IV
The Castle of the Ax
A cold north wind from the steppes of shven stirred the Inner Sea and swiftly bore the Talaris southeast. The coast was a thin black line on the southwestern horizon. The dragon-spine of the Lograms should have been visible above this dark streak, but a blanket of winter cloud concealed it.
On the ship, Jorian stood on the roof of the deckhouse with the captain and the two steersmen, one to each of the quarter rudders. Karadur was confined to his cabin and the slave girls to their tent by seasickness.
“You seem to have a good stomach for a blow,” said Captain Strasso.
“I’ve seen worse on the Western Ocean,” replied Jorian. “Why, one time when I was chasing pirates—ah—I mean, when pirates were chasing my ship—well, anyway, the sea made this one look like a millpond. This sea saved us, for it swamped the pirate galley, whilst we came through with nothing worse than some wreckage on deck.”
“And I suppose, mighty Master Maltho, that you were not seasick?” said Strasso.
Jorian laughed. “Spare your sarcasms, friend. On the contrary. I was as sick as a dying dog. But I think great Psaan decided that I had had enough of this affliction for one life, because I’ve never been seasick since. How much farther south must we sail ere the weather warms?”
“Janareth is warmer—it never snows there—but you’ll find no truly tropical clime until you cross the Lograms. On the hither side of those peaks, the summers are dry and the winters wet. On the farther side, they tell me, it is the opposite . . . There’s one of your chickabiddies now, dragging herself to the rail as to the scaffold.”
“I must below, to see how the wenches do.”
Strasso leered. “And perchance to improve an idle hour in their embraces?”
“A good supercargo does not handle the merchandise more than he must to insure its safe delivery.” Jorian lowered himself to the deck and accosted the girl. It was Mnevis, who by force of personality had become spokeswoman for the twelve. She looked bedraggled and woebegone, having lost weight from not being able to keep food down.
“Good Master Maltho,” she said, “I fear some dreadful doom awaits us.”
“Oh, come! Anyone feels thus after a bout of seasickness.”
“Nay, ’tis not the sea I fear, but these fearsome men to whom we’ve been sold. Headsmen—ugh!” She shuddered. “I shall see their hands dripping blood whenever I look upon them.”
“Executioners are just like other men, save that their bloody but necessary trade arouses prejudice in unthinking minds. And these men have quit their profession for peaceful retirement.”
“Natheless, the thought of them gives me the horrors. Could we not prevail upon you to engineer our escape? Or at least, our sale to men of more normal bent. We have nought to bribe you with, save our poor bodies; but these have been thought not uncomely . . .”
“I’m sorry, Mnevis; impossible. I have promised to deliver you to Chairman Khuravela, of the retired headsmen of Rennum Kezymar, and delivered you shall be.”
Later, Jorian said to Karadur: “You know, Doctor, never before have I thought of the problem that executioners face in everyday living; yet such people are necessary, just as are collectors of taxes and of offal—two other much maligned classes:
“Oh, I am a headsman; they blanch at my name;
I chop and I hang and I stretch and I maim;
But that I be shunned, it is really a shame—
I’m a virtuous fellow at heart!
“My tools are the ax and the rope and the rack;
I execute rogues with my headin a sack;
I swink at my trade and I’ve never been slack;
It’s a fearfully difficult art.
“At home, I am good to my children and wife;
I pay all my taxes and keep out of strife—
The kindliest man that you’ve seen in your life!
Oh, why must they set us apart?”
###
The morning after the Talaris left Vindium, gray clouds covered the sky and the shore. Captain Strasso, turning his sun stone this way and that to catch the gleam that betrayed the sun’s direction, grumbled to Jorian, “If the weather worsen, we may have to lay up at Janareth for the winter, ’stead of returning to our home port. And then will Benniver’s Sons give me a wigging! That’s the way of it with shipowners. Take a chance, and they berate you for risking their priceless property; take not a chance, and they betongue you for wasting their precious time and costing them profits.”
“Island ahead!” called the lookout.
Captain Strasso looked pleased. “After sailing all night by the feel of wind and wave, that’s not a bad landfall, now is it?” To the helmsman: “A hair to starboard . . . Steady as you go.” To Jorian again: “No proper harbor, but two anchorages, on the north and south sides of the island. At this season, ships use the south anchorage.”
It was after noon when the Talaris dropped anchors in the small bay on the south side of Rennum Kezymar. The dinghy was lowered to transfer the slave girls ashore. With two sailors to row, Jorian, Karadur, and two of the girls went first. As they climbed out on the rickety little small-boat pier and the dinghy returned to the ship, a group of men approached from the shoreward end of the pier. They were brown-skinned, turbaned, and wrapped in many layers of wool and cotton, draped and tucked in various ways with loose ends fluttering in the wind.
The man in the lead was as tall as Jorian and much more massive—a mountain of muscle, now somewhat shrunken and sagging with age, with a big potbelly straining at his wrappings. Long, white hair hung down from under his turban, and a vast white beard covered his chest when the breeze did not blow it aside.
“Are you Chairman Khuravela, sir?” said Jorian in Mulvani.
“Aye.” It was more a grunt than a word.
“Maltho of Kortoli, supercargo for Benniver’s Sons. I have come to deliver the twelve slave girls you ordered from the dealer Belius in Vindium.”
Another grunt.
“That is the second load, coming ashore now. One more trip will complete the task.”
Grunt.
“My friend, the eminent Doctor Karadur.”
Grunt.
This, thought Jorian, was becoming difficult. He continued to stand in the wind, trying to make conversation. But, what with his limited fluency in the language and the wooden unresponsiveness of the giant, he had little success. The other executioners—like their chief, big, burly men of advanced years—stood about silently, fidgeting and shifting their feet.
Jorian’s gaze wandered from the sands of the shore, where clumps of sedge nodded in the wind, to the higher ground of the interior. The island bore no trees, only long grass, now dead and dried, and dark clumps of ilex and spreading holly. Around the castle on the highest point of the isle, cabbage patches added a touch of color to an otherwise sad, gray, washed-out landscape. The castle was gray against the darker gray of the overcast sky.
