A Dragon at Worlds' End (34 page)

Ribela had definitely not sought this appointment, but she accepted the judgment of the other greatwitches. Ribela was the only one of them who had spent long periods of time with Lessis on certain highly important missions. Lessis had run the office for so long, and affairs had grown so complex in far-off theaters, that only Ribela had enough overall information to understand it all.

Ribela grasped Lessis's thought more clearly than any other person alive. She had also grown to realize how important to the Empire of the Rose was the witch Lessis. Filling those plain little shoes had turned out to be an enormous job. Somehow, without appearing to do so, Lessis had run a tight little bureaucratic ship that maintained several hundred spies and informants, plus networks of contacts and safe houses and friendly shipping firms, and on and on, and Ribela was just amazed at how much work there was to keep it all in motion. She had never given these matters much thought while she pursued her own agendas, in her own department within the Office of Unusual Insight. Ribela had covered the astral planes and undertaken the arduous and hazardous investigation of the higher planes.

Harried and anxious, Ribela, too, had found sleep a difficult matter. Not that she needed much sleep, but every so often it was essential. Being physically exhausted made her irritable. It was all too easy to clash with the emperor.

In particular, she found his newfound caution in military matters most irritating. It was the source of constant flare-ups between them. He couldn't seem to grasp the strategic point that risks had to be taken!

Once again she pulled back from her own harsh words.

"I am sorry, my emperor, I did not mean to impugn your motives. But this is the moment to strike. We have our great enemy on the defensive. Axoxo is the last fortress between our forces and the Inner Hazog. If we can dominate the Hazog, we will be threatening the heart of their realm. We can force them to battle and destroy them while they are still weak, still recovering."

Pascal nodded, controlling himself with an effort, having been virtually called a coward a minute before.

"Well, Lady, are we not besieging Axoxo? We have four Legions in place there, with elements of a fifth covering the supply route."

"I know, my emperor, but it is not enough to simply lay siege to Axoxo. Not with only four legions. We must capture it. Axoxo must fall, and soon."

"I cannot risk more than four legions at any one time. As it is we have called up the reserves all across the Argonath. This is a delicate time. Here in the isles we still grieve, you understand. The losses in Eigo will wring bitter tears from every village in these islands for years to come. Some will never recover. Think of Tel Delf; they lost all nineteen sons in the village."

Ribela knew the sad story of Tel Delf, and those of a dozen other small villages that had been overrepresented in the Legion of the White Rose that had gone to Eigo. She refused to allow sentiment to color her judgment.

"The generals think they can do the job with what they have. They say you must cut them loose. At present they sit in front of Axoxo and run occasional interdiction patrols behind the city. Smuggling goes on night and day and Axoxo is not completely cut off. Reinforcements have even gone in."

"The generals hope to win reputations. It is rare that generals die on the field of battle these days. Though we lost our great Baxander that way, in Eigo. Those men at Axoxo are recruited to my standard! I am their emperor and I am responsible for their lives. I will not waste them."

The word "waste" caused Ribela's hackles to rise. She knew that it referred to the Eigoan expedition, which had resulted in so many casualties. Ribela knew that the expedition had ended with the resounding success of the primary mission. She was also aware that Pascal had never really accepted the mission to Eigo. He had gone along with it on Lessis's plea, but he had never really believed it. The horror of the casualty lists, thousands and thousands of dead, thousands of maimed and crippled, had confirmed him in his dislike of the advice of witches. As Emperor of the Rose he was obliged to consult with them, but he feared their manipulations and was set against them in his heart.

The problem was that after long and careful consideration, Ribela had grown certain that the long war could be ended within a decade if they could but capture Axoxo. This fortress, deep in the White Bones Mountains, was the key to the inner Hazog. By a stroke of good fortune they had already captured the other eastern bastion of the enemy, Tummuz Orgmeen. Thus if they took Axoxo they would open up the outer lines of defense. The path to Padmasa itself would lie open.

