Great Kings' War (9 page)

"They moved it to Balph. We think it's because of the bad weather; it's been the worst winter in living memory, and the roads have been completely impassable most of the time. We haven't infiltrated the Inner Circle yet, and they're not talking. I suspect Styphon's House may be waiting to see what happens during the rest of the winter. Not that enough hasn't happened already, of course."

Tortha recognized the signs of coming bad news in Verkan's voice. He wasn't surprised, either. "I can imagine," he said. "My first independent assignment was shepherding a party of tourists fleeing from a sacked city to the nearest operating conveyer-head. It was five days' journey downriver, through country that had been fought over two years running. If we hadn't been able to use boats and travel mostly by night I don't think we'd have made it. I stopped having any arguments from the tourists after the first village where we found human bones in the soup pots."

"It hasn't been quite
that
bad in Hos-Hostigos, except in parts of Nostor. The Hostigi are calling it the Winter of the Wolves, though. Between the wolf packs and the snowdrifts, nobody's going anywhere unless they absolutely have to.

"I haven't been back to Hos-Hostigos myself since I took over as chief. Dalla went once, to Ulthor. They're not as badly off as the Hostigi, since they missed the fighting and shipped in grain and meat from the Upper Middle Kingdoms before winter. Dalla still tried to ride to Hostigos until she lost two horses and a guard to wolves the first day. After that she decided to stick to interviewing refugees and building our cover."

They sat in silence as the air-taxi passed out of the rainstorm and Dhergabar together. Ahead the mountains loomed against the clear sky, spangled with the lights of country homes and resorts. A full moon silvered the scattered clouds above and the occasional stream visible through the trees below. From the air it might have been the wilderness of Kalvan's Time-Line; in fact, it was a garden planted with trees instead of flowers, like most of Home Time Line. If the air-taxi let them down in the middle of this forest, they might wander for all of ten minutes before a robot or prole gardener found them. The nearest wolf was in Dhergabar Zoological Gardens.

"We don't really have any work in Kalvan's Time-Line that's worth sending in people."

Tortha recognized another note in Verkan's voice now, the frustration of a man who has to live in ignorance because he won't send men into danger where he can't go himself just to satisfy his curiosity. It was a frustration he knew his former Special Assistant would become accustomed to as the years passed. If there'd been any chance he couldn't come to terms with it, he'd never have become Chief of Paratime Police.

"Fortunately, Kalvan's going to have the best army in his time-line, if not the biggest. Brother Mytron and Colonel Alkides were experimenting with methods for improving the quality of Hostigos 'Unconsecrated,' and Kalvan's integrated the four to five thousand mercenaries he captured at Fitra and Fyk into a regular royal army."

Tortha Karf said nothing. He'd recognized a third note in his young friend's voice—what on some time-lines was called "whistling in the dark."

Verkan appeared to be getting too attached to his outtime friend Kalvan; that could prove to be a major problem if push came to shove. After all, Kalvan was still a theoretical danger to the Paratime Secret, the foundation upon which the whole of First Level civilization rested. If Kalvan became a threat to that secret, Verkan Vall, chief guardian of that civilization, might find himself with a job no man could welcome.

The two men were beginning to look hungrily at the menu by the time Dalla arrived. She made her usual dramatic entrance carrying a medium-size flat package and wearing a blue cloak that covered her from the base of her throat to the floor.

Tortha couldn't help wondering what Dalla had on under the cloak. There'd been a time when the answer to that question would have been "little or nothing," but that time was long-past—or so he hoped. Dalla was as decorative as she was competent, and this had led to a few episodes that made her first companionate marriage to Verkan Vall rather hectic.

Both had learned something. Dalla was now much less impulsive and more careful about the company she kept. Vall didn't wear his pride in his sense of duty so openly on his sleeve. They appeared to be settling into the kind of marriage a Chief of Paratime Police really needed. Either that, or no marriage at all—what Vall and Dalla had the first time around included the vices of both and the virtues of neither. Not to mention what a Chief's political enemies could do to exploit his personal problems!

