The Cutting Edge

by Dave Duncan

  Never had so many worked so hard. All through the town, husbands were reunited with wives and parents with children.

  The wind shrieked in the eaves and rattled casements, while tubs of bathwater steamed and stew pots bubbled. Impromptu singsongs and dances sprang up everywhere. In the saloons, the jotnar began settling long-postponed challenges. Imps began catching up on affairs of all sorts: love, business, and other peoples'.

  Similar things were happening in the castle, too. Not in many weeks had Inos been able to gather her family all together. Secure in their private parlor, she and Rap cuddled their children. Holi remembered his father after a little thought. Ten months old now, he was fat and jolly, obviously a royal Krasnegarian misfit, a honey-haired imp with a faun nose. Eva was jotunnish and nine and becoming very protective of her baby brother. Gath and Kadie were soon to be fourteen ... where did the years go? Tonight Inos had noticed a few gray hairs in Rap's brown thatch, and those were new. She would not think about the windburn her mirror had displayed, nor the rest of its lies.

  Sitting in their two big armchairs, smothered in children, king and queen smiled wearily across at each other. Later, his eyes said, and I love you. She sent back the same signals. The peat glowed on the big hearth, shining brighter once in a while as the wind gusted in the chimney. Candle flames danced on the mantel. Life felt very, very good.

  "That was a close-run thing," Rap remarked wearily, from underneath Eva and Kadie. He had said that several times. "But it will be all right?" Inos cuddled Holi.

  "Oh, the food will last. Fuel will be tight, though. "

  "And we will hold the Harvesthome Dance?" Kadie asked anxiously.

  "Absolutely!" Inos said. "This year more than ever. We'll start organizing tomorrow. "

  "No!" Rap said, and grinned at her surprise. "Tomorrow we'll have a family holiday. You kids can have your parents all to yourselves, for once. What do you want to do?"

  Kadie's eyes lit up. "Want you to give me a fencing lesson, Papa dear! "

  Rap twisted his head to regard his daughter nose to nose. "All right-but I don't trust that bloodthirsty look in your eye! " She pouted, not at all displeased. So she thought she could beat her father, did she?

  Gath smiled faintly. He was sitting on the hob by himself, because cuddling was beneath a man's dignity.

  Eva wanted help with her dolls' house.

  "Gath?" Rap said.

  Gath's dreamy gray eyes took on a bothered, pensive look. He scratched his spiky golden comb. "You promised to go through the soldier books with me. "

  "So I did." Rap frowned.

  Inos sent him a quizzical look, married code for Explain! She sensed something more important than dolls' houses, and Rap's reaction confirmed it.

  "Just after Gath and I went over to the-"

  "Very first day," Gath said.

  "Yes. He saw a vision of a soldier, on the beach."

  Gath jumped up and balanced on one foot, with the other behind him and one arm raised. "Like this! Just for a minute. Then he disappeared again. "

  Inos' contentment dropped a few notches. Why had Rap not told her? Because they had hardly seen each other since, of course. Then why had Gath not told her? But she had hardly seen Gath, even. "Soldiers don't usually go in for ballet dancing. Just that once, or do you see things often?"

  "Just that once. " Gath resumed his seat, starting to look at her oddly. "An Imperial soldier! Dad says there are old books about the legions somewhere. "

  "You made out his insignia?"

  "Think so. On his breastplate. A star with four points."

  "All the imps wear that! " Kadie snorted. "It's Imperial. Expect you were daydreaming. "

  "And a circle of gold leaves."

  "What sort of gold leaves?" Inos said sharply. "Laurel leaves? Fig leaves?"

  "You know!" Gath said, excited now, and staring hard at her. _ Leaves? She raked over distant memories of Kinvale. "I certainly do not know all the legionary blazons in the Impire! "

  "But?" Gath said excitedly. "Yes? Yes?"

  But leaves? Oak leaves? A circle of ...

  "Oak leaves!" Gath shouted. "Heir apparent! What's oak?" Yes, of course! But how could he remember her memories before she did? Would she really have blurted that aloud when it came to her?

  Rap edged Eva aside and straightened up, scowling from mother to son and back again. "The prince imperial? You're sure?"

