'You mean,' said Sarazin, in dismay, 'we can't get into the castle at all?'
'We are within Castle X-n'dix already,' said Elkin, 'for this passage, like the Underkeep, the Lesser Tower and the Greater Tower, are all parts of that stronghold. But certainly for the moment we're limited to this passage only.' 'And later?' said Jarl.
'If we can climb to the Lesser Tower, I believe I can open a door to the interior of that tower,' said Elkin.
'What will we find then?' said Jarl. 'What will we gain?' 'That,' said Elkin, 'I do not know.'
At last they reached the gate at the end of the Passage. Elkin opened it, and they stumbled outside. Blinking at brilliant sunshine. While they had been toiling under- ground, winds from the sea had cleaved the clouds, and the sun slashed down from a breach of blue sky.
After the close, oppressive blood-lit gloom of the dragon-lamp passage, the world of day was an amazement of wide-flung vistas, of blood-hot greens and simmering blues, of a million million glints and reflections.
They had quit the Passage through a gate set in the base of a west-facing cliff. At their feet, leagues of rock- tumbled goat-footed pastureland tumbled away to a mirage-bright sea which lay at least a day's march distant.
It was hot. Hot and steamy. The rain-washed world was being baked dry by the sun. Sarazin incautiously glanced at that luminary. His eyes flinched from the blazing white disk. Luxuriant mauve and purple blossoms flared across his landscapes as his watering eyes tried to adjust to the world. Elkin was closing the gate. Heth, without being asked, had already distanced himself from this ceremony: the bandit had wandered off towards a nearby stream. Thodric Jarl was following him. And Sarazin, realising he was quite thirsty, joined them.
The wrist-thick yet energetic rivulet bubbled up from the rocks at the cliffbase, then went bounding away through its own miniature fern-fringed gorge. Sarazin's knees creaked as he squatted to the water.
He dipped his hands into the (cold!) water, slushed it round his mouth, gargled, spat, coughed up phlegm, spat again, then handcupped more water and drank. Slowly. Letting the water warm in his mouth before he swallowed it, remembered times in the past when he had greeded down cold water to comfort hunger, only to suffer the iron-uncomfortable weight of it griping in his gut. 'See-see-swaasool' sang a nearby bird.
Inviting itself to dinner, perhaps? Snails as the hors d'oeuvres, bird as the main course, worms as dessert. 'Swasoo swilasoooo…'
Sarazin searched for the bird. Saw it perched some seven paces distant on the ruinous bare-bough remnants of what had once been a tree. It was no bigger than his fist, yet as gaudy as a thousand-league emperor. Its white-striped walnut-brown head was crowned with a flame-red ruff; its throat was adorned with emerald; the plumage of its back was gold seeded with sunglints of silver; its breast was a pale blue and its feet were gold again. It was immaculate.
How did birds manage to look so perfectly turned out so soon after the worst of weather? Sarazin himself looked a mess, and, even without a mirror, he knew it. His thorn-torn dirt-grimed travel-worn hands were evidence enough. 'Swasoo-too-loo!' sang the bird. The edible bird? Only one way to find out.
'Glambrax,' said Sarazin, in a low and earnest voice. 'Shoot me that bird.'
'What bird?' said Glambrax, bounding towards him, crossbow in hand.
By the time the dwarf had assaulted across the terrain to Sarazin's position the bird had, of course, long since flown.
Never mind,' said Sarazin, in disgust. 'Go and see if you can find something we can eat.'
Glambrax obeyed, and was soon back with a handful of sheep droppings. 'Are you out of your mind?' said Sarazin.
'These are fresh!' said Glambrax. 'The turd implies the sheep, does it not?' 'And the sheep the shepherd,' said Jarl. 'Truly,' said Heth, 'and the sky smokes.'
'What mean you by that?' said Sarazin, thinking Heth was using some obscure, eliptical idiom of his native Stokos. 'Don't you see it?' said Heth. 'Look where I'm pointing.'
Yes. Indeed. A thin thread of smoke was rising from a coomb some thousand paces distant.