At last the dinghy arrived on its third shoreward journey. The rest of the slave girls climbed out on the pier.
“That is all,” said Jorian.
Chairman Khuravela jerked his head. “Come.”
They straggled up the slope to the castle. A few former headsmen were working in the cabbage patches. A dry ditch, half-filled with rubbish and spanned by a lowered draw bridge, surrounded the castle.
The procession crossed the drawbridge, passed under the portcullis set in a vaulted archway with murder holes, traversed a short vestibule into which a gatehouse was built, and entered the main hall. Here, no artificial light relieved the dimness. Although the towers and walls had windows instead of arrow slits—the edifice not being now meant for serious defense—these windows were closed by sashes paned with oiled paper, and the gloomy day did not shed much light within. A pair of executioners sat over a game of draughts, ignoring the newcomers. On the other side of the hall, a huge bronze gong hung from a frame. Long tables stood against the walls.
When all were inside, Khuravela led the way to a big table with a massive oaken armchair at one end. He sat down heavily and said: “Line them up.”
Jorian did so. Khuravela counted them, wagging his thick forefinger and silently moving his lips. At last he said: “They will do. Here is your money. At two hundred and forty silver marks apiece, the lot is worth ninety-six Mulvanian crowns at the current rate.”
Khuravela spilled a heap of crowns, double-crowns, and five-crown and ten-crown pieces out on the table and counted out the amount. Jorian checked his addition and swept the heap of square golden coins into his own purse. Then he handed the chairman a receipt, saying: “Sign here, pray.”
“Oh, dung!” groaned the giant. “Fetch a pen. You two must witness my mark.”
Khuravela made his mark, and Jorian and Karadur witnessed it. Khuravela said: “Big feast this even. You and the doctor invited; so is your captain. Brother Chambra, send word to Strasso. Brother Tilakia, take the slaves away.” He turned back to Jorian. “Time for our nap. Mehru can show you the castle. See you in three hours.”
Khuravela heaved himself out of his chair and marched off into the shadowy corridors. The other Brothers wandered off until Jorian and Karadur were left with a single Brother. Karadur muttered in Novarian: “O Jorian, I would fain not stay for this feast. Suffer me to return to the ship.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want a real repast for a change?”
“It is not that. I feel an evil aura about this place.”
“Nonsense! Forsooth, it’s a gloomy old pile, but the dwellers therein seem normal enough.”
“Nay, I have an astral sense about such things.”
“Stay for a while, anyway. You can’t leave me to face these fellows alone!”
The remaining executioner, Mehru, was a man of medium size and build. Unlike most of the rest, he was bare-headed and clean-shaven. Although gray showed in his topknot, he seemed younger than most of his retired colleagues. With a toothy grin, he said: “If you gentlemen will come with me, I will show you the Castle of the Ax. You shall see sights you will long remember—mementoes of historic events which our mighty king—may he reign forever!—has graciously suffered us to bring hither upon our retirement.”
“I do not think I wish to, thank you,” said Karadur. “I am weary. Is there a place where I might lie down?”
“Surely, this chamber here. Make yourself at ease, Doctor, whilst I show Master Maltho around.”
###
In contrast to Khuravela, Mehru proved a garrulous host. “If you look closely,” he said, “you can see the difference in color between the lowest courses of this wall and those higher up. The lower courses are those of the original castle; the higher, those of the rebuilding under Cholanki the Third . . . This is our kitchen; those are the wives of the wedded Brothers, readying tonight’s gorge . . .”
“Is one of them yours?” asked Jorian, looking at a dozen stout, middle-aged women.
“Me? Ha! Women mean nought to me. I was wedded to my art.”
“Why did you leave it so young?”
“A soreness developed in my right shoulder joint, so that my hand was no longer so true as erstwhile. It still bothers me betimes in damp weather. I am good enough with rope and bowstring and chopper, but not with the two-handed sword. That polluted crowbar is the nemesis of every aging headsman.”
“How so?”
“Know that amongst the Chosen of the Gods, each class has its appropriate form of execution, and the sword is deemed the only honorable instrument for royalty and nobility. For nobles the sword, for warriors the ax, for officials the bowstring, for merchants the noose, the artisans the stake, and so on—albeit special crimes sometimes incur special chastisements, such as trampling by an elephant.
“Well, one of the wives of King Shaju—may he reign forever!—had committed adultery with a nobleman, and it was decreed that both should die by my hand. This Lord Valshaka’s head flew off as pretty as you please. But when I swung at the woman, a twinge in that cursed right shoulder caused the heavy sword to strike low, against her shoulder blades. As you can well perceive, all this did was to open a great gash across her back and hurl her prone upon the platform. My helpers dragged her, shrieking and bleeding, to her knees again and held her long enough for a second swine.
“This time, all went well. The head I presented to His Majesty—may he reign forever!—was the most perfect I ever saw—no biased cut, no ragged edges of skin. Perfect. But Shaju decreed that, in view of that one blunder, I had served out my time.”
They had come out on the roof of one of the corner turrets. Mehru pointed: “That way lies the estuary of the Jhukna, a nest of pirates. In summer, we see their galleys swarming out as thick as water bugs when a trading fleet between Vindium and Janareth goes by. That is why Vindium now convoys these fleets with its war galleys.”
“Why does not King Shaju build a fleet and help to put down the sea thieves? Why should the Novarian cities bear all the burden?”
Mehru stared. “My good man! A pious Mulvanian go to sea? Know you not that it entails a religious pollution, to be expiated by elaborate and costly ceremonies of purification?”
“You had to cross the sea to get here.”
“Ah, but that was only once, and the burden was light. If I took to the sea for my livelihood, I should have to spend all my time ashore in purification. It is different with you barbarians.”
“Doctor Karadur does not seem to mind.”
“That is his affair. Mayhap he is religiously heterodox, or else his spells neutralize the polluting effects of sea travel. But let us go below, or ever I freeze to death.”
