The Seer King: Book One of the Seer King Trilogy (9 page)

“In theory,” the captain said, and his lip curled to show what he really thought of the idea, “
in
theory
this could be done. Just as, with a lever long and strong enough and a fulcrum solid enough, you could lift the city of Nicias to the other side of the Latane River.” There was a bit of laughter.

“But we are soldiers here, learning to deal with the facts of the rude day. Perhaps, if your interests lie in such ethereal matters, you might consider applying to a wizards’ academy, and leaving your place here for a more pragmatic young man.” Some of the less brainy sorts laughed harder at this, since at the time military sorcerers were known as mystical dolts who would die trying to figure why the demon they’d evoked was green instead of the desired blue, and never notice their legs were being devoured.

The young man flushed and sat down.

“I mean no insult,” the officer said, for he was not an unkindly man. “We all know of great battles fought magician to magician, especially before war is declared or in the early stages of a struggle. And magic is of inestimable value when unopposed, and again I must emphasize that word, for example when the commander wishes to see if the enemy has concealed reserves. Possibly, if a magician has power enough, and his opponent is weak enough, he might be able to affect the opposing general’s willpower to continue a hard-fought battle.

“And finally, magic comes into its own when an army is broken, its willpower gone, just as cavalry should always be used to finish a fleeing enemy.

“But all these purposes, important though they are, are secondary to our real purpose, what we soldiers have dedicated our lives to: battle. When steel becomes the argument, and the battlefield has been chosen, then sorcery must step aside. Magic, just like the quartermaster, the paymaster, or the farrier, exists only to ease the path of the warrior on the battlefield. In no way can it replace him.”

I thought of asking a question at this point — I didn’t think the questioner had meant that, any more than someone asking if archers should be brought closer to the actual battle zone or kept back to fire volleys at the reserves meant the swordsman should stay home, or someone questioning whether the halberd wasn’t vastly inferior to the lance meant it should be scrapped.

But I said nothing.

I also thought something else: The witch in our village could heal colds, ease the shaking bones of the old, make childbirth easier — in short, perform many important tasks. She could not, however, make bones knit overnight or keep a failing heart beating for a while. For that we had to send for a more skilled practitioner. But that didn’t mean she denied it was possible to heal a broken leg.

Her attempts to predict and control the weather were complete failures, and so were those of all the district sages I’d seen attempt the labor. But did that mean no one had done such a marvel? Of course not; it merely required a master wizard.

So battle magic was difficult. Perhaps a sorcerer powerful enough had not attempted it as yet, or perhaps no one had devised spells potent enough to rule the battlefield. But that didn’t mean it was impossible. All the captain was really saying is that no one to our knowledge had mastered such feats, and not even I, coming from a backwater area like Cimabue, imagined Numantia to be the entire world.

I thought that the army, in this, as in many other ways, was all too ready to say This Is the Way It Is and Must Be, and close its mind. But that was a passing notion, and I, too, accepted Things as They Were.

Until Seer Tenedos.

Where I did well was out of doors, whether on the parade grounds, where I was very familiar with the evolutions, courtesy of my father; in any sport, particularly if it involved riding; or in our war games.

Perhaps I would have ranked higher, but as I’ve said my temper boiled when any other “young gentleman” insulted me, my accent, my district, or, worst of all, my family, and so there were a number of disciplinary infractions on my record. I cared little, because it’s far more important for a man to stand up for what he believes than to bow down meekly. A crawler cannot be a warrior.

This showed another peculiarity of the army: If I was insulted, and touched the hilt of the dress dagger we all wore, the challenge would have been made and my foe and I would have met at dawn with bare blades. A wounding or a death would be shrugged aside as part of the price of becoming an officer. But to seize one of these swaggerers by the waist, as I once did, upend him, and toss him into a slops barrel — why, this was most unseemly, and required three days in the stables for me to expiate my sin.

