Emperor and Clown (31 page)

From
that potent center radiated four points of color, inset in the gray granite of
the floor. The fourpoint star, symbol of the realm. Each triangle stretched out
into the encircling darkness-yellow, white, red, and blue. Where each would
narrow to nothing stood another throne on a single-step dais. Those must be the
thrones of the wardens, and each had a single candelabrum right behind it,
shedding its own isolated puddle of light.

The
Opal Throne was facing toward one that Inos recognized, in a stunning flash of
memory. It glittered gold below the many fires of its candelabrum. She knew who
would sit there.

Despite
her cynical desire to scorn such theatricals, she was impressed. A large part
of the history that packed so many books in her father’s library had been
brewed right here, in this great antique chamber, on these five thrones. Oceans
of blood had flowed from this spring. The chill and damp were raising
chickenflesh on her arms, but the awesome scent of raw power was certainly
helping.

Suddenly
Azak came striding in, taller than anyone, and accompanied by the tiny form of
Senator Epoxague. They were an ill-assorted couple, both clad in togas, one
white, one red. Surely Azak had never worn such an absurd garment before, or
ever dreamed of doing so, and yet she could not help but note how good he
looked in it. His bare right forearm was ropy with muscle, and his hair was
burnished copper and gold in the candlelight. At his side, the old senator
seemed frail and scrawny, almost pitiful. Poor man! He had risked his career
for her, and might be going to pay a heavy price for that kindness.

Azak
had seen her, and came to her, looking her over carefully-especially her chin
and her newly healed cheeks.

“You
are well, my love?”

“I
am, sir.”

He
frowned at that, and then looked to Kade. “And you, ma’am?”

Kade
bobbed a small curtsy. “Very well, your Majesty.”

“I
have not yet heard how you departed from Arakkaran, nor how you brought Master
Rap with you.” Kade flaunted her daftest simper. “The regent himself asked me
the same question. I explained that I had obligations to others that prevented
me from answering that.”

Trust
Kade to defy even Ythbane!

And
Azak, also! The giant flushed angrily, but he did not pursue the matter. Here
he was a guest, not a despot.

“We
are very grateful to your Eminence,” Inos told the senator.

He
smiled wryly. “Imps regard family ties as important, Inos.”

“I
shall never forget,” she said.

He
sighed. “It was unfortunate that we did not manage to stop the duel. I fear
much trouble will flow from that.”

Just
then Kalkor himself came stalking in, accompanied by Ambassador Krushjor. Their
jotunnish garb of leather breeches and boots was a defiance of the cold; their
pale hair shone gold under iron helmets. They glanced around contemptuously and
then chose a location where they would see all five thrones, as everyone else had
done.

At
their heels, as if in attendance on them, came the young goblin, and now he
also was wearing jotunn garb, his skin shining much more obviously green under
the candles. No one would ever suggest putting a goblin in a toga, and he was
not a diplomat who could sport his own ethnic costume. Goblins’ ethnic costume
was likely even less respectable than jotnar’s. In a moment Little Chicken
noticed Inos, and his angular eyes widened slightly. Then he grinned toothily
at her. She very much wanted to have a chat with that young man, to learn why
he now consorted with jotnar, and how he and Rap had escaped from Inisso’s
chamber. But to go near Kalkor would be to beg for trouble. It would also
provoke Azak into a foaming fit.

From
time to time Inos recited to herself a little speech she had composed,
explaining how her marriage was not valid and she now wished to have it
annulled. The logic had seemed quite convincing at first. It felt frailer near
Azak, somehow.

A
quartet of bearers brought in the old imperor, laying his chair beside the
central dais. Oh, that poor old man! Why could they not let him die in peace?
The bearers departed.

That
would seem to be everyone, Inos thought. She was right-in the distance a door
thudded closed, and a moment later Ythbane strode in from the darkness, heading
for the Opal Throne. He wore a purple toga, but there was a small bronze shield
on his arm, and he carried a short sword in his right hand. Behind him came
hurried the spindly little prince, looking both cute and pathetic in his toga.
He stared straight ahead, ignoring everyone. His mother was not present.

