The wizards and the warriors

Hugh Cook

CHAPTER ONE

Name: Phyphor. Birthplace: Galsh Ebrek. Occupation: wizard.

Status: Master wizard of the order of Arl, with powers over light and fire.

Description: very old gentleman with scarred beardless chin, bald pate, black skullcap, sheep's teeth, grey robes, iron-shod wooden staff, leather boots.

Residence: Sunside Chambers, Prime Tower, Castle of Controlling Power, near Drangsturm.

***

It was Phyphor's birthday.

He was 5736 years old.

He saw no cause to celebrate.

It was windy; it was raining; he was wet; his boots were leaking. The sheep's teeth set in his jaws by enchantment were aching. He was a long, long way from home. And he was advancing into danger.

'We should reach Estar today,' said Phyphor to his travelling companions. 'So be prepared!'

His two companions were his fat, slovenly apprentice Garash, and a youngster named Miphon who had less than a century to his credit. In Estar, the three of them hoped to find the renegade wizard they had been sent to kill.

They were not in pursuit of any ordinary renegade, such as the lord of the sea dragons, the notorious Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, wizard of Drum. No, they were after a far more dangerous quarry.

In defiance of the Confederation of Wizards, the maverick Heenmor had looted an artefact of power from the Dry Pit in the Forbidden Zone.

Phyphor's party had to seek out Heenmor, kill him, recover whatever he had stolen from the Dry Pit and present it to the Confederation in the Castle of Controlling Power.

Their chances of success and survival were, in Phyphor's estimation, about ten per cent.

***

Name: Miphon.

Birthplace: Driftwood Islands.

Occupation: wizard.

Status: Minor wizard of the order of Nin, with limited powers to hear and control the minds of wild things.

Description: slender man of youthful appearance with green eyes and a ready smile; dressed in woollen underclothes, waterproof leather outers, well-greased boots and a broad-brimmed feathered hat.

Residence: lives as a travelling healer with no fixed abode.

***

When Phyphor's little band encountered the evil wizard Heenmor, Miphon's only task would be to charm away the lethal copper-strike snake which always accompanied Heenmor.

Even so, he stood a good chance of getting killed.

After the catastrophic wars of antiquity known as the Days of Wrath, the Founders of the Confederation of Wizards had written this: 'Know that the Dry Pit contains power sufficient to destroy the world. As you value your lives and the world which supports those lives, preserve our absolute ban on the Dry Pit and the Forbidden Zone which surrounds it.'

Heenmor had defied that ban.

Heenmor had raided the Dry Pit.

Heenmor might be ready – even now – to destroy the world.

So how could they hope to defeat him?

Miphon did not worry about it at all, but wondered, instead, what new delights awaited him in Estar. Right now, he was enthralled by the rugged landscape they were travelling through. He made no mention of his pleasure to Phyphor and Garash, as both had grown dour and sour on their long journey north along the Salt Road.

Miphon wished the other two could share his joy in the wild and wonderful array of landscapes, vistas, cities, towns, villages, rocks, animals, seascapes, trees, foods, smells, songs and languages which they had encountered on their journey.

But the two wizards of Arl were immune to Miphon's enthusiasms. They were always at their worst when it was raining. And right now it was raining quite heavily.

So, as they went north along the Salt Road, with overbearing mountains on the right, and the grey tumult of the Central Ocean on the left, Miphon contented himself by singing songs of love and wonder to the donkey.

It is worth noting that Miphon, thanks to his sensible dress, was more or less waterproof, whereas both Phyphor and his apprentice Garash were soaking wet.

***

Name: Smeralda. Status: beast of burden.

Description: patient grey four-legged animal burdened with books, blankets, manuscripts, herbs, tent, quilts, cooking pots, fish hooks, fishing lines, mosquito nets etc. etc.

Musical taste: severely limited, despite Miphon's best efforts in this direction.

Late in the day, the three wizards – with their donkey in tow – reached the southern border of Estar. There a flame trench stretched for a thousand paces from mountain cliffs to the sea, which steamed where the trench continued for another hundred paces underwater; waves surging up the trench toward the mountains boiled away to nothing before they travelled half the distance.

Phyphor had been here before.

In the days of the Long War, Phyphor and other wizards had defeated the Swarms, here on the southern border of Estar. They had defeated the Swarms, but only with the help of a storm that had raged in from the Central Ocean – a storm so fierce that the legends later made said it had shaken teeth from jawbones and set the mountains to creaking. Certainly it had scattered the Neversh, breaking their strength.

It had been so close.

Only the storm had saved them.

If the Swarms had broken through, they could have spread north to the continent of Tameran and west to the Ravlish Lands. As it was, the Swarms had been driven back to the Deep South, where the wizards had built the flame trench Drangsturm and the chain of castles where the Confederation kept watch, and was pledged to keep watch forever if need be.

Though he had been here before, Phyphor scarcely recognised the place. The trench had not been maintained since the Long War, though the rubble, rubbish and erosion of four thousand years had not sufficed to fill it. A rutted track plunged to a greasy wooden duckwalk laid across the steaming mud at the bottom, then climbed the steep slope on the other side.

Nearby was a small, ruinous fort which had once guarded the southern side of the trench. On the far side, scattered blocks of masonry showed where men had once built something which the years had since pulled down.

'We'll cross tomorrow morning,' said Phyphor, who saw no need to risk that breakneck slope in the failing light, where an old wizard might miss his footing in the gloom and end up waist-deep in ovenhot mud. 'Tonight we'll shelter in the fort.'

'A damp, ugly ruin if ever I saw one,' said Garash.

'Sleep in the rain if you don't like it,' said Phyphor.

Miphon said nothing. Trying to play peacemaker between these two was, he had discovered, singularly unrewarding. Phyphor, having trained Garash, was deeply disappointed with his pupil, who had turned out to be reckless, power-hungry and amoral; Garash, for his part, bitterly resented Phyphor's refusal to release him from his apprenticeship, despite his mastery of his art.

The wind, kicking up ripples in the puddles, found no gate to bar the way as it whirled into the fortress. Entering, Garash dared a Word of Location: 'Onamonagonamonth!'

He was richly rewarded.

From half a dozen different directions, bell-like notes rang out. As the deafening noise died away, Garash cried, in great excitement: 'There's magic here! There's power!'

'Of course, fool!' roared Phyphor. 'My fire-iron, my staff of power, that oddment slung around your neck. Quite apart from all that, there's the power sources for the flame trench.'

'Oh,' said Garash, crestfallen.

'Honestly,' said Phyphor, 'Sometimes you're so stupid I feel like kicking you from here to breakfast.'

Garash did not take that criticism well.

'Let's explore,' said Phyphor.

There was little to the fort but a courtyard, a crumbling wall surrounding it, and one squat tower. Wooden stumps, the remains of floor beams, were embedded in the towerstones at three levels. A separate, steadily rising curve of stumps showed where the stairs had been. Saba Yavendar must have seen similar things in the years of chaos after the fall of the Empire of Wizards, for he had written:

Where wind may walk but men no longer, Stairs rise in easy stages to the vaults of air; Our lives have become to climb them.

From the tower, strong stone steps curved away downwards, into the unknown.

'I wonder what's down there,' said Garash.

'Would you care to investigate?' said Phyphor.

Garash wiped a drop of rainwater from the end of his nose.

'I'll leave that honour to you,' he said.

Cautiously, Phyphor started downwards, ready to blast any lurking monster with fire. He went quietly, but not silently. Rainwater dripped from his cloak and water squelched in his boots. Entering the darkness, he whispered a Word. His right hand began to glow with a cold light which glimmered on spider webs and damp stone.

He turned a corner: and found treasure.

A stack of firewood, lumped up in a cellar.

It was damp, true, and colonised by woolly grey mould, but it was richness all the same. Small bones marked the cellar as an animal's lair, but no fur and fangs contested possession.

'Treasure,' muttered Phyphor, kicking the firewood.

He said a Word, and the glow from his hand died away. Standing there, breathing darkness, he longed to be back in the Castle of Controlling Power, which commanded the western end of the league-wide flame trench – the Great Dyke, some called it, while others named it Drangsturm – which reached from the Central Ocean to the Inner Waters in the east, so dividing the continent of Argan in two.

'Hey, it's wet up here,' shouted Garash. 'Can we come down? Can you hear me? Is it safe?'

'Come on down,' said Phyphor.

Garash joined him, but Miphon stayed outside to hobble the donkey. By now, it was so dark that he was almost working by touch; the mountains were dissolving into mist. His job done, he took the heavy saddlebags down to the cellar and heaped some wood together for a fire. Phyphor threw a fire-iron onto the wood and muttered a few words. The wood steamed as winter damp dried out, then kicked into flame.

'I could have used my tinder box,' said Miphon.

Phyphor made no answer, not wanting to confess how badly the rigours of this latest march had chilled him. He was too old for this kind of expedition: that was the truth of it.

The fire made them feel better; as Saba Yavendar said:

Fire is always friendliest in a world of foes, Poor man's dancer, widow's warmer, child's enchanter;

Always, even in the winter chill, as summer warm Toward my autumn bones, my widower's rest.

While Garash grumbled about the smoke from the fire, Miphon cooked. They ate. Then they sat apart, mumbling through the Meditations of Power which allowed them to gather the strength they needed for sorcery, and the Meditations of Balance which prevented that strength from spontaneously destroying them.

Then they fell asleep, to dream their separate dreams.

