A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  “Why would my father not let you try it, then?”

  Sagorn had reached the bedroom door and stopped again, wheezing. “If he had, it might have warned him not to send you to Kinvale, and then this trouble might have been averted.”

  “How could it have done that? A window do that?”

  “It might have shown you here at Winterfest, perhaps? I admit that it is dangerous. It drove your great-grandfather mad.”

  Rap did not like the sound of that, remembering the awesome glow he had provoked in the casement when he went near it—and remembering, also, the strange apparition who might have been Bright Water, witch of the north. She had gabbled something about foresight. She had accused Rap of blocking her foresight. Could there be a connection there?

  Inos hurried across the bedroom, the death chamber. “Let us go straight up,” she said, and her voice almost cracked.

  Rap felt a mad impulse to run after her and take her in his arms to comfort. He wanted that so badly that he trembled. He kept remembering how she had kissed him good-bye, almost a whole year ago now. But queens did not kiss factors’ clerks—or horse thieves.

  All the rest of Krasnegar had spurned him, and she had not. He had never doubted that she would remain his friend, once she was free of Andor’s witchery. It was very difficult to remember that she was his queen. If she were wearing a royal robe and a crown it might be possible, but despite her royal bearing in that shabby leather riding outfit, with her gold hair flying loose halfway down her back, she was still too much the companion of his childhood—on horses, clambering over cliffs …

  Sagorn was still catching his breath.

  “You know I have only been up there once in my life?” Princess Kadolan said. She was puffing, also, but perhaps that was only from politeness. “My grandfather died in a fire, I thought.”

  The bedroom was brighter, with more candles still burning in the sconces. Sagorn went to study the two portraits over the mantel. “Yes, but he was mad before that.”

  “Oh, dear! You think he saw his death through the casement and the sight drove him insane?”

  The old man shrugged. “That is what your brother thought, and your father before him. It is an interesting paradox. The prophecy drove him mad, but had he not been mad, then he would not have been locked up, so he could have escaped the flames. Curious, isn’t it?”

  Deciding again that he did not like this sinister, cold-blooded old man, Rap began heaving a dresser toward the door, and the goblin came to help.

  The imps were into the robing room now, crossing to the stairs that led up to the antechamber. Once Rap reached the uppermost room, he would be unable to watch what they were doing. He hoped Inos was right to trust Sagorn, but it was not his place to advise her, and he had no advice to offer anyway. The situation looked hopeless, once the proconsul’s body was discovered, the culprits would be lucky if they were just thrown in the dungeon and not beheaded out of hand.

  With the goblin at his heels, he followed the others, climbing the last flight unwillingly, sensing the blankness above him. When his head broke through that invisible barrier, he felt like a worm coming out of the ground. Again he was seized by a giddy excitement, an exhilaration stemming from the combination of great height and occult farsight, producing a divine—a detestable—ability to spy on everyone in Krasnegar outside the castle.

  Sagorn was leaning one hand against the wall and breathing hard. Inos held a candle, standing with her aunt close to the doorway, staring across the empty chamber at the magic casement. It was dark and seemed no different from the other windows, except for its greater size. One of the others was rattling in the wind. Princess Kadolan shivered and hugged herself in the cold. Fleabag was wagging his tail, sniffing at the bedding and the rest of the two fugitives’ camping equipment, lying in untidy disorder.

  Little Chicken jostled past Rap, saying, “See!” He strode toward the south window. As before, it reacted to his approach by starting to glow, shimmering with a reddish-yellow light, and the multitude of many-colored symbols became visible in its panes. He stopped a few paces away from it, studying the imperceptible shifting.

  “Curious!” Sagorn said. “Firelight?”

  “And watch what happens when I go near, sir.” Rap called Little Chicken back, and the casement became dark. Then Rap moved slowly forward, and the pulsating, hard white glare came again, the feverish changing of the bright-colored emblems. He turned around and saw the others illuminated by it, flecks of rainbow appearing and disappearing on their faces. They all looked worried, even the old man.

