Magic Casement (16 page)

By
the time Lin and others arrived with lanterns, Rap had extracted the three
unhappy horses. They were all old, all likely destined to follow the cattle
into the abattoir with their stringy old meat reserved for emergency supplies,
but they were calm and solid. Docility was what he needed, not fire.

Then
everything happened very quickly and he found himself at the head of the
procession, holding on his shoulder a stick with a lantern swinging on it. Lin
and the stranger sat their mounts on either side of him, also holding lanterns.
Another flickered and winked on the lead wagon close behind them. What the
lights showed mostly was racing snow.

Foronod
was looking up at him, his face an ivory mask of anxiety almost as white as the
snow-crusted fur that framed it.

“Ready.
The Gods be with you, lad. “

Rap
did not answer, because he did not know what to say, nor trust himself to say
it. He raised and lowered his light as a signal, then held it out in front. He
urged Mustard forward. The horse was shivering, but more with fear than cold,
so Rap stroked his neck and muttered consolation... How had he known that? He
gritted his teeth in anger at this unwelcome power, these uncanny abilities
that seemed to be sprouting in his mind, as uninvited as the hairs that grew
now on his body.

His
lantern showed little more than a cloud of streaking white and a tiny vague
patch of ground around his horse. The snow was coating the shingle, even
deadening the sound of the hooves and the rumble of the wagons. He had no
qualms over this first stretch-he could hear the waves off to his right, so all
he need do was keep the snow coming from that direction, also, caking ever
deeper on that side of his horse and his parka. This way he was leading the
wagons along the beach and there was no danger. Eventually he must make a turn.
No sooner had he started to think about that than he felt urgency-now! So soon?
He wavered in his mind and the urgency grew. He turned Mustard slightly, edging
Walrus and the stranger over until they were facing into the wind. The muffled
wagon noise followed them. The shingle rose, then sank again, and the snow lay
thicker. Another slight ridge, then blackness-water.

“You
two wait here!” he said, yelling against the storm. Then he forced a reluctant
and ill-named Mustard forward, into the water. There were no waves, so it was
the lagoon, but had he blundered into the deep part? The sound of the wagons
had stopped behind him and all he could hear was waves, somewhere. A few creepy
minutes of splashing ended and he saw the vague lightness of snow again below
his horse’s feet. So far, so good. He began to breathe more easily. He
had found the ford. He turned around and through the black fog he could just
barely detect the lights he had left behind. He waved his lantern up and down,
and they began advancing to meet him. Mustard was a little happier standing
with the wind on his tail, but he was shivering violently.

Now
Rap must find the end of the causeway. He left the others to follow at the
wagons’ creaking pace and pushed forward alone into the blizzard. Snow
covered his face and dribbled down his neck. His headache was getting worse. It
was hard to keep Mustard moving. The lights were growing faint behind him... he
must not lose his followers. More important, though, he must find that causeway
before the wagons rumbled down to the water’s edge in the wrong place.
Turning them would be bad enough; backing them up if they got between rocks
might be close to impossible. He strained his memory to recall the exact
direction and adjusted it for the way he thought the wind was coming... and he
was too far to the right. How did he know that? He hesitated, then trusted his
instinct and not his memory.

In
a few moments Mustard’s hoof struck rock. That was it! He’d done it
again.

He
was a seer and his flesh crawled at the thought. He cringed.

Why
me?

Now
things ought to be simple for a while, and he became aware that his body was
knotted with the strain, running sweat inside his shirt.

Lin
and the stranger reached their places on either side of him and they could
follow the edges of the made road-the snow had not buried it yet. He kept
position between them. The wagons followed the three bright blurs.

