Emperor and Clown (58 page)

“Just
Firedragon.”

She
tensed even more. “I would like to ask a favor.”

“Anything,
of course.” He waited. It couldn’t be gold, because he’d refilled the chest for
her, and she had plenty. Raise the causeway above high-water mark? Alterations
to the castle? Well, he wasn’t going to pry.

“I
want to be a sorceress.”

A
hot glob of porridge landed unnoticed on his lap. “Inos, no! You don’t know
what it’s like!”

“Tell
me, then.”

“It’s
horrible! You stop seeing people as people. They’re slow, and stupid, and
unimportant! You can have anything you want, so nothing’s worth having, or
doing, anymore. And nobody else’s wants or opinions matter. No, it’s awful. You
don’t want that!”

She
was frightened, and determined not to show it. “You said `Anything’!”

“You
have everything you need, and I didn’t mean-”

“I’m
sorry I’m so slow and unimportant, but I could swear I heard you say `Anything.’
“

He
put his face in his hands. Pure, rending desire ... it was worse than any
carnal lust imaginable. It was a fanfare of silver trumpets. It lit up his
heart like dawn. Escape!

After
all, he had told her two words once and managed to stop. The memory of that
effort was terrifying, but he had managed it once.

Of
course-Common Sense retorted-that time he’d had Zinixo waiting to settle.
Hatred can be stronger than love. He didn’t have his jotunn temper stoked and
burning now as a distraction.

Pain
... That was what she was thinking) By telling her two words that night, he had
reduced his power and been able to bring the overload under control. If he
shared two more he would be weaker still, and she was guessing then that he
might not be in so much pain. Maybe she was right!

Try
it! whispered Temptation. Try it!

For
months and months he had fought to suppress the agony. It was killing him, day
by day, hour by hour. He was fading-he knew that. Just maybe she was right, and
he wouldn’t hurt so much if he shared two more words with her.

He
would be putting himself at risk from the wardens, of course. They had never
stopped watching him: where he was, what he was doing. They were all scared of
him. Rightly so, because he was pretty sure he could take on all four of them
together if he needed to; the new West was nothing much. So the Four had left
him alone, even when he’d gone meddling in their backyards-rescuing the fairies
still in Milflor to hide them and others away where they would never be found
... curing an outbreak of plague that Olybino had started among the goblins ...
turning back a blaze of dragons that had come to investigate what he was doing
for Nagg and her little tribe .

Rap
the stableboy had trampled all over the Protocol, and the Four had looked the
other way. But if they ever sensed that he’d slipped back to mere sorcerer
power, then they might be tempted to try something.

He
discovered that he really didn’t care.

And
he wouldn’t be very much weaker, anyway. He’d still be in command of five
words, however much they had been reduced by sharing, and not one of the
present Four would dare try that. His mastery of power was a freakish thing.
Maybe that was how some of the great fabled sorcerers of the past had gained
their power, but most people were destroyed by five. Like Rasha.

Share
his words?

Normally
sharing a word was a very painful experience, except when on the brink of
death. The act had virtually killed Sagorn, and the pain had fascinated Little
Chicken. But not in this case. It wouldn’t hurt this time. Tell Inos? Yes! Yes!

But
the danger! She didn’t know the danger! He looked into her pale, scared face. “You’re
sure?”

She
nodded dumbly and passed a pink tongue over her lips-lips to haunt a man’s
memory until the day he died.

“It’s
a terrible risk!”

“I
trust you. Just two.” Clever girl!

“That’s
why you’re afraid to get close, isn’t it?” she said. “Why you don’t want to be
intimate? Losing control ... you talked about losing control. You’re afraid you’d
tell me them all!”

He
nodded, astonished that she’d worked that out. Mundanes weren’t always stupid,
if you could just give them enough time. She was an adept, of course. That
would help.

“Three
little words,” he said. “Easy to say in a moment of ... er ... passion.”

“And
then what? I burn, and I don’t have your knack for controlling magic?”

He
shook his head. He hurt if he even tried to think about it. To explain was ...
forbidden.

“But
you can tell me two!”

