The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  My father lifted his hand and a house-servant approached me.

  "Now, Tegry," he continued, as if I had suddenly become invisible, "I have been pondering on the ivory from Laosia, and decided either the J'hana family are fools, or else they think we are. In either case I want a courier dispatched not later than midday, with these instructions...."

  * * *

  Tegry handed me the purse, his expression as untroubled as if there had been no unfriendly words spoken in the garden. I had been told often enough such behavior bespoke competency, but still could not understand a man with clerk's ink for blood, gold and silver for bones, and a profit statement for a mind. I shivered in the dark coolness of the villa's anteroom. I stopped at the altar and took up a pinch of sand and was about to reflexively deposit it before the portrait of my brother, Halab, as we all did each time we left the house.

  Then I looked closely at the picture: the painting was warranted not only to be accurate, but a simulacrum, its pigments made from Halab's most valued possessions; and the creator vowed all the rites had been followed and the painting was sympathetic to Halab's shade. I sprinkled the sand, wondering: was this enough? There had been no corpse to be found, not even a shard of bone, when the Trial ended. Did this sand give Halab's ghost peace? Or was it still going to and fro in this world, never to find surcease? Again, I shivered: I hoped when I died - and hoped that would not be for eons - I would not be unshriven, unburied, unrevenged if my death was not natural.

  Eanes was waiting near the inner gate. He saw my expression and recognized it: Halab... his death... what should have been... and what was never to be... still hung heavy over all of us. I was very glad to feel the warmth of the spring sunlight.

  "You are planning on enlisting, Lord Amalric," Eanes inquired, sounding honestly worried. "I know it is traditional for young men who have been worsted in affairs of the heart to consider such drastic measures, but I must counsel against it: even in my prime, my health would not stand up to campaigning, even the gentle games of war our army has been fighting of late. So your armor would be unpolished all too often and you would be forced to eat cold rations. Secun, the two men I met who did join over a woman swore they could not remember the frail's name once they recovered from their mustering drunk. Tert, they also swore they were branded fools, since everyone else had agreed to wear the helm either to escape debt or vengeance, or else to eat more often than once a day. Quat-"

  "Four," I said, "I am not joining, I am selling you for catapult fodder. Seal your lip. We are here on business." The two sentries at the barracks gate saw my dress and realized they were being approached by a nobleman. They saluted, crashing their pike butts against the cobbles.

  "I am seeking Captain Janos Greycloak, of the Magistrates' Own Guards," I said.

  One of them frowned, then remembered. "Oh. The Lycanthian. He's with Second Cohort, sir." He glanced up at the sun. "Most likely they'll still be at the butts. He works his men hard."

  The soldier gave me instructions. As we went through the maze of barracks, I puzzled over what the soldier had said. A Lycanthian? In Orissa's service? Especially serving in the elite unit responsible for the safety of the Magistrates? Thinking back, although I had paid little mind the night before, I did recall a trace of an accent on his tongue; but it was quite unlike what I'd heard from the few Lycanthian traders I'd encountered.

  I saw the boil of dust and the swirl of arms from the end of the parade field. There were thick logs buried vertically in the ground that could be used for targets or practice enemies. There were two such butts behind my family's villa, where the weapons teachers hired by my father had taught me. There came a bellow of "STAND," and the dust settled, revealing perhaps fifty paired off soldiers. They carried bucklers, wore leather jerkins with high necks, leather greaves and leather helmets. In time of war the leather would be reinforced with iron or steel plating in strategic places; and if the battle was to be intense, chain mail corselets as well. One man of each pair held a short stabbing spear, the other a sword. The spear blade was covered with a guard and the swords were clipped into their sheaths.

  To one side was Janos Greycloak. Unlike the others, he wore a full face helmet with nosepiece, and an unusual leather jerkin that had a full-length sleeve on the left; and that sleeve was armored with close-set steel plates, with a partial breastplate/shoulder guard on the same side. In his right hand, Janos carried the long, slender sword I'd seen him use so effectively, and, like his soldiers, held a buckler in his left. The man who'd shouted at the soldiers I also recognized - the older sergeant who'd advised me on the brandy the night before.

