I remembered women used by Janos and cast aside and suddenly thought of a night long ago in Janos’ castle here in Irayas when I’d seen a mother huddled in a boat crying bitterly for her loss and the smell of something that might have been burnt lamb but wasn’t and a bowl full of a dark liquid being drunk by a thirsty being, not human.
“So one night of passion was supposed to give him all that,” I finally managed and I think my tone was level.
“No. He wants me to stay on here with him. Amalric, perhaps you weren’t listening closely when I said he fears us. He’s more afraid of us, together, than you or I alone.”
“We are a most hellacious pair,” I said, trying to bring a bit of cheer into the room and lift the blood-lust from my eyes that kept moving to the sheathed sword on the table. “Heroes of yore and all that.”
“It’s more than that. One of us is the beaten-together billets of iron and steel. The other is the clay-ash. He thinks there is a great sword smith waiting in the east and a fiery forge that will turn us into something that can shake this world to its very roots.”
“Let him be right about that!” I snarled.
“So now you know as much as I.”
I thought hard. “In two days we will climb the Holy Mountain. We might delay our departure for a week after that. I don’t think it would be wise to hurry away the day following the ceremony. That would unquestionably send Modin into a frenzy and make him send evil magic and possibly even warships after us. Do we have that kind of time?”
“I don’t know,” Janela said.
“Did Modin give you any sort of ultimatum?”
“No. Not specifically.”
“Then that’s our course. I don’t think we can cancel the ceremony and attempt to depart immediately. So we can only hope Modin remains inactive.”
There was a very long silence in the room.
“There is one thing we might do,” Janela said. I turned to her and she was looking away at the wall. “Modin knows we aren’t... aren’t familiar with each other. Aren’t lovers, I mean. That is one reason he made his offer. He believes that if he sleeps with me before you do... it’s almost as if he thinks I were still a virgin and he could seize all my powers by having me first.”
I felt heat on my cheeks and suddenly the entire situation became a bit funny. “If he is worried about my crazed lust and fears the competition, I’m afraid his powers are such he’d be best qualified for a post guarding King Gayyath’s concubines. Isn’t he aware of my age?”
“Will you help me, Amalric?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. “Tell me how?”
Janela didn’t answer but stood up, went to first one lantern, then the other and turned their wicks down until there was no light in the chamber but the nightlight and the shine of the moon through the windows.
“He may be a sorcerer,” she said. “But he can’t know everything.”
She slipped out of her clothes and her body was lovely and gleaming in the dim light. Then she blew out the nightlight and all was darkness. I heard her whispering, the rustle of bedclothes and then the creak of the leather bedsprings.
“Lord Modin has seen all that he can,” she said. “I’ve shielded us with a blocking spell and now he’s certain to think the worst of me.”
I stood there feeling foolish. Janela giggled.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Your virtue is safe. ”
I went to the bed feeling as gawky as a bridegroom and nearly fell over one of her boots. I sat on the bed and wondered if I should try to sleep with the towel around me. Again I saw the humor in my befuddlement, tossed it away and slid under the covers. I did, however, keep very close to the edge of the bed.
It was very quiet in the room. I could hear the lap of the water outside and far away the chime of a gondola’s bell. Janela’s breathing softened and became regular.
I was almost asleep when she moved close, resting her head against my shoulder and sliding an arm across my chest. She murmured something in her sleep and I felt her soft body pressed against my side.
I felt the stirrings of something awkward and unseemly. She could be my own great granddaughter, after all. What’s more she trusted me enough to use my bed to befuddle Modin.
Then she sighed again and my own eyes grew heavy. And the next thing I knew the sun’s rays were flaming in the window, jolting me awake.
* * * *
The way up the Holy Mountain was even harder and rockier than I remembered, both in mind and body. The wounds came back, almost as sharp as they’d been those long years ago when I’d cremated Janos’ remains and sent his spirit flashing to the east.
It was just false dawn when we reached the ruins of the Old Ones’ altar. There were four of us, Otavi, Quatervals, Janela and myself. I told the two men to set their packs down and go down the mountain, out of sight. This ceremony needed no adulteration from eyes who didn’t know its meaning.
Janela took six small jars of paint and a brush from her pack and began marking letters on the altar, letters from no language I ever knew.
I just stood, waiting. Perhaps it was cold atop that mountain. If it was, I don’t remember feeling it.
The plateau was deserted. The people of Vacaan were discomforted by the place, reminded of those who’d gone before who had powers beyond their own.
I thought I saw a stain on the altar but I was imagining things — the ashes from the fire that’d set Janos free would’ve been washed away long ago by the storms of winter.
Janela opened the two packs and took out two handfuls of sticks. She positioned them on the altar in an exact pattern. We’d brought these bits of wood all the way from Orissa. I’d gotten a few of them from a jewel case warranted to have been made in Kostroma, Janos Greycloak’s birthplace.
Others came from a door I’d purchased from the Magistrate’s Own Guard and cut apart, a door that’d been to Janos’ room. Another fragment came from one of my father’s chairs that Janos had favored when he sat drinking with him. The last came from the dock of the castle he’d stayed in.
