Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Sa’ib waited for my response. I was trying to find the right words and looked around. I saw Janela, busy helping Otavi reload a horse. Sa’ib saw who I was looking at, hissed with rage and I looked back at her pretty little fox face, lips now pressed together.

  “I understand,” she said, and the coo was gone from her tone. “You’re in thrall to the sorceress. I should have guessed!”

  She actually stamped her foot, something I’d never actually seen anyone do other than in a pantomime.

  “Yes,” I said hastily. “That’s it.”

  She nodded twice, jerkily, turned and bustled away.

  Half an hour later, Ziv had his riders ready. The caravan moved off, following the trail. Sa’ib glanced at me once, quickly, then away, her face cold with anger.

  We waited until they were no more than dots on the horizon, then set out. For the first hour we traveled on a false azimuth in a direction we’d told Ziv we were heading before changing back to our real track. There was no harm in being overly cautious.

  We fell back easily into the rhythm of the march. Janela came up beside me. I saw a sparkle of merriment in her eyes.

  “Amalric,” she said sadly. “How could a great chieftain such as you turn down a sweet-meat like that?”

  She’d guessed what the exchange must have been. Some women might have been angered. Janela thought it was funny.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “Someone like that would add sparkle to my life. At least until I didn’t give her whatever bauble she wanted and found myself suddenly qualified for a post guarding someone’s harem.”

  “I do pity,” Janela agreed, “whoever Suiyan finds for her husband. No doubt he’ll discover reason, once the first pleasures of the couch wear away, to make many great raids. As far away from her as it’s possible to ride.”

  She turned serious. “I do have a question, though. I was reminded you were the prime cause for Orissa freeing its slaves. Now there’s been a generation, perhaps two, of freeman who remember you as their liberator.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “Although they probably think I’m long-dead, made into some kind of minor deity with a statue on the Street of the Gods that’s covered with pigeon droppings.”

  “You could have used that popularity to seek office, couldn’t you?” she asked. “There’s no reason you couldn’t have become a Magistrate. Perhaps even Chief Magistrate.”

  I looked at her in honest bewilderment and blurted, “Now why in all the name of the gods would I want something like that?”

  Her laugh pealed like temple chimes across the windy plains.

  “That, Amalric Antero, is one reason I love you.”

  She took hold of my beard, pulled me closer and kissed me.

  The men marching beside us cheered.

  As for me?

  I blushed like a schoolboy.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE DIREWOLVES

  It was just dawn when Modin came to us.

  I’d been sleeping fitfully, my blankets spread next to Janela’s when a roaring voice brought me to my feet. I was still half-asleep, but as I rose my blade came whipping from its sheath where it had lain beside me.

  Modin loomed over our campsite. He stood almost twenty feet high and one foot rested, unscathed, in the ruins of our fire.

  Janela rolled up, her dagger in her hand, and my brain came aware enough to decipher the last of Modin’s voice:

  “...summon you, my own, my prey. You must obey. You must call me to you.”

  For an instant I thought Modin had used sorcery to sneak up on us. But if that were so, how did he get so huge?. Then I realized I could dimly see the plain’s grass through his legs and knew he was but a projection — although I didn’t knew what powers he could have in such a form.

  “I must obey no one but myself,” Janela said. “Don’t waste time prattling. If you’ve cast some sort of summoning spell, save your powers. It isn’t working.”

  “I cast no spell,” Modin said. “I need none and am using my sorcery merely to ward off your feeble attempts to slay me.”

  Janela looked startled, then quickly covered her puzzlement. Then I noticed Modin’s arm was bulky, as if bandaged, and I saw he held his arm very stiffly.

  “I am using,” the sorcerer went on, “the real powers of my Warders and my new-found friend and ally Cligus’ own soldiers to hunt you down, with but small aid from my seeing.

  “You think you’ve eluded us but actually I’ve let you run and run, letting your blood run hard and fresh. Don’t you know game is sweeter when it’s been tormented before the kill?”

  “What happened to your arm, Modin?” I shouted up at him.

  “The demon you sent down among us tried his best but was no contest for my powers, Janela Greycloak,” he said, trying to ignore me. “It took less than an hour for me to kill him.”

  Now it was both our turns to puzzle before we realized Modin thought the Mithraik-demon was Janela’s creation. For a moment I wondered if it might shake Modin’s arrogance to tell him the demon came from another place, from the real Far Kingdoms of Tyrenia. But then I thought better — in spite of his bluster it must have shaken him to think Janela could summon such a creature — even I knew there were few Evocators who could not only call up such a creature but force its bidding. Best we allow him to continue to believe in the greatness of her powers.

  Evidently Janela reached the same conclusion because she laughed, mockingly.

  “An hour, Modin? How many Wardens did my pet kill before you brought him down?”

  “We still have more than enough to deal with your poor party, Janela,” he said. “In a few days I’ll have ripped apart those puny concealment spells and will be on you. Just from their presence I have sensed the area where you and Antero lie, licking your wounds.” Again a perplexing statement.

  I noted a change in his behavior from the time we’d met him in Irayas. Then there’d been at least the pretense he was King Gayyath’s most loyal servant and no more. I decided to put in another barb.

