A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 21

"Yes, yes!"

"I'm married."

"So? You still look good enough to eat." She smiled seductively, but the effect was spoiled by her sharpened teeth. Rap's self-control came back with a rush.

"That's what I'm afraid of!" he said firmly, and slipped by her. He splashed through the stream into the castle. The largest bonfire was the size of a small cottage, and its glare blinded him. The noise of drums and singing was mind-crippling, and the tumult in the ambience even worse. Forty or so sorcerers and mages were making merry, and that must be a rare event in the history of the world. Until now, power had always brought danger, and the sorcerous had been reclusive people. This infant brotherhood he had created was changing the rules already.

He must not claim all the credita"Thrugg had not enslaved him, despite his greater power, and Tik Tok's band had kept their individual freedoma"but it was Rap's vision of a society of free sorcerers that had inspired this party.

What a party! Had Pandemia ever seen its like? Incandescent dragons circled near the roof. Naked troll maidens were dancing eroticallya"and it took him a moment to realize that they were illusory, as was the band of anthropophagous muscle men parodying them on the other side. A fountain of wine was spouting into the stream. The air was filled with smoke and colored b.a.l.l.s and half a dozen albatrosses and giant bats, apparently playing some sort of team game. A bewildered camel brayed in terror on a high ledge. The great chamber was a madhouse of mirth and foolery.

Trolls and anthropophagi? Probably there had never been such a meeting before. Were they mundanes, half the gathering would be cooking the other half, but these were sorcerers, united in a common cause. So far. They were all drunk on magic. Was he just being a nervous maiden aunt, or could he already detect dangerous undertones in the horseplay? If it went too far, there were no limits on what might happen. And even if it didn't, there would be the emotional hangover when it ended and reality returned. Poor old worrywart Aunt Rap!

He checked the upstream rooms and discovered several strange orgies in progress, some of the partic.i.p.ants real and some occult. In an obscure chamber he located the people he wanted. Of course there was no such thing as privacy around sorcerers, but the little room was secludeda"off the main stream, watered only by seepage. He transported himself there, into calm and sanity. Or maybe not.

Grunth was reclining in an elaborate chair large enough to be called a throne, decked out like an impress in jewels and scarlet satin. Her tiara flashed with a fortune in rubies and sapphires; her great clawed feet were encased in golden sandals. She beamed a toothy baboon snarl at him and he saw that she was drunk.

Tik Tok sprawled in a wicker chair, wearing a blissful idiot look of extreme intoxication. He had rearranged his tattoos in yellow and magenta, and festooned his hair with pink rosebuds. He was gnawing on a juicy bone that Rap carefully did not inspect carefully.

Thrugg had chosen to squat on the floor as usual, nude as usual, munching noisily on nuts and roots. He looked up with a sour glance that was very unusuala"for hima"and must mean trouble.

The fourth member of the party was Doctor Sagorn. Darad had needed little persuading to make him depart from such alarming company, and he had summoned the old jotunn in his place. The scholar sat erect on a highbacked chair. He wore a thin gown of pale-blue cotton. It was sweat-stained and rumpled, but his customary arrogant disdain for once seemed to be hiding an agreeable mood. His pale-blue eyes gleamed when he saw Rap, and the withered lips trembled on the verge of a smile.

The stuffed penguin in the doorway defied explanation.

Rap materialized a seat for himself and a mug of Krasnegarian beer. He sat back and, after a moment's reflection, added a local cool breeze. The mundane environment was satisfactory, then. The ambience continued to rock, flash, riot, boom, stink, and swim as the party continued, downstream in the sprawling castle. He tried to ignore it. When n.o.body said anything, he began with Thrugg. "What's wrong?"

The troll's mouth was too full for speech. "Wurnk and Vog."

Sagorn spasmed with surprise, so he must have been included in the sending.

"The old fellows?" Rap asked.

"Yes. They don't like crowds. Wanna go."

"Not surprising! I expect the rest will follow them in a day or two."

Abandoning words, Thrugg flashed an excruciating image of a slave being beaten by a gang of imps. Everyone winced, and yelped. The implication was one of strong disapproval, which seemed out of character for the unwarlike troll. Why should he want to keep the army together?

"Isn't that the plan?" Sagorn muttered. "To hide out individually until battle is joined?"

Again Thrugg replied without words, and this time the image was a relative measure of the strength of forty sorcerers and a couple of dozen lesser magic-users. Not only was a larger group inherently more powerful, it was also much less detectable. Sagorn's mouth fell open.

"Good point," Rap admitted. "If we must have an army, then the larger the better." Sorcery would become possible again, if it was used with caution.

Thrugg nodded more cheerfully, pulping timber in his monstrous jaws.

Rap readjusted his thinking yet again. "So we keep the trolls enlisted. We need to hunt down the rest of the fifty you mentioned, though. That means organizing messengers. It means setting up a central headquarters. Two might be better. Would Vog and Wurnk do that much?"

