The newcomer merged silently from the shadows behind the goblin’s chair, although Inos was certain there had been no one there a moment earlier. Even so, she had more warning than Little Chicken, who sniffed suspiciously, looked over his shoulder, and then hurtled from his chair in a leap that carried him to the far side of the fireplace. He yelled, “Arrk!” as he went.
There were two Raps present. The new one was a little shorter and slighter than the old, garbed in soiled buckskins. His filthy face was marred by a patchy beard. Inos could guess what he smelled like for she had met that Rap near Pondague in the spring. He stopped at the edge of the fire rug and just stood, wearing the same faint good-natured, vacant smile that she saw every day now on Angilki.
“Sorcery!” the goblin hissed.
“Yes,” Rap said, studying the apparition. “It’s not a real person — only the Gods can make those. But it’s close enough for what you need. It will bleed, and writhe, and near the end it will start to scream. The only words it knows are ‘Thank you.’”
“Evil sorcery!” Little Chicken advanced a step or two and poked the simulacrum with a stubby finger. He peered into its unworried eyes.
“Not evil from my point of view,” Rap said. “Nor yours. There’s no person in there, Death Bird. It will seem to suffer and die, but there’s no mind, no soul. It’ll last a long time.”
“I told you — I don’t approve of torture anymore. Beside, it would be cheating!” He sounded tempted, though.
“This is how you can put an end to the custom! You still remember all those wonderful ideas you had?”
“Yes,” Little Chicken admitted. “And I learned some really innovative stuff from Kalkor.” He sounded almost wistful.
“Then use them! A historic torment! It’s necessary for your destiny. It’s this or me, and I’d be grateful if you chose this one. And besides … it would probably be safer. I might get angry.”
Rap held out a hand. Little Chicken hesitated, then chuckled and took it. Inos was not quick enough to make out exactly what happened next, but Rap flew over the goblin’s shoulder and landed on his back with an impact that shook the house. Little Chicken went down hard on top of him. Inos heard a few brief grunts and thumps, a small table went over loudly, and then it was the goblin who went spinning through the air, arching up from the floor like an arrow, passing completely over an armchair. He came down heavily, fortunately breaking his fall on the surrogate Rap, which had been standing immobile through all this, smiling emptily. Goblin and counterfeit crashed in a heap, and a muffled voice from underneath said, “Thank you!”
The real Rap stood up, panting and straightening his clothes. “Want some more, Stalwart?”
“Not fair!” a growl from the floor said. “Used magic!”
“So did you — well, you used occult muscle, anyway. Now you’ve started breaking up my double there already. Get up and let me fix his leg.”
Something knotted in Inos’s throat. This nonsense was probably a masculine way of dealing with emotion, but why could Rap laugh with Little Chicken when he could not laugh with her?
The goblin guffawed and switched back to goblin dialect. “Was last chance for exercise.” He bounced nimbly to his feet. “Start throwing my brothers around like that, will scream Sorcery! and use me for wall hangings … much as the little green savages deserve it. And you have no idea how I’m going to miss that good impish beer!”
“That explains it, then,” Rap said absently, peering down at the prostrate simulacrum. “I couldn’t understand why your destiny was completely mundane, but it is. It seemed odd … I suppose it makes sense. You’ll have to hide your strength. Men might hesitate to follow a superhuman into battle.”
He reached down a hand and helped the false Rap to its feet, where it stood in dutiful silence. The real men faced each other, amid a pause that swiftly became too long for comfort.
“Full moon,” Rap said softly. “Good traveling in the northlands.”
“Summon neighbors,” Little Chicken agreed, but he still seemed indecisive.
Again Rap held out a hand, then changed the gesture to a hug. The two men embraced.
“Gods bless, Flat Nose.”
“The Good go with you,” Rap said softly. “Buckskins? Grease? Phew! All right — I’ll put you at the door to Raven Totem.”
Goblin and counterfeit faded and were gone.
The casement’s third prophecy would be fulfilled.
