stories thrice over from Jaluba's lips.'
And Lord Regan and Jaluba squeezed hands, then kissed. 'Well,' said Sarazin, 'can I get to Hok?' You could walk,' said Lord Regan. 'What about ships?' said Sarazin.
'No ships run from here to Hok,' said Lord Regan. 'We trade With Stokos, to be, sure. But not with Hok, for Stokos and Hok are at war, and the wizards favour Stokos.'
'Wizards?' said Sarazin. 'Pray tell, what's this about wizards?'
'Ah. So you don't know the story of today's 'Marphos. Is that how it is? Very well then. Listen, and I will tell
According to Lord Regan's account, as the Swarms approached, many refugees had been evacuated from 'Marphos. They had fled into the Central Ocean in ships, bound for the Scattered Islands or the Ravlish Lands. When the last ships had departed, there had been lawless rioting in the city, until an uncouth gangster had set himself up as warlord.
Then the city had suffered under the most foul and obscene oppression imaginable. Pack rape and cannibalism had been the least of it.
Finally, two ships had arrived, bearing wizards and soldiers of the Landguard who were loyal to those wizards. Lord Regan was on one of these ships, having joined it at Narba. War had ensued. After a bitter struggle, the wizards and their soldiers had taken over the city – but their victory had been marred by an outbreak of typhus.
After the depredations of tyranny, war and plague, scarcely three thousand people remained in Androl- marphos. With nets and lines, the people wrested fish from the Velvet River and the sea itself. They hunted seabirds and riverfowl. Or they worked under the supervision of the wizards, who had, among other things, set up a manufactory for siege dust.
Androlmarphos traded with Stokos, exchanging siege dust for firelight steel and other products.
What for the future?' said Sarazin. Will the wizards stay here in 'Marphos? Or take over Stokos, perhaps?'
'I cannot speak for that,' said Lord Regan, 'for these days I am but a soldier of the Landguard. They have given me a commander's rank, but, for all that, my position is lowly. I play no part in the high counsels where matters of state are decided.'
Then come with me to Hok!' cried Sarazin, fired with enthusiasm. There I must go, I can do nothing else. My mother and father are there, the tutors of my youth as well -and others, doubtless. That is my future, if anywhere.'
The depression he had suffered on his downriver journey had vanished. He had a goal, a mission, a purpose. To strive to Hok and join his family, or what was left of it. Lord Regan laughed.
'I am sworn to the service of the wizards,' said Lord Regan. 'My future is with them. But perhaps… perhaps I can arrange your passage to Stokos.' To Hok,' said Sarazin, correcting him.
Yes, yes,' said Lord Regan, rising to go. To Hok. I come again tomorrow. Is there anything you'd like?' 'Grapes,' said Sarazin. 'Is that possible?'
'I regret not. But… wine? Yes? Sean Sarazin, I'm sure I can scavenge the most excellent wine. Now I must be off, for I've business to attend to – but Jaluba will stay a little longer and keep you company.'
Stay Jaluba did, but, though her presence was enchant- ing, her conduct was nothing if not chaste. Still, she did vouchsafe Sean Sarazin a single kiss before they parted.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
At first, a passage to Hok seemed impossible to arrange. And Sarazin certainly did not wish to dare the long trek along the coast – not with monsters of the Swarms on the loose. However, in due course Lord Regan brought him the good news. A ship would be made available and Sean Sarazin would be landed on the southern coast of Hok. 'Where precisely?' said Sarazin.
'On the shores of the Willow Vale,' said Lord Regan. That, I understand, is the only sensible place for a visitor to Hok to land.' And Sarazin could but agree.
Nine days after their arrival in Androlmarphos, Sean Sarazin and his dwarf Glambrax set to sea on a barque known as the Green Swan (a name which Sarazin frankly thought better suited to a tavern than to a ship).
Lord Regan was nominally the commander of the ship. Though it was the sea captain who was his subordinate who actually supervised the running of the barque, Lord Regan got the only decent cabin aboard. There he slept at night with his darling Jaluba. And there, during the day, he entertained Sean Sarazin.
Sarazin had been told that the journey from 'Marphos to Hok would probably take them four or five days, or a little longer if they had unfavourable winds. Certainly there was plenty of time for him to talk with Lord Regan and Jaluba.
And talk he did, positively bubbling. He was alert and alive, enthusiastic about life, delighted with the thought of reunion with his father, his mother and the tutors of his youth. So Hok was at war with Stokos. So what? As he looked back over his life, it seemed he had never been much more than a swordstroke away from danger. War in Hok would be no worse than what he had endured already.
And the present was sweet, for he had an admiring audience more than ready to hear all his tales. Once he had exhausted his accounts of hair-raising encounters with tyrants and monsters, he told and retold stories of his past.
Lord Regan, of course, knew that Sarazin had well and truly enjoyed Jaluba in the past. But Lord Regan showed not the slightest sign of jealousy as Jaluba praised Sean Sarazin's skill, bravery and daring.
In time, Sarazin found himself once more telling in detail of his campaign in Hok. In truth, the whole thing had been a shambling disaster. But, as Sarazin told it, the events in Hok had been a true test of heroes.
He told yet again of the storming of the Eagle Pass, the pursuit of the enemy into the Willow Vale, the near- mutiny of his troops when the enemy cut off their retreat, his escape up an arm of the Willow Vale, the long journey underground from the Eastern Passage Gate to the Western Passage Gate.
Then the encounter in X-zox with the madwoman Miss Inch, and the retreat to the Lesser Tower of X-n'dix, where eventually Epelthin Elkin had stayed.
'Tell me again about X-zox,' said Lord Regan. 'Is this underground tunnel the only way into the place?' The enclave is surrounded by mountains,' said Sarazin,
'and the locals allege that the cliffs of the coast permit no landing. I suspect an unknown path leads into the valley, but the only way to X-zox which I know is through the Passage Gates.'
'Then what will you do,' said Lord Regan, 'if you find those Passage Gates closed against you?'
'I'll open them, of course,' said Sarazin. 'It takes but a Word to open such a Gate, and but a Word to close it.' 'What Word is that?' said Lord Regan.
But Sarazin, to his horror, found he had forgotten how to control the Passage Gates. Fortunately, Glambrax remembered the Words to command both the Passage Gates and the door into the Lesser Tower of X-n'dix. Lord Regan and Jaluba paid special attention to the memorising of both.
Suggesting to Sarazin that perhaps they meant to accom- pany him to Hok after all.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The next day, at dawn, the Green Swan slipped past the rugged cliffs of the western end of Hok. Sarazin, promenading on the deck, surveyed the shore, which was barely half a league away. Those cliffs must be those of the enclave of X-zox, and he himself could most certainly see no place which promised a landing.
He looked inland, up a valley rugged but green, to the heights at the head of the valley, some ten leagues or so from the shore. Something gleamed on those heights. Was it the Greater Tower of Castle X-n'dix? What else could it be? The dragon-encumbered tower was bone white and stood half a league tall. -So that must be it.
But no details could be told from this distance. Still, Sarazin would be there soon enough. A few leagues to
