by Hugh Cook
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Twenty leagues from the Castle of Controlling Power, the travellers came upon the skeleton of one of the Neversh. Hearst and Blackwood, who had never seen such a thing, examined it with fascination. From the twin feeding spikes to the tip of the whiplash tail, it was two hundred paces long.
‘it's . . . it's a little larger than it looks on a chess board,' said Hearst.
'They grow bigger than this,' said Miphon.
Hearst chipped away at one of the feeding spikes with his sword. The delicate interior structure reminded him of honeycomb.
i thought these spikes would be solid ivory,' said Hearst.
'That's what many people have thought,' said Miphon. if it was, it would hardly be left lying here. Besides, it'd be too heavy to fly. All the bones are light -but strong.'
The arch of the ribcage was huge, bulbous.
'There are sacs inside here,' said Miphon. 'Full of lighter gas. The Neversh find it easy to get off the ground, because of all the lighter gas inside them.'
'What's lighter gas?' said Hearst.
it's a kind of air that floats within air," said Miphon.
i don't understand.'
if you have oil and water, the oil will float on the water. If you have lighter gas and air, the lighter gas will float on the air. Do you see now?'
'Maybe,' said Hearst.
He examined the thin vein-structure of the wings. 473
which remained even though the actual tissue of the wings was gone.
'It looks clumsy," said Hearst.
'You forget the tail,' said Miphon. 'That's very mobile. It's armed with poison. It can move fast as a bullock-whip. It's said the tail's sometimes fast enough to deflect a crossbow bolt.'
'What damage could a crossbow do anyway to a thing this size?' said Hearst.
'With a quarrel through the ribs, all the gas goes out from the inside,' said Miphon. 'Then the Neversh can't fly. It falls.'
'Why doesn't it fly higher? Out of range of crossbows?'
'The higher it goes, the more danger of meeting a high-flying wind that would blow it away,' said Miphon. 'Because they're so light, the Neversh have trouble controlling their own mass in flight. That's one reason why mountains are a good barrier against the Swarms. Most of the ones that live on the ground, like keflos, can't climb very well over rocks, and the Neversh get blown away by the updrafts you find in the mountains.'
'It's absurd for a flying creature to fly so badly,' said Hearst.
'Perhaps,' said Blackwood, 'But we've got an insect like this in Estar.'
'An insect? I didn't see it,' said Hearst.
'It was there to be seen, all the same,' said Blackwood. 'It's called the hubble fly. It has to puff itself up with air before it can fly - though it uses just ordinary air, none of this fancy lighter gas you've been talking about. Then when it flies it's very clumsy. It's about the size of my thumb.'
'There are lots of things that fly that don't do it very well,' said Miphon. 'Chickens, for one thing. Anyway, the Neversh came long ago from the deserts of the Deep South. They've got no trouble with mountains there.'
Hearst struck at one of the ribs with his sword, then sheathed his blade.
'Pity the poor hubble fly,' said Hearst. 'Too big and clumsy to fly properly.'
He spoke lightly, but could not suppress a memory he had inherited from the wizard Phyphor. Twisted shapes against the sky, twisted screams in the noon-day sun. Words of power. A blast of flame. The darkest fears of nightmare animated by the full power of day. Some broke, some ran. Some stayed to stand against the Neversh . . .
If war broke out between the orders of wizards, and they failed to guard the flame trench Drangsturm, the Swarms would spread north as they had in the days of the Long War. They would soon reach Narba, then would follow the Salt Road north. Before long, they would be at Selzirk. The very thought of it was nightmarish.
At dayfail, they camped; they were still seven leagues from the Castle of Controlling Power. Here, close to Drangsturm, the Salt Road ran beside the sea.
'Would it be safe to have a fire this close to the castle?' said Hearst.
'Of course,' said Miphon. 'Landguard patrols are always out and about in the countryside. Nobody will think it odd if they happen to see a fire here.'
