A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  After a moment, Rap said, “How did that matter?”

  “He obeyed my exact orders, of course. He had no choice there. He sent his best maniple and put his best centurion in charge. But then he went along himself. He was just able to avoid my intent without actually disobeying my words. Somehow he convinced himself that he was acting in my best interests. It was an astonishing feat—he circumvented a binding spell. He couldn’t give any contrary orders, but the centurion was only bound by an oath, not by sorcery, and he wasn’t going to interfere with anything a legate wanted to do. So Yodello tried to win four words for himself. He thought the fastest way would be to flog children to make their parents tell. He got three before the warlock arrived.”

  Silence fell, while she continued to worry the threads of her gown. Rap had found three bodies; the parents, dead from telling their secret names. No children had died, therefore, at least not then.

  “Arrived mad?”

  “Very, very mad.” As if realizing how she was fidgeting, Oothiana pulled her hand away from her knee and folded her arms.

  “It was a stupid plan anyway!” she snapped. “Even if he had learned four words and become a full sorcerer, he would never have been able to defy the warlock. Sorcerers as strong as the dwarf are historical freaks. Oh, Yodello might have managed to break free of my binding, but he’d never have broken the one on me. And he’d have had to face the warlock eventually. It was a crazy dream.”

  It had been the sort of mad risk a man might take for the woman he loved, and for his children. Rap decided he could almost forgive the crime Little Chicken had uncovered in that jungle hamlet. Almost. What was being done to Yodello himself could never be forgiven.

  Again the sorceress glanced around the room. Why were there mundane legionaries guarding this building? Who else was in here? Invisible guards?

  The magic portal opened a crack, slashing a sliver of brighter light across a rug so threadbare that boards showed through it in spots. Rap’s heartbeat speeded up disgracefully. For a moment nothing more happened. Then the door swung wide, revealing a brief glimpse of a book-lined chamber with a fire crackling in a grate. A blast of air swirled through, and the door slammed shut by itself.

  Silence again … except that the tension had just doubled, or tripled. The warlock was now present, and Rap no longer doubted that there were more bodyguards around than he could see.

  Little Chicken looked puzzled. Oothiana was tense, staring straight ahead. The wind stirred the trees with a dry, insectile sound.

  Then a voice spoke out of the air beside Little Chicken, and he jumped. It was the deepest voice Rap had ever heard, even deeper than Raspnex’s.

  “Goblin! Tell me what you know about Bright Water.”

  Little Chicken’s eyes stretched wide, and he glanced all about and then licked his lips. Even his tongue seemed an odd color in this light. “Nothing,” he said shakily, “your Omnipotence. Not seen her. Not heard of her, until Flat—the faun—told me about her.”

  “Tally your ancestors.”

  The goblin stammered, then rattled off his forebears for a dozen generations.

  Silence fell again, but Rap was not surprised when the voice addressed him next, from somewhere just in front of him.

  “How did you escape, faun?”

  Rap explained.

  There was no answer, no further question. Oothiana was still as a statue, not revealing the warlock’s position with her eyes.

  Why should the most powerful sorcerer in the world bother to play such tricks?

  Then the sepulchral voice spoke again, from farther away.

  “In the morning we’ll give the goblin three fairies. Have you picked out three older men, as I ordered?”

  “Yes, your Omnipotence,” Ootniana said.

  The unseen warlock grunted. “Good. I’m tired of having them die without speaking. Too many suicides, too. It’s inefficient. That woman I was burning—has she recovered her wits yet?”

  “Not yet, Omnipotence.”

  “Exactly! It’s too slow. This way we’ll get three words quickly.”

  There was no hint of regret in the voice, and yet the implications were enough to freeze Rap’s blood. Little Chicken had his mouth open and eyes wide, stunned by the idea of a woman being tortured.

  “So you’ll have a goblin sorcerer!” Rap shouted. “What do you do then? You planning to torture words out of a goblin?”

  Oothiana started, shooting him a look of warning.

