by Paul Collins
Daretor left the Matriarch’s tent, waited for the next giggle, walked to the tent that was its source, seized a male-looking foot protruding from the entrance, and dragged Zimak out. He carried him out of earshot, then dropped him in the sand.
‘Listen and listen carefully,’ said Daretor. ‘This is our story. I am a machine; you are my engineer. I was made a month ago, and sent to this world to be tested. Our lives depend on the Matriarch believing that.’
‘Our lives?’
‘Yes. A wizard created me, a wizard on another world. I am very strong, but have no sexual abilities.’
‘Hie – not far from the truth.’
‘We shall put together more of a story later. Now go, and try to behave with honour.’
‘But the women would think it a dishonour if I did not make merry after rescuing them,’ said Zimak, standing up.
Daretor walked a little behind Zimak as they returned to the camp. By the firelight he saw the handmaiden Andzu beckoning Zimak back to her tent. Then he saw the Matriarch stride over to Zimak, speak to him briefly, and guide him directly to her tent.
‘Machines are not meant to laugh, but sometimes I am tempted,’ he whispered to himself.
Daretor spent a restless night, being bothered by insects that buzzed and sucked blood. In the morning he found a scatter of dead insects around him. Evidently his blood did not agree with them.
After breakfast, the women prepared packs for the two warriors. These were hessian bags filled with a dried spiced meat that Daretor found chewy but digestible, ointment cure-alls said to relieve inflammation and sunstroke, meal biscuits, water skins, a tinder box and something that made Zimak cry out with delight.
‘A farsight!’ he exclaimed. ‘Hie, look, Daretor. Just like Jelindel’s invention, only made from polished brass. Professional, like. How would a smithy make it so round?’
Daretor reached out and plucked it from his hand.
‘Gah, that was given to me.’
‘You would use it to look at the girls. I need it to look out for danger. And Premiel has warned me of the dragonriders.’
Zimak glanced back at the Matriarch. She and her retinue waved a last farewell. ‘She warned us of many things, including keeping our destination a secret. Why do you suppose she said that?’
Daretor waved languidly and turned his back. ‘She has every right to be cautious. Perhaps her caravan was waylaid on information from her own people. Royal courts are rife with subterfuge.’
‘Not only courts,’ Zimak said. ‘If you think Premiel fell for that dummart “machine” story you fed her, you must have rocks in your head.’
Daretor’s eyebrows rose. ‘You must be right, Zimak. I’m sure she prefers skinny prairie dogs to wolves.’
They reached a settlement a day later. Over a mug of cool beer, Daretor raised an issue that had been niggling him for some time.
‘Jelindel,’ he said.
The tavern was fairly busy, but people kept their distance. Very quickly, Daretor had established a reputation as a monstrously strong thing constructed of clay powered by demons. Even Zimak was looked upon with awe.
‘What about her?’ asked Zimak, taking a drink from his mug.
‘Jelindel,’ said Daretor again.
‘I know the name. What would you like to say about her?’
Daretor stared into his mug.
‘Gah, Daretor, snap out of it. If you want to discuss Jelindel, then do it.’
‘I was thinking about the treacherous vixen.’
‘I’d noticed.’
‘She betrayed us.’
‘If not for those dragonriders, we would’ve been desert kill,’ Zimak reminded him. ‘Betrayal of the worst kind.’
Daretor took another sip of beer. He was unaccustomed to heavy drinking, and morbidity had come upon him.
‘We travelled around a whole continent, collecting the links of an enchanted mailshirt,’ he said. ‘And when we finally got all but one of the links together, Jelindel turned on us and banished us here. She obviously planned on keeping the mailshirt for herself. That thing is the most powerful object on Q’zar. She’s probably using it to rule the world now – if she has the last link.
‘Who would have thought it? She was a powerful enchantress all along. I thought she was a brave girl with a few spells and a good heart. A soul sister.’
‘That’s women for you, Daretor, no constancy at all. Roll ’em and run, that’s what I say.’
‘You would have had to run fairly fast to escape the Matriarch.’
