Emperor and Clown (41 page)

If
others would obey him, then he was dangerous again, and therefore worth
obeying. It was a circle: Power made fear made obedience made more power, and
no one understood the recipe better than the old lion himself. These few men
and women were the tiller of the Impire, and by turning them, he could set
whatever course he willed.

Guessing
his next move, Rap forestalled it. Dropping to one knee, he pointed at the
lonely three-legged stool in the distance. It had been planned as a
humiliation, but it would make a good refuge. “Shandie,” he said, “you go and
sit there and watch. And fidget all you like, because no one cares any more
about that.”

“Yes,
Rap! Thank you!” Without even a glance to see if his grandfather approved, the
boy went running off.

Rap’s
presumption earned a hard stare of Imperial anger as he rose. And he was not
finished yet. His temper had ebbed as fast as it had flowed, leaving a scum of
disgust behind it. He had attacked an unarmed man! He would never have used a
sword or even a stick like that, so where was the excuse for using sorcery? As
he paced over to Ythbane’s still form,’ he recalled sour old Mother Unonini,
perched on the one good chair in Hononin’s dingy little room and preaching:
Sorcerers are human, too, Master Rap. They are torn between evil and good, as we
all aremore so, perhaps, because their power to do good or evil is so much
greater.

He’d
behaved like a lout. And in front of Inos, too! Ythbane had a broken shoulder
and a fractured skull, together with a dazzling collection of bruises. By the
time Rap reached him, though, they were all cured and his eyes were open. As an
afterthought, Rap changed his purple toga to plain white. He held out a hand to
help the man rise, then left him standing there and returned to his former
place before the Opal Throne, blandly ignoring the imperor’s wrath. -which
sought out a more rewarding target. “Epoxague!”

“Your
Majesty?” The little senator was doing a good job of concealing a very large
amount of worry.

“As
we recall the Act of Succession,” the imperor said, “it decrees that when a
regency is needed, sovereignty shall devolve upon the next in line. Did our
daughter refuse to serve?”

The
little man rubbed his mustache. “With respect, Sire . . . the next in line was
a minor. The wording seemed ambiguous as to whether the sequence then continued
to the second in line. There was considerable debate.”

“Pigs’
guts!” Emshandar flushed with fury. “I’ll bet there was! Nit splitting! Of
course that’s what it means!”

The
senator seemed to shrink slightly. “That did seem to be the view of the
majority, Sire, although a narrow one.”

“Then
why was Orosea not appointed?” Epoxague’s face shone damply below the golden
trellises of the candelabra. “There is provision for bypassing a designated
candidate who is unsuitable, Sire, and some honorable senators believed that
your daughter’s long absence from the capital might have rendered her
unfamiliar with present conditions in-”

“Sewage!”
the imperor roared. “Unadulterated sewage! What was worrying them was that
Leesoft has elvish blood in him, and those two sons of hers have slanty eyes.
Isn’t that so? They didn’t want slanty-eyed princes any nearer the throne than
necessary?”

“That
view may have ... That opinion was never expressed in my hearing, Sire, neither
in public nor-”

“Cuttlefish)
So you accepted a mongrel merman instead! There were no recorded votes, of
course?”

“No,
Sire.”

For
a moment the imperor stared threateningly at the wretched senator. “The Ythbane
regency is dissolved. Should another be necessary in future, either for us or
for our grandson, then our daughter will serve. Is that clear?”

Pause.
“Yes, Sire.”

“You
will promote her interests?” Longer pause. “Yes, Sire.”

“We
have your oath, freely given?”

The
senator looked uneasily at Rap, who smiled mysteriously; then he glanced at the
four empty thrones and finally he yielded to the evident threat. “Yes, Sire. I
so swear.”

“Hummph!
Consul?”

In
a few minutes, the old fox had extracted that oath from every imp present,
including Marshal Ithy, who was the only one pleased to give it. By then
Ythbane had gone. When his followers began deserting him and no occult aid
arrived, he walked quietly away into the darkness, heading for the west door.
Rap let him go, and Emshandar either did not notice or did not care.

“As
for Lord Ythbane,” he concluded, “he is hereby banished for life to the city of
Wetter, upon pain of death.” He scowled at the flicker of reaction. “For
assaulting the heir apparent. Consul, see that the Bill of Attainder is passed
quickly and sent on to the Senate.”

Emshandar
would not make the mother of his .grandson a widow, but his leniency had
surprised the audience, although only a sorcerer could have told so from their
hard-schooled faces. The old man leaned back for a moment and rubbed an arm
across his eyes. He was exhausted, and close to having to admit it. He looked
over the company again.

“Sultan
Azak, you are welcome to our court-you, and your so-beautiful sultana, also.”

Azak
seemed to touch his forehead to his shins as he bowed. Inos curtsyed, flashing
Rap a glance of desperation. Miserably Rap pretended not to notice. He had
removed the curse and night was at hand.

“The
peace proposals you brought are acceptable,” the imperor added wryly. Marshal
Ithy flinched, and so did a few others. Azak looked startled, then pleased,
then suspicious, all in one fast blink. He bowed again. “Your Majesty is most
gracious!”

Rap
thought of all those stalwart young legionaries he had seen marching boldly eastward.
So he had prevented a bloody war that might have dragged on for a generation?
That was good news, but it was most certainly a political use of sorcery, even
if accidental.

Where
were the wardens?

Emshandar’s
well-trained face was transparent enough to Rap. He thought he had won now. The
Four had not stepped in to block him, and Ythbane had been discredited. Inos’s
problems were irrelevant, for Rap had survived and could look after his own
wants.

“That
would seem to complete the evening’s business!” The old man sighed gratefully. “Marshal,
you will attend us in the morning.”

Ithy
saluted, his face grim as he contemplated all those legions he had moved to
Qoble and must now return.

Emshandar
laid the sword and buckler at his side and put both hands on the arms of his
throne to rise. Shimmer!

“There
are a few matters left on the agenda, your Majesty,” said the high, sweet voice
of an elf.

Lith’rian
sat on the Blue Throne under the candelabrum. To mundane view he was a
golden-skinned adolescent, slumped back at his ease in a toga of shimmering
moonlight blue, a garment that seemed more mirage than substance, although it
was opaque enough. The sandals on his outstretched feet shone like pearl. His
toenails had been silvered, although he was too far off for anyone but Rap to
notice.

In
the ambience, he was bewilderingly different. True, the physical likeness was
there, and where Kalkor had shown as a transparent wraith, the elf was far more
solid. He seemed to be standing right in front of Rap, hands on hips, smiling a
welcome and studying Rap as Rap was studying him. His slanted opalescent eyes
twinkled with cheeky and tolerant amusement. His limbs were slim, his ribs
visible above a juvenile flat belly; yet to occult vision the signs of age were
obvious-the tiny traces another elf would look for, in earlobes and
fingernails. Lith’rian must be older than the imperor, for he had been South
since the year Emshandar’s father succeeded.

But
the physical likeness was only a tiny part of his spectral presence. Rap reeled
before a rainbow chorus of sights and sounds: sunlight singing along crystal
forests, flowers schooling like fish, odors of roses and whirling stars,
pattern and counterpoint and dance. This was a glimpse of the intricate mind of
an elf, and its sheer complexity almost sickened him until he managed to
suppress the images and quieten the music. Lith’rian detected the reaction, and
his mirth burst up like foam from breaking surf.

The
imperor had struggled to his feet and was bowing.

“We
meet again, Master Rap!” a private thought from the elf said.

“Yes.
“ Rap braced himself for attack. Yet if attack was what the warlock planned, he
could have caught Rap offguard in the first second after he arrived.

Joyous
elvish laughter, like birdsong: “You were only a few minutes late in reaching
Arakkaran. I warned you the outcome was too close to call. “ Fury!

Despite
the gaiety and boyish charm, Rap knew this man to be an unscrupulous prankster.
He had bound his daughter to a gnome. He and his fellow wardens played games
with Inos as one of the pieces.

To
lose one’s temper in any fight was a mistake. To lose one’s temper when dealing
with an elvish sorcerer would be rank insanity.

Trouble
was, Rap’s temper had not yet cooled down from Gathmor’s death. It simmered
still.

