Rap wheeled. “Stop that!” he shouted. “It’s all a big act! It’s stupid and childish.”
“I’ll show you stupid and childish—I’m going to break every bone in your damned faun carcass!” Gathmor stepped out of his sandals. “Worm! You haven’t any bones to break!” Keeping a steady glare on Rap, he balled his fists and stalked forward. A killer jotunn, out for blood.
Rap was not impressed. “You can control that damned temper of yours when you want to,” he said sadly. “You were a sweet little bunny on Blood Wave.” He kicked off his shoes, but he left his robe alone.
Gathmor leaped. Rap sidestepped in a swirl of sackcloth.
“I wish you’d listen a minute, Cap’n. I’m an adept now. You can’t expect—”
But Gathmor did expect. Gathmor was lightning fast. Every man in Durthing had agreed that others might punch harder or meaner or absorb punishment better, but as long as he was reasonably sober there was no one faster than Gathmor of Stormdancer. He seemed very slow now. Perhaps it was the sand, or the hard day, but when he pivoted and swung again, Rap was not there again. Screaming, the jotunn tried a third time, and now he was ready to grab, in either direction. That left him open. This time Rap stood his ground and laid a fist into that hard hairy abdomen with all the force he could muster. It felt like hitting Inisso’s castle. Apparently it felt worse to Gathmor.
For a few moments he seemed to be dead, but then he began to breathe again, very noisily, curled up small on the sand. Rap stepped back into his sandals, because his toes were being fried like sausages. He studied the sailor for a moment and decided that he was in no danger. Sucking his throbbing knuckles, he wandered over to where Andor was watching.
Of course the gang would have chosen Andor at a time like this. Looking almost elegant in Jalon’s brown robe, he was relaxing in the shade of an overhang, seated on a slab of black rock that had once been part of a spinal armor plate.
He greeted Rap with a white-tooth smile and a silent mime of hand clapping. “I’m sure that felt good?”
“Not really.” Rap had not wanted to humiliate Gathmor. The defeat would hurt the sailor much more than victory pleased the faun. Not a faun—an adept! Fighting now was cheating. Almost anything was going to be cheating in future.
Andor’s face, for example. The polished impish good looks no longer impressed. He wasn’t ugly, but his charm didn’t work on Rap anymore. He looked unpleasantly effeminate, in fact.
“I’d have enjoyed it! You’re a good man, Master Rap. Most men would get a lot of pleasure out of stuffing that jotunn in a bottle.” He nodded solemnly. “I don’t think you do, though. You don’t enjoy humiliating other people.” The automatic compliment.
Rap shrugged. He ought to be finding pleasure in his new immunity to Andor, but he didn’t think he was. Behind the quizzical smile he could see anger and fear, and cold calculations in progress. Andor was frightened that Rap was going to kill him to gain the rest of the word of power. Gods!
And now he was being disconcerted by Rap’s silent scrutiny. A spurious twinkle came into his eye. “So what happens next, great sorcerer?” Under the humor, there was something long dead in those deep dark eyes. Andor had manipulated people until he couldn’t think of them as people anymore.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Rap said, and watched the surge of relief and pleasure. He even saw the calculations speed up. Probably Andor was wondering if he could kill Rap to regain the share of their power that Sagorn had given away.
“Name it! I told you on the ship, Rap—I think you have a destiny, so I’d like to stick around. More than that, though, I really do want to be your friend. I always have.”
If the man had Liar tattooed on his forehead, it couldn’t be more obvious. Then Rap glanced at his own face with farsight and was disgusted to see the innocent smile on it, the boyish appeal. He tried to change that, and saw himself become an earnest, rather innocent young man facing great challenges. He couldn’t help it! He was bedazzling Andor as Andor had bedazzled him in the past, and he could no more stop himself than he could turn off his farsight. He must just hope that some practice with his new powers would teach him how to be an honest man again. Meanwhile he watched Andor being impressed, and he felt sick.
“We’ve had one of the three prophecies, Andor. That leaves two. I think they’ll turn up in time.” His mind shied at the sudden memory of himself on the floor of the goblins’ lodge with his bones showing. “If I can beat a dragon, I can beat Kalkor.”
“Easily. Like you felled Gathmor.”