  “We, Modin? Is that the royal we? Didn’t King Gayyath live through the riots?”

  “Antero,” he said, “you were not supposed to be awakened by my presence but to slumber on like the others were commanded. But I see you have a bond more close with Greycloak than I knew. No matter that. It matters but little when I bring her to my bed how many lovers she’s taken.

  “Perhaps it’ll even increase the potency, being where an Antero has been.” He smiled.

  “You did not answer my question about King Gayyath, wizard,” I said. “Or perhaps you did by not doing so.”

  “King Gayyath still sits the throne quite easily,” Modin hissed. “The serfs who dared question his rule have been destroyed. Gayyath’s dynasty will continue, even if I have to obliterate every man and woman in Irayas and repopulate the city from the outermost provinces.”

  “Spoken,” I said, “like a true patriarch.”

  All that elicited was a glower and I wished that I’d been able to devise a better insult, having determined to use this appearance of Modin’s to our advantage, hopefully to anger him, knowing an enraged man sees poorly through the mist of his own blood-fury.

  “What do you hope to gain, Modin?” Janela said. “You pursue us hard, even unto our destination. What bodes it for you if those ahead of us, those in the real Far Kingdoms, sense your presence and find it unwelcome?”

  “I doubt that,” Modin said. “I’ve heard much about what lay beyond the Eastern Ocean, but when I found it necessary to cross I found nothing but savages and beasts. If there is anything ahead, which I doubt, it will be mere barbaric shamans, practicing by rote what they learned epochs ago. The Old Ones are long, long gone from this plane.

  “No, Janela, you are in for disappointment when you realize the real power of sorcery rests in only one place — Vacaan.”

  “Is that why your little kingdom-model doesn’t work,” I said. Not waiting for a response: “Is that why the peo
ple are crying their woes, willing to rise up against the only rule they’ve known, choosing anarchy over order? Is that why your gods-damned river spells don’t work like they used to? Is that why the power that Gayyath’s father Domas wielded with never a questioner is bursting at the seams?”

  Modin started to answer, then decided not to. His image blurred, danced and then, standing behind him, normally-sized, was my son, Cligus.

  Perhaps he’d been permitted to listen or even watch, invisibly, when Modin cast out for Janela. I doubted this. It was more likely his appearance had not been planned.

  I knew I was right when I saw my son’s eyes widen as two shocks struck him. First at being in this place, even in spirit form; then seeing me and how much I’d changed. But he still recognized me, blood calling to blood. He flinched for an instant like he expected his father to step forward and punish him for his crimes as if he were still a mischievous boy trembling in my study.

  Then his features firmed as he recovered.

  But, I attacked first:

  “Cligus, I am surprised to see you. But it gives me an opportunity to put some questions to you as well. What sort of face are you putting on your actions? What do you plan to tell Orissa when you return with my head? Do you think the citizens of our city will announce a triumph for you for patricide? Do you think Palmeras will nod and accept your version of events without inquiring, sorcerously, into what really happened?”

  He answered, defiant: “I plan to return with full proof of your treason.”

  “Very good, boy,” I said, putting as much sarcasm into my voice as possible. “You’ve managed to convince yourself I’m a real villain. That’s always the best step.

  “But you’ve had much practice, haven’t you? I recollect that poor serving girl you got with child when you were what, fourteen, and she was a year younger. You tried to tell me it was her fault for not cleansing herself with vinegar. Do you remember how you raged when I forced you to sell your stallion so you could have a sum to set aside for the child’s upbringing?”

  “I do not have to listen to this!”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “Listen... or vanish… Modin, is this the best you can do for an ally? Or do you think you can stand against an Antero and a Greycloak alone? You had better be careful, wizard, for you’re committing the crime of great pride and are most likely to be brought down for it.”

  “Oh,” Modin said, and I noted he’d recovered control. “I am supposed to listen to the words of a merchant, a cloth-peddler and shake in my boots? Listen to me, Antero..”

  And he rose again, almost doubling his size, and I barely noted Cligus’ form had vanished as he went on, “Listen well. Janela Greycloak and her powers are fated to be mine. I said that her doom will be especially sweet the more she twists and wriggles trying to escape it.

  “But there shall be a fillip. I’ll let her watch your death and it shall be slow and as painful as I can arrange. You do not know what it is like to have a great mage such as myself punish you but there are pains beyond the pains of this world, and your soul can be tormented through many worlds before it’s finally destroyed to the last bit of its existence.

  “That death beyond death I promise you, Amalric Antero of Orissa. And I have never broken such an oath.”

  Then there was nothing but the wind and the blowing grass and the endless plains.

  Janela and I looked at each other for a long time before either of us said a word. I was the first.

  “So we’re licking our wounds, eh? Did you cast some sort of spell when we left the road that you sort of forgot to mention? That would maybe give out all sorts of hints that somewhere around or about there a bunch of broken-down Orissans got stuck, doing nothing more than licking their wounds and waiting for the butcher to call?”

  “I might have.”

