A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  “I am saying that mayhap you bewitched me, woman, and mayhap you bewitched those others today.”

  “No! No! I—”

  “Oh, maybe you don’t know you’re doing it,” Azak roared. “But why should four young men out on a hunt suddenly turn into ravening rapist monsters?”

  And why should a djinn sultan fall in love?—but he did not go so far as to say that.

  Had he slapped her, he could not have shocked her more. She cowered back. The idea was unthinkable—that she might have used occult mastery on Azak, as Andor had once used it on her? Yes, of course she had tried to impress him, but not that way. Horrible! Odious! That she might be a sort of occult mermaid, luring innocent youths and inciting them to attack her, and thus provoke their deaths at the sheik’s hands … No! Inconceivable!

  Horrorstruck, she turned to appeal to Elkarath.

  He was frowning and stroking his beard. “You are a very beautiful woman, Queen Inosolan, and I am not surprised that Sultan Azak is smitten by your charms, occult or not. But that you could summon four strangers, sight unseen, and enrage them into a mating frenzy … I suppose anything is possible to the occult. But you do not provoke riots wherever you go! Why should it only have happened today?”

  Azak curled his bushy red mustache in a sneer. “Perhaps pixies are especially susceptible.”

  Again Inos recoiled from the thought. Four young men bewitched unknowingly by her and then executed by the sheik because of it? And now there was an even larger band of men hastening up the valley to find her? No, no! Madness! Filthy madness! “You mean I’m a sort of bitch in heat, summoning all the dogs in town?”

  The two men avoided her eye. Kade bit her lip and colored.

  The sheik sighed. “Well, I shall report the event to my mistress and let her draw conclusions. Meanwhile—” He peered up at the stars, “ —it would be about the second hour of the night, I think?”

  “About,” Azak agreed.

  “Then we can be on our way. Lionslayer, I have summoned the mounts. Go and strip off their harnesses; we shall give them their freedom. And bring me the saddlebags from my pony.”

  Azak’s jaw snapped closed. “To hear my lord is to obey!” He accompanied the words with a glare of hatred. Scrambling to his feet, evidently now cured of his paralysis, he marched off into the dark. As he went, he adjusted the hang of his scimitar, perhaps dreaming of what he would like to do to a merchant who treated him as a flunky.

  “Your Highness,” Elkarath said, “ is there anything in your baggage that you wish to retain? We can take little with us, but any special things?”

  “Oh!” Kade glanced in the direction of the little windbreak that Azak had built. “Well, my breviary …”

  “Then perhaps you would fetch that now, ma’am? Here!” Elkarath gestured, and then held out to Kade a large ball of bluish light.

  Kade said, “ Oh!” again.

  “Take it. It is not hot.”

  Kade rose stiffly. She took the globe uncertainly in both hands. Holding it well away from her, she plodded off through the long grass.

  Inos poured a small amount of wine into her goblet, and sipped it while she waited to see whether she was to be given secrets or a scolding.

  For several minutes, though, the old man merely toyed with his bejeweled fingers, seeming to study the sparkles as he moved them in the firelight.

  At length he said, “ I do not speak as a mage now. Nor as a votary of the sultana, although I could not speak at all if I thought my words would hurt her interests. I speak only as a very old man to a very young woman. I seek no good but yours, Queen Inosolan. Can you accept, just for a few minutes, that sometimes the elderly do indeed possess wisdom?”

  “I shall try, sir,” Inos said with Kinvale sweetness. It was to be a scolding, obviously.

  “That is all I ask. Listen carefully, then. I am very old. Much older than you perhaps suspect. If I tallied up my years … well, just say that I have spent as many of them, in total, in desert lands as you have been upon this earth. At least. And there is something in the desert that breaks away the husks from people. Desert light is very strong, very revealing.”

  Inos said nothing and he did not look up to appreciate her carefully crafted smile of interest.

