Darkness Descending

Fernao got to his feet and bowed stiffly. “Milady, I think you would find yourself more at home in Mezentio’s kingdom than in your own. I give you good evening.” He stalked out of the dining room, proud he hadn’t flung the last of his wine in Xavega’s face. By her looks, she might have been of pure Algarvic stock. But, like most Lagoans, she also probably had Kaunians and Kuusamans somewhere down the trunk of her family tree. Scorning people for their looks was bad manners in most Lagoan circles--although not, evidently, in hers.

He wondered how many did share her views. If Lagoas became a kingdom where a man with narrow eyes or a woman with blond hair couldn’t go out on the streets without fear of being insulted or worse, would it be the sort of kingdom in which he cared to live? No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than another followed it: Where else could I go?

Nowhere on the continent of Derlavai, that was certain. He’d been to the austral continent, and heartily hoped never to have anything to do with it again. He hadn’t visited equatorial Siaulia, but had no interest in doing so. It was as backward as the land of the Ice People, and the war that blazed through Derlavai sputtered there, too, as Derlavaian colonists and their native vassals squabbled among themselves.

The scattered islands in the Great Northern Sea were even less appealing, unless a man aimed to forget the world and make sure the world forgot him, too. That was not what Fernao had in mind. If Lagoas went bad . . .

As he left the Grand Hall, his head turned, almost of itself, toward the east. Odd to think of Kuusamo as a bastion of sanity in a world gone mad. It was odd for most Lagoans to think of their short, dark, slim neighbors any more than they had to.

Fernao hurried up the street to the caravan stop. Because of his own interests, he was not like most Lagoans. Maybe his interest in Kuusaman magecraft:--and his curiosity over whatever the Kuusamans weren’t talking about--had led him to take Xavega’s crack about his looks more to heart than he would have otherwise.

A ley-line caravan glided up. A couple of passengers got off; a couple got on. Fernao stayed at the stop--this wasn’t the route he needed. And maybe she’s just a nasty bitch, the mage thought sourly. He glanced at the people hurrying past him: regardless of the hour, Setubal never slept. One in five, maybe one in four, had eyes like his. If Xavega didn’t care for them, too cursed bad.

Another caravan car came to the stop. Fernao climbed aboard and tossed a coin in the fare box: this car would take him to within a street of his block of flats. He sat down next to a yawning woman who looked to have a good deal more Kuusaman blood than he did himself.

Coming into his building, he paused at the pigeonholes in the lobby to see what the postman had brought him. Along with the usual advertising circulars from printers, dealers in sorcerous apparatus, nostrum peddlers, and local eateries, he found an envelope with an unfamiliar printed franking mark. He held it up to his face so he could read the postmaster’s blurry handstamp over the mark.

“Kajaani,” he muttered. “Where in blazes is Kajaani?” Then he laughed at himself. He’d been guilty of the crime for which he’d taxed Xavega: he’d thought of Lagoas first, to the exclusion of everyplace else. As soon as he stopped doing that, he knew perfectly well where Kajaani was. And, with only a little more thought, he knew who was likely to be writing him from the Kuusaman town, though the envelope bore no return address.

He almost tore that envelope open there in the lobby, but made himself wait till he’d gone upstairs to his flat. There he flung the useless sheets of paper onto the sofa and opened the one that mattered. Sure enough, the letter--written in excellent classical Kaunian--was on the stationery of Kajaani City College, and from the theoretical sorcerer named Pekka.

My dear colleague, she wrote, I thank you for your interest in my work and your inquiries into my research. Unfortunately, I must tell you that much of my recent silence in the journals has sprung from nothing other than the demands on my time my son takes. I do eventually hope to publish more, but when that may be I cannot say. Meanwhile, my life is busy in many different ways. Hoping this finds you well and your own work flourishing, I remain--Pekka, Professor of Theoretical Sorcery.