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

Jaurg shrugged and walked back to his seat between Gath and Fraftha. He put an arm around the girl.

“That livened things up a little,” he remarked cheerfully. ”You were serious?”

“Quite serious.”

How could he be so calm? Gath wanted to scream. He had visions of that low ceiling collapsing, burying him under the hill. His skin felt like cold maggots were eating it already.

“But why would Zinixo kill you all? There must be sixty sorcerers—”

“Sixty-four here.”

“Doesn’t he want you, to serve him? He collects sorcerers, doesn’t he?”

Jaurg yawned. “Not any more, apparently. He probably feels he has so many now that he may as well just exterminate the rest. Hub’s a long way off. At this range . . . hard to explain. Take my word for it, it’s easier to stamp than grab.”

Gath said, “Oh!” and tried to look unworried.

He wasn’t that good a liar. He opened his mental spigot and grabbed all the future he could foresee. He said, “Awrk!”

In about three minutes the roof was going to blow right off the Commonplace.

In sudden urgency, Jaurg straightened, releasing Fraftha. He grabbed Gath’s wrist in an astonishingly powerful grip. “Hold tight, Atheling! We meld. I’ll try to take you in with me.”

Gath clutched Jaurg’s wrist also-he was in a mood to clutch at anything. He felt Twist grip his other arm in a similar double hold, and then they were all on their feet.

“In where?”

“Into the ambience.” The blind youth smiled again. “I’m not sure it’s possible for a mundane, but we’ll try.”

“Otherwise,” Twist added, “you will be finding things even more confusing.”

“More confusing than what?”

“Than anything.”

Gath saw double.

Within the dim chamber, the sorcerers stood around the walls, many holding hands. Superimposed on that was an image that seemed to make no sense at all. It was bright and yet without light. It had no points of reference at all, no place, no being—no underground chamber, no world or sky. This must be how a sorcerer saw things. Within that shadowless nothingness the sixty-odd jotnar were clustered tightly around him, many smiling at him, and none of them seemed to have any clothes on! He found Drugfarg the armorer and old Gustiag the healer—and how did he know their professions? And the women. Gods! No clothes. Some were as solid as boulders, others almost transparent. Then he located Twist the skald and Blind Jaurg the cobbler, and between them a faint image of a lanky young man with unruly blond hair and a stern, worried expression. That one seemed oddly familiar.

By the Powers! He knew that one! He really had grown lately, hadn’t he? No beard yet, but . . . well, getting there. Hey, not bad! He would rather have breeches on, though.

“Now!” Atheling Twist said. He had been chosen leader, because he was as strong as any, also brother to the thane who was certainly going to be war leader of the Nordland Host and how did Gath know all these things? A mighty fist punched upward and the roof of the Commonplace dissolved in a spray of flying dirt and boulders.

Was that real?

There were many things to see then.

The Moot Stow. Drakkor had been raised on a platform of shields held by a dozen husky jotnar. He was haranguing the mob, promising blood and loot and rape, and the warriors were cheering their lungs out for him, thanes and churls . . .

The Commonplace from the outside, apparently undamaged. All of Nintor, as if seen by a bird soaring at cloud height. Sixty-odd sorcerers racing over the grass, heading for the longships drawn up on the beach-not running, for crippled Twist was moving as fast as any, but traveling faster than a hunting hawk.

A roiling dark evil . . . Eyes. Huge, hateful dwarvish eyes filling the sky and staring contempt right at him.

A voice, booming: “The faun’s son! So there you are! Got you at last!”

There was no doubt who that was.

“Go puke yourself, you squat-eyed gray horror!” Gath roared, and registered laughter and approval all around him. “My dad squashed you once and he’s going to squash you again!”

Fury boiled in the sky. “Die, stripling!” A fiery foot descended.

The meld of sorcerers slid sideways, evading that giant stamp. The ground erupted in flame where it struck.

That was not real. That was only an image, perhaps invoked by something Jaurg had said earlier. The reality behind it was something else but just as dangerous.

