The West Is Dying

by David C. Smith

  “Do them good!” Mantho growled. “Damned sewer rats!”

  Galvus turned to him, reddening. “Can’t you understand why they did it?” he asked hotly. “We have everything! They don’t have a—”

  “They might have killed you, boy!” Mantho retorted, leaning forward. “Don’t you understand that you might have been killed? Your mother might have been killed?”

  “All right, enough, please!” Orain said strongly, reaching for Galvus’s arm. “We are guests here! Galvus! We are Count Mantho’s guests!”

  Wounded, he shot a look at her, stood, crossed the room, and approached Mantho. “Will you excuse me?” he asked quietly.

  Mantho looked at him for a long moment, then slowly nodded, and Galvus left the room.

  He then told Orain, “Have a glass of wine. Adred—you, too. I understand the boy’s confusion.”

  Orain helped herself, but Adred sat back in a chair and let out a low curse.

  “What’s wrong?” Mantho inquired. “It’s over—at least for now. Blood in the streets. We’re almost getting used to it. I’m only sorry that—”

  “Elad mustn’t know,” Adred told him. “Orain and Galvus are royal blood. He’ll have this city smashed down to its stones if he finds out they were almost killed!” Then he grinned and let out a derisive laugh. “No, he won’t. That would take money. And Elad doesn’t have any money right now.”

  Mantho and Orain stared at him.

  “I went to the bank,” Adred informed them. “Elad’s limited the withdrawal of funds, remember?”

  Orain couldn’t believe it. “But Abgarthis said—”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be for personal accounts, only business and government. I know. But they’re limiting everybody.”

  “This is outrageous!” Mantho exclaimed. “He can’t do it. He’ll make more enemies than he has already!”

  “It’s only temporary,” Adred told him. “Besides, what can council do? Anyone there powerful enough to profit by this is already on Elad’s side. He’s giving all of this money to the army. You see, Mantho? We don’t have the good sense to organize ourselves into a cavalry regiment. Then we’d get our money. It’s the army he needs most of all, not people like you and me.”

  “It’s an outrage.”

  “It’s a business. The crown’s business. Good Feast to you,” Adred said sarcastically. “We’ll praise the prophet in the hall and the king on the earth and kill anyone who doesn’t like it when we do. That’s why we hire an army. The prophet had it backward. Ruling a country is easy. You feed the people excuses and lies, and you feed your rich friends more money. That’s paradise. That’s how the gods want it. It must be, because they sure don’t seem to be stopping it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Had Ogodis’s private image of himself ever become manifest as his actual appearance, the man would have been transformed overnight into a handsome giant with the intellect of a deity, the refinement of an educated squire, and the innate appreciation of justice of the afterworld’s weigher of souls. That he was something less than this, in fact, did not deter the Imbur of Gaegosh from seeing such a reflection in his mind’s mirror. Ogodis knew himself to be superior to other men. He was the most recent son of a long line of potentates, and he was imbur—a title that predated, even, that of king within the borders of the Athadian Empire. An imbur had ruled in the collected regions of Gaegosh since the beginning of time, and Ogodis would never be anything other than imbur of his people. He had a throne—not as lofty a throne as that of Elad’s in Athadia, but a throne, nonetheless—and he had a court and subject peoples, a treasury and an army of sufficient size and loyalty to protect Ogodis from whatever concerns he might envision. It was his destiny to maintain his authority always, in the face of potential domestic rebels and in spite of any impolitic maneuverings of ambitious neighbors.

  On equal terms, then, with the leaders of other nations that bordered the Athadian Empire, Ogodis nevertheless less saw himself as their better simply by virtue of Gaegosh’s location and the interdependence it exercised with Athadia. For long centuries, trade had existed between Sugat and Athad, to the mutual benefit of both. No patrols or forts sat on the banks of the River Ussal, for neither nation had ever taken up arms against the other. Differences had historically been settled by negotiation. Even the expansionist Athadian armies of two hundred years ago had stopped their advance after crossing the river, and when the Imbur Magodis, Ogodis’s great-great-grandfather, had complained to King Thoas and the Athadian High Council, the court had agreed to settle its boundary where the army had camped. Time passed, and the stretch of land that had been occupied became a common territory between the two nations; the province there, with its villages and small communities, spoke a dialect of Athadian, paid tribute to the imbur, and followed in its law courts tribal customs that predated the formal codes of either nation’s legislature. All remained well between Athad and Sugat; the Athadian lion and the Gaegoshan hawk demonstrated how the powerful can remain amicable even in disagreement without resorting to knife and torch.

