Роберт Асприн - Forever After

A pale Spido shook his head. “I’ll be no trouble at all, sir.”

“Ah, but are you not to report to Prince Rango on our progress?”

“Yes, sir, but…”

“But?…”

“Well, sir, being brutally honest, I played poker with Squill and Rolfus and Piggon the night before we were all introduced to you and if the three of them had a brain between them, I’d have won it fair early on that evening. I was thinking, sir, that I would lie to them about where we were.”

“But you could not fool Rango.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I am here and he’s back there believing I’m a hingu-kun .”

“Point taken.”

“So you see, sir, we could divert and I could give them reports that put us on course and on track. And you have to admit it would surprise anyone waiting to waylay you. Take a bit more time, of course, but would be well worth it.”

Gar felt his stomach clench. More time I cannot afford . More time meant he would be separated from Domino that much longer. While he knew she would never love him while Jord lived, she had provided a spark that kindled emotions within him. Had he not learned how to respect another by respecting her feats despite her gender, he could never have respected“ Spido’s courage. Being apart from her, no matter how much it hurt to be near her, was something he would never accept. Nothing, not ease of passage or avoidance of enemies, would keep them apart.

“No, Spido, we go on as planned.”

The sorcellet shook his head. “Pity, sir, but I understand. Still, to leave Dolonicus’s killing machines ravaging the land…”

Gar’s head came up. “Killing machines?”

“Well, beasts really, sir. He has three of them, according to my mum, who can count as long as it’s not more than four and a half since she had that accident with the butcher knife. She calls ‘em ’TerribleClaw FastHunters’….”

“Your mother has an imagination…. Is Spido your real name?”

The sorcellet groaned. “You don’t want to know, sir. Anyway, these things are fast and have this terrible, sickle-shaped claw, one on each of the two hind legs. And they’re covered with brilliant feathers and have lots of teeth. Dolonicus uses them to hunt deer and mooses and they can outrun horses and they work like a pack and call to each other. They’ve long tails that balance them, and small arms up front, kind of like some of them big lizards what have been around the mud lakes that have come up in Faltane, sir.”

“These things are very deadly?”

‘The deadliest, sir.“ Spido nodded solemnly. ”My uncle Gordo calls ’em dinner-sores cause of the way they rip long wounds into what they take for prey.“

“And there are three of them?”

“Three and they hunts together.”

“And they are a threat to loyal citizens of Faltane?”

“The most loyal, sir. These clawthings are a clear threat to Prince Rango’s realm.”

Gar nodded solemnly. “More of a threat than bandits, I believe.”

“I thought you’d think so, sir. So we divert and go after them?”

“I would be derelict in my duty if we did not.”

“My thinking exactly, sir.”

“Spido, I guess you did learn something at Armbruss.”

“Ironic, eh, sir?”

“Indeed. If you’re lying, you’ll learn something else.”

“On my honor, I’d die before I’d lie to you, sir.”

“Or certainly afterward, Spido.”

Gar opted to let Spido choose their path for two main reasons. The first was that Spido, having grown up in Torfay, but having made two round trips to Caltus before he ran away to Armbruss, knew the best route and likely places they could camp out or lodge themselves for the night. The accommodations Spido chose were pleasant and yet not expensive enough for anyone to believe that he, Gar Quithnick, Rango’s loyal hingu-Grashanshao , would be staying there.

The second and more cogent reason he let Spido lead was because he felt certain any old enemy trying to outguess Gar Quithnick would be utterly unable to predict any of Spido’s actions. While the route they took lacked beeline precision, it did have an aesthetic quality that Gar had previously ignored concerning the Faltane countryside. As they traveled through the Vales of Dorn, well west and south of the Failles of Dunn, Gar recalled one of Jord Inder’s poems, “Vales and Failles,” in which Dorn had been described in terms of a silken tapestry allowed to fall crinkled to the earth by the gods. While some of the metaphors included in the poem related to the female anatomy — and Gar easily translated that into an image of Domino — the assassin worked beyond the pain the words brought to him and mentally congratulated the poet on capturing the essence of Dorn in his work.

Gar turned to Spido as they rode along. “Do you see a woman in these hills, Spido?”

“I’m not sure that I do, sir. Should I?”

“The fecundity of the vales, the hills, the hollows?”

“Would this be one of those ‘troptical allusions,’ sir, what a man sees when he’s got thirst-fever or his brain’s been sunbaked? I have a spare hat here, sir.”

“Thank you, Spido, I am fine. Merely remembering some things.”

“Oh, like someone you were sweet on?” When Gar frowned, Spido added, “That is, ‘sweet on’ in a hingu-Grashanshao sort of way, sir.”

“I understand, Spido.” Gar considered the question for a moment, then nodded. “Love is an alien and powerful force, isn’t it?”

“It is, sir. Prince Rango killed off old Kalaran for the love of his nation and Princess Rissa, didn’t he, sir?” Spido smiled. “And I loves me mum, which is why I writes to her — well, not to her but to someone who can read it to her — with news of my life and quest to destroy Dolonicus… and his killing clawthings.”

“I was thinking of love for another, not a relative.”

“Oh, yes, sir, I can see that, sir….”

Spido’s voice trailed off wispily, which caught Gar’s attention. “Do you have someone you love back in Torfay?”

Spido blushed and nodded. “Now you’ve caught me out, sir. The fair Squashblossom is the one I love.”

“Squashblossom?”

“Well, sir, she’s the twelfth daughter, and the others were all named for flowers like Dahlia and Daffodil and Rose and…”

“And your mother, with her imagination, helped come up with Squashblossom, did she?”

“How did you know, sir?”

“There are many things a hingu-Grashanshao knows, Spido.”

“Yes, sir, I see that, sir. In any event, Dolonicus is a threat to my Squashblossom.”

“He intends to make her his wife?”

“Not exactly, sir. He intends to feed her to the claw-things.” Spido shook his head. “He had intended to wed her, but she wouldn’t have him and spilled hot soup in his lap — of course, she was always a bit clumsy…”

“But of fine character and good virtue.”

“You speak as though you know her, sir. Anyway, being as how the bedsheet only covered part of Dolonicus at the time, he was a bit scalded and ornery until he healed up. Squashblossom has been in hiding since then, taking lodgings with those that will have her….”

Gar’s eyes narrowed.

“Mostly bachelors because Dolonicus would never think of looking for Squashblossom in the homes of single men, where a woman of her virtue would never consider hiding.”

“A hingu-Grashanshao must have second sight, that’s for certain, sir. It’s like you’ve been reading my mum’s letters — well, not her —”

“You’ve explained the procedure to me, at least four and a half times, Spido.”