Azak cautiously raised his head and scowled at the sloping rafters just above him. Street noises of hooves and voices and wheels drifted in from the dark beyond the open window. The scent of gra.s.s and trees was replaced by smells of candles and spices and old cooking.

"Welcome to Ullacarn," said Elkarath.

Life and death:

O to dream, O to awake and wander

There, and with delight to take and render,

Through the trance of silence,

Quiet breath;

Lo! for there, among the flowers and gra.s.ses,

Only the mightier movement sounds and pa.s.ses;

Only winds and river,

Life and death.

a" Stevenson, In the Highlands

SEVEN.

The splendour falls

1.

Befuddled with exhaustion, Rap stared blankly at a hole in a cliff. The night was bright with stars, and the air pleasantly cool on his skin, but for a while he did not understand what he was doing. Then he remembered the last part: darkness and picking his way through the tangled and shattered rocks with his farsight. His feet were slashed b.l.o.o.d.y, his ankles and knees swollen like dropsy, even his arms all gashed and bruised. In the foggy nightmare that was what he recalled of the journey, he could vaguely remember carrying Gathmor for an hour or two, but now he was alone, and at the end of his powers. His companions were long lost behind him, their mundane strength broken by efforts to obey a sorcereus command.

The gnome boy had vanished, last seen still skipping as freshly as ever. So this cave must be Rap's destination. It was perfectly circular, bored by sorcery through draperies of black rock where a cliff had been melted. Dragons had been at work here, obviously, and his farsight was blocked; which likely meant that he was close to a sorcerer's lair. But it could be anything's laira"leopards or bears might lurk inside.

For a moment he leaned wearily against the rock. He ought to be terrified. He ought to be fighting the compulsion that he could feel growing in him again. Perhaps he was merely too exhausted to think straight, and yet some strange inner hunch was telling him that the summoning had been a good thing, an opportunitya"that fortune was favoring him by bringing him here. That crazy illusion must be part of the summoning itself. Unable to resist longer, he dropped to hands and knees and crawled into the pipe. The wind blowing through it was cool with the chill of ancient stone and long-forgotten caverns. The barrier was thicker than any mundane castle wall, but he emerged eventually into a deep crevice, open to the stars. Rugged rocky walls towered up on either hand, close enough that he could touch them. The floor was smooth and level, but speckled with unpleasantly sharp pebbles. Here and there giant blocks had fallen from the peaks and jammed in the gorge to make archways; any smaller debris must have been removed. He hobbled along, following its turns and twists into the mountain for ten or fifteen minutes, recognizing that this cryptic entrance had been designed to be dragonproof; he could guess at its immense antiquity. Finally the furrow was blocked by a wall of rough masonry. Faint, spectral light spilled out through a kennela"size door.

He crouched down and recoiled before the familiar stench of gnome. Gnomes were scavengers and carrion eaters, tolerated in many places because they removed every sc.r.a.p of garbage. They were certainly better than alternative vermin such as rats, but never pleasant companions. No one but a gnome would ever enter a gnome burrowa"except that Rap now seemed to have no choice. Even a moment of hesitation was bringing back his compulsion to chase after the little boy.

Very reluctantly, and holding his nose, he ducked through and straightened up at once, gagging and retching. His eyes watered.

This was no burrow. He was inside a huge hall, whose walls soared up like great cliffs of masonry to an indistinct luminous fog that hid the ceiling and shed a dim bluish light over the rest of the vast s.p.a.ce. There were many deep shadows, though, not all of which seemed readily explainable.

The floor was carved from the living rock, buried now below an oozing carpet of corruptiona"gnomes did unpleasant things at their front doors to discourage visitors. Here and there his farsight was blocked, or at least blurred, as if by ancient, forgotten barriers. He could see shapes that didn't feel quite solid, including gigantic rings of stone set in the walls; other shapes he could sense and not see in the dimness. The whole place had a sinister, sorcerous feel to it. And it stank worse than any pig farm he could imagine.

On a low stone wall at the far side of this enormous chamber sat his elusive quarry, the little boy. He, at least, was real. He was watching Rap with an understandably satisfied grin, while again stirring the inside of his nose with a finger.

Water! That parapet enclosed a circular pool of water! Holding a hand just below his nostrils in the hope.that the smell of his own skin would overcome the other smellsa"it didn'ta"Rap limped carefully across the vast room. There was no way he could avoid treading in filth, but he hoped not to slip and sit down in it. The water, when he reached it, proved to be coated with green slime, but he brushed that aside with his hand and knelt to drink. Although it tasted about the way he had always suspected stable washings would taste, he was dried out like a raisin, and he sucked up bucketfuls of the odious brew. At least he could be sure that gnomes would not have been using it for bathwater.

Then he sank down on his b.u.t.tocks and wiped his face with his hand, and realized that he was sitting in the mire after all. What the Evil did it matter?

His second word of power seemed to have granted him some occult ability to ignore pain, and he suspected that without it he would be screaming. He knew it was there, thougha"his butchered feet, his joints, his musclesa"but at last the compulsion had gone, the spell was lifted, and the mere act of sitting down at last brought a wave of fatigue that threatened to push him over into instant sleep. And the pain came rushing in as soon as his attention faltered. He sat up straighter, suppressed the pain, and glared blearily up at the boy who had led him here.

