The resemblance between him and young Signifer Ylo was striking, but the contrasts were interesting, too. In his spare time, Ylo went in for heroics and hard work. Andor shunned both to the very best of his ability. Both men were unscrupulous libertines, but there was an innocence about Ylo that Andor must have lost years ago, if he had ever had it. However much Ylo enjoyed women, he would always expect them to have fun, also. He believed quite honestly that he was doing them a good turn. With his word of power to aid him, Andor was a much more calculating hunter. He knew the damage his seductions might cause. Not only would he care little about hurting his victims, he probably enjoyed that, also. There was a difference between amorality and immorality—not much of one, but some.
The luxuriant valley was growing dim, stars twinkled in the velvet sky. Listening with half an ear to the conversation, Rap was also scanning the whole great compound. He had noted the silver and crystal laid out on the dining table, awaiting his dining pleasure. He had observed the many cooks scurrying about the hot kitchens, preparing the feast. Satisfied that the villa itself contained no unpleasant surprises, he was now studying the barns where the workers lived, and the grim repast awaiting them. A platoon of legionaries was doing a little better in a small barracks—it would be interesting, but probably depressing, to know how those men’s upkeep was recorded in the army’s rolls.
He had located many imps, and a few fauns, and even a heap of gnomes, only now starting to waken. Eventually he observed three trolls being herded homeward, a big male and two girls. The quarters they were heading for were obviously new, and built strong enough to hold a dragon. Now that was an interesting
Ripple!
He started to full alertness. Where had that come from? He could not tell. It had been very brief, and very slight. It had not been Andor—he was emitting a low hiss of sorcery, a faint, barely detectable glow. Somewhere close, someone had used a needle of power, a tiny flash.
Chillingly, Rap decided that someone had just scanned him. It might even have been the tribune himself, or one of his womenfolk. If so, the perpetrator was close enough to have detected Rap’s farsight at work as well as Andor’s use of mastery. God of Fools!
It was too late to caution Andor now, or tell him to stop.
Nevertheless, the next time those beguiling dark eyes turned in his direction, Rap risked a warning frown. Andor read the message instantly. He dropped his narrative in midsentence and slapped at his arm. “Mosquitoes? Early for bugs, isn’t it?”
With his power cut off, the spell was broken. The listeners seemed to rouse themselves.
“Oh, we do get a few at any time of the year,” Mistress Ainopple murmured apologetically, looking guilty, as if the bugs were her fault. ”We, er, should perhaps be thinking about dinner” She shot her husband a worried glance. He would be the sort of husband who would delay a meal for hours and then complain that it did not meet his standards.
Uoslope himself scratched his lower chin as if puzzled. “Tell me again your purpose in journeying through these parts, Sir Andor?”
Andor had not mentioned the subject at all. “Just a guide for my friend here.” He waved languidly in Rap’s direction. “I was asked to escort him by . . . by certain influential persons. His homeland is having some problems in certain branches of agriculture, and he is on a fact-finding mission.” He beamed at Rap, inviting him to explain.
Caught unaware, Rap made a mental note to get even at the first opportunity. How to proceed? A moment ago he would have been more circumspect, but if there was sorcery around, then he should grab for whatever information he could find in preparation for a very fast retreat.
“We are experiencing a shortage of agricultural laborers, Tribune. Recently the supply of felons seems to have dried up.” The listeners all stiffened in shock, even the two girls. “What sort of laborers, Highness?” Uoslope demanded angrily, his rubicund face darkening.
“I am talking of my homeland, remember,” Rap said brightly. ”In Sysanasso we do not have the same milksop scruples as some of the bleeding hearts in your country.”
“Er, quite, what?”
If there was an illicit trade in slaves between the Impire and Sysanasso—which there might well be—then Rap had no knowledge of it. But Uoslope would not, either, and it was certainly a plausible theory.
“What sort of laborers, exactly?” the tribune repeated. ”Felons. The Imperial army is our main supplier. Trolls, of course. They are invaluable for certain types of work. I am sure you employ some trolls here in Casfrel?”
