Living God

by Dave Duncan

  Rap snorted. “You are too ready to grant him the wardens! I admit Grunth may have been vulnerable, out there in Dragon Reach. He may have nabbed Grunth. But Warlock Raspnex is probably down a mine somewhere in the Isdruthuds, and I would bet that Lith’rian has spent the last half year under a shielded bed in some safe hidey-hole.”

  Sagorn shrugged. “A warden or two here or there hardly matters. The odds were never auspicious. Now they are infinitesimal. I was never sanguine; now I see the cause as hopeless.”

  “I do not intend to give up!”

  “I fail to see what you can do, even where you can start.”

  Rap had recovered his composure and was glowering. He jerked a thumb at the overweening mass of the sky tree. “I start by getting into Valdorian and finding Warlock Lith’rian.”

  “How?”

  “That was what I called you to inquire! Thinal is the finest burglar in all Pandemia. If anyone can get me in there, he can. But the question is, how do I motivate him?”

  Sagorn shook his head in disbelief. “The last time he was called, on the ship, you damned near throttled him! You expect him to cooperate with you now?”

  The faun ran fingers through his gorse-bush hair. “I’m truly sorry about that! I will apologize sincerely. I will kiss his toes, if that will make him forgive me.”

  It would certainly impress the mean-minded little guttersnipe. Few things would please him more than having a king grovel in the dirt for him. Sagorn felt a twinge of worry — could he absolutely trust Thinal to abscond, as he had presumed? Thinal had a sneaking admiration for the stableboy who had stolen both sorcery and a kingdom.

  There was another problem, too. Almost a year ago, Thinal had begun organizing an elaborate conspiracy to filch certain priceless artworks from the Abnila Museum in Hub and replace them with forgeries. Appalled by the risks involved, the rest of the Group had cooperated to keep Thinal out of harm’s way. Unfortunately their abilities in that regard were limited by the terms of the sequential spell, as amended once by Rap himself, which required Thinal to exist for about a third of the time, so that he might catch up in age with the others. By the night of Emshandar’s death, when this madcap venture had started, the little thief had been seriously behind in his quota of real life. The others had been experiencing difficulty in calling one another, instead of him.

  Then Rap and Shandie had appeared and dragged them away adventuring. Thinal had regained some ground, but lately he had fallen behind again. At his last appearance, on Dreadnought, he had managed to call a replacement only with a great effort, when Rap had threatened him. That must have been eight or nine days ago. Now he would probably find it impossible. When Thinal arrived, Thinal would have to remain. He would be unusually vulnerable without his customary escape hatch available.

  “What I was thinking of,” Rap said hopefully, “is professional status. I mean, who in all history can ever have managed to break into a sky tree? I’m sure a warlock’s enclave is packed with valuables, too. It would be a fabulous heist! Do you think an appeal to his vanity would have any success?”

  Sagorn resisted a need to smile. The chances of Thinal falling for that argument were significantly less than zero, absolutely inconceivable. His entire mindset was against it. In fact, Sagorn himself had explained that aspect of Thinal’s psychology to Rap twenty years ago, in Faerie, on the occasion of their third meeting. If the stablehand had forgotten it, then that was his lookout.

  But had he forgotten it? Or was he playing a double game? If he truly wanted Thinal, then why had he not asked Jalon to call him directly?

  Why had he summoned Sagorn at all?

  Just to ask such footlingly stupid questions?

  Ah! Of course!

  Rap did not want Thinal! He wanted Darad!

  Obviously Rap believed that he would have to fight his way into the sky tree and needed the warrior to assist him. But Jalon could not have called Darad for him, because Jalon had called Darad the last time. Jalon could have called only Thinal or Sagorn. Believing that Thinal would bolt in short order, the faun had asked for Sagorn instead. Now that Sagorn had demonstrated reluctance to cooperate further in the fruitless struggle against the Almighty, the faun was pretending to want Thinal in the expectation that Sagorn would seek to balk him by calling Darad instead. The yokel was trying to double-cross him!

  Nicely tried. Master Rap, your Majesty!

  “I do believe your reasoning will impress Thinal,” Sagorn said blandly. “So perhaps we have completed our discussion and I should now call him for you?”

  “I would be grateful,” Rap said, completely straight-faced. “May the Good go with you. Doctor.”

  “Very well, then. Until we meet again!” With a quiet snigger to himself, dearly wishing he could be present to see the faun’s chagrin when Darad failed to appear, Sagorn called:

  4

  Thinal coughed, rubbed his throat, and pouted reproachfully up at Rap, who sat on the grass at his side.

  Rap twisted his big mouth in a rueful smile and whispered, “Hi!”

  Thinal made a choking, rasping sound.

  Rap said, “I’m sorry I was rough with you. I was under a lot of stress, but that was no excuse for losing my temper. It isn’t like me and I’m ashamed of myself. Will you forgive me?”

  Thinal swallowed a couple of times, making it seem harder than it really was. He’d known much worse. “Truly sorry? Gonna show me like you said?”

  The king nodded solemnly. “If that’s what you want. Will one on each foot do, or all ten?”

  Oh, temptation! Knowing him, the big lout probably meant it. If he didn’t — if he was just testin’ to hear the answer — then he might turn Thinal inside out instead. He warn’t in Darad’s class for sheer size, but with his shirt off he showed meat only a jotunn would argue with.

  “All ten — but I’ll take a rain check.”

  “One rain check!” Rap said cautiously.

  “Awright, ten toes, one rain check.”

  “It’s a deal.” Rap held out a hand to shake. He didn’t do the jotunn thing and crush, either. Thinal found himself grinning a bit, in answer to the big guy’s smile. He was dumb, of course — rustic, honest, hardworking — yucch! — dull, courageous… trustworthy! In spite of all his faults, though, there was something likable about the faun. He’d sneaked his way from muckin’ out stables to restin’ his ass on a real Evil-take-it throne without changing his hat size. So what if he’d climbed the royal bed sheets to get there? Maybe queenie-doll had a thing about sailor arms, but there’d be lots of thick arms in a port like Krasnegar, and she’d gone for these arms. Small-time boy makes good! Up the workers!

  Thinal reached down and pulled on his boots, Jalon’s choice of boots. They were loose, but he could run in them if he had to. His breeches were a joke. The drawstring still held, but Sagorn had split all the seams. It was a pukey weird garment, but it wouldn’t slow him, either, if he had to make a break. And then he remembered more of what the old man’d been thinkin’.

  “You expectin’ Darad?”

  Rap looked blank and shook his head. “No, I asked for you.”

  “Sagorn thought you really wanted Darad.”

  Rap looked even blanker. “Don’t have any bloodbaths planned for this afternoon, why’d I want Darad?” He scratched his head. “And if I’d wanted him why’d I’ve asked for you?”

  “The old coot gets funny ideas sometimes.”

  The faun snorted. “His trouble, he’s got more wits than he has brains to hold ’em. Never mind. Look, you know why I need you. The door into Valdorian is round that bend there. It may be guarded, in which case I’ll just go up and tell the elves that the king of Krasnegar wishes to pay his respects to the warlock, all polite-like. It may be wide open and deserted. If it is, then I’ll walk in and start climbing.”

  “Have a jolly time.”

  Rap chuckled, but his eyes were watching Thinal very carefully. “If it’s locked and deserted, though, then I’m stu
mped. That’s when I’ll need your help.”

  Thinal shivered. “Weed a warlock’s sky tree? Not Evilish likely! I learned my lesson there a long time ago. Rap! You know that!” He heard the shrillness in his voice and it scared him.

  The faun nodded, looking puzzled. “You burgled a sorcerer’s house. But that was a hundred years ago!”

  “Hun’red thirty.” Shriller.

  “So? You needn’t take anything, just open a door or two for me.”

  “No!” Thinal knew he was in a shaky sweat already.

  Rap had seen that and was curious. He scratched his hair with both hands. “Sagorn told me once you still felt guilty about what happened that night, but it turned out well in the end, Thinal! The sequential spell wasn’t a curse, it was a blessing. When I took it off you all wanted it back. You were the first to ask, too!”

