A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  Now he could make himself die.

  Ironic, that! She’d told him a word of power. He’d recognized the feeling, the glory. So he was a mage. A mage ought to be able to make himself die. Sink down. Deeper. Darker. Colder. Peace.

  She was Princess Kadolan, Inos’s aunt. He wished she would stop shouting in his ear like this.

  He wished whoever was doing all that hammering would stop, too.

  Sagorn, also, fretting and pacing. Let the old scoundrel think his way out of this one.

  He squashed out his hearing, closing his ears. Peace. He couldn’t see, of course, after what they’d done to his eyes; but he didn’t need eyes. And the princess’s pleading kept sliding through, also. Annoying.

  All those djinns outside the door, with swords and axes, it was almost like being back in Krasnegar, with the imps trying to break their way into the chamber at the top of the tower, except this was a cellar under a cellar. A cave, not a tower. Other end of the world. Everything upside-down. Funny. That was what all the noise was. He could stop that.

  But why bother?

  That was what Inos’s aunt was shouting about. To make him stop the djinns. Telling him he had power now.

  Power wasn’t the problem.

  Will was the problem.

  He didn’t want to.

  Inos was married. Married by her own choice. She’d been angry with him when he broke up the wedding. Not that it had been all his fault. Lith’rian had planted the idea — he could see that now. Big joke to an elf, that. Probably that was why. He ought to resent that and want revenge on the warlock. But who could ever get revenge on a warlock? And it didn’t matter all that much. He would snuff himself out like a candle-flame and then he wouldn’t have to care anymore.

  Care about Inos.

  Why shouldn’t she marry if she wanted to? Big, chunky fellow. Rich. Royal. Good-looking. Everything a queen would want. Everything he wasn’t. Lost her kingdom, didn’t matter. She’d found another. A bigger, better, brighter place. So Inos was happy and didn’t need him, had never needed him. He needn’t have bothered coming.

  Poor old Krasnegar.

  But he could still feel the ax blows, even if he had corked his ears and turned his hearing off. Nuisance. Annoying. Disturbed a man when he was busy dying. Could stop the djinns if he wanted. Too much effort.

  All that way he’d come, and he needn’t have bothered.

  How did a mage snuff himself? Oddly difficult.

  Words didn’t want to be lost? No, one of them didn’t. The other two were shared and didn’t mind. Interesting — his mother’s word was all his own, then.

  Could make Sagorn open the door, though. That might be easiest. Just a command to the old man to pull the bolt, and then they’d all be quiet and let him die in peace. Not long. The old rascal wouldn’t like it.

  Too bad about Inos’s aunt. Nice person. Well thought of in the castle. Polite to the staff. Real lady. Pity to see her here, all frantic and dirty. Maybe best just to pull the roof down and kill them all. Or snap the bolt himself and let the djinns in.

  Now what was she screaming about? Inos?

  Inos hurt?

  He’d missed the thought. Could pry for it. Bad manners. Not nice thing to do, poke in someone’s mind. Ask her to repeat that? Yes, he’d do that.

  Couldn’t talk with his tongue all cooked. Heal his tongue, then? Not hard. Turn his hearing on again, take the corks out?

  Too much bother.

  Door wasn’t going to last much longer. Then they’d all let him have some peace.

  Inos. Happy. Husband and kingdom and children. Good. Want Inos to be happy.

  Hurt? Injured?

  Ask her to say that bit again? She’d stopped shouting. Weeping? Poor lady. What about Inos? Inos hurt?

  Have to cure his tongue. Uncork his ears.

  So.

  “What about Inos?” he asked. “Hurt?”

  A sort of gasping noise from Princess Kadolan …

  “Her face has been burned, Master Rap. It’s going to be terribly scarred. She isn’t beautiful anymore.”

  That was very bad! Terrible! Anger!

  He cured his eyes and opened them, so she would know he was listening.

  Too late, the door was falling.

  Take away the door. Put a wall of rock there. Good, that had stopped the djinns — let’s see them knock holes in that!

  Rap frowned up at Princess Kadolan. “Tell me about Inos,” he said.

