by Dave Duncan
Sagorn twisted around toward the menacing figure of Little Chicken. "Would you mind putting down that ax, young man? I find it remarkably unsettling, even just knowing it is there."
Rap nodded, and the goblin slowly lowered his arms and stepped back a pace; but he did not relax, and he kept his angular eyes fixed firmly on the scholar. The fire was dying, giving less light and more smoke.
Still frowning, Sagorn turned back to Rap. "How much do you know of the other wardens?"
"Very little, sir."
"Well, we know more about their activities than we do of minor sorcerers', because it is they who make history happen. Again take Zinixo as an example. He is a young dwarf, little older than yourself, I fancy. His predecessor, Witch Ag-An, had been West for almost a century. Perhaps she had grown careless. About a year ago she attended a wedding in the Peacock Hall of the Imperial palace. She was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Five bystanders were killed, also, and many more wounded."
Rap grimaced. "Lightning indoors?"
"Certainly. But only moments later there was an even greater manifestation in the public gallery, around Zinixo himself. Parts of the balcony collapsed and the death toll was much greater—many people burned or crushed. I was working in the library, at the far end of the palace, and I felt the tremors and heard the blast. It was an awesome release of power, and Zinixo's survival is an astonishing tribute to his occult strength."
"Who did that?"
"Good question! Possibly one or more of the other wardens had aided him in his coup against Ag-An; probably one or more of the others then tried to retaliate. Or it was an attempted double-cross by one of his former allies. Or some other nonwarden sorcerer took the opportunity to make his own move before the newcomer could consolidate his position. You see the problem? We just don't know! But you were right last year to dislike the thought of being a sorcerer. It can be a dangerous trade."
It would be a disgusting trade! "Zinixo might have faked the attack on himself?"
Sagorn's mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth, and for a moment he just stared at Rap. The fast flickering of the firelight made his face impossible to read.
"Ingenious!" he murmured. "But I think not. A warlock has no need to impress anyone, except perhaps other powerful sorcerers—and they would not likely be deceived. No, I think I prefer the popular belief, which is that the second attack was a retaliation by Warlocks Lith'rian and Olybino—South and East—who tried to smite the upstart in his turn. If so, then he withstood their combined efforts!"
"Is that possible?" Rap felt crawly and scratchy whenever the occult was discussed, but he knew that this information was important if he was to have any chance of ever helping Inos.
"Certainly! One warlock has often defeated two others in combination. On that score at least we have good historical records. That is why the Protocol needs the Four, one may withstand two, but never three. Never? Let us say 'rarely.' Who knows?"
Silence fell, broken only by fire noises and the muffled fall of surf in the distance. Scattered raindrops hissed in the hearth. Rap realized that Sagorn was regarding him quizzically, as if waiting for him to catch up.
"Zinixo is warlock of the west?"
A nod.
"West's prerogative is the weather?"
Sagorn flashed his gruesome smile once more. "No! I've heard that said often enough, but the records just do not bear it out. There are too many reports of sorcerers raising tempests and so on. I don't know what force is reserved to West. I assume there is one, though." He thought for a moment. "He may just have some special status within the Four. Possibly his prerogative is the imperor himself, although the official position is that the imperor is sacrosanct."
"And we are in West's area?"
"I assume so. Faerie is certainly very far west. And south, too, of course."
"So Bright Water had no business moving us here?"
Another patronizing smile. "Not without his permission."
"She is a friend of this Zinixo?"
"She may be. She may even have aided his accession. Warlock Lith'rian is universally believed to detest him—elves and dwarves are rarely compatible. Warlock Olybino. . . this is just between you and me, young man, but I have seen him . . . Olybino is a pompous owl. Anytime South and East combine, then West and North are likely to become friendly—you understand?" Sagorn frowned up at the sky, as if warning the rain drops to stop falling. "So North's inexplicable interest in your goblin ax-man may involve the warlock of the west, also. On the other hand, Witch Bright Water may just be confused. She may have made a mistake. She may have forgotten all about you by now."
