by Hugh Cook
'I had a small kingdom once,' said Ohio.
'Did you now?' said Hearst, opening ajar of jam. He scooped it out with his fingers. Strawberry jam. Sweet, sweet.
'Yes,' said Ohio. 'A nice little kingdom.' 'Where was it?' said Hearst. 'East of Ork? South of Brine?'
'No,' said Ohio. 'It was in the west. It was the kingdom of Talajar which lies in the Ravlish Lands.'
'I've heard of it,' said Hearst. 'There's a trading route by sea from there to Chi-ash-lan, in the Cold West.'
'You know it well,' said Ohio, greeding into another pickle.
'Yes,' said Hearst, 'I've done my own share of wandering.'
'This kingdom,' said Miphon. 'Were you born to it or did you acquire it?'
'Truth is, I acquired it,' said Ohio. 'Not alone – my brother Menator helped me, first to gain it, then to rule it. But we had a falling out. A quarrel over a woman. It ended with war.'
'And?'
'Our battles were interrupted by an invasion from the north, which pushed us both to the sea. Taking what ships we could, we sailed east to Argan. Menator sailed on down the coast, going south, while I chose the Eastern Ocean.'
'Where's Menator now?' said Hearst.
'I can't say,' said Ohio. 'But it's a small enough world. I'll find him.'
'When you lost your kingdom, did you ever think of going back to your own people?' said Miphon.
'What kind of woman's talk is that?' said Hearst.
Ohio laughed.
'Not so fierce, friend Hearst, not so fierce. Our own people? No, we couldn't have gone back. They were Galish merchants, so they could be anywhere on the Salt Road between Chi'ash-lan and the Castle of Controlling Power. But even if I could find them, that's no life for me. Always dickering-bartering with narrow-eyed sharpers, the rain wet, the hail cold, then the souther you get the hotter – dust, sweat, stink and muddy water-holes.'
'A pirate's life is hard,' said Miphon.
'You're fierce for the truth,' said Ohio. 'Well, it's a simple story: some of us were born for battle, and I'm one of them. That's my story told – but yours, I warrant, is rather more fancy.'
'Yes,' said Miphon. 'But it would take some telling.'
'We've got time,' said Ohio. 'The Collosnon know we must be hiding somewhere. They'll wait. A day, perhaps – or longer.'
'Settle yourself then,' said Hearst, 'and I'll begin.'
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Miphon, Hearst, Blackwood and Ohio went west on foot toward Skua, going as fast as they could over the broken country, retreating to the green bottle only when the weather became atrocious; they knew that every delay favoured Elkor Alish.
Eventually they arrived at Skua, the only harbour on the coast of Trest. The Collosnon had raised a small fort to house a token garrison, and had planted thickets of cold-climate sprite bamboo, notable for its grey leaves. Otherwise, they had made little mark on the place, except by building a breakwater to protect the minimal harbour.
The travellers, eager for news and for fresh food, ventured into town and asked their way to an inn. The locals spoke their own dialect, a degenerate version of Estral; Ohio could not follow it at all, but the other three could make themselves understood.
The inn was a dark place with a low ceiling; it stank of raw spirit. On the floor were the tattered ruins of what had once been a master-work tapestry, a story of courage and heroism done in fifty colours, but now torn and sea-stained: pirate booty, no doubt. Half a dozen tough, scar-faced men sat in the shadows watching the newcomers. Hung on one wall was the silvery coiled shell of a nautilus, a thing of grace and beauty completely unexpected in such a place.
'What hassing you?' said the innkeeper.
'Have you a room?' said Hearst.
'A room we have, but have you the wherefore? The dreamstay dark is free, so they say, but they roof costs here as they ever.'
'We have money,' said Hearst.
He displayed a fist-full of bronze triners, part of a coin-hoard found in the green bottle. The innkeeper took one and turned it over, peering at it dubiously.
'This is the brayoz, as we call he, but has you mynt?'
'Mynt?' said Hearst.
'Yes, mynt, mynt!'
'How about this?' said Miphon, displaying a silver ilavale.
