Faery Lands Forlorn

by Dave Duncan

  Kadolan gasped. "You think it was Rasha who killed him?"

  "Or helped. How do mundanes kill an adept? Maybe Azak made promises he hasn't carried out? She can force him to do anything, but he'd promised . . . Oh, I don't know!" Inosolan rose and began to pace again, "It doesn't matter much, does it? If I can't rely on Rasha, then he's my logical ally, because he hates her. My enemy's enemy is my friend, but—"

  "Who ever said that?"

  "What? The thing about enemies? Oh, it's just an expression I heard from . . . from an old friend. A friend I never really appreciated. But Azak wouldn't talk to me before, and he certainly won't now, because I've witnessed his shame. Because I know Rasha summons him to her bed so she can torment him and humiliate him as men humiliated her. He'll never set eyes on me again!"

  Kadolan took a deep breath. Inosolan was grasping at straws, but straws were all she had, and perhaps her incompetent, inadequate chancellor and chamberlain could help out a little; and even if it did no good in the end, it might give her something to hope for while her spirits were so horribly crushed.

  "You want a private talk with the Big Man? That's all?"

  "It would be a start."

  "Well, we can certainly arrange that, dear," Kadolan said cheerfully. "You go and try to get some sleep now. First thing in the morning, I'll ask Mistress Zana to take him a message. I promise you, he'll come running!"

  2

  Inos spent a miserable day. For the last two weeks and more, she had been rising before dawn; now she managed to sleep until almost noon and left herself feeling frowsy and off-key. By the time she was bathed and dressed, both Kade and Zana had already departed for a tea party with the sorceress, and that was a terrifying development—how could anyone keep secrets from a sorceress? Surely Rasha would learn at once of the note that had been sent to intercept Azak as he left on his hunt at daybreak.

  Kade had designed a cryptic message, in the best traditions of conspiracy, but she could not have made it cryptic enough to deceive Rasha without making it unintelligible to Azak. And if Rasha did learn of it, she might well resent Inos seeking an alliance with Azak, whatever he was to her.

  Inos worried and fretted and tried to seem calm and relaxed. The habitation felt more like a prison than ever. She spent a couple of hours exploring it, just for something to do. In need of an excuse to keep moving, she worked her way systematically from dingy, stuffy wine cellars up to the divine glory of the master bedroom. Then she went down and played a few games of thali with Vinisha and some of the other women. They all wanted to hear about Inos's visit to Rasha's chamber of puissance, and that was the very thing she did not want even to think about. They must be wondering why she had abandoned hunting so suddenly, and that was a humiliation she preferred not to discuss. The conversation was stilted and pointless.

  Why could a person's memory not forget things to order? Every now and then, just when Inos was least expecting it—admiring the late Prince Harakaz's collection of hunting boots, or in the middle of a coup at thali—she would be struck by a spasm of mental agony. It was like having a broken bone somewhere, or a torn muscle, and accidentally putting weight on it. It was remembering the one most awful thing that had come out of the previous night's horrors, the one she had tried to store away deepest in her closet of Things Not to Think About. And it kept falling out and hitting her: Marry a goblin!

  It was unthinkable.

  She was of royal blood. Queens or princesses were rarely fortunate enough to marry for love. Dynastic marriage was their lot. A year ago, facing exile in Kinvale, Inos had refused to admit that obvious truth. Now she could see that the best she could ever hope for was a husband who was relatively decent, agreeable, and not too absurdly old. But a goblin, any goblin—that was carrying duty altogether too far.

  The trouble was, it made so much sense from everyone else's point of view. It would placate the witch of the north, who was a goblin herself. It would favor neither the imps of the Impire nor the jotnar of Nordland, so no one need lose face. The citizens of Krasnegar might resent the idea at first, but now that tempers had been roused, the jotnar among them might even prefer to see a goblin on the throne than an imp; the imps might rather have a goblin than a jotunn. Winning was less important than not losing. And the old men of the council would be happy, because a goblin king would nave no interest in actually running the kingdom. From what little Inos knew of goblins' social habits, he would certainly not allow his wife to do any real reigning either. He would leave that to the council, while he concentrated on . . . On what? What in the names of all the Gods did goblins do all the time?

