A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Eshiala was almost at the gap, another hurdle. Remember you are jumping him downhill, love! There was no field beyond it, just a narrow lane and another hedge. She could jump, but did she have room to land? Why did she not just wait for him to come and move the hurdle? He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the gelding was gone and must be presumed safely over and heading to the right, downhill. Oh, bravely, bravely done! That sorrel was a steeplechaser born. They would have a clear run down the lane to the river. Just don’t drop Maya now, darling!

  The roan was slowing, limping harder. All Ylo’s training in horsemanship screamed at him to let her stop before he killed her. His father’s ghost pounded on him. Yshan and Yyan, long-dead brothers, howled in his ears. He kicked and kicked, urging the mare onward toward that exit.

  Again he took a quick glance back, and there were three horsemen in the pasture with him. A fourth came over the hedge even as he looked, then down and down, crumpling and rolling in disaster on the grass. One less — but that didn’t matter. Three would be enough. He had a sword, but he couldn’t fight three.

  Gate coming up. The roan was too lame to jump. He wasn’t going to make the river on a lame horse.

  4

  “For gods’ sake, Kadie!” Inos said, hugging her frantic daughter. “Thaïle’s only gone away for a few minutes. Stop making such a scene!”

  She transfixed her husband with a penetrating green stare.

  Rap said, “Huh?” and “Oh, yes. Well, I was thinking of going for a swim. Anyone else fancy a swim? No? Be back shortly, then.”

  He strode off across the glade.

  Women!

  Kadie’s problem must be even worse than he had realized if she became hysterical every time her heroine left her for a moment. She was still only a child and he was her father, so he eavesdropped, knowing that Inos would expect him to, or at least would have no objection. As he pushed through the scrub and poplar saplings, his eyes and ears were back at the cabin — in a manner of speaking.

  “Now come and sit here with me,” Inos was saying sternly. “Your father doesn’t know the difference between a chair and a double bed. I’ve always wondered if he was color blind and now I’m sure of it. There. Well, we might as well lie back.”

  They stretched out side by side on the cushions. Kadie had not stopped whimpering and weeping on her mother’s shoulder.

  “Mph!” Inos said crossly. “Perhaps a good slap was what you needed. What sort of princessy behavior is this?”

  Rap came to the edge of the bank and slithered down in a shower of pebbles. The tide was out, exposing a wide expanse of white sand punctuated with slimy rocks. Wind stirred his hair. He began to trudge seaward and returned his mind to the conversation.

  “Family is family,” Inos was saying, “and friends are friends. Good friends are more precious than fine jewels, and greatly to be treasured. But you never own your friends. They’re not pets. They have their lives to lead, too.”

  Reaching damper sand, he paused to strip and put his clothes in a heap. Cool salty wind caressed his hide. The entire bay was empty as far as he could see. Perhaps in the real-world Thume it was inhabited, but not in this one, the College Thume. He padded forward again, enjoying the wetness under his feet.

  Inos had not yet managed to start Kadie talking, apparently.

  “You were very, very lucky that she found you, and she has been very kind to you. I understand why you feel as you do. But tell me this: What does Thaïle get out of your friendship? What do you provide her in return for all the help and care she has given you?”

  Kadie just sniveled.

  “I said you can’t treat a friend as a pet, Kadie. You can’t behave like a pet, either. If you pester Thaïle too much, she may not want to be quite as friendly. You must be considerate in return for her kindness.”

  Rap was wading into the sea, eyeing the big breakers ahead. He’d learned to body-surf back at Durthing, years ago, and it would be fun to try that again. Perhaps not today, though.

  Kadie now: “…doesn’t mind. She’s told me so lots of times.” Sniff! “Says I’m good company for her ’cause she —” Sniff! “— doesn’t have any friends here, either. They killed her baby!” Weep.

  Undertow sucked at his knees and a glistening green wall rose up menacingly in front of him.

