by Hugh Cook
– So how does it feel, this death? Guest asked himself that question as he followed along behind his father.
He felt… confused. He did not think that he wished his father dead. But even so. His father had denied him so much, had denied him so often. And just that very day, why, anger had brought the two to the point of murder. If Lord Onosh survived this hunt, then Guest was doomed to fight his proxy in Gendormargensis.
– So better that he die.
Thus thought Guest. And the thought was cold, hard, inescapable. Cold as crystal. Cold as a diamond plucked from the heart of a witch. Let Lord Onosh die. Then Eljuk would become emperor. And Eljuk… for some reason, when Guest thought of Eljuk he thought of butter.
So they went on through the night. Lord Onosh knew himself doomed to die by drowning, and knew his son Guest to be his murderer. Guest Gulkan did not yet know that he was to be the instrument of his father's death, but he knew of a certainty that his father would drown, would be swallowed by the Yolantarath, would become mud and worms, a bloated corpse lost in the farrow- furrow toils of the river's filth.
So the Witchlord Onosh and his son the Weaponmaster hunted bandits through the mountains, both possessed of visionary knowledge of an unavoidable death, and at last in daylight they and their company ran the bandits to ground by the banks of the Yolantarath River.
By this time, the mighty hunting party which had left Gendormargensis was strung out over the better part of fifty leagues of wilderness, for only the young and the reckless had been able to keep up with the emperor on this madcap chase.
So it was that the odds were even when the imperial party met the bandits by the riverside.
Then fear fell away from the Witchlord. So he was to die, was he? Well, then it would be over soon, and quickly. The worst thing was the waiting, and the waiting was over.
"Pelagius, my good man," said the Witchlord Onosh, seeing that his master chef had kept pace with the leaders of the hunting party. "It is a good day to die."
Pelagius laughed.
"It is a good day, my lord," said Pelagius. "And I do not think either of us dead before the end of it."
Then Pelagius Zozimus unhooded the falcon which was bound to his wrist, kissed the bird, then loosed it, and laughed again as it rose to the blinding brightness of the sun. Lord Onosh laughed likewise, then the pair spurred their horses and charged, for both of these warriors had been seized of a sudden by a mad intoxication, the exhilaration of an all-or-nothing gamble.
"Hold, Eljuk!" cried Morsh Bataar, as Eljuk Zala spurred his own horse, grimly bent on following his father.
But Eljuk Zala paid no heed, for he was determined to go wherever his father did. So Morsh slashed the rope which restrained the one surviving spare horse which trailed along behind him, then rode in pursuit.
The leading riders went crashing into the ranks of the bandits. Horses fell and men screamed.
"The river!" screamed someone. "He's in the river!"
Who was in the river? Guest Gulkan heard the cry, and remembered his visionary certainty. His father was going to drown.
And suddenly Guest knew:
He did not want to see his father dead.
But it was fated. It would happen whether Guest wanted it to happen or not.
"Then the hell with fate!" said Guest.
And, setting himself against fate, destiny and the course of history, Guest Gulkan spurred his horse. Which reared, and received in its flesh an arrow which had been aimed at its master.
Down went the horse, down, a mountain falling, an avalanche of bloody mortality, and Guest was thrown, sent sprawling. Guest Gulkan groped to his feet, mud in his eyes, the world a whirl of watering confusion. A bandit was charging him.
"Ga!" screamed Guest.
The bandit hacked at him with a woodcutter's axe. But an arrow took the man in the throat, and Guest hacked off his head as he died. No time to take a scalp! Lord Onosh was in the river, was drowning, and Guest had to save him. Had to! Panting heavily, Guest charged wildly through the floundering mud, bracing his way through the confusion of battle.
All around was chaos, as knots of disordered men fought each other with screams and curses. Guest tried to blink the mud from his watering eyes, and caught a bleary glimpse of the bright- flashing armor of Pelagius Zozimus. Heard Rolf Thelemite screaming in fear-flushed panic as he tried to hold a brace of bandits at bay single-handed.
Rolf saw Guest.
And screamed:
"Help me!"
Then Guest had to choose.
