The Warrior's Tale (The Far Kingdoms, Book 2)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Instead of drawing my blade I bent and picked up the shell.

  I spoke to Gamelan, but made my voice loud enough for all to hear. “Here’s another conch, my friend. I’ll bet a fat purse of gold against a thin copper coin that it’s flesh is as sweet as its brother’s.”

  Gamelan’s brow wrinkled. “What are you —” He stopped abruptly. “Oh.” I pressed the shell into his hands, and he quickly felt its shape. Then, raising his voice as well: “Yes, it is another. I’m sure it’ll be just as good as that last one we found not an hour ago.” He smacked his lips. “Delicious. And do you know, its flavor quite reminds me of a rare shellfish our cooks used to serve up on feast days in Orissa. Food fit for the gods themselves.”

  I looked at the men, widening my eyes as if I’d just noted their presence. Then I made my features stern and called out to them in my best commander’s voice.

  “You there. Stop what you’re doing and come here at once.”

  They were so startled their hands fell away from their knives. I motioned to them, impatient. “Be quick about it, men. We’ve a hungry crew to feed.”

  They stumbled forward, stiff as a rich child’s mechanical toy. But before they reached me, Pillow Nose had begun to swagger and he and his skinny companion moved to the front.

  I gestured at the shell. “Start collecting these,” I ordered. “You can use some empty water casks to put them in for now.” The men gaped at me. “Don’t dally. Do as I said. I’ll make it right with your officers, so you needn’t worry about that.”

  Pillow nose sneered. “Why’d anyone want a cask of old shells?” he said. He turned to his friends. “She’ll be havin’ us stewin’ rocks, next.” The men laughed, but there was a deadly edge to it.

  “Don’t talk foolishness, man,” I retorted. “These are delicious.”

  I plucked his knife from his belt quicker than he could blink. I plunged the knife into the shell, willing it to find life. I imagined a tidal pool, teaming with all sorts of swimming and crawling things. I felt something flinch under the blade. I dug in and scooped up, and out came a fat animal — thick and squirming on the knife.

  “Wait a moment, and you’ll see for yourself,” I said.

  I knelt by the edge of the geyser and plunged the speared flesh into the steaming water. I thought of a pungent fish stew my mother used to make. And in my mind the sulfurous water was that rich stew, which I was using as a broth to cook the shellfish. I had no doubts at all, when, after a few seconds, I rose again and dumped the meat on a flat rock. Quickly I sliced it into many pieces. An enticing odor filled the air.

  I speared a piece with the knife and took a bite. “Mmmm,” I sighed in real delight. “Just like my mother’s best dish.” I wasn’t lying. It really did taste that good. I speared another hunk and held out to Pillow Nose. “Try it,” I said.

  The sneer was gone as he took his knife. The others crowded about him. “Go on, Santh,” his skinny friend urged. “Give it a try.”

  Pillow Nose — or Santh — popped the flesh into his mouth and chewed. Instantly a look of delight widened that great nose across his face. “Why, it’s good!” he exclaimed.

  “Looks like enough for everyone to have a bite,” I said, indicating the sliced up morsels.

  They all jostled forward, grabbing what they could, and practically licked the rock clean.

  “You say there’s more of these about, Captain?” Pillow Nose asked. There was grudging respect in his tone.

  “We’ve only found one other,” I lied. “But there’s certain to be many more. I was just consulting with Lord Gamelan, here, on how best to find where they breed.”

  As soon as I said this, my confidence weakened. How could I possibly accomplish what I’d just all but promised?

  Sensing my distress, Gamelan stroked his beard, looking wise. “Give me the shell, Captain,” he said.

  I handed it to him and the men stood in respectful silence as the old wizard turned it this way and that. He gave it back to me.

  “Put to your ear, Captain Antero,” he said, “and listen.”

  I covered my puzzlement, and — wishing all the while I had a beard to stroke so I could at least look as if I knew what I were doing — I put the shell to my ear. I only heard the familiar sea noises we all hear from the first time we try this trick as children.