  “Do you know why sorcerers never marry other sorcerers?” Inos asked.

  The breaker hung in the sky, light shining through it. He dived into the base of it and was snatched underneath, through cool green silence.

  Inos still: “I don’t suppose she could. Words of power don’t let themselves be talked about. But I can tell you. I’m probably the only person in the world who can tell you!”

  Rap’s head broke surface and he struck out seaward, hearing the crash of falling surf behind him.

  “…don’t know any words now. I’m the only ex-sorcerer in the world, and so I’m the only person who knows these things and can also talk about them. So listen. Four words make you a sorcerer. In most cases a fifth word will destroy you. Almost nobody has enough control over magic to stand the power of five words. It’s an overload, too many bales on the camel. Anyone who can survive, though, is a demigod. Like the Keeper. Like your father was once. Demigods are enormously strong, far beyond ordinary sorcerers, but they live in constant pain, fighting the power trying to destroy them.”

  “Destroy them how?” Kadie whimpered.

  “Well, I saw a sorceress learn a fifth word and she burst into flames like tinder.”

  The next swell lifted Rap heavenward in cool bliss, not far from a bobbing white bird, a feathered boat with a cynical gold eye.

  “Yes, it was horrible,” Inos said. “She burned away completely. And that’s why sorcerers mustn’t fall in love with other sorcerers. They daren’t! Men and women making love are not always, er, well, not always quite in command of what they do or say. It would be too easy to share a word of power at such a time.”

  “Thought they were hard to say!” Kadie objected, watching her mother with red-rimmed green eyes.

  Rap sank downward into the trough, relishing the effort and unfamiliar exercise.

  “In this case it’s different,” Inos was saying. “Because there’s love involved. It’s a special case. Maybe sometimes sorcerers do fall in love and deliberately do share five words, but then something completely different happens.”

  Inos was doing remarkably well! Rap took a deep breath and submerged.

  “Your father and I had this problem, you see. Two people plus five words plus love…”

  “What’s the matter?” Kadie demanded.

  Rap chuckled to himself, fighting himself down into deeper, darker green. He’d been expecting this. From the expression on Inos’ face, she was experiencing a sudden attack of nausea.

  “There’s more than just the words keep that secret, dear. The Gods don’t… Ouch!”

  In the depths of the sea, Thaïle appeared to him.

  “Rap? Your Majesty?” she said. She was perfectly audible, and apparently completely dry down there.

  “What —” Taken aback by this apparition. Rap released a cloud of bubbles and began to choke.

  “We need your help. Rap. Come, please.”

  Suddenly he was standing in a forest — stark naked, soaking wet, convulsively coughing up seawater.

  5

  Ylo checked the lathered roan and slid from the saddle. He landed her a grateful pat or two on her wet neck, for the poor brute had given him all she could. He tied the reins to the hurdle. It was a nasty thing, woven from thorny branches and lashed to the hedge at both ends with strong-looking rope. He had no time to take his dagger to it, and no need. He squeezed through under one end of the barrier, scratching himself mightily in the process. He took off down the road.

  As soon as he was hidden by the hedge he doubled back to the edge of the gap and waited, his heart a pounding hammer in his chest.

  He glanced behind him. Eshiala was nowhere
to be seen. Then she came into sight out of a dip. She was well down the lane and still going, although the gelding was obviously tiring. She twisted around to look for him and he froze, resisting an urge to wave — if she saw him dismounted she might be stupid enough to come back for him.

  Hooves drummed on the turf and the roan whinnied. He stooped to find a rock, a heavy rock, the sort of rock that might knock a rider off his horse. He had left the mare blocking the gap — would the horseman dismount to move the barrier? The hooves slowed. Then the hurdle creaked as the frightened roan tried to back out of the way. The hooves drummed harder and ceased abruptly. Ylo hurled the rock. As soon as it left his hand he knew it was aimed too low. Man and horse came through the air and the missile struck the horse just below its eye.

