Slave of Sarma

Chapter Sixteen

From the writings of Aknir, Palace Philosopher of Greater Sarma, in the year 10536 AB - After Blade - concerning the Secret of the Oxem:

(Oxem is an old Sarmaian word for leather, now generally considered archaic and in some disrepute.) The reference is to a leathern bottle, made water tight with gum, in which the strange writings of Captain Richard Blade were reputed to have been found, washed up by the Purple Sea, after many years, near a small fishing village in what was formerly called Tyranna but has long since been annexed by Sarma. IE - War of Liberation, circa 10344-10350. That Blade ever existed is doubtful, yet the myth persists to this day, and in some parts of Greater Sarma he is regarded as a quasi-deity nearly on a par with Bek-Tor. In writing so long after the events a scholar must go with care, weighing fact against fiction and myth, and I hope I have been sufficiently circumspect in this regard. I myself am disinclined to believe that a Blade ever existed, so the writing in the leather bottle must have been some kind of a hoax. Why? By whom? I cannot answer. There is no question that the myth persists strongly - do we not now date our moon sequences thus, After Blade? The sad truth is that we can never really know for sure. And it is sad because I, Aknir the Philosopher, commissioned by Her Majesty Queen Fertti, Ruler of Greater Sarma, would like to believe in Richard Blade. On the evidence available, as a man of reason, I cannot. I can only present the writings, purported to be written by Blade in the ancient Sarmaian script and translated by me.

A final word about the translation. There were great, almost insurmountable difficulties. If Blade did exist he was certainly no Sarmaian. His grammar is execrable, his choice of words poor, his style - if one may presume to call it by that name - barely on a level with the barest beginner today. Whoever the writer he seems to have had the barest smattering of Old Sarmaian. Many times he uses words that, if not made indecipherable by time and the sea, were surely never spoken by a Sarmaian tongue. This translation had been a labor of love and, in many times, very nearly a labor of hate. My personal physician, Cyclo, will testify how many times I have come to him pleading hysteria as a result of working on this manuscript.

So I can only offer this with the comment that I have don\'a9 the best I can. Whether or not Richard Blade ever lived in Sarma, the old Sarma, each reader will have to decide for himself. One thing is sure - there is a vitality, a crispness of spirit, a motivation of freedom and determination, about the tale that strikes the heart even over rational disbelief. This is, to my belief, the first transliteration of the Log, or the Secret of the Oxem, into Modern Sarmaian. I think it will take a firm place in our literature.

LOG OF THE TRIREME PPHIRA.

I must cast back a bit to bring this log up to date. Probably a lot of damned foolishness anyway, keeping a log, but Pelops found writing materials in the same village where we took on food and water, and it helps to kill the time. Odd, that, because I may not have as much time as I reckoned on. Yesterday I had a pain in my head, frontal lobes, and though it might have been only a headache it might also be Lord L probing for me with the computer. I hope not. I am, at the moment, a hell of a long way from finding my doppelganger.

(Despairing note of translator - I have consulted planet wide authorities and can find no meaning for doppelganger.) The Pphira is well found and clean bottomed. There is enough of sail cloth and cordage, spare oars, and all nautical supplies. This I can only suppose to be another oversight by the officers of the late Otto, when they were selecting the ships for the sea games. Pelops says they were all drunk on kippe at the time.

Speaking of kippe, I found several casks, aboard and had them moved to my cabin. The stuff is a little like rum,

though with less body, and Pelops tells me it is brewed from berries found only in the swamps of Sarma. I think I will keep it away from the men, though I had thought of emulating the British Navy and doling out a pint a day, or so, but decided to hell with that. This is not the British Navy!

I have been following the Sarmaian coast south and sending occasional parties ashore for information. The Word I get is that all Sarma is in revolt against Tyranna now that Otto is dead - what a mess that must have been - and that Queen Pphira is organizing an expeditionary force to invade Tyranna before Otto's son - what in hell was his name? - can invade her. I hope she gets away with it.

