Pawn’s Gambit (23 page)

“Yeah,” the other sighed, “but he's not going to like it. This is VanderSluis. Tell him I called and that I just took his suggestion in to the President. And that he scotched the whole idea.”

My mouth went dry all at once. “He
what
?”

“Shot it down. Said in no uncertain terms that he can't handle a debate and a damn push-button switchboard at the same time. Unquote.”

“Did you remind him that it could be his
life
at stake here?” I snapped. “Or even fight dirty and suggest it could cost him the election?”

“Just give Maxwell the message, will you?” the other said coldly. “Leave the snide comments to Senator Danzing.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. But I was talking to a dead phone. Slowly, I replaced the handset and looked up to meet Pak's and Christophe's gazes. “What is the matter?” Christophe asked.

“Thompson's not going for it,” I sighed. “Says the signal board would be too much trouble.”

“But—” Pak broke off as the door opened and Maxwell strode into the room, his arms laden with boxes of equipment.

“Hell,” he growled when I'd delivered VanderSluis's message. “Hell and
hell.
What's a little trouble matter when it could save his life?”

“I doubt that's his only consideration,” Pak shook his head. “Politics, again, Mr. Maxwell—politics and appearances. If any of the press should notice the board, there are any number of conclusions they could come to.”

“None of them good.” I took a deep breath. “But damn it all, what does he want you to do?—defend him without his cooperation?”

“Probably,” Maxwell said heavily. “There's a long tradition of that in the Secret Service.” He took a deep breath. “Well, gentlemen, we've still got three and a half hours to come up with something. Suggestions?”

“Can you find the robber and get the doll back?” Christophe asked.

“Probably not,” Maxwell shook his head. “Too many potential suspects, not enough time to sort through all of them.”

“A shame the thief didn't leave any hair at the scene of the crime,” I commented, only half humorously. “If he had, we could make a doll and take him out whether we knew who he was or not.”

Maxwell cocked an eye at Christophe. “Anything you can do without something from his body?”

Christophe shook his head. “Only a little bit is required, Mr. Maxwell, but that little bit is absolutely essential.”

Maxwell swore and said something else to Christophe … but I wasn't really listening. A crazy sort of idea had just popped into my head … “Dr. Christophe,” I said slowly, “what about the doll itself? You made the thing—presumably you know everything about its makeup and design. Would there be any way to make a—I don't know, a counteracting doll that you could use to destroy the original?”

Christophe blinked. “To tell the honest truth, I do not know. I have never heard of such a thing being done. Still … from what I have learned of the science of voodoo, I believe I would still need to have something of the stolen doll here to create the necessary link.”

“Wait a minute, though,” Pak spoke up. “It's all the same wax that you use, isn't it? That strange translucent goop that's so pressure-sensitive that it bruises if you even look at it wrong.”

“It is hardly that delicate,” Christophe said with an air of wounded pride. “And it is that very responsiveness that makes it so useful—”

“I know, I know,” Pak interrupted him. “What I meant was, would it be possible to link up with the stolen doll since you know what it's made of?”

“I do not think so,” Christophe shook his head. “Voodoo is not a shotgun, but a very precise rifle. When a link is created between doll and subject it is a
very
specific one.”

“And does that link work both ways?” Maxwell asked suddenly.

There was something odd in his voice, something that made me turn to look at him. The expression on his face was even odder. “Something?” I asked.

“Maybe. Dr. Christophe?”

“Uh …” Christophe floundered a second as he backtracked to the question Maxwell had asked. “Well, certainly the link works both ways. How could it be otherwise?”

For a moment Maxwell didn't say anything, but continued gazing off into space. Then, slowly, a grim smile worked itself onto his face. “Then it might work. It might just work. And the President should even go for it—yeah, I'm sure he will.” Abruptly, he looked down at his watch. “Three and a quarter hours to go,” he said, all business again. “We'd better get busy.”

“Doing what?” Pak asked, clearly bewildered.

Maxwell told us.

