Magic Casement (23 page)

They
made camp in a peat cutting under the glorious canopy of stars. If there was
some way to pitch a tent when the ground was iron, then Rap did not know it.
They finally used their tent as a giant sleeping bag, putting the bedrolls
inside it and then wriggling into them.

“This,”
Rap said firmly, “is fun!”

“Great
Gods!” Andor muttered. “He’s mad.” After a minute he
added, “But it’s different, I’ll grant you.”

After
another minute Rap whispered, “Andor? Have you ever had an adventure like
this?”

“I’m
not sure. I’ll tell you afterward; this one may be different.”

“How?”

“Because
the others, I survived.”

About
two hours before noon, a faint glow appeared in the south and gradually spread
into a vague twilight, then a dim and foggy daylight. For a few minutes an edge
of the sun showed. Soon it was gone and the day faded as slowly as it had come.
The moorlands were difficult, the rough ground heavily laced with drifts, the
best trail winding and twisting like a tangled cord. But now Rap’s head
did not ache at all, and he could choose the firmest route without even having
to think.

Once
that day they saw wolves far off, or at least Rap did, but they slunk away into
blurry distance without any signs that they might be contemplating attack.

If
the weather held... and the weather did. On the third day, while Krasnegar
would be feasting and celebrating Winterfest, the moors dipped away and the
first stunted trees stood as sentries for the great taiga ahead. Here ended the
realm of the king of Krasnegar. Ahead lay a land that neither he nor the
imperor could claim with conviction. Yet it was not no-man’s land. Trees
were shelter from even the worst that a blizzard could do, but they were
shelter for other men, also, and those could be more deadly than any blizzard.

Seven
days into the forest, they were still alive.

For
two rank beginners, Rap thought, they were doing well. True, Andor was an
experienced traveler, but he was a man of the south. Rap was a native, but a
city dweller. Only trappers, seal hunters, and prospectors left Krasnegar in
winter. All that he had known of life in the wastelands had been gleaned from
conversations with men such as those, and there was much that must be learned
the hard way.

But
Rap and Andor learned. They learned not to build fires under branches laden
with snow; they learned to take their boots into their bedrolls with them at
night; they learned to stay in the densest forest, where the undergrowth and
snow cover were least. In that primeval gloom there were game trails and
mysterious paths along which Rap led the horses unerringly with the aid of his
supernatural vision.

So
far they had seen no signs of the dreaded goblins. Even animal tracks were
scarce and neither of the men could read what stories they might have had to
tell. Only once was there obviously wolf spoor, and for two hours thereafter
Rap’s ghostly farseeing was stretched to its limit as he nervously
scanned the forest. Andor grumbled that he would never eat pemmican or pancakes
again, but Rap seemed to thrive on the monotonous diet. The horses were doing
less well, and he hated to drive the poor creatures so hard. Their ribs showed
like sapling groves. They staggered often. They spent the hours of rest pawing
at the snow in search of the meager forest grass below.

And
the human food supplies were dwindling fast. The self-taught pioneers would
have to learn hunting soon or face starvation, but they agreed that they should
press on southward as far as they could, as fast as they could, as long as the
weather allowed. Some days they endured a bitter wind and light snow, but the
trees gave shelter and no real killer storm had come seeking them. Rap had seen
trees before. There were a few twisted specimens in the castle gardens, and he
had accompanied a search party southward two summers earlier, pursuing
Firedragon and his herd. Yet he had never conceived that there could be as many
trees in the world as he saw now in a single day; mostly spruce, black in their
winter coats, silent and unfriendly. He had expected the taiga to be endless
and featureless and unchanging, but it did change. It rolled up and down, it
broke sometimes into open clearings, old firebreaks, which were tangled and
hard going, and it had rivers and game trails and frozen marshes peppered with
tiny, stunted spruce. He had never seen rivers before and he tried vainly to
imagine how they would look with water in them instead of solid ice.