I have wasted the better part of a week in getting the ship organized and in working out a few problems. One of the problems is that I just have too damned many men! Pphira is over-crewed with 200 and I have 400. All former slaves. My only solution is to find another ship. Have called Ixion - who is recovering well - and Pelops into conference and explained the situation to them. Ixion just grinned and said no problem - capture another ship and put half my crew aboard her. I think he is right. Pelops, who is getting to be something of a problem himself, went into a long lecture about how that would make us pirates. I asked him what matter, so long as we did not kill when it was not necessary, and told him to shut up. Pelops took it badly. He actually put his hand on his sword and glared at me. I had a hard time not laughing, for I do not want to hurt his feelings. The little man has found his manhood now and I like that, but I wish he was not such a little bastard about it. He shines his armor all the time and neglects his work, and struts around like he owned the ship. Hate to do it, but sooner or later will have to take him down a peg.

No more head pains. Maybe it was only a headache after all.

The goddamnedest thing happened today - I wonder how stupid a man like me can really be! It has been right under my nose all the time and I didn't see it. Uranium. Mountains of uranium. Now, if I make it back to Home Dimension alive, all Lord L has to do is invent teleportation and England will be a great power again. The stuff will be so cheap that we will be making atom bombs for a shilling each. That is good?

To hell with it. I am an agent, not a do-gooder nor yet a bleeding heart or philosopher. Uranium is a fact of life. And His Lordship hasn't invented teleportation yet, though I wouldn't bet against it. But to get to the facts, m'am, as they used to say in that Yank TV show - Christ, I hope nobody ever reads this log! I really let my hair down in it. Sometimes I feel like a girl with a diary. But it does fill the time and I sort of enjoy it. I am no writer and don't have to be, and anyway Pelops says that nobody, but absolutely nobody, will ever be able to read my Sarmaian. He tried to read one page and got to laughing so hard that I finally had to kick him out of the cabin.

To get back to the uranium. It was Chephron who did it. I know he makes the Hunchback of Notre Dame look like a beauty contest winner, and I really can't stand the man, but I have to be fair. He is. a good oar drummer and knows how to handle the men and get the most out of them. Everybody takes a turn at the oars. Except myself and Pelops and Ixion.

Pelops, who fancies himself as a medical man, was trying to cure Chephron's sores with some salve he found aboard. It didn't work, but Pelops did find out that Chephron, the idiot, was carrying around a piece of raw meta in his pocket.

"It is a luck piece," Chephron said to me. "I carry it just to remind myself that I no longer toil in the mines. Whenever I am sick and the sores pain me and make people avoid me I look at the piece of meta and tell myself how much better off I am."

I quote him verbatim in the above. Anyway Pelops got the idea that the raw meta had something to do with the sores. Chephron wouldn't part with it. So Pelops, who is now the ship's doctor and, I suppose, as good as any, had Chephron up in front of me. As long as I am writing this at all, taking the trouble, I may as well put that into quotes also.

Pelops said, "I want to throw it overboard, sire, but the fool will not part with it. He has carried it since the mine and I believe it makes him sick and keeps his sores from healing. He will not listen to me - but if you order him!"

I did not like looking at Chephron and his sores - a thing I am not proud of, but in this log I am telling the truth, since nobody will ever see it anyway - and I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. Chephron did not smell so good, either, though I make all the men bathe once a day in sea Water.

"Let me see the thing," I ordered. "Take it 'from him, Pelops, and hand it to me."

Chephron growled a little, but he obeyed. I examined the chunk of raw meta closely.

Strange how the human brain works even when it has been distorted and reconstituted by Lord L's computer. The chunk of meta was about half the size of a cricket ball. Heavy, with a lot of mass and density, a mixture of black-brown in color. I flipped it in my palm, not really thinking too much about it, ' and studied poor little Chephron. For some reason, only Bek-Tor knows why, as Pelops would say, I remembered something I had read back in H Dimension. Something about the chemical table of the human body and what it was worth in money. In dollars and cents - it must have been a reprint from a Yank paper. I could even remember the exact figures - that the value of body chemicals and minerals was up 257% since 1936. In that year they had been worth about 98 cents. Now they were valued at $3.50. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, all of them, even a little gold and silver, worth almost four dollars. I was looking at Chephron and thinking that on that scale he was worth about sixpence.

The important thing was that it got me to thinking about minerals. I took a better and longer look at the meta. Something started buzzing in my mind, but it wouldn't come out in the open.

I flung the chunk of meta on my bunk and told Chephron that I would decide later after I had studied the stuff. He grumbled a little but in the end he bowed and took off. Then I had to listen to Pelops.

He glared at the meta. "If you keep it around, sire, you will get the sores and the sickness. I am convinced of it. Let me throw it over the side. I have long thought, ever since I - "

By this time I knew when he was getting ready to go into a lecture and I cut him short. I was a little curt with him.

