Роберт Асприн - Forever After

“Not bad at all. Lemml, I believe that the magical anomalies have spread to my wine cellar. Will you drink? This is certainly a rare beverage.”

“Whatever you drink, my Prince, is fine with me,” the priest replied, tasting the odd brew.

“Shall we get to business?” Prince Rango prompted gently.

“As you wish, sire. I come to report that the Demon of Darkness continues to emerge from the skull of Kalaran. I have interpreted the portent as soothingly as I can, but the High Priest is becoming concerned that we should not have permitted the scroll and the amulet to be taken from Caltus.”

The Prince smiled and sipped his dark, sticky brew.

“What do they expect me to do?” he asked. “They acceded to my councilor’s requests and now the artifacts are gone to their resting places.”

“Some recall that you had communication sorcellets sent with each of the heroes,” Lemml Touday replied, feigning unhappiness at his news. “There is talk of having you recall General Blaid and Gar Quithnick before they can complete their quests.”

“Damn the impertinence!” the Prince snarled. “Do they not see that larger things are at stake than a few portents from an enchanted skull? I would not put it past the wickedness of Kalaran to permeate his skull so that it would give us misleading portents!”

Lemml smiled, “Why, that’s rather nice, Your Highness. I could do something with that, if protest becomes too strong. Of course, I would need to plant my hints very carefully…”

The Prince opened a drawer and pulled out a small, jingling pouch. He handed it to the priest.

“I have been collecting for your favorite charity,” he said, “and have come up with some extra donations. I do not think I can raise extra funds easily again before the coronation. Of course, after the coronation, I will have access to all the treasury. However, if the amulet and scroll are returned, the coronation may be greatly delayed.”

Lemml swallowed the rest of his drink, rose from his chair, and bowed deeply. The pouch vanished into the sleeve of his robe.

“I understand, Your Highness. I will do my best for you.”

“Do,” the Prince said, watching him depart, “do.”

The sun rising behind the walls and towers of Caltus reddened the armor of Jancy Game and her companions as they looked back from the mound west of the city. Squill, the sorcellet, knelt apart from the others, busied with the customs of his art.

The packhorses whickered, looking discontentedly for foliage to browse during the brief halt. There would be still less forage for them when the party entered the Desolation of Thaumidor; much of the pack train’s burden consisted of its own fodder.

The horses were under the control of ten hard-bitten mercenaries — five humans, the rest elves. These retainers were scarred, dour folk every one. They had seen death in a hundred fashions already, and their hearts were prepared to face him yet again.

Calla Mallanik, Jancy’s faithful elf companion, stood at her side with a grim look on his aristocratic visage. He held his silver-strung bow. Its arrows of fiery, elf-wrought gold never failed to find the life of the evildoers at whom they were shot.

Jancy Gaine wore her horned helmet and a leathern jackshirt to which were riveted iron medallions cast in the image of terrible gods. Her small buckler, steel rimmed and its boss spiked with steel, hung at her left hip. There it balanced the right-side weight of her bearded ax Castrator.

A distorted female image circled the middle finger of Jancy’s right hand: the massive ring Sombrisio, hammered by demigods from native silver torn out of a glowing meteor. The fire that winked in Sombrisio’s eyes was only partly reflected from the sunrise, for the ring was as surely alive as Jancy herself.

Some lanterns still scuttled through the streets of Cal-tus. A few windows were lighted, but not those of the tower suite in which Princess Rissa would dwell until her marriage to Prince Rango. Rissa, whom Jancy had rescued, and who with Jancy had fought through scores of perils, each more dangerous than the last, to take her place in triumph at the side of the Prince…

Heat lightning flickered among the clouds to the west. The air on the top of the mound was as still as the faces of the heroes turned toward the homes many of them might never see again.

Sombrisio farted.

“I had the royal lottery on ice ,” Calla said in a voice like stones grinding. “No way any ball was going to get out the trap but good old one million, seven hundred ninety-two thousand, five hundred thirty-nine. I had the tolerances down closer than flea whiskers! Not another elf craftsman in—”

A cry of horrible, hollow pain filled the air. Jancy turned her head. “Squill!” she said. “What in Sif’s name are you doing?”

Squill grimaced and shook his head. He held his left arm crooked; his fingers were bunched near his ear in the mysterious handset which was part of his magic. Above the squatting sorcellet waved the wand of his specialist profession, a twelve-foot whip of thin steel. Its base was screwed into Squill’s knapsack.

Instead of answering Jancy, Squill repeated, “Knowed Wyvern Two to Knowed Wyvern Base. Communications check. Over.”

Squill unclenched the fingers of his left hand. The hideous moan sounded again. Squill shook his head and muttered uncomfortably, “Sorry, sorry, I guess I’ll have to change crystals. Too many lost souls drifting in the part of the ether where this crystal resonates.”

“Oh, right,” cried the ring Sombrisio in a shrill, unpleasant voice. “Blame your equipment, sure. The trouble couldn’t be because you’re a half-trained boob sent out with a bunch of losers, no.”

“Don’t mind her, sorcellet,” Jancy snapped, covering Sombrisio with her callused left palm. “Just get on with your work. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here on the municipal garbage dump.”

Squill shrugged off his backpack. He rummaged in its side fittings, removing a chip of malachite and replacing it with a block of green tourmaline from his belt pouch. The wand that intensified his spells waggled above him.

“There was no way any other ball could’ve come out of the tumbler after I’d worked over the machinery in the basement of the palace,” Calla resumed grimly. His face was turned toward the towers of the capital, but his mind was focused solely on the injustice done him and his skill.

Last week’s royal lottery had been held to defray expenses incurred in the Triumph of Good and Return of the True King. Faithful elf companions had incurred plenty of expenses, too; Calla would tell the world he had! And it’d seemed so simple — to an elf of Calla Mallanik’s unique skill and craftsmanship — to jigger the result in a completely undetectable fashion.

“Naw,” one of Jancy’s stalwart human retainers said to the slimmer (but otherwise equally stalwart) elf beside him. “There’ll never be an equal to Hormazd the Centurion. Seventy-eight wounds to the body, secenfy-eight.”

The elf pursed his lips. “I heard that was body and limbs combined,” he replied. The horse he held pawed rotting garbage in a desultory attempt to find something edible.

“No way!” said the human. “Body alone. Well, body and head, but that’s only counting ones that broke the skin, not what was sticking in his armor.”

Sombrisio managed a prolonged burst of flatulence. Jancy lifted her left hand and waved it; not that it made a lot of difference, what with the pong of the rubbish tip.

Squill snapped the side fitting over the new crystal. Instead of hitching the knapsack onto his back again, he knelt over it and formed the handset. He began to speak earnestly to unseen listeners.