Kalkor was marching forward over the turf toward the center of the circle, the ax on his shoulder, wearing nothing but the animal hide wrapped around his loins, bare-legged and barefooted.
The man in the red robe had withdrawn. It seemed safe to speak. “What’s the Nordland Moot?” Rap asked.
“It’s held every year at midsummer on Nintor,” Sagorn said quietly. ”The thanes settle their disputes by ritual combat.”
“I bet that Kalkor never lost an argument.”
“But this is Inos’s prophecy! Don’t you see, boy? Kalkor will seize her kingdom, and she will take her complaint against him to the moot!”
“I hope I am allowed a champion to fight for me,” Inos said. ”I don’t think I could even lift that ax. That would be quite a handicap.”
No one laughed. Muffled voices in the distance were the only sound, too far off for the words to be distinguished, but obviously coming from a large crowd.
“Champions are allowed under certain conditions. Darad has earned good money there. Needless to say, the rest of us do not look back on the memories very happily.”
And the scene began to shimmer and fade, just as Kalkor’s opponent became visible, emerging from the mist, advancing toward him from the far side of the circle. Came the darkness; snow whirled in again. Sagorn stepped forward to close the casement.
Inos clutched Rap fiercely. “That was you again!” she said, peering up at him. “Wasn’t it?”
This time Rap thought he had been the one in the vision. The goblin and Sagorn agreed. Princess Kadolan pleaded old eyes and would not say. But whoever it had been, he had been much sharper and less blurred than the other figures in the background—was the casement defective, or did that distinction have some significance? Rap wondered how much danger there was in meddling with such occult power as this. It felt wrong.
“That’s crazy!” he said. “Me fight Kalkor with an ax? You’d better find a better champion than that.”
He realized that he still had one arm around Inos, and he released her quickly.
“This is very strange,” Sagorn muttered. Even in the darkness, Rap knew of the puzzled expression on the scrawny face. “The Place of Ravens is marked by a circle of standing stones. I don’t recall seeing those—did any of you?”
Heads were shaken.
“And it rarely rains like that on Nintor. And, Master Rap, why should you turn up in two other people’s prophecies? Why do you agitate the casement so much when you approach it?”
Again Rap thought of the old goblin woman. Why can’t I foresee you? ”Perhaps I haven’t got any future to foresee,” he said bitterly. ”But I do seem to be a popular player in these events. Which comes first, the dragon or Kalkor?”
“Whichever it is, you survive,” Sagorn said, and there could be no argument about that. “And the legionaries, as well, tonight,” he added, less certainly.
“Are you sure this contrivance is not just playing jokes?” Princess Kadolan asked hotly. “It still has not told us how to evade the imps. Listen!”
Rap did not need to listen. If the imps had broken into the bedroom, there was only one more bolted door left. He headed for the stair, meaning to find out.
“Me next!” Little Chicken marched over to the casement, making the eerie firelight flicker again beyond the panes.
“No!” Rap stopped and swung around. He had a premonition of what was going to be revealed, but his protest was too late. The flaps swung open once more, and the chamber was filled with a sound of applause and acrid, eye-watering gusts of wood smoke.
As Rap had feared, he was looking into a crowded goblin lodge, seeing over spectators’ heads. Fire blazed and crackled in the middle of the stone platform, throwing light on the audience gathered around the walls: near-nude men and boys, shrouded women and girls. They were all jabbering with excitement and laughing. The naked victim was staked out on the floor, and the tormentor standing over him holding a flaming brand was Little Chicken.
Rap swung away, burying his face in his hands and feeling his stomach heave with nausea and terror. Inos screamed. So did her aunt, and Sagorn muttered something guttural under his breath.
Then strong hands grabbed Rap. “It is you!” Little Chicken was wild with excitement. “Come! You see!” He began dragging Rap bodily back to the casement and resistance made no difference. “Hear applause! You do well for that! You making good show! And I doing good job! See your hands? See ribs?”
“No! No!” Rap howled, struggling to keep his face turned, his eyes closed. “Shut the window!”
“Good show!” Little Chicken insisted, squealing with joy. “It is Raven Totem! There my brothers! Watch what I do now!” Rap forced his eyes open momentarily and then shut them tight again quickly. The victim did look like him, and not very much older than the face he had glimpsed in Hononin’s kitchen mirror. And yet, there had been something wrong! He sneaked another quick glance and again had to shut his eyes hastily to prevent a fit of nausea. It was his face, but somehow blurred-fuzzy? Little Chicken sniggered wildly at some new horror and the goblin spectators burst into applause again.
Then, mercifully, the light faded against Rap’s eyelids, the excited babble of the crowd died away, and he felt the icy touch of the polar night and the cool caress of snow on his face. He relaxed and opened his eyes.
A thump on the back from Little Chicken almost laid him on the floor. “I told true!” he sniggered. “I kill you! We make good show.”
“Neither dragon nor Kalkor?” Sargon said acidly. “You are indeed a hard young man to kill. Perhaps that is all the message we are going to get-you will survive the imps, so why worry?”
“More likely it’s telling us that I’m as good as dead already!” Rap cried, and was ashamed at the shrillness of his voice. “Or that the imps may give me a better death than anything else in my future.”
“In either case it would just show the imps killing you, I think,” the old man remarked calmly.
Inos put an arm around Rap and led him away from the window.
He might survive jotunn or dragon, Rap thought, but he would not want to survive goblin. The victim in that last scene had already been horribly mutilated.
“Was it me?” he whispered, trying to control his trembling. “I thought it looked strange—blurred, somehow.” Say it was not me! Small wonder that Inos’ great-grandfather had gone mad.
Sagorn hesitated. “Yes,” he muttered. “I noticed that. I thought it was just the smoke stinging my eyes, but your friend here seemed sharp enough . . . So we have seen you three times. The first two glimpses were ambiguous and the third time was suspiciously unreal. I wish I knew more about these things! It is all so insubstantial! What we need is a sorcerer to explain them.”
Crash! The door shuddered. The imps had arrived. Only one bolt now lay between Rap and their vengeance.
Inos hugged him more tightly. “But you will be my champion,” she said.
That was a nice thought, but for the rest of his life he would know that his eventual fate was to return to Raven Totem and the loving care of Little Chicken-while not looking very much older than he did now.
He wondered what would happen if he killed Little Chicken first. He had put down the sword somewhere, but now he wished he had it handy. Would it be possible to make a liar out of the casement? Was that why Bright Water had warned him not to harm the goblin? Had she foreseen Little Chicken being hurt by Rap?
Again the ax crashed against the door. Not long now.
“We might as well let them in!” Rap said wearily. “I think I agree with the casement that a quick hanging might be all for the best.”
“No!” Inos shouted. “Doctor Sagorn, a sorcerer could beat a dragon, couldn’t he? And Kalkor? That’s what it means! That is the message—we must share our words of power with Rap! He can’t share with us, but if we make him a sorcerer—a mage—then he will save you from the dragon one day, and beat Kalkor as my champion! Don’t you see? That is the only way he can survive the dangers we have seen in store for him, and he must survive two of them—I mean at least two, Rap, of course. And that fuzziness you saw—he was using magic against the goblins, too!”
Rap groaned. Not a sorcerer! Farsight was bad enough. The imps would be better than that.
“Darad—” Sagorn said, and paused. “I am too old to risk weakening my power, child. My health . . . You must share yours with me, also.”