Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 1 The Former King

by Adam Corby

  Mergo spat upon the earthen floor with amusement. ‘Zelatar Bonvis, wizard of merchants, with the right to be the first let into the North for each year so long as you hold breath! Do not tell me that you believe those fools who fear that the barbarians will rise again? Such legends are of old date indeed; yet not once have the tribes dared oppose us.’

  Zelatar slowly shook his head. ‘When I was younger, Mergo, and came with my father for the first time to the North, there was never any talk of civil war among the tribes. And in my grandfather’s time there were so few tribesmen that he could not support himself solely on this northern trade, but had to make other journeys to the South and the bright horizon. Now the tribes have grown, and begin to elbow one another over territorial rights. They grow restless; they can scarcely grow and catch enough to feed themselves. Hunger is a great goad, Mergo: do not underestimate what it may drive men to. And I have seen Gen-Karn, and know the man. There is much you do not understand as yet, Mergo.’

  The younger man was about to respond when suddenly he cocked his head in a listening attitude. From below the village rose the faint shouts of the barbarians, suddenly louder and sharper. Mergo frowned. ‘What are they saying?’

  Zelatar rose and walked to the veranda at the front of the hall. ‘They’re calling to us from the bay,’ he said with surprise. He looked up at the sky, now bright as ever. ‘The eclipse has passed; I wonder what they want of us? Come along – and mind your words, or I will sell your apprenticeship to Berdelna Tovis.’

  ‘Goddess spare me such a fate,’ said Mergo, chuckling.

  * * *

  Kuln-Holn the Pious One broke off his supplications, and rose to his feet, and gazed out across the waves. He shut his eyes, hoping it was but another of his visions; but when he opened his eyes again he saw it still. He looked up and down the ranks of his fellow tribesmen in the weird half-darkness. He sought to find one who had also seen, one who would tell him what to do and take the awful burden from his shoulders.

  But the others rose and fell, continuing their prayers without pause. The sight had been given to the Pious One alone. He took that for an omen. It was for him alone to decide what to do. He looked out to sea again.

  Although the thing bobbing on the water was a good deal larger than those of the tribe, there was no mistaking its shape. Kuln-Holn had known it immediately for what it was: a death-barge, being slowly driven by the wind and the tide into the waters of the wide-mouth bay directly toward the shores of Gundoen’s tribe.

  A death-barge was returning to the land of men.

  A death-barge that could only be driven by Her hands – one that soon, unless some miracle intervened, would come to rest upon the beach among the tribe. And when it landed, its spirit, turned back from the Happy Shores for its crimes, would go mad with grief and haunt and possess the tribe. It would cause women to miscarry and men to fall on one another with drawn swords. Many and terrible were the tales told about such happenings.

  Kuln-Holn looked up and down the beach in the darkness. He stepped forward a bit into the water and stopped. He knew what he must do, but he was afraid. He must go into the water and turn the barge from the shore. He could not turn it back to the Happy Shores – that had been forbidden by Her – but at least he could see that it landed on some distant shore.

  Yet when his hand touched the side of the barge, he would bring the wrath of the spirit upon himself. It would think him a barge-robber. It would enter his body and consume his soul. He would go mad and perish in the sea. And there were other tales of the terrible fates of barge-robbers. If Kuln-Holn did nothing, he would only be allowing Her punishment to follow its course. And perhaps She would realize that he, Kuln-Holn, had been no party to the chief’s refusal and spare him.

  He looked up to the skies. Already the circle of blinding fire was reappearing below Goddess. God had had His way, and She was His. Now had come the moment of decision. And perhaps Her decision would rest with what Kuln-Holn would do.

  He stepped into the water. He did not want to think of it any longer. The waves, high because of the Storm, slapped coldly at his legs. He waded into the surf, feeling the sea devour him.

  It was much closer now, sliding rapidly toward the land. The absence of any sail or tiller, or sight of human occupant, lent it an eerie aspect of silence and of death.

  He came up beside it when the water lapped at his chest. He brushed his wet hair from his eyes. The barge swept past him. For one brief moment it was suddenly revealed to him: the barge, the artifacts, the body lying at rest.

