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

Inos threw her arms around Rap. “That’s Kadie, isn’t it?” He nodded and hugged her. “Nothing I can do,” he muttered miserably. Nothing anyone could do without making things worse, and nothing would draw the Covin’s fires more certainly than Rap himself appearing. But he felt like the worst sort of coward. Sweat trickled cold down his face.

Side by side, Thaile and Kadie leaped up the Qoble bank and ran to the fugitives. Kadie lifted the little princess, Thaile raised the impress. The two horsemen had stopped at the gate and seemed engrossed in struggling with the fastening. Thaile, you are using sorcery in the sight of the Covin!

“Holiness!” the same archon protested. “You must stop her!”

“Me?” the Keeper screamed. “I can do nothing now. It is not my fault! I told you! Why do you think she goes to rescue a child? Did I not warn you that the Gods might yet be wroth for what you did? This is your doing, you fools! Childslayers! See what you have made of the Chosen One!”

Archons tumbled to their knees before her fury. Kadie and the babe were halfway back across the stream. Leaning heavily on Thaile, the impress was close behind. The horsemen were heading back up the hill toward Hardgraa.

Overhead, the watching eyes turned their gaze on Thume itself. The Almighty’s frown darkened the sky like an imminent thunderstorm—puzzled, searching. Rap’s scalp prickled and his arm tightened around Inos. He knew those eyes of old. Obviously they could not see him, though. If Zinixo had detected Rap he would have attacked at once, so the spell was holding.

Then the cloudy vision faded away. Either the dwarf had realized that he was being observed, or he had gone off to think over these peculiar events. Certainly he had seen enough to arouse his suspicions. It had never taken much to do that.

The fugitives had emerged from the water, safe on the Thume side. Safe for now, at least. The two horsemen were loading Hardgraa onto a mount as if he were hurt but conscious. They had cut the injured horses’ throats. Ylo lay like a corpse in the lane, ignored.

Rap turned. The archons still groveled before the Keeper. His fury boiled up again. “Keeper, you have failed! Now the Covin knows that there is power and mystery in Thume!”

The hooded figure seemed to shrink away from him. “No!”

“Yes!” he roared. “You can hide no longer! Join the battle now, before it is too late!”

She raised her head and howled. “It is already too late! Your cause is hopeless! I have failed my people! Keef forgive me!” Her wail soared higher and higher, a thin shrill note of despair that cut like a knife.

Rap clapped his hands over his ears. The archons were doing the same. Power flooded the ambience, brighter and brighter, unbearably bright. The Keeper’s bones shone through her flesh like the sun in mist. He turned his back on her and shut off his farsight. He did not want to watch.

“Rap!” Inos cried. “The Keeper! It’s like Rasha, isn’t it? She’s burning! What happened?”

“It’s the Gods’ justice,” Rap said. The Keeper had given up the struggle. Seven years of unrelenting pain, leading inevitably to this—he should feel sorry for her, but he could find no pity. “Good riddance!”

Behind him, the Keeper’s death cry faded away.

He stared miserably at the carnage beyond the river. Slumped in the saddle, Hardgraa was being led away toward the nearest farm, past the bodies of the two men Ylo had slain. Ylo’s body lay abandoned in the dirt between the slaughtered horses. Two ravens floated down from the sky.

A necessary end.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

— Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, II, ii

ELEVEN

Rolling drums

1

Maya had gone to sleep, and that was good. There was shade under the willow, where Eshiala sat clutching her daughter, and that was good, too. The little river chattered on its pebbles under a silver glare of sunshine. Birds were chirping. But someone was missing. Something was wrong, and she couldn’t remember exactly . . .

She’d hurt her leg, hadn’t she? Perhaps not, for it seemed to be all right now. Riding a horse. Jumping. Everything was very muddled. Someone missing? Girls. There had been two young women, or girls. No, someone else.

Twigs crackled. She jumped and turned to look.

