The Wicked and the Witless Read online

  '. . . for the charge,' said Lod's petition, 'carries a penalty of death, and Sarazin alone can save me.'

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ebber: an order of wizards with powers over human minds. Has bad reputation in the Harvest Plains, once ruled by the evil Ebonair of that order.

  When approached by Sarazin, Thodric Jarl refused to dare go to Shin in the face of Farfalla's displeasure.

  "My duty forbids such madcap adventures,' said Jarl.

  'Not if you make the trip a part of your duty,' said Sarazin.

  Impossible!'

  'But no. I disappear. Terrorists from Chenamag claim responsibility. You volunteer to pursue the villains. Thus job and duty take you to Chenameg.'

  'Dream on,' said Jarl.

  It's a good scheme,' protested Sarazin. We'd meet on Chenameg's border then ride to Shin. I'd attend Lod's trial as a character witness then home we'd come, with you as a hero. We'd spin a wonderful story about you fighting hundreds of Chenameg terrorists to rescue me.'

  So Sarazin spoke, though he actually planned to stay in Shin after Lod's trial, to win the hand of his true love Amantha and encompass the death of his arch-enemy Tarkal.

  'Chasing terrorists is the army's job,' said Jarl. 'I work for the Watch, which only works within the cities.'

  'What matters that?' said Sarazin. 'Surely the army would welcome help from the Watch.'

  What a witless thing to say!' said Jarl. 'Armies lust for war because wars make careers. Failing war, manhunts, bandit-fighting and such are the next best thing.'

  'You sound very sure of yourself.'

  With near half a century of war behind me I should be sure. Now get out! Before I lose patience and kick you out!'

  'Just one thing.'

  'Out!'

  'One moment! If I got you sent to Chenameg to hunt me, would you—'

  'Away with your nonsense!'

  'Very well then,' said Sarazin. 'But I leave you this.'

  So saying, he gave Jarl a large-scale map of Chenameg's western border plus a note giving details of when and where the pair could meet after Sarazin faked his own kidnapping.

  'You're mad!' said Jarl. 'This note alone could be the death of you.'

  'But I trust you,' said Sarazin.

  'Don't!' said Jarl. 'Trust nobody.'

  'But you've proved your loyalty by leaving a rich living in Voice to follow me here. Thus I trust you with my life.'

  'Then trust less,' said Jarl. 'for if you linger here longer I'll gut you.'

  All this left Sarazin undismayed, for he had expected something of the sort. He had already planned his next move: to blackmail Epelthin Elkin. After a stiff drink to help nerve himself to the task, he took himself off to the

  Voat Library in Libernek Square, and there bearded the elderly Archivist in his private office.

  Sean Kelebes Sarazin, though not one of the wise, had nevertheless drawn the logical conclusions from his experi- ences. It was thanks to Elkin, surely, that he had imagined himself riding with Benthorn to Smork while he actually lay unconscious in Selzirk. Elkin must be a wizard of Ebber, the dark order, with powers over human minds.

  In Selzirk, wizards of Ebber were feared and hated on account of the tyrannical rule once exercised by a member of that order. Consequently, Elkin would be in great danger if he were to be denounced as such a wizard. Sarazin therefore thought it would be easy enough to persuade Elkin to do him just one small favour.

  When Sarazin was admitted into Elkin's presence, the old scholar immediately saw his fear, tension and excitement.

  Welcome, Sean Sarazin,' said Elkin, in tones distinctly unwelcoming. What can I do for you? Well? What is it? Insects eating your brain? Or what? Out with it, boy!'

  There's something — something I have to do,' said Sarazin, stumbling over his words as his courage began to fail him. 'And I need some help. There's this prophecy, see, and—'

  'Oh no,' groaned Elkin. Not that. Not prophecy. Let me guess. You've met a fortune teller. An old hag with dirty claws who says—'

  You haven't heard what it's all about yet!' protested Sarazin.

  'I can guess,' said Elkin.

  But, nevertheless, let Sarazin tell him all about the prophetic book stashed in the Sosostris lair.

  '. . .so,' said Sarazin, in conclusion, 'the prophecy makes everthing clear, doesn't it? I'm back from exile, my father's doomed to an outlaw's death, it's all set to happen. I'm the one! The prince fated, to rise to power. To rule. To conquer.'

