by Dave Duncan
"You have nothing to be asham—Oh, this is crazy! You do not belong in the world of royalty and politics and sorcery! Face facts, boy! You are never going to see Inos again. With your talent for animals your destiny is to find some kindly master who needs a good stockman; then you can marry a plump milkmaid and raise lots of wide-nosed babies.''
Possibly, but Rap was nothing if not stubborn. "I am going to go to Zark and find Inos."
Sagorn threw up his hands. "What are the soldiers doing now?"
Rap made a quick mental scan, although he had not really ever stopped watching; he didn't seem able to turn off his farsight when there was need of it. "Lining up, top and bottom. They're almost ready, I think. They're going to flatten us like mash in a press, between two lines."
"Military exercise! Mere brute force, naturally." Sagorn's lantern jaw clenched, and his thin lips whitened. "Then I must leave, I think. Give me back those other clothes." He began unfastening his robe again.
Creak . . . Little Chicken had decided he needed a club. He had begun by snapping a tree trunk as thick as Rap's knee. It fell with a crash, flattening bushes far off. Sagorn shouted, "Stop that!" but the goblin ignored him, proceeding to break off a convenient length: Crack!
The old man threw down his robe, then lowered himself awkwardly and sat on it while he pulled on Thinal's shorts, which were much too small for him. A bugle blared in the marketplace.
"Here they come," Rap said. "And here I go."
"No!" Sagorn shouted, straggling back to his feet. "Wait! We'll meet at Emine's statue. Gods! A statue of Emine in plain view, and I still never realized—"
"No."
"Wait! Fool! Don't you see yet? If you really want to find your princess, there's only one way you'll ever do it. You know what's here in Faerie! If you didn't guess it before, then you must have done so when he killed the troll?"
Rap glanced at Little Chicken, who flashed him a tusky grin and twirled his giant's bludgeon around like a twig. Rap would have needed both hands even to lift it. Horrified, he looked back at the gaunt old man.
"Kill more children? Is that what you want me to do? Is that what you're planning to do?"
"Not necessarily children—I mean, not necessarily kill . . . But I must know!"
"You know where all the fairyfolk have gone!" Rap shouted. "And why. That's obvious! That's awful! I won't be part of that. I don't want to be a sorcerer anyway. That's certain!" He sensed movement and saw the two lines of men in leather and metal advancing abreast, one down, one up. But he also saw a squad of a dozen legionaries running down the path from the market, ahead of the main troop. "They're coming! They may have farsight, too!"
The goblin uttered a ferocious growl and went racing off up the path.
"Little Chicken!" Rap yelled. "You come back here!"
He received no answer and he could sense the goblin still running, at a fearsome pace.
"Trash, come back!" But it did no good. "That's it!" Rap said, giving up. "'Bye, Doctor!"
Sagorn shouted, "Stop! Rap, it's your only hope of ever finding Inos!" Anything else he said was lost in the noise as Rap plowed away into the bushes.
3
The hillside was a tangle of shrubs and saplings, a few mature trees and some crumbling ruins. There were thorns and stinging things and ankle-breaking snags galore; the underlying loam was slick and wet. For a few moments Rap could spare no wits for anything more than finding a route without losing his balance on the steep slope or scratching his eyes out as he plunged through thickets, racing and leaping along the hillside in the faint hope that he could outflank the lines of legionaries advancing in line abreast from above and below. Then he had a path mapped out ahead and could spare a tendril of thought to check on the pursuit. If his farsight gave him away to a listening sorcerer, then so be it.
He heard distant shouts and saw that Little Chicken had gone all the way up the trail to meet the advance party descending. There seemed to be an almighty battle in progress already, with armored men hurtling bodily through the air.
For a moment Rap stopped, stricken. The goblin was being trash again, seeking to aid Rap's escape. How dare he! And now it was useless to go back and try to save him in his turn. Rap had no way of fighting armed men. Damned goblin! Whatever had happened to him when the fairy died, it surely had not made him sword-proof. How dare he be a martyr? He could be as elusive as a doe in undergrowth like this. If any of them had possessed even a hope of escaping, it had been Little Chicken.
