by Glen Cook
The remains could still be recognized. They were the men who had deserted first. They had been attacked by archers.
“Bandits?” Greyfells asked the air.
“Hard to tell, Your Grace,” a soldier replied. “The broken arrows are the Marena Dimura type.”
Babeltausque, unhappy about being in the field, said, “It hardly matters now.”
“True enough,” the Duke admitted. “Sorcerer, here is where you earn your sweet cunny. Make sure it doesn’t happen to us.”
Babeltausque soon had his chance. “We’re being stalked. Four men. In the woods to our left. A dozen more are hiding up ahead, in the brush around that lone chestnut.”
Greyfells had been looking forward to this. His troops were all afoot. Each carried a strung bow with an arrow laid across. “The finer you determine where they are the happier I’ll be.”
“Keep moving like you’re ready for trouble but don’t really expect it. I’ll give you my best.” He would. He had a reason to live.
Greyfells halted at the extreme range of the short bow favored by the Marena Dimura. He laid flights of arrows into the ambush area. Shrieks and curses responded.
The frustrated ambushers rose to loose their own shafts. That made the Itaskians’ work easier.
Those ambushers still able to do so ran.
The Itaskians found eight wounded men. They recovered their arrows, left seven dead to their more fortunate brothers. They took one youth along for questioning. His wound was not life-threatening. He was not nearly as tough as he imagined.
Watching Babeltausque booby-trap corpses, Greyfells said, “Sorcerer, I’m developing a whole new appreciation of you. I may give you all of my bastard sisters.”
“Mayenne will be sufficient, Your Grace.” Then greed reared up. “Though Jondelle would make Mayenne a fine companion.”
Greyfells laughed. “Wicked man. But be cautious with Jondelle. She is insane.”
The party smashed three more ambushes. Babeltausque’s stock soared. Years of maltreatment and disdain went by the wayside. Soldiers tended to give respect to those who saved their asses.
Babeltausque was no empire destroyer but he was handy on the killing ground. That carried plenty of weight with the sloggers.
The prisoner was worthless. He had no idea why the forest people were active again. He did what his father told him.
The Itaskians left him alive but in horrible pain. Whoever tried to help would regret his empathy. Babeltausque included a nasty booby trap.
Twelve days. Still no sign of Josiah. And no word from Wolf. Things were falling apart. Gales’s disappearance had shaken the garrison. He had been more important than Inger had imagined. Once they suspected that the Colonel was not coming back the native garrison began to evaporate. Changes for the worse were evident daily. Those regiments that had remained loyal soon became paper tigers.
The vanishing soldiers were not shifting allegiance. They were just leaving.
Inger had no reliable intelligence about what was going on outside Vorgreberg. It did seem that the pretender’s soldiers were deserting, too.
The nobility began abandoning Vorgreberg, finding excuses to return to their holdings. They did not want to get crushed in the coming collapse.
Inger knew she needed to make a show of strength. But she had none to show. Her enemies had brought her to the brink by walking away or by ignoring her.
Then came the six deserters from Damhorst, four of them injured. They had lost one on the way. They had hurt the bandits back.
Bandits. There had been no banditry when Bragi was king.
The lead sergeant informed Inger that, “The Duke and a bigger band are behind us. He means to disguise himself as an archer. The sorcerer will be with him.”
“Whitcomb Innsman, isn’t it?”
“Your Majesty’s memory is excellent. It’s been years.”
“It is good. This time, though, I was told before you came in. I need to know my cousin’s real situation. What did he leave behind? Can he count on help if I ambush him?”
That startled the soldier. Evidently no one had considered the possibility that she would try to turn things around herself.
Excellent.
“Innsman, your situation won’t improve much here.”
“It’ll be better than it was.” He described increasingly erratic and ugly behavior by the Duke. Nothing was ever his fault. He was not well, and had become a monster toward those Kaveliners within his power. He abused their younger teen daughters.
“Surely you exaggerate.”
She knew that was true, though. It was no secret inside the family.
“Believe what you please, Majesty.”
“Forget it. Find yourselves places in the barracks. And ask Dr. Wachtel to treat your injuries. He has plenty of time.”
Inger rested her head in her hands. It just got worse. She was doomed. She had only a handful of men, too few to succeed here and not enough to manage an escape. While Dane kept on making sure that Itaskians were hated as much as possible.
This kingdom was insane. It turned good people bad and bad people worse. It ate them all. Then it sucked in more.
General Liakopulos may have demonstrated a burst of genius by escaping. If he was not lying in a shallow grave somewhere.
This was all Michael Trebilcock’s fault.
She had no evidence. Not so much as a rumor. But she was ready to bet her soul that Trebilcock was out there tugging strings.
There was some comfort in being able to blame an invisible external devil for all one’s woes.
A blunted arrow struck Dane of Greyfells’ helmet as his purported deserters entered Castle Krief. The soldiers laid down their arms before their Duke finished collapsing. They had no skin in the game.
Babeltausque revealed himself immediately. He had failed to detect the ambush. Inger’s men had not given it away. There would be no sweet Mayenne cunny now.
