including you and me and the six delegates, are all considered expendable. If
these Talks work out successfully, fine; if not, no one's going to miss us.
They'll just start over, with new delegates and new Talks. The odds are we're
all going to be killed before the Talks are over. There are a lot of people out
there who want us dead, for various political and business reasons, and I
haven't been allowed enough men to ward off a determined attack by a group of
lightly armed nuns. Had to be that way. The whole idea of this operation is to
be unobtrusive and hopefully overlooked. Personally, I think it's a dumb idea,
given the number of spies and loose mouths in this city, but no one asked my
opinion. The point is that if things go wrong and our cover is blown, we are
supposed to defend these Talks with our lives, and we probably will. Even though
they and we are completely replaceable."
"I see you're the kind of leader who believes in a good pep talk," said Fisher.
"Are you normally this optimistic?"
Captain ap Owen grinned briefly. "I like my people to know what they're getting
into. Ideally, this should have been a volunteers-only operation, but since we
couldn't tell them what they'd be volunteering for, there didn't seem much
point. How much did they tell you about our situation here?"
"Not much. Just that it was minimum security, with essentially no backup."
"You got that right, but it's not quite as bad as it sounds. The Talks aren't
actually taking place in the house itself, the building's far too vulnerable.
Instead, a Guard sorcerer has set up a pocket dimension, linked to the house.
It's been so thoroughly warded, a sorcerer could walk through this place from
top to bottom and never know the dimensional gateway was here. Clever, eh?"
"Very," said Fisher carefully. "But pocket dimensions aren't exactly stable, are
they? If you know about my current problems, then you can understand that I'm a
bit bloody wary about going into another pocket dimension."
"Don't worry about it; once the dimension's been established, it's perfectly
secure. The only reason Morgan's fell apart is because he designed it that way,
with booby traps in case he was discovered. He didn't want any evidence
surviving to incriminate him."
Fisher looked at him blankly. "You mean it wasn't Hawk's fault after all? Then
why didn't Commander Glen tell us that? He must have known… Damn, I've got to
talk to Hawk!"
She jumped to her feet, but ap Owen didn't budge. "Sit down, Captain Fisher.
You're not going anywhere. No one here is allowed to leave these premises until
the Talks are over. It's a matter of security. You must see that."
"You can't stop me leaving."
"No, I probably couldn't. But if you did leave, Glen would undoubtedly have you
declared a rogue, and put out an order for your arrest. And how is that going to
help Hawk?"
Fisher glared at ap Owen, then nodded reluctantly and sank back into her chair.
"That's why Glen sent me here, so Hawk would be left alone with his guilt. He's
always easiest to manipulate when he's feeling guilty. Glen wants Hawk to go on
believing it was his fault, so he'll be properly motivated to go after Morgan.
Damn him!"
There was an uncomfortable silence. When Fisher finally spoke again, her voice
was calm and cold and very deadly. "When this is all over, there's going to be
an accounting between me and Commander bloody Glen."
"Assuming we get out of this alive," said ap Owen.
Fisher glanced at him sharply. "You're a real cheerful sort, you know that?"
"Just being realistic. Let me fill you in on the six delegates taking part in
the Talks. They're a pretty rum bunch themselves, particularly the Outremer
delegates. They were mad as hell when they arrived. Apparently it took them the
best part of five weeks to get here through the winter weather, and that was
before the worst of the storms hit. I don't see why they couldn't have just
teleported in."
"Teleports don't work that way," said Fisher. "It's hard enough to shift one
person over a short distance. There isn't a sorcerer alive with the kind of
magic it would take to teleport three people from one country to another. There
are lots of nasty ways for a teleport to go wrong. Get the decimal point in the
wrong place and you could end up appearing a hundred feet above your
destination. Or under it."
"I didn't realize you were such an expert," said ap Owen dryly.
Fisher shrugged. "I've had some experience with traveling that way."
"Actually, the weather is something of a blessing. The storms are keeping
Outremer's more disruptive elements from getting here. Let's just hope the
storms continue till the Talks are over."
"Maybe someone should have a word with the city weather wizards."
"No, low profile, remember? Nothing that would attract attention."
"True. All right, tell me about the delegates. Who's representing the Low
Kingdoms? Anyone I might have heard of?"
"Maybe. Lord Regis is heading the home team. This is his house we're in.
Mid-forties, old Haven Family, good reputation, with an impressive background in
the army and the diplomatic corps. Can't say I warm to him myself. Smiles too
much, and takes too long to shake your hand. Likes to clap you on the shoulder
while looking you right in the eye. Hail-fellow-well-met type. He gets on my
nerves something fierce, but he goes down well enough with the other delegates.
