Emperor and Clown (9 page)

The
handle was sticky. Kade accepted it reluctantly, unable to conceive that she
would ever bring herself to use it. She opened her mouth to say so, and
discovered she was facing yet another man-a shorter one, but not Thinal. Pale
jotunn hair shone in the darkness. She should have recognized him, but she
guessed first. “Jalon?”

As
Andor had, the minstrel looked down at his bloodstained clothes and he
shuddered even harder. His teeth chattered briefly. She knew Master Jalon to be
a gentle, sensitive person, a dreamer. Never a killer.

“Why
you?” she demanded. She could not take very much more of this. No more at all!
She chewed knuckles again, fighting down a crazy urge to scream. She was a
princess and at least half jotunn and she must behave accordingly. But
perspiration was pouring from her, and the foul air was making her head thump,
and she had never done anything more violent in her life than fly a hawk.

Inos!
She was doing this for Inos! The thought seemed to steady her.

But
Jalon also was teetering on the brink of panic. His teeth clattered again
briefly, ending with a click as he clenched his jaw. Then he began to whimper. “I
can’t! He’s crazy! Impossible!”

Kadolan
had no idea what plan Sagorn’s brilliance had devised. She knew only that a
hundred family men would be pouring down those stairs any minute. There was
just no time! She tried the argument that had worked so miraculously on Thinal.

“Please,
Master Jalon! Try! For Rap’s sake?” The whimpering stopped in a gulp.

“Yes.
For Rap! You’re right!” The minstrel brought himself under control with an
effort that Kadolan heard more than saw. He put his head out of the doorway,
cleared his throat quietly, and then shouted. She almost dropped her dagger
from shock.

“Hey!
Kuth! Look at this!”

It
was a Zarkian accent. It was the voice of the dead man. It was perfect mimicry.

A
muffled query ... then a clearer one, as someone inside came to the grille. “Who’s
that?”

Jalon
moved back a step. “It’s Arg, stupid. Who else would it be? Come and see this,
for Gods’ sake.”

“See
what?” The unseen Kuth was suspicious.

A
lesser artist might have overdone it; Jalon knew when to stop. He went away, by
becoming Darad, who crouched low, sword at the ready.

The
bolt scraped. The hinges groaned. Kuth put his turbaned head out. “Come on,
Arg-you know the rules. Five in here always. You want me to go see something,
then you gotta come here and-”

Darad
went. Gritting her teeth and brandishing her dagger, Kadolan followed-out one
door, in at the other, and don’t fall over the corpse, into the painful
brilliance of the lamplit cell. The heat and stench struck her like a flood of
boiling sewage, the stink of men and oil smoke, and excrement, and also a sweet
rank rottenness that was worst of all.

The
gamblers had been sitting on a rug at the far end of the room. Three were still
scrambling to their feet, drawing their swords. Another had perhaps been
already upright, for he was charging forward as Kade came in, and she saw Darad’s
blade twist into his belly. It didn’t kill him, but the sound he made showed
that it hurt. And right in front of Kade, where she must be careful not to trip
over it, was ...

That
was where the awful smell was coming from. Naked, spread out like a chained
butterfly, swollen, twisted, blackened flesh rotting alive ... Could he possibly
be still alive? Mercifully unconscious, of course.

Then
she saw that Darad was backing. The cellar was just wide enough for three men
abreast, and three men were what he faced. They all had scimitars. Two had
drawn daggers also. They stepped over their screaming, writhing companion and
continued to advance in line abreast. They were all stooping because of the low
headroom, and Darad’s size was a handicap now.

In
the romances Kadolan had read in her younger days, more action-related than
those she preferred in her maturity, heroes were always taking on three or four
villains at once. They held one off with a sword, another with a chair, and
likely put the rest out of the fight with a kick. Rap had used chairs against
Darad.

There
were no chairs in this cell. There was a rug, with some cushions, and there
were two dying men on the floor, one of them fastened there. And one swordsman
could not handle three unless he took them by surprise.

Kadolan
remembered that she was carrying a dagger. A dagger was very little use against
a sword, and Darad was back almost as far as Rap, with nowhere else to go. She
changed her grip, stepped to the left, and threw the dagger with all her
strength at the man on that side. She would never have gotten in a second blow
with it, anyway.

