The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  Janos bared his teeth. "I would wager you are holding up a mirror to their thoughts. And I agree. Continue. You hold the speaker's glass." Even in that fearful, sun-blazed moment, I admired Janos's ability to hold his tongue, rather than burst out with the obvious ideas that were occurring.

  "This night," I said. "You, me, Sergeant Maeen, one other. Each man with someone to guard his back, as I've seen you train the Praetorians."

  Janos was taken aback. "But the others--"

  "No. Let the others play roles as sheep, so there can be no possibility of mistake. You, Evocator, must stay with them. We need a spell like you cast before... Uncertainty. Or something like it." I remembered what Janos had said in the armorer's shop, about sorcery on the battlefield, but thought this might be different. My plan bore no more semblance to battle - if it worked - than the slavers' attack on us in two or three days would.

  "Better than uncertainty," Janos suggested, "can you manage a spell that might suggest terror at the right moment? Such as a peasant might feel when a lightning storm strikes in midsummer out of a clear sky?"

  "Once I am aware of what, exactly, Lord Antero's plans are," Cassini said with acerbity, "I can come up with devices fully as subtle and sophisticated as any you have, in your own field, which I would never have the temerity to interfere with."

  Janos held back the urge to snap a retort. "Very well. Four of us, eh? The best time will be... just after moonset, which will give us a sufficient amount of time before dawn. Tinderboxes... we'll scrape tar from our animals' packs, soften it in the fire, and smear our bird-arrows with it. Once inside the oasis, we will take brands from their own fire to light their deaths..." and his muttering became inaudible as he filled out my plan.

  * * *

  When the moon went down the four of us crept out, equipped as Janos had planned, plus we each carried short, thrusting spears. Sergeant Maeen had chosen the hot-tempered 'Lione as our fourth, saying his quickness to violence was exactly what we needed here.

  In the oasis three fires still burnt indicating the nomad's camp; at least there was no danger of us becoming lost. We circled until we were a quarter-arc away from our camp, then we struck for the oasis. The place was park-like, with thick brush and palms stretching up, but with little grass or vines to trip and snare. We found one of the winding paths travelers had worn between the water pools and the open areas suitable for campsites, and padded toward the nomads. Janos had told me to keep my gaze away from their fire, to avoid losing my night eyes, but it was hard. It also became difficult to see objects between us and fireglow the closer we got to the camp. I stumbled in mud and nearly fell into one of the pools, but the sergeant steadied me. Then his hand forced me down, into a kneel. I saw a bulk ahead of us that was not one of the palms, but a sentry. Another bulk closed on it, and I heard a Hunh!, just the sound of a man who's been punched below his lungs. Janos let the sentry sag down and I saw steel glitter, as he pulled his dagger out of the body.

  Now we were on the fringes of their camp. Janos waved us up. We crouched, hidden by brush, and looked at the camp. There were two tents that looked as if they could hold ten men or so. That would be, I guessed, where the nomads slept. Stretched out on the ground, between the banked fire and the tents were sleeping men and women. I saw the gleam of metal, and followed the chains from person to person. The slavers had already found part of their "flock," evidently. There was a half-awake man guarding the slaves; and another guard as well, who stood outside a small conical tent. I guessed it would belong to the nomad's leader.

  I shuddered as if a chill wind had blown across my soul, and felt my invisible being wandering in a dark desert; a desert filled with great beasts I would rather have slaughter me unknowing than show their ghastliness openly in my final moment. Cassini's spell was working.

  Maeen and Janos nocked war-arrows, while 'Lione and I uncovered our tinderboxes, blew sparks into a low flame, and held our tarred arrows into them. Flame... and Janos hissed. Bowstrings twanged... just as arrows hit with that solid, and most final thunk. The sentries dropped without cry. 'Lione and I loosed our fire arrows at the tents, and Maeen and Janos quickly followed suit. Then we rose and charged.

  Baldly written on white linen, these events might make me seem guilty of being either suicidal, or a lie maker. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Imagine yourself a desert nomad, sleeping peacefully, and perhaps dreaming of how you are about to reap a rich harvest of foolish merchants out there in the desert. Then screams... flames... raw fear shatters down at you... you seize your sword... and stumble out of your tent... and are confronted with four howling demons.