His friend or his father? Guest chose his father.
Ignoring Rolf Thelemite's plight, Guest struggled through the mud to the banks of the Yolantarath River. Down in the water was a horse, a floundering animal wild-eyed in panic, its body rent with wounds, its blood staining the brown murk of the river. Struggling in the water was a man.
"Blood!" said Guest.
He was bent on saving his father, but – he could not swim!
"Blood of a billion zombies!" said Guest.
Then the Weaponmaster took his sword in a two-handed grip and struck a mighty blow, driving the blade deep into the mud of his father's empire.
"Death or victory!" said Guest.
Then he slithered down the bank and plunged into the water, even as the man in the river's grip lost his hold on his horse and slid beneath the waters.
The waters mobbed around the Weaponmaster. The terror- stricken horse rolled its eyes and did its best to bite him. Guest whacked it with his fist, then waded into the river, first waist- deep then neck-deep, feeling for his father with his feet. Guest stubbed his toe on his father's flesh, grabbed a mouthful of air, then ducked down and seized the man by the hair.
Gods, he was heavy! Guest hauled, pulled, floundered, tried for purchase in the mud, got the man under the armpits – armor his flanks, and heavy, yes! – and boosted the man to the air. Guest gasped for air.
"Father," he said.
The man was safe, had been saved, was safe in Guest Gulkan's grip. But he was starting to struggle! He was screaming, and struggling convulsively. Guest felt his boots slipping. He was up to his neck in the river. A river-wave slapped his face. If his father was not quieted, he would have them both drowned and dead. Guest slipped deeper yet, and panic claimed him.
He screamed, incoherent in the agony of his panic.
The struggling pair were seen by Thodric Jarl, some thirty paces down the riverbank. Since Jarl was faced by imminent battle, he might as well have been distant by infinity. But Jarl summed the situation in a glimpse and found time enough to roar:
"Guest! Guest! Slam him! You must!"
The command came to Guest Gulkan as if from far off, like something shouted through a huge and fumbling thickness of fog.
But once said -
Blam! Guest slammed his father, crunched the screaming face with a fist, crunched it hard. Then dragged the man closer inshore. A monstrous weight he made, but Guest dragged him successfully. Then they slipped into a hole.
Water buried them. Guest slogged along underwater, one pace, two, a third, and up, up out of the hole and into the slash of the sun.
And the man in his arms screamed and thrashed, and clawed at him, and tried to bite off his nose. And suddenly Guest realized it was Eljuk, his brother Eljuk. He had risked his life, and risked it for Eljuk! Eljuk, of all people! And now Eljuk was fighting him in the frenzy of his panic!
"Blue bread and marmalade!" said Guest, enraged.
Then slammed Eljuk in the face with his fist.
Then slammed him again.
Eljuk boggled, and went limp.
Then Guest acknowledged his deep and pressing jealousy of his brother, and slammed him one last time for luck, and was amazed to find how good that made him feel.
Then came the hard and brutal slog-work, the dragging of the semi-conscious Eljuk from the waters and the hauling of the semiconscious Eljuk up the steep and muddy bank of the Yolantarath.
Swearing with every step, Guest encompassed the task. At the top of the riverbank, he dropped the whimpering Eljuk in the mud, kicked him once for luck, then looked around for his sword.
His sword!
Where was his sword? Guest Gulkan was weaponless, and a battle was in progress.
The sword? It was twenty paces distant, for the Yolantarath had carried the two brothers downstream as they struggled in the water. Guest went for his sword and won it. No sooner had he won the weapon than a man was upon him.
"Ahyak Rovac!" screamed the man.
"Rolf!" cried Guest, recognizing that battle-cry.
It was indeed Rolf Thelemite, so bloody from a gash in his forehead that he was unrecognizable, and was fighting blind. He fell into Guest's arms, and, with the battle dying down, Guest began to search his friend for wounds.
Apart from minor gashes (bloody, spectacular, but no immediate threat to life) Rolf Thelemite appeared to be in one piece. By the time Guest had assured himself of that, the battle was over – with all the bandits dead, for none had been given quarter.
