A Path to Coldness of Heart tlcotde-3

by Glen Cook

  That did not reassure Haroun. Did Beloul want him inside grabbing range? It would take but an instant for the woman to… He stepped forward. The old man swept a hand at him, hard, sure it would meet no resistance. “Ouch!” He began massaging his wrist.

  “Damned solid for a spook,” the woman observed. “He must be a demon instead.”

  Beloul chuckled, a dry old man’s laugh. “You aren’t far wrong.”

  “Would this be who I think it must be, then, Uncle?”

  “Yes, Lal a. The revenant who untangled the curse of Magden Norath. Be seated, youngster. Tel me tales of the years. Tel me what brings you here in my end times.” The woman asked, “Is there anyone I should inform?

  Someone I should summon here?”

  “That wil wait. Let’s hear his story first.” Haroun settled onto a ragged reed mat. Nothing lay beneath that but dirt, which would become mud during any persistent rain. He faced Beloul. The man had been a personal hero when Haroun was a boy. He was saddened by the way time and Megelin had treated Beloul.

  Haroun did note that Beloul offered him no honor as king.

  He was just another man, possibly not in good odor—

  though Beloul was not one to be seduced away from the grand Royalist strategy by side issues. Beloul owned a conscience that was unique.

  Had Beloul been making ultimate decisions back when, today’s world might wear a different face—though that would in no way resemble the world that Beloul had hoped to see. Old Meddler, the Pracchia, and Shinsan would have sucked the blood out of Hammad al Nakir and the West despite Beloul. The Disciple had been just another torment.

  That water had sunk into the sands. The world that existed now was the world in which everyone had to struggle, including every survivor on the other side.

  After some silence the general asked, “Wel ? Why are you here?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. It was a destination. I was looking for something that I can’t name. I have these grand ideas, but…” He paused to col ect himself. “I vanished when I did because the Dread Empire imprisoned me. They got caught up in a huge war with a revenant devil and forgot me. I escaped. I made my way across the entirety of Shinsan. Getting back drove me obsessively. But once I got through I had no idea what to do. Al that time buried alive changed me. I am no longer the man that I was.”

  “It has been a while since Norath went down.”

  “Yes. And that just happened. It was an unexpected opportunity. I didn’t think. I acted. Afterward, I stil had no plan, for a long time, til I thought that I might find what I needed in Al Rhemish. I’m here, now, and now I wonder, what next?”

  “Uhm.”

  “I’m a lost soul, Beloul. I’m alive. I’m very good at staying alive. Barring Old Meddler, I’m maybe the best there ever was at that. But what do I do with the life I’ve so devoutly preserved? Choices I made, that led to my becoming an unwil ing guest of the Tervola, cost me my claims on most everything else. I can’t be king again. Megelin is king. I made him king so I could run off on my own.”

  “You’re right. Megelin is king. And he is a bad king. Only those parasites getting fat because of his incompetence would argue if you demanded your crown back.”

  “I don’t want to do that. Are you saying I should?” The door opened, apparently on its own. Night had col ected outside, but a pinkish glow backlighted those few buildings that could be discerned through the unexpected opening. Looking over his shoulder, Haroun thought there must be a fireworks show happening on the far side of Al Rhemish.

  Catlike, the woman Lal a glided in that direction armed with a massive tulwar that Haroun had missed completely.

  She was, for sure, one dangerous being. Yet, though the old man mentioned it, Haroun never quite got her name.

  There was a powerful flash in the doorway. The deadly woman yelped and threw the tulwar down. It shone an angry scarlet.

  The wizard Varthlokkur stepped inside, across the overheated blade. His hands were up, palms forward, shoulder high. “I intend no harm.” He spoke with an odd rhythm, inflexion, and pronunciation.

  Of course. He was speaking his own boyhood dialect.

  The dialects of Hammad al Nakir al descended from the language spoken in Ilkazar. The written form remained unchanged.

  Beloul recognized the wizard. He kept his hands in sight.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this unsolicited home invasion?”