"One night will do no harm," I told him. "Forget it. And here is an order - find me an ingot of refined meta, or a coin of the stuff, and bring it to me at once. Hurry up."

He thought I was bonkers. "An ingot of meta, sire? Where would I find that aboard this ship?"

I admitted the unlikelihood. "Find me a coin, then. Any coin.' They are all made of meta, aren't they?"

"Of course, sire. What else? But surely you know - Otto the Black controlled all coinage - even the Queen had few coins - how am I to find a coin among slaves? It is impossible. I myself have not possessed a meta coin in years. And as I was about to say, sire, when you switched the talk to coins, I - "

I leveled a finger at him - remember to clean your nails, Blade - and said, "As you are not about to say, Polonius, get the hell out of here and find me a coin. You have four hundred ex-slaves to search. Surely one of them somehow and somewhere, will have concealed a coin. Look for it. Don't come back until you find it."

When I get that tone in my voice Pelops knows I mean it, But he stopped at the cabin door and looked at me. "Polonius? I am Pelops, as you well know. Why did you call me by another name? Who is Polonius?"

It was hard to keep from laughing, but I managed. "A very great man in the literature of my own land," I told him. "Very wise. Of the finest character. A fount of good advice and much looked up to. He only had one failing."

Pelops, all smiles now, mollified, was bowing and smirking at me. "His failing, sire? What was it?"

"HE TALKED TOO DAMNED MUCH. OUT - OUT! FIND ME A COIN!"

When he was gone I examined the chunk of raw meta again. I forced my memory back to a class I had attended at the Naval School in Greenwich. J had made me go.

Just suppose, I thought to myself. Symbol U or UR. AT. no., 92 AT. wt., 238.07.

It all came slipping back into my mind. Possible? Hell - I was in Sarma! Who would have thought that possible before Lord L came up with his master computer?

Just before dark Pelops came back with a small square coin. He had washed it well, he explained, because one of the former slaves had had it concealed up his anus. I did not ask how Pelops had come by it.

I examined the coin with the crude telescope I had inherited. Not very satisfactory, but good enough. I scratched it with a knife. Heavy, dense, nickellike. Very hard. It could just be.

That night, before the cabin lamp was lit, I lay on the bunk and studied the chunk of raw meta. After staring at it for a long time I had to call in Pelops and Ixion for their opinions. I was beginning to doubt my own eyes.

They saw it, too. A faint glow in the dark, just a hint of fluorescence, a barely seen nimbus around the chunk of meta.

Pitchblende.

For the first time in four trips out into Dimension X I had found a treasure that could really be called a treasure. In Sarma there were whole mountain ranges of pitchblende. Chephron had radiation sores.

I have decided to have a special pocket made in my clothes for the piece of meta and the coin. Recompense the man for his coin.

All the above is written in retrospect, long after the fact, for the simple reason that I have just gotten back to this log. A hell of a lot has happened since I identified that chunk of meta ay pitchblende. Most all of it bad. Some good, though. I have found Zeena again!

Not that finding her turned out to be such a good thing. It really wasn't. But none of that, because I can't bring myself to write about it. The biggest trouble is that I now have another woman on my hands. The two of them are driving me crazy.

Let me see. It is hard to pick up a log like this after so much time and so many events - so I will just say that I was lying there thinking about the pitchblende and wondering if Lord L could ever invent teleportation so we could get the stuff back to H Dimension, when Ixion came in with bad news. I am trying to remember just how he put it. I do remember that he still had a bandage around his neck and was very pale. Ixion was a good man and a fine seaman. If it were not for Ixion I wouldn't be writing in this log again.

Ixion said, "There is weather making, Captain Blade. Looks like one of the Purple storms that come this time of year. We had best get off the land as far as we can."

We had been coasting south.

I wasn't particularly worried, I remember. I did my time in the Navy and I've been around boats most of my life. And he was right, of course. I didn't want to fool around with a lee shore.

I can remember distinctly that I was sleepy. I must have yawned. And said, "So take her out, Ixion. We'll heave to, rig a sea anchor, and ride out the weather. No problem."

Ixion frowned. He wasn't having any of my cheerfulness. I did not, it seemed, understand much about the purple Sea. He took a leather chart out of a case and showed me.

