Kerin blinked as he realized that one of those disembarking was a woman. Like many of the men, she wore only a wrap-around skirt. At the distance Kerin could not discern her age or comeliness; but she had the same deep-brown Salimorese skin as the men. A cord was tied around her wrist, with the other end in the fist of a man; she was patently a captive.
The men approached Pwana, who stood like a mahogany statue waiting. For a while the hermit engaged three pirates, for Kerin was now sure that so they were, in a low-voiced dialogue. Then one of the trio, a big, stout, scarfaced man with more beard than most Salimorese, shouted in accented Salimorese:"Seize him! He denies he has hidden treasure, but I know better. This is Pwana, the wizard and prophet of some god, who fled Salimor when his thieveries became too great to be hidden!"
Several pirates sprang upon Pwana, who did not resist as they bound his wrists, pushed him roughly to where the others were setting up camp and building a fire, and threw him down upon the sand. The boat, manned by two men, was on its way back to the ship.
Kerin heard a buzz of conversation, much of which he missed through unfamiliarity with the language. The sun was subsiding when the boat returned with bags of food and a couple of casks. An argument raged on how best to persuade Pwana to reveal the place of his hoard. The fire crackled and sent a pillar of blue-gray smoke aloft to the banded sky. At last the stout man, evidently the leader, roared:
"Nay, I say his feet shall be pushed into the fire, little by little! I have always found that effective."
A pirate said: "Captain Malgo, can we bugger him first?"
"Forget it," said the captain. "Business before pleasure."
"We had better start soon," said another. "If he be a wizard, he may have magic to counter pain or extinguish the fire."
The name "Malgo" stirred a buried memory in Kerin's mind. He was sure he had heard it but knew not when or where. Moreover, the man looked like a Novarian. He was bigger than any of his crew, and the rugged features on his scar-crossed visage distinguished him from the glabrous faces and almond eyes of the Salimorese.
"Right!" said Captain Malgo. "Tubanko, you and Bantal haul him to the fire."
Two pirates seized Pwana's ankles and pulled until his feet were close to the crimson blaze. Malgo stood over him, growling: "Now, my fine wizard, wilt talk?"
"I have told you I have no such treasure," came the thin, high voice of the hermit. "Burn me, flay me, or slay me, it makes no difference. I cannot give what I possess not."
Kerin gathered his feet beneath him, preparatory to rising. "Master Kerin!" said Belinka's voice. "What folly is this? Keep out of sight!"
Kerin knew the advice was sound. Even his intrepid brother, who had survived such desperate adventures, would have told Kerin to stay under cover, at least until dark. But Kerin could not help himself. Even as he sternly told himself not to be a fool, an irresistible urge impelled him to rise and draw his sword. He pushed through the fringe of scrub and walked, with an air of more confidence than he felt, to where the pirates were clustered around Pwana. He said:
"Captain Malgo!"
The massive pirate spun around. "Whence in the seven hells came you? Who art, and what would you?"
"Kerin of Ardamai, at your service. Are you brave?"
"Some have thought so. Why?"
"Then I will fight you for the lives of Doctor Pwana and the young woman. If I kill you, your men shall depart, leaving us unmolested. If you slay me, then of course you will do as you list."
"Of all the crazy—" began Malgo. But one of his men cried out:
"Take him up, Captain! You'll chop him into gobbets, giving us rare sport." Others took up the cry.
"Novarian, aren't you?" said Malgo.
"Aye, sir. Will you fight?"
"Anon. What's this nonsense about leaving Princess Nogiri and the hermit with you? Think you we're daft, to give up a handsome ransom and a chance at his treasure, on a whim? My men will let you go if you win, agreed; but forget the princess and the hermit. They're ours."
"But Captain, consider—"
"Enough chatter!" shouted Malgo. "Have at you, silly boy!"
The captain had drawn a scabbarded sword from his sash. Now he whipped out the sword, a long weapon with a wavy, serpentine blade like those of some of the other pirates. He held the scabbard in his left hand against his forearm and raised the arm to guard with. Then he rushed upon Kerin, who had barely time to get his guard up when the pirate leader caught his blade in a
prise
, whirled it around, and sent it spinning out of Kerin's grasp into the scrub.
