A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  “Hold this!” Thinal tossed Rap a small leather bag that clinked. Its drawstring had been cut. “And this.” He added a bundle of fabric.

  “Wait!” Memory came flooding back, memory of inner warnings ignored, warnings of something badly wrong.

  Thinal hauled his shirt over his head. “What?”

  “Danger!” Frantically Rap scanned. What was it he had noticed and pushed away, out of mind? The little wooded slope was deserted. At the top of the hill was the crowd—and he hastily withdrew his farsight in case he mesmerized himself again. The muddy trail he stood on was a shortcut from the market down to the harborfront, emerging at the back of a row of scruffy, ugly buildings set on a wide and busy road. The far side of the road was the seafront, with small craft loading or unloading at little jetties. To his left lay the mainland, its shore a vista of silver beach and great mansions stretching out of sight. Off to the right lay the harbor proper, with real ships and the hilly cape topped by the—

  “God of Fools!”

  Thinal had dropped his pants and was holding out a hand for the garment he had given to Rap. “What?” he repeated, with little more interest.

  “Magic!” Rap said. “Oh, Gods, why didn’t I think? We’ve been landed, gutted, and cooked!” He waved a hand at the high parkland of the proconsul’s palace grounds. “What’s that up there? At the top?”

  “The Gazebo. Local landmark. You can see it from all over.”

  “And it can see us! It’s a sorcerer’s tower!”

  That was what had been scratching at his mind, wanting to be let in—the turrety little building on the highest crest of the headland. It was only two stories tall, likely no more than a single room on each level, ringed by a balcony and capped by a spiky roof. But he had been able to see it from everywhere in the town, and probably it would be visible for leagues in all directions. What really mattered was that he couldn’t see the rest of the hill, not with farsight. Long practice had increased his range greatly, and he must have sensed the problem subconsciously as soon as he entered the town. Now that he was closer it was glaringly obvious. Much of the headland was a blank to his occult vision—missing, wiped, not there. Only the upper half of that little wooden watchtower was clear to him; it floated above the fog just as Inisso’s chamber of puissance floated above Krasnegar.

  And that was not the worst of it. He stumbled over his words as he tried to explain—

  “For God’s sake give me that gown!” Thinal yelled. He was dancing around in the nude, while Rap was waving the bundle to and fro to emphasize his warnings. Arms folded, Little Chicken was leaning against a mossy tree trunk and glowering sullenly at the argument.

  “No!” Rap said, putting the robe behind his back. “You’re going to call Sagorn aren’t you and you mustn’t because it isn’t safe and don’t you see—”

  “What do you mean, mustn’t?” Thinal put puny fists on bony hips and puffed up a scrawny chest.

  “That’s magic! No, you’re not a sorcerer, but that’s sorcerers’ magic you’re using. Don’t you see? Magic can be heard! Bright Water told me. Every time I use my farsight I’m using magic. Every time I calm a watchdog, or you pilfer something, or Little Chi—Sorcerers can feel magic, or smell it, or something. And that’s a sorcerer’s tower up there! Why didn’t we think? Of course there would be a sorcerer here in Faerie—right?”

  Thinal grabbed for the gown, and Rap whirled it away. “No!”

  “Yes!” The little thief was dancing with fury now. “Evil take you! I can’t run around like this all day. People’ll come!”

  Automatically, unable to help himself. Rap scanned—and saw. “Soldiers!” he wailed. “In the market! And down there, as well!”

  Two squads of legionaries were marching into the market from opposite directions. Sunlight flashed on sword and helmet, on cuirass and greave, while shoppers scampered out of the way. Another band approached on the dockfront road. The centurion’s bellows came floating up over the roofs and through the trees.

  “Give me that robe, young man!” Sagorn said sternly. Rap blinked and obeyed. Little Chicken went scrambling up a tree to see over the bushes. The old man pulled the robe on and began buttoning. It was an expensive-looking garment, formal wear for a gentleman.

  “Gather up Thinal’s clothes,” he said. “We may need them later. Hand the money to the goblin. He looks more likely to be entrusted to defend it than you do. How many men?”

