Master and Fool (47 page)

"What do you
want from me?" he asked.

"I want you
to set up a meeting between me and the archbishop. A discreet one, mind. Just a
quick in and out." Gamil stepped back from the unsavory boy. He was
obviously quite mad. A meeting with Tavalisk! Who did he think he was?
"That is out of the question. His Eminence never gives audiences
to"-Gamil shuddered with distaste--"people off the street."

The boy was
unruffled. "He would if you set it up."

"And why
would I want to do that?"

"Because you
wouldn't want old Tavalisk finding out you're in league with Larn."

Gamil didn't move.
He neither blushed nor batted an eye. Having spent years being insulted and
harangued by the archbishop, he was a master of giving nothing away. His
stomach, however, was a different matter entirely. It felt like someone had
given it wings and it had taken to fluttering around his heart. Knowledge
bestowed many gifts, but bravery was unfortunately not one of them.

Mentally he pulled
himself together. His first job was to find out how much the boy knew.
"Boy, you are a liar. And as such can be prosecuted by a judge."

"Why don't
you run along and get one, then?" replied the boy. "I've got time
enough to wait." With a great show of nonchalance he examined the dirt
under his nails. "I know, while you're gone I'll pass the time thinking
about all those letters you received from Larn."

Gamil's stomach
was no longer fluttering, it was coming in to land. This was his worst fear:
the archbishop finding out about his association with Larn. Why, Tavalisk would
have him dismissed and banished on the spot! Gamil felt a trickle of sweat
slide past his ear. No matter how much he loathed the archbishop, his position
as chief aide was everything to him. He tolerated being a lackey in the palace,
because in the city he was as good as a king. He had a network of spies and
informants under him, men feared and respected him, stallholders offered trade
discounts, and prostitutes granted favors for free.

The last thing
knowledge conveyed was a sense of entitlement, and that's how Gamil felt about
Rorn. It was his city. He knew more about its people, its history, and its
politics than any other man alive. By squirreling away every day, collecting
information from a hundred different sources, he had
earned
the right to
run it And now this young upsurt was threatening to take it all away.

For what? For
Larn. It just wasn't worth it The only reason he'd taken to corresponding with
the priests was to gather information from afar. What the seers knew could not
be gleaned from gossip in a tavern, or read about in books. The seers knew the
future: the most provocative knowledge of all. In return for that knowledge
Gamil had granted Larn a few favors here and there. Nothing much, nothing that
would compromise his position. Until a week ago. That was when he received a
letter from the high priest himself. The hooded one stated that the knight
would soon pass through Rorn. In no uncertain terms, he demanded that Gamil
prevent the knight from boarding a boat and sailing to Lam.

Gamil had done his
best, but by the time Tavalisk had begrudgingly sent out the troops, the knight
had sailed off into the sunset. Which meant that he had aroused His Eminence's
suspicion for nothing. Now, Tavalisk was many things--gluttonous, narcissistic,
indolent, and sadistic, to name but a few-but above all he was suspicious.
Little things lingered long in his mind awaiting connections, affirmations, or
denials. Gamil was quite sure that the conversation that they'd had over the
knight would be one of those little things. All it would take for Tavalisk's
suspicions to be confirmed would be this young ruffian in front of him. True,
the boy would never be able to see Tavalisk face-to-face, but he could start
rumors, send messages, impute from a distance.

Gamil shuddered at
the thought of it. He simply couldn't take the risk. Beckoning the boy closer,
he said, "if I did agree to set up an audience with His Eminence, I take
it there would be no mention of Larn?"

The boy smiled
broadly. "Lam? Never heard of the place."

Tarissa was
mocking him. Her voice was shrill and her laugh was cruel.

"Jack!"

The cold stuff
passed over him once more. Cold, salty, and wet, it rushed along his side and
into his mouth. It didn't make him choke. Some deep unconscious instinct forced
him to swallow, not breathe.

"Jack!"

The cold stuff
drained away, leaving him heavier, colder, and vaguely aware of his own
discomfort. Jack didn't mind: he knew it would be back.

