Perilous Seas (24 page)

“I
have had no recent news,” Elkarath said calmly, popping a wad of rice
into his mouth.

“And
the sultana truly intends to put me on the throne of my fathers?”

He
shrugged. “So she says. I do not question her purposes, you understand. “

Kade
was beaming.

“She
also intends to marry me off to a goblin?” Inos demanded.

Elkarath
shot her a brief, elusive glance from under his shaggy white brows. “And
if she does? To defy a sorceress is incredible folly, young lady. You told me
tonight that you dislike having your emotions dictated to you. Queen Rasha may
now decide to make you want to marry a goblin.”

Inos
flinched and felt suddenly ill. She rubbed her fingers on the grass, lacking
the stomach even to lick them clean in approved Zarkian style. Fall in love
with a goblin? She looked across at Azak’s insensately furious face. His
hatred of sorcery suddenly seemed more understandable. It was indeed a great
evil.

The
prospect appalled her. The sorceress could make her fall in love with
anyone-Azak, or some eligible imp, or even a detestable goblin. And she would
accept her fate with joy! Horror!

“So
her Majesty was aware of our intention to leave Arakkaran?” Kade inquired
politely.

“She
instigated it, I am sure.”

“To
conceal my niece from the wardens?”

“Correct.
Warlocks are accustomed to getting their own way. Inosolan is a valuable
property, as I understand the politics. They would certainly have penetrated
the palace quickly. “

Kade’s
extractions of information were usually subtle, but now she was clearly
exploiting the old man’s willingness to talk. “The wraith my niece
saw, that first night,” she queried. “That was your doing? “

The
old man frowned. “No. That was nothing of mine.”

“Then
it was Rasha’s?” Inos demanded.

He
shook his head, and fires flashed from the rubies. “I think not. She was
expecting to be under surveillance. She told me she would not even observe our
departure, lest she reveal our whereabouts. “

“But.
. .”Inos shivered. “You mean it really was a wraith?” Rap?
Oh, poor Rap!

Elkarath-
shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Or else it was a sending from someone
else. I did not awake in time to observe whether there was sorcery at work.”

“Sending?”
Inos repeated. “What sort of sending?”

“From
another sorcerer. A warlock, perchance. “

Inos’s
heart thumped hard with shock. “You can’t mean that Rap may still
be alive?”

The
old man shrugged again. “Who knows? I expected trouble . . . but nothing
further has transpired. Strange! I cannot explain that either, ma’am.”

Rap
alive? For some reason that information was stunning. Inos took a long draft of
wine while she mulled over the news. She had never wanted to believe that Rap
had been so wicked that he would have remained after death as an evil wraith.
How could he ever have escaped the imps? How could he have arranged a sending?
How ...

No.
Sadly she decided that it was impossible. Rap could never have survived the
legionaries’ wrath.

Kade
was still interrogating the old man. “And what happens when we reach
Ullacam?”

He
chewed and swallowed. “There we shall await further instructions. It is a
pleasant city. “

Inos
glanced miserably at Azak, whose scowl could not have been deeper. All things
include both the Evil and the Good. Her joy at being rescued from the pixies
had blinded her to the evil in that deliverance. Would even four pixies have
been worse than one goblin, a lifetime with a goblin?

Once
Ullacarn had been the first stop on the way to appeal to the wardens. Now it
might be the first stop on the way to permanent slavery. She would be turned
over to the warlock of the east, while Rasha reclaimed her favorite plaything,
Azak.

Kade
glanced uneasily at the encircling night. “But first we must reach
Ullacarn. You say we shall be gone by dawn ... Must we return through that
dreadful pass in the dark?”

Elkarath
shook his head in a vigorous torrent of red fire. “No! That pass would
not be wise at any time, I fear.”

“I
am glad to hear it!” Kade said sharply. “Nothing has ever so
depressed me as the sight of all those ... statues.”

“Why
unwise?” Inos asked.

He
sipped his wine, studying the fire over the lip of the goblet. “I am only
a mage, ma’am. I cannot normally detect the occult at work. That ability
is beyond my powers except in a few special cases, such as knowing when my
farsight is blocked. I assume that others of my standing are similarly limited.
But I think I felt something when I came through that pass. Even if I was
mistaken, it may well be that some of the spell still lingers.”

