Logorrhea

by John Klima

  Bows appeared all around the wall top.

  “Inside!” I screamed. The gong rang loud, the asses whinnied, and the air was full of the buzzing whir of arrows as I sprinted back toward the gap, Leutherion’s labored breathing hard behind me.

  I lay panting beneath a spreading bush with leaves the shape of a woman’s hand. I still held the hacked stub of a torch with which I had fought. There were eight of us who had escaped. Finnric and Ironpants, and a third soldier whose name I was unsure of, as well as Pincus, myself, Leutherion, and somehow both Osmio and legs-of-the-gong. The Fagutalii soldiers had refused to pursue us into the jungle, so we had not been forced to run far, merely out of sight and range of the arrows.

  There were eighteen more dead, including Pelletier and the rest of the guardsmen. We survivors were exhausted and bloody. The reek of smoke from the burning stockade stung my nose, mixed with the roast-pork smell of burned flesh. I could at least hope the prayers of three cities had burned and found their way to the blackstar.

  It was an ill sign in the heavens indeed.

  “I suppose it ends here,” I said.

  “Ends?” Leutherion dragged himself up on one elbow from where he had been lying. He was missing two fingers on his left hand, but hadn’t seemed to notice yet. “No, it does not end.” The guard captain leaned close. “I’m going to take you home and hang you for the murdering mountebank you are. And I cannot do that until we find our way out of here and onward to Oppius.”

  “Do you know where Oppius might lie from here?” I asked sweetly.

  “I know,” said Pincus.

  “Lead on,” I told him. “Lead on.”

  When Electra was queen in Oppius the messenger of the blackstar came down the river on a greenwood raft, bearing a promise of hope from Heaven and the memory of the smell of smoke.

  We tended our wounds and rested in the hottest parts of the day. Had the journey been upriver from the jungles at the foot of Fagutal, we might well have perished. But Pincus’s knowledge of geography, gleaned from his work in the cartularium of Halcyone’s palace, saved us.

  Armed with two spears, three knives, and a broken sword, we made our way along the current of the great river through jungles infested with beetles the size of cats and snakes too large for any rational vision of the world. I had never understood how many colors of green there were, either. After the views of the open desert, and the stark world-edge of the cliff at Fagutal, it was almost a relief to travel amid the jungle’s close confines.

  Even here, the inimical blackstar was a close presence, undenied and undeniable. The violet rays of nighttime colored the sky even by day now, and in those moments when the world fell silent, I could swear it hummed.

  Oppius, when we came to it some days into our passage downstream, was a city built upon the water. This jungle river was a wide, slow beast, languorous as the giant crocodiles which lazed upon its banks. We missed the first few houses standing stilt-legged like marsh birds as we passed them in the dawn, but when we came to a larger array of buildings, we took note.

  The channel divided and subdivided to flow between rock foundations like stone prows. Other buildings sat, or floated, on great mattresses of logs, or rose on stilts as the little houses did. Rope bridges danced between the islands and islets, and sometimes more substantial structures arched, so that the whole city was an accretion strung from one bank to the other by half a hundred ways and paths. Flocks of birds the color of bright jewels flittered between the building-islands, and green monkeys chattered from the high trees growing out of compounds and courtyards. Waterwheels creaked at all sides, while boys and girls fished from tiny flat-bottomed skiffs, grown men working in the faster shallows with throw-nets.

  I fell in love in that moment.

  Our raft had the crudest rudder, and responded like a mother-in-law on a wedding night, and so our arrival in Oppius was via a slow but destructive encounter with one of the stone-prowed islets.

  Leutherion and legs-of-the-gong were able to pull the rest of us and our few remaining possessions to safety. We all clung to the top of the foundation on a narrow ledge before a whitewashed wall. Pincus stared about in awe, Osmio simply closed his eyes and rested, while Leutherion’s three remaining men kept their weapons ready.

  “We’re not assaulting anything today,” I said. “They’re going to have to come fetch us out.”