  Suddenly the warlock became visible. He had the same heavy build as his uncle, but his clothes were even shabbier—moth-eaten, and frayed at the knees. He was young and his shortness made him seem younger, yet his hair was as gray as the older dwarf’s; his colorless, unbearded face looked like stone freshly quarried. He stood in front of Rap, studying him with a look of cold dislike, nibbling at a hangnail. By repute, he was the most powerful sorcerer in the world. He could have been a farmhand, or a gardener’s boy.

  He took his finger from his mouth. “No. I don’t plan to torture anything out of a goblin. I shall bribe him.” He grinned teeth like white pebbles. “We both know what he wants, don’t we? And I can keep you alive as long as I want while he satisfies his ambitions.”

  Little Chicken had apparently worked out what was involved. He grinned at Rap, also, gloating.

  Rap failed to restrain a shudder. “Then he’ll kill you, too!” he told the goblin.

  Little Chicken laughed gleefully. “Don’t care!”

  “There!” said Zinixo. “That’s all arranged, then.” He spun on his heel and began pacing the room, gnawing his hangnail and thumping the dusty floor with heavy boots. Goblins, fauns, legionaries, fairies, legates—this dwarf’s indifference to other people was even nastier than Little Chicken’s deliberate cruelty. At least Little Chicken regarded agony as an honor and had been prepared to endure it himself when Rap bested him. Obviously Zinixo’s world held no one of importance except Zinixo.

  After a moment, Oothiana said, “I found Arakkaran, Omnipotence. There’s shielding around the palace.”

  Zinixo ignored her. Little Chicken was still beaming happily. Rap wondered how many invisible guards were present in the room, and what he would have to endure to satisfy the goblin, and why the magic casement had not done a better job of prophecy.

  The warlock stopped his pacing. He put his back against a wall panel and let his gaze jerk to and fro around the room. “What’s keeping them? This isn’t some sort of trap, is it?”

  “I’m sure it isn’t, your Omnipotence,” Oothiana said soothingly.

  “They’re ganging up on me!” His voice was an octave higher already, and rising.

  “No, Sire! I expect—”

  The dwarf jumped and spun around as the door flew open, but it was only Raspnex returning. He bore a long roll of fabric like a blanket draped slackly over his shoulder. He closed the door firmly.

  “Well?” the warlock yelled. “Out with it, Uncle!”

  “She’s coming.”

  “Ah!” Zinixo looked around. “Ready? If she tries anything, strike at once! Blast the whole building if you have to.”

  Oothiana and Raspnex nodded obediently. Perhaps the unseen others nodded, also.

  “Let her come.” Zinixo wiped a sleeve over his forehead; he flexed his thick shoulders as if readying himself for a tussle.

  Raspnex threw down his bundle in the middle of the room and kicked it. It unrolled and became a small oblong rug; an oddly shiny one, glittering in the dim golden glow of the lamps.

  Both dwarves backed away a few paces. For a moment no one spoke, and Rap sensed tension coming to a boil. Oothiana was kneading her hands together and the warlock chewing fingernails again. The older man had crossed his arms, but he was wary, also. He remained standing.

  For a few moments the only sounds were the distant surf, grinding the coast with ageless hunger, and leaves skittering thinly in the wind. Rap was becoming inured to magic; the most incredible sorceries now seemed
quite commonplace to him, and he was not at all surprised when a faint shimmer appeared above the little carpet and quickly solidified into a tiny woman.

  Had he not been expecting Bright Water, though, he might not have recognized her. On the two occasions he had met her before, her garb had been a goblin woman’s long buckskin gown, but now she wore a frilly white dress, short and sleeveless. It glittered in a thousand dewy rainbow twinkles of sequins or perhaps gems, but it was also rumpled and soiled. Below the brief, flared skirt, her bare legs were fleshless as a crab’s, ending in incongruous boots. Her dusky arms and shoulders were scraggy and gnarled, her chest flat and leathery. In absurd contrast to her goblin-khaki skin, her hair shone a brilliant auburn, lush and youthful. It had been piled high on her head and pinned there with combs of ivory—and apparently some time ago, for the coiffure was falling apart, and stray wisps and tresses tumbled loose. The effect was ludicrous, as if a crone had turned herself into an adolescent to go to a ball and then changed only partway back. Judging by the hair and the dress, the ball had been over for days.

