Emperor and Clown

by Dave Duncan

  At night he left the palace so he couldn't watch her. Near the harbor he found a comfortable garret that no one was using, and he fitted it out with a comfortable bed to lie on. He never slept now; he'd almost forgotten what sleep felt like.

  6

  On the fourth morning, Rap joined Inos for breakfast in the Great Hall. She was sitting alone at the high table, and he came in by the door and walked over and took a chair beside her. The sun was just rising, promising another astonishingly fine day. She was wearing a very simple pale-green dress, and her hair hung loose with just a band around it, and she was as beautiful as he had ever seen her. The smoothness of her cheek was a miracle in itself.

  He was back in riding clothes.

  "You're not leaving already!" Her voice was accusing, her face paler than it should be.

  "Might as well catch the weather while it lasts," he said, not looking at her. Not with his eyes, anyway.

  "Morning your Majesty." A decrepit old waiter shuffled up to Inos and laid a mug of chocolate and a silver bowl of sticky porridge in front of her. He hadn't noticed she had company.

  Before she could say anything, Rap made a bowl of porridge appear in front of himself — a golden bowl. She tried to laugh, without much success. The old man went hobbling off, having missed all that.

  "I thought I might take Firedragon," Rap said between mouthfuls. "He and I have always been good friends, and I think he's getting a little old for his responsibilities."

  "Of course."

  "And I'll leave Evil. I thought you'd like having him looking after things instead; an appropriate memento of Azak."

  "Oh, very funny!"

  He hadn't told her how well Azak had been making up for lost time since he got home to Arakkaran. Terrible man!

  They ate in slurping silence for a while. Krasnegarian porridge was vile stuff, really, Rap thought, and wondered why he was enjoying it so much. It was strange to eat up here at the high table, a visiting sorcerer. Always, when he'd eaten in the Great Hall he'd been down near the hearths, with the servants. There were a lot of them there now, dawdling over a hot breakfast. He knew how they felt. Most of them would be newly back from the mainland, catching up on the summer's gossip, reveling in real beds and dry lodgings, renewing old friendships, happily sliding into the slower pace of winter. Why had he been such a fool as to come?

  Inos kept staring at him, crumpling a napkin in her free hand. Yes, she was plotting something, and he stubbornly refused to let himself peek and find out what it was.

  "Not Master of Horse?" she said at last wistfully.

  "You ought to let Hononin have the title. He's good for another ten years at least." The pains in the hostler's joints had cleared up miraculously since the night the queen returned. He would die very suddenly, fourteen years from now, near Winterfest.

  "And not Sergeant-at-Arms?"

  Their eyes met and exchanged moist smiles.

  "Not really my sort of work," Rap said. "Oopari's much better at it than I would ever be."

  "King, then?" she whispered. "It's the only job vacancy I have to offer at the moment."

  "I don't think I'm qualified."

  "You're better qualified than any other man in the world."

  Rap sighed. Why did people torture themselves by longing for the impossible? He changed the subject.

  "Everyone must know you came back by sorcery. How do they feel about sorcery now?"

  Inos shrugged and abandoned all pretense of eating. "They find sorcery in everything I do. If I smile at a baby, I've blessed it. My frowns bring on asthma attacks. But they seem to be getting accustomed to the idea."

  "They shunned me!" That still rankled.

  She laid a hand on his. "I think they're wiser now, dear. Magic has its advantages, and they've learned that. Besides, people can get used to anything, given time."

  Yes. He created a mug of hot chocolate and removed his hand to pick it up.

  "They would accept you, love."

  "They won't get the chance."

  "You are definitely going?"

  "Definitely."

  "For how long this time?"

  He looked squarely at her and she bit her lip.

  "Forever," he said.

  "You're in pain!"

  Now, how had she guessed that? "Being near you just makes it worse," he said. "Much worse. And worse for you, too. I've told you it can never be, Inos."

  "Not that sort of pain. Real pain. Sagorn noticed. He told Kade. And then I began to see it, too."

