The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  "Welcome, my friend, and friend you have more than proven yourself," he said. He got up, and embraced me. "No man could ask for a better partner, although I wish, for your sake, you were more selfish."

  "I hadn't," I said with a bit of asperity, "exactly planned on becoming the guest of the Archons."

  Janos managed a chuckle. "They told me, some hours ago, you were outside the city and would be apprehended shortly. I'd hoped your canniness would have been able to sense their trap." He shook his head.

  "How did they foretell my coming?"

  "I don't know. They refused to tell me, and what... prognostications I was able to cast gave me no clues. Perhaps a warning spell or a creature stationed on the road approaching; or a spy with Evocator’s training in Orissa itself, even. You know, I assume, the prime mover in this conspiracy is an enemy of yours?"

  "Nisou Symeon. I met him for the first time in my life belowstairs." I told Janos what had happened. He made no comment, and there was none necessary. He offered me wine, juices or water from a beverage table nearby. I poured myself a goblet of wine, then thought better. I set it down, and began to pour juice.

  "Have the wine," Janos said. "Or whatever you desire. As far as I can tell nothing has been drugged, and thus far their seeking of knowledge has not required alcohol's befuddlement. Also, I would recommend both of us eat and drink as much as we can hold, because our circumstances will soon be changing."

  I poured, drank deeply as I realized how thirsty I was, and refilled my goblet. I walked to one of the windows, and looked out. Our apartment - our cell - hung just over the water, and far below I could see the white flash of breaking surf on the rocks beyond the harbor. "Is there a spell on the windows?"

  "Naturally. Not that I think one is needed, unless you happen to have either two sets of wings secreted about you."

  I turned back, and forced a smile. This ordeal, and I sensed it would be that, might be slightly more endurable if I sought humor whenever I could. I had questions, and chanced asking them openly: "Should we be cautious as to what we talk about?"

  "Yes, within reason. I would not, for instance, be specific about... our mutual adventures. But it is acceptable to discuss matters in general. I have conjured up words that should make anyone listening to our conversation actually hear a very dull recital of the religious lessons from my childhood. But thus far they have cast Lesser Spells against me, which I have been able to withstand and for the most part neutralize. I have not sensed Great Incantations more than twice, although who would know if a truly grand conjuration was laid? For instance, it is possible I am now talking to a complete fabrication of the Archons'. And you must wonder whether I myself am but a demon of their powers. But that way lies madness."

  "They have allowed you your... ah... interest," I marveled, using an innocuous term as I had reflexively from boyhood, when I first realized my brother Halab's interest were venturing into the forbidden.

  "Allowed? That is not the description. They cannot put a blanket proscript on any wizardry, else that would block their own spells. But they can lay specific wards, so that I cannot quite remember any spell or type of spell that could be used to break chains or bonds, for instance."

  "Like the way you and Cassini had your magickal memory removed in... in another place?"

  "Thank several gods their spell is not that complete. But they have tried. Forgive me if I seem inattentive, or preoccupied. But..."

  There came a flicker from the side of the chamber, and it was if, for just a flash, a door opened to a dark chamber, and I saw men with their flesh being ravaged by black-clad tormenters with nameless tortures. Then there was nothing but the further wall.

  "That is an example of what I've termed Lesser Spells," Janos said. "All of them are intended to wear us down, and to shake our fortitude and stamina. Other spells surround this chamber: sleeplessness; short temper; loneliness; dejection; and various disgusting but harmless physical debilitations - all of which I have kept at bay."

  "You have come far in your study of Evocatorial principles since I first realized your secret interest," I said, meanwhile marveling that from somewhere I had the coolness to carry on such an inconsequential discussion while trapped in the coils of a brutal enemy.

  "I thank you, but I feel no pride. I should be able to sustain my efforts with no more energy than scratching a mosquito bite takes in the physical world. Or perhaps I am secretly harboring my strength for when they attempt a full scale assault on us."

  "You said they tried what you called Great Incantations twice. What form did they take, so I may be on my guard?"

