by Dave Duncan
The old man sneered. "Training and practice, of course. I have an eidetic memory—I can recall a visual image of anything I have ever seen, or any page I have ever read. I should have thought that such an ability would lie within the powers of an adept."
"Would it, though?" Rap had not thought of that, and again felt a small tremor of premonition. No, a thrill of premonition. Somehow that scrap of information was important, and he was certainly overlooking something. An adept could master any human skill—why not memory? He had best go to his own cabin and do some thinking. And these uncanny premonitions . . . were they a sign of a developing foresight talent? Or only imagination?
His mother had been a seer.
He still had not discovered what ill tidings Sagorn was hoarding. "Do you think the warlock will aid me?"
"I have no idea." The old man's manner implied that he did not intend to find out, either.
"How long until I reach Valdorian?"
Sagorn shot a worried glance up at the window glass. Water was dribbling in around the edges. "If you can predict even where we shall be tomorrow, you are much more than an adept. You must know Allena's schedule. Malfin—"
"I know we are not expected in Vislawn for at least four weeks. I almost wish I'd not listened to Ishist's crazy ideas. I could have walked to Hub a lot sooner."
Sagorn bared his teeth in contempt. "So you may not have been quite the free agent you hoped? See why you should consult me before undertaking such rash actions?"
Once Rap would have felt anger at the old man's jibes. Now he was merely saddened by the petty spite that bred them.
"I understood that a serf could not walk up to the door of a warlock's palace and demand to see him."
"I have friends in Hub who could have arranged an audience."
"Quickly?"
"Maybe not right away," the scholar admitted.
"So this way may be quicker in the end?"
Sagorn nodded reluctantly. "Oh, once you reach Ilrane, you will be rushed to Valdorian. I have no doubt of that. The finest procrastinators in the world are Dwanishian customs officials, but elves run a close second, and they dislike strangers wandering around Ilrane. An elf who has uttered the Sublime Defiance, though—he's a matter of state! You'll be shipped like ice, posthaste."
"So how long?"
Sagorn shrugged. "Sixty leagues, maybe. A hard day's ride on good horses."
Sixty leagues in a day? While Rap was digesting that astonishing scrap of information, Sagorn rose stiffly to his feet. Balancing unsteadily, he closed the deadlight over the scupper. "The question may be moot, you know. We are hove to now, but we cannot have left Noom Bay yet. Our situation is perilous." He sat down again, probably more heavily than he had intended. Evidently he was enough of a jotunn to recognize the dangers of a lee shore.
A steward reeled along the passage, jangling a dinner bell.
"I do not think I shall essay the journey to the dining room," Sagorn muttered. "And Andor would have no appetite. Jalon, perhaps, would appreciate a good meal, and the crew knows none of us by sight . . ."
"I still hanker after that roast pork," Rap said. Time to go, and therefore time for a direct offensive. "I am curious about your motives, Doctor. And your friends'. Andor and Jalon and Darad all shook my hand. Each of them agreed to help my quest in return for my promise of help afterward. You and Thinal I have not asked yet. But I was very surprised to see Andor embark on this ship. Fidelity is not Andor's favorite sport."
The old man flushed. "He harbors delusions of weaseling your word of power out of you somewhere on the journey."
Rap shook his head.
The sage scowled. "We may not accompany you all the way to Vislawn. The schedule calls for stops at Malfin and Dal Petr and—"
"No. Andor is not overendowed with courage, either. He would not risk any sea voyage without very good reason, and he would run a thousand leagues to stay away from a warlock. Must I conclude that Ishist bound all five of you with a compulsion to accompany me to Lith'rian?"
Sagorn paled. "Certainly not!"
"Then the obvious question is, what else did your friend in Noom tell you?"
Sagorn snarled, baring yellow teeth. "You are growing too smart for your own good, young man! Here it is, then. Inosolan is dead!"
No!
Cognizant of his own face, Rap was certain he had shown no reaction, and Sagorn's obvious disappointment confirmed that.
"Who says so?" Rap asked stonily. No! No! No!
