Working God's Mischief Read online

  He was certain she roamed the darkness most nights, more carefully than she had done in Antieux. There were no rumors.

  She was not him. She would not disdain the use of the tools the Instrumentality Dawn had given her.

  He said, “She hid her intentions well.”

  “She wasn’t happy. She couldn’t be the Widow here.”

  “I knew that without understanding how miserable she really was.”

  “What are you thinking about, old man?”

  “Nothing. Other than to wonder about how Raulet and Chardén will be affected.” Mother preferring war to the company of her sons was sure to shape tomorrow’s men.

  “They’re already used to her not being around.”

  He grunted.

  “Kids are tougher than you think. I survived it. You scream and curse but ten minutes later you don’t remember what your problem was.” She was sad, suddenly. “Neither Raulet, nor Chardén, nor even Lumiere, will have known their fathers.”

  “You’ve been thinking about this.”

  “Having children makes you think.”

  “Unless you’re Kedle.”

  “She thought a lot. Count on that. And she’s still tormenting herself.”

  Probably true. “She was afraid she would hurt them. Physically.”

  “I know. The same hungers and dreads haunt me. But I don’t have the option of running away.”

  “Kedle has another twist. Hope set the fire.”

  “I know. But Kedle wants that not to be true.”

  Brother Candle thought Kedle wanted it to be true with Socia, instead—the impossibility of which might have tipped her decision to run away. Choked, he said, “I know how I can help.”

  * * *

  Brother Candle wore the white of a Seeker Perfect. That drew stares in Terliaga. Terliagans seldom saw Maysaleans. Most did not realize what he was.

  Though al-Prama was the majority religion in that city, most other faiths had a following. Unlike the Khaurenese, Terliagans got along.

  Brother Candle was intrigued by the squawking, quarreling seabirds overhead. He acquired an equally raucous coterie of curious youngsters. He smelled the waterfront long before it came into sight.

  The vessel he sought proved to be a dismally small coastal carrier called Darter the way a grotesquely fat man might be called Tiny. He grew miserable just looking at it. Its aroma said it went fishing when it had no cargo or charter.

  Brother Candle supposed the crew would not be above a foray into piracy, either, if the odds looked good enough.

  The roguish-looking one-eyed ship’s master was pleased to have another paying customer. He became obsequious once he saw the Perfect’s serpent tattoos. The eyes of the one on the old man’s throat tracked.

  No other passengers were aboard when Brother Candle took possession of a coffin of a cabin, determined to begin gaining his sea legs while the craft was still tied up.

  Raulet Archimbault and the Khaurenese Seekers had been profligately generous in their effort to succor the moral foundation of their most famous daughter. Kedle might become the face seen by the entire eastern world.

  So Brother Candle could afford the ship’s mess and a personal cabin.

  The old man obsessed. Why must he afflict himself with the hell to come? Why was he not on the road to Sant Peyre? What hideous, insane compulsion drove him?

  A Seeker pilgrimage to the Holy Lands really made no sense.

  There was only one explanation.

  The Good God required his presence amongst the Wells of Ihrian.

  33. Lucidia: The Mountain and the Mountain

  The Mountain was on the Mountain. The Rascal had grown that weak. Nassim and the Ansa dared, occasionally, to move into visual range of Andesqueluz.

  The subsidies from Indala let the Ansa spare men to watch. Alizarin kept his lightest falcons deployed, too. Despite the firepowder shortage his crews had permission to fire if they got a good shot. Sometimes a crew moved fast enough. The effects were small but cumulative.

  Er-Rashal fought back, ever less effectively.

  “What is he eating?” Nassim once wondered. “He was never the sort to garden.”

  Az replied, “The Ansa say some of their people have disappeared.”

  “He ate them?”

  “So the Ansa believe. It’s one more reason they’ve gotten aggressive. They’re terrified of what he could become if he resurrects Asher.”

