The chaplain choked back an exclamation, as if she had not thought of that.
“What sort of speciality?” Rap asked.
The old man smirked. “Little things like dragons.”
Mother Unonini thumped her hand on the arm of her chair, expelling a cloud of dust and feathers. “We don’t know this! It is a commonly held belief, maybe, but people don’t go round questioning sorcerers, Master Hostler, and especially not warlocks. Who can say what they do or don’t do?”
Hononin glared at her. “I know what I was told, and no one’s ever told me different. Earth, water, fire, and air—so my grandpappy said.”
The chaplain glared back, then turned to Rap. “Tradition says that even Emine’s compact did not stop the troubles at first—that the Four turned out to be as bad as any other group of sorcerers and strove among themselves for dominance. Eventually—I am cutting a thick story thin—eventually the Four agreed to share out the powers of the world between themselves. They had already divided Pandemia itself into quarters, calling themselves North and East and so on, but then they each took charge of a mundane power, also.”
“Dragons?” Rap said. “Are dragons mundane?”
“Borderline.” The chaplain rose and started to pace again in her ungainly way. “The Impire is not Pandemia, Master Rap. It is the largest dominion, of course, and because it is central, it has always tended to be the greatest—and of course it has the Four to preserve it—but there are many other kingdoms and territories beyond the Impire’s borders.”
Like Krasnegar, for instance. Rap nodded.
“But nothing can hope to withstand the Imperial army if it extends its full might.”
“Except by sorcery.”
“Of course. So the imperor and the Four agreed that no one might use sorcery on the Imperial army—neither to harm it nor to aid it. Like the imperor himself, it must be sacrosanct. The only exception is the warlock of the east. He can. The army is his prerogative.”
Rap nodded again, beginning to see why the others had been so worried when he brought the talk around to the Four. “You mean that the witch I saw—”
“You saw a sorceress,” the chaplain said, “and it may have been Bright Water herself, but we don’t know that!”
“Either way, she couldn’t stop the troops on their way here?” The chaplain paused by the fire and glanced briefly at the hostler before continuing her lecture. “That’s what they say. Those soldiers are part of the Imperial army, and to meddle with them would bring down the fury of the warlock of the east—and the others would support him in that instance. So ‘tis said. One thing I do know—there must be many great sorcerers and sorceresses around Pandemia, Master Rap, but there is certainly none who could withstand the Four acting together.”
Rap toyed for a moment with crumbs on the table. Sour old Unonini was keeping something back.
“I gotta go,” Hononin muttered. “Word gets round I’m sick, there’ll be mobs of nosy old women bringing jugs of bad soup here, just so they can pry.” But he stayed where he was, on his chair.
Rap looked up. “What are the other powers, then? Dragons?” Unonini pursed her lips, then nodded. “Dragons rarely roam outside Dragon Reach, but they are said to be the prerogative of the warden of the south. When dragons waste, then the imperor must call on South to drive them back.”
“Even if he set them loose himself in the first place!” the hostler said with a foul grin.
The chaplain winced nervously.
“Well, why not?” the old man snapped. “Two years ago a flight of dragons wasted some town on the Winnipango. That’s halfway across Pandemia from Dragon Reach, and they didn’t touch anywhere in between! You telling me they weren’t sent there? You know that sorcerers meddle, so why wouldn’t a warlock use his own special power when he wanted to?”
“I never met a sorce—”
“Piddle! I never met a God, but I believe in Gods. And I believe the tales. My grandpappy went to watch a hanging once, down in Pilrind; and when they hauled the man up, he just disappeared! Faded like mist, he did! Left the noose just dangling, empty. Some sorcerer had rescued him.”
The chaplain sniffed. “I never said there weren’t sorcerers, nor that they don’t use sorcery. Of course they do—all the time. An old schoolmate of mine once saw a poor, demented woman throw herself off a high roof. She should have fallen into a crowded street, but someone in the crowd must have been a sorcerer, because she floated down gently; like a leaf, my friend said.”
“What’s North’s pre-perogative?” Rap asked.
She hesitated so long that the hostler answered for her, confirming what Rap had suspected. “The jotnar. Army’s land, see? Dragons fire. The jotunn raiders are the sea—water, that is.”
“It’s not as true nowadays as it was in the Dark Times,” the chaplain added, “but the jotnar are still the finest sailors of the world. And they don’t always confine their activities to trading, either.”
Rap’s father had been a slaver, and a raider when convenient, no doubt.
“Anywhere within reach of the sea,” Unonini said, “is within reach of the jotnar.”
It was what Rap had expected. “So if the imp army comes to Krasnegar, and Thane Kalkor brings his jotnar, then . . . What then?”
Unonini sighed heavily. “Then may the Good be with us! I don’t suppose the Four often intervene in petty quarrels; little wars and small atrocities go on all the time. As long as sorcery is not invoked, then the warlocks seem to ignore them. But if Imperial legionaries face off against jotunn raiders—well, then the warlocks may very well become involved—very well! Bright Water is a goblin, and you say that the imps have been slaughtering goblins. By spring they may be battling her jotnar, here in Krasnegar.” She shuddered and made the holy sign of balance.
“I must go,” the hostler muttered again.
“Yes!” The chaplain straightened her shoulders. “I, also. And you, Master Rap, and your . . . companions . . . must stay here for now, and out of sight. I wish this wynd were not so much traveled.”
“What’s West’s speciality?” Rap asked doggedly. Were the warlocks such very bad news? They might even help, as Bright Water had helped him. They might keep jotunn and imp apart.
“Weather, they say. And you think Inosolan will be here tomorrow?” Mother Unonini mused. “She will go straight to her father. I shall see that the doctors reduce the dosage and try to revive him for the meeting . . . if he lasts that long. Then they will both be in danger.”
“Both?”
She nodded somberly.” ‘Tis said that to share a word reduces its power. If the word is keeping him alive, he may die because of the sharing. And Inosolan will be in danger because she knows it.”
They all worried over that thought for a while, and then the chaplain said, ”If you insist on remaining in the town, then we must find somewhere safer than this for you, Master Rap.”
“He’s welcome here, Mother.” But the hostler was eyeing Fleabag with a dislike that was obviously mutual.
“You do not even have a lock on your door! But where else can we hide him in a tiny place like Krasnegar? With two thousand legionaries coming? They will be billeted anywhere there is a span to spare.”
Hononin heaved himself to his feet. “Nowhere I can think of.”
“I was told once of a place,” Rap said, “if you can get us there. A place where no one ever goes.”
2
A single candle flickered and shivered in the night, casting its uncertain light on the dying king. His face was wasted, yellow and skull-like, his hair sparse and gray, his beard white. Even in sleep he writhed restlessly under the covers.
The drapes had been drawn all around the high bed, except for one small gap near the pillow. Sitting beside that opening, the attending nurse patiently waited out the long hours until her relief would come at dawn. From her seat she could not see the door to the chamber, and no one entering from the stairway could see either patient or nurse—unless that person had farsight, of course.
Mother Unonini crossed the room to talk to her, and to inspect the invalid, her lantern making inky shadows dance until she vanished around the corner of the fourposter. The chaplain was an ideal accomplice for intruders, able to go anywhere, answerable only to the Gods. Two youths and a dog came in silently behind her and crept across to the deep shadows on the other side of the bed.
Worms of fire crawled over the peats in the big fireplace and the room was heavy with their pungent scent. Curtains on one window tapped monotonously to draw attention to an ill-fitting casement. The drugged king moaned querulously in his slumber.