by Dave Duncan
How could Shandie fight an army of sorcerers? How could a deposed imperor ever regain his throne against those odds? If anyone in that deckhouse had found a convincing answer, they would not all have been looking so black. Always Shandie had been an inspiring leader, and a generous one, but a sensible man did not stay with a doomed cause. Contrariwise, a band of outlaws did not tolerate potential traitors. Common sense whispered that Ylo’s best course of action was to swear eternal loyalty until he reached shore — and then just vanish. He would never be duke of Rivermead now. A wealthy, buxom widow was his only hope.
But there was one interesting advantage to the sudden change in his fortunes. The preflecting pool’s prophecy seemed a lot more believable since yesterday. He had never quite believed that he would ever find means to seduce an impress. Royal ladies were always very carefully guarded — his chances were much better now.
Boots crunched on the snow, and the king of Krasnegar arrived with a rush. He grabbed the wheel, began turning it. “Easy, there!” he said, laughing as if he were calming a horse. “You almost had her in irons, Admiral!” He had remarkably callused hands for a king.
“I did what she said!” Ylo protested, stepping back and letting the faun do as he pleased with the wheel, as he obviously knew what he was about.
“The wind shifted on you! And we need to make a course change, anyway.” He was taller than Ylo, this so-unlikely faun, and he had very penetrating gray eyes. “Stick around a minute. I need to ask you something.”
“Me, your Majesty?”
“We’ve been establishing motives,” the king said. He had the hulk’s sharp end pointed the way he wanted it now, but he didn’t give the wheel back to Ylo. Apparently he was enjoying himself. “In effect we’re outlaws, you know. Even the imperor is! So the question everyone must answer is: Do you want to stay with the team, or do you want out?”
Ylo inspected his surroundings. “And walk?” A couple of sails had appeared on the western skyline.
The faun chuckled contentedly. His doublet and hose looked no warmer than Ylo’s, he wore no cloak or hat. Jotunn blood in him, obviously. “No, we can hail a boat and put you on. We’d pick one going north, probably, and you’d have to make your own way home. But that shouldn’t be hard.”
Ylo pulled his skimpy cloak tight and studied the faun’s innocent expression, remembering that this blunt, seemingly open man was actually a sorcerer. “And what happens when I get home?”
“That I do not prophesy.”
And where was home? Ylo had no home, no family, no real friends, even. “What’s the alternative? Where are we going?” He steadied himself with a hand on the rail. The ship had a new motion that he did not approve of, although it had not started to affect his insides yet.
“I won’t tell you that,” the faun said, eyes narrowing. “Not until you declare. But we need a hiding place where the impress and her daughter can remain — a sanctuary, and headquarters. Countess Eigaze had suggested a spot that sounds promising. We’re going to see.”
If he would answer questions so willingly, then Ylo had a bushel of them ready. “Shandie still wants to get his impire back?” That one got a nod. “How?”
The king smiled, but suddenly there was threat in that smile, or at least a hint that walking on lakes was unhealthy. “That also I won’t tell you yet. Are you with us or against us, Signifer?”
“With you, your Majesty. Of course.”
“Of course?” the faun mused. “‘Of course,’ you say? Why ‘Of course,’ though? What ties you to Shandie now? He’s lost his throne. He can’t shower wealth and power on you. What holds you to his cause? A sense of justice? Loyalty to the Impire? Friendship?”
“Hadn’t thought about it. Gratitude?” That felt safest.
The king did not look very convinced. He pursed his lips. “If this proposed refuge is satisfactory, then the impress will remain there while the rest of us go off to reconquer the world. Someone will have to stay and guard her.”
“I suppose so.”
“The imperor mentioned you for that job.” The iron-gray eyes stabbed straight into Ylo’s heart.
Or it felt as if they did.
“Face the other way, Signifer,” King Rap said harshly. “If Shandie looks out and sees that blush, he’s going to wonder what provoked it.”
“Are you suggesting that I am not a man of honor?”
