The Histories of Earth, Books 1-4: In the Window Room, A Prince of Earth, All the Worlds of Men, and Worlds Unending

by Steven J. Carroll

  The cart wheels bumped and would sometimes get caught between the uneven stones. And moreover, Myre had not had a proper rest all day, and she, as horses go, was now becoming rather irritable, and would whinny in frustration whenever her cart wheels would get stuck. And also, she was dreadfully tired, and longed for a bowl of fresh oats, which is the meal that Tavora would always give to her, after a long day’s work. Yet, it was what Oded had forgot to pack, because he’d been so solely consumed with his globe, and the king’s profit he would get from the sale of it, and least of all with poor Myre, and her usual oats. Though there was no way for the old plow horse to know this, and so she kept plodding along, through ever narrowing, steepening streets, toward the King’s palace at the high point of the city.

  Blowing in a stale breeze, through an open second story window, Oded heard the cackling laugh of an old woman; And he squeezed in the busy streets, he passed men with hardened expressions, and eyes that looked as if they’d seen desolation in the face and had lived to tell about it.

  So that very fairly put, this was not a nice place to live in, as Gleomu was. Although, you should know that it was a wealthy land, because of its position as a trade city between all the countries of the east, and of the far west; But wealth does not necessitate goodness. And so it would be fair to say that Anad was not a good city. However, not so overly dangerous that you would avoid traveling there altogether, but by no means so lovely that you might enjoy it.

  Oded drove his cart onward, stopping at the door of the palace, which did not even have a gate around it. There were guards stationed at either side of the palace door, though they were anything but helpful, and so he beat is meaty fist on that solid, but echoing door.

  A hatch opened.

  ���What do you want?��� came a gruff and slightly nasally man’s voice from inside.

  ���I seek an audience with the Desert King,��� Oded replied.

  ���What for?��� the man answered, almost immediately.

  Oded glanced back at his filled cart. ���I have something he’ll want,��� he said.

  ���Well, there’ll be no cutting,��� the nasally man replied. And then, as if repeating what he’d said often, he continued, ���You’ll have to wait in line like all the rest. The King is a busy man. He only takes meetings by appointment, and only by written request, to be submitted on the second Tuesday of each calendar month, except when it falls on holidays, or if His Majesty is otherwise unavailable.���

  ���No. You’re not listening,��� Oded said. ���I’ve come from Gleomu, and I have something he’ll want to have, something that is worth the wealth of kings.��� Oded said this last part rather slowly, to make an emphasis of it.

  Oded could see the doorman’s eyes looking more shrewdly now, peering out at his poorly disguised horse cart.

  ���Do you now?��� the man said, with a slyness in his tone; And an evilness, that could be deciphered, if you’d happened to know what evil had sounded like.

  One by one, the city lights had gone out for the evening, but Ata and Tavora were now close enough to the city to see it lifting like a stone mountain out of the plains.

  In the darkness, as well as in the day, the city looked rocky and unwelcoming, and if not for the scattered lights in the windows, you might be tempted to think that the city had been abandoned.

  ���Is that the place?��� Ata asked, knowing full well that it was, but finding it hard to believe that anyone had lived there. ���If you didn’t know better, you’d think the whole thing was a ruin,��� he said, as they got close enough to see the cracks in buildings, and in some places crumbled walls and architecture.

  Which, was an interesting choice of words for Ata to use, and what Tavora had actually affirmed was true. ���It had been ruins, at one time,��� she said, trying to keep her voice lowered as they came closer to the wall.

  And she went on to explain what her father had told her, when she was young: how the city had been owned by some ancient lost civilization, and that it’d sat empty for thousands of years, until these people came from across the sea, to rebuild it.

  ���Well, they seem to have gotten lazy with their efforts,��� Ata said, with a hushed breath.

  At last, they came to the gate of the city, which was locked for the night. And from their view, there did not seem to be any guards in the towers, or along the wall; Though that did not mean that there were no nightwatchmen there, but only that they could not see them.

  There was something strange about this Desert King’s palace, which was no more than a great stone house, something unnerving in the way that the walls lay barren. There was no art nor decoration of any kind, as if the King had not cared for the simple niceties of life, as if there were nothing in his world that he sincerely enjoyed (no picturesque landscape, nor human portrait), or as if he had lived without beauty for so long, that he no longer favored it.

  Oded’s steps slapped the floor, and echoed off the empty walls. And in his heart, if he really were to examine himself, past the places he’d liked to hide from, he knew he had made a poor decision - and if not a morally poor decision, at least a foul decision in terms of strategy. He had offered up his globe: his jewel, his one means of leverage, and now he was on his way speak with a foreign king, to beg for his reward.

  And what motivation would this king now have to grant his request? For honor’s sake? Nay, any king with honor would not have poisoned the hearts of his neighbors with whispers of treason, and promises of ill-gotten riches.

  A king that would do that does not care to keep his word. And Oded knew this. It hid in his mind as he traveled the deadly forest the night before, hearing the howls of wolves afar off. It buried in his consciousness, as he felt the dusty wind across the desert fields. And every decent person, with any measure of common sense, would have turned around long before coming to this king’s palace.

