Upland Outlaws (15 page)

“I have never visited Zark,” the scholar said, pouting. “The weather should be pleasant at this time of year. “

“You may find it overly warm,” King Rap said innocently. “The djinns roast spies over slow fires. So we are decided? Shandie and Ylo to Krasnegar and then perhaps Nordland? Me to the Mosweeps and Nogids. Sir Acopulo to Zark. Warlock Raspnex to wherever the Evil he wants. After that, we sing what the Gods hum.” He paused and scratched his unruly mop of hair. “IIrane … Zark … The preflecting pool? You know, I have the strangest feeling I’ve forgotten something!”

“Old age catching up with you?” Sagorn remarked acidly. “Perhaps. Well, I expect I’ll remember as soon as it’s too late. If-I survive the anthropophagi, then I may head to Ilrane and try to visit with Lith’rian. ” He regarded the imperor thoughtfully. “And you? You might think about the Nintor Moot.”

“In Nordland?”

“Why not? Every summer the thanes go to the Nintor Moot and chop each other up for sport. I don’t suppose they’ll mind a few imps to use for practice. The moot would be your only chance to spread the word in Nordland. “

For a moment the listeners fell silent. The distances involved were enormous. This campaign had begun to look like the rest of their lives. Ylo shivered. He had not realized that the pool might have been showing him not the next crop of daffodils, but the one after.

“We shall need to set up a rendezvous,” Acopulo said prissily.

The faun shook his head. “If any one of us is taken, he will reveal it. The same would be true of anyone else we had told. A rendezvous would certainly be betrayed somehow. “

“A date, then?” Shandie said, frowning. “A date for the uprising? A call to arms?”

“Not even that, and for the same reason.” The king looked to the warlock; the dwarf nodded his big head, sneering in agreement.

“You must understand,” the faun said, “that this is not a mundane war. This is not Guwush and we are not gnomish rebels opposing the Imperial might. No sneak attacks and hideouts in the forest and secret passwords. It won’t work that way!”

The imperor stared at him incredulously for a long time and no one else spoke.

Rap shrugged. “If you want a picture, it’s more like a houseful of mice planning to mob the cat.”

Shandie pulled a face. “You are saying we try to rally the mice but we don’t tell them when or where to rally? That’s crazy! What are we trying to accomplish? What do we tell these sorcerers we seek to enlist? What message do we send when we speak to mundane leaders?”

“Just that there is hope, and a cause worth fighting for.” Rap sighed. “One day there will be a battle! We don’t know when, or where, or who will provoke it. When it comes, we shall have to gamble everything we’ve got-at once, to the death. But every sorcerer in Pandemia will know of it as soon as it starts. We want them to come and help, that’s all. Until then, they can only do what we are doing-pass the word and keep the faith.”

“As I recall,” Sagom said, his tone implying that his recall was normally perfect, “all the Dragon Wars were like that. Enormous battles followed by long periods of uneasy quiet.”

Shandie sat in silence, his face blank, which was his thinking expression. Then he nodded. “I suppose it makes sense. As you say, it’s a different sort of fighting. ” He smiled faintly. “I wish you luck in the Mosweeps-and with the elf. Ylo, we head north, it would appear. “

“Sounds like fun,” Ylo said blandly. But not much.

The imperor rose and stretched. “It’s been a long day, and I’d like to

sleep on this. We all have our parts to play, it would seem. You realize that we may scatter tomorrow and never all meet again? May the Gods be with us!”

“Amen,” Acopulo said.

“You have left one out,” the dwarf growled.

Everyone looked to Doctor Sagorn. He glanced around at the attention, twisting his long jotunn face in an arrogant sneer that raised Ylo’s hackles.

The faun chuckled. “Old age, Doctor? How do you feel about scrambling in and out of fishing boats tomorrow?”

“I abhor the prospect. If you have concluded your deliberations, then the time has come for me to leave.”

“And go where?” the imperor barked. “Nowhere. “

Such an absurdity demanded explanation. Obviously the faun sorcerer knew the answer but was not about to disclose it. Smirking, he yawned and snuggled down more comfortably in his chair. The silence dragged on.

Glaring, the old jotunn said, “You will not warn your companions what to expect?”

