The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (45 page)

       
Draven drew back to meet
the challenge. And Togura turned the ring again - and was back out on the
sands.

       
He blinked at the light,
gasped, shuddered. That was close! It had never occurred to him that there
might be someone already in the bottle. And where there was one, there might be
a dozen.

       
What now?

       
If he went back in, he
might well be killed by the guard or guards inside. If he stayed outside, he
might well die of cold and hunger. He looked around. The tide was beginning to
go out; the wind was still blowing strong and chill, sending eager little waves
scrabbling up the beach.

       
Togura set off at
random, determined to walk until he dropped, hoping that he would find shelter
before he dropped. He was rewarded; at mid-morning he came upon a derelict
little cottage with a little smoke rising from its ramshackle chimney. There
was no door; Togura walked right inside. An old man tending the little fire
turned and stared at him with sharp, bright eyes.

       
Togura cleared his
throat.

       
"Good
morning," said Togura, lamely.

       
"A rather cold wet
miserable morning, if I'm not mistaken," said the stranger. "Here's a
blanket. Get out of those wet clothes and wrap yourself up in it."

       
Togura obeyed.

       
"Here," said
the stranger, opening a leather bag. "Here's breakfast. What have we got?
Black bread. One boiled egg. Some dried fish. I wish she wouldn't give me that
horrible salty-shrivelled muck, still, if you're hungry you'll eat it."

       
"Are you sure
..."

       
"Am I sure of what?
Am I sure I can spare it, you mean? Of course I can. I don't live here, you know!
I'm a little richer than this. I'm just here to check on the property, Skyhaven
we call it, my uncle's place till he died. My name's Gezeldux. And yours?"

       
"Togura," said
Togura. "Togura Poulaan."

       
Gezeldux asked no
further questions until Togura had eaten. Then, bit by bit, he heard the whole
story. By the time Togura had finished telling his tale - Gezeldux was an
inquisitive old man, and a diligent interrogator - it was evening.

       
"You know,"
said Gezeldux, when Togura had finished, "I think you may have done better
than you think."

       
"How's that?"
said Togura.

       
"Why, if there's
any such thing as a Universal Language, it has to be music. Get that
triple-harp of yours to Keep, and, three crowns to half a pickle, it'll bring
your odex to order."

       
"You mean I've
found it? I've found the index?"

       
"Go. Try.
See."

       
"But how do I get
to Sung?" wailed Togura.

       
"Any boat can
stretch across to Sung, no problem. Now rest. Sleep. You're overwrought. Sleep
deep, and tomorrow we'll walk back to Brennan."

       
So Togura slept, and
Gezeldux, an honest and honourable man, made no move against him, that night or
after.

Chapter 43

       
Keep!

       
To Togura, it looked
small - he no longer thought of it as a city - but marvellous.

       
"Oh frabjous little
town!" cried Togura.

       
Gaining its narrow
little streets with their sloping-slanting rickety-arthrickety buildings,
Togura did a dance of triumph.

       
"Yip yip!" he
shouted. "Hurrah! Callooh! Callay! Skray skray! Oh Halloo-Schlag!
Jeronimo!"

       
These exultations came
to an abrupt end when someone at an upper-storey window emptied a bucket of
dirty water over him. Muttering dire imprecations, Togura stalked away.

      
 
He was still somewhat damp
when he stalked into the Wordsmiths' compound.

       
"Take me to
Governor Troop," said Togura grandly.

       
"And who might you
be?" said the servitor he had confronted, looking him up and down.

       
"Togura
Poulaan," said Togura, boldly. "Sword-master, death-dealer,
dragon-tamer and questing hero extra-regular, extra-provincial and
extraordinary. And, by the by, a wordmaster in this organisation. So take me to
Troop, my good man, or you'll be knucklebone soup in no time."

       
"Don't play the red
cockerel with me, young strop," said the servitor, who was bigger and
older than Togura. "We all know about Togura Poulaan. His brother Cromarty
paid out good gold for his body's wreckage some six moons back. I saw the muck
and mess myself."

       
Togura promptly punched
the fellow, knocking the wind out of him. It must be noted, with regret, that
close acquaintance with the Orfus pirates had caused a certain deterioration in
Togura's grasp of the finer points of etiquette.

       
"It's half-brother,
snot-head," said Togura, as the servitor doubled up, gasping. "I'm
back from the dead, alive and breathing - which is more than you'll be, unless
you come to order, pronto."

       
Very shortly, Togura was
in the presence of Governor Troop.

       
"Who are you?"
said Troop, surveying the stranger in front of him - a hard-faced young man
with a scarred nose and a raggedy beard.

       
"I," said
Togura, "am Togura Poulaan, also known as Barak the Battleman and as
Forester. I am, in case you don't remember - "

       
"Why, boy, of
course, of course!" said Governor Troop, rising, beaming, taking him by
the hand. "How foolish of me! Our questing hero! You've found the index,
have you?"

       
"Not so fast!"
said Togura, keeping hold of the Governor's hand, and squeezing it a little,
trying to feel the bones through the fat.

       
"We have a
problem?" said Governor Troop, twisting free. "Why, my boy, I'm sure
we can easily sort things out. Sit down and have a drink."

