The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster coaaod-9

by Hugh Cook

  "What took you so long?" said Zozimus, when Sken-Pitilkin arrived.

  For in all that time Zozimus had seldom strayed out of earshot from Morsh Bataar, and much which the sleepless wizard had heard while within earshot had been far from pleasant.

  "What took me so long?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "Why, first I had to be born, and then – "

  "That's nonsense enough," said Zozimus. "Have you brought the opium?"

  "Yes," said Sken-Pitilkin. "But I must see our patient before I dispense it."

  "It is peace," said Zozimus impatiently, for after listening to Morsh Bataar's agony he wanted peace for the man more than anything else.

  "It is peace," agreed Sken-Pitilkin. "But sometimes death is the measure of that peace."

  Then the two wizards went to see Morsh Bataar.

  From the gruesome account of Morsh Bataar's injury which had been delivered to him in Gendormargensis, Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had got the impression that the boy's broken thighbone had ruptured through the skin, an injury which would have virtually guaranteed his death.

  But on being admitted to the tent which sheltered the boy, Sken-Pitilkin found the skin unbroken. Battalions of leeches were feasting on the thigh, doing their best to suck every drop of blood from the injured limb.

  "It was Jarl who insisted on the leeches," said Zozimus.

  "We've had half a thousand people looking for them, and still they look for more, though leeches in such quantity must surely kill."

  "The blood must be drawn from the wound," said Sken-Pitilkin equitably, "and the leech is a precision instrument superbly designed for that express purpose. How do you feel, Morsh?"

  Morsh Bataar spoke his pain in pain, spoke it in a mewling cry which evidenced long torture and the imminence of death. His pain was the measure of his strength, for a weaker man would have long since lost the power of protest.

  "The opium," said Zozimus impatiently.

  "There is more to healing than ramming strong drugs down the throats of your patients," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "But Jarl said – "

  "Since when do wizards command themselves by the sayings of the Rovac?" said Sken-Pitilkin sharply.

  "I am in danger of my life," said Zozimus, "hence will command myself by whoever knows best."

  "Then be commanded by me," said Sken-Pitilkin, endeavoring the calm the Witchlord's over-agitated slug-chef. "Be commanded, for I fancy that I have more of the healing arts than have you."

  "So you say," said Zozimus. "But Jarl says that pain will be the death of the boy even if nothing else kills him."

  "The pain," said Sken-Pitilkin, "is consequent upon the fracture. The boy's bone is broken."

  "That much I have divined," said Zozimus stiffly.

  "The bone of the thigh lies broken in the flesh," said Sken-Pitilkin, continuing in his best classroom manner. "With the bone broken, the muscles of the leg strive to shorten the leg. Thus broken bone is pulled against broken bone, and the result is an agony your most expert torturer would be hard put to better."

  "Why," said Zozimus, in sarcastic imitation of admiration, "you speak with the fluency of a very pox doctor!"

  "Thus have I made my living in the past," said Sken-Pitilkin, admitting this secret without shame. "It is the truth, Pelagius. A broken bone is no big thing in itself, but the gritting together of the ends of the bone is living hell."

  "So," said Zozimus, seeing the nature of the cure now that he understood the problem, "we must separate the ends of the broken bones to ease the pain of our patient. Do you think your wizardry the equal of the task?"

  "I would not trust my wizardry with a tenth of it," said Sken-Pitilkin, who, as a wizard of Skatzabratzumon – an order dedicated to the mastery of the mysteries of levitation – had no special powers relevant to the cure of the flesh. "Still, mere mechanical skill may succeed where wizardry fails. I believe I can build something efficient for our purposes. Guest! Guest Gulkan!

  Where are you, boy?" Guest Gulkan manifested himself in response to this shout, and, at Sken-Pitilkin's orders, mustered up a raiding party. Sken-Pitilkin led this party aboard one of the barges tied up by the riverbank – the barges earlier commandeered by the Witchlord for the feeding of his multitude – and this barge they then looted thoroughly.

  "What now?" said Zozimus, once the looting was done, and Sken-Pitilkin had a great heap of rope, sticks, spars, planks and sailcloth at his disposal.

  "Now?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "We build!"

