by Adam Corby
‘It was in the very role of first we so counted upon Orolo,’ she mused. ‘He is the leader of these smaller kingdoms.’
Qhelvin, who had been frowning in thought, now asked, ‘Ennius, did you bring up these matters, or did the king? And were there any foreigners in attendance at Orolo’s court?’
‘There were half a dozen Belknuleans who seemed high in his confidence, that I recall.’
‘Yorkjax again,’ Fentan Efling said sourly.
Qhelvin nodded. ‘That was as I thought. Your majesty, I have heard that Yorkjax has some idea of our plans, and works against us. No doubt these agents of his had poisoned Orolo’s mind against us long before Ennius reached Pelthar.’
‘Is it so?’ she wondered. ‘Then more and more it appears that a solution in Belknule is the key we seek to unlock success. In the meanwhile, we shall declare Pelthari independence now, without Orolo’s seal, and send him a train of gifts: perhaps that will restore some of his confidence in us. Bistro, you seemed to have the better side of our little king: you shall head up the train of gifts.’
‘I shall be delighted to, your majesty,’ the Eliorite said, bowing. ‘And, while there, I will see what can be done to put Belknulean bugs from the blankets.’
Qhelvin of Sorne, now with a smile playing about his lips, struck up a tune upon his aliset:
A kingdom so pretty,
A nation so witty:
Here’s where Orolo holds sway!
Yet ask him to rule her,
Be warlike – be crueler—
He’ll answer: ‘I know not the way!’
This brought them all to laughter; and the Gerso said softly, ‘You are merry this pass, my lord.’
‘And why should I not be, my friend?’ Qhelvin smiled. ‘I have had great progress with the disaffected nobles of Belknule. And these others have all had equal good fortune. Be not discouraged in this minor setback of your first mission, or think it lessens you in any of our esteem. Such things have happened, more than once, to us all. Shrug it from your mind: Pelthar was never so vital to our plans.’
‘Not a third the importance of Belknule, of course.’ The Gerso smiled. ‘Who are these nameless rebel nobles you go so often to meet, my lord?’
‘That I cannot say, my friend, not even to you: for it is not my secret but theirs – and their lives hang on it.’
‘Yet, my lord, if something should happen to you (which Goddess forfend!), there would go all of your work to ruin.’
Qhelvin shrugged and laughed. ‘The High Charan of Rukor and her majesty know the names of the leaders, and where I meet them; and those in Belknule know I am but the tool of her majesty’s desires. Another, perhaps an abler, would succeed me, and the work would go on.’ He began softly to sing another song of his, at which all their hearts were lifted. When it was done, the maiden entered again and abased herself before the Queen.
‘Your majesty, a man below requests audience, from the city of Mersaline.’
‘It seems no news may come but at dambreaking,’ she responded. ‘Admit him, and let us see what ill news this fellow bears us.’
The newcomer was a young man of middle height but good proportions, light eyes and a simple, honest manner. He approached her majesty with some nervousness, evidently awed by the splendor and size of this famous Palace. Rather awkwardly, he abased himself.
‘Good sir, you need not fall to your belly so before us,’ she said winningly, raising him. ‘Have you brought us word from our son?’
He nodded. ‘Your majesty,’ he said stiffly, as if reciting words from memory. ‘When news is looked-for, there is no speed swift enough for its telling. Yet when the news is not so hopeful there is a difficulty in deciding at what a rate to unravel it.’
‘Your discretion is appreciated, sir,’ she said with a humorous glance at the others. ‘Yet consider for how long we have been awaiting this word. Proceed then with all swiftness, fearing no consequence of your words.’
‘Your majesty,’ he blurted, as if it broke from him, ‘your son – the prince – he’s dead.’
* * *
For some moments, there was a silence in that chamber. The Queen rose gracefully and stepped behind the divan, to where the sunlight poured through the open balcony. In her hands she held a small scroll of parchment tightly rolled, which was Ampeánor’s letter. Her back was to them, the sunlight gleaming in tight metallic arches from the bound-up hair and shoulders and golden clasps. The Mersalinal stood uncomfortably before the empty divan, putting his weight from one leg to the other. For a space the nobles stood about the chamber silently, all their eyes upon her. Qhelvin had put aside the aliset, and the Gerso stood off alone, staring at her back most intently.
