All Darkness Met Read Online Free PDF

friend.” Fiana did one of those things which baffled and awed her nobles and endeared her to her commons. She grabbed Mocker in a big hug, then spun him round to face the gathering. She stood beside him, an arm thrown familiarly across his shoulders.
    He glowed. He met Nepanthe’s eyes and she glowed back. Behind the glow he felt her thinking I told you. Oh, his stubborn pride, his fear of appearing a beggar before more successful comrades....
    He grinned, laid a finger alongside his nose, did to the Queen what he had done to so many of his audience, roasting her good.
    The lady laughed as hard as anyone.
    Once, when she controlled herself long enough, she rose on tiptoes and whispered to Ragnarson. Bragi nodded. When Mocker finished, Fiana took her place in the seat that, hitherto, had been only symbolic of her presence. She bade the merriment continue.
    Winded, Mocker sat cross-legged at Fiana’s feet, joining her and the others there in observing the festivities. Once she whispered, “This’s the best Victory Day we’ve had,” and another time, “I’m considering appointing you my spokesman to the Thing. They could use loosening up.”
    Mocker nodded as if the proposition were serious, then amused her by alternately demanding outrageous terms of employment and describing the way he would bully the parliament.
    Meanwhile, Bragi abandoned them to dance with his wife and visit with Nepanthe, whom he soon guided to the lurking place of her brothers. She hadn’t seen them in years.
    Mocker had a fine sense of the ridiculous. There was funny-ridiculous and pathetic-ridiculous. He, dancing with a wife inches taller, was the latter.
    He had an image to maintain.
     

THREE: Old Friends
    It was the day after, and Mocker had remained in Castle Krief. Merriment had abandoned everyone but himself. Business had resumed. Bragi took him to a meeting, he explained, so he would get an idea of what was happening nowadays, of why old friends lay back in shadows wearing fighting leather instead of enjoying a celebration of victories won.
    “Self,” Mocker said as they walked to the meeting, “am confessing overwhelming bambazoolment. Have known large friend, lo, many years. More than can count.” He held up his fingers. On those rare occasions when he wasn’t proclaiming himself the world’s foremost authority, he pretended to be its most ignorant child.
    Ragnarson hadn’t brought him because he was ignorant or foolish. And Mocker had begun to suspect, after the Queen’s entrance last night, that he hadn’t been “exhumed” just because he was one of the old fighters and deserved his moment of glory. Nor even because Bragi wanted to give him a little roundabout charity by introducing him to potential suckers.
    Bragi trusted his intuitions, his wisdom. Bragi wanted advice-if not his active participation in some fool scheme.
    It was both.
    Those the Marshall had gathered in the War Room were the same men Mocker had discovered in last night’s shadows, plus Fiana and the ambassadors of Altea and Tamerice. Their countries were old allies, and the ambassadors Bragi’s friends.
    “Mocker,” Ragnarson told him after the doors were locked and guards posted, “I wanted you here because you’re the only other available expert on a matter of critical importance. An expert, that is, whose answers I trust.”
    “Then answer damned question.”
    “Huh? What question?”
    “Started to ask same in hall. Bimbazolment? Fingers?”
    “All right. Go ahead.”
    “Self, am knowing friend Bear long ages. Have, till last night, never seen same shaven. Explain.”
    The non sequitur took Ragnarson off stride. Then he grinned. Of that device Mocker was past master.
    “Exactly what you’re thinking. These effete southerners have turned me into a ball-less woman.”
    “Okay. On to question about Haroun.”
    Ragnarson’s jaw dropped. His aide, Gjerdrum, demanded, “How did you...?”
    “Am mighty sorcerer....”
    The Queen