Siege of Tarr-Hostigos k-4 Page 3

  The Foundry barn had once belonged to one of the local gentry, who had died at the Battle of Fyk on Kalvan's Time-Line. Dying without issue, his property reverted to the Throne. The noble on this Control Time-Line had died during the sack of Hostigos Town, and in the aftermath his manor had burned to the ground and the barn abandoned. Occasionally a passing tramp or peasant would spend the night only to hear strange noises and an occasional apparition, courtesy of the Paratime Police. It hadn't taken long for the surviving locals to call the barn haunted. Now it was shunned by all-except the desperate and the ignorant, neither of which were around today according to the local Paratime watch.

  As soon as the conveyer had rematerialized inside the basement, the hydraulics of the false floor above began to move, revealing the ceiling of the empty barn. Once the fake floor was recessed, Verkan put the conveyer on anti-grav and let it rise gently until it almost touched the barn's ceiling. Verkan hit the button, which triggered the false floor to move back in place, then eased the conveyer to ground level as soon as the floor was stable. In the early days of transtemporal travel, the conveyer would have materialized within the underlying rock, creating an explosion that would have dwarfed a nuclear bomb. Now conveyers had override switches, but this was faster than waiting for the conveyer to travel a few hundred thousand parayears to First Level and then back again.

  Verkan restarted the conveyer and watched flickering glimpses of Fourth Level-airports, buildings, towns, rushing ground cars, water towers and occasionally a raging battle. They were on their way to Fifth Level Paratime Police Terminal, where Dalla would transfer to another conveyer for a journey back to Home Time-Line while Verkan took a rocket to Egypt. Once in Alexandria, he would be briefed, assigned a threat team and provided with a larger conveyer for the journey to Alexandrian-Roman, Seleucid Subsector.

  Inside the conveyer, Dalla continued the battle they had fought all morning. "I really wish you would have talked to Kalvan. He's behaving like a jerk-to use an appropriate Fourth Level term that even he would understand."

  "Why, Dalla? Because Kalvan won't sugar-coat Rylla's little massacre in Phaxos Town?"

  "You know very well Rylla was only doing what was right by her culture's lights. When an underling insults his overlord-at least on Aryan-Transpacific-it must be met with an appropriate response to ensure it's not repeated. If Rylla had been a man, no one would have said a word. Besides, she didn't massacre the entire town, just killed a few dozen of the local nobility. If they'd been peasants, no one would have cared. You've threatened worse atrocities yourself on the Opposition Party and would have carried them out, too, if you could have gotten away with it. I know that smirk, Verkan, and don't tell me you wouldn't have."

  "Maybe in a moment of anger. However, I have no intention of putting Kalvan through what I was subject to after our divorce. I must have suffered a year of Tortha's advice and fatherly concern-you do remember, don't you? Well, I promised myself I'd never inflict that punishment on another living being, especially a friend!"

  Rylla nodded and the temperature cooled. "Good point. I was the recipient of several of Tortha's 'talks' myself. I notice he's refrained from giving Kalvan any of his patented advice."

  Verkan laughed. "And who says an old dog can't learn new tricks? Besides, Kalvan and Rylla wouldn't be so angry if they didn't care for each other; we ought to know something about that! Kalvan's already growing bored with his stay at the University and I can tell he misses Rylla and little Demia. He'll rationalize his way back into her arms within another ten-day; after all, Fourth Level Europo-Americans are experts at self-rationalization."

  Dalla frowned and picked up her redstone pipe, which was a twin of the one Rylla smoked. "I know Rylla really misses Kalvan and has been in a miserable mood ever since he left. She can't understand why he's so squeamish."

  "Kalvan was raised on a Subsector where the shibboleths are Social Security, the Public Good and Welfare. Being force-fed eighteen years of Calvinist guilt might have something to do with it, too. Remember Kalvan's father was a minister, and to hear our researcher tell it, of the fire-and-brimstone variety. I think Kalvan and Rylla will find a way to get back together; after all, we did-even if it took twenty years and a revolution on an Akor-Neb Second Level time-line to do it. A fracas inspired by my lovely wife, I might add."

  Verkan was pleased to note the smile that broke on Dallas face.