  "Both were loathsome. The first and most tolerable was a variation on the succubus, involving a young and beautiful sorceress who entered my dreams, and promised her reality after we had performed various acts of sex-magick. All I was to grant her, in return, was some tales of how wizardry was performed in other lands. That I was able to reject without much of a struggle, recognizing that such stories could well provide the entryway into the rest of my soul. When I did, the apparition vanished."

  "The second attempt was more dangerous, and began with various Lesser Spells, but ones cast with full power of a Master Evocator's will behind them. I was depressed, angry at everything and everyone beginning with myself. I felt an utter failure."

  "Like," I hazarded, "the Lesser Spells you said are around us are designed to produce."

  "Not quite," Janos said. "These were a bit different. Behind them was the undercurrent that I deserved greatness, and that the gods and men had conspired, unknowingly, to deny me my full glory." I knew how such a spell would find resonance within Janos's rationally healthy ego. "Eventually, I determined to end my life. Not from real pain, but to `show' someone or something, I know not who, what evil they'd done in keeping me from my rightful heritage."

  "I see the evil in that spell," I said. "But I do not see how it would produce any information on... on a certain subject that is sought. Worse, you would be dead, and their best chance to get that knowledge lost."

  "Oh, no. There would have been counterspells laid and perhaps even physical nets hung below these windows should I have chosen to cast myself from them; as well as other protective conjurations around anything I might use to kill myself - like the knives in our kitchen or the draws for the curtains. I also assumed I was watched. But I haven't completely described the spell. As part of my final cock-snooking at the world, I would write a full description of what I could have given them, had they but known."

  "The Far--"

  "Just so, the quest exactly described." I understood, and shuddered. That truly was a subtle spell and I wondered if I could have withstood one as carefully laid to take advantages of my multudinous weaknesses.

  I sought another subject, and asked why he'd said we should eat and drink well now, because our circumstances would be changing. I could not believe the Archons' and their Evocators hadn't set spells in place to prevent any divination. Or should I not be asking this question? Janos answered, now with a real smile: he had no foreknowledge at all; but what we were being subjected to was standard interrogation procedure, used by everyone from inquisitors to military information specialists to, he added, most likely my mother and father. He termed it goodside/badside. First the prisoner is given fine food and wines, and treated kindly, but always with the caution that "others" feel differently about how the captive should be treated, and the prisoner should cooperate instantly to avoid truly monstrous tortures. "Didn't your mother ever suggest to you, as a child, you had best tell her just what sin you had committed to set your tutor's teeth on edge, because when your father came home and found out you were absolutely in for it?" I agreed, knowing what he meant, not saying I had no memories of my real mother.

  "So," I said, "what do we do while waiting to see the other side of Lycanthian `hospitality?'"

  "We do what prisoners have always done: we wait, we exercise our muscles and we talk. Talk about everything... except what might be important." />
  This we did over the next several days. I was nervous, and afraid, but I sensed I was more relaxed than Janos, even though my nights were made hellish by the repetition of the Dream. Over and over the boatman with no face took me into the cavern, and over and over I was led into the chamber by the being whom I had imposed Greif's face on since I'd first met him in this hell-city. But dreams can be lived with - I'd lived with this one for years, now.

  Janos had not heard of the deaths of Deoce and Emilie, and burst into tears, the great racking sobs of a warrior chieftain when the very bravest die needlessly. But, mostly, our conversations were trivial and light, as to the best way to learn a language quickly - Janos' theory was in bed, and since he spoke at least 23 tongues and ten dialects, I took his hypothesis seriously; whether Lycanthians had their sense of humor amputated at birth or if the gods had cursed them - we settled for divine curse, hoping that would anger those unseen beings we knew were watching us either through cleverly concealed peepholes in the walls or by sorcery; and so forth. Our exercises helped devour the hours of boredom. We did endless rounds of muscle drills, and trotted around the apartments like tigers running around the cage of a menagerie. Janos also showed me various techniques he knew, with which a man without a weapon need not abandon hope or life even if one or more armed men attack him.

