Green eyes flashed again. “Leave Sagorn and his buddies out of this by all means! But I heard you warn Little Chicken not to use his occult strength . . . didn’t I? And Kade’s talent is chaperoning young ladies. She isn’t going to have any time for that from now on if she’s running Kinvale. It’s time she started taking things easy anyhow!”
He glanced despairingly around the hall. The servants were still hard at their blathering. The officials and senior staff had vaguely noticed that the queen had a visitor and had chosen to cluster at one of the side tables instead of joining her. There was no one within earshot.
“You’re quite sure?”
She nodded. She wasn’t quite sure, but Inos had acquired a regal serenity, a confidence that came from more than the glamour he had cast on her. It was not all adepthood, either. Some of it was just Inos being a good queen.
Almost before he realized, he had leaned close to whisper Kadolan’s word into her ear. Relief! The second one was even easier, and the third—
He bit his own tongue and managed to stop it halfway through the third word. That was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life—it was pain, it was nausea, it was sorrow and fear; and self-contempt, and everything horrible. It tore at his mind and trampled his soul and racked his body with terrible spasms. It was death and destruction, and more than he could bear. He toppled from his chair, howling. He rolled and thrashed on the floor, hearing the Gods’ mocking laughter.
But he’d stopped and his mouth was full of blood. Then he saw Inos before him in the ambiencetransparent, frightened, her hands over her ears. But a sorceress, a glorious, beautiful, desirable sorceress. He couldn’t bear it.
“Inos, I love you!” He reached for her.
“No, Rap!” her specter cried, backing away from him in an aura of conflicting reds and pinks. He went after her, to grasp her and pull her close and force his mouth to her ears, or lips, or cheek, or anything.
In the mundane Great Hall his hand caught the hem of her gown as she turned to flee. He hauled her back. She stumbled against her chair and then fell, struggling and screaming, and he clasped her in his arms.
He was going to kiss her and tell her he loved her and then share the fifth word with her.
In the mundane world, she magicked right out of his embrace, so that he sprawled hard against chair legs, clutching an empty gown. The mundanes had noticed the racket and were starting to turn, sluggish as old cabbages.
In the ambience she fled, racing away across a polished plain, a naked girl running bright and sweet against a somber, discordant sky.
He scanned and found her at the top of Inisso’s Tower, in her bedroom, wrenching open the door to the upper staircase. She was heading for the portal and escape to Kinvale.
She mustn’t escape! He must take her, and tell her, and share everything with her, and release the awful, burning compulsion. Howling, he vanished from the Great Hall, and everything had happened so fast that the mundanes were still bringing their eyes around to locate all the disturbance. A final chair hit the floor, right by the queen’s discarded dress.
Rap stumbled as he arrived in the narrow, curving stairwell, and that gave her an extra second or two. Then he hurtled up the stairs like a bat, without a boot touching the treads.
In the ambience his fingers touched her arm.
Just ahead of Rap’s mundane grasp, Inos reached the top of the stairs and vanished from ambience and farsight both. Rap, moving occultly, ricocheted off the shielding and sprawled on the steps, pounding his fists in torment. He forced down the pain, the anger, the maddening love, the unbearable compulsion.
Somehow he brought himself under control, shaking and sweating and weeping like a stupid mundane. Maybe the agony was a little easier to suppress now, a little easier than before.
But, Oh, Gods, girl, that had been a narrow escape!
He gave himself no chance to change his mind. He moved instantly to the stable and saddled Firedragon in half a second. Fleabag, who had been dozing in an empty stall, rose at his master’s summons. A knot of gossiping hands barely noticed as dog and tack and horse all vanished from their places.
Out in the bailey, one or two looked around in surprise at a mounted man they had not noticed earlier. He rode out through the shielding of the gate.
Inos was visible in the ambience then, wide-eyed, hair streaming, staring at him in fright. He could reach out and touch her . . .
Physically, she was standing in the chamber of puissance with her hand on the portal.
“It’s all right, love, “ he said, fighting down another surge of agony and longing. “I think I can handle it now. But stay out of my sight! Stay in the castle until I’m gone. “
She nodded and ran across the chamber to the stair. He was still riding in the castle yard and he dare not wait on the tide. He moved man and dog and horse to the hills.
The rock of Krasnegar was a mere speck, then, far away against the pale endless blue of the Winter Ocean. Its castle was barely visible at all.
7
In low, chill sunshine, he rode southward over the hills. The yellow grass was crisp with frost, crunching below Firedragon’s hooves, and the wind cut with a sinister edge. Now and then he would give the ambience a gentle nudge, moving himself across a valley to the far crest, gaining time. He wanted to put a great distance between himself and Inos as soon as possible, but from habit he preferred not to alert the wardens any more than he had to. They probably all kept votaries watching for him all the time anyway.
Once he thought he felt Inos searching, and he blasted out a warning. ”Go away!”
“Rap?”
“Yes, but I’m still too close!” He caught a faint image of her in the ambience, an echo, a scent. Prickles of sweat broke out all over him, and he trembled from sheer longing. Would he feel any different when he reached the far ends of the earth? She would be just as visible, just as close in the ambience. How could he ever escape?
“I just wanted to say I love you!—”
“Likewise! Now, please, Inos! Go!”
“All right. “ There were tears in her eyes. “And now I know what you were doing, and why. Thank you, Rap!”
His heart twisted. “You agree? This is what you want?”
“Oh, yes!” She choked back a sob. “Good-bye, Rap!”
Then she was gone, and he could relax again. Almost. He kept having visions of Inos plunging into the flames to rescue him—crazy, impulsive Inos. And then he would remember Rasha’s fearful solitary immolation, and her final despairing howl to Azak: Love!
A sorcerer could marry, but only a mundane. A mage might love a genius, or an adept another adept. Four words was the limit. Only mortals with his freakish control over power would not be destroyed by five.
But two people and five words of power plus love . . . He put the terrible recipe out of his mind and rode on.
He decided to visit Death Bird on his way by. As he had foreseen, the goblin was chief of Raven Totem now. He’d challenged his father and won the hunters’ vote that resulted. Then he’d disappointed everyone by letting the old man live instead of making an entertainment of him. It had been the first step in his revolution, and in his way Little Chicken was doing as well as Inos.
After that . . .
Rap didn’t know what came after that. Endless wandering? More little good deeds here and there—minuscule, futile attempts to make the cruel world a little kinder? He had kept his promise to return to Krasnegar. Now he could see how that promise had been a lantern in the dark all the past year. There was no light ahead now.
Sharing more words with Inos had reduced his pain somewhat, but it was still there, and his craving for her was more intense than ever. How long before he went as mad as Kalkor or Bright Water?
He was a fool. He’d been a fool to heal the imperor. He’d been a fool to spare Zinixo in the Rotunda. And he’d been a paramount fool to make Inos a sorceress, for now only a single word separated them, and she was in great danger. Anywhere, anytime—a moment’s distraction and he might find himself at her side, whispering.
So where could he go, what could he do? Power? Even if his words had been weakened, with five of them he was still a supersorcerer. He could do anything he wanted. Riches? Women? He could have all the women in the world, in unlimited numbers, make Andor look like an ascetic. The only one he wanted was out of reach.