  Strangest of all, a pale-pink flame burned upon the hag’s humped left shoulder. It flickered, changed color a few times, and congealed into the shape of a small, crouching animal. But it was still glowing and Rap’s farsight could detect only a vague, fuzzy presence and an odd sense of something alive.

  “Well!” the warlock shouted. “And what is the witch of the north doing with a dragon?”

  Bright Water wheeled around to look for him. The light on her shoulder brightened and seemed to grip harder, as if afraid it might fall off.

  “A gift!” she shrilled. “Isn’t she lovely? Precious, I call her, a present from Lith’rian.”

  The uncanny sense of madness unsettled Rap. Zinixo, however, merely thumped his fists onto his hips and leaned forward, the better to scowl at her.

  “How sweet! I never heard of South giving away dragons to anyone. Did this exceptional gift seal some secret agreement?”

  “Oh, no!” The old woman cackled. “No, no, no! He knows I like them, that’s all. I’ve had fire chicks before, well before your time, sonny. Just hatchlings. Can’t keep them very long, you know! Haven’t got big enough shoulders!”

  She shrieked another cackle of amusement and reached up to stroke the luminescence as if it were a kitten. It turned a warm blue—and Rap felt a strange purr. That wasn’t farsight; that was his empathy for animals. Apparently the flame was alive, or enough alive that he could hear its feelings, but the sensation was bitter and alien, like a metallic taste in his mind. He shut it out.

  But he could not shut out the stories he had heard about dragons and metal, and there must be metal around this bizarre summer house. Nails, lamps … he glanced up at the wind-stirred lanterns, and they certainly looked as if they were made of gold, or at least trimmed with it. Gold was worst of all; all the tales warned about the terrible things that happened when dragons found gold.

  “Now!” The witch turned around, peering. “Haven’t been here since the days of Ho-Ilth. Not much change. Same furniture, by the look of it. We ate mangoes on that sofa and threw passion spells at each other. Where did you … Ah! Death Bird! Are you all right, my sweet?”

  Clumping in her boots, she marched straight off the mat, heading for Little Chicken, who was sprawled back in his chair, eyes and mouth wide with disbelief.

  Zinixo twitched, as if startled.

  The witch wheeled with incredible agility, the fire chick on her shoulder flashing momentarily orange. “Stop that!” she snapped. “That’s no way to treat guests!”

  Pause. The warlock had bared teeth like rows of tombstones. He was rigid as a granite boulder, and his youthful face gleamed wetly in the glow of the swinging lamps. His cheeks were chalky.

  Then he forced his grimace into a cynical and dangerous smile. He made a small bow, without taking his eyes off the old woman. “Of course, Grandmother. But don’t do anything rash.”

  “Course not!” Bright Water said. “That’s—” The baby dragon flared green and flew up off her shoulder in an erratic, wobbling flight. “Oh! Be careful, my Precious!”

  The dragon chick fluttered around the room at head height as if exploring. Eventually it came to hover suspiciously above Rap. There was very little substance to it, but he thought perhaps he could see a dragon shape there more often than anything else. At times it was a star, or a bird, or a butterfly, and often just a blur of light.

  The witch put two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly. Precious changed to a nervous yellow shade and zigzagged back to her shoulder. Cooing, she stroked it until it was blue again. Strangely, the incomprehensible tension somehow faded then. Oothiana and Raspnex exchanged puzzled glances.

  And the witch seemed to notice Raspnex for the first time.

  “What was I about to say?” she inquired stiffly.

  The dwarf blinked and shrugged.

  “Well, then!” she snapped. “Haven’t we met somewhere recently, young man?”

  “We spoke about five minutes ago in the glass.”

  “Oh?” She looked vaguely around the room and frowned at Oothiana. “Aren’t you Urmoontra, what’s-his-name’s wife?”

  “Her great-granddaughter, your Omnipotence.”

  “Oh, Gods and mortals!” Bright Water shook her head sadly, causing another rope of hair to fall loose. “It is getting late, isn’t it? Bedtime, everybody.” She leered uncertainly in the direction of a potted palm, then curtsied. “Evening, Senator.”

