Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (9 page)

“Hermias asked him his trade and he looked sly an’ said, ‘Perhaps milord might care to think of me as a harvester. Others might call me a gardener.’

“‘Since we’re to be in Jeypur no longer than a week,’ Hermias said, ‘what gardening would
we
need? Although I imagine you’re being inexact in your words.’

“‘Not at all,’ Pelvat said. ‘A gardener goes across his land and decides which plants are flowers and are to be watered and tended, and which are weeds to be plucked and tossed away. So I’ve been described, although I work mostly in the city among men.’”

“‘An assassin!’ I said, my stomach curling a little.

“Pelvat made no reply, nor did his face change. He paid me no mind, I suppose correctly, since Hermias was th’ lord whose keep he was seekin’.

“Hermias himself took a deep breath, and I saw his jaw firm. ‘I am an Antero,’ he said. ‘We have no need to hire murderers. Not now, not ever. So what in blazes impelled you to approach me?’ I could see his face flush as he realized who was sittin’ opposite and anger spread. Pelvat rose. ‘My apologies for having disturbed your lordship at such a late hour and for such a...misunderstanding. But it was quite natural, since I was able to perform certain services for a kinsman of yours some years ago and he, at least, found my scythe to be quite keen and exact.’

“‘Who?’ Hermias demanded.

“‘General Antero, himself. You don’t think those councilors who fell ill most conveniently and passed on in spite of the best efforts of wizards and leeches alike just happened to have the gods frown on them, do you?

“‘A skilled gardener not only knows how to distinguish flowers from weeds but also how to distill other plants to make his task of beautification easier and less, shall we say, obvious.’”

“Hermias was white with rage. ‘Get out!’ he snarled and his hand went to the table where his dagger lay in its sheath. I myself reached for my own weapon.

“But there was no need. Pelvat bowed once, slightly, and slipped into the night. We never saw nor heard from him again.

“Hermias and I were awake until dawn, talkin’. Somehow, sir, we felt the murderer spoke the truth, at least as far as he knew it.”

She ended her tale, looking away from me in embarrassment. It was many moments before I could speak. Finally I fought my way through the heavy surf of emotion to address her. I said, “Kele, you’ve served me well once again, not only as my servant but as my friend.”

“I hope so,” she said and her expression was troubled.

There was nothing else to be said. We parted and I returned to the villa. I had Quatervals to cancel all of my appointments for the day and retreated to the solitude of my study where I brooded for many hours.

Somehow the use of poison made the crime worse. A poisoner is someone who gloats over the dark power of death that only he or she is privy to, someone who watches his victim writhe and die with pleasure.

Cligus. My son.

* * * *

The next day I arose remarkably refreshed — cheery, even. In the faint light of dawn I’d held a trial, totted up the evidence and found myself guilty of being the worst parent in Orissan history. But what was done was done — and considering that I had reached the age where I had wasted more time than I had years left, I decided it was time to move on to the firm ground of action.

I sent for Janela and when she joined me in the garden — and found a comfortable place beside me on the ancient carpet the servants had spread on the grass — I came directly to the point. All who know my smooth merchant ways know how much out of character that is. But I was through with wit dueling. I wanted plain answers to plain questions.

“You’ve shown me Janos and I erred,” I said. Now tell me what makes you certain you know how to correct that mistake. How did we misread the fables of the Far Kingdoms?”

Janela caught my brisk mood and after a wondering look at my sorrow-hollowed eyes struck directly for the heart of the matter.

“You didn’t misread the myths at all, my Lord,” she said. “Unfortunately, as ancient as those tales were, they are striplings compared to the originals from which they sprang. As a researcher, you see, I had the advantage of following in my great grandfather’s footsteps. I learned that there are two sets of myths. The newest begin shortly after Irayas was founded and prospered. As you know, Irayas and the rest of Vacaan was built on the ruins of the Old Ones.”

I nodded. Greycloak had sought the answers to the riddle of nature itself in the volumes of knowledge those mysterious people had left behind.

“The other myths began during the days when the Age of Darkness first descended. When — as all schoolchildren are taught — the Old Ones were destroyed.”

I, too, as a boy had reveled in adventures that were not my own, and my favorite stories were the myths of the Golden People who were said to have once ruled the land. We were children, less than savages compared to those wise folk, the tale-tellers claimed. All knowledge was theirs to command; all art, all song; in short, all that was beauty and made life worth living. A thousand years or more ago a great calamity struck and the Old Ones disappeared, leaving only their magnificent ruins to haunt us, humble us.

“I found the first spoor of those old myths,” Janela continued, “while studying the origins of my own people. We were first nomads, driven from our ancestral lands by a now forgotten enemy. When we stumbled on the ruins of the Old Ones and their treasure stores of knowledge our future greatness was assured. We’d heard tales ourselves of the Far Kingdoms and a few even thought perhaps Vacaan was once that place.

“Then people in other lands started thinking that
we
were the fabled folk and to suit our own purposes we encouraged those new myths. It made potential enemies fear us, allowed our rulers to seal us off from evil influences and — to be frank — it gave us a sense of vaulted superiority over others.”

I knew that trait. One of the first things I’d noticed about Irayas was the people had little interest in the doings of others and thought there was nothing we barbarians could do they couldn’t better. One of my fellow voyagers — Sergeant Maen, I believe — said the people of Irayas walked around with their noses tilted so high that they were in danger of drowning whenever it rained.

“The first difference I noted,” Janela said, “was in the old tales — before our coming — the fabled lands were said to lie on the other side of the eastern seas. And in those stories they were called ‘The Kingdoms Of the Night.’ As soon as I realized that, I searched for all legends that made reference to such a place. Everywhere I traveled I sought those myths. In dusty tomes, wizards’ vaults and even in the camps of nomads where stories have been handed down intact over scores of generations.

