The Wordsmiths and the Warguild

Map

Map showing the
continent of Argan with the Ravlish Lands seen top left. Top is north, bottom
is south.

This map does not
appear in the first edition of THE WORSHIPPERS AND THE WAY but is included in
the new edition of the same book published in 2006.

From the Ravlish
Lands one can go east to Penvash then south to Estar. Alternatively, it is
possible to land in Lorp (on the coast at the base of the Penvash Peninsular)
then walk east as far as the Hollern River, then follow the Hollern River south
to the town of Lorford.

A journey south from Lorford brings one to
mountains, beyond which (if one is foolish enough to cross the mountains) lie
the Lezconcarnau Plains. Continuing south would then bring one to the port of
Runcorn.

Chapter 1

        Sung
was a land which was famous far and wide, simply because it was so often and so
richly insulted. However, there was one visitor, more excitable than most, who
developed a positive passion for criticising the place. Unfortunately, the pursuit
of this hobby soon led him to take leave of the truth.

        
This unkind traveller once claimed that the king of Sung, the notable Skan
Askander, was a derelict glutton with a monster for a son and a slug for a
daughter. This was unkind to the daughter. While she was no great beauty, she
was not a slug. After all, slugs do not have arms and legs - and, besides,
slugs do not grow to that size.

        
There was a grain of truth in the traveller's statement, in as much as the son
was a regrettable young man. However, soon afterwards, the son was accidentally
drowned when he made the mistake of falling into a swamp with his hands and
feet tied together and a knife sticking out of his back.

        
This tragedy did not encourage the traveller to extend his sympathies to the
family. Instead, he invented fresh accusations. This wayfarer, an ignorant
tourist if ever there was one, claimed that the king had leprosy. This was
false. The king merely had a well-developed case of boils.

        The
man with the evil mouth was guilty of a further malignant slander when he
stated that King Skan Askander was a cannibal. This was untrue. While it must
be admitted that the king once ate one of his wives, he did not do so
intentionally; the whole disgraceful episode was the fault of the chef, who was
a drunkard, and who was subsequently severely reprimanded.

        
Again, the traveller was in error when he claimed that the kingdom of Sung was
badly governed. In fact, the kingdom was not governed at all. Indeed, even to
imply that there was such a thing as the "kingdom of Sung" was, to
say the least, misleading.

        The
question of the governance, and, indeed, the very existence of the
"kingdom of Sung" is one that is worth pursuing in detail, before
dealing with the traveller's other allegations.

        It
is true that there was a king, his name being Skan Askander, and that some of
his ancestors had been absolute rulers of considerable power. It is also true
that the king's chief swineherd, who doubled as royal cartographer, drew bold,
confident maps proclaiming the borders of the realm. Furthermore, the king
could pass laws, sign death warrants, issue currency, declare war or amuse
himself by inventing new taxes. And what he could do, he did.

        "We
are a king who knows how to be king," said the king.

        And,
certainly, anyone wishing to dispute his right to use the imperial
"we" would have had to contend with the fact that there was enough of
him, in girth, bulk and substance, to provide the makings of four or five
ordinary people, flesh, bones and all. He was an imposing figure; "very
imposing," one of his brides is alleged to have said, shortly before the
accident in which she suffocated.

        "We
live in a palace," said the king. "Not in a tent like Khmar, the
chief milkmaid of Tameran, or in a draughty pile of stones like Comedo of
Estar."

        His
remarks were, in due course, widely reported.

        From
Prince Comedo came the following tart rejoinder:

        "Unlike
yours, my floors are not made of milk-white marble. However, unlike yours, my
floors are not knee-deep in pigshit."

        The
Note from Comedo came promptly, for, pirates and sea monsters permitting, a few
days by sea could take one from Estar to Sung. Receiving that Note, Skan
Askander placed it by his commode, where it would be handy for future royal
use.

        Much
later, and to his great surprise, he received a communication from the Lord
Emperor Khmar, the undisputed master of most of the continent of Tameran. The
fact that Sung had come to the attention of Khmar was, to say the least,
ominous. Khmar had this to say:

        "Your
words have been reported. In due course, they will be remembered against
you."

        The
king of Sung, terrified, endured the sudden onset of an attack of diarrhoea
which had nothing to do with the figs he had been eating. His latest bride,
seeing his acute distress, made the most of her opportunity, and vigorously
counselled him to commit suicide. Knowing Khmar's reputation, he was tempted -
but finally, to her great disappointment, declined. Nevertheless, he lived in
fear; he had no way of knowing that he was simply the victim of one of Khmar's
little jokes.