  “This one is needed elsewhere. He has a critical matter to attend. I came to move him before one whose name is no longer mentioned flies in to end the threat.” What might have been a fireworks erupted outside, in the distance. The wizard glanced back. “A diversion. Rumor wil blame the master shaghûn who destroyed the wicked Magden Norath. He is here and he has the righting of wrongs in mind. That wil distract everyone.” Haroun declared, “But I was responsible…”

  “I watched. General. Let it be no secret that this man was here. You sent him away. Let the fear of him rage amongst the wicked. Encourage those inclined to do so to waste time and treasure hunting the ghost.”

  Beloul responded, “He wil be beyond discovery?”

  “He wil abide with the living dead.”

  Haroun observed, “That doesn’t sound encouraging.” Varthlokkur said, “You wil meet outsiders like yourself.

  Most wil be friendly.”

  Haroun realized that he had begun to drift mental y. The wizard had done something to weaken his wil and relax him. He even lacked much curiosity about why this was happening—though he did wonder how his wil and curiosity had been suborned so easily.

  The woman eased her dagger into her left hand, fluid as a panther preparing for a kil rush. The skin on her right palm had begun to blister. She crouched slightly, to get more spring into her legs. The general shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  Haroun caught the exchange. Varthlokkur did not. The wizard had come within a heartbeat of sharing the fate of Magden Norath and missed it entirely.

  ...

  The Unborn made it as far as the high Kapenrungs in Tamerice, carrying two men. Fatigue claimed the monster there. It set them down barely in time to avoid disaster.

  Catastrophe in a different mask began to gather almost immediately. Varthlokkur and bin Yousif grumbled and created a camp while the Unborn, a sickly mix of bloody orange and rotten fruit brown, hovered and shivered as though freezing. The thing inside closed its eyes for the first time in the wizard’s recol ection. He was immensely irked by the delay. Old Meddler would miss the excitement at Al Rhemish only if he had gone into hibernation. Its purpose had been to catch that vil ain’s attention and fire his curiosity, to get him to expose himself, hopeful y rendering himself more traceable, while sparking his interest in discovering what was going on inside a Fangdred gone rigorously opaque to spying eyes. There was so much more that Varthlokkur needed to do to convert the fortress into the ideal death trap.

  But he was stranded out here in a different wilderness, nearly as cold as that at home, with a companion who remained unconvinced that he had an obligation to participate in the coming struggle.

  Haroun might slide away if Varthlokkur’s attention lapsed. He might even try to eliminate the threat implicit in the wizard’s knowledge of what had happened to Prince Gaia-Lange and Princess Carolan, before he did his slide.

  Or maybe neither of them would escape the tribesmen slowly surrounding them. They were not the friendly sort of Marena Dimura common in Kavelin’s mountains.

  These people were, for al their determined isolation, not whol y ignorant of the modern century. They knew what a pink globe in the sky meant. They knew those concerned about survival exercised extreme care around the Empire Destroyer. They failed to be sufficiently intimidated, though, to select the more sensible course and just stay away.

  Young warriors had to show their courage. Being young, natural y, they disdained the obvious exaggerations about the Empire Destroyer.

  There were sorcerers in their tribe, seen
every day.

  Those old frauds were not scary. They could barely make milk curdle, and that took time when it was cold out.

  So half a dozen youngsters lost their hair, including beards and eyebrows, as they prepared to rush the outlanders. Lucky boys. They ran into Varthlokkur’s wards before Haroun’s. The latter would have granted an opportunity to participate in a mass funeral.

  The elders ordered everyone back. The outsiders ignored the tribesmen, then, while they extended the same courtesy in return.

  The Unborn needed two days to recover. Thereafter it leapfrogged them, fifty miles to a man, wilderness site to wilderness site, but making a common camp during times of rest. Varthlokkur tried to sel Haroun on a scheme that he would not explain in concrete form, saying only that there was an evil as old and foul as smal pox that needed extirpation. He would not name that evil’s name.

  His own non-plans aborted, bin Yousif did agree to withhold any refusal til he had spoken with other members of the cabal.

