Fool! Did he think he could be stronger than a warlock?
But if that dwarf pulled any more tricks, it might be fun to find out!
“I find no truth in the allegations,” Emshandar said harshly. Sweat was running down his ribs below his toga as he uttered this blatant lie.
“Then we find the defendant not guilty!” Lith’rian proclaimed. His youthful smile was a blizzard of blossom petals lifted by a summer breeze in the south.
Drums rumbled defiance from the east and armed multitudes clashed in fury; men and horses screamed. Something gurgled in agony to the north and more claws scrabbled in dark crypts to the west.
The mundane spectators broke into applause. Little Shandie jumped to his feet and cheered. Inos released Kade’s hand, ducked around Azak before he could block her, and raced through the forest of candelabra to Rap, obviously intending to throw her arms around him. He dodged her, as he had been dodging the dwarf’s attacks, and held up a hand to ward off any second attempt. He knew Lith’rian by now. There was more to come.
“Master Rap, “ said the elf. “You could read the ambience when you were a mere adept, could you not?” Rap nodded, bracing himself as he sensed the danger closing in.
“Inosolan!” Azak roared. Inos gave Rap a hurt look and reluctantly walked back to her husband’s side, her head bent low.
“Faugh!” Bright Water shrilled. “You should have felt the mastery he had when he only knew one word of power! I guessed then what his destiny was!”
“Master Rap, “ Lith’rian said, caution like a fence of crystal spears bristling around him, “I think you would make an excellent warden. If you wish to contend for the Red Throne, I for one would have no objection. ”
Bright Water screamed an objection, a bugle rang out joyfully in the east. But Zinixo did not wait for argument or discussion, nor even for Rap’s own reply. He struck instantly, as the elf must have known he would. The great mass of fortifications tipped, split, and crashed down in a landslide toward Rap.
Rap used the direct physical simulation that had worked on Kalkor. The dwarf’s spectral image was right beside him in the ambience. Spurning any pretense of subtlety, he hurled himself on it with all the occult weight he could summon. That version of Zinixo toppled over backward with Rap on top of him, grappling for his throat. The two ghostly presences rolled and struggled as if locked in mundane combat, and there was nothing transparent or unreal about it that Rap could sense. The dwarf’s breath was hot on his face, and his thick body slick with sweat.
They squirmed and twisted on a shadowy ground, directly in the path of the hurtling mass of rocks.
The spectators in the mundane Rotunda would see nothing at all happening. In the ambience, the torrent of rock divided and roared past on either side. Rap tightened his grip on the massive neck, and saw panic and madness in the agate eyes staring up into his. Ironically, he knew that in the real world the dwarf’s great strength could have easily torn him off and smashed him. In terms of occult power, though, he thought he was holding his own.
Above them, a cavern roof shattered and began to fall.
Without releasing his grip, Rap twisted and rolled, hauling the dead weight of the dwarf on top of him as a shield. Two massive rocks struck on either side of them and fell together, forming a canopy to deflect the rest of the crashing debris. Rap stared up at the hate-filled gray face and continued to squeeze with his thumbs. Huge hands seized his wrists and tried to wrest them away. And failed.
The dwarf seemed to grow impossibly heavy, crushing Rap down against jagged rock. He ignored the pain, squeezing, squeezing, and watching the bulging face of his opponent. They were both panting and straining, but Zinixo seemed to have run out of tricks. He flailed punches at Rap’s ribs, but they were nothing like the blows he could have landed in a mundane struggle. Then his great hands clawed for Rap’s neck, meeting the challenge directly.
“I’ve got you!” Rap gasped. “I’m stronger! Yield, damn you!”
In the Rotunda the spectators had guessed that something was happening between these two. The faun and the dwarf were standing rigidly and staring at each other. In the ambience they thrashed and rolled, straining strength against strength, pouring sweat, panting harshly.
