by Allan Cole
I nodded and said something such as yes, I supposed even the most rational of us had some superstitions; but I did not tell him the real explanation: it was not superstition at all, but cold hatred; for the Evocators and their magick had murdered my brother.
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
DANCE OF THE FAR KINGDOMS
We were dawdling through a sculpture garden near my villa, before I broached the subject again. We had been talking of nothing, talking of everything: each taking the measuring the other. Finally I was comfortable enough with my new friend to comment on something that had been troubling me for a time: "I saw your look of disapproval when I said I would journey west in my Finding," I said.
Janos stopped in his tracks, made a musing sound and stroked his beard. His actions gave me yet another reason to find the altar of the godlet who ruled over face hair: beard stroking seemed a wonderful device for a canny man to use to consider his words before they tumbled out. "My apologies," he said. "I thought I was more capable at the graces of civility than I evidently am. You appear to have some of the talents of a seer."
"There's no magick to it," I said. "I am only someone who grew tired of being thought a rich fool. You should see all the flies that buzz about when you have a wealthy father: all saying how wise you are; how handsome; how your games are the best to be played; how you should be the captain of the team. Even how your lovemaking is the most head spinning they have ever encountered. And could you spare a bit of your purse for a few days, Amalric, my friend?"
Janos nodded, saying: "The best way to live, and I wish it were possible, is to live honestly. All we need do is find a world where everyone about us is equally as virtuous. And thick skinned. I confess that I did disapprove of what you plan for the Finding of Your Tradewind. Because I was judging your actions by what I would do were I in your place."
"What would you do, friend Janos? If you were magically transformed into Amalric Antero?"
"First, I would endow a certain Janos Greycloak with riches to indulge himself beyond his wildest dreams, so he'd never again have to dance attendance on fat old fools. Then I would seek my Tradewind... To the East. And if I lived, my Finding would not only make me rich, and give me knowledge and power beyond that held by the most hoary Evocator, but ensure my name would be remembered from this day to the ending of history."
"Ah," I said, grinning. "You would seek out the Far Kingdoms."
"Just so."
I started to laugh, for I had thrown out the goal as a jest; I then saw his face was dark serious. "You believe in such a place exists?"
"I do not believe. I know."
"Oh." I could feel the shutters of my mind close; just as it does when a respected tutor announces there are worlds beyond our own or when a sage begin drooling like a goat in heat over an empty-headed strumpet. Like everyone else, I had heard the tales of the greatness of the Far Kingdoms, located in the distant east, well beyond the ken of man. Most tales agreed that it lay across the straits of the Narrow Sea, beyond the benighted Pepper Coast in uncharted territory.
If a man could survive such a hazardous journey - which, all agreed, no one alive could since we were a far cry from the giants of earlier days - he would find himself in a land of fabled wealth and wizardry. I had always considered - even when I had told some of the tales myself as a sprat - the Far Kingdoms were suitable for philosopher's examples, peasant dreams or the fictions of the bards. But, hard on my course of honesty, I did not politely smile, chat on for awhile, make my excuses and then leave - determined to find another officer to accompany me on my Finding.
I pressed on: "I have always believed, as did my father, - and, for that matter, all the educated men I've encountered - that the Far Kingdoms was a dream. Just as some peasants believe there was a Golden Age before us: when Men were all Heroes; Women were all Virgin Whore Mothers; all things were free for the asking, and so forth."
And Janos asked: "What would convince you a dream is, in fact, real?"
His comment gave me a jolt, which I hid, as I suddenly remembered another dream: the dream of the man with one eye in the river cavern; the nightmare that had plagued me since meeting Melina. It was if the spring day had suddenly turned chill. Then, I forced my mind away, and pondered Janos's question. "I don't know, really. And I'm not trying to sound like some savant creaking about whether a man dreams he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreams he's a man. Pain? I've bled in dreams. That they seem to continue on forever? I've dreamt most of a life on occasion."