She swallowed her anger. "Heruta was destroyed in Eigo. Our enemy's counsels are clouded. The four divide, two on two, and cannot easily make decisions without Heruta's lead. Gzug Therva thinks that he should now lead. Gshtunga disagrees. The others are indecisive."

Pascal shook his head in dismissal. Reports of this kind were always hard to accept. How could the witches have such quality of information? His own networks were unable to penetrate the Square in Padmasa.

"There is no hard evidence that Heruta was destroyed. Padmasa still has great strength. Axoxo will be hard to capture outright."

"You doubt the word of Lessis? Why would Lessis lie? It would hardly be like her. But whether you believe her or not, now is the time to strike, while they still reel from the Czardhan success in the uttermost west. If we hit them hard enough, they will have to weaken themselves in the west. The Czardhans will press hard. Padmasa itself may fall to us."

"I would welcome it with all my heart, but for now I will not risk five thousand men's lives for this dream. We will besiege Axoxo and we will bring it down. The engineers are working steadily enough."

"They will undermine the south tower of the citadel in two years' time! That is too long. That will give the enemy time to recover. The loss of their great army in the invasion weakened them throughout this theater. We have the initiative. We must not be afraid to use it."

Pascal Iturgio Densen Asturi had had enough. "You are the greatest of our mages, Lady, and you have delved deeper into the secrets of the world than any other, but you do not bear the responsibility. That falls to the emperor."

And this was the rock-solid heart of the Empire of the Rose. The greatwitches could advise, but they could not rule through magic. Ribela could easily have overwhelmed the emperor's mind with one device or another and planted her wishes there. One suggestion or another would do the trick, but it was forbidden, absolutely and utterly. Any suggestion of sorceress rule and the people of the Isles would rise and begin to build the burning pyres once again. They had freed themselves in long-distant times from the rule of wizards and would not endure it again.

Ribela thought, with regret, that Lessis would have been capable of moving the emperor without magic. She would have found some way to salve his psyche in the matter of the casualties and get him to see the need for swift, decisive action. Ribela hated this job. She took a deep breath and tried to be as deferential as possible. It was very difficult to do this with a male.

"My emperor, I know that you find me difficult. I accept that I am not the right person for this posting. I know that you were much happier with Lessis, but, alas, she is not here. She has gone into the mystic, leaving me as her unworthy successor."

Lessis had been the mentor of every emperor. Pascal Iturgio now demonstrated that he had learned something from the Gray Lady along the way, and spoke in his most gracious tone.

"We must overcome these differences, Lady."

"I agree wholeheartedly, my emperor."

"Good. Then we will take further advice about these ideas. Perhaps a sortie into the enemy's rear territories will be recommended by all, and other ideas may surface."

Ribela could not help herself; the words slipped out without her control.

"No, this is wrong! Time is short in this interval. You waste it at your peril. Attack now—we can capture the place!"

Pascal Iturgio Densen hated the Eigoan disaster, and feared to lose ten men more to add to those thousands that haunted him in his dreams. His name would go down in history as a figure of grim tragedy. The witch kept rubbing him raw on this place and would not give way. With a great effort he controlled himself.

"We will take it in good time and without unnecessary slaughter."

"My emperor, may I repeat the elements of the problem?"

She was talking to him as if he were wet behind the ears. He ground his teeth but refrained from exploding.

"First, the Czardhans are unified. They have defeated Padmasa in one campaign and are poised to begin another."

" 'Tis true. Even Hentilden has joined them. The Trucial States are at peace with all their neighbors."

"And with our siege of Axoxo we have largely cut off the trade in Ourdhi women for the slave pens in Padmasa. The supply of fresh imps for their armies has dwindled dramatically."

"For this we give constant thanks to the Mother, morning and night."

"And now we besiege Axoxo, while already holding Tummuz Orgmeen. The door is almost open to our enemy's heartland."

"Ah, that is true, but opening that door all the way might cost ten thousand lives, Lady. Our edge in battle is our trained infantry and our dragon force. If we lose those, we lose everything."

"We are the weaker force. We have to accept risks."

