“Sir.”
“Sir! Beg pardon. Sir.”
Yodello stretched painfully and rubbed his back again. Then he reached up to swat a bug on the living part of his raised arm. How could a mosquito possibly find any blood in an arm that had been held up like that for weeks? The mosquitoes must be a large part of the torture. His meat parts were speckled like sandpaper.
“Yes, magic is temporary. I put a compulsion on you to make you go out and come back, but if I sent you into town and back, it might wear off before you returned. Lot o’ times it makes no difference. I could turn your head into an anvil. It would be a temporary anvil, but you’d be permanently dead.”
Andor’s mastery had worn off with time, Rap recalled.
The moon soared into silver-hemmed cloud again, and the light faded. Yodello slumped lower, hanging by his grip on the spear, his head sagging. He had closed his eyes, as if half asleep.
“Why won’t you help me escape from the warlock?” Rap whispered.
The soldier whispered back. “Same reason I can’t make you kill me. Same reason I’m going to send you back to your cell. Loyalty.”
He wanted Rap to kill him, though, and it would certainly be an act of mercy. Was Rap man enough to do it, not because of a compulsion, but just out of pity?
“I’ll try,” he said suddenly. “I can’t promise, but I’ll go and see what they have in the shed, and . . .”
The tribune spoke to his own feet, not raising his head. “Thanks, lad, but it’s no go. Even if you found a sword, I’d have to stop you. Out of loyalty. A mage is never a match for any sorcerer. ‘Specially the dwarf. He’s a giant!” Yodello chuckled softly.
“Think I’m mad,” he added, “don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Doesn’t matter whether I am or not. In a week or so it’ll get to my plumbing. Then I burst, I suppose. I’m looking forward to it. I just wish he cared more.”
Rap waited a puzzled moment and then said, “Wish who cared, sir?”
“The dwarf!” the statue said angrily. “If he would just come and gloat, then I could defy him. I could show courage. I’m not afraid to die!” He thumped his free fist against a stone thigh. His voice rose. ”I’m a soldier! I’ll die bravely! But he won’t give me the satisfaction. He never comes. He gave the orders, so here I am, on view. I’m washed, fed, and shaved. It’s all done as he said, every day. Every day the stone creeps higher up my legs. The centuries march by here every day and see, but he never does. He doesn’t care! Whether I’m brave or not doesn’t matter at all. He’s probably forgotten all about me. I’m an example, that’s all. A human poster.” His voice trailed away in despair.
Rap thought of the legionaries he’d seen running. Oothiana had called them examples. “Why an example? Why all this? Because you killed the fairies?”
“Because I tried to steal from a dwarf,” Yodello said dully. Dwarves’ parsimony was legendary. Ask a man where he acquired something and, if he didn’t want to tell, he’d say, I stole it from a dwarf.
“Inos?” Rap whispered. “What will he do with Inos if he finds her?”
“Anything he fancies. He’s a warlock.” The imp opened his eyes, opened them very wide, and stared down at Rap. “Let this be a lesson for you, faun!”
“Sir?” Rap felt his flesh creep as he tried to meet that tortured, crazy gaze.
“Never tell people about your power, your word! It will get you into trouble.”
Rap couldn’t see how he could possibly be in much worse trouble than he was in already. Then he saw the silent scream in Yodello’s sunken eyes and realized that he could be in much worse trouble. And mostly he’d gotten into this mess by refusing to learn more words, by refusing to become a mage and help Inos.
“Oothie was a brainless bitch,” Yodello said, but softly. He raised his head, peered out into the scented dark of the Faerie night, and seemed to speak to ghosts. “I love her madly, always. She was never much of a sorceress, though. Got her words from Urlocksea, great-grandfather, not from fairies. Nice old fellow. Didn’t do much with his power except some healing, but Piandoth found him anyway. Pian’ was East. When he died, the old guy got away before Olybino took over the gold palace. Died, too, soon after. Gave his words to Oothie. Warned her never to use them.”