“You Mulvanians are as sensitive to cold as tropic blooms,” said Jorian, following Mehru down the winding stair. “The slightest draft, and you shiver and wilt. To me, that wind was only pleasantly cool.”
“I will match you, then, against one of the Chosen of the Gods in the dank jungles of southern Mulvan, where the heat is such that no life but that of insects stirs abroad during the day. Now, where is that polluted key? Ah, here! This room holds the machine that works our drawbridge.”
They looked into a room containing the mechanism of a large water clock. Water trickled from a spout into one of a circle of buckets affixed to the rim of a wheel. Jorian saw at once how the mechanism worked. When the bucket filled, the weight caused the wheel to rotate a few degrees until checked by an escapement. Then the next bucket filled, and so on.
“The used water runs into a barrel hung from the drawbridge mechanism,” said Mehru. “At sunrise, the weight of the barrel, released, lowers the drawbridge—which, being counter-weighted, takes little effort. When this barrel has descended, it empties, and the water flows into another, which raises the drawbridge. A clockmaster named Evor of Ardamai came by here some years ago, they tell me—”
“Why,” burst out Jorian, he was my ff—” he checked himself. “I mean, he was a friend of my father. But go on.”
Mehru gave Jorian a sharp look. “That is all. This man set up the mechanism, and ever since then it has raised and lowered the drawbridge. We need not turn a hand, save to pump water up into the tank in the room above. This we do by a treadwheel in the cellar.”
“Can the bridge be sundered from the water clock, in case of emergencies?”
“Aye. The windless in the gatehouse can be used to override the clock. But that happens seldom, for we have few visitors to Rennum Kezymar.”
They descended another stair. Mehru unlocked another door, saying: “This chamber, Master Maltho, is our armory—out it is not an armory in the usual sense. It. holds our choicest mementoes. Behold!”
“Good gods!” said Jorian, staring.
The mementoes were a collection of the instruments with which the headsmen carried out their duties. There were axes and blocks, swords, hangman’s ropes, strangler’s cords, and throat-cutter’s hook-bladed knives. There were two complete racks and a cauldron for boiling oil. There were fetters and thongs and staves and scourges and branding irons. There were special instruments whose purpose was not at once apparent.
To one side, an elderly, whiskery Brother sat on a stool, lovingly whetting one of the axes with a faraway look in his eyes.
“How now, Brother Dhaong?” said Mehru. “Think you your edge will have the trueness tonight’s contest demands?”
The ancient gave a dreamy smile and continued to brush the whetstone back and forth, wheep-wheep.
“What contest?” asked Jorian uncomfortably.
“You shall see,” grinned Mehru. “Behold here, the very block whereon Genera Viljayan’s head was smitted off, after his revolt against King Sirvasha failed. Let me show you some of our more specialized instruments. This is a set of matched eye-gougers belonging to Brother Parhbai. This iron boot is very persuasive when placed in the fire with the suspect’s leg inside it. This is an ingenious device for crushing a suspect’s leg to a jelly. King Laditya employed it on a brother whom he suspected of plotting against him. Since then our kings have become more practical; they have all their brothers slain upon their accession.”
“That sounds hard on the brothers.”
“True, but it makes work for us. Now here is Brother Ghos’s wheel, with the hammer for breaking prisoners on it. Here is a fine thumbscrew; see the gold and silver inlay on the steel . . . Brother Dhaong was one of the lucky ones in the draw; so was I. Hence we shall have a chance—but I must not spoil your pleasure by telling you now.”
“I have seen enough, thank you,” said Jorian. “Like Doctor Karadur, I crave rest.”
“Oh, certes,” said Mehru. “In that case, let us return to the main hall, where a chamber has been set aside for you.”
###
Jorian was silent on his way back to the main hall. Mehru, still chattering pleasantly, showed him to the chamber whither Karadur had retired. Inside were two beds, on one of which the old wizard lay on his back, snoring.
Jorian closed the door and lay down on the other bed. He found, however, that he could not sleep. After a while he got up, went out, and did some exploring on his own. The castle was silent save for the sounds of cookery from the kitchen and the snores that issued from behind various doors.
Beside the stairs that led up from the main hall, a stair led down from it. Pursuing it, at the bottom Jorian found a long passage, lit by a single candle on a wall bracket, with rooms opening off from it. Some of these, to judge by the massive padlocks on their doors, seemed to be storerooms for valuables. A couple were barred cells, and from one of these burst a chorus of familiar squeals. The cell contained the twelve slave girls.
“O Maltho! Master Maltho! Dear, kind Maltho!” they cried. “Why have they locked us up here? What do they want with us? Can’t you get us out?”
“Tell me what’s happened,” he said. All spoke at once, but the gist was that they had been taken directly to the cell from the main hall, given food and drink, and left in silence and solitude.
“I know not what these men intend,” he said, “but I’ll try to find out and, if it be evil, to thwart their plans. Be good girls!”
Jorian went back upstairs to the tower room that housed the clockwork. The locked door quickly yielded to one of his pick-locks. Thanking his gods that he was familiar with his father’s mechanisms, he pulled out one of the keys that governed the raising of the drawbridge and inserted it into another hole. Then he returned to the chamber where Karadur slept and shook the wizard.
“Wake up!” he said. “I think you were right about your evil aura.”
“Well?” said Karadur, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
“Unless I much mistake, these headsmen plan to stage a contest with their banquet this even, to exhibit their specialties in the practice of their calling.”
“How mean you? To swing their axes and suchlike to show they have not lost their form?”
“More than that. I think they plan to demonstrate their skills on those twelve slave girls we brought.”
“You mean to chop and choke—Kradha preserve us! I will not stay here an instant longer to witness such wickedness!” Karadur began winding his turban, but so agitated was he that the thing repeatedly fell down in loops about his neck. “And you are he who has been talking about headsmen’s being but human like all other men!”
“Now whither are you going so suddenly?” said Jorian. “If I am to rescue the lassies, I shall need your help.”
“Rescue them? Are you mad, my son? How can one man rescue them from a castle full of these hulking brutes?”
“I know not, yet, but something may turn up. At least, I mean to see it through. I brought the girls hither.”
