A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Waist-high all around them, the lurid green foliage rippled in the breeze. A line of tall hedgerow showed where the road ran close by. Southward, the sky tree of Valdorian was all ablaze now in the rays of the rising sun, a crystal artichoke two leagues high. Thin cloud streamed eastward from the summit.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” the half-breed said in an awed voice.

  “Fantastic!” It would take days to reach that monstrosity on foot. “Why didn’t your sorcerous friends put us closer?”

  “Oh, we were afraid there might be magical boobytraps set up around it.”

  Oh, great! Just wonderful.

  “And we must give the others time to get things organized in Dragon Reach,” Rap continued, wading off into the greenery. “Lith’rian,” he said over his shoulder, “is going to explode in streaks of fiery fury when he hears what we’re up to.”

  Even greater! A furious suicidal elvish ex-warlock!

  Other plans were needed, and soon. If Andor’s mastery was going to be used to charm him into elvish places, those places were not going to be any urinating sky trees, they were going to be bedrooms. Come to think of it, there was one bright spot in this mess, and that was girls. Since elves never showed their age, elvish women were all nubile. And lovely. And inventive. And extremely susceptible. They could often be talked into interesting group exercises. So the first fork in the road would see a faunless Andor heading for the nearest convenient port, but on the way there he would certainly refresh his memories of elvish hospitality and intimate —

  “God of Fools!” the faun roared. He turned and grabbed Andor and spun him around and rushed him back the way they had come by sheer brute strength, until they reached the trampled patch where they had spent the night. There he stopped. “God of Misery!” he added.

  Andor hurled himself to the ground to hide. Realizing that the faun was still standing, he peered up — and greatly disliked what he saw. He knew Rap was heavily cursed with the sort of unimaginative stupidity often referred to as “courage.” He had very rarely seen Rap look frightened. He had never seen him look like he did now. But if such obvious danger threatened, why was he still on his feet, in full view of the whole world?

  “What the Evil is wrong?” Andor bleated… demanded.

  The king swung his pack off and dropped it. “The Covin!” he growled. He sat on the pack, put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, and scowled homicidally at the distant sky tree.

  “Rap —”

  “Shut up and let me think!”

  That remark shocked Andor more than he liked to contemplate. That remark had not represented Rap’s usual stubborn insistence on ignoring trouble. That remark had sounded scared. Andor wondered if he ought to make a break for it while there was still time.

  “Sorry,” Rap muttered, still pulling faces. “I let it startle me.”

  “Let what startle you?”

  “Eyes. Zinixo’s eyes.”

  Andor clenched his teeth to keep them silent.

  Rap paused a moment longer, then sighed. “I think I see. I’m not near as wise as I once was, you know, but I think I see what he’s doing; how he’s doing it. He’s… well, just because I understand doesn’t mean I can explain it.” He straightened up and ran both hands through his thicket of hair. “The Covin’s mounting a personal search for me. It started to home in on me as soon as we left the shielding.”

  “It didn’t find you, did it?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Why obviously?”

  “Oh — because we’re still alive and at liberty. But it’s like being hunted by hounds, I think. Every scenting or sighting will bring them closer.”

  “Just you?” Andor licked his lips, wondering how to suggest tactfully that he be allowed to leave — alone, of course. A week’s start would be only fair.

  “Just me. I saw Zinixo’s eyes… Big as mountains, cold as stone.” Rap shivered. “It’s sort of like the sending he used on Shandie at the beginning. It’s not the same as the hunt for magic he tried on us in the Mosweeps. This is personal!”

  And obviously dangerous. “Why now?”

  “I don’t know!” the faun muttered, scowling. “Perhaps because of Olybino’s performance. Perhaps the dwarf didn’t realize I was involved in the Mosweeps thing. Perhaps he still feared I was a demigod, and didn’t dare risk personal contact… He’s a horrible coward, you know? Worse than, well, worse than anyone else I can think of. If I was,” he growled, “was still a demigod, I mean, then I’d accept the connection and burn him to a crisp! Even if I had to fry half the Covin to get to him, I would!” He groaned and returned to his concentrated brooding.

