Favanosin: a town which geographers believe to lie some 640
leagues from Locontareth along a southbound trade route which
passes through territory long regarded by the Witchlord's regime
as being hostile.

                                                 * * *

        Immediately after the dramatic wreckfall of Sken-Pitilkin's
flying roof, all was confusion, and the rest of the night was not
much better. But, as day dawned, the Witchlord's forces began to
fall into some kind of order.
        "Grief of a dog!" said Rolf Thelemite. "My ear is torn!"
        And indeed the Rovac warrior's left ear had been damaged, and
his golden snake-serpent earring had been torn away altogether.
        As Rolf Thelemite was lamenting the loss, the gray-bearded
Thodric Jarl came up to him and addressed him in the Rovac tongue.
Rolf turned pale, and thereafter ceased his moaning.
        "What did he say?" said Guest, a little later.
        "I cannot tell you," said Rolf Thelemite despairingly.
        But Guest was able to deduce Rolf Thelemite's plight for
himself. The unfortunate Rolf had sworn to kill Guest if Guest
made war on his father - but had been untrue to his oath.
Doubtless Thodric Jarl had told Rolf that he had more than a torn
ear to worry about - and Rolf, an oath-breaker accursed of Rovac,
had feared his imminent demise.
        Guest shared his perceptions with the dwarf Glambrax, who
agreed that Rolf was doubtlessly doomed.
        "While we held the ascendancy," said Glambrax cheerfully,
"Thodric Jarl would do nothing to disturb the peace between
Witchlord and Weaponmaster. But now we are defeated, so there is
no reason why he shouldn't disturb the peace as much as he wants."
        So it was that the young Guest Gulkan and the dwarf Glambrax
deduced that their good friend Rolf Thelemite stood in danger of
immediate murder.
        "What can we do about it?" said Guest.
        "Well, we could place bets," said Glambrax.
        "An excellent idea!" said Guest. "I wager that Rolf lasts a
week!"
        "What then is a week?" said Glambrax.
        "It is an uncouth measurement of days," said Guest. "A
measurement devised by wizards, and arcanely used in their most
secret histories."
        "How many days?" said Glambrax.
        "Why," said Guest, finding himself at a loss, "fewer than
twenty, I think."
        "You think!" said Glambrax. "For a wager, we have to know! I
wager that Rolf lasts three days, not more."
        "Then my money will see him alive for six," said Guest.
        "What money?" said Glambrax. "Name a sum. And show me you
have that sum in your pockets!"
        Thus did the valorous Guest Gulkan and the sturdy dwarf
Glambrax address the threat which faced the unfortunate Rolf
Thelemite; and Rolf was never far from their thoughts in the days
that followed.
        As the Weaponmaster and the dwarf wagered on Rolf Thelemite's
fate, the army from the air-wrecked roof made its way south,
accompanied by an uncouth assemblage of baggage animals which were
heavily burdened by the imperial treasure chests.
        Of course, at the outset, that force numbered scarcely a half
a thousand men; but whereas retreating armies are normally
diminished by deaths, stragglings and desertions, this one grew -
albeit not by much.
        Everyone in Locontareth's defending army had known at least
this much of the Witchlord's plan: that he intended to retreat
south toward Favanosin. And Khmar, launched as he was upon a
furious and unparalleled course of slaughter, gave every surviving
defender the strongest of all possible incentives to join that
retreat. For Khmar was making an example of Locontareth, brutally
punishing resistance to deter other cities (Stranagor in
particular) from resisting him likewise.
        Fearing the knives of the example-maker, those who escaped
from Locontareth on foot or on hoof soon quested south, and some
of these - inspired by an entirely reasonable terror of Khmar -
managed to catch up with those who had escaped from the
beleaguered city on a flying roof. So it was that, as they moved
south, Witchlord and Weaponmaster enlarged their small army, until
the balance between recruitment and desertions saw its numbers
level out at just short of 600 men.
        In the anxiety of the retreat, Lord Onosh found his son Guest
uncommonly buoyant, and was hard put to place the reason. For had
they not been defeated? Had they not been driven from the city?
Had they not just lost a great empire? Did they not stand in fear
of losing their lives? So was the boy drunk, or was he mad? Or had
Sken-Pitilkin or some other been maliciously feeding him strong
drugs unfit for human consumption?
        On brief enquiry, the Witchlord soon discovered that the
young Guest Gulkan was in high spirits because he had made himself
the lord of a great gambling pool, and in concert with the dwarf
Glambrax was fleecing lesser gamblers, winning wine, and money,
and the favors of the army's few ragged camp followers, and extra
rations into the bargain.
        And the gambling did not concern the running of horses or the
jumping of frogs - no, it concerned the date of Rolf Thelemite's
murder!
        Lord Onosh promptly summoned his wizards, the sagacious Sken-
Pitilkin and the slug-chef Pelagius Zozimus. He explained what was
happening.
        "Why, my lord, it is all true," said Zozimus. "I myself am
betting that Jarl will murder Rolf when we get to Favanosin."
        "I think that optimistic," said Sken-Pitilkin. "I don't think
Rolf will be murdered at all, at least not this year. I've bet
that he won't be murdered till Midsummer's Day at the earliest."
        "I will not have anyone murdered in my army!" said Lord
Onosh, outraged. "You will halt this business of murder right
away!"
        "But, my lord," said Sken-Pitilkin. "Both Rolf and Jarl are
Rovac warriors, and all such warriors are the natural enemies of
wizards. Why should we then care if they kill each other off?"
        "And besides," said Zozimus, "if we interfere in their mutual
murders, it will give them excuse to band together and murder us."
