by Hugh Cook
Hearst did not answer for a while. Then he spoke, out of the darkness:
'You have the makings of a warrior. All you need now is the battles to harden you. And I could wish no better companion than you to ride with me. But I've heard so much of your talk of the sheep, the farm, the peat, your brother Valarkin, your sisters spinning wool -1 thought yours was a peasant's heart forever.'
T can't help my past,' said Durnwold, 'But I have the will to help my future. My future lies with yours.'
'Give me my sword then,' said Hearst, reaching from darkness to darkness. 'Strength and steel, hey? Yes. I'll do it. The climb and the kill. I'll do them both.'
CHAPTER SIX
Pox: vernacular name used for a number of diseases characterised by eruptive sores, but in particular for syphilis.
Pox doctor: one who heals or purports to heal venereal diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea etc. etc.
In Castle Vaunting, night brought sleep to the warrior Morgan Hearst, who was due to face his doom on the morrow.
In the hamlet of Delve, night brought sleep also to the wizards Phyphor and Garash, who ensconced themselves in a loft. But Miphon stayed awake, for he was needed for doctor work.
Even here in Delve, the people had heard the legends of the Alliance of wizards and heroes four thousand years and more before, the Alliance which had fought so long and hard against the Swarms. However, whatever legend, song or rumour might say, most folk credited wizards with no magic. Their standing was low, for they were best known as pox doctors. Most people had no chance to unlearn their ignorance, for wizards came seldom to Estar, and, though Delve knew of Heenmor, it was only by hearsay.
The last wizard to visit Delve had been a young apprentice discarded by his tutor because of his poor scholarship and his inability to build and control power through the Meditations. He had been scraping a living as a healer, though his studies of the healing arts were far from complete.
Such incompetent failures were the wizards most frequently seen by men, and, encountering such a novice, a young man blinking behind wire-rimmed spectacles, shuffling his feet, stuttering, travelling burdened with herbs, leeches, divining rods, poultices, eye of newt and ear of bat, it was hard to credit the seventh oldest profession with any importance.
Phyphor, however, was powerful, dangerous, and, of course, very old; the ages of wizards, though measured in fewer years than the ages of rock, outshadow the mayfly lives of common men. Garash was younger, but still very dangerous.
These two did not lance boils, perform abortions, repair hymens or draw teeth. They had not devoted themselves to the High Arts in order to labour over ingrowing toenails. Their hands held the powers of thunder; they had mastered the Names and the Words; they had learnt the Four Secrets and the Nine Mysteries; they had the harsh pride of those who follow the most rigorous of intellectual disciplines. They were meant for greatness: but wherever they went, young men would come slinking up to them to beg cures for oozing chancres, and furtive young women would bring them their tears and fears. They would never shake the appellation of pox doctor, even though they had done nothing to earn it.
Of the three, only Miphon had really studied the gentle skills of healing; only he was humble enough to put himself at the service of the common people.
That night, there was a birth. As the local midwife had lately died of septicaemia, Miphon served as accoucheur, delivering the child with aplomb. It was the easiest birth he had ever attended - and he had seen many in the families of the Landguard of the Far South. As always, he felt joy at this most common yet most profound of all miracles. As it has been Written (in Kalob IV, quilt 9, section 3b, line xxii): 'The greatest Heights yield to those who stoop the Lowest'. Miphon.
reaching those Heights, was amply rewarded.
The people credited him with the easy birth, though in fact he had done little except be there to catch the baby. He was honoured by being asked to name the perfect girl-child who had just joined humanity.
T name her Smeralda,' said Miphon, giving her the nicest name he knew.
'May we know who she is named after?'
'A good person,' said Miphon, thinking quickly. Who'd choose to be named after a deceased donkey? He improvised: 'A princess of Selzirk, pride of the Harvest Plains.'
This satisfied everyone.
Miphon got little sleep, for Phyphor woke in the early-early, and forced them to set off down the road by darkness. Proper food and a proper bed had rejuvenated him; he was eager to close with Castle Vaunting and finish their business with the wizard Heenmor.
And so it was that three Forces left Delve by night, all Powers in the World of Events, Lights in the Unseen Realm, Graduates of the Trials of Strength, Motivators of History, masters of lore versed in the logic of the Cause and the nature of the Beginning. And the peasants of Delve, despite their gratitude for the successful birth, told rude pox doctor jokes when the wizards were gone, then returned to the pleasures of seducing their sisters and scratching the boils on their backsides and the lice in their hair.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dragon: large scale-armoured egg-laying fire-breathing carnivore, not to be confused with the sea serpent of the Central Ocean or the taniwha of Quilth. Dragons are not related to the colony creatures of the Swarms but are related - distantly - to the phoenix and the basilisk, and - very distantly - to the platypus. There are three types:
1. Common or land dragon: very large, inimical, extremely destructive aviator of limited intelligence, typically leading a solitary, cave-dwelling existence;
2. Sea dragon: flightless, intelligent, gregarious creature noted for vanity and promiscuity. Robust swimmer, but mates on land - frequently. Properly flattered, is relatively harmless, but if scorned becomes extremely dangerous;
3. Imperial dragon: lithe, sinuous, domesticated flying dragon of Yestron, where it is famed for its gentle nature and plaintive song. Extremely susceptible to all those diseases which affect bees, it also swiftly becomes alcoholic if exposed to temptation.
