Tuyo Read online

  Talon Commander Harana snorted. He had dropped into a chair, but he was plainly too annoyed to relax. He said, to Lord Aras rather than to me, “As if the gods could be so kind! Aras, your Ugaro might’ve been a trifle hasty, but he wasn’t wrong. I’ve never seen a man more clearly in a sorcerer’s grip. He acted as though he had no idea you held a scepter, and you practically shoving it down his throat sideways the whole time. No one could be that obtuse on his own.”

  Lord Aras leaned his hip against the arm of a chair, making a little rocking gesture with one hand that I thought meant perhaps. “We wouldn’t want to underestimate the potential for willful obtuseness, Karoles. But yes, I suspect he’s had compulsions set into his mind, perhaps to create an urgent feeling that he should accept the sorcerer’s authority above all others. That could cause that sort of problem. Hopefully my threat was dramatic enough to overcome that kind of issue.” Turning to me, he added, “It’s not unusual for my king to send me to deal with thorny problems, Ryo, including problems involving sorcery. That’s why I’m here. Please try not to be concerned. I’ve dealt with one or two fairly powerful sorcerers in the past.”

  I tried not to show my dismay at this idea.

  Lord Aras went on. “This little war with your people has been going rather badly for us, and it’s been going badly in ways that don’t entirely make sense. If there’s a sorcerer working to exploit the situation, that would explain certain problems we’ve been having. If a sorcerer actually manipulated interactions between your people and mine in order to start this war, that’s something else again, and certainly a factor worth considering as we decide how to proceed. It’s been so long since ordinary trade took place here that I hadn’t considered the possibility of the kind of disruptions you described.”

  “Yes,” I said, speaking at random. I was thinking of other things. I was thinking that if a powerful Lau sorcerer had created the problems between my people and the Lau, if a sorcerer might be using my people in some manner, then I should get away from Lord Aras as quickly as I could so that I might carry word of this to my father. My father would send that word to our king, and Koro inKarano might decide to break off and command all the tribes to retreat to the high north, where no Lau could follow. If there were a sorcerer, it seemed to me better to get out of his way and let the Lau fight among themselves until the sorcerer was either destroyed or enslaved them all.

  Then I thought again. If Ugaro could not trade with the avila of the starlit lands or with the Lau, nor raid for what we needed ... a sorcerer might live a long time. Ugaro seldom live past forty and forty years. Lau often live forty more years than that. I did not like to think what would happen to my people if we must all go into the high north and stay clear of the borderlands for as long as a Lau might live. Our cattle could not survive the long cold without grain, much more grain than our herdsmen could grow in the winter country. I thought by the time a Lau sorcerer finally died and it became safe to come south again, many Ugaro tribes might be gone as well, destroyed in a different kind of war as every tribe fought to survive.

  Lord Aras had been considering me, his expression thoughtful. Now he said to Talon Commander Harana, “I’d like to talk to Ryo alone. If you’d be so kind as to put yourself in the way of receiving incoming reports, Karoles, I would appreciate that.”

  Harana pushed himself to his feet, snorting. “Don’t think I don’t realize you just want me to deal with Kasurat when he realizes you’ve diverted all his couriers to your service. Fine.” He went out.

  Lord Aras turned to my guards. “Troop Leader Geras, if you and your team would please step out as well.”

  Geras had already been standing straight. Now he straightened even more and said in a firm, stiff way, “Yes, my lord, except if it’s true this Ugaro tried to kill you, maybe you might reconsider that order. Meaning no offense to your guest, my lord.” It was very clear he knew it was true.

  I felt the heat come up in my face. Geras was perfectly correct. I could not possibly protest.

  Lord Aras looked at Geras, one eyebrow rising. He said in his mild way, “That was a misunderstanding. Nothing like that is going to happen today, Troop Leader Geras.”