The Hyatt ballroom was stuffed to the gills with people long before President Thompson and Senator Danzing came around the curtains, shook hands, and took their places at the twin lecterns. Sitting on the end of the bed, I studied Thompson's television image closely, wishing we'd been allowed to set up somewhere a little closer to the action. TV screens being what they were, it was going to be pretty hard for me to gauge how the President was feeling.

The moderator went through a short welcoming routine and then nodded to Thompson. “Mr. President, the first opening statement will be yours,” he said. The camera shifted to a mid-closeup and Thompson began to speak—”

“Stomach,” Maxwell said tersely from behind me.

“I see it,” Pak answered in a much calmer voice. “… This should do it.”

I kept my own eyes on the President's face. A brief flicker of almost-pain came and went. “He's looking okay now,” I announced.

“Unfortunately, we can't tell if the treatment is working,” Pak commented. “Only where the attack is directed—”

“Right elbow,” Maxwell cut him off.

“Got it.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the moderator cut smoothly into Thompsons's speech. “Senator Danzing: your opening statement, sir.”

The camera shifted to Danzing and I took a deep breath and relaxed a bit. Only for a second, though, as an angled side camera was brought into play and Thompson appeared in the foreground. “Watch it,” I warned the other. “He's on camera again.”

“Uh-huh,” Maxwell grunted. “—stomach again.”

“Got it,” Pak assured him. “Whoever our thief is, he isn't very imaginative.”

“Not terribly dangerous, either, at least so far,” I put in. “Though I suppose we should be grateful for small favors.”

“Or for small minds,” Maxwell said dryly. “It's starting to look more and more like murder wasn't the original object at all.”

“I do not understand,” Christophe spoke up.

Maxwell snorted. “Haven't you ever heard of political dirty tricks?”

The camera was full on Danzing again, and I risked a glance around at the others hunched over the table set up between the two hotel beds. “You mean … all of this just to make Thompson look wracked by aches and pains on camera?”

“Why not?” Maxwell said, glancing briefly up at me. “Stupider things have been done. Effectively, I might add.”

“I suppose.” But probably, I added to myself, none stranger than this one. My eyes flicked to the table and to two wax figures standing up in flower pots of Haitian soil there: one with a half dozen acupuncture needles already sticking out of it, the other much larger one looking more like a pincushion than a doll.

But those weren't pins sticking into it. Rather, they were a hundred thin wires leading
out
of it. Out, and into a board with an equal number of neatly spaced and labeled lights set into it … and even as I watched, one of the tiny piezo crystals Christophe had so carefully embedded into his creation reacted to the subtle change in pressure of the wax and the corresponding light blinked on—

“Right wrist,” Maxwell snapped.

“Got it,” Pak said. Belatedly, I turned back to my station at the TV, just in time to see the President's arm wave in one of his trademark wide-open gestures. The arm swung forward, hand cupped slightly toward the camera … and as it paused there my eyes focused on that hand, and despite the limitations of the screen I could almost imagine I saw the slight discolorations under his neatly manicured fingernails. Would any of the reporters in the ballroom be close enough to see that? Probably not. And even if they did, they almost certainly wouldn't recognize Christophe's oddly translucent wax for what it really was.

Or believe it if they did. Doll-to-person voodoo was ridiculous enough; running the process in reverse, person-to-doll, was even harder to swallow.

The picture shifted to Danzing. “He's off-camera again,” I announced, getting my mind back on my job.

The battles raged for just over an hour—the President's and Senator's verbal battle, and our quieter, behind-the-scenes one. And when it was over, the two men on the stage shook hands and headed backstage … and because I knew to look for it, I noticed the slight limp to the President's walk. Hardly surprising, really—though I've never tried it, I'm sure it's very difficult to walk properly when your socks are full of Haitian dirt.

The Secret Service dropped me out of the investigation after that, so I don't know whether or not they ever actually recovered the doll. But at this point it hardly matters. The President's clearly still alive, and by now the stolen doll is almost certainly inert. I haven't seen Pak or Christophe since the debate, either, but from the excited way they were talking afterwards I'd guess that by now they've probably worked most of the bugs out of the new voodoo diagnostic technique that Maxwell came up with that night. And I suppose I have to accept that all medical advances, whether they make me uncomfortable or not, are ultimately a good thing.