  She nodded, with a let's-talk-about-it-later frown.

  "We'll check it out tomorrow, " Rap said. "What's the matter now?"

  Gath was looking at him with a very odd expression. "Tomorrow? Er ... nothing, Dad. "

  "You can see that far ahead now?"

  "No. No, I can't ever see tomorrow. Just ... Just a feeling. Nothing." He bit his lip uncertainly.

  Shadows had fallen over the happy gathering. Why should Inos' son have seen a vision of the next imperor? What was wrong with tomorrow? Evil take it! The world would be a much better place without sorcery.

  "Well, I'm famished!" she said firmly. "Ring the bell, someone. I could eat a whale. "

  "Me, too," Rap said.

  Gath smiled sadly. "We don't eat for a long time yet."

  Rap frowned. "No? What can you possibly foresee to keep me from eating? A Nordland invasion?"

  "The bishop."

  There was a tap on the door.

  "God of Torment!" Rap exclaimed. "How long have you known about him?"

  "Oh ... Since you went in the bathtub, I suppose."

  "I shall speak to you later, young man! Enter!"

  Young Pret peered around the door. He was the shortest jotunn in the kingdom, with a heart weakness that kept him from heavy labor. When sober he was a passable footman.

  "His Holiness, Sire."

  "Show him in," Rap said, glaring at Gath's satisfaction. Inos sent her husband a warning frown. She knew exactly what he was thinking: I don't mind the old man getting long in the tooth if he would just stop getting long in the wind. Rap regarded that as one of his better jokes, but the only person he could tell it to was Inos and she had threatened to have him beheaded if he did so just once more. He wouldn't say it in front of the children, anyway.

  Bishop Havermore was elderly, gaunt and stooped. He wore a halo of white curls and he blinked a lot. He offered blessings and accepted a chair.

  "We were just about to eat, Holiness," Inos said sweetly. "Won't you join us?"

  The bishop said he had eaten, would not stay long-and Kadie rolled her eyes disbelievingly behind his back. He had merely come to suggest a special service of thanks to the Gods for the town's deliverance.

  "Very good idea," Inos said, smiling more warnings at Rap. "Thanks, especially," the bishop said, blinking, "to the God of Winter, for staying Their hand so long, and of course to the God of Storms . . ."

  Rap caught his wife's eye, bared his teeth, and did not point out that the God of Storms had caused all the trouble in the first place.

  Once started, Havennore could never stop. He was immune to hints. An hour later he had not run out of Gods and was rehearsing his proposed sermon verbatim, addressing it to the candles. The children were fretting, Inos could hear Rap's stomach rumbling louder than the blizzard outside, and she kept having to unclench her fists.

  She saw that Rap had had enough-and Gath had been fighting a grin for some time. Oh, no! Before she could think of a suitable intervention, Rap rose and reached for the bellrope. She eyed him anxiously.

  "You have missed someone, your Holiness!" he said. The aged cleric blinked up at him in dismay. "I have?"

  "Four people who made our deliverance possible. Without them, Krasnegar would be facing certain starvation this winter. " _

  Now what? Everyone in the room was staring up at him in puzzled silence-except Gath, of course, who was turning bright red with his efforts not to laugh at whatever was coming. Inos' fists had clenched again.

  "I think," the king said, "these gallant helpers should be mentioned by name in your
sermon. In fact, I think you should invite them to sit beside you, so that you can present them to the congregation and thank them in person."

  "Oh, I agree!" Havermore bleated. "Who are these men?" The door squeaked as the footman opened it and looked in. "Two men and their wives," Rap said. "I don't think you have ever met them. Pret, conduct his Holiness downstairs and find the royal rat-catchers for him. The root cellar might be a good place to look first. They were there earlier."

  "Rat-catchers?" said bishop and flunky and queen in harmony.

  "Rat-catchers!" Rap said firmly. "Most winters we lay away about twice as much food as we have this year. This year is different. What we have will suffice now, but only because the vermin used to eat half our stocks! So you go thank our gnomes on behalf of the people, Holiness. And perhaps you should also thank the God of Hospitality for inspiring me to offer them a home here."

