30 Million Years From Now

Eartherea has swallowed the Earth we knew.

The continents have changed; the apparent rotation of the planet has stopped. One side faces only the Goddess Sun, burning into desert waste. Over the other side, the roving chariot of the jade Moon God rules an unending Night. Only along the twilight ribbons of endless Dawn and eternal Dusk is life endurable. On one band lie the lands of men, into whose far North the Conqueror Elna chased and caged the warlike barbarians centuries ago. Unto this cold, dim land came the stranger, Ara-Karn. He was a renegade Southron, some said; others claimed he was the returned ghost of a long-dead King; others said he was an avenging demon.

The stranger drew the barbarian tribes into his hand. Half the world they conquered, even Tarendahardil herself, the City Over the World. Only its black citadel, like a fist above the ruins, continued to defy Ara-Karn. Only the Empress Allissál, the Golden Queen, Elna’s last descendant, would not yield to his advances.

Against her he threw all the spears and arrows of his barbarian hordes. But still her citadel and its Iron Gate defied him.

Also by asotir

Fiction:

Swan’s Road

The Island of Lost Women

Return to the Island of Lost Women

The Killing Sword

Crawlspace

Siren of Creepland

Blood by Moonlight

The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn:

1. The Former King

2. The Divine Queen

3. The Iron Gate

4. Darkbridge

Nonfiction:

Movie Letters, Winter 2009

The Iron Gate

Canto Three of

The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn
§
by Adam Corby
& asotir

Copyright © 2009 by A. Adam Corby

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to
Creative Commons
171 Second Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

Contents

I. The Hooded Man
II. The White Tower
III. The Sontil
IV. The Sending
V. The Shadow of the Barbarians
VI. The Lost Thing
VII. Warriors of Ara-Karn
VIII. The Parley for Peace
IX. The Gerso
X. Siege
XI. Gundoen’s Dream
XII. The Pass of God
XIII. Blossoms
XIV. Erion Sedeg
XV. The Spirits of the Past
XVI. The Way of Fame
XVII. Egland Downs
XVIII. Ampeánor’s Homecoming

Prologue:
Ul Raambar and After

AT THE EDGE of the borders of the Empire nal Bordakasha a forlorn wood grew along the heights. From the wood a narrow goat-track climbed to a gaunt tower perched at the edge of a cliff, bleak and alone. One window in the tower opened to Goddess-Sun, and the gate. All the other openings looked to the dark horizon.

From the wood below broke a band of armored horsemen. They reined their chargers at the foot of the goat-track, and stared up at the tower.

Their trappings boasted copper and silver and fine embroidered signs. But their tunics were filthy, and haggard looks rode their eyes.

‘Think you he’ll be in?’

‘I see none about, not even in the shadow of the walls.’

‘Maybe he was warned.’

Nearby, an old woman crouched behind bushes.

Some goats grazed on the weeds behind her. One kid butted her and bleated. The old woman tugged at the kid’s ears. ‘Hush, child,’ she warned. But the armored men had heard.

‘Old woman! Come here.’

The woman turned and ran.

‘Get her!’

They cut the woman off at the tree-line and drove her back. The old woman flinched when the lanceheads swatted her.

They herded her to the edge of the cliff. Her goatskin shoes almost slid over the brink. She gripped tufts of grass in bony hands and glared up at the horsemen. Beneath those men in mud and armor astride their warhorses, she seemed as fragile as dry twigs.

‘Old woman! We mean you no harm. You’re nought to us. Tell us what land this is, and whose is that tower yonder.’

The old woman straightened. ‘Shouting’s uncalled for,’ she said. ‘I’m not deaf yet.’

‘Tell us then, whether that be the tower of Ghezbal Daan?’

She looked up at the tower as though she had never beheld it before. ‘That is a tower. What Ghezbal Daan do you mean?’

‘How many Ghezbal Daans walk this side of the Lands of the Dead? The mercenary from Ul Raambar – the most famous captain in the lands where men dwell – does that answer you, hag?’

‘We don’t care for warfarers hereabouts, my gentleman, nor strangers either. Yet if it will serve to rid me of you, I’ll tell you. That is the tower of the Raamba.’

‘And are you one of his servants?’

‘I only serve my goats. The land down yonder has been dry these months. It drove us here. What have you to do with the Daan?’

‘Not two months have fled, since the summons went abroad from the Empress Allissál, the Divine Queen in Tarendahardil, that the last civilized cities should band together into a League – the League of Elna. Fightingmen and lords of a dozen cities heeded the summons. It was our last chance to stop the barbarian Ara-Karn. And the man sworn to general the League was none other than Ghezbal Daan.

‘We all believed the doom of the barbarians was come at last. Against the genius of Ghezbal Daan, how could any barbarian prevail?’

Another grunted and spat. ‘If he came. If he had come.’

The first took up his tale again. ‘Ghezbal Daan never came. The Empress chose our own lord, the Charan Fronaril Thibbold, for general, and we went to Egland Downs to await the barbarians.

‘Eighty thousand strong we were: the best of all the Southlands. We had thirty thousand heavy horse, ten thousand skirmishers and stone-throwers, five thousand chariots, and thirty thousand others to swell our ranks. And against us there were no more than two score thousand in all, and them but mere barbarians, renegades and unwilling troops levied from fallen cities. They wore dirty armor, were led by barbarians, and knew little of the art or sciences of war.’

‘If they had only fought fairly, by God’s mailed fist!’

‘We never reached them to strike with our lances or our swords. They fought only with their damned bows, slaying us from afar, out of reach even of the stone-throwers.’

‘Aye – it was a rout,’ said the first. ‘The foot-lancers perished. The chariots were forsaken beside their dead horse-teams. All around us the barbarians roamed, and slew us at their leisure. Dark God wheeled overhead, and many followed Him that pass.

‘Charan Thibbold fell upon his sword in atonement. I was there beside him as he faced Goddess and the Blessed Lands beyond the bright horizon. I steadied him so that the blade should enter cleanly. His ka did not go alone. Sixty thousand corpses, of the finest men of the South, now lie like trampled rushes on that foul field. Fewer than two in thirty escaped. We eight – we are now the Peshtrian army.

‘And now,’ he said, grimly stroking his lance-haft, ‘we are come to put this up the nose of the vaunted Ghezbal Daan, and call him coward and traitor before the ears of all the world. And if he will not stomach that, there are eight swords here, will gladly stomach him!’

The old woman nodded. ‘So,’ she said. ‘You have not heard?’

‘Heard what, old harridan?’

She pointed one bony arm at the tower. ‘Let your own eyes tell you.’

The Peshtrians frowned.

Over the gate one word was carved in the stone, with the likeness of a flower: the flower was the Raamba toloald, and the word, the modest Daan. The iron-studded gate hung ajar, as if left thus by a thing of no intelligence.

The Peshtrians kneed their horses nearer. At that moment, as if the tower were aware of them, a breath of wind rose up from the Marches and swung the gate apart. The Peshtrians looked up from lowered brows. Warily they went into the gate’s embrace.

Within, there was a small courtyard, flint-paved and ringed with shelters for horses and cattle and other beasts. The stalls were vacant. Moveless shadows painted the empty hall within the rust-red tower. The wind made a little moaning sound, redoubling the silence. Not so much as a dog did they find, to whimper at their presence.

The Peshtrians rode back down the trail.

‘Where then?’

The old woman leered at them.

‘Come,’ she said.

She led them to where the precipice broke. There she spread her hands across the Marches.

‘There. Thither has your prey gone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Will you tell us the famous Ghezbal Daan has descended to live as common muck such as you?’

‘Ah.’ The old woman shrugged, and pointed again. ‘No. Ul Raambar.’

They waited, but she said no more. ‘What mean you now? Do you say he has ended his long exile, and gone back into the city where he was born?’

She looked on them strangely, then laughed, the laugh of an old goat. ‘Have you not heard that, either?’

‘Heard what, you foul hag?’

‘Ah, ah – how little you know, for such fine gentlemen, of the tidings of the world!’ She slipped between the horses’ legs, and went amongst her flock. The Peshtrians followed her, angrily bidding her tell them all she knew. But she only scratched her head and led her goats into the wood.

‘Ul Raambar!’ her voice called back to them. ‘In Ul Raambar you’ll find him!’

* * *

The hour for the longsleep found the Peshtrians still mounted. Emerging from the foot of the cliffs, they rode into the Marches. Before them a new path cut the grass, broad as ten horsemen, scored with cart-tracks like lash-marks.

Straight as a lance-haft the trail ran toward the dark horizon, and the Peshtrians followed it. As they journeyed, they asked every herder they met how the hard, dead swath came there. The herders’ answer was ever the same: ‘That be the track of Ghezbal Daan.’

They would say no more.

The peoples of the Marches were of race promiscuous. They had no skill at weapons, held aloof from the cities, and spoke rarely, even amongst themselves. It happened from year to year that a man would weary of city life, and take his family to find space in the Marches. There was always space in the Marches. They swallowed men and the works of men, and left naught but greener grass behind.

It was a land for lonely men, and women forsaken in love, and those for whom the ceaseless whisper of the wind was not a thing unbearable.

The Peshtrians rode close together, clutching at their cloaks.

Before them, inexorably, a wall rose above the far champaign. A wall of mountains, here snow-wigged and iron-gray, there crimson and purple in the slanting light of Goddess: the wall men called Yron Ghadil, the Place of the Knife-Edge. Upon the near side of that wall were light and fields, birds and beasts, palaces, the Empire, and all the lands where men dwell. The far side was darkness, barren and cold – the hideous lands of the Madpriests who reviled Goddess, and drank blood after God.

Only one thing contained the Madpriests on the far side of the Knife-Edged border, and that was Ul Raambar the Unassailable, the city-fastness that stood in the mouth of the only break in Yron Ghadil’s wall. It was said that the spires of the towers of Ul Raambar shone beneath the white plumes of her foundries like a jewel, and that so long as that jewel shone, the cities of the Southlands would prevail.

From Ul Raambar had Ghezbal Daan come with a band of loyal men, when Ankhan of the Strong Heart took the Raamba crown and Lisalya for his Lady. For fifteen years Ghezbal Daan had plied the trade of a mercenary captain. More than a dozen crowns his genius saved, and more than half had been as easy for him to take as an apple on his knees. But always Ghezbal Daan saw his veterans paid and rode back to his lonely tower. For fifteen years Ghezbal Daan shunned the city of his birth. And now he had run back to her as though plague-dogs bit his heels.

The barren track narrowed and failed as the sparse grasses of the hills ceded to stone-flecked earth and rocky ledges. The Peshtrians rested for the shortsleep.

‘Do you think this track of death truly leads to Ul Raambar?’ asked one, shivering beneath his cloak.

The soldiers glanced away.

‘I have never been so near the dark horizon,’ another said.

The first squinted up at Goddess-sun, where She sat like a fattened blood beetle, just upon the bright horizon. ‘And still we have had no sight of the white reek of her foundries. And yet, even if this be not the way to Ul Raambar, it is still the trail of Ghezbal Daan.’

They mounted and went on. Soon the trail joined a trade-route that came by a more devious way to evade the floods of winter.

The trade-route ended at a narrow path leaping back and forth up the mountainside. The Peshtrians halted and made camp. They had encountered no folk then for thirteen passes of the jade moon of God.

Wearily they lay in the shadows of the rocks and passed a bitter, futile longsleep.

They woke as weary as before. They ate the first meal, consuming the last of their provisions. They harnessed their broken horses. Then in single file they led their horses up the narrow steep trail, upward to Ul Raambar.

* * *

South of the ancient trade-route, the wall of Yron Ghadil stepped a pace back, and there the mountains rose so tall that even now in early autumn their peaks were thick with snow. Streams of icewater fell through mantles of thick pine abundant with game. There in rude cabins lived huntsmen and wood-fellers, a hardy, wary lot. For often it happened that a band of Madpriests would steal by unknown ways over the mountains, to murder men and drag off women for their abominable rites. So it was not surprising, when the Peshtrians appeared, that the hill folk met them with axes at the ready.

The soldiers gazed upon the pale-skinned folk where they stood among the pines. The soldiers gazed upon the wood-folk as if they saw phantoms. At length one horseman spoke.

‘What has become of it?’ he asked, his voice cracking as though he had had no drink for many a pass. ‘What has befallen Ul Raambar?’

The wood-folk shrugged and shook their heads. They turned back into the wood.

‘Wait,’ cried the horseman.

A young lad, glancing at his fellows as they waded back into the green, lingered. He had short-cropped hair the color of sand, and his ears stuck out. Wonder glowed out of his big dark eyes as he looked at these mail-clad, brown-faced men. Unlike the others of his kind, he seemed to like their looks.

‘Don’t you want beer and meat?’ he asked.

‘Tell us rather, what has befallen Ul Raambar.’

‘Ay,’ he said. He beckoned. Clumsily, like soldiers carved of wood, they stepped down from their steeds.

He led them to the cool shadow of the pine, where they used the ledgelike boulders for seats. He stood before them, gripping in his hands the hilt of a thick hunting knife, which was a sword in his small hands. Shyly he glanced up at the faces of the men, so strangely darkened by the Sun, like loaves left too long beside the fire. But they sat stonily, awaiting his words.

‘It was them,’ he said. He pointed.

‘Who? The Madpriests?’

The lad nodded, glancing about and brandishing the knife. Not so rashly were the Yonder Folk named in these parts.

‘Yet the Raambas have withstood the efforts of the Madpriests for ten generations of men and more,’ one of the Peshtrians said. He spoke slowly, and the song of his speech was like a beating on a hollow wooden drum, all the notes alike. ‘And but now the Charan Ankhan of the Strong Heart ruled there, and the Chara Lisalya at his side, and no prince in all the South was more famed for justice, strength, or the loyalty of his people.’

‘I know,’ the lad said. ‘They hunted here, and I spied on them. How strong they were! Once they caught me – the soldiers. They took me before Ankhan. Lisalya sat beside him, and smiled at me. There was a flower caught in my shoe – she asked me if I knew where there were others like it. I said, lots. She wanted me to lead her there, and offered to pay me. I was bold and said, only if I might name the price. She laughed and asked what jewels or coins I would have, but I wanted a kiss from her, and one of the soldiers’ knives. They laughed, the soldiers. But Ankhan and Lisalya did not laugh. She held my shoulders in her hands, and she kissed me – here.’ He colored crimson.

‘Then Ankhan handed me this hunting knife, his own. It was forged of Raamba steel – see? I bet not even you have one so fine. Lisalya made me show her the flowerbeds. They were toloalds, and she said she loved them over all other flowers in the world.’

‘But Ul Raambar,’ said the soldiers.

‘Yes, they are gone now,’ the lad said. ‘After it happened, some of them came down here for a while, for shelter. They seemed like the animals when cloudfire strikes too close, and they don’t know where to go, or hardly who they be. But I don’t like to say all they told us, of how it happened. Those folk, from beyond – they came in more numbers than anyone had known since the death of the old lord Garkhan, Ankhan’s father. They came over the walls and swarmed through the Fastness. Oh, they told us horrid tales. The Yonder Folk had – what did they call them – bows.’

‘But bows are the creation of Ara-Karn,’ the strangers protested. ‘None but the barbarians know the secrets of their making.’

‘That’s what they said – the Raamba folk. They never knew such things before, but guessed what they must be. Ankhan, they said, died fighting – I can see him so. But Lisalya, and the other women, and the children, they took into the darkness.’ The boy’s voice failed him.

The strangers’ fingers tightened on their knees. ‘Yet where are the surviving Raambas? We must learn more of this.’

The boy swallowed and shook his head. ‘They’re gone,’ he said. ‘They went with Ghezbal Daan.’

‘Ghezbal Daan? Is he here?’

‘He took them away. In the lower hills, down by the merchants’ road, he met with them. They made a big camp, and shouted and roared so that it sounded like the rock-giants in winter, when they throw stones down at us. And leading them on was Ghezbal Daan.

‘They slaughtered all their goats and burned the meat over long fires, and wrapped it in the skins. And then they went away – yonder. Ghezbal Daan led them. My father’s brother saw them marching through the pass. They sang death-dirges for marching-songs, so old that half the words were nonsense. And the Yonder Folk closed behind them, all along the wall of Yron Ghadil. Ghezbal Daan had vowed a great public oath, that for his former lord’s death he would himself slay – Estar Kane. My father’s brother said the torches lit up all their eyes, so that they seemed almost like they belonged to that place they went.’

The soldiers traded glances. The boy’s eyes were red and wet. He snuffled, and pawed his nose. Half he turned, as if to go. Then he turned back.

‘That was weeks ago, and none has seen them since. But it was not long after Ghezbal Daan went beyond the world’s end that the highland men say they saw great flaring of witchlights over the mountains. Then the lights died, and it has been silent since. There have been no raids since then.’

‘So was that his end?’ one of the strangers mused. ‘O captain, wheresoever you now may be, forgive my hasty words! For now I see it was not cowardice that kept you from Egland Downs.’

‘Please sirs,’ the lad said. ‘Don’t you want beer and cheese and meat? My folk make good beer and cheese. Wait, I’ll bring you some.’ He started off; stopped and turned back. ‘I’ll be quick,’ he said. The men looked at him like pale ghosts behind the owls in the pines. The lad scampered off, and cut at passing branches as he ran.

The Peshtrians watched him. Slowly they twisted their thick, metalclad necks, looked one another in the eye, and away.

One bent and raked his iron-gloved hand through the thick carpet of needles about his boots. The tindery needles sifted between his heavy fingers, and took again their time-wonted attitudes.

‘There passed a true soldier.’

‘Say rather a true lover. Did you not mark the carving on the lintel of his tower gate?’

The leader had said nothing, but only stared after the wood-boy. He stood and looked upon the unspeaking icy peaks, bright against the dusky sky. He mounted his stallion.

They rode around the bend in Yron Ghadil, once more up to ghostly Ul Raambar. And as they ascended in single file the red light of Goddess gleamed like fire from off their muddied, armored backs.

Below the fastness walls they reined in their steeds. Some gazed up at the walls over them, and the gates, which were smashed and broken from the inside. But the youngest turned his horse about and looked back brightward.

The leader drew his sword. He stared at the blade. The fingers wrenched apart, and the blade fell clattering on the stone-lined path.

‘By Goddess,’ he swore, ‘but I am sick with war, though all my life I have plied its trade. Our little Peshtria will buy her peace from Ara-Karn – if he will sell them peace, and not take their gold and slaughter them regardless. And yet I will not see her so despoiled – nor yet have I any great desire to cast away my life in vain stands or despair, as this Captain has done, or as they say Arstomenes of Vapio did long before the barbarians reached him, with vice and gluttonous pleasure. Rather let us leave the world, and all these things behind.’

‘Where shall we go, and how reach it? There are no lands beyond the vast Southern Ocean but paltry isles, unfit for life; and Ara-Karn lords it across the South and North.’

‘Where else,’ he answered, ‘but Darkbridge, and the world beyond?’

The others sat silent a space. ‘Yet what if that be no more than fable?’

‘Why then, we shall meet with that same end which by now doubtless has overtaken Ghezbal Daan. Did we not say and make oath upon it, that we should follow him, even unto the Darklands?’

And so they laid their hands along the shaft of a lance, and their leader said, slowly, mouthing each word,

‘I swear that I shall follow Darkbridge where it leads me, and there fashion out by strength and skill whatsoever life I may, or else perish.’

‘So swear we all,’ the others said.

And they rode up through the shattered gates back into ghostly Ul Raambar.

The mountain-lad came after them. He guessed where they must go. And he waited for the strangers for eight passes of dark God overhead, to share his beer and meat and cheese. But the Peshtrians nevermore returned.

They found Darkbridge instead.

The Iron Gate

I
The Hooded Man

THE IMPERIAL GUARDSMEN ran up the battlements. Lances and man-high shields swarmed the parapet. Wheels turned, ropes strained, and massive blocks of stone were raised from the court below, swung out over space and cut free. The stones fell into thunder and screams.

It was far from Yron Ghadil, where the fabled city Tarendahardil stood by Elna’s Sea. Over it stood the Renda, the jagged black stone on which the Citadel of Elna stood and gave defiance to the barbarians of Ara-Karn.

Great Elna had chosen well when he had made of this mountain his Citadel and seat of strength. Five sides the mountain had, four to fall like glassy walls to the lower city, a hundred fathoms’ height and more, and only the fifth and narrowest faced the plateau of High Town. And here the basalt of the mountain rose in a black cowl, impenetrable and unclimbable, in which the Iron Gate was set.

There each pass men fought and died.

About the base of the Iron Gate swarmed the barbarians of Ara-Karn. They clambered up the mound of earth and timbers that bridged the delving coomb below Renda. With picks, hammers, pries and rams the barbarians hurled themselves against the Iron Gate. They screamed each time another massive block of masonry darkened the sky above their heads like the fist of God.

Some mounted ladders upward toward the battlements, a full ten fathoms over them. From the square three hundred barbarian archers, the finest marksmen of their tribes, aimed death-birds at the battlements to drive the defenders back.

Above and on either side of the battlements rose twin lance-towers, to the north and to the south. The northern lance-tower now was empty, but on the southern one man stood.

He wore a dark green hooded hunting-cloak from Gerso, fastened with a blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg. Under this the wind showed only a simple leather tunic with the trappings of Gerso, the first of the cities to fall to Ara-Karn. The Gerso stood into the winds, his cloak flaring from his back like a jade banner. His hood shaded his face. In his hands he held a strange instrument of curved wood whose two ends were joined by a taut length of gut string. Upon the wall beside him he laid out five of the arrows the barbarians called death-birds. The Gerso picked up the first arrow and drew it against the gut string, so the wood bent to his ear.

The Gerso studied the battlement below. One barbarian champion reached the ladder’s peak, roared and leaped toward the battlement. He leaped but did not land – in midflight his body twisted in the air. An arrow sliced down from the lance-tower and drove into his neck. The barbarian champion clutched at his neck where the blood gouted and spat, and his leap fell short. His corpse struck the black stone and fell into the butcher’s-ground of the coomb.

Another man mounted the ladder. He swung his war-axe against the guardsmen’s man-tall shields, battering the metal and sending them staggering back.

But the man upon the lance-tower took a second arrow, and shot the barbarian’s eye so that the iron beak of the arrow drove deep into his brains, and he fell without a death-cry, like a sack of meal to end his time in the light.

Upon the mound of Earth and timbers the barbarian charge faltered. One old chieftain raised his arm and pointed.

‘The Hooded Man!’

At that shout others raised their heads. The Gerso stood dark against the sky. The barbarian bowmen drew back on their bows until they felt the wood creak under their palms. But their arrows clattered harmless off the stone about the Iron Gate.

On the lance-tower the Gerso took a third arrow, and fitted it to his bow. He pulled back smoothly, and shot the old chieftain in the mouth. The death-bird’s iron beak tore through the old man’s tongue and broke his jaw; his teeth spewed upon the ground. The chieftain fell back. Haln-Gaw he was named, of the Undains: a fierce old man whose sister’s-son Welo-Pharb fought with him in all the cities they had won. He took the arrow shaft in his hands, groaning, and wrenched it from his mouth with a spray of blood and a great tearing of his tongue. He staggered into the arms of his tribesmen, groaning; he would never speak again.

‘God, curse the Hooded Man atop the gate,’ said the barbarians. They feared and dreaded the Gerso more than any other man, for he knew the bow as well as their best.

Some turned then to a tall man at the rear, Kal-Burm of the Vorisals, who was deemed one of the Three Great Bowmen. His bow, strong and double-curved, he had received from the hand of the Warlord himself, and Ara-Karn had made it with his own arts.

‘Why do you hang back, Kal-Burm?’ the warriors asked. ‘Our arrows fall short, but yours could reach the Hooded Man and topple him from his perch!’

Kal-Burm squinted up at the peak of the southern lance-tower. But he shook his head to all their entreaties.

‘Once before I loosed an arrow at the Hooded Man,’ he said. ‘And it was one of the Warlord’s own, a true death-bird that had partaken of the tears of his blood and the icicles of his soul. Never before had that death-bird failed me. Never had it failed to strike what I aimed for; nor did it fail this time when I aimed for him. Never before had that death-bird failed to kill what it hit. But this time it failed. With his own hands, the Hooded Man plucked out the death-bird bloody from his heart, and brandished it at me. I tell you, I will not waste my arrows upon that demon!’

Upon the lance-tower roof, the Gerso gathered back his gear. As ever, his quiver held one last arrow, one he never loosed. It was an arrow longer than the rest, of stout dark wood, straight and with an iron beak curiously and cruelly shaped. It was the death-bird of Kal-Burm, which had plunged into the Gerso’s heart, whence he had pulled it forth.

He drew it from the quiver now, and played with it, twirling it idly between his fingers like a toy.

‘No,’ he murmured to it delicately, letting its sharp iron point caress his lips, ‘I’ll not let you go drink another life. If I send you down to them, they might send you back up to me with their hearty compliments! Twice now you have tasted my heart’s blood; let us not chance a third trial.’

* * *

And so on this pass, as on so many others, their charge ended and fell back. The Iron Gate had yielded to their hammers and rams not at all.

From the sky above dark-winged gerlins swooped and lit among the fallen stones, and set to upon their grisly feast. In happier times the birds, bred from the prize stock of the Imperial Bordakasha house, had fed on table-scraps and the leavings of the nobly born. But since the barbarians laid waste to High Town, the birds had learned the taste of barbarian flesh.

Atop the Iron Gate the guardsmen did off their heavy armor and lay upon the stone. Boys came with jugs of water, and the guardsmen slaked their thirst. Physicians tended the wounded. The dead were laid out reverently.

Captain Berowne, however, would not have his men lose heart.

‘No, do not grieve them, lads, but look instead to the counts. For every man you see here, more than twenty barbarians were slaughtered this pass. My old dad would have called that a good trade. Now these men are free from tours of duty and owed pay.’

‘Do not forget my bounty,’ a calm voice said.

The Hooded Man walked among the wounded men. The physicians nodded, and took care in withdrawing the arrows from the wounded and the dead. In a bloody bundle a water-boy offered them to Gerso. He took them with an odd smile.

‘Hail, Ennius Kandi!’ Captain Berowne said. ‘Your eye was excellent this pass, my friend.’

‘The men I miss this pass will fall to me on a later. And they deliver me their own deaths on these shafts of theirs.’ Placing one tip of the bow against his heel, he unstrung it with an easy motion.

It would not be easy to guess the Gerso’s age. Lines of deep care had been worn about his mouth and eyes, and the set of his jaw was not that of a youth. And yet there upon the Iron Gate, helping in a doomed cause, it seemed the care-lines had been made smooth, so that he looked a young man reborn in an older man’s shape.

‘Never has it ceased to amaze and delight me, this excellence of yours with that damned weapon.’

‘I have your men to thank, that I was able to salvage this bow from the body of that barbarian. As for my skill, it takes but practice.’

Another joined them now from the far end of the battlements. He was short and darkhaired, and wore the devices of the Rukorian provincial soldiery.

‘Greetings, Haspeth, fellow-captain,’ Berowne said. ‘And how did you enjoy the entertainments this waking?’

The Rukorian sat stiff upon the step. Beside him his lieutenant stood at attention. ‘I killed three,’ Haspeth answered shortly. There was no humor in his eyes.

‘Ah – I was good only for two,’ Berowne said.

Berowne, the last Captain of the Guards of the Black Citadel, was as broad and heavy as a lowland ox. His thighs were great as hams, and his fists like club-ends. ‘We captains must hang back from the thickest blows. Such is the price a man must pay for taking the command. Still, being captain has its points – did not Kiva say my armor was the finest she had ever seen?’

‘You are merry this pass, captain,’ Haspeth said.

‘And why not, my friend? Will you have me chew chorjai blossoms because of all of this? Smell the air, how it rises off the sea – look upon the heavens and on Goddess! How shall I withhold my laughter? – Especially now, when upon my last rest I felt the softness of my Kiva’s thighs, and she told me between kisses that there was none other who could take my place in her heart?’

‘No doubt she says the same to Ullerath even now.’

‘No victory is counted sweet without trials, my friend. And I should prove a poor captain indeed, if I let my own lieutenant steal a march on me!’

From a pocket in the pouch on his belt the captain drew a length of pink and violet silk, and held it to his nostrils. After a long moment he released the breath from the broad cage of his ribs, his eyes half-closed.

‘The scent of my Kiva is like none other’s,’ he sighed, restoring the silk to its place. ‘She has it ground for her especially, by a Vapionil love-merchant. I can still recall the first time I inhaled it fully, four seasons ago – or was it five? I was no more than a common fightingman, not even a member of the guard. The dust of my father’s pottery-shop was still in my hair – even so Kiva accepted me among her private circle.’

‘Will we never sit or speak together, but you must sing the praises of this harlot of yours?’ Haspeth said. ‘Speak of war instead, or the state of our provisions.’ The Rukorian set one boot upon the parapet and gazed with tormented eyes upon the conquered city.

‘Your captain is in a sweet mood,’ Berowne said to the other Rukorian. ‘Usually he is milder when he’s had some fat barbarians a-bloody on his lance.’

The lieutenant shook his head. He was thin, with lines spread like bird-tracks from the corners of his eyes. Narrano Delcarn came from the Rukorian Isles, and seemed scarcely old enough to be a fightingman, let alone the lieutenant of Haspeth’s veterans. ‘During the longsleep,’ he said softly, ‘the captain had dreams of Rukor.’

‘I was marshaling the troops before the gates of Torvalinal,’ Haspeth growled. ‘I should be there even now, had I not disobeyed the commands the Empress gave me. Before the armies of the League departed for Egland Downs, she bade me give the command to another, and go myself to Rukor. But I thought that she did not trust my skills as a commander. I left Torvalinal the same pass I reached it, and then returned. I hoped at least to join the armies of the League when they chased Ara-Karn back into the North, and slaughtered to the last every child and sister of the barbarian breed.’

He stamped the parapet. ‘And worst is that I cannot even win a single audience with her majesty to receive her punishment. Each time I go before the doors of the White Tower, I am forbidden entrance by her maidens.’

Berowne sighed. ‘Her majesty has seen no one since her son, the Emperor Elnavis, returned – may his ka arrive at the Blessed Lands this time! Ever since then she has prisoned herself in the White Tower. She sees only her women now.’

‘Tell me about her,’ asked Narrano Delcarn.

The captain’s smile broadened. ‘Oh, of her, lad, none of us lowly ones may speak.’

‘But you have served here in the Citadel many years now, and I have not so much as seen her!’

The captain turned his head upon his thick neck, and looked beyond the rocky wall of the inner set of gates.

Beyond the inner courtyards the Palace mounted dark against the sky, its black stones of the same volcanic basalt of the mountain upon which it had been built. Its the highest tower was of white stone, and upon its summit the Disk of Goddess shone back the blazing light of Goddess-sun. In those upper stories were the chambers of the Empress Allissál, Goddess-upon-earth. One small window broke the pure whiteness of the round wall near the summit. It was said that was the window of the Divine Queen’s own dimchamber, where she lay upon the softness of her couch each sleep.

‘Yes,’ Berowne said, remembering. ‘I have seen her, boy. But seeing’s not the same as knowing. Once I saw duty on the darkward marches of Fulmine, neighboring on Belknule, and saw there a mountain taller than all others, gleaming with ice even in High Summer. That too I have seen, but know no better. Beyond trifles, no man knows a woman’s heart.’

The Gerso charan, sitting somewhat apart from the three others, listened to their words with little showing on his face. With a strangely formed dagger, whose handle was of jade, he attended to the arrows the physicians had gathered for him, scraping their beaks clean of blood.

After a space the Captain said, ‘I grow weary of this endless fighting. Cut and kill, and what do you win? Why do the barbarians abide here, when they have more power, domains and wealth than they could dream? Why not enjoy what they already have? Let Ara-Karn keep the North, but leave us here in peace. Then at least I could spend more time with Kiva.’

‘Perhaps he has not taken all he came to get,’ the Gerso said.

‘Charan Kandi speaks well,’ Haspeth said. ‘Captain Berowne, you grow tired indeed, or else you would not talk thus. Here in this place we can win the greatest glory! Long ago, the barbarians rode across all lands, robbing and slaying as they wished. Only Elna defied them, and drove them into the barren far North. So he won Empire and built his Citadel upon the bones of his enemies. Elna yoked his barbarian captives as slaves, to carve the Iron Gate here and set the foundations of his Palace.

‘Their corpses are mixed with the earth below our beds. That is why Ara-Karn will not depart this place, until the last of us is dead and he has made the Empress, the last of Elna’s kin, suffer the fullness of his vengeance. He is a magician, they say, and has sworn a terrible oath before dark God to destroy us. But Elna too vowed an oath, to stamp out the barbarian kind forever, or else face defeat himself in the end. Well – we are his end now, and must fulfill the oath for him. That is why we must never give up until the last barbarian, even to their children, lies dead.’

‘It may be even as you say, my friend,’ Berowne said, leaning his back upon the stones. ‘But I wish Goddess had chosen someone else to pick up Elna’s banner.’

A horn sounded, marking the hour of the fifth meal, and the changing of the watch. Lieutenant Ullerath relieved the captain, and Berowne went below, with the worn and wounded men of his watch.

A man from the White Tower stood in his chambers. There was excitement on his face.

‘Captain, I have been waiting an hour for you. I bear a message from her majesty’s maidens. The Empress will end her long confinement. Even now she awaits you in her chambers in the White Tower.’

II
The White Tower

THE PALACE OF ELNA was like a city unto itself. Story upon story rose to the sky, its wings and chambers connected in labyrinths. The long corridors bridging those wings were wholly interior, without a single window to admit the light of Goddess. Instead, the gloom was dispelled at frequent intervals by lamps of brass, gold and electrum.

Berowne followed a half step behind his escort. They climbed the upper stories, several floors above the level on which Kiva slept. It was quiet here, and there were few about. The walls were covered with costly tapestries between antique statues. Berowne had never before been admitted to these levels, and felt sadly out of place. Though he had managed to sponge the blood and grime from his limbs, he felt shamed before even the slaves, beauteous and courteous, who passed him here.

At length they reached a circular chamber set with pillars of porphyry. The guard escorting the captain was greeted by his fellows at the doors. Berowne felt a certain diffidence before them. Only those of noble blood were allowed to stand guard before the Imperial chambers.

The men at the door struck the butt of their lances upon the panels of the door, which rang out like musical gongs. The ornately-carven door whispered open from within, and a maiden issued forth.

She was young, and carried herself with artful loveliness. Her russet wig was of the Eglandic style, and her eyes were deep green, painted bewitchingly. Her lora was the hue of antique ivory, and on her arms and about her soft throat were clasped golden bands set with rubies.

Abasing herself with a startling grace before the captain, she beckoned him through the open door. Bewitched, he followed her. The doors shut softly behind them.

He stood within the White Tower.

They crossed another circular chamber, whose walls were adorned with painted porcelain, and whose floor mosaic depicted the Throne of Goddess where She sat in fiery splendor, attended by Her maidens, the Fifty of fabled beauty. A marble stair ascended through an opening in the painted ceiling. Berowne followed the maiden in silence up the steps. He took note of everything he saw: Kiva would be eager to learn about the Queen’s intimate chambers.

They climbed three landings, encountering no one. The musky, exotic scent of the slave was beguiling. Berowne was struck by the perfection of the maiden’s movements, which rivaled even Kiva’s.

And this was but one of her majesty’s slaves!

Upon the fourth landing the maiden halted before a pair of antique doors of darkly oiled wood. Gesturing the captain to wait, the maiden slipped through the doors. Berowne stood, his thick arms clasped behind his back. Alternately he gripped and loosed his wrist. Over his head the stairs spiraled upward, to reach at their peak those doors few indeed had ever seen: those opening upon the intimate dimplace of the Queen.

The maiden reappeared. Her voice was such as to send a thrill up the backbone of any man. ‘O Captain, my mistress bids you enter and attend.’

Berowne nodded. ‘Yet before I enter, sweet one, will you not tell me what will be required of me? Why has her majesty chosen this time to break her long silence? And why has she called upon me first of all?’

The maiden smiled, a secret, maddening thing. ‘Ah, as for that, my brave Captain, it is only for the Divine One to speak.’

At a murmured word from the slave’s scarlet lips the doors fell open again. For a moment Berowne felt a nervousness such as he never knew when a thousand barbarians swarmed the Iron Gate. He lurched forward. He heard the soft whispering of the maiden’s lora as she closed the doors behind him.

* * *

It was dark as a dimplace there.

The long, low chamber was swathed in hangings of black linen. The floor was buried beneath patternless blue-black carpets. At the far end the curving outer wall of the chamber was broken in a single, narrow window. The hangings were affixed long wreaths of dried chorjai blossoms, the poisonous blossoms of dark God used in funerary rites. The warmth and gloom of the chamber caressed Berowne like velvet hands.

Upon a dais near the outer wall an antique throne gleamed with gold and jewels. Around the throne were grouped half a dozen maidens in loras like that of Berowne’s green-eyed conductress. Each of these maidens was of a different sort of beauty, each lovelier than the rest. The scene reminded Berowne of the mosaic below; yet the throne itself was vacant.

Before the dais, on a small reed prayer mat overlying the carpets, knelt a priestess. She was garbed all in black linen. Nothing of her figure or her head could be seen as she knelt over a golden lamp adorned with pearls. Other than the window, this was the only source of light within the room.

As the captain slowly approached, the priestess lifted her head, and in the shadow of the wide black cowl Berowne beheld her face. It was not a human face. It was gold, cast and polished in the ancient manner, like the oldest statues on the grounds of the Citadel. The lamplight glinted off the gold oddly. He stopped, blinking. For once in his life, he was speechless.

Perhaps a dozen moments passed.

Berowne felt the eyes of the slave-girls upon him. They were watching him with mischief in their painted eyes. Still there was no sign of the Empress. At his feet the priestess gestured. She said, in a voice made metal and mute by the prison of her mask, ‘Please, Captain, to be seated.’

There were no couches, seating-cushions, or chairs other than the throne itself. Berowne squatted down upon his boot-heels. He caught the odor of his body, and felt like some wild ox dragged up out of the mire and set on display before the most elegant charai and their servants. The thought almost made him smile. His nervousness departed.

‘And are you truly Captain of the Guard, sir?’ the priestess asked. ‘I had expected another. What has become of the young Rukorian, he who held the post before the city fell?’

‘Your pardon, reverence,’ Berowne answered, ‘but my foregoer went into the city, to do battle on the barricades. He never returned. In his absence, I took command. I was his lieutenant. I am Berowne, a born Tarendahardilite.’

‘I see.’

The priestess was silent for a moment. Then, ‘I had not foreseen this,’ she said softly. ‘I gave the Rukorian the strictest orders, that nor he nor any of his men were to join that battle, but were to remain here and oversee our preparations. Did he not convey my wishes to you? What caused him, too, to disobey me?’

Now Berowne knew the one to whom he had been speaking so casually. He jerked his upper body forward and put his forehead on the carpet.

‘Your majesty, I did not know you – forgive me—’

The golden mask showed no emotions. ‘I pray you, do not apologize, Captain. Nor offer me those tokens of honor a former custom demanded. I am Divine Queen of Tarendahardil, the Empress nal Bordakasha of the South, no more. What lands or peoples remain, which still would bow to me? I am only what you see before you, a solitary woman humbled by her faults. Only the strength of your arms preserves me. Speak then as you please. Or, if you will give me any honor, address me as you have done, as though I were but one of the virgin priestesses of Goddess.’

Berowne nodded, taking careful note of the faces of the slaves. ‘Yes, your reverence.’

‘Tell me then, Captain Berowne, how goes the defense?’

Berowne told her of the assaults the barbarians had made in the past weeks. ‘Yet the Iron Gate is scarcely scratched, your reverence. Elna’s engineers were geniuses, who designed such fortifications.

‘As for the rest,’ he went on, ‘we have ample stock of grain and cattle to last us two good years. The cisterns are half full, and the slaves tell us that the winter rains will easily fill them. The folk from the city are encamped on the grounds, and seem content enough. If we have but the will, we may withstand a siege here for some years, perhaps even without end.’

‘Ah,’ the Queen said. Berowne did not know what to make of that.

‘Captain, you have done me an honor to give up precious rest to visit me here. I am grateful to you for it. It has reached me that another attack was mounted during your watch. My maidens saw it from the rooftop. All went well, I hope?’

‘Exceedingly well, your reverence. Haspeth joined me, and there was much excellent killing.’

‘Haspeth, the Rukorian captain? What does he here?’

Berowne could not restrain his smile. All of Haspeth’s waiting and wailing without those doors below, and not even word of his presence had reached her majesty’s ears.

‘Your reverence, he told me of the orders you gave him, before Egland Downs. He is deeply grieved to have gone against your wishes, and would suffer any punishment to make amends.’

‘Punishment? Who am I to punish anyone – anyone but one? No, let this be Haspeth’s punishment, that he might have been my General and done the barbarians great harm, but now can only wait and watch with the rest of us. Who else among your men distinguished himself?’

‘All the men fought bravely, your reverence. But one man I ought to mention, because though not of my command, he has inflicted more harm to the barbarians than any other three. This is a refugee from the southern lands, your reverence, a Gerso by his birth, and a nobleman – the Charan Ennius Kandi.’

The Queen passed her long, lovely fingers across the edge of the prayer-mat. ‘Ah.’

‘Yes, your reverence. Your reverence perhaps will recall how among the Emperor’s men there were several who had stolen bows from the barbarians, and knew their use. Regrettably, when High Town fell and the City burned, not one of those men survived. We did, however, by the most unforeseen of circumstances, manage to retrieve the bow of one of them, and his arrow-sack. Our Gerso, learning of this, told us he had seen the strange weapon used so often, that he thought he might learn its use. Now I would wager that he is a better shot than the barbarians, if your reverence will allow it.’

‘I will allow it. And he aids you?’

‘In this and other ways, though that alone would have marked him. It was he who designed the cranes and slings we use to drop stones upon the barbarians below the Iron Gate. He showed me how many men should stand on the battlements, and what space should lie between them. He also conferred with the armorers and gave them the designs for the new shields we bear, which are the greatest defense against the arrows, and yet leave a man’s lance-arm free. When all is done, your reverence, no man is so responsible for the good state we now find ourselves in, and I would ask your reverence to keep his name in mind, when the time comes for honors and rewards.’

‘Such a virtuous man, surely no worthy monarch could overlook,’ she said.

Just then a sound came from the narrow window. A great bird filled it, its talons digging into the mortar between the stones. Gleaming black were its feathers, with a saffron ruff above its breast. It was an enormous gerlin.

The maidens showed their fear and drew back behind the throne. But the Queen rose and made her way toward the window, holding a short stick before her.

Berowne stood to his feet. ‘Reverence, stay apart from such a creature. A gerlin that size will respect neither sticks nor swords. I have seen them rip apart the barbarian corpses below the Iron Gate. Let me fetch a lance and I will chase it out.’

The Queen ignored him. She stopped one step from the window. The gerlin glared at her with suspicious eyes. It pecked at the stick. Once again she proffered the stick. ‘Come, my lord,’ she said. ‘You taught me my place: now take yours.’

The great bird stepped upon the stick. A soft note of triumph sounded in the Empress’ throat. She turned, holding the bird perched before her.

A woman all in black, her face obscured by the antique likeness of Goddess, holding before her breasts a savage bird of prey beside a vacant jeweled throne round which seven of the most slave-girls in the South clustered in awe, pleasure and admiration – Berowne had never beheld a scene to equal it. He shook his head.

‘You are startled, captain,’ the Empress said, stroking the gerlin’s head. ‘Forgive the deception, but I was in no danger. For if you behold me at all now, it is due to none other than this bird before you. It was on a longsleep, and I lay in my dimchamber at the height of this tower, wakeful yet wearied, surfeited with dreams, wary of life, so sick at heart that I had all but lost hope. Then a noise alerted me.

‘This very bird had entered my chamber, and was wheeling frantically about beneath the ceiling, searching a way out again. He was half-starved, I think. I gave him water and named him Niad, which means in the old tongue of the South, “A Beginning.” Only then did I give thought to the siege, and what was best for us to do.’

‘That is a marvel,’ Berowne said. ‘I think none but one of the gods’ children could bring such a thing to hand. Yet if your reverence will pardon me, as gentle as this bird might seem now, he remains a wild thing, and might turn at any moment. I have seen gerlins not half this one’s size rip a barbarian to death, despite all his fellows could do to forbid it.’

‘Yet Niad’s greatest grandfather knew ours, I think. And I would follow in the footsteps of my ancestors.’

The green-eyed maiden approached her mistress bearing a silver vessel, in which were several bloody scraps of meat. The Empress fed the gerlin, which swallowed the gobbets as avidly as if it tore them from a fresh corpse. Then the Empress walked back to the window and released the gerlin.

‘Will you scratch?’ she murmured, in the tones Berowne had heard hetairai use with pets. ‘Go then, and claw the eyes of our enemies.’ The bird uttered a high, piercing cry, and scampered out the window.