"Then there's Jonathon Rook, representing the Merchants Association. Early
forties, and better padded than the average sofa. He likes his food, does
Jonathon. Sharp as a tack when it comes to business, but he does love a title.
Practically milorded Regis to death this morning, while we were waiting for the
Outremer delegates to show up. Word is he's angling for a Family marriage for
his eldest, more fool he.
"And finally, there's Major Patrik Comber. You've probably heard of him. Led his
battalion into Death's Hollow to rescue a company of his men who'd been cut off
by Outremer troops. Took on better than five-to-one odds, and kicked their arses
something cruel. Won all sorts of medals, and a swift promotion. He also
sacrificed a lot of good men in the process, but the minstrels don't usually
mention that."
Fisher grinned. "I can see you're going to be a real barrel of laughs on this
job. How about the Outremer delegates? Do you like them any better?"
"Not much. The leader is Lord Nightingale. Pleasant enough sort, but I don't
think I'll turn my back on him. He's got cold eyes. Then there's William
Gardener for the merchants, and Major Guy de Tournay. Can't tell you much about
them. Gardener likes his drink and talks too loudly, while de Tournay's hardly
opened his mouth to me since he got here."
Fisher frowned thoughtfully. "Interesting that both sides have put forward a
lord. The Quality aren't normally considered expendable. Particularly not
someone as noticeable as Lord Regis. And from what I've heard, Major Comber's
something of a popular hero at the moment. The Powers That Be must be taking
these Talks pretty seriously."
"Seems likely
. Both sides have been losing a lot of men and equipment in the
border skirmishes, and it's getting expensive. You know how the Powers That Be
hate to lose money. Of course, they hate to lose face even more, which is why
it's taken till now to set the Talks up."
"All right. Fill me in on what security measures you've set up here. If we're
not allowed to call attention to ourselves, it cuts our options down to
practically nothing, doesn't it?"
"You've got that right," said ap Owen grimly. "For all the good we'd be in a
real crisis, we might as well not be here. I take it you spotted the
plainclothes people outside? I'd be surprised if you hadn't; everyone else knows
who and what they are. Luckily, they're just opt there for show. My real
undercover operatives have been here for days, establishing their characters and
getting to know the area. We didn't just choose this place on a whim, you know.
Both the grounds and the surrounding streets are wide open, with nowhere to
hide. The way we've got things set up, no one can get within a hundred yards of
this house without being spotted a dozen times. And since we haven't a hope in
hell of beating off an armed assault, at the first whisper of an attack, or even
an intended attack, the plan is for all of us to retreat into the pocket
dimension and seal it off.
"In theory, we should then be perfectly safe. No one can get at us without the
proper co-ordinates, known only to a top few people, so all we have to do is sit
tight and wait until reinforcements arrive, and the emergency is over. Of
course, there's always the very real possibility that the delegates themselves
will seal off the dimension at the first whiff of trouble, leaving us out here
to fight off the attackers. In which case, we get to earn our money the hard
way. Got it?"
Fisher nodded glumly. In other words, it was another damned watching brief. Lots
of sitting around doing nothing, waiting for something to happen and hoping it
wouldn't. It was at times like these that Fisher seriously considered the simple
pleasures of a desk job, and the security to be found in lots of nice safe
paperwork. Of course, she'd be bored out of her mind in a week… Ah well, if
nothing else, she should be able to catch up on her sleep here. Working two
shifts in a row had drained most of her strength, and helping Hawk drag
survivors out of the tenement rubble had all but finished her off. She felt as
if she could go to sleep right there in her chair, She caught herself slumping
forward, and quickly sat up straight. Almost without realizing it, her eyes had
been closing, and she'd actually come close to nodding off. That would have made
a great first impression on Captain ap Owen. She glanced quickly at him to see
if he'd noticed anything, but he was apparently absorbed in leafing through the
papers on his desk.
"Tell me about the Talks themselves," she said, to show she was still with it.
"Are they making any progress?"
"Beats me. I'm just the hired help round here; no one tells me anything. I'm not
even allowed into the pocket dimension unless one of them calls for me, and
though the delegates take an occasional break out here, none of them are much
for small talk. As far as I can discover, their brief is to agree on a border
frontier both sides can live with, and put an end to all those squabbles over
which ragged old piece of map takes precedence. Both the Low Kingdoms and
Outremer are going to end up losing some territory, so both sides are throwing
in lucrative trade deals as sweeteners to help the medicine go down. Whatever
happens, you can bet a lot of people living near the border will wake up one
morning to find that overnight they've become citizens of a different country.
Poor bastards. Probably end up paying two sets of taxes."
Fisher frowned. "Those special trade deals are going to put a lot of noses out
of joint in the business community. Nothing like a little preferential treatment
to stir up bad feelings."
