The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  Rali laughed, and it was a joy to hear again after all the time that had passed. "I like her, Amalric. She's much too good for you." Then, to Deoce: "We are not so different in Orissa, my dear Deoce. However, Cassini is an Evocator. You cannot challenge an Evocator to a duel. An unpleasant death would be the smallest penalty you'd face."

  Deoce made a face. "Now I know for certain men rule here," she said. "No woman of character would allow such a law to stand."

  Janos slammed down a heavy fist, rocking the table. "As should no man," he said. "But it would be too easy to kill him, and then be cheated out of what I desire the most. The Far Kingdoms will be mine, dammit. And no other's."

  "Then let us confront him," I said. "The people will gather soon to do him honor. Let us go there and show them we not only live, but that it was no thanks to that lying coward who abandoned us and urged others to abandon us as well." And that is what we did. I convinced Rali and Deoce to guard the villa in case all did not go well. I ordered horses saddled, and still dressed in the rough clothing of our journey, we rode for the Great Amphitheater. Now the streets were more crowded; and I realized although the old fisherman hadn't believed me, he must have told others about the young fool claiming to be Amalric Antero. People looked up to see the men riding past and some of them recognized us. "Isn't that Greycloak?" I heard people ask. "And isn't that Lord Antero, himself, beside him? It's true, then. They are alive!"

  Someone called out: "Where are you bound, Captain Greycloak?"

  Janos shouted back: "We're off to confound a great liar." His words, and the news our presence was no rumor, spread, and a large crowd gathered in our wake, shouting encouragement and cursing Cassini for a liar. Soon we came to the Great Amphitheater. A strong guard rushed to bar our way, alerted by the noise of the crowd. The captain of the guard raised his spear and shouted for us to stop.

  "How dare you say such a thing to a citizen of Orissa," I shouted back. But my protest wasn't necessary. As soon as the man saw Janos, he lowered his spear in amazement. "By Te-Date, it is Janos Greycloak," he called. "Alive as the day his mother birthed him." He strode up to Janos. "I knew no Evocator could have accomplished such deeds." To his men: "Didn't I say that, lads? I didn't I say only a soldier could have done what he said he'd done?" The others soldiers cheered. The guard captain clapped Janos on the leg. "Get in there, man," he roared. "The Far Kingdoms are for all of us. Soldier and citizen, and not for the damned Evocators." We dismounted, tossed the reins to the guardsman, and went through the gates; the crowd poured after us.

  It was not pleasant to be Cassini that day. I imagine him, now, moments before our entry. Every space in the Great Amphitheater was taken. The heat would have been intense from all those thousands gathered to cheer his triumph. But it was unlikely Cassini would have felt the heat. He would have been well-rehearsed for the honors' ceremony, and would have labored many nights over the humble hero's speech he planned to deliver. As he waited patiently through the many introductory speeches, he would have basked in all the admiration. This was the culmination, the highest point in his life; a life, he recently feared would go unappreciated. He would already have begun to dream of the triumphs that would soon follow. He would lead the next expedition to the very portals of the Far Kingdoms, and would return with even greater glory. Yes, for a short while, Cassini knew what it was like to be the man of the hour. Then we appeared, and the last of the sand ran out.

  Jeneander, that old fraud, was poised to introduce his protégé when we entered. He stood on the broad center stage of the amphitheater, his voice and image magnified many times by the special spell that was cast by one hundred and twelve Evocators when the first stone was set in place. Clustered about him were dignitaries from all walks of Orissan life. In the two most favored seats were Gamelan, oldest of the Evocator Elders; and, Sisshon, his counterpart with the magistrates. In the center, on the hero's throne and with a hero's garland on his brow, was Cassini.

