He had to do something to keep Valdemar so busy with its own troubles that it wouldn't have the leisure or the coordination to strike now.
Unfortunately, that meant using a weapon that he'd held in reserve because he hated it so much.
But a man threatened will use anything to stay alive. I am fighting for not only my life, but the lives of my men. I cannot hesitate. I will not hesitate.
He would not entrust this to an aide or a messenger. Instead, he unlocked a drawer of his desk, and removed a square of something heavy wrapped in silk. He laid the square in the middle of his desk and unwrapped it, uncovering a piece of polished black obsidian-glass, perfectly square and perfectly flawless.
This was another reason why all candidates for the Iron Throne should be mages. Some messages were too important for anything but personal delivery.
He reached into the drawer again, and brought out a hand-sized portrait of a man; it was an excellent likeness, though the man himself was hardly memorable. This was a good thing; it was not wise to employ a man who was distinctive as a covert agent. With the portrait was a lock of the man's hair; the physical link needed to contact him.
It was also the physical link that any decent mage could use to kill him if he became uncooperative, as all agents knew very well. There was nothing like having a little insurance, when one dealt with covert operatives.
Using the portrait, he fixed the agent's image in his mind, and reached for the energies of his own personal reserve of magic. He did not care to trust the lines of power hereabouts; his mages had already warned him that they were depleted and erratic. What these disruptions had done to them, he did not care to speculate. While he relied on his own protected pool of power, he should be immune to the disturbances around him.
He stared into the black glass, emptying his mind of everything except the agent and the need to speak with him, flinging his power out as if it was a fishing line, and he was angling for one fish in particular.
His power slowly drained out as he sought and waited; sought and waited. This might take a while; he was prepared to wait for as long as it took. His agent was not in command of his own movements, and it could be some time before he was free to answer the call. That was fine; a mage must learn patience, first and foremost, before he could build any other skills. A mage must learn concentration, as well, and Tremane had ample practice in both virtues.
The marks crept by and the candle burned down, and at long last, past the hour of midnight, the answer came to his call.
The agent's face formed in the glass, expression anxious and apologetic. Tremane thought, with a curl of his lip, that the fool looked even more ineffectual than he did in his portrait. Why had anyone ever chosen an artist as a covert agent? "My Lord Duke!" the man cried, his lips moving in the glass, his voice as thin and weak as a fly's buzzing whine. "I beg you to forgive me! I could not get away! I—"
"You are wasting my time with apologies," Tremane said curtly. "Here are your orders. Release the little birds."
The agent's face went dead white. "My—my Lord!" he faltered. "All of them! Are you certain!"
"All of them," Tremane ordered, curtly. "See to it."
Before the fool could waste his time and resources further by arguing or pleading that this would place him in danger, Tremane broke the spell. The agent's image vanished from the glass, quickly as a candle flame is blown out. Tremane paused for a moment, massaging his temples, before he folded the silk around the obsidian and put glass, hair, and portrait back into the drawer.
Would the agent survive his appointed task?
He would if he was careful, Tremane decided. There was nothing about the job that left him vulnerable to discovery. The "little birds" should already be in place, and setting them free could be done at a distance. If he was stupid, he might be caught, though.
Then let him suffer the penalty of stupidity, Tremane decided with uncharacteristic impatience. If he is caught, he has done all he need do, and he is expendable.
He was rarely so ruthless with an underling, but this man was no agent of his choosing, and he had not been particularly useful until now.
He clenched his fist for a moment, as a pang of regret for what he had just ordered swept over him. This was—ugly, unclean, and underhanded. It was neither honest nor honorable. It would be the first real stain on his conscience or soul. He had ordered the deaths of men before, but they had always been death in battle or other circumstances where both sides knew what they were getting into. He knew that he would spend at least one sleepless night over this and probably more to come.
This was the death of innocents, noncombatants. Yet an Emperor had to be ruthless enough to order just such an action to save the lives of his own people.
But I had no choice, he told himself, staring up at the black glass of his window, so like the black mirror he had just used. I must save my men. This is war, and I had no choice.
So why did it feel as if he had betrayed, not only his honor, but some significant part of his own soul?
Fifteen
There were seven days left before the next wave, and Karal was not altogether certain he was going to live that long. There were simply not enough marks in the day to do everything he had to. Then again, he was not the only person working to exhaustion; the mages and the engineers were all walking around with dark rings under their eyes. The only reason he was getting any sleep at all was because he was seeing to it that Ulrich got a decent rest every night, and then dropping into slumber shortly thereafter.
The mages did their shielding work in the morning, when they were all fresh; then came a break for lunch, then their meeting with the Master Engineers, and then their own meetings. Karal was not always present at the latter; the mages needed his reports on what the engineers were doing, more than the reverse, since An'desha was making himself available to them for explanations and demonstrations. Karal had to wonder where he was getting the energy.
Generally he kept himself as unobtrusive and invisible as possible—except where Ulrich's health was concerned. It had taken a major effort of will to march right in on the mages and demand that Master Ulrich be allowed to get some rest, the first time he'd gotten back to the suite after returning from the Compass Rose only to find that Ulrich was not in his bed. He was nothing more than the merest secretary; he had no standing and no authority among such luminaries as Elspeth and Darkwind! But Ulrich's welfare was the most important job he had—Solaris had entrusted him with seeing that his mentor remained hale and well, and staying up until dawn, snatching an hour or two of sleep, and getting up to work complicated magics was going to wear him to nothing in a very short period of time. He didn't think the others, being much younger than Ulrich, were aware of how quickly he could be exhausted. So he had gathered up all of his courage, walked straight into the meeting, and respectfully "reminded" Ulrich that his master had left orders to be told when midnight arrived so that he could get enough rest to work the next day.