A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  He must have gone to sleep, because suddenly he was choking and thrashing, in danger of falling off the steps and drowning. Who would come to his rescue? Probably no one in Milflor would believe that a man couldn’t swim.

  He hauled himself up by the handrail and hopped back to the stone bench. Already it was hot as a griddle, so that he was glad his clothes were wet. He must rest his ankle for a while and wait until his eyes began behaving. His head pounded with every heartbeat, his vision flicked in harmony. But at least he seemed to have stopped bleeding; his tattoos were aimed safely seaward, away from the passersby.

  He sat on the bench for quite a while, wondering when he would cook himself to death, when someone would come and investigate a solitary man being idle while everyone else was busy, and when he would die of starvation. Why, oh why, had he gone and broken his ankle?

  For the first time in months he was truly alone, and the feeling was unexpectedly unpleasant. He had lived by himself for days on end when he was herding; why should solitude bother him now? Lonely lost boy had better start behaving like a man pretty soon!

  He discovered he was mourning Little Chicken and told himself not to be crazy. The goblin had been dedicated to killing him in the nastiest ways possible, so his death should be good news, not bad. Perhaps Rap’s sorrow was only guilt at having left him to fight alone, but that suicidal assault on armed men had been Little Chicken’s own decision.

  Or had it?

  How many soldiers had the goblin dealt with before they, in turn, disposed of him? Why had those particular men broken ranks to come running down the path? Rap’s scalp prickled as he considered the occult possibilities. Legionaries had ravaged the fairy village. The one surviving fairy had died in telling Little Chicken something, probably her name, and certainly a magic word—and for no apparent reason. The goblin’s natural talent had been physical strength, which had been sorcerously magnified, and now a group of soldiers had rushed to their own destruction at his hands. Might those very men have been the perpetrators of the original crime? Could Faerie magic seek out its own vengeance like that?

  Things on the water were very hard to see, and his farsight was growing blurry, also. The head coming toward him had to be a seal, he decided. Then he squinted, shaded his eyes, and decided that it was a man swimming.

  He had never watched swimming being done. It was obviously slower than walking and must be hard work, for when the swimmer reached the steps and clambered out, he was audibly gasping. After a moment he came plodding up, still stooped and puffing and wringing water out of his hair—pale blond hair hanging to his shoulders. He was short for a jotunn, but broad.

  Although Rap had accepted that this was a warm climate where men might go around bare-chested even in a town, he was still shocked by the newcomer’s scanty rag. That was indecent! Nor was it very practical, and when the man moved to sit on the other end of his bench Rap called out a warning. “Careful! The stone’s hot!”

  The man stopped and turned to stare at him over a silver mustache large enough to sweep out a stable. The rest of him had been put together from knotted rope, brown leather, and wet polar bear combings. His eyes were pale as an arctic sky, fog gray with only a hint of blueness—but they gleamed at the sight of Rap’s scrapes. “Too hot for me, but not for you!”

  “No! Sorry, sir! No, I didn’t mean that at all, sir.”

  “Ah! You mean I’m being stupid?”

  Rap had never expected to sweat any harder than he had been doing a few minutes earlier, especially not when feeling ice-cold, as he did now. “Not at all, sir. I should have seen that you have bare feet. I mean, that you know exactly what you’re doing, sir. I meant well, sir, but I was wrong to presume to advise you—sir!”

  The jotunn shrugged, disappointed. He sat down, deliberately leaning against the backrest and spreading his arms along it, carefully not flinching at the heat, while all the while keeping watch on Rap, as if inviting comment.

  Even the homegrown jotnar at Krasnegar were dangerously touchy, even Rap’s personal friends like Krath and Gith. He should have remembered that the nomadic sailor types were all homicidal maniacs, especially when fresh ashore after a voyage. Dockside taverns in Krasnegar spilled more blood than beer. Even to get up and leave now could be taken as an insult.

  It would be nice to have Little Chicken handy.

