Part 18 (1/2)

There was an ugly pause, then Shandie said tactfully, ”I can see how the discussion could become quite prolonged.” It would take hours, or weeks, and achieve nothing. ”What are you suggesting?” Raspnex growled, but there was a sudden glint in his stony eyes.

”I think that a push might work better than a pull, your Omnipotence. I think the man who gatecrashes the Directorate should be Zinixo himself.”

Shandie said, ”Holy Balance!” and started to smile. The two goblins laughed aloud.

Then so did Raspnex. He guffawed. ”Have you been talking to elves, ma'am? I see! Well, this could be more fun than I thought! A lot of them will remember . . . I wonder if I can match his taste in foul language? Insults? Threats? Absolutely forbid them to tell anyone about the new protocol, of course?”

”Make it up as you go along,” Inos said. Now the tension was flooding out of her and she was beginning to shake. ”Don't forget that rockbrained bit.”

The warlock glanced around at the others, the sorcerers. ”Any arguments? Good. Then let's try it. Help me with the change.”

He flickered and became Zinixo. Inos caught her breath. It had been almost twenty years, and he was no longer a youth, but she would never forget that sneer, that vicious face.

”Well, swine?” He laughed sepulchrally, and she remembered too how incredibly low-pitched his voice was, even for a dwarf.

”You're not dressed for the part,” she said shakily. ”Gold chains and jewels.”

”He doesn't! I mean, I don't.”

”But it will impress the Directorate.”

”So it will, so it will. There!”

Gems and silksa”now the fake usurper glittered in glory. He couldn't quite match dear Azak, perhaps, but he would certainly rile any dwarf who saw him. Frazkr looked nauseated already.

”Any last advice?” the imposter rumbled. ”No? Jarga, why don't you take the mundanes down to the s.h.i.+p right away, just to be on the safe side? Then I'll go and tell those moneygrubbers what I think of them and what I'll do to them if they help me, er, you. Us, that is.”

”Don't threaten their profits,” Shandie said weakly. ”Or you really will scare them off.”

”Ha! By the time I'm done with them, they'll be so mad they'll take up a collection!”

As Inos rose, Gath jumped up and banged his head on a beam, which was a remarkable error for him to make. He used a word she hadn't known he knew. Rubbing his yellow mop, he turned around in a crouch and grinned at her. ”Well done, Mom! I knew you'd do it!” He reached the door at the same time as the imperor. ”Are we really going to the Nintor Moot, sir? I get to come?”

Shandie smiled at Inos, wearing a very appropriate shamefaced expression. ”You'll have to ask your mother. She's the strategist.”

It was a fair apologya”she bobbed a curtsey.

He bowed her out ahead of him, and they blinked in the daylight and drizzle. The air was about as fresh as it ever was in Gwurkiarg, and welcome after the stuffy cottage.

Shandie glanced behind him and then said quietly, ”That was brilliant!”

She grinned at him, still s.h.i.+vering a little with relief. ”Oh, it was nothing, Sire! Live with Gath for a while and you begin to think backward and sideways.”

”No, that was brilliant, too, but the Zinixo thing! Of course they'd never have listened to us. As you said, the best way to move a dwarf forward would be to try to push him back. How did you ever think of it?”

”Just muddled female thinking,” Inos said demurely. She was tempted to explain that she'd been married to a faun for eighteen years, but it would sound disloyal.

Gath emerged behind them, still gabbling with excitement. ”Mom? I don't have to fight Vork, do I? I mean, you don't mind that he calls you a fraud, anda”and worse things?”

”What are you . . . who's Vork?”

He pulled a face, showing the broken tooth that always annoyed her so much. ”Red-headed idiot. I mean, you told me not to listen when Brak insulted Dad, so you won't mind if I ignore what Vork says about you, will you? You should hear what he calls me . . . Never mind. He spits on my feet!”

Inos clenched her fists. ”Who is Vork?”

Jarga had appeared also, ducking under the lintel. ”Vork,” she said, ”is the terror of the four oceans, five years from now, my youngest half brother. He's about your son's age, and if Gath would just break his neck quickly, he would be doing us all a favor.”

Signifying nothing: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

a” Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, v INTERLUDE.

Spring was mellowing into summer in that fateful year of 2999, and people were on the move all over Pandemia.

As a rock falling in a pond raises a wave, the goblins' attack had sent a catastrophe of refugees pouring southward, and all roads led to Hub.

Behind the fugitives, the goblin horde zigzagged across the deserted landscape, burning empty farms and deserted towns. Death Bird and Karax had agreed upon a brilliantly simple strategy. Goblins moved much faster than dwarves, so Death Bird would let the Imperial Army catch his scent and thus lure it northward. Then the goblins would be the hammer and the dwarves the anvil.

Like most brilliant ideas, it did not work. They had not considered the refugees.

Four legions stood across the ways to Hub, the wall of bronze Emthoro had described to the Senate. When the human tide surged down upon them, they moved aside to let it pa.s.s, but it choked every road and lane with people. Cohorts stood as islands in the flood, unable to advance upon the enemy even had they wished to. The army's own supplies could not get through. Soon the wall of bronze itself was in danger of starving. Hub trembled as the torrent of frantic humanity swirled into its streets.

Deprived of rape and torture, the invaders became bored. The imps' apparent inactivity made them apprehensive. Goblins had no tradition of discipline or loyalty to supreme authority; they began grumbling about returning home.

Feeling his control weaken, Death Bird abandoned the agreed plan and struck out southwestward, apparently hoping to outflank the legions. His messengers never reached Karax.

He eventually crossed the Ambly River into Ambel, and continued south. Had he turned east, the capital would have been easy pickings, and his reasons for not doing so were never established. Perhaps he suspected a trap. Perhaps he preferred a rapid advance into virgin country because it fed his men a satisfying supply of victims. The horde raced southward, meeting no resistance. Death Bird was undoubtedly one of the greatest military geniuses ever to torment Pandemia, but he was also a savage, and limited in many respects. Had he known more history, he would never have led his host within range of the worms of Dragon Reach.

General Karax, hearing nothing of his unreliable allies and being unable to transport any more loot, turned his army around and headed back toward Dwanish. The Directorate later judged this eminently sensible act to be treason and put him to death.

Couriers had already poured out from Hub like hornets to summon the legions. Men in thousands shouldered their burdens, formed up in columns, and began marching. Day after day they wore out their sandals on the endless straight roads of the Impire.

In Gwurkiarg, capital of Dwanish, the former warlock Zinixo burst in upon a meeting of the Directorate, ranting about an obscure conspiracy of sorcerers no one had ever heard of and denouncing the warlocks for attempting to amend the Protocol. Two of the directors were observed to fall on their knees when he entered the hall. They knew that this was merely an occult projection of some sort, of course, but they did not question the actions of their beloved leader. A couple of other Covin agents in the city detected the release of power, but they, too, refrained from interrupting the Almighty. By the time Hub inquired what was happening, the apparition had vanished, leaving no trail to follow. Word of the outrage spread rapidly throughout the land.