  Nassim stared across the barren slope. He saw only shades of brown flecked by points of sage gray. Not much lived up there. “What are we doing, Az? Is this really God’s work?”

  “One must consider the impact on the Faithful of er-Rashal being successful at recalling his devil.”

  “One should, yes.”

  “The Ansa fear that he will soon begin capturing sacrifices to finish his ritual.”

  “Sacrifices? On top of cannibalism?”

  “So they say. The missing people were probably sacrifices that he ate afterward.”

  “Why would they think like that?”

  “They have tribal recollections of the old ways.” Az shrugged. “They’ve been setting traps. Some of them are quite clever—and appallingly ugly. They want to borrow a falcon.”

  Nassim was reluctant to risk his weapons.

  Az said, “Give them the four-pounder from Haeti. It’s brass. No iron in it. He might not detect it till he’s too close.”

  Er-Selim had it all worked out. That falcon had been installed on an approach to an Ansa encampment already, in a defile where its bite could not be avoided. He found little ways to deflect er-Rashal’s supernatural superiority. Most hinged on the sorcerer’s natural arrogance.

  A crack! rolled across the slope. A cloud of smoke rolled up, then began to shred in the air moving up the Mountain. “Oh, my!” Az said. “Look at him go! That old devil is spry for his age.”

  A man in brown flashed across a clear space several hundred yards away and slightly downhill. He limped. One arm hung lifeless. Still, he put distance between himself and the ambush. He changed course, headed toward the Haunted City. His condition hampered his climb.

  Nassim said, “Where are the archers who should be chasing him?”

  And Az, “Proof of concept. That ambush hurt him.”

  “He walked away, though,” Nassim objected. “How did the falcon crew do?”

  “He got hit, that’s for sure. He’s really dragging, now.”

  Nassim harrumphed.

  “We can pull the noose tighter. We can get up where we can see the Haunted City all the time.” That prospect, set forth, thrilled the Master of Ghosts not at all.

  Al-Azer er-Selim had been to Andesqueluz before.

  The cost of embarrassing the Rascal became evident quickly.

  Three of the falcon crew had suffered convulsions so violent that they had broken their own bones. Two might never walk again.

  Az murmured, “It’s time the Ansa shouldered more of the burden.”

  Nassim agreed. The Ansa were not stupid. They would let outsiders do as much of the suffering as they could.

  The Mountain said, “Let them keep the falcon. Teach them to use it. Give them four charges and powder for four firings. If they do some good I’ll give them more. And what the hell is he doing?”

  He pointed downhill. Bone was climbing the Mountain.

  Az suggested, “Let’s go meet him so he don’t kill himself before he can tell us why he’s all worked up.”

  Bone being out here could only be an evil omen. “I’m not sure I want to hear it.”

  * * *

  Alizarin’s foreboding was sound. Bone had no wind left when Az and Alizarin reached him. The man had to get his breath back. “We have been summoned to Shamramdi.”

  “We?”

  “All of us. Indala is gathering every man who can heft a blade or spear.”

  “But … why?”

  “There was a battle with the crusaders who call themselves the Righteous, in th
e Muterin Valley, near Sailkled.”

  Nassim did not know those places. If the Righteous were involved, though, those must be in the Antal somewhere, presumably in the Praman principalities. “I can assume the outcome did not favor the Believers?”

  “God averted his face. The Qipjaq and Osmen princes lost twenty-two thousand warriors. Fewer than two thousand escaped.”

  This was ghastly news. The Pramans of the Antal would no longer be able to withstand the predations of the Eastern Empire.

  Az muttered, “So Captain Tage has lost touch with his roots.”

  Bone said, “Not the Captain. His lieutenants and some nobles from the Grail Empire.”

  Nassim grunted. No matter. Else Tage had sent them.

  Bone continued, “Sailkled is one hundred thirty miles northeast of Souied ed Dreida.” Souied ed Dreida—just Souied to most—was the second city of Lucidia. Or the first, if you asked its own people. It lay fewer than two hundred miles north of Shamramdi. “Souied has no garrison but old men and boys.”

