The Far Kingdoms

by Allan Cole

  I, too, shuffled to his weak side... away from the knife... keeping my hands well out, hoping Raveline would strike wildly and I could seize a wrist, or perhaps kick his legs from under him. As I'd learned I watched nothing but my enemy's eyes, knowing I would sense any movement of the blade as it began. He slashed once, then again on his backhand, but my stomach was not there. Once more his dagger marked air, and I chanced a blow. The razor-edge of his knife sliced the inside of my arm open, but fortunately he'd missed any blood vessels. I ignored the wound... and we circled on. He changed his tactics slightly, and moved closer, forcing me back and back again. Eventually he would trap me against the dome and pin me like a butterfly to a wall. My back-reaching foot touched rough stone, one of the columns, and I momentarily lost my balance. Raveline lunged for my heart, and I sidestepped quickly, his knife scoring my chest, but my fist smashed his face. He yelped pain, and stumbled back. His nose was broken, and blood gushed from his nostrils. But he still kept his fighting grip on the knife.

  "How long has it been since you've felt pain, Lesser Majesty," I said, deciding a man who loved the sound of his own words as much as Raveline did might also fall victim to the words of others. "How long, Princeling that shall never be king? Perhaps you feel faint. Perhaps you wish to cry."

  His lips drew back in a soundless snarl and he short-stepped toward me, keeping one foot held back, like a fencer. He would lunge in an instant and I held my mind ready for his attack, not allowing tension... willing my muscles to seek their own response.

  The lunge never came. I heard, from above, a slight scraping. Raveline glanced up, then stared, eyes widening, mouth opening, and the great rock, once part of the stage's canopy, whose mortar had held it to the column's capital for aeons and aeons, crushed him as a boot crushes a scorpion. He was dead before he could scream... and the black dome was gone... and once more the ruined city was about me in the moonlight. Stunned, I looked up toward the top of that column. The air shimmered above me and I dimly saw the form of a man. "Halab," I gasped.

  I heard, more in my mind than anywhere, the soft voice: "The Prince knew not all the rules of all the worlds. Even a ghost may move the real... If the call is great enough."

  There was silence but for the rush of the river below, then Halab's voice again: "I am revenged, and my ghost will wander no more. I go now, following the path you opened to Eanes a short time ago."

  I bowed my head. "Goodbye, my brother."

  I heard Halab for the last time.

  "Goodbye, Amalric. There is one task left. I cannot be with you... cannot be of aid. But it is one which must be completed. For you, for the family, for Orissa and for this entire world. I make you a final gifting. May it serve you well."

  I felt emptiness. Something was gone... something I realized had been not far from me all these years, since the day my father returned from the Palace of the Evocators with the tale of Halab's death.

  I took a deep breath. Yes. There was a final task to be performed.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  THE LAST SORCERY

  Now there was little to fear either in this cursed city nor in the catacombs below. I took the poniard from beside Raveline's body and went back through the streets to where the entrance to the Black Prince's burrow yawned. I took no wrong turnings nor made missteps, as sure of my direction as if I were in Orissa. I followed the stone steps as they went down, down, down, and knew I was the first of Raveline's victims to ever do this. I passed Greif's sprawled body and bethought whether I should find some dirt to sprinkle, then decided otherwise. His ghost had much evil to atone for; he deserved to haunt those caves for an eternity.

  The black gondola was still moored to the dock. I untied the boat and boarded it. Using the rudder as a sweep, I turned the boat toward the cavern's mouth. As I came out of the cavern into the dark river that poured down toward the flatlands and Irayas, the current sent the boat speeding down the canyon. The craft obeyed my unspoken and undefined desire as well as it had Greif's.

  I could see dawn's promise as I neared the city. Perhaps I should have made the enchanted gondola take me to my palace, where I knew Omerye agonized. But I also knew I must confront Janos now; not just for the sake of my people... but for all who live as wizards' slaves. To this day I honestly do not know what end I foresaw when I finally did confront him. For my soul's sake, I pray my intent was pure and untainted by desire for revenge.

