“Oh, very far!” Inos said. “So far that—much as I regret to say so—we had never heard of Ullacarn where I come from.” A gentleman dandy might have prolonged the verbal sparring; a soldier went straight to the point. “And where is that?” Again his voice rasped a nerve. It was not the voice of a common swordbanger, she decided. He spoke like an upper-class Hubban. But rich families’ sons were not thrown in with the common herd to work their way up through the ranks.
“I’m sure you won’t ever have heard of it,” Inos said, with her best two-sugar-lump simper. “A faraway kingdom called Krasnegar? It—”
Centurion Imopopi dropped his smile. Color flooded his face, giving it a hard, dangerous look. He paced forward menacingly, ostentatiously replacing his helmet. “Whatever rumors you may have heard, miss, were malicious falsehoods. When we apprehend persons spreading such slanders, we deal with them in appropriate fashion.”
Despite herself, Inos backed up a step. The centurion followed her, dark eyes blazing. “The men are flogged for acting against the public good. Women are punished as common scolds. Is that not fair?”
She was off balance. She was taken by surprise. It was too soon after the pixies, and this man was potentially just as dangerous, albeit in other ways. He could tie her behind his horse and drag her to the jail if he chose. Skarash had warned her, and obviously an Imperial legionary on street duty was not the same thing as a tribune or a proconsul sipping tea in a Kinvale parlor. Suddenly she thought of pixies again, and began to shake again, and could find absolutely nothing to say. Her mouth was too dry to say anything, anyway.
“On the second offense we tear out their tongues.”
Inos tried to say, “But, Centurion,” and produced a croak. She backed another step.
The collapse of her conversational efforts had been amusing Elkarath, but now he came to her rescue. “Centurion, I think there must be a misunderstanding. I’m sure that Mistress Hathark intended no harm to the public good. She meant no slight to the imperor or his army. Indeed, I think that you may have misheard her. She hails from a small island state named Har Nogar, located near Uthle.”
Centurion Imopopi kept his glittering gaze on Inos. “Did you say ‘Har Nogar,’ mistress?”
Inos nodded vigorously. Elkarath’s hand moved to a row of leather bags, and closed on one of them with a faint clink that caught the centurion’s attention at once.
“Mistress Hathark and her aunt will likely wish to see something of the town today,” the mage remarked innocently. “Possibly visit the markets. I wonder, as she is a stranger here, whether an escort might be advisable?” The bag moved a handsbreadth closer to the legionary.
His anger faded as reluctantly as a summer sunset. “We brook no trouble on the streets in Ullacarn, but I can understand how well-born ladies feel happier with personal protection. I shall gladly assign some men to escort them.”
The bag moved the rest of the way and clinked again as it was removed by a strong military hand. Imopopi turned back to Inos. “Enjoy your visit, ma’am. Don’t believe everything you hear. And certainly don’t repeat it.” With a final glare of warning, he saluted, spun around, and stamped away as if he were patrolling a siege line.
Inos was left quivering, wishing she had a chair. Aghast at her own timidity—and appalled at the thought that her experience with the pixies might have broken her nerve forever—she leaned both hands on the table. “What provoked that?” she shrilled.
Elkarath shrugged. “Ullacarn is a snakepit of rumors. Obviously you stepped on one of them.”
“Krasnegar? An Imperial defeat at Krasnegar?”
“That would seem to be likely. Did you hear anything, Skarash?”
Skarash stroked imaginary lint from an immaculate lace cuff. “Not much, Grandsire, only that a legion was jumped by goblins while returning from a courtesy visit to a flyspeck place no one had ever heard of before. Courtesy visit? I like that a lot! Half the men were cut to pieces, or worse. There is talk of prisoners enjoying traditional goblin hospitality. Nothing more than that.”
His uncle nodded and looked in the general direction of Inos. “Avoid the subject when talking to soldiers, I suggest.” He reached for a massive ledger, ancient and tattered.
