Later there was going to be a big argument about what to do with him and Mom and Kadie and Gath. Sounded—would sound—as if they might be sent to Dwanish as prisoners of war. That would be better than staying with the goblin army.
Everyone else was leaving. No, two dwarves would be staying. One of them had been referred to as Wirax earlier, and the other would be called Frazkr in a few minutes. So three goblins and three dwarves and the four prisoners. That was what all the arguments had been about earlier—where this meeting should be held and who should be there, apart from the two leaders. Little of it had made sense to Gath, because he hadn’t heard everything said and people had been meaning more than they put into words. Now prescience told him why those four underlings had been included, and he shivered. They were going to be asked if the imperor was telling the truth.
They were sorcerers! Of course the invaders would want to have sorcerers on their side. Mom had said it was quite likely Death Bird would have sorcerers around, even though they mustn’t use sorcery against Imperial legions. The legions belonged to the warlock of the east, meaning only he could use magic on them, and of course he did it only to help them. But even if sorcerers mustn’t fight directly, they could still do a lot of things to help an army: cure disease or wounds, spy out the enemy, interrogate prisoners—which was why those four were here tonight. Mom had explained a lot of this in the last few days; things you never bothered with in school came to mean a lot more when you were stuck in the middle of a war.
His own name was going to be mentioned. The imperor had seen him in a magic pool and been coming to Krasnegar to meet him! Wow! That must be why he’d seen a vision of the imperor, of course, although Shandie had been only prince imperial then, and that was how Gath’d been able to recognize him and save him, so the pool must have known that . . . how could a pool of water know anything?
The imperor was going to talk a lot about Zinixo. Gath knew the name. When they were kids, Kadie’s games had often involved a villain called Zinixo. Gath had usually been the Zinixo, because none of the others had ever wanted to be bad guys. He’d never understood why that had bothered them, it had just been a game. Kadie had usually been the good witch of the south, of course, or Allena the Fair.
Zinixo had been a very evil warden, warlock of the west years and years ago. They’d heard of him even in Krasnegar, although no one had been quite sure exactly how he had been evil. He’d been killed by a faun sorcerer and everyone in Krasnegar believed that had been Dad, but Dad had refused to talk about it even after he’d admitted to Gath that he was a sorcerer, which he’d never admitted to anyone else.
But this wasn’t a game, and Zinixo wasn’t dead, after all. Now—so Shandie was going to say—he’d gathered an army of sorcerers and made them all loyal to him. The Covin, the imperor would call it. Zinixo’d overthrown the wardens! Holy Balance! Even Kadie had never invented that!
That was going to be one of the times the goblin king asked Long Runner if all this was true and the sorcerer was going to say yes, the imperor was telling the truth.
Gath glanced around as the last guard left, wondering why everyone did not look more excited. But of course Shandie was just starting to speak. They hadn’t got there yet. The seven men were still arranging themselves in a horseshoe—dwarves one side, goblins the other, and the imperor in the middle, facing the fireplace with his back to the prisoners.
And there was going to be some really ferocious stuff about how the imperor and Dad and the impress and some others had escaped from the Covin with the help of the warlock of the north, who was a dwarf called Raspnex. Kadie would love that bit!
But the bit the goblins and dwarves were going to be interested in was about Zinixo—and Dad was going to be mentioned again.
“So the Protocol doesn’t work anymore,” the imperor would say. ”The wardens all ran away, except Raspnex, and I don’t know where he went after he left us. Lith’rian probably headed home to Ilrane, and Witch Grunth to the Mosweeps, but we can’t guess where Olybino went.”
Gath tried to recall more of the stuff Mom had told him and Kadie in the last few days. Lith’rian was South and an elf. The witch of the west must be a troll if she went to the Mosweeps, because that was troll country. East was an imp, Warlock Olybino.
The bit about Dad . . . “King Rap and the warlock have invented a new protocol. It’s going to outlaw votarism.” What was votarism? Sure was hard to think straight when your eyes felt full of sand. The warmth was making him sleepy. His jaw ached from the effort of not yawning. Sounded—would sound—like votarism was one sorcerer putting a loyalty spell on another, making a slave out of him, like Zinixo had done to all the people in the Covin. Dad would not approve of that, so it made sense.
Trouble was, there was so much of it, and Gath wasn’t listening to a bit at a time as the others were, he was trying to take it all in at once. Then he realized that the best way was to concentrate on Death Bird’s questions. The general’s, too, but Death Bird’s would be really sharp.
“How can you hope to defeat this Covin if it’s so powerful?”
“We can’t, unless we can collect more power than it has. ”
“But if the Covin’s still hunting down all the sorcerers it can find, then how can you hope to find them faster?” “We can’t. What we can hope to do is to spread the word about the new protocol to all the sorcerers still at large. The new protocol is their only hope, because otherwise the Covin will get them all in the end. If they will help us, we can build a bigger army.”
“And how do you spread the word?”
“We’re telling all the mundane leaders. Like you, your Majesty. And you, your Excellency. You can help us by spreading the news so the free sorcerers will hear of it. This is our only advantage—you couldn’t help Zinixo that way, even if he made you want to.”
The goblin was going to look very mad then. And he was going to ask Long Runner and, er . . . Moon Baiter . . . what they thought. And he was going to be really mad when they said that it sounded like a good idea to them.
And the two dwarves would agree, too, which wouldn’t please the general, either.
And then Shandie was going to tell them they had better call off their war, because there were no rules anymore, no wardens to take their part. The Covin might just wipe them out, and even Long Runner and the others couldn’t save them and would just get enlisted in the Covin, also.
Now that was really going to make them cross!
Gath felt his hand squeezed. Mom was beaming at him with tears in her eyes. Huh? Oh, now the imperor had got to the bit about the escape with Dad.
He smiled back at her uncertainly.
Trouble? Yes, there was something bad coming after all this argument . . . He couldn’t quite see it yet, but he wasn’t going to like it. He felt a shiver of fear.
The imperor was smiling at him, everyone was looking . . . Oh, yes. The bit about the imperor coming to Krasnegar to see him.
He puffed out his chest and tried to look useful.
What was so bad at the end, that he couldn’t quite see yet?
Dad had gone off hunting for sorcerers. Kadie would say that was romantic. He thought it was very brave, but it worried him. Dad could be just about anywhere now.
Something else was going to worry him much more. It would come after the goblin king and the general announced that they had heard enough and were going away to talk it over. The prisoners were to be left in this cottage—well, it would be a better place to sleep than anything they’d had in a week. Besides, the windows were starting to brighten with dawn, so there wouldn’t be much sleep for anyone.
And the last thing discussed would be what was going to happen to the prisoners. Death Bird would insist that they be kept with the army. Karax was going to demand that they be sent off to Dwanish as hostages.