Harry Turtledove - Sentry Peak

“Not bloody likely!” Hesmucet exclaimed. “How would you replace a firepot or a glideway, for instance?”

“I don’t know, not off the top of my head,” Alva admitted, “but I’d bet we could do it if we set our minds to trying.”

“Easy enough for you to say when you haven’t got anything riding on it,” Hesmucet told him. “Next thing you know, you’ll say you could make light without fire or magic, or else that you could capture sounds out of the air without a crystal ball.”

“It might be interesting to try,” Alva said in thoughtful tones.

Hesmucet cursed under his breath. He’d succeeded in distracting the mage, which was the last thing he needed. The image of the Lion God above the enemy was fading, fraying. “You might want to fix that up,” he suggested.

“No, no point to it,” Alva said. “They’ve figured out it’s not real. I’ll let their mages tear at it for a while. As long as they’re doing that, they won’t make any mischief of their own. I’ll come up with something else in the meantime.”

Make them respond-don’t respond to what they’re up to , Hesmucet thought. General Bart had said the same thing.

“You might make a general one day,” Hesmucet told Alva.

“Not likely.” The young mage didn’t try to hide his annoyance. “The north treats its wizards much better than we do.”

“You were the one who pointed out there are reasons for that,” Hesmucet said. “Maybe you would have done better to stay with the mechanic arts.”

“Maybe I would have,” Alva said. “But it’s rather too late to worry about that now, wouldn’t you say? I’ve got work to do, even if it’s work that won’t ever get me fancy epaulets.”

What sort of work he had in mind became evident in short order, for lightning bolts crashed down onto King Geoffrey’s men on Funnel Hill from out of the clear sky. Unlike the manifestation of the Lion God that had appeared a few minutes before, the lightnings were unquestionably real.

When Hesmucet remarked on that, Alva nodded and smiled as if he were a clever child. “That’s the idea, sir. You mix the real and the illusions together till nobody on the other side is sure which is which. Then the enemy has to test everything, and you can give him some nasty surprises.”

“You’re a menace, do you know that?” Hesmucet said. “All I can tell you is, I’m gods-damned glad you’re on our side. You’d be worth as much to the traitors as Count Thraxton, I think.”

He meant it as a compliment. Alva took it as an insult. “That old foof? He’s not so much of a much.”

“He’s very strong,” Hesmucet said. “If you don’t believe me, go ask General Guildenstern. But you’ll have to go a long way to ask him, because he’ll be sent off to fight the wild blonds out on the steppes if he’s lucky enough to stay in the army. Thraxton wrecked his career, and the bastard came within an eyelash of wrecking his whole army. If Doubting George hadn’t held on, there at Merkle’s Hill…”

When Alva answered, Hesmucet doubted his words had anything to do with anything: “Sir, have you ever seen a rhinoceros?”

“Yes, a time or two, in zoological parks,” Hesmucet said, too surprised not to give back the truth. “So what?”

“A rhinoceros is a great big strong beast with a pointed horn, right?” Alva said, and Hesmucet had to nod. The young mage went on, “And most of the time, it isn’t dangerous at all, because it can’t see past its own ears. No matter how strong it is, it hasn’t got any brains to speak of, either. Most of the time, it’ll charge in the wrong direction. Every once in a while, it’ll squash something flat, but not very often. That’s Thraxton, sir. That isn’t me.”

“No, I can see that,” Hesmucet said, doing his best not to laugh out loud. “You’re practicing to be a viper.”

“That I like,” Alva said. “That suits me fine. I’ll stay by the edge of the trail and bite from ambush-and what I bite will die.”

“Splendid.” Hesmucet pointed toward the top of Funnel Hill. “What do you say to biting some more of those traitors? We may take the hill yet.” By now, though, the sun was sinking toward the western horizon. Even if his men did take Funnel Hill-which struck him as unlikely, despite his bold words-they wouldn’t be able to turn and move on Proselytizers’ Rise from the flank, which had been the point of the attack in the first place.

Maybe Alva saw the same thing. Maybe not-he wasn’t a general, only a kid with more brains than he knew what to do with. He said, “I’ll try my best, sir.”

His best proved hair-raisingly good, even for Lieutenant General Hesmucet, who was, as he’d said, on the same side. Flames suddenly sprang into being all along the northerners’ lines, as if one of the hotter hells had decided to take up residence on earth for a while. They can’t be real… can they? Hesmucet thought.

He had to nerve himself before asking Alva. Partly, that was not wanting to distract the sorcerer. Partly, it was… Hesmucet would have hesitated to call it fear, but he would have hesitated to call it anything else, either.

When at last he did put the question to the mage, Alva smiled an unpleasant smile. “If you have trouble telling, sir, think how much more trouble the traitors must have. Often enough, an illusion you can’t tell from the real thing is as good as the real thing.”

Hesmucet nodded. He’d heard the like from other sorcerers, too. But he said, “I want a straight answer, if you don’t mind.”

“And if I do?” But Alva seemed to think twice about the wisdom of twitting a fierce-faced lieutenant general. “Well, sir, to tell you the truth, most of it’s illusion. Most, but not quite all. Some of the traitors up there on the hillside are really roasting, and that makes them all thoughtful.”

“I can see how it would,” Hesmucet said. “It’d make me thoughtful, that’s for gods-damned sure. Now-what can they do about it?”

“Cook,” Alva said happily. Hesmucet laughed.

But Thraxton the Braggart wasn’t the only mage the northerners had. Before long, the flames faded. Hesmucet wondered how many men they’d seared. Not enough for his purposes: he saw that quite soon. Shouting King Avram’s name, his own men charged the enemy’s trenches on Funnel Hill. They charged-and, not for the first time that day, they were driven off with heavy loss.

Now Alva sounded indignant: “Why can’t the traitors just panic and flee?”

“Because they’re Detinans, same as we are,” Hesmucet answered, “and because they’re a pack of stubborn bastards, too, maybe even more than we are. Would you like to try to stand up to the might of most of the kingdom when all you had to help you was the north?”

“I never thought about it like that, sir,” Alva said. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re traitors, and that’s all there is to it.”

“Oh, they’re traitors, all right,” Hesmucet said. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not brave men. I don’t think I’ve ever seen braver.”

“Or fighting for a worse cause,” Alva remarked.

“Splitting the kingdom, you mean? Of course,” Hesmucet said. Alva stirred beside him. Before the mage could speak, Hesmucet went on, “If you aim to talk about the blonds, I’m going to tell you something first. What I’m going to tell you is, I don’t much care about them one way or the other. If you want to think they’ll make good Detinans, go ahead. I have my doubts. But I obey my king, and my king is King Avram. I haven’t got any doubts at all about that.”

Alva eyed him as if he’d never seen him before. “You are a very… peculiar man, aren’t you, sir?”