A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Bong!

  An avalanche of weariness crashed over Rap. He flopped back into his chair, staring up at Eigaze, aghast. He thought how astonishingly like old Aunt Kade she was.

  “Shandie is going to Krasnegar?”

  Eigaze glanced at her husband, then back at Rap. “He expects you to help him, as you did once before.”

  Rap shook his head. Of course they would all assume that he was a paramount sorcerer still—and he wasn’t! Far from it! God of Horrors!

  “There was a prophecy,” Ionfeu said quietly. He had produced another decanter from somewhere and was filling a crystal goblet. “Some months ago his Majesty was guided to a preflecting pool. It showed him a vision he couldn’t identify, but now we know that it was Krasnegar.”

  “Who was in that vision?” Rap shouted.

  “A boy, he said. A young jotunn. We think —“

  “Gath!”

  Eigaze nodded, concern scrolling lines in her face. “We assumed it was Gath. He has jotunn coloring, doesn’t he?”

  “He is only a child!” Rap said. “He is not a sorcerer! What use can Gath be to Shandie? What possible help?”

  Eigaze shook her head, distressed. Her husband handed Rap the goblet.

  He took a long draft and then started to cough. It ran through him like molten iron. “He is… only… only a child!”

  But he would not remain a child for long. The War of the Five Warlocks had lasted for thirty years. Rap looked around despairingly. Tiffy was slumped in his chair, too inebriated to follow the conversation. Ionfeu was pouring another glass of the potent liquor, Eigaze rubbing her plump hands in turmoil, with her unfastened cloak hanging loose about her.

  Not Gath!

  “I will not give up my son!” Rap shouted. Bong!

  “But…” Eigaze seemed to make an effort. She straightened her thick shoulders. “You must talk to his Majesty, er, your Majesty!”

  “Yes, I must. Can you take me to him?” Rap fought down his bone-breaking weariness. Shandie had been imperor only a few hours. He would be frantically busy tonight.

  She nodded, chins flapping. “I only came home to collect some clothes and things. The warlock said that he—Shandie—must leave the city. He said Hub is not safe. What did he mean, do you know?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Oh!” She looked to her husband for guidance. He shrugged and offered her the goblet, but she shook her head. “What his Majesty seems to be planning is that the impress and their daughter will go into hiding. He—Shandie—will stay here and fight whatever is threatening. Unless he goes to Krasnegar…”

  “He can’t fight sorcery,” Rap said. “If the Protocol has failed, then he is no longer immune to sorcery, in fact, he will be the most likely target.”

  “The imperor?”

  “Of course. A sorcerer who controls the imperor will run the world. The imperor’s immunity was the very heart of the Protocol.”

  Husband and wife exchanged glances of dismay. The bent old proconsul moved to his wife’s side and put an arm around her. “I think you must advise him, your Majesty. He will listen to you, I am sure.”

  Rap nodded. “Can you get me to him?” he asked again.

  “Oh, he is not in the palace,” Eigaze said. “I told you—I only came home to pick up some clothes. We are going to go and meet him directly.”

  “Meet him where?”

  “At a private house in the southern part of the city.”

  Rap’s premonition jabbed at him like a bony elbow. “Whose house?”

  “Doctor Sagorn’s.”

  Rap nodded soberly. It made sense. It had a ring of inevitability about it.

  “You have time for a hot bath and a change of clothes, Sire,” Eigaze said firmly. “You’ll catch your death of cold! I shall get a bag packed. And we can nibble something in the coach… If you’ll forgive me for saying so. Oh dear! The family is always accusing me of trying to mother people.”

  “Mother?” Rap smiled gratefully. “It’s been a long journey. I could use some mothering right now, my Lady. Mother me all you want! Then we’ll go and talk with Shandie.”

  But he didn’t know what good he could do. He had come too late.

  Or else the millennium had arrived a little early.

  Bong!

  Wild bells:

  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

  The flying cloud, the frosty light:

  The year is dying in the night,

  Ring out, wild bells and let him die.

