by Dave Duncan
Something that felt like an invisible leather belt slashed across his face, hard enough to wrench his neck. He yelped in pain and surprise. Another sickening blow lashed him on the other cheek, throwing him across Oothiana's lap.
"Idiot!" she whispered, helping him up.
Dazed and trying not to whimper, he raised a hand to a face that felt as if he had just shaved with boiling water. Bright Water was glaring very angrily at him, and the dragon chick had settled again on her shoulder.
"You stay away from my Precious, half-breed! If Death Bird didn't need you, I'd fill your belly with worms and rot your bones and—"
"Leave him!" Zinixo growled. "You want your goblin king. You let me put Raspnex up there to watch the rout? How do I know you're not just trapping my votary to aid East and South?"
She cackled shrilly again and spun around to find Raspnex. "Foresee him!"
This time the inspection was brief. Zinixo merely stared at his uncle for a minute and then chuckled heavily, his laughter as deep as the surf on the coast below. "Yes, you come back. As long as you stay away from the women, you do."
"Green doesn't appeal much," Raspnex said.
The witch waggled a lumpy finger at him. "Watch your tongue, dwarf! Let's see a goblin."
The sorcerer shrugged. He began pulling off his shirt, and seemed to melt as he did so. His grayness faded to khaki, his curly hair grew long and straight, solidifying and crawling down his chest in a greasy cue. His head shrank, his legs grew. Nose and ears became longer and pointed. In a few moments he was a middle-aged goblin in a leather loincloth. He smiled, showing that his dwarvish rock-crusher teeth had become more pointed. A whiff of rancid goblin scent wrinkled every nose in the Gazebo.
"Oh, handsome!" the crone shrilled. "And steady! Take a good eye to see that!" She pointed a finger, and arabesques of tattoo appeared on the former dwarfs face. "Long Runner of the Wolves!"
Zinixo stood up. "Stand over there, Long Runner. Downwind! One thing more, Witch." He scowled at little Chicken. "He took a word that belongs to me!"
Yodello: I stole it from a dwarf.
"Phoo! There's a third one; the sequentials know a word. Take theirs in exchange."
For a moment longer the warlock hesitated. Then he nodded. "It's a deal. Go, Uncle. Here's a chance to redeem yourself. You want to take the goblin with you, your Omnipotence, or shall I have it delivered?"
Bright Water shrugged her bony shoulders, and the dragon wobbled. Wind blew straggles of copper hair across her face. "No. Just send them back to the mainland. With a destiny like that, he'll find it."
Humming, she clumped over to the magic carpet.
"Not them," Zinixo said. "Him!"
Rap felt a sudden twinge of hope.
Bright Water turned and scowled. "Need the faun! Death Bird butchers the faun! Doesn't work else. You saw!"
The warlock shook his oversized head, leering triumphantly. "You bought one! I keep the other."
"He's no use to you!"
"He won't be any use to you if I kill him. And I will! Now!"
"No!"
"Yes. I'll count to three!" The dwarf pointed at Rap. "One!"
Oothiana jumped from the couch and moved quickly to a safe distance. Rap's throat tightened so he could hardly breathe. Zinixo was capable of destroying him without a second thought.
"What else d'you want?" Bright Water demanded angrily. For the first time she seemed to be at a loss.
"You've got your king. I'll take the queen."
"Why? What do you want of her?"
The dwarf snarled. "I'll decide that later. She's valuable, that's enough for now. Two!"
Oothiana was staring in horror, hands at her mouth. Rap tried to move, and some invisible power locked him to the couch. And why should he struggle? This would be a much faster death than being handed over to the goblin witch and her beloved Death Bird.
"Haven't got her," Bright Water said sulkily.
"But you know where she is!"
The witch nodded with obvious reluctance.
"Tell!" snapped the warlock—but he did not complete his deadly counting.
"The Rasha woman took her. Tried to sell her to Olybino. East didn't like the price."
Zinixo hissed and hunched his head down, as if facing an attack. "What was that price?"
