Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

  "Well, your Eminence? Have you any further surprises left to brighten our day?"

  "No, your Highness," Epoxague said. "I am being surprised myself now."

  "You may be more surprised yet," Ythbane retorted sourly. "This is hardly the place ..." For a moment his attention went to the great crowd around the campus. It was obviously thinning out now. Some ominous clusters of activity hinted at casualties being attended, but there had been no disaster. Yet the roads would not become passable again for a while yet. He shrugged.

  "But we might as well get started. And who is this young man? A goblin supporter, obviously. A faun?" He glance around. "Jotnar and a djinn. A troll! We have a motley assortment of participants!"

  Kade spoke up quickly. "His name is Rap, your Highness, a retainer of my late brother's. He has been accompanying me on my travels."

  Oh, very neatly done! The regent nodded and lost interest in Rap. How fortunate that Inos had not embraced him!

  But why had Inos not embraced him? She had spread her arms and then been somehow distracted, or stopped. Had Rap done that? That called for sorcery, surely. And he had not said how he had escaped from Azak's jail, although obviously Azak's horrible story had been a basket of lies. This strange melancholy ... was Rap oppressed by the thought of the duel with Kalkor? She knew she must not keep staring at him, but her eyes wouldn't listen to her. Rap himself seemed to be studying the old imperor, who slept on in his carrying chair, a shriveled relic swathed in a tasseled wool rug, oblivious now to all events in the great realm he had ruled for so long.

  "Sultana Inosolan!" Ythbane fixed her with a glittery gaze, and she jumped. She was suddenly aware that the regent's reported influence on women was no myth. Small, and not especially handsome, he was yet dominating the assembled court much more than a mere throne ought to account for, or all his jewels and finery. Despite that absurd wooden chair and the ugly canopy above his head, he was projecting power and dignity. No one else was talking. Only Kalkor seemed unimpressed, silently observing proceedings with a silent sneer on his demonic and grotesquely bloody features.

  "Sultana Inosolan," the regent repeated thoughtfully. "We can agree on that title, surely?"

  Inos hesitated. Azak shot her one of his lion glares, but she resisted it. Rap was alive, after all, and now she knew that Azak had always been a delusion. Perhaps she had not been very fair to Azak, but then he had not been fair to her at all. Her consent to the marriage had been extracted by open threat.

  Always she had assumed that Rap was dead, so she had never even considered him — not since her father died, anyway ...

  No, that was not true. She had never thought of Rap as a lover. She had never allowed herself to think of him that way, for he had been only a stableboy and all her upbringing had insisted that she would have to marry a noble. That had been her great error. Only after he had turned up alive in Arakkaran had she realized how she felt about him, and then it had seemed too late. But it wasn't too late! Rap was alive, and her marriage to Azak had never been consummated. It wasn't a valid marriage yet.

  To bring that up now would really put the wolves in the fold.

  A lifetime with Azak? No — a lifetime with Rap!

  Evil take her upbringing!

  Her mind was wandering like a songbird escaped from a cage.

  "Your Highness?" she said, trying to school her face into Kade's most witless expression; feeling even more witless under it.

  Ythbane's eyes narrowed. "You can hardly expect to be both Queen of Krasnegar and Sultana of Arakkaran. Which is it to be?"

  "Er ..." Inos looked up again at Azak's murderous stare. Then she turned to look at Rap, and for a moment saw ... Then it was gone. His face became completely unreadable. What had she seen? Pain? Longing? He had crossed the world to be at her side, and now come halfway back again. Surely she need not doubt what Rap wanted?

  She was descended from a long line of kings. She raised her throbbing chin defiantly. "Your Highness, my husband wishes to appeal to the Council of Four. Until they have heard his petition and rendered judgment, then I cannot decide where my best interests lie."

  "Ha!" Kalkor crowed. "She does not recognize me as King of Krasnegar!"

  "You be silent!" Ythbane shouted. He glanced around. "Where is he? Ambassador Krushjor! Come and remove this naked savage. Wash him and clothe him decently, or throw him back in his cage if you prefer, but get him out of my —"

  "Watch your tongue, upstart!" Kalkor snarled. "Does this female recognize me as King of Krasnegar? For if not, then I challenge her to a Reckoning."