The thing about the Purple Sea was that it was so narrow. I hadn't actually realized. Ixion put his finger on the chart and showed me - the Purple Sea was only about fifty miles across at the widest point. Most of it was much narrower than that. Directly across from us now was Tyranna. I sure as hell didn't want to go there. Neither did I want to hang around Sarma.

To the north were uncharted waters - as far as Ixion knew the sea stretched out to infinity. No sailor had ever reached the end of it. I wasn't about to try.

Ixion said the Purple storms blew for days, even weeks. Even with sea anchors and bare poles we were sure to be driven. To east or west we would be driven aground. To the north were uncharted waters. That left the south, where lay the Burning Land, where I wanted to go anyway. I thought it solved the problem. Run before the storm, always to the south. Ixion left the cabin shaking his head - the Captain Blade had never been in a Purple storm. I would see.

I saw, all right. As I write this I can still see those waves. Mast high. Higher. It was like being in a valley surrounded by purple-black mountains. The wind was at least typhoon strength - by H Dimension standards - and it never let up. Kept shifting from quarter to quarter, shrilling and screaming and blowing the tops off the huge waves.

We lost four rudders in two days. I lost a dozen men overboard in the first hour before we got life lines rigged. I had myself lashed to the tiller and took the worst beating of my life, but I managed to keep her from broaching too badly. We bailed all the time. They were working for their lives and they knew it and they bailed. How they bailed! It wasn't enough. The Pphira was tight enough but we kept shipping tons of water with every wave. And the waves never stopped.

By the end of the third day I knew we were licked. Pphira was low in the water and getting ready to sink any minute. Then we got a miracle. The storm passed.

I will put this in quotes, too, in an effort to get it down just as it happened. The storm let up suddenly and I grabbed Ixion's speaking grumpet and let them hear me good.

"Bail, you misbegotten bastards! Get this ship dry. You cooks start your fires again - we'll all be better with hot food in our bellies. You bo'suns" - for I had Pphira organized down to the lowest rating - "you bo'suns get your crews to clearing up the wreckage. Everything we can't use goes over the side. Check the drinking water. And remember that it's rationed! Any man caught stealing water goes over the side. Empty and clean the latrines. All sick or injured men report to Pelops immediately."

I kept bellowing, sounding as tough and cheerful as I could to put some heart in them. They needed it. So did I. I hadn't been off my feet in two days and the ropes that bound me to the tiller had rubbed me raw. I was about at the end of my tether but I couldn't let them see it.

Pelops was in worse shape. Along with everything else he had been sea sick - I've never seen a worse case - and he spent most of the time in my cabin, hiding under the bunk and throwing up. Those mountainous waves had taken all the strut out of him. I didn't blame him much, but now I had to roust him a little.

"You've got sick call to look to," I told him. "Get down there and get those men patched up and dosed."

His complexion was like green slime. He held his belly and groaned at me. "I am still ill, sire. I cannot. My belly is in my throat. Anyway I have few medicines and my splints and bandages are in short supply. I - "

I scowled at him and shoved him off the poop deck. "Do the best you can, then. Set a good example, at least. The worst is over."

When Pelops had gone Ixion looked at me from the tiller, where he had taken over, and said, "You are wrong, Captain. The worst is not over. It is yet to come."

Remember that I was as sick, tired, hungry and thirsty and beatup as any of them. I gave him a nasty look. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Ixion pointed to the sea around us. It was calm as far as the eye could see, as calm as though oil had been spread on it.

"You do not know the way of the Purple storms," Ixion reminded me again. "It will return. In an hour, or a day, or even several days, but it will return. There are always two parts to a Purple storm, and there is always a calm between. You will see."

I had to believe him. Ixion had never been wrong yet about seafaring matters. I cursed for a time - a lot of good that did - then asked Ixion if he had any idea where we were. He didn't, much, except that we had been driven south all this while and there was no land in sight. Not much help. But I knew what I had to do.

"Get the men to rowing as soon as possible." There wasn't a breath of wind. There wouldn't be, Ixion said, until the storm came blasting back.

"We'll make all the southing we can," I decided. "We've got to sight the Burning Land sometime. Maybe we can find a harbor to protect us. What would you know of this?"

Ixion shrugged. "I have never been to the Burning Land, Captain. Few Sarmaians have. I know only what I have heard of it - that it is a terrible place and is a great distance from Sarmacid. It is said that none may cross the Burning Land but the Moghs, who live beyond it."

