His second word of power seemed to have granted him some occult ability to ignore pain, and he suspected that without it he would be screaming. He knew it was there, though—his butchered feet, his joints, his muscles—but at last the compulsion had gone, the spell was lifted, and the mere act of sitting down at last brought a wave of fatigue that threatened to push him over into instant sleep. And the pain came rushing in as soon as his attention faltered. He sat up straighter, suppressed the pain, and glared blearily up at the boy who had led him here.
“I’m Rap.”
The boy sniggered.
“Don’t you have a name, sonny?”
The boy removed his finger long enough to say, “Ugish,” and giggle. He had more teeth than a pike. And sharper. “You’re a sorcerer, Ugish?”
A bigger grin and a head shake. Gnomes were by preference nocturnal, but Rap had met them in Durthing. He had seen them in Finrain and on his trips to Milflor. Their eyes were very large, and round, showing almost no white. In daylight they showed almost no pupil either, only a shiny black iris. Ugish’s eyes were large, but different—the whites bright amid the dirt, and the irises bronze, with an intense luster. So perhaps there was more than one type of gnome.
Not all the inhabitants of Krasnegar had been notable for their personal cleanliness and some were notoriously unpopular companions indoors, but no other race seemed to enjoy filth as gnomes did.
Rap tried a smile. “Then who—ulp!”
A woman had emerged from a doorway and was striding around the end of the trough, coming toward them. Rap quickly pulled up his knees and clasped his arms around his shins.
She was no gnome—tall as he, and of a striking build. At first he could not even guess at her race. She wore a loose dress, dirty, sleeveless and short, and so tattered that it was indecent, but she moved with grace and poise. She was every bit as filthy as the boy, her skin color indeterminate and her long hair a disgusting slimy tangle halfway down her back. Then he saw the sweat-washed tufts in her armpits, and they were bright gold.
And her eyes! They were very large, and oddly slanted, their irises gleaming with a wonder of rainbow fires, like opal or mother-of-pearl. So her skin would be golden also; she was an elf. He had glimpsed a few elves in Milflor and Finrain, but never close to. He could not tell her age, but he thought she might be very beautiful if she were clean.
And now Rap understood Ugish’s eyes, although he had never heard of a gnome halfbreed before.
Rap hugged his knees tighter as she stopped and bobbed a hint of a curtsy to him.
“I am Athal’rian, of course.” She smiled rather vacantly, making faint cracks appear in the coating on her face. She scratched her scalp absentmindedly.
“I’m Rap, ma’am. I . . . I haven’t any clothes.”
She frowned. “Oh, but . . . Well, Ugish, give him yours for now.”
Grinning, the boy untied the rag that was all he wore and held it out to Rap, who recoiled in disgust. It was not something he would willing touch with a long stick, but he did not want to offend his hosts. Gnomes were normally shy and inoffensive, but they must have feelings like anyone else, and elves certainly would.
So he accepted the tattered relic and its passengers, and rose to his feet with all the dignity he could feign. Fortunately the cloth was not long enough to tie around his hips, so he just held it in front of him like a towel, not letting it touch him. It was even less adequate for him than it had been for Ugish.
He could not stand without swaying.
Athal’rian smiled again and offered a black-nailed hand. “You are welcome to Warth Redoubt, Sorcerer. It is long since we had company for dinner.”
Rap gulped and ignored the hand, as both of his were occupied. “I am no sorcerer, ma’am. I am merely an adept—and a very new one, at that.”
She looked puzzled. “But I thought Ishist said you were using mastery on a . . . Oh, dear!” She was staring down—at his feet, Rap was relieved to see. “Don’t those hurt? Ugish, run and tell your father to come.”
The boy shrugged and sauntered away, taking his time and idly kicking at fungoid growths sprouting amid the ordure on the floor.
“You must forgive us, Adept! My husband must have thought . . . Tut! Do, please sit down.” She waved at the edge of the trough.
