"Troublemakers!" Gathmor agreed. "Had *em around Durthing a few times. Always brought bloodshed." He followed Jalon down the ladder.

"The G.o.ds be with you, Master Rap," the warlock said. "Waste no time."

Still feeling that he should be arguing, Rap took hold of the rail and swung up a leg.

Gathmor had the tiller already and the sail was spread. The tiny craft rocked as Rap settled on the thwart amidship, next to Jalon, who grinned childishly and raised the pipes to his lips. At the first haunting notes, a shadow of ripples rushed over the waters, and the sail swelled.

"What's her name?" Gathmor demanded. He looked up to ask the elf, but already there was open water spreading between the large craft and the small.

"Call her the Queen of Krasnegar," Rap said between his teeth.

"So be it. May the Good go with her."

A stronger gust rocked the boat. Palms on the sh.o.r.e bent and thrashed.

Ripple? The world steadied again at once.

That one had been faint, but Rap had felt ita"either because he was learning to, or because the power had touched him personally. His arms and knees had turned from gold to brown in front of his eyes. He gasped in agony, and then his shirt burst open in a shower of b.u.t.tons, his pants ripped across the seat. Jalon stopped trilling on the panpipes to join Gathmor in great bellows of stupid, raucous laughter. The boat rocked with their mirth. Idiots!

All the same, it was with real relief that Rap inspected his own familiar faunish face again, flat nose and goblin tattoos and all. It had never been much of a face, but he was glad to have it back.

He grinned at the very pink Jalon, and then at Gathmor. "Lay a course for Arakkaran, Cap'n!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Look!" Jalon pointed.

Quip'rian was waving from Allena's deck. Beside him stood the elvish Rapa"and Jalon, and Gathmor. All four waved. Rap raised his hand in farewell, and then turned his face to the sea.

Rushing seas: One port, methought, alike they sought

One purpose hold wher'er they fare;

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,

At last, at last, unite them there.

a" Clough, As Ships Becalmed

TWELVE.

Female of the species

1.

Morning sun sparkled on the great harbor as Dawn Pearl crept slowly toward her berth. Inos stood on deck with Azak on one side of her and Kade on the other, studying all the bustle and the astonishing variety of shippinga"very much as she had wanted to study it that other morning, months ago, when she had been lumbered with the odious baby Charak. Now she was much less interested, for the bright hopes of that memorable day were tarnished. Spoiled! Crumbled to ruin. She dared not look at Azak, for his feelings must be as dark as her own. They had gambled and lost, and they still lacked even the tiny compensation of knowing for certain who had won.

Even the medley of scents was oddly familiar to Inosa"the fish stinks of a harbor and the flower scents of the city. She felt far more like a returning resident than she would have expected, or wanted. The shining palace on the hill was a derision, a marble jail waiting to take her back, a sarcophagus. She was draped again in the despicable chaddar of humiliation, a recaptured fugitive.

"Look!" Kade exclaimed. "On the dock. Isn't that a reception party?"

It was indeed, and Inos had detected it long before Kade had. Azak had probably seen it even earlier, for he had the falcon vision of his race. Neither of them had commented.

"Led by Kar," Azak murmured.

Inos could not see that yet, but it would be a welcome sight for Azak. If the devoted Kar still lived, then no other prince had seized the t.i.tle of sultan. And that thought made Inos realize that Azak must have feared for his life since he learned Dawn Pearl's true destination.

Who had told him, or when, he had not said, but he had been released from the brig as soon as the ship cleared Brogog, the last port before Arakkaran. Gaunt and grim, he had spoken very little since. He was dressed again as a prince, all in green: trousers, tunic, cloak, and turban. Inos did not know where he obtained those. Likely they had been slipped aboard by Elkarath's women, as it must have been they who had smuggled the Zarkian costume for Inos and Kade into the baggage. The whole cruel buffoonery had been very well planned.

Azak had hardly spoken. She did not know how he felt about her now. Was he still in love with her? She could not read his thoughts.

But Azak was returning as sultan, and apparently his throne was still secure. His lack of jewels and scimitar would be soon rectified if the efficient Kar was in charge of the welcome.

Welcome? Public reception . . . they were not even to be granted the grace of an un.o.btrusive entry into the city. There would be bands and a parade. Rejoice!a"the sultan returns! Mockery.

Inos turned away from the sight of the band and the a.s.semblage of princes. She glanced around her to confirm that the chests had been brought up and that all was ready for disembarkation. Dawn Pearl would leave on the same tide.

Well! Over there was the shrouded form of little Frainish, who had been so chagrined to discover that she was coming home to Arakkaran instead of venturing forth to Angot. But at her side stood Skarash, inscrutable again in the flowing robes of a Zarkian merchant. Well, well!

Master Skarash had supposedly disembarked at Torkag. No one had seen him since, so no one had been able to question him. And here he was back? Either this was more sorcery, or he had been plying the sailors with gold to keep him hidden. There was one way to solve that question.

Inos strode across the deck and accosted him. "Master Skarash? "

He raised his chin and continued to stare at the harbor, arms folded, ignoring her. He was being a djinn again, and djinns did not speak to other men's wives, or pretended wives.

"I was hoping for a farewell kiss," Inos said.

He twitched. Garnet eyes flickered toward her, then away again. His Adam's apple lurched, but he did not speak.

"If I tell Azak about that episode," Inos said, "then he will kill you now, with his bare hands."

Again the hard swallow.

"I shall count to three, then I tell him how you forced your kisses on me in the cellars. One!"

"Go away!"

"Not until I have some answers. Two!"

Frainish was wide-eyed above her yashmak. Skarash did not look around, but gems of sweat gleamed amid the pink stubble on his lip. "What do you want to know?" he whispered.

