by Dave Duncan
He himself was, or from somewhere close to it. Perhaps it was merely his accent jangling her alarms, and yet she had heard tones like that often enough at Kinvale.
“Not by a long way.”
“You have traveled far, then?” A small frown showed that the soldier’s carnal inspection had become tinged with more intellectual interest. He was wondering what she was, as she did not quite fit any of the standard races. Golden hair meant either elf or jotunn in the family tree—plus what? What she was would be defined by her homeland.
“Oh, very far!” Inos said. “So far that—much as I regret to say so—we had never heard of Ullacarn where I come from.” A gentleman dandy might have prolonged the verbal sparring; a soldier went straight to the point. “And where is that?” Again his voice rasped a nerve. It was not the voice of a common swordbanger, she decided. He spoke like an upper-class Hubban. But rich families’ sons were not thrown in with the common herd to work their way up through the ranks.
“I’m sure you won’t ever have heard of it,” Inos said, with her best two-sugar-lump simper. “A faraway kingdom called Krasnegar? It—”
Centurion Imopopi dropped his smile. Color flooded his face, giving it a hard, dangerous look. He paced forward menacingly, ostentatiously replacing his helmet. “Whatever rumors you may have heard, miss, were malicious falsehoods. When we apprehend persons spreading such slanders, we deal with them in appropriate fashion.”
Despite herself, Inos backed up a step. The centurion followed her, dark eyes blazing. “The men are flogged for acting against the public good. Women are punished as common scolds. Is that not fair?”
She was off balance. She was taken by surprise. It was too soon after the pixies, and this man was potentially just as dangerous, albeit in other ways. He could tie her behind his horse and drag her to the jail if he chose. Skarash had warned her, and obviously an Imperial legionary on street duty was not the same thing as a tribune or a proconsul sipping tea in a Kinvale parlor. Suddenly she thought of pixies again, and began to shake again, and could find absolutely nothing to say. Her mouth was too dry to say anything, anyway.
“On the second offense we tear out their tongues.”
Inos tried to say, “But, Centurion,” and produced a croak. She backed another step.
The collapse of her conversational efforts had been amusing Elkarath, but now he came to her rescue. “Centurion, I think there must be a misunderstanding. I’m sure that Mistress Hathark intended no harm to the public good. She meant no slight to the imperor or his army. Indeed, I think that you may have misheard her. She hails from a small island state named Har Nogar, located near Uthle.”
Centurion Imopopi kept his glittering gaze on Inos. “Did you say ‘Har Nogar,’ mistress?”
Inos nodded vigorously. Elkarath’s hand moved to a row of leather bags, and closed on one of them with a faint clink that caught the centurion’s attention at once.
“Mistress Hathark and her aunt will likely wish to see something of the town today,” the mage remarked innocently. “Possibly visit the markets. I wonder, as she is a stranger here, whether an escort might be advisable?” The bag moved a handsbreadth closer to the legionary.
His anger faded as reluctantly as a summer sunset. “We brook no trouble on the streets in Ullacarn, but I can understand how well-born ladies feel happier with personal protection. I shall gladly assign some men to escort them.”
The bag moved the rest of the way and clinked again as it was removed by a strong military hand. Imopopi turned back to Inos. “Enjoy your visit, ma’am. Don’t believe everything you hear. And certainly don’t repeat it.” With a final glare of warning, he saluted, spun around, and stamped away as if he were patrolling a siege line.
Inos was left quivering, wishing she had a chair. Aghast at her own timidity—and appalled at the thought that her experience with the pixies might have broken her nerve forever—she leaned both hands on the table. “What provoked that?” she shrilled.
Elkarath shrugged. “Ullacarn is a snakepit of rumors. Obviously you stepped on one of them.”
“Krasnegar? An Imperial defeat at Krasnegar?”
“That would seem to be likely. Did you hear anything, Skarash?”
Skarash stroked imaginary lint from an immaculate lace cuff. “Not much, Grandsire, only that a legion was jumped by goblins while returning from a courtesy visit to a flyspeck place no one had ever heard of before. Courtesy visit? I like that a lot! Half the men were cut to pieces, or worse. There is talk of prisoners enjoying traditional goblin hospitality. Nothing more than that.”