  Janos saw me, nodded but did not greet us. He walked forward into the center. "That was smartly done," he said, but there was little real praise in his voice. "Fit for any parade soldier. Sergeant Maeen?"

  "Sir!"

  "If you will step out, and, as if you were mired in honey, strike at me with your spear." The heavy man did as he was told. He'd barely begun a lunge when Janos ordered a stop. "A parade ground is a parade ground," he said, in a conversational tone. "War is something different. I shall teach you many ways besides the ones you learned as mewling recruits. None of them are wrong, if you survive the encounter, and none of them are right if the spear thrust casts your ghost to the winds. Here are some things that may be done," he said, moving slowly as he spoke - like a man under water: "Take the spear thrust on your shield, turn the shield aside, and strike. Or strike the spear itself behind the haft with your sword... and perhaps you may break it. Yet another device, if your enemy oversteps his balance, thank you sergeant, just so, is to sidestep him, and then strike directly over or under his armor. But as you do so, do not forget your enemy has someone beside him, and if you become too intent on your target it will be your death that is harvested.

  "A good trick - and this is one which will never be taught to young gentlemen - is to carry a handful of dust in your fist and cast that in your opponent's face before he can attack. If you are quick enough you may be able to duck low and hamstring him with a slice, although that is a very risky undertaking. Another undertaking of risk, less so if you are very strong, is to parry the spear with a sword-slash, then thrust with your buckler as if it were a weapon. I have seen men blinded by the boss on a shield who were then cut down at leisure. The most important thing you will learn is to never watch the shield, never watch the sword, but watch the eyes of the man you are fighting. They will always betray his next move."

  Janos stepped back. "Now, Sergeant Maeen will have you perform the same evolution. But this time without the one-two-three... and this time there is no required parry or attack. Sergeant!" His order triggered new roars from the sergeant and dust cycloned once more. I determined not to mention either of the two duels I'd fought, sure that Captain Greycloak would think them nothing but the formal, pecking challenges of young cocks in the farmyard. Hamstringing... throwing sand... blinding... no. Even though I'd taken them most seriously at the time, as I assumed had my opponents, those two affairs of honor that had been settled with the first dribble of blood were not real battles.

  Janos watched the drill without comment or expression, then walked over. "Good morning, my friend," he said. "You see, I am already subverting these fine soldiers from being mannequins. How is your head this morning?"

  "That's the first thing everyone's asked me," I said. "I didn't think I was that drunk."

  "We never do," Janos said. "How may I be of service?"

  I took the purse from Eanes and handed it to him. "Please accept this poor recompense for my unbroken bones... and reputation."

  Janos hefted the purse, then handed it back. "Thank, you, but there's no reward required for booting a hyena away from a sleeping victim."

  "I... I wish you would take this," I said carefully. "In all seriousness, the shadow of my debt to you is overlong."

  Janos nodded thoughtfully, and took the purse; then he turned back to the mock fray: "STAND" - and his roar made the sergeant's
appear to be a mousesqueak. "This gentleman," he said, without preamble, "has for some unknown reason decided to favor you." Janos tossed the purse to Maeen. "The cohort will have meat for even-meal tonight," he announced. "And one skin of wine to be shared between two." There was a ragged cheer; then silence slammed down like a curtain as Janos's face became ice. "I did not," he said, in a calm voice, "give any of you leave to speak. By all rights I should be shamed, and return this money to your patrician admirer. But I shall not. You appear to have great wind in you. That is very good. Sergeant: run them to the top of Mount Aephens. You remain at the base. Run them up and down until you weary of the sight of them."

  Mount Aephens was three leagues distant, and nearly a league high, rough brush, deep ravines and rugged stone. "Since they are to be glutted tonight, fasting through the noontide will be good for them. That is all." A few moments later the elements of the cohort trotted away, Maeen bellowing some arcane chant as they disappeared.

