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

“Valdorian? That’s Lith’rian’s ancestral enclave?”

The faun nodded, gray eyes twinkling as if he could read Andor’s thoughts. He could, of course, but he had some stupid scruples about reading thoughts. So he had always said and he was always moronically truthful.

Andor bit messily into the mango. “Isn’t that an absurdly obvious place to look for him? Surely the Covin’s been hunting him for months?”

Rap wiped his fingers on grass, apparently finished with breakfast. “I discussed this with Sagorn and he agreed. You must remember that.”

Andor hid his annoyance in a laugh. “Rap! Recalling Sagorn’s mental processes is like trying to recapture—a nightmare. You explain to simple old me, huh?”

The faun frowned, puzzled. “I don’t understand that, you. know! If you share memories of events, why can’t you remember what he was thinking?”

Why didn’t he mind his own accursed business? “Because, old friend, I’m just plain dumb compared to him. He jumps to conclusions so fast that he doesn’t even notice how he gets there. So he doesn’t remember the steps—and then neither do L”

“I see. Well, it’s not simple, I admit.”

“We’re talking elves, Rap. Nothing is ever simple around elves.”

The faun laughed agreement. “Precisely! That’s the point. When Lith’rian fled from Hub, everyone’s first thought was that he would head back to Valdorian. Elvish instinct—go home to the tree. But Zinixo is hunting him with the Covin, so the obvious place is the last place he would be, right?”

“Right!”

“So that’s exactly where he will be.” Rap smirked, and began packing the rest of the food away.

Andor hastily chose two more mangoes and some grapes. “Surely that’s too obvious?”

The smirk widened. “Therefore that makes it even more likely!” He turned serious. “It’s a gamble, of course, but Zinixo is a dwarf, and you can’t have two ways of thinking more different than elves’ and dwarves’. I’ve had a taste of both sets of mental processes in my time, and I tried to apply them as well as I can. As I see it, to Lith’rian the only place he can possibly hide is his own sky tree, Valdorian. Honor and dignity require it! To Zinixo, anything as obvious as that can only be a trap. And there’s two other reasons to start there.”

“Tell me!” Andor could see that worse was coming, but he smiled as if he were enjoying this craziness.

Rap began buckling up the pack. “First, we don’t have any other leads at all, and Ilrane is just too evilish big to search. The elves will never tell us where their beloved warlock is hiding, and he’s a very powerful sorcerer—we can’t hope to find him by ourselves in a thousand years. It’s Valdorian or nothing. Second . . . how do you think Warlock Lith’rian is feeling now?”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Andor said cheerfully, thinking that there was nothing in the world he could care less about. Then he guessed, and a moderate size iceberg settled in the pit of his stomach. “Oh! Defiant? Suicidal?”

The faun nodded somberly. “Glorious last stands are an elvish tradition. It fits the present situation, somehow. Lith’rian has been a warden for almost ninety years and probably expected to have another century or so. But now he’s facing defeat by his old enemy, a detested dwarf. The millennium has come and brought total ruin to everything. My guess is that he will have rallied his votaries in Valdorian, planning to go down gloriously, with all flags flying.” He shrugged. “It’s not much, and if you’ve got a better idea, I’m certainly willing to listen.”

Andor had a thousand better ideas, and Rap would never accept any of them. If the big mongrel wasn’t a sorcerer, Andor would talk him out of this in minutes. And if there was anything worse than a warlock, or an ex-warlock, it must be a suicidal ex-warlock. God of Horrors!

“Sounds good to me,” he said.

Rap smiled gratefully. “Sky trees are heavily guarded. You’ll be a great help if you can just charm the elves into admitting us.”

“No problem, Rap. Elves are about the easiest people I know.” He was a sorcerer—let him do his own damned charming! “I can handle elves! Dwarves, now, or fauns . . . Ugh!”

Rap laughed aloud, completely unoffended. “We’ve had some grand adventures together, old friend, haven’t we?”

“We sure have, Rap,” Andor said. And none of them was ever my idea! “But this one beats them all.” Gods get me out of here!

Rap chuckled and rose to his knees, then more cautiously to his feet, looking around him all the while. “All clear,” he said. Then came pulling on of boots and buckling of swords. Andor scowled at his cloak. It would be a dreary weight to lug around, and Ilrane near to midsummer was certain to be hot. The only use for a cloak was as bedding, and he did not intend to repeat this sleeping-out-of-doors nonsense. There was no need to argue that point now, though. Eventually he rose also. He hoisted the second pack, grunting at its weight, although it was substantially smaller than the one the faun had taken. He slung it on his back, and it made him stoop, putting his eyes about level with the king’s collarbones. There was something obscene about a faun bigger than an imp. It was contrary to nature.

Waist-high all around them, the lurid green foliage rippled in the breeze. A line of tall hedgerow showed where the road ran close by. Southward, the sky tree of Valdonan was all ablaze now in the rays of the rising sun, a crystal artichoke two leagues high. Thin cloud streamed eastward from the summit.

“Isn’t it magnificent?” the half-breed said in an awed voice.

“Fantastic!” It would take days to reach that monstrosity on foot. ”Why didn’t your sorcerous friends put us closer?”

“Oh, we were afraid there might be magical boobytraps set up around it.”

Oh, great! Just wonderful!

“And we must give the others time to get things organized in Dragon Reach,” Rap continued, wading off into the greenery. “Lith’rian,” he said over his shoulder, “is going to explode in streaks of fiery fury when he hears what we’re up to.”

Even greater! A furious suicidal elvish ex-warlock!

Other plans were needed, and soon. If Andor’s mastery was going to be used to charm him into elvish places, those places were not going to be any urinating sky trees, they were going to be bedrooms. Come to think of it, there was one bright spot in this mess, and that was girls. Since elves never showed their age, elvish women were all nubile. And lovely. And inventive. And extremely susceptible. They could often be talked into interesting group exercises. So the first fork in the road would see a faunless Andor heading for the nearest convenient port, but on the way there he would certainly refresh his memories of elvish hospitality and intimate

“God of Fools!” the faun roared. He turned and grabbed Andor and spun him around and rushed him back the way they had come by sheer brute strength, until they reached the trampled patch where they had spent the night There he stopped. “God of Misery!” he added.

Andor hurled himself to the ground to hide. Realizing that the faun was still standing, he peered up—and greatly disliked what he saw. He knew Rap was heavily cursed with the sort of unimaginative stupidity often referred to as ”courage.” He had very rarely seen Rap look frightened. He had never seen him look like he did now. But if such obvious danger threatened, why was he still on his feet, in full view of the whole world? “What the Evil is wrong?” Andor bleated . . . demanded.

The king swung his pack off and dropped it. “The Covin!” he growled. He sat on the pack, put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands, and scowled homicidally at the distant sky tree.

“Rap—”

“Shut up and let me think!”

That remark shocked Andor more than he liked to contemplate. That remark had not represented Rap’s usual stubborn insistence on ignoring trouble. That remark had sounded scared. Andor wondered if he ought to make a break for it while there was still time.

“Sorry,” Rap muttered, still pulling faces. “I let it startle me.”

“Let what startle you?”

“Eyes. Zinixo’s eyes.” Andor clenched his teeth to keep them silent.

Rap paused a moment longer, then sighed. “I think I see. I’m not near as wise as I once was, you know, but I think I see what he’s doing; how he’s doing it. He’s . . . well, just because I understand doesn’t mean I can explain it.” He straightened up and ran both hands through his thicket of hair. ”The Covin’s mounting a personal search for me. It started to home in on me as soon as we left the shielding.”