Janela poured oil on the sticks and we waited.
The first rays of the sun broke over the horizon and at that moment Janela said three words and the altar fire caught and roared into life — flame as great as if we were setting a midsummer’s eve bonfire alight.
Just as before the smoke curled above the altar as if waiting. Out of nowhere came a wind into the east and it took the smoke, sending it swirling out over cliff.
But then the plume hesitated and turned back against the wind and curled to the altar and around us, as if embracing Janela and me.
It did not smell of fire, or of aged wood or the varnishes the woods had been coated with but instead the salt of the sea, the touch of tar of a ship’s rope and coming through the other odors strange smells, myrrh perhaps, orange blossoms certainly, honey, juniper, sweet calamus.
I was staring directly into the sun’s rays but wasn’t blinded, didn’t see it but something else.
Once before atop this mountain I’d seen a vision, a vision of a high mountain range, a range that looked like a great clenched fist with snow shining between the fist’s covering of snow. I’d seen a mountain almost like that and crossed it with Janos, thinking I’d found the Fist of the Gods. Then, the day I burnt Janos’ body I’d seen the vision that haunted me until Janela came to explain we had been wrong.
And now I knew for certain that she was quite correct.
I was looking beyond Irayas, beyond the land the river curved through to the Eastern Sea. I saw that ocean stretching beyond man’s reach and then I saw land. I saw the mouth of a huge river, greater even than the one leading to Irayas. Beyond the river’s mouth my vision fogged but I could see still further and it was if I were a bird, flying at incomprehensible speed. Land was below but I did not see it.
My vision was fixed on a high mountain range, a range clenched like a giant’s fist. A giant... or a god.
Now I knew. Yes, I
knew to the heart of my soul.
“Look,” Janela whispered and I forced my eyes to the side. She was holding the silver statuette of the dancer and again it became flesh and again she danced in front of an exotic court, a court of beautiful men and women and demons. The king and queen were still on their thrones and that wolf-snouted demon still lusted after the dancer. But my eyes went on to where a window opened on the court with gardens and a city below.
But that is not only what drew eye. Far away in that small tableau against the horizon, I saw mountains, a series of peaks that could only be the other side of the fisted mountain range I’d just envisioned.
In a blink it was gone and my eyes were watering as the sun struck at them.
Neither Janela or I said anything.
Words were not needed.
It was time to leave for the Kingdoms of the Night.
* * * *
Now we were ready for a rapid departure, having accomplished the three things necessary in Irayas — confirming Janela’s beliefs; resupplying our ships; and most importantly securing permission from King Gayyath, no matter how tenuous that permission might be. I’d puzzled on just how to prepare for leaving without word going instantly to Lord Modin and the King through their spy Lienor and the other agents I knew to be part of our household.
I did plan to make formal farewells at court but with such short notice I might forestall whatever Modin might devise against us. I’d come up with the stratagem of announcing an inspection of all my men and women and the ships, all to be travel-ready. Once the packs were together and the ships’ cargoes properly stowed we could leave in actuality on very short notice.
To make sure it seemed like no more than an inspection, I’d promised horrendous punishments for dirty equipment or compartments not being shipshape such as two weeks kitchen duty, a month’s worth of nightwatch, no permission to leave the castle for a week, all indicating our stay would continue.
Both Janela and myself were shaken by our vision atop the mountain and I was exhausted from the climb.
Janela sent for me shortly after our return with a request I make haste. I was sitting in my chambers wanting a nap but having to listen to Pip babble on about how he hadn’t known things were going to be like this and he surely wouldn’t have contracted under these circumstances and surely the gracious Lord Antero would be willing to discuss the terms of his payment to include benefits in the unlikely event of his not returning to Orissa and so on and so forth.
It was Pip’s old familiar song that I’d heard on other expeditions. I laughed and said if he expected more gold he’d best put out more work and hope there’d be a handsome bonus on our return. Our familiar by-play complete, I went to Janela’s chambers, wondering what she needed.
She had her bag open on the table and sorcerous implements spread out. A beaker of some awful-looking and worse-smelling liquid sat in front of her.
“Amalric,” she said, without preamble, “we have problems.”
“As if I didn’t know that.”
“This you don’t know and I’m afraid I must show it to you, rather than tell you. Sit down. Hold out a finger. I need a bit of your blood.”
I obeyed and she nicked me with a tiny silver scythe, not gold like the ones I’d seen used in spells before. She held my finger over the beaker and squeezed out three drops of blood.
“Perhaps I’ve been sensitized by the ceremony on the mountain,” she said. “Once more I’ve been feeling that sense of dread, of menace, like unknown enemies have been watching. The last few hours I felt it not just here, which I ascribe to Modin and his sorcery and from whatever we shall face to the east, but behind us, too. From an unexpected place. I’ll say no more.
“Now hold out your hands, palms up.”
She began smearing a yellowish salve onto them.
