by Dave Duncan
“If you refer to your celebrated chicken dumplings,” Sagorn said quickly, “then I testify to your expertise.”
Shandie made some tactful, noncommittal comment. Ylo noted traces of amusement on the faces of Sir Acopulo and the Jarga woman. The alternative would be another meal conjured up by the warlock, and dwarvish cuisine was notably lacking in both flavor and quantity. At noon Raspnex had produced meager portions of watery gruel and hard black bread.
If the little man detected the implications, he gave no sign. He was slumped back in the shabbiest armchair, which was so much too large for him that his oversize boots barely hung out over the edge. He seemed to be lost in thought, making raspy noises as he scratched at his curly gray beard.
The six men were grouped in an irregular circle in the deckhouse. The sailor sat back by herself in a corner, showing no evidence that she had stood watch for almost a whole day and night. She was a sorceress, of course. Ylo wondered what sort of meal a jotunn would favor. He decided that the portions would be generous, but her taste would likely run to some sort of disgusting boiled fish or seal flipper soup.
Darkness had brought a change in the weather. The ship rocked at anchor, and sleet pattered on the deckhouse roof. Mundane sailors could not travel in such weather, and the sorcerers had decided not to risk drawing attention to themselves by doing so.
King Rap had observed the reaction to his offer. Smiling wryly, he rose and walked over to a table, balancing easily against the roll of the floor. “How about a little wine first?” He picked up a dusty flagon that had not been there a moment before, and pried off the seal. Then he began to pour, and each time he tilted the flagon, a crystal goblet appeared to catch the flow.
He began handing the drinks around. Only the dwarf declined, being suddenly in possession of a foaming tankard of beer, which would be more to his taste.
Ylo decided that sorcery was handy stuff. The saloon was sleepily warm, and bright with an occult light that had no detectable source. When he had gone out on deck a few moments earlier, he had discovered that the light did not show out there at all. Now he accepted a goblet of wine, reflecting that he had never before been served by a king.
“Excellent, sire. Valdolaine?”
“Valdopol, the seventy-two,” the faun solemnly said. He tried a sip from his own goblet and pulled a face. “No, it tastes more like the ninety-four.”
“I would have sworn it was Valdoquoon sixty-seven,” Doctor Sagorn stated firmly.
The sorcerer picked up the bottle again and peered at it. “By the Power of Evil, you are absolutely correct! Now, how could I have made such a mistake?” Shaking his head sadly, he headed back to his chair.
Ylo had already registered that the king of Krasnegar had a sense of humor. He wondered why the ancient scholar would join in the foolery. He could hardly be such a complete ignoramus about wine, for the excellent vintage the faun had produced tasted nothing at all like sickly sweet Valdoquoon. But then the old man was a mystery all around. Why was he still here? Why had he not gone ashore with Eshiala and her companions? He was much too frail for the kind of wild adventuring that must lie ahead.
“Too much wine means too little sense,” Acopulo remarked in his usual sanctimonious tones. “I assume we are about to hold another council of war?”
“I assume the same,” King Rap said, stretching out his long legs — jotunn legs, not faun legs. “If anyone knows the answer, will he please speak up clearly?” He raised expectant eyebrows at the little man.
Acopulo declined the honor with a pout. He had been very subdued ever since he learned that Sagorn was an occult genius. He was outclassed and would not be enjoying the situation.
Ylo himself had no illusions of being a tactician. He looked around the rest of the group. This expedition was beginning to feel like one of those elimination games children played. Thirteen had escaped from the Covin. Lord Umpily had gone first. Now another five. And then there were seven.
King Rap’s question remained unanswered. He quirked a sad smile and asked another. “The problem is to recruit sorcerers to our cause. How do we spread the word of our new protocol? No suggestions?”
The dwarf scowled at him under his bushy gray brows. “You could issue a proclamation.”
“Thank you, not today!” the king said hastily. “And if you plan to, please give me warning.”
The warlock bared quartz-pebble teeth in refusal and took a long draft of ale.
The two scholars perked up.
“Proclamation?” Sagorn asked, ice-blue eyes gleaming.