The Queen resumed her place upon the prayer-mat. ‘And now we shall come to why I sent for you, Captain. Will you take wine while we speak?’

‘Thanks to your reverence. Would it be overmuch to request some bit of Postio?’

‘You will have all you desire.’

‘Your reverence, I hope I do not have all I desire. Or else you will need to summon some to carry me hence bodily. Postio is a favorite of mine – some would say a weakness.’

The green-eyed maiden set before Berowne a low table with a broad wine cup. From a porcelain ewer she poured the cup full of the dark, foaming wine.

Berowne took up the wine cup, feeling the metal warming in the cradle of his calloused flesh. ‘Will your reverence take nothing?’

‘The dead do not drink. But go you on.’

He held the liquid in the hollow of his mouth for a heartbeat before allowing it to drain with the slow torture of honey down his throat. He felt the wine work its way into his upper stomach. By the thighs of Goddess, but that was good! Already he could feel its fire dance about his veins. It lacked but the lips of Kiva to have borne him beyond the bright horizon. After a moment he opened his eyes.

‘Captain Berowne, you were, I think, aware of our orders that none of you of the Citadel Guard were to go down to the barricades before the final battle. Yet your predecessor went openly. Why did you not try to stop him or report his disloyalty?’

‘If it please your reverence, what else was I to do? Should I slay him, and deprive the barbarians of an able enemy? No – but I gave him a jug of Postio to fire his strength there. When a man has the need on him to do a thing, let it be to gain gold, fight a war or possess a woman, then there is nothing left for his friends but help him seek his fate. A man who could swallow back such passions is not a man at all, but a thing without fire, cold and cunning, not to be trusted.’

‘Is a man who disregards the command of his sovereign a man to be trusted?’

‘Trusted for what he is, for his nature – yes, your reverence, he is.’

‘Explain.’

Berowne drank another mouthful.

‘I mean, your reverence, that every man is something tangible, no matter how much he may try to dissemble away that true nature he carries. In my dad’s pottery shop, the buyers would come and go, and some men’s word was good, and other men would always try to cheat, no matter if they could easily afford the price. It was their nature to scrape and connive, even as it was the nature of the others to pay without bargaining. Now, this Rukorian was a man something after the heart of the High Charan Ampeánor. It was not in his nature to stand by and save himself while others fought. So he went. He could be trusted to go, and not trusted to do any other thing. That was my meaning, your reverence.’

She nodded, as if his words had borne weight. Well, he thought to himself, perhaps they had. One could never tell with Postio. He took another mouthful.

‘And you, Captain – what is your nature?’

He glanced slyly to the maidens. ‘Oh, your reverence – shall I say plainly? I was born to love women. When I see them in their beauty, even though I know them to be utterly faithless, something in my belly sings, and I want to follow at their tails. So I became a soldier – it is the best profession for one such as I am. The hours are good, and the glint of armor has a certain appeal – and then, there is the danger. Never am I more ready to love than when I have freshly come from death and clamor and the stink of arms.’

His voice sounded loud and boastful in the quiet chamber. Berowne looked down somewhat shamefully. Why had he asked for Postio? He cursed himself, but happily. Sadness was impossible when a man drank Postio.

‘Well, captain, if you have a mind for it, I can offer you the chance to be as eager for love as you have ever been in your life.’

At her gesture, the maidens left the room. Berowne wiped the corner of his mouth. He tried to steady the rush in his brain. This was why she had sent for him. He must play the captain now.

‘Captain, I have a task for you to perform – for you or for one of your men. It should be a man of daring and cleverness, and he should know the City well. For that is where I mean to ask him to go.’

‘Your reverence, I was born and raised here. There is not a street or building I do not know.’

‘He should also know the tongue of the barbarians.’

Berowne frowned. ‘Then I am not the man, your reverence. Nor is there one in my command who knows even so much as I – for I learned some words from two Gerso merchants who came hither some months ago. I know of only one man, your reverence: this Gerso of whom I spoke earlier. Ennius Kandi knows the barbarian tongue well enough to have been born to it.’

‘Yet I should prefer to choose some other, I think,’ the Empress answered. ‘All the more so if this man does such fine work here. In truth, I know him: he was once one of a group of men I sent abroad upon various errands. It would be unfair of me, I think, to ask him go out into such danger again. On the whole I think he has done his share for me. But I know another who might do.’

She rose, and touched the wall behind the throne. One of the maidens entered and abased herself.

‘Bijjame,’ the Queen said, ‘bid Kuln-Holn attend us here.’ The lovely, white-wigged maiden gave her mistress a further obeisance and departed. The Empress resumed her place upon the prayer-mat.

‘Yet your reverence,’ Berowne said, ‘how is it possible that we might slip past the barbarians? There are always a score or more of them spying on the Iron Gate.’

‘There is a way. It is known to but two other living souls besides myself. It is an ancient secret of the Bordakasha, handed down from Emperor to Emperor. Elna’s engineers built it into the Citadel. Elna meant it to victualize the Citadel in case of siege. It is a sure way, yet not, perhaps, a way without peril.’

‘And what would your reverence have us do once we gain the city streets?’

‘You have done battle many times on the Iron Gate, captain. How many barbarians are there camped outside the city?’

‘In all?’ Berowne scratched his chin, considering. ‘I could not even guess. There are not above a thousand men in any one attack, but that is not a tenth of the numbers we know they had before Egland Downs.’

‘Even so. There is space for only so many men to assault the Iron Gate at any one time – for the rest, we cannot say. Perhaps they are in those tents in the field – perhaps they have long ago departed. Perhaps they wage war in Rukor or Belknule, or farther to the South, toward the dark horizon. Perhaps there are only some two or three thousands of them without the city here. If so, then there are things we might be doing. It little suits me, Captain, that having broken this long sleep, I do no more than endure assault upon assault, while our stores dwindle. Let us at least dream of counterstrokes.’

He nodded.

‘So, Captain Berowne, I would ask you to go into the camp of Ara-Karn.’

Berowne sat back upon his heels. The savagery of the barbarians was legendary. Still, he thought, Kiva would be especially solicitous of him before he went. And, if he could return, he would earn the highest praise of the Empress herself. He might even become her general, or even when all this was ended, be granted a charanship somewhere about the realm. Charan Berowne! It was not a thing to put aside. He gulped down the last of the wine, even to the bitter lees.

With all the grace he could muster, he made the formal obeisance of acceptance.

‘It but remains to find you ears,’ she said as the door opened behind him. The slave led in a short, paunchy, gray-headed man. He looked like a peasant come from a half-tilled field.

The short man made a clumsy abasement before the Queen. ‘How goes it, Kuln-Holn?’ she asked.

‘Well enough, your majesty,’ he said. His voice betrayed a thick northern accent.

‘Captain Berowne, I present to you Kuln-Holn, my beloved servant. Do not be deceived by his appearance: he is a most capable and deadly man. He was born in the North, and speaks the barbarians’ tongue as well as any tribesman.’

‘Indeed he does,’ Berowne agreed. ‘Your reverence, this man and I are old comrades. Often he shares the men’s watches. Forgive me that I did not think of him before. But the name you use is new to me. We call him simply Iocantris, “Little Doughty.” ’

‘It is well that you know his worth, captain. Kuln-Holn, sit and be at ease. I called you here to ask of you a great service. This Captain means to go into the enemy camp. It were better if he went with one who knows the tongue of the far North. Will you go with him?’

There was doubt upon Iocantris’s forlorn face. At length he bowed his head. ‘All right,’ he said.

The Queen spoke again, using the barbarian tongue. Little Doughty answered in like manner. Berowne caught only a word or two. The Empress seemed to be examining the man’s resolve, while Kuln-Holn was plainly in some pain of heart. At last he bowed again, and the Empress nodded.

‘All is agreed,’ she said. ‘Captain, I have impressed upon Kuln-Holn the need for secrecy. You are neither of you to speak a word of any of this, least of all of the secret way, to anyone. Not to your closest, most trustworthy friend – not even to your dearest love.’

‘Of course not, your reverence.’ Berowne wondered how he could tell Kiva enough to impress her without breaking this word to her majesty.

‘Now rest. I will see you freed from your watches, Captain. Haspeth will take your place. When you are refreshed, I will tell you what you need to know.’

Descending once more the ornately-carven stairs, Berowne laughed, and clapped Iocantris on the shoulder. It had come to him suddenly, that when Kiva pouted and demanded of him why he came to her so late, he could astonish her. And the next time Ullerath came a-knocking at Kiva’s door, Berowne could order the Eglander away.

* * *

In the long low, black-draped chamber, the Empress Allissál reached forth her hand and slew the flame of the golden lamp. She sat alone there now, in silence save for the low sussuration of winds that passed without.

The maiden Bijjame entered and laid her ivory-draped body before her mistress.

‘Reverence, the Charan Ennius Kandi has come again. He asks to be allowed an audience.’

‘Let him depart as before.’ The slave-maiden rose. ‘Bijjame, before you leave, tell me: do the slaves still keep a watch upon all the movements of that man?’

‘Yes, your reverence. Two men watch him, dividing the hours so he is never out of their knowledge. But he has done nothing unusual.’

‘Have them continue the practice, please, and inform me when there is something out of the ordinary to report. For the common details of his existence here, I do not want to be told.’

‘Yes, reverence.’ The tall, lovely slave backed out of the chamber.

The room fell darker for a moment. The rustling of feathers sounded at the window. The deadly gerlin had come back.

‘So, Niad, I have awakened at last,’ she said, without turning. ‘I wonder, to do what?’

III
The Sontil

FAR FROM TARENDAHARDIL, brightward of the grassy steppe of the Eglands, a chain of mountains ran North to South. As hills and islands, the chain leapt up from Elna’s Sea; as it ran South it swept darkward, like the bent of a well-made shield. Brightward of the mountains were Goddess, the Desert, and the sunstruck cities of Postio, the Delbas, Ilkas, Bollakarvil. Darkward lay the fertile lands of the Empire. Between them stood the mountains, a waste of rock and cold. None dwelt there, not even wolves. Not even the terrible armies of Ara-Karn, that had crossed the burning wastes of the Taril itself, had dared mount those slopes, but had instead marched beneath them, invading the Empire by the Southern Way of Vapio.

In the shadow of those mountains was a region even more shunned.

It was a forest. Yet no mere notion of forest could encompass that ancient, brooding, sullen land. It was furtive, secretive, shameful, like some stagnant, unwholesome sea.

Of the rains that fell upon the mountains, one part fell upon the sunward side, two upon the shadow. The sunward waters fed the Delba, the second-greatest river in the South. The waters of the shadowside drained into fens and brackish pools, whence no river survived.

Runaway slaves from time to time escaped into that forest, to live like beasts away from the cruelty of their masters. Many entered, none returned. It was said that they shed their clothing and went on all fours, and they became strange and forlorn monsters, feared even by the beasts.

Pharokul, seventeenth Emperor of Tarendahardil, commanded that a road be built through the southern fringes of the forest. Pharokul desired a road shorter than the Sea Way between Bollakarvil and Tarendahardil. Imperial engineers reported that the soil upon which the road would rest was firm, dry and level. Ten thousand laborers, under the command of the finest engineers, set forth to build the roadway.

In less than a week, ten passes of dark God overhead, all messages from the camp ceased. Three passes later, when the first supply train reached the campsite, it found a scene of horror. The camp walls were broken and scattered like straw. Tools and scraps of clothing were strewn everywhere. The beaten earth was pungent with human blood and refuse. In seven passes’ search not one body, nor any part of one, was found.

Ten thousand men had vanished.

They had completed two fastces of the roadway, less than the distance a man could walk in an hour.

This forest, ancient beyond even the legends of the high kings of Vapio, would not even own a name. Upon the Imperial maps it existed as a shapeless stain upon the parchment, marked simply Sontil, the Wood.

Birds, it was said, rarely flew over the Sontil.

Wood cut from the trees of the Sontil, when burned, released a smoke that was poisonous to all living things.

Other things were also said of the Sontil, but they were less believable.

Inozelstus of Anoth, the legendary traveler and philosopher, ventured beyond the knife-edged border and spent a season among the Madpriests, being every moment in danger of his life. But he never dared set foot within the Sontil.

The trees of the Sontil rose and fell like tidal currents of some painted sea. Upon one hill-like swell of that fantastic growth, a orin tree rose above the others like a stone tower. Older than Elna was that tree, scarred by lightning and stormwind yet balefully defiant; its roots clutched the hill upon which it grew like a knotted fist.

In the windwoven, uppermost branches of that monument of branch and leaf, a tiny figure clung. The winds parted the leaves and revealed the figure in greater detail.

It was the figure of a man.

Piebald in the shadows of the leaves, wrapping both arms about the branches, his mouth loose and open in the too-swift air, the lord Ampeánor, High Charan of Rukor and betrothed of the Empress Allissál, looked out on the Sontil.

When the winds abated somewhat, he made his way back down the trunk.

He wore a simple woolen tunic, shoes of soft leather, a belt, and a torn shoulder-mantle. A sword was tied to his back and a heavy war-knife caught in his belt. His legs and arms were brown, his hair long, his beard grown full.

As he descended, he climbed down into darkness.

The light of the upper branches gave way to shadow, the shadow of the middle branches gave way to gloom.

In an hour, Ampeánor reached the lowest branches, dead now for centuries, brittle, leafless, and dry. He hung ten fathoms above the forest floor. It was so dark that he could only dimly make out the ground. Distant overhead danced a scattering of pallid points. That was all of Heaven that reached here.

Ampeánor climbed down another six or seven fathoms. He reached the lowest branches. He hung for a moment by his arms, then let go. He landed in a thick growth of grayish moss that broke beneath him with the sound of a wet sponge. From the gash mounted a sickening exhalation.

Tethered to the orin’s grotesquely-arching giant roots, a warhorse waited. Ampeánor offered the beast a bundle of leaves he had gathered at the summit. The horse nibbled it, then turned away. Ampeánor stroked the horse’s flank. He felt bones beneath the slack, dry skin. His heart went out to the warhorse. It had been a fine beast when he took it from the stables of his estate on the outskirts of Tarendahardil. It had been one of his best for strength and endurance.

‘Your horse is dying, Southron.’

Some paces away, a half-naked figure was bound to the high arch of a root. His head was round like a ball and set directly into the great barreled chest. His arms were long and massive, the legs short and knotted as the root to which they were tied. If an ox had mated with a hardy woman, this man might have been their issue.

Such was Gundoen, chieftain of the far North.

Ampeánor untied him so that he was free of the root but his arms and knees were still fettered.

He answered him in the barbarian tongue. ‘Do you want to eat?’

Gundoen shrugged. Despite his bonds, it was a disdainful gesture. ‘Do you want to feed me?’

* * *

Ampeánor ate on the bank of a dark, oily stream at the foot of the hill. The barbarian lay a few paces away. Ampeánor had left a bit of meat and a wooden bowl filled with water by the barbarian’s head. The bonds never came off.

It seemed to Ampeánor as though they had gone far enough to have reached the dark horizon by now. But even from the summit of the orin he had glimpsed no end to these woods.

He groaned softly.

What went on in the world outside? Was the League of Elna formed? How far had the barbarian armies marched? Had Allissál recovered? And what of the Gerso, Ennius Kandi? Ampeánor knew he was a traitor – perhaps the man had been found out by now?

‘Hey – Southron,’ the barbarian said. ‘What’s that around your neck?’

Ampeánor saw that the tooth had slipped above his tunic during the climb. Heavy, longer than a span, the tooth curved to a wicked yellow point.

‘A gift.’

‘That is a Darkbeast tooth,’ the barbarian said. ‘Only the bravest of our hunters have the right to wear one. Only those who have helped bring down a Darkbeast with their own spears. And Darkbeasts dwell only about the foothills of Urnostardil in the far North. They are huge as huts, with hides tough as armor. They can devour a pony in a single gulp. Not even I have hunted Darkbeast. How did a Southron come by a Darkbeast tooth?’

Ampeánor did not mind the barbarian’s insults. The silence here needed words, even with such a one as this. ‘Gen-Karn, your former Warlord, presented it to me in Tezmon. He is our ally now, and works against your god-king.’

‘He is dead,’ Gundoen answered. ‘The hand of Ara-Karn reached out and snatched him from afar.’

The hand of the Gerso rather, Ampeánor thought. He bound the barbarian to the root once more. Ampeánor’s ribs still ached from the time the barbarian had caught him unawares and knocked him sprawling.

‘Sleep well, barbarian. Next waking we go faster.’

Ampeánor settled himself in the damp moss. Deep in those malignant woods, his dreams were never peaceful. After a time he opened his eyes.

The barbarian slept soundly, but before Ampeánor stood another figure. It was the figure of a bent old woman wrapped in rotten folds of cloth festooned with curling leaves of strange colors.

Ampeánor recognized her as Melkarth, the ancient seeress whose hut stood at the border between the mountains and the Sontil.

She leaned on a carven staff and leered at him. ‘You were not right, my lord,’ she croaked, ‘to use my name in your lies. Do you not know that this man’s woman is a sister of mine? Now it will be the worse for you.’

She turned into the gloom.

Ampeánor called after her. ‘Wait! What can you tell me of the wars, and of Allissál?’ But she neither paused nor answered.

He stood, minded to follow her, but in the movement started as if waking. He looked about. He could not tell if it had been truth or dream.

The barbarian eyed Ampeánor coldly. Ampeánor caught up his sword.

‘Free me, let us eat and be gone,’ Gundoen growled.

Ampeánor untied him from the root. ‘And how did your sleep go, barbarian? Not comfortably, I hope.’

The massive shoulders shrugged as if in pain. ‘I dreamed of my wife, Hertha-Toll.’

* * *

The barbarian stumbled, and Ampeánor rode distractedly. They made poor progress. Ampeánor was not sure which way to go. After the fifth meal, he was reluctant to start again. The half-rotten wood of his fire burned poorly, with a great deal of smoke.

Ampeánor looked from the flames to the barbarian. The blood of Ampeánor’s kill had run over the barbarian’s beard and further stained his filthy, bug-ridden tunic. Even so the chieftain was impressive, even dignified.

‘Northman,’ Ampeánor said at length, gazing back into the flames. He spoke, but he would have preferred to remain silent.

‘Yes.’

‘Your fellows have abandoned you.’

Gundoen snorted. ‘They set trackers on our trail. They were fine men, among the best trackers of the far North.’

‘You recognized them?’

‘I knew their calls.’

‘Those men are dead. I killed them.’

‘How do you know?’

Ampeánor looked up. ‘You saw their heads.’

‘It was not an unworthy deed,’ the barbarian said. ‘But how do you know you took then all?’

‘If there were others, they lost our trail long ago. No one pursues us now.’

‘Others will come.’

‘They will never find you. There are only the two of us here. If we parted, you would be as lost as I am – more so.’

‘I know my way through woods.’

‘What would you do if I freed you?’

‘I think first I would crack your ribs between my arms. That was a wrestling-hold I ever liked.’

‘Chieftain, I am in earnest.’

Gundoen frowned. ‘You would free me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cut loose these bonds? Let me sleep and walk as a man?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let me go back to my warriors?’

‘No.’

Ampeánor rose and walked around the fire. The smoke stung his eyes, drawing water.

‘What then, Southron?’

‘What has gone on in the world these past weeks? The lamed pace we keep is too slow. If you were free, we could go faster. You could help me hunt.’

‘And how will you know I won’t murder you in your sleep?’

‘You will swear an oath to remain and work me no ill.’

‘An oath upon the head of your Empress?’

‘An oath upon your people, your wife, and the first chieftain of your tribe.’

The barbarian growled. ‘And how do you know our ways so well, that you can pick the oath I would never break?’

‘Will you swear?’

‘As soon as we reach your land, I will be bound by no oaths. I will not go like a mare into the dark grove of your city.’

‘When we reach the Eglands, Tarendahardil will not be far. Then I will bind you again, and release you from your oath. It is only while we are here in the Sontil I will have your word.’

The barbarian shook his head.

Ampeánor sighed. He went to see to his poor horse. He stretched out beneath his cloak. The fire was now reduced to a few wan embers, and the dark, damp Sontil was cold with winter’s heralds.

‘Southron.’ Now it was Gundoen who spoke reluctantly.

‘Yes.’

‘I will swear your oath.’

The silence of the wood filled the little space. ‘Then speak it.’

‘By my people, by my wife, and by Tont-Ornoth, first chieftain of my tribe, I will not harm you or try to flee while we are in these woods. Cut me free now, that I may sleep in ease.’

Ampeánor rose and cut the barbarian’s bonds. Then he returned to his place, drew his cloak over him, and closed his eyes.

Across the fire, Gundoen chafed and slapped his wrists and ankles. Then the barbarian went to the stream by which they had camped. He splashed in the water and beat his tunic on a rock to dry. He scratched a bed out of the moss and bark and began to snore.

Ampeánor, lying moveless with war-knife in hand underneath the cloak, got no rest at all that sleep.

When the time came for the end of sleep Ampeánor rose. Gundoen rose as well. The two men regarded each other.

Something had happened, but Ampeánor did not like to think what it was.

He had begun to trust the barbarian.

* * *

They made good progress thereafter. Ampeánor rode while Gundoen ran alongside, leaping like an animal. They hunted together and took counsel on their way. They even found a path, bare and hard as a stone, and three fathoms wide.

Ampeánor was thankful for it for a boon of Goddess, but Gundoen shook his head.

‘What troubles you?’ Ampeánor asked.

‘Lend me your knife.’ The barbarian thrust the blade into the ground. He pried up a chunk and crumbled it in his fingers. A bit of it he tasted, then spat with a growl. ‘I do not like this trail.’

‘Why?’

‘Taste the dirt yourself.’

Ampeánor smelled it. The dirt did give off a strange odor. It seemed to Ampeánor he had encountered the odor long before, and yet he knew he never had. ‘What do you fear?’

Gundoen grinned like a calynx baring its teeth. ‘I do not fear my death much, and yours even less.’

‘Gundoen, I will follow this trail. I know not what men or beasts may have formed it in the past, and I do not care. It goes the way we want, and will bring us faster out of the wood.’

‘Then kick your horse’s rump and move, Southron.’

For two passes they followed the trail. The path remained the same width and for the most part ran straight before them like the nether half of a manmade tunnel. Now and then it curved one way then the other, like a wriggle, before taking back its constant course.

They found no beasts near that path. They were forced to consume dried meat from past kills.

On the third pass the trail began to slope downward. At first Ampeánor thought they were descending the side of a hill, but when the two men lay down for the longsleep the land still fell before them and the light was dimmer, so that Ampeánor knew they were descending into a great valley.

All the next waking they followed the path down into the earth. Only vague forms could be perceived beyond twenty paces in the darkness. Ampeánor was uneasy, but little minded to admit that he had been wrong and the barbarian right. Besides, the memory of Melkarth hung upon his mind. He had begun to feel a dread of this wood, and longed to be free of it.

After the fourth meal, the barbarian spoke. ‘We better go faster, Southron.’ Ampeánor had slowed their pace. In the growing darkness he feared for his horse.

‘Why? Will you still not tell me?’

‘You will know that sooner than you please.’

‘I’ll not risk my steed.’

‘He is dead now, Southron.’

‘He soon will be if I make him go faster with his burden.’

‘Then give me its burden.’

The barbarian unslung the pack from the horse’s flank. The wood-axe clanked against one of the pans, and the lance swung through the air. Gundoen threw the heavy pack across his shoulders and started down the path in long strides.

‘Not so quickly!’ Ampeánor cried, but the barbarian paid no heed. ‘Stay, curse you! What of your oath?’

The barbarian was lost in darkness. Weirdly muffled by the packed earth of the black trail, his voice came back to Ampeánor:

‘Oaths mean nothing when dead men hold them!’

Ampeánor cursed, and pricked the horse. The horse stumbled and fell and Ampeánor struck the hard, slimy earth. He heard the horse trotting down the path. It nickered as it went, though from what, fear or anger? Ampeánor could not tell.

He pushed himself to his feet. His leg, which had been wounded in the wreck of Elpharaka’s ship, was numb with pain. He glanced about in the darkness. Barbarian and horse were gone. Ampeánor was alone. The silence was as deep as the darkness, deaf as well as blind. He still had his sword and his war-knife. The barbarian had the lance, the great bow, the woodaxe, and the last of their food.

If it came to a struggle between them now, the barbarian would win an easy kill.

Ampeánor limped down the path. He had to get back his captive. He would not return to Tarendahardil alone.

There was a movement in the stagnant air, full of an alien, repellent odor – the odor of the earth below his feet, greater by a hundredfold.

He was aware of a monstrous presence in the darkness.

The true nature of the danger now occurred to him. He began to run.

A frightful bellow shook the earth behind him.

IV
The Sending

WHEN WORD of the Empress’ refusal was conveyed to Ennius Kandi, he went down from the Palace halls into the open air of the courtyards.

All about him stretched grounds which once had been lovely with the statues and walkways of the Imperial Gardens. Now refugees huddled upon the small heaps of their belongings, awaiting the next sleep or meal.

Some slept in makeshift tents, others beneath cloaks lain over their faces, others in the shadow of the cowl of rock. They slept fitfully, turning and moaning. Through the veil of sleep, groans of anguish and hatred reached from the depths of the hard dark soil into their dreams, as from the long-buried bones of Elna’s barbarian slaves, promising vengeance to the last Tarendahardilites.

Ennius Kandi smiled and walked on by. In his fingers he toyed with the death-bird that he never shot but kept always with him, even apart from the Iron Gate.

The exotic flowers, bushes, spice-plants and shade trees of the Imperial Gardens, so carefully tended for generations, were no more. A small corner of the groves had been spared, it was said at the special instance of the Empress herself. The rest had been butchered to make room for horses, cattle, pigs, chicken, dogs, and men.

‘Charan Ennius! Charan Ennius!’

Some ragged people crowded around the Gerso, tugging at his cloak, their faces pleading. Some held babies out for him to bless. Others touched his shoulders for luck.

‘The battle, Charan Ennius! How did it go?’

The Gerso halted. ‘Well, they came to us,’ he answered. ‘They wanted death. We gave them some.’

An old man laughed and clapped his hands.

‘Like as two brothers,’ he told the man beside him.

‘Like as two fellows!’ the other replied.

In their gloom, the people clung to but one hope. It was to see the Iron Gate open again, so that they might venture once more among the streets of their city. That hope, however, required faith, and faith required a figurehead. The barbarians had Ara-Karn. Against that one, shadowy and terrible, whom might the refugees hope to pit? The captains and charanti of the South were gone. Ghezbal Daan failed them before Egland Downs. The High Charan Farnese, already ancient, had fallen prey to a wasting sickness. The High Charan Ampeánor had vanished in midsummer. Prince Elnavis was a corpse somewhere amidst the ashes of High Town.

There remained only Ennius Kandi.

The beginning of his fame had come when he gained the shelter of the Citadel, the last man to do so. Riding out of the flames and smoke of High Town, with a great leap he had gained the narrow outcropping of stone at the foot of the Iron Gate. There, at the risk of his own life, he helped a half-score – some said a half-hundred – refugees mount to the battlements above the closed, towering gate. Only when the last of them reached safety did he think of himself. By then fifty barbarians were raining arrows upon him.

Once in the Citadel, the Gerso Charan organized the defenses and oversaw the distributions of food. He had a kind word for everyone save those taken with fear: with those he was stern and terrible. He seemed the only man on the mountain who had neither doubt nor fear of the outcome of the siege. Whenever anyone spoke of the strength of the barbarians in battle, Ennius Kandi smiled. It was not a smile of despair or of fear.

He was a member of the nobility of two cities, Gerso and Ul Raambar. Among the people, those were two names of power.

Gerso had been the first city to fall to the barbarians; Ul Raambar held Yron Ghadil against the Madpriests for centuries. In the person of one man were thus represented vengeance and might.

It was said that Ennius Kandi had seen Gerso fall, and Ancha, and Eliorite, and Carftain, and the city-states of the Delba. The rumors of his prowess had grown huge among the Tarendahardilites. It was said he had fought Ara-Karn three times, with each combat fiercer than the last. It was said that Ara-Karn offered fifty thousand golden Elnics for the Gerso’s head, and feared him more than any other living man.

There was this as well: of all the defenders, Ennius Kandi alone was visible to the people when the barbarians assaulted the Iron Gate.

The high inner gates and the cowl of rock hid the central battlements from the view of those within the grounds. Only the twin lance-towers could be seen. The deeds of the guardsmen were hidden, but all men saw the Gerso charan and his bow atop the southern lance-tower.

He had thus become, by his deeds, his history, his race and his position, a living symbol of defiance against the barbarians.

Once during an assault the jade eye of God had risen above the inner gates beside the southern lance-tower. For a space the watchers below stood enthralled as they saw the hooded man wield his bow against the dark pallor of God. It was seen how, as the bow was drawn back, its outline mirrored all the changes the face of God made in a single pass: a sliver when nearest Goddess Sun, a wedge overhead, and all but a globe gleaming atop the dark horizon. And one old man said, There stand two brothers.

The phrase was caught up and repeated until it became a catchphrase among them. From time to time, in the midst of squalor and the moans of hungry children in the middle of a sleep, the phrase ‘like as two brothers’ could be heard repeated over and over, like a prayer to Goddess.

Whenever Ennius Kandi walked among them, the Tarendahardilites clustered around him. He smiled on them and answered their questions gently, like some father greeting his children clutching at his legs. He knew each man by name; knew the gossip of the camps and what the Palace cooks prepared for the next meal. He told them how comically the fearsome savages had died. He saw to the children, the sick, and the aged.

Upon this occasion, however, he remained among them for only a brief time. His manner seemed distracted. Soon he passed into the courtyard of the guardsmen between the inner and outer gates.

The off-watch guardsmen sat in the sunlight seeing to their blades or casting dice bones. Cheerfully they hailed the Gerso charan and bade him join their game. He promised them another time to try to regain their losses, and passed on. He entered the south barracks, cut deep out of the cowl of rock. There the burly master armorer had his workshop piled with broken armor, swords and lances awaiting work, and bins filled with char-wood and coal. The forges roared, and smoke mounted through holes cut in the rock.

The armorer greeted the northern lord with a broad grin. ‘And have the cranes you bade me fashion worked to your satisfaction, Charan Ennius? Ah, but those were cunning designs of yours!’

‘They worked well,’ the Gerso answered him, ‘which is a tribute to your craftsmanship as much as to my design. I have a notion for another instrument, rather smaller, which I think you will find even more clever.’

* * *

Upon the following pass, two men met outside the Hall of Justice. They wore ragged, filthy tunics, and their dirty faces were unshaven. The one was short and of late middle age, the other huge, all muscle and hard bulk. The huge man smiled and gave out a rueful laugh.

‘Take it not unkindly, friend,’ he said, ‘but a more villainous or greasy pair I never saw in the Thieves’ Quarter. Well, and it is wise, I suppose – though Kiva vowed she’d not so much as let me enter her chambers before I’ve shaved twice and bathed three times. She would not even grant me a farewell kiss.’

‘Should we not go?’ the short man said.

‘Now you will not take fright, will you Little Doughty? Speak out now, if it is so, I’ll do without you rather than be betrayed by your fear. And yet they speak brave tales of your fighting on the barricades.’

‘I will be well enough,’ the other answered mournfully. ‘The Queen asked me, and I told her I would.’

‘That is the saying of a man. Come then, and before you feel the danger we’ll be on our way back.’

They descended among the throngs of refugees. On the fourth lower terrace of what had been the Imperial Gardens, they walked below the black cliff of the cowl of rock. There they came upon a dark grove of trees, the last unscathed, and most ancient part of the famous Gardens. In silence the two men plunged into it.

Among the trees it was dusky, almost black. The stink of the pines and herbal trees and roots was thick about them. There had been a light rain during the third meal, and wet leaves and needles drenched the ragged tunics of the captain and Kuln-Holn. At the grove’s end, beneath the rocky wall, the two men stopped.

Before them the trees shrank from a small dead circle of ground. In its center stood a squat, rough-hewn stone.

The stone was crusted over with ancient stains. Berowne spat over his shoulder and made the Sign of Goddess.

‘In truth,’ he said, ‘this is such a thing that might well arouse the neck-hairs of any who saw it, even if he were ignorant of the purpose it once served.’ Warily he touched the dank stone. ‘This is old, very old,’ he breathed. ‘Older, I think, than the city herself. Do you know what it is, Iocantris?’

‘I know,’ Kuln-Holn said miserably.

‘And it is said that in those times, it was not a loathsome thing, but even Elna and his captains made sacrifice to dark God, and drank the filled bowls until what they had drunk writhed and jumped in their bellies, and made them mad to shed what they had just consumed. Perhaps they enacted the rites even here upon this very stone. It sickens me even to look upon it. And yet here before us is the doorway of our passage.’

He uncovered his lamp and peered over the side of the stone into the depths of the blood-pit beyond. ‘I would rather face the most terrible warriors of Ara-Karn than climb into this foul hole. There is a prickling about my back like fear of the dark, fear of the snake, fear of … ghosts, say you? Still, I must admit it is an excellent concealment of the opening of our way.’

The stones of the pit were staggered like a narrow stair. Clambering over the altar, the captain gingerly dangled his legs into the pit. He picked up his lamp, descended, and was gone.

Kuln-Holn looked about him nervously in the darkness of the grove. High above, between the dark treetops and the rising black rock, a little patch of sky could dimly be seen. ‘Goddess, and dear Queen,’ Kuln-Holn muttered desperately, ‘protect me, please.’ Then he crawled down the stones, which were as slimy as though Elna had slain victims and drunk their blood only an hour before.

* * *

Deeper down, the hole stank of the earth. The two men groped their way. Stones and crumbling bricks lined the walls of the passage, barely holding back the press of the earth.

Fine roots dangled through cracks between the stones, tickling their necks and ears. The steps descended steeply at first. Then the way entered upon what seemed to be a natural cavern in the rock of the mountain like the belly of some monstrous fish. The slope there fell more gently, though still it led them down, back and forth and down some more.

For brief stretches the age-old vent was high enough to allow the captain to walk upright. Beyond the ring of light from Berowne’s lamp little eyes glared at the two intruders, blinked and were gone. The stale air was thick with the dust of ancient droppings. It seemed as though no man had trod this path for centuries.

The natural vent narrowed to an end. Before them a stone archway opened onto a manmade passage. The walls beyond still bore the scores of masons’ chisels. The way ran straight onwards and only slightly downward.

‘Why have you stopped?’ Kuln-Holn asked in a hoarse whisper.

‘There is something here beside the doorway. A bit of parchment, caught up here out of the wet. Here, take the lamp, and I will see—’ Berowne worried the parchment free and held it between his fingertips. ‘Hold the lamp closer, and I’ll try to read it… Forget not my – Nay, it’s no more than couch-stuffing now.’ He strewed the fragments on the stone and wiped his fingers on his thigh. ‘Strange. It was a woman’s hand.’

Berowne took back the lamp, and they entered the tunnel.

Forgotten objects from the Imperial past lay about their feet: bits of leather and pottery, broken knives, a rusted length of iron chain. Some discolored, half-rotted silk hung from a hook on the wall. There was a helmet and a broken table.

The tunnel broadened, so that at its widest point half a dozen men might have walked abreast. Overhead, above the strong archway of closely fitted stones, might have risen the palaces and temples of High Town. Soon they could feel the floor slowly rising again.

‘Now keep your tongue a prisoner of your teeth,’ Berowne said. ‘For what the barbarians may be doing on the other side of the doorway, not even the Empress could tell me. Like as not these new neighbors of ours have had their entertainments in the hall where our way emerges.’

The tunnel came to an end in a little chamber of brick shaped like a beehive. Narrow stone steps led round the walls up to the chamber’s peak.

‘I will go first,’ Berowne said softly.

At the top of the steps, a round door was set in the wall. Berowne set down the lamp and did out its flame. The darkness which followed was absolute, the lightlessnesss of the lands beyond the knife-edged border.

A slit of a panel was set into the door. Feeling about, Berowne found its knob and wrenched the panel aside. Beyond, the darkness was not so complete. He discerned a gloomy little room whose walls were covered with shelves and stored goods. There was no sign of life.

The captain set his hands to the bars of the door. Corroded from long disuse, the brass screamed against its hinges. Berowne set the mass of his body to the floor-rings. Raining dirt upon the captain’s head, the ancient door slowly gave way. Berowne squeezed through the door. He crawled over the pile of stuff set against the wall, of which the door on this side had seemed an integral part. He ventured beyond the storage chamber into the dusky corridor beyond.

In a short while he returned, and called down to Kuln-Holn.

‘Good Iocantris, come up. Tarendahardil and the tents of Ara-Karn await us.’

V
The Shadow of the Barbarians

‘ONCE, THIS PLACE was the Hall of Kings.’

Berowne walked among its ruins, turning his head this way and that. Beside and somewhat behind him, Kuln-Holn the Northerner followed mutely.

‘I knew it in all its splendor. Emperors took up the Ivory Scepter of Elna in this central hall. Before the Palace in the Citadel was complete, Elna dwelt here, in between his many campaigns to set the cities of the North and South beneath his boot. Somewhere within these walls the Prophetess died, her ancient, drug-riddled body half-naked and half covered with rare bandar pelts brought from the siege of Urnostardil beyond the dusky border. In these very halls Elna signed the accords entitling his captains the first Charanti of the Empire. Here they kept the secular relics of the Empire, an empire built upon the great victory over the barbarians.’

Half the building stood open to the sky, the walls and pillars blackened by fire. Somehow to Kuln-Holn it seemed more terrible and pitiable thus than if it had been utterly stricken into the earth. And yet he still looked upon it with a sense of almost religious awe. Elna, what power lay still in that simple name! He had made all the world fear him.

They went out upon the stone steps beyond the pillars. Below them lay the central square of High Town. To their sword-hand side rose the Barges of the Bordakasha, under whose depths the tunnel must pass.

‘It is the silence strikes me most,’ Berowne said. ‘When Tarendahardil lived, she could not hold her tongue even in the depths of the longsleep. These streets were always thick with beggars, slaves, priestesses, nobles in their litters, merchants, laborers, soldiers, ambassadors, and hetairai.’

Across the square the Brown Temple of Goddess blotted the pale sky. It alone had escaped the universal devastation. The golden spire above its roof coruscated still with the brilliance of the Mother of Life. Kuln-Holn stooped, and offered Her a voiceless prayer.

The captain led Kuln-Holn down the ash-smeared, littered steps. Not so much as a dog or rat slunk between the stones.

‘Come,’ the captain groaned, ‘let us be gone from this place.’

At the edge of High Town they reached the barricades, where the last defense of the city had been mounted. There the two men muffled their mouths against the pestilence of the rotting dead and clambered over the high mounds of masonry and broken statuary.

Through the shadowed, eerie, twisting streets of the lower quarters they proceeded, as dark God descended the pale autumn sky. In a half-burned inn near the edge of the city they ate the fifth meal and slept a little part of the longsleep away. In an hour or two, they resumed their way.

‘I could not sleep,’ Berowne said.

Kuln-Holn shook his head. He had not uttered a word since emerging from the tunnel underneath the tombs.

Beyond the city the land fell into a deep rocky rift, set with trees and ferns and carpeted with moss. A stream ran over the rocks at the floor of the rift. Berowne and Kuln-Holn drank somewhat of the stream; its waters were warm and sour. They clambered up the far side of the rift and emerged once again into the open light of Goddess.

Before them on the plain stretched the camp of Ara-Karn.

Twenty thousand tents and wagons shone in gaudy splendor beyond the camp walls. A dim rumor issued from the camp.

Berowne squatted and with a stick drew an oval in the dirt. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would welcome your counsel now, Iocantris. You know these jolly fellows and their laughter-loving chief. How will they lay out their camp? These grounds were the marshaling field for the city; it is all flat earth here, pounded hard by boots and hoofs from many generations. What would be the best way for us to enter?’

Kuln-Holn knelt beside the captain, and sketched some marks within the oval. ‘I think the camp will be set in circles around the center. The roads will cut in like the web of a spider. In the middle will stand the tent of Ara-Karn. As for entering, sir, you are the soldier. But if we were two mercenaries in the enemies’ pay, then would we not just walk in? Surely they cannot know all the men by sight. Nor would the tribesmen bother to keep tallies of the Southrons in their pay.’

The captain chuckled. ‘And you seem like such a timid soul! You belie yourself, Little Doughty. You would make an excellent spy. Come then: as you have spoken, so we’ll try.’

They followed the wooden barricades around the camp.

‘Oddly quiet it is, for so great a gathering,’ the captain said. ‘Could they be all asleep? Or might the Empress be right when she suggested that much of the barbarian army have ridden away to some other conquest?’

Kuln-Holn clutched at Berowne’s sleeve. A look of dread stole across his features. ‘Captain, come away, let us leave this place!’

‘Why, Iocantris? What do you sense?’

‘I do not know. Something is wrong here. I cannot … I cannot go there, do not ask me, do not leave me alone here!’

‘Well, well, my friend, calm yourself. Look you – do you see that wood upon the ridge beyond? I played there when a boy. We will hide among the trees and consider. In truth, I like not the silence of this camp either. Something about it stinks of death to me.’

They followed the inland road beyond the marshaling fields. Kuln-Holn felt his breath come easier as he put the camp behind him. Beyond the ridge, a column of dark smoke curled in the wind.

‘Captain, do you know what that could be?’

‘Some great fire, surely,’ the captain said, shading his eyes with the fat of his hand. ‘But of whose making I could not guess. No city folk would be so brazen, so close to the enemy’s camp. That ridge is what we call the Ship. Upon its seaward side is the necropolis of Tarendahardil, where common folk have their barges. But beyond the Ship there is only a wasteland of hills and rocky valleys, wolves and thorsas.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘Well, just upon the far side of the Ship an anvil-shaped headland juts out over ravines. Some bandit bands had their quarters in the caves that run through it like maggots in an old cheese; but the last of them were taken and beheaded thirteen years ago.’

‘Come with me, then,’ Kuln-Holn said. ‘For now I know what that fire means.’

They struck out toward the sea first, aware of how starkly they stood out on the road from the camp barricades behind them. They scrambled down the plain and made their way between boulders and brambles until they gained the Sea Road, the stone-paved highway connecting Tarendahardil with the cities of the Delba far away Goddess-ward. They left the road where it looped round the northern end of the ridge. Berowne led the way into the necropolis, among the barge-shaped markers.

‘Bones on bones, and stones by stones,’ Berowne chanted softly. ‘These here died of illness or age, the lucky ones of love-play. Maybe they would not have approved of the shoddy barges their silver-grasping relatives set up for them, but they knew not their fortune, compared to the poor beasts whose bones litter the barricades in High Town.’

‘Captain, is it right for you to be so loud here?’

‘What better place for humor, eh? These folk have reached the Blessed Lands, where the sweetest nymphs await them. It would take more than my voice to call them back to this wretched vale. My old dad lies there above.’

Near the summit of the ridge, upon the flat, some clusters of trees stood bent and broken in the winds. The sea-winds brought distant calls of birds and the sound of breakers on the jagged rocks, a whispering, sleepy sound. Beyond the trees the land fell away, naked and rough and hostile. The smell of smoke was strong in their noses as Kuln-Holn and the captain looked down upon the armies of Ara-Karn.

* * *

They thronged the flat summit of the anvil-shaped rock in the thousands. To one side a great bonfire blazed, hurling aloft billows of black smoke. Goddess-light shone off armor, helms, and greaves, off axe-heads, shields, and lance-heads, off gold and silver bowls brimming with northern beer and southern wine, and off the eyes and yellowed teeth of men.

Now another warrior, his arms and legs purple with the scars of battle, stood forth and roared out his words in the manner of some wild beast issuing its challenge on the world. When he ended, the warriors behind him shouted and beat their weapons against their shields. The clangor echoed off the desolate hills. Then another stood forth in equal pride, and roared his words to outshout the one who had preceded him.

Berowne knelt in the shelter of the trees. ‘What does it mean?’ he asked. ‘What do they here?’

‘It is the Assembly of the Tribes,’ Kuln-Holn answered. ‘Each year, before the first winter snows, the chieftains gather on Urnostardil beyond the dusky border. Every tribe brought wood from its hills to add to the fire. It was the smoke that made me think of it.’

‘The first snows are many passes hence, my friend.’

‘Yes, here. It is early here, but in the far North it must be winter now.’

‘And all their warriors are here?’ Berowne asked. ‘By Goddess’ eyes, there are more than the reports told us. Which is Ara-Karn? Can you see him?’

‘If he is there, he would be near the center,’ Kuln-Holn answered after a pause. ‘Captain, is there not some way we could get closer without being seen? I want to hear what they say.’

‘Yes,’ the captain said, shaking himself. ‘Come with me.’

They went to the shadow side of the Ship, and crept down a deep ravine. The anvil rose dark over their heads, crowned by coils of smoke. The acclamations rolled like thunder off the faces of the hills.

Berowne led Kuln-Holn up the base of the anvil. A smooth track led up to a small cave half-concealed by clumps of grass. The captain plunged into the hole. Kuln-Holn followed.