"Emshandar. He so informed the Senate when he advised it of the Krasnegar matter."
"And who told the imperor?"
"I don't know."
Sagorn was not lying. His unnamed friend would have had no reason to lie. Months ago, on the night when Rap had seen Inos somewhere in the desert of Zark, at least three of the wardens had known where she was, and at least two of them had been planning to snatch her away. If Hub thought she was dead, then something had gone wrong . . . Rap fought against a screaming sense of despair, but he thought his premonition was helping him. Something in this tale rang false. "I don't believe it."
Sagorn's book began to move. He grabbed for it too late, and it slid swiftly to the end of the bunk. Losing interest, he leaned back and sneered at Rap.
"As you grow older and wiser, you will discover that one's first reaction to distressing events is often one of rejection. The mind just refuses to believe, at first, and the emotions rule. But this news is hardly unexpected. In a day or so, you will come to accept it."
"And then?"
"And then you will see that your quest has been terminated. It has become impossible. Under the agreement you made with the others, you are morally bound to help us now. I call on you to share the second word with us."
Rap said nothing, thinking furiously.
Sagorn frowned. "True, that was not spelled out exactly. My associates failed to establish reasonable terms with you. But you are certainly under an ethical obligation." He was not nearly so confident as he was trying to appear, but Andor's decision to board the ship was now explicable.
Ishist had told Rap to trust his premontions. "I don't believe it," he repeated stubbornly.
"Faugh! You are being childish! She may have died the very night the sorceress abducted—"
"She was alive when we were in Milflor."
"How do you know that?" roared Sagorn.
"Never mind! I want to know who told the imperor."
"Then go to Hub and ask him!"
"Who holds the power? Him or the Senate?"
Sagorn's eyes narrowed. "Ten years ago—even five years ago—Emshandar could make the senators dance jigs in their nightgowns. These days . . . who knows?"
"So Krasnegar was an annoying problem for him. It was easier to find a solution without Inos, maybe, so he . . . simplified it?"
Sagorn laughed mockingly.
It sounded weak even to Rap, but he persisted. "A young queen in distress, and legionaries had already died to help her, and Emshandar wanted to give her kingdom away to the thane, but the senators might have—"
"Wishful thinking!"
And yet—
"The imperor may have been lying!"
Yes! said premonition. Closer! Closer!
Or was that only wishful thinking also? Oh, Inos!
"Your optimism is as far beyond belief as your claims of knowledge," Sagorn said. "Why would the wardens support such a falsehood? Tell me what you learned in Milflor." He was tortured by curiosity, and trying not to show it.
Taking pity on him. Rap began to tell him of the night he had met Bright Water and Warlock Zinixo, and the strange events in the Gazebo in Milflor. Talking was a welcome distraction. He told it all—how the two wardens had foreseen Little Chicken, how they had plotted against Olybino, how he had observed Inos in the occult mirror, and how he had tried to warn her.
By the time he had done, the officers and a handful of passengers were into their third course in the dining room, shadows were squir
reling madly around the cabin, and he was shouting over the noise of the storm. Sagorn was a most unlikely jotunn, but he ignored the fearsome weather in true jotunn fashion, listening enraptly.
"You think she heeded your admonition and escaped?" he demanded doubtfully at the end.
"I don't know. I hope so."
"It seems unlikely she would have succeeded. And I find your touching beliefs even harder to swallow now. I should prefer to surmise that there was a struggle over her, and she was a casualty in the dispute. Or she tried to escape as you suggested and met with misfortune. The wardens told the imperor."
Rap's heart sank.
"We do not have enough information," Sagorn conceded. "Whatever we conclude must be a cobweb of speculation."
Rap sadly agreed with that. His hope sounded like a very thin whistling beside a very large graveyard. And yet his premonition was insisting that Inos was not dead.
"Lith'rian will certainly know."
"Let us hope you live to see him!" Sagorn was holding the side of his bunk now to avoid being tipped out as the ship pitched. "Does your farsight detect land anywhere?"