  — Tennyson, In Memoriam

  ELEVEN

  Strait the gate

  1

  When Centurion Hardgraa planned an expedition, it was well planned. Eight horsemen cantered up Acacia Street and halted at the steps leading to the Sagorn residence. They had brought a packhorse laden with axes and sledges. Hardgraa would gain entry if he had to cause an earthquake.

  As had been arranged, only Ylo accompanied Sir Acopulo up the stair, leaving their escort waiting tactfully in the road. The night was white. Snow swirled along the canyon between continuous high buildings, reducing visibility to a few paces. Temple bells fouled the air with their obscene din. No lights showed. Had he come alone, Ylo would have worried for his safety in this shabby, rundown area, but with an escort comprised of Hardgraa and five cedar-size Praetorian Hussars, he was as safe as he could ever be. The doorbell jangled mournfully somewhere in the bowels of the house. The imperor’s political advisor huddled beside him in his snowcapped hat and cape, small and miserable, not speaking.

  Ylo shivered. Snow melted around his toes and stuck to his eyelashes, yet he felt buoyed up by a bizarre excitement. The imperor is dead, long live the imperor, the Protocol is overthrown, the world is in chaos, and isn’t this all thrilling? He floated, as if he had been drinking steadily for hours, but he was totally sober.

  Nobody came.

  “Once more!” he said cheerfully, tugging again at the rope. Again the bell tinkled, mocking the distant tolling from the temples. A man could learn to hate bells very quickly.

  Chains and bolts clattered. A shaft of light flashed out over the snowy step as the door opened a crack. The slender, pale-faced man who peered out was short for a jotunn, no taller than Ylo himself. His torso was encased in a tattered smock liberally smeared with multicolored paint like exotic bird droppings; an incongruous black skullcap perched on hair of silvery-gold.

  Ylo saluted. “Have I the honor of addressing Master Jalon, celebrated artist?”

  “Er, yes?”

  “We wish to speak with Doctor Sagorn.”

  “He is not home.” The jotunn was staring at Ylo’s wolf-head hood with dreamy wonder.

  “That’s too bad,” Ylo said, preparing to throw his shoulder against the door if it began to close, “because we come on behalf of the imperor. My friends are prepared to search the house.”

  Sudden alarm sparked the little jotunn’s attention, his pale eyes meeting Ylo’s for the first time. “You can’t do that!” His voice rose to a squeak. “You mustn’t!”

  “We can. We will.”

  “But I am very busy! I am composing an ode to the imperor’s memory and must not be interrupted.”

  “You can do whatever you like, as soon as you have brought us to the good doctor.”

  “But… You don’t understand!” Jalon wailed. He was quite the least assertive jotunn Ylo had ever met. Most would have broken his jaw by now.

  “Be quiet, Signifer!” Acopulo snapped. “Master Jalon, I am an old friend of the doctor’s, a former student. It is imperative that I speak with him.”

  The artist opened the door wider and raised his lantern to shed light on the priestly imp.

  “Oh, yes! Of course. I remember you.”

  “I don’t believe we have met.”

  “Well… perhaps not.” Jalon sighed. “Do come in, then. I shall inform Doctor Sagorn.”

  “One of our friends will accompany us,” Ylo said, beckoning. Hardgraa came trotting up t
he steps.

  They all moved into the entrance hall. Jalon closed the door, but when he reached for bolts and chains, the centurion held out a thick hand to stop him. “My companions will guard your privacy!”

  Jalon curled a lip at him nervously, but did not argue. Bearing the lantern, he led the way through what seemed to be a pantry, up a short and narrow staircase with squeaky treads, emerging in the center of an odd-shaped hallway. The house was a ramshackle collection of alterations and renovations, ad hockery gone wild.

  The room to which he took them was spacious, but the ceiling cornice showed that it had been carved out of an even larger chamber. The clammy-cold air stank of dust, the unused hearth was piled high with litter. Two candles stuck in bottles on the table shed a meager light over papers, bottles, and dirty plates. Books and more papers lay scattered around on armchairs and all over the floor. A single window in one corner was covered by shutters festooned with cobwebs, obviously not opened in years. Boards showed through the threadbare rug.