        "Which would be a great loss," added Sken-Pitilkin, "for, if
rumor is true, my cousin Zozimus has just designed a new and
delicious recipe for slugs, a recipe most pleasing to your
palate."
        "It is true," said Lord Onosh heavily.
        Then the Witchlord dismissed his wizards and called for the
witches Zelafona and Bao Gahai. After short discussion with the
Witchlord, that pair of females took Thodric Jarl aside and had a
long discussion with him. After which Thodric Jarl was seen to be
looking uncommonly queasy for the next three or four days; Rolf
Thelemite's spirits rose; and Guest Gulkan's ebullience ebbed as
his gambling syndicate broke up, rumor having established that
the fine sport of Rolf Thelemite's murder had been effectively
terminated by a killjoy Witchlord.
        Thus did the valorous Guest Gulkan and the sturdy dwarf
Glambrax save their friend Rolf Thelemite from a certain death at
the hands of the murderous Thodric Jarl; for it is certain that,
had Guest and Glambrax not been so keenly apprehensive of their
friend's impending murder as to encourage an entire army into
gambling on the event, then Lord Onosh would not have been so
swiftly and so decisively moved into terminating that threat.
        With Guest and Glambrax thus entered into the ranks of
friend-saving heroes, the lords of Locontareth escaped from the
marauding Khmar and retreated with their army down the road to
Favanosin, at first in disarray, but later in warlike formation,
with vanguard ahead and rearguard behind, with scouts on the
flanks and sentries posted nightly to vigil out the dark. They
feared pursuit; and, as they distanced themselves from
Locontareth, they also began to fear the violence of the south.
The south was hostile to the Collosnon Empire, and there was no
safe refuge there for a former ruler of Gendormargensis.
        However, since the Witchlord Onosh had wisely extracted his
treasure from Locontareth, his fugitive army had good gold to buy
its necessities - or most of them, for the locals either did not
have spare clothes to sell, or had them but refused to sell them.
So the army rapidly grew ragged; for the speed with which the
barbarity of thorns and the lubricity of mud can reduce a splendid
army to a horde of ragged beggars is nothing short of amazing.
        Though the army could not replace its increasingly tattered
clothing, it was able to feed itself through purchase, hence had
no need to pillage - and so was able to march far south without
being forced to bring the natives to battle. But Lord Onosh soon
realized that the southrons were arming in his wake; that a force
of indeterminate strength was dogging his rearguard; and that the
country ahead was being roused and wakened.
        In the face of this uncomfortable knowledge, Lord Onosh held
a council of war.
        They were then in a forest which was heavy with the smoke of
an army's campfires. They had halted early, because ahead of them
was a small river. To continue, they must cross it: and people had
been seen moving furtively on the other side. Thodric Jarl deemed
it a good place for an ambush, for the far bank was steep. Hence
they had halted for their council of war.
        As they would go no further that day whatever the council's
decision, Pelagius Zozimus had set himself to turn out a meal, and
was presiding over a simmering cauldron from which there rose the
most delicious smell imaginable. Near that cauldron, as if drawn
there by the potency of its aromas, was a ragged assembly seated
on fallen logs.
        There was the Witchlord Onosh, dressed like a beggar in his
refugee rags. The dralkosh Bao Gahai. The old but elegant witch
Zelafona. The dwarf Glambrax, a belt of fifty scalps around his
waist, whittling a flute from a human thigh bone with a wicked
little knife. Guest Gulkan himself, the Weaponmaster in his glory.
The Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite and his murderous compatriot
Thodric Jarl. The sagacious Sken-Pitilkin. And, of course, the
slug-chef Zozimus himself.
        "We have not troops sufficient to pursue our original plan,"
said the Witchlord.
        "To get to Favanosin, you mean?" said Guest.
        "No!" said his father. "Favanosin was but a ploy! Remember?
Our original plan was to make a great arc to Gendormargensis, and
seize that city while Khmar pursued us in the south."
        "That was not our plan," said Guest. "That was Jarl's plan.
Or your plan too, maybe, but never mine."
        This was provocative, and Lord Onosh had to struggle mightily
to control his temper. By then, the reversion of authority from
son to father was more or less complete. By imperceptible degrees,
Guest Gulkan had lost all authority, since he had proved lacking
in the necessary skill, drive, diplomacy and decisiveness required
to rule a crisis. While the Witchlord Onosh had busied himself
with the organization of an army, his son the Weaponmaster had
been embroiled in the ever-increasing complexities of
institutionalized gambling, thus permanently discrediting himself
in the eyes of hard-bitten veterans such as Thodric Jarl.
        Ever since the hanging at Ink, Guest Gulkan had shown a
tendency to shy away from absolute adult responsibility. And,
after Witchlord and Weaponmaster had made an alliance at Babaroth,
Lord Onosh had accelerated this tendency by deliberately
minimizing Guest's involvement in all decisions - even those which
might well have been within the young man's competence. As adult
authority had passed from his hands, Guest had increasingly
reverted to a childish irresponsibility which vexed his father
sorely; and Lord Onosh showed unexpected strength of character in
being able to control his temper in the face of his son's many
provocations.
        Avoiding the easy opportunity for uproarious argument, Lord
Onosh now said:
        "The plan, the original plan, was a feint toward Favanosin,
followed by an eastward arc to Gendormargensis. We are now too
weak to do any such thing. Yet even if we abandon hope of
capturing Gendormargensis, I believe we must still turn east to
have hope of safety. Let us make for the shores of the Swelaway
Sea. Let us take passage to Safrak's islands. Let us there settle
- or, if denied refuge by Safrak, let us take the trading route to
the free city of Port Domax. So say I. Now what say you?"