  "You'll do no such thing!" Ythbane shouted. "We have had quite enough of that murderous nonsense."

  Azak's harsh djinn voice boomed out. "Your Imperial Highness, the jotunn assaulted my wife in your presence. Can you not apply suitable discipline?"

  The court drew breath at the effrontery. Ythbane's pallid face flushed bright. "Unfortunately, not easily. He has diplomatic immunity. We could have him shipped across the border in fetters, and that is beginning to seem like a very good idea."

  "There is a prophecy," Kalkor said.

  Ythbane looked startled. "What prophecy? Prophesied by whom?"

  "Ask the woman."

  Everyone looked back at Inos.

  "My ancestor, the Sorcerer Inisso," she said, "— he left a magic casement in his tower in Krasnegar. It prophesied for me. It prophesied that Thane Kalkor would fight a duel, a Reckoning."

  "He just did," the regent snapped. The Kalkor affair was entangling his court like a net, and his anger was both obvious and understandable.

  It was also starting to make Inos jumpy, or perhaps it was all the eyes on her doing that, although that was even sillier. "Not against a t-troll. And for me. In the p-p-prophecy, his opponent —"

  "Magic casements do not prophesy," Rap said.

  Now all eyes went to him.

  "And what do you know about magic casements, young man?" the regent growled.

  "I have some power," Rap admitted.

  The watchers quivered. Suddenly, although no one visibly moved, there was a gap around him. Even Inos felt a shiver of alarm — Rap had met a dragon, and dragons belonged to the warlock of the south. It had been Lith'rian who had sent him to Arakkaran. Who or what was this strangely somber Rap?

  He was Rap, wasn't he? Really Rap?

  Kalkor broke the silence with a chuckle that raised the little hairs on the back of her neck. "He is the one I fight."

  "We want no more Reckonings," the regent said, but he sounded less confident than before.

  For a moment there seemed to be an impasse, as if no one knew what should happen next. The crowds were leaving, streaming over the bank and out of sight; the legionaries were falling out and slumping on the sodden grass to rub their shoulders and mutter curses. The rain was starting again.

  And Inos was thinking furiously. The casement had shown Rap fighting Kalkor, and then it had shown him dying in the goblin's lodge. If he did fight Kalkor, then he survived, surely? Of course she didn't want Rap to die at all, but if both prophecies were inevitable, then she couldn't do anything to stop them. And if they weren't inevitable, then she wanted to let this one happen and stop the second. That was logical, wasn't it?

  If he didn't fight Kalkor, then she was going to have to yield her kingdom to the thane. She could not bear the thought of the decent, humble folk of Krasnegar being handed over to that monster.

  And as if he could read her thoughts —

  "Do you recognize me as King of Krasnegar?" Kalkor asked, blue eyes mocking.

  "No!" Inos said.

  "Then, by the God of Truth, I —"

  "Stop!" the regent shouted. "We have had one murder committed here today, and we want ... want to make it perfectly clear that ..." He paused. Then his voice dropped. "That, if there is indeed a prophecy, then we are going to have another."

  Senior courtiers hid astonishment behind well-trained nods. Ythbane drew himself up on his throne, scowling. The less
er onlookers glanced at one another in worried surmise. A whirl of wind napped cloaks and buffeted the awning. The shower drummed harder on it.

  "But who will be the lady's champion?" Kalkor asked with a cynical smile. "Sultan Azak?"

  Azak's face flamed dark mahogany. "Not me!"

  "He spat on your wife," the regent said.

  The sultan glared murder at him, but he folded his arms and kept himself under control. "Not me. I care nothing for Krasnegar."

  So where now was the overbearing bully-boy of Arakkaran? Where was his prickly djinn honor? Inos felt her lip curl in contempt, and did not care who might notice.

  Yet she did not understand what was happening. Only Kalkor seemed to know that.

  "You will hire no more trolls," the regent said. "Not after what happened to Mord. If we allow this affair to proceed, then who will be your champion, lady?"

  "Rap?" she whispered.

  Rap said, "No."

  Ythbane glanced from Kalkor to Rap and back again, as if he had had a sudden understanding. "Is sorcery permitted in Reckonings?"

  "Certainly not," Kalkor said.

