The Wordsmiths and the Warguild aod-2

by Hugh Cook

  Togura's analysis was correct.

  Realising that the stranger was no danger to him, Togura was taken by the wild notion of following him and questioning him. Perhaps the swordmaster-assassin could use a road companion to carry his burdens and light his fires, to cook his food and to haggle for provisions in the marketplace. There was no harm in trying.

  Enthusiastic about this idea, Togura set off in pursuit of the swift-striding man-killer, but lost him in a tangle of narrow streets crowded, suddenly and without warning, by a flock of sheep which were being driven through the town. He contemplated pursuing his quarry to the palace, but the thought of going anywhere near Slerma made him decide against it.

  So it was that Togura Poulaan came within an ace of becoming the road companion of Guest Gulkan. The fact that he failed probably saved his life, for the Emperor in Exile was on a dangerous quest which would in time decide the fate of powers, kingdoms and empires; there was horror behind him and peril ahead, and the life expectancy of anyone travelling with him would probably have been short.

  The last of the sheep went by. Togura idly squished a knobbly dropping with his foot, chewed on another chestnut, and wondered what to do now.

  As he was wondering, a small procession went by. It consisted of about twenty people dressed in mourning who were carrying amidst them a bier on which there reclined a man who was both very old and very sick. Togura, as a native of the district, knew enough to guess that the old man was going to be fed to the odex. He had never yet seen this process; as his meal had nourished his curiosity along with his other organs, he fell in behind the procession.

  By and by, they came to the stronghold of the Wordsmiths. The original building, made of stone, had collapsed five years previously; the Wordsmiths had rebuilt in wood. The main gate in the stockade was open, but a grey-robed wordmaster halted the procession before they could enter. After a low-voiced argument, the leader of the procession signed his people to one side, and they sat down to wait.

  Was it too early in the day? Or was the odex not hungry yet? Or was there an argument about how much the people should pay to dispose of their sick old man? Togura did not know, and was not rude enough to ask. While waiting to see what would happen, he loitered beside an abandoned mine shaft, kicking occasional stones into the darkness, which fell straight and sheer to a pool of water far below.

  From inside the stronghold of the Wordsmiths there came sounds of confusion. Then there was some banging and crashing and shouting, then three wordmasters sprinted through the open gate, running for their lives.

  "Curiouser and curiouser," said Togura.

  Then there issued forth a monster, which came striding out of the gate on five or six of its seven or eight legs. It was not terribly imposing, as monsters go; it was scarcely twice the girth of a bull, and barely twice the height of a man; its grappling claws were hardly the size of a pair of shears.

  Nevertheless, people screamed and ran.

  Togura, amused, wondered why people were making so much fuss about the manifestation of an ilps. As it bent over the sick old man, he sauntered forward. The creature lifted its head and regarded him. Its skull was bald bone like that of a vulture. Its eyes were as green as gangrene, and its breath was fetid. Its skin was covered with warts and fents. The warts were a mixture of pink and grey; a few seemed to be purulent, while stark yellow pus oozed from the fents.

  "Who are you?" said Togura, his voice loud and strong.

  The creature blinked.

  "Where do you come from?" he insisted.

  It took no notice.

  "I demand your nature!"

  Losing interest in Togura, the creature bent down over the old man once more. And something terrible happened. As Togura screamed and screamed, the creature raised its head, slushed a mouthful of flesh and spat out a bone. Blood ran down its chin.

  "Who?" screamed Togura. "When? What?"

  But the creature remained undamaged by his questions. Belatedly, he realised it was not an ilps at all. It was a genuine monster. As it forked, scrabbled and glutted, spraying the area with blood and offal, he turned and ran.

  The creature roared and followed.

  Blindly, Togura fled. The ground opened up in front of him. In a moment of sickening horror, he realised he had fallen into a mine shaft. He gasped for air as he fell. Then he went barrelling into the water, which went riveting up his nose. Stunned to find himself still alive, Togura struggled for the surface and looked around. In all directions were rock walls, dimly lit by wavering, splintered reflections of half-light from the water.

