The Empire Stone

by Chris Bunch

  There was a cacophony of questions, theories. Urga’s heart had given out, he was just too fat. No, it’d been the wine. Not the wine — had anyone seen how he ate? No one could gag down that much flesh without foundering. Aw, I’d seen him eat, drink more. Must’ve been something wrong with the meat, or something.

  Peirol said nothing. He was the only one who’d seen a man die as Urga had, knew the cause.

  Manco looked worried, shouted everyone out, said there’d be a burial ceremony in a turning of the glass, before the stink started. They’d give his body to the fire, since no one knew whether or not Urga had a religion.

  “An’ then,” a bandit shouted, “we’ll have an election, an’ find a new chief.”

  “Manco!” someone shouted, and there were cries of agreement.

  The bandits now had a new excitement, and like children they swarmed to get ready, some going for great balks of firewood from the outside village, others to make a proper bier for their dead chieftain. Manco’s worried expression vanished. He let them scurry about, saying nothing. There was a bit of a smile on his face.

  Zaimis went to him, bowed. “A question, Manco.”

  “Ask, Zaimis.”

  “When you are chief, will you remember your oath about us?”

  “I don’t know that I’ll be elected.”

  “You will,” Zaimis said positively. “Who else could lead these people?”

  Manco looked at her, then at Peirol. “If that happens, I’d have an immediate vote on you two joining us, and I say again, there will be no problems. If you become members, would it happen that you perhaps have other ideas for the band? Other things you and your friend might have seen in your travels that might bring us gold? That would count mightily in the vote.”

  “I do,” Zaimis said, and again she had a smile on her face, her lips wet, eyes shining. “You may rest that I — we do. Don’t we, Peirol?”

  “I, uh … yes, of course, Zaimis,” Peirol said. “There’s those jewelers we dealt with, I’m sure they could be robbed or, better yet, taken for ransom. I’m sorry. I’m just not used to thinking like a bandit yet.”

  “Like a bandit,” Zaimis said. “Or a pirate. But you’ll learn. You’ll learn.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Peirol said, voice oozing sincerity. He wondered how he could have been so brainless to have thought Zaimis stupid, back on the Petrel when he first met her. He was the stupid one. He vowed he’d never be so quick to make judgment again.

  It took two turnings of the glass for everything to be properly arranged. All the bandits, even the sentries who watched over the draw leading to the camp, assembled for this, the funeral of their greatest chieftain. Someone who claimed he’d once been a priest’s acolyte, before they caught him filching the bowl for the poor, said he could come up with a prayer. The musicians were ready, and the mourners were keening, thoroughly enjoying the moment as, again, the brandy and wine came out. First the ceremony, then the fire, then the meeting for the election, then a great feast. The musicians began playing, and the wailing reached up — or perhaps down — to the gods.

  No one noticed as Peirol stealthily unhitched two horses, one he’d saddled as soon as he was able to get away from Manco, and led them away, out of sight of the bandits, to where his pack waited.

  Clear of the draw, he mounted and kicked his horses into a league-consuming trot. He doubted if the single bag of gold he’d tucked into Zaimis’s bedding would keep her from shouting the alarm.

  Peirol had indeed seen that face of terrible pain before, back in Sennen, when a thief had set aside his woman for a younger whore. The jilted one went to a witch and bought poison.

  He wondered how long Manco would live as bandit king and how long it would be before Zaimis became their queen.

  A more disquieting thought came — if they’d not encountered the bandits, and considering Zaimis’s growing dissatisfaction with Peirol and his way of life, how long would it have been before she started looking at him, thinking about the uses she could put that bag of diamonds behind his knee to and fingering her little bag of herbs?

  He swallowed hard, then concentrated on putting the leagues behind him.

  16

  OF DIAMOND MINES AND BROWN ONES

  Peirol made the main road, turned east, hurtled past a dozen wagon loads of peasants headed for market, and galloped on. A league farther, the road ran beside a brackish wetland. Peirol dismounted, led his reluctant horses into the mire, found a hidden copse, and went to ground. Prying branches aside, he could just see the road.

