Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 1 The Former King

by Adam Corby

  Turin Tim looked her father in the eye and sighed. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘what have you brought upon us now?’ Then she too turned and walked from the shore.

  ‘You do not understand,’ began Kuln-Holn, but already his daughter was gone. He sighed, his shoulders low; then he straightened them and turned back to the stranger.

  He stooped at the water’s edge and pulled the barge completely up onto the pebbles of the beach, above the mark of high water. The stranger watched him calmly.

  ‘Come,’ he said, touching the stranger on the arm. He beckoned him to follow. The stranger nodded. They walked up from the storm-ravaged beach, now empty and desolate except for a few shattered fishing boats and the low, black death-barge with the sunburst design of beaten gold half eaten away, and the intricate carvings of strange charactery and weirdly writhing figures, telling a tale no one but the stranger could have read.

  And though many conjectures were thrown about concerning the origins of the stranger, not one of them came even close to the truth. But to this pass some say – and they whisper it with fear – that when the one Gundoen named Ara-Karn came from whatever clime and time that spawned him, he did not come along. But he brought with him, fetched out of some unknown deep, his Dark Man. Of all the things that men tell of, the most terrible is that thing they call a Dark Man. A Dark Man is the shadow of a man – but not the shadow of his body. A Dark Man is the shadow of a man’s soul, cast in the light of the jade Moon of dark God.

  And there was not a one in the village – not the worldly Zelatar Bonvis nor Hertha-Toll the Wise, nor even Kuln-Holn the Dreamer – who could have guessed that the nearly naked man in rags, wearing the golden circlet of a king about his brow and clutching an ornate dagger in his hand still, would in years to come ride in triumphant conquest across the face of the globe – yes, even unto the gilded halls of Tarendahardil, the City Over the World.

  IV

  The Dream of the Wise and the Sorrowful

  THE STRANGER ATE in the small hut Kuln-Holn shared with his daughter. He ate ravenously, like one who has been long weeks with little or no food; and he drank as deeply. He ate more than Kuln-Holn, who was a poor man supported mainly by Turin Tim, could afford to give him. Once, long ago, Kuln-Holn had been a fisherman, but that had been before he gave his life to his visions.

  The Pious One did not think to complain of the stranger’s appetite. Instead he sat and watched the stranger eating with as much relish as if the food were going into his own mouth.

  ‘What will you do first?’ he asked, unable to restrain his great curiosity. ‘Where will you lead us? Do not mind chief Gundoen. He is a hunter; hunters never believed as much as we fishermen. He does not recognize you yet. But I do.’

  The stranger paused and looked into Kuln-Holn’s eyes. Kuln-Holn saw the darkness of those eyes, relieved only by the dim green flashes, like jade lightning against distant storm clouds. Kuln-Holn felt the power in those eyes. He swallowed and could say no more.

  The stranger returned to his eating. He ate like a god, or a wild beast. If he understood what Kuln-Holn had asked him, he gave no sign.

  The crumbs of Turin Tim’s last baked forsla cake revealed the nakedness of the wooden plate. Kuln-Holn went to the storage-hole of the hut and peered within. It was empty save for a bit of dried meat they had been saving for the feast before the great Hunt. He took out the meat and set it before the stranger.

  Kuln-Holn felt the eyes of his daughter upon the back of his head. They were angry eyes; he could feel the heat of them. This was the last of the food that Turin Tim had worked so hard to provide. Kuln-Holn loved his daughter – she was strong and dutiful, a good provider. But still he had to admit that she could not know what he knew, nor see visions in smoke and hearth-ash and dusky clouds.

  Kuln-Holn sighed and did not look at his daughter. He pushed the meat in front of the stranger. ‘Eat, eat,’ he said. ‘All infants entering life are greedy for food, nor are the gods different in this than men. Later you will sleep.’

  He heard Turin Tim snort angrily and leave their hut. Kuln-Holn sighed once more. He pitied his daughter because she was growing old with no men chasing after her, and also because she could not see the dreams in smoke and hearth-ash and dusky clouds. She had only work, and that was never enough. May this man’s coming bless her too, prayed Kuln-Holn.

