by Adam Corby
‘And that you savages are so weak,’ rejoined Ankhan, ‘that two of your numbers were slain by this mere woman. Come, friend Ennius,’ he said, turning his back, ‘enough of this. Did you understand the dog’s tongue?’
‘Yes, lord,’ responded the Gerso absently. ‘It is much like that of the barbarians of the far North.’
‘Then you have heard. There is nothing to be gained here. I have dealt with enough of them to know that nothing will get them to betray their chiefs. It is not for nothing they are called mad. Let us kill him and have done.’
‘You think you’ve won!’ screamed the Madpriest as if he had understood the king’s words. ‘You with all your fine bodyguards and your whore. You’ve invaded our sacred lands and you’ll die for it, Ankhan the Damned! You’ll die slowly and horrible so that you’ll think you’ve died a score of times – he’ll see to that! Not all your men or all your walls will protect you from him!’
‘From whom?’ asked Dilyardin fiercely.
The savage curled his lips contemptuously. His reddened eyes came alive in hateful glee as he answered, ‘Him! Him! Estar Kane!’
‘And who is Estar Kane?’ asked the Gerso.
The Madpriest shook his head and laughed. ‘You’ll not see his face, small-eyes, until you come face to face with your own dark death!’
‘He is a great war-chief of the Darklands,’ explained Ankhan. ‘They always speak of him thus, as if he were some god to them. It is said he has vowed to lead them into the Goddess-lit lands to pillage and slay to their hearts’ content. Yet never have any of my patrols come across him. Doubtless he is but another of their myths. The name means “the Death’s Lord.” ’
‘So torture me like the pigs you are,’ cried the captive. ‘He will avenge me! He will see you all dead and dying some pass soon! And you, too, outlander!’ he spat at Ennius Kandi.
‘Pay him no heed,’ said Lisalya. ‘We do no torture here. That is more the work of a Madpriest or foul barbarian than of any who would claim to be civilized folk. We shall kill him cleanly and simply.’
But the Gerso stayed her hand. ‘Your majesty, perhaps we may yet learn something from this man. Or, if not, then I could take him to Tarendahardil as a gift for the Divine Queen. She has expressed desires to know more of these folk and their strange ways of life. Chara, you have but recently offered me my choice of favors. Deliver this man into my hands, and I shall be well paid.’
‘It will be more your boon to us than ours to you if you take this burden from our shoulders, friend Ennius,’ said Ankhan. ‘Have him then as you please. Yet we must warn you that it will do you no good. These savages are beyond redemption, from living out their lives in darkness. He will tell you no more than nonsense.’
‘Perhaps,’ mused the Gerso, ‘he will tell me more of Estar Kane.’
* * *
The royal hunting-party returned to Ul Raambar with more game than they had thought to bring. In the chambers of the palace the Gerso delivered himself of the business the Empress had charged him with, and spoke at length of the progress of the League. And when this was done he bowed, and said he must not tarry but must return immediately.
The lord and lady of Ul Raambar would not hear of his departure, however, until they had held a grand feast to see their dear friend and savior off. Throughout the city, a festival was declared, and the captive Madpriest put on display in a cage before the palace.
The Gerso was granted land about Ul Raambar, and declared thenceforth to be Ennius, Charan of Danel, and one of the king’s cup-companions. ‘Let these lands we give you now compensate for that which was robbed of you by your enemy Ara-Karn,’ Ankhan said, ‘and may that which was robbed be returned to you under the leadership of the High Charan of Rukor. Goddess, be it so.’
‘Be it so soon,’ echoed the Chara Lisalya. ‘And dear Ennius, consider this land we give you to be a true home to visit often. Remember in your travels, whenever your thoughts turn to friendship or rest, you have but to set your feet to the dark horizon, and seek out Ul Raambar, the Unassailable.’
The Charan of Danel bowed before them both, and the assembled warriors and their proud ladies raised a cheer.
