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

“You’re mistaking me for someone else,” she said automatically. Ylo! Where was Ylo? Gods, how was she going to manage in the forest without Ylo?

“You are Impress Eshiala. I’m a friend, remember?”

She nodded. Oh, yes, she remembered. He was a friend of Shandie’s. Another one who might try to steal Maya away and take her to the palace, just like Hardgraa and Ionfeu. She clenched her fists.

“You are quite safe here.” He shook his head. “No one is going to take the child from you. The soldiers won’t come. You’ll be looked after.”

She shivered and stared longingly at the meadow across the river, willing Ylo to appear, riding over the grass. There had been two girls . . .

“Your horse fell after you cleared the last gate,” the man said. ”I don’t suppose you even remember the jump. But you made it to safety. You’re all right. Your child will be all right.”

Startled, she looked at him. Which child did he mean? She wasn’t showing her condition yet, but he was a sorcerer. Ylo! There was still no sign of Ylo.

“Where is my husband?” she demanded.

The big man winced. He glanced behind him, at the trees. “My wife will be along in a moment. Kadie! This way! Over here!”

“They caught Ylo? Is that what you’re hinting? No!”

He shook his head. “He stopped them from catching you. He felled three armored men single-handed. He defended the woman he . . . He defended his impress, I mean. To the death.”

No! “You can’t possibly know that!” she said angrily. “You were here, he was over there.” No, she would not believe it! “You’re making that up.” It was all lies!

Again he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I won’t believe it. He’s my husband!”

King Rap gritted his teeth. “When were you married? How long ago?”

“Some weeks ago,” she said evasively. She had started the baby before that.

“Your Majesty Ylo did not lie to you, but he was mistaken if he said that the goblins killed the imperor. Shandie was rescued. As far as I know he’s still alive, and well. I admit I have no recent news of him, but if your wedding was more than nine or ten days ago . . . well, you weren’t married. It wasn’t valid. And it probably couldn’t have been valid at any time, unless something has happened to Shandie very recently.”

She shook her head, dumb with horror. Shandie alive? What had she done? Betrayed her husband, her imperor? That would be treason! Oh, Ylo! What would Ylo say?

“Ah!” the big man said, springing up. “At last! This is my wife, Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar. And my daughter Kadie.” Eshiala clambered to her feet as two women emerged from the undergrowth from opposite directions. The first was tall and striking, not quite a jotunn. Her eyes were a startling green, her hair the color of summer honey, but she lacked the fierce angularity of jotnar. Ignoring her husband’s attempt at formalities, she swept Eshiala into a comforting embrace and hugged her.

“Oh, Kadie!” Rap said. “For Gods’ sake stop moping!”

“Thaile disappeared again!”

Oh! So the girls had not been part of the nightmare. This was the one who had carried Maya across the stream. She seemed on the verge of tears. Her skirt was torn, her face scratched, and her long black hair had twigs in it.

“What if she did?” King Rap said crossly. “She’s not your pet dog. The Keeper’s dead. Thaile had to go away with the other archons. She has duties. She can’t spend every minute of her life with you, even if she wants to.”

“More cake?” Uomaya said, holding up the plate. She was the only one still seated, and her face was chocolate from ear to ear.

“Maya! That is not polite!” Eshiala said despairingly. “But it’s good sense,” the king said. “True impish practicality. How about some sherbet instead?”

“Rap!” Queen Inosolan said in a voice of menace. “Where do we go from here? Do we spend the rest of the day digging bait in this jungle, or can we go somewhere civilized? And by the way, you look like a serf.”

He shrugged and began buttoning up a shirt that he had not been wearing an instant before. “I don’t know what happens now. We’re in the real Thume, you see. I can’t move us back to the College—I nearly broke my neck coming down that hill.”

“And I had to do it without sorcery!” the queen said icily. ”You might have left me a good pair of boots.”

He groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. “The only way back to the College will be one of their Gates, and I have no idea how to find one.”

“Sherbet is nice, thank you,” Maya remarked wistfully. “What color sherbet?”

