by Dave Duncan
If the man had Liar tattooed on his forehead, it couldn't be more obvious. Then Rap glanced at his own face with farsight and was disgusted to see the innocent smile on it, the boyish appeal. He tried to change that, and saw himself become an earnest, rather innocent young man facing great challenges. He couldn't help it! He was bedazzling Andor as Andor had bedazzled him in the past, and he could no more stop himself than he could turn off his farsight. He must just hope that some practice with his new powers would teach him how to be an honest man again. Meanwhile he watched Andor being impressed, and he felt sick.
"We've had one of the three prophecies, Andor. That leaves two. I think they'll turn up in time." His mind shied at the sudden memory of himself on the floor of the goblins' lodge with his bones showing. "If I can beat a dragon, I can beat Kalkor."
"Easily. Like you felled Gathmor."
"So I can put Inos on her throne. That's all I want. So here's my proposal—you help me with that, and afterward I'll help you with your problem, getting rid of your curse."
"Fine!" Andor flashed teeth and held out a smooth brown hand. "You can count on me. I can't bind the others, though. You know that. But anything you need of me, you just ask."
"You'll trust me to keep my side of the deal later?"
"Of course!" Andor's face said that if Rap was fool enough not to kill him now, then he was probably even stupid enough to keep a bargain after he had got what he needed. Andor would honor a promise only if it suited him to do so.
In the background, Gathmor groaned and levered himself up on one elbow. Rap wiped sweat. "There's water just over there," he said, waving at the trees. "Let's head that way."
"Your hairy friend can track us when he's finished his rest," Andor agreed, rising.
"I think Jalon next, please." Rap did not look at his companion as they walked side by side, but he saw the annoyance that did not show in the voice when Andor said, "Of course."
Then Rap's companion was Jalon.
His blue eyes filled with tears, and he limped along for a while without speaking.
"You said you owed me one," Rap said. "I agree you didn't expect it to be that big."
"My fault for not looking, as you did. I should have seen." He groaned. "And now I can't!"
There was no deceit showing on his sun-broiled face, only pain, and a sort of nausea.
"What does that mean?"
Jalon waved a hand at the woods ahead. "It's all gone dead. The life's gone out of it, the beauty. You stole my power, Rap. I feel blind and deaf! I couldn't paint a barn door now. And I don't suppose I could outsing an alleycat."
"Never met a man who could." Rap walked for a while in silence, wondering what to say, wondering also if the new sparkle he saw in everything was exactly what had gone out of Jalon's vision. There were butterflies everywhere in the forest, and millions of tiny flowers that no one but a mouse would ever notice, and bright birds by the score, motionless on twig or nest, and leaves of every shape imaginable. Even the sand beneath his feet glinted with myriad sparkles of mica flakes and crystal edges. He marveled at a variety and vitality he had never noticed before, while Jalon slouched at his side, chewing his lip and seeming ready to weep.
Then a glitter of anger . . . and a whine. "Rap? We could both be adepts."
Power was not easily relinquished, obviously. Jalon was a dreamer, the least ambitious or assertive of men, but he resented his loss. Even Jalon craved power.
"No." So did Rap. "First," he said, "Sagorn insists that sharing usually doesn't reduce a word to half. So you have lost only a small part of your power. Second, you've just had a very bad shock, and those always make things look blacker . . ."
He tried to be convincing and was disgusted when he succeeded. Jalon began to smile, slowly, shyly, letting confidence be talked back into him. Eventually, and just as the two of them reached the edge of the trees, Rap persuaded him to sing a little. He ran off a couple more verses of "The Maidens of Ilrane," the song he had interrupted to draw attention to the petrified dragon. Gods! That could have been no more than half an hour ago at most, back when the world was a simple, easy sort of place.
It was fine singing, if not quite the old Jalon, and these verses were the most disgusting yet, but Rap bellowed out laughter that sounded to him as unlikely as a three-legged racehorse. Relief bloomed in the minstrel's lace like a reprieve from imminent death.
"All right?" he whispered.
Rap wiped tears from his eyes. "I'm no musician, friend, but you can still sing better than any other four guys I know. I honestly can't tell any difference."
