by Mike Shel
On the day of their departure, as Kennah and Agnes saw to their own mounts and stout Glutton, Auric went below to the Dyre family crypts, there to pay a visit to Belech. He thought briefly of attending the tomb with Hannah, but quickly decided it would only increase her misgivings for this journey by reminding her of what the last one had cost her. He sat on a stool next to the stone sarcophagus and ran his hands over the letters carved there.
BELECH POTTS 723 – 778
SOLDIER – SERVANT – GREATHEART
It was testament to the esteem in which Hannah held him that Belech rested here in this family crypt, a commoner, a ranker soldier. Auric recalled his parting conversation with Sira, the priest of Belu whom he and Belech had found injured in the woods: she had suggested, perhaps not entirely in jest, that maybe Belech would watch over Auric in the future, as a sainted guardian might. He liked that notion then, and now: towering Saint Belech, his patron mace-wielding angel. But he did not pray for himself.
“Friend Belech,” he whispered, gently patting the stone slab, “please watch over Lady Hannah in my absence. I fear she’ll take this hard, and she has no others to shoulder her burdens here, no one to talk with, now that you are here in this tomb and I’m off again to the capital. Give her ease, if you can.”
Auric squinted in the light of the morning sun when he joined his daughter and Kennah before the entryway of Dyrekeep. Their horses and packs were in place, and Glutton seemed ready for a ride. She was used to daily rides, but he’d neglected her the past few days, since the fire. He was lucky some of his riding clothes were at Hannah’s. His mount and his Djao sword Szaa’da’shaela were all he possessed now, though his fortune was still safe in Daurhim’s little bank. Hannah had tried to convince him to wait for the leatherworker in town to fashion him new armor before he departed, but he reminded her he traveled with two trained Syraeics, armed and armored, and besides, Regga hadn’t the skill for such a task anyway.
Lady Hannah agreed to take Hanouer in with her while Auric was off on his trip to Boudun, stating not unkindly that she would find an occupation for him. The emotion that had erupted the night of Agnes’s arrival when they lay together was neatly packed away again, and now all Auric could see was her calm and composed aristocratic face. She smiled softly at him as they readied to leave, though he sensed her fragility just behind the façade. She repeated her earlier offer of a wagon for the body of Kennah and Agnes’s dead comrade, but bushy bearded Kennah refused the baroness with his gruff approximation of courtesy. He said that Ruben would ride behind him on his horse from Daurhim to the doors of the Citadel—one last journey together. Auric found in the man’s devotion an echo of his own feelings for Syraeic brothers and sisters who had lost their lives in service to the League, the deep familial bonds that inevitably developed when one was placed in peril with others on a common mission.
Auric embraced Hannah and kissed her full on her mouth, a breach of etiquette with servants about, but she kissed him back and clutched at his hair with one hand as she did. For a second he feared she wouldn’t release him. She did, at last, waving him and Agnes and Kennah off in a formal gesture. But not before whispering in his ear: Come back to me, Auric Manteo.
After riding half a day it was clear that their travel would be slowed by Auric’s wounds. Logen, Daurhim’s cobbler-medicus, had inspected his injuries early that morning and fussed a bit. Scabs were forming nicely, but he worried at some signs of possible infection.
“Uh, ’haps you should wait a day’r two, sirrah,” Logen had said. “Better you be here if an infection should grow roots in you. Father Borim may be able to heal you yet, and if not me, Henga can tend you nice.”
“Thank you, Logen,” Auric responded, wincing as the man set to wrapping his wounds in fresh bandages. “I’ve got changes for the bandages packed away, along with plenty of Henga’s brew to help manage the pain. It’s only a two-day ride to Boudun. I can seek the best care in the empire at the Citadel should the wounds begin to fester.”
But it was plain it would take them at least three, perhaps four days to reach their destination. Auric saw no need to pretend he was hale and hardy when Agnes asked about his comfort for a third time that morning. They had only made about twelve miles when time came to make their first camp.
“Sorry, Agnes. This old man is slowing you down.”
“No worries, sir,” said Kennah. “My mount is tiring anyway, carrying two all this way.”
