A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Now Drakkor did look up, and he cocked a silver eyebrow. “What business?”

  “In view of my advancing years, I have decided to resign my ambassadorship.”

  The assembled Garkians murmured excitedly. Drakkor rose slowly to his feet, eyes gleaming.

  Kragthong’s shoulders slumped. “And my thanedom, also!”

  The flash of triumph on Drakkor’s boyish face seemed to light up the hall. “Your successor as thane of Spithfrith?”

  “My oldest son having declined the honor, I am minded to offer it to yourself, kinsman.”

  Whatever was said next was drowned out in the roar. Vork moaned and rose uncertainly to his knees.

  “Good luck!” Gath whispered, glad he was not in York’s breeches. Vork himself would be lucky if he managed to stay in them in the immediate future or sit in them afterward.

  Then Gath thought that he would be more than happy to pay that price if he could be reunited with his dad.

  Beaming, Drakkor filled a horn, passed it across to the ambassador, and filled another. He seemed about to offer a toast, and the excited tumult faded away. But the visitor had not raised the horn to his lips.

  “I believe I have a younger son around here somewhere?”

  “That is not impossible.” Drakkor’s eyes raked the hall, seeking that red hair.

  Vork tottered to his feet and stumbled forward through the seated groundlings until he reached his father. He hung his head and waited. Kragthong looked him up and down, checking for damage.

  Then he turned to his host. “A favor. Thane?”

  “Name it!”

  “I need borrow a whip for a couple of hours.”

  The onlookers bellowed with laughter as the two thanes drank. Then Drakkor vaulted over the table to embrace his former foe and the Garkians sprang to their feet to cheer in deafening clamor. The future of the world hung in the balance, Gath mused, and these ruffians were interested only in who ruled the middle of a barren little island.

  As he was about to rise, someone tapped his shoulder. He looked around and discovered the contorted figure of Twist sitting in an awkward heap behind him, showing all his angled teeth. Everyone else was standing now, so that the two of them were alone in a forest of legs.

  “There is a sorcerer in Raven Feast’s crew,” came the whisper.

  “With a votary spell on him?”

  The skald nodded, fog-gray eyes agleam. “Come.” He accepted help to stand, and he leaned heavily on his crutch as he hobbled toward the door. At times he could move faster than a cat, but he would give himself away if he used power in the presence of the Covin.

  In Dwanish Gath had been a giant. In Nordland he was a youth with promise. Unseen amid all the blond heads, he followed the cripple out. He had been feeling a little hurt that Kragthong had not inquired after his health as well as Vork’s, but that might be a good thing under the circumstances, and perhaps a deliberate precaution, for the fat man was much shrewder than he liked to pretend.

  Twist hurried toward his house with his wildly rocking gait, showing no desire to talk on the way. When he reached the cool dimness of the hovel, he flopped on his chair, panting. Gath went and sat on the chest wearily. Red-hot hammers thundered inside his head.

  “You are being a reckless, suicidal idiot!” the cripple gasped.

  “It’s the jotunn in me.”

  “My brother was right — no one normally takes passengers to the moot. Skalds, or priests, but not boys.”

  “There’s a law?”

  “No, but you don’t want to be attracting attention.”

  “I can row,” Gath said grimly. Three days to Nintor — it would kill him if the wind failed.

  “Fill the kettle.” The wood-ash eyes followed Gath as he rose and moved to obey. “For what you did today, he may maim you for life. Pray he uses his belt, not his fists. If I tell him to, though, he will take you to the moot. He may even leave you wearing half your hide. But I need a reason. What use are you, stripling, tell me?”

  Gath dropped the kettle and clutched his head to calm its echoes. “The stronger a sorcerer, the better his spells, right?” he said hoarsely.

  “Is correct.” The skald frowned suspiciously.

  “And the Covin is enormously powerful.”

  “Is also correct.”

  “Much stronger than just you alone, Atheling Twist.” Gath looked around blearily. “But you tell me there is a sorcerer spy among Raven Feast’s crew. How are you able to see the votary spell on him?”

