Harry Turtledove: The Scepter's return

"If you find your magic vying with his, break yours off and get away," Grus said.

"You don't need to worry about that, Your Majesty," Pterocles said feelingly. "I will. I'd be lucky to come off second best in a meeting like that. I'd be lucky to come off at all."

He set three silver coins on the table in front of him. One was minted by Prince Ulash, who for many years had been the strongest Menteshe chieftain. Ulash, a man of courage and intelligence, would have been dangerous even without the Banished One's backing. With it, he'd been doubly so, or more than that.

The other two coins were shinier and more recent. They'd been struck by Sanjar and Korkut, Ulash's sons. Neither prince was willing to see the other succeed their father. They'd been fighting each other for years now, and the Menteshe to either side had joined in the war — at least as much to plunder what had been Ulash's realm as for any other reason.

Both Sanjar and Korkut had even appealed to Avornis for aid. That was a pleasant novelty for Grus; the Menteshe were more in the habit of raiding Avornis than appealing to her. The spectacle must have infuriated the Banished One, but not even he seemed able to stop the nomads from squabbling among themselves.

Pterocles put Sanjar's and Korkut's coins on top of Ulash's so that their edges touched. He sprinkled a little dirt over them. "Dirt from the south bank of the Stura," he told Grus. The Stura was the last of the Nine Rivers that cut across the rolling plains of southern Avornis from east to west. Its southern bank was not Avornan territory at all, but belonged to the Menteshe.

To Grus, the dirt looked like… dirt. He didn't say anything. He trusted Pterocles to know what he was doing. So far, the wizard had earned that trust. Pterocles began to chant. The spell started out in modern Avornan, but quickly changed to the old fashioned language only priests, wizards, and scholars like Lanius used these days.

As he chanted, the dirt began to swirl and writhe above the coins, as if caught up in one of the dust storms so common in the lands the Menteshe ruled. The coins struck by Sanjar and Korkut sprang up on their edges and started spinning. Round and round they went, faster and faster.

"Does that mean they're going to keep fighting?" Grus asked. Without missing a word or a pass, Pterocles nodded.

Suddenly, it seemed to Grus that three coins were spinning on the tabletop. He thought Ulash's silverpiece had gotten up from where it lay to join the dance, but it was still there. He wondered if his eyes had started playing tricks on him.

Pterocles' incantation slowed. So did the spinning coins — and there were three of them. The dirt and dust that had floated above the table settled back to its surface. Sanjar's coin and Korkut's settled down on top of Ulash's so that their edges touched once more.

The last coin, the one that appeared to have come out of nowhere, wobbled over and lay down covering parts of Sanjar's, Korkut's, and Ulash's. Pterocles raised his hands above his head. He fell silent. The spell was over.

Grus picked up that last coin. No Menteshe had minted it. His own craggy features, stamped in silver, stared back at him from the palm of his hand. He held the Avornan silverpiece out to Pterocles. The wizard stared at it. "Olor's beard!" he muttered. "I never thought — "

"Does this mean we're going to get mixed up in the fighting south of the Stura this year?" Grus asked.

More unhappily than otherwise, Pterocles nodded. "I can't see how it could mean anything else, Your Majesty. It wasn't part of the sorcery I planned. Where it came from…" He gathered himself. "Sometimes the magic does what it wants to do, not what you want it to do."

"Does it?" Grus said tonelessly. He looked at the image of himself, there on his palm. "Is the magic telling us that we ought to get mixed up in the nomads' civil war, or just that we will get mixed up in it?"

"That we will, Your Majesty," the wizard answered. "You may take that as certain — or as certain as anything magic can point out. Whether we will become involved in a big way or a small one, whether good or bad will come from whatever we do — whatever you do — I can't begin to say."

"If I order my men to move against the Chernagor city-states in the north instead — " Grus began.

"Something will happen to make us fight in the south anyway," Pterocles broke in. "You're bound to leave garrisons down by the Stura, to beat back whatever Menteshe raiders come over the border. Maybe some of your men will chase after the nomads. Maybe it will turn out to be something else. But we will meet Korkut's men, and Sanjar's, on land that once belonged to Ulash. So much, I would say, is clear."

"And will we win?" Grus kept looking at the coin he held. "My silverpiece came out on top, after all."

"I'd like to say yes, Your Majesty," Pterocles answered. "I'd like to, but I won't. I simply don't know."

"All right. I'd rather have an honest answer than a lie trotted out to make me feel good… I suppose." Grus laughed. He supposed that was funny, too. But then the laughter froze on his lips. "If the Banished One is trying to look ahead, too, he'll see the same thing, won't he?"

"If he doesn't, Your Majesty, I'd be astonished," Pterocles said.

"Huzzah," Grus said somberly. Fighting against the Menteshe south of the Stura would be hard enough anyway. No Avornan army had successfully pushed south for more than four hundred years. How much harder would it be if the Banished One knew the Avornans were coming ahead of time? Well, we'll find out.

Beaters and royal bodyguards surrounded King Lanius, Prince Ortalis, and Arch-Hallow Anser as they rode out of the city of Avornis to hunt. Chainmail jingled on the guardsmen. The beaters — Anser's men — wore leather, either left brown or dyed green. They looked like a pack of poachers. If they hadn't served the chief prelate of the Kingdom of Avornis, most of them probably would have been in prison.

Anser cared more about the hunt than he did about the gods. Grus' bastard son always had. But he was unshakably loyal to the man who'd sired him. To Grus, that counted for more than religious zeal. And Anser, along with being unshakably loyal, was also unshakably good-natured. There had been worse arch-hallows, though Lanius wouldn't have thought so when Grus made the appointment.

"Well, let's see how we do today," Anser said, smiling in the sunshine. "Maybe you'll make another kill, Your Majesty."

"Maybe I will." Lanius hoped he didn't sound too unenthusiastic. He didn't care for the hunt, and went out every now and again only to keep from disappointing Anser. No one wanted to do that. Lanius always shot to miss. He was anything but a good archer. Not so long before, he'd hit a stag altogether without intending to.

"Venison. Boar. Even squirrel." Ortalis sounded enthusiastic enough for himself and Lanius at the same time. Grus' legitimate son liked the meat the hunt brought in. He also liked killing the meat in the hunt. He liked killing very much. If he killed animals, he didn't need the thrill of hurting — or killing — people so much.

Of course, Bubulcus was still dead. Lanius' obstreperous servant had outrageously insulted Ortalis. People often thought outrageous insults reason enough to kill a man. And it did seem that Ortalis had killed in a fit of fury, not for the sport of it. All the same, he remained far too fond of blood for Lanius' taste.

The woods that served as a royal game preserve were a couple of hours' ride outside the city of Avornis. The hunting party hadn't gone a quarter of that distance before Lanius took a deep breath and said, "By the gods, it's good to get away from the capital for a while."

Anser and Ortalis both nodded. So did the guards and beaters. Anser said, "The clean air would be reason enough to come hunting even without the chase."