Sasharia En Garde (41 page)

Everyone laughed except the big guy, who shook his head.
“Too late in the season for a big war game. Autumn’s gonna be short this year.
You can smell it in the air. Crazy. Why not in spring, like it used to be?
We’re gonna end up stuck in the snow.”

Bets were exchanged with brisk efficiency while others
griped. Not revolutionary stuff. Nobody as much as looked over a shoulder. If anyone
questioned the right of the Randarts to order what sounded like a massive siege
war game involving nearly the entire army, they didn’t do it here. The griping
was entirely confined to what seemed foolish timing, and what it would mean
down at grunt level.

After the meal most of them vanished on various night
duties; those off duty did the usual things people do when there is no
television. They talked, mended uniforms, played card games. A couple of people
played instruments—a kind of flute-recorder that did not need a reed and a
stringed instrument—and one fellow with a good voice sang either love songs or
funny marching songs with jokes I did not understand.

Their cards are all hand painted, and though I could see a
kind of relation to our deck, it was different. Six suits, for one thing. The
most popular game was with cards and markers, reminding me of bridge and chess
at the same time. They did invite me in. From their manner, they believed a
sailor would know this game so it had to be universal. I hunkered down by the
fire, indicating I would sit there and dry out my clothes as I watched them
play.

I was forgotten. I meant to listen more, hoping to find out
something useful, but as a spy I was worthless. If anything of import was
discussed, I wouldn’t know how to identify it. Canardan’s name had never come
up, much less Jehan’s or my mother’s, or even anything about me. All I got
glimpses of were their personal lives.

When I was dry, I was so tired I gave up the spy game and
retreated upstairs to sleep. I didn’t even waken when the midnight watch
changed.

I woke with the others at the dawn bell. After breakfast,
two of the women led me to the stable, where my mare had obviously had a good
night. She was freshly curried, fed and ready to go. Even my weapon in the
saddle sheath, which I’d stupidly left to rust forgotten, had been taken out,
cleaned and oiled for me. I thanked everyone in sight.

We rode out into the cool morning air, frost lying lightly
on grass and stippling the edges of leaves, drifts of vapor rendering the
farmland countryside into a kind of etching. The military road was hard-packed
dirt kept by magic as smooth as asphalt. It cut straight through property. But
military roads were forbidden to civilians, and so we crossed a couple of meadows,
riding under dripping trees, to the regular road—pot-holed, soggy and winding.

The women pointed to the northwest, saying loudly, “Zhavlir
that way.” I nodded, thanked them, they wished me well in words of one
syllable, and I departed, delighted that I’d managed to get out of what could
have been major danger. It had not only been easy, it hadn’t cost anything!

While behind me, as part of the routine, my hosts wrote me
into the daily watch report:
Civilian
sailor strayed off the civilian road during storm, female, tall, blond, hazel
eyes, name Lasva, from Tser Mearsies. Carrying only personal gear plus a letter
from one inn to another, the only item of interest a silken banner in the old
Zhavalieshin style.

The next stretch of time brought bands of rain, nothing as
spectacular as the storm that broke the summer. The air cooled gradually, and
all over the kingdom, harvesters labored madly to get the crops in before
another storm came, maybe a worse one, to destroy everything.

So while people concentrated on harvest and storage, and the
military were converging on the castle chosen for the siege game, out on the
ocean, War Commander Randart’s navy chased elusive ships while the war
commander cursed.

For several days he’d mostly caught up on his sleep. But
after that, time seemed to wear with excruciating slowness. Though he had his
magical message case, he hated using it because he was convinced the mages read
his messages, though they swore they didn’t. It was, after all, what he’d do if
he possibly could. Including lie.

That was the worst of it. He didn’t really know what magic
could and could not do. Even if he asked, he wouldn’t believe the answer. Yet
Canardan insisted he cooperate with the mages, and even include one on the
flagship. “Show good faith,” the king had written in a final order. “Who knows?
They might even be useful. By whatever means it takes, I want that pirate
hanged!”

