Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  “They’ll think it a lie,” he said. “I’ll be the laughing stock of the city and all my friends.”

  He pounded my desk. “It’s Hermias, isn’t it?” he thundered. “He’s been speaking against me. Filling your ears with slander.”

  “Hermias hasn’t said one word against you,” I said.

  “I’ll fight it father,” he said. “I won’t rest until this is overturned. This I vow.”

  I sighed. It was time to show him my stick.

  “If you do,” I said, “then you really will be ruined. I’ve added a codicil stating that if my decisions are protested you are to get nothing at all.”

  “All my life,” he said, “I’ve lived in your shadow. No matter what I do I’m known merely as the son of Amalric Antero. I’ve been denied a normal existence. Denied a chance to make a mark of my own. And now you are damning me to trod that same road even when you’re gone. Except now it’ll be worse. Now, people will say I never was good enough to be worthy. I’ll be spurned. Mocked.”

  Tears welled in his eyes. “Why are you doing this to me, father? What have I done to deserve this?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?” I asked, unmoved my his pain. “Shall I detail your misdeeds? Beginning with a man named Pelvat?”

  Cligus paled. Then his eyes narrowed and I saw hatred flare. “So,” he said. “You have been talking to Hermias!”

  “I have ample resources of my own,” I said. “Did you really think I’d never find out?”

  My son became quite calm. He rose to his feet. He stared long and hard at me. I found myself looking into the eyes of an enemy. I saw him reach some kind of decision.

  Then he said, “Very well, father. If that’s how you want it.” And he turned on his heel and stalked out.

  As the door slammed behind him I wondered once again how such a man could be my son.

  I made my decision public the following day. The seers of business immediately made their approval known as investors besieged my trading offices to plunk down their gold for shares in our enterprises.

  Poor Cligus. The city had voted with its coin, sealing his disgrace.

  * * * *

  We set sail in little less than a month. By that time the gossipmongers had tired of their tavern stool speculation on why I’d chosen Hermias over Cligus to be the new head of family. There was no panoply to mark our going, no parades, or elaborate ceremonies, no stirring music to hearten voyagers off on such a daring venture. Only a few well-wishers gathered at the docks to bid farewell to our small fleet and view the simple blessing Janela performed to entreat the gods to aid us. It was almost as if we were sailing in secret. In a way we were, for I’d told everyone I was embarking on a grand tour of all the Antero holdings — a tour that would take at least two years to complete.

  In the whole city only Palmeras knew our true purpose and I’d asked him to stay away so his august presence wouldn’t rouse suspicion. Before we boarded I took Hermias aside and gave him a letter containing the real nature of our mission. I told him not to open it until well after we were gone.

  We hugged and Hermias swore he’d devote his life to covering the family name with glory. Which I’m sure you have, my dear nephew.

  It had rained the morning of our departure and Orissa was sparkling in all her beauty under the clear, sun-kissed skies. A fresh wind carrying the odors of hearth and home filled our sails, bearing us swiftly down the river.

  As Janela and I stood at the rail watching the city grow smaller, my emotional barometer rose and fell with each heartbeat. Just before we rounded the bend I saw a rainbow arcing over the city, framing her in the colors of bright promise.

  And we sailed out of sight it came to me that I’d never see my home again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RETURN TO IRAYAS

  No matter how many times I’d entered the mouth of the immense river that coils like a snake from the Eastern Ocean through the Kingdom of Vacaan to its capital of Irayas, I would thrill. Not only in memory of that distant day when Janos Greycloak and I came within sight of what we’d then called the Far Kingdoms but in the present as well.

  It always seemed the day was fair, the sea calm, the breezes blowing perfumed and gentle off the land. So it appeared this time, almost ten years since I’d last seen Vacaan.