        There was silence, as if one and all were so battered by the
successive shock of events as to have lost all powers of
initiative and self-determination.
        "Well," said Lord Onosh, with some impatience, and with a
harshness which betrayed the stress he was under. "You have heard
me speak. Must I parrot out the whole business three times over?
Or have you opinions to submit? What is your counsel?"
        As a child may sometimes feel over-burdened by adult
responsibilites, so too may an adult; and, though Lord Onosh had
long sought absolute power, in the difficulties of defeat he was
finding the solitary burden of such power to be a weight most
uncommonly difficult to bear.
        "I say," said Thodric Jarl, speaking first since he thought
all duties of battle were primarily his, "that we are in no state
to fight our way to the south. Furthermore, what we know of
Favanosin is written in smoke. None amongst our number has been
there. Some say that ships from that harbor venture to Argan, to
Ork, to Ashmolea, but nobody can vouch for this of a certainty. I
believe more is known of Port Domax, though the knowledge belongs
to others, not to me."
        Sken-Pitilkin cleared his throat.
        "Mighty is the wisdom of the Rovac," said Sken-Pitilkin, "and
Jarl has truthed of Favanosin of a verity. All we know of
Favanosin is that it clutches the sea's shore like a very whore's
egg. But Port Domax - why, I've been there myself."
        "Port Domax exists, certainly," said Pelagius Zozimus,
denying Sken-Pitilkin the fullness of his intended oratory. "Sken-
Pitilkin has seen it, and as for me - why, I once ran a small
eatery in that very city. That was half a thousand years ago,
true, but I've been there often enough since then. Its language is
Toxteth; its business is trade; and the city is well-connected in
enterprise with Safrak and Ashmolea, with Wen Endex and with the
more southron parts of Yestron. I vote for Port Domax."
        "If a witch can agree with a wizard," said Zelafona, who had
the shortest voice of any in that council, "then I vote likewise."
        "And I - " said Glambrax.
        "Hush yourself!" said Jarl. "Nobody here asked opinion of a
dwarf."
        Guest Gulkan and Rolf Thelemite took that as a cue for
violence, and so grabbed the dwarf and sat on him, though not
without difficulty, for Glambrax was prodigiously strong for his
size, and could have mastered either one of them in single combat.
        "My sister speaks with reason," said Bao Gahai; and, though
she had nothing new to add to the discourse, she reinforced the
dignity of her own authority by rehashing at length all the
arguments which had been so far presented.
        "Well," said Guest, seated panting atop a struggling dwarf,
"now we're talking sense, though I hope we find footing on Safrak.
I've no wish to run to the Sea of Salt, assuming the thing to
exist, so I'd far more happily settle on Alozay, or some such
similar island. Khmar can't bring his horse against us, not there,
whereas we, why, with time to spare we can - Glambrax! - we can -
grief of gods, the thing's biting! - we can plan - Rolf! Get his
head, man! - we can plan Khmar's destruction and - ya! - and think
to brute back the empire. Gods! The thing's biting!"
        "Obviously," said Lord Onosh, observing the course of Guest
Gulkan's oratory, "the energy of the young and of the dwarves who
play with them is truly prodigious in its optimism. Yet I think
Khmar secure, and doubt that the empire's reclamation lies within
our power."
        "But the journey to Safrak does," said Thodric Jarl, rising
to his feet, and so bringing their council to an end.
        Thus on the following day the Witchlord's army turned east,
making for the Swelaway Sea. And a hard going they had of it, what
with the difficulties of the terrain, the lack of provisions, the
squalor of mud, and the frosts and snows.
        For they had all seriously underestimated the derelictions of
the wilderness which lay between the road to Favanosin and the
shores of the Swelaway Sea. In that wilderness, there was nothing
to buy and there was nothing to pillage. There was frost, mire,
muck, swamp and weather-hardened thorn. Now the army saw
desertions in truth, and it had been reduced to a bare 400 men by
the time it arrived at the Swelaway Sea in the snow-shod bleakness
of a season of withered sun.
        Ah, that winter! That snow! Even now, the mere memory of it
tempts the chronicler toward an exercise in self-pity. Even now,
the worst of dreams recall the bite of that season. The army had
become a rat-rag troupe of beggars, of cripples and convalescents,
of blank-staring refugees and muttering derelicts. The bellies of
the greatest lords amongst them were sick with the desolations of
hunger. Numb fingers and bone-poke ribs. Fumbling dreams. Hope-
wreck and delusion. They were all in, finished, exhausted, their
last resources gone.
        Yet they reached the freshwater sea.
        Here a memory, very clear and sharp. The Witchlord Onosh,
seated on a lakeside boulder, with his knees to its flanks as if
he were seated upon a horse. The dirt of unwashed fatigue crusted
in the big, fat, deep and inexplicable gouges which track their
way down his slanting forehead. The black of his eyes catching the
gray depressions of the everstretch waters of that horizon-
exceeding inland lake. He sits; and watches; and breathes; and the
smoke of his breath dissipates in a silence unbroken by any sound
saving that of the rasping fatigue of his lungs.
        It is the silence which stands out in memory: the silence
which oppressed that army as it first absorbed the stare-stretch
impact of the presence of so much water. For his own part, the
Witchlord thought that everstretch of gray a very monstrosity in
its insolence. Surely there should not be so much water in the
world.
