Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Long moments passed, then she stirred and her eyes opened. They weren’t looking at me, but rather at some horror. Her hands reached out, grasping and she tried to speak but all that came was a grating gargle.

  I waited no longer but cast water across the braziers; they hissed and went out. Before the last of the smoke dissipated I took the dagger that lay beside me and cut sharply across the circle. The spell was broken and Janela returned.

  She was pale, shaking. I shouted for brandy and Quatervals brought some. She rinsed her mouth, spat, then swallowed a long mouthful.

  “They’re coming,” she said finally. “Coming fast. They’re somewhere below the swamp.”

  “They saw you,” I said.

  “Modin did... and reached for me. He nearly had me and I was prepared to fight him, spirit against flesh on his ground, but you brought me back. Next time—”

  “There will not be a next time,” I ordered. “Not like that at any rate. This expedition has but one Evocator and if she can’t find another way of reconnoitering we will travel blind.”

  “Maybe the crocs’ll do for them,” Quatervals said.

  Janela shook her head. “No. They’ll be unharmed. A matter of common background.” She managed a weak smile.

  She was still shaken by Modin’s attack. I guessed the wizard had prepared his trap some time before. In the future we would have to take better precautions.

  I helped Janela to her cabin. I helped her undress and she tumbled into bed without protest and closed her eyes. I sat holding her hand until her breath came regularly, then touched my finger to my lips and to hers. A smile came and went and I silently withdrew.

  * * * *

  The land became drier and rose around us until we entered a deep gorge — the stone walls reaching two or three hundred feet above us. Although the river was nearly a quarter-mile-wide the water should have rushed through the gorge like a torrent; instead, ancient magic made it flow smoothly, calmly. The current may have been stronger but so was the wind, channeled up the gorge so our sails creaked and groaned as we sped onward.

  There were fish great and small in the waters around us and birds of prey to hunt them. Fisheagles with wingspan nearly the breadth of our boat dived and swooped. Once I saw a smaller hawk get too close to the water and something leapt up, took the bird and vanished before I could see if it was fish or reptile. After that, those few of my men who were still fishing when offwatch lost interest in the sport and we ate only ship’s rations.

  In spite of our pursuit we sailed only by day, not wanting to chance running blind into rocks or hostiles.

  The gorge wound on and I thought if we had no goal and no enemies behind us the days could have gone on forever. It was always balmy and what rain fell came in gentle showers. The mornings were soft with mist and rainbows arced over the gorge ahead of us.

  At intervals there were large caves in the rocky wall — caves carved by men. Mooring bits had been cut from the rock and steps led up to where the caves had been built above the spring flood marks. I remembered the road that’d been carved into the river rock Janos and I had traveled on when we’d sought the Far Kingdoms and knew the same hands had been at work here. But then there had just been a roadway with occasional bypasses.

  On this river there were small villages cut into the rock, with cubicles, little roofless houses to sleep in; open areas for markets; benches and tableaus, all marvelously worked from the gorge’s heart, each about a day’s sail apart. Travelers in those days could’ve gone from one encampment to another, never having to either sleep aboard uncomfortable ships nor chance the outdoors.

  Kele had asked if we should use them for our overnight landings but there was a chorus of objections from the men. There was no need to argue with their superstitions since the river had more than enough islets to tie up to and sleep on firm ground. We posted guards with bows and chanced casting nets for our meals several times without ourselves being fished.

  One night, full of a particularly fine whitefish that Maha had baked with wild mushrooms, dried tomatoes and then covered with a spicy sauce made from river shrimp caught with a bait net, Janela and I sat away from the others, talking idly. She’d taken her boots off and was drawing in the sand with a delicately-pointed foot.

  “I wonder,” she said, “what my great grandfather would have been thinking, if you and he had gone on past Irayas and had sat here on this beach.”

  “I doubt he would have been relaxing in the sand,” I said. “Most likely he’d be trying to cast his vision in front of us, to see what was ahead. He’d be busy trying to come up with a way to travel by night or, failing that, endlessly studying for more clues to the nature of magic. Although Janos had many virtues, appreciating slothful moments wasn’t one of them.”

  “I used to be like that,” Janela said. “Then I agreed to study under a master who promised to teach me how to feel one with the world and sense how all things are linked. Since that seemed like part of my great-grandfather’s beliefs, I agreed.

  “He sat me in the rain with a yellow flower and told me to study it. I saw no sense in it, but did as he commanded. For hours all I could think of was how sore my behind was, how tense my muscles were and that if I sat much longer I’d catch a chill from the rain. On the next day I determined to work harder and did. I concentrated solely on that flower. It may have helped or it may have hurt that day was fine and sunny. After some hours my mind did clear though and I could fill myself with the essence of the flower.”

  “Thank whatever gods you worshipped you weren’t sitting in front of a cow,” I joked.

  “It might as well have been one,” she smiled. “Several weeks passed, during which time I spoke little. My master also spoke little except to lecture me on the concentration process or, since I had also agreed to be his bodyservant and cook, to give orders.”

