And now three attendants were swathing him with elaborate care in an enormous length of soft purple fabric, adequate to have made a sail for Stormdancer. Of course it needed no special tailoring to accommodate his shrunken form, as a doublet and tights would have done, but as far as appearances went, it was quite the silliest garment Rap had ever seen.
Lounging sleepily on a silk-embroidered chair in a corner of the imperor’s great bedchamber, he watched the performance tolerantly and was amused at how little he was moved now by genuine grandeur, by brocade and tapestry and priceless works of art. Holindarn’s peat fire on a sunny day—now that had been impressive!
Knowing he was about to die helped deaden his emotions, of course. His premonition was a monstrous choking horror that he was finding ever more difficult to ignore. Some terrible danger was bearing down on him, and yet he could find no escape from it. He considered fleeing on foot, and he even pondered the possibility of transporting himself by magic to Dragon Reach, say, or Krasnegar—and those options seemed to make no real difference. Just drifting along with events seemed to be the least painful course available to him, and he was resigned to doing only that.
Perhaps he was suffering from too little sleep or too much stress, but the jotunn temper still seethed through his veins, threatening to lash out in madness whenever he let the warlocks drift across his thoughts, or brooded on Gathmor’s senseless murder or the abuse inflicted on little Shandie.
The boy was stretched out on the great four-poster bed, chin in hands, occasionally popping a nervous question to his grandfather or the mysterious sorcerer. By defying the Protocol and working his wonderful cures., Rap had made himself a very big hero to the boy. However little he felt like a hero, he knew how boys—especially fatherless boys—needed men to emulate. Shandie would have found few worthy of his admiration in this cesspool of intrigue.
Poor Shandie. Poor Gathmor. Poor Inos.
Gathmor, why did I not make you stay by the sea? About this time yesterday, Rap and Darad had delivered the sailor to his last rites. It had been a very private service, but each of the sequential set had come in turn to pay his respects. Even Andor had been almost sorry. Sagorn had spouted philosophy and Thinal had wept, but Jalon had sung a soul-melting seamen’s lament that would echo in Rap’s heart until the day he . . .
Don’t think about that.
Don’t think about Inos, either.
“Grandfather?” Shandie whispered, with a sidelong glance at Rap.
“Uh?” the imperor said, scowling at his teeth in a mirror held for him by a trembling valet. “Grandfather . . . Fauns are all right, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes. I suppose that will have to do—bring my sandals. What? Fauns? Of course they’re all right. Why wouldn’t they be?”
“Well . . . I mean, I know imps are all right, but Moms says that jotnar are murderous brutes, and gnomes are dirty, and goblins are cruel. Thorog says elves are all right. And fauns are all right, too, aren’t they?”
His grandfather twisted around and frowned. “Who’s Thorog? Never mind. I think your mother has been filling your head with some odd ideas. Master Rap, tell him about fauns.”
Shandie turned a worried gaze on Rap.
“I don’t know much about fauns,” Rap said with a shrug. “I’ve hardly met any. My mother was a faun. My father was a jotunn.”
“Oh. I’m sorry! I mean I’m sorry I said—”
“That’s all right. I’ve met some really horrible jotnar, like that Kalkor I killed today. Killing is bad, but he deserved it. I know some good jotnar, too. And one of the best men I know is a gnome. He smells horrible, but he’s a loving father to his children and a very powerful sorcerer. Ythbane is an imp, isn’t he?”
“Er . . . yes.” Shandie meant sort of, so he knew, somehow. How?
“There are good imps and bad imps, Shandie. There are good jotnar and bad jotnar. Same with all of us. Some of us increase the Good and some of us, I’m afraid, seem to increase the Evil. We just try to do our best, most of us.”
Shandie nodded solemnly. Rap thought again of last year’s herdboy, and what his reaction would have been had he been asked to deliver a lecture on ethics for the heir to the Imperial throne.
By the time Emshandar demanded wine brought and lamps lit, and dismissed his valets, Shandie had laid down his head and fallen asleep, tiny as a doll on the great bed.
Emshandar struggled to his feet and hobbled toward a comfortable chair near Rap. It was only a few paces away, but he swayed and grabbed at a bedpost to steady himself.
“Son of a gnome! Leave me alone, will you?” he shouted, feeling Rap’s occult touch on him. Then his anger faded to shame. “My pardon, Sorcerer. I know you meant well.” He stood for a moment, studying the sleeping boy, his skull-like features melting into a worried smile. “Were it not for him, I believe I would ask you to put me back as I was before! But I should like to deliver his inheritance to him, if that be possible.” He bared his teeth like an aging watchdog, too stiff to fight, too proud not to try.
He lurched over to the chair and sank into it, gasping with weakness. He poured wine with a trembling hand.
“I am sure your Majesty will feel stronger in a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days! Now you will take wine with me. I have questions.”
Already the miserable day was drawing to a close, rain still dribbling over the great windows. Rap accepted a crystal chalice, changed its contents to water, and sat back to be cross-examined.
“How long have you been a sorcerer?” the imperor asked brusquely.
“Since dawn this morning, Sire.”
“Burning turds!” The haggard old man stared, then sipped wine thoughtfully. “So we could claim that you were ignorant of the Protocol?”
“Not a chance, your Majesty. I’ve met Bright Water several times, and Zinixo, and Lith’rian, too.”
The old man grunted, raising his white brows in astonishment. “Have you indeed? So they know of you, and you knew the risk. Then I suppose my next question is, why did you do what you did today? No mundane in all Pandemia has more power than an imperor, yet I can offer no reward a sorcerer would need. Why did you heal my sickness?” He pursed his lips over teeth that seemed much too large for the sunken face.
Rap applied a quick magic to smother a blush. “I lost my temper, Sire.”
“Gods’ bottoms!” The old man began to laugh, a great braying fit of laughter quite out of keeping with his emaciated appearance. “Well, you are an honest man, if not a wise one.” Still chuckling, he refilled the goblets. Rap began to talk. He outlined the story as briefly as he could, leaving out only the dread fate he had seen waiting for him in Hub.
The windows were dark when he had finished, and Emshandar was staring at him blearily. Rap wondered if he should have detoxified his wine, also.
“There are no precedents!” the imperor muttered. “We’ll have to meet the wardens, and tonight, if the dwarf really predicted the meeting. But I can’t deny that you are in grave danger.”
Before Rap could bring himself to mention that other awful danger, the old man sighed and went on. “It is very rare for the Four to appear in public. Decades may go by without even the imperor meeting them all together. For many centuries my predecessors have kept a secret journal of their dealings with the wardens, to guide their heirs. There are shelves and shelves full of these great tomes, and no one ever has time to read them all. I read over the last couple of dynasties and gave up. I’ll introduce Shandie to them when he’s older, if I’m spared. But I can’t recall anyone ever using power on an imperor or his family. That’s about the only provision in the Protocol that absolutely everybody is aware of!”
Rap was about to say that it would not matter—
”Of course I’m grateful!” the old man snapped, and yet his face was saying that he hated being indebted to anyone. “What you did may have been foolish, but it was a wondrous thing for me and my grandson. I will do anything in my power to save you.”
“That is very—”
“But I may not have any power!”
“Sire?”
The old man scowled at the goblet he held. “If the Senate and the Assembly and the Four all ratified Ythbane as regent . . . I wonder how the sly-handed twister did it, though?”