by Adam Corby
The gerlin eyed her, then ducked its head as if in understanding. The feathers formed a black arch over the jewels in the throne. Then it straightened, flung wide its wings to bestir the air of the chamber, and swept out the narrow window.
‘Now, Captain Haspeth, it shall be one of the most difficult tasks of your mission that you will need to perform first. When next the barbarians attack the Iron Gate, in the thick of battle when no man thinks but for his own safety, you will make as if your enemy stabs you through. You will fall and lie with the dead so that all, the enemy and your own men alike, believe you slain. Berowne, and only Berowne, will be party to the secret. He will see that you are borne away in such a way that none will know anything but that your corpse has been cast down over the cliff-side with the others. These may seem needless cares, but please believe me, they are of the first importance. If but a single soul within this fastness but Captain Berowne and I know you still live, then is all your mission undone and a failure.
‘For men, you may take two – but they are not to be privy to the secret until you are all out of the city. See that they are hidden away during this battle and led by Berowne directly to the way without knowledge of where they go; afterward Berowne will see that they are counted among the slain. I will speak to him later to explain all of this.
‘Your goal is to be Rukor. There you will visit every folk-gathering, every town, every farm if need be. You will gather all the men you can find who can fight and serve your purposes. You will feed them on false hopes of victory; glory, and wealth; but in your heart you will know you are condemning them to their deaths. Spare no man on this account! The enemy has conquered up to now, because he has the soul of the Darklands of God. All is shadow in him, and this he uses for his greatest strength. We must do likewise, and find the shadow within ourselves.
‘I have observed you, Captain: you alone I find have already embraced the shadowside of your heart. I am at the start of learning mine. Rejoice in it, for dark and deadly deeds are needful if we are to bring about another age of peace and light. Discard then all notions of honor, using them only as they may further your mission. It is this mission that has now become like the Couple Themselves to you. You will kneel and pray at its shrine at every meal, for the length of every sleep. This world itself is half shadow, Captain: so are we mortals made as in its image: become the world, half no longer but whole, light as well as darkness. Nor shrink not from what you find there, for if you hesitate also, all will be undone and thousands will die for nothing.
‘After you rouse the folk-gatherings, you will go even into the islands – even among the pirates you will go. There you will name yourself renegade and mercenary, a drunkard, a thief, a swaggerer, a liar and a whore-monger – whatever is the worst in men, you will adopt as your mask. You will tell all the men of the islands that you have been sent by me, your Queen, but in your heart you mean to betray me. You hatch another scheme in your heart, to ride to my rescue, only to rob me of all the gold and jewels stored here in the citadel. Tell the pirates that with your own eyes you have seen the treasure, and pile it as high as you can!’
‘But your majesty,’ Haspeth said, ‘I understood there was no more gold here?’
‘There is not. We are poor as field-workers now. But the barbarians seem still to believe in the old fables of the treasure-hoards of the Bordakasha, and so it seems likely that the pirates will believe as well. Their own greed will convince them.’
‘The pirates,’ Haspeth said, ‘are a lawless band of murderers.’
‘Indeed, that is their greatest asset to us in our plan. Think you, for centuries these pirates have defied the Emperors and the charanti of Rukor themselves, who have served as the most valiant of our noblemen. Will these same pirates then buckle the knee to barbarians? No, but they will only make a pretense at it when needful, even as they pretended to be our loyal subjects whenever Bordakasha warships ringed their isles.
‘When you have your men, return. Do not disturb yourself as to the passing of time: this is a thing that may take you fully a year to accomplish. We will remain here as before. When you are ready to return wait yet longer, until some time about the middle of autumn. Thus when we depart, there will be but a few weeks suited to travel remaining to the year – so I hope we nay be scattered and have found refuge, while the barbarians will be hindered by the rains and mud.
‘Send me no warning when you return. I wish to hear nothing of you until Berowne spies the barbarians rushing to meet you on the field of battle. That shall be the only message I require or desire. Fall upon them as suddenly as you may, or else they shall make short work of you – forget not Egland Downs! But let the pirates risk their necks more than the good folk of Rukor, for the fewer pirates we must deal with, if this plan succeeds, the better for what comes after.’