Rap continued his own noisy, hectic flight.
And who had gone the other way? Thinal? Sagorn certainly would not have stayed around for the patrol to catch. Darad, maybe. That would be another mighty battle.
Like a fox gone to earth. Rap skittered in under a dense bush, hard against an ancient fragment of rotting timber wall. He panted the humid air like a dog and wiped his streaming forehead. Little Chicken was still at it. Even with occult strength, how could one unarmed man hold off a dozen or so legionaries? And he had apparently already leveled half that many, for the shrubbery was hung with bodies. Over the mad beating of his own heart. Rap could hear the oaths and screams and the crashing of branches. Who ever said that goblins did not enjoy fighting?
A dozen? He scanned and saw that the soldiers had broken ranks, and were going to their comrades' aid. Uphill and downhill, armed men raced toward the racket. If that had been Little Chicken's purpose, he had succeeded. The way was not exactly clear, but now the lines were broken, and the bushes were full of running men. One more would not be heard.
The goblin had given his life for his master, then, and it would be folly to refuse the opportunity. It would also feel like cowardice to accept it, yet Rap could do nothing to help now. Cursing himself for a craven ingrate, he scrambled to his feet and went plunging down the slope.
Still the undergrowth was transparent to his farsight. He could find the best route with no difficulty, and in the long run a faun had a much better chance of evading notice in Faerie than a goblin ever would. Coward! He angled over to a narrow, muddy gully, the bed of an intermittent stream, and went slithering down it on his seat. It steepened; he tried to stop, caught a foot in a tangle of roots, went hurtling forward down a high bank, bounced off rock, and plunged into sudden darkness.
4
Inos was never at her best in boats. She had known enough to refuse breakfast, and the waves in the bay were harmless spawn of the mighty surf that thundered beyond the headlands, but the slimy little dhow reeked of fish and wallowed like a drunkard—or so it seemed to her wayward stomach.
She had always assumed that the tentlike garments of Zarikian women were hot and stuffy. She had been surprised to discover that the black chaddar she had been given was a relatively cool and comfortable garment, but it had not encountered soap in a long time, and neither had the half-naked fishermen who swarmed around her. They were a rough, unsettling crew, foul-mouthed, hairy, and spangled with fish scales. They shouted ill-natured jests about her and guffawed at them. She dared not reply, for she could not speak in their dialect. The captain was as bad as any, a bow-legged, squint-eyed boor.
Fortunately she need not look at the sailors, for her hood restricted her side vision greatly. Her hands and face had been dyed with berry juice, but very little Inos showed above her veil. Her voice might betray her, and her green eyes—nothing else should.
A bloated meal sack rested heavily on her lap when she sat. Its ropes dug into her shoulders when she walked; but the worst of all her torments was Charak.
Charak in his swaddling clothes stank much worse than anything else. He yelled continuously, he writhed and squirmed. She cursed Azak a million times for Charak and an excessive quest for realism. She did not think Charak was a good idea at all, for he was more likely to draw attention to her by showing up her lack of expertise with babies than he was to provide disguise. He also seemed too young to be an older brother of the meal sack, although Zana must be a better judge of such things than Inos.
The advantages of Charak were only that his foul stench tended to keep the sailors away and her constant dread of dropping the tiny monster kept her too busy to brood much.
She had no idea where Azak was. He had not been present when she had picked her away along the slippery boards of the ramshackle jetty to enter this unspeakable floating slum. She had seen no one of his height in her later views of the encampment, when the boat had brought her back again. The dhow had first sailed landward until it met with the fishing fleet, outward bound on the dawn breeze. It had then put about and hidden itself within the myriad of similar boats. Inos had assumed then that her destination was somewhere other than Arakkaran—somewhere north or south along the coast—but once the fleet had crossed the bar, her own craft had separated and circled back past the headland again.
