The Dark Prince stood alone in the topmost room of the highest tower in the keep of Prince Aepling, high above Zobra City. He was dressed -- shirt, trousers, boots, cape, belts, and scabbard -- all in black. It wasn't the ebony of midnight or the shiny black of obsidian. His was the blinding, all-absorbing black of the bottom of a mine. With gloves and a mask, the Dark Prince could have vanished in a shadow.

The room had little in the way of furnishings or decoration: a small table with ewer and basin; a small chest with a broken hasp; a chamber pot tucked under a narrow cot. A small tapestry was folded alongside each window, ready to draw over the openings against the elements. The room had been used as prison or as a lookout post from the time of the tower's building and had no need of better furnishings. The Dark Prince was not a lookout though he stood, hands clasped behind his back, looking out the eastern window; nor was he a prisoner. He was, rather, a conqueror. Before his gaze, the southern coast of the Principality of Zobra stretched southwest past the great harbor then, beyond the horizon, southeast. As he watched, a man rose through the unrailed hatch in the center of the floor. He wore bronze-dyed leather armor studded with steel rectangles. He carried a helmet of the same materials tucked under his arm. Two swords -- one long, the other short -- hung from opposite sides of his belt.

"You called for me, Lord Lackland," the man said on gaining the room's floor.

The Dark Prince did not deign to turn his head. Had he looked at the Kamazai Commanding of the Jokapcul forces, he might have drawn sword and killed him for using that hated sobriquet. Unfortunately, killing him would not do; he needed the barbarian to control the armies that were building his empire. He could be dealt with later. Instead, the Dark Prince continued to gaze out the east-facing tower window.

"The coast turns soon?" he asked.

"It does, Lord." The Kamazai joined him at the window, just far enough behind his left shoulder to demonstrate his subordinate position. "A day's sail farther and the coast bends to the south and back to the east in the beginning of the Princedons."

"Are we secure here?" The Dark Prince dropped his gaze from the horizon to the sprawling streets of Zobra City below.

"Yes, Lord."

"Our flank?"

"All of southern Nunimar from the western jungle to Zobra is ours for several days' march inland. We now hold Skragland as far as Oskul, and have taken that city."

The Dark Prince turned his head. The Kingdom of Zobra was South of Skragland, the Princedons were to the east. "What of north of Princedon Gulf?"

"North of Princedon Gulf lies the Low Desert," the Kamazai said dryly, as though a geography lesson was beneath him. "North of that is the High Desert. There are no kingdoms, principalities, or duchies north of the gulf until the Easterlies. The deserts are nearly trackless and almost devoid of water. We have naught to concern ourselves from north of Princedon Gulf."

"There are no armies there?" The Dark Prince's voice was soft, unnaturally so.

The Kamazai Commanding snorted. "Bandit bands only."

"How many? How large?"

"If all of them joined together they would form less than half a legion. The largest of them is said to number not more than a hundred, including camp followers."

The Dark Prince paced across the tower room and looked out the west window. He stepped back from the window and crossed the barren room to its north-facing window. "What of beyond southern Skragland?" he asked.

"Total chaos." The Kamazai Commanding shrugged. "Deserters fleeing. Panicked refugees headed into winter lands and the wilds beyond, where they will starve if the denizens of the Night Forest don't devour them first. It is rumored that panicked Skraglanders overthrew their king and killed him for failing to stop us." The ghost of a smile creased his face.

"No one resists us?"

"Only a few bandits. Mostly, though, the bandits prey on the refugees and sack villages."

"None of them attempt to resist our forces which move north?"

"Only one belligerent band has been reported." The Kamazai chuckled. "It is rumored that band is led by two Frangerian sea soldiers." He chuckled again. "The sea soldiers the Frangerians call 'Marines.' ”

"Frangerian Marines? Where did they come from?"

The Kamazai Commanding shrugged. "No one knows." A ragtag band of fewer than a hundred, including camp followers, and led by two very junior Frangerian sea soldiers -- clearly the Kamazai Commanding felt they were of no consequence, nothing for him to concern himself with.

" 'Said to number,' 'it is rumored,' 'no one knows.' " The Dark Prince turned fiercely on the Kamazai Commanding. "I wish to know!"

"Lord, a small band led by two common soldiers -- nay, less than common soldiers. They are sea soldiers! They know nothing of fighting on land. They pose no threat save to the other bandit bands and to what few herders and hunters eke out their miserable lives in the Eastern Waste."

"The last rumor I heard of Frangerian sea soldiers was that a small band of them wiped out an entire troop of your soldiers. Do you not pay attention to the world? Since their 'Lord Gunny' arrived and began calling them 'Marines,' the Frangerian sea soldiers have become far more potent fighters than anyone has ever seen."

The Kamazai Commanding kept his face expressionless as he looked at the barbarian who held nominal command over him and his armies. He gave fleeting thought to the pleasure he would feel when the High Shoton finally gave him leave to impale the half bastard fourth son of Good King Honritu of Matilda. He would make a fine ceremony of the impaling, and Lackland's death would be long in coming.

"The world has never seen armies to match mine, Lord," he said in a voice that betrayed none of his thoughts. "As for that lost troop, the reports further say a few Frangerians accompanied a force of the giant nomads of the steppes, and the nomads had powerful magicians with them. The nomads had wandered astray and were headed north, back to the wasted land they call home. The Frangerians, no matter their number, are no threat."

"The Frangerians would dispute the point with you."

The Kamazai shrugged. "Their opinion," he said scornfully. "It doesn't matter how fierce they are as individuals. Those guardians of ships are few in number. There have never been armies as great as mine. If they attempt to fight us openly, I will crush them."

