by Glen Cook
The mind specialists worked hours as long as anyone.
They concluded that forming a useful information inventory necessitated rooting secrets out of minds other than those of Ethrian and the Old Man. There were three surviving witnesses to Old Meddler’s raid on the Wind Tower. The Old Man was the least reliable. The others were both available.
Varthlokkur came close to physical confrontation with Mist when those two proposed the research. He wanted no return to that night’s emotional storms. The Empress demurred.
Once again Varthlokkur was prepared to round on his al ies and chuck everything down a wel in order to protect his wife. As he defined protection. In truth, he was striving to appease his own insecurities.
His memories of that night were not pleasant. He thought that Nepanthe had suppressed hers. He did not want them resurrected.
But she snapped, “Varth, stop that right now! Am I an infant? You wouldn’t treat Eka or Scalza with the kind of condescension you show me.”
Startled, “Darling…”
“Stop! I made it past my fourth birthday. Yes. I’m more emotional than some. I get upset about things that don’t bother other people. But I am a big girl.” She touched his cheek gently. She did appreciate his concern. “I remember more than I want. But some of it might be useful—if I let the experts dig.”
“But…”
“Stop! I won’t hear any more nonsense.”
He suppressed a flood of the blistering, unreasoning rage that had swept him to the brink with King Bragi. That anger, unrestrained, was the reason today’s ugly world had come to be.
He clamped his jaw, went on with his work. He spent time with the mental specialists as needed. They proved deft at panning nuggets he did not know lay hidden in the lowest sands of his mind.
He left Fangdred, though, so he would not have to watch while Nepanthe endured the process.
He was sure he would lose his composure if he stayed.
He took bin Yousif with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Late Autumn 1018 AFE:
Beyond Ressurection
Ragnarson bel owed, “Silence!”
He had the voice of command stil , and it was loud, yet the effect was neither quick nor comprehensive.
“I wil have you beaten if you don’t stop running your mouths.”
Those people knew he was not given to idle threats.
They knew, too, that there was no precedent for him doing anything of the sort. Only…
Only this was, clearly, not the man whose arrogance had driven him to disaster beyond the Mountains of M’Hand.
This man had been chastened and tempered.
He had a harder feel, and, maybe, a new disdain for past tolerance. He might even have developed a streak of cruelty.
He had been in the thral of the Dread Empire. Only the shel might be Bragi Ragnarson now. Best not to irk the possible monster concealed inside. Though, stil , he was just one man.
Even so, the Thing hal so quietened that the proverbial pin would have sounded like a clash of cymbals. It seemed, almost, that everyone had stopped breathing.
In that desolation of sound a smal voice asked, “Daddy?” The tiny question had more impact on Kavelin than did al the murder and maneuver of the year just passed. Bragi Ragnarson, startled, looked down at the boy in the old-fashioned clothes, who looked back with puzzled hope.
The hard man changed. He scooped the boy up, settled him onto his left hip. He peered into the Sedlmayrese delegation, beckoned Kristen, shook his head slightly when Dahl Haas started to fol ow.
Ragnarson settled his grandson on his other hip, then declared, “The bul shit wil stop.” That sounded certain as death. That made it plain who would be in charge. Special pain was in store for anyone who disagreed. Al of which he sold without having one soldier behind him.
“I made a big mistake. It cost me more than I can calculate but it cost Kavelin even more. It almost cost everything that three monarchs did to make this a principality where every subject could be proud to live. I wil not repeat that error. I vow that here, now.” He was improvising, promising what many wanted to hear but meaning it. His intensity permitted no questions, however much future and established enemies might want to know about his relationship with the Dread Empire.
His piece said, he spoke past Kristen to Inger, “Give them the rest of today to get their minds around this.” Inger managed a nod. She looked to Josiah Gales, who nodded in turn. “Don’t we al ? Need time?” Bragi Ragnarson carried his son and grandson down to the floor of the hal , fol owed by Kristen Gjerdrumsdottir. He set the boys down, took each by the hand, walked out, headed for Castle Krief. He was not armed. Today he had no need.
