Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 2 The Divine Queen
Page 1
30 Million Years From Now
Eartherea has swallowed the last redoubts of the Earth we knew.
The very continents have changed. The apparent rotation of the planet has slowed … stopped. One side faces only the Sun, burning into desert waste. The dark side faces only the stars in an unending Night. Only along the twilight ribbons of endless Dawn and eternal Dusk is life of any kind possible. Along one band lie the Blessed Shores where ghosts go to live on after life. Upon the other band dwell men of flesh and bone, and there in the far North the warlike barbarians were chased and caged centuries ago by the Conqueror, Elna, first Emperor of the South.
Unto this cold, dim land came the stranger, Ara-Karn. He was a renegade Southron, some said; others claimed he was the returned ghost of a long-dead King; others said he was an avenging demon. The truth was known only to himself and dark God of the Moon, and to Goddess Sun, giver of life.
The stranger drew the barbarian tribes into his hand. He gave them the new weapon, the bow; he loosed them across the civilized lands; and cities and kingdoms began to fall…
Also by asotir
Fiction:
Swan’s Road
The Island of Lost Women
Return to the Island of Lost Women
The Killing Sword
Crawlspace
Siren of Creepland
Blood by Moonlight
The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn:
The Former King
The Divine Queen
The Iron Gate
Darkbridge
Nonfiction:
Movie Letters, Winter 2009
THE DIVINE QUEEN
Canto Two of
The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn
§
by Adam Corby
& asotir
Copyright © 1982 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to
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Contents
I. The City Over the World
II. The Court of the Divine Queen
III. Under the King’s Light
IV. Trembling Heralds of the Wars
V. The Prophecy of Jade and Iron
VI. The Spoil of the Barbarian King
VII. A Far-Off Note of Anvils
VIII. The Prisoner of Ara-Karn
IX. ‘The Thunder-Clouds Close O’er’
X. ‘Throned Eternity in Icy Halls’
XI. Of Comedy and Kings
XII. Gen-Karn, Mighty King
XIII. A Draught More Dangerous than She Knew
XIV. ‘The Wandering Outlaw of His Own Dark Mind’
XV. The Tent of Ara-Karn
XVI. The Hall of Justice Again
XVII. ‘The Lone Chieftain, Who Majestic Stalks’
XVIII. ‘Death Hath But Left Him Little to Destroy’
XIX. The Woman in the Wood
XX. The League of Elna
XXI. The Voyaged One
XXII. The Battle of the Lower Quarters
XXIII. ‘War, Even to the Knife!’
XXIV. Ara-Karn, at Last
FOREWORD
‘Again, you are to imagine these events occurring outside the lands where men dwell, on the far side of the mountains beyond which the light of Goddess-Sun never ventures: only the cold, unwholesome light of the Lord-Moon. There no things grow or live but those of whom I speak; and the ceaseless dark, the unstopping rains, and the unabating cold reign supreme… When all these preparations have been duly completed … then the torches are extinguished one by one in buckets of rainwater, to symbolize the drowning of the light of Goddess in the water of God… Then a nude girl, usually a maiden, and always of palest skin and lightest-colored hair, is brought forth, and chained over the black altar. She is neither drugged nor gagged, as the worshipers take great delight in hearing her cries; and sometimes if she grows too quiet, they will prod her flesh with barbarous sharp lances…
‘When the moon is at its zenith, and the malevolent dark landscape lambent with its glow, the high priest, usually the chief of the tribe or the Warlord of the assembled peoples, comes forth. Over his head, he wears a mask of dark iron representing the features of his grinning, evil God. The man is naked, although at one ritual I have seen with my own eyes, he wore scenes upon his flesh in various pigments, perhaps in an effort to disguise himself. He mounts the maiden and among the rude cheers of his people and the screams of the victim couples with her. “She is nothing but dirt beneath our feet,” he is heard to exclaim. “We worship only Him, and will follow Him into Darkness wheresoever He may lead us!”