His uncle nodded and looked in the general direction of Inos. “Avoid the subject when talking to soldiers, I suggest.” He reached for a massive ledger, ancient and tattered.
“Obviously. It wasn’t a full legion, though,”
“Almost half of one. Rumors always exaggerate. Certainly bad enough. And defeat by goblins . . .” He opened the book, but Inos thought he was chuckling silently. “No wonder the bronze bullies don’t like to discuss it.”
Her head was spinning. Four cohorts savaged by goblins? The forestfolk had always been treacherous, but never warlike. Now the warlock of the east had suffered a shattering blow. Where did that leave her? Would he seek revenge on the goblins? Had the legionaries been driven out of Krasnegar by Kalkor and his jotnar, or had they fled voluntarily?
And there was another matter”I am truly going on to Hub?”
The old man nodded, dipping his quill in a silver inkwell. “Her Majesty has so decreed.”
“So! So I’ve been sold? She’s made her deal with Olybino, and now all that remains is to deliver the goods?”
“Not at all. You are still her Majesty’s guest. Enjoy, your stay in Ullacarn, it will be brief.”
His eyes! She wanted to see his eyes!
“I can’t imagine why she would be sending me to Hub, then!”
“I didn’t question. But if you can’t, then perhaps others may be less likely to?” The old man’s voice had sharpened half a tone, but he placidly ran a finger up a page as if counting.
“You mean I was hidden in the desert, and now I’m going to be hidden on the road to Hub . . . least likely place to look? And when the contract is finally signed, I’ll be—”
“Draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile I have work to do.”
“And Azak? Is he going back to Arakkaran, or coming with me, or will you leave him rotting—”
“He goes with you.” The plump finger stopped on the numbers, but the old man did not look up. “Your cabins are reserved on Dawn Pearl, which sails in three days. It was to Hub you were headed, was it not? Well, to Hub you are going.”
“I wish to see him!”
“Of course. By all means. Just one friend calling on another, I assume? Skarash will take you.” Elkarath reached into the folds of his scarlet robe, then dropped a rusty key on the table. “You may give him this.”
“No parole?”
He sighed crossly. “None at all. You will find no better ship than Dawn Pearl, and certainly none leaving sooner. Begone!” Confused and suspicious, Inos watched Skarash take up the key, and then allowed him to usher her back to the steps. A horde of clerks and menials took this as their chance to rush forward and consult the merchant. Inos was left to ponder her fate. Why should Rasha send her to Hub? Stranger yet, why should she send Azak? It might be all a deception.
She, at least, was going to have a military escort, which would not make escape any easier. Had Elkarath deliberately arranged the little scene with the angry centurion?
There had been something odd—something very odd—about Imopopi. Just thinking of him gave Inos crawly feelings. She needed to talk with Azak. Him, at least, she could trust.
2
“Odd people, elves,” Ishist said, and his voice echoed away into the black hollow ahead.
There was a sinister note in that remark, somehow. Or perhaps it was just that Rap was feeling jumpy, marching through the bowels
of the earth with a sorcerer.
“They live a long time?” he said hastily, unable to think of any comment more intelligent.
“They don’t, actually. They just don’t show their age like other people.”
The oppressive silence returned, broken only by the gentle pad of footsteps and the whispered swish of long robes. Nothing but sorcery could have carved a tunnel so smooth and regular, and so astonishingly long. “Thraine’s Wormhole,” the gnome had called it, with a private chuckle at some obscure historical joke. It sloped downward, never steeply and sometimes almost imperceptibly; but it held a steady bearing just west of north as if bored by a homing bee. It was dry and empty and musty-smelling; he had mentioned earlier that decades might pass without it being used. It was understandably dark and quiet.
“Odd people,” he repeated. He walked boldly into the blackness with Rap at his side. A spectral glow at their heels provided light for Gathmor and Darad, who were following closely, and the dark closed in behind. The light was faintly pink, had no detectable source, cast no shadows.
