Rulers of the Darkness

The front, fortunately, was fluid hereabouts. The Unkerlanters and his own men had foxholes and outposts, not solid trench lines. A determined- no, a desperate- man could sneak between them.

Dawn was painting the east red when someone called out a nervous challenge: "Halt! Who comes?"

Sabrino almost wept. The challenge was in Algarvian. "A friend," he said. "A dragonflier blazed down behind the enemy's line."

Silence. Then: "Advance and be recognized. Hands high." Because of the wound, Sabrino's left hand didn't want to go high. He raised it despite the pain. Moving forward as if surrendering, he let his own side capture him.

***

"Here you go, Constable." A baker offered Bembo a slice of cheese pie. "Try this and tell me what you think."

"Don't mind if I do." Bembo never minded taking free food and drink from the shops and taverns on his beat. He'd done it in Tricarico, and he did it here in Gromheort, too. He took a big bite and chewed thoughtfully. "Not bad," he said, and took another bite to prove it. "What all's in it?"

"Two kinds of cheese," the baker began. He spoke good Algarvian.

"Aye, I know that," Bembo said impatiently. "What livens it up?"

"Well, there's garlic and onions and leeks," the baker said, and Bembo nodded each time. Then the Forthwegian looked sly and set a finger by the side of his nose. "And there's a mystery ingredient. I don't know whether I ought to tell you or not."

By then, Bembo was finishing the slice of pie. "You'd better," he said, his mouth full. "You'll be sorry if you don't." Had the whoreson given him mouse turds, or something like that? Surely not- if he had, he wouldn't have told Bembo at all.

"All right, I'll talk," the baker said, as if he were a captive Bembo was belaboring. "It's dried chanterelle mushrooms."

"You're kidding." Bembo's stomach did a slow lurch. Like all Algarvians, he thought mushrooms disgusting. Forthwegians, on the other hand, were wild for them, and put them in everything but tea. Bembo's hand fell to the leather grip of his bludgeon. "I ought to loosen your teeth for you, feeding me those miserable things."

"Why?" the Forthwegian asked in what sounded like honest bewilderment. "You just said you liked the pie."

Bembo could hardly deny that. He did his best: "I liked it in spite of the mushrooms, not because of them."

"How do you know? Be honest, Constable. How do you know?" The baker speared a mushroom out of the pie with the point of the knife he'd used to slice it. He offered it to Bembo. "How can you really know till you try?"

"I'd sooner eat a snail," Bembo said, which was true- he liked snails fine, especially in butter and garlic. The Forthwegian baker made a horrible face. Bembo laughed at that, and wagged a finger at the fellow. "You see? I'm not the only one." But the mushroom remained on the end of the knife, a mute challenge to his manhood. He scowled, but then he ate it.

The little boy's way of handling such an unfortunate situation would have been to gulp the mushroom down without tasting it. Bembo was tempted to do just that, but made himself chew slowly and deliberately before swallowing. "Well?" the baker demanded. "What do you think?"

"I think you Forthwegians get too worked up over the cursed things, that's what," Bembo answered. "Not a whole lot of taste any which way."

"These are just the dried ones," the baker said. "When the fall rains come and the fresh mushrooms start growing, then…" He sighed, as Bembo might have sighed over the charms of a beautiful woman. Bembo was convinced he could have a lot more fun with a beautiful woman than any Forthwegian could with a mushroom.

"Well, I'm off," he said, wiping greasy fingers on his kilt. "No surprises next time, mind you, or you'll get a surprise you won't like so bloody well." He went on his way, hoping he'd put a little fear into the baker's heart. The strangled guffaw he heard as he closed the door behind him made him doubt it. He wasn't usually the sort who roused fear in people. Oraste, now… Oraste even roused fear in Bembo, his partner.

Bembo swaggered along, every now and then flourishing his club. Oraste, at the moment, roused fear in nobody; he was down with a nasty case of the grippe. Bembo hoped he wouldn't catch it. He feared he would, though. People who worked with people who got sick often got sick themselves. Nobody'd ever quite figured out why. It probably had something to do with the law of similarity.

Or maybe it's the law of contagion, Bembo thought. Contagion. Get it? He laughed. Without Oraste at his side, he had to tell jokes to himself. He found them funnier than Oraste would have. He was sure of that.

Seeing a company of Algarvian footsoldiers tramping toward the ley-line caravan depot, he stuck up his arm to halt traffic on the cross street. His countrymen cursed him as they passed. By now, he was used to that. They were on their way to Unkerlant, and he got to stay here in Gromheort. The way things were in Unkerlant these days, he wouldn't have wanted to go there himself.