  There might be an invisible senator there, of course. Nothing was impossible in this madhouse.

  Finally the witch discovered Zinixo. “And you, lad?”

  “You know who I am, you stinking offal bucket! Stop the play-acting.” He stamped around her to reach Little Chicken, whom he indicated with a downward-jabbing finger. “Tell us what your interest is in this.”

  Bright Water blinked at the prisoner for a moment or two. Then she beamed, displaying a mouthful of huge goblin teeth, whose shiny perfection was not in keeping with her otherwise decrepit appearance. “Death Bird! Knew I’d put him somewhere safe. Couldn’t remember where. Isn’t the resemblance wonderful?”

  “What resemblance?” Zinixo was taut as a harp string, wary as a stalking cat, and growing madder by the minute.

  “Blood Fan. My oldest brother, you know. When he was this age?”

  “The oaf’s related to you, then? He doesn’t know it.”

  The witch chuckled hoarsely, for what seemed like too long. Crazy, but not necessarily stupid—Rap had seen old Hononin act dim-witted often enough, usually when Foronod had gone barging into the stables to demand something the hostler had not wanted to grant. Almost always the factor had been driven to losing his temper and therefore the argument. This seemed like the same technique. If the witch made Zinixo much angrier, he might be capable of any sort of folly.

  “He wouldn’t know,” Bright Water crooned. “Blood Fan was a sly lad, eh? A very quiet crawler when the fires were banked. Not a wife in the lodge didn’t feign sleep for him at least once. They caught him eventually and he put on a wonderful show. Almost three days. You’re very like him,” she added to Little Chicken, who was frowning as he tried to follow the outlandish conversation going on over his head. “Ho-Ilth liked mangoes, and what good did they ever do him, eh? Blood Fan fathered Gut Thrust on Petal Bed, and Gut Thrust—”

  “And is that all?” the warlock shouted furiously, his anger booming like a mountain thunderstorm. “Is that the only reason you’re interested in him? That he’s some distant bastard descendant of yours?”

  The ancient goblin drew herself up stiffly and tried to look down her long nose at the dwarf. She failed, because she was even shorter than he was, except for her tangle of red hair and ivory combs. “Course not. Fill your guts with hot coals. Do you mean you haven’t foreseen him?”

  Zinixo seemed taken aback at the question. “No,” he admitted. “He’s got a destiny?”

  “Oh, yes!”<
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  The warlock shot Oothiana a meaningful look. “You’re no good at this, are you?”

  “Not much, Omnipotence.”

  He nodded, then spun around to face Little Chicken. The goblin’s eyes rolled up, and he slumped in his chair, unconscious. His face turned a pale-lime color.

  Looking intrigued, Raspnex moved in, also, so that the goblin was surrounded by three sorcerers, all staring down at him fixedly.

  Oothiana leaned back on the couch.

  “My lady?” Rap whispered uneasily.

  She did not turn to him. She was watching the room intently—especially the magic rug—and he wondered if she had been left on guard while the dwarves’ attention was on other things. “It’s very difficult,” she said softly. “Like trying to follow a river through a swamp. There are always so many channels. Sometimes they join up again, sometimes not. Even the thoughts of people nearby can affect a man’s future. It gives me a terrible headache.”

  “So all you can see are possibilities?”

  “The Gods decree destinies for some mortals. Most of us are only given chances.” She smiled absently. “Of course someone like a quarry slave wouldn’t have many, would he? Any fool could foresee his future—more life unchanging, then death. A sailor, now, or a jotunn raider, he’d usually have so many they’d be almost impossible to unravel. But the rest of us …” She fell silent.

  Inisso’s magic casement had forecast several fates for Rap—being roasted by dragons, being hacked to bits by Kalkor, being filleted by Little Chicken. Perhaps those had been alternatives that depended upon who did what first. That might explain why he had seemed doomed to die three times. If he could choose one of those deaths, though, it would never be the third.

  “Can you foresee your own destiny, then?” he whispered.

  She shook her head, watching the others, but in a moment she added, “Very hard. Your own reactions change the images. That’s one reason sorcerers make magic casements, or preflecting pools.”