"I will offer three arguments, but not as the logicians teach us to do," Janos replied. "I'll start with the most crushing. This." He lifted a thin chain from around his neck, and handed it to me. A device dangled from it: a small, broken statuette; it was of a dancing maiden, her arms stretched above her head; perhaps one of her hands had once held a twisting scarf or veil. The statuette had been broken at the woman's hips. The statuette might have been made of silver or some other semi-precious metal; but it was badly tarnished now. The workmanship, however, was exquisite: the maiden's face was alight in happiness, and, I thought, if I could put a jeweler's pane on the figurine, I would be able to distinguish every detail of her face and arms. "A pretty," I finally said. "But I've seen equal craftsmanship in the shops of our metal crafting masters."
"Touch it." I did - and the statue came to life. The chain seemed to vanish and the half-woman danced on an invisible platform before my eyes. Instead of tarnished silver, her skin was soft ivory, and tipped with crimson; her hair was black; her sheer gown violet. I took my finger away and once more I was holding a dirty shattered figurine.
"That I have never seen nor heard of," I admitted.
"Nor anyone else in these lands," Janos said. "I have consulted priests and Evocators, and none of them know the spells necessary to make such a bauble. In fact, one fool told me it violated all of the laws of thaumaturgy - so it must be black sorcery. He ordered me to give it to him so that he could `purify' it. I took it back and told him what he might well face if he mentioned the statue to anyone."
"Where did you get it?"
"My father gave it to me as a gift on my first birthing day. It was not broken then. When I was six he told me where it came from. My mother said it had cost him three war mounts - stallions whose lineage went back to the Horsegod himself."
"Your father said it came from the Far Kingdoms?" I guessed.
"Yes."
I was silent, thinking again of those peasant tales of the mysterious eastern lands beyond. How great sorcerers ruled and how they could even make battle magick that could stand against the strongest counter spells. How the streets and statues were solid gold. Here was hard evidence of some master wizard's work; something the most adept Evocator of Orissa would herald as his lifetime achievement, and deem it worthy of a king's wedding gift.
"How was it broken, if I may ask?"
Janos's face was still. "This is not the day for such a tale," he said.
I changed the subject. "Your first premise carries weight," I said, handing the maiden back to Janos. "But just to be stubborn I must bring up the counter that no one knows of every conjurer in the world. Not just ones from still-undiscovered cities, but those whose weird it is to live in solitary haunts - in jungles or mountains."
"True. But not that powerful a rejoinder. My second and third arguments have less substance, and I cannot give you anything to hold in your hand. But hear them out. You've heard them call me a Lycanthian. But I am not, even though I spent years in their service. In truth I come from another land, across the Narrow Sea from Lycanth, in Valaroi. A land of high mountains and small glens. Kostroma."
"I have never heard of it," I confessed.
"No. You would not have." He started to elaborate, then changed his mind. "Not far from my family's stronghold was a trader's route. They paid tribute to my father and he provided soldiery to keep them safe from those without law. Where they paid tribute, they held a bazaar. This would be twice, sometim
es three times a year;, and for us, those fairs were as big an excitement as The Day of Sowing. My father would sometimes invite one of the traders to our home. He would feed and guest the man lavishly. Not just out of courtesy, but because this was the only means for our out-of-the-way land to learn of the world beyond. Among the stories they told were of the Far Kingdoms."
"I must interrupt you here," I said. "Surely you aren't telling me you trust the word of traders? We are renowned for swearing a yard of goods was custom-woven for a high priestess' mystery, if it means we can knock the price up a copper or two."
"Never the less," Janos said, "it was most interesting listening to their tales. And not one of them ever said he had visited the Far Kingdoms. Nor did any claim to have even seen their border posts. But all of who had traveled to the east had seen their trade goods. Luxury items that had passed from hand to hand, their price increasing at each step.