  Our passage from Orissa had gone smoothly, the weather more like balmy summer than early spring and we encountered no storms that lasted for more than a day or so, enough to give our sailors a chance to make certain everything was as shipshape as Kele and the captains of the hoys wanted. Those captains, Berar and Towra, were natives of Redond and long-time servitors of the House of Antero. One thing that pleased and surprised us all was the lack of fitting-out-brawls, which happens all too often when strong-willed people sort out their differences at the beginning of a hard and dangerous voyage. We’d chosen well.

  Even though we sailed through seas that were hardly pacified we’d expected no problems from pirates and in fact encountered none. Four sails had rushed down from the horizon toward us but when their lookouts had seen the device blazoned on our sails they’d sheered off at full speed. This was but one of my secret “weapons” — many years ago, Domas, then king of Vacaan, had granted the Antero family leave to fly his royal banner when traveling to or around his realm and so our mainsails held the crest of the huge coiled serpent, set against a sunburst.

  When his son Gayyath had assumed the throne after Domas’ death it’d taken several subtle approaches by my factor within the kingdom, a very solid man named Hebrus, before the privilege was renewed. He is another of those heroes who are never found on temple friezes. Hebrus was the only man still living of the party that accompanied us on our final expedition. He was a year or two younger than I, although he looked ten. Before he volunteered to journey into the unknown with me he was a music teacher who, when bored, dearly loved to climb temple or palace walls, moving from cranny to crack without benefit of ropes or belays.

  Hebrus is a man I once heard described as “hardly having enough strength to blow more than one petal at a time from a flower without fainting.” But I’ve seen him carry two men’s packs in addition to his own without sweating after those stalwarts sagged and dropped them in a long hasty march.

  Hebrus had decided to remain in Irayas rather than return to Orissa, since their customs were more tolerant for his tastes and I’d made him my factor a few years later. He’d never returned to his home city, but stayed on, companioned by a long succession of younger and steadily more handsome men as the years went by. It was him I was counting on to help us with the necessary permissions and expedite our passageway east, as well as for an honest picture of what had happened in Irayas since I’d last been there. Certainly he’d sent regular dispatches but all communications from Irayas were still censored by the court, yet another remnant of the days when the great kingdom hunched like a hermit crab in its isolated shell.

  As I said, the journey upriver appeared normal at first. It did seem the mirror atop the emerald watchtower at the river’s mouth sent its interrogatory flashes of light a little longer than I remembered. And the warbirds that came swooping, bright colors masking their fighting spurs and murderous beaks, flew escort longer than usual. But at the time I didn’t think it important.

  What I did notice was the increased number of patrol boats on the river. Vacaan had always guarded its approaches well but previously the steel had been somewhat hidden inside a glove of velvet. No longer. I counted ten riverine watch-craft in our first hour’s passage upriver. They weren’t cleverly disguised as fishing or pleasure boats, either. These were small sweep-propelled boats, no more than thirty feet long and looked to be shallow-draft. Each boat was open, with a canopy over the center compartment from the bow to halfway to the stern. That was hammered metal, less a spray shield than a guard against arrows or spears.

  I asked Quatervals his opinion. “They’re the sort of scow you’d use if you’d taken a country b
ut held no more’n the rivers and ports. Boats like them’ll keep the waterways pacified, convoy your taxmen around or that’ll put ashore a landing force in minutes.” An occupying force? In their own country?

  Another oddity was the men crewing those boats. The oars were manned by ragged unkempt men who might’ve been slaves or condemned criminals. There looked to be two or three seaman aboard each craft but the rest of the crew, about ten per craft, were soldiers, wearing a uniform I’d never seen before. It was tight-fitting black breeches and tunic, with a blood-red armored vest over it and a close-fitting helm of the same color.

  I asked Janela and she knew nothing about them -when she’d left Vacaan no such force existed.

  One of those patrol craft, a small flag at its jackstaff probably indicating that it was the flotilla’s leader, closed on the Ibis and its officer hailed us. He asked, in a tone more like a demand, permission to send a man aboard. Kele looked at me and I shrugged — all this was new but not necessarily a problem.

