Out of the Darkness

Once they’d passed his lips, he went through all the preliminary phases of the spell he would hurl at Mezentio’s sorcerers. Xavega nodded approval. “Good,” she said. “Very good indeed. As soon as they start killing, as soon as they reveal their direction and distance, we shall drop on them like a pair of constables seizing a band of robbers.”

“They are robbers, by the powers above,” Leino said. “And what they steal cannot be made good, for who can give back a life once lost?”

A few minutes later, he sensed the disturbance in the world’s energy grid as the Algarvians began killing Kaunians. He took savage pleasure in casting the rest of the spell and flinging it at the mages who had gone back to the most barbarous days of wizardry to try to support their kingdom in a losing war. Xavega’s hand rested on his shoulder. He felt her strength flowing into him, flowing through him, and flowing out of him against the Algarvians. And he felt the power Mezentio’s men had unleashed now crumpled, bent back, turned against them.

“This is easy!” Triumph filled Xavega’s voice. “It must be because we were ready in advance.”

“I suppose so,” Leino said when he could snatch a moment between cantrips. “It almost feels. . too easy?”

Xavega laughed and shook her head. But suddenly, as Leino began a new charm, he felt another upsurge of sorcerous energy from the west, this one far stronger than the one before. I’ve been outfoxed, he thought as the ground shuddered beneath him. Xavega screamed. The Algarvians used one sacrifice to get us to show where we were, then had more Kaunians and more mages waiting to strike us when we revealed ourselves. Now how do we get out of this?

Red-purple flames shot up all around them. The crystallomancers’ tent caught fire. Xavega screamed again. Cracks in the ground yawned wide beneath her and Leino. Leino screamed, too, as he felt himself falling. The cracks slammed shut.

Ilmarinen’s bones creaked as he got off the ley-line caravan in the western Jelgavan town of Ludza. Carrying a carpetbag heavier than it might have been because it was full of papers and sorcerous tomes, he descended to the platform. The depot was battered but still standing, which proved the Algarvians hadn’t turned and fought here, as they’d done in a good many places he’d seen on his journey across King Donalitu’s realm.

A Kuusaman mage about half Ilmarinen’s age stood waiting on the platform. “Welcome, Master!” he exclaimed, hurrying forward to take the carpetbag. “It’s a great privilege to make your acquaintance, sir. I’m called Paalo.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ilmarinen answered. “You have a carriage waiting?”

“I certainly do, sir,” Paalo said. “And we may speak freely as we go. My driver is cleared to hear secrets.”

“I’m so sorry for him,” Ilmarinen murmured. Paalo gave him a puzzled look. Ilmarinen stifled a mental sigh. Another bright young man born without a funny bone, he thought. Too many of them these days. But he would have to deal with this one, at least for a while. “I heard in-Skrunda, was it? — that something had gone wrong up here. What can you tell me about it?”

“I’m afraid that’s right, sir,” Paalo said. “It doesn’t do to depend on the Algarvians to keep trying the same thing over and over. They caught a couple of our mages-well, actually, one of ours and a Lagoan-in as nasty a trap as you’d never want to see.”

“Started killing Kaunians for a lure, then killed a bunch more once we’d begun the counterspell, the second time aiming at our mages?” Ilmarinen asked.

“Er-aye.” Paalo frowned. “Did you hear that back in Skrunda, sir? They weren’t supposed to know that much about it. If somebody back there is asking questions where he isn’t supposed to, I want to know who. We’ll put him someplace where he can ask questions of the geese that fly by, and of nobody else.”

“No, no, no-nothing like that.” Ilmarinen shook his head. “I had all that time to think while I was sailing up from Kuusamo. One of the things I was thinking about was, if I were one of fornicating Mezentio’s mages, how could I get back at the nasty Kuusamans and Lagoans who were giving me such a hard time?”

Paalo stared. “I hope you won’t be angry at me for saying so, sir, but you seem to have outthought the entire sorcerous high command of our army and that of the Lagoans, too.” He slung Ilmarinen’s carpetbag in the carriage, then turned to see if the master mage needed a hand getting in himself. When he discovered Ilmarinen didn’t, he asked, “How did you do that?”