  I spent hours pacing in front of the windows, trying to come up with a plan for an escape. Janos, however, seemed to slip into that semi-torpor I'd seen in the Rift. Perhaps I might have chided him, but I remembered a tale written by a smalltrader who'd been captured by the ice barbarians of the far south, and spent several years as their captive/guest before being released. He said he learned there are only two times to escape: the first immediately after capture, before your guards have time to put all their countermeasures in place; or after a long time had passed, when the sentinels have been lulled by your seeming acceptance of your plight. And I knew, when I saw how Janos's eyes blazed when he looked across Lycanth to the hills that meant freedom that he, too, was familiar with the rules of an evasion and was biding his time.

  We were fed well, twice a day - the menus constantly varied. We never saw a warder, however, and I remembered Symeon's words that he and the Archons would know when we were broken and ready to tell everything. But that appeared to be in the distant future. Boredom, anger, annoyance, frustration, worry about what was going on in Orissa, even an increasing edginess that Janos laid to a certain amount of the invisible assaults getting past his counterspells - none of these were enough. I made the mistake of thinking I was unshakable, that Symeon himself would die of boredom before I did.

  They came for us after midnight. The outer door crashed open, and cleated boots slammed down the corridor toward my bedchamber as I woke and stumbled out of bed. I heard shouts from Janos's room, then blows. Six men burst into my chamber, men wearing mail corselets and helmets with faceguards. They were armed with iron-bound truncheons and carried long daggers sheathed at their waist. For a moment, I was in wonderment - if this was the beginning of the "badside," why hadn't they sent the Finder, or other creatures from the depths to awe and horrify us? My question was answered when I was hurled to the floor. As I stumbled to my feet one of the men smashed me in the face with a gloved hand.

  "Tha's t' make sure you'll be doin' as we say," he snarled, and I smelled sour beer on his foul breath. In that instant I realized, and have since confirmed, that man can be more awful than the vilest demon of the pits. They shouted me into clothes, chained my hands and feet, and shoved me out of the room. Janos, his face bloody, was slumped against the corridor wall outside; another six men and an officer were around him. We were chivvied down, down, below the main floor of the castle and far underground. The air grew danker, the stones dripped, and the stairs grew narrower and mold-covered. The risers were worn down by century after century of men and women who'd been forced down them, and I wondered how many victims had ever come back into sunlight.

  "Y're out under th' bay now," one of the guards growled. "Give you somethin' t' think about, lookin' up, knowin' there's no blue sky or green grass above you. 'Specially when the ceilin' starts leakin'."

  There were no sentinels stationed at the barred and locked gates, yet they nevertheless swung wide as we approached. Finally we reached the bottom. The stones around us were nitre-whitened and very old, set one on another with no mortar showing. The iron gates and torch standards were black and rusty, and the wooden doors and occasional table or crude chair were dark with age. We passed a large cell. Inside were skeletons, some hung from rusty chains, others scattered where the men had died. There was no sign of a door. Had these long-dead prisoners been transported inside by sorcery, and then forgotten? No one seemed to notice the bones except Janos and me. After that, I saw, in the flare of torchlight, a round metal plate in the floor, with a central vent perhaps a foot long by six inches. As we passed over it, I heard, from below, giggles, interspersed with the chitter of rats. The plate appeared to have been cemented into the stone flagstones when they were first laid.

  Now the corridor was barrel-arched. To one side, I saw an open door, no larger than that for a baker's small oven. It was the entrance to a cell, less a compartment than a coffin. There was a stone bench cut into one wall. A prisoner would have no room to stand nor stretch. Further on, there was a stain spattered across a stone wall that looked as if someone had cast a bucket of paint and then let it dry. One of the guards saw I'd noted the stain. He tapped his great club, and smiled, as if recalling a particularly pleasant memory. I glanced into another room. This was the guardroom. From my glimpse, I guessed the guards were allowed to take prisoners from their cells for whatever purpose pleased them. I looked away.