Remembering the old hag he had seen slouched naked on the ivory throne, Rap felt attracted by that thought. "I hope she has!"
The old man rubbed his hands gleefully. "Or not! So you see why you can trust me, Master Rap? I find all this fascinating! At least you can understand that I do not want to let Darad get his murderous hands on you. I would much rather let you blunder along in your own way, just to see what happens to you and your goblin—a unique opportunity to observe power at work!"
"So we're nothing more than an amusement for you?"
"What more could you be? Or me to you? Friends?" The old man scowled; his voice became brittle and bitter. "Which of us would you want as a friend? We are five solitary people. You can trust none of us in a tight spot. We cannot even trust each other!"
"Not Thinal?"
Sagorn sighed and stared wistfully at the hissing embers. The drops were becoming unpleasantly frequent. "The last time I saw Thinal, I was ten years old, and trying to hide behind Andor—five of us facing an angry sorcerer."
Rap tried to imagine that long-ago scene. "How old was he?"
"Thinal? About fifteen, I suppose. He seemed very big and manly to me. Do you understand guilt, Master Rap? He has never forgiven himself for what happened that night. You are everything he would like to be—determined, self-reliant, honest. So keep on building up his self-esteem, and he will continue trying to be worthy of your friendship."
Rap did not think Thinal would agree with much of that. "Trust him, you mean?"
"You have no choice, do you? At least until you all get to Milflor and can start looking for transportation back to the mainland. That may be tricky . . . perhaps we can talk again then? Take a few days' rest. Keep your feet clean. Wounds become poisoned very easily in this climate, and you have a long walk ahead of you." The old man smiled sardonically. "Well, as the weather seems to be turning sour, and I have no desire to provoke my lumbago, I think I shall depart."
Little Chicken raised the ax again.
"Wait! I have to find Inos—"
Sagorn laughed raucously and shook his head. "So you keep saying. But it would take you months, or even years, to reach Arakkaran or Krasnegar. A few days' rest now will be a wise investment and can make no difference."
"I have another question," Rap said. "Why did the sorceress take Inos?"
The scholar fumbled with the knot on his loincloth. "Who can say?"
"Sir!" Rap took a step forward. The spear quivered in his hand.
Sagorn looked up, glaring. "Threaten me, boy, and you will answer to Darad!"
"Then be helpful!"
"You have a brain—use it! I can think of at least four reasons, but I can no more decide among them now than you can."
"List them!" Rap demanded, still hot with anger.
"God of Patience! They are obvious! To steal her word of power—and if that was the cause, then Inosolan is dead or tortured into madness by now. Or to do her a kindness—she was in a dangerous situation, remember. Or thirdly, it may just be that the Rasha woman is bored and wants to meddle in politics like a warden. Even a sorceress is not omnipotent. Not the most powerful warlock could ever create a genuine living princess with an established lineage and a claim to a throne—only the Gods can do that. So Inos has rarity value."
Rap had already thought of all this. "What's the fourth reason?"
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The hearth steamed and hissed. Rain drummed on the leaves; water dribbled down Sagorn's face. "To use as a bargaining chip."
"What?" Rap roared. "Is that the best you can do? Bargaining chip? If sorcerers are so powerful, then what can they ever need to bargain for?"
The jotunn's long upper lip curled in an arrogant, aristocratic sneer. "Boy, if you need to ask that, then you have not heard a word I told you!"
He was gone. Only the haughty sneer remained, incongruous on the paltry Thinal.
4
Farsight was not like vision. Rap did not see, he just knew. Even in the dark, he knew where the rotten sticks lay, where the thorns and creepers tangled his path, where the mossy trunks and low branches waited; and even in cellar blackness he somehow knew of their intrinsic greenness, also. In daylight he would never be as skilled a stalker as Little Chicken was, but at short range on a rainy night with no light at all, he was unsurpassed. Step by cautious step, he advanced through total darkness toward a sleeping quarry curled up under a bush in the jungle.
