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Six: When Days Were Long

 

1

While her husband and minstrel Jalon had been strolling the sunlit roads of Ilrane, headed for the sky tree of Valdorian, Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar had been leading a donkey through the blighted hills of Guwush. The weather had been inclement, the landscape drear, the experience odious. As she had remarked more than once to his Imperial Majesty Emshandar V, the thing that bothered her most was his constant hysterical good humor. Shandie, who tended to brood, would then smile thinly and explain that it wasn't the music that upset him, it was the rich food.

They took turns trudging along in the mud at the donkey's cheek strap, while the other sat on the bench, gathering bruises at every pothole. The donkey steadfastly refused to move at all unless it was led.

"Frankly," Inos remarked one mosquito-infested evening when they had both chosen to walk, "you disappoint me, Emshandar. For a man whose ancestors have been imperors for millennia, your appearance is sadly lacking in the poise and polish I should have expected."

"Unfortunately," the imperor said, "I take after my maternal grandfather the centurion. He was extremely fortunate to escape being branded a common felon in his youth. But you, Queen Inosolan? Your forebears have ruled your peanut-sized realm for centuries. They are mere upstarts compared to my family, of course, but I could have hoped for a little more regality in your mien."

"Alas! Like you, I take after the wrong side of the family."

"Which side is that?"

"Thane Kalkor."

"Oh. Pillaging and rape?"

"Pillaging certainly. I find rape too tiring."

Some humor! The strain was telling on both of them, Inos thought.

The road was a quagmire; the countryside looked as if it had been sacked by three or four armies in quick succession—broken fences, weed-filled fields, dilapidated hovels sunk in mud. The inhabitants were gnomes, though, and probably liked it that way.

Shandie had named the spavined, ill-natured donkey Zinixo, perhaps because of its drab gray color. It was unworthy of the honor. The cart was ancient, noisy, ramshackle. It bounced endlessly and could be detected downwind for leagues. From the look of the sky, there would be more rain before sunset.

The imperor of Pandemia was gaunt, unkempt, and filthy. Inos knew she looked no better. Because of the cargo they carried, they dared not stop at the official post inns. They had slept under trees or in barns for several nights now, and their money was running out. A solid square meal had begun to loom even larger in her imagination than a hot tub and clean clothes.

Stagecoaches sprayed past them several times a day. Squads of Imperial cavalry would gallop by without even a curious glance. This area was more or less law-abiding, officially classed as "pacified." Inos' term was "crushed," and although she rarely taxed the imperor on the subject, she was sure that he now agreed with her.

A long silence ended when she asked, "Tell me again how many more days to Randport."

The muddy gargoyle beside her shrugged. "Two. Perhaps three at this pace."

"Will he live that long?"

"I think so." He sighed. "We have done all we can, Inos."

"The Gods award no badges for effort!"

Shandie did not answer.

Days and weeks were creeping by and the rebels' battle against the Covin seemed doomed to perish of sheer futility. All they had achieved in Guwush was a half promise of assistance from an unknown number of gnomes—hardly an accomplishment to illuminate the history books of future generations. Meanwhile the Almighty must be steadily tightening his grasp upon the world.

They crested a slight rise. Surprisingly, the road snaked out ahead of them in almost a straight line, sloping down to a blighted plain. Normally it twisted like a knotted snake.

"Solitary rider?" she said.

Shandie peered, screwing up his eyes. "Apparently. Why is that of interest?"

"Nothing. Just unusual." Despite the relative peace prevailing in this sector of the Guwush theater, a few gnomish terrorists still roamed the woods. Inos and Shandie had not been molested—at times they had almost wished that they would be, in the hope that they could thereby pass word of their plight back to Oshpoo—but danger had been part of their troubles. A solitary traveler was a rare sight. Even Imperial couriers were escorted. Of more significance to Inos, though, was the fragile hope of rescue she had nursed for days. If help was to come, it must come in the form of a solitary rider.

She told herself not to build castles on the clouds. A few minutes later, though, she felt a faint pulse of excitement as the lone horseman—or, please Gods, horsewoman—drew closer.

"Fair hair?"

"Oh, come! You can't possibly make that out at this distance."

"I think I can! Even djinns compliment me upon my eyesight. You forget I am half jotunn."

Shandie peered curiously at her around the donkey's ears. "They both look the same to me. Which one is the jotunn one?"

That was better! She rewarded him with a smile. "The greener one."

"They are equally beautiful," he said solemnly, and returned to watching the lone rider. "Yes, you're right. Fair hair. And a woman! Praise to the Gods!"

Dwarves could not ride horses. Goblins would be apprehended on sight. Of the five fellow outlaws due to rendezvous with them at Randport, only one could possibly come in search of them, to find out why they had been delayed.

And Jarga it must be, for she was kicking her mount to a gallop. Big and raw-boned, leather britches caked in red clay, she was an ungainly rider. She could never have been beautiful, even in her youth, but she had the strength and competence of a jotunn sailor. She was the most welcome sight Inos had seen in months. Inos knew hundreds of her kind in Krasnegar, and knew their worth.

Flaxen hair streaming, Jarga arrived in a shower of mud. Her attempt to leap from the saddle almost pitched her to the ground. Horse and donkey flashed teeth and temper at each other and were brought under control.

By that time Jarga had hauled back the leather cover on the cart to peer at the unconscious dwarf on his straw. His cheeks were hollowed under the iron-gray beard. His breathing was shallow, and yet dangerously labored.

She looked up, face flushed by the wind—and perhaps by anger. "How long has he been like this?"

"Five days," Inos said.

"It happened on the coach, the morning we left Yugg," Shandie explained. "He just keeled over on the bench. He was at the front, I was at the back . . . We don't know if he was struck down by the Covin, somehow, or if he just had a stroke, or . . ." Realizing that further detail was unnecessary, he fell silent, waiting hopefully.

"He is old," Inos added. "And he wouldn't dare use sorcery to keep himself hale." That, also, need not be said. Nor was there need to explain why the conspirators had been reduced to buying a cart and donkey to transport the warlock. Adventuring in real life was never as glamorous as it was depicted in the romances Kadie had enjoyed so much. An invalid of any description might carry infection, and a man in a very deep coma was a disgusting, smelly companion. Inns and coaches would not accept such a patron, so imperor and queen had taken on the unpleasant chore of transporting and tending him. Inos had insisted that her experience of raising babies qualified her to cope; Shandie that he had nursed wounded in field hospitals. They had taken turns.

Apart from keeping him clean and warm, though, they had achieved very little. They had managed to force no nourishment into the sick man, and not much water. Every day he was weaker. That a powerful sorcerer could be brought to such a pass was a sad commentary on the current state of the world.

Jarga straightened up bleakly and replaced the cover. "It is sorcery, minor sorcery—a sleep spell, is all."

Shandie bellowed, "What!" and turned a look of fury toward Inos. "Those accursed gnomes have betrayed us!"

"I think not." Jarga glanced around the landscape. There were no houses in sight, and no gnomes, either, in these daylight hours. There was no life to be seen, other than a few pathetic sheep grazing the wet grass of the fields.

"I am a sorcerer, not a medic," the sailor said in her harsh Nordland voice. She hesitated. "Hub is noisy now, but I have detected no sorcery close at hand for days. That is both good and bad. Even a little power may betray us."

Shandie nodded. "You must be the judge. But I think our friend is worth a risk or two."

Jarga smiled gratefully. The concern on her leathery face was oddly touching, and also puzzling. Any hint of tears in her eyes must certainly be a trick of their extreme paleness, closer to the color of winter fog than to blue. A jotunn sailor, even a female jotunn sailor, was no more sentimental than a goblin, and the idea of one feeling attachment to an elderly dwarf was absurd. As well match a walrus and camel.

But Jarga did look worried. "It is dangerous for a man of his years to lie flat for so long. There is fluid in his lungs, but surely a couple of hours more can do no great harm. A league or so back I detected shielding in a gully."

"Excellent!" Shandie said. "Let us take him there and see what you can do."

"Would my horse pull your cart faster, do you think?"

"Not without a horse collar." Inos was surprised how much the sorceress's arrival had eased her mind already. In this bleak, alien world of the millennium, she felt vulnerable without sorcery close at hand. Although neither Jarga nor Raspnex dared exercise their powers very often, they could observe and report on what was going on, and just to have them around was reassuring.

"Would you like to ride awhile, my lady?"

"Not in this dress." Inos winked at the sailor. "Surely it would be more fitting for us humble womenfolk to walk and let our lord take the horse?"

"When you adopt that tone," Shandie said, "I feel a need for a cohort or two to defend me."

"Cavalry, I suppose? And Jarga and I would still walk."

"Undoubtedly. Allow me to demonstrate equitation." Shandie sprang nimbly into the saddle.

A moment later he dismounted. As he stooped to shorten the stirrup leathers, Inos and Jarga shared smiles of satisfaction at the noteworthy redness of his ears.

 

A donkey might scorn an imperor. It could even ignore a queen regnant, but a jotunn armed with a rail was a serious matter. Soon the little beast was displaying more enthusiasm for work than it ever had previously, and the cart jangled forward at a pace it had not approached before, with both women riding on the bench. The lessons had been effective, but brutal. Inos probably felt much worse than Zinixo did.

"What did you mean when you said 'Hub is noisy'?"

"Sorcery," the sailor said. "We think the Covin is dismantling all the shielding. That makes waves."

It also made sense. Zinixo—the two-legged Zinixo—was notoriously nervy. Shielding anywhere might conceal enemies. When he had removed all of it, there would be nowhere in the world for opponents to hide.

Jarga was a woman of few words. She addressed most of them to the donkey, periodically wielding her club. She would brook no slacking.

Inos wondered again what feelings there could possibly be between a middle-aged jotunn and an elderly dwarf. Even for friendship they had nothing in common except the cause of the counterrevolution. They would make an absurd-looking couple, for Jarga was almost twice his height. Inos had assumed that the warlock, in adopting the principles of Rap's new protocol, had released all his votaries. She had never asked him, though, and she very much doubted that Shandie had, for the crusty old dwarf was not the sort of man to tolerate impertinent questions. Of course there was no way to find out from Jarga. If she was still bound to the warlock, she would lie about it.

Jarga's concern for the old man might stem from nothing more than friendship—Inos herself was anxious for him to be restored to health—but it might have darker roots. Votarism was rank evil, a slavery of the soul. Rap's hatred of it was much in character and nothing new. If Raspnex used his powers to gain sexual satisfaction, he would merely have been following an ancient tradition. If he did, Inos decided, he would not impose his wishes by force, he would make his victim willing. He would make her love him. That was well within the powers of a sorcerer, and only marginally less evil than outright rape. On the other hand, the grumpy old scoundrel did seem to have mellowed in the past few months. What had caused that?

They had all changed. Minutes ago, Shandie had praised Inos' eyes in an easy, offhand compliment that he would never have managed when she first met him. It had been a meaningless pleasantry, a social grace like a smile, valued only for its own sake. The Shandie of last winter would not have seen the need for such flippancy, would not have attempted it if he had, and would certainly have stammered and blushed if he had tried.

And she? She was not conscious of change in herself, and yet there must be some. She had lost her husband, her kingdom, her children, and had no hope of regaining any of them unless Rap could somehow overthrow the Covin. Such burdens must change anyone.

"Faster!" Jarga roared, bringing her rail down hard on the donkey's back. It brayed and lurched wearily back into a canter.

About to utter a protest, Inos stopped herself just in time. Gods! she thought. Am I learning patience?

Or am I just growing old?

 

The gully was so gentle that it would have escaped attention had there not been a stream and a ford. Trees closed in on either hand. It was a shaded, gloomy spot, and rain had begun to fall again.

"Here?" Inos said as the cart rattled to a halt. "Where?"

"All around," Jarga said, dropping the reins. "The road runs right through it, or I wouldn't have noticed, because I wasn't consciously farseeing."

"Why would anyone ever put shielding here?"

