“Probably.” She had not been required to decide then. “Had I thought that Krasnegar needed it. I truly fear it may not be strong enough to do any real good, but … who knows? Let us go and try to give it to him now.”
Sagorn stared up at her unwinkingly. He had draped a woman’s robe over himself, and did not seem to be wearing very much under it; his scrawny arms were bare. “You are either a very brave woman or a very foolish one, Kadolan. You are suggesting something that is absolutely impossible.”
“What happened to your devoted friendship for Master Rap?”
“Tell me the word, and I will get him out of that cell. I swear!”
“No, Doctor. I shall tell it to the stableboy or no one.”
Tension crackled in his voice. “Why, for the Gods’ sake?”
“Because I think you are sent. You are the answer to my prayers.” Suddenly the strain won, and her temper flared, as it had done perhaps three times in her adult life. She shouted. “Now, which is it to be? Do you help me, or do I yell for the guard and turn you in?”
His jaw dropped. “This is utter madness, Kade!”
“I mean it! I shall scream for the guards.”
“But I cannot take you myself! I should certainly have to call Andor to help, and anything he can’t handle will need Darad. They will know what I know, and Gods know what they will do.”
She nodded. “It will be a very interesting journey. Try to find something to fit in that closet there. There are some ancient masculine garments. Now, if you will excuse me for a moment, Doctor?”
Heart thundering wildly, she headed back to her bedroom.
2
Kadolan had not dressed herself faster in fifty years, yet all the time she was doing so, she was thinking of Sagorn’s warning about Darad. Sir Andor, of course, might very well try to charm her into babbling her word of power to him now that he knew of it, but the words themselves were supposedly proof against magic, and Andor without occult amplification she thought she could rebuff.
Come to think of it, last year his talent had challenged hers head-on at Kinvale, and she had held the field.
But Darad! When that monstrous man had attempted to abduct Inosolan, it had been Kadolan who had thrown the burning oil on his back. All the other injuries and indignities he had suffered thereafter had stemmed from that, and she could not believe that the slow-witted jotunn killer would be prone to ready forgiveness. If Sagorn needed to call Darad, then her little expedition was going to sink without trace, and she with it.
She hesitated at the door. “I am ready, Doctor.”
“Would that wrapping a turban were as easy as bandaging!” he said. “Have you any small implements?”
“What sort of implements?”
“Little knives or hat pins.”
“Hat pins, Doctor? In Zark? Really!” But she went and fumbled among her things, and remembered the tray by the bed, which yielded a fruit knife. Then she jumped as Sagorn strode in, bedecked in the loose garments and flowing cloak of Zarkian nobility. They were dark, but the light would not yet admit what color — green, probably. There was a strong odor of must about them and his turban was crooked, but anyone close enough to question such details would have much more pressing queries about his pallid jotunn face.
She bobbed a curtsy. “I congratulate you on your tailor. Doctor.”
He chuckled. “I couldn’t have asked for better, could I? If words of power bring good luck, then perhaps these are a good sign. Our luck is holding.”
He accepted the little knife, and a few pins, and a buttonhook. He declined a shoehorn and a belt buckle.
“Lead on, Highness,” he said. “And may your God of Love be with a pair of old fools.”
Kadolan found that remark in very poor taste, and decided he must be nervous. She led the way down the corridor, being as quiet as possible. She was somewhat nervous herself, truth be told. She tried to remember that she was doing this for Inosolan, who surely deserved a little luck at last.
Three words made a mage. A mage could cure wounds and sickness, and burn scars, certainly. If only she could have more faith in her own word of power! Even if all the words had started off equal — whenever and wherever they had started off — then some must have become greatly weakened since, diluted by too many sharings. Perhaps they even wore out from too much use, and the one she knew was centuries old, one of Inisso’s.
The corridors were stuffy, bitter-scented with dust, and still hot from the day. Massive XIVth Dynasty statues stood in rows along the walls — too valuable to throw away, too ugly to be wanted.
