Eric Flint: This Rough Magic

The mermaid, whose aquamarine eyes sparkled with mischief again, had wrapped her long, wet blond hair several times around her upper torso, creating an effective "garment" to cover her unclothed breasts. Her companion, the triton, blond-bearded and long-haired, looked exactly like the creatures that adorned the borders of tapestries and the basins of fountains all over Venice. Like the mermaid he had a fish's tail; unlike her, he also had a fish's dorsal fin adorning his backbone.

"Faugh! Magus Marco, how you humans can live among such filthy waters I cannot imagine!" The triton somehow managed to grin and grimace at the same time.

"Because we aren't very bright?" Marco replied, cautiously. That seemed to be the correct answer, for Althea joined in the triton's chuckles.

"Well, I cannot fault you overmuch for doing what we ourselves do," Androcles admitted. "You know, I have a friend Antonio, a netman. He drinks nothing but grappa and I asked him why he rotted his gut with the stuff. And do you know what he said?"

Marco shook his head.

"He said: 'What am I to drink? Water? After what you people and every fish in the sea do in it?' " The triton roared with laughter, which echoed in the brick-walled water-chapel and drowned out every other sound.

"If he is there, in the sea, we will find him eventually," said the mermaid, smiling with confidence. Her teeth, unlike those of undines, were white, pearly, and exactly like human teeth. Althea was very pretty indeed; Marco wondered idly if at some point his artist-friend Rafael de Tomaso would be interested in having her pose for him.

"We can follow the source of a single drop of blood in the water for leagues; it will take time, a year perhaps, but we will find him. And when we do find him? What would you have us do?"

Marco thought about the horror of Kat being presented with a body half-eaten by fish and crabs, or a skeleton-but then thought of the value of having something to weep over, something to bury, even if it wasn't much.

"Please," he said. "Can you bring him home?"

"We will, if he lies under the sea," the triton promised. Then, with a flick of tails, they were gone.

After they'd left, Marco and Brother Mascoli found themselves standing and gazing into the water. Marco wasn't certain what to think; perhaps at some level he had been so certain that Kat's father was dead and drowned that he had anticipated a quick answer to the question he had posed to the merfolk some weeks earlier.

At length Mascoli shook himself. "Come, Marco. Let us go upstairs and get a little warmer. No news is good news, I suppose."

Marco shook his head slowly. "It may be. But he could be dead on land. Or he could be a prisoner somewhere, or ill, or somehow lost his memory. It's the not knowing that is so terrible for Kat."

"Well, perhaps. But where there is life there is also hope, young man." Brother Mascoli seemed to regain his calm; he took Marco by the elbow and led him upstairs. "And I must find someone who is more skilled in combative magic to instruct you in how to ward yourself. It is a shame that Eneko Lopez is not still here in Venice. He is a harsh man, but he is on his way to becoming one of the greatest of Christian mages."

Brother Mascoli smiled wryly. "He has a belief in shared strength. That the brethren of Christ should unite, giving the powers of light a strength as of an army-while evil power stands as a tower alone, relying only on itself. Yet many of the Strega rituals are those of a bonding of power, so perhaps Father Lopez is mistaken in his ideas."

Marco pursed his lips. Sharing himself with the Lion had broadened his outlook somewhat from the one which he'd held once. "Maybe the Strega are not evil."

Mascoli laughed softly. "I might believe you. And truly, that is the opinion of most Hypatians. But you should always keep in mind when dealing with him that Eneko Lopez is not always as flexible in his ideas."

Looking out from the palace on the summit of the terraced plateau of Buda, Emeric could see all the way to the Danube. He preferred the nearer view, however. Just outside the palace he had two new pole-ornaments. The one on the left writhed slightly; the chill air of late autumn had the interesting property of prolonging the futile struggle for life-in high summer heat and winter's cold his ornaments had a tendency to expire much too quickly.

The King of Hungary would not tolerate nationalism, or too much in the way of religious fervor. His kingdom's people were a mixture of Slovenes, Croats, Slavs, Magyar, Slovaks, Walachs and a half a dozen other minorities, not to mention several different religions. That didn't matter. They were, first and foremost, his. Impalement of those who sought to undermine that, in the interest of their insular little people, was an effective message.

His kingdom stretched from the edge of Istria to the Carpathians. Now he wanted the southern Balkans. To the west, was the Holy Roman Empire. To the east, the Ilkhan Mongols. To the north, the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Only the south offered softness, but unfortunately there were the hill-tribes between him and the Byzantines.

He wished that one of those pole-ornaments could be the infamous Iskander Beg. The Illyrian would pay that price one of these days, if Emeric could winkle him out of those mountains. The Hungarian heavy cavalry were at a disadvantage there, in the broken, steep country. Emeric hated the mountains. If he could flatten all the damned mountains in the world he could ride all of his enemies down, from the Holy Roman Emperor to the Grand Duke.

And now those idiots in Constantinople were going to give him his target on a platter; help him to bypass Iskander Beg and his hill-tribes. He smiled grimly, sat back on the golden throne, amid the tapestry-hung splendor of his reception room-he loved this display of wealth and grandeur-and let his eyes linger on the two victims outside the huge mullioned windows.

That view might unbalance the greasy Byzantine.

The servant was still waiting for orders, too used to his master's little ways to turn so much as a hair at the display outside the windows. Emeric raised a finger, and the servant snapped to attention. "Send the Byzantine emissary, Count Dimetos, up to me. Those accompanying him, also."

The servant bowed, and whisked himself out the door.

The Byzantine had been left to kick his heels for several hours. That did no harm, but little good either. He'd be used to that. Emissaries were often left in cold or overheated antechambers for hours, or even days at a time. A couple of would-be traitors on display on the top of sharpened poles would be somewhat more effective at impressing him.

"Count Dimetos, Imperial Emissary of Alexius VI," announced the majordomo from the arched doorway, "and his advisors."

Normally, Emeric discarded the hangers-on to any supplicant who came to seek a royal audience. They tended to bolster the confidence of the supplicant, an undesirable state of affairs. But the Byzantine Count had been nearly imperturbable last time, and very hard to read. Perhaps Emeric would get more from the escort's expressions.

They filed in. The effects of seeing the impaled men just outside of the windows were most satisfactory. On three of the five, anyway. Count Dimetos calmly looked away. The fifth man, the blond one-unusual, that hair color, in a Byzantine-didn't even blink or give the dying men a second glance. He bowed, along with the Count. Two of the others forgot to bow and had to be prodded to it.

Emeric's curiosity and caution were aroused immediately by the indifferent one. There was something very odd about that blond man. It made Emeric suspicious.

But he had no intention of revealing anything. Instead, Emeric nodded slightly, barely acknowledging the respectful bows.