‘Obscurist crap,’ someone replied. ‘All this talk about something being corrupted implies there’s something to corrupt, an Obscure Design. If there’s a trend, it’s just part of the ordinary trend of human nature, just like Sten said a moment ago.’
‘Ah, yes,’ someone else objected, ‘but a supervening trend, a trend that’s bigger and stronger than just ordinary motivation, because it pushes people around, makes them do what they otherwise wouldn’t have done.’
‘In other words,’ Mogre said, ‘further economising on the number of possible alternatives. Pure Dormand. The State rests.’
‘Talking of which,’ said one of the council, standing up and stifling a yawn, ‘what’s good enough for the State’s good enough for me. You lot may be able to stay up all night and fight a battle next day, but I need my eight hours. Oh, and a word of advice: make sure Sten wins the argument, unless you want to find yourself posted in the front rank tomorrow.’
‘Funny you should mention that,’ Mogre said.
The departing councillor stared at him; there was a little twinkle of pure fear in his eyes. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said he. ‘Sten, that’s not funny.’
There was a long moment of silence; then Mogre smiled and said, ‘Of course I’m joking, Hain. This time, at any rate. See you in the morning.’ The circle around the small brass brazier had gone rather quiet, but Mogre didn’t appear to have noticed any change in mood. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘where he’d got to? Ah, yes-’
Revision. Ack.
Machaera looked up at the guttering candle, then back at the page in front of her. Sometimes a momentary break in eye contact with the book helped jolt her out of drowsiness. This time it didn’t look like it had worked. She’d read the same twenty lines at least five times now, and still it didn’t mean anything to her.
She tried again.
Although, in refuting the foolish and frivolous claims of Maddianus and his fellow adherents to the so-called Doctrine of the Obscure Design, I have in part sought to disallow the notion that the number of such possible alternatives is restricted through the agency and at the whim of an unknown and imperceptible supervening external agency-
Machaera’s head nodded forward onto her chest. She snored-
– And was sitting in darkness, looking down into a circle of light. To be more precise, she was balanced on a rickety folding stool that wobbled as she shifted her weight slightly. The canvas top sagged at one corner, and as she tried to get away from the sag she felt the material tear a little more. She sat perfectly still, and tried to make out her surroundings.
There seemed to be two circles; an inner circle of men sitting round a glowing brazier, whose light and heat scarcely leaked past them; and an outer circle, dim silhouettes of heads and shoulders at the back of the tent (I’m in a tent, she realised. I haven’t been in a tent since I was seven, and it wasn’t this kind of tent), of whom she was apparently one. Directly opposite her in the inner circle, just visible between the heads of two other men with their backs to her, was a face she recognised. Everybody who’d been to see the army off would recognise that face. General Mogre. Presumably she was eavesdropping on a council of war. Fascinated, she craned her neck as far forward as she could without further provoking her derelict stool, and tried to catch what the great man was saying.
‘It’s all in Dormand,’ said General Mogre. ‘Everything you ever need to know about anything; you look in Dormand long enough, you’ll find the answer.’
(Rubbish, Machaera said; but here, the words only sounded inside her own head. And I should know; I’m reading the horrid thing, right now.)
‘Let’s hope Gorgas hasn’t got a copy,’ said one of the men with his back to her. ‘Assuming he can read, that is.’
‘I’ll bet you Niessa’s read it,’ someone she couldn’t quite see chimed in. ‘Though I see her more as a disciple of the sainted Maddianus. The complete witch, in fact.’
Sten Mogre grinned. ‘Maybe that’s why she had Patriarch Alexius kidnapped,’ he said. ‘To explain the long words to her.’
‘It’s a nice picture,’ someone else said. ‘You can just see her, flicking through trying to find the recipes for love potions and raising-storms-at-sea-made-simple.’
‘Probably reckons it’s written in code,’ said another. ‘You know the sort of thing, pick out every sixth word and it’ll spell out the true message.’
(I must try that, Machaera said.
It’s been tried, replied the person next to her. Doesn’t work. At least, it makes as much sense as reading the whole thing, but that’s not saying much.
Who are you? Machaera asked.
Alexius. You’re that star pupil of Gannadius’, aren’t you?
I – Machaera couldn’t think what to say. It’s an honour to meet you, she mumbled.
You think so? Good gods. By the way, Gannadius is over there somewhere. Hello, Gannadius.
Hello yourself. And hello, Machaera. Shouldn’t you be revising Dormand? Though I suppose this almost counts. Alexius, what in the gods’ names are we doing here? I don’t understand. This can’t be a crucial turning point, they’re just talking horse manure about abstract philosophy.)
‘To get back to what we were talking about,’ said a thin man. ‘You should read what this fellow Gannadius wrote. It really does make a lot of sense.’
(Horse manure? Alexius said.
Oh, be quiet. Actually, it was. Pure drivel, from start to finish. You wouldn’t want me to tell these lunatics the truth, would you?
Hush, someone said.)
‘The heart of the problem as I see it,’ one of the inner circle said, ‘is identifying your crucial moment. Well, how do you recognise the things? All right, let’s suppose that Huic over there stays here another half hour, then goes back to his tent. On his way he trips over a guy-rope and pulls a muscle. In the battle tomorrow, that pulled muscle slows him up just a fraction at a crucial moment, his unit just fails to make its ground in time, and in consequence we lose a battle we’d have won if he’d gone to his tent five minutes earlier or five minutes later. Suppose one of us says something about the operation of the Principle that burrows its way into the back of Sten’s mind and influences him in some minor way when he’s making a decision tomorrow. Suppose if I leave here in two minutes’ time for a piss, I’ll be outside at precisely the moment Gorgas and his army try to sneak past us, and I’ll just catch the faint echo of someone coughing, or see the moonlight on a belt buckle. All right so far? Very good. Now, suppose I’m a wizard or a witch, trying to find the crucial moment so I can prise it open and make things happen differently. How’m I going to know that was the crucial moment? Chances are I’ll be snooping round Gorgas while he’s trying to figure out what he should do, or else I’ll be at the battle itself. And of course, I’ll find heaps and heaps of crucial moments there, because every damn moment’s a crucial moment, or it could be. At this precise moment, maybe there’s a crucial moment going on wherever Gorgas is, and there’s a whole mob of wizards and witches crowding round him playing tug-o’-war. Now they can’t be there and here; but if they change his critical moment, who’s to say my crucial moment’s still going to be crucial? Like, if they make Gorgas go a different way round the wood, then when I leave this tent he won’t be there for me to see.’
Sten Mogre nodded. ‘What you’re saying is,’ he said, ‘either magic can’t work, because there’s no real economy of alternatives and Dormand is a pack of nonsense, or every moment is crucial, in which case it doesn’t matter where your witches and wizards stop and peel off the skin, they’ll always find a point where they can change everything. Avert, you should have been a lawyer, not a soldier.’