Then the Queen raised her hand, upon whose lovely fingers sparkled several rings of rare size and beauty, for she was dressed in state. ‘Nay, you need not speak, Ennius: well can we understand your noble feelings and how they might whelm the tongue. If your throat be still, yet can your eyes speak eloquently of the love you bear us. And for that love, and the services you have rendered us these brief passes, in both sweet companionship and danger, we thank you, Charan of Danel. This ring upon my finger was placed there years ago by Ankhan, my beloved, and never since has it been removed. Behold! it has come off now. And I give it you as the most precious of all my possessions.’
She handed him the ring, a golden band set with a single large ruby of the likeness of a human heart. Ankhan also stood, and took from his neck a golden chain. ‘Take this too, my friend,’ he said. Upon the end of the chain was suspended a delicate miniature that had been fashioned after the likeness of Lisalya during their stay at Tarendahardil. And all the warriors knew that this was the only likeness of his lady Ankhan had ever had.
‘And more,’ he exclaimed to the astounded crowd, ‘since dear Ennius lost his sword in the service of our lives, I will replace it with my own, of the finest workmanship of the master smiths of Ul Raambar.’ The lamplight shone from off the dark blue blade, and the silver and steel hilt worked with gold and fire-opal in the device of the kings of Ul Raambar. With his own hands, the king bound the blade about the waist of the stranger.
Then the crowds cheered indeed, so that the very palace shook from it. The Gerso bowed, rather too stiffly and coldly in the minds of many, waiting for the tumult to fall. When it had done so, he bowed once more, and addressed these words to the noble couple:
‘My lord and gracious lady, believe me when I say that the time I have spent among you has brought back such memories to me as I had thought long buried and forgotten in the dim, dead past. It makes my heart sick to think of all that I have lost; and even more ill to think of what might have been mine but never was, and dark God knows never will be now. My youth is gone forever; nor will the youth I was ever return. My home, my heart and my love were stolen by my enemies, upon whom I have sworn unending vengeance, though it consume me utterly. And now I have no future such as you might have to look forward to; yet, if I ever dared allow myself to dream of some future happiness, I could dream of no finer or more blissful a one than that here, which you two possess now: not great riches nor mighty domains, nor pomp nor power nor even a place carven in history, but a small kingdom of noble souls, and my heart’s desire seated again beside me.
‘These gifts you offer me are dearer to me than you could dream. And yet I must decline them: for they would so gnaw at me with their tempting promises that I might put aside my oaths, and thereby be undone. Yet the sword that your majesty has offered me I will gladly keep.’ So he handed them back the ruby ring and the delicate miniature, which they took back with grateful faces; but his was sad, like that of a man who has offered up his last hope of happiness.
‘Think then not of my own unhappiness,’ he went on, ‘for such is unworthy of your nobility: but think upon all that is yours, and treasure it well. Enjoy it to the fullest, two-handed and with desperation, as if it might vanish with the next rising of the Jade Orb. For you have such enemies about you that, were I able to speak from my heart alone, I would counsel you to strike them utterly to death lest they survive to treacherously raise your doom. But no man of purpose is free to follow his heart. So let the wave of Fate lead us where she will!’
They marveled at his words, for since the capturing of the Madpriest he had spoken so little they had taken him for a taciturn, moody man, and had forgotten that courtier’s glibness with which he had first greeted them. Now he spoke with such terrible sincerity and intensity, as from the shadows of his hidden heart,
that they knew it was no mere courtesy, but a part of the man’s very soul that none before them had even glimpsed. And there was not a warrior or lady about that vast hall but heard the words with a sudden thought of their homes or loved ones, and treasured all that they had as if it had been a new-won and endangered gift. And they thought of what the barbarians had done to this man’s home and kin in far-off ruined Gerso; and they rejoiced that the barbarians were many borders away from their own Ul Raambar.
His words remained with them still, as they rode in joyous procession down the windswept streets of their city: only now not with that secret dread, but only sweet contentment. Ten full companies of lancers in dress armor and banners flying on high followed the noble couple and their guest, with the Madpriest bound sullenly on a steed behind them. Such was the departure out of Ul Raambar of Ara-Karn, now Charan of Danel, whom the city had taken to her breast. Nor would they content themselves merely with seeing him off at the gates of the city. They escorted him down the paths into the foothills and even beyond, to the crossroads in the Marches below the city. There they reached the border-posts marking the extent of Ankhan’s rule; and only there would they halt.