Seer:
one who sees. But he did not see, he just knew. He gained knowledge without
using his senses-hateful! Then he remembered the minstrel’s strange
belief that the horses had not been able to hear him that day. Could he speak
without using his voice, at least to horses? He tried a silent word of comfort
to Mustard and thought he felt it received. Imagination? Hateful! Detestable!
Freak! He had not tried calling the mares away from Firedragon since that day
with the minstrel and now he knew why-he had been afraid of what he might learn
about himself. They had crossed Tallow Rocks already. Waves were splashing
against the side of the road, sending up salt spray. There was no snow on the
ground anymore, and the lanterns’ faint glow was an uncertain reflection.
Black ice-the deadliest stuff to try to walk a horse on, or drive a wagon. It
was Lin and the stranger who were bearing the load now. Rap half expected one
or other of them to vanish without warning, plunging off the edge into darkness
and quick, cold death.

Walrus
started to panic and slither. Stop that! Rap thought, and Walrus stopped.
Coincidence.

They
crawled along, and the waves were throwing water over the road, running off in
glinting black sheets. Better than ice. This was the main causeway and the tide
would be over it now. Not so deep as last time, but much rougher. This was
important... think of famine.

“Lin!”
he snapped. “Watch where you’re going!” They were coming into
the turn.

“I
can’t see, Rap.” It was a boy’s sob. Lin’s voice had
changed back under the strain.

“I
can’t, either,” the stranger said calmly.

Rap
muttered a silent prayer to any God who might be listening. He was all knotted
up again now. This was it. “Close in a bit and follow me, then.”

He
advanced alone, feeling by some means he did not understand that the others were
near behind. He forced old Mustard down the center of the wave-swept causeway.
It must be the exact center, else either Lin or the stranger would slide off.
They must be sweating with the strain of staying out to the sides, resisting
the temptation to creep in directly behind Rap himself, but the wagon drivers
had to know where the road was, how much was safe.

The
center! Stay in the center. He did not try to think what the causeway would
look like underwater this time. It would be utterly black down there. He groped
somehow for its weight, its mass, its hard solid edges in the cold water
surging around it.

Stay
in the center!

He
heard and felt the first team beginning to panic and he sent reassuring
thoughts back to them; realized that he had been doing the same to Mustard and
Walrus and Dancer for some time. His head was bursting, as if someone had
pushed fingers down inside and was trying to pull it apart. This was important!
There might be famine in the spring-babies dying, children starving. The water
was not deep. The waves were rolling up over the causeway and pouring off
again. It would be easy to see the edges if there was light, but all he had to
look at was flying snow, a bright cloud around his lantern, and he could not
even see the spray splashed up by his horse’s feet.

The
waves grew deeper.

The
second bend... He shouted a warning to his companions, knew that they were
safely far from those deadly edges, checked the wagon also behind him without
looking round, kept talking to the horses in his mind.

He
opened his eyes and wondered how long he’d had them shut.

Shallower...

Then
the waves were not flowing all the way across. He was coming up on Big Island.
Big Damp and Little Damp were still ahead, but the worst was over.

The
rest was a blur.

He
stood on the dock road, clutching reins and weeping. Lin and the stranger were
beside him, he knew, in a mob of shivering, trembling horses and shouting
people... and some idiot was holding up a lantern and Rap wished to all the
Gods that they’d take the damn thing away. Men were running down from the
town, coming to help, asking questions, disbelieving the answers. There were
tears pouring down his face and he was shaking with sobs. Shameful, but he
could not stop. He was shivering more violently than the horses and he could
hear himself weeping--having some sort of stupid fit, but the drivers were
coming to him and pumping his free hand and thumping his back and he wanted
them to stop and go away. He would not listen to what they were saying.

Someone
took Mustard’s reins from him. An arm was laid over his shoulders and at
last that damned lantern was taken away and there was darkness. “Let’s
get the man to bed!” a voice said angrily. “He’s beat, can’t
you see?”

Not
a man, sir, just a weak, sniveling boy.

Then
came blessed relief, as that so-comforting arm was holding him, leading him
away from the crowd and the voices and the faces, taking him away. Vaguely he
knew that it was the stranger, the man from the Impire, and that stranger had
done a fair job himself that night.

“Thank
you, sir,” Rap mumbled.

“You
don’t need to call me `sir,’ “ the voice said.

“I
don’t know your name. “

“My
name is Andor,” said the stranger, “but after what I’ve seen
tonight, Master Rap, I’d be very proud if you would just call me `friend.’
“

Clear
call:

I
must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is
a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.