  Rap ate more porridge.

  "Ever since that night Zinixo told you a fifth word. You put out the fire, Rap — but you didn't get rid of all of it, did you? You've been burning ever since, haven't you?"

  "Not burning." That was a fair description of it, though.

  "Hurting? That's why you look so awful."

  "I do not look awful!"

  "You did when I first met you on the road. When I said so, you made yourself seem all right again. But those first moments you looked about as old as Emshandar. You're hurting!"

  He didn't want to lie to her, and he wasn't allowed to explain the problem to her, so he said nothing. He expected her to get angry, then, but she didn't. She was giving that napkin a terrible time with both hands under the table.

  "I am happy to accept the horse, Rap," she said eventually. "Is there anything I can give you in return?"

  "Just Firedragon."

  She tensed even more. "I would like to ask a favor."

  "Anything, of course." He waited. It couldn't be gold, because he'd refilled the chest for her, and she had plenty. Raise the causeway above high-water mark? Alterations to the castle? Well, he wasn't going to pry.

  "I want to be a sorceress."

  A hot glob of porridge landed unnoticed on his lap. "Inos, no! You don't know what it's like!"

  "Tell me, then."

  "It's horrible! You stop seeing people as people. They're slow, and stupid, and unimportant! You can have anything you want, so nothing's worth having, or doing, anymore. And nobody else's wants or opinions matter. No, it's awful. You don't want that!"

  She was frightened, and determined not to show it. "You said 'Anything'!"

  "You have everything you need, and I didn't mean —"

  "I'm sorry I'm so slow and unimportant, but I could swear I heard you say 'Anything.' "

  He put his face in his hands. Pure, rending desire . . . it was worse than any carnal lust imaginable. It was a fanfare of silver trumpets. It lit up his heart like dawn. Escape!

  After all, he had told her two words once and managed to stop. The memory of that effort was terrifying, but he had managed it once.

  Of course — Common Sense retorted — that time he'd had Zinixo waiting to settle. Hatred can be stronger than love. He didn't have his jotunn temper stoked and burning now as a distraction.

  Pain . . . That was what she was thinking! By telling her two words that night, he had reduced his power and been able to bring the overload under control. If he shared two more he would be weaker still, and she was guessing then that he might not be in so much pain. Maybe she was right!

  Try it! whispered Temptation. Try it!

  For months and months he had fought to suppress the agony. It was killing him, day by day, hour by hour. He was fading — he knew that. Just maybe she was right, and he wouldn't hurt so much if he shared two more words with her.

  He would be putting himself at risk from the wardens, of course. They had never stopped watching him: where he was, what he was doing. They were all scared of him. Rightly so, because he was pretty sure he could take on all four of them together if he needed to; the new West was nothing much. So the Four had left him alone, even when he'd gone meddling in their backyards — rescuing the fairies still in Milflor to hide them and others away where they would never be found . . . curing an outbreak of plague that Olybino had started among the goblins . . . turning back a blaze of dragons that had come to investigate what he was doing for Nagg a
nd her little tribe . . .

  Rap the stableboy had trampled all over the Protocol, and the Four had looked the other way. But if they ever sensed that he'd slipped back to mere sorcerer power, then they might be tempted to try something.

  He discovered that he really didn't care.

  And he wouldn't be very much weaker, anyway. He'd still be in command of five words, however much they had been reduced by sharing, and not one of the present Four would dare try that. His mastery of power was a freakish thing. Maybe that was how some of the great fabled sorcerers of the past had gained their power, but most people were destroyed by five. Like Rasha.

  Share his words?

  Normally sharing a word was a very painful experience, except when on the brink of death. The act had virtually killed Sagorn, and the pain had fascinated Little Chicken. But not in this case. It wouldn't hurt this time. Tell Inos? Yes! Yes!

  But the danger! She didn't know the danger!

  He looked into her pale, scared face.

  "You're sure?"

