A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 32

He was, as he had guessed, standing in an ancient, abandoned mews. The stalls were piled with litter and many of the part.i.tions had collapsed. The center was still more or less empty, containing only a group of four ladder-backed chairs that looked new and might have come from any kitchen, but the shadows all around were full of mysterious shapes and comers. Anything could be lurking out there. Cobwebs hung like draperies.

The woman was unknown to him, of indeterminate age, wearing a dark cloak and a hat that shadowed her face.

"Be seated, Lord Umpily," she said, and took one of the chairs herself without looking at him.

He sat down quickly. The two guardsmen were already heading back to the door.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "No one. Be silent."

The door clicked shut. He a.s.sumed that its hinges had been well oiled recently. Still the woman did not look at him, sitting as still as a statue. He s.h.i.+vered in the clammy cold, fervently wis.h.i.+ng he had made better use of his time in the men's room. He could think of no reason why he should be abducted like this, right under the imperor's nose. He knew no state secrets now. He was comfortably wealthy, but there had been hundreds of much richer people at the ball.

Sudden horrora"they had been able to seea" in the dark! How had the lantern been lit? "Sorcery!" he whispered. "Be silent!"

So he was silent, thinking s.h.i.+very thoughts of sorcery. The evil wardens had not been apprehended yet, so far as he knew. The fake Shandie was still at large, and so was the sinister faunish king of Krasnegar. He had a.s.sumed that they had fled to distant lands. Could it be that they still lurked around the capital?

Hooves and wheels clattered outside to a halt just a brougham, from the sound of it. Then the door rattled, and opened. This time it creaked a little. Then it closed.

Two figures advanced very slowly into the muddle of light under the lantern. One of them was the taller of the two fake guardsmen. He was supporting a small man in civilian clothes, who leaned on a cane and shuffled his feet. His head was bent with age, only thin silvery hair showing. His breath rasped with effort. The hand clutching the cane was a bunch of twigs. The woman rose and helped the guardsman lower the old man onto a chair. They remained standing.

Umpily was not sure his legs would support him, so he stayed where he was. This ancient newcomer must be the person who had summoned him. He did not look as if he would live to the end of a long conversation. Yet, old and frail as he was, he commanded the a.s.sistance of sorcerers! For a few moments he remained hunched over, panting hard and loud. At last he raised a face eroded by unthinkable age and peered blearily at Umpily.

"Good evening, my lord!" His voice was a breathless croak.

"Good evening, er, sir." Umpily thought his own sounded virile and confident by comparison.

"Forgive my unorthodox invitation." Wheeze. "Ah-you do not remember me!"

"No."

The old man chuckled, and the chuckle became a hacking fit of coughing. The woman bent to steady him, seeming alarmed. Eventually he recovered, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He gestured. The guardsman stepped back a pace, and the woman returned to her chair.

"Well, we have met several times. Perhaps this will jog your memory?" The shriveled carca.s.s began to swell. Years fell away like snowflakes. He grew large, and larger yet. His nondescript clothes s.h.i.+mmered into bronze armor, arms and legs bulged with enormous muscle. Silver hair darkened and then vanished under a golden-crested helmet. The ladder-backed chair creaked under the weight of the giant warrior who now inhabited it.

Looking about a hundred years younger, Warlock Olybino leaned back and crossed his legsa"and smiled menacingly at Umpily.

"Better?" he boomed.

Umpily's teeth were chattering so hard he could not speak.

The warden glanced across mockingly at the woman and then around at the guardsman, who now seemed a mere weed by comparison. "Considering the trouble he went to in trying to find me, he seems curiously overcome!"

"I cannot break his bonding, Omnipotence," the woman said. "I tried."

"Well then, we shall all have to try together, won't we? Can't leave him laboring under delusions! Ah, there it goes."

Sudden comprehensiona"stroke of lightning! Umpily doubled over and buried his face in his hands. Oh, what a fool he had been! How obvious it was now!

Nothing broke the silence except the hiss of the lantern hanging from the rafters.

"Well, my lord?" said that sonorous bull voice. "Which one seems like the real imperor now?"

Umpily groaned. "The one on the boat!"

"And who was that popinjay cavorting upstairs awhile ago?"

"Emthoro!"

"Right you are!" The warlock chuckled.

