Darkness Descending

Pekka brushed back a few strands of straight black hair that the frigid breeze kept blowing into her eyes. Yliharma had a milder climate than Kajaani, but no one would ever mistake it for the nearly tropical beaches of northern Jelgava. She said, “This is the first time we’ll have tried a divergent series. Too many things can go wrong.”

That set Ilmarinen laughing. Where Siuntio looked like a kindly grandfather, he put Pekka in mind of a disreputable great uncle. But his record was second only to Siuntio’s, and a fair number of people--himself emphatically included--would have argued about that.

Leering at Pekka, he asked, “Which are you more afraid of, having nothing happen, or having too much?”

He had a knack for unpleasantly pointed questions. “Having nothing happen would mortify me,” Pekka said after a little thought. “If too much happens, it’s liable to kill me.”

“Don’t think small,” Ilmarinen said cheerfully. “If too much happens, you’re liable to take out half of Yliharma--maybe even all of it, if you get lucky.” Pekka didn’t think she would call that luck, but contradicting Ilmarinen only encouraged him.

Siuntio gave his longtime colleague a severe look. “That is most unlikely, as you know full well. We do have some notion of the parameters involved. It’s not as if we were back in the days of the Kaunian Empire, when mages were ignorant of the theoretical underpinnings of their craft.”

“We’re ignorant of these underpinnings,” Ilmarinen said with unfortunate accuracy. “If we weren’t, we’d be using them; we wouldn’t be experimenting.”

Pekka thought he was right and hoped he was wrong. Siuntio simply declined to be drawn into the argument, saying, “Let’s get Mistress Pekka settled at the Principality--you needn’t fret, my dear: the Seven Princes are footing the bill--and make her as comfortable as we can, so she’ll be well rested for tomorrow’s conjurations.”

They insisted on carrying her bags, though she was less than half the age of either one of them. A hired carriage waited just outside the depot. Had the driver looked any more bored, he would have been dead. The horse didn’t seem very excited about the business, either. With slow and reluctant steps, it started for the hostel, the finest one Yliharma boasted.

Sitting at a window, Pekka stared out at the town. Though dwarfing Kajaani, Yliharma didn’t compare to Setuba or to Trapani. Still, Yliharma had started as a hill fort before either of the other capitals was settled.

Most of the people on the streets looked like Pekka and her sorcerous companions. Some, though, were taller and fairer. A few sported beaky noses or auburn hair--marks of Lagoan blood. Some few of the folk in Setubal were short and black-haired rather than rangy and redheaded, too.

At the Principality, Pekka unpacked, then indulged in the steam room and cold plunge attached to her chamber. Invigorated, she sent down a supper order by the dumbwaiter and demolished the poached salmon in dill sauce when it arrived. If she was staying at the Seven Princes’ expense, she would eat well.

She wished she could activate the crystal in the room and talk with her husband. But a talented mage could pick emanations out of the air, and Kuusamo was at war with Algarve. Leino would understand why she didn’t try to reach him. He knew secrets needed keeping.

Instead of calling him, she studied. Most of the mathematics behind what she would attempt tomorrow was Ilmarinen’s; anything he did demanded careful study. Siuntio, after whom Pekka tried to model herself, was clear and straightforward. Ilmarinen’s thoughts writhed like an adder with a broken back--and, like an adder, could bite to deadly effect when least expected.

She checked and rechecked, examined and reexamined. A mage who attempted any conjuration unprepared was a fool. A mage who attempted a conjuration aimed at drawing energy from the place where the two laws of similarity and contagion met would be a dead fool if she tried it unprepared. Pekka knew she might die anyhow; that was what exploring the unknown entailed. But she intended to know as much as she could.

Because she studied so long and so hard, she got less sleep than she wanted. A breakfast of rolls and hot tea with plenty of honey helped make up for that. As ready as she’d ever be, she went downstairs and found another carriage waiting for her. “The university, isn’t it?” the driver asked.

“Aye,” Pekka said. She didn’t want to try this magic in the Seven Princes’ palace. If it got away from her at the university, it wouldn’t slay all of Kuusamo’s lords, or as many as were in town. She hoped it wouldn’t, anyhow.

Again, Siuntio and Ilmarinen greeted her when she arrived. “Welcome to my lair,” Ilmarinen said with a grin displaying irregular teeth. “Now we’ll see what we’ll see--if we see anything.”

“We will.” Siuntio sounded perfectly confident. “With your brilliant theorizing and Mistress Pekka’s inspired experiments, how can we do anything but wring the truth from nature?”