“But you can tell the tale so much better than I, Doctor! And one of us certainly must.”

“Very well!” Sagorn turned to the imperor. “Your Majesty … this is a strange tale, and one I have rarely told anyone. It may sound improbable, but I shall demonstrate its truth in a moment. “

Shandie sat down again. “Carry on.”

“If I asked you to estimate my age, I expect you would guess me to be in my seventies, perhaps early eighties.”

Acopulo released a long hiss of breath.

The jotunn shot him a killer glare out of the corner of his eye. “Yes, there is sorcery involved, as you suspected and I denied. “

“When were you born?” the little man demanded.

“You will not … 2859. “

“Even better preserved than I thought!” Acopulo said jubilantly.

Now, thought Ylo, some mysteries were about to be cleared up.

Scowling, Sagorn turned back to the imperor. “I age at a normal rate, sire, but I have not lived through all the intervening years. When I was ten, I irked a sorcerer. I was the youngest of a group of five boys whose presence in his house in the middle of the night he found distasteful, as he had not instigated it. In retribution, he laid a sequential spell on us.”

Shandie’s eyes narrowed. “Explain `sequential spell.’ “

“It means that only one of us can exist at a time. “

“The artist!” Ylo had shouted without meaning to; he had made everyone jump.

Sagom pouted-his long upper lip was well shaped for pouting. “As you say, the artist. Master Jalon is one of the five. At one time he was older than I, in fact I think he was the oldest. How old does he seem now-late twenties? When you forced your way into our house last night, Jalon was present. You demanded to see me, but I did not exist! That was why he refused to let the centurion accompany him when he went to fetch me. He invoked the spell, and I replaced him. Now he does not exist. I propose to depart by the same method, which should wipe the skeptical expression off your pretty young face.”

“So sometimes you are you and sometimes you are Jalon?” Sagorn grimaced impatiently. “You do not listen, boy. I am not Jalon, and never have been. I do share his memories, but we are two separate people.”

“So now you disappear,” Shandie asked, “and Master Jalon appears?”

“No.”

The king of Krasnegar seemed to be struggling with a need to laugh.

Sagorn glared at him briefly. “There are constraints, sire. I can neither call the man who called me, nor the man I called the last time. “

“Perhaps you should also explain the time limits,” King Rap said, turning pink with his suppressed mirth.

“Why?” snarled the jotunn. “Oh, well … There are other restrictions. They are complicated, but in short I could not remain here for more than a few days.”

“Rap!” the imperor barked. “Share the joke!”

The faun flushed even redder as he struggled to catch his breath. “It may not seem as funny to you as it does to me. For many years, Doctor Sagorn and his … associates, I suppose is the word. They are never a group and yet they are not exactly separate, either. But for over a century they kept on trying to find some way to break the spell that bound them-tried one at a time, of course. When I was a much more powerful sorcerer than I am now, I removed it for them. They were reunited! Then they discovered that they disliked the experience and changed their minds. At their request, I put it back again. But Sagom had been hogging more than his share of the years, and another of them, Thinal, had been shirking. They agreed that they ought to cooperate more, so I rearranged the original sorcery a little. Now they have to be more considerate of one another. That’s all. The doctor can’t stay around as long as the others can, so they will eventually catch up with him in age. Thinal can’t just vanish right away every time and stay forever young. And if Sagorn says that now he can’t remain with us very long, that means that lately he’s been hogging again.”

The old man bared his teeth in a snarl. “I was engaged in a very complex piece of research!”

The faun smothered another snigger. “Oh, quite!”

The audience looked at one another. It sounded like some sort of elaborate hoax, and yet neither man was the type to indulge in such foolery.

“I want a demonstration!” Shandie said coldly. “As you wish, sire.”

The king chuckled. “You can’t call Jalon, because he called you. So who will be the new recruit to our cause? Whom will his Majesty have the honor of meeting?”

“I shall let you choose.” The old man was enraged by the mockery. “Last time I called Andor. You have a choice of Darad or Thinal. “

“Darad?” Ylo said. “The gladiator?”

“That’s the one,” Rap said. “But we have no work for him at the moment, so we should save him for later. I look forward to meeting Thinal again-an invaluable recruit, who can play a noble role in our mission.”

“Highly improbable! ” Sagorn snapped, and another man was sitting in his clothes.

He was youthful, and an imp-a slim, dark youngster with poxy features. He glanced all around cautiously, then slid down on one knee and bowed his head to the imperor.

Acopulo had turned pale. Even Shandie was displaying shock. The dwarf was leering, seemingly as amused as the faun. “This,” the king of Krasnegar said, “is Master Thinal.”

“A businessman,” Thinal muttered without looking up. “Oh, Gods! A businessman, sire.”

“What sort of business?” Shandie demanded.

“Monkey business! ” King Rap threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Parts to play:

A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing,
In the face of the stern Today.

— Adelaide Anne Proctor, Now

In a gray foggy dawn, the fishermen put Lord Umpily safely ashore on an icy jetty somewhere on the east side of Hub. He did not know whether it lay within the bounds of the capital proper or in some best-forgotten suburb-he was just glad to have land under his feet again. He had expected to be relieved of his bag of sorcerous gold and dropped overboard in the night.

Muttering prayers of gratitude to the appropriate Gods, he struggled off through snow-packed alleys in search of an inn. Emotionally he was sure he would be coshed and robbed before he found one, even though intellectually he knew that his apprehension was excessive-that no one else could know what caused that bulge in his cloak. His cloak bulged in many places. The lump that bothered him had a harder center than the others, but its mere appearance should not attract undue suspicion. Yet every time he passed a dark doorway, he thought he heard it jingle.

Umpily was no stranger to wild adventuring. He had visited almost every corner of the Impire in the past few hectic years, but then he had always been accompanied by well-armed youngsters prepared to bleed in his defense if necessary. Being alone did make a difference.

Unmolested, cold, wet, hungry, and stinking of fish, he stamped into the Sailors’ Haven. He had patronized worse, although not often. He demanded a room with a fire, hot water, and breakfast. He sent the potboy off to the nearest tailor with orders to attend him at once, bringing a selection of raiment suitable for a gentleman of stalwart physique.

As Umpily was stripping off his wet clothes, he came upon the magic scroll in his pocket. It unrolled into an oblong strip of vellum no larger than his hand, completely blank. With it was the silverpoint the warlock had given him, although he had been told that any writing instrument would suffice. He wrote, Am ashore. Streets impassable. Bells still ringing. He let the leather roll up again and laid it on the dresser. The bells were important because they meant that the old man was not buried yet. The life of the city must be almost at a halt, with travel blocked by snow and the population driven half insane by the incessant tolling.

When a wanner, cleaner Umpily rang to summon breakfast, it was brought up by the landlord himself. The tray was copiously heaped with plain winter fare-broiled beef and dumplings and a bread pudding, all washed down with a passable porter. Umpily ate until he could eat no more, as was his custom, but he encouraged the fellow to remain and talk. The man seethed with complaint-business had come to a stop, the bar was almost deserted, roofs were leaking, fuel was short, fish spoiled on the quays, and so on. He lamented all through Umpily’s meal, except when he had to run downstairs to fetch seconds.

Satisfied at last, Umpily sent the man off with the dishes, demanding ink, paper, and quills. Then he sat back to digest and consider.

His mission was to discover what was happening in the capital and then report it all to Shandie. Right now he could not do so. The bells had informed everyone that the old imperor was dead, but the smothering snowstorm had stopped all other news from reaching even this far. Here, just five leagues from the Opal Palace, no one yet knew that the wardens’ thrones in the Rotunda had been destroyed, or that the new imperor had promptly vanished from the palace, or that several buildings in the southern precincts had exploded in fire and ruin. Even Umpily himself did not know if the Red Palace had survived the siege. He was not certain that the old Imperor’s funeral could proceed without the new imperor’s participation. If it couldn’t, he decided, the entire population would soon be driven mad by those Evil-begotten bells, himself included.

He took a look at the magic scroll. The words he had written were gone. In their place he found Gods be with you in Shandie’s neat hand.

Amen to that!

Unlike most male nobles in the Impire, Umpily had never served in the army. His father had died in battle when he was very young. His mother had been a bitter widow and a jealous parent, keeping her son very close to her. He had grown up more familiar with gossiping dowagers at tea parties than with companions of his own age.