"Your guess is as good a bag of nuts as any." Bright Water's mad confidence seemed to be returning. "But neither has her now, so you can relax, sonny."
The warlock did not look as if he would ever relax, but he had released the invisible bands around Rap, and Oothiana was looking less frightened. The wind blew cool on Rap's sweat-soaked hair.
The witch stroked her fire chick, turning it mauve again. Rap heard its strange purring noise inside his head.
"The elf wanted her, and I told him where she was."
"So?"
"She was in Zark, in Arakkaran. Lith'rian just happened to have a votary in the town, and he got the child away before Olybino did."
"What's South doing with a votary in East's sector?" Zinixo growled, looking puzzled and even more suspicious than before.
"Who knows? You mean you don't have any tucked away in odd places? Dear Gods, the kid's more honest than he looks! Anyway, this one's only a mage, but he charmed her into going off with him somehow. She's out in the desert—heading for South's sector, I expect. East doesn't know where she is, so he can't produce her for the imperor, as he said he would."
"What's South up to?" The dwarf's expression had turned murderous again, at this talk of the elf.
Rap was wondering the same. He cared nothing for the fate of the impish troops in Krasnegar, nor what the goblins might do to harry them when they left; but he did care about Inos. If the warlock of the south was as bad as these other two wardens, then she must be in horrible danger. He had hated the thought of her being in the power of the sorceress Rasha, but now he thought the wardens were even worse. They were going to marry her off to a goblin, and it sounded as if the imperor had agreed.
"I warned you," Bright Water sneered. "Never ask 'why' of elves, lad. They think like drunk moths. But East thinks he has Kalkor to worry about, the goblins have burned Pondague and are raiding over the pass, and now he can't deliver up a girl the imperor wants to meet. Poor ninny's as red as a djinn."
Zinixo chewed a fingernail. His suspicion seemed to darken the night. "Show me!" he said.
Bright Water shrugged, almost dislodging the fire chick. She glanced around the room, then went into her weird dance again, waltzing over the magic carpet, and eventually arriving in front of the big oval mirror on the wall. She pouted at it for a moment, stroking her fire chick, which turned a ghostly rose shade.
"Must be almost dawn in Zark," she muttered. "They may have struck camp already." The glass shimmered and changed. Rap discovered that he was digging his nails into his palms—this was nastily reminiscent of the magic casement in Krasnegar, which had caused so much trouble.
Soon he heard a strange noise, unlike anything he had ever heard before. It was faint, but it came from the mirror, a monstrous bellowing, distant and muffled, as if filtered through a thick window. Everyone in the Gazebo was watching whatever it was that the witch was doing.
Without warning, a hairy animal face appeared in the frame. It bared giant teeth and roared.
Zinixo leaped to his feet. "What the Evil?"
"It's a camel!" Oothiana shouted, and Bright Water cackled shrilly. The monster faded back into darkness. Now a pearly light flowed from the glass, as if it were a window to somewhere brighter man the darkness that still enshrouded the Gazebo. Bright Water's shadow lay long on the floor; the lamps seemed to have dimmed.
Then a new scene appeared, a row of dark shapes under trees. Rap recognized the trees. They were palms, and Thinal had said that there were palms in Zark. He wiped his forehead and glanced at Little Chicken, who was scowling, and at Oothiana, obviously fascinated. Zinixo was still gnawing his finger. At the far side of the room, the fake
goblin Raspnex was being inscrutable, thick greenish arms folded over his barrel chest.
The view crept closer to the dark shapes, and they became more distinct, a line of black tents.
"This one, I think," the witch said. She might be crazy, but her sorcery was impressive. The tent that now dominated the view was much like all the others, except that it seemed to be flapping more, as if its ropes were loose, and its door flap hung awry. "Let's see, shall we? Queen Inosolan!" Everyone jumped at her shout.
Rap eased forward to the edge of the couch. Nobody noticed.
For a moment only the wind and the sea spoke, and the muffled monster howls from the glass. He held his breath. Inos? Alive and well? He could hear his heart pounding. Again the witch called out "Queen Inosolan!"