He nodded. As the Empress had spoken, Haspeth’s face had resumed its former grimness. Narrano Delcarn had spoken rightly of the character of the men of Torvalinal. They might be anything but mixture. Degrees were beyond their capacities. Haspeth had been a man of the most scrupulous honor; now at a blow he had been unleashed as a soul the equal of a Madpriest’s. And through it all it was the lust for fame and glory that remained. His sovereign had asked this of him: he needed no other warrant. He would dissemble, lie, steal, slay or beg to achieve this that she asked of him. It came upon him in a moment, what he had so long sought unknowingly and blindly, as holy revelation will come to a priestess in the Desert, her mouth blackened by salt and thirst. He had attained a dreadful, fearsome serenity.
Allissál, regarding his features intently, was satisfied that she had chosen well – albeit the final result frightened even her who had brought it to pass. Was this what it was like, then – was that the point she herself would reach in the end?
‘Your majesty,’ Haspeth breathed, and even his voice was now changed, ‘I have been a soldier in an age of peace. I have dreamed of war and fame and glory, and seen poets lauded, fat merchants enriched, and nobles laugh like women. Now a war has come, the great War – and I missed it. I was camped by Bollakarvil when she fell; I did nothing. I watched the armies of the League of Elna spill down like a flood to meet the foe: I remained behind. And now your majesty, I confess that this has become even more than a thing of fame to me. I have looked over the parapets and seen the barbarians with such hate that now I long for nothing more than to defeat them all, crush them and stamp them underfoot to stain the land for a hundred years. I know what your majesty requires. It shall be done. I shall see it done. Upon all my hope of the Blessed Shores, I, a dead man, swear it to you. Haspeth has become but a sword held in your majesty’s hands. So let it be.’
‘That was spoken after my own heart.’ She arose from the throne and held out to him a small jeweled casket. ‘Herein you will find jewels and my ring. The jewels will purchase whatever you may need, and mayhap give the better credence to your lies about our treasury. The ring will show you are my legate. Also there are two scrolls here, written and signed by my own hand. You are no longer a mere captain of the guard. Now you are Captain to the Queen, a man whose word shall be obeyed as if it issued from my own lips. Also I have made of you Charan of Vapio, Charan of the Eglands, Charan of Fulmine, and Under-Charan of Rukor. So all the vanished Empire is one within your person, and so may men flock to you as to some being of the skies. You know your own people better than I – you know what these powers grant you. Use them well – by which I mean, use them with criminal ruthlessness.’
‘Your majesty, that I will.’ He took the casket.
‘Captain, my High Lord, it may be that the barbarians will attack again on the next pass. Then I will never again see you. This may be as our final meeting. What I have asked of you is more than I have asked of any other man. I tremble even to think of it. And yet we are strangers, for I feel as though I know even Berowne better than I know you. That should not be so, but it is. If you accomplish what I have asked of you, then will I see that your name shall b
e sung for a thousand generations. But is there anything else you might wish of me? I will grant you anything. My powers are small for now, yet Goddess willing, and by your aid, I may yet return to some preeminence among men. Is there anyone dear to your heart, perhaps, you would wish exalted? Do you have kin you wish to carry on some of the powers I have granted you now?’
‘I have only a son in Torvalinal, your majesty. He is now twelve summers old.’
‘I will ennoble him.’
‘No, your majesty. My son will not survive me. He will be my first recruit, and he will die by my side.’
‘You frighten me, my lord. It shall be as you wish – yet there is one gift I will give you unasked, for it is in my heart to grant it you, and in my mind that it may be helpful to you in all the trials you must face hereafter.’
And so saying, the Empress of Tarendahardil did off the golden mask, and at the sight of her face the Rukorian paled and gasped. Then taking his head between her hands, she kissed him full on the mouth, deeply, in the way of a woman who sees her lover off to death.
