The Jackal of Nar

by John Marco

  The Daegog poured himself another cup of tea, dashed it liberally with honey from a silver spoon, and sat back to stare at the Aramoorians. They were going home, and he hated them for it. He ached for his own home, the dazzling spires of his usurped Falindar. Kronin was a loyal man but a middling host, and in these days of shortages Mount Godon could only provide modest hospitality. He was accustomed to stretching out each night on a bed of ivory inlaid with rubies, but here he slept on a mattress of scratchy fabric stuffed with straw. In Falindar, there had been scores of servants to attend him, beautiful young women trained to be perfectly servile, who bathed him and rubbed his feet with oil. But here in austere Mount Godon, every woman was engaged in the same bloody business as the men, trying to win the war. There were weapons to sharpen and clothes to mend and food to be harvested. There were shortages of everything now that the Drol had started burning the eastern fields. Day by day, he was becoming less royal, and he despised it.

  He was sure Arkus of Nar was having no such problems.

  Arkus, his Naren benefactor, was comfortable in his black palace. Arkus the puppeteer, who never showed the world his face but let his golden count--the strange one called Biagio--be his voice. He would send a message to Biagio at once, he decided, to tell him of Edgard's treachery. He would demand the emperor send his own legionnaires into Lucel-Lor to put down the rebellion. The Daegog ran a chubby finger over the rim of his cup and grinned. He admired Arkus, but age had dulled the old man's reason, and his obsession with magic had made him reckless.

  "Magic!" The Daegog snorted. The Narens were such passionate fools. They had all the science of the world in their hands, had built cities and weapons the Triin could only dream of, yet they were still as superstitious as any Drol. Now only he, the Daegog of all Triin, could pretend to give Arkus what he wanted, and the price was steep indeed. "Go home, then, Edgard," whispered the Daegog. "Go home to your death."

  He lowered his glass to the rickety table next to him and let out a giant yawn. It was very late, and he was weary. In the morning he would meet with Baron Gayle again to discuss the defense of Mount Godon, and speaking to the Talistanian always taxed him. It was time for sleep.

  Retreating from the balcony, he entered his bedchamber, the plushest one in the entire castle and still smaller than his own in Falindar by at least half. Miserably appointed, the room reminded the Daegog more of his citadel's dungeon than its bedchambers. But he was too exhausted to dwell on his plight, and as he shut the twin doors leading to the balcony, he took one last breath of the night air and turned to his bed. There was a candle near the bedside and he blew it out, satisfied with the moonlight coming through the glass. He was already in his satiny bed clothes, and as he slid into the bed and drew the sheets over his bulk, his eyelids drooped. It took only a moment for sleep to come.

  But it shattered just as quickly.

  The Daegog sat up in bed, hearing a noise at the balcony doors. Startled, he pulled the sheets close to his face and peered out toward the balcony. Past midnight, he recalled, past the hour of decent folk. Something outside shimmered, twinkling darkly in the moonlight. A white and man-sized shadow hovered just beyond the doors. The Daegog made to scream, but lost his voice in terror as the thing moved wraithlike through the glass.

  It was a man and yet it was not. It was white and thin and without substance, but it had form and it had eyes, and it watched the Daegog with a wicked humor. The Daegog's heart seized. His breath came to him in short, painful bursts. And the thing that was not quite alive floated closer on its legless torso and stopped at the foot of his bed.

  "Do you recognize me, fat one?" asked the spectre. Its voice was hollow, and it rang in the Daegog's head like a broken bell. The Daegog studied the thing, examined its determined face and saffron robes, and knew with horrible certainty what the visitation was. His dry lips pursed and a name dribbled out. "Tharn."

  The ghostly face grinned. "How nice to be remembered. I, of course, remember you, Daegog. I remember you every time it rains and I cannot walk."

  The Daegog backed up against the headboard. "What are you, demon?"

  "I have become the sword of Lorris," declared the Drol, and as he spoke his body shimmered. "The touch of heaven is within me. I am the air and the water. Look upon me, fat one. Look and fear me."

  "I do fear you," chittered the Daegog. "Spare me, monster. Take what you want but let me live...."