'No, no,' said the innkeeper impatiently. 'Not yoller, it's not yoller we're wanting: have you mynt?'
'Is it gold you're wanting?' said Hearst.
'God, god, yes, that's a name for it.'
'We have no gold,' said Hearst.
In fact, they had gold sanarands by the dozen: but Hearst did not think it wise to display such wealth here in Skua.
'What's the problem?' said Ohio. 'Silver's not good enough for them,' said Hearst. 'Come on then, let's get out of here.' T don't want to spend another night in that bottle,' said Hearst.
'Neither do I,' said Blackwood, who hated being shut inside those glowing green walls, where there was never a breath of wind and never a sound of the living world.
'Come on,' said Ohio. 'There's no point in staying here. Come on, do what I say.'
Ohio hustled the others out of the inn and onto the street; before they had gone a dozen paces the innkeeper was calling them back.
'Don't listen to him,' said Ohio. 'Don't turn back.'
Ohio did not relent until the innkeeper had followed them a hundred paces down the road, and had agreed that a single piece of silver would cover food, drink and lodging for the night for the four of them.
***
The four sat round a fire in the inn that evening, listening to the local gossip. They learnt that the Collosnon, having lost thousands of men on their first attempt to conquer Trest and Estar, had abandoned their attempt to invade Argan, and, for the time being, were content to maintain their little garrison in Skua.
Of the rest of the world, there was little news; few travellers came to Skua, so the town made its own entertainment. Drinking proved a popular sport. After supper, which was a local dish known as widow's memory – it was comprised chiefly of sausages – the travellers managed, after some argument, to extract a ration of beer from the landlord.
About then, a storyteller announced a recital of one of the more popular stories told in Skua, the legend of Morgan Hearst, the Dragon slayer from Rovac.
'Dragonslayer?" said Ohio, turning to stare at Hearst; though Ohio had been told much, he had been fed no stories of dragons and the killing of the same.
'Quiet;' said Hearst, 'and listen to what they have to say.'
The storyteller, well primed with drink, stood on a table, looked around, burped, swayed, grabbed a roof-beam for balance, then in a loud voice began to declaim his story:
Now stay your pratiing chete, I say, And soft to listen long, A gentry cofe I mayn't be, But truth is in me gan: Yes, truth is in me gan, me lads. And in me gan a tale. Now stow you, stow you, hark and hear: It starts upon a night, I say, I starts upon a night. The darkmans is for some to stew, For some it is to nygle, For some the dice, for some the cup, 347 To bouse till lightmans come, But Morgan Hearst rode out that night, Through dewse a vyle rode he, Along the hygh pad to the mount: Maf he called it he.
He girt no shield, he girt no sword,
But strength walked strong with he,
For strong his teeth and wide his smile:
A grin he made it he.
A man of men, a menner man,
No fear he had it he.
No pannam had he none, no none of pek,
As climbed he height on height Till he was from the ground too tall to towre.
Hearst took a pull on his drink and swallowed it down. There was a strange taste to it, but one could hardly expect the best brewing in Skua. He remembered the fear of the climb, and his own drunken boasting afterwards. Once, he had longed to be worshipped as the world's hero. That seemed, now, like something which had happened in another lifetime.
He drank some more.
'Pour that away,' said Blackwood. 'There's something wron
g with it.'
'What?' said Hearst, taking another mouthful.
'There's some kind of scum in it. Maybe a fungus.'
'A little mould never hurt anyone,' said Hearst, and swallowed down some more.
What were they saying now?
He listened:
Draugon glymmar lit the cave: A draugon lay it there. Now beast of beasts a draugon is, A scream would tell him well, For long on sharp his crashing chetes, And strong his stampes are. But Morgan Hearst he had no fear, No fear he had it he.
He had sought fame, and this was what it came to: a drunken story roared out by the local talent to a pack of inebriated thieves and fishermen in a stagnant garrison town on the edge of the world.
What should Morgan Hearst rightly be famous for?