At the Moot Stow the crowd stilled and turned to see where the noise had come from . . .

Voices all around him, the melded mind of the sorcerers: “To the ships—is the boy with us?—where can we go?” Another fiery stamp. Another explosion of dirt and rock, high in the air. And another dodge. Another blast from the Covin, another fast evasion. Pillars of smoke rose above Nintor.

The horde at the Moot Stow dissolving in panic

The beach. A ship. Any ship. When in danger take to the sea.

Thane Afgirk’s Raven Feast . . .

“It will do—all aboard—lift her now—”

Sorcerers poured aboard. The longship leaped from her berth a moment before blasts of fire smote the shingle where she had lain. Her former neighbors exploded in red flame and a blizzard of pebbles. She hit the sea with a shower of spray and was a league away before the Covin’s next bolt struck in steam and boiling eradication. Southward. No time to set sail. No time to run out the oars. Leap. Impact. Leap again. Like a giant marlin, Raven Feast vaulted over the face of the ocean while the Covin’s strokes exploded the green sea behind her in white breakers and clouds of mist.

Nothing was real except perhaps the longship itself and the fierce grips on Gath’s wrists. The voices of the meld roared in his ears.

“We can’t keep this up forever—he’s sure to catch us eventually. Where can we go—where is King Rap?”

The Covin’s volleys were closing in, pillars of steam bursting all around.

“Atheling!” Twist bellowed in Gath’s ear. “Where is your father?”

“I don’t know!”

“Find him for us! We need sanctuary! Call him! He will recognize you!”

Call him?

Gath saw the shiny sea and the sky and the distant peaks of Nordland. He saw the evil of the Covin and its blasts of power. He saw sixty-four sorcerers and a mundane boy.

They were appealing to him? Call Dad?

The last news of Dad had been months ago, when he had been somewhere down near the Mosweeps, about as far from Nordland as it was possible to be. These maniacs expected Gath to call to him?

A near miss showered Raven Feast with icy seawater, half swamping her. The shock and cold almost jerked Gath out of the meld. He was sprawled on the gratings with Twist hanging on one arm and Jaurg on the other, tearing him apart. Overhead the bare mast whirled against blue sky.

“Try, Atheling!” Twist howled. “Or we are being undone!”

“Give him power, everyone!” Jaurg shouted. “Give him all you can!”

“Save us, Atheling! Call on your father!” The world swelled.

The world was round.

Nordland shrank to a cluster of barren islands, swathed in pack ice to the north. Land swam into view to the south—that would be Guwush, and the shimmer of silver beyond that the Morning Sea and the green to the west must be the Impire, shadows of night still rushing away to the southwest. The sun was white and hot at his side.

There was the Winter Ocean, and if he tried he could probably see all the way to Krasnegar, but he mustn’t waste time looking there. Dad wouldn’t be in Krasnegar. People—more than the land itself he could see the teeming millions of people. Imps, gnomes, many races. Mountains to the south, sparkling with snow and ice but very tiny, and the sky trees of Ilrane that Kadie had talked of, little crystal pinecones against the deep blue of the Summer Seas. That black fire roaring in the middle of the world was the evil of the Covin and ignore those hateful eyes and think where Dad might be . . . “Dad!” he howled.

No response.

“Dad, it’s me, Gath!” Contact?

A tiny whisper, very far away . . . “Gath?”

Dad’s voice!

“Dad? King Rap? It’s Gath! I’ve got some sorcerers for you!”

“Gath? Is that you? Where are you?”

“Dad, I’m here! In Nordland!”

Near miss—the sea exploded. Raven Feast rolled below a vast green wave. Icy surf sucked at the crew, sweeping oars and baggage overboard. Gath had water in his eyes, up his nose. For a moment the longship seemed ready to turn turtle. Slowly she fought to straighten herself. The meld shimmered and began to break up. Gath felt power draining away. The craft was swamped. One more blast would do it.