Indomitus Vivat (The Fovean Chronicles) (15 page)

    
“Ann is an agent of the Dorkans,” D’gattis said.  “A wizard, to be sure, sent originally to recruit the other Dorkan wizards in your employ.”

    
“When he couldn’t do that,” Ancenon said, “you recruited him as your advisor, thinking him Ann, a priestess of War, whom he killed.”

    
“A glamour is an easy thing, especially for a Priest of Eveave,” Dilvesh noted.

    
“And he is in Uman City right now,” Ancenon noted.

    
“Probably not,” Karel said.  “I would be long gone by now.”

    
I whistled for the servants, waiting outside for the end of the meal.  I sent one of them for Shela, who returned quickly.  It didn’t take long to get her up to speed, but as soon as she saw the direction of the conversation, she drew her own conclusions.

    
Her eyes unfocused then refocused a moment later.  Even with the glamour, she knew the essence of the one we thought of as Ann.

    
She unpacked her crystal, and looked into its depths.  The Uman-Chi looked in with her, leaving no room for the rest of us.

    
“He is on a fast ship,” Shela said finally.  “He has many crates, and is bound for the Straights of Deception.”

    
Ancenon smiled, looking up.

    
“She is just now passing the Silent Isle.”

    
D’gattis had already left.

     Two Trenboni Tech Ships pulled into Eldador the Port a week later.  Glennen himself greeted them, wheeling drunkenly down the wooden dock with twenty Wolf Soldiers around him.  More than once they kept him from walking right into the water.  D’gattis and two Trenboni captains, both Uman-Chi, stood patiently while Glennen slurred his way through a greeting where he gave us his insight on Trenboni and Eldadorian friendship.

    
One of these very ships had joined in the blockade here the month before.  I couldn’t tell if Glennen even remembered it.  He offered each of the Uman-Chi a barrel of mead, then asked them if they were here to discuss the death of Alekanna.

    
“We come to speak with the Heir, your Majesty,” D’gattis told him.  “If you recall, I helped him to exact vengeance in your lady’s honor.”

    
It had probably been the wrong thing to remind him of, because Glennen took a swipe at D’gattis right there.  To their credit, the Wolf Soldier squad around him had him separated from the Uman-Chi and moving back to the palace before D’gattis really had the time to appreciate what had just happened.

    
Fortunately, all Uman-Chi saw Men this way, so it came as more of a disappointment to them than a surprise.  I’d come with another 40 Wolf Soldiers, and D’gattis stepped over to me and nodded.

    
“Your monarch is a disturbed man,” he said.

    
“I know.”

    
“You should strive to do better,” he said.

    
“I will do my best.”

    
D’gattis nodded.

    
“Did you get the wizard?” I asked.

    
D’gattis’ eyebrows dropped like two anvils over his eyes.  “Of course we obtained him.”

    
“I had hoped you would,” I said.  “Can he be transported, or do you need to contain him some how?”

    
“Contain him?” D’gattis asked.

    
“Keep wards on him to contain his magic.”

    
“There are no such wards.”

     
“So, how are you keeping him from making himself look like one of our sailors and just walking off of the ship?”

    
The other two Uman-Chi looked at each other with alarm.  D’gattis looked down for a moment, then at the two Uman-Chi, then down the dock.

    
“You will excuse us,” he said.  “There are things to unload, if you would.”

     
They left down the dock.  I sent the Wolf Soldiers into the ship to unload it.  There were some neatly stacked crates that rattled when they were moved, and these were loaded into a cart to be relocated to the palace.  By the time we had the cart back into the royal courtyard, D’gattis and a guard of Uman dressed in the red Trenboni livery were manhandling a Man in a torn purple robe through the palace gates.

    
A person with no cornea has a tough time shooting a dark look, but D’gattis managed it.  Seeing as I had pointed out the mistake, it had become my fault, and of course had I forgotten then D’gattis would remind me of it.

    
“Glad you got him back,” I said.

    
“Thank you.”

    
“Who knows how much damage he would have done?”

    
“Yes.”

    
“Do you need me to take him?” I asked, looking as sincerely as I could into his eyes.

    
“No.”

    
“It might be a good idea.  I have resources here -”

    
“I can manage him.”

    
“You’re sure?”

    
“Quite sure.”

    
“Because –“

    
He looked me right in the face.  You could see that he had been exerting himself.

    
“I am over two centuries old, Lupus,” he said.  “I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t funny.”

    
“Is, too.”

    
He sighed.  “You have somewhere to bring him?”

    
“Follow the Wolf Soldiers,” I said.  “Is it safe to have him in the same room as this stuff?”

    
“It is,” D’gattis said.  “There are things I want to ask him about.”

    
“You haven’t interrogated him?”

    
“Not successfully,” he said, directing his men to follow him, who were unpacking crates.  “I know your woman has some talent in that regard.”

    
I nodded.  “She does,” I said.  “But it is more of a last resort with me.”

    
“Between the two of you, then,” he said.

    
I sent two more Wolf Soldier guards to summon the rest of the Free Legion and the Lady Shela.