  Andor struggled to regain control over his teeth. “Rap?” he whimpered. “Rap, if any one of us five ever dies before he can call another, then the other four will be lost forever, won’t they? That means effectively dead, doesn’t it? The first death will kill all five of us!”

  “I suppose so,” the king murmured, seemingly still engrossed in other matters.

  “Well, then?”

  What Andor meant was that it wasn’t fair to expect him to risk five lives all on his own. He had more to lose than other men, didn’t he? How could he put that into words?

  “Ha!” Rap grinned. “Got it! At least, I think I have.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “He’s hunting for my, er, my magical signature, I suppose is the best way to describe it.” He scowled, briefly. “Never mind the details. What matters is that he’s looking for me as a sorcerer. If I cloak myself in a shielding, so I don’t react with the ambience…”

  For a moment he twisted his ugly features in a grimace. Then he jumped up, smirking. “There! Done it!”

  Andor clambered warily to his feet, dusting himself. “Done what?”

  “I just shielded myself.” Rap chuckled and ran his hands through his awful hair again. “No sorcery in, no sorcery out! So as far as the Covin’s concerned, I’m a mundane, and thus I won’t show up to their search! So it’s all up to you, now, friend Andor. Lead the way!”

  Not a sorcerer?

  Well, in that case…

  A hurricane hit Andor at full force, slamming him into the ground, knocking all the wind out of him, rolling him over. Then the great ox was on his back, crushing his lungs, twisting his arm up until his shoulder was almost dislocated.

  “Rap!” he gurgled, through a faceful of greenery. “What the Evil are you doing?”

  “Thought you saw your chance, did you?” a gruff voice snarled in his ear. “Thought you’d settle a few old scores, did you?”

  “Rap! Never! What in the world are you talking about? We’re old buddies, you and I! Ever since I gave you your first lesson in bookkeeping —”

  “That won’t work, either!” the jotunnish accent said. “This shielding will keep your occult charm out, too! I saw where your hand was heading.”

  Damnation! “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Oh, yes, you do! So now I know I can’t turn my back on you, Andor, old snake. Too bad, because you’d have been really helpful.”

  “You’re making a horrible mistake,” Andor told the vegetation under his nose. It was hard to breathe with that load on top of him. “I was just scratching a bite.”

  “You were just drawing your sword! And we both know who’s the better swordsman. Going to finish our long-ago duel, were you? Well, I think we’ll have Jalon in your place, thank you nicely. He can’t help as you could have, but he does look sort of elvish at a distance. And I can trust him at my back.”

  “Rap —”

  The pressure on Andor’s arm increased mercilessly.

  “Rap!!”

  “Call Jalon!” the faun roared. He sounded more like a jotunn when he wasn’t visible.

  The bones in Andor’s shoulder creaked and burst into flame. Oh, God of Vengeance! He swore a silent oath and called:

  2

  Jalon lifted his face out of the mush and said, “Ouch!”
The pressure on his arm eased immediately. “This is not easy for a jotunn, you know!” he said. “If I lose my temper, I may start using really vulgar language.”

  With a hoarse chuckle, the weight vanished from his back. A moment later two big hands grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him bodily upright He spun around and was enveloped in the big fellow’s hearty embrace. They thumped each other and laughed.

  He backed off, wiping sap and leaves from his cheeks. “Good to see you again. Rap! Hope I can stay around a little longer this time, though.”

  “Hope so, too! It’s good to have you back.” Puffing slightly, the oversized faun grinned down happily at the undersized jotunn.

  “And great to be in Ilrane!” Jalon said. Immature sugarcane rippled all around — oh, that green! He inspected his hand, which was bright with the same green. “You know, I’ve never found a stable pigment to capture this color? Not close, even! It’s almost glauconite, but with less blue in it. Do you think you could magic up some for me some time?”