Tarissa was above
him. Screeching. He made an effort to turn away from her. Pain sizzled across
his thighs. He couldn't move his legs. The cold stuff hit again. This time it
came higher, past his mouth to his eyes. Jack knew he had to do sornething, but
he was just so content where he was. Whatever lay beneath him was shaped for
him alone. It dipped to accommodate his elbow and rose to support his head. In
fact, he was so comfortable that if it hadn't been for Tarissa harping on he
would have fallen into a nice dark sleep by now.

"Jack!"

Someone was
calling his name. Not Tarissa, though. Too deep for her. Jack kept very still.
The pain in his thighs had subsided to a background hum, and that was the way
he wanted to keep it.

"Oh, my God,
Jack!"

And then someone
was shaking him, brushing the hair from his face, slapping his cheeks, turning
him on his belly and slamming their fists against his lungs.

"Come on.
Come on!"

He was turned over
once more. His chest was pumped. His mouth was cleared He was dragged by his
arms up a slope. Tarissa started screaming again at about the same instant the
pain hit; Jack didn't know which was worse. Searing, nerve-twisting spasms
raced across his thighs while he was laughed at from above by the woman he
still loved. It was too much. He opened his eyes.

Seagulls in a blue
sky. Their cries were shrill, almost human. Jack felt disappointed: it hadn't
been Tarissa after all. "Jack, are you all right?" It was Tawl. He
had a knife and was leaning over him. "I'm just going to cut the
ropes." Jack tilted his head forward. He saw the sea, the seashore, and
then the beach. Looking farther down he saw his thighs were bound by rope.
Underneath them lay a rectangle of wood: the bench from the rowboat. Tawl was
hacking away.

The action of
moving triggered something in Jack's stomach, and he turned to the left and
vomited. Water, salty and bitter, heaved up from deep within his belly.

"Good,"
said Tawl, coming forward to support his head. "You'll feel better once
you've lost all that saltwater." He smiled. "I think you're going to
be all right. Try and move your legs."

Jack threw a
resentful look at Tawl. He knew he wasn't going to like this one little bit
Beginning with his toes, he sent a warning message down along the nerves of his
legs, braced himself, and then squeezed the muscles in his feet and ankles.
Pain in bright, vivid flashes overwhelmed him. It shot up his thighs with
vicious abandon, leaving Jack feeling dizzy and sick.

Another turn to
the left was in order. More water was thrown from his belly.

Tawl slapped him
on the back. "Good. Your toes moved." Grabbing Jack under his
armpits, he dragged him up from the sand. "Come on. We're too exposed out
here. We've got to find some cover."

Weak from
vomiting, pain, and delirium, Jack most definitely did not want to move.
"I don't think my legs can take my weight."

Tawl's hands moved
down to his waist. "I'll carry you, then."

Jack pushed him
away. "No. I'll try and walk." Weak or not, no one was going to carry
him like a baby.

He ended up
leaning heavily against Tawl. His legs buckled every few steps, he was shaking
from head to foot, and he had a problem keeping his body level. Left on his own
he would simply keel over in the sand. Together they stumbled up the small
beach and then along the cove until they found a place where high rocks cast
long shadows to the east.

They sat down in
sand that was wet and pitted with pools. All around were rocks speckled green
and brown and white. Water trickled down through cracks in the stone, and
mineral deposits glistened beneath the flow. Crabs scuttled away in search of
shelter, and strangely formed insects with short legs and flat bodies buried
themselves in the sand. The roar of the ocean echoed around the rocks, blocking
out the call of the gulls.

Jack's brain was
taking longer to come around than his body. He remembered the storm and being
cast adrift on the rowboat, but after that there was nothing. "What
happened?"

Tawl shrugged. He
leant back against a rock. "A couple of big waves hit the rowboat, sent it
underwater, and then broke it up. We were carried along with the
wreckage."

Jack remembered
the rope around his thighs. He shuddered. "Is that why you lashed us to
the boat, so we'd be carried along with the wreckage?"

"I knew there
was a risk we'd capsize, but you saw the storm, Jack. It wasn't going to stop
until the boat was torn apart. I had to do something, so I took a chance that
the boat would break up before we capsized."

