After the Downfall

“I wonder why not,” Hasso said. “Are they really so stupid? I did not think so when I was with them.”

That got him summoned before Zgomot. “Did you give the blonds the idea of biting and holding on instead of biting and letting go?” the Lord of Zgomot demanded.

“I don’t know, Lord,” Hasso answered. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember talking about it with them, not like that. King Bottero just thinks one fast campaign will break Bucovin.” Hasso had thought the same thing. Why not? He hadn’t known any better. Hitler had thought the same thing about the Russians. Well, so much for that. So much for this, too.

“Maybe you made them think about the way wars are supposed to work,” Lord Zgomot said. “Lavtrig knows you’ve done that with us. We don’t see things the way we did before we caught you – all the gods know that’s so.”

Was that praise? Hasso supposed it was, though he suspected the Lord of Bucovin wasn’t sure, either. “You were going to send out raiders, Lord,” the German remembered. “Any luck with them?”

“Not much,” Zgomot answered. “The border is … the border. Magic works there – it works just fine. We could not gain surprise.”

“Ah.” Hasso wondered whether this clever little Grenye would ask him to give the raiders some kind of sorcerous smoke screen. He thought he might be able to figure out how to do that. He wasn’t a trained wizard, but he’d seen that he could make magic work.

But Zgomot asked him nothing of the sort. Hasso remembered what he’d heard about the natives and sorcery. A wizard who’d work magic for them would decide that, as the seeing man in the country of the blind, he ought to show them which way they should go. And, if they didn’t feel like going that way, he would try to make them do it. No, their experience with sorcery was far from happy.

Instead, the Lord of Bucovin said, “Will we have enough gunpowder to fight the big blond bastards – excuse me, Hasso Pemsel: the big blond Lenello bastards – when they invade us this spring? Because they will – or do you doubt it?”

“No, Lord, I don’t,” Hasso answered. For a long time, Hitler had disguised his aggressive plans. Bottero didn’t waste any time trying. The Lenelli were very direct in their dealings with Grenye. You have it. I want it. I’m going to take it.

“The gunpowder?” Zgomot prompted.

“Sorry, Lord. My thoughts go somewhere else. Yes, we should have enough. If their wizards figure out how to set it off at a distance, though … What we have then is trouble.”

Lord Zgomot took that in stride. “When did Grenye have anything but trouble since the big blond bastards first washed ashore here? Never once. And there are all kinds of trouble, too. You know King Bottero is married to old King Iesi’s daughter?”

Hasso knew Queen Pola came from the Lenello realm just north of Bottero’s. He’d forgotten Iesi’s name, if he ever knew it. But he could say, “Yes, Lord,” without stretching things too far.

“Well, I hear Iesi may move east, too,” the Lord of Bucovin said. “I don’t know whether his army will come separately under his command or march along with King Bottero’s in one big host. But they may move.”

“If they come by themselves, we should hit them first,” Hasso said.

“Oh? Why?”

“Because Bottero already knows some of my tricks,” the German replied. “We can surprise Iesi and his men – or I hope we can, anyhow. If we drive him back, then we deal with Bottero.” Try to deal with Bottero. But he kept that to himself.

“You don’t think Bottero will have told Iesi about the kinds of things you do?” That will have told perplexed Hasso for a moment; he didn’t hear a future perfect every day. Before he could answer, Zgomot took care of it for him: “No, of course he won’t. If he ever had to fight Iesi or one of the other blond kings, he would want to be able to give him a surprise. Fair enough. If Iesi comes by himself, we try to hit him first and knock him out of the fight.”

He might be mindblind, but he was nobody’s fool. Neither was Bottero, come to that. If you were going to make a halfway decent king, brains were an asset.

“Do you let me fight your enemies, Lord?” Hasso shook his head in exasperation. He felt mindblind himself, fighting with languages he didn’t speak well enough. “Will you let me fight your enemies, Lord?”

Zgomot looked pained. Hasso knew things he didn’t and could do things he couldn’t. That made the Wehrmacht officer valuable. It made using him necessary and losing him unfortunate. It also made him dangerous. As if that weren’t obvious enough anyway, Hasso came in a large, blond package.

“I do not want you hurt.” The Lord of Bucovin picked his words with care. You didn’t want to offend the captive genie, lest it turn on you. After gnawing at the inside of his lower lip for a moment, Zgomot added, “I do not want to take the chance that you will desert to the Lenelli again, either.”