  She nodded dumbly and passed a pink tongue over her lips — lips to haunt a man's memory until the day he died.

  "It's a terrible risk!"

  "I trust you. Just two."

  Clever girl!

  "That's why you're afraid to get close, isn't it?" she said. "Why you don't want to be intimate? Losing control . . . you talked about losing control. You're afraid you'd tell me them all!"

  He nodded, astonished that she'd worked that out. Mundanes weren't always stupid, if you could just give them enough time. She was an adept, of course. That would help.

  "Three little words," he said. "Easy to say in a moment of . . . er . . . passion."

  "And then what? I burn, and I don't have your knack for controlling magic?"

  He shook his head. He hurt if he even tried to think about it. To explain was . . . forbidden.

  "But you can tell me two!"

  "You don't know what you're asking. And it won't make any difference to us, Inos. It'll be worse, because there'll only be one word between us and . . . and . . . " His tongue began tripping all over his mouth again. "Only one word left," he finished.

  "You said 'Anything'!"

  "No! I won't risk it."

  She sighed, but her green eyes glinted like sunlight through breakers. "Oh, Rap! Just for once . . . If this is the last time we'll ever see each other, just for once couldn't you let me talk you into something?"

  He pushed back his chair. "It's too risky, Inos."

  She wadded the napkin smaller than ever. "I'm prepared to take that risk. I asked for a favor and you said 'Anything'! Now, are you, or are you not, a man of your word?"

  Why was she pursuing this madness? To aid her kingdom? If she only knew what she would be taking on by becoming a sorceress, she wouldn't be so insanely eager to mother that dimwitted brood of yokels. They would never appreciate what she was doing for them anyway, and she must know that.

  To aid Rap? She thought she could do him a favor and ease the constant agony of controlling five words of power. But he suspected she had some other motive as well. He resisted the temptation to use insight on her; he was frightened of finding himself in there in compromising concepts.

  But she'd trapped him. He had said "Anything."

  "It's not fair to others, Inos," he protested, knowing he was on his last excuse. "Those two words you know already . . . one was the one Zinixo told me. The other I got from my mother. I didn't plan it that way, they were just the first that came to mind." He cringed at the memory of that fiery ordeal in Emine's Rotunda, and then cringed even more as he remembered who had saved him from it. "I don't know if anyone else knows those words, too. But the words I haven't shared — those belong to Kade, and Little Chicken, and Sagorn. I'll weaken their powers if I tell those words to you."

  Green eyes flashed again. "Leave Sagorn and his buddies out of this by all means! But I heard you warn Little Chicken not to use his occult strength . . . didn't I? And Kade's talent is chaperoning young ladies. She isn't going to have any time for that from now on if she's running Kinvale. It's time she started taking things easy anyhow!"

  He glanced despairingly around the hall. The servants were still hard at their blathering. The officials and senior staff had vaguely noticed that the queen had a visitor and had chosen to cluster at one of the side tables instead of joining her. There was no one within earshot.

  "You're quite sure?"

  She nodded. She wasn't quite sure, but Inos had acquired a regal serenity, a confidence that came from more than the glamour he had cast on her. It was not all adepthood, either. Some of it was just Inos being a good queen.

  Almost before he realized, he had leaned close to whisper Kadolan's word into her ear. Relief! The second one was even easier, and the third —

  He bit his own tongue and managed to stop it halfway through the third word. That was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life — it was pain, it was nausea, it was sorrow and fear; and self-contempt, and everything horrible. It tore at his mind and trampled his soul and racked his body with terrible spasms. It was death and destruction, and more than he could bear. He toppled from his chair, howling. He rolled and thrashed on the floor, hearing the Gods' mocking laughter.

  But he'd stopped and his mouth was full of blood.

  Then he saw Inos before him in the ambience — transparent, frightened, her hands over her ears. But a sorceress, a glorious, beautiful, desirable sorceress. He couldn't bear it.

