The Raven lamented the fact there was so little honor left in the dominions of Kandelaar.
Guilt pestered him with a dreadful thought. I am the king’s trusted counselor, and yet . . . I am no better. He pushed the truth of it aside.
The woodsman still held the woman on his lap and slobbered kisses on her neck.
She gripped his fondling fingers with a vigorous twist and pushed his face away. “Let me be! Let go of me!” She struggled to get up. He pulled her back.
“Not without another kiss,” the woodsman slurred. His companions guffawed and pounded their mugs on the board. The woodsman gripped a fistful of the woman’s hair and twisted her face toward him.
“No, m’lord, please. I pray, let me go!” The woman’s voice pierced the clatter and commotion.
Like a shadow come alive, the Raven was suddenly upon the man. He gripped him by the throat and pushed him backward, toppling him from the bench. The thud of the man’s head striking the floor was louder than the thud of the wooden bench striking the hardwood planks.
“I am in a hurry, and you, sir, are keeping this woman from serving me.”
The woodsman’s companions stumbled up in awkward panic. The larger of the two pulled out a short sword, but he clearly had no intent of using it.
The Raven put the hand with the two-fingered ring in the woodsman’s face. The man blanched and waved his companions off. Striking an emissary of the king would result in imprisonment at Stókenhold Fortress, a fate many considered more onerous than death.
The Raven knew that showing the royal ring emblazoned with the sigil of the king was a risk, but hubris overcame caution.
The woman stood breathing hard with one hand across her bosom and the other tugging at her skirt. The Raven looked at the woman with a confirming nod. She turned away to wipe the ale and gathered the pieces of the broken flagon, then hurried to the kitchen with her sodden rags and shattered bits of porcelain.
The Raven expected a glance back. There was none. Had he been wrong? Had he misread the woman’s look? As one whose mind was consumed by mystical combinations of the stars and planets, he knew better than almost anyone that what was imagined and what was real were rarely the same.
He watched the woodsman and his companions swagger from the tavern in a clomping of boots and slurry of profanities. They bumped their way through the door and into the night. A moment later, the woman came to the Raven’s table with a flagon of ale as if nothing had happened.
“How may I serve you, m’lord?” She glanced about, then smiled and held his eyes.
“With something more than a tankard of cheap wine,” he said, studying her face for a sign.
“We’ve a barrel of spiced ale with cinnamon from the brewery at Kingsgate, if ye’d rather, m’lord.”
“I’ve not come for drink,” he said. “My curiosity is stronger than my thirst.” He placed the scrap of parchment on the table and moved his hand away, revealing the two-fingered sigil of the king.
She inhaled deeply, leaned forward to whisk crumbs from the table, and plucked up the note. Her face was close to his and her whisper soft.
“There’s place for the horses behind the inn.” She flashed a practiced smile and hurried away.
CHAPTER 45
Ashar scrambled upward through a fall of rocks to catch up with Rorekk. The trail followed the ridge that swept around the west side of the mountain. The overhang made the climb difficult. The rocks were sharp and loose, the footing precarious. Ashar managed with nothing more than minor abrasions on his elbows and knees.
Rorekk laid the Oracle on a slab of stone. He cradled his head and gave him water. The high priest’s mouth was slack, and water dribbled into the white of his beard.
Ashar stared at the bloodstain on the Oracle’s back. Did he die? He fought the feelings of foreboding that hammered through his heart. The terror of the attack and the deaths of the Blessed Sages had left him in shock. His skin was pallid, his breathing short. He felt cold. The knot of hunger was gone, but he was desperate to quench his thirst. At the sight of the water flask, he licked his parched lips.
Rorekk offered the flask to Ashar. He took a few quick gulps, sucked in a long slow breath, and raised the flask again.
The giant plucked it away. “Sele’esk!” Rorekk furrowed his immense brow and clenched a fist to his stomach. “Sele’esk noi tomo.”
