Wartorn: Resurrection by Robert Asprin, Eric Del Carlo Page B

about military matters, specifically communications. Far Speak mages had been installed in Callah, Windal, and now Sook, naturally, so that Matokin could receive direct reports about the status of the occupied cities of his growing empire.
    Berkant relaxed a bit. The liquor was strong, but had such a mellow taste it snuck up on a person unprepared for it.
    "Berkant," Dardas said finally, "it may be you can't answer what I'd like to know. I don't know if Matokin has placed restrictions on what information I should be privy to." He shrugged, as if to indicate that it was all right with him if he was so restricted. "But I would like to know something about magic."
    "Magic?" Berkant said, his open face suddenly closing tightly.
    Yes, thought Dardas darkly. That Felk bleeder Matokin meant to keep him ignorant.
    These thoughts didn't show on Dardas's face. "Not the mechanics of magic," he explained airily. "It makes no difference to me how you wizards work your spells. I'm impressed by it all, to be sure. But, no. I'm interested only in the
history
of magic. It wasn't a field of study my tutors made much fuss about."
    "I see, General Weisel." Berkant mulled it over a moment. "Well, perhaps I can enlighten you. Magic, of course, is a purely natural talent, one that has been with our species since it learned to speak. Maybe before. It—"
    Already he was warming to the subject. Dardas let the mage ramble awhile. He seemed to enjoy holding forth. Probably Dardas was the only member of this military outside the circle of wizards who'd ever engaged him so in conversation. The animus between the army's regular numbers and its magic-using squads was quite strong.
    Maybe, like Dardas, they were simply unsettled by the presence of so many wizards. Matokin might have shown true brilliance in recruiting powerful mages into his new military (not to mention using magic to resurrect the general who led it), but did he truly grasp the tension he'd also created within these ranks?
    "Before the Great Upheavals," Berkant was saying, "things were different."
    Dardas perked up, paying closer attention now.
    The Great Upheavals had occurred even before Dardas's day. Once, mighty empires had thrived on the Northern and Southern Continents, but they had both crumbled from within. Before that time, however, wizardry was relatively widespread. Both the empires of the Northland and the Southsoil had made efforts to develop the sciences. The best practitioners were kept at the ruling courts.
    "When those continental empires fell, it was a time of much fear." Berkant was showing the effects of the liquor, though, like any amateur drinker, he didn't seem to know he was getting drunk.
    "I see," Dardas said, refilling the wizard's glass.
    "Rumors abounded that occult forces were responsible for the empires' collapse. Magical practitioners went into hiding or renounced their disciplines. Some fled to the Isthmus. In the Northland, a very few attached themselves as healers to the armies of the new warlords."
    "Fascinating," Dardas said. He, of course, had been one of those warlords. "But what about
here,
on the Isthmus?"
    "The Issh— The Issh—" Berkant actually giggled, then reined himself in. Overenunciating, he now said, "The Isthmus once served only as a trade route between the continents. When the Upheavals came, many trade clans were stranded here, and they, as you know, settled this land."
    "Yes," Dardas said, hiding his annoyance. Soon the liquor would make this mage useless as a source of information. "But what about the magicians?"
    "The wealthiest and most powerful of the trade clans had the insight to give shelter and succor to the suddenly outcast wizards. They recognized magic's value, its potential advantage. They didn't fear magic as did the rabble." Berkant drained his glass in one heroic swallow. This time Dardas didn't refill it.
    The mage continued, "The wizards were absorbed into these newly founded wealthy houses of the Isthmus. They took