Faery Lands Forlorn

by Dave Duncan

  Trolls preferred action to thought. Roaring with joy and never breaking stride, Hugg swung a fist that should have stoved in the brat's chest. The last thing he saw was a tree trunk, dead ahead.

  "God of Mercy!" Rap shouted. "Did you have to kill him?"

  Little Chicken folded his arms and turned his smirk into a sneer. "You think he wanted to talk?"

  No, the giant had not wanted to talk; and now he would never talk again. The bark of the tree bore more obvious damage than did his head, but his neck was undoubtedly broken. Abandoning futile efforts to find a pulse, Rap rose shakily to his feet and glared across the corpse at the goblin.

  The situation was a creepy echo of the time they had faced each other across the body of the fairy child, but then Little Chicken had been as distraught and bewildered as Rap. Now he was showing his huge goblin teeth in a satisfied grin, proud of having beaten an opponent so much larger than himself.

  Since the castaways had left the fairy village and headed south, Little Chicken had changed ominously. He now spoke passable impish and thus could express himself better, but there was more to it than that. He had grown in confidence. He swaggered now, he often smirked as if relishing some secret joke, he patronized Rap again, as he had in the taiga, and he treated Thinal like an unwanted and unpleasant child. He was obnoxious and unnerving.

  "Used a leg throw on him," he said, nudging the corpse with his foot. "Didn't see the tree there. Not much time to plan ahead when you're about to be smeared, Flat Nose."

  That was not quite what Rap had seen with his farsight. Admittedly his attention had been mostly on his own undignified flight through the shrubbery, and he had not seen the throw, but he was fairly sure that Little Chicken had then picked the troll up bodily and rammed the tree with him. In fact the evidence was clear—the man had obviously made a right-angle turn somewhere on his journey.

  Thinal was creeping back through the bushes, at the same time gobbling whatever was in the pail he had stolen. Using two fingers, he was scooping mush into his mouth, spreading it liberally on his chin, also. Rap shouted to say it was all clear, then went back to scowling at Little Chicken's self-satisfied smirk.

  Time had ceased to mean very much, but the moon was almost full now, so the refugees had been in Faerie more than two weeks. Their journey south had been aided by the equipment salvaged from the deserted village—nets and waterbottles, hats and boots made by Little Chicken, backpacks jammed with food. Those supplies had lasted them all the way to the edges of the impish colony around Milflor. Here they had been forced to detour inland, staying in the fringe of the jungle and gradually replacing the fairy kit with whatever Thinal's quick eyes fancied. Their passage through the settled lands had been marked by a steady pilfering of local garments and foodstuffs, as the little thief looted larders, clotheslines, and even ovens.

  So Rap had a good pair of boots at last, and a fine cotton shirt. Little Chicken wore nothing at all except a soft and frilly pair of silk pants. He was extremely proud of those, not having realized that they were actually a woman's undergarment, as Thinal had sniggeringly confided to Rap.

  Now Thinal himself squeezed cautiously through a canebrake and gulped at the sight of the corpse. "By the Powers!" He looked at the goblin. "How'd you manage . . ." He shot a scared glance at Rap, who knew what he was thinking, although none of them had ever yet put it into words.

  "Little Chicken is a skilled wrestler."

  "Skilled?" Thinal shook his head in wonder. "That's a full-blooded troll!"

  "He's big."

  "Big? They're just about indestructible. Even the half-breeds . . . Listen, officially there's no such things as gladiator contests anymore, right? But some of the big houses round Hub . . . Darad's made money fighting at them."

  Little Chicken looked interested. "They wrestle?"

  "Not usually." Thinal shoveled more of the paste into his mouth. "But a troll with a club against men armed like legionaries—that's a popular match. Big stakes."

  "How many imps?"

  "All together, usually three. One at a time, it may take five or six to wear him out, sometimes more. And you just knocked off a troll singlehanded?"

  The goblin chuckled. With a lightning snatch he relieved Thinal of the bucket, then held it out to Rap. "Eat!"

  "I don't want any."

  "Eat, Flat Nose!"

  "No!"

