Thrugg shrugged, but even before the gesture was complete, he had located the two old trolls, explained, persuaded, and won agreement. It was all over in a blink, and he nodded.
Grunth belched and said, “They’d better!” in an ominous voice. The witch had not yet adjusted to the idea of voluntary servitude.
“And what do the rest of us do?” Rap asked. “If we stay here, we’ll achieve nothing. Where do we go, and how?” He thought of the vast expanse of rain forest surrounding him and mentally shuddered.
Tik Tok paused in his gnawing. “Downstream. Watercourses felicitate travel in jungles.”
“Good point. But that takes us to the coast, and there will be imps at the coast.”
“Mm!” The anthropophagus nodded and licked his lips.
Then he flashed pictures of forty or so sorcerers standing on the shore, calling in a ship, compelling the crew to row to shore in their longboat, marooning the sailors, and rowing back out in their boat. The imagery was not as vivid as Thrugg’s, and rather spoiled by an alcoholic unsteadiness, but it obviously represented a feasible plan when there was so much power available. The final scene showed the ship sailing away with its rigging full of sorcerers, all lustily singing sea chanteys. A large, unidentified carcass was being roasted over an improbable bonfire on the deck.
“I fail to see how carnal self-indulgence will promote the cause,” Sagorn remarked dryly.
Tik Tok turned to stare at him thoughtfully. “Where I come from, jotnar are regarded as speciously tasty mortals.”
“I am sure my old meat would be unpleasantly stringy.” The haggard old face had turned a little paler, though. Rap repressed a grin. It took a lot to discomfit the sage.
“We steal a ship of course,” Grunth said sleepily. ”Easy.”
“And go where?” That was the ultimate question. After a moment’s silence, Tik Tok said, “Did you and your fellow compositors not set up a revenue?”
“No,” Rap said. “It seemed too dangerous.”
“Not much help!” Sagorn snapped, resuming his disdainful pout. ”With so much power available, why not just go on the attack? If you can create a diversion, the Covin will send a party of sorcerers to investigate. You overpower them, break their loyalty spells, and win them to your cause; then skedaddle and pull the same trick somewhere else.”
Groaning like a constipated bull, Grunth subsided into the depths of her throne and closed her eyes. Sagorn’s pale cheeks flushed pink.
“It won’t work, Doctor,” Rap said gently. “Sorcerous armies move instantaneously. You can’t run away from them. Remember the trouble Raspnex went to when he rescued us in Hub? It was a miracle, what he achieved that night. It had taken weeks to prepare, probably, and it cost him half a dozen votaries. Guerilla warfare won’t work in the ambience. As soon as we show our hand, Zinixo will cut it off.”
The old man scowled. He was out of his depth with sorcery, and that discovery would be unwelcome. Downstream, the party was waxing even wilder. Half the dancers were airborne, and so were some of the lovers. The games were developing into occult tests of strength. A bear was wrestling a giant squid near a tug of war between a team of trolls and six white stallions—
“Go and drop in on Lith’rian,” Grunth muttered without opening her eyes.
“I am inclined to agree with that, I think.” Rap sighed and quaffed some beer; the flavor made him homesick. If there was organized resistance anywhere, it would be among the elves, in Ilrane. He realized he was hungry, and began to contemplate the prospects of a plate of chicken dumplings.
“Sysanasso?” Tik Tok mumbled, his mouth full of meat.
“Another good idea. There’s a nasty rumor about fauns being stubborn, though. I don’t know where to start there, or how we can persuade them even to spread the news.”
Rap knew who was the logical agent to assign to Sysanasso, and he didn’t want the job. He had never thought of himself as indispensable before, but he suspected he was the only glue that might hold this improbable legion together.
He heard a strange noise he could not recall ever hearing before. Doctor Sagorn was laughing.
“Doctor?”
“I was just imagining the elvish customs officials at Vislawn or Mistrin when you dock and they meet your crew.”
“I am not familial with elves,” Tik Tok remarked. “Singers, not fighters?”
“Elves are people of exquisite taste!” Sagorn said primly.
