The Dragon in the Sword (28 page)

Von Bek was impatient. He started forward again. “Who are you? What has happened here?”

The old woman raised her hand. “You are not welcome here. You brought the evil into our realm. The evil we had thought exiled for ever. Now there is war again between the hulls.”

“We have met,” I said suddenly. “But where?”

She shrugged. “I was Praz Oniad, Consort to the Snowbear Defender. Co-captain and Rhyme Sister to the Toirset Larens. And what you see is all that is left of our home hull, the
New Argument
, and all that is left of our families. There is a second War between the Hulls, led by Armiad. And although you did not begin that war, you were part of its excuse. By breaking the rules of the Massing you brought in every kind of uncertainty.”

“But we cannot be held responsible for Armiad’s ambition!” cried Alisaard. “That existed before we did what we did.”

“I said ‘excuse’,” said Praz Oniad. “He claimed that other hulls had aided the Ghost Women in the raid on his hull. He claimed that. And next he argued that he must protect himself. So allies came from Draachenheem. Hardened fighters who knew how to kill, how to make war. Before long he had allies, of course, amongst other hulls who feared his strength and did not wish to be destroyed as we and so many more have been destroyed. Armiad now commands thirty hulls and they defile the Massing Ground, turning it into an armed camp, their stronghold, together with their Draachenheemer allies. Now all other hulls must pay tribute and acknowledge Armiad King Admiral, a title which we abolished hundreds of years since.”

“How could this have happened in so short a time?” murmured von Bek to me.

“You forget,” I told him, “that time passes at somewhat different rates in different realms. In relation, that is, to one another. It seems several months have gone by since we left the Great Massing.

“We hope to put a stop to Princess Sharadim and her allies,” I informed the old woman. “Her plans and those of Armiad were made long before we knew of them. They would destroy us because we know a way of defeating them.”

The old woman looked at us skeptically, but a little hope showed in her worn features. “It is not revenge we of the
New Argument
seek,” she said. “We would gladly die if it meant a stop to this terrible war.”

“War threatens all Six Realms.” Alisaard stood beside her now and gently took her hand. “Good lady, this is Sharadim’s doing. When her brother refused compliance, she blackened his name and outlawed him.”

The old woman looked suspiciously at me. “They say this is not Prince Flamadin at all but a doppelgänger. They say he is in reality the Archduke Balarizaaf of Chaos, assuming human form. They say Chaos must soon erupt throughout all the Realms of the Wheel.”

“Part of what you have heard has substance,” I said. “But I assure you I’m no friend to Chaos. We seek to conquer Chaos. And we hope, in that conquest, to bring peace back to the Six Realms. To that purpose, we are on our way to the Nightmare Realm…”

Praz Oniad voiced a sharp, bitter laugh. “No human willingly ventures into that realm. Are these more lies? You would not survive. Your mind would melt. The illusions of that realm cannot be perceived by mortals without those mortals going mad.”

“It is our only hope of defeating Sharadim and all her allies,” said Alisaard. “Those allies, it is true, include the Archduke Balarizaaf.”

The old woman sighed. “What hope is there?” she said. “This is no more than desperate folly.”

“We journey to The Wounded Crayfish to find a gateway,” von Bek said. “What anchorage is this, good lady?”

“This is The Fountain Overflowing,” she said. “Anchorage of the
Imaginary Fish
, also destroyed by Armiad’s fire-flingers, the same he got from Sharadim. We have no weapons. He now has many. The Wounded Crayfish is miles from here. How do you travel?”

“On foot,” said Alisaard. “We have no choice, good lady.”

The old woman frowned, making some sort of calculation for herself. Then she said: “We have a punt. It is of no use to us. If you speak truth, and I would guess you do, then you are our hope. Poor hope is better than none. Take the punt. It will be possible to use the shallows and be at The Wounded Crayfish by tomorrow.”

They dragged the flat-bottomed boat from out of the burned hull. It stank of the fire and the destruction, but it was undamaged and floated easily on the nearby water. We were given poles and instructed how best to use them. And then we left the pathetic little party on the bank while we shoved our punt on towards The Wounded Crayfish.

“Be careful,” cried the Lady Praz Oniad, “for Armiad’s raiders are everywhere now. They have ships of the Draachenheem pattern which can easily overtake one of ours.”