  "Inos, I love you!" He reached for her.

  "No, Rap!" her specter cried, backing away from him in an aura of conflicting reds and pinks. He went after her, to grasp her and pull her close and force his mouth to her ears, or lips, or cheek, or anything.

  In the mundane Great Hall his hand caught the hem of her gown as she turned to flee. He hauled her back. She stumbled against her chair and then fell, struggling and screaming, and he clasped her in his arms.

  He was going to kiss her and tell her he loved her and then share the fifth word with her.

  In the mundane world, she magicked right out of his embrace, so that he sprawled hard against chair legs, clutching an empty gown. The mundanes had noticed the racket and were starting to turn, sluggish as old cabbages.

  In the ambience she fled, racing away across a polished plain, a naked girl running bright and sweet against a somber, discordant sky.

  He scanned and found her at the top of Inisso's Tower, in her bedroom, wrenching open the door to the upper staircase. She was heading for the portal and escape to Kinvale.

  She mustn't escape! He must take her, and tell her, and share everything with her, and release the awful, burning compulsion. Howling, he vanished from the Great Hall, and everything had happened so fast that the mundanes were still bringing their eyes around to locate all the disturbance. A final chair hit the floor, right by the queen's discarded dress.

  Rap stumbled as he arrived in the narrow, curving stairwell, and that gave her an extra second or two. Then he hurtled up the stairs like a bat, without a boot touching the treads.

  In the ambience his fingers touched her arm.

  Just ahead of Rap's mundane grasp, Inos reached the top of the stairs and vanished from ambience and farsight both. Rap, moving occultly, ricocheted off the shielding and sprawled on the steps, pounding his fists in torment. He forced down the pain, the anger, the maddening love, the unbearable compulsion.

  Somehow he brought himself under control, shaking and sweating and weeping like a stupid mundane. Maybe the agony was a little easier to suppress now, a little easier than before.

  But, Oh, Gods, girl, that had been a narrow escape!

  He gave himself no chance to change his mind. He moved instantly to the stable and saddled Firedragon in half a second. Fleabag, who had been dozing in an empty stall, rose at his master's summons. A knot of gossiping hands barely noticed as dog and tack and horse all vanished from their places.

  Out in the bailey, one or two looked arou
nd in surprise at a mounted man they had not noticed earlier. He rode out through the shielding of the gate.

  Inos was visible in the ambience then, wide-eyed, hair streaming, staring at him in fright. He could reach out and touch her . . .

  Physically, she was standing in the chamber of puissance with her hand on the portal.

  "It's all right, love," he said, fighting down another surge of agony and longing. "I think I can handle it now. But stay out of my sight! Stay in the castle until I'm gone."

  She nodded and ran across the chamber to the stair. He was still riding in the castle yard and he dare not wait on the tide. He moved man and dog and horse to the hills.

  The rock of Krasnegar was a mere speck, then, far away against the pale endless blue of the Winter Ocean. Its castle was barely visible at all.

  7

  In low, chill sunshine, he rode southward over the hills. The yellow grass was crisp with frost, crunching below Firedragon's hooves, and the wind cut with a sinister edge. Now and then he would give the ambience a gentle nudge, moving himself across a valley to the far crest, gaining time. He wanted to put a great distance between himself and Inos as soon as possible, but from habit he preferred not to alert the wardens any more than he had to. They probably all kept votaries watching for him all the time anyway.

  Once he thought he felt Inos searching, and he blasted out a warning. "Go away!"

  "Rap?"

  "Yes, but I'm still too close!" He caught a faint image of her in the ambience, an echo, a scent. Prickles of sweat broke out all over him, and he trembled from sheer longing. Would he feel any different when he reached the far ends of the earth? She would be just as visible, just as close in the ambience. How could he ever escape?

  "I just wanted to say I love you!"

  "Likewise! Now, please, Inos! Go!"

  "All right." There were tears in her eyes. "And now I know what you were doing, and why. Thank you, Rap!"