"Sometimes they would even cautiously show such a bauble to us: something that would be well beyond the modest profit my father's herds earned. Lutes that when strummed by a stable boy would make him seem a fine troubadour. A gown, or even a veil, that would turn the most coarse serving wench into a dazzling seductress. And there were other things - like my little dancing maiden - that were even more marvelous. Incantations beyond any we knew of; and to this day they are still beyond any I have ever encountered in my travels."
I said nothing: Janos may have thought this second premise but idle gossip, but it wasn't to the son of a merchant prince. We, too, had heard of - and sometimes seen - devices that struck wonder into our hearts; even if none were as exotic as Janos's tiny dancer. And it would be claimed that they were from the Far Kingdoms, which always produced guffaws all around. Since it was known that there were wizards of great power hidden in the lonely places, these goods were generally ascribed to one or another of them. But why, I suddenly wondered, was it considered more logical to believe in a sorcerer hiding in a swamp, a conjuror in that jungle, an enchanter on another mountain top, rather than to theorize there might be a single source for these fineries?
I asked Janos the same question. "That's easy to answer," he said. "Since when does any man or woman like to think that there is a person or place more gifted, more civilized, than where they come from?"
I nodded. "Yes. Certainly my father's reminded me often enough that, when I go a-field I should not brag loudly on the wonders of Orissa. Boasting like that, even if it's true, gets nothing but resentment from bumpkins, even if they pretend to be awed as you boast. Your argument is doing better than I thought it would, Captain Greycloak. What is your third premise?"
"Perhaps we should find another wine shop before I tell it to you, since it seems to slide more easily down the craw with lubrication. And rightly the tale should be told only when everyone is somewhat pickled, and it is a stormy midnight outside."
"A ghost story? I'm partial to them," I said.
"Ghosts? I don't know. You can call them what you want. But this is a tale that happened to me personally."
We found a shop with its own arbor and an agreeably-smiling maid to serve the shop's fine vintage.
"There were times," Janos said, "when our aruspex would dream the moment had come to sacrifice a particular animal, one that would be chosen from my family's own herds. Mostly the entrails would reveal nothing, but on occasion the diviner would see something terrible. At that time he would order a curfew. All men and women, girls and boys of our valley would have to be inside from dusk to dawn. The flocks would be abandoned, the watchtowers unmanned for as long as four nights.
"Our people would huddle at fireside, shutters or curtains drawn tight. Sometimes... rarely... there would come a thunder, the same thunder a cavalry patrol makes outriding in a swift patrol. There were those who swore they could hear the creak of harness and even the clatter of hooves against the cobbles as the patrol crossed one of our few cobbled squares. But at dawn there would be no hoof marks in the roadway. Nothing at all."
"What was out there in the night?" I wondered. "Or was it just thunder? The gods know I convinced myself often enough, lying awake as a boy, that I heard all manner of demons in the street outside our villa; or sometimes on the roof just above my balcony, where they were waiting to pounce. But I'd like to think that I would have been foolish enough to slip out unnoticed to see those ghost horsemen."
"I did just that," Janos half-smiled, a smile of approval for my imagined audacity. "I let myself down from my bedchamber with a rope I'd stolen from the guardroom earlier that day, when the prophet shouted his latest warning."
"But of course the horsemen didn't materialize that time," I guessed.
"That was not what happened at all. I'd cleverly listened to all the tales and carved a small map of the area around our citadel. On it I'd marked where the riders had been reported most frequently. One such place was a narrow pass, about eight spearcasts - we measured things in that way in Kostromo, which would have been about one third of a league - beyond one of my father's byres. I hid myself in an olive tree below the pass. The moon was just past half. Then I waited. I don't know for how long. Being perhaps eight or nine, probably I would have slept, in spite of my excitement. The noise woke me. Just as the herdsmen had said, I heard crashing horses' hooves.
"But you saw nothing."