Ishist had sent Sagorn away. Apparently he preferred Darad to any of the others, perhaps because he did not put on airs. Darad was just a brutal killer, and proud of it.
“Odd in what way?” Rap asked then.
“All sorts of ways, lad. What they’ll tell you is that every elf belongs to a clan, and owes all his loyalty to his clan. Each clan owns a tree, or the tree owns them, maybe. And each clan has a chief. Sound simple?”
“No. Sky trees?” Rap’s deeper voice echoed even more than the gnome’s. He could not detect the surface now. A whole mountain seemed to lie above, pressing down relentlessly.
“Of course.” Ishist was barefoot; the others were shod in elven boots of leather soft as gossamer. Their tread was spookily soft.
“And it’s more complicated?” Rap asked, sending rumbles down the long tube.
“Nothing is ever simple around elves. It doesn’t help that they never tell nonelves anything. Clans have alliances and feuds, which they don’t talk about, which seem to come and go like the tide. There are subclans and overclans. A clan may have more than one tree, and more than one clan may have rights in one tree. Any clan may have more than one chief—a chief for justice, a chief for wisdom, a chief for war, a chief for law . . . Gods know how they’re chosen or how it all works, if it does.” He fell silent for a few paces, then added, ”But historically the elves have held off the imps better than almost anyone, except the dwarves, so I suppose it must work after a fashion.”
“Anthropophagi?”
“Ah, yes. I’d forgotten the anthropophagi—I wonder how many imps they manage to eat in an average year? The merfolk have their little ways, too. Anyway, that’s elves. If there’s a complicated way to do something, an elf will find it; especially if it looks pretty or sounds good. The clan’s the important thing. Even if an elf’s family’s lived within the Impire for generations, he’ll still regard himself as belonging to one particular clan, one especial tree, although most clans control several trees. He may well have other, personal loyalties and allegiances within his clan.”
Rap wondered why he was being given the lecture, but he supposed he would find out soon enough—either the little gnome would come to the point, or events would. He blinked a few times, before realizing that the speck in his eye was actually a gleam of light a long way ahead. His farsight told him that the hillside above was back within his range, and dropping steeply.
“This comes out not far from the fence,” Ishist said, changing the subject. “About a league. And about another league beyond that is the imperial highway from Puldarn to Noom. Straight as an arrow. Imps have no sense of artistry at all. So the elves say.”
“It must be a very busy highway.” Rap was not experienced with crowds on the scale of the Impire. The thought of big cities made him nervous.
“Lords, yes! All the traffic between the Dragon Sea and Home Water goes along it. It ought to be farther from the fence. My pets sense the metal going by and howl like dogs. They go mad when the annual tax train passes. You taking your two friends with you?”
“Er . . . their decision.”
“I think you should.”
“But one of them has a word of power, and Warlock Lith—”
“True, but he can get that one out of you anyway,” Ishist said callously. “If he has to damage someone, I suspect his sense of artistry would be more impressed by a well-matched sequential set than an oversize faun with goblin tattoos.”
That sounded like a threat. Despite the gnome’s apparent friendliness, he was dangerous; very dangerous and very unpredictable. His comically disgusting appearance concealed not only great occult power, but also a mind of deadly sharpness. His ways of thinking were as alien as the dragons’. Rap could not imagine what many years of tending those monsters might do to a man, and he did not know how a gnome would have thought in the first place. Who ever talked with gnomes to find out?
The speck was a visible circle of light now. The air felt damper, and cooler.
“They can come with me if they wish—or not, if they wish,” Rap said stubbornly. Then he realized that Ishist could just change his friends’ minds if he thought it a good idea. With sorcerers, as with elves, nothing was ever simple.
The tunnel ended abruptly in a small natural cave. Weeping gray sky and wet greenery were framed in the entrance arch, its ragged edges blurred by moss and fern. A steady vertical rain was soaking the hills as if willing to do so for weeks, hissing on rocks and mud, drumming on leaves. The four men stood under the lip of the cavern and peered out. Water dribbled and splashed everywhere, even dripping from the roof.
