The Chernagor Pirates (78 page)

Again, the rainbows obeyed the wizard's will. Instead of swirling around Vasa's head, they began swirling through it. Some of them still seemed to shine even inside her head. Grus wondered if that might be his imagination, but it was what he thought he saw. He'd seen—or thought he'd seen—the same with Otus, too.

Vasa said, “Oh!” The simple exclamation of surprise was the first thing Grus had heard from her that had any feeling in it. Her eyes opened so wide, the king could see white all around her irises. The rainbows faded, but Grus fancied he could still see some of their light shining out from her face.

She bowed low to Pterocles. “Oh,” she said again, and, “Thank. Thank. Thank.” She didn't have many words, but she knew what she wanted to say. When he raised her up, her face had tears on it.

So did Otus' as he came up from his place under the tree. “She is free,” he whispered. “Like me, she is free. Gods be praised for this.”

Pterocles nodded to him, and to Grus, and to Artamus. To the other wizard, he said, “You see.”

“Yes, I see, or I hope I do,” Artamus answered. “Thank you for letting me watch you. That was a brilliant piece of sorcery.” He also bowed to Pterocles.

“I've done it before. I knew I could do it now,” Pterocles said, and gestured toward the other thrall. “Let's see you match it. Then we'll know how brilliant it is.”

“I'll do my best,” Artamus said. He turned to the thrall, who'd stood there all through Pterocles' spell, as indifferent to the marvel as he was to everything else in his miserable life. Artamus asked, “What is your name, fellow?”

“Lybius,” the scarred thrall replied.

Artamus had his own bit of crystal on a silver chain. He began to swing it back and forth, as Pterocles had before him. Lybius' eyes followed the sparkling crystal. Artamus waited for a bit, then began, “You are an empty one, Lybius.…”

The spell proceeded as it had for Pterocles. Artamus wasn't as smooth as Grus' chief wizard, but he seemed capable enough. He summoned the rainbows into being and brought them into a glowing, spinning circle around Lybius' head and then into and inside it.

And, as Vasa had—and as Otus had before her—Lybius awoke from thralldom into true humanity. He wept. He squeezed Artamus' hand and babbled what little praise he knew how to give. And Grus slowly nodded to himself. He
did
have a weapon someone besides Pterocles could wield.

Lanius was studying a tax register to make sure all the nobles in the coastal provinces had paid everything they were supposed to. Officials here in the capital had a way of forgetting about those distant lands, and the people who lived in them knew it and took advantage of it whenever they could. But they were Avornans, too, and the kingdom needed their silver no less than anyone else's. Lanius might not have wanted to raise taxes, but he did want to collect everything properly owed.

Prince Ortalis stuck his head into the little room where the king worked. “Do you know where Sosia is?” he asked.

“Not right this minute. I've been here for a couple of hours,” Lanius answered.

“What are you working on?” Ortalis asked. When Lanius explained, his brother-in-law made a horrible face. “Why on earth are you wasting your time with that sort of nonsense?”

“I don't think it's nonsense,” Lanius said. “We need to see that the laws are carried out, and we need to punish people who break them.”

“That's work for a secretary, or at most for a minister,” Ortalis said. “A king tells people what to do.”

“If I don't already know what they're doing, how can what I tell them make any sense?” Lanius asked reasonably. “And secretaries
do
do most of this. But if I don't do some, how can I know whether they're doing what they're supposed to? If a king lets officials do whatever they want, pretty soon they're the ones telling people what to do, and he isn't.”

“You're welcome to it.” Ortalis went off down the hall shaking his head.

Grus had tried to get his legitimate son to show some interest in governing Avornis. Lanius knew that. He also knew Grus hadn't had much luck. Ortalis didn't, and wouldn't, care. In a way, that made Lanius happy. Ortalis would have been a more dangerous rival if he'd worried about—or even taken any notice of—the way government actually worked.

Ortalis would also have been a more dangerous rival without the streak of cruelty that ran through so much of what he did. Hunting helped keep it down, which was one reason Lanius would go hunting with him despite caring nothing for the chase. Worse things happened when Ortalis didn't hunt than when he did.

Or was that true? His wife, Princess Limosa, had stripes on her back, and Ortalis had put them there although he hunted. Lanius shook his head. Limosa was a perfect match for Ortalis in a way Lanius hadn't thought possible. She liked getting stripes as much as he liked giving them. The mere idea made Lanius queasy.

Had Petrosus known that about his daughter when he dangled her in front of Ortalis? Lanius had no idea, and he wasn't about to write to the Maze to find out. Which was worse? That Petrosus had known about her, and used her … peculiarity to attract Ortalis? Or that he hadn't, but was willing to have Ortalis hurt her as long as it gained him advantage in the court?

“Disgusting either way,” Lanius muttered. He knew what Petrosus' … peculiarity was—power.

But Petrosus hadn't had the chance to indulge his peculiarity. Grus had made sure of that. As soon as Grus found out who Ortalis' new wife was, into the Maze that treasury minister went. On the whole, Lanius approved of that. Grus had power and liked wielding it, but he'd never been as heartless in his pursuit of it as Petrosus was.
A good thing, too,
Lanius thought.
I'd be dead if he were.

If only Grus had been as stern with Ortalis as he had with Petrosus. But for a long time he'd had a blind spot about his legitimate son. By the time he couldn't ignore what Ortalis was, it was much too late to change him. Lanius wondered whether Ortalis could have changed if Grus had tried harder earlier. The question was easier to ask than to answer.

Lanius went back to the tax register. As far as he could tell, nobody by the coast was trying to cheat the kingdom. That was how things were supposed to work. Ortalis probably would have asked him why he'd gone to all this trouble just to find out everything was normal.
If I hadn't checked, I wouldn't have known.
Lanius imagined himself explaining that to Ortalis. He also imagined Ortalis laughing in his face.

“Too bad,” Lanius said out loud. A servant walking down the corridor gave him a curious look. He'd gotten plenty of those. He looked out at the servant. The man kept walking.

Hurting things is Ortalis' peculiarity. Knowing things is mine.
A white butterfly flitted about in a flower bed outside the window. As soon as Lanius saw it, he recognized it as a cabbage butterfly. Knowing that would never do him any good, but he did know it, and he was glad he did. As for some of the other things he knew … Well, you never could tell.

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About the Author

Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include
The Guns of the South
, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by Dan Chernenko

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2747-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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