The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  "But how can that be?" I asked. "Why, in Vacaan, artists are paid the greatest of all compliments. When their work is complete, a spell is cast so no one can duplicate it in any manner. And each is preserved, so the work remains in all ways unique."

  "Uniquely tame... and therefore not unique at all," Omerye replied. "When you have been here longer, you will see nothing is allowed that stirs public questioning or debate. An artist can only dare with form, or color, or tone. But we can never challenge authority. Much is made of our system, because authority goes to great trouble to sniff out our talents when we are young. Then we are given the best of training. But along with that training a very subtle message is imparted: do this, and no more."

  "What happens to those who don't listen?" I asked.

  She shivered. "One day," she said, low, "they simply fail to appear." The twin of the chill that had touched her, touched me; and I thought of the missing tavern keeper... and Raveline. "We all know better than to ask what happened to them," Omerye continued. "And we take great care we never mention their names again." She nestled deeper into my arms for comfort, sighing. "At least I had you," she said. "That alone is what kept me content."

  It was decided she would return to Orissa with me. The decision tumbled me out of love's trance, and I became anxious to complete my business. Omerye moved into my palace, and I resumed skirmishing with the king's officials. Along with awareness came fresh worries about Raveline and Janos. The old nightmare of the ruined city returned to haunt my sleep; but this time I had Omerye's sweet music and love to lessen the torment. The gentle balsam she spread made it easier to think. Ideas leaped up, and became theories that only needed testing to become solutions. Finally, I sent Janos a firm message I must see him. A day or so passed before I received a reply: Greycloak agreed to meet with me... immediately.

  I found him hard at work, deep in the bowels of an old building that smelled of parchment dust and the stale sulfur of ancient spells. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw me, and I knew our meeting had been forgotten. "Amalric, my friend," he shouted, jumping up from a writing table, and spilling old scrolls on the floor. "What a happy coincidence. I was just thinking of you." His clothes were in absent disarray and he was covered with so much dust it fell in clouds when he bounded over to me, and made him sneeze.

  "You look like one of my old tutors," I laughed, "and sound like him too. He was always going about with a snuffling nose and absent air. It was a pity my father had to let him go. The old fellow never knew what I was up to."

  Janos smacked his forehead. "How stupid of me," he said. "That's right, I invited you, didn't I?"

  "If you insist on being absent minded," I teased, "I suggest you form some other habit of abasement. A few more knocks on your pate, and you'll be permanently addled."

  "You're right," Janos said. Still lost in his studies, he raised his palm to give his head another knock. His wits returned as the hand reached eye level. He stared at it a moment, then laughed: "You are right, twice!"

  I looked about the big room: from floor to vaulted ceiling, and from wall to distant wall, it was filled with scrolls of every shape and size. On Janos's desk I saw one scroll held open by small weights. The writing was not in any language I knew, but was colorfully illuminated by geometric patterns painted in the margins. "These are the archives of the Old Ones," Janos explained. "As far as I can tell, it is a complete record of all their spells - all the way back to their beginnings."

  "You must have made an even greater impression on the Prince than I thought," I said, dryly. "For him to trust you with such ancient secrets."

  "Yes. Yes, I have," Janos said, so lost in his studies he did not note my mocking tone. "Although I am not certain he sees real value in these archives." He sank back into his seat, picking up a scroll and studying the inscriptions. "For the wizards of Vacaan," he said, "these are much picked-over leavings. But they were a treasure of immeasurable value when the king's ancestors first settled here... on the very bones of the Old Ones."

  I eyed the long walls of knowledge. "It is a pity we were not so blessed in Orissa," I said.

  Janos slapped the scroll down, excited. "You have it exactly," he said. "Domas's people came here as ignorant as any barbarian. Raveline admits it himself. All they have accomplished are refinements of what was once a great art."

  "I see you have not yet met the smart fellows."

