Through the Darkness

By his accent, Aldrian came out of Cottbus. And, again by his accent, he was an educated young man. He really did furrow up his unwrinkled brow and think it over. Leudast could tell to the heartbeat when he reached his conclusion. He could also tell Aldrian didn’t much fancy the answer he got. Turning a stricken face toward Leudast, he asked, “Do you think any of us will be left alive by the time it’s over here, however it turns out?”

After eating some more bread, Leudast answered, “Well, it could be worse.”

“How?” Aldrian’s eyes widened.

“We could be Kaunians,” Leudast said, and drew his thumb across his throat; the nail rasped on whiskers he hadn’t had the chance to shave any time lately. “You know what Mezentio’s mages do to them, and why?” He waited for Aldrian to nod. Then, with deliberate brutality, he went on, “Or we could be old men and women King Swemmel’s inspectors can’t find any other use for any more. You know what our mages do to them, and why?”

“Aye.” Aldrian nodded again. Though his features were pinched as if at the smell of rotting meat--not that there wasn’t plenty of that stink around--he still managed to bring out Swemmel’s favorite catchword: “Efficiency.”

Leudast spat. “That for efficiency.” Back before the war heated up to its present boil, he never would have dared do such a thing, for fear of Swemmel’s inspectors. But they couldn’t condemn him to much worse than what he’d already had: something more than a year of fighting the Algarvians.

He’d shocked Aldrian--he could see as much. “Where would we be if everyone said that?” the youngster asked.

He’d intended it for a rhetorical question. Leudast wasn’t long on rhetoric, and so he answered it anyway: “Where would we be? About where we are anyhow, I expect.” He looked a challenge toward Aldrian, defying the recruit to disagree with him.

Aldrian opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Good fellow,” Leudast told him. “If you live, you’ll learn.”

Once upon a time, the neighborhood through which Bembo and Oraste strolled had been among the better ones in Gromheort. It still showed faint signs of that, as a desperately ill woman of fifty-five might show signs of having been a beauty at twenty. Nothing in Gromheort was very prepossessing these days. Bembo said, “I hate this place.”

Oraste yawned in his face. “So what? There are plenty of places where you’d do a lot more than hate ‘em. Sulingen, for instance. Set Gromheort next to Sulingen and it doesn’t look so bad, you know that?”

“Set anything next to Sulingen and it doesn’t look so bad,” Bembo said with a shudder. “That doesn’t make Gromheort look good. Nothing would make Gromheort look good.”

“Doesn’t seem like anything will make you quit bellyaching, either, does it?” Oraste said.

“Oh, shut up,” Bembo snarled, nettled enough to forget that Oraste wouldn’t have a lot of trouble breaking him in two. A Forthwegian--a middle-aged man, his neat beard going gray--was walking along across the street with his head turned toward the constables. “What’s so fornicating funny?” Bembo yelled at him.

“Nothing in Gromheort is funny these days,” the Forthwegian answered in Algarvian almost as fluent as the constable’s.

Bembo set hands on hips and sent Oraste a triumphant look. “There? You see? Even a Forthwegian can tell.”

The other constable gestured dismissively. “What does he know about it? He’s not going to want to give us a bouquet any which way.” He glowered at the Forthwegian. “What in blazes do you know about how things are, anyway?”

Bembo expected the local to duck his head and make himself scarce. That was what he would have done in the face of a couple of occupiers. It was what most sensible Forthwegians did. And, indeed, the fellow started to do just that.

But then, as if arguing with himself, he shook his head and strode across the cobbles toward Bembo and Oraste. “Do you want me to tell you what I know, gentlemen? I can do that, if you care to listen.”

“Is he nuts?” Oraste whispered to Bembo.

“I don’t know,” Bembo whispered back. The Forthwegian wasn’t acting strange, except for being willing to speak his mind. But, in Gromheort, that was pretty strange in and of itself. Bembo let his right hand fall to the stick he wore on his belt. He raised his voice a little. “That’s close enough, pal.”

The Forthwegian not only stopped, he bowed, almost as if he were an Algarvian himself. He laughed, and his laugh was harsh and bitter. “I am not a dangerous madman. It is a tempting role, but not one I can play. There are times I wish I could, believe you me.”

That was fancy talk. It did nothing for Oraste. He rumbled, “Come to the point or get lost.”

With another bow, the Forthwegian said, “I shall. My nephew beat my son to death with a chair, and nobody did a thing about it. Nobody will do a thing about it. I have no chance of getting anybody to do anything about it, either. Should I think all is well in Gromheort?”