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flipped open the front cover and read something on the flyleaf, then slammed
it shut and stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly.
Duffy found himself regretting his momentary flash of sympathy. For God's
sake, man, he thought, show a little restraint, a little control. To steer the
sorcerer onto less maudlin ground, he asked, 'And how does the siege look to
you lately? Any sorcerous hints or glimpses of the outcome?'
Aurelianus put the book down on a cluttered table and resumed his seat, a
little self-consciously.
'No, nothing. Sorcerously I'm blind and deaf, as I'm sure I explained to you.
When I want to know how Vienna stands I ask someone like yourself, who has
been out there and seen it happening.' He put the snake in his mouth at last,
and stared hard, cross-eyed, at the thing's head. After perhaps a minute a red
glow showed on the end, and then with a brief gout of flame the thing was lit,
and he was cheerfully puffing smoke.
Duffy cocked an eyebrow. 'How much of that sort of thing can you still do?'
'Oh, I can do small things only, tricks, like making beetles stand up and jig
or making girls'
skirts blow up over their heads. You know the sort of thing? But I can do
nothing that is directly aggressive to the Turks, not even send them
scalp-itch or foot-stink. Of course we're protected to the same degree from
Ibrahim... it's simply a deadlock of all the powerful areas of magic, which I
think I predicted to you five months ago.'
Duffy was refilling his glass again. 'Yes. You wanted to get rain-magic done
while you still had no restrictions on your power - and it may well have
worked.'
The old wizard was mildly annoyed. 'May have worked? It did work, you clod.
Have you seen any big cannons among the Turk formations, like the ones they
overthrew Rhodes with? No, you haven't. My heavy rains forced Suleiman to
leave them behind.'
'The rain was damned fortunate, certainly,' Duffy agreed. 'But can you be sure
it was summoned rain, and not a natural phenomenon that was going to happen
anyway?'
'You were there. You know. You just want to argue with me.'
'Very well, I admit it worked that time in May. But what's the use of having a
wizard on our side if he can't do any wizardry?'
Aurelianus let a long stream of smoke out in a sigh. 'Picture yourself in a
corps-a-corps with a swordsman who is your equal in skill; your dagger is
blocking his dagger, and your sword his sword. Now your dagger isn't free to
stab with - but would you say it's useless?'
'No.. .but I wouldn't just stand there straining. I'd knee the bastard and
spit in his eyes.
Listen, when you were describing this deadlock in advance, you said it would
be virtually file:///F|/rah/Tim%20Powers/The%20Drawing%20Of%20The%20Dark.txt
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file:///F|/rah/Tim%20Powers/The%20Drawing%20Of%20The%20Dark.txt unbreakable.'
Aurelianus frowned. 'Yes. It is.'
'Virtually doesn't mean the same thing as absolutely.'
'Hell, man, the sun is virtually certain to rise tomorrow morning, the sea is
-'It could be broken, though? It'd be tremendously difficult or unlikely, but
it could?'
'Could a man amputate, butcher and cook his own legs to avoid starvation?
Yes.'
'How? Not this starving man, I mean -'I know. Very well, there are two courses
I could take that would free all the potency of military magic. One is
horribly uncertain, and the other is horribly certain. Which one would you
like to hear about?'
'Both. What's the uncertain one?'
'Well, the present balance is between Ibrahim and me; it would tilt in our
favor if 'the Fisher
King himself were actually to ride out and join his will with mine in a
battle. Do you understand?
He'd have to be there physically and take part in it. That's unthinkably
dangerous, like recklessly advancing your king out from behind the pawn wall
in a chess game when your life and the lives of everyone you know are somehow
at stake.' He spread his hands. 'After all, Vienna isn't the absolutely final
place in which to make a last stand against the East. There are other
strength-spots where we could regroup and not be too much worse off than we
are now.
'But there is no other Fisher King to be had. If he were to be struck by a
stray harquebus ball, or cut down by a particularly energetic Janissary, or
simply suffer heart failure from exertion or tension.. .well, that would be
the end of the story. If the West seems chaotic and disorganized now, when [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]