“So I can put Inos on her throne. That’s all I want. So here’s my proposal—you help me with that, and afterward I’ll help you with your problem, getting rid of your curse.”
“Fine!” Andor flashed teeth and held out a smooth brown hand. “You can count on me. I can’t bind the others, though. You know that. But anything you need of me, you just ask.”
“You’ll trust me to keep my side of the deal later?”
“Of course!” Andor’s face said that if Rap was fool enough not to kill him now, then he was probably even stupid enough to keep a bargain after he had got what he needed. Andor would honor a promise only if it suited him to do so.
In the background, Gathmor groaned and levered himself up on one elbow. Rap wiped sweat. “There’s water just over there,” he said, waving at the trees. “Let’s head that way.”
“Your hairy friend can track us when he’s finished his rest,” Andor agreed, rising.
“I think Jalon next, please.” Rap did not look at his companion as they walked side by side, but he saw the annoyance that did not show in the voice when Andor said, “ Of course.”
Then Rap’s companion was Jalon.
His blue eyes filled with tears, and he limped along for a while without speaking.
“You said you owed me one,” Rap said. “I agree you didn’t expect it to be that big.”
“My fault for not looking, as you did. I should have seen.” He groaned. “And now I can’t!”
There was no deceit showing on his sun-broiled face, only pain, and a sort of nausea.
“What does that mean?”
Jalon waved a hand at the woods ahead. “It’s all gone dead. The life’s gone out of it, the beauty. You stole my power, Rap. I feel blind and deaf! I couldn’t paint a barn door now. And I don’t suppose I could outsing an alleycat.”
“Never met a man who could.” Rap walked for a while in silence, wondering what to say, wondering also if the new sparkle he saw in everything was exactly what had gone out of Jalon’s vision. There were butterflies everywhere in the forest, and millions of tiny flowers that no one but a mouse would ever notice, and bright birds by the score, motionless on twig or nest, and leaves of every shape imaginable. Even the sand beneath his feet glinted with myriad sparkles of mica flakes and crystal edges. He marveled at a variety and vitality he had never noticed before, while Jalon slouched at his side, chewing his lip and seeming ready to weep.
Then a glitter of anger … and a whine. “Rap? We could both be adepts.”
Power was not easily relinquished, obviously. Jalon was a dreamer, the least ambitious or assertive of men, but he resented his loss. Even Jalon craved power.
“No.” So did Rap. “First,” he said, “ Sagorn insists that sharing usually doesn’t reduce a word to half. So you have lost only a small part of your power. Second, you’ve just had a very bad shock, and those always make things look blacker …”
He tried to be convincing and was disgusted when he succeeded. Jalon began to smile, slowly, shyly, letting confidence be talked back into him. Eventually, and just as the two of them reached the edge of the trees, Rap persuaded him to sing a little. He ran off a couple more verses of “The Maidens of Ilrane,” the song he had interrupted to draw attention to the petrified dragon. Gods! That could have been no more than half an hour ago at most, back when the world was a simple, easy sort of place.
It was fine singing, if not quite the old Ja
lon, and these verses were the most disgusting yet, but Rap bellowed out laughter that sounded to him as unlikely as a three-legged racehorse. Relief bloomed in the minstrel’s lace like a reprieve from imminent death.
“All right?” he whispered.
Rap wiped tears from his eyes. “I’m no musician, friend, but you can still sing better than any other four guys I know. I honestly can’t tell any difference.”
God of Liars! There could be good in lies, though, just as in everything else. Jalon was smiling again.
Rap had wanted power so he might help Inos. He had not wanted it to be like this.
The edge of the open clearing was a sand dune. Behind that, thick forest offered immediate cool shade like a divine blessing. More blessed still, the mossy trunks cuddled tight around the edges of a dark and shining pool. Rap dropped his gown, walked out of his sandals, and waded in. Jalon was close behind. They sank gratefully into warm bliss, reclining on a squishily soft matting of leaves and mud. For some minutes they just lay.
Then Jalon tried again. “Rap? You … you wouldn’t … you won’t share?”
If Andor had asked, the plea would have been more skilled and refusal much easier. What had Jalon ever done to deserve his portion of Rap’s vengeance?