  To his relief, he saw there was a ladder fastened to the side of the shaft. He swum across to it, took hold, and hauled himself out of the water. He had climbed to three times his own height when the wood, many years rotten, gave way, and sent him plummeting back into the sump.

  "Help!" cried Togura, floundering.

  He looked up and saw, far overhead, someone looking down at him.

  "Help!" he cried. "Help! For the love of Mothra, help me!"

  Someone began to climb down. Too late, he realised it was not someone but something. The monster was coming to get him. Suddenly, it slipped, scrabbled then fell. He cowered against the side of the shaft. The monster shattered the water beside him. As it heaved up out of the depths, he took his only chance, and leapt onto its back.

  Shoving his hands into two of the larger fents which disgraced the creature's hide, Togura hung on for dear life. The creature snapped and thrashed and shook and bucked. He thought it was urgently trying to get at him, but in fact it was urgently trying to save itself from drowning.

  Finally, the monster got claw-hold on the flanks of the shaft and began to climb, slowly and painfully. Once it slipped, and almost went crashing back to disaster. But it struggled on, gaining, at last, the daylight. Togura, still back-riding, looked round and saw a small crowd watching from a distance.

  A man advanced, bearing a meat cleaver.

  As the man drew near, the monster attacked with a lurch and a slither. Its intended victim dropped his cleaver and fled. Exhausted, the monster collapsed. Togura, in danger of sliding off, shifted his weight. A mistake! Remembering his presence, the monster rolled over suddenly, almost crushing him. He fell off, leapt away from the grappling claw, ducked under the monster's scooping jaw and fell, almost on top of the meat cleaver.

  Snatching the weapon by the handle, Togura slashed the next claw which tried for him. He lopped it off. The monster screamed and tried to scoop him with its jaw. He weaved and evaded, then hacked. His blade chopped into the monster's neck. In a frenzy, he slashed, stabbed, gouged and underthrust, fighting in a beserker fury. He never noticed when the monster died. Then, finally, one wild swipe took its head off entirely, and he realised it must be dead. Or, if not dead, then pretty sick.

  Panting, sweating, swaying, Togura halted. He became aware of distant cheering, and realised it was for him. He felt dizzy and very distant.

  A wordmaster advanced and clapped him on the shoulder.

  "That was very well done, young man."

  "Thank you," said Togura, good manners providing him with something to say.

  "Come with me," said the wordmaster.

  "I must clean my blade," said Togura, remembering that to be something that heroes were said to say after battle.

  He tried wiping the bloodstained blade against the monster's flank, but succeeded only in getting it stained with yellow pus. He tried again, and failed. He was shaking. He was rapidly becoming tearful.

  Realising the meat cleaver was causing his young charge some distress, the wordmaster wisely removed it from Togura's grasp and threw it to one side. Then he led Togura into the Wordsmiths' stronghold. As they walked along together, Togura tottering and leaning on the older man for support, the crowd cheered once more.

  "Who was that who just went in?" asked Baron Poulaan, arriving on the scene.

  "A young man. He killed the monster."

  "What kind of young
man?" asked the baron, on the off chance. "Do you know his name?"

  "Oh yes sir," said a milkmaid, who was more knowledgeable than her years might have suggested. "He's Barak the Battleman."

  "And who might that be?"

  "A visitor, sire," said a woodcutter from Down Slopes. "Assassin and swordfighter, they say. Escaped gladiator from the murk pits of Chi'ash-lan, if you ask me."

  And he pulled down one eyelid in a very suggestive gesture.

  "Oh," said the baron, losing interest.

  He turned away and set off for the Suets. He would challenge them and find out where they had hidden his son. If the Suets failed to yield up Togura, then there might be feuding about this.

  Chapter 6

  Within the Wordsmiths' organisation the ranks, from lowest to highest, were:

  1. servitor;

  2. scribe;

  3. translator;

  4. wordmaster;

  5. governor.