Malgo roared with laughter. "Anyone can see you're a tyro at swordplay, youngling. Seize him! He shall give us rare pleasure ere we let him die."
Kerin turned to run. But a pirate tripped him, another landed on his back, and others bound his wrists and ankles.
"Good!'' cried a pirate. "A real man would rather bugger a well-thewed youth than futter a mere woman any day!"
Captain Malgo stood over the recumbent Kerin, saying: "What said you your name was?"
"Kerin of Ardamai, or Kerin Evor's son."
"Ha! Hast a brother named Jorian?"
"Aye." Then it occurred to Kerin that he had been disastrously indiscreet. This Malgo must be he who had once been Jorian's fellow recruit in the Othomaean army and later his jailer. Jorian had told how, wrongly blaming Jorian for loss of his post, Malgo had tried to murder Jorian. The man had been subdued and, with the help of Jorian's friend the sorceress Goania, Jorian had put upon Malgo a geas to take ship for the Far East. To reveal himself as kin to one whom Malgo viewed as a mortal foe was the abyssal depth of folly.
A pirate said: "When we are done with him, we'll hang his head from the bowsprit, to show what happens to those who vex us!"
"Nay!" said Malgo. "I have mine own plans for this head. His kin are mine enemies; so I will pack the head in a cask of salt and send it to them. I only regret I shan't be there when they open the cask." He kicked Kerin.
"We could hang it from the bowsprit for a while and then dispatch it as you say, Captain," said another.
"Nay; the sea birds would damage it beyond recognition." Malgo kicked Kerin again.
Struggling for breath from the last kick, which had battered his ribs, Kerin said: "You should have more consideration for a fellow Novarian, Captain."
Malgo kicked Kerin again and spoke in the Othomaean city dialect of Novarian: "And ye should have better sense than meddle in things that concern you not."
"Couldn't I join your crew?"
"I have a full crew and no need for rash boys; nor am I fain to give up the pleasure of your slow death." He kicked Kerin again.
"But listen! Since you left Novaria, you've risen to chief of this band, with your own ship. So my brother really did you a favor, didn't he?"
"Oh, hold thy tongue!" Malgo roared, kicking Kerin again. "I'm a man of deeds, not words, and I'll not let you turn me from my course by fine talk!"
Sunk in misery, Kerin fell silent. Facing death was bad enough, but this death promised to be in a peculiarly disgraceful, degrading form. If others had not been present, he would have wept.
"Fool! Ninnyhammer!" squeaked Belinka from the air above him. Kerin had already come to that conclusion himself; but what else could he have done?
The sun sank below the sea rim, leaving bands of red, yellow, and green below the deepening blue, mottled by meager clouds, of the sky. Overhead the half-moon brightened. Several pirates strolled past, pausing to kick Kerin and to boast of the heroic feats of sodomy they would perform. Since all but the captain were barefoot, their kicks were ineffectual compared to Malgo's.
"Now," said Captain Malgo, "let's get on with the old wizard—why, where in the seven hells is he?"
Kerin struggled into a sitting position and looked towards the fire, where Pwana had lain. The space was empty. Shadows cast by the flickering firelight indicated the hollows in the sand made by Pwana's body, but of the retired wizard and cult leader there was no sign.
IV
The Pirate Ship
"The old
garantola
must have slipped his bonds!" roared Captain Malgo. "Search! Search! You, look in his hut! You, west along the beach! . . ."
Kerin did not know the word
garantola
but assumed it to be a pejorative. Malgo continued shouting until he ran out of breath. A pirate said:
"Captain, he is a wizard. To tie up one such, you need another wizard to bespell his bonds."
"Too late for that!" yelled Malgo. He continued issuing orders until most of the pirates had gone off in search of their prisoner. Kerin could hear them thrashing about in the brush. After a while they straggled in, baffled. One ran up limping, crying:
"I stepped on one of those god-detested lizards, and the damned thing bit me! Somebody tie up my leg, for Vurnu's sake!"
