Emperor and Clown (33 page)

“Rapt
What do you mean?”

His
face was very close, and it was wooden as a three-masted schooner. She could
read nothing in it. “I mean that sometimes words must get lost. Maybe your
father was too far gone. Maybe it was his father. The chain got broken
somewhere. Someone forgot, or didn’t hear right.”

“Not
Not Not”

“
‘Fraid so. You’d have felt the power when he told you, and you didn’t. That’s
why you’ve never developed a talent, Inos. You don’t know a word of poweet”

It
made awful sense. Horror fell on her, chilling her. “But Kalkor?”

Rap
shrugged, not looking at her. “Maybe he’s only a mage, like me. Just have to
hope so.” He didn’t sound very confident.

“Then
you’ll be all right?”

“Then
it’ll just be a question of which of us is stronger-and I’m pretty strong, I
think. If we cancel out completely, then it goes back to muscle, and he’s . . .
But that’s not likely. Lith’rian was very shocked when he discovered I could
feel magic being used, and I was only an adept then. I think he was worrying
about what I might become if I ever learned more words.”

“And
if Kalkor knows four?” She waited. “Rap? Can a mage fight a sorcerer?”

“Can
a mouse fight a cat?”

“Rap?”

“Different
animal, it’d be no contest. Duke Angilki’s still unconscious?”

“That’s
what they said tonight-still in a coma.” Rap nodded bitterly. “No help from his
word, then. Go back to bed, Inos, and I’ll put you to sleep.”

He
stepped away as she tried to put her arms around him.

“Rapt
Stop being idiotic! Forget Kalkor! He’s not worth your life. Forget Azak! And
forget Krasnegar! Let’s go now! You and me. Pick anywhere you like and I’ll go
with you.”

“No.
I’m going to go and look for another word.” He had his stubborn look on.

“You
don’t need to kill him for me, Rap, because-”

“I’m
not doing it for you. Nor for Krasnegar. I’m doing it because I want to. Now go
to bed.”

“Idiot!
Almost dawn? Sagorn’s been hunting for words for a hundred years, and you
expect to find one before noon today?”

Suddenly
his eyes were very big. She could see nothing but his eyes.

“Go
back to bed, Inos.”

She
went, and slept, and Rap departed.

Whispered
word:

It
is the hour when from the boughs

The
nightingale’s high note is heard;

It
is the hour when lovers’ vows

Seem
sweet in every whispered word.

Byron,
Parisina

Fortune’s Fool

He
ran north, knowing that what he sought would be somewhere to the north, near
the White Palace. Near the lake.

He
ran through the rain, wishing he still had the legs he’d had in the taiga.
First sailoring and now weeks of driving had spoiled him for running, and he
was trying to hold back on magic.

Running
into rain; running into dawn, too. His time was draining away. He had not slept
that night, and would not. There would be a long sleep ahead, if this last
chance failed.

This
was his third day in Hub, and the inexplicable white horror must be very
imminent now. It would come today, he thought. God of Justice, let me kill
Kalkor first! He still had no more clue as to what it was, for he feared it too
much to use his foresight at all. It might be just death. That was the logical
explanation-that the Gods blocked a man from seeing beyond his own death. Yet
two wardens had failed to read his future and Ishist had said it hurt to try.
If this other fate saved him from dying in the goblins’ lodge, then it might be
a good thing, although he doubted that even the goblins could inflict more
agony than he had sensed in the white glare.

Meanwhile
there was nothing to do but run as fast as he could.

He
did not always manage to stay mundane, even after he’d left the palace.
Legionary patrols challenged him periodically, a lone man running the streets
at night. In the narrower ways, ill-defined shadows moved as if to close in on
him, action before query. Each time he just drew an inattention spell over
himself and ran on unhindered.

He
tried not to think about Inos.

Poor
Inos! How his lustful thoughts had confused her! Being a mage was a hateful thing.
But if the wardens took the curse off her husband, she would soon be safely
back in Arakkaran, embarking on the life she had freely chosen before Rap had
blundered in. In time she would forget him.

He
thought instead of Kalkor. He unbottled the rage that had foamed inside him for
hours, letting hatred fuel his running. The pains came, in his legs first and
then a burning in his chest, but he thought of Kalkor and his anger gave him
the strength to run on.