        Though the vastness of the Swelaway Sea was but a commonplace
matter to Guest, since he had grown well acquainted with it during
the time of his exile on Alozay, never in all his life had Lord
Onosh seen either this freshwater sea or the far greater Sea of
Salt which was said to exist on the borders of the continent which
contained his empire. For, though Lord Onosh had supervised the
enforcement of law and taxes in the seaport city of Stranagor, he
had always done so from Gendormargensis. And, though the
Weaponmaster was said to have been born in Stranagor, the
Witchlord had never been to that seaport, and knew no more of the
Hauma Sea than he did of the Sea of Salt or this present
freshwater sea.
        "It is a dream," said Lord Onosh.
        Who was so fatigued that fragments of dream were ever
spilling into his reality. Unpleasant fragments, for the most
part. The heads of horses. Bloody blades. And -
        Even as Lord Onosh sat there upon his horse, a dream
reconfigured the world in fancy's fashion. Bloodred hairs sprouted
from the glabrous glaciations of the lake. Oozing and creaming, a
slow-headed slug in the fullness of its monstrosity -
        The Witchlord dismounted from his rock.
        "Wa," said Lord Onosh, shaking the dreams out of his head.
        Then, bootstep by bootstep, he crunched across the thin and
narrow lakeside beach, his weight bearing down on smallstone and
shellbreak. He kicked a stone into the lake, and was splashed for
his pains.
        "It is real," said Lord Onosh.
        It was real, and it was cold. The entire Swelaway Sea seemed
one vast sink of cold. The lake was fringed with a lacing of
frozen ice; and, indeed, knowledgeable geographers aver that only
the underground upspout of hot volcanic water keeps the lake in
its entirety from freezing to a single block of ice in the rigors
of Tameran's continental winter.
        The Witchlord Onosh took off the battle-gauntlets which he
had worn for days. With his bare fingers, he picked up a fragment
of ice. He held it up to the watery sun then discarded it to the
water. The ice sliced into the water with a clean-slick splash.
Plunged. Then upfloated. Lord Onosh stooped to the water, cupped
his hand, dipped for water, and drank.
        "It is sweet," said Lord Onosh. "It is bitter cold, but it is
sweet."
        Then the Witchlord filled a drinking horn with water and
jangling ice, and passed it round that others might drink thereof.
        The horn came last to Sken-Pitilkin.
        "It is sweet," said Lord Onosh, watching as Sken-Pitilkin
drank. "Sweet. Is it not?"
        "It is, my lord," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Yet you have told me a thousand times if you have told it me
once that the sea is not sweet but salt."
        "I meant not this sea, my lord."
        "Then what sea?" said Lord Onosh.
        "He meant the true sea," said Bao Gahai.
        "The true sea?" said Lord Onosh.
        "He meant that real sea of salt which girdles the entire
world," said Bao Gahai. "This is not that true sea."
        "No?" said Lord Onosh. "Then what is it? Something I have
conjured from dream for my own self-delusion?"
        "The Swelaway Sea is but an over-large lake, my lord," said
Bao Gahai.
        "Lake!" said Lord Onosh. He looked across the waters. The
distant horizon promised nothing but an eternity of water. "This
so large yet you call it a lake?"
        He knew it, he had heard it, he had been told it a thousand
times, yet in the face of the fact he found it hard to believe.
        "The true sea is larger yet," said Bao Gahai. "In the true
sea, my lord, there are storms which maul the shores and tear from
the cliffs rocks which are larger than houses. In the true sea, my
lord, the kraken uprises from the lurching depths, and swallows
down ships in their entirety. In the true sea, my lord, there live
birds which never rest but which fly eternally, born and dying on
the wing. That is the true sea, compared to which this is but a
little cup of nothing."
        Lord Onosh closed his eyes, squeezed hard, dismissed the
visions Bao Gahai had conjured, then opened his eyes again. There
lay the Swelaway Sea, gray and placid, a pool of ominous
quiescence. Lord Onosh felt the gray eternities of water sapping
his will, and had a premonition that he would die here. Not quick
death clean, not death made battle-axe, but death made slow, death
made a bone-picker, death dragged out over years. The Witchlord
envisioned himself picking his way along the beach in his rags,
picking his way in the wind and the rain, eating spoilt eggs half-
formed into birds, eating the udders of rats and the bellies of
worms, his very name in time forgotten by his own tongue.
        He shuddered.
        Upon the beach of that bleak and barren lake in the heartland
of Tameran, there were shells of a bleached blue fringed with the
last traces of violet. Lord Onosh had no name to specify the
particularity of these shells, just as he had no name for the
foreign waterbird which he saw briefing its way across the sky.
This was a place without language, a place of utter desolation.
        "Yet rock is still rock and water still water," said Lord
Onosh.
        "My lord," said Thodric Jarl, interrupting the Witchlord's
extended personal confrontation with the realities of the
freshwater sea. "My lord!"
        gray beard, gray hair, gray eyes - Jarl, unkempt and derelict
after the rigors of the march, his features seamed with dirt and
his eyes shot through with blood, why, Thodric Jarl right then
looked like a very prophet in the grip of revelation. It was then
the winter of the year Alliance 4307, and Thodric Jarl was but 27
years of age, yet such was the battering which this warrior had
taken that he could easily have passed for 50.
        "My lord!" said Jarl.
        "Yes?" said Lord Onosh, squaring off against this fevered
prophet, and bracing himself to receive commands from the gods, or
a great diktat concerning the conduct of affairs amidst that
living death which we call life.
        "My lord," said Jarl, "I have for my lord's inspection the
first spoils of our latest conquest."