A few minutes passed in kissing Dalla, ordering dinner and consuming the first round of drinks and a large plate of appetizers. Dalla's gown was reasonably opaque and not too revealing otherwise, although it did show enough skin to tell Tortha that she'd had a deep-layer skin-dye to match her blond hair. Like Vall, her coloring would not attract attention on any Aryan-Transpacific time-line.

Her gown also seemed remarkably precarious in its attachment, and Tortha found he couldn't keep his eyes off the solitary fastening that stood between her and disaster. He noticed he wasn't the only man in the room doing so either. Finally Dalla said in an expressionless voice. "Don't worry about it. I have a laboratory now, and test critical components of my gowns for resistance to fire, acid, mechanical stress and telekinesis."

Verkan knocked over his glass in trying not to roar with laughter, and this seemed to call for more drinks. While the waiter was bringing them, Dalla unwrapped her package. It was an elegant leather-bound printed book, with a title on it that Tortha didn't know but an author he knew rather too well.

"
Gunpowder Theocracy
, by Danthor Dras?"

"It's his
Styphon House: A Study of Techno-Theocracy in Action
retitled," Dalla explained, with new material chronicling the arrival of Kalvan and his effect upon Styphon's House and the Five Great Kingdoms. The public edition will be out in a few days, but he sent one of the presentation copies to Vulthor Tarkon. For the Archives, not as a personal gift," she added, answering the unspoken question of both men. "I wouldn't have asked to borrow it otherwise."

"Is it rewritten as well as retitled?" Verkan asked.

"I had it computer-scanned and the answer is no. However, there's a new preface summarizing Kalvan's Time-Line up to the beginning of winter. He also promises a full-scale study of Kalvan's Time-Line, and an update on all the Styphon's House time-lines where Hos-Hostigos wound up under a ban, as a companion volume."

"He'll do it, too," Verkan said.

Tortha nodded absently, aware that he'd suddenly lost much of his appetite for dinner. The greatest living expert on Aryan-Transpacific culture did nothing by chance, or at least he hadn't in the last three centuries. If he was bringing out a new edition of his definitive study of Styphon's House at this point, there had to be a reason. He had a number of theories about what that reason might be, none of which made for pleasant dining.

"Has Kalvan's Time-Line been receiving more public attention while I was in Sicily?" he asked.

Both Verkan and Dalla said yes.

"Kalvan's Time-Line has been proscribed as too dangerous for civilians and newsies since we can't offer them Paratime Police protection," she added. "But that hasn't stopped the newsies from interviewing the Kalvan Study Team members and their families."

Tortha shook his head. "Then Danthor Dras has a fertile field for his speculations. Few of which will be kind of the Paratime Police..."

Verkan added. "We don't need any more distractions with publicity hounds or day trippers. We're having a hard enough problems guarding the Dhergabar professors."

"From themselves, mostly!" Dalla rejoined.

They all laughed.

After a pause for another round of drinks, Dalla continued, "The University people have been writing a lot, but all in the scholarly journals. I'd have expected one of them to try a popular piece, but none of them have to date."

"Sounds as if Danthor Dras is sitting on them," Tortha said grimly. "He probably wants to be the first to reach a popular audience. Once he's sure of being in the bright light of public attention, Kalvan's Time-Line is going to become everyone's favorite topic of conversation. So will any mistakes the Paratime Police and their Chief make in handling it."

Dalla frowned. "That incident where one of your predecessors found one of Danthor's colleagues was guilty of—something worse than academic fraud?"

"It was," Tortha said. "And it wasn't one of Danthor's colleagues, either; one of Chief Zarvan's inspectors caught the Scholar himself using an undisguised pocket recorder to tape The God Alexander on one of the Fourth Level, Alexandrian-Macedonian time-lines. If it hadn't been for Danthor's pull, he would have been prosecuted for Outtime Contamination; his father was an administrator at Dhergabar University and major contributor to the Management Party, and he used all his
influence
to protect his son. The fallout from that incident was one of the things that convinced Old Tharg to retire and put me in the Chief's chair."

"Tortha, do you think Danthor still holds it against the Paratime Police? That incident was a long time ago!"

"Dalla, Danthor Dras reminds me of some Fourth Level mountain-tribe chieftain. Once somebody's done him an injury, he won't die happy unless he's paid it back or at least had his sons swear they will."

"After not saying a word for over a century?" This time it was Verkan sounding skeptical.

