Evil flickered his ears at the ripples washing the shingle; occultly reassured, he ventured to splash his big hooves into the water. Fleabag sniffed suspiciously and tried a taste of this unfamiliar, restless fluid. He took more persuading than Evil, but he followed, growling briefly.
The gaps were narrow, now that the tide was near the ebb and the causeway higher than it used to be. Soon Evil was trotting over Big Island and the big dog loping ahead again. The road was curving in to shore, and Rap finally allowed himself a scan of the docks ahead. It was all heartbreakingly as he had expected — humble folk going cheerfully about their business, fishing nets hanging on their racks, many of the boats already out of the water and being made ready for their long rest. Peace and friendly dullness and security. An empty wagon was just starting its outward journey, its driver having seen a horseman crossing.
And Inos! She was riding Lightning along the dock road; coming to watch the crossing, doubtless. Not much would escape Inos, Rap thought. She would be as good a ruler as Krasnegar had ever had. But he had always known that. He blinked away a tear and laughed aloud at the thought of a sorcerer weeping. What reason could a sorcerer ever have to weep?
He saw that she was peering at the lone rider, shielding her eyes from the sunset. He lifted his occult veil for her. Her instant reaction made her mount shy, but Inos brought it under control at once and kicked it into a gallop. Evil splashed through the last traces of Big Damp, and the two horses met on the slope beyond.
“Rap! Oh, Rap!”
God of Fools! The stupid child had tears streaming down her cheeks. He would never have come had he not promised.
“Hello, Inos.” He was glad he had farsight, because his eyes were going blurry in sympathy. Not a child. Beautiful, gorgeous woman.
“That’s Evil! And Fleabag? You’ve been to Arak-karan?”
“I’ve been all over the place. Good to be home.” Liar!
She choked back a question — about Azak, of course — and then took a harder look at Rap himself. He cursed under his breath; he should have done something about his appearance.
“Rap! What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“No, no. Just a little tired, is all.” You’re breaking my heart, girl. That’s what’s wrong.
“You look terrible! What’s the matter? Gods!”
Of course! “You look great, Inos. And I know you’ve been doing a great job in the monarching business.”
She gave him the sort of suspicious stare his mother had given him any time he hadn’t wanted seconds. Then she faked a smile over it. “And you’ve come for the Harvesthome Dance!”
He had quite forgotten the Harvesthome Dance. “Of course,” he said.
He stayed three days and he almost went crazy.
At times he wished he’d just turned up as his old self, but then he’d have had to answer the same questions over and over, and people would have seen the way Inos looked at him and tried to hang on to him, and she would have had difficult explanations to make when he disappeared again.
So he stayed immemorable, but that meant he couldn’t talk with his old friends. He would nod to them and they would react as Jik had — familiar face, can’t place it. Boyhood pals had become tall men. Gith, and Krath, and Lin. Some had beards. All the girls were mothers now. Ufio, Fan … He met them all at one time or another, mostly while Inos was dragging him around the town, showing him what had been accomplished and what was left to do, talking excitedly all the time and pretending her heart wasn’t as sore and sick as his. He saw how the people smiled when they saw her, and how eagerly they saluted and hoped for her answering smile. They were proud of their young queen. Imps had always cherished romantic ideas about beautiful princesses and impresses, but here in Krasnegar the feeling had become universal. To tease one of the local jotnar about having a female ruler would be very unhealthy.
Just once Rap saw Inos meet resistance. An aged carpenter began disputing her newfangled ideas on furniture. Green eyes flashed, the ambience shivered very slightly, and the old man’s feet and tongue began stumbling in unison as he tried to bow and apologize and flee, all at the same time. Apart from that one occasion, Rap never detected her regal glamour in use or even being needed. It was a lovely piece of work, though, almost undetectable; best spell he’d ever made.