They gathered driftwood from the beach in the gloaming then lit a fire. From the shadows of an island to the west, a pinprick of fire answered their own.
'There's someone on that island,' said Hearst.
'That's Burntos,' said Miphon. 'The Landguard keeps a permanent garrison there, because the Neversh sometimes fly out to the west, skirting round the end of Drangsturm, trying not to be seen. Often the Neversh rest on that island.'
Waves from the darkened sea tumbled up the beach, roiling seaweed, shells, barnacles and bones with armoured remnants of creatures of the Swarms.
'Will we be safe tonight?' said Blackwood.
'From the Swarms, yes,' said Miphon. 'None of those creatures moves in the hours of darkness.'
That night, the southern horizon was lit by a red glow; the flames of the Great Dyke, Drangsturm, illuminated the clouds. The next morning, drawing closer to the flame trench, the travellers began to hear its steady, regular, rumbling roar.
Then the Castle of Controlling Power came in sight, a chaotic farrago of spires, battlements and buttresses swirling around the central sky-punching upthrust of the Prime Tower. Hearst, who had previously consulted Phyphor's memories of the castle, had thought them jumbled and distorted beyond belief; he was shocked to find the castle matched the anarchic memories precisely.
'When we get to the castle,' said Miphon, 'let me speak for ail of us.'
'Agreed,' said Hearst.
He scarcely saw the blue ocean, the dull landscape, the stones of the Salt Road. All his attention was taken by the bizarre architectural monstrosity ahead of him, the product of eight orders of wizards, each with different ideas as to what should be built, finally raising a monument to ego that would, surely, have been enough to send any sensible draughtsman insane.
'Are you impressed?' said Miphon.
it would look good if it was made of marzipan,' said Hearst, trying to make some sense out of a particularly confused array of gates, bridges, moats, arches and overhangs.
'So it's not your style,' said Miphon.
'Whose nightmare was the guiding inspiration?'
it's not that bad,' said Miphon.
isn't it?' said Hearst.
'Wizards are not warriors,' said Blackwood. 476
'When did you find that out?' said Hearst, his tone bantering. 'Certainly wizards are not warriors. No lighting man would build a monstrosity like that.'
'Still, you are impressed, aren't you?' said Miphon.
'Yes,' said Hearst. 'Insanity on a grand scale can be impressive. And this is. After Chi'ash-lan, I thought stonework could surprise me no further. At Stronghold Handfast I learnt otherwise: and now I've been proved twice wrong.'
They marched on to the main gate of the castle. Each of the eight orders had built itself a gate; the main gate, built by the order of Oparatu, was the one which had proved most convenient for travellers coming from the Salt Road.
At the main gate they were met by a detachment of the Landguard dressed in ceremonial skyblue uniforms. They were challenged; Miphon identified himself, naming Blackwood and Hearst as his servants, to get them into the castle without argument. The head of the guard gave them permission to enter.
i wish to find the head of the Confederation,' said Miphon. i have urgent business. Who fills that position this month? And where will I find him?'
'This month it's Brother Fern Feathers of the order of Seth,' said the head of the guard. 'You'll find him in the Chamber of Communal Consent.'
'Why there?' said Miphon. is there a general gathering?'
'There is,' said the guard. 'There has been each and every day for the last forty-two days.'
'Forty-two days! That's
unheard of! What's happening?'
'You tell me, then we'll both know. And I'd truly love to be told. Any truth, no matter how bad, would be better than the rumours we're living with. I don't deal in rumours - not me. But I hear them, all the same. The latest, master, says contagious madness is loose in the castle.'
'That's impossible,' said Miphon.
T know,' said the trooper. 'But many of my men have deserted because of that rumour. We must have a truth, and soon.'
'I'll deliver a truth to you myself,' said Miphon. 'Today.'
'Good. My name is Karendor of the Silk, but if you're asking your way from one of my gutter-mouthed men, ask for Old Bootstrap.'