* * *
Alish, watching the rising stars, judged the night half gone. It was time to set out. Hearst, roused from sleep, was soon asleep in the saddle; he did not wake again until they were nearly at Maf, ten leagues south of Castle Vaunting.
Waking, he found that words already dared by Prince Comedo's jester began to nag through his head:
Sing now the song of Hearst the dung, A drunkard with a braggart's tongue.
Now Hearst he thought that pigs could fly,
When wine-cups he had gundled,
So pumped his loins and puffed his boasts,
Then off to Maf he trundled.
But Hearst found pigs can't reach the sky:
No dragon had he fondled
When slipped his foot to fill his mouth,
And screaming he fell down to land,
Spread wide across the grinning rocks:
The place which now the seagull mocks.
Sing now the song of Hearst the dung, Unmastered by his pride and tongue, Split from his crutch to his boasting lung, No prettier than what the seagull done.
The song had found popular appeal with Comedo's men, a rag-tag rabble of bandits, pirates, assorted thugs and deserters. Later, no doubt, they would have time to make a longer, bawdier, funnier song.
Their drinking doggerel would tell of how, a few days after the dragon Zenphos raged across Estar, the wizard Heenmor fled the castle. Prince Comedo, desiring revenge for insults and injuries the castle had suffered, sent Morgan Hearst out wizard-hunting with nineteen mounted men. But when his horse fell lame, he missed the kill - and it was the men who died, not the wizard.
Hearst's temper - never a steady beast, that temper -had grown stormy in the days of lame-foot limp-foot jokes that followed, leading him to drink more than he should have to ease that temper to its nightly sleep.
Finally Morgan Hearst, scourge of the Cold West, had sat at the card table with a full skin to lose money, shirt and sword to the
young fool Prince Comedo.
Hearst - drunken, boastful, vain - had made one last gamble: 'This one last wager I'll make with you on the turn of the next card, and if I win I'll reclaim all I've lost, and if I lose .. .'
- Ah yes, you lost, didn't you, bird-dung, and that's why you're here.
For this was the wager: 'If I lose, I'll go to Maf to scale the cliff that daunts the eagle's wing; I'll raid the lair where the dragon Zenphos lives; I'll bring you the red ruby of legend which the wizard Paklish set in the dragon's head, after the sage Ammamman tore the left eye from its socket.'
Thus the wager.
- So. It's done. Now for the death.
He had known the wager for madness even as he made it, but he had been too proud to retract it. They would have laughed at him. He was strong, and brave, but a laugh could wound him to the marrow.
- They would have laughed at you, and made rude jokes about you, and talked for generations about the wager Morgan Hearst made in his cups, and had to retract in shame.
- But they'll joke away regardless, after you fall. They'll call you a zany fool, a drunken clown.
- They'll be right.
Already, he could imagine, in precise detail, the disaster which lay ahead of him. He knew that he was doomed. He was sober for the climb, but he was sure it would make no difference.
In the half-light before sunrise, they saw the bones of men, cattle, a small whale, a juvenile sea serpent. The horses, picking their way over the stony ground to the southern face of Maf, grew uneasy; finally Durnwold's baulked, and he had to dismount and lead it by foot.
All too soon, they were there.
'Rise, sun!' cried Comedo.
The sun obeyed.
'Your sword,' said Comedo to Hearst, as the sun 47
splayed their long shadows across the ground. Hearst yielded the blade.
'But remember,' said Hearst, 'I regain it if I succeed.' 'If?' said Comedo. 'You venture an If? You disappoint me.'
Hearst grimaced, but said nothing as the prince brandished the battle-sword Hast, a weapon as famous as the warrior Morgan Hearst. Avor the Hawk had dared many battles with that blade, never finding any man to match him. A woman had killed him in the end - his seventh wife had poisoned him when he discarded her for an eighth. After that, the sword had come to Hearst, who had carried it year after year in the Cold West, till it was as much a part of him as his arm.
- Hast, my sword, my strength, my half-brother, my brother in blood.
'Why linger, friend?' said Comedo. 'Remember, up is hard, but down is easy - all you have to do is jump.'
And he laughed. For Comedo, life was full of occasions for merriment. His executioner provided him with many of them.
- He laughs. He laughs at you, Morgan Hearst, leader of men. Yes. But with good reason.
Durnwold came to Hearst.
'I'll wait for you,' said Durnwold.
'You may have to wait a long time.'
'I'll wait. Trust me.'
'I do,' said Hearst.
