Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

Alish was now trapped in the green bottle, together with the death-stone, which was useless to him in that place where no magic had any power. But while Alish was in the green bottle, Miphon dared not return there. it'll be all right,' said Miphon, finishing bandaging the arm-stump, it'll be all right.'

But Morgan Hearst, warrior of Rovac, hero of the era, broke down and wept, tears burning hot from his eyes, body racked with grief. So Miphon held him and rocked him and soothed him as shadows and darkness settled in the halls and corridors of the ancient fortress on the Central Plateau, Stronghold Handfast.

There was snow on the ground when Blackwood, Miphon and Morgan Hearst left Stronghold Handfast. They presumed Garash had gone south to the Amodeo River,.which would afford him a passage to Brine. So, to avoid all possibility of confrontation, they trekked north across the Central Plateau then over the mountains to the Scourside Coast.

Blackwood, weather-wise sky-reader, was their route finder. Miphon, mind-tracker, found their food: rodents in winter burrows and earthworms in the richer pockets of soil. Under Miphon's care, Hearst's wound had healed by the time they reached the sea.

They found a fishing village crouching in the marginal shelter of a razorback ridge: huddling smokestone cottages lit by guttering whaleoil lamps. The villagers were unsure what to make of these winter-weather visitors. Some were frightened by the cold, bitter grey eyes of the man with only one hand. Asking his name, they were told 'Hasf: the Rovac warrior had taken the name of his sword, for there was little difference between them now, as one was a death-dealer and one a death-seeker, wishing only for an ending.

As for Miphon, although at first he seemed young, vigorous and cheerful, his eyes betrayed a desperate anxiety. Nightly, he dreamt of Elkor Alish exploring the depths of the green bottle, seeking and searching in the silent gloom, sword at the ready in case anything menaced him. In his dreams, Alish escaped; armies marched at his command; entire cities and civilizations were laid waste by the death-stone.

Miphon told himself that Alish had scant chance of finding a ring to set himself free from the green bottle. But what if he escaped down a drop-shaft? In theory, that was impossible. Morgan Hearst said Elkor Alish was the best climber he knew, but if Alish tried to descend a drop-shaft, then intolerable forces of acceleration would pry him loose from the walls and send him hurtling down into the waiting fire trench. It seemed there was no escape that way – but Miphon had to remind himself that, trapped behind the portcullis, he had spent days without seeing the obvious way to set himself free.

The wizard puzzled the villagers, as did the third visitor. At first sight, he seemed the oldest, yet his face was as puzzled as if he had only just been born: odd things moved him to laughter or to tears. Many thought him simple, a moon-child: yet his talk was always sensible.

The visitors arrived as bad weather was setting in; a fishing smack, with a crew including a man who had fallen in heavy seas and dislocated his shoulder, struggled to haven through a mounting storm. The casualty had been half a day with his injury by the time the boat came to safety; someone skilled in manipulation can put a shoulder into place with ease if it has only just slipped out, but by the time Miphon saw the man, the muscles had long since locked rigid.

Miphon hated to be ruthless, but their need was great; he promised to put the shoulder back if he could have the boat. Even though the crewman was white-faced with shock and agony, he was in two minds about it; in a village such as this, a boat was wealth. Pain forced his choice. There was a hurried consultation with his family, for he did not own the boat, and would need others to guarantee the price to the owner, and share the debt-burden.

The agreement was made; now Miphon had only to remedy the injury. Opium would have been the drug of choice, to dull pain and put the victim into a stupor, but there was none to be had; this Scourside village lacked even a name for the substance. That being so, Miphon had water put on to boil, to produce steam. He saturated a length of cloth with alcohol, then wrapped it round the injured joint and associated muscles. Despite his tenderness, his patient cried out, as well he might in the face of such pain.

With the help of a steady flow of steam, the alcohol slowly penetrated the muscles, dulling the pain sufficiently for Miphon to try and put the joint back. He took the arm and pulled it outwards from the body -steadily and slowly – then bent the arm at the elbow and moved it in an arc, bringing the hand toward the chest.

Miphon knew exactly what he was doing; he had a name for every muscle and every bone, and knew how they worked together. He had done this often enough before: there were few injuries he had not seen and treated at some stage in the years gone by. The joint slipped home with an audible clunk.

It was done.

Given a break in the weather, Hearst decided to put to sea without further delay, despite the danger of renewed bad weather; he found the only resolution for his sorrows was constant action. The renascent storm caught them at sea at dusk; soon they were in desperate trouble. They could not set a sea anchor and ride out the storm with a bare mast, because the wind would have swept them onto the rocks of the shore.

Then Blackwood took the helm and began to give orders. With a precise reading of wind and wave, with immaculate timing in his orders, with an exact estimate of how much strain the rigging and timbers of his cockleshell command could endure, he saw them through grim hours of light and darkness in seas that could have sunk the best ships of the fleet of Rovac.

For Blackwood, the night in the raging weather brought divine release and giddy exultation.

Cursed by an empathy with all living things, he endured the terror of a rabbit seen ravaged by the talons of a hunting hawk, even as he thrilled to the beauty of the killing creature which was, after all, being true to the heart of its own nature. As for the conflict of human wills, such as he had seen in the bargaining for the boat – he found that almost unbearable.

But, guiding the boat through the storm, matching his new powers of empathy and heightened perception against the inanimate, he was free to rejoice in his abilities.

The long struggle with the sea took them clear of the shore, then, when the wind veered from north-west to west, they ran before it, and were driven far out to the east. Blackwood began to fear they would be swept far out into the Eastern Ocean, there doubtless to sink, for their boat was now taking in water.

However, eventually, when the wind slackened, they found themselves in sight of a cold granite island. There Blackwood brought their leaking boat to harbour. He was exhausted by then, and faltering; he almost wrecked the boat when crossing the bar at the harbour mouth. But they survived.

The island, they found, was Ork, the home base for a pirate fleet.

The leader of the pirates of Ork was Ohio. He claimed that a brother of his, Menator, commanded pirate ships on the west coast of Argan; they had gone their separate ways because of a quarrel, but now Ohio was thinking of rejoining his brother.

Ork had lately been blockaded for weeks by Collosnon warships. The Collosnon navy was determined to destroy the pirates, and Ohio's men – mostly recruited from Scourside villages – had no belly for a fight. Storms had scattered the blockade, but Ohio could not leave until ships damaged in an earlier attempt to break the blockade had been repaired. While they delayed, the navy returned.