3

Rap was kicked awake and told to report to the thane. Reeling and stumbling, he hurried aft, confused by the ship’s new motion. Falling was inevitable in his state, but he managed to make all his impacts on inanimate things—oars, benches, tubs. To land on a sleeping jotunn might cost him half his teeth. The sun was just rising into a blue and promising sky. The wind was strong, but no longer dangerous, and Blood Wave was surging northward over the last remnants of the storm swell. Even the creak of wood and rope had taken on a more cheerful note. Perhaps today he might get dry for the first time since Durthing? Then he reached the stern and sank to his knees before the throne, where Kalkor was just making himself comfortable.

For a few minutes Rap was ignored as the thane rummaged in a leather bag, looking for something. All over the boat, men were stirring, rising, stretching, scratching, cursing.

“Roll that up.” The thane’s gesture indicated his hammock, so Rap rose and attended to the hammock. He could not straighten under the low headroom, but in his condition he had very little desire to. He was as shaky and weak as a sick kitten, staggering with every pitch and roll.

He tucked hammock and blanket on top of the mountain of loot, but before he could kneel—or just fall—down again, Kalkor held out a hand to him. Rap stared at its burden in dumb incomprehension, and then looked into the jotunn’s arrogant blue contempt.

“You lose a finger for every nick. “

It was without question a razor. Still gaping, Rap took it, opened it, and found the finest steel blade he had ever seen, obviously dwarvish. He tried the edge; before he felt anything, his thumb was oozing fine specks of blood.

“Idiot! “ Kalkor said. “Well, you know the rules. Get busy.” Rap’s hands were still stiff and swollen, and if they had not been shaking before, then they certainly were now. He moved near to the chair and tried to steady his head against the overhead beams—had he been a fraction taller he could have rested his shoulders against them instead. He was stooped over Kalkor, and much too close for comfort or even for easy work. The thane was offering his face . . . and neck.

Why shouldn’t Rap just cut his throat?

Kalkor’s sky-blue eyes gleamed. He knew what Rap was thinking, and he smiled up at him as fondly as a lover. When he spoke his voice was very soft. ”Don’t even be tempted.”

To dry-shave a man on a leaping, heaving boat in a state of shivering weakness when the slightest knick would bring mutilation—for Kalkor’s threats would never be idle—that was a totally impossible task. The very prospect brought sweat leaping out all over Rap’s body. It was utterly, completely, insanely impossible! As well ask him to fly to Zark.

“I’ll give you about five more seconds,” Kalkor said.

Rap took him by the nose and lifted. The jotunn stretched his upper lip and Rap stroked it with the razor. He did not forfeit a finger with that one. He wiped the blade on his sleeve and prepared to try again. Kalkor had missed shaving for several days; his golden stubble was long and tough, his skin dry and surprisingly soft. Rap’s own face was streaming, as was all of him.

He could not have been wetter had he just emerged from the sea.

Why shouldn’t he just slit Kalkor’s throat? The man was an egregious monster, a killing, raping, looting horror without peer. Even this whole shaving charade was a form of torture. The crew would be watching and laughing—and admiring their leader’s courage. Rap’s opportunity to make the world a safer place for human beings was one that any half-decent man should be glad to sacrifice his life for. Trouble was, he might not reach the rail in time to gain an easy death, and if the rest of the jotnar caught him, what unspeakable torments would they inflict on him?

Kalkor was watching with a sleepy sort of disdain. He looked completely relaxed, lounging on his throne, being shaved by his new thrall, but he wasn’t relaxed to Rap’s farsight. His eyes were half closed, and yet alert, and while his hands hung slack and loose, the muscles in his shoulders were knotted hard as steel. Thane Kalkor was not quite the uncaring suicidal hero he was trying to portray.

Rap realized he had stopped breathing, and paused to resume. He wiped his forehead, although the sweat wasn’t running into his eyes, which were still puffed and blurred. He had been working with them closed.

Kalkor was still watching. “Strop?” Rap croaked. “In the bag.”

Rap fished out the belt and began sharpening. When he was ready to shave again, Kalkor tilted his head back, baring his throat.

“Tell me about Darad and this curse of his.”

Rap pulled skin taut with fingertips, slit off whiskers with a deft stroke. A slash would be so easy, the world so much better! He could not remember what he had told Kalkor about Darad the day before. “There are five of him.” He must watch the crests—Blood Wave had a nasty habit of twitching her tail when she went over the tops, as the wind caught her hull; if he lost his balance he would lose a finger for certain. “Only one of them can exist at a time. They were a gang of wild kids. About a hundred years ago . . .”

So easy to kill. Was he not man enough? He felt no real guilt about Yggingi, and this jotunn was a thousand times worse than the imp had been. Make the try and get it over! He pushed Kalkor’s chin to a better angle. He was steadying his own head against a beam and getting splinters in his scalp. This would be easier if he could stand upright. Without the acuity of farsight it would be impossible.

“Each of the five has a talent . . . “ Now the razor seemed to be tugging more, and it wasn’t for lack of sharpening. Kalkor was starting to sweat too. He was still striving to seem relaxed and limp in his chair, and yet he was growing tauter and tauter. A fine sheen of damp showed on his forehead and chest. Was this ordeal going on longer than he had anticipated? Likely he had expected Rap to nick him on the first or second stroke . . . all right so far; half done now. Probably Kalkor had planned to end the game when he got to ten nicks. A seer with no hands would be easier to keep prisoner. But if he wanted to mutilate Rap like that, he would do so anyway, regardless of how many times Rap cut him.

Talk was easier while stropping than while shaving. “Darad doesn’t need to call for help very often, so he’s aged. He stays too long. Thinal, on the other hand, is still just a kid.” Rap gripped Kalkor’s ear and pulled a little harder than necessary.