  “I am no sorcerer,” Sagorn said uneasily. “I have read of these, but never seen one demonstrated.” He paused. “There is another way of escape for us, you know.”

  Rap could guess what was coming, but Inos asked eagerly, “What’s that?”

  “I have a word of power. So do you now, ma’am, and so does Master Rap. Three words will make a mage, a sorcerer—a minor sorcerer, but even a mage would be strong enough to handle a band of stupid imps, I fancy. We can share.”

  Rap saw Inos bite her lip. “Even Andor told me not to.”

  “He expected to get it out of you, though. When you were alone together.”

  “Are you suggesting that that was the only reason he proposed to me?” she shouted furiously.

  “I know that was the only reason,” he snapped back. “I have his memories. Andor uses people like spoons or forks—women for pleasure, men for profit. He is the ultimate cynic.”

  “And I do not know any word,” Rap said. “So I cannot share.”

  Sagorn studied him, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the casement at his back. “Jalon did not believe you when you told him that. Nor did I. Nor did Andor. Nor Darad. Now your life is again in danger, and this may be the only way to put Inosolan on her throne. Yet you still maintain that you do not know a word?”

  “I do.”

  With a sigh the old man said, “Then I think perhaps I do believe you, this time.”

  “I will tell Rap mine if you will!” Inos said.

  Rap gulped in horror. “But these are Imperial legionaries!” he protested. “Aren’t they reserved to one of the warlocks?”

  Sagorn gave him a long, hard stare. “It is true that the Imperial army is East’s prerogative. Andor thought you were ignorant of such matters. Did you actually manage to deceive Andor, young man?”

  “Andor began my education!” Rap said hotly.

  “Painless learning may be worthless learning. Anyway, you are correct. To use occult force against these imps might well call down the wrath of the warlock of the east—supported, likely, by the whole Council of Four.”

  Rap felt as if he had scored a point, although he did not know what the game was. “Tell me, then. Had I shared my word with Jalon, or with Andor, would they have called Darad to kill me?”

  Sagorn shrugged, uninterested. “Perhaps. I don’t recall that either of them had decided. But Darad would have been called sooner or later, when one of us was in trouble. Then he would have come after you, to get more power; he is a simple soul. There would be more sorcerers around if sharing were easier, you see. It needs a great trust.”

  “And you could cheat? Tell a wrong word?”

  The old man smiled thinly. “I expect people usually do.”

  “And,” Rap concluded, feeling triumphant, “the Darad problem still exists if we share now, doesn’t it?”

  Sagorn pouted, emphasizing the clefts that flanked his deep upper lip. “I suppose it does. Well, Queen Inosolan, shall we try Inisso’s magic casement instead?”

  The strain of an unbearable day was showing on her face, but Inos raised her head proudly and said, “If you wish, Doctor.”

  Nobody moved. Fleabag was panting, and the wind moaning around the turret. Very faint thumping sounds came drifting up from the imps’ axes.

  “Well, this is exciting!” Princess Kadolan said. “I have always wanted to see some real magic. Who goes first?
You, Doctor Sagorn?”

  He glanced at her disbelievingly and then nodded. “I suppose so. Come back here, Master Rap.”

  Rap walked over to them, and the icy chamber was rapidly plunged into darkness, Inos’s candle barely visible. Then Sagorn moved slowly toward the casement. Again light shone on the dusty, footprinted floor and this time it seemed to be normal sunlight—white, but not the fearsome glare that Rap had provoked.

  Sagorn went close and studied the emblems on the tiny panes. As before, Rap felt that they were changing, but could see no transformation actually happen. A red spiral near the lower left corner was farther to the right than he had thought, the gold and green seashell higher, a group of silver bells on azure petals …

  Then the gaunt old man seemed to find courage. He reached up and grasped the fastening in the center, grunted quietly as if it were stiff, and pulled the two flaps toward him. As he stepped back, the casement swung open.

