The Book of Silence

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Silda was visibly relieved to hear this; Shandiph and Chalkara, who had never taken the threat seriously, were startled by its mere mention.

  “However,” the prince continued, “I am not at all pleased that you took it upon yourselves to interrupt my routine; therefore, you are all confined to the north wing of the palace until further notice. I don’t want you in the hall with me, I don’t want you in my apartments, and I don’t want you in the front rooms. Is that understood?”

  “O Prince,” Shandiph began, “I think you underestimate...”

  “Silence!” the overlord bellowed.

  Shandiph subsided.

  “That’s better. If you do that again, wizard, you’ll be a wanderer once more; I won’t execute you, as that would be a stupid waste, but I won’t hesitate to banish you from the city if you become more trouble than you’re worth to me.”

  Shandiph bowed his head in acknowledgment.

  “Good.” The overlord got to his feet and brushed off his velvet robes. “Now let’s get back to work.” He gestured, and Silda opened the door.

  The executioner, hooded and robed in black and yellow, stood outside, his axe in his hands. Behind him, a ring of nervous guards and footmen waited.

  The prince spread his arms theatrically. “My thanks, my lord, for heeding my summons. I have decided, however, to be merciful; your services will not be needed.”

  The headsman bowed low, backed up a pace as soldiers scurried to clear a path, then turned and marched away without speaking.

  The overlord spotted an officer among the clustered guardsmen and called, “Captain, if you would escort these three to their quarters, I would appreciate it. They are not prisoners and are not to be confined, but I think they would like to rest. They have been overexcited. See to them; I must return to my own business.”

  The officer saluted, setting the crimson plume on his helmet bobbing; he pulled two of his men off to one side as the others formed an honor guard around the overlord, then waited as servants, soldiery, and prince marched back into the audience chamber. When the black and gold door had closed behind the last footman, the officer gestured for the first of his two men to accompany Silda and for the other to guard Chalkara, while he himself escorted Shandiph. Thus arranged, he bowed politely and said, “At your service, my lord wizard.”

  Shandiph was in no mood for pleasantries. “Lead on,” he said.

  Together the party trooped up the corridor, past the golden door of the Hall of Promotion, and through the ornate gate at the end of the passage. All turned right, but Silda and her guard continued directly down the carpeted corridor, while the wizards and their unwanted companions headed up the gilded staircase. The archivist’s apartments were on a lower level, near the archives themselves, which were in an upper part of the crypts. The wizards, in keeping with tradition, were housed on the topmost floor of one of the palace towers. Shandiph, not as young and spry as he once was, sometimes regretted that.

  During the long walk along the length of the north wing, ascending each flight of stairs they encountered, neither Chalkara nor Shandiph spoke. Each observed the other, however. Chalkara saw Shandiph’s fists clench and unclench, saw him biting back words. Shandiph saw Chalkara’s eyes shifting, her face pale, with the look of a hunted animal in her manner.

  They reached the spiral stair that led into the tower proper, and Shandiph broke his silence. “You need go no farther,” he told the soldiers. “There’s no reason to tire yourselves out by climbing all these stairs.”

  The captain stopped, glanced about, and nodded. “Very well. The prince said you were not under confinement, and at any rate, there is no other exit from the tower.”

  “Indeed,” Shandiph said. “Thank you for your company, captain, and a good evening to you.” He bowed slightly.

  The officer saluted, but did not depart; instead he stood where he was and watched as the two wizards made their way up the staircase. Glancing back, Shandiph noticed, with some amusement despite his worry over Garth’s actions, that the young guardsman who stood at his captain’s side was not watching both wizards, but only Chalkara. Unaware that he was observed, the soldier stared at her hips as she climbed the steps. Shandiph was not surprised; Chalkara was worth staring at. He guessed that the youth was wondering whether the tales one heard in every barracks were true, that sorceresses are not like other women.

  Shandiph turned away, resisting the urge to comment. The stories were not true; Chalkara was as human as anyone.

  The curve of the stair took them out of sight before they reached the first floor of the tower; their own rooms were in the fifth and highest storey. Shandiph paused, out of breath, at the first landing, but then marched determinedly onward.

  “Shandi, we...” Chalkara began as they rounded the next curve.

  He waved her to silence and trudged upward.

  At the third landing he stopped and listened; Chalkara came and stood beside him.

  “I don’t think they can hear us,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Chala, do you like it here?”

  “What?”

  “Do you like Ur-Dormulk? Do you want to stay here?”

  “I don’t know. It’s comfortable, even if it isn’t home, and where else could we go?”

  “Sland, perhaps; I understand that it’s at peace now, and Karag fled years ago. There might be a place for a wizard or two.”

  “Shandi, what are you talking about? Why should we leave Ur-Dormulk? If the Fifteenth Age starts, it won’t matter where we are.”

  “It might, but that’s not my point. I want to know if you’ll go along with me if I disobey the overlord and get us both exiled.”

  “Oh, Shandi, of course I will! We have to do something, whatever he says! The King in Yellow wouldn’t have sent Garth here unless he knew the Book of Silence could be found!”