  2

  For a few minutes, Kadolan just stood and watched the miracles happen. Then she realized that she was no longer looking at a broken, rotting carcass. It was almost back to being a young man, and he was wearing nothing but caked blood. She turned away, only to find that Sagorn was also staring, completely spellbound. She nudged him and gestured; he scowled; she insisted.

  They walked to the far end, stepping carefully over the sprawled corpses until they reached the rug, still sprinkled with dice and coins. He gave her a hand and steadied her as she settled herself on a cushion. Then he sat beside her, but he faced himself toward the mage. Two old fools … but maybe they’d win out yet.

  The doorway was filled by a wall of masonry, black like the walls of Inisso’s castle, and quite unlike the adjoining local rock, which was reddish. The family men had been balked for a while, but their quarry was entombed, and the flickering lamps were steadily fouling the air. There was no obvious way out of this crypt, yet she kept telling herself not to worry, because the sorcery was on their side now. Things were going to be different.

  Sagorn coughed repeatedly. Once he frowned and looked up, and when she followed his gaze, she saw a tiny aperture in the rocky roof. She had felt a faint draft earlier and guessed that there must be some ventilation, yet a child could not climb through that small chimney. Still, it was better than nothing. It might explain why the guards had sat at this end of the room, or perhaps the prisoner had been put by the door so they would look him over every time they came and went. It didn’t matter. She was too weary to care.

  “Ought to put out the lamps,” Sagorn muttered. “Just leave one.” But he did not move. His face was haggard, the clefts in it deeper than ever, and his skimpy hair was plastered in white streaks. The blood on his garments had dried, but his hands and the folds of his neck were blood-streaked. Kadolan must look as bad herself. It had been a very close-run thing. Reaction was setting in, and she felt older than the witch of the north.

  Then Sagorn exclaimed in wonder and she turned to see that the faun was sitting up and had his hands free. He pulled the rusty fetters off his ankles as if they were made of taffy. He glanced at his audience; Kadolan averted her eyes again quickly.

  In a moment, though, he came walking over, and he was fully dressed — boots and long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, the sort of rustic homespun garments a stableboy would wear in Krasnegar. He was clean, and the stubble had gone from his face; but he still had the idiotic tattoos around his eyes, and his brown hair was tangled like a gorsebush.

  Rasha had changed her appearance to suit her mood. Kadolan felt confident that Master Rap would regard that sort of deception as beneath his self-respect. He must have power in plenty, or he could not have achieved the wonders she had already witnessed, but he would not tamper with the truth. She might soon have to admit that the Gods knew what They were doing.

  He bowed clumsily to her. “I am greatly in your debt, ma’am.” He stammered and blushed. “A woman … lady … having the spunk … I mean —”

  “It was the least I could do, Master Rap. I feel responsible for much of what has happened.”

  His eyes widened. They were clear gray eyes, very innocent looking, but she sensed that he was using more than a mundane self-control to keep his face from revealing his thoughts. His calm was uncanny — no man could recover so quickly from such an ordeal. “You, ma’am?”

  She nodded wearily. “I’d rather not go into it now.”

  “Of course, ma’am.” He frowned and w
aved a hand at one of the bodies. “How many died altogether?”

  She glanced at Sagorn, who said, “Eleven.”

  Rap pulled a face. “God of Mercy! I’m not worth that!”

  Could he be serious? “You don’t think they deserved it? After what they did to you?”

  He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the ones who deserved it who died, would it? The Gods are rarely so tidy. And besides, I started it! I killed three, they told me. And wounded more. I can’t blame them too much for wanting to get even.” He shook his head sorrowfully.

  He seemed to be sincere — but who could tell with a mage? She did not know this boy. She must just remember that Inosolan had chosen him as her friend, and unconsciously as more than friend; and the Gods had confirmed her judgment. Who was Kadolan to question now?

  “Can you get us out of here, Master Rap?”

  “I have no idea! I haven’t been a mage long enough to know what I can do.” A faint hint of smile tugged at the corners of his big mouth — whatever Inos had seen in him, she had not chosen him for his looks.

