Perilous Seas (3 page)

“Rathkrun
kicked his head about quite a bit! Rap, I don’t think he can see worth a
cod’s ankles! I’ve been watching him. He trips over things. He
slobbers when he talks. And if you get him mad enough tonight, he’ll be
fighting in the dark.”

“That’s
cheating!”

Absurd!
If the kid thought like that then he wasn’t old enough to be allowed out
alone, certainly not in a jotunn communityand yet Ogi had half expected that
objection.

“That’s
partly why we snared you. You’ve got to go down there and drive him so
wild that he’ll try to fight a seer in the dark. If he loses his jotunn
temper, then you’ve got him.”

“Or
the other way,” Rap said calmly, chewing, gazing levelly at Ogi-who was
beginning to find that steady stare unnerving.

“You’ve
got your shoulders now, Rap. You can deliver.”

“It
isn’t going to work. Not for long. Everyone knows I have farsight, so if
I win I’ll get a daylight challenge real soon, and you’re trying to
rank a mule above hundreds of purebred jotnar ... But I suppose the main thing
is to live through tonight, isn’t it?”

He
had some good points there, but tomorrow could look after itself. “Right.
Just get him so mad he can’t wait to get at you.”

“If
I said that Wulli told me he couldn’t get it up for her, not even once
... that would do it, wouldn’t it?”

Ogi’s
forehead broke out in sweat at the thought of what that accusation would do to
a drunken jotunn. “Just about. You may have her father to worry about
tomorrow, but he’s pretty old.”

Rap
threw his platter aside and wiped his mouth, as if he had reached a decision.
Ogi held out the wine jug, but he shook his head.

“I’d
rather be sober. “

“Oh,
you’re weird! Sober, for Gods’ sake? Fight sober? Jotnar think that’s
unmanly. That’s worse cheating than using farsight! “

In
silence, Rap stood up and stretched. Apparently he’d accepted his
destiny. Ogi had expected a much longer argument, and he began to wonder if
this was a trick and the faun was planning to disappear into the woods. He
certainly did not look like a tyro preparing to fight one of the top killers in
Durthing.

Sounds
of smashing shrubbery heralded the approach of Kani.

“You’re
taking this very well,” Ogi said uneasily. Rap smiled, humorlessly. “It’ll
be a pleasure.”

“Oh?”
Ogi was dumbfounded.

The
kid stepped closer, eyes glinting in the firelight. “What Wulli told me
about Grindrog was something different. I’d have been tempted anyway, if
I’d thought I had any chance at all. Now you say I have, and you’ve
trapped me, so I have no choice. Fine! Friend Grindrog deserves to have his
head kicked a few more times. And other things.”

Ogi
opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“But
we’ve got time to kill, haven’t we?” Rap said gently. “Id
like to borrow some heavier boots from someone, and we must let Grindrog do his
drinking and meditate on his troubles ... mustn’t we?”

Suddenly,
somehow, the faun had hold of Ogi’s shirt and was twisting it, hauling
him right up off his seat and higher, up on tiptoe. And smiling. The first big
smile all night. Not a cheerful smile, all teeth and much too close to Ogi’s
nose.

“How
much?” Rap demanded. “How much are you going to make if the faun
mule beats the blind champion? Or is the blindness just a worm to hook me?”

“No,
Rap. I really think he’s almost blind. And I was just about to talk about
your share of my ... our winnings ... and-”

“And
I may have time for a practice bout or two first!” Rap, of course, was
half jotunn. It just didn’t show, usually. It showed now.

Ogi
should have thought of that sooner.

The
fist at his throat was choking him. His knees began to quiver. He could smell
that jotunnish anger. Imps fought best when they had numbers on their side, and
he was no great bruiser. He’d brawled a little when he first arrived,
because he’d had to, and he was hefty enough, but usually he just
groveled. Few jotnar in Durthing would even bother to jostle an imp.

“You
and Kani and who else in this?”

Hefty
or not, now Ogi had been lifted right into the air. The faun was holding him up
one-handed, holding him close enough to stare right into those big faun eyes,
and they were full of jotunn madness. He should certainly have thought of this
possibility.

“You
and Kani and who else?”

“Verg,”
Ogi said with some difficulty.

