Valdemar 06 - [Exile 01] - Exile’s Honor (27 page)

Which brought him back to the problem all over again. If only they could make all those agents into little Alberichs . . . if only they could link those agents into Alberich's head, so that every time they did something wrong, he would catch them and correct them.

And a blinding revelation hit him.

“Good gods—” Talamir exclaimed, staring unseeingly at his reflection in the window. “I do believe I have the solution.”

“To which problem?” Dethor asked skeptically.

“To the problem of how we can get effective agents into Karse,” Talamir replied, holding his half-peeled apple tightly. “And to the problem of Alberich contributing to the war. You know how MindHealers are able to get into someone's head and do things with their memories? Extract ones we need from someone who's unconscious, and all that?”

Once again, he found it unnecessary to explain to his friend where he was going. “MindHealer. You think they'd be willing to get into our Karsite's head and get
his
memories out, then plant them in someone else's head?” Dethor looked interested, but skeptical. “They're damn near as touchy about what's moral and what's not as
he
is about his honor.”

“If he agrees, I can ask,” Talamir replied. “I lose nothing by asking, and if I already have his consent, what can they object to?”

“And will those memories be
real?
” Dethor continued. “I mean, you
know
how faulty even trained memory can be. Memory isn't reliable—especially not childhood memory.”

“Which doesn't matter!” Talamir responded triumphantly. “Not in this case. What
matters
are the little things that make him Karsite, not the particulars. In fact, I wouldn't be at all averse to some inaccuracy, even a little childish fantasy; if we can make agents who aren't Alberich but
are
common Karsite folk, all the better.”

Dethor brooded over the idea for a while. “I'm not sure that could be done with the Lord Marshal's men,” he began, sounding very dubious indeed.

But Talamir shook his head. “I'm not talking about the Lord Marshal's men,” he replied. “If this works, we can risk Heralds. And we'll have to; I suspect it will only work with those who've got Mindspeech.”

“Ah, hellfires.” Dethor was clearly dismayed. After a moment, however, he scratched his head and shrugged. “I suppose you're right. And I have to think we'll get volunteers.”

“I'd be shocked if we didn't.” It was a depressing thought, actually—his yearmates, students, teachers, people he knew, rushing eagerly into the worst danger. It was bad enough for the Lord Marshal to send spies, but if the Karsites found
Heralds
on their soil—

Yet if those Heralds could pass as common Karsites and be able to discover and pass on what the Tedrels were going to do well in advance—

The alternative, though, was not to be contemplated. Alberich was not the only one who thought that the Tedrels were engaged in a campaign to drain Valdemar until it was so weak that one tremendous push would collapse everything.

They don't know us very well if they think we'll just collapse,
Talamir thought, grimly.

:They know us not at all,:
Taver said, although Talamir had not deliberately used Mindspeech, sounding just as grim as Talamir felt.
:But the cost of holding against them, never knowing when the push is coming—:

It didn't bear thinking about.
:So we must know what they are about to do before they do it, so that we can appear to weaken without actually doing so. Then we can lure them into making their final push while we are still strong.:

That, really, was the only possible option. Sendar and the Council had weighed all the others, not that there were many. By emptying the treasury and conscripting every able-bodied man and woman in the Kingdom, they
might
be able to mount a counter-campaign. There wasn't enough money in the entire Kingdom to hire a force equivalent to the Tedrels. . . .

:There is not enough money in all of Karse twice over to
hire
the Tedrels,:
Taver reminded him.
:They are fighting for themselves, not Karse. Karse has not hired them, per se—or at least, they offered them something more than just gold. Karse has merely provided them with a platform from which to launch a campaign to conquer a new homeland and the resources to support them while they do so.:

“Why do the Karsites hate us so much?” Talamir asked aloud, in something like despair. “Why?”

Dethor shrugged. “Religion's at the heart of it, I'd guess,” he opined. “But don't ask me, ask Alberich.”

Religion. What about Valdemar could
possibly
seem so threatening to a religion?

:There is no one true way,:
Taver said.
:That is what threatens the Sunpriests; that is what terrifies them. If you offer
that
to people, you offer them freedom, and you challenge those who claim ultimate authority. If you offer that, you give people options. The Sunpriests rely on being the ultimate, unchallengeable authority; their lives depend on the very opposite of options. Their rule depends on their followers having
no
options, and relies on blind belief and even blind obedience.:

:Perhaps, but how do they expect to keep their people in the dark?:
Short of building a wall around the country and guarding every exit point, there was no way of keeping people from finding out what was going on outside their borders.

:Ah, but a war
builds
that wall, doesn't it?:
Taver responded.
:You don't need stones when you've got an enemy.:

“Interrupting, I hope I am not,” Alberich said from the doorway. He sounded exhausted; when he came into the light, Talamir took a good long look at him, and decided that he was at least as exhausted as he sounded.

“Hmm. Another fight?” he asked. The Weaponsmaster's Second was somewhat the worse for wear. He had a bandage across his forehead and another binding his forearm (suggesting that he'd already been to the Healers), bruised knuckles, and other signs that he'd been getting into trouble down in Haven. Small wonder he sounded tired.

“Fruitful,” was all Alberich said. “But to drink, something wholesome, if you please?” He made a face. “The taste of sour beer, to remove from my mouth.”

“I very much please, lad, and get off your feet,” Dethor said quickly, and Alberich limped into the room. Dethor tilted the kettle at the hearth and poured out a mug of mulled wine, handing it to Alberich who sat down and accepted it, draining half of it in a single go. “So, what'd you net us this time?”

