Ylo groaned at this insanity. “Was he Grunth, as well?”
“Yes. No. She never spoke, remember? Just bowed. So she was merely a delusion. And so was the destruction of the four thrones. We were made to imagine that!”
Ylo could recall being hit by a flying rock, but he said nothing as the nonsense poured out—
“So the wardens knew nothing of what was going on! Rap’s an enormously powerful sorcerer, remember. He lured us away to Sagorn’s house . . .” Shandie paused, frowning. Then he beamed. “Lured us away with fake memories of a preflecting pool, of course. Obviously that whole business never happened! We were given false memories of it, that’s all. I mean, is it likely? Magic pools just lying around? For half a year we do nothing about those supposed prophecies, and then we manage to track down Sagorn in a couple of hours?”
“We saw Rap and Raspnex there together,” Ylo said wearily. ”You suggesting that the dwarf was a sort of ventriloquist’s dummy?”
He should have known that logic wouldn’t work. “Certainly!” Shandie shouted. “I hadn’t thought of that. Brilliant!” He went on to explain how the faun was trying to lure him away to Krasnegar—for reasons he had not worked out yet—and how the wardens were trying to cover for him, hiding his disappearance with the help of Cousin Emthoro and Duchess Ashia, of course, and there was no Usurper Zinixo, it was all just a story the faun had made up . . .
When he ran down at last like a dried-out water clock and said, “Well, what do you think?” Ylo realized that they were in the middle of the river, halfway across the bridge, and had safely passed the guards.
In a spasm of relief, he threw caution to the crows. “I’ve seen lots more attractive stuff on barn floors,” he sneered, and took the rest of the crossing to tear the imperor’s absurd fantasy to fragments.
Shandie went into a sulk after that. For an hour he said nothing at all, just trailed after Ylo as he scoured the northern half of Newbridge for a vacant bed. When the search at last turned up a grubby little inn, he did not comment on it. The stable was already crowded, and no grooms were available to attend to the horses. Still Shandie said nothing. He dismounted in silence, handed his reins to Ylo, and began pacing up and down, brooding.
Normally Ylo enjoyed horses, but he was weary and hungry, and would have appreciated some help. The change in his companion frightened him, but it also annoyed him. He detested being thrust into leadership over a man he had followed so faithfully. He had not expected this responsibility, or asked for it, and he resented it strongly. He placed himself in Shandie’s path.
“Here!” he said, waving the key. “You’d better take possession of the room, or we may find half a cohort asleep in our bed when we get there. Take the packs. Number seven.”
He stopped in horror, realizing he had just given orders to the imperor. Yet Shandie did not protest. He wandered off, trailing the saddlebags. Snorting with either relief or disgust—he was not sure which—Ylo grabbed up some straw and went back to polishing sweaty horsehide.
The sun set. When he finally plodded up the creaky stairs, he discovered the key in the door, and the room empty. To be exact, he found no imperors in it. The one bed nearly filled the tiny space, the only other furniture being a very spotty mirror bolted to the wall and a large china chamber pot, equally unprepossessing.
For a moment he almost panicked. Shandie could not have gone anywhere without the horses, and he had not come out to the yard to use the privy. Could he have been kidnapped?
The saddlebags had been stuffed down between the bed and the far wall. Underneath them was Shandie’s satchel, containing the king’s letters to Krasnegar and the supply of gold. Obviously Shandie had taken leave of his senses altogether if he had left the gold unguarded. If that was ever lost, everything would be lost.
After locking the door and looping the satchel over his shoulder, Ylo went clattering back downstairs. The saloon was crammed, noisy, and dim. There were no spare seats, and so many men standing that there was barely room to move. He hunted around, with no success. He went outside and searched the stables, the privies, the yard, even the street. With any other man, he would have suspected a girl and a bed, but not Shandie.
Now what was he supposed to do? Rouse the city guard to hunt for a missing imperor?
Fatigue forgotten and fear a bitter taste in his mouth, Ylo went back to the bedroom and began all over again. When he reached the saloon, he set out to quarter it methodically, squeezing around crowded tables and between loud huddles of men locked in argument. Eventually he found his quarry slumped on a solitary stool in a corner, gazing solidly at the wall. He clutched a tankard of bad-smelling beer with both hands. It had to be badsmelling beer if it was the same stuff that made the room stink as it did.
Ylo managed to ease in beside him and kneel down, almost leaning on him.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “You sick?”
The imperor looked around slowly and stared at him with an expression of distaste. He muttered, “Uomaya!” and took a leisurely draft from his tankard.
“What about her?”
“What about her?” Shandie mumbled. “What sort of man deserts his child and runs away just because a dwarf says to, huh?”
“Whileboth’s faster,” said a harsh military voice at Ylo’s back.
“Poor little Maya!” Shandie moaned. “I left my baby!”
“Whileboth and the Ister valley and then Mosrace.”
Mosrace?
That was where Ylo had been telling people he was heading. He choked off what he had been about to say so he could listen. In the clamor of voices all around, he did not make out an answer, but then the nearest man spoke again.
“Naw, too hilly. And not Lipash township neither. Roads’ll be waist-deep in mud this time of year.”
Ylo relaxed. Nothing to do with him, just a party of legionaries heading home on Winterfest leave, obviously. Mosrace was a largish place, so its mention was merely coincidence. He returned his attention to Shandie and the wild, bitter look in the coal-black eyes.
“You left the baggage unattended!”
“Should have stayed in Qoble, stayed with the legion. Deserted my post. Not fit to be an imperor.”
“Tell me what I can do to help.”
Shandie raised his stein to drink. Ylo thought he was not going to get a reply, then it, came. “Tell me what you’ve done so far.”
“Huh?”
The dark eyes narrowed. “What’s in this for you, Signifer? You’ve never been an idealist before. You only care about the itch in your crotch. Why should you suddenly start acting hero?”
For a moment Ylo wanted to make a stupid retort about being the only man in the army entitled to wear a white wolfskin. Then he remembered that he had earned that honor by accident, and Shandie knew that. All right, so he wasn’t a hero. He’d never said he was.
And Shandie went on. “Who bought you, Signifer? What were you promised?”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t you? You expect me to believe all this puke about covins and almighty sorcerers?”
“You don’t?”
Shandie smiled slyly into his tankard. “No, I don’t! Not now. Oh, they fooled me to start with, that dwarf, that faun. Now I see it was all a plot! They’ve stolen me away from my throne with their feathery tales of millennia and votaries! And I don’t think you believe it, either—I think you’re one of them! ”
God of Madness! The Covin was winning, distance had not helped.
“Er, your wife believed in it.”
“Ha! What do women know of politics, huh?”
Plenty, in Ylo’s extensive experience of pillow talk, and they were usually a great deal more astute at judging men. For him to bring Eshiala into the conversation with Shandie in his present mood might provoke all sorts of unfounded suspicions. So”Maybe you’re right! What do you think we ought to do?” Shandie blinked at this sudden capitulation. Odd twitches of expression flickered uncertainly over his face. Then he drained his tankard and lowered it with a gasp. He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “Go home, of course! Go back to Hub and do my duty. Catch all the liars and hang ‘em from the flagpole.”
Ylo needed a sorcerer, quickly. He needed help and he certainly needed advice. If Shandie persisted in these delusions, he might take off back along the Hub road like a madman. He might do worse—he might just give himself up to the local authorities. Why had the faun or the warlock not foreseen that this might happen? Just as it had in inventing the imposter imperor now reigning in Hub, the Covin had pulled a trick the godly had not anticipated. What evilish horror might it play next?