‘This was the shelter of the bandits,’ Berowne said, as they crept deeper into the cave. ‘When I was a boy, my mates and I would come spy on them. A score of caves cut into this rock from all sides. We explored them all after the bandits had been taken. We searched for their treasure, but never found it.’

The sound of voices swelled among the rocks. They entered a domed chamber where several cave-mouths opened. It was like the heart of a great drum, across whose skin ten thousand barbarians roared. The thunder was deafening. Then the shouts fell away.

A tremulous silence ensued, as Berowne and Kuln-Holn reached the center of the chamber. Seven sharp raps, like a knocking at a door, sounded. The silence above fell deeper.

At length a voice, reedy and piercing, danced across the stone walls. The voice spoke at length in the harsh, guttural tongue of the far North. It ended with a question, which was answered by silence.

‘What is it?’ Berowne asked. ‘Could you make out his words, Iocantris? Surely that was not Ara-Karn the Fist of God!’

‘It was Bar-East,’ Kuln-Holn said miserably. ‘He is the Speaker of the Law for all the tribes. He just called the Assembly gathered.’

‘It sounded like a question.’

‘It was. He asked who among the warriors would challenge Ara-Karn, in a duel to the death.’

VI
The Lost Thing

AMPEÁNOR TURNED and ran.

From behind him spread a vague, dreadful sound, half slithering, half shambling, as of some enormous thing half sliding, half crawling up the hollow path.

Despite himself, Ampeánor had been seized by panic. In the gloom, the very odor of the beast was immense. Against that shadow, he held in his right hand a sword, in his left a war-knife. No more.

The moment of panic was not long-lived. Quickly as he ran, the Charan of Rukor took himself in hand.

He was running in the central hollow of the path. At the lip on either side, roots emerged like black fingers. The path was deeper here, the lip of it a full fathom above his head. The path below was a black deep ditch, a tunnel through the slimy earth.

The sound was closer now.

Ampeánor put up his sword and mounted the hollow. But the sides were too slick: he fell, rose, fell again. He used the war-knife as a claw to gain a purchase in the earth. He reached half way up, cut two footholds in the earth, put the blade of the knife between his teeth and leaped.

He caught one of the root-ends. The roots writhed and all but slipped out of his grasp, but somehow he hurled himself up on his belly on the moss. Gasping, he felt the knife fall from his mouth. He spat and picked it up again.

The black towers of tree-trunks loomed and beckoned. Coiling roots surrounded him as he fell against a trunk.

Behind him, the slithering became a roar.

The ditch was a score of paces away. He could see nothing inside it. The outlines of the break in the ground ran past like the banks of a river. And it was like a river that the monster passed. Ampeánor saw a scaly black hummock scored with green lines above the banks. From the hummock long, curving shafts emerged like tent-poles, linked by folds of shiny membrane. The river of scales rose and fell in waves. It slid past like a dark dream, too fast for anything so huge.

Ampeánor pushed back against the rough wall of the tree, held moveless by horror. The thing was an abomination. The distended shapes of encrusted flesh had no order or pattern. It was the masterwork of a god gone mad. The sound now came from ahead and behind, as if the thing ran on forever.

Finally the last bend in the hummock subsided and was gone. The roar diminished. The slither became a rasp, an echo, a whisper. Then the whisper was no more.

Even the silence of the thing’s wake was enormous.

How much time had passed, Ampeánor could not have said. He glanced at the hand that gripped the knife. The knuckles and fingers were like bones. He wiped the sweat from his brow and raked back his hair. He remembered to breathe again.

His chest was bleeding. He must have cut it scrambling up the roots.

‘Well, Southron?’

On a lower branch stood the barbarian. The man clambered down easily, despite the burden of the pack. He made his way among the roots and threw down his pack. He strung the bow.

‘Was that what you smelled in the dirt? Why not speak clearly, like a man? Or did you hope the thing would kill me, and free you from your oath?’

Gundoen grinned. He jerked his head toward the ditch. ‘Wait and listen,’ he said.

In the dull, deep silence of the valley Ampeánor heard a thin, bright braying. The sound split the darkness like a streak of color. Then it was gone.

‘Now,’ said Gundoen, ‘the edge is off his hunger. But I think you’ll do no more riding.’

‘Was that my horse? I never heard such a sound from horse before. Did that, that thing get it? By Goddess, tell me what it was!’

‘A Darkbeast,’ the barbarian said.

For a moment, Ampeánor could think of nothing to say.

‘Do not ask me how he came to here,’ Gundoen said. ‘He’s here and he’s ours, and that’s that.’

‘Then why do we stand here? We must find our way out of this accursed valley.’ Ampeánor knelt for the pack. Calmly, the barbarian put his foot upon it.

‘Too late to run, Southron. I never faced a Darkbeast; the call never came to me. But I spoke with oldsters who hunted them, and I heard ballads of past hunts. Just now, our Darkbeast gobbled up your horse as you or I would swallow half a gamebird. Good luck for us! Darkbeasts are slower when their bellies are full. It was a trick of our hunters to set out a string of old ponies as bait, and when the Darkbeast ate his full, set upon him with spears. Now we can attack.’

‘The two of us, against that? Can you think of no more pleasant way to die?’

‘Shut your mouth, open your mind. Listen. Where there is one Darkbeast, there will be others. And they will have sharp bellies. There is only one talisman that will keep a Darkbeast at bay, and that is the scent of another Darkbeast’s blood. It is the only way.’

‘We could follow the path out of this valley. We could go from tree-trunk to tree-trunk and when we met one of these creatures we could climb beyond its reach.’

‘Our first would be the last,’ the barbarian said. ‘He would wrap himself about the tree and sleep, while we sat on bark and starved. Would you rather face him now as you are, or later, when you are sick with hunger and he is sharp and eager?’

He looked away and resumed softly, as if to himself, ‘Ara-Karn faced a Darkbeast alone, with a bow and fire for his only weapons. He took its head to Urnostardil. It was a deed none would have deemed within the power of one man. Later I adopted Ara-Karn as my son. I will not flee what my son has faced.’ He took his foot off the pack.

‘Southron,’ he said, ‘do as you like. Gundoen will fight.’

He slipped the bundle of arrows on his back, stooped and caught up the long lance. ‘This I will need,’ he said. He spoke now as if his mind were already busy with the details of his attack. Ampeánor glimpsed what made this savage a general of greatness.

With the easy movements of a great beast of prey, the barbarian slouched off among the roots.

‘Wait,’ Ampeánor called. The barbarian stopped.

‘You are my prisoner,’ Ampeánor said. ‘Just now fear had me. I had never before seen such a creature. It has passed. I will not return to Tarendahardil without you. I will help you fight this beast.’

Gundoen smiled. ‘I knew you would, Southron. Here – you’ll need it.’ Ampeánor caught the lance in the hollow of his right palm, with the stinging slap he knew of old.

* * *

‘There he lies.’ The barbarian spoke with a soft eagerness.

‘Will it be aware of us?’

‘Not by smell – not with this mud of his own juice on us.’ Gundoen smiled. There was fire in his light eyes. He looked like a young man seeing again his first love after a year’s absence. It was death he was in love with, Ampeánor realized – death, and the horrible, bloody struggle to come.

Filling the hollow path before the two men, scaled and finned like a fish, legged like a centipede and clawed like a cat, the great reptilian body extended without end to either side. Ampeánor guessed the thing at a quarter fastce long. Its height was some four fathoms.

Far to the right he heard rumbling, like thunder. It was the breathing of the thing.

The armor of the Darkbeast was more intricate than Ampeánor had thought. The plates of black armor looked heavy and hard as coral-crusted stone, but the greenish, scabrous leather which joined the plates was weirdly beautiful. From the edges of the armor legs emerged, short curved things less than a fathom in length. The ugly grayish claws seemed hewn of stone. As the thing slept, shudders passed down its length in ripples, disturbing the plates and causing the legs to twitch and claw. Beneath the legs, a part of the belly was exposed, covered with yellow-green flesh, soft and pulpy, oozing a slime so noisome it made Ampeánor choke.

Such was the thing these two men meant to kill.

Beside it, they were less dangerous than newborn field mice.

Ampeánor wore his armor and held his lance. At his back he had his sword, on his belt his war-knife. How strange an irony it was that he, the High Charan of Rukor, should fight the greatest battle of his life here in an unknown valley beside a barbarian. He tossed up the lance and caught it. He felt like laughing. He too loved this moment.

‘Come on, but make no noise,’ the barbarian whispered. ‘He will hear the snap of a twig. Smile later, Southron, after we have cut out his teeth to make our ornaments.’

They followed the path. The barbarian carried on his back a bundle of deadwood.

‘Why do they inhabit these tunnel-like paths?’ Ampeánor asked.

‘They dig them with their claws, and press the earth down with their bulk. In the darkness, lesser beasts plunge over the edges of the path and are trapped. The Darkbeasts crawl along and eat whatever comes in their way. They are not fussy eaters.’

‘So there will be other hollows like this in the woods about us?’

‘The whole valley will be marked with them. But mistake not, Southron: he is not confined to this worm-track.’

‘Sleeping, it seems slow, and far away.’

‘That will change when we prick him. A Darkbeast is a head, belly, muscle and armor, and little else. That armor is harder than iron. We will be able to wound him only about the head and along his belly – there, where the flesh oozes like pus. The belly cuts easily. Your knife alone would do it. But cut it and you die. The poison gushes from the wound and covers you. Then he rolls over to crush you under him.

‘The head is bone, horn, eyes and mouth. Also tongue: beware that! They smell with their tongues, throwing them to catch and taste the air. His tongue is as tough as leather and as sharp as a knife. It also drips poison. That poison doesn’t kill, but instead infects a man slowly, leaving him maddened for life.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘If we had poison to dip these arrows in, that would be best. As it is, there is but one way.’

The barbarian crouched down on the moss. He pointed ahead.

Half in darkness at the outer edge of his vision, Ampeánor saw the Darkbeast’s head. It was rough as a mountain cliff, big as a horse. The breath sounded like the blast of a hundred bellows in the forges of Ul Raambar. The stench was almost a living presence. The huge globed eyes reflected wet, silvery light.

For a moment his soul quailed. The evil of the thing was so vast and ancient that it seemed impossible anything might harm it, let alone two men. He hoped the barbarian’s plan held some reason for hope.

‘Tell me.’

Gundoen lowered the bundle of wood onto the moss. ‘First,’ he said, ‘we blind him and hack out his tongue. Then we cut his head off.’

Ampeánor wanted to laugh. ‘And just how are we to achieve these slight things?’

‘I will blind him, with arrows and fire. As for the rest, my lord, you will have to go down into the pit and see what you can do.’

* * *

While the tiny men laid their plans, the Darkbeast slept on.

Once, long, long ago, when even the shape of the mountains had been different, the Darkbeasts had come from beyond the dusky border.

There they roamed sea and land alike. In sunless seas they feasted on unknown fishes and the plants of darkness; on lightless lands they devoured whatever moved and smacked of blood. But food had grown scarce, and some Darkbeasts were tempted to go farther, even into the light.

They swam, of course. Deep beneath the waves there is always darkness. But they must rise from time to time to breathe.

They emerged like long reefs into the light, and there they lost the way back to the darkness.

Most died, and left their armor on the floor of that small pool which, in ages to come, creatures that ran like bugs across the land would name Elna’s Sea. And one group drove themselves upriver, and found some sanctuary here in the Sontil’s gloom, in the shadow of the mountains.

That had been a great quest, and those Darkbeasts thrived here in these brooding woods, until their monstrous appetites reduced the woods to a necropolis. And the Darkbeasts grew sluggish, and went for months fasting. And one by one they failed to waken, so that their bellies turned to yellow dust and their armor fell between the high arches of the rib-bones. The bones choked the outer paths and those paths were abandoned, for no Darkbeast will approach the carcass of another. One by one they died.

He was the last.

Even so, Gundoen had been right not to hope to flee. For this Darkbeast knew these grounds as a man knows the body of his beloved, and he had strewn them with his traps. He had caught the smell of the men along with that of the horse. He rested now while the bones and flesh of the horse jellied in his gut, but he would rouse himself again and take up the track of the men. They would not escape him.

As he slumbered, the Darkbeast dreamed of past feasts, of those few moments in his long life when even he had had his fill and might not move for surfeiting. It was a happy dream and it was with happiness that he snorted and snuffled and tasted the air as if even now some fat and toothsome herd drew near.

* * *

Gundoen bent low and blew upon the wood. The smoke thickened, and sparks leapt about beneath the chieftain’s breath.

‘Now hasten,’ he said. ‘He will smell the smoke.’

He caught up the bow. At his feet a score of arrows were bound with twigs. He waved one over the fire until the twigs lighted, nocked it and shot it full into one of the Darkbeast’s great silvery eyes. He snatched up another arrow before the first roar burst from the massive jaws.

Ampeánor watched the second streak of flame tear into the monster’s eye. The river of scales and fins rippled from the head into the obscurity beyond.

Again and again Gundoen shot. The death-birds plunged into the silver yolk of the eyes.

The Darkbeast shook in the confines of the tunnel. Its forepart reared up, towering four fathoms above the men.

‘Back!’ Gundoen shouted.

The great tower wavered from side to side, as if searching. The sharp tongue slashed the air. Silvery fluid poured out of one eye and dripped down on the tongue. Then the thing seemed to catch sight of them with his good eye. Eagerly it bent its body forward.

The tower began to fall.

Again Gundoen shouted, but the sound was lost when the mass crashed to the earth, spewing moss to all sides. Ampeánor was thrown against a root but the barbarian held his footing and shot three more arrows into the Darkbeast’s good eye. A gaping wound opened in the globe, draining slime. Gundoen’s mouth opened but Ampeánor could hear nothing over the storm of the beast’s rage. Gundoen hurled a flaming branch into the wound of the thing’s eye. Forty legs dug up moss, the great body twisted back into the pit.

For a moment there was stillness.

‘Now, Southron!’

They ran to the edge of the hollow.

Below them writhed the long black and yellow body. It was as if a range of hills heaved and fell. Hundreds of legs kicked and clawed, caving in the sides of the hollow. The beast was blinded, and for the moment filled only with its own agony; it remained formidable.

Ampeánor clapped his palms over his ears. Gundoen ranged up and down the path, emptying his pouch of arrows into the belly of the beast. When the last arrow was gone, the barbarian took up his bow and smashed it on his knee. For a moment Ampeánor thought the barbarian had lost his wits. Then Gundoen ripped the axe from Ampeánor’s hand. Ampeánor understood. The barbarian had done his part; Ampeánor’s task remained.

He must go into the pit with the beast.

He looked again upon that vast and evil form. He took up his lance. He drew his sword. He lifted his head and sang the war-song of the Torvalen. There was no fear in his heart now. It was the supreme moment of battle, when the mind is drowned in a tide of blood. Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor, had become as much of a beast as the thing before him.

Still singing, he leaped into the darkness.

Ampeánor struck the greasy earth and fell forward, so he escaped the cut of the thing’s tongue. Still on his belly, he flung himself closer to the jaws. He rolled onto his back as close as he dared. Above him the great tongue slashed back and forth. Ampeánor lay his lance to one side and took the sword in both hands. He remembered what Gundoen had said. When the tongue emerged again, Ampeánor leapt to his feet and swung the sword against it with the full strength of both his arms.

He might as well have struck against a pillar of stone.

The steel bit into the tough muscle of the tongue half a span, then the sword was torn from his grasp. The tongue broke his armor and hurled him against the side of the pit. The tongue struck him again, and he lost his senses.

The fearsome bellowing woke him.

From the corner of his eye, Ampeánor saw the huge head turn so that the jaws opened from side to side of the tunnel, the more easily to reach him.

He slid and fell. The tongue snaked out once more. It spun him closer to it. He was lying on the floor of the hollow. Something touched his arm – it was his lance. He reached for it but fell again. Another blow of the beast’s tongue rolled him onto his back. The breath flowed over him, sickening as the fumes of embalmers’ jars. He held the lance by instinct – it was the hands which gripped it, not Ampeánor.

He rolled to the side of the pit. The hole of one of the beast’s eye-sockets swung before him.

It occurred to Ampeánor that somewhere behind the eye must lie the brain.

He drove the lance, legs kicking and digging at the wet ground. It caught on something hard, bone or armor. Ampeánor stabbed again. The lance plunged into the gaping, putrid hole, sliding easily, as if into mud.

For a moment, everything about the scene became clear. Ampeánor saw it all as though revealed in the full light of Goddess.

He was crouching on the Darkbeast’s muzzle, one foot jammed into the nostrils. Its head thrust forward, its tremendous jaws convulsing, but Ampeánor hung on.

Above the thing’s brow, Gundoen balanced on the beast’s neck. His massive arms rose high. In his bare, blood-soaked hands the barbarian held the wood-axe.

The axe struck the leathery space between the armor plates and dug into the neck. The Darkbeast writhed and twisted. The barbarian wrenched the axe free. He gave it another stroke. The coils of the beast rose in black-green arches. Yellow and a scarlet slime spewed from its belly.

In that one instant Ampeánor saw all this and more. Then he felt the lance in his hands and jabbed it deeper.

The Darkbeast gave out a roar that shook the very boughs above. The barbarian fell behind the neck and Ampeánor was hurled from his perch. His foot twisted and broke as it tore from the beast’s nostril. He rolled about, his ribs afire, each limb a separate agony. But the roaring of the beast went on.

The sword lay half-covered with blood at the side of the pit. Ampeánor reached for it. He crawled on his elbows, dragging his body behind. His hands grasped the sword.

Somehow he regained his feet.

He stood, swaying, for a moment.

There was no sign of the barbarian. The beast writhed and roared. Its body arched into the air like the ramparts of some fantastic castle. A hundred legs clawed and snapped. The Darkbeast had done itself more damage than either Ampeánor or Gundoen had. In its agonies it had clawed open the length of its own belly. That it still lived was a wonder. Yet even so near death, the great jaws opened and snapped, the fearsome tongue whipped about, the coils arched and fell.

Ampeánor was in little better state. His armor was broken, his ankle broken, one shoulder a dangling agony. He was cut, scraped, crushed; streaming blood, mud and the oozing of the beast; half-blind, half-deaf, half-dead. When he breathed, he coughed; when he spat, he spat red.

He mounted the muzzle. He clambered up to the open eye-socket. Behind the socket he found the small opening that was its ear. With his last strength, Ampeánor drove the sword in to the hilt.

The Darkbeast screamed.

* * *

It was a scream which belike had never before been uttered anywhere on the face of the world. It shook the branches of great trees, pierced the high mantle of leaves, and entered into wind and cloud. A few lonely, passing birds heard that scream, and scattered into the bright, clear depths of air.

The ancient Darkbeast, last of his kind, ruler of the Sontil, was dying.

How many ages had it been since he had broken from his egg? Others had hatched after him, but he had survived them all. He had ruled the forest and constructed many cunning paths and traps. And once there had come to him the scent of men. There were many of them, and his hunger had been so great that he had ventured even into the southern fringe of the wood, where the brightness hurt his eyes. It had been worth the pain, for he had found the ten thousand laborers of the Emperor Pharokul. Ah, what a feast! He had driven them into the gloom. Those he had not been able to eat right away he crushed and swept into his pits. For weeks he had eaten them, surfeited and bloated. Now, as he lay dying, he remembered that feast.

He turned a little in the path. Some hours passed. A creature that lives centuries does not die in a moment.

Before the beast’s gaping jaws, a little figure lay in the muck. The high Charan of Rukor was also nearer death than life.

* * *

From behind the Darkbeast’s gaping neck, Gundoen made his way across the huge head. He dropped to the ground between the jaws, and lay there a few moments. Then he rose, shook his head, and approached the body of the Southron. He took the war-knife and went back to the Darkbeast. With brutal strokes, the barbarian began doggedly to hack out its teeth. He gathered them in the arrow-pouch across his back. Then he clambered up the Darkbeast’s head, caught hold of some broken roots, and climbed onto the floor of the Sontil.

Near the path Gundoen made a fire, piling it with all the wood he could find. He stood over the fire, a bloody apparition. His dull eyes reflected the flames. There was no expression upon the war-scarred face. He stood crooked, one side of his body shorter than the other.

After a time he made his way back to the path. He carried the body of the Southron to the fire. Not even then was the Darkbeast fully dead.

All about them was strewn the devastation of the monster’s agonies. A length of the creature looped out of the pit, ran along the ground, wound about seven trunks and branches and returned to the arches that still mounted between the trees. Great ruts lay gouged out of the ground, shreds of moss were scattered high among the leaves. The air was thick with dust. Armies might have battled here.

Gundoen peeled the dried blood off his face and arms. He lay before the fire and slept.

When the fire became embers a sleepy quiet settled over the scene. Hours fled and nothing moved but flakes of ash. Sometime during that time, life departed from the immense carcass of the last Darkbeast.

Beyond the high ceiling of the leaves, the jade moon of God passed by perhaps two times.

At last the body of the barbarian stirred, and Gundoen awoke. He sat on his haunches, feeling the warmth of the scorched earth in his arms. His eyes were half shut, the lids swollen. Wearily he shook himself, the way a dog will.

He stood. A step or two away lay the body of the Southron even as he had left it. The chieftain stooped and draped the body across his shoulders. Slowly the barbarian staggered from the scene.

Gundoen wandered the forest, following the length of that black valley. He staggered unfeelingly. The next step or the next hundred, it made no difference.

After a while he saw that he had been following a narrow footpath. Before him stood the figure of a bent old woman wrapped in rags adorned with curling leaves of strange colors. She beckoned.

‘Come,’ she uttered, using his own tongue – the tongue of the far North.

‘Who are you?’ Gundoen asked.

‘Men call me Melkarth.’

VII
Warriors of Ara-Karn

ON THE SURFACE of the anvil-shaped rock the barbarians fell quiet, their throats hoarse from their acclamations.

In the center of the ring an old, thin man leaned upon a staff.

Bar-East, the Speaker of the Law, had in his life wandered the extent of the far North from the Ocean of the Dead to the frozen wastes of the far plateaus where the ice did not leave the iron soil for more than three weeks out of the year. But he had never come so far from the lakeside of his birth than this.

Again he rapped the stone with his staff. ‘So,’ he called, ‘will no one among you challenge Ara-Karn his right to lead the tribes? Who dares to battle the Warlord to the death and take from him first place among us?’

Again, only silence answered him.

‘Well,’ Bar-East said, ‘that is no more than I looked for. Who else could have won so much? Truly, when I walked the roads of the North and rode by ship across the sea, it was beyond me, a thing of amazement, that you have reached so far in so small a span of years. Did a week pass, I wonder, that saw no city fall before your swords?’ The old wayfarer shook his head. ‘Well then, what of the lawsuits? Who will bring charges against another tribe?’

But the chieftain of the Durbar tribe, Nam-Rog, stood and spoke. ‘There have been changes since you last walked among us, Speaker of the Law. Such disputes are now given to Ara-Karn to judge, or Gundoen, the Warlord’s general, or to the Circle of Chieftains.’

‘Is it so? Yet that was never our way. And there have been other changes, I see. Is it your will then that the Assembly be ended? For what else did we gather? I can recite the Law, but what good is that if there are no suits?’

‘It is the time for the Assembly,’ said one young man. Scornful laughter met the stupidity of his words.

‘There is one thing you could tell us, old one,’ called a warrior from the River’s-Bend tribe. ‘Long have we been in these hot lands now where so many buildings of stone scar the land, and the folk live like bugs in rotten stumps of wood. We have fought and killed for the pleasure of Ara-Karn who never joined us in the work. We have won the wealth of kings – and still we beat out our lives against the God-cursed Iron Gate. But our wives and youngsters pass the months far away from us. Tell us then how it is beyond the mountains of the Spine, beyond the Pass of Gerso. Tell us of the cool lands of the far North, Bar-East, and of home.’

At that word a murmuring sounded on the anvil like a groan, and the war-marked men looked to hear tell of their wives and children far away.

Bar-East frowned. ‘What could I tell you that you do not know? Bitter are the winds driven out of the North, and not all the logs of the huts can shield against them. It is too hot in High Summer, so that the dogs lie still, and it is cold there in dim Winter, so that the children and old ones fall sick and die. There is labor without end, hardship, sadness, and the life there is as unforgiving as the land.’

Those twenty thousand warriors heard the words of the old man, and lowered their heads into their bowls. He had told them all the worst, and all the things these men had once complained of loudest. Yet he had mistaken, for these were the very things whose loss was most deeply felt.

Then Urb-Sar of the Archeros stood. ‘What is it we do here in these dusty lands, knocking our heads against a rock and finding only death and sorrow? What is it we hope to win here? Women? Who among you has not had his fill of these sly, deceitful Southron women? Wealth? We are rich as Emperors, and who but a Southron merchant ever sought gold just for the sake of having more? Or do we want more land and horses, who have won all the North and half the South besides? Or do we kill ourselves here for the joy of it? But this fighting no longer has the sweetness it once did, now that we fight walls instead of men and use bows instead of swords. When I fought feuds in my youth, then it made a man proud to say, “I have killed a score of men, and this great man and that have I beaten.” Then it was only the better man who told the tale. But what woman or Southron child might not cut low the finest warrior of the far North with these bows?

‘I speak no word against the Warlord – I was never one of the party of Gen-Karn. But my heart calls to my village, to my wife and my serving-wenches, hard-working women who laughed when I told a joke, and were good cooks and hut-keepers. They are unlike these Southron bed-slaves of mine, who whisper among themselves and sneer and laugh at the manner of my speech. What do we do here, and when will it have been enough? Must we slay dark God Himself before we reach the end of this road?’

Urb-Sar sat down. But many voices cheered his words, swelling like a wave beneath a good wind. The call went up for a vote on it, whether they should go on fighting or turn back to their homeland. Nor would it have been beyond the wits of the most drunken of them to see what way such a vote would have run.

But Nam-Rog stood again into the center of the ring. While the Warlord and his general were both away, Nam-Rog held first place among the warriors. He scratched his gray beard and cast his sharp eyes about until the last shouts died away. Then Nam-Rog shook his head, and pulled upon his beard.

‘Well do I believe that you have lived in these lands overlong now,’ he said, ‘for you weep like Southrons indeed. Little children may run about their village naked, and play as their hearts bid, and cease when they grow weary. But when a boy becomes a warrior, then he takes up a spear in the Grove before the idol of God, and drinks hot blood. And there is no going back for him after that, no matter how fondly his mother may speak of how sweet he was as a beardless boy.

‘Would a man weep like this if he stood on Urnostardil’s crown? There beyond the dusky border, our grandfathers defied Elna and his thousands. And there they vowed to meet each year, to settle disputes, renew brotherhood, and swear again their vengeance.

‘Now the last child of that Elna sits within that fastness and defies us even as our fathers defied Elna. And will you grumble that it is hot here, and go back home in defeat, with the work all but done? What then of your vows to Ara-Karn? What then of all your boasts? What then of Gundoen?

‘Or have you forgotten how Ampeánor of Rukor snuck into our camp disguised as a renegade? Have you forgotten how he led Gundoen out of Ilkas into the deep forest? I myself had a doubt and followed after, but even so reached them too late. By a trick the Southron lord took Gundoen captive and escaped. A fistful of the finest trackers set out upon the trail, but those men never returned. Gundoen Strong-in-Girth, the best in battle, is now held within that black rock, tormented by the followers of Elna. Should we forsake him?

‘Or will we rather break that iron wall and win Gundoen’s freedom, and humble this proud Empress before us? Think on they tell of her beauty, a byword among Southrons. And think too that in years to come, you may say to your sons’ children, “I saw the breaking of the rock of Elna, and the misery of the Empress Allissál, last of Elna’s kin.” ’

So Nam-Rog spoke, yet turned only a few men to his purpose. Most still grumbled in their bowls. One man, not looking at Nam-Rog, grumbled loudly enough to be heard.

‘It is all very fine to speak of freeing Gundoen, but there were many men who died in the crossing of the desert, and then it was this same Gundoen who forbade us going back for them, or bearing their bodies to where we might see them voyaged. I lost two brothers there, and their spirits still come into my dreams. Am I to wear out my life banging on that Iron Gate to rescue Gundoen? Let him free my brothers’ spirits first!’

Another man stood forward. He was tall and strong, with the look of a hard fighter, but behind him where his tribe should have sat there was only a space between the neighboring tribes.

‘You all know me,’ he said. He turned his face to each tribe in turn. Doomed pride was in his voice, and his eye gleamed with the fierce despair of a man who sleeps with death, but scorns to flee the fate hard upon him.

‘Gorn-Tal I was named by my father and his brothers, but you might as well call me Orn now, for I am all that is left of the tribe of Orn. Once we were a great tribe – stronger than any of yours! Gen-Karn was our chieftain, Gen-Karn Mighty King, the strongest Warlord any knew for as long as the lists are remembered – stronger even than Tont-Ornoth. It was he who came as a youth into these lands, and returned with tales of women and gold and easy conquest. It was he who first fired our hearts to this war. But he was a harsh man, liked by few. I hated him while he lived. He robbed me of my wife, and cast me from our tribe. And thereafter I worked against him, though for years I had to live in a hut alone in the woods, so great were all your fears of Gen-Karn’s anger.

‘Then Ara-Karn came and was Warlord, though he would not slay Gen-Karn according to our way. Well, Gen-Karn repaid that favor by taking Tezmon for his own. Then he sent his spies into our camps, and they too spoke of going home and ending the fighting. Many agreed with them even then, before the hard journey we had to cross the desert. Gen-Karn even sought an alliance with our enemies, with that same Ampeánor, with this same high Empress. This we now know.

‘So Gen-Karn boasted, and where is he now? Let those who were in Tezmon say if I lie. Ara-Karn visited Tezmon, going even into the lap of Gen-Karn’s strength – he showed his power, and forced Gen-Karn to acknowledge him even in bloody death! Thus Gen-Karn’s followers revolted and returned to the camp, and over the last Orn warriors Gundoen set me as chief. But my men, first of all tribesmen, Gundoen sent into battle – and my men fell heaviest in this city. So now as you see me, so I am: the last chief, and the last warrior, of Orn. I lead only myself here.

‘So you may well think that I long to return to my village more than any of you. I have not beheld it in ten winters – longer than any of you! But I say we cannot stop this fighting. Ara-Karn has put these wars on our backs, and it is not for us to say when the load should be put aside. It has been over a year now since he last walked among us – but does a man of you fail to feel his presence every time you walk before his great black tent, though it may stand empty in the ghost-ridden winds? Oh, he is out there in the world, upon a hill or behind a tree, and he knows all we do here, even as he knew what Gen-Karn did in Tezmon. When Ara-Karn says so, then and only then will it be enough. Until then you may all scamper back to your homes and be stricken with what plagues it pleases him to send you from afar; yet I will hold to my tent here, and I will go against the Iron Gate, until I die or Ara-Karn grants me victory.’

So Gorn-Tal ended his speech, and sat again in his lonely place.

Another man came forward into the silence, and he was Kul-Dro, a man late in his prime, and a spearman of Gundoen’s own tribe.

‘Others have spoken; now hear me. I knew Gundoen, and even wrestled with him – few alive can boast those words! I too would rather set my face Northward, and leave these Southrons with my curse. I am feeling my age; my sons have fought with us from the beginning, and you know their spears did not break often. And one I left in the sands of the desert unvoyaged, though it tore my heart to do it. Now I will tell you a thing no man before has known but me.

‘When Gundoen led us across those sands and rocks so near to Goddess, to go round the sea out of the way of the warships of the Southrons, many of our men fell shaking in the heat. We had to leave them behind, for we had not strength or ponies to carry them. But I could not endure this, and one sleep I went back to where I had left my son Jarfell.

‘Wonder of Goddess! I found him still living, and in secret I bore him to my tent. Gundoen learned of this. He came to me and said, “Kul-Dro, great fighter, we have wrestled and both lived, and that is a bond with me beyond all other bonds I have with men. But if I let you give water to your son, then I could not deny it to any man here. And then our strength will fail us, and we will leave all our skins to turn to leather here. You must leave him.” And though I wept painful tears, I knew it must be so. Gundoen was my chief, and we were on a war-party.

‘So I took Jarfell behind a rocky ledge, and slew him with my own hands. I put my hands to his throat and took the wind from him – from him, my own son! I killed him myself, that he should not suffer but die swiftly. And now in every sleep, despite the weariness of battle or of love-play, despite the darkness wine brings, I dream of Jarfell and feel again his throat between my thumbs. Is this a thing you all will shun me for? So be it.

‘There was another of my sons you have perhaps heard of: Garin, who wived Turin Tim, the only daughter of the prophet of Ara-Karn. He too wears the tunic of death. In the streets of this very city I found him, upon the steps of the Brown Temple. His guts were torn from his belly, and his face was a horror. Him at least I set out in a barge. Now you may spare me your tears, for you have also lost close kinsmen. Perhaps it is this that now urges you to gather your tents and spoils and return Northward. But then what will you do to pay back these Southrons for your kinsmen’s deaths? My two sons are gone – and I vow it now, that not a hundred of these Southrons’ lives will be enough to pay for them, but all Southrons must die! How otherwise are we to face the wives and children of the dead and not know our shame?’

Another man stood, slight of build, dressed in a fine tunic: Marn-Klarten of the Undain tribe, a man famous for his cleverness. He waited until the voices fell away before he began:

‘I was never one who gloried in the deaths of my enemies, as my tribesmen will tell you. When I killed, it was only when it was thrust upon me and I could not turn aside from it and still be called a man. It seems to me now we will never be in accord here, and no doubt those Southrons, if they could overhear our words, would take delight in how we quarrel.

‘But I wonder at how many here have forgotten the ghosts and spirits that ride with us wherever we go. Myself, I have not forgotten how the Warlord raised them from the ground on Urnostardil. They ride with us, they fight with us – no doubt even now they stand among us, each alongside his own tribe’s sons, though we cannot see them or hear their voices, or know the gnashing of their teeth when they hear us speak the words of cowards and children.

‘He promised us they would come with us; he made us swear to them a binding oath. Did you forget it? I do not. We swore not to turn back until our vengeance was accomplished. But if we broke that vow, our own ancestors would turn against us, and rend us to bits.

‘I offer you now this way to satisfy all, even the harshest-hearted of you, even the ghosts of my own ancestors. Let us send a band among the folk of the fastness, and bid them to a parley. I have heard it said that there is great store of gold in the depths of the fastness, of which the piles Gen-Karn got were but the least part. You have all seen the Disk of Goddess where it shines from the peak of the White Tower. So we will say to the people of the fastness, “Give us Gundoen alive, and send down all your treasure, and then we will depart.”

‘Let them have their lives and the life of their Empress. I do not make war on women – and what is this Empress but another woman? Yes, the Southrons claim she is lovely as Goddess arrayed in jewels and sweet scents – but when did a Southron ever speak the truth? Most likely she is old and withered, a woman who must hide beneath her paints and ornaments.

‘Kul-Dro, you have said not a hundred deaths will repay you for the deaths of your sons. But how many thousands of them did we cut down in the great Battle of the Plain, before we reached this city? Go there, and gather enough skulls to sink a merchant’s ship. For myself, it matters not, the deaths of these last few. If we have their gold, it will be enough for me. Beggared and broken, her armies slain unvoyaged, her city burnt, let this last kinswoman of Elna go forth in the world like a childless widow and beg for her bread. That to me seems a better vengeance on Elna than any other we could devise.’

Silence followed Marn-Klartan’s words. The warriors looked one another in the eye. The cleverness of the Undain's plan won their hearts. None doubted but that the Southrons would grant their demands. So they might win honor and wealth and vengeance at no risk. And even the implacable Ara-Karn would be satisfied with this end.

Then one man began to laugh. It spread among them, so that in moments all the thousands joined in that laughter. They raised on high their bowls, and toasted one another, that the war was over at last, and that before the winter ended, they should be home again. The laughter mounted and waxed into a howl that went ringing off the walls of the barren hills about them, and sang like a smith’s stroke in the hollow domed chamber in the rock below their feet.

There Iocantris, Little Doughty, shuddered, and said to the captain, ‘I have heard enough. Let us go back to the Palace before the Assembly ends and the warriors surround us.’

VIII
The Parley for Peace

IN THE BLACK-DRAPED CHAMBER the Empress heard Berowne’s report in Bordo, the court language of the Empire. Then, as if the very language might bring her closer to an understanding of the plans of the barbarians, she questioned Kuln-Holn in the tongue of the far North.

Berowne, who was sure that Little Doughty had not told him all that had been said above them on the anvil-top, sensed now that other secrets were being exchanged. He shrugged and sipped at his wine-cup. When the Empress deemed it right he should know, she would tell him. All the same he put it in a corner of his heart, that there was more to Little Doughty than he had guessed.

‘It is unfortunate, perhaps,’ the Empress said, reverting to Bordo, ‘that all the enemy’s forces remain here. It means they are too strong for us to dream of counterstrokes.’

‘What of their talk of a tribute?’ Berowne asked. ‘Is there truly such gold here that it could tempt Ara-Karn?’

‘Such musings are worthless,’ she replied. ‘What he sought is no longer here.’

‘Even so, your reverence, I do not think that he will require a fortune. And though I did not understand the words of the barbarians, I could make out their hearts from the tones of their speech. It is true. They are sick of it. Iocantris said he did not hear the voice of Ara-Karn. If the god-king stood among his men, he said nothing. Perhaps he fears to oppose them. They will demand only enough treasure to prove their boasts of victory. If we haggle with them, I believe we can end the siege.’

‘Captain, it will do no good.’

‘Let me attempt it at least, your reverence.’

‘Very well, Captain. You have leave to try.’

* * *

On the mountain’s edge, the barbarians gathered below the Iron Gate. Garbed in their finest tunics and gaudiest ornaments, the best warriors arranged themselves upon the scattered, colossal disks of the fallen column of Elna’s Pillar of Victory.

Berowne mounted the steps to the central battlements. The greater part of his men were there, leaning on their lances and gesturing at the square below. Ullerath, the Charan Ennius Kandi, and the Rukorians Haspeth and Narrano Delcarn stood at the parapet.

‘Our general at last,’ the Eglander said.

‘Should I leave it to men who thrust with the haft ends of their lances?’ Berowne asked with a smile. ‘What goes on below?’

‘It was but a while ago, they began gathering,’ Haspeth said grimly. ‘We were debating whether it were best to load the Beak with stones and begin the battle.’

‘Let us wait and see what they will offer us,’ Berowne said. ‘Charan Ennius, have you been able to overhear them?’

The Gerso shook his head. He pointed with his bow. ‘This is no war-party, Captain. They are waiting for something. None of the chiefs is there.’

Berowne drew in a lungful of the cool, salt-touched air. Looking down into the barbarian crowds he saw the scars on arms, faces and legs. Some men lacked hands, eyes or fingers. He saw the hollows in their cheeks, the longing in their eyes. It was as if he stood and walked among them. He knew their years away from home. What this salt air was to him, so were the chill, wooded wastes of the far North to those men. They wanted to be home again. In the end, for all their terror and savagery, they were only soldiers, the same as he. It stood upon his shoulders to treat with them and gain peace. It was the chance of his career. Peace, riches, titles, and the foremost love of Kiva awaited him.

‘Well, if they wish to bid us to speak,’ Haspeth said, ‘at least we may let them know those with whom they would deal. Some of you men go down and bring up the Banner of the Bordakasha.’

Three Rukorians descended and brought up the banner. ‘Let it hang over the parapet,’ Haspeth told them. ‘Let them see it and know us.’

The yellow cloth, marked in black with the circular device of nal Bordakasha, the house of Elna, gleamed against the massive black iron of the gate like a lamp-flame. The rising airs pulled upon it, rippling the long cloth. The guardsmen, seeing the banner of their kings, stood straighter and held their shields and lances more firmly. Narrano Delcarn chanted some lines of the Song of Elna.

The sight of that banner awoke something even in the chests of those below. They moved about the square, their helmets lowered. Then the warriors on the stone disks raised a cry and pointed back into the ruins. A troop on horseback emerged garbed in bandarskins, silver corselets, tunics of elaborate craft, golden armbands and helms of bronze and the silver-gold electrum. They dismounted before the huge stone disks.

The chieftains and champions of the tribes of the far North walked to the lip of the coomb, and stood upon the bloodstained stones.

‘Men upon the Iron Gate!’

The words were shouted in common Bordo. It was one of the renegades who shouted them. He stood before his masters upon the brink of the coomb. He was dressed in the flowing robes of the dwellers of the Desert, with bands of dyed leather on his arms and about his gut. In the shadow of his cowl his face was painted like a mask from whose depths two reddish eyes burned.

‘We hear you,’ Berowne answered. ‘What do you want?’

‘Men upon the gate, I salute you,’ the renegade shouted. ‘You have done well to withstand us for so long.’

‘We still live,’ Berowne replied.

‘You cannot long continue.’

‘We have water, food and shelter. What else do we need?’

‘Men upon the gate, we have taken your city.’

‘You stand for a while in the ruins of her buildings.’

‘We have laid low the provinces of Vapio, Fulmine, and the Eglands.’

‘Did you hear?’ Haspeth said to his lieutenant. ‘He spoke no word of Rukor.’

‘We have overcome Ilkas and Bollakarvil. The upper and lower Delba obey us. Postio we destroyed. The Desert tribes follow us. The North is ours from Arpane on the Sea to Tezmon, from the sea to Gerso. The very Sea of Elna now is ours. We have conquered. And why is this? What have we done? Nothing – for it was not our doing. It was his. You do not fight us – you fight him. And though you may stand against us, you will never prevail against him.’

‘And who are you, renegade?’ Haspeth asked. ‘You, who speak like a civilized man, wear the trappings of the Desert, and go like a leashed dog before all these barbarians? Tell us your name, that we may publish it in all the cities of the world as the greatest traitor to our race.’

‘I am the voice of the Empire of the World.’

At that, silence crossed the battlements. Then Ennius Kandi said quietly, ‘Once you had a name.’

The man below looked up at the hooded man. ‘It was Erion Sedeg,’ he said. ‘But that was in an age now dead to the world.’

‘Erion Sedeg, why have you betrayed your city?’ said Haspeth. ‘Why do you serve these tyrants of yours?’

‘Why do you serve yours? Men upon the gate, you are soldiers, not nobles. I have known soldiers – my father was one. Soldiers labor for their lords for many years, they lose limbs and sit in the streets to beg or steal their bread. Some are owed farmland for their service: this land is denied them, because the charanti take it, though it is land owned by the city. How many years have you labored, and how rich are you for it?

‘The age of the charanti is gone. Ara-Karn has come into the world. This false and fallen Goddess you protect has lost Her strength. Dark God has stepped to Earth in the far North, and cast His shadow upon the lands of men. For those who follow Him there will be wealth, land, and power. Those who oppose Him will be hunted and cut low. Which do you choose?’

Then he was stopped by the barbarians behind him, who spoke to him harshly in the tongue of the far North. Erion Sedeg turned to them and uttered a few words. They fell silent, and he faced back to the Iron Gate.

‘What is it you want?’ Berowne asked.

‘To bid you to a parley, so you may win peace.’ The renegade spoke these words reluctantly. ‘But first we would be sure that those with whom we speak have sufficient warrant to bring their oaths to pass.’

‘Speak on then, Erion Sedeg. I am Captain of the Guard of the Citadel of Elna, and have been given powers to speak for her Divine Majesty.’

The renegade turned again to the chieftains. ‘It is enough,’ he said. ‘Captain, come speak with us. We give oaths before Ara-Karn himself for your safety.’

Berowne turned to the Gerso. ‘Ennius, my lord, you know the barbarians. Will they hold their oaths? I am of a mind to accept. This shouting before mobs will lead to short tempers and hasty words. And I believe they do seek peace.’

The hooded man gazed down over the square. ‘Look and see your answer for yourself, Captain. You heard the words of the renegade. Why have they come in such numbers if they wish to speak of peace? Captain Haspeth, would you trust your life on their oaths?’

‘Never with such savages.’

‘Put them to this test, Captain Berowne,’ the Gerso said. ‘Bid the chieftains come here among us, and see what answer they give.’

‘But that is more dangerous still,’ Haspeth protested, ‘let them come within reach of the mechanism that holds the gate shut?’

‘There will be no danger,’ Ennius Kandi said. ‘Go on, Captain.’

‘Erion Sedeg, it seems to me there is little place there for conferences. Come hither, then, and we will meet in the cool shadow of the yard beyond the gate. I guarantee your safety.’

The renegade passed on the words to the chieftains. At length they answered, ruefully it seemed. But there was gladness in the voice of Erion Sedeg as he said, ‘It will not do, Captain. We will not pass out of sight of his armies where you may work your treacheries upon us. We will remain where we are.’

‘You see, Captain,’ Ennius Kandi said. ‘What guiltless man is so suspicious?’

Berowne sighed. ‘What are your terms?’ he shouted down.