  The barge itself was of black, as was custom; but on its prow was a sunburst design of beaten gold, now half eaten away by the sea, and along its sides were carved ornate designs, some of strange and mystic charactery, others of half-buried figures writhing in odd postures. The rim was all of gold – an amazing extravagance that could only have been permitted on the barge of some great king.

  And the man within, even in death, gave the look of a king. The rags upon his limbs were of the costliest fabrics, dirtied and rent but shining for all that. The artifacts laid about him were of the finest materials and workmanship. Kuln-Holn saw the glint of gold, the shimmer of silver.

  The man was a tall, slim man, with dark skin browned by the sun, the arms muscular but unscarred, the hands whole and without calluses. A short beard of only a few weeks’ length grew from the handsome gaunt face. About the brow was a simple circlet of pure gold and much jewelry adorned his neck, arms, and fingers. In his right hand he clutched a ceremonial dagger of jade with a strange ornate design.

  All of this Kuln-Holn saw in that brief moment the barge swept past him. Out of fear or fascination he did nothing; then the darting light of Goddess suddenly gleamed upon the blade of the dagger into his eyes, he started, and his arms shot out and clutched the stern of the barge.

  It pulled him from his feet; he found the sea bottom again and pulled back. With a sudden jerk the barge came to a stop. He could hear the clatter of jewels and artifacts pitching forward. He gripped the stern of the barge firmly, senses prickling. He began to draw the barge back. A moan sounded in his ears.

  Kuln-Holn’s heart pounded. Sweat mixed with the salt on his brow. The moan had come from within the barge. There was another moan and the sound of movement from within. Kuln-Holn could not look. He had to look – he could not help himself. He turned his head to the barge. An arm was being raised – the right arm, jewels flashing, the naked dagger clutched in the fist – then the arm fell. A shoulder rose. Then the head. The corpse of the dead king turned, and shuddered, and rose. It sat up in its own death-barge and looked at the shore. Then, slowly, it turned around. Kuln-Holn wanted to let go of the barge and dive below the surface of the water, but his fingers were shut tight and he could not make them move.

  With strange, unblinking eyes, the corpse regarded the fear-stricken tribesman.

  * * *

  ‘What is he about?’ swore Gundoen, shading his eyes with his thickly muscled hand. ‘What is he playing at?’

  The people of the tribe had watched with joy the crescent of fire grow larger and larger, while the dark oval shrank. Light, golden and warm, flooded back into the world. And She did not move, but hung five fists above the bright horizon as always. Goddess had not yielded or betrayed Her great love; and God had fled.

  Yet no sooner had their cries of thanks died down and the tribe come to their feet than they looked seaward and saw the death-barge in the bay and Kuln-Holn standing in the water beside it.

  There had been many cries of woe and fear, but these Gundoen silenced with a curt bark.

  He looked out at the barge. It was plain now that Kuln-Holn was drawing it in toward the shore. But why?

  The people were still under the power of the Storm and the fear of the eclipse. Such an accumulation of menacing omens made each fresh event a harbinger of disaster. Even in happy times the return of a strange death-barge would have been a bringer of woe; now it filled them with horror. Several o
f the women and not a few of the men ran up from the beach back to their huts. Others followed as Kuln-Holn drew the barge up even closer, until most of the people of the tribe had fled.

  Left on the beach were Gundoen and the braver of the hunters and a few of the women, including Hertha-Toll and Turin Tim, Kuln-Holn’s grown daughter. These few awaited the incoming barge in an expectant silence.

  Gundoen’s hand clenched at his side, as if feeling for the sword that was not there.

  Kuln-Holn labored through the waves. He pulled the barge heavily halfway up on the pebbles of the beach. Then he collapsed, breathing heavily. The labor, combined with the terror in his heart, had made him faint and dizzy. A shadow crossed him, and he felt his daughter’s cool hand on his forehead. He almost fell into a faint, but shook his head, determined to remain wakeful. What had possessed him to draw the barge in to the shore he did not know. He looked up. Dark against the brightness of the sky, the dead man in the barge rose slowly to his feet.

  The nearly naked man, bearing the golden circlet of a king about his brow and carrying the jade ceremonial dagger in his hand, stepped forth from the barge upon the shore. The people murmured in awe at the sight of him and drew back – even Hertha-Toll and the chief. Several of them made the sign with their fingers to ward off evil.

