Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn 3 The Iron Gate

by Adam Corby

  The Empress sat upon a raised seat and looked over the crowds milling where the Gardens once had been: they were dressed in their finest, slave, cityfolk, and noble alike. They crowned the Gerso with the green and purple leaves of the Festive King. They even made him drink of the wine and dance with the Festive Queen, a four-toothed mother of sixty. He smiled courteously, bowed before his partner, and danced a dance with her no one had ever seen before, and which she could hardly match. At the close of the dance he took his partner in his arms and kissed her, to the delight and cheers of all the people there. Even the Empress herself, regarding them with an odd stillness of body, applauded.

  Later they walked alone on the Palace roof, the Divine Queen and the savior of Tarendahardil. She walked along the shadow-edge, on the very parapet itself, with nothing below for two hundred fathoms, where the dark shadow of the mountain stretched like a finger pointing to the dark horizon. She sang softly as she walked; it was strange to hear those girlish notes issuing from behind the mask.

  ‘I often come here,’ she said, ‘to be free of the heat and gloom of the walls below. I have not been a prisoner of any one place for so long since I was a child. Sometimes my legs itch to feel the body of Kis Halá between them. I visit her weekly, but the sight of her longing to be free is sad. We make each other downcast. I often rode her across the fields outside the city in summer.’

  He was watching her now with that same stillness with which she had watched him dance. ‘Do you remember,’ he asked quietly, ‘that time two winters gone, in the castle in the mountains near the Marches, how I stood upon an ice-painted parapet, and you feared for my life?’

  She looked down beside her. ‘This is many times as high.’ She stopped and turned to face him. The winds rippled the wide black robes like a sail, pressing them against the half-glimpsed contours of her body.

  He stood, his body half-turned away but his face regarding her fully. The green and purple leaves made an oddly hued tangle in his black hair: already they had begun to crisp and die. He gestured behind him, where the Imperial tent still stood in the center of the roof. ‘I have a present for your reverence, in honor of the festival.’

  ‘Yes?’ She stepped off the parapet. The gaiety had vanished from her voice. She crossed the stone field toward the brightward edge.

  She stopped before a calendar-stone at the brightward parapet. Lines deeply-chiseled radiated from the stone’s base, to mark the seasons of the year. There was also a newer, fainter mark making a cross out of one of the deep grooves. She herself had scratched that mark, on the pass of the arrival of the barbarians to the marshaling-field below the city. Soon afterward, the barricades had been overturned, and the Citadel had been snowed with black ash. Nor would it be long now, she thought, counting the weeks, before the shadow of the stone would touch that mark again.

  ‘How much longer then, will you continue this game?’ she asked him. ‘Will it be another month, or year?’

  ‘As long as is needed.’

  ‘But then there will be an end?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when your men have overwhelmed us here, and put the last of us to death, or dragged the last of us away into slavery, will they use this Citadel, or forsake it?’

  ‘It has no use for them.’

  ‘And then the other cities will fall?’

  ‘If they challenge me.’

  ‘That pleases me,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It will be a fitting way to mark the end of the Bordakasha. No other race will ever have such a monument as this to mark its passing.’ But he was silent, and did not answer.

  She stepped upon the parapet and leaned against the obelisk.

  Far below, the people danced the festival-dance: some casting their glances skyward saw her, a figure blacker even the than the stones of the building. Behind the figure great yellowish clouds arched and passed like the tale of centuries. A thrill of pleasure danced up and down the backs of the Tarendahardilites, and they cheered faintly.

  ‘Once,’ she said, still looking down, ‘only fishermen and farmers dwelt here, and some herders on the plateau: but none at all on this black mountain that they called Renda, the Black Fist. It is said those simple folk lived hard lives untouched by war and kings. From generation to generation, perhaps, rumors would reach their ears: of great Kings come to fabled Vapio, of vast armies on the march, of the nomad horsemen that ravaged the lands. Then new tales came one summer, of a league formed by the cities against the nomads and led by a single unknown man, Elna: and there were wild battles spoken of.

