Sheldrake kicked Edison in the side of the head, stunning him. Then he bent to bind Meg’s wrists and ankles. He dragged her over to lie beside Edison, who was trying to shake his head clear.
“I have another half-dozen barrels to unload,” Sheldrake said. “The men who were helping me were too concerned with the money I had promised them to keep their attention on what they were doing. The men Captain Meg hires are such a mercenary bunch. I will bring the remaining barrels in here, and they will be the last to go up. I will lay a trail from here to the beach, and when I have seen Sangreston Castle fall, I will light the fuse that will bring about your destruction,” Sheldrake said.
“You will not succeed in this,” Edison said.
“The castle will be rubble inside an hour. In the meantime, an appetiser...” Sheldrake took the torch and thrust it towards one of the black lines on the floor. The powder hissed and crackled, a bright worm of destruction disappearing into the gloom.
“I must see this.” Sheldrake rubbed his hands together gleefully. he hurried out into the light to see the result of his design.
Chapter Seventy-Two
The explosion came just as the sun’s rays touched the tallest buildings. A bass boom, the vibrations felt in the chest as well as heard. The blast threw debris hundreds of feet into the air and raised a vast cloud of reddish sandy dust that rolled out like fog. The thunder of the blast echoed for several minutes. The dust cloud expanded, and at street level it was dark like dark. Disembodied screams drifted out of the cloud.
As the tremors ceased and the earth settled once more, there came first in a series of gentle creaks and rattles. The sounds built in volume, and then the first building collapsed, sending up a new cloud of yellow dust. The falling of the building weakened the structure of its neighbour, dragging it down. The next house in line seemed to stand firm, but in the roof there was an incredible popping sound as wooden beams snapped, unable to withstand the shifting of its foundations: rooftiles and splintered trusses tumbled inwards, demolishing the upper floor, and finally the walls folded in and this building too collapsed.
People rushed from their homes. Coughing and crying, screaming or laughing in hysterical relief. Some ran, trying to stay ahead of the expanding dust cloud. Some were trapped inside the cloud, injured: unable to free themselves, they cried for help. Others stumbled along the debris-strewn street, eyes glassy and mouths open, uninjured but unable to comprehend what they were seeing. They and the walking injured emerged from red dust-fog.
“Butcher’s Lane is gone, flattened.”
“There is hole where the grain store used to be... just a hole!”
“The dead are lying in the streets...”
“There is a fire in the baker’s shop...”
“It broke the windows along my street...”
“It took the roof from my shop...”
Another building collapsed, sending up more dust.
Some among those wandering out of the cloud were speaking loudly, mostly gibberish, deafened by the blast and trying to hear the sounds they knew they were making.
Then, strangely, the gritty, sandy fog shifted, began to recede. Not settling, but seeming to be sucked back towards its source. The ground trembled once more, a steady rumbling that could be felt through the soles of the feet. People screamed, fearing further explosions.
A crack, like a tree being torn in two, but impossibly loud. The sound of falling masonry.
A horse whinnied in fear. The dust receded further, revealing the terrified animal, harnessed to a heavy wagon of wine barrels. The road behind it suddenly split, a wide, dark chasm opening down the centre, loose cobble stones clattering into it. The split advanced towards the panic-stricken horse. It strained against the brake that held the wagon immobile. The road tilted sharply, and the wagon began to slide backwards, despite the efforts of the horse. Its shoes scrabbled for purchase on the cobbled street, as the weight of the falling cart pulled it back towards the fissure in the street. The creature’s screams rent the air as the wagon tumbled over the edge, dragging the horse with it.
The chasm widened, and buildings tumbled into it, over-balancing and falling front-first.
A family fled, just ahead of the expanding crack in their world, clutching whatever possessions they had managed to salvage from the rubble of their home.
Julianne pulled on a simple dress and flat shoes, bound her hair back in a ponytail. She headed for the storehouse district as soon as news reached her.
“You and you will locate all in the town who profess to be physicians, and anyone else with the skill or the inclination to tend the injured; bring them to the courtyard in front of the Guard House,” she instructed.
The two Guardsmen, still fastening their clothing, hurried off to carry out her orders.
“You and you, take a group of a dozen men and begin searching among the wreckage for survivors who are trapped or unable to move by themselves. Stay away from the edges of the chasm, it will remain unstable. Commandeer whatever horses and wagons you need to bring the injured to the Guard House for aid.”
The men were selected and moved quickly away.
“I want two men – you there and the fellow behind – to survey the extent of the damage. Find out what it has destroyed. Find out where the explosion – if such it was – occurred, and if possible, learn why. Be back here within the hour with a first report.”
Julianne paused to consider her next instruction, trying to anticipate how the people would react.