  "You must never," Janos said, rejoining us, "let soldiers think you are trying to buy into their graces." Then he stopped, and smiled apology. "My pardon. I have been playing magister all morning and have trouble shedding the cloak."

  He sheathed his sword. Even though I was hardly an expert with weapons, I'd noted with some interest his blade was longer, and narrower than the conventional army weapon, and sharpened on both edges. Even more curious was that the blade was rippled, obviously made of the finest watered steel; yet the guard was simple and plain. Surely a captain, even one fresh in Orissan service, could afford a bit of gold, silver or fancy work to boast his rank. He carried his scabbard slung across his back, so that his sword's handle protruded at an angle over his right shoulder. Very unusual, but I had seen such an arrangement before, and asked the barbarian from the frontiers beyond Lycanth about it. The fellow had told me the design not only made it easy to draw on foot or horseback, but also did not get mixed up between his legs and trip him when he was drunk. Like that barbarian, Janos also wore a dagger mounted for a left-hand crossdraw on his belt: a practical weapon with a blade that appeared no more than a forearm in length, unlike the great tapering poignards street bravos carried. Like his sword, its pommel, grip and guard were bare of decoration.

  I made note that if my plan was carried to completion, I would see Greycloak was armed in a manner befitting a retainer of the Antero family... thus proving I knew even less about real weaponry than I thought.

  "Let me sluice the dust from my face and change into walking-out dress," Janos said. "There's a wine shop I know of that has decent pressings for a soldier's pay. If you would care to join me?" I would, indeed.

  * * *

  The inn was not unknown to me: it was a favored trader's shop, located not only close to the central market, but at the river bank; a suspicious merchant could watch his stock being loaded or off loaded and still negotiate yet another deal. I tossed Eanes a quarter-coin and he joined the other slaves in a nearby arbor waiting their masters' bidding. We found a table and a waiter brought wine, water and a plate of pickled octopus tentacles, oil-cured olives and cheeses. Both of us watered our wine liberally - I did not want Greycloak believing I was a complete sot.

  "This morning, at mess, "Janos began casually, "I mentioned I'd met you last night, although without describing the interesting details. One of the officers said you were planning a journey. What he called - Finding your Tradewind? He said it as if this were a custom I should be aware of, which I am not."

  I kept my face calm, but promised a sacrifice to our hearthgod and also whichever god ruled over chance encounters. This was as if I were one of the city's mummers, and the fellow across from me was reciting the words as they'd been rehearsed - giving me my cue. I explained: Finding a Tradewind was not a law nor a ritual of Orissa, but a custom, just as Janos had described it. When a merchant's son closed on his majority, it was customary for him to lead a trading expedition. The expedition would consist of the young man, any associates or friends he thought necessary, an Evocator, of course, and a small military escort for safety's sake. He was supposed to seek out new lands, new riches and new customers, just as his merchant father and father's father had done. This custom was meant to guarantee that Orissa would remained the trading queen of the known world for another generation; until the young man raised his a son himself and sent him out to Find his own Tradewind.

  Janos listened intently as if I were all that existed in the world. I must have sounded hesitant: explaining something you have always taken as a commonplace is very difficult; but I wanted to be clear and concise, for the other purpose for my seeking out Captain Greycloak was to test him, to see if I wanted him as the commander of my own guard. I knew few soldiers, and those I did were more suited for the wine shop and ceremonials than a sudden ambush by raiders.

  It was traditional for the army of Orissa to be used as a recruiting station for Findings, and for full-scale merchant expeditions. Not only was the burden of the soldiers' wages alleviated while they served a merchant, but an officer and the men he chose would also be given bonuses dependent on the expedition's success.

  After I'd finished my carefully-chosen exposition Janos thought a moment, then asked: "This has been going on for how long?" I didn't know, precisely, but my father had told me of his father's father's father's Finding, so as far as I knew, forever.

