“Someone ran away as we approached.”
“Just one?”
“Just one. And he is still there, about two bowshots off.” Not that an arrow would go far through these woods.
“Doing what?”
“Just sitting. He’s been there a long time.”
“Well? Describe him!” Sagorn glared impatiently. “I can’t do your thinking for you if I don’t have the information.”
“About this high. Skinny. I can’t make out much detail at that distance. No weapons, as far as I can tell. Dark, I think.”
“Humph! That is not even gnome height. A child, then?” Rap nodded.
“Then I think I agree with your guess. Imperial troops or jotunn raiders. One child survived the attack. Not knowing what to do, he has remained here and tried to carry on the work of the village in the hope that someday the others will return. You must catch him! Use your farsight, or your goblin. ” Again the old man smiled his sinister smile. “You did not risk calling me just for that obvious advice, did you?”
Sagorn rubbed his chin. “No, things are certainly amiss. Thinal’s intuition is very interesting. As he told you, I was young when I came here. It was before we learned our word of power. I have spared no thought for Faerie since then, and Thinal has certainly had no cause to. If he now believes it holds something worth stealing, then it probably does.”
Rap put his suspicion into words. “You mean that the fairies are protected from the visitors, not the other way round?”
“That would seem to be one possibility. There are certainly monsters, though. I saw a pair of sphynxes and a chimera.”
“In cages?”
“Yes. I rode on a hippogriff. But you are right—there is too much protection if the purpose is merely to repel wildlife. Even Thinal saw that the Impire does not usually bother to defend tourists. No headhunting, you think? And the last remaining inhabitant of this village is frightened of you, of strangers. So who or what is protected, and from whom?”
Sagorn fell silent, slapping angrily at bugs.
Rap wanted answers, not questions. “Tell me about Milflor, sir. Where is it?”
“On the east coast, near the south, I think. The prevailing wind . . . Yes, far south. You came the wrong way.”
“How big is it?”
“Not big, at least when I was there. Many Imperial troops . . .” He paused again. “And ships. Small, coastal vessels. Smuggling?” The pale jotunn eyes flickered with excitement. “Now why, I wonder? This is a very interesting little mystery, Master Rap! Trust Thinal to stumble onto this. If there is ever anything of value around, he will always find it. And steal it. ”
A word of power was a thing of very great value. Rap hoped that more than just his own word of power was triggering Thinal’s acquisitive instincts. ”What could there be here worth stealing?”
“I don’t know. But I suspect that Thinal will find it.”
“I just want to get away.”
“Let me give you some real advice, then, as that was why you summoned me.” The old man glanced down at Rap’s feet. “All of you need rest. You must stay here for a few days to recover. No, hear me out! You will gain nothing by killing yourselves, and Thinal is at the limits of his endurance. I am astonished he has stayed. You have been flattering him, and I suggest you continue to do so. You are quite right not to want either Jalon or Andor around, and I cannot help with the traveling. So keep praising Thinal. It will help him, and you.”
Thinal, of course, would remember this conversation. “What’s your interest in this?” Rap demanded suspiciously.
Sagorn chuckled dryly. “The occult! Why did the magic casement react so strongly to you? And Witch Bright Water—why, I wonder, is she so solicitous of our brawny friend here?” He gestured with his thumb at the goblin. ”What have you done to rouse the wardens?”
“I only know what I told Thinal,” Rap said.
“And Thinal believed you. Of us all, he is perhaps the best at detecting lies, so I shall accept his judgment.”
“Then tell me about this Bright Water, sir.”
“She is very old and said to be mad—a safe enough bet.”
“Oh, work it out! Remember how horrified you were when I first told you about your own word of power? The sorcerous live a long time. They can have anything they want: power, riches, women—or men, of course—youth, and health. Anything! It must pall after a decade or two. And yet they live in perpetual dread of other sorcerers.”
“Who seek to steal their words?”
Sagorn hesitated. “Possibly. Andor told you that, right? But no mundane really knows how their minds work. There is another possibility. A strong sorcerer can bind a weaker to his service with a spell of obedience. The wardens are reported to do that. Other sorcerers fear the wardens, because they are the strongest of all, jealous of rivals, and they always seem to have retinues of mages and lesser sorcerers at their command. I suspect each warden continuously scans his sector, hunting for sorcerers he can bind to his service. Inisso’s castle at Krasnegar . . . remember the occult barrier you sensed around it? You told Andor.”
Now Rap felt he was getting somewhere. “And the chamber of puissance was outside the shield, above it, like a watchtower?”
“Well, then! Sorcerers seem to have two options. Some build strongholds like that in remote places and become virtual hermits, cowering inside occult shells. Others just hide from view by not using their powers—that is the only way I can explain how sorcerers spring up without warning. History is full of such stories. The new warlock Zinixo, for example, supposedly inherited all four of his words from a great-great-grandmother who had used her abilities only to prolong her own life. No one had ever known that she had occult power.”
Bright Water, Rap recalled, had claimed she could detect power being used, even his tiny talent. He shivered.
Sagorn twisted around toward the menacing figure of Little Chicken. ”Would you mind putting down that ax, young man? I find it remarkably unsettling, even just knowing it is there.”
Rap nodded, and the goblin slowly lowered his arms and stepped back a pace; but he did not relax, and he kept his angular eyes fixed firmly on the scholar. The fire was dying, giving less light and more smoke.
Still frowning, Sagorn turned back to Rap. “How much do you know of the other wardens?”
“Very little, sir.”
“Well, we know more about their activities than we do of minor sorcerers’, because it is they who make history happen. Again take Zinixo as an example. He is a young dwarf, little older than yourself, I fancy. His predecessor, Witch AgAn, had been West for almost a century. Perhaps she had grown careless. About a year ago she attended a wedding in the Peacock Hall of the Imperial palace. She was struck down by a bolt of lightning. Five bystanders were killed, also, and many more wounded.”
Rap grimaced. “Lightning indoors?”
“Certainly. But only moments later there was an even greater manifestation in the public gallery, around Zinixo himself. Parts of the balcony collapsed and the death toll was much greater—many people burned or crushed. I was working in the library, at the far end of the palace, and I felt the tremors and heard the blast. It was an awesome release of power, and Zinixo’s survival is an astonishing tribute to his occult strength.”
“Who did that?”
“Good question! Possibly one or more of the other wardens had aided him in his coup against Ag-An; probably one or more of the others then tried to retaliate. Or it was an attempted double-cross by one of his former allies. Or some other nonwarden sorcerer took the opportunity to make his own move before the newcomer could consolidate his position. You see the problem? We just don’t know! But you were right last year to dislike the thought of being a sorcerer. It can be a dangerous trade.”
It would be a disgusting trade! “Zinixo might have faked the attack on himself?”
Sagorn’s mouth snapped shut with a click of teeth, and for a moment he just stared at Rap. The fast flickering of the firelight made his face impossible to read.
“Ingenious!” he murmured. “But I think not. A warlock has no need to impress anyone, except perhaps other powerful sorcerers—and they would not likely be deceived. No, I think I prefer the popular belief, which is that the second attack was a retaliation by Warlocks Lith’rian and Olybino—South and Eastwho tried to smite the upstart in his turn. If so, then he withstood their combined efforts!”
“Is that possible?” Rap felt crawly and scratchy whenever the occult was discussed, but he knew that this information was important if he was to have any chance of ever helping Inos.