Finally, slowly, she turned. Her face was a shadow in the brilliance of her sunlit hair and shoulder. ‘My lords, if you would leave us,’ she said quietly, ‘we would hear the remainder of this man’s words alone.’
When they had all gone, and only the two of them remained, the Queen came forward, and carefully arranged herself upon the divan once more. ‘Would you like wine, sir?’ she asked with a gesture as if she would wait upon him herself. The young fightingman, brave soul though he was, shook his head with a frightened look in his eyes. ‘Continue then with your tale, if you please.’
‘Your majesty, he was the breath of life to us. He arrived in the last passes of the siege, his troops beating a path through the startled barbarians. How we cheered him as he rode into the city! We were all certain the means of our deliverance had come at last. Straightaway my lord greeted his highness and met him in council. By secondhand I got the tale of it: how desperate and dismal were the charanti of our city, and how his highness renewed all their proud spirits. Not for him was waiting like an animal penned for slaughter: he would ride and gain death or victory, but glory either way. He urged an immediate massed assault upon the barbarians in the plains below the city, fields well suited for horsemen. When he’d broken through their lines, he had seen that the barbarians had only light armor and little knowledge of tactics. The Carftainians argued against it, but his highness laughed at their fears. Nor were their number so great, a large body having gone off to attack Tezmon.’
‘Tezmon? What know you of that city’s fate?’
‘Alas, your majesty, nothing. In the panic of the flight we dared not go that way, but took ship downriver in Torjulla. Yet how could little Tezmon stand with Mersaline in the dust? Of sailors, pilots and weavers they are a skillful enough race, but for warfare no better than Vapionil. Doubtless already they are defeated.’
The Queen nodded briefly. No grief sat upon her features now; but what had replaced it was even more terrible to the eyes of the young soldier. ‘Continue,’ she said in tones of iron.
‘My lord Zarendal was reborn at his highness’s words of great hope,’ he said uncertainly. ‘We assembled ranks. We of the city held the right wing, upon the left the exiles, mercenaries and outland recruits. His highness held joint generalship with my lord, and claimed for his Hunters the honor of the center. We called them that for the way they spoke of lancing the barbarians as if they had been mere beasts of the wood.’
He looked out through the balcony, his eyes unfocused in the infinite shimmering haze beyond. ‘The barbarians were assembling downfield of us in their typical ragtag fashion. We heard their screamed insults floating on the winds, and answered with a battle-hymn that they say Elna sang as he chased them through the Pass at Gerso. For a space we skirmished, each trying to gain the Goddess-end of the field. At this the barbarians proved adept. No doubt even rude tribal warfare has its points of tactics.
‘It came to a moment when Goddess was hanging in the dust-clouds upon our left hand, and neither side clear advantage. I remember, I had been prepared for long skirmishing, having been taught many’s the battle won in the first charge. Yet his highness was impatient with such flirtations. His great stallion was pawing at the earth, eager for blood and death; no less eager his rider. I looked to God
dess to mouth a prayer. Then – and I know not whether it was horse or rider, but doubt not he could control him – his highness was riding forward, and his Hunters at his tail, and all the wings suddenly surging forth irresistibly, yet the lines so well held that it seemed rather that the earth was passing us by underfoot. One advantage we had, for we charged down a slight slope.
‘I see him still, lance waving, stallion straining against harness as if to outrace its own rider. He was two lengths ahead of his standards, moving like the shadow of a wind-whipped storm cloud, dark beneath the hazy brilliance of Goddess above. Something caught in my throat at the sight of such splendor. The hoofbeats were as thunder in our ears. The standards of the Bordakasha rippled stiff in the winds. Almost I could hear the paean of victory rising in his highness’s throat, when the arrows came.
‘We knew how deadly those arrows could be: had we not cursed them most profanely, taking down the corpses of those foolhardy enough to show themselves above the walls? Yet we knew not they could be aimed with such sureness from horseback. They raked our lines with death: death, sudden and horrid beyond dreaming. Many rattled harmlessly off our armor, at which we laughed; many more found their marks, at which we fell screaming to our deaths. And one of the first to fall was his highness.’
