Emperor and Clown (36 page)

Kalkor
went down also.

Then
Rap could leap up with a yell of triumph and jerk his ax free.

For
a brief instant that seemed to last an hour, the men’s eyes met-Rap swinging
the great ax high overhead with what he suddenly knew to be the last of his
mundane strength ... Kalkor on his knees and facing death, his face a mask of
horror and shock as he tried to twist out of the way. Then Rap had both feet
planted and his ax descending.

Glory!
Gathmor! With a wordless scream he brought the dread blade down, giving it every
scrap of muscle he had left, but Kalkor reached into the clouds and hauled down
the lightning.

“Cheat!
Yellow cheating coward!” Rap could barely hear his own howls through the
ringing in his ears. He danced on the puddles in his fury.

That
had been very close, though. He had healed his hands, but his ax was still
glowing red; charred grass steamed and hissed around it. Half the spectators
were still trying to find out what had happened, and most of the rest were on
their knees in the mud, madly praying. The bone-chilling downpour roared
unceasing.

“Rotten
cheating sneak! Man to man?”

But
Kalkor could not answer. Kalkor was dead, cooked. He stank of roast pork. What
had happened, anyway? It had all been so sudden! Rap reached back with hindsight-and
that was a trick he hadn’t known he had-and saw himself ablaze in violet fire
... No wonder the crowd was wailing! He had felt the ripple of sorcery coming
and thrown a shield around himself. Then he had blazed like a God within the
lightning, but he did not understand why then it had left him and melted his ax
and struck the thane who had summoned it-that cowardly turd, who had used
sorcery after swearing not to ...

Very
close! In hindsight, it looked as if Kalkor would have escaped by a hairsbreadth
and Rap’s ax would have buried itself in the ground and left him to Kalkor’s
nonexistent mercy ...

So
who had killed Kalkor?-Rap, or the Gods, or Kalkor himself? Rap didn’t know.
What mattered was that Kalkor had died thinking the faun had beaten him.

Well,
good!

Gathmor
would have approved. Gathmor was avenged.

Hollow
victory, which didn’t bring Gathmor back. Kalkor had been the one to use
sorcery, not Rap. Would the wardens accept that, though? It might not have
seemed like that.

The
two old jotnar in their red robes and horned helmets were creeping forward,
drenched and timorous, coming to inspect the outcome. Rap turned on his heel
and walked away.

Now
what? Of course he might just try to disappear from Hub, but he didn’t think he
could evade the wardens if they really wanted to catch him. The mysterious
destiny of the white flame was waiting for him, wasn’t it? He still felt a
premonition. He tried a tiny sliver of foresight and recoiled at once. Yes, it
was still there, implacable and very imminent. Shudder!

He
thought about running away, and his premonition hardly eased at all, so flight
would merely delay it a little. It seemed to be inevitable. Besides, he had a
belated wedding present to give Inos. He headed for the royal enclosure.

The
two old jotnar shouted after him, wanting him to do ritual butchery on the
corpse, and he ignored them.

He
certainly wasn’t going to turn up in front of Inos with just a furry skin
around him and even furrier faun legs showing below it. He detested his legs.
As a child he had hated his squashy nose and his impossible hair, which the
others had all laughed at. He had grown used to those eventually, but then his
legs had sprouted like hayfields and given him something much worse to dislike.
He wished that when the Gods had stirred up his mixed heritage, They had given
him jotunn legs.

Still,
sorcerers could solve such problems. He did not even need to retrieve the
garments he had left in the tent, nor hunt out a private place to change. As he
walked through the rain he clothed himself in a whole new outfit. He made good
practical garments, of comfortable soft leather, like the work clothes Factor
Foronod wore in the field. He made them in a plain, serviceable brown. They
were sorcerous, not magical, and therefore permanent. The difference was quite
obvious to him now.

Splashing
along in his new boots, then, he brooded. Kalkor’s death had solved nothing. It
had not brought Gathmor back, and it left Krasnegar without a monarch. It had
certainly not soothed Rap’s jotunn temper. Left to itself, that terrible anger
might last for days. If anything, it was worse than before, because now there
was no relief in sight, no one to strike at. He could feel it rampaging inside
him, seeking a victim to destroy. It might not matter very much, because he was
going to die very soon.

