“I can kill him,” Zinixo muttered. In the dim golden glow of the whirling lanterns, his rough-skinned face was again shining with sweat. Raspnex’s was worse. The little goblin woman was scratching at her scalp with all ten fingers, making the precarious hairdo rock. The dragon had shrunk to a tiny wisp of yellow light, pulsating on her shoulder.
“That’s always a choice,” she croaked. “Not always wise, though. Time with all his banners rolling … See the faun?”
“No.”
“Push ahead. Back in the north. Snow! See now? All roads lead to the faun.”
“Almost all.”
“Pah!” The witch spoke as if her throat hurt. “Almost all, then. Never seen a clearer destiny.”
It was all gibberish to Rap, but he thought of the swamp that Oothiana had mentioned and the many river channels emptying into a large lake within it. That might fit. And the mention of him sounded like the casement’s third prophecy. At least there had been no word of Inos yet, in all this insanity.
“So?” The hiss might have come from either of the dwarves.
“So what’s beyond, eh?” the old woman whispered.
Without warning the little grouping broke up. Raspnex staggered aside, knuckling his eyes and gasping as if he had been running. Zinixo threw back his head and bellowed with heavy laughter like falling rocks. The witch bent down, took Little Chicken’s face in both hands, and kissed him. His eyes flew open.
“Got it!” the warlock shouted.
“You see now?” Bright Water scrambled onto Little Chicken’s lap, stroking his hairy cheek with a hand like dead roots. The dragon swelled and burned in pale mauve. Apparently not liking the younger goblin so close, it crawled around the back of her neck, balancing on her hump, and settled on her other shoulder.
“Oh, yes!” Zinixo favored Oothiana with a huge, childish smile. His change of mood was astonishing. “The goblin butchers the faun—no doubt about that. And then—” He laughed again, looking at his uncle, who was grinning a dwarf’s pebbly grin.
“Then,” the older man said, “we see something new, your Majesty!” He bowed, and both sorcerers howled with mirth.
Little Chicken’s eyes grew to very large triangles indeed. Again, he was fondly kissed by the old woman perched in his lap.
“That’s right, my darling. A goblin king!”
“Kill Flat Nose?”
She nodded vigorously, beaming. “Oh, yes! Back at Raven Totem.”
“Long pain?”
“Very long, by the looks of it. Give good show.”
Little Chicken sighed happily and smiled at Rap. “Is good, Flat Nose.” He was speaking goblin again.
“A goblin king!” The witch sighed on his lap.
So that was it! Rap felt horror boil up in him like vomit. The imperor didn’t want Kalkor as king of Krasnegar, and the thanes wouldn’t let it fell to the Impire, but the two sides might still agree on a compromise. Neither imp nor jotunn, so a goblin, of course! Marry Inos to Little Chicken and then everybody would be happy.
Zinixo frowned. “Let us talk business, then. You want this goblin prince of yours back.”
The witch patted Little Chicken’s cheek. “Death Bird is my darling, my darling.”
“But you gave him to me. You dropped him here, in my territory. I can kill him yet—we saw that.”
The old woman pouted and threw a skinny arm around Little Chicken’s head, clutching it protectively to where she once had a bosom. “Not my sweeting! No, we save him, to be a king.”
The expression on Little Chicken’s face suggested that he was not enjoying this.
Zinixo smiled grimly. “And you want him loaded up with more words, of course?”
“More? Eh? No, no words!” Bright Water looked startled.
“He stole one from a fairy!”
The witch’s eyes flickered toward Rap, then back to Little Chicken … Rap … “Eh? Death Bird got the word?” She giggled faintly.
She was surprised by something. Then she recovered, shaking her head so that even more hair fell loose. “No, no, no!” She released her victim and scrambled down off his lap. “You didn’t foresee property! Words don’t help. Give him words, and he doesn’t become a king!”
“Then why send him here?” The dwarf looked puzzled and angry.
She shrugged her knobby shoulders and cackled. “Had to move him somewhere. Safe, far away! Thought things might get nasty in the north. Olybino.”
Zinixo folded his arms. “What are you offering, witch? What’s he worth?”