  That was because Indala did not trust the men of Souied, with reason. He had sent the best to Dreanger last year. Most had not returned. This year’s levies had gone east to resist any incursion by the Hu’n-tai At.

  The Great Shake had expected the crusaders to come down to the coast of the Holy Lands, never threatening the cities behind the Neret Mountains.

  “So. They surprised us by taking an eastern route through the Antal.”

  “Some did,” Bone said. “Two other columns are bound for Shartelle.”

  Nassim left the Mountain. He made the Ansa understand that he was not doing so by choice. By way of showing his true feelings he left another falcon and ammunition for a dozen firings. He wished them the grace of God and begged them to accept at face nothing involving er-Rashal till they killed him, dismembered him, burned the pieces in widespread fires, then scattered the ashes on the wind.

  Nassim was not sure that would be enough. There were folk tales about demons who pulled themselves together after treatment equally harsh.

  The Mountain had not yet reached the foot of the Mountain when echoes of falcon fire overtook him.

  Az said, “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Maybe they’re amusing themselves.”

  The second falcon barked just moments later. Az just muttered, “That can’t be good.”

  34. Creveldia: The Unseen Path

  The Ninth Unknown materialized in the square of the former Krulik and Sneigon manufactory in the Eastern Empire. It was high noon on a cool day. The tribal people who saw him thought that he had no shadow. They fled.

  A woman materialized a dozen feet from the old man. She cast no shadow, either. Neither did two more women who arrived immediately.

  A slim blonde just coming to her full beauty marked the eastern corner of a square aligned with the points of the compass. She sniffed. “They were here, maybe last night. Definitely since the last rain.”

  Heris occupied the southern corner. Mildly envious, she said, “How can you tell? I spent more time with them. I practically snuggled up with Copper and Korban.”

  “Bet they loved you running your fingers through their beards,” Cloven Februaren cracked.

  Vali chided, “Maybe you snuggled so close you got used to the smell.”

  Heris refused the bait. These days the girls lived to get a rise out her. Vali had a particular knack for implication wrapped in an innocuous observation. It was all in the timing, tone, and inflection.

  The girl was a menace.

  The old man was amused but threw no oil on the flames. The girls would not spare him.

  They were not malicious, really. They were just two young women making sure the world paid for their having to suffer the indignities of puberty. Malicious mischief, really.

  They were past the worst. Everyone hoped.

  Februaren said, “We ought to take care of business and go before some idiot decides to test us.”

  Lila responded with a snort. Despite the wonders she had witnessed lately she still considered the Ninth Unknown eighty percent blowhard. The old devil encouraged the underestimation. Someday that would let him teach a valuable lesson.

  Vali sniffed. “I smell animals. And filthy people.” No surprise there. Heris had predicted that.

  The Devedians had built well. The mountain people would have been foolish to let such good shelter go to waste.

  Februaren said, “Let’s watch ourselves. Let’s not get hurt.”

  His companions stared as though wondering what he meant.

  “This way,” Lila said. “The scent is stronger from the building with the concrete foundation.”

  Heris said, “That was where the owners and managers worked and lived.” She had come here before.

  The girls had, too, and Februaren nearly as often as Heris. Heris growled, “That’s where Korban and his thugs took the falcons away.” The falcons Piper had left so she would have weapons to use in the Great Sky Fortress. Those falcons were, no doubt, now in the hands of the Aelen Kofer, being radically improved.

  Februaren entered the building wondering loudly why the women of the family had to be so determinedly contrary.

  Lila said, “They were here.” She looked at Heris. “Can you find the gateway?”

  “I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me see how. More the rituals than the way but Iron Eyes was in charge. He has a big lazy streak. He wouldn’t have tried hard to hide it. He wouldn’t expect anyone to look.”

  The old man agreed. “Despite being sure that I’m a master villain he would never believe that a middle-worlder was clever enough to open the way if he did stumble onto a gateway.”