‘At the end of the rite the girl, near death already, is dispatched. Her blood is sprinkled about on the ground, and the worshipers, with frenzied drunkenness and blood-lust, trample the blood into the earth. I only repeat to those skeptics amongst you, that I have seen these things with my own eyes. The remains of her body are confined in a box and buried deep in the dark concealing earth, and a stone marker raised over the spot, to keep her spirit from ever rising again. And this cruel ceremony is not a rare thing among them by any means, but is often performed, especially before or during the course of the frequent raids they undertake against civilized lands, for example, the fortresses of Ul Raambar…’
— from the Book of Skhel, by the learned Inozelstus of Anoth, describing the religious rites of the Madpriests
The Divine Queen
I
The City Over the World
BENEATH THE MOVELESS GODDESS-SUN, Tarendahardil lay supreme. She was more beautiful than her greatest poets could proclaim; lovelier even than an unremembered dream. Her streets were lined with statues of brass and iron, jade, silver, topaz and unveined marble; her harbors traded with the world; her temples attracted the faithful from all the Hundred Cities. Within her bosom dwelled such enormous numbers of peoples, of all races, professions and ranks, that no mortal mind could imagine them all. City Over the World, Most Holy, the seat of the Empire of the Bordakasha, cultural and mercantile hub of the world, Tarendahardil: a deathless Queen among cities, as much beyond her sisters as Goddess is beyond mortal women.
There was all of culture in that Tarendahardil. There were recitations of the elegiac odes of Golonan, Ulsus Radnor and Charoneira. There were festival celebrations in which comedies, mimicries and tragedies were enacted at the numerous theaters, and harmonies of alisets and throaty Dorcian flutes; spectacles of bloodied combat, shows of wild beasts imported from exotic climes and even, at staggering expense, mock battles of the glorious past of that city of legends, with runaway slaves and condemned men garbed like the barbarians of old, and a play-Elna to lead the Imperial troops to utter triumph. The women were more beautiful in Tarendahardil than in any other city of the world. Even the women of the docks were known for their beguilements, and as for the famous well-born hetairai of High Town, they were not to be matched by pastoral virgins with the bloom still upon their cheeks. Tales were told of wealthy men from Tezmon and Postio who bankrupted themselves just to taste the sumptuous joys of a season with a lady of the reputation, artistry and beauty of an Oleola – and, if the tales be true, departed not unsatisfied therefrom.
And more famous than even the women was the statuary of Tarendahardil. Great Elna had begun it in his distant time, and since then not an Emperor but had added to the figures thronging the city. They lined every street, stood above every portal, and surrounded fountains, bazaars and latrines alike. Nowhere were they more wo
nderful than along the great Way of Kings, where each of the many Emperors and heroes of the Empire was represented, three times the height of living men, their colors shining in the dusty gilded light, poised and watchful like sentinels ever vigilant, guarding even in death this City that had been theirs. In the prime ages of holy Tarendahardil they were everywhere, and they were everywhere beautiful.
Tarendahardil was bordered on the north by stone quays and harbors on the Sea of Elna, and by field and farm and hillside palaces upon her three other faces. Tarendahardil had no defensive walls: what need of them for the Mistress of the World? The gently sloping land was all but invisible beneath its mantle of roofs and towers, thrusting spires, and domes of gleaming brass and porphyry. More streets had Tarendahardil than most nations; an immense, wholly paved labyrinth known fully to no man, not even the city’s great low-born Regent. If the weather were fine an observer might see from the topmost towers of the high Citadel the shimmering azure line that was the sea, and the martial fields brightward of the city; if not, Tarendahardil would seem to pass into an infinite distance – from which, perhaps, some notion might be gleaned of the size of the City Over the World.
