A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  The captain soon began to fret about the weather, for the season was late. He was also appalled to discover that his altercation with the king had been even more dangerous than he had realized, for the king was a sorcerer. So said all the locals he talked with in the saloons. He rarely used his power, they whispered, but there was no doubt that he was a great sorcerer.

  The throne belonged to Queen Inosolan. Her father Holindarn had been king before her, and she was descended from the legendary Warlock Inisso, founder of the dynasty. The present king had been merely a stableboy in the palace—that was why he hated to use the title. He also denied being a sorcerer, but everyone knew…

  That much was generally accepted, but thereafter the tales Efflio heard whispered in the dark and beery saloons were wildly divergent, all of them able to raise the few remaining hairs on his scalp. Transformations, disappearances, reappearances… The king was even identified with the mysterious faun sorcerer who had appeared in Hub many years ago and cured the imperor’s sickness, thus ending the Ythbane regency. The bizarre end of the notorious Thaïle Kalkor was mentioned, the death of the wicked Warlock Zinixo, and Queen Inosolan’s dramatic return from exile… Efflio listened and shivered and bought more ale to keep the tales coming. There were some talented raconteurs among the imps of Krasnegar.

  But he was a good man, the king, they would conclude at last. He was much admired for his hard work and his honesty, and for the sake of his beloved queen. The whole town worshipped the queen and wished her well. And if anyone had a problem, he knew he had only to buttonhole the king on the street, and help would be forthcoming. A good man. A good queen.

  A fine little town, Efflio concluded reluctantly. Apart from its Evil-begotten hills, of course.

  But he vowed to stay well away from the royal family.

  The royal family turned out to have other ideas. On Sea Beauty’s third morning in port, young Princess Kadie came strutting up the plank with her taciturn brother in tow. This time she was dressed more appropriately, in a fine fur-trimmed cloak and a sable hat too large for her. The weather was turning chilly. The skies lowered, and the wind smelled of snow.

  She marched over to the captain and curtseyed, almost losing her borrowed hat in the process.

  He bowed apprehensively.

  “Good morning, Captain.”

  “Good morning, your Highness.”

  “Gath has a letter for you.”

  The boy was also better dressed than before, in long pants and a shirt without rips in it. He wore no coat or hat, though, and his shirt was inside out. He solemnly handed Efflio an envelope.

  “Bow, dummy!” the princess said.

  The boy’s fair face reddened all the way to the roots of his spiky hair. He snatched back the envelope, bowed, and then thrust it at the captain again.

  “Idiot!” his sister muttered.

  The envelope contained an invitation to dine at the palace, inscribed in the queen’s own hand.

  Efflio gulped. This he did not want. “I shall write a reply, if you would be so kind as to wait?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Princess Kadie declared airily. “I’ll tell her you got it. I bid you farewell, then. Captain, until the shadows lengthen and the humble plowman wends homeward.”

  “No!” Efflio said hastily. “I can’t come!”

  The child drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much. Her green eyes flashed. “You dare refuse a royal summons, Captain?”

  Efflio gritted his teeth, aware that the first mate and the coxswain were listening and smirking. He resisted a suicidal craving to take a rope’s end to a certain royal backside.

  “I shall explain in my reply to her Majesty that my health prevents me from climbing hills, your Highness.”

  The girl pouted, obviously at a loss. There was a pause, and Efflio was just about to head to his cabin when the boy spoke up for the first time.

  “Mommy really does want to meet you, sir. I’m sure she will send a carriage.” His face was full of earnest appeal.

  Efflio could find no answer to that, except to accept.

  Only twice in his life had the captain ever ridden in a carriage. He had never once visited a palace, and castles were places to shun. Even if the king of this land dressed like a peasant and herded his own livestock, the queen was of genuine royal blood and would probably hold court in proper style. The captain had no idea of the correct way to behave around queens or the assorted nobility who might be going to appear, and he certainly did not own any form of suitable court dress.

  When the promised coach arrived just before sundown, therefore, he was almost relieved to see that it was a dusty, shabby old thing, its paintwork peeling and streaked with bird droppings.

  He quite enjoyed the bone-rattling ride up the winding, vertiginous hill—a single very long street, twisting continuously back and forth, curling itself almost vertical on the bends. Often the way was as cramped as an alley, squeezed between tight-packed houses, flanked by poky little stores whose narrow, many-paned windows seemed more designed to keep secrets than display wares.

  Eventually the carriage bounced and jangled up to the gates of the improbable castle, whose many sharp black towers pointed to the sky like a giant’s pencil set. There was one man-at-arms leaning on his pike there, but he was so engrossed in a chat with a couple of pretty maids that he probably failed to notice the arrival at all. Echoes rang noisily as the vehicle rumbled through a long archway, and then it came to a halt in an inner courtyard.

  No liveried and bewigged footmen appeared to greet the newcomer. After sitting expectantly for a moment, Efflio opened the door for himself and climbed down. The driver was attending to the horse. Several men and women were walking around-crossing the yard or going in and out of doors and up and down stairs—but they all seemed to have more important things on their minds than a visiting impish sailor. Some bore burdens as recognizable as laundry and trays of fresh pies.