  Jeneander was in mid delivery when the crowd that had followed us in roared our names and all heads in the Great Amphitheater turned. Then the whole place became madness. There were shouts and screams and sudden, wild brawls. I heard my name being chanted; but, mostly I heard them cry out for Janos. Janos. JANOS. I saw Cassini, standing dumbfounded next to Jeneander, fear a raw wound on his face. He was frozen in his humiliation, but the men about him were coming to life. Some escaped association by fleeing the stage. Others began to berate him, although I could not hear what they said over the noise of the crowd. Gamelan was the first Evocator to find his senses. He hobbled swiftly to Jeneander and Cassini, threw his arms about them, lifted his heads to the heavens and cast a spell. Smoke and fire billowed, and they were gone.

  Then a thousand arms lifted us, and a thousand more passed across the arena floor to the center stage. I was the first to be set on his feet. I had just time to catch my bearings and then Janos was beside me. He looked around, a little bewildered; a soldier uneasy in the presence of so many civilians focusing on him. I pushed him forward, guessing the point on the stage where our images would be cast up like giants. From the sudden silence of the crowd I knew I had guessed right.

  "People of Orissa," I said. I heard the words explode out, and wash back, rocking me by the sheer force of their sound. "You all know me, for I am one of your own."

  The crowd chanted my name: "Amalric. Amalric. Amalric." They grew quiet when I raised my hand. "If you do not know, I am sure you have all heard of my friend, here."

  There was wild cheering as I presented Janos. I pushed him forward, sensing the people felt a close kinship to Janos. I whispered to him: "Speak to them. They want to hear you." Janos's eyes were glazed. "What should I say?" I prodded him again. "Just tell them the truth." It was the last time Janos ever suffered the malady of actors. His form suddenly straightened, and all fear and confusion dropped away. He stepped forward, confident, as if born to the role.

  "People of Orissa," he boomed. "I bring you news of the Far Kingdoms..."

  The speech he gave that day was praised for many weeks. It wouldn't have mattered if it had been fashioned of nonsense words, for Orissa had never known such a hero as Janos Greycloak. Here was a man of noble family, but exotic birth. He was also a fighting man, a soldier who knew what it was like to suffer. Not only that, but it was rumored he was a former slave; so they were certain he was no stranger to the burdens and toil of common men and women. He'd also made a fool and a liar out of an Evocator and isn't it true to this day the most amiable of sorcerers may be respected, but will never be liked? Most of all, he brought them the gift of pride. An ordinary man had achieved what had been considered impossible a few months before. Now he promised to better that achievement, to set foot in a magical land that offered promise a-plenty for every heart.

  As for myself, there were honors and banquets and many people clamoring for my time. Lest false modesty brand me a liar, I will say that I was a hero as well. After all, it had been my Finding that sparked the whole thing, and I walked every step Janos had walked and suffered what he had suffered. But as intent as I had been on instantly gathering up an expedition and retracing our footsteps, now that I was home my heart did not yearn so deeply for the Far Kingdoms. With my father ill, and considering the mild nature of my brothers, it was up to me to shoulder the burdens of the Antero family fortunes. My brothers had no grounds for quarrel when he made known that I was his choice to head the family. The acclaim I had won for my Finding had removed much of the stain from the Antero name, or at least made it unwise to attack us.

  Oh, yes; there was one other thing... Deoce. She delighted my father and he was always making excuses to call her into his company. Although his health continued to fail, you would have thought he was young again when she came into his room. No wonder; for she joked and flirted with him mercilessly. To this day I am certain her attentions added to what little time he had remaining. She also held Rali in her thrall - bursting onto the practice field at a moment's notice, ask
ing to learn new tricks of arms, and giving more than a few of her own.

  "There isn't a woman in my guard who wouldn't fight you for her," Rali told me. "The only thing holding them back is that the dear woman is so obviously headlong in love with you."

  Out wedding was by necessity a small affair. My new fame would have made any kind of guest list a recipe for insult if it went beyond immediate family. So, we planned a simple ceremony at the villa, overseen by our hearth god. At first, I was concerned Deoce would feel slighted.

