Council of War (65 page)

"I think Karl will object," frowned Max. "Peanut has gone with Clint, and now you are taking Runt away. He has grown dependent on the fairies."

"I think we all have," conceded Garth. "When I was at the Isle of Despair, I told Squirt to request more fairies. We will have some more soon."

"So what am I to do here other than watch?" asked the Ranger.

"Yortana will need to make trips to Atule's Maze," answered Garth. "She should not travel alone in this country. It is not that I doubt her ability to defend herself, but a lone woman traveling through Karamin will raise questions that are better not asked. I also want you to gain the trust of both groups. Advise them on strategies and tactics. You have far more experience than Boric, but he knows the terrain. Work with them as if you were a partner in the alliance. I may also ask you to fly to Herinak to represent them if that is agreeable to both of them."

"I understand what you are looking for," Max replied with confidence. "I will help them seek an end to the Federation here in Karamin."

* * *

Zynor smiled as he ran the brush over the unicorn. Occasionally his lips would move as if he were talking to himself, but his words never drifted over to the fire where two other mages sat drinking tea.

"What is he doing?" griped Theos. "He is going to wear the coats off those unicorns."

"Leave him be," Kalmar said distractedly as he gazed into the fire. "He is enthralled with them."

"Better he should be enthralled with the patrols of Federation soldiers passing along the Lombardi Road behind us," retorted the Tyronian mage. "I do not understand why none of them has accosted us yet, but it is only a matter of time before they do."

"Careful," Kalmar warned softly. "Fakir said to avoid trouble. You sound as if you are itching for a fight."

"Maybe I am," conceded Theos. "I am a bit irritable about being led around by Fakir Aziz like some small child. Who is he anyway? And where is he?"

"He said that he would catch up with us in a day or two," shrugged Kalmar. "I suppose that he will."

"That doesn't answer the question of who he is," Theos pointed out.

"True," sighed Kalmar. "The truth is, I do not know who he is, but I know that he is on the path that I must follow."

"Just like that?" balked Theos. "Surely, you have more of a reason for being here than that?"

"Do I?" Kalmar smiled thinly. "What then is your reason for being here? You seem so angry that you are stuck with us, yet you do not get up and leave. Why is that?"

"Perhaps I should leave," scowled Theos. "It would serve the old man right."

Kalmar made no attempt to dissuade the Tyronian mage from leaving. He returned his attention to the flames of the fire, and Theos growled in anger.

"Zynor," called the Tyronian mage. "Get over here."

The old Zaroccan mage turned away from the unicorn and stared across the clearing. He dutifully walked across the clearing and sat next to Kalmar. He poured himself a cup of tea and looked up at Theos expectantly.

"What do the unicorns tell you?" asked Theos. "Do they know who Fakir Aziz is?"

"He is magic," replied Zynor.

"We are all mages," retorted Theos. "I mean who Fakir Aziz is."

"I have told you," Zynor replied without reproach. "He is magic. The unicorns recognize him."

"Bah," scowled Theos. "Your brain has grown soft with age. You are beginning to think simple thoughts like the unicorns do."

"They are quite intelligent," frowned Zynor. "They remember more about this world than you have ever known."

"Be serious," retorted Theos.

"He is serious," Kalmar interjected as he tore his eyes away from the fire. "The unicorns have a type of herd memory. I do not understand it totally, but each of them remembers what his ancestors remembered. It is quite fascinating to talk with one of them. You should try it more often."

"They know the origins of the Occans," nodded Zynor. "I was just discussing it with them. What makes the Occans unique among horses is the unicorn blood flowing through their veins. If the Zaroccans and Koroccans had not zealously guarded the breeding of the Occans, it would have been bred out of them by now."

Theos raised an eyebrow in surprise. The resemblance between the large warhorses and the unicorns suddenly made sense to the Tyronia mage, and he also understood why Tyronia had never been able to duplicate the breed. Mating with a normal horse would only thin the unicorn blood running through the Occans.

"What do they mean when they call Fakir magic?" asked Theos.