Too much too fast is not good. Ashar understood, though he wasn’t sure how. Rorekk offered a wedge of dried venison instead. The smell of hickory smoke and pepper sent a shudder of anticipation through Ashar’s shrunken stomach. He savored the briny smell before gnawing his way into the leather-tough jerky.
Rorekk wrapped a leather strap around the Oracle’s legs and lifted the unconscious patriarch to his shoulder. The Oracle’s head and upper body were cradled across the giant’s chest. Ashar had never seen a man carried that way.
The sling holding the Oracle allowed Rorekk to use both hands to climb. The trail was little more than a ledge of rock rising steeply toward the north face.
Ashar’s breathing came in short gasps. He turned to look at the trail behind them. How had the bandits discovered the hidden passage? He knew what they wanted. He gripped the satchel and squeezed the soft leather to confirm the stones were still there. The warmth he had felt in the sanctum returned with startling clarity.
The clank of weapons and gruff voices reached him on the breeze. His reverie was shattered. In spite of the surge of optimism he felt with the stones in his hand, the sounds of evil filled him with dread—not for himself or his companions on the mountain but for those he’d left behind. Master Doyan and . . .
Celestine’s face appeared in his mind’s eye. He took comfort in the fact that he had seen her running toward the Tears of God. Had she escaped the men who chased her? Was she still alive?
Once again, he had fallen behind. At the sound of the brigands on the trail below, Ashar scrambled upward and looked for Rorekk. He caught sight of him far ahead. Seeing the Oracle in his arms soothed his fears. Nothing could be more important than saving the Oracle. But had they saved him or was he already dead? The thought drowned his calm in a wave of dread.
Ashar forced the image of the awful scene below from his mind. Faith chased fear away, and for a fleeting moment Ashar felt blessed by the God of gods. He looked to the top of the mountain and hurried his pace. The narrow ledge rose steadily and steeply as it wrapped around the west side of the mountain before turning north.
From the temple courtyard, the monolithic mountain appeared to be nothing but solid stone. Ashar was surprised by the crusts of lichen and thick moss the color of emerald. There were bushes and flowers growing from the tiniest of cracks. Here and there a tamarack twisted from a fissure, its roots slithering into pockets of humus brought there by the winds.
The ledge ended at a sheer wall that protruded from the main face like a huge slice of bread pushed from the loaf. Steps, rough-hewn from solid rock, wound upward through a narrow fracture where the slab had slipped away. The cleft was passable for a normal man, but barely wide enough for the giant. Ashar clambered through the cleft. He touched a stone so cold he thought it must be close to the ice that never melts.
The ascent was torturous. If there had been a trail in the past, it was long gone. It was evident that no one had been here recently. The moss and gray-green lichen was undisturbed, and there was more of it now and fewer patches of flowers.
They reached the north side of the mountain. Two thousand cubitums straight down was the river, a skinny scrawl of reflected sky scratched in a charcoal-green night, like a squiggle drawn by a child.
Where the stones steps ended, a ladder made from slender trunks lashed with steps of corroded iron lay against the wall. Ashar gasped for breath. He closed his eyes to fight his fear of falling. Fear and faith cannot abide. He recited the mantra, but fear wore many ma
sks, and he wondered if Master Doyan had ever walked up a near-sheer incline of rock holding nothing but a thin chain.
Rorekk moved the swaddle to protect his wounds and adjusted the straps of the cradle. He spoke softly to the Oracle, then gripped the rungs of the ladder. Ashar watched in wonder as the giant tested the iron steps and began to climb. The rusted iron was lashed to the rails with sinew. They bowed with each heavy step but held.
Ashar couldn’t see how the ladder was attached to the stone and expected it to break loose at any moment. He shuddered at the vivid image of the giant and the Oracle plunging to their deaths. And I will follow. Ashar felt light-headed and realized he was holding his breath.
At the top of the ladder, the route turned sharply east and followed a jagged ridge, the top of which was no wider than half the height of a Mankin. In a few places, a length of rusted chain was looped between spikes hammered into fissures in the rock, but most of the posts were either loose or missing. The trail fell away to a chasm on the right where a massive section of the monolith had sloughed away. The other side was an escarpment of loose rock extending to the edge of a sheer drop straight to the river. If they fell, their bodies would end up on the ragged rocks jutting from the north side of the monolith like shards of glass.
