The Death of Nnanji (38 page)

She sneered. “Kra never signed your treaty. You are planning to destroy the sorcerers’ craft, which, like all crafts, was established by the Goddess Herself.”

Wallie kept a firmer grip on his temper. He was frightened now that he had gone too far and she was going to call his bluff by telling him to begin the massacre, which he never could.

“I am going to transform it. I am going to make sorcerers into teachers—not teachers of children, for that craft exists already, but teachers of adults, adults of any craft. Your discovery of writing has already brought great blessings to the People. Traders, apothecaries, priests… almost every craft can benefit from writing, and yet you hoarded it for centuries. Telescopes, soap, lightning conductors—all of these are valuable to the People. I will see Kra opened as a great school, where adults can come and learn your wisdom.”

Now he thought he saw a flicker of interest in her eyes, and realized that it was a first spark of hope in a stygian darkness of despair. Perhaps she had been expecting the massacre.

“You will teach the People, for example, how to take a container of glass or ceramic and fill it with plates of two kinds of metal, such as copper and lead; how to connect the similar plates together with wire; how to top it up with acid. What sort of acid do you use? Not vinegar. I know you have much stronger acids than that.”

She bit her lip. “The higher volcanic acid. Dilute, of course.”

She probably meant sulfuric, and sulfurous acid would be “lower volcanic”. Wallie had a whole new language to learn and he couldn’t wait to get started.

“And what do you call this device?”

Her name for a battery was
god box
. Electricity was
god spark
, and radio telegraphy—which she now admitted to having—was
god speech
. It would all make sense to worshippers of the Fire God, much more sense than Wallie’s terms, which were mostly based on the Latin name for amber,
electrum
.

“Those are my dictates, my lady. You will open Kra to the World and reveal your secrets. You will make your wisdom available to benefit all the People. But I promise that I will give you other secrets, just as I gave Vul the lightning conductor and the hot air balloon. I will swear that there will be no reprisals or trials, no blame for starting the war. We shall write out this agreement and bind our two crafts to observe its terms forever, and it will be known as the Treaty of Kra.”

She thought for a moment, fists clenched. She glanced at the other two unfriendly swordsman faces, then back to Wallie.

“I have no choice, do I?”

“Not really,” he said. “Starting a war and then losing it is a very good road to disaster. But I think you will find the future is better than the past. I can show you much better ways of making god spark than a god box.”

For the first time she smiled. “Bribery! Very well, my lord, I must agree.”

Three things Wallie insisted on being shown right away: the telegraph office, the foundry where gun barrels were cast, and especially the places where thunder powder was made and stored, because he wanted to put those under guard. He took Joraskinta with him and sent Ozimshello back to the camp as insurance against treachery. Uzdrawun acted as guide.

The armory and magazine seemed genuine, but were almost empty. According to Uzdrawun, all the weapons and ammunition had fallen into the hands of the Tryst at the Battle of Cross Plo. If she was telling the truth, the sorcerers in Kra did not have enough gunpowder left to blow up anything significant.

The foundry impressed Wallie, although he knew little about casting. The furnaces were cold that day and the only person he met there was an elderly supervisor of the fifth rank. Wallie explained what a piston was and asked if he could make one tight enough to compress air, but slick enough to move. He outlined how a steam engine worked, with a boiler, a cylinder, and a condenser.

“A device like that,” he said, “could drive ships against wind and current both. Can you imagine that? Think how easy travel would be then. Such a device plying the waters of the River would be a true marriage of your Fire God and the Goddess.”

He left the old man open-mouthed, but he thought Uzdrawun was starting to believe in him.

The telegraph office was located on the uppermost room of the tower where he had seen the aerials. It was an untidy jumble, as if a packrat’s workshop, a laboratory, and a library had all been run through a blender together, but it was a glorious treasure house for him. He could have spent days there. Amid this spider’s nightmare of wires, few of which seemed to be insulated, he recognized equipment he had seen in museums: Leyden jar capacitors, acid batteries the size of washtubs, and the brass rods of a spark-gap transmitter. The tiny glass tube of the coherer fascinated him, because it proved that the sorcerers could create vacuums. They were further advanced than he had thought.

A single male Third sat at a table, sorting pieces of paper. He looked up in alarm when he saw two swordsmen gazing down at him.