  Keeping his blurry eyes innocently pointed at the little boats sailing in the bay. Rap studied his new companion out of the corner of his mind. Jotnar turned pink in summer and shed skin in sheets; he had never seen one so bronzed, to about the same faunish shade as himself. To assume that a male jotunn was a sailor by trade was usually a safe bet, and quite certain in this case from the pictures tattooed on the man’s arms and hands, all of which were either obscene or erotic, or both. He was regarding Rap with the open curiosity of a man who could choose to be nosy—hard and heavy. His knuckles were badly twisted by old breaks; his angular jotunnish face was ominously unmarked.

  “What’s that ’round your eyes, boy?”

  “Goblin tattoos, sir.”

  “Make you look like a half-wit raccoon.”

  “Oh, I agree, sir! I didn’t want them. I was unconscious.”

  The man sighed. “You haven’t been fighting.”

  “No, sir. I fell.”

  The sailor groaned and looked away. For a while there was peaceful silence. Gradually Rap began to breathe more easily. Even when he was feeling his usual self, he had no interest in brawling as a sport.

  Then the jotunn began studying him again. “You’re not pure faun. That’s a jotunn’s jaw if I ever saw one.”

  Tell him it was none of his business? “My father was a jotunn, sir, my mother a faun.”

  “Rape, of course?”

  “Probably. But he married her later, sir.”

  “Lucky girl.” Resignedly the sailor clasped his hands behind his neck and turned his gaze on the harbor. Rap would have enjoyed being furious, but anger would be a dangerous luxury at the moment. Besides, this man might be of some help if he would ever accept that Rap did not want to fight.

  So this time it was Rap who resumed the conversation. The jotunn had dried already and he glinted all over as if he were swathed in gossamer.

  “My name’s Rap, sir.”

  Elbows and arms pivoted like the wings of a banking gull. Faded eyes regarded him with bored contempt. “Who cares, halfman?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  A grunt. “But I’m Gathmor, first mate on Stormdancer.”

  “Sir … I’m seeking passage back to the mainland.”

  “Where on the mainland?”

  “Zark, if possible, but anywhere will do.”

  The weatherbeaten skin around the sailor’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Then you’ll walk to Zark?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I hope they’re not keeping your dinner warm?”

  “Sir, I don’t mind working. I’ll row, if I have to.”

  “I bet you would! Nice try, though.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “Excisemen can count, lad.” He lowered his hands, as if about to rise.

  “Sir? I still don’t understand! I can’t sign on as a sailor?”

  Gathmor regarded him curiously. “You banged your head harder than I thought. Or else you haven’t been here very long. There’s a big—no, a huge—tax on exporting slaves from Faerie. Or importing them, for that matter. I use the word ‘tax’ loosely.”

  “I’m not a slave!”

  “Of course not! Slavery’s illegal within the Impire, we all know that! Terrible thing, slavery. Which is why you ran away, and why the excisemen know exactly how many we had in irons when we arrived and how many officers, and why they’ll make sure we leave with no more and no less.” He paused, as if asking if Rap was now satisfied.

  “I was shipwrecked here!”

  “What vessel?”

  “Er … Icedrogon.”

  “From?”

&nbs
p; “Krasnegar.”

  “Master?”

  “Rranderbad.”

  “Cargo?”

  “Er …”

  Gathmor laughed. “Nice try, halfman. You don’t know a bight from a bowsprit. Go back to the taro patch, boy. It’s safer.” He rose and stretched like a sunwarmed cat.

  “Sir? Exchange me? Throw out an older man and take me? Then the count would still be all right!”

  Gathmor’s smile faded into something blood-curdling. “And what do we say to his wife when we get home? You think she’d accept a mule in a man’s place? Or what do we do when you manage to escape? You hinting we keep slaves, too?”

  “No, sir! Not at all, sir!”

  Gathmor looked disbelieving and stepped closer as if he had decided to crack a few bones on principle. Then he seemed to notice the purple eggplant that connected Rap’s foot to the leg of his pants.

  He frowned. “You ever done any rowing?”

  “Not much, sir.”

  The sailor nodded. “It needs legs as well as arms. You’ll get beaten for that, you know, damaging your master’s property?”

