Dan Chernenko - The Scepter_s Return

And her fear made Lanius remember the disasters that had overtaken other Avornan armies in years gone by when they tried to campaign south of the Stura. "I hope not," was all he could tell her.

"It would be terrible if they did!" Fulca exclaimed. "Terrible!"

"You're right. It would," Lanius agreed gravely. "And it would be terrible for the whole kingdom, not just for Otus."

"Oh!" Fulca filled the word with more surprise than most people could pack into it. "I hadn't even thought of that."

If someone normal since birth had said such a thing, Lanius would have laughed at her, and not in a kind way, either. He forgave Fulca more readily; she had an excuse for worrying first about what concerned her most intimately. "The world is a bigger place than you know," he said, as he might have to a child.

Fulca nodded seriously, in a way no child would have. "Yes, Your Majesty. It looks that way."

Now – was the world big enough to include a courier bringing a new dispatch from Grus? For the next couple of days, it did not seem as though it was. The more time that went by, the more Lanius worried. When a courier did come up out of the south, the king all but tackled him. "Is all well with the army?" he demanded.

The courier only shrugged and handed him the message tube he carried. "This will tell you better than I can, Your Majesty," he replied. "I don't know what it says. I just rode the last stage of the journey."

"Oh." By contrast with Fulca, Lanius filled the little word with self-reproach. "Yes, of course."

He opened the tube, drew out the letter, and broke the seal. It was, he saw, Grus', which showed a river-galley prow; at least the other king still lived. He unrolled the parchment and began to read. He didn't know he'd made a sound until the courier asked, "Is everything all right?"

"Yes – better than all right, in fact," the king said. "A victory – a big victory."

"Ah. That's good news." The man's grin held more than a little relief. Stories often spoke of kings who punished messengers bearing bad news. Lanius had never found anything in the archives that said any of those stories were true, but that didn't stop people – and especially couriers – from believing them. A king could punish a courier for bad news; no doubt of that.

Lanius hoped he wasn't the sort of king who would, but how was a courier supposed to be sure of that?

Stories also spoke of kings who rewarded messengers bearing good news. Lanius fumbled in the pouch he wore on his belt. Kings didn't need to spend money very often, so he wasn't sure what he had in there. His fingers closed on a coin. He drew it out. It was a copper. That wouldn't do. He sneaked it back into the pouch and tried again. The next coin he found felt smoother between his thumb and forefinger, which seemed promising. When he pulled it out, it proved to be a goldpiece. That was what he wanted. With a certain amount of relief in his own smile, he handed it to the courier. "This for what the letter holds."

"Thank you very much, Your Majesty!" The man bowed himself almost double. Was he really as delighted as he looked? If he was, Lanius had given him too much. The king shrugged – he couldn't take it back now and substitute half as much in silver.

The courier bowed again and hurried away. Maybe he feared the king would try to get back some of what he had given. Lanius read through Grus' letter again. The Menteshe have seen once more that they cannot stand against us, the other king wrote. If all goes as we hope and as it now appears, the way to Yozgat lies open.

Lanius' eyes went back over that last clause, not because he hadn't understood it but because he liked it so much. The way to Yozgat lies open. Every Avornan ruler for centuries had dreamed of writing a sentence like that. Now Grus, about the least legitimate ruler Avornis had seen since the loss of the Scepter (with the possible exception of the jumped-up brigand who'd founded Lanius' dynasty), had actually done it.

And what would happen if the Avornan army reached the walls of Yozgat? Why, then, Lanius thought, I'll write Grus and…

"What have you got there?" asked someone behind the king.

He jumped and turned. There stood Ortalis, a grin on his face because he'd startled Lanius. "It's a letter from your father," Lanius said.

"Oh." Ortalis' grin disappeared. "Well, what does he say?"

"He's beaten the Menteshe south of the Zabat River, where he stopped last fall," Lanius answered. "He's beaten them, and the way to Yozgat lies open." Yes, he did like the sound of that.

"Good, I suppose." Ortalis sounded much less impressed. Lanius wondered why, but not for long. The only thing Grus could do to make Ortalis happy was drop dead.

When Grus first took the crown, Lanius had felt the same way, though his reasons were more personal than political. Not anymore. Now

… Now things between him and Grus were – not so bad. The two of them were going in the same direction, anyhow. He didn't waste time trying to explain that to Ortalis, who wasn't. He said, "It's an important victory," and let it go at that.

Grus munched on dates candied in honey. He couldn't decide if they were the most delicious things he'd ever eaten or just the most cloying. Hirundo and Pterocles both licked honey and sticky bits of date from their fingers. Grus hesitated only a moment before imitating them. He didn't know what local manners said about eating dates, but he did know his fingers were sticking together.

"We ought to import these," Pterocles said – he evidently liked them.

"Now maybe we will," Grus answered. "Have to think up a fancier name than 'dates,' " Hirundo said. "Have to think up a name that really makes people want to go out and spend their silver. How about something like 'sugarfruit'?"

"How about 'winefruit'?" Pterocles said. "They do make wine from them."

"Have you tasted it?" Grus made a face. "It's thick and it's sweet and it's nasty."

"I didn't mind it that much," the wizard said. "I don't think it's up to what we make from grapes, but it's not bad." His sweet tooth had to be stronger than Grus'.

"And even if date wine is the foulest stuff this side of mule piss, who cares?" Hirundo said cheerfully. "Nobody north of the Stura's going to know. A lot of the time, what things seem like is more important than what they really are."

"I don't know about that," Grus said.

"Any wizard will tell you it's true," Pterocles said. "Illusion, appearance, belief.. They're the things that matter. How can you say for sure what's real, anyhow?"

"Hrmm,'' Grus said – a discontented rumble down deep in his throat. The flickering lamplight and the smell of hot olive oil from the lamps inside his pavilion were real. So was the buzz of the mosquitoes that got in despite the netting in front of the flap. So were the pressure on his backside from the stool where he perched and the ache in his thighs from another day in the saddle. He ate another date and spat out the seed. The taste was real, too, and so was the way the honey coated the inside of his mouth.

But then Hirundo said, "A lot of spells are nothing but illusion, aren't they?"

"Not quite nothing but," Pterocles answered, "but illusion's no small part of them. A lot of spells make illusions turn real."

"How can you say for sure what's real?" Grus enjoyed throwing Pterocles' words back at him. He enjoyed it even more when the wizard turned red and spluttered and didn't answer.

"I'll tell you what I want to be real," Hirundo said. "I want one more good victory against the Menteshe to be real before we get to Yozgat. If we beat them again – do a proper job of beating them, I mean – they won't be so hot to come breathing down our necks."

"Do you want to provoke them into attacking us, then?" Grus asked. "Can we set an ambush for them?"