I

The City Over the World

BENEATH THE MOVELESS GODDESS-SUN, Tarendahardil lay supreme. She was more beautiful than her greatest poets could proclaim; lovelier even than an unremembered dream. Her streets were lined with statues of brass and iron, jade, silver, topaz and unveined marble; her harbors traded with the world; her temples attracted the faithful from all the Hundred Cities. Within her bosom dwelled such enormous numbers of peoples, of all races, professions and ranks, that no mortal mind could imagine them all. City Over the World, Most Holy, the seat of the Empire of the Bordakasha, cultural and mercantile hub of the world, Tarendahardil: a deathless Queen among cities, as much beyond her sisters as Goddess is beyond mortal women.

There was all of culture in that Tarendahardil. There were recitations of the elegiac odes of Golonan, Ulsus Radnor and Charoneira. There were festival celebrations in which comedies, mimicries and tragedies were enacted at the numerous theaters, and harmonies of alisets and throaty Dorcian flutes; spectacles of bloodied combat, shows of wild beasts imported from exotic climes and even, at staggering expense, mock battles of the glorious past of that city of legends, with runaway slaves and condemned men garbed like the barbarians of old, and a play-Elna to lead the Imperial troops to utter triumph. The women were more beautiful in Tarendahardil than in any other city of the world. Even the women of the docks were known for their beguilements, and as for the famous well-born hetairai of High Town, they were not to be matched by pastoral virgins with the bloom still upon their cheeks. Tales were told of wealthy men from Tezmon and Postio who bankrupted themselves just to taste the sumptuous joys of a season with a lady of the reputation, artistry and beauty of an Oleola – and, if the tales be true, departed not unsatisfied therefrom.

And more famous than even the women was the statuary of Tarendahardil. Great Elna had begun it in his distant time, and since then not an Emperor but had added to the figures thronging the city. They lined every street, stood above every portal, and surrounded fountains, bazaars and latrines alike. Nowhere were they more wonderful than along the great Way of Kings, where each of the many Emperors and heroes of the Empire was represented, three times the height of living men, their colors shining in the dusty gilded light, poised and watchful like sentinels ever vigilant, guarding even in death this City that had been theirs. In the prime ages of holy Tarendahardil they were everywhere, and they were everywhere beautiful.

Tarendahardil was bordered on the north by stone quays and harbors on the Sea of Elna, and by field and farm and hillside palaces upon her three other faces. Tarendahardil had no defensive walls: what need of them for the Mistress of the World? The gently sloping land was all but invisible beneath its mantle of roofs and towers, thrusting spires, and domes of gleaming brass and porphyry. More streets had Tarendahardil than most nations; an immense, wholly paved labyrinth known fully to no man, not even the city’s great low-born Regent. If the weather were fine an observer might see from the topmost towers of the high Citadel the shimmering azure line that was the sea, and the martial fields brightward of the city; if not, Tarendahardil would seem to pass into an infinite distance – from which, perhaps, some notion might be gleaned of the size of the City Over the World.

From the midst of the great city rose the rocky plateau of High Town, the ancient core of the city. There were the most venerable edifices, the Brown Temple of Goddess, the Hall of Kings, the ancient Baths of Rule where, of old, every monarch had come yearly to be anointed anew in that sacred hidden spring where Goddess Herself had bathed and been surprised by Elna. There too were the great mansions of the wealthiest and most nobly born citizens: for all the graceful charai and handsome charanti of the tributary nations and provinces maintained palaces in High Town, to be the nearer to the main and wintering court of the Divine Queen.

And there, bursting from the southernmost edge of the plateau like a stony stair into Heaven, rose an upthrust fist of rock; and there, its walls of black stone and jade a continuation of the rocky cliffs, was perched aloft the greatfamed Citadel of Elna: the Black Citadel, the Citadel Crowned with Cloud. Its rocky walls were unscalable, its Twin Gates impregnable, its great Palace more a city in the stone than mere single edifice. Story after story ascended that high Palace, of white marble, granite, black stone and jade; and to end, gleaming from the roof of the topmost of all towers, the great gold Disk of Goddess, like a second sun in the brow of heaven. Windows and balconies were sprinkled over those many curving walls like the myriad eyes of some phantasmagoric beast; and in one window high in the highest tower, far, far above the level of the sprawling falling city below, sat a woman looking out.

Through the window (for it was small) only her face could be seen, and one slender forearm upon whose elegant jeweled hand rested her soft cheek. In the shadow of the thick stone the woman’s face seemed pensive, the expression that of some waiting captive; yet her thick mane of hair, of the luster of burnished, purest gold, shone as if it laughed.

Opposite the window rose the peak of the first and greatest of all the statues of the city: that Pillar Elna had caused to be erected before his Citadel, a man-made spire to contest with, and almost surpass, the natural wonder of that monumental fist of rock.

Up the shaft of the pillar, from its base so very far below in the square outside the walls of the Citadel, ran a spiral relief most cunningly drawn, telling the tale of Elna’s career: of his birth in the rocky fortress of Bollakarvil and his legendary youth: of his marshaling of all the civilized peoples and his great Vow sworn to Goddess of the utter destruction of the barbarians: of his chasing of those barbarians into the frozen wilds of the far North: of his vanquishing of them there: of his return in high triumph as sole sovereign of the South and his giving out of edicts still cited for their wisdom and true justice: of his founding of cities and fortresses, Gerso and Tezmon and many others still standing: and to end, at the very topmost curls of the spiral just below that beautiful figure of naked Victory, her wings upswept to fling her above the clouds, of how Elna had built up Tarendahardil and made of her his capital, the fount of all that was cultured and good in the world.

Now, however, the lines of the pillar and its statue were softened and obscure. An ill wind had brought a storm down from the North, gathering moisture as it passed over the Sea of Elna; and now beyond the dark glistening Pillar the dockyards and the sea were invisible, concealed by a dreary drizzling rain; and the light of Goddess was turned from gold to lead of a corrupt hue. The city fell down into the maw of the chill mists as if the world came to an end before Tarendahardil, and all that existed of the world was this city, alone and undefended.

At the window the lovely golden-haired woman shuddered, and withdrew into the chamber.

She descended from her perch by the window down a series of steep steps built into the high stone wall of the gloomy chamber. The soft scrape of her sandals echoed off cold and naked walls. It was a great room made larger by the hollowness of its echoes; a room cool and still against even the worst of Goddess’s glowing heat. It was open, as if by accident or in a final condescension, only at the small window placed just below the vaulted edge of the ceiling.

Reaching the floor, the woman passed with unconsciously graceful movements to the side of a great canopied bed three times the height of her body. There she lighted a lamp fashioned of strands of gold and pearl and marked with the seal of the Charan of Rukor. She trimmed back the wick and pulled at a cord at the wall.

A woman entered in response, not through the great oaken doors on the far side of the chamber but rather through the hangings of a small opening upon the hither wall.

‘Majesty,’ the woman uttered, bowing.

‘Prepare our bath, Emsha,’ said the golden-haired woman. ‘Is it chill out?’

‘Somewhat, your majesty. Autumn is not far off now. Will your majesty wish warm robes this waking?’

‘And bow in submission before this wind from the North? I think not. Get me instead something light and gay with the color of bandar green. That is the springtime color of the beast, if the tales be true.’

‘Yes, majesty.’

The Queen glanced up at the window. ‘Do they await us below?’

‘Yes, majesty, as always. They have begun to grow concerned at the lateness of your rising. Did your majesty sleep well?’

‘Well enough.’ For a time she studied the older woman’s face, the rounded features, familiar lines and merry wrinkles. ‘No,’ she murmured, ‘I’ll not send them away. What would be the cause?’ A chilling draught crept down into the chamber through the narrow window; Emsha shivered, but the Empress Allissál merely shook herself as if to shrug the cold away.

‘Have them await us in the Gardens,’ she said. ‘We shall hold a picnic to amuse us, as if it were Spring returned again. Nay, it shall be Spring, by Imperial decree. Make sure that they are all informed of this; and let them wear only spring finery and gay manners.’

The older woman bowed humbly. ‘Yes, majesty.’

* * *

The royal bath-chamber was situated some stories below, upon the second floor of the White Tower. In the midst of the hivelike room, between seven decorative pillars of alabaster wrought with floral designs of gold and jade leaves, was the bath itself. Deep and circular it was, two fathoms across and one-and-a-half deep at its center. Its sides were of yellow hexagonal tiles interset with smaller square red tiles. Upon its bottom were worked three scenes. The first was of the mythical, earliest times, when God and Goddess inhabited the earth together, before they had created men and women. The second scene was of the sundering of the lands, when God in His jealousy went away to the Darklands; but Goddess built up Her throne of golden Fire, that Her beloved men might have light and warmth. The third scene showed Goddess serene within Her throne of Fire, ruling over the happy destinies of men; while behind, in the darkening sky, God went on in His jade chariot, restless and forlorn, ever seeking to entice Her back to His side. So pellucid were the steaming, blossom-scented waters of the bath, that every detail of the mosaics could be clearly seen.

Over them, half-floating in the undulant waters, half-supported upon her forearms on the cushion provided her at the edge of the bath, the Empress Allissál lazed, while her slave-maidens chafed away the soil of sleep with perfumed sponges and carved ivory scrapers. In all, there were a dozen of these maidens in personal attendance upon the Queen, each chosen for her beauty and skill.

By the wall of the chamber, several ladies of the court sat fully clothed in the latest fashions, upon benches of carved faltis wood inlaid with gold and ivory. These were Allissál’s intimates of the court, all of the highest rank and most perfect lineage, all young, all beautiful, all current in the latest rumors, scandals, and fashions of Tarendahardil. The Chara Ilal of Corthio jested, and the Charai Oriouti, Piatary, and Gisailchis laughed beautifully; but the Chara Braonver, whose latest lover was an actor of comedies renowned for his fickleness, only smiled courteously at the jests.

Huge towels smothered Allissál’s body as she arose dripping from the water, steam and perfume coiling from her flesh. She was laid upon the marble slab nearby, first upon her back and then upon her breasts, as the maidens rubbed scented oils and unguents into her skin, to keep it supple and young and protect it from the drying rays of the moveless sun.

The ladies at the benches picked daintily from among the bowls of fruit and nuts the slaves offered them. After a while, one thought to ask how her majesty’s sleeping had gone.

Allissál turned slightly beneath the ministering hands. ‘Tolerably well,’ she answered softly. ‘But the dreams came again.’

Ilal, who was the prettiest and most boldly dressed of the ladies, burst into a delightful laugh. ‘Yes, and every country lass should know what such dreams mean,’ she said.

The Queen took one of the wet sponges and threw it in that lady’s direction. ‘Really, Ilal, how insolent you can be! We ought to have you beaten on the soles of your prettily arched feet just as we would with an impudent slave. It would do you good.’

‘Indeed yes, your Imperial Majesty,’ the chara uttered, bowing so low that the delicately coiffed curls of her fashionably dressed wig whispered on the marble floor. ‘Most humbly I beg pardon, gracious Queen, and would willingly submit to any punishment you might see fit to bestow upon me; even,’ she added with a quick glance at the other charai, ‘if your majesty should order me to prostitute myself with the horrid Ara-Karn himself.’

‘That would indeed be an idea,’ retorted the Queen, laughing despite herself; ‘yet though the barbarians are said by some to be the most vigorous and well-proportioned of lovers, none of them could possibly match your skills, Ilal. No, all that we shall require of you is that you kiss the High Regent Dornan Ural upon his lips, and publicly declare him to be the handsomest and most desirable man at court.’

The charai laughed merrily as Ilal staggered back in pretended horror. ‘No, not that! Give me the barbarian instead, with all his rank breath and dirtied limbs! I’d as soon mate with a swine as kiss Dornan Ural.’

‘By the tale his wife tells, there’s little enough difference,’ said another of the ladies.

‘You have our command,’ said the Empress. ‘And we expect to see it obeyed this very pass, or it will be the worse for a certain one of the Empress’s ladies.’

At this, all the ladies laughed again, even, under their breaths, some of the newer of the slave-girls. These had by now finished anointing the body of their mistress, so that she rose again to allow them to towel off the excess with those thick, soft towels never used before or again. Other slaves now brought forth the Empress’s bath-chair and mirror of highly polished silver, along with the various combs, ribands, pots of paint and perfume. The Chara Ilal, as her majesty’s favorite, claimed for herself the right to comb and arrange the gleaming cascade of her majesty’s golden hair, symbol and glory of her house.

The Queen fell silent once again, as though the reference to the barbarian had disturbed her. The other ladies, seeing this, chatted softly among themselves while the Empress eyed herself critically in the long mirror. From the depths of the silver stared back the image of a woman taller than most women, with long legs sinuous as a dancer’s, broad yet supple hips and upstanding rose-peaked breasts perhaps a trifle too small. Above the long and graceful neck, the oval features were symmetrically beautiful in the fashion of a queen: with something indefinable and spiritual shining through the whole. The lips of the image were full and sensual, but pursed more often than parted; the eyes pearly, shifting softly now between pure blue and deep silver; the forehead high and smooth, denoting courage, intelligence and a determination verging upon willfulness. If there was a flaw to that face, it was that it tended to be too serious, too thoughtful for a woman – though not so, perhaps, for an Empress. Also the face seemed darkened; yet this may have been only the contrast with that shimmering wonder streaming down the length of her body. The Queen never wore a wig, although it was the fashion.

‘In truth, my figure is not so bad,’ she murmured to the image.

‘Indeed not,’ cried Ilal indignantly. ‘Should anyone ever see your majesty thus – though, alas, far too few do – they would not guess your age at so much as twenty-five summers. Truly, do you know what the new ambassadors say when they see your majesty and Prince Elnavis together for the first time?’ the chara asked, her voice a low, conspiratorial whisper.

‘No,’ responded the Queen in like manner. ‘Tell us what they say, saucy.’ The other ladies craned their necks discreetly forward to catch every word.

‘Well, you will not credit it, but I swear upon all my honor – never mind your smiles, ’tis true – that they take his highness to be your majesty’s elder brother! And in consternation they ask, “Why were we not informed that the Empress had had two children?’ I swear it is truth, your majesty: I had it from their very lips.”

‘Along with many other things, no doubt. Ilal, you were born with the tongue of a mocking wild bird, but we love you for it all the same. And in truth, our son does look older than his years.’

‘Older, stronger, and wiser, your majesty. It’s a crime, some more of these old men’s foolishnesses, that he does not hold the scepter even now. We are all more than a little in love with Elnavis.’ And the name of the prince slipped from painted lips to painted lips in sighs of heartfelt assent.

The Queen looked into the silver as Ilal carefully set the last of the golden strands into place. ‘Where is my son now?’ she inquired, turning her head slightly so that one of the slaves might apply the last trace of delicate pigment to her cheek.

‘As we entered the bath-chambers we heard of his highness that he was on the way to the martial fields with the Companions to exercise their steeds. He is probably there even now,’ Ilal pouted. ‘He spends far too much time practicing there in military dress.’

‘—And not nearly enough time among the charai of the court executing in amatory dress, eh?’ In the mirror, the Queen could see the rare carmine blush, none of it painted, suffusing her lady’s cheeks and bared breasts.

‘Come, that is enough time spent upon our toilet,’ the Queen declared. ‘We look well enough – and if we are to believe Ilal, paints could little augment this countenance of less than twenty-and-five summers. Where are the gowns?’

Emsha came bustling into the baths, her squat, heavily robed peasant figure contrasting comically with the lithe, gauze-wrapped beauties surrounding her.

‘Here, majesty,’ the old nurse puffed, one gray lock falling aslant her left eye. Her hands being burdened with the garments, she attempted to raise the hair by blowing at it out of the corner of her mouth. The lock rose only to fall back even lower; whereat the charai burst into laughter, their voices pealing like little silver bells.

‘Now,’ said the Empress with great sternness, ‘we’ll not have you mocking dear Emsha, who has tended us since our infancy, and is wise beyond all your years. Do you hear, Ilal?’

‘Never mind, majesty, it is of no account,’ said Emsha, blushing confusedly. ‘I am used to it by now; and it is good to see your majesty smiling.’

The lovely charai tried dutifully to suppress their laughter but, eying one another behind the Empress and over Emsha’s bowed head, only burst forth in redoubled force moments later. So charmingly did the peals echo off the painted marble walls that soon the Empress and Emsha herself good-humoredly joined in the merriment.

When all was satisfactorily finished, the ladies accompanied her majesty from the bath down long corridors decorated with frescoes and elaborate tapestries. Through the depths of the huge Palace they proceeded, the darkling shadows about them dispelled at frequent intervals by fragrant lamps of brass and gold. The many servants abased themselves before her majesty as she passed. In time the shadows of the intricate hallways lightened, and with sinuous, exquisite grace the Empress Allissál and her ladies passed through the colonnade opening to the Imperial Gardens.

II

The Court of the Divine Queen

IN THOSE HONEYED PATHWAYS, among the other festive courtiers, Arstomenes, High Charan of Vapio, laughed lazily, his violet eyes twinkling.

‘Arstomenes, will there never be a bridle on that tongue of yours?’ the Chara Fillaloial asked sternly.

‘Oh, all fine-bred steeds will want a loose rein.’

‘Dornan Ural, what know you of this?’

The paunchy, ill-dressed man whom the chara had addressed looked on them absently, as though his mind had been elsewhere. As chief of the Council of Regents, ruling Tarendahardil in Elnavis’s name until the prince should come of age, Dornan Ural was the most powerful man in the Empire. His father, however, had been no more than one of the old Emperor’s freedmen; and Dornan Ural’s every act and manner betrayed that parentage. ‘Of this?’ he said absently. ‘I had not heard – what was it your ladyship referred to?’

Arstomenes laughed. ‘Chara, you will never pour more than a philton out of a philton pitcher.’ The chara laughed, her voice melodious for all her years.

Another now joined them, bowing gracefully before the venerable chara, kissing elegantly the proffered hand. ‘Qhelvin,’ she inquired, ‘what do you know of her majesty’s purpose for this party?’

‘Why, the answer seems plain enough to me. Ampeánor, the High Charan of Rukor, departed some passes ago, to oversee some estates he has in the port-city of Tezmon, across the Sea of Elna. Now doubtless her majesty has grown bored in his absence.’

‘Ah, here she is,’ said Arstomenes, as a flourish sounded from above, turning all the lovely, painted, bewigged heads grouped about the floral terraces gracefully toward the stair. ‘And just in time, too; I grow positively ravenous for the latest delicacies of the royal cooks!’

The Chara Fillaloial laughed beautifully, and offered her arm to Qhelvin of Sorne.

Descending the broad marble steps past statues of nude youths and maidens of excellent proportions, the Empress of Tarendahardil made her appearance before the assembled court. At every thirteenth step, a pair of flanking guardsmen offered her the Imperial salute with rigid backs, their gold-chased armor gleaming even under clouded skies. Behind her majesty her attending ladies followed, arrayed in loras of deep blue and yellow green. Before her, at the bottom of the steps, was the upper terrace of the Gardens, three circles of brilliant green sward bordered by low marble walls upon which were beds of flowers and herbs and still-green bushes. There in the largest, central circle, were gathered the lords and ladies of the court. Beyond them, between two statues of the Emperors Ilazrius and Porekanin, other steps led down into the middle terraces and the shadowed groves beyond. From those depths a riot of autumnal scents born of herb and ripening fruit swelled to greet her majesty, like the fathomless surge of the sea’s azure tide.

Passing among them, the Queen spoke aesthetics with poets, antiquities with historians, politics with ambassadors from foreign lands. Especially charming was she with these last, discussing the state of the wars against the barbarians in the North, and inquiring after news of their homelands, Pelthar, Postio, the cities of the Delba, and others, including Carftain, whose walls were even then beleaguered by the invading barbarians of Ara-Karn.

The charanti and charai then formed partners and passed down to the next lowest terrace. There, among the statues and artful flowerbeds, they prepared to array themselves upon the couches. First the beautiful palace slaves bent to unfasten the sandals and slippers, that the highborn might recline in greater ease without sullying the couches. For those couches were of the most exquisite workmanship, embroidered with scenes of surpassing loveliness. In order of importance they would settle themselves upon each broad couch with the lesser holding head to the breast of the greater and so advancing on either side up to the Queen herself. She stood before the royal couch, alone and above the others. The maidens with garlands in their soft hair set aside her sandals, and Allissál leaned back upon the soft couch, her left elbow propped upon soft cushions. And seeing this the others all did likewise.

From behind her couch, slaves brought forth a low, three-legged table spread with grapes and succulent sliced fruits, nuts, sweetbread, and a golden goblet for the wine. A gleaming silver ewer filled with the lustral water was presented for her majesty to dip her fingers, and an accompanying towel to dry them. The serving-maid poured a measure of the purple wine of Postio and springwater in proportion to her majesty’s taste.

She lifted up the goblet against the gray damp skies; and all the others imitated her.

‘To the glory of our son and the future splendor of Tarendahardil,’ she proclaimed; and murmurs of assent passed round the graceful scene, as courtiers and lovely ladies sipped their delicious wine. Only a sip did they take of this first, the God’s cup; the rest, according to the ancient tradition, they spilled into the earth.

Now, the feast having begun, the charai and charanti reached forth with their free hands to the tables, the surfaces of which were for convenience somewhat below the level of the couches. The field was divided, in general, into the various nationalities of the Empire, with a special section, near to the royal couch, given to the foreign ambassadors and those foreign courtiers who were among the Queen’s favorites.