And actually, the whole experience has wound up saving me a fair amount of money, too. Instead of shelling out fifteen dollars for a haircut once a month, I've learned to do the job myself, at home.

I collect and destroy my fingernail clippings, too. Not paranoid, you understand; just cautious.

Clean Slate

There were a hundred small towns and villages along the road to Abron Mysti, and at each one they warned Saladar that his trip was going to be wasted, that Gyran Pass had been forcibly closed. Those whose advice he ignored clearly labeled him a fool; those to whom he tried explaining just as clearly labeled him an arrogant fool. Eventually, he gave up explaining, and merely set his face toward the gray-green peaks of the Bartop Mountains and kept walking.

The last few leagues were the hardest. The towns and their well-meaning residents petered out as the road began to slope upward toward the mountains, and he quickly discovered why most travelers chose to make this trip on beastback. But he hardly noticed the effort. He was almost there, and it was looking more and more like he was going to be the first to arrive … and for the opportunity that lay ahead he would gladly have given years of his life.

As he had, of course, already done.

Whether by deliberate design or simple accident of landscape, the final approach to Abron Mysti was an impressive one. With the foothills of the Bartop Mountains rising up around him, Saladar topped a slight swell in the road itself; and suddenly the town was there, spread at his feet between the straight-walled gap leading into the mountains behind it and a narrow white-water river before it. The houses and trade buildings making up the town were clean and attractive; the lack of activity around them, highly abnormal.

Which meant he'd indeed made it in time. Travel through Gyran Pass was still halted. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his cloak and started down toward the town.

The road ended at a drawbridge spanning the river, a posted sign nearby proclaiming the toll to be four
dan.
Two small cottages flanked the road on the far side of the bridge, but there was no sign of any bridge keeper. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone there?”

For a minute the roaring of the river beneath the bridge was the only sound. Then the door of the cottage on the right opened, and a young woman peered out. “What is it?” she called.

Saladar gestured to the sign. “Are you the bridge keeper?” he shouted.

An odd look flicked across her face, but it passed and she gestured him forward. He crossed and stepped up to her. “Are you the bridge keeper?” he repeated.

She shook her head, lips compressing briefly. “The bridge keeper's in town. Probably getting drunk.”

Saladar's gaze slipped to her neck, to the widow's white scarf knotted there. “Do you accept fees in his absence?” he asked.

Her eyes showed she was tempted … but those eyes held pride, too. “No,” she said. “Forget the toll—if he's not here to collect, the city just loses out. A few
dan
aren't going to make any difference, anyway.”

“No,” he agreed. “Thank you. Do you serve the bridge in any capacity, then?”

“My husband was bridge keeper once,” the woman said shortly. “He's dead now. I had nowhere else to go, so they allowed me to stay here. Is there anything else?”

Saladar inclined his head slightly. “I'm sorry; I didn't mean to pry. If I may ask one more favor, though, would you be kind enough to direct me to your ruler?”

She frowned. “Why?”

In answer, he reached down into his tunic and withdrew the blood-red heartstone on its chain. “My name is Saladar,” he told her. “I've come to help you.”

For a long moment the woman stared at the gently throbbing heartstone, a look of disgust and hatred distorting her features. Then without a word, she disappeared back inside, slamming the door behind her.

For a moment Saladar just stood there, staring at the spot where she'd been, his head spinning with the sheer unexpectedness of it. Throughout his lifetime he'd been greeted with everything from lavish adoration to utter indifference … but never by such complete revulsion.

But it didn't really matter. The wizard's oath he'd taken all those years ago had spoken of service to those in need. It had made no mention of serving only those who fed his pride.

And with the chance to fulfill that oath finally within his grasp, it would take a lot more than simple hatred to stop him. A
lot
more.

Abruptly, he realized he was still holding the heartstone out on its chain. Taking a calming breath, he slipped it back into his tunic, feeling the warmth as it settled again into the accustomed spot next to his heart. Stepping back from the cottage, he headed down toward the center of Abron Mysti.

Cyng Borthnin was a big, almost brutish-looking man—a living example, Saladar thought, of the small-village belief that equated physical stature and power with the ability to rule.