“You,” she hailed a dazed Guardsmen. “Form a squad of ten. You will patrol the area which has been worst affected: arrest anyone who seeks to profit from this disaster. Looters are to be taken and locked in the Guard House cells. And if they grow full, take them to the castle and use the cellars there. While you move through the streets, inform those who have lost their homes that they will be given shelter within the castle courtyard until more permanent arrangements can be made.”
She surveyed the remaining men around her.
“You men there,” she called to a dozen who were barely more than boys. “Three groups of four men will locate any small fires and extinguish them. Two additional men will act as runners, keeping the three groups in contact: if a large blaze is discovered, the three groups will combine to tackle it.”
With the minimum of discussion, and glad to be entrusted with such a task, the youths formed themselves into appropriate teams and left on the run.
“Do any of the rest of you have any questions or suggestions? Are there any problems you think I have failed to anticipate? No? Well, if anything occurs to you, speak up quickly. Meantime, the rest of you will return with me to the Guard House where we will tend to the injured and displaced.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
Sheldrake looked up, watching the plume of smoke rising above Sangreston. He rubbed his hands together and did a gleeful dance on the sand. “This is just too wonderful!” Cackling, he moved towards the shore line, where a large rowing boat had been pulled up onto the sand. Two barrels of gunpowder lay in the bottom of the boat. A third sat on the dry sand, and Sheldrake tilted it onto its side, intending to roll it into the cave. Black powder had been spilled on the sand, by one of the crewmen he had press-ganged into service earlier. Sheldrake shook his head: if Captain Meg had employed more reliable men, he wouldn’t be finishing this job himself.
A shadow caught his eye, and he looked up. Anton Leyander stood on a rock looking down at him. He held a lighted torch, presumably about to make his way into the cave to rescue his friends. How sweet it would be to end all three of them at once.
“I win!” Sheldrake said, grinning and sweeping his arm up towards the smoking town on the clifftop.
Anton shook his head and pointed down to the blackened sand at Sheldrake’s feet. Then he held the torch up in a kind of salute.
“Anton – you wouldn’t?” Sheldrake’s smile was gone.
A
nton smiled and raised an eyebrow.
Sheldrake’s worried expression suddenly changed to triumph. “You couldn’t! You are the gentleman-hero – you cannot kill me. You must capture me and take me to face the King’s justice.”
“The magistrate will have you hanged,” Anton said.
“They don’t hang mad men, do they?” Sheldrake said, a sly look in his eyes. “I cannot be held responsible. I do not know what I did. Or why. I was the unloved bastard-child of a whore. I had no father to guide me, so my sense of right and wrong were skewed. Take pity on this poor wretch!” His voice had become a mockery of a victim’s whine.
Anton watched him impassively.
Sheldrake sat down on the overturned barrel and crossed his arms. He looked up at Anton and shook his head. “How terrible to be you. You cannot kill me, because you are the hero of this pathetic little drama. If you put that torch to the powder, it would make you a murderer, and no better than I. It would be such an unheroic thing to do.” Sheldrake’s face took on the expression of a puppy that knows it has made a mess: his whole body sagged dejectedly and he looked up with large wet eyes. “Please don’t hurt me, Anton.”
Sheldrake laughed uncontrollably, tears running from the corners of his eyes. He only stopped when he saw Anton look down at the torch and smile.
“I have never claimed to be a hero,” Anton said. “And I do so hate a cliché.”
Meg struggled to a sitting position, and moved to sit beside Edison. They had felt the tremor caused by the distant explosion, and then – what seemed like ages after – they had felt a waft of warm, stale air come from deep within the cave.
“Is Sangreston destroyed, do you think?” Meg asked.
Edison shook his head. “A few buildings at most,” he said.
“Where do you think...?” Meg asked, thinking of her father’s inn near the harbour.
Edison shrugged. “Somewhere with caves directly under it.”
“There are no caves under my father’s,” Meg said.
“I’m sure Doran is fine.”
Meg looked around the dim cave, her eyes drawn to the remaining lines of powder on the ground. “We have to stop him,” she said, “whatever it costs us.”
Edison stared at her, and then nodded. They were both still tightly bound, but they might do something. “If we can but delay him, we give the people up there chance to discover his other caches, and prevent them being detonated,” he said.
Meg nodded. “You were right about us – we were destined only to kiss.”
Edric and Meg leaned towards each other.
The heavy whump of another explosion distracted them before their lips met. Edison glanced back into the cave. “Another of Sheldrake’s caches of gunpowder?” he asked.
Megan shook her head. “It came from the beach.”
Edison looked towards the cavemouth and shrugged. He leaned towards Meg again, and this time their lips touched.
“Pardon me for interrupting,” Anton said. “While you two have been canoodling in your love nest, you have missed all the fun.”
Edison and Meg glanced toward Anton, then ignored him and continued their kiss.
Shrieking gulls wheeled in on white wings, vying with crows for the gobbets of raw and cooked flesh that surrounded the smoking crater in the sand. The beach was soon covered with a seething crowd of birds. It had been a large, messy explosion, and Sheldrake, the boat and the barrels were all gone.
