The Makers of Light (28 page)

But why would it chase? Linden shook her head. She was not thinking rightly, perhaps because she had never played a game before. She was thinking of how to save the imaginary lives of pawns, but pawns did not
have
lives; the territory was what mattered. It was the city that the army wanted. She would lose the game if she lost the city itself, but the number of pawns was not so important. Even if only two or three pawns remained to her, inside the game they could breed and multiply and thus eventually the city would survive. The city as a unit had priority; fleeing was no option for pawn individuals.

Rianor did have allies in the game, and she could send a fast messenger via the northwestern road, with help arriving in something like five game turns. But that was too long a time; the two lords' army would have reached and destroyed the city by then.

Linden bit her lip yet again. How could you stop ten thousand armed warriors with five hundred civilians?

Well, how could you get tens of servants to fire and safety in the darkness?

She
knew
how.

Occasionally, smaller rocks occurred alongside the steep and impassable ones by the northeastern road. They were still too big for humans to lift and carry, and too heavy for bare-handed humans to cause to roll. Master Builders could have moved them, but Rianor did not have Master Builders, and neither did the last Qynnsent city have money to afford to train some or to hire them from elsewhere. Besides, as with asking for help, there was no time.

Orlin and Everad smiled at her from the table at her right. She ignored them, her eyes fixed on the gaming board. Then the two lords were announcing to everyone the onset of their army. Arrogant fools. Perhaps they did not think they had revealed too much to her before, for they had not given her information that she would not have anyway learned now, three turns before their soldiers would arrive at her gates. But they had given her the time to think, which was what she had wanted from them in the first place.

Three turns was enough.

"I am having my pawns obstruct the northeastern road by moving those smaller rocks from the road's side to the road itself. According to my calculations, it can be done in two game turns, and it will prevent an army—or anyone, for that matter—from passing," Linden announced when it was her turn. She just smiled as Everad started explaining, in the patient voice he could have used with an especially stupid child, that she had neither money nor time to hire Master Crafters.

Arrogance was a good thing in an enemy—it took too much space inside and left little for a mind.

"Money, lord Everad? Why do I need money when I have Science?"

She explained her system of ropes, levers, and pulleys that would make it possible to lift the rocks using only human strength.

The crowd rustled.

"This is too big. You can't do this with Science," someone said. Others murmured in agreement. Many stared at her—some with curiosity, others with newly gained respect, yet others with resentment. She had become suddenly more interesting, the new Qynnsent lady, and not only as a High Lord's plaything.

"You can." Her voice was calm, and she met many eyes unflinchingly. She could not believe that earlier today she had been nervous to meet those people, who called Science their Craft, that she had wondered if she would be
good enough
amongst them. Slowly, carefully, she explained the exact rules from the introductory
Science
book that governed her mechanisms.

"Yes, lady Linden, but these rules are only applicable on a small scale. You can't actually build the mechanisms you describe. They won't function." That was lady Dierdre, her look half-apologetic, half-determined, as if she hated to speak against the lady she had tried to welcome only a short time ago but would say what she believed in, regardless.

Linden saw Orlin laughing and Everad watching her with narrowed eyes, and then the game master, a slender man with graying hair, stepped between Linden and their table.

"Lady Dierdre is voicing a common conception, but I must say that it is not applicable in this case," he said in a calm, soft voice. "There are two things to consider. One is that, strange as it might seem, nowhere is it written that the laws of Science would not work on a larger scale. Indeed, the laws as we know them do not mention such restrictions at all. The restrictions are just common knowledge. In theory, lady Linden is right. The second thing is a reminder that, in our game, it is Scientific
theory
that we are looking at—and plausibility. I do not know, for example, if lord Everad's double lock from last time can be built, either. I have never built one myself, and his lordship told me last time that he had not, himself—but he got the Science points. Let me ask you something, everyone: how many of the devices we have discussed in our meetings have actually been built?"

"Not many!"

Someone laughed, and others followed. The tension subsided in the hall.

"Well then, good for lady Linden, postponing her city's doom for a few turns," someone else said.

"Good job, lady Linden."

"You can't conquer a lady all at once, Everad!"

Laughter again.

They had all been uneasy with her for a few moments, but it was all gone now, especially if they would make that kind of jokes. Was
that
what they would focus on, yet again? Was not the question of whether Science actually worked more important?

They had already forgotten about it, even though it was discussed seconds ago!

"Twenty Science points for Qynnsent," the game master, Mister Gabriel Flint, said. It was a solid number of points, but the victory felt empty.

Until Linden met lord Everad's eyes.

Yet, Everad got his chance for revenge on her soon enough. After Mister Flint's announcement, lord Everad tried to argue that lady Linden's pawns did not possess the correct tools to build her mechanisms. Like before, Mister Flint mentioned "
theory
" and brushed the lord's concern away.

"Well, then," the lord said, his voice now forcefully calm, "If tools are not important, my soldiers can build something of their own."

"Our soldiers, man!" It was Orlin who was frowning now. "Remember who raised the money for the army now, will you?"

"Of course. Our army." Everad clapped Orlin's shoulder without even looking, for his eyes were set firmly on their board. "Now, Mister Flint, two game turns have passed since my—our—foot soldiers set on their way to lady Linden's city. They would have been there in one more turn but for her rocks. I know that the lady did send a message for help, despite her bad odds, so her help would arrive, via the northwestern road, in three more turns. It would, on the other hand, take our army four turns to go back to the northern road and take the northwestern to the lady's city—so we have no time to do it before her allies have arrived."

Gabriel Flint confirmed.

"Well then, Mister Flint, I could say that my soldiers will now build a mechanism similar to lady Linden's, which will raise each of my soldiers and pass them over the lady's rocks. I won't do that; this particular mechanism was the lady's idea, not mine."

