Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

At the isolated hostel in the rustic Naantali district of southeastern Kuusamo, Fernao felt like a pine in a forest of poplars. He was the only Lagoan mage- the only Lagoan at all-there. The rest of the theoretical sorcerers, all the secondary sorcerers, and all the servitors were Kuusamans: short, golden-skinned, black-haired, flat-featured, slant-eyed. As a tall, fair, straight-nosed, ponytailed redhead, he could hardly have stood out more.

No, that isn ‘t quite true, he thought, and nodded to himself. My eyes are set on a slant, too, even if they’re green, not black. Lagoans were of mostly Algarvic stock, descendants of the invaders who’d settled in the northwest of the large island off the Derlavaian mainland after the Kaunian Empire collapsed. But they’d intermarried with the folk they found there, and a fair-sized minority showed some Kuusaman features. Similarly, some few who lived under the Seven Princes, especially in lands near the Lagoan border, had the inches or the nose or the bright hair that spoke of foreign stock grafted onto the roots of their family tree.

Fernao waved to one of the serving women in the refectory. She came over to him and asked, “What is it you want?”

She spoke Kuusaman. Fernao answered in the same tongue: “An omelette of smoked salmon and eggs and cheese, and bread and honey, and a mug of tea, Linna.” When he first came to Kuusamo, he’d known not a word of the local language. But he’d always had a good ear, and now he was getting close to fluent.

Linna nodded. “Aye, sir mage,” she said. “I’ll bring them to you as soon as they’re done.” She hurried off toward the kitchens.

“Thank you,” Fernao called after her.

A hand fell on his shoulder. He looked up in surprise. “What are you thanking her for?” Ilmarinen demanded in coldly precise classical Kaunian.

“My breakfast,” Fernao answered, also in the international language of magecraft and other scholarship.

“Is that all?” Ilmarinen said suspiciously. By his wrinkles and white, wispy little chin beard, the Kuusaman master mage carried twice Fernao’s years, but he sounded like an angry young buck. He’d been chasing Linna ever since this hostel in the wilderness went up, and he’d been annoying doing it. Not long before, she’d finally let him catch her. He’d been much more annoying since.

With what patience Fernao could muster, he nodded. “As sure as I am of my own name. If you care to, you may sit down beside me and watch me eat it. And if you care to”-he paused, as if about to make a radical suggestion- “you may even get one for yourself.”

“I think I’ll do just that,” Ilmarinen said, and slid into a chair.

“How are you this morning?” Fernao asked.

“Why, my usual sweet, charming self, of course,” the older mage replied. Like most educated folk, Fernao had no trouble using classical Kaunian to communicate-at first, he’d used it all the time after coming to Kuusamo, since it was the only tongue he’d had in common with the locals. But, again like most educated folk, he spoke it with a certain stiffness. Not so Ilmarinen. He was so fluent in the ancient language, it might almost have been his birth-speech.

Fernao eyed him. “I must say, you did not seem particularly sweet and charming.” Ilmarinen reveled in irony and crosstalk, but he hadn’t seemed ironic, either. What he’d seemed like was a jealous lover of the most foolish and irksome sort.

Perhaps he even knew as much, for the smile he gave Fernao was more sheepish than otherwise. “But did I seem my usual self?” he asked.

“If you mean your usual self lately, aye,” Fernao answered, not intending it as a compliment.

Before Ilmarinen could say anything, Linna came out again. She waved to the master mage, then walked over and ruffled his hair. Ilmarinen beamed. As long as she was happy with him, all seemed right with his world. Fernao wondered what would happen if-no, when-she tired of him. For the sake of the work on which so many mages were engaged, he hoped he wouldn’t have to find out any time soon.

Ilmarinen asked for smoked salmon, too, and sliced onions to go with it. Linna’s nose wrinkled. “Poo!” she said. “See if I kiss you.”

Ilmarinen looked devastated-but not so devastated as to change his order. Fernao took that for a good sign. Sniffing, Linna headed back to the kitchens.

And then Fernao stopped worrying about Ilmarinen’s infatuation, for Pekka walked into the refectory and he had to start worrying about his own. Like most Lagoan men, he’d always reckoned Kuusaman women on the small and scrawny side. By Lagoan standards, Pekkawas on the small and scrawny side. Somehow, that mattered very little once Fernao had come to know her.

She sat down at the table with him and Ilmarinen. “I hope the two of you were talking about our next experiment,” she said in classical Kaunian.

Since she was not only a woman in whom he was interested but also the theoretical sorcerer heading the project for which he’d come to Kuusamo, Fernao didn’t want to lie to her. On the other hand, the prospect of telling her the truth didn’t fill him with delight, either. It didn’t bother Ilmarinen one bit. “Well, now that you mention it, no,” he said breezily.

Pekka gave him a severe look. It rolled off him the way water rolled off greasy wool. She said, “Whatwere you talking about?”

“Oh, I just wanted to let this Lagoan lecher know that, if I ever caught him sniffing around my Linna, I’d cut out his liver and eat it without salt,” Ilmarinen replied.

He was on the small and scrawny side, too, to say nothing of being an old man. That didn’t keep a small twinge of icy dread, like a detached bit of the savage winter outside, from sliding up Fernao’s back. However small and scrawny and old Ilmarinen was, he was also, with Master Siuntio dead at Algarvian hands, the leading theoretical sorcerer of his generation, and a formidable practical mage as well. He wouldn’t have to use a knife to make unfortunate things happen to Fernao’s liver.

Fernao said, “For about the fourth time, I was not sniffing around her.”

When he brought out a phrase like that in classical Kaunian, he sounded both pompous and preposterous. Ilmarinen, now, Ilmarinen sounded menacing.

Pekka snorted. “I have never seen Fernao behave at all strangely around Linna,” she said, “which is rather more than I can say for certain other people of my acquaintance.” Linna came back with Fernao’s omelette and Ilmarinen’s smoked salmon and onions before the elderly theoretical sorcerer could make any more snide comments. He might well not have let that stop him; the serving girl didn’t speak much classical Kaunian, and couldn’t have followed whatever he said. But Pekka asked her for a plate of bacon and eggs and sent her off again.

Ilmarinen let out a cackle, the laugh of an old man who made trouble and had fun doing it. “Which women have you seen Fernao behaving strangely around, then?” he asked, and cackled again.

Without the least hesitation, Fernao kicked him in the ankle. And that wasn’t the only small, dull thud from under the table. Pekka must have kicked him from the other side.

“Aii!” Ilmarinen said. That wasn’t a cackle-more like a yelp. “Between the two of you, you can carry me out of here. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk.”

“If you keep on being rude and obnoxious, someone will carry you out, sure enough: someone will carry you out feet first,” Pekka said. Her voice was quite mild. As far as Fernao was concerned, that made her more intimidating, not less.

Ilmarinen attacked his food with single-minded determination. Unlike the other theoretical sorcerers, it wouldn’t talk back-unless the onions did. He left an odorous trail behind as he got up and hurried out of the refectory.