“You are modest, your Majesty,” Sagorn said acidly.
King Rap looked down at him thoughtfully.”No, Doctor. I admit that I had great powers once, but not now. I’m not going to try to explain that at the moment. Perhaps never.” He turned back to the imperor.”I shall do what little I can, Shandie, but magically it will be very small. If you are expecting me to solve things, then you will be disappointed.”
“I see.” The imperor’s eyes glittered icily, but when Shandie deliberately tried to be inscrutable he could baffle even Ylo, who had studied him meticulously for the last two years.
The sorcerer shrugged.”I do not even know the name or nature of the enemy. Does anyone?”
No one seemed willing to speak. Finally Shandie said,”Sir Acopulo? You are our advisor in such matters.”
The little man pouted.”The problem obviously resides with the wardens. Speculation upon insufficient data is invariably hazardous. As a working hypothesis . . . suppose that a serious split developed among the Four, between North and West on one hand, and South and East on the other. The dwarf and the troll support your Majesty’s accession. The elf and the imp oppose it, for reasons unknown.” He cast a wary glance at Sagorn.”Continue!” the imperor said, nodding.
“Two being sufficient for confirmation of your accession, Grunth and Raspnex preempted the others by calling on you to perform today’s . . .” Acopulo dried up, apparently discomfited by the jotunn, who had developed a sneer of fearsome proportions, deepening into bottomless chasms the clefts that always flanked his upper lip.
“And the thrones?” Shandie demanded.
“Lith’rian and Olybino’s retaliation, Sire? Or a counterstroke that came too late? Had the four thrones been destroyed sooner, then the ceremony would have been impossible.” He hesitated, then blurted,”It fits the facts!”
“It does. Doctor Sagorn?”
The jotunn shook his head pityingly.”It fits a judicious selection of the facts, Sire. As a student, Acopulo was always selective in his use of evidence, and I see he has not changed. The last news we had of the wardens, Lith’rian was hurling his dragons at Olybino’s legions. They were at each other’s throats! Now we are to regard them as allies?”
Ylo noticed that the sorcerer draped against the mantel was obviously amused. In happier circumstances he also would enjoy watching this battle of brains, this scholarly free-for-all, with its air of sharpened quills, gutters running with ink, massacred hypotheses.
Already Acopulo had lost much of his usual clerical calm. His face was crimson and his white hair stuck up almost as wildly as the faun’s did. ”That is your only objection?”
“It is the least of them. Granted that the Four often squabble, you have failed to explain why this disagreement is so much more virulent than all others in three thousand years—so dire that it required desecration of the Rotunda. You did not explain the dwarf’s prophecies and warnings. You did not explain why King Rap has come from Krasnegar. And you have most certainly failed to explain why, after a thousand years of extinction, a pixie should reappear now, and to his Majesty.” Sagorn leered in satisfaction.
The faun spasmed upright.”Pixie?” He looked to Shandie. The imperor began to explain about the woman who had told him of the preflecting pool and went on to describe the whole incident.
Evil take that pimping puddle! Ylo’s dukedom had receded into the mists now. He should have grabbed it when he had the chance, instead of letting himself be seduced by erotic promises. Eshiala was intent upon her child, who stirred in her sleep. The glow of candlelight on the woman’s face would drive a man to distraction. Gorgeous though she was, a few minutes’ physical excitement on a lawn was hardly worth a dukedom. She was impress now, but perhaps only in name. Who could say what other changes would come before the daffodils?
Eigaze, in turn, was watching Eshiala. Had the old dear ever managed to stay silent for so long in her life before?
The others were listening to the imperor. Umpily must be in raptures at all the secrets unfolding. Acopulo was probably being driven frantic by his lack of clear understanding. Hardgraa must be fretting about the danger to Shandie. The elderly, stooped Count Ionfeu was . . . was watching Ylo. Ylo looked away quickly.
The story had ended.”So I think I saw your son,” the imperor concluded.”I feel that I should apologize, somehow, but of course it was by no choice of mine.”