Rap expected Tik Tok to say he was ogrely looking forward to meating them, but he didn’t. Perhaps mere puns were beneath his dignity. He just licked his lips again.
“Zark has sorcerers,” Grunth said, and yawned like a hungry crocodile.
“I’m sure it does,” Rap agreed. “It also has a central authority, the caliph. We wrote to him and hopefully he will spread the word. Dragon Reach might make a very good refuge, if we take no metal and use no sorcery. Or the Keriths—sorcerers should be able to resist the merfolk, shouldn’t they?”
Thrugg leered. “Resist the men.”
Sagorn snorted. “Your Majesty, I am inclined to think you initiated this counter-revolution without adequate preparation.”
“I’m certain of it. We had very little choice at the time.”
Silence fell in the rocky chamber, broken only by the quiet trickling of water down one slimy green wall. The ambience, on the other hand, was approaching the boil. A couple of the older anthropophagi were trying to calm things down, with little success. Perhaps the shielding would fail, and the whole castle just explode.
Rap clawed his hair, making a mental note to shorten it in the morning. ”Listen, Doctor. Maybe you can help me. Ever since we began this adventure, I’ve had a nagging hunch that I’ve forgotten something, that I’m overlooking something.”
“I understood that sorcerers had perfect memories.”
“I’m not much of a sorcerer. But that’s a good point. If I have forgotten something, maybe I’ve been made to forget it!” He glanced around and saw that the others were listening. He hoped he was not about to make too much of a fool of himself. “You’re not a sorcerer. Can you think of anything we saw, or anything that came up in conversation . . . any plan we discussed and then set aside, perhaps?”
“A forgetfulness spell specifically directed at the sorcerous?” the old man muttered. “Is that possible?”
“Probably. Almost anything is possible if there is enough power available. Could Zinixo have blanked my mind?” He felt he was really conjuring bubbles now, but having gone so far he might as well wade in until he sank.
“If he had managed that much,” Thrugg growled, “then he would have been able to call you to him.”
“I suppose so.”
“What sort of something?” Sagorn said thoughtfully.
“What would be useful? A strategy? A place of refuge? A weapon? A possible ally?” His eyes glinted coldly, like sunlight on a northern sea. ”What about that preflecting pool the imperor saw? Nobody ever quite explained that episode!”
“A pixie!” Rap yelled. “That’s it! You’ve got it! Shandie met a pixie near Hub!”
Grunth yawned again. “If you’re starting in on bedtime stories, then I think I’ll organize a bale of hay and catch up on my beauty sleep.”
“Unfortunately pixies are instinct,” Tik Tok said sadly, and yawned, also. “Would have been nice to invite someone diffident for dinner.”
“Pixies still exist,” Rap said firmly. “My wife met some, many years ago. The imperor met a pixie!”
Three sorcerers stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.
He was so excited now he could hardly sit still. “Don’t you see? The War of the Five Warlocks? What happened at the end of it? Who won? Grunth?”
“Don’t recall,” she said uneasily.
“No one does!” Sagorn was beaming.
“It was the second millennium!” Rap shouted. “There was more sorcery around then than there ever has been since—until now, the third millennium. Anything would have been possible with that kind of power loose! Now do you understand? There is an aversion spell on Thume! An inattention spell, and it’s directed more at sorcerers than at mundanes, although it obviously affects them, too. Shielding blunts it, because the last time I thought of this I was in a shielded house, like this one. When I went outside I forgot again.”
“You were otherwise engaged,” Sagorn murmured, but he was obviously relishing the mad suggestion and the audience’s reluctance to accept it.
“I want you to stay close to me in future,” Rap said, “and whisper `Thume’ in my ear every half hour.”
All three sorcerers were cold sober now.
“That kind of spell wouldn’t last that long,” Thrugg protested, glaring at Rap like a hungry grizzly taking aim.
“No, it wouldn’t. Of course it wouldn’t! So who is maintaining it?”
No one answered. What sort of power could maintain a spell over an entire country, let alone establish it there in the first place?