A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  The old man opened his eyes and blinked.

  “We have to leave,” Rap said.

  “Our position?”

  “About half a league off Dragon Reach and sinking.”

  “Oh?” Sagorn pulled a smile, which for once seemed genuinely amused and not scornful. “That doesn’t seem very efficient for a shipload of sorcerers!”

  “We could correct the situation, but the power required can better be applied otherwise.”

  “How?” The old jotunn twisted expertly in the hammock and planted his feet safely on the deck. Had he been a sailor at some time in his many shared lives, or was that a racial skill?

  Dreadnought heeled over at a dangerous angle and this time seemed reluctant to straighten. Timbers groaned menacingly. A sea chest slid gratingly across the deck and slammed into another.

  Rap offered the old man a hand to help him straighten. “You and I will be transported to Ilrane. The others will go ashore on Dragon Reach.”

  Sagorn banged his head on a beam and cursed. “When you say me, you mean one of my associates?”

  “Andor, I think. He has been to Ilrane before.”

  “And you can do this without alerting the Covin?”

  “With thirty-seven of us in concert, we have ample power.”

  Sagorn nodded and rubbed his eyes. “And the vessel will be left to sink alone? I see. Of course your journey will be wasted or even suicidal if Zinixo has already located Warlock Lith’rian. So you must assume that he hasn’t?”

  “Olybino mentioned him and Zinixo did not produce him, which suggests that he is still at liberty.”

  The ship heeled again. The old man swayed unconsciously to remain upright. “You risk a lot on a mere suggestion. And just how do you intend to locate the missing warlock when the Almighty has failed?”

  “I shall look in the obvious place, of course.”

  Sagorn’s eyes glinted in the gloom. With the barest hesitation he said, “Isn’t that too obvious?”

  “Then — knowing elves as we both do — doesn’t that make it certain?”

  The jotunn chuckled. “Well, you may be right there.”

  “I’m glad you agree with me.” Rap had a great deal of respect for Sagorn’s acumen. “Time is pressing. Doctor.”

  “One question before I depart. When are you going to start the war?”

  Rap shrugged. Dreadnought was listing badly now and shipping water at an alarming rate.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s up to me to sound the trumpet. Three weeks to Longday, roughly.”

  The old man looked hard at him, frowning. “The Midsummer Moot? The imperor was going to Nordland?”

  “That was the plan, and Raspnex had some scheme he wouldn’t discuss, remember? I think it may have involved the thanes. I doubt that there are very many sorcerers to be garnered among the jotnar, but it’s worth a try, I suppose. We’re not sure that Olybino was loud enough to be heard in Nordland.”

  “I see. That’s why you think Longday matters?”

  “Not really,” Rap admitted. “This afternoon Thrugg announced that it felt important, and Thrugg’s the most potent sorcerer on the ship. Now his mother and Tik Tok are agreeing with him. Grunth and the others will need time to deal with the dragons. Three weeks will be cutting it very fine.”

  “Of course.” Sagorn smiled grimly and held out a frail hand. “Then I shall call Andor in my place and wish you luck of him. I also wish you luck with Warlock Lith’rian!”

  “Thanks,” Rap said. “I’ll need it.”

  5

  The post inn at Yugg had no name and would never rank stars in any travelers’ guide. Shandie had met worse in his time — but not often. Nonetheless, as dawn brightened the rain clouds outside he tackled a greasy breakfast with an enthusiasm he would probably regret as soon as the stagecoach began to move. Last night’s meeting with Oshpoo had encouraged him greatly. He had enlisted a substantial, if unknown, number of sorcerers to battle the Almighty; he had also solved the Guwush problem that had baffled his grandfather for thirty years. If you can’t win give up! What could be more obvious? The Senate would howl, of course. Shandie looked forward to that struggle with pleasure. It would certainly beat fighting sorcerers.

  The sooner that war was fought and won the better!