At the end of the field, the Fulmineans faced the Vapionil. The Fulmineans were rather plain in their looks and apparel. In this they were outdone by their lord Lornof, High Charan of Fulmine, a small, mouse-faced man who wore his courtly robes ill. With him at his couch, Lornof dined with two women whose beauty and skills perhaps were greater than their families’ histories. Charan Lornof drank rather deeply, and from time to time could be heard calling out wagers with the men and women of his court.

Across from these, the Vapionil were led by Arstomenes, whose insolent beauty was augmented considerably by the crafts of the expert female slaves of his household. Most exotically and richly garbed, the Vapionil wore sometimes the aspect of strange creatures of an intoxicated painter’s most extravagant fantasies. About the kohl-streaked eyes of their charai and charanti alike was such sly, jaded wisdom, it was impossible for an observer to conceive that there existed avenues of pleasure or vice these noblest of people had not fully explored. Vapio had been the seat of an empire a thousand years before Elna had killed his first man: even then in those but dimly remembered times, the attitudes and pursuits of the Vapionil had been notorious.

Nearer to the Queen, the men of the Eglands faced those of Rukor. Long-legged and bronze-faced were the Eglanders, their eyes set as if upon the distant ends of the grassy plains of their home. These were men famous for their skills with horses: men whose ancestors had once been among the greatest cavaliers of the world. Even their charai seemed a sort apart from the charai of the other provinces. Their couch of highest honor, reserved for their High Charan Farnese, remained empty, however: Farnese, ancient, stern and of ill health, scorned to attend such functions of the court as this.

The Rukorians sat in face to the Eglanders. Their lord’s seat was also vacant, for the High Charan Ampeánor was absent from Tarendahardil. Mostly the Rukorians there were men, and all of them wore the military tunics of commanders of lancers instead of courtly robes. They were for the most part silent, except for when they would utter some comments or boasts upon matters military, as the progress of the wars against the barbarians in the North, across the Sea of Elna.

So all in their own manners, adorned with enough wealth to found a city or put a sizable army in the field, these greatest of this greatest city and Empire dined at their pleasure, reaching for cheese sprinkled with flour, sow’s-vulva fried in oil or any of the other seventeen delicacies served that pass. The Queen’s favorites spoke at length and jested with the foreign ambassadors; the wits of Vapio engaged poor Dornan Ural, and challenged Lornof to several drinking-bouts; the tall Eglanders and strong-armed Rukorians debated the relative glories of their provinces’ respective military past, giving boast for vaunt like blows.

From time to time a damp cloud passed over the mountain-top, and chill northern winds pierced even the sheltering lower groves. Then the discourse and merriments dimmed while those ladies and lords with more elaborately styled wigs looked suspiciously to the lowering sky. But then the Charan of Vapio or Qhelvin of Sorne, in obedience to the Empress’s conceit, broke the mood with some scandalous pleasantry, and the buzzing and laughter would resume. And over it all, the Empress Allissál wore the mask of a studied pleasure, while her eyes were active.

At the close, the feasters wiped their fingers clean upon the special pieces of bread. Then the signal was given for the entertainment. First a troupe of Vapio dancers, one of the most famous in the Empire, performed several tableaux; and it was generally agreed that seldom had a finer or more skillful performance been seen. The diners applauded eagerly the scantily clad dancers, those tall youths with sinews like finely spun wire, and those girls lithe and lovely enough to have been nobly born. Their bare feet trod softly on the lush emerald lawn, all in perfect and cunning rhythm with the music of the players beyond the logia flowers. At the close, the chief youth and maiden came before the royal couch, before which they suddenly dropped to within a hand’s breadth to the ground; at which the Queen laughed, delighted and surprised. She gave them praise, and crowns of garlands with her own hands. The pair bowed with their fellows as one, and wandered among the couches beneath the ancient statues, there to receive gratefully the gifts and favors of the highborn. Avidly they accepted the draughts of exquisite cooled wine after their heated movements.

Yet for the old Master of Rhetoric, who followed the dancers, the applause was less than it might have been. For one thing, he was blind, which deformity was affront enough by itself; for another, the style of his Scertic robes was a good twenty years out of date. Seated upon a low stool before the Empress’s couch, and leaning with knotted hairy hands upon his ivory staff, the old man recited an ancient piece indeed: ‘Elna’s Wisdom’ as it was called, a heroic passage from the old Epic of the Bordakasha, known to every schoolchild. Allissál sat enraptured, for there was nothing she liked better than to hear of the heroic feats of her most famous ancestor; yet the younger nobles did not attempt to conceal their boredom – and among them was the Charan of Vapio.

He, stepping to the center of the lawn when the old man had but scarcely finished, bowed theatrically before Allissál. ‘Are we gathered here, your majesty,’ he said lazily, ‘to hear nothing better than dreary tales of death and earnest politicking? With your majesty’s permission, I shall render a more modern piece, which perchance will bear more meaning to the charanti, and especially the lovely charai here assembled.’

At this there was a marked rise in attention. Arstomenes nal Elagaryan let none of the city’s gossip escape him, from High Town to the low docks; his compositions were famous both for their subtle underside of meaning and the liberal allusions to real and well-known people with which he sprinkled them.

‘How could we refuse you, my lord,’ Allissál replied courteously enough, ‘when there is such popular demand? Yet we would ask you to keep your narrative something this side of the openly scandalous.’

‘Then to begin,’ he said, laughing insolently. ‘Once, when Goddess was young and God gave to Elna His sword of jade, and all the lands were undivided (as the formulae go), there was a certain high lady of the court: young and lovely, and consumed by such venereal fires that her husband, a dullard rarely if ever to home, was quite unable to quench them. So the lady took a lover; and not being satisfied with but one, took a second as well! Fie, lovely charai, are you all so insatiable in your lusts? And what are morals and public decency then, when even so respected a dame as our heroine, the model of her age, would greedily take on two bravos in addition to the husband who was her lawful share? Yet she would defend herself by saying she needed two lovers because she was of twin moods, and would choose between them as became her momentary mood. Pah, then: for I know of certain charai, including two who are ever to the forefront, whose moods must be changeable as the rainbow!’

‘Listen to them,’ the Chara Fillaloial said in an undertone to Qhelvin of Sorne. ‘The eagerness to solve Arstomenes's clues comes near to bursting them. Scandal and pleasure are all the highborn care for now.’

‘Her majesty is little pleased by it,’ answered Qhelvin.

‘That is but the result of her own youth and nature,’ said the reverend chara, shaking her head sadly. ‘Yet Arstomenes uses her as he will, and she but smiles and flatters him in return.’

‘Well, but that is only politics,’ said Qhelvin, looking at the Queen as if he measured her for a portrait. ‘She needs Vapio’s votes in the Council Hall.’

At that the sound of hoofbeats burst suddenly in the languid airs of the Gardens, and from up the shadowy avenues of the lower groves there broke upon the scene an armored horseman, sword held menacingly aloft, upon a neighing black warhorse. Arstomenes turned, for once in an awkward manner; while the foreign ambassador from Mersaline in the North rose to his feet with a loudly proclaimed oath. Three guardsmen started forward to protect the Queen. The horseman, however, was quicker. Laughing scornfully at the disorder he had wrought, he leaped from his steed’s back and ran directly for the royal couch. There, casting aside helmet and sword, he fell to one knee before the Queen’s feet.

‘Greetings, mother,’ he said casually.

The guardsmen, recognizing the youth, put up their lances and offered him the military salute. The Queen frowned, as if to scold; but the frown broke helplessly into a smile under her son’s look. She laughed, kissed him, and bade pour him wine.

Though the Prince Elnavis was but fifteen summers, his build and stature were already those of a man fully grown. The golden down upon his cheeks not yet stiff, he had held his own against many a veteran in mock combats staged in the Circus. He had been taught generalship by Ankhan of Ul Raambar, horsemanship by Klipsir of the Eglands, and swordsmanship by Ampeánor of Rukor. With kings and the sons of kings he had grown to manhood; and as for affairs with the gracious ladies of the court, it was said there were few wells at which he had not supped at least once.

Now he turned to face his people, youthful joy growing in his eyes. ‘Let us play the Blind Man’s Game!’ he proclaimed with a laugh.

The younger nobles approved the notion immediately. The men consented to be tied about the head with gauzy bandages, while the charai ran gracefully down into the groves of the lower terraces, laughing tauntingly as they went. After them stumbled the charanti to see who could catch whom – or who would allow herself to be caught by whom. The golden-haired prince, leading the men, did not hesitate a moment, but swiftly followed the trail left by the delightful Chara Ilal.

‘Very charming, to be sure,’ proclaimed Dornan Ural with a measured sternness at the side of the Queen. ‘But your majesty, is it fitting for the future sovereign of the largest nation of the world to occupy his time in mere playing of games? Were I king I should treat the office with a somewhat greater gravity.’

The High Regent stood rather shorter than the Queen, a balding man with a few gray hairs, two chins, and a round pot of a belly. His indelicate features, unsure manner and thick fingers all betrayed his low birth.

‘You may leave our son’s upbringing in our hands, High Regent,’ Allissál said with a smile, signing to the maidens to bind her sandals about her ankles. ‘Let him play: for well we know what it is like to be young and denied it. Besides, what could be more apt than a prince at games? What is kingship, after all, but a series of games – the Great Game, even? Yet did you not see whom the prince chose to pursue? Perhaps you should have undertaken this game yourself. And how is your intimate friend the Chara Ilal this pass?’

He flushed, looking away and rendering some reply, which Allissál had not quite the cruelty to make him repeat. But it was enough to assure her that her lady had suffered the penalty prescribed. ‘Is it any wonder that Elnavis grows wild at the sight of an uplifted skirt, when you yourself, his most trusted mentor, have been chasing after one of the most wanton charai of our court? Yet how does your good wife bear up under such a thing?’

Gracefully she linked her arm in his, smiling as she heard his stammered explanations and denials. She led him unattended through the clusters of conversing elder nobles, down to the groves below. He was reluctant to go that way; she laughed and compelled him.

When they were well into the spice-scented groves, they heard a startled, joyous giggle in a familiar voice issuing from beneath the fringes of a bush pruned in the shape of a rearing bandar, as of a lady who had allowed herself to be captured and was obviously enjoying every moment of it. The High Regent averted his blushing face, at which the Queen laughed.

‘Come, my good man, it’s only the Chara Fillaloial’s eldest daughter: surely you have seen her thus before? Yet if your maiden modesty is so overpowering, let us pass down the avenue somewhat. Now you may relate in confidence what you wished to tell us.’

‘Your majesty, how did you know I had something on my mind?’

‘Because there is so little else there, of course. An idea shines like lamplight here. Truly, sweet Dornan, if you wish to conceal such treasures you must either wear a cap, as the barbarians are said to, or adopt a wig.’

‘Oh, I have never liked the fashion of men wearing wigs, your majesty. They are too womanly for me. Or perhaps it is that they are too much of the fashion, and I am not a fashionable man. My father was bald, and never wore a wig. Yes, on the whole I lean toward this explanation. Perhaps it is merely my own humble origins, but I have never felt it wise to conceal what one lacks, but rather admit it in all honesty; for—’

‘A truly commendable policy in one who has so many opportunities to practice it,’ she said, drawing him closer. ‘Now, before it bursts through, perhaps you should tell us what is so stuffed into your dome.’

He began, ‘It has come to my attention, your majesty, that officials in charge of the city’s waterways have been derelict; some even having taken monies for repairs never effected. As a consequence the pipes beneath several streets have burst. I have walked there myself, not three streets from the Farusial amphitheater, and—’

‘Sewers!’ she burst out. ‘So this is what has been gleaming through that gray dome? Your abiding interest in the city sewers? Really, good Dornan, we are amazed how you can surprise us still!’

‘I would never have brought it to your majesty’s attention, except that it was my idea your majesty wished a greater hand in the governance of your Empire,’ he said, confused by her continued laughter. ‘Has your majesty not in the past demanded I consult you and his highness upon matters of state?’

‘Matters of state, yes: but sewers were not uppermost in our mind, good tutor! Suchlike are for clerks and slaves to mull over, not kings.’

‘Nothing in a kingdom should ever be below the notice of its sovereign. The sewers are indeed a matter of grave concern, your majesty. If these men have stolen from the Treasury, they should be made to repay the sums with interest. And if the waterways clog or break then, quite apart from the inconvenience and the odor, there is a danger to the public health. For in those pools of filth are breeding-grounds for noxious insects and vile diseases – of this I have been assured by the most prominent of physicians. And surely even so merry a wit as your majesty must admit it is no laughing matter to those who must live and work amid the filth, lowborn though they may be. Already my office is plagued with—’

‘No doubt, no doubt; yet peace, darling Dornan. Is this a speech you will give from the steps of your office? We are certain such matters are well within your proper domain; they are so trifling, after all. Can you imagine divine Elna worrying himself over sewers?’

‘Why, yes, I can imagine it. As I have often said, your majesty, there are many details of sovereignty of which both you and your son are in ignorance.’

‘And happily so, aged tutor. Yet now we grow weary of such exalted, if odorous, subjects. You may have leave to go. We will see you again at the next meeting of the High Council, and there you may regale us on sewers to your dear heart’s content.’

Alone now among those scentful trees, she took a turn or two more, smiling now at the memory of the High Regent’s words and manners. As she walked, the breezes played sport with the light fabric of her gown and the loose coiling tresses of gold about her brow and exquisite shoulders. From above, the melodies of the players stole faintly down; and behind her sounded a burst of excited laughter. She smiled wistfully, and resumed her solitary walking.

At length she came again to the open terraces, where the elder nobles were still conversing in little groups, about the latest performance at the Theater of Mersalis, the charan who had taken his own life after gaming away his estates, and the newest scandals of the High Charan of Vapio. The Queen passed by, acknowledging absently their salutations, to sit alone upon the royal couch. The maidens served her golden Delba wine, into whose depths she peered, until Qhelvin of Sorne, ascending from the lower walks, came up to bow before her. The Queen nodded, but kept her eyes within the limits of the cup, as if debating whether or not to take it; yet all her food was tasted.

‘How useless it all is,’ she muttered at length.

‘Yet it serves to cloak our true business,’ he answered, standing beside her so that she might have clear view of the lawn below. ‘And also offers us many opportunities to converse with the foreign ambassadors here in the open, the only truly hidden place in the court.’

‘And what is the mood of those ambassadors?’

‘Good, your majesty. Ampeánor will be pleased when he returns: I think things go well enough now, that we shall have all the secret pacts and treaties by the end of the winter. And Carftain alone might hold off the barbarian till then – or, if they do not, then surely Tezmon, fortified as the Charan intends to make it, will withstand them.’

‘Pray your words are prophecy,’ she sighed, gazing down to where the young couples were severally emerging with disarrayed robes from the lower walks. ‘Is it not lovely to see them enjoying themselves so happily?’

He regarded her lowered face for a moment in silence; then said, ‘They are like children playing in their parents’ bodies, your majesty. You are an Empress of the Bordakasha. And your son shall be king.’

She looked up, caught his eye, looked away. Only she took his hand in hers and pressed it. ‘Thanks, dear Qhelvin. Yet now it were better for us to be alone awhile.’

He bowed gracefully, kissed the elegant hand and returned again to the lawn. There the Chara Fillaloial greeted him, saying, ‘Her majesty was melancholy for a space, yet now looks every bit the Queen. Qhelvin, what was it you spoke to her of?’

‘Minor matters,’ he said, gazing at how the Queen sat, with her head uplifted, her elegant smooth throat bared, lips slightly parted and gray-blue eyes searching the unbounded sea of the heavens, like one thinking of a dear departed, or awaiting an arrival. ‘Still, I wish I had my brushes and my paints now.’

And while those gracious lords and ladies fell to their pleasures, far away across the Sea of Elna men swore and strove and fell bloodily to the earth, and yet another city fell to the barbarian armies of Ara-Karn.

III

Under the King’s Light

THE COUNCIL OF REGENTS, who governed the Empire of Tarendahardil in the name of their lord the Prince Elnavis, Heir to the World, convened at a crescent table in a huge hall of stone in the Palace. Once it had served as the Imperial Hall of Justice, and been crowded upon appointed passes with throngs of petitioning citizens. And before them, astride a jeweled throne in a well of sunlight, the golden Bordakasha had given them justice. Ambassadors, suppliants and potentates once had come hither – even kings had waited with their servants on the wide stone steps without the hall to be allowed to offer humble submission to the world-ruling sons of Elna. But now the suppliants sought the offices of Dornan Ural in High Town below, and ambassadors and potentates sent cartloads of tribute to pacify dread Tarendahardil no longer.

Upon this occasion, as indeed upon most, the first to arrive was Dornan Ural. The High Regent spoke gently to his two clerks, who emptied upon the crescent table their sacks of scrolls and parchments. He thanked and dismissed them; then, sitting himself down in the third throne from the right, spread out his many papers, arranged the robes and pectoral of his office, and opened a wax note pad, all in the brusque, sure manner of the good, dutiful workman.

So, settling himself to make notes upon the latest list of the Imperial tax-gatherers, Dornan Ural carved for himself a comfortable little niche out of the air of that huge and somber hall. Far over him on either side, stone galleries protruded from the walls. There the highborn had had their seats in the past. Seven massive pillars rose like enormous trees out of the tiles of the floor of the hall to maintain the ceiling-beams lost in the gloom high above.

Along the long walls of the halls ran two series of arched niches, each with its own ceremonial lamp placed before it: in these niches were busts of each of the Emperors, from Elna himself all the way to the late Emperor, father to Allissál. There had been so many of them through the centuries, that their busts filled all the niches, even to the very ends: all but one, the very last niche upon the left-hand side. It had been a source of some concern where room should be found for all the Emperors yet to come.

High upon the outer wall several circular windows broke the black stone to admit Goddess’s light. To guard against the weather, these windows were covered with thinly cut sheets of translucent rock. The largest and central window, however, opened bare to the sky: and it was through this that the column of Her light fell to the innermost end of the hall, to form the oval pool of gold in which the Emperors had sat – for which reason it had been anciently named, the King’s Light.

Dornan Ural worked on, oblivious to these noble wonders about him – still, he was thankful for the King’s Light, which served well to illuminate the forest of figures and characters he had uprisen about himself.

After some time the High Charan of the Eglands entered, taking his accustomed place in the last of the thrones to the left. He nodded curtly to the High Regent’s words of greeting, and drew up the hem of his cloak to cover and warm his knees. Farnese, last lord of the windy horse-breeding plains of the Eglands, was an ancient man with but a few wisps of white hair left about his head. He had been hailed in his youth as the greatest general of his time; yet his crooked nose had been broken, it was rumored, not on the battlefield, but in a heated duel over the love of the Chara Fillaloial, years before the birth of the late Emperor. For all his age, the Charan’s sharp gray eyes darted about him as piercingly as those of a gerlin or some other prized bird of prey. One thing only did the old man despise more than the soft corruption of the young nobles of the court: the wrinkled corruption of his own flesh. The sternest, most dignified noble in the Empire, he had but a single friend – Ampeánor, the Charan of Rukor. There at least the old dying man fancied he had found a kindred spirit, almost, as it were, a son.

Dornan Ural worked on, now preparing his notes for the matters to be presented at this meeting. After some moments, the High Charan turned his rigid back and regarded the High Regent.

‘Where are the others?’ he asked in a deep, bitter voice.

‘They should be here shortly,’ Dornan Ural replied diffidently. ‘Her majesty was in the baths, but I saw Arstomenes in the Gardens, conversing with the Chara Ilal.’ He colored slightly. ‘Lornof, I am sure, is on his way. We are early yet, I believe.’

‘And his highness?’

‘Ah – I am afraid I don’t know where the prince is this pass.’

The High Charan grunted, the sound of which was like the splash of a drop of gelid venom. ‘You should do more to oversee him, Regent,’ he said. ‘Such is your office.’

The High Regent turned in his chair, ill at ease in the scrutiny of those eyes. ‘I am but the chief of his highness’s servants,’ he said at length. ‘It is not for me to judge or condemn.’ Farnese looked away down the hall, his silence comment enough. Dornan Ural, relieved, lost himself again in the shelter of his papers.

Shortly thereafter, the palace slaves sounded the hour; Arstomenes and Lornof entered, followed shortly by her majesty. The lords of Vapio and Fulmine took the thrones to the right of the High Regent; Allissál sat in the third throne from the left, upon the other side of the central, greatest throne, from Dornan Ural. Two of the seven seats thus remained vacant: that between Allissál and Farnese, where Ampeánor of Rukor was used to sit, and the great central throne, that alone stood full in the King’s Light.

‘Shall we get on with it, then?’ said Farnese.

‘My lord, some patience, if you please,’ Allissál said gently, forestalling the assent that had leapt to Dornan Ural’s tongue. ‘We are not long past the time. We are expecting his highness at any moment.’

The High Regent sighed softly, and rustled again among his scrolls.

* * *

At length they began, without Elnavis’s presence. For the first items on Dornan Ural’s long list, Allissál remained for the most part still, speaking only in an effort to soothe and reaffirm the minds of Arstomenes and Farnese. Lornof she did not bother about, for his revenues were dependent upon the office of the High Regent; and Lornof could act on occasion even more slavishly than Dornan Ural himself. Yet when the matter of Elnavis’s proposed expedition to the North arose and Lornof spoke in his way against it, Allissál could stand quiet no longer.

‘Surely, my lord,’ she said angrily, ‘you are not considering revoking what has already been agreed?’ Her hair was bound most intricately and formally, and her stiff dress was the color of pearls against a stormy sky, most admirably bringing out the icy lights within her eyes, before which Lornof quailed.

