At the iatromage's house, Thorolf was surprised to see the door ajar. Either Bardi was becoming more woolly minded than ever, or ... Just in case there might have been intruders, Thorolf laid hand on hilt and pushed his way in.
All was dark. Thorolf moved as silently as a stalking cat. He felt his way down the hall to the sanctum, the door of which was ajar. Silence lay as thick as the lid of a coffin.
He fired his igniter. The yellow flame showed a room in disorder—even greater disorder than usual. A chest had been upset, dumping out its contents. Books had been pulled from the shelves and scattered. Thorolf's boot struck one of the skulls lying on the floor; the cranium rolled away half a turn, seeming to grin up at him.
Before his light went out, Thorolf spied an unlit candle in a copper candlestick atop a row of books. He recharged and fired the igniter and got the candle lit. By the yellow light he espied a human foot projecting from behind a settle. He moved quickly; the foot proved to be that of Doctor Bardi, who lay supine with his throat cut.
Thorolf grunted. While he and Bardi had never been close, he had known the old wizard for years, had applied to him for the cure of ailments, and had become fond of him despite the mage's failing powers. He wondered: Was it common robbers, or Gondomar's men, or the Sophonomists who had slain the mage?
He thought the last the likeliest. Orlandus had learned from Yvette that Thorolf had rejected her offer. Thorolf had heard that Sophonomists were implacable toward traitors and apostates. Their leader assured them that they might, without guilt or qualm, cheat, betray, assault, rob, or slay those hostile to the Cause.
Thorolf had shrugged off such remarks as the typical inflation of rumors; but the speaker had evidently known whereof he spoke. They might well have added the name of Thorolf Zigramson to their list of enemies. Perhaps they thought that Bardi had advised him to reject Yvette ...
He scrutinized the room. The murder must have occurred at least an hour earlier, soon after Thorolf had left Bardi's house the last time. Bardi's blood, black in the candlelight, was fast drying but was not yet altogether dry.
So there was no point in crying the haro. The killers would have escaped; if Sophonomists, they would be back in their castle. From what Chief Constable Lodar had told him, there would be little use in setting the Constabulary after them. In fact, if Thorolf were found here, he would become the prime suspect. While he avidly yearned to bring the killers to book and to avenge his friend, it began to appear as if it would be all he could do to assure his own continued existence.
The settle behind which lay the corpse had not been overturned, but the seat lid had been raised and the contents scattered. Bardi had kept his dirty clothing in the settle, awaiting the weekly visits of the washerwoman. Beneath the soiled garments he also kept a small chest containing a substantial sum in gold; this chest was now missing. Thorolf had advised the wizard to put the money in a bank; but Bardi, having once been burned in a bank failure, was bank shy. He had assured Thorolf that the chest was securely locked by a spell; but Thorolf knew that such spells were easily cancelled by any competent magician.
Thorolf wondered how to get out of Zurshnitt. The army would surely have alerted the gate guards, and Bardi had not lived to put an illusion spell upon him. He still had the protection of Bardi's counterspell against illusions and possession, but that would wear off erelong.
Thorolf hunted until he came to a wardrobe holding Bardi's spare robes. He chose a loose one bedight with magical symbols and pulled it on over the knapsack.
A half-hour later, limping heavily, bent to look hunchbacked, and leaning on Bardi's walking stick, he came to the West Gate. When challenged, he said in a disguised voice:
"I be Doctor B-Bardi's new apprentice, F-Fermin by n-name, may it p-please the gallant captain."
With a bored wave, the soldier signaled Thorolf to proceed. Thanking the small histrionic skills that he had obtained by taking part in amateur plays at the university at Genuvia, Thorolf vanished into the night.
VI – Empyrean Exile
Along the higher valleys of the Sharmatts. Thorolf Zigramson plodded unhappily upward, ever upward. On either hand rose the somber green, conifer-clad slopes; above these the iron-gray screes; and beyond these the glaring white of snow and glaciers. With the great love of his life in the goetic grip of Orlandus and three sets of enemies seeking his gore, his hopes of an academic career and of union with his beloved seemed farther off than ever.
He felt grossly inadequate. True, his officers had often praised him for bringing his men up to standard in equipment, discipline, and general conduct; they had dangled promises of promotion. But he uneasily felt that his soldierly success had been at best a lucky accident. Any time, some untoward event would expose him as an incompetent impostor.
He marched grimly on. At least, he had come through recent armed encounters unscathed. A professor at Genuvia, Doctor Vipsanio. preached the philosophy called Chaoticism, which Thorolf found consoling. The burthen was that life, nature, and the universe were so unpredictable, and man so at the mercy of unforeseeable events, that one should neither give up hope in a parlous strait nor think that any success had made one proof against future disasters.
Since Thorolf had no camping equipment, he had slept in barns whose owners furnished an overnight hayloft and a meal in exchange for stories and gossip. The third day out, he was getting into the heart of the Sharmatts, above the treeline. A few late-blooming flowers gleamed in the scanty meadows. The barns had ceased, and the snowline lay not far above.
Thorolf thought he could handle trolls, from his experience with Doctor Reccared's guide and with the few he had met on fishing trips into the Dorblentz Range. He rehearsed the expected meetings. Thus he was not startled when a troll stepped out from behind a boulder and pointed an iron-tipped spear, croaking in Trollish:
"Who ye?"
Thorolf had learned Trollish from his few contacts and some book study. Shifting Bardi's walking stick to his left hand to free his sword arm, he answered:
"Me friend."
"So?" said the troll, approaching with a broad grin on its wide mouth, displaying large yellow teeth. The creature was the height of a short human being but so massively muscular as to make Thorolf, as strong as any man in his company, feel puny. Beneath its beetling brows gleamed pale-blue, sunken eyes, a wide, flat nose, and a receding chin half concealed by a scanty beard of tawny-yellow hair like that which clothed its barrel-shaped torso and stubby, thewy limbs. Trolls wore no clothes, their fur providing adequate cover. This one said:
"No goat?"
"No goat? What mean?" said Thorolf, puzzled.
"Who you, lowlander weakling?" demanded the troll, ignoring Thorolf's question.
Thorolf identified himself, adding: "Me know Chief Yig, in Dorblentzes."
"Chief Yig? Ah!" The troll put a little bone whistle to its mouth and blew. A dozen other yellow-furred, blue-eyed trolls emerged from behind the rocks and leisurely strolled toward Thorolf, grinning. All bore spears, bows, or slings.
"Say know Yig," the first troll told its fellows.
"Ah!" said the other trolls in chorus, moving closer. "Yig you friend?" asked one.
"Aye; us blood brothers."
"Ah!" said the trolls together. With a lightning rush, they sprang upon Thorolf from every side. Before he could draw a weapon, they had seized his arms and legs in a grip of inhuman strength and threw him supine. If they had been human, he would have given a good account of himself; but he was like a doll in the trolls' hairy hands. Keeping his composure with effort, he said: