by Hugh Cook
'No ships run from here to Hok,' said Lord Regan. 'We trade With Stokos, to be, sure. But not with Hok, for Stokos and Hok are at war, and the wizards favour Stokos.'
'Wizards?' said Sarazin. 'Pray tell, what's this about wizards?'
'Ah. So you don't know the story of today's 'Marphos. Is that how it is? Very well then. Listen, and I will tell
According to Lord Regan's account, as the Swarms approached, many refugees had been evacuated from 'Marphos. They had fled into the Central Ocean in ships, bound for the Scattered Islands or the Ravlish Lands. When the last ships had departed, there had been lawless rioting in the city, until an uncouth gangster had set himself up as warlord.
Then the city had suffered under the most foul and obscene oppression imaginable. Pack rape and cannibalism had been the least of it.
Finally, two ships had arrived, bearing wizards and soldiers of the Landguard who were loyal to those wizards. Lord Regan was on one of these ships, having joined it at Narba. War had ensued. After a bitter struggle, the wizards and their soldiers had taken over the city – but their victory had been marred by an outbreak of typhus.
After the depredations of tyranny, war and plague, scarcely three thousand people remained in Androl- marphos. With nets and lines, the people wrested fish from the Velvet River and the sea itself. They hunted seabirds and riverfowl. Or they worked under the supervision of the wizards, who had, among other things, set up a manufactory for siege dust.
Androlmarphos traded with Stokos, exchanging siege dust for firelight steel and other products.
What for the future?' said Sarazin. Will the wizards stay here in 'Marphos? Or take over Stokos, perhaps?'
'I cannot speak for that,' said Lord Regan, 'for these days I am but a soldier of the Landguard. They have given me a commander's rank, but, for all that, my position is lowly. I play no part in the high counsels where matters of state are decided.'
Then come with me to Hok!' cried Sarazin, fired with enthusiasm. There I must go, I can do nothing else. My mother and father are there, the tutors of my youth as well -and others, doubtless. That is my future, if anywhere.'
The depression he had suffered on his downriver journey had vanished. He had a goal, a mission, a purpose. To strive to Hok and join his family, or what was left of it. Lord Regan laughed.
'I am sworn to the service of the wizards,' said Lord Regan. "My future is with them. But perhaps… perhaps I can arrange your passage to Stokos.' To Hok,' said Sarazin, correcting him.
Yes, yes,' said Lord Regan, rising to go. To Hok. I come again tomorrow. Is there anything you'd like?' 'Grapes,' said Sarazin. 'Is that possible?'
'I regret not. But… wine? Yes? Sean Sarazin, I'm sure I can scavenge the most excellent wine. Now I must be off, for I've business to attend to – but Jaluba will stay a little longer and keep you company.'
Stay Jaluba did, but, though her presence was enchant- ing, her conduct was nothing if not chaste. Still, she did vouchsafe Sean Sarazin a single kiss before they parted.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
At first, a passage to Hok seemed impossible to arrange. And Sarazin certainly did not wish to dare the long trek along the coast – not with monsters of the Swarms on the loose. However, in due course Lord Regan brought him the good news. A ship would be made available and Sean Sarazin would be landed on the southern coast of Hok. 'Where precisely?' said Sarazin.
'On the shores of the Willow Vale,' said Lord Regan. That, I understand, is the only sensible place for a visitor to Hok to land.' And Sarazin could but agree.
Nine days after their arrival in Androlmarphos, Sean Sarazin and his dwarf Glambrax set to sea on a barque known as the Green Swan (a name which Sarazin frankly thought better suited to a tavern than to a ship).
Lord Regan was nominally the commander of the ship. Though it was the sea captain who was his subordinate who actually supervised the running of the barque, Lord Regan got the only decent cabin aboard. There he slept at night with his darling Jaluba. And there, during the day, he entertained Sean Sarazin.
Sarazin had been told that the journey from 'Marphos to Hok would probably take them four or five days, or a little longer if they had unfavourable winds. Certainly there was plenty of time for him to talk with Lord Regan and Jaluba.
And talk he did, positively bubbling. He was alert and alive, enthusiastic about life, delighted with the thought of reunion with his father, his mother and the tutors of his youth. So Hok was at war with Stokos. So what? As he looked back over his life, it seemed he had never been much more than a swordstroke away from danger. War in Hok would be no worse than what he had endured already.
