Whereupon Guest restrained himself, for, even though he had defeated his father by avalanche, the Weaponmaster lacked courage sufficient to endure his father's scorn. So Jarl – slowly, deliberately, lovingly – crushed his man, then dropped him into a crumpled heap. Whereupon everyone moved away, saving for Morsh Bataar alone, who somberly covered the dead man with a cloak.
After that, Guest was in no mood to linger, so hastened his army in its march. The army followed the flow of the Pig, keeping to its southern bank. Guest grew increasingly somber on the march, and Sken-Pitilkin began to worry about his condition. For Guest had defeated his father, and was in effect the emperor. As soon as he had seized the city of Gendormargensis as his own, men would recognize him as emperor. If he were ready in compromise and generous with his pardons, then he might well be able to secure the loyalty of the dissident city of Stranagor. And with that done, the entire Collosnon Empire would be under his sway – if not immediately, then soon.
Seeking thus, Sken-Pitilkin sought out Guest when the army camped near the bridge which had been the scene of a battle between Witchlord and Weaponmaster during the summer. Sken-Pitilkin had seek a goodly distance, for the Weaponmaster had walked far from his camp. He had walked through the hot afternoon all the way to the confluence of the Yolantarath and the Pig, which was where Sken-Pitilkin found him. Guest was sitting on the riverbank, watching the waters, while Rolf Thelemite and Morsh Bataar waited at a discrete distance.
On approaching Guest, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon made no attempt to challenge him, or jolly him out of his desponds.
Instead, Sken-Pitilkin sat himself down on the bank and waited. At last Guest said, without anything in the way of preamble:
'Was I right or wrong? Letting those men hang, I mean. Was that right? Or was it wrong?'Sken-Pitilkin gave an ambivalent answer. Not out of dishonesty, but because he himself had not quite made up his mind about the matter.
'Most men would say the thing was rightly done,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'But what say you?' said Guest.
'I'm not necessarily any wiser than my neighbor,' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'But you think I shouldn't have done it.'
'A hanging is an ugly thing,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'An ordered society would surely hold its boat sellers in check, thus preserving them from the gallows. But Ink is no part of any ordered society. Those men you hung, why – they murdered for profit, as was said at their trial. A hanging is an ugly thing, but piracy is worse, and those men were pirates in their commercial deceits.'
'So I did right,' said Guest.
'Do you feel as if you did right?' said Sken-Pitilkin.
'How can you first prove me right then go on to question my rightness?' said Guest.
'I can,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'because you know yourself wrong.'
'Wrong!' said Guest, raising his voice for the first time.
'But you have just proved me right!'Sken-Pitilkin sat silent to let the young man settle, then said:
'I watched you during the hanging.'Guest absorbed that in silence, then said:
'And?'
'And,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'you were moved to pardon Umbilskimp. But you didn't. Why not?'Guest made no answer. He knew the reason why. But Sken-Pitilkin felt the reason had to be made explicit. Had to verbalized – lest it be forgotten.
'You let Jarl kill the man,' said Sken-Pitilkin. 'You let Jarl kill the man because you were afraid to show mercy. You were afraid of your father's scorn.'Guest made no reply. His face was expressionless. He looked out across the river, then picked up a piece of mud and threw it with a jerk. The mud plopped into the river, and, a moment later, was answered by a splash as a fish jumped.
'Since your earliest youth,' said Sken-Pitilkin, 'you have been killing men in brawls with bandits. Killing men and taking their scalps. Ethnology would pardon such habits, so who am I to condemn? As you said yourself, it is but your cultural heritage.
But to kill men for banditry or piracy is one thing. To kill a man because you fear your father's scorn is quite another. If you cannot master the disciplines of mercy, then I think you unfit to master the sword.'Guest absorbed that, too, in silence.
The silence tempted Sken-Pitilkin, and that wizard of Skatzabratzumon was half-persuaded to launch himself into a lecture on avalanches. After all, in the mountains of Ibsen-Iktus, the young Guest Gulkan had casually obliterated his father's army by avalanche – and had never thereafter shown so much as an eyeblink of remorse for the deed. Sken-Pitilkin still felt sorely about that avalanche, particularly as Guest Gulkan had used a swordpoint's threat to compel a certain wizard of Skatzabratzumon to use his levitational powers to trigger that downslide of rocks, ice and fractured snow.
So Sken-Pitilkin opened his mouth – then closed it again, firmly.
After all, in Ibsen-Iktus, Guest had been at war, hence could plead necessity. And, besides, it is contrary to human nature for anyone to concern themselves with large-scale tragedies remote from their own persons. To those who are of tender spirit, the death of a small mouse or the agony of a bird in a cat's jaws makes more impact than the death by starvation of some half a million people in a nation a continent removed. Guest had been closely, intimately concerned with the death of the boat-seller Umbilskimp. That death had been consequent upon Guest's own moral cowardice. For he had seen fit to exercise the prerogative of mercy, yet had restrained himself for mere fear of his father's scorn.
Had Guest a fragile child unschooled in the ways of power, then Sken-Pitilkin might have seen fit to mitigate his suffering with words of comfort and of absolution. But Guest was no such child. He was a warlord's son with a soul as ugly as his bat-flap ears. So Sken-Pitilkin, seeing that the young man was truly suffering, was pleased to see as much. And, having done his duty by making Guest's crime of crimes explicit, unavoidable and (with luck) unforgettable, the wizard of Skatzabratzumon rose, dusted down his fishermen's skirts, and departed without so much as a word of farewell.
Left to himself – for Rolf Thelemite and Morsh Bataar were still keeping their distance, their fumbling attempts at comfort having earlier been rudely rebuffed – Guest Gulkan sat alone by the confluence of the Yolantarath and the Pig.
The Pig, which had earlier flowed clear, was running muddy now, for upstream was Guest Gulkan's army, and men, clothes and horses were being washed in the river's waters. The Pig emptied its muddiness in a whirlygig rush into the slow-mud slurge of the ineffable Yolantarath, the name of which river reminded Guest, by poetic association, of Yerzerdayla, the woman who – he supposed – dwelt still in Gendormargensis.
Now that Guest was emperor, more or less, he supposed he could take the woman from Thodric Jarl. Yes, and hang Jarl unless that Rovac warrior would give him the woman, and swear fealty to him, and lick his boots in proof of such fealty.
So thought Guest.
But such imaginings proved strangely comfortless, for still he could not shake free the memories of the hangings. The bodies black against the sun. Old man Umbilskimp, wheezing heavily, making odd fluttering gestures with his hands as Thodric Jarl lumbered toward him.
The sky was darkening, now, the broad sky above the wide reach of the Yolantarath growing heavy with clouds. As Guest sat by the river, he shivered, suddenly cold. For some reason, he suddenly thought there was snow all around. Which was ridiculous.
Despite the lateness of the season, the first snowfall was yet days distant. Still. Guest imagined snow.
There was snow, and it was cold, and now Guest realize that there was an animal padding through the cold of that snow. It was a beast of snow, and was as white as the snow. He knew its weight from its silence.
Then it breathed upon him.
Its breath was hot on his nape.
In all his life, Guest had endured nothing more terrifying than that hot breath breathing on him from out of the silence of snow. He tried to stand, tried to run. But could not. For his arms and legs were bloody shreds, and as the pain of his mutilations hit him he started to scream, and was screaming still when Rolf Thelemite and Morsh Bataar came running to his rescue.