"None," Rap said soothingly. "Lots of sea out there."
The masts were almost bare of canvas, every rib and beam was creaking under the strain. Head to the wind, Allena was holding her station so far as he could tell, but the old man was right to be scared. Rap let him ramble, not listening to the nervous chitchat, idly nagging at himself to go and eat while there was still food to be had, yet letting his mind pursue its own researches . . .
Suddenly he had it. The picture he wanted flashed up from his memory, fresh-painted, clear in every detail as if he were again staring over an elf's shoulder.
He jumped up, and lurched across to the door.
"What's the matter?" Sagorn demanded.
Rap grabbed the handle with injured fingers, and a hot jab of pain distracted him. But his farsight was far out ahead of him, searching . . . He met resistance, insisted, was repulsed . . .
He stumbled back and slithered awkwardly to his knees. Nauseated, he put his face in his hands.
"Seasick, Master Rap? Not enough jotunn in you?"
It was a moment before Rap could reply. He licked his lips, swallowed twice. Then he lied, "Just a twinge."
"Eschew the pork, I suggest."
But Rap had recognized the familiar touch of an aversion spell. If he told the old man the truth about the storm, the news would only frighten him more. This weather had been summoned.
Inos was still alive!
Or else Little Chicken was.
2
When Rap awoke to a chill gray dawn, he found Allena still hove to in an unrelenting gale. As he set off in search of breakfast, his farsight was detecting sharp edges to the south, decorated with foam and spray. He concluded that he would have to do something about those.
An hour or two later, Gathmor went reeling aft in search of his companions. He had spent the entire night with the officers, joyfully swapping yarns and summing up potential partners for recreational mayhem at a later date. He threw open the door and lurched into Rap's cabin.
Jalon was stretched out on the bed, idly tuning a lute he'd borrowed from an unconscious elf. Since eating a hearty dinner the previous night, Jalon had shown no impatience to call back Sagorn, or Andor. Although he was unassertive toward people, he had treated wind and waves with total contempt. Either the fury of the storm left him unmoved, or he had not really noticed it.
Rap was sitting in one of the two well-padded chairs, with his feet up on the other. He removed those feet and waved for Gathmor to sit down.
"You know what that crazy skipper's doing?" Gathmor snarled.
"Hoisting more sail?"
"How'd you know?"
"Oh, I suggested it to him," Rap said, smirking. Not yet knowing how effective his mastery was, he had not been sure how long the compulsion would hold after he parted from the captain, but apparently it had held long enough. Andor's range was about an hour, he recalled.
Gathmor collapsed on the chair. "God of Storms! Why? We'll be dismasted or laid on our beam ends."
Rap waved a thumb. "Rocks thataway."
The sailor scowled. "I mean, why would he listen to you, a prissy landlubber elf?"
Rap shrugged. "We were having breakfast, and Captain Prakker happened to remark he'd never seen an elf on his feet in anything other than dead calm. One thing led to another."
"More canvas in this weather?"
"I persuaded him it was worth a try."
The sailor scowled blackly, recognizing that he was in the presence of the occult.
"She'll make good time in this, won't she?" Rap said. "If she stays afloat, that is. Skipper says Malfin's straight upwind, but we can tack. And if you'd care for a wager, Cap'n, I'll lay odds we won't see Malfin on this trip."
Gathmor scowled. "I don't bet against you, not ever. But Prakker'll just heave to again as soon as he's clear of Noom Bay."
"Sure you don't want to bet?" Rap said cheerfully.
He glanced over at the minstrel, who was quietly fingering out a tune and frowning.
"You've been to Ilrane, haven't you?"
Jalon shrugged without looking up. "Andor mostly. I was just there a few hours."
"Tell me about the sky trees."
"Andor told you once," Jalon said, still twanging quietly.
"But you've got the artist's eye and the poet's tongue."
Even Darad might have seen through such thick-buttered flattery, but Jalon didn't. He laid the lute beside him, put his hands under his flaxen head, and stared up at the beams. For a long minute he was silent, then he sighed. "They're glorious, utterly breathtaking. Like crystal artichokes."
