Rap shook his head.
No? “Then what do you plan to do?”
The big gray eyes studied her. “I plan to remain in this palace for some time. A week, at least, perhaps longer. With your permission, these quarters would be good, or I can find others. I need to complete my healing. I must also learn to control my powers—here, where I am shielded. Otherwise I shall just give myself away to some warlock or sorcerer and be enslaved. Also, my friends need time to rest, all six of them.”
Reluctantly she concluded that it was not an unreasonable request. She nodded. “You are most welcome here, and they also, if you can hide them.”
Thinal snorted. “I wouldn’t rest here. Pickings’re too good. Got my eye on a well-stocked little whorehouse down by the docks.”
Kadolan regarded him with distaste, but the technique that worked so well on underlings at Kinvale and Krasnegar seemed to be ineffective on him. She turned her attention back to the mage. “And when you are ready, you will take me with you when you go after Inos?” She heard an unpleasant whine in her voice, but now she was wondering if he might just desert her, and the prospect was terrifying. The rest of her life in Arakkaran?
“I will not abandon you, ma’am. Not after what you did for me.”
How deeply was he prying into her thoughts? “I am very grateful for that promise, Master Rap.”
His eyes seemed to go out of focus, staring at the space above her left shoulder. “But . . . I do not go after Inos.”
“What? But—”
“Qoble is in South’s sector.”
“You fear Warlock Lith’rian?”
“Or he fears me.”
She did not ask what that cryptic remark meant. Thinal seemed as puzzled as she.
“I sail,” he said softly, as if not speaking to anyone. “I sail . . . but north. Yes, a big port on a big river.” Ghostly fingernails scratched at her skin. The mage was using some sort of occult power she had not met before. Foresight? The imp seemed to have the same odd foreboding she did, for he drew back his lips in a snarl. But Ollion was another possible way to the capital.
“And then?” she whispered.
Beads of sweat showed on the faun’s forehead. “Then,” he whispered, ”then . . . Hub, I think. It must be Hub. The palaces?”
All the world’s problems came to Hub eventually. She herself had often said that the Krasnegar question would be settled there. Perhaps it had been settled already—or perhaps that was yet to come. She began to feel a surge of hope. Hub!
“And there, Master Rap? What happens in Hub?” For a moment there was no answer. The gray eyes widened . . .
Then Rap screamed and covered his face with his hands.
Best-laid scheme
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’mice an’ men,
Gang aft a-gley,
An’ lae’e us naught but grief and pain,
For promised joy.
Burns, To a Mouse
FOUR
Several ways
1
As always, Inos took longer than anyone else aboard to find her sea legs, but by the time Star of Delight had called in at Brogogo and then rounded the Corner of Zark into the Summer Seas, she was well enough to sit up and start taking stock of her companions.
Kar, of course, had stayed behind to hold off the jackals. Who came next on Azak’s loyalty list? Zana’s presence was less surprising than it first seemed. A sultan could hardly take his wife traveling without some female companionship, and if there was any woman in the world whom Azak trusted, it was the older half sister who had reared him. He had spoken of her briefly once or twice in the desert, and those had been the only glimpses he had ever revealed to Inos of his youth or childhood. He would probably have been willing to die for the old woman, and most certainly willing to kill for her. From Inos’s own point of view, although Zana was not Kade, she was as acceptable a lady’s companion as anyone who could have been found in the court, even granting that Zana’s own loyalty would put Azak’s well-being ahead of anyone else’s by several leagues.
Apart from Azak himself, there were nineteen men in the party. Only one of them she recognized as a prince, and that was the massive and aging Gutturaz. He, too, seemed a surprising choice, but any brother of Azak’s who managed to reach middle age must have demonstrated both a gift for survival and a rare lack of ambition.
The other eighteen were youngish family men, a bloodcurdling collection behind their red whiskers. But facial hair was not worn in the Impire; without comment, Azak shaved off his beard at Torkag, and every one of his followers was clean shaven before Star of Delight sailed on the next tide. Somehow their ruddy faces looked even more deadly than before.
And there was Azak himself, who shared her kennel-size cabin. Of course they had shared a tent for months in the desert, but Kade had always been there, also. Then, too, he had been occupied much of the time in being first lionslayer, usually coming to bed after Inos had been magicked asleep by the mage and often departing before she awoke in the morning. And they had never been both there in daylight.
Two days out of Torkag, Star of Delight was becalmed. The sun blazed overhead, the sails hung still as icicles, and there was nothing to do but fall down and melt. With men all over the deck, Inos retired to her cabin. So did Azak.
They each had a narrow bunk, on opposite walls, but hardly a cubit apart. She lay under a sheet. He had stripped down to a cloth she would have described as being on the narrow side of skimpy. Perhaps he was letting her satisfy her maidenly curiosity about the male physique. Perhaps he was bragging, although Azak never really bragged about anythinghe merely stated the obvious. Or perhaps he was trying to make the best of an impossible situation, staying as close as possible, to normal married behavior.
He was too long for the bunk and almost too wide for it, a shiny copper giant, everything a girl could dream of. Poor Azak! The scorpion had been scotched but the sting remained in the wound. And the hideous burns on her face still hurt. They were oozing now—she might never smile again. Azak’s lifelong infallibility seemed to falter when Inos was around.
He felt her scrutiny and turned his head lazily. “My love?”
“Azak?”
“Hot, isn’t it?” He went back to staring at the ceiling.
She had never heard him utter fatuous chit-chat before.
After a moment she whispered, “I will say it when I can. It will mean more if you know it is honestly meant.”
He studied the overhead. “Were it not for the curse, I would have you babbling it by now—and meaning it.”
“I am sure you would. I wish you could.” Did she? Did she really? My love. My darling. Beloved. Lover. Why not? Many a woman in Pandemia had learned how to love the husband fate had dealt her. Why should she be different? Very few would have such a husband to love.
Trust in love!
Footsteps sounded over her head. The ship barely rocked, and the usual creaking, squeaking noises were depressingly absent. Even the gulls were silent.
She thought of Rap, pacing a cell back in Arakkaran. Honest, well-meaning, blundering Rap. Azak might be persuaded to write . . . No, give him a little longer to heal his pride. He was not truly vindictive, Azak. He might be deadly, but he usually had a logical purpose in what he did—apart from his insane jealousy, of course. After the disaster of the wedding-night kiss, he had blamed himself for not thinking of the danger; a lesser man would have blamed her, or the Gods, or even Rap . . .
It was too hot to talk. It hurt too much to be silent. “Azak?”
“Mmm?”
“How do we travel? I mean, in the Impire? Am I to be Hathark again? And what name and station will you—”
“I shall be Kar!” He chuckled at her surprise. “It is as good a name as any. My own might be recognized, as I am so memorable. We shall be sons of the Sultan of Shuggaran. The treacherous dog is something of an Imperial supporter, which may help.”
“But . . . what about your appeal to the Four?” Azak frowned at the planks above him. “There will be no appeal to the wardens. We travel merely as young princes seeking knowledge. It is not a Zarkian custom, but the imps will see nothing odd about rich young men jaunting around the world.”