“Pah!” The witch spoke as if her throat hurt. “Almost all, then. Never seen a clearer destiny.”
It was all gibberish to Rap, but he thought of the swamp that Oothiana had mentioned and the many river channels emptying into a large lake within it. That might fit. And the mention of him sounded like the casement’s third prophecy. At least there had been no word of Inos yet, in all this insanity.
“So?” The hiss might have come from either of the dwarves. “So what’s beyond, eh?” the old woman whispered. Without warning the little grouping broke up. Raspnex staggered aside, knuckling his eyes and gasping as if he had been running. Zinixo threw back his head and bellowed with heavy laughter like falling rocks. The witch bent down, took Little Chicken’s face in both hands, and kissed him. His eyes flew open.
“Got it!” the warlock shouted.
“You see now?” Bright Water scrambled onto Little Chicken’s lap, stroking his hairy cheek with a hand like dead roots. The dragon swelled and burned in pale mauve. Apparently not liking the younger goblin so close, it crawled around the back of her neck, balancing on her hump, and settled on her other shoulder.
“Oh, yes!” Zinixo favored Oothiana with a huge, childish smile. His change of mood was astonishing. “The goblin butchers the faun—no doubt about that. And then—” He laughed again, looking at his uncle, who was grinning a dwarf’s pebbly grin.
“Then,” the older man said, “we see something new, your Majesty!” He bowed, and both sorcerers howled with mirth. Little Chicken’s eyes grew to very large triangles indeed. Again, he was fondly kissed by the old woman perched in his lap.
“That’s right, my darling. A goblin king!”
“Kill Flat Nose?”
She nodded vigorously, beaming. “Oh, yes! Back at Raven Totem.”
“Long pain?”
“Very long, by the looks of it. Give good show.”
Little Chicken sighed happily and smiled at Rap. “Is good, Flat Nose.” He was speaking goblin again.
“A goblin king!” The witch sighed on his lap.
So that was it! Rap felt horror boil up in him like vomit. The imperor didn’t want Kalkor as king of Krasnegar, and the thanes wouldn’t let it fall to the Impire, but the two sides might still agree on a compromise. Neither imp nor jotunn, so a goblin, of course! Marry Inos to Little Chicken and then everybody would be happy.
Zinixo frowned. “Let us talk business, then. You want this goblin prince of yours back.”
The witch patted Little Chicken’s cheek. “Death Bird is my darling, my darling.”
“But you gave him to me. You dropped him here, in my territory. I can kill him yet—we saw that.”
The old woman pouted and threw a skinny arm around Little Chicken’s head, clutching it protectively to where she once had a bosom. “Not my sweeting! No, we save him, to be a king.”
The expression on Little Chicken’s face suggested that he was not enjoying this.
Zinixo smiled grimly. “And you want him loaded up with more words, of course?”
“More? Eh? No, no words!” Bright Water looked startled. “He stole one from a fairy!”
The witch’s eyes flickered toward Rap, then back to Little Chicken . . . Rap . . . “Eh? Death Bird got the word?” She giggled faintly.
She was surprised by something. Then she recovered, shaking her head so that even more hair fell loose. “No, no, no!” She released her victim and scrambled down off his lap. “You didn’t foresee properly! Words don’t help. Give him words, and he doesn’t become a king!”
“Then why send him here?” The dwarf looked puzzled and angry.
She shrugged her knobby shoulders and cackled. “Had to move him somewhere. Safe, far away! Thought things might get nasty in the north. Olybino. ”
Zinixo folded his arms. “What are you offering, witch? What’s he worth?”
“Ah! Patient is the heron in silver waters wading!” The old woman raised one arm high overhead, spun around in a pirouette, and then staggered off balance with a clamor of boots on planks. Regaining her balance, she bowed to a patch of empty air. “Begging your pardon, ma’am!” Then she peered around slyly at the dwarf. “What’s your price?”
“The elf’s balls on a fork.”
She cackled shrilly. “Naughty! You boys are all the same! He wants to tie yours to an anchor.”
The dwarf scowled, unamused. He folded his arms. “What did you pay him for the fire chick?”