Inos
frowned, not comprehending.

“The
spell would have been directional,” he explained with a trace of
impatience. “It was cast against the fleeing refugees. We all came safely
into Thume. We might not go out so easily.”

“Turned
to stone?”

“Maybe
not. It may be too weak for that now, but it might still cripple us, or kill
us. No, I would not try to go that way for all the gems in Kerith. “

Inos
shot another glance at Azak, and now he was looking marginally more interested
and less murderous.

“I
have other means,” Elkarath explained, deflecting the next question
before it was asked. Again Inos wondered if he was less confident than he
wished them to think. “You have led me a merry dance these last few days,
but I enjoyed it.” He raised his goblet in salute to Kade.

“And
how did you catch us, Greatness?”

“Oh,
it wasn’t hard to follow your trail. Compared to a mage, a lionslayer is
a blind kitten.”

Azak
bared his teeth in fury and the old man smiled softly at the fire.

“Did
you truly expect to escape me, ak’Azakar?”

“I
was hoping that you would not dare exert your foul ability so close to
Ullacarn.”

“Ah!
Well, that was a consideration, I admit, but of course I must accomplish my
mission, and I had to take the risk. First, though, I had to make arrangements
for the rest of my goods and people. I did not set out until yesterday at dawn.”

“Then
you made excellent time,” Kade said approvingly. Elkarath nodded to his
hands in smug agreement. “This is a very pleasant evening, is it not? I
hope you have noticed that magic is efficacious in deflecting mosquitoes?”
He glanced benignly across at Azak. “You are quite sure you will not dine
with us, Lionslayer?”

Again
Azak angrily refused hospitality. Angry or not, he must be starving, so he was
letting his sense of failure make him act very childishly. Why must some men be
stubborn, so pigheaded? Inos felt herself oppressed by a strange nostalgia that
she could not place.

“It
was not difficult to follow you,” the mage said mildly. “Although
it became a little harder this side of the mountains.”

“When
the trail was warmer?” Azak growled skeptically. Using his arms, he
levered himself back, moving his feet farther from the fire.

“When
sorcery was interfering with it.”

“I
saw no signs of people.”

“But
obviously there are people.” The old man glanced out at the darkness, and
Inos instinctively did the same. Shapes moved in the gloom and she thought her
heart had stopped forever, until she saw that they were the horses and mules,
all returned, silent as ghosts, a cordon of mute spectators. She shivered.

“I
also saw places with occult shielding,” Elkarath said, “or rather I
did not see them. My farsight was blocked, and I suspected that my eyesight was
being deceived also and that what seemed to be woods were otherwise. Sometimes
your tracks vanished altogether, and sometimes they made no sense. Thume is
inhabited!”

“Then
how did you find us, Greatness? “ Kade inquired, licking her fingers with
panache, although she had probably never done so in her life before she came to
Zark.

“I
had some assistance.” The old man stretched out a hand, letting firelight
flicker on his jewels.

“The
ring?” Azak said. “That was not all pigswill you threw at us?”

“No.”
The old man’s voice dropped half an octave. “But I lied when I said
it was a family heirloom. Her Majesty created it specially for me.” He
peered thoughtfully at his fingers. “It isn’t showing anything very
much at the moment ... Normally it lets me detect sorcery as a full sorcerer
can, but Thume does not seem to influence it. There is nothing indicated from
along the valley there, where the people are. And yet they are approaching very
swiftly. “

“Could
Thume magic be different?” Inos was definitely uneasy now.

The
mage shrugged. “Possibly. Earlier today, though, it was flickering green
all the time; jumpy as fleas on a dead dog.”

“And
how did that help?” Azak asked sharply.

“I
followed you with it.”

For
a moment the other three stared blankly at one another. The mage sipped his
wine in silent amusement. Then he peered obliquely at Inos, his gaze guarded
below his brows. “You inherited a word of power, child. Her Majesty was
quite puzzled that it had not yet manifested itself in some special talent. She
told me to watch out for it, and she gave me this device to detect it. Today,
for the first time, I saw the gadget react.”

