Part 29 (1/2)

doesn't like, dies,” he whispered. ”You, Prince Herne, me, any of us. Princes or not, Well-born or Well-user or not, anyone who cramps the Emperor's style goes without negotiation or mercy. By this precedent.” And he thought further: King Panurgus had not executed people. Exiled, yes, but not executed; why, he had exiled Prospero. The King had taken subtler vengeances than murder.

”Dost think peace would prevail under those circ.u.mstances?”

”People would get worried,” Otto decided slowly, thinking hard. ”Maybe-a split, a coup... no, I guess it wouldn't be too peaceful. But, Marshal-Prospero has caused a lot of war already. It has not been peaceful. Is his life worth so much death?”

”I know not,” Prince Gaston said, ”but I know how many Princes there are, and what we are, and who we are, and 1 think 'twere ill to lose one to fraternal malice.”

”You are a traitor.”

”Nay. The realm is safe. His forces are bested.”

”He'll be back. The Emperor won't let you off the hook for this. What are you going to say. Prince Gaston? Are you going to blame me for not Binding him strongly enough?”

”The Emperor and I will discuss this privily,” said the Marshal.

”You're not indispensable. Your Highness.”

”I have never pretended to be so.”

Otto swallowed, drank some wine. It mellowed in his mouth. ”I don't think he's worth it,” he said softly. ”One Prince, even if he is the Prince of Air, the Duke of Winds, is not worth so many lives, so much bloodshed, so much war.”

”Art certain?” the Prince asked him, without inflection.

”No,” he admitted even more softly. ”I guess I'm not. You've thought about this a long time, haven't you.”

Prince Gaston had been thinking about it since before Ottaviano's father was born. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he said, ”Aye.”

”You're conservative. You prefer the status quo.”

”I'd liever another status quo, one in which Prospero 254.

'Etizabeth keepeth peace, one in which he's reconciled. Tis ill for us to be at one another's throats.”

Ottaviano shook his head. ”He's not going to give up,” he said. ”Not unless-” He stopped, an idea stirring through his words.

Prince Gaston watched the lamp's flame and then looked at Otto expectantly. He was a bright fellow, quick and deep-striking, and his wits were nimble; the boy was a better thinker than Sebastiano had ever been.

”Unless,” Otto said slowly, ”you can get some kind of oath or vow from him . . . Hm. And for that . . . Does the Emperor really want him dead?”

”There hast thou the very kernel-question,” said Prince Gaston. ”It is one only the Emperor can answer.”

Ottaviano's horse, Lightfoot, was as groggy as he, but the exercise of trotting along in Prospero's wake woke them both up. He had left a note for Prince Gaston, saying that he was attempting to follow Prospero, and had departed the camp with Lightfoot and a lantern.

He stopped at Prospero's tent and prowled the place, looking for some trace which might be used in rinding him. The sorcerer had been careful, though, and after searching everywhere Otto had to make do with a pillow on which he had lain a little while. It was not going to get him far, but he hoped it might put him in the right direction.

The sky had clouded over and the air had taken on the sharpness of snow. Ottaviano wondered, as he rode, if Prospero had somehow-being the Prince of Winds-kept the weather favorable for war, and now, without his influence, the postponed winter would descend with added weight. The conjecture seemed plausible. The man commanded his element the way Prince Gaston commanded his men. The storms which had raged over them had left Prospero's lines unscathed.

Otto thought that if he were Prospero, he'd slip into Landuc and nail the Emperor with a lightning bolt. It would save time and blood.

Sorcerer and a QentCeman 255.

Once outside the camp. Otto stopped and wove around the pillow a low-powered spell of affinity. Riding onward, the spell guided him over some of the roughest and worst ground in the region; the action of water on and in the limestone here meant the terrain was irregular, cut with gullies and chasms. Many times he had to detour around places which were impa.s.sable in the dark, over which Prospero's horse had to all appearances flown.

By morning, he was miles from the camp, and the chasms and gullies had given way to the long, level highlands. Heavy snow was faliing. Ottaviano began to draw on the Well's currents for his sustenance, but they were thin here, comparatively, the area never having been much favored though it lay so near the Well, and he derived less good from them than he hoped. He stopped to rest Lightfoot often, but dared not stop too long.