  Brother Troop was a wordmaster. As befitted his rank, he wore a multicoloured harlequin robe and felt slippers. He was a short, bouncing, jovial man with a ready smile which showed him to be both pleased with himself and pleased with the world. He wore much of his worldly wealth beneath his skin, but Togura, after his recent encounter with Slerma, could not bring himself to describe the Brother as fat.

  "So you're the hero," said Brother Troop, rubbing his hands together.

  "I suppose I am," said Togura, with some surprise.

  He had been given a change of clothes and the chance to cleanse himself of monster muck, but he was still a little disorientated.

  "Ahaha!" said Brother Troop, not quite laughing and not quite not. "You suppose you are. Of course you are! The vigour of the very young. Amazing, isn't it?" And he touched his nose. "Youth is a wonderful thing."

  "You're not so old yourself," said Togura.

  "Perhaps not, but I was never as wild as you. I was born sensible. And more's the pity. A great handicap, I think. All power to the brave and reckless, eh? Hey? Ahaha! Come, I'll show you around."

  "Well, really, I'd – "

  "Later," said Brother Troop, giving him to chance to say that he'd really like a little to eat, a little to drink and a lot to sleep. Instead, the good Brother swept him away on a whirlwind tour which took him through the kitchens – too quickly, alas – sleeping quarters, lecture rooms, study rooms, dungeons and cloisters, and then to the main courtyard of the Wordsmiths' stronghold.

  "Here's where it all happens," said Brother Troop. "And that, my son, is the odex."

  "That?"

  "Believe me. You stand in the Presence."

  The odex was a thin grey disk; Togura could just have spanned its diameter with his outstretched arms. Seen side-on, it appeared to disappear entirely. Seen from an angle, it acted as a mirror, reflecting the surroundings.

  "Stand in front of it," said Brother Troop.

  Togura moved round in front of the odex, which hung in the air, standing knee-high off the ground without any apparent means of support. As he came directly in front of it, the mirror surface broke into discordant cascades of colour and light. These shimmered, swirled, stretched, contracted and pulsed.

  "Is it angry?" said Togura warily.

  At his words, a puff of red mist broke loose from the surface of the odex. It twirled lazily in the air.

  "Who knows?" said Brother Troop.

  At his question, the red mist broke apart with a sound like a breaking harp string; a dozen bubbles of bright light frolicked out of the odex and began chasing each other through the air. Similar manifestations and dispersions continued as the two spoke together.

  "Where do these things come from?" said Togura.

  "From the odex, of course. You can see that for yourself."

  "Is it dreaming?" asked Togura.

  "No," said Brother Troop, uncertainly; it had never occurred to him that the odex might dream. "We don't think it dreams. We don't really think it's alive. After years of study, we've come to think that it's like a knife. It means neither good nor ill. If it cuts, that's due to our clumsiness. We don't think it dreams – or gets angry."

  "But it sent you the monster," said Togura. "Why did it do that?"

  "It does nothing on its own," said Brother Troop. "Left to its own devices, it just sits there meditating. We speak. We summon. We call things from its infinite resources."

  "Then how did you summon the monster?" said Togura.

  "By accident."

  "Could you summon another?"

  "Only be another accident. You see – "

  A tangle of spiderweb came floating out of the odex. Brother Troop knocked it aside with a casual sweep of his hand. It grabbed hold of him, battened onto his flesh and began to feed. It hurt. His senses demolished by pain, Brother Troop fell to the ground, flailing at the invader. Togura helped him destroy it. They succeeded, but there was a violent red rash on the wordmaster's hand where the web had been feeding.

  "Look!" said Brother Troop.

  Overhead floated an ilps. It was a large one, mostly teeth, horns and trailing tentacles. It had just escaped from the odex.

  "Who are you?" shouted Brother Troop.

  But the ilps was nimble. It floated fast and high, soaring up and over the roof and out of sight.

  "Let's go inside," said Brother Troop. "We've endured the Presence quite enough for one day."

  At his words, there was a roar. Both of them jumped. But, fortunately, the odex had not generated another monster. Just the roar of a monster.

