Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  The creature moaned again, and the sound of gurgling liquefied putrefaction sounded almost musical, like the burbling of a mountain spring over smooth pebbles. The music was not horrific or terrifying, but mournful; Agmar did not feel fear when he heard it, but sadness. Perhaps this creature too had once been a bard like himself, composing poems and songs, singing and fighting for powerful patrons, travelling to distant lands to learn new languages so that he could gather more tales and refashion them as his own. Perhaps this was not even the land of his birth. He had died in this place far from his home and been forgotten, all the songs he had sung, however moving, now were silent. And yet here he tried to sing again.

  Agmar sang also, trying to pick the notes from the ancient bard’s moaning, echoing him and completing his melody. It was a tune both familiar and strange, sad like the forgetting of centuries, but hopeful like a child’s dreams. The ancient bard stopped lurching forward, and seemed to listen to Agmar’s voice. It moaned once more, and now the eyes flowing down its cheeks were like tears, mournful like the voice, and no longer menacing. He held out the harp. Agmar reached out and grasped it. The ancient bard did not let go at first, moaning gently, reluctantly. Then he sighed, and let go, staggered back a few steps, and collapsed back into his grave. The arm ceased its progress, and was still.

  He remembered then why he was out here. He knew now he had not come to this grave by chance. The glowing shade had led him. Had it been the spirit of this long dead bard, or something else altogether? And what was its connection to the prisoner who spoke the first language? Picking up his lamp from beside the grave he turned back to the glow of the camp. By the time he reached the river his lantern had died, its reservoir of olive oil depleted.

  He cleaned the harp as well as he could in the water. He was not surprised when it did not fall apart in his hands, as you might expect with an instrument buried for centuries. It was not of wood, nor of bone, nor of any metal he had ever seen. As he looked carefully at it, its outlines seemed to shift and flow. All the colours of the rainbow glowed in its substance, twisting and flowing through its body and its strings which also, amazingly, were intact. A moment later it seemed to be made of shining silver, or quicksilver rather, because its surface still flowed. Images appeared in that surface. He recognised some, figures of legend, gods and heroes, seen in statues and stained glass in temples. The strings were, like the body of the harp, of indeterminate substance. He touched one ever so slightly and it sang. Literally sang, as though a sentient voice, but with a single perfect pitch, its tone smooth, its volume swelling. Again he played a string, then another and another. All sang true, and seemed to carry meaning far beyond that of ordinary music. He could find no tuning pegs, but the strings were all perfectly in tune. After unknown centuries without use! Strings that should have rotted away, perfectly tuned. And more, the tones were so sweet, they seemed hardly possible.

  As he played the air shimmered, and an image appeared. He sang of an ancient Seltic hero, the first song his father had taught him, and the legendary man strode before his eyes. Unarmoured in the fashion of some northern clansmen, a great claymore in one hand and round shield in the other. His thighs were thick as tree trunks, his arms knotted deeply with muscle. His hair blew in the wind, as wide as an eagle’s wings when it soars above its prey, its shadow speeding across the earth. His eyes glowed with an inner fire, and he laughed as he hewed necks and limbs and torsos on a battlefield strewn with the dead and dying. None could stand before him. In the night he feasted and drank mead, and made love to the women of his conquered enemies.

