The Dragon in the Sword by Michael Moorcock Page A

our hull for any longer than the Massing. After that it is up to you to take your chances in the anchorages or choose an accountant hull within twenty hours. If a hull will accept you, which I doubt. You’re as good as dead, the pair of you.”
    The barge rolled down the ramp and out into the shallows. It was close to nightfall and there was a cold wind blowing across the lagoons, making the reeds rustle and sway. Armiad shivered. “Faster, laggards!” He struck at the nearest man with his fist. “You two will abuse the hospitality of no other hull. All will know of you by tomorrow, when the Massing begins. You can count yourselves lucky that no blood is permitted to be spilled at the Massing. Not even that of an insect. I would challenge you myself if I thought you worthy of it…”
    “A Blood Challenge, my lord baron?” asked von Bek, unable to resist this barb. He had remained amused by the entire affair. “Would you make a Blood Challenge to Prince Flamadin? I believe that is the prerogative of a Baron Captain, is it not?”
    At this, Armiad glared at him so fiercely he might have set the marsh afire. “Watch your tongue, Count von Bek. I know not of what crimes you are guilty, but doubtless they’ll come to light soon enough. You, too, shall pay the penalty of your deception!”
    Von Bek murmured to me: “How true it is when they say there is nothing which makes a man more furious than the discovery that he has deceived himself!”
    Armiad had overheard. “There are conditions to our custom of hospitality, Count von Bek. If you should breach those conditions, I am permitted, under the Law, to exile you or worse. If I had my way, I’d hang you both from the crosstrees. You have to thank those decadent and enfeebled old people of the
New Argument
and their kind for their intercedence. Happily, I respect the Law. As you, evidently, do not.”
    I ignored the rest of this. I was thinking deeply. I now had some idea of how Prince Flamadin came to be alone in the Maaschanheem. But why had he refused to marry his twin sister Sharadim, since it was plainly what had been expected of him? And had he tried to murder her? And was he really a sham, to be exposed by her when he proved himself a traitor? No wonder the world had turned against him, if it were true. People hated to worship a hero and then discover him to have ordinary human weaknesses!
    Grudgingly Armiad allowed us to return with him to his palace. “But be careful,” he warned. “The smallest infringement of the Law is all the excuse I need to evict you…”
    We went back to our quarters.
    Once in my room, von Bek at last released a great belly laugh. “The poor Baron Captain thought to gain prestige from you and discovered that he’d lost further face with his peers! Oh, how he’d love to murder us. I shall sleep with my door barred tonight. I should not like to catch a chill and perish…”
    I was less amused, largely because I had still more mysteries to consider. I had at least thought myself fortunate in possessing power and prestige in this world. Now that had been taken from me. And if Sharadim was the true strength of the Draachenheem why had I been summoned to inhabit this body?
    I had never experienced anything like it. They were calling for Sharadim, my twin (whoever they were!) perhaps because they already knew that she was the real force, that I was merely a sham who had lent his name to a series of sensational fictions. That much was logical enough, and credible. Yet the Knight in Black and Yellow, and the blind captain, both had seemed to think it was crucial for the Eternal Champion to come to this realm.
    I did my best not to think too much of all this. Instead I tried to consider our immediate problems. “Custom allows us to remain here during the Massing. Thereafter, we are outlawed—fair game for Armiad’s Binkeepers. Is that the story in brief?”
    “It was my understanding,” von Bek agreed. “He seemed to think nobody