  As Janos's mansion bulked out of the calm waters I dropped Prince Raveline's dagger into the river. Through the remnants of the night I saw its jewels and sorcelled blade spin until the knife - my only weapon - vanished. I tied Raveline's boat to a piling under the main deck where that sobbing woman's skiff had been lashed. I had planned to climb one of the pilings to avoid the guard that should have been on the landing; but there was none. I crept up the stairs and noted with greater surprise that one of the edifice's entry-ways yawned wide. Perhaps, I thought, this was the gift Halab's ghost had promised; I slipped within. I did not know how close I would be able to come to Janos before his own watchdog spell would clamor him awake; but I continued onward, quietly as a questing ferret. The torches and lamps that illuminated the huge building were guttering low, but I needed no illumination as dawn's light grew steadily around me. My wonder grew, because I saw never a sign of sentry, factotum nor servant. At last I entered the courtyard and approached the tower where I knew Janos would be. I went up the stairs toward his bedchamber, which was just below the study he used for incantations.

  Janos lay sprawled in the middle of his huge bed. He was alone. He wore but a silken loincloth. He slept deeply, so deeply I thought he had been enchanted. At that moment my resolution vanished and I stood, as if mired, at the foot of his bed. Then I spoke his name. Janos' eyes snapped open and as I saw awareness dawn, he rolled sideways and was on his feet - graceful and deadly as a startled leopard.

  He knew instantly what had happened. "You killed him? You killed Raveline?" His voice was incredulous. "And I sensed nothing? How could that be?"

  I did not answer - I only stared at Janos in shock. Only two days gone I had marveled at how he had aged. Yet now it looked as if decades had passed since we looked at each other in the mirror above stairs. Where jaundiced gray had striped his hair and beard before, it now discolored it in patches; and his face was as raddled as a rich old degenerate. But he looked worse than any of those debauchees, because there was a brooding evil in his appearance: evil like I'd seen on Raveline's face... and yes, Mortacious's. Janos' eyes had changed as well. Once they held the fierceness of the eagle, but now held the hard glare of a carrion eater. Most telling of all was the necklace he wore about his neck: the dancing girl from the Far Kingdoms that his father had given him. She had been "healed" by our journey, and when last I saw her, she had been a glorious, seductive work of art. Now she was tarnished and broken at the hips... just as she was the first day Janos showed her to me at the wineshop in Orissa. I knew at once that although I had been the one who had been tortured, hunted, and savaged by beasts on four legs and two... that Janos had paid a heavier price for betraying me.

  I had said nothing since calling his name, and had no words prepared. I held Janos' eyes with my own for a moment. He looked away... it was the first time he had not been able to face me. "What were you promised?" I asked, and noted there was no anger in my voice, even though all the years of companionship should have caused me to see the rage. "How much silver and gold was offered for your reward?"

  Now anger grew on his face. "There was no price named," he hissed. "What I did... was needful. You would have destroyed... you have destroyed everything."

  I maintained calmness. "What is this everything, Janos? By luck," and I recollected what Raveline had told me luck was, "I am still alive. Now Raveline's darkness will not be able to destroy our lands. And now we have the measure of the Far Kingdoms. And even if King Domas expels us as the price for his brother's death, what of it? We will still be able t
o achieve what they have gained... and more. Is that everything? Or is everything the ruin of your own ambitions... and the loss of your black guide?"

  "We needed Raveline," Janos said. "I needed him. He was my stepping stone. He would have been my tool."

  "For what end? So you could become more evil than he? So you could reach deeper into demon worlds than he has? So you, in the end, would be able to rule with fire and the lash in a manner that would make people remember the Black Prince as a kindly benefactor?"

  "Words, words, Antero," Janos barked. "You still use words that you do not know the meaning of... or that have no meaning at all. Evil... good... We stand at the threshold of another age, an age beyond all of the petty considerations of prattling parents and teachers. Men say that once there was a Golden Age, when we were all like gods. That Age never existed. All there has been, since this world formed itself from the slime, were flounderings; sometimes a bit toward the light, sometimes a slip back into the abyss. Raveline would have helped me split the clouds and let the radiance shine for all eternity. Men would have been, not gods, but beyond gods. Except for your doing. Except for one small-souled peddler who can see nothing but profit and some sort of mythical wooly-brained benevolence in a world where there is nothing but predator and prey. There was but one chance for all of us. Can't you see? Chance, which is the only real god to worship, created one brief moment for this change to begin, for man to step up and beyond."