  Inos carefully did not look at either Gath or Kadie.

  5

  The Bishop had departed, very much on his pathetic dignity, the spoiled meal had been eaten, and the children had been put to bed. King and queen were back in their parlor again. This time they were both in the same chair.

  Rap was nibbling Inos' ear, but he wasn't very serious about it. She demanded to know more about Gath's vision. Between toothwork he told her, but there was very little more to tell. The figure had been standing in that peculiar position and had seemed to be in darkness, or perhaps moonlight. The incident had happened late in the day, which would have been long after sunset in southern lands, at that time of year. By the time all that was said, he had lost interest in the ear-nibbling business. She gave him a hug. Maybe tomorrow.

  "It could have been Shandie, I suppose," she said. "Are there any pictures of him in Krasnegar?"

  "Not that I know of. We could ask around. " She pondered uneasily. "Kadie might make up such a tale. Not Gath."

  "Never. Not Gath."

  Worried silence. The peat hissed softly. It was hard to think of the spindly ten-year-old she had once known being a famous soldier now. Fighting? Killing people?

  "The only thing I can suggest," Rap said, glowering at the fireplace, "is that Shandie looked through a magic casement. The illusions work both ways. Remember we saw a vision of a dragon? When that prophecy was fulfilled, I thought I caught a glimmer of something ... but that was months later! Why would Gath standing on a shingle beach matter to Shandie? It makes no sense."

  "You think Gath is the one, don't you?" she said softly. "The one the God mentioned. "

  Rap set his teeth and said nothing.

  She kissed his cheek. "Come to bed, love. You'll think better in the morning. " Tired as she was, she thought she had better do some ear-nibbling herself tonight. He needed to unwind.

  Rap shook his head. "I've shilly-shallied too long, Inos! I keep pretending it'll all go away, and it won't. I should have told Shandie of the God's warning."

  "Nothing you can do tonight. And anyway, this causeway thing . . . "

  "I'm going to go upstairs first. I won't be long. "

  Upstairs probably meant Inisso's chamber. "Tomorrow!" she insisted. How oddly Gath had reacted to that word!

  "I won't sleep. It won't take long. Just a quick look. "

  "I'll come with you," she said.

  "No."

  "Yes!" Fauns were not the only stubborn people in Pandemia.

  "One real word and three ghost words, you said once. Rap, how much of a sorcerer are you now, anyway? "

  "Large sparrow size. Don't worry! I shan't do anything to attract attention. "

  "Then what?"

  He sighed. "I'm going to come out of my mundane shell and take a peek with premonition, that's all. A two-minute sorcery, very unobtrusive. "

  "Those comets? Do they mean anything?"

  "That's one of the things I want to discover. I should have done this months ago. If I'd known about Shandie . . ." He stood up. "You going to sit there and freeze, woman?"

  The only reason to go all the way up Inisso's Tower would be to escape the occult shield that enclosed the castle. That one topmost room was excluded.

  "I have never seen my husband use sorcery," she said whenever the subject became unavoidable, which was rarely. The words were true only so far as they went. She had seen Rap use sorcery, but not since they were married. She had enjoyed miraculously easy births for her children and guessed why. He did not like to discuss the matter, so she never did.

  Bearing lanterns and swathed in thick white furs, king and queen made the long climb up the curving stairs within the walls. Their breath smoked. The stones still held some of the summer sun, the killer cold of midwinter had not arrived, and yet the rooms were already chill. The tower was unused now, the first two or three chambers cluttered with things put away until needed and then forgotten. Remembrance crouched in the shadows.

  Halfway up, they paused to catch their wind in the Withdrawing Room, which was especially infested with memories. Inos flopped down on a spindly-legged chair, the only one left of Aunt Kade's set. The others Rap had smashed on Darad's head or the jotnar had burned.

  "I forgot to ask," she puffed, "just what I was coming up here to do."

  Rap had perched on the arm of the sofa. "It was your idea! Just to applaud, is all. "

  "You're going to send a message to Hub?"

  "Gods, no!"

  His vehemence surprised her and confirmed her worries.