  "I will stuff it down your throat. Have to keep your strength up, faun."

  He was mostly just mocking, Rap thought, flaunting his superiority; but perhaps he still regarded himself as Rap's trash, who must care for his master. Either way, Rap had no doubt that he had best do as he was told, for clearly Little Chicken's blood had been roused by the fight, and he would love an excuse for another tussle.

  So Rap took the bucket and stepped back from the huge corpse. Flies were buzzing around it already.

  "Let's go somewhere better, then. None of this poor guy's stuff will fit any of us." In fact, only the troll's boots were worth a second glance. He had pretty well stripped himself naked coming through the undergrowth, ripping even his leather breeches in a dozen places. His fungus-colored hide was barely scuffed.

  "Let's get well away!" Thinal said, wiping his mouth and then licking his hand. "Someone'll come looking soon . . ." He gaped at Rap in sudden horror. "Hounds! When they find his body, they'll put hounds on us!"

  "Leave hounds to me," Rap said, gagging at the sour taste of the slave's mash. "But they may have more trolls, and this one was following our scent."

  Thinal nodded with disgust. "I'll remember in the future." A city thief had not expected a victim to trail him that way, nor thought to check wind direction. Even an occult genius was not infallible.

  "Leave trolls to me," said the goblin, with another satisfied gloat at the dead one.

  Destiny with men:

  'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

  Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

  Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

  And one by one back in the Closet lays.

  Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (§49, 1859)

  FIVE

  Slave and sultan

  1

  The moon was all wrong in Zark. It rode much too high in the sky and it seemed to have been tilted sideways, so its face was strange and unfamiliar. Not that Kadolan was looking at the moon, but she was aware of its beams shining on the floor below the windows, and those bright patches were much smaller than they could ever be in Krasnegar. Such unleaded windows would be unthinkable there at any time, while here even in the middle of a spring night, the wind was no worse than cool. Reflections of moonlight on marble gave ample light.

  She huddled on the edge of her bed in her flounced robe, a frilly nightcap pulled down low to hide her curlers, and her feet snug inside goatswool slippers. Her niece was pacing the chamber as the cheetah in Duke Angilki's zoological garden paced its cage. Just as the cheetah made a sort of half rear at the end of each length to start its turn, so Inosolan swept her train around in a swish of samite before retracing her steps.

  She was on the third or fourth telling now, still very upset, understandably. "Aghast" might be a more exact word. Kadolan had not even grasped the enormity of it all herself and had not experienced the terror of it firsthand, as Inosolan had. Small wonder that now she need talk herself down from an emotional high that had flown perilously near hysteria. ". . . so here's my choice except that I don't even get to choose but apparently I'm either to be married off to a goblin or else the imps and the jotnar will fight each other to the death and the goblins move in to finish up the survivors and everyone I know'll be dead and there won't be a kingdom left to rule anyway and as for me I'll probably end up entertaining important guests down on the waterfront . . ."

  The windows opened on a balcony overlooking one of the many moonstruck gardens of the palace. Kadolan worried that many ears were listening, but Inosolan had ignored all suggestions that she lower
her voice. The sorceress certainly wasn't listening, she said; she was occupied otherwise. That bit had not been explained yet.

  What Inosolan really needed was a good, long, motherly hug, but Kadolan was not skilled at such intimacies. Her strong point had never been children, and she had not known Inosolan as a child. By the time she had reached Krasnegar after Evanaire's death, the chance for closeness had gone. They had not shared more than two or three hugs, ever.

  ". . . maybe should be glad I don't get to choose! I mean, suppose they line up a dozen or two bristle-faced goblins and . . ."

  Kadolan had never borne children of her own, or she might have learned better how to cope with them. Adolescents were her specialty. She knew by instinct how to deal with adolescent girls, or at least she could never remember when she did not have a knack for them. There was no great magic involved, only clear rules and endless patience. One had to set an example as best one could, for those quick young eyes spied out hypocrisy at once; so one stood up honestly for one's principles, like a lighthouse at the end of a difficult strait. One encouraged, one explained, one kept one's temper, and in the end, usually without much warning, the strait had been traversed, the ship was in the harbor, and another young lady was available for matchmaking. Very distant cousins, or just friends . . . Inosolan had been merely the last of many, many girls who had called Kadolan "Aunt" at Kinvale. Kadolan had failed none of them, but none had been a keener or a more gratifying pupil than her own niece. None had met with more success, or less good fortune.