  What sort of way was this to greet a guest?

  Then a treble voice said, “Hi.”

  Efflio turned to regard the young prince, Gath, cuddling a kitten and accompanied by a pack of inquisitive dogs. His shirt was right-way-out now.

  “Ah, your Highness,” the captain said. “Would you be so kind as to have her Majesty informed that I have arrived?”

  The boy studied him earnestly for a few minutes. Then he draped the kitten over his flaxen head like a hat and seemed to ponder the question further. Finally he said, “Why not go and tell her yourself?”

  “Because I don’t know where she is!”

  “Oh. She’s in the parlor. This way.”

  The visitor was led to the royal presence by his Royal Highness Prince Gath assisted by six royal dogs and wearing a royal kitten.

  7

  In moments, Efflio knew that Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar was the most remarkable woman he had ever met. He had already learned that her ancestors had been both imp and jotunn. He could not have guessed, for she was one of a kind; he had never seen anyone like her. Her features lacked jotunn angularity, yet they were not pudgy like an imp’s, and most impish women in their thirties were as plump as dumplings. Her coloring was unique—hair of a rich honey shade and eyes even greener than her daughter’s—but he suspected that her undeniable beauty came mostly from within. She had poise without arrogance; she spoke gently without leaving any doubt at all that she was ruler of the kingdom. She had summoned him, and yet she put him at ease and stole his heart with a smile of welcome that seemed completely genuine. She was also glowing with forthcoming motherhood.

  She apologized for the informality—avoiding formal functions during her confinement, she explained. She sat him down in a huge and comfortable chair beside a homely peat fire and inquired if he cared for mulled ale. The secret was to heat it with a red-hot poker, she explained, smiling, and demonstrated. He admitted that the result was the finest mulled ale he had tasted in years.

  The queen herself sat opposite and a
t times she played with a sketch pad. Mostly she just talked, drawing him out, listening intently as if everything he said fascinated her. As soon as she sensed that he had revealed everything he knew on one topic, she would switch easily to another. Her questions were shrewd and her range of interests enormous—seamanship, the current state of agriculture in the Impire, fashion, trade, and of course politics. Her attention was the most flattering experience he had known in years.

  Kadie swept in wearing a ballgown and her mother’s tiara again, and was firmly sent away. A younger jotunn girl named Eva appeared a couple of times to complain that Kadie was being beastly to her, utterly horrid, and the queen settled the matter each time with patient good humor. It was only much later that Efflio realized that the Gath boy had been sitting all the time in a corner, listening to the whole conversation without saying a word.

  The queen apologized for her husband’s absence—quite needlessly, had she only known… or perhaps she did. The king was on the mainland, inspecting the beehives, she explained. He had promised to return before the tide turned. Never would be too soon for Efflio.

  He had rarely met a woman who cared a spit for politics, but then he had never met a queen before. Fortunately he had some interest in the subject. He found himself telling her of the goblins’ raids and their defeat at the hands of the legions, of dwarf trouble in Dwanish and troll trouble in the Mosweeps—even the trolls seemed to be organizing these days, and who could ever have imagined that?—and especially of the djinns. He watched her nimble fingers and the play of shadows on her features until the light grew dim. The fire hissed and scented the room with its friendly smoke. At times he wondered about Impport, if the old place had changed much, and if he still had a daughter there, and whether she might even have a place near her hearth for an old retired sea captain.

  Eventually Inosolan laid away her sketch pad with a mutter of annoyance. She clasped her hands and stared a while at the fire. There was a frown showing on those gold-inlay eyebrows. Then she looked up and smiled at him sadly.

  “I know Bone Pass. It is a horrible place.”

  Zark and Krasnegar were about as far apart as it was possible to be in Pandemia.

  “Er, I expect it is worse now, m’lady.”

  “Of course!” She sighed. “Why must men behave like that? I knew the caliph quite well. A very remarkable man.”

  Now that was pushing things a bit too far…

  His face had given him away. She smiled mischievously. “I can be even more improbable. I was married to him!”

  Efflio wondered what color he had turned now and hoped it would not show in the dimness.

  She had turned her attention back to the smoldering peat. “The marriage was annulled by the imperor. In Hub, of course. Azak… he was only a sultan then. He went back to Zark, and I came on to Krasnegar. Later he proclaimed himself caliph and began his conquests. I have often wondered if the humiliation he suffered that night… More ale, Captain?”

  Efflio declined, sure that he had already indulged unwisely. “You have traveled widely, ma’am.”

  “Yes. My husband even more widely.” She frowned at the windows. “He is late. We shall have to eat without him if he does not come soon. I do hope he hasn’t missed the tide.”

  “They say…”

  The queen’s smile seemed to sharpen. “That he is a sorcerer? He always denies it.”

  “Er, yes.” That disposed of the subject without resolving much.

  “I have never witnessed my husband using sorcery!” Inosolan said with a royal finality that sent a sudden shiver down his back. Her eyes flashed green in the gloom.

  “I do not doubt you, ma’am!”

  “Good.” She relaxed to being just a beautiful woman again. “If he has missed the tide. Captain, then he has missed the tide. He won’t walk across the waves, I promise you. What is the news of Prince Shandie?”