  The Drol laughed. "I go to make your end, Nebarazar Gorandarr. Tonight you are undone."

  "No!" wailed the Daegog. "Tharn, forgive me. I never meant for you to be harmed. It was not my doing, I swear to you."

  "Liar. I remember seeing your face through the blood in my eyes. I remember you there."

  The Daegog held up his palms. "I thought you were a criminal. I... I was wrong. Please, we can talk--"

  "You are the one with crimes to answer for, and I do not talk with devils." The ghost gestured with his transparent hand toward the balcony and the darkness beyond. "Look to the skies tonight. Wait for the purple mist. Tonight I am Storm Maker."

  And then the image of the Drol faded and dissolved, leaving the Daegog shivering, alone. It was long moments before he could move, but at last he slid out of his bed and tiptoed toward the doors. He flung them open and stepped onto the balcony. The steam had stopped rising from the teapot on the table. It was colder now, almost wintry. He looked to the bloodred moon hanging like a death's-head in the sky. A purple cloud floated across the horizon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Even before the war with Nar, the Dring Valley had never been a peaceful place. Voris the Wolf had done his best to live up to his title of warlord, and so the people of his land endured many hardships for his sake, losing sons in battles with their neighbors from Tatterak, the largest of all the Triin territories. Voris was iron-fisted, and his feud with Kronin had dragged on for years, never coming to any conclusion, and never winning the ostensible prize of the Agar Forest. This attrition had drained the coffers of Voris' castle and had made his people pariahs among the rest of Lucel-Lor, who looked upon the Drol of the valley with suspicion and disquietude.

  And yet the Wolf was beloved in Dring, a mystery Dyana puzzled over as she walked with her ragged company along the winding Sheaze River. They were refugees now, these people she traveled with, the meager handful of the valley's populace who saw the Wolf as something less than deified. With their shabby clothes and dirty faces, they no longer looked Triin at all! They were ghosts now, thin and pale, and Dyana muttered bitterly as she trudged alongside the wagon, for she knew that all had Tharn and his henchman Voris to thank for their misery, and she wondered at the stupidity of people who would follow such men.

  People like her uncle, Jaspin.

  She didn't miss the Dring Valley, not like she missed Tatterak. Dring had merely been a home of necessity, no others would accept her. Jaspin had opened his home to her, but had never made her feel welcome or called her "niece"[ witB']

  Each day for them was much the same. By Falger's reckoning, they had journeyed halfway to Ackle-Nye so far [crawS] Falger was an older man, with a well-earned reputation for eccentricity. If there was a heretic among this dismal lot, it was he. A self-proclaimed hater of the gods, he was quick to denounce those who prayed and quicker still to laugh in the faces of the village's devout. And like Dyana, he despised the Drol and their revolution with a fervor she had thought no one else shared. This mutual disdain had fostered an unusual kinship between them, and Falger quickly became her one defender, for even these folk were nervous to have Tharn's betrothed among them. But they showed her respect, and that was all Dyana wanted. That and to find her way, somehow, to Nar.

  None of them knew precisely what they would find in Ackle-Nye, but they hoped it would be freedom and a willingness to take them into the Empire. They would be outcasts there, too, of course, but they would be free of Drol tyranny. For Dyana, Nar might mean a new life. Perhaps in Nar she could fulfill her father's dreams and become a
woman with dignity, and not a lap-dog of the kind she so despised, the type of woman a Drol society demanded. In Nar, she could choose.

  The noon sun beat down on her uncovered head, and as she trudged along she considered this again, letting her imagination a place to flee whef

  Her father had told her that the Empire was a vast and powerful place, with machines and high buildings made of sweeping stonework. He had said that in the Black City there was a palace as beautiful as Falindar itself, and that Emperor Arkus sat in that palace upon a throne of iron and ruled his many kingdoms with wisdom.

