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

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Islands rose in front of us, and fell away. Some were mountainous, like that first. Others were bare rocks jutting out of the crashing surf. Still others were the brightest green and, at night, we could see the sparkle of lights from villages. I wondered how long it would be before we were discovered. But we weren’t.

  I attempted to distract myself by studying the notes I’d taken of Gamelan’s teachings. But whenever I tried to concentrate on magic, but attention seemed to wane and I’d find myself yawning and losing interest. Similarly, when I tried to continue our lessons, it always seemed inconvenient either for me or for Gamelan.

  I kept myself busy with exercise, and with not letting my women get as slack. I’d ordered the sergeants and officers on the other ship to keep a similar regime. The problem was finding a way to keep exercise from becoming screamingly monotonous. I set up for myself, and for anyone else interested, a midday workout climaxed with swarming up a line, knotted at intervals, that led from the deck all the way up to where the yard crossed the foremast.

  From there, you were supposed to swing over to a different line leading back to the deck, this one with loops every two feet, and come down it, using only your hands. Five times around that circuit, and you hurt too much to be bored.

  I was slumped against the mast, panting, after my second turn on this horrible invention of mine, watching a party of sailors just below me, on the maindeck. They had a harpoon tied to a line, and were hoping to spear one of the fish that frequently surfaced just off our bows.

  I noted that The Sarzana was on deck, and also had become curious and walked forward.

  Sailors, I’ve noted, don’t have much respect for anything other than each other, particularly not for landsmen, and most particularly not for landsmen of great rank, no matter how powerful they may be.

  One such sailor tapped his forehead with a knuckle in as casual a salute as I’d ever seen and said, “Lord, we’re a-fishin’, an’ th’ beasties aren’t cooperatin’. They say you were a fisherman, oncet. Or anyways a fishin’ lord an’ magic-man. Would y’ mind spinnin’ y’r hands some and sayin’ some words that’d send a few finny ones our way?”

  The Sarzana looked at the sailor, and his expression was hard and cold. “I have no time for such as that. Nor you.” Then he’d walked back toward the stern.

  The sailors watched him go. The one who’d spoken spat over the side. “Well now, ain’t we been told, boys. Guess t’ him we’re ’bout lower’n squidshit, an’ we all know that’s spread thin at th’ bottom a’ th’ deeps.”

  “Wonder if he forgot his fishing-spells,” another man said. “Or, maybe, if he knew any ever. Wouldn’t be the first one I’ve known who claimed sea-magic, but made his way with fast words and a faster way when somebody’s back was turned.”

  They noticed me, and fell silent. I thought about it, then put it aside. Even someone who claimed to be as interested in the common folk as The Sarzana might be entitled to an off day when he figured the only ones who ought to be able to speak to him were heavenly beings. But still, this was a man who’d gone out of his way on Tristan to be uncommonly civil and interested in everyone’s doings.

  Two days later, an even odder thing occurred, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I’d been standing at the tafrail after we’d eaten, wondering how in the blazes our cook had managed to turn a simple stew of salt cod, shrimp netted from the stern, limes and a scattering of vegetables, into something that tasted like ocean-going paste. I heard bootsteps on the companionway rail, and saw The Sarzana come onto the quarterdeck. The man at the rudder paid him no mind, eyes intent on the star he’d been ordered to keep the ship’s prow aimed toward during his watch.

  We spoke idly of various things for awhile. Then his expression became serious. “Captain Antero, may I bring up something that is somewhat unpleasant, even though, the gods be praised, nothing serious came of it?” I nodded. “You remember that attack on your legate?”

  How could I forget?

  “You recall, I said at the time I had no knowledge of what could have happened, whether there was some demon of the island who’d lusted after your officer? Well, I spoke too soon, because this afternoon I was remembering my first few days when I landed, when the villagers were still permitted to speak to me freely.

