The Warrior's Tale (The Far Kingdoms, Book 2)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Instead, he said, quite mildly: “What’s to be done, Rali?”

  I sighed, and said: “What can be done? I’m not a navigator, much less a sailor — thank the good Maranonia, who has sense enough to leave the seas to gods who like to be wet, and actually prefer a smelly old fish over a nice charred calf’s haunch.”

  My attempt at levity was met with an impatient rapping of Gamelan’s stick against the deck. “You are the leader of this expedition, woman. Speak as such.”

  Stung, I lashed back: “How can I lead, when I don’t know where we’re going? If the admiral and his officers are mired, what can I do to get us unstuck?”

  Gamelan laughed. “Why, lie, of course! All good leaders have a trunkful of untruths. It’s time you started rummaging in yours. True, our problems are many. But as I see it, they can all wait until we tackle the most important two. And of these, the least important at this juncture is the route home.”

  “If we knew that,” I snapped, “we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.”

  “Agreed. However, if everyone gives up hope of finding our way, then, it becomes a fact for lack of trying. And we are doomed to making a poor life among strangers who have so far proved to be most unfriendly. We’ll either be killed, enslaved, or — for your Guardswomen — forced to be concubines or wives.”

  “I can’t quarrel with that,” I said. “But what lie could I possibly tell that would put steel back in their spines? And why would they believe the lie? I’m a soldier, not a miracle maker.”

  Gamelan made no reply. He only rapped on the deck with that damned stick of his.

  I groaned. “Not again, wizard. You can’t make me something I’m not. And don’t say that I’ve already proven my talents. And don’t shine any of that grandfatherly charm on me, so I start spilling deep dark secrets all over the floor like a trooper on a wine binge. I’ve had enough, you hear? “

  A flying fish broke the surface. It skimmed across the sea a startling distance. Where its flight began, I saw the dark shape of its enemy. The wizard asked me what was happening and I told him of the remarkable fish.

  “Now, there is a creature,” Gamelan said, “who made good use of its fear. It grew wings.”

  He turned away and started rapping his way back across the deck.

  “All right,” I called after him. “I take your point. If only to stop your nagging, I’ll do as you ask. What trick would you have me perform this time?”

  Gamelan turned back. “I’ll want more than just a trick, or two, my dear Rali. We can’t feed the fleet with a single baited hook. You’re going to have to set out the entire net.”

  It was on that day I truly began the practice of magic. Because for the first time, I learned to treat it as it really is — a grand entertainment, and no more. And I tell you this, there is little difference between the greatest Evocator and the meanest bacchanal faker. It’s all smoke and mirrors, Scribe. Don’t stretch a long, disapproving face at me. As you shall see, Gamelan was the first to admit it.

  What the old wizard had in mind was a lavish ceremony, with as much splendor and excitement someone of my limited knowledge could muster. The ceremony must be staged at just the right moment — when we could make some poor scrap of luck seem a banquet.

  First, we began a grinding, daily routine of magical lessons. The first thing I learned was sorcery is hard work. The second thing I learned was although Gamelan insisted I had much natural talent, I certainly didn’t have any natural enthusiasm to go with it. I’m afraid I grumbled more than a little — so much so Polillo and the others made excuses to sail clear of my course whenever I’d completed a lesson.

  “I’m trying to teach you as much as I can, as fast as I can,” Gamelan said one day. “But, we’re going to have to jump past all the rules and spell memorizing that apprentices normally have to go through. It’s probably just as well, for I fear that after Janos Greycloak’s discoveries, all of those things will soon be considered old-fashioned at the best, and unnecessary and even harmful at the worst.”

  We were sitting in his cramped cabin, fiddling with the small details of our preparations for the ceremony. At his bidding I’d conjured up Gamelan’s kitchen demon and set him to work mixing powders, sewing magical cloth, and grinding little mirrors to specifications Gamelan had me find in a fat old book, with a cracked black cover that felt warm when you touched it, as if it were a living a thing.

