by Hugh Cook
They were shown into the dining room. The king seated himself on a couch, which creaked ominously beneath his weight. Then he snapped his fingers, and a young woman entered. Togura's face fell. This was Slerma? She was worse than he had expected. She was more than plump; she was positively bloated.
"My wife," said the king.
And the young woman bowed to them.
Togura was relived.
"Where is Slerma, my dear?" said the king.
"She's just coming now, my lord," said his wife.
"Ah, there you are," said the king. "Hello, Slerma. Meet our new guests."
As he was speaking, a vast and slovenly giantess was in the process of forcing her way into the room. She was huge. She was gross. She was impossible. Togura wanted to scream and run, but found himself paralyzed by fear.
"Is this it?" she said in a thick, slurred voice, eyeing him with disapproval.
"Yes, my dear," said the king happily.
"There's not much to it," said Slerma, laying one prodigious paw on Togura's shoulder.
She squeezed. He felt as if he was being crunched by a vast nut cracker. Then, just before she did permanent damage to flesh and bone, she released the pressure.
"There's no meat on it," she complained. "I want Guta."
"No!" said her father sharply. "You cannot marry the baker's boy. I forbid it."
"He's a real man," said Slerma. "Not like this – this thing. Do you speak, thing?"
"I am articulate, intelligent and proud of it," said Togura, finding his voice at last.
"What does articulate mean?" said Slerma.
"It means," said the king, "that all his working parts are in good order."
"They'd better be in good order, thing," said Slerma, addressing Togura. "I'm a girl with big appetites. Remember that! Once we're married, you'd better be faithful, too. Or I'll kill you."
"Now dear," said her father mildly. "Don't frighten him. He's a good little boy. I'm sure he'll behave himself."
"Far too little!" said Slerma. "Not like Guta."
"I'm sure you can fatten him up," said the king. "In fact, now is as good a time as any to start."
He clapped his hands, and their meal was brought in. There were two or three plates apiece for Togura, the baron and Prick, a number of heavily laden platters for the king and his wife, and a large trough for Slerma.
Togura found his appetite had failed him.
"Eat!" ordered Slerma, filling the room with the ominous rumble of her thick, slurred voice. "Eat! Food is good for you!"
And she set an example, gouging out huge handfuls of swede, rutabaga and kidney, slapping them into her mouth then swallowing, apparently without chewing. Togura tried to see if her teeth were missing, but failed. It was impossible even to tell whether her vast, wallowing face had a jawbone. Technically, some of that flesh must have belonged to her face and some to her chin, but such distinctions vanished in the awesome slurry of fat which constituted her face.
"You're not eating!" she bellowed.
She seized Togura and plastered his face with kidney. Some went up his nose, some squeezed its way into his mouth and some fell into his lap.
"Eat!" she yelled, hurting his ears.
She gave him a shake. If she used any more force, she was going to dislocate bones. Togura tried to wriggle free, but it was impossible.
"Eat, thing!" hissed Slerma, spraying him with spittle.
To his dismay, he began to weep, crying hot tears of agony and shame. Slerma gave him another shake then tossed him aside.
"Your son insults us," said King Skan Askander, his voice going very cold.
"Togura!" shouted Baron Poulaan. "Pull yourself together!"
His son got to his knees.
"I hate you!" he said, clenching his fists.
He sniffed.
Then he took another look at Slerma, and suddenly vomited.
Then he fled.
Chapter 4
Towards the end of the day, Baron Chan Poulaan finally managed to locate his son Togura, who had taken refuge in the Murken Hotel. This building, the victim of a subsidence, looked just about ready to fall over. Outside, huge timbers shored up the walls. Inside, the place was a maze of props and cross-struts. As the baron entered, the building was alive with hammering; it had taken an alarming lurch sideways that afternoon, and emergency reinforcements were now being put into place.
The proprietor, a foul-smelling hunchbacked dwarf with a huge goitre, directed the baron to Togura's room.
"Take me there," said the baron.