Thrugg shrugged, but even before the gesture was complete, he had located the two old trolls, explained, persuaded, and won agreement. It was all over in a blink, and he nodded.

Grunth belched and said, "They'd better!" in an ominous voice. The witch had not yet adjusted to the idea of voluntary servitude.

"And what do the rest of us do?" Rap asked. "If we stay here, we'll achieve nothing. Where do we go, and how?" He thought of the vast expanse of rain forest surrounding him and mentally shuddered.

Tik Tok paused in his gnawing. "Downstream. Watercourses felicitate travel in jungles."

"Good point. But that takes us to the coast, and there will be imps at the coast."

"Mm!" The anthropophagus nodded and licked his lips.

Then he flashed pictures of forty or so sorcerers standing on the sh.o.r.e, calling in a s.h.i.+p, compelling the crew to row to sh.o.r.e in their longboat, marooning the sailors, and rowing back out in their boat. The imagery was not as vivid as Thrugg's, and rather spoiled by an alcoholic unsteadiness, but it obviously represented a feasible plan when there was so much power available. The final scene showed the s.h.i.+p sailing away with its rigging full of sorcerers, all l.u.s.tily singing sea chanteys. A large, unidentified carca.s.s was being roasted over an improbable bonfire on the deck.

"I fail to see how carnal self-indulgence will promote the cause," Sagorn remarked dryly.

Tik Tok turned to stare at him thoughtfully. "Where I come from, jotnar are regarded as speciously tasty mortals."

"I am sure my old meat would be unpleasantly stringy." The haggard old face had turned a little paler, though. Rap repressed a grin. It took a lot to discomfit the sage.

"We steal a s.h.i.+p of course," Grunth said sleepily. "Easy."

"And go where?" That was the ultimate question. After a moment's silence, Tik Tok said, "Did you and your fellow compositors not set up a revenue?"

"No," Rap said. "It seemed too dangerous."

"Not much help!" Sagorn snapped, resuming his disdainful pout. "With so much power available, why not just go on the attack? If you can create a diversion, the Covin will send a party of sorcerers to investigate. You overpower them, break their loyalty spells, and win them to your cause; then skedaddle and pull the same trick somewhere else."

Groaning like a constipated bull, Grunth subsided into the depths of her throne and closed her eyes. Sagorn's pale cheeks flushed pink.

"It won't work, Doctor," Rap said gently. "Sorcerous armies move instantaneously. You can't run away from them. Remember the trouble Raspnex went to when he rescued us in Hub? It was a miracle, what he achieved that night. It had taken weeks to prepare, probably, and it cost him half a dozen votaries. Guerilla warfare won't work in the ambience. As soon as we show our hand, Zinixo will cut it off."

The old man scowled. He was out of his depth with sorcery, and that discovery would be unwelcome. Downstream, the party was waxing even wilder. Half the dancers were airborne, and so were some of the lovers. The games were developing into occult tests of strength. A bear was wrestling a giant squid near a tug of war between a team of trolls and six white stallionsa"

"Go and drop in on Lith'rian," Grunth muttered without opening her eyes.

"I am inclined to agree with that, I think." Rap sighed and quaffed some beer; the flavor made him homesick. If there was organized resistance anywhere, it would be among the elves, in Ilrane. He realized he was hungry, and began to contemplate the prospects of a plate of chicken dumplings.

"Sysana.s.so?" Tik Tok mumbled, his mouth full of meat.

"Another good idea. There's a nasty rumor about fauns being stubborn, though. I don't know where to start there, or how we can persuade them even to spread the news."

Rap knew who was the logical agent to a.s.sign to Sysana.s.so, and he didn't want the job. He had never thought of himself as indispensable before, but he suspected he was the only glue that might hold this improbable legion together.

He heard a strange noise he could not recall ever hearing before. Doctor Sagorn was laughing.

"Doctor?"

"I was just imagining the elvish customs officials at Vislawn or Mistrin when you dock and they meet your crew."

"I am not familial with elves," Tik Tok remarked. "Singers, not fighters?"

"Elves are people of exquisite taste!" Sagorn said primly.

Rap expected Tik Tok to say he was ogrely looking forward to meating them, but he didn't. Perhaps mere puns were beneath his dignity. He just licked his lips again.

"Zark has sorcerers," Grunth said, and yawned like a hungry crocodile.

"I'm sure it does," Rap agreed. "It also has a central authority, the caliph. We wrote to him and hopefully he will spread the word. Dragon Reach might make a very good refuge, if we take no metal and use no sorcery. Or the Kerithsa"sorcerers should be able to resist the merfolk, shouldn't they?"

Thrugg leered. "Resist the men."

Sagorn snorted. "Your Majesty, I am inclined to think you initiated this counter-revolution without adequate preparation."

"I'm certain of it. We had very little choice at the time."

