Merchant of Alyss

by Thomas Locke

  Hyam went on, “They had sent a beast against us in the valley called Ellismere.”

  “Even I have heard of this place. The vale of dire beginnings, with its legacy of war and destruction.” Selim paused. “A beast, you say.”

  “A magical fiend that turned to smoke and ash when we defeated it. The creature killed my . . . closest friend. But the rest of us survived.”

  “And then in Emporis they went after your woman and your guard and the young scribe.”

  “Weakening me further in the process.” Hyam pressed his hands into the small of his back, wishing he could ready himself better for another day on the road. “And drawing my small company out here.”

  “To the yellow realm. Where you are exposed and vulnerable. Where your demise can be blamed upon the waterless world.” Selim smiled without humor. “I do not give our survival good odds.”

  “There is the matter,” Hyam reminded him, “of the bird who spoke to your master and to me.”

  Selim said, “Perhaps the enemy has methods to make the bird speak their lies for them.”

  “The bird, perhaps,” Hyam replied. “But not the dragon.”

  Selim was already in the process of calling up his caravan when he realized what he had just heard. He seemed reluctant to turn back, as though curiosity was a weakness. But Selim could not resist the temptation. “The what?”

  Selim rode alongside Hyam as the caravan traveled east into another desert dawn. The glow turned the world into molten wonder. The air was deceptively comfortable, a miracle that would vanish an instant after the sun rose full over the horizon. The stars faded into a wash of palest blue, the moon set, and all that lay ahead was endless wasteland.

  Hyam’s description of his dreams took them into the full heat of day. When he was done, Selim rode for a time through the fierce light before he finally asked, “Why do you tell me these things?”

  Hyam did not respond.

  “You speak to me as a friend.” The thought turned Selim angry. “We are strangers. You think because we share the road I have been named your comrade? You think my master’s folly makes us allies?”

  Hyam still did not reply.

  “Such thinking can kill a journeyer of the yellow realm.” Selim flicked his quirt, accelerating his beast. He tossed over his shoulder, “I regret meeting you, stranger. I dislike digging graves, even for people I do not know.”

  Shona and Meda nudged their animals in close to his. Meda said, “Much as I detest the drover’s attitude, I too wonder why you spoke so openly.”

  Hyam nodded. “It was a risk. I decided to take it.”

  “But why?”

  “Because,” Hyam replied. “Something tells me Selim is far more than he wants us to think.”

  That day was like the ten that had come before. The camels groaned and rocked and made slow progress. The flat yellow earth became an anvil, the sun a relentless hammer. At midday they halted. Hyam and his small team followed the drovers’ example and fashioned open-sided tents using their camel’s broad humps as a tether. He dozed off, only to be stabbed by dreams. A face smiled at him in joy and in love. Hyam rose to a sitting position. The blinding light was preferable to being assaulted by his terrors.

  Too soon Selim called them up. They stood slowly and the beasts groaned for them. A few hours later, a series of jagged hills formed to their left. They formed an oddly shaped ridge along the otherwise featureless plain. By late afternoon, the hills were perhaps an hour’s trek away.

  Early evening was the hardest hour for Hyam. The day was still baking hot but already held the promise of dusk. These hours of waning light and rising chill were as close as the desert came to true beauty. The sun set behind them, the moon rose ahead, the shadows faded gradually, the land glowed flaxen, and then the stars emerged. Hyam hated these soft hours. Joelle’s face came to him, her features bathed by the Elven torches as he handed her over to others. So that he could depart on this futile quest.

  Hyam was jerked back to the present by Shona calling, “The bird is with us.”

  All his company followed her direction. The eagle soared high and to the west, back where the departing sun might reflect upon its wings.

  Meda maneuvered her beast up alongside him. “Is that truly the one who spoke with you?”

  “Definitely.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “The bird showed us its silhouette.” Hyam pulled on his reins. “Tell Selim we stop here.”

  “He will not like that.”

  “I was not asking.” Hyam started out into the plain, separating himself from the others. He turned and called to Fareed, “Join me. Bring Selim and Alembord and Shona.”

  23

  Fareed was the only one of Hyam’s company who rode easy. Neither the heat nor the trek appeared to bother him at all. His animal also seemed more comfortable with its burden, and Hyam suspected it had nothing to do with the youth’s lighter weight. Hyam waited until there was a good distance between them and the caravan to say, “I suppose I’m doing a dozen things wrong with this animal.”

  “A hundred, sahib,” Fareed replied cheerfully. “A thousand. More.”

  “So why haven’t you taught me?”

  “It is not the servant’s place to correct the master.”

  “You are not the servant, and I am no—”

  “You remain wrapped in a trouble we all share, sahib. I am here to serve. I and the others have waited for you to speak.”

  “From now on, I am the student and you the teacher.”

  Fareed sketched a salute with his quirt. “It shall be as you say.”

  From behind came the tread of a racing camel. When Selim came within shouting range, he demanded, “You dare order my caravan to halt?”

  “So it’s your caravan now.”

  Selim lashed the space between them with his whip. “We hold to our pace for a reason. That reason is life. If we halt upon your whims, we die.”