Not a game—it was a trap. Nicks were not what the jotunn expected, but an attack, Rap moving to cut his throat. Strop some more. “Jalon’s the minstrel, the artist . . . “ He was talking without thinking, but he didn’t mind revealing the gang’s great secret. He owed nothing to any of them. The only thing he left out was the word of power. Kalkor already had a word of his own, and might be tempted to become an adept. He might very well extract Rap’s word, also, and three words made a mage. Kalkor as a mage was a brain-curdling thought.

His talent was fighting, so Andor had said. Could a mere occult genius fend off a razor attack even if it was launched from such close quarters? Perhaps. Probably. So Kalkor was not nearly as vulnerable as he looked. If Rap tried to avenge Durthing, then Kalkor could still block him.

And the man was really sweating now. It made the shaving harder, but Rap could afford to take his time. He was beginning to think he could win this game, unless Kalkor deliberately cheated by moving, and so far he had played fair. So Rap was stropping after almost every stroke, dragging it out.

“Sagorn is the wise man—”

“Never mind him. Tell me again what you saw in the casement.”

“Which time? You, or the dragon, or the goblin?”

“All of them. Start with Inosolan’s prophecy.”

“You, wearing a fur and nothing else.” Rap was enjoying pushing the thane’s head into odd angles. “An old man giving you an ax . . .”

But any ordeal must end eventually. Rap had no sooner closed the razor and replaced it in the bag with the strop than his knees folded of their own accord. He slumped down, with one leg twisted under him; he doubled over and shivered convulsively, as if he had a fever. He retched, but his stomach was empty and nothing happened. It was over. Over! He shivered and shivered.

After a moment, a dirty toe poked under his chin and nudged his head up. There was a very strange glint in those deadly blue eyes.

“Tell me again of the place where we were supposed to fight this interesting duel, you and me?”

Rap licked his lips and managed to steady his quivering jaw enough to use it for speaking. “I told you, sir—it wasn’t clear at all. Short grass; scythed or grazed. Mist and rain. A ring of people all around. That was all. Nothing in the distance, no landmarks. “

“The Place of Ravens on Nintor,” Kalkor said, staring intently, ”has a circle of great stones around it. The spectators must stay back from those. Stay outside. There are no predators or scavengers on Nintor, except the ravens, and the bones of the losers are left where they fall. Did you see any bones, or the monoliths?”

“No, sir.”

“Mmm.” Kalkor rubbed his fresh-shaven chin and seemed to ponder. ”Reckonings are almost always done at the Place of Ravens, but they need not be. They can be held anywhere, if certain conditions are met.”

Rap almost gagged again. He could think of nothing to say, so he didn’t try. Sagorn had interpreted the vision as showing Rap being Inos’s champion; but he might equally well be Kalkor’s plaything. The shaving episode had just demonstrated that the jotunn’s sense of humor was as warped as his morals, and if he found the idea of a ritual battle with Rap an amusing prospect, then he could stage it at the next landfall, wherever that might be.

“And when you tried for a vision from the casement?”

“I never did, sir. I approached it twice, and each time it . . . well, it sort of blazed. Very bright. All shifting. Eerie!” Kalkor nodded. Then, slowly, his smile widened—and yet his eyes seemed to narrow. He stepped off his chair and moved out from under the helmsman’s deck. “Up!”

Rap rose also and cautiously straightened. He was shorter and slighter than the jotunn. He felt very frail beside that potent killing machine.

Kalkor looked him up and down twice, perhaps making the same comparison and feeling reassured by it. Then he folded his arms and shook his head mockingly. ”Just be glad I’m a gambler, sailor.”

“Sir?”

Rap staggered on a roll, and the thane’s hand flashed out to grip his shoulder and steady him. His fingers dug in like skewers.

“There is something very odd about you, halfman. Very odd! My instincts for self-preservation tell me I should gift you a full suit of armor and send you out to push. I just tested you, you realize?”

Here came the job offer. “Sir?”

“You passed, but not in the way I expected. I would have taken odds of a thousand to one that what I demanded was humanly impossible for a mundane in your condition. But you weren’t using occult power, were you?”

“No, sir. Just farsight. I can’t see well at the moment.”

“Farsight . . . and something else, but not magic!” Kalkor chuckled, and it was a sound to freeze bones. “I had decided to kill you if you did pass.” He sighed. “But, as I said, I’m a gambler. Just a sentimental softie, I am. I will accept that you are not an adept in spite of the test.”

He raised a quizzical eyebrow, and Rap said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Indeed. You may be a mage or even a sorcerer, of course, but then I am helpless—and you certainly don’t look like either at the moment. Faun, I am going to be very surprised if we do not fulfill that absurd prophecy one day, you and I. That intrigues me! I have raised twelve heads in the Place of Ravens. I should like very much to raise yours, also.”

“I will bet on you, sir, not me.”

Sudden anger blazed in the inhumanly blue eyes. “Do not joke about sacred matters! I am no imp to wager squalid, worthless things like money! A Reckoning is a solemn ritual, an offering of courage and a sacrifice of life. Few things less than life itself are worth gambling.” For a moment Rap thought Kalkor was going to flash into jotunn madness, but then the eerie smile returned. “Two strong men battling to the death, entering the circle knowing that one of them will never leave? There is the ultimate gamble, the finest game of all. I hope that one day I do leave my bones for the ravens of Nintor—it is the noblest death for a thane. And I ask only one favor from the Gods, Master Rap.”

Rap saw that he was supposed to question. “What’s that, sir?”

“That my slayer be worthy, a man of courage. Tell Darad I want him.”