"Your brother," said Rolf, recovering himself somewhat. "Your brother. He's dead."
"Eljuk?" said Guest. "But I just pulled him out of the river!"
"Not Eljuk!" said Rolf. "Morsh!"
Then Guest helped Rolf Thelemite to his feet, and the two went in search of Morsh Bataar. Rolf had seen Morsh go down and his horse fall on top of him, so presumed the young man to be dead. But when they found the body it opened its eyes then spoke to them.
"Will you shift this horse?" said Morsh Bataar. "For it's died on top of me, and I think my leg is broken."Guest and Rolf called for help, and the Witchlord Onosh came over to them, called others to their aid, and had the horse shifted.
"It hurts like a red-hot poker," said Morsh Bataar, tears of pain in his eyes. "It's the leg. The left leg."
Lord Onosh drew his scalping knife and cut away the clothing which guarded the left leg. The thigh was prodigiously bruised and swollen with blood, and Morsh Bataar was crying from the pain.
"It's death," said Morsh, acknowledging the truth of his own injury.
Lord Onosh rose without a word. He knew the injury was as good as death. Unless -
"Zozimus!" roared the Witchlord.
The wizard Pelagius Zozimus advanced and saluted his emperor.
There was blood and mud on the wizard's fishscale armor, but Zozimus looked nonetheless lordly.
"My lord," said Zozimus.
"Zozimus," said Lord Onosh, pointing at Morsh Bataar. "I charge you with the healing of my son."
Pelagius Zozimus bent to the injury. When he was ready to speak, he rose to his full height address his emperor on equal footing.
"Your son is a dead man," said Zozimus bluntly. "There is not the skill in Gendormargensis to heal him."
"You are a wizard, are you not?" said Lord Onosh. "A worker of magic. A worker of miracles. Is the emperor to be denied a miracle on his request?"
"I am no god to undo what the gods have fated," said Zozimus.
"I have but some poor and wretched art of necromancy at my command. I have it at my power to have the corpses of this battlefield stumbling in their blood, their shambles but a parody of life. And that – and that is all."
"It cannot be all," said Lord Onosh.
"My lord," said Zozimus, "were wizardry an art of miracle, would I abandon wizardry for cookery? Not so. Yet such was my choice."
"Choice, choice," said Lord Onosh. "Look at me! What choice have I got? My son's life or my wizard's. He lives or dies, but if he dies then you die too."
"We must get him to Gendormargensis," said Guest, who was bent on seeing Morsh healed, and who associated healing with warm rooms and sickbeds.
"No!" said Zozimus sharply.
"You heard my father," said Guest, angered so much that he was almost ready to slaughter down the wizard on the spot. "His life or yours."
"Or both," said Zozimus. "I heard him. But we must not move the boy. To move him is to kill him."
"He can't stay here!" said Guest, looking around at the sprawling river, the blood-punctuated mud, the bleary sky, the horizon encumbered with mountainous hills, and the silent swordsmen now starting to shiver as their sweat cooled toward slime.
"Give him a chance," said Zozimus, speaking harshly from a throat still dry from battle. "Give Morsh a chance. If Morsh stays here then he does have a chance – albeit a slim one. But if you haul him back to Gendormargensis then he dies of a certainty, and I die with him."
"Then he stays," said Lord Onosh. "And I stay with him. To work, Zozimus! Get on with it!"
"A tent," said Zozimus. "I need a tent. Guest! Backtrack!
Along our track you'll find horses with tents. Morsh himself had one such last night, though it was not in his keeping this morning. Ride back and find such, for such is your brother's survival."
"I go," said Guest, bowing to Zozimus's imperative.
Thus Guest went, and Zozimus was much relieved to see him go, for there was no telling how much damage the boy might have done in his fear for his brother's life. Then Zozimus called for horseblankets; and firewood; and for dead horses to be heaped up as a temporary windbreak while shelter more permanent was sought.
When Guest had gone, Morsh Bataar said through the tears of his pain:
"The man's not as tough as he thought."
Here Morsh was speaking of himself. The Yarglat do not readily admit to pain, and only by thus referring to it in the third person could Morsh Bataar admit to the grief of his agony.
