Noon came, then night. Then dawn. Then noon again. From the Gates of Chenameg to the city of Shin was, by river, a matter of about a hundred leagues, and, shortly after noon, the raft drifted past the ruins of that city.
Briefly, it grounded on the shore. Then the current eased it away, and it floated downstream, towards the west. Sarazin by then was in agony, for, quite apart from the tortures of thirst, his hogtied body was wracked by cramps.
There was no escape, for he had been tied up by experts. What was more frustrating than anything was the thought of his magic candle, still safe in one of his pockets. His enemies had not recognised it as the magical treasure it was, once a much-valued possession of a wizard. But it was useless to him, for he could not get to it. -And I had it all figured out.
Tarkal was a fool, and he had been tricked so easily, conned into taking them back to Drake Douay. By rights, Tarkal should now be dead, and Sarazin should be on his way to becoming Slavemaster. But, as it was, Tarkal was probably drinking up large and listening to Douay entertaining his guests on the skavamareen – while Sean Sarazin was doomed on this downriver journey. Which, in all probability, would terminate in his death. On floated the raft, into night. Into nightmare.
It was fifty leagues from Shin to the border between Chenameg and the Harvest Plains. And, while dawn was pinking the sky, the raft slipped across that border. There was no more forest to left or to right, only the flatlands of the plains. The river grew wider, slower, more leisurely.
And Glambrax stirred.
Raised his bloodstained head, vomited violently – then collapsed again. -Come on, you gutless dwarf!
So screamed Sarazin. But this experiment in telepathy proved fruitless, for Glambrax had not stirred again by noon. Then the raft drifted through a breach in one of the dams which had once tamed the Velvet River for irrigation.
At some time in the past, heroes had breached that dam, thinking to save their land from the advance of the Swarms. But a smooth grey bridge – manufactured by those monsters – now spanned the gap. On that bridge stood a keflo, a low-slung monster. Silent. Unmoving. Statuesque. Sarazin lay very still, staring at it. And Glambrax groaned. -Quiet! Quiet!
Perhaps telepathy worked on this occasion, for the dwarf relapsed into silence again. It was not until noon that Glambrax finally crawled towards Sarazin and, after a struggle, released his gag. Then began to feed him water.
Releasing the ropes was a slow business, which took the weakened dwarf till midnight. But it was done. So, when dawn came, both were free – but neither was good for anything. It was not until the next day that they managed to push the corpses overboard.
On floated the raft. Much of the time Sarazin lay sleeping, dreaming of winter snow on the heights of the Ashun mountains, of voices far distant in time and space. He would wake now and then to a bloodstained raft stinking of offal and vomit, to the steelbright sun glittering on the riverflow. Overhead, the shadows of vultures.
The riverbanks were empty. No monsters. The monsters of the Swarms were, doubtless, on the fringes of the occu- pied territories, hunting out humans, killing, slaughtering, ravaging. Here, in the heartland of the new dominions of the Swarms, Sarazin was safe, for the moment.
He had endless time to think. And to sorrow. For what did he lament? For himself? No. For the loss of his world. He experienced.. . not exactly weltschmerz, no, not an abstract sorrow for the fate of the world as a whole, but grief for the loss of particular people.
Not dear friends, no, he had been singularly short of bosom companions throughout his life, but perfectly ordinary people – servants, soldiers, tavern keepers, scribes, librarians, members of the Watch, even minor functionaries of the Regency. People he had known in passing, whose faces he remembered, and whose voices. -All gone, all fallen, all dead.
What was amazing was how intensely they had all been involved in their own lives, passionately concerned with the power politics of the various milieus in which they moved, all with their own loves, hates, lusts, fears, joys, ambitions. -All now as dust.
And what was most amazing of all was to realise that the outcome would ultimately have been the same even if Drangsturm had never fallen, even if the Swarms had never come. In time, all would have died, and all their works would have become as nothing. For such is the nature of a world of mortality. Mortality. -Mosf improbable of all improbabilities.
So improbable that, even now, Sean Sarazin had diffi- culty in grasping the inevitability of his own death. He knew it was technically certain, sooner or later. But, while some things had changed, others had not: he was still the centre of his own universe, and found it near to impossible to imagine the universe carrying on without him. -Yet it will happen. -Or so theory says.
Sarazin was much occupied with such thoughts, for Glambrax offered him nothing in the way of conversation. The dwarf had taken an almighty blow on the head, and was fit for very little except sleeping and sunbathing. Fortunately, the skins of both travellers were already suntempered – otherwise they would have been badly burnt on that downriver journey. For there was no shade, no shelter. But, of course, limitless water.
Sarazin drank freely. Drinking of the Velvet River had almost killed him when he first arrived in Selzirk, but he had no choice. Besides, the river was much, much cleaner than it had been when people in their tens of thousands lived on the Harvest Plains.
At length, the raft drifted past the walls and towers of Selzirk the Fair. Sarazin was tempted to land – then saw a single uncouth monster standing where there was a hundred-pace gap in the outer battle-wall of Selzirk.
The river gate – that was what Lod had called that gap. Then Sarazin had called it a military obscenity. Or had Lod said that too? Sarazin could not remember. That conversation had taken place on the day of his return from exile, and he could not sort out the details in memory.
But what he could remember was his high excitement, his enthusiasm, his confidence. He had been so certain that life was truly beginning, that power and glory awaited him. -Fool!
That was the judgment Sean Sarazin passed on his youthful self as the raft floated on downstream, leaving Selzirk behind in the distance.
He had been such a fool! So young, so feckless! He had not been destroyed by gambling, boozing, fighting or whores. But a callow pride had nearly seen to his destruc- tion regardless. If it had not been for the advent of the Swarms, he would still have been in the forests of Chenameg, fighting a futile guerrilla war against Tarkal of Lod. -But what could I have had if I had been wise? He could have had a career in the army. Going out every night to get pissed as a newt (to use Jarnel's death- less phrase). But what kind of life would that have been? -No life for me, that's for sure. -So I was doomed whatever I did.
So thought Sean Sarazin, then forced himself to admit that it was not true. Nobody had compelled him to stay in Selzirk. He could have taken to the Salt Road and could have fled north or south. To Drangsturm. To Chi'ash-lan. Anywhere. He could read and write, he could speak Galish – he could have made some sort of life for himself wherever he went. -But that's in the past. Let's think of the future.
So Sarazin did think of the future. But could see nothing for himself or his dwarf but bare survival. Downstream lay the delta of the Velvet River, a marshy place of tidal beaches, of islands and estuaries. The Neversh might overfly the delta, but it would be difficult for heavyweight monsters to operate in such terrain. There, no doubt, he could grub a living, surviving by eating raw fish, raw shrimp, raw marshbird.