He was improvising stil , going on instinct. For the moment instinct and timing were enough.
The news had gotten out already. People came to see.
Most remained quiet and respectful. There was almost supernatural awe in their attitudes.
There was, as wel , hope.
Nature had blessed Kavelin. A tide of economic improvement was rising. But the political situation remained calm mainly because the contenders were exhausted and, in Inger’s case, impoverished. Ordinary folk dreaded the day she obtained fresh resources.
This might herald the possibility of avoiding al that.
A wondrous hope it was.
...
Inger stared at Josiah Gales as the excitement oozed out of the Thing hal . He said nothing. Neither did Babeltausque, nor did Nathan, who had rejoined them, stil shocked. Dr. Wachtel fidgeted but kept his mouth shut.
“What do we do?” Inger murmured. “What do we do?” She harvested no advice. Josiah, though, looked like a man who had shed a huge moral burden. Nathan was afraid. His future no longer looked as sweet as it had—that age of bitter almonds. Babeltausque stared in the direction the Heltkler girl went as Ozora Mundwil er led her tribe away.
Inger was worried about the sorcerer. Something was going on with him. Something obsessive. It might be a harbinger of a darkness to come.
She hoped she was wrong. She hoped she was imagining it. She hoped he was not just one trivial mishap of an emotional trigger short of crossing over into the night land that had claimed Father Ather Kendo.
She hoped, but, this morning, she had no confidence that she would ever see anything good again. Hel had become impatient. Hel was coming to her.
Josiah said, “What do we do? How about we go home, hunker down, and see what happens next?” Bragi was back. He had come in like some natural force, gathering the ley lines of power and expectation to himself.
Nothing would happen ever again without his hands being on it, in it, or taken into account. He had managed it so easily, so instinctively.
Bragi was back but he had changed. He was the nostalgical y recal ed hard case but there was more to him now. Inger thought it might be a new maturity.
She said, “You’re right, Josiah. Let’s just ride the lightning and see where it takes us.” Bragi’s behavior suggested that would not be the hel she might have expected.
He was not a Greyfel s.
Though the day was advancing and it should have been getting warmer, a scatter of snowflakes fel during the transit to the castle. The flakes melted instantly but did proclaim the imminence of winter.
Inger realized that the trees had shed most of their leaves.
When did that happen? She had been too preoccupied to notice. That was sad. Autumn was her favorite season. She loved to see the colors.
“Josiah, the leaves are gone.”
“Uhm?”
“We’ve been missing the good things.”
Gales grunted agreement despite having no real idea what she was thinking. He was good that way. Nathan and Babeltausque contributed supporting nods despite being even farther in the dark.
...
After sixteen days in hiding, while rumors of his death abounded— though no body ever surfaced—Megelin made a run for safety, into th
e desert north of Al Rhemish. He was accompanied by Misr and Mizr, an ancient chamberlain cal ed abd-Arliki, and a grizzled, one-eyed rogue cal ed Hawk in his presence and Boneman behind his back.
Boneman was a vil ain of no special stature. He was involved with Megelin’s court through the twins, who had used him to protect their area of corruption. He was dangerous but was known amongst the low mainly because he often bragged that he was evil.
That declaration did not come from the heart. He did it to intimidate. But for the uprising Megelin would never have crossed paths with Boneman. In the most dangerous hours of the riot, as the good people let themselves vent ancient frustrations, those whose lives might be forfeit had to support one another. The twins brought Boneman in because he was strong, desperate himself, and lacked a conscience. He agreed not just because of the generous pay but because he knew hard men might use the chaos to mask writing a bloody final sentence to Boneman’s tale.
Boneman spirited his charges away with considerable finesse. “It’s what I do,” he bragged, not pleased about having to do it with feeble old men, a weakling king, and a score of donkeys with a mass of cargo. Megelin wondered why the twins insisted that so many animals were needed.