The dwarf flattened his nose against the back of his hand, which, in those parts, was an emphatic gesture of refusal.
"I don't venture upstairs," said the dwarf.
The baron saw the wisdom of that as soon as he started up the rickety stairs, which creaked and groaned beneath his feet, imploring him for mercy. Reaching Togura's door, he hammered against it with both fists. A slow dust of powdered dry rot began to sift down from the beams above; alarmed, the baron stopped hammering.
"Togura!" he yelled. "I know you're in there."
Silence from within.
The baron threw his shoulder against the door. The floor shook, the stairs creaked alarmingly, but the door held.
"Come out, boy," shouted the baron.
From within, a muffled voice responded.
"Go away!"
"Open the door, so we can talk."
Silence replied.
"Come on, open the door!"
There was a pause, then confused sounds from within. Then the door was opened a crack. The baron, with a roar, threw his weight against it. A crossbeam overhead ruptured, showering him with sawdust. But the door still refused to admit him.
"What have you done to the door?" demanded the baron.
Togura replied, but the baron, sneezing vigorously because of the sawdust in his nose, failed to hear.
"What was that?" he said.
"You heard me," said Togura.
"I suppose you've wedged the door with a baulk of timber."
"That's what I said."
"You're not going to cry again, are you?" sneered the baron, hearing the distress in his son's voice.
"Go away," said Togura.
"I will not go away," said his father. "You will open the door, quit this place and come home with me. Then, once we've had a little talk together, we'll go back to the palace. To see Slerma."
"No!" howled Togura. "No, no, not that. I'd rather die."
"Stop being melodramatic," said the baron impatiently. "I can't see what you're making all this fuss about. When all's said and done, she's a healthy young girl with a moderately wealthy father."
"She's obscene."
"Many men like their women a little plump. After all, you've got to have something to hold onto once you get in the saddle."
"A little plump! Paps, that woman's a horse, a cow and a whale all rolled into one. She's – "
"Don't call me paps," snapped the baron, who hated hearing that kind of tiny-tot talk from his son. "It's time to grow up, Togura. Be a man. You're not going to kill yourself, so you'll just have to live with the life you've got."
"Yes, I want to eat. That man-eater would kill me. I – "
"Stop that! Togura, face facts. You're not going to inherit. Cromarty gets the estate. If you marry, you get the king's title and his property once he dies. He's an old man, he can't last much longer."
"Neither will I if I – "
"Enough! Listen! Soon, Togura, this wretched town of Keep is going to fall into the ground or slide into Dead Man's Drop. The king's property will be more valuable than ever. Anyone wanting to mine the gemstock will have to – "
"I won't sell myself for money," shouted Togura. "I want to marry a woman, not a walking slime pit."
"You don't have much option," said the baron.
"If I have to, I'll go down to the coast and sell myself to the first slaver passing through. I'd rather – "
"Thi
s nonsense has gone far enough," said the baron, cutting him off. "Open this door properly and come out. We're going home. Now!"
"No."
"No?"
"No!"
"No!!??"
"No!!!!"
"By the sperm of my ancestors," raged the baron, using the most fearsome oath he knew. "You'll come out of there right now or suffer the immediate and unlimited consequences. No son of mine is going to defy his father like that."
"Push off, paps," said Togura, all defiance.
The baron then assaulted the door vigorously. A chunk of rotten wood fell from the ceiling, and one of the risers of the stairway split open, but the door itself was solid, and held. Finally, cursing and muttering, spitting sawdust and swearing ferociously, the baron retreated downstairs. He took rooms for himself and for Prick, paying the ground floor premium; they would spend the night there, and deal with Togura in the morning.
Togura, alone and lonely in his room, barred the door then cried himself to sleep. The bed on which he slept was a huge and incredibly ancient affair made of stout timbers standing waist-high off the floor; as he slept, he was a small crumpled island of misery in an ocean of dirty linen. Bed bugs, oblivious of his emotional agony, feasted merrily on his helpless flesh.