  Vali asked, “Even though you already did it once?”

  “A fluke, obviously. Purely accidental. I was just bumbling around. So he would think. If he thought at all.”

  “He can’t be that dumb.”

  “Aelen Kofer aren’t stupid but they aren’t thinkers. Not in any abstract sense. They’re builders and doers. The Shining Ones worried about consequences. But not much.”

  Heris said, “We’re being watched.”

  “Of course we are. We’re invaders.”

  Lila opened the door to the office place. She tossed something inside. A flash and bang followed.

  Nothing else happened.

  Heris observed, “That might not impress this bunch. They saw plenty of smoke and bang when the Deves were here.”

  “Whatever. There isn’t nobody in there.” She stepped back out, pointed at curious children watching from forty yards away, laughed maniacally.

  “Drama queen.” Vali sneered.

  “Stick in the mud.”

  “Girls. Focus,” the old man said. “This could get dangerous.”

  Lila made a face, but said, “Heris, there’s an area in there with a really strong Aelen Kofer smell.” She headed back inside. The others clumped after her.

  There was some chatter somewhere outside, the language unintelligible but the fright plain enough. There was no bellicosity in it.

  Februaren muttered, “Why didn’t those idiots in Hypraxium put a garrison in here? It couldn’t be that hard to figure out how to make their own falcons.”

  Heris said, “The Emperor believes falcons to be tools of the Adversary. He doesn’t want them included in his arsenal. His generals understood the lesson Piper taught at the Shades, though. This was where the bigwigs stayed. And the Empress when she was here. There were partitions in here, back then.”

  Tribal people still chattered outside, louder but no more intelligible. Heris wondered how they had reacted to the Aelen Kofer, or if they had seen the dwarves at all.

  Februaren said, “I got some of that. They won’t bother us if we don’t threaten them. They already think this building is haunted.”

  A toddler in a filth-stained rag of a shirt too large for her appeared in the open doorway, fist in mouth. She needed her nose wiped. A frightened woman no older than Lila snatched h
er up and fled.

  “I like this,” the old man said. “I don’t have to work so hard.”

  Heris felt bad for the villagers but not badly enough to go away.

  “They did use this place till the dwarves scared them off,” Heris observed. The grime and rubbish made a clear example of why city folks considered their country cousins subhuman. “Poverty is no excuse for this. I’ve been poor. I never lived like a pig.”

  Februaren said, “Never mind. We aren’t missionaries. Lila?”

  “The other end is where the smell is the strongest.”

  “Let’s open a couple of windows and get some light.”

  The women moved, Lila leading. Heris wondered, “Did they come through when people were living here?”

  Lila said, “They did stuff to scare them off. Can’t you smell it?”

  “No.” Heris had one supernatural talent. She could use the Construct to walk the Night. She was better at that, now, than the Ninth Unknown. She had no capacity whatsoever for smelling magic. Though Lila admitted she did not actually smell anything. That was just the most proximate sensory reference.

  Februaren said, “It’s there. I can smell it, too. They were definitely here recently. A lot of them.”

  “Recently we figured.”

  “Uhm. The strength might be intentional. Maybe they left a little something for us.”

  Heris, Vali, and the old man formed an arc behind Lila. The blonde focused on what was in front of her.

  Heris thought she might be seeing the maturation of the Thirteenth Unknown. Lila might get picked for that before the Twelfth Unknown took over for the Eleventh.

  Februaren was as intent as Lila. “Are they aware that we’re trying to get into their world?”

  “How would they find out?” Then, a thought. “Oh. I see.”

  “Asgrimmur.”

  “He might still be in touch. The Bastard thinks he could be. He’s for sure always fluttering around in the shadows of the Shining Ones.”

  Korban Iron Eyes had not been completely truthful when he declared an end to all contact between his and the middle world. There had been numerous dwarfish incursions since, usually technology-related. Heris had yet to catch them, though.