Gathmor rolled his eyes at Rap and made a scornful noise.
Jalon had once admitted to Rap that he was part elf, and this seemed a logical time to mention the fact again, but he didn't. He might have forgotten having done so already, or he might be reluctant to inform Gathmor. "No, truly. They're not really trees, they're some sort of mineral growth."
"How big?" Rap asked.
"Huge. Lots are a league high, some of them more than that, with their tops all covered in snow. Valdobyt Prime was said to be so high there wasn't enough air at the top of it to breathe. It got knocked down by some sorcerer or other thousands of years ago. I'd give you a ballad or two about it if I could fix this E string."
"Artichokes?" Rap said. "A league high? Come on, be serious!"
"Should have been able to see 'em from Kith," Gathmor snorted, equally disbelieving. But Jalon was lost in remembered bliss.
"Oftentimes the clouds hide them. It can take days to climb up from the ground to where you want to be. That's how I got called—Andor was exhausted. I would never've left, I think, except that his hosts knew him and not me; never mind that tale . . . Each leaf is sort of like a hand. Think of hundreds of crystalline hands all sprouting from a common trunk, except you can't see much of the trunk itself. There's usually a little lake in the palm, and the fingers feather 'way out and up, into branches of crystals, and they branch more, and finally make petals like a mist of stained glass and butterfly wings in the distance. All day the sun strikes through them in all the colors you can imagine and a few you can't, and the clouds float by in pearly fires."
"Where do the people live?" Gathmor said, always practical.
"They build houses around the lakes, or higher on the slopes, in among the trees. There's real trees and grass, and flowers of course. Can't have elves without flowers around! Little fields. Each leaf is a separate village. You go from one to the other up long ladders or in tunnels winding up through the rock. The sky trees are the most beautiful thing in the world," Jalon said with unusual firmness. "No wonder elves love beauty so much."
Gathmor rubbed his eyes. "I think I'll catch some sleep."
Rap hid a smile. "Good idea. Any chance you could borrow a cape and a hat for me, Cap'n?" He would have to spend time up on deck to hold the s
kipper on course. Already he thought he could detect the wind being altered to react to the ship's new course.
If all else failed, he would just have to explain to the master that the warlock of the south wanted him, Rap, delivered to Ilrane as soon as possible; but he thought Lith'rain might regard that as cheating. Presumably he was not going to all this trouble just to steal Rap's word of power, so Rap must have some interest or value, and just maybe that meant he was a pawn in the Krasnegar struggle, and in that case the game was still on, and Inos was still alive.
This rationalization was a tapestry of moonbeams, but it was enough to keep him from brooding, except when he remembered he was trying to outguess a man who had married his daughter to a gnome.
Or when he wondered if the unseen hand belonged to Bright Water, needing Rap in order to fulfill Little Chicken's destiny. Lith'rian was the witch's ally.
Nevertheless, Rap would guide the ship to Vislawn as best he could. The rest of the time he would lounge in his wonderful cabin. He had eaten a very fine breakfast. Never before in his life had he lived in luxury like this.
And he had a whole new pastime to savor. With his new eidetic memory, he could call up detailed pictures of Inos from their childhood together—Inos riding, Inos running, dancing, laughing, playing, running. Next to actually having her there, it was the best thing he could imagine.
3
It was at some undefined time during the second day that Inos opened her eyes to find Kade standing over her, regarding her with concern, white hair tousled around wind-flushed face. Beyond the scuppers lay blue sky and sea and white birds—and waves. Inos closed her eyes again swiftly.
"I was hoping . . ." Kade said softly. "The wind has died almost completely."
"So have I."
Kade was not to be discouraged. "I did bring a little—"
"If you mention food or drink or . . . yecgh! . . . soup . . . I will start all over again," Inos said firmly. She heard a faint sigh and a fainter clink of china.
Then vague noises suggested a chair being pulled up. She opened her eyes just as Kade sat down beside the bed.