“Sheldrake finally receives the appreciation he craved,” Anton said.
“You killed him?” Edison asked, blinking in the daylight and staring off towards the fringes of avian activity.
“I threw a torch to him – if he had caught it, he would have lived,” Anton said. “Fortune did not favour him.”
Edison turned to Meg. “We missed the final scene,” he said, disappointed.
“Why would he do this?” Meg asked, looking up towards Sangreston.
“Were there any final words from him?” Edison asked.
“There were,” Anton said.
“What did he say?” Meg asked.
“Oh, shit!”
Chapter Seventy-Four
Anton urged his horse on through the town gate. A little way down the road, another rider was heading away from the town at a slow walk.
“I did not see you at the inn,” Edison said as Anton caught up with him. “You spent the night as a guest in the castle?”
“I did.”
“How was it?”
“The bed was enormous!” Anton grinned.
“But now you travel alone?” Edison asked.
Anton shrugged. “Varian has decided he will wear the red and black again. Lady Julianne has appointed him head of the castle guard. I am happy for him.”
“Yesterday’s smoke has left your eyes still smarting, I see,” Edison said.
“Yours also,” Anton said. “You too are leaving town alone?”
“Meg has booked passage south, where she hopes to find a replacement for the Sea Hag. I have no reason to remain,” Edison said.
“You have lost the desire to perform upon the stage?”
“Lady Julianne has asked Doran Jarrett to oversee reconstruction of the damaged quarter, He will be directing that performance for some time, I think,” Edison said. He set his horse to walking at a slightly brisker pace.
The land rose gradually, and the road curved away from the coast. Neither spoke for some time, each lost in their own thoughts. It was Anton’s face that brightened first.
“Can I ask you a question,” he asked, “about Meg’s eye?”
“You wish to know how she lost it?”
“I wanted to know why the patch does not always cover the same eye,” Anton said.
“Ah, you noticed that.”
“Does she wear it in bed?”
“A gentleman does not discuss such things,” Edison said, looking at the road ahead.
“You don’t know do you?” Anton said.
“When we reach the crossroads, which way will you travel?” Edison asked.
“Surely you were not interrupted again?” Anton asked.
“I shall head west, I think, inland.”
“I’m right, aren’t I? You and Meg have still not taken a tumble?”
“Anton!”
“I am sorry,” Anton said. “You must feel terribly frustrated.”
They breasted the hill and began the descent.
“Perhaps you and I could be partners,” Anton said.
“It is kind of you to offer, Anton, but I really have no desire to feel your lips around...”
“I meant travelling partners,” Anton said.
“Oh.”
Their horses carried them towards the crossroads.
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Acknowledgements
Fortune’s Fool was the first novel I ever completed. I started playing with the idea in 1984, and the first full draft was probably completed ten years later. Originally it was a story about a thief (Edison) and an assassin (Anton). Edison wa
s meant to be the hero, and Anton was very much an anti-hero. But somehow in the writing, Anton took hold of my imagination, and I couldn’t make him a killer any more. I liked him so much, I decided I wanted to find out more about him, and so went back and wrote a ‘prequel,’ which became Slayer of Dragons. I sent Fortune’s Fool around to various publishers and received some positive comments – and some very negative ones! – and nobody bought it. I put it away and moved on to other things. I did some rewrites, on and off, between 2002 and 2004, because I still liked the characters and their world – the story wouldn’t let go of me. The self-publishing ‘revolution’ means that I can now publish it.
The version of the story you now hold is a 2017 rewrite – about 60% of what you see here is from the original draft: some of the characters have been merged, the plot is more linear than the original one (which had too many flashbacks), and there are a few changes to take account of the fact that some of the characters appeared in Slayer of Dragons, which is now book one in the ‘Thurlambria’ sequence.
I have admitted previously that I was never a big fan of epic fantasy – I read The Hobbit but never managed to finish Lord of the Rings. I’ve read George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, but prefer the Game of Thrones tv series (and I prefer Martin’s Fevre Dream and ‘Nightflyers’). I read The Sword of Shannara when it first came out, but didn’t get much out of it – perhaps because I was comparing everything to Frank Herbert’s first Dune novel, which I loved. Although I read Treasure Island and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Enchanted Wood and more, I didn’t really think of myself as a ‘fantasy’ fan. I liked science fiction – and back in the day, SF fans looked down on fantasy. I think that probably changed when I read Brian Aldiss’ The Malacia Tapestry – I picked up a ‘saw cut’ copy of the Ace edition, which had a cover with a romance novel hero and heroine being menaced by what looked like a dinosaur. Maybe I picked it up because the cover reminded me of the Doctor Who ‘Curse of Peladon’ story. Reading Aldiss’ story made me think you could do something other than dwarves and elves in a fantasy world. Much later, I enjoyed Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana for the same reason.
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