  "Then, Sultana, we think you had best yield to Thane Kalkor before it is too late."

  The bystanders had caught the hint. Kalkor had felled the Impire's best gladiator like a blind farmhand, and this strange young faun had admitted to being a sorcerer.

  If not the faun, then who else could accept the match?

  Kade's gentle voice intervened. "Master Rap —"

  Rap said, "No."

  Inos clenched her fists. She knew Rap's stubborn look, and there it was. "Not for me, Rap. Think of the people of Krasnegar!"

  He shot her a glance of pure agony, then set his big jaw again. He said, "No," again.

  The wind thumped the awning, and the patter of raindrops speeded up. A few groups of citizens still lingered, chattering or watching the royals in their compound, but the great crowds had gone from the grassy bank, leaving it tattered and muddy. The legionaries were forming up in their cohorts.

  "This is so disappointing!" Kalkor said, with a sneer. "Master Rap, what of your destiny?"

  Rap said, "No."

  "Well, perhaps I can reassure you. Krushjor!"

  The jotnar were huddled at the rear of the enclosure, well back from the awning, being spurned by the gentry. Now the old ambassador stepped forward a pace and called, "Thane?"

  "Send over our most recent recruit."

  "Now what?" demanded the regent suspiciously.

  Bloodsoaked and half naked, Kalkor bowed low, more in mockery than respect. "One of the persons included in your Imperial safe conduct, Highness. An old friend of Master Rap's."

  The jotnar had opened their ranks to release a short, broad youth. He wore impish garments, but he was certainly no imp.

  Inos glanced back at Rap. If Kalkor had hoped to elicit some emotion from him, he had failed. Rap watched without expression as the newcomer walked forward. But even back in Krasnegar Rap had possessed farsight. He must have known who had been hidden in there.

  Khaki skin, lank black hair ... straggly bristles around an oversized mouth spread now in a gruesome smile ... teeth like white daggers. He was about the shortest person present, except for the prince, but very thick and burly. This was the same young goblin Inos had seen with Rap before, the one Rap had said wanted to kill him. The one who did kill him in the casement's vision. She had forgotten his name.

  Courtiers cleared out of his way with glances of distaste.

  "Hello, Flat Nose." Angular eyes gleamed.

  "Hello, Little Chicken," Rap said evenly. "I sort of expected you would turn up soon."

  The big grin grew wider yet. "The witch gave me a promise!"

  "You would be a strong swimmer, I expect; once you learned."

  The goblin nodded cheerfully.

  "Would someone care to explain?" Ythbane said in a dangerously low voice. "Witch?"

  Rap shrugged. "It is another prophecy, your Highness. The anthropophagi tried to eat him, but I expect he was too tough for them."

  The goblin chortled and the regent flushed furiously.

  "We have taken all the insolence we will tolerate. This court will adjourn to the palace, and we will have some real answers if it takes hot irons to get them."

  "But we have a challenge to consider," Kalkor's mild protest stilled the fidgeting courtiers. "We were trying to stiffen the faun's backbone. You did meet the dragon, I suppose?" he asked of Rap.

  "Yes."

  "I thought you would. And yet you distrust the casement? Such a shocking lack of faith! Or are you trying to break the chain before our green friend gets his hands on you?"

  Rap said, "No."

  "What then of your great love for Inosolan? — the love you confessed to me so touchingly when we had that delightful chat on my ship?"

  Rap said, "No," a little louder than before.

  Oh, Rap, Rap!

  "And where is the courage you displayed so convincingly last summer? Where is the hero who tried to sink me and my crew?"

  The onlookers drew breath in surprise.

  Rap said, "No."

  "Afraid, Master Rap?"

  Rap looked down at the turf and said, "Yes!"

  "Truly, I am chagrined!" Kalkor's sapphire eyes danced with mockery. He turned and stared thoughtfully at the arena, almost empty of civilians now. The legionaries were forming up, preparing to leave also.

  Again Inos noted the little prince beside the throne. He was very pale, and shaking as if he had a fever. The mute stare he was directing at his mother seemed to hold some sort of appeal, but she was hunched in her chair, sulking and paying no attention to anyone. Had she no concern for her son's health? And why would a boy of his age not be more interested in this talk of fighting and sorcery? Was he halfwitted? Had Epoxague been hinting at that this morning?