  The skald’s fog-pale eyes glittered. He drew in breath with a hiss. “I am being meant to see this?”

  Gath felt a little better. “Maybe. Maybe there are decoy votaries — and also real votaries. Or else the Covin is strong enough to watch you from Hub and does not even need spies. Before you and your friends hold your secret moot, you will deal with the decoys? Then you will feel safe?”

  Twist fingered his tangle of teeth. “This is not honest thinking like a jotunn’s!” he said angrily. “This is sneaking!”

  “I’m not all jotunn. You said yourself I know a lot about sorcery. I know dwarves, too. They think they’re straightforward, but they’re canny — a dwarf’s first offer is never the final price.”

  That remark made the sorcerer look almost as nauseated as Gath felt. “I am sorry, Atheling. You just may be useful. But I want to know what you plan to do. I want to know what the Almighty’s trap is. And don’t try to lie to me.”

  Gath stooped to dip the kettle. His brain seemed to swell inside his head and he straightened up again. If he told everything he might be left behind anyway. But that did not really matter — his own feelings were not important. The snappish little sorcerer was being surprisingly scrupulous in not just pulling the thoughts out of his head regardless. All that really mattered was Dad’s war.

  “The trap is simple. Zinixo’s pulled back legions everywhere on the excuse of fighting the goblins. It won’t just be Urgaxox. Jotnar, gnomes, djinns — everyone’s going to attack. War everywhere. He’ll let the Impire bleed and let the wardens take the blame for not stopping it — ordinary people don’t know there aren’t any wardens anymore. You said yourself that only sorcerers know what’s been really happening.”

  “Ah! And then?”

  “Then he’ll step forward as the Almighty, smash the invaders, and declare the wardens overthrown.”

  Twist tutted angrily. “Of course! If I wasn’t a simpleminded jotunn I’d have seen that, too! But what do you think you can do about it? There is no way to stop the moot from launching a war, Atheling Gath! None! You must have heard the thanes who came here — they’re spitting blood already. The only argument left now is who shall be leader.”

  “The rules have changed, Twist. The Protocol is ended. No warden of the north protects the raiders now. They may win to start with, but then they’ll be massacred like the goblins.”

  The cripple thumped his crutch on the floor. “But I just told you! Nobody will listen to you or believe you. If they did believe you, they’d go anyway. They smell blood!”

  Gath saw his victory and grinned in glee, headache forgotten. “I don’t expect them to listen. Only the other moot, the secret moot. Forget the old songs, minstrel! They’ve trapped your mind in the old ways, and no matter who wins, those ways are gone forever! How many sorcerers will be there?”

  Twist made the clumsy movement that seemed as if his hump was shrugging. “Fifty, perhaps.”

  “A longship crew exactly.”

  “What?” The fog-pale eyes widened. “But we stay home and guard the thorps! Always!”

  “Not anymore! The rules have changed! This time the skalds go to battle — and we’d better get them there before the main army arrives!”

  Twist’s mouth hung open. Then he gulped. “Skalds? Priests? Women?”

  “The lot!” Gath yelled. “All the sorcerers in Nordland. As many as we can get, anyway. The enemy is the Covin, remember? You want the jotnar to suffer what happened t
o the goblins? You’re going to go to war, sonny. To help my dad.”

  Minstrel boy:

  The minstrel boy to the war is gone,

  In the ranks of death you’ll find him,

  His father’s sword he has girded on,

  And his wild harp slung behind him.

  Thomas Moore, The Minstrel Boy

  NINE

  Manly foe

  1

  On a muggy afternoon five days before midsummer. Rap emerged from the Way and strolled across the clearing toward Thaïle’s cottage. Before he reached the steps, the pixie came around the side of the house, carrying a bundle of washing. She advanced to meet him, so he stopped where he was and waited for her.