  When the stranger had finished the last of the meat and mare’s milk, Kuln-Holn showed him the dimchamber, the small room without windows where he slept on the little bed of grass. Kuln-Holn pointed beyond the stitched-skin hangings.

  The stranger shook his head. He rose to his feet, the golden circlet shining against the shadows of the shabby hut. Somehow the man seemed even taller here. He went to the low doorway, stooped, and left the hut.

  Kuln-Holn hurried after him. Outside the hut he looked about, dazzled by the brightness of Her light. The stranger was walking down the steep path that led back to shore. Kuln-Holn followed at a distance. He did not know what to expect. Could he have insulted the messenger of the gods already?

  Behind him he heard footsteps. He turned. Following were Urin-Baln and Ka Al-Drim, two strong young warriors, their weapons glinting in the sun. These were the men Gundoen had chosen to watch the stranger.

  ‘Do not follow too closely,’ Kuln-Holn warned them. ‘If you offend him, he may blast you with a look.’

  They laughed. ‘Go and tell your stories to the children, Pious One,’ they said. ‘We do not fear the barge-robber.’

  ‘I have warned you.’ Kuln-Holn shrugged. ‘Your deaths will not be upon my hands.’ The two warriors laughed again, but thereafter kept their distance.

  No others were in sight, the rest of the tribe being gathered in and around the chief’s great hall, feasting their salvation from the Storm. The breeze brought the sounds of their revelry and the delicious smells of roasting foods. The stranger went down to the beach, where lay his death-barge, a few paces out of the water. He began to gather the things within it into a large bundle. Kuln-Holn came down to the stones of the beach and stopped, watching him. The two guards stayed on the grasses above the beach. ‘Tell him not to try to sail away,’ they said.

  The stranger ignored both them and Kuln-Holn. He gathered together the bundle in his arms and walked down the beach. In the bundle Kuln-Holn could see the glimmer of gold, the shimmer of silver. Kuln-Holn followed, unquestioning, uncomprehending.

  They walked around the bay to one of the long arms of land thrusting out into the sea. The sea birds wheeled over them, screeching when they passed too near the hidden nests. When he had come to the end of the land, where the coarse long grasses bent over the jagged rocks falling to white foam and waves, the stranger set his burden down. He looked out across the sea, shimmering with the brilliant visage of Her.

  Kuln-Holn squatted in the grass behind him, watching. He did not know what the stranger would do next, but when it happened he was not surprised.

  One after another, the fine and beautifully crafted objects of the bundle were hurled into the waves. Ornaments and vessels that had been placed in the barge with loving mournful care, which had survived by Her grace the rough and stormy seas, the stranger now threw to the winds. There were many things of great value among them. Their wealth might have fed the entire tribe for more than a year.

  Kuln-Holn could hear Urin-Baln and Ka Al-Drim swearing softly behind him. ‘Look what he does, by the dark God!’ they muttered to each other. ‘Is he mad, this barge-robber?’ Kuln-Holn smiled to himself. The sight of so much wealth being thrown away convinced him more than ever that he was right. Only gods could have contempt for gold.

  The stranger, oblivious to those behind him, pulled off his rings and jewelry and threw them after the rest. Then he stripped off his clothes, the ragged remains of elegant fineries, and threw them in the sea as well. He stood naked on the rocks, with only the dagger of strange design, staring into the foam. He stood thus for a long time. A fisherman, sailing out of the bay
in a repaired boat, looked at him in fear and wonder, and loudly swore.

  The words seemed to break the stranger’s reverie. He reached up to his brow and took off the golden circlet. He regarded it almost lovingly for a moment. But then his hand jerked, and the golden circlet too flashed for a brief instant and vanished into the abyss.

  He raised his head and called a word into the waves.

  Kuln-Holn could not recognize the word, but thought it sounded like a name. And he felt fear in his belly, for he could not tell if the word had been spoken out of the depths of love or hatred. And he thought, What sort of man can he be whose hatred could be confused with his love?

  The stranger turned, holding the jade dagger easily in one hand. He stooped and picked up out of the rank grasses the only other artifacts he had saved: a long, curving instrument of polished wood and a pouch of slender sticks. He approached Kuln-Holn and looked into his eyes. The gaze seemed to pierce Kuln-Holn’s very soul; he squirmed in the grass under it, uncertain what he should do. Then, as if it were a voice speaking in his brain, he realized that mortals were not meant to be comfortable in the face of the immortals. For what was awe if not exalted terror?