Warily we continued our journey, taking turns to rest as we poled on through the night. And then at last Alisaard consulted her charts and pointed ahead. In the dawn we detected a shimmer of white light.

The gateway was already there.

But between us and it loomed the huge bulk of another hull. And this one was by no means incapacitated. She flew all her colours.

“There’s a vessel ready for battle,” said von Bek.

“Could Armiad or Sharadim have wind of our journey and sent this hull to intercept us?” I asked Alisaard.

She shook her head dumbly. She did not know. We were already exhausted from poling the flatboat and had no means of fighting the huge hull.

All we could do was to beach our boat and make a dash for the pulsating gateway. This we did, stumbling and flailing as we forced ourselves on, up to our knees in marsh, falling when our feet became trapped by clumps of weed. Slowly the gateway came closer. But we had been seen. There were shouts from the hull. I saw figures landing on the headland close to the gateway. They were dressed in dark green and yellow armour and bore swords and pikes. Without weapons, we had virtually no chance against them.

Still we floundered on towards the gateway, hearts pounding, hoping for some stroke of luck which would allow us to reach the gate before the heavily armed warriors who now called to each other, spreading out as they ran towards us.

Within moments we were surrounded. We prepared to fight with our bare hands.

I had seen no armour like theirs in the Maaschanheem. To me it resembled Draachenheemer war-gear. When the leader stepped forward, awkward in all that restraining metal and leather, and removed his helmet, I knew why I had thought as I did.

The sweating, unwholesome head which was exposed was familiar enough to me. I had expected Armiad or one of his Binkeepers. Instead I faced Lord Pharl Asclett, whom we had left bound in Sharadim’s chambers when we made our escape from her palace. His face was twisted in a kind of snarling grin.

“I am very glad to see you again,” he said. “I have an invitation from the Empress Sharadim. She would be pleased to have you attend her forthcoming wedding.”

“So she’s Empress, eh?” Alisaard cast around her for a weakness in their surrounding ranks.

“Did you expect her to fail?” Prince Pharl’s face bore a look of sly superiority.

“And who does the lady marry?” Von Bek also played for time. “Yourself, Pharl of the Heavy Palm? I had heard you had no predilection for the fair sex. Or any, for that matter.”

The Prince of Skrenaw glared. “I would be honoured to serve my Empress in any capacity. Even that. No sir, she marries Prince Flamadin. Hadn’t you heard? There are celebrations in Fluugensheem. They have elected the Empress and her consort to rule over them since the King of the Flying City crashed his command while drunk. Will you come with us, back to our hull? We have waited here for you these past five days…”

“How did you know where to find us?” I asked.

“The Empress has powerful supernatural allies. She is also a great seer in her own right. Besides, she has stationed captains at many gateways of the Maaschanheem and Draachenheem. This was considered one of those you would be most likely to choose, though I must admit I expected you to appear from the gateway…”

He paused as he detected a sound like distant thunder and, turning his horrible head, gasped at what he saw.

We craned for a glimpse. The great hull was attempting to go about, but it seemed to be tangled in an all-encompassing web. I saw a ball of sputtering fire go up from a deck and be flung back as it struck the net. Now I could see a number of sprightly sailing ships, reminiscent of those I had seen in Gheestenheem, surrounding the hull. It was these which had attacked the vessel. The noise had been from the charges used to shoot the tangle of nets across the entire hull.

Before Prince Pharl could voice an order a wave of warriors suddenly rose up from the ground and attacked our captors. They were led by a small figure who wore only a marsh helmet and breastplate, who carried a gaff twice his height and who capered on the fringe of the fight, waving his weapon and urging on his men, all of whom were in the grey-green armour I had first seen in the Maaschanheem. The figure grinned at me. It was Jermays the Crooked.

“We, too, anticipated the enemy!” he called. He chuckled as his fighters closed on Prince Pharl’s men and swiftly overwhelmed them. Pharl himself was captured. He glared in fury at us all. When the warriors pushed up their visors to reveal in their ranks the faces of Ghost Women as well as native Maaschanheemers, he was close to tears.