  Trash,' said Elkin.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Sarazin.

  Trash. Nonsense. Rubbish. Piffle. Suloshamaniqik.'

  You mean,' said Sarazin, 'you're not yet quite convinced by this prophecy.'

  Tsfot yet?' said Elkin. 'I never will be! I know these fortune tellers. Their whole business is telling people exactly what they want to hear.'

  'But this prophecy wasn't invented on the spot for my benefit,' said Sarazin. 'It's an old, old book, old as—'

  'Old as the story of human sin. Are you the first boy in your situation? Hardly! An old king rules. His son longs to kill his father, to seize power. So a prophecy conveniently—

  'But Fox doesn't rule! The prophecy—'

  'Bollocks,' said Elkin.

  While Elkin was capable of elegant eloquence on occasion a trifling bit of nonsense like Sarazin's prophecy failed to inspire him with forensic genius.

  You must admit,' said Sarazin, 'I fit the prophecy neatly. For a start, I'm Farfalla's son, so I'm of the Favoured Blood.'

  'Oh, come on!' said Elkin. You don't believe that nonsense, do you?'

  The Noble Families of the Favoured Blood saved Argan from the tyranny of the Empire of Wizards,' said Sarazin coldly. 'All know their line must rule lest chaos come upon Argan.'

  Twaddle!' said Elkin. The Empire of Wizards fell to pieces because of internal power struggles. All scholars know that.'

  You, doubtless,' said Sarazin, 'have cause to know.'

  'Because I am a scholar, yes,' said Elkin.

  'Because you were there!' said Sarazin.

  Elkin's response was silence. Sarazin realised he was frightened of Elkin. Very frightened. Yet he pushed on regardless.

  You were there,' said Sarazin. 'Because you — you're more than you seem. So you'll help me. Or else. Or else I'll - I'll-'

  Sarazin's lips were trembling. His throat was dry. He wished he had never started this. The room had darkened while he spoke. Elkin, a malign and ominous Force, loomed huge in that darkness.

  Sarazin tried to run, but his legs failed, flesh quivering uselessly. He fell. The last light fled. Through the dark, Elkin swaggered towards Sean Sarazin with gigantic footsteps, oncoming like an idol of earth-crushing basalt animated by a blood-dread Power from the Unseen Realm. His breathing harsh, rasping, rising to a roar.

  His hand gripped Sarazin's head.

  Sarazin felt as if his skull were being squeezed in a vice. He tried to scream. Could not. Tried to breathe. Could not. Tried to move. Could not. Felt his heart trip, stumble, stall. Knew he was dying. And fainted.

  Endured a long dark . . .

  But surfaced, at length, to find himself lying on a bed in a room crowded with books, scrolls, papers and parch- ments. He guessed it was Elkin's private bedroom. And there was Elkin himself, sitting in a chair, reading. Looking much as he always did. A sharp-eyed, grey-bearded old man with mahogany skin, his hair drawn back and plaited into a pigtail.

  'Some wine?' said Elkin, in a pleasant voice.

  'Please,' said Sarazin.

  I'm no fortune-teller,' said Elkin, handing him some wine, "but I'll give you this prophecy for free: your lunatic foray to Chenameg will see you killed. But I'll do what you want. This once. But don't try to blackmail me again!'

  Thank you,' said Sarazin, who at that moment truly only wished to escape from there, to get away from the wizard, to get out to the sunlight.

  'Now,' said Elkin, let's get down to details . . .'

  A
nd, together, they began to plan.

  Thus it came to pass that in the autumn of the year Alliance 4325 Sean Kelebes Sarazin was kidnapped by terrorists. There were a dozen eyewitnesses to the kid- napping: that was Epelthin Elkin's first contribution to Sarazin's schemes.

  Shortly, the city learnt that terrorists had dragged Sean Sarazin away to Chenameg, and were threatening to kill him unless all slaves in Selzirk were released. Then Elkin exercised his occult powers again: and the army devolved the responsibility for rescuing Sean Sarazin upon the Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl, Master of Combat for the Watch.