Phyphor had nightmares about the Swarms. He dreamt of twisted shapes against the sky, twisted screams in the noon-day sun in the days when the Neversh flew. He dreamt of the Stalkers and the lowly scuttling keflos, of the double-hulled Engulfers, the green centipedes, the Wings, the tunnellers, the blue ants, and all the others – the fearless myrmidons of the Skull of the Deep South.

Miphon pillowed his head on a stone, ignoring, as he settled to his dreams, its distant grinding curses; the stone still remembered the pain when men, for their building, had split it to its present size.

Once asleep, Miphon dreamt the dream of the stone. (Lamentations: "Lemarl! Lemarl!') Dreamt the dream of the stone, lay in the dreamtime which is neither Lemarl nor Amarl, lay in the dream-time which is the nothing time, chaos in which the mind can be creator. 'Lemarl,' said the stone. Not weeping, not wishing it could weep: whatever it remembered, it had forgotten both tears and laughter.

Miphon woke once to hear Garash in a corner, grunting, straining. Why can't he go outside? Because it's raining, that's why. Again he woke, finding water dripping from the cellar rocks onto his face. He shifted to a place dry but less comfortable. He renewed his stone dreams.

Garash, for his part, dreamt of food.

CHAPTER TWO

Name: Garash. Occupation: wizard.

Status: apprentice to Phyphor, though his training is completed.

Description: stout grey-robed individual with bulging eyes, small scruffy beard and smallpox-scarred face of indeterminate age.

Career: reputedly served the Silver Emperor of Dalar ken Halvar for two centuries before fleeing Parengar-enga after participating in an unsuccessful coup. Began but did not complete apprenticeships with both a wizard of the order of Varkarlor and a wizard of the order of Ebber before taking service with Phyphor.

***

'Wake up!'

Garash, kicked awake from a banquet, opened his eyes to darkness.

'By the seventh hell!' he growled, his eyes full of sand, his mouth full of stones, 'What is it?'

His dreamtime banquet had disintegrated, but he could still remember the tantalising smell of roast pork. Or was it long pig? One was as good as the other, in his experience.

'Up!' said Phyphor. 'Up!'

'Alright, alright,' said Garash. 'I'm on my feet. What now?' 'Come on, Miphon.'

'No need to use your boot like that,' said Miphon, searching for his feathered hat. 'I'm ready.'

'Hurry then. Up the stairs.' 'What is it?' said Garash. 'Tell us!' 'Outside! Now!'

Miphon groped for his boots, could not find them. Went barefoot. Floor wet, rain dripping through stones, pools in concavities, stairs wet. Garash stumbled, cursed, slipped, swore.

'Hurry up,' said Phyphor.

Up the curve of the stairs – faint phosphorescent gleam from Phyphor's cloak – up the stairs and Out into the courtyard. Garash lubbered along last, panting. Rain fell steadilv. Waves crashed against the shore.

'Look!'

On a hillside two leagues north, a stand of trees was blazing. Other conflagrations glowered in the distance.

'What are they?' said Garash. 'War beacons?'

The sky answered him with a bellow of rage and pain.

'Dragon,' said Phyphor.

'It sounds as if it's gone mad,' said Garash.

'Perhaps it has,' said Phyphor.

Now they understood his urgency. Their donkey, Smeralda, was out there somewhere in the darkness. If the dragon happened to chance upon her, it would know there were people here.

'How far's the donkey gone?' said Phyphor.

He did not know what he asked. It was one thing to listen for Smeralda's thoughts, and quite another to decide distance and direction. Miphon was equal to the task: but only just.

'South,' said Miphon. 'Two hundred paces, maybe less.'

'Get it!' said Phyphor. 'Hurry! Then we'll take shelter.'

'Why kick me up here for this?' grumbled Garash. Phyphor said nothing, but watched as Miphon splashed away into the night. 'Phyphor!' said Garash.

Phyphor looked up. Overhead, a red spark reeled 20 through the sky, like a bit of burning straw spinning in the wind.

'Hold!' shouted Phyphor. 'It's overhead! Back to the cellar!'

The three wizards stumbled down the stairs and stood together in the darkness, wet and panting.

'Call the donkey to you,' said Phyphor.

'I'll try,' said Miphon. 'But it takes time. It's hard work. I can't guarantee success.'

'Try.'

Miphon blocked out the sounds of falling rain, surf-echo, dripping and trickling water. His mind listened for Smeralda's mind. And heard, instead, the dragon's mind – a senseless chant of pain, rage, hate, fierce as the warrior who wrenches a spear from his side and turns it on the enemy.

Then all heard the rush of wings pitched to a scream as the dragon plunged down, down toward the fortress, down with such reckless rage that Miphon thought it would hit the earth. It wrenched out of its dive, blasting the fort with fire as it skimmed past fast as falling. The cellar entrance flamed orange-red.

'It saw nothing,' said Garash, shaken. 'It looked, but it saw nothing. There was nothing for it to see.'

'Hush,' said Phyphor.

'It can't hear us!'

'Hush! Let Miphon listen.'

Miphon listened. The dragon was… gaining height… gaining height… disappointed… circling… circling… rage spent, rage gathering…

'It doesn't know we're here,' said Miphon.

'Of course not,' said Garash. 'There was nothing. Nothing for it to see.'

'What does the dragon do now?' said Phyphor.

'I think -1 hope it'll go and blast something else,' said Miphon.

Then heard: recognition! The dragon saw something! Then they all heard the scream as wings plummeted down, one tortured protest from Smeralda, then the wings of the dragon seeking height again, seeking height with a batblack labouring which overpowered the sound of the surf, conjuring visions of a huge leather bellows wheezing out volumes of air.

The dragon was triumphant because now… now it knew! 'It knows there are people here,' said Miphon flatly. 'A donkey means people. It'll quarter the area till it finds us, if it takes all night. If we stay here it'll sniff us out. then fry us alive.'

'Flame can't reach us here,' said Garash.

'Flame can't but heat can,' said Phyphor. 'Outside!'

They hastened up the stairs to rejoin the rain. They scanned the dark sky. High above, a fire-spark circled slowly. Underfoot, the courtyard stones were still faintly warm from dragon fire. The monster circled, once and again, and then: 'It sees us,' said Miphon.

'You kill it,' said Phyphor to Garash.

'I'll try,' said Garash.

Miphon and Phyphor retreated to the top of the steps. Garash stood alone, licking his lips anxiously. His bulging eyes watched the spark. Red spark. So high, so high. And now… and now it dipped. Garash raised his right hand. He must wait.

Down came the dragon.

Garash waited, trembling.

He could hear the wings.

The spark was a fire, a bonfire, a furnace. Close, closer, too close! Garash screamed a Word.

White fire flared from his hand. The dragon, way off to one side of the blast of power, slewed sideways and went gliding away into the darkness.

'What were you trying to do?' said Phyphor. 'Fry eggs?'

'It wasn't where I thought it was.'

'Get into the cellar, you. I'll kill it myself.'

Garash stumbled away, having wasted the accumulated strength of four hundred and seventy-nine days of the Meditation of Power on turning raindrops into steam.

"Where's the dragon?' said Phyphor, blinded by the flare of light. 'I can't see anything.'

'The dragon's thinking,' said Miphon. 'Making a plan.'

'I thought it wasn't in any state to make plans.' 'Near-death can sober up anything, even a raging dragon. It's cautious now. It's thinking.' 'What?' 'I can't tell.'

As Phyphor's night-sight recovered, he scanned the sky, blinking against the rain. 'Is the dragon moving?' 'No. It's on top of the cliffs.' 'Doing what?' 'Searching and finding.' 'Finding what?'

'I can't tell. Phyphor, it's in the air again. Up there!'

'Where? Where?'

'Above us.'

'But I can't see it!'

No red spark betrayed the dragon, which was not forced to show fire as it flew if it chose not to.

'If I try to blast it, can you guide my hand?'

'I can't pinpoint the dragon,' said Miphon. 'That's too hard.'

'Then I'll wait till it dives,' said Phyphor. 'I've stood against the Neversh. I can stand against a dragon.' They heard something falling. A rock shattered beside them. 'The cellar!' yelled Phyphor.

They ran. The dragon plunged down, dropping rocks as it swooped. They heard its wings cutting the air. A rock shattered at the head of the stairs, but they were al ready in the cellar, bleeding from a dozen rock splinters. The fort shook as the dragon crashed to earth. It bellowed. It blasted out fire. Flame filled the stairwell. Rainwater boiled to scalding steam. A flush of heat hit the cellar.

'Blast it!' screamed Garash.

'It's not in line of sight, fool,' said Phyphor.

Another blast of fire. The stink of dragon. The scrabble of talons. More fire. More steam. They were being cooked alive.

Phyphor stepped forward to try for a clear shot at the dragon. A blast of fire sent him reeling back, beating at his burning cloak. He had been singed by just the last fraction of that blast: any closer, and he would have been killed. Miphon pushed past, but Phyphor grabbed him.

'Where do you think you're going?' 'To stay is to die,' said Miphon. 'If it gets me, it may think there's nobody else.' 'Wait,' said Phyphor.

He raised his staff and hammered it down.

He spoke a Word.

The earth trembled and shook.