  “We’ll have to run for our lives, probably. The prince may decide to put us to death if we stay here.”

  “I don’t mind. Maybe we should leave anyway, Shandi, even if he doesn’t do anything. I want to see Kholis again; the fighting hasn’t reached there yet, not all the way to the castle, and I’m sure the King is over his anger by now. I may not live long enough to go home if we don’t stop the overman.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic, Chala; we’ll stop him, at least for now. He’s just one overman.” Shandiph did not wholly believe that, even as he said it.

  Chalkara did not believe it either, but she said nothing to contradict the older wizard. “What are you planning to do?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I have an idea. Can you make a golem?”

  Chalkara considered, then shook her head. “No.”

  “What about illusions?”

  “Oh, I can do those, but they aren’t always reliable. What are you thinking of?”

  “I’m thinking of ways of killing Garth. I don’t have any spells that can do it anymore; do you?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Well, I’m not about to go up and try to kill him in person; he’s dangerous. That means we’ll have to send someone else to do it.”

  “Shandi, should we do that? Isn’t there any other way to stop him?”

  “I doubt it. He’s stubborn. I’m sure we can’t destroy the King in Yellow or the Book of Silence, but we can probably get Garth killed.”

  “Should we consult with the rest of the Council?”

  “Why bother? The Council is broken, Chala, you know that. We’re not bound by its rules anymore. Besides, his death was authorized three years ago, by vote of the quorum.”

  “You’re right. We’ll kill him.”

  “We won’t; the city guard will. Did you know that Sedrik has always hated overmen? One of his ancestors got butchered in the Racial Wars, I suppose.”

  “How do you know that?”

&n
bsp; “I got him drunk one night; it’s always a good idea to learn something about the people who run the place you’re living in. I was hoping to find out who was intriguing against whom—there’s always some of that in a palace—but instead I got a tirade about murderous inhuman monsters and a lecture about the cowardice of the Eramman nobility in not invading the Northern Waste and wiping the vermin out.”

  “I see; he’d love an excuse to kill an overman, then, and it’s probably one of his men following Garth.” Chalkara nodded.

  “And if he should receive an order from the overlord himself, I don’t think he’d bother to wonder why the prince changed his mind.”

  “From the overlord?” Chalkara looked puzzled for an instant; then comprehension dawned. “Oh, of course! A golem would be better, but an illusion should work if the light isn’t very good.”

  “I hope so,” Shandiph said.

  “You start packing, Shandi; the overlord won’t like this at all if he finds out. I’ll need some things for the illusion, but you can pack up everything else.” She hurried up the last two flights; Shandiph, still weary, plodded after her.

  Ten minutes later, Sedrik, Commander of the Guard, Marshal of the City, was startled by the appearance of his lord and master in the door of the wardroom. The overlord’s voice seemed odd, higher in pitch and not very clear. The corridor was dim and the wardroom’s windows did not illuminate the doorway this late in the day, so the prince’s black robes seemed insubstantial and almost blended into shadow. There was no sign of the prince’s customary entourage. Still, there was no mistaking who it was that spoke to Sedrik, or what his orders were.

  Sedrik was absolutely delighted.

  Chapter Twelve

  Garth acknowledged the return of his sword and axe with a deep bow, then turned and marched down the steps of the palace.

  When he reached the stone pavement of the avenue he paused, unsure where to go. He had two goals to achieve and no clear idea of how to pursue either one. Somewhere in the city was the Book of Silence, and he had sworn to find it and bring it back to Skelleth. Somewhere in the city there was also a temple dedicated to Aghad, and he was determined to destroy it and kill the god’s worshippers, regardless of what the overlord might say or do about it.

  Finding the book, he decided as he slung the axe on his back, should come first; the overlord had expressed no objection to that, despite the misgivings of his counselors. The wizards might try to change his mind, but so far, at any rate, Garth had a free hand to do as he pleased with regard to the book. The cult of Aghad, on the other hand, was under the overlord’s consideration. If Garth were to attack the temple now, the overlord might well take it amiss and try to have Garth killed or driven from the city.

  Once he had the book he would have no objection to leaving Ur-Dormulk. Therefore, the book came first.

  That settled, and with his sword on his belt once more, he looked about, trying to locate the signs and portents the Forgotten King had promised him.

  The sun was halfway down the western sky, and the shadow of the overlord’s palace stretched over him. To the east, much of the avenue was still brightly lit; citizens were bustling about the gray stone buildings in a flickering river of vivid colors. Streets branched off to either side in a variety of widths and angles.

  As he turned to the southwest, looking toward one corner of the palace facade, a gust of cold, damp wind caught him in the face.

  That seemed as good a sign as any; he strolled south and around the corner.

  He did not notice the green-clad figure that followed him, nor the two in red—one in the brilliant carmine of the overlord’s household staff, the other wearing the color of dried blood—that watched him closely but did not pursue.