Randart had obeyed because he must, privately resolving that
he would call upon the mage only if there was no other way around it.

That was before several weeks of frustration and
incompetence from everyone around him. The merchant ship he’d chosen as the
flag seemed incapable of running with proper military order, and the second
fleet was always reporting sightings of possible pirates, but no catches. If
Bragail wasn’t lying, that had to mean the pirates were playing
catch-me-if-you-can.

Finally Randart issued the order for the entire fleet to
converge. He would stretch the fleet in a net and sweep the entire coast of
Khanerenth, as far out into the sea as they could reach, and burn
everything
that had no proper papers.

At dawn a few days later, a scout craft appeared with
crowded sail, signals flying. The pirate was on the horizon. Not one of his
many underlings, but the
Zathdar
,
bold as the sun, riding just within view of the spyglass.

The pirate matched the fleet’s speed, keeping the same
distance between them.

Randart summoned the merchant captain and ordered him to
catch the
Zathdar
, packing on as many
sails as needed.

The captain said shortly, “He has the wind. Sir.”

“Which means what?”

“Which means he can sheer off any time he wants to, or he
can sail down and engage us. He’s faster. We can only catch him if the wind
shifts.”

“Is it likely to do that?”

A shrug was the answer. Irritated, Randart waved him off of
his own captain’s deck as he stared through his glass at the pirate vessel
etched against the morning sky. At last he said without losing sight of the
ship, “Get the mage.”

Rapid footsteps thumped down the stairs to the companionway
and below. Randart watched sailors form a line along the companionway, holding
long ropes in order to do something with the sails. He listened to the patter
of bare feet around him, the creak of rope and wood, and the whappita-whap of
sails being lowered or raised or changed. Somewhere on the other side of the
ship, the sailors talked incomprehensible slang as they prepared for an
approaching boat. His orders were to chase and close. The sailors were doing
the best they could, he could see it, but ships were so
slow
. With a horse under you, you at least moved, and even better
was . . .

A quiet step behind and he looked down at the short, stout
woman the mages had sent him. She was probably thirty or forty, her expertise
was in preserving wood (useful on a ship) and if she’d ever expressed the
slightest interest in political power, no one within Randart’s extensive spy
net had heard it.

He had forgotten her name. “Do you see the pirate?”

She narrowed her gray eyes, pursed her lips so her double
chin tripled, and gazed out to sea. He did not offer his glass, nor did she ask
for it. They stood there in silence for a moment as the ship rose on a swell,
then thumped down, and behind, cries and knocks indicated the approaching boat was
hooking on.

The mage finally said, “Just barely.”

“Tell me in plain language why I cannot transfer my force to
it by magic, since we can see it. I know that magic requires a clear
destination. That ship seems clear enough to me.”

“First, we can only transfer one or two at most, and the
transfer spells must be prepared for. Second, yon ship is not clear enough for
transfer,” she said.

“Then I’ll give you my glass, which I assure you brings
details close. I can make out the damned pirates doing whatever it is they do
to sails. I can see the planking along the side of the pirate ship. I can see
the ropes at either side of each mast.”

“But that does not constitute a proper Destination.”

“Plain language,” he snapped. “I want a concise field
report. And if you don’t know what that is, I am going to suggest that Perran
and Zhavic include basic skills in whatever it is they teach you people before
they let you out in the world.”

Her cheeks flushed, but her tone was steady, and her gaze
stayed on the pirate ship. “You can see the details of the sides of the ship.
You can see sails. You can see masts. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“But you cannot see the details of the deck.”

“No.”

“If you wish to be transferred”—her tone totally devoid of
irony—“you would wish to appear on the deck. And not halfway through a mast, a
sail or the side.”

Randart thought of the tiled Destination chambers, and
nodded. Now he remembered something of an explanation Mathias Zhavalieshin had
given him many years ago. Mages memorized the pattern of the tiles, or you
could get lost in whatever-it-was between physical spaces. Forever.