  “I’ve heard of such philosophers,” I said. “We have a few living in the wilds beyond Orissa. I often thought of visiting them but never quite found the time.”

  “I don’t know whether that was your gain or loss,” Janela said. “I learned a bit of patience from this man. I was with him for nearly four months. Then one day I realized something larger and left him that same afternoon. He was angry, saying I’d broken the agreement and I should have been prepared to spend at least five years with him and by then I would have made a choice about the rest of my life.

  “But I already had one — to find the Kingdoms of the Night.”

  “That was your greater realization?”

  “No. I just wondered why my goal was to have as few thoughts as possible. Stupid people think less than intelligent people, so why would I devote five years to becoming dumber?”

  I chuckled. “I’m sure,” I said, “your master disagreed.”

  “Not only that, but he didn’t even smile when I told him that. Again I wondered why most of those who choose some sort of spiritual life seem to give up their sense of humor?”

  “Janos was like that,” I remembered, “in the latter days.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” she said. “Kings and those who would be kings don’t seem to laugh a great deal either, save at the discomfort of others.”

  I sat, thinking for awhile. “You know,” I said, “at one time I was concerned about you... that you might be too much like Janos.”

  “You mean be willing to turn against anyone and anything,” she said, “to gain this magical crown of knowledge? Knowledge that gives real temporal power? I don’t think I would. I never have held respect for such men or those few women I’ve encountered who sat a throne.

  “Look at those coming behind us. Modin has, or had at any rate, great power and now he’s sculling along in our wake after something I doubt he knows much about. Except it is of value to us. And Cligus? What would Cligus gain if he caught and... dealt with you as he plans? Nothing. Orissa will continue on, Cligus will inherit not much more in the way of riches and certainly no more knowledge than what little he pos
sesses now.

  “I share all too many of my great-grandfather’s faults and have many all my own. I lust after knowledge as badly as Grandsire Janos did and long to discover that single law that lays all worlds and all knowledge open to me.

  “But then to use that knowledge to gain temporal or even spiritual power? Power for its own sake isn’t what I desire. But I’ll be honest, Amalric. Such a diadem isn’t in my grasp yet. When we reach the Kingdoms of the Night you’d best watch me closely. If I stop making jokes, reach for your dagger.” She grinned, then turned serious.

  “There was something I gained from that master,” she said. “A willingness to be alone with my thoughts. I found that I was able to consider some things I’d never quite known how to handle. Such as what my great grandfather was. It was most important I deal with this, since he was the one who set a name and a goal for me. But it’s hard to accept the reality that my grandsire, my hero I guess I’d have to name him, was in many ways a monster.

  “Do you dismiss him — disclaim him because of that? Or do you do what most of us do and paint over his vices and sing loud about his virtues? I was... am able, or so I honestly believe, to accept Janos Greycloak as a whole man and still find him great and worth following to a certain degree.”

  “To be able to do that,” I said, “is very hard. I thought when I performed the cremation rites that I had forgiven him. But when I wrote my journal I discovered I still harbored ill feelings toward him, as well as many guilts of my own. There were two journeys in that book. One was the search for the Far Kingdoms. The other was a search for a man I had once called my friend.”

  “In my view,” Janela said, “that was the most successful journey. You may have mistaken Vacaan for the Far Kingdoms. But you did not mistake Janos Greycloak in your final summation of the man.”

  For reasons I could not fathom I took her hand. We sat silently in the night for a long time. Finally a hunting lion roared satisfaction from somewhere on the plateau above us and we made our way past the sentries to our bedrolls stretched on the sand.

  * * * *

  Two nights later we were forced to stay at one of the village-caves, since we’d sighted no islands by afternoon. I could lie and say only the more superstitious men were afraid but shall not, since all of us were apprehensive. After the enticer on the island and the crocodile folk, who knew what strange enchantments lay in this land beyond the seas?

  Janela cast a divination when we tied up and said she felt no threat, no jeopardy. But she cautioned us to stay close together since there were many kinds of magics here and her senses weren’t yet attuned to all of them. We needed little warning. But nothing happened and we found the small hideaway most cheerful, particularly as it had clouded over and threatened rain. In our nook above the river it could storm as much as it wished.

  After we’d eaten some of the braver men, Chons and the Cyralian brothers, even went exploring. Chons came running back in great excitement and said he’d found a flight of steps that might lead to the land above the gorge.

  Janela and I decided to see what lay above us. Quatervals pretended he would have rather napped but in truth was glad of some exercise and he dug out some torches in case night fell before we returned. The Cyralian brothers, Chons and three other well-armed men accompanied us in the long climb.

  The steps climbed in zig-zags, parallel with the gorge. There were high gallery windows cut into the rock and there was still enough light to see clearly. Centuries of passage had badly worn the middle of the steps, making me realize just how long ago our shelter had been built. When we were just a few flights from the top I whispered a warning and all of us except Janela drew our weapons. There was nothing to fear that I knew of, but it was senseless to play the innocent.

  On the last landing lay scattered bones. I studied them closely in the gloom and decided they were those of a horse and rider. Driven into the stairwell to tumble to their deaths by... by what? I didn’t know. We went on with much more caution.

