The Wicked and the Witless coaaod-5

by Hugh Cook

  'Blood!' said Jarl. You never told me about this. What is it?'

  'Dragon, pillar, and many workings delved deep in the cliff are all part of Castle X-n'dix,' said Epelthin Elkin. 'It was built by the Dissidents, of whom you may have heard.'

  None denied knowledge of the Dissidents, for none wished to provoke a lecture.

  'Let's be finding this gate,' said Jarl. 'The sooner we get out of the rain the better.'

  Shortly they were at the foot of the heights, which rose above them in terrors of precipice and overhang, bare cliff and frowning tor. The rock was near awash with rain, for the sturm und drang of the day's advent had given way to a sullen, unrelenting downpour.

  And there was the gate, a squarebuilt door five times man height. Raindrops shunned its surface, which was a dark, dark blue stained with streaks of opaline iri- descence. Sarazin ventured his fingertips forward. Found the surface smooth, warm, dry, and alive with tentative vibrations. 'Is this the door to the dragon castle?' said he.

  'This is but the Eastern Passage Gate, giving access to a way beneath the castle,' said Elkin. 'Explanations later,' said Jarl. 'Open it!'

  'Stand Heth some distance hence,' said Elkin. 'It would not do for him to learn the Word.'

  Glambrax menaced Heth with his crossbow, and the bandit withdrew while Elkin muttered. But whatever the Word was of which he spoke, Sarazin heard it not.

  Nevertheless, the door… vanished. One moment it was there: the next it was gone.

  Sarazin stared down the passageway within, which was lit by a flickering blood-red light. To his horror, he saw the heads of dragons in legion staring at him. 'Onward!' said Jarl.

  As the Rovac warrior strode past the nearest dragon head, Sarazin saw it was but a lamp of bizarre make jutting from the wall at manheadheight.

  Soon all five – Jarl, Sarazin, Elkin, Glambrax and Heth – were in the passage. Then Elkin muttered another Word, and the door manifested itself, sealing out the windclap rain and leaving them in a sudden silence. Silence? Dripping clothes… Epelthin Elkin still breathing harshly…

  'Well,' said Sarazin, lamely. 'So we're safe.' Then, with a degree of apprehension: 'But where does the tunnel lead?'

  'Onward,' said Jarl. The sooner we get going, the sooner we'll find out.' 'I don't know about you,' said Heth, 'but I'm poked.'

  So saying, the bandit from Stokos sat himself down beneath one of the dragon lamps. Glambrax, war-roaring, bounded up and down before another such lamp, making faces at it. 'Glambrax!' said Sarazin. 'Enough of that! Sit down!' 'No time for sitting,' insisted Jarl. 'Onward!'

  But the vote was against him, so, with the others, he sat. Glambrax then began to scratch himself. In a frenzy, his hands clawed through his hair, as if legions of lice had infested his locks. Then his hands delved beneath his clothing, groped in his armpits, fumbled his crotch. All the while his heels drummed on the floor. Sarazin could not be bothered to shout at him.

  You were speaking earlier,' said Jarl, 'of the people who built this place.' 'Ah yes, the Dissidents,' said Elkin. The Dissidents, you see, were those wizards who refused to join the Alliance of wizards and heroes formed back in the days of the Long War when the Skull of the Deep South threatened all of Argan with the menace of the Swarms.' That had been many years ago indeed.

  'Well,' said Heth, 'go on. What happened to them? They're not here now, that's for sure. Did the Alliance go to war with them, perhaps?'

  'It is written in the Chalobshadala Chronicles,' said Epelthin Elkin, 'that the Dissidents kept themselves to themselves all through the Long War, which lasted over two hundred years. When the war was over, the Dissidents were nowhere to be seen.' 'So where did they go?' said Heth.

  Tour guess is as good as mine,' said Elkin. 'Some claim the Dissidents fled to another plane of reality, while others hold that they removed themselves to Veda, and live hidden among the Sages even to this day.'

  Tell me,' said Heth, 'these Chala-whatsit Chronicles. Are they wizard writings?'

  The Chalobshadala Chronicles are indeed wizard writings,' said Elkin, 'I came to know them well in the years of my youth, when I worked as a scribe in Narba.' 'So you're a scribe!' said Heth.

  'What did you take me for?' said Elkin. 'A bootblack? I trained in Narba as an all-round scholar. Both scribe and translator, and accountant as well.'