Slowly Umpily forced himself to look up at the mocking smirk on the face of that virile young warrior.

"And which one is the real Olybino?" he askeda"and was at once petrified by his own audacity.

The giant scowled menancingly. Then he shrugged his great shoulders. "The one who came in, of course. This place is s.h.i.+elded. There were many s.h.i.+elded places in Hub a few months ago. The Covin is now dismantling those s.h.i.+eldings so it can watch everything that transpires in the city. There are very few sanctuaries left now."

"So you never left the capital?"

Olybino smiled sadly. "I had nowhere to go. I was a Hubban born and bred."

"You got my letters?"

"I heard of them." Again that dangerous scowl. "To have allowed any of them to reach me would have been dangerous."

He gestured again. The guardsman spun around and stalked away; the door clicked shut behind him.

Umpily sneaked a glance at the enigmatic woman, but her face was still curiously masked by shadow. He wondered if she was using sorcery to keep him from seeing her clearly. She might even be someone he knew. This little meeting would be a very deadly conspiracy if the usurper ever learned of it.

Olybino uncrossed his great legs and crossed them the other way. "I am dying."

"Dying, your Omnipotence?"

"You heard." His voice echoed like funeral bells. "I am more than a hundred years old. I had expected another hundred at least, but that is not to be. If I use sorcery or even magic to keep myself alive, I will be detected. Soon there will be no s.h.i.+eldings left." His expression was stony now, revealing nothing.

"I am sorry," Umpily whispered. He had never much cared for the warden of the east with his juvenile soldierly posturings, but he would not wish death on anyone, and this was a particularly cruel death. "Can you not flee from the capital as the others did?"

"I am too frail to travel." The words seemed ludicrous on the lips of that brawny colossus.

"Not even by boat?"

The warlock stared hard at Umpily for a moment, and then shook his head. "Your concern is touching, fat mana"unexpected! Nevertheless, I a.s.sure you I have considered all options, and I can see no way out. My one resolve is never to fall into the hands of that cave-dwelling runt. I will not give him the satisfaction."

"He is around, then? I have not seen him."

"Oh, he is around! He was in the hall tonight, pulling Emthoro's strings."

Umpily s.h.i.+vered and at the same time felt sweat break out all over him.

Olybino snorted. "Do you not think the prince by himself could have done a better job of playing imperor than that preposterous performance?"

The night was growing stranger all the time. To cross-examine a warlock was an experience utterly beyond belief, but Umpily's curiosity was burning him like a rash and Olybino seemed willing to answer his questions. There was the matter of what was going to happen to Umpily himself after this meeting endeda"but that was a concept too terrifying even to think about. He rummaged hastily through all the queries flitting around in his head and found a safer one.

"Why did he mention . . . I mean, why did he have the prince mentiona"the wardens tonight? If there is to be a great victorya""

"To discredit me!" the warlock growled. His face did not change, for sorcerers could control their appearance as mundanes could not, and yet a timbre of fury rang in his voice. "You skipped a couple of questions, my lord. First you should ask why he has allowed the goblin obscenity to persist so long. Then you ask why he is doing what he is doing to stop it."

"Oh! Well, er . . . why?"

The warrior folded his brawny arms and sighed. "The little monster is insane, you understand. He trusts no one, he fears everything. Even now, he cannot rest. Always he seeks more security, yet if he controlled every sorcerer in Pandemia and every kingdom, he still would not feel safe. So far he has kept his existence secret, yet he longs to be loved and acclaimed." He raised an eyebrow. "You appreciate your own danger, of course?"

"D-d-danger, your Omnipotence?"

"You hadn't realized? One day he may take a notion to destroy everyone who knows about hima"including you." The warlock smiled grimly. "Or he may swing to the other extreme and have himself proclaimed a G.o.d so that everyone may wors.h.i.+p him."

Umpily wiped his forehead. How had he ever become involved in this?

"I expect he is still thinking it over," Olybino said callously. "But he seems to be leaning more to the G.o.d solution at the moment. When the goblins and dwarves invaded and destroyed the four legions, he had Emthoro call in reinforcements on an enormous scale. You probably heard the speech yourself?"

"Yes, your Omnipotence."

"I was forced to deprive myself of the pleasure." The warlock's face was calm, but his great fists were clenched, the knuckles showing white. "He deliberately stripped the frontiers of defenses."