God of Liars! There could be good in lies, though, just as in everything else. Jalon was smiling again.
Rap had wanted power so he might help Inos. He had not wanted it to be like this.
The edge of the open clearing was a sand dune. Behind that, thick forest offered immediate cool shade like a divine blessing. More blessed still, the mossy trunks cuddled tight around the edges of a dark and shining pool. Rap dropped his gown, walked out of his sandals, and waded in. Jalon was close behind. They sank gratefully into warm bliss, reclining on a squishily soft matting of leaves and mud. For some minutes they just lay.
Then Jalon tried again. "Rap? You . . . you wouldn't . . . you won't share?"
If Andor had asked, the plea would have been more skilled and refusal much easier. What had Jalon ever done to deserve his portion of Rap's vengeance?
Plenty! When he'd met an innocent boy who didn't even know what a word of power was or that he even knew one, Jalon had not explained, and he had certainly not mentioned the dangers. He'd merely muttered a cryptic and useless warning about Darad. Jalon had lost any claim on Rap's friendship at their first meeting, so Rap was now entitled to . . .
Power was very easy to justify to one's conscience.
"No. My aim is to help Inos. For that I'm going to need all the power I can muster." He would not share the word his mother had told him. "But I make you the same promise I made Andor: You help me first, and then I'll help you. Maybe then, when Inos is safely on her throne . . . Maybe then I'll even tell you my own word. If it's necessary to lift your curse, I will." Promises were easy.
Jalon nodded solemnly and offered a hand on it. And there was no guile on his face, damn him!
The water was marvelously soothing on sun-battered, travel-worn bodies, and the dim peace of the forest was balm for nerves that still rang with memories of dragons. Rap could hear dragons, if he strained, but they were very distant, a fault mumbling and squabbling, no threat to anyone. They sounded rather like sleepy chickens, in fact.
Gathmor lurched in over the sand ridge, walking with a pronounced stoop. He dropped the robe he was carrying and waded into the pool.
"I'd like to talk to Sagorn, please," Rap said.
The water was up to Jalon's chin and when he shook his head, he spread circles of ripples.
"Why not?"
"He's dying—or at least very sick. He really did have some sort of seizure. And he told you the word!" Jalon shuddered. "That hurt! Gods, that hurt him! And then . . . Well, it's amazing he had the strength to call Andor." He screwed up his face at the memories of approaching death.
So Rap had killed Sagorn! Even if he was not in any true sense dead, none of the gang would ever dare call him again.
Revenge was a very sour fruit.
And what of his soul? Sagorn had not seemed especially evil, although the Gods would know more of him than Rap ever could. Sagorn had tried to steal Rap's word of power. That was an evil to cancel out a lot of good. But the man was not truly dead! How could his soul go before the Gods for weighing if he wasn't dead? Would it remain forever in some sort of limbo, holding unreleased forever the spark of residue, the balance that should go to join the Evil or the Good? The undead dark?
God of Fools!
Gathmor had been sitting hunched up. Now he lay back gingerly, wincing as if something hurt. He glanced suspiciously at the other two, alert for traces of amuse
ment.
"Rap!" Jalon said. "You used power against a dragon!"
"I know. I'm trying not to think about it." The warlock of the south might be on Rap's trail right now. "Let me talk to Darad, please." That would be magic, but Oothiana had said the transformations were too brief to be located.
Jalon blinked, seemed about to argue, then nodded. The giant jotunn appeared in his place with a stupendous splash, sending waves surging across the pool. Gathmor, taken by surprise, tried to sit up and obviously regretted the hasty move.
Darad looked hard at Rap, then opened his mouth in a huge crocodile grin, displaying his fangs. Rap was tensed, prepared to jump up and treat him as he had treated Gathmor, but there was no need. The fighter's face was hideously battered and disfigured with tattoos, yet as easy to read as a child's, and it was filled now with great amusement.
Chuckling hoarsely, Darad offered a hand larger than Rap's foot. "Thanks, faun! You sure fixed them!"