Rap turned to the fire and leaned an arm along the mantel. For a moment he seemed to slump, but whether it was from relief or despair, Inos could not tell. Then he straightened and looked around for her. He bowed.
“Good evening, your Majesty.”
Keep it formal.
She strolled forward and tossed her heavy coat on a chair. The air bore a lingering stench of rancid bear grease. “Good evening, Court Sorcerer. And where have you been these last few days?”
“Running in the woods with a goblin.” Rap’s face was between her and the light on the mantelpiece, and unreadable.
“That helped him to the right choice?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“You wouldn’t have let me listen if you hadn’t been sure.”
“But it was only this afternoon that I was sure.”
“Most sorcerers would just adjust his mind to suit themselves.”
“Perhaps.” His voice was giving nothing away. “That might have upset his destiny, though.”
“Why did you let me see all that?”
He shrugged. “I won’t be staying long in Krasnegar, Inos. I didn’t want you … wondering.”
“Thank you,” she said, thinking of Krasnegar without him.
“You are most welcome. And what are your Majesty’s commands for this evening?”
She perched on the arm of the chair the goblin had occupied. “If I turn up with a court sorcerer and he blasts the jotnar to fritters, then the people will cheer loudly, hail him as Inisso II, and put him on the throne.”
“Which would be fine by you,” Rap agreed, an ironic smile crinkling his tattoos.
She nodded — very fine!
He wrinkled his nose. “But not by me.”
“So we have to let the citizens free themselves, which means giving them weapons.”
“And leadership. But then they will have bought their freedom, and will value it accordingly.” He smiled faintly. He would smile as long as she kept the talk on business. If she tried to tell him how empty life in Krasnegar was going to be without him, then he would just vanish, or tell her she didn’t know her own mind.
There was nothing else to discuss, then.
He was gazing at her quizzically, saying that it was time now. Her heart had speeded up as if it expected her to flap her arms and fly all the way to Krasnegar. But Rap would magic her there, and Rap would protect her — for a couple of days, he had told the goblin. After that she would be on her own.
Sink or swim. Win or lose. Live or die.
That was her choice, and now, irrevocably, she must decide: to be a butterfly in Kinvale or an ant in Krasnegar. Now! Speak!
She thought of the goblin. He also had been caught up between two worlds like corn in the mill, seduced by the easy life of the Impire and summoned home by duty. That might be the real reason Rap had summoned her to watch Little Chicken’s departure …
Who was she to start a war? By what right did she ask men to die so she could reign?
There was nothing left to say except either “Let’s go!” or else “I’m too frightened.”
She had promised her father. Choose!
The door clicked. An elderly lady came wandering along the room — short and plump, immaculately dressed and begemmed, not a hair misplaced.
“There you are,” Kade said sternly. “Master Rap, I have a complaint.”
He bowed to her. “Your Highness, I am distressed to hear it.”
Kade nodded vaguely to Inos and then addressed Rap again. “I have been rather looking
forward to having Kinvale the way it used to be, peaceful and settled. For the last ten or fifteen years, Angilki has been constantly tearing it apart and putting it back together again, but he won’t be doing that anymore.”
“Aunt!” Inos said testily. “Just what are you getting it?”
“My little sitting room. You know how fond I am of that room!”
“Yes, Aunt, I know how fond you are of that room. So what?”
“There is a door in the north wall, and I’m quite certain it was not there an hour ago.”
Inos turned to stare at the sorcerer. “Rap?”
His teeth showed in his shadowed face. “I thought you might appreciate a little company once in a while. Drop in for tea, maybe.”
Inos gaped wonderingly at him for a long moment. “Oh, Rap! You mean that this new door leads to Krasnegar?”
“Magic portal. Useful for tea parties, famines, invasions.”
“Rap! Oh, Rap!” Suddenly the prospect had changed. She would have Kade’s shoulder to weep on. She would have an escape hatch. Now there was absolutely no reason not to go ahead. Her doubts of a moment ago now seemed completely absurd. Why had she hesitated?