Phyphor spoke a Word and a Word and a Word. There was a roar louder than any dragon, or any clan of dragons. Garash screamed, throwing himself to the ground. Miphon listened. – pain, pain, pain – 'The dragon's hurt,' said Miphon. 'It's going.' They heard it bellow. (Distant. Fading.) Miphon ran upstairs. Phyphor followed close behind, panting as they burst out into the night air. The walls of the fort lay in ruins. Blocks of stone had been flung through the air as the flame trench, exploding, cleansed itself of the debris of four thousand years in a single convulsive spasm. Now the flame trench was alive, flames raging for half a league between mountain and sea. Heat beat against their faces. The clouds above smouldered with bloodlight reflections.

'Are you hurt?' said Miphon.

'My hands are burnt a little.' said Phyphor.

'Over here," said Miphon. leading him from the fort to find water where he could cool his singed hands.

'Where's the dragon?' said Phyphor.

'Far away now,' said Miphon. 'Far away. It won't be back. It's hurt. The rocks thrown by the blast hurt it.'

'Will it die?'

'I don't know. But it won't be back. It won't be back.* The ground trembled underfoot; they smelt torn earth, the stink of dragon, the dust of splintered rock; heat and light from the fire dyke beat against their faces. They heard the roar of flames, the hiss of rain boiling as it struck fire, waves from the sea exploding into steam.

Garash joined them.

'The dragon?' said Garash.

'It's gone,' said Miphon.

'How long will the flames burn for?' said Garash. who knew the answer – fifty days at least, and maybe longer – but half-hoped that someone would tell him different.

'Too long,' said Phyphor. 'We'll have to find a way over the mountains.'

Where the flame-trench ran out into the sea for a hundred paces, the waters seethed and boiled. Lacking a boat strong enough to venture out into those turbulent waters – lacking, indeed, any boat at all – the wizards could not outflank the flame trench on the seaward side.

'Mountains!' said Garash. spitting out the word with disgust.

'We could swim,' ventured Miphon. 'You could, perhaps." said Garash. 'I've never learnt to play fish.'

Garash, having wasted all his accumulated power in trying to kill the dragon, felt weak and exhausted. He felt, obscurely, that Phyphor had somehow tricked him. After all, Phyphor had finally driven off the dragon simply by calling out the Words which had made the fire dyke erupt. Garash could have done as much, if he had thought of it. He was comforted by knowing he still had power stored in the shrivelled twist of wood hung round his neck, power he had stored there during dull days in the Castle of Controlling Power.

'I couldn't venture the swim either,' said Phyphor. "So it'll have to be the mountains.'

CHAPTER THREE

Name: Heenmor. Occupation: wizard.

Status: Master wizard of the order of Arl. A renegade wanted dead – most definitely dead – by the Confederation of Wizards.

Description: a massive, troll-shouldered giant, twice the height of any ordinary mortal. Black eyes, blue beard and ginger hair. Robes of khaki, boots of white leather.

Career: most notable exploit was his organisation of an expedition to loot an artefact of power from the Dry Pit in the Forbidden Zone. His companions either died in the Dry Pit or were murdered by Heenmor afterwards; notes found in their archives alerted the Confederation of Wizards to Heenmor's misdeeds.

***

'With this, I can conquer the world,' said Heenmor.

He was talking about the stone egg which sat on one corner of the table: a sullen grey weight lit by dull light from the twelve firestones which studded the walls of this chamber high in the Tower of the order of Arl. The everlast ochre light cast no shadows.

'Aren't you interested?' said Heenmor, in a voice which mocked his opponent.

Elkor Alish, warrior of Rovac, said nothing, but studied the wizards and the warriors arrayed on the chess board. In chess, as in real life, a wizard had a hundred times the power of a warrior – but wizards could still be killed.

'Aren't you interested?' said Heenmor again. 'Believe me: the death-stone has power enough to conquer the world.'

Alish raised his eyes.

'What exactly does it do?'

***

'I'd love to know what Heenmor's taken from the Dry Pit,' said Garash, stumbling along a punishing mountain trail. 'I'd love to know what it does.'

'We'll find out soon enough,' said Phyphor.

T only hope it's something worth risking our lives for.'

'We're not in this for personal gain!' said Phyphor sharply.

'No, no, of course not,' said Garash hastily. Then went sprawling as a stone slipped beneath his feet.

'Test each stone before you trust it,' said Miphon. Garash swore, and ignored him. 'I'd still like to know,' said Garash, 'Just what it is and what it does.'

***

'So you'd like to know?' said Heenmor. 'Yes,' said Elkor Alish.

'Ah,' said Heenmor, 'That's… that's a secret.' And Heenmor smiled.

When Alish had been initiated into the Code of Night, they had told him this: remember that the wizard, scorning us, is apt to forget how fast your sword can end his life. Alish had never forgotten – which was why, face to face with the ancient enemy, he matched Heenmor time and again at chess, enduring the wizard's contempt.

But what was the death-stone? What did it do? Why was it so important? Why did Heenmor boast about it? 'Why do you invite me here so often?' said Alish.

'Perhaps I just like a game of chess,' said Heenmor.

'There's more to it than that.'

'You're right. There is. The truth is, I want to recruit a bodyguard. You, perhaps. I want the best. They say you're the best. But is it so? They call you the man who does not shed blood. That's a strange name for a Rovac warrior, isn't it?'

'My name is Elkor Alish.'

'The man who does not shed blood.'

Yes, that was what they called him now. But in the Cold West, men had known him by other names: Red Terror, Bloodsword, He Who Walks, Our Lord Despair. In the Cold West, he had been a great mercenary leader, until the day when, sickened of the slaughter, he had chosen to commit himself to the vows of the Code of Night: to destroy the ancient enemy and take the continent of Argan for the people of Rovac.

'I can kill if I have to,' said Alish.

'I've seen no proof of it,' said Heenmor.

Alish focused on the chess pieces: castles, merchants, sages, wizards, warriors, hell-banes, battering rams -and the Neversh, each with six wings, each with two feeding spikes reminiscent of the tusks of the mammoths of the Cold West. He remembered hunting mammoths with Gorn, Falmer and Morgan Hearst. Falmer was dead now: may the deep hell be gentle on his soul.

'Why are you telling me about the death-stone?' said Alish.

'To tempt you to my service,' said Heenmor. 'Believe me: the stone egg gives me power enough to conquer the world. Serve me, and you'll be richly rewarded.'

'With such power, what do you need me for?'

'To protect me from my enemies. Certain wizards are on my track. Jealousy makes them murderous. They wish to kill me for the death-stone.'

'If it makes you so powerful, what do you need me for?'

'When my enemies come, I'll have to flee,' said Heenmor. T need time yet to perfect my mastery of the death-stone. Till then, I need a bodyguard. It takes more than one pair of eyes to watch out the night.'

T have a job already.'

'What? Guarding Prince Comedo? Guarding that little smear of excrement that vaunts itself as a prince of the favoured blood? Is that the height of your ambition?'

'How can you, a wizard, dare recruit a Rovac warrior?'

T dare anything,' said Heenmor smoothly. T know your oath will bind you. if you enter my service.'

Heenmor's lethal copper-strike snake was coiled on one side of the table, watching. The death-stone sat on the other side. Alish knew himself fast enough to kill the wizard or the snake. But not both. Reaching to the chess board, he moved one of the Neversh to confront one of Heenmor's wizards. Heenmor moved the threatened piece out of range.

'Perhaps Morgan Hearst will accept my offer,' said Heenmor. 'He's a warrior's warrior. I've watched him matching swords with that peasant, Durnwold. Training troops for the spring – and the war Comedo's promised him. He's a killer, isn't he? You can see it in his eyes. Maybe he's my man.'

'Ask him and see,' said Alish.

Would Hearst yield to temptation? Surely not. A Rovac warrior could never pledge himself to a wizard. Alish studied the chess board, trying to work out how to kill Heenmor's two remaining wizards.

'Alish,' said Heenmor, 'All I need is a little time. Then I'll have perfect control of the death-stone. That means power. Enough power to rule the world – or destroy it. Join me. Serve me. What's the choice? To stay here? In Estar? Here is almost like being nowhere.

Winter's ending. My enemies are coming – I'm sure of it. Make your choices, Alish!'

Alish smoothed his hands over his long black hair, thinking carefully. If he struck at Heenmor, the snake would kill him, but what if he grabbed for the stone egg sitting so near to hand?

Heenmor gestured at the stone egg.

'The man who rules this rules everything,* said Heenmor. 'Even if he can't rule himself.'

Alish hesitated – then snatched up the death-stone.

Heenmor laughed.

'So,' he said, 'You do have ambition.'

The stone egg felt cool and heavy.

'See the script on the side of the death-stone?' said Heenmor. 'Any wizard can read it. Raise the death-stone above your head. Say the Words. Do it!'

Alish looked at the characters cut into the stone egg: cursive scrolls, loops and hooks, shapes that imitated worm-casts or the convolutions of the intestines. They meant nothing to him.

Heenmor laughed again.

Suddenly the death-stone kicked, as if it was a living heart.

'Use it now,' said Heenmor. 'Use it – or if you hold it any longer it will kill you.'

Alish threw down the stone, scattering the chess pieces. The snake raised its head and stared at him.

'One day I'm going to kill you.' said Alish. 'One day I'm going to kill every wizard in the world.'

Heenmor laughed, as one might laugh at a child.

CHAPTER FOUR

Salt Road: main trading route serving the continent of Argan, the Ravlish Lands and the Cold West.

Starting at the Castle of Controlling Power by Drangsturm, runs north through the cities of Narba, Veda, Selzirk and Runcorn, through the lands of Chorst, Dybra and Estar, then into the Penvash Peninsular.

