Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

  Twice he pushed Kade into doorways as patrols went by in the distance. There must be guards on high places who might see. It was madness, total madness.

  At last he brought her to an alley and stopped. He wiped his face with a thin, pale hand. For a minute he seemed to lack breath.

  "This is the building! How to get in, though?"

  The stonework looked older than most, but Kadolan doubted that even Thinal could scale it, and the windows were all barred, even on the topmost, third story.

  "We shall have to find a door," she said, and set off along the alley. His footsteps followed. She found a door. It was very small, and very solid, with a small peephole but no handle or keyhole.

  "Bolt hole," Sagorn muttered. "Back exit. Not an entrance."

  That one looked hopeless. Kadolan continued her progress. Maddeningly, the buildings on the other side had several doors, most raised a couple of cubits above ground level, as if for unloading wagons. One of them was ajar, too. She wondered if the cellars might connect belowground, but as Sagorn had said, they did not have a week to explore. The alley led to a courtyard. She peered cautiously around the corner, along to the main entrance, an imposing archway with guards posted. She backed hurriedly.

  "It will have to do!" she said firmly, and retraced her steps to the obscure little door they had found earlier. She stopped a few paces back from it and racked her brains.

  "Even Darad can't break that down!" Sagorn protested. His deep-grooved face was gray with worry. "If he had an ax and an hour and no interruptions . . ."

  Kadolan's heart was fluttering like a butterfly, and she felt light-headed. Somewhere she had cast herself adrift; she was reckless with a victory-or-death sensation she had never known before. It must be her jotunn blood showing, a trait from some ancient berserker ancestor. She wondered if she might have a seizure before the problem was resolved, and discovered that she did not care. She was staking everything now.

  "I can't go back, can I? Let's knock and see what happens."

  He closed his eyes and shuddered. "Then I must call Darad."

  "Andor? If I knock, and someone comes, then Andor could talk him into opening the door."

  Sagorn shook his head wearily. "Andor is drunk."

  "Drunk? Sir Andor?" That did not sound like the cultured young gentleman she had known in Kinvale.

  "It was in a good cause." Sagorn leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes. "Andor is drunk. Thinal is dazzled by his own importance and dizzy from lack of sleep. Jalon, of course, would be totally useless in an escapade such as this." He shook his head. "And you and I're both too old for such nonsense. It is hopeless!"

  "Rubbish!" Kadolan said. "Listen! If that is a sort-of-secret way out, then it may also be a sort-of-secret way in, may it not? These djinns are all half crazy with intrigue . . . spies and double agents, coming to report? There may very well be a doorman within earshot, waiting to let them in. Now you call Sir Andor . . . No?"

  "It will lead to swordplay. Even sober, Andor is only an amateur swordsman."

  "You called him earlier."

  "Thinal called him. He didn't think. It will have to be Darad, whichever one of us calls him."

  "Not Darad!"

  Darad had killed a woman for half a word.

  Baffled silence and angry glares.

  "You are the thinker, Doctor! Think!"

  Sagorn sighed. "Listen, Kade, Darad might be all right. Especially if you talk to him about Rap! Darad likes Rap now."

  She found that hard to believe. The faun had set his dog on Darad, and his tame goblin, too. He had smashed chairs on Darad. But if it had to be Darad, it had to be Darad.

  "Very well. Go ahead! I'll risk it."

  Sagorn gave her a disbelieving look. "Gods be with you, my dear."

  Impudence!

  Then the green clothes ballooned, and stitches ripped, and the giant was there.

  Clenching fists, she raised her head to see the scars and tattoos, the battered nose and an enormous wolf-like grin. "Good morning, Master Darad," she said faintly.

  An earthquake of silent laughter shook his monstrous form. He leered. "And good day to you, lady. Need my help now, do you?"

  She fell back a step. "I am truly sorry that I hurt you when you were in Krasnegar. My loyalty to my niece, you understand — "

  A guttural chuckle stopped her. "Jotunn blood?"

  "Er? Oh, yes. Our family is about half imp and half jotunn."

