What a prize that bottle would be, if only they could get into it. There would be food in there. And wine -body of the grape, body of the sun. Hearst had seen Valarkin supervising the loading of the bottle. He had seen wine taken in by the barrel, wine and food and featherdown quilts. What else had gone into that bottle? Did Comedo have a woman in there? Body soft as bread, body warmer than the sun.
– Kill him then. Set a trap. Kill him when he slips out to enjoy the stars again. If he ventures the sun, it will be easier still.
Hearst found the guards asleep, as he had suspected. He found the one he had appointed guard commander, and laid sharp steel across the man's throat. The man opened his eyes and stared up with a rigid, unblinking stare. Hearst held the sword there for ten or twenty heartbeats – ten of his, twenty of his victim's – then he withdrew the blade.
'You stand watch till morning.'
Morgan Hearst slept long and late, and woke to the sound of voices and occasional laughter. It pleased his heart to see his men working on their gear, gathering water snails, or collecting algae to boil and eat. Some were fishing, using pumice for floats for their lines; the light grey volcanic rock, full of air bubbles, floated lighter and higher than cork.
Elkor Alish was still asleep, lazy as a turtle basking in the sun. Let him sleep then. Hearst would organise things. Morgan Hearst would cope with the world of rock, sun, water, rust and steel. But he despised Alish for letting control and self-control escape him – and wondered what had gone wrong.
Hearst found Miphon turning two birds on a spit over a bright fire.
'You can cook better over a bed of hot coals,' said Hearst, squatting down by the fire.
'Yes,' said Miphon, 'but I'm hungry.'
There was grease on the flesh; Hearst could have eaten a barrel of grease. Give him an ox and he would have eaten it entire, meat, marrow and bones together.
'Did you sleep well?' said Miphon.
'Well enough.'
T woke in the night,' said Miphon. 'And?' i saw you. I saw what you saw.' 'What do you suggest we do?' Miphon shrugged.
Hearst picked up one of the feathers which had been scattered when the birds had been plucked; he twirled it between his fingers.
'How did you catch the birds?' said Hearst.
T called them to me.'
'Magic must make life easier.'
'There's nothing easy about the Meditations,' said Miphon. 'That's how we build power. And how we preserve the Balance.'
'What is the Balance?'
'The universe was created with a will to ordained order which attempts to destroy any anomaly, particularly one as gross as a wizard. The Balance is the field of force – a sphere built of willpower – which we create to preserve ourselves. The more power a wizard accumulates, the greater an anomaly he becomes, so the more work he must do to preserve the Balance.' i knew a man who used to talk like that,' said Hearst, 'but only when he was drunk.'
Miphon smiled. Little rankled with him: he was difficult to upset. Warriors lived by their skill with weapons, which they valued above all else; warriors found it hard to concede that they were no match for most wizards, and disparaging wizards was a natural way for warriors to protect their delicate egos.
'But what does it mean?' said Hearst. 'What does the Balance mean? In simple terms?'
'What's the secret of leadership?' said Miphon. 'In simple terms?' initiative,' said Hearst instantly.
'So that's the secret,' said Miphon. 'Give a man that word and he'll lead armies to conquest.'
'Not quite.'
No, it was not that easy. A leader needed combat skills to meet any blade-challenge from the ranks. He must know when to kick and curse, when to praise and flatter. He must become a diplomat to deal with priests and princes. On campaigns, he must make swift, sound decisions on the basis of scanty information. He must know when to advance, retreat or parley, and must be always seeking ways to keep his enemies unsettled and off balance. That was the beginning of it: but there was much more.
'Quite not quite,' said Miphon. 'A single word cannot 250 hold the secret. In a word, that simple word you want, the Balance is harmony. If a wizard cannot achieve it then the quest for power will kill him. What do you want now – a lecture on the applied metaphysics of self-determined intelligences, or a piece of this scrawny fowl?'
'Compared to me, the bird's positively fat,' said Hearst. 'I'd love a piece.'
As they ate, Hearst remembered – vaguely, as one may remember words spoken in dreams – why Stronghold Handfast was so important. Its makers, long dead and forgotten, had mastered the art of creating architecture which would protect its inhabitants against the force in the universe which would attempt to destroy an anomaly. Once there, Heenmor, having no need to divert any of his energy to the preservation of the Balance, would be able to devote all his powers to the study of the death-stone.
Hearst tried to remember what Stronghold Handfast looked like. He was irritated to find that he could not picture it clearly. But he could remember what it was built of: millions of blocks, variously blue, green, red, and yellow, each block as shiny as glass, and each block no larger than a man's thumb.
He stopped eating.
'What's the matter?' said Miphon. 'You look very peculiar. Have you found worms in the meat?' i was…' 'What?'
'Nothing,' said Hearst. 'Nothing.'
Miphon chewed a bit of meat in a meditative way, the sharper pangs of his hunger now appeased; he swallowed, spat out a small piece of bone, then, suspecting the source of Hearst's discomfort, spoke: 'You'll find you've inherited at least some of Phyphor's memories along with things like a knowledge of the High Speech. You won't have access to those memories at first, because they'll be completely disor ganised to begin with. However 'What?' said Hearst, in alarm. 'He'll take over my mind?'
'He's dead,' said Miphon. 'The mind-masters are the wizards of Ebber, not the wizards of Arl.'
'But if I'm thinking thoughts that aren't mine -'
'Then what? Are you ever afraid your dreams will take you over? No? Then look on these memories as a new set of dreams – only it's usual to forget dreams, bit by bit. These dreams you'll recall. Slowly. Sometimes a word may help the recall – not a magic word, just one with special meaning. Consider this one: Araconch.'
Araconch.
Hearst thought about it, and smelt… dried ink. Remembered faded lines crawling across parchment. An inscription in a crabbed hand: Here Be Dragons. Irritation at hearing someone laugh, in, of all places, the Sourcing Room: the Map Room. Maps. Of course…
'These are the Araconch waters,' said Hearst, indicating the expanse of lake. 'To the north… difficult country… then… the Blue Lakes, yes. Then the Broken Lands. A river… if we can get that far, then the river will take us to Kalatanastral, the city of glass… from there, yes, the Ringwall Mountains themselves…'
Hearst fell silent, thinking of the distances they had to cover. Since he had orientated himself by sun and stars, he knew they were in the north-west quadrant of the lake; they would have to march north for about fifty leagues over broken country to reach the Blue Lakes, after which another fifty leagues or so would take them to a tributary of the Amodeo River.
If they could find or make a boat, three hundred leagues or so by river would bring them to Kalatanastral, from where it would be about seventy leagues across plains, hills and mountains to the towers of Stronghold Handfast. All in all, the better part of five hundred leagues.
'They say the winters here are harsh,' said Hearst.
'Then we should make all speed to try and reach Stronghold Handfast before the snows,' said Miphon.
'How soon can the soldiers travel?'
'The worm-sick man will be dead by tomorrow,' said Miphon, working a bird's tail feather into his faded,