  The stranger nodded. He passed on, gesturing for Kuln-Holn to follow. He walked past the guards as if they were no more than the grass about his naked feet. Nor did they laugh or smile when he passed them, but murmured sullenly, looking down at the water of the bay.

  Even naked, Kuln-Holn thought to himself, even bedraggled from the storm, even with ragged beard and his feet scarred from the rocks, this one looks more the king, and more than king, than anyone who has ever set foot in the North before. And he felt his chest swelling with new pride.

  They went back to Kuln-Holn’s hut. Now the stranger went to the dim place and fastened the hanging behind him. Kuln-Holn heard the body collapse on the low-slung bed, a long rending sigh, and the rhythmic breathing of a deep sleep, the sleep of babes, the innocent, or the dead.

  Kuln-Holn went out to sit on the log step before his door. It had been long since he himself had slept, and longer since he had eaten. He knew he should be tired and hungry, but he was not. Some strange new fever burned his brow, deep into his brain. He felt as if he would never again need food or rest: only to follow this man on his holy quest. He looked out on the village he had known since birth and saw that it was as it had ever been. The feast at the chief’s hall had ended, and the folk, full and satisfied, were coming back to their huts for the short sleep. They laughed and joked to one another, and some pointed here and there at the damage of the Storm, commenting on how it was best to be repaired.

  Turin Tim appeared, bearing armfuls of food. ‘Leftovers from the feast,’ she said. ‘Hertha-Toll took pity on us.’

  ‘Did I not tell you it would be well?’ he asked. ‘He will bless us, Turin Tun.’

  Turin Tim sighed and went into the hut. He heard her angrily storing the food and muttering to herself.

  He looked back on the village. And he realized that the place where he had been born was not as it had ever been, even though none of the others knew it. It was changed only because of one naked man sleeping in the dim place of Kuln-Holn’s hut; but that would make a very great difference. The tribe would never again be what it was, because of him; and never again would Kuln-Holn be able to go back to being that man who, long ago, had gone to see chief Gundoen for the rites of Oron’s final voyage.

  Once again the chill of fear came to Kuln-Holn’s heart.

  * * *

  And in the chief’s great hall, when all the feasters had gone their ways and the serving wenches were cleaning up the mess, chief Gundoen rose and stretched his broad-muscled frame, and sought his own dim place, and fell into a deep, restful sleep.

  Sometime later Hertha-Toll entered and woke him. ‘What do you think of the stranger?’ she asked him.

  He looked at her for several moments, and she looked away, glad of the dimness. Even there – there of all places – she could feel the reproach he felt toward her. She almost wept, though he saw it not.

  ‘He is nothing,’ said Gundoen. ‘Much wreckage washes to our shores. This one happened to be alive, that is all. A thief or blasphemer, likely. Certainly from the civilized lands,’ he added with disgust. ‘He’ll bring us no ill-luck, if that’s what you fear. And if he does, why then his death will end it.’

  She shook her head. ‘That is not what I feared.’ She hesitated, choosing her words. ‘He will bring us no ill-luck. That I can sense. Rather he will be lucky.’ She wondered how much of her dream she should tell him, and how much was true.

  ‘What then?’

  She sighed. ‘He is … of death.’

  Gundoen chuckled harshly. ‘Do not tell me you believe with the Pious One!’

  ‘No. He is no more than mortal, certainly. But there is a strangeness about this man. Great pain, much death. Death – surely very much of it. And there is something else.’

  ‘What?’ His voice grew concerned. ‘Hertha-Toll, what have you seen?’

  She looked about, leaned closer.

  ‘His eyes,’ she whispered. ‘They are like the eyes of a Madpriest.’

  The last word was breathed so softly, not even Gundoen could hear it. But even without hearing he knew what it was. Only those dark souls could inspire such terror in the heart of Hertha-Toll.

  ‘Do not even think it!’ he commanded. ‘It is not true. You are upset because of the storm. He is some barge-robber, I tell you – nothing more. Truly, nothing more.’