  It was, of course, no ordinary book. When you opened the covers the pages were a swirl of color and letters and phrases that didn’t seem to stick to one place but leaped all over, and scurried to the next leaf when you turned it. They only took form of a sort when you spoke a word, indicating what you were looking for. Say, “demon” for instance, and the pages would flip madly in first one direction, then another, and little green creatures — bearing what appeared to be miniature fire beads — would leap out squealing to be recognized. “Look here for conjuring ardor in your lover, great lady,” one might squeak. Or, “Cursing enemies, our specialty, Mistress.” Or, even, “Housebreaking your Favorite guaranteed.”

  When you settled on the category, the creature whose wares you’d chosen would snarl at his fellows to cow them, then crawl onto the page you wanted. He’d lift the fire beads and you’d see letters scurrying all about like ants gone mad from dry thunder. At his squeaked orders they’d form up and reveal their message. Give the order — “speak” — and they’d even read themselves aloud.

  When Gamelan reminded me of Greycloak I was trying for the tenth time to follow the book’s directions for snatching ribbon out of empty air. It’s done like this, Scribe. Watch. First I crook my fingers so. Then I make a motion as if tying a knot. Then I push my fingers together like this, and . . . See. Ribbon. Bright red ribbon. Here’s some more. You take one end and pull. Keep pulling. Sorry, I know you can’t write and pull at the same time. But, you see how easy it seems. And there’s at least a mile of the stuff in whatever place it exists, so you could pull for a long time before it comes to an end. But even such a simple trick isn’t easy when you’re starting out.

  So I was all fumble fingered, turning out only knotted twine, and that of the cheapest sort. Since that trick was failing me, I thought I’d try the old ploy of the lazy student — engaging your teacher in a subject dear to his heart, thereby escaping an hour or so of work.

  “As you know,” I said, “I am not among those who admire Janos Greycloak. He betrayed my brother, after all, and nearly slew him. But Amalric claims the magical secrets he’s bequeathed to us outweigh his failings, and all Orissa is obligated to sing his praises on his death day.”

  “That is certainly the view of my fellow Evocators,” the wizard answered, but his tone was bitter.

  Interested, I forgot this was only a conversational trick — idle talk to win me idle time. “You don’t share that view?” I pressed.

  “Oh, certainly, I do,” he answered. “Greycloak’s gift was greater than any in history. Equal, at least, to the first man who made fire and shared it with his fellows. From Janos we know there are laws to magic. And with that knowledge there is little we cannot accomplish, given time and experimentation.”

  “I hear words of praise, my friend,” I said. “But I sense you don’t really believe them.”

  “Oh, I do,” Gamelan said. “If you hear otherwise, you are mistaken.”

  I remained silent.

  Finally, he sighed. “Very well. “I’ll admit that in weak moments — especially since I lost my powers — I hate Janos Greycloak for his gift. But, it is only envy. When I was young, and denied the life I was born to, and the woman I loved, I traded ambition for the contentment I would never have. I was determined to be the greatest Evocator in Orissa.”

  “And this you became,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Except for Greycloak. But the distance between his achievement and mine is as vast as the watery wilderness we find ourselves in. I am a mewling babe, compared to Janos.”

 
“Come, now,” I said. “All know the extent of your powers. Without you, we never would have defeated the Archons.”

  “Even if that were true,” he said, “it would be no comfort. You see, before Greycloak we practiced magic as it had been done since the first spell was cast in the days when even fire was new. Successful spells were memorized and passed on to acolytes. When writing was learned, we put them in books, such as the one you have before you. Not once did anyone ask why a thing worked. We believed the results were the doings of the gods in the spirit world, and that was answer enough.

  “Knowledge can never grow in a field absent of questions. I know that now. But I did not know it before. All that could be accomplished in those times were better twists on an old trick. Or, refinement of a trick. Power was limited to native-born ability. Which I had in plenty — more so than my fellows, at least.”

  “But what of the wizards of Irayas?” I asked. “The magic of the Far Kingdoms, as all know, is much greater than ours. They progressed mightily — without Janos Greycloak’s laws.”

  Gamelan snorted. “That’s only because they found old scrolls and books from the Ancients. The things they have accomplished do not come from wisdom, but tricks lost to us over the ages.”

