The Mark of Ran

by Paul Kearney

  They came to the base of Ascari’s mole. There were stone steps here, leading down into the sea, and all about them rows of fishing smacks were moored. The pair paddled exhaustedly to the base of the steps and hauled themselves onto the chill stone, where they lay gasping like landed fish. The light was growing moment by moment, and there were people abroad on the waterfront.

  “Run along the wharves and find a horse-cab,” Rowen said. “We must get back to the Tower.”

  Rol stared at her. “Why? Why go back to him?”

  She shot him a glare of pure irritation. Then her eyes dropped to his bloody arm. A strange look flitted across her face—a kind of bafflement. “Where else is there to go?”

  Six

  WORTHY OF HIS HIRE

  “UP, FISHEYE; THE MASTER WANTS TO SEE YOU, AND HE’S not a patient fellow.”

  Rol opened his eyes to see Ratzo leaning over him grinning hideously, but with an odd respect.

  “The kitchen boys have a wager on you’ll be carrion by nightfall. Care to enter the pool?”

  He sat up on his mattress of rags with a groan. All yesterday he had been expecting this, and through the night he had stared blankly at the kitchen firelight awaiting the summons, cursing himself for not having the courage to walk away from Psellos, from Rowen, from whatever family history this place contained. On his return, a day and a night ago, Gibble had stitched up his forearm and given him fresh clothes, but aside from that had asked no questions. He had seemed a little in awe of Rol, if truth be told. It was all over the servants’ quarters; the kitchen scullion had disobeyed the Master’s explicit orders, and had somehow become involved with the mistress of the Tower.

  As he left, the kitchen staff turned their eyes from Rol as though he were the bearer of a contagious disease. Only Gibble spoke.

  “Don’t provoke him. Be meek and mild, and hold your tongue, for pity’s sake.”

  “Has Rowen—”

  “No, lad. Not a word.” The portly cook set a hand on Rol’s shoulder. “It’s not in her nature. You must look out for yourself alone.”

  Quare was waiting for him at the foot of the main stairwell. He was smiling. “My young beauty. The Master awaits you. I will take you up to him.” But he made no move. Instead he leaned forward and said: “Rowen is to fulfill the remainder of her contract with the King of Thieves within the week. How do you think his minions will receive her? Are they the type to bear grudges?” And he vented a curiously girlish giggle. Rol said nothing. The manservant shrugged slightly and led the way up the austere circular staircase, which led to the upper levels.

  “Leave us, Quare,” Psellos said, and Rol heard the door easing shut behind him. He was in a chamber he had never seen before, though his errands routinely carried him through almost every cranny of Psellos’s Tower. One straight wall, the other a vast semicircle which had set along it the grandest series of glass windows Rol had ever seen. They were big enough for a man to step through and faced not downhill, toward Ascari, but away from the sea, so that Rol’s vision was filled by the sun-dappled bulk of the Ellidon Hills. A slim silhouette stood before them.

  And other things. Set between each pair of windows was a small table of disturbing workmanship. The legs of these seemed twisted as though by some wasting disease, and set atop them were glass demi-johns. In each a murky shape shimmered and floated.

  “Rowen told me all,” Psellos said. He strode over to yet another table and poured himself some wine from a crystal decanter whose neck had been chiseled into the mouth of a leering fox. “I am surprised at you, young Cortishane, surprised and I must admit somewhat impressed. I knew you had murder in you, else I would not have wasted my time—but three of the Thief-King’s Feathermen in one fell swoop, as it were? Now, that speaks to me of a certain style.”

  Back at the semicircular wall of windows, he sipped wine with one hand and the other he set upon one of the mysterious glass jars. At once a greenish light began to glow within its depths, revealing the contents. The head of a bearded man. The eyes within the head blinked and the mouth moved.

  “Freidius of Auxierre, my old friend, look upon my latest apprentice and tell me what you see.”

  The voice that issued from the jar set Rol’s hair on end. It was a tortured gargle. “Psellos, set me free, end this monstrous half-life, I beg of you—”

  “Now, now, do as I say or I shall bring back our friend the rat.”

  The disembodied face twisted. “He is a child of the Blood, I can see it in his eyes.”

  “So can every other fool on the street. Use that brain of yours or I shall bruise it some more. This was your field when you were a man.”

  The thing in the jar shut its glazed eyes, and all at once Rol felt a peculiar sensation in his head, as though a cockroach were crawling beneath his scalp. He backed a step, but at a glare from Psellos stood fast.

  “He is—he is more pure-blooded than I thought. Where did you get him, Psellos? What has Grayven said? Have you sent him a sample?”

  “Yes. But I wanted a second opinion. His powders and tubes are not always as accurate as I would like.”

  “He is of Orr, no doubt about it, but if I did not know better I would say he has the makeup of an Ancient.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I know, but—is there any taint in him?”

  “I examined him myself. There is none.”

  “To have so much of the Blood, and yet be perfect, whole. I have not felt his like before save once—and so young! Where on earth did you find him?”

  “He found me,” Psellos said, and he grinned, exposing the silver canines.