  “I’m sure it won’t, my lord. But even so, I think you’d do better with soldiers nearer at hand than the other side of a closed door.” Lau manners were not like Ugaro manners, but to me, Geras did not sound as though he meant to give way. He fixed his gaze on the air above the warleader’s head and added, just as stiffly, “I will put myself on report for refusing the order of a superior and for failure of respect to a superior. And for disregarding the king’s authority, my lord, but if you uphold that one, I’ll ask you to set the charge against me and not my team.” He did not bow his head when he said this, but continued to look into the air above the Lord Aras’ head. It was a very different manner than when an Ugaro warrior said he would accept a blow, but obviously it was meant in much the same way.

  “I see.” Lord Aras considered him for a long moment. Finally he said, “Well, Troop Leader, you may place yourself on report for refusing an order, but I think I will reconsider my order after all, so I don’t believe I’ll find it necessary to uphold that charge. I did not notice any disrespect on your part, so you may put yourself on report for that charge if you wish, but I will not uphold it. Though I cannot forbid you to place yourself on report for the other charge you mentioned, I would strongly prefer that you refrain.”

  The soldier touched his hand to his heart, though even now he did not bow his head as any Ugaro would have. He said, “Yes, Lord Gaur. Thank you, my lord.”

  “If you and your team would kindly step back to a distance you consider reasonable, Troop Leader,” Lord Aras told him. That was not very far because the room was not large, but he turned back to me, pretending that the soldiers were not present. He said to me, “Ryo, I began to say this earlier, but I didn’t get very far with it. I want you to take oath to me so that I can treat you far more as a guest and far less as a prisoner. I want you to swear a strong oath, strong enough that I’ll have no need to doubt it.” He threw a wry look over his shoulder to where my guards were pretending not to listen and added, “Strong enough my soldiers won’t have any need to doubt it either! I want you to swear to accept my authority and obey my orders, and I want you to swear it by your father’s honor as well as your own: I’d trust that. Given that I won’t release you and don’t intend to allow you to escape, do you think you can do as I ask? And if you swear that kind of oath, would you keep it, even though I’m a Lau and even though our peoples are at war?”

  I should have declared that such an oath was out of the question. But I was so surprised that I found myself asking instead, “What orders would you give me?” Then I said, “If I swore an oath as you wish, I would keep it. But I will not swear it.” But it was too late. He knew I had thought of yielding to his will. We both knew it.

  He did not smile. He said soberly, “I would give you such orders as I found necessary. I would expect you to obey me no matter what I required. I’m sorry; I know that’s too much to ask. But I still ask it.” He paused. Then he added, “I would certainly command you to stay by me; not to return to the winter lands without explicit permission from me. I would command you to accept orders from certain officers of mine. I would command you to hold your hand from violence against my people, both soldiers and civilians, even if you are provoked. For example, I would not permit you to answer Lord Kasurat as his insult deserved. Nor anyone else, should someone else insult you.”

  He paused. Then, to my surprise, he went on, “You are my guest, Ryo, and I will guard your life and honor accordingly. Any offense against you, I will take as an offense against myself. If you will take the oath as I ask, I swear I will try not to demand anything you would find dishonorable, but I can’t promise that I won’t find that necessary. Do you think you can accept that and give me the oath I ask?”

  I thought about this. At first I thought I could not. While he said he wo
uld try not to force me into dishonorable action, I feared that in a war such a thing was almost certain to happen. Knowing this to be so, how could I give any kind of oath? Then I thought again. If he held me as a prisoner, I did not think I would get free. I would be helpless to do anything to help my people. If he treated me as his guest, I did not know what I might be able to do. But perhaps something rather than nothing. That hope alone might be reason enough to take the oath as he wished.

  Yet the kind of oath he wanted would bind me far more tightly than cords or chains or fear of punishment. That kind of oath would change everything.

  “How could you possibly expect me to keep such an oath?” I demanded.

  “Ryo, I know whom to trust. If you give me an honest oath, I’ll accept it. I admit, I don’t know how you can possibly trust me enough to give the kind of oath I ask.”