“We do employ a few, mm? Useful, yes, but not very reliable, what?”
“Oh, well,” Ainopple broke in to protest, “you can’t expect to rely on them. Can’t really rely on anyone except an imp.”
“I heard a funny story,” young Nya said eagerly, “about a djinn, a dwarf, and a jotunn—”
“Not another dumb jotunn story?” Puo wailed.
“Have you queried your supplier?” Uoslope demanded of Rap.
“He wasn’t very helpful. He spoke vaguely of malcontents, disrupting the system and causing shortages. The price of a healthy male has risen ridiculously. I thought I’d come and see firsthand.”
“Oh, yes!” Ainopple muttered, wringing her stringy hands. ”Last year we lost our whole stock, and just when we were starting to have some success with the breeding program, too! Such a disappointment—”
“But we have replaced them, right?” her husband boomed. ”Surely dinner must be ready now, what?”
Trolls were an indelicate subject.
3
The evening that had started so well deteriorated rapidly. Dinner was a social catastrophe. Rap had never been handy at making meaningless small talk, and he was preoccupied in listening for sorcery. He detected no more, and gradually began to hope that he had overestimated that one brief flicker. Perhaps it had come from much farther away than he had first thought. In that case the culprit might just have picked up some fuzzy trace of Andor’s talent in use and been trying to locate it. The obvious precaution was to avoid disturbing the ambience any furtherno farsight, no mastery!
Unfortunately, Andor had two beautiful girls to stalk, and the use of power was second nature to him now.
Fortunately, Rap was sitting across the table from him. Every time Andor became charming, his leg got kicked.
After a while he seemed to comprehend what this sudden belligerence meant, but it threw him totally off balance. Stripped of occult support after so many years, he was naked. He did not know how to behave mundanely, how to react. He became awkward, jittery, and stilted, which would have been very funny, had the situation not been so serious.
Worse, the spell he had cast over Uoslope and his family wore off. First the tribune himself became surly and suspicious again, obviously wondering why these strangers had come prowling around his fiefdom, asking impertinent questions about his illicit slaves. Then the stars faded from the eyes of Nya and Puo; they began to respond to Andor’s now-clumsy blandishments with understandable disdain. The charmer had become a boor.
As for that faun, his place was down with the hired hands, washing horses or something!
Sensing the awkward overtones, Mistress Ainopple became even more dithery and nervous than ever. How had such a gawk ish, ungainly woman ever produced two such gorgeous daughters? Her feeble efforts to keep a conversation going only made matters worse. She peppered Rap with questions about his mythical kingdom, but his one visit to Sysanasso had been extremely brief, and he knew very little about his ancestral homeland. He tried to invent a tropical version of Krasnegar and it sounded improbable even to him. She asked Andor about the Imperial court, and that reminded everyone of the imperor’s death. Things went from worse to disastrous.
When the meal ended, there was no further talk of dancing. Everyone was willing to accept that the visitors were weary from their journey and needed to catch a good night’s sleep. With a few incoherent apologies, Rap and Andor made a break for the stairs.
“What in the Name of Evil was all that about?” Andor demanded in an angry whisper as they climbed. “My shins are black and blue!”
“Someone’s using sorcery. You ripple the ambience.”
“I shall ripple your neck, my faunish friend! Who? What sort of sorcery?”
They reached the upper story as Rap finished explaining. He took his companion’s elbow and turned him along a corridor. “We’re not going to our rooms. We’re leaving!”
“How? Where?”
“Servants’ staircase. Got to get out before they loose the dogs.”
Andor wailed. “Dogs?”
“Along here.”
Down they went.
Using the barest hint of farsight, Rap avoided the domestics now clearing away the remains of the meal. Less than five minutes after bidding their host good night, the fugitives were outside the villa, standing in a patch of inky shadow. The air was cooling rapidly, and a bloated moon floated in a clear sky, illuminating the whole valley. The Mosweeps were especially striking.