  Rap told him—legionaries were lining up along the whole edge of the market, at least a full century. Seaward, the men had their swords out already and were pouring into the buildings, pushing through to find back doors facing the hillside, and where necessary clearing a path by hurling furniture and people aside like weeds.

  Sagorn winced as he thrust his feet into Thinal’s sandals. “Is my hair all right? Very well, come.” He set off down the trail, moving with the slow care of the elderly on the slippery.

  “There’s no way out down there!” Rap said. He wondered what jail was going to be like. Theft and murder would bring the death penalty, most like, or at least a lifetime in irons. His legs trembled with the urge to start running.

  The old man spoke without taking his attention off the path. “I doubt that they are looking for me, lad. And I shall vouch for my servants—both of you. I can talk down a centurion, I promise you.”

  “Not this time,” Rap said. “There’s no one else on this hillside but us, no one at all.”

  Sagorn stopped, carefully turned himself around, and glared. “Will you stop using your farsight! You said yourself that it may attract attention!”

  “Then stop using your brain!” Rap yelled. “You’re occultly smart, aren’t you? So every time you think, even—”

  “Dolt! You are an idiot! How can I not think? Tell me what you saw.”

  “The path goes to an alley between two buildings, very narrow—single file. It’s packed solid with legionaries. They’re coming through some of the buildings, too, and they’re lining up along the bottom of the slope.”

  The old man frowned, considering. “Then they have been directed to us, and your observation about magic was well founded. It may be necessary for us to split up and meet again later. There used to be a very fine inn called the Elves’ Crystal. No, it may be gone by now. We’ll meet at—”

  “I’m not meeting anyone!” Rap said angrily. “I don’t want to stay here one minute longer than I need. If I can get away, then I’m going!”

  Jotunnish blue eyes flamed below the snowy brows. “Young fool! Go near a ship and you’ll spend the rest of your life in fetters.”

  “I must get back to the mainland!”

  “Why?”

  “Inos!”

  “Gods preserve us! When are you going to grow up, boy? Whatever was going to happen to Inos has happened long since. Weeks ago!”

  Why couldn’t they understand? “I’m still going to find her,” Rap said, “if it takes the rest of my life. I’ll tell her I’m sorry or I’ll weep on her grave. And if not for her, then for me. So I’ll not be ashamed any more.”

  “You have nothing to be asham—Oh, this is crazy! You do not belong in the world of royalty and politics and sorcery! Face facts, boy! You are never going to see Inos again. With your talent for animals your destiny is to find some kindly master who needs a good stockman; then you can marry a plump milkmaid and raise lots of wide-nosed babies.”

  Possibly, but Rap was nothing if not stubborn. “I am going to go to Zark and find Inos.”

  Sagorn threw up his hands. “What are the soldiers doing now?”

  Rap made a quick mental scan, although he had not really ever stopped watching; he didn’t seem able to turn off his farsight when there was need of it. “Lining up, top and bottom. They’re almost ready, I think. They’re going to flatten us like mash in a press, between two lines.”

  “Military exercise! Mere brute force, naturally.” Sagorn’s lantern jaw clenched, and his thin lips whitened. “Then I must leav
e, I think. Give me back those other clothes.” He began unfastening his robe again.

  Creak … Little Chicken had decided he needed a club. He had begun by snapping a tree trunk as thick as Rap’s knee. It fell with a crash, flattening bushes far off. Sagorn shouted, “Stop that!” but the goblin ignored him, proceeding to break off a convenient length: Crack!

  The old man threw down his robe, then lowered himself awkwardly and sat on it while he pulled on Thinal’s shorts, which were much too small for him. A bugle blared in the marketplace.

  “Here they come,” Rap said. “And here I go.”

  “No!” Sagorn shouted, straggling back to his feet. “Wait! We’ll meet at Emine’s statue. Gods! A statue of Emine in plain view, and I still never realized—”

  “No.”

  “Wait! Fool! Don’t you see yet? If you really want to find your princess, there’s only one way you’ll ever do it. You know what’s here in Faerie! If you didn’t guess it before, then you must have done so when he killed the troll?”