  "Jotnar breed good warriors," he agreed. "Shows in Rap, too."

  Ah! "I want to visit Master Rap. He is in serious trouble."

  A nightmare scowl replaced the leer. "Yes. To make him a mage, right? Filthy djinns! And time is short, right? Good man, the faun. Must hurry. Well, you knock, and see what happens!" The jotunn ripped off his cloak and dropped it. He drew his sword in a flash of steel that made her jump; then he stepped back against the wall beside the door.

  Shivering, Kade checked that her yashmak was in place. She placed herself in front of the peephole and rapped on the wood. She wondered if that puny noise would be audible at all inside. She kept her eyes down — blue eyes, not red djinn eyes. She could see Darad's feet, his toes protruding from the remains of Sagorn's boots. She could see the sword. Dawn breezes ruffled her robe and brought soothing scents of morning, of grass and flowers. There were still songbirds in the world, too, and not far off.

  She counted fifty heartbeats. Then she raised her hand to knock again, and a voice spoke from the grille. "The cricket sings low."

  Password? Merciful Gods, what would be the reply to that?

  "I have a message from the Big Man."

  "The password?"

  "I was not told the password!" she cried, still not looking up. She remembered the lionslayers — "Women are not told the passwords."

  "Women don't bring messages from the sultan."

  "Then his message will not arrive, and he will want to know why."

  The man grunted. After a long, nerve-wrenching silence, she heard a bolt being drawn. The hinges swung in well-oiled silence.

  Kadolan was hurled aside and almost fell as Darad spun around the jamb, slammed the door wide, and vanished into the dark interior. She heard a bone-cracking thump and a muffled cry. She followed, through the entrance, into a small, dark chamber. There was a chair in one corner, stairs opposite, a body on the floor, and a dark giant standing over it, topped by a gap-tooth wolfish grin.

  "Good so far!" Darad rumbled. "Shut the door. Right. You stay close now!"

  "Wait!"

  A body on the floor!

  She had killed a man.

  Where was the good in that, to offset the obvious evil? The thought was appalling, and even worse was the certainty that she could not halt what she had started, and more bloodshed must follow. Ignoring her command to wait, the warrior went leaping up the stairs, sword in hand.

  "Stop!" she cried, and hurried after him. She heard crashes and a shriek that became a ghastly bubbling noise as she emerged into another room. Light streamed through a barred window onto three bodies and Darad gloating over them. Killer and floor and furniture were splattered with brilliant red. She had never seen so much blood.

  This was a talent for fighting magnified to genius by a word of power.

  One of the men on the floor began to groan, and move. Darad casually chopped off his head.

  Kadolan spun away from the sight, thrusting knuckles into her mouth to stifle a rising scream. The room began to sway, but she was granted no time for hysterics or fainting. The door flew open and a brown-clad man burst in and stopped, staring down aghast at the slaughter. Darad crossed the room in a blur, grabbed the newcomer by his tunic, hauling him forward and slamming him back against the stonework . . . once . . . twice. Then he dropped him.

  They listened. Silence.

  The jotunn leered at Kadolan's expression. "Only djinns!" he said, sheathing his bloody sword. "Come here. You listen good."

  He stopped and raised the man he had
stunned, pushed him against the wall again, and this time held him there with no visible effort. He slapped his victim's face a few times to rouse him, then pulled the man's own dagger from his belt and held the point before his eyes.

  "You know where the faun is?"

  The guard was barely more than a boy, one of the family men. He sported a pink mustache, but his beardless cheeks had turned a sickly pale mauve. His turban had fallen off, loosing torrents of ginger curls, and all the knives and swords and blades hung on his person were going to do him no good at all. He made some incoherent gibbering noises.

  The point of the dagger went into his left nostril. Ruby eyes bulged and his neck seemed to stretch.

  "You know where the faun is? Else you no good to me, djinn."

  "Yethir."

  "Tell me how to go there."

  "Ug . . . ug . . ."

  "Tell or die!"

  "Go right. Second left. Right. Downstairs all the way."

  "That's all?"

  "Yethir!" Suddenly he screamed: "I swear it!"