"I'm Rap."

The boy sn.i.g.g.e.red.

"Don't you have a name, sonny?"

The boy removed his finger long enough to say, "Ugish," and giggle. He had more teeth than a pike. And sharper. "You're a sorcerer, Ugish?"

A bigger grin and a head shake. Gnomes were by preference nocturnal, but Rap had met them in Durthing. He had seen them in Finrain and on his trips to Milflor. Their eyes were very large, and round, showing almost no white. In daylight they showed almost no pupil either, only a shiny black iris. Ugish's eyes were large, but differenta"the whites bright amid the dirt, and the irises bronze, with an intense l.u.s.ter. So perhaps there was more than one type of gnome.

Not all the inhabitants of Krasnegar had been notable for their personal cleanliness and some were notoriously unpopular companions indoors, but no other race seemed to enjoy filth as gnomes did.

Rap tried a smile. "Then whoa"ulp!"

A woman had emerged from a doorway and was striding around the end of the trough, coming toward them. Rap quickly pulled up his knees and clasped his arms around his shins.

She was no gnomea"tall as he, and of a striking build. At first he could not even guess at her race. She wore a loose dress, dirty, sleeveless and short, and so tattered that it was indecent, but she moved with grace and poise. She was every bit as filthy as the boy, her skin color indeterminate and her long hair a disgusting slimy tangle halfway down her back. Then he saw the sweat-washed tufts in her armpits, and they were bright gold.

And her eyes! They were very large, and oddly slanted, their irises gleaming with a wonder of rainbow fires, like opal or mother-of-pearl. So her skin would be golden also; she was an elf. He had glimpsed a few elves in Milflor and Finrain, but never close to. He could not tell her age, but he thought she might be very beautiful if she were clean.

And now Rap understood Ugish's eyes, although he had never heard of a gnome halfbreed before.

Rap hugged his knees tighter as she stopped and bobbed a hint of a curtsy to him.

"I am Athal'rian, of course." She smiled rather vacantly, making faint cracks appear in the coating on her face. She scratched her scalp absentmindedly.

"I'm Rap, ma'am. I . . . I haven't any clothes."

She frowned. "Oh, but . . . Well, Ugish, give him yours for now."

Grinning, the boy untied the rag that was all he wore and held it out to Rap, who recoiled in disgust. It was not something he would willing touch with a long stick, but he did not want to offend his hosts. Gnomes were normally shy and inoffensive, but they must have feelings like anyone else, and elves certainly would.

So he accepted the tattered relic and its pa.s.sengers, and rose to his feet with all the dignity he could feign. Fortunately the cloth was not long enough to tie around his hips, so he just held it in front of him like a towel, not letting it touch him. It was even less adequate for him than it had been for Ugish.

He could not stand without swaying.

Athal'rian smiled again and offered a black-nailed hand. "You are welcome to Warth Redoubt, Sorcerer. It is long since we had company for dinner."

Rap gulped and ignored the hand, as both of his were occupied. "I am no sorcerer, ma'am. I am merely an adepta"and a very new one, at that."

She looked puzzled. "But I thought Ishist said you were using mastery on a . . . Oh, dear!" She was staring downa"at his feet, Rap was relieved to see. "Don't those hurt? Ugish, run and tell your father to come."

The boy shrugged and sauntered away, taking his time and idly kicking at fungoid growths sprouting amid the ordure on the floor.

"You must forgive us, Adept! My husband must have thought . . . Tut! Do, please sit down." She waved at the edge of the trough.

Rap perched himself on the crumbling stone and reluctantly spread the slimy rag over his lap. Then she again offered a hand to shake, and he had no choice but to accept. He hoped she hadn't expected him to kiss it.

Still standing, Athal'rian began to talk in a tuneless singsong. "It is wonderful to have visitors! I haven't cooked a proper meal in ages. I mean, one gets used to gnomes' tastes, but . . . well, it was nice to dig up some of Mother's old recipes. Ishist made some really fresh things for me to use. Eating at table will be a good experience for the children. I thought he said three of you?"

Even sitting, Rap was swaying with fatigue. He wondered whether he was mad or she was. Or both. "My friends have less power even than me, ma'am. They are out there somewhere."

"Tsk! Well, we must have them brought in at once. There are leopards and other bad things out there. This is wild country, I'm told." She peered vaguely around the great empty chamber. "Do you dance, Adept Rap?"

"Er, not very well, ma'am."

"Oh."

Rap's eyelids began to droop, and at once a fire of agony consumed his feet. He jerked awake again. Keep talking . . . "Ma'am, what is this place?"

"Place?" His hostess smiled, and for a moment said nothing more. Then her wits lurched into action again. ."We call it the Mews, but of course we just use it fora"" Rap had already seen what it was used for. "a"but it was a mews, long ago." She gestured apologetically at one of the walls, and Rap saw that there was an archway there, blocked up. But originally it would have been big enough for . . .