The
regent mounted the two steps to his throne and turned to look over the company.
The prince went up one step and then around to the right of the throne. He turned
also, and then seemed to freeze, like a statue.

The
kid ought to be in bed, Inos thought angrily. Didn’t the Impire know how to
look after its future rulers?

“Sultan
Azak!” Ythbane proclaimed. “Are you prepared to present your petition to the
four wardens, occult preservers of justice within all Pandemia?”

“I
am.” Azak’s voice was deeper, and harsher. “Then we invoke the Council of Four
on your behalf, as is our ancient right and obligation.” Ythbane raised his
sword, and all eyes turned expectantly toward the gold throne.

Clank!

Well!
Inos doubted that even a warlock could hear that silly little noise all the way
from the Gold Palace. For a moment nothing happened. No one seemed to breath.
The Gold Throne remained empty below its shimmering candelabrum.

Then
the flames in that golden tree shrank and died, and went out. The throne faded
away into the darkness, still empty.

The
spectators looked back to Ythbane. His mouth hung open, and even the prince
below him was showing a similar astonishment.

Obviously
the regent was at a loss. His eyes sought out a couple of the senators, as if
seeking guidance. If the Right of Appeal had not been exercised for a hundred
years, no one would be an authority on procedures. Had someone forgotten
something?

Setting
his jaw, Ythbane strode around to his left, so that he faced the Blue Throne,
the seat of Warlock Lith’rian. He raised the sword again. Before he could use
it, the same invisible fingers snuffed those candles also, and the Blue Throne
vanished away into the night.

The
wardens were rejecting his call.

Inos
peered around: Azak, darkly furious ... the regent even more so ... the
dumbfounded audience . Kalkor showing all his teeth and enjoying the drama ...
the little prince wide-eyed ... Or was the kid trying to stifle a smirk?

Before
the regent could move, the candles over the White Throne of the north throne
glimmered and died also.

“Too
bad!” a heavy, sepulchral voice said.

The
Red Throne of the west remained lit, an ugly monstrosity of granite carved in
bas-relief. There was a boy sitting on it.

The
regent went around to the back of the Opal Throne and bowed. “Your Omnipotence
does me honor.”

“I
don’t mean to.”

Not
a boy-a young man. One day at Kinvale, Andor had taken Inos to visit the duke’s
slate quarry. The dwarves she had seen there had all been very short, with
massive shoulders and heads, and complexions like gray sandstone. Despite his
youth, Zinixo’s hair was iron gray. He must be shorter even than the goblin,
Little Chicken, for his feet looked as if they did not quite reach down to the
floor. Although his thick forearms rested on the sides of the throne, the
position was awkward for him, hunching his shoulders up near his ears. His toga
was the mysterious dark red of iron cooling on a smith’s anvil. He seemed to be
wearing no tunic below it, for his right arm and shoulder were bare; so were
his overlarge feet.

He
bared a mouthful of teeth like white pebbles. “You’re too early, Regent. Too
impatient! Try us-” The grating voice stopped, and he cocked his big head, as
if listening to something. His eyes were restless, furtive. Inos remembered
what Epoxague had said about dwarves being cagey and distrustful. They were
also reputed to be mean-spirited and avaricious.

Either
the little prince could no longer bear not being able to see the warlock, or
else he decided that he should not have his back to him. Whatever his reason,
he spun around to face the other way and then went very still again.

Zinixo
apparently decided that there was nothing amiss and resumed his smirk. “Try us
again tomorrow, mongrel.”

A
sorcerer insulting a mundane that way was rather like a boy torturing an
insect. Maybe Olybino was not so bad as Inos had thought.

Ythbane
flinched at the gibe, but his voice stayed level. “You will hear the sultan’s
petition then?” The dwarf laughed with a sound like millstones. “No! He won’t
trouble us. But there will be other problems. In fact, you weren’t even going
to ask the right question tonight.”

Ythbane
had his back to the watchers, but that taunt made him stiffen visibly. “What
should we have been going to ask, your Omnipotence?”

The
warlock glanced over the company and then pointed a finger in a gesture that
would have poked a hole in an oak door. “Ask him!”

