‘Me?’ said Alfric, startled.
‘But of course,’ said Xzu, smoothly. ‘You must win yourself a share of the Wormlord’s glory. Otherwise how can you rightly claim the throne?’
‘But… but the Wormlord will die.’
‘Will he?’
‘Yes,’ said Alfric, trying to conceal his fear, his anger. ‘Nobody can contend against Herself.’
‘Oh, come now,’ said Xzu, sounding amused. ‘You’ve dared against monsters thrice. Monsters are nothing. You dared against them solo, yet survived. Survived? You triumphed!’
‘With help, yes,’ said Alfric coldly. ‘But She is not a foolish sea dragon or a brain-damaged giant. No. She is Herself, and She is nightmare.’
‘Nightmare?’ said Xzu carelessly. ‘The word has been used of the vampires, you know. ’
‘Yes, I know, I know,’ said Alfric. ‘But the vampires were easiest of all. They wanted to deal with us, and we knew it. The same does not go for Herself. Or have you a secret to tell me? Has She been to the bank to ask for a loan, for a mortgage? Does she want to build herself a nice little cottage with carpets clean on the floor, a housecat by the hearth?’
Xzu made no answer to this sarcastic sally.
Instead, he pushed a parchment across his desk.
‘A promotion,’ said Xzu. ‘Your promotion. From Banker Third Class to Banker Second Class. You will note it is conditional. It becomes effective as soon as you return from a quest against Herself. A quest, please note, which you must undertake in the Wormlord’s company.’ Alfric took it, read it, pushed it back.
‘I’ll think about it,’ said he.
‘Take your time,’ said Xzu. ‘But make sure your time isn’t too much time. We’ll see you back here once you’ve… once you’ve made a contribution to our welfare. Go now, friend banker, and may the Spirit of the Ledgers go with you, and may the Seven Demons of Usury confound your enemies, and may the power of the Great Schroff be with you. ’
The invoking of these imaginary entities was a ponderous joke, a jejune joke of the kind that both Alfric and Xzu had outgrown long ago. Nevertheless, it was a Bank joke, confirming the pair as bankers in league against the world; and Alfric smiled, heartened by the comradeship the joke implied.
He rose, and went to the door.
Just before Alfric exited the room, Xzu spoke again, saying:
‘Good luck, Alfric.’
‘Thank you,’ said Alfric, and left.
But though Alfric had thanked Comptroller Xzu for that parting benediction, the way it had been framed was not altogether to his liking. For Xzu had addressed him as‘Alfric’.
Izdarbolskobidarbix was the name he chose to use in the Bank; and, though he had long pardoned the occasional use of ‘Alfric’ or ‘Danbrog’ by his peers and superiors, he nevertheless resented such inaccuracy. He felt (perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he was oversensitive, but what he could not deny were his own feelings) that Xzu had been deliberately putting him at a distance by calling him ‘Alfric’, and that Xzu’s use of that name constituted, in some sense, a subtle casting out.
Certainly Alfric was being exiled from the Bank, at least for the moment. Exiled until he had ‘made a contribution’ to the Bank’s welfare. He was under orders, then. He had to rouse the Yudonic Knights to action, to free the Wormlord from his imprisonment, then march with the Wormlord to do battle with Herself.
Alfric felt this to be grossly unfair.
Surely he had done enough already.
The odds had been in his favour when he had fought with the sea dragon Qa. Nevertheless, a single mistake could have seen him killed. As for the swamp giant — that encounter had been more dangerous yet. And the vampires were not exactly harmless.
‘Still,’ said Alfric, ‘I’m not being given any choice in the matter.’
So he went to see his father, and, a night later, the pair met with two dozen of the most knightly of the Yudonic Knights. The site of this conclave was Grendel Danbrog’s barn.
Here the Yudonic Knights, with drinking horns in hand, celebrated the hero-feats of Alfric Danbrog.
‘Grendelson!’ they roared. ‘Grendelson! Hero!’
And Alfric, though he was slightly embarrassed by their enthusiasm, acknowledged this homage gracefully.
Then his father called the meeting to order.
‘As you know,’ said Grendel Danbrog, ‘Ursula Major has imprisoned her father in his sickbed.’
‘Shame! ’ cried someone.
Then others cried aloud, saying foul things about the virginal Ursula. Grendel hushed them down a low roar, then went on:
‘This we know to be wrong. Above all else, the matter of Herself and Her doings is much on my mind. For too long has Her hideous hymn of triumph dominated our dreams. It is time for us to take in hand the ancient iron and pursue Her to Her lair, and there to hack and hew Her flesh until She is dead. ’
Cries of enthusiastic applause greeted this proposition.
‘But,’ said Grendel, ‘we cannot go alone. We need a leader. Only one man has the strength to be that leader. And that is Tromso Stavenger, our beloved Wormlord.’ Then Grendel launched himself into the much-beloved story of the youthful feats of the Wormlord, who had dared Her son, and had wrestled that monster to a standstill in a fight in which sinews had snapped and bone-joints had broken freely, and who had then killed Her son and cut off his head.
‘That is our leader,’ said Grendel. ‘A hero true. That is the leader we must have if we are to dare ourselves to Her lair and engage ourselves in loathsome strife with Her strength.’
The Yudonic Knights had no trouble at all in convincing themselves that a scorning of peace well becomes a man; that they were made for death and danger; that their king was a hero and would lead them to deathless glory; and that launching a savage assault upon Herself would be a truly enjoyable experience once they got into it.
Soon they were joying in the deed as if it had already been accomplished.
‘It is a foul offence to life and honour that we should let Her live when Her death can be so easily accomplished,’ said one, his boast representative of ruling opinion.
Alfric sat down in a comer and closed his eyes in something like despair. So they were really going to do it. So he could not return to the Bank and say they had refused.
He had a vision of what would really happen. When they came face to face with Herself, the Yudonic Knights would ran. Their fathers had done as much on similar expeditions in the days of the past, so why should the sons be any different? Then She with Her baleful glare would transfix any fool who still stood against Her, then She would advance, and conquer, and kill, and glut Her greed on the flesh of the fallen.
So thinking, Alfric was minded to sever his own throat on the spot. To die in a warm and comfortable bam. Far better, surely, than to go wandering through the fens in search of Herself, and meet a hideous death when Her grisly rounds brought them into confrontation.
But Alfric’s father had no such fearful thoughts. He was boasting with as much enthusiasm as the rest of them.
‘Words and deeds,’ said Grendel, quaffing good ale which he was far too drunk to appreciate. ‘Great words and great deeds to match them. Of such is the life of men.’
Then Grendel began to sing the old songs, songs of fresh-tarred ships and voyages across the Winter Sea to wars in foreign lands; songs of kings with boar-heads rampant on their helms, kings armed with iron fire-hardened; songs of heroes and their conquests.
While his father sung thus, Alfric remembered other songs: funeral dirges mournful in mood, telling of the death of lordly ships, the wailing of bed-mates, the burial of fallen kings, the wrath of battle-surge flames consuming the fallen. Such things happened. Even acknowledged heroes did not always triumph in their quests.
But no such thoughts spoiled the triumph of Grendel Danbrog, who boasted now of the great deeds of the past as if they were his very own:
