Silence fell.
Was there nothing to be done?
“Surely he can’t have cornered every word of power in Pandemia? ” Rap asked Raspnex privately.
“Near enough. He has people out hunting down every sorcerer—Evil!—every adept and genius, even. If you go looking for allies, you can’t expect to collect them faster than his Covin can.”
There was the awful truth, then! “Faerie’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s where I made my great mistake?”
Raspnex’s shadow image bared its teeth. “That’s it!”
The mundanes were all waiting for an answer to the count’s question. Was there an answer?
Rap said, “There might be. It’s an Evilish long shot, but we could try, if Zinixo hasn’t beaten us to it.”
“Dross!” the dwarf snarled, disbelieving.
“There’s a lot of magic lying around in the Nogids!”
Raspnex gasped aloud. “You’ll get yourself eaten if you try that!”
“I’d rather have my flesh eaten than my mind, I think,” Rap said. ”And it was all my fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Why was it?” the impress asked. All through the discussions, she had been sitting as still as a statue, holding her sleeping child. Why was her face so familiar? “What did you do, your Majesty?”
“I cut off the supply of magic. I can’t tell you all the details now, but I went back to Faerie—” A stab of pain reminded him that sorcery did not like to be discussed. “Never mind. I did it, and it’s done.” Each word of power represented a dead fairy, but almost no one except the wardens had ever known that simple fact. It was the ultimate secret behind the workings of sorcery, and the Protocol.
Faerie . . . Raspnex projected a whiff of nostalgia and a fleeting image of the riotous party in Milflor when Zinixo’s votaries had celebrated their release. They hadn’t noticed Rap arrive on the island, or what he was up to—not that they could have stopped him, anyway. By the time he had joined in the festivities, the fairies had vanished, from jail and jungle both. He had stamped out forever that ghastly farming of people, or so he hoped.
“And you can’t undo it now, can you?” the dwarf said angrily. ”Your stupid, blundering good intentions! Where did you put the fairies?”
“I can’t even tell you. And no, I can’t ever undo it. I used every scrap of power I possessed.” Power he possessed no longer! “It’s done now. Forever. Unless the Gods take pity on us.”
He turned away from all the shocked faces. Good intentions? Only now did he see that the fairies’ suffering throughout the ages had at least helped to stabilize life for everyone else, by buttressing the Protocol. The arrangement had been grossly unfair, but it had held some good as well as much evil. By ending it, he had upset the balance of the world.
The one time he had tried to be a God, and he had blundered! “I don’t understand!” Acopulo bleated.
“He cut off the supply of magic!” Raspnex growled. “The Protocol was set up, to prevent exactly this sort of happening! The supply of magic was the prerogative of the warlock of the west. If any one sorcerer ever tried to build a sorcerous army and make himself paramount, West could create an opposing army! As a last resort. That’s why it’s never been done before, although Ulien’ came close in the War of the Five Warlocks.” He scowled, as if in pain.
Sagom made a choking noise. “A safety net!”
“And your faunish friend cut it down!” Ulien’? Again Rap felt a nudge of premonition.
Zinixo was the disaster at the end of the third millennium, but there had been trouble at the end of the first and the second, also, and it had been overcome both times. A thousand years since Thume had become the Accursed Land, since the whole race of pixies had vanished, and now . . .
“The imperor met a pixie!” he told Raspnex excitedly. “Ulien’, you said? War of Five Warlocks? Thume! There’s another hope, then! The War of the Five Warlocks? Maybe there is an answer—in Thume!”
“You’re crazy!” Raspnex mumbled, staring. “Maybe! But craziness is all we’ve got left, isn’t it?”
The door downstairs opened briefly, and young Grimrix shot through it like a rabbit. Even before it had slammed shut again, he had translated himself back upstairs. He was flushed, and panting, and so excited that he shouted aloud. Rap and Raspnex both stiffened defensively, but he did not notice—and he did not seem to have been warped from his loyalty.