She tiptoed past the room where four maids slept, and another where the housekeeper snored. Then her feet brought her to the outside door, and a thin slit of light showed below it. This was as far afield as she had been since Inosolan’s wedding night.
Sagorn went close to the door and very gently tried it. Then he stooped to whisper in her ear.
“Locked or bolted?”
“Locked, I think,” she breathed back.
“Guards outside?”
“Likely.”
She thought he would give up then and turn back, but he merely nodded. He was barely visible, for the window was small and the little vestibule dark. It smelled strongly of beeswax.
“Thinal, then. Hold this sword handy.” Sagorn drew the blade, and she took it gingerly and stood close as …
As the figure beside her seemed to collapse to half size, and there was the imp youth she had seen once in Inisso’s chamber of puissance. As then he was comically bundled in vastly oversized clothes. He put up a hand to straighten the turban, which had slipped sideways during the transformation. His dark eyes were little higher than hers, and near, and they glittered. For a moment he just seemed to be studying her, as if trying to find traces of magic in her. Without looking, he reached in a pocket and brought out the fruit knife. It glittered also.
“Princess?” His voice was so soft that he seemed to convey the words without any sound at all. “Princess Kadolan! What’s for me that I help you give away a word of power when there’s needier bodies to hand?”
Kadolan’s scalp pricked at his revelation of the occult. Sagorn had guessed her secret, and whatever he knew, all the others knew also, including this little felon. She held the sword, but she had no illusions of being able to hold him off if he tried to take it away from her. He was a fraction of her age, doubtless well versed in back-alley athletics. He could probably best her with nothing but the fruit knife. She had not been prepared for Thinal.
“Well?” he said, still soft as gossamer. “What’s my gain if I risk my life for you?”
Did he want her to offer him payment? He could steal all the wealth he might ever want. Her tongue felt dry. “Not for me. For Inosolan.”
“I give no spit for Inosolan! Would she risk her life for me?”
Kadolan could not think of a plausible reply.
Then his teeth gleamed also.
“You need me!” He sounded surprised. “Even if you could twist me to call any of the others, they’d be useless. Only I can climb from the balcony. Only I can open this door! You all need me!” He grinned more widely.
“What do you want?”
“The word. Now! Then I’ll go tell Rap.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“You got no choice, lady!” Even that minuscule whisper was filled with brazen glee. How often had this guttersnipe ever felt important to anyone, or had power to bargain?
“No. I tell the word to Rap or to no one. It is too frail a word to divide further.”
He shrugged, maybe. “Then I’m gone. The whole idea is moonshine anyway. It’s dawn already.” He headed back toward the corridor.
“Stop!” Kadolan said, as loud as she dared. “Or I scream!” She raised a fist as if to thump on the door, hoping a cat burglar could see better in the dark than she could.
He stopped and turned.
“Guards?” she said. “There are guards just ou
tside. I will call them.”
“Stupid old baggage!” He took a pace toward her, and she half expected to feel Darad’s hands on her throat.
“What about Rap?” she said desperately. “So Inos wouldn’t risk her life for you — would he? For a friend?” It was the wildest guess of her life.
“Of course not! Well, not unless … ” His voice changed. “But I suppose he’s just about crazy enough to … In Noom, when Gathmor … If … Oh, crap! You would have to say that, wouldn’t you?” Thinal stepped past her to the door, did something with the fruit knife, and the lock clicked …
Andor snatched the sword from Kade’s grasp and thew open the door, reeled through into brilliant lamplight, and stopped, swaying and blinking. Kade followed — and recoiled.
The anteroom contained two guards, true. There were many weapons and clothes scattered around the floor, and also cushions. Also the guards themselves. And also four women. All six were asleep, all unclothed. The air stank like a wine shop.