There might be no getting back home at all.
Babeltausque did not need to indulge in the formal, scientific astrology necessary to predict the future. With Greyfells imprisoned, the man’s following would disappear. His fever dream was dead. Once this news escaped Kavelin the Greyfells family would cease to matter in political equations.
Babeltausque, hands bound, feared there would be no live Itaskians in Kavelin come New Years.
Chaos would take complete charge.
Inger intercepted the sorcerer before he could be shoved into a cell. “Remove his gag, please.”
The soldiers were her last Wesson loyalists. They knew what Babeltausque was. They thought Inger touched for not having him killed right away. But they followed instructions.
Inger looked Babeltausque in the eye. “You know how grim my situation is. Our situation, if you include Dane.”
The sorcerer nodded.
“Can you abandon him? Can you come over to me?”
Babeltausque nodded repeatedly.
“Unless you’re better than I think we’re likely to get run out of Kavelin. If we’re lucky. If they let us go. You’d have to explain yourself back home.”
“As would you.”
“I no longer care. I’m not ready to run yet, though. I have a little fight left. I’d have more than a little if I had your help.”
The sorcerer nodded some more.
“I’ll work you harder than Dane ever did. You’ll be a lot more than a pet astrologer.”
Babeltausque went slightly grey. “At last. An opportunity to make use of my talents.”
The soldiers snickered.
Inger said, “Turn him loose.”
They did so with obvious reluctance.
She told them, “If he becomes a problem you can say you told me so while you’re roasting him. Sorcerer. Come along. I’ll show you where to work.” Which would be in the suite Varthlokkur used when he resided in Castle Krief. “You’ll get one servant. There’ll be no touching. Understand?”
“I gather t
hat fierce temptation will be set so as to test me.”
“You don’t want to fail.”
The sorcerer adopted his most blank expression.
“Let me know when you’re ready to start.”
“How soon do you need me?”
“Today, if you can.”
The sorcerer sighed and strove to keep up.
SIX: YEAR 1017 AFE
KING WITHOUT A THRONE
The fugitive walked the plain alone, striding purposefully. The caravan job had not lasted. Despite peace looming there was little trade. No caravans were headed this way.
He glanced to his right. The riders still paced him. Occupying his attention while others closed in? The plains tribes were not populous but were the reason caravans needed guards. They would steal anything from anyone. Nobody was too poor not to be robbed.
He sensed no other presence, though. They must be keeping track till they could summon help.
There were two of them. They were cautious. They did not like the odds.
They must suspect that he was more dangerous than he looked.
He strode on, sling in hand in case he kicked up a hare or game bird. If those two tried nothing sooner he would visit them after dark.
He could use a good plains pony.
A grouse flushed. He did not react fast enough. His bullet fell short. He produced another stone and walked on. His homeland was only days away. He should decide where to go first.
He had to arrive as a wanderer, not as himself. He would go where rootless men gathered. There he could discover what he needed to know to cope with today’s kingdom.
The land grew more arid, the grass shorter and scruffier, soon revealing patches of dun earth. The grass sea was about to give way to mild desert. Not far ahead, though not yet visible, lay mountains which masked the heart of Hammad al Nakir.
The riders had to make a decision soon. Tomorrow he would reach country where they would not be welcome—though they were not likely to be noticed. He considered what he would do in their position.
He would move in the middle of the night.
He moved as soon as it was dark. There was no moon. Pitfalls seemed to multiply.
Despite all, he found the other camp before the riders left to find him. And rediscovered the quality of mercy.
They were boys, probably brothers, the eldest no more than fifteen. They were trying to work up their courage. Neither really wanted to do anything but neither wanted the other to think he was a coward.
Haroun could not follow their dialect well but did figure out that their main motive was a need to please their father, who was a hetman and wanted them to come home with proof that they had done something brave.
Haroun’s own people were nomadic in the main. They enjoyed similar traditions.
The boys finally worked themselves up. They didn’t have to take foolish chances. They could tell the truth when the old men asked about their efforts to count coup. For that was what this was. Not really robbery but boys wanting to mark their transition into manhood.
Had an experienced warrior followed them? Probably not. A guardian angel would stand out on the plain.
The essence of the rite of passage was that the candidates had to do for themselves.
He gave them ten minutes, then entered their camp. They were not fastidious. He placed a gold coin in each of their leather jacks, then readied their horses. One gentle spell kept the ponies quiet. He led them to the trace that passed as a road headed into the desert kingdom.
The villain who had given up those coins would not object to them passing on to boys who needed something good to happen.
Haroun wished he could be a fly buzzing round when they, absent their ponies, returned to their people carrying gold enough to buy a herd.
Varthlokkur had restrained his darker nature in order to spend an afternoon with the four strange children who constituted his makeshift family. Only Smyrena was his own get. Ethrian was his grandson.
Even to him it seemed odd to have a grandson so much older than his daughter. But it was a bizarre world. He had added a few bricks of strange himself.