  The peasant wagons creaked past. He waited on. By the time he’d killed his eighteenth mosquito, horses galloped past. He recognized some of the horses, thought he saw Manco at their head with Zaimis beside him. He waited on, killing more bugs. Eventually the bandits came back, horses lathered and exhausted. He could hear shrill recriminations, couldn’t quite make out who was accusing whom of what. He could imagine the mutterings about whether Peirol was a better horseman than any of them, or if they’d missed a turning, or if the villagers or peasants had been bribed to lie. Perhaps they’d check the road to the west.

  Peirol made his way back to the road and rode off, pushing hard, walking beside his horses, then riding at a walk, then trotting, then on foot again. Dusk fell, but he didn’t think of stopping. He reached a village, with welcoming gleams of yellow light and an inn. Inside would be food, fodder for his horses.

  Peirol kept moving, stopping only when his and the horses’ legs started to buckle. He moved off the road beside a rivulet, let his horses drink, pulled them away to keep them from foundering, unsaddled his mount, and let the animals graze. Peirol pulled handfuls of grass, curried his mount as best he could, then resaddled him. The horse nickered anger and nipped at him, and Peirol felt bad. But discomfort was better than death. Sword ready, wishing he had pistols like the bandits, he leaned against a tree, forcing himself to doze. He jumped awake a dozen times, realized the noises were normal forest sounds, and returned to his drifting stupor.

  Before dawn, he rode on. He stopped in another village, fed and watered his horses, forced himself to eat something in the inn, unhurried, as if no one in the world were on his trail. He rode all that day, stopping in a village to buy a bag of grain, bread, cheese, and a small bottle of wine. Again he slept rough, did the same for two more nights, and then reached a small city. Now he might relax. He didn’t think men with prices on their heads would chance a city, no matter how rich their prey.

  The next morning, as he was settling his bill, there was a commotion outside. A dozen armored lancers were followed by as many musketeers, then two men in brown robes. They were middle-aged, their faces haughty, arrogant. Behind them rode a dozen more lancers. These must be the Brown Men, the Men of Lysyth.

  The innkeeper was beside him, watching, face carefully blank. When the Brown Men had passed, he spat after them. “Bastards,” he muttered.

  “Why so?” Peirol asked. “I’m a stranger.”

  “They behave as if all cities, all villages, all lands, are secretly theirs, and they’re but waiting the day to take them over. They send their damned beggars, calling them journey priests, across the straits from Restormel — that’s the city they secretly rule — to do good works, helping farmers in the field, working on the roads, rebuilding bridges, and the like.

  “Those are really damned spies, for behind them come the older ones, like those who just passed. They always know when to trade, when to buy, when to sell, when there’s famine or feast. They have force of arms to back them, as you saw. If a village or town wants little to do with them, they’ll find pretext for insult or injury, and the next visit will be with the gun and the sword.

  “Our damned king, far distant, won’t do anything. He’s as weak as that child-king of Restormel and that whore who rules in his name. One day the Brown Men will usurp his authority, and then we’ll all be under their lash.

  “Not that they think there’s anything wrong with their way,
of course. For don’t they know, absolutely damned know, what’s right and what’s wrong? And isn’t their damned city the richest maybe in the world, which proves all men should obey their humble advice? Shit!”

  The innkeeper, red as the handkerchief around his neck, stamped back inside.

  • • •

  It was summer, and the weather was pleasant. Peirol tried to keep from rushing on, eager to be at the end of his long quest, if Restormel indeed held the Empire Stone. He had no idea how to look for it once he reached Restormel, hoped for an advising dream from Abbas. But none came.

  In the only dream he remembered, he was a very tiny being in a huge, empty room. Overhead was a great diamond that reflected rays of many colors, and when the rays struck around him, they seared the ground like fire. Peirol woke, sweating, legs moving as his body still tried to evade those killing beams of light.

  But now the phrase “Brave heroes, who journey out” came without irony.