        So spoke the Rovac warrior, solemnly displaying a double
handful of water-snails for his liege lord's inspection.
        For, after the initial silence which had struck the army as
it contemplated the lake, Jarl had got busy with practical
investigations while his emperor was still indulging himself in
metaphysical despairs.
        "We can eat these?" said Lord Onosh, making a dubious
inspection of Jarl's wet and somewhat slimy trophies.
        The Witchlord Onosh, disturbed in his moody philosophizing,
tried to sound enthusiastic about the dripping molluscs heaped in
the swordsman's calloused hands, though in truth he resented the
brusque commonsense intrusion of this Rovac mercenary.
        "Can we eat them?" said Jarl, half-echoing his emperor. "One
would presume so." Then, as Lord Onosh turned back to the lake:
"One would presume they might make a very good meal, my lord."
        Lord Onosh saw that he was not going to be left alone to
meditate on the derelictions of his fate. He was a lord of men,
after all, albeit a lord of defeat, and such a luminary has
certain responsibilities, even in the dampness of his
extinguishment. Lord Onosh noted that Guest had made no move to
give any orders.
        "Zozimus!" said Lord Onosh, rousing his voice to the
challenge. "Come here! Come here, and pronounce upon on our
scavenging!"
        His chef came hurrying over to examine the spoils of Jarl's
lake-plundering.
        "This is the water snail Mabarakorabantibus Dontharpis," said
Zozimus, holding a sample to the light. "Or so the beast is named
in the Ilapatarginath system of taxonomy, though it is known
elsewhere as the edible helmet. It is of wide distribution, and
even occurs on the shores of the Araconch Waters, where Barglan of
the Empire once made a notable feast of the things."
        Such was the loquacity of Pelagius Zozimus when he was
showing off. It was truly amazing that the Witchlord Onosh stood
still for such nonsense; and, indeed, to move from specifics to
generalities, it is amazing how a mere slug-chef can always and
ever so easily and so impudently command so much of the time of
his lord and master, when a scholar can scarcely get a hearing at
all. Zozimus commanded the Witchlord's time as if it was his by
right; and Lord Onosh listened to Zozimus with the patience of a
very rock.
        Then:
        "So," said Lord Onosh, weighing one of Jarl's lake-morsels in
his hand, "we can eat these."
        "We can, my lord," said Zozimus. "Furthermore, the water weed
which grows from the rocks is also edible."
        And you can bet all the gold in your pockets, and bet your
favorite slave as well, and your wife, and your mother-in-law's
walking stick, that Zozimus went on to name that weed, and to
mention five or six occasions on which the cookery of that weed
had been well received, and to state a dozen recipes for its
preparation - for when the show-off mood was upon Zozimus there
was no stopping him.
        "So far, so good," said Lord Onosh, when he had absorbed
great quantities of this advice. "Snails and water weed. Very
well. But I warrant it would still make a thin meal."
        "True, my lord," said Zozimus, grabbing Glambrax by the ear,
"but it would go very well with some dwarf."
        At that, the dwarf kicked and struggled so much that Zozimus
had to let him go. But such was the cunning of the slug-chef's
timing that the dwarf, impelled by the violence of his own efforts
to escape, rolled over and over and plunged into the crackle-ice
sweetwaters of the Swelaway Sea. He struggled out, cursing, and
immediately went on the attack with tinder and flint, striving to
make himself a fire.
        "As you can see," said Zozimus, observing the dwarf's prompt
success, "we have fire already. We will shortly also have fish."
        Then Zozimus produced from his robes a vial of something he
claimed to be fish poison.
        "Do you always travel with such?" said Lord Onosh in
astonishment.
        "But of course, my lord," said Zozimus blandly.
        And poured the stuff upon the waters, where it worked as
smoothly as a miracle, for very shortly there were any number of
dead fish belly-up and gaping.
        Thus the Witchlord Onosh came to the shores of the Swelaway
Sea with the ragtag remnants of his army, and the sea provided for
him fish, and waterweed, and the snails to flesh out the meal, and
so a banquet was had.
        When the banqueting was done, talk turned to the future.
        "The question now," said Thodric Jarl, "is how we conquer the
Safrak Islands."
        "Pardon?" said Lord Onosh.
        "My lord means conquest, does he not?" said Jarl. "Surely he
did not bring us all this way just for the pleasure of poisoning a
few fish and watching a dwarf make vomit of them."
        So spoke Jarl, casually dismissing their dead, their defeats,
their retreats, the pangs being suffered by Glambrax (who had
grossly over-indulged himself by eating the eyes from the head of
each and every fish which had gone toward the feeding of an entire
army) and all the sundry embroilments of the catastrophic
nightmare which they had so recently and so strenuously lived
through.
        "One considers," said Lord Onosh, choosing his words
carefully, "one considers that the wetness of the Swelaway Sea has
certain implications for our future actions. I scarcely think to
ride to battle across the waves, nor do I think the seizure of a
few boats would do us much good beneath the invincible cliffs of
Alozay."
        "My father has spoken well," said Guest Gulkan. "The Safrak
Islands are defended beyond all possibility of conquest."
        "Then what does my lord intend?" said Jarl. "Are we to
retreat to Port Domax, as was earlier suggested? Or what?"
        "It is said that the Safrak Islands are but scantily
populated," said Lord Onosh, "and that Molothair is a city largely
deserted. I will treat with the lords of Alozay, and will seek to
hold one of the minor islands in fief, paying for the privilege.
There we will house our people and make our future."
        "I think," said Thodric Jarl, with a suggestion of a growl
giving a hard edge to his wisdom, "that such privileges will not
be lightly bought."