The faun chuckled and seemed to sink back deeper in his chair. “When one of the Four dies, how do you suppose the others find a replacement?”
Even Shandie roused from his reverie to look interested. Acopulo and Sagorn exchanged glances.
“Promote a votary?” the jotunn suggested, but his craggy face showed that he expected to be corrected.
“Sometimes,” the king admitted. “But it’s not a popular solution, as you can guess — wardens tend to look down on sorcerers who get trapped that way. And sometimes there is no vacancy to fill, as when Zinixo overthrew Ag-an. Usually the remaining three issue a proclamation; they call for volunteers. Then the in-fighting starts! It’s quite simple. In mundane terms, if you want to spread news you slip a groat to the town crier, right? And he shouts the word all around. Same principle.”
He frowned, rubbed his forehead, and took a drink.
“You mean you could just, er, shout?” Shandie said disbelievingly. “And all the sorcerers in the world would hear you?”
“I’m not strong enough. Three wardens together can cover all of Pandemia. Raspnex alone might do most of it, at least as far as the stronger listeners were concerned.”
Everyone looked to the dwarf, who pulled a truly gruesome dwarvish scowl. “And the Covin would be on me like a cat on a rat.”
“Ah!” Shandie nodded sadly. Of course there had to be a catch.
The sailor wench spoke up from her corner. “If he had some other sorcerers to protect him, he could probably survive long enough to pass the message.”
Raspnex turned his big head to glower at her. “If you can’t make sense, stay silent. Suicide is an offence to the Gods! I don’t plan to try it and I certainly wouldn’t ask you to.”
The big woman flinched at the reprimand and looked away.
The warlock was not being very consistent. The previous night he had sacrificed several votaries in making his escape. No one seemed inclined to comment, though, least of all Ylo.
Then the faun said, “It would solve all your problems, but I can’t see that a proclamation would work. You might get out a word or two, but the Covin would blast you before you got farther than that. It would need an army to protect you, and an army is what we don’t have. Pity.”
When the big man spoke like that, there seemed nothing more to say.
The wind must be rising. The ship was pitching harder, and the creaking noises were growing louder. A vessel with three sorcerers abroad should safe enough, shouldn’t it? The king of Krasnegar caught Ylo’s eye and raised an empty glass meaningfully. Ylo rose and fetched the bottle. To his surprise, it was full. He went unsteadily around the group, refilling goblets, and it was still full when he laid it down. He wondered if he could ask for it, to keep as a souvenir.
Shandie stirred, preparing for business. “I like your new protocol, Rap. I like it a lot.”
“Yours, sire.”
“No, yours. Even if we did not have Zinixo to worry about, it would be an improvement on the old one. If I could ascend my throne tonight, I should summon the wardens and urge them to adopt it. It would make a better world!”
The faun smiled bashfully. “Yes, I think it would. As the countess pointed out, sorcery could become a force for good.”
“The key to it is the ban on votarism, of course,” Shandie said. “Do you suppose such a reform has been suggested in the past?”
“And rejected?”
<
br /> “Yes.”
“Probably.” Rap chuckled. “Then if we can pull this off, Zinixo will have done us all a favor!”
Everyone was carefully ignoring Raspnex.
“Good frequently comes from evil,” Acopulo remarked primly.
“I know Olybino fairly well,” Shandie said, “as much as a mundane can ever know a warlock. He would not willingly give up his occult minions, I am sure. Under your new order, he would soon be demoted by a stronger sorcerer.”
“That’s better than what Zinixo might do to him.”
The imperor murmured agreement. “But the new protocol will do no good unless the sorcerous can learn of it, and I know of no sorcerers except yourself and the wardens.”
The faun sipped his wine thoughtfully. “The wardens are important. They have votaries to form the basis of an army, but we also need their authority and support. We have your signature on the new protocol, and Raspnex’s. We must try to collect the other three also. They will give us authority, and credibility. Lord Umpily will get word to Lith’rian if anyone can. Your Omnipotence, have you any idea at all where Olybino has gone?”
