Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  “You left,” I said.

  Janela’s face darkened with anger. “I am not a woman to bear shackles of any kind, sir,” she said. “My family disowned me for it, as I have disowned them. I’ve taken my great grandfather’s name... my birthright... and for ten years I have made it my purpose to see that his dream was fulfilled.”

  “If your family has disowned you,” I said, “how do you live?”

  “I have my own money,” she said. “My great grandmother learned more things than passion from her experience. She learned what it was to be helpless, to be forced to bow to family rule. She set aside funds her entire life in case her daughter should ever find herself in dire need of independence. My grandmother added to that and my mother as well. So, although I am not as rich as you, my Lord, I am quite well-to-do.”

  “Was your mother among those who disowned you?” I asked.

  “My mother is dead,” she said — so flat-edged I knew better than to ask the particulars. As one who suffered the same loss I was sensitive to her feelings.

  “The reason,” she said, “I believe I was the first to break from that prison — and soft as it was, it was a prison just the same — is I am the only one who was born with Greycloak’s powers. I cast my first spell as a child — to repair a favorite doll that had broken. I was no more than three. It had a ceramic head which shattered when I dropped it, and I was desolate. But suddenly, it came to me that I could make it whole again. So I did.”

  “Did you actually will the doll’s head to be healed.” I prodded. “Or did something else happen.”

  She frowned. “To be completely accurate,” she said, “I thought of that doll as it had existed before I dropped it. Then I... reached into that place... and traded one for the other.”

  I nodded. This was exactly how Janos once described a similar experience. Except it was a scorpion, not a doll. And we were more than desolate because we were dining with the Lord Mortacious at the time and he was a most difficult host. I shuddered at the memory.

  “Do you accept who I am?” she asked, brisk and anxious to move on to the next part. The part I dreaded the most.

  Still I had no choice but to answer, “Yes.”

  She put the papers away and drew out something else. I craned to look but she kept it hidden in her palm.

  “You can’t imagine how long I’ve dreamed of this meeting,” she said. “A Greycloak and an Antero together again. Over the years I almost made the journey several times. But I knew I was not only too young and inexperienced but that I would need absolute proof to convince you. To gather that evidence I’ve traveled from land to land, and court to court. I’ve studied with the greatest masters of magic and learned enough so that I someday hope to approach the abilities of my great grandfather. Wherever I went I sought and studied all the tales I could find of The Far Kingdoms. I’ve read your book as well. And your sister’s too, because although you may not know it, Rali added greatly to the solution of the mystery. To be truthful I’m not yet sure where the pieces she found to the puzzle fit, but I am certain that they are pieces.”

  “I don’t care how much you studied, or how far you traveled,” I said. “You were wasting your substance. If you will only draw back you’ll see your fascination with Janos Greycloak has made you twist the facts to meet your dream of emulating him. Forget it, my dear. Take your talents, your energy and your intelligence and devote them to making your own life, not someone else’s. I was there, my good lady.

  “Janos and I walked that road shoulder to shoulder. We buried comrades. We overcame much. But in the end we succeeded. We found the Far Kingdoms. How can I deny what I saw with my own eyes?”

  “Deny this, then,” she said. And revealed the object hidden in her palm.

  It was a small silver figurine. I recognized it immediately — Janos once had its twin strung on a chain. Janela’s fingers twisted and the figurine dropped, until it too hung from silver links. It was the likeness of a beautiful dancing girl, hands stretched above her perfect head, one holding a feather, the other a veil frozen in mid-twirl. The maiden’s face was alight with happiness as if she knew the next leap would set her free and she’d fly away like a bird.

  As if drawn by a magical force my hand stretched out to take it. Janela let it fall into my open palm.

  “Behold,” she said, “I give you... the Kingdoms Of The Night!”

  As soon as the dancer touched my flesh she came to life. She pirouetted, her gossamer costume swirling about the naked form beneath, giving tantalizing glimpses of her slender limbs and small, shapely dancer’s breasts. But this was no courtesan’s dance of seduction. She seemed innocent, unaware she might be an object of passion as well as art.