        "The wealth of Gendormargensis is with us," said Lord Onosh.
"We do not come empty handed, and our embassy will say as much."
        Then Lord Onosh despatched scouts to seek along the shores of
the lake for a boat, and when the scouts had been successful the
Witchlord then sent ambassadors to Safrak, their mission being to
negotiate the purchase of an island where the Witchlord might
settle with the remnants of his army. The ambassadors were Hostaja
Sken-Pitilkin, the witch Zelafona, and Guest Gulkan, for these
three had a knowledge of the Galish, which tongue was alien to the
Witchlord's lips.
        All through the journey to Alozay, Sken-Pitilkin drilled
Guest Gulkan ruthlessly in the Galish tongue, seeking to awaken
that learning which had been hammered into the boy's head in
earlier days. But the task was difficult, for the approach to
Alozay saw Guest ever slipping away into dreams of glory.
        For Alozay, of course, was the home of Icaria Scaria Iva-
Italis, a demon incarnate in a huge block of jade-green stone.
During Guest's earlier exile on Alozay, that demon had tempted the
boy, promising that he would be granted the powers of a wizard if
he would only consent to quest to the far-distant city of Obooloo,
and in Obooloo to liberate the Great God Jocasta from the Temple
of Blood.
        Thus, while journeying to Safrak's ruling island, Guest Gulkan
dreamt mightily of demons, and of Great Gods, and of wizardhood,
and of future glory.
        Sken-Pitilkin, Zelafona and Guest Gulkan were received at
Alozay by Banker Sod, the Governor of the Safrak Bank, who allowed
them into the mainrock Pinnacle. The pale-skinned iceman chose to
interrogate them in his office, which was adorned with the shields
of the Toxteth-speaking mercenaries of the Guardians. Upon those
shields were painted glowing scenes of bloody decapitations - and
worse.
        A very miracle of luxury was that office, warmed with
braziers and furs, and in their reduced condition the Witchlord's
ambassadors were at first hesitant even to seat themselves. But
Sod commanded them into chairs; and set mulled wine before them;
and had hot chestnuts served to them; and then, seeing the gnawing
hunger which obsessed them, saw to it that they were served with
hot bread, and soup thick with onions and garlic.
        "Well," said Sod, when his visitors were done with their
eating. "Are we pleasured? Are we sated?"
        "My lord has been most hospitable," said Sken-Pitilkin.
        "Yes," said Sod. "Particularly considering that you have
given me cause for hostility rather than hospitality." Then the
pale-skinned iceman endeavored to skewer Sken-Pitilkin with the
bright-staring gaze of his yellow eyes, and bared his yellow teeth
in something reminiscent of a dog's aggression, and said:
        "Hostility, yes, for when you were last in the precincts of my
Bank, you caused considerable distress. You precipitated a fight.
Or was it you?"
        With that, Sod turned his skewering attention from Sken-
Pitilkin to Guest Gulkan.
        "That was no precipitation of mine," said Guest. "That was
Jarl, Jarl did the fighting, on account of some precipitation
between himself and yourself."
        "Yes, well," said Sod. "What did he tell you of that?"
        Guest searched his memory, for it was long since he had
discussed that subject with Jarl.
        "Jarl says," said Guest, slowly, "that he saw you last in
Chi'ash-lan. He presumes you to be hiding here with a mighty price
upon your head, which would explain the violence of your reaction
to his recognition of you."
        "Has it occurred to you," said Sod, "that if I do truly wish
to keep my presence here a secret, I might do well to encompass
your death, and to send out agents to slaughter down Thodric Jarl
as well."
        "I think you not so stupid," said Guest. "Since last we left
this place, why, Jarl and myself, we've been to Ema-urk and the
Ibsen-Iktus, the mountains, we've been to Babaroth, to
Locontareth, to half the places in between. Even as we sit here,
the story of our travels echoes down the roadway. We in our
courage have entered into epic, and the sagas will sing us
famously a thousand years from hence."
        "The boy speaks in truth," said the dralkosh Zelafona. "My
sister Bao Gahai herself interrogated the warrior Jarl in depth,
and heard from him all that is known of your history. It is a
mighty great mystery, you being here, given the vastness of space
which separates Chi'ash-lan from Safrak. Still, here you are, and
all the world knows it, and if you had hoped to keep the matter a
secret then you are far, far too late."
        "If a wizard may agree with a witch," said Sken-Pitilkin,
"then let me speak in support of Zelafona. For I myself discussed
this mystery with Ontario Nol."
        "I know him not," said Banker Sod.
        "Ontario Nol," said Sken-Pitilkin, slipping effortlessly into
his lecturing mode, "is the abbot of the monastery of Qonsajara.
He dwells in the heights of those mountains known as Ibsen-Iktus,
and Guest Gulkan's brother Eljuk dwells there likewise, living as
apprentice to the master. The pair of them have had your story in
detail, and will keep it fresh in memory for a generation or more.
Thus has your privacy been betrayed, and permanently."
        Sod sighed.
        "So," said Sod. "It has happened. We must hope that no harm
comes of it. Very well. To return to our muttons | | "
        Then Banker Sod, the Governor of the Safrak Bank, negotiated
with the emissaries who had come to speak for the Witchlord Onosh.
The negotiations proved surprisingly easy.
        The final agreement was that Safrak would allow Lord Onosh to
hold in fief the minor island of Im-skim-patorta, providing he
paid for the privilege. Lord Onosh was invited to bring his men to
the hot springs at Spradley Rock, and there to prepare himself and
his men for a banquet, and then to proceed to the island of Alozay
for that self-same banquet and the formal signing of a treaty
which would enshrine the terms of this agreement.