“Obviously. It wasn’t a full legion, though,”
“Almost half of one. Rumors always exaggerate. Certainly bad enough. And defeat by goblins . . .” He opened the book, but Inos thought he was chuckling silently. “No wonder the bronze bullies don’t like to discuss it.”
Her head was spinning. Four cohorts savaged by goblins? The forestfolk had always been treacherous, but never warlike. Now the warlock of the east had suffered a shattering blow. Where did that leave her? Would he seek revenge on the goblins? Had the legionaries been driven out of Krasnegar by Kalkor and his jotnar, or had they fled voluntarily?
And there was another matter”I am truly going on to Hub?”
The old man nodded, dipping his quill in a silver inkwell. “Her Majesty has so decreed.”
“So! So I’ve been sold? She’s made her deal with Olybino, and now all that remains is to deliver the goods?”
“Not at all. You are still her Majesty’s guest. Enjoy, your stay in Ullacarn, it will be brief.”
His eyes! She wanted to see his eyes!
“I can’t imagine why she would be sending me to Hub, then!”
“I didn’t question. But if you can’t, then perhaps others may be less likely to?” The old man’s voice had sharpened half a tone, but he placidly ran a finger up a page as if counting.
“You mean I was hidden in the desert, and now I’m going to be hidden on the road to Hub . . . least likely place to look? And when the contract is finally signed, I’ll be—”
“Draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile I have work to do.”
“And Azak? Is he going back to Arakkaran, or coming with me, or will you leave him rotting—”
“He goes with you.” The plump finger stopped on the numbers, but the old man did not look up. “Your cabins are reserved on Dawn Pearl, which sails in three days. It was to Hub you were headed, was it not? Well, to Hub you are going.”
“I wish to see him!”
“Of course. By all means. Just one friend calling on another, I assume? Skarash will take you.” Elkarath reached into the folds of his scarlet robe, then dropped a rusty key on the table. “You may give him this.”
“No parole?”
He sighed crossly. “None at all. You will find no better ship than Dawn Pearl, and certainly none leaving sooner. Begone!” Confused and suspicious, Inos watched Skarash take up the key, and then allowed him to usher her back to the steps. A horde of clerks and menials took this as their chance to rush forward and consult the merchant. Inos was left to ponder her fate. Why should Rasha send her to Hub? Stranger yet, why should she send Azak? It might be all a deception.
She, at least, was going to have a military escort, which would not make escape any easier. Had Elkarath deliberately arranged the little scene with the angry centurion?
There had been something odd—something very odd—about Imopopi. Just thinking of him gave Inos crawly feelings. She needed to talk with Azak. Him, at least, she could trust.
2
“Odd people, elves,” Ishist said, and his voice echoed away into the black hollow ahead.
There was a sinister note in that remark, somehow. Or perhaps it was just that Rap was feeling jumpy, marching through the bowels of the earth with a sorcerer.
“They live a long time?” he said hastily, unable to think of any comment more intelligent.
“They don’t, actually. They just don’t show their age like other people.”
The oppressive silence returned, broken only by the gentle pad of footsteps and the whispered swish of long robes. Nothing but sorcery could have carved a tunnel so smooth and regular, and so astonishingly long. “Thraine’s Wormhole,” the gnome had called it, with a private chuckle at some obscure historical joke. It sloped downward, never steeply and sometimes almost imperceptibly; but it held a steady bearing just west of north as if bored by a homing bee. It was dry and empty and musty-smelling; he had mentioned earlier that decades might pass without it being used. It was understandably dark and quiet.
“Odd people,” he repeated. He walked boldly into the blackness with Rap at his side. A spectral glow at their heels provided light for Gathmor and Darad, who were following closely, and the dark closed in behind. The light was faintly pink, had no detectable source, cast no shadows.
Ishist had sent Sagorn away. Apparently he preferred Darad to any of the others, perhaps because he did not put on airs. Darad was just a brutal killer, and proud of it.