Magic Casement (27 page)

That
was very satisfying news. “Seven days I get my name!” Little
Chicken grinned, showing his oversize goblin teeth.

Rap
looked blank.

“New
name! Not Little Chicken-Death Bird.”

“Good
name!” Rap said politely. Not knowing the word for tattoos, he waved a
finger around one eye, and a vigorous nod showed that his guess was correct.

Obviously
this was all a cheat. Little Chicken was at least two years older than any of
the other boys, and Rap had already noted some tattooed and married men who
could be no older. So Little Chicken had been held back, the fruit kept on the
tree until it was overripe, so that he would have an unfair chance in the
testing, whatever that might be. Now this pushover stranger had arrived to make
the contest even more unfair. Little Chicken was justifiably confident.

“Tell
me about testing?” Rap asked.

Little
Chicken looked surprised, and then an expression of great delight came over his
big ugly face as he realized the extent of Rap’s ignorance. “No!”
He swung around and snapped orders to the others-no one must talk of the
testing. Happily he turned back to his victim.

“After
testing I have good ideas!”

“Yes?”
Rap was certain that he was going to disagree.

“I
light small fires on your chest! “

Rap
did disagree.

“I
pull off ears and make you eat them!”

“I
pull feathers off chickens,” Rap said firmly.

“Flat
Nose!” Little Chicken sneered. “I push your toes up your nose. “

Rap
made a loud clucking noise and flapped his arms. That worked. Little Chicken
almost gnashed his teeth with fury, while a few of the braver boys behind him
snickered.

Frequently
thereafter Little Chicken would come to sit and stare gloatingly at Rap and
announce some new atrocity he had just thought of, but the clucking noise was a
potent reply. It drove him almost to distraction, and often drove him away.
Either some rule prevented him from using violence, or else he was saving that
for later.

The
grisly threats were unbelievable, Rap decided just another strategy to unnerve
the victim, as the garbage had been. He firmly resolved not to let it rattle
him, but that was not an easy resolution to keep. By the time the village
settled down to the sleep that night, his head was swimming with the weakness
brought on by hunger.

But
he had farsight. He had easily located the food store, in a room at the back of
the single women’s lodge, and there seemed to be no locks on any of the
doors. Kept awake by his howling stomach, he lay in his fur robe among the
sleeping boys and waited through the long hours until the whole tribe seemed to
be asleep and all activity had ceased, even in the married quarters. Then he
arose, dressed himself in the largest buckskins he could find in the heap by
the door-they could only be Little Chicken’s--and quietly staggered out
into the dark.

There
were no sentries in that climate. The dogs kept guard and Fleabag himself was
the first to notice him, but Fleabag seemed to be peculiarly susceptible to
whatever it was Rap could do with animals. He came up sniffing and allowed his
ears to be scratched. If Fleabag was not a purebred wolf, he was something
close to it, but for his new friend he lay down and required that his chest be
rubbed. Then he accompanied Rap past the big lodge where the men slept among
their wives, over to the house of the single females.

Gratefully
Rap slipped inside, blocking Fleabag’s attempts to follow. He stood in
the dark, until his violently shaking limbs were under control again. At the
far end lay the young girls, old women were at the front. There were two
hearths, but the fires had been banked and the room was dim. Quivering with
hunger and nervousness, he began picking his way very slowly toward the big
larder that made up the rear half of the building, stepping around or over the
sleepers. Here was the tribe’s holy of holies: the winter food and the
unmarried girls. Nowhere could be more off limits for a stranger, but certainly
Rap had nothing to lose. Holding his breath, mouthing a silent prayer against
creaking hinges, he eased open the big door and swiftly grabbed up a lump of
frozen fish. He closed the door again, turned-and his heart made a wild leap,
as if trying to escape on its own and fly away to Krasnegar. A very tiny woman
was standing right in front of him, peering up with difficulty because of her
extreme stoop-a dim, hunched figure canopied in the voluminous robe and hood of
a female goblin. Her face was dark and dim, unclear in the crawling glow of the
embers, but he could see wrinkles, and she was obviously very old.