Inos had already gained one answera"Skarash was not a sorcerer. "Whom do you serve?"

"My grandfather, of course."

"And whose votary is he?"

He licked his lips. The dock was very close now, Kar and the dozens of other princes clearly visible, all loyally smiling. The band lurched into the clamorous discords of the Arakkaranian national anthem.

"Warlock Olybino's."

Aha! "Since when?"

Skarash turned a furious, frightened gaze on Inos. "Since the night we reached Ullacarn. The centurion . . . You saw! That was the warlock himself!"

"Yes, I know. So your grandfather did serve Rasha when we left here?"

He snarled at her. "Yes, and now he doesn't, and it's all your fault!"

"Mine?"

"You escaped from Tall Cranes. He had to use so much power to find you and get you back that the warlock found him! You spoiled everything, Inosolan! Now go away!"

"I am not quite satisfied. So it is not Rasha's will that brings us back here. Does she know we are coming?"

"Yes. I think so. She must if they do." He waved at the quay. "And why are we coming?"

Skarash's ruddy face was all shiny with fright. He glanced momentarily over at Azak, and then back to Inos. "He is watching! Please go away!"

"Not until you tell."

"The wardens do not need you! The Krasnegar problem has been solved. You are nothing, Inosolan! Nothing!"

She flinched. Yet somehow it was almost a comfort to have one's worst suspicions confirmed, the uncertainty laid to rest. Now the fairer hopes could be discarded and put away. Now Krasnegar could be forgotten, for whoever ruled there in future, an ex-queen would not be allowed to return. Other alternatives could be examined, and Inos could start to make some plans. The hurt . . . The hurt could wait.

"So why bother to send us back?"

Skarash looked longingly at the dock, as if wondering if he might leap to safety and disappear into the crowd. Then he sneaked another glance across at Azak, and paled at what he saw.

"As a message to Rasha. She is nothing, also! Olybino is the strongera"he broke her loyalty spell. Grandsire was her votary and now is his. He can enslave Rasha also!"

Aha! again.

"Please, Inos!" Skarash whispered. "Have mercy! You are killing me. He is still sultan of this city and Grandsire is not here to shield me."

Inos hesitated, then nodded. "I shall not forget the kiss," she said sweetly. Let him worry about what that meant! She spun around in a swirl of hems and stalked back to the glaring Azak, picking her way between ropes and baggage and hurrying sailors.

Things were a little clearer now.

"Well?" Azak demanded. There might be hint of twinkle in his scowl, making Inos wonder how much he had deliberately been aiding the interrogation of Skarash.

"Rasha knows we are coming. Olybino has sent us back as a threata"his sorcery is stronger than hers. She is in danger herself now."

"G.o.ds of the Good!" The tall young man's face broke into a wide smile.

But Rasha was still a sorceress, and she would be waiting in the palace.

2.

Nothing!

All during the bowings, the prostrations, the speeches of welcome, that dread word kept echoing to and fro in her head. You are nothing, Inosolan!

As the band played and the procession moved slowly up the long and hilly road to the palace, she sat with Kade in a decently screened carriage, accompanied by two anonymously shrouded women whose presence stifled conversation completely.

She thought about being nothing. If her kingdom had gone and she was nothing, then surely she had been nothing before? Inosolan had always been nothing. Krasnegar had been everything. Bitter taste.

The crowds were not cheering for hera"they could have no idea who was inside that opaque little oven bouncing by on its unsprung axle. They knelt with their faces in the dust and they cheered their sultan on his big black horse. They were shouting Azak! Azak! Azak! but it sounded very much like Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! to Inos.

Now she need not wont' about Krasnegar. Now she was free to consider the alternatives. There were not very many to consider. She had no a.s.sets. She knew no trade. Her needlework was scandalous, her lute playing pained the ear. Who ever heard of a female hostler, or a cook who could catch the dish but not prepare it? With a royal t.i.tle she had been useful timber for matchmakers like the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Kinvale. Without it, she might make a governess or a dancing instructor. Or she might many a rich, fat merchant who hoped to rise in society and needed guidance in gentility.

Of course she had one a.s.set. Doubtless she could soon acquire the skill required to use it to its best advantage; but that road led down to the pit that Rasha had known, the bog from which almost no one but Rasha had ever escaped.

Nothing!

If her father had told her a word of power as everyone believed, then she had mistaken it. So far she had displayed no signs of being an occult genius at anything.

Why had the warlock been so cruel as to send her back to Zark? Anywhere in the Impire would have been better for an unattached female with no skills, no t.i.tle, no money, no friends.

She might have one friend, but one she was not certain she wanted. And she was not even sure of him any more. Since being released from the brig, Azak had not said he loved her. Was it she he had thought he loved, or only the romantic myth of a beautiful, dispossessed queen? What had he dreamed ofbeing her husband, or being king of Krasnegar? If he still wanted her, could she ever want him?

The Azak who had been good company in the desert had been Azak the lionslayer, a freelance swordsman with no kingdom to worry about. The Azak she had just glimpsed on the dock had been the ruthless sultan, grim and saturnine, terrifying everyone.

She might have learned to love the one; she doubted she could ever love the other.

If Rasha must now flee from Arakkaran to evade the warlock, then Azak would be free to be sultan as he wished to be. He would be free to marry, if he chose, although he could no longer marry a queen, because there was no queen available. He might prefer a woman of his own race, one who could do a better job of running the royal household. Who would not shock princely society by wanting to ride to hounds. Who would be properly respectful of her lord, not teasing and talking back.

He l.u.s.ted after her, Elkarath had said. But Azak was never petty. He might withdraw his offer of marriage, from the needs of political expediency, but . . . but surely there would always be a bed for her in the palace?