Andor hiccuped, staggered, and …
Sagorn slid the sword awkwardly back into the scabbard. Kadolan followed him across the room, trying to keep her eyes averted from the remains of the orgy, but that was impossible. There were very few places safe to put feet, and she had to hold her skirts high lest they trail on the tangle of bodies and limbs. She breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind her.
“Fortunate that Thinal did not call your bluff,” Sagorn remarked, steadying her arm on the stairs — or perhaps letting him steady her; two old fools, stumbling down a league of unlighted steps in a palace like an armed camp.
“I had noticed some of the maids yawning a lot.”
“West.”
“Beg pardon?”
“We just turned west. I am keeping track.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
Eventually they ran out of staircases, and a short exploration brought them to kitchen quarters, large and echoing and smelling of rank meat. Junior drudges snored in corners and under tables. Soon they would be roused to perform the first duties, but they would be unlikely to question well-dressed persons, and even less likely to raise an alarm. The intruders picked their way through the shadows from one guttering lantern to another, from window to window. Things scuttled along the skirting — rats, maybe, or worse. Kadolan wondered about snakes and scorpions, not sure if she wanted more light here or less. Cockroaches like terriers! If any of the castle kitchens had looked like this in Krasnegar, Mistress Aganimi would have hurled herself from the battlements.
Then a door that obviously led to the exterior.
“Cover your face, ma’am,” Sagorn said. “There may well be a way to the jail that does not require going outside, but I can’t take a week to find it. Walk behind me.”
He shot back the bolts, and the hinges creaked …
3
The Palace of Palms was a city in itself. Some of the buildings were interconnected, others stood apart in parkland. It had streets and alleys, wide courtyards and shady cloisters, its many levels connected by ramps and wide stairways. Sagorn stayed close to walls, as much as he could; he headed east, and generally downhill. He seemed to know roughly where he was going. The sky was starting to turn blue overhead, and above the lip of the sea it held a reddish stain like washed blood.
Twice he pushed Kade into doorways as patrols went by in the distance. There must be guards on high places who might see. It was madness, total madness.
At last he brought her to an alley and stopped. He wiped his face with a thin, pale hand. For a minute he seemed to lack breath.
“This is the building! How to get in, though?”
The stonework looked older than most, but Kadolan doubted that even Thinal could scale it, and the windows were all barred, even on the topmost, third story.
“We shall have to find a door,” she said, and set off along the alley. His footsteps followed. She found a door. It was very small, and very solid, with a small peephole but no handle or keyhole.
“Bolt hole,” Sagorn muttered. “Back exit. Not an entrance.”
That one looked hopeless. Kadolan continued her progress. Maddeningly, the buildings on the other side had several doors, most raised a couple of cubits above ground level, as if for unloading wagons. One of them was ajar, too. She wondered if the cellars might connect belowground, but as Sagorn had said, they did not have a week to explore. The alley led to a courtyard. She peered cautiously around the corner, along to the main entrance, an imposing archway with guards posted. She backed hurriedly.
“It will have to do!” she said firmly, and retraced her steps to the obscure little door they had found earlier. She stopped a few paces back from it and racked her brains.
“Even Darad can’t break that down!” Sagorn protested. His deep-grooved face was gray with worry. “If he had an ax and an hour and no interruptions …”
Kadolan’s heart was fluttering like a butterfly, and she felt light-headed. Somewhere she had cast herself adrift; she was reckless with a victory-or-death sensation she had never known before. It must be her jotunn blood showing, a trait from some ancient berserker ancestor. She wondered if she might have a seizure before the problem was resolved, and discovered that she did not care. She was staking everything now.
“I can’t go back, can I? Let’s knock and see what happens.”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. “Then I must call Darad.”
“Andor? If I knock, and someone comes, then Andor could talk him into opening the door.”
Sagorn shook his head wearily. “Andor is drunk.”
“Drunk? Sir Andor?” That did not sound like the cultured young gentleman she had known in Kinvale.
