Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 2 The Divine Queen

by Adam Corby

  Like a mountain aspen’s leaf, torn by the boiling storm from its mother-branch and spun with swirling gusts over valleys unseen beneath the deep-falling rains, the ship was hurled across the blackened sea. Lightnings flashed to every side, illuminating the harsh, heaving, sunless seascape. In the captain’s cabin Elpharaka pored over a curling map beneath the yellowed light of a swinging lamp, vainly striving to discern where they might be. The waves beat drums against the side of the ship. Yet even so the hull held, and developed no great leaks; and the bailing of the lancemen and the crew kept the ship up in the water.

  So a pass fled, or perhaps two; and there was no rest for the hollow-eyed men.

  Then, as the men fought on to hold the ship back from her running course, a sound came dully to their watery ears, one more ominous than all the others they had heard, so that at first their hearts denied it. But again it sounded, so that there could be no doubt. It was the booming of a great surf. Again the yellow-green lightning cracked – and there was revealed to them reefs of darkly shining rocks awaiting them. Elpharaka came on deck and looked forth, and his craggy, sodden countenance fell. ‘If the lines do not hold, and if the rowers cannot force the ship against the waves, we will be driven aground,’ he said.

  He bawled out commands, holding fast to the railing by the helm. Long since the golden awnings had been snatched up in the winds’ jaws. The helmsman lashed to the post of the tiller strove with all the muscles in his back and legs to bring the ship about; below, the lancemen crowded in with the crew upon the low wooden benches, pulling desperately at the limber oars battling the currents of that black sea and the breath of that monstrous wind.

  The wind howled, and the sound of those evil breakers grew. Ampeánor gripped the slick railing angrily, lifting his face into the pelting rain. Then of a sudden, the wind fell off a bit and the rowers gained heart, and strove the fiercer. And they began to make gradual headway against the sea. The beater raised his call in a cheer, and even the weary captain relaxed somewhat.

  Then it was that a strange and dismal cry arose from below decks. ‘A leak!’ came the voice. ‘There is a leak in the hold, and the sea is pouring in!’

  ‘Impossible!’ shouted Elpharaka. ‘Her hull is stronger than that!’

  ‘Perhaps we struck a submerged reef,’ shouted the helmsman. ‘How large a leak?’ he roared. ‘Can you not stopper it?’

  ‘Lost, lost!’ came the frantic cry from below. ‘There are two leaks, each as big as a harlot’s thigh!’

  ‘Can you not bail it?’ Ampeánor demanded of the captain.

  ‘Not if the men are rowing,’ shouted the captain back. ‘Already we’ve lost a forearm’s length to the sea! As we go down, she responds less and less to the oars! My lord, this ship is done for!’ He shouted orders: straightway a dozen men leaped from the rowing-benches and went to the shoreboat, loading it with two barrels of arrows and bundles of bows; but the aft-rearing ship rammed suddenly into a reef with a sickening sound, pitching violently to one side.

  The shoreboat swung out over the abyss and the lines supporting it – they must have been rotten from the storm – snapped. The shoreboat plunged into the waves. The swells took the ship and hurled her against the reef again, and the sound of rending planks and beams rose above the thunder of the surf.

  Again the captain and Ampeánor gave orders, that the barrels be lashed together and thrown shoreward. Valiantly on the pitching, lowering ship, Ferrakador’s lancemen sought to obey the commands, while the seamen strove with oars and boat-hooks to stave off the rocks from the ship’s wounded side; yet the deck’s wild movements took all sureness from the men’s legs. The ship lurched heavily against the rocks, and the oars were wrenched from the seamen’s grips.

  By the helm, Elpharaka turned to Ampeánor. ‘There is no more to be done in the time we have, my lord,’ he said. ‘Shall I let the men go?’

  Desperately Ampeánor shook his head. ‘No – no – we cannot lose those bows!’

  ‘Then we shall be lost with them,’ the captain said sadly.

  Ampeánor leapt down, falling on the slick and slanting deck. He rose, and tried to help the lancers salvage the precious cargo; but in such confusion not even such troops might work well. Another swell swung the ship and ground her against the rocks; a gush of black water boiled up through the forward hatch, and the men were sent sprawling. A flood caught Ampeánor and he felt himself washed swiftly toward the side – he flailed his arms, caught a secured length of rope and held to it with all his strength.