‘Your majesty, certainly not,’ he said, swallowing. ‘My only concern was for his highness’s safety. Yet if my lord the prince is determined to set forth upon this enterprise, perhaps it were best we should not prohibit it.’

‘I am in agreement there,’ said the Charan Farnese. ‘This expedition is foolishness; but then all boys will have their follies. This I would say even to the prince’s face, if only he were here.

‘Shall we risk the life of a prince of the blood on mere gallantry?’ the Charan of the Eglands continued. ‘Or shall we honestly expect that an untried youth leading a few hundred other such, could hope to stop these barbarians who have already overthrown great cities? Including Gerso, whose gates were ever held to be impregnable.’

‘Please do not think of our son’s expedition as mere gallantry,’ Allissál interposed. Surrounded by vacancies, the only woman among these men, she felt more than ever an intruder. ‘We realize that our presence here is tolerated by your lordships as a matter of courtesy only, and that we are allowed no vote in your deliberations. Yet we pray you out of the spirit of that courtesy at least to hear us out.

‘The people of Carftain have been our allies so long and through so many troublous times, that now, when they are besieged by this barbarian and desperately sue for our assistance, we owe them all the aid we can muster, and not mere scorn. My lord of the Eglands, his highness is presently engaged upon very important matters of training, else he would explain our hopes to you himself. Hear then my small voice instead.

‘It was centuries ago that great Elna, our first and most glorious ancestor, first banded together the cowed peoples of the civilized cities, and fought the barbarians back, so that they were at last all but extinguished, and their few survivors were penned in the frozen wilds of the far North, beyond the mountains of the Spine. Well, and that was the founding of this city and this Empire and all of what we enjoy now. Yet we think you, Farnese, would be the first to bow your head to the knowledge that we have the strength of our years of glory no longer. And this not in terms of tributary nations only, but as well the inner strength of each of us, common and noble alike. So it does not surprise us to find such timidity before plans requiring courage and strength. Yet even so, shall we refrain from saying that what great Elna gained, we might win back? And now the barbarians are risen again, as none dared dream they might; and cities fall before them like ripe wheat. Is not this Ara-Karn the common foe of us all? He will grow only the stronger for continued victories, while we – all of us, not only the cities of the North – grow weaker. And how long think you it will be then, before he comes to penetrate our own supposedly impregnable gates?

‘Charan of Fulmine, you have spoken of your concern for our son’s safety. Therein we are in full accord. The problem, however, admits of an easy solution; send more than the Companions, and guard your future sovereign’s life with veteran troops from Rukor.’

There was an uneasy silence when she had ceased, as if she had put a little shame into those men, the greatest lords of the Empire, with the reminder of what their ancestors had done and been. Then Dornan Ural looked up from a scroll of parchment covered with a part of the Imperial tax-rolls and addressed her.

‘Your majesty, we have been through all of this many times before. The barbarian cannot hope to subdue the North so quickly as your majesty believes – indeed, it is not likely he shall ever be able to do so. Yet even then he would never venture beyond the sands of the Taril. That desert is all but impassable for a few hardy men, let alone an army; and thus, so long as Rukorian warships control the Sea of Elna, we of the South may bide secure.

‘Her majesty has but now spoken many no doubt stirring words; yet I ask you all, what will the balance-sheet of this expedition truly be? What will we gain for the lives of our citizens and the monies spent? Perhaps the cities of the North will thank us; more probably they will envy and fear us and our ambitions. Shall we bare our own defenses on their behalf? Perhaps there will be fine poems composed; is it worthwhile to spend the lives of the sons of our common folk, to purchase the ambitious fancies and flatteries of the highborn? Your majesty surprises me by her words. These barbarians are but robbers after all, not a nation. Doubtless when they have stolen enough, they will return to their homeland to be heard from no more.

‘And moreover, if our learning suggests anything at all to us, it is that the humbling of certain cities of the North will only give our craftsmen an advantage in the markets of the world. Already monies flow our way with the refugees who seek our shelter. I greatly fear his highness’s expedition will prove needless, futile, and in the end quite costly. I on my part am well known to oppose such grandiose dreams. Yet his highness will go and, like some wayward child, will tolerate no denials. What then can we, who are his servants, do? We cannot chain him to the walls, or feed him wisdom with his meat. If he will go, he shall go; yet to arm and mount a full army in the field would be far more than the Imperial Treasury can now afford. Especially when there are so many other, more pressing expenses.’

‘Such as the city sewers,’ added Allissál dismally, at which the Charan of Vapio laughed lazily.

‘Yorkjax of Belknule is known to be hostile to us,’ said Lornof, whose own province of Fulmine marched upon Belknule. ‘We shall need to maintain our strength here to deter his aggressions, I think. Yet at the same time I agree with her majesty, that the prince should be at all times adequately protected.’

‘A right masterfully phrased pronouncement,’ said Arstomenes, laughing from the end of the table beyond Lornof, and lazily sipping wine from a goblet carven of a single block of crystal.

‘My lord,’ said the Queen, ‘we have not heard from you regarding this matter. Have you nothing to put forth before us?’

‘Not words on this,’ he smiled insolently. ‘If Elnavis wants to go, let him fly! I’ve heard the women of the North have some delightful ways about them. But why send soldiers on a pleasure lark?’

‘Charanti, we go nowhere,’ said Dornan Ural. ‘And there remain many important matters yet on the lists, details of policy and official appointments. Shall we come to a vote then, and pass on to greater matters?’

‘What could be greater than the safety of your future sovereign?’ countered the Empress. ‘However, we are in agreement that time presses. You have read the document of the High Charan of Rukor, signed by his own hand, in which he names us as his surrogate. Thus if none of you has objection to the wishes of the High Charan, we shall come swiftly to a vote. You know our wishes; and they are the desires of Ampeánor as well. Arstomenes, will you not throw in with us?’

The tall man in robes of silken elzantine turned his heavy-lidded, kohl-streaked eyes upon her and opened, his sensual lips in a slight, smiling yawn. He somehow managed to perform even so boorish an act with grace.

‘Why, if the prince will play at warrior-and-maidens, let him go, by all means. Yet my own inclination is to send him accompanied by only the charming youths of the Companions, as originally decided. Great comedies and tragedies alike, after all, require small casts of characters.’

Allissál looked away, unable to dissemble her disappointment. Her eyes ranged over the busts of her ancestors, whose carved mouths seemed to cry out to her.

‘Yet when one of the beauty of your majesty asks a thing with such a winning grace, my own inclinations are beside the point,’ Arstomenes added, amused at the look upon her face. ‘I vote to send the Rukorians as well.’

‘My own opinions are already known,’ said Dornan Ural. ‘We should not send the Rukorians, because we cannot afford to do so. Already several merchants have protested to me concerning the rates of taxation upon harbor-goods; this could only raise those rates. It is all very well for you of the highborn to mount up expenditures, but it falls to my office to find some means of paying for it all. Why, do any of you realize the cost of the last exhibition of wild beasts at the Amphitheater? It would shock you, I assure you. Not to mention the cost to sweep and wash the streets afterward, and the disposal of the carcasses. And if the expedition fails, who but I will get the blame for it? My lords, we must be realistic.’

Lornof nodded. ‘This would seem the best compromise to me,’ he said, eying uncertainly the Charan of Vapio. ‘Yet still I do not see why we cannot have more time to consider the matter.’

‘That has been decided,’ said Farnese impatiently. ‘Have done. This is all of it folly,’ he added. ‘But all men are fools. Before this meeting, for example, I would have said to you all: Let us not be idiots by half – if we allow the prince to go, then we should send trained troops to guard his soft young neck. Yet his highness, whose soft young neck it is, seems to think so little of the matter that he has not even bothered to attend us to argue his interests. Should we then consider it a thing of greater weight? So, much as it tears me, I must go against Ampeánor’s wishes. Let the prince take only his Companions, and let them discover for themselves the cost of such gallantry.’

The Queen sighed, and looked down the long and empty hall.

‘So it is decided,’ uttered Dornan Ural with finality. Just then, a horn sounded from without; and the prince himself strode in through the colonnade, swaggering and breathing heavily, the flush of victorious exertion still upon his cheeks. The men rose at his entrance.

‘My liege,’ said the High Charan of the Eglands, inclining his head stiffly. ‘How honored we are that you have chosen, in the end, to attend this our little meeting.’

The prince noted the tone of the old man’s voice and smiled impudently. ‘Our apologies for having been – unavoidably detained.’ He threw himself lazily into the centermost chair. ‘The races were overlong in getting started: one of the stallions chose to be temperamental. Our teams won though, and in record time according to the sands and water-clocks alike. Greetings, mother.’

Elnavis leaned to kiss his mother’s cheek. She whispered angrily into his ear, ‘You should have been here!’

‘Your highness,’ said Dornan Ural, ‘at last we have reached a final decision regarding your proposed expedition against the barbarians besieging Carftain. You shall depart as soon as you wish.’

‘But alone, with only the Companions,’ added the Queen.

The prince laughed. ‘Is it so, then? No great harm: we shall be more than a match for any of the barbarian ragtag.’

‘No doubt,’ the Charan of the Eglands agreed dryly.

A slave approached the dais, interrupting their talk.

‘Yes, Paranin, what is it?’ asked Dornan Ural, who seemed to be unable to refrain from addressing every single slave by name.

‘Great Charanti, your Imperial Highness and your August Majesty, there is a stranger without, most urgently requesting an audience. He claims to be a nobleman bearing important news from Carftain.’

‘We have many urgent matters of our own to discuss first, Paranin,’ Dornan Ural sighed; ‘And we have only just finished with Carftain. This one man cannot be so important to our affairs: have him wait, therefore, and I will speak to him later when I can find the time.’

‘Why not have him in now, my good man?’ asked the Queen. ‘If this man has news of the city that is his highness’s goal, then surely we can at least hear him?’

‘Truly, I think her majesty is reluctant to come at last to the topic of the cloaca,’ said Arstomenes in an undertone to Lornof beside him.

‘Yes, admit him.’ Elnavis waved eagerly, so that the High Regent, after a pause, gave in, and signed the slave to let the stranger in. The slave abased himself once more, turned and left the long hall.

* * *

Without the hall, two men stood on the wide stone steps beside a low granite pedestal supporting a towering statue of Elna Victorious. One of the men was short, bearded and middle-aged, with a servant’s coarse features. The other was a young-looking man, tall and cleanly shaven wearing 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.

The slave bowed before the taller man. ‘The High Council of Regents, ruling in the name of Prince Elnavis, Heir to the World, has consented to grant you audience.’

The man nodded and turned briefly to his servant. ‘Await me here, Kuln-Holn,’ he said. ‘I should be out shortly.’

‘Yes, lord.’ The servant bowed.

Paranin led the stranger through the massive pillars and into the deepening gloom of the enormous hall, past the many frescoes and over the mosaic in the floor between the supporting columns, depicting the rock of the Citadel rising over the city. Before the stone dais, the slave prostrated himself. ‘Great Charanti, your Highness, and your August Majesty – the Lord Ennius Kandi, Charan of Elsvar of the nation of Gerso.’

He bowed gracefully before them, in austere traveling garb, all fur and soft leather after Northern fashion. ‘My lords,’ he said when given leave, ‘I fear I am the bearer of unfortunate tidings. Carftain has fallen to the barbarians.

‘Aye, my lords,’ he continued in his strange accent, seeing their consternation. ‘Forgive me if I fail to express myself well, for I do not yet speak your language well, having studied it only for the past few weeks.’

At this Allissál looked at him with respect, for he spoke the language surpassingly well for one so new to it. She herself had been struggling to learn the rather simple barbarians’ tongue for some months now, ever since the news had come of Gerso’s fall; and still she had difficulties with it

‘I was there myself,’ he went on, urged to it by their continued silence. ‘I was a witness to it. The barbarians stormed the Shadow Gate, and the lock was undoubtedly faulty, for the doors opened before them. They poured into the city, killing all who opposed them. Some men fought, and some hid in the dark cellars of their palaces, sitting atop their hoarded treasures; but the rest of us fled the city and traveled South before them – always on to the South. I, myself, when the city fell, took to mind coming here immediately to tell you the news: for in Carftain there had been much talk of Imperial assistance.’

‘Indeed, we had planned such,’ admitted Dornan Ural. ‘Now, sadly of course, there will be no need for it.’

‘You have seen these barbarians?’ asked the Charan of the Eglands.

The stranger nodded. ‘I am from the far side of the mountains, my lord, north of Gerso. I have known and dealt with the barbarians for all my life. Before Carftain I saw Gerso fall, and the breaking of Ancha, and the destruction of Eliorite as well.’

‘Tell us then what you consider to be the ultimate plans of the barbarian.’

The Gerso smiled, his dark eyes twinkling in the lamplight. ‘Plans, my lord? He has no plans, other than to loot and kill and rape until the urge leaves him, as it might do at any moment. To be sure, they say he is a madman, and I for one believe it. Whenever has a brigand had plans?’

‘Then may we take it as a truth,’ asked Dornan Ural, ‘that these savages have no overall plans for conquest? And do you think it likely, my lord, that they would ever come so far as to menace us here?’

The Gerso laughed, in a tone that seemed to displease the Queen. ‘And are they not mere savages, lord, as you have said? Would such as they ever cross the Taril? Twelve hundred fastces of desert wastes must ever be an impassable barrier to those born in the icy deserts of the far North. And my lords, what could the barbarians hope in assaulting the double gates of this Citadel? For they are impregnable, if I have ever seen any such. They could not dream simply to walk in here and confront you to your faces, could they? No, the barbarians will merely ravage the North so long as the wildness takes them and good loot remains to be had. One decisive defeat, such as will surely come even without your generous aid, and they will be sent scurrying to their holes in the far North where they belong.’

‘Just as I’ve always said!’ cried Elnavis with glee. ‘One good defeat! And why should we not be the ones to gather its glory?’

‘Oh.’ The Gerso shrugged carelessly. ‘As to that, your highness, why trouble yourself? What glory is gained in conquering such rabble? They are unworthy of your might. To hunt the wild bandar is a great feat; but the killing of tavern-rats, though perhaps as dangerous, is a task fit only for the lowborn.’

‘We are of like mind there,’ proffered Arstomenes languidly. ‘Tell me, sir, have you brought any of your countrywomen along in your train?’

‘Unfortunately not, my lord. I am a poor man now, with but a single servant, and he more than half barbarian himself.’

‘Elna got enough glory for conquering them,’ muttered the prince.

‘Your Highness,’ said Dornan Ural, like a tutor addressing some wayward student. ‘Am I not the High Regent in your name? And did not your revered father himself appoint me to this task? It is at times a great burden to me, yet I never complain of it. So does not your highness owe it to me, at least to consider my advice?’

The prince did not answer, but rather played with his dagger about the parchments on the table with a sour look. Allissál noted the fiercely contemptuous way the Gerso now regarded the High Regent. Up until then he had seemed rather a tame fellow; this new look, however, seemed to reveal a different man. Perhaps, after all, if he tested true, she might find some use in him. She leaned forward and addressed him for the first time. ‘And have you ever seen this madman, my lord?’

The Gerso turned his gaze back upon her, and for a moment perhaps, she regretted her question. But she did not look away, and this time it was the stranger who let fall his eyes.

‘Aye,’ he said softly. ‘Your majesty, I have seen the face of Ara-Karn many times, as he led his roaring men to the assault upon the walls of my cities. I know his face even better than my own.’

They leaned forward at this, curious, even to Dornan Ural, about the appearance of the man who had thrown his shadow across the round world.

‘Tell us,’ asked Elnavis, ‘are any of the tales of the refugees true? Her majesty has interviewed many claiming to have seen the man. Is he really twice the height of an ordinary man, with a great black beard as bristling as briar? And does he really breakfast upon the babes of his foes?’

The stranger laughed. ‘As for his diet, Your Highness, I could not say. No doubt he feeds upon things horrible enough. For the description you have given, it is not far from the mark. Oh, he is monstrous to behold, no one could argue it. He revels in blood and destruction, and even claims to be the incarnation of dark God upon the earth. Though this is manifestly impossible, of course, since it is well known that God is the husband of her August Majesty; and surely maid should know her husband? Yet his special joy,’ he added, with an insolent glance at the Queen, ‘is to ride the burning streets of those cities he has conquered and publicly rape the daughters of all of the leading citizens. None are spared his insatiable appetites, not maidens nor matrons, charai or even great Queens. Pray you do not let him conquer Tarendahardil, lest he get a chance to validate his claims to Godhood.’

‘Heavens,’ expostulated Arstomenes with a lazy laugh. ‘If that’s so, he’d fit into the highborn society hereabouts very nicely! Shall we invite him to our next garden-party, your majesty?’ At this sally all laughed, even, grudgingly, Farnese; except the stranger only smiled, and Allissál did not do even that.

‘Charanti,’ she broke in dryly, ‘have we not wandered? This man here mocks us. No doubt he has never set eyes upon the barbarian in his life. It is difficult to run while looking backward, is it not? And you seem to have done a great deal of running, my good man.’

‘Far better to run than bleed, your majesty.’ He smiled. ‘Or to weep lonely tears in darkness.’

‘So all cowards claim. Now, shall we return to business? You have voted to allow our son to voyage with his companions to the North to fight the barbarians. Is there any reason to revoke that vote? Rather, the fall of Carftain should show you the necessity of swift aid all the more, to succor the city that may be next attacked. My good man, give us your opinion concerning the city most likely to be next assaulted.’

The Gerso looked dismayed, which pleased her. ‘Surely, your majesty does not intend that the prince should undertake such a hazardous mission?’

‘Nay, I’ll go!’ protested Elnavis. ‘Show me him who’d stop me!’

The Gerso bowed. ‘Perhaps Ara-Karn will stop you.’

‘I would welcome such a meeting,’ answered the prince proudly. ‘He would not stop me.’

‘And has your highness no doubts at all of that?’

‘I, at least, am no coward. We shall meet the barbarians openly upon the field of combat, and cut them down beneath our hooves. Judge not Imperial cavalry by your own pitiful troops.’

‘I would not dream of doing so, your highness. Yet the barbarians do have a strange new weapon, the like of which has not been seen in this world before. Perhaps your highness has heard of this thing they call the bow?’

‘I have heard of it.’ The prince shrugged. ‘It is a weapon for cowards and knaves. We would never stoop to the use of such a thing. Our troops will make short shrift of it, never fear.’

‘Of that, I have no fears at all, Your Highness.’

‘Yet still we need to know which city will be the next attacked.’

‘Below Carftain,’ said the High Charan of the Eglands, ‘there are two cities lying along the path the barbarian has been following. I have visited the North often enough to know them both. One city is large and powerful: Mersaline, under the leadership of Zarendal, a prince of rare strength in these soft times. The other is well situated but of no strength of men – Tezmon, where Armand the Fat is mayor.’

‘Why should he not rather travel toward the bright horizon?’ asked Lornof. ‘There are many rich cities there.’

‘He cannot leave Mersaline and Tezmon unconquered at his flank,’ answered the prince. ‘I have learned enough of tactics from Ampeánor to be sure of that. Zarendal would harry his supply lines and force him to battle two foes at once, before and behind. If he does that, the barbarian will but doom himself.’

‘Your highness shows rare wisdom,’ Farnese said, nodding. ‘And for a similar reason he will attack Mersaline before Tezmon. Tezmon would have the aid of Zarendal’s troops at the barbarian’s rear; but if Ara-Karn strikes Mersaline first, the Tezmonians would probably send no aid at all, even though they would be next attacked. It is only a city of merchants, after all.’

‘So soon as it may be arranged, then,’ Elnavis said confidently, ‘I’ll sail for Torjulla, and travel thence upland to Mersaline.’

‘None can doubt your highness’s courage,’ the Gerso said, bowing. ‘And now may I wish your highness all the good fortune upon this expedition that you deserve?’

Dornan Ural sighed wearily. ‘Now can we not at last pass on to other matters? There are many items yet to be discussed.’

Faintly behind her hand, Allissál groaned.

* * *

Gathering in the courtyard outside to await the ending of the Council were soldiers gleaming in golden armor, and noblemen borne up from the gates of the Citadel upon litters of ivory and ebony. Silver-tongued ladies in gowns of translucent silk languidly passed by, conversing with word and laughter in strange and beautiful tongues. They walked beneath statues of consummate artistry, and leaned in one another’s embraces, gossiping, singing, and giving the gathering men lowered love-looks and secret signs of denial and assent. Their lovely voices arose melodiously in the soft air, like distant bells sounding through water, as they ascended the paths from the Gardens below. So those ladies and their suitors gracefully took their ease awaiting their sovereign, like the shades of voyaged kings and fair queens walking gently in the muted golden sunlight of the lands of the dead upon the far side of the world, godlike in stateliness serene and unending.

On the wide stone steps, the Gerso rejoined his servant. ‘Now, Kuln-Holn, do you still regret that you chose to follow me, or that I brought you hither?’

‘No, lord,’ he answered solemnly. ‘Oh, but this outgoes all my visions. How could we have thought of such a place in the North? It is no wonder She has claimed it for Her own.’

‘Look upon it longer, if it pleases you. We shall wait here with these others until the meeting of the Council ends. I want another glimpse of the Empress.’

‘Lord, have you truly seen her? And is she all they say of her?’

‘More. But wait and judge her with your own eyes.’