  With some good-natured grumbling, the guards stood down. Children gathered in the river and along the roof of a low structure just across the channel, hooting at us and laughing. It was some time before a man dropped out of the air on a springy rope, a harness about his shoulders, to dangle before us and ask our business. He was nearly naked save for a sort of leather clout, and a matching mask which covered his entire face down to the neck, leaving openings only for his eyes and mouth.

  “Take us to your Queen Electra,” I said, tired of protocol and the strangenesses of rulers.

  Then, by the stars, the eunuch rang his gong. Every bird in the city leapt screaming into the sky at the sound, a colored rain streaming toward the sun.

  The court of Queen Electra was an open yard, surrounded by a three-story palace of bamboo—a wondrous wood thin as a pipe, not much heavier than grass, but seemingly strong as iron. Pools steamed, with that eggs-and-fart smell which indicated hot springs below.

  Everything else was people. The queen had furnished her court with bodies. Some were entwined to form couches upon which others lay. Slaves crawled, mobile tables with food and drinks upon their backs. Men and women stood or were bound in positions of naked receptiveness, used for sexual release or casual amusement as the users continued their conversations with others who stood idly by. The pools were filled with slick, squealing flesh as sport was taken within and beneath the water.

  And to think that in Cermalus we believed Oppius decadent for the intimate leather goods that came in trade. The greatest perverts of my home city would have been as bumpkins with goat manure in their hair compared to any of the sybarites writhing in this place.

  Our man, spry as a cat but carrying himself with the authority of age, led us to the center pool. A woman lay in a patch of open water, though many thrashed and groaned nearby. She could have been sister to our Queen Halcyone, young and slim, save she was clothed only in water and sunlight. Her small breasts floated nicely in the water, pink nipples standing just at the surface. The thatch between her legs was the same glossy black as the long hair which spread around her in the pool.

  The guide stopped before her and bowed low. “These men asked to see you, Elegance.”

  She looked from face to face before settling on me. I rubbed my chin stubble, then glanced up at the blackstar glowering dark in the daytime sky.

  “Would you join us in our pool?”

  My cock voted yes, but after my dealings with Queen Celæno I was loathe to trust anything. It seemed quite possible to me that these men and women at their sport were condemned, or slaves, forced to stay there till they rotted or drowned or expired of expended lust.

  “With profound thanks, your Elegance, I must decline. I am on a pilgrimage, bringing a message of hope from the heavens to all seven cities. I am making the Transept.”

  Osmio and the eunuch had the blessed good sense not to strike the gong, which somehow continued to survive the journey despite all our setbacks.

  “No pilgrim has made the Transept in generations,” she said, her interest obviously piqued. “We each have our diversions, and some small trade passes from city to city. From the look of you, we would presume you fared poorly in Fagutal.”

  “Indeed.” I was reluctant to criticize Queen Celæno, for I did not know if these women were truly sisters. “Misunderstandings all around, I am afraid.”

  “Yes. She is ever jealous of those who live beneath the sun.” Electra raised her arms and stretched, a pretty sight which nearly cost me all my dignity. “We further presume your message of hope from the heavens did not suit our sister queen’s ears.”<
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  I tried to regain command of my words, and shift my stance so my ardor would not be so obvious. “That I cannot say, Maj—Elegance. Each must decide for Herself. I say only this: I have been named by Halcyone queen in Cermalus to be the messenger of the blackstar. I have come to bear away whatever evil or ill that may have befallen your people.”

  She considered that a moment. “Are you in fact such a messenger? Or only so named?”

  Beside me, Leutherion stirred uneasily. I understood his fear. We had done far too poorly for ourselves and our train on this journey.

  I tried my best. “I was an ordinary man, Elegance, until the blackstar struck me down. When I rose again, a high priestess named me messenger, and my queen sealed the epithet. I cannot tell you what to believe, only what I believe.”

  “Hmm. And how will you carry away our evils, assuming we have any?”