“Rap!” she cried again, and she jumped up from the side of the chair and tried to throw her arms around him.
She ran into invisible molasses that brought her to a stop about a handsbreadth away from him. She saw something close to panic in his eyes, and although their faces were so near, he shouted at her.
“Idiot! How often must I tell you? We can’t!”
“Rap!”
“Never! Not even once. Not even to say good-bye.”
Bold Lover:
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal —
Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
ELEVEN
Alteration find
1
Rap’s taste in interior decorating was no match for Angilki’s. Kade’s private parlor room was a small room, but it had been beautifully proportioned. The walls were papered in pink roses, and the original woodwork was smooth and shiny white. The new door was an odd-sized excrescence in one corner — mahogany red, thickly embellished with carvings, spangled in eye-twisting runes of gold and copper. It just did not go.
“I could move it to the back of a closet somewhere,” Rap mumbled, scratching his head and apparently recognizing for the first time the monstrosity he had created.
“I love it!” Kade insisted. “Now that I know what it does, I just love it! I did try the handle,” she confessed guiltily, “but it seems to be bolted on the other side.”
“It’s only a dummy, actually,” Rap said. “Unless you also say the magic word, which is ‘Holindarn.’ Are you ready, your Majesty?”
There was no need to worry about baggage now. Inos swallowed a summerful of butterflies and said, “One more minute, Court Sorcerer.” She began buttoning her coat.
“I’ll be with you,” he said quietly. “But you don’t want to show up with a horsethief, so nobody’s going to notice me. I’ll be immemorable, Like this.”
Glancing up from a particularly awkward button, Inos found herself looking at a man-at-arms. Ear flaps dangled from a conical iron helmet, framing a face that was typically imp — swarthy, poxy, and pudgy. Nothing much else was visible except furs and a breastplate. He wore a short sword and padded leggings. And boots. There was nothing especial to notice, except that he was a man-at-arms dressed for winter. She remembered how once before she had seen Rap clad somewhat like that and had failed to recognize him even with his own face on.
Then he was himself again. Smiling warily, he stepped by her and hauled a chintz-covered chair out of the way. “Go ahead, try it!”
Inos turned to Kade for a farewell hug and kiss. “If I’m not fighting any wars tomorrow afternoon, I’ll stop by for tea and tell you all about it,” she promised, surprised how husky her voice sounded.
“That will be lovely, dear. If you can.” For a moment Kade clung to Inos, and her cornflower-blue eyes were unusually misty. “Inos … ” She bit her lip. “I’m not going to start being maudlin at my age, but … I do want you to know that your father would be very proud of you now!”
Gulp! “Well, let’s wait and see how he would feel tomorrow, shall we?”
“Your courage, dear, I mean. What you try is always lots more important than what you achieve.”
“Goodness, Aunt! I have never heard you moralize like this before.”
“That’s because you always refused to listen, dear. But I am serious! Your father would have approved of you. Your sense of duty, and your courage.”
If this farewell was protracted any further, it was going to become a rather obvious cowardice. “And he certainly would not disapprove of his sister, or what she has done for me and for Krasnegar. Now I really must dash off, or I shall be late for the massacre.”
With that, Inos broke free and turned quickly to try the magic portal. “Holindarn!” she proclaimed. The door shivered but did not budge.
“Here, put some muscle into it!” Rap leaned an arm over her to push. He was closer than he’d been since she tried to tell him her word of power, weeks ago. Then she’d kissed his cheek. If she turned her head quickly, could she manage that again? The door began to move, and wind shrieked. Torrents of icy air whirled into Kade’s sitting room. Drapes leaped, papers flew. Coals tumbled and smoke vomited from the fireplace. Kade squealed in alarm.
“Sorry!” Rap shouted over the gale. “Have to work on this a bit!” He heaved harder, and the opening was large enough for Inos to slip through, into frigid darkness.
The door thumped closed behind her. She hadn’t heard Rap follow. She had forgotten how intensely cold air could be, like ice water on her face.