  “If there is no flaw in him—I do not know how a bloodline could have stayed so pure—do you realize that—”

  “Enough,” Psellos said, and the green light in the jar went out. The face slumped into the immobility of dead flesh. There was a silence in the splendidly lit room.

  “What manner of man are you?” Rol asked, staring in disgust at the thing in the jar.

  “Eh? Oh, strictly speaking I am not much of a man at all—but I am more of a human than you, my impertinent young friend.” Psellos’s manner was jaunty, but his eyes were humorless as a hangman’s.

  “You are a sorcerer.”

  “No, I am much more than that.” Psellos raised his glass again, and finding it empty he repaired to the decanter. The neck of the crystal clinked twice against his goblet, and with a shock Rol realized that the Master’s hands were shaking.

  “Take a seat, youngster. It is time we had a talk. Man to man, or as close as you and I can come to that.”

  They sat thirty feet apart, the bright mountain view behind Psellos rendering his face inscrutable with shadow.

  “You are not human; I told you that once before. The blood that runs within your veins, that which your heart pumps about your carcass, belongs to a race older than humanity.” Psellos steepled his fingers together, resting his elbows on the stuffed arms of his chair. “What do you know of the history of the world?” And before Rol could answer, he laughed. “Forgive me. I should perhaps be a little more specific. Did Ardisan ever speak to you of the Weren?”

  “My grandfather told me of the Elder Race, which existed in the time of the Old World, before the New was made. He said they were Man before his Fall—some thought of them as angels.”

  “Your grandfather was repeating only the superstitions of ignorant men. I suppose he had his reasons. In any case, he misled you. The Old World and the New coexist. They occupy the same space upon this earth, the Umer that we know. But they belong to different eras, and they rarely touch upon each other.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There is a world beyond that which we see and touch in everyday discourse. It is not given to every creature to access it, but some can exist in both at once. You, Rol, are a creature of the Older World, as am I—and Rowen.” Psellos paused, and seemed about to elaborate, but then changed tack altogether. “How did you kill those three Feathermen?
”

  “I don’t know—it was very fast. I had them before they could move.”

  “The minions of the King of Thieves are chosen for their swiftness, for their instincts, their reflexes. Admittedly, they were busy at the time, but you bested three of them in one single combat. If it were luck, then it was like none I have ever seen before. Tell me, can you see in the dark?”

  Rol started. “Sometimes.”

  “Have you always been able to see in the dark?”

  “No. Listen, why do you make Rowen do these things—why do you torture her?”

  “She is making payment.”

  “For what?”

  “Knowledge.”

  “Where did you get all this knowledge that you withhold? What gives you the right to withhold it?”

  Psellos waved a hand. “A man goes out into the fields, he harvests his crops, he takes them to market. Would you have him give them away for nothing? The laborer, we are told, is worthy of his hire.”

  “Your prices destroy people’s lives.”

  “I do not force people to bargain with me. I name a price. Either they pay it or they do not.”

  Rol pushed the palm of one hand into his eye. It was the scarred palm, and it seemed to cool the hot tumult of his brain.

  “What are we?” he whispered.

  “Ah, the matter in hand again. I believe I told you.”

  “No. I am just a man, like you. I don’t believe in—” Rol stopped, realizing that his words were absurd, after the things he had seen and done even in the short span of his life hitherto. He no longer felt sure even of the ground beneath his feet.

  “The world is not what you think,” Psellos said, and there might even have been an edge of sympathy in his voice. Had he, too, once been a bewildered boy confronted by the strangeness of his own nature?

  “What do you want with me?” Rol asked wearily.

  “That is difficult to say,” Psellos said. “I tell you what, young Cortishane, as a gesture of goodwill, I will give you some of this precious knowledge of mine for free. It may help your aching head. Now, bear with me.

  “Once, this world of ours was a different place. The gods walked openly upon it, and the Weren communed with them, learning from them wisdom that had been handed down by the Creator Himself. The Word of God, if you will. But it is in the nature of all sentient things that they must remain dissatisfied with their lot, and mighty and noble though the Elder Race might be, yet they hungered after more knowledge always, and felt constrained by the waking world that bound them. The gods withdrew their friendship, and thus the spinning of the world was hastened, and all things within it felt their mortality more keenly.”

  Psellos paused. “What that must have been like, that Elder Time, when the stones still remembered the footfalls of the gods. It was so long ago that the ages since can barely be quantified in years. What a world to have lived in!” He smiled, eyes staring out into empty air. “But of course, it passed, as all things must.” His voice changed, grew harder.

