To a jotunn, a djinn was an irresistible challenge. To a djinn a jotunn was a barbarian maniac best knifed quickly. A jotunn might concede djinns to be the second tallest race in the world and the second best fighters, but he would insist that they cheated. What the djinns said about the jotnar has no easy translation. Trolls, who were larger than either, worked as porters and stayed out of the fighting. Imps ran the businesses, both honest and dishonest, with djinns close behind. Fauns were rare, but not unknown. Procurers would promise genuine mermaids. Dwarves were quite common, because of the nearby lead and silver mines, and they traveled in packs. Gnomes were everywhere out of the light, and no elf would ever dream of setting foot in Randport Old Town.
Inos had been hoping that a glimpse of the sea would cheer her up, but Randport depressed her. Its residents were too alien, too numerous, and too surly. The familiar tang of weed and fish made her homesick. For the first time in her life, she was happy to board a ship.
Northern Vengeance was berthed in a remote corner of the crowded harbor. Throughout her long career as the river trader Rosebud the little ketch had been based in Urgaxox, but she seemed to have survived her ocean voyage around Guwush unscathed. She still bore her original name on her stem—as a nom de guerre, of course.
Wirax and Frazkr were standing watch on deck when the land party trooped down the ladder from the quay. Even allowing for dwarvish solemnity, their greetings were subdued and curt. They scowled mightily as they observed Raspnex’s shielding and realized that the most powerful sorcerer of the group had been nullified. He marched past them without a word and disappeared belowdecks. As Jarga had foreseen, he was chafing within his occult imprisonment. He had hardly spoken for two days.
“I think we must be about to hold a council,” Shandie said. ”After you, ma’am.”
Inos clambered down the companionway and went into the dingy, cramped cabin. Raspnex was already sitting at the far end, his head barely visible above the tabletop. Without speaking, she sat down on the bench and hotched herself along it until she was sitting beside him. Then she watched the others enter and repeat the process.
No dwarf could ever appear frail, but old Wirax was silverhaired and stooped. Frazkr was younger, soft-spoken and at times almost polite. He could never go so far as to be cheerful or optimistic, though. At least those two were predictably stolid and durable.
The continuing ordeal was starting to tell on the goblins. They were farther from home than any goblins had ever been, stranded in a culture utterly foreign to their simple forest upbringing. The sea voyage would have been a trial in itself, and in port they must stay hidden at all times. Moreover, they must know of the disaster that had befallen their king and comrades. No official news of the great occult battles at Bandor had yet reached the mundane population, although rumors were rife in the alleys of Old Town, but sorcerers knew of it.
Pool Leaper was as jumpy as a cricket; his face had taken on an unhealthy turquoise tinge. He was quite young, around twenty, and only a mage, not a full sorcerer. Once or twice in the past Inos had detected a genuine sense of humor in Pool Leaper, a hint that someday his people might outgrow their barbarism and develop a civilization based on something more rewarding than torture. He was not jesting now.
Moon Baiter was considerably older. At first sight Inos thought he was in better shape, but then she noticed that he had chewed his fingernails to the quick, so that they had bled. Both men must be mourning brothers and friends lost to the Almighty’s sorcery; they must be wondering how their homeland fared. If they could ever find their ways back to the taiga, they would encounter a blighted society of women and children with few males and no babies for many years to come.
Jarga and Shandie arrived, also, to complete the company. Jarga sat, having trouble fitting her knees under the table, as always. Shandie leaned back against the door, folding his arms. For a moment there was glum silence.
Two mundanes—three in fact, for the crippled Raspnex must now be counted as a mundane—four sorcerers, and a young mage. Against them, the all-powerful Covin. They could not be sure that they had any allies left, anywhere in the world.
The crusade was leaving its mark on Shandie, also. He was gaunt now instead of slim; his dark hair hung lankly, often flopping over his face like a youth’s. He seemed to burn too bright, a lantern in winter’s blast, his eyes shining with a dangerous zeal. For a mundane to take charge at a conference of sorcerers was paradoxical. He did not even ask the others’ consent, but then leadership was his business.
“First the bad news,” he said. “Warlock?” Gruffly Raspnex explained what had happened.
Shandie barely let him finish. “The good news is that we may have found some sympathizers. We talked with Oshpoo. He promised to tell his sorcerers—and he may have a lot more than we expected—but he would make no commitment beyond that.”
He was being modest, Inos thought, making no mention of his own promises to the rebels. But that was Shandie. He would want to talk about the future, not the past. He surprised her.
“The winter before last,” he said quietly, “I cornered the Ilranian army on Nefer Moor. I out-marched them, out-thought them, out-maneuvered them. I brought them to bay and laid my blade at their throats. I had all seven thousand of them totally at my mercy. Then I offered them the most generous terms I could conceive of, in direct breach of my orders. My grandfather would have called my actions treason.
“They turned me down. They said they would rather die where they stood than accept their lives at the cost of their principles. I cursed them for a gang of illogical nitwits. I derided their infantile elvish fancies.
“And now I understand. Now I sympathize.”
His voice grew even softer. “Now the tables have been turned. My enemy has harried me from my capital to Julgistro, from Julgistro to Dwanish, from Dwanish to the shores of the Morning Sea. Beyond that water stands my deadliest mundane foe, the caliph. Soon, very soon, I must turn at bay, for I have nowhere left to run. My strongest ally, Warlock Raspnex, has been effectively removed from the battle, at least for now. Our chosen leader, King Rap of Krasnegar, may very well have suffered the same fate or worse; Witch Grunth and Warlock Lith’rian likewise. My wife and child may be taken—I have no way of knowing. Every day the enemy grows stronger and we grow weaker. We have no intelligence, no reserves, and no viable plan.”
He unfolded his arms and slammed a fist against the door. Inos jumped.
“And I will be damned to the Evil for Eternity if I will give up!” He glared bleakly around the faces, seeking agreement or argument.
“How’s a man to get any sleep if you make so much noise?” The satirical reply came from the youngest of them all, Pool Leaper.
It was the most ungoblinish remark imaginable. Shandie blinked, and small patches on his cheekbones flushed against his pallor. Then he saw that everyone else was smiling or chuckling.
He relaxed, and laughed. “Well spoken, lad. I got carried away. I take it you agree with me, then?”
“I got nothing to lose, Imperor.” The goblin showed his fangs in a nervy grin.
“We all have something to lose,” Inos said. “We can lose our freedom to be ourselves. I would rather die than be a tool of Zinixo’s evil.”
Nobody disagreed.
Shandie nodded, satisfied. “Then where do we go from here?”
“Longday,” old Wirax said in his raspy voice. “The Evil comes at midsummer.”
“You, too? Raspnex said the same.”
Everyone looked to the warlock, who shrugged angrily. He was a blind, deaf sorcerer, who could add nothing new. Wirax scratched his white beard. “Two weeks until Longday. We have two weeks.”
“Can you tell how it comes?” the imperor asked. “In what form? Or where?”
“No. It’s just everywhere.”
“Can you see beyond it; then? Can you say if the Evil prevails or is thrown back?”
The old man shook his head. Shandie interrogated the other sorcerers with his eyes and they all shook their heads—Jarga, Moon Baiter, Frazkr.
“So what do we do in the meantime? Do we go fishing? Do we cross to Zark and throw ourselves on the minuscule mercy of the caliph? Or do we try to throw in our lot with Oshpoo and his rebels?”
That Shandie would even utter such words was incredible—he certainly could not mean them. Inos opened her mouth and he caught her eye, stopping her words unspoken.