  He determined the identity of the unnamed target quickly enough. “This sounds like a mirror image of that old devil’s schemes.”

  “That’s true.”

  “But his plots reach inside institutions. The Pracchia was everywhere, inside everything, like a plague. To be a real reflection you’d have to create reliable turncoats amongst his associates.”

  The wizard nodded. “Also true, and unlikely to happen—

  with one exception. But there are some living men we know he’s touched. Your son and your father-in-law, for example.

  Neither may signify anymore. Neither seems to be anything but a pawn. Neither amounts to a mile marker on the road to the heart of darkness anymore.”

  “Let me think about them.”

  “You wil participate?”

  “You have the best answer I can give. I’l cooperate provisional y. Where are you taking me? Somewhere way up north, obviously. You haven’t told me who you want me to see, either. Why should I take you on faith?”

  “What I don’t tel you, you can’t tel anyone else.” Bin Yousif nodded. “I see.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Or maybe I don’t.”

  The wizard knew he had to give up something. “Our destination is the Wind Tower at Fangdred.”

  “I remember the fortress. I remember the Candareen. I was a festering young fool, then.”

  Varthlokkur smiled.

  “But that fool was blessed by Fortune. He survived to become this old fool of today. I look forward to seeing what changes time has scribbled on that monument to my youthful indiscretion.”

  “You’re going to be disappointed. You’re remembering another mountain and another fortress, Ravenkrak. Which was on top of the Candareen. I don’t believe you’ve ever seen Fangdred, which balances precariously on top of El Kabar.”

  Bin Yousif ’s recol ections were confused. He saw nothing even remotely familiar when the Unborn brought him to Fangdred, and that was not just because of the aerial perspective. The wizard was right. He had not been here before.

  Unlike most of Radeachar’s clients, bin Yousif enjoyed the aerial view. He was less comfortable inside Fangdred, with al those people, few of whom he knew and some of whom had put the hel into the last few years of his life.

  Wandering through the castle, fol owed by the whelp of the grand she-king of the east, barked at if he thought about touching something, Haroun decided that he real y wanted to get on to the next phase of this scheme. Unless he was clever enough to slip out and vanish.

  Even after having been briefed he did not completely understand. These crazies wanted to eliminate the perpetual world plague sometimes cal ed the Old Meddler.

  Laudable ambition, but one that stood no chance of attainment. Might as wel aspire to resurrect Ilkazar in al its cruel glory, or to throw a saddle on a whirlwind.

  The wizard had let fal the fact that it was hard to track Haroun inside Hammad al Nakir. He just might make sure that was even harder once he got back there.

  He thought he would be headed there soon. These people did not show much of their hands but he had no need to see much to penetrate their thinking. He knew how such minds worked. He had one himself.

  He might even see Yasmid again.

  He looked forward to that.

  ...

  Inger indulged in a quick final consultation with Josiah, Nathan, and Babeltausque. That morning, early, the news was uniformly bright. Virulent factions had yet to develop.

  Delegates were paying for what they wanted. Taxes were being col ected. The locals yielded theirs up with smiles.

  Prosperity threatened. Indications were, most of those gathered for the Thingmeet real y did want to abort any return of the chaos that had prevailed after the disappearance of the King.

  “Stop fussing,” Josiah told her. “You’l do fine. Just step out and tel them what you told me. They’l give you your say.”

  She eyed Fulk, half-asleep in his little chair, dressed in clothes that had been fashionable when Gaia-Lange wore them long ago. There had been no money for anything new.

  Josiah went on being reassuring. “I’l be with him. He doesn’t have to do anything but show himself. If nobody makes a fuss he won’t get distressed and suffer an attack.

  How is he now?” The Colonel looked hard at Doctor Wachtel.

  “You are correct, Colonel. I gave him his medication.” The old man kept answering his cal ing despite the stress of being a known foe lurking near Fulk and Inger. Inger firmly believed him incapable of violence. She was correct.

  Wachtel would do no physical harm to forward his politics.

  Gales dropped to a knee before Fulk, made tiny adjustments to the boy’s ruff. “Remember what to do?” The boy nodded. He was a little scared and a lot nervous, but serious and determined as only a smal child can be.

  “Good. So. People. Let’s do it.”

  Babeltausque went first, as an intimidator. The rumble of a hundred conversations began to diminish.

  Nathan slipped away to circulate and eavesdrop.

  Out Fulk went, fol owed by Gales, then by Inger. The boy took his position, in view of everyone. He did not show the distress that Josiah had feared—in part because his eyes were not good. He could not make out most of the faces turned his way.

  Inger stepped to the rostrum, released a smal , near-whimper. Her vision was excel ent. She saw every face just fine. Many belonged to men who wished her il fortune. She began her speech disconnected from its content and intent as she tried to execute Babeltausque’s advice about meeting the eyes of every audience member at least once.

  She did fine til she came to the delegation from Sedlmayr.

  Her jaw locked.

  Her body froze.

  She could get out nothing but an inarticulate sort of squeak.

  That went on and on and on.

  A grumble began, delegates asking what had happened.

  Gales needed half a minute to get it. His eyes were not prepared to see the impossible.

  Ozora Mundwil er donned a hard, cold, smug smile. She held two pair, kings and knaves. Two Bragis, plus Michael Trebilcock and Aral Dantice. Not to mention a selection of queens.

  Babeltausque could not tear his gaze away from the Heltkler girl.

  How had those people gotten in unnoticed? Though there were few guards, none of them instructed to look out for dead kings, somebody should have noticed something.

  The noise kept growing because Inger kept staring, ashen, a mouse frozen by the stare of a viper. Fulk began to get scared. Gales oozed a step nearer Babeltausque. “We’re in the deep shit now but don’t do anything unless we’re attacked.”

  Babeltausque recognized only that one face. He felt the tension of the moment, though. Things were not going according to plan. Perilously not. “Got you. But we need to do something.”

  A tal man left the Sedlmayrese. He shed a massive travel duster and the limp and slouch that had helped conceal his identity. Eyes on Inger, he came f
orward. Others began to recognize him. By the time he joined his wife pandemonium shook the Thing hal .

  Chapter Twenty-Five:

  Late Autumn, Year 1018 AFE:

  Desert of Despair

  Megelin’s favored henchmen were the twin functionaries Mizr and Misr the Fatherless, which they preferred to abd-Megelin, or servant-of-Megelin. Lesser Royalist lights had begun to

  distance themselves, softly and cautiously. Rumor said the twins were older than Al Rhemish itself. They had changed names and faith as often as the city had. They were archetypical y venal, with a knack for charming anyone close by. For no rational reason Megelin trusted them above al the other blackhearts around him.

  Megelin’s current favor was, largely, extorted. Mizr had bumbled in while the king was conferring with a being commonly considered mythical. The twins were not harsh in their demands, though, because Megelin’s friend was without pity or remorse. There was no escaping his farseeing eye or far-reaching wrath.

  It took only a few words from that entity to convince the twins that they ought to become extensions of the wil of King Megelin. Natural y, both kept their fingers crossed while their oaths were being extorted.

  Misr and Mizr were there again when the entity came demanding details of events the night the monster Radeachar visited.

  What little Megelin had to report he had gathered only because he feared that he might be asked. He did not himself care what happened on the old men side of town.

  Even the stupid understood that the monster had wanted to be noticed. Even the dim knew which puppeteer dangled the Unborn. What even the bril iant could not fathom was, why Al Rhemish?

  Megelin suggested, “It was al about confusion. Meant to cause exactly the disorders we’re beginning to see now.”

  “Layers,” the ancient mused. “There wil be layers, more and deeper, some planned minutely, some improvised, some coming to life despite never having been foreseen.

  What else happened that night?”

  Megelin’s seekers had found nothing more solid than a thin rumor that his father had been seen over where the antique soldiers stil hung on, consuming resources and informing the world of al the better ways they would do things if they were stil in charge.