  The man took a few steps forward and stopped. His gait was unsteady, as if he had been at sea for a long time. He looked about him from man to man. And each man, every woman turned away her face. His eyes were dark, flecked with strange green lights, and set deeply in his face. His hollowed, half-starved cheeks made his eyes seem even more terrible. Though he was a mere shrunken sack of bones among a strange, perhaps hostile people, it was not he who was afraid.

  Hertha-Toll was the first to step forward. ‘We welcome you here among us, stranger,’ she said courteously. ‘We offer you all hospitality, yet would ask you first who you may be, and whence you have come, and whether you mean us harm.’

  The stranger stared at Hertha-Toll. He said nothing.

  ‘Why does he not answer?’ complained one of the men nervously. ‘Can he not speak?’

  ‘Answer her!’ shouted Gundoen with all the power of his voice.

  The stranger took his gaze from Hertha-Toll and directed it at Gundoen. After a few moments, he shrugged.

  Kuln-Holn struggled to rise to his feet, aided by Turin Tim. ‘Do not anger him,’ he croaked. ‘He has been sent by the gods. Can you not see? He is Her messenger. Be wary of him.’ He said this, but he knew not why. The words had spoken, not he.

  The chief snorted. ‘More like a thief than a messenger. Tell me, fellow, how did you come to be in that barge? And what did you do to the corpse that belonged there?’ This time, instead of the tongue of the North, the chief used the trading dialect they used with foreign merchants.

  Still the stranger did not answer.

  Some of the women fidgeted nervously. The silence of the stranger was ominous, his eyes unbearable. They were eyes that had seen horrors, and looking at them made others see those horrors too, reflected in the flashes of green fire.

  Three men and two women turned suddenly and left the beach. The stranger watched them go with no reaction.

  The chief’s wife called after them. ‘Summon the merchants. Perhaps they will know this man’s tongue.’

  ‘Yes, the merchants!’ cried Gundoen. A shout arose, calling the Southrons to the beach. Soon they could be seen walking down the muddy path with quickening strides.

  ‘Speak with this man,’ commanded the chief. ‘Ask him his name, what his country is, and what he wants of us.’

  The merchants looked at the man and the strange death-barge rocking at the water’s edge. The younger merchant gaped in surprise, but the older, Zelatar Bonvis, who had been among the tribe many times in years past, set about questioning the stranger.

  ‘Do not fear, chief Gundoen,’ he said. ‘I have traveled far, alone and with others, and also under my father. There is not a major tongue in all the round world of which I have not a few words. I will be able to speak with this man.’

  ‘Then be about it,’ snapped the chief.

  Yet try as he might, the merchant could gain no response. A dozen tongues he tried, and then a score of dialects – yet all to no avail. From time to time he would pause, looking questioningly at the stranger. The stranger only shrugged.

  In the end the merchant ran out of dialects. Zelatar finally gave up. Shaking his head, he turned to the chief.

  ‘Gundoen, I have tried all the tongues I know. It is not possible that this man would not know at least one of them. How could he have come so far North otherwise? He is either deaf and dumb or else a liar.’

  At this point the stranger, seeing that Zelatar had run out of tongues to try, spoke himself. He spoke a phrase in an unknown, foreign tongue; and his voice was scornful and contemptuous. His words were impossibly strange: so alien, they raised the hackles on Kuln-Holn’s neck.

  ‘He is no mute at any rate,’ Gundoen commented after a pause. ‘You recognized the tongue?’

  ‘Chief, it is obvious what this man is. Could he be anything other than a barge-robber? Look at him: how could such a man have come by such a barge? Look at all the gold! There is a fortune there – enough to tempt the stoutest man’s heart. More than likely he and some others tried to rob the barge. Perhaps there was a fight, or else the other thieves took fright for some reason and fled. This one was lost at sea in the storm. Now that he has come among you he feigns not to understand us. He knows he cannot explain his presence. See how he clutches the dagger; he knows you will put him to death the moment you know he is a barge-robber.’

  Gundoen smiled slowly, scornfully. ‘You could not understand his words.’