  Meda said softly, “Ho, the bird.”

  Hyam watched the eagle settle to the earth between them and the ancient hills. “Dismount. Tether the beasts. We proceed on foot. You too, Selim.”

  The bird ducked and weaved as they walked, clearly disliking the approach of so many humans. Selim’s constant muttering did not help things. Hyam stopped a good dozen paces away from the bird and said, “Shona, Fareed, make lights. Not too bright, mind.”

  The bird weaved a bit faster. Standing on the ground it looked oddly vulnerable, despite the vicious beak and its size. The eagle’s russet coloring was turned the shade of simmering lava by the dusk and the magic torches. It stuttered, “Danger.”

  Hyam pointed to Selim and replied, “This one says there is danger on all sides.”

  “Then he knows the realm through which you travel.”

  Hyam asked the question that had drawn him this far. “How is this helping my mate?”

  “That is not the question.”

  “That is precisely the question!” Hyam roared with all the rage and pain that had carried him this far. “That is the only question!”

  The bird eek-eeked and unfolded its vast wings. “Insolent! Rude! Uncivil!”

  “You told me you could help me save my woman!”

  “Not I! Not I! The one I serve!”

  “Then where is your master?”

  The bird ack-acked and flapped its wings, but remained bound to the earth. “Go to the hills. There is a company who awaits you.”

  But Hyam was not letting go so easily. “Tell your master this! Either I receive my answers this very night, or I and my brethren return to Emporis!”

  “You disobey! You defy! You violate!”

  “Eleven days and nights I’ve waited for word on how to save Joelle. Hear this. I go to the hills. I ask my questions. Either I receive answers, or I return to Emporis and hunt the enemy. Not one step more. Make sure your master—”

  Hyam stopped speaking because the bird took flight, acking and eeking in fury as it swoo
ped up into the moonlight and away.

  They ate a cold meal brought to them by Fareed. Selim muttered angrily as they mounted up and started toward the hills. The strengthening moon did not make their destination any more appealing. The hills were shaped like a prehistoric beast, as empty and lifeless as the desert. Or so they thought.

  When they approached the base, a fiery globe appeared on the summit. Then another. And more. Gradually a string of magical lights slipped down the slope toward them. They moved with an oddly weaving grace.

  Then Selim muttered, “What manner of legend is this?”

  Before Hyam turned around, he knew. Before he looked into the drover’s eyes, he was certain. The validation he had sought for eleven impossibly long days had been revealed.

  Selim had spoken in Elven.

  Hyam gestured to the others. “Dismount. We continue on foot.”

  The company who descended the hillside did not dance, as Hyam had first supposed. The beings limped and staggered and stumbled down the steep slope. Their mage-lights remained poised directly above each head. As they lurched over the uneven terrain, the lights shifted and jerked and weaved.

  The first of their company halted where the hillside met the desert floor. A querulous voice called out, “Which of you wears the healed diadem?”

  Hyam’s hackles rose. Not from the question, which he did not understand. Rather, from the woman’s speech.

  She addressed them in Milantian.

  If the crone told Hyam she was five hundred years old, he would have accepted it as fact. An uglier woman, if indeed she could be called that, Hyam had never seen. Her skull was canted, such that her left eye was half a handbreadth higher than her right. Her hair sprouted in patches from a skull that appeared only partially covered by skin. Each clump of hair was a different shade, woven into a rope thick as Hyam’s wrist and worn about her neck like a noose. As he approached, Hyam realized the clasp at the base of her scrawny neck was fashioned from a skeletal hand.

  The others who accompanied the woman gathered to either side, none taking the final step off the hillside. The woman’s voice was a scattering of sounds, a rush of wind over dry reeds and a bark from beyond the grave. She declared, “Before you stands the queen of what you cannot fathom. My realm was old before your forebears claimed the title, human. Do not dare to keep me waiting!”

  Hyam said, “I am not certain that I understand your question. But I speak your language.”

  “And do so with an appalling accent. Who taught you to butcher the most regal of tongues?”

  “Mages. Human wizards. They spoke it worse than I do.”

  She cackled, all rattles and dry coughs. “Who are these that accompany you?”

  “Friends,” Hyam replied. “They share the yellow road.”

  “There is no road where you go, strange one. There is no compass heading, nor safety. You and your friends will most likely perish.”

  “I have tried to tell them as much. They have insisted upon coming just the same.”

  She chewed on that for a time, her jaw muscles bunching beneath the parchment covering. “Well, I suppose it is not altogether bad to die in good company. I ask again. Do you wear the healed diadem?”

  “I don’t . . . If you mean a jewel fashioned from an orb, yes.”

  “Show me.”

  “I can’t. I lost my powers in the battle against one of your own.”

  “Well, perhaps the era of humans has come to an end after all.” There was no room in that desiccated face for sympathy. She observed him for a moment, then shrugged as though it was none of her concern. “Who fashioned the diadem you claim to wear?”

  “Elves.”

  “Speak the word for reveal in their tongue, strange one. Then touch your middle finger to the orb’s healed remnant. I must see that you truly carry the sign.”