Turning west, reaches the Penvash Channel then proceeds through the Ravlish Lands to the city of Chi'ash-lan and the Cold West.

Goods traded along the Salt Road include: salt, silk, slaves, animals, hides, gold, silver, lead, copper, bronze, keflo shell, linen, hemp, glass, crystal, wood, wool, quernstones, lodestones, leeches, sponges, olive oil, lemons, citrons, coconuts, rare birds, amber and ambergris.

News, rumour, gossip and slander also, of course, travel the Salt Road.

***

'Phyphor, it's too much for me,' said Garash. 'Can't we rest? Can't we stop?'

Phyphor trudged on, in silence, his eyes downcast. His walk was little more than a survival stagger. The long days spent labouring over the mountains then navigating across open country to regain the Salt Road had worn him to his bones.

'Slave driver,' muttered Garash.

That was about the worst insult one wizard could offer another. When Phyphor did not respond, Miphon took his hand. It was cold, like a bit of dead wood. 'Phyphor…"

The old wizard did not resist as Miphon drew him to the shelter of a clump of roadside trees.

'What's his problem?' said Garash.

'Too much wet, wind and road,' said Miphon.

Acutely aware that there would be nobody to help them if Phyphor began to slip into a death-stupor, Miphon gathered wood, lit a fire, heated a little gruel then fed it to Phyphor, who mumbled it down without resistance. It was the last of their food. They had eaten scarcely enough to warm their skeletons over the last few days.

Phyphor recovered quickly with the help of campfire warmth and gruel. Wizards had resources not given to ordinary men; though he had reached the edge of death, he was soon insisting that they press on. As they tramped north, Miphon engaged him in conversation from time to time to gauge his condition.

Phyphor was still holding up well when late afternoon brought them to the hamlet of Delve – a collection of squatdwellings crouching in the wetrot shadows of trees that choked a narrow gully. No dragon could have seen the hamlet from the air; it was almost invisible from the road.

The wizards knew what they would find: doors that stooped as low as the aching curve of rheumatism, rooves of sodden thatch, dark interiors cluttered with animals, floors of septic mud and manure, and people with the similar squinting eyes and chinless faces that come from generations of drunken fathers ramming their daughters against the walls.

First to greet them was a small black dog which raced through the mud so full of teeth and fury that Miphon at first thought it was rabid. It flung itself at them. Phyphor caught it with his staff, knocking it sideways into a tree. It lay in the rain as if stunned, then slowly crawled away, dragging its hindquarters.

People began to appear in doorways: old women with faces like those of smoke-shrivelled shrunken heads, young men picking at their teeth in a meditative way, a young woman with the bulging belly of a pregnancy near term. None of them said anything. They stood in the doorways as if they had been there all their lives staring out into the rain.

Finally a girl-child came splashing through the mud.

'Galish?' she said.

'No,' said Miphon, in the Trading Tongue. 'Not Galish, what?' said the girl. 'Wizards,' said Miphon.

The girl laughed. She flicked mud at them with one of her small bare feet. Garash growled; Phyphor hushed him.

'Where can we get a bed for the night?' said Miphon. 'Where?'

'A bed? For the night? Where?' 'Where what?'

'Where sleep,' said Miphon hopefully. 'Where sleep.' 'Sleep. Oh, sleep!'

The girl rocked up and down on her toes in the mud, which had splashed up her legs to her knees. She stuck the tip of her tongue between her teeth and waited. Miphon brought out a small coin, a bronze bisque from the Rice Empire, with the crescent moon on one side and the disc of the sun on the other. He held it out. The girl snatched it, quick as a frog whipping a fly from the sky. She smuggled it through layers of rags till it lay in some secret hiding place next to her skin.

'Sleep,' she said, and led them to one of the houses, stamping occasionally so that mud and water flew through the air around her. 'Sleep.'

Peering into the house, the wizards saw a smoking fire and a big wooden table in which hollows had been gouged into which soup could be ladled – this household was too poor to afford food bowls. A man lumbered out of the interior gloom and placed himself in the doorway. 'Galish?' he said.

'No,' said Miphon. 'Are you an innkeeper?' 'Certain, yes.'

'We'd like to stay here for the night if we may.'

'Who might you be then?' said the man, checking the size of his nose with his thumb.

'We're from the south,' said Miphon.

'South is where you're from, but who are you?'

'My style is Phyphor, master wizard of the order of Arl, which has rank among the highest of the eight orders,' said Phyphor.

Phyphor had learnt the Galish Trading Tongue from a wizard who had learnt it from a book; he had let Miphon do most of the talking on their journey north.

'Are we in understanding?' said Phyphor.

'I understand,' said the innkeeper, 'And you?'

He pointed at Garash.

'My style is Garash. Have a care, lest my wrath breed toward destruction. Stand ajar to let us in; spread straw overhead the mud.'

A woman inside the house, who was tending the smoking fire, cackled. Garash swung his head toward her. His protuberant eyes peered suspiciously at her gloomy corner.

'Why is that wet crack laughing?' he said.

'It's a joke to think we've got straw to throw on the floor at this end of a hard winter and a wet spring,' said the innkeeper. 'You now, young one. Who are you?'

'E'parg Miphon,' said Miphon, naming himself with the immaculate Galish of a constant traveller. 'We'd be grateful to have the pleasure of your fireside.'

'Gratitude is all my soul, as the crel said to the egg,' quoth the innkeeper. The word 'crel' was unknown to the Galish Trading Tongue, but Miphon did not ask for a translation, for the innkeeper made his meaning clear enough: 'You, my pretties, must pay with a pretty, for what costs a pretty isn't bought with a word.'

'We've got money enough,' said Garash belligerently, thus compromising their position for the subsequent bargaining.

The innkeeper, standing dry inside the doorway, got the better of the haggling; the wizards, outside in the rain, were eager to get under cover. With money paid, they went in and pulled up stools by the fire. Phyphor pulled off his boots, which were starting to tear apart, and stuck his wrinkled feet close to the fire. It burnt too low for his liking, but he knew the innkeeper would not want to burn more wood than he had to.

'We have more money,' said Miphon, 'If you can get us bread and wine.'

They settled the price: a small dorth, a coin with an ear of wheat on each side, which had travelled with the wizards all the way from Selzirk. The innkeeper spoke to the old woman in Estral, the native tongue of Estar -unintelligible to the wizards – and the two went out into the rain.

No sooner had they gone than Phyphor shoved his staff into the fire and muttered. Flames shot up. The chimney blazed briefly as soot caught fire, then Phyphor muttered again and the flames dampened down a little.

When the innkeeper and the old woman returned, the innkeeper grunted when he saw the fire, and looked suspiciously at the wizards.

'Your fires,' said Phyphor, 'It burns well.'

'Yes,' said the innkeeper. 'Here be food. Here be drink.'

The bread was hard and unleavened; the wine tasted like vinegar. Even so, the wizards ate ravenously and drank deep, sating their hollow hunger.

'You've had many fires along the Salt Road,' said Miphon casually.

'The hills are burnt, yes. The dragon ran amok – no man has asked it why. Hearsay tells the dragon breathed on the steamer to south to fire it up. A hunter gone south saw the steamer spit lightning at the dragon. Next thing, the steamer was all in flames. Blocks the road. Bad for trade, that. Did you venture the mountains?'

'Yes,' said Miphon. 'It was a long journey. But wizards are used to long journeys. We heard of another wizard who's been this way. Heenmor's his name.'

'Heenmor, eh?' said the innkeeper. 'It's not a name we know much of in these parts…'

'Oh,' said Miphon, and that was all he said.

Miphon took off his boots and massaged his feet slowly, working some warmth into them.

'Midwinter we heard a tell of Heenmor,' said the innkeeper. 'Not that I believe a word of the tell.'

'What you don't believe we won't trouble you for,' said Miphon. 'Pass the wine, please.'

Midwinter tales were not worth the money: it was the beginning of spring, and winter tales would not tell them if Heenmor was still in Castle Vaunting.

CHAPTER FIVE

Name: Morgan Gestrel Hearst.

Birthplace: the islands of Rovac.

Occupation: bodyguard to Prince Comedo of Estar.

Status: a hero of the wars of the Cold West, veteran soldier of Rovac, Chevalier of the Iron Order of the city of Chi'ash-lan, blood-sworn defender of Johan Meryl Comedo of Estar.

Description: lean clean-shaven man of average height, age 35, hair grey, eyes grey.

Career: going off to the wars at age 14, served variously in lands north and south of Rovac, then spent 10 years in the Cold West under the command of Elkor Alish. Subsequently followed Alish to Estar.

The day was dying. In Hearst's room in Castle Vaunting, the fire had not been lit; it was cold.

'What do you want?' said Hearst, as Alish entered.

'I'm here to see how you are,' said Alish.

'Oh? And what concern is that of yours?'

'Don't be like that,' said Alish. He picked up the goblet Hearst had been drinking from. 'What's this?'

'A drink.'

Alish sniffed it, tasted it.

'Ganshmed!' he said, naming the vodka by its Rovac name, which translates literally as deathwater. 'So?'

'This is no night for boozing.' 'It's not night yet.'

'Morgan… it's a hard enough climb for any man 38 under any conditions. Drunk, you won't have a chance.' 'It's my life.'

'Listen, Morgan! You were a fool to dare this challenge. That can't be denied. But with that said -why condemn yourself to death before you start. Get to bed. Rest. Sleep. You'll need all your strength tomorrow – and we start early." 'Give me my drink,' said Hearst.

