Hugh Cook - The Wordsmiths and the Warguild

Togura guessed one, then guessed fifty. Despite the instruction he had had from Brother Troop, he had never known a great deal about the quest he was one; what he had known had been mostly forgotten during the course of his traumatic adventures.

"When you dare your indigestion on this quest," said Hostaja, "ignorance is death. I'll do my best to instruct you, boy, though I suspect it'll be painful for the both of us."

And lessons began that very same day.

Togura Poulaan studied through the autumn, learning more than he really wanted to know about the eight orders of wizards, the Confederation of Wizards, the nature of magic and the history of the troubled continent of Argan. Autumn turned to winter. Bleak winds scoured the island, bringing cold, slate-grey rain, which hammered against the window while Togura laboured to memorise Words of power and command.

As the weather grew colder, the sea dragons, having gorged themselves on pine needles, retreated to a deep, dank dungeon to sleep. When Togura went down to have a look, he found them all reciting poetry in their sleep. The wizard of Drum, told of this, laughed:

"The pretentious little brats are only shamming. When they're really asleep, they snore."

And, indeed, when Togura went down a few days later to have another look, the dungeon was a sonorous slother of snoring dragons. At first, they worke up every few days, and would come stumbling up the stairs for meat and drink. They were no longer the lively, argumentative creatures he had met at the end of summer; winter made them slow, sluggish and dim-witted. As the days shortened, they woke no more, but hibernated, while fleas bit them with impunity. The cats, which had fleas of their own, kept to the fireside, also sleeping.

Between study sessions, which increasingly bored him, Togura did a lot of sleeping himself. He also cleaned and sharpened old blades he found about the castle, then practised solitary swordplay in echoing halls and cloisters. The great outdoors, a wasteland of rock, wind and tumbled sea, held no attraction for him.

Togura, as befitted his student status, did the cooking. They lived on salt beef, pickled octopus, boiled abalone, fried turnip, pig weed, sea anemone soup, garlic, onions and a noxious substance which Hostaja named siege dust. After meals, Hostaja would smoke a little opium, pick his nose with a golden spoon, sandpaper his false teet – which were made of metal – or fall asleep in his chair to dream of whatever it is that old men dream of.

Hostaja also spent a great deal of time closeted in a private room which was secured against intrusion by a green door which was locked and bolted. He claimed that he spent the time meditating, though Togura had no way to verify this; his teacher still found plenty of time to scold Togura for his lackadasical attitude to his studies, and to exhort him to greater efforts.

Toward the end of winter, when the winds were quiet for once, and the dragons still deep in hibernation, the wizard of Drum flew to Sung to confer with Brother Troop. Togura desperately wanted to go with him – to go to Sung, and stay there – but did not dare ask for the privilege. Hostaja, having spent so much time and effort on Togura's education, would be enraged if his hero reneged just because he was homesick. The time to back out would be later, when he got to Estar; if he was ever questioned, he could always say that Johan Meryl Comedo, prince of Estar, had refused him access to Castle Vaunting – it would be most unlikely that anyone would check.

Before going away, the wizard of Drum warned Togura that he was not to open the green door into the wizard's private room.

"Understand?" said Hostaja. "You will not, may not, must not open that door. No matter what! Not even if the door smokes, screams, or dances a split polka."

"Is it likely to do that?" asked Togura anxiously.

"With that door," said Hostaja, grimly, "anything can happen."

Then he levitated his ship of sticks, and flew away to Sung. He expected to be gone three days, but a storm broke out, and he did not return for thirty. On his return, he seemed disappointed to find that the green door had not been tampered with.

"Why didn't you open the door, boy?"

"You told me not to!"

"Since when did the words of the old carry weight with the young?"

"I've adventures enough ahead of me without seeking them here. Who cares what's behind the green door? It might be something which wants to eat me!"

"So it might, boy, so it might," said Hostaja, sounding troubled. "But where's your spirit? You're a bit of a disappointment to me, boy."

"I've killed a monster," said Togura. "I've matched my skills against Zenjingu fighters. I've fought against the Warguild. I've started a revolution. I've survived the treachery of pirate. I've ridden a sea serpent – you don't believe me, but I swear it. Now if that doesn't make me a hero, what does?"

The wizard of Drum shook his head.

"Boy," he said, "you've had your accidents and you've scraped your way out of them, but I've got my doubts about you all the same."

Now Togura understood. The green door had been a test, and he had failed. He felt crushed. But the news from Sung helped revive his spirits. The wizard of Drum, a seasoned negotiator, had extracted formidable concessions from the Wordsmiths. Togura Poulaan was appointed to the rank of wordmaster, with seniority backdated one year; when he brought the index to Keep, he would be guaranteed eleven percent of the return from the odex, plus a minimum payment of one hundred crowns; the Wordsmiths would persuade, bribe or coerce Cromarty into withdrawing the reward he had offered for Togura's head.

"With all that on offer," said Hostaja, "I hope you start to take your responsibilities seriously. Study hard. We don't have much time."

Togura did study hard, and found that they didn't have much time. Soon winter was at an end, and they were on their way to the east in the wizard's flying ship. The journey was a nightmare; the ship thrashed about in the air turbulence, plummeted, dropped, spun, twisted, raced and decelerated, making Togura sick, dizzy and terrified. He was thoroughly glad when they grounded in a clearing in Looming Forest, somewhere east of Lorp and north of Estar.

As the wizard had already explained, he had no wish to fly any closer to Lorford because of the danger posed by the dragon Zenphos, which lived in Estar in a cave in the mountain of Maf.

"Are you sure you know where you go from here?" said Hostaja.

"I go east," said Togura, "and pick up the Hollern River, which flows south. I follow it south. Just before it reaches Lorford, it turns west. I'll know when I get to Lorford because there'll be a bridge, a town and a castle on a hill."

"Right."

"I've had a thought," said Togura. "Why don't I walk south? Then I could pick up the Hollern River as it flows toward the Central Ocean, and follow it upstream, toward the east, and get to Lorford that way."

"You could," said Hostaja, "but it wouldn't be wise. In Lorford, they're used to people coming down the Hollern River. It's part of the Salt Road, after all. But soemone coming out of the west, from the sea, is a different proposition altogether. They might take you for a pirate scout, which would be unfortunate, to say the least. Yours wouldn't be the first head to decorate Prince Comedo's walls.

"Is he very dangerous then, this Prince Comedo?"

"Courage, boy! He's a coward, and a fool. If he menaces you, then menace him back in my name. Here – here's a parting gift for you. A letter of introduction from the Wordsmiths, written by Brother Troop in his capacity as governor. Another letter, also introducing you, which is written in my own fair hand. One last caution – never let any wizard know you've been associating with me. It could be the death of you. The Confederation is strong, boy, and ruthless, and is sworn to destroy me and all my works."