Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

  "You must get ready!" he growled, frowning shaggy white brows. He disapproved of Rap. Mongrels should not be allowed to participate in sacred jotunn ceremonies, and this one did not look much like a fighter anyway.

  "There's time yet," Rap snapped.

  What he really should be doing was practicing sorcery. Hearing his fourth word had been a cataclysmic experience, greater than any of the others had produced. His mind still jangled from it. Perhaps the goblin's word had been especially strong, or perhaps this was just what being a sorcerer was. He felt as if he had been given an extra set of senses.

  Now he knew the ambience itself, like a whole additional occult world superimposed on the mundane. He could see it without seeing it — or smell it, taste it, feel it, hear it, and none of those words fit exactly what he knew. It was another plane, to which he could move without leaving where he was. Hub was a great city to his eyes, but in that other set of dimensions it was a universe of shadows inhabited by glowing beacons of sorcery.

  Beacons, or standing rolls of thunder, or monstrous shapes, as he chose. Between them were the little whirls and flashes of minor magics: a woman using glamour to ensnare a lover, an occultly gifted cook producing a masterpiece of pastry for a lord's table, a merchant sweetly swindling an unsuspecting opponent. He could see them as they were, if he wished, or he could view their extensions in the ambience, their projections of power. Purple and shrill, pungent or angular and angry — words and concepts had become totally inadequate to convey even the thoughts, and to describe them to a mundane would be impossible if he tried until the sun went out. Small wonder that sorcerers were not like other people.

  Did all sorcerers perceive these things so clearly, or was such insight a function of strength? And how strong was he? He felt giddy with power, omnipotent. Was that a dangerous self-delusion? Could he truly be as mighty as he sensed?

  On the far side of the field, Kalkor stood in the other tent, too excited to sit. He was steadying his ax upright with one hand and sharpening it with a stone held in the other, and he had already stripped down to the fur wrap, ready for blood. Then he felt Rap's attention and looked up, blue eyes shining with mad joy.

  Rap glanced into the ambience and there he saw Kalkor as a transparent, naked image of himself. In that dimensionless space he might have been standing an arm's length away, or far off in Nordland. But there was more than just a wraith there; Rap also sensed red, twisted hatred like a coiling fire. Death and rape and atrocity sparkled in it and there was nothing human.

  "You die soon, halfman!" Kalkor said, and his flames flailed hotter, gloating.

  "Why?" Rap asked. He kept his arms on his knees and sent out his message without speech. The old man beside him did not look up. "What do you hope to gain by this madness?"

  Kalkor laughed, and his laughter was blood spilled steaming on snow and women writhing in savage thrusts of pain. "If you do not know, you are unworthy to know."

  "You seek to win a kingdom with sorcery. The wardens will not allow it. Already you have transgressed against the Protocol!"

  "The wardens?" The jotunn sneered. "I do not fear the Four! Olybino has three wars on his hands already and dares not rouse the jotnar, also. Bright Water applauds me. She sought me out on my ship one night, clothed only in occult beauty, seeking my strength and relishing my overpowering will."

  Rap could not tell if this was truth or madness.

  The twisted web of fire became a thing of claws and scales and poison fangs, clamoring in discordant dirge. "So I have two on my side, and the regent also will shun further war! I will carry the vote, and the wardens will not intervene!" Physically Kalkor stood in his tent on the far side of the campus, a long bowshot away, but with that contemptuous outburst he seemed to snap his fingers right under Rap's nose.

  Rap wrestled down his own dread fury, resisting the urge to hurl a bolt of power at the monster. The worst thing was, what the thane said might even be true. If the magic casement had foreseen that Kalkor's succession would best serve the future of Inisso's house, then Rap was the one who had been tricked! The other claimants, Inos and Angilki, had been sidetracked and Rap was doomed to die here.

  Oh, poor Krasnegar!