‘You set me up. Is there no end to what you’ll do to avoid getting a leg over? She could well have killed me – the woman was insatiable. I much preferred Andzu –’
‘How are your fighting skills coming along?’ Daretor asked after trying to swallow from the now empty mug. ‘I thought it strange that your fighting skills have waned, while mine remained intact.’
‘Why do you ask?’ said Zimak.
‘Because you are fingering the place where you used to wear a ring. Was that ring a dragonlink?’
Zimak clasped his hands together. ‘My ring was just lead, it was from a beloved admirer.’
‘It was a thick lead ring, thick enough to enclose a dragonlink. Wear a dragonlink and it takes possession of your fighting skills. When you take it off, your fighting skills go with it and are given to the next person to put it on. Everything we were wearing is back in our home world, including your ring, and quite probably your fighting skills – or at least those of the poor fool whose skills the dragonlink sucked out.
‘Did I ever tell you how much I hate people who steal the fighting skills of others with magical tricks like the dragonlinks?’ asked Daretor, seizing Zimak by the tunic and dragging him halfway across the table.
‘Many, many times,’ said Zimak, weakly.
‘You know how much I hate betrayal?’
‘Lots and lots. It’s another thing we agree on.’
‘Jelindel betrayed me, but she is in another world. Yet I intend to track her down and be avenged. I now suspect that you too have betrayed me, but you are a lot closer.’
‘There is an innocent explanation,’ suggested Zimak.
‘Tell it to me.’
‘My mother gave me that ring –’
‘Do you not mean a beloved admirer?’
‘Er, or, yes, I mean it was a lady who was very close to me and my mother –’
‘Get on with it.’
‘She, ah, gave it to me just as I was taking my first fighting lessons. She said that it was a special ring that gave good luck in fighting. It could be that it was a dragonlink unbeknownst to me. It could be that it was only ever worn by people with no fighting skills, and that some of my hard-learned skills got sponged away when Jelindel blasted us here.’
Zimak grinned feebly.
Daretor scowled, then released him.
‘If it is true, then Jelindel has the last dragonlink, and the enchanted mailshirt really is complete. She will certainly be ruling Q’zar.’
‘Empress Jelindel the First,’ said Zimak, diverting attention from himself. He raised his mug in a toast. ‘Here’s health to her, and may she long reign over someone else.’
‘We are going back and we are going to bring her to justice,’ rumbled Daretor. He raised his mug, crumpled it in his hand, and flung it aside. Several drinkers clapped, and three of them threw coins.
‘We?’ asked Zimak, quickly pocketing the coins. ‘We, as in you and me?’
‘You were betrayed as much as I was by that vile enchantress. She banished us to this accursed world –’
‘She banished us to this exceedingly pleasant world, where I’m three times stronger than I was at home, where the women fall over each other to wave their charms at me, and where I’m generally as happy as a pig in shit.’
‘She magicked us up in the sky the second time where we had no hope of surviving.’
Zimak wagged his finger. ‘Tut tut, but we did survive. Maybe Jelindel
put us exactly where the dragonriders would be at that precise moment in time.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Daretor, we are not magicians or wizards. We don’t even have an Adept rating. How can we ever return home?’
‘A sailor does not know how to build a ship, yet he still crosses oceans,’ Daretor said, smugly. ‘I have been asking around, speaking to people. Herbalists, market witches, students of magic, and warriors who travel with caravans to distant cities. There are people within reach who know the sciences of travelling between worlds. We have gold now. We can seek them out.’
‘You can; I’ll stay here,’ said Zimak, emphatically.
________________________
Two weeks later, they went to a market. It was the mid-afternoon lull in trade and there was little to do. People were looking for diversion.
‘Good ladies, fine gentlemen!’ called Zimak. ‘You may have heard of him. Is he a man? Is he a demon? Is he a machine? I give you the mighty Daretor, the strongest warrior in the world!’