  "Besides," he continued, "they're about to get some help from Styphon's House. Nothing brings a couple closer than a good fight with a determined enemy they both loathe. As I understand it from the Study Team in Balph, Grand Master Soton and Archpriest Roxthar are cooking up a massive invasion force for the coming campaign season-all the soldiers Styphon's gold can buy. They've even got a pretty able commander, if they'll let him actually command the army, in Captain-General Phidestros. He's the general who took the Beshtan castle, Tarr-Veblos, right under Rylla and Phrames' noses."

  "That's something else that Kalvan won't let Rylla forget. Vall, he actually had the gall to tell Rylla that the loss of the castle was her fault!"

  "Well, of course. It was. If Rylla hadn't pulled most of the Royal Army into eastern Harphax, Phrames wouldn't have had to pull his army off the border to cover her retreat. Then Tarr-Veblos would have had its full complement of soldiers, and Phidestros would still be licking his wounds instead of being hailed as the Great Captain throughout Hos-Harphax and the other Kingdoms."

  Dalla shook her head. "If Prince Phrames would have kept his troops where they belonged inside of Beshta, instead of acting paternal, to 'protect' Rylla, Phidestros would have never taken that castle. Rylla never needed his 'protection'. Male-bonding-it knows no limits when it comes to excuse making."

  "Enough! Let's make a peace treaty before we have our own war. Besides, Kalvan and Rylla will have reasons enough to end their feud when Styphon's House flexes its muscles. Next year is going to be a doozy, as Kalvan calls it."

  "What can we do to help?"

  "Stay out of it. We've got enough problems on Home Time-Line. I don't want to give the University Study Team any excuse to blame us for Paratemporal Contamination."

  "Are you telling me there's nothing you can do to help our friends, Rylla and Kalvan?" Dalla asked hotly, her green eyes flashing.

  Dalla's green Paratime uniform did a lot to highlight those eyes, but Verkan decided that this was not the time to mention that fact. While Dalla was the most competent person he could think of to serve as his Special Assistant, there were times when it would be nice to separate the marriage and the job. This was one of those times.

  "I can't think of a way to help without breaking the Paratime Code. That would bring the roof, the rafters and the attic down on our heads. The Opposition Party is unhappy over the re-opening of the Wizard Traders case. They're using my involvement in Kalvan's Time-Line as an excuse to poke into our personal affairs." Verkan didn't bother to bring up the too familiar charge of nepotism in regards to Dalla's appointment to the position of Special Assistant, the second most powerful post in the Paratime Police force.

  "On top of that the Dhergabar University Kalvan Study-Team is blaming us for Paratemporal Contamination because of the help we've already given Kalvan, while, on the other hand, chastising us for incompetence for not preventing the Phaxosi attack on the Foundry Team. The charges won't wash, of course, but they do put the spotlight on what we are doing in Hostigos. Now, thanks to Danthor Dras' book-Gunpowder Theocracy- and his genius for self-promotion, we not only have the general public interested in what we're doing, we also have the League to Eliminate Theocracies to contend with."

  Dalla made a face like she just caught a bad odor. "Just a bunch of crackpots. They'll go away in a few years, if we ignore them long enough."

  "I disagree, Dalla. In a rational society like ours religious movements are viewed with both fear and fascination. To the average First Level Citizen, religious zealots are either insane or are privy to something the rest of us don't kno
w. Both possibilities scare the average citizen. The majority opinion is that they should be cured or, at the least, the panderers put out of business. Can you imagine the nightmare the Paratime Police would have to contend with if we had to put every major religion and two-bit theocracy out of business-just on Fourth Level alone? We don't have the manpower and the ammunition to do it on Styphon's House Subsector, much less the billions upon billions of other time-lines we'd have to contend with."

  "How could anyone take such a proposal seriously?"

  "Study your history. On First Level alone, where religion has been outlawed since the Mystic Rebellion eight thousand years ago, we have had three major outbreaks of religious contagion. The last one cost us half a million lives."

  Dalla winced. "I should have remembered. One of my grandfathers was a ringleader of the One God For All Levels Movement. He had to be mind-wiped by the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene. When we were kids, my brother was terrified of being re-adjusted like grandfather."

  "It probably wouldn't have been a bad thing," Verkan said, waiting for the inevitable explosion as Dalla defended Hadron Tharn, her younger brother.