  It was enough to throw the beast off its landing. It came down on knees, neck, shoulder, rump high in the air, mount and rider one huge mass of flesh toppling together. The mailed man clanged on the road and the horse rolled on him.

  That left two. In a momentary silence Ylo heard more hooves coming.

  The man he had felled was obviously no longer a threat. If the Gods were feeling kind, then his horse might just be well enough to ride. It struggled to right itself, hampered by its rider’s foot caught in a stirrup, then collapsed again. Dog food! The Gods were not benevolent. Ylo felt much worse about the horse than the man.

  He looked for Eshiala. She had reached the bottom of the hill, was heading for another gate. One more field to cross and she would be at the water. He wanted to cheer. Don’t stop now, my darling! Go! Go! Go!

  The sound of hooves grew louder. The roan mare whinnied and backed away, ripping off half the hurdle and leaving a barrier scarcely knee-high.

  Ylo drew his sword.

  * * *

  Rap stood in the shadow of a forest, mostly beeches and chestnut. Beside him were Archon Thaïle and several other people. Nudity in other people was nothing to sorcerers, who could see through stone walls. Nudity in oneself was something else. Even before he had stopped throwing up saltwater, he created a pair of trousers on himself. They turned out the same surprising shade of purple as the chairs back at his Place, but that didn’t matter. Beechnuts prickled his feet, but shoes could wait, also.

  Thaïle he recognized, and Raim, and the other two were archons, whose names escaped him. They were standing at the top of a low cliff, sheltered by bushes. Below the cliff, trees sloped gently to a river. Beyond the river lay fields and farmland that could only be the Impire, probably Qoble.

  He stopped coughing. “You called?” he gasped.

  “Can you see what is happening?” Thaïle demanded. Everyone was studying something on the far bank. Tension crackled in the ambience and his levity had been misplaced.

  “No.” His farsight range was sadly restricted now..

  He was granted power in a surge that shocked him. It brought vision that would make a hawk blink, and then he saw everything. A woman was riding a chestnut horse, clutching a child in front of her and going down a lane at breakneck speed, heading for the river. Farther away, half a dozen horsemen came in pursuit, spread out all the way to the skyline at the height of land. They all wore the chain mail of legionaries and at least three sported the white crests of centurions. One man had come a cropper trying to jump a hedge and was sitting on the grass clutching his right ankle. His horse grazed peacefully nearby, seemingly unharmed.

  There was another horse and another man, a civilian. He had dismounted at a gate and left his horse behind in the field. He was waiting in obvious ambush for the first of the pursuers. What chance did he think he had against horsemen?

  “Fugitives?” Rap said. “You must get them through here all the time, surely?”

  “A woman with child!” Thaïle said. “She has a child with her and she is herself with child. There is a prophecy!”

  He wanted to shrug. He wanted to say: But I helped you three nights ago, and what good did it do me?

  Instead he said, “What do you want me to do? Again I point out that you must get fugitives dropping in all the time. Why four archons for this lot? Why me?”

  “You do not see?” Raim said. “Look in the ambience.”

  Powers preserve us! Faint, like smoke, two great eyes hung in the sky. They were insubstantial, and yet stony, a ghost of a cliff face, a hint made up of cloud and shadow against the blue. Of course it was illusion. It was only Rap’s own mind trying to make sense of the inconceivable, but the image was enough to chill him to the marrow. It was the same symbolism his brain had used when the Almighty had come searching the ambience for him in Ilrane. He was sensing the Covin. The Covin, too, was watching the drama unfolding in the valley.

  Why?

  The audience grew larger as more archons materialized at his side.

  “Well, it seems you do have a problem,” Rap said. “Not an hour ago Thaïle was telling me that only sorcery could injure Thume. Those folk down there are all mundane, aren’t they?”

  “Seemingly,” Thaïle said. “But why are they of interest to the Almighty?”