  Rap glanced at Little Chicken, who flashed him a tusky grin and twirled his giant’s bludgeon around like a twig. Rap would have needed both hands even to lift it. Horrified, he looked back at the gaunt old man.

  “Kill more children? Is that what you want me to do? Is that what you’re planning to do?”

  “Not necessarily children—I mean, not necessarily kill … But I must know!”

  “You know where all the fairyfolk have gone!” Rap shouted. “And why. That’s obvious! That’s awful! I won’t be part of that. I don’t want to be a sorcerer anyway. That’s certain!” He sensed movement and saw the two lines of men in leather and metal advancing abreast, one down, one up. But he also saw a squad of a dozen legionaries running down the path from the market, ahead of the main troop. “They’re coming! They may have farsight, too!”

  The goblin uttered a ferocious growl and went racing off up the path.

  “Little Chicken!” Rap yelled. “You come back here!”

  He received no answer and he could sense the goblin still running, at a fearsome pace.

  “Trash, come back!” But it did no good. “That’s it!” Rap said, giving up. “’Bye, Doctor!”

  Sagorn shouted, “Stop! Rap, it’s your only hope of ever finding Inos!” Anything else he said was lost in the noise as Rap plowed away into the bushes.

  3

  The hillside was a tangle of shrubs and saplings, a few mature trees and some crumbling ruins. There were thorns and stinging things and ankle-breaking snags galore; the underlying loam was slick and wet. For a few moments Rap could spare no wits for anything more than finding a route without losing his balance on the steep slope or scratching his eyes out as he plunged through thickets, racing and leaping along the hillside in the faint hope that he could outflank the lines of legionaries advancing in line abreast from above and below. Then he had a path mapped out ahead and could spare a tendril of thought to check on the pursuit. If his farsight gave him away to a listening sorcerer, then so be it.

  He heard distant shouts and saw that Little Chicken had gone all the way up the trail to meet the advance party descending. There seemed to be an almighty battle in progress already, with armored men hurtling bodily through the air.

  For a moment Rap stopped, stricken. The goblin was being trash again, seeking to aid Rap’s escape. How dare he! And now it was useless to go back and try to save him in his turn. Rap had no way of fighting armed men. Damned goblin! Whatever had happened to him when the fairy died, it surely had not made him sword-proof. How dare he be a martyr? He could be as elusive as a doe in undergrowth like this. If any of them had possessed even a hope of escaping, it had been Little Chicken.

  Rap continued his own noisy, hectic flight.

  And who had gone the other way? Thinal? Sagorn certainly would not have stayed around for the patrol to catch. Darad, maybe. That would be another mighty battle.

  Like a fox gone to earth. Rap skittered in under a dense bush, hard against an ancient fragment of rotting timber wall. He panted the humid air like a dog and wiped his streaming forehead. Little Chicken was still at it. Even with occult strength, how could one unarmed man hold off a dozen or so legionaries? And he had apparently already leveled half that many, for the shrubbery was hung with bodies. Over the mad beating of his own heart. Rap could hear the oaths and screams and the crashing of branches. Who ever said that goblins did not enjoy fighting?

  A dozen? He scanned and saw that the soldiers had broken ranks, and were going to their comrades’ aid. Uphill and downhill, armed men raced toward the racket. If that had been Little Chicken’s purpose, he had succeeded. The way was not exactly clear, but now the lines were broken, and the bushes were full of running men. One more would not be heard.

  The goblin had given his life for his master, then, and it would be folly to refuse the opportunity. It would also feel like cowardice to accept it, yet Rap could do nothing to help now. Cursing himself for a craven ingrate, he scrambled to his feet and went plunging down the slope.

  Still the undergrowth was transparent to his farsight. He could find the best route with no difficulty, and in the long run a faun had a much better chance of evading notice in Faerie than a goblin ever would. Coward! He angled over to a narrow, muddy gully, the bed of an intermittent stream, and went slithering down it on his seat. It steepened; he tried to stop, caught a foot in a tangle of roots, went hurtling forward down a high bank, bounced off rock, and plunged into sudden darkness.

