The sorceress was still sitting where she had been when he drifted off to sleep some hours before dawn. For all he knew, she might not have moved all night. Her face was just as indistinct by daylight as it had been under the lantern. Two young men had joined the group and sat now in silence on the ladder-backed chairs. They wore doublet and hose, but Umpily strongly suspected that they were the two fake guardsmen who had abducted him from the ball. They, too, were impossible to make out clearly now. Nobody was speaking, but the three glanced at one another from time to time, and he was sure that they were conversing by sorcery.
“His Omnipotence furnishes an excellent table,” he said cheerfully.
No reply. No one even looked at him.
He sighed, wondering where the warlock had gone. The niggling problem with the excellent table was that it was so reminiscent of the hearty last meal traditionally furnished to condemned prisoners of rank just before they were led out to execution.
The door clicked, squeaked, squeaked again, and clicked shut. With a swirl of gray cloak, Warlock Olybino came striding in to join the meeting. He had discarded his gaudy armor and shed much of his size, although his face was still recognizable. He was apparently playing the role of a nondescript, middle-age artisan, but his bearing was much too arrogant. Who would tell him so?
He glanced at the ruins on the breakfast table and shot Umpily a contemptuous glance. “Moderation is not your strong suit, my lord.”
“Moderation insults perfection, your Omnipotence.” It was an old saying of Ishipole’s, but Umpily thought he had used it rather well.
The warlock grunted and turned to his associates. Silence fell, but again a silence marked by glances and small gestures. Something was being discussed—and apparently something important, for Olybino suddenly turned on his heel and strode to the far end of the stable and then back again. In passing he reached out and lifted a rusty old horseshoe from a collection nailed to a pillar.
Then he came to a halt, idly bending and flexing the metal in his hands as if it were rope, shedding a blizzard of rust flakes. “That is how it will be!” he snapped. “No further argument!” He spun around to face the solitary mundane. “The legions are advancing on the goblin horde at Bandon At least five legions, possibly six. I dared not look too closely. The dragons are almost upon them.”
“Upon the legions?”
The warlock nodded grimly. “I suspect that is the plan.”
Umpily shuddered. “But why?”
Seeming to apply no great effort, the warlock stretched the iron bar to twice its former length. “Who can plumb the horrors of the dwarf’s mind? I may be wrong, of course. A couple of dragons per legion would be ample, yet he has summoned almost every worm there is. Four blazes could waste Hub itself in half an hour. Why so many?”
“I-I-I can’t imagine, sir.”
“Nor L” Olybino tied the iron bar into a knot. “But I still think the legions are his target. Remember that only sorcerers know anything about him and his Covin. Only they know of his usurpation. So far as the mundane world is concerned, young Emshandar sits the Opal Throne and the Four rule in their palaces. Now comes the millennium. After a thousand years it will be dragons versus legions again! It almost happened at Nefer Moor, remember. That probably gave the poxy runt the idea. How will the Impire see such a battle?”
It was obvious—South against East, warlock versus warlock.
“He seeks to discredit the Four,” Olybino confirmed, scowling. ”One or two more disasters like that and he can throw off his cloak of secrecy. He will step forward as savior, declaring that he has deposed the evil wardens. Then he will proclaim a new order.”
He tossed the knotted metal away and wiped his hands. The former horseshoe clanged on the cobbles.
Umpily hugged himself. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“You, fat man?” The warlock glanced again at the empty dishes. “You might offer to create a famine for him.”
“The genuine imperor found me useful in the past!” Why did that sound so sulky?
“True,” Olybino admitted. He walked a few more paces, then returned and leaned his knuckles on the table. His eyes glittered. “What you told me last night was impressive. That faun has a flair for strategy! He found the only way to recruit a counterforce—that’s assuming that there are enough sorcerers still at large, which I doubt. Nor do I believe that his absurd idealistic new protocol would work in practice, not for a minute. But it makes a good rallying cry. In fact his plan is the only hope, so we may as well try it. The problem is to spread the word to the frees before the Covin hunts them down—which it continues to do.”
“I will help in any way I can, sir.” Umpily could not bear to remember how he had been deceived by the fake Shandie. Sorcery or not, the humiliation was agony. He felt a burning need to redeem himself. He was ruefully aware that this remorse was out of character, and might fade in a day or two, but at the moment he was capable of anything . . . capable of considering anything.
The warlock snorted. “The best thing you can do, I suspect, is to keep scribbling gossip in that diary of yours. Oh—you didn’t think I knew about that? Why do you suppose you so often happened to be present when I turned up to talk with Shandie?”
He straightened and turned to his three minions. “Did you know you are in the presence of one of the great historians of Pandemia? Future ages will turn to his records whenever they need to know what the prince imperial had for breakfast on a particular day.”
They smiled faintly at the mockery. The warden turned his threatening gaze back to Umpily. Even without his grandiose armor and bogus muscle, Olybino could still intimidate. Indeed, he had more dignity without such ostentatious fakery. Who would tell him that, either?
“It is time to leave. We removed your spell of obedience. Do you want it replaced?”
Umpily shivered and shook his head. His mouth was too dry for speech. Everything he had written in his memoirs for the last four months was rubbish!
“Sure? You will be happier being deceived!”
“I am sure,” Umpily croaked.
Olybino chuckled. “Good for you. Very well. We shall put a shielding on you instead. That way you will not be taken in by the Covin’s illusions, and you will still have a visible sorcery on you. The Covin will assume it is the loyalty spell. Of course it will not withstand close scrutiny, so you must avoid attracting attention. When the dwarf learns what I have planned . . . Well, just say that very soon the little cave rat is going to be considerably out of sorts. He may go looking for scapegoats on whom he can vent his ill temper.”
Horrors! Umpily shivered. “What must I do?”
The warlock showed his teeth in a sinister smile. “Just watch! This is going to be a very interesting morning.” He turned to his votaries, his face suddenly grim. “What I must do now must be done quickly. I cannot give you very much time. Be on your way.”
Apparently Umpily was already shielded from sorcery, for the three were no longer disguised. The two former guardsmen were recognizable again, although Umpily would not have known them had he not expected to. The tall one he recalled as a younger brother of Count Ipherio. The woman was the charming daughter of Senator Heolclue. She smiled at him; the two men nodded solemnly. They rose. Umpily heaved himself upright, also, with more effort than he had expected. Then the woman sank down on her knees on the cobbles, and the two men copied her.
“The Good be with you, your Omnipotence!” she said, her voice breaking.
“A soldier knows his duty,” the warlock snapped.
The count’s brother raised clasped hands in appeal. “Master, let us stay and help, I beg you!” His eyes glistened with tears.
“I told you there would be no more argument! Be off with you! Hub is no place for sorcerers now.” Olybino turned his back on them all, folding his arms. The three rose to their feet and headed for the door, with Umpily at their heels.
4
“Now will you tell me what’s going on?” Jalon inquired, his tone unusually petulant.
“I’ll tell you one thing that been going on.” Rap took the wheel from the minstrel’s unresisting fingers. “We have been straying a mite off course, Helmsman.”
Dreadnaught, in fact, was broadside to the weather and drifting aimlessly. Fortunately the wind was light and the waves were puny. No one would trust Jalon with the helm otherwise.