A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  The conversation had strayed onto dangerous ground. For a while all three attended to their meal in a silence broken only by the busy crackling of the fire. Flame-tinged smoke drifted away in the wind, and sparks soared up to join the stars. Inos was still trembling from her experience with the pixies. The thought of a band of many others arriving was unnerving, but she was not going to start jumping at shadows, and if the old man was hoping to rattle her, then she would disappoint him. She told herself sternly that an encounter with the mythical pixies was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and this firelit picnic in a haunted forest was at least a memorable one. She did not need occult swaddling to let her enjoy herself, even if her mouth did seem drier than usual and swallowing harder.

  “This curry is superb, Greatness,” she said.

  “Thank you. My dear mother made it like this, you see.”

  “And you have taught me that the protection of a sorcerer should not be discarded so lightly.”

  “Ah!” He sighed. “I am no sorcerer, ma’am. I dearly wish I was, at the moment. You would not have escaped from a sorcerer so readily.”

  “Then … Not a sorcerer?” Inos looked at Kade and saw a reflection of her own astonishment.

  “I am but a mage,” Elkarath said. “Like my grandfather before me, and his, also.”

  “A votary of Sultana Rasha’s, though?”

  He nodded—sadly, she thought. “That is so. She detected me before I knew of her existence. But I am content to serve her.”

  Given that lead and the old man’s benevolent mood, Inos sensed a chance to satisfy her longstanding curiosity about magic. Was he seeking to distract her, though? “We are ignorant in such matters, Greatness. Will you explain the distinction?”

  He chuckled as if he had expected the question. “A mage, knowing but three words, can perform only magic, not full sorcery.”

  “What is the difference?”

  “Sorcery is permanent, magic only temporary. It varies—people are more easily influenced than inanimate objects. Healing the lionslayer and your aunt was relatively simple. I put a sleep spell on you every evening. That happens to be one of the easier magics, and it lasted until morning without reinforcement. But the euphoria spell I used on you by day tended to weaken unless I remembered to restore it at frequent intervals.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully. “A sorcerer would have called you back out of the hills easily. And of course, I had to delay my pursuit until I had sorted out the tangle you had created. I tell yon true, Tall Cranes was in considerable uproar.”

  Inos gulped.

  Kade glanced at her warningly. “You are gracious not to bear us ill will, Greatness,” she murmured.

  “I was a trifle irked, that first morning,” the mage said, “ but at my age, one sees the humor in such situations. It was well done.”

  Relieved, Inos began to frame more questions in her mind, but then Azak came stalking in from the dark.

  The front of his kibr was black with dried blood, and the expression on his face was blacker yet. About to leap up and welcome him, Inos abruptly changed her mind.

  Oh, poor Azak! To be defeated by sorcery was a permissible defeat for a mundane—hard as that admission would be for him—but to be bushwacked by a band of ragtag youths was abysmal incompetence.

  Perhaps never in his life before had he known real humiliation. His reputation for infallibility was shattered. He had failed his chosen. He had been rescued from his own folly by hateful magic, and that might be hurting worst of all. His mood was obviously murderous as he folded his arms and glared across the fire at the sheik.

  Never in Arakkaran had Inos thought she could ever feel sorry for Azak ak’Azakar, but she felt sorry for him now. And to offer sympathy would be to rub salt in the wound with a stonemason’s brush.

  “Welcome, Lionslayer,” Elkarath said mildly. A very large dish of food appeared on the rug at Azak’s feet.

  The big man ignored it. “I am no lionslayer!”

  The old man frowned warningly. “Be seated, ak’Azakar.”

  Azak ground his teeth. “You are a votary of that unspeakable slut, Rasha!”

  Inos felt her heart sink lower still. Azak did not know how to be humble, how to handle humiliation. He was not familiar with failure as ordinary mortals were—how he must be suffering! She kept her eyes on her dish, but the food had turned to sawdust in her mouth. Poor Azak!

  “I offer you hospitality,” Elkarath said quietly.