For leading men to their death at the hands of the wizard Heenmor; for being fooled by the spy Haveros, then failing to bring that oath-breaker to justice; for failing to prevent the slaughter of the Melski in Rausch Valley; for running from Heenmor at Ep Pass. And, since the betrayal at Stronghold Handfast: for failing to do his duty, which was to mark his sword with a death-pledge demanding the death of Elkor Alish.
Hearst drank, and listened:
Now Hearst, his fambles held a spear,
And stepped he forward he;
He strove his arm to forward throw
To pierce the draugon ee.
A bellow did the draugon make,
A roar he made it he,
And glymmar from his gan outforth
As threshed and struggled he.
Morgan Hearst was on his feet. The shadows roared around him, red, purple, black. Knives sang inside his skull. Faces split to white alarm as steel flared in his hand.
'Lies!' he shouted. 'It's all lies!'
Bones moved in the shadows. A cold moon shaped itself to a skull. He saw Gorn, blood on his lips, death in the sockets of his eyes.
'Lies!' he shouted.
Chips of wood flew as his sword splintered something that was thrusting for his face. He wheeled. The fire billowed up, out, open: he stood on the top of a cliff looking out across a thousand years of flame. Knives sang inside the fire. Men were swarming out of the flames toward his strongpoint. They were the legions of the dead.
'Come for me then,' whispered Hearst. 'Come for me.'
And he lept to meet the first, steel making steel scream, and there was blood in the scream. The blood darkened the world. There was a door in the darkness. Hearst plunged through the door. He was in a street, with buildings towering up around him, limitless pinnacles reaching for the sky.
He knew where he was: in the city of Chi'ash-lan. The night watch was making for him. In the darkness, their honour-pennants flared orange. His sword cut free in a wild arc. Blood opened green to the darkness.
Clouds underfoot as he ran, flight foot feathering the ground away. Thunder crashed underground. He screamed, answering a challenge with the echo of a forgotten voice: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
Then the visions were gone, and he was down on his face in the mud, down in the cold, with something huge murnering and slurping as it ludged toward him, lopsloss, yes, it had to be a lopsloss – But it was only a sow in a pig-pen.
***
Shortly before sunrise, the others found Hearst in a farmyard on the outskirts of Skua. They bundled him into the green bottle and were off and away, as fast as they could go.
Whatever drug, poison or ergot had been in the drink that had been served to them in Skua, it had turned Morgan Hearst wild and mad for half the night: all of Skua was sheltering behind barred doors after seventeen men had been wounded trying to disarm him.
By the time Skua recovered its courage and ventured outdoors, the travellers had gone, leaving no tracks behind them. Shortly a new song joined the local repertoire: 'The Ballad of the Four Mad Ghosts from the Desolate East'.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ohio, Hearst and Miphon sat on the banks of the Hollern River while Blackwood talked with half a dozen Melski on a solitary raft.
Since reaching Estar, they had already met with a leper, a bedraggled deserter, and a one-legged man on crutches who had refused to give an account of himself. It seemed that Estar lay desolate, its people dead or dispersed.
Already they knew that there was no hope of Blackwood finding Mystrel in Lorford – the ruins were abandoned – and little chance of them encountering anyone elsewhere who might know if she had survived. If the Melski could not say where she might be, then Blackwood had no hope of finding her.
The talk went this way and that for a long time. Eventually, Blackwood, looking heavy-hearted, rejoined the others. Miphon and Ohio were asleep in the weak spring sunlight.
'What do they say?' said Hearst.
Ohio and Miphon woke easily, without surprise. Only those who live safe within four walls can indulge in the deep unresponsive sleep which mimics opium stupor; those who follow the trails of the wild learn to be responsive even when dreaming, making the transition of wakeful alertness instantly, without so much as a yawn or a murmur.
'They say all through last summer none could venture within leagues of Castle Vaunting, for there was madness there.'
'And now?'
'They cannot say. No Melski will chance going 352 further downriver than this. They have lost too many people to the madness.'
T always understood,' said Miphon, 'that the madness only affected humans.'
'Then you, perhaps, will have to broaden your notions of humanity,' said Blackwood.