  From his position on the afterdeck, Elpharaka now at last gave the signal, releasing the men. The sailors went first, and then the lancers, casting aside their armor before they leapt. Ampeánor, gasping and choking on seawater as he held to the rope, was almost alone upon the main deck now. The cover of the afterhold broke its hinges, and several of the last barrels of arrows leapt out and danced upon the heaving deck, as if maddened by spirits – then smashed through the railings and were gone overboard.

  The ship rolled back more evenly, and the Gerso suddenly appeared in the gleam of a burst of lightning, drenched to the bone, a wild light in his glowing eyes, and his naked arms dirtied as from the bilge of the holds.

  ‘I’ve been below!’ he shouted in Ampeánor’s ear above the rending of the ship’s hull. ‘We’re done for now, come and swim for it!’ He began to drag Ampeánor toward the broken railing.

  ‘But the bows!’ cried Ampeánor, holding fast to the rope. ‘We cannot abandon them!’

  ‘Cannot your Gen-Karn fashion you more bows? Yet I’ll not argue with you!’ He caught up Ampeánor bodily as if he were a child, and aided by a sudden rocking of the ship, hurled him over into the water.

  Ampeánor was buried in the coldness of the water, turned over and about by the ferocious currents; he was slammed against the mossy side of the hull, and thrown back against the rocks, which caught at his legs with avid jaws, tearing into his flesh. Down he was pulled, below the ship; the air escaped his mouth, and he tasted salt in his lungs; and a sound as of a hideous mocking laughter filled his ears.

  He broke from the surface, gasping and forlorn. His long hair covered his eyes; with a toss of his head he threw it back. He looked about: the sky was lightening but gloom-ridden still. Above him he could see the black mass of the foundering ship, and above it, a figure convulsing like an image torn from a madman’s dream, the Gerso Ennius Kandi, sole possessor now of the lost Rukorian merchantman. Another wave buried Ampeánor, he fought back to the surface, slipping out of his sodden, heavy tunic. By the sound of the surf he knew the direction of the shore and struck out for it.

  He fought in darkness against cold waves, sharp rocks and bubbling foam. Now each time he brought his head above the level of the waves and drank in sweet air it was a victory. His leg throbbed where the reef had bitten it; the water filled his roaring ears. His despair broke from him in the fury of his actions. He fought a primeval battle as old as man and the sea; and he, Ampeánor of the house of Torval, exulted in it. No longer was he the man who had withheld himself by the calm mountain pool beholding the nakedness of his queen; he was a man as old as the Empire itself, as bold as Elna: Torval reborn, whose brawny arms and shoulders beat back even the waves of the storm-driven sea. His arms thrashed, his legs kicked and found the bottom; and weighted with the water streaming from his back he rose above the level of the sea, and slogged clumsily past the rocks.

  He looked back through the lightening gloom, searching for the ship; but already the sea had claimed her. She upon whom he had relied had been torn back into the abyss. Even from this distance he could hear the rending of her last planks and the forlorn drowning cries of her seamen hurled upon the jagged, evil rocks. The hold had long since burst open, and now her contents, the precious bales of arrows and bows, were being scattered about on the vast floor of Elna’s Sea.

  Dizziness swam over his head, and his knees trembled with weariness. Naked he dragged himself up the beach a ways and fell up
on the sand asleep.

  * * *

  He woke with the summer sun burning his back, and the raucous cries of sea-birds in his ears. He sat up slowly on the hot, dry sand, blinking against the shimmering sunlight off the sand and sea. Save for a few high fleecy clouds the sky was clear, but the sea still heaved from the effects of the storm. All along the beach were scattered bits of wreckage and the bodies of dead sailors, washing to and fro in shallow salt pools.

  ‘Good-waking,’ said a cheerful voice.

  He looked behind him. Sitting astride a low rock and swinging one leg, the Gerso brightly regarded him.

  ‘How many others?’ were Ampeánor’s first words.

  Ennius Kandi shook his head. ‘Only we two. The others must have all been dragged down by the currents and slain upon the sharp rocks. Some of your lancemen even look as if their throats have been cut. Oh, those rocks must be sharp as daggers.’