  I looked around at falling whips, bodies in chains, children crying bloody-legged in quiet corners, and wondered how to answer that. Habit served. “It has been our custom thus far to take the fears and prayers of the people written on slips of paper, and carry them away with us. We lost our chests to fire at the foot of Fagutal’s cliff.”

  Her voice was soft. “And what do you charge for this wondrous service?”

  “We ask only safe passage, Elegance,” blurted Leutherion. His voice was heavy, thick with lust.

  “See them to rooms in the hyacinth wing,” she said to our guide, who had remained crouched at the edge of our conversation. “Except for this brave soldier.” She pointed at Leutherion. “I would have him stay and tell me more of his ideas of safety.”

  I bowed and took my leave, taking my party with me save for Leutherion. My last sight of them was the queen stroking her left nipple and my guard captain standing with his tongue between his lips like some wooden-headed beggar boy.

  Our guide, still nameless, returned in the morning. He did not remark on our reduced numbers, but led those of us who remained down halls with sprung flooring, lined with billowing silk tapestries and strange pieces of riverdrift on little stands, until we were in the queen’s court again.

  Most of the people were gone. A line of several dozen men and women waited their turn at a frame where someone—Finnric, I realized—was strapped with legs spread wide. I tried not to hear his keening as one at the front thrust violently. I had a dreadful suspicion that the nude man floating facedown near the queen in her pool was Leutherion.

  “Welcome,” Queen Electra said.

  I knelt again. “Indeed, your Elegance. My thanks for your hospitality.”

  “And our thanks to you for not abusing our hospitality.”

  I strained not to glance over at Finnric. “Indeed.”

  She smiled, sweet as an adder. “We have considered your message. Our people live beneath a canopy of leaves and fog. The blackstar to us is no more or less a cause of panic than the crocodiles in the river, or the illnesses that breed in the slow-flowing swamps. Some die, most live, life continues like the river itself. But we will package our evil safe and sound for you to carry away, as you have so kindly offered. As well we shall grant you a guide, and such supplies as a small expedition might require. Be ready to leave at dawn three days hence.”

  Bowing low, I thanked her profusely.

  There were girls and boys awaiting us in our apartments, oiled and nude, in ages from scandalously young to maternally old, but I sent them away. We barred our little door, for all the good it would do with these puzzlebox bamboo walls, and set a watch. There was no choice but to eat the food the Oppians brought us. We were fully in their power, but there was little else we could do.

  On the third day our guide led us along more bamboo corridors to a landing stage on the downstream side of the palace-island. A sleek, swift boat was tied there. A man sat in the prow wearing a mask much like our guide’s, save there were no holes for eyes or mouth. His skin was pale and wrinkled, and he was too still, as if wired in place. There were two fingers missing from his left hand.

  I did not need to ask where Queen Electra had set her evil to journey forth with us. There was not enough money under the sun for me to watch him take his mask off.

  Panniers of food and gourds of water lined the boat. Unless they meant to poison us, the Oppians had seen us well on our way.

  We threw ourselves at the mercy of the current and departed gladly, each alone with his thoughts. As the boat bobbed through the city, the eunuch stroked his gong until it began to hum softly, muted by his knees, the faintest metal tears for what we had left behind.

  When Maia was queen in Palatium the blackstar’s messenger came toiling up the slopes from the feverlands, bearing his message of hope.

  We spent six days shooting down the river, pulling into mid-current islands or snags at night to rest out the dark while the blackstar’s violet light crackled in the sky. Pincus tried to calculate our position as he watched the cliffs march in from the east, at first just dark lines on the horizon just above the treetops, then closer and closer.

  Our guide at the prow never ate, never slept, never spoke, never pissed. Never moved.

  On the morning of the seventh day I had the tiller, while Ironpants tried to spear some fish for the sake of fresh meat—our supplies were in fact plentiful, but ran heavily to cured fruits and fowl. I looked forward to see the guide had lifted his arm and pointed at the east bank.