“So either you need Destination tiles, or the equivalent on
that deck, or you need transfer tokens. And I remember what transfer tokens do:
act as a beacon.”

“We call it a focus, but yes. However, there is another very
important consideration. Destinations must be kept empty. If someone, or
something, is already in the space where you transfer, bad things happen. Two
objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

Randart grimaced. He’d never been able to bring himself to
ask Zhavic these questions, and give Zhavic the pleasure of exposing his
ignorance. “They don’t . . . melt together, do they?”

“No. That would call for a very strange magic indeed.
Transfers are just that, but between spaces, so the newly arrived thing impels
itself into the new space. It is the impact with air that hurts so much. If the
arrival collides with any object it is thrown aside at violent speed. Things
break, people are killed.”

“It’s the same with transfer tokens?”

“Yes, pretty much. They must always be left on floors or
open spaces, or on tables next to open spaces.”

So much for salting
ships with transfer tokens and sending a force by surprise
, Randart
thought. And, with a brief spurt of self-mockery,
I wonder how many kings thought they invented that idea first, to find
themselves at this same impasse.

He collapsed the glass with a smack. “Back to the crawling
pace of the chase.” And, because he had to work with the woman and she’d been
prompt and informative, “Thank you, Magister.” He still couldn’t remember her
name.

She bowed and withdrew; at once the aide-de-camp on duty
stepped to his side. “Commander, Patrol Leader Samdan is here to report.”

Samdan. Randart remembered that name. Samdan was the idiot
whose entire patrol couldn’t stop a pirate, a girl, and a couple of brats
belonging to that traitor Kreki Eban. Randart had wanted Samdan and his fools
put up against a wall and shot as an example of what to expect for
incompetence, but the king himself had pardoned them, reminding Randart that
they were a scratch troop, scarcely trained, culled from road-patrol duty when
the best warriors had all been shifted to the coast against pirate raids.

Randart remembered quite clearly that he’d concurred on the
orders to reinforce Prince Jehan’s small honor guard when he was sent to the
old World Gate tower. Randart had also agreed to send the prince to the old
castle as he himself was busy hunting the pirate, and hadn’t those two fool
mages made the world transfer once before, to return empty handed?

But that did not excuse the sheer incompetence of an entire
troop, however badly trained, defeated or driven off by four people.

By two, really: the pirate Zathdar and the Zhavalieshin
girl.

Randart turned back to glare at that distant ship, now a
silhouette against the rising sun. On that thing Zathdar now stood, presumably
with Atanial’s girl. He also knew Bragail of the
Skate
’s secrets, all of them on Randart’s orders. Why hadn’t the
pirate brandished either the girl or the threat of Bragail’s exposure yet? No
one could accuse him of lacking in arrogant boldness. What did he want, this
pirate bestirring himself in the matters of kings? The very idea of pirates and
politics did not make sense.

Randart became aware of the aide still standing there.
“Well? Cannot Samdan report to his captain on his own ship?”

The aide lowered his voice slightly. “Said he ought to speak
directly to you.”

Sharpened interest caused him to nod. “Very well.”

Samdan, meanwhile, stood against the rail on the weather
side of the ship, watching Randart’s back. He’d been living with disgrace for
weeks, all the more telling because it was unspoken since the king himself had
ordered pardons all round.

The looks and whispers and avoidances resulting were, he’d
decided bleakly, far worse than the floggings War Commander Randart handed out.
At least those, if you lived through them, were then over. And people didn’t
hold your mistake against you.

Now he limped forward. His knee where the pirate had stabbed
him still hurt. As it should.

Maybe he could retrieve some of his old standing, so easily
taken for granted before most of his old cronies began turning their backs or
not being around when he slipped away from his mother’s place in Ellir, where
he’d been sent to convalesce. Ever since the king’s pardon, he didn’t feel
welcome in any of the guards’ regular haunts.