  “This is the quietest place in the house,” Jalon muttered apologetically. “If you will wait here,” he added, “I will tell the doctor.”

  “I’ll come with you!” Hardgraa said.

  “No! No! You mustn’t!”

  “Oh yes I must!”

  “Wait!” Acopulo peered curiously at the artist, who was becoming more obviously agitated by the minute. “Explain why you do not wish to be accompanied.”

  “It… he… I mean, I shall have to explain carefully. He… he is old and rather difficult. Give me a moment and I’m sure I can persuade him.” However inexplicable, Jalon’s distress seemed genuine enough.

  The visitors exchanged puzzled glances, then Acopulo said, “Be quick, then, and we shall wait here.”

  Clutching the lantern, Jalon vanished out the door in haste.

  “You’d think a famous artist and a famous scholar could afford at least some sort of servant,” Ylo remarked, inspecting the squalor with disgust. His euphoria was fading rapidly.

  “Seeing that little sweetie,” Hardgraa said, “I can only assume that this is an all-male household.”

  Acopulo bristled. “Unfounded slurs reflect upon their perpetrators! If you are implying that Doctor Sagorn would stoop to… He’s far too old, anyway.”

  “Easy!” Ylo said. “There’s something odd going on here.”

  “You were never more right in your life!” Hardgraa marched out and his footsteps clattered away down the noisy stair. The sound of bells grew louder as he opened the door and shouted to the men waiting outside.

  Acopulo wandered over to the table and took up some of the papers littered there, peering at them under the candles. “He was telling the truth about the poetry, anyway. ‘He stood a bastion of right. Bulwark of his children’s faith and bearer of his fathers’ sword…’ This is strong stuff!”

  “Sentimental claptrap!” said a new voice. “Far too many adjectives.”

  The jotunn standing in the doorway was full size, towering over his visitors. He was still tying the laces on a musty-looking gown of a style that had been fashionable decades ago, while on his white hair he wore a skullcap identical to the artist’s. Candlelight emphasized the deep lines in his face, but a typically massive jaw and an aquiline nose gave it power and authority. Despite his age, he stood straight and steady and unquestionably furious.

  “D-doctor Sagorn!” Acopulo quavered.

  “You always were a self-righteous pest, Acopulo. I see you haven’t changed.”

  “And neither have you, have you? Not a day!”

  “What are you implying?” Sagorn strode into the room, heading for the table.

  “That you are remarkably—astonishingly!—well preserved.”

  “Clean living and a clear conscience! Age has not improved your manners.” The sage ostentatiously gathered up papers as if afraid his guests would pry—which they had, of course.

  “And youth has not improved your disposition, Sagorn.”

  The jotunn glared down at his scrawny visitor, then snatched away the sheets he was holding. “Did you drag your juvenile friend from his masquerade party just so you could come here and trade insults, or do you have a significant purpose?”

  Ylo stamped to attention and saluted. “Doctor Sagorn, I am personal signifer to his Imperial Majesty, Emshandar the Fifth, who needs your wise counsel on a matter of vast import to the realm.” Butter was usually quicker than boiling oil, but it might not lubricate a man who lived in a garbage tip.

  The old sage looked startled for a flicker of time, then curled his long upper lip in a sneer. “Tell him to write me a letter.” He scowled at the tatty bundle of paper he had collected and heaved it over the back of an armchair, to fall every-which-way in a corner.

  A board overhead creaked.

  Acopulo twitched nervously. “Who is that?”

  Sagorn snarled. “Your bronzed beasts are ransacking my house!”

  “This problem will not wait for a letter,” Ylo said patiently.

  The jotunn glared at him. “Pah! I would not go out on a night like this at my age were I summoned by the Four themselves.”

  “The imperor will be here shortly,” Ylo said, “and the Four are not summoning anybody anymore.”

  The pale-blue jotunn eyes seemed to glitter as Sagorn studied him seriously for the first time. “You have brains, Pretty Boy. All right, you have won my attention.” He lowered himself carefully into a chair, clasped his hands, and laid the tips of his two forefingers against his lips. “State the problem concisely.”