"Ambush," Shandie said. He was standing by the horse, letting it drink. He frowned at the murky tangle of undergrowth. "How far back does it run?"

"Quite a way. Would hold a cohort or two."

"Let's hope it isn't occupied at the moment."

"It isn't," the sorceress said. She had twisted around to haul the cover away from Raspnex.

"How long?" he asked in his familiar deep growl.

Inos gasped with delight, seeing his eyes open. He was upside down from her viewpoint on the driving bench, but he looked better already.

"Five days, they say." Jarga was smiling happily at the results of her sorcery. She very rarely smiled.

Sorcerers did not need long convalescence. Raspnex sat up and already his color was returning, changing from clay buff to his normal gray sandstone hue. Glowering under craggy brows, he flickered his pebble eyes from Inos to Shandie, who had come to stand by the side of the cart to grin.

"I owe you my thanks," he muttered. Dwarves were as effusively demonstrative as glaciers.

"You owe us an explanation!" Shandie said. "Who did it?"

"I did. It was the first thing that came into my head."

The imperor shot Inos a glance of exasperation and then tried again. "Why did you do it, then?"

The warlock heaved himself to his feet. Even standing, he was barely taller than the two women sitting on the bench, but the cart rocked under his weight. "My nephew tried something new. He came looking for me in the ambience."

"Zinixo himself?" Shandie said, startled.

"In a meld of the Covin. It was a personal thing, though. I recognized him—heard his voice, you could say. I had only seconds before he located me. I had to disappear fast, so I slugged myself." His ugly face twisted in pain. "Even that was a risk. Sorry."

How often did one hear a dwarf apologize?

"Any risk was better than having you perverted! What do we do now? How can you leave this shielding without being caught? Unconscious again?"

Rain pattered faster in puddles below and trailing branches overhead.

"He can shield himself," Inos said. "Mundane disguise."

The warlock bared his teeth. "You're very free with advice today, aren't you?"

"It would be torture!" Jarga roared. "He would be blind and deaf and crippled."

"He'll get used to it! My husband hid his sorcery that way for years."

Now the jotunn looked even more dangerous than the dwarf. "And he will be conspicuous! We have an advantage in that the enemy's loyalty spells show up. A body shielding will show, also. It is unthinkable!"

"No, Jargie," Raspnex growled. "She's right, as usual."

Jargie?

Shandie had been scratching his black-stubbled chin. "If the Almighty can pull this personal-tracking trick, then why hasn't he done so before?"

"Because it requires one-on-one contact, and normally that could be dangerous if . . ." Raspnex winced.

"If the one you seek is stronger," the jotunn said. "It is much like hand-to-hand combat But of course the Almighty wields the power of the Covin, so he can be in no real danger." Pain wrenched her face, also.

"It will work on any sorcerer?" Shandie asked grimly.

"Anyone known to him personally." She took a deep breath. "And I suppose any sorcerer known personally to any member of the Covin. It is a serious development!"

"Powers preserve us," Shandie muttered. He glanced apprehensively at Inos.

So did the warlock and the sorceress.

Rap? Oh, Rap!

"Why has he—Zinixo—not done this before?"

"Perhaps because of Olybino," Raspnex said. "It happened the next day, remember? When he saw that the opposition could not save Olybino, he decided he had the edge."

"What odds would satisfy Zinixo?" she demanded, her voice louder than she had intended.

The warlock grunted. "About a thousand to one, maybe. Come on, let's be on our way." He sat down on the straw and hauled the wagon cover over his shoulders to deflect the downpour.

"Wait!" The world had darkened for Inos. If even Zinixo was satisfied with his advantage, then it must be overwhelming. "He may have caught Rap the same way?"

Shandie was avoiding her eye. Had Rap been quick enough to react as Raspnex had done, and hide in unconsciousness? Even if he had, did he have comrades available to tend him, or was he lying helpless in some forgotten jungle? For six days she had believed that Rap was alive, and now that hope had been stolen away again.

"He may have captured Rap," Jarga said brusquely. "This is not a game of thali, this is war. Sitting here wailing won't solve anything." She jingled the reins and screamed abuse at the donkey.

Inos grabbed at the side as the cart lurched into motion. "Oh, that's easy enough for you to say! I'm concerned about the man I love!"

"So am I," said a silent voice in her ear, Jarga's voice.

"Huh?"

"Move, you spavined, illegitimate latrine washing! He has been a sorcerer for a very long time, and this privation will distress him greatly."

Inos looked blankly at the sailor, who was apparently engrossed in her bullying of the weary donkey.

"Yes, I love him," the voice whispered again. "Sometimes I think he loves me. We do not talk of it. He took pleasure of me once, long ago, but only once. After that we never dared."

"Oh!" What to say, with the warlock himself so close? "Love does complicate life sometimes."

"Faster, you barnacled, brick-brained son of a pig! Better off without it. Forget what I just said. I was joking. Sorcerers can never love other sorcerers, only mundanes—you should know that better than any, Queen Inosolan."

 

 

2

Randport was a sleepy but prosperous outpost of Impire, a naval base, and also a favorite retirement town for officers and civil servants. Its buildings, climate, and nightlife were agreed to be harmonious, monotonous, and picturesque, the order of application depending on the speaker. A few elves down on their luck lived there, prostituting their art to the imps' notions of culture; gnomes were allowed to enter after dark to remove the garbage; all other races were strongly discouraged. To the military, that meant evicted on sight. Inos saw nothing of Randport proper and had no wish to.

Just over the headland lay Old Town, a major port crushed between a cliff and the battlements of the naval base. The army preferred to stay out of Old Town, even in daylight, and imps were a minority there. It claimed to be the only city in Pandemia where jotnar lived in peace together. Indeed there was surprisingly little fighting in the jotunn quarter, but the jotunn quarter adjoined the djinn quarter, the boundary being marked by a line of fresh bloodstains.

To a jotunn, a djinn was an irresistible challenge. To a djinn a jotunn was a barbarian maniac best knifed quickly. A jotunn might concede djinns to be the second tallest race in the world and the second best fighters, but he would insist that they cheated. What the djinns said about the jotnar has no easy translation. Trolls, who were larger than either, worked as porters and stayed out of the fighting. Imps ran the businesses, both honest and dishonest, with djinns close behind. Fauns were rare, but not unknown. Procurers would promise genuine mermaids. Dwarves were quite common, because of the nearby lead and silver mines, and they traveled in packs. Gnomes were everywhere out of the light, and no elf would ever dream of setting foot in Randport Old Town.

 

Inos had been hoping that a glimpse of the sea would cheer her up, but Randport depressed her. Its residents were too alien, too numerous, and too surly. The familiar tang of weed and fish made her homesick. For the first time in her life, she was happy to board a ship.

Northern Vengeance was berthed in a remote corner of the crowded harbor. Throughout her long career as the river trader Rosebud the little ketch had been based in Urgaxox, but she seemed to have survived her ocean voyage around Guwush unscathed. She still bore her original name on her stem—as a nom de guerre, of course.

Wirax and Frazkr were standing watch on deck when the land party trooped down the ladder from the quay. Even allowing for dwarvish solemnity, their greetings were subdued and curt. They scowled mightily as they observed Raspnex's shielding and realized that the most powerful sorcerer of the group had been nullified. He marched past them without a word and disappeared belowdecks. As Jarga had foreseen, he was chafing within his occult imprisonment. He had hardly spoken for two days.

"I think we must be about to hold a council," Shandie said. "After you, ma'am."

Inos clambered down the companionway and went into the dingy, cramped cabin. Raspnex was already sitting at the far end, his head barely visible above the tabletop. Without speaking, she sat down on the bench and hotched herself along it until she was sitting beside him. Then she watched the others enter and repeat the process.

No dwarf could ever appear frail, but old Wirax was silver-haired and stooped. Frazkr was younger, soft-spoken and at times almost polite. He could never go so far as to be cheerful or optimistic, though. At least those two were predictably stolid and durable.

The continuing ordeal was starting to tell on the goblins. They were farther from home than any goblins had ever been, stranded in a culture utterly foreign to their simple forest upbringing. The sea voyage would have been a trial in itself, and in port they must stay hidden at all times. Moreover, they must know of the disaster that had befallen their king and comrades. No official news of the great occult battles at Bandor had yet reached the mundane population, although rumors were rife in the alleys of Old Town, but sorcerers knew of it.

Pool Leaper was as jumpy as a cricket; his face had taken on an unhealthy turquoise tinge. He was quite young, around twenty, and only a mage, not a full sorcerer. Once or twice in the past Inos had detected a genuine sense of humor in Pool Leaper, a hint that someday his people might outgrow their barbarism and develop a civilization based on something more rewarding than torture. He was not jesting now.

Moon Baker was considerably older. At first sight Inos thought he was in better shape, but then she noticed that he had chewed his fingernails to the quick, so that they had bled. Both men must be mourning brothers and friends lost to the Almighty's sorcery; they must be wondering how their homeland fared. If they could ever find their ways back to the taiga, they would encounter a blighted society of women and children with few males and no babies for many years to come.

Jarga and Shandie arrived, also, to complete the company. Jarga sat, having trouble fitting her knees under the table, as always. Shandie leaned back against the door, folding his arms. For a moment there was glum silence.

Two mundanes—three in fact, for the crippled Raspnex must now be counted as a mundane—four sorcerers, and a young mage. Against them, the all-powerful Covin. They could not be sure that they had any allies left, anywhere in the world.

The crusade was leaving its mark on Shandie, also. He was gaunt now instead of slim; his dark hair hung lankly, often flopping over his face like a youth's. He seemed to burn too bright, a lantern in winter's blast, his eyes shining with a dangerous zeal. For a mundane to take charge at a conference of sorcerers was paradoxical. He did not even ask the others' consent, but then leadership was his business.

"First the bad news," he said. "Warlock?"

Gruffly Raspnex explained what had happened.

Shandie barely let him finish. "The good news is that we may have found some sympathizers. We talked with Oshpoo. He promised to tell his sorcerers—and he may have a lot more than we expected—but he would make no commitment beyond that."

He was being modest, Inos thought, making no mention of his own promises to the rebels. But that was Shandie. He would want to talk about the future, not the past. He surprised her.

"The winter before last," he said quietly, "I cornered the Ilranian army on Nefer Moor. I outmarched them, outthought them, outmaneuvered them. I brought them to bay and laid my blade at their throats. I had all seven thousand of them totally at my mercy. Then I offered them the most generous terms I could conceive of, in direct breach of my orders. My grandfather would have called my actions treason.

"They turned me down. They said they would rather die where they stood than accept their lives at the cost of their principles. I cursed them for a gang of illogical nitwits. I derided their infantile elvish fancies.

"And now I understand. Now I sympathize."

His voice grew even softer. "Now the tables have been turned. My enemy has harried me from my capital to Julgistro, from Julgistro to Dwanish, from Dwanish to the shores of the Morning Sea. Beyond that water stands my deadliest mundane foe, the caliph. Soon, very soon, I must turn at bay, for I have nowhere left to run. My strongest ally, Warlock Raspnex, has been effectively removed from the battle, at least for now. Our chosen leader. King Rap of Krasnegar, may very well have suffered the same fate or worse; Witch Grunth and Warlock Lith'rian likewise. My wife and child may be taken—I have no way of knowing. Every day the enemy grows stronger and we grow weaker. We have no intelligence, no reserves, and no viable plan."

He unfolded his arms and slammed a fist against the door. Inos jumped.

"And I will be damned to the Evil for Eternity if I will give up!" He glared bleakly around the faces, seeking agreement or argument.

"How's a man to get any sleep if you make so much noise?" The satirical reply came from the youngest of them all, Pool Leaper.

It was the most ungoblinish remark imaginable. Shandie blinked, and small patches on his cheekbones flushed against his pallor. Then he saw that everyone else was smiling or chuckling.

He relaxed, and laughed. "Well spoken, lad. I got carried away. I take it you agree with me, then?"

