The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (30 page)

       
Togura had a vague idea
that Selzirk, the capital of the Harvest Plains, was somewhere to the
south-east. He had made so much southing already that he was sure he must be
nearly there; it was probably just over the mountains up ahead. Selzirk was
said to be a civilised place; once there, he should be able to find his way to
the port of Androlmarphos, and seek passage to Sung.

       
With such optimistic
thoughts in mind, Togura set overland, making for the south-east.
Unfortunately, his geography was faulty, to say the least. He had yet to
realise the true size of the world. Having come so far, with so many dangers and
hardships, he felt as if he had travelled almost to the end of eternity,
whereas, in point of fact, he had scarcely left his local neighbourhood.

       
Selzirk was still far,
far to the south, several horizons away. The range he was approaching was the
Ironband Mountains; crossing it, he would find himself in the Lezconcarnau
Plains, a wild tract of backwater country inhabited by wild backwater people.

       
Once, on his journey to
the Ironband Mountains, Togura seriously considered crossing another range
which he could see lying due east. Fortunately, he decided against such an
adventure; that range was the Sping Mountains, and any crossing of them would
have taken him into the hostile interior of the continent of Argan, where his
survival would have been problematical.

       
When Togura began his
climb, he soon found that it was going to be almost impossible to cross the
mountains with a horse. Simultaneously, he exhausted his rations. That left him
with two problems. With one masterstroke, he solved both of them; he murdered
the horse. He ate some of the meat then and there, glutting himself on big,
barbecued steaks with plenty of blood in them. He camped for five days, eating
well; then, labouring uphill under the weight of a saddlebag crammed with
smoked horse meat, he headed deeper into the mountains.

       
He looked forward, with
some pleasure, to the thought of a warm bed and a warm ale once he reached the
fabled city of Selzirk, pride of the Harvest Plains.

Chapter 26

       
Faced by the daily
challeges posed by this wilderness of mountains, Togura was not dismayed. He
liked to climb; he had no fear of heights; he welcomed the difficulties posed
by his chosen route, for every difficulty diminished the chance of an
unpleasant encounter with other human beings.

       
The views afforded by
altitude, which grew daily more extensive, were proof of his accomplishments.
At the end of each day, with more and more of the world at his feet, he was
abel to congratulate himself on an undeniable achievement. Having survived all
kinds of terror, he was convinced that the worst was over. His living
nightmares were over. He was free. He was full of confidence. He was happy.

       
He drank fresh, clear
water from tumbling mountain streams. At night, he built huge, raging fires;
roaring with exultant delight, he danced beside these shameless beacons,
rousing distant echoes with raucous drinking songs. He had nothing to drink but
water; it was unmitigated freedom which made him feel drunk.

       
He woke early, always
filled with eagerness for the day ahead. Every day brought him new challenges,
new delights. Wild mountain flowers, the like of which he had never seen
before, as few flowers grew in Sung. Elegant rock crystals, some sunlight
white, others delicately tinged with violet. The sight of mountain hawks and
eagles, sliding effortlessly through the air as they haunted the echoing skies.

       
In bad weather, his
journey could have been a dreary saga of suffering and torment. But chance
favoured him. The sky, a perfect ascension of blue, breathed fair winds only;
the sun, miraculous, constant luminary, lazed from the eastern quadrant of the
sky to the west, bright as a promise of perfection.

       
Togura, shaking off a
certain world-weariness which sometimes afflicts the very young, indulged
himself, daring his life on difficult climbs when an easy ridge would have
allowed him a more sober ascent, then - sometimes with a memory of rotten rock
rattling away to disaster beneath him - celebrating his triumph with a shout:

       
"Three cheers for
Togura!"

       
Far from the irrational
conflicts of human affairs, he forgot all about the superstitious notions which
had formerly begun to take possession of him. In the mountains, he trusted to his
own balance, timing, judgment and strength. His universe yielded to his
mastery. The nights, lit by his carefree fires, held no terror for him. He saw
nothing which made him afraid, even though he once exchanged discourtesies with
a wild-cat at close range.

       
Possessed by the
unmitigated sanity of the mountains, Togura rapidly began to doubt the reality
of many of his own memories. Had he really fought against his half-brother Cromarty,
matching blade against blade? Had he really seen torture, death and revolution
in a ruined city in the swamps of Sung? Had he really met a man in D'Wait who
had the head and horns of a bull? He could not credit any of it.

       
Indeed, he thought all
of human history increasingly improbable. Possessed by the perfection of his
own health, joy and freedom, he could no longer believe in the incestuous
rages, the narrow hatreds, the jealous lusts, the uncouth slanders and the
muddy, scuffling wars which constituted the annals of human enterprise.

       
"I declare a Golden
Age," said Togura, greeting yet another dew-bright sunrise. "We are
born perfect to a perfect world, therefore perfection is our nature, truth and
destiny."

       
The sanity of the
mountains had made him, within the terms of the world he had escaped from,
quite mad.

       
Togura the Prophet,
bearer of an uncommonly optimistic Revelation, gained the uppermost heights of
the Ironband Mountains. It was noon, on a clear, bright day, with the sun at
its zenith and somewhat to the south; despite the sunlight, it was cold, for at
this height there still remained patches of snow and slush, the last debris of
winter. Togura surveyed the view, and gave himself three cheers - one for
initiative, one for effort and one for success.

       
Then, in a moment of
arrogance quite contrary to the tenor of his Revelation, he declared:

       
"I, Togura Poulaan,
lord of all I survey, name this summit Mount Togura. I name these uplands the
Togura Heights, claiming all for me and mine for all eternity."

      
 
Having thus annexed his
territory, he then had the problem of whether to call himself baron, earl,
duke, prince, king or emperor.

