Darkness Descending

A uniformed clerk took charge of him. After making him touch his Guild card--had he been an impostor, the spot he touched would have glowed red--the clerk led him to Peixoto’s office. The Lagoan colonel was younger and leaner than Fernao had expected: within a couple of years of the sorcerer’s own age. He was also more enthusiastic than Fernao had looked for in a soldier.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir, a very great pleasure,” Peixoto said, springing from his seat to clasp Fernao’s hand. “Here, take a chair, make yourself comfortable. Will you drink a glass of wine with me?” Without waiting for an answer, he clapped his hands. The military clerk hurried in with a bottle and a couple of glasses.

The wine had the tang of oranges and lemons. “A Jelgavan vintage,” Fernao remarked without bothering to look closely at the bottle.

“Aye, so it is,” Colonel Peixoto answered. “The Algarvians make better, but I’ll be cursed if I want any of theirs now. I’d think I were drinking blood.” His face, which seemed sunny most of the time, clouded. “That’s a filthy trick they’ve pulled in Unkerlant.”

“You’re not a mage, Colonel--you have no notion how filthy it feels to me,” Fernao said. “If you’ve called me here to try to put a stop to it, I am your man, and with all my heart.” He emptied his wineglass, then poured it full again.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, sir mage, in a manner of speaking,” Peixoto said. “We aim to put a thorn under the wings of King Mezentio’s dragons, so we do. And from all I can see”--he rustled papers on his desk--”you are the perfect man--the perfect man, I tell you--for the job.”

“Say on,” Fernao told him.

“I’ll do just that,” Colonel Peixoto replied. “Curse me if I won’t. Now, then--I see you’ve served as a ship’s mage. You were doing that when the war broke out, weren’t you? Can’t very well hit the Algarvians a proper lick unless we cross the sea to get at ‘em, can we?”

“No, indeed,” Fernao said. The wine lent his voice extra solemnity. “Although the research I’m working on now is important, if you think I could best serve the kingdom by going back to sea, I’ll do it.”

Peixoto beamed. “Spoken like a patriot, my dear sir. But that’s not precisely what we have in mind for you, by your leave. You’re not far off--don’t get me wrong--but you’re not quite on, either. Plenty of mages--plenty of Lagoan mages, anyhow--go to sea. But do you know--do you know, sir?--that only a handful of Lagoan mages, and fewer of the first rank, have ever set foot on the land of the Ice People?”

Fernao discovered he’d made a mistake, a dreadful mistake, when he’d decided he didn’t care why he’d been called to the palace so long as it had nothing to do with King Penda. “Colonel,” he said plaintively, “have you ever eaten boiled camel hump? Have you ever tried to gnaw through strips of dried and salted camel meat?”

“Never once, powers above be praised.” Colonel Peixoto sounded pleased that that was true, too, for which Fernao could hardly blame him. The mage wished it were true for himself. Peixoto went on, “But since you have, that makes you all the more valuable for this expedition. You must see that, mustn’t you?”

“What expedition?” demanded Fernao, who was not in the mood to see anything if he could help it.

“Why, the one we’re planning to the austral continent, of course,” Peixoto said. “With a little bit of luck--with only a little bit of luck, mind you--we’ll throw out the Yaninans and however many Algarvians they’ve got down there to give them a hand, and then where will they be? Eh? Where then?”

“Somewhere warm and civilized,” Fernao answered. Colonel Peixoto laughed heartily, as if he’d said something funny rather than speaking simple truth. The mage asked, “Why on earth are we mad enough to want to take the land of the Ice People away from the Yaninans? As far as I’m concerned, they did us a favor when they ran us out of it last year.”

“What’s on the earth there doesn’t matter, not a bit--no, not a bit. It’s what’s in the earth that counts.” Peixoto leaned forward and breathed a wine-smelling word into Fernao’s face: “Cinnabar.”

“Ah,” the mage said. “Indeed. But still--”

“But me no buts, my dear sir,” Peixoto said. “Without the austral continent, Algarve has not got a lot of cinnabar. Without cinnabar, her dragons cannot flame nearly so fiercely as they can with it. If we take it away, that makes fighting the war harder for them. Can you tell me I am mistaken in any particular there?”

“No,” Fernao admitted. “But can you tell me that whatever we have to spend to take the cinnabar from the land of the Ice People away from Mezentio’s men won’t be twice--three times--five times--what it costs them to do without?”