  They bred ugly little green babies, that's what they did.

  And tortured people.

  The afternoon dragged on, hot and desolate. The sorceress's tea party seemed to be lasting a very long time.

  Inos was having her third stroll around one of the many shadowed gardens when Thralia came hurrying through the magnolias and honeysuckles in search of her. Apologizing abjectly for having forgotten earlier, she offered Inos a book. The princess had left that for her, she said, when she went out.

  Well! Inos kept her temper, smiled icily, and retreated to a shady bench to see what Kade might have in mind. The volume was huge and very tattered, and obviously ancient. Its faded ink must have been hard on Kade's old eyes, but Prince Hakaraz had certainly been no patron of literature, so perhaps this was the best she had been able to find to read. The cover was torn and the title unreadable. What remained appeared to be a collection of quotations and extracts from other volumes. On her first, fast flick-through, Inos saw how the writing changed, from labored and straggly at the beginning to a heavy, arrogant scrawl near the end. The final few pages were blank.

  Clearly this tome had been some long-ago prince's commonplace book. He might have chosen the passages himself, or they might have been selected by his tutor. Perhaps he had been expected to memorize them afterward, as many seemed to be concerned with princely decorum. There were lists; there was history, and religion, and philosophy. Some pages held very sickly sentimental poetry that might have been original; a few extracts near the end were so erotic that Inos discovered she was not as unshockable as she had thought. She wondered what Kade had thought of those!

  On a second, more careful leafing-through, she found a fresh flower petal. It lay near the middle, among a group of passages on history, but the vellums were only inscribed on one side, so there was no ambiguity—Kade was directing Inos to an extract from a drama, and specifically to a long and very turgid speech attributed to a man named Draqu ak'dranu. Alongside the petal she read:

  He who smites mine foe is my friend, and he who turns a blow from me I shall embrace. To aid my enemy is to offend me; to stay him, nay yet to hamper him, shall win my praises and rich gifts. Know then that the white and the blue befriend us when they harry the gold, for the claws of the gold rake hard upon our flesh; our women are made to weep, our children starve and cry out. And though the white and blue may not stay the claws lest a greater evil befall, yet will they suffer not that doors be opened, nor the ways smoothed.

  There was more, much more. But that was enough to explain why Kade had been so certain that she could win Inos an audience with Azak. It even explained how she had dreamed up the cryptic message she had been planning to use: I have met a man with a golden helmet. That would mean a lot to Azak, she had insisted, but would likely make little sense to any commoner who might intercept the note. The palace of Arakkaran would not have changed its princes' upbringing much in the last few centuries, and the Big Man would have been reared on the sort of fare represented by this book.

  "Gold" meant the warlock of the east, of course, and the four claws would be the legions; the imperor's symbol was always a four-pointed star. White and blue were the wardens of north and south respectively. The Protocol forbade any sorcerer but East from using magic on the legions; Kade had said so, and Rasha had confirmed it. That prohibition included the other wardens. If they wante
d to help the imperor's opponents, which in the example quoted had evidently been some Zarkian confederacy led by the verbose Draqu, their help would have to be very limited and indirect.

  What Inos had not realized was that there was a subtle exception to those rules. The extracts that preceded Kade's marker made the point more clearly: The other wardens were within their rights in stopping East from aiding the legions with magic. Obviously the best that the imperor's enemies could ever hope for was that their battles would stay mundane, but obviously they often did, else the Impire would have conquered all Pandemia ages ago. Of course most lands had fallen to the legions many times, only to win back their independence in due course. The tide flowed and the tide ebbed. Guwush was part of the Impire now, but the old map on Inos's schoolroom wall had shown it as a collection of independent gnomish commonwealths. Zark had been conquered and liberated repeatedly—she'd learned that much since she arrived.