The party headed north, the direction pursuers were least likely to look. Megelin did not initial y realize that they were fol owing the track that his father had taken when fleeing Al Rhemish at an even younger age. Unlike his father, Megelin did not have a horde of enraged Invincibles behind him. There was no pursuit at al . Al Al Rhemish thought he had been kil ed. Even Old Meddler thought him lost and was distressed. Megelin bin Haroun was a feeble tool, blunt, bent, and cracked, but had been, even so, the best blade left in a dwindling set.
Al went wel for several days. Panic faded. Fear drew back. The pace slackened. The band moved on more through inertia than from a need to escape.
Then the dread returned tenfold, with the king badly shaken. Mizr demanded, “What is the matter, Majesty?” He and his brother were so worn down that neither attended much beyond their own exhaustion. Abd-Arliki was worse.
He was fading. Only Boneman remained strong enough to help him. Boneman did not want to bother. He eyed the old chamberlain like he was contemplating getting rid of the burden.
Megelin gasped, “I know where we are! From my father’s stories about when he was fleeing from the Scourge of God. A little farther on we’l find a ruined Imperial watchtower that’s haunted by a hungry ghost,” using ghost to mean a ghoul or devil. “My father was trapped there for a while. He wasn’t ever sure how he got away.” Never saying so, he admitted that he was not the man his father had been. “We’re probably dangerously close already. If we camp around here the ghost wil come get us.”
He thought that was how it had worked. It had been fifteen years since he had heard the story and he had not paid close attention at the time.
“No matter,” Mizr said. “We have treasure. No one is after us. We don’t have to stick to this obscure road.”
“Treasure?” Megelin asked.
“Misr and I brought the household funds. We wil live wel wherever we settle. I suggest we turn west.” Misr agreed. “Going west wil give us a better chance to find help for abd-Arliki.”
Megelin looked north. There was nothing there to draw him, real y. He thought he could feel the demon waiting, insane with mystical hunger. “West we go. Tomorrow. Or now, even. I want to get farther from the hungry ghost.” Why had the twins not mentioned the household treasury before? Because they wanted it al for themselves?
Obviously, but now they understood that they could not get out of this on their own.
The real truth was, Mizr mentioned the money only because he was too tired to remain cautious.
No ghoul came that night but death was not a stranger.
Though Megelin was not surprised he did see something odd about abd-Arliki’s eyes. They had the buggy look of a hanged man.
Even Misr and Mizr betrayed guilty relief because the old man no longer hindered them. Megelin was not sure why they had brought abdArliki in the first place, but neither did he care. He was busy being exasperated with Boneman, who refused to move on until he interred the old man in a substantial freestone cairn.
“Hey, show the dead some respect…Majesty. The courtesy don’t cost nothing. You’d appreciate it if it was you. They’s plenty a things out there that’d gnaw on you.” Misr and Mizr helped impatiently. Boneman thanked them graciously, then gave his sul en, nonparticipating monarch a black look. “Nobody can’t say I disrespect the dead.” Later, the survivors hit an old east-west trace. Fol owing that, they found some shepherds beside a smal oasis.
Those people had no news from Al Rhemish—nor did they care. They were not sure who ruled there.
Megelin got his feelings bruised. He was not a hunted fugitive. No one cared enough to bother. He asked the twins, “Did we mess up by running? Should we have stayed?”
“We did the right thing,” Mizr insisted. “Otherwise, we would’ve beaten abd-Arliki into the darkness. They were coming. It is possible that we ran too far, though.” Misr added, “We should have stayed close by and just gone back after everybody final y calmed down.” His twin nodded. “Indeed. Panic is never good. I think that it may not yet be too late. We should go back. What say you, Hawk?”
...
Megelin felt like a crushing weight lay on his chest. He surged into panicked wakefulness—and found that there was a weight atop him. It was a large, flat rock half as heavy as he was. Other rocks surrounded him. He could get no leverage to get out.