  A spearthrust coming out of the night, dropped, then blood-dripping swords slashing, constantly moving, like desert dustdevils with deathsteel in one hand, gouting fire from torches taken from your own fire setting your tents ablaze. Now, with those terrible facts in front of you, might you not do as those slavers did? Might you not also drown out our howls with your own screams and pelt away into the night? And might not the gruesome sight of six of your comrades' disemboweled corpses lend speed to your feet as you fled into the desert?

  I was beside that conical tent, sword ready for the killing lunge when the flaps came open; I thought it fitting that the nomad chieftain meet his death at my hands, but I braced to strike, a woman stumbled out into the firelight. I now thank the gods I was not then the warrior Janos or Maeen were, nor the warrior I myself became later. I was slow enough in launching my attack to catch myself, and my sword-tip went wide. The chief's concubine, I thought, and then I saw, fireflicker, the silver that cuffed each of her wrists and stretched between. Another poor captured being, destined for slavery.

  The woman was young and she- wore the puffed shirt and baggy trousers of a man. Her black hair dropped in waves to her shoulders. I noticed, as if we were standing in the mid day sun and I had a god's time appreciate, that she wore gold and the sparkle of gems at her throat. She was also quite beautiful.

  "Who are--" we each asked at the same moment, or at least I guessed we did, because the woman spoke in an unknown tongue. I said something about "rescuers," and she seemed to understand. She looked beyond me; I turned and saw the rest of our soldiers run into the firelight. Among them was Cassini. The slaves were on their feet now, and Janos and Maeen moved among them. Maeen had found keys, and was unlocking their chains. Janos preferred the direct approach, and used his great blade to pry the chain links apart.

  The woman saw something, and walked past me, paying no heed to the bloody sword in my hand. She walked to one of the nomad bodies which lay faceup, and bent over it. I recognized the man - he was the band's chieftain. Very deliberately the woman spat in his face, laughed harshly, and said something else in her own language.

  "Janos!" He freed the last of the captives, and came to me. He pulled firewood from a pile and tossed it into the flames; they roared up. The captives seemed bewildered.

  Janos tried trader's language. Only one man seemed to understand, and that very slightly, so Janos began motioning, trying to make his signs universal, as he spoke:

  "You are free... casting aside one of the chains... we must go on... we travel east... tapping chest and indicating.... you must come with us... slavers will return... tomorrow... motioning to the other darkness, and arcing his hand like the sun rising... with more men... more weapons... again, the chain, and then fingers spread, spread, spread again showing numbers... Come with us... you are free."

  The men and women looked at each other, hesitant. No one moved. Finally, the beautiful woman stepped forward; she walked up to me and said a word I did not understand. Then she repeated it, this time in the patois. This time I understood; the word she used was "Free." She said it with great relish. Then she turned back to the others, and shouted a few sentences. The freed captives found their tongues and babbled. Then one, then two, then five walked to Janos. The others were suddenly silent. They looked down at the ground, then sat. Janos tried again, but none of them rose. He
even seized one man by the arm and dragged him to his feet. But the man went limp and let himself collapse. Janos was angry, seething... as if he might kill someone... or as if he might cry.

  Maeen broke his building rage. "Sir. Captain Greycloak. It's false dawn. We must be moving."

  Janos forced calm. "I should have remembered," he said to the captives. "There were people like you when I was... what I was. Men who would rather live in chains than die free."

  Then it was if they did not exist. He shouted us into motion. We must return to our camp, and get the packs onto the asses. The nomads would be back - almost certainly with reinforcements. We must be gone when they did, deeper into the desert. We looted the camp, leaving only foodstuffs for those who had decided to remain in slavery. All else we burnt. We drove their horses out in a different direction, hoping to provide a false trail. We dared not take them with us - the nomads might know exactly where every water source was, but we did not. And we did not want to landmark our direction of flight with a line of carcasses. Then we marched out. As we moved out of the oasis, in the first red flush of real dawn, the woman caught up with me, and tapped my chest, and asked something. It took a moment before I realized what she wanted to know.

