by Dave Duncan
She sighed, searching for reasons that would make sense to him.
Downstairs, the dinner party continued. It was turning out to be very subdued for an affair attended by twenty-five adolescents, lacking its host and one guest. The medics said Brak would be all right, but no one could mend a boy’s broken tooth except a sorcerer, and the one sorcerer she knew almost certainly wouldn’t. Most likely it would abscess and have to come out. All her life, she was going to recall this day every time her son opened his mouth.
“Your father is worth fighting for, of course. But you weren’t fighting for him, Gath! He wasn’t there. If he was in danger from a bear, or goblins, or a gang of raiders, then you would be right to go to his aid and fight for him. That wasn’t what happened. You were fighting because someone called him names, and that’s not the same thing at all.”
He stared at her stubbornly, saying nothing. This lecture was a father’s duty, not a mother’s. He probably knew exactly how long it was going to continue, and every word she was going to say. He was hurting, inside and out, his doubts worse than his wounds. Doubts about himself, doubts about her, doubts about his father.
“What exactly did Brak say?”
“He said… He said my dad had run away to live with the goblins. He said he had goblin wives.”
“Do you believe that?”
“Course not!” But the pain in his solitary eye increased. Doubt.
“Did Brak say he was a sorcerer?”
Gath thought for a moment. “Not today.”
“What do you answer if the boys say that about your father?”
“I say, ‘What if he is? That’s his business.’”
“That’s a good answer, a very good answer, because it’s true. But your father’s a king, and if his royal duties require him to go away for a while, then that’s his business, too! Can’t you just say that?”
Silence. Hurt, angry silence.
“You could say that, Gath, and you know it! You weren’t fighting for your father. You were fighting in case they thought you were afraid to fight. And usually that’s very silly.”
Except that this was Krasnegar, not the Impire. Gath looked like a jotunn so his peers judged him as they judged jotnar. And so did he. An imp they wouldn’t bother with, but he was blond and big for his age, like a jotunn. He must think of himself as a jotunn, although he was normally the least quarrelsome boy she had ever known. Everyone knew that jotnar would accept any odds.
She tried another tack. “You must have known what was going to happen when you went to meet Brak and the others.”
Pause, then a grudging whisper: “Yes. I knew.”
“Then why did you go?”
“Because I knew I would go.”
No hope there!
“You won’t go anymore!” she said sharply. “From now on, you stay in the castle. Is that clear?”
Even with so little of his face visible, the sullen, rebellious expression was obvious.
“Is that clear?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
But the fight with Brak had happened within the castle, so house arrest wouldn’t do much to solve the problem. There were dozens of adolescent jotnar living in the palace, and townsfolk could stream in and out as they pleased. She couldn’t declare a state of siege just to stop kids brawling. Not in Krasnegar. And if word got around that the queen was protecting her son, then he would be fair game for everyone, even imps.
“So your father is away on business? There’s nothing odd about that! Other boys’ fathers go out of town — trappers, whalers, fishermen —”
“He didn’t tell anyone.”
Ah! “Since when has your father had to ask Brak’s permission to go on a trip?”
The humor didn’t work; she hadn’t expected it to. Gath’s permission was what they were discussing now, even if Gath himself didn’t know it.
“He didn’t have time to say good-bye to you, dear. I told you — he had to leave on very short notice. He didn’t know he was going when you went to bed.” She thought back to that tragic evening. “Did you? Did you know?”
Gath blinked. “I can’t see tomorrows.”
“No, but I recall you looked sort of surprised at one point. Did you suspect?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. Wasn’t sure. Maybe a little, I did.”
A big disappointment might throw a longer shadow than little things, and a father’s disappearance was a very big disappointment to a fourteen-year-old. Rap had promised the whole of the following day to the children and been gone when they awoke.
She sighed. “Listen, you big lummox! Maybe one day you’ll be king of Krasnegar. Kings have to keep their private lives separate from their royal duties, and you’re going to have to learn that. Your father doesn’t go around fighting everybody!”
“If someone said bad things about you, he would!”
He probably would. It was much easier to imagine Rap throwing a punch than it was to think of him calling out the guard and laying charges of lese majesty. That was certainly not an option for Gath when his friends jeered. No hope there, either.
She tried another tack. “I know he broke a promise to you. Do you think he would do that, or stay away this long, or miss your birthday — except for something really important?”
“No.”
“Well, it is important! Terribly important! I can’t tell you what it is. I don’t even know all the details myself, but I trust your father, and so should you! I told you he’d gone away for a couple of days. Then I told you that it was going to be longer. I couldn’t tell anyone else that, just you and Kadie, because he sent me word by sorcery! Now do you understand?”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly under the covers. She shivered as the cold worked deeper through her furs; she wriggled icy toes in her boots.
“Gath, you know he’s a sorcerer! You know things that Brak and those louts don’t know! You know that your father went away by sorcery — or you can guess he did. He’ll come back by sorcery, too, as soon as he can. Stupid Brak and the others can only think that the harbor was frozen, so therefore he must have run off to the goblins. That isn’t true, and you know it.”
