The Door in Crow Wood

by Rob Summers

Postscript: In the Year of the Kulismos

  When King Joel came back from the funeral, he called for writing materials, dismissed everyone from his inner chamber, and sat down at his desk in the light of three candles. He removed a small scroll from a pouch at his belt and, spreading it before him, stared at it for a long time without reading, for he knew its contents well enough. It was a last message from Sipnur that he had found by the old Silb’s body when, coming first, he had discovered his counselor’s suicide. Only Joel knew of the note’s existence, and he had no intention of sharing it with anyone.

  He spread out fresh paper and began a document of his own, something to be locked away with Sipnur’s scroll and read by no one for a hundred years. Then, yes, let the historians have their due; but not before.

  He wrote:

  I, King Joel Constantine of this Broken Realm take this pen in hand on the last day, and indeed the last hour, of the year of the Emperor’s Kulismos from the Old World, December 31st, 2747 A.U.C.

  My chief minister Sipnur has taken his life, and his reasons, such as they are, he himself has recorded on the accompanying scroll. Briefly, Sipnur was for long a Bremsilb, living in contemplation on the Island; and his mystic visions somehow led him to a spirit-meeting with the Great Turtle Tsawb. Tsawb overawed Sipnur and made him his servant. (Sipnur writes at length about the supposed transcendence of Tsawb and of his power, antiquity, and knowledge.)

  When Sipnur left the Island five years ago and returned to government service, it was as Tsawb’s loyal spy. As such, he labored to place himself in a position of the greatest knowledge and influence. His note does not tell what use Tsawb made of him during the years before the rumors came to us of the Emperor’s return: perhaps it was enough that he stood ready to do his master’s will. (And who knows how many more like him Tsawb has in his power?) But during those years, he who seemed to serve me so closely and faithfully appears to have been poisoning my food. The resulting weakness and dizziness were just enough to guarantee my dependence on him. He became, in effect, ruler of the Realm. (Now, since his departure for Meschor late last month, I have felt my illness lessen until I have resumed my old responsibilities.) It was also during that time that he offered a traitor’s services to Anatolia, as appears from his note, seeking to extend his influence beyond the Realm.

  When the Lighters came with news that the Emperor Clay was in the Fold, Sipnur was very intent on finding him. It was he who first suggested that we send a ship to the Ice Caves, and whether by fortune or by mystic foresight, he proved right. Then Sipnur sought a way to kill Clay, because that was what his master Tsawb most wanted. The safest, easiest way was to send him into hopeless battle against the Anatolians. To this end, Sipnur sent an insulting message to Colonia, seemingly written by the Emperor. (At the time he told me that he had sent a mild and calming message, and in his own name. I have since sent another message to Solomon, explaining matters, but the damage cannot fully be undone.) Sipnur’s own secret message accompanied the first, betraying the details of our military strength and of the Emperor’s vulnerability to capture.

  How could Sipnur have known that the messages would reach General Markuz first or that Clay would actually win the battle which has since come to be called the Emperor’s? His perfidy having failed, Sipnur fell back on other murderous strategies. He advised Clay and the Princess Simone (whom he had joined in Meschor) to confer directly with Tsawb, expecting that the Turtle would find means to kill them if they came near. But since he could not be sure that they would go to Tsawb, he also devised another Fowrozian trick, one which he does not distinctly describe but which he felt would be sufficient for their deaths.

  Everything failed him. We hear from the Ulrigs of the Thunder Mountains that Clay and Simone returned safely to their own world. Nevertheless, sinking into a madness suiting his treachery, Sipnur came to believe that he had somehow caused them to die in their beds in the Old World. After returning from Meschor two days ago, he communicated this to Tsawb in some sort of séance and was told—to his shock—that Tsawb could sense that they still lived. Furthermore, the Turtle was greatly displeased, demanding that Sipnur come to him. That evening Sipnur poisoned himself.

  All this I have concealed for the sake of the Realm’s beloved Silbs and chiefly for young Lord Nerjatto, who has suffered enough from the loss of his father.

  I am not bitter toward Sipnur, though he poisoned me. True, I have lost some years of my reign, but I hope to enter a Greater Kingdom before many years have passed. My son Michael will, I think, reign wisely; for he went to war a boy of twenty-one and has returned a man of the same age.

  Also, I see that everything Sipnur did was turned against his will to a higher purpose. Even the Emperor’s departure from the Fold is resulting in good, as his reputation builds in his absence. He is known everywhere as the man whose mere word held back the great Dragons from destroying Anatolia; and as a brilliant general; and as the merciful conqueror who freed his helpless prisoners; and as brother of the illustrious Simone. I cannot fully credit other tales but only record that the commoners of every kingdom spread such stories as these: that he entered alone the Black Hall of Purgos and there fought and slew Howdan himself; and that he taught the Pergs of Thalschor how to cure the Black Plague, which is now much abated in that land. I close having confidence that our Emperor will soon come back to us, for not all the prophecies are yet fulfilled.

  Joel rolled up and sealed the document and laid it by. Then the king pulled something from the shoulder-pin of his cloak and sat staring at it in the candlelight. In his palm lay a ragged scrap of purple cloth.

  The End of The Door in Crow Wood

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  Note that a chronology of the Fold and a word-list of Kreenspam follow the information below about other works by Rob Summers.