“But—but—do not throw your life away!” Karadur clutched Jorian’s huge hand, and tears ran down his wrinkled, brown cheeks into his silky white beard. “It will avail your lassies nought and ruin our chances of obtaining the Kist of Avlen!”
“If I perish, it matters not a whit to me what befalls the Kist of Avlen. If I succeed, I shall still be available for your bit of high-class burglary.”
“But you have no true moral obligation! What are these wenches to you? Why risk your life for them?”
“Shame on you for talking like one of those selfish materialists you are always denouncing!”
“Never mind me. Give me a good reason for what you plan to attempt.”
“Say it infuriates me to see the poor little harmless dears put to pain and death for frivolous reasons. I never allowed that sort of thing when I was king, and I won’t begin now.”
“But the women are the Brothers’ lawful property, to rob them of which were theft and in itself a sin.”
“Then I’m a sinner. Besides, they are Novarians and so, according to the philosopher Achaemo, should never have been held in servitude by other Novarians in the first place. Now calm yourself and help me to plan.”
“I will not! I cannot!” chattered Karadur, making a sudden rush for the door. Jorian, being the quicker, got there first and set his broad back against the door.
“Coward!” he snarled. “With all your lofty talk of altruism and self-sacrifice and moral purity, you turn tail at the first chance to practice your preachments!”
“Nay, nay, my beloved son!” wailed Karadur. “I am no warrior, inured to bloodshed and deadly hazards! I am but a peaceful philosopher and student of the occult arts, long past the age of combat.”
“Rubbish! I’m no warrior, either, but a common artisan masquerading as one. These adventures affright me half out of my wits. If I can face it, surely you can. You showed mettle enough at my execution in Xylar.”
But Karadur only babbled: “Nay! Nay! Let me go, I say! If it be wrong of you to risk yourself uselessly, it were doubly wrong to involve me in your suicide!”
Karadur, thought Jorian, would be useless in his present panic. He said: “I’ll make a compact with you. Let me see what magical properties you have with you, and tell me what each one does.”
“Well,” said Karadur, sinking down upon his bed and fumbling in his robe, “this phial contains the essence of covetousness; a drop in the soup of him to whom you would sell a thing, and your suit is two-thirds won. It requires no incantation and is very popular with horse-traders. Next, I have here a ring with a beryl wherein is imprisoned the demon Gorax. When threatened by malevolent spirits, such as the swamp devils of Moru, you have but to utter the right incantation, and Gorax will come forth and put those beings to rout. Afterwards another spell will compel him to return to the ring. The cantrips, however, are long and difficult, and the commands to Gorax must be phrased with the nicest accuracy, since he is stupid even for a demon and can wreak grave havoc through misunderstanding. Now here . . .”
Eventually, Karadur came to a packet of powder. “This is the Powder of Discord, which I obtained from Goania in Othomae. But—ah—you may not have it, because we shall need it in Trimandilam.”
“It’s just what I need,” said Jorian. “For the others, I can see no use in my present plight. But your Powder of Discord would, methinks, serve very neatly here.”
“No, no! I have told you why I cannot—”
“No powder, no escape. I’ll hold you here until dinnertime. Then the drawbridge will be up, and you’ll not be able to leave.”
“But—but if you plan to abide beyond that time, how shall you escape?”
“Leave that to me. You may go when you give me the powder, not before—what’s that?”
A hollow, metallic boom resounded through the edifice. Karadur squeaked: “That is the gong that summons the Brothers to meat! Let me go at once!”
Jorian held out his hand. Muttering something that—had he not known Karadur’s stem views on blasphemy—Jorian would have suspected of being a Mulvani curse, the wizard put the packet into Jorian’s hand. Saying, “Tell Strasso to send his dinghy in close to shore to await me,” Jorian opened the door.
###
The lamps in the main hall had been lit, and a fire crackled in the fireplace. Some of the Brothers, yawning and stretching, were drifting into the hall, where tables had been pulled out from the walls. Prominent among them was the gigantic chairman. As Jorian and Karadur emerged from their chamber, Khuravela caught Jorian’s eye and beckoned.
“Doctor Karadur is unwell,” said Jorian smoothly. “He begs to return to the ship, where his medicines are.”
Khuravela grunted. “If he will, he will. Your captain, also, sent word he could not attend. Hmph. Too many think themselves better than their origins.”
While Karadur scuttled out, Jorian accepted a flagon of spiced wine and answered questions about the news from the Twelve Cities of Novaria. He was tempted to give a thrilling account of the escape of the King of Xylar but suppressed the urge.
When the chairman took his seat, the other Brothers sat down also. They seemed a taciturn lot, communicating in grunts. Jorian, however, found himself next to a tall, lean, skull-faced man with a fondness for gossip. The latter whispered: “See how Mehru strives to bait the chairman, and how Khuravela ignores him. Mehru is ambitious to become chairman in the other’s room. He is eternally buzzing about our ears, saying that Khuravela is but an old, dead oak—impressive to look at, but without sap in its bark. And, in truth, none knows if any thoughts do stir behind our chairman’s noble brow, for he goes for days on end without uttering a word. On the other hand, see you Brother Ghos, he of the purple turban? He heads a third faction . . .”
The tale of the endless bickering and intrigues of this ingrown little world became boring at last. Jorian finished a plain but plentiful repast in a silence unusual for him.
When the women had taken away the plates, wiped the tables, and poured fresh mugs of beer, a buzz of talk arose. Chairman Khuravela, in his armchair, made a sign. Several Brothers rose and left the hall. Presently two came back, one balancing a red-painted headsman’s block on his brawny shoulder while the other bore an ax. Another man returned with a coil of rope, with a noose on its end, over his arm. He climbed on a table and tossed the noose end of the rope over a beam. Jorian said to his neighbor: “Tell me, sir. Are the Brothers about to demonstrate their skills?”
“Why, of course!” said the skull-faced man. “Methought you knew.”
“Using those slave girls as subjects?”
“Certes! We cannot practice on free men like yourself; that were a crime. Do you think us murderers?”
