“Huh?”
Rasha shrugged. “No accounting for tastes, is there?” She moved again, seemed to float through the sill, and vanished. The misty brightness went, also, and a swirl of polar wind rushed into the chamber, bearing cold and snowflakes and dark.
Rap scrambled giddily to his feet, trying to rub head and elbows at the same time. Little Chicken roared in fury. King Holindarn’s brown robe seemed to rise up of its own accord, so inconspicuous was the impish youth inside it. The troops beyond the door came back to life with a loud howl.
4
For the moment, the legionaries were having an argument, and the threatening arm had been removed. Rap turned away in time to see Thinal, holding up his gown with both hands, heading for the still-open casement. With his head still pounding, Rap lurched over to block him.
“Where are you going?”
So high was the collar around Thinal’s ears that his nondescript, spotty face seemed to stare out of it, pale in the dawn gloom, as if the robe were swallowing him.
“I want to see if I could climb down, Rap.”
Sagorn had said that Thinal was a human fly. Rap and Little Chicken weren’t.
“Call Sagorn!” Rap shouted. “He got us into this mess. Maybe he can get us out yet!”
The young imp shook his head vigorously. “No. He’s too frail now. We can’t risk him.”
Rap grabbed the thief’s puny shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled. “Call Sagorn!”
Thinal staggered back and almost tripped over his robe. “Don’t do that!” he screamed.
“Do what?”
“Don’t bully me! I frighten easy, Rap.”
“So?” Rap advanced on him again.
“I might call Darad!” Thinal wailed, sounding almost in tears. “It’s too easy! I might not be able to help myself!”
Rap took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he grunted. Then, “Oh, demons!”
He whirled around to the door. The imps had massed outside again; again the arm came through the jagged hole. But the bolt was too far from the hole to reach with just a hand, and the timbers were very thick. The big imp had stopped and thrust his whole arm in, right to the shoulder. Before Rap could say a word, Little Chicken went sprinting across the room, leaped, and struck that so-tempting, protruding elbow with both feet. He bounced off and landed on his feet like a cat, while the imp’s scream seemed to shake the whole tower.
Great! There went any hope of merciful treatment.
The legionaries helped their disabled comrade extract his shattered and mangled limb, all roaring furiously. Another giant grabbed up the ax, and the door shivered under his blows.
“Now what are we going to do?” Rap’s head ached. He had betrayed Inos, but it did not look as if he would have long to mourn his inadequacy. “We could still share words,” he suggested.
Thinal was edging toward the window again. “Not enough. Two only makes an adept. Maybe we could climb up on the roof and wait until they’ve gone?”
“They’ll shut the casement!”
“We might break a pane or two first.” Thinal shuffled a little farther—the human fly.
“We’ll be seen from below; it’s almost daylight.” Rap sighed, feeling weariness settle over his fears like thick snow. “I think this is the end! I shouldn’t have been so stubborn and argued so long. The magic told me to become a mage, and I wouldn’t.”
He had disobeyed his monarch’s first order; or at least talked back. If he had done his duty promptly, he would have become a mage and served her by driving away the imps, forcing the townsfolk to accept her—how much could a mage do, anyway? Well, it didn’t matter anyway, not now.
He forced a smile at the terror-stricken little thief. “Go on, then, if you think you can save yourself. Little Chicken and I will surrender to the soldiers, even if it means the last weighing.”
The goblin had been listening. “No!” he shouted.
The door shuddered, and a whole spar fell out.
“Yes!” Rap said. “Unless you’ve got any ideas?”
A gust of hot, muggy wind swirled into the chamber. Surf roared.
“Death Bird! Here!”
All three spun around. There was no one in sight to explain the voice, but the casement now looked out on strange frondy trees silhouetted against a grayish predawn sky. Rap smelled sea and damp vegetation. Another wave broke noisily, somewhere nearby.
Stunned and wary, all three hesitated.
“Who said?” Little Chicken growled.
“Palms!” Thinal screamed. “Those trees, Rap! They’re palms!”
The door shuddered again, the top hinge almost torn loose from the frame.
“Death Bird! Hurry!”
There was still no one visible to explain the dry old voice, but Rap knew it. “It’s Bright Water!” Would she save the faun as well as the goblin she had called precious?
Thinal grabbed Rap’s arm. “That Rasha—she was a djinn. From Zark. Where there’s djinns, there’s palms!”
“Right!”
All three moved at once. Little Chicken went fastest, clearing the sill in one huge bound. Then he seemed to realize his error, for he yelled from outside, “Flat Nose! Come!”
“I’m coming!” Rap called, and toppled over after him, tumbling onto hot, dry sand. Hampered by his robe, Thinal came last and tipped out almost on top of Rap.
The door fell bodily to the floor. The legionaries poured into the chamber.
They heard a faint, fading echo of a voice crying, “I’m coming.”
They caught a faint wisp of warm, tropic air, and then an icy blast from the Krasnegar night swirled snow at them.
One window was open. There was some discarded bedding on the floor. Otherwise, the chamber was empty.
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