The soldier seemed to have forgotten Rap altogether and to be talking for his own sake. He must have been a remarkable man once. Mutilated, naked, close to a terrible death, he still wore some shreds of dignity. Splinters of authority still glimmered through his madness.
“She didn’t do much. Fast promotion for her husband, easy labor for the second child, a few things like that. Tried to resist the little worm when he took a fancy to her—stupid bitch! As if I’d have cared! That was what gave her away. He had her anyway, of course. Didn’t even make her his votary till morning . . . got to be warlock . . . made her proconsul . . .”
Rap was struck by a sudden mad idea, a way both he and Yodello might escape. Dare he suggest it? Really, what did he have to lose?
The imp’s voice grew louder. “But in the case of Faerie, it’s different, you see. The imperor appoints whomever West wants. The runt thought it’d be fun to make Emshandar send in Oothie’s name.”
“You know three words!” Rap said, in a rush, “and I know one, so if I tell you mine, then you’ll be a sorcerer! You can break free of the loyalty spell and turn your legs back—couldn’t you? And maybe rescue Oothiana?”
Chin high, the soldier spoke to a point above Rap’s head. “A female proconsul! Senators all had miscarriages over that, but they don’t argue with warlocks.”
“If you promise to help me,” Rap said hoarsely, “I’ll make you a full sorcerer. So we can both escape.”
“New proconsul appoints his own officers. Oothie picked the best soldier she knew as tribune.” The statue sighed. “And I was the best, too! But she made me loyal to her, instead of the dwarf.”
Rap began to feel desperate. “Or you tell me your three words, and I promise I’ll do everything I can for you and your lady.”
“It was an honest mistake. She meant no disloyalty. She couldn’t have meant to be disloyal. She was his votary.”
Rap jumped up. On level footing, he would have been about the same height as the imp. Yet he still couldn’t meet those proud, sad eyes, for now they were looking past his head. He moved; they shifted. They gleamed, moonlight reflecting from haunted caves.
“You can save her, sir! Save yourself, too, maybe! Let me tell you my word of power.”
“You should have thought of that sooner,” said a new voice, a gravelly bass. Rap spun around.
Arms akimbo, Raspnex stood on the road just outside the shielding like a stone pillar. He still wore the same disreputable work clothes, but now he had added a shapeless woolen cap. His iron-gray beard was bunched up in a dangerous scowl.
“Wouldn’t have worked, anyway,” Yodello remarked sadly. “I’m loyal to him now. Aren’t I?”
Raspnex ignored him, addressing Rap. “Nice try, faun! I’ll settle the score later, never fear.”
“I suffer loyally,” Yodello said, seemingly to the night itself. ”I am a very good example.”
“I didn’t deliberately try to deceive you, sir,” Rap told the dwarf. “I didn’t think of—”
“I know. You couldn’t have fooled me. But I’ll settle, anyway.” Raspnex glowered. Perhaps he was afraid of being made an example, too.
“About a week until I burst,” Yodello announced cheerfully. ”Remember to come and watch that.”
“Arakkaran, faun?”
“Yes,” said Rap’s mouth. Raspnex nodded, satisfied. “What the goblin said.”
“She may not still be there!” Rap said hopefully.
6
The dwarf shrugged his giant shoulders. “We’ll see. Come along now. The boss wants you. He hates to be kept waiting.”
“Come early and get ahead of the crowds,” Yodello said.
Ekka was talking about spiders’ webs. She kept on talking about spiders’ webs. She would not stop talking about spiders’ webs, and yet Kadolan could not hear a word she was saying because she was whispering. Whispering was not ladylike. It was very annoying. She decided she must tell Ekka that she should either speak up clearly, or else she should keep quiet and let Kadolan go back to . . . sleep?
She was very stiff. Her back felt as if it had been tenderized with a meat mallet. Even her knees. Bells jingling in the distance. There was no light in the tent. Tent?