Sleeping, Togura dreamt that he was in a castle which was under siege. Invaders were attacking the main gate with a battering ram. The sullen thud and thump of the assault began to undermine his composure. The ram charged again, hitting the door with a crash so loud that it woke him up.
Togura, starting from sleep and blinking at darkness, stared in the direction of the door. Something was demolishing it. With a final crash, the door splintered and gave way. A faintly aromatic smell of ancient timbers percolated through the room. Outside, on the stairway, some large animal was breathing heavily with a kind of wet, gutteral wheezing.
"Paps?" said Togura uncertainly.
"Prepare yourself, little man," said the animal, in a thick slurred voice.
"Slerma!" screamed Togura.
The animal outside made strenuous efforts to enter, but failed. The doorway was too small.
"Slerma," said Togura, in a shaky voice. "I'll do anything you say. Just don't hurt me, that's all. I love you."
He was answered by a scream of rage.
"Love? Love! Little man, I'll kill you! Guta will kill you. How dare you make love to his Slerma?"
Too late, Togura realised his fatal mistake.
"No, Guta!" cried Togura. "I didn't mean it. I don't want Slerma. I don't want anything to do with her."
"Liar! You were seen. The serving girl told me. You were seen. Embraced! Deep in her charms, her arms enfolding you. She fed you with her own magnificent hand."
"Guta, I really don't want her. She's appalling. She's hideous. She's a mass of flab and sausage meat. She makes me sick, she – "
"You insult my darling. My true love. My fondest dream. The one and only real woman in the world. Animal! I'm going to kill you!"
The building shook, timbers groaned, the roof strained, and Guta forced himself into Togura's room. As darkness crashed toward him, roaring, Togura rolled out of bed and took cover underneath the bed. Guta, finding the bed in the night, hoisted himself aboard and began to trample it with his knees. He roared out incomprehensible obscenities as he sought for his victim.
Frustrated at finding nothing, Guta tore the sheets apart. Then he grabbed hold of the mattress and ripped it open, spilling mouldy old straw and bracken into the night, together with bedbugs, lice, dead spiders and a virile colony of the kind of red ants that bite. Then he began to jump on the bed.
Just before the bed splintered and gave way, Togura rolled out from underneath and sprinted for the doorway. He tripped, fell, recovered himself, barked his shins against something, cracked his head against a low-lying beam, then gained safety. At least for the moment. Where now? Up, down? Togura ascended, pounding up the stairs, thinking the fearsome young troll behind him would not dare the increasingly fragile heights of the Murken Hotel.
He was wrong.
Hauling himself back out through the doorway, Guta started up the stairs after Togura. He began to gain on him. Togura strove for extra speed. But Guta was fast and ferocious. He grabbed hold of Togura's foot. Togura screamed. The stairs collapsed. Guta roared. Screaming and roaring, the two plunged downward to their doom. Guta landed first, smashing his head open and breaking his back, which killed him. Togura landed on top of the corpse of his recently deceased rival. A shower of rotten wood rained down on the two of them.
Togura became aware of doors opening. There was a muttering of voices in the darkness. Then the proprietor came on the scene. The hunchbacked dwarf was bearing a candle, an evil-smelling stump of black wax which burnt with a greenish-blue light, filling the air with smoke and shadows. The dwarf was doing his best to restrain a huge rate, which he had on a short leash. It was the size of a mastiff, had blood-red eyes and razor-sharp teeth, and was slavering as it strained against the leash, which was attached to a collar ringed with spikes of sharpened metal.
The dwarf surveyed the damage.
Then he kicked Guta in the head.
"Leave," said the dwarf.
The dwarf knew that Guta was a valuable catch. The city state of Pera Pesh, a fishing town of some one thousand people down by the coast, had put a price on his head. He was wanted, dead or alive, for a variety of crimes including grave robbing, necrophilia, the theft of a small whale and the destruction of a small stone bridge which he had incautiously walked across. The reward would more than compensate for the cost of repairs.
"I'm going right now," said Togura, with what fraction of his voice he had so far been able to recover.
