Magician (59 page)

Chingari of the Omechkel, the Senior
Strike Leader, came to stand at Kasumi’s side. “Force
Leader, the barbarian fleet is nearing. They will land their men
within the hour.”

Kasumi regarded the scroll he held in
his hand. It had been read a dozen times since arriving at dawn. He
glanced at it one more time, again studying the chop at the bottom,
the crest of his father, Kamatsu, Lord of the Shinzawai. Silently
accepting his personal fate, Kasumi said, “Order for march.
Break camp at once and begin assembling the warriors. We are
commanded to return to Kelewan. Send the trailbreakers ahead.”

Chingari’s voice betrayed his
bitterness. “Now the tunnel is destroyed, do we quit so
meekly?”

“There is no shame, Chingari. Our
clan has withdrawn itself from the Alliance for War, as have the
other clans of the Blue Wheel Party. The War Party is once more alone
in the conduct of this invasion.”

With a sigh Chingari said, “Again
politics interferes with conquest. It would have been a glorious
victory to take such a fine castle.”

Kasumi laughed. “True.” He
watched the activities of the castle. “They are the best we
have ever faced. We already learn much from them. Castle walls
slanted outward at the plinth, preventing sappers from collapsing
them, this is a new and clever thing. And those beasts they ride.
Ayee, how they move, like Thün racing across the tundras of
home. I will somehow gain some of those animals. Yes, these people
are more than simple barbarians.”

After a moment’s more reflection,
he said, “Have our scouts and trailbreakers keep alert for
signs of the forest devils.”

Chingari spat. “The foul ones
move in great number northward once more. They’re as much a
dagger in our side as the barbarians.”

Kasumi said, “When this world is
conquered, we shall have to see to these creatures. The barbarians
make strong slaves. Some may even prove valuable enough to make free
vassals who will swear loyalty to our houses, but those foul ones,
they must be obliterated.” Kasumi fell silent for a while. Then
he said, “Let the barbarians think we flee in terror from their
fleet. This place is now a matter for the clans remaining in the War
Party. Let Tasio of the Minwanabi worry about a garrison at his rear
should he move eastward. Until the Kanazawai once more realign
themselves in the High Council, we are done with this war. Order the
march.”

Chingari saluted his commander and
left, and Kasumi considered the implications of the message from his
father. He knew the withdrawal of all the forces of the Blue Wheel
Party would prove a major setback for the Warlord and his party. The
repercussions of such a move would be felt throughout the Empire for
some years to come. There would be no smashing victories for the
Warlord now, for with the departure of those forces loyal to the
Kanazawai lords and the other clans of the Blue Wheel, other clans
would reconsider before joining in an all-out push. No, thought
Kasumi, it was a bold but dangerous move by his father and the other
lords. This war would now be prolonged. The Warlord was robbed of a
spectacular conquest; he was now overextended with too few men
holding too much land. Without new allies he would remain unable to
press forward with the war. His choices were now down to two:
withdraw from Midkemia and risk humiliation before the High Council,
or sit and wait, hoping for another shift in politics at home.

It was a stunning move on behalf of the
Blue Wheel. But the risk was great. And the risk from the next series
of moves in the Game of the Council would be even more dangerous.
Silently he said: O my father, we are now firmly committed to the
Great Game. We risk much: our family, our clan, our honor, and
perhaps even the Empire itself.

Crumbling the scroll, he tossed it into
a nearby brazier, and when it was totally consumed by flame, he put
aside thoughts of risk and walked back toward his tent.

We were, fair queen,
Two lads that
thought there was no more behind
But such a day tomorrow as
today,
And to be boy eternal.

SHAKESPEARE, The Winter’s Tale

T
he
dying slave lay screaming.

The day was unmercifully hot. The other
slaves went about their work, ignoring the sound as much as possible.
Life in the work camp was cheap, and it did no good to dwell on the
fate that awaited so many. The dying man had been bitten by a relli,
a snakelike swamp creature. Its venom was slow-acting and painful;
short of magic, there was no cure.

Suddenly there was silence. Pug looked
over to see a Tsurani guard wipe off his sword. A hand fell on Pug’s
shoulder. Laurie’s voice whispered in his ear, “Looks
like our venerable overseer was disturbed by the sound of Toffston’s
dying.”