"I got nothing to lose, Imperor." The goblin showed his fangs in a nervy grin.

"We all have something to lose," Inos said. "We can lose our freedom to be ourselves. I would rather die than be a tool of Zinixo's evil."

Nobody disagreed.

Shandie nodded, satisfied. "Then where do we go from here?"

"Longday," old Wirax said in his raspy voice. "The Evil comes at midsummer."

"You, too? Raspnex said the same."

Everyone looked to the warlock, who shrugged angrily. He was a blind, deaf sorcerer, who could add nothing new.

Wirax scratched his white beard. "Two weeks until Longday. We have two weeks."

"Can you tell how it comes?" the imperor asked. "In what form? Or where?"

"No. It's just everywhere."

"Can you see beyond it, then? Can you say if the Evil prevails or is thrown back?"

The old man shook his head. Shandie interrogated the other sorcerers with his eyes and they all shook their heads—Jarga, Moon Baiter, Frazkr.

"So what do we do in the meantime? Do we go fishing? Do we cross to Zark and throw ourselves on the minuscule mercy of the caliph? Or do we try to throw in our lot with Oshpoo and his rebels?"

That Shandie would even utter such words was incredible—he certainly could not mean them. Inos opened her mouth and he caught her eye, stopping her words unspoken.

"I know what you're thinking," Raspnex growled, "and what the woman was about to say—that we should take the chance to sail over to the Accursed Land and investigate Thume."

The other sorcerers looked shocked, amused, bewildered.

"I reacted that way, too," he said, "when she first suggested it. Now I think she may just have a point. Something Evilish odd's going on over there, and has been going on for a very long time."

"A thousand years?" scoffed another dwarvish voice.

"There is nothing going on in Thume!" Jarga protested from the doorway.

"That's what you're meant to think."

"Tell us about this Accursed Land," Moon Baiter said. "We have no history of it in the woods."

So Shandie began to describe the War of the Five Warlocks and Inos remained silent. Obviously he was steering the meeting the way he wanted. Obviously Northern Vengeance would set course for Thume, simply because there was nowhere else to go. However thin the hope of finding a miracle in Thume, it was the only hope they had left, the only port in the storm.

It was Inos' idea, she should be pleased.

The Morning Sea was a notoriously fickle stretch of water and Inos was the world's poorest sailor. Yet far worse than the prospect of seasickness was the memory of the last time she had visited Thume. She had come within minutes of being raped by four men. She and Aunt Kade and Azak had almost died there. One thing she could not expect to find in Thume was a welcome.

 

 

3

"Do you believe in destiny?" Eshiala asked with a gleam in her eye.

"Of course. Why?" Ylo already had an arm around her, so he just squeezed it a little tighter. He carried a blanket over the other.

"Mm. Saw something. Come this way."

The wood was eerily still in summer heat, as if all the birds and insects were sleeping or had flown away, the afternoon heavy with mingled scents of wild flowers. Leaving the path, Eshiala began pushing through the trailing branches and tall weeds. Ylo was forced to release her and follow behind, watching the play of sunlight and shadow on her blouse. She had pinned up her hair again with the tortoiseshell combs he had given her. A few fragments of dead leaves were caught in it, but he was not about to tell her so.

"Where in the world are you going, wench?" Twigs swung back at his eyes. "Ouch!"

"Through here. I thought I saw—yes. See? Yellow iris!"

"Very lovely. You want to pick some?"

"Ylo!" she said in mocking reproach. "You're not concentrating on important matters!"

Trouble is, he was. He was drowsy and content from making love, and yet his previous worries were returning stronger than ever from their temporary banishment. He ought to be sharing them with her, but he hated to spoil the romantic perfection of this wonderful summer day. He ought to be saddling the horses and leading his love and her child out of the path of danger posthaste. He had already wasted half the afternoon and should not . . . No, those hours had emphatically not been wasted. They had been two of the most precious hours of his life. Perhaps the knowledge that they were foolish hours, stolen hours, had made them all the sweeter.

He put his arm around her again and glanced around the glade of golden iris with a smile only skin deep. "Are you implying that I can't tell an iris from a daffodil?"

"Oh, no, darling, never! But perhaps the preflecting pool was a little vague on details? And you must admit that you might have been distracted by the rest of the vision you saw."

"Distracted? I was driven insane. I still am insane."

"Good! Spread out the blanket then."

He laughed. "Eshiala, Love of my Life, I will do anything for you—anything you wish, anything mortal man can do. But what you are asking for right now is a miracle." In fact, I thought the last time was a miracle. He tried to kiss her, and she slipped away.

"A destiny." She took the blanket and spread it out, ruthlessly crushing irises. "Naked, I believe you said? Naked, on a blanket, smiling?"

Gods! "Listen," he said. "Nettles . . ." he said. "Er, wasps?"

She was unbuttoning her blouse.

"Maya will be awake now," he protested. "She will be upset to find you not there."

"It's a cruel world," Eshiala said airily, stepping out of her skirt. "Mistress Ingipune promised to feed her candy cakes. I have been waiting for months for some serious lessons in outdoor lovemaking and that callous little brat has perversely frustrated me every time."

"Lessons? Serious? You're an instant expert! And you do not think your lovely daughter is a brat. And . . ."

His lady tossed away the skirt and began removing lesser garments. Gods! He moaned. No, it wasn't possible, not so soon.

"Now," Eshiala said. "How do I look?"

"Perfect! But . . ."

But perfect. The proud line of her breasts, slender limbs, the sweeping curves of hip and belly—never had the Gods made such a woman. Not a mole, not a freckle.

"How was my hair in the vision?" Without waiting for a reply, she pulled out combs she had so painstakingly replaced not twenty minutes before. She shook loose a torrent of black tresses. Dark eyes gleamed at him, appraising his reaction as he stood and gaped.

Drooled. Time was short if they were to make their escape today. He hadn't told her the news. How could he tell her now?

"There!" She sank down and stretched out on the blanket. "What posture, my lord? On one elbow, like this? On my back, like this? Legs together? Apart? How wide a smile? Come here, you big lummox."

The vision!

He dropped to his knees at her side, and his hand moved unbidden to caress her. Soldiers had been asking questions in the village . . .

"The man is half-witted," Eshiala muttered, and raised a hand to unbutton his shirt.

His hand stroked her arm, her shoulder. Her breast. Firm, heavy, smooth. Oh, God of Love! He had expected to be safe, here in the east, but now he had learned that the XIVth Legion had been withdrawn from Qoble and the XIIth was everywhere, even in Angot, so he dare not go there now.

With no recollection of moving, he was kneeling over her, tongue stroking nipple. When had that happened?

He could no longer trust their hostess. Mistress Ingipune, because a reward had been posted. Neighbors would talk in a little place like this. Eshiala had pulled off his shirt and was struggling one-handed with his belt buckle.

They must saddle up and leave, and head up into the foothills . . .

"Do take off those stupid breeches," Eshiala said crossly. "You will manage much better without them."

Shock! He released her breast and ran his hand over the firm cream-smoothness of her belly. Then he turned his head to stare into her eyes incredulously. He made a gibbering noise.

A marvel of dimples appeared beside her mouth. "I was wondering when you were going to notice. I understood you were an expert on the feminine body." Despite the banter, there was concern in the deep blackness of her eyes.

"Oh, my beloved!" he said, choking. "My dove! My darling! My love!"

He might have kept maundering like that for hours, had she not said, "Then you're pleased?"

"Pleased?" He grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her wildly. His child! She was going to give him a child!

What legions? There were hours of daylight left yet. His child, too.

Somewhat later he paused breathlessly. "It still isn't possible!"

Her hand slid around from his back and down to more intimate places. She knew all the tricks now. "Of course it is, see? And we are not leaving here until you do it."

If she had loved Shandie like this, she would never have been his.

But she was his, all his. And it was possible. His love, his child. Anything was possible, even miracles.

 

 

4

Before Northern Vengeance cleared the bar at Randport, Inos arranged a spare sail on the forward deck as a makeshift tent. She had furnished it with a water bottle and a straw-filled mattress and prepared to make the best of things. The spot lacked privacy, but it did have plenty of fresh air, and the rail was within reach when she needed it. Saying he preferred to suffer out of sight, Shandie had gone below.

Two days later she was still in her tent, ignoring the voices and activities of the others. The sun was hot and the wind fair. Gulls crying, ropes creaking, the ketch rose and fell over the green hills of ocean. Perhaps the swell was barely visible to the eye, but it felt like mountains to Inos. Until she arrived at Thume she would be useless; she could do nothing but endure life and curse the impish side of her inheritance. Her jotunn ancestors might be ashamed of her, but the other half would all sympathize. Shandie would be in no better condition than she was.

Dwarves did not admit to feeling seasick and apparently the trait was a personal thing in goblins, for Pool Leaper had been felled, but Moon Baiter had not.

When she could ignore the rolling, yawing, and pitching, her thoughts were mostly of Rap and the children. She had no hope now of ever being reunited with any of them. She could not even believe that she would ever know what had happened to them, far away in this cruel world, and that ignorance proclaimed her failure like a blast of trumpets. Kadie dead; Rap dead or taken; Holi and Eva perhaps destroyed in a ruin of all Krasnegar. Only Gath, she thought, might still have a chance. She had been furious and bitter when he slipped his leash and took off adventuring on his own. Now she was profoundly grateful that he had. At least he was not here with her, sailing to the Accursed Land.

Perhaps Gath would survive somehow in Nordland, provided he was not betrayed to Thane Drakkor—or betrayed himself to Thane Drakkor. Was Gath aware of the blood feud? She thought so, but could not be sure. And what sort of a life was she wishing on him there? At least he would never become a bloody-handed raider like his grandfather Grossnuk. She had shared Rap's doubts that Gath would ever become assertive enough even to rule Krasnegar—Gath as a raider was an idea that would never float. At best he would be a lowly churl, a slave. At worst . . .

"My lady!" That was Jarga's voice.

Inos opened one bleary eye. As long as she kept her head still, she might be able to hold a conversation. "Mmph?"

The sorceress dropped to one knee. "We have problems."

"My husband always says that every problem is an opportunity."

The big sailor rarely appreciated humor. "First, the Covin is scanning the area. We are agreed—Wirax, Frazkr, and Pool Leaper."

Inos opened both eyes. "Searching for whom?"

"No one special, we think. Just watching, and especially watching for magic. We can sense the attention. I dare not try to ease your suffering." The jotunn's face was against the sky, so that her expression was not very clear. Sunlight and blond hair painted golden glory around her head.

"'Sawright," Inos murmured, and closed her eyes again. Let the Covin hunt all it wanted!

"The second thing is, we have company, much company."

Seasickness took a step backward. Eyes flicked open again.

Jarga's worried face swam into focus. "They may wish only to establish who we are." She neither looked nor sounded convinced. "You will have to stand up, my lady."

Before Inos could explain how utterly impossible that was, cold logic stilled her tongue. Dwarves at sea would be as commonplace as whales in a desert; goblins even more so. Her blond hair would look jotunnish at a distance, and a ship of this size would have a better chance of passing a hasty inspection if it had two hands on deck instead of only one. What could they do about her green face, though?

"Help me up," she said.

 

Truly the Gods had cursed her.

It had been common knowledge for years that the caliph would launch a war against the Impire as soon as he had united all Zark under his banner. Even back in Urgaxox, the markets had known of his sudden interest in chartering shipping. The imposter imperor had withdrawn forces from the eastern shores, giving him his chance. So now the war had come, and Inos had fallen right into it. All around her, the sea was spiked with sails. Pew of them resembled Imperial vessels. Most were Zarkian dhows, lateen sails slanted like the wings of gulls. This could only be the caliph's navy, on its way to Ollion and invasion.

"How could you let this happen!" she croaked.

Jarga shrugged impassively. "They have our wind. They are faster."

"I apologize. My remark was unjust."