  Efflio forked over his steaming brains. “I think I have told you everything I know, ma’am. He remains legate of the XIIth. Everyone thinks he should be a proconsul at least, but his grandfather…” This was not the Impire, so it was safe to say such things. “… his grandfather seems to be jealous of his success. He didn’t recall him to Hub for the jubilee.”

  The queen nodded. “He must be incredibly old. He was old when I knew him, seventeen years ago.”

  “Just turned ninety-two, ma’am.”

  “With anyone else,” she said thoughtfully, “one would assume that there was sorcery involved. But of course an imperor is exempt from sorcery by the Protocol.”

  Except that supposedly a sorcerer had been responsible for Emshandar’s miraculous recovery when he had been near death seventeen years ago. A faun sorcerer. Perhaps his cure had been more effective than intended? The captain shivered, wishing he had accepted another tankard of that excellent mulled ale.

  “Shandie will inherit soon enough,” the queen said, laying aside her sewing. “I hope that all these victories spell a period of peace ahead for the Impire.” She moved as if to rise, but there had been an odd note in her voice.

  “Why should they not, ma’am?”

  She hesitated. “There’s an odd superstition about the year 3000. You must have heard it?”

  “Old wives’ tales, ma’am!”

  She laughed. “And I am an old wife, so I can repeat them! All right, I know that wasn’t what you meant! But they bother me. I never cared much for history, but I know this much. The Protocol regulates the use of magic. It protects the Impire, and all of Pandemia also. We all need the Protocol!”

  “And twice it almost failed.”

  “Right. It broke down at the end of its first millennium, when the Third Dragon War broke out. Jiel restored it. A thousand years later it failed again, and there was the War of the Five Warlocks. That was when Thume became the Accursed Land and so on.”

  “There have always been wars, ma’am, and there always will be.”

  “But those were the worst, by far! Those were the only times that magic broke loose again like the Dark Times before Emine—dragons, and fire storms, and all the other horrors that sorcerers can inflict. And they seem to come every thousand years.”

  “Coincidence, surely?” the captain said uneasily. He had been hearing these stupid rumors for years, and he was astonished to hear them repeated by this apparently level-headed and practical lady.

  “Maybe,” she said softly.

  “But… ?”

  The queen bit her lip and turned her green eyes on the captain. “But my husband takes it all seriously! And that is not like him.”

  And her husband was a sorcerer!

  Wasn’t he?

  Youth comes back:

  Often I think of the beautiful town

  That is seated by the sea;

  Often in thought go up and down

  The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

  And my youth comes back to me.

  — Longfellow, My Lost Youth

  THREE

  Voices prophesying

  1

  The Battle of Bone Pass did not topple the Caliph as the imperor had predicted it would, but it shattered his power. By midsummer the legions had advanced beyond Charkab against token opposition and a torrent of loot was flowing back to Hub to finance the war.

  The XIIth was relieved then and withdrawn to its home base at Gaaze, in Qoble. Qoble was Impire. It was a strategic center from which forces could strike at Zark, or at the elves in Ilrane, or even at the merfolk of the Kerith Islands, although the Impire had never had much success fighting merfolk.

  The XIIth was happy to be home. Gaaze was where the men had their wives, their mistresses, and their children. Here they dwelt in permanent barracks instead of insect-ridden tents. Here they could heal and restore their numbers and train for the next conflict.

  Ylo yearned for Hub, but he preferred Gaaze to battlefields. He welcomed the civilized surroundings, the superb climate, the luxurious quarters. The women of Qoble were imps
, not djinns. They wore pretty dresses instead of black shrouds. They were more visible and much more accessible.

  In Gaaze Shandie was still legate of the XIIth, but he was also the prince imperial. Rich citizens fawned over him, inviting him to an unending glitter of parties and balls. He declined whenever he could, but duty required him to attend many, and his signifer was always at his side. The blushing debutantes were presented and when they rose from their curtseys, their eyes would invariably fell on the prince’s companion, the handsome one in the romantic wolfskin cape that was the badge of a hero. Ylo enjoyed Gaaze. Gaaze was good to Ylo.

  The year of victories was drawing to a close. In far-off Hub the weather would be turning foul and the days short, in Qoble the sun still shone ferociously.

  Early one morning Ylo was at his desk as he always was early in the morning. He sat by the door and the big room was filled with the bowed heads of scriveners, copying out letters and reports in busy silence. There were twenty of them, and they were only a small part of the huge staff he commanded. At his back was the door to the prince’s private study. He had a clear view of the antechamber, which was already starting to fill up with hopeful petitioners.

  He had become an important person. Shandie’s day would be filled with visitors and documents, but Ylo would choose who or what came first. He was the legate’s right hand, his sword and his shield. He worked hard and loyally. Old dreams of murdering the heir to the throne were nothing now but nightmares to raise a sweat in the dark. He had fallen completely under Shandie’s spell. He knew it and cared not at all.

  When the imperor died and a new imperor sat upon the Opal Throne, then his signifer would be at his side and the fortunes of the Yllipo clan would be restored. Shandie had promised.