'Morgan, aren't you listening?'

'It's my life.'

'Your life, yes – but the honour of Rovac lives or dies through you.'

'Alish, I'll be dead by noon tomorrow. A piss on the honour of Rovac! Now give me my drink. Come on, give it! By the hell! By the hell, Alish, did you have to hit me so hard?'

'Get up,' said Alish. 'Get up. See? You're halfway legless already. How much have you drunk?'

'Enough,' said Hearst. 'But I can walk straight, talk straight and stick it up straight. Now give me my drink.'

'No. I'd sooner kill you here than see you fall tomorrow because you're drunk.' 'Kill me?' roared Hearst.

And lugged his sword Hast from the scabbard. That sword was a miracle of metalwork, but the hands that held it were in no condition to wield it.

'Draw!' growled Hearst. 'Draw, you god-rot hero!'

But Alish kept his blade, Ethlite, sheathed. Slowly, deliberately, he poured Hearst's vodka onto the floor. Hearst lunged for him. Alish sidestepped neatly, then helped him on his way with a shove that sent him crashing into the wall.

Hearst collapsed to the floor, groaning. Alish's resolve hardened: if necessary, he would kill Hearst in the morning rather than let him make a fool of himself in front of Prince Comedo and his minions. Once they had been friends: but Hearst had long since lost the right to Alish's friendship.

Alish opened the door, slipped outside and beckoned to the man who stood waiting in the corridor.

'Durnwold,' said Alish, 'You were right to call me: he's in a bad way. But I can't do anything for him. You try. If he stops drinking and gets to sleep, he'll have a chance tomorrow. Otherwise… '

'I understand,' said Durnwold, nodding. 'I'll do what I can.'

Alish left; Durnwold entered Hearst's room.

Morgan Hearst sat on the bed, hands supporting his head. He looked up, then looked away.

Durnwold picked up the sword Hast and turned it over in his hands. It was a true battle-sword, forged generations ago by the smiths of Stokos. It was made of firelight steel, which, consisting of interwoven layers of high carbon and low carbon steel, is light, strong and flexible, and will never fail in battle.

'It's a fine blade,' said Durnwold.

'A fine blade, yes,' said Hearst, his voice dull.

The steel had been etched with vinegar to bring out the grain; patterns as various as the shapings of the sea snaked along the blade as Durnwold displayed it to the last of the daylight.

'I held that blade at Enelorf,' said Hearst.

'You told me.'

'I've no fear in battle, you know.' 'I know it.'

'We've been through many battles together, blood-sword Hast and Morgan Hearst.'

'Yes,' said Durnwold. 'It's a fine blade indeed. A warrior's weapon. A weapon too good to leave for a prince'.

'Yes,' said Hearst, his face now lost in shadow. 'Far too good for a prince.'

'We ride to war soon,' said Durnwold. 'You've trained me. I was born a peasant, but, given free choice, I'd rather be your battle-companion. Tell me, am I good enough?'

Hearst did not answer for a while. Then he spoke, out of the darkness: 'You have the makings of a warrior. All you need now is the battles to harden you. And I could wish no better companion than you to ride with me. But I've heard so much of your talk of the sheep, the farm, the peat, your brother Valarkin, your sisters spinning wool -1 thought yours was a peasant's heart forever.'

T can't help my past,' said Durnwold, 'But I have the will to help my future. My future lies with yours.'

'Give me my sword then,' said Hearst, reaching from darkness to darkness. 'Strength and steel, hey? Yes. I'll do it. The climb and the kill. I'll do them both.'

CHAPTER SIX

Pox: vernacular name used for a number of diseases characterised by eruptive sores, but in particular for syphilis.

Pox doctor: one who heals or purports to heal venereal diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhoea etc. etc.

In Castle Vaunting, night brought sleep to the warrior Morgan Hearst, who was due to face his doom on the morrow.

In the hamlet of Delve, night brought sleep also to the wizards Phyphor and Garash, who ensconced themselves in a loft. But Miphon stayed awake, for he was needed for doctor work.

Even here in Delve, the people had heard the legends of the Alliance of wizards and heroes four thousand years and more before, the Alliance which had fought so long and hard against the Swarms. However, whatever legend, song or rumour might say, most folk credited wizards with no magic. Their standing was low, for they were best known as pox doctors. Most people had no chance to unlearn their ignorance, for wizards came seldom to Estar, and, though Delve knew of Heenmor, it was only by hearsay.

The last wizard to visit Delve had been a young apprentice discarded by his tutor because of his poor scholarship and his inability to build and control power through the Meditations. He had been scraping a living as a healer, though his studies of the healing arts were far from complete.

Such incompetent failures were the wizards most frequently seen by men, and, encountering such a novice, a young man blinking behind wire-rimmed spectacles, shuffling his feet, stuttering, travelling burdened with herbs, leeches, divining rods, poultices, eye of newt and ear of bat, it was hard to credit the seventh oldest profession with any importance.

Phyphor, however, was powerful, dangerous, and, of course, very old; the ages of wizards, though measured in fewer years than the ages of rock, outshadow the mayfly lives of common men. Garash was younger, but still very dangerous.

These two did not lance boils, perform abortions, repair hymens or draw teeth. They had not devoted themselves to the High Arts in order to labour over ingrowing toenails. Their hands held the powers of thunder; they had mastered the Names and the Words; they had learnt the Four Secrets and the Nine Mysteries; they had the harsh pride of those who follow the most rigorous of intellectual disciplines. They were meant for greatness: but wherever they went, young men would come slinking up to them to beg cures for oozing chancres, and furtive young women would bring them their tears and fears. They would never shake the appellation of pox doctor, even though they had done nothing to earn it.

Of the three, only Miphon had really studied the gentle skills of healing; only he was humble enough to put himself at the service of the common people.

That night, there was a birth. As the local midwife had lately died of septicaemia, Miphon served as accoucheur, delivering the child with aplomb. It was the easiest birth he had ever attended – and he had seen many in the families of the Landguard of the Far South. As always, he felt joy at this most common yet most profound of all miracles. As it has been Written (in Kalob IV, quilt 9, section 3b, line xxii): 'The greatest Heights yield to those who stoop the Lowest'. Miphon. reaching those Heights, was amply rewarded.

The people credited him with the easy birth, though in fact he had done little except be there to catch the baby. He was honoured by being asked to name the perfect girl-child who had just joined humanity.

T name her Smeralda,' said Miphon, giving her the nicest name he knew.

'May we know who she is named after?'

'A good person,' said Miphon, thinking quickly. Who'd choose to be named after a deceased donkey? He improvised: 'A princess of Selzirk, pride of the Harvest Plains.'

This satisfied everyone.

Miphon got little sleep, for Phyphor woke in the early-early, and forced them to set off down the road by darkness. Proper food and a proper bed had rejuvenated him; he was eager to close with Castle Vaunting and finish their business with the wizard Heenmor.

And so it was that three Forces left Delve by night, all Powers in the World of Events, Lights in the Unseen Realm, Graduates of the Trials of Strength, Motivators of History, masters of lore versed in the logic of the Cause and the nature of the Beginning. And the peasants of Delve, despite their gratitude for the successful birth, told rude pox doctor jokes when the wizards were gone, then returned to the pleasures of seducing their sisters and scratching the boils on their backsides and the lice in their hair.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dragon: large scale-armoured egg-laying fire-breathing carnivore, not to be confused with the sea serpent of the Central Ocean or the taniwha of Quilth. Dragons are not related to the colony creatures of the Swarms but are related – distantly – to the phoenix and the basilisk, and – very distantly – to the platypus. There are three types:

1. Common or land dragon: very large, inimical, extremely destructive aviator of limited intelligence, typically leading a solitary, cave-dwelling existence;

2. Sea dragon: flightless, intelligent, gregarious creature noted for vanity and promiscuity. Robust swimmer, but mates on land – frequently. Properly flattered, is relatively harmless, but if scorned becomes extremely dangerous;

3. Imperial dragon: lithe, sinuous, domesticated flying dragon of Yestron, where it is famed for its gentle nature and plaintive song. Extremely susceptible to all those diseases which affect bees, it also swiftly becomes alcoholic if exposed to temptation.

***

Alish, watching the rising stars, judged the night half gone. It was time to set out. Hearst, roused from sleep, was soon asleep in the saddle; he did not wake again until they were nearly at Maf, ten leagues south of Castle Vaunting.

Waking, he found that words already dared by Prince Comedo's jester began to nag through his head:

Sing now the song of Hearst the dung, A drunkard with a braggart's tongue.

Now Hearst he thought that pigs could fly, When wine-cups he had gundled, So pumped his loins and puffed his boasts, Then off to Maf he trundled.

But Hearst found pigs can't reach the sky:

No dragon had he fondled When slipped his foot to fill his mouth, And screaming he fell down to land, Spread wide across the grinning rocks:

The place which now the seagull mocks.

Sing now the song of Hearst the dung, Unmastered by his pride and tongue, Split from his crutch to his boasting lung, No prettier than what the seagull done.

The song had found popular appeal with Comedo's men, a rag-tag rabble of bandits, pirates, assorted thugs and deserters. Later, no doubt, they would have time to make a longer, bawdier, funnier song.

Their drinking doggerel would tell of how, a few days after the dragon Zenphos raged across Estar, the wizard Heenmor fled the castle. Prince Comedo, desiring revenge for insults and injuries the castle had suffered, sent Morgan Hearst out wizard-hunting with nineteen mounted men. But when his horse fell lame, he missed the kill – and it was the men who died, not the wizard.

