Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

Hand in hand, the two women approached the ominous figure. Kadie’s trembling was likely from fear, Thaile’s from abhorrence. They halted at a respectful distance. Instinctively Kadie sank to her knees, then glanced up in surprise at Thaile, who remained defiantly erect.

“I will not kneel to you!” Thaile could not penetrate the darkness within the hood. She could remember the ravaged, wasted face it concealed, but she could not see it now.

The Keeper sighed, and that one faint sound dismissed her visitor as trivial, her rebellion and disrespect as meaningless. Her suffering, that sigh implied, was as nothing compared to what the Keeper endured and must continue to endure. Only her enormous Faculty could withstand the burden of five words, and then only at terrible, superhuman cost.

“You are forgiven. You are welcomed back.” The Keeper spoke aloud—for the benefit of the mundane, perhaps—but the voice was a tortured hiss, a sound like rain on dead leaves.

Despite her brave show of defiance, Thaile felt a cold wash of relief at the words, and despised herself for it. Why, when she felt only contempt for the Keeper and indeed the whole of Keef’s grandiose sorcerous design, must her pixie heritage so disgrace her as to make her feel relieved? Now that their cruelty and oppression had been revealed to her, why could she not shuck off the lies and indoctrination of her childhood?

“You are the Chosen One,” the Keeper said. “There is no doubt now.”

Shudder.

“Then may I read what the book prophesies about me?”

“No. I have destroyed the book.”

“Of course you remember what was in it?”

The Keeper did not deign to reply, leaving Thaile shivering with frustrated rage.

The venomous whisper came again. “Your duties as archon begin now. You are assigned the western sector, as that is where the greatest peril lies.”

“I do not know what is required of me.”

“You will understand when there is need.”

The cowl tilted slightly, as if its wearer had moved to study Kadie, and Kadie, who had been staring up with green eyes big as tiger mouths, doubled over to press her face against her knees.

“You were not prophesied, child,” the scaly murmur said, “but I foresaw you.”

Kadie’s head jerked up in astonishment. “Me?” she squeaked.

There was a pause. “Not you personally, no. But someone yet unborn. You have your mother’s eyes.”

What sort of mockery or trick was this? Before even Thaile’s occult reflexes could react, Kadie cried out.

“You know my mother?” She half rose, then stopped. Could that have been a hint of a chuckle within that cowl? “I was an archon when she came to Thume.”

Kadie blurted, “That was nineteen years—” And stopped. The Keeper seemed to nod. “I reported the intrusion to my predecessor. I advised him to take a hard look at the young woman in the party. His Holiness commended my acuity of prevision and confirmed my premonition. It was for your sake that your mother was allowed to depart in peace. He let the others go, too, which I would not have done.”

“So the princess may remain with me?” Thaile demanded. “You sound,” the Keeper hissed, “like a child asking for a kitten.” Then she was gone. The audience was over.

Impossible loyalties:

. . . home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties!

— Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism

FIVE

Word in Elfyn-land

1

Crunch!

Mm? Andor stirred, feeling the ache in his back.

Crunch! again? Where was he? Feet cold, back stiff as planks, lying on something very hard . . . Crunch! What was that infuriating noise?

He opened a reluctant eye and saw sky, pale blue, framed all around in impossibly green fronds. Sleeping outdoors? Wrapped in his cloak?

Crunch! He opened the other eye and turned his head. The king of Krasnegar sat cross-legged beside him, eating an apple. Crunch! The oversized faun looked down with a mocking grin on his ugly, unshaven face and his big jaw moving in a rhythmic chewing. His clothes were laborers’ castoffs, as usual. His hair resembled a neglected woodlot—as usual. “Good morning, Sleepy-head!” Rap said. “I needn’t ask if you slept well. You certainly slept long enough.” Fornication! More than dawn dew chilled Andor. Every time he got involved with this accursed ex-stableboy, he landed in trouble, big trouble. Now he remembered: being transported by Evil-begotten sorcery in the middle of the night from that stinking, sinking hulk to . . . Oh, Gods! . . . to Ilrane, elf country. Big, big trouble!

