Chasing the Phoenix (11 page)

At last Darger leaned forward, as if he were about to confide some momentous secret to the officer, who drew closer in order to hear. Then he heartily slapped Colonel Glorious Legend on the shoulder, almost causing the young man to piss himself with alarm. “Glory,” he said, “you impress me mightily. If all the soldiers of the Land of the Mountain Horses are of half your mettle, it is no surprise that this war goes so well for you.”

Glorious Legend flushed pink and scowled with pleasure.

“I have come direct from the Hidden King to negotiate an end to this war with your supreme leaders. Kindly notify them of this happy event immediately.”

At a gesture, one of the Mountain Horses soldiers presented himself to the colonel. A few quiet words, and he went skittering away. “Your honor guard must be disarmed,” Glorious Legend said to Darger, “and I will have to examine your wagon to make certain it contains no malicious contraband.”

“Soldiers under a flag of truce are traditionally permitted to carry their personal weapons as a sign of respect and therefore, regretfully, I cannot allow your request,” Darger said. “Similarly, you have no right whatsoever to examine the wagon. However, I am justly famed for my humility, and so I shall allow you to do so anyway.”

“What is in these kegs?”

“Water.”

“There are six of them. Why do you need so many?

“I carry them with me as a symbol of my extreme moderation, for I have sworn to drink nothing stronger until this war is over. You may open one at random if you have any reason to suspect that they are anything other than what they seem.”

“There are two rockets!” Glorious Legend cried in alarm.

“Signal flares, rather. One leaves a trail of white smoke, the other black. When I return to the gate, I will have one set off to notify my monarch whether peace has yet been achieved. I shall leave them in your custody, so you know I intend no mischief with them.”

“And this young woman sitting beside you? What is she doing with that sketchbook?”

“Little Spider is my secretary. She is here to record the terms of negotiation, and also to make drawings of such great men as we may encounter, for the benefit of posterity. Show the colonel what you are working on, Little Spider.”

The artist smiled and held up her sketchbook, on which was drawn a version of Colonel Glorious Legend that looked considerably fiercer and more stalwart than the colonel did in actual life. Again, he pinkened.

Not long after that, the messenger dispatched earlier returned to say that the joint commanders of the Mountain Horses army would meet with Darger immediately.

*   *   *

THROUGH THE
camp Darger's embassy party was led. Little Spider sketched assiduously, while Darger concentrated on looking solemn and mysterious. When they came in sight of their destination, however, he brought the wagon to an abrupt stop.

Before him was a mess tent, its canvas walls rolled up to reveal the tables and chairs within. On several of the chairs were generals in various poses of neglectful ease: One sat with his feet up on a table, smoking a cigar. Another played solitaire. The rest simply lounged.

Without saying a word, Darger turned the wagon around. The honor guard followed his lead, and together they retraced their steps back the way they had come.

The messenger came running after him. “Sir! Sir!” he cried. “The generals await you.”

Darger said nothing.

The messenger trotted alongside the wagon. “Sir, you are expected! Why are you leaving?”

Without looking at the man, Darger said, “What is your rank?”

“I am an adjunct officer, sir.”

“Do you consider yourself my equal?”

“No, sir! Of course not, sir!”

“Then you will understand why I have nothing to say to you.”

The nearest member of the honor guard brought his horse close enough to ask Darger, “Do you want this individual removed, sir?”

“He was just leaving,” Darger said. At which the messenger ceased running and was left behind.

Without hurry, Darger drove back to the main gate. “Send up the flare with the black smoke,” he told one of his men. To Colonel Glorious Legend, who was clearly surprised to see him back so soon, he said, “You will of course want to supervise the proceeding to ensure that the rocket is nothing more than a flare, and that it is fired in the general direction of the Abundant Kingdom camp, rather than at your own men. It is commendable of you to be so thorough.”

The gate had been opened and the flare just sent up when a general cantered up on a snow-white mountain horse. She was a stout woman with short-cropped hair. “Why are you leaving?” she demanded. “You asked to parley but left without saying a word. Come back and tell us what your offer is.”

