in, gave him a cup of wine, and made desultory small talk till Conberge came out a couple of minutes later. By the way she beamed at Grimbald, she might have invented him. Away they went, hand in hand.

"Let's have supper," Elfryth said after they'd gone. The ca.s.serole of porridge and cheese and onions, with the pitted olives sprinkled over the top, filled the pit in Leofsig's belly. Afterwards, he and his mother and father sat quiet and replete.

Uncle Hengist tried several times to get a conversation going. He had no luck, not even when he twitted Leofsig's father about the way the Algarvians were still advancing. After a bit, he rose to his feet and said, "I think I'd need to be a necromancer to squeeze any talk from you people. I'm heading off to a tavern. Maybe I can find some live bodies there." And out he went into the night.

Hestan smiled at Leofsig. "Your mother told me you knew something interesting. My thought was that, if we were all dull enough, my brother might get impatient. Hengist has been known to do that."

"Well, it worked." Elfryth rounded on Leofsig. "Now--what happened that you couldn't tell me about before?"

Leofsig recounted the meeting with Brivibas. When he'd finished, his father said, "I'd heard they'd brought the Kaunians from Oyngestun to Gromheort. I wondered if Ealstan's... friend had any relatives among them. He had nerve, coming out of the Kaunian district." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "I hope I would have done the same for my kin."

"Ealstan didn't much like him," Leofsig said. "I can see why--he thinks he knows everything there is to know, and he's one of those Kaunians who've never forgiven us for coming out of the west and turning Forthweg into Forthweg."

"And now he's got a Forthwegian in his family," Hestan said musingly. "No, he wouldn't much care for that, would he? No more than a lot of Forthwegians would care to have a Kaunian in theirs." He left himself out of that group, and after a moment continued, "I'll have to see what I can do for him, poor fellow. I'm afraid it may not be very much, though."

"If the Algarvians put him on a caravan and send him west--" Elfryth began.

"I can't do anything about that," Hestan answered. "I wish I could, not just for him, but I can't. Once I find out where he's staying, I can send him money. If he has any sense about such things, he'll be able to pay off the redheads. They can be bought." He glanced over to Leofsig. Several Algarvians had been bought so they wouldn't notice his unauthorized return to Gromheort from that captives' camp.

"I'm just glad most of the redheads you paid off are out of Gromheort these days, Father," Leofsig said. "But I don't know how much sense this Briv-ibas has. Not a lot, maybe, if his own granddaughter and Ealstan both wanted to stay clear of him."

Hestan sighed. "You may well be right, but I can hope you're wrong."

"I hope I'm wrong, too," Leofsig said. "He can put us in danger, not just himself."

Vanai sprawled across the bed in the cramped little flat she shared with Ealstan, reading. The flat, which had had only one abandoned romance--and that a piece of hate translated from Algarvian--in it when they started living there, now boasted a couple of rickety bookcases, both of them packed. Ealstan brought home several books a week. He did work hard to keep her as happy as he could.

But, trained by her grandfather, she'd cut her teeth on the subtleties of Kaunian epics and histories and poetry. Forthwegian romances struck her as spun sugar: straightforward, all bright colors, heroes and villains sharply defined. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy them; she usually did. Still, at least half the time she knew all the important things that would happen before she got a quarter of the way into a book.

The slim little volume in her hands now wasn't a romance at all. It was called You Too Can Be a Mage. In the preface, the author--who didn't say what rank of magecraft he held, or if he was a ranked mage at all--didn't come right out and promise that anyone who finished the book would end up a first-rank mage, but he certainly implied it.

"A likely story," Vanai muttered. If magecraft were so easy, everybody would have been a mage. But using sorcery and performing it on your own were two very different things.

Despite her doubts, she kept reading. The author had a sprightly style, and seemed convinced he was telling the truth, regardless of how improbable Vanai found that. You can unleash the power within yourself, he insisted.

Back in Oyngestun, she'd tried magic--a cantrip lifted from a text belonging to her grandfather that dated back to the Kaunian Empire--to try to get Major Spinello to leave her alone. A little later, Spinello got posted to Unkerlant. Vanai still didn't know whether the spell and his departure had anything to do with each other. She didn't know... but she hoped.

She wondered what had happened to Spinello after he got to Unkerlant. Nothing good was her dearest wish. Many, many Algarvians had met their ends in battle against King Swemmel's men. Was one more too much to ask?

She doubted she would ever learn Spinello's fate. She hoped with all her soul she would never see him again. If she didn't, who would bring word of him to her? No one, if she had any luck at all.

With a deliberate effort of will, she pushed Major Spinello out of her mind and went back to You Too Can Be a Mage. The author concentrated on spells that might bring in money and on those that might lure someone good-looking of the opposite s.e.x, neither of which areas inclined Vanai to trust him very far. But, he insisted, using these same principles can get you anything--aye, anything!--your heart desires.