Even
if the family men had registered that she had a blade, they might not have
guessed that she would throw it, or could do so under that roof. At that range
she could not miss, and yet she almost did. The blade struck the man’s shoulder
and fell, but it distracted him, which was all the assistance Darad needed. He
battered the center man’s sword aside, feinted at the Right-hand face, lunged
before Center could restore his guard, slitting his sword arm from wrist to
elbow. Then he parried Right-hand’s attack and riposted with a cut across the
face. The wounds gave his opponents pause. Left-hand was still clutching his
shoulder; Darad ran a sword into his heart and then took him by the belt. As
the other two lunged simultaneously, he used the body as a shield against
Center, while he parried Right-hand with his blade. Then he threw the body at
Center and riposted under Right-hand’s guard. The rest was just a matter of
tidying loose ends.

Satisfied
he had won, Kadolan turned her face away. Out beyond the doorway, on the far
side of the anteroom, the stairway entrance glowed bright. Someone was coming!

She
slammed the door shut-boom)-and struggled with the great bolt until it
grudgingly scraped home. Through the grille she heard boots on the stairs.

Then
she turned and dropped to her knees beside the prisoner and whispered, “Master
Rap?”

Darkling
way:

She
hurried at his words, beset with fears,

For
there were sleeping dragons all around,

At
glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears.

Down
the wide stairs a darkling way they found;

In
all the house was heard no human sound.

Keats,
The Eve of St. Agnes

Best-Laid Scheme

The
aurora had faded, the lights, the blazing stars. The trumpets and meadowlarks
had fallen silent, the dark returned.

Darkness
and silence-deeper now, because he could hold the pain away altogether instead
of only partly. Lately he hadn’t been able to do very much about the pain,
because his will had been sapped by weakness and creeping death. Now he could
banish all feeling, shut out everything. That was good. Much better.

Now
he could make himself die.

Ironic,
that! She’d told him a word of power. He’d recognized the feeling, the glory.
So he was a mage. A mage ought to be -able to make himself die. Sink down.
Deeper. Darker. Colder. Peace.

She
was Princess Kadolan, Inos’s aunt. He wished she would stop shouting in his ear
like this.

He
wished whoever was doing all that hammering would stop, too.

Sagorn,
also, fretting and pacing. Let the old scoundrel think his way out of this one.

He
squashed out his hearing, closing his ears. Peace. He couldn’t see, of course,
after what they’d done to his eyes; but he didn’t need eyes. And the princess’s
pleading kept sliding through, also. Annoying.

All
those djinns outside the door, with swords and axes, it was almost like being
back in Krasnegar, with the imps trying to break their way into the chamber at
the top of the tower, except this was a cellar under a cellar. A cave, not a
tower. Other end of the world. Everything upside-down. Funny. That was what all
the noise was. He could stop that.

But
why bother?

That
was what Inos’s aunt was shouting about. To make him stop the djinns. Telling
him he had power now.

Power
wasn’t the problem. Will was the problem.

He
didn’t want to.

Inos
was married. Married by her own choice. She’d been angry with him when he broke
up the wedding. Not that it had been all his fault. Lith’rian had planted the
idea-he could see that now. Big joke to an elf, that. Probably that was why. He
ought to resent that and want revenge on the warlock. But who could ever get
revenge on a warlock? And it didn’t matter all that much. He would snuff
himself out like a candleflame and then he wouldn’t have to care anymore.

Care
about Inos.

Why
shouldn’t she marry if she wanted to? Big, chunky fellow. Rich. Royal.
Good-looking. Everything a queen would want. Everything he wasn’t. Lost her
kingdom, didn’t matter. She’d found another. A bigger, better, brighter place.
So Inos was happy and didn’t need him, had never needed him. He needn’t have
bothered coming.

Poor
old Krasnegar.

But
he could still feel the ax blows, even if he had corked his ears and turned his
hearing off. Nuisance. Annoying. Disturbed a man when he was busy dying. Could
stop the djinns if he wanted. Too much effort.

All
that way he’d come, and he needn’t have bothered.

How
did a mage snuff himself? Oddly difficult.

