Emperor and Clown (43 page)

“Faugh!”
Bright Water shrilled. “You should have felt the mastery he had when he only
knew one word of power! I guessed then what his destiny was!”

“Master
Rap, “ Lith’rian said, caution like a fence of crystal spears bristling around
him, “I think you would make an excellent warden. If you wish to contend for
the Red Throne, I for one would have no objection. “

Bright
Water screamed an objection, a bugle rang out joyfully in the east. But Zinixo
did not wait for argument or discussion, nor even for Rap’s own reply. He
struck instantly, as the elf must have known he would. The great mass of
fortifications tipped, split, and crashed down in a landslide toward Rap.

Rap
used the direct physical simulation that had worked on Kalkor. The dwarf’s
spectral image was right beside him in the ambience. Spurning any pretense of
subtlety, he hurled himself on it with all the occult weight he could summon.
That version of Zinixo toppled over backward with Rap on top of him, grappling
for his throat. The two ghostly presences rolled and struggled as if locked in
mundane combat, and there was nothing transparent or unreal about it that Rap
could sense. The dwarf’s breath was hot on his face, and his thick body slick
with sweat.

They
squirmed and twisted on a shadowy ground, directly in the path of the hurtling
mass of rocks.

The
spectators in the mundane Rotunda would see nothing at all happening. In the
ambience, the torrent of rock divided and roared past on either side. Rap
tightened his grip on the massive neck, and saw panic and madness in the agate
eyes staring up into his. Ironically, he knew that in the real world the dwarf’s
great strength could have easily torn him off and smashed him. In terms of
occult power, though, he thought he was holding his own.

Above
them, a cavern roof shattered and began to fall.

Without
releasing his grip, Rap twisted and rolled, hauling the dead weight of the
dwarf on top of him as a shield. Two massive rocks struck on either side of
them and fell together, forming a canopy to deflect the rest of the crashing
debris. Rap stared up at the hate-filled gray face and continued to squeeze
with his thumbs. Huge hands seized his wrists and tried to wrest them away. And
failed.

The
dwarf seemed to grow impossibly heavy, crushing Rap down against jagged rock.
He ignored the pain, squeezing, squeezing, and watching the bulging face of his
opponent. They were both panting and straining, but Zinixo seemed to have run
out of tricks. He flailed punches at Rap’s ribs, but they were nothing like the
blows he could have landed in a mundane struggle. Then his great hands clawed
for Rap’s neck, meeting the challenge directly.

“I’ve
got you!” Rap gasped. “I’m stronger! Yield, damn you!”

In
the Rotunda the spectators had guessed that something was happening between
these two. The faun and the dwarf were standing rigidly and staring at each
other. In the ambience they thrashed and rolled, straining strength against
strength, pouring sweat, panting harshly.

The
other wardens were intent and silent, watching but seemingly not taking sides.
Yet, in the corner of his mind, Rap caught a faint image of a fiery fence
encircling the battle and luminous angry shapes dancing around, trying to
penetrate and being blocked. If that was not mere hallucination brought on by
an overtaxed, pounding brain, then it might represent Zinixo’s votaries being
denied a chance to intervene.

“I
don’t want your throne! “ Rap said. He was on top again, trembling with the
effort of keeping his grip, very near to the limit of his strength.

But
the dwarf was in worse shape, with his tongue lolling and his eyes bulging
almost out of his head. He uttered meaningless croaks of fear.

For
a moment nothing more seemed to happen. Then Rap realized that in the Rotunda
the corporeal Zinixo had lurched down from his throne and was staggering across
the floor to attack the corporeal Rap. Rap had no reserves left to deflect a
mundane assault. If the dwarf could bring real-world muscle and strength into
the battle, he might win yet.

Somehow
Rap dragged up a last feverish effort and dug his thumbs in even harder,
squeezing relentlessly until he thought they were about to meet inside the great
neck. Will! It was all will, and endurance, and stubborn purpose.

“Yield
or I kill you!”

The
spectral Zinixo uttered a choking rattle and went limp, like a sack of sand.

It
was no trick-the warlock was dying. Revenge! Revenge for Yodello and Oothiana
and being sold as a thrall and for the murderous attack itself ...