As he rode, he took out his Landuc Well-Map and studied it, and at once his path became clearer. Prospero had headed for a Ley. At a Nexus at the end of the Ley, there was sometimes a Gate.

Even as Otto realized this and smiled, the affinity-spell jerked the pillow from his hand. Otto s.n.a.t.c.hed at it, surprised, and missed. The pillow plumped onto the snowy ground.

”Hm,” Otto said, and reined in Lightfoot to stop for a look.

The snow was thin and dry. He brushed the pillow; the spell had snapped apart under the excessive stress of proximity and it was only a pillow now. Then, under a dusting of snow, he saw what it was that had brought the spell to an end.

An arrow.

Rather, a broken arrow. Ottaviano lifted it, beginning to smile broadly, and then he laughed. The head was stained with dried and frozen blood: Prospero's own.

”Thank you, thank you!” he shouted up at the snow clouds, and remounted with fresh vigor, chortling. He ripped up the pillow and wrapped the arrow in the fabric.

256.

”Lightfoot, we'll find some water, take a rest, and burn ourselves a trail,” he told the horse, and gave him a nudge to start him walking again.

Down the Ley, through the Gate at dawn, and along the Road went Otto, led by the bloodstained arrow in his pocket. It was as bright and clear a beacon as the full moon; it felt like a string reeling him in toward the Prince, and the feeling grew stronger as he travelled. The arrow led him away from Landuc, a roundabout route. He checked the Ephemeris and found that indeed, Prospero had been able to take a more direct path. At a Gate where Otto had had to leave the Road and travel for more than a day on a Ley, Prospero had been able to go straight through.

The arrow guided him through a scrubby forest where he rested a few hours, having left the Road. He was no longer on a Ley, either; this might mean he was close to his quarry. Ottaviano ate the last of his food, but found no water. The place was cold and arid; the leaves leathery, and the wood tough and unburnable.

He rode out of the forest late at night and followed the arrow onward. It led him through low-walled pastures to a rocky sh.o.r.e, down a steep slope to a cliff-edge where a small house stood, as grey as the thick clouds overhead. The house was nearly indistinguishable from the stony ground around it; the sea roared below its ill-repaired walls and sent spray up to its roof.

Otto reined in and looked the place over.

This was it. Likely Prospero was still here. Otto's heart skipped and began to race in battle-rhythm.

He sent Lightfoot scrambling up the bank. Otto was peris.h.i.+ng with thirst, so he led the horse back toward a muck-edged waterhole he had circ.u.mnavigated earlier. Three-toed footprints stippled the mud, and over them moon-shaped hoofprints. He let Lightfoot drink after filling his waterskin; no knowing what kind of animals they kept here, and the water was slightly funky, but it was better than nothing.

Sorwer and, a Cjentfeman 257.

That done, he led Lightfoot back among the stones and picketed him.

On foot now, in the dim cloud-strained light that had not changed, Ottaviano made his way quietly back to the cottage. The arrow he had b.u.t.toned under his jacket twitched and throbbed. Ottaviano crouched behind an array of stones and discarded clever and elaborate plans.

The place was Well-poor, making sorcery difficult for him, and anyway he knew he couldn't expect to challenge Prospero to a sorcerers' duel and live.

Otto closed his eyes and let the part of his mind or body- he was never sure whether it was one or both-that fed on the Well dominate his senses. He sensed no sorcery in the area; the stone hut was without reinforcement from the fire of the Well, and the dull glow of life within was unmoving and quiescent. Another living thing was on the other side of the building, most likely Prospero's horse.

Could Prospero have been so arrogantly confident as to have not bothered with protective spells? Otto looked again. A cautious man himself, he could not believe that anyone in Prospero's position might stop without warding himself nine ways or a dozen.

But there was no sign of the weblike knitting of Bounds nor of a protective spell.

Otto studied the place again through his Well-sense, and found nothing, no sorceries. Perhaps it was not Prospero- but the arrow strained to get to the place, Prospero's own blood.