The Enchantress of World's End

The little man huddled at his feet, examining his second interlocutor with bright, fearful eyes.

“The noble gentleman asks a question with two answers, at least,” he whimpered. “The City runs itself, of course; it’s name is Kan Zar Kan. But we of The Folk who dwell herein like hunted rabbits, well, our chief rules us. King Yemple is his name …”

“No one lives here but you lomagoths, then?”

The little rogue darted his eyes about and licked his lips as he did, seemingly by reflex action, before every spurt of speech. Ganelon got the feeling that, for Zilth, every direct question gave him the choice between his normal mode of reply, a devious lie, and that rarity from his lips—truth. Under the present circumstances, it seemed, he was too frightened to speak anything but the truth.

“Mostly lomagoths,” he said in a reluctant whine. “A few rogues, of course—”

“Who eluded your clutches in much the same manner as we did?” offered Silvermane. The scrawny little man eyed him warily, then nodded.

His bony wrists tied behind his back, Zilth reluctantly led them towards the headquarters of the lomagoths. The others they had seized were disarmed of a staggering cumulative arsenal of daggers, dirks, stilettos, and a number of wicked little hook-knives. They were bound, gagged and left behind.

The room into which they had been precipitated was an enormous, meandering sort of sub-basement, dark and poorly ventilated, and thronged with an immensity of hydraulic pipes, tubes and conduits. The floor was of oil-stained concrete. Why the City had deposited them in such a place was unknown to the lomagoths, who had only been in residence for about two generations, having been captured by the Mobile City pretty much as Grrff had guessed. They had been crossing the Purple Plain in one of their gypsy caravans forty years ago when suddenly, the City had descended upon them and snatched them up into its metal maw, one by one. And here they had remained ever since, either too fearful to attempt to leave, or frustrated in doing so. The City tolerated their presence not so much because it liked them, but because it felt that a proper city should have inhabitants, and any inhabitants were better than no inhabitants.

All this was elicited from their little captive during the subterranean journey. Once his fears of lingering torture or sudden death were mollified, the scrawny little rogue became actually talkative. He was a remarkable little person, no more than four feet tall and thin as a broomstick, with a long-jawed, unshaven face and a sallow, unhealthy complexion. Since his beard was blue-black, this lent him the most peculiar appearance you can imagine. The upper part of his face was yellow, and the bottom half a stubbly blue.

He had a long sharp nose, bright inquisitive black eyes, and lank blue-black, remarkably greasy hair, bound about his brows by a scarlet kerchief. Gold rings wobbled in his earlobes and his breath exuded a mingled redolency of garlic, onions, cheese and sour wine.

He did not, of course, say so, but Ganelon guessed that when it had been observed by lookouts that the Mobile City was in the process of scooping up another shanghaied “citizen,” a troop of the gypsies went down to the gas-cushion room. They readied themselves to capture the new recruit, strip him of his possessions and then, as likely as not, conduct him before the princeling of the vagabonds as a potential slave. Possibly some of the Kan Zar Kanians enlisted into the local citizenry in this fashion were later ransomed, or perhaps joined the tinker band voluntarily. That remained to be seen.

In the meanwhile, Ganelon just clumped along gloomily, following where the capering, voluble little rogue led. He wondered what had become of the Illusionist, Xarda and Erigon. Were they captives here, or had the City slain them?

Or were they in Kan Zar Kan at all?

That remained to be seen.