  That was quite enough. "Gods," I said, and there was anger in my voice as well. "You claim I use meaningless words. Well, this peddler is having trouble with some of your words, and gods is one of them. Another is this new age you mention. If we are to be gods, my pardon, more than gods, all of us small-souled beings should now look at the face of Janos Greycloak, and see the awful halo of the future he promises. Look at yourself. Your face mirrors what you have become, man! You're nothing but a degenerate who prattles drunkenly of the morrow's blessing while he cheerfully plunges into the gutter with the swine. Janos, can't you see? I recollect a time when you spoke of what gains we could bring back from the Far Kingdoms... gains for everyone. Instead, what is your goal now? You told me to look at one grain of sand and see a myriad within it. I cannot. All I see is that poor woman in her boat, sorrowing under your mansion. What did you give her, Greycloak? Did you make her... or her children... more than gods? Look at yourself now, my once friend. And answer this simple merchant's question: why, if your quest is for the heavens, do you now have the face of a demon?"

  Janos did not look away. His obvious scorn grew, and I realized why he was letting his anger build. "Knowledge... power... exacts its own price," he said. "You would know that, if you were anything but a child."

  We stared at each other for a long moment; and in that moment, Halab's final gift showed itself. I knew what must be done, and my heart shriveled as it realized that just as there had been no possibility of Janos's redemption, my duty was now equally graven in stone. I fought the revelation, but knew its truth.

  The second part of the gift followed. I was suddenly watching the room with two sets of eyes, as if one brain controlled two beings that stood apart from one another. Images of everything doubled and overlapped. Everything - except for Janos. His eyes gleamed brightly as they became lamps, their glow not dissimilar from the light that had shone from Greif's blind eye.

  "Could have," he murmured, "and still shall be."

  Without looking away, without a change of expression, he swooped to one knee, seized a long blade that had been lying on the floor and slashed at my midsection. But I was not there. The third, and last, part of Halab's gift was now mine. I had "seen" the knife, fully as long as a sword, just before Janos' hand found it - and realized his plan. Time came to a stop as he cut at me, and it was most easy to step back beyond its reach.

  "No, Janos," I said. "You do not need to do this. Neither of us needs to die." I said the words, but they were hollow. They were not a deliberate lie, but came from the last part of me that still fought against the onrushing end to this tragedy. He did not answer, but attacked once more. His knife gleamed, glowing as if it had been carved from a single jewel, and each facet caught the dawn's sun and reflected a thousand thousand shimmerings across the room. He lunged... and his thrust went past my side as I slipped out of the way.

  He recovered as my right hand found the grip of the sword that, without looking, I had known would be there. I drew it from its sheath, which hung on a bedside chair. The blade I held was either the same, or a duplicate, of that plain, slender soldier's blade Janos had used to save me from Melina's pimp. As it snaked out, Janos cut at me again, this time for my face. My blade rose, parried his strike with a crash, and the knife-jewel, if that was what it was, shattered like dropped crystal. Its pieces still hung in midair as my blade finished its semi-circle; then I lunged, every muscle, every nerve, every part of my body and soul in that swordpoint. It took Janos in the lungs, and drove through his body until I "saw" nearly six inches of crimsoning steel emerge from his back. Halab's final gift, a gift that carried a curse to my heart, disappeared then.

  There was no movement from either of us for what seemed forever. Janos's eyes showed enormous surprise; like those of a seer whose vision had proven faulty. He opened his mouth, but instead of words or a scream blood gouted. He swayed. I released my grip on the sword. Janos took one step forward, then sank to his knees, both hands coming up to grasp the blade buried in his chest. He collapsed on his back, the sword standing above him. His eyes were closed, and then they opened, and looked up, past the swaying guard of the weapon, into my face.