  Inos was still wayward and impetuous, of course, but those traits were part of her jotunn heritage, and she would not likely ever outgrow them. They cropped up frequently in the family.

  "A goblin? Can you imagine? A goblin king in Krasnegar? What do you think—would he amuse the guests by carving up the servants or entertain the servants by cooking up the guests?"

  That was better. Murderously unfunny humor, but humor. Inosolan's voice was steadying, too.

  And she had seen that lost kingdoms were not returned like misplaced parasols, that there must be a price to pay—perhaps not as much as marriage to a goblin, but a price. What price would Inosolan be willing to pay? Would she be given the choice?

  The irony of it all was that Kadolan, having guided her niece through to womanhood, should now feel so completely useless as an adult confidante. She was too old for this wild adventuring. Her life had been much too sheltered for her to know anything at all about women like Rasha—who, despite her incredible occult power, was still only a woman, a hard, twisted, bitter woman, a woman who had fought for every crust she'd ever eaten, a woman abused and maltreated by men in ways Kadolan could not imagine and did not want to.

  Inosolan was younger and stronger and had been coping amazingly well, considering how very little room she had to move at all. Now came this latest outrage—warlocks and warfare. No one could be expected to cope with this. Kadolan was out of her depth. She felt she was being left behind. That was old age, she supposed.

  Suddenly Inosolan fell silent and still, a beauty's dark profile against the moon-drenched sky within the arches.

  "I do talk a lot, don't I, Aunt?"

  "Come and sit down, dear."

  "Yes." Inosolan came across and joined Kadolan on the bed, and put an arm around her. "Thank you for listening. I feel better."

  "I wish I could do more than listen. What happened after the warlock left?"

  "Rasha threw a tantrum. I suppose she can see in the dark. She started tossing thunderbolts at things—the welcome mat and then the furniture. I ran."

  "Wise!"

  Inosolan gulped, then laughed shakily. "It was so childish it was almost funny! I was too scared to feel scared, somehow. I slipped on the stairs and hurt my ankle—Rasha healed it for me later—but I crawled over to the doors, and they wouldn't open, and I just crouched there until the thunderstorm stopped. Until the noise stopped and the smoke cleared and Rasha came down."

  "How terrible!"

  "Well . . ." Inosolan shivered. "The worst part was that I was afraid of the panther and the wolf—they were roaming around somewhere in the dark, I thought. And maybe demons? Something flapped overhead a few times . . . Or maybe it was worst when the torches blazed up in the sconces and she came slinking down the stairs. Your Kinvale lacquer was very thin, Aunt. She was back to being a brothel seductress again."

  What is a lady? Rasha had asked. Kadolan had tried to explain that being a lady was a discipline, a way of life. A lady was considerate of others' feelings. A lady was the same to all people, of high rank or low, at all times, under all conditions.

  Those, the sorceress had said with a believing sneer, might be useful things to know. "Show me!" she had commanded. "For I must deal soon with the wardens, and these impish manners may impress them."

  So Kadolan had shown her, and she had learned amazingly fast.

  "Yes, dear, I know. I knew she was too old to change, of course. I knew it was only affectation. But she was so very convincing I found myself believing in her. Forgive me!"

  "Nothing to forgive, Aunt! You did a much better job with Rasha than I did with Azak."

  Kadolan had been wondering why she had heard no news of Azak.

  "Imperial lady, sultana, dockside slut," Inosolan said reflectively, "but I fear her most when she plays seductress. Inflame any man, Azak said—remember? It sickens me. It frightens me. She's a man-eater, wriggling her body around like a worm on a hook. That's how she was—young and gorgeous and shining through gauze, promising love, and yet burning inside with hatred and contempt . . . That's the hook."

  Kadolan tried to find something to say, but couldn't.