  
     
"We don't
have time to drink," said Togura grimly. "My men are waiting for me
to return with news of satisfaction."

       
"Your men?"
said Governor Troop.

       
"My hand-picked
killing guard," said Togura, bluffing without a blush. "They're waiting
out in the wilds. The rest of my legions, of course, are still on the Lesser
Teeth."

       
"Your
legions?"

       
"Don't look so
startled, man!" shouted Togura. "It's near enough to three years
since I left here. Three years of world-wandering, of challenges,
courage-tests, heroic deeds. Is it any wonder I've got a following? I've
foughts dragons. I've killed men in combat, my hands armed or empty. I've
commanded troops in the Harvest Plains. I've - "

       
"Peace!"
begged Governor Troop. "Peace, don't hurt us, don't, please, what do you
want?"

       
The soft fat little
butter-plated man disgusted Togura. In a loud, hard voice he made his demands:

       
"My agent, the
wizard of Drum, made an agreement with you and yours. I was to risk all - toes,
kneecap, cock, balls, heart, guts, stomach, neck - to recover the index. Not an
easy task, my man! Not with monsters, mad wizards, invading armies, sundry
assorted barbarian slaughter-specialists and other hazards to contend
with."

       
"Yes, yes, I know,
I know."

       
"In return,"
said Togura, "you and yours were, among other things, to force Cromarty to
withdraw the reward offered for my head. I now know - don't try to tell me
different! - that that reward was paid out."

       
"But you've still
got your head."

       
"That's not the
point! You and yours were supposed to deal with Cromarty. Instead I've still
got to do the job."

       
"I'm sure you're
more than equal to it," said Governor Troop, with something like a purr in
his voice.

       
"That's not the
point!" said Togura. "You reneged on our agreement. You broke the
contract. That being so, since you're in dereliction of your contractural obligations,
I'm in no mind to settle for the paltry eleven percent my agent settled for."

       
"I think - "

       
"Don't! Listen,
now. I'll settle for fifty percent. Fifty percent of everything that comes out
of the odex. Fifty percent by value. Take it or leave it."

       
Shortly, Togura had
extracted a written contract from the Wordsmiths. He departed, saying he was
gong to confer with his men in the hills. Instead, he went and sought out
Raznak the Golsh, one of the most powerful men in the Suet clan. They had a
long discussion together.

       
In return for a small
cut of Togura's income from the odex, Raznak the Golsh promised Togura armed
protection against Cromarty, and assured him he would most certainly have Day
Suet's hand in marriage if he could recover that young adorable from the odex.

       
The next morning, Togura
presented himself again to Brother Troop, then went to try his triple-harp, the
putative index, on the odex. Now was the moment of truth. Would it work or
wouldn't it?

       
The odex looked just the
same as ever: a thin grey disk, invisible when viewed side-on, a mirror when
seen from an angle, a discordant swirl of kaleidoscopic colour when seen from
directly in front.

       
"Ahyak Rovac!"
screamed Togura, testing the odex with a fighting-phrase he had picked up in
his travels.

       
Out from the odex came a
fang-gaping ilps, a vicious manxome monster which Governor Troop demolished
with five well-placed immaculately-timed questions.

       
"Sholabarakosh," said Togura, saying the Word needed to open
his enchanted casket.

       
The odex spat liquid
jade. Fortunately, it missed both Togura and Governor Troop. The jade hit the
ground, hissing, and hardened swiftly. Togura took his triple-harp from the
casket.

       
"That's the
index?" said Governor Troop.

       
"Watch," said
Togura.

      
 
And he began to play. He
tried high notes and low notes, chords and crescendos. He played something by
the way of melody, and something by the way of outrage. He played a
caterwauling fugue of his own invention. The music excited the odex. Ilpses
came bubbling out, some hard, some lumpy, some focused, some frothy, some with
five mandibles and some with seven, some hairy, some glossy. Chased by
questions, these fugitive apparitions streamed up into the sky; in the streets
beyond, dogs began to bark and howl.

       
Finally, Governor Troop
laughed.

       
"Well, boy,"
said Governor Troop. "It seems you haven't done as well as you thought.
This is no better than shouting at it."

       
"I'm not finished
yet," said Togura.

       
"You are for the
moment. Sit over there, boy. We've our daily petitioners to deal with."

       
Togura sat to one side,
sulking, while various petitioners entered and were permitted - for a small
fee- to cast things into the odex. In went a bundle of squalling kittens which
someone had been too soft-hearted to drown. In went an unwanted baby of female
gender. An old man, wheezing with emphysema, was hauled off his stetcher and
flung into the odex. ("Not dead but merely resting," said the young
priest who supervised this operation.)

       
"Okay then,"
said Governor Troop, when this was finished. "You can try again."

       
Togura did try.

       
Vigorously.

       
He made music and
unmusic pour forth from the triple-harp, but all that came out of the odex was
more ilpses - all grinning with high hilarity - a small dead fish, a single
false tooth and one thin book. The book proved to be full of entirely
incomprehensible squiggles (it was, in fact, an antiquated timetable of tides
for the Penvash Channel.)

       
"Well, boy,"
said Governor Troop. "A good try, but you haven't succeeded. Not this
time. We know there's other places you might find an index, though. When are
you going to set off?"