  At first the dancer was similar to the magical talisman Janos once used to convince me the Far Kingdoms really existed. Except his figurine was tarnished and broken — deformities that eventually vanished the closer we came to Irayas. But as I watched the scene began to change. I goggled as glorious music swelled and the maid’s surroundings and audience misted into view — this was a sorcery far beyond the one Janos had so prized.

  She was dancing in a courtroom of tremendous wealth. The tapestries were rich beyond measure. The walls they hung from were smooth, milk white and as lustrous as a rare gem. As royal musicians played in a pit beneath her dancing platform noble men and women — in exotic costumes whose like I had never seen — craned for a better view of the dancer’s artistry. Overseeing it all was a handsome monarch and his beauteous queen. They sat on twin thrones made from the same milky gem as the walls.

  The king was young, with long muscular limbs. His features were fair, sharply defined, his beard gold as the band he wore for a crown. The queen was also young, her skin the color of ivory and she had long black hair that tumbled from beneath a simple emerald crown. I saw the king lean over to whisper to the queen. She smiled, and her beauty became so dazzling that if I had been a young man that smile would have broken my heart.

  Even in miniature the power and sophistication of that court humbled me. I felt as small, ignorant and barbaric as when Janos and I had first stood before King Domas in far Irayas. But with that feeling came a flush of anger that here was knowledge my own people had been denied. I yearned to visit that court and set matters right.

  Janela whispered: “Look closer, my Lord.”

  I scanned the scene, searching for what I’d been too bedazzled to note before. And then I saw him — lolling in a favored viewing box near the throne.

  He was a demon dressed as a man. He had the snout of a wolf and the brow of a great ape, which beetled over a single yellow eye. As I watched he extended a taloned paw. Dangling from it was a single rose and I felt my flesh crawl, for somehow this seemed an obscenity. He laughed, exposing long fangs and hurled the flower at the dancer. It fell at her feet, petals shattering from the blossom head. The dancer missed a step, glanced down at the broken flower, then at the demon. A look of immense loathing and fear marred her perfect features. Then she smiled and took up the dance again.

  I drew back, my eyes sweeping the audience where I saw other demons scattered about the room. It was apparent the people in the crowd — while studiously acting as if the demons’ presence was normal — shrank from full contact, leaving a space about each beast.

  Janela touched the dancer. The dancer froze, becoming a mere figurine again and the scene vanished. Only force of will kept my hand from shaking as I handed the talisman back to her.

  “Do you believe me now, my Lord?” she asked, voice low — confident.

  I could still have denied it. Pointed out by using the description of the figurine from my book an elaborate magical forgery could have been commissioned. Or because the scene was remarkable, it didn’t mean it necessarily came from a mythical second Far Kingdoms — which she had dubbed “The Kingdoms of the Night.” All sorts of other quarrels and attacks could have been raised. An unbreachable wall of logic, mortared with pure reason.

  But that is
n’t what she’d asked. She’d hoisted another banner entirely — the flag of Belief.

  I looked at her and saw Janos in her eyes and I could never deny Janos the truth.

  So I answered: “Yes.”

  Janela swept the figurine into her purse, closed the flap and rose.

  “Think on it, My Lord,” she said. “We can talk again at your convenience.”

  Janela turned to go.

  “Where will I find you?” I asked, somewhat befuddled by her brisk exit.

  “At the Inn of the Harvest Moon,” she said. “I’m using Kether — my Orissan name.”

  Then she grinned Janos’ grin, saying; “I didn’t think it wise to let everyone know there was another Greycloak about.”

  And she was gone.

  * * * *

  Memories welled up then spilled over to rush by in a torrent. My adventures with Janos were uprooted and swept under the long bridge that rose from our chance encounter in a villains’ tavern and ended in the swamp of confusion that was the present day. One particular memory tumbled over to smite the pillars of the bridge — The Fist Of The Gods. To aid my recollection I hastily I pulled the journal detailing our expeditions from the shelf of my desk. I leafed through the pages that had enthralled so many at the bookstalls.