  Kalkor sighed, regarding Rap again with his habitual contempt. "I suppose I shall just have to bear my sorrows and accept the responsibility of kingship so harshly thrust upon my reluctant shoulders. Here, then, my friend — a remembrance! A parting gift."

  With a flick of his hand, he tossed something across the group to Rap, as if playing catch.

  Apparently without thinking, Rap reached out and caught it ... whatever it was ...

  Something red.

  Something about the size of a closed fist ...

  Rap yelped and leaped back, dropping the strange object as if it had burned him. He vanished, completely. Courtiers cried out and recoiled in alarm from the empty spot where the faun had stood.

  The gift, whatever it was, had vanished also, but the grass there was spotted with blood.

  Ythbane leaped to his feet. "What was that?" he barked. "What's happening?"

  Kalkor moved his rain-streaked shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. "I really have no idea, your Highness. Apparently Master Rap has been called away by urgent business. A friend unexpectedly taken sick, most like." He chuckled gutturally.

  The regent was clearly at a loss, and the onlookers flinched as realization came to them also — there had been two evident sorceries. The faun had vanished, but the jotunn had thrown something that he had not been holding only moments before, and he certainly had no pockets in that tatter of fur he wore.

  Then Rap was back. The courtiers surged away again, isolating the two antagonists. Rap's face had turned sallow and his eyes bulged. He stared at the thane and made choking noises.

  Kalkor sighed. "Not literally a heart of gold, of course, but I'm sure he had many admirable qualities."

  "Monster!" Rap cried, his voice breaking. "Demon of Evil!"

  "Flattery will avail you naught. Spare me your unseemly protestations of gratitude."

  "Heartless monster!"

  "Heartless?" Kalkor repeated, looking hurt. "Oh, no! Not me! Him, yes, but what would you expect of a mere sailor? You didn't try to put it back, did you?"

  Rap turned on Inos, and she cringed before the unexplained horror she saw in him.
/>
  "All right!" he shouted. "I'll do it! Take his challenge and I'll kill the swine for you!"

  He spun on his heel and ran.

  "You!" Ythbane yelled, starting. "Come back here! Guards — catch that man!"

  Praetorians jerked into motion. Courtiers scattered.

  Chasing him would do no good, Inos knew. Not if Rap was now a sorcerer.

  "Inos!"

  She glanced down at Kade, who was staring at her with obvious joy. "Your cheeks, dear!"

  Inos raised fingers to the cosmetic flaking from her face, and there was no soreness there at all.

  2

  The afternoon seemed to go on forever.

  When Ythbane selected his victims, Inos was first on the list. She was shipped off to the palace in a very bouncy coach, accompanied by three steely-eyed legionaries who refused to talk, or explain, or answer questions of any kind.

  The Opal Palace was world famous, but she was taken in through a back door and hence saw nothing to impress her. Then she was left in a room of blank walls and hard benches where her jailors were now women, built like basalt basilisks, and no more interested in conversation.

  Of course imperors and their replacements were dangerous persons to offend, and Inos knew she was in considerable danger. She discovered that it did not seem to matter very much. If they boiled her toes, they could not spoil this day for her. Rap was alive and well! Nothing else mattered. Let Azak worry about his curse, and Arakkaran, and the stupid war. He could go home alone and chase goats all day for the rest of his life — and breed sons all night, for that matter — and Inos would not care if he didn't even say good-bye.

  Kade had escaped, too, and that was wonderful, but the big thing was that Rap lived, and he loved her. He had cured her burns. He would be her champion at the Reckoning. Rap was a sorcerer! Indeed Rap seemed to be able to work miracles, and she would never doubt him again, nor doubt the power of love.

  She had likely been sequestered to give her time to worry herself into a panic. In fact, she had indulged in an hour or so of dreamy contemplation when she was taken off to be questioned by the regent himself. He was obviously in a foul temper. With half a dozen secretaries taking notes, she talked and talked and talked. She had no secrets to conceal, nothing to keep back. Ythbane himself paced the floor like a caged animal, and did not suggest that she might wish to sit. He was a shrewd interrogator; he had a very powerful personality. She did not think she could have held back anything had she wanted to.