The other wardens were intent and silent, watching but seemingly not taking sides. Yet, in the corner of his mind, Rap caught a faint image of a fiery fence encircling the battle and luminous angry shapes dancing around, trying to penetrate and being blocked. If that was not mere hallucination brought on by an overtaxed, pounding brain, then it might represent Zinixo’s votaries being denied a chance to intervene.
“I don’t want your throne! “ Rap said. He was on top again, trembling with the effort of keeping his grip, very near to the limit of his strength.
But the dwarf was in worse shape, with his tongue lolling and his eyes bulging almost out of his head. He uttered meaningless croaks of fear.
For a moment nothing more seemed to happen. Then Rap realized that in the Rotunda the corporeal Zinixo had lurched down from his throne and was staggering across the floor to attack the corporeal Rap. Rap had no reserves left to deflect a mundane assault. If the dwarf could bring real-world muscle and strength into the battle, he might win yet.
Somehow Rap dragged up a last feverish effort and dug his thumbs in even harder, squeezing relentlessly until he thought they were about to meet inside the great neck. Will! It was all will, and endurance, and stubborn purpose.
“Yield or I kill you!”
The spectral Zinixo uttered a choking rattle and went limp, like a sack of sand.
It was no trick—the warlock was dying. Revenge! Revenge for Yodello and Oothiana and being sold as a thrall and for the murderous attack itself . . .
Do what is good, not what seems good! One of his mother’s sayings. Rap fought back against his seething fury. Bind the dwarf, then? Make him votary, a slave sorcerer, to serve his every wish and be loyal unto death?
Where was the moral high ground in that? Revolted by his own black hate, Rap released his occult grip. Below the lights of the branching candelabra, the real Zinixo stood swaying before him, eyes glazed. Rap also felt spent, shaking and mentally battered. It was impossible to believe that he had no wounds, no bruises, that his back had not been shredded or his gullet crushed. He gulped great gasps of life-giving air.
The mundane spectators were staring in complete lack of understanding. The other three wardens smiled contentedly.
“Hail to our new warlock of the west!” Lith’rian said.
“I am no warlock!” Rap shouted, appalled at the mad hatred staring at him in the dwarf’s stricken eyes. “I don’t want your throne, West! This wasn’t my idea.”
Zinixo bared his monstrous crusher teeth. His huge fists were clenched and trembling.
“I mean you no harm!” Rap insisted.
But, for all his occult power and physical might, Zinixo was still a timorous boy. He had been the strongest of the wardens, yet always unsure of himself. A stronger sorcerer than himself was an unbearable threat to him. He saw treachery everywhere; he could trust no one. He stared at Rap in dread and hate.
“I won’t change my mind,” Rap insisted. He held out a hand. ”No hard feelings?”
It wasn’t going to work, he saw. Nothing could ever reconcile Zinixo to the existence of a stronger sorcerer than himself.
“Well, if you won’t make friends willingly,” Rap said, “then I suppose I’ll have to put a loyalty spell on you, but I don’t really want to have to—”
Zinixo grabbed the proffered hand, and jerked. Rap stumbled forward. The dwarf grabbed his head and pulled it down to his own level . . .
And whispered a word of power into Rap’s ear . . . A fifth word of power.
3
For Princess Kadolan, it had been a day of extremes. She could not recall any day in her life that had veered so often between the Good and the Evil.
It had begun with the astonishing realization that she was awakening on a lumpy bed in the Opal Palace. To have arrived in Hub at all after a lifetime of longing should have been a wonderful experience, but at first it had been marred by the need to remain incognito. Furthermore, Doctor Sagorn’s house, while comfortable enough, had been in a shameful state of neglect. Captain Gathmor had done a wonderful job of making her quarters shipshape, as he liked to call it, but two nights there had been more than plenty. A smelly backstreet tenement was no more inspiring for being located in Hub than it would be in any other city. Then, yesterday, she had been reunited with Inosolan, and together they had become guests of the Imperial regent himself.