“I’ll
start with you, then-practice the jelly thing.” Ogi muttered a silent
prayer to every God in the lists.

Kani
burst into the circle of firelight, so breathless he could hardly speak.
Obviously he had more on his mind than the proposed Rap-Grindrog contest, for
he did not seem to notice the confrontation in progress. He gasped, pointed
back over his shoulder, gasped again.

He
said, “Orca! “

“What?
“ Rap released Ogi, who dropped and staggered backward. By the time he
had recovered his balance, Rap was gone in the darkness, the sounds of his
progress through the shrubbery already growing fainter.

“Rap!
Wait! Rap, that’s suicide!” The noises continued to move away. “Rap,
we have no weapons! “ But obviously shouting was not going to stop the
faun.

Orca?

Far,
far more frightened now than he had been by the thought of a beating from Rap,
Ogi took off after him, leaving the winded Kani to follow as best he could.

If
he dared.

At
the Oasis of Tall Cranes, Inos achieved the impossible. It started when Azak
smiled to her as he strode by.

A
smile from Azak was a fearsome sight. It displaced large quantities of copper-red
hair. Since leaving Arakkaran he had let his beard grow in full, and it was a
very full beard indeed. With his hook nose and scarlet djinn eyes, with his
great height and unshakable arrogance, Azak was not a person easily overlooked.

For
a moment Inos stood and watched him go, heading for the camel paddock; stalking
along in his voluminous desert robes, one ruddy hand resting on the hilt of his
scimitar. She sighed. Azak ak’Azakar was a problem. His proposals of
marriage were becoming more frequent and more insistent every day, as the long
journey neared its end. His logic was impeccable and his arguments
unanswerable. Only sorcery could ever put her on the throne of her ancestors,
the throne of Krasnegar. Only the wardens were permitted to use sorcery for
political ends, and the Four would be much more likely to approve her petition
if she had a competent husband at her side. Especially if he was a strong and
proven ruler already. Like Azak.

A
match foretold by the Gods.

The
only flaw in this plan was that she did not feel ready to accept Azak as a
husband, despite his obvious qualifications on all counts; despite the command
of a God. She could not imagine him surviving the boredom of a Krasnegarian
winter; and if the wardens refused to uphold her claim, she would then be faced
with the alternative of being sultana of Arakkaran. That would not be the same
thing at all.

As
he vanished into the roaring melee of unloading camels, Inos returned to her
immediate task, which was helping Kade erect the tent. Kade was waiting
patiently, regarding her niece with faded old blue eyes-and a glimpse of those
eyes could sometimes startle even Inos now, so accustomed was she to seeing
only djinns around her.

“First
Lionslayer seems remarkably relaxed,” Kade said. “Oh, I’m
sure it takes more than a few brigands to frighten Azak ... Now, which way is
the wind blowing?”

But
as the two of them set to work with practiced skill, Kade’s comment began
to bubble in Inos’s mind like yeast in a beer vat. For weeks the women of
the caravan had talked uneasily of the dangers of the Gauntlet. Here at the
infamous Oasis of Tall Cranes, they were right in the middle of it, and most of
them were visibly jumpy. The lionslayers’ wives muttered discreetly about
their husbands’ ill temper, for the lionslayers were redeyed in more ways
than one, standing watch all night and riding camel all day.

But
Azak had been smiling?

Well,
why not? No matter how the rest of the party had fretted, Azak had remained
quite untroubled by the promised perils. Chuckling into his red bush of a
beard, he had pointed out that Sheik Elkarath had traversed the Gauntlet many
times unscathed. And of course Inos had known what he was hintingthat the old
sheik could never be endangered by mere mundane bandits.

That
must be what Kade was thinking at the moment, also. It just wasn’t
something that could be said out loud, though. Kade had been unusually brash,
or strong-willed, to say even as much as she had.

Inos
glanced around at the gaunt, rubbly hills and the sharp peaks of the Progistes,
dark against the setting sun like gigantic legionaries. There were no cranes in
sight, tall or short, but then there had been no dragons at the Oasis of Three
Dragons, either. The world had changed since place names were invented.

She
scowled at the white cottages, the pampered trees, and even at the welcome
little lake. Some long-forgotten sorcerer had dammed an intermittent stream to
make this settlement possible. If the stories were true, he had thereby created
a longlived aristocracy of highwaymen and caused the deaths of untold innocent
travelers.