  Sarazin, knowing Elkin to be a wizard, thought the lie so obvious as to be unbelievable. Surely Jarl must realise by now that Elkin was a wizard., But Jarl showed no signs of doubt. Neither did Heth, who said:

  'So you were trained in Narba. What brought you to Hok with an army?'

  'Scholarship is difficult for my aging eyes,' said Elkin, 'so I thought war might give me an easier living.'

  It was not much of a joke, but Heth, who had a ready sense of humour, fell about laughing.

  It's not that funny,' said Jarl, who in fact found it not funny at all. 'I know, I know,' said Heth. 'But, still…'

  In truth, he was exhausted beyond endurance, and if he had not succumbed to laughter then in all likelihood he would have given way to tears.

  'Those fit enough to laugh are fit enough to march,' said Jarl.

  And eventually persuaded the refugees to dare on down the passage.

  After every hundred dragon lamps, they passed yellow doors to left and to right.

  'These doors lead to the Underkeep,' said Elkin. 'Great are its wonders, but they are known by hearsay only, for but a single man ever managed to open those doors. He explored the Underkeep for days – but died shortly after exiting its labyrinth.'

  After five hundred dragon lamps – a long and weary march indeed – they found a pair of white doors standing opposite a matching pair of black doors.

  'These are also mentioned in the ancient writings,' said Elkin. 'If the writings can be trusted, the black doors give access to a room which flies from here to the heights of the Greater Tower of X-n'dix. The white doors give access to the Lesser Tower likewise. But the secret of opening both black doors and white has been lost.'

  'So you say,' said Jarl, 'but it seems you know little of wizards. On Rovac we know full well that the archives of the Confederation of Wizards run unbroken back to the days of the Long War. Indeed – to certain events which preceded that war.'

  'There are such things as moths,' said Elkin mildly. 'Moths, fires, floods and so forth. In any case, remember it was the Dissidents who built this complex, not the wizards of the Confederation.'

  'Do the surviving records tell us,' said Heth, 'how much further we must march to reach this tunnel's end?' 'Why, we are half way along this passage,' said Elkin,

  'for the white and black doors mark its midpoint. At the end we'll find a door which exits to daylight.'

  'You mean,' said Sarazin, in dismay, 'we can't get into the castle at all?'

  'We are within Castle X-n'dix already,' said Elkin, 'for this passage, like the Underkeep, the Lesser Tower and the Greater Tower, are all parts of that stronghold. But certainly for the moment we're limited to this passage only.' 'And later?' said Jarl.

  'If we can climb to the Lesser Tower, I believe I can open a door to the interior of that tower,' said Elkin.

  'What will we find then?' said Jarl. 'What will we gain?' 'That,' said Elkin, 'I do not know.'

  At last they reached the gate at the end of the Passage. Elkin opened it, and they stumbled outside. Blinking at brilliant sunshine. While they had been toiling under- ground, winds from the sea had cleaved the clouds, and the sun slashed down from a breach of blue sky.

  After the close, oppressive blood-lit gloom of the dragon-lamp passage, the world of day was an amazement of wide-flung vistas, of blood-hot greens and simmering blues, of a million million glints and reflections.

  They had quit the Passage through a gate set in the base of a west-facing cliff. At their feet, leagues of rock-tumbled goat-footed pastureland tumbled away to a mirage-bright sea which lay at least a day's march distant.

  It was hot. Hot and steamy. The
rain-washed world was being baked dry by the sun. Sarazin incautiously glanced at that luminary. His eyes flinched from the blazing white disk. Luxuriant mauve and purple blossoms flared across his landscapes as his watering eyes tried to adjust to the world. Elkin was closing the gate. Heth, without being asked, had already distanced himself from this ceremony: the bandit had wandered off towards a nearby stream. Thodric Jarl was following him. And Sarazin, realising he was quite thirsty, joined them.

  The wrist-thick yet energetic rivulet bubbled up from the rocks at the cliffbase, then went bounding away through its own miniature fern-fringed gorge. Sarazin's knees creaked as he squatted to the water.

  He dipped his hands into the (cold!) water, slushed it round his mouth, gargled, spat, coughed up phlegm, spat again, then handcupped more water and drank. Slowly. Letting the water warm in his mouth before he swallowed it, remembered times in the past when he had greeded down cold water to comfort hunger, only to suffer the iron-uncomfortable weight of it griping in his gut. 'See-see-swaasool' sang a nearby bird.

