The messenger needed a while to find the wizards in the confusion of a camp Abivard hadn't expected to have to make. At last, though, the fellow returned with them, each warily eyeing the other. They both bowed low to Abivard, acknowledging his rank as far superior to theirs.
«Lord,» Bozorg said in Makuraner.
«Eminent sir,» Panteles echoed in Videssian, putting Abivard in mind of Tzikas, who presented a problem of which he did not want to be reminded at the moment.
«I think the two of you may have some idea why I've called you here tonight,» Abivard said, his voice dry.
Both wizards nodded. They looked at each other, respect mixed with rivalry. Bozorg spoke first: «Lord, whatever this spell may be, it is not battle magic.»
«I figured that much out for myself,» Abivard answered even more dryly. «If it had been, we would have gotten over on the second try. But if it's not battle magic, what is it?»
«If it were battle magic, it would have been aimed at your soldiers, and their attitude would indeed have influenced the spell,» Bozorg said. «Since their attitude did not influence it, I conclude it pertains to the canal, whose emotional state is not subject to flux.»
Panteles nodded. Romezan snorted. Turan grinned. Abivard said, «A cogent point, the next question being, What do we do about it?
The wizards looked at each other again. Again Bozorg spoke for them: «As things stand now, lord, we do not know.» Panteles nodded once more.
Romezan snorted again, on an entirely different note. «Glad to have you along, mages; glad to have you along.» Panteles looked down at the ground. Bozorg, who had served at the palace of the King of Kings, glared.
Abivard sighed and waved to dismiss both mages. «Bend all your efforts to finding out what Maniakes' wizards have done. When you know-no, when you have even a glimmer-come to me. I don't care what I may be doing; I don't care what hour of the day or night it may be. With you or without you, I intend to keep trying to cross that canal. Come-do you understand?»
Both wizards solemnly nodded.
X
When the sun rose the next morning, Abivard proved as good as his word. He mustered his army, admiring the way the men held their spirit and discipline in the face of the frightening unknown. Maybe, he thought, things will be different this time. The sun is in our face already. Videssian magic often has a lot to do with the sun. If we're already moving toward it, maybe they won't be able to shift us away.
He thought about spreading that idea among the soldiers but in the end decided against it Had he been more confident he was right, he might have chosen differently. He knew too well, though, that he was only guessing.
«Forward!» he shouted, raising a hand to his eyes to peer into the morning glare to try to see what the Videssians on the eastern bank of the canal were doing. The answer seemed to be, Not much. Maniakes did not have his army drawn up in battle array to meet the Makuraners. A few squadrons of cavalry trotted back and forth; that was all.
«Forward!» Abivard shouted again, and urged his horse down into the muddy water of the canal.
He kept his eye on the sun. As long as I ride straight toward it, everything should be all right, he told himself. The canal wasn't that wide. Surely he and his followers could not reverse themselves and go back up onto the bank from which they'd started: not without noticing. No, they couldn't do that… could they?
Closer and closer came the eastern bank. The day, like all summer days in the land of the Thousand Cities, promised to be scorchingly hot. Already the sun glared balefully into Abivard's face. He blinked. Yes, the far bank was very close now. But the bank up onto which his dripping horse floundered was the western one, with the sun now unaccountably at his back.
And here came his army after him, storming up to overwhelm the place they'd just left. Their shouts of amazement and anger and despair said everything that needed saying. No, almost everything: the other thing that needed saying was that he and his army weren't going to be able to cross that cursed canal-the canal that might as well have been literally cursed-till they figured out and overcame whatever sorcery Maniakes was using to thwart them.
Glumly, Abivard ordered the army to reestablish the camp it had just struck. He spent the next couple of hours pacing through it, doing his best to lift the soldiers' sagging spirits. He knew that best would have been better had his own spirits been anywhere but at the bottom of the sea. But he did not have to show the men that, and he didn't
At last he went back to his own pavilion. He didn't know exactly what he'd do there: getting drunk seemed as good a plan as any, since he couldn't come to grips with the Videssians. But when he got to the tent, he found Bozorg and Panteles waiting for him.
«I think I have the answer, eminent sir!» Panteles exclaimed in high excitement.
«I think this Videssian is out of his mind, lord: utterly mad,» Bozorg declared, folding his arms across his chest. «I think he wants only to waste your time, to deceive you, and to give the victory to Maniakes.»
«I think you are as jealous as an ugly girl watching her betrothed talking to her pretty sister,» Panteles retorted-not a comparison a Makuraner was likely to use, not in a land of sequestered women, but a telling one even so.
«I think I'm going to knock your heads together,» Abivard said judiciously. «Tell me whatever you have to tell me, Panteles. I'll judge whether it's trickery. If it is, I'll do as I think best.»
Panteles bowed. «As you say, eminent sir. Here.» He displayed a length of leather about as long as Abivard's forearm: most likely a piece cut from a belt. Joining the ends, he held them together with thumb and forefinger, then pointed to the resulting circle with his other hand. «How many sides does the strap have, eminent sir?»
«How many sides?» Abivard frowned. «What foolishness is this?» Maybe Bozorg had known what he was talking about. «It has two, of course: an inside and an outside.»
«And a strap across the Videssian's backside,» Bozorg added. But Panteles seemed unperturbed. «Just so,» he agreed. «You can trace it with your finger if you like.» He held the leather circle out so Abivard could do just that Abivard dutifully did, hoping against hope Panteles wasn't talking to hear himself talk, as Videssians often did. «Now-» Panteles said.
Bozorg broke in: «Now, lord, he shows you idiotic nonsense. By the God, he should be made to answer for his foolishness with the lash!»
Anything that could so anger the Makuraner mage was either idiotic nonsense, as he'd said, or exactly the opposite. «As I said, I will judge,» Abivard told Bozorg. He turned to Panteles. «Go on. Show me this great discovery of yours, or whatever it is, and explain how it ties up all our troubles like a length of twine around a stack of cured hides.»
«It's not my discovery, and I don't know if it ties up our troubles or not,» Panteles said. Oddly, Abivard liked him more for that, not less. The more spectacular a claim, the less likely it was to be justified.
Panteles held up the length of leather once more and again shaped it into a continuous band. This time, though, he gave it a half twist before joining the two ends together between his thumb and index finger. Bozorg gestured as if to ward off the evil eye, hissing, «Trickery.»
Panteles took no notice either of him or of Abivard's hand upraised in warning. The Videssian wizard said, «This was discovered in the Sorcerers' Collegium in Videssos the city some years ago by a certain Voimios. I don't know whether it's magic or not in any formal sense of the word. Maybe it's only trickery, as the learned Bozorg claims.» Like any Videssian worth his salt, he used irony as a stiletto. «Whatever it is, it's interesting. How many sides does the strap have now?» He held it up so Abivard could trace out his answer as he had before.