Three young men stranded on a beach . . . Oppressed by the sticky warmth after the brittle chill of Krasnegar, they had all stripped off their heavy clothes. Imp and faun sat with aims on knees; the goblin was stretched out on his back. They had established that they had nothing—no money and no weapon except Little Chicken’s stone dagger. They had no idea where they were.
Rap had just finished telling Thinal of his two earlier encounters with Bright Water, witch of the north. He was certain that it had been the voice of the old goblin woman that had summoned Little Chicken to the casement and thus brought all three of them here—wherever here was.
Thinal made a shivery noise. “She’s not around now, though, is she? I mean, you can’t farsee her?”
“No. But she doesn’t always show to my farsight, even when my eyes can see her.” Rap brooded a moment, and then said, “Is it true she’s mad?”
Thinal squealed. “Don’t say such things!” He whimpered. “Why not? She’s either not here or she’s spying on us, and that’s not polite.”
“Polite? Rap, witches and warlocks don’t give a spit about polite! ”
“But do sorcerers lose their power as they grow old? If she’s three hundred years old and she’s been one of the Four for . . . how long?”
“Dunno.” Thinal had turned surly, hunched very small. “You wanna talk that sort of thing, then I’ll call Sagorn.”
“No!”
They sat for a while, staring at the ever-rolling waves.
Little Chicken must have been following at least some of the story, for he muttered sleepily, “Why Bright Water call me, not you?”
“I don’t know,” Rap said. “It’s certainly you she’s watching over. She keeps warning me not to hurt you.”
Little Chicken chuckled softly, raising goosebumps on Rap’s skin, despite the sticky heat.
But Rap could not deny that being magicked to Zark was preferable to being chopped up by a platoon of angry imps. When there was enough light for the others to see, then they all must go in search of something to eat. He was impatient to be on his way, angry with himself for feeling so concerned about food and sleep when he had more important worries. His failure to aid Inos was maddening—he would never forgive himself. She had cried out to him, and he had stupidly fallen over, flat on his back like a moron, helpless in the sorceress’s entrancement. It was easy enough for Thinal to say that no man could have resisted such a spell, but that was small comfort to Rap. He had failed Inos, his lawful queen, his friend, his . . . his queen.
“Tell me about Zark, Thinal. Have any of you ever been here?”
The thief brooded in silence for a while and then muttered, “I hope this is Zark.”
Rap grunted.
“Rap, I was wrong. Don’t be mad at me, Rap?”
“You said palm trees meant djinns, and djinns meant Zark!”
“Yes, but not those palms.”
Rap glanced up, with eyes and with farsight, to where the frondy trees were clearly visible now, dancing in a pewter sky. A wide belt of them flanked the edge of the sand as far as he could scan in both directions. The jungle growth behind them was different: matted, denser. “What about them?”
“There are two sorts of palm trees. These are coconut.”
“The djinn type grows dates. They’re very alike, Rap, and it was dark! I couldn’t help it!”
Just when you think things are bad, they always get worse. “Then where are we?”
“Hear the birdsong? The dawn chorus?”
Rap could hardly avoid hearing it, even over the rush of the surf. It was glorious, still increasing as new entrants added layer after layer of song to the symphony. One of the innkeepers in Krasnegar had owned a canary and there had been larks in the hills. Ravens croaked, geese honked, and seagulls cried, but this was birdsong on a scale he had never dreamed of. Inos would love it. ”You’ve heard it before?”
“Sagorn did,” Thinal said. “Once. Long ago. I mean, there’s lots of places where birds sing . . .”
“But not like this? Where?”
“Faerie. It has to be Faerie. Sounds right. Even smells right.” Faerie was an island, Rap knew, and there was something mysterious about it. ”Andor’s been there.”
“Andor!” Thinal spat. “No, he hasn’t. It was Sagorn, when he was much younger. A lot of those stories that Andor told you were really of the others. We share memories, remember.”