  "A puzzlement," Janos said. "Each year someone - or several someones - go seeking new worlds. Yet the charts I've seen in Orissa still have great areas that are marked as unknown outlands. Are these Findings kept secret, familiar only to you merchants and your rulers?"

  All merchants have trading secrets, and any new discoveries would be held close as long as they were profitable; but I told him that wasn't the complete story: the journey, in truth, would not be into completely unknown lands, but almost certainly to the west, to cities and regions familiar to Orissans. Perhaps a daring young man might chance traveling a distance to the south, if not as far as into the realm of the Ice Barbarians. That was what my father had done, on his Finding. But he had been regarded as a wild man, or so I'd heard the merchants of his generation say when drink loosened their memories. For many young men the journey was expected to be as much an exploration of fine wines and the willing maidens of other cities as anything else.

  It was also a test, of sorts: a man who returned from his Finding having shown an ability to get along with his father's customers; or having found a few new markets, or goods; or who survived without being so ludicrously cursed with ill-luck that he was ambushed by bandits; this man would be feasted and praised. There was some danger: I would not have sought out Janos if the Finding was nothing more than a celebration of beautiful scenes, women, food and drink. But I dwelt on the romance, not jeopardy, being the true son of Orissa's most silken-tongued merchant.

  "I understand, now." Janos turned his goblet in his fingers. "So then, your Finding will be in which direction?"

  I stared. Either I hadn't explained clearly, or else a Finding was something completely alien in the world he came from. "Why, west, of course."

  There was a pause. Janos looked at me, then smiled and the sun came out once more. "Yes. As you say: of course." He drained his goblet. "Perhaps we should find something more substantial than these morsels before we drink any more. A good way for an outlander such as myself to suddenly not have to worry about promotion beyond captain is to be found stumbling through the streets before the sun lowers. My treat."

  He clapped me on the back, dropped coins on the table and we went out. He had said nothing... and his face had shown less. But I felt I had somehow failed a test.

  * * *

  I remember Orissa as beautiful in that bright spring day as we wandered the winding lanes; Eanes, for once, not trying to parade his wisdom and walking some five paces behind us. Orissa was much then as it is now: a farm could still be found beside a smith's forge, and a free peasant's shack just behind a sprawling villa such as my father's. There were fewer people then
, so the land was more open. The great city and its suburbs and outer district censused no greater than three tens of thousands free, and the same number slave. No fool had yet proposed a Grand Plan for the city, as has been mentioned recently, to turn Orissa into an nightmare of orderliness such as Lycanth. The rolling hills that rose to the Magistrates' Citadel were rainbows, each house or shop painted or stained as its owner saw fit. Many shades of reds, blues, golds, and even purples, made Orissa the beautiful artist's palette it was. A visitor from the west had once said Orissa looked like a magpie's nest, undignified in its chaos of hues.

  My father had eyed him with barely-concealed scorn, and wondered if he thought Orissa would still be marveled at as the Queen of Cities if, like Lycanth, its buildings and streets were gray and black; or if they were shamefully left in their common stone or wood colors. That was what the great hairy not-men of the northern tropics did, to conceal their lean-tos in the jungle. As did the barbarians of the ice who tried to pretend their great bare stone monoliths showed the virtues of simplicity rather than a lack of imagination and courage to shout splendor to the envious gods.

  Eventually we found ourselves on the Street of the Gods. Coming down the middle of the street, behaving as if there were no other traffic, was a Master Evocator - his name was Jeneander. In front of him were staff-armed, naked servants, their bodies shaven bare; and behind him was his retinue of journeymen, adepts and secretaries. I turned away, not making obeisance, as if suddenly entranced by the shabby tabernacle that honored some fruit growers' deity. From the corner of my eye I saw Janos knuckle a mark of respect; then he turned in the same direction I was facing. He laughed, a barely audible chuckle.

  "Even here in Orissa," he murmured, "superstition calls it the worst of luck for an Evocator to cross your path. In some places I have visited, seeing such a man or woman would require you to return home and go immediately to bed - or face the worst of nameless fates."