Do
what is good, not what seems good! One of his mother’s sayings. Rap fought back
against his seething fury. Bind the dwarf, then? Make him votary, a slave
sorcerer, to serve his every wish and be loyal unto death?

Where
was the moral high ground in that? Revolted by his own black hate, Rap released
his occult grip. Below the lights of the branching candelabra, the real Zinixo
stood swaying before him, eyes glazed. Rap also felt spent, shaking and
mentally battered. It was impossible to believe that he had no wounds, no
bruises, that his back had not been shredded or his gullet crushed. He gulped
great gasps of life-giving air.

The
mundane spectators were staring in complete lack of understanding. The other
three wardens smiled contentedly.

“Hail
to our new warlock of the west!” Lith’rian said.

“I
am no warlock!” Rap shouted, appalled at the mad hatred staring at him in the
dwarf’s stricken eyes. “I don’t want your throne, West! This wasn’t my idea.”

Zinixo
bared his monstrous crusher teeth. His huge fists were clenched and trembling.

“I
mean you no harm!” Rap insisted.

But,
for all his occult power and physical might, Zinixo was still a timorous boy.
He had been the strongest of the wardens, yet always unsure of himself. A
stronger sorcerer than himself was an unbearable threat to him. He saw
treachery everywhere; he could trust no one. He stared at Rap in dread and
hate.

“I
won’t change my mind,” Rap insisted. He held out a hand. “No hard feelings?”

It
wasn’t going to work, he saw. Nothing could ever reconcile Zinixo to the
existence of a stronger sorcerer than himself.

“Well,
if you won’t make friends willingly,” Rap said, “then I suppose I’ll have to
put a loyalty spell on you, but I don’t really want to have to-”

Zinixo
grabbed the proffered hand, and jerked. Rap stumbled forward. The dwarf grabbed
his head and pulled it down to his own level ...

And
whispered a word of power into Rap’s ear ... A fifth word of power.

For
Princess Kadolan, it had been a day of extremes. She could not recall any day
in her life that had veered so often between the Good and the Evil.

It
had begun with the astonishing realization that she was awakening on a lumpy
bed in the Opal Palace. To have arrived in Hub at all after a lifetime of
longing should have been a wonderful experience, but at first it had been
marred by the need to remain incognito. Furthermore, Doctor Sagorn’s house,
while comfortable enough, had been in a shameful state of neglect. Captain
Gathmor had done a wonderful job of making her quarters shipshape, as he liked
to call it, but two nights there had been more than plenty. A smelly backstreet
tenement was no more inspiring for being located in Hub than it would be in any
other city. Then, yesterday, she had been reunited with Inosolan, and together
they had become guests of the Imperial regent himself.

Or
possibly his prisoners. Their status had unquestionably been interrogated,
because Azak was a prince of a land that the Impire was about to invade, and
Inosolan still had a claim to Krasnegar, over which the Nordlanders were
rattling their swords. She had even been questioned about Proconsul Yggingi and
the way he had roused the goblins. Kadolan had never much cared for the seamy
art of politics, and she felt that her present advanced age ought to excuse her
from becoming involved in not just one but three possible wars. As she had told
Eigaze, the only bright spot she could see was that no one could possibly blame
her for the Dwanishian border dispute, as she had never met a dwarf in her
life. Inosolan had told her glumly just to wait.

And,
of course, that night she had indeed met a dwarf, or at least been in the
presence of one. A warlock! So great an honor! Very few people ever knowingly
met a sorcerer in their lives, let alone one of the Four. Yet, although she
would never say so, had the young man in question not been sitting on a throne,
Kadolan might easily have mistaken him for a surly young churl escaped from a
workgang somewhere. Warlock Zinixo was sadly lacking in polish.

From
the history lessons of her childhood until sorcery entered her life in the
person of Queen Rasha, Kadolan had hardly spared a thought for the Four. Had
she needed to think about them, she would likely have imagined four benevolent,
elderly sages sitting around a table somewhere, probably wearing funny hats.
Inosolan’s account of meeting Warlock Olybino had begun a revision in her
thinking, and the dwarf had completed it.

