Out of the Darkness

“Maybe not,” Fernao said, “but by now it’s become part of our ritual.” Ilmarinen nodded. Routine did have a way of crystallizing into ritual. And Fernao was a good deal more fluent in Kuusaman these days than he had been before Ilmarinen left the Naantali district. The Lagoan wizard hardly ever needed to fall back into classical Kaunian now. His south-coast accent was also stronger than it had been. Ilmarinen glanced toward Pekka. He had no doubt where Fernao had picked up his style of speaking.

Pekka might have felt his eye on her. If she had, she didn’t know why he’d looked her way, for she said, “Master Ilmarinen, are you sure you’re comfortable here? In spite of your work, you’re a latecomer to this sorcery.”

“I’ll pull my weight,” Ilmarinen answered. “This is the end, the very end. I want to be a part of that.”

“All right.” She nodded. “You’re entitled to it. So much of the work we’ve done is based on your calculations. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here today. I will say, though, I hope you don’t plan on standing on your head, the way you did in the hallway outside my office.”

“No,” Ilmarinen said. “What we’re here for today is standing Gyongyos on its head. That’s a different business.”

Piilis said, “So it is, Master, but one day you must tell us why you chose to stand on your head in the hallway outside Mistress Pekka’s office.”

“I was demonstrating an inverse relationship,” Ilmarinen replied. Piilis blinked but didn’t smile. He was bright enough-more than bright enough- but had only a vestigial sense of humor. He might have gone further had he had more. Or he might not have, too. Ilmarinen had his own opinion about such things, but recognized it was no more than an opinion.

“Are we ready?” Pekka asked. No one denied it. She took a deep breath and intoned, “Before the Kaunians came, we of Kuusamo were here. Before the Lagoans came, we of Kuusamo were here. After the Kaunians departed, we of Kuusamo were here. We of Kuusamo are here. After the Lagoans depart, we of Kuusamo shall be here.”

Ilmarinen repeated the ritual words with her. So did the rest of the Kuusaman mages crowding the blockhouse. And so, he noted, did Fernao. That was interesting. Before Ilmarinen left, the Lagoan mage had always hung back from the stylized phrases with which Kuusamans began any sorcerous endeavor.

No more, though. Was he starting to think of himself as a Kuusaman, then?

Even if Fernao did think of himself as belonging to the land of the Seven Princes, Ilmarinen didn’t and wouldn’t. And neither would the Lagoan, if he weren‘t sleeping with a Kuusaman woman, the master mage thought. But then he shrugged. Plenty of men-and women, too-had changed their allegiance over the years for reasons like that.

“I ask you once more, Master,” Pekka said: “Are you ready to take your place in this spell along with the rest of us?”

“And I tell you once more: I am,” Ilmarinen replied. “I think I can keep up with you. Do you doubt it?”

He found himself flattered by how quickly she shook her head. “By no means,” she told him, and looked to the other mages. “Are we all ready?” When no one denied it, Pekka took a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Pursuant to the orders conveyed to me by the Seven Princes of Kuusamo, I begin.”

Whenever she incanted up till now, it was always just, “I begin,” Ilmarinen thought. Does she want to have it on the record that she’s following orders? A lot of Algarvians tried to do that. Or is her conscience bothering her a little, so she wants to lay the blame on the Seven and not on herself?

He had little time to wonder about such things. His own spell along these lines would have required only one operator: he’d designed it for himself. The charm the mages here had come up with was a good deal more complex. And when did you ever know a committee to do anything that wasn’t clumsy and cumbersome? Ilmarinen asked himself.

But that wasn’t altogether fair, and he was honest enough to admit it to himself. His spell was a bare-bones affair. A good sorcerer needed arrogance, and he had it in full measure. He’d simply assumed nothing would go wrong as he loosed the cantrip on the world. If anything did go wrong-if, by some mischance, he made a mistake-the spell would ruin him in short order.

This version, if more complicated, was also a good deal safer. Raahe and Alkio and Piilis not only helped draw and aim the sorcerous energy: they also stood ready to turn it aside in case Pekka or Fernao or Ilmarinen himself stumbled.