  Janos glowered. "Not a damned one. I am coming to believe there are no smart fellows. Not anywhere."

  "Not even your mentor, Prince Raveline?"

  "Oh, he thinks he is," Janos said. "But I'm learning more looking over his shoulder than listening. What I get from a thing, and what he says is happening, are often opposites."

  I indicated the scrolls. "What about the Old Ones? Were there any smart fellows among them?"

  Janos sighed. "I know you'll think I'm a boaster," he said. "But I must answer honestly. No. There were not.

  "Did any of them stumble on the trail you are now following?"

  "A few might have. But for some reason, they never continued." Janos snorted. "I suspect those were the wizards the Old Ones honored on the Holy Mountain." Another snort. "Although what they were honoring remains a mystery I doubt is worth unraveling."

  "So that leaves only you," I said.

  Janos gave me an odd look, whose meaning I could not decipher. Then he said, firm: "Yes... Only me."

  "But only because the others have been blind, or abdicated," I said.

  "Whatever the reason... No one has even come close to what I see. All of them kept going in greater and greater circles, from one generation to the next. They were doomed for never asking a single question: why?"

  "Do you know the answer?" I asked.

  Janos gave his head a mighty shake. "No. But I am close, dammit! Close. I already see things no one has even dreamt of looking for." Janos's excitement intensified. "You remember when I told you about the trick with the scorpion and the mouse? How I put the scorpion away in one place, and took the mouse from another?" I nodded that I did. "Well, now I know the how and why of it. There are many worlds, my friend, that exist alongside our own. Each world follows its own rules. A demon has his. We have ours. When we summon the demon, we also summon the rules of his own existence, and with knowledge we can manipulate those rules to our ends. Just as he can manipulate ours if he is the superior in the bargain."

  "Like Mortacious?" I asked.

  Janos's face darkened. "Yes. Like Mortacious."

  "How does one assure himself he will always be the superior?" I asked.

  "By knowing that no matter how different those worlds appear; no matter how different the rules seem; there is really only one law that commands everything. The differences that so confuse us are merely many manifestations of that single law."

  "Do you know that law yet?" I asked.

  Janos's eyes glowed with the passion of his hunt. "No. But, as I said, I am close, my friend. Very close."

  I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. Now, listen to me, Greycloak. All is not as it seems in Vacaan. It can be a dangerous place if we tarry much longer. I think all of us should leave as soon as I complete my business with the king."

  "Leave?" Janos said, astounded. "I couldn't leave now. I told you... I am very close."

  "The terms of my bargain should keep much of that knowledge coming," I said. "And I have a plan that can offer much more, besides."

  "What is that?" Janos asked; his tone was as if he were addressing a child.

  I ignored it. "When we return to Orissa, I shall fund a great school of wizardry. You will be in charge. Think of all the eager assistants you will have to carry out any experiment you like. If you all hammer at it jointly why soon the wall shall fall, and you will have all you seek."

  Janos frowned. "But... then... others will know!"

  "Exactly," I said. "That is the beauty of my plan. If everyone knows then all of us are equals. Together we can accomplish as much, or more than they
have in Vacaan. And without the blinders you constantly bemoan, we can do it more quickly."

  "That could still take a lifetime," Janos said. "My lifetime."

  "What of it? You will still have the satisfaction knowing someday it will be done."

  Janos coughed, and busied himself picking up the scrolls and sorting them. "I fear you are making a complex thing, too simple," he said.

  "Oh, come now, Janos," I laughed. "You are always the one to insist on the opposite. The simple is made too complex out of ignorance, or, more likely, the desire of the wizards to appear wiser than they are. Why, from what you have told me already, and remember, I am a simpleton when it comes to sorcery, I could put a right-thinking Evocator from Orissa on the same trail you are on. If I told Gamelan, for instance, that business of many worlds, side-by-our-own; and added your theory that one law commands all forces, seen, or unseen; why, even that old brain might begin to glimmer. Who knows where that glimmering would take even Gamelan?"

