Miphon, Hearst, Blackwood and Ohio went west on foot toward Skua, going as fast as they could over the broken country, retreating to the green bottle only when the weather became atrocious; they knew that every delay favoured Elkor Alish.
Eventually they arrived at Skua, the only harbour on the coast of Trest. The Collosnon had raised a small fort to house a token garrison, and had planted thickets of cold-climate sprite bamboo, notable for its grey leaves. Otherwise, they had made little mark on the place, except by building a breakwater to protect the minimal harbour.
The travellers, eager for news and for fresh food, ventured into town and asked their way to an inn. The locals spoke their own dialect, a degenerate version of Estral; Ohio could not follow it at all, but the other three could make themselves understood.
The inn was a dark place with a low ceiling; it stank of raw spirit. On the floor were the tattered ruins of what had once been a master-work tapestry, a story of courage and heroism done in fifty colours, but now torn and sea-stained: pirate booty, no doubt. Half a dozen tough, scar-faced men sat in the shadows watching the newcomers. Hung on one wall was the silvery coiled shell of a nautilus, a thing of grace and beauty completely unexpected in such a place.
'What hassing you?' said the innkeeper.
'Have you a room?' said Hearst.
'A room we have, but have you the wherefore? The dreamstay dark is free, so they say, but they roof costs here as they ever.'
'We have money,' said Hearst.
He displayed a fist-full of bronze triners, part of a coin-hoard found in the green bottle. The innkeeper took one and turned it over, peering at it dubiously.
'This is the brayoz, as we call he, but has you mynt?'
'Mynt?' said Hearst.
'Yes, mynt, mynt!'
'How about this?' said Miphon, displaying a silver ilavale.
'No, no,' said the innkeeper impatiently. 'Not yoller, it's not yoller we're wanting: have you mynt?'
'Is it gold you're wanting?' said Hearst.
'God, god, yes, that's a name for it.'
'We have no gold,' said Hearst.
In fact, they had gold sanarands by the dozen: but Hearst did not think it wise to display such wealth here in Skua.
'What's the problem?' said Ohio. 'Silver's not good enough for them,' said Hearst. 'Come on then, let's get out of here.' T don't want to spend another night in that bottle,' said Hearst.
'Neither do I,' said Blackwood, who hated being shut inside those glowing green walls, where there was never a breath of wind and never a sound of the living world.
'Come on,' said Ohio. 'There's no point in staying here. Come on, do what I say.'
Ohio hustled the others out of the inn and onto the street; before they had gone a dozen paces the innkeeper was calling them back.
'Don't listen to him,' said Ohio. 'Don't turn back.'
Ohio did not relent until the innkeeper had followed them a hundred paces down the road, and had agreed that a single piece of silver would cover food, drink and lodging for the night for the four of them.
The four sat round a fire in the inn that evening, listening to the local gossip. They learnt that the Collosnon, having lost thousands of men on their first attempt to conquer Trest and Estar, had abandoned their attempt to invade Argan, and, for the time being, were content to maintain their little garrison in Skua.
Of the rest of the world, there was little news; few travellers came to Skua, so the town made its own entertainment. Drinking proved a popular sport. After supper, which was a local dish known as widow's memory – it was comprised chiefly of sausages – the travellers managed, after some argument, to extract a ration of beer from the landlord.
About then, a storyteller announced a recital of one of the more popular stories told in Skua, the legend of Morgan Hearst, the Dragon slayer from Rovac.
'Dragonslayer?" said Ohio, turning to stare at Hearst; though Ohio had been told much, he had been fed no stories of dragons and the killing of the same.
'Quiet;' said Hearst, 'and listen to what they have to say.'
The storyteller, well primed with drink, stood on a table, looked around, burped, swayed, grabbed a roof-beam for balance, then in a loud voice began to declaim his story:
Now stay your pratiing chete, I say, And soft to listen long, A gentry cofe I mayn't be, But truth is in me gan: Yes, truth is in me gan, me lads. And in me gan a tale. Now stow you, stow you, hark and hear: It starts upon a night, I say, I starts upon a night. The darkmans is for some to stew, For some it is to nygle, For some the dice, for some the cup, 347 To bouse till lightmans come, But Morgan Hearst rode out that night, Through dewse a vyle rode he, Along the hygh pad to the mount: Maf he called it he.