The
faun in him went away. The jotunn ruled alone, riding his soul, ranting and
rousing. As fatigue and exhaustion built, so did the bloodlust. He had never
lost his temper since his childhood except once-almost-in Durthing. That burst
of fury had frightened him, but it had still not taught him what a jotunn rage
could be. Now he felt it in its full adult form for the first time. It was
wonderful, irresistible, intoxicating. He might regret this after, for as long
as he might live, but now that did not matter. Nothing mattered.

Blood
and destruction and satisfaction ... only those.

By
the time he drew near to the northernmost of the five hills and the shielded
mystery of the White Palace, milky dawn was seeping into the watery sky.
Traffic was picking up in the city, populating the rainswept streets with
carters and early-rising apprentices. Any he spoke to answered his questions
willingly and swiftly, and eventually he found one who could direct him to the
place he sought.

It
was a big ramshackle building in its own wellwooded grounds, a relic of prosperity
within an area that was sliding into slumhood. Men and even families came and
went, but the owner of this property was immortal.

If
Rap had guessed wrongly, and his quarry slept on the longship moored in the
lake, then he was a dead faun.

He
went over the wall of the Nordland Embassy faster even than any cat could have
managed, into a once-fine estate that had been allowed to sink into forest,
unattended. There were no dogs-true jotnar detested them-and dogs would have
been no problem anyway. The problem was Kalkor. Breaking into the Opal Palace
had been less risky than this, because there was a sorcerer in here somewhere,
and merely touching his mind with farsight might awaken him.

Dragging
his aching feet through the sodden shrubbery of abandoned garden, Rap began to
probe the big house ahead. Already a yellow streak marred the eastern skyline,
below the rain clouds. Even a thane was not likely to oversleep on a day he
must fight a mortal duel.

Farsight
drew a blank in the great bedchambers, but a Nordlander might spurn those as
decadence. Rap switched his attention to the back, the former servant quarters,
and there he soon found Thane Kalkor already awake, and busy with a recreation
from which he would not be easily distracted. He might well go back to sleep
afterward.

So
Rap could concentrate on his main quarry. More swiftly now he continued
scanning, room by room. There were surprisingly few people in the great
sprawling mansion. The crew of Blood Wave would mostly be sleeping aboard, of
course, not trusting the imps.

He
finished the rooms. Nothing. He tried the cellars. Blank. Then the attics.
Likewise.

Despair!

Failed!
By the time he could reach the lake, the sailors would be awake. Fool! Fool! He
had guessed, wrong.

He
stood in the cold rain and earthy-scented shrubbery and faced the unpleasant
truth that Kalkor was going to chop him to pieces. His only recourse now was to
try to sneak into the house and try to kill the thane while he was distracted.
Sneak up on a sorcerer, mm?

And
then he registered a collection of decaying wooden sheds and outhouses around
the back of the house. There! In the woodshed. Of course.

It
could not have been easier. He trotted around and found the door ajar. He sent
a wakening nudge ahead of him, to where his quarry lay on a moldering old rug
on the bare dirt, with a rag tied around him as a token garment. He would have
chosen this place of his own free will, loving the temperature and the smell of
wood.

As
Rap entered he sat up and stretched. Even a fullgrown timberwolf might have
envied his yawn. “Hello, Little Chicken.”

The
goblin squinted at the shadow in the doorway. “Flat Nose?”

“Yes.”
Rap sank down gratefully, cross-legged on the dirt, still panting. Weary,
weary! He ached all over, but especially his legs. Amid the high-heaped
firewood there was barely enough space for him; he was knee to knee with the
goblin. But it was good to get out of the rain at last, and good to sit.

“You
come to visit an old friend?” Little Chicken’s angular eyes glinted with
satisfaction. He scratched himself busily. “Or you want something, maybe?”

Rap’s
fury had refined itself now to pure purpose, his mind was icy clear. “Yes. Need
something. You know, in an odd way I’m glad they didn’t get their goblin stew.”

“I
think I know why you’re glad, Flat Nose!” The goblin chuckled, gloating a
little. “Thane told me you’d come.”

