K Parker - Evil for Evil

"You have rested." Not a question. "Please sit down. You must try the orange and cinnamon tea; it's stronger, but one needs a little stimulation in the morning."

Stimulation; the little man sounded so frail that Valens reckoned anything more stimulating than slow, shallow breathing would probably kill him. "Thank you," he said.

The cup was put into his hand.

"I must apologize," the little man's voice went on, "about the rather dim light. I'm afraid that my eyes are rather sensitive. Direct sunlight gives me a headache."

"That's quite all right," Valens mumbled.

"In fact," the voice continued, quite matter-of-fact, "practically everything in my life hurts me these days-breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, waking up, moving, keeping still, every kind and description of bodily function brings with it a different and complementary pain. I had hoped," he added wistfully, "to have died earlier this year, but regrettably I realized that I could not permit myself to do so. My last surviving son, you see; quite suddenly, my doctors tell me it was his heart. With only my great-granddaughter left-you can appreciate the problem, I feel sure. At the best of times, a line of succession is such a slender thing, a single strand of spider's web, and our enemies are so strong, so unrelenting." A short pause, no doubt to gather strength. "The Rosinholet and the Bela Razo made a joint attack on us earlier this year; not just a cattle raid, but a concerted attempt to wipe us out. My son undertook the defense, but he had turned into an old man; too weak to ride a horse, too confused to manage all the intricacies of a serious war. I had to relieve him of command in the end. We saw them off, eventually, but I knew then that something had to be done. They will return, I feel certain of it; with them, I expect, they will bring the Aram no Vei and the Luzir Soleth. The simple fact is, there are too many of us; the Cure Hardy, I mean. We have bred too many cattle and too many children, and the pasture will not support us all. Some nations have tried sitting down-staying in one place all the time, I mean, as you do-but we simply can't live like that. The only logical solution is for one of the nations of the confederacy to go away, or else be wiped out."

Silence; not expecting a reply or a comment, just a pause for breath and reflection. Nevertheless, Valens said, "You want to cross the desert and settle there?"

"Precisely." The little man sounded pleased that he wasn't going to have to explain. "We heard about the annihilation of the Eremian people by the Perpetual Republic of Mezentia. Most regrettable, of course; but it stands to reason that if a nation is wiped out, their lands fall empty."

"But Eremia's not big enough, surely," Valens said without thinking.

"No, of course not," the old man sighed. "We should need the entire territory between the mountains and the sea. But if the Eremians have disappeared, and we allied ourselves with you, that would only leave the Mezentines to be disposed of-assuming," he added, with the ghost of a chuckle, "that we could get across the desert without losing more than half our number of effective fighting men. That was the question that remained unanswered when my great-granddaughter left here to marry you." He sighed again, a long, thin noise like the last exhalation of a dying animal. "And now you have brought us a safe, quick path across the desert; now, I need only live long enough to see Mezentia got rid of, and my duty will at last be done. My people will have a safe home, I will have my successor, and you…" A laugh like dry twigs snapping. "I assume you would like to be revenged on the murderers of your wife. Personally, I've never been able to see the merit in revenge, except as a deterrent to further offense, but my people think very highly of it. My great-granddaughter's death will be all the pretext they need, without the prospect of a new home." Pause. "I take it you would wish to see the Mezentines destroyed?"

One thing you couldn't do to the voice was lie to it. "Yes," Valens said. "I'd like to see them butchered to the last man, woman and child. I'd like to stand and watch, when I get too tired to take part myself. But not if it means risking the lives of what's left of my people. I'd rather let the Mezentines get away with what they've done completely unscathed."

Two hands too weak to clap patted each other. "Splendid answer," the voice said. "Exactly what my successor should have said; and I have no doubts at all about your sincerity, let me stress that. Everything I have heard of you leads me to believe that you are a good king, like your father before you. Which is why," he went on, "I shall have to live long enough to do the taking of revenge myself. I told you I don't believe in it; I don't believe in our gods, either, but my people do. On balance, it seems far more likely that they are right than I am. We will wipe out the Mezentines for you; you won't have to make that choice. If you prefer, you are welcome to stay here and wait until the job is done and our army returns. You may regard it as a belated wedding present, if you wish. As reciprocation for the wonderful gift you've given us-the safe way across the desert-it is, I fear, wholly inadequate. Tell me," and the voice quickened just a little, "how did you find out about it? There have been rumors, of course. Many of my people have claimed there was such a thing, over the years. Only recently a foolish young man called Skeddanlothi-a cousin of mine, unfortunately too distant to be able to succeed me-declared that he had found it and would prove his assertion by going there himself. Of course, he never came back, so presumably he was misinformed."

"A merchant," Valens heard himself say. "A trader from my country found it, apparently. He came here several times to buy salt; when he died, he left a diary, and a map. One of my…" He couldn't think of a word to describe Vaatzes. "One of my people found the map, and when the Mezentines were closing in on us, we took a chance and followed it; and here we are."

The noise that greeted these words didn't sound at all like laughter, but what else could it be? "Remarkable," the voice said eventually. "And salt, of all things. Well; I don't suppose it matters how the way was found, so long as it really exists. Tell me about the oases; will they water an army of two hundred thousand, do you think? Of course, I have sent surveyors, men who know about that sort of thing; I shall know for sure soon enough. But I'm impatient. What do you think? Will there be enough water?"

Valens heard a voice saying, "Yes," and realized it was his own. "And water won't be a problem once you reach the mountains on the other side; it's how to transport the quantities of food you'll need…"

"Oh, don't worry about that." The voice sounded almost cheerfully dismissive. "We have vastly more experience in that sort of thing than you do, by all accounts."

Despite the dark, Valens' eyes felt tired. He rubbed them before saying: "Can you really field an army of two hundred thousand?"

The strange sound again, equivalent to laughter. "An expeditionary force of two hundred thousand light cavalry and lancers, followed by the heavy cavalry and dragoons-say three hundred and fifty thousand-would probably be adequate for the task and still leave a sufficient reserve here in case of further attacks from our enemies." Short pause. "I should, of course, be asking your opinion, not purporting to state a fact. Do you think five hundred and fifty thousand cavalry would be enough to deal with the Mezentines? I understand that their field army is made up entirely of foreigners serving for money; a mixed blessing, at best, I should imagine. We could send a larger force, but my experience is that once you pass a certain point, a large army is more of a hindrance than a help."