  We came out of a low stone building that might have been easily mistaken for a small rise in the ground. On either side were broken-down hitching rails and not far away stone corrals. The hideaway below would’ve been a connecting point for traders from inland and river merchants.

  The land around us was sparse, bare, unwatered. There were strange-looking trees, twisted, reaching up at the heavens for water that came but seldom to this desert. We looked far out into the wasteland and saw no sign of life. Wherever the traders had come from was either destroyed or a far journey.

  We crept to the gorge and looked over. Far, far below, like tiny motionless waterbeetles lay the Ibis, Glowworm and Firefly, tied to the dock.

  Quatervals muttered in what he possibly imagined to be singing: “...to see what we would see/But all that we did see/But all that we did see/Was more and more to see/Was more and more to see...”

  One of the brothers tssed sharply — no doubt one of their secret poaching signals and pointed off, upriver. I looked but saw nothing.

  “At the clouds,” he said, his voice in a needless whisper. “See the lights?”

  By now it was close to full dark and I craned, seeing nothing, then seeing, very faint then more discernible, lights reflected off the overcast.

  “There’s folks over there,” he said. “’Nough of ’em to shine like they’re a city. Big village, anyways.”

  We waited for another hour and by then it was clear we weren’t seeing the moon’s reflection but illumination from some settlement. I couldn’t tell how much further upriver it lay, nor could anyone else make an estimate.

  This was producing nothing but a warning for the morrow’s travel. We turned back for the stairs and Chons looked puzzled. “I swear,” he said in a murmur, “I swear I can hear music. Coming from where those lights are.”

  I listened, but heard nothing, nor did anyone else. The Cyralian brothers gently mocked Chons, saying he’d already impressed them and could go a-poaching, beg pardon Lord Antero, a-hunting, with them when they returned to Orissa. He didn’t need to be makin’ up tales about what he could see hear or smell. Chons looked stubborn, clamped his lips and said no more.

  We lit the torches and crept back downward, minding our way, until we returned to the others.

  Janela and I gathered the three captains and told them what we’d seen and asked how we should handle matters. Should we boldly sail up on this city and announce ourselves as peaceful?

  Kele grunted, and said, “th’ odds don’t favor that, Lord, considerin’ th’ closest thing we’ve had f’r a mate in these parts wa’ th’ steer-shagger back yon.”

  “By th’ same token,” Towra put in, “isn’t that as likely to mean our luck’s changin’? Or about to, anyhap?”

  I didn’t know. Maybe we should break one of our rules and tie up short of the city and try to sail past silently in the depths of the night. I offered this but was argued with — surely any city would have sentries on their waterfront and anyone who tried to creep past would surely be thought as hostile, particularly in these times, when no one was on the river. None of the captains thought we had the slightest chance of not being seen even if we lowered all sails and used the sweeps — unless the river just happened to broaden out, and there didn’t seem to be much chance of that.

  Janela was listening and as she did, preparing a spell. She lightly chalked a circle with a vee-through it, pointing upriver toward what we’d seen and a curve closing the wide end of the vee. She put a small candle about a foot in front of the arrow and then lit it. She re-outlined the figure with an unguent from her purse, then found an archer and got one of his arrowheads. Grimacing a little, she drew blood from a finger with its tip, touched its point to her eyelids, then laid the arrow in the center of the vee and chanted:

  Go now

  Go swift

  Carry me

  To the light

  See the light

  Find the light.

  She cast the into the darkness,
then sat hastily. An instant later her head snapped back, as if she was mounted on a stallion that’d just bounded away, then her head came forward, eyes tightly shut. In a moment her eyes opened and she sucked in air, shaking her head.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I don’t know if the spell didn’t take, or if there’s wards, but I saw and felt nothing out there, nothing at all.” She thought for a moment, then went on. “Very odd, as I come to think, because there was not even the force from animals I should have sensed. I guess the spell just didn’t work.”

  She began putting away her gear, and looked up at us. “I’m sorry. But I don’t know any more than anyone else.”

  “So,” Beran put in slowly, “there’s nothin’ for it but to stick our heads in the noose, eh?”

  There wasn’t. We doubled the guards that night and roused everyone before dawn. As soon as we could see the water we cast off our lines and raised our sails.

  For the first time the gorge required careful navigation. Pinnacles ripped up from the river’s bottom nearly to the top of the canyon’s wall or worse, to just a few inches above the water, ready to rip into the hull of a careless sailor’s ship. The winds were somewhat fickle and we were forced to tack back and forth, wearing our way upriver slowly and laboriously.

  By midday we still hadn’t come on the city, or village or whatever it was and I determined we’d pull into the next cave-village and deal with tomorrow on the morrow. But there was nothing, not a shelter, not an islet, not even rock pinnacles we could tie fast to.

  We sailed on and the day grew later.

  Sweeping around a bend we came on the city. The gorge opened into a wide draw and in this expanse the city had been built. It was large, but there was no sign of life. There were no ships tied up at the waterfront, no boats, no movement on the docks and not a light to be seen. I ordered the crews into armor and full readiness for battle and we sailed closer.