It wasn’t Ekka. It was Inosolan who was doing all the whispering. Shaking Kadolan’s shoulder.
“Mmph?”
“Don’t waken the girl, Aunt!”
“What g-—”
“Shh!”
There was someone else moving. Gods! A man! The sultan, of course. Kadolan certainly did not want to jostle him, not after seeing the blister on Inosolan’s finger.
Inosolan had her lips to Kadolan’s ear. “Get dressed quickly. It’s almost dawn. We’re leaving.”
“Leav-—”
“Shh!”
Kadolan struggled to sit up. She felt impossibly stiff, and very grateful that the other two could not see her. This was what came from only one-half of a day on a camel. She must have a whole day ahead of her now. There were weeks and weeks of it to come. She was too old for this. Her eyes felt full of sand. She shivered, and not just from sleepiness; the air was nippy. “Watch out for the girl!” Inosolan whispered again.
“I don’t know where she is!” Kadolan whispered back. Fooni had been sleeping somewhere on her left, but that was not much help in pitch darkness after hours of sleeping. She could have rolled anywhere. “What is that revolting noise?”
“Camels!” Inosolan said.
Did they never stop bellowing? If the Fooni child could sleep through that racket, then Kadolan could practice a trumpet fanfare without disturbing her. If the camels came any closer, they would step on the tent. That would do it! They smelled close but that was probably just the tent itself. Everything smelled of camel.
Azak pushed back a corner of the flap, and a slightly lesser darkness surged in.
“There she is,” Inosolan whispered.
Things were beginning to make more sense, as Kade’s old brains awoke, taking their time. She didn’t like some of the implications.
“Why mustn’t we waken her’?”
Inosolan made an exasperated sound. She was on her knees, brushing out her hair, which was crackling and sparking in the cold dryness. Azak was a featureless enormity, an undefined impression of size. He must be kneeling, also, for the tent was much too low to let him stand, and he sounded as if he were busy. Stuffing things in bags, maybe?
“We’re going to sneak away before dawn!” Inosolan whispered.
Kadolan thought Oh-oh! and felt a twinge of a sinking feeling. She was quite convinced in her own mind that this whole mad escapade had been organized by the sorceress. Or, if Rasha had not planned it, she must be aware of it and be tolerating it for her own reasons. Kadolan wasn’t sure why she thought that, but she did; and she in turn had been willing to humor Inosolan and Azak by pretending that it was a serious attempt to escape from Arakkaran:
“Why?”
Inosolan made another cross noise. “Just in case Master Elkarath is not what he seems.”
“But what could he be?”
This time it was Azak who answered, deep and urgent. “His timing was very suspicious, ma’am. He furtively sent me word just two days after you and your niece arrived, claiming that he had often transported messages, or even messengers, for my grandsire, and that he would be happy to perform such services for myself. There was no way to confirm his tale, although it is plausible.”
At least he had given Kadolan the courtesy of a civil answer. “But what else could he be?” she asked. “What evil could he be plotting, with you to guard us, Sire—I mean Lionslayer?”
“He could be an agent of the harlot.”
“Do hurry, Aunt!” Inosolan whispered urgently.
“I’ve been telling Inos that.” Kadolan did not budge, except to rub her back plaintively. The camel roarings and jinglings seemed to be coming closer. They would surely waken the Fooni girl soon. “I admit I don’t understand why Rasha should indulge in such a devious silly game, but—”
“To hide your niece from the warlock.”
Oh, dear! That made excellent sense. Inosolan was a valuable political property, apparently, and Warlock Olybino might very well attempt to steal her away from the sultana if he thought the asking price too high. So Rasha had hidden her treasure away in the desert until the deal had been made; then it would be safe to come and get her. Kadolan felt relieved at finding so logical a confirmation of her instincts.
