Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

The others had picked themselves up by now and were dusting themselves off. None were seriously hurt, which was a minor miracle. One of those graced by the miracle was Gorn, who stalked toward Comedo, axe in hand. There was no doubting his intentions. Comedo reached for the ring.

'Miphon!' shouted Blackwood. 'Stop him!'

Miphon grabbed Comedo. But Comedo twisted the ring – and the two of them dissolved into a fog which was sucked into the bottle so fast that there was a rush of wind as air swept into the place where they had been standing.

'Give me the bottle,' said Gorn.

The bottle was hanging from Blackwood's belt by a thread; the slide down the slope had almost torn it away. Blackwood pulled it free and passed it to Gorn, who shook it.

'Come out, you scag!' shouted Gorn. 'Out!'

Nothing happened.

Gorn hurled the bottle against a rock. Chips scattered from the rock. The bottle was unharmed. Gorn marched toward it.

Blackwood grabbed his arm.

'Gorn, it's no use – '

Another fit of coughing interrupted what Blackwood had to say. Gorn shook himself free and attacked the bottle with his axe. Men stood round watching till Gorn had exhausted his anger.

'Weil wait,' said Gorn. 'The wizard must be able to overpower that little scag. Then we'll do him. We'll do him dead.'

Gorn sat down on a rock to wait.

Blackwood coughed again. The dust he had breathed in while sliding down the slope was combining with the parasitic smoke to cause him agony. He had to have water to wash the dust out of his throat. There was dust on his boots, in his hair, in his eyes and on his lips; up on the slope, the dust kicked up by the slide was still settling measure by measure through the hot dry air. They could hear Hearst shouting something at them, but what he was saying they could not tell over the distance.

Blackwood walked to the water and stooped down. A Melski lept from the water and threw him backwards. His pack absorbed the shock of the fall, but the creature got its hands on his throat. He clawed for its eyes. His fingernails scraped across tough skin. Then the creature thrashed and screamed: Gorn had axed it open. Blackwood threw it off. He unshipped his knife.

More Melski came plunging out of the water. There was a brief and furious fight. The Melski outnumbered the men two to one, but they fled when reinforcements came crashing down the scree slope.

The odds had given the Melski the better fight: there was one dead Melski, there was a spare Melski arm twitching on the stones, and there were three dead men. Blackwood watched the amputated arm with fascination. It shed little drops of water in its spasms. Stones clinked as the fingers flexed and contracted. Slowly the sun dried it and it ceased to move.

Hearst was in a filthy mood when he got down to the water's edge. He spat in disgust at what he saw.

'We were outnumbered,' protested Gorn.

'Outnumbered! By animals!'

'They had weapons,' said Gorn.

'Yes, and a rabbit has teeth. Where's Miphon?' in Comedo's bottle,' said Gorn. 'Comedo grabbed him and pulled him in with him.'

'Then why hasn't he come out?'

'We're waiting,' said Gorn.

'You're waiting! What kind of answer is that? A Rovac warrior and you let this happen. Don't speak to me, I don't need your excuses. Who's dead?'

'Trother, Onger and Ilchard.'

'Let's have their packs off then,' said Hearst. 'Move, man, move! And you! And you!'

The packs were rifled for food and clothing. They had plenty enough weapons already, so Hearst broke the blades the dead men had carried. He studied the three bodies. Ilchard had a nice pair of boots, and they looked about the right size… Hearst whipped them off and got his feet into them.

'Now we wait,' said Hearst. 'We wait until Miphon comes out with Comedo's head in his hands.'

But they waited in vain, and Hearst, growing tired of watching the sun shifting shadows over the rocks, gave the order for the climb to be resumed.

In the afternoon, long after resuming their climb, 262 they saw the surviving Melski come out of the water and haul one of the rafts onto the lake. From the height Hearst's men had reached, the Melski looked like insects setting sail on a bit of twig. When the Melski were well clear of the shore, they stopped; perhaps they were fishing.

The expedition was still climbing at nightfall; they finished their climb by starlight. Before they reached the top, one man slipped and went rattling away down the slope. He shouted as he slid away, but they did not hear him cry out again. Perhaps he hit his head on a rock. When morning came, they saw his body lying lifeless far below.

The sun, rising in the east, glittered on the vast expanse of the Araconch Waters, and illuminated snow which capped the higher peaks of the mountains to the west. The men, still somewhat weak from the underground raft journey and the consequent underfeeding, could have done with more sleep and rest, but Hearst got them moving.

They set off in a northerly direction, beginning a trek through a land of barren hills, steep bluffs and overhanging cliffs, gorges and waterless riverbeds. This shattered landscape would make for slow going.

Some twenty leagues to the north, clearly visible from the higher ground, rose the cone of a volcano, from which a little smoke ascended. From memories of an old and faded map never seen by his own eyes – the wizard Phyphor had consulted it once, in Castle Margus -Hearst named that volcano: Barg. The name was a contraction of the name of the sometime ruler of the Empire of Wizards, Barglan Stanash Alkiway.

And Hearst remembered the inscription mapped over the countryside around the volcano: Here Be Dragons.

'No closer,' said Comedo. 'No closer, or I swallow it.' He kissed the ring.

Miphon took another step forward. Comedo grinned and parted his lips, stretching a thread of saliva to breaking point. His tongue lolled out to accept the glistening gold. Suddenly he snapped his mouth shut and gulped. Miphon swore. Comedo plucked the ring from his mouth and capered up and down: a grotesque figure of dust and blood, blood and tatters. He was, Miphon was sure, quite mad. i fooled you then, didn't I? Your heart squeaked nicely, nay? A mouse, and I stepped on it. I fancy that, for Miphon's fancy's fool, the mute word's moron. Nay?'

Then suddenly the pretense of humour was gone: 'Now down on your knees and grovel! Or I'll swallow it.'

Miphon shook his head, and said, as he might say to a dog or a horse: 'Soft now, soft, I'm no harm to you, soft now, easy.'

Slowly, carefully, as if easing out over thin ice, he began to close the distance. Comedo lept away, and shouted: 'Belly down to the dust or I'll swallow the ring.'

'Swallow it then,' said Miphon, suddenly angry. He drew a knife. 'Swallow it, and I'll rip you from vent to gills.'

'That blade may kill, but hardly the hand that holds it.'

'You're still walking, but that doesn't make you immortal.' i'm mad,' said Comedo. 'You mustn't hurt me. I'm mad, I can't help it.'

An extravagant cringing fear had replaced Comedo's arrogance. He was like… like what? Like a patch of sky in which any sort of weather might manifest itself. Princes have the opportunity to create the kind of reality that suits them. i won't hurt you,' said Miphon, regretting his outburst of anger.

'You couldn't anyway,' said Comedo, suddenly fierce, drawing a blade and snarling. 'Magic doesn't work in the bottle, does it? Blade against blade, I can take you. No contest. Now what will you tell your toenails if I go outside with the ring and leave you counting days to years – forever!'

'Try it,' said Miphon.

'Not today,' said Comedo. 'I'm a prince, not a prince's fool, my princely fool. But the swords won't be waiting outside forever. The dragon will munch them down, soon if not later. I saw the dragon from the shores of the lake. It flew from my dreams: practising. Wonderful! Bones crunch slowly. I wish I could watch.'