Why?
He didn’t want to die in burning agony! He didn’t want to die at all, and
knowing it was coming made it even worse.

The
cordon of legionaries opened a gap for him grudgingly. Today’s canopy was much
larger than the previous day’s, and most of the royal party had managed to
huddle in below it, leaving their guards out in the rain with the servants.
Were they frightened of catching colds?

Rap
stalked up the bank to the smarmy little regent on his stupid wooden throne. He
used the smallest bow he thought would not be an open insult.

That
had been noticed-he detected the hidden smiles and frowns from the various
political factions represented. The Imperial court would always be a creel of
lobsters, all slithering and biting to get on top. He despised them, these
wealthy parasites in their embroidered cloaks and fancy gowns, in their
elaborate ruffles and padded tights. He had not thought much of them yesterday,
and today he could read them like posters with his sorcerer’s insight. The
contempt was mutual; he could see their curled lips and cocked eyebrows as they
scorned the yokel sorcerer, their little shared glances of nervous mirth.

In
the open at the very back of the crowd Little Chicken was smirking as he thought
of all the barbarous things he was going to do to Rap. Dream away, little green
monster! Poor wee goblin, doomed to be cheated of his victim! When Rap had left
him in the shed, he had been busy crushing firewood with his bare hands to see
how much strength he had given away. Well, he would get it all back soon.

Near
him the burly old Nordland ambassador was trying to seem impassive, but his
satisfaction was perfectly clear to a sorcerer. Obviously he hadn’t enjoyed
having Kalkor sniffing around his private peeing tree. No mourning there,
Kalkor. No mourning anywhere.

The
big chunky djinn stood swathed in his despicable curse, and rigid with fear and
guilt. He was hiding them well beneath an arrogant sneer, but not well enough.
He had tried to kill Rap most foully, and now his victim was a sorcerer.
Bladder feeling a little tight, Sultan? Bowels a little shaky? The giant was
not unlike the dwarf, Zinixo. Why must such distrustful men always assume that
others were as vindictive as themselves? Did he think Rap would now make Inos a
widow? Yes, he did, because that’s what he would do in Rap’s place. Murdering
savage! How could Inos have ever ... but that was her business.

“A
most fortuitous bolt of lightning, Master Rap,” the regent said. “I understand
from the ambassador that you are now entitled to style yourself `Thane Slayerl’
“

Oh,
he was a nasty one! He made Rap’s skin creep. He had no magic, though. Seen
through the ambience, he looked just the same as he did in the mundane world,
except that farsight penetrated such trivia as clothes, and hence showed that
despite his impish features he was part merman, with his hair and eye brows
dyed black to disguise the fact. His twisted ambition was a deformity of the
soul.

“Call
me whatever you wish, Highness.” Reluctantly Rap turned face and mind to Inos,
and met a smile like a summer dawn. Her cypress velvet cloak was spangled with
a million fine diamonds of moisture. He toyed briefly with the thought of
making them real diamonds. Well, at least Little Chicken wasn’t the only one
pleased to see him survive the Reckoning. But why must she show it so
blatantly? Even the mundanes were reading the look on her face. Inos, no! Stop
that]

Her
aunt stood nearby, beaming proudly at her sorcerous protege as if he were all
her own invention. Well, he didn’t mind her.

“I
think we shall now adjourn this court to the Rotunda,” the regent announced.
The thought was making him uneasy, most likely because he had been sadly
humiliated there last night, but he was hiding his feelings behind his usual
pomp. “We shall require the wardens to certify that the thane died by an act of
the Gods and not by sorcery.”

And
he had the impudence to smirk at Rap as he said it!

“It
was sorcery!” Rap said grimly.

The
merman mongrel paled, and the courtiers around him all recoiled a step. His
frowsty, sourpuss wife uttered a wail. Even the little boy lurched back. Rap
took a harder look at the little boy.

What
in the name of all the Gods was wrong with him?

None
of Rap’s business! He had never really wanted to be a sorcerer. Or had he? He
had stolen a word from Sagorn and then groveled to get another from Little
Chicken. He had schemed as hard as he could to become a sorcerer-whom was he
trying to fool?