From the midst of the great city rose the rocky plateau of High Town, the ancient core of the city. There were the most venerable edifices, the Brown Temple of Goddess, the Hall of Kings, the ancient Baths of Rule where, of old, every monarch had come yearly to be anointed anew in that sacred hidden spring where Goddess Herself had bathed and been surprised by Elna. There too were the great mansions of the wealthiest and most nobly born citizens: for all the graceful charai and handsome charanti of the tributary nations and provinces maintained palaces in High Town, to be the nearer to the main and wintering court of the Divine Queen.
And there, bursting from the southernmost edge of the plateau like a stony stair into Heaven, rose an upthrust fist of rock; and there, its walls of black stone and jade a continuation of the rocky cliffs, was perched aloft the greatfamed Citadel of Elna: the Black Citadel, the Citadel Crowned with Cloud. Its rocky walls were unscalable, its Twin Gates impregnable, its great Palace more a city in the stone than mere single edifice. Story after story ascended that high Palace, of white marble, granite, black stone and jade; and to end, gleaming from the roof of the topmost of all towers, the great gold Disk of Goddess, like a second sun in the brow of heaven. Windows and balconies were sprinkled over those many curving walls like the myriad eyes of some phantasmagoric beast; and in one window high in the highest tower, far, far above the level of the sprawling falling city below, sat a woman looking out.
Through the window (for it was small) only her face could be seen, and one slender forearm upon whose elegant jeweled hand rested her soft cheek. In the shadow of the thick stone the woman’s face seemed pensive, the expression that of some waiting captive; yet her thick mane of hair, of the luster of burnished, purest gold, shone as if it laughed.
Opposite the window rose the peak of the first and greatest of all the statues of the city: that Pillar Elna had caused to be erected before his Citadel, a man-made spire to contest with, and almost surpass, the natural wonder of that monumental fist of rock.
Up the shaft of the pillar, from its base so very far below in the square outside the walls of the Citadel, ran a spiral relief most cunningly drawn, telling the tale of Elna’s career: of his birth in the rocky fortress of Bollakarvil and his legendary youth: of his marshaling of all the civilized peoples and his great Vow sworn to Goddess of the utter destruction of the barbarians: of his chasing of those barbarians into the frozen wilds of the far North: of his vanquishing of them there: of his return in high triumph as sole sovereign of the South and his giving out of edicts still cited for their wisdom and true justice: of his founding of cities and fortresses, Gerso and Tezmon and many others still standing: and to end, at the very topmost curls of the spiral just below that beautiful figure of naked Victory, her wings upswept to fling her above the clouds, of how Elna had built up Tarendahardil and made of her his capital, the fount of all that was cultured and good in the world.
Now, however, the lines of the pillar and its statue were softened and obscure. An ill wind had brought a storm down from the North, gathering moisture as it passed over the Sea of Elna; and now beyond the dark glistening Pillar the dockyards and the sea were invisible, concealed by a dreary drizzling rain; and the light of Goddess was turned from gold to lead of a corrupt hue. The city fell down into the maw of the chill mists as if the world came to an end before Tarendahardil, and all that existed of the world was this city, alone and undefended.
At the window the lovely golden-haired woman shuddered, and withdrew into the chamber.
She descended from her perch by the window down a series of steep steps built into the high stone wall of the gloomy chamber. The soft scrape of her sandals echoed off cold and naked walls. It was a great room made larger by the hollowness of its echoes; a room cool and still against even the worst of Goddess’s glowing heat. It was open, as if by accident or in a final condescension, only at the small window placed just below the vaulted edge of the ceiling.
Reaching the floor, the woman passed with unconsciously graceful movements to the side of a great canopied bed three times the height of her body. There she lighted a lamp fashioned of strands of gold and pearl and marked with the seal of the Charan of Rukor. She trimmed back the wick and pulled at a cord at the wall.
A woman entered in response, not through the great oaken doors on the far side of the chamber but rather through the hangings of a small opening upon the hither wall.
‘Majesty,’ the woman uttered, bowing.
‘Prepare our bath, Emsha,’ said the golden-haired woman. ‘Is it chill out?’