“You
don’t know what you’re asking. And it won’t make any difference to us, Inos. It’ll
be worse, because there’ll only be one word between us and ... and. . .” His
tongue began tripping all over his mouth again. “Only one word left,” he
finished.

“You
said `Anything’!”

“No!
I won’t risk it.”

She
sighed, but her green eyes glinted like sunlight through breakers. “Oh, Rap!
Just for once ... If this is the last time we’ll ever see each other, just for
once couldn’t you let me talk you into something?”

He
pushed back his chair. “It’s too risky, Inos.” She wadded the napkin smaller
than ever. “I’m prepared to take that risk. I asked for a favor and you said ‘Anything’!
Now, are you, or are you not, a man of your word?”

Why
was she pursuing-this madness? To aid her kingdom? If she only knew what she
would be taking on by becoming a sorceress, she wouldn’t be so insanely eager
to mother that dimwitted brood of yokels. They would never appreciate what she
was doing for them anyway, and she must know that.

To
aid Rap? She thought she could do him a favor and ease the constant agony of
controlling five words of power. But he suspected she had some other motive as
well. He resisted the temptation to use insight on her; he was frightened of
finding himself in there in compromising concepts.

But
she’d trapped him. He had said “Anything.”

“It’s
not fair to others, Inos,” he protested, knowing he was on his last excuse. “Those
two words you know already ... one was the one Zinixo told me. The other I got
from my mother. I didn’t plan it that way, they were just the first that came
to mind.” He cringed at the memory of that fiery ordeal in Emine’s Rotunda, and
then cringed even more as he remembered who had saved him from it. “I don’t
know if anyone else knows those words, too. But the words I haven’t
shared-those belong to Kade, and Little Chicken, and Sagorn. I’ll weaken their
powers if I tell those words to you.”

Green
eyes flashed again. “Leave Sagorn and his buddies out of this by all means! But
I heard you warn Little Chicken not to use his occult strength . . . didn’t I?
And Kade’s talent is chaperoning young ladies. She isn’t going to have any time
for that from now on if she’s running Kinvale. It’s time she started taking
things easy anyhow!”

He
glanced despairingly around the hall. The servants were still hard at their
blathering. The officials and senior staff had vaguely noticed that the queen
had a visitor and had chosen to cluster at one of the side tables instead of
joining her. There was no one within earshot.

“You’re
quite sure?”

She
nodded. She wasn’t quite sure, but Inos had acquired a regal serenity, a
confidence that came from more than the glamour he had cast on her. It was not
all adepthood, either. Some of it was just Inos being a good queen.

Almost
before he realized, he had leaned close to whisper Kadolan’s word into her ear.
Relief! The second one was even easier, and the third--

He
bit his own tongue and managed to stop it halfway through the third word. That
was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life-it was pain, it was nausea, it
was sorrow and fear; and self-contempt, and everything horrible. It tore at his
mind and trampled his soul and racked his body with terrible spasms. It was
death and destruction, and more than he could bear. He toppled from his chair, howling.
He rolled and thrashed on the floor, hearing the Gods’ mocking laughter.

But
he’d stopped and his mouth was full of blood. Then he saw Inos before him in
the ambiencetransparent, frightened, her hands over her ears. But a sorceress,
a glorious, beautiful, desirable sorceress. He couldn’t bear it.

“Inos,
I love you!” He reached for her.

“No,
Rap!” her specter cried, backing away from him in an aura of conflicting reds
and pinks. He went after her, to grasp her and pull her close and force his
mouth to her ears, or lips, or cheek, or anything.

In
the mundane Great Hall his hand caught the hem of her gown as she turned to
flee. He hauled her back. She stumbled against her chair and then fell,
struggling and screaming, and he clasped her in his arms.

He
was going to kiss her and tell her he loved her and then share the fifth word
with her.

In
the mundane world, she magicked right out of his embrace, so that he sprawled
hard against chair legs, clutching an empty gown. The mundanes had noticed the
racket and were starting to turn, sluggish as old cabbages.

In
the ambience she fled, racing away across a polished plain, a naked girl
running bright and sweet against a somber, discordant sky.