Where the ridge ran into the sheer face again, a precarious walkway protruded from the walls as if hung there by hemp from heaven. Who could have put it there? Guardians from another time? Or were they likewise borne up by the winged spirits of God? The air was thin, and Ashar wondered if he was thinking clearly.
Iron rods pounded into cracks and fissures stuck straight out from the sheer face, each one higher on the vertical wall than the one below. Bamboo poles had been lashed together, spanning the gaps between the rods. Smaller bamboo poles were laced crossways by twisted hemp, creating a steep ramp barely two cubitums wide and suspended in nothing but air. The rise was so steep in places the ancient builders had left gaps between the bamboo slats to create steps.
In places the trail was almost vertical. Ashar gripped every cavity or pocket of broken rock along the face. He tried hard not to look down, but it was impossible. The abyss beckoned with a strange power that felt like someone tugging at the hem of his robe. When he wasn’t looking down, his eyes were fixated on the shreds of rotting hemp and splintering bamboo. His ears filled with the creaking, groaning protests of the ancient walkway.
Ashar pressed his back against the rock and edged upward, his fingers fumbling for purchase. His heart pounded, and his breath came in ever shorter bursts. He dared not breath more deeply, lest any sudden movement send him plunging to his death.
Fear and faith cannot abide. He recited it over and over in his head and tried not to look down. Fear and faith cannot abide. Fear and faith cannot abide.
Whichever wise sage penned such wisdom in ages past had never been here. He could not have written those words while fighting phantoms of fear and clinging by his fingertips to a crevice of a rock.
Ashar grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and allowed his faith to fail. He had no choice but to abide his awful fear.
The faith required to believe in the doctrines of the codex was, at that moment, completely disconnected from finding the confidence to navigate the walkway. He recited the dogma of endlessness instead. He knew it well. All that is, has always been, and will forever be, and who we are and were before not only is but will always be and continue through endless time. It didn’t help.
Ashar cautiously increased his pace and caught up with Rorekk and the Oracle. He stayed as close as he could. Close enough to touch. Close enough to grab in case I fall, he confessed to himself.
Somewhere in the swirl of disjointed thoughts, Ashar wished for a winged servant of God to pluck him from his frightening perch and fly him to the hallowed fane. Or whatever it was they would find at the top of the monolith of stone. If we survive!
Suddenly the bamboo broke. His legs smashed through the splinters, and Ashar plunged toward the river.
CHAPTER 46
The wild mares broke to the right and raced toward the setting sun. Qhuin looped the leather around his wrist and pulled his trio of horses into a dangerously tight turn to chase after them. The iron wheel of the chariot slashed a deep wound in the wild grass and threw up a storm of red earth.
The Princeling Sargon stood beside Qhuin in the hunting chariot, gripping the rail with both hands and fighting to stay on his feet. His knuckles squeezed white; his breath came in short bursts.
One wheel lifted off the ground and the chariot skidded sideways. Qhuin adjusted the tension on the reins and held the horses in the turn. The chariot teetered precariously before the wheel slammed to the ground again.
“Get me closer!” Sargon screamed, his voice more fearful than excited.
The chariot settled, and the traces pulled straight. Qhuin gave the milk-whites their head. With a gentle rippling of the reins, the geldings lengthened their gait. At the sound of Qhuin’s voice, they raced faster to catch the fleeing tarpans. They would run to the edge of death for this master.
The six Huszárs raced after the fleeing horses. It was their assignment to contain the herd and keep the wild horses circling to the left. It allowed the chariots to run the outside of the oval and gave the hunters more than one chance to capture a horse.