Gathmor uttered a long sigh of satisfaction. “Glad to see daylight,” he muttered. “Don’t like caves.”
Darad grunted agreement, and Rap wondered if dislike of caves was a jotunn characteristic. He did not care for them either.
Ishist looked up at Gathmor. “West on the highway’ll take you to Puldarn. If you’re heading home, that is.”
The sailor gnawed his silver mustache for a moment, then spoke to Rap over the gnome’s head. “You meet Kalkor again?”
“That’s the prophecy.”
His pale eyes narrowed icily. “I’ll stay aboard, then.”
“Thanks, Cap’n.”
“East to Noom,” the sorcerer said. “First Tithro, then Noom. There you choose—overland to Hub, or sail to Ilrane. Valdorian’s in the west, near the coast, which is handy for you.” Ilrane!
Eastward? Closer to Zark? No, that wasn’t it . . .
Rap realized that the sorcerer was eyeing him with a very curious expression. ”Sir?”
“You having a premonition?” asked the gnome, scratching busily.
“I’m not sure.” The idea of going to Ilrane had certainly stirred something in Rap, something encouraging. He remembered he’d felt a twinge when Ishist had first suggested a visit to Lith’rian. He’d even felt traces of . . . whatever it was . . . when he arrived at Warth Redoubt. And whatever it was, it seemed to be getting stronger every time. Was that practice?
Ishist still wore a puzzled pout. “Adepts don’t usually . . . O’ course, geniuses don’t usually have farsight . . . New, is it?” Rap nodded uneasily. ”My mother was said to be a seer.” The gnome shrugged. “Possible, then. Fauns have a reputation for trusting their own feelings, don’t they?” He chuckled to himself. “And I’m not doing it to you. You’ll find it rarely comes to order, but when it does you can trust it. Now, which is it to be? Hub or Ilrane?”
“How far?” Rap asked.
The gnome closed his eyes for a moment, as if consulting a mental map; perhaps he was farseeing a real chart. “A bit over four hundred leagues in either case.”
“Water’s faster!” Gathmor said quickly, and even Darad nodded as he struggled to keep up with the conversation.
“Not if you catch a ride on a stage,” Ishist said.
Ilrane still felt right. Rap could walk ten leag
ues a day, maybe more on an Imperial highway. That was still more than a month to Hub, even if nothing went wrong. Water was faster and safer. “How do I get on a ship, though?”
“Steal a boat,” Gathmor said impatiently.
“Then its owner may starve, and his children, too.”
The jotunn grimaced at such sissy sentimentality. “Thinal?” Darad said triumphantly.
“I suppose so,” Rap said sadly. If Thinal was willing to help, then he could steal the price of a ticket in Noom as easily as he had done the same thing for Andor in Milflor. Come to think of it, Rap probably could do those sorts of things himself now. He would just have to hope that whoever was chosen to support the cause could afford the honor.
The gnome was watching, scratching things out of his beard, and leering.
“What do you advise, Ishist?” Rap asked, trying to feel trusting.
“Oh, sea! Your biggest problem isn’t getting there, wherever you go. You need to worry more about getting in to meet Lith’rian. An audience with the Imperor might be easier to arrange than a private chat with a warlock.”
“If I used my powers right outside his gates? He’d sense me just like you did when I sent the dragon away.”
“The guards will be votaries. They’ll turn you to stone before you can blink.”
Rap gulped.
“Besides,” Ishist added, “Hub’s dangerous. Other wardens, and would-be wardens. You’ll be safest to stay in South’s sector.”
“Advise me, please,” Rap said, as he was expected to.
“There’s one sure way. Would only work for an elf, though.”
“Yes?” Rap said cautiously. He distrusted a sorcerer’s sense of humor on principle, and Ishist’s in particular.
“I’d have to make you look elvish. It would be a low-power sorcery. It won’t fool Lith’rian, of course, if you get to him; or any other full sorcerer. But otherwise you should pass.”
“And?”
“And you can get taken right to Lith’rian.” The old man chuckled. ”Express.”
Rap watched his own cheeks redden under the challengehis new reversible farsight could be a disconcerting ability. “That’s the fastest way?”
