She flashed to the rescue.
Yes, it was a girl, a woman just a little younger than herself. She had taken refuge under a sort of heavy wooden canopy. She was one of the dark-haired demons, but not quite an imp. Imps did not have green eyes, or those delicate features. Green eyes were found only on jotnar, the books said, and very rarely even then. How odd that the books should be so unreliable! Perhaps the races had changed in the last thousand years.
She was purely mundane, not a sorceress, because she did not show at all in the ambience. Her sword did. It was a minor piece of sorcery, but very cleverly crafted, and it was deflecting the stabbing flashes of power that the girl would be seeing as giant birds. It was wearing out, though. It would not last much longer.
Thaile conceived a bubble of protection around them both. The illusory birds seemed to peck at it angrily. The girl looked around and saw she was not alone.
“Oh!” she said. Her face was haggard with shock and exhaustion. Then she managed a rictus of a smile. “You have come to rescue me!” She spoke in impish.
“Yes,” Thaile said, wondering why she was being so crazy. Who was she to oppose the monstrous evil of the usurper? If she lingered she would be noticed. She must move the child to safety on the far side of the river, and then leave at once.
“Thank you.” The girl calmly sheathed her sword. “Can you rescue Blood Beak, too?” she asked hopefully. “He’s hurt.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh.” The girl looked down and then said, “Oh!” again. ”Was he your goodman?” Thaile asked, thinking that the girl was very young to have the long hair of a goodwife. “My what? Oh, no. Just a friend, sort of. He wanted to rape me.”
The child was obviously delirious.
“Ready? I’ll put you where the magic won’t hurt you.”
“You’re a pixie?”
Thaile started. Impossible! “How do you know that?”
“My mother visited Thume once.” The girl leaned back limply against a tree, rubbing her eyes. “Years and years ago. She almost got raped there, I think, but she sort of glossed over the details when she told me. I didn’t think they spoke impish in Thume. You have a funny accent, if you’ll excuse my mentioning it, er, your Highness. I mean, it’s a nice accent, just a little unfamiliar. Gods, I’m tired! Beg your pardon—I’m Princess Kadolan of Krasnegar. Please call me Kadie.”
“I’m Thaile of the . . . of the Leeb Place.”
The big green eyes blinked. “Not a princess?” “No.”
“Oh. Well, a sorceress, of course. I knew someone would come and rescue me eventually. I wish you’d been a little sooner . . . Oh, I’m sorry! That does sound ungrateful, doesn’t it? I am extremely pleased to see you, truly I am! You are going to take me to Thume, I suppose?”
Thaile shook her head. She was not at all sure what she was going to do now. All she did know was that she was being very foolish and must hurry away, but the girl was not regarding her as a freak, a ghost from an extinct race, and now premonition was telling her that this meeting was important.
“I was kidnapped by the goblins,” Kadie said, wiping her forehead wearily. “Months ago! I kept hoping Papa would come and rescue me, ‘cause he’s a sorcerer, but he’s off trying to fight the usurper with the new protocol he invented, so he can’t know what happened to me. And my mother’s with the imperor, the real imperor, not the fake one, and I don’t know what’s happened to Gath, he’s my brother, and I’m awfully afraid I’m going to start weeping like a silly kid.”
Madness, surely? Thaile probed in a way she had not known she could, wiping away the shock and exhaustion. She could find no trace of madness, or what she thought madness would look like. She did see the ravages of weeks and weeks of terror and hardship, like scar tissue on the soul, but some of that was part of growing up and would have come eventually anyway. Could all that strange babbling story have been true?
Kadie blinked again, straightened her shoulders, and smiled.
“Oh, that’s a great improvement! Thank you!” She glanced down briefly, and shuddered. “Poor Blood Beak! It wasn’t his fault, was it, the way he was brought up? I mean, none of us can help that. He didn’t know any better.”
“Your father is really a sorcerer? And you know the imperor?”
Kadie grinned, and nodded. “It’s rather a long story.” Thaile nodded, but did not grin. Did the Keeper know all this about fake imperors? New protocol?