‘Somewhat, your majesty. Autumn is not far off now. Will your majesty wish warm robes this waking?’
‘And bow in submission before this wind from the North? I think not. Get me instead something light and gay with the color of bandar green. That is the springtime color of the beast, if the tales be true.’
‘Yes, majesty.’
The Queen glanced up at the window. ‘Do they await us below?’
‘Yes, majesty, as always. They have begun to grow concerned at the lateness of your rising. Did your majesty sleep well?’
‘Well enough.’ For a time she studied the older woman’s face, the rounded features, familiar lines and merry wrinkles. ‘No,’ she murmured, ‘I’ll not send them away. What would be the cause?’ A chilling draught crept down into the chamber through the narrow window; Emsha shivered, but the Empress Allissál merely shook herself as if to shrug the cold away.
‘Have them await us in the Gardens,’ she said. ‘We shall hold a picnic to amuse us, as if it were Spring returned again. Nay, it shall be Spring, by Imperial decree. Make sure that they are all informed of this; and let them wear only spring finery and gay manners.’
The older woman bowed humbly. ‘Yes, majesty.’
* * *
The royal bath-chamber was situated some stories below, upon the second floor of the White Tower. In the midst of the hivelike room, between seven decorative pillars of alabaster wrought with floral designs of gold and jade leaves, was the bath itself. Deep and circular it was, two fathoms across and one-and-a-half deep at its center. Its sides were of yellow hexagonal tiles interset with smaller square red tiles. Upon its bottom were worked three scenes. The first was of the mythical, earliest times, when God and Goddess inhabited the earth together, before they had created men and women. The second scene was of the sundering of the lands, when God in His jealousy went away to the Darklands; but Goddess built up Her throne of golden Fire, that Her beloved men might have light and warmth. The third scene showed Goddess serene within Her throne of Fire, ruling over the happy destinies of men; while behind, in the darkening sky, God went on in His jade chariot, restless and forlorn, ever seeking to entice Her back to His side. So pellucid were the steaming, blossom-scented waters of the bath, that every detail of the mosaics co
uld be clearly seen.
Over them, half-floating in the undulant waters, half-supported upon her forearms on the cushion provided her at the edge of the bath, the Empress Allissál lazed, while her slave-maidens chafed away the soil of sleep with perfumed sponges and carved ivory scrapers. In all, there were a dozen of these maidens in personal attendance upon the Queen, each chosen for her beauty and skill.
By the wall of the chamber, several ladies of the court sat fully clothed in the latest fashions, upon benches of carved faltis wood inlaid with gold and ivory. These were Allissál’s intimates of the court, all of the highest rank and most perfect lineage, all young, all beautiful, all current in the latest rumors, scandals, and fashions of Tarendahardil. The Chara Ilal of Corthio jested, and the Charai Oriouti, Piatary, and Gisailchis laughed beautifully; but the Chara Braonver, whose latest lover was an actor of comedies renowned for his fickleness, only smiled courteously at the jests.
Huge towels smothered Allissál’s body as she arose dripping from the water, steam and perfume coiling from her flesh. She was laid upon the marble slab nearby, first upon her back and then upon her breasts, as the maidens rubbed scented oils and unguents into her skin, to keep it supple and young and protect it from the drying rays of the moveless sun.
The ladies at the benches picked daintily from among the bowls of fruit and nuts the slaves offered them. After a while, one thought to ask how her majesty’s sleeping had gone.
Allissál turned slightly beneath the ministering hands. ‘Tolerably well,’ she answered softly. ‘But the dreams came again.’
Ilal, who was the prettiest and most boldly dressed of the ladies, burst into a delightful laugh. ‘Yes, and every country lass should know what such dreams mean,’ she said.
The Queen took one of the wet sponges and threw it in that lady’s direction. ‘Really, Ilal, how insolent you can be! We ought to have you beaten on the soles of your prettily arched feet just as we would with an impudent slave. It would do you good.’