Out of the Darkness

Had Bembo had two good legs, he would have kicked at rubble, too. As things were, he made his own slow way down the street. The trooper was right. The Kuusamans wouldn’t rape or massacre everyone they saw just for the sport of it. At least, Bembo hoped they wouldn’t. I’m going to find out, he realized.

He was back in his flat, with the shutters tightly drawn, when the Kuusamans did come into Tricarico. One of the windows in the flat had had glass in it when he rented the place; the landlord had tried to charge him more because of it. He’d laughed in the man’s face, asking, “How long do you expect it to last?” And he’d proved a good prophet, for an egg bursting not far away soon shattered the pane into tinkling shards. He’d had a demon of a time cleaning up afterwards, too. Trying to handle crutches and broom and dustpan was more an exercise in frustration than anything else.

But Bembo couldn’t stay in his flat forever, or even very long. He had to come out to look for something to eat. He’d never done much cooking for himself, even back when he’d been living in Tricarico. A constable with an eye for the main chance could get most of his meals from the eateries on his beat. In Forthweg, he’d done the same thing a lot of the time, and eaten in barracks like a soldier when he hadn’t. And, with crutches, he would have been as awkward in the kitchen as he had been chasing slivers of glass around the floor. Of course, he was pretty awkward in the kitchen without crutches, too.

A few eggs were still bursting inside Tricarico when he emerged from his block of flats. At first, he thought that meant the Kuusamans hadn’t yet come into the city after all. But then he saw several of them setting up sandbags so they could cover all sides of an intersection. They looked like runts; he was several inches taller than the biggest of them, and he wasn’t exceptionally tall by Algarvian standards. But they had sticks and they had the same sort of urgent, disciplined wariness he’d seen in Algarvian soldiers in Forthweg. Any civilians who tried trifling with them would be very sorry very fast. He was sure of that.

More eggs burst. He realized his retreating countrymen were tossing them at his home town. They didn’t care what happened to the people who lived in Tricarico as long as they killed or maimed a few Kuusamans. Bembo turned toward the west and scowled. See if I do anything for you any time soon, he thought, the you being either the departed soldiers or King Mezentio himself: even Bembo wasn’t quite sure which. It amounted to the same thing either way.

“You!” someone said sharply, and for a moment Bembo thought the word remained in his own mind, not the world outside him. But then the fellow who’d spoken went on: “Aye, you-the chubby fellow with the crutches. Come here.”

Bembo turned. There gesturing at him stood a skinny old Kuusaman with a few little wisps of white hair sprouting from his chin. He wore greenish-gray Kuusaman uniform, with a prominent badge that had to be a mage’s emblem. “What do you want, uh, sir?” Bembo asked cautiously.

“I already told you what I wanted,” the Kuusaman said in his almost unaccented Algarvian. “I want you to come here. I have some questions for you, and I expect to get answers.” I’ll turn you into a leech if I don’t, lay behind his words.

“I’m coming,” Bembo said, and made his slow way over to the mage. Refusing didn’t cross his mind, not because of the implied threat but simply because one did as this man said first and then wondered why afterwards, if at all. Still, Bembo was not easily overawed, and had his own full measure of Algarvian cheekiness. He asked a question of his own: “Who are you, old-timer?”

“Ilmarinen,” the mage answered. “Now you know as much as you did before.” He eyed Bembo. Bembo didn’t like the way he did it; it seemed as if Ilmarinen were looking right into his soul. And maybe the mage was, for the next thing he said, in tones of genuine curiosity, was, “How could you?”

“Uh, how could I what, sir?” Bembo asked.

“Round up Kaunians and send them off to what you knew was death and then go back to your bed and sleep at night,” the Kuusaman mage answered.

“How did you know that? I mean, I never-” But Bembo’s denial faltered. Ilmarinen would know if he lied. He was grimly certain of that. And so, instead of denying, he evaded: “I saved some, too, by the powers above. Plenty of my pals didn’t.”

Ilmarinen looked into him again. Grudgingly, the mage nodded. “So you did-a handful, and usually for favors. But you did, and I cannot deny it. A tiny weight in the other pan of the scales. Now answer what I asked before-what of all those you did not save?”