  Dyana laughed lightly as she recalled this memory and her father's bright face. He had never even been to Nar. He was one of the richest men in Tatterak, but he had never once purchased passage through the Run. Too busy, he always used to claim. Busy raising a family and caring for a wife who betrayed him. Busy helping the Daegog deal with the Naren representatives who poured in from the Black City. Too busy for himself. Dyana's smile evaporated. She missed him, and sometimes the pain of it was unendurable. Worse, she still heard his screams at night, and when she dreamed of him her visions always ended the same way--with his severed head looking up at her vacantly, and Tharn standing over his decapitated body. Years had passed, but the memory was still vivid. That vision would haunt her forever, she knew, and she was resigned to such nightmares. Just as she was resigned to her solitude.

  They went on like this for hours more, silently plodding along, until at last the sun began to dip and Falger called a halt. Gratefully they all dropped down at the riverbank and took their fill of the fresh water, careful that all their skins were filled in case of emergency. According to Falger, the Sheaze would take them straight to Ackle-Nye, but none of them had ever been to the infamous city of beggars and so they took no chances with their water supply. Food, however, was another problem entirely. What little they had taken was dwindling fast, and they collected what they could from the brush and forests, gathering nuts and berries and any wild roots they were lucky enough to find. Falger was in charge of rationing the food, and each time they rested he doled out a meager allowance of bread, barely enough to keep the children from crying. Since Tharn had started burning the croplands, food was scarce nearly everywhere in Lucel-Lor. It was just one more of the Drol leader's obscenities, one more brutality he performed in heaven's name.

  Exhausted, Dyana collapsed at the riverside and pulled off her doeskin boots, dipping her burning feet in the blessedly cool water of the Sheaze. She let out a sigh of pleasure at the sensation, letting her eyelids droop. Around her the men started making camp, going off into the brush to gather firewood and spreading out blankets to sleep on, while the women fussed over the restless children, who splashed happily into the river to play. Dyana smiled as she watched them. There were six boys and three girls. She noticed the way they played together. At this age, they were still equal. The girls had yet to know the sting of male domination, and the boys could still see their playmates as more than just objects. Too bad they would grow up.

  "Dyana?"

  She looked up to see Falger hovering over her, a small chunk of bread in his hands. She smiled up at him gratefully.

  "Thank you," she said, taking the food. She tore off a small wedge and began to eat, slowly so that it would last. The taste of it, was wonderful. Falger remained above her, staring down at her with his peculiar grin.

  "Can I join you?" he asked.

  Dyana chuckled. "You do not need to ask that, Falger. Sit." She patted the ground beside her, urging him down.

  Falger dropped to the earth and stretched, letting the muscles in his neck pop and yawning like a lion. He had no food for himself, just a blade of grass between his teeth.

  "You are not eating?" asked Dyana.

  Falger shook his head. "I thought I would wait until the morning, let the children have some more."

  Dyana looked down guiltily at her meager portion.

  "Eat," Falger urged. "I am not trying to be a hero. I just want there to be enough. Who knows what we will find when we get to Ackle-Nye?"

  "There will be food there," said Dyana. "Will there not?"

  "Hopefully. From what I have heard there are many like us, Dyana. And the Narens are not doing so well themselves, remember. We may need to conserve what we have."

  What they had was ridiculously little, and would barely last them all the way to Ackle-Nye. Dyana bit into her bread pensively. How could she make such a smattering last?

  "You did not come to talk to me today," said Falger. "I missed you."

  "I was thinking," said Dyana.

  "About what?"

  Dyana shrugged. "About everything. About Ackle-Nye, and Nar. I was thinking about what it will be like there."

  "Hard," said Falger. "And it is a long road through the Run. And we will need the Narens to guide us, give us food." Falger's expression became forlorn. "Do not get too hopeful, Dyana. We will make it to Ackle-Nye. More than that... who knows?"

  "I know," said Dyana. "We will make it to Nar. I swear it. I will get there if it kills me."

  Falger laughed. "Oh, yes? Better to die in the Run than here in Lucel-Lor, eh?"

  "Better to die free than be Tharn's wife," corrected Dyana. "He will not find you now, Dyana," Falger assured her. "We are too far from Dring for that. Even Voris will not send warriors looking for you now." He looked up into the darkening sky and smiled. "We are all safe here."

