Rulers of the Darkness

Pekka came into the dining room in time to hear that. "A madman's ravings always seem sensible to him," she remarked, not without affection.

Ilmarinen snorted and waved to a serving woman. "A mug of ale, Linna," he called before turning back to Pekka. "You sound as if sense were sensible in magecraft. A thing has to work. It doesn't have to be sensible."

"Oh, nonsense," Fernao said. "Otherwise, theoretical sorcery would be a dry well."

"A lot of the time, it is," Ilmarinen retorted, reveling in his heresy. "A lot of the time, what we do is figure out after the fact why an experiment that had no business working did work in spite of what we- wrongly- thought we knew." He waved. "If that weren't so, what would we all be doing here?"

Fernao hesitated. Ilmarinen enjoyed tossing eggs into a conversation. But being outrageous wasn't necessarily the same as being wrong.

Pekka, now, wagged a finger under Ilmarinen's nose, as if he were a naughty little boy. "We can also go from pure theory to practical sorcery. If that isn't sense, what is it?"

"Luck," Ilmarinen answered. "And speaking of luck…" Linna came up with the mug of ale. "Here it is now. Thank you, sweetheart." He bowed to the serving girl. He hadn't given up chasing her- or maybe he had while Fernao was away, and then started up again. You never could tell with Ilmarinen.

Linna went off without a backwards glance. Plainly, the next time Ilmarinen caught her would be the first. Whatever else Fernao couldn't tell about the master mage, that was glaringly obvious.

Ilmarinen took a long pull at the ale. "Curse King Mezentio," he ground out. "Curse him and all his clever mages. Now the rest of the world has to deal with the question of how in blazes to beat him without being as vile as he is."

"King Swemmel worries about that not at all," Fernao pointed out, which only prompted Ilmarinen to make a horrible face at him.

"We are still fighting King Mezentio, too, and we have resorted to none of his barbarism," Pekka said primly.

Ilmarinen got down to the bottom of his mug and smacked it down on the table almost hard enough to shatter it. He said, "We've also got the luxury of the Strait of Valmiera between us and the worst Mezentio can do. The Unkerlanters, poor buggers, don't. What'll we do when we've got big armies in the field against Algarve?"

"A good deal of the answer to that depends on whether we succeed here, would you not agree?" Fernao said. Pekka nodded; she agreed, at any rate.

But Ilmarinen, contrary as usual, said, "Suppose we fail here. Sooner or later, we'll still have big armies in the field against the Algarvians. Sure as Mezentio's got a pointy nose, they'll start killing Kaunians to try to stop us. What do we do then?"

That was a large, important question. The only time the Lagoans and Kuusamans had had a large army in the field against Algarve after Mezentio's men unveiled their murderous magic was down in the land of the Ice People. Sure as sure, the Algarvians had tried to turn back their foes by butchering blonds. But the magic had gone wrong, there on the austral continent. It had come down on the Algarvians' heads, not those of their foes. That wouldn't happen on the mainland of Derlavai. Too many massacres had proved as much.

Pekka said, "We cannot match them in murder. That is the best argument I know for mastering them with magecraft."

"Suppose we fail," Ilmarinen repeated. "We'll be fighting Mezentio's men even so. What do we do when they start killing? We had better think about that, you know- I don't mean us here alone, but also the Seven here and King Vitor and his counselors in that small town of yours, Fernao. The day is coming. We've all heard the name Habakkuk- no use pretending we haven't."

"I have heard the name, but I do not know what it means," Fernao said.

"My husband works with Habakkuk, and I do not know what he does," Pekka added. "I do not ask, any more than he asks me what I do."

"You are the soul of virtue." Ilmarinen's voice was sour. "Well, I know, because I have no virtue save perhaps that of thinking backwards and upside down. I will spare your tender virgin ears the details, but I trust I do not shock you when I say Habakkuk isn't intended to make Mezentio sleep easier of nights."

"If Mezentio can sleep at all, after the things he has done, his conscience is made of cast iron," Fernao said, "and doubtless he can, so doubtless it is."

"All right, then." Ilmarinen took his usual pleasure in making himself as difficult as possible. "Thanks to Habakkuk, among other things, we come to grips with Algarve on land. Mezentio's mages kill Kaunians to throw us back. What comes next?"

"There are blocking spells," Fernao said. "If you and Siuntio had not used them then, we probably would not be here to have this discussion."