1

On a muggy afternoon five days before midsummer, Rap emerged from the Way and strolled across the clearing toward Thaile’s cottage. Before he reached the steps, the pixie came around the side of the house, carrying a bundle of washing. She advanced to meet him, so he stopped where he was and waited for her.

As usual, she wore a long striped skirt and a white blouse; today it was sleeveless. She was barefoot. As usual, he found himself reacting in odd ways to her intent golden gaze. At times she seemed a striking young woman—beautiful, in fact. She wore her hair too short and her figure was almost boyish, but that was true of most of the pixies, for they were a gracile race. He could appreciate her womanhood. Then, suddenly, he would find himself thinking of her as a mere girl, less than half his age and barely older than his daughter. Not yet seventeen, Kadie had told him. But she had borne a child; she had suffered its death and the death of her lover. She was probably the most potent sorcerer he had ever met—Thaile was an enigma, and he felt clumsy and unsure of himself in her presence.

She dropped her bundle almost at his feet. “You are welcome to the Thaile Place, goodman. “ Her voice was musical, her expression solemn.

He smiled and bowed. “I am Rap of the Inos Place, and I come in peace.”

If she recognized his attempt at humor she ignored it. “Kadie is washing her hair.”

“I think you are lying, Archon.”

“Yes.” She knelt and began spreading clothes out on the grass, to dry in the summer sun.

Rap sat down to watch. She was not hard to watch. “Well, this is a chance for us to speak without her.”

“Yes.” Thaile continued to deal with the washing. “Be patient. So many months of torment are not discarded easily.”

“Is it just me, or all men?”

“All men. From the time she was stolen away from her mother until I rescued her, she did not speak to a single woman. Now she distrusts all men.” The golden eyes glanced swiftly in his direction. “It will pass; give her time.”

He sighed. “Gladly. But you understand that it is hard for a loving father to find his daughter spurning him.”

“She does not spurn you. She weeps because she treats you badly.”

His throat knotted. Oh, how he needed Inos! “Tell her not to weep. I love her, and will wait.” He had the rest of his life to wait, a prisoner in the Accursed Land. “I forgive, always. I hope my visits do not upset you, also, Archon?”

For a moment the pixie did not reply, but she was almost finished spreading out the laundry. He never knew how to speak to Thaile. Normally she made him welcome at her Place when he called. She seemed genuinely fond of Kadie, and for that he was immensely grateful, but he knew now that Thaile was damaged, too. Her husband and baby had been slain in cold blood by the very College she was forced to serve. She must know why. She must know the fate that awaited her, and that knowledge itself would be enough to unhinge anyone. Widow and bereaved mother, Thaile, also, was an ill-used child.

She adjusted the last sleeve and then sat back on her heels to face him. He thought of a butterfly resting on the grass. “You do not distress me, your Majesty. Kadie and I complement each other. She has no cause to trust men; I have no cause to trust women.”

He winced, feeling awkward and inadequate. “I did not mean to hurt. Please bring Kadie to visit the Rap Place sometime. Take her there, perhaps, when I am absent, and let her see it. Tell her that it is a replica of a house I lived in once in Durthing, on Kith, when I was much the same age you are now, Archon. I was lonely and friendless myself in those days.”

“You are lonely and friendless now?”

He nodded. “We live in hard times. Trouble should become easier to handle as we are older, but by then we know that the world is not cruel, only indifferent, and that hurts even more. Give Kadie my love. Tell her I will wait, and I understand.”

The child face was remorseless, hardened by burdens beyond its years. ”Do you? Can any of us ever understand the sorrows of another?”

“That is what love is for, Thaile.”

She turned away, scrambled to her feet, and walked off in the direction of the cottage.

“Be sure to tell Kadie that I love her.” Rap called. Finding himself alone, he rose and headed back to the Way.

He told the Way to take him to the Meeting Place. He had no desire to go home. After many months of traveling, he had a roof to call his own again, but it was not one he cared for. He had been granted a pleasant site for it, in a dell with a few spindly trees, close to the sea to placate his jotunn half. He had set to work creating a replica of a log cabin he had inhabited once in his youth. The occult tumult he had thereby caused had brought him assistance in the shape of Archon Toom, who had completed and furnished the cabin for him in a twinkling and had also added all sorts of useful magical contrivances that Rap would never have thought of. Knowing four words of power, he was technically still a sorcerer, but his abilities were feeble indeed.