  The Chamber of Puissance was stark and bare, a circle of bare floor broken only by the royal treasure chest. Most of the gold Rap had made for it ages ago was still in there. She wondered if he could make gold now.

  Three arched windows looked out on the storm, and they were caked with snow. The fourth opening had once held a magic casement, but long ago a certain faunish sorcerer had converted that into a magic portal, an arcane way out of the kingdom. Kade was dead, Hononin was dead. Only three people knew of this state secret at the top of Inisso's Tower.

  "Well, get on with it!" she said.

  Rap laid down his lantern. Then he just stood. No lightning, no flames? What a very dull sorcery! Starting to shiver, she moved closer. Just once, very briefly, she had been a sorceress in this chamber, with the town all spread out below her, every room, every cranny. She had spoken with Rap from here, as he rode away out of her life forever ...

  Suddenly he yelled, and his knees buckled. She threw her arms around him to steady him, both of them made clumsy by their enveloping furs.

  "No!" he cried, staggering. "No! No! No!"

  "What's wrong? Rap! What's wrong?"

  Little more than his eyes showed, but those were enough. Even when he had found his footing, she could feel him trembling.

  "Bad!" he said. "Terrible! Oh, my love! Danger! Terrible danger. " He clung to her. His voice held a note she had never heard in it before. He was frightened. Rap was?

  "Tell me!"

  "I can't ... can't put it into words! It's too big! Something awful looming. Disaster, everywhere, to everyone!"

  "Rap! Explain!" What in the Powers' Names could frighten Rap so badly? Anyone else, maybe, but Rap?

  "Remember this morning? How the sky grew blacker and blacker? It's like that. It's evil, Inos! Pure Evil!"

  "All things include both the Evil and the Good, " she said automatically.

  "Not this! This is just evil." His voice cracked. "It fouls the future like a dungheap! "

  "Whose future?"

  He shuddered. "Mine. And yours. And Krasnegar's. Oh, Gods! It threatens everything! Inos, I've been a fool, fool, fool! "

  "No!"

  "Yes! An idiot, hiding inside my safe little shell, playing at being a mundane-I thought I had time. The God said I had time! I thought we had another year left in the millennium. "

  "You had duties here," she said firmly. "The town needed you when the causeway was washed out. And what can you do anyway? Is it your job to save the world?"

  She knew the answer before he said it.

  "Ye
s."

  "What?"

  "To try. Gods, Inos! It's everyone's duty to fight thiswhatever it is. F can't see ahead very far, but ... Darling, I must go! I must!"

  "Go where?"

  "'Ib Hub! I must talk with Shandie, maybe Sagorn. Maybe even the wardens."

  "Your duty is here!" she shouted. She released him and stepped back so she could see his face in the glimmer of the lanterns. "You have a wife and children and a kingdom . . . " Aghast, she stopped. "No?"

  "I think this is bigger than even those, my darling. If the whole world is threatened? I must go! "

  With no more explanation than that? Racing off on some harebrained half-baked scheme to save the world? "Rap! You-"

  "Stop!" he shouted, suddenly backing away, raising fur-thick arms as if to defend himself from attack. "Don't start throwing orders at me, darling! "

  "Rap? What's gotten into you? You-"

  "If you start ordering me around, then I can't resist! I put that royal glamor on you when I had a lot more power than I have now."

  She hadn't realized. That was almost funny. But it would not be at all funny if she gave Rap an order and his own magic compelled him to obey her against his will. There would go their marriage.

  He spoke more calmly. "I must go. I do go, dear. Now, tonight! "

  "You promised-" She remembered Gath. "This is what Gath sensed about tomorrow! Do very bad events cast very long shadows, Rap?"

  "Could be. "

  "You're breaking your promise to the children. That's going to seem a very big disaster to them. "

  Did Gath's premonition make this argument pointless? Arguing with Rap was always pointless.

  "Explain to them," he said. "No, don't. Tell them whatever you can, and that I love them. Inos, I'm doing this for them, too! And for you."

  "Then you'd better explain tome first. You're exhausted. You haven't slept a full night in weeks. After a thousand years, what can be so urgent that another day or two will hurt?"