Or perhaps not sleeping . . . When he was a dozen paces away, he sensed that the child was a girl, and then that she was weeping—lying under a bush, sobbing. She was slight and black-skinned, and very small.
Some members of her family had been brutally murdered, perhaps in front of her eyes, and the rest dragged away in bonds. Now other intruders had driven her from the village she had been haunting like a wraith, taking even that feeble comfort from her. Rap wanted to weep, also.
Deliberately he cracked a twig, and she sat up with a tiny, quickly stifled wail.
"Don't be frightened," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you. I brought some food. I'm a friend."
The child whimpered and huddled down, impossibly little.
"I can see in the dark, but I won't come any closer. I know where you are. You have your arms round your knees. There's a tree right behind you, right? And a trowel near your foot. I'm not moving, not coming closer. You can hear my voice, so you know I'm not coming closer. Don't be frightened."
There was no reply, no sound except the tramp of rain on the forest canopy high above and the steady drip of water. The air was thick with damp woodsy scents, the fetor of rotting leaves.
"I am going to lay down my bundle. I brought a blanket and a gourd of water and some food. There, I've laid it down. Now I'm walking away again. You can hear me going away, can't you? And now I'll tell you how to find the bundle I brought. Aren't you hungry?"
Still silence, but. . .
"You nodded, I saw you nod. So I can see in the dark, but I'm not going to try to catch you. You can hear that I've gone farther away, can't you?"
The child nodded again. Rap thought he could even sense her hands trembling and her fast breath.
"Now I'll tell you how to find it. Move forward . . ."
The child merely clutched her knees more tightly.
"I can guide you to the food."
She shook her head.
"All right," he said, "you don't have to. But I don't want to hurt you. Who killed the people in the village?"
Her lips moved at last. "Soldiers."
"Well, I'm not a soldier. I have two friends with me, and they're not soldiers, either. We want to help you. If you crawl forward, I can tell you how to find the things I brought for you."
But the tiny figure still did not move. Obviously Rap's efforts were only increasing her terror. He could have soothed a frightened foal, or calmed a puppy, but with people he had no occult skill at all.
"Then I'll go away and leave you. Do you want that?"
She nodded.
"Then you come and see me in the morning. I'll go out to the place where you were pulling weeds, and you come and see me, and we'll talk. In the morning. All right? And I'll leave this food right here, and the blanket. I'm going now."
Whistling a sad tune, hating himself, Rap turned and walked noisily off through the invisible forest. The child stayed where she was, in the rain.
5
She did come the next morning, after Rap had been waiting in hot sunlight for nearly an hour. He had thought to bring a stool, for his feet were inflamed and painful, but he had no sunshade and all he could do about the insects was slap and swear. Thinal and Little Chicken sat in plain view at the edge of the clearing.
The girl had been watching them from the jungle all that time, but Rap had pretended not to know. He had spent his time studying the vegetables, trying to guess what they were. The only ones he knew for certain were beans.
His patience ran out at last. Turning to face her, he cupped his hands and shouted. "Come out! I won't hurt you. I'm not a soldier."
After a few minutes, she emerged, walking toward him with so light a grace that she might have been floating. At most she was twelve years old, but her head barely reached his chest. She wore a simple dress of brown homespun, with no shoes or adornments. Her hair was straight and hung loose. Like her skin, it was black, and her eyes were black—all black. Even the sclera were black, as if her face had been carved from a single block of ebony. Rap had not noticed that in the night. He hid his surprise with a smile and sat waiting for her, his hands held open to show that he had no weapon.
She came much closer than he had expected, stopping a few paces from him and trying to return his smile with a lip that insisted on wobbling. His pale-brown skin and gray-and-white eyes must make him seem just as uncanny to her as she was to him.
"I shall call you Food Giver," she said, her voice quavering. "How will you term me?"
Rap had already opened his mouth to tell her his name; he was nonplussed to be asked for hers instead. Then he remembered one of his mother's superstitions—that evil sorcerers sought out people's names in order to do them harm. Perhaps fairyfolk had the same belief.