  ‘But Elpharaka, who was an excellent swimmer?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Ferrakador, my greatest captain?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘And the arrows and bows, for which we paid and lost so much?’

  ‘Lost.’

  The pain burned in his leg. Through the wavering lines of his vision he beheld the wound, an oozing black mess speckled with salt and sand.

  ‘Can you walk, my lord? There is a freshwater stream beyond that headland. There you can drink and cleanse your wounds. Are you hungry? I have some shellfish here.’

  Ampeánor shook his head. ‘I have no need for food or drink now, Gerso.’ He groaned. With great effort, he rose on his knees and fell forward. His salt-ragged hair fell across his face. Painfully he dug his knuckles into the hard sand. Perhaps, if he had had all his senses about him, Ampeánor would have thought it odd that the Gerso, a man from an inland city, should have survived when all the seamen had perished; yet now there was only pain and grief within his heart.

  He thought only that he, the leader of the expedition, still lived when his men had been killed – that he had survived, who had slain his friends and failed his Queen. Hot bitter tears forced their painful way into his eyes. His stomach turned, and for a moment he wanted only to shut out all light and life, and expire.

  With his hand held like a claw, he raked away the muck upon his leg’s wound, feeling the pain strike him shatteringly, like the blow of a well-cast lance. The raucous cries of the birds filled his ears like a scream, and he fell forward on the strand.

  Above him, Ennius Kandi looked out to sea to the remnants of the wreck. With a slight wry smile he tossed the shellfish about on the sand, and watched for some moments as the avid birds descended to feast upon his careless bounty.

  * * *

  Ampeánor lay for some time in the wide bed in the gloom, midway between sleep and wakefulness, aware of the place yet not of time. He lay upon his right side. Then he turned back, inward toward the river of the mattress, and saw where Allissál lay, her form a soft pattern of shade and vague outlines. The light in the corner of her eye showed she waked and regarded him pensively. He could just make out her smile when she beheld him: she reached up and tenderly stroked his hair away from his damp forehead. He wanted to speak to her, but all he could think to say was in reference to their political ambitions.

  We have done much together, you know, he said, in spite of all our setbacks.

  I know, she answered softly. I know, my love.

  * * *

  Again, the scream of sea-birds assaulted his ears. Ampeánor awoke to the bright light beyond the doorway. He smelled the salt and the freshness of the air. Uncertainly he rose, and dragged himself out of the half-ruined hut. The Gerso was sitting outside, gutting a large blue fish.

  ‘How long?’ Ampeánor asked.

  ‘Three passes. We are not far from the wreck – I found this old fisher’s hut. I clothed you in some of the sailors’ garb, yet they fit poorly, I am afraid.’

  Ampeánor sat on the rock beside him. He examined his wound, which the Gerso had cleaned and dressed well. It was healing, but it had been a deep cut, and would not be wholly healed for a long time. The wind pushed through his hair, and the memory of the dream returned. And now it seemed to him as though it were the wreck and the deaths that were dream and unreality.

  He said, in the tone of a man uttering for the first time a truth he has only just discovered, ‘All is not lost, you know. Allissál loves me.’

  The Gerso cut deeper into the tough, squirming flesh of the fish, holding the hilt of his jade dagger like a murderer. ‘Of course she does, my lord,’ he said quietly. ‘I see it in her eyes each time she beholds you. I can still recall the joy with which she greeted you when you last returned from Tezmon. You would have to do something very terrible for her to lose such a love.’

  ‘And had I died now, upon this task for her, she would have always mourned me,’ Ampeánor added. This truth amazed and delighted him. He was decided: the next time he saw her, he would tell Allissál of his love. Why had he waited so long?

  He looked about him, up and down the strand. ‘How sweet a thing life is,’ he said. ‘Gerso, are you certain none of the bows escaped the storm? Why, I know this place. We are not far from Torvalinal, the seat of my charanship in Rukor. Beyond those hills is a town where we may get food, clothing and mounts to bear us to my estates by the city.’

  ‘And are those the famous Rukorian Isles there on the horizon?’ asked the Gerso, pointing. ‘I have heard much of them, my lord, and of the pirates over whom you gained so great a victory.’

