by Shel, Mike
The old man closed his eyes for a moment, conjuring the memory in his mind, before he continued. “The barge was towed along the entire length of the canal by a boat crewed with fifty oars, a slow journey that lasted a full week. Only a single living person shared that barge with the body of the god-king: a young boy, a castrato—”
“What’s—”
“A boy whose testes have been cut from him, so that he may forever sing in a high, mellifluous voice.”
“Testes?”
“Stones, lad. His balls.” He heard Ghallo draw in breath through clenched teeth. The old man smiled, then answered his next question before the lad could ask it. “With a hot knife, while the boy was insensate from a beverage of fermented honey; he lay in a warm bath of perfumed milk, dreaming lovely dreams while it happened.” Despite that reassurance, the old man imagined his youthful jailer empathetically cupping his own stones. After a moment he spoke again. “You will promise me I can finish my story now, with no more questions from you until it is done? You haven’t much more time with me.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I’ll listen.”
“The boy who shared the barge with the corpse of the god-king was consecrated to the god Muut—Muut was the Mendekoh god of the Underworld, you see—for this one, singular task: to sing soothing songs to the god-king’s spirit as his body was towed along the Sacred Canal. It wasn’t just the sorcery in the painted sigils that kept the god-king’s spirit tethered to the body—it was also the castrato’s songs. The god-king’s body and soul had to be interred in one of three great Cities of the Dead on the shores of the Godsmirror. If the god-king’s spirit broke free from the body before that, the untethered soul would haunt the new god-king and bring havoc down upon the kingdom, perhaps even topple the ruling dynasty.
“Now, no one on the ship towing the barge could hear the singing of the castrato during most of the journey, unless the breeze carried the song to them. So much trust was placed in the castrato to execute his charge. Every one of those consecrated boys had done their duty for over a thousand years—at the time of my story, the same dynasty had ruled Mendekoh for more than ten centuries, every deceased ruler successfully transported and entombed. This way, the succession happened with relatively little supernatural complication. Now, the god-king whose body lay on this barge was named Kheneffret the Seventh—”
“A lucky number!” interjected Ghallo, who quickly apologized for breaking his promise.
“Not for the Mendekoh, Ghallo!” barked the old man, again showing his strain. “Never had there been a seventh god-king of the same name, and this one had been both cruel and capricious. He had fought death off longer than any of his predecessors, dying at the age of one hundred and two.”
The old man thought the lad might speak of Queen Geneviva, herself one hundred and forty-one and on the throne for many of those years. But the boy was chastened by the old man’s harsher tone and mastered his tongue. The old man nodded to himself, pleased with Ghallo, and continued.
“If ever a castrato needed to keep a soul tethered to its body, this one did. But the boy for this singular task, whose name is lost to history—let’s call him Ghallo for our tale’s purpose—he grew weary of singing after only a few days. He was distracted by the wondrous sights along the canal, the towering palm trees, the great works of art lining its banks, the carved monuments, the trained flock of colorful birds that wheeled in the sky above the barge as it made its slow journey. And then there was the opulence of the barge itself: a peerless work of art, fanciful carvings in rare woods with scenes painted in breathtaking detail and beauty, lovely woven textiles—ah! Such exquisite work, and all of it destined for the torch the moment they reached their destination and the god-king’s body was removed. Every scrap of magnificent art set ablaze! Now Ghallo had been trained so that he could sing for a week at a time, by ingesting sacred substances that sustained him and allowed him to go without sleep. He was supposed to stay seated at the head of the god-king’s funeral bier, singing his soothing songs directly into the corpse’s ear. But he wished to see the wonders of the funeral barge up close, before they were consigned to the flames. Ghallo thought, ‘Surely I can walk a short distance from the king’s body, singing a bit more loudly, so that his spirit can still hear. Then I can see up close the beauty and wealth all around me and carry the memory with me for the rest of my days.’”