  One man wearing the black-and-red of the soldiery with a small pack on his back leapt deftly from the bow of the patrol boat, found a foothold in one of the boarding cleats and swung over the rail, ignoring the hands that’d been stretched to help him. A sailor brought him to us.

  The man was hard-faced, with a seamed scar running down his neck. His sword belt was old and well-worn, as were the hafts of the dagger and sword sheathed in them. He welcomed, or rather greeted us by name, which didn’t surprise anyone — the sorcerers of Vacaan were more than competent to espy us several days out at sea. It seemed a scowl touched his face when he addressed Janela but if so, it was gone in an instant. He said his name was Rapili, and he would be our escort to Irayas.

  “Escort,” Kele wondered. “Didn’t know we’d be needin’ a pilot. Never had one before.”

  “Not pilot,” Rapili said. “Escort is what I said and meant.” His manner was cold, formal.

  “There’s been a change since the last time we arrived in your kingdom,” I said, sounding a bit apologetic. “New customs, it appears.”

  “Customs change with the times,” he said. “And the times are more dangerous than they were.”

  I waited for an elaboration but none came and I somehow did not want to ask. We offered him food and drink which he declined, saying the practice was for Wardens to provide their own. He said he would, however, wish a compartment, since he would company us all the way upriver to our destination.

  I told Quatervals to find him a space and waited until he’d gone below decks before drawing Janela aside, saying, “His own food and drink? Does he think we plan to poison him?”

  Janela shook her head. “I don’t know. But that was a pawky excuse for a welcome. If they treat us like this I would certainly hate to be a newcomer wanting to trade with these people.”

  “These people,” I said, half-smiling. “You mean your people, don’t you?” She didn’t answer. I shrugged. “When first we came to the Far...” and I caught myself, but so I still thought of Vacaan, “... to Vacaan we weren’t greeted like long-lost kinsmen, either. We changed their minds before too long, at least to a degree. And as the soldier said, customs change.”

  Janela started to answer, then stopped short, her gaze pulled away. I turned and I also stood amazed as the Ibis rounded a high-banked bend. In the distance was that great blue mountain, many leagues and days’ sail farther than it appeared. Below it would be Irayas, Vacaan’s capital, the grandest city in all the known world, place of marvel beyond marvel.

  The mountain was the deepest blue, as blue as the river we rode on. But the sky above did not match. It was gray and a storm hung over Irayas.

  That mountain always sent two thrills through me. The first was joy. But the second, stronger, was fear. In a cavern below that mountain’s plateau I’d been brought close to death by Prince Raveline and in the ruined eldritch city above it I’d slain him. And on a plateau just at the mountain’s furthest reach toward the east I’d burnt the body of Janos Greycloak after I’d killed him and sent his spirit soaring into the skies.

  There would be another ceremony on that mountain after we reached Irayas.

  I tore my eyes away and turned back to the river as our three ships slid upstream like swans on a summering pond. But always behind us were at least two, generally more, of the patrolling boats and their red-clad warriors.

  Near dusk we sailed past the huge port city of Marinduque, the hub for trade of the seventy principalities that made up Vacaan. I’d always been astonished by its cleanliness and efficiency. No longer. Not that it’d fallen into ruin but now it looked no different from Redond, Jeypur or Luangu and appeared no more than a huge port where a merchant could sell or buy a cargo and a seaman could find as much or little trouble as he desired. It also no longer looked as prosperous and as we sailed past I saw a long line of ramshackle, half-sinking boats tied up at what was their last mooring, near a ruined warehouse district, the boats swarming with the people who lived aboard. Vacaan had its poor, of course, but I’d never seen people forced this low.

  Times had changed here and not for the better.

  Rapili joined us at dinner, although eating his own rations from his own plate. I attempted to ask him about the changes and how the Vacaan fared under King Gayyath. He made short noncommittal answers, ate quickly and excused himself, leaving us with nothing.