"And we'd
float to the surface with the driftwood?" Tawl nodded. "I suppose so.
I didn't really think." He looked tired. For the first time Jack noticed
what bad shape he was in. His face was bruised and swollen. There was a large
gash on his forehead and a smaller one above his lip. His britches were torn at
the knees and the thighs, and his tunic was in tatters. Bloody flesh showed
through all the various tears. Catching Jack's gaze, Tawl smiled. "You
should take a look at yourself."

"I'm not
about to do that," said Jack. "Last spring I spent a couple of weeks
in a Halcus prison. I'd been chewed up by a pack of dogs and I wasn't a pretty
sight. That's when I learnt the art of not seeing my body."

Tawl lifted a
bloody arm up to the light. "You'll have to show me how to do that
sometime."

Both men laughed.
The joke wasn't particularly funny, but the laughter was more than just
merriment, it was a celebration of their survival.

After a while, the
laughter died down. Strangely, Jack felt closer to Tawl now. Throughout the
journey, Jack had thought the knight was infallible; there was nothing he
didn't know about horses, weapons, traveling, and medicine. He knew so much
that at times he seemed almost too perfect. Now, by admitting that he'd bound
them to the boat out of pure desperation, rather than calculated knowledge of
the sea, he began to appear more human.

"The Fishy
Few
was lucky last night," said Tawl. "Why?" Jack tried to
find a comfortable spot to lie down in amidst the wet sand and pebbles.

"Because we
were nearer to Lam than anyone knew. The place is circled by shallows and
rocks, and the way that storm was blowing it's a wonder the ship didn't run
aground."

"We got off
just in time," said Jack absently. His mind had already moved on. So they
were here, on Larn. It wasn't a surprise really. Where else could they be? It
was just that up until now he hadn't given his surroundings any thought. There
was a beach, some rocks, and the sea. That was all that had existed for him so
far.

Things suddenly
began to seem different. The air was colder, the light harsher, the wet sand
beneath his fingers turned to mud. "Do you think they know we're
here?"

Tawl gave Jack a
sharp look. "Do you?"

"I haven't
got a sixth sense, Tawl." For some reason, Jack felt annoyed. "I knew
about the sorcery last night because I could smell it, taste it, not because
I'm a conjurer with a crystal ball."

"I'm sorry,
Jack. I just don't know about these things."

"Neither do
L" Jack looked at Tawl for a moment. They both needed some rest. "Did
you manage to salvage anything from the boat?" he asked, changing the
subject.

"No. We lost
all our supplies. All we've got is my knife."

"So what do
we do?"

Tawl leant
forward. "We have to assume that they don't know we're here. If they
caused the storm last night, then there's a good chance they think we're dead.
Our best option is to lie low until the middle of the night, then take them by
surprise. I say we get some sleep for now, and when it's dark we make our way
up the cliffside."

Jack nodded. He
was amazed that he was managing to appear calm when inside his stomach lay a
solid block of fear. He was just beginning to realize that Larn, the prophecy,
and the quest were more than fireside stories. They were real.

Nabber was
experiencing a strong sensation of deja vu as he walked down the palace
corridors on his way to his audience with the archbishop. Gamil strode ahead of
him, setting a fast pace and acting like a nervous bloodhound. No matter how
fast he scurried, though, Nabber still had time to take in his surroundings.
And that was why he was beginning to feel distinctly ... familiar with the
contents of the palace.

Gold urns, marble
statues, paintings, tapestries, jeweled reliquaries-Nabber had the curious
feeling he'd seen them all before.

Furtively he
reached out to touch a gold urn ensconced in a recess in the wall. It didn't
feel quite as warm as gold. Only one thing for it. Reaching into his tunic, he
pulled out his darning needle, and then shouted, "Rats!" at the top
of his voice.

Whilst Gamil was
busy hopping and panicking, Nabber scraped the needle along the urn. Just as he
thought: base metal beneath.

"There are no
rats." Gamil swiped Nabber across the ear. "What are you up to?"

Nabber slipped the
needle up his sleeve. "Could have sworn there was, my friend. Great big
hairy ones. Two of 'em." Gamil made an annoyed clicking sound in his
throat, grabbed Nabber by the coattail, and hurried him along. "Any
nonsense like that with His Eminence, and you'll be leaving the palace minus
your tongue."