He met just about everyone again at the Harvesthome Dance, but no one met him. The Great Hall was strung with ribbons and jammed with people, and filled with noise and laughter and music.
It was sort-of music, for Krasnegar was not Hub; nobody cared about beat or key too much, as long as it was loud and cheerful. He danced twice with Inos, but the rest of the time he insisted she dance with some of those loyal subjects hovering hopefully around her. She hadn’t found a lover yet, that was obvious. She could have had hundreds, that was equally obvious. They all loved her, and every young man in town was crazy over her.
He could make her fall in love with one of them if he wanted. Then she would be happy, wouldn’t she? He stood in the shadows and wrestled with his conscience. He’d once told the imperor that he just wanted Inos to be happy. He could make her happy with sorcery. So why didn’t he? He must think hard about that before he departed.
They talked a lot, or at least Inos did. She was proud of what she’d accomplished, and with good reason, and he let her explain everything over and over, although he’d seen it all within the first few minutes. Much of it he’d seen from far away, too.
He talked less, but he told her how he’d gone to Arakkaran to fetch his dog, and how terrified Azak and Kar had been when he showed up. When he described the feast they had put on for him, with jugglers and belly dancers and goats’ eyes, and the tricks he’d played when they took him hunting, then she laughed till she cried.
“So you rescued Fleabag? How about the panther?” she asked.
“I left the panther. I never was a cat person.”
“And Azak gave you Evil?”
“I took Evil. I thought Azak owed me that much.” And he told her a little of his other travels — in Faerie and Dragon Reach, and Durthing.
“Not Thume?” she asked.
No, he said, he had not been to Thume.
They talked all around their private problem, and never mentioned it. He had tried to tell her once, and the words had not let him. Or perhaps that compulsion had come from higher authority than the words — he wasn’t sure.
Inos was plotting something. He’d known that from the moment they met on the shore. He could have worked it out, or pried it out, but he didn’t. He turned off his insight so he couldn’t read her face at all; which was unpleasant for him, but then the whole visit was one unbearable agony.
At night he left the palace so he couldn’t watch her. Near the harbor he found a comfortable garret that no one was using, and he fitted it out with a comfortable bed to lie on. He never slept now; he’d almost forgotten what sleep felt like.
6
On the fourth morning, Rap joined Inos for breakfast in the Great Hall. She was sitting alone at the high table, and he came in by the door and walked over and took a chair beside her. The sun was just rising, promising another astonishingly fine day. She was wearing a very simple pale-green dress, and her hair hung loose with just a band around it, and she was as beautiful as he had ever seen her. The smoothness of her cheek was a miracle in itself.
He was back in riding clothes.
“You’re not leaving already!” Her voice was accusing, her face paler than it should be.
“Might as well catch the weather while it lasts,” he said, not looking at her. Not with his eyes, anyway.
“Morning your Majesty.” A decrepit old waiter shuffled up to Inos and laid a mug of chocolate and a silver bowl of sticky porridge in front of her. He hadn’t noticed she had company.
Before she could say anything, Rap made a bowl of porridge appear in front of himself — a golden bowl. She tried to laugh, without much success. The old man went hobbling off, having missed all t
hat.
“I thought I might take Firedragon,” Rap said between mouthfuls. “He and I have always been good friends, and I think he’s getting a little old for his responsibilities.”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll leave Evil. I thought you’d like having him looking after things instead; an appropriate memento of Azak.”
“Oh, very funny!”
He hadn’t told her how well Azak had been making up for lost time since he got home to Arakkaran. Terrible man!
They ate in slurping silence for a while. Krasnegarian porridge was vile stuff, really, Rap thought, and wondered why he was enjoying it so much. It was strange to eat up here at the high table, a visiting sorcerer. Always, when he’d eaten in the Great Hall he’d been down near the hearths, with the servants. There were a lot of them there now, dawdling over a hot breakfast. He knew how they felt. Most of them would be newly back from the mainland, catching up on the summer’s gossip, reveling in real beds and dry lodgings, renewing old friendships, happily sliding into the slower pace of winter. Why had he been such a fool as to come?