He returned the smile cheerfully. “Good morning, your Majesty! I trust you also slept the sleep of the just?” He heaved himself into a sitting position.

“No, I just sleep. Don’t stand up! You might be seen.” Whatever the troll-sized grass was, it was only waist-height, admittedly, but why should a sorcerer care? Andor yawned and stretched. “Can’t you use your farsight?” The first time he had met this big rustic lout, years ago, had been beside a bonfire on an arctic beach. Farsight had been the issue then, he recalled, and he had wanted to scream at the kid not to reveal his talent. He had gone right ahead and done so, of course. There had been “duty” involved, and the faun had always been one of those idealistic idiots who rallied to Calls of Honor. That was a dangerous trait, one that had subsequently landed him in innumerable perils. He was no kid anymore-he was a lot older than Andor himself now-but he had never learned sense. Unfortunately he seemed to have a gift for dragging Andor’s neck into the noose with his own.

Now he shrugged casually. “I haven’t been outside the shielding yet. I chose this bivouac because it was shielded, remember?”

The faun had breakfast all spread out on the trampled herbage between them. Andor pulled a face and reached for the water bottle. He would prefer not to be reminded of the events of the night. He had an instinctive dislike of ships, especially sinking ships.

“Why would anyone put shielding in the middle of a hay field?”

“This ain’t hay, City Slicker! Likely there was a house here once, a sorcerer’s house. I think I was lying on some of the foundations, as a matter of fact.” The king grinned as if he had not a care in the world. Good humor early in the morning was a revolting vice; good humor in the face of hazard was utter insanity. He would be more malleable if he did not know how Andor felt on the topic, though. So Andor smiled again.

“I had the fireplace! What’s the program for today, Rap?” The faun nodded in a direction behind Andor’s back. “We head for that.”

Andor turned his head to see. In spite of his grouchy, earlymorning feelings, he felt the impact. The first rays of the sun had just caught the summit, blazing in crystal glory, a blur of rainbow high against the pale dawn blue. The sky tree was obviously very far off, the rest of its familiar pinecone shape still an indistinct shadow.

“Valdorian?”

“Valdorian,” Rap agreed. He tossed his apple core away and reached for a pear.

See one sky tree and you’ve seen ‘em all. Andor glanced over the choice of breakfast, realizing he was hungry. The last meal he’d eaten had been an excellent dinner at Casfrel Station. The fact that it had been three or four months ago was of no importance. What did matter was that he had been called back into existence last night and had built up an appetite in his sleep.

The menu was entirely vegetarian. “I suppose one of the trolls magicked up this for you?”

Rap raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You’d rather I’d asked an anthropophagus?”

“Er, no!” Andor chose a mango and reached for his dagger to peel it. Big, big, big trouble! He was not only an illegal intruder in Ilrane, he was supposed to accompany this faun maniac on a visit to a warden, an elvish warden, an elvish ex-warden, an elvish fugitive ex-warden. Crazy, crazy, crazy! Somehow, he must detach himself and head for safety. Even getting out of Ilrane might not be easy. The yellow-bellies were deeply secretive about their ancestral homeland; they hated strangers trekking around in it. Their ports and border crossings were infested with guards, who had loathsome habits of throwing non-elves in jail at the slightest provocation.

Call another of the Group? That seemed impractical under the circumstances. Darad and Jalon would probably collaborate with the faun. Sagorn certainly would—besides, the old fool was too frail to be exposed to hardship and danger. Andor couldn’t call Sagorn or Darad at the moment, anyway.

That left Thinal. Funny, in any tight spot, Andor’s first thought was always to call that no-good fast-fingered little vagrant. It must be some sort of throwback to their childhood, when Thinal had been his big brother, leader and protector, fearless hero. Changed days now! Thinal did have a rat’s instinct for self-preservation, and he would share Andor’s sedtiments about this present idiocy, but he would have even less chance of escaping from elf country, because at least Andor could usually talk his way out of trouble. How had he ever fallen into this cesspool?