The old man stopped for a moment, feeling the boy’s questions through the thick wood of the iron-bound cell door. But the lad managed to hold on to them. He felt great affection for him in that moment. “Go ahead, Ghallo. Ask your question.”
The young jailer hesitated, but at last spoke. “He’s going to walk away from the body and something terrible will happen. But if he keeps singing, loud enough for the spirit to hear, won’t he be keeping the promise he made to sing for the king’s spirit?”
“The promise was not just to sing, Ghallo. That was not his charge. His charge, very specifically, was to sing soothing songs to keep the god-king’s spirit bound to the corpse. I’m sure you’ve heard drunken men sing songs stumbling home from a tavern. Would you call those songs ‘soothing,’ Ghallo? Though some might still think the castrato’s songs were pretty when he sang them loudly, they did not soothe the god-king’s soul and keep it at rest.”
He heard the boy sigh on the other side of the door.
“What is it, my son?” asked the old man. “Speak.”
“That seems really stupid.”
“The boy’s choice, or the god-king’s requirements?”
“Well, the boy’s choice, but that’s just because I know something awful’s goin’ t’happen. But mostly that singing the songs while he looked at the gold and diamonds on the barge should have been good enough. Did they tell him he had to sing his songs right in the king’s ear?”
“They did. They were very specific about that.”
“OK. He was dumb because he didn’t follow instructions. But the instructions still seem silly to me.”
“As they did to our castrated Ghallo. When we trust the giver of instructions, we’d best follow them, even if they don’t make sense, soldiering through our doubts. There’s no telling what consequences might come down on the heads of those who judge they know better.”
Ghallo rapped a knuckle twice on the wooden door. “This is all about me doing exactly what you tell me to do, isn’t it, sir?”
The old man smiled. “How many years have you, Ghallo?”
“I’m twelve, sir. I think.”
Barely a brief blink of time.
“My son, you are not stupid as Oxula thinks you are, but sometimes I have had to hit you over the head with a large object so that the lesson sinks in. Yes?” He smiled again, felt his affection for the boy swell in his ancient breast. “You are correct. This story is about the great task I set for you.”
He knew the words the boy would speak before he said them. “I’m ready.”
“Do you not want to hear the rest of my story?” the old man asked.
A pause. “Will it give me nightmares?”
“Yes.”
“Worse than the story of the goat-man who ate the Busker princes alive?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then no. Just tell me what you want me to do, sir. I’ll do it.”
Yes, you’re ready, young Ghallo. You are ready to play your part in the calamity to come. I have wandered the earth for ten thousand years, hopping from one body to the next, learning what I could from whoever I could. You’ve taught me some things, too, my son, though you’d be surprised to hear what those lessons were. And now, with your help, I will crush the oppressors. I will crush them even though it brings the entire world crashing down.
“Listen carefully to my words,” began the old man, making eldritch signs and gestures on his side of the door, the opening movements of a potent spell. “Go to the market wes
t of the Temple District, my young son, and with that coin buy yourself a stick of lily-white alchemist’s chalk…”
7
Camp of the Blessed
The trio passed the body of the boy whom Agnes and Kennah had hanged as a bandit late on the third day of their journey to Boudun. The birds had plucked out the eyes, and the corpse swayed slowly in a gentle breeze, a grotesque ornament dangling from the bough. The parchment on which Kennah had scrawled the boy’s crime was gone, no doubt dislodged and taken away by the wind as greedy beaks sought out the meat of the lad’s tongue. As they rode past, Agnes felt oddly distant from the scene, as though she hadn’t anything to do with the morbid exhibition. She watched her father’s eyes take in the swinging cadaver, saw him purse his lips and look at Kennah, then the path before them. An old remnant of her younger self dared her father to object, to utter some judgment of what they had done. She was ready to defy him, indignant and righteous. But if there was any disapproval there, she couldn’t read it, and he didn’t speak.