  "Why should I feel insult?" she shrugged when I asked. "Among the Salcae, the marriage is more important than the wedding itself. The truly big feast is held after the couple has survived one complete harvest cycle; every harvest after that, the celebrations get even larger. I think the reverse is so in Orissa because women have little say in your city. So, the wedding ceremony is a poor bone to throw to the girl when she faces a life of servitude. It is practically the only moment in her life when she is the center of everyone's attention; important above all others." I couldn't quarrel, for hadn't I heard Rali bitterly complain about similar injustices?

  Deoce took my hand and laid it gently on her belly, which was slightly swollen with our child. We knew it was going to be a girl, because Rali asked the witch who tended her troop's minor troubles to cast a divining spell. I laughed when I felt her kick.

  "What shall we name her?" I asked.

  "We should honor your mother, and mine as well," Deoce answered. "We should call her Emilie, after your mother's clan. And Ireena after my mother."

  "Consider her named, then. Emilie Ireena Antero... I like that."

  "I want you to promise me something, Amalric," my bride-to-be asked.

  "Anything."

  "I don't want our daughter to be raised thinking women must behave as they do in Orissa. You can feel from her kick she is going to be a strong-willed child. And at night, when all is very quiet, I can hear her little heart beating. It is a sensitive heart, Amalric, and please believe me when I tell you I know this; although she and I have yet to meet."

  "I will hire the best tutors," I said. "And we have Rali to teach by example, as well as training."

  "That isn't enough," Deoce answered. "Emilie will see other women shuffle about, ducking their heads in men's company, feeling less worthy because they do not have a cock and set of balls; suffering instead with a function so lowly as to only be the source of all human life."

  "What promise can I make to prevent this?" I asked.

  "I want my mother to help raise her," was her answer. I was alarmed, for what father would wish to have his child removed from his sight? She saw this and gripped my hand hard. "Please, you must do this for me. If you say no, I will accept it; not as a dutiful Orissan wife, for this I can never be; but because I love you, my Amalric. No child can ever be more important than that love. I don't mean she should be sent away, for I could not bear that anymore than you. I mean, in three years time - before bad influences can alter her, Emilie Ireena must visit long with my mother until after the rites of womanhood, when she is sixteen. After that, only personal weakness can affect her thinking. And I promise you, my Amalric, this child will not be weak-headed."

  The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with what Deoce had to say. I was even enthusiastic, seeing the whole thing as a grand, modern experiment; two cultures joining to produce a perfect child; a golden child. I made a formal promise, and afterwards we clung to one another as tight as two lovers can cling. I felt her hand slip down along my bare thighs. She cupped me in her hand and bent down to nuzzle and kiss the thick muscle she found there. Then she looked up, dark hair streaming over her face, eyes lit up with fun. "After all that man versus woman talk," she whispered, "I'd better make sure they didn't get their feelings hurt." And then she proceeded to soothe them with her hot mouth.

  We were wed one week later. My father was too weak to do more than sit in his chair and weep tears of joy. Rali stood in for him, cutting the lamb's throat and letting the blood flow into the god's offering bowl. Janos took the part of Deoce's brother, anointing our brows with the lamb's blood. When it was done, we feasted; and everyone made merry for three more days.

  Just before Deoce and I left on our wedding journey, my father died. I like to think he died a happy man; his errant son had proven worth; a triumph had been won for the family he left behind; and the dream of his youth had come true. However, as I contemplate his feelings and sift for the words I am placing in this journal, I cannot help but remember what Janos said on the Pepper Coast: How my father was a better man than Janos because he would be satisfied if his son accomplished what had been denied him. My father was a good man; and certainly a better man than either Janos, or myself. But, alas, he was not perfect; and only a perfect man could have died in happiness. Not when it was plain that after the Far Kingdoms, the world he knew would never be the same.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE SECOND EXPEDITION

  It is no boast that the funeral for Paphos Karima Antero was one of the largest in our city's history. So many clamored to attend the magistrates ordered the Great Amphitheater opened for the viewing of the pyre. Then all Orissa turned out for the long procession down river to the Groves of the Wayfarers, where we made sacrifice to Te-Date and I scattered my father's ashes to the winds.