“Ah! Patient is the heron in silver waters wading!” The old woman raised one arm high overhead, spun around in a pirouette, and then staggered off-balance with a clamor of boots on planks. Regaining her balance, she bowed to a patch of empty air. “Begging your pardon, ma’am!” Then she peered around slyly at the dwarf. “What’s your price?”
“The elf’s balls on a fork.”
She cackled shrilly. “Naughty! You boys are all the same! He wants to tie yours to an anchor.”
The dwarf scowled, unamused. He folded his arms. “What did you pay him for the fire chick?”
“Me? Nothing!” The hag stuck her long goblin nose in the air as if taking offense.
Rap sneaked a glance at Oothiana, who was frowning and twisting her fingers together. He decided that Bright Water had now succeeded in confusing everybody, perhaps including herself. He believed almost nothing he had heard so far, except that the dwarf and the elf detested each other, and he had known that before.
Was the witch truly as crazy as she acted? He had an absurd conviction that Bright Water had been lurking in his shadow ever since he first met her in Raven Totem. She professed to be only interested in Little Chicken, but whenever she had materialized before, it had always been to Rap. What were her real motives? Why should she care about Krasnegar, or who ruled it? And now he had developed a weird certainty that she had known about the fairy child and had expected Rap to learn the word, not Little Chicken. Obviously his imagination was becoming infected by the prevailing insanity.
And Bright Water had claimed that she could not foresee Rap’s future. He hoped she did not mention that now, because the warlock would certainly take the information as a challenge, and if his foresight also failed, then he might feel threatened. Apparently almost anything made him feel threatened, in spite of his great powers.
“You’re a liar!” Zinixo decided. “You bought that dragon with something.” A molten hue in his cheeks suggested he was flushing.
The witch tossed her head, shaking loose more strands of copper hair. “I gave him the girl,” she admitted.
Rap opened his mouth, and invisible lips whispered, “Shh!” in his ear. “Listen!” It was Oothiana’s voice, but she had not moved and she seemed to be concentrating entirely on the argument in progress.
“The Krasnegar girl?” Zinixo demanded. “Inosolan? Why?”
“Why did I?” Bright Water said airily. “Because he offered me Precious.” She stroked the flame on her shoulder, and it purred and burned up violet. “Dum-de-dum-dum … Why’d he? No idea. Never ask ‘why’ of an elf, sonny. Elves’ explanations are the commonest cause of suicide among the young.”
“You’re in league with him against me!”
The old hag sneered. “Flammery! He’s in cahoots with East. If I join them against you, sonny, you’re mole pie.”
The dwarf almost screamed. “Oh, am I? Well, we’ll see about that!”
“You listen to me, boy! Leave Yellow-belly’s organs in place for now. Would you settle for the imp’s guts instead?”
A chair slid across the floor as if moved by the wind and came to rest behind the warlock. He sat down, crossed his stumpy legs, and scowled up at Bright Water with a sudden show of calm. “Cut the chaff. I’ve got your darling Death Bird, or whatever you call him. He could be very useful to me. You want him back, then make an offer.”
Bright Water shook her head pityingly. She turned away, and Rap expected her
to step on the magic mat and disappear, but she paused and seemed to have second thoughts.
“Isn’t easy being a warlock,” she said, sneering at the night, or perhaps at one of the unseen watchers. “He’s discovered that by now. He thought he’d feel safer, but he doesn’t, does he? Now he’s public knowledge, and they’re all out to get him. So he needs votaries to defend him. Thought that being West would be easy, because he could make lots of votaries. But it isn’t easy. Never knows when he may raise a monster!”
Zinixo gritted his teeth. “Go on. It’s late, I’m tired.”
“Early, early, early!” Bright Water whirled around in one of her absurd pirouettes and ended facing toward Oothiana. “Much safer to steal your opponents’ helpers than make new ones of your own, eh?” She waggled a finger. “Isn’t it? Men never see that.”
Oothiana said, “Ma’am?” in a puzzled voice.
The dwarf’s pebble eyes seemed to shine a little brighter.
The witch sighed. “You remember at the end of the meeting, the imperor decided to pull his men from Krasnegar?”