Darkness clouded Kennah’s face as he and shroud-wrapped Ruben passed by the swaying corpse. None of them had any comment for the gruesome spectacle. Agnes said a prayer to Saint Katuryn for the boy’s soul, asking that she speed his journey past the Final Veil.
Agnes’s ears pricked up a mile further down the road: she heard the sounds of music, conversation, and laughter carried by the breeze. As they rounded a bend in the highway, they came upon an encampment of three broad, garishly decorated wagons, the words BLESSED OF PEMBER emblazoned across their colorful tarpaulins. Streamers on rough-hewn poles fluttered on the wind as if dancing to the happy tune played by someone, somewhere on a wooden flute. Painted sheets of canvas depicting an urban scene were hung on rope between two great trees, creating the backdrop for a makeshift stage, and three people stood before it. One man knelt before another who held the point of a sword to his breast, while a woman, arm thrown back across her forehead, pleaded for mercy. A few watched the performance, while others milled about the camp engaged in various tasks, clad in colorful traveling clothes. At the roadside, nearest to Agnes and the others as they came upon this unexpected scene, was a tall, lithe figure with hair the color of pitch and a liquid, feminine grace in both features and movement. The figure was juggling wooden pins with a pale-skinned woman who had golden hair and a bosom threatening to burst forth from her too-tight silk dress. The two stopped their routine as the mounted trio came into view. The buxom woman, eyes green as emeralds, stepped forward onto the road, each hand holding a juggling pin, propped on her hips. She gave them an enchanting smile, her lips painted deep crimson, her blond tresses bound with ribbons of gold and red. Agnes and her companions reined in their horses.
“Three travelers,” began the blond-haired woman, “caparisoned for war, or so wary of the world they stand ready, armed to battle even the gentle, sweet morn.”
“The prelude from The Last Parley,” said the lithe figure, coming up next to her. Agnes saw now he was a man, though his face was heavily made up with cosmetics like the aristocrats wore in the capital. His voice was a delicate, ivory tenor. “Really, Scylla, you have an astonishing talent for drawing lines from the air fitting every occasion.” He smiled at Agnes with his dark eyes, somehow both playful and conspiratorial, and an instant affection filled her. But when the man looked on Kennah, Agnes felt herself forgotten: the man’s eyes grew wide and he whistled, pointing at her Syraeic brother with one of the wooden pins he held like a preceptor’s baton. “Oh, look at this great mounted warrior, with so imposing and unkempt a beard! It’s desperate for grooming, sir, to say nothing of your hair. Tell me, hast thou had the vengeance thy heart requir’d?”
Agnes’s pulse quickened, thinking of the eyeless bandit lad twisting from a tree. Kennah tensed visibly, his cheeks reddening as though slapped, and his mount stirred with agitation. “What do you mean, fop?” he barked, his words menacing, his expression angry and confused. The lithe man withdrew the pin he pointed at Kennah and hugged it to his chest with the other two he held, his arched eyebrows rising.
“Why, revenge for what your barber did to you. Surely Marcator’s Law would have no quarrel with you for running the man through with that blade that hangs at your hip.”
Kennah scowled. Agnes stifled a laugh, relieved, and her father led his mount forward a pace.
“Greetings, citizens,” he said with a small smile. “I am Sir Auric Manteo, this is my daughter, Agnes, and the bearded bear you poke at your peril is Kennah Rolenwy. We journey for Boudun. Perhaps you are recently departed from there?”
“Oh, we are Boudun bound as well, sirrah,” trilled the blond-haired woman, stepping forward and laying her pale hand on Auric’s knee, long nails painted black. “I am Scylla, and this pretty lout with the careless tongue is Chalca. You’ve come upon the encampment of our humble band, headed for the capital to entertain and delight.” She punctuated her last words with a languid caress of Agnes’s father’s leg. On her index finger she wore a ring with a fat red stone. Even from her vantage atop her mount Agnes could tell it was nothing more than cheap cut glass. For some reason that simple detail filled Agnes’s heart with a powerful sadness. Auric removed the woman’s hand gently as it crept up his thigh.