  As usual, she wore a long striped skirt and a white blouse; today it was sleeveless. She was barefoot. As usual, he found himself reacting in odd ways to her intent golden gaze. At times she seemed a striking young woman — beautiful, in fact. She wore her hair too short and her figure was almost boyish, but that was true of most of the pixies, for they were a gracile race. He could appreciate her womanhood. Then, suddenly, he would find himself thinking of her as a mere girl, less than half his age and barely older than his daughter. Not yet seventeen, Kadie had told him. But she had borne a child; she had suffered its death and the death of her lover. She was probably the most potent sorcerer he had ever met — Thaïle was an enigma, and he felt clumsy and unsure of himself in her presence.

  She dropped her bundle almost at his feet. “You are welcome to the Thaïle Place, goodman.” Her voice was musical, her expression solemn.

  He smiled and bowed. “I am Rap of the Inos Place, and I come in peace.”

  If she recognized his attempt at humor she ignored it. “Kadie is washing her hair.”

  “I think you are lying, Archon.”

  “Yes.” She knelt and began spreading clothes out on the grass, to dry in the summer sun.

  Rap sat down to watch. She was not hard to watch.

  “Well, this is a chance for us to speak without her.”

  “Yes.” Thaïle continued to deal with the washing. “Be patient. So many months of torment are not discarded easily.”

  “Is it just me, or all men?”

  “All men. From the time she was stolen away from her mother until I rescued her, she did not speak to a single woman. Now she distrusts all men.” The golden eyes glanced swiftly in his direction. “It will pass; give her time.”

  He sighed. “Gladly. But you understand that it is hard for a loving father to find his daughter spurning him.”

  “She does not spurn you. She weeps because she treats you badly.”

  His throat knotted. Oh, how he needed Inos! “Tell her not to weep. I love her, and will wait.” He had the rest of his life to wait, a prisoner in the Accursed Land. “I forgive, always. I hope my visits do not upset you, also, Archon?”

  For a moment the pixie did not reply, but she was almost finished spreading out the laundry. He never knew how to speak to Thaïle. Normally she made him welcome at her Place when he called. She seemed genuinely fond of Kadie, and for that he was immensely grateful, but he knew now that Thaïle was damaged, too. Her husband and baby had been slain in cold blood by the very College she was forced to serve. She must know why. She must know the fate that awaited her, and that knowledge itself would be enough to unhinge anyone. Widow and bereaved mother, Thaïle, also, was an ill-used child.

  She adjusted the last sleeve and then sat back on her heels to face him. He thought of a butterfly resting on the grass.

  “You do not distress me, your Majesty. Kadie and I complement each other. She has no cause to trust men; I have no cause to trust women.”

  He winced, feeling awkward and inadequate. “I did not mean to hurt. Please bring Kadie to visit the Rap Place sometime. Take her there, perhaps, when I am absent, and let her see it. Tell her that it is a replica of a house I lived in once in Durthing, on Kith, when I was much the same age you are now, Archon. I was lonely and friendless myself in those days.”

  “You are lonely and friendless now?”

  He nodded. “We live in hard times. Trouble should become easier to handle as we are older, but by then we know that the world is not cruel, only indifferent, and that hurts even more. Give Kadie my love. Tell her I will wait, and I understand.”

  The child face was remorseless, hardened by burdens beyond its years. “Do you? Can any of us ever understand the sorrows of another?”

  “That is what love is for, Thaïle.”

  She turned away, scrambled to her feet, and walked off in the direction of the cottage.

  “Be sure to tell Kadie that I love her!” Rap called. Finding himself alone, he rose and headed back to the Way.

  He told the Way to take him to the Meeting Place. He had no desire to go home. After many months of traveling, he had a roof to call his own again, but it was not one he cared for. He had been granted a pleasant site for it, in a dell with a few spindly trees, close to the sea to placate his jotunn half. He had set to work creating a replica of a log cabin he had inhabited once in his youth. The occult tumult he had thereby caused had brought him assistance in the shape of Archon Toom, who had completed and furnished the cabin for him in a twinkling and had also added all sorts of useful magical contrivances that Rap would never have thought of. Knowing four words of power, he was technically still a sorcerer, but his abilities were feeble indeed.

  After four days in Thume he was frustrated to frenzy. His war against Zinixo might continue, but he could not know of it. More likely it was just fading away into futility. The Covin was winning by default and he was completely powerless to do anything about that.

