by Hugh Cook
Looking at the night sky, Hearst saw the red star they called the Golem's Eye was low on the horizon formed by the cliffs on the other side of the lake. Where were the guards? He could hear no murmur of conversation, and there was rto fire burning. So they were probably asleep - or lying in the night with their throats cut.
Blackwood coughed in his sleep and shifted restlessly. Garash, in his dreams, murmured something:
'Again,' said Garash, 'Again . . .'
The words were in the High Speech. So Phyphor had spoken the truth. Hearst could understand the High Speech of wizards, and perhaps he would also live a thousand years.
Then he heard something else. The splash of water. Once, twice . . . thrice. Getting to his knees, Hearst peered towards the water. He could dimly make out a man standing there. The shadowy figure jerked, and there was a splash ... a splash . . . and a third splash further out. Someone was skipping stones.
Again.
A stone kicked white splashes from the water once, twice, three times . .. then a fourth, far out and distant, so that one could not be sure whether it was the stone hitting the water one last time or a fish jumping.
The man did not throw another stone, but stood staring out across the dark water for so long that Hearst had time enough to think of other things, like the hollow hunger in his stomach. Eventually the figure returned to the camp, moving cautiously to keep down
noise, though he was not skilful enough to move soundlessly.
He sat down by the black ruins of a fire and raked the ashes with a stick till red embers pulsed and glowed. Hearst watched him blow on the ashes, and heard him whisper soft, loving words, as one might whisper to a favourite horse. Then the man threw a handful of dry leaves onto the embers. Flames kicked up, showing Hearst it was Comedo who sat there, fascinated, watching the fire.
Comedo fed the fire with scraps of bark, twig and leaf until it had consumed everything that had been set aside for kindling in the morning. Blackwood coughed. Comedo walked over to inspect his suffering, and Hearst thought how easily Comedo could have killed Blackwood as he lay helpless there . . . how easily Comedo could have killed any of them.
Suddenly Comedo was gone. Air slapped into the blank space left by his retreat into the bottle. Hearst stood up, feeling his joints creak, and walked without a sound to the edge of the lake. It was as black as a mouth which might with a soundless suction pull him in deeper and darker than drowning; it was as black as the underground river and the dreams which floated down that river. But there were stars reflected in that obsidian blackness. Star, white star, guiding star . . .
- The kick of the sea, yes. The stars above, waves breaking white on a dark shore, yes, and all aboard knowing which shore it was. Rovac, and journey's end. Yes. Remember that. You will see it again some day: the waves breaking on the shores of Rovac. Ah, but when?
He was sick, yes, homesick.
- Preach me no lovesongs for distant lands. We have at least this: a windless night beside fresh water. Night, and the promise of dawn. That should be enough for any warrior-man of Rovac. Hast, half-brother, blood
brother, there will be another morning for us, and that is enough. Some of the stars went out.
Hearst looked up. Something in the sky blotted out stars, extinguished whole constellations as if a giant had flung a black cape across the night sky. The shadow moved as he watched. Something was flying up there! It was huge. He remembered Maf: the dark cave, the huge beast, the folded wings . . . now the wings were in the sky above him. The dragon wheeled low. Hearst was certain they had been seen: but the wings passed above the cliffs and were gone.
Hearst - his hand on the hilt of Hast - waited for the wings to return. They did not. He was glad he had been the only one to see it: he did not want the camp to panic. He turned away from the lake and with a shock saw Comedo standing watching him. He had not heard Comedo re-emerge from the bottle. Hearst stepped towards him. Comedo turned the ring on his finger and vanished again.
Gone.
What a prize that bottle would be, if only they could get into it. There would be food in there. And wine -body of the grape, body of the sun. Hearst had seen Valarkin supervising the loading of the bottle. He had seen wine taken in by the barrel, wine and food and featherdown quilts. What else had gone into that bottle? Did Comedo have a woman in there? Body soft as bread, body warmer than the sun.
- Kill him then. Set a trap. Kill him when he slips out to enjoy the stars again. If he ventures the sun, it will be easier still.
Hearst found the guards asleep, as he had suspected. He found the one he had appointed guard commander, and laid sharp steel across the man's throat. The man opened his eyes and stared up with a rigid, unblinking stare. Hearst held the sword there for ten or twenty heartbeats - ten of his, twenty of his victim's - then he withdrew the blade.
'You stand watch till morning.'
* * *
Morgan Hearst slept long and late, and woke to the sound of voices and occasional laughter. It pleased his heart to see his men working on their gear, gathering water snails, or collecting algae to boil and eat. Some were fishing, using pumice for floats for their lines; the light grey volcanic rock, full of air bubbles, floated lighter and higher than cork.
Elkor Alish was still asleep, lazy as a turtle basking in the sun. Let him sleep then. Hearst would organise things. Morgan Hearst would cope with the world of rock, sun, water, rust and steel. But he despised Alish for letting control and self-control escape him - and wondered what had gone wrong.
Hearst found Miphon turning two birds on a spit over a bright fire.
'You can cook better over a bed of hot coals,' said Hearst, squatting down by the fire.
