Poul Anderson - A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

He leaned forward, snapped a switch. “Let’s try for news.”

“The next regular ’cast is in about half an hour,” Kossara said in a tiny voice, “if that hasn’t changed too.”

He tuned in the station she named. Ballet dancers moved to cruelly happy music. He held her close and murmured.

A woman’s countenance threw the program out. Terror distorted it. “Attention!” she screeched. “Special broadcast! Emergency! We have just received word from a spokesman of the Zamok—officers of the Imperial Navy have arrested Gospodar Miyatovich for high treason. Citizens are required to remain calm and orderly. Those who disobey can be shot. And … and weather satellites report a nuclear explosion in the Dubina Dolyina area—neighborhood of the voivode’s residence—attempts to phone there have failed. The voivode was, is … the Gospodar’s brother-in-law … No announcement about whether he was trying to rebel or—Stay calm! Don’t move till we know more! Ex-except … the city police office just called in—blast shelters will be open to those who wish to enter. I repeat, blast shelters will be open—”

Repetition raved on for minutes. Beneath it, Flandry snarled, “If ever they hope to provoke their war, they’ve reckoned this is their last and maybe their best chance.”

The newsroom vanished. “Important recorded announcement,” said a man in Dennitzan uniform. “A dangerous agent of Merseia is at large in Zorkagrad or vicinity.” What must be a portrait from some xenological archive, since it was not of Chives, flashed onto the screen. “He landed eight days ago, posing as a peaceful traveler. Four days ago” (the computer must redub every 18.8 hours) “he was identified, but fought his way free of arrest and disappeared. He is of this species, generally known as Shalmuan. When last seen he wore a white kilt and had taken a blaster from a patrolman after injuring the entire squad. I repeat, your government identifies him as a Merseian secret agent, extremely dangerous because of his mission as well as his person. If you see him, do not take risks. Above all, do not try talking with him. If he cannot safely be killed, report the sighting to your nearest military post. A reward of 10,000 gold dinars is offered for information leading to his death or capture. Dead or alive, he himself is worth a reward of 50,000—”

Air hissed between Kossara’s teeth. Flandry sat moveless for minutes before he said stonily, “That’s how. Somebody, in some fashion, recognized Chives. That meant I was around, and most likely you. That meant—any contact between your family and the Gospodar—yes.”

Kossara wept anew, in sorrow and in rage.

Yet at the end it was she who lifted her head and said, hoarse but level-toned, “I’ve thought of where we might go, Dominic, and what we might try to do.”

Clouds and a loud raw wind had blown in across the ocean. Morning along the Obala, the east coast of Rodna, was winterlike, sky the color of lead, sea the colors of iron and gunmetal. But neither sky nor sea was quiet. Beneath the overcast a thin smoky wrack went flying; surf cannonaded and exploded on reefs and beaches.

All Nanteiwon boats were in, big solid hulls moored behind the jetty or tied at the wharf. Above the dunes the fisher village huddled. Each house was long and wide as an ychan family needed, timbers tarred black, pillars that upheld the porch carved and brightly painted with ancestral symbols, blue-begrown sod roof cable-anchored against hurricanes, a spacious and sturdy sight. But there were not many houses. Beyond them reached the flatlands the dwellers cultivated, fields harvested bare and brown, trees a-toss by roadsides, on the horizon a vague darkening which betokened the ringwall of the Kazan. The air smelled of salt and distances.

Inside the home of Ywodh were warmth, sun-imitating fluorescents, musky odor of bodies, growls to drown out the piping at the windows. Some forty males had crowded between the frescoed walls of the mootroom, while more spilled throughout the building. They wore their common garb, tunic in bright colors thrown over sinewy green frame and secured by a belt which held the knuckleduster knife. But this was no common occasion. Perched on tails and feet, muscles knotted, they stared at the three on the honor-dais.

Two were human. One they knew well, Kossara Vymezal. She used to come here often with Trohdwyr, brother to Khwent, Yffal, drowned Qythwy … How weary she looked. The other was a tall man who bore a mustache, frosted brown hair, eyes the hue of today’s heaven.

Ywodh, Hand of the Vach Anochrin, steadcaptain of Nanteiwon, raised his arms. “Silence!” he called. “Hark.” When he had his desire, he brought his gaunt, scarred head forward and told them:

“You have now heard of the outrages done and the lies proclaimed. Between dawn, when I asked you to keep ashore today, and our meeting here, I was in phonetalk up and down the Obala. Not an ychan leader but swore us aid. We know what Merseian rule would bring.

“Let us know, too, how empty of hope is a mere rebellion against rebellion. We have boats, civilian aircars, sporting guns; a revolutionary government would have military flyers and armored groundcars, spacecraft, missiles, energy weapons, gases, combat shielding. The plotters have ignored us partly because they took for granted we care little about a change of human overlords and might welcome Merseians—untrue—but mainly because they see us as well-nigh powerless against their crews—true.

“Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can be forestalled. Yet we’ve netted a flailfish. We need care as much as courage.

“To most of us, what’s gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night’s tale of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We’d have stood bewildered until too late for anything—this was intended—had not Kossara Vymezal and Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.

“The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more knowledge.

“In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwish-ers, who know exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them, knowing what we do.

“This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you: Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to move.”

Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.

Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living thing that did.

Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.

I dare not ask for more. Amen.

Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so cold.

Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots. Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred sight of autumn fields, rattling and clicking. Waves thundered in, rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.