“I am Shonsu,” Wallie said, “the monster himself. I am not going to draw my sword in here, nor even wave my hands around, so let us forget formal saluting. Your name?”

“Zzamb, my lord.” He touched his forehead in the sorcerers’ salute.

“We do not use formal gestures within the coven,” Uzdrawun said.

“Good. Tell me how god speech works, Sorcerer Zzamb.”

The Third looked in fright to the Sixth.

“Do as Lord Shonsu says.”

It was much as Wallie had guessed: a spark-gap transmitter, an aerial, and a receiver using the iron-filings coherer. “I can show you how to make one much, much better. How far can you reach? Can you send a message directly to Casr?”

“Certainly not at this time of day, my lord. After dark I have done so, sometimes. Just now I would direct the message to Ulk, with instructions to send it on, by way of Zan. If Zan or even Casr, managed to receive it clearly, they would cancel the repeat.”

“And if Honorable Uzdrawun wished to send such a message, could she dictate it to you, or would she have to write it down?”

Again Zzamb hesitated and again the Sixth told him to answer.

“Regulations are to write it down, my lord, but I could send from dictation, if she spoke slowly.”

“I will write one out for you.”

Wallie sat down and wrote on the slate provided, “SHONSU, LIEGE OF TRYST, TO WOGGAN, WIZARD OF CASR STOP KRA HAS FALLEN STOP MY WORD IS LAW STOP INFORM LORD BOARIYI WAR IS WON STOP INFORM LADY JJA HER SON GREAT HERO PROMOTED ADEPT STOP INFORM LADY THANA HER SON BETROTHED PRINCESS NOW HEIR TO PLO KINGDOM STOP NOT JOKING STOP ASK RECIPIENTS TO REPLY STOP MESSAGE ENDS”

Zzamb had been fussing around, making his equipment ready, turning switches, connecting wires. When he was ready, he pulled a face at the length of the text, while he stuffed his ears with felt plugs. Then he reached for a brass key the size of a car jack, and began.

Blue fire exploded between the brass rods with a clap of thunder that made Wallie jump. The noise was incredible, going on and on, but in recognizable dots and dashes. Soon the air reeked of ozone. Zzamb stopped, unplugged one ear, and put it close to a box the size of a hockey puck supported on two slender rods. Wallie decided that a set of headphones might be a good first improvement. Of course a better way of generating radio waves would help, too—either an alternator, or a thermionic tube.

Zzamb’s frown suddenly became a broad smile. “I have Ult responding already, my lord!”

He replaced the plug in his ear and the spark machine began its terrible racket again. Wallie gestured to his companions that it was time to go, and led them down the stairs. Now he understood the noises he had heard in the Casr tower.

Even at ground level, it was possible to hear that Kra was still transmitting. God speech was well named. The larger alphabet would make any Morse-type code less efficient, and each dot and dash took far longer than should be necessary. It might take an hour to spell out the message to Ult, and twice as long again to reach Casr, but even a Neolithic-quality radio still beat pigeons. Wallie chuckled, thinking that he would know when the message had been received when he heard Thana’s screams of joy. She would probably come to Plo for the coronation.

“That is very impressive,” he told Uzdrawun. “But I can show you how to make it a hundred times better. That little river… Does it flow year-round?”

She nodded, bewildered by the apparent change of subject.

“And does it flow through a narrow gap, anywhere? Could it be dammed, I mean?”

“I have no idea, my lord.” Evidently senior sorcerers did not go mountain climbing.

“Never mind just now, then. We shall make your god speech so clear that Zan can talk to Kra and Ult at the same time, or even have the palace in Plo speak directly to the palace in Casr. We shall put stations in every city in the World and charge people to send messages. Please let me know when you receive acknowledgment or replies.”
Damn!
“But I forgot to ask after Lord Nnanji. Have you heard news of his health recently?”

“We received a report on Lord Nnanji yesterday, my lord. He left Casr about six weeks ago and should arrive in Plo no later than Midwives’ Day. Extraordinarily fast travel!”

So the Nnanji express was running again. Wallie discovered that he was not surprised by the news. He had played out the stand-in role he had been given and was now expected to return the seventh sword to Nnanji so he could continue his life’s work of building the Tryst into a world-wide regime of law enforcement. Wallie’s job had always been to kick-start an industrial revolution, and clearly he had not been progressing fast enough to satisfy the Goddess.

