'Could we?' said Miphon. 'Remember the effective radius. Two leagues. That's not much. There's few places we could stop them before… well, before Estar. We could halt them there, at the Southern Border.'
'Then that's what we'll do,' said Hearst. 'Now how do we get our death-stone?'
'We don't!' said Blackwood. 'After all this time trying to lock away that horror for good and forever – '
'Yesterday was another world,' said Hearst, cutting him off.
'But he's got a point,' said Miphon. 'To let loose that power -'
'That power is loose already,' said Hearst. 'We won't be the only ones making for the Dry Pit. It may bring the world to destruction – but the world will be destroyed in any case, unless we halt the Swarms.'
'From here, it's a fair stretch to the Dry Pit,' said Miphon. 'If we go east, eighty leagues takes us to the Inner Waters. Then another two hundred leagues or so takes us to the Stepping Stone Islands. Then, if we can contact a Southsearcher patrol, we might get passage north to the Chameleon's Tongue.'
'And then?'
'Sand,' said Miphon. 'A long beach runs about three hundred leagues east to the Elbow, then about two hundred leagues north to the mountains at the end of the Chameleon's Tongue. There's a harbour there: Hartzaven. If we can get passage to the northern coast from there, we'll still have to march about a hundred leagues inland to reach the Dry Pit.'
'Another journey…' said Blackwood.
'You sound 'Weary,' said Blackwood. 'Leagues of wind and rain. Foraging for meals. Travelling by night, waking to foreign suns. Lurking, hiding, skulking, stealing. After all this time…'
'I know,' said Hearst. 'We all want to rest.'
'And we tried so hard,' said Blackwood. 'For what? Our best wasn't good enough to stop this… this ending.'
'We're not dead yet,' said Hearst, though he did not fancy their chances for survival. 'Come on, man! Maybe it's at the Dry Pit that you'll find your destiny.'
Blackwood shook his head.
He no longer believed in destiny.
Back in the castle, in the moments of combat, the fate of the whole world had been resolved by the timing of a knife-thrust. If Blackwood had managed to kill Garash just a little sooner, Miphon would never have used the word Segenarith; the death-stone would have fallen harmlessly to the floor, leaving the way open for the future to be resolved by diplomacy between wizards.
Instead: disaster.
It was true: chance did attend to all things. The fate of the world could be changed by the tiniest hesitation at a critical moment.
'We're dice,' said Blackwood. 'And we're rolling. How we fall is not up to us.'
'The will is free,' said Hearst. 'We can act as we choose.'
'No,' said Blackwood, heavily. 'Chance settles everything. There's no such thing as free will.'
Hearst smashed him across the face with the back of his hand. Blackwood staggered backwards.
'Draw on me if you like,' said Hearst, his voice cool. 'Kill me if you like. I'll accept the punishment. I performed an act of unadulterated free will. On the other hand, since you don't believe in such a thing, what's your motive for punishing me?'
Blackwood hesitated.
Hearst drew a blade.
'Enough!' roared Miphon, startling himself with his own ferocity. 'We'll go to the Dry Pit. We'll get a death-stone. We'll try. It's our only chance.'
'So you think chance comes into it, too,' said Blackwood, rubbing his smarting face. 'So is the will free or not free?'
'If someone had clouted me over the face, that's the last question I'd be asking,' said Miphon. 'But the answer, since you wonder, is both yes and no. Let me explain.'
It was later in the day. Miphon was still lecturing on the nature of free will; Hearst, bored beyond belief, reminded himself never again to raise philosophical problems in the presence of a wizard.
Hearst watched another Neversh high in the sky. Scanning. Scouting. On the ground, the keflos were moving north, picking their way over the shattered landscape.
It was starting already. The Swarms were moving north for the first time in four thousand years. And, his own faith in free will steadily eroding, he thought:
– We are prisoners of history.
An odd thought for a Rovac warrior. Not bitter, but melancholy. Almost philosophical. Almost. He would have to snap out of this mood. He would have to unlearn some of his painfully-acquired wisdom, and think himself back into being a hero, for that was what the age demanded: a man prepared to dare all in a desperate race to the Dry Pit to gain a weapon powerful enough to contend against the Swarms.
Despite himself, he recalled his many failures. He did his best to suppress them, but one memory still surfaced. It dated back to the time at Ep Pass. Durnwold had worked his way behind the wizard Heenmor, had stood at the top of a cliff, had raised a rock… had died.
Should Hearst blame himself for that death? Alish had thought up the attack plan, but should Hearst have accepted it? Maybe there had been a better way to do it. The fact was, a man had died, trusting Morgan Hearst. So many men had died trusting him.
Miphon was still talking: '… so you see, the question of free will, is, to a large extent, a purely epistemological question. You do see that, don't you. Don't you?'
'What?' said Blackwood, who had a rather glazed expression on his face. 'Yes, yes. Indeed.'
'Now,' said Miphon. 'If we could return for a moment to Impalvlad's theory for quantifying the stochastic and deterministic elements – '
'Perhaps,' said Hearst, coming to Blackwood's rescue, 'we could leave the quantifying till later, and talk about the Southsearchers.'
'Oh,' said Miphon. 'No, no, not just yet. This will only take a moment.'
'According to Sarla's theory of time, a moment can sometimes be infinitely extended – and I think this might be one of those moments.'
'Who's Sarla?" said Miphon.
'You tell me about the Southsearchers, and I'll tell you later.' 'This person does really exist?'
'Of course, of course,' said Hearst, blandly.
And, by such temptations, managed to get Miphon to abandon the question of free will. They heard all about the Southsearchers, then Hearst told a long – and, alas, unprintable – story about Sarla of Chi'ash-lan, and her very amusing theories about sex, alcohol, time, and the nature of the universe.
They could not risk setting out until it was dark.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
'Those are the Needle Rocks,' said their guide, indicating dark shapes in the night which blanked out stars and constellations.
Somewhere a blowhole spluttered as a wave forced its way up its gullet. Paddling, Hearst strained to see their landing ground, which must be close now.
'Those rocks have claimed many ships,' said their guide, his own paddle helping drive their canoe forward even as he spoke. 'Storms make these waters dangerous.'
'It looks calm enough now,' said Blackwood.
'Yes,' said the guide. 'But storms do come in from the Ocean of Cambria. Open water reaches away east to Ashmolea. Storm waves league westward, building their strength.'
And Miphon thought:
– Yes. Yes indeed.
Remembering.
They came in under towering cliffs, where swells, leisured yet powerful, surged onto rocks. A narrow shingle beach afforded them a landing.
'A league's easting along these rocks takes you to the start of the Chameleon's Tongue,' said their guide. 'Nobody will have seen us land, not here in the cliff-shadow. Take care, and perhaps you'll reach Seagate without being seen.'
'Whose eyes should we fear?' said Miphon.
'Any ship cruising the Ocean of Cambria counts as danger,' said their guide. 'Worst are the Alvassar pirates, who sometimes raid this far north – but others can be as bad.'
'What others?'
'Whalers from the Ebrell Islands, who will meet you with a smile then ram a harpoon between your shoulder blades. And the sea traders from Asral, the Malud -they fancy a little knife-work now and then.'