"Come aft, my lady."

As Inos reeled aft behind the sailor, she saw that some attempt had been made to give Northern Vengeance the looks of an ordinary fishing vessel. Very smelly nets were heaped around the deck, and every cask and barrel aboard was in evidence. But where was the mythical crew? At least half a dozen flaxen-haired giants were required immediately.

Frazkr yielded the wheel to Jarga and hurried below, leaving the two women alone. The panes of the cabin skylight were open. No question that the rest of the motley crew would be standing directly under it, attending very carefully to whatever transpired on deck.

The vessel bearing down on them was many times their size, and resplendent. Her two triangular sails curved to hold the wind like a lover's hands, white against a sapphire sky. The high stem gleamed in gold and many colors, while the long pointed bow cut through the blue-green sea with flashes of foam. She had a bone in her teeth and she was closing relentlessly on the tiny ketch. She represented danger, but she was a magnificent sight.

All the other vessels in view must be her allies. There was nowhere to hide, for the coast was a vague brown line dirtying the southern horizon. Above it and very close to invisible, distant peaks peered through the haze, pale ghosts of mountains. Inos knew that range of old, although she had never seen its northern limits before. Those were the Progistes, and west of them lay Thume.

She swallowed the vile taste in her mouth. "The Covin is still watching?"

"Yes, my lady." Clutching the wheel in her big hands, Jarga eyed the dhow appraisingly.

It was obvious why the Covin would be watching: The caliph's fleet had put to sea. Zinixo would want to know where it was headed, and what sorcery might be aiding it.

"Then we have a choice," Inos said bitterly. "We can escape the djinns at the cost of falling to the Almighty. Or you and I can look forward to a career in a seraglio. Which fate do you choose, Jarga?"

"I will take the djinns."

"I suppose I will, too."

The dhow was only a few cable lengths away now, but her bowsprit was still aimed at the ketch. Amid the elaborate carvings and gilding on her prow the name Arakkaran was inscribed in angular Zarkian lettering. Still she came! Did she not flaunt her finery like a vain harlot, she might be suspected of planning to ram. But she was beautiful.

Inos realized with a shock that her nausea had gone. Could that be from fear? Or was it from anger? For the first time in her life, her jotunn half had prevailed at sea. Yes it was anger, but not directed at the dhow.

How dare the Gods play such tricks upon her? Rap, were he here, would make one of his blasphemous remarks about Their taste in irony, and for once she would agree with it. Nineteen years ago he had rescued her from vile captivity in Arakkaran—well, almost rescued her—and now the Gods were spitefully throwing her back in again. She was still east of the mountains, technically in Zarkian waters. Women in Zark had all the rights of dairy cattle.

What of her male companions? What cruel end awaited them? Raspnex and the other dwarves might choose death over the Covin, but the goblins had no reason to do so. If they loosed their powers to escape the djinns, Zinixo would pounce on all of them.

Suddenly Jarga spun the wheel. Northern Vengeance came about, spilling wind from her sails. In a few minutes she was hove-to, and Arakkaran, having matched her maneuver, was drifting close. Scarlet dolphins, blue gannets, and golden squids writhed on her sides amid weeds and stylized waves. She towered over the smaller craft, and she bore some complex banner at her masthead. Red Djinn faces peered down under white turbans.

"She must be the flagship!" Inos said, but Jarga was staring, lost in wonder of this glorious floating palace.

A line snaked down. Jarga ran to take it, snapping at Inos to hold the wheel. At the last possible moment fenders fell into the gap and the two vessels came together with a gentle bump. Like a shower of apples from a tree, a dozen sailors leaped down, thudding bare feet on the ketch's deck. Clearly Arakkaran was a well-run ship, no mere showpiece.

After months of consorting with dwarves, Inos had forgotten just how big men could be. They wore white breeches and white turbans with nothing between. Shiny scimitars flashed at their waists; ruddy skin rippled over muscles and red eyes gleamed with amusement as they registered the sex of the two crew members present.

Their leader swaggered aft to confront the women. White teeth shone in his red beard as he sneered.

"All alone? What sort of craft is this?"

"We are simple fishing folk, Mightiness," Jarga mumbled, with a most unjotunnish humility. "We mean no harm."

"Nor we. Indeed we shall brighten your lives considerably! Go aboard." The big man gestured to a rope ladder, which had just unrolled itself down the dhow's side.

Somebody yelled a warning overhead and a barrel crashed to the deck. It exploded on impact, spilling black fluid everywhere. At once the djinns began throwing nets on the mess.

"Pitch!" Jarga cried.

"Pitch." The officer glanced contemptuously at the open skylight. "We are about to torch you. The ladder will be removed in a few minutes. Stay and fry if you prefer."

The expression in Jarga's blue eyes caused his hand to jump to the hilt of his sword—she was very nearly as tall as he, and jotunn. Inos stepped between them and pushed the woman toward the ladder. Jarga went reluctantly. Passing the skylight, she called out, "Abandon ship!"

Feet drummed on wood as the men hurried up the companionway.

 

Minutes later, when Arakkaran came under way again, Northern Vengeance was already a smoking inferno upon the sea, sails and rigging dissolving in yellow flame. The eight prisoners huddled together on the dhow's deck under the amused and puzzled gaze of at least fifty huge djinns. In the bright light of the open sea, their eyes were the color of dried blood.

Inos had never seen a finer craft. Every scrap of brass shone like gold. Every plank was waxed and gleaming, every cable smooth and new. Bright-hued lacquer traced out exotic carvings on any surface that did not need to be flat. This, she supposed, was Azak's doing. He was a perfectionist. If Azak built a fleet, it would be the finest fleet the Gods had ever seen.

She glanced at her companions. Jarga seemed to be in a trance, bewitched by the splendor of the dhow. The dwarves just glowered, out of their element. The goblins were shifty-eyed and jumpy; Shandie's face was almost as green as theirs. Raspnex was imprisoned in his self-imposed cocoon.

The imperor was too ill to think, and all the others must be concentrating mightily on not using sorcery within the occult inspection of the Covin. With her newfound sea legs, Inos was in better shape to cope than any of them, but a woman was no more than a domestic animal to djinns. Nothing she said would be heeded, even were it credible: I am Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar, this is the imperor, and may I present Warlock Raspnex . . .

The cordon opened to admit a portly man of middle years. He was weather-beaten, his unfastened blouse displayed grizzled chest hair. The blouse, his turban, and his voluminous pants were blue; he wore a jeweled scimitar and ornate shoes. He could be assumed to be the captain.

"A motley catch!" he boomed in the metallic accents of northern Zark. His red-and-white brows rose ever higher as he inspected that catch.

Inos turned away from his arrogant gaze and her eye was caught by a movement up on the poop deck. Her heart stopped in its tracks. She stared in disbelief. It could not be! That was nineteen years ago, woman!

"By the beard of the caliph, what are these two?" the captain demanded. He addressed the question to Wirax, the oldest male.

"They are goblins, eminent sir."

"Goblins? Got a bad case of seasickness, have they?" The unjustified mirth this remark generated in the onlookers confirmed that the speaker must be the commander.

But the one up on the poop? The young one leaning on the rail and staring down at the play? Exceptionally tall, even for a djinn . . . impossibly wide shoulders and narrow waist . . . a nose like an eagle's beak, face weathered to a rosewood red, and an arrogance to face down Gods . . . green clothing.

He was far too young, but the likeness was uncanny.

"Your names?" the captain barked. He was clearly puzzled now. He had probably never even heard of goblins before. "And stations, if any."

"Jarga, sir, master of Rosebud."

"Frazkr, iron founder."

"Yshan, merchant," Shandie mumbled.

"Inosolan, widow."

But Inos was distracted, wrestling memories. That huge young man wore green, royal green! Which of them? They had all seemed so alike in their childhood and she had never paid them much heed anyway.

And none of them had ever seen her face!

The litany of names and lies had ended. No wiser for it, the captain scowled. "And what business brings goblins and dwarves and the rest of you to the shores of Zark?"

Wirax launched into a wild tale of seeking opportunities for mining ventures. As the noble lord was doubtless aware, goblins were exceptionally skilled at detecting ore bodies . . . But the goblins were becoming steadily more nervous. Any minute now, Inos thought, young Pool Leaper would crack. He would unleash magic and the watching Covin would swoop down on the ship. Then everything would be lost. Better the djinns than Zinixo, but how could she justify or explain that to the goblin?

What was his name, that arrogant prince on the poop? That prince who looked so astonishingly like his father? Like his father had been, twenty years ago. The oldest. Name! Name! Name!

"I don't believe a word of it!" the captain roared, ending Wirax's fantasy. He turned away. "Throw the men overboard and give the women to the crew."

"Wait!" Inos shouted. She had it! And that one had seen her face! "Prince Quarazak!" she called. "We have met before, your Highness!"

A beefy djinn at her side lifted a fist to silence her, and stopped as her meaning penetrated. All eyes swung to the dandy on the poop deck. Inos expected a summons, but he reacted exactly as his father would have done—instantly and dramatically. He vaulted over the rail and landed on the main deck like a giant cat. Then he stalked forward and sailors backed in haste out of his path. He stopped in front of Inos and stared down at her with deadly red eyes. Like his father, he wore his beard trimmed to a narrow fringe; it was darker than she remembered Azak's, though.

"Not likely. I have never had a woman as old as you."

No one laughed, because the remark was not intended to be humorous. The only female faces he would have seen since his childhood would have been those of his daughters and his concubines. Perhaps daughters. Daughters were failures.

Inos was familiar with the attitude and did not let it distract her. "You bore a golden chain on a cushion. When the ceremony was interrupted I lifted my veil. You saw me."

The red eyes widened and the young man seemed to grow even taller. His reckless intervention had landed him in a confrontation so unpredictable that it might cause him to lose face before the crew and the ship's officers, but his composure did not waver. His response was calculated and prudent. "What name do you go by now?"

"I am Inosolan of Krasnegar. You know where we met. And you know who my husband is."

That last he might not know, if he was not in his father's confidence, but the rest he did. Oh, yes, he knew. He had been only eight years old, but he would not have forgotten the day his father married the foreign queen. No one who had been present in that hall would ever have forgotten the battle when one lone horseman overcame the entire palace guard.

He looked over the captives, the goblins in particular. Then he made an instant decision, just as his father would have done. He turned to the captain, who somehow contrived to grovel without moving a muscle.

"Strike my flag. Signal my brother to raise his. Break out of line and set course for Quern."

"Aye, Prince Admiral!"

"Send the woman to my cabin. Put the rest in irons until I decide what to do with them." With that, Admiral Prince Quarazak ak'Azak ak'Azakar of Arakkaran, oldest son of the caliph, spun on his heel and stalked away.

Inos was roughly shoved after him, knowing that now she must play a part as she had never played before.

 

 

5

In Thume, on a snoozy summer afternoon about a week and a half before Longday, Kadie and Thaïle were lounging in the woods, weaving baskets. It was not, as Thaïle had explained, necessary to weave baskets. Weaving baskets was no great feat of artistry or skill. The finished product would be singularly useless in the College—it was just a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Kadie was perfectly happy to weave baskets with her friend. She was quite content to do anything in Thaïle's company. She knew she would never have woven baskets in Krasnegar, even had suitable withes been available. In Krasnegar she would probably have denounced the whole procedure as an idiotic waste of time; she might have gone so far as to describe it as peasant's work and thus provoke a sermon from her mother, but in fact it was a pleasant way to pass a hot and sticky afternoon.

Facing her, Thaïle sat on a mossy root, legs crossed within her loose skirt of gold and brown, sandals lying nearby, discarded in the grass. Her white lace halter was very nearly transparent and she wore nothing under it. She seemed like part of the woods themselves, a wild flower.

Kadie wore identical garments, except that the stripes on her skirt were gold and a green that Thaïle said matched her eyes. It was very suitable costume for a deserted forest on such a day as this, but the blouse would cause a revolution in Krasnegar—she tried to imagine Papa's reaction and thoughts failed her. The mind boggled, whatever boggling was.