“Then why do you . . .” But the answer was obvious. Azak wanted to leave because he could not bear to remain within reach of the sorceress, if he still was. It was another of these double or triple or quadruple gambits, like the enormously complicated ways he had used to extract Kadolan herself from the palace and smuggle Inosolan to Elkarath’s house from the state procession.
If Elkarath was Rasha’s agent, then this would be the real escape from her power. If he was genuine, then he became merely another false trail.
“We are going to double back to the coast,” Azak whispered. ”He has a boat waiting,” Inosolan added impatiently, “at some little fishing village. We can sail north to Shuggaran and catch a ship. You can forget about three months on a camel, Aunt! In three months we should be in Hub. Now, does that appeal or not?”
Well, yes, that was certainly tempting.
Before Kadolan could make up her mind, a voice called faintly outside the tent, barely audible over the rumpus the camels were making, “Queen Inosolan?”
They all heard it. They all froze, staring at the triangle of light that marked a corer of the doorway; dawn was close now. Dribbles of icy water ran down Kadolan’s back as she remembered the meeting in the forest, when Master Rap had appeared so mysteriously out of the shadows. He had called to Inosolan like that.
“What was that?” Azak demanded in louder tones than before.
“It sounded like somebody calling me!” Inosolan’s voice trembled. ”A long way off.”
“Queen Inosolan!” Closer this time. No mistake this time. It was not a man’s voice, though.
And Master Rap was dead, anyway, killed by the imps.
Inosolan uttered a strangled sort of gulp. “Nobody here knows me by that name!” she whispered.
Kadolan guessed what was about to happen and grabbed for her niece’s shoulder. Inosolan was always so impulsive!
She was too late. Inosolan went scrambling on hands and knees over the litter of bedding. For a moment her shape obscured the hint of gray glow of the entrance, and then she was outside.
Nothing particular happened. Kadolan relaxed. It had perhaps been an illusion. A herdboy singing, or some such. Azak was more visible than before, and he had indeed been stuffing things into a sack and was now roping it, with swift, jerky movements. “Are you ready, mistress?”
Kadolan sprang to wakefulness. She was far from ready, but she certainly did not intend to be left behind. She was too old for this, she thought, rummaging to find her shoes, but a swift ride to the coast and then a sea voyage was a far more pleasing prospect than a camel ride to Ullacarn, wherever that was.
Hub, the city of the Gods! Who would choose to remain in this ugly desert when offered a journey to Hub?
Dragging a bundle, Azak crawled over to the doorway, making the tent darker. Kadolan decided she would have to forget about brushing her hair, just this once.
And then Inos screamed.
7
“He’s a brave man!” Rap shouted, leaning into the wind. The seaward side of the headland was much steeper than the harbor side. A steady thunder of surf came drifting up from the darkness below. The air was cool and salty.
“Who is?” Raspnex was trudging solidly through the night, with one hand clasping his cap firmly on his head.
“Tribune Yodello.”
The dwarf grunted. “Hasn’t got much choice, has he?” he said indifferently.
But Yodello had very nearly succeeded in stealing from a dwarf, and a warlock dwarf at that. He had learned three words in the fairy village. It was a reasonable assumption that either the proconsul or the warlock had stopped him while he was trying to collect a fourth.
“How does a man get around a loyalty spell?”
That question earned no answer but an angry glare. Rap himself had evaded capture for half a day and then broken out of jail. Both times he had been more lucky than clever, but obviously sorcery and magic had limitations that could be exploited if one knew how. He wished he knew how.
The journey to the crest of the ridge had taken almost no time, so Raspnex must have used power. The Gazebo itself loomed dead ahead, larger than Rap had expected, overtopping the trees around it. It was a circular wooden structure, two levels surmounted by a conical roof. Lights were wavering strangely in the upper story, but that was cut off from his farsight by an opaque ceiling. The lower room seemed to be used mainly as storage: furniture and rolls of matting, metal tools and stone statuary, boxes of shells and glass cases full of butterflies, and much more that he had no time to make out, the accumulated junk of generations.