Jaws of Darkness

“I begin,” Pekka said, and chanted the ritual phrases Kuusamans used before every conjuration. Fernao had snickered behind his hand when he first heard them. He’d heard them so many times by now, magecraft undertaken without them would have felt strange, u

He’d only half understood them when he first heard them. He’d understood hardly anything of the Kuusaman cantrips that followed. He did these days. He wouldn’t have wanted to try drafting an original spell in Kuusaman, but he had no trouble following one now. If anything went wrong, he knew much more than he had about how to repair it.

Ilmarinen and Piilis joined the incantation. So did Raahe and Alkio. Fernao felt the power build. Part of it was his, flowing from him through Pekka, whose hand he held. It put him in mind of pleasure building when they made love. But when his eyes flicked her way, her face was serious, intent, nothing at all like the way she looked when the two of them were alone. She didn’t glance at him. She kept on chanting, doing what she had to do. That’s all any of us are doing, he thought. What else is there?

If not for the world’s energy grid more commonly used in traveling along ley lines, they never could have located the mountain pass so precisely. An alert Algarvian mage somewhere between the Naantali district and the pass might have detected the sorcery when at last it burst forth. He might have detected it, but that would have done him no good. By the time he knew it was there, he would have been far too late to stop it.

Fernao felt the spell seize the stones and the already-drifted snow along the sides of the pass, felt it seize them and jerk them and send them crashing down onto the road and the ley line at the bottom. Mezentio’s mages might have achieved the same effect by killing a camp full of Kaunians, but never from this range: never, probably, from a quarter of this range. And this spell was clean-no murder attached to it.

Afterwards, all the mages sighed. Now Fernao could squeeze Pekka’s hand without distracting her. She smiled and nodded. “We did it,” she said. “I could feel that we did it.”

“Aye.” Fernao nodded, too. “The Algarvians will have harder work now in Jelgava.” And it’s likelier your husband will come through safe. Should I be happy about that? Aye, curse it, I should. Leino’s not my enemy. He’s fighting my enemies. He kept his face straight. He didn’t want Pekka to know what he was thinking there. We do have to be civilized about these things… curse it.

Ever since she’d spied Spinello stalking through the wreckage of Eoforwic, Vanai had known she would try to kill him if she ever saw even the slightest chance. She hadn’t known how badly she needed to go looking for that chance till the day before Pybba’s rebels surrendered to the Algarvians, the day the redheads agreed to treat the Forthwegians as proper war captives instead of butchering them for bandits.

Ealstan had slipped out of the pocket Pybba’s men still held. He’d slipped into and out of that pocket a good many times before then. Vanai had always hated it, but she couldn’t deny he knew what he was doing. And, when he’d come home full of gloom, she’d thought she understood. However foolish she reckoned Forthwegian patriotism, Ealstan felt it in his heart, in his belly, just as she felt her own Kaunianity.

But she hadn’t understood, or hadn’t understood everything, even if she’d thought she had. She’d found that out a couple of hours later, after putting Saxburh down for a nap. Ealstan, by then, had gone through a good deal of the wine in the flat. She hadn’t even worried about that, though Kaunians often sneered at Forthwegians for drunke

He’d also had more sorrows to drown than she knew. He’d looked up from the mug when she walked into the kitchen, looked up from it and- voice not blurry in the least, he’d asked, “Did you ever run across a redhead named Spinello?”

The question had crashed into her like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. Her face must have given her away, for she’d seen his mouth tighten. After that, what point to lying? “Aye,” she’d answered quietly. “Back in Oyngestun. How did you know?”

Maybe that hadn’t been the perfect question, for it had made him gulp down all the wine left in his mug. “I heard him… mention your name talking to his men. How could he know I speak Algarvian?”

Mentioning her name undoubtedly meant going into obscene detail over all the things he’d made her do back there in her home village. With a sigh, Vanai had said, “He wanted to get my grandfather to collaborate with the redheads. That would have meant something in scholarly circles. You saw him once, when he was out looking at an imperial Kaunian site with my grandfather and me.”

“I remember,” Ealstan had said. He’d hesitated then; Vanai gave him credit for it. But he’d gone on: “He wanted something else from you.”

Vanai had nodded. What else could I have done? she wondered. Nothing. Nothing at all. “My grandfather said no,” she’d told Ealstan. “He kept saying no. You met him. You have some small idea what a stubborn man he was. And so Spinello threw him into a labor gang. He wasn’t young. He’d never done work like that in his life. It was killing him. I watched it happen for a little while. I couldn’t stand it. Whatever else he was, he was the only kin I had left in the world. And so I…” Up till then, she’d managed to sound as cool, as detached, as if she were talking about building a fence. But the last few words came out in a ragged gulp as tears spilled down her cheeks: “I made a bargain with Spinello.”

She’d stood there waiting once she got it out. What would Ealstan do? Slowly, he’d climbed to his feet. Is he going out the door? she remembered thinking. Will he come back? Will he even look back? Will he hit me? This once, I could bear it without hating him afterwards.

He’d come toward her. She remembered bracing herself, too. Then he’d put his arms around her and switched from the Forthwegian they’d been speaking to his slow, clear, classical Kaunian: “Brivibas, I think, was luckier in you than he realized-perhaps luckier than he deserved. And may the powers below eat that Spinello.”

Vanai really had burst into tears then, and buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder. They were very nearly of a height; she hadn’t had to stand on tiptoe to do it. She remembered whispering, “Thank you,” over and over again, but she still wasn’t sure if she’d said it loud enough for Ealstan to hear.

But she was sure what he’d said before she looked up again: “May the powers below have some help eating that Spinello.” He’d sounded thoroughly grim.

He’d sounded so grim, in fact, that he’d terrified her. She’d thought about killing Spinello. He’d sounded as if he intended to march out right that minute and do it. And so she’d clung to him and exclaimed, “No! He’s not worth the risk of you. By the powers above, he isn’t, Ealstan! And besides, before long the Unkerlanters are bound to do it for us.”

“They haven’t done it yet,” he’d grumbled. But he hadn’t gone charging out of the flat then, and, so far as Vanai knew, he hadn’t tried stalking Spinello since. She hoped that meant he’d listened to her as well as hearing her. She hoped so, but she wasn’t sure. He hadn’t seemed any different with her after that dreadful day, and he hadn’t seemed any different with Saxburh, either. Vanai dared take that for a good sign.

Even so, she knew that, if she was going to try to get rid of Spinello, sooner was definitely better. Ealstan, she feared, would also try-and even if he succeeded, he was all too likely to get caught. If he did try, he would pick the most obvious, most direct way. Vanai knew him too well to have any doubts on that score. But what Algarvian would pay any particular attention to a Forthwegian woman? Vanai wasn’t standing by a mirror to see her own smile, but suspected it showed a lot of pointed teeth. Every now and then, being Thelberge to the world had its advantages.