As another pirate improvised a bandage for the lacerated limb, Malgo said: "That is all right, Krui. We will give you the first go at Kerin here. Is dinner ready yet?"
Racking his brains, Kerin remembered Pwana's tale of having a cap of invisibility. If the hermit had hidden such a thing beneath his sarong, he might have slipped it on when the pirates' attention was elsewhere. As for his bonds, making them tighten or loosen on command was elementary magic.
Would Pwana take advantage of darkness to rescue Kerin, and perhaps the princess as well? The thought gave him hope; but he did not much count upon it. Before his exile, by his own admission, Pwana had been a ruthless, unscrupulous adventurer. It was all very well to prate of his reformation; but Kerin would believe in Pwana's new-found virtue when he had a demonstration. Of one thing Kerin was sure, namely, that Pwana remained an incorrigible liar, from the mutually contradictory stories that he told of himself.
The pirates squatted or sat in a circle round the fire, while one of them passed out mugs, which he filled from the smaller cask. They thrust swords and daggers into the stew pot to spear their food. Captain Malgo stood grinning over Kerin, with a piece of meat impaled on the end of a dagger.
"Hungry?" he said.
"Aye, Captain, I am," replied Kerin.
"Isn't that too bad?" said Malgo, pulling the gobbet off the blade with his teeth. Having chewed and swallowed, he kicked Kerin. "I know not how ye did it, but ye maun have had to do with the wizard's vanishment." He gulped from his mug.
"If I knew how, I should have done likewise," said Kerin. "Now hold, Captain! Instead of kicking me again, wouldst rather not have a story? I know some good ones."
Kerin hoped to postpone the treatment the pirates meant to give him as long as possible. He recalled that his brother Jorian had often entertained others in his adventures by telling stories."Very well," grunted Malgo. "Gather round, boys. If ye please us, we will as a special favor give you a speedy death—" Malgo brought the edge of his hand sharply against his neck "—instead of the fancier one I'd planned. Say on!"
Kerin: "Know you the tale of the frog god of Tarxia?" When all professed ignorance, Kerin started the story. Thinking it tactful to omit the part his brother had played in the original transformation, he said:
"Tarxia City stands on the river Spherdar, which winds through the great Swamp of Spraa on its way to the sea. In the city, the Temple of Gorgolor is one of the finest structures in Novaria, with its gleaming corner towers and enormous central dome, which soars at least 350 feet into the air, all bedight inside and out with gold leaf and semiprecious stones.
"The central figure of the interior was a statue of Gorgolor in the form of a frog the size of a bear or lion, carved from a single emerald. No other emerald in the world, I'm told, compares with this in size. If some thief were to steal it, 'twere worth more than all the other gems in the world combined. Purloining it would, however, present a problem; besides being closely guarded, the statue must have weighed nigh unto a ton.
"At any rate, the Theocrat of Tarxia, Kylo of Anneia, was at outs with a leading local magician, a Doctor Valdonius. The wizard found the rule of the priesthood irksome and blamed it for holding progress back in the magical and other sciences in Tarxia. Plotting an uprising to overthrow priestly rule, he decided to steal the statue. By a mighty spell, he thought he could shrink it down to a size that could be carried on one's person, say that of a cat."
"Hey!" said a pirate, one of those who had gathered in a circle to listen. "I know about shrinking spells; but the weight of the thing stays the same. So your emerald frog would still weigh a ton."
"Valdonius thought of that," continued Kerin. "This spell lessened the weight of the statue whilst leaving the mass unchanged."
"What is the difference?"
"It is a technical matter involving the science of physics, which I am not qualified to explain and whereof I am a little uncertain myself. But let me continue the story. Valdonius reckoned he could pick up the shrunken statue and carry it, though it would take a much greater push to get it moving and more effort to stop it than a normal object of its size.
"He took some confederates to confer with the Theocrat on conditions in distant lands, whither the priesthood considered sending missionaries. Whilst these allies distracted old Kylo at the temple entrance, Valdonius wrought his spell at the central altar.