  "When... the blade comes out," he said, in a harsh whisper, "my soul comes with it."

  I nodded. My eyes were blurred once again, but not from magic. My face was wet.

  "I... remember," he said, "once telling you, outside that tavern where first we met... that to meet a redhaired man was... was a lucky omen." He forced a smile, and there was a harsh gasping as his body fought on for life. "At least... at least we found... found the Far Kingdoms["

  "We did," I said. Then, more strongly, "we did."

  Pain struck Janos then, and he writhed. "Take... take the blade out now," he said, and his voice was a command. "Before I dishonor my pride."

  I pulled the blade free. And as it came out a soul fled into the embrace of the Dark Seeker.

  Janos Antero Greycloak, Prince of Kostroma, Captain and Knight of Orissa, unanointed Baron of Vacaan, seeker of the Far Kingdoms, and, yes, a man who had once been my friend, was dead.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

  I come to the end of this journey now; and as I write these lines, I can feel Janos's weight sag in my arms when I lift his body from the cart. My rheumy eyes look through younger ones, and I see clear the path we dragged that cart up to reach the crown of the Holy Mountain. Sergeant Maeen and the other men step forward to help me, but I harshly order them away. I must do this myself.

  I shift my burden and turn toward the great pocked ruins of the Old One's altar. I stumble toward it, weak with present age; and I am weary, so weary I pray for that youth's strength so I do not fall. My quill trembles with effort as I lift Janos to the stone. I lay him out and take a panting step back so I can see the man who led us here.

  Ah, there you are, Janos. I know you now, Greycloak. I see your naked flesh on the stone; and the scars of your great failure mark that flesh. But I am not done yet: thought must wait as I complete my labors. Maeen puts the flask in my hands and I pour oil over Janos's corpse. Now I must pray, but I do not know the Old One's words, so I merely say: "Farewell, Janos Greycloak."

  I light the fire and stumble back from its angry flare. I see the flames attack: furious strikes all along his body. They strike the hardest at the sorcerous scars; and my quill remembers that furnace where Janos dared the demon who was Mortacious's master. But I still have surprises for that knowing quill and the last linen pages who are its brothers
. I see the scars vanish, and I see Janos transformed, young and handsome as when we first met in innocence.

  Now there is a moment for those thoughts I held back before. You were my friend, Janos Greycloak, and you betrayed me. Ah, but I have hissed those curses before. I did not begin this journal to open old wounds; but to banish those scars, like the altar fire banished Janos's. There were two journeys intended in this ledger: one for those who read my scratchings; the other for myself. We accomplished a great thing, Greycloak and I. We found the Far Kingdoms. But Greycloak traveled farther alone. And our world will never be the same for his discoveries. It was I, who carried them back, however; and it was I who was given some of the credit. But I did not lie, Janos Greycloak. I did not betray, like Cassini. My quill is eager to expunge those self-inflicted wounds. And I think: what did you do to me after all? What I had seen, and all I did later, was because of you. Shouldn't that gift settle debt enough for forgiveness?

  Very well: I forgive you, Janos; and I forgive myself as well for not knowing enough to rescue you that final time. You were not a good man, Greycloak; but you were a great man; and it was your greatness that slew you in the end - not I.

  With that understanding - and forgiveness - I am anxious to get to the finish; but I will see it with new eyes now. I hear Maeen and the men paying their final respects to Janos. And I feel Omerye's soft presence beside me. She lifts her pipes to play a song of sweet regrets. The fire leaps, and the body is transformed once more - this time into dark smoke. I feel the east wind hush past and it lifts the smoke into the sky. The smoke pauses overhead, and swirls about as if it had commanded the wind to wait.

  I wipe wetness from my eyes... and look again. Suddenly I see a vision of great clarity. Far to the east, across dazzling seas, where they say no man lives, a trick of light lifts a mountain range above Horizon's curve. The range looks like a great clenched fist, and between thumb and finger I see the glitter of a pure white blanket of snow. The mountain fist exactly fits the vision I saw when the Evocators cast the bones that began our quest.