He paused a moment, his eyes returning to the amber shadows of the painted chamber; but the Queen before him did not move or speak. He went on, tears starting to well from his light eyes.
‘I saw the shaft, swift as the shadow of a hawk, dart into the neck of his highness’s fierce dark steed. It gave a mad whinny, and down they went in a heap, and over their bodies rode the Hunters, helpless to restrain their charge or avoid the spot. The standards fell, and were likewise ridden into the dirt. Our lines grew uneven, our pace slowed; dead men tripped the legs of the living; and still the arrows came like rain. One of every ten of us was dead before we even came to grips with the enemy. Our center was eaten away, our wings tentative; the barbarians drove into us screaming, and tore us all asunder.
‘There was bloody battle then, but I expect your majesty does not care about those details. The battle did not go on for long. We were butchered by the thousand, and at last fled bleeding into the city. Mersaline was taken in the next hour, and we fled again. Not a single one of the Hunters returned to the city alive. I expect they all died with him rather than surrender the corpse: a fitting tribute of loyalty to so great a youth. When we came to Torjulla we thought first of your majesty, and came hither. Below are collected all your son’s belongings we could find. The rest are in the hands of Ara-Karn. As I left the city I could see the shadowy figures of the barbarians, already roaming the blood-soaked fields, picking clean the bodies of the dead.’
VIII
The Prisoner of Ara-Karn
DARK GOD PASSED WHEELING over the empty face of Tarendahardil, and fell alone behind the dark horizon. Then the people waiting in their chambers heard the tolling of the bells and the wailing of the women, and knew that it was time.
They emerged from black-draped dwellings and filed up streets past covered statues, mounting in silence to the great square in High Town where the royalty of Tarendahardil were entombed. Their faces were tear-streaked, their stiff robes of linen harsh upon their skin. The great square was invisible beneath them; they clustered upon nearby rooftops and hung out of windows and balconies. More tightly were they pressed here than at the docksides when they had seen the prince depart; yet here were no shouts, no elbows, and no brawls. In disbelief they gazed upon the huge, barge-shaped tomb, its newly cut blocks glittering austerely in the pale face of Goddess. They had a name for it already: they called it, the House that Ara-Karn had built.
No more than four weeks, forty passes of dark God, remained before the chill rains of winter would reach the green South; and already most of the North was in the barbarian’s hands. With Mersaline, Torjulla and Tezmon taken, the entire Vesquial coast in turmoil and Akrion and Orovil besieged, there was little hope that any there would stop the barbarian. News of fresh defeats arrived with every ship. By springtime all the North would be his, and only the warships of Rukor and the sands of the Taril would hold him from Postio, northernmost city of the South. But had they known how far he would go, or how high he aimed, then these mourners would not have stayed in weeping-weeds but taken arms in haste, and girt themselves for war.
Upon a great bier of bronze upon the marble steps were gathered the prince’s belongings, what the Mersalinals had brought back with them. Instead of a body, the prince’s ceremonial armor, which he had worn in setting forth from the city, lay in the center of the bier. Only the golden breastplate was missing, for Elnavis had insisted upon wearing that into battle, that its brilliance might serve as a beacon for the defenders; so that the heart of the armor was gone as the heart of the city was gone. The charanti and charai, weeping bitter tears, went past the bier in silence; and more than one young chara left her tears upon the cold metal, shivering liquid gems.
Beyond the bier stood the holy virgins of Goddess, wholly veiled in black, with the ritual masks of heavy gold covering their faces. So moveless did they stand, they seemed other than mortal: spirits waiting to claim the ka of the dead: the very handmaidens of Goddess who guide the souls of the deserving across the hot Desert sands to the happy lands of the dead.
Above them stood the Empress, the last surviving member of the once mighty Bordakasha. A single sheath of black linen covered her, rising in a hood to conceal the golden wonder of her hair. On her face she wore no paint. Yet though her features were scrubbed and drawn stiffly back and her lips austerely pursed, she seemed only the more beautiful, for it was a beauty pure of all artifice. From the corners of her wet-lashed eyes ran two streams of salt, which she did not wipe away. Only her arms were bare, gleaming like antique ivory against the linen, naked even of the ring that bore her seal. That treasure, the massive crude signet of Elna himself, lay upon the bier next to the silver-inlaid gauntlets.