The flap moved. Someone scrambled out on hands and knees, then stood up, a dark-shrouded figure with long bright hair. She peered around as if to locate the voice. Even in the predawn gloom, Rap knew her. Tears prickled under his eyelids.
"There she is!" Bright Water remarked triumphantly, stepping aside so that everyone could have a clear view.
They were going to marry Inos off to Little Chicken!
"Oh, that's very nice!" Zinixo said. "Tender and succulent! She shall be my guest until the Four have arranged a marriage for her."
No! No! Rap lurched to his feet, ignoring a gesture from Oothiana. He bounded across the room to the looking glass.
"Inos!" he shouted. "It's me! Rap!"
Inos looked around, puzzled. The glass was muffling his voice. Then she seemed to see him. Her mouth opened, and he heard a faint scream.
Clutching the ornate frame with both hands, he yelled as loud as he could, "Inos! It's a trap! Run away, Inos! Don't stay with them!"
He had hardly time to register another shape that came bursting out of the tent. It charged straight at him with sword flashing in the dawn. Yet an image in a mirror could not hurt him.
Magic could. Before he could utter another word he was hurled away by an invisible impact as heavy as a charging bull.
He crashed full length to the floor, far from the looking glass.
Magic shadow shapes:
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (§68, 1879)
NINE
Dead yesterday
1
The stones dug sharply into Inos's hands and hip. She was sprawled on the cold ground with Kade's comforting arms around her; shaking uncontrollably, not trusting herself to speak.
"I saw it, also!" Azak loomed protectively over them, still holding his scimitar and glowering around at the dawn. Fooni had come out, rubbing sleep from her eyes, bewildered but mercifully silent. Other people were emerging from other tents, alerted by Inos's scream. The camels kept up their awful bawling in the background, and the peaks of the Agonistes glowed pink to the west.
"A wraith?" Kade repeated.
"I know not what else," Azak snarled. "Not that I have ever seen one before. You knew him?" he demanded of Inos.
She nodded miserably.
Rap, oh Rap! It had sounded like Rap. It had looked like Rap, a faint transparent image in a blur of darkness. She had even made out his ever-tangled hair and the stupid tattoos on his face.
But why Rap? She had never thought of Rap as being wicked. Clumsy, maybe. Stubborn. Apt to do damage without meaning to, but never wicked. Yggingi had been an evil man. Andor, too, perhaps. Ekka had certainly schemed most foully. But Inos would never have imagined that there had been more evil than good in Rap. When the Gods had weighed his soul, then surely the balance would have been good, and gone to join the Good and become part of it forever, as the sacred texts said. Only a great sinner left a residue of evil that the Evil itself rejected and left behind to haunt the world as a wraith. Not Rap! If Rap had been judged so evil, than what hope was there for her, for her dead father, for anyone?
The others were approaching warily, starting to ask questions. Then the men noticed uncovered female faces and turned back. The women drew closer, jabbering.
"'Twas nothing!" Azak insisted, whirling on them fiercely. "Merely a bad dream." When they retreated in haste, he seemed to realize that he was still brandishing his sword; he sheathed it.
Kade tried to lift, and Inos let herself be helped to her feet. She fought to control her trembling limbs. "I'm fine!" she said.
"Inos?" Kade whispered, blue eyes wide. "Who was it?"
"It was Rap."
"Rap? Oh, no!" But probably Kade was relieved that Inos had not seen her father.
"Who was this Rap?" Azak demanded.
Inos just shook her head.
Kade explained. "A servant in her father's house. A groom. He was slain by the imps, we thought."
"He must have died somehow. There are no footprints where I saw him. My blade passed right through the vision." Azak also was showing the whites of his eyes. He must be more troubled than he would admit. He rounded on little Fooni and roared at her to make coffee. Fooni fled. Kade helped Inos toward the tent, and suddenly her legs steadied.
"I'm all right," she insisted. "I can walk."