  Inexplicably Rap bellowed with laughter. “If that’s all I have to pay for your assistance, then I’ll be more than happy to oblige.”

  “You will? Oh, thanks. Rap!” Jalon rubbed his shoulder. He must not get lost in thinking about painting, though, or singing. He must remember that they were here on very important business, and not go wool-gathering. Then he recalled the sky tree and swung around to take a proper look at it.

  God of Beauty! Glorious! The nimbus of color on the sunward side, a spiky kaleidoscope of pale hues, contrasting with the low-value gentian blue of the shadowed face, and the cerulean sky beyond — he drank it in, memorizing the play of light.

  “I said,” Rap repeated, “that if your shoulder hurts, I can take off my shielding for a moment and fix it for you, while we’re here.”

  “Mm? No, it’s fine.” Even the clouds took on pearly tints near the tree.

  “You’ve seen a sky tree before, haven’t you?”

  “What? Oh, yes. Andor visited Valdostor years ago, and he called me to do some of the climbing for him.” But Jalon had never really had a good chance to study a tree at a distance, in its proper setting. The land rose in irregular waves to it — the root hills, elves called them — and here they were blotched with orchards and vineyards in malachite and shamrock green, streaked with deeper cypress. Might even be real cypresses.

  “What? Oh, thanks.” He accepted his pack from the faun and let himself be led across the field toward the road. The air was honey and wine. Ilrane! At last! He had always wanted to visit Ilrane and had always let himself be diverted somehow. There would be songs to learn, too, because everybody knew that the elves had music they saved for homeland and sky trees.

  “Aren’t you going to put that pack on?” Rap asked as they scrambled through the hedge.

  “On? Of course!” Jalon hauled the straps over his shoulders. They were set for Andor, and loose on him, but they would do for now. Meanwhile he was far more interested in —

  “This road!” the faun said. “I didn’t notice in the night — it’s colored!”

  “All roads are colored in Ilrane, Rap. Elves don’t like bare gravel or rock. The pictures tell a story to speed your journey. Two stories, depending which direction you’re going. Let’s see, this one seems to be —”

  “We have to go this way.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all right. This way it’ll be better. The best tales lead to the trees, of course. Yes, this looks like the tale of Puil’arin. She was the daughter of Zand’arin, War Vicar of the Senior Sept, and she fell in love with…”

  In a few paces, the ballad came flooding back. Wishing he had a lyre or a lute with him, Jalon raised his eyes to the road ahead and began to sing. Rap strode along at his side, listening contentedly.

  There was something magical about the light in Ilrane. It made a man’s heart tingle. It roasted every warm color and froze every cool one; a million tints of green vibrated all around. The most banal motifs were transformed into marvels — willows over brooks, cattle under trees, cottages drowning in billows of flowers. Jalon’s head ached with the effort of storing up memories he would express in pigment when he returned to Hub. He would try watercolor first, he decided, then oils, but would he manage to capture that enchantment? Probably he would dash off a dozen or so landscapes in a few days, working in a frenzy until he was ready to drop. Thereafter they would lie around his studio until Thinal sold them off for a fortune to rich imps, or Andor gave them away to women. That was what usually happened. He didn’t care; it was the act of creation that mattered.

  Sometime on that first morning, he lost his pack. Rap was annoyed. He said he’d been watching, and it had still happened, and how the Evil could a grown man lose a backpack without even remembering taking it off? Jalon apologized and promised to pay better attention in future. Yes, he did know how important this mission was. But why did they need packs at all? The climate was much like a warm bed all the time, and the hedgerows alone were laden with enough berries to feed them, even without having to raid the orchards.

  Rap didn’t believe that, so Jalon marched over to the nearest hedge and began filling his hat with berries — some people just couldn’t see what was in front of their eyes! He would have collected a dinner in minutes, except he got distracted by a spider spinning a web. He wanted to see how she would finish it, but Rap came and said it was time to move on.

