by Hugh Cook
- I'm here. And it's not far now. Not far.
- But what about climbing down again? What about that? Look down.
- No. Don't look down. Not now. Climb.
He climbed. Past a trace of green moss. Past a tract of crumbling rock. Up now, up. And what was that stink? Dragon, surely.
- And what if he roars out now, in his fury, Zenphos with his wings unfurling and gouts of flame hurling from his mouth? Then that will be the end, man-leader, that will be the end.
- But at least the climb is finished.
He gained level rock, and collapsed in the mouth of the cave. Some men called him fearless, and certainly he would dare all and any, sword against sword. Many challengers had died with his cold eyes watching them. In battle he seemed tireless; his voice never faltered, even when the battle went against his forces. So he was called fearless: but he had his fears, and heights was one of them. The first stretch of the cliff had almost brought him to collapse, and by now he had been climbing for more than half a day.
For some time, he lay in the mouth of the dragon's lair without the power of sight or thought. When he
recovered, the sun was still riding in the sky; his first thought was to look down.
- That would be a mistake.
- But if you don't look down, you will always remember that you were afraid to look down.
He looked down.
Beneath his feet the sky dropped away to the barren land: rolling country stretching south for thirty leagues to where the Barley Hills smudged the horizon. Sun flashed on water; Estar, with its peat soils and heavy winter rains, was a country of tarns, pools, brooks, streams and swamps. He could see the Salt Road running on a north-south line to the west of Maf; he could see the Central Ocean leagues beyond, and the charred remains of burnt trees, looking no larger from this height than little black beard bristles.
If he had slipped, his body would have crunched to a bloody skinful of offal when it hit the rocks. Spasms shook his body as memories assailed him. Hejcnew he could never climb down. He closed his eyes.
- Open your eyes. The time is now.
It was time to die. The sayings had it that a man facing a dragon was as an infant confronted by the strength of an armed and armoured adult, like a leaf in the face of a forest fire. Hearst did not doubt it. He unshipped the spear from his back. A short spear, not man-high but child-high. No weapon for a warrior: but what else could he have carried up that face of terror? His sword, of course: but Comedo had his sword.
His stomach was empty, his mouth dry; he had carried nothing to eat or drink. At least he would not be spattered like bird-dung on the rocks. At least men would know that he had met his end as a warrior. There would be no jokes: only speculation, bad dreams and dread.
He advanced, breathing heavily though the air stank. What was that sound, like the sea yet unlike? What was that sound, like the sighing in a shell, yet louder? That must be breathing.
His eyes adjusted to the gloom. He saw it.
'Ah,' he said. 'Ah . . .'
- So that's a dragon. That's a dragon. By the purple flames and the singing knives of the fourth hell, the songs don't do the fire-spawn justice. I thought the fear of heights to be my worst, but if I had any water in me I'd be losing it now. I'd say it was big as a longship, except it's bigger. I'd say its talons were like scythes, except they're longer.
- But it is asleep, it is asleep, and you have a chance, Morgan Hearst, son of Avor the Hawk, warrior of Rovac, song-singer, sword-master, leader of men. You have a chance.
He slipped through the gloom. The dragon bulked in mountains above him. Darkness rendered all its colours in grey. Discarded scales the size of dinner plates slithered underfoot as his feet disturbed them. The sound of breathing crowded his ears.
He approached the head. It was hot, it was hot. The vast lips were slightly parted, as if in a snarl, revealing fractions of the razor teeth. Through chinks between the teeth he could see the glow of inner fires, red as a bed of hot coals. One casual belch from that mouth would send him reeling back in a blaze of burning hair and flaming clothing, crisped like bacon.
He looked up. Above and out of reach, gathering light from the shadows, glowed another red light: the huge ruby that filled the empty eye socket. He looked for the other eye. The right eye. There. Only small, weak scales covered the flexible eyelid.
Now.
He took the spear. He sighted. He cast. The spear smashed into the eye. There was a pause. There was the regular sound of breathing. Then the spear was driven back out. It fell on the ground. A torrent of black pus vomited from the hole. Hearst dodged to one side.
The flow eased to a trickle, then to a dribble, then to
nothing. Then from the sunken black sac of that decayed eye came a white worm thick as a man's arm. It quested blindly in the air, then retreated to the death it was feeding on, the body days dead, the stinking corpse which lay there with its mouth full of dying fire. And still there was the sound of breathing.
* * *
The wide world turns. For the continent of Argan, it is late afternoon: in fact, the eastern edge of the continent already lies in darkness. Soon that darkness will cover the entire continent; while Hearst rests in the dragon's lair high in the mountain of Maf, a fang of rock in Estar, the cities of the Argan prepare for sleep.
On the road, travellers - Galish merchants, hunters, pilgrims, wandering musicians, questing heroes, vagrants, lepers and similar riff-raff - are making camp. The wizards Phyphor, Garash and Miphon are half-way between Delve and Maf.
In Selzirk, pride of the Harvest Plains, the kingmaker Farfalla attends to the day's last rituals; in Veda, the Masters of the sages practice Silence. Still further south, Landguard patrols prepare for night and sleep; elsewhere, Southsearchers dream on for a little longer before waking for the night.