Some
people never get lost, Sagorn had said, and Rap’s sense of direction was
unfailing. In the darkest dark or the whitest ice fog, he could always face to
the south and he could always find his way back to the wagon trail whose
general course they were following. The trail itself, however, was often
plugged with drifts, and for men and horses, the trees made easier going. On
the seventh day they were still alive.

“Rap!
Let’s camp!” Andor’s voice was a croak. There was no
moonlight now, and the endless blindman’s bluff was emotionally
exhausting for him, as well as for the horses. Rap had become so expert that
even in daylight he sometimes walked with his eyes closed, if the low sun shone
in them.

Now
the sun had just set, and Rap would have been willing to go on for longer. But
he was secretly becoming concerned by Andor’s weakness-imps did not fare
well in winter. Rap had jotunn blood in him and was enduring much better.

“Good
idea,” he said. “I was just about to suggest it.”

They
found a campsite in a small clearing and set to work building a fire. Soon the
light from the flames danced over snow and the encircling woods, and Andor had
his eyes back. He rummaged for the food, while Rap set to work cutting more
firewood and spruce boughs to build a lean-to. They were becoming efficient and
they had long since discarded the tent as useless baggage.

Rap
had moved into the trees, some yards from the flickering firelight. His
attention must have wandered, for it was a sense of alarm in the ponies that
alerted him first, and his farsight confirmed the danger a moment later. He
plunged back through the snow to the camp and said: “Andor! Visitors!”

Andor
looked up from where he was kneeling by the fire. His black impish stubble was
caked with ice. His face was darkly filthy, and only a glint of firelight in
his eyes showed from inside the shadow of his fur hood. “How many?”

Rap
counted. “Twenty or so. They’re moving around, making a circle.”
His hands were beginning to shake, and he was astonished to hear Andor utter a
low chuckle.

“Then
this may be your last chance.”

“Last
chance for what?” Rap did not want to raise his voice, and yet obviously
the fire and the sound of his ax had already proclaimed their location like a
carillon.

“Your
last chance to share your word with me, of course. An adept would be in no
danger, but I doubt that my talent will work well enough on these fellows. Spit
it out, Rap! Quick!”

“I
have no word!” Rap protested, horrified. Had Andor been thinking him a
liar all this time?

Andor
threw down the knife he had been using on the pemmican and put his mitted hands
on his knees. “Last chance, Master Rap!”

“Andor...
“ Rap felt his world crumbling. His terror of the goblins faded before a
heartbreaking sense of betrayal. “Is this all a trick? The king isn’t
dying?”

“Oh,
he’s dying. That doesn’t matter much now, does it? You know what
the goblins will do to us, don’t you?”

They
were closing in now, the circle shrinking. Yet eyes could not have detected
them, and they made no sound. Only a seer could have known.

Rap
wavered on the brink of panic.

“I
have no word to tell! You tell me yours, then! If I do have one, then two will
make me an adept, won’t it? Then I can save us! “

Ander
uttered a snort of derision. “Not likely!” He climbed to his feet. “Which
way are they coming?”

Rap
searched with his mind. The circle had stopped shrinking and there was a knot
of men advancing. “That way. “

“You’re
quite sure you won’t tell me? It would be nicer than having bits pulled
off. “

“I
can’t! Tell me yours!”

Andor
shook his head in exasperation. “That wouldn’t work! You’d
need time to learn to control it. I don’t even need to become an adept,
really-not for this. All I need your word for is to boost the talent I already
have, more power. Then I’ll win over the goblins, and we’ll be made
welcome. So you have to tell me yours, don’t you see?”

Talent?
Win? How could he have ignored the obvious for so long? “It’s not
just girls, is it?” Rap said bitterly. “It’s all people. Men,
too. You tricked me.” Andor had done to Rap what Rap had done to
Firedragon’s mares. Thief! Traitor!

Andor
shrugged heavy, furred shoulders. “The goblins are no trick, and I don’t
intend to stay around to entertain them. You’re being foolish, Master
Rap. “

Then
he turned to face the arrivals.

Three
shadowy figures had emerged from the dark into the edge of the firelight, visible
even to eyes.