  “I refuse it.”

  Azak’s legs seemed to collapse beneath him, and he tumbled to the ground. Inos choked back a protest, and Kade gestured warningly to her. This was not fair! He struggled to sit up, supporting himself with his arms, and livid with fury.

  “Yes,” the sheik remarked, to no one in particular, “ I do serve her Majesty. Why she did not bind you all to her service likewise, I do not know.” He glanced a brief smile in the direction of Inos. “I suspect that in your case it may be something to do with the warlocks and your destiny as queen of Krasnegar—great sorcerers may be able to tell what spells have been cast on a person in the past. I don’t know that, but such may be the case. Anyway, my instructions were to use deceit as long as possible. It was an amusing sport.”

  He chuckled, and a sound of grinding teeth came from Azak’s direction.

  But he had mentioned Inos’s homeland. “Then Krasnegar is still … The matter has not been settled?”

  “I have had no recent news,” Elkarath said calmly, popping a wad of rice into his mouth.

  “And the sultana truly intends to put me on the throne of my fathers?”

  He shrugged. “So she says. I do not question her purposes, you understand.”

  Kade was beaming.

  “She also intends to marry me off to a goblin?” Inos demanded.

  Elkarath shot her a brief, elusive glance from under his shaggy white brows. “And if she does? To defy a sorceress is incredible folly, young lady. You told me tonight that you dislike having your emotions dictated to you. Queen Rasha may now decide to make you want to marry a goblin.”

  Inos flinched and felt suddenly ill. She rubbed her fingers on the grass, lacking the stomach even to lick them clean in approved Zarkian style. Fall in love with a goblin? She looked across at Azak’s insensately furious face. His hatred of sorcery suddenly seemed more understandable. It was indeed a great evil.

  The prospect appalled her. The sorceress could make her fall in love with anyone—Azak, or some eligible imp, or even a detestable goblin. And she would accept her fate with joy! Horror!

  “So her Majesty was aware of our intention to leave Arakkaran?” Kade inquired politely.

  “She instigated it, I am sure.”

  “To conceal my niece from the wardens?”

  “Correct. Warlocks are accustomed to getting their own way. Inosolan is a valuable property, as I understand the politics. They would certainly have penetrated the palace quickly.”

  Kade’s extractions of information were usually subtle, but now she was clearly exploiting the old man’s willingness to talk. “The wraith my niece saw, that first night,” she queried. “That was your doing?”

  The old man frowned. “No. That was nothing of mine.”

  “Then it was Rasha’s?” Inos demanded.

  He shook his head, and fires flashed from the rubies. “I think not. She was expecting to be under surveillance. She told me she would not even observe our departure, lest she reveal our whereabouts.”

  “But …” Inos shivered. “You mean it really was a wraith?”

  Rap? Oh, poor Rap!

  Elkarath shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Or else it was a sending fiom someone else. I did not awake in time to observe whether there was sorcery at work.”

  “Sending?” Inos repeated. “What sort of sending?”

  “From another sorcerer. A warlock, perchance.”

  Inos’s heart thumped hard with shock. “You can’t mean that Rap may still be alive?”

  The old man s
hrugged again. “Who knows? I expected trouble … but nothing further has transpired. Strange! I cannot explain that either, ma’am.”

  Rap alive? For some reason that information was stunning. Inos took a long draft of wine while she mulled over the news. She had never wanted to believe that Rap had been so wicked that he would have remained after death as an evil wraith. How could he ever have escaped the imps? How could he have arranged a sending? How …

  No. Sadly she decided that it was impossible. Rap could never have survived the legionaries’ wrath.

  Kade was still interrogating the old man. “And what happens when we reach Ullacarn?”

  He chewed and swallowed. “There we shall await further instructions. It is a pleasant city.”

  Inos glanced miserably at Azak, whose scowl could not nave been deeper. All things include both the Evil and the Good. Her joy at being rescued from the pixies had blinded her to the evil in that deliverance. Would even four pixies have been worse than one goblin, a lifetime with a goblin?