  Acopulo took a step forward to upstage Ylo. “First we need settle the question of sorcery before his Majesty arrives. Explain your uncanny longevity.”

  Sagorn’s snowy eyebrows shot up. “The matter is that grave? Very well. I am not a sorcerer. I was befriended by one some years ago and he bestowed perfect health upon me. That is all. I wear well. Now—what ails the Protocol, that you are concerned about sorcery near his Majesty?”

  Before Acopulo could reply, Hardgraa came stamping into the room. Two of the Hussars stood out in the corridor holding lanterns.

  “Where is the artist, Jalon?” the centurion demanded.

  Sagorn smiled with thin old lips. “This house has several exits. Soldier.”

  Hardgraa’s rough-bark face darkened. He moved forward threateningly. “But there are no marks in the snow outside any of them.”

  “It also abuts many other residences in the block. If you start tapping every wall, you will irritate a great many people. I don’t suppose that will bother you, of course, but you may draw a crowd, and I assume his Majesty intended to keep this meeting secret.”

  “I want to know where the artist has gone!”

  “You won’t find out from me. Now be silent in the presence of your betters. Proceed, Sir Acopulo.”

  “I am going to tear the filthy warren apart plank by plank!”

  Hardgraa should have known better than to antagonize a jotunn. A younger one would have thrown him out the window and gone after him, but Sagorn merely clicked his teeth shut. “Then I refuse to cooperate in any way.” His big jaw clenched.

  “Take your men, Centurion,” Ylo said, “and wait outside.”

  Hardgraa swelled until it seemed his breastplate must rupture.

  “Now!” Ylo said.

  He really did not think it would work, but it did. Three pairs of sandals stamped off down the squeaky stair. The front door slammed, hushing the mournful knelling.

  Acopulo chuckled and gave Ylo a smile of acknowledgment. He removed some dirty dishes from the second armchair, flicked away crumbs and mouse droppings, and sat down to begin the tale. “When the old imperor died,” he began, “the prince was sitting on the Opal Throne…”

  2

  Acopulo had fallen silent at last, the problem stated. Lost in thought, Sagorn bowed his head over clasped hands. Ylo was leaning against the fireplace, quietly mourning the neglected breasts of the wife of Tribune Uthursho. Reaction had
set in, and he felt the shivery depression that came after battles, a sensation that life was short and pointless and far too valuable to waste.

  The tolling of bells surged louder, warning that the front door had opened again. The treads began their mournful creaking, but this time the feet were more numerous.

  “There are spare candles in the scuttle, Signifer,” Sagorn remarked, heaving himself stiffly to his feet.

  Hardgraa looked in, then backed out. Shandie entered. He wore an anonymous civilian cloak and a wide hat, which he did not remove. It had snowflakes on it. Sagorn bowed. The imperor stepped forward, offering a handshake, which he changed awkwardly to allow his fingers to be kissed.

  Acopulo awoke to his duties and belatedly presented the scholar. Then Eshiala came in, carrying the babe who was now the princess imperial. Behind them loomed the indeterminate shape of Lord Umpily, enormous in snow-speckled fur. He was short of breath, his face haggard. There were more introductions.

  “Pray be seated. Doctor.” Shandie steadied his wife as she settled into a chair with Maya, who appeared to be asleep. He took the third chair, leaving everyone else standing. The candles Ylo had set out made the room brighter already. Hardgraa closed the door from the outside and squeaked off downstairs.

  “We seek your counsel. Doctor Sagorn.” Shandie settled back wearily and rubbed his eyes. “I shall reward as I can, but you understand that at present my promises may be of lesser value than I should wish.”

  A grotesque parody of a smile twisted the jotunn’s craggy features. “Indeed, Sire, I wish I could prove worthy of your faith in consulting me, but I confess that I am baffled. If you insist on a brief response, I must advise your Majesty to run like a hare.”

  Shandie’s face was shadowed by his hat, but his fists clenched.

  “No offense intended, Sire!” the scholar said hastily. “You can no longer rely on the Protocol to defend you against occult powers. Mundanes are helpless before sorcery, no matter how exalted their rank.”