  “You are good. First that demon, then this.” A serious question occurred to me. “When I met Modin I saw him as a powerful wizard, the equivalent of Lord Raveline. Was I mistaken?”

  “I doubt if he was ever as deadly as Raveline. He came not from the royal bloodline and I don’t think he had all those decades of bloodbaths Raveline had brought about to feed his dark powers on. Perhaps that’s why he wished to... ally himself with me.

  “Or possibly he was that great. Maybe being in these lands, where there is truly awful magic being worked,” and she indicated with a motion of her hand the mountains where Tyrenia lay, “perhaps he’s lost some of his own strength. Maybe that presence I’ve been feeling is helping us.”

  “Or maybe we’re just getting used to having eminent enchanters standing in line to pummel us,” I said.

  “That is the only true explanation, I warrant.” Janela’s smile died. “But we can’t ever treat Modin with contempt. He is what he is and he’ll pursue us to the gates of Tyrenia before he’ll give up. And the temporal power of his army cannot be denied.”

  I nodded but said nothing, because just then Quatervals stirred from his sleep, eyes opening, and then he sat up.

  “Lord Antero,” he said in surprise. “You’re wakin’ early. Got the trots, sorry, Lady, I didn’t realize you were up as well?”

  We said nothing about the magical visit but as I helped the others break camp I felt strangely cheery. Perhaps it was having won a few meaningless exchanges with Modin or as likely seeing that Cligus, even in his murderous intent, was as weak a man as I’d finally realized him to be.

  But somehow I knew we would have the best of Modin and Cligus, no matter how many soldiers they had, and was quite cheerful.

  Of course I was being a fool.

  * * * *

  We saw the direwolf in the late afternoon of that same day. It trotted directly toward us from the south as if we’d called it, then swerved about two hundred yards from the nearest flanker and slowed his pace to a walk, moving with us at the same speed we did. As before I ordered Quatervals to bring the scouts in closer to the main formation and double up their strength.

  Direwolves are interesting creatures. If someone were to ask me for a career entailing the greatest amount of hazard for the smallest returns, I’d set them to studying these beasts, even above demons. For if a man studies demons hard enough, perhaps he might find a clue to their control and thereby gain great wealth or power.

  But with a direwolf there’s no such possibility of worldly advancement beyond becoming dinner. There is also no possibility of actual knowledge, since, as I’ve said, direwolves think in a manner unlike any other beast I’m familiar with.

  They are wickedly intelligent, normally hunting either in packs or, when they have young and the mother hunts alone with her cubs tucked comfortably and safely in her furry pouch.

  Like all hunters they prefer to take down the weak, hungry or old and will go well out of their way to avoid a battle with an animal in the fullness of strength.

  Even so, they have few enemies who can stand against them and even those, but with one exception, will leave them to hunt in peace if left undisturbed.

  The exception is man and the direwolves sense that, taking almost any opportunity to kill their two-legged foe.

  In my country, farmers in the cold south have gone to work their fields and have never been seen again, searchers finding only the plow’s iron and wood; the man, his draft animal and even the leather lines gone without a trace. They’ve attacked outlying houses, waiting until the man is gone and then smashing through the door or a window to savage his babes and wife.

  But even in this unrelenting hatred for man they are clever. Like the crow they can recognize a man with weapons and will sheer away from him. They’ll never attack an armed group, although they’ll harry its flanks just as they do a herd of elk, hoping for a straggler.

  I said they’ll never attack armed men but should remind you of what I said before — no one knows what normal is to a direwolf.

  The sight of that single animal sent a chill through me.

  Perhaps it was the deliberate way it paced us. W
e normally sought camp an hour or so before dusk so we could build cook fires without giving ourselves away.

  This day I told Quatervals to push on until we found a safer place than usual.

  By the grace of Te-Date we were lucky, finding one of the few rivers, actually little more than a shallow stream, that wound its way through the steppe. A wide, flat-topped knoll rose next to the river, an eminently defensible position that seemed perfect.

  After we’d set our packs down I asked Quatervals, since he was the soldier, what criticisms he had of the place. He looked about and admitted to few. If this were war he’d prefer the scrub brush around the river be cut down so the view was unobstructed. He also said if he were a god he’d move that small islet across from us further downstream — an enemy might be able to use that to ford the river, which was only than knee-deep, more readily if he chose to attack from that sector.

  This proves what my sister Rali had preached, that soldiers are good for many things but their fortune-telling ability is, as she put it, somewhere between slim and rotten, since that island saved our lives.

  We’d barely set down our packs when one of the pickets reported two more direwolves, these to our rear. They’d appeared as if from nowhere, he reported. I wondered if these beasts might be unaware of some of man’s talents, so sent for one of the Cyralian brothers and ordered him to try a shot with our heaviest bow.

  But before he could bend it I noted these creatures were, indeed, familiar with man’s works because they turned and trotted just beyond bowshot, then continued staring at us.

  Quatervals sent working parties, closely guarded, along the banks of the river to cut the straightest saplings from the scrub brush. These saplings were pointed at each end and then driven into the ground at a close angle to the earth. They should have been heavier but that was the best we could find.