  "Good!" Darad cut his throat and dropped him. He said, "Come, lady, shut the door," and shot out into the hallway.

  Kade reeled after him, closing the door. Darad was already only a fading drumbeat of footsteps, and he apparently did not need her assistance with the simple directions.

  He met only one more man on the way. Kade heard an oath, but by the time she turned the corner, the wide corridor was empty. She hurried along the trail of blood, wondering if Darad was taking the corpse to use as a shield, or if he was just expecting to hide evidence. Many of the stains must be dribbles from Darad himself, for he had bathed in it.

  Left . . . right . . . She came to a dark opening, access to a spiral stair. Faint muffled thumps of boots came from below. She ran on to the next corner and stretched on tiptoe to remove a lamp from its hook. Then she came back to explore the stairs.

  They were narrow and uneven and tricky, the only handhold a thick rope hanging by the newel, winding down into the unknown. She was grateful for it, though, thinking that a broken leg now would not help the cause at all. Darad must be far ahead of her, committing Gods-knew what sort of atrocities on her behalf. Shadows danced for her lamp. She almost tripped on a body, and lost more time clambering by it to continue her descent. It was probably the one Darad had been dragging.

  She emerged into a dark and extremely fetid cellar, and the feeble lamp showed nothing but floor anywhere. She listened and heard nothing but a faint dripping . . . only water, hopefully . . . and an echoing hollowness that suggested a large space. Then she thought to examine the floor and found a few spots of blood. Of course they led to another opening, another stair, right by the one she had just left. Even Darad had found that.

  The second stair was narrower and steeper, and carved from solid rock. There was no rope to cling to, either. Up in the real world, night had ended. Here it never would, but her lamp was already guttering and its supply of oil might be timed to run out just after dawn. The air was indescribably thick and fetid. She shivered convulsively, and she would have fled anywhere in the world had she been able to think how to go about it. Five men dead already! Somehow the jotunn's command to follow seemed to be the only option open to her, and her feet continued to obey without any further instructions from her.

  Then a monster reared up out of the dark in front of her — pale eyes glaring in a blood-covered ogreish face . . . white canine teeth like fangs . . . Great scarlet hands reached for her, snatched her lantern away, and extinguished it. Shocked and blinded, she overbalanced and would most certainly have fallen had the giant not taken her bodily in those gory hands. He carried her as he backed down to the foot of the steps.

  Breathless and giddy, Kadolan found herself in a bare room like a cave, its rock-carved roof low enough to be oppressive even for her, while Darad was forced to stoop. She saw no furniture, only some ominous chains heaped in one corner and corroded staples set into the walls. Somewhere she could hear voices.

  There were a few doors set in the side walls, all closed and very likely hiding nothing but empty cells. Even for a dungeon this place had a very unused feel to it.

  The end wall, facing the stair, held two doorways, side by side. One door was open, showing the cell beyond it utter black and presumably empty; but the other door was closed, and light was streaming from a barred grille in that closed door. This was horribly reminiscent of a chapel, the bright window and the dark. But the voices also were coming from the illuminated cell.

  The air was nauseating. She wondered how anyone could stand it, and was glad she could not identify all the mingled stenches. Yet she thought she registered a slight breeze, and of course this sewer would become a deathtrap very soon if it had no ventilation at all.

  Untroubled by heat or stink or religious symbolism, Darad was standing, listening, and literally scratching his head. Beyond the door dice rattled, and some men laughed. Master Rap must be in there. Azak had ordered that the prisoner was to be guarded at all times.

  Perhaps Azak had also given orders that the prisoner was to be killed at the first sign of a rescue attempt. Most certainly the door would be bolted on the inside. It would not be opened to strangers, nor without this empty space being inspected through the grille. Those were obvious precautions.

  There seemed to be at least four or five men in there. How many could one jotunn killer handle at a time? How could the intruders persuade the defenders to open the door? How long before someone found the shambles upstairs and the guards arrived in force?