XIV
Erion Sedeg
IN THE CAMP beyond the city there was no contentment. The winds had turned, and drove up dusty from the South, from off the desert wastes beyond dead Vapio, burning the mouths of the warriors of the cool far North. With every rising of God, companies of mercenaries rode forth out of the camp gates to gather herds of cattle, goats and yarglin to feed the many thousands of hungry bellies there. Goddess beat down like a brazen hammer, so the armor of the warriors burned even calloused fingers, and the city stretching into the distance wavered before their eyes as if it had been sunk beneath the waves of the Ocean of the Dead. Quarrels and fights broke out within the walls, over food, over armor, over women. The stink of the ordure of the camp drew flies and pestilence; every third word had become a curse. For such was High Summer in Tarendahardil, and even the sea itself had thickened like a noisome, brackish pond.
Still the men there put on their burning armor from time to time and ventured forth to mount the streets between the broken stones like an army of the damned, and hurl their sweating, stinking bodies once more against the broiling Iron Gate of Elna.
‘When will this end?’ they whispered, and grumbled, and groaned and swore. ‘In our village in the far North, our women are planting the grains.’ ‘In our home village the maidens draw out the wool of the sheep now, and wade barelegged in the river for fish.’ They had all but lost the memory of Elna, of Urnostardil, and of their long-vowed vengeance. They remembered home.
Even among the chieftains and champions there were harsh words. The old feuds ran strong again, and there were thefts of slaves and of treasured weapons. Nam-Rog strove to keep peace, but even he was wearied by the hateful heat, and lay many passes in the gloom of his own tents, fanned by his slave-women. And from time to time, so sickened was he with it all, that there whispered to him in the gloom a voice, and it said to him, Surely, surely by this time Gundoen has perished, there is nothing to hold you here longer. But he would groan, and grip his hunting-spear, and swear aloud by dark God’s strength, that he would not leave that land until he was sure.
So time wore sullenly about the camp, and only the mercenaries might have been said to be content.
Erion Sedeg had been a sailor in his early years, plying trade on the great river Delba; then after he had found his city conquered and his family destroyed, he had taken up the worship of dark God, and gone into the Desert. There among the tent-dwellers he felt secure, and scorned the lands where men dwell. He sat on rocks in the shadow of towering cliffs, and played with scorpions and death-beetles, and let his soul run dark as his burnt flesh. And then all the clans of the tent-dwellers had stirred with the story of the coming of a man, and they had gathered in those canyons only they knew of. The man was Ara-Karn, and the rite the clans put to him would have been death for anyone not charmed or an immortal. He lived: so he won them to his cause. It was then that Erion Sedeg found his god and took up sword and bow: he saw the slaughter of cities, learned the tongue of the barbarians, and worshiped at the memory of that man he had seen only once, and never spoken to.
The warriors distrusted him, though they gave him command over the mercenaries; his own men feared the madness in his eyes. But Erion Sedeg despised them all, even to the highest of his barbarian overlords. They did not know, but he knew. He felt a kinship only with that dark being whose specter hung still about the ominous black tents pitched on a mound in the center of the camp. And he knew that when the time was ripe, his master would return, and all the world would lie like a rotten fruit in his hand, to crush or keep or swallow at a bite. And then it would only be the faithful, those of a heart with Erion Sedeg and the King, who would inherit the world with all its powers and its dark delight.
He had therefore no concern of the passing weeks, for his faith was absolute. It was with no surprise that, in the deadly heat of High Summer, Erion Sedeg learned that Nam-Rog, chieftain of the Durbar tribe, would speak to him.
‘I would know,’ Nam-Rog said in the deep gloom of his tent, ‘how it is you measure the hearts of the men beneath you, Southron. Do many grumble, or leave foraging never to return?’
The lean, brown-skinned man did not at first reply. He was dressed in his manner after the fashion of the desert-dwellers, with chalky paint marking his features in a mask of scorn and war. Now he looked at the broad, ruddy face of the barbarian, drooling sweat. Erion Sedeg knew this was not the reason he had been summoned. His thoughts leaped to the black tent at the center of the camp, and for a moment he knew impatience.
