Suddenly Hononin snapped his fingers. “The keys! You say that Andor got them from me? But I never saw him all that day.”
“What happened to them?” Rap asked.
The hostler scowled hideously at him and then at the chaplain. “I don’t know. Found them on the stable floor; thought I’d dropped them. I’d been sure they’d been on my belt as usual. It wasn’t Andor, certain! Nor that Sagorn man.”
“So he may have other shapes?” Unonini said. “That is bad news. And yet he can’t be a sorcerer. If he is, then he does things the hard way.”
“And what about this army?” Rap asked. “I don’t know why Inos is bringing troops, but they must be stopped.”
The chaplain shook her head. “Inosolan may have no choice. And we don’t, either. Sergeant Thosolin and his men can’t fight two thousand.”
“Let them in?” Hononin looked disgusted.
“We must,” she said. “What alternative do we have? They could burn the town and starve out the castle. You and I cannot even warn anyone without saying how we know, for then Master Rap would be in jeopardy. Inosolan is with them. Why should they savage her realm?”
“Why savage the goblins?” Rap asked bitterly “They do no harm except to themselves.”
That remark raised eyebrows and produced an awkward silence.
Little Chicken let out an enormous belch and grinned.
Little Chicken—who would be Death Bird now, had Rap and Andor not blundered into the Ravens’ territory—how much of this conversation was he managing to follow?
“I have a question, Mother,” Rap said reluctantly. “Tell me about the Four, please.”
The chaplain started. “What about the Four?”
“Who they are, what they do.”
Her eyes narrowed. She dropped her gaze to her fingers and kneaded them for a moment. “I really know no more about them than you do—than anyone else does. What were you taught in school about the Four?”
“Nothing. I haven’t had much schooling, Mother.”
She nodded, disapproving. “I see. Well, back in ancient times, the Dark Times, Pandemia was a very violent land. There was magic about, and much evil in it. Sorcerers set themselves up as kings and waged war among themselves. There are legends of great massacres, of pillage and destruction, of men fighting dragons, monsters appearing and destroying whole armies, sheets of fire blasting hapless cities, and there are stories, too, of armies being released from binding spells and falling on their own leaders. It was a wicked time. You must have heard such tales!”
Rap shook his head, although he knew a little.
“Is this relevant?” she asked, staring.
“I think so.”
Now the chaplain shot a worried glance at the hostler, who shrugged.
“The Imperor Emine II set up the Council of Four almost three thousand years ago. He gathered together the four most powerful sorcerers in all Pandemia and charged them to guard the Impire against sorcery. Hub is the city of five hills, you know.” She sighed. “The city of the Gods! The most beautiful place, the center of the Impire, on the shores of Cenmere. I spent three years there attending … But I suppose that doesn’t matter now. Well, the imperor’s palace is in the center, and each of the four warlocks has a palace, also: North, East, South, and West. The imperor himself must always be a mundane, to preserve the balance. No one may use sorcery against the imperor himself, or his court, or family.”
Rap nodded and waited for more.
Unonini seemed reluctant to give it to him, but after a moment she licked her lips and continued. “The system has worked, with a few temporary breakdowns, to this very day. Balance is the key, you see, just as the balance between the Good and the Evil rules the world, so the balance between the warlocks rules the Impire.”
“If an evil sorcerer arises, then the wardens of the Four combine against him. Sorcerers are human, too, Master Rap. They are torn between evil and good, as we all are—more so, perhaps, because their power to do good or evil is so much greater. And if one of the Four falls into evil ways, then the other three can combine against him. It is the only way to prevent the sort of anarchy that prevailed in the Dark Times. Balance!”
Rap nodded. “But tell me of the present wardens.”
“Why?”
“I think I met one.”
Unonini gasped, then again looked to the hostler, who scowled.
“Which one, lad?”
“A very old goblin woman?”
The chaplain closed her eyes for a moment, and her lips moved.
“Tell us,” Hononin said, looking grim even for him.