Poor Papa! How she had enjoyed teasing him! Never again would she be able to outrage him. Never again would she smell burning peat, or run panting up the interminable stairs of the castle, or lick snowflakes off the end of her nose—a trick that always annoyed Gath, who couldn't. Oh, Gath! He and Mama had gone off with the imperor, never to be seen again. Probably never to be heard of again. Thaïle could not help, for she did not know what had happened to the king and queen of Krasnegar, or to Gath. The Keeper might know, because the Keeper knew everything, but apparently no one ever asked questions of the Keeper. Nasty old witch! Papa had never come to rescue his dutiful, beautiful daughter from the goblins, so he was probably dead, just like Thaïle's baby and husband. The world was cruel. Blood Beak was dead; Death Bird and all the goblins were dead. The legions had been burned up by the dragons . . .

"You all right?" Thaïle asked softly.

Kadie sniffed. "Oh, yes! Quite all right. Perfectly all right. Nothing wrong. Well, my fingers are a little sore, maybe."

Thaïle laughed and threw her half-finished basket over her shoulder. "Then forget about the footling baskets!" Her big gold eyes sparkled.

"But I want to! I want to be able to make them round and smooth and even, like you do, and not all lumpy and squished."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does to me!" Kadie said crossly. "You're so good at everything and I'm so hopeless!"

"I expect there are lots of things you can do that I can't. Not without using sorcery, at least."

"I don't know any. And even if there was something I could do, then it would be a Krasnegar thing, a princessy thing, and those things aren't going to do me any good at all here in Thume. I'm no good for anything here!"

Thaïle pushed her feet out of the hem of her skirt and scrabbled over on her hands and toes, gangly as a newborn colt. She sat down next to Kadie and put an arm around her.

"Berry brain!" she said softly. "Of course you're good for something! You're company for me. I don't know what I'd do without you, Kadie!"

"Really? Truly?"

"Really! Truly! I have no friends, no family. I can't make friends with the other archons, I just can't! Not anyone here. I miss Leéb horribly! I know why the Keeper and the archons and the College did what they did, even if I can't tell you. And yet I can't help blaming them. You're the only one who doesn't remind me of Leéb, and I really, truly think I'd go mad if I didn't have you here with me."

Kadie blinked a few times. Then she wiped her cheeks with a finger. "I feel a fool, weeping all the time like this."

"You don't weep all the time. You don't weep any more than I do."

They had this conversation, or one like it, far too often. The next bit was where Thaïle told her that all those months with the goblins couldn't be wiped out in a couple of days, or a week—and now it was more than a week. That was nice to hear, but in truth she was not behaving at all like a rescued princess should. After all, it wasn't as if the goblins had ever actually hurt her. Blood Beak had only threatened to rape her, so he hadn't ever meant what he said, and no one had ever subjected her to any of the awful tortures they had used on all the other prisoners, filling the nights with howls of torment and bellows of mirth from sunset to dawn. Just being terribly frightened for a very long time was not much of an excuse for a princess to behave like a ninny.

"Let's keep that first basket of yours," she said. "It's too good to leave behind."

Thaïle nodded vaguely, golden eyes staring at nothing.

"We can pick some plums and strawberries on the way back to the Thaïle Place."

"Mm."

Kadie felt a twinge of alarm. "And will you let me try cooking again tonight?"

"What?" The pixie looked around distractedly. "Sony. Er, I have a job to do."

"Job? You're going to leave me here?" Kadie heard her voice quaver into shrillness. "All alone?"

"We can go back to the Place first, and I won't be long."

"How long?" What if Thaïle never came back and Kadie was left in the cottage all alone, a stranger here in Thume . . .

"Steady!" Thaïle squeezed her hand. "No need to panic! No need for me to leave you, either. I'll take you with me. Come!"

She jumped up in a flounce of skirt and ran to her sandals. Kadie fumbled in the grass for hers.

"It's all right—you taking me, I mean?"

The pixie grinned. "And who's to complain? I'm an archon, I can do anything I want. Come, give me your hand."

"Where are we going? Why? Who're we going to meet?"

"We're going to the coast Close your eyes, it's bright."

They joined hands. Kadie felt no sense of movement, but at once pink light glared through her eyelids and a shivery wind enveloped her. Its clammy embrace raised every goosebump possible. She said, "Eek!" loudly. She was certainly no longer in a shady forest. She heard a familiar unending rumble, scented a familiar smell. Gulls shrieked appropriately in the distance.

In a moment she forced her eyes open against tears. She stood on a sand dune, knee-deep in coarse grass that danced in ranks before the breeze. Below her lay a silver beach and beyond that, of course, the sea her nose and ears had detected. It had never been so blue in Krasnegar, nor the sky so wonderfully deep.

"Oh, I love the sea!" she said.

"It's all right, I suppose," Thaïle agreed doubtfully. "It's so restless and noisy!"

"It does bump things around a lot."

"It repeats itself all the time."

"It steals things and litters."

"But I suppose it is useful. If it went away, all the fish would fall down."

They laughed together.

"Where are we? Sea of Sorrows or Morning Sea?"

"Somewhere in the west. This is my sector, and someone's coming."

Kadie took a long, careful look around the bay, from headland to headland: waves, wet shiny sand, dry golden sand, dunes, trees, and sky. There was no one in sight at all—no boats, no ships, no cottages, no livestock, just a few white birds. About a furlong away, a small stream emerged from the woods and slunk across the beach in a shallow, sinuous channel. Each new wave sent ripples exploring up it, but that was about the limit of the excitement hereabouts, as far as she could see.

"Where? How do you know?"

Thaïle was studying the sea, and perhaps she was seeing sorcerous things, because she spoke distractedly. "I know because it called me. The coast called me, to say there were strangers." The sun chased golden highlights through her hazel-brown hair.

Kadie waited a moment for more explanations. None came. "The coast called you? The waves or birds? Or all the little sand grains jabbering at once?"

"Just the coast. I'm attuned to it, like the mountains speak to Raim . . . Yes, truly!" Thaïle smiled.

"I believe you!"

"Your face didn't! All right, I wouldn't have believed it, either. I didn't know, but it's true. More of Keef's work, I assume."

"Oh," Kadie said doubtfully. "And where are the strangers?"

"They're here! Watch the trees."

In a flash, the trees changed. Most of them disappeared. Those that remained were different, and in among them lay fields, and a couple of distant cottages. Turning, Kadie saw that there were more cottages spotted along the course of the stream, and the stream's path across the beach was different, too. Four dories lay above high water mark.

"This is the other Thume," Thaïle said. "The one the people . . . Ouch! I'll try and explain sometime." She pulled a face, as she always did when she tried to talk about sorcery.

"Pixies?"

"Pixies. Not typical, though! This would rank as a pixie slum. Most pixies won't tolerate a Place that has another Place in sight. And there are the strangers."

A sailboat lay offshore. A dinghy had almost reached the shore. Kadie stared in astonishment at the four men in it—their hair!

"What . . . I mean, who are they?"

"Mermen," Thane said softly. She chuckled. "Fishermen, I expect. They've come ashore to fill their water casks. See them in the boat?"

"Blue hair?"

"Yes, merfolk."

"Can they see the cottages?"

Again the sorceress chuckled. "No. They would if they went inland a little way—but they won't, because of the aversion spell. There's a spell on that water, too. Watch what happens."

The dinghy grounded near the stream mouth, and the men jumped out to heave it farther up the beach. Then they all straightened up and looked around warily. They had very pale skin. Their hair was long and light blue, the color of a jotunn's eyes. They were bare-footed and bare-chested, their loins and legs swathed in long wraps that glittered silver in the sunlight. They were about imp height, but they lacked impish chubbiness.

"They're only boys!" Kadie realized her hand was gripping the hilt of her sword and released it. What good would a rapier do her against four youths? And what harm could come to her with Thaïle here? "They look fairly harmless." Quite nice, in fact.

"They're not just boys. Merfolk are all skinny like that. Do you think they're good-looking?"

"Well, yes . . . Yes, they are, in spite of that blue hair." Kadie glanced suspiciously at her companion's grin. "What's funny?"

"If I weren't here, you'd be in serious trouble. Princess. Those are mermen!"

"At this distance?"

"Easily!"

"Then I am very glad you are here!" Kadie said uncomfortably. Everyone knew what happened with mermen. It was not nice!

Having made their dinghy secure, the four sailors set off in a group across the sand. Kadie shied, then realized that they were not heading for her. They had not seen her and probably could not see her. Thaïle was with her, she had nothing to fear.

In a moment, too, the sailors' path began to curve seaward. Soon they had reached the waves again. They lined up and together knelt to cup hands and drink. Kadie burst out laughing as each in turn jumped to his feet. Faint sounds of cursing drifted across on the wind.

"What in the world are they doing?" she asked.

Thaïle was grinning. "Drinking the sea, of course."

"But why? What do they think they're doing?"

"They think they're tasting the stream, and they think it's bad water."

The four sailors marched farther along the beach and tried again. The sea was just as salt there, apparently.

It really was very funny. At this distance, the men did look like boys, or at least adolescents, and they were obviously furious. As a group, they began retracing their steps over the sand, angrily chattering and waving hands.

Kadie put an arm around Thaïle and hugged. "Are you doing this?"

Thaïle responded with a matching arm. "No, dear. The stream is spelled. One of my predecessors must have laid a curse on it. Don't feel sorry for them! They know they're not supposed to come ashore in Thume. I probably ought to give them all a dose of footrot, or something."

"Don't! You wouldn't!"

"Well, I probably should," Thaïle said doubtfully. "But I don't suppose this lot'll ever be back."

The mermen were heaving their boat back into the surf, their casks unfilled.

"No need to bother the Keeper over them," Thaïle said with obvious relief "There's some big fat trout in that stream. If I coax them out, would you like to try cooking them tonight?"

"How about a bathe in the sea first?"

"Why not? Race you!"

 

 

6

Where the morning sea laved the foothills of the Progistes Range stood the bastion of Quern, around whose towering walls the tides of men had surged for centuries. It had withstood sieges without number, been sacked times without number, been betrayed and looted and rebuilt, again and again and again.

Years ago, the caliph had taken Quern without a struggle, on the strength of his reputation alone. Had it resisted, he would have starved it into surrender and put every living creature within it to the sword, as he had at Shuggaran and Zarfel and Mi'gal. Instead he had offered mercy and delivered it.

Quern was the last outpost of Zark. Westward lay Thume, and the Impire. Now the caliph had returned to Quern at the head of an army such as Zark had not seen in generations. His fleet patrolled the coast to maintain security and guard the massed shipping in the harbor. All other vessels were being seized and sunk. The war had begun.

 

He stood in full sunlight on the battlements of the fortress, with his sirdars around him. They were watching Fourth Panoply drill on the dusty plain below. The men were good, but not good enough. Gurrak had sworn by the bowels of his sons that he would have the Fourth licked into shape before the army moved out. He had come close, very close. But not close enough. So now Azak must either pretend a satisfaction he did not feel, or select a replacement for Sirdar Gurrak.

Replacements were always a problem, and they seemed to be needed ever more often now as his original lieutenants died off, for one reason or another. Each new appointment shifted all the subtle balances of power and intrigue around the person of the caliph. They changed the balance of the army itself—ten years ago Fourth Panoply had been the cream, the staunch reserve that could turn the tide when all seemed lost. Now it was saber fodder, the trash he rolled in first to tire the enemy's arms.

Still, he had a good staff of sirdars. A couple were cousins of his, three were survivors of other royal families, and two were so far removed from any throne as to be almost commoners. One and only one was a son. To give a possible successor command of thousands of crack troops was not the act of a prudent man. Too much prudence, of course, might be interpreted as timidity. Nuances were important. Thus one son a sirdar and only one—so far. Admirals were less dangerous.