“A wizard, huh?” Borthnin grunted as Saladar slid the heartstone back into his tunic. “Took your time getting here, didn't you? It's been almost two months.”

“I came as soon as word reached me, my lord Cyng,” Saladar said evenly. “The world is a very large place, hardly something easily filled by a handful of wizards.”

Borthnin made a face. “Oh, certainly,” he said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “Yes, we of Abron Mysti know very well just how few of you there are.” He eyed Saladar with undisguised suspicion. “So. You're here to open Gyran Pass again, are you? How much do you plan to charge for this favor?”

Saladar frowned. “Nothing, my lord Cyng,” he told the other. “Merely my room and board while I study the problem—”

One of the small group of men seated to either side of Borthnin muttered something under his breath. Saladar shifted his gaze to the man, and the other fell reluctantly silent. “My room and board while I study the problem,” he repeated. “And that for no more than a week. Probably less.”

Borthnin nodded. “So. A week's room and board. And when you've found how to vanquish the beast?”

“I charge no fee, if that's what you mean,” Saladar said, anger beginning to stir within him. “If you'll forgive me, my lord Cyng, you don't talk like the ruler of a town whose sole means of livelihood has been snatched away from it. I'd think you'd be willing to pay practically any price to have Gyran Pass open again.”

A growling rumble from Borthnin's counselors broke off at a wave of the Cyng's hand. “You think that, do you?” Borthnin said darkly. “Well, perhaps you also think we're more gullible than in truth we are.”

“And you think I'm going to try to cheat you—?”

“Listen, wizard, we know just how close and exclusive your group is,” Borthnin cut him off angrily. “One of our own tried to join, and they killed him for his effort.” He stopped, visibly gathering his control about him again. “No, wizard. If it's some beast or natural creature in the Lighttower, it'll eventually leave of its own accord. And if it's some wizard's trick being played against Abron Mysti, we aren't going to come fawning to another of that same group to rescue us.”

“Then your city may die,” Saladar warned him.

“So be it,” Borthnin shot back. “At least we'll die as men.”

For a handful of heartbeats Saladar gazed into Borthnin's face. Then, without a word, he turned and left the council house.

Outside, he paused, letting his anger at such stupidity cool while he considered what to do next. It had taken longer to locate the Cyng than he'd expected, and the sun was dipping toward the horizon. Too late now to go up into Gyran Pass and get back before dark—and whatever it was that travelers were unable or unwilling to face by day he had no desire to encounter by night.

Which likewise left out the possibility of camping at the entrance to the pass. He could find a room in Abron Mysti, of course, staying at his own expense … but he had a measure of pride, too, and after that confrontation he would shrivel up and die before he would give Borthnin the satisfaction. Turning his back to the mountains, he retraced his steps back toward the river.

The bridge was still in place—the bridge keeper, no doubt, still drowning his sorrows in town. He was about to cross when a voice from his left stopped him. “You leaving?”

He turned. The woman he'd spoken to earlier had emerged from her cottage, a hoe in her hand. “Only for the night,” he told her. “I'll be back in the morning to take a look at the pass.”

Her lips compressed. “Is our hospitality that lacking that you prefer sleeping outside?”

“I wouldn't know. Cyng Borthnin decided the town isn't willing to provide me a bed for the night.”

The sour look on her face flickered out, to be replaced by surprise. “He—? What did you say to him?”

“Only the truth. That I came to try to help Abron Mysti get rid of whatever was blocking Gyran Pass.” He eyed the woman, a sudden suspicion dawning on him. “He mentioned that a local resident had tried to become a wizard. Your husband?”

Her face hardened, and for a moment he thought she would slam the door on him again … and then her whole body seemed to slump. “Yes,” she said softly, her voice barely audible over the roar of the river.

Saladar felt an echo of pain in his own heart. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly.

Slowly, her eyes came back up to his face. “Why did you come here?”

“I already told you. To try to help.”

“And you're staying? Even after … everything?”

He nodded. “I have to.”

“Why?”

He hesitated.
Because this may be the only chance I ever have to be a wizard,
the thought whispered through his mind. “Because it's my job,” he said aloud. “Because it's what I'm called to do.”