  This history between Athadia and Gaegosh now served Ogodis well, for as autumn settled on the world, the imbur observed from his capital the conflicts that besieged King Elad. Eager to become Elad’s friend and to offer aid to his country’s perpetual ally, Ogodis, upon Elad’s uncertain ascension, had forwarded his congratulations as well as a caravan of gifts. Later, learning of a plot against Elad’s life, Ogodis had sent word that if he could be of any assistance howsoever in helping to punish the traitors, King Elad should not hesitate in asking for such reinforcement. And now, as the season of the holidays approached—the Feast of the Ascension, followed in two days by the Celebration of Perpetual Grace, and then, six days later, by the week-long fast of the Observance of the Ascension and the Deliverance, Ogodis saw an opportune time to make his presence felt more strongly within the empire to the north of him. He saw an opportunity, as well, to create an actual alliance between his country and Athadia—something that had not been for more than four hundred years, back to a time when both states were no more than collections of huts in the marshland.

  History teaches lessons to the prescient. Time is a circle and not a line. And where the modern seems to supersede the antiquated, those who can see realize that humanity changes only in its outward guise and never in its soul. The causes of war remain the same because humanity appreciates war; and the accords of peace are ever written in the same language because, once pushed to its limits by war, humanity resigns itself to peace and claims to love the prosperity and the quiet that follow conflict. Extremes are the results of limitations, and frontiers open their doors even as one passes from one border to another. The wave of history rolls from crest to crest, from trough to trough, and those with vision and sufficient imagination can anticipate where those crests will rise and the troughs descend, and thereby take advantage of the moving waves.

  Ogodis, therefore, watching the waves, decided that all apparent advantages presently sat with him. Elad had survived the first storms of office and remained enthroned; enemies were rife upon Athadia’s borders—in Emaria, no friend to the empire, and in Salukadia, half a world away—but Gaegosh remained as firm an ally as ever.

  Most pertinent of all for the imbur, however, was the fact that Elad was unmarried. A king without a wife, Ogodis knew, is a rider without a horse, a body without a spirit. His own wife, although dead now for years, still lived within him, in his heart. And although they had created only one child, that child was a daughter. And although Ogodis himself was remarkably unattractive as a man, his wife had been a beautiful woman, and the gods, in their wisdom and delight, had been mightily generous with Ogodis’s daughter, giving her the benefit of her mother’s decisive quality. Salia was a startlingly beautiful young woman.

  Ogodis, the Imbur of Gaegosh, wished to improve his power in the world, and that meant taking advantage of the instabilities in his friend to the north, the nation that remained the most
powerful in the world, the empire of Athadia. The strongest means by which the imbur might secure this alignment, he knew, was not by accord, conference, treaty, or pledge; rather, it must be by taking advantage of very human strengths and weaknesses. Therefore Ogodis, the Imbur of Gaegosh and presumed friend to the throne in Athad, decided to wed his only child, his daughter, Salia, to King Elad of the Athadian Empire.

  That Salia, overprotected since birth and catered to all her years, was regarded at large as truly the single most beautiful woman in the world, was—as far as Ogodis was concerned—merely the most obvious factor in his plan to approach young Elad with an offer of mutual benefit and profit. Kings ever had married their children to each other; it would be Elad’s good fortune to win a prize in Salia as well as a friend for life in the prescient Ogodis.