The world knows nothing of the ordeal which has tested Morgan Hearst, yet he allows himself the thought that in time he will be known to the whole world that worked its way through these hours of daylight, not knowing they were different to any others.
Hearst grunted, and toppled the ruby into the gulf of evening air. It fell, glimmered briefly, then dropped from sight. Men would know him as a hero now, to be spoken of in the same breath as the dragon Zenphos,
the wizard Paklish and the sage Ammamman. The generations would rank him with the heroes of the Long War - or above them. That was some comfort, but not enough to reconcile him with death. Not nearly enough. He could not climb down, but he was not finished yet.
He stretched. His joints ached. He had wintered by the fireside, safe from the cold. He hoped the day of exposure to the wind and chill would not make his joints stiffen. He would be lost if his bones locked up, as they had on occasion in the Cold West. He turned back into the cave, navigating by the sullen glow still smouldering between the jaws of the dead dragon.
Behind the corpse were tunnels through which the air channelled, creating that sighing sea-shell sound of breathing. He would explore methodically, taking every left turn when the tunnel forked. One wrong step might drop him to the bottom of a hidden chasm, so he went shuffle by stoop into the worm-blind darkness, feeling his way.
- Don't fight the dark, seduce it.
The gut-twisted tunnels knotted themselves through the dark. They rose, fell, and corkscrewed sideways. He climbed at least as often as he descended; every down he found turned up. Dehydrated, exhausted, ravenous with hunger, he began to hallucinate, to hear voices, to see lights. He paused to rest, sucking on a small stone to ease his thirst. Then lectured himself onwards.
- On your feet, son of Avor, on your feet.
A derelict wind chanted through his skull. In the wind, he heard the voices of ghosts. He clapped his hands to drive them away. Up ahead, he imagined he saw a star.
- Go away, star. Another step, another star.
Then a dozen. A hundred. A thousand. The tunnel widened until his arms could not span it. Hearst stepped out under the n
ight sky.
- So we're out.
- We've made it.
- Hast, my half-brother, my brother in blood, we are to be reunited.
But where were the rocks? The trees? Where, for that matter, was the horizon?
Belatedly, he realised that he was not, after all, at the foot of Maf: he was on the summit. He swayed with exhaustion. Stars lay in water in small pools on the mountain top; Hearst, his mouth as dry as ashes, knelt and drank deep. Then, from the edge of a cliffdrop, he surveyed the darkness, which was featureless except where, somewhere, a fire burnt.
Hearst, taking bearings on the stars, judged the fire to lie in the direction of the temple, from which Prince Comedo had withdrawn the traditional protection of his guards after the temple priests, declaring they would kill the dragon, had instead aroused its fury and sent it raging up and down the Salt Road. Was the temple burning? What did he care?
- Sleep, Morgan, sleep. Sleep, and see what the sun has to say. No more walking in the darkness until we have seen the face of the sun at least once more. That will be enough, to see the face of the sun. That will be enough.
He retired to the tunnel, which would shelter him if it rained. Then, exhausted, he slept.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Name: Valarkin (brother of Durnwold). Birthplace: Little Hunger Farm, Estar. Occupation: priest of the temple of the Demon of Estar. Status: acolyte.
Description: a young man with face and nose both narrow; mouth small and teeth sharp; hair and eyes both ratskin brown.
The day after leaving Delve, the wizards passed the brooding cliffs of Maf, which lay east of the Salt Road. The people of Delve had told them of the dragon's lair.
'Can you tell if the dragon's at home?' asked Phyphor.
'At this distance, no,' said Miphon.
One league further north, they came upon the ruins of Estar's temple. Amongst the charred rubble they found one living man, squatting in the ashes by a fire-scarred idol. His clothing, designed for ceremony rather than for use, was dirty and torn. His hands were blistered by the labour of uncovering the idol from the wreckage. One fingernail was bruised sullen black-red.
'Who are you?' asked Phyphor in Galish.
The stranger said nothing, but stared blankly at the idol. It had huge eyes which focused on nothing, broad lips parted to suck and absorb, a vast sagging chin; its fingers were tipped with claws.
'Name yourself!' roared Garash.
The young stranger rocked backwards and forwards, humming words without meaning.
'Stranger,' said Miphon quietly, fingering the idol. 'May we know your name? Please.'
'Valarkin,' murmured the man.
'Who burnt this place?'
'Those who did,' said Valarkin.
Which, though true, was unsatisfactory.
Bodies, many half-cremated, littered the ruins. From one, Garash salvaged an amulet.
'The spider,' said Phyphor, as Garash weighed it in his hand. 'Collosnon soldiers have been here.'
'This has no power,' said Garash with contempt, tossing the amulet to one side.
Miphon fielded it. The amulet was an oval ceramic tile with a neckcord - or the charred remains of one -threaded through a small hole. On the front was a black spider on a green background; on the back was a diamond made of a hundred curious hieroglyphs.