"What does my heart desire?" Vanai asked, rolling over and looking up toward the poorly plastered ceiling. She'd never had a lot of money, and had got very used to doing without it. She wasn't looking for anyone but Ealstan. What did she want, then?

If only every Algarvian would vanish off the continent of Derlavai! Now there was a nice, round wish. Regretfully, Vanai laughed at herself. It was also a wish far beyond anything she could learn in You Too Can Be a Mage. It was a wish far beyond the powers of all the non-Algarvian mages in the world put together. She knew that all too well, too.

What could she wish for that she might actually be able to get? "The chance to go out on the streets of Eoforwic if I need to?" she suggested to herself. That wouldn't be so bad. That, in fact, would be splendid. Ealstan had brought her a Forthwegian-style long tunic. If only she looked like a Forthwegian, now.

She flipped through the pages of the book. Sure enough, there was a section called Improving Your Appearance. Vanai didn't think looking like a Forthwegian const.i.tuted an improvement, but she was willing to settle for a change.

She studied a couple of the suggested spells. One, by its phrasing, was pretty plainly a translation from the Kaunian. She didn't recall ever running across the original. No doubt her grandfather could have cited exactly the text from which the Forthwegian had filched it, and no doubt Brivibas would have had some pungent things to say about Forthwegians meddling with their betters' works.

But whatever Brivibas had to say these days, he was saying it to someone else--and, if he was trying to publish it, he was saying it in Forthwegian. He wasn't Vanai's worry any more. She hoped the Algarvians hadn't thrown him into a ley-line caravan and sent him west. Past that, she refused to worry about him.

Still, she intended to try the translated spell, not the other one. Maybe that was because she was a Kaunian herself. And maybe, in some measure, it was because she was her grandfather's granddaughter.

Whichever was true, she couldn't even think about trying the spell before Ealstan got home. Even if she'd had all it would need, she wouldn't be able to see the change if she did it before then, neither on herself nor in a mirror. And if she turned herself into a crone, she wouldn't want to go out on the streets, either.

When Ealstan gave his coded knock, Vanai threw the door open and let him in. "Ethelhelm and his band are back in town," he said after he'd hugged her and kissed her. "He's got more stories to tell than you can shake a stick at."

"That's nice." Normally, Vanai would have been bubbling with eagerness to hear news of the outside world. Now, hoping to see some of it for herself, she cared much less. "Listen, Ealstan, to what I want to do...."

Listen Ealstan did. He had patience. And, as she went on, his own enthusiasm built. "That would be wonderful, sweetheart," he said. "Do you really think you can do it?"

"I don't know," Vanai admitted. "But, by the powers above, I hope so. I'm so sick of being stuck here, you can't imagine."

She waited to hear whether Ealstan would claim he could imagine it, even if he didn't feel it himself. To her relief, he only nodded and asked, "What will you need for the spell?"

Vanai had been pondering that herself. You Too Can Be a Mage didn't go into a lot of detail. "Yellow yarn," she answered. "Black yarn--dark brown would be even better. Vinegar. Honey. A lot of luck."

Ealstan laughed. "I can bring you back everything but the luck."

"We've got honey and vinegar," Vanai answered. "All you have to buy is the yarn. And you've already brought me luck."

"Have I?" His tone went bleak. "Is this luck, being trapped in this little flat day after day?"

"For a Kaunian in Forthweg, this is luck," Vanai said. "I came this close"-- she snapped her fingers--"to getting sent west, remember. I'm lucky to be alive, and I know it." Maybe you should be content with that, part of her said. Maybe you shouldnat want any more. But she did. She couldn't help it.

And because she couldn't, the next day seemed to crawl past. The walls of the flat felt as if they were closing in on her. When Ealstan came home after what seemed like forever, she threw the door open and s.n.a.t.c.hed from his hand the little paper-wrapped parcels he was carrying. He laughed at her. "Nice to know you're glad to see me."

"Oh, I am," she said, and he laughed again. She tore the parcels open. One held pale yellow yarn, a pretty good match for the color of her own hair. The skein of yarn in the other package was dark brown. She nodded to Ealstan. "These are perfect."

"Hope so," he said. "Will the spell wait till after supper? I'm starved." He gave his belly a theatrical pat.

Even though Vanai didn't want to wait any more, she did. And then, at last, there wasn't anything left to wait for. She got the honey and the vinegar. She got lengths of each color yarn. And she got You Too Can Be a Mage. After studying the spell it gave as carefully as if she were a first-rank theoretical sorcerer essaying some conjuration that had never been tried before, she nodded. "I'm ready."

"Good," Ealstan said. "You don't mind if I watch?"

"Of course not," she said. "Just don't jog my elbow."

Ealstan didn't say a word. He pulled up a chair and waited to see what would happen next. Vanai began to chant. She felt strange incanting in Forthwegian rather than cla.s.sical Kaunian, though the tongue in which a spell was cast had nothing to do with how effective it was. A lot of history had proved that.