'Yes,' said Miphon, 'but I'm hungry.'
There was grease on the flesh; Hearst could have eaten a barrel of grease. Give him an ox and he would have eaten it entire, meat, marrow and bones together.
'Did you sleep well?' said Miphon.
'Well enough.'
T woke in the night,' said Miphon. 'And?'
i saw you. I saw what you saw.' 'What do you suggest we do?' Miphon shrugged.
Hearst picked up one of the feathers which had been scattered when the birds had been plucked; he twirled it between his fingers.
'How did you catch the birds?' said Hearst.
T called them to me.'
'Magic must make life easier.'
'There's nothing easy about the Meditations,' said Miphon. 'That's how we build power. And how we preserve the Balance.'
'What is the Balance?'
'The universe was created with a will to ordained order which attempts to destroy any anomaly, particularly one as gross as a wizard. The Balance is the field of force - a sphere built of willpower - which we create to preserve ourselves. The more power a wizard accumulates, the greater an anomaly he becomes, so the more work he must do to preserve the Balance.'
i knew a man who used to talk like that,' said Hearst, 'but only when he was drunk.'
Miphon smiled. Little rankled with him: he was difficult to upset. Warriors lived by their skill with weapons, which they valued above all else; warriors found it hard to concede that they were no match for most wizards, and disparaging wizards was a natural way for warriors to protect their delicate egos.
'But what does it mean?' said Hearst. 'What does the Balance mean? In simple terms?'
'What's the secret of leadership?' said Miphon. 'In simple terms?'
initiative,' said Hearst instantly.
'So that's the secret,' said Miphon. 'Give a man that word and he'll lead armies to conquest.'
'Not quite.'
No, it was not that easy. A leader needed combat skills to meet any blade-challenge from the ranks. He must know when to kick and curse, when to praise and flatter. He must become a diplomat to deal with priests and princes. On campaigns, he must make swift, sound decisions on the basis of scanty information. He must know when to advance, retreat or parley, and must be always seeking ways
to keep his enemies unsettled and off balance. That was the beginning of it: but there was much more.
'Quite not quite,' said Miphon. 'A single word cannot 250
hold the secret. In a word, that simple word you want, the Balance is harmony. If a wizard cannot achieve it then the quest for power will kill him. What do you want now - a lecture on the applied metaphysics of self-determined intelligences, or a piece of this scrawny fowl?'
'Compared to me, the bird's positively fat,' said Hearst. 'I'd love a piece.'
As they ate, Hearst remembered - vaguely, as one may remember words spoken in dreams - why Stronghold Handfast was so important. Its makers, long dead and forgotten, had mastered the art of creating architecture which would protect its inhabitants against the force in the universe which would attempt to destroy an anomaly. Once there, Heenmor, having no need to divert any of his energy to the preservation of the Balance, would be able to devote all his powers to the study of the death-stone.
Hearst tried to remember what Stronghold Handfast looked like. He was irritated to find that he could not picture it clearly. But he could remember what it was built of: millions of blocks, variously blue, green, red, and yellow, each block as shiny as glass, and each block no larger than a man's thumb.
He stopped eating.
'What's the matter?' said Miphon. 'You look very peculiar. Have you found worms in the meat?' i was . . .' 'What?'
'Nothing,' said Hearst. 'Nothing.'
Miphon chewed a bit of meat in a meditative way, the sharper pangs of his hunger now appeased; he swallowed, spat out a small piece of bone, then, suspecting the source of Hearst's discomfort, spoke:
'You'll find you've inherited at least some of Phyphor's memories along with things like a knowledge of the High Speech. You won't have access to those memories at first, because they'll be completely disor
ganised to begin with. However
'What?' said Hearst, in alarm. 'He'll take over my mind?'
'He's dead,' said Miphon. 'The mind-masters are the wizards of Ebber, not the wizards of Arl.'
'But if I'm thinking thoughts that aren't mine -'
'Then what? Are you ever afraid your dreams will take you over? No? Then look on these memories as a new set of dreams - only it's usual to forget dreams, bit by bit. These dreams you'll recall. Slowly. Sometimes a word may help the recall - not a magic word, just one with special meaning. Consider this one: Araconch.'
Araconch.
Hearst thought about it, and smelt . . . dried ink. Remembered faded lines crawling across parchment. An inscription in a crabbed hand: Here Be Dragons. Irritation at hearing someone laugh, in, of all places, the Sourcing Room: the Map Room. Maps. Of course . ..
'These are the Araconch waters,' said Hearst, indicating the expanse of lake. 'To the north . . . difficult country . . . then . . . the Blue Lakes, yes. Then the Broken Lands. A river... if we can get that far, then the river will take us to Kalatanastral, the city of glass . . . from there, yes, the Ringwall Mountains themselves. . .'
Hearst fell silent, thinking of the distances they had to cover. Since he had orientated himself by sun and stars, he knew they were in the north-west quadrant of the lake; they would have to march north for about fifty leagues over broken country to reach the Blue Lakes, after which another fifty leagues or so would take them to a tributary of the Amodeo River.