  He recognized the feeling: It was time for battle to commence. This was not a campaign like any other he had ever fought, but there came a point in all conflicts when the opposing forces were arrayed and preliminary skirmishing gave way to the main event. Time was now on Zinixo’s side, for the Covin must still be tracking down and enlisting sorcerers. The counterrevolution would rot away if it was not soon shown some leadership.

  Raspnex and Inos were crammed in beside him at the little corner table. He cleared his throat. Neither paid any attention.

  The dwarf was picking grumpily at a bowl of some darkly anonymous gruel. He was grouchy at the best of times and venomous at breakfast. So far he had not said a word.

  Inos had abandoned her food altogether and was apparently writing a letter. She had steadied a paper on the back of a book and was holding it up to the uncertain light from the window, chewing her tongue and frowning as she doodled.

  Shandie started over. “We shan’t have a chance to talk until noon at the earliest. Has anyone got any suggestions about where we go from here?”

  Raspnex continued eating, his chin barely higher than the dishes. “Out of this flea-ridden swamp, posthaste.”

  “Granted. I mean after we meet up with Wirax and the others.” The other sorcerers were rounding Guwush by sea, due to rendezvous at Randport — two dwarves, two goblins, and a jotunn. “When does the war start?”

  “Longday,” Raspnex mumbled with his mouth full.

  “What! Midsummer? How do you know that?”

  The warlock glanced up blankly, seeming surprised. “Dunno. Just feels right, somehow. Hunch.”

  About to bark a scathing comment, Shandie remembered that he was talking with a sorcerer, whose hunches might well be reliable. Longday was still three weeks off, though. “Then what do we do next?”

  Again the dwarf filled his mouth with gruel. He looked up sourly and said, “We wait for the leader’s signal, of course.”

  “Meaning Rap?”

  “Who else?”

  Mm! It was Shandie’s impire that had been stolen. He was a soldier and Rap was not.

  “Much as I respect the king of Krasnegar as a man — and I agree completely with Ishist’s remark that he ‘stands out of the light’ as few other —”

  “I suppose you want to go on the offensive?”

  “Yes I do! Now that everyone knows about —”

  “And attack what?” Raspnex growled.

  “The Covin, of course.”

  “Where?” the warlock demanded, scowling. “How? You’re thinking like a brainless musclebound legionary. Find the enemy and stick a spear in him, I presume? Well, that doesn’t work with sorcery.”

  Inos whistled a small tune and continued with her writing, not looking up.

  “Perhaps you should explain,” Shandie said coldly. “I am feeling unusually musclebound this morning.”

  “Obviously.” The dwarf pushed his bowl away and dragged a sleeve across his mouth. He fixed a stony glare on the imperor. “Sorcerous warfare is different! Reinforcements can move instantaneously. When armies are overpowered they’re not destroyed, they turn on their friends. Once battle is joined, there can be no withdrawal, no retreat, no regrouping! That’s only some of it. It’s not the kind of fighting you know. For one thing, it’s much faster. If you sound the charge and rush into Hub, you may find no one there. You are only a mundane, and a mundane can’t fight this sort of war.”

  Shandie made a point of never losing his temper. Sometimes that was not easy. “Can Rap, though?”

  “We’re going to find out, aren’t we? He’s our leader. Who else could be? Olybino should have been, but he ducked and now he’s dead. Besides, the oth
er races never trust imps. Grunth is a troll — for all her snarling and big teeth, she’s a rabbit at heart. Are you suggesting that elf?” Raspnex raised a fist like a stonemason’s hammer.

  Dwarves and elves went together like water and quicklime. Raspnex and Lith’rian might both accept Rap, but neither would ever accept the other.

  Shandie said, “No.”

  “Good. Rap invented the new protocol. Rap beat Zinixo once before. Rap refused a warden’s throne — three times he refused. Rap is the only sorcerer other sorcerers will ever trust! In fact…” The warlock glanced thoughtfully at Inos. “There are rumors that he could have been a God and he turned that down, too.”

  The queen glanced up and met his stony glare. “Are there really?” she said coldly.

