So Rap told of the two occasions on which he had seen the apparition, and of how she seemed to have a special interest in Little Chicken. He kept his eyes off the goblin; he spoke as fast as he could, and in the best impish he knew.
There was a pause, then the chaplain shuddered. “Bright Water,” she whispered, and the hostler nodded.
“It sounds like her,” he said. “Rap, lad, I think you did meet one. She’s witch of the north, and legend says she’s about three hundred years old—sorcerers live a long time. She’s been one of the Four longer than any.”
“And?” Rap said.
Again it was the hostler who spoke, and even he had dropped his voice to a whisper. “They say she’s totally mad.”
Rap glanced uneasily at Little Chicken, and his odd-shaped goblin eyes were very intent. He grinned his giant teeth at Rap.
“Flat Nose, you did not tell me this.”
“No,” Rap admitted. “I thought maybe it was me who was mad. I’ll tell you later. I promise.”
The goblin nodded.
“Tell me of the other three, Mother,” Rap said.
She was reluctant. “I do not care to discuss them. No one does. There is only one witch at present. The other three are men, warlocks. South is an elf, East an imp, and the newest is West, a young dwarf. I don’t know very much, Master Rap. You haven’t met any of those, have you?”
Rap shook his head, and she looked relieved.
The hostler laughed uneasily. “There is one other thing that everyone knows that we can tell him, though. As well as claiming a quarter of the compass, each of the four has a specialty.”
The chaplain choked back an exclamation, as if she had not thought of that.
“What sort of specialty?” Rap asked.
The old man smirked. “Little things like dragons.”
Mother Unonini thumped her hand on the arm of her chair, expelling a cloud of dust and feathers. “We don’t know this! It is a commonly held belief, maybe, but people don’t go round questioning sorcerers, Master Hostler, and especially not warlocks. Who can say what they do or don’t do?”
Hononin glared at her. “I know what I was told, and no one’s ever told me different. Earth, water, fire, and air—so my grandpappy said.”
The chaplain glared back, then turned to Rap. “Tradition says that even Emine’s compact did not stop the troubles at first—that the Four turned out to be as bad as any other group of sorcerers and strove among themselves for dominance. Eventually—I am cutting a thick story thin—eventually the Four agreed to share out the powers of the world between themselves. They had already divided Pandemia itself into quarters, calling themselves North and East and so on, but then they each took charge of a mundane power, also.”
“Dragons?” Rap said. “Are dragons mundane?”
“Borderline.” The chaplain rose and started to pace again in her ungainly way. “The Impire is not Pandemia, Master Rap. It is the largest dominion, of course, and because it is central, it has always tended to be the greatest—and of course it has the Four to preserve it—but there are many other kingdoms and territories beyond the Impire’s borders.”
Like Krasnegar, for instance. Rap nodded.
“But nothing can hope to withstand the Imperial army if it extends its full might.”
“Except by sorcery.”
“Of course. So the imperor and the Four agreed that no one might use sorcery on the Imperial army—neither to harm it nor to aid it. Like the imperor himself, it must be sacrosanct. The only exception is the warlock of the east. He can. The army is his prerogative.”
Rap nodded again, beginning to see why the others had been so worried when he brought the talk around to the Four. “You mean that the witch I saw—”
“You saw a sorceress,” the chaplain said, “and it may have been Bright Water herself, but we don’t know that!”
“Either way, she couldn’t stop the troops on their way here?”
The chaplain paused by the fire and glanced briefly at the hostler before continuing her lecture. “That’s what they say. Those soldiers are part of the Imperial army, and to meddle with them would bring down the fury of the warlock of the east—and the others would support him in that instance. So 'tis said. One thing I do know—there must be many great sorcerers and sorceresses around Pandemia, Master Rap, but there is certainly none who could withstand the Four acting together.”
Rap toyed for a moment with crumbs on the table. Sour old Unonini was keeping something back.
“I gotta go,” Hononin muttered. “Word gets round I’m sick, there’ll be mobs of nosy old women bringing jugs of bad soup here, just so they can pry.” But he stayed where he was, on his chair.
Rap looked up. “What are the other powers, then? Dragons?”
Unonini pursed her lips, then nodded. “Dragons rarely roam outside Dragon Reach, but they are said to be the prerogative of the warden of the south. When dragons waste, then the imperor must call on South to drive them back.”
“Even if he set them loose himself in the first place!” the hostler said with a foul grin.
The chaplain winced nervously.
“Well, why not?” the old man snapped. “Two years ago a flight of dragons wasted some town on the Winnipango. That’s halfway across Pandemia from Dragon Reach, and they didn’t touch anywhere in between! You telling me they weren’t sent there? You know that sorcerers meddle, so why wouldn’t a warlock use his own special power when he wanted to?”
“I never met a sorce—”
“Piddle! I never met a God, but I believe in Gods. And I believe the tales. My grandpappy went to watch a hanging once, down in Pilrind; and when they hauled the man up, he just disappeared! Faded like mist, he did! Left the noose just dangling, empty. Some sorcerer had rescued him.”
The chaplain sniffed. “I never said there weren’t sorcerers, nor that they don’t use sorcery. Of course they do—all the time. An old schoolmate of mine once saw a poor, demented woman throw herself off a high roof. She should have fallen into a crowded street, but someone in the crowd must have been a sorcerer, because she floated down gently; like a leaf, my friend said.”
“What’s North’s pre-prerogative?” Rap asked.
She hesitated so long that the hostler answered for her, confirming what Rap had suspected. “The jotnar. Army’s land, see? Dragons fire. The jotunn raiders are the sea—water, that is.”
“It’s not as true nowadays as it was in the Dark Times,” the chaplain added, “but the jotnar are still the finest sailors of the world. And they don’t always confine their activities to trading, either.”
Rap’s father had been a slaver, and a raider when convenient, no doubt.
“Anywhere within reach of the sea,” Unonini said, “is within reach of the jotnar.”
It was what Rap had expected. “So if the imp army comes to Krasnegar, and Thane Kalkor brings his jotnar, then… What then?”
Unonini sighed heavily. “Then may the Good be with us! I don’t suppose the Four often intervene in petty quarrels; little wars and small atrocities go on all the time. As long as sorcery is not invoked, then the warlocks seem to ignore them. But if Imperial legionaries face off against jotunn raiders—well, then the warlocks may very well become involved—very well! Bright Water is a goblin, and you say that the imps have been slaughtering goblins. By spring they may be battling her jotnar, here in Krasnegar.” She shuddered and made the holy sign of balance.
“I must go,” the hostler muttered again.
“Yes!” The chaplain straightened her shoulders. “I, also. And you, Master Rap, and your… companions… must stay here for now, and out of sight. I wish this wynd were not so much traveled.”
“What’s West’s specialty?” Rap asked doggedly. Were the warlocks such very bad news? They might even help, as Bright Water had helped him. They might keep jotunn and imp apart.