        Guest and the other ambassadors gladly took this agreement
back to the Witchlord Onosh. A fleet of fishing boats accompanied
them, for Sod had decided to be generous in providing transport;
and he was generous also with the dispensing of bread, and onions,
and garlic, and sacks of barley. So it was that, some days and
several excellent meals later, the Witchlord and his men found
themselves upon Spradley Rock.
        Spradley Rock was the least of the Safrak Islands, excepting
for a few nameless rocks, and it was a place of no great
consequence, being as it was no more than a low-lying and
industriously rockgardened outcrop of geology featuring much sand
and many hot springs.
        It was then deep winter, and on most days the cold and
blighting winds were sweeping the Swelaway Sea with the bitterness
of sleet, yet the winter weather was fine and blue when the
Witchlord Onosh and his company came to the hotspring waters of
Spradley Rock, and those hotspring waters were unstinting in their
welcome. Green were the pools of those waters, green fringed with
iron-brown and yellow, and the smell of sulphur was heavy on the
air as luxuriating steam uprose in clouds so plentiful that they
suggested the island to be in the process of volcanic eruption.
        The witches Zelafona and Bao Gahai were allowed a small and
isolated pool of their own, while the men piled into the greater
waters, where they washed away the blood of battles, the muck of
the horseplains, fishscales and cockroaches, beetles and slugs.
        Bulked huge within their heapings of wool, of furs, and of sundry
rags, the men had looked like great bears, but once stripped down
to their skins they proved painfully thin and meager.
        Now the Yarglat do not usually take baths, considering the
womb's nine-month bloodbath to be washing sufficient to last any
man for a lifetime; and, furthermore, there is amongst the Yarglat
a strenuous taboo which forbids one man to be seen naked by
another. Yet when the Witchlord Onosh commanded universal bathing,
he was not disobeyed; for the Yarglat had largely deserted his
army, leaving him with a force comprised of the Rovac, of the
Sharla, and of representatives of sundry other peoples.
        Besides, the men of that company were so far from their
former lives that they might as well have found themselves in a
different world entirely, and so they adapted to new customs with
the ease of those who have been killed and reincarnated.
        Many strange things were revealed in those pools, such as
scars, and boils, and ulcers, and Rolf Thelemite's third nipple,
and the fact that Morsh Bataar had not one omphalos but two.
Revealed too were a great many tatoos, most of them being of
uncompromising obscenity. But the most obscene and grotesque sight
you ever did see in your life was Pelagius Zozimus, he of the
withered neck and the spindly shanks, he with the skin clinging
close to his ribs and a revolting little slug-pot of a beer belly
bulging from his abdomen, he with his stick-thin arms from which
the muscles stood out like knobbly tumors.
        In the deepest and hottest of the pools of Spradley Rock,
Guest Gulkan scrubbed his father's back with sand, while listening
to the cackling laughter from the pool where the two witches
soaked themselves. From somewhere came a shout of male outrage
followed by the evil chuckle of the dwarf Glambrax - then by a
riotous whooping pursuit, and then at length a very cold splash as
expedient justice was administer to a delinquent mannikin.
        Then arose a very strange sound, much like a drunken dog
serenading in competition with a wildcat. This curious sound was
that of Pelagius Zozimus in the act of singing. At least, Zozimus
thought he was singing: though in that he was doubtlessly in a
minority of one. This bravura performance by the slug-chef Zozimus
can only be compared to that of the skavamareen; and if you know
not what a skavamareen might be, then please note that it is best
compared to a wizard of Xluzu in his musical passages.
        An army of Yarglat barbarians would have lynched Zozimus
immediately, but lesser peoples such as the Sharla and the Rovac
are more tolerant. While Zozimus was thus caterwauling not one
word of singe word of complaint came from anywhere amongst that
whale-lazy multitude of simmering barbarians; and from this it may
be known of a certainty that the Witchlord's army had entirely
lost its fighting spirit.
        Though he was of Yarglat birth, Guest Gulkan shared in this
general tolerance, and so instead of rushing for his sword and
decapitating the delinquent Zozimus, Guest kneaded the bones of
his father's vertebrae with handfuls of sand, while the bloodflush
heat soothed away the rigors of the long retreat from
Locontareth.
        Thus it was that the last rigors of the winter-weather
retreat were eased away on Spradley Rock. On that island, a great
langour came upon the Witchlord's warriors as they relaxed in the
balm of the great heat, while clouds of steam ascended to those
greater clouds of white which hung suspended in the clear and
limitless blue of a clearwind winter's day.
        Yet, as Guest soothed away the horrors of the past and
prepared for the future, he could not suppress a certain unease
about that future. For, under the terms which Safrak had imposed
upon Lord Onosh, his company must surrender its weapons before
taking itself and its treasure to the mainrock Pinnacle to indulge
in the banquet which would precede the signing of a treaty and the
handing over of that treasure; and Guest did not at all like the
idea of being without his sword.
        Still.
        With bathing done, he got out from the water and dressed
himself in the clean linen which Safrak had so kindly provided for
the Witchlord and his men. How Safrak had come up with clothing
for so many at such short notice was a mystery, but the feat had
been managed.