‘These,’ answered Erion Sedeg. ‘We, the arms and strength of Ara-Karn the King, will consent to spare your lives, if you deliver us the chieftain Gundoen unharmed, and with him all the stores of gold held in the caverns beneath the Palace. Also, as a personal offering to the Dark One, we will have the golden Disk of Goddess that shines from the roof of the White Tower. Then we will grant you your lives, if you swear obedience to the King.’

‘You do not ask much,’ said Haspeth. ‘Shall we give you the Southern Ocean as well?’

‘Peace, Captain,’ Berowne said. He called back down. ‘Who is this Gundoen you say we have?’

‘A chieftain and the naming-father of the Lord,’ the renegade replied. ‘These things you know, Southron. Your own Ampeánor, tyrant of Rukor, took him from our camp after the fall of Ilkas.’

‘No one has seen the High Charan since summer, nor had any word of him until now. We know nothing of this Gundoen, and we cannot give you what we do not have.’

‘Have you killed him then?’ the renegade shouted.

‘We have not even seen him. And we are prepared to offer oaths upon it.’

Once more the renegade consulted with the barbarians. Even from so far away, it was clear to Berowne that they disbelieved him. ‘I should have agreed to go down. Now it is too late.’

‘What of our other demands?’ Erion Sedeg shouted. ‘What of the gold, and the golden Disk?’

‘The treasury is empty, Captain,’ the Gerso said. ‘All the gold went to Tezmon to buy the alliance of a rebel barbarian.’

‘And what did not go there, bought arms and food for the armies of the League,’ Haspeth added.

‘Erion Sedeg,’ Berowne said, ‘I give you the sacred word of the Empress on this. You know her fame. The Bordakasha do not bargain like buyers in the bazaar. What is wealth to her, the child of the gods? That gold you speak of is gone. And the Golden Disk is a holy thing. And yet even so, I think she so cares for the lives of her people that she would consent that you may have it. And any wealth that still remains with us, that too you can have.’

‘What is this you tell me? Is your great Empress no richer than her servants?’

‘I tell the truth, renegade. The Empress herself will give her sacred vow to it, which should be more than enough for you.’

Erion Sedeg turned his painted face back to his masters, and they took counsel. Then laughing the renegade stepped back on the lip of the coomb. ‘We agree, Berowne,’ he said. The hatred in the paint seemed grotesque over the smile of his lips.

‘What do you mean, you agree?’

‘We will take your terms. Let there be peace. Throw down the Disk of Goddess, let your Empress give her vow, and go in peace where you will.’

Exclamations passed the lips of the guardsmen.

‘And you will offer oaths to this?’ Berowne asked.

‘We will swear it before Ara-Karn – which should be more than enough for you. We will let all the people in the Citadel depart without hindrance or harm. But we will let go only the people.’

‘Which means what?’

‘That we do not trust in any oaths of your kind. The people may depart: the rest we will take, even to the weapons and your beasts. You will leave naked, all of you, so that we may know that you conceal no gold or other trinkets beneath your robes. Then we will search the Citadel ourselves, and offer all we find to Ara-Karn our King. In truth, he would accept no less.’

‘But this is not to be borne! Naked, like children or the poor beneath your mocking eyes – beneath your swords and spears?’

‘Why not, if you have nothing to conceal?’

‘Yet surely,’ Berowne said, fighting back his temper, ‘you do not mean the Empress herself must go naked beneath your eyes. Surely she and her attendants may be allowed to retain their personal belongings. A soldier’s life is hard, and he must suffer much in the service of his city, and I dare say that the folk on the grounds will gladly leave behind their goods as payment for peace. But for the mercy of Goddess, you cannot mean the Queen herself.’

‘I speak for one who has no mercy, Southron. It is the Empress in whom Ara-Karn will have his greatest curiosity. We will line the Way of Kings to watch her come forth. Only the view of this famous beauty in her degradation will repay us for the loss of the gold and Gundoen. This Ara-Karn requires. And if you do not consent, then it will mean all your deaths, no matter the years or the manfall needed to accomplish it. This will be our only offer. Think well on your answer.’

‘Do you wish our answer, you filth?’ Haspeth thundered, his face scarlet. ‘Here then, and have your fill of it!’ He cast his lance straight at the renegade.

True was Haspeth’s aim, and great his skill. But Erion Sedeg was quickness itself, and stepped aside so that the shaft buried itself deep in the bowels of the chieftain standing behind him.

Hilad-Dren of the Vorisals looked down at the lance emerging from his guts and with an oath set his hands to the haft and drew it forth. A gush of black blood stained his hands and his knees, and the pain of it smote him like a stone, so that Hilad-Dren pitched forward, and the gold and jeweled ornaments clattered on his war-marked corpse.

Uproar echoed off the ruins. The guardsmen cast lances and loosed stones on the square, while the barbarians rained their death-birds about the battlements, so that at length the guardsmen had to give back. Then the barbarians threw filth on the yellow banner of Elna. The guardsmen tried to draw it up, but Erion Sedeg, at the risk of his life, ran beneath the gate and hurled up an oil-soaked torch. The ancient relic caught fire like tinder. Smoke and soot swarmed over the guardsmen, stinging tears from their eyes.

With that, the barbarians departed from the square, leaving deadly silence in their wake.

The guardsmen gathered round the charred tatters of the banner. At length Berowne broke the stillness.

‘If there is anything of humor in this, my lord,’ he said, ‘I wish you would reveal it. I would be thankful for some cheer.’ For the Charan Ennius Kandi had been silently laughing.

Now the hooded man shook his head and gestured at the empty square. ‘There is nothing in it to bring you cheer,’ he said. ‘But that man Erion Sedeg is a genius.’

IX
The Gerso

THE BARBARIANS MOUNTED a new assault, the worst in memory. At last the assault ended, and the guardsmen lay down on the stones of the battlements. They had killed three hundred barbarians, but twenty-odd guardsmen were dead as well.

Ennius Kandi emerged from the doorway of the southern lance-tower and calmly collected bundles of reddened arrows. He descended into the workshop of the armorer.

After a few moments he emerged, bearing a long bundle wrapped in dark cloth.

He passed though the inner gates and strode across the grounds of the Citadel. There as usual the refugees clustered about him, flinging questions at him about the assault and the words spoken between the guardsmen and the barbarians. But he did not stay among them long.

Instead, he entered the dim corridors of the Palace and mounted in swift, long strides the steps to the uppermost story. There, on the dark side of the Palace, the Gerso entered his own chambers, silent, somber, and empty. The Gerso’s only servant had been Kuln-Holn, but Kuln-Holn had long since left his service.

In the corridor without, the palace guard sat within his accustomed niche and quietly watched the Gerso’s door, as the Queen had commanded.

Ennius Kandi stepped out onto his balcony. There he opened the armorer’s bundle, revealing two long iron rods set with prongs resembling claws. Along with the rods in the bundle was a large wooden hammer of the sort shipbuilders use to drive home pegs in the bellies of ships.

On the balcony the air was clear and cold. Winds gusted from the roof above. Far below, the half-burnt lower quarters of the city spread in patterns of shadow and light.

Ennius Kandi lifted one of the rods.

With care he set the claws upon it and screwed them fast. He placed the instrument against the stones of the outer wall beside the balcony. With the hammer he drove the claws into the cracks between the stones. The claws did not penetrate the stone far, but when the Gerso pulled down on the rod, the claws but gripped the stone tightly.

He stood on the stone balustrade, and stepped out upon the fastened rod. Each claw passed through the rod and emerged upon the other side in a ring. The charan planted his foot in the lower ring and gripped the upper ring with his hand. He tied a rope around his chest and then to the upper ring, freeing his hand.

He stepped completely off the balustrade, swinging a little in the winds.

The claws of the rod gripped the stone more tightly.

Calmly, the Gerso adjusted the second rod. When it was fitted to his satisfaction, he pulled the hammer from his belt and drove the rod in, above that from which he hung.

The mountain winds buffeted him and made a rippling banner of his tunic. He had forsaken his cloak. Far below him the gerlins soared about the rugged cliffs. The Gerso now hung from the second rod. He used the hammer to release the grip of the first, and reset the distance between its claws. The sounds of the wooden hammer could not overcome the groan of the winds enough to call attention to any within the thick walls. The balconies were empty. It was the time of the long sleep.

It took him less than half an hour to reach the Palace roof.

The Gerso loosened his instruments and drew them up after him. The wide stone field of the rooftop, set with walkways and lookout points and statues, was empty. He stood alone as on a high tableland. About him were the taller peaks of the towers, below him the crowded grounds, the Iron Gate and the outbuildings. Beyond and below the Citadel spread the city; beyond and below the city stretched the world.

Ennius Kandi shouldered the rods and made his way across the rooftop.

Two doorways opened onto the rooftop, one from the White Tower and one from the Black. The Black Tower was shorter yet greater of girth than the White. It linked the central, older halls of the Palace and the smaller Southern Wing. Within the Southern Wing the last charai and charanti were housed and fed. There they drank the last of their wine, dallied and sported, and spoke no word regarding the barbarian. The Black Tower held the important Tarendahardilites, those with influence enough to escape the hardships of the camp below. Kiva dwelled there, along with merchants and ambassadors.

Ennius Kandi passed the Black Tower and approached the White. He kept to the darkward edge of the roof, lest any from the courtyards below might see him. Softly, he tried the green-worked brass doors. They were barred from within. Shrugging the rods free, he stepped to the edge of the roof. Once again he eyed the stones of the wall, set the claws of the devices, and swung his shipwright’s hammer. Again he looped and tied the rope through the upper ring of the first rod, swung out over the lip of the roof, and fell from sight.

Like a dark beetle on the face of a white sand dune, the Gerso worked his way around the tower. The white stone was rougher than the black of the Palace, bearing still the scars of chisels. It was softer as well, rendering the purchase of the iron claws less secure. The upper claw of one rod pulled free with a grating sound, and for a moment the Gerso swung out from the wall as the rod slowly twisted the lower claw out.

A hundred fathoms below, the Palace dump heaps beckoned.

He stretched his arm and twisted the rope through the lower ring of the second rod just as the lower claw of the first rod broke free. The rod fell a few feet, caught on the rope and rang against the stone.

The Gerso grasped the lower ring of the second rod and pulled himself up. Secure upon the second rod, he hauled up the first rod and studied its claws. They were still useful, having bent little. The soft stone had crumbled and broken instead.

Two fathoms to the Gerso’s right, somewhat above where he now hung, the first window of the tower’s darkward side broke the pale surface.

Ennius Kandi smiled, and touched his brow in ironic salute to the Palace dump-heaps.

When he reached the window, he peered inside. The window opened onto the tower stair. To one side doors connected the tower to the rooftop; below, the doors opened into the Palace. The stairwell was empty. Then voices sounded from above, and the Gerso dropped back upon the rings of his devices.

Two maidens descended the steps from above. For a moment their forms crossed the window. Both were beautiful, young and carefree. Ennius Kandi recognized them as the Queen’s personal slaves. The maidens reached the lower doors and left the tower.

The Gerso wormed his way back in. He left the rods fastened to the wall outside.

Some moments he spent smoothing his ruffled hair and restoring order to his garments. He concealed the rope about his chest behind a statue in a corner where the dust was not light. The stairwell was still. From somewhere above, women’s laughter sounded, delicate, musical, a sound of innocent yet knowing happiness. Ennius Kandi climbed the stair.

Upon a landing above, a set of broad, beautifully-carven wooden doors adorned the wall. It was from here the two maidens had come.

Silently, Ennius Kandi opened the doors and passed within.

It was a long low chamber draped in black. At the far wall a jeweled throne crowned a dais. The throne was empty, but before the dais lay a reed prayer-mat, upon which crouched a delicate figure. Nothing of the figure could be seen, for it was covered entirely in black linen. Only the hands could be seen, resting gently in the lap. They were the hands of a woman, and they were lovely.

Ennius Kandi drew the doors shut behind him. The figure on the prayer-mat raised her black-mantled head, revealing not a face but a mask of gold fashioned in the antique likeness of Goddess.

The Gerso charan bowed.

‘Greetings, your majesty,’ he said softly.

* * *

The deepest Palace went deep into the mountain, and the walls and ceilings were stained black from centuries of lamps and torches. Kuln-Holn passed the Palace kitchens, great drafty halls whose stone walls were always warm and fragrant. Beyond the kitchens the lower slaves had their dimchambers.

In a far corner of the smoky hall Kuln-Holn found a young woman weaving a piece of fabric on a hand-loom. She was plain, and marked with years of fret and toil. When she saw Kuln-Holn she rose to embrace him.

‘Come, come,’ she said, drawing Kuln-Holn to the couch. ‘Oh, it is good to see you again! I feared – but that’s best left unsaid. Tell me, have you seen her majesty? And did all go well with your secret tasks?’

‘It went well, Salizh,’ Kuln-Holn said. ‘What are you weaving?’

She held the lamp over the loom. ‘A robe for the baby. Feel, put your hand here – he grows bold, doesn’t he? He shall be a boy – as you foretold.’

‘A boy strong and lusty, who will tower over you.’

‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘Berrin would have been proud!’

Kuln-Holn looked away. ‘Yes. But do not weep. I could not bear to see your tears again.’

‘I only weep when the work makes me tired. We must work so much harder now in the kitchens, there are so many to feed! Poor wretched people, who must sleep under the sky – I pity them. They say the great ones grieve and the lowly work on, and that is just what I have been doing – working and working. I have years before me, and I will need a man beside me.’

From the pocket of her apron she drew out a scrip of parchment. Kuln-Holn had seen that parchment many times. He did not need to be able to read to know what was written there.

‘Beloved wife Salizh,’ she read aloud, ‘greetings and a hundred salutations. By the time you find this, I may already be a hero. Kuln-Holn is getting weapons from the armorer. I am sure he means to fight on the barricades. I want to go too. I may even win our freedom! Your own husband, Berrin. Oh yes, I’ve taken the leather sack so don’t go looking for it.’

Salizh kissed the parchment. Then she crushed it in a ball and stuffed it in the cushion of the couch. ‘Farewell, Berrin. I loved you, but you are gone, and now I must work without you.’

Kuln-Holn looked at the walls of the chamber, dingy from the soot yet warm from the cooking-hearths. Here beneath the rock, this slave’s chamber was not much smaller than the hut into which he had been born, far away on the shores of the Ocean of the Dead. A peace came over him, and a strange forgetfulness.

‘Salizh, will you marry me?’

He felt her hand press his. ‘I will marry you, Kuln-Holn.’

It was like some dream.

‘Of course,’ Salizh added, ‘I will need to gain permission first.’

Then the memories and the knowledge came back to Kuln-Holn, and he turned away.

‘What is it?’

‘How can you bear to be with me? I took your husband to the barricades. I saw him die. I could not save him – it was to save my life that he died.’

‘Will you weep now, when I have ceased?’ She leaned to him, but Kuln-Holn shied away. ‘Why won’t you let me kiss you? It isn’t right, that a husband should avoid his wife.’

‘Then did that really happen? I asked you, and you agreed?’

‘You asked me, and I agreed. I hoped you would ask me ever since you left and I did not see you for three passes.’

‘Still,’ he muttered, ‘we mustn’t kiss.’

‘Why?’

‘The war goes on, and who can say what the end will be? And Goddess hasn’t forgiven me. Salizh, I have not held a woman since the death of my wife, and that was many winters ago. And there are other matters – her majesty must give you her permission … and my master dwells among us…’

‘I thought you left his service.’

‘I did,’ he answered miserably. ‘But he has not yet let me leave.’

‘What do you mean? Even if you were still in his service, Kuln-Holn, would he prevent your marriage, if the Queen herself allowed it?’

‘It isn’t that. He wouldn’t try to forbid it. If I told him, he would only laugh.’

‘Kuln-Holn, I do not understand. Does he still stand on all the formalities, this master of yours, now, after so much has happened? What sort of man is he?’

Kuln-Holn gazed into the smoky murk above them.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I fear that he is not a man at all.’

* * *

‘No need for you to lower yourself,’ said the Empress Allissál.

The Charan Ennius Kandi straightened. He was kneeling on a carpet before the reed prayer-mat. It was silent in the dark chamber. On the carpet before his knees the Gerso placed a small bag of yellow leather bound by a green cord.

‘You go to great lengths to visit a lonely mother who lost her son,’ the Empress continued. ‘Tell me, sir, in your desire to pay your patroness your respects, how much did you bribe the guardsmen below?’

From his belt the Gerso drew forth his dagger. It was an evil instrument, its curiously wrought handle all of worked jade. He set the dagger before his knees, pointing the blade to his right.

‘I see,’ the Empress said.

‘Your pardon, Your August Majesty,’ he said, his smooth courtesy slightly more than what protocol required. ‘I had to see you, but you refused my messages, and so forced me to this path. I am the bearer of a gift and a letter for your majesty, which I was enjoined to deliver personally. They were entrusted to me during the last mission on which your majesty sent me.’

‘What mission was that, Charan?’

‘Your majesty sent me to the cities along the Knife-Edged Border, to present gifts to the lords and princes of those cities and invite them to your majesty’s marriage to the Charan Ampeánor. These were entrusted to me by the Lord Ankhan and the Lady Lisalya, when I visited Ul Raambar. Perhaps your majesty has forgotten, because at the time I left Tarendahardil your majesty was ill – your majesty was said to be ill – and so it was Ampeánor who gave me the task.’

‘Another messenger would have returned before the summer’s end. When we were gathering forces to defeat the savage, we sent messengers to Ul Raambar, but none of them returned. There were rumors of a uprising of the Madpriests. I feared you had become embroiled in the city’s defense.’

‘I have seen many cities fall since Gerso, but I did not see the end of Ul Raambar, your majesty. I left Ankhan and Lisalya in perfect happiness and health.’

‘So should you leave us all, Charan Kandi.’

‘That was just after the end of High Summer,’ he said. ‘When I had delivered all my invitations, I rode the Marches, and fell out of hearing of the world’s events. The Marches are a strange land, your majesty. I had never visited them before. For a time I roamed those pathless, vacant grasslands, consoled by the flat and empty desolation. There can be a certain beauty in solitude, your majesty: the very soul seems to be drawn up into the void of the sky, and do battle there with phantoms. I regained Fulmine only to find it fallen, her cities ruled by barbarian garrisons. Riding hard toward Tarendahardil, I reached the city to behold pillars of smoke mounting from High Town. I rode through streets of flame and smoke where even the barbarians dared not go, and won through. So I fulfilled my vow to your majesty.’

‘What vow, Charan?’

‘That if Tarendahardil fell I would not forsake you.’

‘Ah. I had been thinking of another vow of yours. And when you rode in such marvelous safety through fire and forty thousand enemies, and beheld the ruin of the City Over the World and the brutal slaughter of her citizens, what was it you felt, there in your secret heart?’

The smile on the lips of the Gerso had faded as he had spoken of the Marches. Now it was as if traps had been opened in the backs of his eyes, and perceptible there, through the green-flecked blackness, was the infinite.

‘I thought, your majesty, of how wonderful it is to be a man and learn the use of forces which unbidden, all of themselves, will work our tasks for us. Wonderful and terrible, for such engines are less easily halted than loosed. This fire the barbarians set, now. If what the guardsmen tell me is true, the barbarians only wanted to force the defenders away from the barricades along the slopes of High Town. And yet not even the rains could kill the conflagration that ensued. Thus most of the city was reduced. But perhaps it was none of Ara-Karn’s purpose that it should end so. Perhaps he would even have spared this city from the usage of his cruel men – if he could have done so. More forces, more burdens.

‘So has our kind won sovereignty over the world. But is it to the better? We have only fashioned man-made worlds that we call cities, which mirror the flaws and vices of our makeup. Elna, who founded your majesty’s Empire, was only a man. Think then how intoxicating it would be to have the power of a god!’

There was a rustling at the narrow window. The Queen turned her golden mask and held out a gesturing hand. ‘Niad,’ she sang softly. ‘Niad, Niad!’

The great bird leapt into the chamber with a beat of its wings and alighted by her side. Its claws caught up the carpets and skins in radiating folds, like tiny mountains. The Queen stroked the dark head, and the bird gave forth a low, trilling sound.

‘And do you train and tame the wild things now?’ the Gerso asked.

‘You made mention of a gift. Do you have it still?’

He unbound the green cord and pushed the yellow bag onto the reed mat. The gerlin’s fierce eyes followed the Gerso’s every movement.

The Queen drew from the pouch a circlet of gold plates set with dark rubies cut in the likeness of hearts. Even in the gloom the piece sprinkled the black linen with gleams of fire and blood.

She held it in the pale ivory of her fingers. ‘Explain this, please.’

‘It was the gift of the Lady Lisalya,’ he said. ‘I have been told it is a Raamba wedding-band. Each Raamba lady wears one upon her right thigh when she lies upon her wedding-couch. They say the Raamba ladies never remove them afterward, and that should any man other than their husbands behold them, then the ladies must put that man to death or live ever after in shame. They are faithful women in Ul Raambar.’

‘And the men are loyal to their sovereign. Or rather we should say, so things were.’ She replaced the band in the bag and drew out a scroll of parchment. She examined the seal carefully before breaking it. ‘This is from Lisalya as well, I see.’

‘Yes, your majesty.’

She lighted the lamp. She read the writing of the letter. After a while she let the parchment curl upon itself.

‘Words from the currents of the dead,’ she said absently. ‘She wrote highly of you, Charan.’

‘They took me hunting in the hills below Ul Raambar and granted me citizenship in the city.’

‘Is that how you received your scar?’ she asked. A livid scar cut across his forehead, from what must have been a brutal wound.

‘No. That came after Ul Raambar.’ The smile was gone again.

‘You were a stranger to them, and yet they came to love you,’ she mused. ‘I wonder, were they well repaid for their kindnesses, Charan Kandi? Or would you prefer that I use another name?’

‘Your majesty should use the name which pleases her most.’

‘And if none of them please?’

‘Invent one which does. The man before you is the same, even if you do not wholly see him.’

‘Ara-Karn, then,’ she said.

For a while there was silence in the chamber. The two kneeling figures faced each other mask to mask: for the smile affixed to the Gerso’s features was little less stylized than the golden visage of Goddess. Only the lamp-flame moved; only the wind across the outer face of the tower spoke.

Then Niad uttered a long, warning cry and spread his wings. The Queen’s fingers opened, releasing the gerlin’s legs. Niad swept to the narrow window and passed out.

One of the masks moved slightly. It was as if the string of an aliset had snapped.

‘Is it not true,’ she said, ‘that the Charan Ennius Kandi is Ara-Karn?’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘But it is true that Ara-Karn is Ennius Kandi.’

‘And so you smile as if you had won all. Do you not realize, you sorry man, that even if your armies have my city in their grasp, we have you here in ours?’

Deliberately, he inclined his head. ‘When did you learn the truth?’

‘Two merchants arrived after you had departed for the dark horizon. They were refugees from Gerso, and told me of having visited among the barbarians years ago to trade for the pelts of bandars. While the merchants were there, a man was washed ashore in a stolen death-barge. He was a foreigner, a man so vile that even the barbarians held him in contempt. He was spared, however, by one of the barbarians, a man called Kuln-Holn the Pious One. Kuln-Holn was an odd dreamer living off the charity of the tribe, and he prophesied all manner of wonders that this filthy bandit would bring to them. So out of mockery Gundoen, the tribe’s chief, called the stranger Ara-Karn, the Former King.’

The Gerso nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Before his brutal murder, Qhelvin of Sorne had made a small likeness of you for me. The Gerso merchants knew you at once. In a way it is a wonder you carried the masquerade for so long a time, for you were never born in Gerso. I suppose it is a tribute to your achievement, that so few surviving Gersos are left to wander the shadows of the world.’

She spoke with increasing passion, so that her final words were flung at him like blows. Under that assault, his features did not alter, except that, perhaps, they seemed rather more hollow. When he spoke, it was in an odd, distant way, yet at the same time his words probed delicately.

‘And so you have me, as you say, in your grasp. Why then have you let me roam freely through the Citadel these weeks?’

Beneath the thin folds of black linen her shoulders could be seen to move a little, like an elegant shudder before a chill draft of air.

‘When I learned you had returned I could not credit it, but had to send three of my maidens, one after another, to see you with their own eyes. Your impudence amazed me; I waited to see what you would do. My curiosity was aroused, even though I was well aware of how dangerous you could prove. But you only requested an audience of me, as if this mask-bearing of yours could go on without end…

‘On the second waking,’ she resumed, even more slowly, ‘I hungered for your body and the touch of you beside me, and I all but sent for you. Only Emsha stopped me.

‘On the third waking you sent another message requesting a hearing. I was shaking with fury, I wanted to denounce you to the guards, I wanted to see you bound and ridiculed, I wanted to set you in a cage in the midst of the Tarendahardilites and tell them who you were. But then I thought of my people, and I was undecided whether you were more valuable a tool still living, or less dangerous a weapon dead. The second half of that waking I turned the matter over in my head, but still found no answer when the time of the longsleep arrived.

‘When God rose for the fourth time, I knew I must order your death, and yet – I had had dreams of you, and when I woke—’ Her breath caught in her throat. ‘How little right I have to be named among the Bordakasha! I failed in that which Elna would have demanded of me. My own death would have been better than to know this and live, and be called Queen and Empress. So I kept my chambers, rarely even leaving my dimchamber. I slept much and ate little, and the image of Goddess was strong before my eyes. Dying but not dead, my pulse racing, yet my hands and forehead chill, knowing I should rise and not moving, watching the gloomy hours pass… Only the appearance of Niad, like some sign from Elna, restored me…’

‘You deceive yourself pitifully,’ he said.

The smile was still fastened to his lips, but its humor was gone. From the black depths of his eyes flecks of green glinted as from impure ice. ‘And is that what you do in this garb? Have you found a Path now to the bright horizon? Are you in mourning for your son or for your lost chastity? Where is the legendary beauty, the fabled golden hair of the Woman of the South? Is that passed – are you ashamed to let men behold you now? Only the holy virgin priestesses wear such black robes and golden masks – will you become a virgin again? Yet I recall that once you were not sorry to leave that port – quite the opposite, in truth.’

‘Still your tongue!’

‘Such anger suits your majesty better than false grief,’ he responded. He pushed the jade dagger toward her, turning it so that the blade pointed back upon himself. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘What would Elna demand? Go to, kill me now – I offer no defense. Kill me or strip that mask and robe off your nakedness, and lie before me as you truly are.’

She struck the knife aside.

‘Why did you come here? Why did you journey so far alone into the lands of your enemies and put a sea and many cities between you and your armies, to befoul me with your touch and destroy every man and thing I ever loved?’

He stood up over her. The flame of the lamp bent low at his sudden movement. He stepped past her – for a moment he was so close to her he might have reached down and stripped her of the shelter of the mask and taken her long throat in the hard hollow of his hand. But he disdained to touch her. He stepped upon the dais, turned, and sat in the jeweled throne.

She remained facing the door, her back to him. Underneath the folds of black linen her body trembled softly.

‘Why?’ she asked again.

‘Did Kuln-Holn not tell you?’ he asked calmly.

‘He told me much – of how once he believed you were the messenger of Goddess and followed you, until your madness and cruelty became a thing he could not bear. He begged forgiveness of me, and entered my service in your absence. But even your chief prophet stood in ignorance of your true aims.’

‘He is the greatest fool of all. He dreamed of food and peace for the people of his tribe, and thought I would serve his visions; instead he served mine. Even Dornan Ural, that waste of a man, was wiser than Kuln-Holn.’

The door opened. One of the Empress’ maidens stood in the doorway. She was open-mouthed to see the scene before her.

‘Leave us,’ commanded Ara-Karn.

The maiden hesitated, but at a sign from her majesty bowed and departed.

Allissál turned toward the throne. From the deep shadow of the mask’s eyelets, she gazed upon the man seated above her. By now she knew the shape of that long, lean body so well that it was as if he always went naked before her. With a slight flush of warmth she realized that it must be the same with him.

‘You murdered Qhelvin of Sorne.’

She said it lowly, almost as if to remind herself.

‘Yes.’

‘Did he suspect you, or did you simply wish him out of the way so that you might betray the rebellious Belknulean lords to their tyrant Yorkjax?’

‘I could not have them join your cause. But it was both.’

‘You made the foreign ambassadors in my court distrust me, and send false reports to their cities.’

‘I spoke to them of your majesty’s ambitions.’

‘You maddened Ampeánor with desire by giving him that portrait Qhelvin had done of me.’

He nodded, amusement in the shadow of his eyes.

‘Because of you, Elnavis was broken in his soul upon a field by Mersaline, and later died here, a bitter, cruel man.’

‘He broke himself. I but provided him the means.’

‘You betrayed Ankhan and Lisalya to the Madpriests.’

‘I gave the Madpriests bows. What they did with them was their own affair.’

‘What you did to Ghezbal Daan I do not know, but that it prevented him from commanding my armies against yours.’

‘But who was Ghezbal Daan? A man. He followed his own will.’

‘You entered my service, and there betrayed me.’

‘I entered your couch, and there made you party to my treacheries.’

‘It was you who killed Gen-Karn and wrecked the ship which held the bows we bought from Gen-Karn.’

‘It was I.’

‘It was you who dissuaded Orolo from signing the accords I sent him.’

‘It was I.’

‘You betrayed the city-states of Delba.’

‘Yes.’

‘You raised the pirates in the Rukorian Isles; you gave them ships and weapons.’

‘Yes.’

‘You ravaged temples. You butchered Priestesses.’

‘Yes.’

‘You stirred up the barbarians in the far North, and loosed them on the cities of the civilized lands. Without you, your tricks, and your weapon, the barbarians could not have passed the Gates of Gerso. The blood and anguish of scores of thousands lie at your feet.’

‘Yes.’

‘And from all this – the destruction of cities, the violation of holy places, the murders, the treacheries, the thousands slain and made homeless – what gain have you had, Ara-Karn?’

‘Stand upon the rooftop and look in the five directions for your answer.’

‘Did you rape and murder and loot and burn as an amusement, for your depraved pleasure?’

‘There were amusements and pleasures in it for me.’

‘Or was it rather that, in the bleakness of your own heart,’ she cried, ‘in the emptiness of your own pleasures, you could not bear it that others in the world were happy, and prospered, and enjoyed the embraces of their beloved friends?’

The chamber resounded with the accusation.

After it, a curious calmness reigned.

Allissál was bent forward, leaning on her hands. Her robes shook with her trembling body. Her rough breath could be heard through the mouth-hole of the mask. She seemed shaken and near collapse; it was as if she had hurled the accusations at herself instead of him.

The man in the throne shook his head. ‘Do you not know me even now?’ he mused softly.

She bent lower. In anyone else it would have been an abasement. ‘Then inform me,’ she groaned. ‘Enlighten me, O Conqueror of the World. Or else end these futile assaults, slay us or leave us, but accomplish your end swiftly and mercifully. Perhaps mercy is not a word in your tongue. But I am tired of it all. I can do no more. And my people are weary as well. Even your own barbarians long for an end. Whatever you could have sought to gain from it all, power or destruction, surely it is yours by now. I humble myself before you. There is none left to oppose you. There exist no strong hearts in the few cities your forces have not yet conquered. The bravest men of the South lie as corpses on the field of Egland Downs. Gather your treasures and go.’

‘No.’

He walked to the door and halted. Slowly and painfully, the Divine Queen resumed her kneeling position, holding herself upright with trembling arms.

‘You asked me a question, Gold. It is a question you must answer yourself. You know the answer, you need only remember it. Until you have done so, I will see that this war continues. Men will fight and die on the battlements, all for what has gone on here between us. The burden is yours. I will give you all the time you need. This Citadel can withstand a siege almost without end.’

He made as if to open the door, but hesitated, as if even he were for that moment unsure of himself. He turned back and added, ‘This at least I will tell you, though it is more than I should.’ There was for the first time real feeling in his voice, even a trace of tenderness.

‘You have listed my crimes, and there have been more of them and worse than you know. But all that I have done, from before you ever heard the name of Ara-Karn, I did because of you.’

X
Siege

‘IT IS AGREED among us, then.’

Nam-Rog looked about the circle of men seated on chairs set on the earth. One after the other, the chieftains of the tribes of the far North bent their heads to it.

Nam-Rog stood. ‘We will fight on here, and for our final battle of these wars, we will conquer the fastness of Elna, no matter how many years pass in doing it. Gundoen will be given back to us unharmed. And we will capture this Empress, and cut her body open on the peak of Urnostardil.’

The wind rippled the walls of the tents of the great camp so that the sound of it rose like the murmurs of vengeful ghosts. The chieftains spoke no words of farewell, but parted grimly. Then only Gorn-Tal of Orn and Nam-Rog of the Durbars remained.

‘If I still live,’ Gorn-Tal said, ‘then it will be I who holds the knife on Urnostardil.’

‘That is all the same to me,’ Nam-Rog replied.

‘Then it will be I,’ the Orn repeated, and stalked back among the tents.

* * *

The guardsmen walked the battlements. This place had been their station, and then became their home. Now it was their prison.

From the steps leading up from the yard, Kuln-Holn came, arrayed in his armor. The captain looked at the Northerner for a moment.

‘Good-waking, Iocantris. Come closer, stand for inspection. All fast and polished, I see. You’ll be a guardsman yet.’ But there was no merriment in the captain’s eyes this pass.

Kuln-Holn followed the sentries up the spiraling steps of the lance-tower. There, astride a block of stone, looking down over the battered iron with a critical eye, was Ara-Karn. He looked round when the sentries appeared, and saw Kuln-Holn.

When the sentries marched on, Kuln-Holn remained.

‘Greetings, “Little Doughty,” ’ said Ara-Karn.

They had not spoken since High Summer.

‘I have been surveying the Iron Gate,’ Ara-Karn said. ‘If Gundoen gets the notion to set larger fires in winter’s cold, it might open some wounds in the plates.’

Kuln-Holn glanced back at the opening to the stairs. It was as if he wished to go, but could not.

‘Gundoen does not command them now, lord. Nam-Rog leads the tribes.’

‘Ah yes, the parley. But you were not here when we spoke to them. How did you learn of it?’

‘I can’t tell you, lord.’

Ara-Karn smiled. ‘I believe you just did, Little Doughty. Tell me, was Gundoen’s capture the reason why the warriors disobeyed my orders and marched against this city while others lay yet unconquered?’

‘Perhaps, lord. The Charan of Rukor captured Gundoen and took him into a place the guardsmen call the Sontil.’

‘Then it is no wonder they came here. But were the warriors in earnest when they offered peace for gold?’

‘Lord, it does not suit you to ask a fool for news.’

Ara-Karn laughed. ‘Yes, I named you a fool,’ he said. ‘But you are mistaken, O Pious One. Fools are the finest counselors a king can have. Come, sit at my feet and tell me tales of the Divine Queen.’

Kuln-Holn turned back to the stair.

‘What, no hymns to chant of Goddess? Kuln-Holn, a moment more: before you leave, I give you a final word. I have heard much of your courage in the defense of this city. That was well: I never meant that this city be destroyed. That was another’s edict, and the breaking of a wave no man could guide or halt. Yet now I warn you, Kuln-Holn: stay away from the Iron Gate when there is fighting. I tell you this on your own behalf.’

Kuln-Holn nodded. ‘Lord,’ he said, his voice heavy and dull, ‘I believe you mean to spare me. But I am not your servant now, but hers. If the guardsmen need me, I will fight beside them.’

Ara-Karn nodded, and watched his erstwhile worshiper leave the battlements. He himself drew his hood somewhat closer about his face, and leaned out across the parapet. He ignored the calls and cries from the warriors in the square, The Hooded Man! The Hooded Man! He studied the Iron Gate itself.

The plates of iron were huge in height, breadth, and thickness. The secret of their forging was long lost. Maybe it was spell-craft that had guided the molten iron and other metals blended within them. It was whispered, after all, that Elna’s Prophetess had been not only immortal and his lover, but a sorceress, one whose blood was poison to the taste.

Ara-Karn shook his head. He turned and mounted the circle-steps of the southern lance-tower. Upon its roof he sat and toyed with his dagger. He held up its hilt to the Moon where He passed overhead; and as ever, the seven facets cut within the round gemstone at the hilt’s end took on the exact shape of the god’s chariot at that moment.

A quiet seemed to settle upon the scene.

In the square below, the barbarian warriors gave off their idle shooting of death-birds. They sat and lay back in the shade. Sleepiness took them and they dozed. Across the battlements also, the same indolence and lazy drowsiness claimed the guardsmen.

All slept there, except the Hooded Man and the gerlins soaring high overhead.

Even the winds slacked and died.

Then he shrugged off the hooded cloak. He unbound his boots, his belt, his harness. He let his sword and pouch fall.

Naked in the faint greenish light of God, Ara-Karn sat cross-legged upon the parapet atop the southern lance-tower.

His eyes closed.

Something stirred in the airs about him – not a breeze, not wind or what a man would call wind, but a stirring, an unquiet restlessness – a rippling of the fabric of the air. On the stone before the naked man’s shins, the jade dagger turned slightly, the way a well-crafted compass will, obedient to the magic of true North.

The veins on the man’s arms stood out with tension.

Strange markings rose to the surface of his sun-darkened flesh. The lean body arched as though with effort or pain. Sweat shone on his brow, his shoulders and back. The sweat gathered among the hairs on his chest, and trickled between the ridges of his abdomen, to the root of his sex and strength.

A shadow formed between him and the dagger. It seemed the shadow of a seated man. But it lay athwart the stone at the wrong angle to be his own.

He bent forward. The veins on his brow stood out. His face darkened. The black brows drew down over his closed eyes.

The shadow stirred. It slid down over the stone. Around the lance-tower it crept, slyly and cunningly down over the foremost battlements, down to the frame of the gate. There it seemed to bend and stretch, and change it shape, until the shadow framed the frame itself, and surrounded the great plates of sea-quenched iron.

High above, the naked man’s lips moved and uttered words in a tongue not spoken in the lands where men dwell since he himself had used it last; and before him never in a hundred generations of men. The words ran in the form of a riddle and a rhyme of infinite complexity, though their gist was simple enough:

‘You will open yourself to no man but me,’ the saying went. ‘You will not bend or break, until I bend and break you. No other man shall win such power over you.’

And the shadow sank unseen into the blackness of the ancient iron, until the thing was done, and the naked man sprawled half out of life on the roof of the southern lance-tower.

Slowly below, the barbarians turned and fretted in evil dreams. They began to twitch and stretch. They woke, and their heads ached as though they had all drunk their bellies full of the foulest wine unmixed, even to the bitter lees.

Across the battlements it was the same with the guardsmen. They struggled to wake, and spat out the foul taste from their mouths; rubbed grains from their eyes and felt their bones benumbed and aching.

So life and wakefulness came once more to those who guarded and assaulted the Iron Gate. None saw or knew the change that had come over the iron; none but the wisest and blessed might have sensed any change at all.

‘Ah! This was a foul sleep and an evil waking,’ growled Berowne. ‘What came over us all? Charan Ennius, ho up there! Did you feel it too?’

But the lance-tower roof was empty. The Hooded Man had gone.

* * *

That waking the Empress emerged from her long confinement and went with her maidens among the Tarendahardilites. Over the black robes of a priestess the Empress wore a long gray cloak, plain and unadorned, such as priestesses wear who are in retirement. Her maidens handed loaves to the people. An awed murmuring followed in the wake of the apparition of the woman robed and masked like one of the Virgins passing among them in silent stateliness, accompanied by a dozen of the most beautiful of women in ivory-colored loras.

‘But was it truly her majesty, or only her ka?’ some asked.

In the court between the gates, the Empress was welcomed by the guardsmen. The men formed a large hollow square four ranks deep around her, and lined the battlements above. They raised their lances and cried three times, ‘Ul Bordakasha!’

Captain Berowne, with Haspeth at his side, offered her majesty the military salute, to which she responded with the Sign of Goddess. The maidens then distributed wine among the guardsmen, while the Empress walked the battlements.

A light rain began to fall. She looked down over the city, like a gray statue against the sky. One by one the guardsmen came before her, and she gave them words of gratitude and encouragement.

Each guardsman, upon hearing her words, pledged her his life. They saluted her only as ‘Your reverence,’ having been instructed by Berowne.

Haspeth went down on one knee and held out his lance in both fists to her. He remained in this posture for some moments, speaking to the Empress in low, impassioned words. When at length he rose, Haspeth saluted brusquely and descended from the battlements with downcast features.

Last to stand before her was the Gerso. Berowne himself introduced the Queen to the man who had been responsible for their success.

Ara-Karn also sank to one knee. ‘Your majesty,’ he said gravely, ‘I am a foreigner here, and do not wear the devices of your majesty’s house; yet even so I wish to assure your majesty that the small deeds I have performed so far are as nothing compared to what I intend to do in the future.’

The gray-cloaked figure was still. Then gracefully, the Empress held forth her hand. Ara-Karn took and gently kissed its back.

‘Charan Kandi,’ the Empress Allissál said, ‘I thank you for your services on my behalf, and extend to you all the gratitude that a daughter of Elna can offer.’

Ara-Karn stood, and stepped aside.

It had been the most natural of exchanges.

* * *

After the Empress departed, the two captains stood together on the battlements. The rain had ceased, leaving shiny puddles on the black stones.

‘She still blames me that I returned,’ the Rukorian grumbled. ‘What can I offer her to redeem myself?’

‘Death and more death,’ Berowne said. ‘What else but kill barbarians?’

‘No. We all do that here. If only there were a way out of this place, I could lead my men to Rukor and take command of the forces there.’

‘Perhaps there is,’ Berowne said, ‘but even if there were, I could not tell you its secret.’

‘It seems there is no one but will hold my past mistakes against me,’ the Rukorian said angrily, and stalked off the battlements.

Shortly thereafter Narrano Delcarn appeared, bearing the captain a platter filled with bread, cheese, and stew. Berowne laid the platter on his knees and began to eat, while the Rukorian looked over the city.

‘Was it truly her majesty, or but a shade?’ Narrano asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘I do not know what to think. Only this: that a figure of a noblewoman garbed like a priestess thanked me for my efforts, and that I touched her hand, which was cold, and named her reverence.’

The captain nodded and tore free another bit of bread.

‘But was it the Empress?’

‘It was herself,’ Berowne answered.

‘I looked for – I know not what, but something else. There are so many stories about her… Why did she come among us so obscured? What makes her an Empress? Is there something in her eye, or her manner when she presides over her court?’

‘Friend Rukorian, you ask me questions that I cannot answer. You need a seer, and some source of merriment to lift from you this gloomy cloud. Happily enough for you, I see the fulfillment of both your needs in the person of a single man nearing us even now.’

From the yard an old, gray, stout, balding man climbed unsteadily to the level of the battlements. He wore a shabby, soiled tunic, yet over it a pectoral elaborately wrought of rods of gold fastened with silver chains and pins. He paused upon reaching the summit of the steps, regaining his breath.

‘I have seen this man before,’ Narrano said. ‘He often wanders hereabouts, though I have never seen him on the battlements before. Why did the men below let him pass? Who is he, some bankrupted merchant?’

‘Here you behold in the person of this diseased old man,’ Berowne answered. ‘no less than Dornan Ural, whose father was a slave, but who himself, as regent, ruled two of the Bordakasha. Are you still curious regarding her majesty, and what makes a woman an Empress? – Ask him, he knows all. Good-waking, my lord.’

The old man took another step forward. He gave no sign of having heard the captain’s words.

‘Good-waking, Dornan Ural,’ Berowne repeated.

‘What? Does one call me?’

‘One does not, but I do.’

The old man approached them, keeping to the second step, back far enough from the parapet so that the city beyond remained hidden from his gaze. He regarded the two soldiers uncertainly. One eyelid twitched and squinted; the other drooped to one side, drooling a yellowish sap.

‘I know you,’ he said.

‘I do not understand how,’ Berowne answered. ‘You have seen and spoken with me no more than a score of times.’

‘Your name is – Berowne, is it not? How is it that you wear the trappings of the Captain of the Guard?’

‘For a small reason, my lord. It seems I am the captain.’

The former High Regent frowned. ‘What then of the other. A Rukorian, as I trust my memory?’

‘Trust in your wife before that, my lord,’ Berowne said blandly. ‘As I have told you, my foregoer fell in the fighting below.’

‘Perhaps he still lives, Captain. One can never be certain of these things until all the proper forms are complete – at times not even then. The dead sometimes return. Tell me, captain, do they still abide below?’

‘Who, my lord? The rats? Sweet Goddess, they will be there forever. They are our heirs. So we have groomed and fed them, that they may inherit all we leave behind.’

‘No, no, not rats – how oddly you speak! Have you been careful to wear your helmet at all times? It was a saying of my father’s that the late summer sun will act upon a man’s brains as on a pond, leaving only brack.’

‘Your seasons move backward, my lord,’ Narrano said gently. ‘It is late autumn now.’

‘Ah.’ The old man sighed. ‘If only the seasons would go that way! How cheap would wise counsel be then!’

Berowne looked at the bright horizon. ‘Would you like a helmet, my lord?’ he asked.

‘Why? Do they gather to attack? I had heard talk of a treaty, and peace.’

