Into The Darkness

Fernao frowned once more; that hadn't occurred to him. He concentrated on the amulet. "I don't think they're Algarvian," he said at last, "but I can't be sure. Sibiu and Algarve use about the same ley magic, not much different from ours. They aren't Valmierans; I'm sure of that.

Valmlera and Jelgava have their own style.

Rogelio came forward, to be able to talk without screaming. "They're going to be Sibs, all right," he said. "Now life gets interesting."

"We're neutrals," Fernao said. "Sibiu needs our trade more than

Algarve does: those islands don't come close to raising everything the

Sibians want. If they try to block us, they go under embargo. You'd have to be a lackwit to think King Vitor would say something like that without meaning it, and the Sibs aren't lackwits."

"They're in a war," Rogelio said. "You don't think straight when you re in a war. Anyone who doesn't know that is a lack wit, too, my dear mage.

"As may be." Fernao bowed with exquisite courtesy. "I tell you this, though, my dear captain: if Sibiu interferes very much with Lagoan ship ping, Vitor won't just embargo them. He will go to war, and that fight is one Sibiu can't win."

"The Sibs against Algarve and us?" Rogelio pursed his lips, then nodded. "Well, you're night about that, though I'm hanged if I fancy the notion of allying with King Mezentio."

"We wouldn't be allies, just people with the same enemies," Fernao said. "Unkerlant and Kuusamo are both fighting the Gyongyos, but they aren't allies."

"Would you ally with the Unkerlanters? I'd almost sooner pucker up and kiss Mezentio's bald head," Rogelio returned. Then he bared his teeth in a horrible grimace. "If the Sibs could talk Kuusamo into jumping on our backs, though-"

"That won't happen," Fernao said, and hoped he was right. He had reason to think so, anyhow: "Kuusamo won't get into two wars at the same time."

Rogelio grunted. "Mm, maybe not. I wouldn't want to be in two wars at once. By the king's beard, I wouldn't even want to be in one war at once."

A hail from the crow's nest made him turn: "Two ships on the west em horizon, sir! They look like Siblan frigates."

Rogelio dashed for the bridge. Fernao peered west. The lean shark shapes swelled rapidly: Sibian frigates sure enough, bristling with sticks and with egg-tossers whose glittering spheroids could disable a ship at a range of several miles. The Leopardess could neither fight them nor out run them.

"Master mage, they're hailing us," Rogelio called. "You speak Sibian, don't you? Mine is foul, and the bastard I'm talking to doesn't know much Lagoan."

"Yes, I speak it." Fernao hurried toward the bridge. Sibian, Algarvian, and Lagoan were related tongues, but the first two were brothers, with

Lagoan a distant cousin that had dropped inflections the others shared and borrowed words from both Kuusaman and the Kaunian languages. The mage stared into the Leopardess's crystal at a man in a sea-green Sibian naval uniform. Fernao identified himself in Sibian, then asked, "Who are you, and what do you require?"

"I am Captain Propatriu of the Impaler, Royal Sibian Navy," the man replied, the words echoing from the glass. "You are to stop for boarding and inspection."

Rogelio shook his head when the mage translated. "No," Fernao said.

"We are on our lawful occasions. You trifle with us at your peril.

"You are bound for Algarve," Captain Propatriu said. "We will search you.

"No," Fernao repeated. "King Vitor has ordered us to allow no interference with our commerce with any kingdom, on pain of embargo or worse against the violator. Can Sibiu afford that?"

"Stinking, arrogant Lagoans," Propatriu muttered. Fernao pretended not to hear. The Sibian naval officer gathered himself and spoke directly into the crystal once more: "You will wait." The polished gem went blank.

"What's he doing?" Rogelio asked.

"Calling home for instructions, unless I'm wrong," Fernao answered.

If he was wrong, things were liable to get sticky in a hurry.

But Captain Propatriu reappeared in the crystal a couple of minutes later. "Pass on," he growled, looking and sounding as if he hated Lagoans.

He added, "My curses go with you," and vanished once more. Rogelio and Fernao let out sighs of relief. The Lxopardess shd between the two Sibian frigates and sped on toward Algarve.

Hajaj rode from King Shazli's palace to the Unkerlanter minister Bishah with all the eagerness of a man going to have a tooth pulled. He like Kin Shazli like all Zuwayza with a barleycorn's weight of sense I their heads reorded Zuwayza's immense southern neighbor with the wary attention any house cat might give a lion living next door.

The sun blazed down almost vertically from a blue enamel sky Zuwayza projected farther north than any other kingdom of Derlavai.

Despite that tropic brilliance, most of the men and women on the streets wore only sandals and broad-brimmed hats, with nothing in between.

With their dark brown skins, they took even the fiercest sun in stride.