Hearst's temper – never a steady beast, that temper -had grown stormy in the days of lame-foot limp-foot jokes that followed, leading him to drink more than he should have to ease that temper to its nightly sleep.

Finally Morgan Hearst, scourge of the Cold West, had sat at the card table with a full skin to lose money, shirt and sword to the young fool Prince Comedo.

Hearst – drunken, boastful, vain – had made one last gamble: 'This one last wager I'll make with you on the turn of the next card, and if I win I'll reclaim all I've lost, and if I lose…' – Ah yes, you lost, didn't you, bird-dung, and that's why you're here.

For this was the wager: 'If I lose, I'll go to Maf to scale the cliff that daunts the eagle's wing; I'll raid the lair where the dragon Zenphos lives; I'll bring you the red ruby of legend which the wizard Paklish set in the dragon's head, after the sage Ammamman tore the left eye from its socket.'

Thus the wager.

– So. It's done. Now for the death.

He had known the wager for madness even as he made it, but he had been too proud to retract it. They would have laughed at him. He was strong, and brave, but a laugh could wound him to the marrow.

– They would have laughed at you, and made rude jokes about you, and talked for generations about the wager Morgan Hearst made in his cups, and had to retract in shame.

– But they'll joke away regardless, after you fall. They'll call you a zany fool, a drunken clown.

– They'll be right.

Already, he could imagine, in precise detail, the disaster which lay ahead of him. He knew that he was doomed. He was sober for the climb, but he was sure it would make no difference.

In the half-light before sunrise, they saw the bones of men, cattle, a small whale, a juvenile sea serpent. The horses, picking their way over the stony ground to the southern face of Maf, grew uneasy; finally Durnwold's baulked, and he had to dismount and lead it by foot.

All too soon, they were there.

'Rise, sun!' cried Comedo.

The sun obeyed.

'Your sword,' said Comedo to Hearst, as the sun 47 splayed their long shadows across the ground. Hearst yielded the blade.

'But remember,' said Hearst, 'I regain it if I succeed.' 'If?' said Comedo. 'You venture an If? You disappoint me.'

Hearst grimaced, but said nothing as the prince brandished the battle-sword Hast, a weapon as famous as the warrior Morgan Hearst. Avor the Hawk had dared many battles with that blade, never finding any man to match him. A woman had killed him in the end – his seventh wife had poisoned him when he discarded her for an eighth. After that, the sword had come to Hearst, who had carried it year after year in the Cold West, till it was as much a part of him as his arm.

– Hast, my sword, my strength, my half-brother, my brother in blood.

'Why linger, friend?' said Comedo. 'Remember, up is hard, but down is easy – all you have to do is jump.'

And he laughed. For Comedo, life was full of occasions for merriment. His executioner provided him with many of them.

– He laughs. He laughs at you, Morgan Hearst, leader of men. Yes. But with good reason.

Durnwold came to Hearst.

'I'll wait for you,' said Durnwold.

'You may have to wait a long time.'

'I'll wait. Trust me.'

'I do,' said Hearst.

Then glanced at Alish, who sat silently on his horse. The sun shone on his long black hair, his embroidered cloak, his golden jewellery. Hearst knew Alish could have shinned up this mountain, making the climb seem effortless. Only a face of sheer ice or sheer glass could have defeated him. But then, Alish was not afraid of heights.

'We're waiting,' said Comedo, who was getting bored.

'I know, my prince,' said Hearst.

And turned to face the mountain.

***

The wide world turns. The entire continent of Argan now lies in sunlight; the edge of dawn moves slowly westward across the Central Ocean toward Rovac and the Cold West. While Hearst labours up the rockwalls of Maf, an isolated mountain spike in the north-west of Argan, the cities of the continent are waking in the morning light.

In the free port of Runcorn, the Common Gates are opened; in Androlmarphos. dominating the delta of the Velvet River, the harbour chains are removed; in Selzirk, the kingmaker Farfalla – named for the moth -rises to her daily rituals.

Further to the south, in Veda, stronghold of the sages, the Masters are at study; the troops of the Secular Arm man Veda's battlements and drill on the training grounds. Further South again, Landguard patrols prowl the Far South. By Drangsturm, the turrets and towers of the spectacular upthrust of the Castle of Controlling Power mass against the light; beyond the Great Dyke, in the Deep South, small bands of Southsearchers in the land of Swarms settle down to wait out the dangers of the day.

Hearst climbs, his danger increasing from moment to moment, but the life of the world will continue whether ¦ he gains the heights or falls. Win or lose, succeed or fail, the world will go on without him, and well he knows how little he matters to the world as he struggles up the cliff face.

It is the loneliest hour of his life.

***

There was a crack up there. It would give him a handhold, if he could reach it.

– Can you reach it, little man? No. It's out of reach.

– Look down. Come on. I dare you. Look down. Yes, yes, that's right. Down.

He looked down, to see a flash of white sliding through the air far below his feet. A gull. On the rocks below the gull, a few small specks dotted the rocks: men. His comrades.

– So they're waiting. Some of them, at least. But what does it matter? You'll never see them again unless you reach that handhold.

He was exhausted. It was too far to climb back down.

– You'll never reach that handhold. Never.

The sweat from his last exertions had dried on his body. The wind which had harried him earlier in the day had gone to torment some other place, but the air was still cold. He was cold.

– Colder still when dead, no doubt.

He could not reach that stronghold, that handhold, that griphold which would secure him against that five-scream fall. It was impossible. This was the end.

– Any regrets? Many. But at least nobody else will die because of this foolishness. None other was fool enough to join this climb. Not even Durnwold.

He was facing his end. And he was facing it alone.

– Bereft of strength, and far away my friends.

His legs were trembling. If he let go it would all be finished. It would be so easy to let go. He would slip back into the air that was softer than feathers. He would fall.

So easy.

His head hurt where a falling rock had clipped it earlier in the climb. The short-cropped hair there was stiff with blood. He had dried blood on his fingers, torn by grappling with the cliff.

He was so tired.

So cold.

If he let go, no more pain. No more fear. It would all be over. But they would make rude songs about him.

They would liken him to spattered bird dung.

– Look up.

– Look up, arse-wipe. Up!

– How far?

– Only thirty paces.

Only thirteen paces to the dragon's lair. There were ten leagues to a march – twenty thousand paces – and often he had made two marches between sunrise and sunset. Would thirty paces defeat him now? If he had been a man-sized fly he could have walked those thirty paces on a single breath of air.

– Look up.

– The only chance is up. Will the left hand hold you? The left hand held him. He stretched. The handhold was out of reach. But only just. Should he jump? It wasn't far. But when a man is on a cliff-face where even to flex his knees may be precarious, when he has climbed so far, with so much pain, with so much fear…

– But there's no other choice.

– So jump!

Hearst boosted himself up, to find his fear had previously cramped him to a crouch even when he thought he was at full stretch. He gained the handhold. One hand on. Two!

Easy.

His feet slipped, scrabbled, then found their resting place. Then slipped again. Then half his handhold crumbled away to nothing. His left hand clawed at the air. He was hanging by one hand only. His fingers began to slide.

Then his flailing hand found a crevice.

– Hold me, woman-rock. It held.

His feet found purchase. Two hands on. Two feet on. And he could see his next handhold. He reached for it, gained it. Up. To the next. The next. He climbed, animated by a burst of fury, raging at himself for letting fear trick him into thinking he needed to jump for that crucial handhold – appalled at how close he had come to throwing his life away.

Climbing with a furious effort which threatened to burst his heart, he reached a crack running vertically to the gaping cleft which was the entrance to the dragon's lair. The chimney widened; he wedged his body inside it, and rested. His rage died away, replaced by shuddering exhaustion.

– Cling to the rock. Cling to the rock. Like darkness, like mother. Like warmth and hot milk after cold rain; like mother. Is that part of the warrior's way? Longing for milk and for mother? Is it? What are you, Hearst?

– 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 night 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.

'My troubles were only starting. My screwrot crew deserted to take service with the prince. This end of winter – the winter cost me pretty, never doubt it – the prince seized my cargo's cream. Six boys – six! The best – young slave boys, trained to service. The temple wanted them for sacrifice. To persuade a god to kill a dragon. We all know what killed what in the end. The prince donated them. Easy for him to give, wasn't it? 'There were women, too – but those went to the prince. He's a fine one for taking. And he's not the only one! The Melski have torn the nails from my ship, working underwater. It's grounded on the riverbed. So here I sit till the Galish come so I can sell what's left -then I'll barefoot back to Runcorn and beyond.'

As an introduction to the habits and practises of Johan Meryl Comedo, this was hardly promising; other stories the wizards heard did nothing to advance him in their favour.

Come morning, they walked up Melross Hill to the black battlements of the castle dominating the heights above Lorford. Although it was spring, the cold wind sang a joyless, bitter song as it cut through chinks and gaps in the walls of the hillside hovels of the servants who worked in the castle but were refused shelter there.

Comedo and his fighting men – and their women -occupied only the castle's gatehouse keep; nobody dwelt in the eight towers of the eight orders of wizards, still sealed against men as they had been through all the centuries since wizards had deserted them. Darkest and tallest was the tower of the Dark Order, the order of Ebber, the order of Shadows, the commanders of dreams and delusions.