People hurried over, eager to witness feats of strengh from the demon-powered machine. Daretor knelt and held out his arms. Zimak selected four pretty girls from the crowd and had them sit on Daretor’s arms. Then Daretor got to his feet. Zimak tied a rope around Daretor’s waist, and tied the other end to a beer wagon. Even with the four girls on his arms, Daretor still managed to pull the beer wagon in a wide circle while Zimak steered.
Zimak went around collecting coins while Daretor put the girls down and untied himself. Next Zimak challenged all comers to fight Daretor – as many at once that dared. A dozen warriors accepted the challenge, and Daretor fought with only a quarter-staff. In no time at all, two of the challengers had managed to kill each other; the other ten were lying dazed and bleeding on the ground, and Daretor’s quarterstaff was splintered. When the dead and injured had been dragged away, Zimak went around taking bets that Daretor could not lift a cart on his shoulders. Of course, Daretor rose to the challenge with very little effort. With the show over, Zimak and Daretor retired to a tavern, where they stood counting the money on top of a barrel.
‘The takings are down two parts in ten on last market day. We need to move to another city,’ remarked Zimak. ‘It feels like we’ve been here for years.’
‘We now have the money to journey to the Green Mountains, where there is a stone roundel that can return us home, or so I have been told.’
‘The pox take that, Daretor. No. Never!’
‘Then I go alone.’
‘Good! Go! I have been saving a few coins here and there; I shall survive alone. Besides, I have been courting a certain nobleman’s daughter, and my prospects for advancement are good –’
Daretor scooped up the coins and took his leave.
Zimak waited a full ten seconds before chasing after him. ‘Hie, Daretor, you don’t need me back in our world. I mean, I could help you get to the stone roundel, then remain here. I like this world.’
‘Then our friendship is at an end. I wish you well doing tricks like a gypsy.’
‘It gets us by,’ Zimak said. ‘Look, I promise to get you to the roundel, and to help arrange whatever is needed to return you to Q’zar.’
Daretor stopped and folded his arms. ‘What’s in it for you, Zimak?’
‘You’re always so suspicious, Daretor. I can see that you’re determined to go home, and after all we’ve been through, I’d like to see you succeed.’
Later that night Daretor and Zimak left the city. They were riding good horses, and had plenty of gold and silver for the trip. Little did he know it then, but Daretor could have saved himself the trouble and effort by not accepting Zimak’s offer of help.
Chapter 6
THE DRAGONFANG
The first five days of the voyage were nothing out of the ordinary, and by the end of the week Hargav was being sick only once or twice a day. He turned out to be very good with meal presentation, washing dishes, cleaning the cabins, and even cooking. And he was slowly learning about life aboard a ship. He had spent most of one morning looking for the starboard, having been ordered to polish the star, had been ducked in the bilge water, and had learned the hard way not to empty the officers’ chamber pots into the wind.
A lot of what had been in his rollpack was now missing, but he had also discovered that most of what he had brought with him was of no use on a ship. Jelindel had also been giving him lessons in self-defence. He had a black eye from one of the young deckhands, but had retaliated by hitting him over the head with a wooden pail. Both had then spent a day in the forecastle stocks, with the bowspray breaking over them twice every minute.
Jelindel had just passed the navigator’s latest headings to the steersman when she noticed one of the passengers leaning against the gunwale and looking out to sea. This particular man was dressed well, yet he walked as if he was well used to rolling decks. During meals he displayed refined manners and his accent was polished without being foppish. Even more interesting, his sword was a practical type, with nicks in the hilt and wear on the leather binding of the handle. Jelindel kept the ship’s register for the purser, so she checked the details of the passengers. The man’s name was Larachel, and he was supposed to be a trade envoy for one of the D’loom merchant families.
She sat tapping at his name in the register. Such a man would have to be accomplished in many areas, else he would soon be out of business. It would not be unreasonable for Larachel to be a proficient swordsman, a man of words, and an accomplished seaman. Why then did his presence unnerve her? Did he remind her of someone? She snapped the register shut. Time enough for him to reveal his past. And she could help that along easily enough.
The mist-dulled coast was barely visible on the north-western horizon, a ragged line of low hills. Jelindel walked to the rail and stood beside Larachel. The sun was low in the sky, the chopping wave-tops drowning in reddish shadow.