"Togura," said a loud voice from one of the darkened doorways. "You come here this instant."
It was his father, the formidable baron.
Togura got to his feet and fled.
Chapter 5
Togura found refuge in a fire watcher's hut by a mine shaft. It gave him at least a modicum of shelter against the cold autumn weather. Exhausted, he slept. He woke, once, to find something gnawing at his boots. He kicked it away. Hissing and spluttering, it retreated; after that, he found it hard to get back to sleep again.
At dawn, the fire watcher arrived, a big, gruff man with a red beard and bloodshot eyes, and big dirty boots, one of which had marked Togura's backside by the time he made his escape. Outside, a light drizzle was falling. Miners, with pick axes and shovels slung over their shoulders, were trooping to the climbing shafts.
Shivering, Togura wandered off, wondering what to do now. He had already considered turning to Day Suet for help, and had rejected the notion; he was too proud to beg, and, in any case, doubted that her family would welcome him if he came as a beggar.
The streets of Keep were dangerous, as always, for housewives were going through the morning routine of emptying chamber pots out of the window. Ducking and dodging, Togura escaped with no more than a few stray licks of splatter. His zigzag course through the drunken streets brought him to the very brink of Dead Man's Drop.
Togura stood on the Edge, looking out at the dim grey horizon now soured by stormclouds. The ground dropped away sheer to the pinnacles of the Claws which would receive his body if he jumped, fell or was pushed. Between the Claws and the enclosing horizon lay the leagues of the Famines, a regular wasteland of scoured rock and eroding hillsides speckled with colonies of gorse, clox, snare and barbarian thorn. Down in the hollows there was the occasional glint of lake or slough.
Far below Togura's feet, some nimble birds darted through the dull-weather sky. They, at least, had homes to go to, and regular occupations to follow.
Overcome by a sudden access of self-pity, Togura considered throwing himself over, but decided against it. The pleasures of self-pity were, for the moment, far too sweet. Besides, he still had some money left. It would be foolish to suicide before spending all his cash.
Turning away from Dead Ma
n's Drop, Togura walked down the street. He had only just departed when the piece of stone he had been standing on fell away, almost soundlessly, and toppled into the gulf. Hearing the fant sound the stone made when it slipped away, Togura turned. But, seeing nothing, shrugged, and went on his way.
Two streets from Dead Man's Drop, Togura bought some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor, a crippled hag with a festering rupia despoiling the skin beneath her left eye. She tried to cheat him. They argued. He swore. She cursed him. They parted, both convinced that they had got the worst of the bargain; rounding a corner, he kicked at a cat with ringworm, swore again, then stopped to eat.
As he ate, he began to feel better.
As Togura savoured his chestnuts, he watched two raff-taff street dogs fighting. Then a man came hurrying down the road; after him came a hunting harridan dressed in harn, who screamed abuse at him.
Togura thought to himself:
– Now what was all that about?
He was accosted by a rough, burly swordsman of middle years, who spoke to him in a strangely accented Galish.
"Which way to the king's palace, boy?"
"Who is it who wants to know?" said Togura.
"Barak the Battleman, hired killer and trained assassin," said the swordsman.
That was a lie. The stranger was, in fact, Guest Gulkan, sometimes known as the Emperor in Exile. He was the son of Onosh Gulkan, the Witchlord; he had been wandering the world for years now, travelling to places as far distant as Dalar ken Halvar and Chi'ash-lan. He lied about his name because there was a price on his head in many parts and places.
"The palace lies that way," said Togura, pointing firmly, and hoping that he was right; at the moment, he was more than a little disorientated.
"Thank you, lad," said the stranger, and strode away with an easy, rolling gait.
Togura watched him go, struck, momentarily, with horror. The king was angry with him! The king had hired an assassin! He was going to be hunted and tortured and killed!
Then Togura realised he was being ridiculous. There was no way the king could have got hold of an assassin so soon, even supposing that he had been made that angry; the stranger's appearance in this place was probably just idle coincidence.