“I don’t think I’m qualified.”
“You’re better qualified than any other man in the world.”
Rap sighed. Why did people torture themselves by longing for the impossible? He changed the subject.
“Everyone must know you came back by sorcery. How do they feel about sorcery now?”
Inos shrugged and abandoned all pretense of eating. “They find sorcery in everything I do. If I smile at a baby, I’ve blessed it. My frowns bring on asthma attacks. But they seem to be getting accustomed to the idea.”
“They shunned me!” That still rankled.
She laid a hand on his. “I think they’re wiser now, dear. Magic has its advantages, and they’ve learned that. Besides, people can get used to anything, given time.”
Yes—. He created a mug of hot chocolate and removed his hand to pick it up.
“They would accept you, love.”
“They won’t get the chance.”
“You are definitely going?”
“Definitely.”
“For how long this time?”
He looked squarely at her and she bit her lip. “Forever,” he said.
“You’re in pain!”
Now, how had she guessed that? “Being near you just makes it worse,” he said. “Much worse. And worse for you, too. I’ve told you it can never be, Inos.”
“Not that sort of pain. Real pain. Sagorn noticed. He told Kade. And then I began to see it, too.”
Rap ate more porridge.
“Ever since that night Zinixo told you a fifth word. You put out the fire, Rap—but you didn’t get rid of all of it, did you? You’ve been burning ever since, haven’t you?”
“Not burning.” That was a fair description of it, though.
“Hurting? That’s why you look so awful.”
“I do not look awful!”
“You did when I first met you on the road. When I said so, you made yourself seem all right again. But those first moments you looked about as old as Emshandar. You’re hurting!”
He didn’t want to lie to her, and he wasn’t allowed to explain the problem to her, so he said nothing. He expected her to get angry, then, but she didn’t. She was giving that napkin a terrible time with both hands under the table.
“I am happy to accept the horse, Rap,” she said eventually. ”Is there anything I can give you in return?”
“Just Firedragon.”
She tensed even more. “I would like to ask a favor.”
“Anything, of course.” He waited. It couldn’t be gold, because he’d refilled the chest for her, and she had plenty. Raise the causeway above high-water mark? Alterations to the castle? Well, he wasn’t going to pry.
“I want to be a sorceress.”
A hot glob of porridge landed unnoticed on his lap. “Inos, no! You don’t know what it’s like!”
“Tell me, then.”
“It’s horrible! You stop seeing people as people. They’re slow, and stupid, and unimportant! You can have anything you want, so nothing’s worth having, or doing, anymore. And nobody else’s wants or opinions matter. No, it’s awful. You don’t want that!”
She was frightened, and determined not to show it. “You said `Anything’!”
“You have everything you need, and I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sorry I’m so slow and unimportant, but I could swear I heard you say `Anything.’ “
He put his face in his hands. Pure, rending desire . . . it was worse than any carnal lust imaginable. It was a fanfare of silver trumpets. It lit up his heart like dawn. Escape!
After all, he had told her two words once and managed to stop. The memory of that effort was terrifying, but he had managed it once.
Of course—Common Sense retorted—that time he’d had Zinixo waiting to settle. Hatred can be stronger than love. He didn’t have his jotunn temper stoked and burning now as a distraction.
Pain . . . That was what she was thinking! By telling her two words that night, he had reduced his power and been able to bring the overload under control. If he shared two more he would be weaker still, and she was guessing then that he might not be in so much pain. Maybe she was right!
Try it! whispered Temptation. Try it!
For months and months he had fought to suppress the agony. It was killing him, day by day, hour by hour. He was fading—he knew that. Just maybe she was right, and he wouldn’t hurt so much if he shared two more words with her.
He would be putting himself at risk from the wardens, of course. They had never stopped watching him: where he was, what he was doing. They were all scared of him. Rightly so, because he was pretty sure he could take on all four of them together if he needed to; the new West was nothing much. So the Four had left him alone, even when he’d gone meddling in their backyards—rescuing the fairies still in Milflor to hide them and others away where they would never be found . . . curing an outbreak of plague that Olybino had started among the goblins . . . turning back a blaze of dragons that had come to investigate what he was doing for Nagg and her little tribe .
Rap the stableboy had trampled all over the Protocol, and the Four had looked the other way. But if they ever sensed that he’d slipped back to mere sorcerer power, then they might be tempted to try something.
He discovered that he really didn’t care.
And he wouldn’t be very much weaker, anyway. He’d still be in command of five words, however much they had been reduced by sharing, and not one of the present Four would dare try that. His mastery of power was a freakish thing. Maybe that was how some of the great fabled sorcerers of the past had gained their power, but most people were destroyed by five. Like Rasha.
Share his words?
Normally sharing a word was a very painful experience, except when on the brink of death. The act had virtually killed Sagorn, and the pain had fascinated Little Chicken. But not in this case. It wouldn’t hurt this time. Tell Inos? Yes! Yes!
But the danger! She didn’t know the danger! He looked into her pale, scared face. “You’re sure?”
She nodded dumbly and passed a pink tongue over her lips—lips to haunt a man’s memory until the day he died.
“It’s a terrible risk!”
“I trust you. Just two.” Clever girl!
“That’s why you’re afraid to get close, isn’t it?” she said. ”Why you don’t want to be intimate? Losing control . . . you talked about losing control. You’re afraid you’d tell me them all!”
He nodded, astonished that she’d worked that out. Mundanes weren’t always stupid, if you could just give them enough time. She was an adept, of course. That would help.
“Three little words,” he said. “Easy to say in a moment of . . . er . . . passion.”
“And then what? I burn, and I don’t have your knack for controlling magic?”
He shook his head. He hurt if he even tried to think about it. To explain was . . . forbidden.
“But you can tell me two!”
“You don’t know what you’re asking. And it won’t make any difference to us, Inos. It’ll be worse, because there’ll only be one word between us and . . . and. . .” His tongue began tripping all over his mouth again. “Only one word left,” he finished.
“You said `Anything’!”
“No! I won’t risk it.”
She sighed, but her green eyes glinted like sunlight through breakers. ”Oh, Rap! Just for once . . . If this is the last time we’ll ever see each other, just for once couldn’t you let me talk you into something?”
He pushed back his chair. “It’s too risky, Inos.” She wadded the napkin smaller than ever. “I’m prepared to take that risk. I asked for a favor and you said ‘Anything’! Now, are you, or are you not, a man of your word?”
Why was she pursuing—this madness? To aid her kingdom? If she only knew what she would be taking on by becoming a sorceress, she wouldn’t be so insanely eager to mother that dimwitted brood of yokels. They would never appreciate what she was doing for them anyway, and she must know that.
To aid Rap? She thought she could do him a favor and ease the constant agony of controlling five words of power. But he suspected she had some other motive as well. He resisted the temptation to use insight on her; he was frightened of finding himself in there in compromising concepts.
But she’d trapped him. He had said “Anything.”
“It’s not fair to others, Inos,” he protested, knowing he was on his last excuse. “Those two words you know already . . . one was the one Zinixo told me. The other I got from my mother. I didn’t plan it that way, they were just the first that came to mind.” He cringed at the memory of that fiery ordeal in Emine’s Rotunda, and then cringed even more as he remembered who had saved him from it. “I don’t know if anyone else knows those words, too. But the words I haven’t shared—those belong to Kade, and Little Chicken, and Sagorn. I’ll weaken their powers if I tell those words to you.”