  Chuckling, he strutted to the edge of the dock and raised his arms. Then he lowered them and looked back. “I don’t say I don’t break laws, mongrel. I’m a jotunn and I’ve got standards to keep up. But I’m not such an idiot as to break them here. Not for a damaged half-breed.” He hurled himself into the air, rolled up in a ball, and dropped out of sight. Rap heard no splash, but in a moment he saw the white head in the water, and brown arms thrusting against the sea as the sailor returned to his ship.

  So that was that. Rap took a deep breath and tried to relax. And yet … and yet that sailor had seemed oddly familiar. Just at the end there … the way he walked? Rap wished he’d asked the man if he’d ever been to Krasnegar.

  No, that was pure fancy. He was imagining it. His brains were all jangled by the bang on his head. Gathmor was just a very typical jotunn. Rap couldn’t possibly have ever seen him before.

  2

  Zarkian etiquette frowned on women eating in the presence of men, so Inos sat facing the shrubbery, cross-legged on cushions on the grass. Free of her meal-sack burden, she wore a much cleaner and better quality chaddar, but she had defiantly left her hair uncovered and streaming loose. Honey cakes and sugared fruits, sweet coffee strong as horses, and pastries with heavenly centers … She was famished.

  Behind her, Azak and the sheik sipped coffee and conversed in measured tones, loud enough for her to listen. Bees and hummingbirds flitted to and fro below a canopy of branches that the wind was moving purposefully around, making light and shadow dance. A fountain played in a corner below a tree laden with rose-pink blossom, and the scent of flowers was heady.

  On one side the garden faded back to become a courtyard and then the interior of the house itself; the opposite side was bounded by a colonnade bearing flowered vines. Beyond that lay rooftops and a silver vista of the bay, shining in the sun. This haven of peace hidden amid the bustle of the city was one of the loveliest nooks Inos had ever seen. Even within the grandeur of the palace she had found nothing finer.

  Azak had been recounting everything he knew about Krasnegar and Rasha’s interference in its affairs. Evidently he and the sheik had talked before, but not at such length. Once or twice the old man interposed a gentle question, but mostly he listened in silence.

  Then the story came to an end, and so did Inos’s hunger. She gulped down a final glass of coffee and turned around to join the conversation, feeling equipped now to face the day.

  “Have I left out anything?” Azak demanded, with a dark look that dared her to belittle his efforts.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  Both men sat cross-legged, as she did, on cushions. They were dressed for the desert. In place of royal finery, Azak wore a loose kibr of rather dirty, rough material, tied at the waist with a length of rope and large enough to giftwrap a camel. Inos noted with astonishment how far apart his knees were.

  The old man was Sheik Elkarath ak’something ak’someone. He was short for a djinn but comfortably bulky in a robe of many colors, like clotted rainbows. His round, ruddy face was half hidden by a voluminous snowy beard and even bushier white mustache; he had the thickest, whitest eyebrows she had ever seen. Despite the presence of his sultan fleeing from a dangerous sorceress, Sheik Elkarath remained remarkably unperturbed. He was obviously a man of wealth and untroubled success, with fine gems glinting on his plump fingers and the hilt of a curved dagger tucked in his sash. His home was furnished with taste and riches, and Inos had been aware of many people busily employed there—she had been attended by two laughing granddaughters of remarkable beauty, and there had been efficient-looking young guards aplenty.

  The old man acknowledged Inos with a faint indirect smile and then returned to studying his hands, fingering his rings. The morning sun was behind him, and his face was farther shaded by a kaffiyeh so embroidered with gold and silver thread that it shone; the agal holding it in place bore four huge rubies. Azak’s headdress, in contrast, resembled an old sack tied around by a strip of rag.

  “The aunt is a complication,” Elkarath remarked gently.

  “A necessary one,” Azak replied, with a reproachful glance at Inos.

  Pause—the sheik was a slow-spoken man. “Of course. But she provides another possible trail, and we did not have time to plan her escape as thoroughly.” He moved a soft hand in a gesture of resignation.

  “And the delay is dangerous,” Azak agreed, “If the harlot has noticed our absence already, then she may follow. But the addition was unavoidable, as I said.”

  The old man nodded without looking up. “We may yet turn events to our advantage, I think.”