Auric was exhausted by the time they ate their dinner, mostly listening to Agnes and Kennah swap tales and nodding in silence. He was asleep soon after he lay down on his pallet, but his wounds woke him when the moon was high overhead. Agnes, it seemed, snored exactly as her mother did, her mouth open but a sliver, a short snort at the back of her throat. Kennah was curled up on his own pallet, legs and arms twitching, eyes in motion beneath their lids. Whatever dream he dreamed, it was not a pleasant one. Auric took a small sip of the apothecary’s analgesic and sighed deeply. Szaa’da’shaela, sheathed, lay against a log—an image of a man in repose, lying casually with hands folded behind his head, came to Auric’s mind. Absurd.
Then he reached out for the weapon’s hilt, wrapping his fingers around the grip, half-expecting to hear its voice in his head, speaking to him in clear, authoritative tones. But no, there was silence. Nothing about the blade suggested it was anything more than an elegant, if exotic artifact, with its inset emeralds and swirling runes etched into the metal. Not for the first time, he thought of how it came into his possession. He saw the intense, penetrating eyes of the Duke of Kelse, face gaunt and covered with gray stubble, a kind of mad heat emanating from his flesh. Had the duke not given Auric this sorcerous blade, there was no doubt he and all his companions would have perished in the alien catacombs beneath Saint Besh last year. Had the sorcerers aboard the Duke Yaryx not been roaring drunk, the vessel wouldn’t have docked at Kalimander to receive the duke’s summons. Had they not stopped at the Isle of Kenes, the captain of the Yaryx would not have had occasion to allow his sorcerers to drink. Bah! Any link in the chain would have prevented the outcome. He would be dead, Agnes would be dead, and perhaps everyone in the Citadel would be dead. Maybe the plague would have spread through Boudun, across the Isle of Hanifax, beyond. Perhaps now the Aching God would be risen from his subterranean prison, triumphant, standing astride the Cradle Sea.
Auric drew the sword from its scabbard and held the flat of the blade near his ear, willing it to speak to him. Too many coincidences, too much serendipity. It was not some happy fluke that he possessed this mighty weapon that came to his aid when he was in danger. After a year of silence it spoke to him again, led him out of a burning building, drove off a fire elemental. Was it a gift from the gods? He was not a devout man. The idea that some divinity would provide him with such a grand bounty seemed ridiculous. It almost offended him.
“Who put you in my hands?” he asked aloud, seeing his face reflected in the blade by the campfire light.
But Szaa’da’shaela said nothing, and all Auric heard were the night sounds of the woods and Agnes’s gentle snoring.
6
The God-King and the Castrato
The old man contemplated the cockroach scrabbling across damp, ancient brick heavy with the tears of despair and rage of countless prisoners past. The insect navigated the terrain with a strange awkwardness, at times attempting to traverse the vertical surface, but unable to find purchase. No sustenance for you here, little brother, thought the old man. I have consumed everything I have been given to maintain my strength.
The audience with the queen had not gone as he had expected. To pass the time now, he placed a hand against the rough wall, cold and wet, plumbing the torrent of human emotion that had seeped into the stonework over long years. He tried to isolate the story of a single soul among the mélange of hopelessness, fury, desperate scheming, and impotent prayers whispered to gods who did not listen.
There! he exclaimed in his heart, sensing a tingle of recognition creep up his forefinger. Rusola Bache, thrown in these dungeons by the Lord Chamberlain of King Penech in 552. His crime? Failing to bribe the chamberlain with sufficient subtlety; not as grave as offering a bribe failing in generosity, but nonetheless a ticket to this dank cell for…how long? The old man caressed the stone. Three and a half years. Released finally, emaciated, mortally weakened, and blinking in the light of the unfamiliar sun, just in time to celebrate the Candle Harvest Festival with your family. Did you last to see the New Year?
