Emperor and Clown (35 page)

“And
what after me?” Rap asked. “Do you slaughter the regent? Or that husk of an
imperor? The boy, perhaps? What is the last verse of the war song?”

An
explosion of unholy mirth turned the monster into a glittering, jagged monolith
on a baleful starlit moor. “You will never know! But I shall have immortality!”

The
duel would begin soon. The Imperial party was arriving. Azak was there, his
skin glowing red with Rasha’s curse. Incompetent slut she had been! That spell
was a shoddy piece of work. Inos, also, looking distraught and yet desirable
enough to drive a man madder than Kalkor. Poor Inos, knowing not a single word
of power!

“You
can’t win, you know,” said the thane’s mocking whisper in the steely calm of
the ambience. “I am a raider! I bow to no man. I recognize no law but death.”

“Nor
II” Rap said angrily. And the thane struck.

In
the mundane world, nothing happened at all. The two old jotnar supporters sat
by their principals, quite unaware of the occult confrontation in progress, but
in the ambience Kalkor’s misty image slashed Rap across the face with a cat-o’nine-tails
like the one he had brandished before him on Blood Wave.

It
was not intended as a mortal blow, nor even to disable; the result should have
been merely a vicious jolt of pain. The whip did not exist, nor did the wooden
staff with which Rap deflected the sorcery, for those were only mental pictures
of the invisible, images of the unimaginable ... yet Rap barely restrained a counterstroke
with his imaginary club that would have crushed the ogre’s skull.

Kalkor
looked mildly surprised, and also amused. “Not bad!” he murmured.

“Let’s
try that again, “ Rap said, reaching out in the spectral plane as if to offer a
sailor’s crushing handshake or a bout of arm wrestling.

Kalkor
struck back at once, a monstrous sword thrust at his opponent’s arm.

Rap
preferred the handclasp. It didn’t matter how he thought of it, or how Kalkor
did, either. What mattered was pure occult power.

Now
they matched strengths, and in Rap’s vision the opposing fingers were soft as a
child’s. He squeezed, meeting so little resistance that he hardly noticed it;
rejoicing as he sensed that he was inflicting hurt, as he saw the jotunn’s eyes
brim with swift-rising panic. Satisfied, he withdrew quickly, before he maimed
the man. With his ax, Kalkor could doubtless cut Rap to ribbons, but in sorcery
he was a pushover.

The
thane recoiled with a cry, so that his aged companion looked up in surprise.
The ambience filled with bubbling slime and a fetor of decay. Gifted with
strength and wits, with courage and beauty and high birth, Kalkor had abused
them all until, after a lifetime of conquest, he had come to believe that no
man could ever best him at anything.

And
now he knew better.

Low,
dismal dissonance, a frothing pit exuding noisome stenches of terror ...

Rap
peered in disgust at the filth. He saw fear at last, but not enough fear to
please him. “No, Thane! I will destroy you as you destroyed Gathmor. But first
I will make your bowels run, like a craven’s. You will flee from me, and I will
chase you all around the field. Finally, you will grovel on your knees before
the crowd. You will beg the regent to have mercy and stop the match, and he
will refuse. The imps will have great sport today, and for years the poets will
sing comic songs about the Nordland raider who came to Hub to strut, and ended
running from a faun.”

Kalkor
bared his teeth, and visibly braced himself. “No one will believe! They will
know that you are using sorcery!”

“Maybe!
But they will have a good laugh first.” The raider was no coward. He had worn
out his fear of death long ago, and now he seemed to master his fear of
mockery. “And so you will avenge your sailor friend?” he demanded.

“Yes!”
Rap shivered with anticipation. “Oh, yes!”

“Will
you indeed?” The thane shook his head with a disbelieving smile. “Gathmor ...
if that was his name ... how would he feel about that?”

Rap’s
joy faltered. Gathmor had hated sorcery and despised it.

“And
yourself ?” Kalkor persisted, blue eyes shining inhumanly bright. “There is
very little satisfaction in slaying a man with sorcery-believe me, I know! Will
it feel better than just leaving me to die of old age? I should enjoy that
less, you know!”

“I
will have justice!” Rap yelled.

“Not
with sorcery, you won’t, little faun. I grant you are a stronger sorcerer than
I, but I am a Nordland thane, and to use your powers against me will be an
infraction of that Protocol you quote so glibly. The witch of the north must
avenge me. We both die, then? Is that justice? Why not just strike us both dead
now?”