Tortha took a firm grip on both his glass and his temper. "By the time he was in a position to fight the Paratime Police, I was too firmly seated in the Chief's chair. He also had a few enemies of his own at the University. He's not the most lovable man there, even if he is right most of the time."

"That's like saying Queen Rylla isn't the most even-tempered woman in Hostigos," Dalla said. "But go on."

"Anyway, he seems to have spent the last few centuries out-arguing, out-writing or outliving all his enemies. Now there's a new Chief of the Paratime Police who isn't on quite such a firm footing as old Tortha Karf. Danthor's own flanks and rear are safe, and Kalvan's war against Styphon's House will give him a ready-to-hand audience without his having to do anything except write his fiftieth book. That's a situation a child couldn't fail to notice, and Danthor's forgotten more about strategy than most generals ever learn."

Before either Verkan or Dalla could reply, the waiters arrived with dinner. Tortha had thought his appetite was gone for the evening, but the fish, house sauce and hot bread smelled irresistible. He let the waiters load his plate. Before long he was picking at his dinner.

A little later, he noticed that Verkan and Dalla were no longer paying him or their own loaded plates any attention. They were so lost in each other that they didn't even look up when the pattern of projected constellations on the ceiling overhead flared into a supernova. If they'd been fifty years younger, he'd have suspected they were holding hands under the table.

The sight restored his good humor, and appetite. Strictly between him and his conscience, he was willing to admit that Dalla's old hostility toward him had some justification. He had been careless about their first marriage, keeping Verkan grinding away at one job after another.

Well, Dalla had no more worries coming from him. Now she had a much more difficult job: protecting her husband from himself.

Balph, the hub of Styphon's House, lay downstream on the Argo River from Ktemnos City. While nowhere near as large as the capital with its half a million people, Balph was still large enough to be called a city—the Holy City.

Despite being the fourth largest city in Hos-Ktemnos, its major industry was religion. Its secondary trade was shipping. Old Balph, the original trading settlement, had long ago been encircled by its strange offspring, except near the dockyards. Someday the old buildings would be leveled for some new monument to Styphon's glory. Balph proper was already home to Styphon's House Upon Earth, an old golden-domed basilica that contained Styphon's Own Image, sixteen Great Temples and the Shrine of Styphon's Ascension, the Temple Treasury, the Temple Academy, the Supreme Priest's Palace.

Supreme Priest Sesklos sat at the apex of the Inner Circle's Triangle Table, with First Speaker Anaxthenes to his right and Archpriest Dracar on his left, facing Styphon's Golden Image, the huge idol of Styphon that the lay members only saw during times of great crisis or special events. As Speaker of the Inner Circle, it was Anaxthenes'
duty
to provide the voice for the mechanical bellows that allowed the giant idol to mimic human speech. Typically, this duty was the province of Styphon's Voice, but when Sesklos had reached eighty winters Anaxthenes had assumed some of Sesklos' formal duties.

Ever since Sesklos' talk with Dracar, opposition to Anaxthenes' coalition had evaporated. With a clear majority of the thirty-six Archpriests of the Inner Circle behind him, Anaxthenes was forging a program that would change the shape of Styphon's House in ways the others would never realize until it was too late.

After the ritual Blessing of Styphon, benedictions and ritual chants, the Fifth Council of Balph unanimously passed a resolution to lend two hundred and fifty thousand ounces of gold to King Kaiphranos to hire mercenaries and buy supplies for the war against the False Kingdom of Hos-Hostigos. Next they'd put together the First Edict of Balph, condemning the Usurper Kalvan, but leaving an escape clause for any of his princes whose loyalty was wavering.

By Styphon, thought Anaxthenes, they would crush this interloper before another winter passed! 

As he'd been prompted earlier, Archpriest Neamenestros spoke up. "I suggest we frame a reply to the false rumors spread by the Daemon's dupes, that Styphon's House recognizes no other gods but Styphon."

A polite way of saying what Archpriest Zothnes and the dearly departed Krastokles had said in public should have only been said in the privacy of the Inner Circle: that Styphon's House recognized no other god but Styphon. The truth was even harsher; Styphon's Archpriests believed in no gods, including Styphon.