  I found the description of the vision that had greeted us in the Evocators’ Palace when Janos and I had won their blessing for the first voyage: “... hunched upon the horizon, was a mountain range. It sat upon the land like a big-knuckled fist. There were four squat peaks in the range, with a curved fifth that made the clenched thumb. The peaks were of black volcanic rock, dusted with snow. Snow drifts picked out each digit of the fist. The valley between thumb and forefinger rose smoothly upward — passage through that black range. A passage to... my thought was completed by Janos’ whisper of awe... ‘The Far Kingdoms.’”

  I gulped brandy to still my nerve as I riffled forward to the place where Janos and I had stood before that same gateway to our hard-sought goal.

  “... Beyond was the mountain range. There were four peaks in the range and a fifth that twisted like a huge thumb. We had reached the plain that stretched to the Fist of the Gods. It was yet too early for snow and we appeared closer than in my vision, so I could tell there were striations in the peaks beyond just black volcanic rock... I turned to Janos... Both of us went a little mad for the next few moments — mazed shock, imbecile gape, then both babbling, neither hearing the other... ‘We found it,’ I said...”

  But we hadn’t and I saw our error plain. Just to make certain, to grind the sands of failure deeper, I turned to the last page. I relived the terrible moments when I tended the flames of Greycloak’s funeral pyre. Then:

  “... I wipe wetness from my eyes... Suddenly I see a vision of great clarity. Far to the east across dazzling seas, where they say no man lives, a trick of light lifts a mountain range above Horizon's curve. The range looks like a great clenched fist and between thumb and finger I see the glitter of a pure white blanket of snow. The mountain fist exactly fits the vision I saw when the Evocators cast the bones that began our quest...”

  I groaned when I read the last sentence. The mountain range I’d seen in both visions was not the same as the one we had stood before in person, much less climbed. Where was the snow? Janos and I had laid its absence to the warm weather. But damn the eyes of the gods who lied to us, weather had nothing to do with it.

  The mountains of the visions rose much higher — so high that snow would never melt. Now I thought of it there were other differences we should have noted if we hadn’t been blinded by our obsession.

  I slammed the journal closed. I refilled my goblet, drank it off and filled it again. I continued this course until — for the first time in many a day — I was quite drunk.

  When Quatervals came to fetch me to bed I thought he was Greycloak and I cursed him for being such a fool. I cursed myself even more bitterly, for as a fool I was his royal superior, and what was worse Janos was dead and I was old and there nothing that could be done about it.

  Nothing.

  * * * *

  That night I dreamt I was young again, burning with the need to make my mark as a man my father could be proud of. I was in the camp of the Ifora, watching Janos’ savage dance. His scimitar flashed in the firelight, routing the imaginary enemies that peopled the tale he told. Beside me the beautiful nomad whore, Tepon, smiled. I smelled rose and musk and her robe fell open, dark skin gleaming, high-breasts heaving with desire.

  I was young and strong and I mounted her like a wild desert stallion, my hands gripping her firm hips as I thrust. She looked over her shoulder at me, laughing and urging me on. She shook her head and black tresses whipped about like the mane of a high-spirited filly demanding the stallion be worthy of her gift.

  In that moment everything was possible. There was no sea I could cross, no wasteland I could not dare.

  And the Far Kingdoms were mine for taking.

  * * * *

  I waited two days before I saw Janela again. I was using the old merchant’s ploy of delay to rattle her confidence. But when she greeted me in her sparse but tasteful rooms in the Inn Of The Harvest Moon, I saw the light of victory in her eyes. She was dressed as before except this time she wore a blue silk tunic over the black body stocking she seemed to favor. Her hat bore a matching blue feather.

