Emperor and Clown (10 page)

Rasha
had changed her appearance to suit her mood. Kadolan felt confident that Master
Rap would regard that sort of deception as beneath his selfrespect. He must
have power in plenty, or he could not have achieved the wonders she had already
witnessed, but he would not tamper with the truth. She might soon have to admit
that the Gods knew what They were doing.

He
bowed clumsily to her. “I am greatly in your debt, ma’am.” He stammered and
blushed. “A woman ... lady ... having the spunk ... I mean-”

“It
was the least I could do, Master Rap. I feel responsible for much of what has
happened.”

His
eyes widened. They were clear gray eyes, very innocent looking, but she sensed
that he was using more than a mundane self-control to keep his face from
revealing his thoughts. His calm was uncanny--no man could recover so quickly
from such an ordeal. “You, ma’am?”

She
nodded wearily. “I’d rather not go into it now.”

“Of
course, ma’am.” He frowned and waved a hand at one of the bodies. “How many
died altogether?” She glanced at Sagorn, who said, “Eleven.”

Rap
pulled a face. “God of Mercy! I’m not worth that!”

Could
he be serious? “You don’t think they deserved it? After what they did to you?”

He
shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the ones who deserved it who died, would it? The Gods
are rarely so tidy. And besides, I started it! I killed three, they told me.
And wounded more. I can’t blame them too much for wanting to get even.” He
shook his head sorrowfully.

He
seemed to be sincere-but who could tell with a mage? She did not know this boy.
She must just remember that Inosolan had chosen him as her friend, and
unconsciously as more than friend; and the Gods had confirmed her judgment. Who
was Kadolan to question now?

“Can
you get us out of here, Master Rap?”

“I
have no idea! I haven’t been a mage long enough to know what I can do.” A faint
hint of smile tugged at the corners of his big mouth-whatever Inos had seen in
him, she had not chosen him for his looks.

He
frowned and glanced around. “The djinns are bringing sledges. Persistent lot,
aren’t they? I suppose I can put the door back and make them stand aside to let
us pass ... This is rather like the night we had the imps after us, isn’t it?”
His eyes strayed to Sagorn, whom he had been ignoring. “And this time I did
become a mage!”

Sagorn
smiled cynically, but he could not conceal his dislike. “This time you had no
choice.”

Rap
ignored the barb; he looked upward. “I think I can stretch that air hole. Would
you mind climbing a ladder, your Highness?”

“I’ll
climb a greasy pole if it will get me to a bathtub.”

He
twitched, instantly apologetic. “I can remove the blood, ma’am. If you want.”

“I’d
rather do it with hot water, thank you.”

He
nodded, then stared at the hole in the roof again, for longer. It widened
imperceptibly until it was a shaft, and there was a bronze ladder stretching
down to the rug.

“I’ll
go first,” he said. “I need to work on the top a bit more.” He went scrambling
up the rungs and disappeared.

Kadolan
looked at Sagorn, who was scowling but failing to conceal his amazement.

“An
efficient young man!” she said.

The
sage nodded. “Oh quite! A very efficient young man. A very stubborn one, too.”

“What
does that mean?” She struggled to rise, feeling her weariness like a wagonload
of marble on her shoulders.

“I
mean that Master Rap always does exactly what he wants to do, and no one can
ever talk him out of it. And now no one can stop him, either.”

The
original chimney had been much too narrow to have been dug by mundane hands.
Obviously it was the work of some long-ago sorcerer, who had modified a natural
cave to make the dungeons, just as Rap was now modifying the wormhole into a
manhole. The rock wasn’t too hard to do, because it was just reshaping; the
bronze ladder was really difficult. After a couple of fathoms of that, he
switched to spruce, and wood was much easier to produce, somehow.

He’d
wondered how it felt to do magic, and now he knew. He couldn’t have explained
it, though. Can a man explain how he saw, or how he made his muscles work in
the right order when he was running? Describe green. Or pretty. Stop your heart
for a minute. Magic was like those. It just was. It was possible, so he could
do it. Just wanting . . .