“You’re blushing, not me. She’s incredibly beautiful. I don’t blame you at all. If I weren’t happily married and she wasn’t, I might dream myself.”
“What are you hinting?” Ylo demanded. “There is nothing between the impress and me!”
“No?” The faun chewed his stubbled lip for a moment. “But that’s not quite true, is it? Not yet, you mean?”
“You’re rooting around in my mind!”
“No, I’m not! I don’t do that! But I can read your face like a dog’s tail, and you’re guilty of something. The preflecting pool, was it?”
Ylo nodded angrily.
“Doing what?”
A hot retort died stillborn before that metallic stare. “Lying on a blanket, on grass. Smiling at me.”
Unexpectedly the faun grinned. “An intriguing prophecy! It would certainly inspire a man. But you haven’t…”
“Not yet. There were daffodils.”
“What’re daffodils?”
“They’re a spring flower.”
“I see.”
“They bloom about third or fourth moon. So four or five months from now.”
The faun nodded thoughtfully. “Forgive my prying, Signifer. Shandie saw my son in that pool. I wanted to know all about it. You’ve told her?”
“No one else, though.”
“Wise of you.” The sorcerer fell silent, either studying the distant sails, or just lost in thought. Ylo waited, shivering.
“Tell me something,” King Rap said eventually. “What do you think of Shandie himself?”
“He’d make a great imperor.”
“As a man?”
“Courageous. Dedicated. Honorable.”
“You’re evading the question. I swear that this is just between the two of us.”
Oddly, Ylo decided he trusted this rustic king, although he couldn’t imagine why. “He’s decent. I admire him.”
“You’d like to be like him, you mean?”
“No.” Shandie took life much too seriously.
The gray eyes drilled into Ylo again. “He’s not your imperor at the moment. Would you say he was your friend? No — would you say you were his friend?”
“I suppose so. I’d like to help him.”
A shadow of a grin curled the big faun mouth. “Then how can you plan to seduce his wife?”
What use to lie to a sorcerer? “I said I’d like to help him. I can’t give him lessons. I can teach his wife, though.”
The king looked startled, then he laughed. “So you all benefit?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that’s the finest rationalization I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s true, though,” Ylo protested. “I’d gamble my life that they were both virgins when they were married. With women he’s blind, and deaf. I’ve heard them practically ask him outright, and I’d swear he hadn’t a notion what they wanted. Not just in bed. He has no idea how to treat his wife as a human being. He never talks to her as if she had a brain at all. He thinks she loves him because he gives her presents. In the Imperial Library —”
The king snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Ever since I saw her, I’ve been trying to remember. The middle statue!”
Astonished, Ylo could only nod.
The faun shook his head sadly. “He pointed it out to me when he was ten years old!” He fell silent again, frowning. After a moment he added, “His mother was a bitch, you know. He had a wretched childhood.”
What had that to do with anything? What had any of this to do with Zinixo, or the Protocol? Furthermore, why need Ylo stay out on this snowy, freez
ing deck when the king was obviously so much better qualified to handle the wheel? The sorcerer might be occultly sensitive to the emotions on people’s faces, but he was strangely blind to Ylo’s convulsive shivering.
“So you’ll do them both a favor?” the faun said, showing his wry grin again.
“Certainly! I’ll show her. Then she can show him. What harm in that?”
The faun chuckled. “What harm indeed? So if Shandie leaves his wife in your care, you’ll seduce her?”
“Yes.”
“Think you can?”
“Know I can.”
“What happens if she conceives your child?”
Ylo shrugged. “Women have ways of dealing with that problem.”
King Rap studied him thoughtfully for a moment. “You enjoy life, Signifer.”
“I try to. That’s what it’s for, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” the king said sadly.
3
The big Jotunn sailor emerged as Ylo reached the door, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. He felt her eyes on him as they passed, but he ignored her. Too tall, not young enough.