Kalkor
chuckled as he measured Rap’s dismay. Visions of fire and bleeding flesh ...

“Well,
Master Rap? What is it to be? Do we both die by foul sorcery, or do we strive
as men together, you seeking vengeance and I immortal fame? Shall we not agree
to leave one of us alive afterward? There is a kingdom at stake also, remember!
Battle of sorcerers, Master Rap? Or man to man?”

Gathmor!

Rap
was doomed either way ... but he thought of Gathmor, and his jotunn self raged
against faunish common sense telling him he was about to do something crazy.
However frail his chances against the monster thane in mundane battle, there
lay his only chance of real satisfaction.

Kalkor
saw his hesitation and sneered, again the arrogant, confident master of Blood
Wave. “Coward!”

Even
a half jotunn could not take that.

“Man
to man, then, you bastard!” Rap leaped to his feet and ripped off his doublet.

He
had spoken aloud-his red-robed companion looked up in surprise. At the far side
of the field, Kalkor’s equally ancient second lurched to his feet and reeled
out through the tent flap into the rain, grabbing up his bugle and helmet in
passing.

He
staggered, then, bewildered by his own unexpected move, for it had been Rap’s
doing.

An
explosion of thunder made him jump and look up nervously, as if expecting Gods
to appear in wrath. When nothing more happened, he raised the mouthpiece to his
lips rather shakily and began the ceremony.

Fanfare
of challenge.

“Ah!”
Rap’s supporter laid down the ax, took up his own trumpet and headgear, and
tottered outside to sound the response.

Rap
girt himself in the fur and followed.

Rain
wrapped him in a clammy shroud, but the cold could not quench the fire of his
rage. He fidgeted angrily from foot to foot while ancient ritual was mumbled at
him in some long-forgotten dialect.

Kill
Kalkor!

Kalkor’s
tent was barely visible as a blur of blue on the far side of the arena, but the
jotnar performing the ceremony there were invisible to mundane sight. Kill
Kalkor!

Rap’s
heart was racing, throbbing, every beat saying “Kill him.”
Killhimkillhimkillhim ... Every muscle twitched with eagerness. He wanted to
shout at the old priest or whatever he was to hurry up; but at last the gaffer
ended his mumbling and raised the axholding it vertical, straining. Rap knew
from the casement’s vision that Kalkor would be accepting his ax one-handed, in
formal ritual. He had no such pretensions. Snatching the weapon with both
hands, he ... he very nearly dropped it. It was appallingly heavy, a flared
blade as wide as his chest and a polished metal shaft longer than his leg and
too thick to close his fingers around. He had no idea how to fight with such an
idiocy.

Kalkor
did.

Heaving
the monstrous thing onto his shoulder, Rap began to trudge forward over the wet
grass. Rain blew in his eyes and dribbled icily over his bare skin. His legs
ached, he was groggy from lack of sleep, but he had agreed not to use sorcery
in this Reckoning. He would fight Kalkor on his own terms, man to man with
axes.

Thunder
roared directly overhead, stunningly loud, its echoes rolling away into the
distance and merging with the underground rumble of the vast audience. Among
the thousands of spectators who had come to watch this duel, very few would see
the outcome in such a downpour.

Directly
ahead, Kalkor appeared dimly ahead from the mist, as nearly nude as he was,
bearing an identical ax. One of them was going to die very shortly, and very
bloodily. This was what the magic casement had foretold.

But
it had not said which one.

No
farsight ... no sorcery ... Wholly mundane, Rap advanced; more cautiously now.
Kalkor moved his ax from his shoulder, gripping it with both hands like a
quarterstaff, holding it almost upright. He was the expert-Rap copied the move.
They came to a halt about three paces apart, standing in a puddle.

The
crowd had fallen silent. Rain hissed on the grass.

Kalkor
was smiling, white teeth in a bronzed demon face. He wore an icy calm, but the
crazed jotunn bloodlust showed in that smile. One of the great killers. Sooner
slay a man than bed a woman ... Gathmor!

“Ready
to die, halfman?”

Rap
made no answer, watching the bright sapphire eyes, keeping a wary guard also on
the ambience, alert for sorcery. Thunder rumbled far away.