At the Queen’s side, like the other side of some coin of fabulous value, stood the Chara Ilal of Corthio. She too was garbed simply in black, but heavy bands of gray iron weighted down her slender, elegant wrists, like the penalty-chains used upon disobedient slaves. She was there to support the Empress; but it was rather the Empress’s arm that lent her lady strength.
At either side of the bier stood the High Regents Farnese, Arstomenes, Lornof, and Dornan Ural. Now that Elnavis was no more, their Regency would be extended until such time as the Empress was permitted to marry. One regent was absent: Charan Ampeánor of Rukor had not returned from the fighting in the North, and was believed slain. The crowds of the lower quarters had all but set upon the feeble refugees from Tezmon when they had learned this news, one more ill-telling, it seemed, than they could bear. Yet none had seen him fall, and the Empress had forbidden any rites for him until the knowledge was sure. The people pitied their beloved Queen, that she should so delude herself with hope: it honed more keenly their hatred for Ara-Karn.
Of the four about the bier, Dornan Ural seemed least moved. Scarcely a tear did he shed, but simply gazed upon the empty bier with faint irony and horror in his eyes. The common folk, seeing this from a distance, muttered among themselves that the High Regent was as sparing with his tears as he was with the gold in the Treasury. Arstomenes was garbed, masked and painted like a mourner in a tragedy; yet with such art as not quite to make a mockery of it. Lornof of Fulmine sniveled and wiped his nose. Only Charan Farnese seemed deeply moved, never lifting his eyes from the scattered belongings, and shamelessly weeping the hard tears of the aged and the proud.
When the last of the nobles had passed before the bier, and the stone steps were damp with tears and strewn with the blossoms of the black chorjai flower, the High Priestess came forward, leaning heavily upon a small staff. She lifted her thin swathed arms to the bright horizon; and from behind the golden mask issued the opening chant of the Invocation to Goddess, uttered in the ancient tongue of the realm th
at few understood now, and that was so like the tongue of the barbarians. With the words came a chill across the folk-filled square, for a cloud was crossing the countenance of Goddess. The priestesses gave the Sign of Goddess to ward off the evil in the omen, and the High Priestess continued with her chant.
Over the cold armor she sprinkled powder, the same used on babes fresh-dripping from the womb, symbolizing the prince’s rebirth in the lands beyond. Then she began a new chant, birth-chant, and the other priestesses gathered to lift the bier. The regents drew back at this, for it was unholy that the hand of any man should touch the bronze now. Into the darkness of the tomb the virgins carried their burden, thence to emerge only when they had begun the final rites, never to be seen or spoken of by the uninitiate.
The masonwrights then performed their final task, sealing the entrance with stone; and the High Priestess stood over the blocks and whispered a prayer to seal the door with a curse. The other virgins stood on the top of the barge-shaped edifice, raising a sail of thin silk upon the tall mast. Almost immediately it bellied full of wind, a good omen now. The sail flapped and strained under the pressure of the winds. Soon it would be reduced to tatters, and the voyage of Elnavis begun; and when the last tatter was gone the people would know that the ka, the spirit of Elnavis, had come at last to the land beyond, and taken on flesh glorious, unaging, and immortal.
Throughout the vast City, so soon as that saffron sail was raised, plumed incense arose from every altar and shrine, commemorating the soul of Elnavis, who had died so young, to the care of beneficent Goddess. And due sacrifices were offered, and the bells rang out, and the women wailed, again, again, again. Silver clouds and the jade orb passed by serenely overhead and the still hours slowly passed. A brief shower came, chill with the sting of nearing winter.
Gradually the crowds thinned in the square, and the rooftops emptied, and the windows grew vacant. The people returned to their black-draped homes, there to cover every window, and light no lamp or candle, and break bread and sup water in silence, and sleep alone in remembrance. Every house of pleasure was closed, and every courtesan went to her couch alone: for wine and meat and all pleasures of the body were forbidden in this pass of mourning.