  I was determined to make her sell, and sell hard. I needed to test her mettle, much as Janos had tested mine.

  I let her fuss over me, making sure I had a comfortable seat by the fire and a goodly amount of brandy in my goblet. Her bracelets rattled softly as she leaned across the table. Anticipating an easy first parry, I struck hard.

  “Why me?” I asked.

  She frowned, caught unaware. “I don’t understand,” she said, playing for time.

  “Why do you want me, of all people, to accompany you?” I said. “After all, I was responsible for your great grandfather’s death.”

  She nodded. “I know that, my Lord,” she said. “Just as I know you had no choice if you were to save your own life, much less to save your people from ruin. I’m well aware of Janos Greycloak’s many faults. I’ll admit that when I first read your book I was furious. I believed you lied when you wrote of the evil bargain he made with Prince Raveline. Just as I believed you lied when you said Janos betrayed you.”

  “What changed your view?” I asked.

  Her brow deepened in thought. Then she said: “First off, the rest of your book rang so true. You made no effort to show yourself in a favorable light. You swore to tell the truth in the very beginning and I could find no other place that rang false. You stripped yourself naked in your writing, plainly struggling to come to grips with your feelings for a man who was once your friend, but who betrayed you. In the end I think you proved that despite his betrayal, your friendship extended beyond his death.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I toyed with my goblet, waiting.

  When I didn’t take up the banner of conversation and carry it forward, she had to struggle to complete the answer.

  “I didn’t leave it there, however,” she said. “I’ve never thought feelings or beliefs proved a thing. Even my own. So I checked your claims quite thoroughly. And I found nothing that would contradict them. Actually you were probably kinder to my great grandfather than many others.”

  I shrugged. “False friend or true,” I said, “no one could deny that Janos Greycloak was a great man. You must examine one at the same time that you consider the other.”

  “I have great admiration for you, my Lord,” Janela said. “I’ve been living incognito in Orissa for many months. I’ve observed you and your family quite closely. I’ve read everything I could about you and your remarkable sister. I’ve spoken to others as well and I found that even your enemies respect you. You are a great man yourself, Amalric Antero. As great as Janos in many ways. And that is why I have come to you.”

  I studied her closely as she spoke and was certain
she’d answered as honestly as she could. But I gave no hint of my thinking.

  “That’s all very kind,” I said. “But it is only a partial answer. You said you were not without substantial funds so you don’t need my money to mount such an expedition.”

  Janela laughed. “Don’t be so quick about the money, my Lord,” she said. “I said I was well off. But I’m not as rich as you. I doubt many are. Still, your point is well taken. It isn’t money that draws me to you. The facts are these, sir. All the spells I’ve cast indicate that alone I have only a small chance of success. But with an Antero at my side the chances rise considerably. I think my great grandfather sensed this after you’d met.”

  I snorted. “Then you should have approached one of my younger relatives,” I said.

  Janela’s eyes narrowed and I could feel the strength of her will. “I told you I have observed you and your family closely. I won’t tell you what I think of your son, Cligus, for I hope that we can at least be friends. Besides only you and your late sister have the spiritual — read that magical — wherewithal. You plainly inherited abilities from your mother. If other Anteros possess it they are still at suck with their wet nurse.”

  “If they are too young,” I said, “I’m plainly too old for the journey. I might die on the way, and then where would you be?”

  Janela’s eyes narrowed. “That much closer to the Kingdoms Of The Night,” she said, flat.

  The answer was as cold as pure honesty could make it.

  Then she said: “As for your age, my Lord, I think you’re just feeling sorry for yourself because you feel useless. Why, the whole city is talking about your reluctance to pass the torch of your empire. I wonder if that reluctance is because when you finally do so you truly will be useless.”

  She leaned close, eyes glittering. “I’m offering you a chance to redeem yourself, sir,” she said. Her tone was low, harsh. “You were wrong, and as it is, when history is corrected, you’ll be nothing but an ironic footnote — the man who came so close but missed by so much.”