Azak lifted the flap, and they all went inside, away from prying eyes. Inos sprawled loosely down on her bedding and shivered. Kade drew a blanket over her shoulders for her.
"It spoke," Azak said. "What did this apparition say to you?"
"It . . . he . . . it said something about me being in a trap. It said to flee, to run away."
The big man grunted. He adjusted his sword and sat down cross-legged. "Which is exactly what we were about to do."
"We can't now," Inos whispered, thinking of the crowd that had appeared. She huddled the blanket tighter.
"Not today, anyway. Tomorrow we shall be farther inland, away from the boat. And it may not wait for us." He scratched at his stubbled face and scowled.
"Wraiths are the embodiment of Evil!" Kade protested. "Whatever it said we must ignore! It would be the height of folly to take the advice of a wraith!"
Inos looked at Azak and they nodded simultaneously.
"We must not trust it!" he said.
Yet it had seemed so much like Rap! It had sounded so much like Rap, Rap very agitated about something. She had never thought of Rap as especially clever. Dogged. Well meaning. Earnest. And had Rap spoken as emphatically as that, he would have had good reason. He had never played silly practical jokes, like Lin or Verantor.
She discovered that her instincts were telling her to trust what the eerie vision had said. Run away! But Kade was being sensible. To take the advice of a ghost would be insanely foolish. Its motives would always be evil.
Rap had helped the goblin kill the proconsul. Had that been the wickedness that had tipped the balance? Oh, Rap!
Azak was staring. What must he be thinking of her?
"I'm a fool," she said. "I should not have cried out like that. It was just so sudden, so unexpected."
"Perfectly natural."
Perfectly natural for sheltered palace flowers, but that was not how she wished to be judged.
"No, it was unforgivable. I am ashamed."
"Queen Inosolan," Azak said softly, his dark gaze unwavering, "you reacted by shouting for help. Why not? You faced an unexpected danger. You were alone and unarmed. I reacted by charging like a mad bull. That was not rational or forgivable, for I had not taken time to assess the nature of the enemy. And if you fear that I may think the less of you because of what has just happened, then please set your mind completely at rest. Ever since I watched you ride my most ungovernable horse, my lady, I have never doubted your courage, nor shall I ever doubt it. You taught me that a woman could be brave like few men I know, and that was a wonder beyond all my experience and outside the lore of the ancients."
Huh? Inos gaped. She had never expected to provoke a speech
like that from the giant. In fact, she was astonished to discover he was capable of it. She had just found another unexpected facet of his character.
Before she could frame a reply worthy of her Kinvale training, the tent door was darkened by a large bulk. "First Lionslayer, may I enter?"
Azak flashed the women a glance of warning. "Enter and be welcome to my humble abode, Greatness."
Sheik Elkarath stooped and came in, wheezing softly, massive enough to make the tent seem crowded. He had discarded his many-colored garments before leaving the city and now wore a simple white robe. He sank to his knees, not looking at faces. "May all the Gods respect this house," he muttered formally to the matting.
Azak gave a ritual response, offering food and water.
"You have troubles, Lionslayer?" The sheik fingered his rings and still did not raise his eyes.
Azak hesitated, then told the story. Swift sunrise brightened the tent. Inos cowered inside her blanket, still trying to control her shivers.
Thinking of Rap.
"And her Majesty knew the man," Azak concluded. The only item he had not mentioned was that the sheik's chief guard had been planning to desert and take his companions with him. But there were bundles lying around, and a wily old trader might well be wondering why someone had been packing at so early an hour.
"Majesty?" he murmured, with a glance in the general direction of Inos.
"One of her late father's stablehands," Kade explained. "Slain by the imps who pursued us."
The old man thoughtfully stroked his snowy beard with plump fingers that splattered rainbows. "And what did it say to you?"
Inos found her tongue and repeated the wraith's words as well as she could recall them.
"Ah!" Elkarath nodded. The sunlight flashed crimson from the rubies on his headband, and some jewel among his rings streaked orange fire. "Did the sorceress ever meet this man?"