"But why? Everyone wondered that!"

"So that the inferior races will be tempted to attack, of course! They have probably begun already. He may know. I don't. But if they haven't started, they will soon."

Umpily quaked on his hard wooden chair. "All of them?"

"Enough. The jotnar certainly won't be able to resist the chance. The caliph was planning to attack anyway. The impire will be engulfed in fire and destruction. Understand?"

Oh, G.o.ds! "And Zinixo will come forward to save it?"

The giant warrior beamed. "There! That wasn't so hard to work out, was it?"

No, it wasn't. It was beyond belief, and yet somehow it seemed logical when put in those terms.

"But why did he drag you into that speech tonight, predicting victory over the goblins?"

Olybino pouted. "I'm not sure of the details. I'm not crazy enough to be able to think the way he does, but I am sure he plans to discredit me somehow. Most likely there is not going to be a great victory."

"Not more legions destroyed!" Umpily cried.

"Possibly." A glint of amus.e.m.e.nt showed in the warlock's coal-dark eyes. "But if we are to debate strategy, then tell me what he plans to do with the dragons."

"Dragons?" Merciful G.o.ds!

"The dragons have risen. All four surviving blazes are in the sky now, heading north."

Dragons? Not for a thousand years had the dragons been used in war. The millennium was going to live up to its reputation. Umpily licked dry lips and said nothing.

"No suggestions, my lord?" the warlock asked mockingly. "Well, let us move to more cheerful tidings. I know you escaped with the real imperor. I have heard rumors that the faun is in the game again. You tried to get in touch with me, and I have a rough idea of what you wanted to tell me. Now I want to hear the details. That was why I arranged this meeting. Speak! No, wait. Would you care for a more comfortable chair?"

Umpily nodded vaguely, striving to rid his mind of thoughts of dragons so he could recall what he needed to say about the new protocol and the imperor's counterrevolution.

"We have all night, my lord," the warlock said cheerfully. He stood up and stretched, his great arms almost reaching to the cobwebbed rafters.

"All night?"

"In the morning we shall learn what the usurper plans to do with his dragons." Something sinister burned in those potent eyesa"madness, perhaps. What could be more dangerous than a dying sorcerer? "This is a very historical night, much too exciting for sleep."

In the morning what happened to Umpily? Would Olybino let him go, knowing of his whereabouts? Even if he did, Umpily's loyalty spell to the usurper had been removed. How long until some agent of the Covin noticed, and realized that he had changed sides again?

He was a dead man, too.

p.r.i.c.king thumbs: By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs,

Something evil this way comes.

a" Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV, i

TEN.

Possess the field

1.

Dark did not linger long in the northlands in summer. The sun had hardly withdrawn below the horizon before it rose again to deal out another day.

The sea rolled on forever, endlessly green and cold and s.h.i.+ny. A solitary s.h.i.+p rode the billows under a single sail, heading north. Although many others held the same bearing on the same ocean, not a one was in sight. The crew slept, huddled on their benches or on the gratings below, snoring in ragged chorus. A skinny youngster clutched the steering oar firmly, half choked with pride at the honor he had been granted. If he knew that three or four of the sailors were only faking, and keeping a wary eye on him, then he gave no sign. He watched the waves and the horizon and the wheeling white birds, and mused over the lesson in knota"tying that the bosun was going to give him in an hour or so . . .

Dawn came to Guwush, brightening the roofs of Highscarp. Working gnomes grumbled about summer nights and began to yawn. Day people slept on awhile yet in the overpriced, crowded rooms of the Imperor's Head.

The poor and the frugal had chosen less expensive accommodation in the hayloft. They slept on, also, all except one, an aging dwarf. He lay still, but his eyes were wide with horror as he followed the distant trace of dragons.

The sky brightened in Thume, wakening the larks in the meadows and the roosters of the humble farms. Over the densest forest, the light of day was blocked by clouds and failing rain, then branches and leaves, until only a vague brightness seeped through the ruined windows of the Chapel to where the Keeper knelt in prayer at Keef *s grave. Alone.

Hastening west and southward, morning came to the bloated refugee camp that was Hub. Unseen by day as by night, the G.o.d of Death continued Their work, gathering the souls that fever and hunger had released.