  * * * *

  King Elad had graciously granted the imbur’s request to visit the capital during the two-week festivities honoring the Prophet Bithitu. On the day following his decision to augment the imperial army’s pay in time for the holidays, Elad received word from Sugat that Ogodis, his daughter, Salia, and an escort would arrive in Athad the day prior to the Feast of the Ascension.

  The palace seneschal ordered all things prepared for their arrival: generous lodgings on the second floor of the palace; an extra recruitment of guards and servants in that wing; the invitation of certain dancers, masquers, rhapsodes, and other entertainers; and an abundant supply of food and beverages.

  The minister Abgarthis, however, clearly surmising the why and wherefore of the imbur’s presumptuousness, thought it his duty to warn Elad that Ogodis, a crafty man, had it in mind to do more than merely spend time publicizing his country’s friendship with the new king. Elad assured his minister that he understood that every politician—himself included—means three things when he speaks but once.

  But Abgarthis insisted, “You do realize that this is the father of an extremely beautiful young woman, and that it would be to his advantage to see her wed to you and to no one else?”

  “If his daughter is all that beautiful,” Elad replied, “then I would think less of him if he didn’t make such a proposal.”

  “He will do just that, I’m sure of it. Our office in Sugat has reported to me that this is the imbur’s primary concern. It would be very much to his advantage to see such a marriage completed.”

  “And an advantage to us, as well?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You haven’t already considered this? You anticipate everything.”

  “No one can anticipate everything, your crown.”

  “You can,” Elad smiled. “Can you see any danger in such a proposal?”

  “In a word, no. Other than that you would gain an imperious father-in-law.”

  “He can be imperious as he likes—on his side of the river. Why the concern, Abgarthis?”

  “There is always the chance of something pertinent in Sugat of which we have not yet had word. And taking a wife is extremely serious.”

  “It is, indeed.”

  “Say what you like. You’re a young man. Squire away as many evenings as you wish with peasants and servants—”

  Elad laughed out loud. “You make me sound like a stallion, and every mare around me in season!”

  “As many as you wish!” Abgarthis repeated. “But Ogodis is a man who tests his bed three times before he lies in it, and I think that if his mission were only to show how cooperative he intends to be with the new Athadian throne, he would cross the river with more trinkets and fewer daughters.”

  Elad continued to smile. “You don’t really think that I’m going to aspire to Lady Salia’s hand—and whatever else she might have to offer—on the first afternoon of her visit, do you?”

  “I will remind you of that,” Abgarthis cautioned Elad, “some afternoon next week.”

  * * * *

  The first snowfall of autumn, light and cool, was falling upon the capital as Ogodis’s royal barge docked. The coating of frost and ice lent, beneath the cool sunlight, a charming beauty to even the most ramshackle of warehouses and office buildings. For Ogodis, who had not visited Athadia in more than three years, the brilliant beauty of the snow now seemed a presentiment.

  He and his daughter and their company were escorted to the palace by a contingent of Khamar palace guards: a hundred men in bright, formal array to guide the arrival of twenty Gaegoshan nobles and their retinues. Ogodis was impressed. He and his daughter were taken by carriage up the wide streets and into the main square before the palace. Trumpeters announced their appearance even as they stepped down from the carriage and were led up the wide white stairs to the front portico, inside, and down the massive, gold-walled and marble-pillared hall into the king’s audience chamber—which had been wholly redecorated and arranged with long stone tables, sweet-burning oil lamps, purple and gold and blue carpets, and brilliantly woven tapestries.

  Abgarthis was there, and he was the first to greet the imbur, his daughter, and their company. Bowing respectfully, Abgarthis made a short speech of welcome and then, with a clap of his hands, ordered servants also dressed in purple and gold and blue to pull aside the draperies that hid the throne dais and an inner portion of the chamber. Gradually, to Ogodis’s and Salia’s eyes, appeared a huge, sumptuous feasting hall, all garlanded and lamplit, smoky with perfumes, shining with silver and gold, aromatic with the scents of polished cedar wood and pine, and with the lure of roasted meats and freshly cooked vegetables.

