“In Arakkaran,” Darad informed Thinal.
“The night we rescued’m from the jail, ‘specially,” the thief agreed, watching his brother.
“But now our word of power is diluted!” Andor complained to Jalon . . .
“All it takes is a little cooperation,” Rap said. “A little consideration:”
“Put us back, please, Rap?” Thinal said, whining. “I gave you what I promised!” The sorcerer frowned. Kadolan held her breath.
“Please, Rap?” Jalon’s ice-blue eyes glistened with tears. ”We’ll remember! We’ll cooperate!”
“Just a minute, though,” Darad rumbled. “You’ve got to stop the rest of them from keeping me away for years and years. That old Sagorn ’specially. He burrows down into those books of his and forgets all the rest of us!”
Sagorn flushed. “Cognizant now of my advancing years—”
“He’s not the one I don’t trust!” Andor broke in. “It’s him!” He jabbed a finger at his weedy brother. Thinal flinched and looked guilty—but then Thinal would almost always look guilty, Kadolan thought. He almost always was guilty, of something.
“What’s he done?” asked Jalon, surprised. “Nothing!” Andor retorted. “That’s what I mean! Why do you suppose he never hangs around? Why does he always call one of us back right away? He’s waiting us out, see? In a couple of centuries or less, we’ll all be older than Sagorn is now, and then who’s going to inherit all our memories and experience? That young guttersnipe, that’s who! He’s robbing us blind!” Thinal started to protest. The others interrupted, and in a moment they were all shouting at once. Kadolan looked to Rap and was relieved to see a brief hint of his old half grin flicker wistfully over his mouth as he watched the argument. Then he coughed, and silence fell instantly.
“Well?” he said.
“Please, Rap,” Jalon said. “Don’t leave us like this! I feel like a turtle out of its shell. We helped you get what you wanted, didn’t we, and—”
“What I wanted?” Rap jumped up, blazing anger, and everyone recoiled. “You think this is what . . . “ He cooled his fury as slickly as a man might close a book, and Kadolan found that inhuman control even more scary than the inexplicable rage itself.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “I can put a time limit on each of you. Would you prefer that?” He glanced around at nodding heads. ”You all want to be put back?”
Five heads nodded again.
Darad’s clothes collapsed on the floor. Then Andor’s . . . Jalon’s . . . Only Sagorn was left. “There you are, Doctor,” Rap said harshly. ”Operation a success?” Without waiting for a reply, he spun around to Kadolan. “When do you want to go to Kinvale—and Krasnegar?”
“Why don’t you ask Inos?” she asked. “I’m asking you.”
She was wary of him in this feverish, bitter mood. She said, “Is there any great hurry?”
He hesitated, his eyes suddenly distant. “No. No, the time is not yet ripe. A week or two more won’t hurt much anyway. You want to stay here for Winterfest, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Inos doesn’t, but I do.” Eigaze had been raving about Winterfest in Hub. Kinvale’s celebrations were nothing by comparison, she said. And there would be no celebration in Kinvale this year, anyway.
“Parties?” Rap said scathingly. “Balls and banquets? Inos always liked parties. Tell her to enjoy them, then! Krasnegar is not much of a place for fine balls.”
“They don’t matter! We can go anytime.”
“Stay for Winterfest! But Inos does want to go home after that?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Yes. If you’ll help.”
He stared at her as if she had suggested something shocking. “Of course I’ll help!” he snapped. “It was my home, too, you know!”
Then he spun on his heel, marched across the room, and disappeared out through the door.
Without opening it.
The room seemed very quiet with only two people there.
“Well, Doctor?” Kadolan asked.
The jotunn rubbed his big jaw with a long-fingered hand. “Well what, ma’am?”
“Diagnose our sorcerer for me.”
“I am an expert in mundane medicine only.”
She gave him her best royal glare. “You can speculate.”
“Inos is in good health?”
“Perfect health.”