  ‘Because they were gibberish! There is no such tongue in all the lands of the living. Put him to death and divide the gold among you. Think of the weapons you might buy with it!’

  ‘No!’ cried Kuln-Holn. While the others had been trying to question the stranger, Kuln-Holn had merely been looking at him. The terror in his breast had passed, succeeded by a deep religious awe. And now he knew who and what the stranger was, beyond all doubts. The moment for which he had waited for so many years had at last come to pass: the dream stood on their doorstep.

  ‘Do not kill him,’ he pleaded with the chief. ‘Can you not see his quality? He has been sent from the gods. Perhaps he is their offspring. Did he not appear when they lay abed together? Else he is some former king, sent back from the Happy Shores by Goddess for some purpose. Have I not foretold such a thing? This I know: you cannot kill him, not a former king. The sight of him was given to me alone. I should have the decision.’

  The chief laughed suddenly, a deep rumbling laugh. ‘A former king? This? O Pious One, you surprise even me. The merchant was right; the man deserves only death, lest he bring his curse among us. As for the gold, it has the same curse. Let it be sent back on the currents of the dead.’

  He picked up a large sharp stone, instructing the others to do likewise. ‘Stone him to death in the water and send him back with his barge.’

  ‘No, I will not let you!’ Kuln-Holn leaped in front of the man in rags. The ferocity in his voice was astounding; never before had the like of it been heard from little Kuln-Holn.

  Gundoen looked at the short, soft man in the dirty tunic, rage mounting to his brows. The chief had ever laughed at and scorned the poor prophet. He was not used to being defied by such a man. He took half a step forward, as if he would have liked to hurl the stone at Kuln-Holn and kill him with the stranger. But Hertha-Toll restrained him. ‘It may be that the Pious One is right, my husband,’ she said softly. ‘There have been stranger things come to pass. Kuln-Holn is willing to shelter the man and undertake whatever curse he may have. That is none of our concern, is it? Listen to my words: I sense danger from this man. Do not provoke him. We can take him in for now; if he is a barge-robber, we will be given a sign and may decide later. Please heed my words, husband.�
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  The chief rocked his massive body back and forth on the balls of his feet. Then the rage broke from his face, and he laughed. It was a hearty laugh. It was also the laugh he gave in a wrestling match, just as he was about to crush the bones of his opponent. Zelatar Bonvis shuddered to hear it.

  ‘It is well,’ Gundoen said at last. ‘He shall be Kuln-Holn’s pet for now. Let the Pious One give him food and shelter out of his own hut’s stores. No one else is to give him any aid. The stranger shall be watched. If he attempts to escape, or if we are given a sign, we will know what to do. Also, of course, Pious One, you understand that if the man does turn out to be only a robber of the dead you will have to be condemned alongside him?’

  Kuln-Holn bit the gray hairs of his beard, looking from the chief to the stranger, who stood calmly by while his fate was being decided. Gundoen’s ruling, while harsh, was still fair. To aid a barge-robber was to accept his guilt.

  ‘I understand,’ Kuln-Holn said resolutely.

  ‘Good.’ The chief grinned, then suddenly laughed again. ‘Now I will give your pet a name, Pious One. You have called him a former king, so “Former King” – Ara-Karn – it will be. How does that please you?’

  Kuln-Holn was compelled to submit. He nodded. ‘It is well, O chief,’ he murmured.

  ‘Now take him away,’ commanded the chief. ‘Hertha-Toll, open the smoke-holes and begin baking! We will put aside our troubles for the moment and think of them later. Goddess has remained! Let us feast!’

  A cheer acclaimed the idea and the people scurried off to spread the good news, glad to escape the sight of the strange death-barge and the man who had ridden in it. The thick-chested chief, as quick to humor as he was to rage, gave a last mocking glance at Kuln-Holn and the stranger, then led the warriors up from the shore. They spoke hungrily of the feast, of ale and sweetmeats and thick juicy pasties; and they left Kuln-Holn and his daughter and the stranger alone on the rocky beach.

  Hertha-Toll was the last to leave them. She gave a final, pitying look to Kuln-Holn, and a troubled one at the stranger. Then she turned beyond the bluff and vanished from the shore.