  Horrified, he peered deeper into the nightmare pit of Kalkor's mind. He found no fear. He could hardly even find much interest in the outcome of the Reckoning, for the raider had long since lost any sense of human life being valuable, even his own. His insanity in forcing the match made a sort of weird sense, therefore. To a man who sought his thrills from danger, every new escape became a challenge to risk more the next time. Death and rape and loot must pall at last, and yet there was nothing else to gain if that was what a man lived for. So he had sought out occult power also, and that had made the problem worse. If he survived today's spectacle then he must just seek a grander way to die, for now only death itself remained as the ultimate, inescapable, goal. And perhaps fame, as the thane who had sailed his ship to Hub and gambled a kingdom on a Reckoning in the capital of the Impire.

  Appropriately, thunder clamored in the murky sky, and thousands of hands went over ears in the crowd. The downpour seemed to gather strength.

  "And what after me?" Rap asked. "Do you slaughter the regent? Or that husk of an imperor? The boy, perhaps? What is the last verse of the war song?"

  An explosion of unholy mirth turned the monster into a glittering, jagged monolith on a baleful starlit moor. "You will never know! But I shall have immortality!"

  The duel would begin soon. The Imperial party was arriving. Azak was there, his skin glowing red with Rasha's curse. Incompetent slut she had been! That spell was a shoddy piece of work. Inos, also, looking distraught and yet desirable enough to drive a man madder than Kalkor. Poor Inos, knowing not a single word of power!

  "You can't win, you know," said the thane's mocking whisper in the steely calm of the ambience. "I am a raider! I bow to no man. I recognize no law but death."

  "Nor I!" Rap said angrily.

  And the thane struck.

  In the mundane world, nothing happened at all. The two old jotnar supporters sat by their principals, quite unaware of the occult confrontation in progress, but in the ambience Kalkor's misty image slashed Rap across the face with a cat-o'nine-tails like the one he had brandished before him on Blood Wave.

  It was not intended as a mortal blow, nor even to disable; the result should have been merely a vicious jolt of pain. The whip did not exist, nor did the wooden staff with which Rap deflected the sorcery, for those were only mental pictures of the invisible, images of the unimaginable . . . yet Rap barely restrained a counterstroke with his imaginary club that would have crushed the ogre's skull.

  Kalkor looked mildly surprised, and also amused. "Not bad!" he murmured.

  "Let's try that again," Rap said, reaching out in the spectral plane as if to offer a sailor's crushing handshake or a bout of arm wrestling.

  Kalkor struck back at once, a monstrous sword thrust at his opponent's arm.

  Rap preferred the handclasp. It didn't matter how he thought of it, or how Kalkor did, either. What mattered was pure occult power.

  Now they matched strengths, and in Rap's vision the opposing fingers were soft as a child's. He squeezed, meeting so little resistance that he hardly noticed it; rejoicing as he sensed that he was inflicting hurt, as he saw the jotunn's eyes brim with swift-rising panic. Satisfied, he withdrew quickly, before he maimed the man. With his ax, Kalkor could doubtless cut Rap to ribbons, but in sorcery he was a pushover.

  The thane recoiled with a cry, so that his aged companion looked up in surprise. The ambience filled with bubbling slime and a fetor of decay. Gifted with strength and wits, with courage and beauty and high birth, Kalkor had abused them all until, after a lifetime of conquest, he had come to believe that no man could ever best him at anything.

  And now he knew better.

  Low, dismal dissonance, a frothing pit exuding noisome stenches of terror . . .

  Rap peered in disgu
st at the filth. He saw fear at last, but not enough fear to please him. "No, Thane! I will destroy you as you destroyed Gathmor. But first I will make your bowels run, like a craven's. You will flee from me, and I will chase you all around the field. Finally, you will grovel on your knees before the crowd. You will beg the regent to have mercy and stop the match, and he will refuse. The imps will have great sport today, and for years the poets will sing comic songs about the Nordland raider who came to Hub to strut, and ended running from a faun."

  Kalkor bared his teeth, and visibly braced himself. "No one will believe! They will know that you are using sorcery!"

  "Maybe! But they will have a good laugh first."

  The raider was no coward. He had worn out his fear of death long ago, and now he seemed to master his fear of mockery. "And so you will avenge your sailor friend?" he demanded.

  "Yes!" Rap shivered with anticipation. "Oh, yes!"

  "Will you indeed?" The thane shook his head with a disbelieving smile. "Gathmor . . . if that was his name . . . how would he feel about that?"

  Rap's joy faltered. Gathmor had hated sorcery and despised it.