  Inside, Togura asked a question:

  "Why does questioning destroy an ilps?"

  "Because every ilps is anomalous," said Brother Troop. "They don't belong in our world. We don't think they belong anywhere. They're birthed at random by the odex every time we excite it. Make the anomalous question its own nature, and it destroys itself."

  "How do we excite the odex?"

  "By the use of words, young man. You should have guessed that much from what you've seen today."

  "Then what words do what?"

  "Different words do different things. That's for certain. But our real problem is that the same words also do different things every time they're used."

  "Hmmm."

  "Very much hummm! Marry a woman who doesn't speak your language, and you'll be chatting away merrily in less than a year. Our conversation with the odex began in my father's day. We still don't know how to say hello."

  "At this rate you never will," said Togura. "So why bother?"

  "Because of the treasure, my boy. The treasure!"

  Brother Troop took him to the treasury so he could see. A day's conversation with the odex would usually produce at least one real, solid, genuine piece of treasure.

  By the time they reached the treasury, Togura was eagerly expecting to see miracles. He was bitterly disappointed by the motley assortment of oddments which was actually on view.

  "This is it?" he said.

  "Won with great pain, my boy," said Brother Troop. "Won with great pain."

  There were two lightweight diamond-shaped objects with holes in them – possibly buttons, and possibly not. There was a disk of think metal stamped with concentric circles; it had jagged edges, and was rusting. There was a pale, slightly translucent object, very thin and sharp, about the length of a finger, which Togura was almost certain was a fishbone.

  Next there was a curious square box, blue in colour, which was riddled with holes. Togura was about to explore the holes with his fingers when Brother Troop slapped his hand down.

  "No, my boy, don't do that. Brother Dorban lost a finger to that little box."

  Togura stared into the holes and saw a wavering ever-changing light inside. The box was humming.

  "I'll tell yo9u one thing for certain," he said. "You'll never find out what this is for."

  "Ah, my boy," beamed Brother Troop. "We know already. It's an insect trap. It lures them and kills them – or, at least, they go inside and they're never seen again.
Fleas, flies, cockroaches – it doesn't discriminate. Leave your clothes by the box overnight, and they'll be free of lice by daybreak."

  There were more things. A pile of old rags. A curious stone globe which appeared to be filled with stars. Some objects made of lead which might have been said to imitate the shape of knucklebones. A length of strong, translucent green cord which appeared to be made all of one seamless piece; it was slippery, and difficult to knot. A stone adze, bearing cryptic markings in paint. A friable, lumpy grey object which Togura was far too polite to identify as a rather old and shabby dog turd.

  "All this comes from the odex?"

  "Yes," said Brother Troop, nodding. "And other things, too dangerous to keep. Today's monster was a case in point. Come, I'll show you the reading room."

  They went to the reading room where there was a single very old and ancient book. Its cover, and its individual pages, were coated with a hard, transparent substance; thus protected, they did not seem to suffer decay.

  "This is the Book of the Odex," said Brother Troop. "It was discovered together with the odex itself in the Old City in the Valley of Forgotten Dreams, in Penvash."

  "There's no such place as the Old City," said Togura. "That's just a tale to frighten children with."

  The Brother shook his head.

  "No. There really is a city. Men went there seeking wealth. Many died. Even before they got to the city, one was turned into a monster after a flower swallowed him; they killed him after he killed five."

  Togura nodded politely, though he scarcely believed a word of it, and the Brother continued.

  "Of those who went, three returned alive. One was my father. They gained three things in the Old City: the Book, the odex, and their nightmares. Open the Book."

  Togura did so. The patterns within, splattered across the pages as if at random, made a bewildering maze of angles, corners and stunted lines.

  "Can you read, boy?"

  "A little. But not this."

  "That's scarcely surprising. It's written in two languages. Part is written in the Voice of Jade and Gold, which the scholars of former times used both before and after the Days of Wrath. A travelling wizard was able to translate it for my father. Thus he learnt that the odex was used in former times to store both knowledge and objects. There is vast wealth inside the odex, boy."