  I asked Kele and Janela to join me at the taffrail and made sure the watch officer and helmsman were out of earshot.

  “I’d assumed,” I began, “that stopping here in Vacaan would be little more than a formality, beyond winning King Gayyath’s endorsement of our voyage. But something is wrong here and I’m not quite sure what it is.”

  “I think the same,” said Janela. “I chanced casting a few prognosticative spells but it was as if I were trying to see through a fogbank. Nor can I feel ahead to what Irayas might look like. I’d suggest we be prepared for almost anything.”

  Kele grunted understanding and from that night on posted two additional lookouts fore and aft, weapons unobtrusively ready. If Rapili saw them he said nothing.

  Janela noticed the next upset. One of the greatest marvels of Irayas was how the river was carefully managed by the kingdom’s wizards. There were no locks, carries or portages as the river wound through and up into the country. Only a shimmer would mark where a spell had been cast to raise the water to its new level. The spells still held after a fashion, but now there was a noticeable surge and we had to man the sweeps to push our way onward, as if fighting rapids.

  I also noticed the marks of flooding where the river had overflowed its banks. I remembered how well it had been managed, with high and low waters being ordered by magic to suit the needs of the farmers who worked along its banks. Neither of us thought it wise to ask Rapili about this since the matter would be high court magic and not seemly for an outlander to show interest in, no matter how long I’d been an honored guest.

  Two days after entering the river we saw our first real shock — we passed the fire-blackened ruins of a small city. I chanced asking Rapili what had happened. In a tone of complete indifference he told me the town had risen against King Gayyath and it’d been necessary to make an example of it. I forced my luck and asked for more details.

  Rapili said, “Just another one of those damned peasant risings. Sooner or later they’ll learn to blame misfortune on the gods, not on our good King. If not...” He said no more.

  Another rising? And what were these misfortunes? Although Hebrus’ dispatches had always been guarded he had said Vacaan had been having troubles as severe as Orissa’s. But... Rapili was looking at me intently, so I just thanked him and after a few moments, found an excuse to go below.

  I noted the people we passed, fishermen, laborers, merchants, weren’t nearly as contented as they’d once seemed. Some of them, when they saw the royal emblem on our sails, turned their backs or just stared, their faces blank, as if a cruel master was parading by.

  One
sound I heard less than before — laughter. The most common sound on this river had been the shrill laughter of happy children. Now it came infrequently and the expressions of the young ones we passed were stolid, like people who’ve known little joy but and to whom misery is a constant companion.

  We wound our way through the kingdom, day by day, past city after city. There was no consistency to what we saw — some lands were fertile, green, some cities exploding with life. Other lands were dry, barren or barely fertile and the cities around them on hard times.

  I hardly knew what to think and, quite frankly, was beginning to dread seeing what Irayas itself might look like. If that dream-city was changed, cut by time’s wounds... I could not let myself think that.

  We came on it at dawn and the river channel, already nearly half a mile across, flared into a lake with a thousand green islands aglow as the sun’s fingers touched the city. It was still magic and the day’s fresh fires shot prisms of color through the towers of crystal and sent dazzling beams against my eyes from the golden domes. Now there was bird song and I thought I could hear music from around us as the many fountains shot plumes into the crisp air.

  No. Irayas had not changed. In fact, it was even more splendid than my ten-years-gone memory said.

  I looked at Quatervals. His hard, leathery hillman’s face showed the simple awe of a babe before he caught me looking at him and forced control. This was the first time he’d been to Vacaan.

  “Well?”

  Quatervals took a long time to think before saying, slowly, “There’s not many times you know you’re seein’ something that appears to have come from the gods, is there?”

  Rapili, standing behind him, overheard, smiled tightly, and I could also read his thoughts — it was well the foreigners knew what they were seeing when they saw it. Of course there could be nothing in this world or any others to match the glory of Irayas.

  Janela’s expression was unreadable. I moved close beside her and said, very softly, “And what is my lady thinking?”