“I can’t leave yet,” Eshiala said, casting a yearning glance at the far bank.

Inosolan put an arm around her again. “I am truly sorry about Ylo. He died very nobly.”

“You saw, too?”

“No. But if Rap says it happened, then it happened.”

Ylo! Ylo! Ylo! She would not believe it. Lies! “I must go back. I should not have left him. I should have gone back as soon as I realized he was lagging.”

“You did exactly right,” Inosolan said. “You did exactly what he would have told you to do if he could, what he wanted.”

“Chocolate sherbet, please,” Maya said, “or strongberry.”

The king said, “Ah! Archon Neem, her Imperial Majesty the Impress Eshiala.”

The newcomer must have just stepped out from behind a tree, or somewhere. He had an odd face, with slanted yellow eyes and extraordinary pointed ears. His clothes were green, and more like city wear than peasant garments. Was his name all Archonneem or was some of that a title? He bore an air of authority. His expression was bleak. He nodded to her but did not bow.

Everyone began talking at once. He raised a hand for silence. “The Keeper told me to come and fetch you.”

“The Keeper?” Inosolan and Rap and their daughter repeated the words in chorus.

“The new Keeper, of course.”

The Kadie girl screamed. “Thaile? Not Thaile!” She had turned white. Queen Inosolan put an arm around her. “Keeper of what, Archonneem?” Eshiala asked.

Rap answered for him. “Keeper of Thume.”

“Thume, the Accursed Land?”

That was why she could not categorize the yellow-eyed man. East of Qoble, of course. He must be a pixie. “It’s true, then?”

“It’s true,” Rap muttered.

“I like strongberry and I like chocolate, too.”

“Thaile is the new Keeper?” the girl cried.

Archonneem frowned. “That was her name before she became Keeper. Impress, her Holiness suggested you and your child might stay at the Baze Place. Goodman Baze is a former archon. He and Goodwife Prin are both elderly, but they have room for you, and will make you welcome. The location is pleasant.”

“I think she should come back to the Rap Place first,” Inosolan said firmly. “She and I need to have a long talk.”

“’The Keeper will be obeyed!”

“You’ve told her a fifth word?” Kadie wailed. “It will kill her! It will torture her!”

Eshiala’s head was spinning. Pixies?

“Shut up, Kadie!” Rap said. “Archon, what news of the Covin?”

Neem fixed him with a forbidding stare. “Nothing here.”

“Then where?”

Reluctantly the old man said, “The djinn army has halted but is not pitching camp. There is activity in Dragon Reach.”

“He’s raising the dragons?”

“Not yet, but perhaps soon.”

“Chocolate sherbet, please,” Maya said. “Or more cake.”

“How long would it take dragons to fly to Thume?” Inosolan demanded, looking from the pixie to her husband and back again.

The two men exchanged glances. “Two days maybe,” the king said. ”They haven’t risen yet.”

“So they can be here by Midsummer?”

“Unlikely. But Longday may be only the beginning.”

“And the caliph, also?”

Eshiala could not keep track of all this. Her mind would not stop shouting for Ylo, wanting to know what he would say about pixies, about Shandie being still alive. Where had the soldiers gone? And dragons? She must have gone crazy. She was in a home for the insane.

“Mommy?” Maya said. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Where Ylo?”

2

“Three ravens,” Gath said. “A head with an ax in it. A bloody hand. A woman with . . . Yuck! Two sea dragons and—”

Blood Wave II had arrived at Nintor and was sailing just offshore, skirting the gray beach where the longships lay. Although they were drawn up on the shingle, clear of the water, they had their sails spread. Normally raiders’ sails bore only the orca symbol of a thane, but for the Longday Moot they had been decorated with their owners’ personal emblems, and Gath was reading them off before they came in sight. Drakkor had chosen to approach upwind, probably because that was tricky with a single square sail and let him show off his seamanship. Sounds of cheering followed his progress along the shore—he was the thane who had spoken for war at the last two moots, and now all of Nordland was behind him.