  She went back to Kade's curious digest, and a few pages later found an account of a battle in some other century. The Imperial forces had been driven back against a ravine. A bridge had appeared by magic to save them. A few minutes later it had vanished again, and stayed away. The resulting carnage was described in loving detail.

  How typical of Kade to have discovered something like this! My enemy's enemy is my friend, as Rap had said. And Kar had spoken of a scent of war in the wind. The Impire had a new marshal of the armies.

  The warlock of the east would never be a popular figure in Zark. My enemy's enemy! If Rasha was now Inos's enemy, then Azak must be her friend. And Olybino was another common foe. Kade had seen it.

  What could Azak do about it, though?

  Kade and Zana returned at last, looking weary, but the tea party had to be described for everyone, so it was an hour or more before Inos managed to get her aunt to herself. Once again, they drifted out on the balcony to watch the city and the bay darken into night. Inos leaned on the balustrade; Kade sank into the soft divan, sighing like a contented puppy.

  No, Rasha had not seemed suspicious, Kade reported. No, she had not mentioned the previous evening's meeting. There had been many palace ladies there, of course.

  "So when will we get an answer from the Big Man, do you suppose?" Inos asked.

  Her aunt blinked up at her. "Oh . . . of course you didn't hear! He answered at once. You are invited to go sightseeing with him tomorrow."

  Aha! Inos laughed gaily. "You are a sorceress, Aunt!"

  "Oh, no, dear!"

  So Inos would get that private chat she had been seeking for so long. And now she had even more reason to talk with the sultan. Surely together they could find some way to frustrate the evil Rasha?

  Then Inos saw that her aunt was staring at her with an oddly concerned expression. "Something wrong?"

  "Oh, no, dear, nothing. Nothing at all. But . . . have you ever met Prince Quarazak?"

  "I don't think so," Inos said suspiciously. Kade was being devious. "Describe him."

  "About this high. Handsome young lad, sprightly, reddish coloring. The sultana presented him to me a few days ago. And a couple of his brothers, also."

  "Oh?" Oh! "Tall, like his father?"

  "Yes, dear."

  It took Inos several seconds to work out the connection. Then she burst out laughing. "Really, Aunt! Surely you do not imagine I am seriously interested in . . . I mean, my interest in Azak is purely political."

  "Of course, dear."

  "Anything else would be absurd!"

  "Of course. I didn't mean to suggest . . . Of course."

  But Kade had been thinking it. Azak? Admittedly a djinn was more appealing than a goblin, but that was certainly not what Inos had in mind. No, just politics!

  "Oh, you needn't worry about that, Aunt. Barbarians are not my type at all. I'm not attracted to that one!"

  "But how does he feel about you?"

  "Really, Aunt! If he has that on his mind, then he has a very strange way of showing it! This young prince . . ."

  "Quarazak. Quarazak ak'Azak ak'Azakar."

  "Yes. How tall did you say?"

  Kade gestured vaguely. "About so. He says he's eight, but he looks older because of his height."

  Azak was twenty-two.

  For a moment Inos's mind refused to believe the necessary calculations. "Fourteen? Or maybe thirteer?"

  "I suppose so."

  "Gods!" Inos muttered. "That's disgusting!"

  "Yes, dear," Kade said quietly.

  3

  The air was cool and clammy, color still undefined. Even the skylarks must still be snoozing in their nests.

  In the pearly light of predawn, Inos sat and shivered on Sesame in a stable yard. At her side, Kar was still as a statue on his favorite gray, watching his brother inspect the honor guard of family men.

  Inos had expected a confidential chat during a ride in a coach, not a state procession.

  She had burned her mouth on her coffee and six coarse Zarkian biscuits lay like lead in her belly, but now she was ready for whatever surprise the sultan was prepared to spring next. At least, she hoped she was. There were no other princes in sight, only wary grooms on the sidelines, and the twenty-five guards with their mounts. Azak was examining them like a trader planning an offer.

  "Family men are royalty from other cities?" she asked.

  Kar smile without turning his head. "Mostly."