The king and queen embraced their friend one final time, with dear tears flowing in their eyes. They gave him gifts for their friends in Tarendahardil, and with broken words bade him farewell and all happiness. The only brightness the chara could find in the parting was that they all would meet again at the wedding. But the Gerso had no reply to that.
He took the leads of the Madpriest’s steed and the pack-pony burdened with the two heavy barrels that the Raambas had guarded in his absence most jealously, not knowing that they contained thirty strong bows and three hundred deadly arrows, salvaged and hidden from the wreckage of Captain Elpharaka’s ship. Therewith he left them, a lone figure on the flat, green wilderness of the Marches. They had offered him the company of a troop of lancers to help in the burdensome task of guarding his captive, but he had declined this signal honor. So Ankhan of the Strong Heart turned back, taking the warmth of his lady’s hand in his. They led their companies of lancemen up again to home, to Ul Raambar. Together they then re-entered the city gates, dreaming dearly of each other.
* * *
Far, far below them, out of sight now of even the sharp mountain-bred eyes of the watchers of the gates, the Gerso and his captive came to another crossing of the roads. Once more he wore his dark green hooded hunting-cloak from Gerso, fastened with a blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg.
Behind them the road led back up to Ul Raambar, shining faintly like a red jewel against the dull backdrop of the mountainsides. Before them the road branched, one entering onto the broad stones of the Imperial Highway, leading to Tarendahardil and her beautiful queen; and the other turning into a tortuous dirt track meandering toward the dark horizon.
The hooded man did not pause at the crossroads. He turned off to his right, and silently rode upon the path leading up to the dark hills. He rode swayingly, with bent head, like a man intoxicated or asleep.
Those eyes alive with hate darted to the back of the Gerso, then to the road, and the sweet dark hills ahead. A secret gloating entered the eyes of the Madpriest, as if he could not believe his fortune; and he tensed his muscles, preparing to break away from this dreaming outlander. But then the fist that gripped the lead reins, as if sensing the determination in the breast of the captive follower, clenched more tightly, forcing the horse’s head down with an iron grip.
‘Fool! This way leads to my lands, where my chief rules – Estar Kane!’
‘Be silent, eater-of-dung. Think you I do not know the difference between darkness and light?’
* * *
When the procession passed out of windswept Ul Raambar, all the populace laughed and shouted their fierce joy. But there was one among them, a stranger, who did not cheer. He was a young man with a hunted look about his sleepless eyes. The cloak about his shoulders was worn and tattered as if by many months of travel. His restless manner was that of the exiled. By his looks, he seemed once to have been a native of the city of Gerso.
He saw Ankhan of the Strong Heart pass, and the Chara Lisalya, and he seemed cheered; but when the Gerso came by, his face was turned to ash. The Charan of Danel, acknowledging faintly the exclamations of the crowds, found for a moment the young man’s eye, but he rode on by without any sign of recognition.
The procession passed from Ul Raambar, and the youth went straight to his inn. There, giving no replies to the landlord’s questions, he paid his bill, gathered his few belongings, and saddled his horse. He rode down out of Ul Raambar, avoiding the procession, and took the path to the deeper South – always, always, farther South. He kept his eyes to the road beneath him, never looking up, never looking back. The light of Goddess, stained a faint crimson, fell upon his right side; and behind him the smoky plume of the foundries of Ul Raambar fell unnoticed behind the grim gray mountainsides.
It had been in Gerso, in the fiery ruins of his beloved city, that he had first known Ara-Karn, and tried to kill him. But Ara-Karn had survived the attack and granted him freedom – freedom! It was a dreadful word. In a dozen cities in the North he had sought peace; but Ara-Karn was ever close behind. Then he had gone on to Tarendahardil. Surely, he had thought, there would be a respite there. But he had found Ara-Karn even there, smiling at the Empress’s side. Even here to Ul Raambar the demon followed him. Would he never escape? He looked back over his shoulder; but the road was empty, as far as he could see.