His family was small and unimportant, but his title alone had gained him entry to court, even without a sponsor. By the end of his teens, he had wormed his way into court life well enough to be a popular member of the nobility, a skilled collector of gossip, and already plump.

At forty he was obese, married to a permanently miserable invalid wife, and bored to madness by the pointless, sterile existence of an aristocratic parasite.

One evening a chance remark informed him of a petty plot to entrap a certain youth, a motherless, fatherless adolescent who could easily be enmeshed in an apparently compromising situation. The threat would be scandal, the price of silence at least a lifetime pension, possibly land. Such things happened all the time and the victims always paid. Usually a hint would escape and then the court would purse lips and snigger and mutter that boys would be boys although not usually that way … and then forget the whole incident in a month.

In this case, though, the victim was to be the heir apparent. That solemn, solitary fifteen-year-old would not forget such a humiliation in a month, or even in years. Umpily dropped a word of warning and the prince avoided the snare. He was grateful, and also sharp enough to realize that next time he might not be so lucky. Within days, that intense, stick-limbed boy took over Umpily in a strange and almost undefinable partnership. He acquired a mentor and advisor with a subtle grasp of palace politics; Umpily obtained a patron twenty-five years his junior, and also a purpose. For the first time in his life, he learned about loyalty, given and taken. He became as much a confidant as that lonely boy possessed, and thereafter he guarded the lad’s trust as he had never cherished anything before.

He had watched that shy, awkward youth turn himself into a leader of men by sheer strength of will. He had given what help he could, although he knew it had been small. They had never been close, though-no one was ever close to Shandie, not even his cousins. Umpily himself had an enormous galaxy of acquaintances, and no friends.

When Shandie arrived at manhood and embarked on a military career, Umpily expected an end to their collaboration, but the prince would not hear of it. He needed eyes and ears within the palace, he said. Later, when he rose to legate, he summoned his chief spy to join the government-in-waiting that was growing up around him.

Thus military life caught up with Umpily in middle age. For five years he lived in the field. He heard the animal screams of men disemboweled, saw earth turned to mud by boys’ blood. The aging fat civilian came to know more of high-rank military thinking and the true working of an army than most soldiers ever did. He especially understood the value of reliable intelligence. He knew that shrewd commanders would sooner be blessed with first-rate information than first-rate troops. He appreciated that scouting was the most dangerous job in the army and a scout’s career the shortest.

He could see, therefore, that the odious task he had been given in this present crisis was vital, and yet he could not quite shake a memory of the time Shandie had sacrificed a thousand men to entrap a horde of gnomes. Highscarp had been a brilliant victory, but would those two lost cohorts have thought so?

Still, today Umpily had no choices to make. The roads were impassable and he was a long way from the palace. Scouting must wait for the thaw. He could concentrate on the other half of his duties.

If there was any way out of this sorcerous disaster that had befallen the Impire, it lay with the revolutionary proposals made by the king of Krasnegar. A most interesting man! Umpily smacked mental lips at the impact the past two days’ events would have on his memoirs. That future posthumous publication would hold even more importance for scholars than he had ever dreamed-the forging of the second protocol, an epic chapter in the history of the Impire! He might even see it published in his lifetime.

But the new protocol would remain a dream unless it could be implemented. Somehow the proposals must be advertised, so that all the sorcerers still at liberty could rally to the cause. Logically the first people who should be informed were the missing three wardens-Grunth, Olybino, Lith’rian.

Grunth seemed unachievable. Trolls were a race of solitary barbarians. She might very well have reverted to isolated savagery, heaving rocks around in sodden jungle. Umpily had not the faintest notion how to establish contact with the former witch of the west.

Lith’rian would be easiest. He must be down in IIrane, elf country. He might be avoiding his ancestral enclave of Valdorian, but surely he could be reached somehow. Umpily was on first-name terms with many distinguished elves, and no elf would ever completely sever the ties that bound him to his sky tree. Ancient Lord Phiel’nilth, for example, Poet Laureate of the Impire-he would do for a start.