  This move was legally permissible. Indeed, the fact that any army officer could command any officer of the Watch was a sore point indeed with the Watch. Nevertheless, for the Watch to be dragged into the chase was, to say the least, unusual. Jarl did not see how Sarazin could have arranged it. Unless . . .

  As it happened, Thodric Jarl had entertained certain suspicions about Epelthin Elkin for some considerable time. So, making sure he was wearing a certain amulet which he believed would protect him against all magic, he dared a confrontation with the old scholar he thought might possibly be a wizard.

  'I am to be sent hunting after Sarazin,' said Jarl, with his hand on the hilt of his sword. 'How came that to pass?'

  Why,' said Elkin, 'set a thief to catch a thief, or so they say. Friend Thodric, you look a very terrorist yourself, standing there so stalwart with death in your hand and blood in your eye.'

  'There are no terrorists,' said Jarl, 'as you know well.'

  Tell me what I know,' said Elkin.

  'That Sarazin has stage-managed his own kidnapping,' said Jarl. That he wishes to ride to Shin, and for me to ride with him. That he plans to rendezvous with me some eight days from now. Do you deny that you know it?'

  'Why,' said Elkin, 'how can I deny knowing what you have just told me?'

  There's more,' said Jarl. 'I suspect that Sarazin made the army put me in charge of rescuing him. How did he manage that?'

  'I know not,' said Elkin, 'but suspect bribery. Anyone can be bought, or so they say.'

  'Do they now?' said Jarl. 'But I hear this: that Sarazin has not money enough to buy himself a whore, far less to bribe the army's high command. Here, methinks, is a mystery.'

  "You think I have the answer?' said Elkin. 'I think,' said Jarl, 'you know more than the world believes.'

  'Of course I do,' said Elkin impatiently. 'I know myself, for example, to be one of Lord Regan's spies, just as you are. Do you think Lord Regan has but the two of us in this city? Likely there's a third agent, if not a fourth, a fifth and a fiftieth. Perhaps the fourth or the fiftieth is a source of funds for Sean Sarazin.'

  This was such a logical, reasonable explanation that Jarl chastised himself for not thinking of it, and realised he must be more than a little bit paranoid to think such a harm- less old scholar a possible wizard, and hence one of the traditional enemies of Rovac . . .

  That very same day, Thodric Jarl left Selzirk with a posse of 30 men of the Watch. Their mission was, very simply, to ride to Chenameg, to seek out the terrorists who had kidnapped Sean Sarazin, to kill the terrorists and liberate Farfalla's son.

  As any attempt to liberate slaves was always taken very seriously in Selzirk, no expense had been spared in equip- ping Jarl's expedition. Every man was well-armed and had a horse for himself and a spare mount besides. In addition, the posse had 20 baggage animals carrying food enough for 60 days, plus a thousand sanarands to be used for bribing informants once they got to Chenameg.

  Jarl kept his plans to himself as his posse travelled eastward along the northern bank of the Velvet River. He planned to cross the most easterly dam to the southern side of the river, then head to the South Road for a rendezvous with Sarazin.

  However, on the long journey to the east, Jarl's paranoia had plenty of time to go to work. He began to suspect that this was all part of a devious plot for the disposal of

  Thodric Jarl, and that soldiers from Selzirk would be waiting at the rendezvous to arrest him.

  In his madness, Jarl considered all kinds of people possibly guilty of such a plot. Maybe Plovey of the Regency, suspecting Jarl to be a spy from the Rice Empire, had enlisted Sarazin's help to prove Jarl's guilt. Or perhaps Farfalla was behind it all. Or someone who hoped to succeed Jarl as Master of Combat for the Watch.

  Jarl knew the road to the north of the Velvet River was his logical route to Shin, which in turn was the logical place for him to start his operations in Chenameg. He had no good excuse to take the road lying south of the river.

  —Leading my men to the South Road might in itself be proof sufficient to see me condemned for conspiracy. But if I keep to the North Road, nothing can be proved against me. No harm will come to Sarazin, since there will surely be soldiers at the rendezvous point already, waiting to arrest me.

  —On the other hand, what if there is no conspiracy? Sarazin will wait at the rendezvous point. And wait. And wait. And then? Why, that's over to him. After all, a ride of but a few days will take him from the border to Shin.

  —Surely Sarazin can manage that on his own.

  Shortly after so thinking, Jarl revealed his strategy to his men:

  'We ride first to Shin, King Lyra's capital, the greatest city in Chenameg. There we stay for thirty days, gathering intelligence. By then, I trust, we will know where to strike to destroy the terrorists and liberate Sean Sarazin . . .'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The South Road: a road to the south of the Velvet River. Every map of Chenameg extant in Selzirk confidently shows it running east from Chenameg's western border through

  the forests to Shin. But, as Sarazin is beginning to realise, it is long indeed since such maps were updated . . .

  The dark and gloomy forest stretching away to the east was most certainly that which marked Chenameg's western border. And Sarazin knew he was at the start of the South Road, for he had found the vital landmarks which all the maps agreed on: a burial mound one league west of the forest and two gigantic time-disfigured heads of black stone squatting at the forest's edge.

  The maps claimed the South Road started between the two heads. Well, the mound was there, the heads were there . . . but the road was but a senile track strangled by waspthorn and brambles.

  None lived thereabouts for it was cursed, and any settlers would find their every child stillborn. It was an uncanny place to camp alone. Often Sarazin lay awake in the darkness while uncouth things crashed through the forest. Bears? Monsters? Ghouls? Who knows?

  Worse things stalked his dreams, and more than once he woke from nightmares with a scream, his hand snatching for the hilt of the doughty blade Onslaught. At the end of his twelfth day of futile waiting he had his most terrible nightmare yet, in which he saw Thodric Jarl die a death too terrible to relate. He woke shaking, terror-stricken.

  Was the dream an omen? Or what? It certainly helped him come to a decision. Jarl might have died, or met with an accident, or might have refused to leave Selzirk to search for Sarazin. Anything could have happened. Meanwhile, Sarazin's rations were getting lower. And his noble steed was not proving much of a conversationalist.

  'We ride,' said Sarazin. 'We ride for Shin. Today.'

  Thus decided, he mounted his horse (well, technically a pony — but, as a poet, he was surely entitled to a little poetic licence) and, with his vorpal blade at his side, set forth.

  The gloomy overcast weather worsened the dooming darkness of the moss-choked forest through which roughed his road, often forking and rejoining as it outflanked fallen trees, bog holes and mud spills. Towards noon, Sarazin passed a gross grey skull, so huge that half a dozen trees sprouted from holes in its dome. It gave him such a shock that he thereafter suspected the forest of evil intent, and scanned each thicket for ambush by werewolf or worse.

  Fairly late in the afternoon, he finally realised he had been so intent on the trees that he had lost sight of the woods. Failing to keep track of his progress through the forest
, he had become disorientated. Geographically embarrassed, in fact.

  —But surely I could find my way back if I wanted to. Couldn't I? Or else follow my own tracks back . . .

  To reassure himself, Sarazin tried retracing his steps. But the path forked and branched wildly, and nothing he saw looked familiar. He searched the mud for his own tracks — and found those of people, horses, wild catde, pig, deer. Some fresh, others not. He was baffled by the confusion of signs.

  'East, then,' said he, trying to persuade himself he felt bold and brave. 'East, to King Lyra's palace. To Shin.'

  Shin was to the east, was it not? All the maps said so. If only he had some sun, so he could check his direction. The sky was swamped with clouds as dirty as dag-end wool. Mud and wet weather. Soon, doubtless, it would rain.

  On rode Sarazin, his spirits steadily declining. Then he was startled by coarse shouts ahead. Festivities? Or a fight? Should he turn back? No! Was he not a hero? Whatever he was, best to seize this chance of intelligence.

  So thinking, he spurred his horse, and shortly cantered into a muddy clearing where half a dozen cackling yokels were sitting around gnawing hunks of bread and quaffing strong ale. Tied to a tree was an old, old grey-bearded man with brushwood piled around his feet.

  What do you here?' demanded Sarazin, lapsing into Geltic.

  'Gorp?' said a yokel.

  'What,' said Sarazin, switching to the Galish Trading Tongue and speaking very slowly, 'are you doing here?'