  “And I have spent many more years—in total—in Ullacarn, and Angot, and other outposts of the Impire. I probably understand the imps and their ways better than any other man in Arakkaran; or any woman either. I realize that you are not one of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects, but your background and the ways in which you were raised are closer to those of an imp than they are to anyone else’s. Is this not so, my dear?”

  “Of course, Greatness.”

  He sighed. “And I say that he is not for you. Oh, he is besotted with you, and you may think you are in love with him. No, hear me out, child! He is a fine man, in his way. He is a perfect sultan for Arakkaran, unless he survives long enough to become bored with accomplishment. Then he will wade the red path of war. They always do, his kind. Fortunately for us humbler folk, sultans rarely live that long. Physically, of course, he is unmatched …

  “And what he is to my mistress I do not even begin to understand. The purposes of sorcerers are cryptic and obscure. She has come by strange ways to her power. She seeks to punish men long dead, I fear.” He sighed again and reached for his goblet.

  Inos waited politely. There was more lecture to come.

  “If he would only compromise …” Elkarath droned. “Bow the knee just once! Say the words she wants to hear! I think she then would gladly be to him whatever he wanted: lover, mother helper …”

  “She would see through his lies at once,” Inos muttered, disgusted.

  “Perhaps,” the old man said softly. “But he would have said them! And I think she might then be content. I expect a sorceress can deliberately deceive herself, just as any of us can. We all believe what we want to believe, not questioning, lest we lift scabs from unhealed wounds. We all seek happiness. Who knows what she seeks—now, after such a lifetime? Might not one kind word won be counted a triumph?”

  He drank and the goblet faded from his hand. Then he raised his face to peer at the stars, or perhaps the restless treetops, and she had a clear view of his blood-red eyes and the haggard folds of his neck.

  “But even without the dangers from Sultana Rasha, child, I tell you that you are making a grievous error. Even if the two of you flee to your kingdom at the far end of the world, you shall not find happiness with Azak ak’Azakar. Yes, he has promised. I am sure he has promised. He lusts after you and cannot have you, so he will persuade himself of anything. Yet many a good marriage has sprung from that seed! No, it is his background that is wrong. He loves you? Meaning he wishes to possess you and breed sons with you, and, yes, I suppose he wishes to make you happy. But he is not capable of making you happy, no matter how sincere he is.”

  “I entirely agree.”

  “I am serious, child.”

  “So am I, Greatness. Perhaps my Imperial ways have deceived you, and I do fear they may have misled His Majesty. It is not unknown within the Impire for men and women to be merely friends.”

  “When I told you that he had not been killed by the pixies—”

  “I was delighted, yes. Naturally! Azak and I have much in common, from our royal birth to our problems with sorcery. It is natural that we should find grounds for friendship. I admire him, enjoy his company, appreciate his invaluable help. On my side, at least, there is nothing more.” So there!

  The mage studied her sadly, in the longest straight gaze he had ever given her, firelight chasing odd shadows over the desert landscape of his face. Then he sighed deeply and looked away.

  “There may be more than you think already,” he said. “And how long can you resist his wooing? To be sought after by a man of his power and presence—it is very flattering.”

  “Very!” Inos said through clenched teeth. First Kade, now him! Could the old never learn to trust the youn
g? “But Sultan Azak is my friend and political ally. Nothing more.”

  The mage sighed again, and looked away.

  An elderly djinn …

  Silly old man.

  Azak emerged from the darkness holding a bulky leather bag.

  “Ah!” The old man sprang to his feet with youthful agility. “The newcomers are advancing very rapidly. We must depart before they draw any closer. Now, let me see …”

  He fumbled with the bag’s fastenings and then pulled out a bundle that glittered like cloth of gold. He turned to study the ground nearby and wandered off with his head bent as if in search of something. Azak tossed away the bag and folded his arms. He scowled after the sheik, ignoring Inos.

  Kade came stumping wearily back across the meadow, still holding the blue light. Inos walked over to meet her, and they exchanged worried smiles. Kade put the light down on the grass as carefully as if it were fine crystal. She straightened and took her niece’s hand. Her fingers trembled slightly. Or maybe that was Inos herself.