        As Guest and the other warriors rose from their bath, the
sagacious wizard Sken-Pitilkin descended to the waters, hoping to
have a private bath in the luxury of undisturbed peace. Only now
did he realize that, by waiting, he had made a grievous error -
for it would be quite some time before the fair island of Spradley
recovered from this invasion. The pools which had formerly been
clear and clean were now stewpots of murk topped with generous
heapings of foaming scum, and layered at the bottom with a thick
sediment of dead lice, parboiled fleas and other wildlife. Indeed,
the water had turned the most putridly bilious mix of blue and
green, for all the world as if a battalion of drunkards had taken
turns at vomiting into it.
        Nevertheless, Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin made the best of
it, and washed his pallor (natural to one born in Galsh Ebrek,
where the Yudonic Knights tend to be pale in the absence of sun,
their native color being if anything the pink of their blood),
and found himself flushed to an uncommon red by the heat of the
water, for all the world as if he were a very Ebrell Islander in
his breeding.
        Then Sken-Pitilkin joined the others in putting on clean
linen. He found the company changed to a truly imperial splendor.
Each of its members looking a good ten years younger now that the
muck, filth and stale battle-sweat had at last been washed from
their faces.
        Then that great company took itself off to the island of
Alozay in a fleet of boats, most of which had been provided by the
Safrak Bank. When they reached that island, they ascended the
mainrock Pinnacle by great winch-baskets of creaking wickerwork,
which were hauled up from the docks by ropes.
        Lord Onosh had found five mountaineers to survey the mainrock
Pinnacle, though he had found them with difficulty, for the sport
of mountaineering had long been outlawed in the Collosnon Empire
as a reckless abomination - and quite rightly so, for it is
entirely unnatural, this business of crawling like a beetle up
great mounds of rock, and kicking down boulders to bash in the
skulls of one's fellows (which amusement is one of the principal
attractions of mountain climbing as practiced by the Yarglat, for
they climb in a competitive fashion, and count themselves
unsatisfied if they finish their mountain without nine in ten of
their number having met their deaths upon its slopes). The
mountaineers pronounced the approach to the mainrock Pinnacle to
be difficult in the extreme, for the heights overhung the docks,
and there were no chimneys by means of which a climber could
easily ascend to those heights.
        Lord Onosh chose to be winched upwards in the company of his
mountaineers, so their reports were delivered to him privily while
he and his climbers were safe in the isolation of their creaking
wickerwork.
        Then they got to the top, and found that the great winch-
baskets had been dragged to the heights by bluff and hearty
washerwomen working a windlass. Lord Onosh was dismayed to realize
that his life had been entrusted to something as weak as a woman.
But these women were like unto bears, for in truth the strength of
your average washerwoman is nothing short of marvelous, for she
spends all day thumping and pummelling, and hefting great burdens
of wet and dripping wool. Thus some washerwomen of prodigious
strength feature nobly in the myth-cycle concerning the ancient
war between men and women, and the greatest of these washerwomen
was Bilch.
         According to legend, the washerwoman Bilch was of such great
strength that she once split the skull of an apprentice boy with a
single blow from her open hand, and split it with such violence
that his eyes flew a full seventy paces in different directions,
and his upper teeth were propelled downward into the rock where
they buried themselves to the depth of a spear, and his upper
teeth were hurled upwards with such a great velocity that they
slaughtered a flight of sparrows, so that Bilch stood victorious
over the apprentice boy with a great rain of dead birds falling
all about her.
        Whether this is true or not - one suspects some slight degree
of exaggeration may have colored the facts - it is nevertheless a
firm fact that the strength of washerwomen has become legendary
for the best of all possible reasons. Each of them has the muscles
of a very bear-wrestler, and a man may trust himself to the
strength of those muscles in good conscience, whether in bed or
out of it.
        But we recall that Lord Onosh was but a Yarglat barbarian,
and hence he was ignorant of the world's great literature, and in
particular he was ignorant of the story of Bilch, and so was
dismayed to find himself being hauled to the heights by mere
women, and washerwomen at that.
        Nevertheless, the Witchlord's anxieties passed once he
reached those heights.
        But the anxieties of his son were redoubled, for the Toxteth-
speaking Guardians were everywhere, and their weapons were sharp,
and Guest sensed them to be in a mood for war, and he was more
uneasy than ever to find himself in such company with his own
weapons lacking.
        Still, all began well. Rooms had been prepared for the
guests, including a big strongroom in which they could store their
treasure chests. A guardroom adjoined that strongroom, so the
Witchlord's most trusted boxers, wrestlers and bone-breakers could
sit in guardianship of that treasure. With gold thus secured, the
banquet began, and began well, and went along swimmingly till late
into the night.
        By which time Pelagius Zozimus had got very drunk, and was
regaling all and sundry with a number of stories which he found
intensely amusing, such as the tale of how he had once
accidentally poisoned his companions with an ill-chosen fungus - a
story which was not by any means amusing to those who had had to
live through that near-catastrophe!
        Nevertheless, the assembly received such stories in the best
of all possible humors possible.
        And, late in the night, as the banquet began to break up, all
who were still sober enough to display any emotion whatsoever
seemed still in excellent humor. Lord Onosh left early, saying he
must check on his treasure then get to bed, for he was not as
young as he used to be; but Guest sat long at the table with
Zozimus and Sken-Pitilkin, and with the witches Zelafona and Bao
Gahai.
        And it seemed to Sken-Pitilkin - who had not joined the
incautious Zozimus in overindulgence - that their hosts were
uncommonly attentive in watching over wizards and witches alike,
as if fearing that Lord Onosh might use these practitioners of
power to make some move against the security of the mainrock
Pinnacle and the integrity of the Safrak Bank; and Sken-Pitilkin
began to feel increasingly uneasy himself, and hoped that he would
not find himself falling a victim to the paranoia of Bankers.