'Let's not worry about shepherds and their fires,' said Epelthin Elkin. 'Let's be getting to the Lesser Tower.'
Now, for the first time, Sarazin turned and looked up. Up at least a league-length height of cliff and crag, of thornbush outcrops and lean-grass scrambles to the bone- white sungleam of the dragon-encumbered pinnacle half a league high which was the Greater Tower of Castle X- n'dix. He thought he could see also a smaller structure which might be the Lesser Tower, but: -Whatever's up there can wait.
I'm in no hurry to go mountaineering,' said Sarazin. Tet's check out this smoke.'
'There's no mountaineering required,' said Elkin, eager to see more of this Dissident stronghold. Took close! You'll see a way to the heights which a very child could climb.'
'Well,' said Jarl, 'you being closer to your second child- hood than we are, feel free to go on without us. Mean- while, we're going with Sarazin.'
Outvoted, Elkin fell in with the rest, and, after a long and uncomfortable walk in damp, chafing clothes, they came upon five huts tucked in amongst the trees of the coomb. Approaching this hamlet, they savoured the smell of woodsmoke, which Sarazin for one found mo§t sug- gestive of cookery, mulled wine, warm beds, dry clothes and other pleasant things.
After disputing their right to life with half a dozen mangy curs, Sarazin and his comrades became an object of fascination for thirty-seven peasants, most of whom were blond like Heth. 'Anyone got any food?' said Sarazin in his best Churl.
Laughter and the eager gabble of quick-talking children greeted his cry. 'What did they say?' said Sarazin in bewilderment.
'Hush,' said Jarl. 'Here's the headman coming out to talk to us.'
Indeed, the oldster now approaching was the resident patriarch, who went by the name of Ugmug, and had taken it upon himself to deal with the strangers. He spoke a language incomprehensible to all but Heth, who knew it to be the Ligin of Stokos. With Heth as translator, the travellers learnt that the locals called their country X- zox.
Elkin, his philological curiosity aroused, was ready to swear that the name X-zox, given to this coastal enclave, must be a corruption of X-n'dix, the ancient name for the castle. That suggested a continuous human presence in the enclave for thousands of years.
(So at least thought Elkin, in his fatigue. Though there are of course other possibilities – such as, for example, that a passing wizard might lately have named X-n'dix to the locals, thus making the corruption recent rather than ancient.)
'What name do the locals give to the Greater Tower of X-n'dix, and to the Lesser?' said Elkin.
Heth asked, but, when the answer proved to be grossly obscene, answered that the locals left them unnamed. At which point fatigue overcame philology, and Elkin pursued the matter of names no further.
Jarl, on the other hand, had questions yet to be answered, so, with Heth still serving as translator, he asked them. What was the coastline like? It was a reach of unbroken cliffs, offering certain death to any ship which tried to hazard a landing. Who ruled the valley? The heads of the families between them. How many people dwelt there? Some five fists of families – perhaps two or three hundred individuals at most. 'Good,' said Jarl. 'What about food?' said Sarazin.
Heth asked if they might please be given a little food, since they had gone days unfed through all the weathers.
But here they struck difficulty, for the traditions of capitalism were strong in X-zox, so nothing was forth- coming by way of hospitality. Sarazin and his people were invited to trade, but none of their gear was surplus to requirements. They lacked, of course, the strength to demand by force.
'Do they know,' said Sarazin, 'that X-zox is but a part of the province of Hok, which is in turn but a fraction of the Harvest Plains, and that I am a warlord of the empire of which they are but the smallest part?'
Hunger, frustration and fatigue had left Sarazin with a bloody temper. He was ready to punch someone. Thodric Jarl wisely led Sarazin away, leaving Heth to do the negotiating.
'Please,' said Heth to Ugmug, 'I can see you're of Stokos stock just like myself. We've ancestors in common, that's doubtless, let alone race and language. As a son of your people, I'm begging you. Couldn't you spare us just a little bread? Some old crusts, perhaps? Some meat meant for the dogs. Your most worthless rubbish would be a