  "Amalric," I answered. She touched her own breast.

  "Deoce."

  Then we went on into the desert, the last flames from the nomad's camp lost in the glare of the rising sun.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  DEOCE

  During the next few days, Deoce and her companions had cause to regret their rescue. The desert nights were so cold our bones ached, and the days so opposite we begged for the comfort of night. It was impossible to keep the fast pace Janos desired; so we were grateful the slavers had evidently decided not to follow. And as the sun beat down and the asses bawled their misery, and we wished for tears enough to weep, we realized only a fool would pursue us. For we were all clearly doomed, as would be anyone who followed. Still, there were beasts about - although I cannot attest they were of this world. At night we heard them howling for the wetness of our blood; during the hot day we could sense them snuffling, just out of view, on our scent.

  On the third dusk of our ordeal, Cassini's divining rod finally gave a weak twitch and we all fell to the sand and began to scrabble and dig like dogs. I growled with satisfaction like the others when my fingers found wet sand. I scooped up the wetness and stuffed it into my mouth, sucking eagerly on the grit, spitting it away when it was dry, and grabbing up another handful. When I was nearly satiated I looked up, munching on sand as if it were sweet sherbet, and saw Deoce. Her face was filthy and when she grinned at me, sand clung to her teeth. She laughed at my own look, and when I laughed back at her own poor state, she found even greater amusement, laughing even louder.

  Deoce had a lovely laugh. I can hear it now as write these words and struggle for descriptive powers. It wasn't musical, or bell-like; or any of those "winds in a sacred grove" comparisons. She laughed from the toes up; a deep, heart-felt laugh that tickled the spirit of anyone in her company. Soon we were all laughing and it took little encouragement from Janos to get the men busy widening and deepening the hole, and helping the animals get a drink.

  I am not saying we were as good as new that night or even refreshed, but our spirits were much lighter. When one of the beasts howled, 'Lione mocked it with a howl of his own and soon all the men were howling, until the only sounds we heard in the desert were our own.

  Deoce sat near me as we ate, and after a time we attempted conversation. She pointed at me, said my name, and gestured about. She repeated my name, but this time with a question to the tone. "Ah," I said. "You want to know where I come from." I pointed west. She frowned at this and shook her head, as if this was not possible. So I nodded, firm, and pointed west once again. As she thought on this, I spoke her name, and gestured about as she had. Where did she come from? She pointed south and flashed her fingers at me several times, indicating much distance. I raised both hands in a question, pointed south again, then back to where we had encountered the nomads. "What happened?" I asked. "How did you come into their company?" Deoce shook her head, puzzled at my meaning. So I pointed at her wrists, mimed manacles and chain, and again lifted my hands in question. Her lovely eyes cleared as she understood. She chattered heatedly in her own language, then frustrated, she made walking motions with her fingers in the sand. Her face took on the look of blissful innocence, and she hummed as if she hadn't a care in the world. She was acting out the beginning of her journey, making motions to indicate many companions and a strong guard.

  Then she suddenly took the part of the nomads, face crafty, evil, lurking. And I realized the nomads were lying in ambush when her party went past. Then she mimed a leap forward, made noises of battle, took on the roles of soldiers waging a fierce fight, and then threw her arms about herself to indicate her capture. She tapped both wrists to indicate the manacles, and made motions of walking again. This time with a look of terrible despair. She sighed, acted out a stifled sob. Deoce pointed east. This was the direction the slavers were taking her. She made motions of a purse full of coin exchanging hands. I understood she was to be taken to some far place to be sold.

  Even in the baggy trousers and puffed shirt, with a thin line of sand about her lips, Deoce was a remarkably beautiful woman. She would have fetched a handsome price for that nomad chieftain.

  We were silent for a time, as each of us struggled to think how to continue our conversation. "Perhaps I can help, my friend," Janos said. I hadn't heard him approach, and looked around with mild surprise. He handed me a small, wooden writing box, and crouched by my side. "I have some experience in these matters, if you recall."