  2

  A gust of hot, dry wind swirled through the chamber, raising the dust in acrid, eye-stinging clouds. The sunlight, also, stung Rap’s eyes and he squinted for a moment, registering only that the bright sand outside was little lower than the floor within, as if the tower had sunk into the ground. Then, as he adjusted to the sunshine, he saw that he was looking across a level space, a sandy and rocky ground, toward a rugged, sun-blasted cliff of black rock, littered at its base with boulders. The only vegetation consisted of a few spiky clumps of some plant he had never seen before; the heat coming in on the breeze was intense.

  It was real, and not real. His senses insisted that he was standing in a room about one story above the ground, looking out an open window. Even the smell of the air was real, and the waves of heat shimmering off the sand. But his farsight detected nothing outside the casement at all. So accustomed was he now to using his occult talent that its failure unbalanced him and made him feel dizzy.

  In the distance, three men were picking their way along the base of the cliff, between the rocks. He wondered why they did not move out into the open and walk on the flat ground. They wore robes with the hoods raised to shield them from the sun’s glare, so he could not see their faces. The one in front was the tallest and his walk seemed familiar.

  “That’s you in the brown, Doctor, isn’t it?” Princess Kadolan said.

  Sagorn stepped back a pace and spoke without turning. “Yes, I think it may be. I wonder who the others are.”

  There was no sound except a faint rustling as the wind stirred dried twigs in the withered bushes below the casement.

  Then the men all stopped and peered up at the sky. They seemed to study something, the middle one pointed. They began moving again, and as the first man moved around an especially large boulder—the size of a small cottage—he turned toward the casement, and the viewers. Certainly it was Sagorn, strands of white hair falling over his gaunt, angular face, but he was too far off for his voice to be audible. The second man followed. He wore a greenish robe and hood, and his face was too pale to be anything but jotunn, although he was shorter than most jotnar. All Rap could be sure of was that he sported a voluminous silver moustache.

  Which was hardly helpful, because many sailors did. Then the third followed, but he was keeping his head lowered. All three disappeared momentarily behind high-piled debris.

  “That was Rap!” Inos exclaimed. “The one in black?”

  “No. Not Flat Nose!” Little Chicken growled angrily.

  Rap could not tell, not knowing what he looked like from the outside, but he felt very uneasy.

  “I find this extremely unhelpful!” Sagorn sniffed. “There is no way to tell where this is. That may be Master Rap with me, but I’m not sure. Does anyone recognize the second man? Where? When? What are we doing?”

  Then a huge blackness swept over the two men and was gone—a giant shadow. They dropped hurriedly, cowering behind boulders and staring up at the sky. Faint shouts drifted in the wind.

  Sagorn gave a strangled cry and stumbled back from the casement. The scene rippled, fragmented, turned gray, and was gone. Icy wind swirled snowflakes into the chamber. The old man tottered forward again to grip the leaves of the casement and force them closed against the Krasnegar night, fastening the clasp.

  He swung around, almost invisible, for the candle had blown out long since and there was only a faint glow from the eastern window. “Did any of you recognize that shape?” His voice quavered.

  “No,” said the others, almost as one, but Inos’ aunt said, “Yes, I think so. Wasn’t it a dragon?”

  “I think it was. Nothing else could be so big. I have been shown my death!”

  “Then you had better stay away from dragon country, sir.” Rap was feeling more and more unhappy. The magic had made his scalp creep, but perhaps that had been because to his farsight the scene had been invisible, a mysterious nothing. Of course his farsight had not detected Bright Water the first time he met her, either.

  “And that was Rap with you!” Inos said.

  “Not!” Little Chicken snapped.

  Princess Kadolan and Sagorn tended to think that Inos was right. Rap himself was uncertain. But it could have been, and none of them had known the second man, except that they all agreed he was likely a sailor. That was not a very profound conclusion, because jotnar often were, and Dragon Reach was somewhere in the southern parts of the Impire, near the Summer Seas, a very long way from Nordland.

  “Well, there are no dragons here now,” Rap said, and cursed himself for babbling like a nervous child. But there were imps, and the steady thud of axes was coming closer.