For
what seemed a small eternity, neither spoke. He felt sweat trickle down his
ribs like ice. Why did she not raise the alarm? “Faun?” she said
softly. Her voice was the dry crackle of a boot on frozen grass. “Why a
faun here?”

Rap
said nothing. He tried to lick his lips and tasted blood from their open frost
sores.

“Far
from the vales, “ the crone warbled in a tuneless but fortunately quiet
croak, “Where his ancestors manifest... No, that’s not right. Not
manifest! Magnify?”

She
showed a few sharp goblin teeth, gnawing her wrinkled bottom lip. “Why is
he using power here, eh?”

Rap
tried to speak, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Apparently she
had not thought to shout an alarm. He forced his quaking limbs to obey, sinking
down on one knee to be less conspicuous if anyone else roused. Now their eyes
were about level.

“I’m
hungry,” he whispered. “That’s all.”

She
did not seem to hear. “What goes creeping where my love lies sleeping?
Eh? Fauns near my sweeting? Power in the dark woods. Fauns!”

“Please
don’t wake the others.”

“He
uses mastery on the dogs, that’s all.” She was very, very, old, and
probably mad.

Then
his heart made another frantic bound-she was not there!

His
farsight was detecting nothing where his eyes saw her, and his eyes could also
see the embers on the hearth shining through her robe.

An
evil spirit? He tried to rise and his legs would not move. He rubbed his eyes,
and the vision seemed to solidfy, blocking out the gleam of the hearth. He
clenched his teeth to stop them chattering.

“Strange,”
she muttered. “Can’t see him properly.”

“I’m
hungry,” Rap repeated, barely hearing the words himself. “That’s
all. I mean no harm.”

He
moved a hand, to see if it would pass through the apparition, and his fingers
touched buckskin-he whipped them away. The old hag had noticed. Her eyes seemed
to narrow and focus more securely on him. “You! Faun! Why can’t I
foresee you?”

Rap
shook his head, confused. “I’m hungry,” he whispered again.

“Hungry?
You?” She cackled in sudden mad merriment, and Rap cringed, expecting all
the sleepers to leap up; but no one stirred.

The
crone’s laughter stopped abruptly. “My sweeting!” Her voice
was quiet again, like wind on hay. “You must not hurt !”

“Hurt
who?”

“Death
Bird. He is the promised one.”

Rap
could not remember the name. None of the boys was called that, he was sure, and
he did not think he had overheard “Death Bird” in their
conversation. He shook his head.

The
little hag worked her mouth, as if chewing, then hummed for a moment, and
finally began to croon again. “When summer came to Uthol’s
valley... Remember, faun-he is precious.” And she was gone.

Someone
turned over by the near fire and mumbled for a moment in sleep.

Rap
waited until his heart stopped beating like hailstones, then struggled shakily
to his feet. Apparently none of the sleepers had heard the mad old woman, not
even her snatches of song. That seemed very improbable! He began making his way
back to the door, his whole body quivering violently in reaction. But he could
almost convince himself that he had merely seen-and heard and touched-a
hallucination brought on by starvation.

He
slipped outside swiftly lest a cold draft awaken any sleepers, then hurried
back through the black agony of the night, mentally forcing the dogs’
attention away from his precious bundle. When he reached the boys’
dormitory, he could feel pain in his mouth at the thought of food, but he laid
the frozen lump near the embers and managed to restrain himself until it was
almost half thawed, praying that the hiss and crackle would not awaken Little
Chicken or any of the others. He scorched his fingers retrieving the
disgusting, delicious mess of raw and charred fish, and crawled under his rug
to gorge on it, and he ate every bit except a few bones, which he burned.

Then
he slept.

Every
night thereafter, he returned to the larder and stole food, for there was
nowhere he could hide a supply from both dogs and men. He was not detected, and
he did not see the cryptic delusion of the little old woman again. He did not
go near the garbage tip, to Little Chicken’s great disgust and
mystification.

The
other boys were forbidden to speak to Rap, even to tell him what the testing
would involve. It could not be physical strength, because he was bigger than
either Cheep-Cheep or Fledgling Down, yet he was obviously Little Chicken’s
preferred opponent. He supposed it must be some forest skill, like archery. The
only thing he would not expect was fairness. Nor did he intend to stay around
to find out.

