Harry Turtledove - Jaws of Darkness

He had no trouble finding the tavern. It stood by the village square, and was one of the two biggest buildings in Linnich, the other being the smithy across the square from it. The drunk passed out a few feet from the entrance was another strong clue. Garivald could have seen men drunk into a stupor in Zossen, too.

“Do you want me to go in and try to get the mule?” Obilot asked once more. “That way, he wouldn’t have to see your face.”

Garivald shook his head. “No. It will be all right.” Obilot looked at him, then shrugged and let him walk into the tavern ahead of her.

His eyes needed a moment to adjust to the gloom and to the smoky air- not all the smoke from the hearth went up the chimney. Four or five men and a couple of women looked up from their mugs to give him and Obilot a onceover. Sure enough, one of them was Dagulf.

Garivald walked up to him, hand outstretched. “You recall your old friend Fariulf, don’t you?” He bore down heavily on the false name he was using; he didn’t want his real one blurted out for everybody to hear.

Dagulf had never been a fool. His eyes narrowed now, but then he smiled and nodded. “Fariulf, by the powers above!” he exclaimed. “It’s been awhile. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.” He pointed to Obilot. “Who’s your friend?”

She answered for herself: “I’m Bringane.”

“Bringane,” he repeated. Waving to the fellow behind the bar, he called, “Spirits for my friends here.” The tapman nodded and waved back. Dagulf eyed Garivald. “I really thought youwere dead. What do you want?”

As he sank down onto a stool by Dagulf, Garivald answered, “Somebody told me you’ve got a mule you hire out or that you might sell. I could use one.”

“Could you?” Dagulf said. “Ever since I got out of Zossen, that mule’s helped keep me alive. You have a plow?” He took it for granted that Garivald was working an abandoned farm somewhere.

“No, but I can slap something together,” Garivald answered. “I’ve got enough iron to hammer something into a plowshare, or I could have the smith here do a better job for me. The woodwork is just woodwork; I can handle that. But I can’t plant enough ground to get a decent crop without a mule or an ox.”

“I might hire him to you,” Dagulf said. “I won’t sell him. I make more letting him out for a few days at a time.”

He slid silver across the table to the taverner when the man brought mugs for Garivald and Obilot. “Thanks,” Garivald said, and Obilot nodded. After sipping the fiery stuff, Garivald asked, “Whatdid happen in Zossen?”

He phrased it no more directly than that, but Dagulf understood what he meant. “The redheads dug in, that’s what. They had a few behemoths and maybe a company’s worth of men, and they made a stand. I was lucky: I was out chopping wood when our heroes hit ‘em.” He sounded patriotic, not sarcastic-that was the safe way to sound. “I had the mule along to haul the wood back, but I got the blazes out of there instead. From what I hear, nothing’s left of the old village.”

“That’s true. I’ve seen it.” Garivald gulped his spirits and then slammed a fist down on the table. Obilot set a hand on his shoulder. He wanted to shake her off, but he didn’t. Scowling at Dagulf, he said, “Curse it, I was hoping you knew more.”

“Sorry, Gar-Fanuli,”Dagulf said. “I don’t think the news is good, though.” Garivald scowled again, both at the slip and because he didn’t think the news was good, either. Unperturbed, Dagulf went on, “Now, do you want to hire the mule or not?”

They haggled for a while. Garivald let Obilot take most of the burden. She was better at dickering than he was, anyhow. And his heart wasn’t in the haggle. To have his hopes of learning what had happened to his wife and children raised, raised and then not fulfilled… it was very hard indeed. Obilot got a bargain with Dagulf. Garivald knew he should have been pleased, but all he wanted to do was drink himself blind.

But that is not possible!” the Kuusaman mage said in classical Kaunian rather less fluent than Fernao’s. Plainly, he wasn’t so used to speaking the international language of sorcery and scholarship. A practical mage out in the provinces wouldn’t have to use it very often. Gathering himself-and perhaps also gathering the vocabulary he needed-he went on, “It violates every known law of magecraft.”

Six or eight other Kuusaman wizards in the class of twenty nodded in solemn agreement. Most of the rest looked as if they agreed, too, even if they were too polite to say so. A class full of Lagoan mages hearing similar things would have been an argument. A class full of Algarvian mages hearing similar things would have been a riot.

Fernao was glad, then-mostly glad, at any rate-to be teaching stolid Kuusamans. Smiling, he said, “Some of the laws now known are not the ones you learned when you were training.” Since gray streaked the Kuusaman’s hair, he might well have trained back before the Six Years’ War.

He looked indignant nonetheless. “If what you say is true, why has none of this been published? It is too important to be kept a secret.”

“No, sir.” Fernao shook his head. “It is too important to be published. What would the Algarvians have done, had they got their hands on a couple of journal articles?”

To his astonishment, the Kuusaman got to his feet and bowed. “You are correct. I was mistaken. Please go on.” He sat down again.

Iwould never have heard that from Lagoans, Fernao thought. No one has heard that from Algarvians since the beginning of the world. They’re always right. If you don’t believe it, just ask them.

He brought himself back to the business at hand. “Gentlemen, ladies”- not quite half the sorcerers in the class were women-”you do not need to learn much of the theory behind what you will be doing. In fact, if would be better if you did not, because what you do not know, you cannot tell the enemy if captured. You will need to know how to cast the spells as given to you, how to protect yourself from the things likeliest to go wrong, and how to teach these same things to classes of your own. You are the first cadre. Many more will come after you.”

Some of the mages dutifully wrote that in their notebooks. The notebooks stayed in the lecture hall-a part of the hostel of whose existence Fernao had been ignorant till the classes began, and one that showed good planning on the Kuusamans’ part. No one took anything in writing out of that hall.

“We shall try small demonstrations today,” Fernao continued. “Even the smallest will show the large amounts of sorcerous energy that can be liberated by exploiting the inverse relationship between the laws of similarity and contagion.”

He went through the chant and passes in the demonstration, working slowly and carefully to show the students how the spell operated and also to make sure he didn’t slip up. Even with this toned-down spell, a mistake could be dangerous.

A glass beaker of water suddenly began to boil. A couple of the Kuusamans applauded. Fernao felt he ought to bow, as if he were a stage conjurer rather than a real wizard. Instead, he said, “As you see, I produced the desired result with much less effort than I would have had to use with more conventional sorcery. Now each of you will try it. Kaleva, please come forward.”

As the woman rose and walked up behind the counter, Fernao set up the sorcerous materials she would need, and also put a fresh beaker of water on the stand for her. She went through the spell competently enough, and set the water boiling about as fast as he had. “Very good,” she said. “However strange the theory, itdoes work.”

She’d spoken Kuusaman. “So it does,” Fernao agreed in the same tongue. She gave him a surprised look. “I know some of your speech,” he said, “but this teaching needs me to be precise, so I use classical Kaunian-except for the spells themselves, of course. You did very well.” Switching back to the classical tongue, he went on, “Next, please.” He pointed to the man in the chair next to Kaleva’s.