“Can I say so?”
“You can tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“I did.” Gath closed his eye.
Oh, my poor unhappy baby!
She lifted the second piece of steak from the plate by the bed and placed it over the swollen lid. She kissed his forehead.
“It isn’t easy being fourteen, Gath. I was fourteen once, and I remember. I think it may be even harder for boys than it is for girls. It’s worse than being fifteen, even. You’re big and strong already, and you have prescience. You can hurt people, even bigger people like Brak. Strength and power bring responsibility.” She was about to demand a promise that he wouldn’t fight anymore, and then common sense told her not to be crazy.
Manhood was the problem, the manhood he looked for whenever he saw himself in a mirror, the manhood that was much farther off than he could believe… the manhood that would never be the universal answer he thought it would be. And boyhood betrayed.
She stood up. “Gath, I’ve known your father a lot longer than you have. He’s a fine man, Gath, a noble man. He’s a father to be proud of, in every way. I’m sure he doesn’t want you getting hurt just because a young jotunn mug filthy-mouths him.”
She got no answer, because the remark was irrelevant. Gath had been fighting for Gath, not for Rap.
“I know he wouldn’t have missed your birthday unless he had to. I know he wouldn’t have gone away unless he believed that what he was doing was very, very important.”
She took the candle, shielding it with her hand as she walked across the room.
“Good night, my darling. I still love you. You were wrong to fight Brak. I’m sorry you were foolish, but I’m proud that you are brave.”
She heard a quiet sniff as she closed the door. She bit her lip. Rap, whatever you
are up to had better be worth this!
Newer world:
…but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Tennyson, Ulysses
THREE
Parts to play
1
Nobody seemed to be thinking about lunch, except Ylo. White Impress rolled gently on the slate-gray waters, heading from nowhere to nowhere, and he sat alone and neglected in a corner.
At the far end of the deckhouse the politicians were at work — the imperor, the king of Krasnegar, Sagorn, Acopulo, and Ionfeu — all clamoring like a verbal smith’s shop as they heatedly shaped a new protocol to rule Pandemia for the next few thousand years. When the scholars’ bickering became too personal, then king or imperor would crack a joke. The others would laugh respectfully and calm down. Old Ionfeu spoke less than anyone, but the others always seemed to agree with him when he did. It was an exercise in dreaming, but perhaps dreams were all that remained now.
Hardgraa had gone below and was undoubtedly catnapping, being a veteran campaigner who knew how to take sleep when it was available. Off by themselves, impress and countess chatted quietly, watching over the child dozing on a nearby sofa, under a blanket. The Jarga woman was still steering the ship, her iron endurance more confirmation that she had occult power to sustain her. The dwarf stood outside in the cold, resting his forearms on the rail and staring stonily underneath it at the horizon.
He might be taking a last occult look at the fishermen’s smack now fading into the skyline mist. Lord Umpily had departed an hour or so ago, borne off in that cockleshell at the price of a gold crown. With him he had carried a magic scroll and many false good wishes. As soon as he had been out of earshot, Shandie had said, “How long do you suppose he’s got?”
King Rap had shrugged. “A week if we’re lucky.”
So everyone was busy except Ylo, who had nothing to entertain him except the realization that it was almost twenty-four hours since he last ate. Of course he could ask one of the sorcerers to magic up a meal for him, but he wasn’t going to. He would get himself laughed at for oversleeping and missing breakfast.
The best way to take his mind off his stomach was just to study Eshiala. Guard her? Oh yes, he would guard her most jealously! That would be his role in the war! She was listening intently to Countess Eigaze, her profile showing the perfect classic beauty of the statue in the Imperial Library, with an expression as inscrutable. He remembered her happy smile in the pool’s preflection. He would make her smile like that, often. All the time! The pool had promised her with daffodils, but that did not mean he could not have her now, at midwinter, and still be her lover at daffodil time. He’d never tried a really long relationship like that before. It would be an interesting experience, and she was certainly worth it.
The door slammed as Warlock Raspnex came in. Countess and impress looked up briefly; no one else seemed to notice.
The little man clumped across to a table near Ylo and then glowered at him. “Come here, lad.” He laid his elbows on the table, and had no need to stoop to do so.
Ylo felt shaky as he rose to obey the order — not from the motion of the ship, just from lack of food. But he was certainly not going to beg from a dwarf, not even a warlock dwarf.
“Your Omnipotence?”
“Bah! I told you that rigmarole’s defunct! You know my name; use it.”
“Of course, Raspnex,” Ylo said. “Do please call me Ylo.” He rested fingertips on the table and smiled down at unfriendly gray eyes colder than pebbles on a shingle beach.
“I’ll call you anything I want. Now, I need your help.”
In return for a snack, perhaps? “Help?” Ylo inquired uneasily. “What help can I give to a great sorcerer?”
“Well, not much.” Raspnex ran fingers like chisels through his iron-gray hair. “And I’m not a great sorcerer, I’m a middling-good sorcerer. What I meant is I need to use your memory. I’d rather you agreed to let me do it than make me use force on you, but I will if I must. We need a conferral.”