  Janos gave me that odd look again. "Who knows, indeed?" he murmured.

  "You see my point?" I asked.

  "Yes, I suppose I do," Janos said.

  "Then you agree to my plan?" I pressed.

  Janos twisted and untwisted his beard. He picked up a scroll and stared at the inscriptions; absently, at first, then with more and more absorption. I could see his thoughts racing away. "Janos," I prodded again, and louder. "Do you agree?"

  He looked up, that charming smile of his flashing through his unruly beard. "Why, of course, I do, my friend. Of course, I do. Come and see me when you're done with the king. And we'll talk again."

  "What is there to talk about... if you agree?"

  Janos shrugged. "Oh, I am hunting a thing just now; and if I cannot find it by the time you are done... Well... There might be a small delay. A very small delay." I had to be satisfied with that, for his eyes were glazing over; and his lips were muttering aloud the strange words he was reading in the old scroll. I wished him farewell, got an absent whisper in reply, and left.

  I fretted over our conversation for an hour or two; then, from the lazy comfort of Omerye's arms I took another look and fretted less. The more I thought about it, the more sound my plan appeared; and after awhile I believed it so sound I knew my friend - he, who worshipped reason - could not help but see it too. So there was only the business with King Domas to conclude, and then we would all return to Orissa bearing even more than what we had dreamed when we first set out for the Far Kingdoms.

  The next day a royal invitation came. But the summons was not from the king: it was from Prince Raveline.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  THE SERVANTS OF CORRUPTION

  At the appointed hour a gondola pulled into the dock of my mansion. It was large, and could easily have carried twenty as well as one. I was the only "guest" aboard. There were four other men to be seen: a steersman at the rudder; a servingman in the luxurious glass-windowed cabin; plus two men in the bow with long trumpets to warn other craft out of the way. The gondola carried eight oars on a side; the rowers were hidden belowdecks. They might have been human, but if so had been trained to perfection: the oars bit, feathered and stroked as if they were run by clockwork. The trumpeters were not needed, for any gondolier who saw Prince Raveline's red, gold and black house colors blazoned on my craft would scuttle away like waterspiders fleeing a crafty old pike when it comes up from the shallows to feed.

  The boat turned off the main canal into a unraveled waterway that led beyond the city toward the Holy Mountain. It was odd to be moving by water through green, rolling countryside that was as carefully manicured as an athletic field. There were no farms, no farmers, nor did I see houses, roads or even paths. The canal curved in a series of eye-pleasing bends. Far out in the country it ended in a circular pond.

  A low sleek carriage waited; it was drawn by six matched blaze-faced black horses. Four footmen led me to the carriage and bowed as I entered. They mounted to their stations, and without a command from the driver the horses moved away. Despite my apprehension I peered eagerly out the carriage windows, curious as to what Prince Raveline's estate would look like. I was not disappointed - but neither was I enthralled with splendor. The road we travelled was made of stone blocks, each block stretching from one side to the other of the roadway, which was easily five times the height of a man in width. Each was precisely fitted to its fellow. I expected the road to come to a huge wall, with elaborate gates; but there was none. The perfectly manicured countryside rolled on around me, with trees and ponds as precisely laid out as if a master gardener had been at work for aeons. As inviting as it appeared, I felt that if I had come on this preserve knowing nothing, I would have found it cold and foreboding. The longer our journey on that peaceful lane the more my dread grew; I did not know whether the dread came from a protective spell, or if it was merely because I did know the identity of the estate's lord.

  I saw the first guardians - there were two of them, standing close to either side of the road. They were nearly 100 feet tall and carved from dark polished stone. Each statue was of a woman, holding a naked sword vertically before her. I knew no earthly being had served as a model for the sculptures - the women were impossibly beautiful; but hard, cold, distant - the faces as pitiless as a chieftain's from the icefields of the south. After we passed I looked back at the forbidding monoliths, and drew in a sharp breath. Each statue had a second face, looking to the rear, and that face was a leering, malevolent fanged demon. I hoped for his sake that the sculptor had worked merely from his imagination; but from what I'd heard of Prince Raveline's interests I suspected not.