There was suppressed laughter amongst the men of Karendor's Landguard detachment.
iil be in the Meneren barracks if I'm not here,' said Karendor.
'I'll find you,' promised Miphon, and led Hearst and Blackwood into the depths of the Castle of Controlling Tower.
* * *
The maze within was, in many ways, stranger than Stronghold Handfast, where the travellers had, so many months ago, found Heenmor's dead body. The alien style of Stronghold Handfast had still had a basis in logic, its floors, roofs, stairways and doorways having rational connections with each other. In the Castle of Controlling Power, madness had run amok.
To Hearst and Blackwood, the building at first seemed to have been created for giants. The egos of the makers had demanded huge foyers, immense arches, ceilings rising to giddy heights, pillars greater than any forest tree, and walls built from gargantuan blocks of stone. This inhuman scale was combined with an absence of any appreciation of principles of natural lighting. Everywhere was gloom, dusk, shadows, darkness, except where firestones glowed ochre in the cavernous depths.
The castle had taken seven hundred years to build, and showed the results of wizards arguing for seven
hundred years over the design. In places, corridors ran into solid walls, or ended in pits a quarter of a league deep, which had no discernible purpose whatsoever. One arched opening, a hundred paces high, was almost completely blocked by a solid ball made out of millions of bricks held together by mortar.
'If we get separated here, we'll never find our way out,' said Blackwood.
'I can remember the way back,' said Hearst.
'Can you?' said Miphon. 'Now I am impressed!'
Echoes from their voices wandered through the heights of the world's greatest monument to dissonance. It took a long time to reach the Chamber of Communal Consent.
* * *
When, after immense labours, the Castle of Controlling Power had been finished, it had held eight meeting chambers. Any one of them could have served as a common gathering place, but no order would consent to meeting in a hall designed by another order. Yet nobody wanted to go on holding meetings in the open air, which was inconvenient, undignified, and, at times, dangerous.
When the castle had been nominally finished, its centre was a confusion of narrow corridors, tunnels, arches, pillars, walls and cells where the ambitions of all eight orders had clashed. This space was useless. After much argument, the wizards had agreed to demolish enough of the masonry to create a central meeting place. The Chamber of Communal Consent was the result: an irregular hall with three hundred ways in and out of it.
Miphon, Hearst and Blackwood made a quiet entrance, slipping unnoticed into the gloom of the meeting place. In that place, lit only by ochre firestones - it had no windows - strangers could not be identified
as such very easily, since a face could scarcely be made out at a range of ten paces.
It smelt, badly, of musty old men, pipe smoke, and the strange, penetrating odour or quelaquire, the keflo-oil used by wizards to help preserve manuscripts. It was filled with muttering, arthritic voices; hundreds of wizards were gathered in groups, arguing, conferring, advising, rumouring; they sounded like a conclave of people many years dead in a limbo far beyond the life of the living.
Hearst and Blackwood wondered what was happening, but did not dare ask; Miphon knew that a meeting must have broken up so members of the various orders could caucus. All had perfect privacy: the acoustics of the place were so bad that it took a determined effort to make oneself heard over any distance in the best of circumstances.
As Miphon led them toward the throne occupied by the head of the Confederation for that month, Brother Fern Feathers, Hearst and Blackwood cast covert glances at the wizards they passed. Such old men! Gnarled, driftwood faces; faded eyes; weathered, liver-spot skin; creaking voices; withered beards. And so many of them!
Drawing near Brother Fern Feathers, they saw that, standing beside him, and talking earnestly, was a fat wizard. The travellers were almost at the throne before they saw the fat wizard was Garash.
'Withdraw,' murmured Miphon.
But it was too late.
Garash saw them.
'Rovac warriors!' roared Garash.
Those two words, like powerful magic, silenced all conversation in the room. All heads turned to see who was in their midst. Garash pointed:
'Rovac warriors!'