“Akk!” she said. “Light?”
Then her eyes adjusted, and she saw moonlight beyond a window on her right and a fainter one straight ahead.
“Recognize it?” Rap’s voice inquired sardonically at her back.
“Inisso’s chamber!”
She turned, and the magic portal was a blackness filling the central arch. The side arches framing it were simple casements of clear glass. She stared out in wonder. Far below her, the snowcapped roots and battlements of the castle, and of Krasnegar itself beyond them, fell white and steep to the distant harbor, a snowy plain glowing silver under the moon. Every chimney sported a plume of smoke, rising slowly in the crystal-still air. Her heart thumped in her throat and she felt tears that were only partly due to the cold.
Home! Home at last!
“The casement! What have you done with it?”
“I got rid of it. They’re nasty things. You’re better off without it. But we sorcerers have strange ideas of humor — on this side, the portal’s a real door, always. Don’t forget the magic word, or that first step will get you. Ah! There’s the trouble!”
Vague in the darkness, he moved off to where the western casement had blown open. “Faulty clasp!” he said, shutting it. “There!”
Inos could see her breath now, like a white cloud. She could feel the cold aching in her lungs. She had returned to Krasnegar as she had left it, by sorcery, and in the exact same spot.
“Rap? What did you mean when you said the magic casement didn’t prophesy?”
“Well, it did in a way. But its prophecies tended to be rather nastily self-fulfilling.”
“Doctor Sagorn said …”
“Sagorn doesn’t know half as much as he thinks he does,” Rap said firmly. “And he had magic casements wrong! A casement does not advise what’s best for the person opening it. It doesn’t care a poop for his welfare; not the way a preflecting pool advises a person. Casements are fixed things and care only for the welfare of the house. Inisso’s house in this case.”
“I’m not sure I follow that. How did the vision of the goblins killing you help anyone?”
“It made me see that he was important, and help him when he was in Hub. The goblins wi
ll have a king. Raven Totem is one of the most northerly lodges and Little Chicken won’t attack Krasnegar, for my sake. He’ll direct the tribes southward. Another king might not.”
“Oh!” Inos said doubtfully.
“Magic casements are evil!” Rap insisted. “It made me cheat Sagorn out of a word of power, and it made Kalkor kill Gathmor. Rasha made a magic casement — not a very good one, I admit — but it led her to you and that brought me, and then look what happened! It put the welfare of Arakkaran ahead of hers. No gratitude at all.”
Inos did not argue, but it seemed that the casement had effectively arranged events to bring her back here with a sorcerer in attendance so she could claim her throne, and in that case …
“Watch your step here.” A flicker of light burst forth and strengthened. Rap was holding a lantern. The room was a shambles of bedding and discarded clothes. She saw empty bottles, too, and the remains of meals.
“I didn’t have time to tidy up,” he explained as she began picking her way through the mess. “The imps must have boarded men up here.”
The thick door had been repaired, most likely by Rap. It opened silently and he led the way down the curving stair. Her heart was thumping painfully, and there was a horrid dryness in her throat.
He paused partway down. “All clear,” he said after a moment. “The whole tower’s deserted. And it’s all a mess!”
“Rap! I just thought of something! I came up this tower months ago and disappeared. Now I reappear and come down again … What do I say if they ask where I’ve been?”
“Ignore them!” Rap said sarcastically. “Tell them you’re starving and ask what’s for breakfast.”
“Rap!”
He continued to walk down the steps, with her following. “They’re not going to ask,” he said. “You’re a queen, and monarchs don’t get questioned. Just glare at them, like the imperor does.”
Easy for him to say — he was a sorcerer. She would have to practice glaring.
They emerged into her father’s bedchamber. The mattress lay on the floor, amid some dirty straw pallets. A few fragments of furniture remained, but most of the rest must have gone for firewood. The two portraits above the mantel had been defaced with charcoal and used for knife-throwing targets. Rags and bottles and dishes lay everywhere. A fierce anger began to warm her.
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