  Everyone, myself included, was surprised at just how popular a figure my father was. He was by nature a quiet man who shunned honors and large company. But as I mentioned earlier in this journal, he had an uncanny ability to sniff out a deserving man's misfortune, and do his utmost to ease that man's pain. He also had a way of conducting his business, so when he came the better of a bargain, he also did not win his opponent's ire. That his great popularity had never evinced itself publicly, however, I can only lay at the feet of the Evocators, and the wrong they did Halab; another part of the silent price my family paid for that wrong. Now, however, with my victory so recent, no one feared to display their affection. This time the fear was entirely on the other side, for the panoply of the funeral echoed long after the breeze carried away the last of my father's ashes. Powerful men began striking new bargains, seeking new alliances; the dissension carried into the ranks of the Evocators themselves.

  My father's funeral, with all the weeping, hair-tearing and pompous speeches, was an important sideshow to the intense debate that gripped Orissa. The focus of that debate was the second expedition... and Janos Greycloak. None of us realized how great an impact the Far Kingdoms had on our lives. Suddenly all the old ways had been called into question. People from the highest on high to the meanest slave believed they deserved a stake in what was to come. All of them wanted change, and wanted it now. For the common man and woman; for tinkerer, soldier and slave; for the young and adventurous, or for just the far-thinking; Janos became the standard bearer.

  Greycloak shone under the intense light of his sudden popularity. He attended endless banquets in his honor and then gathered up the rich food and drink left over and distributed them to the poor in the streets. He told the tale of our journey again and again in settings from luxurious villas to impromptu storytellings in riverfront slum lots. Each time he told it, the tale became fresher and his emotions never played false or stale when he came to the moment when we saw that black-fisted mountain range. Women accosted him on the street and begged to let them bear his child; mothers named their sons after him; fathers stood for hours on the chance he might pass and they could shake his hand. Every one of them had a question. "I've been asked everything from the cost of taxes to the price of tavern wine, " Janos told me one afternoon when he had a few moments to spare. "Whether bread rises best when the tides are high or low and if horses with heavy haunches are haulers or runners. A fisherman asked if it was best to lay the nets at the dark of the moon. And a woman, by Butala, even asked if I thought her daughter fair and then pressed me to try her out to see if she would make a good lover." His grin flashed through his dark b
eard and he stroked his moustache. "Fortunately, it was no test of my veracity to answer yea to both of those questions."

  If Janos was bemused by this idolatry, he did not let it affect him. He threw himself into this madness with a single purpose: when he emerged, he would lead the next and he swore, final expedition to the Far Kingdoms. "I am not a politician," he said. "I have no desire to be magistrate, or king - if that were this city's custom. Riches are for rich men; let them enjoy their greed if they can. An idea is the only thing of value in this life; and I am beginning to suspect it is the same in the next."

  It might seem Janos was the obvious choice to head the second expedition. In fact, it was so obvious for a time it looked very much as if it would be denied him. In our naiveté, we also were surprised the main voice of opposition was Cassini.

  Heroism, or at any rate the public recognition thereof, is an odd human trait. A person does not emerge from a great trial with a hero's mark on his or her brow. Heroism must be conferred; others must decree it; still more must accept the declaration and willingly bow in the streets when the hero passes. Once someone has been acclaimed a hero, it is not so easy, we learned, for that mantle to be ripped away. Cassini's supporters, and they were many, were certain he was the victim of injustice. The lies he told were garbled in the passions that followed. Some conveniently forgot the lies; some said his words were deliberately twisted; some said Janos and I had faked our deaths for an unstated, dark purpose.

  Many of his supporters were only honest fools: if you have shaken the hand of a hero and praised his name at hearth and tavern it is difficult to suddenly think ill of him, since his heroism reflects on you. Cassini's most powerful supporters, however, had more complex reasons. Influence, and therefore fortune had been staked on Cassini. To admit his villainy would be to suffer humiliation; and in the corridors of power where battles are won or lost on an errant word, humiliation cannot be countenanced.