  ‘And then it is said a fleet grew out of the sea, and Elna and all his battle-stiffened warriors walked aland. They ate fish and mutton and got forage for their steeds, and then they went their way.

  ‘Elna returned to Renda nine summers later, at the word of the Prophetess. In a trance she bade him climb to Renda’s peak, and there behold his future. So Elna made camp with a few of his captains on the grass of the plateau, among the sheep-herds: and it is said he beheld Goddess bathing in a spring – there where now the Brown Temple is all that rises above the waste.

  ‘Then Elna went upon Renda by a perilous climb. Alone upon the lip of the stony cowl he beheld a desolate deep black cup of stone, cut by a ravine that seemed to plunge into the dead depths of the mountain. Some pits filled with greenish rainwater, some weeds grew in the crevices. And Elna chose that here should he build the head of his domains. Ten thousand slaves, captives of the wars, were set to the task; less than fifty survived the building of the Palace, the carving of the twin gates, and the filling of the grounds with earth. A city sprang up around its flanks; and Elna renamed the place Tarendahardil, the resting-place of my fist. So it is said in the Song of the Bordakasha.’

  Faintly on the winds the sounds of laughter and music were borne up to them. In the distance, a speck high above the sunlit lower quarters of the city, a gerlin glided, searching for its prey.

  She turned. The brazen light of Goddess had darkened his features almost red; his eyes were narrowed, his lips parted, showing the strong sharp teeth. He was looking at her. She felt that look as the touch of a hand upon her breast. She stepped down from the parapet.

  ‘Show me then this present,’ she said, passing close by him.

  He bent his head and led her to the tent quietly fluttering. Upon is its far side a curious framework had been raised, upholding two rows of ten ship’s-amphorae slightly tilted. Below the amphorae were two wooden troughs extended over the outward-sloping wall of the tent; above them was a length of sail-canvas, gleaming against Goddess.

  ‘And what, pray, is the object of this?’ she asked.

  ‘Your reverence is no doubt uncomfortably hot, dressed so upon these dark stones,’ he said. ‘Behold.’

  He raised his hand to the structure and drew part of it forward. The twin rows of amphorae tilted farther forward; water spouted from them, filling the two troughs. Ara-Karn let the amphorae back to their former posture as the water, through small holes in the bottom of the troughs, began to weep pliantly in the wind, darkening and bewetting the golden skirts of the tent.

  He bent forward in formal invitation. ‘Enter, your majesty, and be cool again.’

  They entered the tent. The cool breath of the water flowed with the breeze across the amber chamber. It was as though they had stepped across space to some forest glade beside a rushing stream.

  ‘But this is delightful,’ she exclaimed, seating herself upon her stool and drawing up the skirts of her robes above her sandaled feet.

  He had seen briefly those feet and the pale, slender stems arising from them to vanish in warm secrecy underneath the folds of black linen. He brought up his gaze to meet hers, hidden in the shadow of the golden eyelets. After a moment he knelt on the rugs thrown over the hot stones of the roof.

  He noticed she was twirling a flower between her fingers. The flower was yellow with a black center, and its leaves were marked with purple.

&nb
sp; ‘Where did you find that?’ he asked.

  ‘Emsha brings them to me. She finds them in the grove of trees beneath the cowl. They are the last remnant of the Imperial Gardens, I suppose; but I do not remember them, and not even Emsha knows how to call them,’

  ‘Where I come from,’ he said, ‘they are called “alzhaale.” ’

  ‘What a lovely name!’

  ‘Yes, the word is sweet. It means, “the evil.” ’

  ‘A strange name for so beautiful a plant.’

  ‘Among my people,’ he remarked lightly, ‘these flowers have a bad repute.’

  They remained thus in silence for a time, each enjoying the calm. About the tent floor fragrant stalks of the harvest had been strewn, and upon the walls bunches of sweet, musky darylinthin herb were hung to dry: these now in the cool dampness seemed to revive, and the different scents intermingled wonderfully.

