Emperor and Clown (8 page)

“Er?
Oh, yes. Our family is about half imp and half jotunn.”

“Jotnar
breed good warriors,” he agreed. “Shows in Rap, too.”

Ah!
“I want to visit Master Rap. He is in serious trouble.”

A
nightmare scowl replaced the leer. “Yes. To make him a mage, right? Filthy
djinns! And time is short, right? Good man, the faun. Must hurry. Well, you
knock, and see what happens!” The jotunn ripped off his cloak and dropped it.
He drew his sword in a flash of steel that made her jump; then he stepped back
against the wall beside the door.

Shivering,
Kade checked that her yashmak was in place. She placed herself in front of the
peephole and rapped on the wood. She wondered if that puny noise would be
audible at all inside. She kept her eyes down-blue eyes, not red djinn eyes.
She could see Darad’s feet, his toes protruding from the remains of Sagorn’s
boots. She could see the sword. Dawn breezes ruffled her robe and brought
soothing scents of morning, of grass and flowers. There were still songbirds in
the world, too, and not far off.

She
counted fifty heartbeats. Then she raised her hand to knock again, and a voice
spoke from the grille. “The cricket sings low.”

Password?
Merciful Gods, what would be the reply to that?

“I
have a message from the Big Man.”

“The
password?”

“I
was not told the password!” she cried, still not looking up. She remembered the
lionslayers--”Women are not told the passwords.”

“Women
don’t bring messages from the sultan.”

“Then
his message will not arrive, and he will want to know why.”

The
man grunted. After a long, nerve-wrenching silence, she heard a bolt being
drawn. The hinges swung in well-oiled silence.

Kadolan
was hurled aside and almost fell as Darad spun around the jamb, slammed the
door wide, and vanished into the dark interior. She heard a bonecracking thump
and a muffled cry. She followed, through the entrance, into a small, dark
chamber. There was a chair in one corner, stairs opposite, a body on the floor,
and a dark giant standing over it, topped by a gap-tooth wolfish grin.

“Good
so far!” Darad rumbled. “Shut the door. Right. You stay close now!”

“Wait!”

A
body on the floor! She had killed a man.

Where
was the good in that, to offset the obvious evil? The thought was appalling,
and even worse was the certainty that she could not halt what she had started,
and more bloodshed must follow. Ignoring her command to wait, the warrior went
leaping up the stairs, sword in hand.

“Stop!”
she cried, and hurried after him. She heard crashes and a shriek that became a
ghastly bubbling noise as she emerged into another room. Light streamed through
a barred window onto three bodies and Darad gloating over them. Killer and
floor and furniture were splattered with brilliant red. She had never seen so
much blood.

This
was a talent for fighting magnified to genius by a word of power.

One
of the men on the floor began to groan, and move. Darad casually chopped off
his head.

Kadolan
spun away from the sight, thrusting knuckles into her mouth to stifle a rising
scream. The room began to sway, but she was granted no time for hysterics or
fainting. The door flew open and a brownclad man burst in and stopped, staring
down aghast at the slaughter. Darad crossed the room in a blur, grabbed the
newcomer by his tunic, hauling him forward and slamming him back against the
stonework ... once ... twice. Then he dropped him.

They
listened. Silence.

The
jotunn leered at Kadolan’s expression. “Only djinns!” he said, sheathing his
bloody sword. “Come here. You listen good.”

He
stopped and raised the man he had stunned, pushed him against the wall again,
and this time held him there with no visible effort. He slapped his victim’s
face a few times to rouse him, then pulled the man’s own dagger from his belt
and held the point before his eyes.

“You
know where the faun is?”

The
guard was barely more than a boy, one of the family men. He sported a pink
mustache, but his beardless cheeks had turned a sickly pale mauve. His turban
had fallen off, loosing torrents of ginger curls, and all the knives and swords
and blades hung on his person were going to do him no good at all. He made some
incoherent gibbering noises.

The
point of the dagger went into his left nostril. Ruby eyes bulged and his neck
seemed to stretch. “You know where the faun is? Else you no good to me, djinn.”