By then the family men had been striking camp and embarking their horses in the little ferry that plied to and fro between the capes, for the dusty track through the dunes was apparently a common coastal highway, much used by the beggars and footpads and glib-spoken chapmen who preyed upon the honest laborers of the villages. To move the whole troop and their mounts would take many trips, and if Rasha thought to check on the sultan or his royal guest, she would have a long search before she could be sure they were not present. That, at least, must be the theory.
Now the dhow was heading in again toward the docks, tacking clumsily against the rising breeze and making poor way; even a landlubber's eye could see it was not a weatherly craft. Sternly ignoring the queasy twitchings within her, Inos kept her eyes on Arakkaran itself, resplendent in the dawn's light and just as glorious as Azak had promised. Built like Krasnegar on a slope, it was many times larger, its hillside more stepped and irregular, and its buildings were of marble and gold, not brick, timber, and red tiles. In all of Krasnegar there were exactly six trees, while jungle seemed to be breaking out everywhere in Arakkaran, in any unused corner, on any angle too steep for building. Nor could Inisso's spiky black castle ever compare with the shining domes and minarets of Azak's palace sprawling along the plateau's lip. Despite her discomfort, Inos had to admire the grandeur of Arakkaran.
At long last the wallowing dhow was closing in on the shipping moored and anchored along the harborfront. Now the squint-eyed captain bellowed at his rabble to lower sail and man the sweeps. Grumbling, they set to honest labor. Lewd banter was replaced by muttered curses and hard breathing.
With suspicious suddenness, Charak stopped yelling. Inos held him up to look at. "Now what're you planning, you little horror?" she whispered. His reply was a loud belch and a fountain of milk. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her insides lurched. That was definitely the worst moment of the trip so far.
By the time Inos had restored her internal calm, Charak was asleep on her shoulder, snoring, and the dhow had almost reached the wharfs. She had missed her chance to admire the many great vessels moored in the harbor. Some sightseeing trip this was turning out to be!
Then the boat jostled against a high wall, whose ancient stones were greasy and coated with brown weed. Hands steadied it, but no lines were thrown. Clutching Charak so tightly that he awoke and began yelling in an echo of her own terror, wobbling off-balance because of the meal sack, Inos was roughly disembarked, like baggage, onto a slippery stone staircase. Even before she had properly found her footing, open water was showing between her and the departing boat.
A few rusty spikes protruding from the slimy coating on the wall showed where once there might have been a handrail. If so, it had vanished long since and not been replaced. Unbalanced by the ridiculous padding she wore, clumsy in her long gown, she hung on tightly to one of the sharp-prickled spikes until the world steadied. Water surged and splashed just below her. Charak went back to sleep.
Slowly and with great care, Inos climbed to the noisy road above. She peered back and forth, shocked and dismayed. Now what? Zana had explained nothing, saying only that she would be taken care of. Despite the early hour, crowds bustled: porters and sailors, mules and horses, wagons and even strings of camels, all wound back and forth between bales and crates and racks of nets. A hundred voices clamored in orders and oaths and the rhythmic chant of work gangs.
Inos felt absurdly unsafe, teetering on the edge of the seawall and in danger of being knocked off, yet to go forward was to risk being trampled under a caravan of camels. The meal sack was an absurdity—she must look as if she were in the eighteenth month of pregnancy at least, although perhaps nothing smaller would have shown under the accursed tent she wore. The hood restricted her vision horribly, and if she fell back one step she would drown. For her own sake, as well as that of the pestilential Charak, she must move to safety, yet if she left this spot she might miss whomever she was supposed to meet. Then she would be hopelessly lost, with no option but a walk to the palace and a humiliating surrender. She decided to take refuge beside a high rack of smelly nets, but before she could move a voice spoke the password: "God of Pilgrims!"
With a gasp of relief, Inos spun around and found herself facing a pair of long, gray ears. Beyond them, holding a bridle, stood a short, dirty, and ragged man she had never seen before. His weatherbeaten face wore a coating of mahogany stubble and an unfriendly scowl.