So Rap told of the two occasions on which he had seen the apparition, and of how she seemed to have a special interest in Little Chicken. He kept his eyes off the goblin; he spoke as fast as he could, and in the best impish he knew.
There was a pause, then the chaplain shuddered. “Bright Water,” she whispered, and the hostler nodded.
“It sounds like her,” he said. “Rap, lad, I think you did meet one. She’s witch of the north, and legend says she’s about three hundred years old—sorcerers live a long time. She’s been one of the Four longer than any.”
“And?” Rap said.
Again it was the hostler who spoke, and even he had dropped his voice to a whisper. “They say she’s totally mad.”
Rap glanced uneasily at Little Chicken, and his odd-shaped goblin eyes were very intent. He grinned his giant teeth at Rap.
“Flat Nose, you did not tell me this.”
“No,” Rap admitted. “I thought maybe it was me who was mad. I’ll tell you later. I promise.”
The goblin nodded.
“Tell me of the other three, Mother,” Rap said.
She was reluctant. “I do not care to discuss them. No one does. There is only one witch at present. The other three are men, warlocks. South is an elf, East an imp, and the newest is West, a young dwarf. I don’t know very much, Master Rap. You haven’t met any of those, have you?”
Rap shook his head, and she looked relieved.
The hostler laughed uneasily. “There is one other thing that everyone knows that we can tell him, though. As well as claiming a quarter of the compass, each of the four has a specialty.”
The chaplain choked back an exclamation, as if she had not thought of that.
“What sort of specialty?” Rap asked.
The old man smirked. “Little things like dragons.”
Mother Unonini thumped her hand on the arm of her chair, expelling a cloud of dust and feathers. “We don’t know this! It is a commonly held belief, maybe, but people don’t go round questioning sorcerers, Master Hostler, and especially not warlocks. Who can say what they do or don’t do?”
Hononin glared at her. “I know what I was told, and no one’s ever told me different. Earth, water, fire, and air—so my grandpappy said.”
The chaplain glared back, then turned to Rap. “Tradition says that even Emine’s compact did not stop the troubles at first—that the Four turned out to be as bad as any other group of sorcerers and strove among themselves for dominance. Eventually—I am cutting a thick story thin—eventually the Four agreed to share out the powers of the world between themselves. They had already divided Pandemia itself into quarters, calling themselves North and East and so on, but then they each took charge of a mundane power, also.”
“Dragons?” Rap said. “Are dragons mundane?”
“Borderline.” The chaplain rose and started to pace again in her ungainly way. “The Impire is not Pandemia, Master Rap. It is the largest dominion, of course, and because it is central, it has always tended to be the greatest—and of course it has the Four to preserve it—but there are many other kingdoms and territories beyond the Impire’s borders.”
Like Krasnegar, for instance. Rap nodded.
“But nothing can hope to withstand the Imperial army if it extends its full might.”
“Except by sorcery.”
“Of course. So the
imperor and the Four agreed that no one might use sorcery on the Imperial army—neither to harm it nor to aid it. Like the imperor himself, it must be sacrosanct. The only exception is the warlock of the east. He can. The army is his prerogative.”
Rap nodded again, beginning to see why the others had been so worried when he brought the talk around to the Four. “You mean that the witch I saw—”
“You saw a sorceress,” the chaplain said, “and it may have been Bright Water herself, but we don’t know that!”
“Either way, she couldn’t stop the troops on their way here?”
The chaplain paused by the fire and glanced briefly at the hostler before continuing her lecture. “That’s what they say. Those soldiers are part of the Imperial army, and to meddle with them would bring down the fury of the warlock of the east—and the others would support him in that instance. So ’tis said. One thing I do know—there must be many great sorcerers and sorceresses around Pandemia, Master Rap, but there is certainly none who could withstand the Four acting together.”
Rap toyed for a moment with crumbs on the table. Sour old Unonini was keeping something back.