“It was in a good cause.” Sagorn leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes. “Andor is drunk. Thinal is dazzled by his own importance and dizzy from lack of sleep. Jalon, of course, would be totally useless in an escapade such as this.” He shook his head. “And you and I’re both too old for such nonsense. It is hopeless!”
“Rubbish!” Kadolan said. “Listen! If that is a sort-of-secret way out, then it may also be a sort-of-secret way in, may it not? These djinns are all half crazy with intrigue … spies and double agents, coming to report? There may very well be a doorman within earshot, waiting to let them in. Now you call Sir Andor … No?”
“It will lead to swordplay. Even sober, Andor is only an amateur swordsman.”
“You called him earlier.”
“Thinal called him. He didn’t think. It will have to be Darad, whichever one of us calls him.”
“Not Darad!”
Darad had killed a woman for half a word.
Baffled silence and angry glares.
“You are the thinker, Doctor! Think!”
Sagorn sighed. “Listen, Kade, Darad might be all right. Especially if you talk to him about Rap! Darad likes Rap now.”
She found that hard to believe. The faun had set his dog on Darad, and his tame goblin, too. He had smashed chairs on Darad. But if it had to be Darad, it had to be Darad.
“Very well. Go ahead! I’ll risk it.”
Sagorn gave her a disbelieving look. “Gods be with you, my dear.”
Impudence!
Then the green clothes ballooned, and stitches ripped, and the giant was there.
Clenching fists, she raised her head to see the scars and tattoos, the battered nose and an enormous wolf-like grin. “Good morning, Master Darad,” she said faintly.
An earthquake of silent laughter shook his monstrous form. He leered. “And good day to you, lady. Need my help now, do you?”
She fell back a step. “I am truly sorry that I hurt you when you were in Krasnegar. My loyalty to my niece, you understand — ”
A guttural chuckle stopped her. “Jotunn blood?”
“Er? Oh, yes. Our family is about half imp and half jotunn.”
“Jotnar breed good warriors,” he agreed. “Shows in Rap, too.”
Ah! “I want to visit Master Rap.
He is in serious trouble.”
A nightmare scowl replaced the leer. “Yes. To make him a mage, right? Filthy djinns! And time is short, right? Good man, the faun. Must hurry. Well, you knock, and see what happens!” The jotunn ripped off his cloak and dropped it. He drew his sword in a flash of steel that made her jump; then he stepped back against the wall beside the door.
Shivering, Kade checked that her yashmak was in place. She placed herself in front of the peephole and rapped on the wood. She wondered if that puny noise would be audible at all inside. She kept her eyes down — blue eyes, not red djinn eyes. She could see Darad’s feet, his toes protruding from the remains of Sagorn’s boots. She could see the sword. Dawn breezes ruffled her robe and brought soothing scents of morning, of grass and flowers. There were still songbirds in the world, too, and not far off.
She counted fifty heartbeats. Then she raised her hand to knock again, and a voice spoke from the grille. “The cricket sings low.”
Password? Merciful Gods, what would be the reply to that?
“I have a message from the Big Man.”
“The password?”
“I was not told the password!” she cried, still not looking up. She remembered the lionslayers — “Women are not told the passwords.”
“Women don’t bring messages from the sultan.”
“Then his message will not arrive, and he will want to know why.”
The man grunted. After a long, nerve-wrenching silence, she heard a bolt being drawn. The hinges swung in well-oiled silence.
Kadolan was hurled aside and almost fell as Darad spun around the jamb, slammed the door wide, and vanished into the dark interior. She heard a bone-cracking thump and a muffled cry. She followed, through the entrance, into a small, dark chamber. There was a chair in one corner, stairs opposite, a body on the floor, and a dark giant standing over it, topped by a gap-tooth wolfish grin.
“Good so far!” Darad rumbled. “Shut the door. Right. You stay close now!”
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