  As the power to levitate objects can be enhanced by the adroit use of pulleys, levers and inclined planes, wizards of the order of Skatzabratzumon had long been diligent in their studies of such devices, and Sken-Pitilkin was well equipped to oversee the building of a stretching machine. Under his supervision, men worked through the night, and by dawn had finished the thing. The contraption looked very like a torturer's rack, and worked on exactly the same principle.

  "Tenderly, now," said Sken-Pitilkin, as his team of well- briefed assistants gathered around the recumbent Morsh Bataar.

  "Guest. Thodric. Secure the harness."

  Working as carefully as they could, Guest Gulkan and Thodric

  Jarl secured Morsh Bataar's shoulders and the foot of his injured leg in the padded imprisonment of leather harness-work.

  "Ready?" said Sken-Pitilkin. "Very well. On my command, begin to pull. Steady but sure."

  "Don't!" cried Morsh Bataar, piteous in his fear. "Don't hurt me!"

  "This is not pain but its cure," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Guest.

  Thodric. Are you ready? Well – remember you work against muscle, so be ready for resistance. On the count of three. One. And two.

  And three."

  Then Thodric Jarl and Guest Gulkan applied their strength, the one hauling on the foot of the injured leg, the other pulling back on the shoulders.

  Morsh Bataar screamed.

  "Steady, boys!" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "You're hurting him," said Eljuk Zala, advancing on Guest Gulkan as if to attack him. "Let him go! You're hurting him!"

  At that, the sagacious Sken-Pitilkin reached out with his country crook, slipped it round Eljuk Zala's neck, then dragged him backwards. Taken by surprise, Eljuk fell backwards, whereupon the nimble-witted Pelagius Zozimus sat on him.

  "Keep it steady, boys," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Now. Slow but sure. Use your strength. He's a strong man, and you work against his greatest muscles. Strength, boys!"

  Then Thodric Jarl and Guest Gulkan stretched Morsh Bataar in earnest, and as the two ends of grating bone were dragged apart the most amazing relief came into Morsh Bataar's face.

  "A little more," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Just a little more.

  Right. Hold him! If you let him go, you kill him!"

  This was the devilish part of stretching the patient. Once stretched, he must stay stretched, for the broken ends of his own thighbone were weapons which might kill him if he was released from the tension under which he had been placed. Quite apart from the question of pain, the sharp edges of broken bones can be wicked devices for the severing of blood vessels.

  "Gather round," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  The dwarf Glambrax and the Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite knelt alongside Morsh Bataar, slipped their hands under his body and awaited the order to lift.

  "Pelagius," said Sken-Pitilkin, seeking to command his cousin into action.

  "The boy," said Zozimus, who was still sitting on Eljuk Zala.

  "This boy Eljuk. He's not safe to let loose."

  "Then I'll sit on him," said Sken-Pitilkin, and matched deed to word so Pelagius Zozimus could join Glambrax and Rolf Thelemite alongside Morsh Bataar. "On the count of three," said Sken-Pitilkin, speaking from his new-found throne. "One. And two. And three."

  Morsh Bataar groaned as he was lifted, then cried out sharply as he was set down on the stretching machine with a slight bump. A slight bump it was to those who were handling him, but Morsh himself – why, poor Morsh felt as if he had just been dropped off a
mountain.

  "Easy, Morsh," said Sken-Pitilkin. "We're almost done."

  Then, while Guest Gulkan and Thodric Jarl maintained the tension on Morsh Bataar's foot and shoulders, keeping the broken ends of his thighbone apart, Sken-Pitilkin supervised the attachment of boot-harness and shoulder-harness to hooks. Ratchets and wheels were used to put both sets of harness under strain, so Morsh was being stretched by foot and shoulders.

  "Enough," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Guest. Thodric. Release your hold. Now."Guest Gulkan let go of Morsh Bataar's shoulder harness and Thodric Jarl released the foot harness.

  "Sweet blood," said Jarl, studying Morsh Bataar's face for signs of pain. "It works."

  "It works," confirmed Morsh Bataar. "Thank you."

  Then he essayed a smile, or tried to. It was more of a grimace than a confirmation of pleasure, but it was a very miracle considering the torments he had been through. Indeed, Morsh Bataar's mere survival was little short of sheer miracle. But then, the Yarglat are tougher than other peoples, or so they say – though pain is the same for us all, as the very Witchlord himself had acknowledged.

  "Well," said Sken-Pitilkin, rising from his seat. "Now we can fetch our emperor to survey the scene of our triumph."