  That night they bedded down in a copse by a stream. Jalon insisted on choosing the spot, because he wanted a good view of the sky tree. It seemed bigger now, towering over the hills. It reflected in the foreground pool, glowing begonia pink against the cobalt and manganese twilight, and sometimes fish set it rippling in circles. It was so beautiful it hurt. Perhaps an underpainting of madder scarlet, overlain with glazes of burnt umber and ultramarine…

  “Just like old times, isn’t it?” Rap said wistfully. “Like you and me and Gathmor marching across Dragon Reach.”

  Yes, Jalon agreed, just like old times. They talked about that for a while. It didn’t seem all that long ago to him, but Rap had certainly been much younger then, so perhaps it was. Gathmor had been a likable guy for a sailor; short-tempered, of course. Fortunately Rap was more understanding — Jalon was almost certain he had started out the morning with a sword, and now he didn’t have one, and he felt guilty about that. Not that he was any use with a sword, but he might have to call Darad. He wondered if Rap had noticed its disappearance yet.

  “I suppose it would be safe to have a dip in that pool?” Rap said suddenly.

  “Why not? I expect at least a dozen girls will appear as soon as we get our clothes off.”

  “Will they? We haven’t seen many so far.”

  “Then why did you keep pulling me into hedges?”

  Rap hauled off his shirt. “Three times. Only three times all day have we seen people. No livestock, nobody in the fields! The farms all seem deserted.” He pushed off his boots, and then stayed sitting, frowning. “Where is everybody?”

  “Fled, I expect.”

  The faun scratched his head. “Or taken refuge in the sky tree?”

  “No. We’d see lights up there if it was inhabited.”

  “Barnacles! Why didn’t I think of that?” Rap stared at the great bulk of Valdorian, slate blue now against the emerging stars. The play of starlight on it was unforgettable, but not a lantern nor a torch flame showed.

  “Because you’re not an artist,” Jalon said, feeling rather pleased at having been useful for once. “And you can’t swim worth a spit.”

  “Oh, yes? Think you’re better? Want to prove it?”

  It was too bad there were no elves around. They might have been difficult with strangers, of course, but Jalon wanted very much to talk with real Ilrane elves. Later, when he and Rap had enjoyed their swim, had eaten, and were lying on heaps of ferns, bone weary from their long trek but not quite ready to sleep, they fell to talking about elves. And Jalon found himself telling a little of himsel
f, and what it was like to be a mixture of such impossible opposites as elf and jotunn.

  Apparently he had already told Rap once, long ago, that he had elf blood in him, although he did not recall doing so. Normally he never mentioned it. Apart from his size, he was so completely jotunn on the outside that no one would ever guess. Only the inside of his head was elvish.

  “You must have had a difficult childhood,” Rap said sleepily from the darkness.

  Jalon stared up at the star dust above the branches and said yes, he’d had some troubles then. “As long as I stayed away from jotnar, it wasn’t too bad, though. Imp boys didn’t mess with me, on account of my looks.”

  “But elf boys would have nothing to do with you?”

  “There weren’t any elf boys in our part of town.” He did not mention his mother, because he could remember so little of her. Whether she’d been raped by a jotunn or had acquiesced in his conception, he had never known. The fact that she had lived apart from the elf community in Malfin suggested that she’d been driven out. Certainly an elf woman who had gone into domestic service must have been in sore straits. He liked to assume that she’d died of a broken heart. “I lived with Darad’s family. He was a younger brother to me, although he was always bigger. He used to defend me from the others — mostly so he could beat me up himself.”

  “Sounds like friend Darad,” Rap murmured. “Did he have more wits in those days, before they got banged out of him?”

  “Not that I recall. And I used to stay close to Thinal as much as I could.”

  “Thinal? The Thinal I know?”

  “Yes. He was older than the rest of us. He took good care of us, too. We worshipped Thinal!”

  Rap snorted but said nothing. It was certainly curious that the boyhood hero had turned out so despicable. Yet Thinal had always had his own standards. Inos’s father had liked him, but that had been long before Rap was born.

  “I suppose being a faun in Krasnegar wasn’t exactly cream buns either?”