If they could find or make a boat, three hundred leagues or so by river would bring them to Kalatanastral, from where it would be about seventy leagues across plains, hills and mountains to the towers of Stronghold Handfast. All in all, the better part of five hundred leagues.
'They say the winters here are harsh,' said Hearst.
'Then we should make all speed to try and reach Stronghold Handfast before the snows,' said Miphon.
'How soon can the soldiers travel?'
'The worm-sick man will be dead by tomorrow,' said Miphon, working a bird's tail feather into his faded, weatherstained hat, which, stored in his pack throughout the underground journey to this southern lake, looked almost too decrepit to withstand the sunlight.
'And the others?'
'Give them ten days or so to rest and harden their skin to the sun.' 'What about Blackwood?'
i think... I think he won't survive the winter. But he should still be able to travel with us.'
T had a dream,' said Hearst. 'I had a dream that he might be cured by a draught of the blood of a dragon and the blood of a man.'
Miphon guessed that Hearst, falling asleep, had heard Miphon telling Blackwood about the cure for his illness, and had worked the words into his dream.
'A dream is a dream,' said Miphon, dismissing it.
Miphon knew Hearst owed his life to Blackwood, thanks to the episode at the lopsloss pit; the last thing Miphon wanted was for Hearst to throw his own life away in a reckless attempt to kill a dragon for blood with which to redeem Blackwood's life.
'So there's no saving him,' said Hearst.
'He might last a little longer if we could shelter him in the green bottle. But of course Valarkin's taken the ring.'
'I'd thought of setting a trap for Comedo,' said Hearst, 'but that might be difficult since a twist of a ring can take him from us. Any ideas?'
'Grab him,' said Miphon. if he uses the ring you'll be pulled inside with him, where you can overpower him.'
'Good,' said Hearst.
'What will you do with him when you catch him?' 253
'I've nothing special in mind,' said Hearst. 'AH I want is the ring. But if I could get my hands on Valarkin - I'd roast him over a slow fire till his bones blubbered.'
Valarkin, refusing them the use of the green bottle after Durnwold's death at Ep Pass, had cost many men their lives, for no good reason. Thinking of the geography of Argan, Hearst realised that once Valarkin found the outlet from the lake, he would be on the Velvet River, which would take him downstream through the Manaray Gorge and the Kingdom of Chenameg to the Harvest Plains and the city of Selzirk.
Once the expedition had recovered the death-stone, if their path to the south took them through Selzirk, then Hearst, perhaps, might get a chance to hunt Valarkin down. He wondered whether to inscribe another death-pledge on his sword, to stand alongside the rune which marked his vow to take the life of the spy, Volaine Persaga Haveros. He decided against it. Haveros, though an oath-breaker, was a warrior: Valarkin was simply vermin, unworthy of the honour of a death-pledge.
Digesting food slowly, Hearst began to plan how he would ready his men for the journey north. First, they would catch lots of fish, and smoke them; with that, plus the little remaining siege dust, they would be able to cross the broken country to the north.
Miphon, with fewer immediate worries, lay back and looked at the sky, scanning the birds. He looked as if he was at peace, but he was not. There was a problem he had not quite solved. At Ep Pass, when the rocks had started to move, one had charged for the men, killing five and injuring Phyphor before demolishing three rafts and plunging to its destruction in the waters of the river.
No rock had charged after that.
In the panic of those moments, Miphon had found the minds of the rocks wide open, and had managed to control them sufficiently to stop any further charges. If
he ever again met rocks which had been liberated by the death-stone, would he be able to gain complete control over them? How many could he control at once? And for how long? Such questions might one day mean the difference between life and death.
Overhead, wheeling through the clear empyrean, was a bird. Miphon sensed its special kind of remorseless questing, and named it for what it was: vulture. If he chose, he could call it down by deluding it into thinking it saw dead men lying there. Miphon did not hesitate: vultures were edible, and he was still hungry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Elkor Alish pioneered the climb from the lakeside, risking his life on slopes of rotten rock while the others caught fish, roasted crickets, and pounded roots to a pulp to try and make
them edible. Tackling precipices which made others blanch, Alish slowly regained his confidence; perched on a high ledge amid a region of drifting steam and boiling waterfalls, he felt a sense of superiority as he looked down on those below.
They had survived. The underground journey could now be seen as a test, a necessary preliminary to greatness. A warrior should welcome such tests, for they eliminated those who were weak in body or in spirit. When he finally closed his hand round the death-stone, he would know he had earned it, and that his sufferings justified his claim to the power.
By killing Heenmor at Ep Pass - and dying in the act - he would have spared his men their underground journey. However, the wizards would have taken the death-stone south, thwarting the destiny of Rovac. Surveying the world from heights which diminished the men below to ants, Alish knew that history required and justified the sufferings of their underground journey.
Elkor Alish knew of gods darker than most men's imaginings, and feared them, but what he really worshipped was the historical process which selected and trained men like himself; he saw himself in terms of the history of his people, the purpose of his existence being to administer the justice of the dead and destroy Rovac's ancient, evil enemies.