With all the dignity he could counterfeit, Darger replied. “I came here to negotiate a surrender and was greeted with rudeness and contempt. Insult me, spit on me, beat me, and leave me for dead by the wayside, if you wish, and for my own sake I care not. But I am here as the representative of the Hidden King, which means that what is done to me is in effect done to him. Your behavior was unacceptable. So the war must continue.”

A flash of anger glinted from the general's eyes but did not reach the rest of her face. Expressionlessly, she said, “Conditions are not always what they should be when an army is in the field. It is possible, as well, that the informality that infects an army under conditions of war has led to us behaving less respectfully than we should have. These are small things that can be corrected.”

“I shall inform the Hidden King of your words. His mercy is beyond measure, and it is possible that he will overlook—only once!—this insult to his greatness. If so, I will come back tomorrow. If not, then not.”

Darger left the camp, along with his honor guard, and the gate was closed behind him.

*   *   *

THE NEXT
day, Darger returned to find an honor guard of Mountain Horses troops awaiting him. Colonel Glorious Legend saluted him respectfully and again inspected the wagon. “Who is this man behind you, and what's in the cask he is sitting atop?”

“He is but a menial. Capable Servant, open the cask and let the officer see what it contains.”

Capable Servant did so. Colonel Glorious Legend's eyes widened.

“You may shut it now,” Darger told his servant. He gestured the officer closer and in a low voice said, “I feel I may confide in you, friend Glory, that this may well be the last day of my mission. If peace is achieved today … well, as you see, the Hidden King can be most generous.”

There was some disagreement between their two ranking officers as to which honor guard would lead, which Darger settled by declaring that the Abundant Kingdom guard would parade single file on his right-hand side with the Mountain Horses guard to his left. (Little Spider, eagerly observing everything around her, made a sketch of the procession, which she decorated with butterflies in the margins.) This time, they were taken to a tremendous tent that, by evidence of the standards flying before it, served as the chief executive officer's headquarters. Ceo Immovable Object waited before it at the head of a staff of a half-dozen generals, in order to greet his prickly guest with proper respect.

Descending from the wagon, Darger formally shook hands with the ceo and acknowledged the others with a nod in their general direction. He was ushered into the tent, where a conference table awaited. Ceo Immovable Object took one end and Darger the other. Little Spider crouched at his feet, sketchbook open.

“I am ready to accept your surrender,” Darger said.

The Mountain Horses negotiators gaped. “Excuse me?” Ceo Immovable Object said.

“Your army will be broken up and integrated into the Hidden King's forces. All officers will retain their present rank provisionally for the first six months. If they perform satisfactorily, their ranks will be made permanent. The Land of the Mountain Horses will similarly be absorbed into the Abundant Kingdom's territories, along with all its cities, wealth, et cetera, et cetera. After your leaders have sworn allegiance to the Hidden King, he will decide which of them are to be retained and which dismissed.

“I trust you find these terms acceptable?”

For a long moment there was no sound but the frantic scratching of Little Spider's quill. Then Ceo Immovable Object barked one short laugh of astonished disbelief. “I understand that in negotiations of this sort, a man will often begin by asking for far more than he can reasonably expect to receive,” he said. “But this goes beyond the bounds of good sense. I must ask you to speak seriously.”

“I am completely serious.”

The woman general Darger had spoken with the previous day said, “You understand, I trust, that we have agreed to negotiate with you in good faith. We did not assent to these talks in order to give your forces time to rest.”

“Nor do they need such time. Our forces are strong, rested, and relentless. You cannot stand before them, so you might as well give up now and save your families the heartbreak of bereavement.”