Tomorrow they moved against the Impire. Everything Azak had done for nineteen years had led inexorably to this. Historically, the Impire's invasions of Zark were beyond counting. Only three times had the djinns ever seriously returned the favor, and never as a united people. Unity came hard to a land that was basically a chain of isolated cities around a waterless waste, and only a need to evict invaders had ever united them in the past. Now Azak had done it for them. From Ullacarn in the south all the way around to here, Quern, the continent acknowledged the rule of the caliph. The Caliphate of all Zark, his life's work.

Far below, a bugle called. The camel corps exploded into a charge. Ah! Now that was better! One moment lines of stationary mounts and riders like statues—barely ant size from this height—the next a rolling cloud of dust and potential death. Perhaps the camels' performance could be allowed to ransom the wretched Gurrak. Some of the sirdars muttered appreciation as the camel corps wheeled around the infantry squares.

"That is good," Azak said softly. He did not look; he could feel Gurrak's spasm of relief at this hint of praise. He could also smell the rankness of fear on the man.

"The credit must go to my emir of camels. Sire," Gurrak said hoarsely. "But he has done no more than we expect of an ak'Azak."

Others murmured quick agreement.

Fear and flattery. Flattery and fear. They were all the same—sirdars, sultans, princes—all terrified, all sycophants, all sickening. On the other hand, there must be some truth in what the craven said. Those camels were doing better than the First's had yesterday, much better. So young Tharkan might really be as good as he thought he was. How interesting! How old now? Azak made a quick count. Almost eighteen, of course, because Tharkan had been one of the first among his second family, the crop of sons born to him after the hiatus created by the meddling sorceress Rasha. Tharkan ak'Azak ak'Azakar, borne by . . . what was her name? The thin one from the hills. She'd produced nothing but daughters after Tharkan.

A mutter from the sirdars and a stifled sob from Gurrak drew his attention back to the massed specks of humanity moving on the earth far below. The horse corps was in turmoil, their mounts panicking as the camels charged past. Men were being thrown and trampled; the entire corps was on the point of stampeding. Execration! That was unforgivable! What sort of trash was he supposed to lead into battle?

Order was being restored, but he could not pretend to overlook that debacle. So now the problem was to choose Gurrak's replacement. To have to change sirdars on the very eve of departure, that was infuriating! He must promote someone within the panoply itself, a man who would know the other emirs. After that camel demonstration, the choice was obvious. Of course it would set up young Tharkan as a potential challenger, but that might slow the others a little in their endless plotting. Tharkan probably thought of himself that way already. At his age Azak had kept four assassins on his personal staff and had known as much about poisons as all of them put together.

The archers would be next. Fourth Panoply had been noted for its archers even back when Kirthap ran it. If Gurrak had let them slip, then he would have to suffer for it before he died.

Azak blinked in the intolerable sun and wished he could wipe the sweat from his eyes. Nineteen years. Nineteen years of blood and struggle. Fifteen battles, three long sieges, four massacres, seven rebellions, innumerable executions. After the first year or two he had been sorely tempted to give up and just hold what he had already collected, but that would have been certain suicide. And the same again, two years ago, when he had been routed at Bone Pass and nearly died himself. In the end he had always just pressed on, because he had never had any real choice. Nineteen years ago he had mounted a tiger. He was still aboard and the tiger was still running. Tomorrow he would ride it westward at last. He could never dismount from the tiger alive.

The single target was ready. A flag waved. A line of arrows flew, invisible from this height. Then they seemed to congeal like a rush of smoke and the target leaped backward under the massed impact. The sirdars sighed in approval. Azak waited for the misses to be counted and signaled. Every arrow bore its owner's mark, of course.

The archers swung around and prepared for the rapid-fire demonstration. He raised his eyes to the hills, black with men and tents and livestock. The city in the distance was packed from wall to wall. The harbor beyond was floored with shipping, all of it just a . . .

Arakkaran! His eyes were not what they had been, but that could only be Arakkaran entering port. What was that idiot Quarazak up to? Why had the admiral deserted his fleet?

Azak's mind floundered through a dozen possible explanations and could find none that would stand up to a second thought. He realized that he had clenched his fists and gently opened them again. Some of his companions must have noticed the dhow even before he did; they must be wondering as he was. He would not give them the satisfaction of knowing that he had not expected this.

"Well, who are the true djinns amongst us, sirdars? Can you see? Is that my dilatory son at last?"

A chorus confirmed that the vessel was indeed the flagship.

"About time!" Azak snapped his fingers and a herald ran forward. "See that the prince admiral is admitted to our presence the minute he arrives."

The man bowed head to knees and was running before he had even straightened up again.

What was Quarazak dreaming of? Had he brought news of a battle, perhaps? Had he sunk the Imperial Navy? No, he would have sent a dispatch boat.

The rapid shoot was completed. The drill was over. At Azak's side the massed sirdars waited in frozen apprehension to hear his decision. Probably they all knew what it must be. Those horses! Who could he put in Gurrak's place at this late date?

For some reason he thought of Krandaraz, and sighed. In almost thirty years of breeding sons he had produced only one Krandaraz. Krandaraz had been the only diamond in the shingle. Krandaraz should be here now, first among the sirdars—he would outshine them all.

He would also outshine Azak.

The caliph turned to his tense associates. They could guess what was about to happen. They waited to hear his choice of victim. He selected the youngest, Azakar, Sirdar of the Sixth, the only one of his sons to command a panoply—at the moment.

"Ak'Azak? What do you think of Fourth's performance?"

The lad pursed his lips. Had he licked them, his father would have struck him.

"Much improved. Sire." He blinked garnet eyes warily. His beard was oddly forked and still notably thin, although he was one of the first family and no longer a boy. Gods! He must be twenty-three or so, older than Azak had been when he proclaimed himself ruler of the continent and set out to prove it.

"But not," the sirdar continued, mouthing each word with care, "quite up to the standards of . . . others . . . we have seen here in the last few days."

Not bad. Not bad at all. It did not commit either way. Which was as it should be.

"Not up to expectations, you mean?"

Azakar grabbed at the hint thus offered. "Disappointing, really, Sire."

Azak nodded.

Gurrak made a curious coughing noise.

Azak looked at him sorrowfully. He quite liked Gurrak, a splendid horseman himself, an excellent man on a hunt. The terror in his face now was heartbreaking, but his voice remained remarkably steady.

"I commend my sons to your service. Sire."

"I judge men by their deeds, not their fathers. Sirdar."

Sweat was streaming down Gurrak's face, but he knew he had been given all the guarantee he would get. He bowed. Then he scrambled up on the parapet and stepped off.

Azak snapped his fingers twice, for two heralds. "Inform Prince Tharkan ak'Azak that Sirdar Gurrak has met with an accident and he is to assume command of the Fourth . . ." He glanced at Azakar, but saw nothing in his eyes to contradict the pleased smile of the mouth. " . . .temporarily. And you—direct the Secretariat to issue the necessary commissions."

The men ran.

Yes, another contender would give little fork-beard Azakar something to think about. There was always the chance that the two of them would gang up on their old man, of course, and bring a quarter of the army against him, but ganging up required some minimal amount of trust and trust did not run in the family. Never for long, anyway. And this appointment would be a general message to the first family that their innumerable younger brothers were now to be taken seriously. Tharkan must look to his own safety from now on.

Azak walked away, eager to go in out of the sun and start work on the mountain of documents awaiting him. And in a little while he would find out just what that idiot Quarazak was dreaming of in disobeying orders and returning to port.

Zark might very shortly be going to need a new admiral, as well as a new sirdar.

 

Azak approved of the fortress of Quern, which was barren and functional and nondecadent. The room he used as a presence chamber had probably been a mess hall in the past, perhaps other things, also. It was eminently plain, a stone vastness full of hollow echoes, dimly lit by windows that were mere tunnels through walls several spans thick. Even now, just ten days or so short of Longday, it was cool. The secretaries swarmed like black insects over the document tables by the entrance; he sat at his desk at the far end. There was another door at his back, just in case.

As a further advantage, the room was shielded against sorcery. Furkar had seen to that many years ago. Furkar had shielded a chamber for the caliph's use in every one of the many palaces he used on his travels about Zark.

Quarazak was eerily sure of himself. Even as his son came in through the wide doors and began marching across the slabbed stone floor toward his desk, Azak registered that curious absence of fear. He waved the secretaries away, and they scurried off like beetles, their black kibrs swirling around their ankles. They bowed to the prince in passing and then settled in around the tables of documents at the far end of the shadowed hall. Dung beetles.

So now caliph and eldest son would have a private talk, overseen but not overheard. Quarazak stopped and bowed turban to knees.

Amazingly sure of himself, he was, for an admiral who had flouted his orders when at battle stations. In the last hour a large portion of Azak's nimble brain had been wrestling with that problem while the rest of it attended to the endless edicts and requisitions and proclamations. He had found no conceivable explanation.

Mutiny at once suggested revolution, but he could not believe that it would be done like this. Now, on the very brink of war, he was probably safer than he had ever been since he first laid the sash of Arakkaran over his shoulder twenty-one years ago. And when it did come, it would be done with a blade or a vial, not a ship—not when he was half a league from the sea.

It might be done by sorcery. Just for a moment he let his eyes shift to the ominous black-clad figure sitting alone in the farthest corner—Furkar, court sorcerer. If Furkar ever changed sides, then everything would be over very quickly. Yes, Furkar might do it like this.

But not with Quarazak. The eldest prince was good, but not good enough, and he knew it. Furkar knew it. By the standards of ordinary men Quarazak was outstanding—tall and handsome, ruthless, quick of hand and mind. He was very nearly a duplicate of his father as he had been at that age, but not quite. Compared to Krandaraz he was nothing. He knew that, too. More than anything else in the world, perhaps, Quarazak would like to know where Krandaraz was. It was the last thing in the world Azak would ever tell him.

Quarazak was waiting now for permission to speak. Azak did not tell him to take the solitary chair. Only Furkar ever sat in that chair.

"This," Azak said softly, "had better be good. Very good."

"It is. Sire. You will approve." Ruby eyes twinkled.

Play my own game at me, will you? Oh, he was sure of himself! He was afraid, of course. They all were, always, but Quarazak was much less afraid at the moment than he usually was, or ought to be.

"You have thirty seconds."

"I brought a prisoner, Sire, one you will wish to interrogate yourself."

Azak spread his hands on the desk. He should have done that sooner. "A prisoner? I can think of no prisoner who would justify your presence here at the moment except perhaps the imperor himself."

His son chuckled very softly, deep in his throat. "Hardly."

"Or perhaps the sorcerer Rap of Krasnegar." Now there would be an ally!

"No, Sire, but you are close."

The old wound in Azak's leg twinged as all his muscles stiffened at once. "Who is this prisoner?"

"His wife." Quarazak smiled in triumph. "Your wife, of course, by the laws of Zark."

 

 

7

The Inosolan problem ached in Azak's mind all the rest of the day, throbbing like a festering wound. Had he been asked beforehand, he would have said that the chances of Inosolan ever returning to Zark were so slight as to be nonexistent, like loyalty among djinns. The timing was so suspicious that coincidence could be ruled out absolutely. What did her arrival have to do with his invasion, though? He could not even guess who had instituted this: Rap himself, or the imperor, or the Almighty? Where did dwarves come into it, or goblins? There was certainly sorcery involved somewhere. Motive, means, culprit—all of them enigmas.

Several times he found his mind wandering away from the endless flood of detail flowing across his desk. Inosolan! How could it be Inosolan? It must be an illusion, a trap of some sort.

Quarazak had been sure. He had insisted that she was the woman he had seen at the wedding, so many years ago. On the ship he had questioned her closely, but he said he had used no violence, only threats. He had threatened to have her raped by every man in the fleet, but he had not shaken her story. She was Inosolan. She had business with the caliph, which she would divulge to no one else, and the caliph had a triangular scar on his ribs, about here. Which he did, although it was almost invisible now.