  Then Agmar played the tune the ancient bard in the peat bog had revealed to him in its mournful undead moaning. He did not know the words, only the tune. If only he knew the words, he thought. Then another image formed, shimmering before his eyes, floating above the water, an image of many-shaped creatures. They climbed the steps on one side of a pyramid. The pyramid had no base. It extended down into a vast abyss, until it was lost in darkness and distance. Some of the creatures that climbed he recognised, many more he did not. From those he recognised he knew they were gods, for they were like images in their temples. They climbed, these gods, familiar and unfamiliar, to the flat top of the pyramid. On the top stood an altar. Along the second side of the pyramid climbed men and women. They wore the clothes of many lands, some of which Agmar knew. He could tell from those fashions he knew that the men and women were high priests and priestesses; they wore the vestments of arkons and arkenas. When a god reached the top it would lay down on the altar, and its high cleric would come forth. The cleric would draw a dagger, and sacrifice the god, though to whom it was not clear. Then the cleric would cast what remained of the god down the third side of the pyramid, opposite the first, and it would tumble toward the abyss. Then the cleric would remove their vestments, and cast them over the side of the pyramid, and descend via its fourth side, opposite the side they had climbed. And the gods and the clerics climbed. The arkons and arkenas murdered their gods and descended. The gods were murdered and fell. And the blood on the altar flowed like a terrible waterfall, washing over the edges of the altar, down to and across the flat top of the pyramid, cascading down all its stepped sides. The gods did not resist or protest. The vicars of the gods did not triumph. And so the procession continued, an endless stream of immortals and mortals, up to the altar, down to the abyss, flesh of gods dying, blood of gods flowing, cascading; draining into an inestimable void.

  Agmar realised he had stopped playing. The harp now played itself, and not just the melody, but an impossibly complex harmony and to a beat which syncopated in mad but beautiful ways. Disturbed by the image without understanding why he placed his palm over the strings to mute them. As he did so the music seemed to thread into his flesh, and he felt the pain of the dying gods. In terror he yanked his hand away, and discordant notes sounded. But the image did not disappear. It became more insistent, and menacing. Then the strings ceased to vibrate, once more silent, and the image of the pyramid faded into the even more terrifying void.

  With difficulty Agmar dragged his mind from that infinite emptiness, where life, meaning, even existence, ceased to be. He stared in horror at the harp. In all his life he had never experienced such existential terror. Compared to this his earlier fear of the undead bard was a childish jumping at shadows.

  He stood and threw the harp as far as he could, out into the sluggish darkness of the river. It splashed at least a hundred feet away. He hoped the currents dragged it all the way down to the river mouth and out to sea, away from mortal hands. He dropped to a squat and gripped his head in his hands, trying to banish the image, but now it played in his flesh, as deep as his bones, thrumming with his heart, pulsing through his veins. He squeezed his eyes shut but he could see its faint shadow on the undersides of his lids. When he opened his eyes again he saw the harp, floating within reach, not drawn on by the currents of the river, but returned, as if to its master.

  He realised then he could not escape the terror, which now resided within him, so with a sigh of resignation he picked up the harp and wrapped it in the folds of his cloak, careful to mute the strings with the cloth. Then he dragged the boat back to the water.

  Chapter 48: Arthur and Oliver: Thedran Plain

  Sir Marl and his knights paraded along the main avenue of North East Quarter and along Thedra Bridge in full battle armour, two hundred knights and five hundred archers, as well as scouts and squires and pages, all followed by an assortment of grooms, sumpter men, carters, scullions, cooks and priests. Once they had descended to the plain north of the foothills they dismounted and changed out of their ostentatious armour, switching from their magnificent destriers to their practical palfreys. They rode north along the bank of the river, away from the mountains, the fertile plains spreading out to the east of them. After a day they would turn east, where the river branched, and ford it west of the East Forest. From there they would follow the western bounds of the forest north past Lake Selta then march o
n to the Northern Reaches to relieve the border forces, which were sore pressed by Pecta incursions.

  As the sun set they made camp.

  “Strict discipline, Fernand,” Sir Marl said to his lieutenant, Sir Fernand, “Sentries to all quarters.”

  “Here? We’re within spitting distance of the capital, and there are several hundred of us. Only a halfwit would attack us?”

  “There are halfwits enough with swords. Anyway, warfare is as much the art of remaining aware through boredom as the heroic clash of steel on steel. I won’t allow the men to become lax before facing the challenges of the north.”

  “No, Sir.” Fernand started shouting orders to the men.