  “Time to put in,” I said softly. I steered the boat, while Ironpants and legs-of-the-gong put paddles in to help. Osmio was much too small to do that work, and Pincus had a tendency to dither when action was required. How the man had survived this far was past my understanding.

  We cut across the current and found a landing hidden in an inlet, one we would have sped right by without noticing had our guide not pointed us in. I gave silent thanks to Leutherion’s shade, which I hoped had found better rest than his body seemed to have done.

  From there, the trail was clear enough. Obviously trade came this way with reasonable frequency. Someone had even invested time and effort in improvements to the path. It was two days of dreadful chest-tightening, leg-burning climbing to follow the path up the nose of the cliffs. There were little way stations every hour or two, wide spots to pause without clinging to a cliff face or dangling legs over a drop. Only the guide seemed to need no rest, following when we walked, standing immobile as stone when we tarried.

  No one wanted to sleep in his presence, but we had no real choice. Still, we kept our night watch, more against him than against any imagined predators.

  Eventually the slope gentled out, then I realized my legs hurt less. Ahead the trail came to a sort of wide flat spot, with a low wall in the middle. Anyone besides Osmio could have stepped over the wall, or walked around it easily enough, but I halted our little column and studied it.

  The trail continued on the far side, but less worn. Whoever came up here stopped at this point, turned around and went back.

  Why?

  I looked ahead. There were crags in the distance, a sort of crown atop these cliffs that might have been a city. I turned and looked back. The trail meandered a bit, a stone ribbon on stone, before disappearing below the line of the slope. The jungle basin was visible far below. Wind whipped dry and chilly around me, making little complaints.

  “Have people camped here?” I asked.

  Ironpants and Pincus wandered about a bit. “Yes,” called the guard. “There’s a shitpit over here, not well filled in. There’ve been more.”

  I had to admire anyone who went to the trouble of hacking a latrine out of the barren rock.

  Pincus came back with some broken iron spikes. “Tent stakes.”

  “So they come all the way up here, they stop at this little wall which wouldn’t slow down a good-sized rat, and they wait…for what?”

  “Brass,” said Osmio.

  The eunuch rang the gong.

  An hour later Osmio spotted two men coming down the path from the other side. We stood on our si
de of the wall, even the guide. He was beginning to smell up here on the stone, like a raw fish left out too long.

  When they arrived, the strangers were clad entirely in brass armor. They showed no skin, no eyes, nothing other than their mobility to mark themselves out from empty metal. The two stopped, paused for about half a minute, then turned and headed back up the path.

  I stepped over the wall to follow. One by one my fellow travelers came with me, Osmio scrambling with the aid of legs-of the-gong. Even the guide came, trailing the rest of us.

  It was a strange silent journey toward the crown of crags. There was no huff of breath nor stink of sweat from our two escorts. They were like the guide, wrought in metal instead of leather and flesh. I wished mightily for Leutherion back, in his old self. He had not liked me one bit, but the old guard commander was both sensible and trustworthy. None of my current companions met those two criteria save possibly Ironpants, of whom I simply knew too little.

  The crags resolved to walls, albeit crumbling. Palatium was a fortress, pure and simple, though I could not imagine what she had been built to defend. There were no fields around her, no town outside the walls. No roads led to or from.

  This was by far the most desolate of the cities I had yet seen.

  We passed from chilly sunlight to cold shadow through a shattered gate. The architecture was cyclopean. Great red-brown slabs laid together formed the walls. Other slabs stacked to make the inner halls of the fortress. There was no detail, just gaps for openings and incidental cracks which let a bit more light in. Everywhere was dust, with rubble on the floor save where little paths led from room to room.

  The armor escorted us through a good mile of corridors, occasionally passing through narrow stone courtyards. It was a strange sort of maze. I was certain we crossed our own path several times, but eventually we were in the great hall. The place stank like a barn—the first smell of life which had hit my nose since abandoning the river for the heights.