Hugh Cook - The Wicked and the Witless

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…' And, 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…'

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.