He girt no shield, he girt no sword,
But strength walked strong with he,
For strong his teeth and wide his smile:
A grin he made it he.
A man of men, a menner man,
No fear he had it he.
No pannam had he none, no none of pek,
As climbed he height on height Till he was from the ground too tall to towre.
Hearst took a pull on his drink and swallowed it down. There was a strange taste to it, but one could hardly expect the best brewing in Skua. He remembered the fear of the climb, and his own drunken boasting afterwards. Once, he had longed to be worshipped as the world's hero. That seemed, now, like something which had happened in another lifetime.
He drank some more.
'Pour that away,' said Blackwood. 'There's something wrong with it.'
'What?' said Hearst, taking another mouthful.
'There's some kind of scum in it. Maybe a fungus.'
'A little mould never hurt anyone,' said Hearst, and swallowed down some more.
What were they saying now?
He listened:
Draugon glymmar lit the cave: A draugon lay it there. Now beast of beasts a draugon is, A scream would tell him well, For long on sharp his crashing chetes, And strong his stampes are. But Morgan Hearst he had no fear, No fear he had it he.
He had sought fame, and this was what it came to: a drunken story roared out by the local talent to a pack of inebriated thieves and fishermen in a stagnant garrison town on the edge of the world.
What should Morgan Hearst rightly be famous for?
For leading men to their death at the hands of the wizard Heenmor; for being fooled by the spy Haveros, then failing to bring that oath-breaker to justice; for failing to prevent the slaughter of the Melski in Rausch Valley; for running from Heenmor at Ep Pass. And, since the betrayal at Stronghold Handfast: for failing to do his duty, which was to mark his sword with a death-pledge demanding the death of Elkor Alish.
Hearst drank, and listened:
Now Hearst, his fambles held a spear,
And stepped he forward he;
He strove his arm to forward throw
To pierce the draugon ee.
A bellow did the draugon make,
A roar he made it he,
And glymmar from his gan outforth
As threshed and struggled he.
Morgan Hearst was on his feet. The shadows roared around him, red, purple, black. Knives sang inside his skull. Faces split to white alarm as steel flared in his hand.
'Lies!' he shouted. 'It's all lies!'
Bones moved in the shadows. A cold moon shaped itself to a skull. He saw Gorn, blood on his lips, death in the sockets of his eyes.
'Lies!' he shouted.
Chips of wood flew as his sword splintered something that was thrusting for his face. He wheeled. The fire billowed up, out, open: he stood on the top of a cliff looking out across a thousand years of flame. Knives sang inside the fire. Men were swarming out of the flames toward his strongpoint. They were the legions of the dead.
'Come for me then,' whispered Hearst. 'Come for me.'
And he lept to meet the first, steel making steel scream, and there was blood in the scream. The blood darkened the world. There was a door in the darkness. Hearst plunged through the door. He was in a street, with buildings towering up around him, limitless pinnacles reaching for the sky.
He knew where he was: in the city of Chi'ash-lan. The night watch was making for him. In the darkness, their honour-pennants flared orange. His sword cut free in a wild arc. Blood opened green to the darkness.
Clouds underfoot as he ran, flight foot feathering the ground away. Thunder crashed underground. He screamed, answering a challenge with the echo of a forgotten voice: 'Ahyak Rovac!'
Then the visions were gone, and he was down on his face in the mud, down in the cold, with something huge murnering and slurping as it ludged toward him, lopsloss, yes, it had to be a lopsloss – But it was only a sow in a pig-pen.
Shortly before sunrise, the others found Hearst in a farmyard on the outskirts of Skua. They bundled him into the green bottle and were off and away, as fast as they could go.
Whatever drug, poison or ergot had been in the drink that had been served to them in Skua, it had turned Morgan Hearst wild and mad for half the night: all of Skua was sheltering behind barred doors after seventeen men had been wounded trying to disarm him.
By the time Skua recovered its courage and ventured outdoors, the travellers had gone, leaving no tracks behind them. Shortly a new song joined the local repertoire: 'The Ballad of the Four Mad Ghosts from the Desolate East'.