  “I didn’t know fish talked,” I heard Pillow Nose’s skinny friend say in some awe.

  I wanted very badly to reply: Neither did I, brother. Neither did I.

  Then I remembered one of Gamelan’s first lessons on spell casting.

  “I can’t teach you all the spells in so short a time,” he’d said. “The best ones fill many volumes on many shelves. Instead, I’ll tell you what the young wizards — the followers of the late Janos Greycloak — advise. They claim that the words used to form a spell are not important. That they only serve to focus your energies. And I must admit there is truth to what they say. At my great age, I couldn’t swear that the words I say are memorized spells, or created by me on the spot. They just come to me when I need them.”

  “That’s no help to the likes of me,” I replied. “Words are your profession, Wizard. Not mine.”

  “If you listen closely, Rali,” he said, “the words you require will come.”

  “Listen?” I asked. “Listen to whom?”

  “To yourself, my friend. To yourself.”

  So I held the shell to my ear, and listened. At first there was only the sea noises, and the slow hammer of my heart. Then a chill fingered my spine as I heard a voice. It came from within. Words rose like hot ash and I opened my lips and let them spew out:

  “Sand and spume,

  Rock and Sea flower;

  I bear my shield

  As I bear my home:

  In the tidal bower

  Where the sun last touches.”

  I raised my head to see the sun’s position. I pointed. “There,” I said. “Just beyond those rocks, you’ll find a small beach, and just off it, the place where our briny cousins make their homes.”

  There was no doubt in the men’s minds as they cheered, grabbed the water casks and trooped off in the direction I pointed. Gamelan and I followed. Sure enough, there was a beach and tidal pool with hundreds of shellfish. I bade the men to call the others, and soon the beach was crowded with hungry men and women, scooping, scraping and netting until the whole shore was covered with food.

  Someone started a big driftwood fire and heaped it with seaweed. Clams and mussels and conches and even a few score crabs were tossed onto the weed and the delicious steaming smell made our cares seem small.

  Gamelan tapped his way to me. I thought he was going to congratulate me on my spell casting. Instead he tugged at my sleeve and said: “Tonight, Rali. You must speak to them tonight. There may not be a better time.”

  And so that night I gave my maiden performance as an Evocator.

  I ordered the crew and my Guardswomen to gather at the place where I’d found the conch shell. The site was Gamelan’s idea, saying the atmosphere of steaming pools and bubbling geyser would help make the audience vulnerable.

  It was a sullen group that gathered before me. The high spirits I’d invoked with my conjuring had been short-lived. The food I’d found had only been enough for that one meal — the tide pools had been scraped clean. There would be nothing to carry away from the island except the foul-tasting water. Cholla Yi had been opposed to the ceremony, saying there was little to cheer about and it would only make his crew angry. But Gamelan quelled him by asking, quite sternly, was he refusing to honor the gods?

  I stood on a large boulder next to the geyser so all could see. Gamelan was at my side to coax me and whisper directions if I should need them. I quickly cast the spell he’d taught that magnified my voice, then I began. I opened with a short, and highly dramatic account of our adventures thus far, stressing our accomplishments. I spoke of our defeat of Lycanth, and our holy mission to hunt down the escaped Archon. I prais
ed them for the heroism they’d shown in the sea battle, which had ended in the defeat of our dark enemy.

  Finally, I talked of the great gift the gods had bestowed upon us by allowing us to escape the terrible upheaval of the sea. Some of the men grew angry, shouting that it was no blessing, but bad luck. Ill luck, they said, that was my fault for bringing the curse of the Archon upon them.

  “How dare you offend the gods so?” I thundered. My voice echoed and resounded against the rocks, startling even me. “You are alive, aren’t you? Is not that fact alone gift enough? And as for lost, why that is a temporary condition. We have all been given a chance of a lifetime by the great god of seekers everywhere — Te Date! Do you dare question our mighty Lord?”

  Fear of blasphemy silenced them. I went on:

  “No one in all our history has sailed these seas,” I said. “For countless generations our people have wondered what mysteries and riches awaited in the vast regions beyond the western edges of our world. You all know my brother, Amalric Antero, along with the mighty and wise Janos Greycloak, unraveled the secrets of the East by finding the legendary Far Kingdoms. Many adventurers have wept since that time, crying there was nothing new to be discovered.