Rap growled angrily at the thought of Andor and his lies. “They . . . we . . . can’t help it,” Thinal said, whining as he did if Rap so much as frowned at him. “I mean . . . Well, he remembers Sagorn being here, so when he talks about it, he would say it was him.” He fell silent for a while, then added, “It doesn’t make any difference, really.”
It did make a sort of sense, though. Sagorn had spent a lifetime in search of magic, seeking to understand the workings of the words of power. If Faerie had a reputation for being somehow uncanny, then he might very well have decided to visit it. “How far is Faerie from Zark?”
Silence.
“Thinal,” Rap said gently, “I’m not going to bite you. I won’t even shout. But I do need your help! You know so much more than I do.”
Thinal was flattered. “Well . . . Faerie’s ‘way west. Krasnegar’s north. And Zark’s east . . . and south, I think.”
After a minute he whimpered, “Sorry, Rap.”
“Not your fault. We didn’t have much choice, anyway, did we?”
“But I should have known. Where Inos went there was daylight, wasn’t there? And here was still dark. So she went east and we went west.”
“Huh?” Rap was only an ignorant clerk, a glorified stableboy. He wondered if Thinal could read and write, and reminded himself that there was probably more to the little thief than he showed, or perhaps believed himself. His despicable whimpering was pure habit, part of his professional expertise.
“Pandemia’s very big, see?” Thinal sighed. “Dawn doesn’t come at the same time everywhere. Must get to Zark long before it gets to Faerie. ”
Much worse! So the problem was not just how to find Inos and help her. The problem was how to get to Zark, and then find Inos and help her. So now there was no great urgency, and Rap was furious to discover that just knowing that made him feel much sleepier. Waves fell and rushed up the gleaming sand and died with a tiny hiss. Then the next . . . It was hypnotic, soporific.
“But why would Bright Water have brought me here?” he demanded.
But it had been Little Chicken the goblin witch had rescued; Thinal and Rap had merely come along for the ride.
“How should I know?” Thinal sniffed. “I’m dumb, Rap. Just a dumb cutpurse. A city slicker, an alley thief . . . useless in the wilds. You wanna talk smart stuff, I’ll call Sagorn.”
“No, don’t! I don’t trust Sagorn.”
The surprise of Thinal’s face was visible even to mundane vision now—a nondescript imp face, young and unpleasantly spotted with acne; a pinched face; ratty and worried. His ribs stuck out. He was skinny as a ferret, but what would a professional thief know of honest labor? He was as puny beside Rap as Rap was beside the husky goblin.
“You can trust Sagorn! The king told Inos that. Andor’s a twister, and Darad would tear you apart. But Sagorn has honor.”
“No!” Rap shouted. Lack of sleep was making him shorttempered, and that sudden insight made him angrier still. He lowered his voice. “Maybe the king could trust Sagorn. They were old friends. Maybe Sagorn wouldn’t cheat Inos, for her father’s sake—but he’s got no scruples about me.”
Thinal mused for a moment. “No, he hasn’t. Sorry, Rap. I didn’t think. I’m a fool.”
When Sagorn had been in Krasnegar, ministering to the sick king, Andor had been there, also, alternatively. Andor had been cultivating Rap, befriending him in the hope of wheedling his word of power out of him. Sagorn must have known what Andor had been doing when he was present, yet Sagorn had kept on calling him back.
“Besides,” Rap said, “you have Sagorn’s memories, don’t you? So you know what he knows.”
“It don’t work like that,” Thinal said glumly. “He’s a lot smarter’n me, a whole lot smarter. He understands more.”
“I don’t see why.”
The skeletal shoulders shrugged. “Well, I can remember all the years he spent sniffing around libraries. But the books themselves I can’t recall like he can. They don’t make sense to me. Think of Jalon. I hear a tune whistled or sung—I don’t remember it much. No more’n you would. But Jalon would know it, and be able to sing it next time he’s around. He’d ring changes on it and craft a great ballad out of it. We each have our own tricks. Like the djinn said, we’re a matched set—artist, scholar, lover, and fighter. All you’ve got in me is a common dip, and there’s small pickings hereabouts.”