The dwarf grunted and shook his head. “Not a clue. He may well be dead.”
“Why do you say that?” Sagorn demanded. The old scholar had chosen a high, hard chair, which stressed his height. He had been following the conversation intently. With beak nose and scraggy neck, he resembled a hungry vulture looking down on a battle far below.
“Because he’s a very old man,” Raspnex said. “It’s sorcery lets sorcerers live so long.”
“Ah! And now he does not dare use his power lest he give himself away?” The jotunn beamed fiercely and turned to the faun. “There is an advantage you overlooked, lad! The Covin is a threat to free sorcerers in a way we had not thought of!”
The faun nodded, but with a quiet smile that hinted he had already seen the possibility. “And what of Witch Grunth?”
The warlock shrugged his big shoulders. “She probably went back to the Mosweeps.”
King Rap sighed. “So one of us will have to go there.”
No one made any encouraging noises. Ylo drained his goblet. If anyone tried to volunteer him for such a mission, he would desert at once — defection beyond the call of duty! Of course a troll would go to the Mosweeps to hide. Trolls were not exactly inconspicuous people. But to find anyone in that soggy, impenetrable jungle would be impossible, and trolls were the most solitary of races, with no social organization at all.
“There is another reason to look for sorcery in South Pithmot,” Acopulo said, smirking as he did when he thought he was being clever. “Someone has been freeing slaves there.”
“Slaves?” The faun raised an eyebrow. “In the Impire?”
Shandie grimaced. “Not officially. My great-grandmother abolished slavery a hundred years ago, but the army has been flouting the law. It’s common knowledge that the army trades in trolls. That was going to be one of the first things I looked into… will look into. But for the last year or two, these so-called penal workers have been escaping with surprising frequency. Legionaries trying to track them down have been blocked. Someone has been using illicit sorcery in the Mosweeps.”
“Grunth?” The king looked to the dwarf.
“Naw.” The little man pulled the gruesome expression he used as a smile, and scratched at his beard again noisily. “She denied it. Said it was nothing to do with her, but it was in her quadrant and she wouldn’t let Olybino interfere.”
“Why didn’t he complain to the Four?” Shandie demanded.
“He did.”
“Grandsire told me he hadn’t heard from the Four in a couple of years… How did the vote go?”
“Well, Grunth voted against him, of course, and so did Yellowlegs. So he lost.” The dwarf’s pebbly eyes twinkled.
There was a pause. Shandie smiled. Then Sagorn. The others were catching on, one after the other…
The only politics Ylo knew was what he had picked up as a child from listening to his father, plus some tips he had gained from Shandie. Everyone else in the room was grinning by the time he worked it out. A dwarf would never willingly side with an elf, so when Lith’rian supported Grunth, Raspnex had just abstained. If he’d voted against them, the Four would have been evenly divided and the decision would have gone to the imperor. Had Emshandar still been capable of understanding, he would inevitably have supported the army. So Raspnex had let Grunth have her victory without actually backing the same side as the elf — typical occult politics.
“Well, that settles it,” King Rap said. “One of us must go to the Mosweeps. And probably go on to the Nogid Archipelago, too.”
Shandie looked disbelieving. “Why there?”
“Because the source of —” The faun winced and shook his head. “Can’t say. Because the Impire has never managed to subdue the anthropophagi. It hurts sorcerers to talk about sorcery, did you know that? Just take my word for it, the Nogids are a very likely place to find sorcerers.”
“You’ll get yourself eaten.”
“I’ll try not to. Which reminds me… is anyone ready for dinner, or shall we have some more of that rotgut wine?”
Ylo took the hint, and went to fetch the ever-lasting flagon and refill the goblets. He was a little more unsteady than the ship’s rolling justified. It was potent stuff.
“So we try to track down Grunth,” Shandie said. “You must have some more ideas than that?”
“The answer lies outside the Impire, I think,” Rap said. “It will be very hard for us to do much here without giving ourselves away. We shall have to start with the mundane authorities, you see, and ask them to spread the news. I can’t think of any alternative. That means the outlying races.”