  “I don’t call changing common metal to gold a trick,” I said. “They can do that in The Far Kingdoms.”

  The wizard tugged hard at his beard. “According to Greycloak — or at least the musings your brother returned with — it’s no less a trick than conjuring up that ribbon which at the moment is giving you so much difficulty. If you know the law for how one is accomplished, you can do the other with equal ease. Janos claimed there is a single natural force — and not gods — that controls magic, and indeed, all else in our everyday world . . . heat from a fire, the flow of water, the stuff that makes up gold — particles, he called it — is the same as conjuring a wart off a nose, or commanding the rain to fall or cease.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “But you will,” Gamelan answered. “The more I teach you, the more apparent it will become.”

  “Then, why are you envious?” I asked. “Seems to me that what you’re saying is Greycloak freed everyone from rote, and much greater things can be done — things even he never dreamed of — with that freedom.”

  “Quite true,” Gamelan said. “But consider this. Consider a young wizard who in the rebellious years of his youth glimpsed for a moment what Greycloak saw clear. But, then he thought he was fool for even thinking that. How could he know more than his teachers, his masters, or the ancient Evocators who had passed down their wisdom?”

  “Are you saying that you could have unraveled the same mysteries as Greycloak?” I asked.

  “No. Even I am not that conceited. A genius like Janos comes only once in many lifetimes, if at all. But, still, it haunts me that such could be so.”

  “Other discoveries await,” I said. “Even Greycloak’s most enthusiastic admirers say what he found is only a beginning.”

  “Yes,” Gamelan said. “Which just makes me more envious. All the discoveries that follow will be made by young men and women who will not be burdened by a lifetime of wrong thinking. I’m too old, Rali. And, now I’m blind as well. What’s worse, to an ancient like myself, is that when Janos made the gift — no matter how involuntarily — he took away my gods. For that is at the heart of his teachings. The gods — if even they exist — are bound by the same laws as the most common beggar at the door of the meanest tavern-keeper in the land.”

  Shocked, I said: “What do you mean if the gods exist? Do you doubt it?”

  The wizard shrugged. “They have appeared too many times in our history to actually doubt them,” he said. “And not just to fools and liars, but men and women whose word cannot be doubted. However, if what Janos Greycloak suspects is true, they aren’t gods, at least by what we mean by the word — which implies reverence, and worship.”

  I looked wildly about for a place to hide when the lightning bolt struck — a bit like you are at this moment, Scribe. But, none fell. I calmed myself.

  “If they aren’t gods,” I said, “than what in whoever’s name I ought to evoke just now, is our purpose? Whose will, whose plan, are we following?”

  And the wizard answered: “According to Greycloak, there is no purpose. Our will is our own. And there is no plan, save what we make for our own lives.”

  “But what of good and evil?” I sputtered.

  “No difference,” Gamelan said.

  “Then what’s the use? Why not just give up?”

  “Do you want to?” Gamelan asked. “Greycloak believed it doesn’t matter one way or, the other.”

  But it mattered to my Guardswomen, I thought. It mattered even to the slippery Cholla Yi and his crew of pirates. Most importantly, it mattered to me.

  I shook my head. Then, remembering he couldn’t see, I said, quite loud, “No. And be damned to Janos Greycloak.”

  Gamelan laughed, harsh. “He very well might be . . . if he’s wrong.”

  He lifted up his stick and rapped the deck. “Now, back to work. And put your mind to it, woman. If you were as lazy in your sword practice as you are with simple ribbon pulling, your head would have been hoisted on a pike long ago!”

  * * * *

  Several weeks passed before we were ready. Even then, both of us would have preferred more time; but the mood in the fleet remained so draped in miasma that any spark we might light would be smothered if we waited much longer. Gamelan had me practice casting the bones each morning. I’d describe their pattern and he would tell me if they boded good or ill. Mainly, they seemed to fall in a shape that Gamelan said predicted neither, but urged us to wait instead. I found the whole bone-casting thing vaguely humiliating.