  They entered. Ogodis, foremost, made his way to the dais, where, bowing thrice, he declared his friendship to the King of Athadia and asked that the gracious bounty of the high gods be heaped upon him tenfold. Elad thanked him, stepped down from his throne, gripped his arm, and looked the imbur in the eyes so that, in a moment, each one had the measure of the other—king and king, man and man, lion crown and hawk miter.

  Elad turned to Salia. He had noticed already, of course, her pale pink skin, her flowing golden hair. Now Ogodis presented his daughter formally, and Elad felt himself tightening as, for the first time in his life, he looked fully upon this woman’s beauty.

  “You don’t really think that I’m going to aspire to Lady Salia’s hand on the first afternoon of her visit, do you?”

  Truly, yes, this was the most beautiful woman in the world, a statue by the renowned Hovem-ovis come to life. The moon herself must regard Princess Salia with a goddess’s envy.

  Young, pale, fragile, with her pink skin and daring blue-gray eyes. Mouth, red-tinted…golden hair…precious slim hand as soft as a breath when she touched the king’s fingers. Attired in a sea-blue dress of silk that clung to her body as though carefully pressed upon her. Silver filets in her hair. A ruby gem at her throat.

  Her eyes smiled at Elad, tolerant of his reaction. And when Salia spoke, thanking this young king for accepting her father’s proposal to intrude upon his court, her voice was charming, not at all girlish, fully the voice of a woman, which further pleased Elad.

  The king became aware that he was staring at her. Quickly—too quickly—he turned from her, glanced at Ogodis, and noticed the imbur’s broad smile.

  Elad bowed ceremoniously to him, then remarked, “We have set our tables, and there will be entertainment. If you please, Lord Ogodis, seat yourselves and enjoy the evening!”

  As his guests were escorted to their couches, Elad, surprised at himself, nonetheless stared after the lithe Salia, watching the grace with which she moved, appreciating the dignity of her step, and enjoying the cleavage of her buttocks beneath blue silk and the sly reminder of long legs.…

  Surely Ogodis was, yes, a crafty—

  “King Elad.” Abgarthis, standing beside him, reminded him, “It is, King Elad, next week.”

  Elad grinned. “Indeed it is, O adviser. Indeed it is.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  O Season of Hell, repugnant to the hopeful.…

  O fears profound, cauterizing memories! O pain boundless, shrinking full life to w
hispers! O torments—O remembrance of bloody feet, stinging heart, prayers rent, kneeling in mud, begging for money, begging for justice, begging like some heartsick animal.…

  O Season of Hell, to be embraced as a lover!

  O lust and love, O sucking mouths, O wet flesh, O moving bodies, untired and damp and sobbing, angry and alone, alone, alone.…

  Forest of shadows, mind of shadows. Speak of the ageless death and of life that does not die. Open a crystal.

  I am a god.…

  O, beyond all hope, destruction of reason, I have lost myself unto myself, I am no more a man, I am no more a thought, I wish to scream forever, my blood burns, my lungs ache, I am not who I am and I am caught in my body, caught in my life, caught.…

  O Season of Hell, O damaged memories, O snakes of fear that catch me, O thing in my mind that does not release me. I am not me, I am not me, I am not me.…

  * * * *

  He was in the woods, seated on the mountainside, watching the dying sun as it shattered into sheets of deep orange and mauve and dark blue, feeling his veins burn. He was afraid, Thameron, because he had been inside himself, and he was like a sinking man who, sunk too many times under the waves, wishes an end to his misery as fervently as he wishes some force to lift him free of the ocean’s hold.

  The stranger appeared to him as he watched the dying sun. The stranger was dressed in the garb of a gentleman, and the sweat and dust of the road were on him. Why he had made his way so far up the mountain and now was here was a wonder. But Thameron had been a stranger himself, many times, and he knew the wary moods of strangers—not the voice of a wandering god, perplexed, but the tenacity of suspicion, of desperation, of wanting all to be made clear.

  “I am on the road to Fortubad,” explained the gentleman. “Perhaps you can tell me the way.”

  “I am a hermit; I live in a cave and do not know where Fortubad is. But there are cities on the coast.”