Out of the Darkness

Though he got better food and better lodging in his new quarters outside the main captives’ camp on Obuda, Sergeant Istvan missed the company of his fellow Gyongyosians. When he grumbled about that to Lammi, the Kuusaman forensic mage raised a thin black eyebrow. “But they beat you,” she said. “And they would do it again if they had the chance.”

Istvan’s broad shoulders went up and down in a shrug. “I know. But they’re my own folk even so. You Kuusamans”-he shrugged again-”I don’t think the stars shine on you.”

One of his own people would have been furious at such an insult. Lammi only shrugged in her turn, which proved how foreign and alien she was. She knew Gyongyosian customs well, but they didn’t bind her. That made her more alarming to him, not less. She said, “I am willing to take my chances on it.”

Few, if any, Gyongyosians would have been so willing. Lammi didn’t talk about the scar on Istvan’s left hand, or about what it meant. Had his fellow captives known what it meant, they would have done worse to him than they would have for mere suspected treason. What could make treason mere! Goat-eating could, and Istvan knew it all too well.

His captors let him see Kun now and then. Each of them was wary with the other, for each knew the other had, however unwillingly, confessed to the abomination they’d both committed. Kun seemed more content away from his countrymen than Istvan did. “They’re a pack of fools, most of them,” he said loftily.

“Oh, and you’re not?” Istvan said.

“Not that kind, anyhow,” the former mage’s apprentice replied. “I got sick of men from mountain valleys long before those louts set on me.”

“I’m a man from a mountain valley,” Istvan reminded him, his big hands balling into fists.

“Proves my point, wouldn’t you say?” Kun grinned at Istvan’s flabbergasted expression. “And you, my dear fellow, you put up with me far better than most.”

Istvan thought about that for a little while. He said, “We’ve been through too much together. If the two of us don’t put up with each other, no one ever will.”

Kun grimaced. “And if that isn’t a judgment on both of us, stars go dark if I know what would be.”

A couple of days after that, Lammi summoned both of them. That surprised Istvan. They’d never been questioned together. Nor were they this time. The Kuusaman mage spoke briskly: “How would the two of you like to be free to return to your own land?”

“Don’t play with us,” Istvan said roughly. “That isn’t going to happen, and you know it. We’re here till the war is over.” And who knows for how long after that?

But Lammi shook her head. “Not necessarily. And I ask no treason of you. By the stars, I do not. All I ask is that you go on board ship, go back to the waters off Becsehely, watch a certain something, and then, when you are released, tell your own superiors exactly what you saw.” She held up a hand to forestall questions. “You would not be the only men doing this-far from it.”

“Why us?” Kun asked.

“Because you are in a certain amount of difficulty here,” Lammi answered, “and because you have shown more than a certain amount of wit. We feel confident you would tell those set above you the truth.”

“Why shouldn’t we just keep quiet?” Istvan asked. “And what’s off Becsehely?” They both knew the miserable little island east of Obuda better than they wanted to; they’d been captured there.

Lammi said, “You will see what is off, and on, Becsehely. And you will, I think, find good reason for telling the truth as you see it. Of course, if you would rather stay here on Obuda. .”

“I’ll go,” Istvan said. Kun hesitated, but only briefly.

Lammi smiled. “I thought that might prove persuasive. Pack whatever gear you have. The ley-line cruiser will be here tomorrow at first light.”

Istvan had a duffel bag ready in good time. No captive had much in the way of belongings. Kun’s duffel was heavier, but Kun cared more about books than Istvan ever had. A carriage took both of them to the harbor, which had been repaired since Captain Frigyes’ bloodthirsty magic did its work. The cruiser was long and sleek and deadly, somehow more dangerous-looking than a Gyongyosian ship. “When they boarded the vessel, a Kuusaman military clerk checked their names off a list. A fellow in greenish Kuusaman naval uniform escorted them to a cabin.

“You two stay here,” the Kuusaman said in Gyongyosian. Like most of his countrymen who spoke the language, he used the plural rather than the dual.

The cabin was big enough to boast two cots side by side. Istvan and Kun wouldn’t even have to quarrel over who got the top bunk. Istvan said, “If this is what the slanteyes do for captives, they must live mighty soft themselves.”

“They do,” Kun said. “They’re richer than we are. They’ve had modern magecraft longer than we have, and they do more with it than we do.”

“But we are the warrior race,” Kun said with pride in his countrymen still diminished only a little from what he’d felt when summoned into Ekrekek Arpad’s service.