For a long moment she just stared at him. “My name is Marja,” she said at last. “I …” She took a deep breath. “I have a spare room.”

Her husband's name, Saladar learned two hours later, had been Nunisjan.

“He left three years ago this autumn,” Marja told him, the soft candlelight bathing her face with gentle radiance as she collected the dishes from their evening meal. “Travel through the mountains slackens with the first snowfall of winter, you know, and for those months a bridge keeper has little to do. He'd always felt that Abron Mysti was important enough to have its own resident wizard, and so he … left … to try to become one.”

“And never returned?” Saladar asked quietly.

She turned her back to him, busying herself with the dishes. “A dove arrived here a year later,” she said over her shoulder, her voice wavering slightly. “It carried a message for me from his mentor. Word of his death.”

Saladar sighed soundlessly. “I'm sorry.”

She didn't reply, and for a few minutes the room was silent except for the clinking of dishware. “How did it happen?” he asked at last.

“The message didn't say.” She paused. “I was hoping … you might be able to tell me.”

Saladar shook his head. “I'm sorry. There are any number of dangerous spells a wizard has to learn. A mistake with any one of them—”

“Brings on the Wizard's Curse?”

He winced. “You've heard of the Wizard's Curse?”

“Hasn't everybody?” she retorted. “Though most people around here think it's nothing but a rumor started by the wizards to keep other people from seeking the Power for themselves.”

“Yes, I got that impression from Cyng Borthnin earlier,” Saladar said heavily. “I've heard that said before, too, in other places. But it isn't true. The number of wizards is limited solely by the number of heartstones available.”

“You really need those things? I always thought they were just for impressing the peasants.”

“No, they're absolutely vital. Without a heartstone to strengthen and guide the Power, none of the truly potent spells will work.”

She seemed to consider that. “Then what's the Wizard's Curse?”

Saladar grimaced. “Perhaps by tomorrow I'll be able to tell you.”

Marja turned from her work to frown at him. “What do you mean?”

He hesitated, his first instinct to deflect the question. But it had lain hidden in his heart for so long … and anyway, with this trouble facing her town perhaps she had a right to know. “No one's ever told me what the Wizard's Curse was,” he said in a low voice. “It's the price a wizard must pay for the privilege of using the Power—that's all my mentor would ever tell me. He wouldn't say anything more.”

“Yes, but you've been a wizard yourself for—surely for many years.”

“Fifteen.” He turned away from her eyes, to the small window and the still-lighted tips of the mountains beyond. “I've been a wizard for fifteen years. Or at least that's how long I've had my heartstone. But in all that time I've never had the chance to use the Power.”

He could feel her eyes on him. “I don't understand.”

“What's there not to understand?” he lashed out, fifteen years' worth of accumulated frustration welling from him like brackish water. “I'm never at the right place at the right time, that's all. I hear of some catastrophe—something where the wizard's Power is needed—and I go to try to help. But by the time I can get there and get ready, it's … it's too late. Someone else always manages to get there ahead of me and deal with the problem.”

For a long moment she didn't speak. “Well,” she said at last, her voice uncertain. “At least that means you … well, you've got a clean slate to work from, anyway. I mean, even if you haven't … done much, you haven't fouled anything up, either. Like some wizards I've heard stories of …”

She trailed off, and Saladar blinked against tears of shame and anger.
A clean slate.
The sheer lameness of the phrase fairly dripped with scorn and pity. “Would
you
be content with such a life?” he snarled.

“I
have
such a life,” she whispered.

Saladar sighed. “I'm sorry,” he said, ashamed of himself. His long bitterness was no excuse to stir up similar feelings in others. “I just …” He dabbed surreptitiously at his eyes, his heartstone throbbing sympathetically with his emotion. “This may be my only chance to be a wizard, Marja,” he said, the words coming out with difficulty. “I'm here—the
first
one here, for a change. If I can rid Abron Mysti and Gyran Pass of this trouble—whatever it is”—he took a deep breath—“then maybe I'll be able to justify having wasted my possession of a heartstone for all these years.”