Comedo refused to share his keep with his servants, and would not let them build inside the flat area enclosed by the long battlements as he did not want vernacular elements spoiling the classical flow of his castle's interior. Hence the hovels on the hill. Fleabite children stared from shack-shanty doors as the wizards laboured uphill, buffeted by the wind.

'The dragon missed what most needed burning,' said Garash.

The hovels had been built right to the edge of the flame trench which moated the castle. Unlike the fire dyke on Estar's southern border, this trench had never filled with rubble, despite lack of maintenance; it dropped so deep that one could count a falling stone from one to ten before it hit bottom. Where water and wastes were discharged, sprawling green moss followed the moist trail downwards, but far before the bottom of the trench it was too hot for moss to grow.

Writhing red and orange flames simmered at the bottom of the fire dyke. It had been built to last even should the Swarms besiege the castle for five thousand years on end; the passing centuries had not quenched those flames, and, if the right Words were said, they would blaze upward to fill the entire trench for fifty days or more.

Though the flame trench was at its most passive, it was still hot enough for the shack-dwellers to be able to cook meals in metal pots descending on chains a fraction of the way into the depths. A woman emptied a tub of washing water to the gulf; falling, the water boiled to steam.

T suppose the schtot find living so close to the heat makes infanticide easy,' said Garash; 'schtot' was a pejorative from the Galish Trading Tongue, which he was trying hard to master.

'I suppose so,' said Phyphor, not really listening – he was thinking about the love-labours wizards had lavished on these fortifications built for their personal protection, and what shoddy work they had done on the barriers made during the Long War to stop the northward spread of the Swarms.

'Let's go and test this prince's temper then,' said Garash.

'We'll do no testing unless we have to,' said Phyphor. 'And I'll do the talking. Remember that.'

As they crossed the drawbridge, the wind tried to strip them naked. Ahead rose the seventy levels of the gatehouse keep, pierced by narrow windows and garnished with an eclectic array of corpses in various states of decomposition.

'What charming taste!' said Garash, eyeing the dangling bodies.

'What did you expect?' said Phyphor. 'Sophistication?'

'I expect nothing,' said Garash. 'But I mark the prince is a butcher. Perhaps it might amuse him to add a couple of wizards to his corpse collection.'

'Only two?' said Miphon.

'Make it two wizards and a pox doctor,' said Garash. 'If you want to draw distinctions,' said Miphon, 'Make it one of Nin, one of Arl, and one fat slobbery greedbox.'

'I eat to my best because I've got a mind to nourish,' said Garash with dignity. 'Unlike some.'

'Enough,' said Phyphor, for they had reached the archway at the end of the drawbridge.

Coming in out of the wind, the wizards smelt the stench of rotten meat, decayed vegetables and sewerage, a first token of the squalor of Comedo's court. Looking through the archway – which, though it could be sealed by portcullises, ran the length of the ground floor of the gatehouse keep – they saw some men rebuilding charred wooden buildings in the central court, where the dragon had fired stables, kennels and a banqueting hall.

'Well well,' said one of two guards, stirring himself to stand erect. 'What's this now, walking in on its hind legs?'

'Let me pass,' said Garash.

'Not so hasty,' said the guard. 'Not so hasty.'

'My companion may be hasty,' said Phyphor, 'But he has reason. We do have business which should not be delayed. Let us pass.'

The guard rubbed his nose.

'Let you pass? Indeed I'll let you pass, pass left or right or pass back the way you came, or pass water if you wish, but if you try to pass me by you'll pass beyond the sight of men, right quickly, unless you've got the password or some other passable credentials.'

'I am a wizard,' said Phyphor, letting his iron-shod staff thud against the flagstones.

'A wizard, hey?' said the guard. 'Well, by the Skull of the Deep South, a wizard. I'm sorry to tell you, though, we've got no pox for curing. We've had poxy weather and poxy food, a poxy dull winter and the spring not much better, but the actual smelly little article we don't have in quantity.'

Phyphor thumped his staff again on the flagstones.

'Man,' said Garash, pushing forward, 'Man, do you know – '

Phyphor put out an arm to hold Garash back.

'Well, by my grandmother's sweet brown eye,' said the guard, 'We do have a windy temper here, don't we Bartlom?'

'Yes,' said Bartlom. 'We'll see some magic if we're lucky. I've heard of pox doctor magic. The pox doctors, you see, turn sheep into lovers and pigs into whores." 'We did have a real wizard once,' said the first guard. 'His name was Heen or Hein or Hay, or some such, if you please. Twice my height, yes. his face as white as ice, his eyes as black as night. He had a snake which killed with a single bite. You're not wizards. You may be pox doctors, but we've no requirement for quacks today. So you can't come in, unless you care to turn me into a frog or a fish.'

'Why change you?' said Garash. 'Nature decided you should be born a pig, so who are we to interfere?'

'That's not nice, Mr Pox,' said the guard, frowning. 'He's not nice at all, is he, Bartlom? Would his tongue improve with cooking, perhaps?'

Phyphor lost patience. His staff swung through the air: once. No exercise of magic could have inflicted a worse injury. Bartlom started to lug out his sword. Phyphor felled him with a blow to the head. He went down and stayed down.

'You did that nicely,' said Garash. 'Like swatting flies.'

'Was there no other way?' said Miphon.

'Why worry about scum like that?' said Garash. 'Their lives are worthless anyway. Time only teaches them to waste time.'

'Come!' said Phyphor, venturing in under the first portcullis.

Somewhere, someone was shouting, his voice echoing in the distance: 'Andranovory! Get your drunken arse up here!'

They were now well and truly in Prince Comedo's domain.

CHAPTER TEN

Rovac (noun): a group of 27 islands in the Central Ocean; inhabitant(s) of those islands; their nation; their language; (adjective): of or concerning the said islands, inhabitants, nation or language.

The Rovac nonsense: dismissive term used by wizards to describe the long-standing historical dispute between the nation of Rovac and the Confederation of Wizards.

Rovac staunch (noun) (obsolete): ritual drink formerly employed by the warriors of Rovac during initiation rituals, consisting of equal parts of blood, cream, alcohol and water.

***

Taking directions from a serving boy whom they woke from a drunken sleep in a slovenly guard room, the wizards climbed to the seventh level of the gatehouse keep, occasionally disturbing rats; these first seven levels alone could have housed a thousand people, so probably the upper levels were deserted.

On the seventh level, a door opened to a hall where three men sat guarding Comedo's chambers: two at chess, one watching. Ignored by the guards, the wizards looked around the room, which doubled as an armoury.

On the walls were weapons: swords double-edged and single, stabbing and slashing, sparring and dueling; cutlasses, broadswords, claymores; dirks, stilettos, skinning knives, throwing knives and foreign dueling daggers with one edge deeply serrated to catch and break a rapier blade. There were quivers, arrows, quarrels, stave bows, crossbows, composite bows. And also: spears, javelins, halberds, pikes, battleaxes, knuckledusters, cut throat razors, maces, billhooks, throwing stars, morning stars and dissecting kits. And armour: chain mail, scale mail, breast plates, greaves, gauntlets, helmets round or horned or spiked. And shields: from bucklers to full-length body shields.

The collection indicated how rich Castle Vaunting had become from centuries of taxing the Salt Road in money and in kind.

T have you,' said one of the chessplayers.

Or, to be precise, he spoke a word known to all chess players: damorg. The same word in all languages, it must have spread with the game.

The other player conceded defeat, and the three guards turned their attention to the three wizards.

'Name yourself,' said one of the guards, a haughty man with an elegant cloak. His square-cut beard was black, as was the oiled hair he held in place with combs of whalebone.

'Where's Comedo?' said Garash, before Phyphor could speak.

'Where he chooses to be,' said the guard. 'And you'll be out on your arse unless you can give a good account of yourself. I'm Elkor Alish, captain of the personal bodyguard of the prince of Estar, so I'll ask the questions here. Those who will not answer to me must answer to my sword, Ethlite. Be sure that Ethlite has a sharper tongue than I do.'

'Don't threaten us,' said Garash.

'Who are you then?'

'My style is Garash. A wizard of the order of Arl. Power is at my readiness to diminish you from the face of the sun with a single blast of fire.'

Alish threw his chair at Garash. As Garash ducked, Alish drew his sword. Garash snatched at the chain round his neck. The sword was faster.

'Drop your hands,' said Alish, holding steel to Garash's throat. 'Drop your hands, or you'll feel the sharp edge of some poetry in motion.'

As Garash obeyed, Alish sidestepped, then ducked round behind the wizards. Phyphor laughed.

'Well, Garash,' said Phyphor, turning. 'You certainly -'

'Don't move!' shouted Alish.

Phyphor froze.

'Now remember I'm behind you,' said Alish. 'Man, wizard or sage, you can die whatever you are. The fat one says he's a wizard, so I'll call you all wizards. Any movement – any mumbling – any chanting – and my sword will have your heads.'

'You can't keep us here forever,' said Garash.

'Yes, fat one: a problem. My blade can trim that problem down to size, if necessary. What did you say your name was?'

'Garash.'

'Garash who? Garash what? What is your family? Your clan?'

'Garash is all the name I have.'

'Well then. Your name, young one?'

'My name is Miphon. I bear you no ill.'

'Steel would say it bears no ill, but it kills all the same. You, old one, who are you?'

'Elkor Alish, my style is Phyphor, a wizard of Arl. I seek audience with Prince Comedo to ask for help in hunting down the wizard Heenmor. We wish to punish him… to kill him.'