He searched again, feeling the anger and fear within the wet stone. Soon, another presented itself: Wilemina Dallu. Oh, a sadder story, that. Twelve long years in this cell, before she moved on past the Final Veil, for the crime of loving and being loved by a prince. No, the king wouldn’t permit a child of his to marry a chandler’s daughter, even if he had no shortage of sons and this one was a distant eighth in line for the throne. Young, earnest Wilemina had refused to recant her claim that they had married in secret, continued to swear it even when racked and burned with pokers by diligent priests of Tolwe who put her to The Question. The prince had howled out his repentance almost immediately when shown the handiwork of the truth-speakers on her brutalized body. He denounced her words as lies and denied his love, tears streaming down his face. He knew that was the only way his father would order Tolwe’s clergy to cease their cruel rituals. But poor Wilemina did not see his repudiation as an act of love. In her sweet, bruised heart it was a betrayal. Her last words, before the priests removed her tongue and cast her into this dungeon cell, was the weeping prince’s name, calling him husband.
A terrible sadness washed over the old man. He turned and propped himself against the wall, feeling the tatters of his soiled robe absorb the moisture there. He let loose a long, slow sigh. So much suffering in this cell alone, a microcosm of the human pain he had witnessed over the endless centuries. It’s all food for the feast, fueling their boundless ambition. Well, I will confound those ambitions soon enough. I will crush them, those usurpers of joy.
A beam of weak light shone from the small barred window at eye level on the door. That light landed on a patch of the opposite wall on which was scrawled the eight-spoked wheel of Timilis, and beneath it, a word: Surprise! Irony, thought the old man. He knew it was most doubtful Timilis had a hand in his present predicament. But he was surprised by this turn of events, when the queen, blood dripping from her lips, commanded that he be locked in this cold, dark place. He had more dark revelations to share with her. He hadn’t had a sorcerous evocation at the ready, so certain had he been that his enchanting words would have the desired effect. After the shocking bloodshed, he was trundled off to these labyrinthine dungeons, deep in the bowels of the palace, beneath the earth.
There was some solace in this, as he had been a stranger to surprise over most of the yawning millennia. It had a bitter taste, but his palate was ready for new and unusual fare. For a short while it left him wondering how he might execute his charge—not if, but how. His faith in his destiny hadn’t wavered. He went with the jailers willingly, though he could have employed a spell to smite them all, or escape. This was the will of the Universal Spirit of Creation, he decided, and he would submit. But his duties were unfinished. Eventually he would leave this place.
Sure enough, a means soon presented itself: one of his jailers, the gangly boy Ghallo, all knees and elbows in his ill-fitting, ragged uniform. Ghallo, who brought his single bowl of gruel or watery soup once a day. Ghallo would be his instrument.
He heard the boy’s approach then, serving the other prisoners in the nearby cells first. The lad pushed his rickety cart with its great pot and shallow wooden bowls over the floor of chipped brick—the old man heard each movement as though it was part of a familiar tune: the squeaking and clacking of the cart’s wheels ceasing, the ring of the tin lid coming off the pot, the slosh of the ladle scooping out a serving and pouring it in the bowl. Then the creak of metal hinges on the low slot in the cell door of some other prisoner, the sliding of the bowl across the stonework through the slot, metal hinges creaking again as they closed. Clacking and squeaking wheels resumed.
“Thank you, lad,” came a familiar, reedy voice from down the corridor. “Soup! Soup so thin and devoid of flavor, I imagine the cook barely waved a scrap of beef over that pot of yours before sending you on your way.” Those were the sour words of Vesano Rowick, erstwhile cutpurse and would-be con artist from Grandea, who’d thought himself clever enough to ply his sordid trade among the venal aristocrats in the capital. His confidence was not rewarded.
“Bread!” Vesano cried. “A bit of your saltless bread one day soon, I hope! No bread in more than a week!”
There were three cells between his and Vesano’s. The bitter man’s sarcasm was a daily alert that the boy was near. Ghallo always saved the old man’s cell for last, so that he could linger there and hear one of the old man’s stories. The lad could spare no more than a few minutes, lest his bully of a superior think him dawdling in his duties. But he never missed an opportunity to crouch down at the old man’s cell door to listen. So the old man prepared himself. After patient cultivation, it was time to reap the harvest.