The
wardens were a sad disappointment!

She
had thought yesterday hectic. Today had certainly been worse; up and down like
a thresher’s wrist, all day long.

Having
wakened to the memory that she was staying in the Opal Palace, she had then
been sobered by the sight of peeling wallpaper and cracked plaster. Her room
was not located in one of the more prestigious wings.

Breakfast
had lifted her spirits-excellent food on magnificent silver plate, very well
served.

Then
Inosolan and Azak had joined her, and she had seen at once that Inosolan had some
bad news to impart. Unfortunately Azak was quite the most suspicious man in
Pandemia, and had been determined not to let Inosolan out of his sight, or
hearing.

Right
after breakfast, her day had brightened again as Eigaze arrived with four other
old friends from Kinvale days. That had meant four more joyful reunions,
although saddened perhaps by the awareness of time passed. Eigaze herself had
once been graceful as an elf and thin as a willow. Now she had a son in the
Praetorian Hussars taller than a pine tree, while she herself ... well, who was
Kadolan to criticize?

Up
and down-Inosolan had dragged Kadolan away to go and visit the unfortunate Duke
Angilki, and that had been a sad duty. The poor man had not moved an eyelash in
two days, and the doctors were in their most somber mode. But the palace
infirmary did have certain rooms where no man, even a sultan, was allowed to
go, and those had probably been Inosolan’s objective all along. She had hauled
Kadolan into the first one she saw, and there imparted her dread news.

Master
Rap had visited her in the night. Kalkor was a sorcerer; the result of the duel
between them was not preordained as the magic casement had suggested. They had
been assuming that he would win the Reckoning and could then worry about
staying away from goblins in future, but apparently that was not so. And
finally Inosolan had described her efforts to share her word of power with Rap,
and his discovery that she did not know one. Disaster!

They
had been a doleful party when they drove out to the Campus Abnila to view the
second Reckoning, and the unending rain had not helped to raise anyone’s
spirits.

Up
again ... Despite his forebodings in the night, Master Rap had somehow found
the occult strength he needed, and he had ended the notorious career of the
infamous Kalkor very sharply. Kadolan had felt very pleased by that, even if
the man had been a relative of sorts.

Down
... The worst yet: Master Rap had lifted Azak’s curse. Kadolan blamed herself
for that. For weeks she had tried so hard to explain to the lad that he was the
subject of the God’s command and Inosolan’s destined mate. He had never quite
admitted that he returned her love, but why else would he have followed her all
the way to Zark? Obviously Kadolan’s entreaties had been inadequate, and the
foolish boy had cleared the way for his rival to claim his unwilling bride.

She
had always believed that honor was the finest attribute a man could possess,
but now she saw that even honor could be carried too far. Excess was always on
the side of the Evil.

And
then he had also cured the old imperor! In some ways that had seemed like a
wonderful blessing, and a most charitable thing to do, but it was very
obviously a forbidden use of sorcery. At one stroke, Holindarn’s former
stableboy had upset the whole political structure of the Impire.

That
was when Kadolan had decided that this day was going to live in her memory as
the worst she had ever known. Battered and bewildered by so many changes of
fortune, she had given up trying to keep track, and had concentrated on merely
remaining sane.

However,
she had been careful to stay close to her niece. The sultan had been eyeing his
wife with blatantly lustful glances, which Inosolan had been ignoring while
cheerfully dragging Kadolan around the Opal Palace as if determined to view
every one of its sculptures and innumerable points of interest in a few brief
hours. Meanwhile the day had been drawing relentlessly to its close. Kadolan
could hardly chaperon, a married woman in her bedchamber.

Since
Master Rap had gone off with the imperor, there had been no word of him. His
sorcery had cured the sultan’s curse, but it had left the Krasnegar situation
unresolved. She had not been too surprised, therefore, when the regent had
summoned them to the meeting with the wardens. That was not the sort of summons
she enjoyed, but it had at least offered the possibility of some answers to
some of the problems. Trying very hard to hold fast to her faith in the Gods,
Kadolan had accompanied Inosolan and Azak to the Rotunda.