I was not interested in Moghs at the moment. I glanced at the sky. It was yellow and shot with red. Patches of the familiar yellow fog were dotting the tranquil sea like mushrooms. Looking at that glassy smooth surface now it was hard to conceive its recent fury.

I stared at Ixion. "You are sure the storm will return?"

He made the sign of the T. "As. sure, my Captain, as I stand on this deck a free man."

"Get them rowing," I snapped. "Tell Chephron to get all he can out of them. I know they're sick and tired, and a lot of them crippled, but we have to try it. Pphira won't last out another blow like that last one."

"The second storm," said Ixion, "is always the worst."

I gave him a sour look. "You're just a little ray of sunshine, mate. That is what I love about you."

He didn't get it and I didn't bother to explain. I dragged my weary carcass down among the men and did the best I could to cheer them. They were a pretty bedraggled lot but in half an hour I had them on the benches, putting their backs into it, and starting a sea chantey. I went back to the poop.

We had lost our single mast, snapped halfway down, and I couldn't step a new one at sea. There was a spare - marvel in itself - but I couldn't risk lying to and stepping it when the new storm might catch me. I sent a man up to the splintered stub to lash himself there and let me know the instant he saw land.

That damned desert shore - which of course I took the Burning Land to be, desert - couldn't be much farther on. If we could make it and beach Pphira. I had enough men to drag her high above the tide line and dig a shallow hole for her bottom. She would be safe then and I would have a base of sorts. I knew I was going to have to cross that desert and I was not looking forward to it.

Burns said something about the best laid plans, etc. The old drunk knew what he was talking about. We had been rowing about five hours, making good speed, when the lookout on the shattered mast let out a yell and pointed off the port bow.

"A ship, Captain! A ship - sinking."

A ship in distress. With all my trouble it was the last thing I needed. I cupped my hands, and yelled at the lookout.

"What do you make of her, man?"

"I make her a pirate, Captain. There is a skull nailed to her prow. Her mast is gone and she is down by the head. Women aboard her, sir! Women!"

I could hear the muttering all through Pphira at the word. Women! More trouble.

I shot a glance at Ixion. "What do you make of it? Could it be one of the Queen's punishment ships?"

Zeena!

Ixion took the glass from me and studied the ship. With my naked eye I could see women leaping and shouting aboard her, waving their hands, and bits of colored cloth. Most of them were bare breasted. No sign of a man.

"Those are women right enough," said Ixion. He licked his lips.

"I know that," I told him coldly. "Keep your mind on the matter at hand. What of the ship?"

He nodded slowly. "She's a pirate, Captain. In bad shape, too, but I don't think she's sinking. Certainly she is not a galless, no crime ship. She's only a unireme and all gallesses are biremes at least, usually triremes. And there is the skull nailed to her prow - none but a pirate would carry that."

I tugged my beard and wondered aloud. "Then where are the damned pirates? Not women pirates, certainly?"

Ixion handed me back the glass with a cool look. "No, Captain. My guess is that the pirates attacked a galless and sank her. They took some of the women aboard their own craft."

I knew a way to find out. "Stand by to lie close to her," I said. "Battle stations. This could be a trick to lull us with women. She is probably crammed with pirates below decks."

I was wrong. It turned out that the pirates had taken a galless, one of the Queen's punishment ships. They killed the Captain, one Marius and the only man aboard - did not Queen Pphira mention that name to me? - and they had a lot of fun with the ugly women before they tossed them overboard or slit their throats. The cream of the crop, of the women crew, criminals under Sarmaian law and set to the oars, the pirates took aboard their own ship. All women, as I found out later, were communal property.

I am getting ahead of things. When we found no pirates we came alongside the unireme and took the women off. More of that later. Too much of it, by far. Sheer hell! Zeena was among them.

Ixion was right about the unireme. She could be saved. That really gladdened the old Blade heart. I hated to lose Ixion, but he was the best man I had and he was needed, I told him, in the presence of Pelops, that he was now a Captain.

"Take anything you need and repair that ship," I ordered. "Keep her afloat. Take a hundred and fifty men with you. Appoint your own officers - you know them better than I do - and work as fast as you can. I'll lie hove to until we see how it is coming out."

I saw him watching the sky and knew what he was thinking.

"Pray a little," I advised him. "Maybe the storm will hold off long enough."

To Pelops I said: "I place you in charge of the women. See if Zeena is among them. Herd them all into my cabin and keep them in it - see to their needs as best you can. No one but you to enter the cabin without my permission."