When the boy reached his cell, the cart stopped, but there was a pause, longer than the pause when he reached the cells of the other prisoners. The lid was removed from the pot and the bowl was filled, the echo of the ladle scraping the pot’s bottom as Ghallo did his best to coax what little bit of meat or vegetable had sunk there into the old man’s serving. A sliver of dim light appeared at the base of the door as the boy opened the slot and pushed the wooden bowl through. The metal plate stayed open for a few moments longer, then closed, snuffing out the light. The old man moved over to the door and sat down near it, sipping at his soup, waiting patiently for the boy to at last make his daily request.
“Do you have a story for me today, sir?”
The old man chewed the little bit of limp cabbage and carrot at the bottom of his bowl.
“Yes, my son, I have a special story and a gift for you today.”
He heard the young lad crouch, his cart rattling as he used it to steady his descent to the grimy corridor flagstones. “A gift?” His voice cracked with excitement.
“Yes.” The old man rubbed the thumb of his left hand against three of his fingertips, extending his pinky as he muttered a series of ancient words like a songbird’s call. He felt the cool of the metal coin as it appeared between thumb and forefinger. He slid the silver coin beneath the lip of the cell door.
“A crown!” Ghallo gasped, picking it up from the floor. “But where did you—”
“I have a task for you, lad. It will cost you half that silver coin, which you may keep in payment, along with my story for today.”
“Sir,” the boy responded in a muffled whisper, worry tinging his tone, “Oxula will skin me alive if he finds I’ve brought you anything but your supper.”
“You worry needlessly, Ghallo,” said the old man in his comforting baritone. “You will not bring anything to me in this cell. Rather, you will perform a service. And you will perform it with such delicacy and grace, no one will know it was you.”
“I can’t let you out, sir. Even if I wanted to, I haven’t got a key to the lock.”
“You will not release me, Ghallo. A man and his daughter will, much later. I will give you instructions for your task, but first I will share my story. Unless you only wish for the coin. You may keep the entire crown for yourself and forget my stories, or you can listen to this special tale and do what I ask of you.”
There was a long pause. The old man was still seated on the floor, and though he did not look at the lad through the barred window above him, he could imagine the youthful face contemplating his decision, biting at the ragged nails on his right hand, squeezing his eyes closed tight. At last the boy spoke.
“
This story is a special story?”
“Yes, Ghallo. It’s a very special story, though it’s sad and terrible as well.”
Another pause.
“All right. Tell me the story.”
The old man closed his eyes, stretched out his arms, and drew in a deep breath, holding it there for a long moment. “This story,” he began with an exhale, “takes place on the Sacred Canal.”
“What’s a sacred canal?”
“The Sacred Canal. It’s a manmade waterway, dug out of the very soil and stone of the earth, from the Taniya River Delta all the way to the great freshwater lake they call the Godsmirror. The canal is a hundred and fifty feet wide, running over two hundred miles roughly west to east.”
“Is this in the south?”
“Yes, lad, past the rocky desert spires they call the Wall of Serpents and across the Sea of Sacred Splendor. The nation was called Mendekoh then, ruled by men with the conceit to call themselves god-kings. When a god-king died, his body was tended with elaborate rituals—”
“Like those of Mictilin’s servants?” interrupted Ghallo.
The old man’s patience was fraying, ever so slightly. Yes, he was tired. The boy merely wished to display the knowledge gained from the other stories the old man had told him in the weeks before. So he let his weariness pass, and spoke again. “No, my son, much more elaborate than those of your death priests. The priests of Mendekoh drained the bodies of blood, made certain they were shorn of hair, and removed all internal organs and viscera; then they stuffed the cavities with perfumes, incense, and gemstones, and sewed them shut again. Finally, every inch of flesh was painted with a dizzying array of strange intertwining symbols in glittering inks of blue, green, and gold. Once those sigils were inscribed on the god-king’s flesh, no mortal thing was permitted to touch it. The body was moved on a glorious pallet of rare woods, set with inlays of ivory and precious metals, and conveyed to the funeral barge by hulking men of great strength.”