Well
... he could do some things, and now he was trying to do an evil lot of things
all at once, and he hadn’t even had a chance to practice with some simple
lessons. Basic cursing and frog transformations ... There were different levels
to magic, too. His broken bones and poisoned flesh, his eyes and tongue-he’d
cured those, but they weren’t really cured. In part he was keeping them cured,
just as he was keeping his clothes in existence ... and halfway up his new
ladder, he realized that he had relaxed his control over those wish-garments,
and they weren’t there anymore. He made a mental note to dress himself again
when he got to the top, then ignored the problem. The ladder, likewise, was
going to flicker out of existence as soon as he took his mind off it, although
the bronze would last longer than the wood, as some compensation for being
harder to create in the first place. The wall that was blocking the djinns ...
and the shaft would shrink back to its original size, so he’d better keep that
firmly in mind while Inos’s Aunt Kade was inside it!

Moreover,
once he’d reached the level of the main cellars he was working with masonry
instead of solid rock, and he had to be careful to thin the stones without
shifting them or collapsing a wall. And his farsight was telling him that the
exit was going to put him in a crowded courtyard, so he was working on the
shaft and the ladder at the same time as he began to wonder about making
himself invisible. He was also rippling the ambience horribly. Probably he
could develop a smoother touch with practice, but every time he added one more
rung to the ladder, he seemed to shake the palace like a tambourine. Amazing
that no one else noticed! ... everyone ought to be falling down and shouting
earthquake. Lucky the whole palace had a shield around it, although it wasn’t a
very good one, and it bulged oddly in places, but it would probably be enough
to mask his activities from any sorcerer outside. Gods! They’d feel him in
Krasnegar otherwise. Lith’rian had made a few ripples, but Rap was creating
tidal waves. Rookie!

Twinges
of pain told him not to forget his own body. Now there was another sort of
sorcery: healing. If he took his mind off himself now, then he’d snap back to
almost the same near corpse he’d been before. He was keeping himself whole with
magic, but he was also encouraging his natural healing. Maybe that natural
healing was a sorcery the Gods did, but he could certainly feel the mending
going on at a deeper, slower level, another sort of occult. Even as an adept he’d
been able to speed up his natural healing. He thought that now he’d be able to
do it for other people, as well. Like Inos. Burns? Yes, he thought he could.

Of
course a full sorcerer would be able to do an instant, total cure with the
creation magic, but a mere mage would just have to be patient and keep his
occult bandages in place until his healing was complete. He’d also have to be
careful where he slept for a few nights; someplace where a whiff of gangrene
wouldn’t bother anyone. He could put a sleep spell on himself, couldn’t he? ...

Removing
his beard and the bloodstains-that had been yet another sort of magic, a
go-away magic. That was permanent, he thought. No time to work it out . . .

The
original opening had been a very small grille, high in the wall of the
building. Rap opened a new one at ground level, with an inattention
anticharisma around it, and he scrambled out onto the courtyard flagstones, hot
already from the early-morning sun. He kept his eyes closed against the glare
while he gazed around at the blue sky and the kites floating up there. Flowers
and fountains and fine horses, and the occult wall around the palace blocking
any farther view. The djinns were going frantic down in the cellars and the
dungeon ... far too many of them in the dungeon; they were passing out from
lack of air.

A
troop of mounted guards went right by him without a glance at the new opening
in the wall, or the naked ... Whoops!

Now
he was pushing his ability to dangerous limits, juggling too many hatchets,
keeping himself healthy and clothed, and the shaft open and the ladder in
existence, and everyone else distracted, and an eye on the princess and Jalon .
. . Jalon? . . . making their way up to the surface. And he mustn’t forget
about his mind, either. Too much calm and he’d fade out and drop some of the
hatchets. Too little and he’d have to deal with the crazy boy in there who’d
been bent to breaking point by fear and agony and just wanted to scream and
scream ... that was another healing that was going to take patience. Nights
were going to be tricky, certainly.

Then
he took the princess’s hand and helped her out; she was blinded by the
sunlight. And then Jalon, and it was good to see the little jotunn, and give
him a hug and thump on the back. He’d shaved and cleaned up since Rap had last
seen him as their boat sailed into the bay; but he still smelled strongly of
salt water. And Jalon seemed absurdly glad to be able to hug Rap, trying to
keep his eyes closed against the light and weep with them at the same time,
mumbling nonsense.