They waited, the servant standing beneath the towering statue of Elna while the master paced the steps. After a time a clear and perfect note sounded above them. With great ceremony the High Council of Tarendahardil issued forth. Around them swarmed a crowd of attendants and petitioners.

Then, like Goddess-sun glimpsed between the dull mountains of the dusky border, a woman appeared before Kuln-Holn’s eyes; and the awful loveliness of her struck through Kuln-Holn like a spear-cast. Now the legends about her seemed easily believable, of how she had been ritually wed to dark God, who had taken her for His own in the upper reaches of the high White Tower, and so begat upon her Elnavis, Heir to the World.

A rough hand gripped the servant’s shoulder. His master turned him around, looking him in the face; then laughed suddenly, unpleasantly. There were pain and fury and a cruel delight in the Gerso’s face, none of them directed at Kuln-Holn. Kuln-Holn remembered the horror of Gerso’s fall then: the many slaughtered dead, the fire, the tribal warriors roaming the bloody streets, and the rocky ash-pit that was now the city’s only remnant. He beheld these things now again, reflected in the deep eyes of his master; and he was afraid.

But then the laughter ceased, and a calm gray death gave his master’s face some peace. ‘Come along, Kuln-Holn.’

With a fleeting glance toward the fragrant groves whither the Queen and her courtiers had gone, the Gerso turned and signed to the Imperial guardsman to conduct them hence. They proceeded between the rows of perfect statues, through the mighty gates and down into the City.

* * *

After the fifth meal the time for the longsleep came. In the silken, tented bed in her high, hollow dimchamber at the top of the White Tower, Allissál lay, as ever, alone. At first sleep would not approach her, for her heart was filled with burning hope for her son’s success. Slowly then her eyes fluttered together and she slept. Then the dream returned to her, like some daggered thief. Her upflung arms caught the folds of the transparent canopy and rent it, so that the jeweled web fell across her face and mouth and streaming snaky coils of hair. She woke with a little cry.

At the side of the bed she lighted the lamp of gold and pearl and huddled over its flame. She stood and went round the bed. Up the steep stone steps set into the wall she went with a measured, painful undulation, her small, naked feet making no sound. The thin couch-shift draped from her shoulders damply clung to her long, slender body. At the high narrow window she seated herself, and threw her long hair back defiantly.

Without, the air was fine and clear. Beyond the distant edges of the city shimmered the deep azure line that was the Sea of Elna. In Goddess’s brilliant light the birds wheeled, and the ships swung into harbor, and the bazaars hummed. Even in the time of the longsleep, Tarendahardil woke.

Yet even from that cheerful scene the Queen could draw no comfort. Her pale gray eyes were blurred, as if she saw only inner visions. Never before had the dream seemed so real or menacing. The man with the odd burning eyes and the bejeweled, dead noblewoman loomed before her, until the breath caught behind her teeth.

‘And are you the child Dornan Ural believes, that bogies in the dimchamber can affright you?’ she muttered, very angry with herself.

She thought of Ampeánor, whom she missed dearly. He was the only one in whom she had been able to confide all her dreams and hopes; though they were not lovers, as all her court assumed. She murmured a little prayer to Goddess for his swift return. Thereafter, calmed somewhat, she fell into a dreamless doze, alone near the pale painted ceiling; and her long hair fell disheveled over the chill stones.

IV

Trembling Heralds of the Wars

UPON THE OTHER SHORES of the Sea of Elna, the darkward Vesquial coastline swept suddenly inward upon itself, forming a beautiful deep-water harbor, extended on either side by great arms of bleached white stone set into the blue and purple waters. In the sunlit depths of those waters green fans of sea weeds could be dimly perceived, languidly waving and beckoning from beneath the foam. Untold years and countless lives these gleaming breakwaters had taken to erect; and beneath the waterline, befitting their maturity, centuries of sea-growth formed their dress. Not even when Elna’s engineers first started to throw them up, could they have seemed more solid and perdurable.

Beyond them lay ships by the score and the stone walls of wharves and tidal barriers, anciently stained with a hundred minor mishaps of a thousand transactions: and yet beyond the walls rose the gift of the great girdling arms of the harbor, in bands of parkland and vertical spires, yellow stone warehouses, blue streets and purple mansions – the port-city of Tezmon, famous for the purple dyes of her master weavers.

Ampeánor sighed, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Leaning in the shadow of the battlements, the High Charan of Rukor looked again over the walls with a critical eye.

Those walls had been designed by Elna’s engineers long centuries before, when the Emperor had ordered this fastness built; it seemed unlikely there had been any work done on them since. This part of the North had been at peace, and Tezmon’s merchants, wealthy and fat from the trade of their linens, had seen fit to spend their Elnics on purchasing Vapio dancing-troupes rather than on their own city’s defenses. The walls had been in shameful disrepair when Ampeánor had arrived here. He had doubts, even after all his labors, whether he could strengthen them enough before Ara-Karn came hither.

Yet he knew he must. It had been his plan as well as Allissál’s: to secretly ship over all the arms they had found in the Imperial armory in the depths below the Black Citadel, to arm and fortify Tezmon against all the strength of the barbarian. Then, provisioned from the sea by Rukorian warships, Tezmon should prove their wedge into the North, when Elnavis took up the Ivory Scepter and they were freed of the meddling constraints of Dornan Ural. By then, Ampeánor and Allissál had thought, perhaps all the rest of the North should have fallen the prey of Ara-Karn – all but this city built by Elna long ago, a sore wound in the underbelly of the barbarian.

Ampeánor went out from the shadow, shouting orders to the workers on the walls. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, whose brown hair on his head and upper lip was his own, and naturally curled. His strong arms were bronzed by Goddess and the winds, and his body seemed made for the fightingman’s simple tunic it was his habit to wear. Briefly he thought of Allissál as he pursued his labors – it was hard to ignore the ache of missing her; yet he had no regret at all at being absent from the trivial, lascivious pursuits of the pleasure-adoring court.

In the midst of his labors he was interrupted by a messenger from Armand, urgently summoning him to attend the mayor of the city in his hall. Regretfully, Ampeánor assented, and went up the street to the hill overlooking the harbor clustering with the many ships.

The prettily painted slave-girls bowed timidly at his approach, and opened the ornately carven doors. Luxurious and spacious was the hall, filled with works of a sumptuous, sensuous art. Around the walls at regular intervals stood the waiting girls, their breasts showing like young blossoms through the gauzy fabric of their gowns. At the end of the hall, seven more maidens attended to the pleasure of their master the mayor. Armand was a man of middle height and middle age, portly, immaculate, and gaudily dressed with strongly scented oils in his hair and beard. Slumped dejectedly in the carven chair of highly polished stone, he held a silver wine cup closely to his nursing lips. His eyes remained fastened to the mosaic in the floor as Ampeánor approached.

The Charan of Rukor set one booted foot upon the dais and inclined his head slightly. ‘You wished to see me? I understood this was an urgent matter – yet if you only wish to complain of how I tear down your monuments to repair the breeches in your outer walls, I have not the time.’

The portly mayor shook his head dumbly, his eyes still upon the floor where, at the last dining-party, his prized troupe of Vapio dancing girls had performed a new tableau. ‘Tell him,’ he said gloomily.

Across the dais stood a Tezmonian guardsman, his leather tunic stained with sweat and dust. He turned to Ampeánor, eyes big with fear. ‘They are coming,’ he said with a swallow.

‘Who is coming?’

‘The barbarians. We have seen them. They are coming this way!’

‘How is that? All the previous reports—’

‘—Were false! We reported what we saw, but the barbarians deceived us! Twelve turnings toward Mersaline they took; but at the thirteenth many of them broke off, and took the road to Tezmon!’

Ampeánor frowned. ‘Which is the larger body?’ he asked sternly.

The scout swallowed, some of the fear leaving his eyes. ‘By far the larger body still travels for Mersaline. Undoubtedly they have already besieged that city. The other is roughly a quarter their size.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Lanthor, my lord.’

‘Then tell me, Lanthor, how soon you guess they will be here.’

‘In some three or four passes, maybe, they will be here.’

‘Very well.’ Ampeánor nodded. ‘Go and refresh yourself, Lanthor. And take heart: there is no need for alarm. The city will stand. This is good news, not bad. If Ara-Karn has divided his forces, it will be the first tactical error the barbarian has made. Alone against all the barbarians, we could not stand for long: yet against this weaker force we should do well. Your fellow-citizens and soldiers will learn to fight; and soon enough I should be able to provide you with the aid of Rukorian lancers.’

‘My lord,’ Armand queried timidly, ‘might my city truly withstand them?’

Ampeánor turned back. The silver winecup was still at the mayor’s lips, his women still regarded him with tender concern, and his eyes were still affixed to the floor. ‘Why,’ answered Ampeánor, ‘how could she not, with such courageous leaders to defend her?’

‘But these—’ the mayor gestured vaguely ‘—these barbarians, this – this Ara-Karn. They are said to be so terrible… My cousin was Governor-General of Gerso; some of his slaves escaped to find me here, and when they told me of the manner of his death—’ The fat mayor swallowed, and could speak no more.

‘And did his fate not teach you to expect them?’

‘Yes, but – well – not so soon as this!’ The mayor’s voice had risen markedly. Ampeánor, not replying, turned to go. As he passed again through the ornate doors he could hear the mayor’s voice calling out in thin, angry tones to his slave-girls, ‘Zajibel! Zajibel, Fallen Sparrow: where is my favorite?’

* * *

For the next four passes Ampeánor slept whenever he could, which was not often: in the corners of the guardrooms, in the shadow of a column over the martialing-grounds, on the bare stones of the city walls. He went everywhere, calming the wealthy merchants, roaming the walls with his engineers for a final buttressing of the weakest points, overseeing the training of the recruits picked from the general populace and armed with the weapons he had brought from Tarendahardil. They complained of the work, but Ampeánor stared them to a sullen silence. ‘Would you let your city be destroyed?’ he remonstrated. ‘Well, then, learn to defend her.’ When that was not enough he used force. He made them train beside the desperate exiles from fallen Carftain, that they might learn their shame.

Most of the merchant elite, who had ruled in place of the Imperial charanti ever since Tezmon had broken from the Empire a century before, were secretly gathering their properties and preparing to flee the city. Ampeánor was not sorry to see them go. The majority of the people would stay and fight, because they must. Those remaining would be of a greater courage. Yet more than once he found himself wishing for nothing but a troop of his own lancers, and his chief captain Ferrakador to lead them.

With an utter weariness gathering in the hollows of his shoulders and his knees, he rode at last back to the North Gate, where he had stationed the pick of the guard and the Carftainians. This, facing the only major road to the North, would bear the brunt of the attack. The guardsmen smiled to see him dismounting and ascending the hollowed steps in his dusty, darkened armor; but the Carftainians and the other refugees only gripped their lances and stared out over the brown-burned fields. He did not blame them, having heard the horrors of their defeat at the barbarians’ hands.

He sat upon the parapet and looked with them. A guardsman offered him some bread and wine; he ate reflectively, thinking of the battle ahead. It was long years since his campaigns against the pirates, the first and last real warfare in which he had engaged. He recalled how, at his frequent offers to instruct the mayor, Armand had only smiled foolishly and spoken of Ampeánor’s youthful triumphs over the pirates, as if expecting him to provide an equally miraculous outcome here. Only then he had had Rukorians at his back, not weavers.

He looked out to the north. A solitary rider was coming up the dusty, graveled road.

‘It is Lanthor,’ said one of the guards, shouting to those below working the mechanism of the gates. Lanthor was the last of the scouts to return. He rode between the gates with an iron clatter, swaying wearily in his saddle. The others shouted at him irritably, asking the news; but Lanthor only rolled in the saddle and fell drunkenly onto the cobbled courtyard. Some went to see to him, but when they turned him over, he was dead.

From out of the small of his back a thin shaft protruded through the blood-soaked cloth, bearing at its end three black feathers.

Ampeánor had them bring him the bloody arrow. He had never seen one before. It seemed slight and fragile in his gloved hand. Could such a little thing truly be the secret of the strength of Ara-Karn? he wondered.

‘They are near, now,’ said one of the Carftainians, grunting.

Ampeánor held the shaft up and broke it in two between his fingers. ‘They will pay for him dearly,’ he promised.

* * *

When Elnavis departed Tarendahardil, then the City gleamed beneath Goddess. The stone streets were scrubbed clean, shrines and monuments were draped with garlands, statues were painted and hung with celebratory wreaths, and the open doors of the temples breathed airs of sweet incense. Tarendahardil seemed fair, and lovely, and very young at that hour.

The markets and work-halls all were closed. In their brightest festival robes, the people of the City crowded the length of the Way of Kings; vendors passed among them, hawking refreshments. Already the prince had led the nobly born youths of his Companions on foot through the streets to the Brown Temple, to make sacrifice and be ritually cleansed. Already the holy virgin priestesses had taken auguries and omens. The word ran like a river down the Way of Kings: the omens had all been extremely favorable.

The people laughed to hear. Dearly they loved the sight of their prince riding boldly, racing through the streets, his golden curls waving. They took pride in his strength, his comeliness and his youth as if they were their own – as indeed, they were. They were his people, and he was their prince, soon to be their Emperor – and such an Emperor, as had not ruled in Tarendahardil for six generations. They knew that when he took up the Ivory Scepter, he would not be so slave-thrifty as the High Regent. It was a saying among them, when grumbling at the disrepair of the city, the filth flowing in the streets, or the corruption of the officials, ‘Ah, when Elnavis takes up the Ivory Scepter, now—!’ Wistfully they dreamed on the lost grandeur of their Empire, which only Elnavis would restore.

Of a sudden, the throngs in the square below the Citadel were stilled. The great black twin gates opened, and the Parade emerged from the Citadel of Elna.

In suchlike order did they make appearance and descend in stateliness the Way of Kings. The magistrates of the First and Second Ranks came first; then flute-players; milk-white, gold-horned oxen for the later sacrifices; the holy virgin priestesses, going barefooted before the venerable High Priestess; slaves strewing blossoms; and the nobility: all the great charai and charanti borne in ivory litters. A body of trumpeters preceded the High Council – Farnese of the horse-driving Eglands, Arstomenes of ancient Vapio, Lornof of Fulmine, and Dornan Ural. Only the Charan of Rukor, Ampeánor, was absent, the most popular of all the highborn for his talents and the Queen’s passion for him. The prince’s personal guard came after, bearing aloft the multicolored standards, with the royal hue of orange foremost; and the crowds were hushed for a moment that ended with a roar redoubled: for the prince, golden Elnavis, had appeared.

Of purest gold was his armor, inlaid with silver and gem-stones. The light of Goddess adorned him with such a coruscation that, astride his black stallion Warcloud, he seemed a very god come to walk the earth. He laughed, and waved to the screaming throngs.

Behind him a single slave walked with a golden crown held above his head in accordance with the custom of Elna, to distract the evil of God from the figure of the prince. Eight white pure-bred mares followed, drawing a silver chariot wherein the Divine Queen stood with the Chara Ilal.

Then the Companions made appearance, two hundred youths of the most antique houses of the Empire, riding steeds in full war-gear. They laughed to their sweethearts on the balconies in the palaces above. This was to be the grandest event in their young lives. The long training was over at last, and the real fighting to come: the sweep of horse-driven wings, the brutal clash against the ranks of the foe, the killing, the victories, and all glory earned beneath the last descendant of great Elna.

Their warhorses strained and fretted against the riders’ firm control. They were not bred for such slow ploddings, but for glorious charges across windswept plains ringing with war’s anvils. The roars of the populace excited them, and made them furiously eager for the odor of blood arising from their massive, steel-clad hooves. Even so, it was not long before the great Parade reached the docksides, where the ships awaited. There the crowd was thickest, bodies against bodies, elbows into chests, the narrow airs thick with cheers to rend the ears.

The stallions wheeled, the silver chariot rolled to a majestic halt. The Companions waved farewell, and rode singly up to shipboard, where slaves and seamen awaited to help remove the trappings and lead horse and rider below. The holy priestesses formed a half-circle on the age-old yellow stones, facing the jade-azure of the sea. There the Empress, glorious in her silver robes of state, met her son and made the Sign of Goddess above his brow; and he knelt and made the Sign of God in return.

She kissed him upon the front of his helm and raised him, bidding him in a voice loud enough only for him to hear, all luck. ‘And may your return be even more glorious than this, your departure.’

He grinned in the gold and silver shadow. ‘Worry not, Mother. I’ll bring the head of Ara-Karn to you upon my lance – then you can have it cured and hung at the foot of your bed, and every sleep have it to kiss good-waking!’ And they both laughed; and the people, seeing this, were like to go mad with joy.

Pelted with flowers, gracefully as a lover to his mistress he bowed before them. Then in a single glorious bound he gained the saddle. Warcloud reared high, as if smelling already the barbarian in his flaring nostrils. And they went dancing over the side of the ship, so that the people marveled at such consummate horsemanship.

So soon as his highness was aboard the last ship, they cast off, pilots sculling to draw her out of the crowded harbor after the other ships. Beyond the moles the pilot-boats left them, and the great ships loosed their saffron sails bellying full with wind. Gently now, but with gathering vigor, they swept on the wings of tide and breeze, farther and farther toward the distant rim of the sea.

When they reached the port of Torjulla, they descended into the city and bought provisions; the prince attended eagerly to all the latest news, of the dividing of Ara-Karn’s armies. Impatiently he purchased the last of their supplies, and hastened with the Companions upland, toward the beleaguered city of Mersaline.

V

The Prophecy of Jade and Iron

ALLISSÁL HAD WORN SILVER at Elnavis’s leavetaking; now she was arrayed all in gold, so that even the rich sunlight pouring athwart the opened balcony beside her seemed dull and sickly until it was caught up and cast back twelvefold by that glory about her head, and her single bared shoulder. So she met with her agents to discuss her secret negotiations with the other nations of the South. For a moment she smiled, thinking of Dornan Ural’s consternation if he should discover that she was making policy and planning on war against the barbarian in contradiction of all rights and laws. Yet even should the freedman’s son learn all, what could he do about it? She had no fear of him. He would not dare oppose her openly, if he wished to retain any authority at court after Elnavis took up the Ivory Scepter. And that blessed waking was but a few months hence.

The pretext of the gathering was a portrait Qhelvin of Sorne was painting of her. Qhelvin stood in much-daubed apparel at the board, brushes in his fist, his movements brusque with an all but violent intensity. Her other agents looked idly on or stood upon the balcony overlooking the city spread in distant haze below the mountain. There had never been an autumn in Tarendahardil for such delightful weather.

‘Pelthar is ripe fruit then,’ she said, only her lips and gold-clasped throat in movement. ‘Needs but to send a messenger to Orolo to get a full accord signed; and then an end to reluctance among the other small kingdoms. Tersimio, what of your efforts in Zaproll on the Sea?’

The Ancha, a stout man with bristling red beard and a neck thick and hard as a log, uttered an impatient word. ‘Some headway, but slow progress. They have no trade beyond the Sea of Elna save most indirectly – what care they, secure in the deepest corner of the South, if the barbarian conquers all the North? Yet I have convinced a few of the need. At most, though, they will supply provisions or gold.’

‘It is all we require of them. They have no great fame at warfare, and we have all the pilots and seamen we shall need from Rukor and the lower Delba. Bistro, what word there?’

‘It is well, your majesty.’ The Eliorite smiled. ‘What with their many dealings with the North, they are all too terrified of the barbarian. Now if I can but get them to overcome their distrust of one another, I can guarantee a score of ships and three thousand men.’

‘It is well,’ said the Queen. ‘Is there word of Postio yet?’

‘No, your majesty,’ Plantano said. ‘That was Kornoth’s commission; he has not yet returned. But now we scarcely need them with all these lands in the deep South ready to join.’

‘But none of them any good, unless we can subvert the tyrant of Belknule,’ muttered Fentan Efling dourly. Qhelvin, absorbed wholly in the outline of the Queen’s nude shoulder, said nothing.

‘Yes, damn him,’ growled Tersimio. ‘Pelthar, Zaproll, Ul Raambar and a half-dozen others either firmly committed or can be persuaded to his highness’s cause by Winter’s end; and Belknule so positioned that none of them can easily reach Tarendahardil without Yorkjax’s consent – and even then, only at the risk that Yorkjax might invade their lands while all their soldiers joined us against Ara-Karn.’

‘A genuine enough risk,’ added Bistro, leaning over the railing to watch the birds soaring about the cliffs far below. ‘He was ever too jealous of his power to let even friendly troops cross his lands; how then would he take to troops in the cause of Tarendahardil? His fortress-city’s placed at a bend of the river, too: a difficult maiden to woo.’

Qhelvin threw down his brush in disgust and strode away from the portrait to the balcony to brood. Bistro, seeing the look in his eyes, stepped cautiously back into the chamber. The Empress, thus released, relaxed her posture and accepted a sweet-pie and goblet of wine from one of her maidens, trusted enough to be allowed to attend here. After a moment Qhelvin returned sighing, regarding what he had wrought with hopeless dismay.

‘This is a foredoomed failure,’ he muttered, stroking his amber mustaches. ‘And as for Belknule, my lords, have I not told you force is out of the question? This League will be tenuous enough without using brutality with our neighbors. They are too greatly afraid of the imperial ambitions of the Bordakasha even now.’

‘Qhelvin speaks truth,’ said the Queen soothingly. ‘He is the most able and subtlest of all our agents, which is why his task is the most difficult. Yet Qhelvin, is there no gain there?’