  The corridor opened into a large semi-circular chamber. Around the arc were heavy bars between stone pillars that I thought at first were separate cells, but saw was one large holding area. The reason for the unusual design of the dungeon was clear - the prisoners held in the cell were expected to witness what was going on in the open room across. It was the torture chamber, set apart by two huge iron doors, now blocked open. Perhaps the chamber was the same one I had seen when Janos allowed his counterspell to slip for a moment.

  There was the paleness of a woman's body, bound to a rack, and beside her a glowing brazier, pincers and other iron implements red- or white-hot in the coals. Her mouth was open, as if she was screaming, but there was no sound. Perhaps there was a spell cast to prevent screams from disturbing the guards, or perhaps the prisoner was beyond screaming. I also saw, before I forced my eyes away, other doomed prisoners, half a dozen of the black-clad inquisitors, chains dangling from the ceiling and walls, and implements of agony, from the boot to the rack.

  The guard's officer moved his hands over cell bars, and a door opened. Our manacles were unlocked, and we were hurled into the cell. "Watch the room across," the officer advised. "So you won't think you'll be forgotten forever." His men found this hilarious. They marched out of the chamber, and there was no light except for a torch at either end of the large room, and the glare coming from the horror scene across. I sagged down, onto the muck and filth some long-ago-scattered straw did nothing to sop up.

  "Amalric!" Janos's voice was harsh. I straightened, and saw them. Our fellow prisoners. There were possibly fifty men in the cell. Most of them stood or lay in defeated abandon, paying but little attention to the latest victims. But not all... A group shuffled toward us. I could smell them. I almost thought their eyes glowed, as I have been told the eyes of some wolves glow before the kill, although I've never seen such a happening.

  One, somewhat larger moved in front of the others. "We'll take th' clothes," he said, in a monotone that carried neither threat nor promise, "and th' prettyboy'll serve who we say."

  Janos had me by the arm, and we backed toward a wall. The prisoners shuffled after us, unhurriedly. Why not? They had all the time in the world, and probably their game would be all the better for being prolonged. Janos kept chanc
ing glances behind him. I thought we were merely finding cover for our backs. Janos scooped, and came up with something... something white... a stick, and passed it to me. I had time to realize I was holding a man's legbone when Janos reached down once more, as the prisoners were closing, and his fist came up clenching one cuff of a pair of chained manacles, the bones of the long-dead man who'd been pinioned shattering down to the floor. The first prisoner roared, and leaped for toward us, just as Janos swung the shackle like a morningstar into the man's face. He screamed like a lanced bear, reared back, blood spurting in the gloom, and fell as another one of them shambled in on me. I slashed with my bone-club, the bone shattered like the corpse's arms had, and I lunged, my club now a shard-edged dagger, striking deep into the other's stomach. I jerked it free as one of them pinioned me about the shoulders.

  I ducked, about to toss him overhead, and Janos came in with the chain. I heard the man's bones shatter, and his arms fell away, and I straightened. Another attacker was reaching with stranglers hands, and I remembered one of Janos's tricks, brought both arms up, crossed at the wrist into the man's wrist, snapped them out, flinging the man's arms wide. Without pausing, as Janos had taught me, I kicked the man's kneecap, recovered, spinning to one side, fisted hand crashing into his throat, and he gurgled and stumbled away. Another crash, and a scream as Janos's death-dealer landed once more, and then there were only three attackers, backing away, hands held up defensively.

  "All right. All right," one of them panted. "but there'll be another time."

  "No, there shall not," Janos said flatly. "if there is, you had best kill both of us... or plan on never sleeping again. Look at me... YOU." The one who'd spoken stopped his retreat. "I know things you... and those bastards across there," jerking a thumb outside the cell at the torture chamber, "...cannot even dream of." Before the man could react, Janos dropped the manacles, bounded forward, one hand cupped and reaching out. I swear he but touched the other with his curled fingers in what might have been a lightning caress, but the man yowled agony, and doubled, shrilling, both hands clutching the angle of his jaw. "You will live," my friend announced. "But the pain will remind you of me for a week." The others helped their fellow away, and they found a refuge far across the cell.