Shandie laughed. “Nordland, for example?”
“Very much Nordland! Remember Kalkor?”
“Not well. I was only a kid, and in bad shape the day you killed him. You know that. But you mean you’re serious —”
“Kalkor liked to make out that he was only a humble raider, but he was a sorcerer. Yes, I’m serious! Words are assets and can be looted like other valuables — one at a time, of course. I’d bet there’s barrels of sorcery rolling around Nordland.”
“You think the thanes know of it?”
The half-jotunn king smiled his faunish smile. “They will deny it vehemently! Sorcery is sissy stuff! Sailors hate it. Nonetheless, I ’spect your average thane has a fair idea who within his domain has occult powers. That’s not important, though. All we need ask is that they spread the news. We’re not secret slave-hunters like the Covin. We’re publicly calling for volunteers, and there we have a huge advantage over Zinixo.”
“We’ll need it.” Obviously Shandie was not enthusiastic about Nordland. “I’d sooner argue with a pack of polar bears than a group of thanes.”
“Certainly. Anyone would. But for centuries the jotnar have enjoyed immunity to magic because of the Protocol. They won’t like the idea that Zinixo may now decide to enthrall them.”
“Could be an improvement. Will he?”
“If they annoy him, yes. He won’t feel safe until he rules the world. Not even then, of course, but that won’t stop him. Certainly we must get word to the thanes.”
Shandie frowned. “Jotnar? How about goblins?”
“Goblins. Djinns. Trolls.”
The frown became icy. “You make me feel like I’m rallying the outlanders against my own Impire!”
As if abashed, the faun ran fingers through his shaggy hair. “Sorry, but in a sense you have to. Zinixo holds the Impire now.”
Acopulo coughed. He was wearing his most priestly expression, Ylo noted. If Sagorn was a vulture reading the menu, the little man was a sparrow hopping around a stable yard in total disregard of the great hooves all around.
“Krasnegar, sire? The preflecting pool told you to go to Krasnegar. Wherever the rest of us go, that must be your destination.”
Shandie looked to the faun, who had not mov
ed from his sprawled position, but who suddenly seemed larger, and very threatening. For the first time Ylo saw the jotunn in him.
“The harbor will be frozen for half a year yet,” the imperor said. “I can’t hope to sneak across the whole width of the taiga without the goblins seeing me. Correct, Rap?”
“Correct!”
“So, Acopulo, how do I get to Krasnegar in midwinter?”
The scholar shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Perhaps you don’t, but you should strive to think on a larger time scale. This struggle may well go on for years! The War of the Five Warlocks lasted a generation.” He shot a sly glance at the faun. “The king got out. Can’t an imperor get in?”
King Rap thumped a fist on the arm of his chair. “The pool did not direct you to Krasnegar. It didn’t show you being there. It showed you my son. He’s your only, single reason for wanting to go to Krasnegar.”
The imperor nodded. “That’s how I understand it.”
“Name of Evil! He’s only just turned fourteen! Today’s his birthday.”
“My daughter has only just turned two.”
The two monarchs glared at each other. Perhaps they both knew that tragedy was inevitable. As soon as the preflecting pool had shown the boy’s face to the future imperor, the king’s son had been branded a participant.
“He won’t stay fourteen for long,” Shandie said harshly. “The Impire takes the big ones at sixteen. I’ve sent beardless boys into battle often enough and watched them become heroes, at least in their own eyes.”
“And seen them die?”
“Die like men, kill like men. Physically, Rap, there’s very little you can do that that son of yours can’t. Judgment and experience, yes, you’re his master there and always will be. In some things he’s yours already.”
Fauns were notoriously stubborn. This one was no longer the bantering humorist who had played jokes with magic wine bottles. He looked implacable and dangerous. “You stay away from my son!”
Shandie tried again. “This is Gath’s world we’re fighting for. Wars eat young men and die of starvation when they’ve eaten up all the young men. Gods save me, Rap, I didn’t choose your son! I didn’t choose this war! I didn’t even choose you. Now, do I have your consent to go to Krasnegar and talk with him?”