  Allissál was aware then of a new thing in her, a thing she had not known in a year’s time, not since she had ridden on Kis Halá to the groves of the necropolis, when Ampeánor had been last at Tezmon. It was the pure, childish, sensual feeling of happiness.

  And it made her bitterly ashamed.

  In the weeks since she had met with Captain Haspeth, she had come to enjoy more and more these meetings with her enemy – when they sat together giving justice to the Tarendahardilites, when they conferred with Berowne about the defense of the Iron Gate, and above all when they were together alone for no other purpose than to escape all the others, as they were together now. It was a calm enjoyment and appreciation of his presence as a man. And even as an enemy, she no longer thought of him with bitterness. Haspeth was safely raising forces in Rukor; the attacks of the barbarians grew ever weaker. At first, seeing the possibility of victory at last, she had found it difficult to conceal a fierce anticipation beneath the guise of melancholic resignation. Now she felt an easy friendliness between them, which they had never before known. She knew he felt it too. They might be together now in comfort and not even feel the need to speak.

  Gently she lowered herself from the stool and lay back upon the piled-up carpets, breathing in the perfume of the air, aware that he did likewise. She saw in her mind his long body lounging within arm’s reach of her, and she remembered the last time she had seen him naked, lying across her bed in the calm unconcern of sleep that only men and animals knew.

  ‘And now it strikes me,’ she said, and the words slid slowly and languidly from her tongue, ‘how strange it is that we never went together to gather flowers, nor to the theater to laugh at the latest comedy, nor yet lay together beneath the sky on a bed of ferns and grasses. Whenever we were together it was always fire and harshness, a toil of wills and bodies. Even that winter at the castle in the mountains, what did we do? In riding, sword-play and love alike, it was ever contention between us.’

  ‘It was our way,’ she heard him answer simply. ‘Let common folk pursue their common pleasures, and let cows content themselves on grass and hay. There is no greatness without bitterness, some gall in the mouth to spit out. It is only in saying no that the soul may prove its strength – above all in saying no to that which should come most easily and pleasantly. It was only that battle and victory we each sought, Gold, after our own notions of those things.’

  ‘And yet, to what end? Why should we have been so made, when none other is?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘there are some who will fight forever until that which they seek to kill is slain at last.’

  ‘And what could be so terrible and of so great a menace to us that, unknowing, we would go on fighting it and know no rest while it still lived?’

  ‘Why, Dornan Ural, of course,’ he said.

  They both laughed at that, a friendly laughter not to be withheld. She turned and raised herself, so that she was resting upon one elbow and looking down on him. ‘And now,’ she said, her voice still rich with the laugh, ‘will you not at last tell me who you are, and why it is you have come here?’

  He bent his head to regard her, and slowly pulled off the leafy crown.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  XV

  The Spirits of the Past

  ‘EVEN I,’ he said, ‘can grow impatient.’

  He sat cross-legged before her, bronze against the silver-gold tent. It was the first hour of the longsleep, but Allissál felt no wish for rest.

  Their ease and pleasure had gone: they were enemies again.

  ‘Where then to begin?’ he mused. ‘Shall I speak of our true first meeting, the one you do not now recall? Or go back yet farther, to the ages before I first came into the world? No: I will begin with a voyage.’

  He pointed through the opening of the tent. ‘Tell me, Gold, what one finds at the bright horizon.’

  ‘The end of the lands of men, and the start of the sands of the great Desert.’

  ‘Go there,’ he said.

  ‘Beyond those shores of sand,’ he said, ‘extends a world of rock, sand, and glaring heat. And in the very heart of that vast, burning world, there lies a spot where Goddess hangs high overhead, a giant, blazing orb unbearable to behold. On every side the tormented sands are torn by swirling winds – the breath is full of dust that slices into the lungs like a razor – the very stones of the earth are blackened by ages of Her nearness. You stand at the center of a world beyond this world, a place beyond even the imaginings of the prophets.’

  ‘I see it,’ she said softly.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘go beyond.

