„That's more like what I want, Michael. Why couldn't you tell me before? Why do I have to get you mad to pry anything out of you?"
Trebilcock did not respond.
„How far can we push Hsung?"
„He has orders to get along, but they're filled with ifs, ands, and buts. Don't push him. He has the proconsular power. He just can't invade Kavelin without Kuo's okay."
„Meaning he can stir up all the trouble he wants if he doesn't use his own troops, eh?"
„Meaning exactly that."
„Sounds like your friend is sending a message saying leave us alone and we'll leave you alone."
„You could look at it that way."
„And you're still provoking the Throyen partisans."
„No. I'm maintaining contact. And that's all. We might need them someday. They give me information because they hope we'll support them. They set up my inside man for me. Whatever else they do, they do on their own."
There was the slightest of tremors in Michael's voice. Ragnarson did not think it was anger. Trebilcock was holding back.
He shifted tacks. „What's this about Mist?"
Trebilcock sensed that his interest was not casual. „It won't amount to anything. That sort of thing's gone on since she got here. There'll always be cliques that want her for a figurehead."
„Wanting and getting aren't the same thing. She'd never settle for anything less than the imperial power. What did you think of the wizard today? Behaving a little strange?"
Trebilcock stared at the woods. „When isn't he strange?"
„Out of character. Throwing scowls around at people. Like trying to intimidate. Like saying if you open your mouth I'm going to give you a case of the miseries to last you the rest of your life."
„You'd have to ask him about it. I did catch something between him and Mist."
„I talked. He didn't have anything to say."
Michael shrugged.
„Reason suggests a problem would not be political. Varthlokkur doesn't get into those games. It would be something personal. And with him personal means Nepanthe. His great obsession."
Centuries ago the child who would become Varthlokkur had watched his mother burn at the command of the wizards of Ilkazar. The child fled into the Dread Empire and learned sorcery at the knees of Shinsan's then tyrants, Yo Hsi and Nu Li Hsi. He had come forth from the shadow a man of vengeance and had pulled the old empire down. And when he was done he had discovered he had nothing more for which to live. Nothing except a presentiment that one day a woman would be born that he would love. If he would wait.
Waiting had become more agony than joy, for the woman, when the time came, fell in love with another man. A man who, as the fates snickered, proved to be Varthlokkur's own son by a brief earlier, loveless marriage.
The woman was Nepanthe and the man Mocker, and they, before Mocker's death at Ragnarson's hand, had brought into the world a single son, Ethrian, who had fallen into the hands of enemies during the Great Eastern Wars and not been heard of again, except as the lever by which the Pracchia had compelled Mocker to attempt assassinat ing Ragnarson.
Ethrian. It was a name accursed.
The man who had fathered the wizard had been named Ethrian and he had been the last emperor of Ilkazar. The woman had named her child for the father, though he had shed the name upon entering the Dread Empire. And he, in his turn, had named his son Ethrian, though the child was but a babe when carried off from his parents and did not know he bore the name till later years, when he had borne the Mocker sobriquet too long to change... .
Varthlokkur had, at last, attained his dream after Mock er's death and the fourth Ethrian's disappearance, four centuries of patience rewarded. He was obsessed with the woman, and dreadfully frightened of losing what had been so difficult to obtain.
And she? Perhaps she loved him. But she was a strange and closed and lonesome person even in a crowd, even with sworn friends, for the winds of doom sweeping the world had stolen from her everything she cherished. The last of her many brothers, Valther, Mist's husband, had fallen at Palmisano. And the war had claimed her only son. And now she had a second child on the way and her mind was filled with a poisonous dread of what price fate would now demand. ...
Very softly, Michael Trebilcock said, „There is only the hint of a ghost of a rumor. My source in Throyes speaks only of matters concerning his own goals, not of Shinsan's greater tribulations. But there is something happening in the far east. Something that has drenched the entire Tervola class in dread yet which they will not discuss even among themselves. It seems to be something they fear as much, or more, than war with Matayanga. Yet the only token of it I have been able to unearth yet is a name or title. The
Deliverer. Don't ask! I don't know."
„But that's what has the wizard all cockeyed?"
„I don't know that. But I suspect it."
„And he and Mist know more than they are willing to say."
Trebilcock let one of his rare chuckles escape. „We all know more than we are willing to tell. About anything. Even you."
Bragi considered ways to pursue the matter, possibly to dig out something Michael did not know he knew, but a grand hoot and holler broke out about a quarter mile away, somewhat toward the Guards' castle.
„Damn!" Bragi swore. „Know what they did? Decided to stick to their plan. Come on." He charged through the woods. Michael bounced along in his wake. In minutes Ragnarson was puffing like a wounded ox.
They joined several teammates atop a grassy slope over looking a free-for-all. Twenty-five Panthers surrounded the Guards' balls. A dozen Guards were trying to break their formation.
„Everybody get down," Bragi told the half dozen men around him. „Out of sight." He heard teammates flounder ing through the brush. Those idiots from the deep line had left their positions. „We'll hit them when they get up here." He flung himself down in the grass.
Black patches swam before his eyes. He could not breath deeply or fast enough.
The ruckus rolled closer. Bragi peeked. Not long. More men joined him. „Wait till I go," he told them. „Give me a couple steps, then follow me."
The Panthers had formed a wedge. Guards whooped around them like puppies yapping at a herd of cattle.
A few feet more. Now. Bragi flung himself forward, rolled into the shins of the leading Panthers. He took a half dozen down.
He heard Michael howl. He watched the lean, pale man sail into the pack. Panthers began flying out of the mob.
Bragi writhed and cursed. Somebody was twisting his arm. There was a boot under his chin. The cord of thrashing limbs atop him was growing higher.
He heard Slugbait's ecstatic haroo. „I got one!" A portion of the melee thundered back downhill and into the woods, the Panthers baying like bloodhounds.
Two Panther ballcarriers broke loose and raced for their castle. The main whoop and holler headed that way.
Ragnarson slithered out of the pile and tackled another ball carrier. Michael grabbed his burden and did a quiet fade into the woods. Bragi yelled at and pummeled his teammates, trying to get them to eject a few more Panthers from the field.
The hulabaloo died away. Both teams faded into the woods. Panther victory horns sounded twice despite their being down so many players. From the Guards castle there was nothing but a dreary hoot indicating that one Guard ball had found its way home.
There was a lot of derisive noise from the Panther end, where their ousted players waited under the watchful eye of the goal judge.