  ‘There are still a few pirates thereabouts. Charan, you have saved my life when I would have died. Now I owe you a debt of deep honor, despite anything you may have done to me in the past. You gave me insults once, but no matter your words or character: I owe you now a life. Come to me and claim it when you will, I will not deny you.’ He uttered these words solemnly, raising his fist before both God and Goddess.

  ‘Ah, my lord,’ the Gerso said softly, ‘and can you now give life like the very gods?’

  ‘And put this disaster from your mind, as I have done from mine,’ Ampeánor went on. ‘We still live, do we not? – and still may hope to meet Ara-Karn in battle and avenge our wrongs upon the little godling.’

  He stood, his leg scarcely in his mind, and swept his brown arms against the dark line of the sea. ‘Soon enough the League will be formed – and Gen-Karn can fashion us new bows, as many as we lost here. Then indeed we will have the barbarian leader caught in an unbreakable trap!’

  * * *

  But the new bows never came. The weeks of high Summer passed, but the ship Ampeánor had sent to Tezmon never returned to the docks of Torvalinal. Another ship was sent, a stout warship filled with men; it, too, vanished forever. Finally a fleet of seven warships, urged to speed by the desperation of Dornan Ural, gathering armies to meet the barbarian and save Tarendahardil, raced across the sea to Tezmon. But when they returned they could only tell a tale of the long white arms of the harbor smashed and sunken, and of haunted ruins in the city, utterly devoid of men.

  For the motley beast-men and lesser Orns had risen in revolt at last, slaughtering all the Orns Sol-Dat vainly tried to rally; and the ruins of Tezmon were put to the torch again, and the crumbled ruins joined to the empire of Ara-Karn, when the victorious beast-men bought back his patronage with the gleaming piles of Imperial Gold. And the barbarian tribes were united once again.

  And after this the fear that the name of Ara-Karn engendered was even greater than it had been before. They no longer grumbled or held back in the ranks of the warriors of the tribes of the far North – instead, they fought like devils flown from the dark horizon, inspired by hatred, lust and superstitious awe alike.

  For the waking after Ampeánor had departed Tezmon, the servants of the king had at last forced entry into the silent banquet hall and discovered Gen-Karn’s body on the marble floor by the gold, steeped in its own blood. A grim smile was etched upon those hideously stiffened lips; o
ne hand held the bloodied black blade; and the other trailed a grotesquely scrawled message across the floor.

  Gen-Karn, it seemed, had cut his own throat. The blood must have gushed over his beard and chest as he had fallen – and then, after he had fallen, after he must have been already dead, the hand that did not hold the blade must have moved of its own accord. Those fingers must have dipped themselves in the gaping wound at the base of the throat – that arm must have moved in jerks, forming those oddly angled characters to write that message in Gen-Karn’s own smoking blood. That message, which his servants read with the utmost horror, went:

  DA ELGA KAAN.

  ‘Commanded by the will of God.’

  (But others said the letters had been smeared, and what it really said was, DA ELGA KARN.)

  And that the deed could not have been done by any of those sullen bestial men of the lesser tribes, was shown by the blade that had done it, which was unknown to any of those who discovered the body. For it was fashioned all of black stone, very old, and its broad black blade had been chipped and honed to the sharpness of a silk-cutter’s knife.

  So ended the rebellion, life and dreams of Gen-Karn Mighty King, who had once been Warlord of all the tribes of the far North. He had journeyed as a youth over high and perilous ways, and returned to Orn with words of the great loot to be had. But another took the tribes south, and Gen-Karn died in a foreign land and was left mutilated and abused for the rats in the smashed ruins of his great banquet hall, unvoyaged.

  Surely such an end is reserved for none beneath the state of Kings.

  XIII

  A Draught More Dangerous than She Knew

  IN THE STRONG-WALLED CITY of Torvalinal beneath the mountains, Ampeánor showed his rescuer all courtesy. Gifts of weapons and clothing he gave him, and the use of a twenty-oared galley. So the Gerso charan toured the many Isles of Rukor, cool and peaceful and beautiful at that time of the year, while physicians tended to Ampeánor’s leg, and he himself saw to affairs of state within his province. But in the meantime the woman they both wanted abode in Tarendahardil, and when she woke she woke early and alone.