  ‘The glare, the heat, the towers of sand and dust, abate somewhat. Sparse scrubs of sere grass break the weariness of the land. Clouds cross the skies, and there is even a little rain. In the sand and clay run dry riverbeds. And farther still, the sands reach their end, and there is greenness, softness, streams of dark water, plants, beasts, oceans and men. But the beasts here are not the beasts of the world you know, and the men here are not the men of the world you know.’

  ‘But where are we?’ she asked, troubled by the sights that ran before her eyes. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘My world.’

  She opened her eyes.

  From a serving-platter he caught up a round ripe fournal fruit. With the knife on the platter he scored a line about the fournal, from stem to dimple and back to stem. He placed the fruit on the carpet by the opening, so that the circle he had cut ran with the commencement of the shadow.

  ‘Consider again the world,’ he said. ‘All men know it is an orb from the way Goddess falls to greet the earth as a man journeys toward the dark horizon. Here, where it is closest to the Sun, is the world of Goddess and the Desert – there upon the shadowside the black seas from which rises God’s jade tower. Only here, along this twilight line, may life endure. Here at the stem is the land beyond the far North, where there are only mountains of ice; here by the dimple swells the Southern Ocean; and in between lie all the lands you know. And yet, as you can see, this forms but one half of the circle I have cut. Here upon the other side of the fruit is another half.’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘Those are the lands of the dead.’

  ‘There, where I am from, it is your world that is called the lands of the dead.

  ‘It is curious, is it not,’ he added, ‘that in both our worlds men should have the same superstition, and lay out their dead in barges? Even the shape of the barges is the same. Perhaps there is truth in the ancient sayings of both our kinds, that the barge came from Goddess in the age before the lands were sundered.’

  ‘You came to the far North in such a barge,’ she said.

  ‘Even so. And there are other likenesses, for we too had our Elna, who united all the lands beneath his banner. And so wise was he, and so stable and prosperous his kingdom, which though it stretched from the ice to the warm seas and none lived outside it, it continued under a single dynasty for more than a hundred generations of men. One hundred generations of High Kings, all of the same house – peace for a thousand years – can you imagine the w
ealth and weakness they amassed?

  ‘I can. I was the last of them.

  ‘The child that I was in that faroff life was flattered, pampered, cozened, given his choice of a thousand amusements each pass. Ten thousand courtiers of either sex attended his pleasures. Two thousand slaves saw to his desires. He owned twelve palaces, four thousand of the finest horses, five hundred ships of trade and three hundred of war – for wars arose now and again, to put down rebellions and to suppress pirates and slaves. In all the thousand temples of the world, when the priestesses took up their chants, it was for him they sang. And when he put aside the silver robes of childhood and drew on the golden ones of youth, there were one hundred and twenty-nine ladies of the most accomplished art and beauty to wait upon his pleasure. His look and bearing were different from my own – not even the laughter would you know. Here you see shadow, but the boy-king was light.

  ‘And he was happy, for though not ignorant he was naïve. The ignorant do not know there is such a thing as evil in the world – the naïve know that evil lives in the world, but they do not believe it. And because both his sacred parents died when he was a babe, a High Regent was appointed to oversee the world for him. This was a kindly old man much attached to the prince, and since the boy-king was the last descendant of his house, he took his Regent almost for a father. The boy-king called him old Kar Belthus and left him to rule the world while the boy-king, careless and unafraid, swam in the streams of its myriad pleasures. Even after he was crowned and anointed High King, he left the duties to old Kar Belthus.

  ‘He was, I grant you, somewhat spoiled. But what is excess, but too much of pleasure? And to the young not even everything is enough. Once he had brought down with his bow some beast, or known the wonders of some mountain or some palace, it was intolerable to him that he should be forced to do the like again, above all since there were so many other beasts and palaces unglimpsed. And it was the same with women…’

  His voice softened and failed. He seemed lost in his reveries. Then his eyes stabbed hers, and he smiled an evil, wicked smile. ‘Until on the festival of Narioolis over the lake of Her Mirror, the boy-king danced with a lady newly come to court, and took her to his bed.