Silence fell in the rocky chamber, broken only by the quiet trickling of water down one slimy green wall. The ambience, on the other hand, was approaching the boil. A couple of the older anthropophagi were trying to calm things down, with little success. Perhaps the s.h.i.+elding would fail, and the whole castle just explode.

Rap clawed his hair, making a mental note to shorten it in the morning. "Listen, Doctor. Maybe you can help me. Ever since we began this adventure, I've had a nagging hunch that I've forgotten something, that I'm overlooking something."

"I understood that sorcerers had perfect memories."

"I'm not much of a sorcerer. But that's a good point. If I have forgotten something, maybe I've been made to forget it!" He glanced around and saw that the others were listening. He hoped he was not about to make too much of a fool of himself. "You're not a sorcerer. Can you think of anything we saw, or anything that came up in conversation . . . any plan we discussed and then set aside, perhaps?"

"A forgetfulness spell specifically directed at the sorcerous?" the old man muttered. "Is that possible?"

"Probably. Almost anything is possible if there is enough power available. Could Zinixo have blanked my mind?" He felt he was really conjuring bubbles now, but having gone so far he might as well wade in until he sank.

"If he had managed that much," Thrugg growled, "then he would have been able to call you to him."

"I suppose so."

"What sort of something?" Sagorn said thoughtfully.

"What would be useful? A strategy? A place of refuge? A weapon? A possible ally?" His eyes glinted coldly, like sunlight on a northern sea. "What about that preflecting pool the imperor saw? n.o.body ever quite explained that episode!"

"A pixie!" Rap yelled. "That's it! You've got it! Shandie met a pixie near Hub!"

Grunth yawned again. "If you're starting in on bedtime stories, then I think I'll organize a bale of hay and catch up on my beauty sleep."

"Unfortunately pixies are instinct," Tik Tok said sadly, and yawned, also. "Would have been nice to invite someone diffident for dinner."

"Pixies still exist," Rap said firmly. "My wife met some, many years ago. The imperor met a pixie!"

Three sorcerers stared at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.

He was so excited now he could hardly sit still. "Don't you see? The War of the Five Warlocks? What happened at the end of it? Who won? Grunth?"

"Don't recall," she said uneasily.

"No one does!" Sagorn was beaming.

"It was the second millennium!" Rap shouted. "There was more sorcery around then than there ever has been sincea"until now, the third millennium. Anything would have been possible with that kind of power loose! Now do you understand? There is an aversion spell on Thume! An inattention spell, and it's directed more at sorcerers than at mundanes, although it obviously affects them, too. s.h.i.+elding blunts it, because the last time I thought of this I was in a s.h.i.+elded house, like this one. When I went outside I forgot again."

"You were otherwise engaged," Sagorn murmured, but he was obviously relis.h.i.+ng the mad suggestion and the audience's reluctance to accept it.

"I want you to stay close to me in future," Rap said, "and whisper 'Thume' in my ear every half hour."

All three sorcerers were cold sober now.

"That kind of spell wouldn't last that long," Thrugg protested, glaring at Rap like a hungry grizzly taking aim.

"No, it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't! So who is maintaining it?"

No one answered. What sort of power could maintain a spell over an entire country, let alone establish it there in the first place?

"Whole armies can vanish in Thume," Sagorn said gleefully. "Or not, as the case may be. Travelers disappear or return with tales of an empty, deserted land, yet not even the Impire has been able to commandeer that emptiness! And no one wonders why? Ma'am, gentlemen . . . This does not make sense! Why has it never worried you before?"

Rap glanced around the group and saw the dawning of belief, the dawning of excitement, even. Could the War of the Five Warlocks have left some secret behind in Thume, a secret still active after a thousand years?

"I wonder if we could even approach it?" He looked down at his bare arm and wrote Thume on it. No, that would not be enough. "Thrugg, you're strongest, I think. Fix this tattoo for me so I can't wipe it off in a fit of absentmindedness. Give it all you've got."

The result was an explosion in the ambience that almost stunned him. It rocked the castle. The wild melee downstream came to an instant halt, shocked into sobriety. All Rap actually felt, though, was a momentary tingling.

"Thank you!" he said weakly, still dazed.

"Couldn't do it harder or the s.h.i.+elding would have burst," Thrugg explained apologetically.

All the other sorcerers and mages in the castle were staring at their leaders in consternation, wondering what had provoked that immense outburst of power. For some reason most seemed to have picked out Rap as the culprit. They should be informed of the new theory, but whom would they believe? Well, there was one person there who would never refuse an audience.

"Tik Tok, why don't you explain?"

Tik Tok beamed his dagger teeth and sprang to his feet in a shower of rosebuds. "Fiends and alloys!" he proclaimed. "I am pleased to denounce that we have made a significant breakdown in understudying!" He paused and glanced at Rap. "Good start?"

"An inedible performance," Rap said dryly. "Carry on."

Westward look: And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

But westward, look, the land is bright.