“Goose droppings! I’m more valuable to him here. You know that! Why doesn’t he just ask her?”
“That’s what I suggested,” the sorceress said sadly. “I think he will. But it gets him involved in the Krasnegar thing, you see? And now he wants the girl.”
Rap’s head lifted of its own accord. What girl?
“What girl?” the statue asked. It had slumped back into its former slouch, but perhaps it was just looking down at the sorceress. If it was supposed to represent an imp, it was a little larger than life size, and it stood on a plinth. Oothiana was on the ground, and lower.
“The princess, or queen. Inosolan.”
“I thought East promised to produce her for the imperor?”
“But he hasn’t. Not yet. And now it seems that whoever stole her away wasn’t one of his votaries!”
“Whose, then?”
“Don’t now. Maybe no one’s. The faun says she was a djinn, named Rasha. ”
“Mm?” the statue said. “A wild card? Well, why does the dwarf want her, this Inosolan?”
“Who knows? Just because the others do, maybe. She seems to be important.”
The statue grunted. “Can he find her?”
“I don’t know! That’s what I have to do next . . . Oh, Gods—the time! I must go, love! I have to find out if the faun knows where this Rasha woman took her.”
Again insects crawled on Rap’s skin. He had told the lady about Rasha and he’d said she was a djinn, but perhaps he hadn’t mentioned Arakkaran. He laid his head down on the damp, earth-scented grass and shivered. If Oothiana went looking for him and discovered his absence, then the chase would be on at once. Now he dare not go back to rescue Little Chicken. For Inos’s sake, he must escape now, or else kill himself before they caught him.
Silence.
The moon was sliding behind another cloud. He sneaked a quick look as the light faded. Oothiana had stepped up on the plinth and was embracing the statue, kissing it. Its free arm was around her, holding her tight.
The kiss ended. She whispered something. The statue responded, equally quietly. Endearments. “I must go, my love,” she said, and her voice cracked.
Rap started easing backward, planning to leave, but Oothiana jumped down to the ground then, and he froze. She set off at once, heading toward the building. When she left the circle of shielding she could have detected him with farsight, but either his stillness escaped her notice or she was too intent on her own troubles. As she vanished into the doorway, he relaxed and wiped his streaming forehead on the grass. Whew!
He began to move again.
The statue said, “You! Faun! Come here.”
5
“Always did have good night vision,” the statue said in a satisfied tone.
Standing within the shielding, Rap had farsight now to confirm what his eyes had been refusing to believe. Furthermore, the moon had come out again. The statue was only partly a statue. Feet and legs of solid marble supported a torso of . . . meat, a living man. His right hand, the one held high to grip the spear, was stone also, almost to the elbow. That was what was holding him upright. His left arm seemed unaffected. So far.
“I’m Rap,” Rap said hoarsely, mostly to see if he was capable of speaking without throwing up.
“Yodello, legate of the army in Faerie, retired.”
He had been a burly, well-built man, big for an imp. Even now, with pain and horror shining out of half-mad eyes, he retained some trace of his former authority.
“How’d you get out, prisoner?”
Rap started to back away, and his feet froze as firmly as Yodello’s. His mouth spoke without his wanting it to. “I was caged with the goblin. He has a word of power, and it’s made him inhumanly strong. He threw me through the aversion spell.”
Yodello chortled harshly. “And how did he know to try that? And what do you know about aversion spells?”
“I have a word, also. I have farsight, so I could see the shielding, and I met an aversion spell in Inisso’s castle.”
“In Krasnegar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A faun in the far north? And do you know where this Inosolan is?”
Rap tried to bite his tongue, but again his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. “The sorceress said she was from somewhere called Arakkaran. You’re a mage!” Rap added quickly. That was why he also was rooted to the spot.
“My, my! You know a lot! For a mere genius, that is.”
“You killed the fairies. Three of them. The lady told me that the man who did that was being punished.” But Rap found it hard to believe that even three murders justified this ghastly death, a creeping petrification. How long had this wretch endured his public torment?
“Not punished by her!” said the half-man.
“Please, sir, let me go? I have to escape, to save Inos! I must find a ship to hide in.” Surely this Yodello could never be on Zinixo’s side?
The soldier shook his head, and moonlight flashed from his bronze helmet. ”They’d search all the ships with a looking glass. If you go somewhere else, you might manage to elude Oothie for a while, but the dwarf could track you like a bloodhound, if he was upset enough to come after you himself. Or his uncle might, even. He has others. No one escapes from a sorcerer, Master Rap.”
And Little Chicken had been present in the chamber when Rasha appeared. He, too, had heard the name of Arakkaran. Rap sank down on the grass in despair. His ankle throbbed painfully, but worse was the sudden horror eating into his heart like an arctic chill. Inos! For a moment there was silence, then he said, ”You’re a mage? You could help me.”
“You could help me.”
“Me?” Rap peered up at the man’s face, silver in the moonlight. He wasn’t sure if the soldier was joking, or mocking him, or had just been driven mad by his ordeal. It must be at least a month, maybe two, since the attack on the fairy village. Had Yodello been suffering here all that time? Every day his former subordinates would go marching past. Someone must have to feed him, clean him.
“How can I possibly help you?”
“Scratch my left ankle. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Very funny,” Rap said. “If I can do anything to help, I will, but if I can’t, then I’d like to go now.”
“But I never have anyone to talk to! You can keep me company for a while. Talk to me. Kill me.”
“What?”
“Yes!” The soldier sighed and rubbed his ribs with his elbow, as if he had an itch there. “You can, of course. That’s how you can help me, see? There’s a shed around the back. You go find a shovel. They might even have an ax. Then you can cut my throat. You can put me out of my misery.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Rap said with a very dry mouth. “Sure you could!” Yodello sounded jovial, fatherly. He might have been encouraging a nervous recruit. “Very good opportunity for you. A man never knows what he is until he’s killed someone. Ready?”
“No!” Rap slithered backward on the grass. He felt the edge of the roadway under one elbow. Behead a man with a shovel? “But you answered my call, Master Rap! You came within the shield. Then I had you. I’m a mage. Not as much a mage as I was, but I can still control a boy with only one word of power. ”
“Once I’m outside the shielding again you can’t!” Rap protested. What an idiot he had been! He should have run away when Yodello summoned him, but he’d thought the statue might shout loud enough to bring the lady back.
“Oh, but I can!” Yodello smiled grimly and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. “Stand up, Master Rap. Right. Now, Master Rap, you’re going to go over to where you were eavesdropping and then come back here.”
Rap’s legs spun him around so suddenly that he almost lost his balance. Without even favoring his sore ankle, he raced across the road, turned, and raced back again. Then he stood and scowled up at the soldier in baffled humiliation.
Yodello was smiling happily. “See? I can make you do anything. It’s only magic, but it would last long enough for you to go and bring a shovel to kill me with.”
“But you’re not going to,” Rap said. “You’re Zinixo’s votary, aren’t you? You’re bound to serve him, and he wouldn’t want you to die soon, because he enjoys watching you suffer. So you can’t make me kill you.”
“Not bad. Good guess. Sit down. Let’s talk.”
Rap sat, not sure whether he had a choice in the matter or not. He didn’t want to talk, but he wouldn’t mind listening. “I thought magic was temporary?” Oothiana had said that.