“Stand aside,” the sergeant ordered angrily.
“I said I’ll go.”
The sergeant looked at the wizardess—pale and unmoving. He looked at the small body lying at her feet, then at the assassin, dark and grim.
“Go ahead then,” said the sergeant, perhaps relieved. The less he had to do with any of these fey people, the better. “Is there... anything you need?” Hugh shook his head. Turning, he walked over to Iridal. The dog sat quietly by her side. Its tail wagged gently at Hugh’s approach.
Behind him, the soldiers tossed water onto the campfire. There came a hissing sound, a shower of sparks flew into the air. Darkness shrouded them. The sergeant and his men moved nearer the royal tent.
The faint pearl glow of the coralite illuminated Bane’s face. His eyes closed—the light of unnatural ambition and hatred doused—he looked like any small boy, fast asleep, dreaming of a day of ordinary mischief. Only the bloodstained hands belied the illusion.
Hugh drew off his own tattered cloak, spread it over Bane. He did not speak. Iridal did not move. The soldiers took up their positions, closed the ring of steel as if nothing had happened. Beyond, they could hear snatches of song; the celebrating continued.
Trian emerged from the tent. Hands folded together, he walked swiftly to where Hugh and Iridal stood, alone, with the dead.
“His Majesty will live,” said the wizard.
Hugh grunted, pressed the back of his hand to his bleeding cheek. Iridal shivered all over, lifted her eyes to the wizard.
“The wound is not serious,” Trian continued. “The blade missed the vital organs, glanced along the ribs. The king has lost considerable blood, but he is conscious and resting comfortably. He will attend the signing ceremony tomorrow. A night of revelry and elven wine will excuse his pallor and slowness of movement. I need not tell you that this must be kept secret.” The wizard looked from one to the other, moistened his lips. He glanced once, then avoided looking at, the cloak-covered form on the ground.
“Their Majesties ask me to express their gratitude... and their sympathy. Words cannot express—”
“Then shut up,” Hugh said.
Trian flushed, but he kept quiet.
“May I take my son away with me?” Iridal asked, pale and cold.
“Yes, Lady Iridal,” Trian replied gently. “That would be best. If I might ask where—”
“To the High Realms. I will build his funeral pyre there. No one will know.”
“And you, Hugh the Hand?” Trian turned his eyes upon the assassin, studied him intently. “Will you go with her?”
Hugh seemed undecided whether to answer or not He put his hand again to his cheek, brought it back wet with blood. He stared at the blood a moment, unseeing, then slowly wiped the hand across his shirt.
“No,” he said at last. “I have another contract to fulfill.” Iridal stirred, looked at him. He did not look at her. She sighed softly. Trian smiled, thin-lipped. “Of course, another contract. Which reminds me, you were not paid for this one. I think His Majesty will agree that you earned it. Where shall I send the money?”
Hugh bent down, lifted Bane’s body, covered with the cloak, in his arms. One small hand, stained with blood, fell limply from beneath the crude shroud. Iridal caught hold of the hand, kissed it, laid it gently back to rest on the child’s breast.
“Tell Stephen,” Hugh said, “to give the money to his daughter. My gift, for her dowry.”
42
Limbeck took off his spectacles for the twentieth time in almost as many minutes and rubbed his eyes. He tossed the spectacles on the table in front of him, plopped down in a chair, and glared at them. He had made them himself. He was proud of them. For the first time in his life, with these spectacles on, he could see clearly—everything sharp and in focus, no fuzzy blobs, no vague and blurry outlines. Limbeck stared at the spectacles, admiring them (what he could now see of them) and loathing them.
He hated them, detested them. And he dared not move without them. They had begun to give him frightful headaches that started in back of his eyeballs, shot what felt like little ’lectric zingers into his head. The ’lectric zingers fired up a giant whumping whammer that marked time by banging against his skull.
But now he could see his people clearly, could see their faces pinched with hunger, drawn with the fear that grew worse every day that passed, every day the Kicksey-winsey refused to move, remained shut down, shut off, silent. And when Limbeck looked at this people through the spectacles, when he saw their despair, he hated.
He hated the elves, who had done this to them. He hated the elves who had dragged off Jarre and were now threatening to kill her. He hated the elves or whatever it was that had killed the Kicksey-winsey. And when he hated, his stomach muscles twisted and lurched up and wrapped around his lungs, and he couldn’t breathe for the tightness.
Then he planned grand and glorious wars, and he made very fine and impassioned speeches to his people. And for a while, they hated, too, and they forgot about being cold and hungry and afraid of the terrifying silence. But eventually Limbeck would have to fall silent, and then the dwarves would return to their homes and be forced to listen to their children cry. Then the pain would be so bad it sometimes made him throw up. When he was finished throwing up, he’d feel his insides slide back into their proper places. He’d remember how life used to be, before the revolution, before he’d asked why, before he’d found the god who wasn’t a god, who turned out to be Haplo. Limbeck would remember Jarre and how much he missed her, missed her calling him a “druz” and yanking on his beard.
He knew that the why had been a good question. But maybe his answer to the why hadn’t been such a great answer.
“There are too many why’s,” he muttered, talking to himself (the only person he had to talk to now, most of the other dwarves not liking to be around him much, for which he didn’t blame them, since he didn’t like to be around himself much either). “And there are no answers. It was stupid of me to ask. I know better now. I know things like: That’s mine!, Hands off!, Give me that or I’ll split your skull open, and Oh, yeah? Well, you’re another!” He’d come a long way from being a druz.
Limbeck laid his head down on the table, stared morosely through the wrong end of the spectacles, which had the interesting and rather comforting effect of making everything seem far away and small. He’d been a lot happier, being a druz.
He sighed. It was all Jarre’s fault. Why did she have to run off and get herself captured by elves? If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t be in this predicament. He’d be threatening to destroy the Kicksey-winsey...
“Which I couldn’t do, anyway,” he muttered. “These Gegs would never hurt their precious machine. The elves know that. They’re not taking my threat seriously. I—” Limbeck stopped in horror.
Gegs. He’d called his people Gegs. His own people. And it was as if he were seeing them through the wrong end of the spectacles—distant, far away, small.
“Oh, Jarre!” Limbeck moaned, “I wish I was a druz!” Reaching up, he gave his own beard a hard and painful yank, but it just didn’t have the same effect. Jarre put love into her beard-yanking. She’d loved him when he was a druz.
Limbeck snatched up the spectacles, hurled them on the table, hoping they’d break. They didn’t. Peering around nearsightedly, he went on a grim and frantic search for a hammer. He had just picked up what he’d thought was a hammer but which turned out to be a feather duster when a furious pounding and loud, panicked shouting exploded outside his door.
“Limbeck, Limbeck,” howled a voice he recognized as belonging to Lof. Bumbling into the table, Limbeck groped about for the spectacles, stuck them, slightly askew, on his face, and—feather duster in hand—flung the door open.