In his mind's eye, the Dark Prince pictured the armies commanded by the insufferably arrogant Kamazai. Indeed, the armies were huge. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The Frangerian sea soldiers numbered only a few tens of thousands. Yes, the armies of Jokapcul could defeat the Frangerians, piecemeal or en masse, but at how great a price?

"I wish to know about that band rumored to the north. Is it the nomads heading home? Or is it a force led by Frangerian Marines, a possible threat? Have a magician send bees to spy on them."

The Kamazai Commanding dipped his head; it was not nearly as deep a bow as he would have given to a subshoton of his own nation. "It shall be as you command, Lord."

Before he could turn, the Dark Prince added, "And have your armies secure all of Skragland to the Dwarven Mountains."

Once more, the Kamazai Commanding kept his face expressionless. Skragland was already secured as far as its capital city, Oskul. Nothing lay between Oskul and the Dwarven Mountains but farmland. Securing that land so early in the campaign was unnecessary. But--

"As you wish, Lord." Without seeming to hasten, the Kamazai Commanding left the tower room before Lord Lackland could order any more unnecessary diversions of his forces.

"Wazzu wanns," the demon demanded in response to the magician's summons. The bald, naked demon was small, hardly taller than the length of a big man's hand. Its heavy muscles were gnarly and its arms seemed too long for its body. It hunkered down into a deep squat on the alchemist's table but not too close to the magician, who sat on a stool reading a parchment scroll spread across the table.

The magician pursed his lips and stared over steepled fingers at the demon. At length he unsteepled his hands and pointed a long, thin finger at the demon.

"I require the services of bees," the magician intoned.

"Bzz?" the demon asked, cocking its head curiously. "Oo whattin 'oneyz?"

"Silence, dolt!" the magician thundered, slapping a palm on the tabletop. "I don't want honey, I want spies!"

"Zpiez!" the demon exclaimed, brightening. "I gittum oo. Naw zwetz." It bounced up from its squat and scampered away.

The magician watched the demon until it disappeared through a crack in the wall, then turned his head toward the imbaluris that sat on a perch in a corner. "Fools," he snorted, shaking his head. "They give me only fools to work with, and then they wonder why I don't make better magic." He shook his head again and looked back at the parchment. It instructed him to send bees to find some petty band of worthless refugee bandits. "Just because I'm young," he muttered, "they think I know nothing. Just because they think I know nothing, they give me fools to work with. Pfagh! Give me good demons to work with, and I'll show them how much I can do. Instead, they give me a petty chore that could be accomplished by any junior mage." Still muttering, he reopened the magical tome he'd been studying before the petty order arrived. Maybe if he read the passage a few more times, he'd figure out the meaning of the phrase "CS gas" and how to conjure a demon that had that attribute. As he read he absently swatted at flies with an oxtail whisk.

After a period of time at the end of which the magician had still failed to ferret out the essence of "CS gas," the droning of bees intruded into his consciousness and he looked up, bleary-eyed. The demon had returned with a smallish cloud of bees.

"Bzz!" the demon exclaimed. "I bringum bzz."

"Yes, you did," the magician agreed. He flicked dismissive fingers at the demon, who skittered away to crouch atop a precariously piled stack of tomes near the perched imbaluris.

"Northeast of here and north of Dartsmutt at the source of Princedon Gulf," the magician said to the cloud of bees, "you will find the Eastern Waste. You will enter the waste and fly five days north. From there you will commence a search. You will... What?"

He leaned close to the cloud of bees to better hear what they said. The individual bees in the cloud hovered, swayed side to side, flitted up and down or to and fro, then curlicued around one another. Every random-looking movement modulated their buzzing, and the modulations had meaning. The young magician had spent three half-days a week for two long years learning to interpret the bees' buzzing. He listened for a moment, then his eyes popped wide and he sat erect, staring at them in disbelief.

"What do you mean you won't go? Too late in the season? No flowers in bloom! I'm not sending you to harvest nectar or build a hive, I'm sending you to spy!"

Greater movement rippled through the cloud of bees and the volume and pitch of their droning rose.

The magician's face turned red, then purple as he listened to the buzzing. "I am the magician here!" he shouted. "You must do as I say!" He suddenly swung his oxtail whisk diagonally through the cloud. Struck bees spun uncontrollably away and the buzzing of the two halves of the cloud rose to a shrill peak as the bees reformed to retaliate then darted forward. The magician shrieked. He flailed at them with the whisk, but there were too many. He scrambled backward off his stool and stumbled, falling heavily to the floor. He tried to cover his face with one arm while striking with the whisk.

The demon and the imbaluris scrabbled in their corner, each trying to hide behind the other. They needn't have; the bees spent their energy and selves on the magician, with no mind for the demons.

The garrison commander looked at the dead magician curled on the floor. A few bees still moved feebly on the corpse, their lives ebbing.

"Why did you assign this to him?" he asked the ashen-faced troop commander.

"The other magicians were busy. Simple job; I thought he could handle it."

The garrison commander shook his head. "Bees are never simple. They don't require great magic to command, but they do require patience and respect. This one," he toed the corpse, "had yet to learn either." He looked at the lesser officer. "Now, thanks to your error, the mission is delayed and I have lost a tome reader. You are fortunate this mission is of little importance, I would have you kill yourself if it was important. Your transgression is slight enough that you need cut off only an ear. Your right ear." He turned and left the room. Behind him, the troop commander silently drew the shorter of his swords...

A cloud of bees, summoned and charged by a magician who knew patience and respect, settled onto the sunny warmth of a flat rock. As soon as they were sufficiently rested and warmed, their first mission would be to find nectar to fuel themselves. Then they would seek shelter against the night's chill. If they starved or froze, what they found or did not find would not matter; they wouldn't live to report it.

Copyright © 2003 by David Sherman