  She just looked down at the floor. "Vall, what scares me is how much I used to share many of Tharn's views. He still hasn't forgiven me for selling out to the Management Party and their pet stooge, Police Chief Verkan Vall."

  Hadron Tharn had been one of several reasons their first companionate marriage had ended so quickly-and bitterly. But Tharn was wrong; Verkan hadn't been the one who had changed Dalla's perceptions. It had been her own realization of how bankrupt her younger brother and the Opposition Party's ideas were that had brought her around to Verkan's point of view. Unfortunately her brother's prejudices were cast in collapsed-nickel and impervious to contrary evidence.

  "As long as there are people ready to exploit movements, like the League to Eliminate Theocracies, we have to take them seriously. And the last thing we need is to have observers looking over our shoulder on Kalvan's Time-Line! It's bad enough we've got to deal with the University Study-Team."

  "Still, there must be some way we can help Rylla and Kalvan before they're tortured by one of Roxthar's Holy Investigators."

  "Aren't you serving dinner before it's been cooked? Kalvan's pulled himself out of some tight places before. Maybe he can do it again. But he's going to have to do it by himself. I've got to make it clear to him on our next visit that there won't be much help from King Theovacar. At least as Verkan the Trader, I can bring him a few more pack trains of arms and provisions."

  "If that force that Soton and Phidestros are raising is half as big as our agents say it's going to be, Kalvan's going to need a lot more than a few guns and a dozen wagons full of salted beef. Maybe we could import a few thousand mercenaries from nearby Aryan-Transpacific time-lines. We could even limit the Transtemporal Contamination by bringing them from the Middle Kingdoms, where no one's heard of Hostigos."

  "To make any real difference, we'd have to bring twenty to thirty thousand mercenaries into Hostigos. We're not equipped to make massive troop deployments. Besides, we could never cover up an operation of that scale. Someone would talk. And what if Kalvan just happened to question one of the captains, who perchance had just returned from a job in Hos-Harphax and told him how Hostigos was squashed by Nostor and Sask? You think we've got problems now!"

  Dalla sighed ruefully. "What's the value of being top cop if you can't even help your friends when they need it?"

  "That's a good question. I've been asking myself that a lot lately. Maybe we just need to have a little more faith in Kalvan."

  Dalla nodded her head. "Maybe. Still, I'd feel a lot better if we let a couple of those First Level anti-theocracy fanatics loose in Balph with directions to Archpriest Roxthar's quarters."

  TWO

  Kalvan felt a sudden chill, rose up from his desk, and went over to the large fireplace in what had formerly been the baron's bedchambers and tossed several small logs into the hearth. He rubbed his hands briskly over the fire. It was going to be a cold winter this year and he'd better get used to the chill, as well as sleeping alone. Rylla had forcibly ejected him from their chambers at Tarr-Hostigos when he had returned from the Sastragath and they had had their big blow up.

  Kalvan had elected to move to the University of Hos-Hostigos and into the former baron's living quarters. At the time he was pleased not to have to pretend to an intimacy he no longer felt-at least, for now. Rylla's precipitous attack on the Princedom of Phaxos and the atrocities she'd committed in their name had darkened their relationship almost as much as it had their good name in the Seven Kingdoms. After two weeks of sleeping alone, Kalvan missed Rylla a lot and was regretting the words he'd thrown at her like poisoned darts in the heat of his return.

  Back at his desk he turned up the light on his primitive Coleman lantern. The glass still had more green than he liked, but the local glass-blower had done a good job with the glass chimney. A new industry was growing up now in Hostigos Town around the new Glass Works and he was going to have to charter a Royal Glassblowers Guild before long; he was already getting complaints from the Council of Guilds about unregulated guildwork. The wicks had been a bit of a problem but they were getting better. The new lamps burned coal oil, which was easier to get than whale oil this far from the Eastern Ocean. The glass lantern threw off more light than three of the primitive whale oil lamps used here-and-now.