  Inviting itself to dinner, perhaps? Snails as the hors d'oeuvres, bird as the main course, worms as dessert. 'Swasoo swilasoooo…'

  Sarazin searched for the bird. Saw it perched some seven paces distant on the ruinous bare-bough remnants of what had once been a tree. It was no bigger than his fist, yet as gaudy as a thousand-league emperor. Its white-striped walnut-brown head was crowned with a flame-red ruff; its throat was adorned with emerald; the plumage of its back was gold seeded with sunglints of silver; its breast was a pale blue and its feet were gold again. It was immaculate.

  How did birds manage to look so perfectly turned out so soon after the worst of weather? Sarazin himself looked a mess, and, even without a mirror, he knew it. His thorn-torn dirt-grimed travel-worn hands were evidence enough. 'Swasoo-too-loo!' sang the bird. The edible bird? Only one way to find out.

  'Glambrax,' said Sarazin, in a low and earnest voice. 'Shoot me that bird.'

  'What bird?' said Glambrax, bounding towards him, crossbow in hand.

  By the time the dwarf had assaulted across the terrain to Sarazin's position the bird had, of course, long since flown.

  Never mind,' said Sarazin, in disgust. 'Go and see if you can find something we can eat.'

  Glambrax obeyed, and was soon back with a handful of sheep droppings. 'Are you out of your mind?' said Sarazin.

  'These are fresh!' said Glambrax. 'The turd implies the sheep, does it not?' 'And the sheep the shepherd,' said Jarl. 'Truly,' said Heth, 'and the sky smokes.'

  'What mean you by that?' said Sarazin, thinking Heth was using some obscure, eliptical idiom of his native Stokos. 'Don't you see it?' said Heth. 'Look where I'm pointing.'

  Yes. Indeed. A thin thread of smoke was rising from a coomb some thousand paces distant.

  'Let's not worry about shepherds and their fires,' said Epelthin Elkin. 'Let's be getting to the Lesser Tower.'

  Now, for the first time, Sarazin turned and looked up. Up at least a league-length height of cliff and crag, of thornbush outcrops and lean-grass scrambles to the bone- white sungleam of the dragon-encumbered pinnacle half a league high which was the Greater Tower of Castle X- n'dix. He thought he could see also a smaller structure which might be the Lesser Tower, but: -Whatever's up there can wait.

  I'm in no hurry to go mountaineering,' said Sarazin. Tet's check out this smoke.'

  'There's no mountaineering required,' said Elkin, eager to see more of this Dissident stronghold. Took close! You'll see a way to the heights which a very child could climb.'

  'Well,' said Jarl, 'you being closer to your second child- hood than we are, feel free to go on without us. Mean- while, we're going with Sarazin.'

  Outvoted, Elkin fell in with the rest, and, after a long and uncomfortable walk in damp, chafing clothes, they came upon five huts tucked in amongst the trees of the coomb. Approaching this hamlet, they savoured the smell of woodsmoke, which Sarazin for one found mo§t sug- gestive of cookery, mulled wine, warm beds, dry clothes and other pleasant things.

  After disputing their right to life with half a dozen mangy curs, Sarazin and his comrades became an object of fascination for thirty-seven peasants, most of whom were blond like Heth. 'Anyone got any food?' said Sarazin in his best Churl.

  Laughter and the eager gabble of quick-talking children greeted his cry. 'What did they say?' said Sarazin in bewilderment.

  'Hush,' said Jarl. 'Here's the headman coming out to talk to us.'

  Indeed, the oldster now approaching was the resident patriarch, who went by the name of Ugmug, and had taken it upon himself to deal with the strangers. He spoke a language incomprehensible to all but Heth, who knew it to be the Ligin of Stokos. With Heth as translator, the travellers learnt that the locals called their country X-zox.

  Elkin, his philological curiosity aroused, was ready to swear that the name X-zox, given to this coastal enclave, must be a corruption of X-n'dix, the ancient name for the castle. That suggested a continuous human presence in the enclave for thousands of years.

  (So at least thought Elkin, in his fatigue. Though there are of course other possibilities – such as, for example, that a passing wizard might lately have named X-n'dix to the locals, thus making the corruption recent rather than ancient.)

  'What name do the locals give to the Greater Tower of X-n'dix, and to the Lesser?' said Elkin.