  “I remember there was a young maid who’d decided to be my personal bed-servant. Perhaps she was thinking of other things to come. I don’t know, but certainly she would have been disappointed. A man who has had his entire world stripped away has little interest in things of the flesh. At any rate, she lingered late one evening making sure my bedclothes had been properly folded and put away. I was in another part of the building, and wasn’t aware she was still there.

  “The Konyan officer who was my close guard came to me, and said there was a distraught man outside, looking for his daughter. It was the young girl’s father. We quickly found the girl, and I thought the villager would burst into tears. Instead, he slapped his daughter, and told her never, ever to be up here after night fell. She ran, sobbing, from the mansion. Before her father could go after her, I stopped him, and told him she was in no danger from me, certainly. I doubted any of the Konyan soldiers needed to think of rape — there were already more than enough willing maids to serve them. He said he cared neither about me, nor the soldiers. If she chose to bed one of them, that was her business. Or me, if she’d set her eyes on a great lord, he said, and I felt he would have actively encouraged such an act.

  “It was the Old Man, he said. I asked him to tell me more. He said any island maiden, particularly if she was virgin, who was out by night or, even worse, feckless enough to sleep alone outdoors, might be approached by him. He would come to her at first in a dream, then, waking, in horrid reality. The woman he attacked would invite his embrace at first, but then, as the coupling grew fiercer and bloodier, try to fight against this monster. But there would be no hope. It would be too late. When dawn rose, all that would remain was a torn body. That was what he’d feared had happened to his daughter.

  “I told the man he needn’t worry — my magic was more than strong enough to protect anyone serving me. Evidently, from what almost happened to your Legate, the Old Man was more than a legend.” The Sarzana’s expression became rueful. “Also, my web of spells cast around my mansion wasn’t as powerful as I’d thought, especially against such elementals as that demon.”

  I waited, but The Sarzana had evidently said all he’d meant to. “Thank you. But why,” I wondered, “did you tell me about it now? The incident is past, and I hope Legate Corais has been able to forget about it, or at least force it to the back of her mind.”

  The Sarzana looked at me queerly, then said, “To be frank, I wished to make sure that none of my servants were still thought of as capable of such a misdeed, even though they are free now, and many leagues behind us.”

  I began to say something, but thought it wiser to merely thank him for recollecting the story again, and assured him that what happened in the past would stay there.

  After some more inconsequentials, he said good night and went below.

  * * * *

  Two nights later, we encountered the second island cluster The Sarzana said were his irrevocable enemies. This time the islands were bigger, and the dark green of jungle replaced by the light green of fields and orchards. From now on, he said, until we reached the open seas once more, we should travel only by night, the fleet finding deserted islets for shelter during the day, and he would chance a spell for fog banks whenever he could. We obeyed his wishes.

  As we sailed deeper into the cluster by night, it became obvious these islands were much more civilized than the first. Each island glowed from tip to tip, and often we could see solid strands of light marking lit streets.

  Perhaps we should have been afraid, but I think most of the men and women on our ships shared my melancholy. Were we doomed to sail forever in furtive darkness past settled lands like these where men and women spent their lives
in peace and plenty, no matter what lord or lords held fealty over them? When would we ever see Orissa?

  The Sarzana promised we would reach his islands within a week, perhaps less if the winds blew stronger. Then we’d see an end to this slinking around, as if we were so many seagoing thieves.

  We prayed he was not mistaken.

  * * * *

  Most people know what it is like to lie awake in the hours before dawn, when there is nothing but utter darkness within the soul and without. This is a time when we believe no one has ever loved us, our lives are futile struggles against nothing, and our end will be unpleasant and all we were quickly forgotten.

  Such a time came to me. I’ve never known how to overcome such thoughts, other than to realize I’ve gone through this before, and shall again.

  The dreary panoply passed again — I was an incompetent woman and officer, those who claimed to follow me gladly were secretly laughing, nothing I would turn my hand to would ever prosper — the normal ghastliness. I forced myself to try to think of other things: My family. My brother, Amalric. My mother, Emilie. Even the panther-woman I’d been named after. I felt the sordid images swirl, and start to vanish. I sighed, knowing the depression was passing and I’d soon be asleep.