  The dwarf chuckled, as if he had just confirmed a suspicion. “Rap is our leader. Any more bright ideas, imp?”

  “None whatsoever,” Shandie said grimly. There had been no word from Rap in months. Was he even alive? He could well be dead, even if the Covin were not aware of it.

  Raspnex leered. “Good. It’s what Olybino said and no one argued. There’s no one else for the job.”

  “So we are waiting for him to sound the attack?” Inos asked, squinting again at her paper.

  “Yes.”

  “But how long do we wait?” Shandie asked.

  “Dunno. Long as he wants. But don’t make any plans for Longday. Or after,” he added glumly.

  “I dunno, either,” Inos said. “Have you ever seen anyone like this?”

  She passed the paper across to Shandie. It was not a letter, it was a sketch.

  “I didn’t know you were an artist!” he exclaimed. And a good one — he turned the sheet to the light. The queen of Krasnegar was a woman of infinite surprises. She had drawn four youthful male faces, one frowning, the others smiling. Yet there was something about the smiles that smacked of nightmare and raised his dander.

  “Elves?”

  “No.”

  No. The noses were wrong. The ears were certainly wrong.

  “Then who?”

  “I asked if you had ever seen anyone like them.”

  “Pixies? These are the pixies you met in Thume?”

  “As well as I can recall. It was twenty years ago, remember.” She shivered. “But I still meet them in dreams.”

  Shandie nodded excitedly. “It could be! The old woman who told me about the preflecting pool? Rap and Doctor Sagorn both suggested she might have been a pixie.”

  “Well?” Inos asked patiently. “Was she?”

  “I didn’t get a very good look, but — yes! Yes, I think so. The nose is right. The eyes are certainly right. They were not elvish eyes.”

  Inos smirked, pleased at his reaction. “Does that answer your original question. Sire?”

  Raspnex glared up at her. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

  “Yes,” she said sweetly. “We’ll meet up with the others at Randport. If the war hasn’t broken out by then, well, it would only take us a day or two to sail across and take a peek.”

  The dwarf was looking more astonished than Shandie could ever recall seeing him. “Go to Thume? Woman, you are out of your mind!”

  “Indeed?” Inos cocked an eyebrow. “Why? Tell me why?”

  The warlock just stared, speechless.

  At that moment the post horn sounded.

  “Time to go,” Shandie said, hiding his amusement. “Let’s think about it and talk it over this evening.”

  6

  A good-looking young couple in their very early twenties, possibly accompanied by a female child aged about two.

  The description had not done them justice. In fifty years of service. Mother Iffini had seen no lovers to match them. The girl had the fragile, innocent purity of fine porcelain, the boy a winsome sparkle of devilry, but it was their physical beauty that impressed her most — and the way they glowed when they looked at each other.

  “Shorter than most and thinner than few” was how Mother Iffini liked to describe herself. She knew of no reason why an elderly cleric need be athletic, whereas a comfy maternal portliness was often an advantage in putting people at ease. With her baby-pink face and soft white hair, she felt that she represented the exact ideal of a wise, tolerant, venerable counsellor. Her appearance certainly deserved the honorific of “Mother,” and she tried to make her behavior equally worthy.

  Her little chapel stood in the fruit country east of Gaaze, at a crossroads amid the orchards. It had a name on the maps, but no one ever referred to it as anything but the White Temple. At some times of the year the countryside swarmed with migrant workers, and she would fill the place four or five times over on every feast day. Between harvests, the countryside dozed off to sleep again, and even the most popular God would not merit a congregation of more than a dozen. As the bishop admitted, the area could not have supported a permanent temple at all without the inheritance Mother Iffini had received from her grandparents.

  The fig season had not begun yet. Orchards stretched out sleepily under the summer haze with the Qoble Mountains a spectral backdrop to the north. At this time of year her duties were light. When callers came, she preferred to meet with them outdoors, although she was always careful to ask if they minded. She would show them the little courtyard behind her house and explain how completely private it was, even better than the house really because sometimes servants overheard without meaning to, and she would sit them down in the shade of the vine trellis, next to the bougainvillea, so magnificently purple. There was an ancient stone table there, well embroidered with lichens, and some comfortable wicker chairs. When there were children, as now, she would provide a bag of crumbs and point out the gleam of golden scales gliding under the water lily pads.