  Heth asked, but, when the answer proved to be grossly obscene, answered that the locals left them unnamed. At which point fatigue overcame philology, and Elkin pursued the matter of names no further.

  Jarl, on the other hand, had questions yet to be answered, so, with Heth still serving as translator, he asked them. What was the coastline like? It was a reach of unbroken cliffs, offering certain death to any ship which tried to hazard a landing. Who ruled the valley? The heads of the families between them. How many people dwelt there? Some five fists of families – perhaps two or three hundred individuals at most. 'Good,' said Jarl. 'What about food?' said Sarazin.

  Heth asked if they might please be given a little food, since they had gone days unfed through all the weathers.

  But here they struck difficulty, for the traditions of capitalism were strong in X-zox, so nothing was forth- coming by way of hospitality. Sarazin and his people were invited to trade, but none of their gear was surplus to requirements. They lacked, of course, the strength to demand by force.

  'Do they know,' said Sarazin, 'that X-zox is but a part of the province of Hok, which is in turn but a fraction of the Harvest Plains, and that I am a warlord of the empire of which they are but the smallest part?'

  Hunger, frustration and fatigue had left Sarazin with a bloody temper. He was ready to punch someone. Thodric Jarl wisely led Sarazin away, leaving Heth to do the negotiating.

  'Please,' said Heth to Ugmug, 'I can see you're of Stokos stock just like myself. We've ancestors in common, that's doubtless, let alone race and language. As a son of your people, I'm begging you. Couldn't you spare us just a little bread? Some old crusts, perhaps? Some meat meant for the dogs. Your most worthless rubbish would be a feast to us.' Ugmug wavered. Well…' said he. But then his niece stepped forward. Miss Inch. She was young, fierce, beautiful, and ferociously intelligent. Ugmug fell back a pace, for he was more than a little frightened of her.

  'Don't listen to these people,' said Miss Inch. 'They've got goods to trade. Swords. Jerkins. Boots.'

  'Well then,' said Heth, 'I suppose I can go barefoot if I must. Would my boots buy a meal for the five of us?' Yes,' said Ugmug.

  "No!' said Miss Inch. We can do better than that. Charge what the market can bear! He'll sell his boots for half a meal just for himself. He has to. He's got no choice. So why should we sell our foodstuffs cheaper?'

  Woman,' said Heth, appalled at her attitude, 'have you no charity?'

  'Altruism,' said Miss Inch, 'destroys the basis of economic prosperity, which is that I should be free to exchange my best for your best at terms agreeable to us bot
h. So give us your boots! You'll get a fist of bread in return.'

  'Those terms,' said Heth, slowly, 'are not agreeable to me.'

  'Hal' said Inch. Wait till tomorrow! Hunger will bring you to agreement by then if not sooner.'

  'Do you think to enslave me through hunger?' said Heth.

  'What's this nonsense about slavery?' said Inch. You're perfectly free to come and go as you please, buy or sell, borrow and lend, go into business, open a bank or float a company. You call that slavery?! Rubbish!'

  Heth thought her a cold, cruel, vicious woman. But he was wrong. She was an economist of the laissez-faire variety, dedicated to the highest principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility. She refused him charity since she knew such welfarism would undermine his initiative, take away his incentive to work, and make him into a lazy good-for-nothing dole bludger.

  As Heth had never met an economist before, he entirely failed to recognise what he was up against. He still thought he could beg at least a little bread before sunset.

  'Woman,' he said, 'think what you would want for yourself if you were in my position.'

  'I'd never be in your position,' said Inch smugly. I'd never emigrate until I had sufficient means to support myself in a new country.'

  'I'm not an immigrant!' said Heth. 'I'm a soldier, a fighting man, a patriot. A supporter of King Tor.'

  'Tor!' said Inch, in a voice which made Heth realise immediately that he'd made a big mistake. The ogre?! You support him? Don't you realise his government built roads and sewers, ran lighthouses, opened a university and built a hospice in Cam?' 'Is that so terrible?' said Heth.

  'Of course it is!' said Inch. 'Government should take care of the law and the defence of the realm, and that's that. Let the market look after the rest! These Flame-worshippers have got the right idea. They're not spending so much as a clipped sping on the roads.' Then the roads,' said Heth, heavily, 'will fall into ruin.'

  'If they do,' said Inch, 'that will prove there was no justification for them in the first place, in terms of the market.'