I was never more proud of him, nor held him in greater esteem, as at that moment.”
Oramen put his hand on the tall warrior’s arm. “Thank you, Loesp.”
“It is my pleasure and my duty, young prince. I am but the stake to support a sapling.”
“You have supported me well in this, and I am in your debt.”
“Never so, sir. Never so.” Tyl Loesp smiled at Oramen for a moment or two, then his gaze flicked to somewhere behind the prince and he said, “Here, sir. Look; a more welcome face.”
“My prince,” said a voice behind Oramen.
He turned to find his old friend Tove Lomma standing there, smiling.
“Tove!” Oramen said.
“Equerry Tove, if you’ll have me, Prince Regent.”
“Equerry?” Oramen asked. “To me? Of mine?”
“I’d hope! Nobody else would have me.”
“In fact, a most able young man,” tyl Loesp said, clapping both Lomma and Oramen on the shoulders. “Remember merely that he is meant to keep you out of mischief, not lay a course towards it.” Tyl Loesp smiled at Oramen. “I’ll leave you two to plot much good behaviour.” He bowed shortly and left.
Tove looked rueful. “Not a day for mischief, prince. Not this one. But we must hope there will be many in the future.”
“We’ll share none if you don’t call me by my name, Tove.”
“Tyl Loesp instructed me most strictly that you were the Prince Regent, nothing more familiar,” Tove said, and pretended to frown.
“Consider that order rescinded, by me.”
“Duly agreed, Oramen. Let’s have a drink.”
8. Tower
“Fate, I tell you, if not the hand of the WorldGod itself… or whatever manipulatory appendage WorldGods possess. Anyway, the hand, metaphorically, of the WorldGod. Possibly.”
“I think you underguess the workings of blind chance, sir.”
“Blind chance that took me to that dreadful place?”
“Unarguably, sir: your startled mount ran cross-country until it found a track; naturally it then took the levelled road rather than the coarse ground and of course it took the easier, downhill route. Then that old mill appeared, on the first place where the road widens and levels out. Natural place for it to stop.”
Ferbin looked across at the prone form of his servant, lying on the ground a couple of strides away across the leaf-littered ground with a large blue leaf poised over his head. Choubris Holse looked calmly back.
They had flown straight out from the Scholastery until hidden from it by a line of low hills, then set down on a sloped heath above the limit of cultivated land.
“I think I’ve heard of the D’neng-oal Tower,” Ferbin said, while they inspected the two grumbling, huffing caude, “but I’m damned if I know which way it is.”
“Same here, sir,” said Holse. He opened up one of the saddle bags on his beast. “Though with any luck there’ll be a map in here. Let me just have a quick furtle.” He dug his hand elbow-deep into the bag.
The saddle bags yielded maps, some food, a little water, a telescope, a heliograph, two hefty pocket chronometers, one barometer/altimeter, some rifle and pistol ammunition but no weapons, four small bomblets like smooth hand grenades with cruciform flights, padded jackets, gauntlets, one small blanket each and the usual paraphernalia of tack associated with caude, including a good supply of the krisk nuts they found so stimulating. Holse popped one in the mouth of each animal; they mewed and whinnied appreciatively. “Ever tried these things, sir?” Holse asked, holding up the bag of krisk.
“No,” Ferbin lied. “Of course not.”
“Bloody horrible. Bitter as a scold’s piss.” He put the bag away, fastened the saddle bags and adjusted his saddle. “And these bastard knights that came to the Scholastery must be ascetics or something, for there’s no sign of any of the little niceties that make life bearable for the common man, sir. Like wine, or unge, or crile. Bloody fliers.” Holse shook his head at such lack of consideration.
“No goggles or masks either,” Ferbin pointed out.
“Must have carried them with them.”
Holse was checking one of the pistol rounds they’d discovered in the saddle bags against one from his own gun. “Let’s have a quick look, and then be off, eh, sir?” he said, then shook his head and dumped all the ammunition on the heath.
They consulted the maps, one of which was of sufficient scale to show the land for nearly ten days’ flying around Pourl, depicting hundreds upon hundreds of the great Towers as well as the shade limits and periods of the various Rollstars.
“There it is,” Ferbin said, tapping on the map.
“What would you say, sir? Four short-days’ flying?”
“More like three,” Ferbin said, glad to have found a practical subject he knew so much more of than his servant. “Five Towers along and one down, four times over, then three and one. Away from Pourl, which is to the good.” He glanced up at Obor. Its red-tinged bulk was still barely above the horizon as it rose upon its slow and settled course. “It’s a long-day today. We shall have to let the beasts day-sleep, but we should achieve the tower before dusk.”
“Could do with a snooze myself,” Holse yawned. He looked disparagingly at his mount, which had tucked its long neck under its massive body to lick its genitals. “Rather hoped I’d seen the last of these things this close, I do confess, sir.” Holse’s caude removed its head from between its legs, though only long enough for it to fart long and loud, as though to confirm its new rider’s poor opinion.
“You are not enamoured of the beasts of the air, Holse?”
“Indeed not, sir. If the gods had meant us to fly they’d have given us the wings and the caude the pox.”
“If they hadn’t meant us to fly, gravity would be stronger,” Ferbin replied.
“I wasn’t aware it was adjustable, sir.”
Ferbin smiled tolerantly. He realised that his servant might not be versed in the kind of alien lore that would insist that what he and Holse had known all their lives as normal gravity was about half Standard, whatever that really meant.
“However,” Holse said. “Let’s get moving, eh?” They both went to saddle up.
“Best put these jackets on,” Ferbin said. “It’ll be cold up there.” He gestured upwards. “Clouds are clearing so we’ll be able to go high.”
Holse sighed. “If we must, sir.”
“I’ll work the clock, shall I?” Ferbin held up the chronometer.
“That necessary, sir?”
Ferbin, who had got lost while flying too many times, mistakenly thinking that you could never miscount things as big as Towers — or fall asleep in the saddle, for that matter — said, “I think it advisable.”
They had flown without incident at the altitude best for caude cruising stamina. They had seen other fliers far in the distance, but had not been approached. The landscape moved slowly beneath them, changing from tiny fields to stretches of waste and heath that were low hills, then back to fields, small towns, and great glaring areas of bright green that marked the roasoaril plantations whose fruits went to feed the refineries which produced the fuel to power the steam engines of the modern age.
Slowly over the horizon appeared a handful of long fingers of shining water that were the Quoluk Lakes.