  “Old Sagorn doesn’t know everything!”

  “No? I thought you five shared memories?”

  Pause.

  “Well?” Rap prompted gently.

  “Only of what happened after Orarinsagu put the spell on!” There! Now he’d dunnit. Pothead! Change the subject, talk about something else, anything else —

  “Ah!” Rap studied Thinal for a moment and then shrugged. “None of my business.”

  “No, it ain’t.”

  “A long time ago… ever talked about it with anyone?”

  Thinal shivered and shook his head.

  Rap lay back and rolled over to rest on his elbows. He poked a finger idly at the grass in front of him. “If you ever want to, any time… I mean, not necessarily now, but maybe some time. It can help to get things off one’s chest, you know. What friends are for. I wouldn’t repeat anything you told me. You know that.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thinal muttered. “Don’t matter a spit if I told you or not, or if you told anyone.”

  The big faun just lay sprawled on the grass, not saying anything, not looking around. He pulled up a grass stalk and tucked it in his mouth.

  “No reason why I shouldn’t tell you,” Thinal said uneasily. There was no reason why he should, either. “You wanna hear?”

  “I’ll listen if you wanna talk.”

  “Well, we was just a bunch of kids. I was the oldest, right? The leader.” Sixteen. His teeth interrupted him, chattering wildly. He got them under control again. “Sagorn was the youngest. I put him in through a transom and he opened the door for the rest of us and we started lookin’ around and then right away we saw that there were odd things in there and Andor said we oughta leave and I said awright and we headed for the door and then Orarinsagu appeared, all fire in the dark, and we couldn’t move.”

  Green fire. He tucked his hands under his arms to stop them shaking. They were cold as a sexton’s boots. He was hunched, his gut all knotted up. He’d never told anyone about this and the horrors that came after.

  “Go on,” Rap said to the grass. “You’ve started, so you’d better finish. You’ll feel better when you get it over with.”

  Thinal sniffled. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “Not a word, I promise.”

  “He said it was all my fault! He put the other four to sleep and… There was just me and him. And… And he played with me!” Gods! I was only sixteen. Gods! “I doan wanna talk about it. He broke me! Crawlin’ on the floor… gibberin’ and crawlin’. He played with me like a kid an’a beetle. I can’t tell you what he did, what he made me do. I kept beggin’ to die and… Gods’ bollucks, I doan wanna talk about it!”

  He hadn’t been conscious of either of them moving, but Rap was sitting up and holding him, crushing him tight, hugging him like a baby, and he couldn’t seem to stop talking, even while he was blubbering like a kid, weeping on Rap’s shoulder, talking, talking, and sobbing, too.

  “He said I was the criminal. He said the others were just my dupes. Said I owed him some fun, said I owed them, too, for leading them astray. Bugs an’ bones an’ things inside me. Toes ’stead of fingers. Things crawling inside me. I doan wanna talk about it!”

  But he couldn’t stop talking about it, not until he had detailed every agony and humiliation and terror of that night. Even things long forgotten came bubbling up and got spat out — everything. Only then did the pauses grow longer, the words scarcer, the weeping quieter. He fell silent. Rap maintained his rib-bending hug, and gradually the indignity of that position seeped through to Thinal.

  “I wish you’d left the spell the way it was,” he muttered hoarsely. “Living isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.”

  He tried to pull free, but was held as by hemp cables.

  “Living is all there is!” the faun said softly in his ear. “Don’t ever think about what follows. You listen to me now. Did you never wonder how Orarinsagu managed a matched set? You five are not just a random handful of men! Scholar, lover, warrior, artist, thief — did you never wonder how he was so lucky, to find one of each?”

  Thinal pushed free. He blew his nose, wiped his fingers on the grass, and mumbled, “No.”

  “Sure?” Rap said. “Sure you never wondered? There was more to that sequential spell than I expected. Lots more. I only discovered it all when I took it apart. Orarinsagu robbed you, Thinal! Sagorn’s brains, Andor’s charm — all those great talents the others have — they come from you. Oh, the word of power helps, of course, but the basic talents are yours. The Spell strips them from you and gives them to the others, so they get a double dose. You sure you never knew that?”