  Kade leaned weakly against the wall and wondered why she had ever expected to outwit Azak at his own game. The sultans of Arakkaran had been practicing this sort of iniquity for centuries; he had probably imbibed a skill for it with his mother's milk.

  Darad turned to glance at her, and she could just see the hideous expression on his bloody face. He had drawn his sword again and didn't know what to do with it. She was in command.

  "Andor," she whispered.

  There was a pause, and then the man holding the sword was Andor. He almost dropped it, and the point struck the floor with a clink that sounded terrifyingly loud. Andor staggered, then recovered. He had not been heard; the gaming and laughter continued.

  He stared down in horror at his sodden garments, and then scowled at Kade. "Now you know how it feels to have Darad's memories."

  "How do we get in there?" she responded urgently.

  Time was desperately short. There was a trail of blood, there were bodies . . . there was certainly no time to wonder how they were ever going to get out.

  Andor belched and wiped his mouth with his free hand, pulling a face. He blinked at the solitary square of light. "Haven't the foggiesh," he whispered.

  "Can you talk them into opening the door?"

  "How many?"

  "At least four."

  He shook his head, and swayed. "Too many. Just one, maybe. But they'll cluster near the door for a sshtrnger — stranger. Beshides, 'm not at my best today. Take too long."

  He blinked fondly at Kadolan and smiled a sheepish grin that called up all her mother instincts to understand and forgive.

  She suppressed them. "Then call Doctor Sagorn and see if he has any bright ideas."

  "At least he's sober," Andor agreed solemnly, and vanished with a final circumspect hiccup.

  Sagorn snapped, "Come!" Moving awkwardly, as if trying to avoid the touch of wet cloth, he led the way across the cave and ducked into the empty cell. Kadolan followed, wishing she was going to the light, not the dark — to the Good, not the Evil. Even she almost had to duck for the low doorway. The place was rank, a kennel, and the putrid, ammoniacal stench told her what it was being used for. But it was dark, and they could not be seen from the grille.

  "How do we get in there?" she repeated. "Or separate them?"

  "I don't know! Warfare is not my skill. I think we just wait and trust our luck. Be quiet and let me think."

  Kade stood and trembled, and
knew that she was doing no useful thinking at all. All those deaths to save one man! And likely two more deaths would follow when she and her varying companion were discovered. It was terribly wrong. She had sinned dreadfully. She was serving the Evil.

  A clatter of metal from the other door sent more icy tremors through her. Hinges creaked. Sagorn grunted and pulled her back, away from the faint gray rectangle of the doorway. Then the man holding her arm was Darad again.

  "Have one for me, too, Arg!" a voice called, and there was laughter.

  "You hold your own, Kuth!" a clearer voice shouted, out in the dark antechamber. The hinge creaked as the man closed the door behind him. "I couldn't handle anything that size!"

  There was another chorus of laughter and shouted agreements from Kuth. The door slammed and the bolt scraped. Arg brought no lantern, so there was only one place he could be going.

  His shape darkened the entrance. He stopped and spread his feet. Darad waited until he was in full stream before he moved. Kade had already closed her eyes. When she opened them, the giant was dragging the body away from the doorway.

  And was Sagorn again.

  He stared down at the latest corpse. "That was unexpected," he muttered.

  "Does it help?"

  "I can't see how, except that it feels like luck. Two people with words of power ought to be twice as lucky, I'd think," he muttered. "And right now anything would help . . . Ah!" He released a long sigh of inspiration.

  "What — " Kadolan said.

  "Just watch. Here!" He pulled a dagger from his belt — a dagger that might still be warm from cutting a boy's throat. "Even Darad may need assistance this time."

  The handle was sticky. Kade accepted it reluctantly, unable to conceive that she would ever bring herself to use it. She opened her mouth to say so, and discovered she was facing yet another man — a shorter one, but not Thinal. Pale jotunn hair shone in the darkness. She should have recognized him, but she guessed first.

  "Jalon?"

  As Andor had, the minstrel looked down at his bloodstained clothes and he shuddered even harder. His teeth chattered briefly. She knew Master Jalon to be a gentle, sensitive person, a dreamer. Never a killer.