  "I'm not sure that you can help," I said. "Our languages seem to have no similarities that I can grasp."

  Janos laughed. "I told you once before, my dear Amalric, that the best dictionary is one that you can bed."

  I was shocked at this suggestion. "Oh, come, now, Janos. I wouldn't take advantage of the girl. She is obviously from good family. As good, or better than my own, I warrant. And she is clearly a virgin. It would be wrong for me-"

  "It would be wrong for you to act as if you were home in peaceful, dull, Orissa, just now, Amalric. This is life. Real life." He gestured about the wilderness. "Take it as you find it, my friend. Or you will regret it the rest of your days."

  I wanted to protest, but Amalric turned to address Deoce. "My friend thinks you are a most lovely woman, lady," he said in our tongue. "He believes you are a princess. And, perhaps you are. Amalric is almost a prince, so you would make a good match."

  Deoce frowned a little at the mystery of his words, but she smiled and nodded as he spoke, chattering back in her own language. She pointed at the writing box, and Janos opened it to display clean pads of linen and writing implements. Deoce laughed and drew them out, quickly catching on to his intent. She plucked at her sleeve, said a word, then repeated that word... slowly... and wrote it down on the linen. She handed it to me, motioning for me to do the same. "Sleeve," I said. "Slee-"

  "Don't be so single-minded, my merchant friend," Janos admonished. "She obviously means the whole garment. If you go on like that, you'll be all night discussing small parts of clothing. From stitch to cuff to collar."

  "You think she means the whole shirt?" I asked, feeling foolish.

  "Count on it," Janos said.

  Deoce was looking back and forth as we debated. She seemed impatient. She tugged at the front of her shirt, and said the same word she'd said before and pointed at that word on the linen. "Shirt," I said. "Shirt." I wrote the word down. Deoce clapped her hands in delight. She grasped a leg of her trousers. "Trousers," I said. And Deoce repeated after me... "Trou-sers."

  Janos got up. "It gets even more interesting," he said, "when you get past clothing... to anatomy."

  I blushed like fury, sure Deoce could understand the tone of his comment. I turned, thinking of some way to apologize for my friend
's lusty remarks, but found a look of wonder on Deoce's face. Her fingers rose, tentative, and touched my hair; my face. She said a word. I didn't need a dictionary. The only word it could be was... red.

  As Janos strode into the darkness he called back: "I don't know why you thought you had to use a love potion on the fair Melina, Amalric. That fiery hair of yours is potion enough for most women."

  Deoce patted my hand for attention. "Me-li-na?" she asked. "Melina?" She made motions for me to write the word on the pad.

  I shook my head. "Let's leave Melina for another lesson," I said. "Much later."

  Gentler country greeted us at the end of the next day's trek. We found a creek slashing through a narrow gully, with trees and brush forming a thin line on either side. Later, the creek grew into a stream, with thicker vegetation to soothe us. The water came from a great solitary butte, which lifted from the plains. The map showed the butte with a heavy "X" marked in its center, possibly and hopefully indicating a place to rest. We were all too trail-weary to question the logic of finding comfort in such a place. Even with water tumbling from the rocks, the butte seemed as desolate as the plain. Janos put Maeen and his men at the ready in case the butte was occupied, and as the sun dipped for its dark coverlets, we struggled to the top.

  A marvel awaited. The butte was hollow in its core, with thick walls to protect everything within from the outside elements. The crater was filled from wall to wall with trees and flowering plants, with streams criss-crossing it. We could see animals drinking by those streams, and in the dying light the sky was alive with thousands of birds calling and swooping through dense clouds of fat insects.

  Deoce gave a small cry of amazement and pointed to one of the pools of water scattered about this pocket paradise. We all looked and saw a half-dozen slender antelope playing in the water. Among them were two tigers. The tigers were splashing about, and rolling on their backs, kicking claws in the air in mock combat like kittens. They paid no attention to their natural prey. A wonderful feeling of peace and joy spread, and I had a sudden urge to race to join them in play. Deoce drew smile lines on her face and said something in her language. I smiled back into the sparkling eyes. "Happy," I said. "Very happy."