Just then I got it, about the time both Janela and Kele noted my puzzlement and decided to explain. This enormous apparatus was no more than an endless bucket such as farmers use to water their fields or a funicular, like one an Orissan speculator had rigged once with cables and boxes to carry those too lazy, old or infirm to the peak of Mount Aephens, which had lasted one entire summer and then the winter winds ripped it away. But by Te-Date, the magnificence of this magic and machine! This was yet another device the Old Ones had to guard their heartland well.
There would be no need to fight an enemy trying to come against them upriver. All that would be necessary would be to cancel the spell working the gears and shut the engine down or lay a simple vision-blocking conjuration so the slight gap in the waterfall wouldn’t be seen. Into my mind flashed something Janos had once said — “The greatest warrior I’ve known was one who fought never a battle but won all his country’s wars by subtlety and subterfuge.”
No doubt the spell would sense a ship going downstream above and the gears automatically reverse and send the chain the other way, working as a brake, although we’d have to design some sort of chain-rigging if we returned by this route, no doubt. I grinned — was I becoming so self-confident I actually believed any of us would survive this? A day ago I’d been locked in gloom and fear, and now, with something that appeared to be going to design, was suddenly as bubbling and happy-go-lucky as bumpkin who has finally been allowed to win a toss of the dice.
Kele was on the quarterdeck, hand-signaling, Janela beside her, working with those tiny signaling flags and then we were in the channel, being taken up toward the land above.
I saw working parties scurrying on the decks of the Firefly and Glowworm, so knew Towra and Beran had understood what was needed.
The chain lifted us slowly up and up, into another pool, where another toothed wheel and chain went up a second flume, just exactly like stairs. We had more than enough time to free ourselves from the chain before it went underwater and back down. There were two more channels and again we journeyed upward hour after hour and then came out of a high-arched tunnel into the clear sunlight and we were back out on the river as it flowed across the plateau. We unshackled the chains for the last time and rejoiced as our other two ships came out of the darkness.
Downstream we heard the roar of the waterfalls that fell into the gorge we’d left some hours earlier.
I swore that now I could smell the real Far Kingdoms.
* * * *
We sailed on, the land around us as barren and sere as it had been when we climbed the stairs at the trader’s shelter far behind us. There was nothing to see, nothing to do but the few duties required to hold our course, since the wind blew steadily in the direction we wanted, and lie on the deck panting like hounds and sweating. We rigged awnings but the wind came hot and dry, bringing sand from the desert across our decks and into our food.
But we were all cheerful, knowing we’d finished another stage of our journey. Perhaps there’d be another gorge or another swamp around the bend but we would deal with that, just as we dealt with the others and would in time deal with Cligus and Modin if we were unlucky and they caught up to us.
Such is man, always reeling from elation to despair. But then, if those of us who were out here, far beyond the known world, had wanted it any other way we could have snuggled down in that warm sty of contentment and boredom that was civilization.
One night we sighted a glow on the horizon. We became nervous, remembering that city of ghosts behind us. But it was still there when the sun rose and as we closed on it, hour after hour, became a vertical pillar of fire, rising out of the bare desert.
“Magic,” one of the sailors said.
“Not necessarily,” Janela replied. “Haven’t you ever seen when the earth bleeds sticky oil or where tar covers a swamp? If that could be lighted I’d wager it’d look like what we’re seeing.”
As we came up on it we saw a scatter of huts along the riverbank, no more than a league from the column of fire. We saw people standing near them, watching us.
We chanced drawing close but kept our weapons at hand, ready to fire back and return to midstream if we encountered hostility, but there was none.
There was a rude dock and we moored not far from it and lowered a boat. Janela, Quatervals, Pip and I went ashore, more to stretch our legs than in the hopes of getting information or finding anything.
It was well we had no expectations because the people were a poor lot. Unsurprisingly they called themselves the People of the Flame in their own tongue and claimed they were the last of a once-mighty people, who’d ruled this wasteland with sword and fire. But their mounts had been taken from them by the gods.
Gods? we asked.
Those who live up there and they pointed on, up the river.
Who are they? What did they look like? How far away were they? Had anyone of this generation or the one before seen these gods?
No to all questions. What had happened to them had happened in their grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s and so forth time.
They had little to trade except water from a sweet well, but more out of pity than anything else we filled our barrels and left these miserable folks with some play-pretties and candies.
I gave a sugar-stick to one boy who would have been about seven. He was quite naked and it was evident from his and the others’ smells they didn’t feel swimming a worthwhile avocation. I noted he had a pet, a lizard about the length of my arm on a string. I asked him if it had a name and he shook his head, no.
He said it would be bad to name it since it was a great one, descended from those steeds the gods had taken away. I blinked at that and reached down to examine the little creature.
It opened tiny fanged jaws and spat at me and its spittle smoked and burnt like fire. I jerked my hand back and swore.
The boy nodded. “Does that to me, too.”
He sucked hard on his sugarstick and his expression grew dreamy, finding tastes he’d most likely never known.
I looked at the lizard, wondered a bit, but knew I’d never know more.