The deckhouse felt warm after the windy deck. He stripped off the stinking cloak to let himself thaw out. Shivering, he chose the best-looking vacant chair, then sat and blew through his fists while he summed up the mood of the room. No one paid any attention to him except the dwarf, who was standing by a window, peering over the sill. He turned round to stare at Ylo with an aggressive glower on his rocky, rough-hewn face.
There seemed to be no deliberate pattern to the group, and yet the imperor’s chair was nearest the center. Impress Eshiala was down on the floor at his feet, helping her daughter pile a set of red and green wooden blocks. Where had those come from? Shandie was still engrossed in thought. How could he ignore such a beauty? In civilian clothes, he seemed very unremarkable for an imperor. Of course that was not inappropriate for an imperor with no impire.
Seated in a very irregular halo around him, everyone else brooded in silence — or perhaps they were listening to the little voices of the ship itself, the wood and water noises, the rhythm of creaking and swishing. The only exception was Countess Eigaze, chattering cheerfully to Centurion Hardgraa as if unaware of the misery all around her.
Fat Lord Umpily seemed to be in a deep sulk. Old Count Ionfeu was slumped on a sofa, nodding. Stretched out in a soft chair, the ancient scholar Sagorn stared at the roof and sucked his knuckles, lost in thought. Sir Acopulo was scowling at nothing in particular or everything in general, frustrated by his inability to frame a brilliant solution to the problem.
So far as Ylo could see, there was no solution; the case was hopeless. He was very glad that strategy was not his responsibility. No one expected him to come up with answers.
Cold air swirled around when the door opened again to admit the faun, and closed. A shimmer ran through the company, as if a pebble had dropped in a still pond.
Shandie looked up expectantly. “Now can we have that council of war?”
“Was just going to suggest it,” King Rap said cheerfully. He leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. “The signifer says he is with us, also.”
All eyes flickered briefly to Ylo.
“I never doubted him for a minute,” Shandie said.
Startled, Ylo glanced around. He met the faun’s eye and looked away quickly.
“I don’t doubt anyone here,” the imperor added. “I notice that the one person you did not ask was my wife.” He smiled at her.
Now the attention went to Eshiala, down on the rug with Maya. She glanced up, cold and beautiful as the Qoble Mountains. “What exactly is the question, your Majesty?”
Shandie blinked, which was about as close to showing surprise as he ever came.
The faun studied her intently for a moment, then said, “The dwarf Zinixo has stolen the Impire, and we are going to overthrow him and steal it back. Are you with us?”
“You are questioning my loyalty to my husband and the Impire?”
“I am asking where your first loyalty lies.”
She frowned, then suddenly colored. “To my child.”
“Eshiala!” the imperor exclaimed, shaken out of his normal impassivity.
“Steady!” the faun said softly. “She’s absolutely correct.”
Eshiala lifted Maya and hugged her. The marble calm seemed to crack for a moment, showing fires of panic within. “My only concern is her welfare! I don’t want to see her serving a dwarf all her days. If we fight, then we’ll be discovered and captured. I just want to hide! Some safe retreat where Maya can grow up in peace and freedom — that’s what I want.”
The king nodded. “But she would be healthier and safer in the palace than in poverty and hiding.”
“I don’t agree at all!” the impress said sharply. “I despise the court!”
“Eshiala!” Shandie exclaimed again. Had he never realized that? How could a man so perceptive be so blind to his own wife’s feelings?
The faun raised a hand to silence him. “Now you see why I didn’t ask her! She has no choice, and we have no choice in her case. The princess would be almost as valuable to Zinixo as yourself. Ma’am, we are unanimous in seeking only safe refuge for you and your child. To have the two of you fall into the dwarf’s hands would be disaster.” He scratched his tangled hair ruefully. “Not that we aren’t in a disaster already, of course! But if the enemy were offering prizes, that little beauty might have a higher price on her head than even Warlock Raspnex or myself.”
“We are agreed, then,” Shandie said testily. “My wife and child must go into hiding. But she will require companions. Proconsul, would you and your wife be willing to accept such an exile?”