Oh,
he had, had he? Rap checked quickly, and Kalkor was still at it, heedless of
his intended victim trespassing.

“We’ll
get to that. I’m really curious-how did you escape?”

Little
Chicken pointed to a scar on his thigh. “Put an arrow in me, took me prisoner.
They’d eaten their fill that night. No room for goblin.”

“So
they kept you to fatten you up?”

Once
Rap had been afraid of Little Chicken and his monstrous ambitions, but that was
over now. The goblin could save Rap’s life or condemn him to death this day,
but that was the limit of his power at the moment. True, the wardens had
foreseen a great future for him, and Rap had assumed that it involved ruling
Krasnegar. A mage’s insight, plus the smattering of news and rumor he had
collected in Hub had shown him how wrong he had been. Now Bright Water’s
interest and help were understandable. What lay in store for Little Chicken was
something quite unrelated to Krasnegar, but it did involve Rap and the third
prophecy.

“They
tie you up or cage you?” Neither would detain a man with the goblin’s occult
strength.

The
big tusks flashed again. “Caged me. I let a day or two go by and then left.
Lots of jungle on the wet side of the island ... Took a woman along to do the
cooking.” The ugly khaki-hued face was just as easy to read as anyone else’s.

“What
was her name?”

“Couldn’t
work my tongue hard enough,” Little Chicken said offhandedly. “I just called
her `Woman’ and she did what she was told.”

“How
did she feel about this?”

The
goblin shrugged. “Seemed happy. After the first couple of days, said she wouldn’t
run away, so I could leave her untied at nights.” He leered. “Good man for her!
Strong!”

All
the time Rap had been a sailor, living in Durthing, the goblin must have been
hiding out in the Nogid jungle, letting his wound heal, tended by the girl he
had stolen. There were a lot of things he wasn’t saying, though.

“And
then you sailed away and left her?” No, that wasn’t right ...

“Paddled
a tree trunk across to next island. Woman said we could get to another imp fort
after six, seven islands.”

So
Little Chicken had gone hunting his destiny and she had chosen to go with him.
He wasn’t lying about her feelings; the anthropophagous woman had
genuinely.fallen in love with her goblin kidnapper. Likely he had treated her
as well as he had been able, for women were useful. Was it possible that Little
Chicken had ever done anything so ungoblinish as to fall in love? On the verge
of taunting him with that, Rap suddenly drew back.

“Bad
current,” the goblin said. “Big storm came.”

“I’m
sorry to hear that.” A mage could sense the real sorrow under the pose of
indifference. How strange! How sad!

The
rest of the tale came easily. Heading westward again in Blood Wave, Kalkor had
encountered a log floating in Dyre Channel with a near-dead goblin on it, but
that was exactly the sort of freakish coincidence that words of power could
produce, and of course the goblin knew a word, also. Kalkor must have seen his
own destiny then, for he had known of the three visions in the casement. That
must have been when he had conceived his mad expedition to Hub.

“So
he forced your word of power out of you, and that made him a sorcerer?” Rap
asked.

Little
Chicken flushed olive at the insult. “You know goblins better than that! He was
a sorcerer already. Didn’t need it!”

That
was good news, maybe. Little Chicken’s word had come straight from a fairy. No
one else shared it-yet. A strong word.

Rain
drummed on the roof of the shed and dribbled through leaks. Again Rap scanned
the house. Kalkor had finished what he was doing and seemed to be asleep again.
The woman lay at his side, sobbing in silence. Elsewhere men were starting to
stir, though. Even jotnar might feel the chill of this clammy morning and
decide to light fires. He must be quick.

Little
Chicken stretched again. “Why’d you agree anyway? I saw. Didn’t use magic on
you?”

“No.
Not directly.” Of course Kalkor could have changed Rap’s mind as he had changed
the regent’s, but that would not have been playing the game the way he wanted
it played.

“How
then?” the goblin asked. “You’re stubborn as a mother bear, Flat Nose. I know.”

Despite
his fury and grim purpose, Rap chuckled. “Well, thank you, Little Chicken!”
Those awful weeks in the forest had faded in his memory until he could look
back on them with something like nostalgia. Oh, the innocence of youth! He had
not been a mage in those days. “Remember Gathmor?”