  “Man came upon the world in this waning era—the last gift of the Creator, some say. Others believe he is a curse, set here to complete the destruction of the Weren, and short-lived though he might be, he is fecund, and curious, and impatient. At first the Elder Race tutored the early men, but as time went on a rivalry grew between them. Man was envious of the Weren even as they envied the gods. That is the nature of things. But many of the Weren, as they declined, interbred with Man. The two races are very close, physically, save that the Weren are more robust, longer-lived of course, and not subject to disease. In every way superior to the lesser race that came after. In every way but one. They were few, and mankind had become a teeming multitude. So they thought that by merging the two races they might have the best of both. But there was a problem with this . . . interbreeding. While it boosted the dwindling numbers of the Elder Race, it had its dangers. Some of the first hybrids went awry. They issued from their mothers’ wombs as twisted monsters, sound in mind but warped in body. These Fallen ones were meant to have been destroyed at birth, but a parent’s love is a strange thing. Many of the Weren who had these maimed creatures as children fled the cities of their peers to keep the changelings from being killed. They took to the seas, to compassionate Ussa of the Swells, and she took pity on them, and brought them to a place far in the south of the world where they began life anew, where their poor offspring might be raised without prejudice or ridicule. These Weren had a leader, a gray sorcerer whose children were all of the Fallen kind, but who loved them nonetheless. His name was Cambrius Orr.”

  Something in Rol stirred at the name. He looked up, frowning. Psellos nodded. “Always that name conjures up a shadow in the memories of men, even if they do not know why. He is a myth, a dark children’s tale. He is a story, nothing more. I have been seeking out references to him in half a hundred libraries and word-hoards up and down the known world for over forty years now, and I can tell you that he actually existed, as did the kingdom he founded, out there in the wastes of the limitless sea. The kingdom of Orr existed, and the gods know Cambrius’s great palaces and observatories and ballrooms may molder yet, stone upon stone in some lost jungle untrodden by man.”

  Psellos poured himself more wine, and paced up and down before the windows without tasting it. There was a passion about him, an honest enthusiasm Rol had never seen before, like that of a man chancing across a stranger who shares the secret obsession of his life.

  “The Orrians dropped out of recorded history over ten thousand years ago, and in the rest of Umer their kin the Weren dwindled further, and intermarried with the sons of men, and declined, and became not much more than legend themselves. One by one the great kingdoms of the Weren fell into obscurity, their lands ruled by princelings and chieftains of the race of men. New kingdoms arose, and the world we know now came slowly into being. We were left merely with the ruins of their great cities, now jumbled piles of marble and stone dismantled and quarried by those who came after. But that was not the end. The Mage-King arose, in the land of Kull, and around him the creatures men name Banemasters. Some say they are the last of the Weren, others that they are some awful Third Race visited upon the world of men by the jealousy of the gods.” Psellos paused again.

  “They struggle among themselves, the Lesser Gods, now that the Maker has left them. They have their feuds, their cabals, their underlings flitting about the world and doing their business. But the Mage-King is not one of these. No mortal man has ever set foot on Kull, and the Banemasters go about their master’s business for the most part in anonymity. What are they? What hidden knowledge does the Mage-King hoard in his Halls of Bronze? I believe he is a Were, the last great scion of an ancient race whose blood flows in you and me. But he and his minions frown upon the use of sorcery by anyone or anything not of Kull. And they do not like those who ask questions, who seek out the truth behind the myths. Thus have I had to keep one step ahead of them all down these years. But my time is running short.”

  Here Psellos paused in mid-stride, fixing Rol with a piercing eye. “The blood of the Elder Race still flows in the veins of a few who walk about our waking world. Stronger in some than in others. Our eyes give us away, it is said.” He smiled. “It was in the man who called himself your grandfather, in Emilia, his lovely wife. The Lesser Men will kill you for the ichor that beats within your heart, Rol.”

  “Why?”

  “It extends life.”

  “Extends— How old are you?”

  “I have seen out two centuries. I hope to see a third, if the gods are kind.”

  Rol was dumbfounded. “Where are you from?”

  Psellos’s face closed over. “No place of significance. I am not a prince in waiting or the heir to a lost throne. I am not of noble blood—not as it is deemed noble in this day and age. I began as you, a lost boy. I was lucky enough to find a pair of mentors who trained me as I will—as I am training you.”

  “My grandparents.”

  “Emili
a and Ardisan. Yes. Emilia died at the hands of a mob in Perilar. They collected her blood in pots. Her body Ardisan recovered and buried on Dennifrey, where he made his last home. He was always something of a romantic. I mourn his passing, but I am not surprised by it.

  “So you see, Rol, we are brothers beneath the skin, you and I.”

  Rol was repulsed by the very thought. “You have taken my blood these last weeks, but not for some experiment or treatment—it is sold to the highest bidder.” He remembered the sight of Rowen tied to a bed down on the waterfront. “Do not try to tell me you took me in out of charity. You set a price upon everything—one I will no longer pay.”

  Psellos halted, and in a heartbeat he had crossed the ten yards separating them and was leaning in close to Rol’s face. There was a feral sheen to his eyes, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth.

  “You ungrateful little wretch. Who do you think you are? I make the rules here. Others abide by them. Including you. Especially you.”

  Rol was not cowed. “What if I say you and your knowledge and your training can go bury yourselves?”

  “You would be lying. And you are getting too old for such empty bravado. I see now that your education must be moved forward.”

  Rol hesitated. “Don’t send Rowen back to those animals.”

  “Why not? Are you smitten with her, Cortishane? Best stick to the serving-maids. She’s not good for you.”

  “If you send her back, I’ll leave this Tower.”