He rode on a little faster nevertheless, and a little faster still: but still could not escape those words tolling in his brain like warning bells over palaces of red stone in Gerso where first he had heard them, those words that never left him now:
‘Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn!’
XIX
The Woman in the Wood
THE LATE SUMMER VEGETABLES were coming along nicely, Dornan Ural thought. He rested for a moment in the shade and wiped his gleaming bald head with a towel. He took pleasure in the ordered rows of green in his little garden. It was the last pleasure he had left in his life.
Upon that waking, he had presided over the examinations of ten new officials and elevated another seven from the Fourth to the Third rank. It was such a duty that had ever delighted him before; yet now in this as in all his other dealings with men, he saw but mockery in the eyes of those below him and heard but impudence in their voices. The terrible insult of the Queen hung over every interview. From poorborn to the charanti, they had taken her mockery for their example, knowing the term of Dornan Ural’s regency was fast approaching. He had perhaps never been a popular administrator, but he had been respected and obeyed. Now he was a laughingstock.
Clapping the dirt from his broad workman’s palms, Dornan Ural entered the cool halls of his office and mounted the stairway to the rooftop. So situated was the place, upon the northernmost edge of High Town, that from its roof he could see almost the whole of the lower city spread in timeless splendor below him. Pensively, he stood in the hot sun, a vertical mass set against the horizon of rooftops, dark about his feet where a shadow fell, but gleaming from the top of his skull.
More than ever he wished for one to whom he might confide his deepest troubles – but there was none. The Chara Khilivirn, his wife, was lovely and elegant; but she remained a noble, and he the son of one of the old Emperor’s freedmen, and not all their years together had served to alter that. As for his sons, he had given them everything he himself had lacked as a boy; now that they were men, they were totally unlike him. They looked, smelled, gamed, couched and spent like nobles. His latest news of them was that they had gone to the pleasure-gardens of Vapio to share the revels of the Charan Arstomenes’s endless entertainments. As usual, the messenger who had conveyed the greetings of his sons to him had carried bills of debt as well. No, Dornan Ural had no family; and Tarendahardil had been his only mistress. Now he was old and he was weary beneath this hot sun,
and he might not rest.
Centuries before, Elna alone had ruled here, and dispensed powers and distant dominions to his captains. It was the descendants of those scarred, blood-stained men who had become the charanti, sharing power with the Emperors. Wealthy and lovely the highborn had grown: also idle, vain, and careless. Their scribes and slaves were made to undertake the burdensome responsibilities of the realm, that the lovely charai and charanti might themselves more earnestly toil in the pastimes and pursuits of pleasure. Years passed, and from those lowly clerks and slaves, the Seven Ranks of officialdom had evolved: so was it proved a truth, that the comrade of responsibility is power.
It was we, the descendants of slaves, who had run the Empire for the last two hundred years: we who had overseen the building of roads, the distributions to the populace, the erection of public buildings, the maintenance of the waterways, taxes, licenses, public order and public good. It was we who interpreted, studied and revised the countless laws and regulations that had grown up like a maze around them, as dense and twisting as the Thieves’ Quarter, a city unto itself.
Into this city-within-a-city Dornan Ural had been born. His father had been a master of it; the son had outdone the sire. All his life and the greater portion of his love he had lavished upon it, and from its center presided over it. Now it was passing. He could feel it dying all around him. It moaned to him, piteous in its death-throes. Tarendahardil sighed – Tarendahardil cried – Tarendahardil sang for him.
Goddess smote down through the still air upon the head of Dornan Ural, and of a sudden he could not breathe. Darkness opened like blossoms before his eyes. All the sky had died away. A dreadful noise rose distantly in his ears – there were crowds in the streets – the earth shuddered – the lower city was in flames. Huge horsemen rode the Way of Kings, clad in dusty armor, curious, deadly weapons raised on high. Death and panic ran before them. Desperately, Dornan Ural tried to signal the crowds below and rally them; but the strength left his knees and his fingers clutched at the parapet in vain, and he fell.