  Safe. It was a wonderful word, but Dyana couldn't believe it. The night he killed her father, Tharn had made it clear she would never be safe again. He was obsessed with her, he always had been. They had both come from prominent families, and the union had seemed the perfect pairing to their misguided parents. Now she could scarcely remember the man he had been, the Tharn that he was before the call of the Drol. He had been kind once. If her memory wasn't wrong, he might have even been shy. She laughed silently to herself. It was hard to reconcile those memories with the revolutionary.

  "There is no safety from Tharn," said Dyana bleakly. "And I do not like being driven from my home."

  "Nor I," said Falger indignantly. "But show me a choice. Tharn will win this whole thing soon enough, and there will be no place for us who are not Drol. Once Kronin falls, the rest of us are dead. We must leave."

  "I know," said Dyana. "But would it not be better to go with our heads high, and not as rats? Would it not be so much better?" Falger fell silent, and Dyana quickly regretted her words. She could see the hurt on the older man's face, and knew she had insulted him.

  "Sorry," she offered. "That was wrong of me to say. We are not rats."

  "But we are running," admitted Falger. "That bastard Tharn has beaten us."

  "Oh, no. He will never beat us, Falger. Not while we live and escape him. Once we get to Nar, we will have beaten Tharn."

  A boy splashed out of the river and fell to his knees in front of them, panting and giggling. "I can beat Tharn," he declared proudly. "I can fight!"

  "Can you?" said Falger. "Well, all right then. Let us get you a jiiktar and send you off!"

  "Yes!" cried the boy excitedly. "Dyana, I can beat him."

  Dyana smiled ruefully. "You stay here and protect us, Luken. You can fight him off if he comes."

  "I will," said the boy adamantly. "I wish he would come. I am not afraid."

  None of the boys claimed fear. They all clambered out of the river, wringing the water from their clothes and declaring their defiance of Tharn. The girls came ashore, too, sitting down with Dyana and Falger and giggling at the boys' boasts.

  "Tell us more about him, Dyana," urged Luken. "Tell us again what he is like."

  Dyana laughed. "It was a long time ago, Luken."

  "Is he ugly?"

  "Is he fat?"

  Dyana started to answer, but a little girl whose name she didn't know plopped down next to her and asked the most disquieting question.

  "Why does he hate us?"

  And no one asked another thing. They just stared at Dyana,
waiting for her sage response, and Dyana found herself at a loss.

  "I don't know," she said sadly. She took the little girl's hand and pulled her closer, hugging her wet body and not minding the soaking at all. "Maybe it is not really hate," she said. "Maybe it is like what happened in the Agar Forest. You all know that story, right?"

  The children were wide-eyed.

  "No? None of you knows what happened in the Agar Forest? Luken, you do not know?"

  She could tell Luken wanted to lie, but instead he simply frowned.

  "Well then, let me tell you. There are giant birch trees in the forest, you all know that. But the story of how they got so tall, that is the good part." Dyana's tone took on drama. "This was a long time ago, long before any of us were born."

  "Before Falger was born?" asked one of the boys.

  They all chuckled. "Well?" Falger kidded. "Was it?"

  "Oh, yes," said Dyana. "It was much longer ago than that. This was before Voris and the Drol, before everything. This was when there was nothing but trees in the forest, no animals, no people, nothing. Just the birch trees, and the redwoods."

  Luken wrinkled his nose. "Redwoods? There are no redwoods in Agar."

  "Right," said Dyana. "Not anymore. Because they lost their war with the birches. Trees can fight, did you know that? Well, that is what they used to do. They used to fight, talk, everything just like people. Only they did not get along with the redwoods, because the redwoods were cruel to them. Just like the Drol are to us."

  "What happened?" asked the girl in Dyana's lap.

  "You all know how tall a redwood is... Really, really tall." Dyana raised her hands and knitted her fingers together. "So tall they block out the sun. There were thousands of them in Agar, too, so many that the poor birch trees had no light! They were in the dark, because the redwoods were selfish, and wanted all the sunlight for themselves. And when the birch trees complained, the redwoods got angry. They told the birches that they were the most powerful of all trees, that the gods had made them that way and that the gods liked them best."