Дэйв Дункан - Magic Casement

As Rap had feared, he was looking into a crowded goblin lodge, seeing over spectators' heads. Fire blazed and crackled in the middle of the stone platform, throwing light on the audience gathered around the walls: near-nude men and boys, shrouded women and girls. They were all jabbering with excitement and laughing. The naked victim was staked out on the floor, and the tormentor standing over him holding a flaming brand was Little Chicken.

Rap swung away, burying his face in his hands and feeling his stomach heave with nausea and terror. Inos screamed. So did her aunt, and Sagorn muttered something guttural under his breath.

Then strong hands grabbed Rap. “It is you!” Little Chicken was wild with excitement. “Come! You see!” He began dragging Rap bodily back to the casement and resistance made no difference. “Hear applause! You do well for that! You making good show! And I doing good job! See your hands? See ribs?”

“No! No!” Rap howled, struggling to keep his face turned, his eyes closed. “Shut the window!”

“Good show!” Little Chicken insisted, squealing with joy. “It is Raven Totem! There my brothers! Watch what I do now!”

Rap forced his eyes open momentarily and then shut them tight again quickly. The victim did look like him, and not very much older than the face he had glimpsed in Hononin’s kitchen mirror.

And yet, there had been something wrong! He sneaked another quick glance and again had to shut his eyes hastily to prevent a fit of nausea. It was his face, but somehow blurred—fuzzy? Little Chicken sniggered wildly at some new horror and the goblin spectators burst into applause again.

Then, mercifully, the light faded against Rap’s eyelids, the excited babble of the crowd died away, and he felt the icy touch of the polar night and the cool caress of snow on his face. He relaxed and opened his eyes.

A thump on the back from Little Chicken almost laid him on the floor. “I told true!” he sniggered. “I kill you! We make good show.”

“Neither dragon nor Kalkor?” Sargon said acidly. “You are indeed a hard young man to kill. Perhaps that is all the message we are going to get—you will survive the imps, so why worry?”

“More likely it’s telling us that I’m as good as dead already!” Rap cried, and was ashamed at the shrillness of his voice. “Or that the imps may give me a better death than anything else in my future.”

“In either case it would just show the imps killing you, I think,” the old man remarked calmly.

Inos put an arm around Rap and led him away from the window.

He might survive jotunn or dragon, Rap thought, but he would not want to survive goblin. The victim in that last scene had already been horribly mutilated.

“Was it me?” he whispered, trying to control his trembling. “I thought it looked strange—blurred, somehow.” Say it was not me! Small wonder that Inos' great-grandfather had gone mad.

Sagorn hesitated. “Yes,” he muttered. “I noticed that. I thought it was just the smoke stinging my eyes, but your friend here seemed sharp enough… So we have seen you three times. The first two glimpses were ambiguous and the third time was suspiciously unreal. I wish I knew more about these things! It is all so insubstantial! What we need is a sorcerer to explain them.”

Crash! The door shuddered. The imps had arrived. Only one bolt now lay between Rap and their vengeance.

Inos hugged him more tightly. “But you will be my champion,” she said.

That was a nice thought, but for the rest of his life he would know that his eventual fate was to return to Raven Totem and the loving care of Little Chicken—while not looking very much older than he did now.

He wondered what would happen if he killed Little Chicken first. He had put down the sword somewhere, but now he wished he had it handy. Would it be possible to make a liar out of the casement? Was that why Bright Water had warned him not to harm the goblin? Had she foreseen Little Chicken being hurt by Rap?

Again the ax crashed against the door. Not long now.

“We might as well let them in!” Rap said wearily. “I think I agree with the casement that a quick hanging might be all for the best.”

“No!” Inos shouted. “Doctor Sagorn, a sorcerer could beat a dragon, couldn’t he? And Kalkor? That’s what it means! That is the message—we must share our words of power with Rap! He can’t share with us, but if we make him a sorcerer—a mage—then he will save you from the dragon one day, and beat Kalkor as my champion! Don’t you see? That is the only way he can survive the dangers we have seen in store for him, and he must survive two of them—I mean at least two, Rap, of course. And that fuzziness you saw—he was using magic against the goblins, too!”

Rap groaned. Not a sorcerer! Farsight was bad enough. The imps would be better than that.

“Darad—” Sagorn said, and paused. “I am too old to risk weakening my power, child. My health… You must share yours with me, also.”

“Yes!” Inos said. “You and I share, and then share with Rap. We’ll each have two, and he’ll have three.”

Rap groaned.

“Why not?” She stamped her foot with rage and dug her fingernails into Rap’s arm.

He was finding it very hard to think straight with Inos holding him like this. “Inos,” he said hoarsely, “I don’t want to be a sorcerer, even a mage. Sagorn is saying you must tell him first. Then he becomes an adept, right? He might call Darad to kill you to become a stronger adept! I don’t think you should trust him, not that much.”

The old man flushed angrily. Inos released Rap with a sob. “The God promised me a happy ending. Carried off captive by imps? Breeding sons for Kalkor? And you’re going to be thrown in the dungeons at the least, you dummy! I think that stupid casement is too old! It wasn’t working right!”

The door shuddered and splintered. It had lasted longer than the others, so perhaps it held some residual magic. Rap could farsee the burly imp wielding the ax, the heads and shoulders of others behind him, lower on the stairs, seeming cut off at floor level.

“Listen!” Inos said firmly. “I will tell Doctor Sagorn my word, and then he will tell both of them to Rap. You won’t be in danger then, Doctor, will you? I will trust you, as Father said I should.”

The old man shrugged. “Your plan makes sense, Majesty. I can think of none better. We have indeed been instructed to share our words with Master Rap. You will just have to reconcile yourself to becoming a mage, young man! Obviously that is what the casement was telling us to do.”

Rap groaned again.

Crash! Splinters flew. That blow had come right through the planks.

Inos clasped his hand. “Rap? Please?”

Please? He was making his queen beg? What sort of loyalty was that, to refuse the very first command she gave him? Rap squared his shoulders.

“Of course, your Majesty!” Then he sensed the spasm of hurt that crossed her face. That wasn’t right, either! “I’ll be proud to be your court magician, Inos—if I can be master-of-horse sometimes?”

He tried to smile and discovered that he had forgotten how to.

Inos took his hand. “Thank you, Rap.”

“And you know that if I knew a word of power, I would tell it to you gladly?”

Sorcerer? Prying into people’s minds as well as their clothes and houses? Manipulating people, like Andor? Killing them off when they got in the way, like Darad? Hateful! Hateful!

“Perhaps we should pray?” princess Kadolan said quietly. “When the God appeared to Inos—”

Inos started to say something, then glanced at the door as a whole plank shattered, hurling more splinters across the floor. Rap sensed the big imp outside lowering his ax, and the others surging up close behind him with swords drawn.