Inos and the donkey regarded each other with mutual disapproval. She dislodged Charak's grip and held him out for the man to hold. The scowl became a glare—in Zark babies were strictly women's problems. Wishing that she were at liberty to express her opinions, Inos somehow contrived to hoist herself up, sidesaddle, with baby and meal sack still in place. The man hit the little beast with a stick and set off along the road, tugging repeatedly at the rope.
In a few minutes she had managed to adjust her seating, adapting to the sway of the bony little back under the blanket. She began to take stock, peering around under her hood, being careful not to look at nearby faces, lest the owners glimpse her alien green eyes.
The ships were unlike any she had ever seen in Krasnegar, the crews more varied. Most common were the ruddy-hued djinns, but she saw swarthy imps and some diminutive men with grayish coloring, whom she thought must be gnomes; dwarves would be thicker and wider. Here and there, tall and flaxen and inevitable in any large harbor in Pandemia, were undoubted jotnar. She heard much shouting, both humor and invective, and just to have identified all the odors could have kept her busy for hours: fish and spices, the livestock and the people, hot coffee and the strong salt tang of the sea; plus many less agreeable things. Had her mind not been largely occupied with the baby and with not falling off the wretched donkey, she would probably have been enthralled.
Her guide began edging into and through the traffic, finally reaching the buildings that flanked the landward side of the dock. He stopped beside a grubby and tattered little coffee stall, tended by a woman as anonymously garbed as Inos herself. "God of Pilgrims?" she said, and held out her hands for Charak. Apparently Charak did not know her, and had come to trust Inos, for the last she heard of him was a long, despairing howl. Served the little monster right!
Now her guide reversed direction, heading back the way they had come, still tugging the rope and periodically whacking the imperturbably ambling donkey. At a mysteriously dark doorway smelling strongly of spices, he handed the tether to a larger, bearded man and disappeared. The newcomer did not even glance at Inos. He set off at a slower pace, in the same direction.
Ten minutes later, a third man took his place. Slumped impassively on the donkey, Inos did not look at him. She wondered what her father would have said about all this.
Sudden insight whispered that she had never really known her father. At their last meeting he had been dying; at their farewell in the spring she had been a mere child. They had never spoken as adult to adult. A child could not comprehend a parent as a real person. So she had no way of knowing what her father would have thought and she never would have. She might try to behave in ways she believed would have pleased him, but she could never be truly certain. That was a crushing sorro
w, and she wondered why she had not seen it before.
Another five minutes, and the third man stopped the donkey at the bottom of a public staircase that wound off up a narrow canyon between buildings. He leaned close to Inos and breathed fish at her. "Climb. Turn left at the minstrel."
With great relief, Inos slid from the saddle, wincing as the ropes bit into her shoulders. The meal sack had taken on a definite sag to the left. Triplets, maybe. Keeping her head down, she set off up the steps, staying close to the wall as a gang of boys came pelting down, waving their arms for balance and shouting noisily.
The alleyway bent; stairway became a steep slope, and then steps again, more gently pitched. Obviously all this deception had been planned in advance. Azak must not only have laid plans for his own escape, he must have been confident that Inos would want to accompany him. She wondered whether she should be flattered by that tribute to her courage or insulted that he thought so little of her brains, for all these precautions were merely emphasizing what a very long shot this escapade really was.
Hiding from a mundane was a fairly straightforward matter. Everyone knew how to do that, avoiding movements where they might be seen and sounds when they might be heard. Earshot and line of sight were easily comprehended; but no one knew how to avoid a sorceress, nor what the limits of her range might be. Her powers could well make all this subterfuge completely useless. Perhaps all she need do would be exclaim "Inosolan" to her looking glass and it might, perhaps, show the fugitive at once. All these changes of guide and appearance—baby and then no baby, donkey and no donkey—would make the task more difficult only if Rasha must somehow scan for her prey, or follow its trail. Obviously none of these accomplices was in on the plot; none would know any of the others, and each had been hired to perform one small task only. The organization was impressive. It might well be totally useless, and Rasha might well be screaming with laughter as she watched the mummery.