  Yet, there was something far more powerful at work, than Oded’s good sense. It was his want, his desire for the wealth of kings. And he had dreamt about such wealth all the way to the King’s palace, and that is the only reason he had made it thus far.

  The King’s sniveling doorman had brought Oded all the way to an end room, that had acted as the Desert King’s throne room.

  ���His Majesty will see you now,��� the King’s doorman said, with a high nasally tone.

  The wooden doors creaked on unkept hinges.

  Oded stopped short in the doorway, when he saw that the King was already in fervent discussion with a cruel faced man, whom I can tell you was one of the King’s key military chiefs. These two villainous men were already speaking of their surrounding nations in the past tense, as if they had already been defeated.

  ���And after Ent, My Lord, then Brim, and lastly Gleomu. Is that what you would suggest?��� Ekallu, the King’s chief, said.

  ���Yes,��� the King answered with a visible arrogance. ���I should think so. We should like to save them till last-��� the King halted when he saw Oded. And with exchanged whisperings, this chief bowed and exited, leaving Oded alone with such a menacing king.

  And when the door swung shut again, the King spoke, walking with open arms toward Oded. Letting the hems of his robe glide elegantly across the floor, this Desert King seemed to be pleased.

  ���There’s our little traitor,��� the King said.

  In that instant, Oded’s stupor of greed lifted, as he saw the evil king’s smile, and when he realized that he must quickly do something to save his own life, which this king did not seem to value.

  Oded bowed to one knee.

  ���You have my deepest allegiance, O gracious King,��� he said with shaking voice.

  The Desert King came and stood over him, staring down at this poor selfish man.

  ���Do I?��� he asked. ���You, who could not even be loyal to his own kin, now gra
nt to me this same feeble loyalty?��� useless.���

  The King’s long hair moved in a wave, as he turned his head away from Oded, and began to walk away.

  ���Please, Your Majesty,��� Oded replied in desperation. ���I have no loyalty to Gleomu, nor her King, any longer. He is a fool. He could not even defend his walls, nor his subjects, against a band of meddling giants.���

  The Desert King turned again, seeming to slowly change his mind about this pitiful pleading tinker. And with Oded’s last words, the King’s mind was altered.

  ���I am the King’s servant, for all eternity,��� Oded said.

  With another murderous smile, the King offered Oded his ring to kiss, as a sign of royal pardon.

  ���Because you begged me, I will spare your life,��� he said. ���And your reward will be to see the kingdoms of this world burn with fire [the King bent lower to speak softly into Oded’s face]. And once it has been conquered, once I have my rightful place, I will let you be governor of some small, meaningless town, where they will hate you… And when I say, ‘they will hate you’ [the King grabbed Oded’s face tightly in his hand, so that Oded had no choice but to look at him], I do not mean they will dislike you… no, they will despise the very air you breathe and wish they could take it from you. And their anger will be your reward,��� the Desert King grinned as he spoke. ��� ���the wealth of kings.���

  But as quickly as this king was pleased with himself, for his planned treatment for Oded, he seemed to grow as instantly apathetic.

  ���Ehh,��� he said aloud, pushing Oded’s face away. ���Useless…���

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In Wait

  Tavora urged him. She insisted that they wait until morning to sneak into the gates with the tide of traveling merchants. But Ata thought he knew better, that this would be the only way for them to go unnoticed.

  ���But you don’t fly around, like I do,��� he said, somewhat proud of his abilities.

  ���I don’t have to,��� Tavora answered resolutely. ���I know what’s dangerous.���

  The two unusual companions stood outside the walls, in the dead of night, arguing their respective points, under the gaze of a presumably slumbering city.

  ���I fly around at night all the time, back home. No one ever sees me,��� he insisted.

  ���That’s because they’re not looking for you,��� she said, trying to keep her temper at bay, and her voice lowered.

  Yet, in the end, Ata would not listen to reason. And since there was no physical way that she might have restrained him, he flew away to check the situation over the wall, and to prove to Tavora that it was indeed safe, but that was several minutes ago, and he had not yet returned.

  A torchlight shone out from atop the city wall. It made her already anxious heart jump at the sight.

  ���There’s another one,��� a night watchman yelled.

  The mighty city gate hinges (as unkept as the ones in the Desert King’s throne room, but many times larger), they began to shriek in the night as they were opened. Several guards with bronze scaled armor, and with swords drawn, poured from the gate to snatch her up.

  She fled into the shadows, near a bend in the wall, crouching low, where she would not be seen. Her breath escaped in shivering frightened wisps. Without a second to spare, she pressed the smooth center stone on her necklace. A glittering energy that only she could see, fell over her body as the torchlight from the wall came to shine down upon her meager hiding place.

  She was vanished, but not gone. And when the armed guards from the gate came to the place where they should have found her, they stared with perplexed faces.