“Let me see the child,” the man said, sitting down on the moss at her side. He was big and shaggy-chested, wearing only hideous purple trousers, but his ugly face seemed concerned and oddly familiar.

“It’s all right,” Eshiala said. “She’s having a nap.”

“More than that,” he said. “And you’re in bad shock yourself. You remember me? I’m Rap.”

“She’s asleep,” Eshiala explained. “Poor thing, she was very frightened earlier. But she’s asleep now. She’ll be alarmed if she wakes up with a stranger holding her.”

“I won’t let her be frightened. I can calm her like I’ve calmed you.” The man took Maya gently in his arms and frowned at her. ”Trouble is, I can’t do more than one thing at a time anymore. Didn’t see where that scatty daughter of mine went, did you?”

Eshiala’s boots were full of water. Her skirt was soaked, and badly torn. Daughter? The man had a daughter, too?

She wondered if she should mention the two girls, but perhaps she had dreamed those. She might be dreaming now. Everything was so muddled. There was something she ought to be doing, if she could just remember what it was.

“You’re right, she is asleep,” the big man said. “Must be Thaile’s doing. Nothing serious, just bruises. I’ll fix them and then wake her up.” –

Memory . . . worry. “If she’s all right with you, then I’d best go back right away. I have a friend to help. He must have been delayed.” She started to rise.

“Sit down!” the man said “That’s better. You’re not really conscious, you know! You’re running around in a daze. You took a bad fall. I don’t know how you managed to walk all that way. I don’t know how you walked at all.”

Daze? It was true that things were rather muddled in her mind. Riding down a road and looking back for Ylo. Where was Ylo? Why wasn’t Ylo here? Sunlight glaringly bright on the water, moss warm, skirt all wet and tattered.

“Thaile would have fixed you up, I’m sure,” the man said, still frowning down at Maya, holding her as if she weighed nothing. “But she was called away.” He turned and glanced at the trees behind “And that halfwit daughter of mine is floundering around in the briars. Excuse me . . . Kadie! Come back here!”

Maya slept on; undisturbed by that ear-splitting bellow. Where was Ylo? Why was he taking so long?

“My wife’ll be here shortly. You do remember me, don’t you? Rap from Krasnegar?”

Eshiala’s court training came to her rescue. “Of course I remember you. It has been a long time, hasn’t it? Have you been keeping well?” Where? He did look vaguely familiar. Count Rap? Senator Rap? An innkeeper, perhaps.

Maya opened her eyes. “Mommy, I’m hungry.” Then she looked up doubtfully at the big, bare-chested man holding her on his lap.

He grinned a faun’s wide grin at her. “Don’t suppose you remember me, Princess. I was on the ship. Do you remember the ship? My, but you’ve grown! I’m Rap.” He smiled again.

She returned his smile trustingly. “I’m hungry!”

“What would you like to eat?”

“Chocolate cake.”

He sat her down on the moss at his side and gave her a plate of chocolate cake-several slices-and a glass of milk. “That should keep you happy,” he said. Then he turned big gray eyes on Eshiala.

Winds began to move the mists in her head. Things cleared. Ylo! Armed men on horses! She tried to rise and the man laid a large, powerful hand on her shoulder.

She yielded unwillingly. “I must go back and look for someone. He should have been here by—”

“Just wait a minute, your Majesty. I haven’t quite finished. I wish Thaile had been able to do this. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

Terror and horrors lurked behind the mist. She did not want to see. “We must hide!” she said, scanning the far bank over the silver glare of water. Panic! “Hide my daughter. The soldiers—”

“They’ve gone away,” he said. “Now do you remember me? Rap, from Krasnegar.”

“The king! Sorcerer?” The ferry on Cenmere . . . “How did you get here?”

“That’s a very long story.” His big faun mouth was smiling, his eyes were not. “And you’ve had quite a journey yourself, your Majesty.”