  Kalvan opened the next packet; inside was a letter from Colonel Simodes reporting progress on the Semaphore Project. Simodes was making good progress building a series of semaphore stations that would link Hostigos Town to the Royal Army of Observation along the Beshtan border with Hos-Harphax. The first semaphore station to be built on Beshtan territory was half completed; the Colonel expected to reach Tarr-Beshta before first snow. The semaphore stations, using a combination of mirrors and flags, would save valuable time for communications between the Harphaxi border and Tarr-Hostigos. Kalvan was sure the stations would be worth their weight in gold once the Army of Hos-Hostigos began its advance into Hos-Harphax.

  Captain Waklos, who was in charge of teaching Morse code to future semaphore signalers, had informed him yesterday that he had enough graduates to post two signalers at each semaphore station between Hostigos and Beshta. By this time next year, there would be semaphore lines into neighboring Sask and Nostor, too.

  The next dispatch contained disturbing news from Duke Skranga, Chief of Intelligence, about the continuing troop build-up at Tarr-Veblos, Tarr-Harphax and other military centers throughout the kingdom of Hos-Harphax. Maybe Kalvan should have followed his instincts last year and taken his army into Hos-Harphax, while the Harphaxi Army was still in shock from the losses at Tenabra and Chothros Heights. This past spring the Harphaxi could have been routed with ease. The troop build-up, sponsored by Styphon's House, was getting worrisome. Still, the nomad invasion into the Trygath had been a major problem, one he was able to turn around and spring back upon the Zarthani Knights who'd tried to use the tribesmen as a cat's paw against Hostigos.

  Dividing his army might have led to a great victory in Hos-Harphax, but it would have come with a steep cost-a very possible defeat in the west by the Sastragathi horde. The truth was that Hos-Hostigos could not afford a defeat anywhere; the minute he stopped winning battles the people of Hos-Hostigos would stop believing in the Gods'-Sent-Kalvan- then his problems would really begin. His insurmountable problem was that he was surrounded by enemies who out-gunned him, out-numbered him and everything but out-generaled him-at least, not yet!

  This new Harphaxi Captain-General showed every sign of being a first rate commander, unless his capture of Tarr-Veblos was a fluke. Kalvan knew that pigs might grow wings before fate sent him any more incompetent generals like those who'd led the last Harphaxi invasion force. This Phidestros, from Skranga's reports, was either a fast learner, or a first rate tactician; he doubted he'd face any more witlings like the late Prince what's-his-name who'd led the Harphaxi lancers
into a deadly hail storm of lead.

  There was a timid knock at the door, which sounded particularly feminine-for a moment his heart hammered like a vibrating drumhead. Is it Rylla? Then he heard an unfamiliar voice ask, "May I come in, Your Majesty?"

  Where's Cleon when I need him, thought Kalvan to himself. What's the use of having a body servant if he's never where he's needed. Then he realized what he was really feeling was disappointment; not anger, disappointment that it wasn't Rylla coming to his chamber to ask forgiveness. Well, now that he thought it out, that didn't seem very likely, but one could hope…

  "Your Majesty? Are you there?"

  "Come in, please."

  A very attractive young lady, of obvious noble birth-her dress and carriage were proof of that-entered the room. "I don't believe we've met before, Your Majesty."

  Kalvan shook his head; her he would have remembered. "Sorry, I kept you waiting, but I was tending the fire." He turned to stir some coals.

  "I don't mean to intrude, Your Majesty, but Prince Phrames asked me to intercede."

  Ahhh. This must be the Lady Eutare that Harmakros mentioned the other night, the future Mrs. Phrames. Her father was that rarity on both here-and-now and on his home world; a noble with good business sense. According to Harmakros, he was one of Beshta's richest grain merchants; an important faction that Phrames would need on his side if his attempt to re-build Beshta were to be successful. Now, having seen Lady Eutare, he suspected that Phrames' interests were more than political. For not the first time, he wanted to hear Rylla's take on Lady Eutare and Prince Phrames; it was becoming increasingly more difficult to rule wisely with his best advisor giving him the cold shoulder.

  "Intercede in what? Is Phrames having trouble with your parents? If so, I will certainly stand at his right hand-"

  "No, Your Majesty," Lady Eutare said, blushing. "I'm Great Queen Rylla's new Lady-in-Waiting. We weren't introduced when you returned. The Queen has sent me to remind you, which I'm sure you haven't forgotten…" She paused to blush an even deeper red. "The Allmother Festival is coming soon-in a moon-quarter."