Jermays came panting up like a happy dog. “Peoples of several realms now band together against Sharadim and her minions. But we are badly outnumbered. You must go swiftly now. The gateway will soon be useless to you. Sharadim rules in Draachenheem. Ottro was killed in battle. Prince Halmad still fights against the Empress. Neterpino Sloch failed to win the Battle of Fancil Sepaht and paid the price. He is now legless. Sharadim has sent Mabden from this realm into Gheestenheem and battle now threatens the Eldren. Meanwhile she seeks to consolidate gains in Fluugensheem and all Rootsenheem, such as it is, is hers. Her creatures lay heavy siege to Adelstane, since the Ursine Princes failed to succumb to her trickery. Much depends on you. Her power is almost great enough for her to summon Chaos, to blend her conquered realms with theirs! Swiftly—swiftly—through the gate!”

“But we go to Rootsenheem!” I cried. “If she rules there, how can we succeed?”

“Give false names!” was Jermays’s rather unlikely advice.

And so we ran again, plunging between the columns of light, letting them draw us through into another tunnel. Through this we flew, feeling the elation birds must know when they soar on the air currents, and then at last we saw blinding yellow light ahead of us. Within seconds we stood on warm sand, looking towards a massively constructed ziggurat which seemed, in its carved stones, older than the multiverse itself.

Alisaard spoke softly. “We are, indeed, in the Realm of the Red Weepers. You are Farkos, from Fluugensheem. You, Count von Bek, are Mederic of Draachenheem. I am Amelar of the Eldren. No more speaking. They come.” And she pointed.

Already an opening had appeared in the base of the ziggurat. From it came a party of men in strange gear similar to that which I had first observed at the Great Massing.

Heavily bearded, wearing peculiar costumes—a kind of fine silk stretched on wide frames so that their skin was touched hardly at all, large gauntlets, helmets of some light wood supported on a kind of yoke across the shoulders, they stopped a few yards from us, raising both arms in greeting.

I was half-expecting another attack, but the men spoke with sonorous gravity. “You have come to the Realm of the Red Weepers. Do you cross the threshold by accident or by design? We are the hereditary guardians of the threshold and must ask these questions before we allow you to proceed.”

Alisaard stepped forward. She introduced us by our false names. “We come by design, noble masters. But we are not traders. We humbly ask permission to pass through your realm to the next threshold.”

I could now more clearly see the men’s faces. Their eyes were wide and staring, rimmed entirely in red. Their helmets shaded their faces but I could now see that under each eye on a kind of wire frame was suspended a small cup. With a frisson of nausea I realised that the eyes were constantly exuding a viscous red fluid, a kind of mucus, and that the men themselves stared blindly at us.

“What business, then, are you upon, noble mistress?” one of the Red Weepers asked her.

“We seek knowledge.”

“For what purpose shall that knowledge be used?”

“We are charting the pathways between the realms. The knowledge will be for the good of all six realms, I swear.”

“You will do us no harm? You will take nothing from this realm that is not willingly offered?”

“We swear.” She signalled to us to echo her words.

“Your heartbeats suggest fear,” said one of the other Weepers. “Of what are you afraid?”

“We have but lately escaped Maaschanheemer pirates,” Alisaard told them. “There is great danger everywhere these days.”

“What danger threatens?”

“Civil war and the conquest of our realms by Chaos,” she told them.

“Ah, now,” said another speaker. “Then you must go quickly about your business. We have no such fears in the Rootsenheem, for we have our goddess to protect us, may she bless you all.”

“Let the goddess bless you all,” they chorused piously.

I was struck by an instinctive suspicion. “Pray, noble masters, whom do you call your goddess?” I asked.

“She is called Sharadim the Wise.”

Now we knew why war and disaster had failed to touch Rootsenheem. Sharadim had no need to promote either here. The realm was already conquered and had doubtless been hers for many years. It was easy to imagine how easily she had deceived this ancient, near-senile people. When she offered the Realm of the Red Weepers up to Chaos, few, I guessed, would protest or even know what was happening to them.

This knowledge, however, gave our mission additional urgency. Alisaard said: “We seek the place you call Tortacanuzoo. Where shall we find it, noble masters?”

“You must cross the desert, travelling due west. But you will need a beast. We will have one brought to you. When the beast is no longer needed, it will return to us at its own volition.”