‘Come and be your own herald, my lord,’ the captain invited. ‘Behold the happy truth yourself.’

‘No, please, captain, look beyond the parapet and tell me what you see. Tell me of my Tarendahardil. Will you?’

‘Of course, my lord,’ Berowne said gravely, stepping to the parapet.

‘I see a fair city,’ he said. He began gently, but his voice gathered power as he went on. ‘The fairest, greatest city in the round world. I see towers of alabaster and domes of brass and porphyry. I see the Brown Temple of Goddess, the Hall of Kings, the stone barges of the Emperors; I see theaters and the Courses, and the marketplaces – oh, it is busy there, my lord! All the merchants have laid out their wares. Broad-beamed ships row into the harbor, laden with goods. Can there be another such city known to time, or must I name her for you?’

A sigh heaved itself from the deeps of the old man’s chest. He straightened his back. ‘Yes, that is Tarendahardil. What have they told me? I must behold my city for myself!’

He stumbled past them to the parapet, and looked down. There he stood frozen. As the clouds slowly reformed brightward, obscuring Goddess, a gray tear slid from the squinting eye upon the wrinkles of the old man’s cheek.

‘Now I remember,’ he whispered. ‘Ara-Karn destroyed Tarendahardil, after my sons were slain at Egland Downs. No, what do I say? My sons died in the pleasure-gardens of Arstomenes in Vapio along with Chara Ilal and all the rest of the highborn. But it was Egland Downs that ruined us. I worked so hard, and it went to nothing. Ampeánor was not there to lead the armies, so we were defeated. I achieved my part, but he failed us. This I lay at his doorstep.’

‘Do you speak their tongue, my lord?’ Berowne asked. Dornan Ural shook his head, at which the captain responded, ‘Then it is as well you do not know what that one shouted just now.’

‘Why? What did he say?’

Sadly, the captain shook his head. ‘He called out, sure as I am a man, “Look! Is that not the High Regent of whom we have heard so much? Some of you join me and take bows, that we may shoot him down and take his head to Ara-Karn!” See how they hold their bows and eye you, my lord?’

Dornan Ural’s eyes grew big. ‘I think I should go, Captain. There is business for me, seeing to the supplies of water and meat.’

‘My lord, dare we hope to look for your presence again? It heartens my men to behold so brave a figure for our leader.’

The old man shook his head, mouthing some apology. Narrano caught the old man’s grimy sleeve and asked, ‘My lord, will you not stay a bit longer, and tell us of the Empress? I have heard that none knows her majesty better than you. What sets her so far above us?’

The old man stared over his shoulder at the Rukorian, his eyes and mouth ghastly. He pulled free and stumbled back down the steps.

A rumble of laughter burst from the captain’s chest. ‘Now,’ he uttered in laughter, ‘I am delivered at last from sorrow. Yet alas, lieutenant, our good Regent seemed to take an ill liking to you.’

‘What was it? Did you know he would take it so?’

‘In truth, there have been rumors that affairs between the Empress and her High Regent were not always of the best. Still, you needn’t worry: he has no power over our preferment. And did you not see his face!’

‘Were you not cruel with that poor old man, Captain?’

‘Why? He is no better born than I am. Now at least we will no longer be annoyed by his hauntings.’

The Rukorian shook his head. ‘I am not yet used to the ways of the court and the city, it seems,’ he said, and walked back toward the steps.

* * *

Nam-Rog sat again, heavily, wearily, in his seat before the black tent of Ara-Karn.

Another man approached him from the ways between the tents. Erion Sedeg wore long dark robes and two streaks of paint on the sides of his eyes, in the manner of the fighters of the Desert. The Southron knelt below the old Durbar’s chair; grudgingly Nam-Rog acknowledged him.

‘Lord Nam-Rog,’ the Southron said, ‘I ask leave to take men so that I may build a thing which will win for Ara-Karn this stronghold.’

‘We do not need the tricks of Southrons to conquer, but only the strength of our own arms,’ Nam-Rog said. He did not like this man, did not trust him. Something about the Southron raised the hackles on the back of Nam-Rog’s neck. It was an evil thing, and each time he beheld him, Nam-Rog felt he should make the Sign of Goddess.

The renegade stood to his feet. ‘This you will regret,’ he said softly. ‘I made my offer not for your sake, but for the King’s.’

‘Begone, slave,’ Nam-Rog grumbled. The Southron departed silently, leaving the old chief of the Durbars alone.

Behind Nam-Rog, the great black tent of Ara-Karn stood at the very center of the camp, as it had stood at every campsite since the conquest of Carftain in the North. Empty of men yet filled with chests of treasure and the finest weapons, the tent had been raised over winter snow, desert sand, and the rain-pools around Bollakarvil, mutely awaiting the return of its owner. Gundoen had begun the practice; since Gundoen had been taken prisoner Nam-Rog had continued the practice, though whether out of habit or hope, he could not have said.

He turned his face away from the ominous tent. He for one looked with no pleasure to the return of Ara-Karn.

He had never understood the stranger. An outlander who scorned gold, had no use for women or laughter, ate whatever came to hand, even if it was the meanest of stuff, and seemed to take no joy even in the killing of enemies. He, a foreigner and a civilized man, had assumed the dream of Gen-Karn and led the tribes through the Pass of Gerso, to begin at last their long-awaited vengeance. Then, when but a handful of cities had fallen, the man had left them. Whither he had gone, none knew except for Gundoen.

And Gundoen was a prisoner in that fastness.

Nam-Rog shook his head and bared his teeth. He stood, and slowly made his way back to his own tents.

Bern-Dak of the Harvols, who had been set to watch the Iron Gate that waking, awaited him. There was something doubtful in Bern-Dak’s movements.

‘What now?’ Nam-Rog asked.

‘There was something on the Iron Gate.’

‘Yes?’

‘We saw it. We all saw it.’

‘What did you see?’

Bern-Dak drew up his great scarred fist, and held it out before his throat as if he crushed something in his grip. He swallowed, and his throat worked oddly. ‘We saw the Gray Priestess,’ he said.

Nam-Rog stared at him.

The Gray Priestess was legend among the warriors. It had been in Gerso, on that bloody waking when the city burned like Goddess, that Ara-Karn confronted an old virgin Priestess who flung her curses at his head. Calmly – or so the rumor went – the Warlord ordered her bound between two pillars, and cut her in two with several strokes of his sword. And now, though not ten living men had beheld her in the life, ten thousand of them swore they had seen the Gray Priestess pass among the tents of every camp the army made, to enter the dreams of men like an accusing slayer. It was said that any man who dreamed of her would die in the next battle.

‘What did you see?’ Nam-Rog asked.

‘Her! I tell you, chieftain, my eyes are not so bad – I’m a bowman. She wore the black of sacrifice, and over it the same gray cloak they tell of. She stood atop the Iron Gate, she passed out rewards to all the guardsmen! She is with them, don’t you see?’

‘You saw a Priestess, nothing more. There were many of them here, long before we broke the Gates of Gerso.’

‘I saw what I saw, and the men with me saw the same.’

‘Then if you are afraid, Bern-Dak, go sit in your tents until the fear leaves you. But do not ask the rest of us to hold your hand and chant for you each time you cannot sleep.’

The Harvol’s face darkened like blood, and the dark bristles of his beard stood straight out from his face. He pushed past Nam-Rog and burst out of the tent.

‘This place is unlucky,’ Bern-Dak shouted. ‘And when word of this crosses the camp, there will be no tent with a man at peace in it this sleep.’

Nam-Rog swore to himself. From the inner chambers of the tent women appeared. They were women with hair the color of straw in High Summer, small breasts, slim hips, and dark green eyes. They were the women Nam-Rog had taken as his portion of the fall of cities.

For a moment Nam-Rog regarded them; then he went out again into the rain. The camp odors of horses and dung and stew-pots enclosed him, and its tents struck out all sight of the world. It seemed then to Nam-Rog that he had smelled these odors and seen these sights all the wakings of his life.

Nam-Rog shook his head, opened his mouth and drank the rain. Gundoen was somewhere in that fastness, and Nam-Rog meant to deliver him. Drenched with the cold rain, Nam-Rog passed back into his tent to rejoin his troupe of vicious Southron women.

‘Siege,’ he muttered, as their hands fluttered over him, baring his war-scarred limbs. ‘So be it.’

* * *

During the longsleep, the upper levels of the Palace fell still. In elaborate dimchambers the last surviving charanti and wealthy merchants slept heavily with their slaves, sheltered behind the walls of stone.

In the White Tower all was still as well. The maidservants of the Empress slept in ivory-paneled chambers just below the Empress’ own. Draped in short shifts the color of palest blossoms, the maidens stretched their long limbs and sighed in the sweet unrest of dream.

Above them, at the summit of the tower, a gray-headed woman climbed the servant’s stair to the chambers of the Empress. She was short, bowed and round, with the features of a farmer’s grandmother. Such was Emsha, who had been the Empress Allissál’s childhood nurse. With as much stealth as she could manage, the old nurse pushed open the hangings to the Empress’ dimchamber.

The saffron canopy about the couch was open, revealing the Empress’ couch-shift laid upon undisturbed coverings. The chamber was empty.

Emsha crossed to the ornate doors and went into the antechamber. It too was empty. At the doors leading into the main Palace at the base of the tower, she hesitated. She ascended the steps again, and entered the audience chamber.

In the long black room a small dark form huddled on the prayer-mat in front of the great throne. Perched on one armrest of the throne, a huge gerlin preened itself. The kneeling figure did not stir as Emsha drew near.

‘Majesty,’ Emsha said softly, abasing herself. The figure facing the throne did not reply.

Emsha glanced nervously at the bird. ‘Majesty, what is it you are doing here? You need your rest.’

Slowly, the golden mask turned to the old nurse.

‘The throne is empty,’ the Queen said. The voice rang with the metal surrounding it.

‘Then you should sit in it, majesty. It’s your place.’

‘Dear old Emsha. Once I told you everything, and what I failed to tell you you guessed anyway. But one thing I must hold alone – or else tell all the world.’

Emsha cast down her dark sad eyes. ‘It has to do with him. I know it.’

‘Then you know too much. Emsha, my mind turns from one side to the other, and when it does not spin like a wheel it is heavy and unformed as a stone.’

‘Then come let me dress you for sleep. Rest. Maybe the answer will reach you in a dream.’

‘If I were free, I would go riding on Kis Halá. As it is, I will rest here.’

‘I won’t leave you alone like this, majesty.’

‘I will fare better here than in my couch lying with open eyes. If you must do something for me, perhaps you might go down to the kitchens and get a little meat for Niad. And I might be able to eat something now.’

The old nurse’s face took on a new bearing. ‘Yes, majesty. I’ll get the best, leave it to me, and I’ll be swift too.’

When the doors closed again, the woman in black faced once more the empty throne. After a moment she reached into one of her sleeves and drew out a long dagger. It was a dagger of odd design, and had a handle of carved jade. Balancing the blade’s point on her fingertip for an instant, the Empress let the dagger fall. It turned over in the air and struck with its point on the rugs.

The Empress leaned forward, staring down at the dagger where it lay before her knees.

‘Yes,’ she breathed, ‘that is the answer. What other answer could there be? Truly, this has gone on too long now. Ara-Karn will die this waking.’

The great bird cawed.

‘Do you approve, Niad? Honor and pride both demand it; there can be no half-measures here. He dwells among us unsuspected, or else he dies. There is no way to imprison him. There are too many anguished and outraged hearts awake in the yards below; they would rend him to bits.

‘And yet, how much is won by killing him? So far it appears he will work us no injuries; the opposite, in fact. Would his death bring peace? Or would his barbarians fight on out of hatred? If we hung his corpse before them, the barbarians would fight to avenge him. And his death,’ she added, shaking her head beneath the black cowl, ‘would be a thing irreversible. His secrets would die with him.

‘Still, still,’ she groaned, ‘this cannot go on. He is too clever, too dangerous to be free. And yet, can I kill him? And if I cannot, how then could I order another to do so? “No ruler shall order any deed he cannot do himself.” Elna himself wrote that law.’ She sighed. ‘O Niad,’ she moaned, ‘how many times must I run this same course? Tell me then, decide the matter for me: what am I to do?’

The great bird looked down at her. All about them, the silence of the sleeping Palace hung. In the darkness of the gerlin’s eye any feeling might have been read, save for one faltering or debased.

‘Very well,’ the Empress assented at last.

Her voice was very small behind the wall of the mask. ‘It shall be done, and it will be I who strikes the blow. But not yet. The hour should be propitious, and pleasing to Her. Therefore when Goddess is most distant, on the festival of the Pass of God, then Ara-Karn will die. I, Allissál nal Bordakasha, swear it.’

XI
Gundoen’s Dream

THE OLD WOMAN LED GUNDOEN through the Sontil gloom. From her rags she drew meal-cakes wrapped in leaves. He chewed upon the cakes slowly, finding in them sweetness and a source of strength.

After a while, she stopped and indicated they should rest. Gundoen laid the Southron’s body on the moss and found a hollow beside a root. He did not know if it was the hour for sleep, but sleep sucked him down for hours.

A gentle prodding of the seeress’ staff woke him.

‘I have looked upon your friend,’ she said. ‘His hurt is grave. If I am to do anything for him, we must get him to my home.’

‘He is no friend of mine,’ Gundoen said. But he shouldered the Southron’s body once more and followed her. Along the path she gave him another cake and he drank from a stream.

After two passes they came upon a steep hill, the base of which was broken by a wall of stone. Into the stone delved several cave-mouths. The old woman led Gundoen into the midmost cave. It was spacious and bright. Against one wall was a low pallet of unsquared logs and leaves, upon which Gundoen laid Southron’s body.

Melkarth removed the tunic and armor. When she laid bare the chest, Gundoen saw deep, blue-green gashes. The stench of them filled the cave.

‘But this is worse even than I feared,’ she said. ‘I do not know if there is anything any mortal strength can do here.’

‘It was the Darkbeast,’ he said. ‘It was the Darkbeast’s tongue.’

The sight and smell brought back memories of the battle. He shook his head and left the cave.

A shallow stream jumped down the hillside. Gundoen stripped and lay in it. The chill waters washed over him, soothing his limbs. It seemed as though his spirit drifted up from the stream-bed like smoke, and filled the space beneath the leaves. The memory of life’s sourness left him, and he slept the sleep of peace.

* * *

The weeks passed slowly in the Sontil. Gundoen regained his strength, except for an ache about his left hip. He hunted and fished, and gathered the leaves and roots the old woman described to him. That was a task he knew well, for he had often done as much for Hertha-Toll. Melkarth seemed to take a liking to him, and they often sat upon stone seats on the hillside and spoke of the ways of wood-beasts and the turns and tides of weather. Autumn drew to an end, and the bite of winter closed about the Sontil, and Gundoen gathered wood and stored food.

Upon the low pallet the Southron lay still. He had not opened his eyes since the battle of the Darkbeast. Each waking the Melkarth lay new dressings on his wounds, poultices and leaves crushed in steaming water. The bones set and the wounds healed, leaving behind them only whitish scars, but Ampeánor did not wake. Only the green gashes about his chest were unhealed.

Melkarth sent Gundoen out for still rarer herbs. Sometimes the hunt led him far from the hill, and he was gone for many passes. Yet the green wounds did not heal.

‘These are a deadly evil,’ the old woman said. ‘The poison will not leave his flesh, and it is all I can do to prevent it from deepening and spreading. All his flesh thereabouts is choked with it.’

‘Hertha-Toll could heal it.’

‘Perhaps she could. Perhaps I can, but it will take much time. And even then, how do we know this is for the best? You know as well as I what effect this poison can have even on those who survive its bite.’

‘Use a knife dipped in flame, and cut the poison out.’

‘If I did that, I might cut untouched vessels and spread the poison further. It might enter his heart.’

‘Still,’ Gundoen grumbled, ‘do something. This is not working. I grow impatient.’

‘Then why stay?’ The old woman returned to her place beside the fire, where the stone kettle bubbled. ‘I do not hold you here. Return to your armies and your son, and leave this man to his fate. For your wife’s sake you should do this.’

‘You still need me to gather herbs. If you left here for more than the length of a pass, he would die.’

‘That may be true, but why does this concern you? This man is your enemy.’

Gundoen sat on the stones at the far side of the fire. In his hand he held one of the long, curving teeth. ‘We fought and slew a Darkbeast together.’

‘If he wakes, he will take you among his people, your enemies. You will die there.’

‘Old woman, my death has been foretold me so many times that now it only makes me sleepy. First it was my wife. Years ago she told me that Ara-Karn would bring me death. But instead he brought luck and power and wealth. Again and again she foretold evil, but each time the story changed, and nothing came of it. Now you tell me this man will bring about my death, but I think he will be lucky to escape his own. What is there about you women, that all you can speak of is death?’

‘Death is a strong thing, easily scented from afar,’ Melkarth said, ‘especially a death such as yours. And there is this also, Chieftain: these foresights of ours came from Goddess alone, and She speaks to us most of those She favors most. Does it surprise you now to learn that She has favored you – you, the hunter who disdains women? Yet it is so, Gundoen Strong-In-Girth.’

‘She has not done me much good in the way of sons.’

‘That is a tale that, were I allowed to tell it, would surprise you. But this much I will say, Gundoen, because knowing it will do you no harm, and this will be the only chance you will have to learn of it. A child will bear your name after all, and your wife will raise it with the greatest love any child ever had. And that boy will do great things in lands beyond your knowledge.’

‘Well, at least that is better than this talk of dying,’ Gundoen said. ‘But what of the Southron? If you are so wise, do you know what fate will befall him?’

‘Goddess has had nothing to say of him for years. I know no better than you whether my mixtures will save him, or what the state of his spirit will be if he wakes. But if you will heed my counsel, Chieftain, you will pray to Goddess for his death.’

* * *

From that waking, Gundoen stayed longer away from the cave. He went on long hunts, and returned once a week. The moss was thick with leaves, and the rain came more often. It grew colder in the Sontil. Gundoen ranged about the forest, learning its streams and hills and trees. Yet he did not go beyond the hills where Melkarth lived, nor venture near the Darkbeast’s vale.

Now and again he thought of the army, of his tribe and fellow-chiefs, and of Ara-Karn. He thought of the joy of battle. He dreamt of past campaigns, and he saw the mistakes he had made: he saw in the besieged cities weaknesses hidden before, he saw how to order the ranks of men more strongly. Once he grew so eager for it he would have set forth without delay if only he had known where the army was camped. But in the cave his pride would not let him ask the old woman of those things. He would not admit to her that her words might have cast fear into his heart. He was Gundoen.

So he remained in the Sontil and awaited the Southron’s fate, though in his heart he knew well it was wrong and he should have gone long before.

He brought down a large elbuck of the southern kind, slaughtered it and bore the flesh back to the cave. Melkarth made a feast of it, and even took out beer she had brewed, and that was the first Gundoen had seen of that. Gundoen let the cave ring with his songs. The old woman laughed and clapped her hands.

‘And will you sleep here this sleep, and stay here this pass?’ she asked him. And Gundoen, who would have denied her almost nothing then, nodded.

When he woke, Gundoen felt none of the pains he usually felt after drinking. The cave was still. The Southron lay upon the low pallet, breathing harshly, his chest covered with a yellow muck of herbs. The fire at the hearth was all but dead beneath its ashes. The old woman was gone.

Gundoen ate of the elbuck thoughtfully. He washed the meat down with the water in the stone bucket.

The hillside was quiet. There was no sign of the seeress. Gundoen washed his head in the stream, shook his hair and went back to the caves. He sat in one of the stone seats and shaved his skull with the Southron’s war-knife.

It rained, and Gundoen unburied the embers and built a fresh fire. He slept that shortsleep on the stones before the hearth. The smoke and the pattering of the rain without made him drowsy. He slept past the time of the fifth meal. When he woke, it was in the manner of a beast in the wild: all at once his eyes were open and he woke. It rained still. In the bright circle of the open cave-mouth he saw a low, dark figure.

The figure extended one of its arms. ‘Come.’

‘Where have you been?’ Gundoen asked. ‘I thought you had forsaken us.’

‘There were preparations to be made,’ the old woman said vaguely. ‘Many things are possible this pass. I was readying a gift for you.’

‘What is this talk of a gift?’ he growled. ‘And what is special about this pass?’

‘Do you not know what pass we enter on, then?’

‘It is a cold one, I know that.’

‘At the end of the longsleep, it will be the Pass of God.’

She led him out into the rain. At the mouth of the last cave she beckoned, and Gundoen passed within.

‘I cannot enter now,’ she said. ‘But take this, drink it, be at ease. There is nothing to fear.’

‘I fear nothing,’ he said, taking the bowl in both hands. He sniffed at the dark liquid. It was warmed spice-beer, the kind they served on winter festivals in the far North. The vapor rose through the back of his head as he drank. When he lowered the bowl he found that Melkarth had returned to the other cave.

He shrugged, sat on a stone, and finished the beer. Then he noticed something strange about his right arm. Just above the inner wrist he had been scarred by a burning coal when he wrestled Ara-Karn the length of the village in a fight that had all but killed them both.

Now that scar was gone.

Other scars from other battles were also missing. His skin was smooth and tight and shone as it had when he had been young.

‘Gundoen.’

The voice was strange, yet he knew it.

A maiden stood in the doorway of his hut, tall and slender and lovely in a tunic she had woven by the cunning of her own hands. Her long, thick hair, the color of late-summer straw, was drawn back over one shoulder by bright cords strung with shells. There was the blue feather of a corjan bird as well. Her eyes were like green pebbles on the seabed. It was Hertha-Toll as she had been twenty winters earlier, before their courtship began. She stepped forward, and her body swayed like a green bough in the Spring.

For a moment Gundoen was so enchanted that he could not think of what to say or do. Then all at once he caught her up in his strong young arms, spun her about and kissed her.

Her mouth tasted of the open air, of the salt sea, and the sweet grass of the fields about the village.

They went out of the hut of Tont Ornoth. A light snow was falling on the thatched roofs, but on Gundoen’s head and shoulders it felt like flowers, not chill at all.

Silently, hand in hand, they went down the village. Gundoen cast his eyes from Hertha-Toll to the huts about him. The village of his fathers, how he had missed it! But there were no folk about, only they two.

At the shore the sound of shallow waves curling up to swallow the snow came muffled to their ears. Gundoen knew that somewhere beyond the snow, dark God rose out of the bright horizon.

The Pass of God began.

He looked into his young wife’s eyes. He asked no questions. ‘We will return to the hut of Tont Ornoth,’ he said. ‘Upon this pass there will be no one who will disturb the chief.’

‘Until dark God falls,’ Hertha-Toll agreed. It had been many years since Gundoen had known such hunger for her.

They lay upon each other beneath a pile of pelts. The great old hut was empty. Upon the walls were arrayed the relics of the tribe, among them the tooth of a Darkbeast slain by Oro-Born in a hunt still sung of, and the bones of all the champions Gundoen had slain in wrestling-bouts. Only the hilt of the sword of Tont-Ornoth was lacking. The blade of that hilt had tasted the blood of Elna on the peak of Urnostardil, but Gundoen had ordered a new blade forged for it and had presented the sword to Ara-Karn.

When the time of the fifth meal drew near, Hertha-Toll dressed again. ‘I cannot let you leave hungry.’

‘Ah, I’ve eaten too much of Southron dishes.’

So Hertha-Toll stood at the fire-pit and made food that they shared silently. Both knew that somewhere beyond the thick dark walls, beyond the snow and the white trees and the shining hills, God fell to the dark horizon.

‘There is only one thing I would ask of you, wife.’

‘Ask, my chieftain.’

‘There is a man who lies sick and dying in a cave in the South. He and I slew a Darkbeast together. Tell me how to heal his wounds.’

Hertha-Toll gazed into his eyes, and Gundoen saw the wisdom and the sorrow of the old woman he had wived. ‘And do you wish him saved?’

‘He is a brave man, a good hunter and fighter. He is an enemy, but an honorable man.’

‘It could be better for him as well as for you if he died now as he is, an honorable man.’

‘Wife, when is death ever better than life? Whatever may come to him, let this much at least be said of him: that, one of two men, he fought the greatest Darkbeast and lived to tell it.’

‘Very well. Your friend will live. But I need tell you no secrets. Melkarth knows well how to save him.’

He frowned. ‘Then why has she not done it?’

‘There is only one thing that will dry the venom of the Darkbeast, a mushroom that must be ground fresh-picked: and that mushroom only grows in the weeks of high Summer. Now no more words, Gundoen. Dark God is falling, and this pass is ending – can you not feel it?’

He took his wife in his arms, and held her so tightly it was a wonder she could breathe. He buried his head in the soft hollow between her breasts, and he grieved to think of all that he had lost when he had lost his youth. And when he woke, he found himself in the cave again, alone.

Gundoen rose and shook himself. He looked at his arms and knew again the many scars of his life.

He thought to himself, ‘These are not things to grieve but boast of. Each scar is a prize no other man has won, and no other man can rob me of. I am a chieftain now and general, and a boy no more.’

He took up the bowl and went into the rain. In Melkarth’s cave he stood over the fire and the old seeress mixed her potions. ‘Was it real?’ he asked.

She stopped. ‘Would it be worse for you if it were not?’

‘No. But why didn’t you tell me you could heal the Southron only in high Summer?’

She shrugged, and went back to her mixing. ‘I hoped you would lose patience and go back to your own life.’

‘Would you have saved him then?’

‘Who can say?’

Gundoen frowned, shaking his head. ‘Never in my life will I understand the ways of women,’ he growled. ‘Give me warriors and swords. Iron knows no guile.’

He stood at the cave-mouth. In the gloomy Sontil the dismal rain still fell. The sight filled Gundoen with disgust. Rain was wrong for winter’s cloak. Winter was an old man with a cold white grin.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘this has been no common pass. And I wonder how it went for Ara-Karn?’

XII
The Pass of God

THE RAINS POURED DOWN upon Tarendahardil.

There had never been such a season in the memory of men. The rains made a muddy sink of the field of the barbarians’ camp and filled the cisterns of the Citadel until they overflowed. Goddess was not seen for weeks, and then but briefly, with a wan, unfriendly light.

The assaults upon the Iron Gate grew less frequent and more indifferent. The guardsmen, walking in the rain and forever re-oiling the blades of their weapons, did not enjoy the respite. It was the Tarendahardilites, however, who were the most afflicted. The rains made the grounds of the Citadel into a thick, abominable soup. There, hour upon hour, the miserable survivors of the City Over the World ate and slept and wallowed. Their odor and filth had long since grown dreadful, and the people sullen and brutish.

* * *

Upon the Palace roof a crescent of gaily-colored tents had been arranged. They were green and gold, the colors of the spring, and the half-circle opened to the bright horizon. At the brightward end of the roof in a tent set apart from the others, a procession of musicians, actors, reciters, tale-tellers, poets, singers, dancers and mimes performed with the ruins of their City for a backdrop. In the tents of the half-circle the last highborn survivors of the Empire reclined upon couches of seltiswood, accepted the offerings brought by the servants, and enjoyed these entertainments commanded for their pleasure by their Empress to mark the festival of the Pass of God.

The golden fiery disk of Goddess-sun never wavered in its height above the bright horizon. Only as a man traveled toward or away from the bright horizon would he see the Sun rise or sink. But She did turn, in the course of each year, from South to North and back again. She rode high into the North for High Summer, when Her heat was strongest, and she passed back far down to the South in winter, when Her heat and light were at their weakest point. And although the court astronomers rested confident in their calculations and formulae, the people as a rule grew most restive and nervous as they saw Goddess drift farther away into the deep South. And even the most educated of men wondered in their bosoms, whether She would return this year.

And when She lay at her weakest and farthest away, then the passes came when the jade Moon of dark God rode brightest and most arrogantly through Heaven. Then came the time for cut-throats and rapers and reavers of all kind; men showed their worst faces, tempers ran short, crime of all manner doubled, rebellions and revolutions were born, and murder ran rampant and foul.

In the midst of these dark passes, the foulest of the year, was celebrated from time beyond reckoning, the Pass of God.

Its origins lay beyond the ken of the most learned historians. But its trappings and ceremonies were practiced the same from the halls of Vapio to the huts of the far North.

Upon the Pass of God all temples and shrines of Goddess were forsaken and draped in dark cloth. And mummeries were practiced, rude as well as refined: and their subject all the same, violence and death. But a stylized violence, and a death treated most comically.

Thus men looked to smile their way past their fears, and even in propitiating the Dark One, to wink and smile and look with a hopeful eye toward the golden, fiery orb far south of them.

From the depths of the Imperial tent in the hollow center of the crescent, through the eyelets of the mask of heavy gold, the Divine Queen regarded her audience. The courtiers, charai and charanti had broken out their most opulent salvaged treasures in appreciation for this brief respite to the boredom of their captivity; yet little they knew how absurd their costumes appeared in gray rain against the ashen city, nor how empty and false their elegant gestures seemed above the walls of a capital which had become its own necropolis.

Allissál saw and approved them all. It had been her desire that this gathering should be a mockery, as befitted the Pass of God. From time to time she noted disappointment at the quality of the performances, since the finest artists had perished in flames in the pleasure-gardens of the High Charan Arstomenes.

‘Yet stay,’ she whispered within the mask, ‘for I have in mind for an ending an entertainment which will bring even you gracious lords and ladies standing.’

She sat upon a low footstool at the back of the tent, her naked legs crossed beneath her robes. Over the ceremonial robes she wore the gray cloak of a priestess in retirement. She held her hands in her sleeves and accepted none of the cheese or sweetmeats. But before her she had let stand a great gleaming silver-wine-cup dark to the brim with Postio, foaming sweet as blood.

On the couches to her sides sat Captain Berowne and the Rukorian Captain Haspeth. Four Rukorians and four of the Citadel Guard, in full armor and arms, flanked the tent. Upon an elaborate perch Niad devoured big, bloody gobbets of lamb’s meat staining a milk-white bowl.

Apart from the others, near the front of the tent, the presumed Gerso bestrode a stool as he would a horse. He wore a dark green hunting tunic with an empty knife-sheath and a wide cloak slung from his shoulders by a chain of curiously bound iron. His beard was narrow and gleaming, and his long dark hair streamed water upon his chest and cloak. It was he the Empress sent out following each performance to bear gifts to the entertainers. That was a mark of the highest honor, as Haspeth remarked: for any slave might have performed the task with equal courtesy.

The Charan smiled slightly at this, and inclined his head. For his part too, he had refused all meat and wine. ‘It would not be fitting,’ he said once. He did not explain.

The published list of performances was but two-thirds accomplished when a troupe of mimes appeared to perform the Irony of Coliarin. It was an old tale, of Coliarin, the wastrel second son of a High Charan, who spent the last years of his life forlornly seeking his squandered Fortune. Fortune was played by a beautiful woman in a cloak of cloth of gold, masked, tall, who mimicked each of Coliarin’s gestures behind his back. Coliarin wandered from city to city, encountering people of all levels of the world, asking the way to his Fortune that went at his heels like a shadow. In the end Coliarin met a turtle, who told him to look to his back. Coliarin turned to behold his Fortune being seduced by another man. Coliarin, reaching for her most pathetically, expired in comic fashion.

For once the performance was well received, for the mimes were excellent, and their observations of the world both wicked and wise. They were Vapionil, and the parts of Coliarin, Fortune, and Death had been so skillfully drawn that they would have won leaves in the Vapio Festival itself. They pranced, fell, tumbled and grimaced so that the laughter from the tents of the spectators overcame for a moment even the laughter of the rain.

Berowne’s great chest and hard broad belly shook beneath his armor. ‘And to think the poor man went so far and labored so hard, when all he had to do was glance over his shoulder!’

‘It is as true for many,’ the Charan remarked, ‘that they go forward when what they most desire lies in their past.’

‘Friend Ennius, do not act sad,’ Berowne said. ‘Did you not see how he fell, there at the end? Never have I seen such a fall, not even among the street-tumblers of the Thieves’ Quarter.’

‘And what of the woman, echoing even his slightest gestures like the friend in a glass?’ asked Haspeth. ‘It was a thing to tear the delight from even the most downcast of men.’

‘Some men discover the true worth of what they have only after they have lost it forever,’ the Empress said.

‘Do you think he lost his Fortune, your majesty?’ Ennius Kandi asked. ‘Can any man ever lose that which is his?’

‘Why then, my lord, how do you account for the ending?’ asked Haspeth.

‘He did not lose her. He discarded her. All his life he sought a dream, and as long as he did so he sustained the dream within himself. It was only when he beheld her true nature that he was doomed. Then Death itself was to be preferred to surviving the loss of his ideal.’

‘In brief, he was a fool,’ she said.

‘True, such delusions may not long be held by those of us in this world,’ the man in green said gravely. ‘Yet in the other world, perhaps…’

‘What world?’ asked Berowne. ‘The land beyond the Blessed Shores?

‘Perhaps. Perhaps that one beyond Yron Ghadil. Yet as for this other word of your majesty’s, this “forever,” I find it oddly out of place. There is no such thing as forever. Not so long as there is will or desire.’

‘But he died!’ Haspeth said.

‘There is that which outlives death. Desires and souls of sufficient strength. And gods.’

‘Yet when the object of desire is beyond one’s reach?’ the Queen asked, reaching back to caress Niad.

‘Then it becomes necessary to reach farther.’

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘desire ends before life.’

‘Sometimes. And sometimes, your majesty, desire follows one like Coliarin’s Fortune, plain as Goddess to all others’ eyes.’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that we have kept the mimes waiting over-long. Captain Berowne, will you pass to Charan Kandi that silver wand? And, Charan Kandi, be sure to express to the man who played Coliarin all our appreciation. There could have been no more suitable presentation this Pass than this tale of an over-grasping man finding at last his deserved end.’

‘Certainly, your majesty.’ He took the wand and stepped into the rain.

Berowne glanced to the tent in which Kiva reclined, beset with blandishments from wealthy merchant and nobleman alike. For a moment he felt resentful that her majesty had insisted he attend her here, and denied him even the solace of a few strong bouts of Postio. He and Haspeth might not even rest in comfort like the others, but must wear full armor and arms.

The Empress was watching the Gerso crossing the rain to the performers’ tent.

‘My captains,’ she said, ‘I have not yet told you how grateful I am for all your efforts on my behalf. When word reached us of Egland Downs, then I thought our own downfall was near. But you have proven yourselves warriors after the style of the early ages of Tarendahardil to withstand so long the barbarians. Truly I had not thought I should live to see this year arrive.’

‘It is your own courage, your reverence, that inspires us to perform beyond ourselves.’

‘I thank you for that, Captain Haspeth. Up to now, however, I have been scarcely more than a shadow to you. It is time I set about playing my part. In the next passes I should like to inspect the cisterns and granaries with you. It would also be well to begin to train the Tarendahardilites with whatever weapons can be found for them.’

‘Rely on Ennius for that, your reverence,’ Berowne said. ‘Those people worship him like a god.’

She said no word to that.

‘Your reverence may expect our fullest readiness and loyalty,’ Haspeth said.

‘There may be even more required of you than that, Captain.’

‘Whatever your reverence requires, it is yours,’ Berowne said.

‘Thank you, Captain Berowne. Yet I may ask of you something which will sorely try even your great faith.’

‘Put me to this test, your majesty,’ Haspeth said, as with a jump of the blood. ‘I wait but for the chance to prove myself worthy again, to expunge the stain upon my honor. The greatest torments I will face, I will not flinch, not even if your majesty ordered me to cut the life from my only brother’s corpse.’

‘I may ask you to go even beyond that, Captain. I may ask you to do what seems to you monstrous and against all reason and knowing – and to do it simply because I ask it.’

‘Your reverence,’ Berowne said, ‘I am here, and hold my office, only because of you. Because of you and your house, this City that I love came into being and stood first among the cities of the world. Command me, and I will act first and consider later. Yet even so, the soldier performs best who has some foreknowledge of what is to be expected of him.’

She took up the silver winecup. She drank deeply, for the first time. Then she put back the cup, letting the two soldiers see that her nails were stained blood red, and that the inside of her left wrist was now dyed with the Sign of the Couple.

‘A traitor dwells among us,’ she told them. ‘He has killed before and will kill again. When these performances have reached their end, I will ask you to place him under arrest and put him to death.’

* * *

A guard appeared before the tent. He was young, and there was fear in his eyes.

‘Yes, Riad, what is there?’ asked Berowne, rising to his feet. He still seemed shaken by what he had just heard. ‘Do they attack again?’

‘No, sir.’ The man opened his mouth, stopped, then rushed on with a flood of words. ‘It’s the people, sir – the Tarendahardilites. They stormed the Hall of Justice. Ullerath called out the men, but even they weren’t enough, and now there are but a handful left to watch the Iron Gate; even so we can scarcely hold them.

‘They have stones and sticks, and cry for food and shelter. How can we raise arms against them? The men linked shields at the doors, but they might be turned even as I speak – there is no knowing how many have been killed already, and Ullerath fears murder if they break into the Palace.’

Haspeth swore. Berowne stood open-mouthed. Servants ran from tent to tent. Indignant cries sounded from the elegant recliners in the other tents.

Niad took wing and swept out of the tent. The gerlin soared over the roof, then dropped like a pitched stone beyond the rim.

From both sides the highborn streamed toward the edge of the roof.

Berowne swung round and went to one knee before the Queen, his eyes a plea for orders.

She herself rose slowly to her feet. She uttered no words, but looked out of the eyelets to where Ennius Kandi congratulated the mimes.

* * *

At the roof’s edge they made way for her. She heard their comments absently: some highborn lords and ladies made jests and remarks as if the scene below them were but another performance, but others chattered fearfully. Below their feet, the courtyards milled with thousands of Tarendahardilites.

‘By Goddess’ grace,’ Haspeth swore, ‘what madness has taken them?’

‘The madness of cold and hungry misery,’ Berowne said.

‘Well, if the barbarians choose this moment to attack, it will be a pretty turn.’

‘Would it have been possible, think you,’ the Queen asked, leaning over the parapet, ‘for anyone to have sent messages to them, to goad them to this frenzy?’

‘Does your reverence mean the traitor?’ Berowne asked.

‘Your majesty, speak his name now. We will end this stain on our honor before we deal with the rabble below.’ Haspeth’s voice was hot and eager for death.

Far below, the color of the mob altered, as heads turned skyward into the rain. They saw the spectators lining the roof’s edge; from their thousand throats a sullen roar struck off the walls.

‘We will go below,’ Allissál commanded. ‘This should never have been. Captain, are you sure of your men?’

‘As sure as I am of my own heart.’

‘We will see. Come.’

* * *

How it had begun, no man might have said. There had been the usual hunger, the usual misery, the usual grumbling on the grounds, but not to excess. Only their quality seemed strained this pass. Perhaps it was the thought of the entertainments given on the rooftop for the delectation of the high ones, perhaps it was the influence of Him in whose honor this pass was named. But all at once a woman whose child had perished of the fever two weeks earlier rose and cried in a fearsome wail, ‘Is it a feast-pass, and is there to be no more food for us?’

And from all quarters a hundred arose and began striding toward the Palace, perhaps with no other intention than of begging for more bread. But five hundred more rose on their heels, and then the whole encampment was afoot. And they went not humbly, but with a growing rage. For were they not the last survivors of the City Over the World, so how was it they must suffer and perish in filth worse than any barbarian’s?

They swarmed past the gateways and filled the inner courtyards. They lifted their faces against the rain, to the balconies and windows behind which the rich and noble dwelt in comfort. And then they came upon the broad stone steps leading to the ancient colonnade and the doorless entrance to the Imperial Hall of Justice.

The foremost halted.

Then they surged forward again.

The steps vanished beneath them. The low roof of the colonnade echoed to their passing. Thousands of them filled the hollow of the gloomy, ancient Hall; thousands more milled and thronged without.

But the guardsmen had not stood idle. They saw the movement of the Tarendahardilites and told Ullerath. The Eglandic lieutenant called the men off duty and marched them to meet the mob. Seeing them by the Hall of Justice, Ullerath guessed their goal, though not their purpose, and at double step led his men through another gateway and down the corridors in time to take a stand at the doors to the lower Hall before the mob broke into the Palace itself.

The Tarendahardilites, unsure in their own hearts just what they wanted, halted before the King’s Light where, throughout the centuries, Emperors had given justice to their people. Something of awe entered the inflamed hearts of the foremost of the Tarendahardilites, so that their voices stilled. Their eyes ran round the walls, set with busts of all the Emperors to Elna.

It was then that Ullerath, having dispatched one man to summon more men from the Gates and Riad to the roof for the guidance of the captains and the Queen, made a mis-step. He ordered the inner doors opened and told his men to lower their lances to cow the mob.

There were six entrances into the Hall: one through the colonnade, two portals that broke the long wall in thirds on the level of the stone-worked floor, and two other portals above, leading from the upper level of the Palace to the galleries, where of old the noblest houses had set their names and devices in brass upon the backs of long benches. There was also a small, little-known way, which led to a low, close chamber hidden behind the dais. The guardsmen stood at the ground portals; above, all was as yet obscure.

So, when of a sudden the only two doorways to be seen were opened to reveal the guards in full armor, lances ready, the Tarendahardilites felt caught in a trap. Fear rose in them, and indignation. Were those lances now trained upon them, as if they were no better than barbarians? Were they to be slaughtered for some bread?

Ullerath stood forward. The Eglander was tall and lean. His eyes cut deep beneath his upswept brow, and his pupils seemed fashioned for looking out across the immense spaces of the plains of his home. He held his lance aloft and demanded of the filthy, rain-sodden mob,

‘Why you have broken like robbers into the house of our Queen? You have come where you do not belong. Return where you belong, or I shall see that you regret it!’

He spoke harshly, for Ullerath feared for the safety of Kiva, the lady he loved in rivalry with Berowne. So he spoke without thought, and said more than he wished.

The outcome was immediate and unfortunate. The Tarendahardilites were prisoners within the Citadel. Wretchedly as unwanted hounds or stepchildren had they been treated before, when they had come as suppliants to the refuge of their sovereign; now, having offended, what lot could they hope to be accorded?

From the depths of the crowd a voice shouted, ‘Bread! Give us bread!’

They began to move forward.

Another cried, ‘Shelter for our children!’

‘Soup for our bellies!’

‘Fresh clothes for our backs!’

‘Cups that are clean!’

‘And wine!’

‘And cloaks!’

‘And winter loras!’

‘And tent-cloths to put over us!’

‘And wood to burn!’

‘Death or hard knocks is all that you’ll get if you do not give way now!’ Ullerath bellowed. He knew than he had mistaken; he saw it in the eyes of his own men.

The crowd surged forward. The foremost crowded the portals. The guardsmen gave back half a step. Their eyes went to Ullerath for some way not to kill, but Ullerath was new-come from the plains, and had never commanded men against city rioters. It was long years since the granaries had last run empty and riots broke out of the Thieves’ Quarter – not since two years before Dornan Ural had been named High Regent.

The crowd sensed the indecision of the guardsmen, and shoved forward once more.

Now they were at the very threshold of the portals, and stained with their dark grasping hands the delicate friezes round the door frames.

The guardsmen gave back again, a full step. The lances wavered and clattered against one another. Another step and the portals would be cleared.

Then suddenly the mob receded back into the Hall. They pushed back against the far wall, leaving space before the guardsmen. The mob raised their heads toward the upper reaches of the Hall.

There Allissál stood with the remnants of her court.

To her right was Berowne, to her left Haspeth. Some servants held lamps, and the oil-fed flames cast lurid crowns behind the black cowl, and gleamed like lightning off the golden mask.

Seeing the Divine One so near, the mob hushed. She waited until the moment it must break, then spoke and said,

‘So, my people, you have sought me here into the Hall of Justice, as is your right. What then do you require of me, a woman who has lost her son, her land, and her city?’

There were murmurs but no answer to her words. The refugees within the Hall seemed shamed and sullen, though the thousands out in the yard still grumbled.

Then a woman cried out from the back of the Hall.

‘Give us shelter!’

Allissál turned to Berowne and said softly, ‘Captain, go below and take counsel with your lieutenant and see how the men fare.’

‘Ay, your reverence,’ he said, giving her the military salute. The nobles in their fineries stepped forward to take his place: four stood where he had been, three charanti and one young chara whose eyes glowed darkly in the lamplight. There were dried flowers in her loosened hair and her lora was rumpled about the skirts.

The masses saw the drunken highborn, and their fury and despair awoke again. And the woman’s voice rose up, a howl as from some beast-bitch that has lost her brood to a hunter’s wiles: ‘Give us shelter!’

And a man shouted, ‘Give us food!’

And at that the cries went up from all sides of the crowd: not the cries of suppliants but of men who demand that which has long been promised them:

‘Give us wood to burn!’ – ‘Give us lamps to light our hearts!’ – ‘Give us tent-cloth!’ – ‘Give us bread without worms!’ – ‘Give us herbs to cure our children!’

The cries went on, growing in ferocity. Even the sacred person of the Queen but served further to inflame them. She had failed them. They had starved and perished while she reclined in opulence and commanded players to amuse her. In their suffering they had called upon her – she had done nothing.