“And what exactly happened when she and Rap vanished in flames?”
“Her recollection seems rather muddled.”
“Ah!” Sagorn turned away, and began picking up the clothes left behind by the sorcerer. “I should need more facts.”
Kade rose, exasperated. “One reason I came here was to reassure you that the imperor’s invitation was an opportunity for you, Doctor, not a trap. But if you continue to misbehave, then I shall call in my hussars to take you to the palace by force—and don’t think they won’t!”
Sagorn glared. Then he shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“Your opinion of Master Rap.”
“No question. A very obvious hypothesis, at least. He shows all the symptoms of a man enduring severe pain.”
The rivalry between the great families of the Impire was a bitter and never-ending business, but it peaked every year at Winterfest, when they clashed headlong in an ostentation contest. For months the preparations had proceeded in darkest secrecy—the gowns, the orchestras, the food, the wine, the entertainment. No expense had been spared, no menial unexhausted.
Rap had told Kade that Inos was to attend the parties. Despite her worries, she trusted him, and she obeyed. As an honored guest of the imperor, a state visitor, she had very little choice anyway. To refuse would have been an insult.
Last year’s foolish flirtation with bustles was but a shameful memory. Sanity had returned, bringing laces and ruffles and flounces spread so wide by hoops and panniers that a lady must turn sideways to pass through a door. The favored colors were claret and hyacinth, or salmon for those whose complexions could stand it. Lace and jewels, bows and embroidery, beads and seashells, bouquets and frills—nothing must be omitted in the decoration. Hair likewise must be gemmed and teased, coiled high on a framework until it overtopped even the plumed helmets of the tall hussars.
For men, hose and doublets were out, white silk tights were in. The cutaway coats in bright velvets hung low at the back, but rose high in front to better display the tights, and especially this year’s outstanding absurdity, a bejeweled and embroidered codpiece. The exact amount of padding a gentleman employed—on his calves, for example—was a question of taste for him, a matter of concern for his tailor, and a topic for speculation by the ladies.
Life became a continuous procession of balls. The scented invitations drifted into Inos’s dressing table like snowflakes. She dragged herself from bed at noon, spent the rest of the daylight hours preparing, and was off to dance the night away again. Who exactly was paying for all this she dared not ask—she had a recurring nightmare that the imperor might play innkeeper and present the slate when she departed, a bill whose final total would amount to more than the gross value of her kingdom.
Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar was unquestioned Belle of the Season. No ball was worth a pinch of parsley if Inosolan did not attend. She was a celebrity because of the events in Emine’s Rotunda, and she had an intriguing aura of the occult about her. Rumor linked her with the mysterious faun sorcerer who had rescued the dynasty.
But in addition Inos’s dancing was miraculous, her beauty unmatched, her wit devastating. The debutantes spoke darkly of witchcraft.
Few of them could see that it was not wit or grace or beauty that drew the young men to her, but rather her wistful air of tragedy, her romantic melancholy, the haunting echo of a breaking heart.
She received an average of four proposals of marriage a day. At least two of them were always from Tiffy, but she noted five or six young men of quality, almost any of whom might now be ruling in Krasnegar had he chanced to drop by Kinvale a year ago. Too late! Too late!
Every night flew by in a whirl of candlelight and music and handsome soldiers. And when each new winter day dawned, she crept back to the palace and soaked another pillow.
Of Rap she had seen nothing at all. Shandie seemed to be the only person who ever met him now. She sent a message by the boy: “Tell Rap I love him very much.”
Next day came the answer: “Rap said he knew that.”
Then—”Tell Rap I want to help him.”
But—”He laughed and said you were the last one to help him.”
And that, inexplicably, was that.
She had two opposing dreads. One was her vague memory of the ambience, that sinister half-world of shadowless nonbeing. She suspected that Rap must be spending much time in it—for he did not seem to be anywhere else—and she had nightmares of his becoming trapped in it, fading away forever from the mundane.