  My mind became clear, as clear as any crystal spring, as clear as any rouged gem. I thought of what The Sarzana had said the other night, and then remembered one of the best ways I had of telling which of my women might be guilty of a minor peccadillo: suspect most the one who explains the most. Then confusion dropped her cloak over me again, but I struggled against it. I remembered that sudden clarity and fought to bring it back. And gradually I won the fight. And I remembered.

  I remembered the Old Man. I remembered something I’d heard, or read. Perhaps my mother might’ve told it to me, although I doubt I was old enough to have heard it. Maybe it was a tale another soldier had passed along . . . that was it. I’d heard it, but oddly, more than once, once from a fellow soldier, then again from an old village witch who’d assisted a patrol of mine when we’d been after bandits in the hills. Two legends, from people who came from very different places, and could never have known each other. It came clearly — the legends were not an Old Man, but a woman. She was called The Old Hag, and would come to a man and drain him of all his strength, and leave only a husk in the morning. No one was invulnerable, unless . . . he had a sword. Bare steel would keep away or drive away the Hag.

  I remembered Corais saying she came awake with a sword in her hand, and knew anywhere but in barracks she slept with one beside her bed.

  I wondered about the legend The Sarzana had told me so conveniently, and, more darkly, why he’d told it to me.

  My mind flashed into another channel — The Sarzana’s snarl when asked for a simple fishing spell, and the sailor saying perhaps he didn’t know any. I thought of Gamelan’s eagerness and pleasure at being able to hook a fish from under the ice, and how clumsy The Sarzana had looked wading in the surf when his dolphins were fishing for us, most unlike a man who’d grown up close to the sea.

  All these thoughts were unborn foundlings compared to the next ones: from the time we’d come in sight of Tristan until we’d left, all of us had felt queerly safe, and contented. Yet we’d seen: an empty village; houses that were blood-soaked; a barracks charnel house; beast-men playing on human bones; and more.

  What fools we were!

  Worse, we’d met a Wizard-King, who told us he’d been exiled by evil men, and all of us had instantly believed him. Of course. That made perfect sense. We all knew of wizards who had power enough to create beings from the dead and who always used that power unselfishly. We all were familiar with kings who needed to answer to no one, and how generally benevolent they were. How could anyone dream such a sorcerer king as we met could be anything other than a saint? Of course The Sarzana would never be the same as The Archons.

  Fools, fools and worse.

  So we’d blithely agreed to become involved, to take this man, who an entire group of island nations had driven out, and help him return to his throne.

  No. We knew . . . we felt . . . we thought . . . we knew, by the gods how we knew.

  I understood why The Sarzana had chosen to sail on our ship — it was the only one carrying an Evocator, no matter that he was temporarily helpless, and his apprentice. That was also why my attempts to study my magic or further study with Gamelan had been blocked since we set sail from Tristan — The Sarzana didn’t wish any petty magics to ruin his own great spell.

  The night was red around me now, from anger as well as shame at my stupidity, at all of our imbecility.

  I rolled out of my hammock, and pulled on clothing. I started toward the companionway, not sure what I intended. I set a course in my mind — I must quietly wake Gamelan, and tell him what I was thinking. Maybe I was being a damned fool, maybe these were nothing but dark thoughts. No! This was real, not those pink happy clouds we’d been drifting through since coming on The Sarzana’s island.

  I came back for my sword. I don’t know why, but felt I might well need it before the dawn. Just then I heard a soft cry from above decks, a thud, ropes creaking and a splash.

  I went up the companionway like a bolt, blade in hand and burst on deck. All was still, all was silent once more. Up forward, I could see the two lookouts, peering out into the night. Amidships, my two guards paced their rounds back and forth, fully alert, around the area where some of my women had chosen to sleep on deck. None of them noticed me, and I realized they’d been ensorcelled.

  I could see no sign of movement on the quarterdeck. No sign of the helmsman, no sign of the master’s mate who should have the watch. We’d lost way, and I could tell by the S-curving of the wake no one was at the rudder.