       
"Lord Emperor
Togura," he said, announcing his choice aloud. "Master of All the
Mountains, their Surrounds, and Surrounding Oceans."

       
That had a nice ring to
it. He celebrated his bloodless imperial conquest by eating a little smoked
horsemeat, chewing it slowly while he admired the view. At his rear, to the
north, lay the lowlands of Estar. On his right, to the west, in the distance,
the Central Ocean. On his left, more mountains. And to the south? Ahead of him,
to the south, there were lowlands of some kind. The Harvest Plains, he hoped.

       
As Togura gazed down at
the southern lowlands, which were in fact the Lezconcarnau Plains, the wind
started to get up. it was cold; shivering, he started downhill. By late
afternoon, the sun had clouded over; by evening, a grey, persistent drizzle was
dampening down his spirits. Nevertheless, he was not despondent. He found a
scratch of a cave which would give him a dry night, and, with the competence of
a seasoned traveller, lit a fire and made a brilliant blood-warming blaze from
damp wool.

       
The next few days were
difficult.

       
The going was very slow.
The southern side of the mountain range proved to be steep, dangerous and
heavily wooded. Where he could, he followed winding animal tracks through the
trees, as the undergrowth, surfeited with nettles and brambles, proved
uncommonly inhospitable. Once he sighted a wild pig, a monstrous wild-haired
razorback boar; prudently, he climbed a tree. Finding a rotten log which had
been torn open, apparently by heavy-duty claws, he suspected the presence of
bear. He found deer tracks, and then paw marks like those of a wild-cat, only
much larger.

       
Though this should by
rights have been the sunnier side of the range, the heavy vegetation made it
cold, dank and shadowed. Often, stooping down a deer track with crowding branches
overhead, he would go for half a day through unbroken twilight. Then the trees
would end with a burst of sunlight, revealing the gash of a gorge, the looming
depths of a massive sink hole, or a sheer cliff plummeting down to
bone-breaking rocks.

       
Running into such
obstacles, Togura had to sidetrack and backtrack. Every day gave him at least
five good reasons for sticking to the Salt Road. Still, he was here, now - he
had to find a way to the south, or starve. He cut his rations down to almost
nothing, and persisted.

       
Finally, to his delight,
he found a small river with a track running alongside it. The track was
overgrown, as if nobody had come this way for a season or so, but, with the
help of a stout stick with which he could beat down the more unruly outcrops of
nettles, he could follow it. He did so, for the river ran south.

       
Early on the second day
downriver, he rounded a riverbend, eager to get a clear view of a massive red
brick edifice whiche he had glimpsed through the trees. He was rewarded by the
sight of the river running downstream for half a league or so until it
disappeared into a gap in one wall of a castle.

       
The castle, a massive
pentagon of red brick, many times taller than the surrounding trees, was
surmounted by a pyramid, also built of red brick. There was no sign of any gate
or door; only slit windows pierced the brickwork. Togura gawked at it - then
realised he could be seen from those slit windows.

       
He ducked down out of
sight behind some shrubbery, but, after a moment, rose to his feet again. The
surrounds were so overgrown that the castle could scarcely be inhabited. He had
seen no huntsmen or herdsmen, no farms or fields, no charcoal burners, no
woodcutter clearings, no beggars or wandering lunatics; he had seen no roads
and no woodsmoke, and no paths barring the single overgrown rivertrail he was
following; the area was, as far as he could tell, a deserted wilderness.

       
Boldly, Togura set off
down the riverpath. He was half way to the castle when an arrow thunked into a
tree just beside his head. Togura had scarcely had time to react when half a
dozen men downriver broke cover. They were a bunch of hairy individuals with
bows, spears and wildskin clothes. As they shouted at him, he turned and fled.
They pursued, gaining on him easily. Their laughter came scarpering after him.

       
Another arrow slammed
into a spindly tree-trunk just in front of him. Togura dropped his baggage, but
still they gained on him. Whooping ferociously, they closed in for what sounded
very much like the kill. Despairing of escape uphill, Togura jumped into the
river. It was cold, swift and deep. It swept him away toward the castle.

       
Floating in the water,
Togura saw his pursuers turn and start to trudge down the riverpath. They
seemed in no hurry. He wondered why. Looking downriver, he saw the castle was
much, much closer. Its walls blocked up the sky ahead of him. Suddenly he did
not like the look of the gaping black hole in the castle wall which was
swallowing the river. It looked cold, dangerous and nasty.

       
Togura struck out for
the riverbank. But the current was too strong for him. Momentarily, he gained a
hold on a slimy rock near the water's edge. Then the current plucked him away
and channelled him into the darkness. The daylight rapidly slid away from him.
Hearing a thunderous water-rumble up ahead, he guessed that there was a weir or
waterfall waiting for him. Desperately, he struck out for the bank, fearing
that it would be a wall of sheer rock.

       
His fears had no foundation.
He found that the bank, which was low, was made of something spongy which tore,
broke and crumbled as he kicked and clawed, fighting free from the water. Once
on the bank, cold, shivering and dripping wet, he tore away another handful of
the spongy substance underfoot and held it up to the light. The diminished
illumination showed him something looking grey, unpleasant and unhealthy; he
dropped it.

       
Togura did not know it,
but he was standing on a vast, lethal, carnivorous fungus. By now he had kicked
several holes in it, and had torn away chunks of its substance. Usually, it did
not take kindly to such cavalier treatment; in the usual course of events, it
would have eaten away his legs by now, and would just have been making a start
on his testicles. However, this was one of its rare periods of dormancy, which
lasted for twelve days and occurred once in every three hundred and
thirty-three years. So, for the moment, he was safe.