Ethrian was a thin, dark youth. In his best moments he had haunted eyes. Madness was his relief from memories of being the Deliverer, a monster managed by a revenant evil that considered itself a god. The Deliverer used its armies of the dead to punish the wrong people for injuries he imagined had been done to him. The revenant had misled him.
Escaping had cost Ethrian love and sanity, a price not yet fully paid.
Some days he did nothing but lie curled in a ball. Others he sat and rocked, eyes vacant, an age and countless miles away. His mind held millennia of memories not his own. He was never sure what was then and what was now.
The wizard did what he could to keep the boy anchored. He had no faith in the boy’s chances for recovery, yet did his best for Nepanthe’s sake. She would not concede any chance that Ethrian could not be saved
Smyrena could be a spooky little beast, normal one moment, possessed the next. She did not cry. She seemed too alert and attentive for an infant. She enjoyed the presence of the Unborn. Varthlokkur found that dreadfully unnatural. Radeachar was an instrument. It ought not to have friends.
He told himself that Smyrena would grow out of it.
Mist’s brats were disturbingly normal. Fathered by Nepanthe’s brother Valther back when Mist had entertained no hope of becoming Empress again, they were exotic hybrids, scary in their beauty. The girl was older. The boy was growing faster. Right now they looked like twins. They worked hard to maintain that pretense, though there was no need. There was no survival imperative here.
They did know who they were. Varthlokkur showed them their mother occasionally. He meant the look at their heritage as a caution, not a kindness. He wanted them to know that they could be in danger for no greater cause than being the children of that woman, however much they remained separated from the Dread Empire.
He lied to them, too. He told them their mother had left them with their aunt for their protection. He told them Mist had been dragged into Dread Empire politics unwillingly and had been terrified of the risks to them.
Insofar as he recalled, Mist had left them as hostages she was not concerned about losing.
His cynicism ran deep.
Seldom did he encounter anything that rendered him more sanguine.
Nepanthe joined him. She was cheerful. She went directly to Ethrian, petted and fussed. Varthlokkur and Smyrena both watched with a touch of jealousy.
The fugitive entered his homeland. He did not relax. He was a stranger even here. The people of Hammad al Nakir, of whatever political or religious persuasion, distrusted strangers.
He moved slowly, avoiding tribal camps, till he reached the oasis called al-Habor. It was more developed than when he had visited as a boy. More permanent structures had been added and new orchards had been planted, but then disaster had found the town. Most of it had fallen apart since. Today it was dying.
And provided proof that some men did not care about issues that had tormented their people for two generations. Al-Habor had become a haven for rootless men. The forgotten King Without a Throne could begin gathering the strings of his life here.
Haroun was not there when the sun set. When it rose he was seated against an adobe wall, snoring, one of a half-dozen probable miscreants.
Yasmid, with Habibullah behind her, an intimidating shade, considered the foreigners Elwas al-Souki had invited to Sebil el Selib. The tall, fat one was a Matayangan swami eager to put distance between himself and his blasted homeland. He was the color of pale mahogany.
His companion, a smaller man of low caste, was darker and less healthy. Nervously, he translated for the bigger man.
Elwas repeated himself. “Swami Phogedatvitsu specializes in overcoming addictions.” He wilted under Yasmid’s disapproval.
She was angry down to her toenails. The presumption of the man! But she could not just run him off. Not with Habi
bullah watching. Not after the miracle he had wrought at the salt lake.
Al-Souki’s success irked Yasmid. The history of the Faith was speckled with military geniuses who became liabilities after they won their reputations. That started with her uncle Nassef, who had been with her father from the beginning. Nassef, as the Scourge of God, helped build a wide, wild religious empire. And had been a thorough-going bandit when the Disciple was not looking. He had been ambitious, too, systematically eliminating anyone who stood between him and succession to the Peacock Throne. He had wanted Yasmid as his child bride so he could unite Royalists and Faithful under his rule.
Fate had delivered Yasmid to Haroun bin Yousif instead.
The Faithful never lacked brilliant commanders but few were moved more by faith than by ambition and greed.
Yasmid was not ready to believe that Elwas bin Farout al-Souki was something new.
She made a “Get on with it!” gesture.
Al-Souki said, “Phogedatvitsu can conquer an addiction as deep as your father’s. I beg you, allow him to try.”
She had mixed feelings. And a sense of shame.
She was not sure she wanted her father freed. If he recovered, his daughter would become a simple ornament to his glory. A saint at best.
How shameful. How dare she put herself ahead of God’s Chosen Disciple?
Despite all, including her long love for the King Without a Throne, she believed in her father’s message. He had a unique relationship with God. Much as she reveled in being God’s stand-in hand and voice, directing the Faithful, she did not have that direct relationship herself.
She was a custodian, nothing more.
“Elwas, I will give you the chance you want. The foreigner can try to rescue my father. I will make him wealthy if he succeeds.”
“You won’t be disappointed, Shining One,” the prostitute’s son promised. “It may take a year but the world will gain its soul back. El Murid will be a golden beacon once more.”
After al-Souki left, Yasmid asked Habibullah, “Is he for real?”
“Totally. And he’s not unique. He just doesn’t mind letting the world know.”