“A theater troupe, then,” said Agnes. “You have a booking at one of the houses in Boudun?”
“We make our own house, dear heart,” said Chalca, whose skin seemed as flawless as a polished marble bust beneath the makeup. It had been expertly applied, giving him an appearance of practiced elegance, no different from a noblewoman presenting herself to the queen. He tossed his juggling pins onto the roadside grass and gave Agnes’s dappled mare a condescending pat as he walked by her, the nails of his hands painted royal blue. He sidled up to Kennah, looking seriously at the man, who glowered down at him with brooding eyes. “I see now you carry a burden with you, sir,” said Chalca in a soothing voice, putting a manicured hand on Kennah’s leg. “Was it a friend?”
Kennah jerked his mount’s reins and the beast retreated. “It was,” he hissed, “and you would do well to keep your hands from my person.”
“Kennah,” began Agnes’s father, rotating his shoulder with a grimace of discomfort. “Sheathe your anger, if you would.” He turned to Chalca. “And again, you needn’t poke the bear, sir.”
“He means no harm, Kennah,” Agnes added, seeing the boiling stir of emotions on the swordsman’s face.
“It’s true, I intend no offense,” Chalca said in a whispery voice, bowing as he backed away from Kennah, holding his hands up before him. “Alas, some spy enemies where they might find friends.”
“You’re camped here for the night, then?” asked Agnes as three more of the Blessed of Pember approached them, garbed in gay clothing.
“This is our third day here, sister,” answered Scylla, adjusting the neckline of her blouse, which Agnes noted was beginning to fray. “One of our number, Kellian, is very ill. We wait for Mictilin to wrap his shroud about him. I’m afraid the wagon ride became too painful for sweet Kellian. He has the wasting sickness.” She gestured to an arc of shade trees with an easy vantage of their makeshift stage. Under them lay a man with graying hair, propped up and bundled in blankets. It was hard to judge his age, so terribly gaunt he was, with deep, dark circles under his eyes, his flesh pallid. Attending him was a middle-aged man, his hair shorn, wearing an open white cotton shirt and brown breeches. He knelt beside the ailing man, dabbing his forehead with a cloth and speaking to him with a smile that shone with sadness and love.
“Kellian’s been part of the troupe since its founding, nearly thirty years ago,” said Chalca with a wistful smile. “With his passing, none of the original members will remain.”
Agnes tried to convey her sympathy with her smile. It was then she noticed her father close his eyes and grit his teeth as Glutton shifted her stance. The wound was troubling him again. It was still early, but for his sake s
he thought they should make camp themselves instead of continuing for Boudun that day. Rather than consult her companions, she spoke.
“Would you mind if we made our camp for the evening here as well, Scylla, Chalca? My father nurses a wound that makes riding something of a trial.”
“Whatever noble possesses authority over this patch of wood isn’t here, Lady Agnes,” answered Chalca with another bow. “Join us for the night.”
“Yeah, join us,” said one of the others who had approached them, a young man whose prominent teeth ruined his otherwise delicate features. He held up a hand, offering Agnes help to dismount. “I have room in my bedroll for one more, Lady Agnes.”
“Take your shriveled member elsewhere, Baucus,” Chalca said, offering his own hand to her. “I suspect this warrior woman is more likely to penetrate you with her sword.” Scylla came to her aid as well, knocking Baucus to the ground with a well-placed check from her hip.
Agnes couldn’t help but grin. Ignoring Chalca’s hand as well, she climbed down from her mare. “I thank you for your offer of assistance, but you should know that early in my career I was forced to educate several Syraeic brothers that I don’t countenance unwanted amorous attention. Though, truth be told, the consequences ran to broken noses and bruised stones rather than stab wounds.”
“Ah, a Syraeic League retinue!” said another who had approached them, a gray-haired man with a small mouth and beady eyes, spectacles perched at the end of a long nose. “Do you come from some ancient tomb, burdened with treasures untold?”