Rap stiffened. If the Council of Four had met with the imperor to discuss Krasnegar, that was important news. There might be word of Inos coming next.
Oothiana shot a baffled glance at the warlock, then said, “I wasn’t there, ma’am.”
In the background, Zinixo was looking skeptical. “Warlock Olybino agreed to send the orders. Witch Bright Water promised to hold Kalkor and the Nordlanders off for at least two more weeks, to give the imps time. But does she remember that?”
The old woman giggled shrilly, a mad sound. “Don’t need to remember,” she told Oothiana in a whisper. “Kalkor’s at the other end of the world.”
“What? But you said …” The young dwarf rubbed his chin. “No, you didn’t, did you? Just hinted.”
Raspnex grinned, as if he was finding the witch’s performance amusing.
She bared her big, perfect teeth at Rap, switching her attention to him, still whispering. “Kalkor’s down south, on a raping holiday around Qoble. And I didn’t say I’d hold back the goblins! They’re going to pave the road with impish hides, all the way to Pondague. Oh, pity the poor prisoners!”
Rap shuddered. The witch was drooling, and Little Chicken was leering, doubtless remembering his own revenge on Yggingi. The goblins’ traditions of peace had been discarded.
Zinixo was obviously intrigued. “So Olybino will try to cover the troops’ retreat? So he’ll want to send votaries up there!”
“So I refuse my gracious permission!” Bright Water danced a few steps in front of Rap. “So he’ll do it anyway! You’re not a dwarf! Where’d he go?” She spun around to locate Zinixo. “So do you want them?”
The warlock glanced at his uncle, who grinned and nodded, then at Oothiana.
She shook her head. “He’ll make them legionaries. Then you can’t touch them.”
“But you can mark them!” the old witch shouted. “Every time they deflect an arrow or avoid an ambush, you’ll know them. When they get back to Hub, they’ll be off duty, and you can take ’em then, whenever you want. You’ll have Olybino gutted and smoked. Fanfares and flying horsedung!”
“Why don’t you do this?” Zinixo asked, with his usual dark suspicion.
She pouted and stalked across to Little Chicken. “I was going to. You said you wanted an offer. I need my darling.” She stroked the goblin’s hair. Infected by either jealousy or her distress, the baby dragon surged away, off her shoulder. Again it headed for Rap, then changed course and whirled up in a spiral toward the wildly swinging lanterns.
Gold! If a full-grown dragon could devastate a county on one taste of gold, then even the tiny fire chick might destroy the Gazebo. Without thinking, Rap hurled a summons at it, calling it away from the metal. He had never had any success using his mastery on birds, only on four-legged things. It worked best on horses, almost as well on dogs, cats less. But apparently a dragon was a four-legged creature of a sort, because he felt a response, and the lambent flicker reversed direction, coming toward him.
Something that felt like an invisible leather belt slashed across his face, hard enough to wrench his neck. He yelped in pain and surprise. Another sickening blow lashed him on the other cheek, throwing him across Oothiana’s lap.
“Idiot!” she whispered, helping him up.
Dazed and trying not to whimper, he raised a hand to a face that felt as if he had just shaved with boiling water. Bright Water was glaring very angrily at him, and the dragon chick had settled again on her shoulder.
“You stay away from my Precious, half-breed! If Death Bird didn’t need you, I’d fill your belly with worms and rot your bones and—”
“Leave him!” Zinixo growled. “You want your goblin king. You let me put Raspnex up there to watch the rout? How do I know you’re not just trapping my votary to aid East and South?”
She cackled shrilly again and spun around to find Raspnex. “Foresee him!”
This time the inspection was brief. Zinixo merely stared at his uncle for a minute and then chuckled heavily, his laughter as deep as the surf on the coast below. “Yes, you come back. As long as you stay away from the women, you do.”
“Green doesn’t appeal much,” Raspnex said.
The witch waggled a lumpy finger at him. “Watch your tongue, dwarf! Let’s see a goblin.”
The sorcerer shrugged. He began pulling off his shirt, and seemed to melt as he did so. His grayness faded to khaki, his curly hair grew long and straight, solidifying and crawling down his chest in a greasy cue. His head shrank, his legs grew. Nose and ears became longer and pointed. In a few moments he was a middle-aged goblin in a leather loincloth. He smiled, showing that his dwarvish rock-crusher teeth had become more pointed. A whiff of rancid goblin scent wrinkled every nose in the Gazebo.