"Dragon mews, ma'am?"

Another pause. "Dragon stables? We don't bring dragons in here."

"The castle is very old, though?"

"Older than the Protocol, Ishist says." She laughed.

"And now?" Was it just a refuge taken over by gnome squatters, or was there some reason for Rap to have been dragged here?

"Now?"

"This castle, ma'am? Who owns it?"

"Owns?" She smiled at his left ear for a moment. "Well, my husbanda"he's the great sorcerer Ishist, you knowa"he's dragonward. Has been for many years. So we live in Warth Redoubt. It's a very important job, but somebody has to do it."

Rap tried to work that out and felt himself slide away down the slope to sleep again. Again a jolt of agony focused his attention and jerked him awake. He was surprised to note that three small children had appeared and were cl.u.s.tered around Athal'rian, clinging to her and regarding the stranger with deep suspicion. They were all naked, filthy, and stinking, all smaller than Ugish.

And they all had the big, gorgeous eyes. Each set was differenta"blue, magenta, rose pinka"but all had the same intense brilliance. Most crosses resembled one parent more than another, just as he himself looked mostly faunish, and the only features these little gnomes had inherited from their elvish mother were those l.u.s.trous bright eyes.

"What exactly does a dragonward do, my lady?"

"The dragonward. There's only one! He keeps the dragons from straying beyond the Neck, of course. They keep nibbling away at the fence, and he has to keep putting it back. And he counts the hatchings and doles out metal and spells the fire chicks never to fly over water. It's very important!" She stooped to hear what one of the children needed to whisper to her so urgently.

What sort of a woman would marry a gnome? Live like a gnome? Let her children live like gnomes?

And obviously the dragonward was a warden's deputy, like the proconsul of Faerie. "So your husband works for the warlock of the south, ma'am?"

Athal'rian glanced up, beaming, her opalescent eyes flashing amber and viridian. "That's right, Warlock Lith'rian! Have you met Daddy?"

2.

Ishist was the first tubby gnome Rap had ever seen. His bald scalp did not reach to Athal'rian's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but she stooped to hug and kiss him as if they had been apart for some days or weeks, and he rose on tiptoe to return the embrace with what seemed to be equal affection. He had arrived with an escort of six fire chicks, and they now swooped and soared around the lovers, shining wisps of yellow and orange light in the murky dimness. Five of the six were the sort of incorporeal flame-being that Rap had seen before, brilliant wisps of no settled shape or substance, and some were no bigger than hummingbirds. The sixth, though, was the size of a seagull and visibly solid, a sinuous silvery dragon body writhing within a nimbus of fire. Flying with much more purpose and confidence, this one came swooping over to inspect him.

He froze nervously while it circled. He was sure he had not summoned it, and he hoped that the sorcerer would know that. Before he could decide whether he ought to send it away, it glided in and landed on his shoulder, heavier than he had expected, uncomfortably warm against his ear and neck, like a freshly baked loaf. Its claws were both sharp and very hot. He had to divert some of his pain-suppression efforts to the points where they were digging in, and his farsight saw beads of blood fizz and darken. It also kept shifting its grip. He did not care! The chick's corona turned bright blue, and when it rubbed its warm, scaly neck against his, he felt a wash of pleasure that was astonishingly enjoyable. It was a romp with a puppy. It was a dog's tongue and tail telling him he was the nicest guy in the world. It was almost as good as kissing a pretty girl. Now he understood Bright Water's pleasure at having a baby dragon as a pet.

He raised a hand to stroke the smooth, hot scales, and the fire chick purred in his mind, radiating love, blazing up in washes of blue flame brighter than all the five others together, even casting shadows where there had been none before. It felt so good Rap wanted to weep.

There were now six young gnomes gathered around Athal'rian, ranging from Ugish down to a pocket-size baby. The baby was crawling off on business of its own, but the others all burst into shrill laughter at Rap's conquest of the dragon.

And Ishist had turned to stare, with his bulbous gnome eyes as round as black b.u.t.tons. He was no cleaner than his wife, and much older. The fringe of hair around his scalp was probably graya"even Rap's farsight could not be certaina"but his face was certainly entrenched with wrinkles like ditches. His beard was the most nauseating thing Rap had ever seen near to a human face. He wore some sort of uniform, anonymous in a stiff coating of dirt, and the front of its tunic gaped over a pot belly. Barefoot, he squelched forward through the muck to peer at Rap more closely.

The wall on which Rap was so uncomfortably sitting was no higher than a normal chair, and yet his head was higher than the gnome's. Rap decided to remain seated, and tried not to show nervousness as he was scrutinized by the hard black eyes.

Small though he was, the man's stink was powerful enough to register over all the others. Could this disgusting little scavenger truly be a powerful sorcerer?

"Lily seems to think she has met you before, Adept." So that was it! "She may have . . . my lorda""

"Just call me Ishist. I always detect overtones of irony when day men offer me t.i.tles. Your name is Rap. You say you are only an adept?"

"Yes . . . Ishist."

There was shrewdness in those inkwell eyes, and sudden surprise. "You have indeed met Lily before!"