  Sir Marl’s steward requisitioned livestock from a nearby farm with a privy writ that ordered all landholders on the battalion’s journey north to provide them the necessary supplies. A freeman grumbled, his peasant garb flecked with dirt, running calloused fingers through the thick black beard hanging down to his pot belly, but the steward was accompanied by heavily armed men, and the cost of refusing, even if they did not resort to immediate violence, might be greater than that of obeying. His arm showing thickly corded muscles from a lifetime of hard work, he pointed to a sheep fold where a boy and dog were shepherding in their flock.

  Soon tents were raised and fires burning, and spits turning, laden with freshly slaughtered mutton while a pottage of beans, barley and oats simmered, and bread, not yet stale, was broken and passed around with rations of diluted wine. As the southern sentries slouched with their longbows, looking back enviously at their resting colleagues, and smelling the cooking mutton with watering mouths, two shadows rode out of the night. They had the bearing of soldiers, both large, one almost a giant. Both rode sturdy palfreys, and both wore swords. Quickly the mutton was forgotten and arrows were nocked to strings. “Who goes there? Identify yourselves or you’ll wear an arrow in the chest and I’ll take that horse and make it plough my brother’s fields.”

  “You’re a brave man,” a deep voice boomed out of the darkness, “but,” said Arthur as he rode into the light, “you’d be hung for treason after.”

  Both sentries dropped to their knees. The one who had threatened the prince stammered, “Your Highness,” then recognized Oliver, the brother of duke Vrong Veld and cousin of the prince, “your, your…my lord.”

  “It would be a shame for the prince to be shot in the chest,” Oliver said, “when he has such a big head to aim at.”

  Oliver’s disrespectful humour released the tension. The sentries laughed with Oliver and the prince and pointed the way to Sir Marl’s tent.

  Sir Marl expressed his surprise when Arthur entered his command tent. “Your Highness. To what do we owe the honour of your company.”

  “Enough flattery, Sir Marl, I have to deal with too many sycophants at court as it is.”

  “Very well. What the fuck are you doing here, Highness?”

  “You’re going to pass through the region ravaged by the rebels. We weren’t going to let you have all the fun.”

  “You’ve brought the Crown’s Yeomen with you, Highness? Or some of your household knights?”

  “Nope,” said Oliver, grinning broadly, “only the two of us.”

  Sir Marl looked alternately at both men, as if they were mad. “You don’t even have an honour guard?”

  “What would be the fun of that?” said Arthur

  “Your Highness, fuck your fun. You put the royal person in danger.”

  “Not at all. My father is heading north with most of his Yeomen. Anyway, I can’t leave the capital unguarded. Those Yeomen the king has left behind guard Thedra and muster the levies against the possibility of a coming attack.”

  “My lord, I must insist…”

  “I’ll have none of that.”

  “Forgive me, my lord, but you said you don’t want me to kiss your arse. My honest opinion is that you’re being a fucking idiot. I’ll have to send some men back with you. You won’t stop me without ordering my arrest. I won’t be held responsible for some band of bandits taking you captive, or worse.”

  “Let’s be blunt, Marl.”

  “I wish you would.”

  “You know why I’m here.” It wasn’t a question.

  Sir Marl impatiently brushed the comment aside. “Whatever your motives, it’s your methods that concern me. And I can hardly spare the men to accompany you back, yet I must.”

  “You would defy your prince?”

  “If he tries to get himself killed, yes. You’re not just any man, not even just any lord. You’re the crown prince, and your father is old and ailing. Your future is the future of the kingdom. I won’t see that imperilled. If you want to bash a few heads for fun go back to the capital and prowl the inns with your hotheaded cousin here, or else gather an army and lead it, fully armed and armoured, and I’ll follow you to the crack of doom.”

  “You see,” Arthur said, smiling at Oliver, “I told you he’s a man of the highest principle.” He turned back to Sir Marl, and his expression had lost all trace of humour. “In such men the kingdom trusts, as does her prince. I have a task for you, Marl.”