  Once Ullacarn had been the first stop on the way to appeal to the wardens. Now it might be the first stop on the way to permanent slavery. She would be turned over to the warlock of the east, while Rasha reclaimed her favorite plaything, Azak.

  Kade glanced uneasily at the encircling night. “But first we must reach Ullacarn. You say we shall be gone by dawn … Must we return through that dreadful pass in the dark?”

  Elkarath shook his head in a vigorous torrent of red fire. “No! That pass would not be wise at any time, I fear.”

  “I am glad to hear it!” Kade said sharply. “Nothing has ever so depressed me as the sight of all those … statues.”

  “Why unwise?” Inos asked.

  He sipped his wine, studying the fire over the lip of the goblet. “I am only a mage, ma’am. I cannot normally detect the occult at work. That ability is beyond my powers except in a few special cases, such as knowing when my farsight is blocked. I assume that others of my standing are similarly limited. But I think I felt something when I came through that pass. Even if I was mistaken, it may well be that some of the spell still lingers.”

  Inos frowned, not comprehending.

  “The spell would have been directional,” he explained with a trace of impatience, “ It was cast against the fleeing refugees. We all came safely into Thume. We might not go out so easily.”

  “Turned to stone?”

  “Maybe not. It may be too weak for that now, but it might still cripple us, or kill us. No, I would not try to go that way for all the gems in Kerith.”

  Inos shot another glance at Azak, and now he was looking marginally more interested and less murderous.

  “I have other means,” Elkarath explained, deflecting the next question before it was asked. Again Inos wondered if he was less confident than he wished them to think. “You have led me a merry dance these last few days, but I enjoyed it.” He raised his goblet in salute to Kade.

  “And how did you catch us, Greatness?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t hard to follow your trail. Compared to a mage, a lionslayer is a blind kitten.”

  Azak bared his teeth in fury and the old man smiled softly at the fire.

  “Did you truly expect to escape me, ak’Azakar?”

  “I was hoping that you would not dare exert your foul ability so close to Ullacarn.”

  “Ah! Well, that was a consideration, I admit, but of course I must accomplish my mission, and I had to take the risk. First, though, I had to make arrangements for the rest of my goods and people. I did not set out until yesterday at dawn.”

  “Then you made excellent time,” Kade said approvingly.

  Elkarath nodded to his hands in smug agreement. “This is a very pleasant evening, is it not? I hope you have noticed that magic is efficacious in deflecting mosquitoes?” He glanced benignly across at Azak. “You are quite sure you will not dine with us, Lionslayer?”

  Again Azak angrily refused hospitality. Angry or not, he must be starving, so he was letting his sense of failure make him act very childishly. Why must some men be stubborn, so pigheaded? Inos felt herself oppressed by a strange nostalgia that she could not place.

  “It was not difficult to follow you,” the mage said mildly. “Although it became a little harder this side of the mountains.”

  “When the trail was warmer?” Azak growled skeptically. Using his arms, he levered himself back, moving his feet farther from the fire.

  “When sorcery was interfering with it.”

  “I saw no signs of people.”

  “But obviously there are people.” The old man glanced out at the darkness, and Inos instinctively did the same. Shapes moved in the gloom and she thought her heart had stopped forever, until she saw that they were the horses and mules, all returned, silent as ghosts, a cordon of mute spectators. She shivered.

  “I also saw places with occult shielding,” Elkarath said, “ or rather I did not see them. My farsight was blocked, and I suspected that my eyesight was being deceived also and that what seemed to be woods were otherwise. Sometimes your tracks vanished altogether, and sometimes they made no sense. Thume is inhabited!”

  “Then how did you find us, Greatness?” Kade inquired, licking her fingers with panache, although she had probably never done so in her life before she came to Zark.

  “I had some assistance.” The old man stretched out a hand, letting firelight flicker on his jewels.

  “The ring?” Azak said. “That was not all pigswill you threw at us?”