“We should be honored, sire,” the old man said, flushing, and his wife nodded vigorously, her chins flexing.
“I am grateful! I wish I could say that the term will be short, but obviously I cannot. And you will need a trusty guard — Ylo, or perhaps Centurion Hardgraa. Possibly Doctor Sagorn would like to join you, also?”
Ylo carefully kept his eyes on the scruffy rug in front of him. Let them all go off and fight an army of sorcerers! Looking after the impress was certainly the job he could handle best!
The old jotunn cleared his throat. “I think not, Sire.”
Ylo glanced up in surprise, and everyone was staring at the old man’s grim smile.
“I should think that a safe sanctuary would be your choice!” Shandie said, frowning suspiciously.
“A jotunn is never too old for battle. Sire!” The sinister old man exchanged smirks with the faun and then addressed the imperor again.
“I have near as much to fear as you do, your Majesty. I have never admitted this in public before. I know a word of power.” He glanced around sardonically, assessing the reaction. “One word only. I am, in the occult sense, a genius. My native talent is intelligence. That is why run-of-the-mill scholars, like Acopulo there, always seem so slow to me. As I understand the situation, Zinixo has been hunting down all the words he can find. If he catches me, my lot will be torture and death. Have I stated the case fairly?”
“Very,” Raspnex rumbled, with a hideous leer.
Sagorn sighed. “My motives are as strong as your own, therefore. And I think my friends will agree, when they have had time to think on it.”
What friends? Frowning faces told Ylo that others were wondering the same as he was. King Rap was smiling, however, in his wry way. There was something very odd about the old sage — the way he had appeared so quickly the previous evening, and the way the artist Jalon had disappeared. Perhaps there was more than one word involved, for one word did not produce miracles. Sagorn was hinting at more than he had admitted.
“I do not question your motives or loyalty,” the imperor said tactfully. “I was merely thinking of physical stamina and endurance.”
“His help and counsel will be very helpful,” King Rap said innocently. “And he does have much to lose.”
&n
bsp; “Such protestations are unnecessary!” Sir Acopulo snapped. The little man had been glaring with loathing at Sagorn. “As I understand the situation — in my slow way — Legate Ugoatho is presumed to have been enthralled by the usurper. Therefore anyone who was present in the Throne Room last night is on his proscription list, and that means all of us.”
“Then you do not comprehend the situation at all,” the jotunn retorted sharply. He curled his long lip. “We are not talking of any normal rebellion, or proscriptions.” He sneered the word.
Acopulo colored furiously. “Perhaps you will explain for the benefit of us run-of-the-mill mundanes?”
“Gladly. Listen carefully. You are in no physical danger, and to fall into Zinixo’s hands might even be to your advantage. Let us take Signifer Ylo as an example. By supporting the imperor in his bid to overthrow the dwarf, he becomes a hunted outlaw — cold and hungry, friendless, and perpetually risking his life. On the other hand, if he merely grabs the first opportunity to betray Emshandar to the Covin, then they will both be turned into loyal supporters.” The old man’s water-blue eyes seemed to burn brighter as he threw the awful words across at Ylo. “As a vassal, the imperor’s primary duty and desire will be to protect the dwarf, which will mean keeping his hegemony secret. His Majesty will therefore proceed to rule as much as possible as he would have done anyway. Do you follow? As far as his overriding loyalty to Zinixo permits, that is. And obviously that will include rewarding his own supporters. His former signifer will certainly be granted advancement.”
Everyone was staring at Ylo. Why had he been picked out to endure this? “Slanders!” he shouted, fighting a rising panic. Advancement? Duke of Rivermead? “If you were younger, sir, and a gentleman, I would call you out for those words!” He thought he might even mean that, although he had never fought a duel in his life.
The old jotunn granted him a sinister smile. “Of course the same is true of the others. I merely use you as an example, Signifer — why do you take this so personally? Indeed, it goes further. Once Emshandar is bound in fealty to the dwarf, he will feel enormous gratitude to whoever has led him to see the error of his former recalcitrance, and —”