Masefield,
Sea Fever

Thousand Friends

The
king’s face was pinched and straw-tinted, his beard visibly grayer than
it had been only a few months before. The wrists protruding from the sleeves of
his heavy blue robe were as slender as a boy’s. He was restless, unable
to settle, shifting from window to hearth and back, clutching his right side
and keeping his jaw clenched much of the time. ,

Rap
sat very straight on the extreme edge of a thickly padded leather chair and
felt more uncomfortable than he could have believed possible. He was the owner
of the largest and most obvious pair of hands in the Powers’ creation and
he did not know what to do with them. He was wearing his best, which was in
truth but his better, for he possessed only two doublets and they were both too
small for him. His boots were clean, after he had worked a whole hour on them,
but he was sure that his Majesty would smell horse. He had shaved and scrubbed
and he had plastered his shaggy brown hair down with egg white, which was what
he thought his mother had used on it sometimes; but he still probably stank of
the dogs who had shared his tent for the last month. Thinking of the dogs gave
him an unbearable desire to scratch. The sky was blue beyond the windows. The
wagons were rolling again and the storm had faded with the tide.

When
the king had thanked him-for that was why he had been summoned-Rap had
mentioned the sunshine. His efforts had all been in vain, unnecessary. His
Majesty had said that it did not matter, that it was the attempt that counted.
Krasnegar should be just as grateful to him as if he had indeed staved off a famine.
Now the king seemed to be having trouble finding words, or deciding whether
certain words should be said. “Master Rap,” he began, then paused
again. “Is that your real name, or is it short for something?”

“It’s
my name, Sire,” Rap said automatically, then remembered that this was his
king he was addressing. Before he could say more, the king continued.

“I
received letters on the last ship.” He paused to look out the window. “Inosolan
and her aunt arrived safely at Kinvale. “

Rap
did not know what to say and was afraid that his face would be turning red. “Thank
you, Sire.” Hononin had told him he should say Sire sometimes instead of
your Majesty always. Next time would have to be your Majesty, because that was
two Sires in a row.

“I
thought you would like to know,” the king muttered. He swung around and
walked back to the fireplace. The king’s study was a very intimidating
room, bigger than the dormitory that Rap had shared the previous night with six
boys. It was fortified with lumpish leather furniture and books, haunted by
shadows, made warm by the glowing peat in the fireplace and by wool rugs on the
floor, a brown and gold room. There were tables littered with papers, piled or
rolled or loosely scattered. Maps hung on the wall, mysteriously inscribed with
script incomprehensible to Rap. A massive iron-bound chest in the comer
contained many things, including the king’s crown... angrily Rap told his
mind to stop prying.

The
fire impressed him most, though. To squander precious peat so early in the
winter with the sun yet shining outside was a truly royal luxury. He found the
room very warm-that must be why he was sweating-and yet the king kept returning
to the fireplace as if he were chilled inside his voluminous robe, his
deep-blue robe with its gold piping. The aimless prowling of that big, bundled
man hinted of a bear at bay, cornered, and the dogs closing.

“Friend
Rap, I owe you an apology.”

Rap
gulped and burst out, “Oh, no, sir!” and forgot the your Majesty.

The
king did not seem to notice. “No one had ever told me about your mother’s
skill, or I should surely have guessed after your first exploit on the
causeway. Perhaps I should have trusted my daughter’s judgment more, too.”
He looked ruefully at the Other Man.

The
Other Man was not helping Rap’s edginess at all. He was elderly and tall
and white-haired. He had a large curved nose and very glittery, deep-set blue
eyes, and he stood as motionless as the furniture alongside one of the tables,
a long-fingered hand resting on it. He wore a long robe like the king’s,
but dark brown, and he had done nothing but study Rap since he came in. If
sorcerers ground herbs in mortars, then Rap was the next herb. This
vulture-eyed sentinel must be the Doctor Sagorn that Inos had described-the one
who had lied to her, or else was a sorcerer. And if he wasn’t a sorcerer,
he had still lied.