"Tell me again of the place where we were supposed to fight this interesting duel, you and me?"

Rap licked his lips and managed to steady his quivering jaw enough to use it for speaking. "I told you, sira"it wasn't clear at all. Short gra.s.s; scythed or grazed. Mist and rain. A ring of people all around. That was all. Nothing in the distance, no landmarks. "

"The Place of Ravens on Nintor," Kalkor said, staring intently, "has a circle of great stones around it. The spectators must stay back from those. Stay outside. There are no predators or scavengers on Nintor, except the ravens, and the bones of the losers are left where they fall. Did you see any bones, or the monoliths?"

"No, sir."

"Mmm." Kalkor rubbed his fresh-shaven chin and seemed to ponder. "Reckonings are almost always done at the Place of Ravens, but they need not be. They can be held anywhere, if certain conditions are met."

Rap almost gagged again. He could think of nothing to say, so he didn't try. Sagorn had interpreted the vision as showing Rap being Inos's champion; but he might equally well be Kalkor's plaything. The shaving episode had just demonstrated that the jotunn's sense of humor was as warped as his morals, and if he found the idea of a ritual battle with Rap an amusing prospect, then he could stage it at the next landfall, wherever that might be.

"And when you tried for a vision from the cas.e.m.e.nt?"

"I never did, sir. I approached it twice, and each time it . . . well, it sort of blazed. Very bright. All shifting. Eerie!" Kalkor nodded. Then, slowly, his smile wideneda"and yet his eyes seemed to narrow. He stepped off his chair and moved out from under the helmsman's deck. "Up!"

Rap rose also and cautiously straightened. He was shorter and slighter than the jotunn. He felt very frail beside that potent killing machine.

Kalkor looked him up and down twice, perhaps making the same comparison and feeling rea.s.sured by it. Then he folded his arms and shook his head mockingly. "Just be glad I'm a gambler, sailor."

"Sir?"

Rap staggered on a roll, and the thane's hand flashed out to grip his shoulder and steady him. His fingers dug in like skewers.

"There is something very odd about you, halfman. Very odd! My instincts for self-preservation tell me I should gift you a full suit of armor and send you out to push. I just tested you, you realize?"

Here came the job offer. "Sir?"

"You pa.s.sed, but not in the way I expected. I would have taken odds of a thousand to one that what I demanded was humanly impossible for a mundane in your condition. But you weren't using occult power, were you?"

"No, sir. Just farsight. I can't see well at the moment."

"Farsight . . . and something else, but not magic!" Kalkor chuckled, and it was a sound to freeze bones. "I had decided to kill you if you did pa.s.s." He sighed. "But, as I said, I'm a gambler. Just a sentimental softie, I am. I will accept that you are not an adept in spite of the test."

He raised a quizzical eyebrow, and Rap said, "Thank you, sir."

"Indeed. You may be a mage or even a sorcerer, of course, but then I am helplessa"and you certainly don't look like either at the moment. Faun, I am going to be very surprised if we do not fulfill that absurd prophecy one day, you and I. That intrigues me! I have raised twelve heads in the Place of Ravens. I should like very much to raise yours, also."

"I will bet on you, sir, not me."

Sudden anger blazed in the inhumanly blue eyes. "Do not joke about sacred matters! I am no imp to wager squalid, worthless things like money! A Reckoning is a solemn ritual, an offering of courage and a sacrifice of life. Few things less than life itself are worth gambling." For a moment Rap thought Kalkor was going to flash into jotunn madness, but then the eerie smile returned. "Two strong men battling to the death, entering the circle knowing that one of them will never leave? There is the ultimate gamble, the finest game of all. I hope that one day I do leave my bones for the ravens of Nintora"it is the n.o.blest death for a thane. And I ask only one favor from the G.o.ds, Master Rap."

Rap saw that he was supposed to question. "What's that, sir?"

"That my slayer be worthy, a man of courage. Tell Darad I want him."

4.

It was a real pleasure to pa.s.s the message to Darad and see apprehension spread over the nightmare face. There were not many pleasures on Blood Wave. Gathmor was conscious, but too weak even to sit up. Rap found water for both of them and eventually begged some food, also. Then he set to work on the problems of cleaning up his fellow prisoner and finding fresh clothes for him. The jotnar did not interfere, but they were surly and uncooperative.