Plenty! When he’d met an innocent boy who didn’t even know what a word of power was or that he even knew one, Jalon had not explained, and he had certainly not mentioned the dangers. He’d merely muttered a cryptic and useless warning about Darad. Jalon had lost any claim on Rap’s friendship at their first meeting, so Rap was now entitled to …
Power was very easy to justify to one’s conscience.
“No. My aim is to help Inos. For that I’m going to need all the power I can muster.” He would not share the word his mother had told him. “But I make you the same promise I made Andor: You help me first, and then I’ll help you. Maybe then, when Inos is safely on her throne … Maybe then I’ll even tell you my own word. If it’s necessary to lift your curse, I will.” Promises were easy.
Jalon nodded solemnly and offered a hand on it. And there was no guile on his face, damn him!
The water was marvelously soothing on sun-battered, travel-worn bodies, and the dim peace of the forest was balm for nerves that still rang with memories of dragons. Rap could hear dragons, if he strained, but they were very distant, a fault mumbling and squabbling, no threat to anyone. They sounded rather like sleepy chickens, in fact.
Gathmor lurched in over the sand ridge, walking with a pronounced stoop. He dropped the robe he was carrying and waded into the pool.
“I’d like to talk to Sagorn, please,” Rap said.
The water was up to Jalon’s chin and when he shook his head, he spread circles of ripples.
“Why not?”
“He’s dying—or at least very sick. He really did have some sort of seizure. And he told you the word!” Jalon shuddered. “That hurt! Gods, that hurt him! And then … Well, it’s amazing he had the strength to call Andor.” He screwed up his face at the memories of approaching death.
So Rap had killed Sagorn! Even if he was not in any true sense dead, none of the gang would ever dare call him again.
Revenge was a very sour fruit.
And what of his soul? Sagorn had not seemed especially evil, although the Gods would know more of him than Rap ever could. Sagorn had tried to steal Rap’s word of power. That was an evil to cancel out a lot of good. But the man was not truly dead! How could his soul go before the Gods for weighing if he wasn’t dead? Would it remain forever in some sort of limbo, holding unreleased forever the spark of residue, the balance that should go to join the Evil or the Good? The undead dark?
God of Fools!
Gathmor had been sitting hunched up. Now he lay back gingerly, wincing as if something hurt. He glanced suspiciously at the other two, alert for traces of amusement.
“Rap!” Jalon said. “You used power against a dragon!”
“I know. I’m trying not to think about it.” The warlock of the south might be on Rap’s trail right now. “Let me talk to Darad, please.” That would be magic, but Oothiana had said the transformations were too brief to be located.
Jalon blinked, seemed about to argue, then nodded. The giant jotunn appeared in his place with a stupendous splash, sending waves surging across the pool. Gathmor, taken by surprise, tried to sit up and obviously regretted the hasty move.
Darad looked hard at Rap, then opened his mouth in a huge crocodile grin, displaying his fangs. Rap was tensed, prepared to jump up and treat him as he had treated Gathmor, but there was no need. The fighter’s face was hideously battered and disfigured with tattoos, yet as easy to read as a child’s, and it was filled now with great amusement.
Chuckling hoarsely, Darad offered a hand larger than Rap’s foot. “Thanks, faun! You sure fixed them!”
Rap clasped hands, saw the inevitable squeeze coming, and calmly bettered it. Darad looked comically astonished at the resistance, then alarmed, and finally howled very satisfactorily, raising flocks of birds from the trees. Rap released him, suddenly ashamed. He was no better than they were, these crude, sadistic jotnar! No, he was worse because he was cheating, not using honest muscle.
Unabashed, gently massaging his damaged hand with the other one, the ogre resumed his grin. “That primpy, prissy Sagorn! You made him look pretty stupid!”
“Liked that, did you?”
“Loved it!” The wolf teeth flashed again. “Been waiting a hundred years for him to get what’s coming to him! He was a snotty, smartass kid, and he only got worse. But you watch that Andor! Don’t trust him!”
“I won’t.” Rap studied the dim-witted warrior for a moment. “How about you? Will you take the same deal?”