The
candles above him flickered out simultaneously and both he and the throne
vanished. The throne was still there, though, in the shadows. The dwarf was
not.

Everyone
was looking where he had pointed. But which one had he meant? One of the two
jotnar, or the goblin?

Inos
awoke as the door opened. She was magically, instantly awake, with her eyes
wide to the darkness, knowing that she had been asleep for some hours. A faint
gleam from the window showed the dim shape of the intruder. The door closed
without a click, but she had already recognized the familiar woollyblanket
feeling of a calming spell on her mind.

“Inos?”
the expected whisper said. “Hello, Rap.”

She
thought of Azak, waking to find Rap in their bedroom ...

“The
sultan won’t waken,” Rap said, dropping the whisper but keeping his voice soft.
“You won’t scream or anything if I-”

“No.
There’s a housecoat somewhere, if you can find it. “

He
must have removed the spell at once, because her heart started to pound with
excitement. She felt him toss the gown on the bed for her. She sat up,
realizing that sorcerers could see in the dark; in fact, they could probably
see through dwarvish chain mail, so the coat would make no real difference to
him. The ritual would make her feel better, though, and it dispelled any last,
lingering doubt that this was the genuine Rap.

She
climbed out of bed and wrapped herself, shivering slightly with excitement. A
faint glow sprang up in a lantern on the mantel. Rap was by the window with his
back to her. He turned around, and they gazed at each other across the width of
the room.

The
bedchamber was grand enough by most folk’s standards, but it was definitely not
what a palace should offer a visiting king. The furniture was an odd
assortment, the wall frescoes were peeling and faded, and an old-fashioned
fustiness suggested everything had been inadvertently left behind by the
previous dynasty. Such pettiness might be intended to show Ythbane’s anger at
the humiliation Azak had brought him, or perhaps it represented some household
flunky’s contempt for djinns. Who cared?

The
bed had been big enough, and that had been all that mattered. On the far side
of a protective bolster, Sultan Azak slept soundly.

She
raised a hand to her face. “Thank you for this, Rap.”

He
shrugged. “It was easy. Bones take time, but skin is easy.”

“Thank
you anyway.”

He
was still wearing very plain workman’s clothes, and they were wet. His hair was
soaked, although even that wouldn’t make it lie down completely. Rap had always
had very stubborn hair. He spoke first, smiling sadly at her.

“Magic
can make you as you were, but even sorcery could never make you any more
beautiful.”

Well!
That was new! And he wasn’t even blushing as he said it.

“Thank
you for that, also, kind sir. You are a sight for sore eyes yourself.” She sat
on the edge of the bed, glancing across at Azak. He had one brawny arm outside
the covers, and his hair was a red puddle on the pillow. No, he was not going
to waken.

Rap
was staring at Azak also, squinting in an odd way. “I can’t do anything about
his curse, I’m afraid. I can sort of see it, though.”

Inos
was in no immediate hurry to have Azak relieved of his curse, but to say so at
the moment would not be in the best of taste. “See it? What does a curse look
like?”

Rap
scratched his head. “Hard to describe. Like there’s a glass cloth on him, a
fuzziness. It kind of shimmers ... I can’t put it into words. I wouldn’t know
what it did if your aunt hadn’t told me, but I’d know he had a sorcery on him.”

“Rap,
sit down! I want to hear all about your adventures, and how you escaped from
the tower, and how you met the dragon, and-”

“Your
aunt can tell you all that. We may not have time for it right now. It wasn’t
easy-finding you.” He glanced around; she suppressed the unnerving thought that
he was looking through the walls and ceiling instead of at them. “There’s a big
dark blank over the palace. A silence. What I mean is, no one else’s using
magic in it. I don’t want to give myself away to the wardens.”

“Wardens?
Rap, Ythbane tried to summon them tonight, and they wouldn’t come. Only the
dwarf.” Rap’s eyes widened. He walked over to a chair and sat down. “Tell me,
please!”

So
she told him what had happened. He listened solemnly, his face giving away
nothing at all. His woodenness was beginning to unnerve her. Rap had always
been so transparent!