“You say you don’t have any of the Talent, which I know to be false... hush, I’m tired of the argument. I am now going to send you, in spirit, back down the river to the sea. Then south and east — toward Orissa. I fear I know what you will see. If my incantation doesn’t work I’ll tell you what I think is happening and take whatever oaths you require to ensure you believe I’m telling the truth.”
I put my hands down just a bit angry. “Janela. Stop that at once. I need no oaths from you.”
“For this... you might.” She looked at me and her face held infinite sorrow. “I’m sorry, my Amalric. So very sorry.”
She held out her palms like a priestess and began chanting:
Blood finds blood
Blood seeks blood
Blood will find
Blood will see
Blood will find
In a normal tone: “Now, drink the potion.”
I did, holding it awkwardly between the heels of my hands, to the dregs. It tasted sweet, then bitter, then galling, almost making my throat close.
Before I could gag, protest or even set the beaker down I was torn from my body and sent reeling into space.
When I was a boy there’d been a brief fascination in Orissa for cycloramas. These were paintings on long strips of canvas. The viewers sat in chairs and the cyclorama was reeled from one cylinder to another in front of them. In this way one could experience a voyage by boat from Orissa to the river’s mouth or along the Lemon Coast or by carriage from the city into the mountains. They were prized for their detail and length.
Now it was if I were hanging over such a cyclorama, one being unreeled at dizzying speed. The river twisted below me like a beheaded snake and I saw Marinduque and then I was hurtling over the ocean, heading back toward Orissa. Below me on the unrelieved sea I saw dots and I was diving on them. Then the dots became ten ships and I saw the welcome banner of Orissa flying from their mainmasts.
I recognized the ships — they were mine, part of the Antero merchant fleet. But these had been rigged for war — anti-boarding nets were strung from the yards and catapults or trebuchets were mounted on the forecastles. On their decks were men wearing leather battledress and practicing with weaponry.
Then I was aboard one ship, the flagship I somehow sensed and hanging in the air, invisible, above the quarterdeck. Below me stood Cligus! Why was my son on his way to Irayas?
Cligus was dressed for war and was in deep conversation with a Guards officer I’d seen before dancing attendance on him but whose name I couldn’t remember. I wanted desperately to hear their conversation and then I could. Not clearly as if I were next to them but as if I were halfway down a tunnel, or perhaps hearing them from the depths of a fever so only an occasional word came clear: “...what we can... arrest... a trial, of course... permits... explanation... turncoat... when I return... proof... all Orissa will know... and then Hermias will be doomed along with him.”
Then, most clearly, as Cligus spread a look of mock sorrow that didn’t mask the glee in his eyes:
“My own father! In Te-Date’s name, how will I ever bear the shame!”
I was smashed back to Irayas, returned to my body, slumped in a chair in Janela’s chambers. She looked at me, knew what I’d seen, got up and went to a window, pointedly staring away. I fought for control and failed. Futile tears took me, then rage spread through their midst. In a dull tone I reported precisely what I’d heard and seen. “How could...” I managed to find other words as I spoke, “...Orissa listen to that?”
“Amalric, I know this is a blow but you must keep your wits sharp about you. You told me Cligus said something to the effect that all Orissa will know, once he returns with the evidence or with you. And you said those were your ships. You said before that Cligus had powerful friends. I’d wager that he was able to get an expedition authorized, at his expense, to investigate some charges he concocted. As yet you’ve not been read out from whatever Orissa uses for a Traitor’s gate. Certainly you still have friends there. Cligus was cursing your heir, Hermias, so he must be standing firm and still be safe. And I can’t believe Palmeras would believe anything Cligus told him.”
; “I know he wouldn’t.”
“What is important is this thing about bringing you back. Do you believe Cligus is telling the truth about his intent?”
Cligus could not bring me back alive. No matter what evidence or false witnesses Cligus had manufactured, there’d be no way the charges would stand once I returned to Orissa. So Cligus had coldly planned something that could only result in patricide.
“How could he do this?” It was a pointless question on my part, but came from the soul.
“I’ll not answer one part of that... he is what he is and I won’t be the cause of more pain to you. But there is another how — the practical one. How could Cligus succeed in such an audacious farce that no one capable of thought could listen to? I said I sensed magic, sensed some malevolent force ahead and now behind us, just as I sensed someone I thought to be Cligus pursuing us. The forces are one and the same. Someone... something... to the east has linked forces with Cligus.”
“Forces like Senac?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Does Cligus know,” I asked, clinging to the straw, “or is he just their pawn?”
“I can’t answer that. Perhaps he’s but their tool, although that should be of scant comfort since a pure spirit cannot be so corrupted. But openly in league with whoever our enemies are, I’m unsure. He might not be since there were no great sorcerous forces opposing me when I made my visit. I would think if there were a demon actually aboard those ships I would have been found out instantly and had to make an immediate escape.”
Again grief took me. I buried my head in my hands.
“You’re right, I suppose,” I managed. “My mind is a muddle. I need some time to clear it.”
“We don’t have time, Amalric. That’s why I sent for you in such haste. Cligus’ ships are less than two weeks from Irayas and we’ll need at least a week to sail downriver to the sea.”
Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) Page 15