A grinning, one-eyed face appeared above, Boneman straining under the weight of another large rock. “Good morning, Majesty.” The vil ain settled his burden onto Megelin’s groin. “Looks like it’s going to be a wonderful day.”
Megelin did not quite grasp his situation. “Please. What?
Why?”
“You know I insist on honoring the dead. They deserve al the respect we can give them.” He vanished from view.
Megelin fought the rocks, without success. His limbs were pinned, too.
From somewhere close by Boneman growled, “Wil you lay stil ?” A squishy crunch fol owed.
The one-eyed man appeared with another rock. This one was wet and red and had bits of hair and flesh stuck to it.
The red was so fresh it had not yet drawn flies.
Something bit Megelin on his inside left ankle.
“That Misr just didn’t want to get along. I’m tempted to disrespect him.”
Megelin tried to ask what was happening and why. Panic took over. He shrieked commands.
“Now why do you want to get al rude like that? Here I am, busting my butt to do you royal honors, and you’re being unpleasant. Relax, Majesty. Your grave wil be the biggest and best of al . The foxes and jackals and vultures wil never get at you.”
Something smal took a bite of Megelin. He squealed, imagining things crawling al over him down there. Or maybe he was not imagining things. Another bite fol owed, then another.
The sun soared higher. It beat down into Megelin’s face.
Boneman hummed as he went on stacking stones. He confided his plans for a future spent enjoying the treasure in al those donkey packs. “The Disciple’s preachers told the truth. If we’re patient God wil grant us what we deserve.” Boneman said that just before he placed the slab that shut out the sun. That and, “Sleep tight, Majesty.” Megelin wept. He begged. Vaguely, remotely, he heard Boneman humming or chatting as he interred Misr and Mizr. Megelin convinced himself that this was only a cruel practical joke. Boneman would dig him out once his bul y streak had been fed.
Despite the pain and terror Megelin fel asleep. Sleep was an escape. He dreamed a dream that recal ed his father’s adventure when he crossed this same desert, headed north. In that dream Megelin approached the ghost and recognized him, as his father had not done then.
That devil was no spirit. He was not supernatural at al . He was Old Meddler, playing the
games he played to keep the world a violent place.
Megelin wakened. The darkness had turned solid. The air had cooled. He could not move. Boneman had done nothing to al eviate his condition. He was lightheaded with hunger and thirst and in substantial pain where insects—
smal ants, he suspected—had been eating him. Despite al , he felt optimistic. Old Meddler would come for him! He was a valuable resource. Likely the ancient had been on his track for some time.
Panic threatened.
He fought it down. He had to keep an iron grip. A rescue would come. He was the goddamned King. He would show Boneman what Megelin bin Haroun could do. Boneman would, indeed, get what he deserved! Boneman’s fate would be the punch line to this cruel joke.
Something began snuffling round the cairn. It grumbled to itself. It tried nosing rocks off the pile. They were too big.
Then there were more snufflers. They growled at one another and grunted as they circled, eager to get at the meat. Then there were a half-dozen things al angrily frustrated.
Megelin barely breathed.
But then he began to whimper. The beasts had gotten at one of the twins. A growling, snarling contest exploded as the pack determined feeding order.
A smal rock by the left side of Megelin’s face slipped out of the pile. Its departure let the slab blocking his view of the sky tilt and slide slightly to the left. Megelin was blinded by the light of a mil ions stars. Then al he could see was a dark muzzle and cruel teeth il uminated from the side by moonlight. Hot carrion breath burned his face and fil ed his lungs.
...
The winged steed planed high above the desert. Its brain was that of a horse. Its thoughts were neither complex nor quick but they did work in great, slow rhythms that, in time, eventual y executed mildly abstract processes.
It had lived for mil ennia. It had developed some fixed opinions during that time. Among them was a conviction that immortality was wasted if it had to be spent as the tool of a defective personality.
Ages of slow cogitation had been required to reach that one conclusion. The fabulous beast had begun to nibble round the edges of the notion that it might do something itself to alter its condition, but that concept had not yet solidified.