Rulers of the Darkness

He kept an eye peeled for dragons, another for ley-line warships. So far, no sign of either. The Algarvians, these days, had a lot of coast to watch: Sibiu's, of course, but also their own and Valmiera's and Jelgava's and Forthweg's and, Cornelu supposed, Zuwayza's and Yanina's as well. The Algarvian navy hadn't been enormous before the war began. It also had to hold off Unkerlant's, to try to keep an eye on the land of the Ice People, and to help colonial forces keep the sputtering war going in tropical Siaulia. Looked at that way, was it any wonder Cornelu saw no warships?

Maybe the Lagoans and Kuusamans could send a fleet into Sibiu and snatch it out from under the Algarvians' noses. Maybe. That was one of the reasons Cornelu and his leviathan were here. If they didn't spot any patrollers, maybe Mezentio's minions were sending everything west for the big fight, the fight that couldn't be ignored, the fight against Unkerlant.

What sort of garrison stayed in Facaceni town? Real soldiers? Or beardless boys and gray-haired veterans of the Six Years' War? Cornelu couldn't tell that, not from the sea, but Lagoas and Kuusamo were bound to have spies in the town, too. What were they telling the spymasters in Setubal and Yliharma? And how much of what they were telling those spymasters could be believed?

On swam the leviathan, pausing or turning aside now and again to snap up a fish. Somewhere along the coastline, the Algarvians would have men with spyglasses or perhaps mages watching for the approach of foes from the west. Cornelu and his leviathan would not draw the mages' notice, for he pulled no energy from the ley lines that powered fleets. And to a man with a spyglass, one spouting leviathan looked much like another. For that matter, from farther than a few hundred yards, a spouting leviathan looked much like a spouting whale.

As he rounded the headland and neared Facaceni town, Cornelu saw several sailboats bobbing in the water. They wouldn't draw the notice of any mages, either. Cornelu grimaced. The Algarvians had conquered Sibiu through a daring reversion to the days before ley lines were known: with a fleet of sailing ships that reached Cornelu's kingdom unseen and undetected in dead of night. In a world of ever-growing complexity, the simple approach had proved overwhelmingly successful.

He thought about going up to one of the boats and asking the fishermen for local news. Most Sibians despised their Algarvian overlords. Most… but not all. Mezentio's men recruited Sibians to fight in Unkerlant. Sibian constables helped the Algarvians rule their countrymen. A few folk genuinely believed in the notion of a union of Algarvic peoples, not pausing to think that such a union meant the Algarvians would stay on top forever.

One of the fishermen saw Cornelu atop his leviathan when the great beast surfaced. He sent an obscene gesture Cornelu's way. That probably meant- Cornelu hoped it meant- he thought Cornelu an Algarvian. But Cornelu didn't find out by experiment.

When he got to Facaceni town, he spied a couple of dragons on patrol above it, wheeling in the clear blue sky. He noted them with grease pencil on a slate. What he could not note was how many more dragons might rise into the sky on a moment's notice if dragonfliers or mages spied something amiss.

Facaceni town, of course, faced the Derlavaian mainland- faced toward Algarve, in fact. All the major Sibian towns did; only the lesser ones turned toward Lagoas and Kuusamo. Part of that was because Sibiu lay closer to the mainland than to the big island. The rest was due to the way the ley lines ran. In olden days, before ley lines mattered so much, Sibiu had long contended with Lagoas for control of the sea between them. She'd lost- Lagoas outweighed her- but she'd fought hard.

As an officer of the Sibian navy, Cornelu knew the ley lines around his kingdom the way he knew the pattern of red-gold hairs on the back of his right arm. If anything, he knew the ley lines better; they mattered more to him. He knew just when he could peer into the harbor of Facaceni to see ley-line warships, if any were there to be seen.

And some were. He cursed softly under his breath to spot the unmistakable bulk of a ley-line cruiser and three or four smaller craft. They were Algarvian vessels, too, with lines slightly different from those of the warships the Sibian navy had used. A civilian spy might not have noticed the differences. To Cornelu, once more, they were obvious.

He saw no Sibian vessels. He didn't know where they'd gone; he couldn't very well urge his leviathan into the harbor and ask. He made more grease-pencil notes. He had a crystal with him. If he'd spotted something urgent, he could have let the Admiralty back in Setubal know. As things were, he scribbled. No Algarvian mage, no matter how formidable, could possibly detect the emanations from a grease pencil.