As she chanted, she dipped the yellow yarn first into the vinegar, then into the honey. She laid it on top of the length of dark brown yarn. She frowned a little while she was doing that. The phrasing for the spell there seemed particularly murky, as if the translator, whoever he was, had had trouble following the Kaunian original. She hurried on. A last word of command and the spell was done.

"You don't look any different," Ealstan remarked.

He'd stayed quiet all the time Vanai was working. She'd almost forgotten he was there. Now, sweat streaming down her face from the effort she'd just put forth, she looked up--and froze in horrified dismay. No wonder she didn't look any different. The spell hadn't worked on her; it had worked on Ealstan. He made a very handsome Kaunian, but that wasn't what she'd had in mind.

"What's the matter?" he asked. He couldn't see the effects on himself, any more than Vanai would have been able to on herself.

With a curse, she flung You Too Can Be a Mage across the room. The translator hadnat known what he was doing--and he'd landed her and Ealstan in a dreadful fix. How was Ealstan supposed to go out if he looked like a blond? Her heart in her shoes, Vanai told him what had happened.

"Well, that's not so good," he said, easier-going than she could have been. "Try it again--the exact same spell, I mean--except this time put brown on yellow. With a little luck, that'll get us back where we started."

She envied him his calm. Forthwegians were supposed to have terrible tempers, to fly off the handle at any excuse or none. Here, though, she was furious while Ealstan took things in stride. And he'd come up with what sounded like a good idea. She went over and picked up You Too Can Be a Mage. The cover was bent. She wished she could bend the author, too.

Ealstan, still looking like a Kaunian, came over and gave her a kiss. It almost felt as if she were being unfaithful to the real him. But part of her also wished he could stay a Kaunian ... except when he had to go outside. "You too can be a mage," he said, "provided you have more going for you than this fool book."

"I'll try the spell again," Vanai said. "Then I'll throw the book away."

"Keep it," Ealstan said. "Read it. Enjoy it. Just don't use it."

Grimly, Vanai set about the spell once more, with the reversal Ealstan had suggested. She wanted to correct the Forthwegian text where she knew it had gone awry, but she didn't. And when she called out the word of command, Ealstan went back to looking like himself.

"Did it work?" he asked--he couldn't tell.

"Aye." Vanai heard the relief in her own voice. "You won't have to go through what I go through for looking like this."

"I like the way you look," Ealstan said. "And I wouldn't mind looking like a Kaunian, except that I can do a better job of keeping you safe if I don't."

That was no doubt true. Vanai hated it, but couldn't argue it. She slammed the cover of You Too Can Be a Mage shut. She never intended to open it again.

Splas.h.i.+ng through muck toward yet more trees ahead, Sergeant Istvan said, "I never thought the stars looked down on such a forest." The big Gyongyosian plucked on his curly, tawny beard; as far as he could tell, the forest in which he was fighting went on forever.

Corporal Kun said, "Sooner or later, it has to stop. When it does, there's the rest of Unkerlant ahead." Kun's beard grew in lank clumps; he was lean and would have been clever-looking even without spectacles. He'd been a mage's apprentice before going into the Gyongyosian army, and seldom let anyone forget it.

"I know," Istvan answered morosely. "I wonder if any of us'll be left alive to see it." He had no great desire to see the rest of Unkerlant. As far as he was concerned, the Unkerlanters were welcome to their kingdom. He wanted nothing to do with it. The mountains that were the borderland between Gyongyos and Unkerlant had been bad. This endless forest, in its own way, was worse. He wouldn't have bet that whatever lay beyond it made for much of an improvement. But he did want to live to find out.

More men with tawny yellow hair and beards who wore leggings like Ist-van's waved his squad and him forward. "All safe enough," one of them said. "We've cleared the Unkerlanters out of the stretch ahead."

Istvan didn't laugh at his countrymen, but keeping quiet wasn't easy. Brash Kun did speak up: "n.o.body knows whether those goat-eaters are cleared out till after they blaze half a dozen men in the back. Some of them will be lurking there, you mark my words."

"You have no faith," said one of the warriors beckoning the squad onward.

"We have plenty of faith," Istvan said before Kun could answer. "We have faith there will be some Unkerlanters all our patrols haven't swept up. There always are." He didn't waste any more time with the guides, but tramped east past them, ever deeper into the woods.

Behind their spectacles, Kun's eyes were puzzled. "You don't usually stick up for me like that, Sergeant," he said.

"I'll take you over those know-it-alls any day," Istvan answered. "They haven't done any real fighting, or they wouldn't talk like a pack of idiots. Besides, you're mine. If anybody rakes you over the coals, it's me. Let them tend to their own. That's fair. That's right."

A few minutes later, off to one side, someone let out a shriek. "He's been blazed!" someone else shouted. Gyongyosian troopers scurried this way and that, trying to flush out the Unkerlanter sniper. They had no luck.