"Up to a point, but that point has been reached. The foolishness in Eigo has used up our reserve and with it a lot of our goodwill from the folk of the isles. Remember Tel Delf, Lady! The folk will not stand for suicidal attacks."

Pascal had good reason for his concern. The fortress of the Doom of the White Bones Mountains, Axoxo, was a peerless keep of adamant built atop frowning cliffs on three sides. An easily defended route into the mountains behind was covered by two small forts. All works were on a tremendous scale and were equipped with the heaviest catapults and trebuchets. To besiege it completely would take an army of two hundred thousand, kept in the field for perhaps a year. They had perhaps a tenth of that number.

In addition the supply line for the besiegers was long and frighteningly tenuous. A long passage across the grasslands of the Gan. The nomad tribes were always out there, waiting to pounce and take their toll. To keep it all going was enormously expensive and the empire was already stretched to the limits of its financial resources. Only levies on the Enniad Cities of the Argonath could produce the necessary funds to keep the siege going, and the cities were already balking at the additional taxation. To risk heavy casualties by adventurous soldiering in this situation was too much for the emperor to consider.

Ribela had heard the simmering anger in the emperor's voice. Her own teeth clamped against the rage, and she backed off. Lessis would never force the emperor into an argument, for he would become immovable. Turning aside from her own natural inclination, Ribela bowed her head and became silent. She could not move him with words alone. The temptation to cast a spell and force her way was very strong, but she could hear a warning voice in her ear, that calm, gentle voice that Lessis always used.

Ribela tried to appear attentive as the emperor turned the conversation to a subject more dear to his heart, the building of new grain chutes at the Darkmon Breaks in Kenor. The new lands coming under the plow in the high country were producing such an abundance of grain now that the existing chutes had become a bottleneck at the end of the harvest. Pascal Iturgio had taken a personal interest in the problem. He believed firmly in encouraging the agricultural boom in Kenor. The populations of the cities were swelling, and the grain magnates of the older provinces, along the eastern shore, were becoming a political and social threat. It was the emperor's job to cut the grain kings down to size. No individual city-state could deal with them, and they already ruled the councils of the King of Kadein. Pascal Iturgio had put his own personal money into the project. He produced a map and a series of watercolor renderings of the new chutes.

Ribela nodded and smiled at what she hoped were the appropriate times. When he was done, she made her excuses and left, returning to brighter light of day, blinking after the gloom of the emperor's chamber. The sense of frustration ruined the otherwise pleasant effect of looking from the Belvedere at the base of the Tower of Swallows, out into the lovely green dell of the Upper Garden.

Feeling old and defeated and even misused, Ribela trudged through the city to the drab-looking block that housed the Office of Insight. There she went to the second floor and passed through the quiet rooms of the Office of Domestic Insight. Few people were about; Domestic was a small service, and most of its work was actually done by the provincial officials of Cunfshon.

At the back of the Office of Domestic Insight, a short passage and a right-angle turn brought the knowledgeable person to another blank door. Beyond that door lay the small, musty rooms of the "Unusual."

Here worked a dozen or so people, the faceless functionaries chosen by Lessis to pull together all the strings of networked information from around the world.

Here also Ribela kept a cell for her own personal use. It was austere, with nothing but a lovely red Kassimi rug on the floor and a simple cot cut from Defwode oak and made in the Crafte Way. She hung her robe on a hook by the door and placed the silver skewers from her hair onto the small Crafte chest of drawers on one wall. She took up a hairbrush from the same small chest.

Wearing just her hose and tunic, she sat on the cot and took a series of deep breaths to calm herself while she brushed out her long straight hair.

Gert, the housemaid, brought her some hot tea which prompted her appetite. Gert then brought her a tray of boiled rice flavored with toasted sesame seeds and salt, some seaweed, and a few segments of orange. It was enough.

She decided to meditate on the difficulty. She knew what Lessis would have done, and she felt humiliated that she could not match Lessis in this dimension. But diplomacy and manipulation were not her strengths. She would seek guidance in the Mother's Hand.