"I shall term you Forest Sleeper."
His guess worked, she seemed to approve. She took a deep breath. "Food Giver, you are welcome to our hearth and spring. May the Good be prospered . . ." She hesitated and bit her lip. Black lips, black tongue. It was almost a relief to see the tips of her teeth and learn that they, at least, were white. She tried again. "We offer all we have, and may the Good be prospered by your coming. May your stay be joyful and your leaving . . . ah . . . not soon?" She smiled uncertainly. "Did I say that right?"
"I think so. You said it very well. But I don't know the right words to answer. Can you tell me what I am supposed to say?"
She shook her head apprehensively.
"Then I'll just say thank you, Forest Sleeper, and tell you again that I want to be your friend."
She smiled with relief.
"Will you come and meet my friends now? I have two friends, and we don't want to hurt you. They want to be your friends, too."
The child hesitated, then gave him her hand. The palm was sticky with fear, the fingers tiny as a baby's. He rose and led her back toward the huts, marveling at how she seemed to float over the ground. As she moved through rows of plants, the leaves hardly seemed to note her passage.
"When did the bad soldiers come?"
"A long time ago."
"And you were the only one to escape?"
She nodded. Rap thought she was going to start weeping. He cursed himself for questioning her so soon.
"Momma had sent me to the fish trap, for food to offer —" Her voice broke off in a near sob.
"You can tell me later. I expect you're hungry again? When you've met my friends, then we'll all eat, and then have a talk."
What was he going to do with this orphan? If Imperial soldiers had been responsible for the atrocity in the village, then he could not take her to Milflor. She might be in danger there, and she would certainly not be happy. So Rap would have to go in search of another fairy settlement—and that might take weeks. He certainly could not abandon her here alone.
"When the moon shines," she said timorously, "and I want to dance, will you clap for me?"
"Of course."
She smiled happily. "I have
danced a little, as I could, but there was no one to clap. I will clap for you to dance!"
Rap thought she was going to have another disappointment then, but he promised he would dance.
She stopped suddenly, tugging his large hand with her tiny one. He looked down in surprise at her worried expression.
"Food Giver," she said, "what is nearest your heart?"
"Er . . ." Rap smiled as cheerfully as he could. "I don't think I understand, Forest Sleeper. I come from a long way away, and I do not know how things are done here."
"Oh." She looked alarmed.
"You tell me what I'm supposed to tell you."
It seemed that Forest Sleeper was not sure of the answer, nor why she was asking. She hesitated, fumbled for words, and then said, "Tell me your dreams?"
Rap felt inadequate and bewildered. He knelt down on the red soil to study the strangely haunting face, and even then his eyes were higher than hers. "My dreams?"
"What you seek." His inability to understand was frightening her again.
"What I want most, you mean?" Rap asked, and earned a vigorous nod. "Oh! I seek a lady, a friend of mine. She was taken away . . . She had to go away, and I want to find her."
The black-on-black eyes seemed to search his. The fairy child's skin was very shiny, as if polished, but her eyes gleamed brighter still—like black metal, oddly beautiful in spite of their strangeness.
"Why?"
"So I may serve her. Because she is my queen."
Another pause, and a sudden childish grin, as if this had all been a joke. "You do not know!"
Apparently that cryptic remark concluded the ritual, if it had been a ritual. Seeming greatly reassured, Forest Sleeper tugged at Rap's hand to make him rise, and then set off skipping at his side. But he did not think that curious episode had been a joke and he hoped that there were no more unfamiliar customs in store.
Her increasing confidence had changed her gait to a dance. Rap felt as if he were holding her down, that without his grip on her hand she might flit away into the sky. Andor had told him once that the elves were the most graceful of all the races of Pandemia, but Andor had never met a fairy. Few had. Her features were fine and delicate, and her jet skin had a strangely fascinating beauty. Even her fingernails were shiny black.