‘A bit,’ he answered, glancing from her to the board. ‘I have made contact with a few more nobles. No doubt they all hate their tyrant enough, but for the present fear quells them. They want further assurances. A messenger is due soon with word of our next secret meeting; I’ll see what can be done. Your majesty, the pose again, if you will – yes, head a bit higher. Yes.’

He fell to painting furiously while the others continued their discussions. Shortly a slave entered and prostrated himself before the presence. ‘Your August Majesty, the guardsmen await with the Gerso Charan Ennius Kandi.’

‘Let them wait,’ she said. Bistro laughed.

‘Your majesty did not jest then, when you said you’d ordered the guard to collect him?’ He chuckled. ‘And not a word of explanation for him, either! That will cool the fellow’s insolence!’

‘That is a surly puppy,’ said Tersimio. ‘As your majesty asked, I also sounded him. I cannot say I like his manners much.’

‘When did Ancha ever love Gerso?’ asked Qhelvin, wiping at his brushes. ‘Come, my lords, this is but unreasoning prejudice on your parts. I can tell you he is cleverer than he would have you believe. And he knows more of statecraft than perhaps any of us here, her majesty only excepted. If you have thought him insolent, it is only because he has no patience for fools. And more I will say: if he consents to join us, it will be for no gold or power, but only out of love, and a desire to be avenged on those who wronged him. Your majesty, I can do no more on this. It will take rest and more thought before I can approach it properly again.’

‘Very well,’ she said, rising from the low-backed chair and walking gracefully to the balcony. There she stretched slightly, the mountain airs playing with the few unpinned curls about her brow. A ways beyond, a gerlin floated unmoving in the currents. Allissál rolled back her head to unkink the joints of her throat, gleaming in its prison of gold wire. ‘My lords, we thank you as ever for your unstinting efforts on our son’s behalf. Now you may leave us: we would speak with this Gerso in private.’

They bowed to her in turn and took her hand to their lips. Then by a side door they departed, followed by two of the maidens bearing away the painting and Qhelvin’s brushes. The Sorean lingered somewhat, regarding her majesty where she stood.

‘Did you really think so much of him, Qhelvin?’ she asked after a space.

‘Shall I tell your majesty what we did? I spoke no word of statecraft at the first, merely representing myself as a fellow exile, though exiled by choice and politics. He responded agreeably enough, though assuredly he knew the heart of my purpose. I took him on a tour of the city, and we ended by drinking our way through the Thieves’ Quarter, talking art and politics. Oh, he can be a grand fellow. This much I can tell, that not wine nor women’s charms will serve to loosen his tongue – which is more than I can say of those poor fellows yonder.’

‘Again in that abode of evils, Qhelvin?’ she chided. ‘And how often have we warned you of the dangers of going unattended through the Thieves’ Quarter?’

He smiled, and shrugged his shoulders, as if the thing were beyond his power, but amusing all the same. Then his face darkened into seriousness. ‘Your majesty, I can, I think, see a little below the surface. If it be your wish, could I attend you in the interview and take the Charan of Rukor’s place?’

‘Nay, Qhelvin: and we would be a poor monarch if we were unable to review the case of a single fugitive adventurer!’ So he bowed, and departed after the others. Then the Queen’s smile faded somewhat nervously, and she turned again into the winds; but the bird had gone.

‘Bid them let him enter now,’ she said to the slave behind her.

* * *

Freely and easily he entered and came to bow to her, as if these opulent surroundings impressed him not at all; but his insolence went unnoticed, for the Queen still stood with her back to him.

‘Greetings, your August Majesty,’ he said, not waiting to be addressed. ‘Al-Kosha d'Alastaphele muuric Vaghantiuc?’

‘We do not understand that tongue, Charan of Elsvar,’ she said, looking out over the land-covering spires and domes of her city. ‘Please to speak Bordo.’

‘Very well, your majesty,’ he said, as if disappointed.

‘What tongue was that, by the way? Some dialect of your homeland?’

‘No, your majesty. From farther off than Gerso.’

Rather annoyed at the bantering tones of his voice, she turned to study him. She saw him now in light and near to her for the first time. His figure was fine and graceful, leaner and hardened beyond the strength of most nobles. His features were ascetically fine, yet the lips were sensual and rather cruel – lips that had tasted things, many of them bitter, which few of sense or timidity would have dared essay. Yet it was his eyes marked him most. At first, at their meeting in the Council Hall, Allissál had thought his eyes were dark and calm, rather like Ampeánor’s; now she saw they were different. Strange hints of fire dwelt within those eyes, the color of lamplight shining on polished jade, and burning with strange power. Those eyes roamed the length of her body now and she could see he was studying her, even as she examined him. She turned again to the railing, trying to keep Qhelvin’s words in mind. ‘This is your first visit to our city, is it not, Charan Kandi?’

‘Yes, your majesty. She is truly wonderful. I had expected beauty, but the loveliness I find before me is greater even than I had dreamed.’

She returned to the low-backed chair, determined not to let his ill breeding annoy her. After all, it was said that those of Gerso were little better than their barbarian neighbors. ‘We know something of the characteristics of the Gerso people, sir; and yet you are unlike them to our eyes. Would you like wine?’

‘Thank you. Your majesty is most observant. I am from the mountains beyond Gerso, as I have said. Only the snowbound peaks separate us from the barbarians, and like them we are born harder and raised more vigorously than the men of the lower passes with whom your majesty is undoubtedly more familiar. Also,’ he added dryly, ‘I have been told I am something of a throwback, resembling the dead spirits of our ancestors.’

So men said of Ampeánor, she thought. Yet surely no two men so alike in one way could be so more unlike in all others. ‘Why have you come here?’

‘To find you.’

‘Us?’

‘I saw Gerso fall,’ he said simply. ‘Also Ancha and Eliorite; and with each conquest seeming easier than the one before, I moved on to the next city, each time more dispirited. When Carftain fell I cast my eye about. It was then I thought of you – and Tarendahardil. They say this is a city that will never fall until the end of our very civilization is nigh. I was growing weary of flight.’

‘You would rather have fought?’

He shrugged. ‘I am but one man. How could I, a man alone, oppose a great horde?’

‘You seem to know much of these barbarians; often you have seen them fight. Tell us and speak truly: have we a chance to defeat them?’

‘From what I have heard and seen, your majesty, you have every chance in the world, if you are not betrayed.’

‘Well, there is no danger of that: we are surrounded only by loyalty. Yet what of you, Charan? Have you lost all to this barbarian?’

‘I own the clothes you see, some armor, a sword, a horse, a mule, a servant, and this dagger. Nothing else.’

‘Have you no relatives who might succor you?’

‘All my kin are dead. The woman I loved – well, I think she is dead.’

‘We grieve for your loss, Charan Kandi.’ She asked him for no further details. In truth, she had expected no less. It was said that the barbarians had ravished Gerso utterly, putting every man and boy to death and enslaving every woman worth preserving; and that of all the thousands of Gersos, less than one in twenty had escaped alive. It was a rarity even to see a refugee from that city. ‘Do you not hate the barbarians?’

‘As much as any other man with so much cause.’

She leaned forward. ‘What would you give to see them and their leader Ara-Karn destroyed, as they were in times past?’

‘My life?’

She sat back, pondering him. ‘Why do you say that as if you had doubts?’

‘It would take my life. I have nothing else of value, if indeed that has any. Yet what purpose could it serve? After all, what am I compared with Ara-Karn?’

‘In compact with others you might do much. If we could show you such a way, what then? Would you be willing to give your life?’

‘What way, your majesty?’

‘Accept service with us here, under the standard of our son.’

He smiled; not a happy smile. ‘I have seen the prince,’ he said slowly. ‘He impressed me as being very like – another I once knew, who was very close to me.’

She looked at him, curious about this enigmatic man, who was so different from the others she had used. ‘And where is your friend now?’

‘Dead,’ he said flatly. ‘Long dead.’

‘We grieve for you.’

He shook his head. ‘No matter. In a way, he deserved his death. He had done nothing useful in his life, and died, as he had lived, a fool.’

‘We hope you do not mean to imply—’

‘Certainly not; how could it be so? Yet in the name of my departed friend, I would offer your majesty a word of warning, if you would he so gracious to accept it.’

‘We will accept it. What is the warning?’

‘This: beware all regents.’

She frowned. ‘Have you anything specific to say to us?’

He shook his head. ‘But well I know the character of those who hold power in another’s name.’

She leaned back, sipping her wine elegantly, studying him. He smiled courteously and went to regard the tapestries at the far wall. A dim voice spoke in warning from deep within her. Certainly he had looked at her as no servant ought.

And what, she mused softly, would Ampeánor think of you? Accept you or speed you on your way? You are hiding something, that is clear – yet you are surely no spy of Dornan Ural’s. It would not be his way. And we need more agents, especially in Ampeánor’s absence. But even so, I wonder whether it would not be better to banish you from the court. So she turned the matter over in her mind, doubting and wanting at once, and in the end it was impatience that decided her. Was she only the woman Dornan Ural thought her after all, unable to decide alone?

‘Have you ever heard of the League of Elna?’ she said aloud.

Against the far wall he nodded, rather too casually. ‘In Carftain they spoke of it; before that I heard a word from the governor of Eliorite. But since my arrival here I have seen no evidence of it.’

‘It is not intended to be seen. It is not the policy of the High Council; it is solely of our own devising, based upon the ancient, ante-imperial League formed by Elna. In the spring of next year, our son, the Prince Elnavis, will be crowned Emperor in the Hall of Kings and anointed in the Brown Temple. We have been awaiting that event for years; yet if the barbarians lay waste the North and then cross the Taril, as we fear they will, there will be little left for our son to rule. So we make our preparations. Many are the suppliants who have come here to the court, able men of noble birth who, like you, have been stripped of all rank, wealth and hope by the barbarians. We have made them welcome here; in return they offer us service. They have become the agents of our son’s cause, embarking from the quarters we give them here in the Palace and the City upon ambassadorial missions. For tokens, they bear our rings but no written words; for this must remain for now a secret thing.

‘We are bargaining with other nations of the South to put aside petty jealousies to fight the common foe, Ara-Karn. Pacts and treaties are presently being negotiated. None bear force of law now, of course, since the High Council is the official governing body of Tarendahardil. But the moment Elnavis takes up the Ivory Scepter those treaties will be in force. Then there will come into being a mighty army culled from all the nations of the League; and our son will command it.

‘By that time it is hoped the barbarian will have come not much farther than the Taril, that great sunward desert barrier between North and South. Ara-Karn will not cross that desert unless it be his intention to try to subjugate the South; if he does cross, we will be ready. Our son, at the head of forces twelvefold as great as those of the barbarians, will hammer them back into the desert. Then he will give chase: push them back beyond Gerso: and, Goddess willing, do what even Elna could not – destroy their breed, utterly and for all time. As one of our agents, your task will be to ensure that such an army awaits our son’s coronation.’

He nodded, his eyes dark against the outer sky. The man was so difficult to read!

‘We have now eight agents. You will be the ninth. Regrettably, we cannot say that you will find any of your compatriots from Gerso among us. We have interviewed one or two, but deemed them too timid or mercantile or otherwise unsuited; yet you seem a different sort from them. You will be the Gerso among us. We have revealed to you here secrets known to not a dozen others; you now hold our hopes, our dreams, our very life in your hands. If the High Regent were to learn of all we do, there would be an end to us, and we would be watched and guarded like a child. Will you now serve us in the name of Elnavis, the future Emperor of the South?’

He was standing by the balcony, watching the clouds drawing their shadows across the fair city below. He regarded his winecup for a moment, toying with it; then emptied it in a draught. ‘If it is so short a time before his highness assumes the throne, why do you let him risk his life upon this expedition? Surely any experience he gains in the field will not be worth this risk?’

She sighed. ‘Because our son is of a hasty temperament; and once fired to a task, is impossible to restrain. Too, the other generals and captains of the South will be reluctant to trust their men’s lives to his leadership unless he proves his abilities. Also – well, if it is true that Elnavis has played overmuch here amid the decadence of the court, he has done so only out of boredom and the lack of duties. The promise of greatness is there. He needs but a task or some harshness to temper him. Let him now only do this Ara-Karn battle before the walls of Mersaline, and his true nature will shine forth.’

‘Your majesty places a heavy burden on the prince’s shoulders: few spirits indeed could bear up under it. Why do you think he will be able to do so?’

‘Because he is Bordakasha,’ she answered. ‘You seem to think little enough of our son’s abilities, for one who has shown so little valor on your own part. Yet there is something we can show you, to resolve your doubts.’

* * *

Attended by one of her maidens, she led him down the passageways of the Palace and up the broad spiraling stairs of the White Tower. She walked briskly and ahead of him and (rather to her disappointment) he was content to know his place, so that they exchanged no words. At the uppermost landing of the tower, the two guardsmen opened the heavy oaken doors of her chambers before them, and she entered with the Gerso into her hollow, rounded dimchamber.

There a shrinelike niche was cut into one of the curving stone walls opposite her bed. The niche was covered over with an orange hanging. This Allissál struck aside, and lifting the lamp the maiden had lighted for her, displayed the contents of the niche.

‘This,’ she said, ‘is the most precious object in all the Empire.’

Within the niche stood a long, thin tablet of stone, chipped about its edges, discolored with the lamp-smoke of many years. Across the face of it many lines of dense, inscrutable charactery were carved.

‘This,’ she said softly, with a nod of her head dismissing the maiden, ‘was cut by the courtly clerks in the earliest passes of this Empire under the direction of Elna himself, when he had just returned from his conquests over the barbarians, and when this very Citadel was not even begun. We discovered it years ago in the old archives, buried in caverns deep beneath the cellars of the Palace, within the depths of this very mountain. Can you read it, Charan?’

He shook his head.

‘These words were spoken by the Prophetess of Goddess. No doubt even you of Gerso have heard of her; she was a great figure in those times, whose words would sway kings. She it was who forecast the League to Elna, when the barbarians still ravaged all the lands of the South. It was said she was ancient beyond time and had never known the love of a man. Now, of course, we are wiser than the peoples of those rude times, and much advanced: our Prophetess is only an old woman elected from among the Priestesses, a mere puppet of their caste; and the tablets of the true Prophetess’s sayings lie forgotten in those unvisited crypts. Yet I have visited there, and much that she spoke of has indeed come to pass. This prophecy regarded the final age of the Empire, what she called the Age of Jade and Iron. Beyond this, even her vision did not stretch: legend has it she died in agony mere hours after uttering these verses in drug-induced frenzy.’

She paused, gazing at the tablet; then began whisperingly to read. Her voice swelled as she read; the Gerso watched her sea-gray eyes, full lips, and the burnished shimmer of her hair, as if these were the key to a greater riddle than was writ upon the tablet.

When that which Elna forged of iron,

grows soft with golden age,

A storm will grow in Northern lands,

and the Riders again will rage.

The man will come, descent of God,

and Death shall be his child.

Against him naught avails or stands,

not beast nor man nor stonework piled.

The hero, the monster, the slayer of women,

his yellow fires will burn —

And all nations serve him, and call him King:

and Elna will return!

The voice of the Queen faded, but the words still hung about her dimchamber, shuddering with the flame-dispelled gloom. The Queen remained staring down upon the tablet, her eyes strange, as if ensorcelled: as if cast back upon the shores of some former life, and only now awakening to a time and term unfamiliar. Then, gradually, the dying whispers of antiquity faded, and the spell ebbed away.

‘Powerful words,’ she whispered at last, shattering the stillness. ‘Never, even in so many times, have they failed to move me deeply. Still do I remember when I first saw them, during my first month here, when my son was forming in my belly unknown to me. Even then, I thought these were the times of which she spoke. When my son was born, I took it for an omen and named him Elnavis, both in tribute to my great ancestor and that he might be the one mentioned in the verse. And when this past spring, the word came that Gerso was fallen and the barbarians newly risen, my hope was certainty, and I began to lay my plans. These are the times of the prophecy. And the barbarians will not be stopped until my son, the second Elna, rides against them!

‘Regard the words again. Is not my son descent of gods indeed? Our line came of Elna’s mating with Goddess; Elna himself claimed dark God for his father; and am I not called the incarnation of Goddess upon the earth? – and do they not further say it was dark God took me to beget Elnavis? Is not my son’s hair golden; and what else could the “golden fires” mentioned here mean? My son must be the one she foresaw. The nations of the South will follow him to victory. The destiny of the Empire is to be reborn. A new season of glory lies open before us!

‘Only a handful know of these words now; yet at my son’s coronation they will be broadcast throughout the South. And you may have a share in this. Now, you have nothing but the rags upon your back and a detestation for those who wronged you. You seek vengeance: I can see it in your eyes. Join us, and gain that vengeance – and the return of your lands in Gerso and high rank in my son’s court as well. Will you not join us, Charan Kandi?’

There was sadness in his dead eyes, and the unforsaken regret of one long exiled from his home. Yet at the same time she saw there a hunger unlike any she had ever known before. ‘Nothing in this world can dissuade you of this, I see,’ he said. ‘I will join you.’

‘Then bend your knee and take our hand.’ The great rings of state and seal glittered in the lamplight. He bent, and took the hand before his lips. ‘Do you swear to be a true servant to our son?’

‘By all that men hold holy, by all that I desire,’ he said, looking up at her, ‘I swear.’

There was neither regret nor sadness in his eyes now.

VI

The Spoil of the Barbarian King

AMPEÁNOR LEANED upon the low parapet and shaded his eyes with the flat of his gloved hand. He had been awakened from a doze by the stirrings of the Carftainians. Now he saw what had stirred them. At the end of the road, a small dark speck was crawling. It stretched and grew, and behind it rose pale, earthborn clouds.

The Tezmonian guards muttered among themselves.

‘Courage,’ said the High Charan of Rukor.

Soon the line was manifestly a mass of horsemen. Too distant to be heard, their numbers emerged slowly from the depths of dun-colored clouds, a mute inhuman horde. Ampeánor guessed at their numbers – five thousand, perhaps. Yet he had more men than that just guarding the city walls.

The riders came on. Now their long, unkempt hair could be seen, streaming out beneath the ends of their battered, bloodstained helmets. Their armor glinted in the sunlight, and the swords they held on high were notched and dirtied with the life’s-blood of the thousands they had butchered in their rampaging on the hither side of Gerso. The wind rose slightly, carrying the dust and a faint odor as of a myriad sweating, unbathed bodies, to the walls. With the stench came a distant moaning in the air: the dull thunder of the horses’ approach, and above it the rising howls of savage bloodlust. They came on, growing; and the sounds grew with them. They came on, motley in their looted bits of armor and plundered weaponry. They came on, and in their fists they waved strange instruments of curved wood.

‘Bows,’ growled one of the Carftainians.

Ampeánor looked again. The barbarians were so close now that he could see the things quite clearly. ‘They do not look so fearsome,’ he commented.

‘Wait and watch,’ spat the Carftainian.

Almost as soon as the words were spoken, the barbarians wheeled and rode in long lines parallel to the walls. With undisciplined movements, they came gradually to form close ranks; then began to ride slowly forward once again. They raised the long bows in their mailed fists. From pouches slung at the sides of their saddles they drew the slender shafts: death-birds, as the barbarians had named them. They drew back the bows, taking careful aim. Along the wall the defenders stood still, fascinated by the spectacle of it. It seemed unreal; not a man of them spoke or lifted weapon, not even the Rukorian. The tension and the fear filled the air like a damp mist off the sea, slowly bedewing a traveler’s cloak.

A thousand strings sounded their low notes; a thousand arrows flew.

A dozen guardsmen about Ampeánor uttered choked cries and put their hands to their throats, their breasts, their legs, their loins. Long feathered arrows protruded from their bodies like branches from a coslin tree; but around these branches spurted brown and purple blood. They tottered forward, death-rattle sounding from the backs of their throats; and they pitched forward over the edge of the walls. Ampeánor swung his head to both sides: all along the northern wall the same grisly scene was taking place. The bodies fell like sacks of meal to the rocky ground, and rolled down the slope to before where the barbarians sat astride their steeds. They rode laughing forward, trampling the corpses under hoof, turning what had once been guardsmen of Tezmon into muddy red pulps in armor.

Again the bows sang, and again, and more guards fell screaming to their doom; and yet again it happened. Ghastly death swarmed the long stone walls; and the barbarians laughed like Madpriests at the sight. The guards shivered, their knees swaying in terror; and those who yet lived fell to their bellies, and cowered behind the protection of the low stone parapets. Even the Carftainians sat down, only their helms and hate-ridden eyes showing above the stone. And soon only Ampeánor of Rukor stood above the crimsoned walls.

Up and down the deserted walls he stalked, his shield bristling with forty long-feathered arrows; and he stormed above the barbarians in his wrath. ‘Cowards!’ he yelled at them in their own tongue, which he had learned with Allissál. ‘Put away those things and fight us like men!’

‘Ha!’ came a husky cry.

One of the savages rode forward. The others broke and made way for him. He rode a tremendous black stallion, and his armor glittered with gilt in the autumn sun. He dwarfed all the others: his massive shoulders seemed solid as stones, and his arms like rocky reaches of coastline, the bursting veins like rivulets cutting through the stone. His black mane was grizzled and cut square about his huge corded neck; and his face, for he disdained the wearing of helmet, was a madman’s ill dream. Ampeánor, even the Charan of Rukor, felt his soul quail for a moment at the sight of this demon-sprung man. Could this be the dreaded Ara-Karn? If so, it made all the legends seem plausible.