  ‘Let Her hear you,’ she said softly. She rose to leave him and returned to her own dim place. The tears trembled at the wrinkled corners of her eyes, but she fought them back. She prayed that her dream would not be truth, and that her husband would not some pass lie screaming in agony as the stranger Ara-Karn looked calmly on.

  * * *

  For the next weeks, as the jade orb of God passed relentlessly overhead ten times each week, Kuln-Holn fed his charge, clothed him in the rough tunic of the tribe, and taught him the words of the language of men. After that first breaking of his fast the stranger ate little, slept less, and was very moody. Often he would go to the shore and sit above the waves, rocking back and forth on his haunches under the gaze of his guards, looking out across the Ocean of the Dead. Other times he would slip away into the forests in the direction of the great mountain of Goddess. What he did there Kuln-Holn could not guess; but that the others knew no more he was sure.

  Once they came to him angrily, Urin-Baln and Ka Al-Drim, and took him up to the chief’s hall. The stranger had escaped them in the wood, they said; now Kuln-Holn’s life was forfeit for it. They found the chief had gone hunting, and waited. But Hertha-Toll approached them and, when she discovered what they were about, gave them a worried look. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘the newcomer is not gone. I saw him myself, just now, sitting out at the edge of the bay.’ The guards brought Kuln-Holn roughly down to the water. There he was, just as the wise-woman had said. Urin-Baln and Ka Al-Drim swore savagely at him, but the stranger merely looked calmly over his shoulder and smiled. And afterward the guards did not complain when he went into the wood, not wishing to admit that two such great woodsmen were unable to keep the track of one mere man.

  Each waking Kuln-Holn sat in the sand of the central clearing of the village, preaching the worship of his new-arrived god. Some of the women and a few of the men gathered around him with doubt and laughter in their eyes; but whenever they saw the figure of the stranger at the edge of the bay, dark like a carved pillar of wood against the brilliance of the sky, their laughter lost some of its assurance. Of course, they all knew he was no more than some civilized man, probably from Arpane on the Sea: what else could he be? But when he passed among them, silent always but with those eyes of his casting about like sharpened bandar-spears, they looked down and away, and went around, out of his path. The impudent naked children had cast pebbles and rotten fruit at Kuln-Holn the little prophet, deriding him from behind dirty noses; b
ut they shunned the stranger with an instinctive fear.

  Yet he was quick to learn their tongue. One of the first questions Kuln-Holn asked him was, ‘What is your mission? What would you have us do for you?’ But the stranger shook his head. Whether this meant that he did not understand or that the mystery was not yet to be revealed, Kuln-Holn could not say. But he knew that, when the time finally came for the stranger to enlighten him fully, then Kuln-Holn would know happiness and peace for the first time in his new life.

  Once a woman whose husband was away fishing too often drank two bowls of beer and offered herself shamelessly to the stranger; but he only laughed and walked past her, leaving her blushing angrily in the street while the other women smiled behind their hands. She went to tell her husband a lie, and he confronted the stranger. This frightened Kuln-Holn, because the fisherman, Ob-Kal-Ti, was a strong, ugly man whose dealings were little trusted. Kuln-Holn warned his guest, but Ara-Karn only shook his head, as if he did not understand. One time Kuln-Holn went down to the beach to find the stranger washing his arms in the waves, smiling, staring far out to sea. And the next time the warriors went to the grove of dark God to make offerings, they found the rotting head of Ob-Kal-Ti stuck on a post before the idol. And afterward Kuln-Holn found that more men attended to his preachings and that they listened with greater respect.

  Only once did Kuln-Holn ask the stranger of his origins. It happened one time when they had been laughing over some small matter, and the strange new sound of his guest’s laughter emboldened Kuln-Holn.

  ‘And you,’ he asked, ‘where is it you come from? Can you remember anything of your past life – what country gave you birth, who your kin were, and who were those you most loved?’ For Kuln-Holn was not yet unconvinced that Ara-Karn was the reincarnated spirit of some great king of ages past.

  But Ara-Karn did not smile, and his laughter faded as if it had never been. He looked at Kuln-Holn with such eyes that the prophet quailed within himself, so that unthinkingly he cried,