Ixion interrupted me, a thing he seldom did. "There is something, Captain, of which I must speak. It is important. Much so. Neither you nor I want a mutiny."

I knew it was coming. I said, "I listen."

"If I am to have nearly half the men, Captain, and a ship of my own, I will also need some of the women. Surely you see that? Otherwise there will be fighting and mutiny. These men are slaves, as I was, and some have not had a woman in years."

Pelops nodded at me. "He is right, sire."

Of course he was right. I was in Sarma and had to do as the Sarmaians did.

"Find the Princess Zeena," I told Pelops curtly. "If she is among them. I care not what you do with the others. You are a teacher, a scholar. Use your math to figure out the ratio - one woman to so many men. Just so you keep them at peace. Now do it."

(Translator's note - here a large segment of the script is missing or in such condition from sea and time that it is unreadable. Many of the pages are only fragments. It is possible to attempt an interpolation of the missing, or indecipherable, pages, though such an attempt is always presumptuous and carries the risk of misleading. With all this in view, I have still made the effort.

The women were divided among the crews of the two ships. Blade had no alternative and it was the custom in those crude old days. He did find his Princess Zeena, though not as he remembered her, and he found another woman as well. One would indeed give much to know the outcome of all this, of this triangle, if in fact it ever happened. Alas that we cannot know.

We know that there were some thirty women - this indicated by fragments of script not shown here - and that they were happy enough to be with the men on the two ships. One can, even in these somewhat effete days, imagine what it must have been like.

The unireme was saved and made sea-worthy. With Ixion in command it followed Blade as he continued his search for the coast of the Burning Land. Beyond doubt what we today call the Xbec Sands. Whether or not he made it we do not know. It would seem not, by the evidence of these papers themselves which Blade sealed, or at least stored, in an empty kippe bottle. We come now to the final few sentences in the missive. Blade must have written it just before the storm swept back and struck again.)

I am writing on the poop deck, having been ejected from my cabin by Zeena and the other woman. Who calls herself a Princess, also. A Princess Canda. Two of them?

Zeena did not recognize me. She is in very bad shape mentally. It is clear that she had a bad time among the pirates. The other one, Canda, seems not to have been harmed. I really don't know what to make of her yet. She treats me, and poor Pelops, like dirt under her feet. She claims she is the daughter of some great king across the mountains of the Burning Land. El Kal of the Moghs. Whoever he is! I don't know. This Canda may just be a beautiful liar.

Tried to talk to Zeena again. No luck. She is afraid of me and shrinks into a corner of the cabin and stares at me with that haunted look. She has been passed from hand to hand by the pirates, that much is obvious, and it has tipped her over the edge. Question is - what can I do? How can I help her?

I have a job to do, damn it, and it has to come first. If we ever find that goddamned coast!

There is something about that other woman, Canda, that disturbs me. She keeps watching me with a funny little smile. As though she knew something. She is a cool customer, too, and would like to take over my ship if she could. She has been ordering Pelops about as if he were a slave again. We all seem slaves to her.

A beauty, though. Luscious. Even with most of her clothes off, which is the way all the women came aboard.

Canda is watching me now from the cabin with that imperious look on her face and that odd smile. Breasts that are out of this world! Down, Blade. You are in plenty of trouble without that - besides there is poor Zeena to think of. Yet I wonder - could Zeena and I still be married? Under Sarmaian law probably. To hell with that!

Ixion is signaling from the unireme. That damned wind is coming up again. Sky very bad. Waves starting to build. Here we go again! I will put this -

(Translator's note - That is all. We know that Blade, if there was such a person, stored his manuscript in a wine bottle of leather. The bottle was sealed when found. And here we must enter into speculation once more: surely, for all those centimoons, the wine bottle did not float about in the Purple Sea. It must, always supposing it to be genuine, have found a lodgement in some sea cave, or grotto, or even a wreck, while so many eons passed it by. Then, by chance, it was freed and eventually drifted into our own time and was at last discovered by the fishing villagers. This is, I must repeat once more, only speculation.

But then Richard Blade himself is speculation! This poor scholar has already gone on record as a disbeliever. My own theory is that the papers are a hoax perpetrated long ago, in an age contemporary with the Blade myth. Some submerged genius, perhaps, who believed in the myth and wanted his chance at playing Blade.

We shall never know.