a seven-day delay. You are not to make any attempt to free the Wormlord from Saxo Pall. Not for seven days. Likewise, you are not to make any move against Herself. Not for seven days, and even then not without the Bank’s permission. Do you agree to these constraints upon your actions?’
Alfric did not.
But what he actually said was:
‘Naturally I am willing to do everything which is possible to further the plans of the Bank, but I scarcely see that what the Bank now demands comes under that heading. The Yudonic Knights have been stirred up. Even now, they are readying themselves for confrontation and battle. To cool their blood is something I think beyond my powers. If the Bank wishes me to undertake this thing, then the Bank must provide me with a suitable strategy, for the task is quite beyond my unaided powers.’
Alfric felt very pleased with himself.
The Bank could demand much, but surely it could not demand the impossible. And stopping the Knights was impossible, wasn’t it? Surely.
Banker Xzu smiled.
‘Alfric,’ said Xzu, ‘I’m glad to hear that you’re willing to co-operate. Naturally the Bank doesn’t expect you to undertake this difficult task unaided. Our best minds have gone to work on the problem, deciding how best we can help you arrange a seven-day delay.’
‘And?’
‘We have prepared a messenger for you. Our best hypnotists have been working on the man, and he is perfect. He is a peasant by name of Norton Brick. You will take him to an inn which you are in the habit of frequenting. The Green Cricket, that’s the one. You will buy this Norton Brick a drink or two. Then, at an appropriate moment, you will say a particular trigger word.’
‘Which is?’ said Alfric.
‘The word is tolfrigdalakaptiko.’
Alfric knew this word. It was from the Janjuladoola tongue, and denoted a specialized dish based on seagull livers.
‘So I say the word,’ said Alfric. ‘A trigger word, I take it. This — this Brick will pour out his story. Is that right?’
‘If the hypnotists have done their job correctly,’ said Xzu. ‘And, as you know, given the right subject, they rarely fail. They judge Brick to be perfect for our purposes.’
‘So Brick tells his story,’ said Alfric. ‘What will that story be?’
‘The story,’ said Xzu, ‘will concern the death of Herself at the hands of a marauding pack of vampires.’
‘Oh, come on!’ said Alfric. ‘Nobody will believe that!’
‘Nobody has to believe it,’ said Xzu. ‘It is an excuse, that’s all. Your excuse for asking the Yudonic Knights to call off the release of the Wormlord. After all, the Knights only wish to free the Wormlord so he can march against Herself. Is that not so?’
‘You suggest,’ said Alfric, ‘that the Knights will be ready to accept such an excuse, even if they doubt its veracity. You suggest, then, that the Knights are cowards.’
‘Alfric, Alfric,’ said Xzu, with a sigh, ‘don’t be so naive. You know yourself the Knights of Wen Endex are big on boast and small on action. Trust me. Trust us. Trust the Bank. The knightly mentality yielded long ago to our analysis. A little drink, a few songs, and these people can be tempted into committing themselves to the most outrageously heroic causes. But, once the drink wears off, so too does their resolution. Take the peasant, Alfric. Get him drunk. Say the trigger word. Here his story. Then retail it to the Knights with whatever elaborations you see fit. They will happily believe Herself to be dead, at least until we tell them otherwise.’
Well.
What Xzu said had some logic to it.
The plan was at least worth trying, if Alfric really wanted a delay.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Alfric.
‘Good,’ said Xzu. ‘What was the trigger word?’
‘Tolfrigdalakaptiko,’ said Alfric. ‘I won’t forget it.’
But, once Alfric had the peasant Norton Brick in his possession, Alfric cast the trigger word from his mind. Because Alfric had made up his mind. He would not do what the Bank wanted. Whatever secret ‘political concerns’ had led the Bank to seek a delay in the Wormlord’s release, Alfric was still going to pursue his own ends.
He was going to see the Wormlord set free and Herself killed, and was then going to make himself king, with or without the support of the Bank.
Thus decided, Alfric took Norton Brick to the Green Cricket, got him drunk then left him there, the trigger word unspoken and the story untold.
Then Alfric went home to his house on Vamvelten Street, and there prepared his gear for the journey which lay ahead. One of his jobs was to clean and sharpen the deathsword Bloodbane, for he had decided this was very much the blade to take to war against Herself.
When Alfric at last went to bed, he slept long, and dreamt his way through many tangled dreams. This was understandable, for he was exhausted by his confrontation with Comptroller Xzu. His recent fever had left him weak, and he needed his sleep.
But the dreams of that sleep were tormented.
Alfric Danbrog dreamt of Herself. Blighted was Her birth and pitiless was Her growth. He dreamt that a company of Yudonic Knights marched against Herself, and in his dreams he saw that even these staunch warriors feared to march against such a shrewd and ruthless foe.
Then dream became nightmare, and he dreamt that his father was dead, killed by Herself. Alfric stood by his father’s body, overcome by the cruellest of griefs. The flayed corpse was hideous in death, and Alfric wept over it. His tears fell red-hot to the earth and there became buttons of bronze.
A dreamshift took him.
And Alfric found himself running as a wolf through drenching forests while helmeted men pursued him. Grim was their pursuit, and silent, utterly silent, the whole thing was silent, though he was breaking through branches in his panic, and tearing his way through webworks of thorns. Even though he screamed in anguish, nevertheless his world was silent, for he could not hear himself killed.
Abruptly, Alfric burst from the woods into the streets of Galsh Ebrek, and found himself running between carts piled high with scorlins of seaweed. Then he found himself floundering amidst shellfish and driftwood, his wolf become eel.
Then After a series of strange transitions in which he imagined himself first bird and then fox, Alfric dreamt that he was standing in the Imperial Court in Tang, his body days unwashed and his clothes in like condition. With him was the sea dragon Qa, and, to Alfric’s distress, the great poet stank of rotten meat and regurgitated fish. Nevertheless, the Emperor of Tang was polite. The Emperor sipped from a cup. Nectar was in that cup, but this drink with blood was blended, and somehow the Emperor’s voice was mixed up with that of King Dimple-Dumpling, and And another dreamshift took Alfric to a cave deep-delved in the Qinjoks, and there he did battle with the ogre king. Bloodbane was in Alfric’s hand, and flames of blood ran bright-burning down the blade as he matched his skills of slaughter against the monsters who confronted him. Then the sword became a horse, and he mounted it, the bit-clenching beast bearing him away to a cave where he stood knee-deep in seawater. There were rings in the water, rings glinting cold and gold in the gloom of the sea. Drowned in the same water were many blades of war, and gilded cups which had once kissed the lips of kings.
And Alfric, in his dream, knew himself to be dreaming of death; and knew that this was because he expected to shortly die.
Then the images changed, though their burden did not; and Alfric dreamt himself to be once more in the Spiderweb Castle, looking upon the blanched faces of princes once bounteous, watched the frozen flesh of a long- dead sage who still bent as if to construe the runes, listening to the echoes of the voices of ghosts…
Then the dreams changed again.
And Alfric found himself dreaming that he was trapped in the sagaworld of the songs of the Yudonic Knights of Wen Endex.
In his dreams, Alfric longed to escape to his desk at the Bank, to the clean world of paperwork, the ordered world of interest rates and agiotage. But he could not escape. He was doomed to a world of boiling oceans and