If
goblins valued courage, then they were not going to be impressed by Rap’s
quivering jaw, or the way he was keeping his knees pressed together. He
resisted the temptation to sidle in behind Andor and hide.

The
three came slowly closer, spears raised, inspecting their catch with care. They
were short and very broad. They wore jerkins and trousers and boots, but made
of buckskin instead of fur, gaudily decorated with fringes and beadwork. The
fire’s glimmer showed hard, unfriendly faces, dark-skinned and marked by
complicated tattoo patterns around the eyes.

The
one in the center seemed older than the others. He had the most ornate
decorations on his clothes and on his face, and he spoke first, barking out a
question that Rap could not understand, accompanied by a threatening movement
of the spear.

Andor
seemed to straighten up, tall and imposing. He rolled off a long answer in the
same tongue, and his voice was harsher and much deeper than usual. Rap jumped
with surprise when he heard it. It had never occurred to him that the goblins
spoke another language.

Then
he wondered how Andor knew it.

The
spear points dipped slightly. The leader spoke another question, sounding
surprised.

Andor
replied and pointed to his face. Now Rap could catch a word or two. It was a
strangely coarse dialect, but not a totally different tongue.

The
chief snapped an order to his two companions and then advanced alone, holding
his spear at waist height now. He peered up into Andor’s hood.

Rap
had just noticed that he could barely see over Andor’s shoulder. Andor
was much taller than he ought to be and certainly much broader. His parka
strained over massive arms and shoulders. He looked wrong to Rap’s eyes,
and also to his farsight. There was a bigger man in there than Andor.

The
chief had rattled off more questions, Andor replying. The chief showed
irregular teeth in a broad grin. He reached out a mitt and turned Andor around.
He wanted to see Andor’s tattoos in the firelight, but in doing so he
showed that face to Rap. It was not Andor. It was a huge man, a man with the
ugliest and most terrifying face Rap had ever seen-nose crushed over to one
side, one corner of his mouth lifted by a scar, the corner of one eye pulled
awry by another. Andor’s dark, stubbly beard had vanished-this man looked
newly shaved. He was not a goblin, but he had goblin tattoos around his
eyes-pale jotunn’s eyes, which now met Rap’s and crinkled with
contemptuous amusement. He grinned. His front teeth were missing, top and
bottom, giving him a most hideous and sinister wolfish leer.

Rap
backed away in dismay, almost into the campfire. “Where is Andor?”

“You
won’t be seeing him again, not likely.”

Rap’s
heart was spinning, and he thought he might be going to faint. Andor had been
there only minutes before. “Who are you?” he cried.!

“A
friend of his,” the big man said. “I’m Darad. You were warned
about me. “

The
chief inspected Darad’s tattoos by the trembling light of the campfire
and apparently approved of them. He smiled and dropped his spear, attempted to
embrace the giant, and received a bear hug in return. That ought to be a good
sign for Darad, but who was going to hug Rap?

The
chief’s two companions were smiling also and coming forward for
introductions and more embraces. The rest of the goblins floated in from the
trees, silent as moonbeams, appearing suddenly in the firelight like ghosts.
They were younger men, mostly, bearing spears or bows, and all wearing the same
fringed and beaded buckskins.

What
was going on? Obviously there was some sort of sorcery at work, yet Andor was
most certainly not a sorcerer. Sorcerers need not endure the hardships of long
days’ trekking through the wastelands; they had abilities to avoid such
dangers and discomfort. If Andor was a sorcerer and wanted that damnable magic
word that he thought Rap possessed, he would surely have revealed his powers
sooner.

And
who was this Darad, against whom Jalon had warned him, this Darad who so
conveniently tore goblins’ tattoos and spoke their tongue? Rap trembled
as he thought of Kranderbad and the others who had tried to fight Andor and had
then been so callously maimed. The idea that the soft-spoken, kindly Andor
might commit such atrocities, even in the heat of a fight, was just as
unthinkable as the notion that he might be a sorcerer. Darad, however, looked
capable of anything. Perhaps Darad was a demon who came to Andor’s rescue
when he was in trouble. If so, and if the goblins were going to be friendly,
would Andor now reappear?