  “It’s all very well for you,” I told Gamelan. “You’re an Evocator. You even look like an Evocator. Dignified, gray-bearded, the very image of stern wisdom. No one would dare think you were silly, dropping a bunch of smelly old bones on the deck, then kneeling over the filthy things, staring, and mumbling and twisting your beard. But I look like — well, me, dammit! Not particularly wise, certainly not dignified, and the last time I checked, my body is free of hair but one, and that makes a very short beard, indeed.”

  “If you’re saying a woman lacks the necessary demeanor to be an Evocator,” Gamelan said, “then I suppose we had best give up the whole thing.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “That’s what I heard. And now that I think on it, perhaps this whole thing is ridiculous. Perhaps the women haters are correct. Perhaps it is true that your sex lacks the same mental powers as men, and, I must admit . . . without a beard, you probably — ”

  “Give me those damned bones,” I snarled. I grabbed them from his hand and tossed. “I still think this is stupid. From what you were saying about Greycloak and his laws of magic, bone throwing makes no sense at all. How can a future be predicted, if there is no god-like plan to spy out? In fact, this whole exercise seems like one big — ”

  “What is it, Rali?” Gamelan asked.

  “The bones,” I said.

  “What about the bones?”

  “I don’t know, they . . . look good. I can’t explain why. They just do!”

  I described the pattern. Gamelan laughed. “You are exactly right! Bright dawns are ahead, my friend. Bright dawns, indeed.”

  And that is how I became a bone caster. One moment I was an ignorant, the next, a sage.

  An hour later, I heard the lookout halloo — an island had been sighted. Excitement fired the fleet. The island was a poor, rocky-shored thing with a slender pebbled beach hugging a few tired peaks. But any land at all stirred thoughts of home and hope. A scouting party was quickly sent out and it reported the island was uninhabited, but seemed to offer some food and drink. We went ashore, leaving only a skeleton crew on the ships.

  The gleeful mood, however, was short-lived. Within moments of landing, a cold, sticky mist enveloped us. T
here was little vegetation, and all of that sickly. What trees there were bore only a few bitter-tasting nuts. Stringy birds mocked us from the peaks with cries as harsh as a fishmonger. The water was drinkable, but barely. It came from a half-dozen steaming pools circling a small geyser that sat at the base of one of the squat peaks. The geyser fountained intermittently and weakly — only rising as far as my head.

  I stood near the geyser, alone save for my blind wizard friend, thinking dark thoughts of magic and bone-casting in general. If this was the new luck that had been foretold, it was a mean-spirited thing. I heard cursing from a large knot of sailors who had gathered at one of the pools to fill casks with the foul-smelling water. I didn’t blame them for the cursing — they were only voicing my own thoughts — but I became alarmed when I saw Cholla Yi and some of his officers standing nearby. The Admiral was normally such a harsh master no one would dare complain in his presence.

  One of the sailors — a big burly fellow with a bloated, pillow of nose — dipped up water, drank, then spit it out with an oath. “Whore’s piss,” he said in a voice so loud that only a crop-eared thief could have missed it. He flung the dipper down. “They got us drinking whore’s piss, now, mates. And if that ain’t enough, they’re making us fill our holds wi’ it so’s we’ll know what fine lads they think we be f’r weeks t’ come.”

  One of his companions, a tall, skeletal villain with a chin as sharp as a dagger, spoke up just as loudly. “It ain’t gonna change ‘long as that big bitch is givin’ th’ orders.”

  He turned and looked directly at me, as did the others. Cholla Yi and his officers strolled away as if they’d heard nothing. I heard him laugh at something Phocas said, and then they disappeared behind a jumble of rock. All the men were looking at me, now, bold as you please. Without another word being exchanged between them, their hands went to the knives at their belts.

  Sensing danger, Gamelan tugged at my sleeve and whispered: “We had best go.”

  I knew we’d never take ten steps before those knives were in our backs. I was ready to draw my sword and make a fight of it — and even went so far as to shift my stance, when my boot glanced against a hard object. I looked down, meaning to kick away anything that might tangle my feet, and saw an empty conch shell — the size of a child’s head. A feeling of great calm descended. My blood was hot — not with the fighting rage I’d bent to my will long ago, but with a kind of power that was more like a river charging through a narrow course.