“What? But you said . . .” The young dwarf rubbed his chin. ”No, you didn’t, did you? Just hinted.”
Raspnex grinned, as if he was finding the witch’s performance amusing.
She bared her big, perfect teeth at Rap, switching her attention to him, still whispering. “Kalkor’s down south, on a raping holiday around Qoble. And I didn’t say I’d hold back the goblins! They’re going to pave the road with impish hides, all the way to Pondague. Oh, pity the poor prisoners!”
Rap shuddered. The witch was drooling, and Little Chicken was leering, doubtless remembering his own revenge on Yggingi. The goblins’ traditions of peace had been discarded.
Zinixo was obviously intrigued. “So Olybino will try to cover the troops’ retreat? So he’ll want to send votaries up there!”
“So I refuse my gracious permission!” Bright Water danced a few steps in front of Rap. “So he’ll do it anyway! You’re not a dwarf! Where’d he go?” She spun around to locate Zinixo. “So do you want them?”
The warlock glanced at his uncle, who grinned and nodded, then at Oothiana.
She shook her head. “He’ll make them legionaries. Then you can’t touch them.”
“But you can mark them!” the old witch shouted. “Every time they deflect an arrow or avoid an ambush, you’ll know them. When they get back to Hub, they’ll be off duty, and you can take ‘em then, whenever you want. You’ll have Olybino gutted and smoked. Fanfares and flying horsedung!”
“Why don’t you do this?” Zinixo asked, with his usual dark suspicion.
She pouted and stalked across to Little Chicken. “I was going to. You said you wanted an offer. I need my darling.” She stroked the goblin’s hair. Infected by either jealousy or her distress, the baby dragon surged away, off her shoulder. Again it headed for Rap, then changed course and whirled up in a spiral toward the wildly swinging lanterns.
Gold! If a full-grown dragon could devastate a county on one taste of gold, then even the tiny fire chick might destroy the Gazebo. Without thinking, Rap hurled a summons at it, calling it away from the metal. He had never had any success using his mastery on birds, only on four-legged things. It worked best on horses, almost as well on dogs, cats less. But apparently a dragon was a four-legged creature of a sort, because he felt a response, and the lambent flicker reversed direction, coming toward him. Something that felt like an invisible leather belt slashed across his face, hard enough to wrench his neck. He yelped in pain and surprise. Another sickening blow lashed him on the other cheek, throwing him across Oothiana’s lap.
“Idiot!” she whispered, helping him up.
Dazed and trying not to whimper, he raised a hand to a face that felt as if he had just shaved with boiling water. Bright Water was glaring very angrily at him, and the dragon chick had settled again on her shoulder.
“You stay away from my Precious, half-breed! If Death Bird didn’t need you, I’d fill your belly with worms and rot your bones and—”
“Leave him!” Zinixo growled. “You want your goblin king. You let me put Raspnex up there to watch the rout? How do I know you’re not just trapping my votary to aid East and South?”
She cackled shrilly again and spun around to find Raspnex. “Foresee him!”
This time the inspection was brief. Zinixo merely stared at his uncle for a minute and then chuckled heavily, his laughter as deep as the surf on the coast below. “Yes, you come back. As long as you stay away from the women, you do.”
“Green doesn’t appeal much,” Raspnex said.
The witch waggled a lumpy finger at him. “Watch your tongue, dwarf! Let’s see a goblin.”
The sorcerer shrugged. He began pulling off his shirt, and seemed to melt as he did so. His grayness faded to khaki, his curly hair grew long and straight, solidifying and crawling down his chest in a greasy cue. His head shrank, his legs grew. Nose and ears became longer and pointed. In a few moments he was a middle-aged goblin in a leather loincloth. He smiled, showing that his dwarvish rock-crusher teeth had become more pointed. A whiff of rancid goblin scent wrinkled every nose in the Gazebo.
“Oh, handsome!” the’ crone shrilled. “And steady! Take a good eye to see that!” She pointed a finger, and arabesques of tattoo appeared on the former dwarf’s face. “Long Runner of the Wolves!”
