Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (13 page)

“Yes.
And I see a lot of blood, pain and death.”

“With
my army or with my enemies?”

So
much death answered his question in the positions of the pebbles, I felt sick.
“Does that matter? Why bring death to so many when you could remain here in
peace?”

Behind
me I heard Nance whisper, “Take care.”

Tarvik's
rigid posture echoed her fear.

Easy
for them, they only heard the danger for themselves. For me it wasn't that
simple. Occasionally, when a chart displays extremes of emotion, I glimpse a
scene. A small scrap of genetic magic that I didn't want or need. But that's
what I got, and my gut ached, because for a few seconds it was like looking at
the wide screen version, bright color, masses of writhing bodies on a
battlefield. Worse than a battlefield.

There
were warriors everywhere, pushing their way between village huts, slashing
paths clear, broadswords swinging. None seemed to notice what they struck and
they were hitting children, old people, and parents trying to wrap themselves
around babies to protect them with their own bodies. God, those swords were
evil, hacking through anything, blood flying, unarmed people falling,
villagers, I supposed, and all that saved me from passing out was that I could
only see the scene, not hear the screams from all those dying faces.

And
then I was back in the courtyard, listening to the devil himself.

“I
respect this star magic that gives you so many answers, although I do not
understand it. But you, Stargazer, are of no importance to me and I do not want
your opinions, do you hear me?”

So
even in La-La Land, tyranny ruled.

The
scruffy dog lifted its head and studied me through narrowed eyes as though it
knew I talked too much. Ah, it must be a tone in Kovat's voice, I thought,
something the dog recognizes as a danger signal. Clever dog. Stupid me.

I
shut up. No knowledge from my charts or mind would please a madman.

“Is
this all you can say, that my victory depends on a battle fought before the
full moon?”

I
did not look again at the horoscope on the ground. If any further guidance lay
there for this warrior who gloried in destruction, I wasn't going to search for
it. Years of reading horoscopes had taught me when to quit. With great effort,
I kept my voice steady. “I have told you all I have seen.”

“Well
enough, Stargazer. When I return victorious, I will bring with me a crown of a
warlord of Thunder and you shall have it as your prize. If you wish, I will
also bring his severed head.” Damn, that sounded like a line from some sick
fairy tale. He leaned toward me, whipped out his sword and jammed its point
into the earth inches from the end of my toes. Guess it was lucky I was still
so numb from the vision I didn't flinch. He liked that. His smile bared jagged
teeth. “But if my armies suffer great loss and I cannot capture a crown, it
will not matter to you. You will have no head on which to wear it.”

I
lacked the courage to say, “Mister, blood soaked crowns are not my idea of what
Santa brings.”

Didn't
say it, but I thought it.

I
mean, up to now my definition of a tyrant was Darryl Decko, but oh man, he’d
never decapitate anybody. Now that I’d met Kovat the word tyrant had a whole
new meaning.

That
night when Tarvik did his bang-on-the-gate, I greeted him with a question.

“After
your father beheads me, who will you pester in the evenings?”

He
walked around me to the fire, stood with his back to me and poked at the embers
with the toe of his boot. Dark oiled leather, no scuffs, live-in-a-castle
boots. I guess that meant he had servants with strong hands and sheepskin
polishing cloths. I used to find his clothes entertaining. Now I knew that
every piece of gold was bought with the death of innocents, and that the slave
who polished the boots was probably the last remaining member of his family and
had had the pleasure of watching them murdered. Somehow silk tunics and tooled
belts and rings and things became that cliché of “lost their luster.”

His
head shook slowly back and forth, as though he was arguing with himself. I
waited. When he finally turned to face me, there was something close to fear in
his expression.

“That
won't happen.”

“Right,
you will stand courageously in front of me like a big letter T with your back
to me and your arms held out and tell your father that he has to chop you down
first before he can reach me.”

“What?”

“It's
from one of those hero stories. This famous warrior defied a god or something.”

“Tell
me the story.”