And the present was sweet, for he had an admiring audience more than ready to hear all his tales. Once he had exhausted his accounts of hair-raising encounters with tyrants and monsters, he told and retold stories of his past.
Lord Regan, of course, knew that Sarazin had well and truly enjoyed Jaluba in the past. But Lord Regan showed not the slightest sign of jealousy as Jaluba praised Sean Sarazin's skill, bravery and daring.
In time, Sarazin found himself once more telling in detail of his campaign in Hok. In truth, the whole thing had been a shambling disaster. But, as Sarazin told it, the events in Hok had been a true test of heroes.
He told yet again of the storming of the Eagle Pass, the pursuit of the enemy into the Willow Vale, the near-mutiny of his troops when the enemy cut off their retreat, his escape up an arm of the Willow Vale, the long journey underground from the Eastern Passage Gate to the Western Passage Gate.
Then the encounter in X-zox with the madwoman Miss Inch, and the retreat to the Lesser Tower of X-n'dix, where eventually Epelthin Elkin had stayed.
'Tell me again about X-zox,' said Lord Regan. 'Is this underground tunnel the only way into the place?' The enclave is surrounded by mountains,' said Sarazin,
'and the locals allege that the cliffs of the coast permit no landing. I suspect an unknown path leads into the valley, but the only way to X-zox which I know is through the Passage Gates.'
'Then what will you do,' said Lord Regan, 'if you find those Passage Gates closed against you?'
'I'll open them, of course,' said Sarazin. 'It takes but a Word to open such a Gate, and but a Word to close it.' 'What Word is that?' said Lord Regan.
But Sarazin, to his horror, found he had forgotten how to control the Passage Gates. Fortunately, Glambrax remembered the Words to command both the Passage Gates and the door into the Lesser Tower of X-n'dix. Lord Regan and Jaluba paid special attention to the memorising of both.
Suggesting to Sarazin that perhaps they meant to accom- pany him to Hok after all.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The next day, at dawn, the Green Swan slipped past the rugged cliffs of the western end of Hok. Sarazin, promenading on the deck, surveyed the shore, which was barely half a league away. Those cliffs must be those of the enclave of X-zox, and he himself could most certainly see no place which promised a landing.
He looked inland, up a valley rugged but green, to the heights at the head of the valley, some ten leagues or so from the shore. Something gleamed on those heights. Was it the Greater Tower of Castle X-n'dix? What else could it be? The dragon-encumbered tower was bone white and stood half a league tall. -So that must be it.
But no details could be told from this distance. Still, Sarazin would be there soon enough. A few leagues to the south, the coastline bent away to the east. The ship would turn to follow the coast, and, shortly, would land him on the shores of the Willow Vale. From there he could march overland to X-n'dix. -Ogres and such permitting, of course. So thought Sean Sarazin.
But, as the morning wore on, the ship did not turn east. Instead, it continued south. What lay due south? Why, only Stokos. That was all.
Then… Sarazin went and confronted Lord Regan.
'As I told you before,' said Lord Regan, sadly, 'in the war between Hok and Stokos, the wizards who are my masters favour Stokos. And I have sworn an oath of fe
alty to my masters. Now – must I put you in irons below decks? Or will you swear to behave yourself?'
'Tell me first,' said Sarazin, 'are we truly bound for Stokos? And what fate awaits me there?'
We are indeed bound for Stokos,' said Lord Regan, 'and are more than half way there. Your parents are in Hok, so Stokos can make good use of you as a hostage. Also – Stokos needs the secret of the Passage Gates if it is to conquer Hok entire.'
'This is bitter news,' said Sarazin, 'and much I could say which I will not. Well then… I will swear to make no move against you. We will behave as people of breeding should. Till the end.'
'Sean,' said Lord Regan, 'that's spoken as a man. And I will most certainly take you at your word.'
There, then, the matter should have ended. The making of oaths is the most sacred undertaking of manhood, for if men were not true to their word then trust would become impossible. And, if trust became impossible, then only the most barbaric expedients of murder and genocide could secure peace between men and between nations.
