ambush by a larger force out in the Meracasine. If so, had Horazzorgio
interpreted Goyderooch’s readiness to indicate the direction taken by the
outlaws as proof of the village’s complicity in the plot and returned now to
deliver his retribution? The fear that Goyderooch sensed from behind told him
that the thoughts were not his alone.
“May the Lifemaker protect the King,” Horazzorgio pronounced.
“Let it be so,” the villagers returned dutifully.
“We are truly honored to welcome the King’s Guards to our humble village,”
Goyderooch said, extending his arms palms-upward. “Whatever services it is
within our power to render shall be thine. Thou hast but to name thy need and
utter thy request.”
Horazzorgio cast his eye over them with contempt. “Yes,” he said menacingly.
“You would do well to remember me with respect, farmers. With great pleasure
would I repay the debt that I owe the village of Xerxeon.”
“A twelvefold curse upon Dornvald, the betrayer!” Goyderooch exclaimed,
trembling. “Truly were we deceived by his cunning. Oh, had we but known of the
fate that awaited thee! Believest thou not that we would have warned thee?”
“Pah! Enough sniveling,” Horazzorgio snorted. “Do you dream for one moment that
Dornvald’s rabble of tinplate riveters would be match for a King’s troop? These
afflictions that you see were not the work of any mere robeing.”
“Then what manner of—”
“The sky demons that appeared over Xerxeon,” Horazzorgio said. “They are
congregating in Carthogia, whither they come to aid Kleippur, servant of the
Dark Master.” Eskenderom, the Kroaxian King, did not want it made known to his
people that he was treating with the luminous liquid creatures who had come from
beyond the sky. It was important that the mystic whom Eskenderom intended to
install as High Priest in place of Frennelech—and whom the soldiers had been
sent to Xerxeon to find and take back to Pergassos—should be accepted
unquestioningly as being possessed of genuinely wondrous powers.
“Thou hast not come hither to wreak thy vengeance upon helpless villagers?”
Goyderooch inquired cautiously.
“We are here by the direct bidding of the King,” Horazzorgio told him. ” ‘Tis
well for you that I heed first my loyalty to His Majesty, and second my private
inclinations. There is one, a holy man from Pergassos, who was also at this
place five brights since—the brother of Thirg, Asker-of-Questions.”
“Thou speakest of Groork, the hearer, who came hither to commune with the Great
Wilderness and prepare himself spiritually for the time of great works which is
written as his destiny to perform for the greater glory of the Lifemaker,”
Casquedin said from beside Goyderooch.
“The same,” Horazzorgio said. “His destiny has arrived, it appears. We are to
conduct him back to Kroaxia, to the palace of Eskenderom, where omens have been
witnessed of great things that shall come to pass.”
Goyderooch dispatched Casquedin with the news to the house of Meerkulla,
Tamer-of-Endcase-Drillers, on the edge of the village, where Groork was lodging.
Casquedin returned alone a few minutes later. “Meerkulla asks forgiveness, but
says that the hearer is locked in his cell and attending to his sacred
devotions,” he reported. “To intrude would constitute sinfulness of the gravest
kind.”
“But this is the King’s command!” Goyderooch blustered. “Return at once to
Meerkulla and tell him that—”
Horazzorgio raised a hand wearily. “Our need for haste is not so pressing as
that, Headrobeing, for we have ridden without respite from Pergassos. We shall
not depart until we have rested awhile and partaken of refreshment and charge.
So prepare a repast of your finest lube and filter stations, and leave the
hearer to complete his meditations.”
In the room that he had been given for his own use at the rear of Meerkulla’s
house, Groork was frantically bundling his belongings into the frame-backed sack
that he used when traveling. Horazzorgio could have come for only two reasons:
Either Eskenderom had not forgotten his scheme for removing Frennelech, the High
Priest, and establishing a new priesthood under Groork, or Horazzorgio wished to
settle a personal score over Groork’s having warned Thirg when the writ had been
issued for the latter’s arrest. Either way Groork wasn’t interested in staying
around to talk about it, and had received a sudden revelation that the