“Yethir.”

“Tell
me how to go there.”

“Ug
... ug ...”

“Tell
or die!”

“Go
right. Second left. Right. Downstairs all the way.”

“That’s
all?”

“Yethir!”
Suddenly he screamed: “
I swear it!
”

“Good!”
Darad cut his throat and dropped him. He said, “Come, lady, shut the door,” and
shot out into the hallway.

Kade
reeled after him, closing the door. Darad was already only a fading drumbeat of
footsteps, and he apparently did not need her assistance with the simple
directions.

He
met only one more man on the way. Kade heard an oath, but by the time she
turned the corner, the wide corridor was empty. She hurried along the trail of
blood, wondering if Darad was taking the corpse to use as a shield, or if he
was just expecting to hide evidence. Many of the stains must be dribbles from
Darad himself, for he had bathed in it.

Left
... right ... She came to a dark opening, access to a spiral stair. Faint
muffled thumps of boots came from below. She ran on to the next corner and
stretched on tiptoe to remove a lamp from its hook. Then she came back to
explore the stairs.

They
were narrow and uneven and tricky, the only handhold a thick rope hanging by
the newel, winding down into the unknown. She was grateful for it, though,
thinking that a broken leg now would not help the cause at all. Darad must be
far ahead of her, committing Gods-knew what sort of atrocities on her behalf.
Shadows danced for her lamp. She almost tripped on a body, and lost more time
clambering by it to continue her descent. It was probably the one Darad had
been dragging.

She
emerged into a dark and extremely fetid cellar, and the feeble lamp showed
nothing but floor anywhere. She listened and heard nothing but a faint dripping
... only water, hopefully ... and an echoing hollowness that suggested a large
space. Then she thought to examine the floor and found a few spots of blood. Of
course they led to another opening, another stair, right by the one she had
just left. Even Darad had found that.

The
second stair was narrower and steeper, and carved from solid rock. There was no
rope to cling to, either. Up in the real world, night had ended. Here it never
would, but her lamp was- already guttering and its supply of oil might be timed
to run out just after dawn. The air was indescribably thick and fetid. She
shivered convulsively, and she would have fled anywhere in the world had she
been able to think how to go about it. Five men dead already! Somehow the
jotunn’s command to follow seemed to be the only option open to her, and her
feet continued to obey without any further instructions from her.

Then
a monster reared up out of the dark in front of her-pale eyes glaring in a
blood-covered ogrish face ... white canine teeth like fangs ... Great scarlet
hands reached for her, snatched her lantern away, and extinguished it. Shocked
and blinded, she overbalanced and would most certainly have fallen had the
giant not taken her bodily in those gory hands. He carried her as he backed
down to the foot of the steps.

Breathless
and giddy, Kadolan found herself in a bare room like a cave, its rock-carved
roof low enough to be oppressive even for her, while Darad was forced to stoop.
She saw no furniture, only some ominous chains heaped in one corner and
corroded staples set into the walls. Somewhere she could hear voices.

There
were a few doors set in the side walls, all closed and very likely hiding
nothing but empty cells. Even for a dungeon this place had a very unused feel
to it.

The
end wall, facing the stair, held two doorways, side by side. One door was open,
showing the cell beyond it utter black and presumably empty; but the other door
was closed, and light was streaming from a barred grille in that closed door.
This was horribly reminiscent of a chapel, the bright window and the dark. But
the voices also were coming from the illuminated cell.

The
air was nauseating. She wondered how anyone could stand it, and was glad she
could not identify all the mingled stenches. Yet she thought she registered a
slight breeze, and of course this sewer would become a deathtrap very soon if
it had no ventilation at all.

Untroubled
by heat or stink or religious symbolism,

Darad
was standing, listening, and literally scratching his head. Beyond the door
dice rattled, and some men laughed. Master Rap must be in there. Azak had
ordered that the prisoner was to be guarded at all times.

Perhaps
Azak had also given orders that the prisoner was to be killed at the first sign
of a rescue attempt. Most certainly the door would be bolted on the inside. It
would not be opened to strangers, nor without this empty space being inspected
through the grille. Those were obvious precautions.

