“Sagorn said that you were the leader.”
Thinal pouted and looked guilty. “Long ago! He meant I got the bunch of us into the mess; it was my idea to break into Orarinsagu’s house. Anyway, that was years ago. We were all kids. I still am.” He turned his face away.
After a moment, Rap said, “Why are you? I know—because you don’t exist as often, or as long. So you don’t age. But why’s that? Don’t the others call you?”
Thinal wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Sometimes. If one of them is hungry, or needs something that can be stolen, I’ll help out.”
“But you don’t stay around. You call him back in your place right away. Why?”
There was a long silence then, while Thinal stared at the sea, weedy chin resting on spindle arms. Finally he said softly, “ ‘Cause I’m no good, Rap. That’s why.”
Rap’s head felt stuffed with feathers, but he knew he needed Thinal and must not let him disappear. “Bunk!” he said. “Right now, I’d much rather have you here than any of the others.” Thinal’s eyes widened and he smiled shyly, showing teeth as crooked as a stork’s nest. “Really?”
“Really! I can’t trust any of them—not even Jalon, can I?” Thinal sniggered. “He’d get lost in listening to the birds. And he might very well call Darad. Of all of us, he’s the most likely to call Darad. No, not even Jalon.”
That was a great pity. If Rap could only enlist the willing help of Thinal and his four optional replacements, then he would have a whole gang of useful helpers. Five specialists, strengthened by a word of power, a handful of men. He wondered if he dared offer a bargain, remembering how Sagorn had said that their one common purpose was to collect enough magic to be freed from the spell that bound them. They would do anything to learn another word of power, so Rap could offer to share his in return for theirs. It would be ironic if Thinal was the one to gain Rap’s word, after the other four had all tried to steal it without success. Now that Rap knew what his word was, he could share it if he wished.
Certainly he must keep Thinal friendly. “Well, then! So promise me, will you—promise that you’ll not call any of the others without warning me?”
Looking flattered, Thinal nodded and accepted Rap’s offer of a handshake. His forgers were unusually long, his palm soft. Rap’s own attitude toward occult power had just changed. Up until now even his farsight and his mastery over animals had been more than he wanted, but with Inos in the clutches of a sorceress, new rules applied. The more magic the better now! Anyone who knew a single word of power was a genius at whatever his talent was. Knowing two words made a man an adept, a genius at anything. So Andor and Sagorn had said, but did he really trust either of them?
He was too fogged by weariness to decide now. He must not open any doors yet. An admitted thief like Thinal would just take Rap’s word and then not tell his own—the temptation would be irresistible. And even if he didn’t cheat, one day he or one of the others would certainly call Darad. Then the warrior would come after Rap and knot his neck, as he had killed the woman in Fal Dornin. Thus he could gain the rest of the power from both words, becoming a more powerful adept. Sharing with Thinal would be suicide.
Rap’s eyelids closed. Angrily he jumped to his feet and rubbed them open again. “It’s light enough!” he said. “Let’s go!” The little imp shot him a scowl. “Go where?”
“Breakfast. We’ll starve here. North or south?”
Thinal didn’t know. Little Chicken wanted to go north, because it was homeward—his grasp of geography was even worse than Rap’s—but north was as likely as south to bring them to some sort of habitation. They ripped themselves loincloths from King Holindarn’s robe, and set off along the beach.
Thinal kept edging seaward. “You’re casing the jungle, I hope?” he asked Rap anxiously.
“There’s nothing there but birds and lizards and things. What did you expect? People?”
“Headhunters!” For a moment he showed the whites of his eyes. ”And monsters: griffins and harpies and hippogriffs!”
“They’re not home at the moment.” The coming of daylight had revealed a wide, shallow bay, with beaches curving smoothly away north and south to headlands so distant that even the tall palm trees at their tips were barely visible. There were no signs of life, either human or monstrous. Nothing moved on land or sea, at the moment. Why would Bright Water have moved her precious Little Chicken to a refuge so isolated?