“I
... I was using magic?” Inos hoped that this was some complicated Zarkian
joke. She had never told Azak about Inisso’s word of power, and she dared
not look to see how he was reacting to the news. Azak detested magic in any
form.

“One
of you was,” the mage said. “Green light means one word, a genius.
The areas I thought might be occult enclaves did not register. If I was right,
then they are very well shielded. No, the power came from you. One of you, and
if not you, who else?”

“I
couldn’t have been! Aunt-did you see me doing anything unusual? Azak?”

Kade
shot a worried glance at Azak, then told Inos, “No, dear.”

The
old man stroked his beard. “I am puzzled, I admit. It was merely an
occult talent at work; no moving of mountains. You weren’t ... well,
taking tracking lessons from First Lionslayer, perhaps? Pathfinding? Singing?
Sensing magic, maybe?”

Inos
shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve done anything today that
I haven’t done a thousand times before. Except nearly being raped, of
course. “

“No-earlier
than that. On your way here.”

Kade
would always seek to break an awkward silence. She coughed softly to gain
attention. “In the Impire, Greatness, they have a saying about frying
pans and fires. You know it?”

“In
Zark we talk about `dodging the lion and rousing the lioness.’ The same
idea?”

“Exactly.
I am beginning to think that my niece has an occult talent along those very
lines.”

He
chuckled. “I do believe you have solved the mystery! “ Kade smiled
thinly. “But even if this magic finder pointed in our direction, sir,”
she said, “is it not conceivable that it was seeing someone else? Might
there have been someone following us closely, and that person was the source of
the magic? “

“I
suppose . . .” The mage nodded thoughtfully. “Invisibility, for
example? If you had an invisible companion ... but no. That would require a
higher grade of power than I detected. Magic, at least.”

Azak
made an angry growling sound. “I had not been informed of this word of
power. It explains many things.” He glared at Inos with a red intensity
that shocked her.

“You
have another explanation?” inquired the sheik. “The four who
ambushed me?”

Elkarath
shook his head. “They came from the north. They found your trail and
tracked you. Quite separate from what I had been seeing.”

Azak
grunted. “But have you considered why they might have trailed us?”

Elkarath
just shook his head. “Only that possibly all visitors to Thume are hunted
down as fair game. “

“I
thought their purpose was quite evident,” Inos snapped. Azak snapped
back: “Exactly!”

She
began to feel her own anger rising to deflect whatever accusation he was about
to make. “They called me an outsider. I think that was what they said. As
if it were a dirty word, like ... like vermin.”

Hastily
Kade interjected, “This would explain the mystery, the disappearances-”

But
Inos was glaring back at the smolder in Azak’s eye. “You have
another idea?”

“I
mean that the four might have been reacting to magic, also. “

“I
don’t think I quite grasp your Majesty’s meaning,” Kade said
sharply.

“It
is clear enough. Your niece is very attractive, like a lodestone! That might
explain why the four curs were drawn here. “

“Azak!”
Inos cried. “What are you saying?”

“I
am saying that mayhap you bewitched me, woman, and mayhap you bewitched those
others today. “

“No!
No! I-”

“Oh,
maybe you don’t know you’re doing it,” Azak roared. “But
why should four young men out on a hunt suddenly turn into ravening rapist
monsters?”

And
why should a djinn sultan fall in love?-but he did not go so far as to say
that.

Had
he slapped her, he could not have shocked her more. She cowered back. The idea
was unthinkable-that she might have used occult mastery on Azak, as Andor had
once used it on her? Yes, of course she had tried to impress him, but not that
way. Horrible! Odious! That she might be a sort of occult mermaid, luring
innocent youths and inciting them to attack her, and thus provoke their deaths
at the sheik’s hands . . . No! Inconceivable!

Horrorstruck,
she turned to appeal to Elkarath.

He
was frowning and stroking his beard. “You are a very beautiful woman,
Queen Inosolan, and I am not surprised that Sultan Azak is smitten by your
charms, occult or not. But that you could summon four strangers, sight unseen,
and enrage them into a mating frenzy ... I suppose anything is possible to the
occult. But you do not provoke riots wherever you go! Why should it only have
happened today?”