Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

"God of Fools!" the imperor muttered angrily. "Well, then, let's go!" He glanced at the silken bell-rope dangling by the bed. "A litter . . . there isn't time for that, is there? Can you magic us there?"

  "Yes, Sire. But if the wardens are watching, it'll scorch their eyeballs!"

  "Let it!"

  Rap shrugged. All very well to say so, but how was this done? He remembered Ishist saying that Lith'rian could move himself around without a magic portal, by means of sheer brute power. Mmm!

  Well, he obviously must not lose anyone on the way, so he stepped between his companions to take hold of the imperor's thin elbow and Shandie's clammy little hand. He sharpened his view of the ambience . . . the encircling darkness that was the Opal Palace . . . the twinkling minor magics of Hub beyond . . . beacons shining on high towers in the wardens' lairs . . . occasional flickers beyond the horizon from sorcerers dwelling in distant lands.

  He concentrated on the looming threat of the great Rotunda, estimating distance and elevations.

  "Ready?" he asked his companions. Then he held the three of them still, and moved the ambience.

  Fortune's fool:

  BENVOLIO: The Prince will doom thee death

  If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!

  ROMEO: O, I am Fortune's fool!

  BENVOLIO: Why dost thou stay?

  Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, III i

  NINE

  Sacred flame

  1

  Within the nested darkness of Emine's Rotunda, under the myriad little flames and crystals of two candelabra, the Opal Throne crouched in wisps of many somber hues, dreaming of the evils it had known.

  Before the throne, the regent stood on the top step, clad in purple toga and armed with the Imperial regalia. One step down, his wife sat on a chair. An empty chair on the other side was likely intended for Shandie.

  Ythbane glanced over his audience, as is counting that no one was missing. Straight ahead of him, at the end of the tapering indigo mosaic, stood South's Blue Throne. Below its single candelabrum, it was a floe of light adrift on a sea of darkness.

  And then the imperor came striding out of that darkness with his grandson and a sorcerer. The spectators learned the news first from Ythbane's face. They turned quickly to inspect the newcomers.

  Holding his eyes firmly on the usurper, Rap could still scan the company. Inos was there, of course, and the look she was giving him was quite appalling shameless. Her dumpy aunt beamed at her side. The pleated gown rather suited her, tactfully hiding her bulges. All the women looked chilled. The men were better off, in their heavy togas. Azak was lowering and uncertain — so he should be, wrapped in that sail. Why couldn't he have been given djinn costume? A scarlet-crested helmet located Marshal Ithy, and a man in a purple-hemmed white toga had to be a consul. Three men in red togas and a woman in a red dress must be senators. Bare chested and helmeted, Ambassador Krushjor and another jotunn were staying well back on the north side of the illuminated area. Little Chicken was with them, also in jotunn breeches. He was the only person smiling, unless you called that outrageous glazed simper of Inos's a smile.

  Rap wished he knew more of the politics. Who ought to be present and was not? Which patiently loyal supporters still waited forgotten in the Emerald Hall? No one of importance, he suspected. Ythbane was depressingly confident.

  The warlocks were Emshandar's only hope now. Would they answer the regent's summons? Whose side would they take?

  As Rap reached the front of the onlookers, he stopped and laid a hand on Shandie's puny shoulder to stop him, also.

  Emshandar went on alone, a gaunt, white-haired wraith of vengeance, a striding skeleton swathed in purple. He halted before the dais and straightened from his usual stoop. For a moment he stared at Uomaya, who hung her head and did not look at her father-in-law. Then he lifted his gaze to Ythbane, who smiled.

  Two men in purple, two rulers where there could only be one.

  Under Rap's hand, Shandie was rigid — trying to hold himself still, hardly breathing and yet unable to suppress his trembling.

  The confrontation seemed to hold for a month . . . and then the imperor broke the silence. "We relieve you now of your temporary responsibilities, Lord Ythbane."

  Ythbane shook his head. "We are happy to see that the improvement in your health continues. Consul?"

  One of the purple-hemmed politicos cleared his throat meaningfully. The imperor shifted around to glare at him.