The crowd surged forward. Even the Vapionil nobles paled. And still the cries went on.

‘Give us water to wash our clothing!’ – ‘Give us peace from the barbarians!’ – ‘Give us beds, linens, roofs for our children!’ – ‘Give us respite from this winter that destroys us slowly, one by one!’

‘No!’

The cry was sudden, unlooked-for: the voice thunderous and stern as dark God’s own. In its wake the mob was struck silent and fearful. They turned to seek out the source of the voice. It had come not from above but from the empty stone dais – from the King’s Light where the high throne of Elna stood massive and immovable.

A single man stood there.

He was tall, lean, garbed in a green hunting tunic and cloak. He bore no weapons, and his hair and garb were fully as rain-sodden as the rags of the Tarendahardilites.

He stood in the center of the King’s Light. The sky had lightened, and Goddess shone upon the dais, and upon the face of the Charan Ennius Kandi, as if he had been cut out of stone, one with the busts along the walls.

He pointed down at the Tarendahardilites, accusingly. The crowd fell back some paces, more fearful of that stabbing finger than they had been of the guardsmen’s lances.

‘What do you here, what do you seek?’ His voice seemed to take on the harshness and solidity of the age-old stones themselves. ‘Do you come to draw our defenders from the walls, and make it easier for the enemy to kill us all? Will you eat up what grain we have, empty the cisterns of their abundance? Have you now no greater foresight than children? “Give, give, give!” you cry – but what will you give, what have you ever given? You receive the bounty of these walls, of the lives of loyal guardsmen, of grain and water: what have any of you ever done to repay these priceless gifts?

‘By dark God, were I your ruler, I would give you all you ask and curse you to the Knife-Edged Border, and then open the Iron Gate and see how much better you enjoy slavery to the barbarians to the sanctuary of the Bordakasha! Is it for you that I go upon the lance-tower at the risk of my life? Is it for you that I have seen the black battlements run with the blood of loyal guardsmen? Is it for this I have gone among you and seen to your children, and sought out lost relatives on the far side of the camp, and seen to the peace of the quarrels that break out among you as often as squabbles between spoiled children? Is this how I receive my payment for all my pains?’

The mob bowed their heads. But he went on, relentless.

‘Well, you may have your wishes, all of them – I grant you all! Guardsmen, Captains, lay your lances on the floor. As for me, I carry no weapon. Come kill me first, and let Him for whom this pass is sacred curse and harry you to the last of your wretched lives!’

They stood amazed and fearful at his rage even more than his words. Never had they seen him thus: before them he had ever appeared kindly, humble, even loving. They had never known such strength in him. They had come to worship him as their only bulwark against the hordes of Ara-Karn. Bereft of him they should have been harmless as babes against those ravening thousands. Their hearts quailed; and as if commanded by some greater, unseen power, they went down on their knees before him, regardless that such an act was blasphemy in the presence of the Empress.

‘Well?’ he cried, more wrathful than before. ‘What play-acting is this? Come on!’

‘We cannot!’ came a woeful voice.

‘You must!’ he stormed. ‘There is no going back for you now. What a man begins this pass, he must end – is that not the saying of the Pass of God? Do you think that I would go upon the battlements to defend you, after this? How could I be sure that you would not fall back on these tricks, storming the Palace and putting to death innocent slaves and helpless nobles for a few loaves of moldy bread?’

‘We will give you oaths, we will swear it before the Couple!’ they cried.

‘What good are the vows of children? No, it must be better than that.’

An awkward silence fell athwart the Hall. Beyond the lower portals the guardsmen stood unarmed above their weapons, awed at the sight of this one man’s fury cowing the desperation of thousands. Even the drunken nobles stood rapt by the performance.

The silence grew. The Tarendahardilites glanced back out toward the grounds, but crowded thus on their knees there was no easy way they might depart. Then, reedy and thin, an old man’s voice sounded from someplace in the thick of the mass amongst the roof-pillars.

‘I will gladly be called a child, if you will be my father,’ he said humbly.

The Charan Ennius Kandi lowered his arm. He seemed to consider for several dreadful moments. Then he said, ‘If I am to be called father, then I will look for naught but blind obedience from you, no matter what I demand.’

‘You will have it!’ cried a woman.

‘I will have no grumblings, no more games like this.’

‘No, no!’

‘You will call me Father, and be obedient in all things. And in turn I will see to your needs in the way of any father for the children of his body. But hold it fast in your minds always, that this thing must be bound as by blood between us on this very pass. And God Himself shall hold this relation sacred, and woe betide any who trespass it!’

‘So be it!’ they cried, with one voice. ‘We swear it, by the Dark One!’

‘And so I swear likewise.’ His voice was more human now. Something of the greatness of his presence seemed lost, as if it had taken all his strength to cast down the will of those thousands and make of it a thing to leap and dance to his.

‘And now, Father Ennius?’ they cried out. ‘What will be our lot now? What may we hope for?’

‘You may expect a punishment for having dirtied this Hall and put the life of her majesty in danger,’ he said. ‘Return to whence you came, and sit through the fifth meal without a drop of water or a crumb of bread. This is my decision.’

Sullen silence answered him. Some hundreds of them rose up angrily and dismayed.

‘Well?’ He had turned as if to vanish again as mysteriously as he had appeared; now he turned back. ‘Why do you wait? Do you want my permission to beg forgiveness from her majesty, whose house you so rudely broke into? Very well, then: you have it.’

His voice was like a rod of bronze. Penitently then, on their knees again, the Tarendahardilites begged pardon from the woman in black above them. Silently she inclined the gold mask and blessed them with the Sign of Goddess.

‘And now,’ the man on the dais said, ‘my children, you have my leave to go.’

They pushed back out of the hall. They had accepted his punishment. There would be no further trouble this pass.

Berowne breathed a great sigh of thanksgiving. The guardsmen gathered up their arms and saluted the man who had once again proved their salvation.

Above, the many nobles also departed. Soon only the slaves, Haspeth, and the Empress remained before the benches.

‘Your majesty,’ the Rukorian said, ‘now that this matter is ended, thanks to the Charan, what of the traitor?’

‘There is no traitor, captain,’ she said. She still gazed down at the King’s Light, though the man who had stood in it had gone. ‘I only wished to test your loyalty. Now I see no sovereign could find finer men to serve her.’

‘Your majesty, we did little. It is the Charan who holds the debt of all our thanks.’

‘Captain, need I teach you yet again, how to address me?’

He bowed his head. ‘Yes, your reverence.’

She turned to go. And she thought to herself, bleakly as a condemned prisoner whom the world has made its puppet, It is too late. I waited too long. I dare not unmask him now.

* * *

The rain fell again on the stone field of the Palace roof. The streams ran culverts to drains down which they fell to the black caverns beneath the Palace, where brick-lined cisterns had been constructed centuries before.

Alongside one culvert a solitary figure crossed the roof-field toward the Imperial tent, the last left facing the performers’ tent. The man halted before the tent, rainwater streaming from his wrists and cloak.

The Empress Allissál raised her head silently. Before her the gilded wine cup lay upon its side. An empty amphora stood beyond.

‘You have something to say to me, I think,’ he said.

The mask remained as unreadable as the metal from which it had been forged.

‘Not yet?’ he asked. ‘When your maidens so readily allowed me to enter your presence, it raised my hopes.’

He straddled the stool. He looked at her in such a way that she knew that, despite her robes, she sat nude before him. She saw drops of rainwater glistening in his beard, and remembered once how, after they had sported together in her bath, she had seen fragile droplets caught in the hairs about his sex, so that they gleamed like diamonds.

‘I liked you better clean-shaven,’ she said.

‘I liked you better in the role of Dhalki,’ he remarked. ‘Do you remember? That winter when we hunted game in the snowy mountains above the castle of your childhood, and you took a thorsa by yourself.’

‘I remember.’

‘It was in remembrance of that sojourn that I wore this garb this pass. The entertainments you offered were quite enjoyable while they lasted.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It was on the Pass of God,’ he said, ‘that you brought down your thorsa and told me of your childhood. And yet that time seems so far away, farther even than the Pass of God I was offered a barbarian maiden who shared your likeness – all but the eyes – or the Pass of God when we slept together on the edge of the Desert and swam beneath Goddess in a lake blue-white with salt. And yet none of those times is as far away from us as now.’

‘I never swam in a lake at the edge of the Desert.’

‘Allissál did not, perhaps. But Gold did.’

‘Will you bait me forever, or will you speak of it?’

He smiled. ‘Very well. You meant to have me put to death this pass.’

‘It was decided and arranged.’

‘You meant to give your people a great entertainment upon this Pass of God: the death of Ara-Karn. You would have hung my body on the Iron Gate and let the word run from city to city that the dreaded Enemy was no more. So you hoped my warriors would lose heart and decamp; so the Southrons would take hope and cast out the invaders.’

‘And do you know what stopped me?’ she asked. Her voice was bitter as the gall of a sacrificial bird.

‘I do. Do you?’

‘You have won, you have conquered, all are yours,’ she said. ‘I surrender. Let there be an end. The Empress nal Bordakasha who sought your downfall is no more. The spectators have sought their dimchambers, but I let the performers’ tent stand for your final act. Reveal yourself then and tell me what you want.’

‘But how can I remove my mask when you still wear yours?’ he said softly. He stepped forward and reached for her mask.

And she felt again that feeling that had seized her when, in thick of those on the upper galleries, she beheld him stand alone against the mob: a feeling of overbearing desire for him, who she knew now was the only man she could ever have, and the only man who could have her. Against that feeling she struggled desperately, her arms tense within the sleeves, her hand tight upon the jade handle of the dagger.

‘Ah, no,’ he whispered. ‘That is for you alone to remove.’

He caught her up in his arms. Taken unawares by the gesture, she pulled her arms free and caught his neck. He bore her out into the rain. Her gray cloak swept against his long legs as he walked. The rain streamed from his beard onto her breast. She felt the long hard lines of his veins beneath her palms, and knew he felt her nakedness through the wet linen.

He bore her into her tent. His boots kicked aside the empty wine-cups. Crossing to the raised dais, he gently seated her in the jeweled throne, the throne she had commanded brought up from the audience chamber. Then he stepped back and surveyed her.

‘I return you all titles, lands, cities, powers and peoples as hitherto,’ he stated. ‘From the mountains of Belknule to those of Bollakarvil and beyond, from the entrance of the Southern Way into Vapio to the broken walls of Postio, all men shall know your strength and call you Empress again. All your former realms and all the others that my tribesmen conquered in the South shall be yours to set your heel upon as prettily and as easily as you might set it on this prayer mat. So you will rule the greatest realm of any member of your line for the past six generations.’

She stiffened in the throne as if she had just been given the gravest insult. ‘And for all this that you grant me,’ she asked, ‘what am I to give?’

‘Yourself.’

She laughed, a harsh bitter laugh, angry and contemptuous. ‘And do you think now you can purchase me?’

‘Do it, Gold,’ he said, and for a moment she thought she heard almost despair in his voice. ‘Do it, or you will behold dreadful consequences of the deeds of this pass.’

‘Never. I will cast myself from the Palace roof first. Do you think I would ever consent to play your concubine for all the world to see?’

‘I did not ask as Ara-Karn,’ he said sadly. ‘So you see: all is not yet mine, and the Empress lives still. The war will go on, then.’

She threw herself forward on all fours, her body beneath the wet linen quivering. ‘You monster!’ she cried, as if her words might wound. ‘You are no man, but a devil sent here to torment me!’

He paced the tent restlessly. It was as though he had not heard. Caught against the brightness of the outer clouds, he was but a dark outline. She could scarcely make him out. His voice issued out of the outline.

‘Once, such words from your lips would have wounded me worse than lance-thrusts. Now … now they are wasted on a dead man.’

Something caught her eye then: it was his shadow. It moved strangely out of harmony with his own steps, as though it were the shadow of another man who walked beside him.

She leaned back, satisfied that her words had hit the mark, and smiled … what had taken place?

She had blinked, but it felt as though she had slept. It was as though an hour had slipped by. He no longer stood in the opening of the tent. The rains were pouring down across the roof and he was there leaning over her and she felt his hands upon her, roaming. And for one moment or two it felt to her as though she were still dreaming, and she wanted it like she wanted him in all the other shameful dreams she had had.

But though he stood still she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye that his shadow moved. It touched her own and crawled on top of it. Then she felt a thrill run down her spine to leave a sweet ache in the headwater of her sex. Fire flushed down her face and upper arms and breasts, and her mouth ran dry.

She should have protested. She should have stopped him but instead she stopped herself from stopping him. Let him go on, a voice welled up from deep within her, there is no one to see, no one will know what you do here … you are safe with him, you need not command but only obey, ease into his power and let him do what he does so well, as he did on the pass of Elnavis’ voyaging when you were so alone, as lonely as you are now … only he came to you then, as he comes to you now … as he will always come to you…

And something yielded within her. She let go, and let him go on.

His hands slipped between her breasts. He reached through her sleeve into the robes and drew out her arm. Her fist was a white knot clenched about the jade handle of his dagger. Why so angry, little one? she asked her fist. You make no sense.

He smiled the mocking maddening smile. He drew her hand down so that the knife-blade slipped beneath the linen sash that held her robes in place about her waist. Pulling her hand down in his, he made her cut through the sash.

Its two ends fell asunder.

She twisted but his fingers wrapped about her wrist and knuckles and he pulled her hand to his own waist. The knife-blade found the leather belt in his tunic and sliced through. It passed lower.

‘Oh yes,’ he murmured, and held her hand more firmly.

The needle-sharp point cut the lacing of his breeches, one turn at a time. His sex burst forth but she looked away from it. His eyes caught her gaze and she could not look away from those eyes.

‘And now the rest.’

She felt his hand push her fist and dagger towards her, between her legs. She would not look there – she would not. But she heard the whisper the black fabric made when the knife slashed through it, and she felt the coolness of the airs as they swept between her bared thighs.

‘Stop – stop it,’ she heard her voice say, half muffled through her teeth and the mask. But why do you say that, little voice? You tell only lies.

And he would not stop. Slowly he bore back upon her hand until her arm bent behind her and her wrist felt it would shatter – then all at once her fingers convulsed and opened and the dagger clattered on the roof-stones.

She shuddered, but he pressed down upon her with the length of his body. She felt his hands upon her knees pass up her thighs. She felt his hands upon her belly and her breasts and throat. She felt his hand slip into the very hollow between her thighs and linger there, and to her shame she knew he felt the dampness of her traitorous flesh.

He held her gaze and touched his fingers to his tongue. It was as if his eyes spoke to her and said, This taste I know. This taste I own. I can make you taste this way, whenever I desire.

His face bent down to within a finger’s breadth of the mask. His eyes filled the field of her sight.

‘Whenever I desire,’ he said, and entered her.

He raped her then, with long, slow, knowing strokes. He slid inside her to the root, then slid out all the way, then entered her again. She felt full, then empty; empty, then full. He knew every trick to make her body twitch and gasp. He played her body like a master aliset-player, and her body made for him the music she had longed for and feared and hated most of all because it came from him. When she cried out, he did not stop, but went on, altering his rhythm and speed, turning her back and forth, here and there where he wanted. She struggled no longer. She was his and knew it. She felt his seed loosed like a melting, and she bit into his shoulder to stifle a second outcry.

Only then did he let her go. He stood over her. The rain drew tears from his eyes, from the black depths where green flecks fired. He pulled the cloak around him, touched his brow to her, and left.

His boots scraped on the roof-stones. The door to the White Tower opened and shut.

She looked past the tent roof to the clouds and rain. She lay still upon the platform. She felt her breath shudder as it passed through her open mouth and filled her lungs. She lay back, her legs open to Heaven, and let the rains lave her there with cool small hands.

Something of herself, of her own will and heart, came back to her then. It felt as though a darkness had been lifted from her eyes and she could see again. But what she saw filled her with revulsion.

I am a whore, she thought. I am called a Queen and wear the robes of a priestess, but my body is a slut from the streets in the Thieves’ Quarter.

She felt tears in her eyes and the sky blurred. And then all she felt was the hope to hear the door open again, and his boots upon the roof stones coming back to her.

XIII
Blossoms

EMSHA WAS GLAD for the return of spring. She went out of the gloomy halls of the Palace, and the songs of the women working in the camps and the warmth of Goddess’ light made the old nurse happy in her heart. There were no more rebellions: they were at peace now in those hundreds of gaily-colored tents beneath the young sky. It had all been the Gerso’s doing – even Emsha had to admit it. He had overseen the allotment of the tents of the highborn among those Tarendahardilites who were most needy. He had delved the dusty storerooms to find what was needed to give shelter to all. While the last tents had been in the making, he had found shelter in the Hall of Justice. Now the people had emerged to drink in the blessings of the Lady, and that Hall, properly scrubbed, had been left vacant and silent once again.

Sections of the grounds had been dug and sown with the season’s first crops. Tasks had been meted out among those best able to fulfill them – to work in the fields, to see to the tents, to tend to the ill, and to go down with torches and long staves into the granaries to rid them of rats. Disputes were settled by the Gerso, who seemed to know every man and child of the encampment by name, province, and history. So by his grace routine had fallen on the Citadel of Elna and, save for the occasional rattle that reached them from the battlements, the last subjects of the Empire might scarcely have known they were yet besieged and at war.

Emsha smiled to hear the women’s songs. She too felt like singing, for her Allissál had emerged at last from the shadow. She ate better now, and no longer sat brooding in the chambers of the White Tower, but would venture forth to oversee the works and even sat beside the Gerso when he settled the disputes of the Tarendahardilites.

At the edge of the dark pines, that last remnant of the groves of the Imperial Gardens, Emsha found some wildflowers. The blossoms were yellow with black centers, the leaves marked with purple and covered on the underside with some sticky substance. Strangely, Emsha, who had known all the myriad flowers of the Imperial Gardens, did not know these. Doubtless they had been sown by some birds of passage. Still, they were pretty enough. Her tongue moved softly to an old nurse-song she knew, as she bent and picked some of the flowers for her mistress. She returned to the Palace to find a man sitting on the floor before the doors of the White Tower. It was Kuln-Holn.

‘Please, nurse,’ he said humbly, ‘will you come with me? There is a woman of the slaves about to give birth.’

‘That is a thing to happen any week,’ Emsha answered. ‘There are women of their own rank to see to them. Why then ask this of me? What is this woman?’

‘My wife.’

Emsha nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said.

They went below, into the cavernous smoky halls below the earth, where the lower slaves had their couches. There for several hours, out of Goddess and in dampness that did her bones little good, Emsha aided the birth. It was a birth hard enough, but no worse than many she had seen. The woman was young and rather fair, and held Kuln-Holn’s hands and showed courage, and at the end was delivered of a good-sized boy.

Tenderly Emsha tended to the babe and held it against her boson. She felt for it the deep-surging love she felt for all such. Then she held it for the mother to take.

‘No,’ Salizh whispered. She was pale and damp with sweat, but there was a light of triumph in her eyes. ‘Give him first to my husband.’

Kuln-Holn took the bundle hesitantly. There was awe in his face. He held up the tiny, delicate, mewling creature in his thick, coarse hands, and gazed into the half-closed eyes.

‘Name him, Kuln-Holn.’ Salizh sighed. ‘He is your son.’

‘But it’s Berrin’s child,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘You are my husband. He is our son.’

Kuln-Holn set the little burden upon his wife’s breast. Of a sudden his heart had grown too large for the ribs that girdled it. He wondered how many winters it had been, since his own wife had borne him a son and both had died? Ever since then, Kuln-Holn had been alone. His gaze wandered over the faces of the slaves gathered about them. He saw their happiness, and knew that it was for him. Through the person of his wife, Kuln-Holn was now one of them.

His eyes caught the gleam of metal in the storage-niche: it came from the guardsman’s armor that he had worn when he had wandered back from the burning city into the shelter of this Citadel. He had not dared do battle since: now he knew he could fight again, even against the warriors of his own tribe. His eyes returned to the little thing huddled on Salizh’s naked breast. A son—!

‘Well then,’ he said at last, ‘I will name him Bornin. It means “Flower” in my tongue.’

‘That was well-named,’ Emsha murmured. Again she took up the babe and looked to the mother. Then she rose and left them.

Emsha took another path to the upper stories. She had drawn her mantle over her head, and the many slaves gave way respectfully before the linens of the upper stories.

‘Woman! What is it you do here?’

Emsha stopped. The words had been uttered lowly and with menace. Half concealed by one of the pillars was the half-shaped form of some man.

‘It’s I who should be asking that,’ she answered sharply. ‘If you are here thieving, I will get the guards to give you a good beating.’

‘Be silent, old fool.’

The man stepped forth with a broken gait. Even in that gloom, the shabbiness and dirtiness of his robes was apparent. Something gleamed golden on his chest. Emsha knew him only by that pectoral as Dornan Ural, at one time the High Regent and the most powerful man in the world.

‘My lord, forgive me,’ she said. ‘I knew not who you were.’

‘Tell me than old woman, do you go above? In this light I cannot make you out – my eyes are bad – but your voice is known to me. What season of the year is it now? Is it summer yet?’

‘No, my lord. It is but spring.’

‘And aren’t the tax-rolls ready yet? – But no, they could not be: I haven’t seen them yet. Little is done but I must put my hand to it. – And how is it out there, eh?’

‘Well enough, my lord. They grow grain on the grounds, and the barbar—’

‘Be still! Not a word!’ The round, pale gray skull twisted away, then back. The dingy form of the once-High Regent drew itself up in the gloom. ‘I do not often go above,’ he said after a moment, in the formal tongue of court. ‘This place has all to serve my needs. Still, on occasion I have ascended to the Hall of Justice. I am all that remains of the Council now, you know. But the last time I went, I found the hall filled with folk from the lower quarters! It was a sleep, and they lay about there below the dais like the fallen dead! Fear of plagues took me, and I returned here, where it is safe, and easy to avoid the voices.’

He leaned against the pillar, and drew a hand across his face.

‘My lord,’ Emsha said, ‘the air and gloom of this place breed strange moods and sicknesses. Come up with me. The light of Goddess will do you good, I know, it was the same with majesty.’

He repulsed her with a suddenness that surprised her. ‘I know you now,’ he said, ‘you’re one of them. Did she send you here? – Or has Ampeánor come back, to offer me his noble regrets that he let my city fall?’

‘Come, my lord. I will see you safely to the tents of the wounded. The physicians will tend to you, and see that you are—’

‘—Betrayed again? – or merely laughed at, like some clown? Do the men on the Iron Gate need more amusements? They thought I did not know they mocked me, but I saw through them! Do even slaves now think it safe to taunt me? Begone and bear this saying to your dear majesty, if you dare: that there is one here who waits, who has forgotten no word or deed!’

‘I grieve for you, my lord.’ Emsha sought the upper levels and the light.

The old man watched her go.

Then he turned back to the gloom.

Dornan Ural wandered among the support-pillars of the main halls. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back and his head hunched low, grumbling to the shadows.

He had not expected to be honored while he was in office – had not expected the indolent, drunken, highborn to appreciate his efforts on their behalf. But he had hoped to be granted some small measure of respect after his retirement. Surely some little honor was due to him now. But no, not a word of thanks or praise did he receive, but only scornful jests. He had more in common with the barbarians than these noble charai and charanti. Should he then have looked for the Empress to offer him anything but hate and mockery? They had been enemies for centuries, her kind and his.

‘But I am proud,’ the old man whispered to the support-pillars, ‘proud to have been born of the race of slaves! Good, honest folk who worked hard for all they won. And yet, O Dornan Ural, was your father granted his freedom only so that his son should become a slave?’

The nobles deserved all they had suffered at the barbarian’s hands. But it was not right that Tarendahardil should have suffered for their sins. For that the blame must lie with the Empress and her beloved, Ampeánor of Rukor. He had forsaken them and brought on the destruction of the city. Many times Dornan Ural had foretold it: Ampeánor would return to this place, and face the penalty for his desertion.

Now a sudden keen longing took Dornan Ural as he passed nearby a narrow familiar stair. Dornan Ural ascended to the Hall of Justice.

The huge hall was empty now. Slowly the old man crossed the floor inlaid with tiles depicting the mountain of the Citadel rising above his city. As he did so he felt the sightless eyes of the painted busts of the Emperors of Tarendahardil where they lined the niches.

Dornan Ural stepped upon the empty dais. Before him fell the warm shower of Goddess they called the King’s Light. Weakly Dornan Ural knelt, then sat in the glittering pool, bathing in its warmth.

He gazed down the deep hall. He was reminded of the many meetings of the Council of Regents he had summoned here. From this spot they had decided the fate of the South for almost twenty years. He had been Chief of the High Council, High Regent of Tarendahardil. Ambassadors and princes had offered gifts to win his favor in his official hall, where he had been able to look out upon the beauty of Tarendahardil, that city he had loved…

Dornan Ural held out his hands before him and gazed upon them. He saw himself even as that old nurse must have seen him – a deformed, ugly, coarse, stammering, filthy, twitching parody of a man. Slowly he covered his face from the light. What had become of him? How would he end? Groaning, the old man cast himself down miserably, and wept on the warm stone.

* * *

As spring wore into summer, the crops grew green, and the dark aspect of the Citadel was softened and made almost serene. Months had passed since High Town had fallen and the Citadel was besieged; now it seemed the Iron Gate might withstand forever the blows of the barbarians. There were many women who went about the grounds, their bellies full and swollen; the young men of the Tarendahardilites practiced with their new-fashioned weapons under the stern eye of the Charan Ennius Kandi, whom many now had taken to calling Father. The guardsmen did their rounds, and in their off-watches visited the women in the Palace who granted them the honor of their couches; even the nobles seemed not so sullen or bored as theretofore. So for that while at least the people in the fastness were as happy and contented as their state would allow, and had even gone so far as to pass round jests at the expense of the barbarians and Ara-Karn.

But there was one at least who was far from content.

Captain Haspeth’s brows fell darkly across his eyes, which now and again shot fiery glances over the ruins below, as if hoping to descry the next approach of the enemy. He had no watches, the Rukorian: but at all hours he stalked the ways of the battlements, lance on shoulder, helm on head, his great shield like an anchor-stone upon his arm.

Sometimes he scorned even to descend to eat. He passed the other guardsmen with neither word nor gesture to acknowledge their salutes: was as if he knew nothing beyond his own dark thoughts and the city streets leading up to the Iron Gate.

It was Haspeth who was ever at the hardest point of battle during the assaults, fighting desperately, careless of wounds and equaling the fury of even the most fearsome of barbarians.

The others came to shun him at meals and sleeps, and pass him in silence on the battlements. Sometimes the men gaming in the yard between the gates would glance at the sky, and their laughter would die in their throats at the sight of that gloom-ridden sentinel wearing down the black volcanic stones.

‘I tell you sir, I like it little,’ Narrano Delcarn said at last to Berowne. ‘He was ever stern, but of late has grown to brooding. He will not smile nor speak any word to me except of battle. I have heard him laugh but once these four months, and then it was when he tore barehanded the guts of some barbarian through a hole in the poor man’s armor. Only Charan Kandi can speak to him for any length of time, but what they speak of I dare not say. My captain grows blood-darkened, sir. I fear for his health.’

‘And has he no woman to warm him with her thighs?’ Berowne asked.

‘None, sir.’

Berowne shook his head. ‘When a man frowns in springtime, it is life he frowns upon,’ he said. ‘But then, what can one hope for? He is a Rukorian, I after all.’

‘Not all Rukorians are alike, Captain,’ Narrano responded. ‘My captain comes from the mountains near Torvalinal, the seat of my lord Ampeánor’s charanship. That is near to the shore, and not sixty fastces come between the city and the Isles; yet it might as well be six hundred for all that our kinds are alike.’

‘And how is this?’

‘The men of those hills are darker, with deeper eyes. They are the older race, and trace their ancestry to the years when the barbarians ravaged the lands before Elna’s coming, when they say men were ruled by priestess-mothers. They are folk of mountains, and have dealt ever with iron and bronze that are sharp and hard for death. But we men of the Isles came from the seas in the years after Elna, and have mixed with all the peoples of the coasts; we deal with the winds and waves, which sing and laugh to Goddess, and give way each to the other.’

Berowne smiled. ‘So, and now you fear for your captain’s virtue?’

‘Sir, I do not think that it is fitting to joke about such things. I would have asked this of Father Kandi, save that he is not of the guard.’

‘He would not have refused you.’

The Rukorian looked away. ‘I know. But we are already too greatly indebted to him.’

Berowne clapped his great ham of a hand on the curve of the young man’s armor, above the shoulder. ‘Well then, if you ask it, my friend, I will speak with your captain. And perhaps I will have something to say that might cheer even him.’

So Berowne mounted the steps to the battlements, and found his quarry passing beneath the southern lance-tower. Side by side the two marched for a space, the great-bodied Tarendahardilite making his fellow-captain look like some boy in play-armor.

‘And how goes it with you, friend captain?’ Berowne asked after some moments.

‘Eight passes now,’ Haspeth muttered, ‘Not long now, perhaps, before they come at us again.’

‘It goes well with me also,’ Berowne said. ‘Kiva is always fresh this season, with all the sweetness of hill-flowers dancing in the breeze of Goddess’ breath.’

‘We kill them now,’ Haspeth said, ‘three-fourths score to every one of us we lose. It is not good enough, Captain. There are too many of them.’

Berowne sighed. ‘Yet at least, Captain, we may perhaps discourage them?’

‘That idea of Ennius’, to pour down on them the harsh poisons and potions of the Imperial embalmers, was the thought of genius,’ Haspeth said. ‘The barbarians had to drive the mercenaries against the walls, and then the balance was almost two score to one. But the vats ran dry and the barbarians returned. We must plan anew. Even now, if you notice, our supply of stones grows short: and those that we have dropped now are mounding even over the feet of the Iron Gate.’

‘Perhaps if we rained the Palace slops on them?’ Berowne asked mildly.

‘None of your jokes, Berowne. I’ve no mind for them.’

They went on in silence a space. Suddenly Haspeth halted and seized the Tarendahardilite’s broad shoulder. ‘Captain Berowne, what do you think of her majesty’s words of a traitor among us?’

‘Why, what would you have me think? Her majesty told us it had been meant as a test; for the rest, I have never seen sign of any traitor.’

The Rukorian resumed his step, as if he could bear to abide in one spot for no more than a few short moments.

‘I wish there had been a traitor,’ he said shortly. ‘It was my chance to redeem myself. Captain, we fight a doomed battle, wasting our arms against an enemy numberless as the winter rains. Any soldier, any slave, might do as much – yet we are called captains.’ He brought up the huge shield and swept it over the fields of ruins. ‘So it is said, that the great Ghezbal Daan, may Goddess curse him now for a traitor and coward, was once caught in his tower and surrounded by two thousand of Yorkjax’s best warriors. In less than three months, fifteen hundred of the Belknuleans were slain, and the remaining five hundred had joined the service of Ghezbal Daan.’

‘The Raamba was a great captain in his time, there is none who will deny it. But what are we to do?’

The Rukorian struck the stones with the haft of his lance. ‘More.’

‘Then perhaps this will cheer your spirits, Captain,’ Berowne said, coming to a halt. ‘I come now from speaking with her majesty. She wishes to see us both in the White Tower after the third meal.’

‘But why did you not say this straightway? It is two months now since she has so summoned me, though she has seen you often enough. What is her purpose?’

‘I don’t know. But she asked me a great many questions about you, and spoke of great plans.’

Haspeth opened his arms like some huge, metal-winged bird of prey. ‘At last!’ he breathed. ‘O barbarians, mind my words, and do not attack again until I have returned!’

* * *

In the audience-chamber all was even as it had been half a year before, when Berowne had first been guided there by the maiden of bewitching eyes and scent. Her majesty sat cross-legged on the reed prayer-mat before the two captains, who knelt on the thick and costly rugs. Once again the great black and yellow gerlin perched upon the jeweled throne.

They were alone.

With all due courtesy the Queen inquired after Haspeth’s health, of the state of the defenses, and of the men’s outlooks on the war. She heard them in silence, with deference and politeness. Then when they had done, she fell into a deep meditation.

The silence gathered weight within the low chamber, broken by nothing but the soft outward whisper of the winds across the window-face, and by Niad as he preened. The two captains sat waiting; Haspeth with his eyes politely cast upon the floor before him, Berowne with the heavy pads that were his hands set like steaks on his knees, regarding her majesty with wonder and curiosity. Then he cast aside his gaze, coloring somewhat: for he’d caught himself wondering most intently what she truly looked like, the naked beauty underneath the robes and mask.

The Queen bestirred herself. She lifted her mask slightly. Then all at once she rose, beautifully, like some cloud lifted by the airs in a narrow defile; and the black robes swept down from her form in long sinuous lines, so that for that one instant Berowne knew he would never forget, she stood above them looking down, more compelling than the finest statue of Goddess that had ever graced that City famed for the beauty of its statuary.

‘Stay, rest as you are,’ she said. She stepped back, and then with a simple grace that took Berowne’s breath, seated herself in the jeweled throne. Absently, with one slender naked hand, she caressed the gerlin.

‘Now, sir captains, to the matter at hand.’ She spoke with the sureness of one long used to the order of men. ‘Captain Haspeth, it will perhaps surprise you, after our long confinement here, to learn that we might have left this place upon any pass we wished.’

Captain Haspeth was surprised, as the look upon his face bore witness.

‘That we have not done so, has been a matter more of policy than the ease with which it might have been done. This was the seat of our House. It was here great Elna chose for the archstone of his strength. The Citadel is all that remains to us of Tarendahardil: and Tarendahardil was the sign and symbol of civilization. Had we fled in ignominy, there surely would have been no man of the unfallen cities who might defend us: no, but all would have sent legates to the enemy to sue for peace and grant him what he will. Thus it was our duty to remain.

‘Now regard, six months and more have passed, and the Iron Gate remains unforced. We have withstood all Ara-Karn might do, and dwell here secure. We have water, we have meat and grains and crops: in brief, all that we need to remain so for some years. This all the world has seen. Doubtless the other cities of the South marvel at what we have done, and have gained hope for themselves. Elna laid siege to Urnostardil for no longer a term, and we have seen how well the barbarians, rude and unlettered, survived that. What they did, so may we do and surpass.

‘So I have wondered, what move were best to employ next. The barbarians are weary of war, and long for their own lands again. Almost are they on the very edge of rebellion against their deadly, damned lord. If then we were to leave, suddenly and of no choice but our own, and the barbarians were faced with a hollow hull, might they not indeed turn back to their own cities? And even if they did not, do but think of how this mocking of them will appear to the unfallen cities. We stayed here and defied the foe to do his uttermost; when weary of the game we left, as easily as the free winds of passage.’

Berowne sat bemused by the scheme. Haspeth too was caught up out of his darkness for a moment by it.

‘Yes,’ the Rukorian breathed, ‘your majesty, whet a general you would have made! Is this to be done, then? Shall we set things in movement for it?’

‘Not yet, my hasty soldier,’ she said gently. ‘It is not so simply done: how might we leave here in our thousands and not draw the notice of the enemy? The secret way is narrow, as Captain Berowne, who has used it, may tell you. Its outlet is in High Town itself, upon the Way of Kings. And then, what if we win away? The barbarians will overrun an emptied Citadel and, in sudden anger at the trick, may be after us as swiftly as their horses can bear them. On the open road we should fall to their swords and axes like summer wheat.

‘Something must be done to cast their minds to some other quarter and engage them for enough time to let us scatter in the winds. And it is there, Captain Haspeth, that I would use you: if you have the strength, the genius, and the courage to bear such harsh usage.’

Haspeth did not answer her. He only drew off the heavy war-glove from his right hand, pulled out the massive long war-knife from his belt and laid it, pointing back at him, on the floor at her feet.

Gravely, the Empress nodded. ‘Yet before I accept what you have offered, Captain, I must warn you of the dangers. For I sit not before you as Goddess, who has but to speak and expect that it be done. I am only a woman with perhaps little understanding of these things – you yourself thought me as much once.’

‘It is cruel of you, your majesty, to speak of that.’

‘Very well,’ she assented. ‘It is agreed, that shall be forgotten. You have redeemed yourself with your months of faithful service here. You need not accept this new danger to gain my pardon: you have it freely already.’

He nodded.

‘Yet if you do choose to accept this task, I will expect of you such works as perhaps not a handful of men in all the world might have the daring, the cunning, the strength or the wisdom to achieve.’

‘I accept it,’ he said.

‘You will die in doing it,’ she said.

‘I accept it.’

‘You must wear rags and lie in mud; you must deal with men you despise, and laugh with them at their vile jests. You must do many things repellent to your own honor. And you will condemn yourself again and again, though in outward seeming you do but relish all you do.’

‘I accept it.’

‘You must become a thing more – or less – than mortal: you must make of yourself a rod of bronze, sleepless, tireless, ever vigilant. There will not be an hour of peace for you, for a pass, for a week of passes, for months. You will always be moving, ordering, overseeing the greatest and most trivial works alike. You will need to hold in your head great lists of men and numbers, and commit none of it to parchment. You will need greater cunning than I have ever seen in any man but one.

‘And then, at the end of all this labor such as would break almost any man, you must be prepared to see it fail – but you must not let it fail: for it will be you, and only you, who will see that it succeeds. You will need to compel it to succeed.

‘And at the end you will win no triumph, no glory, no cheers, no honors for your reward. Not even the thankful word of a sovereign will you have. For you will be dead, Captain: and you will die with the blood and souls of thousands of your own innocent countrymen as your burden. And when you die, you will not even know whether you will have succeeded or failed.’

The Rukorian shuddered visibly at her words. Berowne marveled, both at what her majesty said, and at the play of his fellow-captain’s features. Even more did Berowne marvel when he heard Haspeth’s voice calmly answer yet again and for the fourth time,

‘I accept it.’

The Queen arose and took up the war-knife on her lap. ‘Then this shall I guard among my most treasured jewels,’ she said softly. ‘Captain Berowne, you may leave us now. When the hour is ripe for Captain Haspeth’s departure, you will take him to that place you know of, and see him safely upon the streets of High Town. There you will counsel him on what way you think best for him to pass unnoticed out of the ruins. I would be as sure in my heart as I may, that he has won free from the barbarians. Then you will return to take up your former duties. You will thereafter speak no word of this to any man, any child, or any woman – not even to your own beloved Kiva – not even to me, unless I first speak of it and order you to do likewise. Do you understand?’

‘I do, your majesty,’ Berowne said solemnly. ‘And may I say, your majesty, that even your great ancestor would have praised you in this.’

She inclined her head as Berowne stood heavily to his feet and saluted her. Then he departed.

In the outer hall he bowed gallantly to the saucy-eyed, white-wigged maiden, who abased herself to him prettily. Berowne laughed; by now, he and Bijjame understood each other’s games so well! She laughed with him, and ushered him below.

* * *

In the audience chamber behind the still, closed doors, Haspeth remained kneeling upon the rug. His face was calm now, settled. A sort of peace had claimed him. It was the sort of peace the court embalmers fashion upon death-masks.

The Queen leaned back in the throne. The gray-blue eyes were lost in the shadow of the golden mask. ‘You also, my lord,’ she said gently, stroking the great bird’s head. ‘This is a matter for no ears but this man’s and mine. Go, and keep clawed watch upon the windy walls without.’

The gerlin eyed her, then ducked its head as if in understanding. The feathers formed a black arch over the jewels in the throne. Then it straightened, flung wide its wings to bestir the air of the chamber, and swept out the narrow window.

‘Now, Captain Haspeth, it shall be one of the most difficult tasks of your mission that you will need to perform first. When next the barbarians attack the Iron Gate, in the thick of battle when no man thinks but for his own safety, you will make as if your enemy stabs you through. You will fall and lie with the dead so that all, the enemy and your own men alike, believe you slain. Berowne, and only Berowne, will be party to the secret. He will see that you are borne away in such a way that none will know anything but that your corpse has been cast down over the cliff-side with the others. These may seem needless cares, but please believe me, they are of the first importance. If but a single soul within this fastness but Captain Berowne and I know you still live, then is all your mission undone and a failure.

‘For men, you may take two – but they are not to be privy to the secret until you are all out of the city. See that they are hidden away during this battle and led by Berowne directly to the way without knowledge of where they go; afterward Berowne will see that they are counted among the slain. I will speak to him later to explain all of this.

‘Your goal is to be Rukor. There you will visit every folk-gathering, every town, every farm if need be. You will gather all the men you can find who can fight and serve your purposes. You will feed them on false hopes of victory; glory, and wealth; but in your heart you will know you are condemning them to their deaths. Spare no man on this account! The enemy has conquered up to now, because he has the soul of the Darklands of God. All is shadow in him, and this he uses for his greatest strength. We must do likewise, and find the shadow within ourselves.

‘I have observed you, Captain: you alone I find have already embraced the shadowside of your heart. I am at the start of learning mine. Rejoice in it, for dark and deadly deeds are needful if we are to bring about another age of peace and light. Discard then all notions of honor, using them only as they may further your mission. It is this mission that has now become like the Couple Themselves to you. You will kneel and pray at its shrine at every meal, for the length of every sleep. This world itself is half shadow, Captain: so are we mortals made as in its image: become the world, half no longer but whole, light as well as darkness. Nor shrink not from what you find there, for if you hesitate also, all will be undone and thousands will die for nothing.

‘After you rouse the folk-gatherings, you will go even into the islands – even among the pirates you will go. There you will name yourself renegade and mercenary, a drunkard, a thief, a swaggerer, a liar and a whore-monger – whatever is the worst in men, you will adopt as your mask. You will tell all the men of the islands that you have been sent by me, your Queen, but in your heart you mean to betray me. You hatch another scheme in your heart, to ride to my rescue, only to rob me of all the gold and jewels stored here in the citadel. Tell the pirates that with your own eyes you have seen the treasure, and pile it as high as you can!’

‘But your majesty,’ Haspeth said, ‘I understood there was no more gold here?’

‘There is not. We are poor as field-workers now. But the barbarians seem still to believe in the old fables of the treasure-hoards of the Bordakasha, and so it seems likely that the pirates will believe as well. Their own greed will convince them.’

‘The pirates,’ Haspeth said, ‘are a lawless band of murderers.’

‘Indeed, that is their greatest asset to us in our plan. Think you, for centuries these pirates have defied the Emperors and the charanti of Rukor themselves, who have served as the most valiant of our noblemen. Will these same pirates then buckle the knee to barbarians? No, but they will only make a pretense at it when needful, even as they pretended to be our loyal subjects whenever Bordakasha warships ringed their isles.

‘When you have your men, return. Do not disturb yourself as to the passing of time: this is a thing that may take you fully a year to accomplish. We will remain here as before. When you are ready to return wait yet longer, until some time about the middle of autumn. Thus when we depart, there will be but a few weeks suited to travel remaining to the year – so I hope we nay be scattered and have found refuge, while the barbarians will be hindered by the rains and mud.

‘Send me no warning when you return. I wish to hear nothing of you until Berowne spies the barbarians rushing to meet you on the field of battle. That shall be the only message I require or desire. Fall upon them as suddenly as you may, or else they shall make short work of you – forget not Egland Downs! But let the pirates risk their necks more than the good folk of Rukor, for the fewer pirates we must deal with, if this plan succeeds, the better for what comes after.’

He nodded. As the Empress had spoken, Haspeth’s face had resumed its former grimness. Narrano Delcarn had spoken rightly of the character of the men of Torvalinal. They might be anything but mixture. Degrees were beyond their capacities. Haspeth had been a man of the most scrupulous honor; now at a blow he had been unleashed as a soul the equal of a Madpriest’s. And through it all it was the lust for fame and glory that remained. His sovereign had asked this of him: he needed no other warrant. He would dissemble, lie, steal, slay or beg to achieve this that she asked of him. It came upon him in a moment, what he had so long sought unknowingly and blindly, as holy revelation will come to a priestess in the Desert, her mouth blackened by salt and thirst. He had attained a dreadful, fearsome serenity.

Allissál, regarding his features intently, was satisfied that she had chosen well – albeit the final result frightened even her who had brought it to pass. Was this what it was like, then – was that the point she herself would reach in the end?

‘Your majesty,’ Haspeth breathed, and even his voice was now changed, ‘I have been a soldier in an age of peace. I have dreamed of war and fame and glory, and seen poets lauded, fat merchants enriched, and nobles laugh like women. Now a war has come, the great War – and I missed it. I was camped by Bollakarvil when she fell; I did nothing. I watched the armies of the League of Elna spill down like a flood to meet the foe: I remained behind. And now your majesty, I confess that this has become even more than a thing of fame to me. I have looked over the parapets and seen the barbarians with such hate that now I long for nothing more than to defeat them all, crush them and stamp them underfoot to stain the land for a hundred years. I know what your majesty requires. It shall be done. I shall see it done. Upon all my hope of the Blessed Shores, I, a dead man, swear it to you. Haspeth has become but a sword held in your majesty’s hands. So let it be.’