“I gotta go,” Hononin muttered. “Word gets round I’m sick, there’ll be mobs of nosy old women bringing jugs of bad soup here, just so they can pry.” But he stayed where he was, on his chair.
Rap looked up. “What are the other powers, then? Dragons?”
Unonini pursed her lips, then nodded. “Dragons rarely roam outside Dragon Reach, but they are said to be the prerogative of the warden of the south. When dragons waste, then the imperor must call on South to drive them back.”
“Even if he set them loose himself in the first place!” the hostler said with a foul grin.
The chaplain winced nervously.
“Well, why not?” the old man snapped. “Two years ago a flight of dragons wasted some town on the Winnipango. That’s halfway across Pandemia from Dragon Reach, and they didn’t touch anywhere in between! You telling me they weren’t sent there? You know that sorcerers meddle, so why wouldn’t a warlock use his own special power when he wanted to?”
“I never met a sorce—”
“Piddle! I never met a God, but I believe in Gods. And I believe the tales. My grandpappy went to watch a hanging once, down in Pilrind; and when they hauled the man up, he just disappeared! Faded like mist, he did! Left the noose just dangling, empty. Some sorcerer had rescued him.”
The chaplain sniffed. “I never said there weren’t sorcerers, nor that they don’t use sorcery. Of course they do—all the time. An old schoolmate of mine once saw a poor, demented woman throw herself off a high roof. She should have fallen into a crowded street, but someone in the crowd must have been a sorcerer, because she floated down gently; like a leaf, my friend said.”
“What’s North’s pre-prerogative?” Rap asked.
She hesitated so long that the hostler answered for her, confirming what Rap had suspected. “The jotnar. Army’s land, see? Dragons fire. The jotunn raiders are the sea—water, that is.”
“It’s not as true nowadays as it was in the Dark Times,” the chaplain added, “but the jotnar are still the finest sailors of the world. And they don’t always confine their activities to trading, either.”
Rap’s father had been a slaver, and a raider when convenient, no doubt.
“Anywhere within reach of the sea,” Unonini said, “is within reach of the jotnar.”
It was what Rap had expected. “So if the imp army comes to Krasnegar, and Thane Kalkor brings his jotnar, then … What then?”
Unonini sighed heavily. “Then may the Good be with us! I don’t suppose the Four often intervene in petty quarrels; little wars and small atrocities go on all the time. As long as sorcery is not invoked, then the warlocks seem to ignore them. But if Imperial legionaries face off against jotunn raiders—well, then the warlocks may very well become involved—very well! Bright Water is a goblin, and you say that the imps have been slaughtering goblins. By spring they may be battling her jotnar, here in Krasnegar.” She shuddered and made the holy sign of balance.
“I must go,” the hostler muttered again.
“Yes!” The chaplain straightened her shoulders. “I, also. And you, Master Rap, and your … companions … must stay here for now, and out of sight. I wish this wynd were not so much traveled.”
“What’s West’s specialty?” Rap asked doggedly. Were the warlocks such very bad news? They might even help, as Bright Water had helped him. They might keep jotunn and imp apart.
“Weather, they say. And you think Inosolan will be here tomorrow?” Mother Unonini mused. “She will go straight to her father. I shall see that the doctors reduce the dosage and try to revive him for the meeting … if he lasts that long. Then they will both be in danger.”
“Both?”
She nodded somberly. “’Tis said that to share a word reduces its power. If the word is keeping him alive, he may die because of the sharing. And Inosolan will be in danger because she knows it.”
They all worried over that thought for a while, and then the chaplain said, “If you insist on remaining in the town, then we must find somewhere safer than this for you, Master Rap.”
“He’s welcome here, Mother.” But the hostler was eyeing Fleabag with a dislike that was obviously mutual.
“You do not even have a lock on your door! But where else can we hide him in a tiny place like Krasnegar? With two thousand legionaries coming? They will be billeted anywhere there is a span to spare.”
Hononin heaved himself to his feet. “Nowhere I can think of.”