  “This seems flat enough here,” Elkarath announced from the far limits of the firelight. “And that way is north.”

  He shook out a cloth, which flashed and gleamed, and spread surprisingly large. It floated to the ground, then seemed to wriggle and squirm of its own accord, until it was lying flat—completely flat, although it was obviously extremely thin.

  Almost dragging her aunt, Inos hurried over.

  “I’ve seen this before! Rasha called it a welcome mat.” Inos also recalled that the mat had been dangerously hypnotic in the palace. Here in the starlit dark of the forest it lay like black water, displaying faint shimmers of light that seemed to come from deep within it, as from goldfish moving in a shadowed pond. She tried not to look at it.

  “Indeed?” The old man beamed briefly. He seemed to be reveling in some secret anticipation, like a child expecting a treat. “It is a magic carpet. Her Majesty gave it to me for just such an emergency as this. It may be the very one you saw.”

  Avoiding Inos, Azak paced over to the edge of the mat and glared down at it.

  Elkarath studied the sky again for a moment. “Yes, that is north … To make return journeys, of course, one needs three of them. We have only two; but then we do not plan to return to Thume, do we?” He chuckled and rubbed his hands.

  Then he glanced thoughtfully downriver.

  “Where is the other, then?” Inos asked, feeling prickles of apprehension. She tried to catch Azak’s eye, but he was watching the sheik.

  “If Skarash did as he was told, it is now laid out in my house in Ullacarn. If he didn’t … then we may shortly be in some difficulty. Ready?”

  “What do we have to do?” she asked, feeling Kade’s grip tighten.

  “Just stand together on the carpet. I shall come on last, as it is prespelled to my person.”

  “And then?” Azak growled, fingering the hilt of his scimitar.

  “Then it will position itself upon the one in Ullacarn. That is how they work.”

  Azak was suspicious. “You told me you dared not use much power near Ullacarn, yet now you work a major sorcery like this?”

  “Be silent!” the mage said sharply. “Silence beseems the ignorant. The whole point of magical devices is that they are much harder to detect than brute power. Now—must I coerce you?”

  Azak shrugged and took two long strides, which put him in the center of the mat, but it did not flex or dimple under his weight. Inos glanced at her aunt, and they advanced gingerly together, holding hands. The surface felt rigid, and rather slippery.

  “There!” Elkarath said. “I suggest you stoop a little, Lionslayer—the ceiling may be a trifle low. Right! Now me.”

  He took two fast steps onto the mat, causing it to twist, and lurch. Kade cried out, and Inos steadied her. Then they found their balance again, blinking in the sudden brightness of lamps hung on crumbling plaster walls.

  Azak cautiously raised his head and scowled at the sloping rafters just above him. Street noises of hooves and voices and wheels drifted in from the dark beyond the open window. The scent of grass and trees was replaced by smells of candles and spices and old cooking.

  “Welcome to Ullacarn,” said Elkarath.

  Life and death:

  O to dream, O to awake and wander

  There, and with delight to take and render,

  Through the trance of silence,

  Quiet breath;

  Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,

  Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;

  Only winds and river,

  Life and death.

  Stevenson, In the Highlands

  SEVEN

  The splendour falls

  1

  Befuddled with exhaustion, Rap stared blankly at a hole in a cliff. The night was bright with stars, and the air pleasantly cool on his skin, but for a while he did not understand what he was doing. Then he remembered the last part: darkness and picking his way through the tangled and shattered rocks with his farsight. His feet were slashed bloody, his ankles and knees swollen like dropsy, even his arms all gashed and bruised. In the foggy nightmare that was what he recalled of the journey, he could vaguely remember carrying Gathmor for an hour or two, but now he was alone, and at the end of his powers. His companions were long lost behind him, their mundane strength broken by efforts to obey a sorcerous command.