    
As we quick-stepped after the Trenboni Uman and their prisoner, D’gattis asked me, “Why do you insist on calling her that?”

    
We passed through the palace gates to an outer entrance to its lower floors, where we had cells with bars and more experienced jailers.  Glennen had captured Dorkan wizards before.

    
“What should I call her?”

    
“She is your
slave
, Lupus,” he said.  “If I know Andaran culture, you can’t marry her, so she is neither Duchess, Lady nor anything else.”

    
I hadn’t thought of that and Shela hadn’t brought it up.  I think that she liked the idea of being noble, after Alekanna had her influence with her.

    
This would require some investigating.

    
We arrived in a torch lit room within the bowels of the palace.  There were thick, iron bars set in the ceiling and the floor, with manacles on the walls and rings in the floor and ceiling.  We pulled open a gate and shoved the wizard inside, the Uman already pulling off the prisoner’s clothes.

    
His build looked the same as Ann’s.  Hair covered his paunchy belly, hanging over his genitals.  He had very little hair on his head, saggy jowls, and angry brown eyes.  His teeth were yellow, but he had them all.

    
We chained him by the wrists to rings in the ceiling, and by his ankles to rings in the floor.  Then the Uman guards slammed the iron door to his cell and a blue light flashed through the bars all around his cell.

     
According to the local Oligarchs he could cast any spell he wanted to (we had no way to prevent it without robbing him of his ability to speak) but the magic in the bars would reflect his magic back at him.  I told this to him as he hung there.

    
“So when you test it, use a glamour, not a fireball, because I’m not ready to kill you yet,” I said.

    
“Although I assume that day is coming,” he said.  His voice sounded effeminate like Ann’s, although it had sounded masculine coming from a woman. 

    
“I wouldn’t make any long term plans, no,” I said.

    
“You don’t plan to torture him to death?” Ancenon said, entering behind us. 

    
“Got a religious problem with that?” I asked him.

    
“Yes.”

    
“You might want to leave, then,” I said.

    
“Surely there are other ways,” Ancenon said.  “I know he can evade the truth-saying, but perhaps we could pay him off.”

    
“Well, offers are going to be very attractive to him soon,” I promised.  That drew a scowl from the Uman-Chi.

    
“Got any problem with not feeding him?” Nantar said, coming in with Arath and Thorn.

    
“How long?” Ancenon asked.

    
“Until he dies or tells us what we want to know,” Thorn said.

    
“No good,” I said.  “If he makes it through the first couple days, his systems start to shut down and he doesn’t feel pain anymore.”

    
“Really?” Arath said.  I nodded.

    
“Perhaps a spell that just makes him feel that hunger?” Nantar said.

    
“Someone would have to create it,” Dilvesh said, entering.  “And that is more difficult than you would think.”

    
“Not more than I think,” I said.  “I know nothing about it.”

    
“Clearly,” D’gattis said.

    
“Perhaps I could tell you what you want to know,” the wizard said.  We all looked at him.  “I am not averse to trading information for my freedom.”

    
“The problem is that I wouldn’t believe you,” I told him frankly.  “And I know that a truth saying won’t work on you.”

    
“Only if I seek to protect myself,” he said.

    
“And how will we know if you are not?” D’gattis said.  “The spell prevents detection.  It cannot itself
be
detected.”

    
“I will agree to a binding,” he said.  I hadn’t thought of that.  “I will swear to Eveave not to take action against you, or to lie to you.”

    
D’gattis smiled.  “And you would, then, have the same from me.”

    
I hadn’t thought of that, either.  A binding became mutual.

    
“The least you can do is not to harm me, were I to capitulate to you,” the wizard said.

    
D’gattis looked at me, then Ancenon, then back at me.  “I think that I will take my cousin back to Trenbon,” he said, “while you and your woman discuss this situation with our guest.”

    
The wizard’s eyes widened.  He had been with me for a long time.  He knew full well what Shela would do to him, and how little it would bother her to do it.

    
The Andarans, I learned over and over, were not particularly empathetic.

    
“I appeal to the god Adriam,” the wizard said, looking right at Ancenon.  “And I ask for His protection.”

    
“You are not of His children,” Nantar said.

    
“We are all the children of the All-Father,” Ancenon said.

    
Politics was bad enough without throwing in religion.

    
I didn’t need to ask to know that Ancenon wouldn’t just scurry off oblivious, and I sure as hell couldn’t make him.  The wizard knew all about the Fire Bond. 

    
So we can’t hurt him, we can’t force him – it came to me so quickly and so suddenly that I actually laughed out loud, drawing a stern look from Ancenon and surprise from the rest.

    
“You would not mock -,” Ancenon began, but I interrupted him.

    
“I can get the information from him, and I won’t do so much as scratch him,” I said.

     Fertilizer isn’t hard to get in an agrarian society.  Fertilizer with a good amount of ammonium nitrate is, unless you know where there are sheep, which I did.

    
Put that in a copper pot with a lid, and boil it with some water.  Move it through a ‘clapper’ or one-way valve, so that as pressure changes in the pot, it doesn’t suck the fumes backwards through the system.