  Hyam did as he was told. Instantly the center of his forehead burned with an intensity that was both pleasant and almost blinding.

  Even the crone was taken aback. “Touch it again!” When Hyam had done so, she peered at him more closely still. “Truly, you have lost your powers?”

  “I have.”

  “Then this is another mystery added to this impossible night.” She waved it aside. “Will you come?”

  “Where do we go?”

  “What are words, strange one? You cannot fathom what awaits you. Either you come or you do not. I was commanded to invite. I was commanded to keep you safe. Nothing more.”

  “Who commands the hidden queen?”

  She liked that enough to cackle a second time. “Who indeed. Come and you will see. Though the seeing may cost you everything.”

  “May I take a moment to speak with my allies?”

  “The invitation is for you and whoever you select as your company.” She waved a scrawny hand. “Speak.”

  Swiftly Hyam related what the woman had said. He finished with, “I cannot ask you to accompany me.”

  Selim demanded, “What is the tongue you speak?”

  “Milantian. The language of the crimson mage.”

  “And yet I do not detect any danger,” Shona said. “I do not understand.”

  “Nor I,” Hyam agreed. “Even so, this woman may take me to my doom.”

  Meda replied, “If she takes you, she takes us all.”

  “Meda, I am grateful—”

  “Enough. We will not ever have this discussion again.” Meda’s gaze was fiercer than her voice. “We are your company. Finished.”

  Hyam searched for a way to tell her what that meant but could come up with nothing adequate, so he remained silent. He glanced at each face in turn and found the same grim resolve. Even Selim.

  He said to the crone, “We will come.”

  24

  As they climbed, Hyam remained held by the language spoken by the witches surrounding them. Milantian was the speech of death and war and darkest mage-force. He knew his company were frightened. He knew he should try to reassure them. But he would not color this trek with fable.

  He asked the crone, “Are you our foes?”

  “Foes, you say? Do foes light your way to the realm of mystery? Do foes reveal themselves, breaking vows older than the race of man?”

  When Hyam translated, Selim hissed in response, “The old woman’s race has been our sworn foe for just as long.”

  The crone glanced back from where she led her company. “What strange scent do I detect lingering about this one?”

  Hyam had no intent of answering, so he deflected with, “Is there no better route to the top?”

  The crone and her company shrieked with glee. “What use is a path when few come and none depart? Except for you and your company, by command of the covert one. A path is as worthless as a name for empty hills in the midst of the empty reaches. And so all the world has thought. Including our own kind. And thus have we survived.”

  Hyam caught the hint of a lie but only said, “We will keep your secret.”

  “So the covert one has vowed.” The crone shot him a look that was sour and bitter both. “Even so, we shall mark your departure with dread and foreboding.”

  The going was very steep in places. They climbed long enough for Hyam to lose every vestige of the night’s chill. The shifting mage-lights cast the slope in shadows that flickered and twisted and hid crevices that almost tripped him twice.

  When they finally crested the rise, there was nothing to see. The others gathered around him, panting hard. The desert stretched out behind, a sea of dusky moonlight, lifeless and silent save for the tiny bundle of campfires where their caravan waited.

  Before them opened a central valley carved down the length of all four hills. The gorge was dark as a giant’s open grave. There was no sound. No life. No reason to have come here at all.

  The crone noted their confusion. “And so all have seen since the dawn of man’s era, save those who have chosen to come and never leave. Not even our own kind who returned here have seen anything else.”
/>   Again Hyam sensed veiled untruths. “The crimson mage came here?”

  She waved his question aside. “Here stands Lystra, strange one. This grand city once marked the boundary of the Milantian realm. Before the time of man, before the lure of shadow forces captured our finest, we were.” She reached toward the heavens with both scrawny arms. “Observe, newcomer. Behold the lost empire. Behold the majesty of former epochs.”

  The crone’s hands and fingers began an intricate dance, joined by all the others of her company. Together they weaved a complex script of moonlight and mage-force. Their elaborate motions transformed the night into a loom.

  They weaved a city.

  The hills became a bastion, from which sprung towers of lyrical splendor. These grew ramparts and palaces and grand chambers. The long cavern sprang to magnificent life, filled with silver fire and the music of a hundred fountains. A road of polished pewter opened before them, illuminated by living lanterns with diaphanous wings.

  But the greatest change of all was in the crone and her company. Gone were the ghastly figures with their wretched faces. In their place stood women whose beauty dimmed even the city’s allure.

  The queen of Lystra shone with a regal power beyond the reach of time or human comprehension. The women who surrounded her gleamed with a magnetic splendor. They seemed to dance even when they remained still. They smiled with their entire beings. They sang a welcome even when silent.

  Hyam and his company could only gape in wondrous astonishment.

  The queen of Lystra was clearly satisfied with the effect of their creation. She laughed, the sound as lovely as crystal bells, as deadly as a silver dagger. “Come.”

  25

  The valley was now a palace’s central keep, several thousand paces long and framed by pillars tall as great forest trees. The floor was mosaic artistry, portraying scenes Hyam could not comprehend, all set in blocks of semiprecious stones.

  As they descended the pewter road, Shona asked, “Are there no men?”