Darad nodded vigorously. “You bet! You can count on me, sir! You’ll get this spell off of us if anyone can—and it won’t take you a hundred years, neither! I’m your man, Master Rap!”
He meant it! Even as a mundane. Rap would never have been deceived by Darad. His new occult sense of truth detected no reservations, and now he could readily see that Darad was a born follower who preferred having a superior around to tell him who to kill or maim. Once he gave his word he would be more loyal than Andor or Thinal, and infinitely more reliable than Jalon, within the narrow bounds of his abilities. Amazing!
But Rap had not yet said he would accept this new henchman, and his hesitation had provoked a very worried expression on the jotunn’s grotesque features. He could have no real conscience, but he apparently had some sense of justice. “Sir?” he muttered. “I guess I did a job on your face back on the boat there. Got a bit carried away, see? If you want a few free ones to make us even … well, I’d understand.”
So Darad would humbly stand still while Rap systematically battered his eyes? The image was enough to make the new adept explode in his first genuine laughter for days, and the resulting perplexity on Darad’s face only increased his mirth.
“I think we’re about quits,” Rap said, catching his breath. “You sold me to the goblins. I set my dog on you. Little Chicken began the eye work, but I gave the orders. Princess Kadolan burned your back, so we’ll count that in, too, right?” Then, as Darad nodded and leered his agreement, Rap had a vision of himself walking up to Inos’s aunt and blacking her eyes to settle her account, and that absurdity convulsed him in more howls of mirth, while the two jotnar sharing the pool with him exchanged puzzled glances.
Perhaps his merriment was reaction to a narrow escape. It could just be excitement at his new powers. It was certainly not very manly. Rap forced himself back to sobriety, and shook Darad’s hand again, in civilized fashion, and the deal was made.
So Andor and Jalon and Darad would help. Sagorn was effectively dead. Thinal they must not call, not here in dragon country. Rap had no illusions of holding off a dragon if there was real gold in the neighborhood. He relaxed for a moment, still enjoying the warm soak, and also relishing his new adept-hood.
He could listen to the
distant murmur of dragons. His farsight was sharper and had a greater range. His ability to outbrawl Gathmor suggested that he would find he was expert at any skill he had ever practiced. He was as persuasive as Andor now, and he could read expressions in a way he had never dreamed was possible. His face was less blistered than Gathmor’s, although he had been closer to the dragon; the scrapes on his toes had stopped hurting. He seemed to be healing very quickly, and he wondered what other abilities he might uncover in himself during the next few days.
He turned to meet Gathmor’s scowl.
“You want to get even with Kalkor?”
The jotunn nodded warily.
“Then I suggest you stick around, too. There’s another prophecy: I meet Kalkor again.”
Gathmor’s pale eyes showed interest. “You’ll let me have him?
“You couldn’t handle him. Darad might—”
The warrior growled. “Not a hope, sir! We tried a friendly bout once, and he mashed me. Half my ribs and a broken jaw, and he wasn’t much more’n a kid then. Fists, swords, axes—he’s the best.”
That was an ominous report, because Darad also had a word of power. Either Kalkor had more native ability, or his word was much stronger.
Or else, like Rap now, he knew more than one word.
But that worry was far in the future.
“I want to hear the whole story,” Gathmor said, “ before I commit myself to anything.”
It was his own fault he hadn’t heard it all long since; Rap had tried to tell him often enough. “We can talk as we go. It’s long enough to last till Zark.”
“What next?” Gathmor heaved himself up stiffly. “We going to get on our way?”
Rap’s farsight nudged him, and he turned to stare at the watcher on the bank. Where had he come from?
He did not seem worrisome. He was standing on a fallen log and smiling shyly, although the smile was partly hidden by his hand—he had a finger up his nose. A gnome’s nose was not much more than two holes in his face.
The scrap of rag around his loins was filthy beyond belief, and too tattered to serve its purpose; the natural mud color of his skin was visible only where sweat streaks had loosened flakes of dirt. Rap was sorry to discover that his sharp new farsight could detect the teeming multitudes within the odious tangle of the boy’s hair. His head would have reached to Rap’s navel; he was about thirteen, maybe, depending on how fast gnomes aged. The only clean places on him were two very gorgeous, bronze-tinted eyes.
A Man of His Word Page 92