It sounded oh so noble—but Everad did not care to mention that Mister Flint would not give him Science points if he used Linden's mechanism. Or that, even if he wiped her city out, he would have acknowledged her as his better in Science for this game. She could see it in the man's wretched eyes. "
We may make a Second Counselor out of you yet,
" Desmond had told her today, and suddenly Linden knew that he had been right. She saw through people—she sensed them, like mechanisms—she knew how some of them worked.

And she wanted to use this, to make Everad learn that she was
better
than him, to herself feel what it was to
win
.

"The roads leading to the lady's city are too narrow and dangerous for carts and carriages, and unfortunately we only sent foot soldiers and not our few Master Riders. We sent the riders to lord Zachary's province, so it is too late to recall them now," Everad was saying. "But, just like these roads are not too narrow for a horse, they will not be too narrow for a horse's Scientific replacement."

Linden's heart was beating fast now, thrusting against her chest. She would not let him—would not
let
him—get the better of her.

He proceeded to describe what looked like half a chair, half a cart. It had two sets of wheels: two front wheels and two back wheels, connected with axles to a single metal board with a seat on one side and what looked like handles on the other. The contraption was very narrow, and if a person sat on the seat with feet on the ground and hands on the handles, Everad explained, the person could use the feet to accelerate the mechanism; then he or she could raise the feet off the ground. For some time, the mechanism would run by itself and carry the person faster than the person would run—and when it slowed, the person could accelerate it again and then raise the feet to rest again. The handles were for turning the front wheels and thus steering, for they were connected to the front axle, and the front axle could be moved.

Linden did not curse only because there were people around her. This would work; it truly would. It was even simpler than the wheelchair she had described to Rianor and Jenne, but its purpose was different—speed, not a handicapped person's convenience. And Everad had not come up with this just now; suddenly Linden knew that he had been thinking of the mechanism for perhaps a long time. A risky mechanism, Mister Podd would have said, but Linden knew that Everad would not care at this moment. Even if he had not been a lord but, like Mister Podd, a commoner accountable to Mentors, he would not care. At this moment, what mattered to Everad was not to protect himself but to crush Linden.

Wretch him, he would not!

But lord Everad's "
walker,
" as Mister Flint called it, would take a soldier to Linden's city faster than Linden's help would arrive—and many walkers would take many soldiers ...

Everad and Orlin got their own twenty Science points, and by now all others were watching them and Linden, ignoring their own stakes in the game. A show was more interesting.

Linden was starting to sweat—and then she suddenly saw Rianor enter the hall, trailed by the High Lady of Laurent.

Linden was grateful to Everad just then. If it were not for him and her hatred of him, if it were not for the need to seek a way to protect herself and to lash back at him, she would have cried for all to see.

"Now, lord Everad, I can obstruct the northwestern road with rocks just like I obstructed the northeastern one, and you know that." He would also know that in this case his army would become stuck between the rocks and her coming allies—unless his walkers helped his army to escape on time, of course. He would also know that in this case Linden would have relied on her old mechanism or on other people.

Perhaps he would also know that, the game having become what it had, she would
never
do that.

"This time, however, I will drop rocks into the river," Linden said, quietly, "not on the road."

Rianor stared at her for a moment. He had just exchanged a few words with Dora and Lazar and had walked half the way towards her, and Linden knew that he immediately knew what she had done. The next one to realize it was Mister Gabriel Flint, the game master.

"Lord Everad, lord Orlin," he said in his soft and yet penetrating voice. "The Lady of Qynnsent has just drowned half of your army." He leaned over his own table, scribbling the calculations and rolling the dice for the chance factor as was his responsibility, the room filled with silence.

"Out of ten thousand soldiers, five thousand twenty-six live. Of those, three thousand-fifteen panic and flee the water. The rest will proceed with the attack upon Qynnsent at the game's next turn."

The Lady of Qynnsent.
She was not the only one to have noticed the wording. A simple mistake, perhaps, for the man who had uttered it was not even a lord himself and could have simply meant it as "
the Qynnsent player in the game.
" Yet, he had said it just as Rianor had entered. People stared at her and Rianor both. In the real world, the title could mean that she was Rianor's wife or wife-to-be—or that she had taken or would take his place. Either case would warrant the others' notice. Rianor did not seem to have noticed, himself, but she knew him better than that.

She stepped a little away from the table to meet him, and he took her hand in his, raising it to his lips right there before the crowd with the words, "
My
lady."

It might have been a normal gesture in other circumstances, but if anyone had doubted what Rianor had or had not heard, doubts should be cleared now. So, he, too, could play those games of saying things with the wrong words or no words at all. But he should not have used her in this.

It hurt. It hurt too much, especially when she glanced away from the tables and saw Marguerite's half-smile.

"My lord." Linden said, loudly, then whispered to him, "Perhaps you can explain the meaning of this show to me later."

"Perhaps I can." His face was stiff, and he gripped her hand tightly in his, so tightly that it hurt, and he said nothing else, only his eyes became narrowed. Not at her. Lord Everad had just stepped towards them, a muscle pulsing on his cheek, even though the voice he used to address them was light and pleasant.

"This was not a nice thing to do to the friends who explained the game to you, my lady." Everad shook his head. "The river—who would have thought."

The river had, of course, overflown when dammed with Linden's rocks, the water flowing down the northwestern road.

"Someone who can think, I would assume. I credit my lady with that rare quality." Rianor, his voice soft and yet not soft at all, and for a very brief moment the two men looked at each other in a way that must have made the gossipers in the room very happy. Linden intervened before they could do or say anything more. "Friends, my lord Everad? I thought you and lord Orlin wanted to destroy my city. When friends do such things, their friends are allowed to defend themselves, don't you think? I did warn you that I was a quick learner."