  "The People's Assembly will be enraptured to hear how your Majesty has rallied and will certainly vote thanks to the Gods, and a public celebration. Plus prayers that the remission continues, I shouldn't wonder."

  The speech had omitted much more than it included, and Emshandar hadn't liked it.

  "We congratulate you on your unanticipated promotion, Lord Humaise. Does anyone know where Consul Uquillpee is?"

  Ythbane broke the silence. "Doubtless he had urgent business elsewhere."

  Rap scanned. "There is a consul waiting in the Emerald Hall, Sire." He wondered if he should bring the man, for he must be an Emshandar supporter, but he was elderly — the shock might give him a seizure.

  The imperor did not suggest it. With the skill of a lifetime of concealing his emotions, he looked over the small gathering without expression. "Epoxague, then? What of the Senate?"

  The man addressed was small and venerable, draped in red. He wore a little mustache, which was unusual, and he obviously wished the imperor had picked anyone but him.

  "The Senate will concur in those sentiments, of course."

  "And rescind the regency?" the old man barked.

  "It is never easy to predict what the Senate in its wisdom may decide. But if I had to guess, then I would venture that the noble senators would lean to the view that resolutions cannot be juggled to and fro with every up or down of your Majesty's condition. Of course, if the remission is long-lived . . . If, after six months or so, your Majesty shows no signs of a relapse, then I feel sure that restitution of your former standing would be possible."

  His face told Rap that he did not expect the old man to live that long under any circumstances. Inos and her aunt were scowling at him. They would be on the imperor's side, of course, because Rap obviously was. Everyone else had been carefully selected from the Ythbane partisans.

  Emshandar's shoulders had sunk a little. He looked around again. "Ithy?" he said quietly.

  As if he had expected the summons, the marshal removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm. His hair was short and grizzled, his face leathery and somber. He paced slowly forward to confront the old man at close quarters, as a bull might inspect a scarecrow unexpectedly invading its pasture.

  "Em!" he said softly — so softly that many, perhaps, did not hear. "My standing orders say I report to the regent. But I learned my trade from men you taught, Em. My commission bears your signet. You administered my oath of office. What exactly are you asking of me now?"

  The regent frowned, and Rap sensed the first tremor in his confidence, but very small — a doubt as insubstantial as a cloud of gnats.

  For a long moment the old imperor stared into the soldier's eyes, and the audience held its breath. "To uphold the law, Ithy, as you swore."

  The marshal nodded. He replaced his helmet, saluted smartly, and went marching back to his former place.

  An invisible corona of triumph seemed to blaze up around the regent, and his friends were exchanging sly smiles. He made an almost imperceptible gesture with the short bronze sword, as if challenging the haggard old man to charge up the steps and take the throne by storm.

  Emshandar's shoulders slumped further. He glanced despairingly around at Rap.

  "Ah, yes!" Ythbane said. "We thought you'd brought along a gardener, but we remember now. He's a sorcerer, isn't he? How odd that the imperor emeritus would bring a sorcerer into Emine's Rotunda! You will of course have an opportunity to appeal to the Four very shortly. They have been known to overrule the Assembly and the Senate and the Impe
rial army — but we cannot recall exactly when the last time was. And they don't approve of stray sorcerers meddling in their business!"

  The old man tried to straighten again, his face flushed. He was almost out of strength.

  Ythbane could tell. His smile was a poison stiletto. "Maya, my dear, your father-in-law is weary. Why don't you help him over to the chair we brought for him?" He pointed with his sword to where a plain wooden stool sat far back, barely visible in the dark.

  His wife pouted at him and then at her father, her face sour and disagreeable. She did not move.

  Rap realized with surprise that his hand on Shandie's shoulder was shaking more than the shoulder was. The boy seemed to sense this at the same moment, and glanced up at him questioningly.

  Ythbane noticed the movement. He smiled at his stepson as a snake might smile at a mouse. "And we brought a chair for little Shandie, also! Come and sit here by us, son."

  A shiver ran through the prince and the sorcerer both.

  "I have a question!" Rap barked. "Did you beat this boy?"