“I was told once of a place,” Rap said, “if you can get us there. A place where no one ever goes.”
2
A single candle flickered and shivered in the night, casting its uncertain light on the dying king. His face was wasted, yellow and skull-like, his hair sparse and gray, his beard white. Even in sleep he writhed restlessly under the covers.
The drapes had been drawn all around the high bed, except for one small gap near the pillow. Sitting beside that opening, the attending nurse patiently waited out the long hours until her relief would come at dawn. From her seat she could not see the door to the chamber, and no one entering from the stairway could see either patient or nurse—unless that person had farsight, of course.
Mother Unonini crossed the room to talk to her, and to inspect the invalid, her lantern making inky shadows dance until she vanished around the corner of the fourposter. The chaplain was an ideal accomplice for intruders, able to go anywhere, answerable only to the Gods. Two youths and a dog came in silently behind her and crept across to the deep shadows on the other side of the bed.
Worms of fire crawled over the peats in the big fireplace and the room was heavy with their pungent scent. Curtains on one window tapped monotonously to draw attention to an ill-fitting casement. The drugged king moaned querulously in his slumber.
Quietly Rap laid down his bundle and waited, sending a restraining signal to Fleabag, who was eager to investigate the unfamiliar scents of the sickroom. Little Chicken also bore a bundle, but he continued to hold his, looking around bleakly at the shadows.
From the far side of the draperies came a crackle of vellum and Mother Unonini’s hard voice. “… a special invocation. It will probably take me an hour or so …” For a servant of the Good, she was a surprisingly slick liar. Tactfully dismissed—and probably relieved that she need not listen to an hour’s hard praying—the nurse rose and departed. Rap traced her progress as she descended the stairs within the far wall.
He could find no signs that the prowlers had been detected. Even the great hall at the bottom of the tower was deserted. The palace slept on, unaware that intruders had penetrated all the way to the royal bedchamber, unaware, as well, of the army poised to invade on the morrow.
Reassured, he tried to check overhead, also, and was seized at once by a strong desire not to pry. Inos had spoken of a spell protecting the long-dead sorcerer’s secrets. Sw
eat broke out on his face and his head started to throb, but he forced himself to look. There was another staircase in the wall—he established that at the cost of a thumping in his temples and sick twinges in his gut—but it ran up to …
Nothing! The flat wooden ceiling marked the roof of the world.
He relaxed then, knowing that the effort was fruitless. He had noticed this same opaque blankness when he entered the castle half an hour ago. Indeed he had noticed it when he left with Andor at Winterfest, although his farsight then had not then been as acute as it was now. Now he could sense almost every move in the whole building—even some irregular activities in one of the maids’ dormitories of which Housekeeper Aganimi would certainly disapprove if she knew—but his knowledge stopped at the walls. Inisso had thrown an occult barrier around his bastion, cut it off from all the world.
And the chamber of puissance, if it existed—and Rap now felt strongly inclined to disbelieve in it—was outside that shield.
Then the lights and shadows began to move again as Mother Unonini came waddling around the corner of the bed and headed toward the high dresser opposite the doorway, Rap moved to join her, and then they both halted, irresolute.
“It’s the spell,” Rap said. Moving furniture around when the king was dying—it seemed like a desecration. It felt wrong. There couldn’t be anything interesting behind it anyway.
The chaplain nodded uneasily. “You do it!”
“Little Chicken?”
The goblin shook his head vigorously, his angular eyes glinting wide in the light of the lantern.
“Scared?” Rap asked, although his own ribs were dribbling sweat.
The gibe brought the still-reluctant goblin, and the two of them lifted the heavy dresser away from the wall. The moment Rap saw the door, the strange reluctance released him. He grabbed up his bundle again as the chaplain produced a ring of massive keys and began trying them. In a moment the click of the lock rang like clashing blades through the silence. When she pushed the door, it uttered a groan that seemed loud enough to waken the whole city.
A Man of His Word Page 30