  “No.” The old man’s voice dropped half an octave. “But I lied when I said it was a family heirloom. Her Majesty created it specially for me.” He peered thoughtfully at his fingers. “It isn’t showing anything very much at the moment … Normally it lets me detect sorcery as a full sorcerer can, but Thume does not seem to influence it. There is nothing indicated from along the valley there, where the people are. And yet they are approaching very swiftly.”

  “Could Thume magic be different?” Inos was definitely uneasy now.

  The mage shrugged. “Possibly. Earlier today, though, it was flickering green all the time; jumpy as fleas on a dead dog.”

  “And how did that help?” Azak asked sharply.

  “I followed you with it.”

  For a moment the other three stared blankly at one another. The mage sipped his wine in silent amusement. Then he peered obliquely at Inos, his gaze guarded below his brows. “You inherited a word of power, child. Her Majesty was quite puzzled that it had not yet manifested itself in some special talent. She told me to watch out for it, and she gave me this device to detect it. Today, for the first time, I saw the gadget react.”

  “I … I was using magic?” Inos hoped that this was some complicated Zarkian joke. She had never told Azak about Inisso’s word of power, and she dared not look to see how he was reacting to the news. Azak detested magic in any form.

  “One of you was,” the mage said. “Green light means one word, a genius. The areas I thought might be occult enclaves did not register. If I was right, then they are very well shielded. No, the power came from you. One of you, and if not you, who else?”

  “I couldn’t have been! Aunt—did you see me doing anything unusual? Azak?”

  Kade shot a worried glance at Azak, then told Inos, “ No, dear.”

  The old man stroked his beard. “I am puzzled, I admit. It was merely an occult talent at work; no moving of mountains. You weren’t … well, taking tracking lessons from First Lionslayer, perhaps? Pathfinding? Singing? Sensing magic, maybe?”

  Inos shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve done anything today that I haven’t done a thousand times before. Except nearly being raped, of course.”

  “No—earlier than that. On your way here.”

  Kade would always seek to break an awkward silence. She coughed softly to gain attention. “In the Impire, Greatness, they have a saying about frying pans and fires. You know it?”

  “In Zark we talk about ‘dodging the lion and
rousing the lioness.’ The same idea?”

  “Exactly. I am beginning to think that my niece has an occult talent along those very lines.”

  He chuckled. “I do believe you have solved the mystery!”

  Kade smiled thinly. “But even if this magic finder pointed in our direction, sir,” she said, “ is it not conceivable that it was seeing someone else? Might there have been someone following us closely, and that person was the source of the magic?”

  “I suppose …” The mage nodded thoughtfully. “Invisibility, for example? If you had an invisible companion … but no. That would require a higher grade of power than I detected. Magic, at least.”

  Azak made an angry growling sound. “I had not been informed of this word of power. It explains many things.” He glared at Inos with a red intensity that shocked her.

  “You have another explanation?” inquired the sheik.

  “The four who ambushed me?”

  Elkarath shook his head. “They came from the north. They found your trail and tracked you. Quite separate from what I had been seeing.”

  Azak grunted. “But have you considered why they might have trailed us?”

  Elkarath just shook his head. “Only that possibly all visitors to Thume are hunted down as fair game.”

  “I thought their purpose was quite evident,” Inos snapped.

  Azak snapped back: “Exactly!”

  She began to feel her own anger rising to deflect whatever accusation he was about to make. “They called me an outsider. I think that was what they said. As if it were a dirty word, like … like vermin.”

  Hastily Kade interjected, “ This would explain the mystery, the disappearances—”

  But Inos was glaring back at the smolder in Azak’s eye. “You have another idea?”

  “I mean that the four might have been reacting to magic, also.”

  “I don’t think I quite grasp your Majesty’s meaning,” Kade said sharply.

  “It is clear enough. Your niece is very attractive, like a lodestone! That might explain why the four curs were drawn here.”

  “Azak!” Inos cried. “What are you saying?”