"He is magic," frowned Zynor. "I do not know how to explain it, but if magic had a physical shape all of its own, it would be Fakir Aziz. I know that makes no sense, but that is how they see him."

"You make him out to be a god," scoffed Theos.

Kalmar suddenly looked at Theos and stared at him with wonder in his eyes. "Not a god," he said in awe. "He is more than that. He is the maker of gods."

"The maker of magic," Zynor agreed reverently.

"Are you both daft?" snapped Theos. "We are talking about Fakir Aziz. The old man sits by the fire at night and knits a cloak. Is that the work of a god?"

* * *

King Arik held the door to the library in the Royal Palace in Tagaret as Queen Tanya walked through it. He followed her into the library and closed the door behind him. Everyone halted their conversations and turned to pay attention to the king.

"Roll out the map for us, General Gregor," said the king. "I think it will help us visualize our results. Wylan, what did you and Sheri find in Gortha?"

The general unrolled the map of Alcea on the long table and Wylan walked over to it and placed his finger slightly west of the Sordoans city of Gortha.

"Door number thirteen was in a barn outside the city," reported Wylan, "just as we expected. The farm was sold just six months ago to a man from outside the area."

"Was the farm well tended?" asked Queen Tanya.

"It was not. It appeared as if no one has tended to this season's crop at all."

"Horses?" questioned the queen. "Were there a lot of them?"

"Yes," Wylan replied with a raised eyebrow. "How did you know?"

The queen didn't answer. Instead she turned her gaze to Bin-lu and Rut-ki.

"The same is true in Chi," confirmed Bin-lu. "There were scores of horses and little care was given to the crops. Is this significant?"

"I am not sure," admitted the queen, "but I am beginning to think that it is. Just the fact that all three farms had such similarities is more than a coincidence. There is a reason for it."

"There is another problem with the farm in Chi," frowned Bin-lu. "We found the Door, but the number was not what we expected to find. Instead of finding Door number fourteen, the Door was numbered eight."

"Maybe something happened to Door fourteen, and they had to replace it," suggested Sheri.

"Replaced it with a lower number?" Prince Oscar said, the skepticism evident in his voice.

Zack Nolan took small blocks of wood that had been pre-numbered from one to twenty-four. He placed them on the map according to the information he had heard so far.

"What did you find in Darcia?' asked the spymaster.

"I found Door number nine in a farm similar to the ones Wylan and Bin-lu have described."

"So we have found half the Doors," stated Lord Clava, "assuming that no more arrive by ship."

"King Arik also found Door number fifteen in Darcia," the queen declared. "It was in an inn."

"You found two of them in Darcia?" frowned Prince Oscar.

The queen nodded.

"So Door fourteen could still be in Chi," mused Rut-ki. "We just didn't find it. We found the earlier one first."

Zack Nolan was staring at the numbered blocks on the map and he started nodding. Everyone stopped talking and stared at the spymaster as he began placing all twenty-four blocks on the map. He emptied the contents of his pouch onto the table and placed a coin on top of each block that signified a verified Door location.

"What are you doing?" asked Lord Clava.

"We have found thirteen Doors in twelve cities," explained Zack Nolan. "There is a pattern here that is tugging at my mind, but I cannot quite see it yet."

Prince Oscar took more blocks out of the pack and started numbering his own set. He ignored the first twelve numbers and arranged the blocks starting with thirteen in a column. He put a question mark on number fourteen as it had not yet been found.

"There is an order to them," Rut-ki said softly.

While everyone watched, Rut-ki picked up some of Zack's coins. She placed a copper coin on thirteen, seventeen, and twenty-one. She then placed silver coins on fifteen, nineteen, and twenty-three. Lastly, she placed gold coins on sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four.

"See the pattern?" Rut-ki asked.

"I see the pattern," frowned Lord Clava, "but I do not understand it. The coins are placed on every fourth block, but what do the coins represent?"

"Provinces," answered Zack as he abandoned his own blocks and stared at the prince's arrangement. "Sordoa is represented by copper coins. Silver are on Cordonian cities, and gold for Targa."