I made few friends, as I’d expected. Most tales of young men away from home for the first time tell how they erred and overstepped their bounds, became cocky, or lost all discipline. None of that happened to me, so my time at the lycee is quite a dull tale. Since I was very poor, Domina Roshanara’s allowance just covering my expenses with three or four coppers left at the end of each month, the rich cadets did not take me to their bosoms. Since I wasn’t a libertine, again more due to lack of funds than desire, the rakehellies thought me dull. Those few who were studious and aspired to be wise needed nothing from someone as thickheaded as I.

Perhaps I sensed the army’s cruelty with relationships even then. Soldiers swear the friends they make as recruits last forever, but this is seldom the case, particularly with officers. In the beginning there are the normal differences of class, wealth, and performance that divide young men from their fellows. But it becomes worse once the sash of office is given. Friends fall away like rain. Some die of disease, some in battle, but even more must be turned away — a man who is promoted to captain can no longer roister with his now-lower-ranking legates. Dominas don’t relax with captains, nor generals with dominas. My father had warned me of this, too, saying in spite of all the bravado and cheers, a soldier’s life is a lonely one. I think he prepared me well for such a truth, for such a fate.

The few men I felt close to were of the lower ranks, although I was careful to remember my father’s advice that an officer must never become so friendly with a ranker that he cannot send him off to die. But I did enjoy listening to the tales of the old warrants, of campaigns long forgotten except by soldiers, or being with the stablemen and learning still more about horses and their peculiarities.

I confess my happiest times were alone, when I had no duties, and I’d saddle Lucan, put some bread, cheese, and fruit in a pouch, and ride off into the country with no particular destination in mind. Sometimes I’d take a bow and some blunts, and try for squirrels or birds, or a hook and line for fish. Sometimes, on those back lanes far from the lycee, I’d encounter farmers or fellow hunters-poachers, I suppose they were, which mattered not at all to me, since all men must eat.

More than once, especially during harvest season, I would encounter young women. I guess there was a certain amount of glamour to being a budding cavalry officer, and since I spoke as these young farm women did, I was a friendly presence. Such an encounter might well end on a bed of moss in a secluded glen, lying naked with a maid, and once or twice with a pair of them giggling and taking turnabout. It is only city people who think the countryside is innocent. To this day the smell of new-mown hay or freshly picked berries can bring a smile to my lips and a bit of remembered heat to my loins.

I wonder if my life would have been happier if I’d been born one of these country people, and known no further horizons than they did? Perhaps Irisu intended me as such, and Saionji, in the guise of my father, intervened. I know not.

As the final term came to an end, I began looking for my regiment Graduates were permitted to apply to any unit they chose, and, if the army grudgingly found a vacancy, it might actually assign you to that formation. As a graduate of an elite school, at least I would be with the cavalry, and not the infantry or, worse yet, the pioneers or some service formation.

I assumed my fellow students, with their “priests” and wealth and families and ties, would get the marrow of the choices, and leave me with the driest of bones.

I’d looked with longing at the cavalry regiments “out there,” as the Nicians put it, scattered in cantonments on the Frontiers or within the wary garrisons on the border between Dara and Kallio, in a state of truce that wasn’t war, yet never became peace.

Most of all, I wished to serve in one of the three regiments in Urey that kept Dara’s vassal state from being ravaged by the Men of the Hills, those fearless killers from the Border States who come down from their hard mountains to loot, rape, and kill.

They also were the front line against Kallio, who also claimed Urey, and, on the other side of the Border States our most dangerous potential foe, the Kingdom of Maisir. These three regiments were the Tenth Hussars, the Twentieth Heavy Cavalry, and the most romantic, the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, which guarded the most important passageway into the Border States, Sulem Pass.

As far as I could tell, I stood as much chance of being assigned to any of these three units as I did of being chosen Queen of the Festival of Births to dance around the lingarn pole with an orchid between my breasts.

Once more luck intervened, both close and far. I knew one, but not the other. The distant and unknown was that the Frontiers were waking, and on the sheer cliffs and in the sere villages of the Border States, the harsh desert highlands the Men of the Hills called Kait in their own tongue, the tribesmen were stirring, looking lustfully south at the green lands, fat sheep, fatter purses, and smooth-skinned maidens of Urey.