'Have there been any convoys on the Salt Road?' said Hearst.
'The Melski have seen none, which means certainly none have travelled down the Hollern River.' 'What else did they say?' said Hearst. 'Nothing.'
'You were talking a long time to say very little,' said Hearst.
'They are a formal people,' said Blackwood. 'Besides, I had some… some history to narrate to them.'
'Was that wise?' said Hearst.
'They had a right to know.'
'Yes, but was it wise to tell them?'
'There is a wisdom which concerns survival of the self,' said Blackwood. 'And there is a greater wisdom which is concerned with survival of things greater than the self.'
Hearst and Ohio exchanged glances. Hearst shrugged; Ohio grimaced.
'Come on then,' said Hearst. 'Let's be moving. There's not much daylight left.'
***
Walking through riverside forest, Blackwood remembered coming this way on other days in other years. Overhead the sky was blue:
Sky, blue sky, the colour of my lover's eyes; Leaf, young leaf, her hands no softer.
He remembered leading wizards and Rovac warriors 353 through the forest to where Heenmor had worked his magic. At the time, thinking these affairs had nothing to do with him, he had agreed to do the job simply to secure his release from Prince Comedo's dungeons.
But now, he, too, was committed to this quest. Blackwood remembered the butchery on the Fleuve River: Elkor Alish had done that. Now Alish was loose in the world with the death-stone. He must not be allowed to use it!
Many battlefields commanded by a hero's sword had seen carnage the stars might weep at, but the death-stone was a weapon more terrible than any forged from steel because it killed everything. After such violence, only silence and desolation remained: no voice of bird, no blade of grass, no spinneret spider to span space with instinctive architecture, no earth-sure badger, no mesh-wing honey bee.
It could not be allowed.
Blackwood, cursed with double knowledge, with an acute empathy for both the hunter and the prey, suffered more than any of the others at the thought of what the death-stone could do.
***
Five leagues from Castle Vaunting, they stopped for the night. Miphon, taking off his red charm, found no mad-jewel overpowered his mind. That confirmed what they already knew: Alish had used the death-stone, destroying the mad-jewel. Hearst sent Ohio off on a twilight scouting mission, to make sure there were no lepers, desert
ers or other riff-raff within threatening distance of their camp site.
With Ohio gone, the others gathered firewood and built a rough lean-to shelter for the night. Ohio returned by starshine; he had a prisoner with him, a young and frightened man who sat silent and sullen when Ohio turned him loose.
'Don't make any sudden movements,' said Ohio, 'or you'll excite friend Blackwood here. I've lost his leash, so I'll have the devil of a job restraining him if he tries to eat you.'
The young man cringed.
'What's your name, boy?' said Hearst, with raw-nerve violence in his voice. Ohio chuckled.
'Peace, friend Hearst. We've no need to beat him to his bones for information. I've seen his friends – five hunters, camped downstream just a little. This rabbit here was strutting round the countryside with a slingshot. His rope-soled shoes and the splicing on the belt holding up his pantaloons betray him as a sailor-boy, probably a cabin boy.'
'I'm no cabin boy,' said the young man, suddenly recovering his voice and his nerve. Mine is an Orfus blade. I'm a blooded blade of the free marauders.'
'Really,' said Ohio. T wonder if his captain knows his cabin boy thinks himself a full-fledged reaver.'
'My captain's Abousir Belench,' said their captive. 'He's captain three-five prime under our sealord Menator.'
'Menator?' said Ohio. 'I've heard of a famous pimp by that name, and a famous thief – but never a sealord.'
'You'll know him well enough when he has the skin flayed off your backs. We've five ships anchored at Lorford to do Menator's work. He's the sword from the north, you know. You must have heard of him.'
'Is he a bald man with a broken nose and a blue rose tattooed on his left cheek?' said Ohio.
'Yes,' said their captive. 'You know him, then?'
'He's my brother,' said Ohio.
'Sure,' said the young man, 'and the skua gull shits gold and silver. Tell me another one.'
'Believe what you like,' said Ohio. T don't care. So this Menator rules the Orfus pirates now, does he?'