Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

In response, the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel tried the usual tricks. He called attention to the impoverished environment in which his clients lived; mentioned the sundry derelictions of their upbringing; and finally drew attention to the matter of local mores.

"The selling of rotten boats to unsuspecting strangers is a part and parcel of traditional local culture," said Terzanagel.

"An ethnologist would say that we cannot judge the backward savages of a place like Ink by the standards of a highly-evolved civilization like our own. An ethnologist would say that Umbilskimp, Pedrick and Mung acted rightly in terms of their own cultural traditions, and we do them a great wrong if we condemn them in accordance with the traditions of our own culture, traditions which are quite alien to theirs. So say the ethnologists."

"Then I say we should hang the ethnologists along with the villagers!" said Zozimus. "You, sir – are you an ethnologist?"

Eldegen Terzanagel hastily denied it, insisting that he was but a poor text-master, and was only defending the murderous wretches of Ink at Guest Gulkan's sword-point insistence.

"There!" said Zozimus, turning to the judge of the case. "You see? Even the counsel for the defense has no confidence in his clients! He called them murderous wretches! Well, murderous they are, for use, but they can hardly be wretched, not after glutting themselves on generations of ill-gotten gold. I call for the death penalty!"

"You have called for that once already," said Lord Onosh.

"But as judge of this case, I am happy for you to call for it twice, and I am happy to grant it."

So Umbilskimp, Pedrick and Mung were sentenced to death. The Witchlord Onosh had very little choice in the matter of the sentence. The crime was grave, the evidence compelling and the guilt proven. Lord Onosh would have looked a capricious fool or a corrupt fraud had he pardoned the boat sellers.

With the boat-sellers having been sentenced to death, Guest Gulkan congratulated Zozimus on his able prosecution, and called for volunteers.

"I need a hangman," said Guest. "Preferably someone who has done the job before, but enthusiasm will serve in the absence of experience."

Whereupon Thodric Jarl stepped forward, declaring he had both the enthusiasm and the experience. Guest appointed him as executioner, and the Rovac warrior set to work with a will.

Mung was the first man to be hung. His neck broke, and he was dead in moments. Pedrick suffered a similar fate. But when Jarl tried to hang Umbilskimp, the rope broke.

Umbilskimp fell heavily, then got to his feet uncertainly. Guest watched, feeling more than a little uncertain himself, as Thodric Jarl advanced upon the old man.

Thodric Jarl took Umbilskimp by the throat – just as Guest, on an earlier occasion, had taken Rolf Thelemite by the throat on a battlefield near Babaroth. But whereas Guest had meant to menace, Thodric Jarl had murder as his intent. Guest took a half- step forward, for he had half-decided that he had had enough.

"If you are a woman in your sentiments," said the Witchlord Onosh, detecting his son's intentions, and finding himself unable to resist the temptation to exercise himself in a sneer, "then it's best you step aside and let men have the governance of the empire."

Whereupon Guest restrained himself, for, even though he had defeated his father by avalanche, the Weaponmaster lacked courage sufficient to endure his father's scorn. So Jarl – slowly, deliberately, lovingly – crushed his man, then dropped him into a crumpled heap. Whereupon everyone moved away, saving for Morsh Bataar alone, who somberly covered the dead man with a cloak.

After that, Guest was in no mood to linger, so hastened his army in its march. The army followed the flow of the Pig, keeping to its southern bank. Guest grew increasingly somber on the march, and Sken-Pitilkin began to worry about his condition. For Guest had defeated his father, and was in effect the emperor. As soon as he had seized the city of Gendormargensis as his own, men would recognize him as emperor. If he were ready in compromise and generous with his pardons, then he might well be able to secure the loyalty of the dissident city of Stranagor. And with that done, the entire Collosnon Empire would be under his sway – if not immediately, then soon.

Seeking thus, Sken-Pitilkin sought out Guest when the army camped near the bridge which had been the scene of a battle between Witchlord and Weaponmaster during the summer. Sken-Pitilkin had seek a goodly distance, for the Weaponmaster had walked far from his camp. He had walked through the hot afternoon all the way to the confluence of the Yolantarath and the Pig, which was where Sken-Pitilkin found him. Guest was sitting on the riverbank, watching the waters, while Rolf Thelemite and Morsh Bataar waited at a discrete distance.

On approaching Guest, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon made no attempt to challenge him, or jolly him out of his desponds.

Instead, Sken-Pitilkin sat himself down on the bank and waited. At last Guest said, without anything in the way of preamble:

"Was I right or wrong? Letting those men hang, I mean. Was that right? Or was it wrong?"Sken-Pitilkin gave an ambivalent answer. Not out of dishonesty, but because he himself had not quite made up his mind about the matter.

"Most men would say the thing was rightly done," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"But what say you?" said Guest.

"I'm not necessarily any wiser than my neighbor," said Sken-Pitilkin.

"But you think I shouldn't have done it."

"A hanging is an ugly thing," said Sken-Pitilkin. "An ordered society would surely hold its boat sellers in check, thus preserving them from the gallows. But Ink is no part of any ordered society. Those men you hung, why – they murdered for profit, as was said at their trial. A hanging is an ugly thing, but piracy is worse, and those men were pirates in their commercial deceits."

"So I did right," said Guest.

"Do you feel as if you did right?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

"How can you first prove me right then go on to question my rightness?" said Guest.

"I can," said Sken-Pitilkin, "because you know yourself wrong."

"Wrong!" said Guest, raising his voice for the first time.

"But you have just proved me right!"Sken-Pitilkin sat silent to let the young man settle, then said:

"I watched you during the hanging."Guest absorbed that in silence, then said:

"And?"

"And," said Sken-Pitilkin, "you were moved to pardon Umbilskimp. But you didn't. Why not?"Guest made no answer. He knew the reason why. But Sken-Pitilkin felt the reason had to be made explicit. Had to verbalized – lest it be forgotten.

"You let Jarl kill the man," said Sken-Pitilkin. "You let Jarl kill the man because you were afraid to show mercy. You were afraid of your father's scorn."Guest made no reply. His face was expressionless. He looked out across the river, then picked up a piece of mud and threw it with a jerk. The mud plopped into the river, and, a moment later, was answered by a splash as a fish jumped.

"Since your earliest youth," said Sken-Pitilkin, "you have been killing men in brawls with bandits. Killing men and taking their scalps. Ethnology would pardon such habits, so who am I to condemn? As you said yourself, it is but your cultural heritage.

But to kill men for banditry or piracy is one thing. To kill a man because you fear your father's scorn is quite another. If you cannot master the disciplines of mercy, then I think you unfit to master the sword."Guest absorbed that, too, in silence.

The silence tempted Sken-Pitilkin, and that wizard of Skatzabratzumon was half-persuaded to launch himself into a lecture on avalanches. After all, in the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus, the young Guest Gulkan had casually obliterated his father's army by avalanche – and had never thereafter shown so much as an eyeblink of remorse for the deed. Sken-Pitilkin still felt sorely about that avalanche, particularly as Guest Gulkan had used a swordpoint's threat to compel a certain wizard of Skatzabratzumon to use his levitational powers to trigger that downslide of rocks, ice and fractured snow.