He
spent most his time planning his escape, but every idea he could think of was
either impossible or was at once made so, almost as if the goblins could read
his thoughts. Darad had taken Rap’s mukluks. High Raven had confiscated
Andor’s and kept them in clear view beside his sleeping place, so
footwear would have to wait for last. Rap had to make a long search with
farsight before he located his parka and fur trousers, only to learn that they
had been disassembled and stitched together as a rug, again for the chief’s
personal glory.

That
news was terrifying, as if a captive in a dungeon had learned that the key to
his cell had been melted down. It threw a depression over him such as he had
never known. His nightly prowls had shown him that buckskins were much inferior
to furs. Within minutes his teeth would be chattering. He was no goblin, able
to survive in the forest without furs. He was imprisoned by invisible bars of
pure cold.

Dancer
and Crazy had been placed in the stable with the goblins’ stock, and he
could see no problem in stealing them when he was ready to make a break-until
the fifth day, when two men saddled them up and rode them away. They did not
return. Rap, therefore, would be forced to steal one of the stunted goblin
ponies and would not have the advantage of a better mount in the inevitable
chase.

He
had abandoned his early idea that half the men were away on a raiding party.
There were no other men. Darad had explained what happened to half the
adolescent males in the tribe, and Rap had reluctantly come to believe that
Little Chicken’s grisly jokes were not mere sadistic humor-they were real
plans. The loser would be dismembered by the winner.

Unfortunately,
his escape was going to be certain suicide. With the aid of his farsight he
could likely steal the mukluks and a pony of sorts, but not the clothes he
needed. He would freeze to death in buckskins, unless he was recaptured first.
Nevertheless, freezing seemed like a more enjoyable death than the procedures
Little Chicken kept devising, so to the forest he must go.

He
left it too late. A wicked wind sprang up at sunset on the day he had planned
for his departure, and he glumly decided to wait for the next night, although
that would be his last chance before the testing. And either Little Chicken had
been lying, or had made a mistake, or else Rap had miscounted, but he awoke to
find the boys excitedly dressing themselves in their buckskins, which he had
not seen them do before. He could detect frantic activity in the women’s
but and the married quarters, and soon he saw other goblins streaming in from
all points of the compass, bringing their womenfolk and their children along on
horseback to watch the fun. Obviously this was the day of the testing. He still
did not know what was expected of him, except to die bravely.

And
slowly, of course.

The
wan polar day gleamed hesitantly through a white ice fog, a mere watery glow on
the southern horizon, casting no shadows, and barely brighter than good
moonlight. Wind was lifting wisps of snow and trailing them along the ground.
The feasting had been going on in the main but for several hours and the only
persons not included were Rap, Little Chicken, and some of the most ancient
women, who arrived at the boys’ cabin with bags of equipment to prepare
the contestants. They began by sitting them on stools and smearing them both
with bear grease. They dressed Little Chicken’s hair in the usual slimy
rope, but Rap’s tangled mop frustrated them. He did not recognize any of
them as the woman he had seen in the night.

The
crones toiled in silence, ignoring Rap’s questions, but Little Chicken
chattered in great spirits. He sat on his stool as the women worked on him,
gloating at Rap and rehearsing all the vilest torments he could think of.

“You
make good show, Flat Nose!” he begged. “You die long!”

All
Rap could do was try his clucking noise, and today even that failed to ruffle
Little Chicken. “Death Bird!” he insisted, and grinned happily.

Oh,
Gods!

Rap
reeled back on his stool, choking down a cry of despair.

He
is precious? Even if his hunger had made him hallucinate a vision of a goblin
sorceress, how could it have put that name on its lips? Had the apparition been
real, after all? Was he doomed to fight a champion guarded by sorcery?

Then
he remembered that Little Chicken had mentioned his new name earlier, the first
time they had spoken. Rap had forgotten it, that was all. So this was merely
another instance of Rap’s mind playing tricks on him. There had been no
old woman. Obviously she had been nothing but a figment of his tormented brain.