Through Darkest Zymurgia!

The next few days were uneventful. Carbuncle, Bruno, Hodgins, and I gathered early the next morning with geometer, transit compass, and notebooks, and Jackson and Perkins rowed us across the lake as planned. A pale green sun had appeared on the eastern horizon and was shooting rapidly towards the zenith, and the lake's ripples and wavelets shone like fine jade in its light. Hodgins and I took our ease in the stern, while Carbuncle sat in the bow, looking for fish. He later claimed that he had seen several giant trout, three or four feet in length, and who's to say he didn't? The lack of his fishing gear was a great pain to him, but we reminded him he could have a go in a few days, while we waited for the trader to arrive.

Disembarking was a chore, as the reedbeds were many yards thick on the east side of the lake, and as there was no village on that side there was no carefully tended landing place. We struggled through, taking better care of the equipment than of ourselves, and getting not a few cuts in the process. I directed the men to clear an easier path before returning to the Spaniel.

Once we were safely ashore, we took our first sightings. This kind of surveying is straightforward if tedious; the hard part is determining your position to begin with, and Carbuncle and the geometer made short work of that. We soon fell into a routine: walk a mile or so; fix our position and write it down; take sightings on the prominent features of the plateau's edge, and write them down as well. Each sighting included the azimuth and elevation of the feature; given two such sightings from two well-known positions, and you can easily determine the position of any landmark in sight. This, at least, was the routine for everyone but Bruno, who travelled at least two miles for every one of ours. We carried on in this way for the whole of the day, traveling some fifteen miles and making only a brief stop for lunch.

When the green sun vanished on the horizon, we called it a day. We were well beyond the green banks of the Aram by that time, and it was cool at night, and very dry. There was little conversation as we settled down for the night.

A fine yellow sun, perhaps a little larger than average, awoke us with its bright rays the next morning. Of necessity we had carried little but our equipment, water, and a little food, so breaking camp was a simple matter. We ate much of the remaining food, drank some of our remaining water (Bruno drank out of Hodgins' hat), and started walking.

The hike back to the lake was a quicker matter altogether. We had taken all the needful sightings the previous day, and so could enjoy ourselves. The desert has a grandeur never seen in foggy Angland, and the juxtaposition of the dunes and wadis against the stark grey cliffs fringed at the top with greenery was both exotic and riveting. At length, food gone, water exhausted, we reached the shore of the lake. We had but to wait a few minutes before the boat arrived, and we returned, happy and refreshed by the lake water, to the Spaniel.

The trip to the west was much the same, and I see no point in describing it. Surveying is an essential part of exploration, but it is tedious and unexciting. The reader may assume that we fixed our position and took sightings as often as we could during our stay in Zymurgia; I will not mention it again unless it affects my story. It is sufficient to say that we traveled west for a day, pausing only for lunch and to pull Carbuncle out of a pit (the geometer nearly ran off in fright); we slept, awoke, and returned to the ship to discover that much more interesting things had been going on in our absence.

I am indebted to both Philpott and Cadbury for their descriptions of many of the events I will now relate.

Your average writ-server is a low man, cunning but not clever, quick but seldom clean. Motivated solely by the hope of gain, he achieves his goals more by drudgery than by foresight. Frederick Fox was (and is) another breed of animal altogether. He had indeed been waiting for us in Phillipi, checking every ship that entered the harbor. When the mate of a rusty little scow told him that the Sea-Spaniel had left Cuprios several days before he knew we had slipped past in the night, and he knew we could only have one destination. An intrepid man, he set out in immediate pursuit. He went as far south as Baxur with a group of Lyrican travellers; from there he hired a fisherman and his son to take him as far south as they would.

He was actually sailing south with them when we passed at speed; because we had come from Cuprios under sail, we were several days late by his reckoning, and until that moment had been behind him. He had happened to be looking down river, and compelled the man and his son to take the boat as close to the Spaniel as possible. I believe, indeed, that he beat the man away from the tiller, and guided the frail craft directly toward us. In the event, it was to no avail. Our relative speed was too high, and the shock of our passing swamped the small boat.

The fisherman had had enough by this time: he was days away from his home, and this lunatic of an Anglishman had nearly caused the wreck of his boat, his only source of livelihood. He put Mr. Fox ashore when he had finished bailing and headed north. Mr. Fox put his pack on his back, and trudged south.

It cannot have been a pleasant journey. The banks of the Aram are heavily cultivated and irrigated, making for treacherous footing at the best of times. The natives habitually travel inland, past the cultivated strip, but Mr. Fox could not afford to be out of sight of the river. Nor, though he had abundant water, was he well supplied with food. Hospitality is sacred in Seros, and any villager would have given him a morsel or two for the asking; but the villages, like the roads, were too far inland. He walked in the mud, he fell in the mud, and I rather expect he slept in the mud as well.