“Is this a contest?”
“Aye; the other Brothers will judge the skill and dexterity displayed in each execution. Thank the true gods of Mulvan, it is the first break in the maddening boredom of life here in many a moon.”
“Why does not everybody take a turn?”
“The Brothers refused to vote money for a larger number of slaves; a matter of internal politics. Khuravela ordered the largest number for which funds were to hand, and we cast lots to see which amongst us should be chosen to take part in the contest.”
Two men staggered into the hall, bearing a rack from the armory. Jorian stood up and watched Khurevela. When the latter glanced in his direction, Jorian caught his eye and called: “Master Chairman, may I speak?”
“Speak!” growled Khuravela. “Silence, pigs.”
“Gentlemen!” said Jorian. “Permit me to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sumptuous repast and the delicious potations you have served me. In fact, I am so full I can scarcely stand. Though I live to be as old as the eldest amongst you, I shall always remember this even as one of the nigh spots of my life—”
“If he have aught to say, I wish he would say it,” growled a Brother to his neighbor.
Jorian heard it but continued: “And so, to make a very meager and inadequate repayment for this delightful entertainment, I should like to tell you a story.”
The Brothers straightened up. The boredom vanished from their faces, and their eyes shone with new interest. Jorian stepped out into the clear space, in the midst of the tables.
###
“This story,” he said, “is called the Tale of the Teeth of Gimnor. Many centuries ago, it is said that there reigned in Kortoli a small but lively and quick-witted king named Fusinian, sometimes called Fusinian the Fox. The son of Filoman the Well-Meaning, he came to the throne quite young and wedded the daughter of the High Admiral of Zolon. If you know not, Zolon is an isle in the Western Ocean, off the far coast of Novaria, and Zolon counts as one of the Twelve Cities. Being an island, it is a maritime power; and being a maritime power, it is ruled by a High Admiral. Therefore, it was a suitable match for the king of Kortoli.
“This maid, who hight Thanuda, was divinely tall and famous for her beauty. King Fusinian fell in love with her picture and dispatched his chamberlain to sue for her hand. She made no objections, despite the fact that she was the taller of the two. They were wed with all the usual pomp and settled down to such happiness as is granted to royalty, who marry for reasons of statecraft.
“Soon thereafter, war broke out betwixt Kortoli and its northern neighbor Aussar. It was some fooding squabble over a bit of territory, and as usual, between them the two combatants had soon spent blood and treasure worth a hundredfold as much as the land. And in these struggles, Aussar, which began the hostilities, had the better of it. First the Aussarians drove the Kortolians out of the disputed area. Then, when Fusinian counter-attacked, they routed him in two great battles. Fusinian’s sire, Filoman the Well-Meaning, had been full of humane ideas about reducing the army and spending the money thus saved to uplift the masses, so that Kortoli had fallen behind the other Twelve Cities in the arts of war.
“Had Fusinian been older and craftier, he might have yielded to Aussar at the outset and used the time thus gained to strengthen his army, eventually to take the land back. But, being young and ardent and full of romantical notions of honor, he plunged into a war to which his forces were not equal. So he was beaten three times running. And then word came that the Aussarians meant to invade Kortoli proper, to get rid of Fusinian and put some puppet on his throne.
“In desperation, Fusinian went with a small escort to a witch named Gloé, who dwelt in the rugged hills that sunder Kortoli from its southern neighbor Vindium. The witch harkened to his plea for succor and said: “ ‘As a patriotic Kortolian, I will of course help Your Majesty to my utmost. Howsomever, there is the matter of my license.’
“ ‘Eh? What is this?’ said the king. ‘My kingdom totters on the brink of ruin, and you babble of licenses?’
“ ‘It is no mean matter, sire,’ replied Gloé. ‘Know that I am no illicit practitioner of magic through choice. Thrice I have applied to your Bureau of Commerce and Licenses, and thrice they have turned me down. They demand a diploma from the Lyceum of Metouro or other institution of higher learning, or that I pass an examination, or take a refresher course, or some other nonsense of this sort, when I have been successfully healing the sick, summoning spirits, finding lost articles, and foreseeing the future for sixty years!’
“ ‘But what has all that to do with the peril of Kortoli?’ asked the king.
“ ‘Because the efficacy of magic depends upon the state of mind of the magician. Did I but know that you would summarily command your finicking clerks to issue me a proper license as wizardess forthwith, the relief to me would enhance my chance of success.’
“The king frowned. ‘I like not to interfere in the orderly processes of administration, nor yet to urge partiality upon my officials,’ he said. ‘But in this extreme, I suppose I must swallow my scruples. Very well, if your spell work, you shall have your license, though you know not a zoomorph from a zodiac. Pray, madam, proceed.’
“So the witch went into a trance and writhed and mumbled and spoke in strange voices, and shadows flickered about her cave without material objects to cast them, and strange, dissolving faces appeared in midair, and the king was seized by freezing cold, whether from some being from outer space or from simple fright is not known. When the king had stopped shivering and the shadows had gone away, the witch said: “ ‘Know, O King, that you must slay the dragon Grimnor, who sleeps under a mountain nine leagues hence. Then you must take out every one of this dragon’s teeth. On a night of a full moon, you must show these teeth on a plowed field, and there shall spring up from these teeth that which will enable you to vanquish Aussar.’
“So King Fusinian journeyed westward, following Gloé’s directions, until he came to the mountain. The dragon lay snoring in a cave, which opened into a ravine at the root of the mountain. Fusinian feared that neither his arrows nor his lance nor his sword would pierce the dragon’s scales—which are, as everyone knows, so hard that they make excellent mail, provided that one can obtain a dragon’s hide to begin with—especially since Fusinian stood only three finger-breadths above five feet. At last Fusinian and his men found a boulder of the right size and drove an iron spike into it, and to this spike they belayed a long rope. Then they balanced this boulder precariously over the mouth of Grimnor’s cave.