“Me? Nothing!” The hag stuck her long goblin nose in the air as if taking offense.
Rap sneaked a glance at Oothiana, who was frowning and twisting her fingers together. He decided that Bright Water had now succeeded in confusing everybody, perhaps including herself. He believed almost nothing he had heard so far, except that the dwarf and the elf detested each other, and he had known that before.
Was the witch truly as crazy as she acted? He had an absurd conviction that Bright Water had been lurking in his shadow ever since he first met her in Raven Totem. She professed to be only interested in Little Chicken, but whenever she had materialized before, it had always been to Rap. What were her real motives? Why should she care about Krasnegar, or who ruled it? And now he had developed a weird certainty that she had known about the fairy child and had expected Rap to learn the word, not Little Chicken. Obviously his imagination was becoming infected by the prevailing insanity.
And Bright Water had claimed that she could not foresee Rap’s future. He hoped she did not mention that now, because the warlock would certainly take the information as a challenge, and if his foresight also failed, then he might feel threatened. Apparently almost anything made him feel threatened, in spite of his great powers.
“You’re a liar!” Zinixo decided. “You bought that dragon with something.” A molten hue in his cheeks suggested he was flushing.
The witch tossed her head, shaking loose more strands of copper hair. “I gave him the girl,” she admitted.
Rap opened his mouth, and invisible lips whispered, “Shh!” in his ear. “Listen!” It was Oothiana’s voice, but she had not moved and she seemed to be concentrating entirely on the argument in progress.
“The Krasnegar girl?” Zinixo demanded. “Inosolan? Why?”
“Why did I?” Bright Water said airily. “Because he offered me Precious.” She stroked the flame on her shoulder, and it purred and burned up violet. “Dum-de-dum-dum . . . Why’d he? No idea. Never ask `why’ of an elf, sonny. Elves’ explanations are the commonest cause of suicide among the young.”
“You’re in league with him against me!”
The old hag sneered. “Flammery! He’s in cahoots with East. If I join them against you, sonny, you’re mole pie.”
The dwarf almost screamed. “Oh, am I? Well, we’ll see about that!”
“You listen to me, boy! Leave Yellow-belly’s organs in place for now. Would you settle for the imp’s guts instead?”
A chair slid across the floor as if moved by the wind and came to rest behind the warlock. He sat down, crossed his stumpy legs, and scowled up at Bright Water with a sudden show of calm. “Cut the chaff. I’ve got your darling Death Bird, or whatever you call him. He could be very useful to me. You want him back, then make an offer.”
Bright Water shook her head pityingly. She turned away, and Rap expected her to step on the magic mat and disappear, but she paused and seemed to have second thoughts.
“Isn’t easy being a warlock,” she said, sneering at the night, or perhaps at one of the unseen watchers. “He’s discovered that by now. He thought he’d feel safer, but he doesn’t, does he? Now he’s public knowledge, and they’re all out to get him. So he needs votaries to defend him. Thought that being West would be easy, because he could make lots of votaries. But it isn’t easy. Never knows when he may raise a monster!”
Zinixo gritted his teeth. “Go on. It’s late, I’m tired.”
“Early, early, early!” Bright Water whirled around in one of her absurd pirouettes and ended facing toward Oothiana. “Much safer to steal your opponents’ helpers than make new ones of your own, eh?” She waggled a finger. “Isn’t it? Men never see that.”
Oothiana said, “Ma’am?” in a puzzled voice.
The dwarf’s pebble eyes seemed to shine a little brighter. The witch sighed. ”You remember at the end of the meeting, the imperor decided to pull his men from Krasnegar?” Rap stiffened. If the Council of Four had met with the imperor to discuss Krasnegar, that was important news. There might be word of Inos coming next.
Oothiana shot a baffled glance at the warlock, then said, “I wasn’t there, ma’am.”
In the background, Zinixo was looking skeptical. “Warlock Olybino agreed to send the orders. Witch Bright Water promised to hold Kalkor and the Nordlanders off for at least two more weeks, to give the imps time. But does she remember that?” The old woman giggled shrilly, a mad sound. “Don’t need to remember,” she told Oothiana in a whisper. “Kalkor’s at the other end of the world.”