Zinixo stood up. “Stand over there, Long Runner. Downwind! One thing more, Witch.” He scowled at Little Chicken. “He took a word that belongs to me!”
Yodello: I stole it from a dwarf.
“Phoo! There’s a third one; the sequentials know a word. Take theirs in exchange.”
For a moment longer the warlock hesitated. Then he nodded. “It’s a deal. Go, Uncle. Here’s a chance to redeem yourself. You want to take the goblin with you, your Omnipotence, or shall I have it delivered?”
Bright Water shrugged her bony shoulders, and the dragon wobbled. Wind blew straggles of copper hair across her face. “No. Just send them back to the mainland. With a destiny like that, he’ll find it.”
Humming, she clumped over to the magic carpet. “Not them,” Zinixo said. “Him!”
Rap felt a sudden twinge of hope.
Bright Water turned and scowled. “Need the faun! Death Bird butchers the faun! Doesn’t work else. You saw!”
The warlock shook his oversized head, leering triumphantly. “You bought one! I keep the other.”
“He’s no use to you!”
“He won’t be any use to you if I kill him. And I will! Now!”
“No!”
“Yes. I’ll count to three!” The dwarf pointed at Rap. ”One!” Oothiana jumped from the couch and moved quickly to a safe distance. Rap’s throat tightened so he could hardly breathe. Zinixo was capable of destroying him without a second thought. “What else d’you want?” Bright Water demanded angrily. For the first time she seemed to be at a loss.
“You’ve got your king. I’ll take the queen.”
“Why? What do you want of her?”
The dwarf snarled. “I’ll decide that later. She’s valuable, that’s enough for now. Two!”
Oothiana was staring in horror, hands at her mouth. Rap tried to move, and some invisible power locked him to the couch. And why should he struggle? This would be a much faster death than being handed over to the goblin witch and her beloved Death Bird.
“Haven’t got her,” Bright Water said sulkily. “But you know where she is!”
The witch nodded with obvious reluctance.
“Two!” snapped the warlock—but he did not complete his deadly counting.
“The Rasha woman took her. Tried to sell her to Olybino. East didn’t like the price.”
Zinixo hissed and hunched his head down, as if facing an attack. “What was that price?”
“Your guess is as good a bag of nuts as any.” Bright Water’s mad confidence seemed to be returning. “But neither has her now, so you can relax, sonny.”
The warlock did not look as if he would ever relax, but he had released the invisible bands around Rap, and Oothiana was looking less frightened. The wind blew cool on Rap’s sweatsoaked hair.
The witch stroked her fire chick, turning it mauve again. Rap heard its strange purring noise inside his head.
“The elf wanted her, and I told him where she was.”
“So?”
“She was in Zark, in Arakkaran. Lith’rian just happened to have a votary in the town, and he got the child away before Olybino did.”
“What’s South doing with a votary in East’s sector?” Zinixo growled, looking puzzled and even more suspicious than before.
“Who knows? You mean you don’t have any tucked away in odd places? Dear Gods, the kid’s more honest than he looks! Anyway, this one’s only a mage, but he charmed her into going off with him somehow. She’s out in the desert—heading for South’s sector, I expect. East doesn’t know where she is, so he can’t produce her for the imperor, as he said he would.”
“What’s South up to?” The dwarf’s expression had turned murderous again, at this talk of the elf.
Rap was wondering the same. He cared nothing for the fate of the impish troops in Krasnegar, nor what the goblins might do to harry them when they left; but he did care about Inos. If the warlock of the south was as bad as these other two wardens, then she must be in horrible danger. He had hated the thought of her being in the power of the sorceress Rasha, but now he thought the wardens were even worse. They were going to marry her off to a goblin, and it sounded as if the imperor had agreed.
“I warned you, “ Bright Water sneered. “Never ask `why’ of elves, lad. They think like drunk moths. But East thinks he has Kalkor to worry about, the goblins have burned Pondague and are raiding over the pass, and now he can’t deliver up a girl the imperor wants to meet. Poor ninny’s as red as a djinn.”