        In
an effort to avert disaster, the king of Sung made the following law:

        "Skan
Askander, king of Sung, ruler of Ravlish East, emperor of the Lesser Teeth and
of the Greater, rightful heir of Penvash and of Trest and of Estar, scourge of
the Hauma Sea and lord of the Central Ocean, will and must and does with
respect and piety thrice daily honour an image of the Lord Emperor Khmar, most
noble and esteemed Overlord of All Lands and All Peoples for All
Eternity."

        The
law was obeyed, one of Khmar's far-flung coins serving as an image until a
statue could be made.

        Thus,
thrice daily, Skan Askander bowed down to his idol, the graven image of the
distant emperor of Tameran. Khmar, hearing of this, sent him a present - a wine
skin containing the death-blood of a traitor. The skin was many days in
transit; the condition of the contents on arrival are better imagined than
described. However, the king thanked Khmar for his gift, and sent him a side of
bacon in return.

        
Skan Askander ordered the wine skin, bereft of contents, to be paraded in front
of his household once a year, at a solemn ceremony at which all present were to
take or affirm an oath of fealty to the distant emperor.

        This
was done.

        So
it is clear that at least two of the king's laws were effective. Furthermore,
obedient to his written commands, the sun rose in the east and set in the west;
the moon waxed and waned; the tides rose and fell; the winds swept in from the
open oceans and brought generous helpings of rain to his scrabble-rock kingdom.

        Nevertheless,
most of the laws passed by the king were widely flouted, or obeyed only by
accident. He decreed that everyone should wash their bodies at least once in
every lunar month; scarcely one person in a thousand obeyed. He had more
success with a law forbidding people to sleep by daylight, but no joy
whatseover with a ludicrous statute - he was drunk at the time he signed it
into law - which endeavoured to compel people to obtain written permits from
the state to authorise their births, deaths and marriages.

        As
for the king's wars, death warrants and taxes, these were never fought,
executed or raised; indeed, most of the king's putative subjects never heard of
those wars, death warrants and taxes. In fact, many of them lived out their
lives without hearing of the king.

        For,
if the unvarnished truth be told, the borders established with such exactitude
by Skan Askander's part-time cartographer were, not to put too fine a point
upon it, fatuous. In the continent of Argan, many leagues to the east of the
king's palace and piggery, the lands of Trest and Estar had their own rulers,
while Penvash was commanded by the Melski, green-skinned monsters who had
defeated the king's ancestors in a disastrous war which had permanently
undermined the credibility of the monarchy.

        To
the south, the islands of the Greater Teeth were under the sway of the Orfus
pirates, those gentlemen occasionally known - but only to themselves - as the
Honourable Associates of the Free Federation of High Sea Sailors. Skan
Askander's claim to rule the Greater Teeth was spurious; even the fishermen and
fisherwomen who inhabited the low-slung sandy islands of the Lesser Teeth
defied him, for they lived independently, acknowledging no rulers whatsoever.

        As
for the eastern end of the Ravlish Lands, where the king had his home, most of
it was effectively under the control of the barons who lorded it over huge
country estates, or was supervised by self-governing towns which had persuaded
the world to describe them as "city states," though few had a
population of more than two thousand talking heads.

        To
return to our unkind traveller, who so maligned the unfortunate land of Sung,
it has now been demonstrated that there was no truth to his claim that the
kingdom of Sung was badly goverend. His statement was not just untrue but
impossible, for, as there was in practice no such thing as "the kingdom of
Sung," the question of its governance did not arise.

        The
traveller, out of ignorance or malice, made another mistake when he claimed
that the main amusements in the kingdom of Sung were scavenging gorse, drowning
in peat bogs and playing at fumble in the smothering fog.

        The
non-existence of the kingdom in question has already been amply demonstrated,
which in itself serves to prove the allegation false. Assuming that the
traveller was speaking of that eastern part of the Ravlish Lands commonly known
as "Sung" scarcely improves matters, for the statement would still be
false both in its substance and its implications.

        The
traveller's accusation implies that Sung was a dull, foggy area domianted by
gorse and peat bogs and inhabited by dull, provincial people at a loss for any
reasonable form of entertainment.

        Nothing
could be further from the truth.

        As
a matter of fact, less than seven percent of the arable land was covered with
gorse; in contrast, horse thistle, gripe and barbarian thorn accounted for
twenty-two percent between them, with another twelve percent being dominated by
snare, clox and blackberry. Overall, only three percent of Sung was peat bog, a
full fifty percent being bleak-rock uplands, or trackless forests where
ravening wolves would ravage the unwary, leaving the stripped skeletons to
become bones of contention between bad-tempered porcupines and rabid foxes.