He
scanned and found her at the top of Inisso’s Tower, in her bedroom, wrenching
open the door to the upper staircase. She was heading for the portal and escape
to Kinvale.

She
mustn’t escape! He must take her, and tell her, and share everything with her,
and release the awful, burning compulsion. Howling, he vanished from the Great
Hall, and everything had happened so fast that the mundanes were still bringing
their eyes around to locate all the disturbance. A final chair hit the floor,
right by the queen’s discarded dress.

Rap
stumbled as he arrived in the narrow, curving stairwell, and that gave her an
extra second or two. Then he hurtled up the stairs like a bat, without a boot
touching the treads.

In
the ambience his fingers touched her arm.

Just
ahead of Rap’s mundane grasp, Inos reached the top of the stairs and vanished
from ambience and farsight both. Rap, moving occultly, ricocheted off the
shielding and sprawled on the steps, pounding his fists in torment. He forced
down the pain, the anger, the maddening love, the unbearable compulsion.

Somehow
he brought himself under control, shaking and sweating and weeping like a
stupid mundane. Maybe the agony was a little easier to suppress now, a little
easier than before.

But,
Oh, Gods, girl, that had been a narrow escape!

He
gave himself no chance to change his mind. He moved instantly to the stable and
saddled Firedragon in half a second. Fleabag, who had been dozing in an empty
stall, rose at his master’s summons. A knot of gossiping hands barely noticed
as dog and tack and horse all vanished from their places.

Out
in the bailey, one or two looked around in surprise at a mounted man they had
not noticed earlier. He rode out through the shielding of the gate.

Inos
was visible in the ambience then, wide-eyed, hair streaming, staring at him in
fright. He could reach out and touch her ...

Physically,
she was standing in the chamber of puissance with her hand on the portal.

“It’s
all right, love, “ he said, fighting down another surge of agony and longing. “I
think I can handle it now. But stay out of my sight! Stay in the castle until I’m
gone. “

She
nodded and ran across the chamber to the stair. He was still riding in the
castle yard and he dare not wait on the tide. He moved man and dog and horse to
the hills.

The
rock of Krasnegar was a mere speck, then, far away against the pale endless
blue of the Winter Ocean. Its castle was barely visible at all.

In
low, chill sunshine, he rode southward over the hills. The yellow grass was
crisp with frost, crunching below Firedragon’s hooves, and the wind cut with a sinister
edge. Now and then he would give the ambience a gentle nudge, moving himself
across a valley to the far crest, gaining time. He wanted to put a great
distance between himself and Inos as soon as possible, but from habit he
preferred not to alert the wardens any more than he had to. They probably all
kept votaries watching for him all the time anyway.

Once
he thought he felt Inos searching, and he blasted out a warning. “Go away!”

“Rap?”

“Yes,
but I’m still too close!” He caught a faint image of her in the ambience, an
echo, a scent. Prickles of sweat broke out all over him, and he trembled from
sheer longing. Would he feel any different when he reached the far ends of the
earth? She would be just as visible, just as close in the ambience. How could he
ever escape?

“I
just wanted to say I love you!-”

“Likewise!
Now, please, Inos! Go!”

“All
right. “ There were tears in her eyes. “And now I know what you were doing, and
why. Thank you, Rap!”

His
heart twisted. “You agree? This is what you want?”

“Oh,
yes!” She choked back a sob. “Good-bye, Rap!”

Then
she was gone, and he could relax again. Almost. He kept having visions of Inos
plunging into the flames to rescue him-crazy, impulsive Inos. And then he would
remember Rasha’s fearful solitary immolation, and her final despairing howl to
Azak: Love!

A
sorcerer could marry, but only a mundane. A mage might love a genius, or an
adept another adept. Four words was the limit. Only mortals with his freakish
control over power would not be destroyed by five.

But
two people and five words of power plus love ... He put the terrible recipe out
of his mind and rode on.

He
decided to visit Death Bird on his way by. As he had foreseen, the goblin was
chief of Raven Totem now. He’d challenged his father and won the hunters’ vote
that resulted. Then he’d disappointed everyone by letting the old man live
instead of making an entertainment of him. It had been the first step in his
revolution, and in his way Little Chicken was doing as well as Inos.