  I regained my composure and saw movement through gathering gloom. I thought it would most likely be a roving cavalry patrol, and once again was wrong. From behind a copse trotted a pack of direwolves. There must have been a dozen of them. They came directly for us and I swore for not having dared to bring a weapon. These huge shaggy killers would bring down the horses in an instant, and I doubted if the six of us could stand against the beasts for more than a few seconds. Each of them stood about eight feet at the foreshoulder, and their dreadful fangs gleamed long and bloodhungry. I braced, waiting for the horses to see the wolves and bolt. But they did not. The wolfpack split around us, as if they were, indeed, escorting cavalry. They trotted on either side of the carriage. I could hear the scrape of their nails against the roadway.

  One of the beasts was beside my window, and it looked in. I vow its gaze was nearly human, and wholly baleful. Overhead there was the whisper of great wings, and I saw a patrolling flight of those spur-armed monstrous kites we'd observed coming upriver to Irayas. Raveline's castle was well-guarded, indeed, I thought as the fortress came into view. It was a huge hexagon with round towers at each angle; and it sat in the center of a perfectly flat field. I estimated each wall would have stretched nearly a third of a league. I thought all the castles I had ever seen, including that seacastle of the Archons, could have been fitted into this edifice's keep. I saw no sign of guards either on the battlements or patrolling around the structure.

  One man waited outside a yawning portal - Prince Raveline. There were no other guests, no welcoming servitors. Now I was truly afraid, my fear enough so I felt I could taste its metallic aridity. The coach drew to a halt in front of him, and the footmen sprang down and bowed to their master. He nodded acknowledgment, strode to the door and opened it himself.

  "Lord Antero," he said. "You honor my presence."

  I slid out, bowed deeply, and touched my lips to the hand he extended. "It is you who honor me," I said. "I have never been invited into the home of any prince, let alone one so great as yourself. Let alone personally handed down from my carriage by the prince himself."

  "There," Raveline said. "Now we have both dispensed with the required niceties. I plan no other ceremonies, and if you have speeches or clever compliments ready, we shall take them as given and returned." He smiled, but his eyes were cold, cold.

&
nbsp; He took my arm and led me into the castle. "I pondered long as to whether I should invite others. I did not... do not... want you to think you are being slighted by not being surrounded with panoply and courtiers, but we have matters of import to discuss - matters I would rather none of those who dance attendance around my brother would witness." He made a mirthless smile. "I cannot," he continued, almost to himself, "order the tongue cut out of every loose-lipped sycophant in the Great Court. Much as that would prove a blessing."

  I hoped my face showed no response as I realized Raveline must have seriously considered the option before reluctantly rejecting it. We passed into the heart of his castle. He apologized for not giving me the full tour, but said that would take several days, and might serve for our mutual amusement at another time. "Besides," he said, "I am not entirely sure even I can find my way through about."

  For this reason, I cannot go on for page after page of the marvels of this Black Prince's abode. I shall mention but a few things of note. One was each wall and floor appeared to have been hewn from a single slab of stone, polished to a mirror glaze, then hand-fitted to its mate. Another was the warmth. I know of no way to keep castles from dankness and chill, but this one was as comfortably warm in every room and hall, without being scorching, as I am at this moment writing in my study with a peat fire glowing. I gaped at the treasures, from tapestries glowing with inner lights, to furniture shaped and polished until it whispered like the finest silk to my fingertips, to paintings ranging from realistic to bold bursts of pure color that yet sang to my heart. There were other things I noted and turned away from hastily, things that sometimes still appear in my dreams, I will not, must not describe.