‘That was spoken after my own heart.’ She arose from the throne and held out to him a small jeweled casket. ‘Herein you will find jewels and my ring. The jewels will purchase whatever you may need, and mayhap give the better credence to your lies about our treasury. The ring will show you are my legate. Also there are two scrolls here, written and signed by my own hand. You are no longer a mere captain of the guard. Now you are Captain to the Queen, a man whose word shall be obeyed as if it issued from my own lips. Also I have made of you Charan of Vapio, Charan of the Eglands, Charan of Fulmine, and Under-Charan of Rukor. So all the vanished Empire is one within your person, and so may men flock to you as to some being of the skies. You know your own people better than I – you know what these powers grant you. Use them well – by which I mean, use them with criminal ruthlessness.’

‘Your majesty, that I will.’ He took the casket.

‘Captain, my High Lord, it may be that the barbarians will attack again on the next pass. Then I will never again see you. This may be as our final meeting. What I have asked of you is more than I have asked of any other man. I tremble even to think of it. And yet we are strangers, for I feel as though I know even Berowne better than I know you. That should not be so, but it is. If you accomplish what I have asked of you, then will I see that your name shall be sung for a thousand generations. But is there anything else you might wish of me? I will grant you anything. My powers are small for now, yet Goddess willing, and by your aid, I may yet return to some preeminence among men. Is there anyone dear to your heart, perhaps, you would wish exalted? Do you have kin you wish to carry on some of the powers I have granted you now?’

‘I have only a son in Torvalinal, your majesty. He is now twelve summers old.’

‘I will ennoble him.’

‘No, your majesty. My son will not survive me. He will be my first recruit, and he will die by my side.’

‘You frighten me, my lord. It shall be as you wish – yet there is one gift I will give you unasked, for it is in my heart to grant it you, and in my mind that it may be helpful to you in all the trials you must face hereafter.’

And so saying, the Empress of Tarendahardil did off the golden mask, and at the sight of her face the Rukorian paled and gasped. Then taking his head between her hands, she kissed him full on the mouth, deeply, in the way of a woman who sees her lover off to death.

XIV
Erion Sedeg

IN THE CAMP beyond the city there was no contentment. The winds had turned, and drove up dusty from the South, from off the desert wastes beyond dead Vapio, burning the mouths of the warriors of the cool far North. With every rising of God, companies of mercenaries rode forth out of the camp gates to gather herds of cattle, goats and yarglin to feed the many thousands of hungry bellies there. Goddess beat down like a brazen hammer, so the armor of the warriors burned even calloused fingers, and the city stretching into the distance wavered before their eyes as if it had been sunk beneath the waves of the Ocean of the Dead. Quarrels and fights broke out within the walls, over food, over armor, over women. The stink of the ordure of the camp drew flies and pestilence; every third word had become a curse. For such was High Summer in Tarendahardil, and even the sea itself had thickened like a noisome, brackish pond.

Still the men there put on their burning armor from time to time and ventured forth to mount the streets between the broken stones like an army of the damned, and hurl their sweating, stinking bodies once more against the broiling Iron Gate of Elna.

‘When will this end?’ they whispered, and grumbled, and groaned and swore. ‘In our village in the far North, our women are planting the grains.’ ‘In our home village the maidens draw out the wool of the sheep now, and wade barelegged in the river for fish.’ They had all but lost the memory of Elna, of Urnostardil, and of their long-vowed vengeance. They remembered home.

Even among the chieftains and champions there were harsh words. The old feuds ran strong again, and there were thefts of slaves and of treasured weapons. Nam-Rog strove to keep peace, but even he was wearied by the hateful heat, and lay many passes in the gloom of his own tents, fanned by his slave-women. And from time to time, so sickened was he with it all, that there whispered to him in the gloom a voice, and it said to him, Surely, surely by this time Gundoen has perished, there is nothing to hold you here longer. But he would groan, and grip his hunting-spear, and swear aloud by dark God’s strength, that he would not leave that land until he was sure.

So time wore sullenly about the camp, and only the mercenaries might have been said to be content.

Erion Sedeg had been a sailor in his early years, plying trade on the great river Delba; then after he had found his city conquered and his family destroyed, he had taken up the worship of dark God, and gone into the Desert. There among the tent-dwellers he felt secure, and scorned the lands where men dwell. He sat on rocks in the shadow of towering cliffs, and played with scorpions and death-beetles, and let his soul run dark as his burnt flesh. And then all the clans of the tent-dwellers had stirred with the story of the coming of a man, and they had gathered in those canyons only they knew of. The man was Ara-Karn, and the rite the clans put to him would have been death for anyone not charmed or an immortal. He lived: so he won them to his cause. It was then that Erion Sedeg found his god and took up sword and bow: he saw the slaughter of cities, learned the tongue of the barbarians, and worshiped at the memory of that man he had seen only once, and never spoken to.

The warriors distrusted him, though they gave him command over the mercenaries; his own men feared the madness in his eyes. But Erion Sedeg despised them all, even to the highest of his barbarian overlords. They did not know, but he knew. He felt a kinship only with that dark being whose specter hung still about the ominous black tents pitched on a mound in the center of the camp. And he knew that when the time was ripe, his master would return, and all the world would lie like a rotten fruit in his hand, to crush or keep or swallow at a bite. And then it would only be the faithful, those of a heart with Erion Sedeg and the King, who would inherit the world with all its powers and its dark delight.

He had therefore no concern of the passing weeks, for his faith was absolute. It was with no surprise that, in the deadly heat of High Summer, Erion Sedeg learned that Nam-Rog, chieftain of the Durbar tribe, would speak to him.

‘I would know,’ Nam-Rog said in the deep gloom of his tent, ‘how it is you measure the hearts of the men beneath you, Southron. Do many grumble, or leave foraging never to return?’

The lean, brown-skinned man did not at first reply. He was dressed in his manner after the fashion of the desert-dwellers, with chalky paint marking his features in a mask of scorn and war. Now he looked at the broad, ruddy face of the barbarian, drooling sweat. Erion Sedeg knew this was not the reason he had been summoned. His thoughts leaped to the black tent at the center of the camp, and for a moment he knew impatience.

‘My men do not forsake the cause of the King,’ he said. ‘But if you know of any such, give then over to me. I will kill them.’

Nam-Rog drank out of his bowl a treasured prize, real beer from the far North, brought over the seas and cooled in pits filled with snows from the mountains over Fulmine. He too, looked intently at his companion. The war-paint made a devil’s mask out of the dark lean features. The mask was a braggart’s device, a thing to frighten children, not men; but the eyes behind the paint were truly terrible. They were like to eyes Nam-Rog had beheld before – the eyes of Ara-Karn. This man lacked the force of will and the all-ruling self-command of the Warlord, but the severity and singleness of aim were the same. Either man could have killed like cowards and exulted in the blood. These civilized men, he thought to himself; no tribesman could have been so bent. Not even Gen-Karn, for all that his spirit had been lamed, had been the equal of these two.

‘And you, Southron,’ he said at length: ‘are you content?’

Erion Sedeg took from his belt a picsle leaf and chewed it. Already his teeth were stained purple-red from this habit. Picsle was not a dream-herb, but only tasted of its spice: Erion Sedeg chewed them for the sake of the dye, which made his smile ghastly.

He smiled now. ‘I am content when the King is content,’ he said.

Nam-Rog laid the empty bowl aside. He disliked this man. ‘Then I will say why I have called you and you may go,’ he said. ‘In the late months of the last year, you spoke some words to me about a – a thing, a device of some sort, which would help to overcome the fastness.’

‘Yes.’ Erion Sedeg put his dark hand lovingly about the knotted leather handle of his whip. His heart leaped: he knew now what would follow. ‘I learned the secrets of these things from craftsmen on the Delba: they had fashioned them for Ghezbal Daan, for Yorkjax of Belknule, and for other princes who had rebel lords they wished to put down. With this, and the bows we have, we will tear down the Black Citadel in a pass.’

Nam-Rog gestured at a coffer by the Southron’s feet. ‘There are riches enough: the men you have. How swiftly can the thing be done?’

‘It is not a matter of riches or of men, but of timbers,’ Erion Sedeg said. ‘They must be great, straight, and of the hardest woods. There are no forests near here: even those of Fulmine will not serve. Nothing could goad my men to take wood from the Sontil. Such wood lies only on the far side of the mountains. This will take two months or more.’

Nam-Rog nodded. ‘It would be of no avail to have it done soon anyway. There can be no great assaults in this heat. Gather the men you need, and come back to me when they are gone.’

‘I will go with them myself,’ Erion Sedeg answered. ‘Ara-Karn would accept no less.’

Erion Sedeg rose and wrapped his cloak about him. He left without further word or sign, and set in motion the needed preparations. He did this hastily, lest the barbarian should call him back with a changed heart; then retired to the inner chambers of his austere tent.

There Erion Sedeg made prayer before the small shrine he had had wrought, the shrine to the awful spirit of Ara-Karn. He murmured his words lowly, and there was none about – yet even so he hoped, in the dark, burning hollow of his heart, that the Master, that mysterious and supreme being who had issued out of darkness and fire and blood, might have knowledge of his wishes, and that the potent blessing of Ara-Karn might arrive upon his schemes.

So he gained fresh hope for the fulfillment of the dream he had cherished ever since the tent-dwellers had been roused to war, and Erion Sedeg had gone with them, his brain still troubled by the image of the dark man on the cliff-side – the dream to be placed in honor by Ara-Karn above all, even these barbarians, and sit and rule and give out death at the sword-hand of the King.

* * *

Above the plain, on the mountain-top where the cooling breezes never failed, the Tarendahardilites gathered in the first harvest of the year, and rejoiced. Father Ennius had declared a three-pass festival, and the Empress herself was to preside. All the cooks made cakes and dressed their breads with special care, cups of wine were passed around, there was music, singing, and dance. There were even performed, before the shrine of Goddess by the Iron Gate, marriages, and naming of infants born that year.

The Empress sat upon a raised seat and looked over the crowds milling where the Gardens once had been: they were dressed in their finest, slave, cityfolk, and noble alike. They crowned the Gerso with the green and purple leaves of the Festive King. They even made him drink of the wine and dance with the Festive Queen, a four-toothed mother of sixty. He smiled courteously, bowed before his partner, and danced a dance with her no one had ever seen before, and which she could hardly match. At the close of the dance he took his partner in his arms and kissed her, to the delight and cheers of all the people there. Even the Empress herself, regarding them with an odd stillness of body, applauded.

Later they walked alone on the Palace roof, the Divine Queen and the savior of Tarendahardil. She walked along the shadow-edge, on the very parapet itself, with nothing below for two hundred fathoms, where the dark shadow of the mountain stretched like a finger pointing to the dark horizon. She sang softly as she walked; it was strange to hear those girlish notes issuing from behind the mask.

‘I often come here,’ she said, ‘to be free of the heat and gloom of the walls below. I have not been a prisoner of any one place for so long since I was a child. Sometimes my legs itch to feel the body of Kis Halá between them. I visit her weekly, but the sight of her longing to be free is sad. We make each other downcast. I often rode her across the fields outside the city in summer.’

He was watching her now with that same stillness with which she had watched him dance. ‘Do you remember,’ he asked quietly, ‘that time two winters gone, in the castle in the mountains near the Marches, how I stood upon an ice-painted parapet, and you feared for my life?’

She looked down beside her. ‘This is many times as high.’ She stopped and turned to face him. The winds rippled the wide black robes like a sail, pressing them against the half-glimpsed contours of her body.

He stood, his body half-turned away but his face regarding her fully. The green and purple leaves made an oddly hued tangle in his black hair: already they had begun to crisp and die. He gestured behind him, where the Imperial tent still stood in the center of the roof. ‘I have a present for your reverence, in honor of the festival.’

‘Yes?’ She stepped off the parapet. The gaiety had vanished from her voice. She crossed the stone field toward the brightward edge.

She stopped before a calendar-stone at the brightward parapet. Lines deeply-chiseled radiated from the stone’s base, to mark the seasons of the year. There was also a newer, fainter mark making a cross out of one of the deep grooves. She herself had scratched that mark, on the pass of the arrival of the barbarians to the marshaling-field below the city. Soon afterward, the barricades had been overturned, and the Citadel had been snowed with black ash. Nor would it be long now, she thought, counting the weeks, before the shadow of the stone would touch that mark again.

‘How much longer then, will you continue this game?’ she asked him. ‘Will it be another month, or year?’

‘As long as is needed.’

‘But then there will be an end?’

‘Yes.’

‘And when your men have overwhelmed us here, and put the last of us to death, or dragged the last of us away into slavery, will they use this Citadel, or forsake it?’

‘It has no use for them.’

‘And then the other cities will fall?’

‘If they challenge me.’

‘That pleases me,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘It will be a fitting way to mark the end of the Bordakasha. No other race will ever have such a monument as this to mark its passing.’ But he was silent, and did not answer.

She stepped upon the parapet and leaned against the obelisk.

Far below, the people danced the festival-dance: some casting their glances skyward saw her, a figure blacker even the than the stones of the building. Behind the figure great yellowish clouds arched and passed like the tale of centuries. A thrill of pleasure danced up and down the backs of the Tarendahardilites, and they cheered faintly.

‘Once,’ she said, still looking down, ‘only fishermen and farmers dwelt here, and some herders on the plateau: but none at all on this black mountain that they called Renda, the Black Fist. It is said those simple folk lived hard lives untouched by war and kings. From generation to generation, perhaps, rumors would reach their ears: of great Kings come to fabled Vapio, of vast armies on the march, of the nomad horsemen that ravaged the lands. Then new tales came one summer, of a league formed by the cities against the nomads and led by a single unknown man, Elna: and there were wild battles spoken of.

‘And then it is said a fleet grew out of the sea, and Elna and all his battle-stiffened warriors walked aland. They ate fish and mutton and got forage for their steeds, and then they went their way.

‘Elna returned to Renda nine summers later, at the word of the Prophetess. In a trance she bade him climb to Renda’s peak, and there behold his future. So Elna made camp with a few of his captains on the grass of the plateau, among the sheep-herds: and it is said he beheld Goddess bathing in a spring – there where now the Brown Temple is all that rises above the waste.

‘Then Elna went upon Renda by a perilous climb. Alone upon the lip of the stony cowl he beheld a desolate deep black cup of stone, cut by a ravine that seemed to plunge into the dead depths of the mountain. Some pits filled with greenish rainwater, some weeds grew in the crevices. And Elna chose that here should he build the head of his domains. Ten thousand slaves, captives of the wars, were set to the task; less than fifty survived the building of the Palace, the carving of the twin gates, and the filling of the grounds with earth. A city sprang up around its flanks; and Elna renamed the place Tarendahardil, the resting-place of my fist. So it is said in the Song of the Bordakasha.’

Faintly on the winds the sounds of laughter and music were borne up to them. In the distance, a speck high above the sunlit lower quarters of the city, a gerlin glided, searching for its prey.

She turned. The brazen light of Goddess had darkened his features almost red; his eyes were narrowed, his lips parted, showing the strong sharp teeth. He was looking at her. She felt that look as the touch of a hand upon her breast. She stepped down from the parapet.

‘Show me then this present,’ she said, passing close by him.

He bent his head and led her to the tent quietly fluttering. Upon is its far side a curious framework had been raised, upholding two rows of ten ship’s-amphorae slightly tilted. Below the amphorae were two wooden troughs extended over the outward-sloping wall of the tent; above them was a length of sail-canvas, gleaming against Goddess.

‘And what, pray, is the object of this?’ she asked.

‘Your reverence is no doubt uncomfortably hot, dressed so upon these dark stones,’ he said. ‘Behold.’

He raised his hand to the structure and drew part of it forward. The twin rows of amphorae tilted farther forward; water spouted from them, filling the two troughs. Ara-Karn let the amphorae back to their former posture as the water, through small holes in the bottom of the troughs, began to weep pliantly in the wind, darkening and bewetting the golden skirts of the tent.

He bent forward in formal invitation. ‘Enter, your majesty, and be cool again.’

They entered the tent. The cool breath of the water flowed with the breeze across the amber chamber. It was as though they had stepped across space to some forest glade beside a rushing stream.

‘But this is delightful,’ she exclaimed, seating herself upon her stool and drawing up the skirts of her robes above her sandaled feet.

He had seen briefly those feet and the pale, slender stems arising from them to vanish in warm secrecy underneath the folds of black linen. He brought up his gaze to meet hers, hidden in the shadow of the golden eyelets. After a moment he knelt on the rugs thrown over the hot stones of the roof.

He noticed she was twirling a flower between her fingers. The flower was yellow with a black center, and its leaves were marked with purple.

‘Where did you find that?’ he asked.

‘Emsha brings them to me. She finds them in the grove of trees beneath the cowl. They are the last remnant of the Imperial Gardens, I suppose; but I do not remember them, and not even Emsha knows how to call them,’

‘Where I come from,’ he said, ‘they are called “alzhaale.” ’

‘What a lovely name!’

‘Yes, the word is sweet. It means, “the evil.” ’

‘A strange name for so beautiful a plant.’

‘Among my people,’ he remarked lightly, ‘these flowers have a bad repute.’

They remained thus in silence for a time, each enjoying the calm. About the tent floor fragrant stalks of the harvest had been strewn, and upon the walls bunches of sweet, musky darylinthin herb were hung to dry: these now in the cool dampness seemed to revive, and the different scents intermingled wonderfully.

Allissál was aware then of a new thing in her, a thing she had not known in a year’s time, not since she had ridden on Kis Halá to the groves of the necropolis, when Ampeánor had been last at Tezmon. It was the pure, childish, sensual feeling of happiness.

And it made her bitterly ashamed.

In the weeks since she had met with Captain Haspeth, she had come to enjoy more and more these meetings with her enemy – when they sat together giving justice to the Tarendahardilites, when they conferred with Berowne about the defense of the Iron Gate, and above all when they were together alone for no other purpose than to escape all the others, as they were together now. It was a calm enjoyment and appreciation of his presence as a man. And even as an enemy, she no longer thought of him with bitterness. Haspeth was safely raising forces in Rukor; the attacks of the barbarians grew ever weaker. At first, seeing the possibility of victory at last, she had found it difficult to conceal a fierce anticipation beneath the guise of melancholic resignation. Now she felt an easy friendliness between them, which they had never before known. She knew he felt it too. They might be together now in comfort and not even feel the need to speak.

Gently she lowered herself from the stool and lay back upon the piled-up carpets, breathing in the perfume of the air, aware that he did likewise. She saw in her mind his long body lounging within arm’s reach of her, and she remembered the last time she had seen him naked, lying across her bed in the calm unconcern of sleep that only men and animals knew.

‘And now it strikes me,’ she said, and the words slid slowly and languidly from her tongue, ‘how strange it is that we never went together to gather flowers, nor to the theater to laugh at the latest comedy, nor yet lay together beneath the sky on a bed of ferns and grasses. Whenever we were together it was always fire and harshness, a toil of wills and bodies. Even that winter at the castle in the mountains, what did we do? In riding, sword-play and love alike, it was ever contention between us.’

‘It was our way,’ she heard him answer simply. ‘Let common folk pursue their common pleasures, and let cows content themselves on grass and hay. There is no greatness without bitterness, some gall in the mouth to spit out. It is only in saying no that the soul may prove its strength – above all in saying no to that which should come most easily and pleasantly. It was only that battle and victory we each sought, Gold, after our own notions of those things.’

‘And yet, to what end? Why should we have been so made, when none other is?’

‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘there are some who will fight forever until that which they seek to kill is slain at last.’

‘And what could be so terrible and of so great a menace to us that, unknowing, we would go on fighting it and know no rest while it still lived?’

‘Why, Dornan Ural, of course,’ he said.

They both laughed at that, a friendly laughter not to be withheld. She turned and raised herself, so that she was resting upon one elbow and looking down on him. ‘And now,’ she said, her voice still rich with the laugh, ‘will you not at last tell me who you are, and why it is you have come here?’

He bent his head to regard her, and slowly pulled off the leafy crown.

‘Very well,’ he said.

XV
The Spirits of the Past

‘EVEN I,’ he said, ‘can grow impatient.’

He sat cross-legged before her, bronze against the silver-gold tent. It was the first hour of the longsleep, but Allissál felt no wish for rest.

Their ease and pleasure had gone: they were enemies again.

‘Where then to begin?’ he mused. ‘Shall I speak of our true first meeting, the one you do not now recall? Or go back yet farther, to the ages before I first came into the world? No: I will begin with a voyage.’

He pointed through the opening of the tent. ‘Tell me, Gold, what one finds at the bright horizon.’

‘The end of the lands of men, and the start of the sands of the great Desert.’

‘Go there,’ he said.

‘Beyond those shores of sand,’ he said, ‘extends a world of rock, sand, and glaring heat. And in the very heart of that vast, burning world, there lies a spot where Goddess hangs high overhead, a giant, blazing orb unbearable to behold. On every side the tormented sands are torn by swirling winds – the breath is full of dust that slices into the lungs like a razor – the very stones of the earth are blackened by ages of Her nearness. You stand at the center of a world beyond this world, a place beyond even the imaginings of the prophets.’

‘I see it,’ she said softly.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘go beyond.

‘The glare, the heat, the towers of sand and dust, abate somewhat. Sparse scrubs of sere grass break the weariness of the land. Clouds cross the skies, and there is even a little rain. In the sand and clay run dry riverbeds. And farther still, the sands reach their end, and there is greenness, softness, streams of dark water, plants, beasts, oceans and men. But the beasts here are not the beasts of the world you know, and the men here are not the men of the world you know.’

‘But where are we?’ she asked, troubled by the sights that ran before her eyes. ‘What is this place?’

‘My world.’

She opened her eyes.

From a serving-platter he caught up a round ripe fournal fruit. With the knife on the platter he scored a line about the fournal, from stem to dimple and back to stem. He placed the fruit on the carpet by the opening, so that the circle he had cut ran with the commencement of the shadow.

‘Consider again the world,’ he said. ‘All men know it is an orb from the way Goddess falls to greet the earth as a man journeys toward the dark horizon. Here, where it is closest to the Sun, is the world of Goddess and the Desert – there upon the shadowside the black seas from which rises God’s jade tower. Only here, along this twilight line, may life endure. Here at the stem is the land beyond the far North, where there are only mountains of ice; here by the dimple swells the Southern Ocean; and in between lie all the lands you know. And yet, as you can see, this forms but one half of the circle I have cut. Here upon the other side of the fruit is another half.’

‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘Those are the lands of the dead.’

‘There, where I am from, it is your world that is called the lands of the dead.

‘It is curious, is it not,’ he added, ‘that in both our worlds men should have the same superstition, and lay out their dead in barges? Even the shape of the barges is the same. Perhaps there is truth in the ancient sayings of both our kinds, that the barge came from Goddess in the age before the lands were sundered.’

‘You came to the far North in such a barge,’ she said.

‘Even so. And there are other likenesses, for we too had our Elna, who united all the lands beneath his banner. And so wise was he, and so stable and prosperous his kingdom, which though it stretched from the ice to the warm seas and none lived outside it, it continued under a single dynasty for more than a hundred generations of men. One hundred generations of High Kings, all of the same house – peace for a thousand years – can you imagine the wealth and weakness they amassed?

‘I can. I was the last of them.

‘The child that I was in that faroff life was flattered, pampered, cozened, given his choice of a thousand amusements each pass. Ten thousand courtiers of either sex attended his pleasures. Two thousand slaves saw to his desires. He owned twelve palaces, four thousand of the finest horses, five hundred ships of trade and three hundred of war – for wars arose now and again, to put down rebellions and to suppress pirates and slaves. In all the thousand temples of the world, when the priestesses took up their chants, it was for him they sang. And when he put aside the silver robes of childhood and drew on the golden ones of youth, there were one hundred and twenty-nine ladies of the most accomplished art and beauty to wait upon his pleasure. His look and bearing were different from my own – not even the laughter would you know. Here you see shadow, but the boy-king was light.

‘And he was happy, for though not ignorant he was naïve. The ignorant do not know there is such a thing as evil in the world – the naïve know that evil lives in the world, but they do not believe it. And because both his sacred parents died when he was a babe, a High Regent was appointed to oversee the world for him. This was a kindly old man much attached to the prince, and since the boy-king was the last descendant of his house, he took his Regent almost for a father. The boy-king called him old Kar Belthus and left him to rule the world while the boy-king, careless and unafraid, swam in the streams of its myriad pleasures. Even after he was crowned and anointed High King, he left the duties to old Kar Belthus.

‘He was, I grant you, somewhat spoiled. But what is excess, but too much of pleasure? And to the young not even everything is enough. Once he had brought down with his bow some beast, or known the wonders of some mountain or some palace, it was intolerable to him that he should be forced to do the like again, above all since there were so many other beasts and palaces unglimpsed. And it was the same with women…’

His voice softened and failed. He seemed lost in his reveries. Then his eyes stabbed hers, and he smiled an evil, wicked smile. ‘Until on the festival of Narioolis over the lake of Her Mirror, the boy-king danced with a lady newly come to court, and took her to his bed.

‘Alastaphele she was called, and her hair was rich and delicate as gold seen through a sea-pool, and her eyes ranged from the gray of winter clouds to the blue of a mountain lake. Others were lovelier or more clever, and she was artless in some ways, being yet a virgin when they met. But when the boy-king awoke he found that she had left him alone in his bed – and she was the first ever to do that.

‘At this his estimation of her grew. Rare among the ladies of the court were those with the delicacy to understand that once was enough for him, and so spare him the bother of farewells. He was weary of tears and threats of leaping off high rocks if he did not show mercy. And yet she had not stayed long enough for him to give her the present usually granted those whom he had favored. And it struck him that perhaps she had not departed solely out of consideration. Perhaps for her too, once had been enough. Perhaps he might not have been allowed to couch with her again!

‘Then it seemed to him that perhaps she had not been so artless, and he began to wonder if he had explored fully the delights she might have offered. Yes, he knew these games, but his regard for her grew when he saw that she could play them – and knowing this could not heal his injured pride. She had become at a stroke the one thing in all the world he might not have again: he determined to alter that, and win from her the solace of those very tears and threats of leaping off high rocks she had denied him.

‘He learned she was a younger daughter of Epharinaigue, whose kingdom lay beyond the mountains of Keldaroon near the bright horizon. He had never visited Keldaroon, whose rock-climbers were the most famous in the world. So for some weeks he made camp there, enjoying their feats and demonstrations, and planning in secret his own assault upon Alastaphele.

‘Gaining the palace of Epharinaigue, he camped in that prince’s forests and, sending gifts and pleasantries, commanded that Alastaphele come to him. In less than an hour Epharinaigue and all his family waited upon the boy-king in his tents – all but Alastaphele. He feigned anger and gravely threatened Epharinaigue. He could see the other ladies of the court secretly applauded this rude girl, and was now determined to take her discourteously and leave her with nothing, and so make of her a lesson for the others. Never had he been so appreciative of all his kingly rights and powers.

‘Yet not even making Epharinaigue his go-between sufficed: the girl denied her own father’s commands, and locked herself in the maidens’ garden of the palace with her women, threatening not to emerge until either the king had left or she herself lay dead. Then he saw that he had behaved badly, for if the girl did die he should be thought of harshly, and if she forced him to depart he would be shamed before the world, and not have the enjoyment of her anyway. This desire now burned in him. No other woman might please him, and his every dream ran like a whirlpool round the memory of this girl. She left him no other choice but to turn the threat of his anger against her father. If Alastaphele did not yield with a willing grace, the boy-king decreed, all Epharinaigue’s lands and powers would be forfeit, and Epharinaigue and all his kin sent into the Desert – the formal declaration of death reserved for traitors. The scribes of old Kar Belthus were outraged by this decree, but what could they do? He was still High King.

‘That pass, during the longsleep, Alastaphele came to him. How she gained entrance I do not know, unless it were with the aid of the ladies of the court. The King had gone alone to his couch, and slept fitfully, when she entered his dimplace. She knelt beside his couch. In her hand she held a sacrificial dagger of the festival of Narioolis – that same dagger, in fact, which is in your possession. It is ancient beyond your telling, and has certain qualities … I wonder if even Alastaphele knew what manner of thing she took as her instrument that sleep?

‘Holding the dagger to his throat she said, “This surely would be just to slay you, though it be blasphemy and treason. For you have shown yourself to be a tyrant and unworthy of the name of your ancestor. Did he do then as you do now, and use his powers to dishonor women and turn noble men to vile deeds? O King, I had heard of you that you were beautiful, noble and of great talents, for all that you wasted these gifts of Goddess on vain pursuits, and were not King at all save in name and blood. This was a thing I could not understand, and determined to learn the truth of you – which I did. You, who might be the greatest father to us all since the Great Ancestor himself, choose instead to be the vainest fool in a hundred lifetimes of men. You will win here nothing but scorn and ridicule, for now I go to a place of hiding where you will never find me. As for my father and family, if you choose to execute your hateful decree, you will find in their corpses only the seedbed of a vengeance and terror such as you might not now even dream. And be assured, O High King, that did I not love you with all my body for the man you might have been, it would be your holy blood and not these bonds that I should leave upon this couch.”

‘So she bound him and made him eat of the sleep-herb anxorlai, and departed as secretly as she had come. And the King did not protest or cry out, for it delighted him to have inspired so great a hatred in her breast. And then the truth of her words was known to him, and he burned for shame. And when he awoke, he undid her simple bonds and commanded his horse, for he would go riding alone in those woods. But he turned past the castle of Epharinaigue, and, taking Epharinaigue’s punishment for his own, rode into the Desert. For was it not true, that the King himself had been guilty of the greatest treason?

‘He was never one for moderation – as giddily as he once delighted himself, now he scorned and detested the man he had become. Sand and pain alone could comfort him. The dust swallowed him and slew his horse so that he must go afoot, haggard, blinded and starving, wandering at hazard beneath the brightward peaks of Keldaroon. And there in the end, in dark strange caverns, he fell in with curious painted men.

‘They took him in and cared for him all ignorant of who he was, for they were the priests of Temaal. And the King hid from them his name, family and titles, and was initiated into their hidden rites. And so a year passed.

‘When the King returned to the world that had been his, he found the court in disarray. They had deemed him dead and, as he was the last of his house, there was confusion as to who should undertake the rule. Old Kar Belthus had all that he could do to keep order. There was even talk of dividing the world under the separate underkings. When they were assured he was indeed the King, they would have ordered celebrations such as had not been known for three hundred years. That he forbade: he was not returned merely to play again the fool that Alastaphele had named him.

‘He summoned old Kar Belthus; he took up all the powers of the King. All that Kar Belthus had set in motion, the King overthrew – what sort of King is it but a weakling who does nothing but assent? Old Kar Belthus protested, but the King stripped him of his mantle of jade and gold. A coolness grew between them, and they were no longer the loving almost-kin they had been.

‘Then the greatest joy of the King’s return reached him, for Alastaphele made appearance in his court, chastened, grieving and only half-believing he had returned from a death to which she believed herself to have condemned him. In high ceremony they were joined, for from the hour he had heard her bitter truths, he had known he could have no other woman, and no more fitting Queen. They were bound before the priestesses with the sacred cords, and for a pleasantry they held that same jade dagger between their joined hands.

‘A year they had, of the greatest work and happiness. And the highest joy they shared was that pass when they learned she was to have a child, his heir. An heir! A child. A son. His son – my son – Alastaphele’s own son!’

For a long time he was silent. She waited, caught up in the tale’s spell, and fearing what grim turn it would take.

‘Two weeks later,’ he said at length, ‘he stood haggard on the roof of the highest tower of his principal palace. Before his feet, Alastaphele lay dead.

‘His grief was unspeakable, a thing beyond all reason, almost a malady in itself. He saw off the death-barge of his beloved Alastaphele from a fogbound port in the gray North. Weeks passed and the courtiers grumbled, but still the King had not will or strength to depart that port. Only old Kar Belthus might comfort him – in truth during those last weeks of his sojourn in that world, the two came close to remaking all the lost affections they once had shared.

‘Kar Belthus told the King of an old legend of the port, that those who sailed deep upon the currents of the dead might sometimes hear whispered words of the voyaged ones, echoing across the lapping waves. The King commanded a fleet of three ships, including his royal ship. They set out across the fearful expanses of the Northern Sea, toward the bright horizon.

‘Far they went, farther than any others had ever gone living. Strange untoward islands they passed, and made camp upon for a brief time. They were places bitter and chill, and their waters unwholesome. Goddess loomed high overhead, and the currents of the dead ran sickly beneath the keel, and great grew the fear of the sailors. But the King, ever hanging over the forward rail, listening in vain to the waters’ voices, would not heed the voices of men. There were strange fishes in those silvery waters, and the birds of the air were unknown, and he thought at any moment he might overtake the barge of his beloved Alastaphele. Only old Kar Belthus, whispering words among the seamen, kept the peace there – or so the King believed.

‘And then one pass he woke from a drugged sleep to find that the other ships had turned back and were vanished already beyond the dark horizon: and on the deck before him stood no courtiers nor old Kar Belthus but only a knot of seamen, driven half mad by fear. And he knew they meant to murder him.

‘The King never knew such eloquence as he did that hour, when he won from them his life. Still, they would not take him back to the world – they had done treason and their lives were forfeit, unless there were no longer a High King. It was only by invoking the very fear of the Couple that he kept their blades from his heart. They put him over the side into his own death-barge, which he had had made at the same time as Alastaphele’s, that even in death they might proceed in like vessels. The seamen gave him a makeshift mast and a few vessels of food. And so in dread and haste they consigned him to the care of Goddess, and fled away with a following wind.

‘He watched the masts of that ship sink below the dark horizon. The hundred-and-first of the Great Ancestor’s line stood in the little, rocking barge, the only upright thing in all the world. Then he sat down in his own death-barge and wept, for he was naïve no longer…

‘Behold him now some weeks later, still upon the bowl of that same accursed sea. The last of the food was gone – the water as well. The sail was rent and worthless. The King lay in a stupor, filthy, wretched, not far from death. Wreckage passed by on silver waves. The voices of those waves rose in choral songs, bell-like, impossible and strange, things of unbearable beauty and horror. Monstrous things sundered the deep, rising like islands only to sink again half-seen. He lay there, the only living witness to a world which before him only gods and the dead had known. At length he slept, perhaps never to wake again.

‘Then he dreamt clouds darkened the sky. Winds roused themselves like wild dogs, and it grew deadly cold. A terrible storm broke over the barge. Rain fell – not rain: that is too mild a word. A sea suspended in the heavens drained down upon the nether waters of the earth.

‘And that tiny, feeble figure in a tiny, forlorn barge, woke to find his dream was true. He fought his way to his feet and gloried in that fury. He drank the waters of the storm and had much to keep the barge afloat, and still – he gloried in it all.

‘The storm passed on, and with it the last of the King’s strength. He slumped to the bottom of the barge and lay moveless, while tide and current brought his death-barge into the green embrace of a deep-water bay. There on a storm-lashed shore he found some hundreds of rude-clad men and women kneeling to Goddess as She was violated…’

* * *

Ara-Karn had risen again to step outside and refill the long troughs. He returned with a pensive look about his eyes, as though he had sent his gaze to pierce vast distances. Now his eyes turned again on her.

‘Continue,’ she said, to break the stillness.

‘But surely, all is open to you now. As I sat weeping among the relics of my short and wasted life, and as the masts of my ship vanished beneath the dark horizon, a transformation was worked within my soul. Into my mind, unbidden, came the sayings of the priests of Temaal. A strange spirit seemed to step into my soul – in truth it was myself. When they see their shadows, some men are undone, and some are made. When I stepped into that barge, it was with every intention of sailing against those sweeping currents in a hopeless attempt to regain the world. Then I beheld in them a fate, a flow of strength not to be denied. I might contest this fate and be destroyed, or ride the wave and try to guide its course. I chose to ride it. So was it revealed to me in a moment, that no man has mastery of that which he loves. Only by being indifferent to my life might I have command of it.

‘I came to know the swells which drove my barge so well, it seemed almost as if I might summon them at will. And when the rains came at last to wet my cracked lips I laughed, and knew I rode the wave still. Had Goddess Herself descended to offer me the treasures of Her golden body, I would not have been surprised. What did it matter that it would take the favor of the gods to see my little barge through that storm: Whatever it needed, even so should it be granted.

‘So, when I stepped upon the shore of the far North, there where none of my race had ever set foot before, I knew at once what land I had reached. There before me was a brutal people who might kill without tears for lust or need. They were all I could have wished. I rode the wave still.

‘I threw the gilded relics of my former life in dedication to the waves. I knew then how it must be. I had divined much within the little barge. Old Kar Belthus, whom I had trusted and even loved, had set in motion plots against me. Alastaphele, my Queen, must have suspected him. So old Kar Belthus had her poisoned, slowly, so that even she believed it a sort of sickness. It was old Kar Belthus who chose her physicians and priest-healers. To depose me, though an act of blasphemy and treason – that, perhaps, I could forgive. But to murder Alastaphele heavy with the life growing within her – for that, there could be only vengeance.

‘So I knew the purpose to which my second life must be devoted. I would gather forces. I would build a fleet. I would return to the lands of my birth. I would wreak blood upon those lands and pay back old Kar Belthus a hundredfold for the lives of Alastaphele and our child.

‘Already among these barbarians there had been rumors of the coming of one with power. Little Kuln-Holn had fostered most of them: I used his happy prophecies. None of the peoples of your world had ever learned the making of the bow: I made them aplenty, and by them made Gundoen’s tribe feared. Gen-Karn had fired the tribes with the dream of conquering the lands South of the Spine: I took power from Gen-Karn with bloody hands and bent his dreams to my will. Each step I took increased the gain to me. It scarcely mattered what I did: the power of the wave roiled round me like a maelstrom. They even named me one with a dark God; forgive me, but after a time it became a title I found difficult to contest.

‘I fashioned the myth of Ara-Karn. I made the warriors fear me, rough wild men even as they are. I made them worship me. I fed them with promises of vengeance for the defeat Elna had given them centuries before. I never meant to keep those promises. My goal was Arpane on the Sea, the only port-city on the Ocean of the Dead. There I would order the building of my fleet; thence I would lead my warriors across the cold and silver seas.

‘And then word reached me that the Empire meant to enter the war, and aid the cities of the North.

‘This irritated me. The building of the fleet would take a year, and in that time my warriors would find their passions cooled. Such an army feeds but on attack and victory. To be set upon at the rear by your armies would have damaged the myth of Ara-Karn. And my warriors would not have sailed with me, if it meant leaving their wives and children at your mercies. Dornan Ural was right, you see: we would not have crossed the Taril. It was you who altered that – you with your dreams of restoring your fading Empire. You drew us here. You! And you did so because you knew, deep within your secret heart, who I was, and who you are.

‘You called me: I came.

‘Already, in Ancha, Eliorite and Carftain, I had used the guise of the Gerso. I determined to use it again. I journeyed South, taking only my little prophet Kuln-Holn at my side, in case I should need a messenger to send to Gundoen. I would spy out this Empire and her talk of grand alliances. I would delay the formation of the league until my fleet was built – then Ara-Karn would reappear in the midst of his worshiping warriors, and lead them over the Ocean of the Dead.’

* * *

‘But then why do you stay?’ she asked. ‘You won all you wanted when High Town fell. You might have built your fleet and sailed away by now. Why have you remained?’

‘For you,’ he said.

‘I knew you again the first moment I beheld you. Even as Ara-Karn was that young High King on the far shores of the world beyond, even so were you his Queen.

‘You are Alastaphele reborn. Her spirit lives and sleeps within you just as surely as the spirit of that young King lives and sleeps in me.

‘You were my consort, my Queen, and my heart’s desire. And so I dared defy the wave, to take you home again.’

She was silent for a long beat of time. She felt the tent-wall close behind her. She remembered the ill dream she once had had, and it was as if she wished nothing but to flee and escape this thing forever.

In his black eyes she found no trace of the man she thought she knew. It was as if a stranger knelt before her. He had let fall his semblance of reason as if it had been a soiled cloak, and was revealed now scarcely a man at all, but some thing of power, lacking all restraints. She had loved him, then hated him: now she began to fear him.

‘But you are mad,’ she said.

XVI
The Way of Fame

‘WELL?’ GUNDOEN GROWLED. ‘Have you cured him?’

‘Hush: hush, chieftain.’ Melkarth stepped away from the pallet. ‘I have done for his body all that one can do. For the rest…’ She shrugged.

The man upon the pallet lay still, as he had done since autumn of the year before. The gashes on his chest had faded to pale scars, and his chest now rose and fell in even breaths. Melkarth stepped forward again. In her crooked hand she held a wooden stirring-spoon filled with some of the broth still bubbling over the hearth. Gently she offered it to the man on the pallet. His lips caught at the spoon and supped. Melkarth nodded.

Slowly, the man’s eyelids opened.

His gaze wandered about him without understanding. His hand slid across his brow and face. He looked at the two above him: at ancient Melkarth, at massive Gundoen. He sat up. The effort of even so small a feat was apparent. His yellowish skin darkened and paled, and sweat appeared upon his brow.

‘Not so quickly, my lord,’ Melkarth said. ‘It is long indeed since you walked abroad, and it will need time ere you regain your strength.’

The man looked at her as though she had spoken in a strange tongue. His beard and hair streamed over his shoulders and naked chest. He put his long-nailed hands to the edge of the pallet and set himself on his feet. With faltering steps he went to the mouth of the cave. He stood in the open air at the Sontil floor.

‘What is he about?’ Gundoen asked, ‘why doesn’t he speak?’

‘Follow and watch what he does,’ Melkarth said. ‘When the moment is right, bring him back.’

The barbarian muttered something and left the cave.

Outside, the air was warm with the heavy breath of High Summer, but there was coolness still in the gloom beneath the leaf-roof. Gundoen found the Southron at the foot of the hill. There the stream running down the hillside collected in a pond between the roots of a huge tree. The lord of Rukor crouched in an angle of a root, staring down into the dark mirror of the pond, into his own reflected face.

At the sound of Gundoen’s approach, he turned. He looked the barbarian in the face, and his mouth opened as though to speak. Then it closed again, and he turned back to his image.

‘Enough,’ Gundoen growled. He picked up the Southron in his arms, and bore him back to the cave. ‘You are lighter now at least,’ he muttered. By the time Gundoen had brought him again into the cave, the General Extraordinary of Tarendahardil was asleep.

* * *

That next week Gundoen hunted game, and Melkarth simmered herbal broths to feed to the lord of Rukor. Ampeánor won back his strength. By the second week he could climb half the height of one of the trees of the wood; at the end of the third week he climbed to the top and gazed into the brightness of the world beyond. He returned darkened with the effort, thoughtful and silent.

That pass Gundoen and the old woman ate the fifth meal in silence. The lord of Rukor, exhausted by his efforts, slept in the pallet. Outside it was raining, and the raindrops dripped heavily from the leaf-roof far above.

When the meal was done, Melkarth sat weaving by the hearth. She wove cloths of strange designs on a small double-loom. Gundoen watched her, enchanted by the movements of the old woman’s cunning fingers.

‘He does well, our sleeper,’ she said. ‘Did he tell you what he did this pass?’

Gundoen nodded. ‘He recovers faster than I looked for. It is the doing of your potions.’

‘Perhaps. His heart longs to see what they do in the world beyond. In two or three weeks he will leave.’ She glanced over at the pallet. ‘You should go now, Gundoen.’

‘I have thought on it. Maybe I am only a hunter after all, and not a warrior.’

‘So you will stay?’ she remarked after a space.

‘No.’ He stood, and stretched his war-scarred arms until the sound of the joints cracking echoed in the cave. ‘Ara-Karn is my son, and the men of my tribe are in battle. I will leave at the end of the longsleep, and seek out the armies.’

‘You will not.’

The hoarse voice sounded from behind them. By the pallet stood the lord of Rukor. He had cut back his hair and shaved his beard with the war-knife, so he resembled more his former state. But there remained a thing about his eyes and the corners of his mouth, a remnant of the horror of the Darkbeast.

‘You will not go,’ he said. ‘You will remain and await me.’

‘And who are you, Southron, to order my coming and going?’

‘I am the holder of your oath, barbarian,’ Ampeánor answered. ‘You swore to me on your people, the wisdom of your wife, and the first chieftain of your tribe, that you would remain by me and work me no ill as long as we were in this cursed place.’

Gundoen shrugged. ‘Why should I keep that oath? I am only a barbarian, after all.’

‘You are Gundoen.’

The chieftain cast down his head and was silent. But Melkarth said lowly, ‘This is wrong of you, my lord. This man saved your life.’

‘My life would not have been so endangered had he been honest with me and told me we were a walking in a Darkbeast’s trail.’

‘And so you owe him nothing?’

‘I owe him my thanks, and that he has. But he remains a barbarian, as he himself has he said, and my captive.’ He spoke in Bordo, but Melkarth answered him in the tongue of the far North.

‘This you will regret,’ she said.

‘I will do it all the same. And you, Gundoen,’ he said in the language of the tribes, ‘put from your mind all thoughts of leaving, until I am ready. Goddess willing, that will not be long.’