‘My men do not forsake the cause of the King,’ he said. ‘But if you know of any such, give then over to me. I will kill them.’
Nam-Rog drank out of his bowl a treasured prize, real beer from the far North, brought over the seas and cooled in pits filled with snows from the mountains over Fulmine. He too, looked intently at his companion. The war-paint made a devil’s mask out of the dark lean features. The mask was a braggart’s device, a thing to frighten children, not men; but the eyes behind the paint were truly terrible. They were like to eyes Nam-Rog had beheld before – the eyes of Ara-Karn. This man lacked the force of will and the all-ruling self-command of the Warlord, but the severity and singleness of aim were the same. Either man could have killed like cowards and exulted in the blood. These civilized men, he thought to himself; no tribesman could have been so bent. Not even Gen-Karn, for all that his spirit had been lamed, had been the equal of these two.
‘And you, Southron,’ he said at length: ‘are you content?’
Erion Sedeg took from his belt a picsle leaf and chewed it. Already his teeth were stained purple-red from this habit. Picsle was not a dream-herb, but only tasted of its spice: Erion Sedeg chewed them for the sake of the dye, which made his smile ghastly.
He smiled now. ‘I am content when the King is content,’ he said.
Nam-Rog laid the empty bowl aside. He disliked this man. ‘Then I will say why I have called you and you may go,’ he said. ‘In the late months of the last year, you spoke some words to me about a – a thing, a device of some sort, which would help to overcome the fastness.’
‘Yes.’ Erion Sedeg put his dark hand lovingly about the knotted leather handle of his whip. His heart leaped: he knew now what would follow. ‘I learned the secrets of these things from craftsmen on the Delba: they had fashioned them for Ghezbal Daan, for Yorkjax of Belknule, and for other princes who had rebel lords they wished to put down. With this, and the bows we have, we will tear down the Black Citadel in a pass.’
Nam-Rog gestured at a coffer by the Southron’s feet. ‘There are riches enough: the men you have. How swiftly can the thing be done?’
‘It is not a matter of riches or of men, but of timbers,’ Erion Sedeg said. ‘They must be great, straight, and of the hardest woods. There are no forests near here: even those of Fulmine will not serve. Nothing could goad my men to take wood from the Sontil. Such wood lies only on t
he far side of the mountains. This will take two months or more.’
Nam-Rog nodded. ‘It would be of no avail to have it done soon anyway. There can be no great assaults in this heat. Gather the men you need, and come back to me when they are gone.’
‘I will go with them myself,’ Erion Sedeg answered. ‘Ara-Karn would accept no less.’
Erion Sedeg rose and wrapped his cloak about him. He left without further word or sign, and set in motion the needed preparations. He did this hastily, lest the barbarian should call him back with a changed heart; then retired to the inner chambers of his austere tent.
There Erion Sedeg made prayer before the small shrine he had had wrought, the shrine to the awful spirit of Ara-Karn. He murmured his words lowly, and there was none about – yet even so he hoped, in the dark, burning hollow of his heart, that the Master, that mysterious and supreme being who had issued out of darkness and fire and blood, might have knowledge of his wishes, and that the potent blessing of Ara-Karn might arrive upon his schemes.
So he gained fresh hope for the fulfillment of the dream he had cherished ever since the tent-dwellers had been roused to war, and Erion Sedeg had gone with them, his brain still troubled by the image of the dark man on the cliff-side – the dream to be placed in honor by Ara-Karn above all, even these barbarians, and sit and rule and give out death at the sword-hand of the King.
* * *
Above the plain, on the mountain-top where the cooling breezes never failed, the Tarendahardilites gathered in the first harvest of the year, and rejoiced. Father Ennius had declared a three-pass festival, and the Empress herself was to preside. All the cooks made cakes and dressed their breads with special care, cups of wine were passed around, there was music, singing, and dance. There were even performed, before the shrine of Goddess by the Iron Gate, marriages, and naming of infants born that year.