“Oh, handsome!” the crone shrilled. “And steady! Take a good eye to see that!” She pointed a finger, and arabesques of tattoo appeared on the former dwarfs face. “Long Runner of the Wolves!”
Zinixo stood up. “Stand over there, Long Runner. Downwind! One thing more, Witch.” He scowled at little Chicken. “He took a word that belongs to me!”
Yodello: I stole it from a dwarf.
“Phoo! There’s a third one; the sequentials know a word. Take theirs in exchange.”
For a moment longer the warlock hesitated. Then he nodded. “It’s a deal. Go, Uncle. Here’s a chance to redeem yourself. You want to take the goblin with you, your Omnipotence, or shall I have it delivered?”
Bright Water shrugged her bony shoulders, and the dragon wobbled. Wind blew straggles of copper hair across her face. “No. Just send them back to the mainland. With a destiny like that, he’ll find it.”
Humming, she clumped over to the magic carpet.
“Not them,” Zinixo said. “Him!”
Rap felt a sudden twinge of hope.
Bright Water turned and scowled. “Need the faun! Death Bird butchers the faun! Doesn’t work else. You saw!”
The warlock shook his oversized head, leering triumphantly. “You bought one! I keep the other.”
“He’s no use to you!”
“He won’t be any use to you if I kill him. And I will! Now!”
“No!”
“Yes. I’ll count to three!” The dwarf pointed at Rap. “One!”
Oothiana jumped from the couch and moved quickly to a safe distance. Rap’s throat tightened so he could hardly breathe. Zinixo was capable of destroying him without a second thought.
“What else d’you want?” Bright Water demanded angrily. For the first time she seemed to be at a loss.
“You’ve got your king. I’ll take the queen.”
“Why? What do you want of her?”
The dwarf snarled. “I’ll decide that later. She’s valuable, that’s enough for now. Two!”
Oothiana was staring in horror, hands at her mouth. Rap tried to move, and some invisible power locked him to the couch. And why should he stru
ggle? This would be a much faster death than being handed over to the goblin witch and her beloved Death Bird.
“Haven’t got her,” Bright Water said sulkily.
“But you know where she is!”
The witch nodded with obvious reluctance.
“Tell!” snapped the warlock—but he did not complete his deadly counting.
“The Rasha woman took her. Tried to sell her to Olybino. East didn’t like the price.”
Zinixo hissed and hunched his head down, as if facing an attack. “What was that price?”
“Your guess is as good a bag of nuts as any.” Bright Water’s mad confidence seemed to be returning. “But neither has her now, so you can relax, sonny.”
The warlock did not look as if he would ever relax, but he had released the invisible bands around Rap, and Oothiana was looking less frightened. The wind blew cool on Rap’s sweat-soaked hair.
The witch stroked her fire chick, turning it mauve again. Rap heard its strange purring noise inside his head.
“The elf wanted her, and I told him where she was.”
“So?”
“She was in Zark, in Arakkaran. Lith’rian just happened to have a votary in the town, and he got the child away before Olybino did.”
“What’s South doing with a votary in East’s sector?” Zinixo growled, looking puzzled and even more suspicious than before.
“Who knows? You mean you don’t have any tucked away in odd places? Dear Gods, the kid’s more honest than he looks! Anyway, this one’s only a mage, but he charmed her into going off with him somehow. She’s out in the desert—heading for South’s sector, I expect. East doesn’t know where she is, so he can’t produce her for the imperor, as he said he would.”
“What’s South up to?” The dwarf’s expression had turned murderous again, at this talk of the elf.
Rap was wondering the same. He cared nothing for the fate of the impish troops in Krasnegar, nor what the goblins might do to harry them when they left; but he did care about Inos. If the warlock of the south was as bad as these other two wardens, then she must be in horrible danger. He had hated the thought of her being in the power of the sorceress Rasha, but now he thought the wardens were even worse. They were going to marry her off to a goblin, and it sounded as if the imperor had agreed.
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