Rap clasped hands, saw the inevitable squeeze coming, and calmly bettered it. Darad looked comically astonished at the resistance, then alarmed, and finally howled very satisfactorily, raising flocks of birds from the trees. Rap released him, suddenly ashamed. He was no better than they were, these crude, sadistic jotnar! No, he was worse because he was cheating, not using honest muscle.
Unabashed, gently massaging his damaged hand with the other one, the ogre resumed his grin. "That primpy, prissy Sagorn! You made him look pretty stupid!"
"Liked that, did you?"
"Loved it!" The wolf teeth flashed again. "Been waiting a hundred years for him to get what's coming to him! He was a snotty, smartass kid, and he only got worse. But you watch that Andor! Don't trust him!"
"I won't." Rap studied the dim-witted warrior for a moment. "How about you? Will you take the same deal?"
Darad nodded vigorously. "You bet! You can count on me, sir! You'll get this spell off of us if anyone can—and it won't take you a hundred years, neither! I'm your man, Master Rap!"
He meant it! Even as a mundane. Rap would never have been deceived by Darad. His new occult sense of truth detected no reservations, and now he could readily see that Darad was a born follower who preferred having a superior around to tell him who to kill or maim. Once he gave his word he would be more loyal than Andor or Thinal, and infinitely more reliable than Jalon, within the narrow bounds of his abilities. Amazing!
But Rap had not yet said he would accept this new henchman, and his hesitation had provoked a very worried expression on the jotunn's grotesque features. He could have no real conscience, but he apparently had some sense of justice. "Sir?" he muttered. "I guess I did a job on your face back on the boat there. Got a bit carried away, see? If you want a few free ones to make us even . . . well, I'd understand."
So Darad would humbly stand still while Rap systematically battered his eyes? The image was enough to make the new adept explode in his first genuine laughter for days, and the resulting perplexity on Darad's face only increased his mirth.
"I think we're about quits," Rap said, catching his breath. "You sold me to the goblins. I set my dog on you. Little Chicken began the eye work, but I gave the orders. Princess Kadolan burned your back, so we'll count that in, too, right?" Then, as Darad nodded and leered his agreement, Rap had a vision of himself walking up to Inos's aunt and blacking her eyes to settle her account, and that absurdity convulsed him in more howls of mirth, while the two jotnar sharing the pool with him exchanged puzzled glances.
Perhaps his merriment was reaction to a narrow escape. It could just be excitement at his new powers. It was certainly not very manly. Rap forced himself back to sobriety, and shook Darad's hand again, in civilized fashion, and the deal was made.
So Andor and Jalon and Darad would help. Sagorn was effectively dead. Thinal they must not call, not here in dragon country. Rap had no illusions of holding off a dragon if there was real gold in the neighborhood. He relaxed for a moment, still enjoying the warm soak, and also relishing his new adept-hood.
He could listen to the distant murmur of dragons. His farsight was sharper and had a greater range. His ability to outbrawl Gathmor suggested that he would find he was expert at any skill he had ever practiced. He was as persuasive as Andor now, and he could read expressions in a way he had never dreamed was possible. His face was less blistered than Gathmor's, although he had been closer to the dragon; the scrapes on his toes had stopped hurting. He seemed to be healing very quickly, and he wondered what other abilities he might uncover in himself during the next few days.
He turned to meet Gathmor's scowl.
"You want to get even with Kalkor?"
The jotunn nodded warily.
"Then I suggest you stick around, too. There's another prophecy: I meet Kalkor again."
Gathmor's pale eyes showed interest. "You'll let me have him?
"You couldn't handle him. Darad might—"
The warrior growled. "Not a hope, sir! We tried a friendly bout once, and he mashed me. Half my ribs and a broken jaw, and he wasn't much more'n a kid then. Fists, swords, axes—he's the best."
That was an ominous report, because Darad also had a word of power. Either Kalkor had more native ability, or his word was much stronger.
Or else, like Rap now, he knew more than one word.
But that worry was far in the future.
"I want to hear the whole story," Gathmor said, "before I commit myself to anything."
It was his own fault he hadn't heard it all long since; Rap had tried to tell him often enough. "We can talk as we go. It's long enough to last till Zark."