Kadie glanced around nervously. She would be seeing massed black birds, of course. Thaile was aware that the power outside her shielding was changing. The Covin would detect this local disturbance very soon.
“If you’re going to take me away from all this,” Kadie said diffidently, “then shouldn’t we maybe go now? We can talk on the way if you like.” She grinned again. “This is a very strange conversation, isn’t it? I’m awfully glad you’ve come.”
Suddenly—astonishingly!—Thaile found herself returning the second grin. How long since she had smiled? How wonderful it felt to be talking with a simple mundane instead of all the scheming sorcerers of the College! She detected no concealment in the girl, no guile. No demon, just an unfortunate victim like herself. “I expect you are glad! Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere! Take me home with you.”
“I haven’t got a home.”
Kadie’s green eyes widened. “Oh, that’s awful! How terrible! Well, let’s go to my home. You’ll be ever so welcome there. Stay as long as you like!”
“Where’s that?”
“A little place called Krasnegar. Way up north. It’s hundreds of leagues from anywhere, and dull as mud.” She paused, frowning. “I will be glad to see it again, though.”
“A little Place?” Thaile said hopefully.
“Very little. Very rustic, I’m afraid. Oh! The birds have gone!”
“Quickly!” Thaile shouted, holding out a hand. “Let’s go! Think hard about where your Place is and I’ll take us there!”
“Poor Blood Beak!” Kadie took the offered hand, but her eyes were on the dead boy. “I always told him I would be rescued.”
9
Dreadnaught was drifting again, rolling uneasily, and her sails banged and flapped in the morning breeze. Some of the trolls had curled up in balls. A couple of others were smashing things in mindless fury—barrels, pin racks, davits. Most of the anthropophagi were close to berserk. Grunth and Thrugg and Tik Tok were trying to restore order, but the ship was a madhouse of emotion and monstrous flickering images.
Jalon, as the only mundane aboard, was frantic. “What’s happening?” he asked yet again.
Rap grabbed him by the shoulders. “Get me Sagorn!” he yelled.
“What? I can’t—”
“I need Sagorn! I can’t tell you what’s happening. I don’t know what’s happening. Zinixo’s burned the legions and ripped up the goblins. I want to know what he’s trying to do!”
The minstrel cringed before his anger. “But I can’t call Sagorn. He called me!”
“Then get me one who can!”
Jalons’ garments ripped to shreds as Darad’s enormous form appeared in his place. The warrior stood there half naked, his hideous face turning pale. ”Rap?” he mumbled, staring around the crowded deck.
“Not you!” Rap screamed. Idiot Jalon! “Call Sagorn!” Darad frowned and licked his lips. “But I called him the last time, Rap . . .”
“Call another!”
SORCERERS! NOW YOU HAVE SEEN THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY! NONE CAN RESIST HIM. ALL MUST BOW DOWN AND SERVE!
Anthropophagi shrieked in fury. Trolls moaned.
Darad vanished. Rags fluttered around the puny form of Thinal the thief. His spotty face blanched as he saw the company he was in.
“Not you!” Rap shouted. “Gods, not you! I want Sagorn!”
COME, SORCERERS! YOU ARE COMMANDED TO COME TO HUB AT ONCE AND ENLIST IN THE SERVICE OF THE ALMIGHTY, THE GOOD, THE BELOVED. COME NOW!
Rap wiped his streaming brow. “Thinal, I don’t think we need you just at the moment. Please will you call Doctor Sagorn?”
“Who does he think we are?” Tik Tok screamed. His dark face was suffused with fury, his tattoos stood out in vivid color, and the bone in his nose was jumping. “Monster! He expects us to serve him after that?”
Thinal’s teeth were chattering. “Rap, I can’t!” “What do you mean, ‘can’t’?”
Thrugg rolled across the deck like a bullock. “Rap, this is serious! Some of my friends are going to answer that summons!”
“Stop them!” Rap screamed. If even one troll obeyed the Covin’s command, then Dreadnaught and all her crew would be betrayed.
Thinal was shaking like a flag. “Rap, I haven’t done enough time! I only just got away last time! I can’t call anyone yet!”