‘Ha!’ roared the giant. ‘And do you silken bastards fight like men? Come out from behind your little walls, and then we’ll fight with sword and lance! Dogs hiding in their kennels deserve to be slain like dogs.’ He turned back to the ten thousand mounted demons that followed him. A single massive scarred arm rose and fell; a single hoarse shout issued from the bearded mouth:

‘Up the walls, men, and at them!’

Crude ladders were hurled up against the ramparts, and the barbarians clambered up, agile despite their armor. Like an army of great-beetles they seemed, as they swarmed up crumbling walls. Others sowed the walls with arrows for their reaping brethren.

The first of the barbarians reached the summit of the wall, great broadsword in hand; but Ampeánor leapt to meet him, standing so that his foe’s body would serve as a shield against any arrows from below. He drove his ash lance forward; and beneath his mail the corded muscles, so hardened by the weeks of dragging stone and mortar, twisted and bulged. The Raamba steel shot into the body of the savage, flesh burst and bone snapped, the body fell like stone to the blood-soaked rocks. He beat the next man after him, and with a mighty straining hurled back the ladder and the dozen men still clinging to it.

But even Ampeánor of Rukor was but a single man. To either side of him the barbarians overran the walls, killing guardsmen right and left. The guardsmen outnumbered the barbarians, but they could not hope to match their battle frenzy. And still were they trembling for fear of the arrows, which would pick off any man not closely engaged with one of the enemy. Some in their terror leapt from the walls, and ran back into the shadows of the city streets.

Ampeánor reluctantly fell back with them, organizing the retreat as best he could. He knew now that he had blundered terribly, in not realizing the deadly accuracy of those damnable bows.

‘We must fall back into the city,’ he rasped harshly to any who yet retained enough reason to heed him. ‘Fight where the bows will do them no good – around the corners of buildings, in alleyways – wherever you may come upon a few of them in close quarters! Give back, and the victory may yet be ours! Still we outnumber them!’

But few had the wits to heed him. Not even the Carftainians would listen; but leaping upon the rising barbarians with a hatred that knew neither bows nor fear, they came at last to bloody grips with their hated Enemy. Bleeding from a score of wounds would they fall upon the barbarians; cursing, they threw aside shattered weapons and fell fist and knee upon the invaders. The last of them died horribly, mutilated, one-handed, one-footed and driven through with seven arrows. Shrieking he died, with a howl as fearsome as any of the barbarians’.

The savages cried raw victory on the walls now, holding them now alone. They swung down over the gates and swept them open. A surge of black-maned, wild-eyed, demon-horsed men poured through, the giant Ara-Karn at their head. They hacked and slashed with blood-thirsty gusto until there was none to face them; then they laughed, and began to ride the streets of the forced city.

Ampeánor fell back before them through the hushed, shadowed stalls of the deserted bazaar. He could still form a core of resistance in the block of merchants’ houses in the acropolis. There they might give battle at each building, chamber and alleyway, where the bows of the enemy, more suited to open combat, would be of little use. It was still not too late to save the city if only enough stout men could be found.

But before him, all were fleeing. They were running down to the docks, there to ship on whatever sails remained. Already he could see the masses leaping off the stone quays, swimming after ships already out to harbor. Screaming panic ran before him, armed guards thrusting old women from their path in their haste. And behind them came the steady, inexorable thunder of the barbarians swarming through the city.

Ampeánor paused. He was out of breath; his sword weighted his arm as if it had been made of solid gold. He leaned against the side of a building in a darkened alleyway, regaining his breath. Men and women ran past him, but they did not see the man in the shadows – the man who had come to defend their city.

He thrust himself away from the wall. He flexed his muscles, and twisted his neck back beneath the heated metal of his armor. Then it was that the son of the house of the Torvalen and hereditary ruler in the Imperial province of Rukor turned. Not for him was flight. The ancient fighting spirits of his ancestors had been reborn with him: he was no indolent, weak old fool in the thrall of a debauched woman, as his father had been. Unknown generations back, a Torval had fought at Elna’s side in the siege of Urnostardil. That man’s spirit had been reborn in him now; and he would do it justice, even if it meant his death.

He thought of all that he had to live for: young Elnavis, his land of Rukor, the sense-maddening Allissál. He wanted to live; but he would not, could not, flee from his enemies. He began walking back up the street, his strides devouring the cobblestones. His eyes were dark with fatality in the shadow of his visor. He would fight, and kill; and killing, die. He asked no more of fate or God than that.

Three barbarians turning the corner all but ran into him. Their surprise at finding anyone who would still stand up to them made them pause stupidly: before they could collect themselves they lay dead on the cobblestones. Ampeánor wiped his blade of blood, and strode on.

More barbarians came. He fought them all. Not a step did he give back. On the steps of an ancient temple of Goddess, he put his back against the stone pillar, and gave death to all those who dared ascend the steps. The image of the burning, pillaged city and the mad harbor swam before his eyes. He was near madness with battle and death. His limbs moved of their own accord, hacking and thrusting. The bodies began to pile about his feet; he grunted, and kicked them down the steps to gain footroom. His arms were leaden with weariness. The salt sweat, mixed with acrid blood, dripped stingingly into his eyes, and oozed between his lips. He saw Allissál then, in his last moments of life: golden and soft and scented, fresh from her luxurious bath, a great soft towel draped about her glorious body for a moment, then falling tauntingly to the mosaic tiles.

A harsh laugh roused him. He looked up, even as his arms dealt the death-blow to one of the barbarians.

In the street below, the dark-haired giant Ara-Karn was sitting casually upon his stallion, regarding Ampeánor amusedly.

‘Come hither!’ he croaked through mashed and horrible lips. No one in all the lush South, not even Allissál herself, would have recognized the Charan of Rukor in this blood-spattered, sweating, swearing, ferocious swordsman before whom even the fierce barbarians fell back in awe. ‘Come hither, Ara-Karn, and I will give you some of what I give your men!’

The giant on the stallion scowled momentarily, then laughed. He gestured with the iron hand, a casual, insolent gesture.

‘Take him alive,’ the giant said.

The barbarians climbed again those crimsoned, gut-strewn steps.

Ampeánor leaned wearily against the broad, cool pillar, awaiting them.

Driven by fear of their leader and a desperate desire to prove themselves a match for this lone Southron, the barbarians came. They swarmed over him all at once, and his burdened arms fought back with ever lessening speed and strength; but still he began to move and force them back, and work his way achingly toward the giant on the black stallion. Yet in doing so he must needs leave the protection of the pillar of the temple of Goddess. Two engaged him on the right, another on the left; his sword in one hand and a long, murderous dagger in the other, he fought them off. A fourth man stood behind him, bringing a heavy war axe turned flatways. Ampeánor saw it but an instant; then the weapon crashed against his helm, denting it inward, bringing sparks glittering before his eyes. His tongue lolled in his mouth, dry like linen; he could not swallow. Still he fought on, as in a dream: as under water, his limbs waving languidly like seaweed beckoning by the sides of the great white breakwaters.

Again the war axe fell, and again; and with it fell Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor.

VII

A Far-Off Note of Anvils

THERE WAS TO BE a staging of the Ilazrius by the satirist Metrobal at the Chiral Theater, the largest and finest in the city; and as it was rumored the Divine Queen herself might attend, most of the court also appeared. The play featured Alcibarin in the title role, and presented, beneath a transparent veil of the story of Ilazrius the Swift’s first journey to the city of Vapio, a bitterly mordant assault upon the morals and characters of most of those present. It was immensely well received.

Between plays the highborn presented themselves before her majesty, among them the Chara of Corthio.

‘No, there is still no word from Mersaline of Elnavis, Ilal,’ Allissál answered her. ‘Be sure, you will hear of him as soon as we.’

‘Surely not earlier than Dornan Ural?’ the lady asked mischievously.

‘Not if he continues to pursue you about the city like some graying, fat huntdog on the blood,’ rejoined the Queen, laughing.

‘I confess, he is making affairs rather difficult for me,’ Ilal said with a show of pretty ruefulness. ‘Though not, of course, so difficult as things have been for the Chara Ruma and a certain gentleman dancer from the Thieves’ Quarter. You have perhaps already heard?’

‘Have you mind for nothing but such dancings, Ilal?’ Allissál asked shortly.

‘Why, is there anything else?’

‘Philosophy – art – power – history – glory.’

The Chara of Corthio laughed. ‘Shadows of dreams, all! Those two orbs in heaven are the origin of all our coming to light. Goddess and God are my paired master elements, and all that passes between them my philosophy. All else is mere contingency.’

Having presented the prizes, Allissál returned to the Citadel, where she met with her agents in secret, in a chamber whose walls and ceiling were painted with happy pastoral scenes of handsome young shepherds and beguiling dairymaids. It matched well her mood, for she too had enjoyed the Ilazrius; besides which, early that waking a letter had arrived from Ampeánor, explaining his delay and his hopes for Tezmon.

Attending this meeting to offer her the news of their latest journeys on her son’s behalf were Tersimio, Bistro, Fentan Efling, Kornoth and one or two others. Last to arrive was Qhelvin of Sorne, in deep purple and pale gold of the latest fashion, all smiles and good cheer. He settled himself upon a cushioned sill and began to stroke a silver-clasped aliset, singing to their great delight: for progress in all the lands had been excellent, and the League of Elna now all but given fact. Only the fear with which the little nations regarded Tarendahardil’s ambitions now delayed it. And that would surely be dispelled by the commitments of Pelthar, once known as Aruna when part of the Empire, and now leader of those onetime provinces. And thither the new agent from Gerso had recently been sent, to gather King Orolo’s signature upon all the articles of the concords with Tarendahardil.

Allissál grew merry to hear their words of cheer, and Qhelvin’s witty songs; and much laughter and many jests were passed back and forth. She gave the contents of Ampeánor's letter, at which they all expressed confidence that all should be prepared for the prince well in advance of his taking of the Ivory Scepter. It was into the midst of these happy notes that a slave came to abase herself and announce the appearance of the Gerso.

‘Word from Pelthar so soon? He must have sprouted wings.’ The Queen smiled eagerly. ‘Hurry then and let him in.’ The maid fell again to the floor and backed from the presence.

‘He was quick about it at least,’ said Fentan Efling.

‘Well, but,’ shrugged the Ancha, ‘it was only the task of a messenger after all. Orolo had already been convinced, by me and others; needed but be shown the documents guaranteeing Bordakasha declaration of Pelthar’s independence to give his signature.’

‘Yet my lord, even you must admit it argues good horsemanship,’ said Qhelvin mockingly, stroking the strings of his aliset. The doors opened, and the Gerso entered.

All heads were turned to him, but those of Tersimio, Bistro, and Fentan Efling had lost their smiles. Kornoth looked upon the newcomer with a touch of faintly disdainful curiosity. Only Qhelvin of Sorne seemed glad to see him. To each of them the Gerso inclined his head, with an ironical smile upon his cruel lips; then approached the Queen.

‘Well, Charan Kandi,’ she said, raising him, ‘you were swift on this first mission in our son’s behalf. What news from Pelthar?’

‘Exceedingly good, your majesty. His Majesty Orolo is prepared to sign all documents.’

‘That was the state of the thing before you left,’ she said. ‘Do you mean that Orolo has yet to sign them?’

‘Regrettably yes, your majesty.’

‘Damn your regrets!’ swore Bistro. ‘I was last to see this little monarch, and then he was all eagerness to give seal! Why, his country is impoverished since the wars – they all depend upon a supply of bandarskins to put into cloaks and rugs.’

‘His majesty remains eager,’ replied the Gerso coolly. ‘Yet his people still recall the rule of Tarendahardil and the high tribute they were forced to pay with some bitterness, it would seem. They fear nothing more than the shadow of this Black Citadel.’

‘We instructed you in this when you left us,’ Allissál said, perplexed. ‘It was no different when Bistro or Tersimio went to meet with Orolo. You did not say anything that might give him pause, did you, Charan?’

‘All I did was pay homage to the beauty, subtlety and ambition of your majesty. He seemed to have had the notion your majesty was no more than some vain pleasure-adoring Vapionil lady, which might have given him doubts on your majesty’s abilities to oversee so vast and deep an enterprise.’

‘Well, what did you tell him?’ asked Tersimio.

‘Why, my lord, I merely spoke of the craft of kings as I understand it: how it is always best for a monarch to seem less able than he is, and his ambitions be underestimated, so that he may always deliver to his people more than they expected while at the same time never raising hopes that he will do things that later turn out to be beyond his power, or interest, to accomplish: and how this mask of idleness will serve to delude his enemies. Well, we spoke of several things, I cannot recall them all. I was generous in my promises to his majesty – indeed, I rather exceeded my instructions in my eagerness to sway him.’

‘Such as?’ asked Fentan Efling.

‘Why, only that Pelthari troops would ever be in the place of honor, fore- and center-most, in all the battles of the League; and that if too many Pelthari fell to glory, the Empress would be only too glad to provide Imperial lancers to protect the peace and borders of her honored friend. I also assured him that the Empire has never considered the tribute levied from Aruna in the past to have been vital, though I understand it was considerable: and that the Empire would never consider anything more than to ask a small loan from them.’

‘What was this of a loan?’ she asked. ‘Did we not explain that the bankruptcy of Pelthar was the prime reason for her desire to join the League?’

‘Of course; but I know these merchants, your majesty. I was raised in a city of them, after all: not a one but pleads poverty with vaults piled high with gold. Pelthar has monies enough, and Orolo was a poor fool if he thought to deceive us – which he did not. He understands payment will be demanded, and would grow suspicious if I misrepresented the case to him. In truth, I fail to understand your concern. Orolo is as eager as ever to sign the concordat; it is rather his people who worry. So soon as others have openly joined the League, Pelthar will also.’

‘It was in the very role of first we so counted upon Orolo,’ she mused. ‘He is the leader of these smaller kingdoms.’

Qhelvin, who had been frowning in thought, now asked, ‘Ennius, did you bring up these matters, or did the king? And were there any foreigners in attendance at Orolo’s court?’

‘There were half a dozen Belknuleans who seemed high in his confidence, that I recall.’

‘Yorkjax again,’ Fentan Efling said sourly.

Qhelvin nodded. ‘That was as I thought. Your majesty, I have heard that Yorkjax has some idea of our plans, and works against us. No doubt these agents of his had poisoned Orolo’s mind against us long before Ennius reached Pelthar.’

‘Is it so?’ she wondered. ‘Then more and more it appears that a solution in Belknule is the key we seek to unlock success. In the meanwhile, we shall declare Pelthari independence now, without Orolo’s seal, and send him a train of gifts: perhaps that will restore some of his confidence in us. Bistro, you seemed to have the better side of our little king: you shall head up the train of gifts.’

‘I shall be delighted to, your majesty,’ the Eliorite said, bowing. ‘And, while there, I will see what can be done to put Belknulean bugs from the blankets.’

Qhelvin of Sorne, now with a smile playing about his lips, struck up a tune upon his aliset:

A kingdom so pretty,

A nation so witty:

Here’s where Orolo holds sway!

Yet ask him to rule her,

Be warlike – be crueler—

He’ll answer: ‘I know not the way!’

This brought them all to laughter; and the Gerso said softly, ‘You are merry this pass, my lord.’

‘And why should I not be, my friend?’ Qhelvin smiled. ‘I have had great progress with the disaffected nobles of Belknule. And these others have all had equal good fortune. Be not discouraged in this minor setback of your first mission, or think it lessens you in any of our esteem. Such things have happened, more than once, to us all. Shrug it from your mind: Pelthar was never so vital to our plans.’

‘Not a third the importance of Belknule, of course.’ The Gerso smiled. ‘Who are these nameless rebel nobles you go so often to meet, my lord?’

‘That I cannot say, my friend, not even to you: for it is not my secret but theirs – and their lives hang on it.’

‘Yet, my lord, if something should happen to you (which Goddess forfend!), there would go all of your work to ruin.’

Qhelvin shrugged and laughed. ‘The High Charan of Rukor and her majesty know the names of the leaders, and where I meet them; and those in Belknule know I am but the tool of her majesty’s desires. Another, perhaps an abler, would succeed me, and the work would go on.’ He began softly to sing another song of his, at which all their hearts were lifted. When it was done, the maiden entered again and abased herself before the Queen.

‘Your majesty, a man below requests audience, from the city of Mersaline.’

‘It seems no news may come but at dambreaking,’ she responded. ‘Admit him, and let us see what ill news this fellow bears us.’

The newcomer was a young man of middle height but good proportions, light eyes and a simple, honest manner. He approached her majesty with some nervousness, evidently awed by the splendor and size of this famous Palace. Rather awkwardly, he abased himself.

‘Good sir, you need not fall to your belly so before us,’ she said winningly, raising him. ‘Have you brought us word from our son?’

He nodded. ‘Your majesty,’ he said stiffly, as if reciting words from memory. ‘When news is looked-for, there is no speed swift enough for its telling. Yet when the news is not so hopeful there is a difficulty in deciding at what a rate to unravel it.’

‘Your discretion is appreciated, sir,’ she said with a humorous glance at the others. ‘Yet consider for how long we have been awaiting this word. Proceed then with all swiftness, fearing no consequence of your words.’

‘Your majesty,’ he blurted, as if it broke from him, ‘your son – the prince – he’s dead.’

* * *

For some moments, there was a silence in that chamber. The Queen rose gracefully and stepped behind the divan, to where the sunlight poured through the open balcony. In her hands she held a small scroll of parchment tightly rolled, which was Ampeánor’s letter. Her back was to them, the sunlight gleaming in tight metallic arches from the bound-up hair and shoulders and golden clasps. The Mersalinal stood uncomfortably before the empty divan, putting his weight from one leg to the other. For a space the nobles stood about the chamber silently, all their eyes upon her. Qhelvin had put aside the aliset, and the Gerso stood off alone, staring at her back most intently.

Finally, slowly, she turned. Her face was a shadow in the brilliance of her sunlit hair and shoulder. ‘My lords, if you would leave us,’ she said quietly, ‘we would hear the remainder of this man’s words alone.’

When they had all gone, and only the two of them remained, the Queen came forward, and carefully arranged herself upon the divan once more. ‘Would you like wine, sir?’ she asked with a gesture as if she would wait upon him herself. The young fightingman, brave soul though he was, shook his head with a frightened look in his eyes. ‘Continue then with your tale, if you please.’

‘Your majesty, he was the breath of life to us. He arrived in the last passes of the siege, his troops beating a path through the startled barbarians. How we cheered him as he rode into the city! We were all certain the means of our deliverance had come at last. Straightaway my lord greeted his highness and met him in council. By secondhand I got the tale of it: how desperate and dismal were the charanti of our city, and how his highness renewed all their proud spirits. Not for him was waiting like an animal penned for slaughter: he would ride and gain death or victory, but glory either way. He urged an immediate massed assault upon the barbarians in the plains below the city, fields well suited for horsemen. When he’d broken through their lines, he had seen that the barbarians had only light armor and little knowledge of tactics. The Carftainians argued against it, but his highness laughed at their fears. Nor were their number so great, a large body having gone off to attack Tezmon.’

‘Tezmon? What know you of that city’s fate?’

‘Alas, your majesty, nothing. In the panic of the flight we dared not go that way, but took ship downriver in Torjulla. Yet how could little Tezmon stand with Mersaline in the dust? Of sailors, pilots and weavers they are a skillful enough race, but for warfare no better than Vapionil. Doubtless already they are defeated.’

The Queen nodded briefly. No grief sat upon her features now; but what had replaced it was even more terrible to the eyes of the young soldier. ‘Continue,’ she said in tones of iron.

‘My lord Zarendal was reborn at his highness’s words of great hope,’ he said uncertainly. ‘We assembled ranks. We of the city held the right wing, upon the left the exiles, mercenaries and outland recruits. His highness held joint generalship with my lord, and claimed for his Hunters the honor of the center. We called them that for the way they spoke of lancing the barbarians as if they had been mere beasts of the wood.’

He looked out through the balcony, his eyes unfocused in the infinite shimmering haze beyond. ‘The barbarians were assembling downfield of us in their typical ragtag fashion. We heard their screamed insults floating on the winds, and answered with a battle-hymn that they say Elna sang as he chased them through the Pass at Gerso. For a space we skirmished, each trying to gain the Goddess-end of the field. At this the barbarians proved adept. No doubt even rude tribal warfare has its points of tactics.

‘It came to a moment when Goddess was hanging in the dust-clouds upon our left hand, and neither side clear advantage. I remember, I had been prepared for long skirmishing, having been taught many’s the battle won in the first charge. Yet his highness was impatient with such flirtations. His great stallion was pawing at the earth, eager for blood and death; no less eager his rider. I looked to Goddess to mouth a prayer. Then – and I know not whether it was horse or rider, but doubt not he could control him – his highness was riding forward, and his Hunters at his tail, and all the wings suddenly surging forth irresistibly, yet the lines so well held that it seemed rather that the earth was passing us by underfoot. One advantage we had, for we charged down a slight slope.

‘I see him still, lance waving, stallion straining against harness as if to outrace its own rider. He was two lengths ahead of his standards, moving like the shadow of a wind-whipped storm cloud, dark beneath the hazy brilliance of Goddess above. Something caught in my throat at the sight of such splendor. The hoofbeats were as thunder in our ears. The standards of the Bordakasha rippled stiff in the winds. Almost I could hear the paean of victory rising in his highness’s throat, when the arrows came.