  The seat the wizard had risen from was of course the hapless Eljuk Zala, the anointed heir to the Collosnon Empire. Eljuk rose from the mud unsteadily, a swollen leech hanging pendulously from his nose. As he tried to exit from the tent, the Witchlord Onosh entered, and the two collided.

  "Ho, boy!" said Lord Onosh. "You need to blow your nose!

  Well, Zozimus! How is my son! How are you, Morsh? You're looking better. Much better. Grief, what a contraption! What have we here,

  Zozimus? A siege engine, is it? Is young Morsh to be catapulted to Gendormargensis, or must we drag him?"

  "As I said to my lord earlier," said Zozimus, "to move Morsh to the city would be to kill him."

  "Ah," said the Witchlord briskly, "but that was before he was lashed to this brilliant machine. I can see the sense of it. Surely now it's only sanity to shift him."

  "My lord," said Zozimus, "when the wounded are dragged from the battlefield, then every bump is agony – and by my computation there are half a billion bumps between here and the city."

  "So it will hurt a little," said Lord Onosh. "Still, Morsh is a strong man, is he not?"

  "Hostaja," said Zozimus, appealing to his cousin. "We can't move the boy, can we?"

  Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin considered the question.

  "I have not the full skill of an accomplished bonesetter, nor the full depth of a bonesetter's proper experience," said Sken-Pitilkin, "so I cannot answer definitively. But I know for a fact that where the bone has broken there must surely be blood. Blood clots to lumps, so to move the boy may be to break free such lumps. Once free in the flesh they can travel, and jam in the heart, with death as a consequence."

  "Then what do you suggest?" said Lord Onosh.

  "I suggest that Morsh is safest here," said Sken-Pitilkin. "I vote for no certain decision on chances, but suggest that he stands four chances in five of a quick death should he be shifted to the city. I would not wish to move him much before midwinter, not with the bone so savagely broken."

  "Then," said Guest Gulkan bravely, "if Morsh must stay, then I will stay with him, and guard his solitude till then."

  It immediately occurred to Lord Onosh that Guest Gulkan might well be volunteering to stay with his brother because he was afraid to return to Gendormargensis. As soon as Guest got back to Gendormargensis, he would have to meet Thodric Jarl in combat, and that combat would in all probability be the end of him.

  "Guest," said Lord Onosh, "on the day of our battle against the bandits you saved the life of Eljuk Zala."

  "So I did," said Guest, who was no great exponent of the art of modesty. "I dragged him from the river at the risk of my very life."

  "That was well done," said Lord Onosh. "As a compliment to your bravery, I offer you any boon within reason."

  "Does this mean – "

  "It does not mean that you may lay claim to the woman Yerzerdayla. But else you may ask."

  The Witchlord fully expected Guest Gulkan to be excused from his coming battle against Thodric Jarl. Now that the tempers of all concerned had had time to cool, Lord Onosh had no wish to see Guest spitted on Jarl's sword, particularly not since Guest was the best hope for the continuation of the family line and the preservation of the empire.

  "My lord," said Guest. "I have long wished to be known as the Weaponmaster."

  "Since you were a child," agreed Lord Onosh.

  "But you have ever denied me such a title," said Guest.

  "I have denied it for a very good reason," said Lord Onosh.

  "The very good reason being that you are the master of no weapon."

  "Yet," said Guest, "it is the title I claim. That is the boon I wish from you."

  Lord Onosh was quite taken aback by this. Nevertheless, he granted Guest Gulkan what he wanted. And all the way to Gendormargensis, Lord Onosh wondered exactly how his son hoped to survive the encounter with Thodric Jarl to which he had doomed himself.

  While the much-wondering Witchlord made his way back to Gendormargensis, the young Weaponmaster trained with his sword on the banks of the Yolantarath. Ever and again Guest Gulkan slashed and sliced, imagining how the mighty razor of his courage would cut down Thodric Jarl to size.

  When he was weary with training, Guest made his way back to his tent. Already the campsite stank, and already some dog had managed to die in the middle of it. Rain fell continually, pocking the boot-craters in the slimy gray mud. Guest Gulkan's neighbor's tent lay mortally wounded in the mud.

  He looked around.

  He saw a bit of river escaping in the general direction of the distant ocean. Mucky gray cloud – much of it. He didn't see the wind, but it saw him. Changed direction smartly. Bucketed his face with cold rain.