  "Had I been a man . . . If there was a man there, I thought, he would be driven mad. Am I wrong?"

  "I don't think so, dear. It is an evil magic." After a moment Kadolan added quietly, "Lust is not love, but I don't think her Majesty has ever been taught the difference."

  Inosolan shivered again. "She cured my ankle and my bruises. Then I wanted to go, and she made me stay longer. She talked. She insists she was right and Olybino was lying. He really is in league with Lith'rian of the south against Zinixo. He really does need to find a peaceful solution to the Krasnegar problem. They're all afraid of the dwarf. So she says."

  Kadolan squeezed her, but she was still rigid as a statue, trembling slightly even yet.

  "I said, 'So I must marry a goblin?' She laughed and said she would bespell me so that I was crazy about male goblins! Ughh! Can you imagine?"

  "It's all over now, dear, and you should try to get some rest."

  "Gods! It must be halfway to morning." Inos fell silent, and her aunt realized that she had not heard it all yet. There was still more to come.

  Inosolan rose, started to pace, and then stepped to a window. For a moment her hair and shoulders were washed in silver by the high moon. Then she turned and spoke. "I won't marry a goblin. But I will get back my kingdom!"

  This time she did not swear any oaths about doing anything at all, Kadolan noticed. She had learned about costs.

  "So I can't just rely on Rasha!"

  "That's obvious, dear!"

  "So what do we do now, Chancellor?"

  This was where Kadolan felt so inadequate. "Why not discuss this latest development with the Big Man, Azak?"

  "I didn't tell you earlier . . ." Inosolan had dropped her voice, at last. "Kar told me today—yesterday. I'm not welcome on the hunts anymore, he said. I never did get to talk with the Big Man alone, Aunt. Anytime we stopped, to eat or anything, he was always surrounded by princes. So I never did get to talk with him." She wandered back to the bed in a rustle of fabric. "You did better with Rasha than I did with him. He never gave me a chance to speak with him. And now he certainly never will!"

  Kadolan held her breath. In a moment Inosolan continued.

  "Rasha kept me there, talking. We were downstairs by then, in her bedchamber. She'd healed my twisted ankle. She just kept talking, saying nothing an
d repeating it over and over."

  "Yes, dear?"

  "I could hardly bear to look at her. I would have minded less if she'd been naked, I think. What she was wearing was worse! Gems in . . . well, never mind. And then, suddenly, she put a finger to her lips . . . It's a funny room, that. Only two windows. It looks like it ought to have another, over by the bed, doesn't it? Well, what it has there is a hidden door. Behind the hangings."

  Kadolan guessed what was coming and knew that Inosolan had seen her twitch of shock.

  "The hinges creaked. He pushed aside the tapestry and stepped in. And saw me there!"

  "The Big Man?" Not that Kadolan doubted it.

  "Azak, yes. She'd done it deliberately, of course. She must have summoned him and been waiting for him. She told him to come in and make himself comfortable—can you imagine the tone?—and then she told me I could go now. Oh, the look in her eyes!" Inosolan shivered.

  Tremors of distaste ran down Kadolan's arms. "Well, we did sort of learn when we arrived, didn't we? I mean, she did drop broad hints—that she summoned him, and so on."

  "Oh, yes! But why?"

  "Because she hates men, dear. Gods know, I suppose she's had reason enough."

  "And he's everything she hates in men—young and handsome and royal! Big and strong, and unbeatable at everything!"

  The sudden enthusiasm in her niece's voice made Kadolan uneasy. "And a murderer!"

  "Is he?" Inosolan's voice rose higher. "Think of this, Aunt—Rasha the adept was living in the palace. Uninvited. Freeloading. Then she met the sultan, and he was another adept! He saw through her disguise. She hinted to me that they became friends, or even lovers perhaps, two adepts together—and I suppose it must be hard for the sorcerous to be friends with mere mundanes. How sweet! But really she was in terrible danger, Aunt, because although they were both adepts, he had temporal power, also. He could have tortured her to learn her words of power—but instead he died! Azak got the throne, but she got the words."