We reboarded and sailed onward.
* * * *
On the sixth day after that we saw a shimmer on the land ahead of us, crossing from horizon to horizon.
Hardly daring to hope or even to pray we sailed closer and closer and then a vast, fabulous lake opened before us.
Just beyond rose the mountains.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PEOPLE OF THE LAKE
All river folk have a fascination for where a thing might begin or end. We sit by the banks of our river and watch the endless coming and going, dreaming of what it would be like to join such grand processions. Some of us are so afflicted we become wanderers, always seeking the source of all things; praying, even, that we might be the first to see such wonders. It’s a glorious, if childish, feeling that allows you to briefly imagine that instead of a puny mortal looking up at a mountain you are that haughty ageless range looking down.
I’ve enjoyed such fleeting moments many times in my life. But never so much that the pleasure grew stale. And so when we came into the great lake where the river was born, one part of me was wary, sniffing the heavy air for new dangers, while the other was drunk with the heady wine of discovery; for while the Old Ones might have reigned here a millennium or more ago, it was a place no one from my world had ever seen.
The lake seemed nearly as broad as a sea. Janela’s map showed we needed to sail for its most distant shore out of sight to the east. Plumes of mist ribboned up from the lake’s cool surface and the air shimmered under a bright sun, giving the view the cast of a magical mirror. The water was low that time of year and near the shore trees grew right up from the bottom — singly or clotted together like a small woodlot.
Lily pads the size of serving platters at a palace table floated their blossoms across the shallows, filling the air with fragrance. Fabulous dragonflies with dazzling wings darted
here and there in search of mates, while emerald-feathered birds half as tall as a man stalked the water on stilted legs, necks as graceful as swans, scarlet beaks long slender poniards prodding among the lilies for dinner.
There was a faint breeze carrying the cool, damp scent of the feathery ferns that fanned out under trees that grew amazingly tall and straight toward the sky. Fat-fisted clouds knuckled under that vaulted course, giving everything an ethereal, peaceful look — as if we were at the entrance of a realm where all was clean and kind and good.
From this lake the river flowed, bringing life to those who dwelled below. After the Months Of Cold, when the snows from the mountains melted, wondrous falls would thunder from craggy cliffs and countless streams would burst their narrow banks, filling the lake to the brim until it spilled out and made the river a glorious beast, rushing along all those weary miles we had traversed until it met the sea.
In happier eras villages and towns would have held festivals to thank the gods for such bounty; there would be music and love-struck couples and clucking grannies shaking their heads at such goings on.
I smiled, chuckling to myself in memory of those lusty years when my own loins were as bursting as a reborn river and there had been many a maid to dally with and fuel the gossip of those finger-wagging grannies.
“What amuses you so, Amalric?” Janela asked.
When I told her she smiled and asked, “Are you certain those years are lost to you?”
I felt my cheeks flush, which made her smile wider and her eyes dance in humor at my discomfort. There was no denying I’d changed greatly since she’d first set eyes on me in my villa. I’d grown stronger, sleeker — limbs heavy with new muscle, waist narrow, chest no longer sagging with age. My old man’s stoop was gone and I stood tall and straight again; easy in my boots, confident in my stride. I didn’t need a mirror to know the marks of age had been erased from my features as well or that my white locks had been replaced by a shock of red hair that shone like hearth fire. I only had to see the occasional looks of wonder from my companions to realize that I appeared a man in his fourth decade rather than a fellow weighted down by almost twice those years.
Their wonderment, however, was never expressed in words. At first this mystified me almost as much as the change itself. I later realized, however, that they saw it as merely another facet of the mystique of Lord Amalric Antero. A mystique that in their view had already led me to make great, previously unthought of discoveries. If anything, the change only made them trust my leadership more.
But instead of glorying in my regained youth I was now stricken by odd guilts after Janela had reminded me of my appearance. Age had taken my friends, as well as my dear Omyere. Why should I be spared? If spared I was — for I was not certain the gods were cursing me instead of bestowing a blessing. Sometime I felt a stranger, an intruder in disguise among my companions: their talk was the talk of youth, full of yet-to-be-realized dreams and untainted by harsh disappointment.
“What is happening to me, Janela?” I asked.
She placed a comforting hand on my arm. “I’m not certain,” she said. “But I wouldn’t worry that the change is an evil thing.”
I looked at her, wondering how she could have guessed my bleaker thoughts.
“I’ve made castings,” she went on, “and searched my memory for similar occurrences of men and women who might have had similar experiences. I’ve heard of people becoming old before their time; witches, even, who became hags overnight and nothing but a hank of hair and pile of dust by the next day. But I’ve never read of age being reversed, although it is certainly a long-sought goal of many a sorcerer. All I can say is, the closer we come to our goal the younger you seem to become. Although your progress has seemed to slow of late. I very much doubt you’ll continue until you become a mewling babe trying to use his sword for a teething ring.’
I laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “Now you’ve given me something new to worry about.”
“Well don’t,” she said. “Think of it as that figurine my great grandfather carried and how it became newer and more whole the closer you came to realizing your dreams.”
