Hugh Cook - The Wicked and the Witless

His fingers stumbled over the polished jade. Grasped. Tugged. The top would not come out! 'Stuck!' he wailed.

A quick-limbed blue ant the size of a calf slipped past the tunneller and advanced on Sarazin, fighting mandibles clicking – 'snick snick snick!' – like castrating scissors from an Oedipal nightmare.

Then the top came – sclop! – out of the bottle. And up roared the dragons, billowing into the air with a rush of fumes and fury, filling the air with the smells of cin- namon and low-grade sulphur. Their wing-clap fury filled the sky. The creatures of the Swarms shrank back, retreating from the dragons.

Yes, there were nine of them.

And nine dragons made an army. It could not be doubted. They were the most dragonish dragons ever seen, fire-winged creatures each a hundred paces from head to tail, and they were his, they were his alone, so strong, so proud, so beautiful that Sarazin wanted to weep and laugh at the same time.

'Well,' said Glambrax, resolutely unimpressed. 'Don't just stand there gaping. Command them.'

The dragons, having flaunted their fury in the skies above, settled to the rooftops. The largest alighted on the battlewall above the shattered gate. Sarazin glanced at the Swarms, which were hesitating in the gateway, then said in a battlefield voice:

'I am Sean Kelebes Sarazin, named in war as Watashi. I stand before you as lord of Selzirk, as prince of the Harvest Plains, as saviour of my people, fulfiller of prophecy, warlord and dragonmaster. Acknowledge my rule!'

The dragon on the battlewall, the largest and most lordly of them all, answered:

'I am the dragon Untunchilamon. Verily, thou art lord of my will. What is thy command, my master?'

Sarazin, face flushed with the heat of the dragon's breath, said: 'Destroy the Swarms and save Selzirk.' 'To hear is to obey,' said Untunchilamon.

Forthwith, all nine dragons launched themselves into an all-out attack on the Swarms. Roaring, dragons grappled with monsters. But To Sarazin's horror, before his very eyes the dragons were torn apart. Their forms shuddered, smoked, decayed to clouds of sulphurous fire, then disintegrated altogether and were blown away on the breeze.

Tour dragons, you see,' said Glambrax, talking sober sense for once, 'were no more than illusion. Beautiful illusion, extravagant illusion – but illusion for all that.' 'I see,' said Sarazin. Speaking as one dazed.

He realised now that his dragons had been but a form of fireworks. Most beautiful and intelligent of fireworks, capable of speech, and, perhaps – however briefly – of thought. But fireworks for all that. Beautiful, transitory

– and ultimately useless.

'Now, my master, lord of my will,' said Glambrax. What is your command?' Then, as Sarazin made no reply, the dwarf tugged sharply at his sleeve, and said again, urgently: 'Shall we run?'

Yes,' said Sarazin, as if waking from a dream. Yes, I suppose we must.'

And, as a bevy of blue ants advanced on them, they did indeed run. They sprinted, in fact. Sarazin was fast enough

– but Glambrax was not. One of the ants gained on him, seized him. 'Sarazin!' he squealed.

Sarazin turned, saw, swore. Jammed the ring of invisi- bility on to his finger. Drew his vorpal blade. Strode back and hewed the head from the nearest blue ant. Then grabbed Glambrax and hauled him away. As Sarazin grabbed him, Glambrax too became invisible to the monsters of the Swarms.

The ring was hot on Sarazin's finger. Getting hotter. It hurt, it hurt! It burnt! As they rounded a corner, Sarazin dropped Glambrax then wrenched the ring from his finger. Threw it to the ground. Where it burst into white fire. With sun-bright flames it consumed itself, then was gone, leaving only an ugly rust-red scar on the stonework of the street to show where it had been.

Sarazin watched the immolation of his hopes and dreams from the nearest doorway. Then one of the monsters of the Swarms edged round the corner. A small black and tan dog stood in the middle of the street barking furiously at it. A moment later the dog was trashed to a raggage of blood and bone.

Sarazin slammed the door, bolted it, and joined Glam- brax on a quick retreat to the cellar.

They dwelt in cellars and sewers, in stormdrains and rat- squeeze underpassages, in crypts and boltholes, in shadow and darkness. The cold rains washed the sewers clean. The Velvet River itself ran cleaner than ever before in living memory.

– What were we then? A pollution on the face of the earth?

– I know not. But know our destiny now. To be rats to our lords, the Swarms.

That was what Sarazin told himself. But he believed it not. Surely some hero would come, some force, some power, to liberate Selzirk from the Swarms. Sometimes, he toyed with his magic green candle, the last piece of magic left to him. Did that perchance have the power to save Selzirk?

The trouble was, he had not the slightest idea what the candle could do. The druid who had given it to him had not known. It might prove dangerous rather than helpful.

– I'd best not use this until I know what it does. Or until my life's so deep in danger that there's no other way out. Thus thought Sarazin.

In those dismal days, it was some consolation to him that at least his mother's palace still stood fast against the monsters. He approached, sometimes, at night. Flame wrathed up from the moat, no longer quiescent but ferociously alive. Sometimes he saw figures on the battle- ments. Long after midnight, strange lights sometimes writhed around one of the eight towers which had long been sealed against humankind. – The wizards have reclaimed their own. Thus thought Sarazin, and knew it for truth.

He could see, now, what had happened. When the Swarms had invaded Argan North, the wizards by Drangsturm had fled by any means available. Some had come to Selzirk and reclaimed the ancient wizard fortress which had been the foundation of Farfalla's palace.

– Perhaps those who guard the walls are the same wizards who came through that Door in Chenameg.

That would explain much: Drangsturm fell; the wizards fled through a Door north of Drangsturm; the Swarms pursued them through that Door.

– Should I myself try that Door? Is there any hope of safety through such?

Sarazin played with the question, but made no serious attempt to answer it, for he still hoped for Selzirk to be saved, liberated, rescued.

Since the Swarms were more active by day than by night, Sarazin and Glambrax slept through most of the day, waking each evening to begin their activities. On one such evening, they were up in a belfry spying on the Swarms as those monsters settled to take their rest, and planning a raid on a warehouse where they hoped to find something decent to eat.

That was the evening that they saw a mountain moving in the distance, crossing the Harvest Plains like something out of nightmare. Then Sarazin truly knew his hopes for rescue were futile. The world had gone mad. When moun- tains take to walking, what next? Will the sky take to falling? 'Tonight,' he said to Glambrax, 'we leave the city.' 'To go where?' said Glambrax.

'To Chenameg,' said Sarazin. To the Door.'

After enduring many hazards – the worst of which were in human form – Sean Sarazin and Glambrax finally reached the hunting lodge which had been the headquarters of the guerrillas who had fought under the command of Fox in the highlands of Chenameg South. They found it burnt to the ground, together with all its outbuildings. Nearby, they found a man tied to a tree, but, as he had died of starvation or exposure some days previously, he proved less than informative.

'At least nothing's gnawed the corpse,' said Sarazin. 'That proves there's no monsters hereabouts.'