Rap
let go of the shift and it began to shrink at once. The guards weren’t through
the bricked-up doorway yet, and when they arrived, both ladder and shift would
have vanished. Let the red horrors chew on that problem!

Inos’s
Aunt Kade was staring at the squad of brownclad family men approaching. They
went striding blindly by her. She glanced down at her filthy, gory robe, then
at Rap. Then Jalon. She pushed back her wild-flying white hair, and her fingers
discovered the bloodstains even there ...

“Can
you escort us safely back to my quarters, Master Rap?”

“Certainly,
ma’am.”

“And
then I do hope you both will join me for breakfast. We have much to discuss.”

At
the top of the long staircase, two very bored guards slouched outside the door
to Kadolan’s suite. They were not the gymnasts she had seen in the night, but
they looked no older, nor any more impressed by their responsibilities. She
could, of course, complain to Prince Kar about the quality of the protectors he
had assigned to her-despite her fatigue, the absurdity of that whimsy made her
chuckle. When Rap touched the door and the lock clicked, one of the youths
looked around, vaguely puzzled, but he obviously did not register that three
people were going in.

In
her chamber, Kadolan changed back into her night attire and passed her soiled
garments out to Rap, who promised that they would be seen no more. Then she
wiped some stains from her hands and face and rang for her attendants.
Astonishingly, the sun was not yet far above the horizon.

The
housekeeper, Mistress Zuthrobe, had not impressed Kadolan even before the night’s
revelation of what her young wards were getting up to with the guards. Now
Zuthrobe soared into panic when told that the sultan and sultana were expected
for breakfast. She flew off without inquiring how Kadolan had received such a
message unbeknownst to her staff. Intrigue was certainly catching, Kade
decided, and it was endemic in Arakkaran.

This
had been the hardest night of her life, but excitement was still buoying her
up, and a warm tub refreshed her. Then she hurried out to her balcony to find a
sumptuous meal already being demolished by a starving faun and ... bother! ...
the imp guttersnipe, Thinal.

Rap
jumped up when she approached, but the little thief just leered, displaying a
mouthful of irregular and dirty teeth. He was wearing nothing but a ragged pair
of shorts. He needed a shave, a haircut, and a very thorough washing.

Seeing
that conversation would have to wait-and feeling pleasantly hungry after her
night’s exertions-

Kadolan
helped herself to some generous portions and joined in the feasting. No one
spoke at all while the eating continued.

Able
at last to study him properly, she was surprised at how large and-er-husky,
Master Rap was. He was the only faun she had ever met, but she had always
understood that fauns were one of the smaller races. Even allowing for the fact
that he was sitting next to the puny Thinal, Rap seemed big, larger than most
male imps, approaching jotunn or djinn size. Of course he was part jotunn-as
was Inos, of course.

Off
in the distance, troops of guards were hurrying to and fro, and she could guess
that she had thrown the palace authorities into unprecedented turmoil. The
thought was not unpleasant.

As
her appetite waned she began to wish that Doctor Sagorn was present, to provide
some cultured discourse, or even Andor, were he sober. Almost any of the five
would be better than Thinal, who tended to stare at her with an appraising,
avaricious gaze even as he chewed. He made her feel like a pet rabbit in the
presence of something feral, and hungry. His eyes were red-rimmed and he yawned
a lot, often when he had his mouth full.

His
manners were atrocious, by any standards. Master Rap, on the other hand, was
handling his skimpy cutlery-and when necessary his food-very well, much as she
did herself. He might require less coaching than she had been anticipating, in
order to turn him into a respectable consort for Inos. She wondered if he would
consent to having his hair curled; obviously it would never lie flat.

Inos
and Azak must have sailed by now, but a mage ought to be able to arrange
good-quality transportation, and perhaps even speed its passage. Most ships
stopped in at all the major ports along the coast. So she would pursue, with
Master Rap’s assistance, and at Brogogo, therefore, or Torkag, they would
intercept the sultan. Then Rap could cure Inos’s injuries and use some occult
persuasion on Azak to get the marriage annulled. It was still, of course, a
marriage in name only.