His trek continued until he came to a village's landing stage, upon which reclined a number of the village men, smoking and laughing. It was an odd time of day for them to be there, rather than in the fields, but Mr. Fox was too tired and hungry to notice. They greeted him like an old friend, and insisted on taking him to their village--after a vigorous dunking in the river to cleanse him of the worst of the mud. Mr. Fox protested, but they assured him that the "White Ship" had already passed; that his best course was to come with them, eat and sleep, and take the road to the Lake of Saco in the morning. Surely he would find the White Ship moored in the Lake of Saco.

Unable to resist, Mr. Fox gave in, and gratefully gave his knapsack into the hands of his rescuers. They brought him to their village, and took him to the home of the mayor (for so they call the most prominent villager), where he was received with gentle hands, with clean clothes, with cooling drinks, with nourishing food. His old clothes, and his knapsack, were taken away to be cleaned.

It is not to be wondered at that Mr. Fox slept well and long, though he did awake briefly in the night. He quickly indentified the noise as an angry dog fight, judged it none of his concern, and returned to sleep. Alas for Mr. Fox! The village dogs were none of his concern...but they were fighting over the provisions the good villagers had placed in his knapsack, as it sat drying on a rock near the center of the village.

When he arose in the morning, the mayor and the chief men of the village joined him for breakfast, and then the mayor told him of his loss, bringing out the ruined knapsack. All of its contents had been torn to bits, though fortunately his cleaned suit of clothes had been spared. The villagers were devastated, and would do their best to replace his belongings--further, they would escort him to the Lake of Saco, that he would meet with no other troubles.

Mr. Fox was, naturally, quite distressed over his ruined belongings, though he cheered up slightly when his clothes were returned to him. He was soon ready to travel, and three of the village men (and no small number of the village dogs) escorted him up the river road.

I am greatly sorry that I was not present when Mr. Fox reached the lake and found the Spaniel. It was a moment with all of the passion of high drama, and all of the comedy of low farce. Picture Mr. Fox, bruised, footsore, coming in sight of his goal after weeks of travel. Picture him skulking in the reed beds, dirtying his clothes and person, cutting his hands and face, until he saw a man in a white coat with gold braid leave the ship in company with a few others. Picture him pulling a folded piece of parchment from his breast pocket, and appearing before the captain, writ in hand. Picture the horror and distress on the good captain's face, as Mr. Fox said, no doubt in rolling if somewhat breathless tones, "Captain Halvorsen, I serve this writ upon you, and request and require that, upon the order of the His Majesty's Chancery Court of Pelham, you immediately put the ship Sea-Spaniel, and all its contents, into my governance on behalf of the creditors of Earl Clarence of Luton."

As a servant of His Majesty, as are all Anglishmen everywhere, Captain Halvorsen had no option but to take the proferred writ, and unfold it slowly, and read it. Imagine all of creation hushed after Mr. Fox's speech, the silence broken only by the sound of the parchment being unfolded. Picture the grim scowl on Captain Halvorsen's face as he did so.

Picture the dismay on Mr. Fox's face when the captain slowly turned the parchment over and over, trying to make sense of the long black streaks that were all that remained of the fine round hand of the Chancery Court Clerk. I have it under excellent authority that Mr. Fox was not best pleased. His eyes grew wide; he snatched the parchment from the captain, and turned it over and over; he took a deep breath, and said, "Captain Halvorsen, might I trouble you for stiff drink before I go?"

I myself was rather chagrined when Philpott related the story; it should have occurred to me that the man would keep the writ on his person rather than in his baggage. I silently gave thanks for the wisdom or kindness that lead the villagers to take Mr. Fox's clothes and give them a thorough washing. But that is by the way. Captain Halvorsen had realized, as I had known he would, that Mr. Fox could not be allowed to roam about loose. Although the viper's fang had been pulled, as it were, he was still capable of bringing others down on us, or of acquiring another writ. Accordingly, the captain had escorted Mr. Fox back to the Sea-Spaniel, given him a stiff drink (for the captain was a kind man), and asked him for his parole.

"I could see that Fox was a gentleman, though one fallen on hard times," the captain said. We had gathered in the lounge as usual, and given the events of the day the captain had joined us. "He quite understood the situation; gave his parole immediately, in return for passage home to Angland."

"Hmph," snorted Carbuncle. "And why wouldn't he? It's better accommodation here on the Spaniel than he's had in a while, isn't it?"

"If he thought that, he was greatly mistaken," I said. "Parole or not, I'll be more comfortable to have him where I can see him. He'll be coming up the cliff with the rest of us."

"But will that be safe?" asked Philpott. "There are more people to keep an eye on him here."

"Safe enough," I replied. "We only know one safe way down the plateau, with the Sea-Spaniel and crew at the bottom. He's welcome to try other methods; if he can fly, which I doubt."

I fear I was not completely candid with my colleagues in this exchange. I had other reasons for wanting Mr. Frederick Fox to join us in Zymurgia. Carbuncle may have noticed my unwonted reticence, but if so he had wisely remained silent.