Sunset of Lantonne (11 page)

“Why tell us this?” demanded the dwarf, Arlind, glowering at Therec with her arms crossed over her chest. The dwarven woman’s long braided hair bounced as she cocked her head to study Therec. Like his fellow clanmates, the dwarves were too proud to disguise intentions unless there was a need to lie, making her an open book to Therec. “Sounds like you’re bloody well making it up.”

“Not at all, just hoping to surprise the guilty party into slipping,” Therec admitted. “Everything I say will have that purpose.”

Kinet snorted and said loudly, “All three of us are among the most respected of the king’s loyal servants. Even suggesting that we might be traitors is offensive, ambassador. Dorus oversees the king’s troop movements. Arlind is the king’s personal healer. I maintain the rule of law in the city. I recommend watching your accusations.”

Getting up from the table, Therec walked around the room slowly, taking in the titles of the books on the shelves. A few he recognized, but most were local works, including histories and research into magic done by the members of the tower. He wanted to look them over, but this was hardly the time. Plus, he knew the three magisters were watching his back. Something as simple as selecting a book to read might reveal more about himself than he desired. If he were to pick up a book, it had to be chosen to give them nothing.

“It may be offensive, but no one is ever as loyal as they claim,” Therec told them as he slid a large tome out and glanced at the text inside. The curved writing style used in Lantonne would take him some time to adjust to, making it difficult to really understand much of what he was looking at. What he could make out was that it was a simple historical book, with no bearing on Lantonne or Turessi. “You, Kinet, are a traitor, but not the traitor I would wish to provide to the king. That makes it less of a concern to me.”

Kinet very nearly fell off his chair as his mouth moved without words. He looked at the other two at the table nervously, then back to Therec.

“I am no traitor! You could be hung for such an accusation against a magister without evidence.”

“Your king, though chosen by the people and bound by certain popular decisions, issues edicts like any other ruler,” Therec explained, putting the book back. This time, he chose to pick up a thick book of Lantonnian laws. Arlind’s raised brow told him that she had not missed the significance. “Whether those edicts are from the people or directly from him, it matters little. They are the decisions of a king and must be obeyed as such. Without law, we have chaos and a kingdom can fall with enough chaos.”

“Of course,” Kinet replied quickly. “I serve the king in all matters…that is why I am in charge of overseeing enforcement of law by the local sheriffs.”

Therec smiled slightly, knowing he had the man snared. It was a cruel game to play on a stranger, but it would help him get a better feel for these people. They honestly made it too easy for him.

“Disobeying the king’s direct orders would be treason by definition, correct? As one who enforces laws, disobedience would rise above merely illegality.”

“Yes, ambassador.”

“Your king declared slavery illegal more than a decade ago and granted citizenship to the halflings of the nation, along with other previously low-status members of your society. Servitude to pay off a debt through specific labor is allowed in very controlled circumstances. Am I correct in that, or have I misread your laws?”

Kinet nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. He sensed the trap coming, but Therec was fairly certain he could not see the specifics. If he could, he still would not risk arguing in front of his colleagues. Judging by Arlind’s cool glare at Kinet, she had already guessed at the direction things were heading.

“In that case,” Therec went on, returning to the table, “why do you have a slave, dear magister?”

“I have no such…” he trailed off as Arlind’s glare darkened and Dorus tapped his pipe loudly on the table. This was clearly something they had been at odds with him about for some time, judging by their reactions. “She is not a slave. She is my servant, who I have perform specific tasks to help pay off her debt…”

“A debt is paid off through specific labor, not through forced activities,” Therec noted dryly. “The woman acts as though you have beaten her or worse. Mind you, I do not judge the holding of slaves, as my people endorse it freely. We do not lie to ourselves about it, though.

“Lying and hiding from the law is what makes these things wrong, not the act itself. There is a certain nobility in standing in the face of an unjust law, but you hide your actions, which tells me that you consider yourself above this law.

“Worse still is using your status as a magister to shield yourself from prosecution, when any commoner would have been put in the keep’s dungeons by now. The moment you forced that woman to do more than run errands for you, she became a slave as surely as any creature that my people put chains on, and that is treason, given your station serving the king directly.”

Kinet’s eyes widened nervously. “I…I’ve never hurt her. We just…it was willing, I swear. It was costly to buy her from the slavers and we were working out how best to work off her debts…”

Arlind’s disgusted groan told Therec that he had just managed to sow a bit of dissent among the magisters while giving himself a touch more respect from the dwarf. She might despise him for being either a foreigner or specifically a Turessian, but at the moment she liked him more than Kinet. If Therec was not mistaken, she was only barely holding herself back from punching the man.

“What was the debt she owed you?” asked Therec, softening his tone. “Regardless of what has been done to her, let us get back to specifics.”

“She…I…um…” the man stammered, looking around as though trying to come up with an answer. “Her father put them badly in debt and I was aiding them, but the cost to save two…”

“Her father’s debt is not hers, by the king’s laws. At most, her father can ask her to help with working off his debt, but she cannot be forced,” Therec countered quickly. “You will have her citizenship papers in her hands by the time the sun rises again. Am I understood?”