  "Great," said Guest, glowing with confidence and selfsatisfaction. "Just beautiful."

  What was beautiful above all else was the flatness of the land, the flatness which gave mobility to the horse-troops of the Yarglat, the flatness which had made them the conquerors of the Collosnon Empire.

  "This," said Guest, striking a theatrical pose, "is the empire. And I, the Weaponmaster, will make myself lord of it."

  No thunder boomed to complement his words, but such was the intensity of Guest's imagination that he fooled himself into believing that he heard such thunder; and he told himself it was a very good omen, and proof of the favor of the gods.

  Chapter Three

  Name: Thodric Jarl.

  Birthplace: Rovac.

  Occupation: mercenary.

  Status: imperial bodyguard.

  Description: blunt and decidedly unplayful Rovac warrior, gray of eye and gray of beard, though he is as yet far from the years of his full maturity – for he is but 24 years of age.

  Hobby: cultivating the intimate acquaintance of young women of surpassing beauty (and here note that Jarl is no gluttonous greedpig but, rather, a connoisseur who will kill for the best while ignoring anything which does not meet his rigorous standards of perfection).

  Quote: "I would that each was a wizard, for then our victory would be all the sweeter." (Said in the Cold West before he led a thousand men to battle against an enemy which outnumbered his own forces by four to one. Despite the promise of victory implicit in his boast, on that occasion he was defeated, and nine in ten of his men were slaughtered or enslaved.)

  Shall we say something about Thodric Jarl? Shall we speak of the color of his eye and the tint of his beard? Shall we tell of his history and his hobbies, or quote him in his rhetoric?

  No.

  Suffice it simply to say that Jarl was of the Rovac, that the Rovac are as primitive a bunch of blood-letting savages as you are likely to cross swords with, and that Jarl was true to his kind.

  Hence Guest Gulkan feared him.

  Or should have fea
red him!

  Time flies like an arrow, as the proverb has it, and before midwinter Guest Gulkan returned to Gendormargensis and announced his intention to meet Thodric Jarl in single combat.

  The wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin shortly came to see Guest Gulkan and counseled him to flee the city.

  "Why in the name of a dog's green vomit should I do a thing like that?" said Guest. Guest had then lately entered upon a phase where he spent a great deal of his spare time in devising new and especially barbarous oaths, and "a dog's greem vomit" is typical of these. Sken-Pitilkin resisted the temptation to abrade the boy on account of his uncouth neologisms, and instead dedicated himself to giving good counsel.

  "You must flee from Gendormargensis," said Sken-Pitilkin,

  "because, unless you flee the city, you'll have to hack it out face to face with Thodric Jarl."

  "I should worry?" said Guest.

  "Of course you should worry!"

  "Why?" said Guest. "Because I'll get blood on my clothes?"

  "Because the blood will be your own," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "You have a choice. Bribe up big to buy off Jarl. Or flee. That's the limit of the choices you have at your own disposal, though Bao Gahai may have others."

  This Bao Gahai was a dralkosh, a witch, whose devices had helped the Witchlord Onosh secure power and keep it. Rumor had it that Bao Gahai's strength was faltering, but many feared her still.

  "Bao Gahai?" said Guest. "I'll not be seeking help from her."

  "Yet she may give it," said Sken-Pitilkin. "She desires your presence, now, today, and to tell you as much is the greater part of my reason for coming here. Well. Are you ready to go?"

  "I'm not going to see her!" said Guest.

  But Sken-Pitilkin was persistent, and told the boy that Lord Onosh himself wished Guest to consult with Bao Gahai. So at length the young Weaponmaster allowed himself to be persuaded into the presence of the dralkosh who for so long had aided and counseled his father.

  The audience took place in Bao Gahai's bedroom, which smelt of camphor, of cats, and of antiquity. Bao Gahai was sitting up in bed with a cheeseboard on her knees. On the cheeseboard was an assortment of nuts – she never ate cheese, for she was allergic to it, just as she was allergic to catmeat and the eggs of seagulls – and throughout the audience she occupied herself by opening those nuts with the aid of a hammer, a chisel and an autoptical brain-hook. By profession she was a pathologist, and though she no longer dissected dead flesh – excitement always got the better of her, and she invariably moved from the dead to the living – she was still possessed by the scarcely controllable urge to dissect something. Hence the nuts.