I saw the development in a more cheery light. I thought how happy I would be if Omyere were with me now and we could grow younger together and pleasure each other every night until the break of dawn.
My reverie was broken. Up ahead was one of the Old Ones’ demonwoman markers jutting at the channel’s edge. The beauteous side was turned toward me, peering down coldly, regally, as if mocking my foolish dreams. I didn’t need to see its demon side to be reminded life’s sweetest promises can be its greatest lies.
The first lie was the lake, which proved to be nothing but a skim of water over mud so deep that our longest poles could not reach the bottom. The demonwoman markers showed us the channel the Old Ones’ ships must have taken long ago. Only a few, however, remained whole after so much time. The majority were broken off near the base, but even though those stone stumps were as snaggly as a crone’s teeth, they rose higher than our rails and from the crusted shellfish on their rough surfaces it was apparent in other times the water was high enough for easy sailing. Now however, the water was so low even our shallow-bottomed ships would find the way difficult, if not impossible.
I sent out scouts in small boats to investigate and they returned to say it was much the same no matter how far they probed, although there were clear, deep patches along the way where we could make good progress.
I called everyone together — including Quatervals, Beran from the Firefly, and Towra from the Glowworm, to decide what we should do next.
“Maybe it’s time we got off the water,” Quatervals said. “Lady Greycloak’s map shows we’ll be needin’ to strike out overland by and by. What’s stoppin’ us from doin’ it now?”
Kele snorted. “Just like a lubber,” she said. “All muscle-swole from walkin’ ’n no brains from lack of use. Sees a spot a trouble an’ it’s back to trompin’ on the hides a poor animals again.”
Quatervals bristled. “Don’t take much wit to see we’re in a fix,” he said. “Ship can’t sail on mud. Even you’ve got to admit that, Cap’n. I say we leave the damned things and circle the lake afoot.”
I turned to Janela, who was poring over her map rubbing. “What’s the terrain around the lake like?” I asked.
“There is no way to tell,” she said. “The map this was made from was more for ceremony than anything else. All it really showed was the traditional route, the easiest way for the Old Ones to travel with their goods.”
Quatervals broke in. “But there must’ve been some kind of road around it,” he insisted. “With cities and villages and such.” He glared at Kele. “Folks can’t live on the water, leastwise not permanent like.”
Before the defenders of sea travel versus land could fling more missiles, I stepped in.
“Why don’t we send a party to see?” I asked. “We could use some fresh meat so we could make it a hunting party. To make doubly sure no time is wasted, we could press ahead with the ships as best we can. Looking at the swamp ahead of us, the ships won’t be able to go far enough to lose the land party, and it appears from the Old Ones’ markers that the channel lies not far offshore, so Quatervals can track us down and signal or shout for a boat.”
Eyebrows were raised and dark looks exchanged at my mention of wasted time but no one commented. No more of a reminder was necessary that among our other difficulties we had an enemy on our heels whose demon prayers would be answered if they came upon us stranded on mud flats.
I tried to lighten the mood, grinning at Kele and saying, “Besides my friend, how many shares in this venture would you trade for a fresh haunch of venison crackling over a fire?”
Kele chortled and slapped Quatervals on the back. “Bring us some wild mint with it, lad, ’n I might even forgive yer lubber ways.”
It was agreed to take the middle course, pressing ahead as best we could with the fleet while
Quatervals set out with a party to hunt but more importantly to seek a route by land. He was gone five days — days that for us were burdened with labor so filthy, so horrid that in the end even Kele admitted two legs were not necessarily the worst means of locomotion.
To move the ships we had to drag them one by one, while our oarsmen heaved on the sweeps as if a demon strode among them, cracking his black whip. To aid the sweeps we first lightened each ship — piling all its goods into the one that waited behind. Then we hitched lines to the ships’ boats, and each of us took turns rowing those boats — straining with every muscle to tow the ship a few feet at a time, as we had back in the delta. Even the slow progress we made progress wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t also used the stone channel markers to help pull us along.
A line would be made fast to the pillar many-sheaved blocks be tied to it, and lines would be woven back and forth through the blocks to the ship, men puling hard to winch us toward our goal. The air was filled with groans and curses and cracking bone and sinew as we all pulled, or rowed. And then when the ship reached the marker we had to do it all over again — shifting cargo and goods and then muscling the next craft onward along the muddy channel.
When the blessed time came to be spelled, we’d collapse on the deck — to tired, even, to remove the leeches that made the mud a home and seemed to have waited all eternity for the leech gods to bless them with a tasty feast such as ourselves. Our mates had to rub them off with handfuls of salt or torture them with a burning splinter so they’d withdraw and not leave their heads in our flesh to poison us.
Once in a rare while we’d come to a deep place and then we’d croak cheers as the fleet got properly underway again, sweeps carrying us easily for perhaps a mile or more. Then the mud-clotted lead would be hauled and the depth announced in a harsh cry that would have us cursing our mothers for bearing such unlucky children and it was back into the boats again or joining the men at the capstans, to drag the wooden mountains over the mud.
Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) Page 26