Words
didn’t want to be lost? No, one of them didn’t. The other two were shared and
didn’t mind. Interesting-his mother’s word was all his own, then.

Could
make Sagorn open the door, though. That might be easiest. Just a command to the
old man to pull the bolt, and then they’d all be quiet and let him die in
peace. Not long. The old rascal wouldn’t like it.

Too
bad about Inos’s aunt. Nice person. Well thought of in the castle. Polite to
the staff. Real lady. Pity to see her here, all frantic and dirty. Maybe best
just to pull the roof down and kill them all. Or snap the bolt himself and let
the djinns in.

Now
what was she screaming about? Inos? Inos hurt?

He’d
missed the thought. Could pry for it. Bad manners. Not nice thing to do, poke
in someone’s mind. Ask her to repeat that? Yes, he’d do that.

Couldn’t
talk with his tongue all cooked. Heal his tongue, then? Not hard. Turn his
hearing on again, take the corks out?

Too
much bother.

Door
wasn’t going to last much longer. Then they’d all let him have some peace.

Inos.
Happy. Husband and kingdom and children. Good. Want Inos to be happy.

Hurt?
Injured?

Ask
her to say that bit again? She’d stopped shouting. Weeping? Poor lady. What
about Inos? Inos hurt? Have to cure his tongue. Uncork his ears.

So.

“What
about Inos?” he asked. “Hurt?”

A
sort of gasping noise from Princess Kadolan ... “Her face has been burned,
Master Rap. It’s going to be terribly scarred. She isn’t beautiful anymore.”
That was very bad! Terrible! Anger!

He
cured his eyes and opened them, so she would know he was listening.

Too
late, the door was falling.

Take
away the door. Put a wall of rock there. Good, that had stopped the djinns-let’s
see them knock holes in that!

Rap
frowned up at Princess Kadolan. “Tell’ me about Inos,” he said.

For
a few minutes, Kadolan just stood and watched the miracles happen. Then she
realized that she was no longer looking at a broken, rotting carcass. It was
almost back to being a young man, and he was wearing nothing but caked blood.
She turned away, only to find that Sagorn was also staring, completely
spellbound. She nudged him and gestured; he scowled; she insisted.

They
walked to the far end, stepping carefully over the sprawled corpses until they
reached the rug, still sprinkled with dice and coins. He gave her a hand and
steadied her as she settled herself on a cushion. Then he sat beside her, but
he faced himself toward the mage. Two old fools . . . but maybe they’d win out
yet.

The
doorway was filled by a wall of masonry, black like the walls of Inisso’s
castle, and quite unlike the adjoining local rock, which was reddish. The
family men had been balked for a while, but their quarry was entombed, and the
flickering lamps were steadily fouling the air. There was no obvious way out of
this crypt, yet she kept telling herself not to worry, because the sorcery was
on their side now. Things were going to be different.

Sagorn
coughed repeatedly. Once he frowned and looked up, and when she followed his
gaze, she saw a tiny aperture in the rocky roof. She had felt a faint draft
earlier and guessed that there must be some ventilation, yet a child could not
climb through that small chimney. Still, it was better than nothing. It might
explain why the guards had sat at this end of the room, or perhaps the prisoner
had been put by the door so they would look him over every time they came and
went. It didn’t matter. She was too weary to care. “Ought to put out the lamps,”
Sagorn muttered. “Just leave one.” But he did not move. His face was haggard,
the clefts in it deeper than ever, and his skimpy hair was plastered in white
streaks. The blood on his garments had dried, but his hands and the folds of
his neck were blood-streaked. Kadolan must look as bad herself. It had been a
very close-run thing. Reaction was setting in, and she felt older than the
witch of the north.

Then
Sagorn exclaimed in wonder and she turned to see that the faun was sitting up
and had his hands free. He pulled the rusty fetters off his ankles as if they
were made of taffy. He glanced at his audience; Kadolan averted her eyes again
quickly.

In
a moment, though, he came walking over, and he was fully dressed-boots and long
pants and a longsleeved shirt, the sort of rustic homespun garments a stableboy
would wear in Krasnegar. He was clean, and the stubble had gone from his face;
but he still had the idiotic tattoos around his eyes, and his brown hair was
tangled like a gorsebush.