  “You expect me to know?” Rap exclaimed. “Just like that?” Had the pixies any idea of how big the outside world was or how many people lived in it?

  The first pursuer jumped his horse over the gate by the watcher and went down in a gruesome tangle. Certainly that man was — or had been — no sorcerer.

  It was the Azak problem all over again. If the Keeper used power to repel the invaders, then the Covin would notice. If the fugitives were allowed to cross the river they would vanish behind the inattention spell, and the Covin might wonder.

  Who could these runaways be that they should merit such a pursuit and such an observer? Rap focused his superhuman vision on the woman. His shock alerted the other sorcerers.

  “Who is it?” Thaïle cried.

  He could not believe it himself, but he said it. “It’s Impress Eshiala. The child is her daughter, the princess imperial.”

  How in the world had Eshiala managed to come to Thume? Shandie had left her in a safe house close to Hub. Why would she have come here?

  “And the man?” one of the archons demanded.

  The man? The civilian by the gate? He had his sword out. He was making no attempt to rescue the injured legionary, whose horse was obviously now crippled and who might be dead himself. Had the civilian contrived that fall? If so, he was fighting a very dirty battle.

  Gods have mercy — it was Ylo! Signifer Ylo. His face was scratched bloody and streaked with dust and sweat also, but there was no mistaking it. Good looks like that were rare enough to be unforgettable.

  Oh, of course.

  “The man is Shandie’s signifer.” Thumian lacked such a word and Rap spoke the impish term. “That’s an assistant… He’s a lecher, a woman chaser. When I met him, he was after the impress. Apparently he got her.”

  Ylo had been with Shandie when the goblins caught him. Rap had not thought to ask Inos what had happened to him. There had been many, far more important things to discuss than Shandie’s signifer.

  “Then it is the woman the Almighty hunts?” Raim asked.

  “It must be. Or the child. Ylo’s a pretty lad and he has some good qualities, but there’s nothing much to him.” Rap pulled his wits together. “Look, call my wife here.”

  “Why should we need her?” a quiet voice in the background asked.

  Without turning his head, he glanced behind him. The Keeper was standing back under the trees, a dark shape leaning on a staff, a shadow in the shadows.

  “I am only trying to be helpful. Holiness,” he said. “I am a friend of Thume’s, remember?”

  “Bring her,” the Keeper said.

  But the second legionary was nearing the gate, and apparently that civilian was about to tackle an armored, mounted opponent. Nothing much to him? That could not be the same Ylo Rap had met. Or else he’d gone crazy.

  The impress cleared the gate into the water meadow and her horse stumbled and went down under her.
The child rolled free.

  “Good!” the Keeper said.

  * * *

  The opponent approaching would wield a legionary’s short sword. Ylo wore no chain mail and his rapier was a gentleman’s weapon. He must use his advantage in reach immediately, before his blade could be knocked aside or perhaps even cut through. He was on the man’s right, and much would depend on whether the man had already drawn his sword. This battle was turning into a very dirty fight, but the Imperial Army had never cared much for rules except the one that said The good guys must win and we are always the good guys.

  The knell of hooves slowed. The rider must have seen his predecessor go down and might be expecting an ambush. Or perhaps he was merely watching his footing. The fragment of hurdle remaining was no great barrier, but it could trip a weary horse.

  He put his mount over it in proper jump style, which meant he was crouched low in the saddle. Possibly his attention had wandered to the casualty sprawled in the dirt, or possibly he expected a conventional attack from the left. Ylo leaped forward and lunged upward. The point of his rapier screeched on chain mail and went through the gap in the armpit. That was not a stroke to kill a man instantly, but it could do a lot of damage and it certainly served Ylo’s purpose. The rider keeled over with a bubbling scream. The horse shied from the sudden attack and bucked. Ylo’s sword came free. The downed horse tried again to rise and again collapsed on its motionless rider.