"And no coins for Lanoir," nodded Rut-ki as she placed the first twelve blocks in a column alongside the last twelve. She frowned as she placed a silver coin on number nine. "They do not line up."

"Pardon my lack of understanding," interjected Lord Clava, "but what is this all about? What is the significance of the provinces and their relationship to the Doors?"

"That is what we must discover," answered Zack Nolan.

"Why even have multiple Doors in the same city?" asked Prince Oscar. "Isn't that redundant?"

"Perhaps," answered General Gregor, "but not necessarily. Using Doors to transport your troops is quick and efficient, but only so many men can come through a Door in a given amount of time. I would use multiple Doors if I wanted to get more men to a location within a certain time frame."

"How fast could you get men through a Door?" asked Prince Oscar.

The general hesitated as he calculated numbers in his head. "Around ten thousand men per hour, if I had room to stage them and room to disperse them. The hard part would be keeping them from tripping over each over at both ends. You would need a large staging area and a location for them to gather once they were through the Doors."

"Add horses to the mix and it really slows down," interjected Zack Nolan. "That may explain the need to have horses already on these farms."

"With these kind of numbers," stated the king, "they are going to need a lot more horses than we have seen so far."

"I will start tracking large horse purchases," stated the spymaster. "It may give us a clue as to when the attack will come and where they will attack first."

"First?" echoed General Gregor. "If we assume that each of the cities has two Doors in it, that is twenty thousand Zaran soldiers in the space of an hour. Now, the way the Doors are arranged, there are three cities near each of our province capitals. If they have enough men, they could have sixty thousand men attacking each of the capitals within an hour, and they could attack all four of them at once."

Lord Clava whistled. "That is a quarter of a million men. Do they have that many soldiers?"

"They do," answered King Arik, "but we don't know if they will send them all."

"Or if they plan to attack all at once," added Queen Tanya. "They could attack Cordonia with sixty thousand men and lure us into responding to their attack. When we move men north, they could then attack Lanoir. We need to know more of what they plan to do."

"We need to find all of the Doors and destroy them," stated Lord Clava. "We cannot stand against such an army."

"That may not be the best path," replied Prince Oscar. "We received another report from Alex. He is trying to unite the enemies of the Federation in Zara. He is forming a Council of War, and they plan to attack while the bulk of the Federation armies are in Alcea. He could make a decisive blow against the Federation if he succeeds."

"Destroying the Federation in Zara will not help Alcea if their armies overrun us," frowned Lord Clava.

"There are other concerns with the Doors," declared the queen. "They are being used already. We killed a K'san and two mages who came through Door number nine."

"That was risky," frowned Prince Oscar.

"It was necessary," replied Queen Tanya. "On the bright side, we obtained a key for that Door. I would like to see if it works in another Door if we get the opportunity."

"We also must be concerned with more Doors arriving in Alcea," stated King Arik. "Until we find them all and keep watch over them, they can bring in more Doors through the Doors that are already here. Just watching the shipping lanes is no longer a guarantee of safety."

"I would like just one Door of our own," the queen said. "It would make the coordination between us and Alex and Jenneva much quicker."

"I did send a group of fairies to Zara while you were gone," Prince Oscar announced. "I know that will not solve the problem, but at least he will be able to communicate with his people better. They are getting rather spread out. The last report stated that Clint has managed to become a general in the Federation army. Maybe he can ferret out the location of the Doors in Zara."

"A general in the Federation army?" chuckled Zack Nolan. "I want to have a talk with Clint when he returns. I could use talent like that."

"If he returns," frowned General Gregor. "He is playing a dangerous game with people who can read minds. That is definitely not a healthy occupation."

The Alceans halted when the walls of Waxhaw came into view. Garth led the group off of the Calusa Road and into the trees. Everyone dismounted when he did.

"My face might be remembered as General Blackmoor," Garth stated. "I think we will wait for nightfall to enter the city."

"I could go in alone," suggested Kalina. "Colonel Pfaff already knows my face. There really is no need for everyone to enter the city."

"Let us have a meal and discuss it," replied Garth.