There were others looking at the same lands, but we didn’t learn about them for a while, and their lusts went far beyond the immediate joys of rape and raid.

The closer piece of luck became evident, when I heard what posts my fellow graduates were seeking. Either they wished staff postings, preferably serving under the command of one or another of the high-rankers who’d sponsored their career or with one of the “parade-crash” regiments close around Nicias. These units were also considered elite, but hardly by me, since we’d been encouraged to visit these great regiments, to be quietly wooed by them. I’d seen how much time was spent polishing everything from armor to the horses’ hooves, and how little they practiced real fighting maneuvers instead of the glamorous but meaningless reviews, charges-in-line, and intricate wheelings. I had not joined the army to worry about whether the horsehair plume on my helmet dangled precisely to the second knot from the bottom of my spine.

I’d sent applications by military post to all three of the regiments in Urey, and then could do nothing but wait.

They say graduation from the lycee is the grandest moment of a young officer’s life. Perhaps it is for some, but not for me. Far greater was the night with the woman and the tiger in my tiny hut, or the day I received welcomes from two of the three regiments I’d applied to. One of them was the Lancers, and I did not think my heart could be fuller.

The days blurred by until graduation, when I galloped Lucan out of ranks, to the platform the school domina stood at, dismounted, marched up the steps, and the sash of rank was wound about my waist.

I went to several of the graduating parties, and swore, with the others, eternal friendship and fealty, but my mind was far south, wishing for those stark, barren hills of the Border States.

T
HE
W
OLF OF
G
HAZI

It seemed as if every citizen of Nicias was abroad as I rode through the city toward the docks. I kept glancing at the sun, afraid I’d miss my sailing time, but unable to move faster than a walk, for fear Lucan or Rabbit would crush someone.

There were sweating priests staggering along, trying to look dignified, carrying statues of their god or goddess bigger than they were, followed by chanting acolytes; merchants intent on the day’s business and paying little heed to the bustle around them; whining beggars; rich wives out to shop in sedan chairs or carriages; a few early drunkards; porters transporting everything from loaves of bread to ceremonial robes to one man — and everyone gave him a wide berth — with an open basket full of snakes.

In the middle of a street a naked religious man sat meditating. The crowd ebbed around him as if he were a rock in a river. Sooner or later either he’d decide to move, a rich man would toss a gold coin into his bowl and he’d mysteriously awake, or he’d be crushed by a freight wagon or elephant. No doubt it didn’t matter to him which happened.

There was a slight shimmer about him, and as I rode past, his power was such that I was drawn into his vision.

The two of us were alone in a cool vale, near a laughing brook. A soft breeze caressed us, and the sun was kindly. Birds sang, and a roebuck grazed nearby. The holy man smiled his welcome and peace washed over me.

I was back in Nicias. I wiped sweat, dropped two coppers in the man’s bowl, and went on.

Evidently the Seventeenth Lancers were in a hurry for my presence, for they’d authorized me to take passage on a fast packet, the
Tauler
, whose broadside promised to deliver me to Renan in less than two weeks.

The
Tauler
was still moored at its dock and I took a moment to marvel at the craft. It was less than a year old, and a fine example of what the mechanics of Dara could produce, nearly 200 feet long and 40 wide. There were three decks with cabins raised above the main deck, which had storage space for cargo and, amidships, pens for animals. The ship was navigated from a small cupola in the bows. Its upperworks were built of teak that had been crafted into a thousand thousand fantastic images of gods, men, and demons, then painted in as many hues.

But what made it so astonishing was its method of propulsion. At the stem were, side by side, two broad treadmills, such as the ones used in the countryside to power a miller’s wheel, but far wider and heavier, as if elephants would provide the energy instead of oxen. But they stood empty. Here was where mighty sorcery would work. A group of Nicias’s master magicians had spent years developing a spell that enabled the treadmills, which I had been told were made of elephant hide, not only to hold the great strength of the beast, which would be loosed to power the ship, but also to maintain this power for a week or more before the belts needed replacement. I marveled, and again was reminded how foolish it was that the army thought magic no more than a minor tool.