  I ran up the ladder. The man who should’ve been steering the ship sat against the rudder brace. His legs were splayed, and he lolled as if drunk. I smelled no wine on his breath, but he babbled in a stentorious whisper, and his eyes were glazed, as if he’d drunk strong wine or gazed on horror. Sprawled just behind him, face-down, was the heavy bulk of Klisura, the ship’s sailing master. His own dagger, a long sliver of steel he’d loved, was driven deeply into his back, pinning him to the deck. Behind him dangled the falls where Captain Stryker’s gig should have been, just overside. They now hung to the water, and the boat was gone. I swore, then shouted loud for the Guard and the watch below.

  I had a clear picture of what’d happened: Klisura and the helmsman had been forced by magic to lower the boat. Somehow Klisura had found the strength to fight back, and been slain. And the killer had escaped in the boat.

  I looked out, astern and on either side, where I could see the bulk of more islands, but saw no sign of the gig.

  Men and women were boiling out of their sleep, both on deck and below. I went back down the ladder, paying no mind to the babble, and went straight to one cabin.

  The room was empty. The Sarzana was gone.

  It was just then the spell broke for all of us.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE GIANTS’ DICE

  As you might imagine, the meeting that followed was grim. We’d signaled by lantern what had happened to Cholla Yi’s flagship and the others and called a captain’s meeting at first light. It was purely by fortune that predawn light showed a low sandspit about a quarter mile distant. That would be ideal — the conference had to be for officers only, with no possibility of eavesdropping, since the meeting would almost certainly be acrimonious. And so it was.

  Each ship sent her captain and sailing master. We had to use one of the longboats, not only because of the theft of our gig, but I thought it necessary for both Corais and Polillo, in addition to Gamelan, Stryker and Duban, who’d been promoted from rowing master to Klisura’s position, to be present. Duban, who I liked no better now than when he was bellowing at the oarsmen as if they were slaves, immediately had to wonder why it was necessary for three women to go, especially when two of them ranked no higher than his mates.<
br />
  I didn’t answer, since any explanation would’ve been insulting — I wanted at least two people I could trust at my back at a council with these pirates.

  Stryker kept muttering aloud that he couldn’t believe what’d happened. How in all the wet hells could every damned one of us be bound by The Sarzana’s spell? Gamelan reminded Stryker he’d already seen greater sorceries — the wall that’d been quickly rebuilt around Lycanth or the Archon’s last spell that cast us into these strange seas.

  “Th’t be different,” Stryker said. “Volcanoes . . . walls . . . but not somethin’ like this. One of us should’ve seen, dammit! Seems t’ me, they’re should’ve been a moment somebody, anybody could’ve know’d better!”

  “There was such a moment,” Gamelan said quietly. “Captain Antero was graced with it.”

  Stryker nodded somberly. “Guess th’t’s better’n nothin’. Sure makes yer wonder, what would’ve happened if’n nobody’d caught on, and we’d a just sailed right into whatever th’ devil intended fer the likes of us. And I wish t’ hell she’d seen the light back on th’t damned island.”

  On the islet, the meeting broke into the predicted storm, after I’d given the details on The Sarzana’s flight. Cholla Yi alternated between rage and bluster at how Gamelan and I had failed. I pointed out no one had exactly shown much second sight concerning The Sarzana, which made Cholla Yi’s bellowing louder:

  “What of it? None of us have pretended magical abilities! None of us spent nearly as much time in the company of that damned pretender as you two. None of us--”

  Gamelan interrupted: “What you say is true, Admiral. But the past is sealed in amber. What happened, happened. It seems our time should be best spent trying to figure out what comes next.”

  “Next? How can we be plan anythin’,” Stryker said in his near-whisper, “here on strange seas, knowin’ we’ve loosed a demon? How does we know what Th’ Sarzana’s got in his noggin’ fer us, once he lands on friendly shores. Won’t he cast some kind’a spell so’s no one’ll know he escaped? Dead men have still tongues.”