After four days in Thume he was frustrated to frenzy. His war against Zinixo might continue, but he could not know of it. More likely it was just fading away into futility. The Covin was winning by default and he was completely powerless to do anything about that.

The change in Kadie distressed him beyond measure. His haughty, assertive little girl had withdrawn into timidity, and he could not reach her. He fretted about Inos and Gath and even Shandie, all carried off captive to Dwanish. At best they lingered there in a dwarvish jail; at worst they would have been betrayed by some spy of Zinixo’s. He worried also about Krasnegar, vulnerable to the Almighty’s spite. At times he even found himself worrying about Tik Tok, and then he knew he was going crazy.

Vegetation around him grew lush as he neared the Meeting Place. Thume was more strange than he had ever dreamed. The manner in which sorcery had been organized and domesticated was a marvel that went far beyond anything he had envisioned for his new protocol—magic as a public service, overt, available, and useful. Yet even here the Evil had penetrated and perverted the Good, for Thume could be viewed as one enormous jail. It seemed to exist only to conceal itself. The pixies’ lives were regulated and constrained to serve the College, and in the end all effort turned around upon itself and the College did nothing but defend its own existence. It could murder a baby in the name of love.

The pixies themselves were a shy, solitary people, ingrown and reclusive. Almost he could compare the whole race of them with poor Kadie, as if the War of Five Warlocks a thousand years ago had blighted all pixies in the same way her ordeal with the goblins had blighted her. They denied the world. They sat out the dance, and that philosophy was no more comprehensible to Rap the king than it would have been to Rap the sailor, stableboy, or wagon driver.

He sauntered out into the Meeting Place: flowered parkland, lawns, and picturesque lake. He cared little for the oddly skewed architecture of the little cabanas, but the overall effect was pleasant enough—if you liked playgrounds. He came here every day to sit on a bench and watch the swans and hope someone would stop and talk with him. No one had done so yet. Even sorcerer pixies were too shy, too alarmed by this inexplicable “demon” who had been allowed to violate their sanctuary. If he tried to initiate a conversation, his victims would gibber at him. Sometimes they would just vanish like soap bubbles. Perhaps in a few years someone would bid him good morning, or something equally daring.

No, he was being unfair. He had forgotten the two archons—Toom and Thaile. Thaile he pitied beyond words; he admired her, also, for her strength and her gentleness to Kadie.

Toom was entirely different. Toom was a solid, genial man of around his own age, slow and deliberate in the manner of a peasant farmer. He even had dirt under his nails. Toom had called on Rap a couple of times, to inquire after his needs. He had conducted the guest around the College, answering every question with apparent frankness. Rap suspected that Archon Toom had been assigned to him as jailer, but the man was informative and helpful.

Perhaps a dozen pixies now inhabited the Meeting Place. Conversation had stopped, though, while the golden eyes studied the intruder. No one sat alone, available for friendly advances.

He frightened them! He had come to Thume looking for allies in a war. What use these delicate folk in a war? They were porcelain people, soap bubbles. They made him feel overlarge and lumpish; he must seem even more so to them. To press his attentions on them seemed cruel. He must just give them time to adjust, like Kadie. Time? Only five days until Longday. If Armageddon came to Pandemia then, did Thume survive?

He continued walking, telling the Way to take him to the Library. He would find a book of Thumian history and carry it back to his Place and try to read . . .

“King Rap? Do I intrude upon your meditations?”

Archon Toom strolled at his side, peering cautiously up at Rap with guileless golden eyes.

“No indeed, Archon! I welcome company.”

“Ah. I apologize for my comrades’ incivility. I hope you will make allowances for a thousand years of custom?”

“Gladly. I appreciate the honor of your hospitality.”

“The Keeper’s hospitality,” Toom murmured in his plodding, deliberate speech. “And Archon Thaile’s, of course. There is a prophecy about the Chosen of the Chosen One, you see. But no matter. I wonder if you would spare a little time for a discussion. On a matter o€ some importance to us?”

Already the Way was leading them out into the forest. “Time,” Rap said with a laugh, “is one thing I have in excess. Gladly, Archon, gladly!”

A matter of importance? He still had enough premonition to sense a major turning point. Something was about to happen.