  Peirol traded in two more cities, feeling his keenness return, driving harder bargains. He was infinitely grateful for Abbas’s language spell; it gave him not only familiarity with the languages he encountered but the ability to sense irony and deceit.

  All of Aulard’s gems were now gone, replaced with gold or jewels with equally dark traditions. He spent some of that gold for a brace of handsome pistols, each with a bore he could fit two fingers down. He also bought holsters, powder, powder flask, balls, molds, and lead ingots to cast new bullets from. He remembered what he’d told Abbas so long ago in Sennen about guns, wondered if things would have been better if he’d taken the ones he offered, decided not.

  The roads were better now, and there were maps, good maps, so he could follow his progress to Restormel exactly. He encountered several Brown Men on his journey.

  Once a company of soldiers, with three Men of Lysyth in the center, rode past, commandeering the road from shoulder to shoulder. A cart was slow to move aside, and a soldier’s whip sang, snapping across the carthorse’s withers. He neighed in panic and reared, overturning the cart into the ditch. The soldiers laughed, but the Brown Men kept sober expressions, as if only slightly attuned to this earth, vast spiritual matters filling their mind.

  Another day, Peirol rode up on two Brown Men afoot. They were younger than Peirol. One turned, wordlessly held out his beggar’s bowl as Peirol rode past. He was about to ignore it when he saw the expression on the man’s face. It was not pleading, but demanding his due. Peirol found coppers in his purse, dropped them in the bowl, received a curt nod of acknowledgment.

  If the Empire Stone was in Restormel, and if it gave riches, power, who would have possession of the gem? The child-king and his retinue, whoever they were? Or, as likely, the Brown Men, if they had as much power as the innkeeper said.

  When he stopped for a meal or for the night, he tried to lead the conversation around to these Men of Lysyth. Who or what was Lysyth? What did these men believe? What god or gods did they serve? No one knew.

  • • •

  Peirol sat happily in the corner of the huge tavern. It was large, suited for a greater city than the one he traded in. He let the laughter, the drunken cheers, the off-key singing wash over him, take away the silence and chill of the forests. Perhaps, he thought, when he returned to Sennen with, of course, the Empire Stone, and Abbas made him rich, he might open a tavern like this. It would never close, and there would always be laughter and musicians, and cheerful wenches like the one who served him. He’d have low prices, brew the best beer, and there’d always be a roast on a spit. If the women wanted to make their own arrangements with the customers, it’d be none of his affair.

  It was a pity, Peirol thought, swirling brandy around his mouth, thinking of the huge feather bed upstairs he’d shortly be wallowing in, sleeping alone with no desire for company, the window cracked a shade so he could listen to the hammering rain outside, a pity indeed that Kima was of the upper classes. She’d probably think such an investment stupid, and certainly never go into such a raucous dive herself. Ah well, Peirol thought, just a bit drunkenly, she might learn to like such a place. Or … or not.

  Across from him, in a snug like his own, one of the Brown Men was gravely surveying the room as if it was in his charge. A tiny glass of wine sat in front of him.

  Peirol waved to his server, who bustled over, and he gave instructions. She looked at him oddly, but took a balloon glass of the inn’s finest brandy to the Man of Lysyth. He looked surprised, then frowned. Peirol lifted his glass in a toast. The Brown One spoke to the woman. She bowed, brought the glass on its tray to Peirol, scowling.

  “The August One,” and there was a hiss in her voice, “said … well, do you want me to tell you what he said?”

  “I do.”

  “He said, and I’m giving his words exactly, ‘Tell that child-man over there his gold could be better spent on alms for the destitute, rather than numb-wit for this poor vessel.’”

  “Well, take that brandy back and tell the son of a bitch to shove it up — never mind. I’ll drink it,” Peirol said.

  “Guess that’s your first turn with them,” the woman said. “They’re all snotty bastards. And they do need something up their — up theirs. Like a thorn bush.”