There
seemed to be at least four or five men in there. How many could one jotunn
killer handle at a time? How could the intruders persuade the defenders to open
the door? How long before someone found the shambles upstairs and the guards
arrived in force?

Kade
leaned weakly against the wall and wondered why she had ever expected to outwit
Azak at his own game. The sultans of Arakkaran had been practicing this sort of
iniquity for centuries; he had probably imbibed a skill for it with his mother’s
milk.

Darad
turned to glance at her, and she could just see the hideous expression on his
bloody face. He had drawn his sword again and didn’t know what to do with it.
She was in command.

“Andor,”
she whispered.

There
was a pause, and then the man holding the sword was Andor. He almost dropped
it, and the point struck the floor with a clink that sounded terrifyingly loud.
Andor staggered, then recovered. He had not been heard; the gaming and laughter
continued.

He
stared down in horror at his sodden garments, and then scowled at Kade. “Now
you know how it feels to have Darad’s memories.”

“How
do we get in there?” she responded urgently. Time was desperately short. There
was a trail of blood, there were bodies ... there was certainly no time to
wonder how they were ever going to get out. Andor belched and wiped his mouth
with his free hand, pulling a face. He blinked at the solitary square of light.
“Haven’t the foggiesh,” he whispered.

“Can
you talk them into opening the door?”

“How
many?”

“At
least four.”

He
shook his head, and swayed. “Too many. Just one, maybe. But they’ll cluster
near the door for a sshtrnger-stranger. Beshides, ‘m not at my best today. Take
too long.”

He
blinked fondly at Kadolan and smiled a sheepish grin that called up all her
mother instincts to understand and forgive.

She
suppressed them. “Then call Doctor Sagorn and see if he has any bright ideas.”

“At
least he’s sober,” Andor agreed solemnly, and vanished with a final circumspect
hiccup.

Sagorn
snapped, “Come!” Moving awkwardly, as if trying to avoid the touch of wet
cloth, he led the way across the cave and ducked into the empty cell. Kadolan
followed, wishing she was going to the light, not the dark-to the Good, not the
Evil. Even she almost had to duck for the low doorway. The place was rank, a
kennel, and the putrid, ammoniacal stench told her what it was being used for.
But it was dark, and they could not be seen from the grille.

“How
do we get in there?” she repeated. “Or separate them?”

“I
don’t know! Warfare is not my skill. I think we just wait and trust our luck.
Be quiet and let me think.” Kade stood and trembled, and knew that she was
doing no useful thinking at all. All those deaths to save one man! And likely
two more deaths would follow when she and her varying companion were
discovered. It was terribly wrong. She had sinned dreadfully. She was serving
the Evil.

A
clatter of metal from the other door sent more icy tremors through her. Hinges
creaked. Sagorn grunted and pulled her back, away from the faint gray rectangle
of the doorway. Then the man holding her arm was Darad again.

“Have
one for me, too, Arg!” a voice called, and there was laughter.

“You
hold your own, Kuth!” a clearer voice shouted, out in the dark antechamber. The
hinge creaked as the man closed the door behind him. “I couldn’t handle
anything that size!”

There
was another chorus of laughter and shouted agreements from Kuth. The door
slammed and the bolt scraped. Arg brought no lantern, so there was only one
place he could be going.

His
shape darkened the entrance. He stopped and spread his feet. Darad waited until
he was in full stream before he moved. Kade had already closed her eyes. When
she opened them, the giant was dragging the body away from the doorway.

And
was Sagorn again.

He
stared down at the latest corpse. “‘that was unexpected,” he muttered.

“Does
it help?”

“I
can’t see how, except that it feels like luck. Two people with words of power
ought to be twice as lucky, I’d think,” he muttered. “And right now anything
would help ... Ah !” He released a long sigh of inspiration.

“What-”
Kadolan said.

“Just
watch. Here!” He pulled a dagger from his belt-a dagger that might still be
warm from cutting a boy’s throat. “Even Darad may need assistance this time.”