Gundoen spat into the embers and went to the mouth of the cave. His great shoulders cast a shadow across half the cave, and then he was gone. Ampeánor took the barbarian’s place at the hearth, and stared into the flames.

‘Let him go, my lord,’ Melkarth said. ‘Release him from his oath.’

‘No.’

‘Would you be bound to a barbarian’s fate?’

He looked at her angrily. ‘Old woman, what do I know of what has gone on beyond these trees? What cities have fallen, and what is the state of things in Tarendahardil? There is a woman there whom I love more than wealth or life or honor. Do you know what has become of her? Perhaps you do, but you will not tell me. That man is my only winning for a year’s labor. His life is of value to the barbarians, and he holds the secret of the whereabouts of Ara-Karn. I will not let him go.’

‘Yet perhaps he also has a woman he loves, and who loves him.’

‘How dare you compare his love to mine? He is a filthy, ale-swilling barbarian, born where they know nothing of honor or custom.’

‘Ah yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I had forgotten. No, my lord, there is no comparing you two.’

‘Do you mock me? Listen to me then, and hear the sort of love of which I am capable.

‘When I was a youth, the Rukorian court was among the most licentious in all the Empire, second only to Vapio. My father was a sour, retiring man who all his life had been backward with women, until he fell into the snares my mother laid for him. She was a Vapionil, the third daughter of a lesser noble of small estates. But she possessed a perilous beauty that made her the master of any man. She seduced my father, easily; he could scarce believe his good fortune until he discovered just how good that fortune was. Some at my father’s court remarked that my mother would have made a great hetaira; many said she already was one, in all but name.

‘I grew up in that vileness, but I saw the vileness about me and despised those who took part in it. I saw my mother surrendering herself to innumerable lovers, and my father – if indeed he was my father – grow ancient before his time, a dotard nursing a bottomless wine-jug.

‘The painted women threw themselves about me, but I repulsed them. I roamed the hills about Torvalinal; I locked myself in the tower to pore over treatises by the masters of hunt and war. When my time came, I took the Pilgrimage of Elna; when I returned I put myself to the training of my lancemen, whom I made into the finest in the South. Thus I remained chaste, until my seventeenth year.

‘That year saw my first command. The pirates of the Isles had become a grave danger during my father’s years. Those monies that should have maintained the fleet had gone instead to feed my mother’s lust. The pirates had become a nation unto themselves, building city-strongholds in full view of the coast. Not a merchantman on Elna’s Sea but risked attack; and they were led by a captain famous for his battle-skills and cruelty. Twice the Emperor had sent Imperial navies against him; the pirate mocked us, and returned the generals’ heads on silver basins.

‘It was against this madman I set forth.

‘The excuse of it was a woman. A daughter of one of the Rukorian houses had been taken for ransom. More gold was demanded than we could pay; if it were not paid, the pirate threatened to sell the maiden to the Madpriests.

‘We set out, thirty-five ships and five thousand lancemen strong. For half a year we struggled, this demon of a pirate and I. The length and breadth of Elna’s Sea we battled, in coastal creek, on the hills of nameless isles, even at the edges of the Dark Sea itself. The pirate chained the maiden to the foremast whenever we engaged, to taunt me. I saw her imploring our aid, and felt compassion for her. No lances were ever cast at that ship, for fear lest she be harmed.

‘It was on the brink of the Dark Sea I forced him to a last encounter. He had been retreating for some weeks, and made efforts to slip into the darkness where we could not track him. Goddess was choked with blood on the crests of the swells; the shadows we cast fell like weird giants over the waters. The ships swung about, engaged; the men did battle and broke off, and the ships swung to again. The rowers broke their backs with the effort; the seas were littered with bits of oars, lance-hafts, and corpses. So three weeks passed, he ever striving to turn into the darkness and I to come between him and the dusky border.

‘But I had trained my men well, and we fought for honor, while the pirates only fought for gold; so we triumphed, and I cut the life from the body of the pirate. And the maiden I had saved I cut down from the mast myself, with the blood still hot upon my hands. She was the loveliest girl I had ever seen. Drunk on her beauty and driven out of myself in my triumph, I took her in my arms and drank out of her mouth, and in his very bed, I took her like a madman.

‘She was the first woman I ever knew, but I was not her first man. Oh, far from it! When we were above again, she wept over the corpse of that infamous pirate, and upbraided me for having saved her!

‘It was then I learned the heart of woman. When my father died I cast out the corrupt courtiers, and pulled down the infamous palace my mother had built. Her I banished from Rukor entirely, though I let her keep the rents of certain estates so that she should not go in rags. I saw to my men. And that was enough for me, until I beheld Allissál.

‘After years passed, I knew fully the greatness of her soul, and I knew the fullness of my love. She is pure beyond you other women, so that I pause even to call her by the same name as the rest of you. It is for her sake that I have done all I have done.’

Melkarth bent over her loom. ‘No man can despise women without offending Goddess,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten all I foretold you when you visited me those years ago, in your Pilgrimage? How you dreamed of the fame and glory of battle, and of being the equal of your ancestors! Alas, it was your downfall. Now you think yourself better than the other nobles of your generation, those who fell with Arstomenes in his pleasure-gardens. Yet I say, O man of a lost age, that it would have been better for you had you given in to the desires of the women of your father’s court, than to go the way you have.’

He stood over her in the firelight. Rage burst from his brow, his fists were knotted at his sides, and he might have struck her. But Melkarth laughed, and struck at his legs with her staff and felled him.

‘Fight against beasts and men first, my lord,’ she advised him gently: ‘but do not make trial of a woman’s strength.’ With that she folded her mantle over her head and left the cave.

The rain had lessened to a sprinkle. All the green stalks of grass in the clearing at the foot of the hill nodded beneath the drops. The smell of wet moss was pungent in the air. Gundoen sat in a stone seat on the hillside. The water beaded and rolled over his great round head, streaming from scar to scar. He seemed like the abandoned idol of an ancient cult. The old woman settled in the seat beside him. Gundoen made no move to acknowledge her.

At length she murmured, ‘Of old habit, I prefer to be alone with my visions, my potions, and the creatures of the wood. But I will miss you when you go, Gundoen.’

‘This is a new song for you to sing.’

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I only wished you go for your own good, and for Hertha-Toll’s.’

‘You never told me how it is you know our tongue.’

‘Oh,’ she said, smiling and showing one or two teeth, ‘yours is a tongue written on the bark of tree-trunks and carved on pebbles in fast-rushing streams. The stone-folk of the mountains speak a tongue very like it.’

‘We were here before,’ he said simply and proudly. ‘Before Elna, even.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why did I bother to save him?’

Melkarth shook her head. ‘You did as you must. I would have spared you, but it was ordained by Her.’

He nodded. ‘Then there is no escape?’

‘None, chieftain.’

‘My wife’s visions will all come true?’

‘All, chieftain.’

‘Will I see again my son, Ara-Karn?’

‘It will be he who decides your fate.’

Again he nodded. He stood, and looked into the forest. ‘Good. It is good for a man to know his end. Let it come! I will spit in its eye when it does.’

The old, old woman bent so that her face was hidden. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is the way of fame.’

He glanced back at her and frowned. ‘Do not weep, old woman. It makes me uneasy.’

* * *

At the end of the third week following his climbing of the great tree, Ampeánor was strong enough to journey. He fashioned himself a rude lance out of a branch with a jagged stone in its end for a point. With it he brought down game for the journey. Melkarth taught him the trails to leave the Sontil by the shortest path.

For parting-gifts the old seeress gave the lord of Rukor a woven shoulder-mantle, and to Gundoen a necklace she had fashioned out of the teeth of the Darkbeast. ‘I had forgotten it,’ Gundoen said when he slung it over his head. ‘It is good. It is the way I would choose to go.’ He bent and kissed her on the mouth.

The old seeress, standing on the crest of the hill, watched the two men descend the yonder side. When they vanished, Melkarth looked up to the light of Goddess dancing in the leaf-roof far above. Perhaps she prayed: it was a good place for it. After a space she went back to finish her weaving and depart for another of her many abodes. This one had served its end.

* * *

At the Sontil’s edge Ampeánor and Gundoen emerged upon an open, empty land. Ampeánor stripped Gundoen of his weapons and bound his arms with grass rope. The barbarian watched the charan’s actions, a scornful smile on his lips. ‘There is no need for this, Southron,’ he said. ‘I will flee from no man, least of all from you.’

‘I take no chances,’ Ampeánor muttered, drawing the knots tighter.

They ventured upon the grasslands beyond.

Vistas of rolling plains extended around them, conquering at length the high dark wall of the Sontil behind them. The winds blew from a vast distance, huge towers of clouds built themselves into cities in the sky, and Goddess shone over all with a blazing light. From the grasses underfoot the bitter odor of wormroot touched their nostrils.

Ampeánor breathed in that odor. ‘Yes, I know this place. It is the domain of the Charan Farnese, home to the finest horse-tamers in the world. It is the Eglands.’

For seven passes they crossed the plains, journeying North and darkward. They ate the meats Ampeánor had prepared, and drank of streams they chanced across. The flatness of the land spread to all sides: there were only the faintly rolling contours of the land and the great arching vault of sky.

When they camped for the fifth meal on the eighth pass, Ampeánor offered Gundoen his portion of the dried meat. The barbarian shook his head.

‘I do not want that. Give me something else.’

‘What, then?’

‘Cut me loose.’

Ampeánor shook his head.

‘Southron, this is no way for a man to go. It is the way of slaves.’

‘If I loosed you, I could not hold you.’

Gundoen fixed the lord of Rukor’s eye. ‘And if I truly wanted to stop you from bringing me to your stronghold, do you think these cords could stop me?’

Ampeánor considered. In the end, what means did he have to force the barbarian to accompany him besides the threat of death? And death was nothing this man feared. The thought made him see the barbarian in a new light. He had changed, this unlettered savage, since Ampeánor captured him.

‘Do you mean,’ he asked slowly, ‘that if I cut your bonds, you would go with me freely?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would work me no harm? You would go even into the Citadel of Elna, and your death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

The barbarian shook his head. ‘It’s enough for you to know it’s so.’

Ampeánor shook his head. ‘And the thing that surprises me most,’ he murmured, ‘is that I believe you.’

The barbarian rolled on one side, offering his back and the strong ropes cutting into his massive arms. Only half believing what he did, the High Charan of Rukor drew the war-knife and cut the ropes.

XVII
Egland Downs

WHEN THE BARBARIANS FELL upon Vapio in the dusty heat, they swept aside the womanish charioteers and put to the sack the towered city of the age-old High Kings. The notorious pleasure-gardens they found already burning: for the High Charan Arstomenes, apprised of the enemy’s approach, had resumed the custom of his ancestors and in the midst of his last debauch adorned his death with the lives of his votaries, the graceful, besotted nobility of the Empire.

But when they gained the Eglands, the barbarians found before them not cities rising high behind stone walls, but thousands of scattered ranches and horse-herds splendid as the winds. An army greeted them as well, the greatest army ever seen by man: the army of the League of Elna pitched on the flank of the river Eaffash on the wide flat plain of Egland Downs.

The barbarians passed on, avid for Tarendahardil. They left behind them stark death where the army of the League had been, but they left the ranchers in peace.

The folk of those ranches lived on as they had before.

Of the Eglanders there were two classes. The elite riders of the High Charanti of the House of Esothan fell at Egland Downs; the ranchers, earth-colored, humble men with no thought beyond their herds, survived. And now those horsemen rode the rolling plains as they had for centuries.

In a broad bowl of land set between three softly falling slopes of the plain, a man named Eno had his ranch. Here he had come as a young man with his father, freed and made rich by their service to the Imperial House. Now as a stout man of middle age he had a good, coin-keeping wife, six strong sons, several daughters, and a herd of two hundred of the finest stock, swift, long-legged beauties with the scent of God in their nostrils.

One pass late in the second autumn after Egland Downs it fell out that Galn, Eno’s third son, entered the hall where the household was at table for the third meal. They had been noisy before, but at Galn’s appearance fell silent.

Eno put his fat thumb in his belt and greeted his son. ‘Come eat with us if you have hunger. Is it already time for Arnam to ride on the ridges and watch for the enemy?’

Galn stepped deeper into the hall and drew off the wide-brimmed hat of the horsemen. ‘Father, I was riding as you bade me, when I saw two strangers on the plain.’

‘Were they armed?’ asked Arnam.

‘No, they are not with the barbarians,’ Galn answered. ‘The one was doubtful of looks, but the other was tall, of lordly features and bearing, and spoke in the language of the court. When we approached them, they would not speak of their business nor of where they went, but only bade me guide them some place where they might eat and rest. They wear ragged garments, their hair and beards are wild, and their wind-burnt cheeks hollow. They were never slaves, nor ranchers, nor field-workers, nor merchants, nor craftsmen of the cities. They were fighting-men once, but now they cross beneath Goddess with little meat and water – not even a single horse. So, seeing their unhappy state and thinking that here were two men who had lost all at the hands of the Cursed One, I brought them here. Even now they wait without the hall to see if you will grant them courtesy, father.’

‘Then bring them here before us, my son,’ said Eno. ‘For no doubt you have reason, and these two men deserve our shelter. But when you have led them in, Galn, go out again with your men and ride the circuit lest this prove a trick.’

Galn nodded and went. Meanwhile the hall fell noisy with wondering who the strangers might be, and what good fortune their visit should bring.

When the men appeared in the hall, the talk fell off. Galn had been right about these two. Their arms were too hard, their bearing too proud, their eyes too bold. The tall one perhaps was well enough, but his fellow, as broad as he was tall, made the householders uneasy. Over his chest he wore a string of huge, evil teeth, the like of which none had seen before. His features too were strange, and his looks were scornful. His body was mottled with scars of sword-wounds, knife-marks, burn-welts and lance-wounds. Even Eno was struck at the sight of him.

At length however, gathering his courage, Eno stood so that the Goddesslight falling through the windows threw his shadow across the old horse-lances and sword set for decoration on the wall.

‘Greetings, friends,’ he said. ‘Brothers I should say, for we are all joined against the common foe. I am Eno, and this is my house. Here find welcome, and any help or comfort we can offer you.’

Briefly the tall one inclined his head. ‘I thank you and accept your hospitality,’ he said in the ritual phrase of the guest. ‘May Goddess shine on you, and may God, who is ever a wanderer, see your kindness this pass.’

Eno bowed and made greetings on behalf of each member of his family. The tall one said, ‘I am Torval, and this man you may call Brinbal, the Strong One. I am a Rukorian who fought beneath the walls of Bollakarvil when she fell last year. Since then I have been sick, and this man tended me. We crossed the Sontil, and escaped that place but a week or so ago. Since then we have wandered here hungry, sore and weary, yet most of all anxious for news. We have heard nothing of the happenings of the world for more than a year.’

At this they greatly wondered around the table, for they had never heard of anyone who had traversed the Sontil and emerged from it still living. But Eno, who had learned the ways of the highborn during his service for the nal Bordakasha, made space at the table and placed before the guests meat and cheese and fermented mare’s milk. ‘And if there is anything else you wish, sir,’ he added, ‘only tell us, and there will be legs to run and fetch it.’

‘Let the food be first,’ Torval said. ‘Later I will say what else I will require. But while we eat, tell me the events of the world. What news is there of your lord, the Charan Farnese – and of Tarendahardil and her Divine Majesty the Empress?’

‘Alas, sir,’ said Eno, lowering his face, ‘there I have but one sad tale after another to rob you of your hunger. But will your companion not eat with us?’ The massive stranger had not taken his place at the table, but instead sat on a round stone stool against the far wall, and shook his head at every offer of food or drink the house-women made.

The Rukorian shrugged. ‘He will do as he likes. He is a barbarian, and my captive.’

There was silence. Eno cleared his throat and asked rather nervously, ‘Then, sir, should not some care be taken? We have no place to hold men. Perhaps the cave below, where we store our milks and meats?’

Torval barked a bitter laugh. ‘Let him be. He has sworn me and his word is good.’

‘If that is so, sir, then indeed marvels attend you with every appearance of dark God,’ Eno said, glancing at the huge-muscled barbarian. But later when the general noise had uprisen anew, he leaned across the corner of the table to Kamalan his second son and said, ‘See you keep careful watch over the barbarian – be always between him and those old lances on the wall.’

Throughout the meal the householders cast fearful glances at the huge-bodied man. There were times in the course of the recounting of the year’s events, when some of them would curse the barbarians or their leader. Then an awkward silence would fall over them, all but the Rukorian, who went on eating as before; and none dared look at the barbarian.

But that one sat steadfast on the stone, eating nothing, drinking nothing, seeing nothing, seeing all.

The Rukorian put many questions to Eno about the fall of Tarendahardil and the siege of Renda the Black Citadel, but he seemed moved only when he learned of the death of the Charan Farnese.

‘Yes, sir, it struck us all,’ Eno said. ‘He was a great lord, a noble lord, and of a long ago time as it seems to me now. We won’t see his like again! Not that I knew him, or that he was ever even kind with me, or relented on his privileges the breadth of a stalk of hay – but he was of the old sort, and there was a way about him that you couldn’t help but admire.’

‘He was sick a long while,’ the Rukorian said.

‘Ah, but still, he had lived so long, it was a blow when it came. There’s no one in the plains who can remember a time when we weren’t ruled by the Charan. He left behind no heir, you know. He was the last of the Esothan, and left his horses and halls to the Charan Ampeánor of Rukor – your own lord, sir – him that had been all but a son to him. At least, that was the way I always heard of it, and I was in the service of her majesty the Empress some years back, when she was a girl. Would you hear of his last weeks, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, that was in early summer, wasn’t it, Rilltor? Yes, that’s it: the foals were new upon the fields at the time, and the Charan held one in his arms and kissed its ears in blessing.

‘From ranch to ranch the Charan went, with a few friends, old men almost as well born as himself, the last of the Empire. They bore him on a litter between horses when his strength was too light to have command of the saddle. And they pitched the red tent upon a ridge, and he sat in a chair in the shadow and saw us ranchers as we came to him. Of disputes, quarrels, and the like he refused to hear a word: all he cared about was the horses. No one was allowed to speak a word about the court or the wars. It was piteous to see him, sir, weak and gasping as he was. All the flesh had gone from his face, there was only bone and veins, blue and purplish, and the big scornful eyes and harsh wet mouth. Words came to him slowly, and everyone knew the end was near. He seemed not sorry, but glad of it, in my own mind.’

Eno sighed and drank more of the mare’s milk.

‘It was at the end of the shortsleep after we saw him that he was found, sir. The old men borrowed spades and went up on the ridge and dug a pit, and cast in the stiff thin body, all stripped naked and raw. Then they threw the dark dirt on top of him and made a mound, over which they drove horses until it was flat again.

‘It seemed horrible to me. They spoke none of the rites, nor even set down stones in the outline of a barge to face Goddess and voyage his ka to the Blessed Shores. But so he had commanded it, they said. The old ones struck the red tent and set free the horses that had borne his litter, and then they rode off as the winds go. What became of them, or of the Charan’s servants, no man knows. But this is sure, none of them held a lance at Egland Downs. Out there’s where they left him, sir, upon that ridge through the window. The spot is green now, but my son Arnam left a stone to mark it. They say he wanted his body to go back to the dirt out of which Goddess had fashioned it, to feed the grasses that feed the horses. For he had lost all hope and joy in the works and world of men. The virtuous men, he said, had all departed from the world, and now all that survive them are beasts, madmen and the gods of pain.’

* * *

Later that pass the Rukorian knelt on the grass beside the stone, and looked upon the ground that held the rotten remnants of the High Charan Farnese, once the greatest general of his age, preeminent noble of the Court of the Bordakasha, Regent for an Empress and a Prince. And he, who had loved that bitter, proud old man better than any other, wept without shame, and dug his fingers in the worm-ridden dirt.

Long hours he stayed there, lost in the melancholy winds of his thoughts. Weary, weary, but his mind ran drunken on, and he could know no peace. So many had fallen in a year! Was Farnese truly gone, and in such a hateful manner? Ampeánor had had no legitimate brothers, no sisters at all; he had detested his father and loathed his mother. This one old man had been all the kin he had had, and all the love he had owned he had shared between Farnese and Allissál.

The sky was clouded, yet here and there breaks let fall mournful showers of the wheat-colored light of Goddess in Her Autumn House. The light swept slowly across the Eglands, which now appeared for the first time to Ampeánor’s eyes to be empty.

He felt the hours that had passed. It was late, past time for the fifth meal. He staggered up and made his way back to the ranch.

* * *

The master and his sons still sat to table drinking the fermented mare’s milk. Galn had joined them, for it was Keasner’s time to keep the ridges.

When they woke from the shortsleep, they found the barbarian as they had left him, sitting on the stone stool in the hall. The men went to their labor, and the women swept the hall nervously, going wide from the stone stool. In time the hour came for the fourth meal, and the household gathered anew.

Eno sent his sixth son Berlan to remind the Rukorian of the hour, but the boy, who had only nine summers, returned shyly to whisper in his father’s great ear that the stranger knelt still on the death-place of the High Charan, and had not moved at Berlan’s calls.

Eno shook his head sadly, and refilled his bowl. ‘Surely he is no mere lancer, that one. He reminds me of the High Charan. Could Farnese have had a son after all?’

The barbarian sat as ever, Goddess gleaming off his burnished skin. The shadow behind him seemed darker and more solid than the wall on which it was cast, and the light seemed evil when it glinted off the teeth that overspread his chest.

After some moments, Arnam set down the liquor-pot loudly, and his wife Elprin asked, ‘Why does he sit like that, and why don’t he eat? Can’t he go elsewhere?’

‘Hush, wife,’ said Arnam.

‘Hey, barbarian,’ called out Galn, who had drunk more of the mare’s milk than his custom. ‘Don’t you even want some of this?’ He hoisted the liquor-pot.

‘Do not tempt him, son,’ Eno said. ‘He is still a savage.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ Galn said.

‘I remember Egland Downs too, brother,’ said Arnam, looking at their father.

‘Can’t he even shut those eyes of his?’ Elprin said.

‘Do not speak of him,’ Eno’s wife said. ‘The lord said he is safe. Let him be.’

‘And when did a dirt-wallowing barbarian ever hold his word?’ asked Arnam.

Elprin giggled. Eno refilled his bowl.

‘Hush,’ said Rilltor. ‘He might hear you.’

‘He can’t understand us any better than a dog,’ Arnam said. ‘He only speaks his own foul tongue.’

‘Time for us to leave them to it,’ Rilltor told the other women. The men sat about the table drinking. But Gundoen sat steadfast on the stone, eating nothing, drinking nothing, seeing nothing, seeing all.

It was some time later when the door opened and Ampeánor stepped again into the hall. He drew off the riding-cloak and began to eat.

Eno set down his bowl and said, ‘The women are readying a dimchamber for you, lord. You are welcome to anything that is ours for as long as you please to stay.’

‘We go after the first meal. I would see Tarendahardil again as soon as I can.’

‘Lord, it is not my part to question you. But is it wise to venture so near that city? The barbarians must still be there. There are safer roads to Rukor.’

‘I go not to Rukor, but to Tarendahardil.’

‘Take me with you,’ Arnam said. ‘I want to fight the barbarians. I’m not afraid!’

‘Take me, too!’ Galn said.

The man they knew as Torval looked them over: bent-legged, raw-boned ranch-boys, their faces burnt by the wind. He shook his head. ‘I must go alone if I am to remain unseen.’

Eno sighed. ‘Listen to the lord, boys, and be wise. You are young, and have your lives ahead of you.’

Arnam and Galn looked each other in the eye. Galn said, ‘What road is safest to the City?’

‘Better avoid the Imperial roads,’ Arnam said. ‘Grellantor saw hired men of the Cursed One riding in bands on the Southern Way, a week or less ago.’

‘They’re all over,’ Kamalan said. ‘There’s only one place they won’t go.’

‘Yes, because no man will go that way for fear of his very soul,’ Eno said. ‘Even the barbarians shun the haunted fields of Egland Downs.’

‘Yes, tell us about it, father,’ Arnam said. ‘You know so much about it, don’t you?’

The master of the house set down his bowl. ‘Ah, lads, don’t blame me if I chose the safer path and wouldn’t let you die. Two or three untrained youths would have added nothing to the League. And then how great a loss to me, if one of you had fallen? Was I not proved wise in the end?’

But the young men only frowned.

‘Still,’ Eno said. ‘It hurt me to give no aid to her majesty. I should not be saying this, I suppose, but I dare say there is not another man in all the ranches with so much reason to defend her. I was a servant of hers, when she was but a child and my father was stable-master of the castle where they raised her. Why, I even saw her in her nakedness and had the pleasure of her, which is more than many a high lord can claim.’

The Rukorian cast his gaze up and down the length of the Eglander’s fat body. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it is true before Goddess, I lay in love with the Empress Allissál herself,’ Eno said. ‘And, sir, I was the first to have that pleasure, for it was I that pierced her maiden’s veil.’

‘Ah, father,’ said Kamalan with a sly distrusting smile, ‘you never told us this tale before.’

‘No, nor you nor any other, not even Rilltor. For I am a man of honor. And why it is I speak it now I cannot say, save to lay it on the knees of Goddess who has filled this drink with such strength. It was the season before the old Emperor died, that her highness the Princess came to me in the stables, and drew me down and put her hands about me, for I was a well-favored youth, and she was hot to learn the ways of love. Later, after she became Empress, she granted my father and me our freedom, and give us gold with which to buy this ranch. And so all you boys were born free, for Rilltor and I wed after I was a free man, as you know well.’

‘Do you mean it is true?’ asked Galn. ‘The Empress knows you?’

‘Yes, son, as she knows few others.’

‘Then you could have sent us to her majesty with words of introduction? And we would have been presented at the court?’ Arnam asked.

‘Why, I suppose that is not too far from true,’ Eno said, reaching for the liquor-pot.

‘But this a foul-mouthed lie you tell,’ the Rukorian said. He rose to his feet and leaned his fists on the table. Then Eno bethought himself, and let go the pot.

‘Indeed, my lord, it is not. I speak no slander of her majesty, whom the Couple look after and protect from lies. I would gladly take back my words, seeing how they have wrought in you, lord, but I cannot swallow back simple truth. I did indeed lie with the young Princess in the hay of the stables, near the horses in the cool shadow. At first I was unwilling, as a loyal servant of my lord. It was she who fell all hot with longing for me, and putting her hands beneath my tunic made me promise to teach her the ways of Goddess. And such was her beauty that I did as I wished with her, many times. And for that she gave me many gifts.’

‘It is a lie,’ the stranger said. He advanced the length of the table. ‘You only say it to torment me! Who put you up to this, slave? Was it him? Did Melkarth teach him to fill you with these monstrous slanders?’

‘Lord, what is it that so angers you? Indeed my lord, if you know her majesty I can prove my words to you. For while I was with her I saw a certain mark she had, which she’d gotten at birth. It lies upon her right thigh, close inside her hip – red as a barsilia fruit, the size of a woman’s toe-nail, shaped like a three-pointed crown.’

‘It is a lie! Confess it to Goddess!’ The Rukorian leapt on the rancher. He took Eno’s throat between his hands and shook him so that his head banged against the back of his chair. ‘Confess, slave, and tell me who put these words in your slobbering mouth, or it will be your death!’

Arnam shouted for Torval to release his father. Galn took down an old lance and rushed at him. But when the stranger felt the lance-head, he hurled Eno against the wall, snatched the lance and beat the young man about the head with the haft. Arnam saw the blood about his brother’s head and took another lance, yelling for help.

The Rukorian spun the lance about and with skill learned of old cast the lance so the head went through Arnam’s body and struck with a clatter off the lime-washed wall.

‘Murder!’ Galn cried.

The Rukorian pulled down another lance and the old sword. Eno’s sons circled him. One he gutted with the lance and slew, then kicked the bench into the other’s knees, and slashed the sword-blade against his neck so that the head was hewn from the trunk and the blade snapped in two. Berlan ran for the inner door, and the stranger bounded after him.

The door wrenched open, and Eno’s wife Rilltor peered in. Behind her were Elprin and one or two other women. Berlan screamed and slid through the doorway; the Rukorian’s sweeping sword-blow fell short, and the half-blade stuck in the door-jamb.

Pale and ghastly the women’s faces stared into the eyes of their stranger-guest, and past him to the bodies of their menfolk where they lay strewn about the hall, bleeding, dead or dying. Then in terror Rilltor slammed the door, and the women fled in fear of their lives.

Ampeánor leaned against the door. He looked behind him, and he saw what the women had seen. His arm trembled, and the lance fell from his fingers.

At the far end of the hall the barbarian stood up. Goddesslight shone on the Darkbeast teeth on his chest. He stepped to the table. He took a platter and heaped meat on it. He picked up Arnam’s bowl still full of the fermented mare’s-milk, sniffed it, then slurped it down.

There was no other sound save for one of the dying boys moaning and twitching against some dishes.

‘I did not mean it,’ Ampeánor said in the tongue of the far North. ‘Some madness overtook me.’

Gundoen sank his teeth into the meat. ‘I have seen the like befall warriors of my tribe. They know nothing but blood and will murder even their own wives and little ones.’ He drank more milk.

‘Let us get horses and leave this place,’ Ampeánor sad. ‘Why do you eat now, when you would not touch what they offered before?’

Gundoen shrugged. ‘Before, they were my enemies, and I will take no courtesy of a foe. But these men are now the enemies of no man but you, Southron.’

* * *

They left the ranch and rode North. Avoiding all roads and men, they reached in a pass or two the blue river Eaffash, and Egland Downs.

They made camp in the midst of that venomous green field thick with bones and rust and ghosts. It was raining, and the clay wet and steaming. Gundoen kicked aside some bones, mumbled a charm, and lay down between horsehair cloaks to sleep.

Ampeánor sat on his heels, feeling the autumnal rains trickle down his neck. He had wandered the length of these fields, and seen his own image in a calm water of the Eaffash. Now he leaned on the broken sword, weary, so weary, and looked at the sleeping barbarian. Ever since he had gone with the barbarians to Ilkas, Ampeánor had held this plan, though in sleep he had shuddered, and wondered if he could carry it to its end. Only in the rains of this field did he know that he would go through with it. And the man before him went to it like an ox to the dark altar.

As far as the eye could see, the bones of the finest fightingmen of the South littered the field. Eighty thousand had fallen here, and the muted echoes of their cries rose through the mud to assail the ears of the High Charan of Rukor.

A shudder took his body, of horror, perhaps, or fear.

For one summer, years before, he had gone hunting with the Queen in the mountains above Torvalinal. And they had lost their party, and Allissál had bathed in a cool mountain stream. And Ampeánor had parted the tall reeds and gazed upon her in her nakedness, a vision he might never thereafter forget. And he had seen a mark on the curve of her thigh, red as a barsilia fruit, the size of a lady’s toenail, shaped like a three-pointed crown – even as Eno, whom Ampeánor had strangled to death with his own hands, had avowed.

And now it seemed to Ampeánor that he could hear the hideous voices of the dead of Egland Downs groaning and whispering. And it seemed to him that what they told, over and over again, was his very name.

‘…Ampeánor … Ampeánor … Ampeánor…’

XVIII
Ampeánor’s Homecoming

‘…AMPEÁNOR … AMPEÁNOR … AMPEÁNOR…’

The guardsmen about the battlements hailed the dark thin figure atop the battlement steps.

It seemed to them a thing too marvelous to believe.

The cold winds had begun again to blow from the dark, and the earth to sicken and die, and with it the guardsmen’s hopes. It had begun to seem to them, as they faced a second winter here, that their labor would be futile. The secret of Haspeth’s going had not stayed secret long, yet it was months since he had gone, and none now scanned the line of the sea for ships bearing down from Rukor.

And now without warning the last great noble of the realm appeared among them, with the barbarians’ general his captive!

He raised his arms and stilled the chant. Slowly he did off his ragged Eglandish garb, flinging it behind him. Naked, the High Charan girt himself in the tunic and armor of a common guardsman.

They knew him. He was one of them. He was the best of them.

Captain Berowne bore up a great wine cup all of silver and filled with foaming dark Postio. The charan held it high to Goddess and then God, and drank that wine until he let it fall empty and clattering on the stones of the yard below.

‘And so,’ he said, terribly, ‘will we all drink the blood of our enemies before Goddess takes again Her Summer Throne. This I vow, or else let dark God cast me from this peak.’

At that oath all the guardsmen let the Renda know their voices. The cheers resounded over the Iron Gate, so that the barbarian watchers, troubled at heart, sent down to the camp to summon the chiefs and champions of the tribes, that they might themselves learn of this strange turn of mood behind the black walls.

One by one the lord of Rukor had the guardsmen brought before him, and met with them in full view of the city below. From Captain Berowne he learned the men’s names and hearts.

Then a hush fell in the yard below. Ampeánor went once more upon the steps and looked down on a procession of maidens in white loras, led by a man and woman walking side by side. The man wore a hooded hunting-cloak, the woman a gold mask and black linen robes under a gray cloak.

Then Ampeánor asked wonderingly, ‘Who is that priestess, that the men salute her?’

Berowne answered, ‘It is her majesty the Empress.’

Gracefully the woman ascended the steps. Then in the press of guardsmen she saw the lord of Rukor, and halted. And he, seeing her movements and height, and the maidens behind her, knew the captain’s words were true.

The color surged and ebbed from Ampeánor’s face, like the wash and turn of unseen waves upon a desolate shore. Berowne and the guardsmen offered the queen the military salute, but Ampeánor might not move his limbs. His eyes probed her as though his gaze had been a lance. And she in turn stayed moveless, her features concealed behind the mask of Goddess.

For some moments no words passed between them. Then Ampeánor started, as if cast up from a dream. He reached out as though to take her in his arms.

At that moment a gerlin flew between him and the sun, screeching. It circled him three times, flew over the yard, and vanished beyond the inner gates. At this the guardsmen stepped back and made the sign of Goddess.

Ampeánor in those moments had recognized the man beside the queen. ‘So it is you, Charan Kandi. And who gave you the freedom of this place?’

‘My lord,’ the Gerso said, ‘no one in this place is free.’

At this the queen stepped forward and went apart with her betrothed. There they spoke privately, so that none might overhear. Their gestures were formal, and they did not embrace.

Meanwhile the square about Elna’s fallen pillar filled with the barbarian chieftains.

They beheld the man resplendent in armor and beside him the priestess in her gray cloak. Fear spread across the upturned faces, and they murmured, ‘The Gray Priestess … Gray Priestess…’

Meanwhile, forgotten by the others, the barbarian captive looked at the Gerso charan through the press of men. The love in Gundoen’s eyes for his adopted son was such that any man would have known it.

A look of warning crossed the visage of Ara-Karn. He crossed to the Beak, the engine he had devised to catch up stones and loose them on the barbarians.

Ara-Karn laid his hand on the mast of the Beak. He looked down at the long ropes dangling free, at the well-greased turning mechanism. If he had the will, a single man might wield it. He looked across at Gundoen where he stood forgotten by the guardsmen. Gundoen took a step closer to the Beak.

The work of a moment: Gundoen to leap into the Beak’s ropes, Ara-Karn to turn it out over the tribesmen and lower Gundoen down to them.

Then Ara-Karn looked at the couple by the parapet.

He took his hand from the Beak.

Gundoen looked a questioning look, but the look of the Warlord answered him no. So Gundoen nodded, and stepped to the parapet atop the Iron Gate.

He looked down on the warriors. Gundoen saw Nam-Rog and Kul-Dro, and Bur-Knap of the River’s-Bend tribe, and Ven-Vin-Van of the Borsos, and Ren-Tionan of the Foruns. Yet they, gazing at the woman in gray, did not yet know Gundoen. He looked at the Southron lord, and smiled the smile he gave when his tracker led a bandar into the bite of his spears.

He leaned over the parapet and lifted his voice, happily: for though all ran as Hertha-Toll had foretold and he knew his doom was upon him, to face pain such as no other man had ever known, Gundoen knew also that the fame his death would bring would outlast that of Tont-Ornoth himself. And because he stood again in the presence of his son, his Warlord, and his warriors, and because he felt his own strength in the light of Goddess, Gundoen rejoiced, and called down upon the tribesmen to stir them to the battle lust of old:

‘Warriors! I am Gundoen Strong-In-Girth, and I hunted alone with one other man, the king of all Darkbeasts, and wear his teeth upon my chest! That is what I did this year! What deeds do you boast? Will a hundred weakling Southrons defy you forever? Or will you give their blood to dark God? By now you might have reduced this very mountain to a plain, had you the heart for it! Has Goddess made women of you all? Come feed these Southrons to your dogs!’

The warriors were startled to see him, for they had deemed him dead. Now they felt the hot doom in his words, and the fierce wildness of his heart kept so long from battle. He alone remembered what it was to be a warrior of that land of cold plains, cold woods and cold rivers, where Urnostardil crowned the Darklands. Now, hearing him, they too remembered, and lost their fear of the Gray Priestess. As great as Ampeánor’s appearance wrought on his men, Gundoen’s wrought twice that upon his. They raised spears and shields and cried to him in tribute so that the Iron Gate itself rang with it.

At that Ampeánor cried out angrily to the guardsmen to take the barbarian into the yard.

But Gundoen laughed, and catching the arms of the two nearest guardsmen, flung them out over the parapet to their deaths in the coomb below.

Other guardsmen lunged at Gundoen with lowered spear-points. He tore the lances from them, and caught the largest of them. Him Gundoen held lightly over his head, and threw into the rush of the others, knocking four men back over the battlements to fall to the stones of the yard. Again the warriors raised their cry, and Gundoen’s own tribe began the war-chant of Tont-Ornoth.

‘Do not kill him,’ Ampeánor cried; ‘we need him still alive.’

The guardsmen crowded close about the chieftain, and two dozen lance-points marked his flesh with streams of blood. But at that shout of the man he most despised, Gundoen put his arms behind his chest, as much as to say, I have had my sport, now do as you will. The guardsmen bundled him down into the yard between the gates.

Still the barbarians below the Iron Gate roared like wolves that run starving along the Knife-Edged Border, surrounding the lonely cabins of woodsmen and tearing with their strong jaws at the roof-thatch.

Ampeánor snatched a lance from a guardsman. ‘Enough of this,’ he cried, and cast down the lance.

It shot true from his strong arm, and broke the armor-plates, and buried itself in the guts of Haln-Gaw. Haln-Gaw had pushed his way to the forefront of the chieftains, for he could not speak, the way the Hooded Man’s death-bird had broken his jaw. All Haln-Gaw might do was howl, and he sought the forefront so that his howls should put greater fear into the Southrons. So he had done since his maiming; but on this pass it was his undoing. The lance-head burst through the armor at his back, and Haln-Gaw writhed on the paving stones, his nails scraping the lance-haft, until the spirit left him.

At that death, the chieftains lost their voices, and the guardsmen cheered. Ampeánor escorted the queen off the battlements.

Before that pair, the great inner gates were opened for the first time since the siege of Tarendahardil had begun. The Tarendahardilites crowded beyond, brought by the rumor of the return of Rukor. Now they saw him in full war-gear at the side of their empress, and their mouths opened to sound a cheer. But the cheer died in their throats as they let the procession pass. They had seen his face. And they remembered Elnavis when he returned.

But when they beheld again the Charan Ennius Kandi walking behind the Imperial couple, then the people cheered. He nodded and gave them words of hope. At that the lord of Rukor looked back over his shoulder and his frown deepened.

They came beneath the high walls of the Palace. All at once Ampeánor felt the great weariness take him that he had withstood for so many passes. He had not slept since he had left that ranch in the Eglands. Briefly he ordered Berowne to convey the captive beneath the Palace.

‘You may rely upon it, my lord,’ the captain answered. ‘I will find a hole in which to shut him up as secure as an amphora of red Postio.’

In the inner court Ampeánor stumbled. Even walking became difficult. All knowledge of what passed about him grew vague, and all he saw was that he had reached his old chambers in the Palace. And there before him was Pharnor Bittan, his graying master of the hunt, taking the armor from his limbs.

And there on the wall was the painting done by Qhelvin of Sorne, a painting of a woman of golden, glorious hair, her beauty bright and pure. A great emotion took his heart, and his eyes burned without tears. And he thought, weakly and to no purpose, Surely, this woman must be pure?

Then he fell, and dark sleep at last took him.

And he dreamed a grand procession wended its way up to the Imperial Hall of Justice, where priestesses and dignitaries made ready to welcome and wed the Divine Queen and her chosen one, and all the people cheered as the couple came into the King’s Light. But the chief dignitary bore the face of Eno, the former slave; and the man who took Allissál in his arms and crushed her lips beneath his was not the lord of Rukor but the traitorous spy Ennius Kandi.

* * *

Happily the people within the stronghold took their shortsleep. They slept with greater ease than they had known since the summer of the year before, when the field below the city filled not with barbarians but eighty thousand of the finest fightingmen of the South, on their way to Egland Downs.

But there were those who did not sleep. Upon the roof of the southern lance-tower, the Hooded Man stood looking up at the Palace. And upon the roof of the Palace the dark figure of the Divine Queen walked alone with the restless, unmeasured tread of a woman too aware of her body.

One of her maidens abased herself and offered her majesty a scroll of parchment. She read upon the parchment a single line, unsigned:

Alastaphele, forget not.

She looked to where he stood over the Iron Gate, and crushed the parchment in her hand.

Ara-Karn
confronts his bitterest enemy in
Canto Four:
DARKBRIDGE

The Tale Behind the Tale

The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn I composed when quite young, and sold to the TimeScape imprint of Pocket Books. But since it was a long book, my editor, David Hartwell, asked that it be divided into three volumes. At the time I considered this to be a mistake: personally I love and prefer long tales, if they be good ones, and enjoy the prospect of a good long read when I heft a thick tome in my hand. But I agreed to David’s condition of publication because he knew his business, and I also saw opportunities for improving the tale by restructuring some chapters in the course of helping each volume to stand better on its own.

It took me a long time to recast the second volume, and years to rework the third. The book was long overdue; what’s more, the first two volumes had not sold well, and David Hartwell had left Pocket Books. The new editorial staff looked over my reworked third volume (now almost as long as the entire tale had been when it was deemed too long to publish in one volume), and declared it was unpublishable. They were right: the thing had run away from me.

And so no one but my friends has ever read the full story, or learned the final fate of Ara-Karn.

Now some thirty years after the book was first accepted for publication (and with asotir’s assistance), I can offer a revised and expanded 30th anniversary edition.

The first two volumes – The Former King and The Divine Queen – I reproduce much as they were first published, correcting only some typos and grammatical errors that slipped past me. The unhappy third volume I have shortened somewhat, and reworked it into two parts, now titled The Iron Gate and Darkbridge.

To those who read the first volumes long ago, and have wondered in the years since, ‘What happened, and how did it all end up?’ I offer my apologies. Now at last, if you have found this, you can find out.

— Adam Corby
Spring 2009

Also Available

Gundoen knew now where he was.

Above him the battle raged in silence. He had come so far, and had conquered all the North in the name of Ara-Karn. But his life was draining out of him, mixing with the blood of his victims. He would join them now.

He saw the Southrons regarding him with fear, even though he was helpless now and slain. He grinned, baring the bloody mouth. This was a good death. He had never hoped for one so fine. Now there remained only one final deed for him to do here – one last cry to release the spirit and send it flying up to Goddess.

He opened the cavernous mouth. He filled his lungs with air. And he cried out in a voice echoing terribly off the rocky walls, so that it might be heard by all there even above the din of combat, Gundoen’s final words:

‘O Ara-Karn, avenge my death my son!’

— from Canto Four:
Darkbridge

The Naked Damsel

The armored men parted and the damsel stepped forth.

‘Now,’ said King Arthur, ‘what has brought you here?’

‘This,’ she answered, and let fall the mantle to the floor. Beneath the furs the damsel stood naked, and wore nothing beside the black veil and a heavy sword belted over her slim waist.

‘What is this sword you wear?’ asked the King. ‘Maiden, to stand so naked with a sword ill beseems you.’

‘The Lady Lille of Avalon,’ she answered, ‘has made me this scabbard and Belt of the Strange Clasp, so that the sword may not be drawn but by the best knight in the world, of the greatest heart and strength of arms, untouched by treachery, tricks or villainy. And I have come to your court, O King, to see if I may find that knight here among you…’

— from The Killing Sword

Lady Agatha was alone

Her lord had gone to take the measure of his lands, and his voice calling to his hounds came from far-off through her window, till it was hidden in the wind.

And she heard a great wave breaking on the stones of the Irish land, washing to the Western Sea; and a cry went with it, from a stricken old woman in a hut beyond the hill.

And Lady Agatha heard a third voice calling; and that was Aengus’ voice.

She shut the window to stop the voice, but the room waxed so warm she had to open up again. His song went on and on. And the beat of the riders was everywhere; and Lady Agatha fell asleep at last.

And Master Aengus’ song went right into her sleep.

She knew now why the riders came. They came for her.

— from Blood by Moonlight