“Then Fusinian went to the mouth of the cave and shouted a challenge to Grimnor. And the dragon awoke and came looping and hissing out of the cave. Fusinian ran back before him, and when he saw that the head and a few feet of the neck were out of the cave, he jerked the rope. Down came the boulder, with a snapping of draconic skull bones. The thrashing and writhing of that beast were fearful; they shook the mountain and brought down a small landslide. But at length Grimnor lay still and dead.
“Fusinian discovered that the dragon had forty-seven teeth in each side of each jaw, making a total of one hundred and eighty-eight. He had thoughtfully brought along the royal dentist, who extracted these teeth. Fusinian put the teeth in a bag and, on the night of the next full moon, he sowed these teeth on a plowed field. He sowed and sowed, thus.”
Jorian strode about the hall, making sowing gestures. Actually, he was tossing into the air above the heads of the diners pinches of the Powder of Discord, the packet of which he concealed in his left hand. He continued: “Just as Gloé had predicted, the points of spears could presently be discerned, sticking up through the soil and shining in the moonlight. And then came the crests of helms, and soon there stood up, in the moonlight, one hundred and eighty-eight giants, eight feet tall and armed to the teeth.
“ ‘We are the Teeth of Grimnor,’ said the tallest of the giants in a voice of thunder. ‘What would you of us, little man?’
“Clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, Fusinian said. ‘Your task, O Teeth, is to vanquish the armies of Aussar, which are overrunning my fair kingdom.’
“ ‘Harkening and obedience,’ thundered the giant who had spoken. And off they marched towards the Aussarian border, so fast that they soon left King Fusinian and his escort behind. So Fusinian returned to Kortoli City to see how things fared there. And when he arrived, he found that the Teeth were there ahead of him. They had routed the Aussarians so utterly that those who escaped the carnage ran all the way back to Aussar City before stopping to draw breath. For it transpired the Teeth had hides of such toughness that the blows of swords and the thrusts of spears were no more to them than the scratches of a kitten are to one of us.
“Well, a pair of the giants at the West Gate admitted King Fusinian and his escort. But when Fusinian got to the palace, he was taken aback to find the biggest of the Teeth sitting on his throne—or rather, on a table top laid across the arms of his throne, for the throne itself was too small to accommodate that monstrous arse.
“ ‘What,’ quoth he, ‘in all the heavens and hells are you doing in my chair?’
“ ‘I am not in it, I am on it,’ said the Tooth. ‘And as for what I am doing, we have decided to run your kingdom for ourselves. This is but natural, since we are so much stronger than you that it were ridiculous for us to take orders from you. Besides, only thus can we assure ourselves enough to eat, for our appetites are to yours like those of tigers to those of titmice. I have taken your queen for my concubine, and now I shall make you my body slave—’
“But Fusinian, with that quickness of wit that long served him so well, raced out of the throne room, dodged a giant or two who tried to snatch him up, vaulted on his horse, and spurred like a madman for the gate. He was out and on his way ere the Teeth could prepare themselves to stop him. They set out a pursuit; but, although they could run as fast afoot as Fusinian’s horse could gallop, he knew the country better than they. By weaving back and forth like a fox dodging the hounds, he got over the border to Govannian.
“Fusinian had been on good terms with the Hereditary Usurper of Govannian until the latter refused to aid him against Aussar, as he had once promised to do. Fusinian’s news, however, was ominous enough to patch up the quarrel. No fool, the Hereditary Usurper raised an army to scotch the Teeth before they decided to annex his realm as well as Kortoli.
“Fusinian meanwhile went from one to another of the Twelve Cities with his story. In most of them he got contingents for the army of liberation, although the Syndics of Ir demurred on the ground that it would cost too much, and the Senate of Vindium debated endlessly without deciding aught, and the Tyrant of Boaktis declared it was all a hoax by Fusinian to subvert his own enlightened and progressive rule and restore the reactionary exploiters.
“At length an army, with contingents from all the remaining Twelve Cities—even from Aussar—gathered on the border of Govannian and marched into Kortoli. But alas! The army halted in dismay when the forces of the Teeth approached them. Some of the Teeth were riding on mammoths, which they had bought from the cham of the Gendings, in Shven. The beasts had been towed down the coast on rafts. Other Teeth fought on foot as officers of platoons of Kortolians, whom by terror they had trained to obey their slightest command.
“Fusinian was not altogether unprepared for such a reception. Knowing the might of the giants, he had constructed a battery of the largest wheeled catapults that anybody had built up to that time. The catapults went off with great bangs, hurling sixty-pound balls of stone. Some missed and some plowed into the hapless Kortolians, but one came straight at one of the Teeth. The Tooth leisurely caught it, as one catches a handball, and threw it back as accurately as it had been shot at him and with somewhat greater force. For it struck the Hereditary Usurper of Govannian, where he sat his horse in the midst of his host, and took off his helmet with the head inside it.
“After that, there was not much of a battle. The mammoths on the wings closed in, and Fusinian’s mighty array dissolved into a mass of shrieking fugitives, among whom the Teeth amused themselves by striding and riding and smashing people like so many bugs with their ten-foot clubs.
“For some months, little was heard of Fusinian save rumors of his appearing and vanishing like a ghost along the borders of Kortoli. At length he sought the cave of Gloé the witch.
“ ‘Well, King,’ she said, stirring her cauldron, ‘how about my license?’
“ ‘Bugger your license madam!’ quoth he. ‘That cure you gave me was worse than the disease.’
“ ‘That was your fault, laddie,’ she said. ‘When you gave the Teeth their orders, you forgot to tell them to vanish or to turn back into dragon’s teeth after they had routed the Aussarians. As it was, they were free of all obligation as soon as they had carried out your complete command.’
“ ‘How in the forty-nine Mulvanian hells was I to know that?’ he yelled. ‘You never told me!’
“ ‘Why should I?’ said she. ‘Knowing you for a king and a smart one at that, I assumed you would have the common sense to do so without my telling you.’ And they fell to shouting and shaking fists at each other in most unkingly wise until they ran out of breath.
“ ‘Well, let us forget what has been said and be practical,’ said Gloé. You want more help, yea?’