‘We knew how deadly those arrows could be: had we not cursed them most profanely, taking down the corpses of those foolhardy enough to show themselves above the walls? Yet we knew not they could be aimed with such sureness from horseback. They raked our lines with death: death, sudden and horrid beyond dreaming. Many rattled harmlessly off our armor, at which we laughed; many more found their marks, at which we fell screaming to our deaths. And one of the first to fall was his highness.’

He paused a moment, his eyes returning to the amber shadows of the painted chamber; but the Queen before him did not move or speak. He went on, tears starting to well from his light eyes.

‘I saw the shaft, swift as the shadow of a hawk, dart into the neck of his highness’s fierce dark steed. It gave a mad whinny, and down they went in a heap, and over their bodies rode the Hunters, helpless to restrain their charge or avoid the spot. The standards fell, and were likewise ridden into the dirt. Our lines grew uneven, our pace slowed; dead men tripped the legs of the living; and still the arrows came like rain. One of every ten of us was dead before we even came to grips with the enemy. Our center was eaten away, our wings tentative; the barbarians drove into us screaming, and tore us all asunder.

‘There was bloody battle then, but I expect your majesty does not care about those details. The battle did not go on for long. We were butchered by the thousand, and at last fled bleeding into the city. Mersaline was taken in the next hour, and we fled again. Not a single one of the Hunters returned to the city alive. I expect they all died with him rather than surrender the corpse: a fitting tribute of loyalty to so great a youth. When we came to Torjulla we thought first of your majesty, and came hither. Below are collected all your son’s belongings we could find. The rest are in the hands of Ara-Karn. As I left the city I could see the shadowy figures of the barbarians, already roaming the blood-soaked fields, picking clean the bodies of the dead.’

VIII

The Prisoner of Ara-Karn

DARK GOD PASSED WHEELING over the empty face of Tarendahardil, and fell alone behind the dark horizon. Then the people waiting in their chambers heard the tolling of the bells and the wailing of the women, and knew that it was time.

They emerged from black-draped dwellings and filed up streets past covered statues, mounting in silence to the great square in High Town where the royalty of Tarendahardil were entombed. Their faces were tear-streaked, their stiff robes of linen harsh upon their skin. The great square was invisible beneath them; they clustered upon nearby rooftops and hung out of windows and balconies. More tightly were they pressed here than at the docksides when they had seen the prince depart; yet here were no shouts, no elbows, and no brawls. In disbelief they gazed upon the huge, barge-shaped tomb, its newly cut blocks glittering austerely in the pale face of Goddess. They had a name for it already: they called it, the House that Ara-Karn had built.

No more than four weeks, forty passes of dark God, remained before the chill rains of winter would reach the green South; and already most of the North was in the barbarian’s hands. With Mersaline, Torjulla and Tezmon taken, the entire Vesquial coast in turmoil and Akrion and Orovil besieged, there was little hope that any there would stop the barbarian. News of fresh defeats arrived with every ship. By springtime all the North would be his, and only the warships of Rukor and the sands of the Taril would hold him from Postio, northernmost city of the South. But had they known how far he would go, or how high he aimed, then these mourners would not have stayed in weeping-weeds but taken arms in haste, and girt themselves for war.

Upon a great bier of bronze upon the marble steps were gathered the prince’s belongings, what the Mersalinals had brought back with them. Instead of a body, the prince’s ceremonial armor, which he had worn in setting forth from the city, lay in the center of the bier. Only the golden breastplate was missing, for Elnavis had insisted upon wearing that into battle, that its brilliance might serve as a beacon for the defenders; so that the heart of the armor was gone as the heart of the city was gone. The charanti and charai, weeping bitter tears, went past the bier in silence; and more than one young chara left her tears upon the cold metal, shivering liquid gems.

Beyond the bier stood the holy virgins of Goddess, wholly veiled in black, with the ritual masks of heavy gold covering their faces. So moveless did they stand, they seemed other than mortal: spirits waiting to claim the ka of the dead: the very handmaidens of Goddess who guide the souls of the deserving across the hot Desert sands to the happy lands of the dead.

Above them stood the Empress, the last surviving member of the once mighty Bordakasha. A single sheath of black linen covered her, rising in a hood to conceal the golden wonder of her hair. On her face she wore no paint. Yet though her features were scrubbed and drawn stiffly back and her lips austerely pursed, she seemed only the more beautiful, for it was a beauty pure of all artifice. From the corners of her wet-lashed eyes ran two streams of salt, which she did not wipe away. Only her arms were bare, gleaming like antique ivory against the linen, naked even of the ring that bore her seal. That treasure, the massive crude signet of Elna himself, lay upon the bier next to the silver-inlaid gauntlets.

At the Queen’s side, like the other side of some coin of fabulous value, stood the Chara Ilal of Corthio. She too was garbed simply in black, but heavy bands of gray iron weighted down her slender, elegant wrists, like the penalty-chains used upon disobedient slaves. She was there to support the Empress; but it was rather the Empress’s arm that lent her lady strength.

At either side of the bier stood the High Regents Farnese, Arstomenes, Lornof, and Dornan Ural. Now that Elnavis was no more, their Regency would be extended until such time as the Empress was permitted to marry. One regent was absent: Charan Ampeánor of Rukor had not returned from the fighting in the North, and was believed slain. The crowds of the lower quarters had all but set upon the feeble refugees from Tezmon when they had learned this news, one more ill-telling, it seemed, than they could bear. Yet none had seen him fall, and the Empress had forbidden any rites for him until the knowledge was sure. The people pitied their beloved Queen, that she should so delude herself with hope: it honed more keenly their hatred for Ara-Karn.

Of the four about the bier, Dornan Ural seemed least moved. Scarcely a tear did he shed, but simply gazed upon the empty bier with faint irony and horror in his eyes. The common folk, seeing this from a distance, muttered among themselves that the High Regent was as sparing with his tears as he was with the gold in the Treasury. Arstomenes was garbed, masked and painted like a mourner in a tragedy; yet with such art as not quite to make a mockery of it. Lornof of Fulmine sniveled and wiped his nose. Only Charan Farnese seemed deeply moved, never lifting his eyes from the scattered belongings, and shamelessly weeping the hard tears of the aged and the proud.

When the last of the nobles had passed before the bier, and the stone steps were damp with tears and strewn with the blossoms of the black chorjai flower, the High Priestess came forward, leaning heavily upon a small staff. She lifted her thin swathed arms to the bright horizon; and from behind the golden mask issued the opening chant of the Invocation to Goddess, uttered in the ancient tongue of the realm that few understood now, and that was so like the tongue of the barbarians. With the words came a chill across the folk-filled square, for a cloud was crossing the countenance of Goddess. The priestesses gave the Sign of Goddess to ward off the evil in the omen, and the High Priestess continued with her chant.

Over the cold armor she sprinkled powder, the same used on babes fresh-dripping from the womb, symbolizing the prince’s rebirth in the lands beyond. Then she began a new chant, birth-chant, and the other priestesses gathered to lift the bier. The regents drew back at this, for it was unholy that the hand of any man should touch the bronze now. Into the darkness of the tomb the virgins carried their burden, thence to emerge only when they had begun the final rites, never to be seen or spoken of by the uninitiate.

The masonwrights then performed their final task, sealing the entrance with stone; and the High Priestess stood over the blocks and whispered a prayer to seal the door with a curse. The other virgins stood on the top of the barge-shaped edifice, raising a sail of thin silk upon the tall mast. Almost immediately it bellied full of wind, a good omen now. The sail flapped and strained under the pressure of the winds. Soon it would be reduced to tatters, and the voyage of Elnavis begun; and when the last tatter was gone the people would know that the ka, the spirit of Elnavis, had come at last to the land beyond, and taken on flesh glorious, unaging, and immortal.

Throughout the vast City, so soon as that saffron sail was raised, plumed incense arose from every altar and shrine, commemorating the soul of Elnavis, who had died so young, to the care of beneficent Goddess. And due sacrifices were offered, and the bells rang out, and the women wailed, again, again, again. Silver clouds and the jade orb passed by serenely overhead and the still hours slowly passed. A brief shower came, chill with the sting of nearing winter.

Gradually the crowds thinned in the square, and the rooftops emptied, and the windows grew vacant. The people returned to their black-draped homes, there to cover every window, and light no lamp or candle, and break bread and sup water in silence, and sleep alone in remembrance. Every house of pleasure was closed, and every courtesan went to her couch alone: for wine and meat and all pleasures of the body were forbidden in this pass of mourning.

Empty, the great square was scarcely more quiet than it had been full. Even the regents went at last, singly and wordlessly, to their hushed palatial abodes.

The rain came again, dampening robes of black linen. Now there remained only the holy virgins, the chara and the Queen. Soon dark God would rise from the distant bright horizon, and whisper His words into Goddess’s ear; and the last of the rites must be completed before then. The priestesses beckoned, and the chara touched the elbow of the Empress; but the grieving mother stared heedless at the barge of harsh stone and the rending sail above. The High Priestess approached, and took the Queen’s hand; and silently, as a mother leads her bemused, infirm child, she led her majesty to the waiting litter. Behind, with the movements of a doll, came the Chara of Corthio. The aged priestess put her majesty into the litter and signed to the bearers. They took up the two litters of ebony and black silk and bore them away. Only then, in the privacy of the rain, did the priestesses ascend again the stone steps, there to do what was needful.

* * *

The funeral procession continued in the city, but high in his chambers in the Imperial Palace, the Gerso sat alone.

His windows were covered with dark hangings, and the chambers were as dark as any chamber could be. One small oil lamp flickered on the floor, throwing a yellowish stain of light across the walls.

The Gerso sat naked before that lamp. His body was bathed in laurial oil, and strange markings rippled across his skin, a charactery tortured and bent, half drawing, half writing. His dark skin gleamed also with sweat and his muscles were hard knots, so that the veins and tendons stood out.

He sat utterly still, and strove and worked against himself.

A trickle of sweat formed among the black hairs of his chest, and licked its way down over the ridges of his lean belly, to the dark root of his sex.

His fingers twitched from his left knee and the dagger flipped onto the floor before him. Between the man’s knees and the oil lamp the dagger stuck in the floor, leaning at an angle.

The pommel of the handle ended in a green orb, which was carved so that it bore in its seven facets the image of the moon’s true aspect at that very hour, as the jade chariot of dark God passed from thin crescent at its rising over the bright horizon, to the full body disc when it sank below the dark horizon.

Thus the Gerso sat naked on the floor, and the lamplight passed through the green orb and threw a sickly strange light upon him. In the shadow that his body etched on the wall from this light, something stirred.

The shadow grew large. And it crawled across the wall, to face the man.

The Gerso opened his eyes, and looked upon the thing.

‘I want her,’ he said. ‘Fetch me the heart of the Queen.’

And the thing on the wall writhed and made answer, in the manner of tongueless, mouthless, voiceless things,

Her heart I cannot give you. Her loins I can make twitch and dance, and I can topple her over into lust for you. But such things as love lie beyond my reach.

‘I want her body, not her heart,’ the Gerso said. ‘Give me her loins and her heart will follow.’

And the thing upon the wall shook with silent laughter, and flitted up through the crack between the ceiling and the wall to do its master’s bidding.

* * *

Solemnly the bearers took the litters up the silent, empty streets. They met but a few people, who bowed in silence until the litters passed. Through the barren marketplace and over the high road bridging the coomb to the Citadel the bearers took their burdens, up unto a Citadel as the priestesses had borne theirs to a tomb. And very like a tomb was that Imperial house: every face of marble draped with black, and over every window and dark doorway the hangings. Every slave was swathed in mourning; and only one in ten of the hundreds of lamps in those twisting depths was lighted, and that with wick trimmed well back. Even the great golden Disk of Goddess was covered. It was such a place where dark God Himself might feel at home, and stop to take His pleasure for a few hours.

Into those somber depths the bearers bore their burdens, separating in the innermost courtyard. The royal litter went on to the central halls; that of the Chara Ilal went to the southernmost wing, where the chara kept her chambers. In the central entrance hall the slaves put down their litter, but the Empress did not emerge. They grew worried; and at last they bent and helped her majesty forth, which she permitted with the air of one who walks abroad still dreaming. Absently, she signed for them to go. But the slaves only stood watching her ascend the curving marble stairs, tears welling in their great dark eyes.

With steady trudging steps, she ascended the many stories of her palace. The soft pad of her naked feet upon the stone did not echo off the black-draped walls. Through the murk of long slanting passageways and up coiling flights of steps she walked, where she could see nothing about her.

But her feet carried her on, knowing well the path they trod. In the darkness slaves passed the Queen without seeing her; and even, once, bumped into her, to fall back abashed and abject. Yet the Queen took no notice.

In time, the great oaken doors of her chambers presented themselves, and opened before her. She passed within, silent as a specter come to haunt its onetime abode. The great doors swung shut behind her, closing with a mocking ring of gray iron. At the sound, the Queen’s shoulders began to fall and her posture slumped. Each step seemed slower and more burdensome than the one before. Then a hand gripped hers, and a strong arm went around the small of her back, and she looked blankly up into the face of Ennius Kandi.

* * *

In the darkness, Ampeánor’s body stirred, and he roused himself from the dream.

He felt the stiffness of his back and the soreness of his limbs. Images of the battle swam before his eyes: the unkempt barbarians, the terror of the Tezmonian guardsmen, the arrows filling the sky. It was said that Ara-Karn alone had given them the bow. But whence had he had it?

Heavy chains weighted his arms and legs. He lay upon cold, damp stones, and all about him there was hollow silence and darkness, complete and overmastering. He might have lain upon his bier in the chamber of the death-barge of the Torvalen, high atop the necropolis of Rukor.

Despair swept over him then, the way a freshening breeze will take the sail of a ship when she emerges from the shadows of the Isles, and takes again the deep; and he felt for the first time in his life, helpless. Ara-Karn had told his men to take him alive, and that could mean but one thing: they meant to torture him to death. It was the way with these savages. Else they might leave him here and forget him; and here he might lie and starve and rot while the years wheeled and the cities southward fell and were gutted.

Out of the pained confusion of his waking mind, Ampeánor was sure of but one thing: that the civilized lands must learn the secrets of this strange new weapon if they were to endure. Bows must be stolen or captured, and the master craftsmen of the Empire must learn to fashion them. And more: somehow the urgency of this knowledge must be borne to Tarendahardil, that Allissál might be warned and learn some way to guard herself. Yet what could he, the prisoner of Ara-Karn, do to aid her?

Allissál … into the darkness her beauty came and wounded him anew with longing. In all these years he had never touched her, save to kiss her hand or steady her: a few rare times he could not forget. No alliance had been possible between them, for he had not seen her before she came as a young maid into Tarendahardil to be consecrated as its Queen; and that same year, the year which had known Elnavis’s birth, she had been consecrated again, and ritually wed to dark God.

But once, a few years ago, they had chanced to be alone together on a hunt in the forests of Rukor, separated from the others of the party. Then, heated and dirtied, she had bathed in the mountain stream, and he had parted the reed stalks and gazed upon her nakedness. That had been a tempting that had tried his soul; yet he had prevailed, and returned dry-mouthed and shaking to his watch post. And now, chained in this underground cell, he saw again that summer hunt: and he wished he had fallen to his desires no matter what the consequences, even if she had despised and hated him for it forever after. Then, at least, he might have faced his death without regret.

‘Allissál, O Allissál,’ he groaned aloud, ‘will I never see you again, to tell you of all my feelings?’

The thought mocked him and maddened him. He strove up against the heavy chains. Half to his feet he rose in a supreme effort, his veins bursting, the blood starting afresh from his many wounds. The ring of iron was like the tolling of a great bell in his skull; dizziness assailed him and he fell back gasping, blood streaming into his open mouth.

He lay a long while unconscious.

The beard upon his cheeks was bristling and itching when glaring torchlight reamed through the bars in the door of his cell. Rough cursing sounded from without; then the rasp of a key turning the lock. The cell filled with the glare; he shut his eyes tightly.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, knowing well why they had come.

A clay tankard of water and a rough wooden bowl containing a greasy hot mess were set in the straw beside him. A voice grunted in the barbarian tongue, ‘Eat.’

He was suddenly ravenous. He ate and drank as greedily as a farm slave. When he had done, they took back the bowl and tankard. They did not answer his questions. The torchlight fled the cell, the door slammed shut and the lock grated. He was alone.

He thought, They wish me healthy before they begin.

After that he was fed four more times at odd intervals. The routine never varied; they never spoke save to issue him rude commands. How much time passed was uncertain; that internal clock that he shared in common with all beasts and men was unreliable here in the darkness. Yet from the length of his beard he guessed it was weeks since the battle on the walls. The fifth time they came was shortly after the fourth; and this time they brought no food.

There were four of them. They laid strong hands on him; he heard a rasp sounding by his head on the wall. They lifted him up. The chains about his legs were gone, but the heavy manacles still weighted his hands.

‘Come,’ they said, shoving him forward.

‘Where are you taking me?’ he demanded.

One of them hawked and spat. ‘To see the King.’

They dragged him forth from the cell.

* * *

They took him along a low corridor sloping gradually upward. Ampeánor was weakened, starved and but half-healed: he could only walk unsteadily. The barbarians cursed him and shoved him along.

‘You filth,’ he swore at them in their own tongue. ‘If I live, I’ll see you on the point of my lance for this!’

They only laughed and shoved him more rudely. ‘Aye, if you live! But it will be the whim of our great King as to how long you’ll live, and who’ll have the pleasure of killing you!’ He added an obscene jest at Ampeánor’s expense, at which the others howled derisively.

They emerged from the tunnel into the light of Goddess, whereat Ampeánor shrank back. His captors laughed, and dragged him forth. Around the courtyard high walls gaped with breaches. Then he knew the place: those stones had gone at his command to repair the city’s outer walls, and this was the prison of Tezmon. A few more barbarians joined them as they passed through the gates. Ampeánor smiled. At least he commanded some respect among them.

They drove him stumbling up the winding streets. On all sides were visible the ghastly evidences of the rule of Ara-Karn. Corpses, not all of them entire, lay rotting and stinking in the strong sunlight. Rats tore openly at the graying flesh. Dogs, once the pampered pets of scented foreign courtesans, now slunk the streets half starving, gnawing human bones. Charred remnants stood where once proud buildings had towered. Other structures were even now aflame, with none bothering to extinguish them. From dark windows came shrill cries of tormented women and gruff, violent laughter.

The guards brought him to the mansion of the mayor, through the ornately carved inner doors, into the hall where once Armand had commanded his beloved Vapio dancing girls. About the walls the slave-maidens were positioned still; but now their hair was disheveled, and their paints blurred, and golden looping bonds their only dress.

Upon the dais in the ornate chair Ara-Karn sat now, the hard lines of his huge frame seeming too massive for the delicate woodwork. He did not so much sit there as sprawl, with one long leather-clad leg thrown over the arm. In one scarred fist he held a golden cup slopping wine over the blood-stained coat of mail; beside and behind him several other maidens attended him and eyed him fearfully. When they looked at Ampeánor, it was with pity and a desperate mute appeal.

The guards threw Ampeánor sprawling on the mosaic tiles. He heard their coarse laughter in his ears. He looked up, saw a tilted Ara-Karn regarding him expectantly. He set his teeth. Despite the heaviness of the chains and the weakness of his long-starved limbs, he rose staggeringly to his feet. He threw back his lank, heavy hair with a scornful toss of his head, planted his feet wide and, still gasping, stared down at the seated barbarian.

The giant rumbled an amused laugh at the sight. The laughter shook an ugly mass of livid scar tissue that ran down one side of his once-handsome face, where there had been hair and beard and the upper half of his ear. Someone had hurt him badly, once. May he strike again, Ampeánor prayed, and may I aid him to do so. He looked about the hall, trying to find the instruments of torture.

‘You fought well,’ Ara-Karn admitted equably, ‘for a civilized man. How would you like to fight for me from now on?’

He looked back, shook his head in silent contempt.

‘No? We have gold in plenty, man. Women, too, as many as you’d have the strength for.’

The sounds he had heard in the street returned to Ampeánor’s mind. He shook his head. ‘Torture and slay me now,’ he said wearily, carelessly. ‘But I shall never join you, Ara-Karn.’

‘Do not call me by that name!’ the giant roared. ‘I am not Ara-Karn, that thief, that trickster, that fleer, that barge-robber! I am Gen-Karn Great King, the chieftain of Orn!’ He had risen from the chair, his black eyes blazing like coals, his scarred fist knotted upon the hilt of his massive sword.

‘Hearken to me, Southron,’ he blazed, ‘that you may know me – it is I, Gen-Karn, who speak! When I was a youngster and had taken my first bandar pelt, then I slew a man, my father’s brother: for I had lain with a woman of his, and he was jealous and challenged me. But even then few could match my sword, and I slew him. But this angered the chief, a wheezing old fellow. And he had more to fear from me than the portent of my name alone. So they cast me out for seven winters’ time, knowing no other tribe would dare to shelter me. This was their hope, that I should die when the winter snows came, and the winds drive down from the white-toothed North. But I did not die. Instead, I came southward, and went among the mountains of the Spine. Over rivers of ice and between the wind-scoured rocky peaks above where not even birds dare go, I found a way: it was the burning of my anger and my youth that warmed me.

‘I came down from the mountains. I found the green fields of the civilized lands. And it was not yet even winter there! I shook the ice from my beard, and I vowed unto those mountains, that Orn should know my hand again. Seven winters I roamed the lands of the lower North and the South: even unto the great City I ventured. And what I saw made me laugh, and shake with desire.