  "Is this what happens to unwanted princes?"

  "Some sink even lower."

  "How much lower?"

  "They sell their skills for silver and serve commoners!" Kar said with infinite contempt.

  "But when a throne changes hands somewhere—"

  "Thrones change buttocks. In Zark, monarchy is denoted by a sash. Sashes change men."

  "Very well. If a new sultan succeeds, might some of these guards then be summoned back to their homes?"

  Kar started to nod, then suddenly frowned. It was gone in an instant, but that was the first frown she had ever seen on him. One of the family men had been dismissed and was leading his horse away. Friend Kar had missed something, perhaps?

  "Explain, please," Inos said meanly.

  He beamed. "A poorly fitted shoe. I thought it would pass, but the Big Man's standards are higher than mine."

  "The man will be punished? How?"

  Kar turned his smile full on her for the first time. "One of his sons will be beaten."

  "That's wicked!"

  "They all knew what their oath meant when they swore."

  "How much of a beating?" she asked queasily.

  "Probably just one lash for each year of his age."

  "I suppose the man himself has to choose which son?" She was beginning to understand the sadistic thinking.

  "Yes."

  "And he must watch, I suppose?"

  "He must do it."

  That ended the conversation.

  Azak completed his inspection. He swung up into the saddle of one of his black stallions, which put up a small show of resistance and then calmed. He had at least a dozen of those beauties, and Inos recognized this one as Dread, one of the least cantankerous and therefore something of a disappointment to him. He walked it over to her as Kar rode off to line up the guard.

  The last time Inos had seen the sultan he had been summoned to an old crone's bed like a gigolo, and yet his gaze was steady and unashamed as their eyes met. It was Inos who blushed. She felt her face grow hot—where was her Kinvale poise when she needed it?

  The jeweled belt he always wore was missing. Instead he bore a gleaming baldric across his chest, a narrower strip of the same silver mesh studded with emeralds. Then she realized that it was the identical piece, that normally he must keep it wrapped four or five times around his waist, out of the way. This was probably how it was supposed to be worn, the symbol of kingship. His clothes were the finest she had ever seen on him, so embroidered and emblazoned with precious stones that they might hold half the wealth of the kingdom.

  The mutual scrutiny e
nded. Inos had brought a riding crop expressly so she could salute him with it, and she now did so, wondering if the curse would interpret that as an admission of his status. All that happened was that Azak arched one shapely auburn brow almost into his turban—an annoying trick she had seen him use before.

  "You will have to cover your face in public."

  "Of course. I am sorry you find my appearance distasteful!"

  She should have known she would never embarrass him. As she moved to adjust her headcloth, he said, "Not just at the moment, but later. We princes have heard of Imperial ways and enjoy admiring feminine beauty as much as imps do."

  Princes also enjoyed seeing how much blush they could provoke.

  "But the common folk would be shocked," he added imperturbably.

  "Then you should educate them, Cousin."

  "But in what ways? Imperial ladies uncover their faces, but merwomen expose their breasts, and Arakkaran is much closer to the Kerith Islands than to Hub."

  Following the vanguard of family men, Azak rode out from his palace. Sesame paced smoothly on his right, and Kar's gray on the left. The route ran southward, through olive groves and shady hollows, still shiny with dew.

  "I am glad to be spared another day in the desert, your Majesty," Inos said, able to give him his title beyond the palace grounds.

  Azak glanced down—he was very high above her. "You haven't seen true desert yet. It is hard and cruel, but it brings out the strength of a man. It does not tolerate weaklings. Farmland feels soft and decadent to me. Please call me by my name, Inosolan."

  His ability to take her by surprise was infuriating. "Of course, Azak."

  "No one else in the kingdom may."

  Again taken by surprise, she looked up, and he was regarding her with amusement.

  "I want to talk about Rasha."

  He scowled and shook his head. "Not now. You wanted to see my kingdom. This is a good chance. I thought you might also care for a brief lesson in kingship. You may find it useful when you come into your inheritance."