  He frowned and glanced around. “The djinns are bringing sledges. Persistent lot, aren’t they? I suppose I can put the door back and make them stand aside to let us pass … This is rather like the night we had the imps after us, isn’t it?” His eyes strayed to Sagorn, whom he had been ignoring. “And this time I did become a mage!”

  Sagorn smiled cynically, but he could not conceal his dislike. “This time you had no choice.”

  Rap ignored the barb; he looked upward. “I think — I can stretch that air hole. Would you mind climbing a ladder, your Highness?”

  “I’ll climb a greasy pole if it will get me to a bathtub.”

  He twitched, instantly apologetic. “I can remove the blood, ma’am. If you want.”

  “I’d rather do it with hot water, thank you.”

  He nodded, then stared at the hole in the roof again, for longer. It widened imperceptibly until it was a shaft, and there was a bronze ladder stretching down to the rug.

  “I’ll go first,” he said. “I need to work on the top a bit more.” He went scrambling up the rungs and disappeared.

  Kadolan looked at Sagorn, who was scowling but failing to conceal his amazement.

  “An efficient young man!” she said.

  The sage nodded. “Oh quite! A very efficient young man. A very stubborn one, too.”

  “What does that mean?” She struggled to rise, feeling her weariness like a wagonload of marble on her shoulders.

  “I mean that Master Rap always does exactly what he wants to do, and no one can ever talk him out of it. And now no one can stop him, either.”

  3

  The original chimney had been much too narrow to have been dug by mundane hands. Obviously it was the work of some long-ago sorcerer, who had modified a natural cave to make the dungeons, just as Rap was now modifying the wormhole into a manhole. The rock wasn’t too hard to do, because it was just reshaping; the bronze ladder was really difficult. After a couple of fathoms of that, he switched to spruce, and wood was much easier to produce, somehow.

  He’d wondered how it felt to do magic, and now he knew. He couldn’t have explained it, though. Can a man explain how he saw, or how he made his muscles work in the right order when he was running? Describe green. Or pretty. Stop your heart for a minute. Magic was like those. It just was. It was possible, so he could do it. Just wanting …

  Well … he could do some things, and now he was trying to do an evil lot of things all at once, and he hadn’t even had a chance to practice with some simple lessons. Basic cursing and frog transformations … There were different levels to magic, too. His broken bones and poisoned flesh, his eyes and tongue — he’d cured those, but they weren’t really cured. In part he was keeping them cured, just as he was keeping his clothes in existence … and halfway up his new ladder, he realized that he had relaxed his control over those wish-garments, and they weren’t there anymore. He made a mental note to dress himself again when he got to the top, then ignored the problem. The ladder, likewise, was going to flicker out of existence as soon as he took his mind off it, although the bronze would last longer than the wood, as some compensation for being harder to create in the first place. The wall that was blocking the djinns … and the shaft would shrink back to its original size, so he’d better keep that firmly in mind while Inos’s Aunt Kade was inside it!

  Moreover, once he’d reached the level of the main cellars he was working with masonry instead of solid rock, and he had to be careful to thin the stones without shifting them or collapsing a wall. And his far-sight was telling him that the exit was going to put him in a crowded courtyard, so he was working on the shaft and the ladder at the same time as he began to wonder about making himself invisible. He was also rippling the ambience horribly. Probably he could develop a smoother touch with practice, but every time he added one more rung to the ladder, he seemed to shake the palace like a tambourine. Amazing that no one else noticed! … everyone ought to be falling down and shouting earthquake. Lucky the whole palace had a shield around it, although it wasn’t a very good one, and it bulged oddly in places, but it would probably be enough to mask his activities from any sorcerer outside. Gods! They’d feel him in Krasnegar otherwise. Lith’rian had made a few ripples, but Rap was creating tidal waves. Rookie!