“You did see Gath.” The faun glowered.”And he saw you! It may even have been the same night, but it doesn’t matter if it was or not. He had a brief vision of a soldier; we didn’t realize it was you until about a month ago, or I might have come sooner. I fear I should have come a year ago, for I was warned then that the end of the millennium was brewing trouble.”
“Warned by whom?” Sagorn demanded.
“A God,” the faun said, with a sudden twinkle of amusement. ”I’m not sure which God They were. One doesn’t think to shoot questions when Gods appear. I thought that the end of the millennium was awhile off, but I seem to have interpreted the date too literally. A year or two either way . . . When did the War of the Five Warlocks begin?”
“Around 2000.” Acopulo frowned, uncertain.
“The Festival of Healing, 2003, was when Ulien’quith fled the capital,” Sagorn said snidely.”You are right, your Majesty. A year or two either way does not matter.”
“But the millennium itself does!” the faun said.”The pixies disappeared in the War of the Five Warlocks. Now his Majesty has seen a pixie. That seems to fit, somehow, doesn’t it? Every sorcerer from the wardens on down seems to have disappeared. I detect almost no occult power in use anywhere. I sense a terrible evil overhanging the world. Warlock Raspnex’s warnings of chaos and the fall of the Protocol—those may fit, also, although I am far from ready to trust the dwarf. Any dwarf.”
Sagorn and Acopulo frowned, glanced at each other, and then frowned even harder, in reluctant agreement.
“It was the dwarf who arranged his Majesty’s formal accession,” the jotunn growled.
Acopulo nodded.”Surely if we were to select the warden most likely to be trusted—”
“No!” Rap barked.”Raspnex is the last one we should trust. On my way here I could feel . . .” His voice trailed off into silence. He was staring fixedly at Ylo’s feet.
The others waited, then began sharing puzzled, frightened glances. Ylo glanced down at his own sandals and could see nothing wrong. They matched. He looked back at the faun, and now his gaze was slowly tracking across the floor.
Had he gone mad? He was pale, tense . . .
Gods preserve us! He was seeing something through the floor! Then he spoke, very softly.”Stand back from the doorway, Centurion. Don’t go for your sword. It will do no good.” Hardgraa reached for his sword automatically, then reluctantly took his hand away again. He stepped a pace sideways. ”Cousin!” Shandie said, rising from the chair arm.”Rap? What’s wrong?”
“We are about to have a visitor,” the sorcerer said hoarsely. ”I am not the only one who indulges in dramatic entrances, Sagorn.”
There had been no sound from the stair.
The jotunn rose from his chair, tall and silver-haired and grim-faced. ”Who?”
“Warlock Raspnex.” The door creaked open.
The warlock halted in the doorway and glared across the room at the imperor. Even at that distance, he had to tilt his oversize head to do so. He was about half as tall as Sagorn, but twice as wide; Hardgraa would have nothing on him in chest and shoulders. His hair and beard were grizzled. His face had the gray roughness of weathered rock, so that the wrinkles resembled cracks. He was gray and clothed in gray.
“You’re a fool, imp!” he growled. Dwarves’ voices always sounded like grindstones at work.
Shandie bowed impassively.”You honor us with your presence, your Omnipotence.”
“You can forget that rot! No more omnipotences. It’s over! No more wardens, no more warlocks, no more witches. Why in the name of Evil didn’t you get out of town while you had the chance?” He stumped a few steps forward.
Ylo noticed that there was snow on his heavy boots. His tatty shirt looked wet. Why would a warlock, a preeminent sorcerer, go outdoors on a night like this? Why had he not at least stayed dry, as Lith’rian had stayed dry in the downpour on Nefer Moor?
“Flee, I told you!” the little man boomed.”But oh no! You had to come into this warren, on the one night in centuries when you would leave a trail through Hub that a blind toad could follow! Idiot!”
The imperor flushed darkly in the flickering candlelight. Another dwarf followed the warlock in, closing the door with a ferocity just short of a slam. He was younger and beardless, although there was a shadow like lichen on his upper lip. His face had a juvenile softness to it—shale instead of slate—but the bovine shoulders were there already and the surly scowl. He wore his hair long, in a style currently favored by the youth of Hub, but its curls were an incongruous silvery-gray. His pants had been repeatedly patched.