Sean McMullen - The Glasken Chronicles

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The Glasken Chronicles

Sean McMullen

This story is closely related to both "The Eyes of the Green Lancer" and "Destroyer of Illusions", which appear in

Sean McMullen's new collection Call to the Edge, from Aphelion Publications, and "Souls in the Great Machine"

from Universe 2 (eds. Silverberg and Haber, 1992). Sean's "Alone in His Chariot", first published in Eidolon Issue 4

and also appearing in Call to the Edge, was recently awarded the 1992 "Best Short Fiction" Australian National

Science Fiction ("Ditmar") Award.

Whenever I lead a camel train to the edges of the known world, Master, I take particular care to

work closely with my drivers and strappers. Knowing their moods, fears and needs can be the

difference between harmony and mutiny.

We were encamped at the Fostoria Oasis after crossing the great desert of pebbles when I came

upon a strange character named John Glasken. This man was nineteen metric tall, with a thick

black beard and uncommon broad shoulders. He spoke the Alspring tongue clumsily, and hung

about the campsite selling proscribed spirits and herbs.

On the second night of our stay Glasken became most disgustingly drunk with some of my infidel

drivers. As I sat at their campfire carousings, ensuring that none of the talk became mutinous,

Glasken began to relate such a strange tale that I soon sent for a clerk to copy it down in

dashscript. Read Glasken's tale now, Master. Read to understand why I am returning to Glenellen

with all possible haste.

There is nothing quite so disgusting as a spell in the public stocks. Locked into the wooden frame and a

target for rotten fruit and slops by day, then chained up and not able to scrape off the muck by night, it

was no wonder that I longed for a bath as I returned to Villiers College, even though I'd already had one

that month.

I found my room ransacked! Money, weapons, border pass, riding gear, my newly awarded degree, all

gone. Even my knocking-socks had been vandalised. I sat down on the bed, utterly despondent. Reeking

like a gutter, and now robbed; what worse blows could fate have in store for me? Then I saw it, the

Mark of Libris on my pillow! The world stopped as I stared at the red stamp of a book closed over a

dagger. The Mark was there to warn me of impending doom. They were going to kill me! Why? My

drunken brawling and petty theft was of no interest to heads of state . . . and then I remembered

Lemoral.

That was it. Lem normally testified in my favour whenever I was hauled before the magistrate, but had

ignored my notes this time. She must have found out about, well, Joan Jiglesar, Carole Mhoreg, that

wench from the refectory or perhaps even some girl from the previous week. That was the trouble with

having powerful mistresses. Their patronage was wonderful, yet their revenge could be as devastating as

a thunderbolt. All my travel gear was gone, so I quickly changed into my most sturdy clothes, bundled

some loose gear into an improvised wayfarer's bedroll and left it by the door.

Money was the key to everything, and money was there for the bold to take. Snapwire in hand, I made

my way down to the College Purser's office. The dinner bell was ringing, and I knocked smartly to make

sure that he was already gone. It took only moments to get past his cheap, two-tumbler lock. Leaving the

door slightly ajar behind me, I crept across the darkened room to the strongbox.

The lock was difficult, even for me, but presently the tumblers yielded. I lifted a bag from the box and

hefted it. About fifty coins, more than enough to get me . . . where? Perhaps I could hire an unwitting

decoy to journey south while I took a wind train west into lands beyond the reach of Libris. Suddenly the

door was pushed open and light flooded into the room.

"I say, Stoneford, are you there? Hey, who - ?"

I clubbed him over the head with the bag of coins. Pulling the door behind me I dashed out into the

corridor and crashed blindly into the evening procession of edutors to the refectory high table. The bag

slipped from my hand, sending gold and silver coins spilling before me in a jingling cascade.

By the tenth hour I was sitting in a cell in the Constable's watch-house. The edutors of Villiers College

turned me over to the University Warden, accusing me of breaking into the Purser's office, stealing fifty

one silver nobles and six gold royals, and striking the Rector unconscious. I was then handed over to the

Constable's Runners, who took me before a magistrate and had me charged formally. Due to my skill

with locks I was shackled to a ball and chain by a heavy rivet after being stripped naked and clothed in

striped trews and a blanket.

Some days later I awoke to a click at the door, and I looked up to see Lemoral being shown in. I stood

up at once. She was not smiling. A bad sign.

"Ah, Lem, dearest, I have been unjustly - "

"They say that virtue is its own reward," she cut me short. "I see that the rewards of vice are more

appropriate." Disaster. Contempt dripped from her words like poisoned honey.

"What do you mean?" I asked nervously.

"I am not without influence, Fras graduate, and there is much that I can do to make your life unpleasant. I

can even arrange that the last five seconds of it are spent falling down the centre of a beamflash tower.

The idea of having been your dupe revolts me, the idea that a sketch of my nude body was pinned above

your bed while you were in it with Joan Jiglesar makes me want to retch. I have been promoted to

Dragon Silver Librarian, Glasken, and I don't want rumours of our liaison hanging over my career."

Interesting. I'd rogered Jiggle in many places, and many other girls in my college bed, but never that girl

in that bed. Whatever Lem's source of information, it was fallible.

"Lem, please, I need your good testimony just once more. I'm charged with violence to a Gentleman. Do

you know what the magistrate will say to that? Death, either by hanging or musket fire, according to his

mood. If it's been a bad week for assaults, I might also get a spell of public torture first."

It was true. I could practically feel the straps on my wrists and hear the ratchets clicking. Her eyes

narrowed, and she smiled.

"Tell anyone that we were ever more than vague acquaintances and I'll kill you myself. Keep silent, and

I'll see that you're not killed or tortured excessively - for these offences, at least."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

I agreed, of course. Next morning I was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. That was a nasty

moment, but after a long, gloating pause the sadistic wretch of a magistrate added that I had been granted

the Mayor's clemency. He then changed my sentence to one year in the blazing deserts of Baffin Land for

every coin in the bag with which I had struck the Rector. Fifty seven years! After the trial I was chained

inside an armoured wagon and driven to the wind train terminus. There I was marched, chain, ball and all,

to the office of the Inspector of Customs. He signed for me, and I was held under guard until I was

handed over to the train's warden.

A man that I took to be from the train entered, with scroll in his hand. He sent the guards out of the

office, and two other armed, uniformed men replaced them.

"Now, Prisoner Glasken, I have a few details to check," he said genially. "You have a degree, I see

here."

"I'll be the best educated prisoner in Baffin Land," I sighed.

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