But he also felt a huge surge of relief that Nnanji had been spared. The Tryst had dodged the bullet this time. It could not always be as lucky.

Chapter 7

The ship just tying up at Plo was flying Nnanji’s flag. He must have learned in the last few days that the war was over, but he had a sizable crowd of swordsmen on board with him, so he had been prepared to fight. Wallie was waiting on the wharf with an honor guard.

Typically Nnanji did not wait for the port official’s clearance, but came running down the gangplank as soon as it was in place, red ponytail flapping. Fifteen years ago he would have vaulted over the rail, but he was in his thirties now and even Nnanji had to start slowing down eventually. Yet he had changed very little in those years, even retaining most of his youthful slimness. And now he seemed none the worse for his recent narrow escape, except that he might be wearing the waistband of his kilt a fraction lower than was normal, thus exposing the edge of his scar. Amazingly, after all those years of frequent mortal combats, that was still almost the only scar he had. Grinning mightily, he strode over to Wallie and pulled his sword in salute. His eyes gleamed when he saw the seventh sword making the response.

“Not now, brother,” Wallie said. “When we get to the palace.”

Barely visible eyebrows rose. “Not the barracks?”

“No, you and I to the palace. May I present Reeve Ozimshello…”

As soon as a minimum of formalities were over, the two liege lords mounted and rode off, leaving the reeve to deal with the rest of the visitors.

“You won the war, I hear. I feel cheated.”

“I did not. I made an idiot of myself. I stood up before the assembly and promised all kinds of things and did none of them. I was outwitted by a sorcerer, can you imagine that?”

Nnanji looked impressed, if not quite convinced that he was hearing the truth. “Well, what did happen?”

“I sent Vixini against them. He did it. It’s quite a story.”

“Later, then. This is quite a town. And if that’s where we’re headed, that’s quite a palace. What’s the hurry?”

“A couple of things you should know. One is that the old king is failing. His heir may have to take over almost any day now. His heir is another Arganari.”

“He had two sons named that, or he sired a replacement?” Nnanji never forgot anything.

“He adopted a likely lad and gave him that name. He’ll succeed as Arganari XV.”

Nnanji shrugged. “We’ll keep him honest. What’s the second thing?”

“That the heir is so desperately eager to meet you that I almost had to tie him to the throne to stop him from rushing down to the port with me, and royalty mustn’t do that.”

The familiar pale eyes narrowed in a sideways grin. “You’re keeping something from me, brother.”

“The heir’s original name was Addis.”

It was very rare to see Lord Nnanji surprised, but he gulped and rode on in silence for about half a minute as the horses plodded up a steep part of the hill. “Is this your doing?”

“Not a bit of it. The old fellow is almost blind, but he thought he recognized his son’s voice, and you’d given him the hairclip. Why did you give him the hairclip?”

“I have no idea. I don’t remember giving him the hairclip, although Thana swears I did.” Had Nnanji ever had to make that sort of admission before?

“Well, the king realized that Addis was Arganari reborn, and adopted him.”

“You say ‘realized’? You believe that?”

“I’ve sort of known it since before he was born,” Wallie said. “The last time I saw the demigod he hinted at it. The prince was killed just after you and Thana had exchanged your marriage vows, remember, and the god told me that you conceived a son that night. He said that Arganari’s was one of the great souls, and they are always needed for important lives.” Nnanji himself was another, the god had said, but Wallie wasn’t about to tell him so. His ego needed no additional support.

Nnanji whistled and took another look at the palace looming over them. “The gods have done him proud, haven’t they! My son a king? He’s very young…”. .”

“He’s doing wonderfully already. Vixini’s been watching the palace officials coming around to the idea. At first they thought they’d run the brat, then they were outraged that he wouldn’t march to their beat, and now they’re starting to believe the old king’s dictum that the Goddess has sent them a miracle. I guessed something like this was in the wind on the day Addis was sworn. The assembly cheered him because he was the son of Nnanji. He hadn’t even had time to sheath his sword, but he saluted them with it, and they loved it. It was perfect! Now Plo has taken him to their heart. If the son of Nnanji marries their princess, then the ferocious Nnanji the Barbarian won’t sack their city.”