And yet even a captive could have moments less miserable than others. Boat and contents steamed in the hot tropic sun. The sea shone like silver, flashing bands of glory across the minatory obscenity of the orca crudely painted on the sail. White birds followed, rocking on the arcs of their wings. Given blue sky and a fine breeze, a half jotunn could not be totally unhappy on a sprightly vessel like Blood Wave on a fine day.

Rap had noted Darad cowering at the thane's feet and then forgotten him. The next development was Kalkor himself striding past, stopping to drag one of the sacks of loot out from under a bench near the bow. Rap knew what was coming before it emerged, and he swung his farsight aft again. Cowering under the p.o.o.p deck was the flaxen-haired minstrel, Jalon, struggling to adjust Darad's oversize breeches to his slender form. Small and una.s.sertive, Jalon was a most unlikely jotunn, as he himself had pointed out to Rap once when they shared a picnic lunch in the hills, long ago. His skin was pallid, sickly compared to all the bronzed sailors, and certainly there was no more terrified minstrel on the Summer Seas.

What the crew thought of the magical transformation was impossible to tell. Blue-eyed glances flashed under golden brows, questioning and commenting in surly silence. Kalkor had not deigned to explain, and not a man aboard would dare show fear.

The thane headed aft again, carrying a bejeweled ivory harp. In a few minutes Jalon had done the best he could to tune the battered, impractical instrument and was sitting on the helmsman's deck, with his legs dangling.

And thena"pure miracle! Somehow he wrung a flawless, angelic thread of music from the harp and on it wove tapestries of the finest singing in all Pandemia. A couple of sea chanties, then a ballad, and more and more, and either every one was perfectly fitted to the timing set by the ship's motion, or else Blood Wave herself now danced to the minstrel's beat.

Glory! It soared, it floated in the warm sky like a flight of rainbows. It lifted the heart or wrung it as he chose. Murderous brutes those jotnar certainly were, but at times Rap could see tears in their eyes, while he himself was tormented by thoughts of Inos and could not help but weep. Then Jalon would switch to some rousing warrior song. Rap's heart would pound, his spirit surge, and he was ready to storm Zark single-handed. At those times the jotnar were roaring, waving battle-axes and eager to waste the entire Impire.

"G.o.d of Madness!" Gathmor whispered during a brief pause. "Who is he and where did he come from and how does he do that?" But then the mystery came again, and everyone hushed to listen. Kalkor kept Jalon at it for hours, while Blood Wave rushed over the ever-rolling waves in search of land.

As each song ended, harsh jotunn voices called out the names of others, and there were very few that Jalon did not know or could not sing; his repertoire was enormous. But even he had his limits, and eventually his voice began to falter. To say that Kalkor took pity on him would have been an absurdity, but at last he acknowledged human frailty and sent the minstrel off with Vurjuk to eat and drink and rest. The other jotnar began to talk fiercely among themselves, discussing what they had just heard.

Gathmor was asleep. Rap was hungry, but the sailors were eating and he felt it wiser to wait awhile than dare to interrupt. Instead he gave some more thought to his own troubles and prospects.

To start with, where exactly was the ship? The storm could have moved it an immense distance; he had no experience to guess how far. Direction he always knew fairly well, a talent that seemed to be part of his farsight, and in any case he could always read the helmsman's binnacle. After his first two or three days aboard, though, his attention had been distracted by weakness and pain and he had stopped caring. The wind had first carried Blood Wave southward, then northeast, but she had not piled up against the coasts of either Kith or Sysana.s.so. One or other likely lay ahead, then, for the helmsman was holding the most northerly course he could manage in a southwesterly, and although she, too, bore only a single square sail, this was a much more weatherly vessel than the top-heavy Stormdancer.

And if Blood Wave had not gone westward, then Gathmor was in terrible danger, because he was no longer needed as a pilot for the Nogids. Kalkor could find another of those anytime.

All Pandemia lay somewhere to the north. If Blood Wave pa.s.sed west of Sysana.s.so, she would enter the Dragon Sea, rife with commerce and good pickings for a merciless raider. Alternatively, east of the big island lay Ilrane and elves or Kerith and merfolk, areas Rap had never studied. Farther east still was Zark, although one storm could not possibly move a ship that far.

Which brought his thoughts back again to Inos.

How ironic that a callous killer and rapist like Kalkor should have seen what Rap himself had never before realized. He was in love with his queen! How blind could a man be?