  “Well, here is your chance. Here is the opportunity of a hundred lifetimes. What we learn here shall be carried back to our hearths and homes. Our names will be written on the Stones of Greatness for all to see and marvel over in the eons to come. And others will weep, my friends. Weep in helpless jealousy that they were not here to share our great Adventure!”

  I saw smiles and heard cheery mutterings for the first time in many a mournful day. And now that I’d hooked them, as Gamelan said, it was time to gaff them into the creel.

  Calling on Te Date and Maranonia, I commenced the show the wizard and I had planned. I threw a small pouch on the ground, causing a loud explosion to erupt. My audience gasped in wonder as colorful smoke swirled. I tossed small mirrors into the smoke and they burst upward, shattering into more pieces than there were stars in the night sky. Another explosion, and they shattered again, then rained gently down, glittering with color, then melting into small droplets as they touched any surface, creating the most wonderful perfume. Then I performed the ribbon trick, and this time there was no fumbling or twine-making. Ribbon red and green and gold shot out from my fingers, wove themselves into filmy veils that caught the wind and swirled all around us like magical kites.

  Gamelan and I had decided the next trick would be an even greater blast then the first, causing an enormous pillar of red smoke to rise up. Then I would call upon the gods to bless us in our adventures, and to stay by our sides until they came to a happy and fruitful end. I took out the pouch of ingredients I’d mixed at the wizard’s direction. It was fatter so as to make a larger display. But as I was about to hurl it down, something stopped me. I felt a ghost-like hand on my arm nudging me to turn. When I saw the bubbling geyser a voice whispered in my ear, directing me. I threw the pouch into the steaming pool.

  Instead of an explosion, a horn larger and louder than any mortal has ever seen trumpeted. The geyser shot up twice a tall woman’s height and whirled like a desert dervish. It was a cacophony of vivid colors. Other music joined the trumpet, drums and strings and pipes all blended into a wondrous sound. The pools surrounding the geyser burst up like their mother, whirling about in wild dance to the of the ghostly players.

  As quickly as they’d erupted, they fell and became calm pools of blue. I looked and saw the geyser had taken on a similar hue, except it reflected our forms as well as any palace mirror. The music stopped. Not even a hiss from the geyser marred the perfect silence.

  A voice welled up in me. And this I swear on my mother’s ghost, was a voice that was not directed by me, or any wizardly tricks. I listened, as if I was another as the words boomed from my lips. “Oh, Great Te Date. Protector of the wanderer. Lord of horizons yet breached, all mysteries yet revealed. Grant us this boon. Wither do we sail, Oh Lord? In which direction is our destiny, our weir.”

  The whirling geyser took solid form, and a vision appeared on its mirrored surface. It was our fleet sailing across smooth seas. At its lead was my ship, the flag of Maranonia fluttering in the breeze. And we were sailing west, chasing the setting sun.

  The vision vanished and the geyser collapsed into a hissing pool.

  I turned back to my audience, overflowing with joy. I spoke again, except this time the words were my own.

  “There is our answer, my friends. Te Date has pointed the way home. We sail west! And praise be Te Date, we will be lost no more!”

  Cheering erupted. The rocky glen echoed with their cries. Some laughed and pounded the backs of their fellows. Others were so overcome they wept. My women, caught by the truth of the moment, cheered more loudly than any.

  But as for me a great weariness shook my knees. I collapsed on the rock and all was blackness.

  When I awoke, I was aboard the ship and we were at full sail, skimming across the seas under a brisk wind. I was in Gamelan’s small cabin, and when I opened my eyes he was dusting my brow with a cloth dipped in a sweet-smelling healing powder.

  He smiled when he sensed my eyes fluttering open. “Ah, you are with us again, my friend,” he said. “How do you feel?”

