But they slipped away down the hatch which led from roof to attic. Sarazin screamed at them again. With no result. What should he do, what should he do? He must do something!
'Should I kill you for mercy perhaps?' said Glambrax, a bolt at the ready in his cocked crossbow. 'Don't point that thing at me,' shouted Sarazin.
You've no escape, you know,' said Glambrax, with an evil grin. 'I can shoot you down like a dog. Unless by chance you can make yourself invisible.'
Pox!' said Sarazin, remembering, and unslung the chain which he had till then been wearing round his neck.
As Glambrax chortled Sarazin struggled to remove his magic silver ring from its silver chain. But his hands in panic found it impossible to prise open the tight-wound coil of metal. Perhaps it was not silver at all but some- thing harder, stronger, fiercer. Another siege ladder slapped home. 'Here,' said Glambrax, 'give it.'
And the dwarf tore the chain-bound ring from Sarazin's grip and, swiftly, deftly, liberated ring from chain. Then dropped the ring so it fell in front of Sarazin's nose. Sarazin grabbed it. Put it on.
And felt his entire body shaken by unmusical vibrations which put his teeth on edge. The ring was cold on his finger, bitter cold, like a band of ice. But his body was warm already and heating further by the moment. He drew the brave blade Onslaught. The ring denied him daylight. He walked in a world of shadows as he dared his dread towards the edge of the roof.
Where things of thick darkness were already scrambling up from below. Nightmarish things, uncouth shapes of bloody hate, of jealous death, of guttural-grunting obscenity. The enemy. The Enemy! But a hero was there to meet him, swinging his sword already and screaming as he swung: 'Wa – wa – Watashi!'
Sweet sliced his blade, sweet, ripping a ragged wound through the nearest shambling thing, the wound gleaming red amidst the darkness as the stinking ouns of the thing outspilled from its walking corpse.
And Sarazin screamed again, and hacked, and chopped, and kicked away one ladder then another, and heard gabbling voices roused to horror by the death invisible which attacked them, and knew then the battle-joy.
He was amok now, berserk, no man left, only battle. But the heat was rising, he was hot, too hot, he was burning, scalding, to breathe was pain, and the heat and pain together made battle give way to the man. -One ladder left!
Sarazin strode to the last ladder, hacked away a bulbous shadow, put boot to the ladder, pushed, felt it slide, saw it fall, heard shadows wail away. Then turned. This way.
That. Scanning the roof. One shadow remained, a shadow too tall to be Glambrax. Sarazin advanced. The shadow- Saw him? Heard him?
It put itself and its weapon on guard. But Sean Sarazin, invisible, smote the filthy thing, saw red sliced open, yes, he had wounded it sore, had opened its polluted belly. Should finish the job now. But the heat was almost at killing point.
Smartly, Sean Sarazin stepped backwards. Drove his sword into the roof's timbers to free both hands. Then tore the ring from his finger.
Ice-cold it felt while he was wearing it, but the moment he got it free it felt red-hot. He dropped it sharply, grabbed his sword with both hands, wrenched it from the timbers, then stood on guard. Blinking and gasping. Blinking at light near blinding, gasping for heat and for sweat. Where was his enemy?
The thing was there, in front of him. Tottering on the edge of the roof. Not a near-shapeless shadow, not a hell- fiend Enemy, but a man. Hands clutched to his gut, red blood outspilling between his fingers. Face deformed by agony, wrenched by pain, but the face, the face, it was- 'Fox!' screamed Sarazin.
He dropped his sword and raced forward. Fox was teetering on the edge. Sarazin slithered on the greasy wood, slipped, fell. Reached. Grasped. Clawed. Grabbed at his father's ankle. And, trying to save him, toppled him. Clutched, held – then lost the man to a jerk which nearly dislocated his arm. 'Father!'
Thus screamed Sarazin. For his father was gone, falling, doomed, dead. And it was Sean Sarazin who had killed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The prophecy: that a prince will return from exile to Selzirk, will be scorned and reviled when he proposes a way to save the city from dangers unleashed by wicked and witless men, will endure great hardship and greater danger, will win the name Watashi, will marry the princess of an ancient kingdom, will win the power he needs to save Selzirk by killing his own father in war, will save the city and win great praise and everlasting glory.
Still fell the rain, drowning down from grey eternities of sky while Sean Sarazin lay abed. By night he lay there and by day also, rousing out reluctantly to use the chamber pot and for no other purpose. He supped on broth which Glambrax brought him and, on occasion, ate a little fish fresh-caught from the Velvet River.
Otherwise he lay almost as if catatonic, a huddle of halfdreaming flesh slow-breathing and mostly motionless. And all the while the rain fell without the Great House, drench- ing down to the mud, to the streets of Shin, to the dank forest, to the broad-backed river.
With time, Sarazin roused himself. Not to action, but at least to thought. At first, his thoughts were near as incoherent as his dreams. A jumble of grief, guilt, regret. -My father dead! -J killed him!
Thus ran the burden of his thoughts. At first. But, with time – and a few days are a long time in the life of an active intellect – Sarazin began to rationalise what had happened. He had killed Fox, true. Fox must be dead, what with the gut wound and the fall from the roof, though the enemy had dragged away all their dead when they beat a retreat. Sarazin had killed him. Had killed his father. But had excuses.
Item: Fox was doomed to die in that manner anyway, for prophecy had proclaimed that Sarazin would kill him.
Item: Regardless of prophecy, Fox had long been marked for death, for when Fox rode forth with Benthorn and others to attack an embassy at Smork he had made himself an outlaw.
Item: Sarazin had not known it was Fox he was fighting until the fight was already over.
Item: Sarazin had then tried to save his father's life. His strength had been unequal to the task but then… he was only human.
Sarazin toyed with those ideas and with others for some time, and was almost satisfied. But not quite. Then he considered the recent events in more depth and detail, and slowly realised that Fox had chosen his fate.
If Fox had truly valued survival then he would have fled far further than Chenameg after he was declared an outlaw. If he loved life he would have gone far south to Drangsturm or across the seas to the Scattered Islands. Instead, he had lent his strength to a sordid uprising of the disorderly elements in Chenameg…
As Lord Regan had often said, we do choose our own fate. We are responsible for what happens to us. The lives we lead are shaped by our own free will. Ultimately, though Fox had died by Sarazin's sword, it was the decisions Fox had made which had led to his death. Sarazin remembered…
The hunt for the girl through the forest of Chenameg. The exhilarating excitement of the chase. The girl caught, fallen, captured, his. Then, before he could truly claim his prize, Fox had appeared to steal away the woman. Was that not evidence of choice?
The girl must have had a victim mentality otherwise she would hot have become a victim in the first place. Lord Regan's teachings made that plain. Victims must bear full responsibility for their own fate for, as Lord Regan had often said, history cannot pardon the defeated. If Sarazin had raped the woman then he would have been doing no more than help her work out the fate she had chosen for herself.
The victims have made their choices. Those who suffer, those who are sick, those who are poor, those who are enslaved, those who are ignorant, have chosen their suffering, their sickness, their poverty, their servitude, their ignorance. To say otherwise is, surely, to deny the reality of free will.
So Fox, by linking his fate with that of the victim class, had doomed himself by an act of his own free will. First by allowing Sarazin's lawful prey to escape, then by joining a mob of ragged anarchists making war on lawful authority in Shin. Yet…
When Fox rode from the forest to rescue the woman there was something lordly in his bearing. Something noble in the gesture. And, Sarazin had felt… had felt like dirt. Had known shame. Had been humbled. But… was that rational?