Rap perched himself on the crumbling stone and reluctantly spread the slimy rag over his lap. Then she again offered a hand to shake, and he had no choice but to accept. He hoped she hadn’t expected him to kiss it.
Still standing, Athal’rian began to talk in a tuneless singsong. “It is wonderful to have visitors! I haven’t cooked a proper meal in ages. I mean, one gets used to gnomes’ tastes, but . . . well, it was nice to dig up some of Mother’s old recipes. Ishist made some really fresh things for me to use. Eating at table will be a good experience for the children. I thought he said three of you?”
Even sitting, Rap was swaying with fatigue. He wondered whether he was mad or she was. Or both. “My friends have less power even than me, ma’am. They are out there somewhere.”
“Tsk! Well, we must have them brought in at once. There are leopards and other bad things out there. This is wild country, I’m told.” She peered vaguely around the great empty chamber. “Do you dance, Adept Rap?”
“Er, not very well, ma’am.”
“Oh.”
Rap’s eyelids began to droop, and at once a fire of agony consumed his feet. He jerked awake again. Keep talking . . . “Ma’am, what is this place?”
“Place?” His hostess smiled, and for a moment said nothing more. Then her wits lurched into action again. .”We call it the Mews, but of course we just use it for—” Rap had already seen what it was used for. ”—but it was a mews, long ago.” She gestured apologetically at one of the walls, and Rap saw that there was an archway there, blocked up. But originally it would have been big enough for . . .
“Dragon mews, ma’am?”
Another pause. “Dragon stables? We don’t bring dragons in here.”
“The castle is very old, though?”
“Older than the Protocol, Ishist says.” She laughed.
“And now?” Was it just a refuge taken over by gnome squatters, or was there some reason for Rap to have been dragged here?
“Now?”
“This castle, ma’am? Who owns it?”
“Owns?” She smiled at his left ear for a moment. “Well, my husband—he’s the great sorcerer Ishist, you know—he’s dragonward. Has been for many years. So we live in Warth Redoubt. It’s a very important job, but somebody has to do it.”
Rap tried to work that out and felt himself slide away down the slope to sleep again. Again a jolt of agony focused his attention and jerked him awake. He was surprised to note that three small children had appeared and were clustered around Athal’rian, clinging to her and regarding the stranger with deep suspicion. They were all naked, filthy, and stinking, all smaller than Ugish.
And they all had the big, gorgeous eyes. Each set was different—blue, magenta, rose pink—but all had the same intense brilliance. Most crosses resembled one parent more than another, just as he himself looked mostly faunish, and the only features these little gnomes had inherited from their elvish mother were those lustrous bright eyes.
“What exactly does a dragonward do, my lady?”
“The dragonward. There’s only one! He keeps the dragons from straying beyond the Neck, of course. They keep nibbling away at the fence, and he has to keep putting it back. And he counts the hatchings and doles out metal and spells the fire chicks never to fly over water. It’s very important!” She stooped to hear what one of the children needed to whisper to her so urgently.
What sort of a woman would marry a gnome? Live like a gnome? Let her children live like gnomes?
And obviously the dragonward was a warden’s deputy, like the proconsul of Faerie. “So your husband works for the warlock of the south, ma’am?”
Athal’rian glanced up, beaming, her opalescent eyes flashing amber and viridian. “That’s right, Warlock Lith’rian! Have you met Daddy?”
2
Ishist was the first tubby gnome Rap had ever seen. His bald scalp did not reach to Athal’rian’s breasts, but she stooped to hug and kiss him as if they had been apart for some days or weeks, and he rose on tiptoe to return the embrace with what seemed to be equal affection. He had arrived with an escort of six fire chicks, and they now swooped and soared around the lovers, shining wisps of yellow and orange light in the murky dimness. Five of the six were the sort of incorporeal flame-being that Rap had seen before, brilliant wisps of no settled shape or substance, and some were no bigger than hummingbirds. The sixth, though, was the size of a seagull and visibly solid, a sinuous silvery dragon body writhing within a nimbus of fire. Flying with much more purpose and confidence, this one came swooping over to inspect him.