“Of course. I’ve been meaning to do that…”

Smiling, Therec bowed his head in acknowledgement of the small victory and then sat down at the table, which made Kinet appear even more uncomfortable. Sliding a book that was lying on the table near him entitled “History of Magic In Warfare,” Therec did not even manage to flip the cover open before the room shook violently.

Therec grabbed hold of the desk to steady himself while praying that he was not about to die in a tower collapse. The room lurched every few seconds, soon knocking books off of the shelves and toppling inkwells and other items lying on the table. This was certainly not how he wanted to join his ancestors.

Aside from the books on the table, only Magister Arlind’s mug remained upright, clasped between her hands. The stout woman glowered at the floor as though she might stop the rocking through force of will. The stubbornness Therec saw in her might well be that powerful.

Through the intermittent bounces of the room, which grew farther in-between with each pulse, Therec watched the magisters for any reaction at all. Aside from annoyance, they seemed entirely unbothered. None gave any indication that they knew it was coming, but they likewise were unconcerned.

Therec waited until the last rumbles could be felt through the floor, though they had faded to the point that Therec would not have noticed them at all if they had not been preceded by the room-shaking quakes.

“What was that?” He got up from his chair once he knew that he would not immediately fall down from the rocking. “Tell me that this tower is not so unstable…”

“What it was is none of your business,” answered Kinet immediately. A glance toward the north windows did not go unnoticed by Therec. The man would give away anything through carelessness, making him Therec’s new favorite in these lands. “Military matters are between Dorus, the king, and the generals.”

Therec got to his feet and headed straight toward the north window. He had not even reached it before he could see with certainty what had caused the shaking of the entire city.

Standing tall above the plains, four massive metal statues appeared to be circling an area several miles north of Lantonne. All around the feet of the golems were thousands of moving shapes. Even at such a distance, the whispering tendrils of magic that encircled the metal figures told Therec with certainty what he was looking at. Magic that strong was difficult to miss by one trained to watch for it.

“You brought in golems to fight the undead that serve Altis?” Therec asked incredulously. “Have you begun evacuations? Whether this works or not, there are at least ten thousand soldiers within marching distance of the city.”

“No!” snapped Kinet, thumping a fist on the table. “We will stop them before they reach the city. They will not enter these walls. “I had this same argument with the king. The simple fact is that even if we tried, it was too late to get people out. We thought the golems could reach the army before they got to Lantonne, but…things did not work out as planned.”

Dorus shook his head sadly as Therec looked back toward the table.

“There are almost fifteen thousand…not ten,” he told Therec softly. “Our options are rather limited and we have been unable to keep them down for long. Luckily, I do not believe they have the numbers needed to breech the walls. At least not yet. The outer city will not be so fortunate. The magisters decided that some must be sacrificed to save the land.”

Therec stared at the vast forces, amazed that the city of Altis could have mustered that many soldiers and gotten them so far south without being stopped. Shifting his vision to see magic, he searched the tiny specs for hints of wizards or other intelligence that might explain their successes, but for several minutes, the magic swirling around the golems made it difficult to make out anything else. Then, he began to see the threads of dark energy that he had worked with his whole life to preserve the ancestors in his clan. Seeing it on the field of battle made his stomach churn.

“That army is undead,” he stated, more to himself than to the magisters.

“Yes,” Arlind practically growled. “Altis has been slowly switching from a living army to a damned undead one. They’re using our own soldiers against us. You can’t spit without fighting someone you once knew.”

Turessi had always kept groups of undead among each of their tribes, but he doubted that all the clans together could have fielded that many corpses. To see an uncivilized nation at war like this was beyond shocking. Therec began to understand why Turessi had been asked to come…they were likely the only nation for thousands of miles around that had a standing army of the undead and, thus, experience in dealing with them.

“Was this really why I was brought here?” he asked, leaning on the windowsill. “The king said I was to try and broach a peace treaty with Altis. I take it things are well past that?”

Arlind took a long swig from her mug and then replied, “There was hope that you could help convince them not to attack us. If that failed, you would be used as a hostage to barter for more time. We are being blunt, ambassador.”

“You have not studied my people, have you?” demanded Therec, turning on the three magisters. “My people would not do this. Even if they could or would do it, my life means nothing in the face of a war. They would tear these walls down without hesitation, and afterwards, they would find my body to give it an honorable ending. Preserving my life would be the last thing they would even consider. My own family would kill me if it meant saving the clan.”

“We know,” Dorus answered ruefully, putting his pipe in his mouth. “The king did not believe us. We were actually hoping that you might have more insight than we did, but we’re not diplomats. We were dreading even asking and wanted to try to bring an end to this on our own.”

“Thus the king thought you were questioning him,” noted Therec.

“And so, we are your bloody traitors,” Arlind muttered, holding her mug up in a mock toast. “Traitors for trying to gain an ally, not a hostage.”

Prying himself away from the window and stumbling across the room, Therec leaned on the back of the chair he had been sitting in when the rumbling steps of the giant golems had shaken the room. One by one, he studied the faces of the magisters, searching them for anything that he might be able to use. What he saw in each was desperation. That, he understood.