  “Anything sensible, Highness.”

  “Good. Leave the foolish fun to me and Oliver. We’ll be riding with you a while. You can assign me as many bodyguards as your sense of honour, or intelligence, deems necessary.”

  “You’re lightly armoured,” Sir Marl noted, pointing at the leather armour both men wore, “I would have felt better if you’d worn heavy plate. At least then it would be harder to kill you with a stray arrow. Or did you bring a sumpter with your armour packed?”

  Arthur smiled. “I’ll tell you more later, but I may need to travel quickly, so the armour’s not an oversight. And the horses we came in on are bred for speed. We’ll need them once the conditions are right.”

  “And what is the task?”

  “It’s a task of the greatest significance, on which the future of the kingdom may depend,” Arthur said, lowering his voice to a whisper. He signalled Oliver, who left the tent and shortly after put his head back in, nodding to Arthur and going back out to walk about its perimeter searching for spies, and warning away any men who strayed too close to the commander’s tent.

  The following day Arthur and Oliver rode between Sir Marl and the young squire, William. Many of the archers approved as he talked to the young squire, showing once again the prince’s common touch. Though William was now a squire, the archers had heard the grumbling of some knights about the common blood that ran in his veins. The archers mostly wished the boy well, and envied his good fortune. The knights beyond Sir Marl’s own household, were nearly unified in despising his rise from obscurity, though many of their own fathers or grandfathers had bought their own family coats of arms and only seen the battle of a barter.

  “I can hardly keep my seat,” William said to the prince, shamefaced.

  “Don’t worry about that. An inexperienced soldier does best to fight on the ground anyway. Have you been training with the sword I gave you?”

  “Yes, Highness, every day. Sir Marl says I’m a fast learner.”

  “I was too when I was young, but don’t overestimate yourself. Know your limits or else your enemy will be better able to take advantage of them. You’ll mostly be supporting your lord when he fights, so don’t get too carried away with hewing a path to fame. Keep your eye on Sir Marl and be ready to shield him if he falls, long enough for him to regain his feet, and if possible his saddle, then fall in behind him again, or withdraw to your lines. If he falls under his horse help him free, but watch your back at all times. You’ll be using your sword very little when in an infantry line. If the knights are hard pressed you’ll be put to that purpose. In formation you’ll fight with pike or halberd, so be sure you’re familiar with the weapons, and remember that’s where lance skills start. If he’s dismounted when you’re in line and you’re fighting forward to help him make sure others fill your place so you don’t break the line to the enemy’s
advantage. Be a loyal squire, don’t mistake recklessness for bravery, and you’ll sooner become a knight in your own right. Remember, loyalty will win you the trust of princes. With the trust of princes comes their generosity. Serve your liege lord well and fortune will smile on you.”

  “A prince like you?”

  “Or whoever your patron is.”

  “I’d like to serve under you one day, Highness, like my father.”

  “Earn your belt and who knows.”

  Chapter 49: Alex: Thedra

  A light drizzle fell as Alex rowed the small boat toward the Labyrinth from the southern end of the Caldera Lake. He had, as Javid might say…borrowed it…from the pleasure boats in which tourists rowed around the lake, and would return it before anyone noticed it was missing. After all, it wasn’t like he could hide it in his stash. He would steal the world if he could stash it, but a thief needs to think about practicalities. The boat was well designed, with the oars having a swivel that reversed their direction at the water, so that he could look forward as he pulled back. In front of him, the Labyrinth extended about two hundred yards in breadth, and a mile and a half from end to end, as the crow flies, curving in an arc nearly parallel to the southern wall of the city and about five hundred yards south of it, but bulging toward Alex at the centre. It was raised on massive pylons like the city, but was closer to the water than the outer ring, though not right at water level like the inner, palace ring.