"Right," said ap Owen. "And let's not forget, there's a hell of a lot of money
to be made out of a war, if you've got the right kind of contacts with the
military."
"Any more bad news you'd like to share with me?"
"You mean apart from political extremists, religious fanatics, and
terrorists-for-hire?"
"Forget I asked. Do you think it'll come to a war, if the Talks fail?"
"I don't know… Countries have gone to war over a lot less in the past. The Low
Kingdoms have traditionally preferred action to talk, and Outremer can be touchy
as hell where its honor is concerned. I wouldn't be surprised if a war did break
out, but then it must be said I have something of a vested interest in war. I've
always made most of my living as a mercenary. I only ended up as a Guard because
I'd spent too long between jobs and the money had run out. Ironic, really, that
I should end up protecting Talks whose purpose is to keep me and my kind out of
work. You ever been caught up in a war, Captain Fisher?"
"Just once," said Fisher. "Several years back. It's funny, you know; at the time
I would have given everything I owned to be somewhere else, somewhere safe. But
now, looking back, it seems to me I've never felt so alive as I did then. We
were fighting for great stakes, and everything I did mattered; everything I did
was important. But I wouldn't go through it again for all the money in the Low
for hurt and maimed."
"Did you win?"
"Yes and no." Fisher smiled tiredly. "I suppose that's true of any war. Our side
won in the end, but the Land was devastated by the fighting. It'll take
generations to recover. I suppose you've seen a lot of war, as a mercenary?"
Ap Owen shrugged. "More than I care to remember. One war is much like another,
and the campaigns all tend to blur into each other after a while. Endless
marching, rotten food, and lousy weather. Waiting for orders that never come, in
some godforsaken spot in the middle of nowhere. And every now and again, just
often enough to keep your nerves ragged, there'll be a sudden burst of action.
You get used to the blood and the flies and seeing your comrades die, and
there's always the looting to look forward to afterwards. I could have been a
rich man a dozen times over, if I could have kept away from the cards and the
dice and the tavern whores. I started out fighting for a cause, but that didn't
last long. First thing you learn as a mercenary is that both sides believe
they're right.
"So why have I spent most of my adult life fighting for strangers? Because I'm
good at it. And because, just as you said, you never feel more alive than when
you've just cheated death. In its way, that feeling's more addictive than any
drug you'll find on the streets." He broke off, and smiled at Fisher. "You're a
good listener, Fisher, you know that?"
Before she could say anything, a ring on ap Owen's finger pulsed with a sudden
silver light, and he rose quickly to his feet. "That's the delegates' signal;
they're going to take another break. Just stay back out of the way, for the t
ime
being. I'll introduce you if I get a chance, but don't expect any great show of
interest. We're just hired help as far as they're concerned."
Two footmen entered the study in response to some unheard summons, carrying
silver trays laden with assorted delicacies of the kind Fisher hadn't seen in
the markets for weeks. Whoever was funding these Talks obviously didn't believe
in doing things by halves. The footmen put down their trays on the main table,
by the cut-glass wine decanters, then withdrew without saying a word. Fisher
decided they were probably real footmen, if only because of their supercilious
expressions.
Ap Owen stood before his desk, staring at the far wall. Fisher followed his
gaze, but couldn't see anything of interest. She started to ask something, and
then shut up as a door appeared out of nowhere, hanging unsupported on the air a
few inches above the floor. It was plain, unvarnished wood, without pattern or
trimmings, but its very presence was subtly disturbing. A mounting chill
emanated from it, like a cold wind blowing into the room. Fisher's hand dropped
to her sword, and she had to fight to keep from drawing it as the door swung
slowly open.
The delegates appeared through the doorway, chatting quietly together, and
headed for the food and wine without so much as a glance at ap Owen and Fisher.
The door shut silently, and disappeared. Fisher took her hand away from her
sword. Ap Owen moved in beside her and quietly identified each delegate by name.
Fisher looked them over carefully without being too obvious about it.
Lord Regis of Haven was of average height and weight, and in pretty good shape
for a man in his early fifties. He had dark, flashing eyes and a quick smile
buried in a neatly trimmed beard. He used his hands a lot as he talked, and
nodded frequently while he listened. Lord Nightingale of Outremer was twenty
years younger, six inches taller, and muscular in a broad, solid way that
suggested he lifted weights on a regular basis. Which was a little unusual. As
far as most of the Quality were concerned, strenuous exercise was something best
left to the lower classes. The Quality only exerted themselves in dueling or
seducing. Usually both, as one often led to the other. Nightingale, on the other
hand, looked as though he could have picked up Regis with one hand, and torn him