Inos stammered. She was being bribed. Flattered. Seduced. She must remember that he had no more right to look youthful and handsome than Rasha had. But he was making her heart pound, and she recalled how Rap had been unmanned by the sorceress. Unwomanned? It didn’t feel like being unwomanned. He made her feel very womanly. Charm! Even his renewed grin seemed to admit what he was doing to her, a naughty-boy, isn’t-this-fun grin. She must remember Kade.
He held out a hand.
She took a step. Another. Remember Kade. He’s not a boy. He’s old. Remember Kade. Remember Kade . . .
“That will do for now!” Rasha said. Cold bath!
Inos stopped, feet frozen to the floor. Her hand was stretched out to the warlock’s, the fingers almost touching.
The warlock shrugged. “Something wrong, ma’am?” he asked the sorceress, while flickering a hint of a wink at Inos. “You forgot to leave some coppers on the dresser.”
He pursed his lips disdainfully, yet he did not lose his amusement. ”Then by all means let us discuss what reward we can offer. The Four always repay debts, usually manyfold!” He smiled apologetically to Inos. “Do please be seated, Inos. You don’t mind if I call you Inos? I’m sure this won’t take long.”
By the time Inos had returned to her couch and adjusted her train, a seat had appeared behind Warlock Olybno-a chair like crystallized sunbeams, a throne raised on a dais, with sculpted gold ablaze on arms and back, encrusted in rainbow jewels. Inos had never seen its like, even in picturebooks or paintings. She wondered what it weighed, and if it was real, and whether the floor would support it. Everything else in the great dome seemed suddenly dull and shabby. In one lithe movement, the warlock stepped up backward and sat, placing the crested helmet on his lap, smiling down at the two women.
Puzzled, Inos glanced at Rasha and caught a hint of a sneer. What had she said about Olybino knowing no more strategy than a pigeon? The throne was wrong! Did warlocks forget how to handle defiance?
Rasha had hardly moved since the warlock arrived. She conveyed ease and yet wariness, like a watchful cat. “That looks like a very uncomfortable seat. I can recommend a good physic for piles, if you feel the need.”
His smile faded to sad reproof. “Perhaps you do not understand the situation, mistress? We are talking justice here! We do not buy and sell queens, or kingdoms! You are not bargaining in a bazaar for a poke of dried dates.”
“And you are not dispensing judgment in Emine’s Rotunda.”
He frowned. “Take care that I do not!”
Inos sensed a pompous man trying not to bluster.
Rasha sat up suddenly. “Enough of this nonsense! I have the girl, and you need her!”
“Need?” He shook his head and favored Inos with a brief glance of what-does-she-mean perplexity.
But Inos knew what Rasha meant. Help had its price. She was going to be sold! Kade had been wrong, and she had been right! Rasha was no friend. Rasha was a whore and thought like a whore. And what mattered except price when these two evil old sorcerers wanted to bargain?
“Need, mistress? I am a warlock. I need nothing.”
The sultana snorted. “You need protection from West!” Her polished accent was starting to sound scratched. “You and the elf can’t handle him. You can’t count on Bright Water to keep the peace, because she doesn’t always find her mouth with the spoon these days. You dare not antagonize the imperor by losing those men in Krasnegar, and you can’t solve the Krasnegar problem without her!” She jabbed a fingernail in the direction of inos.
Raven wings swooped low—the warlock scowled. “What strange rumors have you been hearing, mistress? I need no protection from Warlock Zmixol. Young West is doing splendidly. I’ve been giving him pointers. He’s an apt pupil, and grateful. South doesn’t like him, but that’s to be expected. Everyone knows you don’t invite elves and dwarves on the same evening.”
Rasha yawned. “Meet my price, or go away. I can peddle my wares elsewhere.”
Peddle my wares! Inos shivered with an urge to unsheath claws and slash with them. How dare this phony old strumpet speak of her like that!
