Harry Turtledove: Into the Darkness

Little by little, the mist did lift. Cornelu peered into Tirgoviste harbor. The warships there were Algarvian now, save for a few captured Sibian vessels. Cornelu cursed in a low voice to see the sailing ships that had brought the Algarvian army to Tirgoviste still in port, their masts and yards as bare of canvas as trees were of leaves in this season of the year.

Tirgoviste rose steeply from the harbor. Cornelu tried to make out the house he shared with Costache. He knew where it would be, but it was just too far away for him to let himself pretend he could spy it. In his mind’s eye, though, he saw it plain, and Costache in front of it holding their—son? daughter? The mental picture blurred and grew indistinct, like a watercolor left out in drizzle.

Fog and clouds still lingered on the slopes of Tirgoviste’s central mountains. Not for the first time, Cornelu hoped remnants of the Sibian army still carried on the fight against the Algarvians. Someone had to be carrying on the fight, else the Lagoans would not have sent their men to lend a hand.

A couple of little ley-line patrol boats moved around inside the sheltered waters of the harbor. Cornelu didn’t think anything much about that till the boats, both flying Algarve’s banner of green, white, and red, emerged from the harbor and sped toward him and Eforiel at a clip the leviathan could not come close to matching. Then he cursed again, in good earnest this time: while he’d been eyeing Tirgoviste, King Mezentio’s men on the island had spotted him, too.

Maybe they thought he was one of their leviathan-riders, coming in with news. He dared not take the chance. Besides, even if they did, he could not continue that masquerade for long, not in a rubber suit still stamped over the breast with Sibiu’s five crowns. He urged Eforiel down into a dive.

He had played games with patrol boats before, during exercises against his own countrymen and during the war against the Algarvians. In exercises and in action, he’d always managed to evade them. That left him confident he could do it yet again. He was annoyed at himself for letting the Algarvians spy him, but he wasn’t anything more than annoyed.

Eventually, Eforiel gave the wriggle that meant she needed to surface. Cornelu let her swim back up toward the air. He’d guided her as closely parallel to the shoreline as he could. Surface sailors had little imagination. They would assume he’d fled straight out to sea, terrified at the sight of them. Odds were they wouldn’t even notice Eforiel when she spouted. If they did, one more underwater run and he’d shake free of them. That was how things worked.

Or so he thought, till Eforiel did come up to breathe. Then, to his horror, he discovered that the patrol boats had ridden down a ley line very close to the path the leviathan had taken. They’d overran her by a little, but they plainly had a good notion of how far and how fast she was likely to travel under the sea.

When she spouted, sailors at the sterns of the patrol boats cried out. They were close enough to let Cornelu hear those shouts, thin over the water. He forced Eforiel into another dive as fast as he could. He knew she hadn’t fully refreshed her lungs, but he also knew the Algarvian boats were going to start flinging eggs any minute. He refused to give them a target they could not miss.

Fling eggs they did. He heard them splash into the sea. The Algarvian mages had come up with something new, too, for they did not burst as soon as they hit the water, but sank for a while before suddenly releasing their energy far below the surface.

The deep bursts terrified Eforiel, who swam faster and harder than ever, and barely under Cornelu’s control. He knew she would have to surface sooner because of it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. No—he could and did hope that, when she surfaced this time, she would have evaded the patrol boats.

And so she had. Oh, one of them was fairly close, but out of egg-tosser range. It did not turn and move toward her when she spouted. Maybe the boat couldn’t. Maybe she’d come up for air in a stretch of ocean well away from any ley lines. Ships that pulled their energy from the world grid were swifter and surer than those that did not, but they could travel only where the grid let them. Where it did not… Cornelu thumbed his nose at the patrol boat. “Here, my dear, we are safe,” he told Eforiel. “Rest as you will.”

He never saw the dragon that dropped the egg toward Eforiel. He never saw the egg, either, though its splash drenched him. It sank below the surface of the sea, as the ones the patrol boats tossed had done, and then it burst.

Eforiel’s great body shielded Cornelu from the worst of the energies. The leviathan writhed in torment. Blood crimsoned the sea. Cornelu knew—and the knowledge tore at him—he could not save her; too much blood was pouring forth. He also knew it would draw sharks.

That left him one choice. Cursing the Algarvians—and cursing himself for not doing a better job of watching the air—he struck out for Tirgoviste. He wasn’t close to the town that bore the name, not after Eforiel’s desperate flight, but he could still reach land. Whether the Lagoans liked it or not, he was coming home.

When the hard knock came on the door, Vanai shivered. She thought—she feared—it had an Algarvian sound. Maybe, if she didn’t answer, whoever was out there would go away. It was, of course, a forlorn hope. The knock sounded again, sharper and more insistent than ever.

“Powers above, Vanai! Go see who that is, before he breaks down the door,” Brivibas called irritably. In a softer voice, he went on, “How is a person to think with distractions that never cease?”

“I am going, my grandfather,” Vanai said, resignation in her own tone. Brivibas didn’t deal with distractions. That was her job.

She unbarred the door and threw it wide. Then she shivered again—not only was the day about as chilly as weather ever got in Oyngestun, but there stood Major Spinello, a squad of Algarvian soldiers behind him. “Good day,” he said in his fluent Kaunian, looking her up and down in a way she did not like. But, despite his eyes, he kept his voice businesslike: “I require to see your grandfather.”

“I shall fetch him, sir,” Vanai said, but she could not resist adding, “I still do not think he will aid you.”

“Perhaps he will, perhaps he won’t.” Spinello sounded indifferent. Vanai did not believe he was, not for a moment. He went on, “I have, I admit, discovered a new inducement. Bring him here, that I may speak of it.”

“Please wait.” Vanai did not invite him into the house. If he came in uninvited, she could not do anything about that. Going into Brivibas’s study, she said, “My grandfather, Major Spinello would have speech with you.”

“Would he?” Brivibas said. “Well, I would not have speech with him.” The expression on Vanai’s face must have been eloquent, for, with a grimace, he set down his pen. “I gather the choice is not mine?” Vanai nodded. Brivibas sighed and rose. “Very well, my granddaughter. I shall accompany you.”

“Ah, here you are,” Spinello said when Brivibas appeared before him. “The next question is, why are you here?”

“Men have been looking to answer that question since long before the days of the Kaunian Empire, Major,” Vanai’s grandfather said coldly. “I fear that no satisfactory response has yet come to light, though philosophers do continue their work.”

“I was not speaking of philosophy,” the Algarvian officer said. “I was asking why you, Brivibas, are here, at this house. We have been recruiting laborers in this district for some time. Only an oversight can have kept you from being one of them. I have been ordered to correct the said oversight, and I shall. Come along with me, old man. There are roads that need building, bridges that need repairing, piles of rubble that need clearing. Your scrawny Kaunian carcass isn’t worth much, but it will have to do. Come on. Now.”