“Sorry,
I don't remember how it ended, probably with both of them dead.”

“I
don't like that ending. Let's talk about something else. I know. Those pebbles
you use with your circles, are they magic?”

We
sat down by the fire and I pulled the pebbles out of my pocket and spread them
around on the ground. “Touch them if you dare.”

He
looked at me through narrowed eyelids, then at the pebbles. Reaching out, he
stirred them around with a fingertip, then picked them up one at a time to
center in his palm and study. “Pebbles. Plain old pebbles. Different colors.
Paint?”

“The
stuff Nance uses on our faces.”

“How
can pebbles give you messages?”

“Okay.
Each pebble represents a planet. That's a moving star.”

“All
stars move across the sky at night.”

“Yes,
but they move together in a pattern, always staying the same distance from each
other. The ones we call planets do not remain in the pattern. Each moves by
itself across the sky at its own pace so that through the seasons and the years
it will pass through the twelve constellations of the zodiac, uh, that's the
path the sun follows.”

“Which
is which?” he asked, peering down at the pebbles he held in his upturned right
hand.

When
I touched his left hand, he turned it palm up also. I picked up the white
pebble from his right palm and moved it to the left one, and when my fingertips
touched his hand he looked at me, his eyes glowing in the firelight.

Perhaps
not the best place to start, but I did not know how to backtrack. “That's
Venus, the brightest star in the sky. It stays near the sun and it represents
love.”

“Yes,
I have seen it. I did not know it had a name.”

Moving
the yellow pebble, I said, “That one represents Mercury, a sign of wisdom. It
travels so close to the sun it's difficult to see, but we keep track of it and
know where it is.”

“How
can you do that if you cannot see it?”

Explain
telescopes? Right after I explained that the earth was round and men really had
gone to the moon. Okay, off to Disneyland and the wicked stepmother. “We have a
magic mirror that we look through and it shows many of the sky's secrets.”

“So
you do know magic.”

I
moved the red pebble from his right palm to his left. “This is Mars. It causes accidents
and violence and I think it must be strong in a warlord's magic circle.”

“If
you know magic,” he said, watching me with that intense look that tightened his
face and worried me a bit, “you can use it to save yourself, can't you?”

If
Kovat lost his battle but returned alive, I rather suspected I would need
something stronger than magic. The only way a telescope would help me was if I
could use one to hit him over the head.

“Jupiter
is this large blue stone and it brings fortune and happiness. The green stone
is Saturn. It can be both killer and healer.”

“If
you know magic, use it,” he said softly.

“Tarvik,
are you paying attention to what I am telling you?” I scolded.

“Go
on, tell me the rest.”

“This
speckled pebble represents Uranus, which brings change and confusion. And last
is Neptune.” I settled the lavender stone in his right hand. Was this place
landlocked? “Have you ever been to the seashore?”

“What's
that?”

“The
ocean. Water farther than you can see, past the horizon, big waves breaking?”

“No.
You're making that up.” He looked down at the two metal pieces still resting on
his left palm, the dime and the penny. “Then these bits must be the moon and
the sun. Is there a story about each star?”

“Oh
you! Yes, there is a story about practically every star in the sky and I cannot
possibly tell them all to you.”

He
tilted his hands so the pebbles slid out on the ground and then he plucked the
white one up, holding it between thumb and forefinger. “Tell me the story of
this one. Did you see it in my father's circle? The woman you mentioned. My
mother did not leave him, so the woman you said he loved cannot have been my
mother. Are you saying he did not love my mother?”

I
did wish Kovat had told me to stop a bit earlier. What else was Tarvik to
think? Very well, I would make a few guesses because who knew, if I could have
all the planets in their right positions for Kovat’s chart, perhaps I would
have different answers.

I
said, “I think your father had a first love that ended in heartbreak. Don't we
all? But hearts mend and your mother was his true love.”

“Do
you think so?” He looked so troubled, I felt a bit of pity for this spoiled
boy, not a lot, but a touch. “My mother wasn't elf, well, perhaps a small bit.
My father's mother was elf, you know.”