Inos kept staring at him, crumpling a napkin in her free hand. Yes, she was plotting something, and he stubbornly refused to let himself peek and find out what it was.
“Not Master of Horse?” she said at last wistfully.
“You ought to let Hononin have the title. He’s good for another ten years at least.” The pains in the hostler’s joints had cleared up miraculously since the night the queen returned. He would die very suddenly, fourteen years from now, near Winterfest.
“And not Sergeant-at-Arms?”
Their eyes met and exchanged moist smiles.
“Not really my sort of work,” Rap said. “Oopari’s much better at it than I would ever be.”
“King, then?” she whispered. “It’s the only job vacancy I have to offer at the moment.”
“I don’t think I’m qualified.”
“You’re better qualified than any other man in the world.”
Rap sighed. Why did people torture themselves by longing for the impossible? He changed the subject.
“Everyone must know you came back by sorcery. How do they feel about sorcery now?”
Inos shrugged and abandoned all pretense of eating. “They find sorcery in everything I do. If I smile at a baby, I’ve blessed it. My frowns bring on asthma attacks. But they seem to be getting accustomed to the idea.”
“They shunned me!” That still rankled.
She laid a hand on his. “I think they’re wiser now, dear. Magic has its advantages, and they’ve learned that. Besides, people can get used to anything, given time.”
Yes. He created a mug of hot chocolate and removed his hand to pick it up.
“They would accept you, love.”
“They won’t get the chance.”
“You are definitely going?”
“Definitely.”
“For how long this time?”
He looked squarely at her and she bit her lip.
“Forever,” he said.
“You’re in pain!”
Now, how had she guessed that? “Being near you just makes it worse,” he said. “Much worse. And worse for you, too. I’ve told you it can never be, Inos.”
“Not that sort of pain. Real pain. Sagorn noticed. He told Kade. And then I began to see it, too.”
Rap ate more porridge.
“Ever since that night Zinixo told you a fifth word. You put out the fire, Rap — but you didn’t get rid of all of it, did you? You’ve been burning ever since, haven’t you?”
“Not burning.” That was a fair description of it, though.
“Hurting? That’s why you look so awful.”
“I do not look awful!”
“You did when I first met you on the road. When I said so, you made yourself seem all right again. But those first moments you looked about as old as Emshandar. You’re hurting!”
He didn’t want to lie to her, and he wasn’t allowed to explain the problem to her, so he said nothing. He expected her to get angry, then, but she didn’t. She was giving that napkin a terrible time with both hands under the table.
“I am happy to accept the horse, Rap,” she said eventually. “Is there anything I can give you in return?”
“Just Firedragon.”
She tensed even more. “I would like to ask a favor.”
“Anything, of course.” He waited. It couldn’t be gold, because he’d refilled the chest for her, and she had plenty. Raise the causeway above high-water mark? Alterations to the castle? Well, he wasn’t going to pry.
“I want to be a sorceress.”
A hot glob of porridge landed unnoticed on his lap. “Inos, no! You don’t know what it’s like!”
“Tell me, then.”
“It’s horrible! You stop seeing people as people. They’re slow, and stupid, and unimportant! You can have anything you want, so nothing’s worth having, or doing, anymore. And nobody else’s wants or opinions matter. No, it’s awful. You don’t want that!”
She was frightened, and determined not to show it. “You said ‘Anything’!”
“You have everything you need, and I didn’t mean —”
“I’m sorry I’m so slow and unimportant, but I could swear I heard you say ‘Anything.’ ”
He put his face in his hands. Pure, rending desire … it was worse than any carnal lust imaginable. It was a fanfare of silver trumpets. It lit up his heart like dawn. Escape!
After all, he had told her two words once and managed to stop. The memory of that effort was terrifying, but he had managed it once.
