Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

“Better that we be able to match them than that wenot be able to match them,” Pekka said. “That’s the assumption we’ve been working on.”

“No.” Ilmarinen shook his head. “The assumption we’ve been working on is that they had better not be able to match our new sorcery. And they bloody well can’t, not so far as we can tell. But that we use what we have for the same purposes as they use what they have…” He shook his head again. “No, by the powers above.”

“We can do many more things with ours,” Fernao said. “Once the war is over, it will turn the world upside down. But for now…” He shrugged. “For now, we do what needs doing, and that means beating Algarve.”

“They’re using it the right way up in Jelgava, throwing the Algarvians’ spells back in their faces,” Ilmarinen said. “Mezentio’s mages deserve that, and so do his soldiers. But the other? No.” He sounded very certain.

“How is it any different from sending dragons over their cities to drop eggs on them?” Pekka asked.

“That’s just war,” Ilmarinen said. “Everybody does it. The other-you wouldn’t, we wouldn’t, just be hurting a city if that ever happened, and you know it.”

Pekka grimaced. He wasn’t wrong, however much she wished he were. But she didn’t think she was wrong, either, as she answered, “We have to do what needs doing.”

“Do we?” Ilmarinen said. “Don’t you suppose the Algarvian mages say the same old thing-the same old lie-just before their soldiers start blazing Kaunians, or however they go about killing them to get their life energy?”

“That’s not fair,” Pekka said. “We’re not killing anyone to get the energy for our magecraft.”

“No, that’s true-we’re not. And so what?” Ilmarinen said. “If we use it the way you have in mind, we’ll be killing plenty on the other end.”

“That’s different,” Fernao said. “If you can’t get a man to listen to you, you hit him. If he hits you, you get a club. If he hits you with a club, you get a sword. If he hits you with a sword, you get a stick. If he blazes at you with a stick, you go after him with a behemoth, and so on.”

“I don’t like thinking of myself as a murderer,” Ilmarinen said. “I’ll do it, mind you, but I don’t like it.”

“Think of the Algarvians as murderers, then,” Pekka said. “They are, you know. EvenMasterSiuntio thought this fight was worth making-and Mezentio’s mages killed him, remember.”

“I’m not likely to forget, not when they came so bloody close to killing me, too,” Ilmarinen replied. “But I’m sick of war. I’m sick of killing. Aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” Pekka said. “But the fastest way to win it is the way Fernao said: to knock the Algarvians down till they can’t get up any more. Do you truly think anything else would do the job?”

“I’m not surprised you agree with him,” Ilmarinen said, and then laughed. “Ah, there-I’ve gone and made you angry. I wonder why.”

“You’ve made me angry, all right,” Pekka said tightly. “And I’ll tell you why: because you didn’t try to answer my question, that’s why. You just took a cheap blaze at me. Now answer, if you’d be so kind. Do you think anything else would do the job, or not?”

This time, Ilmarinen hesitated before speaking. Even so, he didn’t quite answer her question. What he said was, “There’s more to you than meets the eye. Do you know that?”

“I don’t much care,” Pekka said. “I’m going to ask you a third time, and I expect a straight answer. Can we beat the Algarvians and the Gyongyosians any other way than by knocking them flat?”

Asking Ilmarinen for a straight answer could easily prove as frustrating as asking a toddler to stop making a nuisance of himself. Pekka didn’t get one now, either. The master mage smiled at her till she wanted to punch him in the teeth. He said, “I’ll give you the calculations tonight.” Then, irrepressible, he leered. “I’ll just slide them under the door, so I’ll be sure not to interrupt anything.” With a sweet, carnivorous smile, he strode away.

Pekka glared after him. Fernao set a hand on her shoulder. “The more he gets you angry, the more he wins. That’s what he’s after, you know.”

“No.” Pekka shook her head. “You’re close, but you’re not quite right. The more he drives me crazy, the more he wins. He’s good at it, too. He’s been driving everyone crazy for the past fifty years.”

“Well, then, don’t worry about him,” Fernao said.

She laughed as mockingly as Ilmarinen had. “Tell the sun not to come up tomorrow, as long as you’re in a mood to give advice.”

She wondered if that might anger Fernao. Instead, he answered soberly: “I’ve been where the sun sometimes doesn’t come up for weeks-the land of the Ice People. It can happen. And you can ignore Ilmarinen.”

“It’s not easy,” she said, and then seized his hand. “Come to my room. If anything will help me do it, that will.” Had she ever been so blunt with Leino? She had trouble remembering. In any case, right now she wanted to forget.

Ilmarinendid slide papers under her door, and chose a very distracting moment to do it, too. A little while later, Fernao said, “I wonder if he did that on purpose.”

He ran his hand along her flank. The distraction hadn’t ruined things. Pekka felt sated and lazy-too lazy to get up and get the papers on the instant. She said, “He could tell by sorcery if he wanted to badly enough, but I don’t think he would bother. I hope he wouldn’t bother.”

“I hope you’re right,” Fernao answered. “Are you going to see what the calculations say?”

“Eventually,” Pekka said. “Part of me wants to know, but the rest, the rest”-she confessed to Fernao what she would never have told anyone else- “wonders if Ilmarinen isn’t absolutely right, though I wouldn’t tell him that in a thousand years, not when we have to do this come what may.” She felt a little better when Fernao leaned over and kissed her, but much better when he nodded to show he felt the same way.

The Unkerlanter mage nodded to Leudast.“There you are, Lieutenant,” the fellow said. “All your flesh is the same age again.”

Leudast tried the leg that had been wounded. Without a doubt, it felt worse than it had before the sorcerer cast his spell. But he could still use it. He nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “The fellow who helped heal my wound by aging it warned me to make sure I got rid of the spell once it had served its purpose.”

“I believe that,” the wizard said. After a moment’s thoughtful hesitation, he went on, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” Leudast had a pretty good idea of what was coming.

And, sure enough, the wizard said, “How did your healer decide to use that particular charm on you? Very often, we reserve it for, ah, special cases.”

“What do you mean, special cases?” Leudast asked in turn. The mage didn’t answer. But Leudast had little trouble drawing his own conclusions. It had to mean something like, people more important than a lieutenant with a peasant accent. He said, “MarshalRatharpersonally promoted me.”

That had impressed the healer who’d treated him. It impressed this mage, too. He said, “No wonder the man used it with you, then.”

Not what you know-who you know. Leudast had had that thought before. Anybody could become a sergeant. Going that far was easy, if you were a good soldier-and if the Algarvians didn’t kill you, of course. He’d been pretty lucky, getting away with only two wounds. He wondered how many Unkerlanter soldiers who’d started the war with the redheads were still in it. Then he wondered how many of them had become officers. He’d been lucky in more than staying alive, and he knew it.