“Have I gone mad?” the ceo said. “Or is it you? Let me remind you that we fight on our own territory, with ready access to food and short lines of supply. Your forces, however, are far from home and your lines of supply are long and vulnerable to attack. Moreover, you are bottled up in a narrow valley, strongly fortified at one end and so proportioned that only a small fraction of your forces can attack at any given time. Worse, you cannot retreat, for if you did our army would follow, attacking you while you were in disarray. So you must stay in Battlefield Pass indefinitely. Yet you cannot do that, either, for come winter the roads fill with snow. Supply wagons will be unable to provision you, and your men will starve. Moreover, it is certain that inaction will sap the morale of your soldiers long before then, decimating your army by desertion and even surrender. These are the basics of your situation. How can you not know them?”

Allowing a touch of doubt to enter his voice, Darger said, “I … have no choice. The Hidden King has commanded that you surrender, and therefore you must.”

“Ah! I see it now. You are an honest man, trapped by your loyalty to an unworthy ruler. No, no, don't try to deny it! Our spies have told us much.” Ceo Immovable Object leaned forward. “They tell me, for example, that you are known as the Perfect Strategist. Yet from your incomprehension when I expanded upon your situation just now, I have to wonder how you came by such an august name. No matter. When your situation is laid out clearly enough, you will understand what you must do when you return to your own camp. Staunch Defender: Tell our guest exactly how our forces compare. Leave out nothing. Be as honest to him as you would be to me.”

The woman general stood. “Yes, ceo.” Then, turning to Little Spider, she said, “None of this should be written down.”

Little Spider ripped the top page out of her sketchbook, tore it in two, and handed the pieces up to the nearest general. Then she closed the book, placed it on the ground beside her, and folded her hands in her lap.

“To begin…” General Staunch Defender said. She went on for a great while, so long that twice she had to stop for a cup of sweetened tea, to protect her voice. The afternoon grew old under her relentless recitation of facts, figures, and deployments. At last, she concluded, “You have put your forces in a position such that Sun Tzu himself could not lead them to victory. We, on the other hand, are in such a position that any competent general, however mediocre, could hold out forever. Nor is Ceo Immovable Object a merely competent leader. He has fought many battles and never lost one.”

“Thank you for your cogent analysis, Staunch Defender,” the ceo said. “Now. I must ask our respected guest: Will you listen to reason, or must we wait for the long year to pass and winter to solve this problem for us?”

Darger put on his most mournful expression. “Tell me your conditions,” he said, “and I will take them to the Hidden King.”

*   *   *

DARGER RETURNED
to the gate in the same manner with which he had left it—without hurry or delay, face unreadable. The Mountain Horses escort was dismissed and the gate was opened for him. Darger drove forward, then paused the wagon just outside the gateway, as if suddenly remembering a forgotten chore. “Send up the signal rocket,” he commanded in a loud voice. “The one with white smoke.”

Then, clambering into the back of the wagon, Darger reached into the cask that Capable Servant had thrown open and seized two large handfuls of gold coins.

“Peace!” he bellowed

Darger threw the coins into the midst of the assembled soldiers, first to the right side of the gate and then to the left.

Pandemonium erupted.

The coins flashing in the air, to all appearances infinitely desirable and well worth trampling over one's comrades to get at, were in fact worthless. The counterfeiter in Surplus's troop, though loudly proclaiming that it was beneath his dignity to do so, had created molds from the gold coin given to Darger by the Hidden King, melted bullets and poured the molten lead into the molds to make slugs, and then, finally, gilded the slugs with foil made from that same coin. They glittered in the sunlight, tumbled down into open hands, and grew slick with blood as they were fought over.

While all were distracted by this chaotic scene, Capable Servant hopped down from the wagon, placed the casks of water beneath it, and, after yanking free their cotter pins, pulled the wheels from the wagon. This not only rendered the wagon unmovable but prevented the gate from being closed.

“Peace!” Darger cried, and “Peace!” his men repeated, driving their horses in small circles among the soldiers to keep the crowd stirred up.

Meanwhile, from the Abundant Kingdom's dirt fortifications, soldiers came running. Some carried flowers and others, grinning broadly, had their arms extended, as if to embrace long-estranged brothers. There were musicians among them, blowing horns and hammering gongs, and stilt walkers and ribbon dancers as well.