Those myths all agree the Old Ones fought a mighty war against an unimaginably powerful and evil enemy. The survivors retreated across the eastern seas where they now wait for an eventual return.”

She patted her purse. “It was in one of those camps that I found the dancing girl,” she said. “According to the witch I bought it from it came into her people’s possession long ago when they raided the last caravan that traded with the people of the Kingdoms Of The Night.”

“It
must
have been long ago,” I said. “There’s little I don’t know of trading tales and I’ve never heard of anyone who has ventured those waters.”

“I tried once,” Janela said. “But I was turned back by our coast watchers. If it weren’t for my family connections they would have summarily tried and executed me when they boarded my ship.”

I was most impressed — not just because of her courage and initiative but because among her people such a voyage to the east is forbidden. Although Vacaan is named after the supreme god of the Old Ones, Janela’s people become quite disturbed when the ancients are mentioned. Fear was part of the reason. But I think it’s more because the Vacaanese can’t bear the comparison to such mighty people.

Still, they honor the Old Ones in many ways. There is a mountain peak behind the city of Irayas, for example, where the east wind always blows that the ancients held holy, a mountain whose plateau holds haunted ruins of those Old Ones. When a great Vacaanese wizard dies his body is turned to ashes on a funeral pyre so the winds can carry his smoke — his essence — across the eastern seas where the gods are said to dwell. That was where I’d performed such a ceremony for Janos.

“Did you know,” I murmured, “Janos thought light itself had physical properties? That it actually bent when it followed the curve of the horizon?”

On the surface, my question had nothing to do with our discussion. But Janela immediately took my reference.

“Yes,” she said. “And it was that which captured my imagination when I read the last lines of your book. And you described the vision you saw of the Fist Of The Gods. That was no vision. A trick of light — bending light — revealed those mountains to you.”

Barely containing her excitement she whipped up her voluminous purse. From it she took a much battered chart and unrolled it between us. I leaned to look and saw the coast of Vacaan and spreading out from there the eastern seas. Beyond those seas was a coastline, and many marks showing mountains, rivers and deserts. Far inland — farther than most would be comfortable imagining — I saw a rough sketch of a fistlike range. It was labeled “Antero’s vision.”

“I began this chart,” Janela said, “when I first began my studies. On it I transferred every clue I found in the myths of the Kingdoms Of The Night.” She grinned, rueful. “As you can see from the mess I made, many of those clues turned out to be false starts.”

I laughed with her. The chart’s surface was marred in many places where she had rubbed out her mistakes.

Then I said, “Where do we begin?”

I heard Janela’s sharp intake of breath.

“You’ve decided!” she crowed.

“Yes,” I said, flat — disguising my own excitement. “I’m going with you.”

Janela’s eyes glowed with victory. But following my lead she forced calm. A slender finger stabbed at the map.

“There,” she said. “The jumping-off point is Irayas itself!”

I sent for strong spirits to seal our bargain.

As the servant poured she said, “I have to ask, even though I fear it may weaken your new resolve — pray tell me, my Lord, what particular bit of evidence made you decide in my favor?”

And I answered: “Oh, why don’t we just lay it at the feet of the persuasive powers you inherited from your great grandfather?”

“I’ll accept that, my Lord,” she said. “Even if your answer has more honey than substance to it.”

She was quite correct. My decision had been built on the ruins of my son. I had failed with Cligus. Just as I still believed I’d failed with Janos.

But I swore I wouldn’t make the same mistakes with
this
Greycloak.

I owed Janos that.

I raised my goblet in a toast. “This time,” I said, “we’ll get it right.”

A few days after my decision a strange sense of uneasiness began to plague me. I was sleeping restlessly, although I’d never really been able to sleep well since Omerye had died. But now I would wake near dawn with a sense of dread. It was if I were a boy again awaiting punishment for a piece of mischief.

At first I thought it was base worry, since I still hadn’t announced my plans to the family. Then I thought perhaps I’d become like too many old men I knew, letting my body sit idle and boil up strange juices that flowed like oil of wormwood through my mind, fertilizing dark thoughts.

I began exercising not only to clear my mind but also because I certainly couldn’t traipse out into the wilderness as the doddering old wreck I was. I remembered the soldierly setting-up exercises Janos Greycloak had favored and began doing them morning and night. After the midday meal I swam for an hour in the garden pool. I hired a dueling master and spent several hours a week stumbling around the mat with him.

But these were light tasks compared to the most onerous of all. Every morning before dawn rain or sun, I stripped, save for a tie about my loins and ran with Quatervals as my companion. He’d been running, heat of summer, storms of winter, every day since he joined my household and was forever going on about how much fresher it made him feel. I maintained all his straining accomplished was making him familiar with the inevitable aches and agonies of old age when he was still comparatively young. To be truthful, I was Quatervals’ companion and that for only a moment, since I faded rather quickly while he went on to Mount Aephens and back — running the full three leagues to the mountain, then up and down its league-high crags.

At first I wasn’t even out of sight of the villa before I sank to my knees, wheezing like a greedy harbor seal with a fish blocking its gullet, but each day I managed a little more. It was a real victory the day I went far enough to see Mount Aephens rise out of the dawn mists.

My diet that had never been a problem, since I never was one to put on weight and after Omerye’s death the pleasures of the table vanished for me.

What my household thought of all this I didn’t know, but made the mistake of asking Quatervals.

“Why, they think you’re trying to make yourself strong enough to give the wench a tumble she might remember longer than a moment or two.”