“Impressive,” he said to her. “I’ve never seen one before, except in the picture books and on gas station signs, but I guess they had to exist somewhere around Husaquahr. Everything else does.”
“That is the sort of steed we need for a journey such as ours, Master,” she noted. “Far better to have wings, but if we cannot, that would do.”
He agreed with that. He had actually considered making time by traveling during these three nights of the moon as a Kauri, but Kauris weren’t very strong, and they could have taken little with them—nor, indeed, could any of them have so much as touched Irving. The iron in the great sword would have burned both him and Mia severely and would have killed Marge.
Still, he wondered how many of the flying horses were around here and if they served a primary military function. Many of the more experienced officers and noncoms here would have been on the losing side at Sorrow’s Gorge, and he didn’t remember any there.
The door opened behind them, and he and Mia arose and turned, expecting to see the office flunky calling them in. Instead, it was the Master of the Dead himself, followed by his Bentar flunky, the latter looking much the worse for wear. Joe knelt, and took his sword, still in its scabbard, and touched the hilt to his forehead in salute.
“Come, come! Get up, sir!” the sorcerer said, the wind catching and rippling his black robes. “I’m not the king, and it’s a beautiful day.” He breathed in and out several times. “Good, fresh air and sunshine. I get so little of it these days that I want to savor it when I can. You are…?”
“Cochise, my lord,” he responded. “Cochise of Tsipry.”
“Ah! You are Valisandran by birth, then.”
“Yes, my lord, by birth but not for a very long time. I was orphaned young. There was a sickness that went through my tribe, and many of the young children were sent south in hopes of avoiding it. Truly, I have not been back since, which is one of the reasons for this journey.”
“Hmmm… Interesting.” He turned to the aide. “Any Tsipry here?”
The Bentar shook its head negatively. “No, my lord.”
“You seem certain of that.”
“My people may be the sickness he recalls as a child. The artu of the Bentar had a bit of a disagreement with them fifteen or twenty years back. I remember it well; I was very young at the time. I would say that there are very few Tsipry anywhere now, sir, and most would be like this one.”
Always nice to have your inquisitors back up your alibis, Joe thought.
Sugasto cleared his throat. “I see. Sorry to bring up old wounds on such a pretty day. Does the colonel’s presence here trigger hostile feelings?”
“No, my lord,” Joe responded smoothly. “It is a sad chapter because it was personal, but I have been in the position of his people in other cases, so I cannot judge. I fought for Valisandra and the Baron alongside his people as well as my own at Sorrow’s Gorge.”
“Indeed? I was there myself, but I don’t recall you.”
“Uh, pardon, sir, but I do not recall you there, either, but it was a very big battle.”
“Uh, yes,” Sugasto admitted. “And I was a horse of a different color there, at that.”
A black stallion, if memory serves, Joe thought, but he said nothing.
“How is your health today?” the sorcerer asked him.
“Better, sir, but I am still being careful today while my full strength returns. Once my body expelled the offending food, I could sleep.”
“Come, walk with me a bit in this nice air,” the sorcerer invited. “I was going to offer a complete cure, but it seems you don’t need such services. The sun and fresh air aid recuperation better than most other things anyway. Stroll with me, and we’ll reminisce a bit as two old comrades at arms meeting once again.”
And that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Joe knew, of course, that this was also a test, but he couldn’t figure out why Sugasto was being, both so friendly and so conventional in his interrogation. But, of course, he was a master sorcerer, and he would assume that anybody from Ruddygore had been as blocked as he’d block his own people from enemy powers.
Since Joe had indeed fought at Sorrow’s Gorge, it was an easy test to pass.
They walked along, the Bentar, then Mia following, and Joe got almost as much of a kick out of the reactions of the folks they encountered as they walked as Sugasto obviously did.
“So, how come you aren’t on our team now?” The sorcerer asked at last “We can always use good men like you.”
“I hope my lord doesn’t take offense,” Joe responded, “but I am a professional mercenary. I chose the Baron back then not out of old loyalties to king and country, but because I like the work and, if you are on the winning side, it pays well. The Baron lost.”
“Only because of that damned dragon and some treachery on the part of the Council.”
“Indeed, it looked to me at the time like a can’t-lose situation. Since then, I have taken only small commissions from stable local authorities, and done, I admit, some less than honest work between jobs. The girl, there, for example, was booty from a little pirating I did downriver.”
“And in spite of all this, you don’t think we’ll win?”
He shrugged. “It appears as impressive as before, and I have heard of your legion of the dead, which would have been quite useful in the old days, and your powers are legendary. But the Baron was the best in his day, yet not a good gambler in the end. His less than dependable political maneuverings, as you mention, were part of his undoing, and he allowed himself to be beaten by a lesser power who was better at psychology.”
Sugasto stopped and looked at the mercenary with some respect. “That’s an excellent analysis. It is a reason why Boquillas works for me now. Did you know that?”
“No, my lord. I thought he was dead.”
“Not dead, no. Different, I’ll allow, but still with that amazing mind. I am not even certain that Boquillas can die. Consider, he has rejected and fought against Heaven, and he has betrayed Hell. When the soul has no refuge, it remains. The only relevant fact is that I have that mind and that knowledge at my disposal because there’s nowhere else to go. As to the rest, we can fight if we have to, and Ruddygore, alone, won’t find me the sort of ivory tower academic the Baron was—I know him far too well. But I prefer imagination first. I can say nothing more at this time, but if my plan works, we can conquer without war and perhaps without even a face-off, since the chilled livers of the Council would back any victory already won. There would be localized fighting, resistance, and pacification, of course, but no great war.”
“This interests me,” Joe told him, “but what if your plan fails?”
“Then tactics change. We lose nothing. That is the beauty of it. Uh—by the way, speaking of Ruddygore, how does it happen that your girl has one of his rings in her nose?”
He’d thought long and hard about that question. “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” he responded. “And I’m afraid you’d have to ask her original owner in Hell. I had no idea whose it was, only that she’s mine now.”
“Ah, that explains it, then. The old fart always was a real hypocrite. Have you ever met him?”
“Once, my lord. He was an impressive sort of man, as I recall.”
“Indeed he can be that. He could have ruled all Husaquahr and probably would have, had he not that trick of escaping into the Other World for his pleasures. It diverted him from greatness into moralizing and preaching, only it is he who determined what is good or bad according to his present moods. To him, this is all just a game, and everyone other than himself is just a game piece, to be toyed with, played with, even sacrificed. He is so ancient now and has played these games so long that he plays now for the game’s sake, without any goals or purposes in mind. I could never accept that sort of thinking. One plays a game to win. Don’t you agree?”