Alish laughed.

'Find Heenmor? Kill him? We'd help if we could, I'm sure. He ate here at his pleasure all through the winter. And killed here, too. When he left, twenty followed. He lost them in forest too dense for horses. But they tracked him, closed with him on foot – and died. Where he's gone to. nobody knows.'

'Elkor Alish…'

'Yes, old one?'

'Phyhor is my style, as I have told you.' 'Then speak, Phyphor.'

'Elkor Alish, we come to kill Heenmor. You would enjoy to see him dead. Where is our quarrel?'

Alish paused. By striking now, he could kill three wizards. He was fast enough. It would be a step to fulfilling his obligations to the Code of Night and the destiny of Rovac: a glorious start to a spring that would see Hearst lead Comedo's army on a conquest of Dybra which Alish saw as the start of a long campaign that might eventually take their armies to the wizard strongholds in the Far South.

He could strike now: or wait.

If he let the wizards live, perhaps they would find Heenmor and secure the death-stone. Then Alish could kill them at leisure, taking the death-stone for himself.

'Swear not to harm me or any other in the castle,' said Alish, 'And there will be no quarrel between us.'

'Why must we swear?' said Garash.

'Because Ethlite is hungry,' said Alish.

'Elkor Alish,' said Phyphor, 'I swear by the Rule of Law to honour the lives of this castle, providing none hinder my pursuit of the wizard Heenmor. By the Rule of Law I swear it.'

'And you, wizard Garash?'

First Garash then Miphon swore the same oath. Alish sheathed his sword.

'So you've sworn the oath,' said Alish, walking back to join his two comrades. 'For what it's worth.'

'You question the value of a wizard's oath?' said Garash angrily. 'No wizard ever breaks an oath.'

Alish laughed at him.

'How dare you laugh!'

'Peace, Garash,' said Phyphor. 'This is not the time or the place.'

'All right,' said Garash. Then, abruptly: 'Who are those people?' He pointed at the other guards, who had sat silent throughout the confrontation. One, a short pink man with a smirking mouth, looked remarkably like a pig dressed in chain mail. A battle axe hung from his belt, a knife at his side and a helmet within easy reach.

'The short one is Corn,' said Alish. 'The tall one, the swordsman, is someone else again.'

'Tell that, that Gorn,' said Garash, 'Tell him to take us to Prince Comedo. Now!'

Alish, allowing himself an enigmatic smile, rearranged his embroidered cloak so the hilt of his sword showed. He had sworn no oath that would protect the wizards.

'Are you threatening me?' said Garash.

'Garash!' said Phyphor. 'Favour us with your silence. Elkor Alish, if you would be so good, kindly take us to Prince Comedo.'

'Unfortunately,' said Alish, 'That worthy is out hunting.'

'What?' said Phyphor. 'With armed invaders on the loose?'

'Most are fled or dead,' said Alish. 'They're no match for the fighters here. There was never a proper invasion -just a few men sent from Tameran to burn the temple and scout out the land.'

'If the prince isn't here,' said Garash, 'Why are you guarding his chambers?'

'Within is a fortune worth murdering your mother for. Morgan Hearst slew the dragon on Maf. He's a hero. He gouged a giant ruby from its eye socket, as proof. That's what we're guarding.'

'Is that Hearst?' said Miphon, indicating the tall swordsman.

The swordsman laughed. He looked like a fighting man's fighting man. Big grappling hands; a barrel chest; a face scarred and beer-battered, marked by a network of broken red veins. The left ear was missing. He was older than Alish or Gorn; when he spoke, his voice was deep, and slightly hoarse: 'No,' he said, accenting the Trading Tongue strangely. 'I'm not Morgan Hearst. I have the pride and pleasure of being Volaine Persaga Haveros, lately Lord Commander of the Imperial City of Gendormargensis, but now out of favour with our lord Khmar, who has placed a price on my head.'

'A Collosnon soldier!' said Phyphor, with surprise.

Volaine Persaga Haveros bowed, slightly.

Gendormargensis, as all the world knew, was the ruling city of Khmar's empire – a city by the Yolantar-ath River commanding the strategic gap between the Sarapine Ranges and the Balardade Massif, deep in the heartland of Tameran, far north of Estar.

'Are all three of you Collosnon soldiers?' said Phyphor.

'No,' said Haveros. 'Just me. Alish and Gorn have never set foot in Tameran. They're from the west. Rovac warriors.'

Phyphor's face registered shock. But it was Garash who spoke first: 'What? Those two? Rovac warriors? A runt with the face of a pig and a fop in a pretty cloak?'

Alish put his hand to the hilt of his sword, then restrained himself. His pleasure would come later. He made a promise to himself: sooner or later, he would see the green of this wizard's spleen.

'What did you expect?' he said. 'We're only men, whatever the legends say. But when you meet Morgan Hearst, then you'll meet a hero.'

'It's not Hearst we're after,' said Phyphor. 'It's the prince.'

'All in good time,' said Alish, carelessly. 'His hunt should end by evening. Come, we'll find you quarters.'

'We'll sleep in our towers,' said Phyphor. 'We'll be quite comfortable there.'

'Of course,' said Alish. 'Do you know the way?'

'I've been here before,' said Phyphor.

He was glad to get away. So there were Rovac in Estar! Never before had he met the ancient enemy face to face. Despite his laughter at the time, he was rather shaken by the speed with which Alish had attacked and mastered Garash. And he was appalled to think that a Rovac warrior now had the protection of his oath.

Well, despite what Garash had said, oaths could be broken…

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Arl: one of the most powerful of the eight orders of wizards, having power over light and over fire.

***

From the fifth level of the gatehouse keep the wizards exited onto the battlements, which were twenty paces wide, with the flame trench moat on one side and a four-storey drop to the flagstones of the central courtyard on the other. Overhead the gatehouse keep towered skywards for another sixty-six levels, terminating at the seventieth floor.

'You should have killed him when he attacked me,' said Garash, speaking of Alish. 'He might have killed me.'

'And I might have been grateful,' said Phyphor. 'You need me! You can't kill Heenmor on your own!' 'I could use help – but you were no help at all when the dragon attacked us.' 'Neither was that wizard of Nin,' said Garash. 'Please allow me – ' began Miphon. 'Quiet!' shouted Phyphor.

For once, they obeyed – the word came out as a howl of anguish, shocking them to silence.

Phyphor stood there, trembling. With an unaccustomed sense of hopelessness, he remembered so many similar situations from the past, when wizards, ranting, raging, burning white-hot with unreasonable fury, had embroiled themselves in their own little melodramas, while about them empires fell and the world rode down the wide road to ruin. Without a word, he led them on.

Five hundred paces took them from the gatehouse keep to the tower of the order of Seth, pierced with a gateway which anyone could use – though only a wizard of Seth could enter the tower. Next came the tower of Arl, where they stopped; beyond lay the tower of Nin.

'Miphon,' said Phyphor. 'Come inside with us.'

'Are you mad?' said Garash. 'We can't have a wizard from another order in our tower.'

Phyphor turned a cold eye on his apprentice.

'For the last time,' said Phyphor, 'remember your place.'

'I won't stand for it! The order of Arl has never – ' 'Garash! Enough!'

'You may be the master here and now,' said Garash, heatedly, 'but what will our order say if they hear you've let the order of Nin into our tower – the order of bird-callers and fish-ticklers? There's no precedent for such a thing.'

'I've heard you out,' said Phyphor. 'Now you hear me. There's no precedent for our mission. Never before has a wizard ventured to the Dry Pit. Who knows what Heenmor found there? Who knows what he left in the tower? Maybe twenty different kinds of death. The more of us and the more skills we have between us, the better. And while I'm about it, don't despise bird-calling and fish-tickling – that talent has fed us often enough on this mission.'

Garash nodded as if he agreed – then grabbed for the chain round his neck.

Phyphor's staff thwacked against his fingers. Then he jabbed Garash in the ribs. Garash squealed. The staff chopped into his kidneys. Garash fell to the ground. The staff swept back for another blow.

'No,' said Miphon, restraining Phyphor. 'You'll kill him.'

'Perhaps I should,' said Phyphor, breathing heavily. 'My best efforts to teach him – and he turns out like this. Kill him, yes. It's not a bad idea.'

But he did not strike.

Garash, curled up in pain, moaned.

'On your feet," said Phyphor. 'Come on! Up! Now! Up up up! Stop snivelling! Get up! On your feet, yes, that's better. Now look me in the eyes. In the eyes!'

Garash could not or would not meet his gaze.

'What was your plan?' said Phyphor. 'Kill me, then go home? Listen. There's no excuse for going back. Our mission is too important for that. We'll follow Heenmor if we have to track him all the way to Chi'ash-lan. If we've lost his trail, we'll search until we pick it up again, even if that means quartering the Ravlish Lands and searching Tameran entire.

'If I offend against protocol, you can prosecute me in front of the order when we return. But if you return to the Castle of Controlling Power without completing this mission, the order will kill you on arrival.'

'I'll be pissing blood for a week,' moaned Garash. 'I'll be pissing blood for a week.'

'Pox doctor, heal thyself,' said Phyphor, without sympathy. 'Now let's go in. You first. Now!'

He shoved Garash toward the wall. Garash stumbled, tried to turn, and fell backwards. The wall parted like mist around him.

'Come,' said Phyphor, 'Take my hand.'

Taking Phyphor's hand – to get into the tower of Arl he 