Sorcery! It had to be sorcery.

Azak had sent Furkar off to investigate in person and had then attempted to push ahead with his work. The day before launching the largest war of the century was no time to be woolgathering about a marriage twenty years old, a marriage that had never even been consummated.

Yet, whispered a small voice of temptation.

Quarazak had made the correct decision. Azak had told him so—that he could not fault anything his son had done in a very unexpected situation. As wife of the sorcerer, the woman was of vital importance; as former wife of the caliph, she must be treated as a state secret, concealed from public knowledge. Surprisingly, Quarazak had made a difficult decision correctly, which Azak would not have expected of him.

And Quarazak had replied, "Thank you. Father," in a very annoying way. Then he had bowed and withdrawn to return to his post.

It wasn't exactly the way he had spoken that had been so accursedly annoying, it was the way Azak himself had reacted. He had been very tempted to call the boy back and give him command of the Sixth Panoply instead of Tharkan. That would have been a breach of security, for the enemy must continue to think that the navy was doing something important enough to require the personal attention of the eldest—imps were much more impressed by eldest sons than djinns were.

It would have also been a breach of personal security. Throughout Zarkian history, any ruler who had ever begun to feel sentimental about his sons had arrived early for his appointment with the Gods. A firstborn had very little advantage over his brothers, but he did have some, and to provide him with any opportunity at all for military glory would always be rank suicide—the kid would be checking out the seraglio by nightfall. No, Quarazak must do his duty afloat. They also serve who only block the light.

Paperwork! Why must a man who had conquered a world spend all his time chained to a desk when he would rather be out hunting, or reviewing the troops, or dallying in the women's quarters? To top off all the requirements on the caliph's time that day came news that his viceroy in Charkab had been assassinated. The culprits would be assuming that the forces he had left in the south were not adequate for massive reprisals. Well, that was true at the moment, but Quarazak's deception would not be needed for more than five or six days.

Azak dictated orders for the fleet to proceed to Charkab thereafter. After due consideration, he stipulated that the town be razed and the surviving inhabitants enslaved. That would keep all the other cities quiet until he returned.

At noon, as was his wont when he was not hunting, he retired for a rest. Usually he enjoyed a woman at this time, but today he did not feel in the mood even for that. Doubtless that was the reason he was unable to sleep. Grumpily he ordered his handmaids to prepare his bath. After that, he went back to work.

Inosolan! The only woman he had ever taken to wife and he had never even kissed her.

Yet, said the little voice.

What folly was this? She must be forty.

Thirty-six. Six years younger than you.

He had never made love to a woman older than thirty. He retired them then if they had been fruitful, or else gave them to his sons.

A trembling herald from Third Panoply reported that half the water skins had been filled and one-third of them were leaking already. Azak sent queries to all other panoplies and ordered requisitions of barrels, wagons, more draft animals.

Furkar returned at last. The woman was telling the truth, he said.

Azak leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at his court sorcerer while he thought about that. Furkar was the only man in Zark who was not afraid of him. Probably Azak ought to be afraid of Furkar, but he wasn't. Partly that was mere fatalism—he would die when the Gods decreed, like any other man. Partly it was because he knew Furkar to be utterly dedicated to the cause.

Long ago, impish soldiers had killed Furkar's father. He detested the Impire just as hotly as Azak did. They had made common cause against it. Furkar had made it all possible, Furkar and his votaries—Azak did not know who they were or how many of them there were, and he never asked. Without that sorcerous assistance, Azak would long ago have died as an obscure sultan. He would never have made reality out of his empty claim to be caliph. He knew that and Furkar knew that. Probably no one else did, though, and certainly no one in Zark would ever dare whisper it.

Furkar had not taken the visitor chair reserved for him alone, so he did not intend to stay long. He wore black, always—a trailing black kibr, and even the agal binding his black headcloth was itself black. Azak had never seen anything of him except his hands and face. They were paler than most, but otherwise unremarkable, except that he was clean-shaven. He looked about twenty-two or -three, but he had looked like that when Azak had first met him, nineteen years ago. He was a sorcerer.

He never smiled. He seemed to have no outside interests, no friends, no interest in women or boys. He never, ever smiled.

"You understand. Majesty," he said in the soft tones of the desert men, "that I used a bare minimum of power. The Covin is still probing."

"I do understand. We agreed. What of her companions?"

"They are in the lowermost dungeon. It is shielded."

Azak nodded. "Then there are sorcerers among them?"

Furkar's face did not change expression. "If you wish me to take the risk, I shall do so."

"Risk?"

"I did not enter the shielding. Together they could be strong enough to overpower me."

Azak pouted. He detested sorcery, but it was a necessary evil. "Of course. No, I do not wish you to take that risk. Our entire venture depends upon you and your, er, associates. I shall see the woman as soon as I have time. You have no clue as to her purpose in coming here?"

"No, Majesty. Only what you already know—that Warlock Olybino named her husband as leader of the opposition to the Covin. That does suggest she may have been sent with a message."

"How about her emotional state?"

"Yes, that is curious. Agitated. She is understandably frightened, but hiding it better than I should have believed possible. A tentative diagnosis, that is."

Azak sighed. That sounded like Inosolan. "Well, we shall see. I shall expect you to watch our encounter, of course."

Furkar inclined his head respectfully and walked away.

Azak shivered, and went back to work.

 

The work kept coming to Azak. Forage, water skins, arrows, horseshoes, bandages, medicines . . . He was surrounded by morons. Any detail he did not check himself would inevitably explode into a problem during the campaign. He owed his success to his infinite capacity for taking pains.

He had always done his best work by night. He revived after the sunset meal and a new phalanx of secretaries arrived to help, but it was well past midnight before he felt able to send for Inosolan. By then he was bone weary, aware that he must snatch a few hours' sleep before he led out the army at dawn. Still, if the woman had been nervous before, then the long wait would not have calmed her fears.

 

He had dismissed the beetles, although their tables were still loaded with documents. His desk was lit by lanterns hanging from the high ceiling, but otherwise the room was dark. Furkar sat like a graven replica of himself in the far corner, a disembodied face, and even that invisible unless one knew where to look.

She stepped in through one flap of the double doors, and it closed behind her. Then she began to walk across the wide expanse of barren stone toward the desk. She was not as tall as he remembered, but of course there was imp blood in her. She had been garbed in plain white, the all-enveloping chaddar of Zark. As she drew close he saw the green of her eyes and he remembered their wedding night, the one time he had seen her unclothed.

Ransom? She had been stolen away from him by the imperor himself, all those long years ago. Was it possible that she had been sent back as a peace offering? Did they really think he would call off his war now, for this?

And yet . . . He had possessed hundreds of women, probably thousands. Why then must his heart labor so shamefully at the sight of this one?

He spread his hands before him on the desk.

She did not prostrate herself or even curtsey. She dropped the veil from her face and pulled off her head cloth, spilling honey hair loose about her shoulders.

"Hello, Azak," she said airily. "Been a long time, hasn't it?" She sat down on the chair unbidden and smiled at him. Her face was no longer that of a girl, but he would have guessed ten years short of her age. Northern sun was kinder, perhaps. The lines on her face were faint, certainly not to be classed as wrinkles. Her eyes were still as green and bright as the emeralds in his baldric.

"I was not expecting you."

She chuckled. "I don't suppose you were! The years have been kind to you. Big Man. More weight? Quite a lot more weight! But you have the bones for it. You look good."

She was lying, of course—he had proof of that—but the words raised his chin anyway.

"They have been kind to you, also," he said huskily.

"Flattery! I have borne four children."

"I have bred a hundred sons."

"It's easier for you."

Had not Furkar himself told him she was frightened, he would not have believed it. He would have sworn that she was the only person in Zark, apart from the sorcerer, who was not afraid of him—how unlike the fawning, shivering maidens who served his needs in the seraglio! She seemed totally at ease, her smile was perfectly composed. He had seen that smile before somewhere . . . Oh, yes, her aunt.

"Princess Kadolan?"

A shadow darkened that golden face. "She passed away a few years ago. Very peacefully. How about Prince Kar?"

"He developed ambitions."

"I am sorry to hear that."

Again the pearl on his index finger darkened momentarily.

"Zark is the only place I know," Inosolan said gaily, "where ambition is so swiftly fatal. And Mistress Zana?"

"She, also, has been weighed by the Gods."

"I am truly sorry to hear that."

The pearl stayed white.

This was women's chatter. She could keep this up all night! What would it take to make her show her fear?

"And what dread purpose brings you to our domain, Inos?"

She raised a golden eyebrow. "I do not think you should describe your eldest son as a 'dread purpose,' Azak! I had no intention of violating your borders until he insisted. I was on my way to Thume."

White, still—but Azak's heart chilled.

"Why? What is there in Thume?"

"You don't know?" the queen said coyly. "You mean you will just march in without knowing?"

"We embark tomorrow to sail to Ollion."

The old familiar grin. "Azak! Really! Those ships in the harbor are deserted. The hills are thick with soldiers and livestock. If you were planning to embark all of them tomorrow, the harbor would be a madhouse. It's not. It's a morgue. Your shipping may fool the imps, but it doesn't fool me."

He had forgotten the root of her appeal—the deadly combination of beauty and brains. To match wits with a woman was a stunningly unfamiliar sensation for him, and it aroused him as he would not have believed possible.

She seemed to guess his thought, because she grinned mischievously at him. "I'm not one of your broodmares, Azak. I never was."

"No. You never were. After what happened the last time, I do not know why you should wish to return to Thume."

She frowned, and white silk rustled as she crossed her legs. God of Lust! He remembered those hard, slim legs, the honey-colored down where they met, the skin more fair than any in Zark, the firm breasts and rose-pink nipples. Never had he laid a hand on her!

"We know," she said, "you and I know that there is some unfathomed power in Thume, even now. It seems to be unpredictable, and it is apparently masked by some sort of inattention spell that selectively discourages sorcerers. But it exists."

He nodded. The pearl in his ring remained white.

"I hope to enlist that power in my husband's war."

Furkar's voice whispered in his ear for him alone: "She is talking nonsense, Majesty!"

But the pearl had stayed white. What she said might be wrong, but she believed it to be true.

"I love you," Inos said.

"What?"

"It's the pearl? I wondered why you kept staring at your hands. It changed color then, didn't it?"

He glared at her and she smiled.

"Not a broodmare, Azak!"

He raised his hand, crooking his fingers to display the pearl. "I think I still love you!" he said thickly.

The pearl darkened.

"Lust after you," he corrected.

The pearl turned white again.

Color poured into her face and she dropped her eyes to her own hands, clasped upon her lap. Yes, now she understood her danger. Better!

He waited, and waited, until finally she broke the silence.

"Our adventure in Thume was an ordeal. It was hateful. And yet . . . I admit . . . Those were the days of our youth, Azak. The horror has faded. The joy has not!" She looked up appealingly. "Do you remember how we rode through that romantic forest, so full of enchantment, and you lectured me on dog scats? I am grateful for the help you gave me then, Azak. I am grateful that you came to say good-bye to me in Hub, and sorry I was not there to receive your farewell. Let us cherish those memories, forget the harsh words, and go forward as allies."

Still he did not speak. The big room was silent, except for the buzz of mosquitoes. Moths whirled crazily around the lanterns.

Now her apprehension was obvious. No color in her face now. "Am I still your wife, here in Zark?"

He shook his head. "I signed a decree of divorce as soon as I returned."

She nodded gratefully. "It must have been a difficult time for you."

"The court was amused that I had lost my foreign bride. The imperor's treaty I brought back with me helped. And I declared war on Shuggaran right away."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Then I was responsible for what you began then? That was the start of it?"

"It was. A scorned sultan does not rule long, but a war will bind the factions, at least temporarily."

Golden fireflies played over her hair as she shook her head. "I am glad you managed to survive, but I dislike the means you employed. And now you carry the war to the Impire? You realize that you are walking into a trap?"