The
old man in the background, wrapped in his rug like a parcel and wedged into a
chair-he must be the old imperor. Rap had heard good things of him, poor man.
His light burned very low now; and yet there was still light there. Yesterday,
as a mage, Rap had been sorely puzzled by the old man’s affliction. Today, his
stronger sorcerer wisdom found the trouble at once. He shuddered as he sensed
the pulsing black spider-thing inside the old man’s skull. That did not belong
there! Could he remove it without destroying the surrounding brain? Very likely
he could, but that was not his business, either. He couldn’t go around curing
all the ills in the world. Imperors were off limits anyway.

The
lumbering machinery of Imperial politics was still grinding along the muddy
track of mundane thought. “Then you may have violated the Protocol, Sorcerer,”
the regent was saying. “The thane was an ambassador at large from Nordland, and
Nordland may take the view that . . .” He droned on, talking policy and right
of succession and other drivel.

The
sycophantic courtiers standing around him all nodded in sad agreement, sneering
at the poor rustic who knew no better, taking comfort from thoughts of the
guardian wardens.

Was
that what the white agony meant?-that Rap was to be judged by the Four and put
to death by them? No, Lith’rian and Bright Water would surely have recognized
their own hands in that mysteriously cryptic future. That couldn’t be it.

So
why did the Evil-take-them wardens have to meddle at all? Why must they come
after him, when they had left Kalkor alone for so long? Where was the justice
in ignoring the atrocities of an odious cur like Kalkor and then punishing the
one who had ended his career? Rap’s temper was bubbling higher, pressing hard
against the limits of his control.

Again
he looked at the little boy, who was staring at him with hollow eyes and chalky
face, shivering in his thin hose and doublet. The kid’s little backside was a
monstrosity of welts and bruises, and there was something like a cowl over his
personality, a web, a mist ...

Horrible!

“So
we shall require you to attend,” the regent concluded imperiously. “Also our
council, and Sultan Azak, and--”

“That
won’t be necessary!” Rap snarled. He isolated Azak’s form in the ambience, a
dully mundane giant wearing only the sheen of sorcery on his skin. Rap took
hold of it and ripped-it came away like a film of soap bubble and he discarded
it.

He
flipped back to mundane senses. “I have cured the sultan’s problem for him,
your Highness. If you will just grant him safe conduct back to his home, then
he and his wife can depart.” He smiled at Inos. “A wedding present for you!”

Inos
gasped and looked up at Azak. Azak stared at Rap and then looked down at Inos.
Princess Kadolan uttered a shriek of alarm and put both hands to her mouth in
obvious consternation.

Error?

Azak
held out a clenched hand to his wife. Inos shot Rap a look of horror and then
gingerly touched a delicate finger to the massive red fist. Of course nothing
happened-did they think Rap could wield lightning against Kalkor and then not
know when he had canceled out a clumsy spell like that curse?

Azak
took Inos in his arms and tried to kiss her. Her instant repugnance sent a
burst of fury through Rap, and he hurled them apart, so that they both went
reeling back.

Inos!
Why was she looking at him like that?

Oh,
Gods! He wasn’t leaking anything now, not a whisper.

She
really did love him? She didn’t want big Barbarian Muscles after all?

Inos,
oh, Inos! A mongrel wagon driver? You’re crazy, Inos!

Then
why had she ...

He
thought of madcap Inos putting her horse over ditches, of Inos scrambling up
cliffs after birds’ eggs and getting herself so horribly trapped that he and
Krath had almost had to stand on their heads to haul her up to safety, of Inos
charging recklessly into brawls on the waterfront to break them up and nearly
being broken up herself in the process . . . Inos the headstrong . . . Inos who
never stopped to think . . . Inos the impetuous . . .

He
pushed the memories away. She had married that man of her own free will. It was
too late!

And
her feelings now were quite obvious to everyone. The djinn was black with fury,
breathing hard, fists clenched.

“Oh,
you cured his problem, did you, Sorcerer?” the regent said. “It seems to us as
if your assistance was not entirely welcome.”