"What next?" Gathmor heaved himself up stiffly. "We going to get on our way?"
Rap's farsight nudged him, and he turned to stare at the watcher on the bank. Where had he come from?
He did not seem worrisome. He was standing on a fallen log and smiling shyly, although the smile was partly hidden by his hand—he had a finger up his nose. A gnome's nose was not much more than two holes in his face.
The scrap of rag around his loins was filthy beyond belief, and too tattered to serve its purpose; the natural mud color of his skin was visible only where sweat streaks had loosened flakes of dirt. Rap was sorry to discover that his sharp new farsight could detect the teeming multitudes within the odious tangle of the boy's hair. His head would have reached to Rap's navel; he was about thirteen, maybe, depending on how fast gnomes aged. The only clean places on him were two very gorgeous, bronze-tinted eyes.
Seeing he had the men's attention, he grinned more broadly and beckoned with his free hand. Then he jumped off his log and ran in among the trees.
Darad lurched to his feet, with Gathmor right behind him. They plowed across the pond in twin tidal waves, heedless of Rap's shouts.
It took a great effort of will and was only possible because his farsight still kept the boy in sight, but Rap managed to go the other way first and grab up five of the six wooden sandals. He wanted the sixth and the gowns, too, but the urgency of the summons became unbearable and tore him away. He ran around the pond on bare feet and followed the others.
In that overgrown riot of jungle, the tiny gnome boy had all the advantages. He could squeeze through bamboo thickets. He could roll or crawl under walls of thorns that three naked men dare not approach, or scurry like a beetle over marsh that would swallow them to the shoulders. He was fast and nimble and occultly inexhaustible. His powers included some means of telling direction, for he held to a straight course, and he never drew so far ahead that the chase seemed impossible. Always, his pursuers must believe that another two minutes would do it, and when they lagged from total exhaustion he laughed, and his laugh had some occult power also, for it drove the men on again like red-hot whips.
Rap easily caught up with his companions and handed over the sandals. He himself went barefoot, and soon they were all doing so, trying to gain speed.
His greatest problem was staying in contact with the others. He could easily have left them far behind, and t
he craving to do so gnawed at him like a starved rat. Darad had an occult warrior's strength, of course, and could keep up the pace and stand the punishment much better than poor Gathmor, who was only human and very soon exhausted. Rap took his hand and hauled him along, and their compromise pace was about what Darad could manage.
Eventually, as the hours passed and the young gnome led them up into the hills, jungle faded into parkland, and parkland into moor, giving welcome relief from the whipping and slashing of undergrowth. By nightfall, though, the chase was over rocky ground that chopped at feet like knives. Unable to rest for a moment, still staggering along after the gaily skipping gnome with his bewitching laugh and his beautiful eyes, Rap and his friends climbed ever higher between the barren peaks, and the muttering of dragons was very close.
Man's worth something:
No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something.
Browning, Bishop Blougram's Apology
SIX
Life and death
1
The Thume side of the mountains was a moister, kinder land than the desert to the east, with rich grass swaying underfoot and foliage-filled sky overhead. The air was friendly, heavy with woodsy scents. Inos could not identify the forest giants themselves, but among them she recognized some of the smaller, cultivated varieties she had seen in Arakkaran—citrus trees and olives, running wild. So whatever had destroyed the ancient folk of Thume had spared their orchards. She approved of fruit trees; unlike most others, they did something useful.
But she soon began to appreciate that even the others could be helpful. They cast shade, and shade discouraged undergrowth. The mules' little hooves swished through tall ferns, thumped softly on loam or moss. There was no obvious road, but the green tunnels of the woods were mostly quite passable, leading from time to time out into grassy clearings that reminded her oddly of the tiny sunlit courtyards of Krasnegar. In the meadows, of course, the sun was fierce, but on the far side there was always shade again, more gloom-filled hallways pillared with massive trunks that fanned out overhead into rafters, cross-braced with thin shafts of light. She knew the spruce of the taiga and she had seen hardwood forest near Kinvale, but nothing so magical as this.
