by Dave Duncan
"Now!" The witch turned around, peering. "Haven't been here since the days of Ho-Ilth. Not much change. Same furniture, by the look of it. We ate mangoes on that sofa and threw passion spells at each other. Where did you . . . Ah! Death Bird! Are you all right, my sweet?"
Clumping in her boots, she marched straight off the mat, heading for Little Chicken, who was sprawled back in his chair, eyes and mouth wide with disbelief.
Zinixo twitched, as if startled.
The witch wheeled with incredible agility, the fire chick on her shoulder flashing momentarily orange. "Stop that!" she snapped. "That's no way to treat guests!"
Pause. The warlock had bared teeth like rows of tombstones. He was rigid as a granite boulder, and his youthful face gleamed wetly in the glow of the swinging lamps. His cheeks were chalky.
Then he forced his grimace into a cynical and dangerous smile. He made a small bow, without taking his eyes off the old woman. "Of course, Grandmother. But don't do anything rash."
"Course not!" Bright Water said. "That's—" The baby dragon flared green and flew up off her shoulder in an erratic, wobbling flight "Oh! Be careful, my Precious!"
The dragon chick fluttered around the room at head height as if exploring. Eventually it came to hover suspiciously above Rap. There was very little substance to it, but he thought perhaps he could see a dragon shape there more often than anything else. At times it was a star, or a bird, or a butterfly, and often just a blur of light.
The witch put two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly. Precious changed to a nervous yellow shade and zigzagged back to her shoulder. Cooing, she stroked it until it was blue again. Strangely, the incomprehensible tension somehow faded then. Oothiana and Raspnex exchanged puzzled glances.
And the witch seemed to notice Raspnex for the first time.
"What was I about to say?" she inquired stiffly.
The dwarf blinked and shrugged.
"Well, then!" she snapped. "Haven't we met somewhere recently, young man?"
"We spoke about five minutes ago in the glass."
"Oh?" She looked vaguely around the room and frowned at Oothiana. "Aren't you Urmoontra, what's-his-name's wife?"
"Her great-granddaughter, your Omnipotence."
"Oh, Gods and mortals!" Bright Water shook her head sadly, causing another rope of hair to fall loose. "It is getting late, isn't it? Bedtime, everybody." She leered uncertainly in the direction of a potted palm, then curtsied. "Evening, Senator."
There might be an invisible senator there, of course. Nothing was impossible in this madhouse.
Finally the witch discovered Zinixo. "And you, lad?"
"You know who I am, you stinking offal bucket! Stop the play-acting." He stamped around her to reach Little Chicken, whom he indicated with a downward-jabbing finger. "Tell us what your interest is in this."
Bright Water blinked at the prisoner for a moment or two. Then she beamed, displaying a mouthful of huge goblin teeth, whose shiny perfection was not in keeping with her otherwise decrepit appearance. "Death Bird! Knew I'd put him somewhere safe. Couldn't remember where. Isn't the resemblance wonderful?"
"What resemblance?" Zinixo was taut as a harp string, wary as a stalking cat, and growing madder by the minute.
"Blood Fan. My oldest brother, you know. When he was this age?"
"The oaf’s related to you, then? He doesn't know it."
The witch chuckled hoarsely, for what seemed like too long. Crazy, but not necessarily stupid—Rap had seen old Hononin act dim-witted often enough, usually when Foronod had gone barging into the stables to demand something the hostler had not wanted to grant. Almost always the factor had been driven to losing his temper and therefore the argument. This seemed like the same technique. If the witch made Zinixo much angrier, he might be capable of any sort of folly.
"He wouldn't know," Bright Water crooned. "Blood Fan was a sly lad, eh? A very quiet crawler when the fires were banked. Not a wife in the lodge didn't feign sleep for him at least once. They caught him eventually and he put on a wonderful show. Almost three days. You're very like him," she added to Little Chicken, who was frowning as he tried to follow the outlandish conversation going on over his head. "Ho-Ilth liked mangoes, and what good did they ever do him, eh? Blood Fan fathered Gut Thrust on Petal Bed, and Gut Thrust—"
"And is that all?" the warlock shouted furiously, his anger booming like a mountain thunderstorm. "Is that the only reason you're interested in him? That he's some distant bastard descendant of yours?"
The ancient goblin drew herself up stiffly and tried to look down her long nose at the dwarf. She failed, because she was even shorter than he was, except for her tangle of red hair and ivory combs. "Course not. Fill your guts with hot coals. Do you mean you haven't foreseen him?"
Zinixo seemed taken aback at the question. "No," he admitted. "He's got a destiny?"
"Oh, yes!"
The warlock shot Oothiana a meaningful look. "You're no good at this, are you?"
"Not much, Omnipotence."
He nodded, then spun around to face Little Chicken. The goblin's eyes rolled up, and he slumped in his chair, unconscious. His face turned a pale-lime color.
Looking intrigued, Raspnex moved in, also, so that the goblin was surrounded by three sorcerers, all staring down at him fixedly.
Oothiana leaned back on the couch.
"My lady?" Rap whispered uneasily.
She did not turn to him. She was watching the room intently—especially the magic rug—and he wondered if she had been left on guard while the dwarves' attention was on other things. "It's very difficult," she said softly. "Like trying to follow a river through a swamp. There are always so many channels. Sometimes they join up again, sometimes not. Even the thoughts of people nearby can affect a man's future. It gives me a terrible headache."
"So all you can see are possibilities?"
"The Gods decree destinies for some mortals. Most of us are only given chances." She smiled absently. "Of course someone like a quarry slave wouldn't have many, would he? Any fool could foresee his future—more life unchanging, then death. A sailor, now, or a jotunn raider, he'd usually have so many they'd be almost impossible to unravel. But the rest of us . . ." She fell silent.
Inisso's magic casement had forecast several fates for Rap—being roasted by dragons, being hacked to bits by Kalkor, being filleted by Little Chicken. Perhaps those had been alternatives that depended upon who did what first. That might explain why he had seemed doomed to die three times. If he could choose one of those deaths, though, it would never be the third.
"Can you foresee your own destiny, then?" he whispered.
She shook her head, watching the others, but in a moment she added, "Very hard. Your own reactions change the images. That's one reason sorcerers make magic casements, or preflecting pools."
"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. R
aspnex 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 of
f 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.