“Huh?”
“A deed, a charter. Something imposing-looking with the imperial seal on it, transferring land. Shandie said you’d handled a thousand of them recently.”
“Er, yes. But I’m no scribe! And it takes days to do all that lettering and illumination and —”
“No, it doesn’t. Can you remember one where a sizable estate was gifted directly from imperial domain?”
Feeling very uneasy, Ylo said, “Emshandar deeded the Honor of Mosrace to the Marquis of —”
The dwarf slapped an oversize hand on the table. “Look there!” He removed his hand. “Now, think of that document. Pretend it’s lying there and you’re reading it.”
“I haven’t got that kind of memory!” Ylo felt panic rising.
“Yes, you do, you just don’t know how to use it. Keep looking. Think about the deed. Don’t think about anything else.”
Ylo was shaking and sweating. He didn’t want this ill-shaped little monster prying around in his mind, seeing things he shouldn’t, secrets like the preflecting pool and —
“For Evil’s sake get your mind off that woman!” Raspnex rumbled. “Can’t you at least wait until her husband’s gone? Your skull sounds like elk pasture in rutting time. Now think about that deed or I’ll make you think about it.”
Gods preserve us! Wasn’t this the sort of misuse of sorcery the new protocol was going to stamp out?
“I expect it is.” Raspnex sighed roughly. “But we don’t have it in place yet. You’ve got a mind like a butterfly, know that? No control, no discipline. I’ll give you one more chance. How does it begin?”
Ylo closed his eyes and thought. We, Emshandar the Fourth, by… He opened his eyes. Yes! Very faintly, he could see the big historiated capitals and the black text following like smoke. He began to read the words aloud, and even as he did so, they flowed and solidified on a sheet of vellum congealing underneath. Incredible! He would never have believed he had remembered so much of something he had merely glanced at months before. He stumbled a few times when he came to the finer print, but that was mostly a description of Mosrace itself, which would not be important to the warlock, who only wanted the general pattern and would obviously change the details to suit his own…
“You’re daydreaming again,” Raspnex growled. “But it’s good enough. I can tidy it up.” He snatched the parchment and began rolling it.
“That’s quite a trick,” Ylo said admiringly. “You could deed me title to any estate in the Impire!”
“Can’t think why I’d want to.”
“Of course, you’d have to put a matching copy in the Imperial records.”
The little man looked up at him sourly. “I won’t risk it at the moment, because of the Covin, but it’s been done often enough.”
“What! You’re serious?”
“You ever heard of a dwarf joking?” Raspnex stamped off to join the male discussion party, leaving Ylo with his mouth open, wondering how many of the papers in the state archives were occult fakes.
At that moment, Eshiala rose and headed for the door. She glanced at him as she went by. He thought she was going to speak, then she changed her mind and swept by him as if he did not exist, being the Ice Impress. She seemed unaffected by the sudden stress of becoming an outlaw, but then she was probably under much less strain now than she had been the day before, playing for an audience in the Rotunda.
Gorgeous creature! Maybe even worth a dukedom. He knew if he were offered a clear choice now, he might yet take the woman. Even if he could enjoy only one long, lingering session of lovemaking he might. The very thought of her made his flesh burn. And Shandie was going to go off and fight his impossible campaign and leave his signifer to guard the royal family in his absence. From now until the daffodils bloomed — there was a challe
nge to speed a man’s heart!
Now the countess was alone, minding Maya and quietly munching candies. Well! She must have asked one of the sorcerers to produce those for her. Trust Eigaze! His mouth watered. He went across to the shabby armchair Eshiala had just left.
“May I join you, Aunt?”
Her plump face creased in a smile. “Of course! Have a chocolate?”
He accepted eagerly. “You are bearing up very well, if I may say so.”
“Oh, but this is exciting! I have never seen history being made before. I’m old enough, of course, but I’ve never been involved.”
“Not that old,” he countered automatically. He hoped that it was history that was being written in this grubby saloon, and not farce. “The historic Conference of the White Impress?”
“Winterfest, 2998!” She chuckled. “‘Who was present at the conference? Why was it held on a ferryboat? Discuss how Emshandar’s Protocol differed from Emine’s.’ Generations of school children will curse us for adding to their labors!”
“Can you tell me where we’re going?” he asked.
She looked surprised and automatically reached for another candy. “I suppose so — now Lord Umpily’s gone. Rap said it was better if he did not know… just in case. It’s not that they don’t trust him, of course.”
“Of course.” But Ylo wondered if that was true. Umpily’s loyalty was unquestionable, but he was not the most discreet of men. In a war against the Covin, one careless word would bring disaster.
“Have another chocolate. Not his fault, you understand, but no one can keep secrets from sorcerers.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Eigaze moved back to safer conversational territory. “As to where we’re going, you know the place.” Her eyes twinkled. “In fact, it probably belongs to you! It’s called Yewdark House. Remember it?”
“Vaguely.” He recalled sunny childhood days and misty memories of ponies and sailboats.
“That’s why Shandie wants you to accompany us, I think. You can be our host.”