“Fusinian muttered something about damned women who can never give precise directions, but aloud he said: ‘Yea, but Zevatas help us if it avail us no better than the last time! These creatures are eating my kingdom bare, not to mention niggling the wives of all the leading men, including mine.’
“ ‘Their voracity is explained by their draconic origin,’ quoth Gloé. ‘Now, I know a spell to call an army of aerial demons from the Sixth Plane. It is a spell of the utmost difficulty and danger. It also requires human sacrifice. Whom are you prepared to dispense with?’
“The king looked at his escort, and each member of the escort looked as if his keenest wish were to become invisible. But one man spoke up at last, saying, ‘Take me, O King. The physician assures me that, with my leaky heart, I have not long to live anyway.’
“ ‘Nobly spoken!’ cried Fusinian. ‘You shall have a monument when I have reconquered my kingdom.’ And in a good sooth, this monument was duly erected and stands in Kortoli City even yet. ‘So, madam.’
“ ‘Just a moment, sire,’ said Gloé. ‘I need something for myself as well, to put me in the right mood to cast an effective spell.’
“ ‘Here we go again,’ said the king. ‘What is it this time?’
“ ‘I want not only a proper license as wizardess, but also to be made your court magician.’
“They argued, but in the end Fusinian gave in, not having much choice in the matter. So the spell was cast. The moon turned to blood, and the earth shook, the forests were filled with weird wailings, and down from the sky swooped a horde of demons in the form of bat-winged lizard-men, to assail the Teeth.
“But, when a demon or other spirit takes material form, it is bound by the laws of matter. The Teeth merely laughed and seized the demons out of the air and tore them to bits like a bad boy dismembering a butterfly. And the survivors of the demons fled back to the Sixth Plane and have refused to be invoked from that day to this.
“Disgusted with Gloé and her spells, Fusinian disappeared again. From time to time he would be seen, in worn, patched garments, in one or another of the Twelve Cities, for he had friends and partisans everywhere. At last, whilst idling in the marketplace at Metouro, he saw a gang of boys raid the stall of a greengrocer, snatching fruit and dashing away ere the wretched merchant could summon aid. The thing that struck him about this incident was the fact that the greengrocer was so enormously fat that he could not even squeeze out of his stall in time to call for assistance.
“That made Fusinian think, and he recalled the tales he had heard of the monstrous appetites of the Teeth. Soon thereafter, the Faceless Five, who rule Metouro summoned Fusinian to ask his advice about a demand for tribute, which they had received from the Teeth in Kortoli. Fusinian looked at the five black masks and said: “ ‘Send them not only what they ask, but also twice as much.’
“ ‘You are mad!’ cried one of the Five. ‘It would beggar us!’
“ ‘Have you had a good harvest?’ asked Fusinian.
“ ‘Aye; but so what?’
“ ‘Then pay what I advise in farm produce. Let me explain . . .’
“Then for a while Fusinian went from city to city, expounding his plan. So food poured into Kortoli in groaning oxcart loads. This continued for six whole months. When one of the Twelve Cities ran short of agricultural produce, it borrowed money to import more from another of the Twelve or even from Shven and Mulvan.
“And at length came the day when King Fusinian rode into Kortoli at the head of his army while the Teeth, now grown so fat they could scarcely move, looked on helplessly and mourned futile threats. And, whereas the skins of the Teeth were still too tough for ordinary weapons to do more than scratch, the Kortolians bound the giants by massive chains to huge blocks of Othomaean granite, towed them out to the deep sea on rafts, and overturned the rafts. And that was the end of that.
“Or nearly so. Fusinian had an affecting reunion with his queen, the lovely Thanuda. But sometimes, when he had finished making love to her, he would catch her looking at him with a curious expression—a trace of disappointment, or as if she were comparing him unfavorably with someone else. And once during a quarrel she called him ‘shrimp.’ So his later life was perturbed by the thought that, whatever the faults of the Tooth who had borrowed his wife, the giant must have had certain superhuman capacities that he, Fusinian, lacked. But, being a philosophical man, he made the best of things. And the moral is: Choking a cat with butter may not be the most obvious way of killing it, but sometimes it is the only one that works.”
###
A moment later, Jorian picked the lock of the door of the cell that held the slave girls. They threw themselves upon him; Mnevis caught him round the neck and smothered him with kisses.
“Na, na, easy all, lassies,” he said. “I’ll get you out of this, but you must be absolutely quiet. No talking, whispering, laughing, giggling, squealing or other sounds! Now come along. Keep behind me and watch my signals. Softly now.”
He led the twelve on tiptoe down the corridor. At the first of the locked doors he halted, picked the padlock, and went in. A quick look showed that the room was full of agricultural implements. The second storeroom proved to be full or heavy winter clothing: felt boots, woolen cloaks, and sheepskin greatcoats.
The third storeroom had shelves on which stood rows of objects that glimmered in the gloom, while on the floor a line of coffers ran around the wall.
“This,” said Jorian, “is what I sought. One of you girls fetch that candle in from outside. Careful lest you blow it out. Ah!”
The girls echoed Jorian’s ejaculation, for this was the treasury of the Brotherhood. The objects on the shelves were jeweled goblets of gold and silver, pictures in jeweled frames, golden candlesticks and lamps, and similar precious artifacts. The coffers, as Jorian soon discovered by picking the lock on one, contained money and jewels. Some of the Brothers must have saved up tidy fortunes—probably, Jorian suspected, by taking bribes from prisoners not to cause them much pain.
Jorian took out and crammed his money belt full of Mulvanian golden coins; without taking the time to count, he thought he had well over a hundred crowns’ worth. He gave handfuls to each of the slave girls, with instructions to stow them as securely as possible. From the shelves and the jewel boxes he selected several handsome gauds, including a jeweled golden cup, a jeweled pendant, and several rings and bracelets. These he likewise gave to the girls to carry.
“Now come,” he said. “We’re going up yonder stair, but not all the way. Blow out that candle.”
At the head of his little procession, Jorian stole up the stair to the main hall, until over the top he could see into the hall. Keeping back out of the lamplight, he silently watched events unfold.