Then glanced at Alish, who sat silently on his horse. The sun shone on his long black hair, his embroidered cloak, his golden jewellery. Hearst knew Alish could have shinned up this mountain, making the climb seem effortless. Only a face of sheer ice or sheer glass could have defeated him. But then, Alish was not afraid of heights.
'We're waiting,' said Comedo, who was getting bored.
'I know, my prince,' said Hearst.
And turned to face the mountain.
* * *
The wide world turns. The entire continent of Argan now lies in sunlight; the edge of dawn moves slowly westward across the Central Ocean toward Rovac and the Cold West. While Hearst labours up the rockwalls of Maf, an isolated mountain spike in the north-west of Argan, the cities of the continent are waking in the morning light.
In the free port of Runcorn, the Common Gates are opened; in Androlmarphos. dominating the delta of the Velvet River, the harbour chains are removed; in Selzirk, the kingmaker Farfalla - named for the moth -rises to her daily rituals.
Further to the south, in Veda, stronghold of the sages, the Masters are at study; the troops of the Secular Arm man Veda's battlements and drill on the training grounds. Further South again, Landguard patrols prowl the Far South. By Drangsturm, the turrets and towers of the spectacular upthrust of the Castle of Controlling Power mass against the light; beyond the Great Dyke, in the Deep South, small bands of Southsearchers in the land of Swarms settle down to wait out the dangers of the day.
Hearst climbs, his danger increasing from moment to moment, but the life of the world will continue whether ■ he gains the heights or falls. Win or lose, succeed or fail, the world will go on without him, and well he knows how little he matters to the world as he struggles up the cliff face.
It is the loneliest hour of his life.
* * *
There was a crack up there. It would give him a handhold, if he could reach it.
- Can you reach it, little man? No. It's out of reach.
- Look down. Come on. I dare you. Look down. Yes, yes, that's right. Down.
He looked down, to see a flash of white sliding through the air far below his feet. A gull. On the rocks below the gull, a few small specks dotted the rocks: men. His comrades.
- So they're waiting. Some of them, at least. But what does it matter? You'll never see them again unless you reach that handhold.
He was exhausted. It was too far to climb back down.
- You'll never reach that handhold. Never.
The sweat from his last exertions had dried on his body. The wind which had harried him earlier in the day had gone to torment some other place, but the air was still cold. He was cold.
- Colder still when dead, no doubt.
He could not reach that stronghold, that handhold, that griphold which would secure him against that five-scream fall. It was impossible. This was the end.
- Any regrets? Many. But at least nobody else will die because of this foolishness. None other was fool enough to join this climb. Not even Durnwold.
He was facing his end. And he was facing it alone.
- Bereft of strength, and far away my friends.
His legs were trembling. If he let go it would all be finished. It would be so easy to let go. He would slip back into the air that was softer than feathers. He would fall.
So easy.
His head hurt where a falling rock had clipped it earlier in the climb. The short-cropped hair there was stiff with blood. He had dried blood on his fingers, torn by grappling with the cliff.
He was so tired.
So cold.
If he let go, no more pain. No more fear. It would all be over. But they would make rude songs about him.
They would liken him to spattered bird dung.
- Look up.
- Look up, arse-wipe. Up!
- How far?
- Only thirty paces.
Only thirteen paces to the dragon's lair. There were ten leagues to a march - twenty thousand paces - and often he had made two marches between sunrise and sunset. Would thirty paces defeat him now? If he had been a man-sized fly he could have walked those thirty paces on a single breath of air.
- Look up.
- The only chance is up. Will the left hand hold you? The left hand held him. He stretched. The handhold
was out of reach. But only just. Should he jump? It wasn't far. But when a man is on a cliff-face where even to flex his knees may be precarious, when he has climbed so far, with so much pain, with so much fear.. .
- But there's no other choice.
- So jump!
Hearst boosted himself up, to find his fear had previously cramped him to a crouch even when he thought he was at full stretch. He gained the handhold. One hand on. Two!
Easy.
His feet slipped, scrabbled, then found their resting place. Then slipped again. Then half his handhold crumbled away to nothing. His left hand clawed at the air. He was hanging by one hand only
. His fingers began to slide.
Then his flailing hand found a crevice.
- Hold me, woman-rock. It held.
His feet found purchase. Two hands on. Two feet on. And he could see his next handhold. He reached for it, gained it. Up. To the next. The next. He climbed, animated by a burst of fury, raging at himself for letting
fear trick him into thinking he needed to jump for that crucial handhold - appalled at how close he had come to throwing his life away.
Climbing with a furious effort which threatened to burst his heart, he reached a crack running vertically to the gaping cleft which was the entrance to the dragon's lair. The chimney widened; he wedged his body inside it, and rested. His rage died away, replaced by shuddering exhaustion.
- Cling to the rock. Cling to the rock. Like darkness, like mother. Like warmth and hot milk after cold rain; like mother. Is that part of the warrior's way? Longing for milk and for mother? Is it? What are you, Hearst?