  Thinal grunted.

  “Mm,” Rap said suspiciously. “You must have been quite a youngster with all that ability. In time you’d have been a great man. A great criminal, maybe, but certainly great. The sorcerer divided you up to make the matched set. Darad’s thuggery is his own, but basically the others are all just shadows of what you might have been. Without what they steal from you, they’d only be shadows of what they are now.”

  “Why’d you put the spell back then?” Thinal mumbled.

  Rap thumped a big hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Because you asked me to. You, not them. It was your idea! Oh, partly because I thought it was too late to undo the damage; it would have ruined them to lose the use of your talents, and I didn’t think those talents would do you any good then. You’d been a guttersnipe so long, I didn’t think you’d ever learn to be anything else. I’ve often wondered if I made the right decision. And if you tell me that you didn’t know where the others get their skills, then I’m going to feel an Evil of a lot worse about it.”

  “I… I maybe guessed some,” Thinal admitted. He’d known. He could remember the sorcerer’s exact words: Your larceny I leave you, but all the rest is forfeit. It wasn’t fair, though. The others had grown since that night, gone on to manhood and achievement, and he’d shrunk, gotten less. He’d been a leader before that night and since then he’d been nothing.

  “So why’d you ask me to put the spell back?” Rap asked.

  Thinal wiped his nose and eyes with the back of his arm. God of Sewage! Why’d he gone and spouted all that crap to the faun? What must he be thinking? “Doan wanna talk about it anymore.”

  “Then don’t,” the faun said cheerfully. “And I’m not surprised you don’t want to help me break into the sky tree! I understand. I don’t hold it against you.”

  Sniff! “Rap, it’s hopeless! The dwarf’s beaten you. He’s won. Sagorn knows. Give up. Rap!”

  The faun doubled over, putting his arms on his knees and his head on his arms. He looked all weary and beat, but when he spoke he didn’t sound that way. “I can’t, Thinal! You can quit, if you like. Everyone else can quit, but not me. He’ll hunt me down somehow. He’ll go after Inos and the children. The God told me I must lose one of my children, but They didn’t say which one. And They didn’t say it would be only one. I don’t care how hopeless the cause is, I must soldier on.”

  Silence.

  Crazy, stubborn faun!

  Thinal snuffled, “Whatcha gonna do? Whatcha wan’ me t�
��do?”

  Rap looked up with a smile sad as death. “I’ll go and take a look. If there’s no one there, I’ll come back. We’ll talk some more. If I don’t come back in a little while… You get your ass out of here, okay?”

  Thinal nodded and sniffed again. “I’ll wait.”

  Rap thumped him on the shoulder and stood up. “Thanks, old buddy! You must have been quite a kid.”

  He stepped back onto the road and walked away, not looking around.

  The wind blew cold through the gloomy gully. Thinal sat and shivered, hugging himself. Bare grass and bare road, and that awful roof up above, threatening to fall on him all the time. He was being a fool. He ought to make tracks back down the road, real smartish. Lotsa empty houses — even Jalon had managed to break into those. In a few more days Thinal’d be able to call one of the others, probably Andor. Andor’d know which way the sea was, and he could head there and talk his way onto a boat.

  The war was lost. The dwarf had won. That was no skin off Thinal — no skin off any of ’em. The five’d get by whether four wardens ruled or just one Almighty.

  Waiting was hell, but he’d told Rap he’d wait. How long? What was the guy doing, all this time?

  And if Rap did come back, and asked him, what was he going to do? Crib a warlock’s shop?

  He stood up and relieved himself — second time — and moved a few steps and sat down again. Right away he wanted to pee again.

  Why’d he gone and blabbed all that stuff about Orarinsagu to Rap? What must Rap think of him, a grown man blubbering?

  What was the guy doing?

  Thinal wasn’t going to go and see.

  Rap must be dead. He wasn’t going to come back.

  Thinal was going away.

  Now!

  Well, very soon.

  He sort-of tried to call Andor, and knew it wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t be able to call any of the others for days yet. Curse Rap and his meddling around with the spell! They’d never had this trouble before he changed it.