He turned around to face Gathmor, who had his arms crossed over his chest, his feet well planted, and was glaring at Rap with intent to terrify. “So you planned all this, did you, sonny?”
The man was frightened of Rap! It was written all over him. “I didn’t plan to . . .” Rap sighed. “Yes, I did! Yes, I planned it.” He could hardly believe that he was still alive. And he knew two words of power. He was an adept. The world spun brightly for him now.
“You knew that we would meet a dragon. You led us into a trap. What sort of shipmate would—”
“Yes. I lied to you, Cap’n, but—” But nothing, obviously. Rap ought to be quaking and quivering as the sailor talked himself up into fighting frenzy. The rage was draining all the color out of his face, even his lips. His hair seemed to bristle. Killer jotunn! What Rap saw, though, was a man frightened by the unknown powers of the occult, a man who was also furious at the fear he had felt before the dragon, who was desperate to restore his self-respect by taking out bis rage on someone—or by suffering, perhaps. Now he must take the measure of this young upstart magician and establish who was the better man. Soon his rage had mounted until he was spitting more than he was speaking.
“Snake!” he screamed. “Ingrate! Reptile!”
Unable to get in a word, Rap turned and walked away. It didn’t work. Behind him Gathmor tore off his gown and threw it away.
Rap wheeled. “Stop that!” he shouted. “It’s all a big act! It’s stupid and childish.”
“I’ll show you stupid and childish—I’m going to break every bone in your damned faun carcass!” Gathmor stepped out of his sandals. “Worm! You haven’t any bones to break!” Keeping a steady glare on Rap, he balled his fists and stalked forward. A killer jotunn, out for blood.
Rap was not impressed. “You can control that damned temper of yours when you want to,” he said sadly. “You were a sweet little bunny on Blood Wave.” He kicked off his shoes, but he left his robe alone.
Gathmor leaped. Rap sidestepped in a swirl of sackcloth.
“I wish you’d listen a minute, Cap’n. I’m an adept now. You can’t expect—”
But Gathmor did expect. Gathmor was lightning fast. Every man in Durthing had agreed that others might punch harder or meaner or absorb punishment better, but as long as he was reasonably sober there was no one faster than Gathmor of Stonndancer. He seemed very slow now. Perhaps it was the sand, or the hard day, but when he pivoted and swung again, Rap was not there again. Screaming, the jotunn tried a third time, and now he was ready to grab, in either direction. That left him open. This time Rap stood his ground and laid a fist into that hard hairy abdomen with all the force he could muster. It felt like hitting Inisso’s castle. Apparently it felt worse to Gathmor.
For a few moments he seemed to be dead, but then he began to breathe again, very noisily, curled up small on the sand. Rap stepped back into his sandals, because his toes were being fried like sausages. He studied the sailor for a moment and decided that he was in no danger. Sucking his throbbing knuckles, he wandered over to where Andor was watching.
Of course the gang would have chosen Andor at a time like this. Looking almost elegant in Jalon’s brown robe, he was relaxing in the shade of an overhang, seated on a slab of black rock that had once been part of a spinal armor plate.
He greeted Rap with a white-tooth smile and a silent mime of hand clapping. ”I’m sure that felt good?”
“Not really.” Rap had not wanted to humiliate Gathmor. The defeat would hurt the sailor much more than victory pleased the faun. Not a faun—an adept! Fighting now was cheating. Almost anything was going to be cheating in future.
Andor’s face, for example. The polished impish good looks no longer impressed. He wasn’t ugly, but his charm didn’t work on Rap anymore. He looked unpleasantly effeminate, in fact.
“I’d have enjoyed it! You’re a good man, Master Rap. Most men would get a lot of pleasure out of stuffing that jotunn in a bottle.” He nodded solemnly. “I don’t think you do, though. You don’t enjoy humiliating other people.” The automatic compliment.
Rap shrugged. He ought to be finding pleasure in his new immunity to Andor, but he didn’t think he was. Behind the quizzical smile he could see anger and fear, and cold calculations in progress. Andor was frightened that Rap was going to kill him to gain the rest of the word of power. Gods! —
And now he was being disconcerted by Rap’s silent scrutiny. A spurious twinkle came into his eye. “So what happens next, great sorcerer?” Under the humor, there was something long dead in those deep dark eyes. Andor had manipulated people until he couldn’t think of them as people anymore.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Rap said, and watched the surge of relief and pleasure. He even saw the calculations speed up. Probably Andor was wondering if he could kill Rap to regain the share of their power that Sagorn had given away.
“Name it! —I told you on the ship, Rap—I think you have a destiny, so I’d like to stick around. More than that, though, I really do want to be your friend. I always have.”
If the man had Liar tattooed on his forehead, it couldn’t be more obvious. Then Rap glanced at his own face with farsight and was disgusted to see the innocent smile on it, the boyish appeal. He tried to change that, and saw himself become an earnest, rather innocent young man facing great challenges. He couldn’t help it! He was bedazzling Andor as Andor had bedazzled him in the past, and he could no more stop himself than he could turn off his farsight. He must just hope that some practice with his new powers would teach him how to be an honest man again. Meanwhile he watched Andor being impressed, and he felt sick.
“We’ve had one of the three prophecies, Andor. That leaves two. I think they’ll turn up in time.” His mind shied at the sudden memory of himself on the floor of the goblins’ lodge with his bones showing. “If I can beat a dragon, I can beat Kalkor.”
“Easily. Like you felled Gathmor.”
“So I can put Inos on her throne. That’s all I want. So here’s my proposal—you help me with that, and afterward I’ll help you with your problem, getting rid of your curse.”
“Fine!” Andor flashed teeth and held out a smooth brown hand. ”You can count on me. I can’t bind the others, though. You know that. But anything you need of me, you just ask.”
“You’ll trust me to keep my side of the deal later?”
“Of course!” Andor’s face said that if Rap was fool enough not to kill him now, then he was probably even stupid enough to keep a bargain after he had got what he needed. Andor would honor a promise only if it suited him to do so.
In the background, Gathmor groaned and levered himself up on one elbow. Rap wiped sweat. “There’s water just over there,” he said, waving at the trees. “Let’s head that way.”
“Your hairy friend can track us when he’s finished his rest,” Andor agreed, rising.
“I think Jalon next, please.” Rap did not look at his companion as they walked side by side, but he saw the annoyance that did not show in the voice when Andor said, “Of course.” Then Rap’s companion was Jalon.
His blue eyes filled with tears, and he limped along for a while without speaking.
“You said you owed me one,” Rap said. “I agree you didn’t expect it to be that big.”
“My fault for not looking, as you did. I should have seen.” He groaned. “And now I can’t!”
There was no deceit showing on his sun-broiled face, only pain, and a sort of nausea.
“What does that mean?”
Jalon waved a hand at the woods ahead. “It’s all gone dead. The life’s gone out of it, the beauty. You stole my power, Rap. I feel blind and deaf? I couldn’t paint a barn door now. And I don’t suppose I could outsing an alleycat. ”
“Never met a man who could.” Rap walked for a while in silence, wondering what to say, wondering also if the new sparkle he saw in everything was exactly what had gone out of Jalon’s vision. There were butterflies everywhere in the forest, and millions of tiny flowers that no one but a mouse would ever notice, and bright birds by the score, motionless on twig or nest, and leaves of every shape imaginable. Even the sand beneath his feet glinted with myriad sparkles of mica flakes and crystal edges. He marveled at a variety and vitality he had never noticed before, while Jalon slouched at his side, chewing his lip and seeming ready to weep.