Kalkor
advanced a step. Rap did the same.

The
thane raised a quizzical, mocking eyebrow. “It will be quick,” he promised,
trying an experimental wave of his ax, a high sweeping motion, not close enough
to connect.

Rap
ignored the move. Watching. Waiting. It had better be quick, for the jotunn had
twice the muscle he did and could outlast him. His arms and wrists ached
already ... one battered finger could be fatal in this game.

Kalkor
frowned and came a half step closer. They were within range now.

“Go
ahead! You first. You need the practice!”

Rap
had given his word. He wasn’t using sorcery, not farsight, not even insight ...
but he felt a sudden hunch that Kalkor was not quite as confident as he should
be, or was trying to seem. Could there be something bothering him?

“How
long have you known your words of power, Thane?” His dry mouth made the query a
whisper. Kalkor just smiled ... slowly raising his ax and sliding his right
hand lower, nearer the end of the long shaft. Muscles were tensing in his right
leg. Rain dribbled unattended into Rap’s eyes. “How long?” he persisted. “How
long since you fought anyone without sorcery to help you, Kalkor?”

The
thane struck, ax still almost vertical, foot following for balance, a chop more
than an arc, aimed at Rap’s chest ... that was how it was done? ... Rap
countered shaft to shaft, arms straight to withstand the jotunn’s bearlike
strength. The impact rang over the arena, but it also jarred every bone Rap
possessed and sent him dancing wildly backward, while a leering Kalkor followed
with another stroke.

This
time Rap sidestepped and parried with his blade along the massive handle, a
long screeching slice trying for Kalkor’s fingers. The thane deflected it in
time, but now he was the one to leap off balance.

Wild
joy surged up in Rap. Kalkor was stronger; but he was faster. And he still
suspected that the man had forgotten how to fight without the aid of sorcery.
That had been a clumsy retreat.

The
axes were too heavy to swing like sticks. The men could move themselves faster
than they could turn their weapons. That was worth knowing.

Now
Rap was pursuing, lowering his ax under his opponent’s guard. Kalkor had the
advantage of height, but his legs were as vulnerable as the rest of him.
Unexpectedly, the thane countered by swinging even lower, aiming at Rap’s shins
in the sort of clumsy wide stroke that Rap had already ruled out.

He
was certainly supposed to jump over this one, and Kalkor would have twisted the
handle to raise the blade and catch his feet, but fortunately the night’s
running had left Rap so stiff that he rejected the move on instinct, leaping
back and ducking his ax to catch Kalkor’s, hoping to hook the blades and jerk
the slippery handle from the thane’s grasp. Clang! He had underestimated the
inertia ... Kalkor thrust, and almost sliced through Rap’s leg, but not quite,
and he was within the thane’s guard then, so he rammed a knee at his groin.

Nice
try ... Kalkor twisted and they rebounded apart, neither injured. Wary and
panting, the two circled ...

Flicker!

“Stop
that!” Rap gasped. He wasn’t certain, but it had probably been foresight-this
close even a sight in use would be detectable to a sorcerer. “Once more and I
blast you! I swear!” He remembered Andor remarking that foresight made a deadly
fighter.

Kalkor
bared his teeth and said nothing. His eyes were wilder than before, even. Not
quite the pushover he had expected? Keeping sorcery suppressed when you had
cheated with it for years must be a very big distraction.

Rap
would tire first, though. His shoulders were coming apart already. His fingers
were freezing and cramped, slipping on the smooth metal.

Clang!
Clang! Mostly they just avoided each other’s cumbersome strokes, but some
connected. Clang! Rap was doing most of the retreating, but they were dancing
around each other so much that they had drawn no nearer the crowd. Rap’s speed
would fail before Kalkor’s strength did. The thane’s face was a rictus ...
could he look as bad? ... His heart was going to burst. Killhimkillhimkillhim
...

And
then Kalkor tried a straight rapier thrust as if wielding a pike and Rap fended
with a downward counter as Sergeant Thosolin had taught him. It was an
error-the thane dodged and Rap could not stop his stroke before he had buried
his blade in the turf. He hurled himself flat beside it as a murderous return
slice hissed above him. But while he was there, Kalkor’s foot slipped on the
slick grass; he staggered and stepped too close, so Rap swung a fist and caught
the back of the jotunn’s knee.