“They’re here, sir! Hussars, all around the house. All three streets.” Images of several hundred soldiers and their mounts . . .
“Any occults?” Raspnex demanded.
“Didn’t stay around to look, but if you’ll let me go down there again and thump ass, I can find out!” He was twitching with battle lust. Drums and trumpets . . .
“Can’t we leave the same way as Master Jalon did?” Signifer Ylo inquired in a shaky voice.
“Quite impossible!” Sagorn snapped, and Rap resisted a desire to laugh.
“You seem very certain of that,” Hardgraa growled.
This was no time to start explaining the workings of a sequential spell. ”He’s right, though!” Rap said. “And wed leave tracks in this snow, wouldn’t we? Raspnex, got any ideas?”
“I can try. I’ll try to move us all to my palace.”
“But the house is shielded.”
The warlock leered. “It won’t be in a minute. Grimmy, can you lift this shield by yourself?”
The ambience shimmered as young Grimrix flexed his power. His very-solid image spat on its hands, and he grinned. “Easy, sir!”
“Don’t be too sure—some of these old spells have been renewed a lot of times. Watch out for underlying layers. When I push, rip it. Then slam it back fast! You’ve got to stay and cover for us.”
The young votary paled, shocked. “But if they catch me—” The ambience rang with grief louder than the bells of the city. “Then you’ll be just as happy serving him as you are serving me,” Raspnex said. “Hold them off as long as you can. Don’t try to follow me, understand?”
“Not even—”
“Not at all! You arguing?”
“Of course not!”
“Good . . . Listen!” One of the back doors shuddered noisily.
“Axes!” Rap said. “They’re trying the courtyard door. That one’s a poor choice. It’s got some occult tricks to it.”
“Nevertheless, the time to go has arrived,” Raspnex growled. ”Getup, woman!”
“This’ll never work!” Rap said. “Soon as the kid opens a window, they’ll fry us!”
“They want us alive you especially!”
Being fried might be the better alternative, Rap thought. Quite apart from a lingering revenge on his person, Zinixo would want to interrogate him on the whereabouts of the fairies.
The mundanes were all on their feet, the imperor holding the still-sleeping child.
“This may be rough,” the warlock told them. “But I’ve got some friends standing by to shield us as soon as we arrive—I hope. If the enemy got there first, then . . . well, it’s worth a try.”
“Wait!” Shandie said. “What happens after?”
“I told you. You go into hiding, and stay there.”
“No!” The imperor set his jaw stubbornly. “Maybe my realm has been stolen from me, but I will not have my mind stolen, also! I will not give up. I will fight!”
Good for him, Rap thought.
A fusillade of blows rocked the courtyard door. Now the other doors were under attack, also, and that meant a sorcerer had identified them for the legionaries.
“I will never rest,” Shandie repeated, “until I have won back my impire!”
“Indeed?” The dwarf sneered. “You and what army?” The imperor glanced around. “These good friends will do for a start. Maybe there aren’t very many of them, just a handful, but they’re loyal and they’re good. Are you with me?”
“Gods save the imperor!” the signifer said.
“Gods save the imperor!” the others echoed, some louder than the rest. The room was so jangled with mixed emotions that Rap could not locate them all—fear and doubt and defiance—but he detected a blaze of anger from the beautiful Eshiala, and that was surprising.
Shandie was looking at Rap. “And you?”
“I have no choice,” Rap said with an approving smile. “Zinixo won’t rest, either—not until he has my guts in a pot and Krasnegar is gravel. Down with the tyrant!”
“Well said! Victory or death!” Shandie shouted.
It was fortunate in a way that he didn’t realize how hopeless his cause was.
“No!” The impress tried to wrestle the child away from her husband. ”You must not!”
“My dear!” Shandie turned his back on her, and little Maya awoke with a cry of bewilderment.
“You must not risk our baby!” She grabbed again, and again he turned. This time she clung to him in an absurd dance. “Eshiala! Be silent!”
“She is more important than your precious throne!”