"You see how young they are?" said the warden softly. "That is the work of Arunis, the King's old sorcerer. When they irritated him he would cast spells to make them sleep for days, weeks, even. Once they slept for three years-then ran about like mad puppies for a month. But it is an enchanted sleep, for they age not when they slumber. They should be nearing fifty, but they are half that."
"Is there no means of waking them?" I asked.
"Their father discovered one. He sets their clothes on fire."
"Rin's teeth!"
"That is why they refuse to wear anything but those robes. They can be thrown off in an instant."
The third floor held a library full of moldering books in Mzithrini script. We pressed on to the next floor, which was the highest. An elegant bedroom met our eyes, with large windows open to the breeze. Sandor Ott stood to our left, stock-still, fingering a sharp little piece of the broken plate, his face glowing with some unspeakable fervor. And across from him was the S-.
He stood empty-handed by the window, gazing fixedly at the spymaster. I wrote already of his visage, his monstrous scars, but did I mention his eyes? They are red-tinted, as if he stares always through that curtain of blood he came so near to drawing over all the world. I knew he would be here, and yet I stood in awe. Those hands had strangled princes. That mouth had talked whole countries into joining his lunatic war. This prodigy of murder was now become a tool, but whose exactly? The Emperor's? Sandor Ott's? My own?
You see, Father, the S-saw everything backward. He thought we were his.
"You are late," he rumbled, breaking the silence. "Midwinter I began to call you, bending my will across the Nelu Peren. Now at last you come, with the year half spent and the White Fleet moving again. Why do you make your lord wait?"
I have known Sandor Ott for decades, Father, but never before had I seen him afraid. He was breathing hard, and not from the exertion of the stairs. Nonetheless he stepped forward and spoke through his teeth.
"Creature!" he said. "If some part of you is untouched by madness, hear me welclass="underline" in my hands you are no God. You are a maggot. And I am the fisherman who baits his hook with you! If you wriggle, you do so for my sake. If you live it is because I wish it. Displease me in the smallest matter and I shall prove your mortality by casting you into the sea!"
"Will you?" said the S-. "After forty years?"
No one answered Ott and the S-looked like two old wolves, each waiting for the other to spring. Then His Nastiness glanced at the rest of us for the first time, his face indifferent. We were beneath his notice.
"Warden," he said, "I choose to leave on this man's ship, for the hour foretold at the world's making is come round at last, and soon I shall possess my kingdom. But you must not think of leaving Licherog. You will stay and guard my library, and my stallions, and my goat."
The warden sniveled, like a child used to spankings. "Of course, Majesty! Where else would I go? What other task could I aspire to?"
"Do not lie!" the S-suddenly roared, lifting his hands. "When I return I shall bear the Nilstone in my left hand, Sathek's Scepter in my right! Master of all Alifros shall I be, and whosoever lies to the Master shall know his wrath!"
"I do not lie, Majesty-"
"Where are my sons? You spawn of a tick! Bring them! I swear on the Casket you shall die in the bowels of this prison, wailing, the fires of the Nine Pits licking your mind. Your mouth shall fill with ashes, your eyes-"
Ott and Drellarek moved as one. Drellarek struck His Nastiness a blow to the stomach that stopped his ranting. Ott did something with his hand, too quick for the eye to follow. There was a splash of blood: for a moment I thought he had murdered the fiend. Then I saw him hold up a bit of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. It was one of the S's ear-lobes.
The monster-king staggered, groaning. Ott threw him a handkerchief "Stanch your wound, maggot," he said. "And never forget this: Sandor Ott draws blood once as a warning. Once."
I had little appetite for dinner. That night I tried to sleep ashore, but the spirits on Licherog outnumber the prisoners as the dead outnumber the living, and no chains kept them from my room, where they moaned, begged for sweets, accused me of ridiculous crimes. I went back to my ship. And before dawn I rose and found Uskins on the forecastle as planned. We sent the whole night watch below, and when we stood alone Drellarek and his thugs brought His Nastiness and sons aboard, wrapped up like babes in swaddling cloths. They are hidden now in a deep part of the ship, as carefully as I hid the Emperor's gold.
Before we cast off from Licherog the warden came to shake my hand. "Will the Emperor let you retire now?" I asked. The man was a simpering wretch, but he had done his job.
"Oh!" said he. "The Emperor promised years ago that my banishment would end when those three departed Licherog. But I do not know. Every kingdom needs its jailors, and this place is not so very awful, sometimes."
"It's a swillhole! And festering with ghosts besides! Get out of here, man!"
"There's the S-'s warning to think of, Captain."
By the Pits, Father, that was the strangest moment of our landfall. This man knew the scheme: how we were throwing the S-at our enemies as one might throw a dog at a marauding bear, not because the dog can survive, but because it can weaken and distract the bear. And yet he feared-the dog! Not the Emperor or the White Fleet, not disease, nor being strangled some night by any one of the ten thousand killers on that rock. Only his ex-prisoner: and so much so that he planned to stay on Licherog through his declining years, feeding that madman's goat.
He found time for a last loony caper, this fellow. We were on the gangway. I had just seen the S-hidden away, and told the warden goodbye, when I saw him staring up at the Chathrand, transfixed. "I thought you had cleared the deck!" he cried.
So I had: there was no one in sight but the sailors returning to their posts, and one other: a soap merchant named Ket. The man paces many nights away on deck-says he cannot breathe in his cabin-and it was he who somehow saved that nuisance Hercуl. Mr. Ket looked up, smiled and bowed to each of us in turn.
"Relax, he saw nothing," I murmured. But the warden was gone. I turned and there he was, fleeing across the quay. He did not stop running until he reached the top of the stairs and had passed through the door of his prison.
Knaves, fools, madmen: you see how I am surrounded, Father? As ever, I remain your obedient son,
N. R. Rose
P.S. Mother is again demanding golden swamp tears. I tell her those bath crystals are hard to acquire, since they form only when lightning scalds an ancient cypress while its sap is running. Still she insists, daily now, and goes so far as to call me "an ungrateful child." Would it tax you, sir, to explain the matter gently?
1* "His Nastiness" appears in many letters and log entries by Captain Rose. Scholars debated his true identity until this letter was unearthed on Mereldнn. Little doubt remains that the term refers to the Shaggat Ness.-EDITOR
2* In several places Rose appears to have blotted out the word Shaggat before sealing the envelope.-EDITOR.
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The Flikkermen tied Pazel's hands and feet and threw him into the well. He plunged twenty feet into black water, certain they meant to drown him and chop his body into fish food, and blind with terror as he was, part of him felt insulted to be considered so worthless.
Seconds later he was dragged out of the water and up onto a cold stone floor. He sputtered and gagged. In the darkness ten or twelve bare-chested Flikkermen squatted around him, whispering and croaking. They soon stripped him of his gold, his knife and his mother's ivory whale. All three delighted them, and they patted his face with their round, sticky fingertips and said "Shplegmun"-good boy.