Evidently
he had masked his feelings, though, for Lith’rian was chuckling. “I was very
much afraid you might arrive in time to stop the wedding. No, do not jump to
conclusions! Olybino had reported that Inos was dead, remember. “

Meanwhile
events were creeping along snailishly in the mundane world. “You honor us with
your presence, your Omnipotence,” the imperor said. His haggard face was grim
at the thought of dealing with the wardens in his present exhausted state.

“Not
exactly, your Majesty,” Lith’rian said from his throne. “We do not come in
answer to your summons. Do all your companions comprehend the significance of
that distinction?”

“So
East lied?” Rap snarled. “So what?”

In
the ambience, summer sky darkened to looming storm. “Can you not see? He lied
his way out of a pond and into the sea! He had sent her back to Zark once. Had
she then set off for the Impire again, he might have taken drastic steps! That
ceremony was a protection for her. You should be grateful to me. All is not
lost yet, and it might very well have been. Had you succeeded, you would have
failed!”

Trickster!
Trickster!

Rap’s
fury had struck down Kalkor easily enough. This smirking yellow-bellied elf
would not be so easy. It might feel good to try though ...

Emshandar
was scowling, and explaining. “The Council may be summoned at any time by the
imperor, or by the warden of the day, which today is his Omnipotence, Warlock
Lith’rian.”

“And
I have chosen to exercise that privilege,” the elf added, as the spectators all
bowed or curtsyed. “There are some serious matters to discuss, involving
unauthorized use of sorcery.”

The
threat barely penetrated Rap’s spinning head as he tried to restrain his rising
anger and also follow the writhing skein of images, the conversations
proceeding on two levels. He was certain that the elf was about to make the
confusion worse.

“You
don’t trust me!” Lith’rian wailed mockingly at Rap. On the throne, the boy
waved a languid hand. “Our beloved brother of the west, his Omnipotence,
Warlock Zinixo.”

“Watch
this one, Master Rap, “ he added privately. “He is immensely powerful, and very
dangerous.” The dwarf materialized on the Red Throne and simultaneously in the
pale nothingness of the ambience. He was scowling on both planes. On the
throne, in a toga like the embers of a stormy sunset, he was too young and too
short to be impressive, diminished by the scale of the throne itself, which
made him look like a child.

In
the ambience, ironically, he did look physically dangerous, his thickness and
heavy limbs more than making up for his lack of height. His wide chest glinted
with hair like iron fillings, and he seemed as indestructible as a granite
pillar. Kalkor’s image in the ambience had been transparent, while Lith’rian
looked almost as solid there as he did in the mundane. If density of appearance
was a measure of occult power, then Zinixo’s adamantine mass was very ominous.

His
mind ... Instantly Rap understood why elves and dwarves were so notoriously
incompatible. Zinixo brought with him images of vast dark caverns, deep winding
labyrinths where dangers lurked around every jagged corner. Paradoxically,
these mingled with visions of barricades and beetling fortress walls built of
gigantic rocks. How much was racial and how much the warlock’s own Rap could not
tell, but suspicion blew from those battlements like winter fog.

“We
meet again, your Omnipotence,” he said, bowing.

His
insolence kindled images of enormous millstones grinding noisily. “I knew I
should have killed you while I had the chance. The witch deceived me!”

“I
bear you no ill will,” Rap insisted, knowing he would not be believed.

A
prickly hedge of lavender sparks had sprung up between elf and dwarf, seeming
to originate about equally from both of them. It wavered as each tried to get
Rap on his own side of it. He rejected it, staying neutral, and it withered
away. He wondered what he looked like to the warlocks. He did not feel very
solid, certainly, and he had no experience at concealing his thoughts.

Imperor
and courtiers had turned expectantly to the north.

“Her
Omnipotence, Witch Bright Water,” the elf said.

On
the throne she was small and almost beautiful, clad in flowing draperies that
shone like the dazzle of sunshine on fresh snow. Her arms were bare, and not as
greenish as a goblin ought to be in this light. The dark hair coiled high on
her head was surmounted by a tiara of twinkling diamonds. Little Chicken should
be impressed by this vision of goblin maidenhood.