  Thus Mother Iffini put her unexpected visitors at ease this breathless summer afternoon. She told her groom to attend to their horse, had cool lemonade brought for them, showed the little girl how to feed the carp. She moved the parrot’s cage to a safe height so there would be no nipped fingers, and finally got down to business, setting out inkwell and quill and parchment certificate on the table. Next to a naming ceremony, she enjoyed weddings more than anything.

  Good-looking young couple in their very early twenties, indeed! The girl was an enchantress, unforgettable, the sort of stunning beauty one saw only once or twice in a lifetime. But then the boy was, too, although one normally did not use the same words for men. She could not recall a more romantic couple, nor a couple more obviously besotted. When they looked at each other the sun dimmed.

  “Oh, do stop talking nonsense, you feather-headed bird,” said the parrot.

  Mother Iffini decided that she had a problem.

  Never in her born days had she doubted her own loyalty to the imperor, Gods bless him. Gaaze was not so far off that she had no contact with the legion there, the XIIth, probably the best in the army. Many a local boy had gone off to join the XIIth and come back all shining and proud in his bronze to brighten her little temple. She had married legionaries, named legionaries — future legionaries, of course — and buried legionaries. She was a loyal subject of his Majesty and a strong supporter of the army.

  But before anything, she was a sworn servant of the Gods. The two duties had never come into conflict for her before. Perhaps they were not in conflict now, but she would have to make sure of that. After all, the legionary who had come calling yesterday had not shown her any formal warrant, as happened once in a while when there was a criminal loose. He had named no crime. He had merely read out a memorandum. That was not quite the same, was it, as showing her a document with the lictor’s seal on it? It was certainly no reason why she should not perform a marriage if her conscience said she should, whether or not she reported her visitors afterward.

  She dipped her quill in the inkwell. Date… “Why, this is Mother’s Eve! You are quite sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow?” She beamed at them to show that she was not serious, but she was r
ather hoping they would agree to a delay, so she would have time to think.

  The visitors looked deep into each other’s eyes and shook their heads. “No,” the woman whispered.

  She should have seated them a little farther apart. They were almost close enough to touch fingers across the table if they stretched out their arms. They were having trouble not doing so.

  “Actually I have two weddings scheduled for tomorrow anyway. Don’t know I could stand the excitement of three. I am sure the God of Motherhood will bless your union even if you do not choose Their day. Your name, my dear?”

  The woman spoke the name the soldier had spoken.

  Iffini wrote it down with a sigh — not that she had been in any doubt that these were the ones. “That is a very unusual name. It used to be unusual, I should say. Now, of course, it is enormously popular, the name of our dear new impress. I am sure half the girls I have named this year have been Eshialas.”

  She was surprised to see the shocked reaction in the girl’s face, a look of… of fright? How odd! Surely she was not seeking a marriage ceremony under a false name? Apart from the insult to the Gods, the procedure would be useless to her. The whole purpose of a wedding — the secular purpose — was to give a woman a legal hold over the father of her children so he could not disown them. That legal hold was the certificate she was now drawing up. It would be invalid if the information on it was perjured.

  “Widow?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your name, sir?”

  “Ylo. Bachelor.”

  The legionary had not given Iffini the man’s name. Now she had heard it, it seemed oddly familiar. She was sure she had heard that name in the last year or two in some connection or other.

  Young Master Ylo was grinning rather naughtily at his bride-to-be, who was trying not to show any reaction. The word “bachelor” sometimes brought out a sense of guilt in some of the racier ones.

  “Oh do stop talking nonsense, you feather-headed bird,” said the parrot.

  Mother Iffini dipped her quill again. “Now, your late husband’s name, ma’am?”