"Nothing in the pass," Janos said, looking down into his goblet as if it were an oracle's pool, giving him a vision of the past. "But I saw something... two somethings... ride to the hilltop overlooking that pass. Two riders. Men, I thought them to be. They wore armor - or at any rate I saw the gleam of plate and spears. High-roached helms. Even their mounts seemed protected, since I saw another moonflash from one steed's head. The position they took was exactly the one I would order now - if I were leading a patrol into unfriendly territory - overlooking the pass so my main force would not be ambushed. The hoof-thunder grew louder, and passed. As the sound cleared the pass the two outriders galloped down, to rejoin the others. The sound of their passage died away, then. They were riding to the east. Where legend tells us the Far Kingdoms lay. I fled back to the castle, and to my bed, as if I were pursued."
"And next morning, when you returned?"
"Nothing was there. No hoof prints in the soft ground on the hilltop, no markings in the pass. No sign that a scouting band, riding far beyond their frontiers, had passed."
"A dream," I said, disappointed that Janos's tale hadn't included a bloody skull, a disappeared peasant or a flock that stampeded over a cliff in panic.
"No doubt," Janos agreed. He glanced at the sundial just outside the arbor. "And my new dream is that I am watch officer this night, and I have barely time to return to the barracks and bolt on all the finery I must wear to clank around my post.
"I have enjoyed this day, my friend," he said, taking silver from his belt pouch against my objections. "And you have convinced me there can be no such thing as the Far Kingdoms. Perhaps we can meet again another day? Perhaps I can help you plan your Finding, since I have made some minor travels to the west." And he was gone.
I stayed on, ordering another pitcher of wine. Partially because I was curious as to which one of us the barmaid had been smiling at; partially to muse on what he'd told me. Because somehow, in spite of what Janos had said about his being converted to logic, I felt, somewhere out there, far to the east, the brooding darkness-and-gold that was the legendary Far Kingdoms.
* * *
I saw Janos several times over the next few weeks when he was off duty. Freed of Melina's entrancement, I was readying myself for my Finding, talking to older traders and collecting tales from travelers and seamen at the docks, just as I had when I was a boy. But this time I knew what I was looking for. My father seemed to note my new earnestness with some degree of approval, since I found myself subjected to his ironic criticisms less and less. I was also gathering all the tales of the Far Kingdoms, attempting to make sense of them. There was none to be made: for every story that the Far Kingdoms
had enchantments that bade horses to fly, were others saying their Evocators had spells so powerful no dray animals at all were needed; objects and men flew through the air of their own accord.
Some of these tales I related to Janos. He listened politely, but skeptically. It was almost as if he were not that interested. In fact, he was behaving just as I do today when I am offering a parsimonious tailor a shipment of brocade that's priced somewhat beyond what he was prepared to pay. "I agree, sir, that perhaps this cloth, no matter how rare and fine, is highly-priced. It took me two weeks of the most bloodcurdling bargaining before I myself could afford it." Or: "of course, this material requires care in its working, and is intended for the most discriminating of wearers." And so on and so forth, until the poor Wight would contemplate murder if I refused to make him the sale.
* * *
One evening Janos asked me to dine at an open mess with his fellow officers. I was honored: the Magistrates' Own regarded themselves as among Orissa's social elite and invitations were much prized. Besides, there was something I was almost certain I wanted to tell Janos; and something I wished to ask. All that remained was how to present the matter. Janos accompanied me back to my father's villa, where I washed and changed into matching black velvet breeches and vest, a red silk shirt with a wide lace-edged collar, knee boots and a full-length hooded cloak. I told Eanes he need not accompany me - there would be more than enough servitors present.
As we walked through the twilight streets toward the barracks, I chanced asking Janos why, if he was so intent on seeing new worlds, he was serving in the Magistrates' Own Guard? Certainly it was an honor, but its duties kept it for the most part watchguarding the Magistrates, Evocators and the great public buildings of Orissa, which was hardly adventurous. Janos agreed - it was a dubious honor; but he'd had no choice. When he had shown up at the barracks wanting to enlist, the minute they'd heard his mother's name, he was doomed.