Pug tied a coil of rope securely around
his waist. “At least it ended quickly.” He turned to the
tall blond singer from the Kingdom city of Tyr-Sog and said, “Keep
a sharp eye out. This one’s old and may be rotten.”
Without another word Pug scampered up the bole of the ngaggi tree, a
firlike swamp tree the Tsurani harvested for wood and resins. With
few metals, the Tsurani had become clever in finding substitutes. The
wood of this tree could be worked like paper, then dried to an
incredible hardness, useful in fashioning a hundred things. The
resins were used to laminate woods and cure hides. Properly cured
hides could produce a suit of leather armor as tough as Midkemian
chainmail, and laminated wooden weapons were nearly the match of
Midkemian steel.

Four years in the swamp camp had
hardened Pug’s body. His sinewy muscles strained as he climbed
the tree. His skin had been tanned deeply by the harsh sun of the
Tsurani homeworld. His face was covered by a slave’s beard.

Pug reached the first large branches
and looked down at his friend. Laurie stood knee-deep in the murky
water, absently swatting at the insects that plagued them while they
worked. Pug liked Laurie. The troubadour had no business being here,
but then he’d had no business tagging along with a patrol in
the hope of seeing Tsurani soldiers, either. He said he had wanted
material for ballads that would make him famous throughout the
Kingdom. He had seen more than he had hoped for. The patrol had
ridden into a major Tsurani offensive, and Laurie had been captured.
He had come to this camp over four months ago, and he and Pug had
quickly become friends.

Pug continued his climb, keeping one
eye always searching for the dangerous tree dwellers of Kelewan.
Reaching the most likely place for a topping, Pug froze as he caught
a glimpse of movement. He relaxed when he saw it was only a needier,
a creature whose protection was its resemblance to a clump of ngaggi
needles. It scurried away from the presence of the human and made the
short jump to the branch of a neighboring tree. Pug made another
survey and started tying his ropes. His job was to cut away the tops
of the huge trees, making the fall less dangerous to those below.

Pug took several cuts at the bark, then
felt the edge of his wooden ax bite into the softer pulp beneath. A
faint pungent odor greeted his careful sniffing. Swearing, he called
down to Laurie, “This one’s rotten. Tell the overseer.”

He waited, looking out over the tops of
trees. All around, strange insects and birdlike creatures flew. In
the four years he had been a slave on this world, he had not grown
used to the appearance of these life-forms. They were not all that
different from those on Midkemia, but it was the similarities as much
as the differences that kept reminding him this was not his home.
Bees should be yellow-and-black-striped, not bright red. Eagles
shouldn’t have yellow bands on their wings, nor hawks purple.
These creatures were not bees, eagles, or hawks, but the resemblance
was striking. Pug found it easier to accept the stranger creatures of
Kelewan than these. The six-legged needra, the domesticated beast of
burden that looked like some sort of bovine with two extra stumpy
legs, or the cho-ja, the insectoid creature who served the Tsurani
and could speak their language: these he had come to find familiar.
But each time he glimpsed a creature from the corner of his eye and
turned, expecting it to be Midkemian only to find it was not, then
the despair would strike.

Laurie’s voice brought him from
his reverie. “The overseer comes.”

Pug swore. If the overseer had to get
himself dirty by wading in the water, then he would be in a foul
mood—which could mean beatings, or a reduction in the
chronically meager food. He would already be angered by the delay in
the cutting. A family of burrowers-—beaverlike six-legged
creatures—had made themselves at home in the roots of the great
trees. They would gnaw the tender roots, and the trees would sicken
and die. The soft, pulpy wood would turn sour, then watery, and after
a while the tree would collapse from within. Several burrower tunnels
had been poisoned, but the damage had already been done to the trees.