  "And yourself?" Kalkor persisted, blue eyes shining inhumanly bright. "There is very little satisfaction in slaying a man with sorcery — believe me, I know! Will it feel better than just leaving me to die of old age? I should enjoy that less, you know!"

  "I will have justice!" Rap yelled.

  "Not with sorcery, you won't, little faun! I grant you are a stronger sorcerer than I, but I am a Nordland thane, and to use your powers against me will be an infraction of that Protocol you quote so glibly. The witch of the north must avenge me. We both die, then? Is that Justice? Why not just strike us both dead now?"

  Kalkor chuckled as he measured Rap's dismay. Visions of fire and bleeding flesh . . .

  "Well, Master Rap? What is it to be? Do we both die by foul sorcery, or do we strive as men together, you seeking vengeance and I immortal fame? Shall we not agree to leave one of us alive afterward? There is a kingdom at stake also, remember! Battle of sorcerers, Master Rap? Or man to man?"

  Gathmor!

  Rap was doomed either way . . . but he thought of Gathmor, and his jotunn self raged against faunish common sense telling him he was about to do something crazy. However frail his chances against the monster thane in mundane battle, there lay his only chance of real satisfaction.

  Kalkor saw his hesitation and sneered, again the arrogant, confident master of Blood Wave. "Coward!"

  Even a half jotunn could not take that.

  "Man to man, then, you bastard!" Rap leaped to his feet and ripped off his doublet.

  He had spoken aloud — his red-robed companion looked up in surprise. At the far side of the field, Kalkor's equally ancient second lurched to his feet and reeled out through the tent flap into the rain, grabbing up his bugle and helmet in passing.

  He staggered, then, bewildered by his own unexpected move, for it had been Rap's doing.

  An explosion of thunder made him jump and look up nervously, as if expecting Gods to appear in wrath. When nothing more happened, he raised the mouthpiece to his lips rather shakily and began the ceremony.

  Fanfare of challenge.

  "Ah!" Rap's supporter laid down the ax, took up his own trumpet and headgear, and tottered outside to sound the response.

  Rap girded himself in the fur and followed.

  Rain wrapped him in a clammy shroud, but the cold could not quench the fire of his rage. He fidgeted angrily from foot to foot while ancient ritual was mumbled at him in some long-forgotten dialect.

  Kill Kalkor!

  Kalkor's tent was barely visible as a blur of blue on the far side of the arena, but the jotnar performing the ceremony there were invisible to mundane sight.

  Kill Kalkor!

  Rap's heart was racing, throbbing, every beat saying "Kill him." Killhimkillhimkillhim . . . Every muscle twitched with eagerness. He wanted to shout at the old priest or whatever he was to hurry up; but at last the gaffer ended his mumbling and raised the ax — holding it vertical, straining. Rap knew from the casement's vision that Kalkor would be accepting his ax one-handed, in formal ritual. He had no such pretensions. Snatching the weapon with both hands, he . . . he very nearly dropped it. It was appallingly heavy, a flared blade as wide as his chest and a polished metal shaft longer than his leg and too thick to close his fingers around. He had no idea how to fight with such an idiocy.

  Kalkor did.

  Heaving the monstrous thing onto his shoulder. Rap began to trudge forward over the wet grass. Rain blew in his eyes and dribbled icily over his bare skin. His legs ached, he was groggy from lack of sleep, but he had agreed not to use sorcery in this Reckoning. He would fight Kalkor on his own terms, man to man with axes.

  Thunder roared directly overhead, stunningly loud, its echoes rolling away into the distance and merging with the underground rumble of the vast audience. Among the thousands of spectators who had come to watch this duel, very few would see the outcome in such a downpour.

  Directly ahead, Kalkor appeared dimly ahead from the mist, as nearly nude as he was, bearing an identical ax. One of them was going to die very shortly, and very bloodily. This was what the magic casement had foretold.

  But it had not said which one.

  No farsight . . . no sorcery . . . Wholly mundane, Rap advanced; more cautiously now. Kalkor moved his ax from his shoulder, gripping it with both hands like a quarterstaff, holding it almost upright. He was the expert — Rap copied the move. They came to a halt about three paces apart, standing in a puddle.