Or how crazy? A stableboy falling in love with a princessa"the very idea had been stupid beyond dreams, too stupid even to contemplate. It still was.

And so what? She still deserved his loyalty as a subject. That loyalty should be even stronger if he loved her.

She did not return his love. How could she? A very lowly factor's clerk . . . not even that now, only a vagabond with a knack for horses and a smattering of sailoring skills. On that mad night when her father died, Inos had been courteous and kindly to her childhood friend, as she would always be. She had thanked him for his help. She had not flinched before his occult abilities, because she was a sophisticated, educated lady, not one of the ignorant, superst.i.tious rustics of Krasnegar. Like him.

And if by some miracle he could ever find her, she would certainly by then be married into some n.o.ble family. The wardens might just possibly have installed her on the throne of her fathers, with a compromise consort acceptable to both thanes and imperor . . . not, thank the G.o.ds, Little Chicken!

Never Rap.

The man in her tent had been a swordsman, almost certainly an aristocrat. Big, handsome fellow.

So Rap must continue his search if it took a lifetime. She would welcome him into her household, perhaps make him master-of-horse, as they had joked together when they were children. She need never suspect how he felt about her. He would serve her loyally as subject and worship as lover from afar.

And if all he was feeling was an overaged juvenile infatuation, then he would grow out of it in time.

Could a juvenile infatuation hurt this much?

Now he knew why the fairy child had not told him her word of powera"her name, or possibly the name of her guardian elemental, if that is what the words were. She had told Little Chicken because he had truly known his life's great desire, and because he had wanted it enough to die for it. Rap had not said that he loved Inos, only that he wanted to find her and be her loyal subject. Not the whole truth! Had he known the truth, and said it, then he would be an adept now, with two words. And the fairy would have died in his arms, not the goblin's.

What if Kalkor got to Inos first?

Or changed his mind and slew Rap out of hand? He obviously took the prophecy seriously.

Or decided to torture his word out of him to become an adept? Better not to think about that.

No, somehow Rap must escape from the thane's clutches.

He'd escaped from the goblins, hadn't he? And from the imps, and from a warlock.

How obvious now was the advice that King Holindarn had given him, and even Andora"that occult powers must be kept secret at all costs. Too late! A jotunn raider would never willingly release a seer. Before landfall, Rap would find himself chained or deliberately crippled so he could neither run nor swim.

"Rap?"

The whisper startled him out of his brooding, and he jerked around to stare at a brilliantly flushed face. For a moment the redness suggested an extreme, comical embarra.s.sment; then he saw that it was only a very bad case of tropic sunburn. Jalon had now found a shirt to give him some protection, but he must be suffering. Under his pain, he was pathetically bewildered and frightened. He still clutched the frivolously ornate harp in one hand and was holding up his oversized breeches with the other.

Once Jalon had confessed to having elvish blood in him. Seeing him now alongside so many pure jotnar, Rap thought he could detect a goldish tinge to his skin, and a slant to his eyes. And of course he lacked the height and muscle. It would be unkind to comment on that, though.

"Take a chair," Rap said sadly. "Wine? Sweetmeats?"

"Don't!" the minstrel said, crouching down. "Don't mock, Rap! G.o.ds, man, but you've grown!"

"I have?"

"It was only two days ago we met, you know. For me, that is."

"You share memories, don't you?" Rap thought of Thinal and Sagorn and Darad, and all that had happened in the year since that picnic . . . more than a year.

"Yes. But mine are the clearest to me. The others never see things properly!" That was the artist speaking, the painter. He took a harder look at Rap's face and grimaced. "It wasn't me set Darad on you, Rap!"

"Oh, no!"

"Really!" Jalon's dreamy blue eyes filled with tears. "I warned you about him, remember! Then I got lost in the forest, and I was tempted to call him, because he knows that country, but I knew he'd head straight back to get you, so I called Andor instead. He recognized the danger, Rap, too. Andor's not all that bad! He managed to find his way south . . . "

"Did he meet any goblins?" Rap asked, suddenly curious. The minstrel nodded. "A few, in ones and twos, and of course he could charm that many. They're fairly harmless in the summer, anyway. "

"Not now, they're not! Or so I've heard."

"Well, they were! But I did try to keep Darad off you. And I haven't been back since."

"Not at all?" Rap thought he saw a shiftiness.