The sound of talk in the hall had risen to a roar. Everywhere the Brothers were engaged in hot disputes, pounding their tables, smiting their fists into their palms, and wagging forefingers under one another’s noses. Several more instruments of execution had been brought into the hall. As Jorian watched, two men came in carrying a little portable forge and a set of iron implements. They put the forge down, and one of them set about building a fire in it with stone coals and kindling. The other joined one of the raging arguments.
A louder shout drew Jorian’s attention. One Brother had just thrown his beer into another’s face. With a scream of rage, the victim hurled his mug at the first man’s head and drew his dagger. The other man retreated to the space in the midst of the tables, now occupied by the instruments. He wrenched a beheading ax from its block and, as the other man rushed upon him with uplifted dagger, brought the blade down upon the attacker’s head, cleaving his skull to the teeth.
The hall exploded into violent action. Everywhere men madly went for one another with whatever weapon came to hand. All the instruments fit for such use—axes, swords, knives, and the sledge hammer used in breaking prisoners on the wheel—were snatched up. Blood and brains spattered the tables and the floor; bodies fell right and left. Men grappled, rolling over and over on the floor, stabbing with knives and tearing with nails and teeth. The noise rose to a deafening pitch.
Jorian beckoned the girls. Sword out, he led the way to the top of the stair. By skirting the walls of the hall, he kept as much in the shadow as he could. He made the half-circuit to the vestibule that led to the outside. There he paused, waving the girls ahead of him.
As he did so, a figure detached itself from the bloody chaos in the hall and rushed towards him. It was Mehru, his erstwhile guide, waving his two-handed sword. Blood ran down his face from a cut, and his eyes gleamed wildly.
“Get along down to the pier and signal the dinghy,” Jorian told the slave girls. “I shall be with you shortly.” Then he faced the garrulous Brother.
“You did this, by some sorcery!” screamed Mehru, aiming a slash at Jorian’s head.
Jorian parried with a clang, and again and again. The blows came so fast that he had no time for a counter-attack. Although Mehru was the smaller man, he wielded his heavy weapon as if it were a lath, and his length of blade kept Jorian beyond the latter’s reach. Jorian tried to catch the blows slantwise, so that the headsman’s blade glanced off his own, but the force of them numbed his arm.
Step by step, Jorian backed into the vestibule and then into the archway that supported the portcullis. He kept glancing right and left, measuring the distances from side to side of the archway. Now he had backed out on the planks of the drawbridge, which, contrary to the custom of the Brothers, was down despite the darkness.
There he halted his retreat. Mehru, still attacking, was slowing down and panting heavily. Jorian permitted himself a smile, calling out: “Why do you not fight, sister-impregnator?”
It was the ultimate insult in Mulvani. With a piercing scream, Mehru wound up for a terrific cut intended to shear Jorian in two at the waist.
The archway, however, was a little too narrow for such tactics. As a result, the tip of the long blade hit the masonry, striking sparks. The stonework stopped the blow; Jorian leaping in, sent Randir in a full-arm slash at the executioner’s neck. Mehru’s head leaped from his shoulders in a shower of blood. The body fell; the head bounced and rolled.
Jorian wiped and sheathed his sword. He sprang to the windlass for manual operation of the drawbridge and heaved. After a couple of turns, something went clank, and the wheel began to spin of its own accord from the weight of the unseen barrel of water. Jorian ran up the ever-steepening slope of the rising drawbridge, leaped to the path beyond, and trotted for the pier.
###
“Ten thousand devils!” growled Captain Strasso. “What means this, Master Maltho?”
“I’ve told you, sir captain. They refused the shipment. Something about trouble with their wives. We argued for hours. I insisted that a bargain was a bargain, whilst they said they would be damned if they’d pay for merchandise for which they had no use. At last they gave in and paid the amount agreed upon. Here are Belius’s ninety-six crowns; pray give them to him when you return to Vindium, as Doctor Karadur and I plan to leave you at Janareth. Since the Brothers averred that they had no use for the lassies, they commissioned me to take them to Janareth to sell, retaining one-fourth of the money thus earned as my commission and returning the rest by your hand.”
“Mmp. Be you through with the Castle of the Ax?”
“Aye. Sail when you list.”
“Then I’ll up-anchor and away. My lads fear the ghosts they say haunt this isle. Besides, there’s less chance of meeting pirates in these waters at night. With this moon, we can hold a true course.”
Later, in the cabin, Karadur said: “Ah me, I must practice austerities to atone for my craven conduct ashore today.”
“You may forgive yourself, Doctor,” said Jorian. “As things fell out, you’d only have been in the way when the butchery started.”
“What took place, my son?”
Jorian, sitting on his bunk and patiently whetting the edge of Randir where the blows of Mehru’s sword had nicked or dulled it, told his tale.
Karadur: “Why, after so deceiving Captain Strasso as to the course of events, did you return Belius’s money to him? Why not send the girls back to Vindium and keep the gold, which in the circumstance were scarcely theft?”
“I have other plans for them. Besides, we’re rich again. I got more than the price of the wenches out of the Brothers’ coffers; here’s your share. And I need the girls more than I need the gold.”
“How did you ever escape from the castle, with the drawbridge up?”
“It wasn’t up. I moved one of the keys of the mechanism that controls it, to make it rise after midnight instead of at sunset. And now to bed; this has been a fatiguing day.”
Karadur looked fondly at his young friend. “Do you remember, Jorian, when you told me of the witch’s advice to you, to be either a king or a wandering adventurer?”
“Aye. What of it? I have tried the role of king, and once was enough.”
“I fear you are not cut out for the adventurer’s part, either.”
“How so?”
“You are just not ruthlessly selfish enough to succeed at it. A true adventurer—and I have known several of the breed—would have embezzled Belius’s gold and would never had tried to rescue those wenches, at least not at any risk to himself. And that brings us to the great moral question that for thousands of years had baffled the keenest minds amongst the philosophers of Mulvan: What is virtue? Some aver . . .”
But Jorian was already snoring.