  The crowd had fallen silent. Rain hissed on the grass.

  Kalkor was smiling, white teeth in a bronzed demon face. He wore an icy calm, but the crazed jotunn bloodlust showed in that smile. One of the great killers. Sooner slay a man than bed a woman . . .

  Gathmor!

  "Ready to die, halfman?"

  Rap made no answer, watching the bright sapphire eyes, keeping a wary guard also on the ambience, alert for sorcery. Thunder rumbled far away.

  Kalkor advanced a step.

  Rap did the same.

  The thane raised a quizzical, mocking eyebrow. "It will be quick," he promised, trying an experimental wave of his ax, a high sweeping motion, not close enough to connect.

  Rap ignored the move. Watching. Waiting. It had better be quick, for the jotunn had twice the muscle he did and could outlast him. His arms and wrists ached already . . . one battered finger could be fatal in this game.

  Kalkor frowned and came a half step closer. They were within range now.

  "Go ahead! You first. You need the practice!"

  Rap had given his word. He wasn't using sorcery, not farsight, not even insight . . . but he felt a sudden hunch that Kalkor was not quite as confident as he should be, or was trying to seem. Could there be something bothering him?

  "How long have you known your words of power, Thane?" His dry mouth made the query a whisper.

  Kalkor just smiled . . . slowly raising his ax and sliding his right hand lower, nearer the end of the long shaft. Muscles were tensing in his right leg.

  Rain dribbled unattended into Rap's eyes. "How long?" he persisted. "How long since you fought anyone without sorcery to help you, Kalkor?"

  The thane struck, ax still almost vertical, foot following for balance, a chop more than an arc, aimed at Rap's chest . . . that was how it was done? . . . Rap countered shaft to shaft, arms straight to withstand the jotunn's bearlike strength. The impact rang over the arena, but it also jarred every bone Rap possessed and sent him dancing wildly backward, while a leering Kalkor followed with another stroke.

  This time Rap sidestepped and parried with his blade along the massive handle, a long screeching slice trying for Kalkor's fingers. The thane deflected it in time, but now he was the one to leap off balance.

  Wild joy surged up in Rap. Kalkor was stronger; but he was faster. And he still suspected that the man had forgotten how to fight without the aid of sorcery.
That had been a clumsy retreat.

  The axes were too heavy to swing like sticks. The men could move themselves faster than they could turn their weapons. That was worth knowing.

  Now Rap was pursuing, lowering his ax under his opponent's guard. Kalkor had the advantage of height, but his legs were as vulnerable as the rest of him. Unexpectedly, the thane countered by swinging even lower, aiming at Rap's shins in the sort of clumsy wide stroke that Rap had already ruled out.

  He was certainly supposed to jump over this one, and Kalkor would have twisted the handle to raise the blade and catch his feet, but fortunately the night's running had left Rap so stiff that he rejected the move on instinct, leaping back and ducking his ax to catch Kalkor's, hoping to hook the blades and jerk the slippery handle from the thane's grasp. Clang! He had underestimated the inertia . . . Kalkor thrust, and almost sliced through Rap's leg, but not quite, and he was within the thane's guard then, so he rammed a knee at his groin.

  Nice try . . . Kalkor twisted and they rebounded apart, neither injured. Wary and panting, the two circled . . .

  Flicker!

  "Stop that!" Rap gasped. He wasn't certain, but it had probably been foresight — this close even a sight in use would be detectable to a sorcerer. "Once more and I blast you! I swear!" He remembered Andor remarking that foresight made a deadly fighter.

  Kalkor bared his teeth and said nothing. His eyes were wilder than before, even. Not quite the pushover he had expected? Keeping sorcery suppressed when you had cheated with it for years must be a very big distraction.

  Rap would tire first, though. His shoulders were coming apart already. His fingers were freezing and cramped, slipping on the smooth metal.

  Clang! Clang! Mostly they just avoided each other's cumbersome strokes, but some connected. Clang! Rap was doing most of the retreating, but they were dancing around each other so much that they had drawn no nearer the crowd. Rap's speed would fail before Kalkor's strength did. The thane's face was a rictus . . . could he look as bad? . . . His heart was going to burst. Killhimkillhimkillhim . . .