Umpily’s planned letter to Valdonilth proved surprisingly hard to compose. The first few drafts read like the ravings of a maniac. By the time he had achieved a satisfactory text, he was ready to ring for a waiter and order a light lunch of turnip soup, roast pheasant and lentil mash, accompanied by a dry white wine and followed by some surprisingly savory cheese.

Refreshed by that and guided by his first letter, he dashed off three more letters, to other prominent elves.

He took a brief break, then, to ease his aching back and the cramp in his fingers. He rang for candles, for the brief winter day was failing. He noticed that a warm wind was turning the street below his window into a morass of slush. A few carts were creaking by-and the bells had stopped at last.

That was worth reporting. He unrolled the magic parchment. It was blank, as he had expected it to be, for Shandie’s message would have faded as soon as it had been read. He wrote out an account of the new developments, remembering this time to add the day and hour.

Then he turned his mind to the Olybino problem. The warden of the east was an imp. He might be hiding somewhere in Hub itself, or he might be anywhere in the Impire. He had been a warlock since before Umpily was born, and Umpily had no knowledge at all of the man’s family or background.

Women, though … Olybino had always had an eye for the ladies, and several of them had flaunted the notoriety. The warlock had often been generous to them when he had tired of their company-generosity came easy when one could make gold with a snap of the fingers. Was it not possible that he might have taken refuge with one of his recent lady friends?

Mistress Olalpa was a logical first choice. She had appeared from nowhere in Hub only a few months since. She was young, vivacious, voluptuous, and dripping in wealth. She had never concealed the source of her good fortune. Umpily wrote a carefully phrased letter to Mistress Olalpa. Of course Zinixo might have tracked her down, also, and might even have tracked down Olybino himself, but that was a risk that could not be avoidedthe warlocks Umpily sought might be dead men already. Against that danger was the possibility that some of their votaries might have survived at liberty and might hereby learn of the new protocol: He certainly had nothing better to do with his time.

The day was ended. Water dripped steadily from the eaves. And the bells had stopped! Why had he not realized the significance of that blessed release sooner? The state funeral must be over. People were getting around the city now, obviously. He should seek out some news, and where better to start than in the taproom downstairs?

He donned his cloak and headed for the stairs, clutching his packet of letters. He ran into the landlord in the hallway. The surly fellow was in a much better humor now that his customers were returning. Besides, he had learned that this guest was a willing source of bullion. He took the letters and promised to send a boy to the post without delay. With less enthusiasm, he agreed that Umpily could withhold full payment until he had seen the receipts.

Clutching a foaming tankard of beer, Umpily began edging his way around the saloon, eavesdropping on the conversations of fish merchants, porters, and storekeepers. He learned nothing new, although he heard some mention of the sorcerous battles he had witnessed. Rumor fell short of truth, for the damage was being attributed to freak lightning caused by the storm. He was too early.

He adjourned to the public dining room for a hearty repast of Cenmere sturgeon, pork cutlets with sage stuffing, roasted spareribs in yam sauce, two bottles of wine, and three different types of cake. There was a fourth cake available, but he didn’t like the look of it.

Then he returned to the bar to try again, and found what he wanted at once-indeed, he could hardly have missed it. A large audience had gathered around a single speaker. Artisans and tradesmen parted respectfully to let the gentleman move in.

Emitting strong odors of horse and wet garments, a poxyfaced youngster was propped against the bar, earning his tipple with an eyewitness account of the imperial funeral. It sounded genuine. He was a skilled raconteur, spinning out his tale and generously allowing many of his listeners a chance to buy the next installment. The glittering procession seemed to be leagues long-bands, ambassadorial delegations, representatives of half the legions in the army, senators and assemblymen and aristocrats. Umpily began to wonder whether the old man would be safely underground before the teller fell down himself.

“A great sight they was,” the boy said blearily, and drained his tankard yet again. He leaned back and peered hopefully at the listeners. His capacity was remarkable.

Umpily had finished his own beer. “Waiter!” he said.

The raconteur beamed as another stein was laid at his elbow. “Your health, my lord! ” He was not so drunk that he could not recognize a gentleman. “Where was I?”

“The imperor himself ?” Umpily said sharply. He knew the sensational climax the storyteller was holding back, and he wanted to get it out of him to see how the audience would take it.

The lad frowned uncertainly. “Battle honors? Or the Praetorians was next?”