Through the Darkness

Skarnu shrugged. “There was a fight. That’s all I know. The Lagoans couldn’t have done all that well, or they’d have kept a grip on the mainland.” He still wanted to look down his nose at the islanders. If they’d done more earlier in the war, maybe Valmiera wouldn’t have fallen. And their kingdom still held out, where his had given up two years before. He resented them for being able to shelter behind the Strait of Valmiera. How would they have done against swarms of Algarvian behemoths? None too bloody well, or he missed his guess.

But Pernavai said, “Methinks you mistake their purpose. For is’t not more likely they came for to hinder the slaughter of more of my kinsfolk than intending invasion of your land?”

Now Vatsyunas spoke up in support of his wife: “Aye, that’s also my conception of the quarter whence bloweth the wind. For surely the redheaded savages would have drained mine energies of vitality and the aforesaid of my lady’s as well, to hurl a stroke thaumaturgic ‘gainst the isle across the sea.”

Slowly, Skarnu nodded. Across the table from him, Raunu was nodding, too. Skarnu clicked his tongue between his teeth. The western Kaunians’ suggestion made more sense than anything he’d come up with for himself. He and his comrades had managed to sabotage one ley-line caravan bringing Kaunians from Forthweg toward the shore of the Strait of Valmiera. If others had got through, if the Algarvians were on the point of serving Setubal as they’d served Yliharma...

Merkela spoke up after unusual silence: “People need to know.”

“People in these parts do know,” Skarnu said. “A lot of the folks who made it off that caravan are still free. People didn’t turn ‘em back to the Algarvians, any more than we did. And all the Kaunians out of Forthweg have tales to tell.”

Merkela shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. People all over Valmiera--people all over the world--need to know what the Algarvians are doing. The more reasons they have to hate the redheads, the harder they’ll fight them.”

Vatsyunas and Pernavai leaned toward each other and whispered back and forth in classical Kaunian, too soft and fast for Skarnu to catch more than a couple of words. Then Vatsyunas asked a blunt, bleak question: “Why think you this news will be of any great import to them that hear it? After all, ‘tis nobbut the overthrow of so many already despised Kaunians. Powers above, ‘tis likelier a matter for rejoicing than otherwise.” He picked up his mug of ale and gulped it dry.

“We’re Kaunians, too!” Skarnu exclaimed. He’d felt it like a beam through the heart when the Column of Victory was felled in Priekule. If that didn’t make him a proper Kaunian, what could?

But Pernavai and Vatsyunas looked at each other and didn’t say anything. Skarnu felt a slow flush rise from his neck to his cheeks and ears and on to the very top of his head. Till the war, no one had rubbed his nose in his Kaunianity every day of the year; he’d been one among many, not one among a few. No one had hated him for what he was. Thinking about that made him shake his head, as if trying to fend off invisible gnats.

“We have to let people know,” Merkela repeated. Once she got an idea, she disliked letting go.

“How?” Raunu asked. “Does Pavilosta even have a printer’s shop? I don’t recall seeing one.”

“No news sheet--I know that,” Skarnu said.

“If we did up one broadsheet, a mage could make copies,” Merkela said, and Skarnu, to his surprise, found himself nodding. Most printing was mechanical, but that was because presses were older and cheaper and needed less skill than the equivalent magecraft, not because sorcery couldn’t mimic what they did.

“Where do we find a mage we can trust?” Raunu asked. “If he sells us out...” He drew this thumb across his throat. Skarnu nodded again. The rebels he knew were farmers, not wizards. Even Merkela looked glum.

Vatsyunas said, “Is’t a mage you need? Perhaps I can be of some assistance to you in this undertaking.”

Skarnu frowned. “Every trade has its own sorcery. I know that.” He didn’t know much more than that; as a rich young marquis, he hadn’t had to have a trade himself. He went on, “How much has dentistry got to do with news sheets?” He couldn’t think of any connection between the two.

But the Kaunian from Forthweg answered, “Both involve copying, which is to say, the law of similarity. I am most certain sure I can do that which the art requireth, provided I be given ample paper for our needs and an original wherefrom to shape simulacra. For whilst I can make shift to speak somewhat the jargon employed hereabouts, I would not be so daft as to set my hand to writing it.”