"We none of us are," said his father.
For the Witchlord Onosh had known pain and knew the truth of it: there is no thing worse.
Then:
"It hurts," said Morsh Bataar, in frank confession of his pain.
Then, unable to help himself, Morsh Bataar cried out, gasping with pain – gasping in the inarticulate agony of the flesh. Lord Onosh wiped the cold sweat from his son's forehead, and Pelagius Zozimus, unable to bear this sight for any longer, withdrew to the riverbank to think.
The gray-bearded Thodric Jarl went with him, hoping he would try to escape, for Jarl had a deep-felt hatred of wizards, and would welcome any excuse to murder him.
"The break is bad," said Zozimus, who usually shunned Jarl as if the man was death incarnate – as well he might prove if things took a turn for the worse.
"Very bad," said Jarl, with grim satisfaction.
"Still," said Zozimus, "men have lived through as much."
"No men that I know of," said Jarl.
"Then Morsh Bataar will be the first," said Zozimus, trying to pretend to a confidence which he did not actually feel.
Pelagius Zozimus was no healer, for he had never studied to be either bonesetter or pox doctor. Zozimus was a wizard of the order of Xluzu, a necromancer whose skills allowed him to animate the dead. This filthy and dispiriting work he had long ago abandoned in favor of cookery, for he disliked death. Equally, he disliked disease, injury, deformation, and every other debasement and degradation of the flesh.
Yet -
Zozimus had ever been a great scholar, and in the course of learning about death he had learnt much about life, for the study of death is necessarily the study of corpses and skeletons, which is an excellent way to learn about the living.
In the Castle of Ultimate Peace, a mighty fortress by the flame trench of Drangsturm, the order of Xluzu had long maintained great collection of skeletons, which included the bones of a sailor who had died of rabies after being bitten by his mother-in- law's dog. In youth, this sailor had broken his thighbone after falling from a mast, and had spent four months lying in his bunk while he recovered from the injury.
In the course of the sailor's cure, a huge bolus of bone had knitted together the fractured ends of his thighbone, which had been out of alignment by as much as the width of two fingers. The result had produced a very strange skeleton, but when healed the leg had been normal enough to facilitate the bestriding of
decks and the kicking of dogs.
So Jarl's pessimism was not necessarily predictive.
If Morsh Bataar was lugged to Gendormargensis, he would doubtless die from the rigors of the journey, but if he could be kept just where he was, if he could be clothed and cleaned and warmed and fed, sheltered from the elements and -
"You know," said Jarl, "while you sit here, Morsh is dying."
"So you tell me," said Zozimus.
"He's dying of pain, you fool," said Jarl, unable to restrain himself any longer. "Pain is the breaking of men, and kills when wounds alone would not."
Jarl wanted to see Zozimus fail and die. But Jarl had ever liked Morsh Bataar for his steadiness and his leisured good humor, and did not want to see him die in a delirium of agony.
The relief of his pain would probably not save his life, but might at least ease his parting.
Zozimus took the hint.
"Opium!" said Zozimus, slapping his thigh as he named the best kind of pain relief he knew. Then: "Send to the city for Sken-Pitilkin!" said he, knowing his fellow wizard was never far away from a supply of the peace of the poppy. "Send for Sken-Pitilkin," said Zozimus, "and tell him to bring us his opium."
"Your word," said Jarl, "is my command."
And he turned to obey.
So Sken-Pitilkin was sent for, and brought as directed, arriving late in the afternoon of the following day after a ride so rigorous it had almost killed him. There was no problem in finding the campsite, for by now there were hundreds encamped by the river, with a steady steam of incoming stragglers filtering out of the hills. To feed this multitude, Lord Onosh had commandeered a string of barges which had been coming down the Yolantarath, deeply laden with some of the spoils of the autumn harvest in the east. Guest Gulkan himself greeted Sken-Pitilkin on his arrival, and led him to Pelagius Zozimus. No longer was Zozimus glorious, for his bright-shining armor had been mired by the splattering muck of the encampment, and the dervish wildness of his bloodshot eyes, combined with his unkempt condition, made him look three parts lunatic.