Роберт Асприн - Forever After

“I can see that, sir. Great one for irony he was.”

Such as the irony of watching a little lardbutt laborer become an assassin . The hingu-Grashanshao looked again at Spido. “So, you did spend time at Armbruss. I gather, however, you overstated the extent of your instruction in order to be appointed my sorcellet. Why did you want to accompany me?”

“Well, sir, it’s a long story…”

“… which you will abbreviate succinctly…”

“… but putting it into a succinctly abbreviated form, it’s my destiny, you see, sir.”

“Ah, your destiny. Let us try it again, not quite so sparing on the words this time, shall we?”

“Yes, sir. See, sir, I’m from Torfay and we’re just a little village. And most all of the menfolk, they went off to fight under Prince Rango’s banner, but with them gone, a man calling himself Dolonicus the Magnanimous has come in and set himself up as the Mayor, which he isn’t, since the last Mayor went off to the war and his ceremonial sword hasn’t been returned so there’s not been a new Mayor since then even though the old one is dead, you see, sir.”

“Do all of the Torfay speak as you do?”

“Only thems of us what has some education, sir. Now this Dolonicus, according to my mum, who writes me regular — well, she doesn’t write but gets someone else to write it for her, see — used to fight for Kalaran. Now he’s saying that he’s the Lord of Torfay and it’s my destiny to defeat him and drive him from our town.”

The assassin raised an eyebrow. “You use the term ‘destiny’ as if it is synonymous with ‘intent’ or ‘desire.’ ”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but it is my destiny . I’ve heard a prophecy, see, sir, and I know it pertains to me. So I need to make sure I do it right so everything will work right and proper. ‘With wings of death/Swiftly he comes swooping/Laying low the mighty/For the fallen stooping.’”

“ That is your prophecy?”

“Well, not the whole thing, sir, but the part about you, it is, sir.”

“About me?”

Spido nodded confidently. “Figured it out myself, sir. See, wings sort of rhymes with hingu , sir, so I’ll be coming to Torfay with you, being the hingu of death.”

“ Hingu means death in Ancient Thermaean, you know.”

“No, sir, but thank you, sir, for you’re certainly the one who could be the death of Death, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.” Spido rubbed his hands together. “Now to put the rest of it together. A verse I’ve not figured out is: The flower of Life/nurtured in love fey/Form of goddess-wife/Will win him the day.”

‘That, too, is part of your prophecy?“

“It is, sir.” Spido smiled proudly. “I’ve been trying to figure out which goddess I’ll have to bed, see, sir.”

“A difficult business being a hero.”

“I expect so, sir.”

Especially when your prophecy is a product of pro-Bongo propaganda . In keeping with the hingu precepts he had learned since he was weaned, Gar had sought out all information he could find about Jord Inder. Normally the information he gathered would have been employed to provide the victim with a suitable death, but Gar merely wanted to understand what Domino saw in the slender, blond poet.

Until he had begun his lorestalking of Jord, Gar had never studied poetry. Even after his researches he was uncertain what constituted art, but he knew what he liked. While a few doyens of society had reviewed some of Jord’s performances — and assassinated his work with the skill of a hingu-dan — Gar had found a resonance and peace in the poems that surprised him. Jord’s words related emotions and spun stories with feelings. They stirred the soul and, during the rebellion against Kalaran, had inflamed the people so they flocked to Rango’s banner.

The poem Spido quoted had been one of the more obscure and obtuse ones credited to Jord. Supposedly uttered by him, bit by bit, day by day, while ne was locked in the throes of fever delirium in one of Kalaran’s prisons, “Warrior Day” had taken on prophetic import. The different verses had been assigned to those who came to aid Rango, and Spido had correctly identified the verse often linked to Gar himself.

The second verse the sorcellet had quoted had generally been thought to be an allusion to the love of Rissa for Rango. It also applied, in part, to another encounter Gar had experienced on his way to Bardu with Anachron, but lord could not have known of it because it had happened long after the poem had spread throughout the land. Gar doubted the fever had given Jord a second sight — and the poem was obscure enough that anyone could characterize any part of it as anything, as had Spido — but some of the verses made him uneasy when he speculated on what they might mean for him.

Gar started to explain to Spido his error, but the confidence and happiness in the man’s eyes stopped him. Before the war, when he still served Kalaran and Udan Kann, he would have gladly crushed Spido’s spirit, but he could not, now. Before he would have scorned the young man for his failure to become a hingu-dan, but now he could respect the courage it took for a pudgy youth to leave the mountains and enter Armbruss. That courage demanded reward, or at least not to be broken. “Spido, if I may, I would inquire what your plan is for liberating Torfay.”

The man’s smile dwindled and he almost cringed. “I was thinking, sir, that we might divert from the edge of the Wastes and swing around through the mountains to Torfay, then go to Gelfait.”

“Impossible, we have a mission.”

“I know that, sir, see, but I was thinking…”

“Were you?” Gar settled an impassive mask over his face. “I have told Rango we will go to Gelfait without delay. I cannot be swayed from my course.”

“But sir, there are stories of bandits all over the north country here, and up into the Lake District.”

“There are ways to dispose of bandits.”

“I know, sir, but I didn’t bring that much rope.”

“Think like a hingu-kun , Spido. I do not need rope.”

“Begging your pardon, but you can’t hang them if you don’t have rope.”

Gar shook his head. “What does hanging do?”

“Kills them, sir.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Ah, kills them dead, sir?”

“We are talking methodology, not philosophy, Spido. What does hanging do to their bodies?”

“Well now, ’cepting the tall ones what can touch the ground, they break their necks.”

“Good, Spido.” Gar stabbed out with his left index finger in a Iron Spike Stab, snapping a meandering dragon fly in half. “A hingu-Gmshanshao knows three hundred and twenty-three ways to break a man’s neck, excluding those methods that require siege machinery or thirty-year-old brandy and a pipette of boiled egg albumin.”

“You’re saying, sir, the bandits will be no trouble.”

“Exactly. And, in keeping with my pledges as a liegeman of Prince Rango, I am duty bound to kill bandits.”

Spido retreated within himself for a second, then nodded. “Well, sir, begging your pardon, but isn’t it likely that any of your enemies are going to know that you’ll be going from the Failles of Dunn to the Wastes of Rahoban and on to Gelfait, so they’ll be waiting to waylay you on the route?”

“As the farmers were waiting for me?”

Spido frowned. “Your point is well taken, sir, but, as you was saying about the fourth of them thirteen precepts—”

“Thirteen Truths.”

“Right you are, sir, with the theory and reality and all, wouldn’t it make sense to take another route to avoid possible trouble?”

Gar thought for a moment, and some of the unease that had begun to gnaw on him during the preparation for the trek bit down hard. “While your suggestion has merit, you present me a problem in that respect.”