Well,
strike me with a lightening bolt. “Elf? You had a grandmother who was really an
elf? What did she look like?”

“I
don't know, never saw her. She left my grandfather right after my father was
born. Elf women do that, run away. That's why I wonder if the woman you saw in
his past was an elf.”

“Why
would she be?”

He
shrugged, drew lines in the dry earth with a finger tip, then said slowly,
“Elves are magic. The men never come down the mountain, but sometimes the women
go looking for herbs and wander too far away. And get captured.”

“Your
grandfather captured your grandmother? So was she a slave, then?”

“No.
She was his wife. But she left him. Elf wives always leave.”

“She
left her baby?”

“She
couldn't take it back. The elf men wouldn't keep a halfling.”

That
was all very entertaining, as good a fairy tale as I'd heard. I didn't know
what to think. “So you think Kovat is half elf and his first love was an elf
woman.”

“I
know he's half elf. I don't know about the woman, but once he told me never to
try to catch an elf woman because she could enchant me.”

Huh.
All right, high in the mountains there was another tribe and their women were
irresistible. I could buy that, but more than that, those women weren't about
to stay captured. That would explain the runaway wife and the runaway lover.

Maybe
that idea wasn't much consolation to Tarvik.

Kovat's
chart clearly showed his love for Tarvik. Good enough for us stargazers who
sometimes have to soften truth. “I saw his greatest love in his chart and it
wasn't that first love.”

“Did
this Venus star show you my mother? Tell me its story.”

The
story of Venus? Don't think so.

“I'm
way too tired to tell you more tonight. Another time, if you can remember the
names of all the pebbles, I'll tell you some of their stories.”

By
then I'd have thought up a story about Venus that didn't feature hormones.

After
placing the Venus pebble among the others, he grinned at me. “You think I will
forget. You are wrong. I will remember their names and I will remember you owe
me a story for each of them.”

He
stood in one fluid motion, then reached down and held out his hand and pulled
me to my feet. When he reached the gate he did what I now thought of as his
Tarvik parting gesture. He opened the gate, stepped out, then leaned back
through the opening. “Stargazer, I like stories with happy endings.”

So
now he wanted me, who could not control my own life, to change the stories of
the planets themselves. Right, and happy ending or not, my boy, I wasn't about
to serve up a nudie Venus on a mythological half-shell. When we got around to
that story, the babe was going to be a dowdy woman in a spotted apron whose
favorite hobby was cookie baking.

CHAPTER
8

As
though I had tossed an ember into a pile of dry brush with my reading of
Kovat's future, the daily pace of our routine flamed into a roaring blaze that
scattered before it all the slow, dull, sleepy activity of the temple and city.
Nance rushed around me rearranging temple cloths, polishing candleholders and
shouting instructions at me until I fled to the courtyard to escape her. When I
pressed the gate open a narrow crack and peered out, across the valley and far
hillside I could see the same craziness outside, people rushing up and down the
dusty paths carrying bundles and shooing goats and chickens into pens.

“Bolt
that gate, Stargazer!” Nance shouted. “Hurry, I must fix your hair. Oh, that
robe is worn shabby. Help me with this lamp. I cannot lift it alone.”

When
I tried to help her, she rushed around me scolding and complaining until I shouted,
“Stop! Gimme a break! What's going on?”

“They
will arrive soon and we must do so much to prepare.”

“Who
will arrive?”

“My
lord Erlan and his lady Ober and their daughter Alakar and all their court and
army, as though it weren't your fault -”

“My
fault!”

“It
was you who told Kovat he would conquer if he attacked before the full moon,
was it not? So instead of allowing a few moons to prepare for a campaign, he
allows us only days. His brother Erlan is on his way with his army.”

“What
have we to do with a campaign?”

“Several
hundred people arriving, someone has to bed them and feed them, many will stay
in the castle, you think Kovat will let his family sleep in the stable or camp
out with the army?”