  The gnome boy had vanished, last seen still skipping as freshly as ever. So this cave must be Rap’s destination. It was perfectly circular, bored by sorcery through draperies of black rock where a cliff had been melted. Dragons had been at work here, obviously, and his farsight was blocked; which likely meant that he was close to a sorcerer’s lair. But it could be anything’s lair—leopards or bears might lurk inside.

  For a moment he leaned wearily against the rock. He ought to be terrified. He ought to be fighting the compulsion that he could feel growing in him again. Perhaps he was merely too exhausted to think straight, and yet some strange inner hunch was telling him that the summoning had been a good thing, an opportunity—that fortune was favoring him by bringing him here.

  That crazy illusion must be part of the summoning itself! Unable to resist longer, he dropped to hands and knees and crawled into the pipe. The wind blowing through it was cool with the chill of ancient stone and long-forgotten caverns.

  The barrier was thicker than any mundane castle wall, but he emerged eventually into a deep crevice, open to the stars. Rugged rocky walls towered up on either hand, close enough that he could touch them. The floor was smooth and level, but speckled with unpleasantly sharp pebbles. Here and there giant blocks had fallen from the peaks and jammed in the gorge to make archways; any smaller debris must have been removed. He hobbled along, following its turns and twists into the mountain for ten or fifteen minutes, recognizing that this cryptic entrance had been designed to be dragonproof; he could guess at its immense antiquity. Finally the burrow was blocked by a wall of rough masonry. Faint, spectral light spilled out through a kennel-size door.

  He crouched down and recoiled before the familiar stench of gnome. Gnomes were scavengers and carrion eaters, tolerated in many places because they removed every scrap of garbage. They were certainly better than alternative vermin such as rats, but never pleasant companions. No one but a gnome would ever enter a gnome burrow—except that Rap now seemed to have no choice. Even a moment of hesitation was bringing back his compulsion to chase after the little boy.

  Very reluctantly, and holding his nose, he ducked through and straightened up at once, gagging and retching. His eyes watered.

  This was no burrow. He was inside a huge hall, whose walls soared up like great cliffs of masonry to an indistinct luminous fog that hid the ceiling and shed a dim bluish light over the rest of the vast space. There were many deep shadows, though, not all of which seemed readily explainable.

  The floor was carved from the living rock, buried now below an oozing carpet of corruption—gnomes did unp
leasant things at their front doors to discourage visitors. Here and there his farsight was blocked, or at least blurred, as if by ancient, forgotten barriers. He could see shapes that didn’t feel quite solid, including gigantic rings of stone set in the walls; other shapes he could sense and not see in the dimness. The whole place had a sinister, sorcerous feel to it. And it stank worse than any pig farm he could imagine.

  On a low stone wall at the far side of this enormous chamber sat his elusive quarry, the little boy. He, at least, was real. He was watching Rap with an understandably satisfied grin, while again stirring the inside of his nose with a finger.

  Water! That parapet enclosed a circular pool of water! Holding a hand just below his nostrils in the hope that the smell of his own skin would overcome the other smells—it didn’t—Rap limped carefully across the vast room. There was no way he could avoid treading in filth, but he hoped not to slip and sit down in it. The water, when he reached it, proved to be coated with green slime, but he brushed that aside with his hand and knelt to drink. Although it tasted about the way he had always suspected stable washings would taste, he was dried out like a raisin, and he sucked up bucketfuls of the odious brew. At least he could be sure that gnomes would not have been using it for bathwater.

  Then he sank down on his buttocks and wiped his face with his hand, and realized that he was sitting in the mire after all. What the Evil did it matter?

  His second word of power seemed to have granted him some occult ability to ignore pain, and he suspected that without it he would be screaming. He knew it was there, though—his butchered feet, his joints, his muscles—but at last the compulsion had gone, the spell was lifted, and the mere act of sitting down at last brought a wave of fatigue that threatened to push him over into instant sleep. And the pain came rushing in as soon as his attention faltered. He sat up straighter, suppressed the pain, and glared blearily up at the boy who had led him here.

  “I’m Rap.”

  The boy sniggered.

  “Don’t you have a name, sonny?”