  4

  Inos was never at her best in boats. She had known enough to refuse breakfast, and the waves in the bay were harmless spawn of the mighty surf that thundered beyond the headlands, but the slimy little dhow reeked of fish and wallowed like a drunkard—or so it seemed to her wayward stomach.

  She had always assumed that the tentlike garments of Zarikian women were hot and stuffy. She had been surprised to discover that the black chaddar she had been given was a relatively cool and comfortable garment, but it had not encountered soap in a long time, and neither had the half-naked fishermen who swarmed around her. They were a rough, unsettling crew, foul-mouthed, hairy, and spangled with fish scales. They shouted ill-natured jests about her and guffawed at them. She dared not reply, for she could not speak in their dialect. The captain was as bad as any, a bow-legged, squint-eyed boor.

  Fortunately she need not look at the sailors, for her hood restricted her side vision greatly. Her hands and face had been dyed with berry juice, but very little Inos showed above her veil. Her voice might betray her, and her green eyes—nothing else should.

  A bloated meal sack rested heavily on her lap when she sat. Its ropes dug into her shoulders when she walked; but the worst of all her torments was Charak.

  Charak in his swaddling clothes stank much worse than anything else. He yelled continuously, he writhed and squirmed. She cursed Azak a million times for Charak and an excessive quest for realism. She did not think Charak was a good idea at all, for he was more likely to draw attention to her by showing up her lack of expertise with babies than he was to provide disguise. He also seemed too young to be an older brother of the meal sack, although Zana must be a better judge of such things than Inos. The advantages of Charak were only that his foul stench tended to keep the sailors away and her constant dread of dropping the tiny monster kept her too busy to brood much.

  She had no idea where Azak was. He had not been present when she had picked her away along the slippery boards of the ramshackle jetty to enter this unspeakable floating slum. She had seen no one of his height in her later views of the encampment, when the boat had brought her back again. The dhow had first sailed landward until it met with the fishing fleet, outward bound on the dawn breeze. It had then put about and hidden itself within the myriad of similar boats. Inos had assumed then that her destination was somewhere other than Arakkaran—somewhere north or south along the coast—but once the fleet had crossed the bar, her own craft had separated and circled back past the headla
nd again.

  By then the family men had been striking camp and embarking their horses in the little ferry that plied to and fro between the capes, for the dusty track through the dunes was apparently a common coastal highway, much used by the beggars and footpads and glib-spoken chapmen who preyed upon the honest laborers of the villages. To move the whole troop and their mounts would take many trips, and if Rasha thought to check on the sultan or his royal guest, she would have a long search before she could be sure they were not present. That, at least, must be the theory.

  Now the dhow was heading in again toward the docks, tacking clumsily against the rising breeze and making poor way; even a landlubber’s eye could see it was not a weatherly craft. Sternly ignoring the queasy twitchings within her, Inos kept her eyes on Arakkaran itself, resplendent in the dawn’s light and just as glorious as Azak had promised. Built like Krasnegar on a slope, it was many times larger, its hillside more stepped and irregular, and its buildings were of marble and gold, not brick, timber, and red tiles. In all of Krasnegar there were exactly six trees, while jungle seemed to be breaking out everywhere in Arakkaran, in any unused corner, on any angle too steep for building. Nor could Inisso’s spiky black castle ever compare with the shining domes and minarets of Azak’s palace sprawling along the plateau’s lip. Despite her discomfort, Inos had to admire the grandeur of Arakkaran.

  At long last the wallowing dhow was closing in on the shipping moored and anchored along the harborfront. Now the squint-eyed captain bellowed at his rabble to lower sail and man the sweeps. Grumbling, they set to honest labor. Lewd banter was replaced by muttered curses and hard breathing.

  With suspicious suddenness, Charak stopped yelling. Inos held him up to look at. “Now what’re you planning, you little horror?” she whispered. His reply was a loud belch and a fountain of milk. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her insides lurched. That was definitely the worst moment of the trip so far.