  I started to rise, but my limbs were so weak I gave it up. “I feel like I just lost three falls out of three,” I said. “But that’s to be expected, I suppose. Being new to the conjuring arts, and all. A few more hours rest will put me right.”

  “I should hope so,” the wizard chortled. “You’ve already slept for nearly a week.”

  Stunned, I groaned up to a sitting position. “A Week? How could you let me stay here so long? By Te Date, there’s things to do. Plans to be laid. Training to — ”

  Gamelan’s continuing laughter made me cut short my babbling. “They just don’t make Evocators like they used to,” he said. “Why, in my youth we acolytes were expected to preside over a Blessing before breakfast, and heal half-a-hundred before the bell rang us to tenth hour abasements.”

  “Stuff a batskin muff in it, wizard,” I growled.

  Gamelan turned serious. “I must admit you frightened me with your extemporaneous bit of future casting. Calling on oracles can be quite dangerous, especially for an ignorant beginner.”

  I shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it? The gods were kind enough to point our way home. We sail West, to find Orissa.”

  Gamelan shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said.

  “Listen here,” I said, a little hot. “The vision clearly showed us sailing West.”

  “Obviously, I couldn’t see the vision you conjured up,” Gamelan answered. “But although I’m blind, my hearing is quite sound, thank you very much. And I clearly heard you ask in which direction our destinies lay. You said nothing at all about finding Orissa. In fact, I know of no spell that would accomplish such a thing. If there were, I would have had you conjuring up a map or two long ago.”

  In a weaker voice I asked: “Then West is not the way home?”

  “Who can say?” Gamelan answered. “Perhaps our fates and our wishes coincide. Perhaps by sailing West — which we know, broadly speaking, is the opposite direction from Orissa, we’ll meet someone who knows the way. Or, perhaps we’ll encounter some swift current, or passage, that will carry us home.”

  “Then I accomplished nothing,” I said, feeling a total dolt and failure.

  “Oh, but that is certainly not so,” Gamelan protested. “The others made the same mistake you did. Or, at least believed your interpretation of the vision. Everyone is convinced you showed them the way. No sooner had I ordered you carried back to my cabin, then your legates gathered with Cholla Yi and his officers and it was decided to strike West at once.”

  Hastily, I rose up from the bunk. They’d stripped me when they’d put me to bed and I was wearing nothing but a frown. “Where are my clothes?” I demanded. I must stop the fleet at once! We could very well be going the wrong wa
y!”

  Gamelan grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Don’t be foolish,” he hissed. “You have succeeded more than we could have ever dreamed. The fleet is overflowing with confidence, a commodity in short supply these last days. You’ve put steel in their spines, Rali, and hope in their hearts.”

  “But, it’s a lie!” I protested.

  “Only you and I know that,” the wizard said. “And, perhaps it isn’t a lie after all. Only the gods know the course we’re set on. It may end happily after all. One thing I know for certain, if you tell them the truth they’ll hate you for it. Things will be even worse than before. And if that should happen, there’s no chance at all that we’ll ever find our way home again.”

  I sank back on the bunk, pulling a blanket about me, for I suddenly felt very cold. “What should I do?” I moaned.

  “Do nothing,” Gamelan said. “Just keep a smile on your lips and if asked, lie again. And keep on lying. If fortune blesses us, the lie may yet meet the truth.”

  * * *

  I was well enough to leave my sickbed the following day. Everyone greeted me with such huge enthusiasm, fawning, making sure I had the best morsel of whatever food we had, or rushing to do my slightest bidding, that I felt a complete scoundrel. But I did as Gamelan advised, and only smiled and choked out modest remarks regarding my renewed status as heroine. Whenever necessary I shored up the falsehood I’d created back on the dismal isle.

  It got easier as the days went by, because we were the sudden recipients of good luck. Every day was sunny and the winds fair. Our little fleet leaped over the waves, chasing the sun into the most marvelous sunsets anyone had seen in their lifetimes. The sea teamed with more fish than we could eat. And the day I arose we encountered an island entirely populated by enormous birds — nearly half-again as tall as Polillo — that were not only wingless but so dumb they let you approach and club them down without protest.