  “Who wants to try next, then?” Sagorn asked, shepherding them back against the far wall. “That was not very helpful.”

  “I shall try, if you like, sir.” But Rap did not really want to know what was causing the unearthly radiance that he created beyond the casement. Apparently the others did not care to know, either.

  “I should prefer that you stayed away from it, young man!” Sagorn now sounded more like his usual acerbic self. There were murmurs of assent from the women.

  “Then I shall try!” Inos said, not sounding enthused. “I need guidance more than anyone.”

  Her footsteps headed for the casement and in a moment she was silhouetted against it as it began to glow. It was going to be daylight again, Rap concluded, but not so bright as in Sagorn’s scene—a gray day. The iridescence of the symbols was less intense, the tints softer. Inos reached up to the clasp and pulled the leaves open.

  Then she jumped back, a fist to her mouth to stifle a scream. There was a man standing just outside, his back to the viewers. Without conscious thought, Rap rushed forward. Suddenly—unexpectedly, unforgivably—Inos was in his arms. And they both ignored that fact, staring out of the magic casement.

  The man was a jotunn, no doubt of that. He wore a fur around his loins, but the upper half of his body was bare, and only jotnar were that pale shade. His back and shoulders were slick with rain. They were also heavy with muscle and his arms were scarred, his legs invisible below the sill. His thick hair hung like silver plate to his shoulders, hardly stirring in the wind. It was not, as Rap had first thought, Darad. This man was younger, smooth rather than hairy. He had fewer scars and no visible tattoos. It was not Darad, but a man almost as tall. And he was starting to turn.

  Rap noticed that Inos was clutching him, also, and her grip grew tighter as the man in the vision turned. Would he be able to see them as they could see him? Rap was just about to release Inos and reach for the flaps—

  “It’s Kalkor!” Sagorn’s voice came from close behind them. “The Thane of Gark. And that’s the Nordland Moot!”

  The man had stopped moving, but he seemed oblivious of the watchers beside him, who were now seeing his gaunt jotunn face in profile. Looking at it, Rap could understand the man’s reputation, and Inos began to tremble in his arms. In a way it was almost a handsome face, but Kalkor’s appearance suited his reputation. Rap would have expected an older man, but
he had never seen a face that so clearly expressed cruelty and implacable determination. It would take a brave man to risk the anger of Thane Kalkor.

  There was some sort of ceremony in progress. He seemed to be waiting. Then another man stepped in from the side, an elderly man wearing a red woolen robe, sodden wet from the rain, and a ceremonial helmet decorated with horns. He carried a huge ax and he raised it now, holding it vertically in front of him, using both arms, unable to prevent its great weight from wobbling in his grasp. He gasped some hurried words in a tongue unfamiliar to Rap.

  Kalkor reached out one hand stiffly and grasped the monstrous, two-edged battle-ax. It must weigh a ton, Rap thought, seeing how the thick shoulders flexed as Kalkor took the strain at arm’s length, leaning back for balance.

  The Nordland Moot? Now, peering into the misty background beyond the foreground figures, Rap made out what Sagorn had seen sooner—a wide flat area of turf, a bare green moorland under a weeping gray sky. Clumped in an irregular circle around the battleground was a huge audience, vague and indistinct in the mist and rain. It was a bleak and ominous scene, barbaric and deadly.

  And yet … the watchers were all foggy and indistinct. There was something ghostly and unreal about that background, quite unlike the hard sharpness of Kalkor and his companion, or of the desert in the first showing. Was that just an effect of the rain, or not?

  Rap’s attention switched back to the action by the casement. Kalkor raised the ax to his lips, then laid it over his shoulder, moving with military precision. He adjusted his grip and swung sharply around, turning his back to the viewers once more. The shining blue-white blade seemed to be almost within the chamber.

  The sounds downstairs had stopped momentarily, then picked up again, much louder. The imps must now be tackling the door to the royal bedchamber.

  Kalkor was marching forward over the turf toward the center of the circle, the ax on his shoulder, wearing nothing but the animal hide wrapped around his loins, bare-legged and barefooted.