  Inos knew she ought to be suspicious of this unexpected—and so far unexplained—ally, but there was something very grandfatherly about him. His solid calmness was reassuring, and obviously Azak trusted him—Azak, who trusted nobody!

  “On your side,” the old man asked his hands, “those who helped are safely departed?”

  “There is only one who could tell anything of substance,” Azak said. “She has relatives in Thrugg. Since her mother’s death she has continued to send support. She will be made welcome.”

  Elkarath nodded gently again.

  So Zana was only a half-sister, as Inos should have guessed from the great difference in age.

  “What about Kar?” she asked. “Does he know?”

  A frown flashed across Azak’s face and was gone. “He knows nothing. I told him I was following Atharaz.”

  Inos waited to let the sheik ask, but he merely smiled understandingly. “Is that difficult?” she inquired.

  “It may be dangerous for Kar,” Azak said, “but it is our main hope. My brothers will likely believe, and mayhap even the slut herself will. Sultan Atharaz was a mighty ruler of yesteryear, conqueror of half of Zark, great even among my predecessors. Early in his reign he vanished, inexplicably.”

  After a moment’s thought and irritation, Inos said, “He returned equally unexpectedly just after a successor had come forward and gained support?”

  Azak’s smile was as deadly as Kar’s, even when it registered amusement. “Exactly. Since then the ploy has been used several times, frequently with success. Obviously it can turn against its user, but the ambitious will hesitate some time before volunteering to replace me.”

  Silence fell. The two men stared at the grass, apparently lost in thought, neither seeming ready to inform Inos of all the things she wanted to know—where was Kade, why was this place safe, and whither the fugitives were bound.

  “I trust,” she said, “that my aunt’s journey will be less strenuous than my own?”

  “She will not be brought here,” Azak said calmly. “Do not worry.”

  If he thought snubs would stop Inosolan asking questions, he had much to learn.

  The sheik himself seemed as patient as a rock cultivating barnacles, but even Azak seemed unusually r
elaxed. She wondered which Azak was present now—the madcap horseman who rode over the roughest terrain at full suicidal gallop, or the cautious ruler who palmed a single fig rather than trust his subjects not to poison him. She wondered, also, if he ever visited his city without disguise, and she could not help but compare his style of kingship with her father’s. Had anyone suggested to Holindarn that he needed guards—or even a sword—when he wandered about his realm, he would have hurled a bolt of royal scorn. She knew she did not understand Azak and might have involved herself in something worse than what she expected. Whatever that was, exactly.

  “You had this expedition all planned before we had our talk last night?” she asked.

  Azak frowned. “Not in detail. Sheik Elkarath made himself known to me some time ago and offered his services. I had toyed with the thought of going, but I was leaning toward sending Kar.” An ironic smile twisted his face, and she noticed that he had not shaved. “The prospect of your company proved an irresistible persuasion.”

  Inos bowed her head in mocking acknowledgment of the compliment, thinking that she would not have dared entrust herself to Kar as protector—nor probably to Azak either, were he not defanged by the sorceress’s curse.

  “You told me outside,” she asked him, “that here I should be secure from the sorceress?”

  The big man scowled mightily. “I let my tongue run away like a woman’s.”

  “Too late to call it back,” she said. “What did you mean?”

  Azak merely glanced at the sheik, who fingered his rings for a moment.

  “Sorcery is a great evil,” the old man said at last. “But it is merely the strongest form of occult power. There is also magic, which is a lesser form, and—”

  “I know of the words of power. Four make a sorcerer, and three make a mage, and …” Inos caught a fiery glare from Azak, telling her that she was not supposed to interrupt a sheik. “I beg your pardon, er … your Honor.” What was the correct honorific for a sheik? There had been no sheiks around Kinvale. “Do please forgive my presumption and continue.”

  He frowned at his hands for a while, snowy brows hooding his eyes, but then he went on in a very soft voice. “If you already know of the words, then my task is simpler. You may not know that occult power is all about us. In my house in Ullacarn I have an actuary who is a genius with numbers. He can total a page of them at a single glance. His father served my father and was the finest doctor of sick camels in all Zark. Obviously their family cherishes a word of power.”