pronouncement.
Chala? Sugarlump!?
Pet names, doubtless, and proof of a tenderness of relationship which Sken-Pitilkin had never thought to exist between the dwarf and his mother.
On that journey down the mountainside, Sken-Pitilkin began to suspect that the greater part of Glambrax's habitual brawling, joking, hard-drinking delinquency was insulation – a layer of hard-working diversion designed to cut the dwarf off from the rawness of the painful realities of his own life. For, after all,
Glambrax was as much an exile as Sken-Pitilkin. A hard necessity had driven the dwarf to Tameran, and doubtless in his private moments he suffered from the driving, as did Sken-Pitilkin.
So.
In the unconscious wisdom of his habits, the dwarf Glambrax had configured his life in such a way that he seldom had to endure so much as a single solitary moment of personal reflection from sun-dawn to dusk.
But on these stony, steep-descending slopes, there was no opportunity for brawling distractions. There was instead the coldness of unfeeling reality, the uncompromising solidity of stone, the randomness of scree, and the sharp-beak threats of hunger, thirst and entropy.
Like so many broken cockroaches, the air-wrecked aeronauts stumbled stone by stone down the rockside, mite-made creatures of bony flesh pinpricking their way across the rumplings of geology, their significance dwarfed and denied by the razor-blade heights of hostility which etched the skies above them.
Up on those stone-slice heights – high, high above the rock slopes and scree drifts where the travelers labored – lay white snow-slice eternities of cold. A high wind was scouring a mist of snow from one knife-edge peak, but this was so far above and beyond the travelers that they could not hear so much as a whisper of the crisping and keening of the ferocity of that bright-sun wind. Rather, they labored in stillness, a stillness loud with their harsh- panting breathing, the creaking of their knee joints, the squiff-pulse labors of their hearts.
At the bottom of the slope, when all downlabor was done and their uplabor was about to be commenced, there was a stream which ran toward the east. From which Sken-Pitilkin, learned in geography, deduced that in all probability this valley would ultimately provide them with an escape to the Swelaway Sea, should they choose to follow that stream to the east.
There was no need to ford the stream, since it was bridged. A path came up the valley from out of the east, crossed the stream by way of the bridge, then climbed toward the block-built building up above.
'What now?' asked Guest Gulkan, he who in the folly of his youth still possessed strength sufficient for senseless questions. Guest Gulkan's traveling companions, who were one and all exhausted by the rigors of the mountain heights, wasted no breath on useless reply.
Pelagius Zozimus took the lead.
Pelagius Zozimus, still wearing his elf-bright fish-scale armor, crossed the bridge, then began to mountain- climb upwards, one trudge at a time. After him went Thodric Jarl, mouth agape in a constant, unconscious, almost inaudible lisp of pain – for Jarl was suffering grievously from his broken ribs. Then went Zelafona, leaning on Sken-Pitilkin's country crook. Glambrax dogged his mother's heels, and Sken-Pitilkin followed, half-hoping that Zelafona would drop dead. For if she died then Sken-Pitilkin would be able to recover his country crook, and his journey would be that much easier. Naturally, the wizard had far too much pride to ask for the voluntary return of that instrument.
After Sken-Pitilkin came Guest Gulkan. The boy had long since drawn his sword, and had been abusing that instrument shamelessly, using it as a walking stick.
The Rovac warrior Rolf Thelemite had been bravely trying to resist Guest's example. For Rolf was – he was, wasn't he? – a mighty killer of men. A conqueror of dragons. A slaughterer of kings and emperors. A killer of orcs, ghouls, ghosts and necromancers. As such, he could scarcely abuse the pride of his steel by using it as a walking stick. Could he?
As the way bent upward, the going got harder. Rolf at first walked with a hand on each knee, as if striving the stabilize his knee joints by force of digital pressure. Then at last he drew his sword, and followed Guest's disgraceful example – hoping that Thodric Jarl would not turn and discover him.
In such procession, the air-crashed aeronauts went laboring up the path, making for the building which dominated the heights, and for an uncertain reception at the hands of unknown strangers.
Chapter Ten
Ibsen-Iktus: mountainous area of Tameran, south of Babaroth, east of Locontareth, west of Swelaway Sea and far to the north of Favanosin. This impoverished upthrust of impenetrable rocks lies beyond the borders of the Witchlord's realm, for Lord Onosh lays no claim of conquest on these snow-strewn heights.
So it was that in the spring of his 17th year, shortly after his 16th birthday, the young Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan found himself airwrecked in the mountains with the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, with the dralkosh Zelafona and her dwarf-son Glambrax, with the gray-bearded warrior Thodric Jarl and with Jarl's compatriot Rolf Thelemite.
The light of day was beginning to fail as the wanderers approached the building which they had earlier spied from afar. To walk was a labor, and on the last stages of their climb they were forced to pause after each and every step.
As has been said, the valley of their airwrecking ran from east to west, and the building to which the aeronauts were bent was set high on the northern slopes. This formidable behemoth of a building had a frontage which was all of half a thousand paces in length, and its height, by Sken-Pitilkin's estimate, was upwards of two hundred paces. As they closed with the building, the travelers saw that its windowless frontage was covered with huge ceramic tiles, each the height of a man.
In the freshness of their first creation, these tiles must have been glorious with color, but now they were suncracked and weatherstained, and some had fallen away altogether to reveal the stolid gray stone which lay beneath the decorations.
'I'm tired and cold,' said Thodric Jarl, who by this time was in a very bad temper. 'Let's get inside.'
Jarl's temper was bad because to move – or even just to breathe – was to be stabbed by knives.
'You look,' said Guest, 'very much as if you were in pain.'
'I am,' said Jarl, who saw no point in denying it. 'I've broken a couple of ribs.'
Jarl's speech was curt, as usual, his accents hard – but in truth he felt as tender as a ripe tomato enduring a sledgehammer's playful tap. He felt as if he might burst into tears at any moment.
Chronic pain will tax the courage of the bravest. To resolve on one's death – ah, this is easy, at least when one is sufficiently enraged. Anger solves the problem. One decides for death, one charges one's enemies – and all decision is gone, for there is no way out. Jarl had done as much in the past, surviving more through luck than anything else.
But to make a mountainscape trek with a set of broken ribs puts far greater demands upon character. When one's ribs are broken, every step demands a new decision. The rigors of this choice, with its constant demands on his courage, had brought Jarl to the very edge of emotional collapse.
'Are you ribs badly broken?' said Rolf.
A useless question, for how could Jarl know the answer?
Perhaps his bones were merely cracked, in which case pain would be the worst of the consequences. Or perhaps the bones had splintered in places to sharpened knives, in which case Jarl might abruptly get spiked through the lung, and die of internal bleeding.
'They hurt like hell,' said Jarl shortly, and stumped toward the single centrally placed gateway which pierced the building's tiled facade.
'We'll know the truth of his breakages soon enough,' said Guest. 'If he starts coughing blood we can count one lung as good as gone for certain.'
Then Guest Gulkan and Rolf Thelemite fell in behind Thodric Jarl, watching him intently to see if he would start coughing up his heart's blood, which gave a certain interest to the proceedings which would otherwise have been lacking.