  "I always beat him after formal ceremonies," Ythbane said in a toneless voice. "Nearly always."

  Rap had spoken on impulse and compelled a reply almost unconsciously. Puzzled by that reply, he pressed harder. "For what reason?"

  "I tell him he has been fidgeting, but in fact I want to make him fear and hate formal ceremonies of any kind, so that when he comes to his majority, he will be happy to leave the conduct of state business to me."

  The faun in Rap shrank back in horror, and the jotunn part of him clenched like a fist. He said harshly, "You enjoy it?"

  "Yes, I do." The words were a stench in the ambience.

  "And what was the medicine you gave him?"

  "Another precaution, an elvish draft of poppy and narcotic, guaranteed to be habit-forming and debilitating. He is already addicted, and will remain easily controlled by it, even as an adult."

  Evil of evils! Rap glanced triumphantly over the audience to see what effect this odious confession had produced.

  Almost none. So a boy had been whipped? Every man present had been beaten often enough in his youth; none of them had seen Shandie's injuries. Epoxague was frowning, and a few of the others, but they were not about to change their political views because of something said in the presence of a sorcerer.

  Released from his truth trance, Ythbane was flushing furiously.

  "We expect the wardens will be interested in what was just done!" he snapped. He raised the sword to strike at the small shield on his left arm. Then he hesitated, eyes glinting. "Come here, Shandie!"

  Shandie twitched. Rap tightened his grip to prevent him moving.

  "Very well!" Ythbane said. He started to swing the sword.

  This was the human reptile who had provoked Rap's foolish outburst of sorcery in the first place, and that stupidity had done no good at all. Indeed the day's events had likely strengthened the regent's position. Now he was glorying in his evil ways, likely to triumph completely, even winning back Shandie, that innocent pawn, prize, puppet . . .

  Intolerable! Rap struck magic at Ythbane as a man might swing a stick against a tall weed. The regent passed right over the lower dais and crashed to the floor beyond. The shield clanged, the sword went clattering away into the darkness. Uomaya screamed, and a few others cried out. Shandie whooped and jumped joyfully.

  Ythbane tried to rise, and Rap struck him again, knowing he must knock the man unconscious quickly, or in his jotunn madness he would surely kill him.

  The regent lay still, blood trickling from his mouth.

  Better!

  The audience was petrified.

  Inos glared furiously at Rap. Idiot! said her eyes, Now you have really done it, my lad. She definitely had a point there. Striking the ruler from his throne — in three thousand years, there could have been no worse desecration of Emine's Rotunda.

  Emshandar was the first to move. He shuffled over to the prostrate Ythbane and bent to tug at the shield until it came loose from the limp arm. Then he headed out into the shadows to retrieve the sword. He came hobbling back, flashing Rap a glance of jubilation.

  He climbed the two steps until he stood before the Opal Throne. His daughter-in-law stared up at him in terror, but Shandie was grinning. So were Inos and her aunt. Everyone else was shocked into silence, most of them staring in confusion at the thrones of the wardens, still inexplicably deserted.

  The imperor spoke first to Uomaya. "Be gone from my sight!" he said hoarsely, pointing with his sword at the outer darkness. She slid sideways from her chair, gaping at him as if expecting to be cut down. Then she turned and fled.

  The old man sank wearily onto the throne that had been his for a generation. For a moment he just panted quietly, looking over the assembled witnesses with evident satisfaction, displaying the teeth that seemed so oversized for his wasted features. Legally nothing had changed, Rap knew. Legally Ythbane still reigned. But men were ruled by their hearts as well as by laws, and Emshandar seated on the throne of his forefathers and holding the state regalia was not the friendless petitioner who had been spurned so lightly a few minutes ago. Now he could rule hearts, and minds must follow.

  If others would obey him, then he was dangerous again, and therefore worth obeying. It was a circle: Power made fear made obedience made more power, and no one understood the recipe better than the old lion himself. These few men and women were the tiller of the Impire, and by turning them, he could set whatever course he willed.

  Guessing his next move, Rap forestalled it.