  He was a good judge of men. Or he judged me well, at least. He was right. If I swore such an oath, I would try hard to keep it. Breaking an oath when I had sworn by my father’s honor would be as bad as parricide, and that is almost the worst sin a man can commit. He was right again that I did not see how I could give it.

  He said, still gently, “Ryo, I’m very much aware that I’m in your debt. I have every desire and intention to return good for the good you have already done me. Though our peoples are at war, I swear before the gods, I won’t willingly permit any sorcerer to enthrall or subjugate Ugaro. My whole intention is to put a stop to any sorcerous interference here in the borderlands and resolve the problems between your people and mine. That’s what my king sent me here to do, and I intend to do it.”

  I was looking at him in surprise. If I could believe him, then clearly I should give the oath he wanted. But the Lau are a deceitful people, and I was not sure I should believe what he said. I asked, “Why does the summer king send you to deal with all the problems here? If there is a powerful sorcerer working his will here, what can an ordinary man do against him?”

  He did not take this as insolence, but answered patiently, “Ryo, you know my people produce quite a few sorcerers. Most are too weak to do much harm, but a few are powerful. Yet you’ll notice we’re not ruled by sorcerers. We’ve had no choice but to learn ways to resist sorcery. Bringing down a sorcerer with clever strategy is generally less costly than doing it with sheer numbers, but one way or another, if a sorcerer is involved in this trouble, I’ll deal with him.”

  I thought about this. Then I said, “I know that many-many years ago, the Lau sorcerer Deracas Govis Taranat enslaved your people. No one defeated him. He lived for many years, and the summer country was freed only by his death from age.”

  “Ah, you remember that tale. Of course you do. It was a dramatic episode in our history. Yes, that was very unfortunate. It’s true that if the wrong sorcerer isn’t discovered early enough and handled appropriately, that can lead to ... a fairly dramatic episode in our history.”

  I said flatly, “The only appropriate way to handle a powerful sorcerer is to kill him.”

  Lord Aras sighed. “Frequently that does seem true. I agree that if there’s a sorcerer working along the borderlands here, I’ll certainly have to kill him.”

  I nodded. “The curse drives men mad with the desire to rule.” Everyone knew that. I added, “It would be much wiser for you Lau to put every child with such a curse to death, as we Ugaro used to do, until such children ceased to appear among us. Your people would suffer less if you did the same. In time, as for my people, you might free yourselves of the curse entirely.”

  “It’s not quite so simple,” he answered, his tone serious. “About one in fifty Lau is a weak sorcerer; should we put all those people to death? That seems hard, as their sorcery is too weak to be a danger to anyone. Also, people like that can often serve to check the influence of a more powerful sorcerer; if we had none of those weak sorcerers, we’d be more vulnerable, not less. But the situation is even worse than that. Suppose your people are correct in your belief that ordinary magic is linked to sorcery. Though we consider the two legally distinct, there’s considerable evidence for a natural linkage, as many times sorcerers are born into families that carry that kind of magic. Nearly half of all Lau can work at least minor cantrips. What should we do, Ryo?”

  I had not thought of any of this. I had not realized so many Lau could work magic. I did not like that idea at all. But he was right. That would make the Ugaro custom impossible for the Lau.

  Lord Aras nodded. “So, you see. But this does mean that we have to deal with dangerous sorcerers once or twice in a generation. This seems likely to be one of those times. Ryo, if I’m going to have to deal with a powerful, ambitious sorcerer, I need every asset I can gather into my hands. You’re one of those assets. I ask again: can you take oath to me? I had some ideas for how to approach the problems here, but now that I have you in my hand, I hope I may discover broader options. Take oath to me as I ask, and those options expand still further. Wouldn’t it be better if peace came again and our peoples could trade as we used to? I promise you, that’s what I’m trying to achieve.”

  Obviously that would be better. Obviously if there were a sorcerer working his will in the borderlands, I should do anything possible to assist in his destruction.