Thus Sean Sarazin, having given his word, should have gone into captivity. However, unfortunately Sarazin had long lived in Selzirk, a vicious city given to degenerate ways. And there he had frequented with lawyers, whose crime against humanity is the systematic perversion of language.
Moreover… it was not just lawyers who had taught Sarazin bad habits. For even the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl had once shown him how to worm his way out of an oath. Thus, though Sarazin had once sworn to go questing for the tectonic lever, he had never made the slightest attempt to do so. So…
Sean Sarazin had sworn to make no move against Lord Regan, therefore he would not. However, reason- ing like a lawyer, he argued that his dwarf was an entity separate from himself, therefore instructing his dwarf to attack Lord Regan would not constitute oathbreaking.
And even if it did – frankly, after all he had been through, Sean Sarazin was not prepared to be thwarted at the last moment. In Hok there was life, liberty and friendship. In Stokos, only stifling imprisonment, and torture perhaps, and quite possibly death. So Sean Sarazin instructed Glambrax – and gave him the green candle.
The green candle. Oh most precious of enchanted objects! The last of his remaining gifts from the druid he had encountered so long ago in the forests of Chenameg. The ring of invisibility had failed him, the dragon- bottle had proved a bitter disappointment, and the magic mudstone had long since been used, but the candle remained.
What would it do? Summon a dragon, a genie, a ghost, a wraith? Call up ghouls and demons? Satisfy wishes? Or do something miraculous but utterly useless? Sarazin could only hope.
Glambrax acted that evening. When Lord Regan was dining in his cabin with wife, dwarf and Farfalla's son, Glambrax took it upon himself to open the lanterns one by one and trim the candles within. When he came to the last lantern, he took out the green candle. And lit it.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
When Glambrax lit the green candle, the result was almost instantaneous. Smoke exploded from the candle in nauseous gouts, a stench worse than skunk and corpse mingled. And Lord Regan cried aloud in wrath and grabbed for the dwarf, but was met with a knife. Glambrax stabbed once, twice- Jaluba screamed- And again and again- And screamed And Lord Regan was falling, toppling, going down, the dwarf hacking, blood spurting and spraying Jaluba no longer screaming but retching, and Sarazin writhing on the floor, choked by nausea, the smoke having just about done for him, the stench unendurable- And the door flew open stormed into Smoke boiling, a breath was enough, the men were flailing, gagging, chucking up, wrecked or retreating And Glambrax drove steel home once more, once more, but that was thrice more than was necessary, for Lord Regan was dead for real.
The candle still alight, smoke leaping from the wick in a series of coughing explosions. Glambrax had it still in his left hand.
Glambrax stuck the bloody knife in his belt, grabbed Sarazin by the scruff of the neck and hauled him from the cabin. Shortly they were out on deck, the candle still coughing, smoke still exploding, Glambrax himself very green at the gills.
But still upright, for the dwarf was possessed of a toughness not given to men. After all, he was his mother's son – and his mother had been the truly formidable witch Zelafona.
'Put it out!' gasped Sarazin, clawing for the candle. 'Out, or I die!'
Glambrax thumped him, hard. And, as he fell to the deck, put in the boot. Some of the ship's soldiers and sailors were fleeing for the rigging, some trying to hide themselves below, and others launching the ship's boats. All this by the last glimmering light of sunset.
A few tried to attack the source of the smoke – but fell back reeling. 'Gods!' groaned Sarazin.
Then vomited helplessly, stomach knotting up in helpless agony. He upchucked again as Glambrax grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to the side of the ship. 'When I say jump,' said Glambrax, 'then jump.'
Sarazin was incapable of making a reply. Peering down at the night-darkening sea, he made out a boat below, its crew about to cast off. Further spasms seized him.
By the time he had recovered, Glambrax had scrambled down into the boat with the candle still coughing in his hand. The crew had fled, diving to the sea, careless of shark-risk or drowning. The boat was his. Could he but make it. 'Jump!' shouted Glambrax.
Sarazin mustered his strength and jumped. He hit the sea by the side of the boat with a tremendous splash. And, by the time he surfaced, Glambrax had extinguished the candle and was ready to haul him aboard.
There was little left of the candle – just a small stub scarcely the length of a thumbnail. It had got them out of one predicament, but they could not count on it for much in the future.