“Faerie’s an island?”
Thinal hesitated. “Andor probably told you more than I can remember, Rap. He’s the tourist. I’m the lifter.”
“He said something about a town. Only one, I think. Milsomething?”
“Milfior!” Thinal grinned at this triumph. “We can get on a ship there?”
Thinal frowned warily. “I dunno. Certainly you can get on a ship. The trouble would be getting off. Where’re you thinking of going?”
“Zark, of course.”
Thinal trudged over the sand in silence for a moment. Then he burst out, ”It’ll take months, Rap! Probably years. You got any idea how big Pandemia is? And that djmn sorceress may magic Inos right back to Krasnegar by lunchtime.”
Rap’s heart sank. “What else can I do? I must try to help her!”
“Go to Hub, maybe? Hub knows everything, and it’s in the middle. You can find out there where Inos is and from Hub you can go anywhere. You can call on the imperor, or the witch of the north, if she’s a friend of yours.” He sniggered. “Or ask the imperial marshal why his legions marched on Krasnegar?”
“Queen Rasha used occult power on the legionaries!” Thinal sucked his teeth loudly. “So she did! You think that’ll rouse the wardens? Treading on East’s turf?”
Certainly that seemed possible to Rap, but almost any schoolboy in Hub would understand occult politics better than he did. And would the Four care enough about Inos even to rescue her, let alone put her on her throne? The wardens—three warlocks and one witch—were the occult guardians of all Pandemia. What sort of people were they? What were their real motives?
At that moment, the sun hooked a fiery finger over the horizon. The sky had unobtrusively turned itself blue.
“Go to Krasnegar!” Little Chicken growled. “Find woman back there.” His khaki-hued skin was slick with sweat already. “You’d like a good roll in the snow, wouldn’t you?”
The goblin grunted. Rap went back to prying information out of the imp.
“How about the fairyfolk? Andor said he didn’t meet any. He meant Sagorn, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. They’re rare now.” Thinal halted and peered all around, shielding his eyes from the sun with a skinny hand. The first two fingers on it were of equal length. He evidently found nothing and began to walk again. ”And dangerous, too. Headhunters, it’s said.” He stopped, frowning. ”Lots of troops in Milfior . . .”
“What’s wrong?” Rap asked. “Just . . . something odd. . .”
“Faerie, you mean? What sort of odd?”
Thinal scratched his unkempt mop of hair vigorously. “I don’t know. Why would the Impire guard Faerie so closely just because it’s dangerous to visit? Why post troops to protect tourists from monsters and natives? There’s no guards around Dragon Reach.”
Rap felt suspicious. “Odd? What sort of odd? Whose idea is that? Sagorn’s? Andor never mentioned that.”
Thinal’s feral features were suddenly completely blank. “Nothing. Just a city boy jumpy in the jungle.”
“Out with it!”
“Nothing, Rap.”
“I thought we were partners? We shook hands.”
“Yeah. Sorry, Rap! But it’s really nothing. I just get sneaky instincts when I see something being guarded.” He smiled shamedly. “I’m a thief, see?”
“So?”
Thinal laughed uneasily. “I getta sorta itch when I’m near something worth lifting. I nearly went batty when Andor called me to Kinvale. He needed me to thieve a special brooch, but I wanted to loot buckets, and—”
“What,” Rap demanded, “is worth stealing here?”
The lump in the thief’s scrawny throat jumped. “Nothing I can see! Maybe I’m just going weird. Scary!”
He didn’t look scared, though—he looked excited. Had he sensed that Rap’s word of power was available in a way it had not been earlier? Rap could think of nothing else around that was worth any more than one stone dagger. He shrugged and kept walking.
“Thirsty!” Little Chicken complained, glaring sideways at Rap as if it were his fault.
“Coconuts?” Apparently Thinal understood some of his dialect, but of course Darad had spent time among the goblins. “You can get milk out of green coconuts. The dagger’ll open them. Not the ones on the ground. Them up there.”