'Let's run,' said Miphon, quietly but urgently. 'No,' said Hearst, as wizards crowded in. 'No chance.
We'll have to talk our way out of this one.'
'We have, at any rate,' said Blackwood, 'their full attention.'
Some of the wizards activated strange devices which glowed with green and purple fire, illuminating the visitors. The air became hot, dry. It shimmered. The concentrated presence of so many anomalies stressed the very universe almost beyond endurance.
'They're under my protection!' shouted Miphon. 'As a wizard of Nin, I give them my protection.'
He did not try to explain that Blackwood was not a Rovac warrior. He saw fear, hatred, bloodlust in the faces closing in around them. This was no time for complicated arguments.
Hearst put his hand to the hilt of Hast, but knew it would be useless to match steel against the collective power of these wizards. From the look on the faces confronting him, he knew he was very close to death.
'They have my countenance!' cried Miphon. 'They come as an embassy!'
'We should endure this?' shouted Garash. 'Rovac warriors? Here? I say no - whatever their pretence.'
Muttering approval greeted his words. Hearst had faced mobs in the past, in times when cities under Rovac control had rioted, but he had never seen anything like this harsh, muttering, deadly earnest hatred. What to do? Die like a man: that was all he could do.
It was Blackwood who found the solution. Long researches in the memories Phyphor had bequeathed to him had revealed many of their secrets. One chance: one chance only. Blackwood pointed, throwing out his arm so all could follow the gesture. He pointed to Garash.
'You! I accuse! I accuse you! Garash, wizard of Arl, I accuse you of a crime against the Confederation of Wizards. Of murder! Of killing the wizard Phyphor!'
'Lies!' shouted Garash.
'I have witnesses!' shouted Blackwood. 'I name as my chief witness the Rovac warrior Morgan Hearst. Here he stands, a mortal man yet twice a dragonslayer.'
'Rovac warriors!' yelled Garash. 'Rovac lies!'
'It's true,' roared Hearst, in a battlefield voice.
'Kill them!' came a cry. Then:
'Scrag them under!' The hooks, the hooks!' 'Claw-bones the raggage!' 'Kala-kola ga!' 'Furrow their kidneys!' 'Batter them!'
'Silence!' boomed Brother Fern Feathers, who had a big voice of his own. 'Silence, by the Rule of Law!'
The tumult muttered down enough for Miphon to make himself heard:
'It is true. The accusation is true. Garash did murder our expedition leader. He did kill Phyphor. By the Rule of Law I swear it.'
'A trial,' said Brother Fern Feathers. 'No, Garash! I rule for your silence. Hear me out. We will have a trial in due course. The Rule of Law must be obeyed. Otherwise, we truly will have war within these walls.'
Miphon allowed himself a sigh of relief. A trial might take months. That would leave
plenty of time for negotiations, diplomacy, explanations - or escape, if escape proved necessary. The greatest danger had always been that wizards, discovering a Rovac warrior in their midst, would be tempted to instant murder. Now - or so Miphon thought - the moment of greatest danger was past.
But Brother Fern Feathers was continuing:
'Meanwhile, leaving aside this matter of murder, we must call on these newcomers to make their contribution to our present debate.'
Til not be debated over by Rovac warriors!' shouted Garash.
This roused another chorus of angry murmurs, which Brother Fern Feathers quelled with difficulty.
'Only Miphon will speak to our debates,' said Brother Fern Feathers. 'The Rovac warriors will be given no
voice until the trial, which is another matter entirely. Miphon here is our fellow wizard. He's the one I'll ask to speak.'
'Speak on what?' said Miphon. 'What are you debating?'
'The propriety of certain actions - quite aside from the question of killing - which have been undertaken by Garash,' said Brother Fern Feathers. 'For days we've debated whether to accept the tales and excuses Garash has given us. Let me review his claims, for your benefit - and also to clarify our own thoughts on . . .'