  Twinges of pain told him not to forget his own body. Now there was another sort of sorcery: healing. If he took his mind off himself now, then he’d snap back to almost the same near corpse he’d been before. He was keeping himself whole with magic, but he was also encouraging his natural healing. Maybe that natural healing was a sorcery the Gods did, but he could certainly feel the mending going on at a deeper, slower level, another sort of occult. Even as an adept he’d been able to speed up his natural healing. He thought that now he’d be able to do it for other people, as well. Like Inos. Burns? Yes, he thought he could.

  Of course a full sorcerer would be able to do an instant, total cure with the creation magic, but a mere mage would just have to be patient and keep his occult bandages in place until his healing was complete. He’d also have to be careful where he slept for a few nights; someplace where a whiff of gangrene wouldn’t bother anyone. He could put a sleep spell on himself, couldn’t he? …

  Removing his beard and the bloodstains — that had been yet another sort of magic, a go-away magic. That was permanent, he thought. No time to work it out …

  The original opening had been a very small grille, high in the wall of the building. Rap opened a new one at ground level, with an inattention anticharisma around it, and he scrambled out onto the courtyard flagstones, hot already from the early-morning sun. He kept his eyes closed against the glare while he gazed around at the blue sky and the kites floating up there. Flowers and fountains and fine horses, and the occult wall around the palace blocking any farther view. The djinns were going frantic down in the cellars and the dungeon … far too many of them in the dungeon; they were passing out from lack of air.

  A troop of mounted guards went right by him without a glance at the new opening in the wall, or the naked … Whoops!

  Now he was pushing his ability to dangerous limits, juggling too many hatchets, keeping himself healthy and clothed, and the shaft open and the ladder in existence, and everyone else distracted, and an eye on the princess and Jalon … Jalon? … making their way up to the surface. And he mustn’t forget about his mind, either. Too much calm and he’d fade out and drop some of the hatchets. Too little and he’d have to deal with the crazy boy in there who’d been bent to breaking point by fear and agony and just wanted to scream and scream … that was another healing that was going to take patience. Nights were going to be tricky, certainly.

  Then he took the princess’s hand and helped her out; she was blinded by the sunlight. And then Jalon, and it was good to see the little jotunn, and give him a hug and thump on the back. He’d shaved and cleaned up since Rap had last seen him as their boat sailed into
the bay; but he still smelled strongly of salt water. And Jalon seemed absurdly glad to be able to hug Rap, trying to keep his eyes closed against the light and weep with them at the same time, mumbling nonsense.

  Rap let go of the shift and it began to shrink at once. The guards weren’t through the bricked-up doorway yet, and when they arrived, both ladder and shift would have vanished. Let the red horrors chew on that problem!

  Inos’s Aunt Kade was staring at the squad of brown-clad family men approaching. They went striding blindly by her. She glanced down at her filthy, gory robe, then at Rap. Then Jalon. She pushed back her wild-flying white hair, and her fingers discovered the bloodstains even there …

  “Can you escort us safely back to my quarters, Master Rap?”

  “Certainly, ma’am.”

  “And then I do hope you both will join me for breakfast. We have much to discuss.”

  4

  At the top of the long staircase, two very bored guards slouched outside the door to Kadolan’s suite. They were not the gymnasts she had seen in the night, but they looked no older, nor any more impressed by their responsibilities. She could, of course, complain to Prince Kar about the quality of the protectors he had assigned to her — despite her fatigue, the absurdity of that whimsy made her chuckle. When Rap touched the door and the lock clicked, one of the youths looked around, vaguely puzzled, but he obviously did not register that three people were going in.

  In her chamber, Kadolan changed back into her night attire and passed her soiled garments out to Rap, who promised that they would be seen no more. Then she wiped some stains from her hands and face and rang for her attendants. Astonishingly, the sun was not yet far above the horizon.

  The housekeeper. Mistress Zuthrobe, had not impressed Kadolan even before the night’s revelation of what her young wards were getting up to with the guards. Now Zuthrobe soared into panic when told that the sultan and sultana were expected for breakfast. She flew off without inquiring how Kadolan had received such a message unbeknownst to her staff. Intrigue was certainly catching, Kade decided, and it was endemic in Arakkaran.