Ah! "You had best explain that remark."

A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. "Rap came to see you once, long ago. Apparently he detected power being used within the palace, although he never mentioned that to me. I assume that you had some sorcerous assistance in your climb to power?"

"You know how I detest sorcery."

The quirky smile returned briefly. "You were always good at evading questions. All right, how much do you know of the present situation?"

"What should I know?"

"Rap and Shandie sent you letters."

"I never received them."

The frown returned, stronger. "That's strange! The messenger was reliable, I was told. Well, they wrote to you last winter. Things have changed . . . If you have sorcerous counsel, you must know that the imperor in Hub is an imposter: You must know that Zinixo, the former warlock, has overthrown the wardens and calls himself the Almighty. And you know that my husband is leader of the counterrevolution."

"Ah, Rap! He is still alive, then?"

"As far as I know," Inos said cheerfully.

The pearl dulled briefly.

She hopes so, Furkar whispered. She is not sure.

Unaware, Inos continued with apparent confidence. "The mundane world knows nothing of this. The fake imperor has withdrawn forces from the frontiers. You see your chance to invade. So, doubtless, do Dwanish and Nordland. Guwush will rise in revolt. That is the plan."

A woman talking military strategy! Why should this obscenity, this perversion, make Azak's blood race so? How dare she lecture him? He struggled to hide his rising fury. "And the payoff?"

"The Almighty will step forth to reveal himself as savior of the Impire and smite you all."

Furkar had mentioned this possibility.

"You know what he did to the goblins?" Inos added.

"You are suggesting I postpone my campaign?"

"I would, if I were you."

"If you were me, you would not be here."

She smiled another of those heart-stopping smiles. "True. But you do see the risk? It is the only possible explanation for the Impire's present vulnerability."

"No, it isn't!" Azak said grimly. "Yes, I know about the Almighty. I rejoice to see the wardens overthrown. I rejoice to see the imps suffer—and I think dwarves do, also. And jotnar and goblins, too. The Almighty is a dwarf. I think he is telling us we can now take our revenge for all those centuries of aggression!"

Clearly she had not considered that explanation. It shook her. When she spoke again, she was far less confident. "Then why did he destroy the goblin horde?"

"And all those legions, also? That was hardly the act of a savior, loosing dragons on the legions! I think that both massacres were merely a show of strength to impress the free sorcerers. It was followed by orders for them to enlist, as I understand."

Inos nodded, biting her lip.

Azak chuckled. "I remember that misshapen runt as well as you do, and I am an excellent judge of men. He is spiteful, vindictive. He is malevolent. I say he revels in the mischief he can create."

"That's worse," she muttered. "Evil for evil's sake?"

Ha! She could not disagree when he pointed out the truth. He had bested her arguments as easily as he could overcome her physical strength if he chose to do so. The prospect was enormously exciting. None of his women ever put up a convincing resistance, even if he ordered them to.

"The Impire is vulnerable, Inos, as it has never been. It lies before us, naked and helpless. It is weak and we are strong. We can inflict what hurt we want and take any satisfaction whatsoever, any retribution we choose for past humiliations. It is mine to take!"

And so was she.

Her green eyes narrowed as she appraised the threat. "But what of Thume, Caliph? What happens in the Accursed Land? Many armies have invaded Thume in the last thousand years, and they have vanished without a trace."

"Not all of them. Some have marched through without harm, seeing not a living soul. Yes, I have sorcerers to aid me. I lead a well-disciplined force that will do no damage to whatever spirit rules that land. We seek only to pass through and be gone. It is a risk, but one I have determined to take."

"I think you are crazy," she whispered.

He laughed. Crazy? He would show her what crazy was! His laughter grew louder, echoing through the chamber. She cowered back in her chair, and that amused him even more. "Perhaps I am," he said when he recovered his breath. "But you should not apply the standards of ordinary men to me. I am one of the great figures of history."

She seemed to have shrunk. She must know what he was thinking of now. "What did you do with the others who were captured with me?"

"Threw them in a dungeon."

"A shielded dungeon, I presume?"

He nodded. "So there are sorcerers among them?"

He glanced quickly at his magic ring, but her reply did not darken the pearl.

"Yes. And they are worried about the Covin's scrutiny, so a shielded dungeon may seem like a welcome refuge to them."

"Rap himself?" Dwarves, goblins, one jotunn, one imp—there had been no report of a faun, but he might be disguised.

"No, not Rap."

Furkar: She is holding something back. Majesty!

Let her! It could not matter. Her associates could lie in that dungeon until they rotted. When he returned, Azak would investigate them. Until then, Evil take them!

Silence fell, silence broken only by the hum of insects. Dawn could not be far off, and he should sleep. Already the panoplies would be starting the first preparations—cooking food, harnessing the draft animals. He really ought to sleep, and put off whatever satisfaction he might find in this woman until another night. But why should he? His strength had not deserted him yet. He was thoroughly aroused now. Nineteen years ago he had begun this war because a woman had been stolen from him. Now he was ready to consummate all his plans and preparation by invading the Impire, and lo!—here she was, within reach. Utterly in his power. How wonderfully appropriate!

"You say you were on your way to Thume?"

Green eyes studied him and then she nodded.

"Then you shall go to Thume, and in a style befitting your station. You will go with me, as you went there before, but this time at the head of many tens of thousands."

She frowned, seeming to consider the matter as if his words had been an invitation and she had a choice. "I trust you will not be expecting me to share your tent, Azak?"

Oh, that was superb! She had style. She would be worthy. "You will do whatever I say, like everybody else."

"It will not be my preference."

"No? Will you choose death before dishonor?"

She colored at the mockery and raised her chin in pathetic defiance. "No, I do not expect to become suicidal. If you make advances, I shall not submit willingly, and I warn you, Azak Ak'Azakar, that my husband is a sorcerer and will hold you to account for your treatment of me."

He sprang to his feet. "Threats? You dare to threaten me?" He moved swiftly around the desk, shivering with joy and anticipation. "No one threatens the caliph!"

She rose, but he reached her before she could run. He grabbed her robe, hauled her to him, folded her in his arms. She struggled, but she was only a woman, small and puny. Not even a djinn! He crushed the breath out of her, caught her hair, twisted her face around to his. He sniffed the scent of her fear, saw the sweat shine on her forehead. No pretense now. Real, real fear.

"Threats?" He was panting and salivating so hard that speech was a real effort. "No one has threatened me since the night my wife was stolen from me. No more threats now, Inosolan?"

"Let me go, you brute!" She twisted vainly.

"Oh, that is trite, really trite. I would have expected better of you. Now let us see some passion!" He pushed his mouth on hers, crushing her even tighter.

She kicked at his shins and bit his tongue. He howled at the sudden pain. She squirmed, she screamed at him.

Bitch! She would scream to more purpose in a moment. He was past speech, past caring, more inflamed than he had felt in years. He took the neck of her gown with both hands and ripped it open. He forced her down on the desk and held her there easily with one hand on her chest, ignoring her efforts to punch and kick. She struggled uselessly while his other hand tore away her garments, exposing her breasts, her belly, then her thighs. Revenge! Justice! He would tame this yellow-haired bitch if it took him the rest of the night. Let her flat-faced sorcerer lover undo it then!

 
When days were long:
In summer, when the days were long,
We walked together in the wood:
Our heart was light, our step was strong;
Sweet flutterings were there in our blood,
In summer, when the days were long.

Anonymous, Summer Days

 

 

INTERLUDE

The long days lengthened in that dread summer of 2999, and men spoke grimly of the coming of the millennium.

Death Bird himself was dead, but the destiny the Gods had given him still echoed through Pandemia. News of the Bandor Massacre spread across the Impire faster than any mundane couriers could have borne it. No one could say where the rumors came from, but they were everywhere and never denied.

In Julgistro, Ambel, and Pithmot, armies of shocked and ragged survivors wandered the wasteland left by the horde's passing. At first the wake was as sharply bounded as the trail of a tornado; of two towns that had once stood almost within sight of each other, one might be unharmed and the other only ashes. Inevitably the damage spread like a stain, for there were no legions to maintain order. Starving refugees began looting and destroying their more fortunate neighbors. In all the western Impire, no harvest would be gathered that year except the harvest of death. Famine and disease were the reapers now.

* * *

Shimlundox, the eastern Impire, had escaped the goblins. It was ravaged by the imps themselves. Refugees, starving and desperate, had swept out of Hub in a horde outnumbering the original goblins manyfold. They stripped the land like locusts.

West and north toward them came the many legions the imperor had summoned from the borders. As the armored columns trudged along the great highways, civilians stared in amazement and then turned to gaze back where all these troops had come from, wondering what enemy might enter by those now-unguarded doors.

Had anyone known the true situation, the legions might have stabilized matters enough to allow some sort of crop to survive to harvest. Only in the south was there contact between the army and the rabble, and some skirmishing broke out when individual tribunes attempted to restore local order. Before the main forces could collide. Imperial couriers broke through the swarm and delivered new orders—the goblin crisis was over, the legions were to return to the bases they had left months before.

The legionaries cursed and turned around to begin retracing all those wearisome leagues.

Doubtless that recall had seemed like a wise move to whoever issued it, but a legion consumed many tons of food a day. The Imperial Commissariat had worked miracles in assembling depots along the road to Hub; it had not anticipated the sudden about-face. Refusing to watch their men starve, legates turned off the highways to follow lesser roads and began to requisition what they needed. Soon great swathes of the Impire were being looted at swordpoint by its own troops.

* * *

Official mourning for old Emshandar had ended at last. The court was engrossed in preparations for the coronation. Fifty years had passed since the last coronation, and Shandie had decreed that his must be the grandest in the history of the Impire.

The aristocracy, which would normally have retired to its country homes before the hot weather turned Hub into a fever pit, had mostly chosen to remain in the capital. The city exploded in a riot of salons and garden parties, making up for the loss of the previous social season. Although Lord Umpily attended many of these functions, he was believed to be in poor health. Not a few of his acquaintances remarked on his pallor. He was certainly jumpy. There were even unconfirmed rumors that he had lost his appetite.

* * *

In Guwush the rebellion raged with ever-greater fervor. Oshpoo had been given a promise for the future, but he had not agreed to stop his war before the unlikely Imperial pretender made good on his side of the bargain—if he ever could. Triumphant gnomes swarmed on the depleted Imperial garrisons like piranha.

* * *

Ollion was a ghost city, haunted by fearful sentries waiting for the djinns. The Imperial Navy had every available ship patrolling the shore, ready for the Zarkian fleet's attack.

* * *

The dwarf army had returned to Dwanish. Furious, the Directorate deposed General Karax and dispatched its forces down the Dark River to carry the war to Urgaxox.

* * *

Every raider on the four oceans was homing on Nordland, where the thanes had run out their longships. Every male jotunn who could find a lord to swear to was headed for Nintor, for the Longday Moot. No one doubted that this year it would be a war moot. Oarsmen chanted battle songs in time to the racing waves.

* * *

A strange occult campaign was being waged in Dragon Reach. Many of the anthropophagi sorcerers had been betrayed by Witch Grunth and those of her trolls who had been captured with her, but tiny bands still roamed at large, attempting to set their snares under the dread eye of the Covin.

* * *

Sir Acopulo reached a trading rendezvous off the western coast of Kerith and transferred to an impish merchantman bound for Zark, sending Seaspawn on her way with his blessings.

* * *

Rap climbed a sky tree, and then departed from Ilrane much faster than he had expected. Ylo and Eshiala wandered the hills of eastern Qoble, lovers in search of sanctuary, wishing only to be left alone.

* * *

The djinn army marched along the coast under the beetling crags of the Progistes Mountains.

* * *

In far-off Krasnegar the harbor had been free of ice for a month. Herds and workers swarmed over the hills in their customary summer business, but this year the merchants waited by the docks in vain. The world seemed to have forgotten Krasnegar. No ships came from the sea, nor traders from the woods.

 

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