  ���Watch the skies,��� the guard chief ordered. ���We have another flier,��� he said, as if he could be confident of that fact.

  The next morning, as the gates opened to welcome in the daily travelers, a still invisible but tremendously frightened girl came sneaking in with the morning caravans.

  And understandably frightened, in that she had very minimal prior experience with invisibility, and found it completely unnatural. After all, it is only human to expect to be seen when someone looks at you. So that, while being invisible, you might know in your head that you cannot be noticed, but your instincts of being seen you’ll find are hard to be neglected. And in that way, she would flinch, and her heart would race, whenever anyone looked at her too directly.

  Yet, the hardest thing about invisibility (which no one ever seems to talk about), is that you must always avoid being touched. Which is a simple and regular task for a visible person, but for the invisible, it is much like tiptoeing through a minefield, or like trying to dodge the raindrops, especially in such a crowded place as this.

  Although here, her natural agility seemed to serve her well, as she ducked below waving hands, always attentive to every small movement of those around her. Though after many near misses, she found that if she were to position herself directly in front of the horses, then she would have a clear path to walk by.

  However, this strategy had its own drawbacks as well. Because, while she was invisible to the human eye, she could still be smelled. And that morning, the horses were all uneasy, pulling back on the reins, knowing that there was someone in their path, even though they could not see whom.

  Continuing onward, she snuck past the busy marketplaces, and past the trader’s tents filled with delectable delicacies. And she passed them up, even though her stomach ached with hunger, and though her eyes burned from the few hours of exhausted sleep she’d had the night before, while curled up near the wall, bundled tightly in her winter coat (and, if she were completely honest with herself, crying).

  Though at the present, she walked meanderingly through the narrowing streets, not so sure of where to go, and trying to soften her footsteps, or stop completely when someone passed by her, so that the tapping of her shoes would not give her away.

  Around midday, she found a building which might have been the King’s palace, though the only reason she’d even noticed it was because of two armed guards, still and staunch, and expressionless (like the guards at Buckingham Palace), standing at either side of the doorway.

  ���I’ll never make it in,��� she thought, feeling tired and disparaging.

  Until she noticed a wooden wall and gate, connected to the side of the King’s house, and the faint smell of horse hay in the wind.

  She unlatched the gate, which was surprisingly unlocked, delicately stepped inside, and found a closed-in patio with horse pens built inside.

  These were the palace stables, not as grand as the ones in Gleomu, but sufficient. And far at the corner end of the patio, she saw her poor old horse, Myre, who was tired, and feeling defeated in her own rite, and who above all else had wanted a fresh bowl of oats, but there was no one to give it to her; For no one in the desert city of Anad seemed to care about old plow horses, although they should have.

  Overjoyed to see a familiar face, Tavora ran to the corner pen, and leapt over the wood railing. In a normal circumstance this would not have affected Myre in the least, except that under normal circumstance Tavora would not also have been invisible.

  Myre reared slightly on her hind legs, backing herself into the corner.

  ���It’s me, girl,��� Tavora’s voice said, as if from the air.

  The startled horse’s ears twitched and her eyes darted to and fro, trying to decide which of her bewildered senses to believe.

  There was her master’s voice, and her master’s scent, but no Tavora.

  ���It’s alright. It’s me,��� Tavora said, trying to calm her.

  And she reached out her hand, and began to stroke Myre’s face and mane, as she would often do, and the glittering energy that had covered over her all night and through the day, so that she’d almost grown so used to it that she’d nearly forgotten all about it; T
his energy expanded over Myre as she held her hands gently upon her frightened horse’s face.

  Within a second, the energy covered over both of them, spreading outward from Tavora’s hands, and as a result they could both see each other.

  Myre whinnied and nuzzled her nose into her master’s neck, as happy as a young mare to finally see a caring face.

  ���You must be starving,��� Tavora said, gazing around the pen and finding no trace of fresh food or water.

  She removed her hands, and the energy field returned to her. Myre stomped the ground and blew heavy puffs of air from her nostrils, once again confused by her ever changing senses.

  ���I’m coming back,��� Tavora said, and in a hushed voice, continuing, ���Don’t be so loud. You’ll get us both in trouble.���

  At the opposite end of the enclosed patio, in a meager shed, near the main stable gate, Tavora found a bucket that she filled with oats, oats that were much more stale than Myre would have been given at home, but they would have to do.

  And coming back to the far pen, she shared a meal of dry oats with her companion. And Myre didn’t care that the oats had come from an invisible girl’s hands, as long as she could taste them; For as most would agree, stale invisible oats are better than none at all.

  And it was after she’d had a few dry morsels in her stomach that Tavora came to realize how she could get into the palace. In fact, it was such a simple plan, that she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it sooner, and all that it’d required was a bit of invisible mischief.

  Behind her the King’s horses beat their hooves on the stone ground, and whinnied loudly. Peeking her head out of the main stable gate, all that she saw on the street were a few merchants, walking passively toward her direction, and the two palace guards still standing at attention by the door.

  ���Perhaps all the commotion would distract them,��� she thought.