Of course — Common Sense retorted — that time he’d had Zinixo waiting to settle. Hatred can be stronger than love. He didn’t have his jotunn temper stoked and burning now as a distraction.
Pain … That was what she was thinking! By telling her two words that night, he had reduced his power and been able to bring the overload under control. If he shared two more he would be weaker still, and she was guessing then that he might not be in so much pain. Maybe she was right!
Try it! whispered Temptation. Try it!
For months and months he had fought to suppress the agony. It was killing him, day by day, hour by hour. He was fading — he knew that. Just maybe she was right, and he wouldn’t hurt so much if he shared two more words with her.
He would be putting himself at risk from the wardens, of course. They had never stopped watching him: where he was, what he was doing. They were all scared of him. Rightly so, because he was pretty sure he could take on all four of them together if he needed to; the new West was nothing much. So the Four had left him alone, even when he’d gone meddling in their backyards — rescuing the fairies still in Milflor to hide them and others away where they would never be found … curing an outbreak of plague that Olybino had started among the goblins … turning back a blaze of dragons that had come to investigate what he was doing for Nagg and her little tribe …
Rap the stableboy had trampled all over the Protocol, and the Four had looked the other way. But if they ever sensed that he’d slipped back to mere sorcerer power, then they might be tempted to try something.
He discovered that he really didn’t care.
And he wouldn’t be very much weaker, anyway. He’d still be in command of five words, however much they had been reduced by sharing, and not one of the present Four would dare try that. His mastery of power was a freakish thing. Maybe that was how some of the great fabled sorcerers of the past had gained their power, but most people were destroyed by five. Like Rasha.
Share his words?
Normally sharing a word was a very painful experience, except when on the brink of death. The act had virtually killed Sagorn, and the pain had fascinated Little Chicken. But not in this case. It wouldn’t hurt this time. Tell Inos? Yes! Yes!
But the danger! She didn’t know the danger!
He looked into her pale, scared face.
“You’re sure?”
&n
bsp; She nodded dumbly and passed a pink tongue over her lips — lips to haunt a man’s memory until the day he died.
“It’s a terrible risk!”
“I trust you. Just two.”
Clever girl!
“That’s why you’re afraid to get close, isn’t it?” she said. “Why you don’t want to be intimate? Losing control … you talked about losing control. You’re afraid you’d tell me them all!”
He nodded, astonished that she’d worked that out. Mundanes weren’t always stupid, if you could just give them enough time. She was an adept, of course. That would help.
“Three little words,” he said. “Easy to say in a moment of … er … passion.”
“And then what? I burn, and I don’t have your knack for controlling magic?”
He shook his head. He hurt if he even tried to think about it. To explain was … forbidden.
“But you can tell me two!”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. And it won’t make any difference to us, Inos. It’ll be worse, because there’ll only be one word between us and … and … ” His tongue began tripping all over his mouth again. “Only one word left,” he finished.
“You said ‘Anything’!”
“No! I won’t risk it.”
She sighed, but her green eyes glinted like sunlight through breakers. “Oh, Rap! Just for once … If this is the last time we’ll ever see each other, just for once couldn’t you let me talk you into something?”
He pushed back his chair. “It’s too risky, Inos.”
She wadded the napkin smaller than ever. “I’m prepared to take that risk. I asked for a favor and you said ‘Anything’! Now, are you, or are you not, a man of your word?”
Why was she pursuing this madness? To aid her kingdom? If she only knew what she would be taking on by becoming a sorceress, she wouldn’t be so insanely eager to mother that dimwitted brood of yokels. They would never appreciate what she was doing for them anyway, and she must know that.
To aid Rap? She thought she could do him a favor and ease the constant agony of controlling five words of power. But he suspected she had some other motive as well. He resisted the temptation to use insight on her; he was frightened of finding himself in there in compromising concepts.
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