'Can you read this?' said Miphon to Phyphor.
'No,' said Phyphor. 'But only Collosnon soldiers wear those things. I know that much.'
Miphon let the amulet fall. Since they lost the donkey, he had learnt to carry essentials only.
'So the Collosnon have reached Estar,' said Garash. 'Perhaps in time we'll see the master of Tameran march his troops to the Great Dyke.'
Phyphor thought of all the northing they had made -through territory watched by the Landguard, by way of Narba to the Rice Empire, past Veda to the Harvest Plains, then to Selzirk, then Runcorn, then through the mountain kingdoms into Estar.
'No,' he said. 'Never.'
'We fought hard,' said the young Valarkin, speaking up unexpectedly. 'We did our best. But they were too many.'
'Do the Collosnon rule Estar now?' asked Phyphor. 'Not yet,' said Valarkin. 'They attacked here, but
they were only a raiding party. The prince's soldiers caught them at it. There was a fight. The Collosnon lost
- but all our people were dead by then. Saving me.' 'Were you a priest here?'
'Yes,' said Valarkin. Then added: 'I fought in the defence of the temple. I fought well.'
That was a lie. He had fled when the attack started, hiding in darkness until Comedo's troops had arrived to destroy the Collosnon invaders. ' 'Valarkin,' said Miphon, 'Can you tell us if the wizard Heenmor is still at Castle Vaunting?'
'We've not talked with the castle since the dragon ravaged the land,' said Valarkin. 'The castle hates us. Because the dragon burnt the country. They blame us for that.'
The dragon, yes. Phyphor looked at the sky. It was almost dayfail.
'Don't worry about the dragon,' said Valarkin. 'You can stay here - many travellers did. Our god kept the dragon away. Anyway, it's dead now. Our god destroyed it.'
'When?' said Garash.
'The night it burned the countryside. That was the night of its death-agony. Are we to blame for that? Gods are for the care of the dead, not the killing of dragons. The prince was warned.'
'About what?' said Garash.
'That there would be dangers. He's to blame. Comedo. We warned him - but he insisted. So the dragon died a noisy death - what difference does it make? Our god killed it. Not instantly - but it's dead all right.'
'Why is the prince angry then?' said Miphon.
'Because it burnt Lorford,' said Valarkin, looking at him with angry eyes gimlet-sharp. 'It burnt the palace stables. He can only seat twenty men on horseback now
- there was plenty of roast horsemeat the night the dragon fle.w.'
Hoping the dragon was indeed dead, the wizards began to make camp. Another day should take them to Lorford.
Elsewhere, after a day spent crawling and climbing through mountain tunnels, the Rovac warrior Morgan Hearst emerged into the evening air at the foot of the mountain of Maf. Soon he found Durnwold. who had been keeping vigil, waiting for a sign. Durnwold had kept Hearst's horse with him, as well as his own. As the two men rode toward the Salt Road, they saw a campfire burning in the temple ruins.
Gaining the road, they headed for Lorford; they did not stop to investigate the camp fire, and those warming themselves by its flames thought it wisest not to challenge the two horsemen passing in the night.
CHAPTER NINE
Name: Johan Meryl Comedo, prince of Estar.
Occupation: ruler of Estar.
Status: Class Enemy of the Common People.
Hobbies: preservation of traditional royal prerogatives by way of rape, torture, looting, arson, sundry oppressions of peasants, incarceration without charge or trial, etc. etc.
Description: not quite the man his father was.
* * *
Ten leagues is an easy day for an army, but the twenty thousand paces from the temple to the town of Lorford taxed the wizards severely. Garash, unwilling to drive himself, slowed them up; it was evening when they reached the town - too late to seek entry to Castle Vaunting.
Valarkin, travelling with the wizards, showed them round this strange town which had been built half by optimists above ground, and half by pessimists below. The pessimists had survived the dragon; the rest of the town was in ruins.
They took shelter in an underground tavern crowded with drunks celebrating the death of the dragon. This excuse for boozing had already lasted a night and a day, but enthusiasm still ran high. The dragon's death meant peace and prosperity - promising beer money for everyone.
The dragon had been killed - or so went the story - by Morgan Hearst, a hero from the west. When Valarkin stood up to dispute this, he was jeered at, then beaten
up and thrown outside to lie in the street in
the company of a few blind drunk gross green Melski males.
The wizards learnt that some Collosnon soldiers -preparing for an invasion, perhaps? - were raiding in Estar. Nobody lamented the lost temple and its dead priests, but the wiser heads realised that the Collosnon, by burning the temple, had destroyed one of Estar's most powerful defences. Still, they were sure Castle Vaunting could stand against any invaders. What worried them was the flame trench on the southern border, which must delay any Galish convoys coming from that direction.
One man longing for the Galish to arrive was a drunken sea captain from the Harvest Plains. In the autumn, he had sailed from Androlmarphos with a cargo of luxuries for the Ravlish Lands. Attacked by pirates, his ship had escaped, only to be severely damaged by a storm. He had brought it up the Hollern River for repairs, anchoring just below the fords of Lorford.