But
not Elkarath.

She
stared thoughtfully at her aunt, now busily hammering in a tent peg. Kade did
not normally discuss the sheik, even in such oblique hints. Nor did Azak, or
Inos herself. But she could recall a couple of times on the journey when the
conversation had come close to the subject of magic-and both times had been
late in the day, as now.

Her
eyes went again to the forbidding barrier of mountains. Beyond them lay Thume,
the Accursed Place. No one ever went there.

Did
they? And so . . .

The
temptation was irresistible. What did she have to lose? She drew a deep breath,
ignoring the sudden thumping of her heart while cautiously glancing around to
confirm that there was no one within earshot. In these trailing Zarkian
costumes with their floppy hoods a woman never knew who might be creeping up on
her, but the nearest tent on the right was already standing and obviously
empty, its sides folded up to let the evening breeze sift through. The one on
the left was being erected by a jabbering band of youngsters, the daughters of
Sixth Lionslayer.

“A
favor, Aunt?”

Kade
looked up and nodded, her jotunnish blue eyes puzzled, and the rest of her
invisible below yashmak and draperies.

“Tonight
take your cue from me? No arguments?”

The
blue eyes widened, then quickly narrowed in a frown. “You aren’t
planning something impulsive, are you, dear?”

“Impulsive?
Me? Of course not! But, please, Aunt? Trust me?”

“I
always do, dear,” Kade said suspiciously.

Nevertheless,
Inos knew she would cooperate. “Well, if you can spare me for a moment .
. . I need a quick word with Jarthia.” She turned and trudged off between
the trees.

She
thought she almost approved of Tall Cranes, despite the sinister reputation of
its inhabitants. Yet not long ago an isolated hamlet like this would have
seemed squalid and pathetic to her. How fast one’s standards could
change! Probably the Ullacarn place would feel like a grand city when she
reached it, after so many lonely little desert settlements, most much smaller
and more poverty-stricken than this. She did not yearn for grand cities. She
would cheerfully have turned down a visit to Hub itself in place of a quiet
afternoon in Krasnegar-dull, scruffy old Krasnegar!

Cheerfully
she returned the greetings of familiar fellow travelers as she passed their
tents, women and children with whom she had shared the ordeals of the Central
Desert: thirst and killer heat and the terrors of a sandstorm. She should have
brought a water jug as an excuse for this excursion. Kade was much better at
carrying water on her head than she was. Patience had never been her strong
suit.

Then
she reached the tent of Fourth Lionslayer. Fourth would be engaged elsewhere,
helping Azak oversee the unloading. His wife, Jarthia, was about the same age
as Inos and admittedly striking, in a voluptuous djinnish way, with hair of
deep chestnut and eyes as red as any Inos had ever seen. Shortly after the
caravan had left Arakkaran, Jarthia had given birth to a large and healthy son.
Now that her belly had flattened again and her breasts were still large with
milk, her figure was even more lush than usual. None of that was visible at the
moment, of course, or ever would be visible to any man except Fourth himself.
He was elderly and utterly enslaved by his beautiful son-bearing wife, whose
predecessors had produced only a double handful of daughters. All these factors
found their place in Inos’s devious inspiration.

Kneeling
on the rugs spread before her tent, Jarthia was lighting the brazier. Just
another anonymously shrouded female, she looked up in wonder at the visitor,
for this was the time of day when the women must rush to prepare the day’s
meal for their hungry, hot, and hot-tempered menfolk.

“Mistress
Harthak?” Jarthia murmured respectfully, and inscrutably. That was Inos’s
current name, Azak’s choice. It was certainly better than the name he had
bestowed upon Kade, which had unfortunate implications-at times the young
sultan’s ferocious mien concealed a wicked sense of humor.

Mistress
Harthak had not thought to prepare what she wanted to say. She mumbled some
sort of greeting, then decided to sit down. She settled stiffly on the rug.

Jarthia’s
surprise increased to became distrust. She muttered the customary welcome from,
“My husband’s house is honored,” to the final offer of water.

Inos
declined the water. “I was wondering,” she began, remembering to
harden the Hubban accent she had cultivated so painstakingly at Kinvale, “whether
you were planning to visit the bathhouse this evening.”