Sarazin was nearly incapacitated by the after-effects of the candle. If escape had relied upon his strength, then escape would have been impossible. But Glambrax rowed them free of the Green Swan, rowed out into the deepening night, then raised their boat's minuscule sail.
They could have been captured, had the crew been fit to work the ship. But most of the Green Swan's crew were in a state almost as bad as Sarazin's. A few could have manned a small boat and pursued the escaping prisoner and his dwarf – but they lacked anything to inspire them to such a feat.
Thus Sarazin and Glambrax made good their escape, and, in due course, landed on the shores of the Willow Vale.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
By the time Sean Sarazin and his dwarf reached the shores of the Willow Vale, the Green Swan had already sailed to Stokos. While Sean Sarazin was telling his news in Hok, other news was being told in Stokos – with predictable consequences.
But, for the moment, all that mattered to Sean Sarazin was his homecoming. Homecoming? Yes, after the bitter- ness of exile, a landing on Hok counted as that. Hok was, after all, a part of the Harvest Plains – and, more to the point, was inhabited by friends as well as strangers.
It was strangers that Sarazin met first. He and Glambrax were arrested by a mounted patrol and taken two leagues inland to a small fort. The commander of that fort was Thodric Jarl. The Rovac warrior was dressed as ever in iron-studded battle-leathers, and looked strong, fit and hearty.
'Sean!' cried the bulky-bearded Thodric Jarl, and embraced him. 'Is my mother here?' said Sarazin. 'My father?'
'Both Farfalla and Fox are in X-zox,' said Jarl. 'Most of our people dwell safe in X-zox, for we're often raided by marauders from Stokos, though they've yet to summon up the courage to invade in force. We use the Willow Vale for farming only, and as pastureland for sheep and cattle.' 'Are Fox and Farfalla well?' said Sean Sarazin. 'Both fit, both healthy, both well,' Jarl assured him.
'Do they rule, then?' said Sarazin. 'Are they the lords of Hok?'
'Nay,' said Jarl. 'Hok is ruled by Heth, who holds the land in trust for a greater ruler.' 'Heth?' said Sarazin. 'Did you say Heth, or Hearst?'
'I know nothing of the fate of Morgan Hearst,' said Jarl. 'After Hearst left the Harvest Plains he disappeared to sight. No, it's Heth I'm ta
lking of. Heth. You remember. Don't you?' But Sarazin didn't.
'Never mind,' said Jarl, with a laugh. 'No doubt once you reach X-zox Heth will explain everything to you himself.'
'I live for that day,' said Sean Sarazin, in a tone suggest- ing quite the opposite. "Meanwhile, what about Peguero? Have you news of him? And Jarnel? And Celadon? Has anything been heard of him?'
While Sarazin had never been close to his brothers – indeed, they were still very much strangers to him – he was eager to learn of their fate.
'All three of your full brothers were here once,' said Jarl, 'as indeed was your half-brother Benthorn. But, like others, they have chosen to flee to the west, to the Scattered Islands and lands beyond.' 'Why should they flee?' said Sarazin.
'Because our war with Stokos threatens our destruction. But as I say, it's but a matter of raiding for the moment. The mountains protect our people in X-zox. Besides, Epelthin Elkin is still masquerading as a wizard, a bluff which helps us keep Stokos at bay. Intimidation, that's the thing.'
Then Sean Sarazin had to tell his sorry news. Lord Regan was dead – and Sean Sarazin the much-betrayed had wasted not a single tear lamenting his deathl – but Jaluba still lived.
'The wench knows the Words,' said Sarazin. 'If she tells all in Stokos, then the enemy can open the Passage Gates and the Lesser Tower itself.'
Jarl saw the danger, and was soon riding for X-zox in company with Sean Sarazin and dwarf, meaning to personally oversee the defences of the mountain-protected enclave and the underground passage which led to it.
Inland went the riders until they had almost reached the Eagle Pass. Then they turned west and marched up an arm of the Willow Vale. Since Sarazin was here last, a road had been laboured through the wilderness, allowing them to travel swiftly to the cliffs in which the Eastern Passage Gate was set.
Sarazin remembered it as being black, but it proved to be a dark blue stained with streaks of opaline iri- descence. Squarebuilt it was, and five times manheight. Warm and dry it was, vibrating faintly beneath his fingertips. 'Open it,' said Jarl.
