Robert Asprin - Wartorn - Resurrection

However, Raven was overdue from her mission. Dardas frowned and stepped out of his tent. He surveyed the camp, seeing that the troops were indeed prepared to move put whenever the word came. Dardas didn't know what exactly would happen when those portals were locked open, but he wanted his army ready to move, in any direction.

He drew in the air. Even this was still exciting, the simple act of breathing. He had to stay alive. He needed someone like that wizard Kumbat on hand, at his personal beck and call, for whenever death tried to reclaim him. Matokin's greatest hold over him was the unspoken threat of withholding those rejuvenation spells that prolonged the resurrection magic that had brought him back to life.

It was a complex game, but his plans were falling into place, neatly.

They had bivouacked in a shallow valley. Spotters and pickets guarded the ridges. Nothing was going to sneak up on his army.

Finally, he saw Raven striding across the grounds toward his pavilion. She moved with a greater confidence these days, he noted. It was appealing. Perhaps he would find the time to bed her one of these days.

She saluted when she reached him. "General Weisel."

"Raven," he nodded. They should probably go inside for her report, but he was enjoying the feel of the waning day's breeze on his face too much. "What is the word?"

The girl looked somewhat troubled, he saw. "I contacted three of the four scouting parties, sir," she said. "The Far Movement mages will all comply with your orders when they receive the signal."

"And the fourth party?" he asked.

Raven shook her head. "None of the Far Speak mages was able to make contact. The Far Speak wizard assigned to the fourth squad simply did not respond. Without him to correlate the location, there was simply no way to transport there." She looked rather pale.

Dardas considered. "Well, scouting parties get lost. It is all a part of warfare." Any number of mishaps might have befallen the squad.

"Yes, General."

He peered closely at her. "But there's something further disturbing you, Raven. Am I right?"

"It's ... nothing, sir."

"I think not. By now, girl, you surely realize that I value you. I've made you an officer. I've entrusted you with important secrets." He moved a step nearer to her. "You must be able to confide in me." He spoke this last in a tone that was like a purr. It was better to charm her than to order her to divulge.

Raven bit her lip, then said, "I encountered some difficulty while I was being Far Moved."

"Difficulty?"

"Yes, General." She explained. It was a strange little tale about hearing voices, a whole host of them, closing in around her while she was in transit through the milky, limbo world of the portals.

"Interesting," he said, genuinely intrigued.

Voices. No doubt the voices of that reality's inhabitants—presuming that Raven hadn't imagined the whole thing. He doubted that, though. She was made of cooler stuff.

"Fergon!" Dardas called.

The aide appeared at once, waiting attentively for Dardas's orders. But there was a lingering uneasiness on the young officer's face. Yes, thought Dardas. Something would definitely have to be done about this one. It could wait though.

"Assemble the senior staff. And get me a Far Speak mage who can communicate with our scouts."

"Yes, General Weisel." Fergon was gone.

"In a few moments, I'll give the signal." Dardas turned once more to Raven. "Exciting, isn't it?"

"Yes, General, it is." Color was returning to her full cheeks. Her breasts were rising and falling as her breath quickened.

This one understood how arousing a good war could be, Dardas thought with a silent cackle. On impulse, he reached out a hand and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. Her flesh was smooth, young.

Raven froze, then flushed heavily.

The senior staff was gathering around the front of Dardas's tent. He dropped his hand. A mage in dark robes came forward.

Now it was time to bring forth onto this Isthmus a whole new breed of warfare, thought Dardas.

I don't think I want to be remembered as the madman who allowed the dead to roam free into this world.

A huge shock went through him. This was Weisel's voice in his head. Impossible!

More impossibly, Dardas suddenly felt resistance when he tried to move his limbs. It was like someone was pulling them in another direction.

I think you have abused my hospitality long enough.

With that, Dardas felt an overwhelming mental force closing in around his consciousness, strangling him, suffocating him.

It's time you gave me back what you've borrowed.

With a last surge of effort, Dardas forced open his mouth to give the order to the mage. Whatever else happened, his plan would go ahead.

THE GARRISON WANTED blood.

Aquint knew that Colonel Jesile was basically a reasonable man, a fair governor of Callah. But one of his own men had been murdered, clubbed brutally to death, apparently by one of the very people that Aquint had been sent here to investigate.

There was unrest in Callah, and that murder indicated that there were rebels.

Like it or not, Aquint had to act like an Internal Security Corps agent. But since that job wasn't too well defined he'd been relying on his instincts, his baser ones. In Sook, he had solved the mystery of the disappearing goods from the quartermaster warehouse simply by seeing the operation from the eyes of the pilferers.

It was something else to try to think like a rebel. But again he'd had some success.

Colonel Jesile had put him on to finding whoever was responsible for the counterfeiting scheme that had been uncovered. Aquint had personally made a few inquiries among old acquaintances and vendors in the marketplaces, people who would never have talked to anybody but a fellow Callahan, though it took some persuading to convince a few that he was still a Callahan, despite his front of being a wounded soldier on leave. Just about everyone who had a reason to know considered Slydis the best copyist in the city.

Aquint paid the dwarf scribe a visit, finding on the premises of his workshop the ingenious stamps he'd made for duplicating the Felk scrip. Simple, right?

Not quite. Slydis, under questioning, confessed readily to an accomplice. Aquint had his doubts. One way to take heat off yourself was to direct it toward somebody else, even if that somebody didn't actually exist. Slydis, however, provided a good physical description of the man, and even the location of his lodgings. It seemed the dwarf copyist had had the man followed home after one of his visits to the workshop. Probably he'd done so to ensure that if he was ever caught, he would not be solely blamed for the counterfeiting operation.

Slydis had confessed to printing unbelievable amounts of fake money. Gods knew how much he and the other man he'd implicated had put into circulation. That money made all the scrip in Callah essentially worthless. Issuing it in the first place had been a dubious experiment, Aquint thought. Then again, it wasn't his problem, it was Jesile's.

Slydis had admitted to no other criminal activities, with one exception. He had also manufactured a civilian travel pass for his partner.

The Felk governor was understandably furious. He sent soldiers to arrest this other man, but he had fled the scene, eluding capture and murdering a soldier in the process. Now he was at large somewhere in Callah. They had no name for this man, only Slydis's description. In his room they had found only one unusual possession, a musical instrument, a vox-mellifluous.

Another matter had arisen during all this turmoil.

Somebody in the Governor's Office had finally noticed the pattern of vandalism in the reports that Aquint had first requested upon arrival in the city.