“Smugglers,” Alberich replied. “Of vile things in—of information out.” He raised a weary eyebrow. “One leak less, there is, and the jail, full.” He still looked troubled, though, and Talamir knew why; it wasn't that he hadn't done well, it was just that he was concerned that there were informants who were eluding him. Anyone that Alberich caught down in the slums of Haven would not likely be sending the most sensitive information. Not that there was any sign that there
was
such a leak, but they always had to assume that one could exist.

Finding
those
leaks was Talamir's job; Alberich could not function in Court circles, while Talamir could, cultivating a mild-mannered and quiet demeanor, saying little and all of that agreeable and sympathetic. He came across as unworldly and just a bit absent-minded. People confided in him a great deal, and generally had no idea how
much
they had told him.

Nevertheless, there was no doubt in Talamir's mind that if saboteurs and couriers were to materialize in Haven, they would be living and operating in the area that Alberich was responsible for. Elsewhere, people were curious about their neighbors. In effect, each little quarter outside of the
most
impoverished areas was a kind of village, where everyone knew everyone else and wanted to know what they were up to. Not so around Exile's Gate. The inhabitants were utterly indifferent to the doings around them, and with good reason. Those who were too curious often ended up on—at best—the wrong end of a beating.

“Plenty of damage can come out of Exile's Gate,” Talamir assured him. “Anything you do to stop it from traveling to our enemies is another arrow in our quiver.”

Alberich sighed. “It seems like not enough.” But he leaned back and accepted a refill and an apple, which he peeled with a frown of concentration, getting the entire peel off in one piece. The knife made a crisp sound as it passed through the flesh.

“If you were a maid, you'd be tossing that over your shoulder, and looking for the letters of your husband's name in it,” Dethor observed, as Alberich carefully set the long curl of peel aside.

Alberich regarded him somberly. “Is that so? In Karse, such are for the children fried and dipped in honey. I have told you, divination a thing of witchcraft is. No Karsite maiden would dare such a thing, for the fear of the Fires.”

Once again, Talamir was struck by how very different the Karsites were. A Valdemaran wouldn't think twice about tossing an apple peel, reading the tea leaves, wishing in a fountain. And that was the essence of the problem that faced the agents sent into Karse.

“Have you eaten?” Talamir asked, instead of commenting. “More than just that apple, I mean.”

Alberich shrugged; Talamir took that as a negative, and made up an impromptu meal for him from the remains of supper's meat and salad and some bread. Since Alberich took it with polite thanks, then absently ate it in less time than it had taken Talamir to make it, the King's Own was certain that he must have been famished.

“Glad enough, I am, to be rid of such filth as were locked away,” Alberich continued, swallowing the last bite whole and absently licking his fingers. “Only, I wish it were more that I was doing. In the South . . .”

That was as good an opening as Talamir was likely to get, and he took it, explaining what he had in mind. He knew Alberich very well now; he didn't waste his breath in trying to convince the man of anything, just stated his case. He watched as Alberich's eyes took on that curiously unfocused appearance that meant he was discussing the idea with
his
Companion.

This gave Talamir plenty of time to study Alberich, and he didn't like what he saw.

Besides the bandaged forehead and forearm—
not
his sword arm, which was telling—there was a bulge beneath the sleeve covering the biceps of that same arm that suggested another bandage, perhaps of a previous wound. The scars left from the burns on his face were crisscrossed by others now. That, as Talamir recalled, was a favorite tactic of low-and-dirty street fighting—to go for the face, figuring that the pain and blood that any facial cut produced would be such a distraction that it would be easier to go in for a kill.

Not that facial scars were going to make him stand out in the neighborhoods and the company where Alberich was going at night. The opposite was true, actually; the more scars, the more he would fit in. Beneath the scars, the face was good, if carved on harsh lines—a long oblong with a stubborn chin, high cheekbones, wide brow, heavy eyebrows set in a permanent scowl, aquiline nose, and the eyes of a goshawk, fierce and wild, with the barest hint of something that was not quite sane. Or at least, it was a peculiar sort of sanity, that saw deeper into dark places and could stare into the abyss without flinching. Perhaps it was the curious quality that Alberich's eyes had of never being the same color twice in a row, varying from the gray of a threatening storm through a muddy green-brown, to (as they were tonight) something close to black.

For the rest, well, there was no doubt that even in the company of Heralds, who were a fit and athletic group, Alberich stood out. It was not that he had a perfect body—at least, not in the sculptural sense—it was something else. The practiced eye picked out the quality of muscle, the way every movement was
just
enough and no more, the absolute stillness at rest, and the immediate response when one was called for. Every movement was exact. It was difficult to describe, but easy to see when one knew what to look for. There was a fine economy in Alberich's actions, not a bit of energy wasted, and nothing held back when it was needed.

All of which, of course, came across as predatory and threatening, and probably all to the good down there in the slums.

“So,” Alberich said at last. “I will think further on this.”

It was a disappointing reply, but Talamir tried not to show his disappointment. There was nothing more he could add to his argument, and anything else would be nothing more than pressure that Alberich would probably respond poorly to.

“Seeking my bed, I should be,” Alberich continued, rising, and looking down at them solemnly. “Dethor's Second, I still am, and there Trainees always are.”

They bade him good night, and once he was out of the room, Dethor shrugged. “Well, there it is,” he said philosophically. “It's up to him now.”

“And hope he can find a straight path through all our tangles,” Talamir added—wondering if he ought to begin praying to the Sunlord, just for a little help. And whether, if he did, the Sunlord would take it amiss and tangle things up even further.