The hunters carried birchwood lasso-poles twice the height of a man. A noose of woven horsehair and sheep gut hung from an iron fitting at the tip. The cinch ran the length of the pole, held in place by iron rings and fastened at the end of the handle. The pole was attached to the rider’s horse by a saddle strap tied to the iron ring at the end of the handle. A quick pull of the rope would tighten the noose once it was around the horse’s neck.
The night before the hunt, Horsemaster Raahud tactfully suggested that Prince Kadesh-Cor and his guests go after the wild herd on horseback instead of in chariots, which would be difficult and dangerous. Kadesh-Cor rejected the suggestion. There were incredulous glances, but none dared challenge the prince.
When the folly of catching wild horses from chariots reached the Huszárs, they saw the humor of it. “’Tis a fair enough plan,” laughed one, “but mark my words, the prince will tell ’em to go left, and the wild ones will go right and show ’em nothing but their tails and arses!”
There was humor enough to go around, but some saw the idea of the wild horses’ refusing to obey the prince as something more profound. Wild creatures doing what they chose stirred an instinctive sense of freedom in the hearts of most men.
Free will is the order of the universe, Qhuin mused as he considered the words later that night. It tickled a notion that sometime and somewhere he would have the courage to go right when the prince said left and show him nothing but his arse.
As predicted, the wild herd broke right to keep from being trapped. The circle had been broken almost as quickly as it had been formed. The Huszárs waved their coils of hemp to turn the horses back without the slightest result. Three riders on the right spurred their horses to catch up, but they were no match for the wild tarpans of the Oodanga Wilds.
Qhuin glanced back. None of the other chariots had attempted the dangerous turn.
Princeling Chor’s chariot was a colorful blur as it swung in a wide arc around a copse of cyprus and a curtain of hanging moss. Chor shouted at his reinsman, who pushed his team with the lash of a whip.
Horsemaster Raahud drove a chariot that was lighter and faster than the others. He was less experienced than his reinsman, Jewuul, but had traded places for his own pleasure. He required a wide circle to return to the chase, and by then he was far behind. Jewuul held the lasso-pole, but any chance of catching a horse was lost.
Kadesh-Cor’s chariot crossed a shallow depression and nearly turned over. It slowed and, a stone’s throw farther on, veered away from the chase. The reinsman, Jehu, turned his black horses in a wide circle and pointed the
chariot toward the crest of a hummock. From there the prince would have an unobstructed view of the swirling melee of riders, horses, men, and chariots.
Qhuin felt a twinge of disappointment when the prince abandoned the chase, but he was not surprised. It was impossible for Kadesh-Cor to keep pace with wild horses in a gilded chariot designed for the paved road of parades, not the broken ground of the hunt.
The Baron Magnus prided himself on his hunting prowess. The humiliation would not settle well. Qhuin had been near enough the night before to hear Kadesh-Cor brag that he himself would be the one who would catch the finest of the wild horses.
Qhuin raised a fist in a salute and a promise as he watched them go. I will catch you a horse. He held his fist aloft until Jehu glanced behind and caught his eye. Jehu saluted back.
Qhuin thought of Jehu as a friend, even knowing the chasm between them was too wide and deep to give the word much meaning. Jehu was hardly highborn, but his lineage was known. He was Jehu Lochneer, son of Nacle. Knowing your father and your father’s father and the endless chain of one’s lineage distinguished one man over another other in significant ways.
Rusthammer and Qhuin had discussed it many times. Crossing the chasm of tradition was an impossible journey, especially for a slave of unknown blood. Ethnic derivation, bloodline, and the length of ancestral lines were important. Over time, an odd construal of royal lineage seeped into every level of society, like poisoned water into the public cistern. Perhaps it grew from the commoner’s contempt for royal privilege for the sake of a name. Perhaps it was the universal longing to be royal.
If royal blood and the lineage of kings had the power to do evil and count it good, to revere insanity as wisdom and excuse moral degeneracy as a divine right of rule, why shouldn’t the ancestry of common folk, real or imagined, also be the measure of a person’s worth? Why should the pride of bloodline and breeding not be used to gain advantage, demand privilege, and excuse behavior?
The Immortal Crown Page 33