A rough voice, swearing mightily while
its owner splashed through the swamp, announced the arrival of the
overseer, Nogamu. He himself was a slave, but he had attained the
highest rank a slave could rise to, and while he could never hope to
be free, he had many privileges and could order soldiers or freemen
placed under his command. A young soldier came walking behind, a look
of mild amusement on his face. He was clean-shaven in the manner of a
Tsurani freeman, and as he looked up at Pug, the slave could get a
good look at him. He had the high cheekbones and nearly black eyes
that so many Tsurani possessed. His dark eyes caught sight of Pug,
and he seemed to nod slightly. His blue armor was of a type unknown
to Pug, but with the strange Tsurani military organization, that was
not surprising.Even family, demesne, area, town, city, and province
appeared to have its own army. How they all related one to another
within the Empire was beyond Pug’s understanding.

The overseer stood at the base of the
tree, his short robe held above the water. He growled like the bear
he resembled and shouted up at Pug, “What’s this about
another rotten tree?”

Pug spoke the Tsurani language better
than any Midkemian in the camp, for he had been there longer than all
but a few old Tsurani slaves. He shouted down, “It smells of
rot. We should rerig another and leave this one alone, Slave Master.”

The overseer shook his fist. “You
are all lazy. There is nothing wrong with this tree. It is fine. You
only want to keep from working. Now cut it!”

Pug sighed. There was no arguing with
the Bear, as all the Midkemian slaves called Nogamu. He was obviously
upset about something, and the slaves would pay the price. Pug
started hacking through the upper section, and it soon fell to the
ground. The smell of rot was thick, and Pug removed the ropes
quickly. Just as the last length was coiled around his waist, a
splitting sound came from directly in front of him. “It falls!”
he shouted down to the slaves standing in the water below. Without
hesitation they all ran. The cry of “falls” was never
ignored.

The bole of the tree was splitting down
the middle now that the top had been cut away. While this was not
common, if a tree was far enough gone for the pulp to have lost its
strength, any flaw in the bark could cause it to split under its own
weight. The tree’s branches would pull the halves away from
each other. Had Pug been tied to the bole, the ropes would have cut
him in half before they snapped.

Pug gauged the direction of the fall,
then as the half he stood upon started to move, he launched himself
away from it. He hit the water flat, back first, trying to let the
two feet of water break his fall as much as possible. The blow from
the water was immediately followed by the harder impact with the
ground. The bottom was mostly mud, so there was little damage done.
The air in his lungs exploded from his mouth when he struck, and his
senses reeled for a moment. He retained enough presence of mind to
sit up and gasp a deep lungful of air.

Suddenly a heavy weight hit him across
the stomach, knocking the wind from him and pushing his head back
underwater. He struggled to move and found a large branch across his
stomach. He could barely get his face out of the water to get air His
lungs burned, and he breathed without control. Water came pouring
down his windpipe, and he started to choke. Coughing and sputtering,
he tried to keep calm but felt panic rise within him. He frantically
pushed at the weight across him but couldn’t move it.

Abruptly he found his head above water;
Laurie said, “Spit, Pug! Get the muck out of your lungs, or
you’ll get lung fever.”

Pug coughed and spit. With Laurie
holding his head, he could catch his breath.

Laurie shouted, “Grab this
branch. I’ll pull him out from under.”

Several slaves splashed over, sweat
beading their bodies. They reached underwater and seized the branch.
Heaving, they managed to move it slightly, but Laurie couldn’t
drag Pug out.

“Bring axes, we’ll have to
cut the branch from the tree.”

Other slaves were starting to bring
axes over when Nogamu shouted, “No. Leave him. We have no time
for this. There are trees to cut.”

Laurie nearly screamed at him, “We
can’t leave him! He’ll drown!”

The overseer crossed over and struck
Laurie across the face with a lash. It cut deep into the singer’s
cheek, but he didn’t let go of his friend’s head. “Back
to work, slave. You’ll be beaten tonight for speaking to me
that way. There are others who can top. Now, let him go!” He
struck Laurie again. Laurie winced, but held Pug’s head above
water.

Nogamu raised his lash for a third
blow, but was halted by a voice from behind. “Cut the slave
from under the branch.” Laurie saw the speaker was the young
soldier who had accompanied the slave master. The overseer whirled
about, unaccustomed to having his orders questioned. When he saw who
had spoken, he bit back the words that were on his lips. Bowing his
head, he said, “My lord’s will.”