  I believed at least that the scepter-holder did not mean ill by what he asked. He said he wished to return good to me for the good I had done him. An honorable man would want that. A generous man would want it. I thought it was true. After even the little I had seen of him, I could not believe it was false.

  It is not given to any man to know what will come of his actions, and yet men must act.

  Finally I knelt and bowed to the floor, as my people do for such matters. Then I looked him in the face, and said deliberately, “I accept your authority, Aras Eren Samaura, as though you were my father. I will obey you as though I were your son. This I swear before the gods, by my mother’s name, which is Marag inGara, daughter of Marag inKarano. To this, I bind myself by my father’s honor as well as by my own.”

  He nodded and answered seriously, “Thank you, Ryo inGara. I accept your oath. Before the gods, I swear I will keep faith. Is there anything else I should do or say?”

  “No, my lord. It is done.” I felt shaky, as though I had taken a wound but did not yet know whether it was mortal. I did not regret the oath, for my reasons to give it still seemed good to me, but I thought it would be a long time before I knew whether I had been right to give it.

  He said warmly, “Then it’s well done, I hope. Stand up, please.” Taking the knife from his belt, he came forward and offered this to me, hilt first. “Every warrior should carry a weapon. Since you have none of your own, take this one.” He did not look at my guards, but though I heard Geras draw a breath as though he would speak, he did not protest.

  Though Lord Aras had said he would treat me as a guest and not as a prisoner, I had not expected anything of the kind. I bowed my head, took the knife from his hand, and hooked the sheath to my belt. I began to say something, I hardly knew what, but at that moment, a sharp knock came on the door.

  Talon Commander Harana threw it open and came in without waiting for the warleader to give permission. He said, hard and terse, “Aras, there’s been a major offensive to the east. Dumau Sen and Erem Sen’ve been burned to the ground, that’s the word we’ve got right now, but you might get more out of the courier than I could.”

  The warleader’s face tightened at this news. If Ugaro had struck hard and won a victory, I could not be displeased. But I could not guess what Lord Aras might do in answer, or what might happen next.

  He said to Talon Commander Harana, “I’ll want to see the courier at once, of course. If you’d send for Lucas and Nikoles—”

  “Already on the way,” Harana told him.

  Lord Aras nodded. He said to Geras, “Troop Leader, take Ryo somewhere and get him something to eat; it’s nearly noon and he hasn’t had anything since yesterday. In fact, let’s begin as we mean to go on: take him in
to the camp. I’d like him back here in an hour and a half. Ryo, please be guided by the advice of your guards.”

  Geras touched his hand to his heart and looked at me. I did not want anything to eat. Thinking of sorcerers made my stomach tighten into a knot, and I would far rather have stayed to listen to the decisions that would be made here. But though the warleader was pleased to speak in that gentle manner, plainly this was an order. I could not argue with him; I would not have argued with my father. I bowed my head to him and followed Geras from the room.

  -7-

  The scepter-holder’s camp lay east of the town. All the tents stood in straight rows, smoke rising from cooking fires until a haze drifted across all the sky. The scents of the smoke and of unfamiliar seasonings nearly covered those of trampled grass and mud and people.

  I had heard Lord Aras give the order to take me into the camp, but I had been thinking of other things. Now I stopped. We had not even stepped off the paved street into the fields, we were still half a bowshot from the first rows of tents, and already some of the Lau soldiers were turning to look at me.

  Geras laid his hand on my arm, saying easily, “There’s got to be a first time, Ryo. We might as well get it over. We’ll go right through the camp to our own division.”

  I could hardly set my feet like a stubborn child and refuse to walk. I made certain my face reflected nothing of my unease and went the way Geras indicated.

  When we came to the great camp, many soldiers deliberately crowded our path, staring at me and setting their hands on their weapons to let me know they were not happy to have an Ugaro warrior among them. But Geras said in a curt, authoritative tone, not loud but pitched to carry, “Listen up! This is Lord Gaur’s own personal guest. Our lord’s said he’ll answer any offense against his Ugaro like it was an offense to him. Those words, just like that.”