"The spell did not work quite as planned. Instead of shrinking the statue to a convenient size, it turned it into a living frog the size of the statue. With thunderous croaks of
gloop! gloop!
this superfrog went leaping and bounding out the temple, knocked down the Theocrat and Valdonius' accomplices, and vanished into the night.
"The Theocrat raised an alarm, and soon the folk of the city were running pell-mell after the frog, hoping to head it off; for they had little hope of catching it once it reached the Swamp of Spraa. And reach the swamp the monster did, and vanished into the stagnant waters.
"Meanwhile Valdonius sent some of his followers into the streets to raise a revolution. But they had no success whatever. When they mounted stands on corners to harangue the multitude, they found no multitude, only a few too old or too young to go haring after the holy frog. When the returning temple guards appeared, the agitators fled. Doctor Valdonius fled likewise to Govannian, where he was a distant cousin of the Hereditary Usurper.
"When the priesthood recovered from the shock of losing their runaway god, they sought to get Gorgolor back, albeit they were a little vague as to what they should do with the creature when they had it. Should they build a pool to keep it in? A frog of such size could not live on flies as normal frogs do, by shooting out a long, sticky tongue to ensnare insect prey. Live fowls might serve the purpose."Whilst the pool on the temple grounds and the massive fence around it were a-building, the priests attempted schemes to capture Gorgolor. The holy frog seemed quite happy in Spraa, where it subsisted on prey like muskrats, voles, and herons. The priests spread nets and essayed to lasso the frog; they tried to herd it with drums, horns, and other noise makers. But Gorgolor evaded their efforts with ease. It was even proposed to harpoon it; but this plan was rejected on the ground that, resenting the injury, the divine batrachian would surely visit disaster on Tarxia.
"After months without results, the Theocrat received a secret message from Doctor Valdonius. Through his partisans, the wizard had kept in touch with events in Tarxia and knew of the failure of the priests to recapture Gorgolor. For a modest fee and a guarantee of his own safety, Valdonius offered to come back and cast a counterspell.
"After some bickering and dickering, it was arranged that a brace of temple officials should go to Govannian and present themselves to the Hereditary Usurper as hostages for the Usurper's kinsman Valdonius, who would then return to Tarxia to perform his spell. And so it was done.
"On a propitious day Valdonius, the Theocrat, and other interested parties assembled on the margins of the swamp, and the wizard cast his spell. Gorgolor warily watched the proceedings from a patch of open water, in which he floated with only his eyes and nostrils showing. The sky darkened, lightning flashed, the earth shook, and the air came alive with the rustle of wings of unseen presences. And Gorgolor turned instantly back into a lion-sized frog of solid emerald.
"That was all very well, but neither Valdonius nor Kylo had considered the physical properties of swamps, since neither was familiar with nature in the wild. When the giant frog turned to emerald, it recovered the weight it had possessed when it squatted on its plinth in the temple. Hence it sank at once to the bottom and kept right on sinking into the ooze and soft mud beneath the water. None knows how deeply it sank ere coming to rest. The priests tried sounding for it with poles without result. For all anyone knows, it may be buried half a league below the surface of the swamp.
"The Theocrat, a kindly and rather simple old man, was vastly vexed. Some of those present had to remind him of the hostages in Govannian to dissuade him from commanding his guards to seize Valdonius and do him to death in some ingenious way. The wizard was suffered to depart without his fee, and the priests returned sorrowfully to their temple.
"Without their emerald god, however, the cult of Gorgolor lost its hold upon the masses. Within a year, its rule was overthrown by another revolution, wherein Valdonius played no part. The last I heard, the factions were still quarreling and fighting over the form the new state should have: a republic like Vindium, a limited monarchy like Kortoli, a dictatorship like Boaktis, or an archonship like Solymbria with the Archon chosen by lot. And that is the tale of the holy frog of Tarxia."
"Pretty good," growled Captain Malgo. "How about another?"
"Captain!" came a voice from the darkness. "Cannot we bugger him now?" But others cried: "Story! Story!"