  The change in Kadie distressed him beyond measure. His haughty, assertive little girl had withdrawn into timidity, and he could not reach her. He fretted about Inos and oath and even Shandie, all carried off captive to Dwanish. At best they lingered there in a dwarvish jail; at worst they would have been betrayed by some spy of Zinixo’s. He worried also about Krasnegar, vulnerable to the Almighty’s spite. At times he even found himself worrying about Tik Tok, and then he knew he was going crazy.

  Vegetation around him grew lush as he neared the Meeting Place. Thume was more strange than he had ever dreamed. The manner in which sorcery had been organized and domesticated was a marvel that went far beyond anything he had envisioned for his new protocol — magic as a public service, overt, available, and useful. Yet even here the Evil had penetrated and perverted the Good, for Thume could be viewed as one enormous jail. It seemed to exist only to conceal itself. The pixies’ lives were regulated and constrained to serve the College, and in the end all effort turned around upon itself and the College did nothing but defend its own existence. It could murder a baby in the name of love.

  The pixies themselves were a shy, solitary people, ingrown and reclusive. Almost he could compare the whole race of them with poor Kadie, as if the War of Five Warlocks a thousand years ago had blighted all pixies in the same way her ordeal with the goblins had blighted her. They denied the world. They sat out the dance, and that philosophy was no more comprehensible to Rap the king than it would have been to Rap the sailor, stableboy, or wagon driver.

  He sauntered out into the Meeting Place: flowered parkland, lawns, and picturesque lake. He cared little for the oddly skewed architecture of the little cabanas, but the overall effect was pleasant enough — if you liked playgrounds. He came here every day to sit on a bench and watch the swans and hope someone would stop and talk with him. No one had done so yet. Even sorcerer pixies were too shy, too alarmed by this inexplicable “demon” who had been allowed to violate their sanctuary. If he tried to initiate a conversation, his victims would gibber at him. Sometimes they would just vanish like soap bubbles. Perhaps in a few years someone would bid him good morning, or something equally daring.

  No, he was being unfair. He had forgotten the two archons, Toom and Thaïle. Thaïle he pitied beyond words; he admired her, also, for her strength and her gentl
eness to Kadie.

  Toom was entirely different. Toom was a solid, genial man of around his own age, slow and deliberate in the manner of a peasant farmer. He even had dirt under his nails. Toom had called on Rap a couple of times, to inquire after his needs. He had conducted the guest around the College, answering every question with apparent frankness. Rap suspected that Archon Toom had been assigned to him as jailer, but the man was informative and helpful.

  Perhaps a dozen pixies now inhabited the Meeting Place. Conversation had stopped, though, while the golden eyes studied the intruder. No one sat alone, available for friendly advances.

  He frightened them! He had come to Thume looking for allies in a war. What use these delicate folk in a war? They were porcelain people, soap bubbles. They made him feel overlarge and lumpish; he must seem even more so to them. To press his attentions on them seemed cruel. He must just give them time to adjust, like Kadie. Time? Only five days until Longday. If Armageddon came to Pandemia then, did Thume survive?

  He continued walking, telling the Way to take him to the Library. He would find a book of Thumian history and carry it back to his Place and try to read…

  “King Rap? Do I intrude upon your meditations?”

  Archon Toom strolled at his side, peering cautiously up at Rap with guileless golden eyes.

  “No indeed, Archon! I welcome company.”

  “Ah. I apologize for my comrades’ incivility. I hope you will make allowances for a thousand years of custom?”

  “Gladly. I appreciate the honor of your hospitality.”

  “The Keeper’s hospitality,” Toom murmured in his plodding, deliberate speech. “And Archon Thaïle’s, of course. There is a prophecy about the Chosen of the Chosen One, you see. But no matter. I wonder if you would spare a little time for a discussion. On a matter of some importance to us?”

  Already the Way was leading them out into the forest.

  “Time,” Rap said with a laugh, “is one thing I have in excess. Gladly, Archon, gladly!”