  Peirol gritted teeth, took out silver coins, went to the poor-box, ostentatiously dropped them in. He went back to his seat, smiled at the Man of Lysyth, lifted his glass, refusing to let the smug pisshead ruin his evening. The man looked through him as if Peirol were invisible.

  • • •

  Peirol heard an odd tale from a jeweler: farther to the south, away from the road to Restormel, were vast diamond fields, recently discovered, well worth a visit. The jeweler said the miners were “unusual,” and that the dwarf might be “interested in their customs.” A bit wary, Peirol asked if they happened to be cannibals.

  “No, nothing dangerous,” the jeweler said. “Just … well, interesting.”

  Peirol could use some uncut gems when he reached Restormel, especially ones bought cheaply at a minehead. As for those interesting customs, he’d already met many people with odd usages, and thus far his hide was intact, his bones ungnawed. He inquired of other gem merchants, to make sure the jeweler hadn’t been playing a joke, before turning south into growing wilderness. There were small clusters of huts here and there, barely enough to be called villages. All knew of the miners; some even had some gems they wanted to sell. But these were generally just polished, and the few crude attempts at cutting had ruined the stones’ value, and so he politely passed, continued on.

  Two days later, he came to the first mine. He heard it before he saw it, a large pit dug in a cleared field against the side of a hill. The pit was filled with men and women, all digging, all chanting aloud. After a while, he figured out they were praying. He saw a man resting to one side, rode to him, was informed about what was going on.

  “Why the praying, admirable though it is?”

  “If we pray loudly enough,” the man said, “the gods will place the diamonds in our workings. But if we’re not holy enough, not dedicated enough …” He pointed, and Peirol noted half a dozen abandoned sites around him. “You choose the area by prayer?”

  “By prayer of our priests, but mostly by the supplications of our workers.”

  “Prayer is everything? You don’t consider where you found diamonds before and look for a similar site?”

  “That would be sacrilegious,” the man said. “Besides, the land is rich with these stones the men of the cities go mad for. Why should we question how the gods choose to guide us to riches?”

  Peirol thanked the man, tapped his horse’s neck with the reins, rode on.

  Five days later, he rode out of thick bamboo jungle into cleared land, and into chaos. There was a village, larger than the ones he’d passed through. Its inhabitants were on the road, shouting “disbeliever,” “heathen,” “blasphemer” at a Man of Lysyth. He was young — not much more than twenty — good-looking in an aristocratic w
ay, in spite of his shaven head, and fairly well battered.

  The man shouted back that he was but a messenger of the Invisible Ones, the Real Gods, trying to save them from damnation and destruction. A beefy woman knocked him to his knees. Someone noticed Peirol and cried out. Peasants saw the dwarf, and there were cries of wonderment.

  An old woman tottered out of the throng. “Who are you? Are you mortal?”

  “Surely,” Peirol said. “Do you think the gods would choose someone of my deformity as their messenger?”

  “They would,” someone shouted. “For didn’t Rivak come among us as a giant? Or Tuln work her greatest miracles as one without arms or legs? And the great Cohl came as a leper.”

  There was a rumble of agreement. A few people made obeisance to Peirol.

  “Thank you,” Peirol said politely. “But I assure you I’m no more than me. Might I ask what this Man of Lysyth did to offend?”

  “He is a blasphemer,” the old woman said. “For which crime, he must be punished.”

  “And that punishment shall be of the worst,” a woman said gleefully. “He shall be tied to that stake you see over there, and his skin slowly stripped from his body. Our witch has placed a spell so he cannot lose consciousness, nor die until she wills it. While he hangs, bleeding, his toes and fingers shall be cut off. We’ll slice away his genitals, boil them in front of him, make him eat them. Then we shall continue his dismemberment, a joint at a time, as we butcher our lambs when our gods tell us it is time for the sacrifice.

  “His eyes will be burned out, his tongue cut away, sticks driven into his ears until he’s no more than a red-bleeding egg. Then we shall make a cut into his spine, drain out and drink the fluid that drips, and then, perhaps, he’ll be allowed to die.”