Why shouldn’t Rap just cut his throat?
Kalkor’s sky-blue eyes gleamed. He knew what Rap was thinking, and he smiled up at him as fondly as a lover. When he spoke his voice was very soft. ”Don’t even be tempted.”
To dry-shave a man on a leaping, heaving boat in a state of shivering weakness when the slightest knick would bring mutilation—for Kalkor’s threats would never be idle—that was a totally impossible task. The very prospect brought sweat leaping out all over Rap’s body. It was utterly, completely, insanely impossible! As well ask him to fly to Zark.
“I’ll give you about five more seconds,” Kalkor said.
Rap took him by the nose and lifted. The jotunn stretched his upper lip and Rap stroked it with the razor. He did not forfeit a finger with that one. He wiped the blade on his sleeve and prepared to try again. Kalkor had missed shaving for several days; his golden stubble was long and tough, his skin dry and surprisingly soft. Rap’s own face was streaming, as was all of him.
He could not have been wetter had he just emerged from the sea.
Why shouldn’t he just slit Kalkor’s throat? The man was an egregious monster, a killing, raping, looting horror without peer. Even this whole shaving charade was a form of torture. The crew would be watching and laughing—and admiring their leader’s courage. Rap’s opportunity to make the world a safer place for human beings was one that any half-decent man should be glad to sacrifice his life for. Trouble was, he might not reach the rail in time to gain an easy death, and if the rest of the jotnar caught him, what unspeakable torments would they inflict on him?
Kalkor was watching with a sleepy sort of disdain. He looked completely relaxed, lounging on his throne, being shaved by his new thrall, but he wasn’t relaxed to Rap’s farsight. His eyes were half closed, and yet alert, and while his hands hung slack and loose, the muscles in his shoulders were knotted hard as steel. Thane Kalkor was not quite the uncaring suicidal hero he was trying to portray.
Rap realized he had stopped breathing, and paused to resume. He wiped his forehead, although the sweat wasn’t running into his eyes, which were still puffed and blurred. He had been working with them closed.
Kalkor was still watching. “Strop?” Rap croaked. “In the bag.”
Rap fished out the belt and began sharpening. When he was ready to shave again, Kalkor tilted his head back, baring his throat.
“Tell me about Darad and this curse of his.”
Rap pulled skin taut with fingertips, slit off whiskers with a deft stroke. A slash would be so easy, the world so much better! He could not remember what he had told Kalkor about Darad the day before. “There are five of him.” He must watch the crests—Blood Wave had a nasty habit of twitching her tail when she went over the tops, as the wind caught her hull; if he lost his balance he would lose a finger for certain. “Only one of them can exist at a time. They were a gang of wild kids. About a hundred years ago . . .”
So easy to kill. Was he not man enough? He felt no real guilt about Yggingi, and this jotunn was a thousand times worse than the imp had been. Make the try and get it over! He pushed Kalkor’s chin to a better angle. He was steadying his own head against a beam and getting splinters in his scalp. This would be easier if he could stand upright. Without the acuity of farsight it would be impossible.
“Each of the five has a talent . . . “ Now the razor seemed to be tugging more, and it wasn’t for lack of sharpening. Kalkor was starting to sweat too. He was still striving to seem relaxed and limp in his chair, and yet he was growing tauter and tauter. A fine sheen of damp showed on his forehead and chest. Was this ordeal going on longer than he had anticipated? Likely he had expected Rap to nick him on the first or second stroke . . . all right so far; half done now. Probably Kalkor had planned to end the game when he got to ten nicks. A seer with no hands would be easier to keep prisoner. But if he wanted to mutilate Rap like that, he would do so anyway, regardless of how many times Rap cut him.
Talk was easier while stropping than while shaving. “Darad doesn’t need to call for help very often, so he’s aged. He stays too long. Thinal, on the other hand, is still just a kid.” Rap gripped Kalkor’s ear and pulled a little harder than necessary.
Not a game—it was a trap. Nicks were not what the jotunn expected, but an attack, Rap moving to cut his throat. Strop some more. “Jalon’s the minstrel, the artist . . . “ He was talking without thinking, but he didn’t mind revealing the gang’s great secret. He owed nothing to any of them. The only thing he left out was the word of power. Kalkor already had a word of his own, and might be tempted to become an adept. He might very well extract Rap’s word, also, and three words made a mage. Kalkor as a mage was a brain-curdling thought.
His talent was fighting, so Andor had said. Could a mere occult genius fend off a razor attack even if it was launched from such close quarters? Perhaps. Probably. So Kalkor was not nearly as vulnerable as he looked. If Rap tried to avenge Durthing, then Kalkor could still block him.
And the man was really sweating now. It made the shaving harder, but Rap could afford to take his time. He was beginning to think he could win this game, unless Kalkor deliberately cheated by moving, and so far he had played fair. So Rap was stropping after almost every stroke, dragging it out.
“Sagorn is the wise man—”
“Never mind him. Tell me again what you saw in the casement.”
“Which time? You, or the dragon, or the goblin?”
“All of them. Start with Inosolan’s prophecy.”
“You, wearing a fur and nothing else.” Rap was enjoying pushing the thane’s head into odd angles. “An old man giving you an ax . . .”
But any ordeal must end eventually. Rap had no sooner closed the razor and replaced it in the bag with the strop than his knees folded of their own accord. He slumped down, with one leg twisted under him; he doubled over and shivered convulsively, as if he had a fever. He retched, but his stomach was empty and nothing happened. It was over. Over! He shivered and shivered.
After a moment, a dirty toe poked under his chin and nudged his head up. There was a very strange glint in those deadly blue eyes.
“Tell me again of the place where we were supposed to fight this interesting duel, you and me?”
Rap licked his lips and managed to steady his quivering jaw enough to use it for speaking. “I told you, sir—it wasn’t clear at all. Short grass; scythed or grazed. Mist and rain. A ring of people all around. That was all. Nothing in the distance, no landmarks. “
“The Place of Ravens on Nintor,” Kalkor said, staring intently, ”has a circle of great stones around it. The spectators must stay back from those. Stay outside. There are no predators or scavengers on Nintor, except the ravens, and the bones of the losers are left where they fall. Did you see any bones, or the monoliths?”
“No, sir.”
“Mmm.” Kalkor rubbed his fresh-shaven chin and seemed to ponder. ”Reckonings are almost always done at the Place of Ravens, but they need not be. They can be held anywhere, if certain conditions are met.”
Rap almost gagged again. He could think of nothing to say, so he didn’t try. Sagorn had interpreted the vision as showing Rap being Inos’s champion; but he might equally well be Kalkor’s plaything. The shaving episode had just demonstrated that the jotunn’s sense of humor was as warped as his morals, and if he found the idea of a ritual battle with Rap an amusing prospect, then he could stage it at the next landfall, wherever that might be.
“And when you tried for a vision from the casement?”
“I never did, sir. I approached it twice, and each time it . . . well, it sort of blazed. Very bright. All shifting. Eerie!” Kalkor nodded. Then, slowly, his smile widened—and yet his eyes seemed to narrow. He stepped off his chair and moved out from under the helmsman’s deck. “Up!”
Rap rose also and cautiously straightened. He was shorter and slighter than the jotunn. He felt very frail beside that potent killing machine.
Kalkor looked him up and down twice, perhaps making the same comparison and feeling reassured by it. Then he folded his arms and shook his head mockingly. ”Just be glad I’m a gambler, sailor.”