“I should not dream of breaking up such a masterpiece.”
The imp wailed and cowered down ever farther into the crumpled brown robe, so that only his hair was visible.
“Besides,” the sorceress said, “having a whole handful of men available when required, but only one at a time to put up with—that seems like an excellent arrangement.”
Leaving the lad apparently sobbing into his knees, she came strolling back along the line. She paused in front of Little Chicken and regarded him with dislike. “You must be a goblin. Your name?”
With his odd-shaped eyes stretched wider than Rap had ever seen them, Little Chicken merely moaned and reached out toward the sorceress. She drifted backward until he was leaning forward at an absurd angle, only the fixation spell on his feet preventing him from crashing to the floor. He continued to moan.
She studied him for a moment, then shrugged. “Not bad below the neck, but the face would have to go.”
She left him there, completely off balance, and wandered past Princess Kadolan without a word, to stop once more before Rap and Inos. “Extraordinary retainers you chose, child,” she muttered.
Why would she call Inos a child when she was no older herself? Her eyes were the same deep red-brown shade as her hair, and they were burning Rap’s soul to ashes. The curve of her breasts below the filmy gauze of her robe was driving him mad, and her nearness made the blood pound in his chest until he felt it was about to burst.
“And a faun? What’s your name, lad?”
He opened his mouth. “Raaaaa…” His name disappeared in a choking noise, as he felt himself strangle in sudden revelation. His name was not Rap. That was only a nickname, a short form of—of his word of power. He had never told anyone his real name, not even the king. It was a great long thing, Raparakagozi—and another twenty syllables-and he had not heard it since his mother had first told it to him, a few days before she became sick, warning him not to repeat it because if an evil sorcerer learned your name he could do you harm and of course she must have seen with her foresight that she was going to die and the fact that he could even remember such gibberish after all these years meant that it was his word of power and now he desperately wanted to tell it to this entrancing seductive beauty standing before him and yet some part of him was screaming at him not to—the words were hard to say, Sagorn had told him—and his tongue tripped between the two set of commands and…
“What is a faun doing so far north?” Queen Rasha inquired before he had resolved his conflict and brought his mouth under control. She curled a lip that men would have died to kiss just once. “But he’s only a halfbreed, isn’t he? That’s a jotunn jaw, and he’s too tall. But those tattoos! Why do savages think that mutilation can possibly improve their appearance?”
“Huh?”
Tattoos?
“This is Master Rap, a stableboy!” Inos said, in a strangely sharp tone. Rap did not look at her.
Queen Rasha sighed. “I do hope his duties are not too complex for him.” She seemed to lose interest in Rap. His world crashed down into terrible black despair. It wasn’t his fault he was a mongrel, and he’d have managed to tell her his name if she’d just given him another minute or two. He so desperately wanted to please her, just to earn one tiny smile…
“Krasnegar,” the sorceress murmured, regarding Inos again. “Inisso? A word or two of power, perhaps?”
“I don’t know what you mean!” Inos shouted.
“Don’t be tiresome!” Rasha sighed. “Granted the words themselves are invisible, but I don’t need the occult to tell me when a slip of a girl is lying. And you do have an interesting problem.” She glanced thoughtfully at the door, still decorated with a burly arm. “I don’t think now is the time to solve it.”
“What do you mean?” Inos cried. Rap’s conscience stirred vaguely. Something must be bothering Inos, and he should not be staring so fixedly at Sultana Rasha.
“I mean,” the sorceress said, rather absently, as if lost in thought, “that when you opened that magic casement, it creaked so loud that I heard it down in Zark. A casement shouldn’t do that. What could have charged it up with power like that?”
No one spoke, and she shrugged. “Just a malfunction, I expect. Old—it obviously hasn’t been used in years, right? You were lucky that most of Pandemia was still asleep. Including the sorcerers. Including, more important, the wardens! But to linger longer would not be wise. Go now.”
She pointed to the window. Inos turned. She began to walk stiffly toward it, and then twisted around and held out her hand, even as her feet were still moving.
“Rap!” she cried. “Help!”
With a shuddering start, he turned to look. As soon as his gaze left Rasha, he broke free of his dreams. “I’m coming!” He tried to move, but his feet remained as solidly fastened as before. He could do nothing, and Inos continued to walk unwillingly to the casement.
Again she screamed. “Rap!”
“I’m coming!” he yelled, but he wasn’t. Off balance, he toppled backwards and crashed to the floor, his feet still immovable. Elbows and head smashed into the boards. Heavens full of stars blazed before him.
“What is the meaning of this?” her aunt shouted. “Release her at once!”
But already Inos, still moving in small jerks like a puppet, had reached the casement and started to clamber over the sill. Peering through eyes blurred with tears of pain, Rap saw that the many-colored haze beyond it was a drapery of sparkling beads, flickering in a gentle breeze. The sun must be shining behind it, although the other three windows showed only a predawn glow. The whole chamber, he realized, was full of warm air, scented with flowers.
Inos staggered on the far side of the wall, cried, “Rap!” once more, and then vanished through the shimmering rainbow drape.
Failure! He had failed Inos!
“Queen Rasha!” Princess Kadolan said hotly. “This is highly improper! Return my niece at once, or else permit me to accompany her.”
Rasha regarded her with some amusement. “You would not prefer to remain and lecture the imps on deportment? Very well—go.”
Kadolan’s roly-poly form hurried willingly across the chamber. She struggled for a moment with the climb, almost fell over the sill, stumbled through the drape in a tinkle of jewels, and was gone.
The sorceress glanced around the others. “Boys will be boys,” she said. “Time for ladies to retire and leave you all to your male fun. Tell them to be sure and clean up the blood afterward!” She uttered an astonishingly raucous laugh.
Still half stunned, Rap was also bewildered—the sultana’s draperies were not nearly as flimsy as he had thought, and her hair was covered again, and he could not recall her replacing her veil. She seemed much older than he had been thinking, and broad, not slender.
She took a couple of steps and paused to study the sleeping Fleabag, who leaped up and bounded over to her, his tail wagging vigorously. Again Rap felt the bite of jealousy.
“Splendid creature!” Queen Rasha said, with what sounded like real admiration. “You will make a fine pair with Claws.” She glanced down at the prostrate Rap. “Yours, faun?”
Rap nodded, unable to trust himself to speak.
Fleabag turned, lolloped across the chamber, and bounded over the sill of the casement after Inos. Rasha waddled across the room and paused again at the window to look back suspiciously.
“Why should a queen call for a stableboy?”
Rap’s mouth was suddenly very dry. Because he had a word of power, perhaps? He must not even think about words of power around a sorceress. That was what had been worrying Inos all along, he saw now, and he had been so bewitched by this—this old woman?