"Well . . . once. Just for a few minutes. I wrote a letter that Andor needed, a letter of introduction. And he'd trapped me, because he called me in a room where lots of people had seen him going in. They would've seen me if I tried to leave."

Rap chuckled. The gang of five exploited one another without scruple. He wondered how many little tricks they had like that. Jalon glanced around nervously, then looked doubtfully at Gathmor, who was glaring at him. "Rap, I need some help!"

"Don't we all?"

"No, immediate help! I have to compose an epic, a jotunn war song."

"Good luck."

A flicker of anger appeared in Jalon's washed blue eyes, or perhaps it was only fear. "Kalkor told me to. You know the sort of thing he wants?"

"No. Do you?"

"Oh, yes. It's to be about the battle of Durthing."

Gathmor snarled, and Rap stretched out a hand to restrain him as he struggled to sit up.

"It's not my idea!" the minstrel squealed, flinching. "But there's a convention to these battle songs. Every man has to be mentioned, so I have to talk to every man aboard and get his name. Then I have to fit him into a verse, telling of his exploits. That's not hard; I'll just lift stuff from all the old cla.s.sics. But I need to know the names of their opponents, see? They have to be in there, too."

"And these brutes didn't think to ask who they were killing? " Rap asked bitterly.

Jalon nodded. "Please, Rap?"

"Why bother? Call Darad:"

"I daren't! Kalkor says if I call any of the others he'll put his eyes out!"

His distress and his red face made Jalon seem almost farcical. The sequential gang had a man for every situation, and Darad was the man for this one, never Jalon.

"Have you five ever been trapped like this before?"

The minstrel shook his head, looking ready to weep. He was much better at singing about warfare than he was at being involved in it.

"All right!" Rap said, ignoring Gathmor's growls. "I'll list the best fighters in Durthing for you. They're dead, so it won't hurt them. But you'll owe me, Master Jalon!"

Jalon nodded vigorously. "I won't forget, Rap. And the others will remember and be grateful, too."

That seemed doubtful. Even more doubtful was the possibility that Rap would ever be able to collect on the debt.

Jalon was too fine an artist to displease any audience, and probably too great a coward to disappoint this one. By nightfall he had completed his jotunn battle song about the sack of Durthing. It was all pure fantasy, and a stupendous success. It listed every member of Blood Wave's crew by name and credited him with some gruesome exploit or other. Even Rap could tell that most of these tales were verses pirated from well-known ballads or epics, but that did not seem to matter at all. The jotnar cheered and roared and applauded every line.

And when at last the blood-soaked narrative drew to its close with the youngest and most junior of the raiders, who turned out to be the oversized Vurjuk, the baby giant who so much reminded Rap of his boyhood friend Katharkran. For the finale, Jalon had saved a famous feat of arms attributed to the ancient jotunn hero Stoneheart. Legend told how Stoneheart had pursued three mighty foes up a great tree and there hacked them to pieces, so that when he departed the branches were all decorated with severed limbs and organs and the gra.s.s around was drenched with blood. In Jalon's version there were six enemies, not three, and all were dismembered single-handedly in midair by young Vurjuk and his ax. The sailors screamed with joy, rolling around in their mirth, while the juvenile champion turned an excited fiery red and cheered with the rest of them, quite willing to pretend that every word of this had really happened.

The sky was dark, but the wind held, and Blood Wave sailed on. Long into the night Jalon had to keep repeating his masterpiece, over and over, until it seemed as if all the raiders had come to accept that things had actually happened exactly as he said. In the end they were congratulating one another, and especially complimenting the boy champion who had slaughtered six men single-handed, in a tree.

In some ways they were like children, Rap decided, oddly incomplete. It was not bloodlines that made them monsters, for he knew many decent, likable jotnara"like many of his former shipmates on Stormdancer, or like Kratharkran, who'd apprenticed to his uncle the farrier. Nor was it climate, for Krasnegar was every bit as cold and bleak as Nordland itself. It could only be custom. In other circ.u.mstances Vurjuk might have made a very fine blacksmith, and were Kratharkran here and a proud member of Kalkor's crew, then likely he also would be striving to be a man as they were men, to be like his hero Kalkor. But now, however ruthless he might have been before, Vurjuk had been given a reputation to live up to. He would be worse than ever, if that was possible.

Meanwhile, Blood Wave sailed on, into the unknown.

5.