  He wandered along aimlessly, watching for other signs, yet found none save the occasional wet breezes. He gradually worked his way westward, noticing as he went that the number of people on the streets and the general noise of the city diminished steadily with his increasing distance from the avenue that connected the eastern gate and the overlord’s palace. After some time spent thus, he rounded a corner and found himself looking out across a rift. The city appeared to end in a broad stretch of pavement running north and south along the edge of a valley or chasm; from where he stood he could not see what lay in the gap, but he could see the far side, a granite barrier topped with buildings. Something was odd about the view, but mists drifting up from the valley made it hard for him to decide just what he was seeing.

  He walked onward, out onto the wide pavement, and noticed to his surprise that there were no people anywhere on it. This promenade was the first completely uninhabited place he had seen since arriving in Ur-Dormulk.

  He made his way cautiously up to the edge, wary lest it crumble beneath him, though it looked as solid as any part of the city. When he had gotten as near to the precipice as he cared to, he gazed out beyond it again.

  More than fifty yards below lay the smooth, dark surface of a lake, black and chill; thin clouds rolled across it in bands, like waves upon the ocean, and mist rose in dissipating plumes.

  That, Garth told himself, explained where the cold winds came from.

  He lifted his gaze, looking out across the lake; the mists blurred his vision, and he could not decide whether the barrier that reared up on the opposite shore was natural or man-made. The buildings atop it, he now saw, were ruins.

  It occurred to him immediately that the Book of Silence was quite possibly buried somewhere in those ruins; that would explain why nothing was known of it.

  The sun was behind the broken towers, which made it impossible for him to make out much detail, but he guessed that those towers had once been part of a palace or citadel, such as the Forgotten King must have maintained. He stared intently, but the shadows and mist prevented any clear view. The sun itself seemed distorted by the fine spray, broadened to almost twice its natural width.

  He turned his eyes away and blinked, then looked at the gray stone pavement for a moment to rest them. As he did, he noticed two things.

  First, the pavement here was not worn nearly so much as the city streets. He would have supposed that a lakeside promenade would attract strollers in the hot days of summer, or perhaps fishermen—someone, at any rate—yet there was no one anywhere in sight save himself, and the stone slabs were only lightly marked by the passage of feet.

  The second thing he noticed was a sound, a very faint, deep, distant sound; he could not quite make it out.

  Neither item seemed of immediate importance; he looked up once more, avoiding the sun for the moment, and scanned quickly around the edges of the lake.

  It was long and narrow, with the city on one of its long sides and the ruins on the other. At either end of the promenade on which he stood walls of natural rock thrust up, raising the lakeside cliff to greater heights and cutting off the streets to the east, turning them back from the lake. Garth realized he had seen those stone barriers from the steps at the gate.

  Similar outcroppings divided the opposite shore, but beyond and between them lay more ruins. The area directly opposite him was the largest, but there were four clusters of buildings in all on the western shore, each split off from the others by the masses of rock and connected to the rest of the city only by the lake. The ends of the lake, at north and south, were sheer cliffs, with no signs of human habitation upon them. He could not see if there were ruins or other inhabited areas elsewhere on the eastern shore; the outcroppings at either end of the promenade blocked his view.

  Once, he guessed, the various enclaves must have kept in touch with one another by boat, so that all were part of a single great city. Now, though, there were no signs of docks or boats, but only the still black water, laced with mist and cloud, far below. He theorized that over the centuries the level of the lake had dropped, making such water travel more difficult, and finally impossible. The lake might be too shal
low to navigate—though it looked infinitely deep.

  He turned his gaze back to the ruins opposite his present position and noticed for the first time that mists seemed to be rising behind them as well as in front. He was unsure whether this indicated the presence of another lake, or whether it was merely an optical illusion.

  With a sudden shock, he spied something very strange that could only be a trick of the mist; the sun had split in two, and twin crimson orbs, like baleful eyes, were sinking behind the towers into the mist of the farther lake—if such a lake was really there.

  He blinked, but the illusion persisted, and it was only after a moment of staring that he realized how long he must have been wandering about Ur-Dormulk if the sun—or suns—was setting.

  He wondered if this strange vision might be one of the signs he was to follow.

  The sound he had noticed before impinged again upon his awareness, and he found himself trying to making out just what it was. It, too, might be a sign, he told himself.

  It seemed to be coming across the lake, or up from the ground, rather than from the city behind him. He resolved to follow it if he could.

  He still had no idea what it was; it was so low in pitch, so slow and drawn-out, that he could barely perceive it at all. Picking a direction at random, he turned right and strode north along the promenade, then paused and listened.

  The sound had grown very slightly louder; he was going in the right direction. He marched on. At the northern end of the lakeside pavement, he stopped and listened once more.

  The sound was once again slightly louder; he did not appear to have passed its point of origin. It seemed, more than ever, to be coming from the ground beneath his feet, still barely audible, as much felt as heard, and felt only as slow, crawling uncertainty. A cold wind brought a puff of mist swirling around him, chilling him even through his surcoat and armor.

  The sound, or vibration, or whatever it was, was as slow as the turning of the universe, slow as no human-generated sound ever was; a vague foreboding trickled through the back of Garth’s mind as he listened to it.