The warlock smiled slyly, narrowing his eyes. “Besides, even if I suggested restoring the girl to her homeland, how could we be sure of Bright Water’s cooperation? Her agreement is essential, for it is a jotunn matter, and in her sector. Her feet do not always point the same way these days, as you said, and she has always had a soft spot for butchers like Kalkor. It’s her goblin blood.”
Rasha shrugged. “Let her choose the husband. He will have to be neutral, and she must have hundreds of relatives scattered around.”
Olybino nodded, suddenly thoughtful.
Inos did not believe it. “What!” she shouted. “Marry me to a goblin?”
“Quiet!” Rasha snapped, without looking away from the warlock. ”They’re all the same color in the dark, dearie, and no one’s going to let you go back home without a husband.”
“Such a waste,” Olybino muttered. “But intriguing! Yes, it might just work!”
Married to a goblin? Inos felt sick. At least the Krasnegaians would unite to oppose that-and yet their resistance would be useless against the Four. And her only option would be to kill herself.
“Definitely a possibility,” the warlock said. “And your price, Mistress Rasha?”
“The red palace, of course,” Rasha said.
“Impossible!” Olybino roared. In one fast move he donned his helmet, sprang from the throne, and landed nimbly back on the mat. The throne and its dais vanished at his back. “Completely impossible!” He put his fists on his hips and somehow seemed to swell, grow thicker, older, larger. He no longer resembled the urbane military officer who had sipped tea in Kinvale drawing rooms. Now he was much more like the rough soldiers Inos had known on her journey through the forestdangerous, ruthless. He glowered, huge and menacing, embodiment of the Imperial legions, the armored bullies of all Pandemia. “Think again, sorceress!”
Rasha was on her fleet, also, although Inos had not seen her move. The room seemed to shimmer, like water approaching the boil.
“That is the price, Warlock!”
Olybino hunched his shoulders, glaring. “Fool! It is inconceivable.”
“Then I keep the girl, and Kalkor will have your cohorts and—”
“Let him! Do you think it matters? Pondague was a penal posting. They are the scum of the army, they had deserted their post, and the imperor will be well rid of them. Jotnar or goblins, it does not matter. And who cares about Krasnegar, anyway? It was never of any importance—as you would have realized, had you known any Imperial politics at all!”
“Begone!” Rasha screamed.
Just for a fraction of an instant, Inos thought she saw them as they were: old, squat, ugly—Rasha short and fat, Olybino paunchy and balding . . .
Lightning flashed, thunder roared. And the lights went out.
6
The sun, which had completed its daily rounds in Zark some hours before, was now winding up in Faerie, also. Already bird headed for nest and bee sought hive. Night beasts stirred from their slumber, while welcome shadows crept outward from the edge of the jungle and spread across the fields . . .
Hugg was a troll and therefore not nearly as stupid as he looked. He was not especially bright, either, but he knew he had laid his supper on the dirt beside him only a moment before. Now it was gone. While he thought about that, he linked his fingers together around a coconut and cracked it. Munching the pieces, Hugg came to the firm conclusion that he had been robbed. That meant he would get nothing more tonight except probably a beating for losing the bucket. He had brought his meal to the edge of the field so he could sit in the shade. He had not seen the thief out in the open, but there were bushes behind him.
Hugg rose, reared to his full height, and turned around. Trolls’ ears and noses were much more acute than those of most other men, and their strength let them move through thick jungle faster than almost anything else. They could also do so in eerie silence if they wished, despite their size and ungainly appearance. In fact, trolls were unsurpassed as woodsman, and the wind was in his favor.
He put his head down and lurched forward like a charging behemoth. He did not bother with stealth, because he could tell that his quarry was still in motion, bearing the precious lunch bucket farther away all the time. Furthermore, he had not removed his clothes, and they caught and tugged and ripped on thorns and branches. Stripped, Hugg could have slid through the undergrowth as silent and unscathed as a fish in water.