Jelindel waited for Larachel to acknowledge her, but he seemed oblivious to her presence. The wind whipped at his hair, throwing it back. For a moment, Jelindel thought she recognised something about his hairline, the way it was shaped like a breaking wave. It was a game she used to play with her siblings, not all that long ago. Each player would describe what another player’s hairline reminded them of, just like making pictures from clouds. A silly game, she thought, and brushed the memory aside.
‘Zaria is not far off,’ she commented.
As though continuing a conversation, and without glancing at her, he said, ‘And you are in a position to know?’
Jelindel hid her surprise. ‘I am the navigator’s mate. It is my place to know.’
‘Ah, quite so.’ Now he turned his full attention on her. ‘Our first port of call. We are to unload a hundred jars of olive oil, five dozen barrels of mead, and ten boxes of crockery. I am a merchant’s trade envoy. It is my place to know.’
Larachel’s iron-hard eyes bored into her, yet his tone was friendly enough. Lesser recipients of his attention might have been unnerved, yet Jelindel remained detached.
‘All of it in your care?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
Larachel’s mouth twitched. ‘None of it is my concern. A load of expensive spices is to come aboard at Zaria. It belongs to the merchant house that employs me.’ He returned his attention to the red-hued sea. The sun was fast sinking on the horizon.
Now he was unsettling her. If they were laden with a valuable cargo they would need to be part of a convoy, and there was nothing in the logbook to suggest they were accompanying other ships after Zaria. ‘So, the Dark Empress is to be part of a convoy?’ she persisted.
‘No.’
This news did not cheer Jelindel. One of the ship’s few redeeming features was that it carried goods that privateers would not bother with. But a cargo of spices! Something was wrong here. Spices took up little space, and were of great value. Small loads of spices were carried on sleek, fast caravels, while large loads made do with convoys that could fight off privateer squadrons.
Water slapped at the prow and Larachel brushed back his raven hair. Had he once worn it in a ponytail? It was too short now, of course, but the shape of his fringe haunted Jelindel.
‘So,’ she said, focusing, ‘the spices will be in crates with PLEASE STEAL ME stencilled on the sides?’ She could barely control her incredulity.
He glanced at her as though she were a troublesome pest. ‘That is not usual practice with my merchant house.’
Still that unflinching look. Jelindel had seen that expressionless veneer somewhere before. But where? Looks could be disguised, albeit at a price beyond most people’s means. Nonetheless, it was possible.
Jelindel filed away her unease for future investigation. ‘Then why move a highly valued cargo on a slow, defenceless ship?’
Larachel looked the length and breadth of the Dark Empress. ‘I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I feel quite secure. The crew is renowned in a dozen towns for their ferocity in tavern brawls.’
‘That would be really helpful if we were attacked by a tavern. But a squadron of privateers is more likely to come after us in fast caravels. Is there any reasoning behind what we are about to do?’
Larachel considered Jelindel, his face impassive. ‘The Dark Empress has a reputation for travelling slowly and carrying heavy cargoes of low worth. Privateers will not expect a large, expensive cargo to be aboard.’
‘And as soon as we have discharged our large and highly valued cargo every privateer on the water will add us to his list of ships to be given close attention.’
Larachel’s voice hardened. ‘That is not my business. I suggest you seek employment on another vessel after this voyage.’ He smiled but it was without mirth.
‘How very –’ Something caught Jelindel’s eye. Her suddenly alarmed face made Larachel turn to follow her gaze. ‘What is that?’ she said in disbelief.
Jelindel pointed into the glare of the setting sun. There were shapes visible, and they seemed like ships with high masts carrying a lot of sail. Without another word Jelindel heaved herself into the ratlines and scrambled up to the crow’s nest. The lookout was snoring. She stared out to sea, where six privateer caravels were now distinctly visible and on an interception course. Taking the lookout’s whistle, she blew three short blasts, then backed down the ratlines again, leaving the lookout to work out what had just happened.