"One thing at a time," said Malgo. "It will be time enough to have at him when he runs out of stories. Go on, Kerin."
So, as the half-moon sank towards the horizon, Kerin told the tales of King Fusinian the Fox and the Teeth of Grimnor, and Fusinian and the troll Vuum, and Fusinian and the Boar of Chinioc, and King Filoman the WellMeaning and the golem general, and Filoman and his ghostly prime minister, and King Forimar the Esthete and the waxen wife, and such other stories as he could call to mind.
For a while, as he finished each tale, some pirates cried out for more, whereas others demanded that the grand sodomy begin forthwith. With each tale the voices of the lechers, though still in a minority, waxed louder, and Kerin was sure that after the next story they would become a majority. But then the voices at the end of each account began to die away, so that each time there were fewer shouts either to stop or to continue.
Although it was hard to be sure by the fading firelight, Kerin saw that the pirates were, one by one, dropping off to sleep. He did not know whether to allow himself a spark of hope, that they would all go to sleep instead of using him in the revolting manner indicated, or to be affronted that they found his storytelling too boring to keep them awake. When he finished the tale of how King Forbonian had nearly drowned in trying to consummate the union with his mermaid bride, not a sound of approval or otherwise came from the sprawling mass of pirates. When Kerin fell silent, he heard instead a chorus of snores.
Kerin jerked as something touched his arm. Peering through the moonlight, he saw a knife come out of nowhere and cut the lashing on his wrists.
"Be quiet!" whispered the invisible Pwana. The knife went to work on the cords around his ankles.
"What's toward?" murmured Kerin.
"What think you? I am not fain to let them roast me without protest."
"Why not release the girl, too? She's a captive."
"A good idea; one cannot have too many folk under obligation. Then we must needs cut the throats of these rascals, for they will not remain insensible for aye. I had but little of the drug I put in their beer."
"Slay sleeping men? That were—were—"
"Try not your silly Western notions of chivalry on me, youngling! Wouldst live or die? These scoundrels do far worse; for sport they gouge eyes and burn off private parts. Besides, they defied my well-reasoned logic. The only good enemy is a dead enemy!"
"But—but—"
Pwana snapped into full but naked visibility in the moonlight as he peeled off the tarncap. Kerin leaned forward to examine the object. It seemed a cap made of metallic mesh, like chain mail but of much slenderer links, such as might make a lady's purse or ornamental coif.
Pwana picked up and did on his sarong. Wadding the cap into a ball and tucking it into the garment, he snarled: "Then watch whilst I do the deed, milksop!"
The hermit first cut the young woman free. The twain spoke in low voices; then Kerin was shocked to see the girl step to the nearest pirate, pull out the man's knife, and go to work. She and Pwana went from man to man, seized the hair of each, tipped back his head, and drew the knife firmly across his throat. Then the throat cutter stepped quickly back from the widening pool of blood."That, my dear, is that," said Pwana in his everyday voice as, having cut the last throat, he wiped his blade on the corpse's kilt. "What is the late news from Salimor?"
"Sophi Dimbakan died," said the girl, "being succeeded by his brother Vurkai."
Kerin said: "That name is familiar. Is it not the name of the man who overthrew the previous dynasty, when the reigning Sophi was slain in the riots that followed the fall of his great tower? I've heard tales of that."
"Aye, Master Kerin," said Pwana. "The late ruler was the third of that name. The revolution came about from meddling in our affairs by an exiled Novarian king named Porimar, or Forimar in your tongue; just as you call our ruler the Sophi whilst we call him the Sohpi. I believe this Forimar hailed from your own Kortoli. He persuaded the Sophi to build a lofty tower in Kwatna, ignoring Salimor's many earthquakes. At the next severe quake, down came the tower.
"During the disorders that followed this catastrophe, this first Dimbakan, a sea captain, gathered a following. He announced that he would set up a government of the Western kind, a republic, with officers chosen by the votes of the masses. But for all his talk, he never brought this strange system into being. Instead, he declared himself the new Sophi, and his line has ruled Salimor for above a century.''