  Dropping to one knee, he pointed at the lonely three-legged stool in the distance. It had been planned as a humiliation, but it would make a good refuge. "Shandie," he said, "you go and sit there and watch. And fidget all you like, because no one cares any more about that."

  "Yes, Rap! Thank you!" Without even a glance to see if his grandfather approved, the boy went running off.

  Rap's presumption earned a hard stare of Imperial anger as he rose. And he was not finished yet. His temper had ebbed as fast as it had flowed, leaving a scum of disgust behind it. He had attacked an unarmed man! He would never have used a sword or even a stick like that, so where was the excuse for using sorcery? As he paced over to Ythbane's still form, he recalled sour old Mother Unonini, perched on the one good chair in Hononin's dingy little room and preaching: Sorcerers are human, too, Master Rap. They are torn between evil and good, as we all are — more so, perhaps, because their power to do good or evil is so much greater.

  He'd behaved like a lout. And in front of Inos, too!

  Ythbane had a broken shoulder and a fractured skull, together with a dazzling collection of bruises. By the time Rap reached him, though, they were all cured and his eyes were open. As an afterthought, Rap changed his purple toga to plain white. He held out a hand to help the man rise, then left him standing there and returned to his former place before the Opal Throne, blandly ignoring the imperor's wrath which sought out a more rewarding target.

  "Epoxague!"

  "Your Majesty?" The little senator was doing a good job of concealing a very large amount of worry.

  "As we recall the Act of Succession," the imperor said, "it decrees that when a regency is needed, sovereignty shall devolve upon the next in line. Did our daughter refuse to serve?"

  The little man rubbed his mustache. "With respect, Sire . . . the next in line was a minor. The wording seemed ambiguous as to whether the sequence then continued to the second in line. There was considerable debate."

  "Pigs' guts!" Emshandar flushed with fury. "I'll bet there was! Nit splitting! Of course that's what it means!"

  The senator seemed to shrink slightly. "That did seem to be the view of the majority, Sire, although a narrow one."

  "Then why was Orosea not appointed?"

  Epoxague's face shone damply below the golden trellises of the candelabra. "There is provision for bypassing a designated candidate who is unsuitable, Sire, and some honorable senators belie
ved that your daughter's long absence from the capital might have rendered her unfamiliar with present conditions in —"

  "Sewage!" the imperor roared. "Unadulterated sewage! What was worrying them was that Leesoft has elvish blood in him, and those two sons of hers have slanty eyes. Isn't that so? They didn't want slanty-eyed princes any nearer the throne than necessary?"

  "That view may have . . . That opinion was never expressed in my hearing, Sire, neither in public nor —"

  "Cuttlefish! So you accepted a mongrel merman instead! There were no recorded votes, of course?"

  "No, Sire."

  For a moment the imperor stared threateningly at the wretched senator. "The Ythbane regency is dissolved. Should another be necessary in future, either for us or for our grandson, then our daughter will serve. Is that clear?"

  Pause. "Yes, Sire."

  "You will promote her interests?"

  Longer pause. "Yes, Sire."

  "We have your oath, freely given?"

  The senator looked uneasily at Rap, who smiled mysteriously; then he glanced at the four empty thrones and finally he yielded to the evident threat. "Yes, Sire. I so swear."

  "Hummph! Consul?"

  In a few minutes, the old fox had extracted that oath from every imp present, including Marshal Ithy, who was the only one pleased to give it. By then Ythbane had gone. When his followers began deserting him and no occult aid arrived, he walked quietly away into the darkness, heading for the west door. Rap let him go, and Emshandar either did not notice or did not care.

  "As for Lord Ythbane," he concluded, "he is hereby banished for life to the city of Wetter, upon pain of death." He scowled at the flicker of reaction. "For assaulting the heir apparent. Consul, see that the Bill of Attainder is passed quickly and sent on to the Senate."

  Emshandar would not make the mother of his grandson a widow, but his leniency had surprised the audience, although only a sorcerer could have told so from their hard-schooled faces. The old man leaned back for a moment and rubbed an arm across his eyes. He was exhausted, and close to having to admit it. He looked over the company again.