Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

"A leg as badly broken as his will be slow in the cure," said Ontario Nol. "So swimming may help."

"But he's walking!" said Guest. "He's riding! The bone is fixed!"

"The bone may be fixed," said Nol, "but the muscle may be badly wasted."

"But," protested Guest, "we're talking ancient history! It's spring. Go back through winter, autumn, summer. Go back a year! A year ago I had a letter from Bao Gahai, she said him walking.

Walking, yes, and riding. A year, man!"

"So his cure may be close to completeness," conceded Nol.

"But even so, you should not sneer at his swimming, for swimming is a very healthful exercise."

"I thought you of the Yarglat!" said Guest in astonishment.

"Yet you think a man should be fish!"

"I am true to my heritage," said the Yarglat-born wizard of Itch. "I have not denied it. I have merely broadened it. But, anyway – enough of your brothers. Tell me of Locontareth. There was mention made of a tax revolt."

So the subject of Morsh Bataar's broken leg and his slow recovery from the same was dropped, and Guest launched himself on the tale of the tax revolt in Locontareth, or what he knew of it – the revolt said to be led by an insurrectionist by the name of Sham Cham.

As Guest was deep in conversation, the path passed beneath great rocks, and in the shadow of those rocks the path suddenly crumbled beneath Guest's feet. Guest slipped – with a cry.

And Nol grabbed him.

Ontario Nol grabbed Guest Gulkan, fingers gripping the boy's arm like a set of pliars.

"Careful," said Nol, hauling Guest back from the brink of destruction. "Steady yourself. There now. Are you all right?"

"Yes," said Guest.

Who was shaken by the strength of the old man, by the walnutcrunching power of those fingers. He was reminded of dim legends concerning mighty masters of combat who were said to live in the mountains. (Which mountains? The legends were never specific, but mountains like these looked near enough to the stuff of legends as far as Guest was concerned). Those combat masters were said to be able to perform prodigious feats. To kill without touching. To kill with a shout. To crush stones. To tear the heart from the flesh without benefit of steel.

"Have you lived in the mountains long?" said Guest.

"Oh, long indeed," said Ontario Nol. "I know this path well.

It gets easier from here on."

And so it did, and it had become wide, flat and stable by the time dawn brought them a sharp-edged breeze to brisk away the stillness of the night, and brought them too to a village, a place of drystone buildings roofed with slate, a place where people came out and greeted them.

"Do you rule the entire valley?" said Guest, as the people gathered around them.

"No," said Nol. "I thought I told you of that earlier. King Igpatan rules the lower reaches of the valley."

"I have never heard of this king," said Guest, uncertain in his weariness as to whether Nol had in fact earlier explicated the nature of the king. "How great are his realms?"

"They are of no great extent," said Nol. "For King Igpatan rules over no greater distance than one could comfortably walk between sunrise and sunset. But – come now! This is no time for geopolitical discussion. This is time for breakfast!"Guest was surprised to learn that he had been engaged in geopolitical discussion, because he had merely thought himself to be asking a couple of very obvious questions. Nevertheless, he allowed himself to be led big stone table set outdoors in the morning sun. Placed around that table were three-legged stools in numbers sufficient for the seating of Nol's company, and waiting on that table were finger-bowls of warm water fragrant with bruised mint, and plates heaped with eggs, with hot chicken-meat, with potatoes, with soy beans, with dried fish and with roasted frogs.

"Magnificent!" said Jarl. Then, turning to Nol: "But perhaps the feast could be improved by the butchery of one of your villagers."

During the descent, Thodric Jarl's headache had diminished away to nothing. His broken ribs still gave him pain, but his morale had perked up amazingly, to the point where he had almost become a welcome traveling companion – and let the mention of this fact be taken as a clear proof of the objective clarity of this history, which makes no idle propaganda against the Rovac, but simply records the facts as they happened.

"An excellent suggestion, friend Rovac!" said Nol, taking Jarl's jest in the spirit in which it was meant. "But things grow slow in the mountains, so each of these villagers has taken a thousand years to grow meat sufficient for a cannibal feast. That being so, we cannot waste them casually, but must content ourselves with chickens."

"That contentment will be more than sufficient," said the elf-armored Pelagius Zozimus, surveying the feast with a professional eye, and asking himself fresh questions as to timing.

How had such a formidable meal been prepared at such short notice? One thing is for certain: a village of such manifest poverty never killed chickens except for the most especial occasions. It has been Written that wizards of Itch can build bells which can be rung thereafter from a distance of several leagues. So perhaps Nol had covertly used such a bell to signal the approach of himself and his guests; though, as Sken-Pitilkin and Zozimus were both exhausted, neither asked him about this, and neither thought to ask of it thereafter. Instead, they sat themselves down and set themselves to eat.

Over breakfast, Ontario Nol discussed in detail and depth the problems which Lord Onosh had experienced in collecting taxes from Locontareth, and suggested that the Witchlord Onosh was experiencing such difficulties because the people of that city and region derived no benefit from the taxes.

"You must give them something back," said Nol, "just as a farmer gives back something to his fields when he plows manure into the soil."

"I don't think they'd thank us for dumping them in manure," said Guest, meaning the revolutionaries of Locontareth.

"No, no," said Nol. "You misunderstand me."

Then Nol explained the matter all over again, in depth and in detail, though Sken-Pitilkin could have told him that the effort was futile.

"Well," said Guest, when he thought he understood as much of this theory as he was ever going to understand, "that's very nice of you, I mean, the ideas and all, and, ah, hospitality. Maybe my father can thank you for helping us."

"I need no thanks from your father," said Nol. "You yourself can help me."

"How?" said Guest.

"By sending me your brother."

"Morsh?" said Guest, remembering their conversation about Morsh Bataar's recently acquired habit of swimming. "You want Morsh? What on earth for? To teach you the art of the fish, is it?"

"It's not Morsh Bataar that I want," said Nol. "I want the other one. Eljuk Zala."

"But what would you want him for?" said Guest, who lacked the wit to guess.

"Eljuk will know," said Nol. "If he matches your description of him, he'll know immediately. Bring him to me!"

"Well, I would," said Guest, not particularly caring whether Ontario Nol wanted his brother for purposes of buggery or as sacrificial banquet-meat. "But it's a bit difficult. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you can have him. But my father wouldn't like the idea at all. Eljuk's the imperial heir, that's his business, he's supposed to inherit."

"Put it to your father," said Nol. "Speak to Eljuk, then to your father, then tell me what the pair of them decide."

And, once Guest Gulkan had agreed to do that, Ontario Nol began to discuss the route which would allow Guest and his fellow air adventurers to exchange the unfamiliar dangers of the valley of Ul-donlok for the comforting certainties of the Collosnon Empire and its large-looming civil war.