‘What are these that you call men? No better than women! None from all the tribes had gone so far as I: not Bar-East himself, the old footshaker, has seen the City Over the World! And with all this knowledge driven like knife-blades into me, I went back to the far North, through Gerso where they knew me not, and so to Orn.

‘Then the old chief of our tribe was long dead, and my brother was chieftain of Orn. But I would not long bide that, but slew him that winter, and held the warriors to me with my tales of the wealth that would be ours when we fell like snow-winds on the blossomed South! And that next autumn, when the time was come for the Assembly of the Tribes, I challenged the old Warlord Obil-Kalth and slew him before the Pyre.

‘And in truth, I was the greatest Warlord the tribes had known for as long as the lists are remembered. It was I who spread rumors among the tribes, of the riches of the South: it was I who made them lust for war! This was my plan, and it was of my devising: and we should have been heard within these halls ere this, had not Gundoen and some of the other chieftains opposed me out of their own little pride! Then the trickster, the barge-robber, came along: he robbed me of my rightful place, this Ara-Karn: by a foul trick and an unlawful challenge, or else he would have never bested me, and I should have hurled his corpse from off the lip of Urnostardil, and Gundoen’s besides!

‘Unlawful I call his challenge, and so it was: I remain the rightful Warlord; and now I only bide my time until the Assembly of the Tribes, which he dare not deny, when he shall know of me again! And if he dare not meet my challenge, then I declare him coward and slave, a man to be mocked or spit upon even by women!

‘Now know you, Southron, that I, Gen-Karn, have broken with the barge-robber Ara-Karn. These men are my men, not his; and they know no will but mine! This city is my city, not his; Gen-Karn is King in Tezmon! And if he doubt it, let him come and take it from me – and until then let him give over sending his beer-boy Gundoen, or his beer-boy Gundoen’s beer-boys, to beg me to return to his standard!’

So the giant raged in the ornate echoing hall, as much to himself and his own followers as to Ampeánor. The captive women cringed in terror before the fury of their drunken, demonic captor; even the callous, iron-clad warriors looked uneasy. Only Ampeánor stood undaunted, gazing upon the barbarian chieftain with scorn and disgust.

The mood passed as suddenly as it had come. The giant shrugged and rumbled a drunken laugh, fell back into the chair and took wine from one of the nude captive women.

‘Your speech is that of one greater than a mere fighting-man,’ he said after a space, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. ‘What are you called?’

‘Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor, Imperial Regent to his highness, counselor and envoy of her majesty Allissál, the Divine Queen in Tarendahardil.’

The barbarian lifted his one eyebrow. ‘So? I have heard of you, Rukorian.’ He seemed to consider for a bit. Then he suddenly rose. ‘What is this, you dogs?’ he shouted to his men. ‘And have you kept an Imperial envoy in chains? By dark God, blood will spill for this! Remove them!’

Some hastened to obey. The chains fell clattering to the tiles; Ampeánor’s arms felt suddenly as if they were made of willow. He gazed at the barbarian with astonishment.

The giant handed him the winecup. He looked at it dubiously of a moment, then shrugged and drank. The Postio wine coursed like fire down his throat.

‘Yes, drink, my lord,’ said the barbarian. ‘Drink! I am no barge-robber – had I been, this would have been poison instead of wine! That man is worse than the lowest thief of the tribes; but I am Gen-Karn, and it is with me you deal!’

He grasped him by the shoulders, calling orders to his men: ‘A cloak for the lord of Rukor! Ready a feast in the banquet hall! The Imperial envoy would break his long fast! Charan, I knew not you were from the Holy City. I visited Tarendahardil in my youth, and know of your customs. I am no barge-robber: I have broken with him: here it is Gen-Karn who rules! I am become a civilized man, a true king: King of Tezmon! Speak to me, then, as monarch to monarch.

‘We shall be friends, and allies against the barge-robber! Come and feast! Would you like women? In truth, I think God and Goddess erred, and made our lands differently: for ours breeds up the finest men, but our women are born hard; and yours makes women of your men – but for your women, there is no matching them! And have you really seen the Divine Queen herself, and is she lovely as they say? Often have I dreamed of her, the Goddess with the golden hair, the golden woman of the South! You shall tell me of her while we eat. Ah, if I could but meet her! You, there, wench! More wine!’

Ampeánor, too stunned for word or thought, sat by the barbarian in the banquet hall. And as food was brought he began to eat, ravenously, greedily. It had suddenly been borne in upon him that he was not going to be tortured after all.

* * *

The Gerso’s usual sardonic smile was vanished. He was looking into Allissál’s eyes now gently, even sadly. How he had come to be here in her chambers she did not know; she simply accepted the fact. At the first touch of that strong arm about the small of her back, she slumped into his embrace. Half was she carried into her chambers. She did not know whether he had spoken or not.

She saw Emsha’s cry, and the Gerso’s hand waving her away. He said something, but Emsha did not budge: she did not like the Gerso. Allissál gave her a sign, like a child imitating her parents’ gestures; only then did Emsha stiffly bow and leave the chambers. The great iron clank of the shutting door sounded again, like some word of warning from the lips of her long-voyaged ancestors, too faint to be understood. The two of them were alone.

He took her to the side of the bed and left her there. She swayed gently when his arm left her; but somehow she remained upon her feet. She looked about her at this chamber of hers, quiet and quite dark. With the black hangings across the high, narrow window, the place seemed alien to her, as if it were someplace she had never been.

Beside the table he lighted the lamp and poured two goblets full of wine – purple wine from Postio, and unmixed. One he lifted to his lips and downed in a single, shuddering draught. He wiped his lips along the back of his hand, regarding her. Then he brought the other goblet to her and put it to her mouth.

She was about to protest, but felt the cool wetness at her lips and, unwillingly, swallowed a few drops. Her lips moved clumsily, sucking at the lip of the goblet; most of the wine dribbled down her chin and dripped coldly upon her breasts beneath the thin black linen. He smiled, and wiped her mouth and chin with a cloth. Then he tossed cloth and goblet aside. She heard the dull metallic clank as the goblet struck the stone floor, like the tolling of the bells without.

He put his hand up to her cheek and stroked at the tracks of salt. He reached past, and drew back the covering black mantle, unveiling her bound pinned hair. He put his hand to her throat, where the veins were dully throbbing. He grasped the black linen firmly in his browned muscular fingers, and began, gently, slowly, inexorably, to pull. And the linen began to rip. It tore straightways down her front; from his fist trailed a long, narrow shred of black, wine-soaked linen. It ripped in an even pathway down the front of her robes to below her knees. The long tatter he dropped to the floor. Beneath her knees, the robe was whole down to her naked feet, where he had not bothered to rend it

The two sides of black hung akimbo to either side; down the middle, shining out from beneath the black folds, was exposed her flesh, warmly golden and mysterious in the lamplight. She had worn nothing beneath the robes of mourning; that would have been unseemly. So when she looked down, irresistibly following his own dark gaze, she saw only the inner curve of her breasts, trim, flattened belly, long smooth thighs, and the golden, glowing patch between. She could see the perspiration beginning to bead in the hollow between her soft breasts. The sight of her own nudity, incredibly erotic in its contrast to the plain linen, stirred feelings deep inside her not easily contained. She looked back up at him expectantly, uncomprehendingly. She waited.

He reached up and pulled the pins from the masses of her hair, one after another. There were so many of them that this took some time; but still she did not protest. With each pin or riband pulled free a fresh bunch of hair fell loose, releasing a gust of sweet scent. She was startled at this scent, having put no perfumes in her hair for many passes now. This was the natural aroma of her own hair, smelling of the freshness of new reaped hay. She smelled it in wonder, having never before realized how heady it was.

He smiled at the delight in her widened eyes, and let fall the clattering pins to the floor. He moved closer to her, so close their breaths intermingled. When he put his hand between her thighs, there where she knew her flesh was softest and warmest, she resisted, drawing her knees closely together. Then she ceased resisting and relaxed somewhat. Slowly, tentatively, she felt herself opening, a phalix flower blossoming under expert care. Somewhere within her a feeling, like a string drawn too tightly on a golden lyre, snapped; and she ceased relaxing, and began to respond. When his lips came in contact with hers, she surprised herself with the ferocity and avidity with which her opened lips reached out to grasp and hold him…

He forced her gently back upon the couch, and her torn robes fell openly to either side of her. She no longer heard the bells without, or the city’s women distantly wailing: those sounds were lost beneath his body and the harsh pulsing of his veins caressing her tingling skin. She forgot her grief and all the despair that had shrouded her ever since the coming of the Mersalinal with his news. She forgot her great ambitions, she forgot the impropriety of her actions, she forgot that this was a man she scarcely knew, a penniless adventurer practically from the lands of the barbarians. A roar of blood resounded in her ears, like the sound of the surf on some deserted shore. She remembered, she knew, she felt only passionate release of all the harshly constrained desires of so many, many, many years.

When she cried out in the darkness, her women in the silent chambers below nodded their heads in sympathy and went back to their weeping.

IX

‘The Thunder-Clouds Close O’er’

WHEN MERSALINE FELL, then the corpses heaped the battlefield. Strong-armed barbarians swarmed in triumph up her once fair streets, to share out among themselves, at the chieftains’ overseeing, the last portions of her beggared wealth. In the distance above the city, thickly wooded and little-traversed hills rose up dull brown against the graying sky. There gathered in sullen packs the last of Mersaline’s defenders, ragged and wretched like once-pampered pet dogs returned to the state of wolves.

From over those hills and the dark horizon heavy clouds rolled over the emerald sky. Out of them a few drops of rain began fitfully to fall, drops of cool, clean water.

The rain was not enough to cleanse the blood-soaked fields, where shadowy figures roamed, picking clean the bodies of the dead. Others in small groups drove wagons and collected the naked corpses of the ravaged dead onto heaps of wood, to burn as well as fitful rain and bloated flesh would allow. The smoke rose curling with the wind and swept toward the city and the faraway South, raining cinders as it passed. The strength of Ara-Karn had passed this way, and left the land as lovely as his soul.

Urna-Val of the Vinkar tribe wiped with his kerchief the grime from his face, and cursed with sour humor the flies as they pestered him about his business. Now and then he would look upon the city and frown. ‘Pox-Face’ he had been called ever since a childhood illness had ravaged his features; and such as he was, could never get those women who might content him save by force or gold – far too much gold for a mere warrior of a lesser tribe. For himself, it would have been enough to lay only a few of the highborn ladies beneath his knees; but that was forbidden now, ever since Gerso. Gerso they had looted and raped and ravaged and burned until not even the rocky earth below her would have owned her. There had been a scene! But such pleasures were rare in life; and Urna-Val had to admit, he had never truly believed they could take that city until Ara-Karn had sundered the towering stone Gates across the pass. Some said he had done it with but a word. Urna-Val shrugged, holding the kerchief over his mouth as he burrowed among bloated limbs. Maybe he should have gone off with the Orns and Gen-Karn to Tezmon, as many of his fellow tribesmen had. Loot was said to be plentiful there. Here Gundoen, the Warlord’s general, ruled with a heavy hand, and had forbidden all looting save that little under the chieftains’ command; and none dared speak against Gundoen, the general, and father to Ara-Karn.

The clouds of smoke and ash drifted over the gray, ugly field, as the slaves burned the bodies of the civilized folk. Urna-Val wiped at his eyes again, spat through his tooth-gap, shouldered his near-empty sack, and went on farther afield of the city.

A suspicious glint attracted him to one of the larger piles. Pickings had been poor this pass, but what he saw now changed all of Urna-Val’s notions of luck: for there before him, almost buried beneath the rotting bodies, he saw a golden breastplate inlaid with silver and gems.

He grunted, looking casually about. The nearest of his fellows was a hundred paces off, and going farther.

Quickly he stooped and pushed the bodies from the pile. He came to the breastplate; but lying directly over it was the great neck of a huge warhorse. Urna-Val swore sourly. He could not hope to drag the horse away unaided, and calling to the others would mean sharing the gold or maybe a fight.

Then his features brightened: and drawing his notched sword and spreading his legs for balance, he began to hack at the carcass of the horse. It was hot and thirsty work, and he’d forgotten to bring a skin of wine; but if he went back for one now someone else might find the breastplate. At the thirty-fifth stroke, he severed the base of the massive neck. Using the truncheon of his sword, he levered the head down the side of the pile, revealing the golden breastplate. Scarcely did he dare look up, lest he see one of his too-curious comrades approaching. Taking out his long-knife, he began cutting free the leather straps that held the breastplate about the corpse.

Then he stopped cutting.

Hands were clutching at his throat: pressing, squeezing, choking him. With a sickening wrench in his belly he saw the corpse raised above him, the maddened eyes glaring directly into his, the dead hands twisting at his neck as if rolling up a sheaf of parchment very tight. Then all went red, then green, then black for Urna-Val of the Vinkar tribe.

* * *

‘Good-waking, Gold.’

‘Good-waking, Jade.’ And she kissed him full upon his opened mouth, relishing the taste of him, sweeter than Delba wine. ‘Again.’

‘Still not satisfied? You will be my death. But now it is late, and you will have to wait.’

She held his arm and pulled him back into the bed. ‘Again,’ she said. ‘It is the Queen’s command.’ He laughed, and touched her.

The great chamber was silent when Emsha entered, some time later. Quietly she stole to the side of the bed and gazed through the shimmering folds of the canopy. The Queen lay at an angle, her golden hair disheveled, her nakedness only partly covered by the rumpled sheets. A peaceful, childlike innocence had settled on her countenance, along with a slightly wicked smile: she peeked up at Emsha through a veil of golden curls. The old nurse looked down sternly at first, but after a moment softened. A noise entered at the high, narrow window of the awakening city; Emsha clucked her tongue, lighted the lamp by the bedside and threw open the canopy.

‘Come, majesty. It is late and the court is waiting.’

The Queen stirred languorously, closing her eyes. Her mouth moved sweetly. She smiled happily at her old nurse. ‘And Ennius?’

‘He is in his chambers in the palace where he belongs, two stories below: I sent him down with Silya. You will catch cold sleeping without a shift.’

‘Oh, I was kept warm enough.’

‘And were you troubled with dreams?’

‘I am far too exhausted now for dreams. What lies before us?’

‘The business of the state, for one. A messenger came with a scroll from the High Regent requesting your majesty’s presence.’

She shook the thick hair out of her eyes and, catlike, stretched her golden arms. ‘Send it back, Emsha. Whatever it is – and no doubt it is only more on these interminable trials – Dornan Ural can attend to it. What purpose does he serve if he does not relieve us of such tedium? What weather is it?’

‘Fine and warm, majesty.’

‘We shall spend our hours in the Garden then, out of these confining walls. Dismiss the court. We haven’t patience to deal with them now. This will be a private party.’

Emsha’s expression was blank as she bent to put on the satin slippers. ‘Yes, majesty.’

* * *

The weather was even as Emsha had said: fine and golden, warm and windless and dry; one of the last lovely spells of autumn before the rains of winter should come. The gardens always died so beautifully. Allissál reclined lazily upon a soft divan, drowsing in the kindly sun as she took her second meal. At her side, rigidly seated on the couch intended for the absent Chara Ilal, was Emsha, uncomfortable to be set so at ease before her mistress.

Allissál smiled. ‘And Ennius will be here?’

‘So he said, majesty. I informed him he was wanted, but he said it would have to wait. He is insolent, majesty.’

She laughed. ‘He only plays at lover’s games, Emsha. Surely you have known of such?’

‘Yes, he plays a great many games, majesty.’

‘Oh, Emsha, you are like some too-stern mother hen. Why do you dislike him so?’ The maidens brought forth the vessels with the second course, setting them before the couches.

‘He is a stranger, your majesty. And I do not like the way he looks at you when he thinks no one else can see.’

‘What way is that, pray?’

‘As if his gaze were a very smith’s flame to burn away the dross of your flesh.’

Again she laughed. ‘Well, that is one flame in which I have been smelted often enough!’

‘He does not love you, majesty.’

‘No,’ she agreed softly, her smile fading. She looked about her, at the pale banks of flowers, denuded of their blossoms. Some birds of passage flew slowly by the mountain, wary of gerlins. Faint sounds arose from the city below, but the branches of the lower groves obscured it from view. ‘Yet, Emsha—’ She fell silent again. ‘Emsha, you know something of these affairs, do you not?’

‘Not so very much, majesty. But they told me I was a pretty girl.’

‘It is a saying that bed-play is best when the couple are in love. Emsha, you are wise: is that a truth, or not?’

‘It is an old proverb, majesty. Yet I would say it is still a true one.’

She sighed, avoiding the old nurse’s eyes. ‘Yes, I believe it also. Yet Ennius does not love me, as you have said; nor do I love him. In the way I loved Tarendahardil, or Ampeánor, or Elnavis, I do not even approach loving him. Yet I want him, as I have wanted nothing else: as if I could have so much of him I would choke, and it still would be not enough. I do not even know him. There is a shadow across his heart, makes it unreadable to me: some part of what he has lost, a wildness, a cruelty about him … it only makes me want him all the more. When I see him I am blinded to all else. Yet Ampeánor I knew so well that nothing he ever did was a surprise to me. At times I even doubt his loyalty to Tarendahardil; then I meet him on my couch, and all doubts dissolve. We share such joys it is enough to excite the envy and hostility of dark God, but I do not care. O Emsha, what is happening to me? It is as if he holds some power over me even I do not understand. The North is all but lost, Ampeánor is missing, and my son is dead: how is it I can be so happy?’

The old nurse rose and gazed searchingly into her mistress’s eyes; then stooped and, tenderly, kissed her brow. ‘Dear child,’ she murmured. ‘He is a shadowed soul, your majesty. Yet for this I am grateful to him before all other living men: that he has rescued you from the misery of mourning. If your son is dead, should you also take the voyage? Once I had one dear to me, who was lost: and believe me, such happiness as this of yours is a blessing sent from Goddess. And for that I can tolerate him, and speak no further ill words regarding him. Perhaps it is only the dreadful loss of all his property and loved ones in Gerso that has made him so. And he may find such solace here, will soothe him and allow him to forget.’

‘Sweet Emsha,’ said the Queen, smiling, and wiping away the tears at the corners of her eyes, ‘you are the most generous and loving of friends. Ah, look, here he comes! Are my looks in order? What was the news of his fellow-countryman, the young Gerso nobleman recently come to court?’

‘By your command he has been summoned, and awaits in the Palace.’

‘And Ennius knows nothing of him yet? Good. Go to him now and send him to us after a space. This will be a pleasant surprise for them both, to meet another from their homeland here! Perhaps they will even be known to each other already!’

Emsha bobbed and departed the terrace by the lower path even as the Gerso Charan was entering from above, accompanied by two of the maidens.

He approached the presence and bowed with consummate grace, taking the proffered hand. Yet instead of lightly kissing the knuckles he turned it over and put his lips into the softness of her palm. His teeth caressed the swelling at the base of her thumb, then bit into it, sharply. She drew in her breath with a hiss at the pain, but for the slaves’ presence could not protest. When at last he released his teeth, she could see two rows of white indentations in the midst of the reddened flesh. He looked up at her, laughter and mockery and a touch of cruelty in his black-green eyes. ‘Greetings, your August Majesty.’

Gingerly she drew back the wounded hand, feeling a flood of arousal even underneath the pain. ‘You are late,’ she said. ‘Had anyone else so disregarded an Imperial summons we would have had him severely punished. Where were you?’

‘Attending to the foreign ambassadors with Qhelvin.’

‘Again? Have we not told you we are through with all that? All our schemings, and all a waste.’

‘You will change your mind, Gold,’ he said sadly.

‘You seem very sure of us, Jade. Why do you call me by that name?’

‘It is a private name, a name for just the two of us. “Allissál” is a name too many have the use of; and I will not refer to you as “Your August Majesty” in bed! And it suits you.’

‘Yet you say it so familiarly it is as if you have used it for years – with others, perhaps?’

‘That other name, “Jade,” comes to your lips easily enough. Can you not recall ever having used it before?’

‘To another? Well, and I never knew any other like you before, Ennius. Yet at times I would call Elnavis “the bronze prince.” I had such dreams for him.’ She fell silent for a space, then came to her feet. ‘Let us walk,’ she said. ‘Let us enjoy the Gardens while we still can.’ She gave him her arm and, unattended, they passed down among the lower levels. Above them the high, dark trees rose, sculpted by the gardeners into all manner of ingenious shapes, and breathing forth the thick aromas of their spices.

‘No death is immortal,’ he said when they had walked awhile. ‘There is a certain cult I know of, the Priests of Temaal; they dwell in the hills of Keldaroon. Have you ever heard of them?’ She shook her head. ‘Never? Nor of the hills of Keldaroon, either?’

‘No, but there are maps in the archives on which you could show it me.’

‘Never mind. Well, I shall tell you of their teachings, since you have never heard of them before. It is one of reincarnation, for reason that, if the dead live upon the far side of the world even as do we, then their lands would surely overflow with all the generations of the world. So – or so they say – even as we die and after final voyage take flesh in the land of the dead, so too do they in death voyage back here, to be incarnated yet again. Thus there is but a fixed number of people in the world, forever migrating from one side to the other. And the ironic jest behind it all is that no man remembers all his past lives, and so goes blithely to his death in hope of a blissful world of peace – when in fact he only resumes equal travails according to the blind will of Fortune; and is thus condemned to repeat the errors of his life over again, not once only but a hundredfold. So we all flit back and forth, content in all our little dreams, but going nowhere in the end.’

‘But what then of all our accomplishments?’ she interposed. ‘Surely you do not mean that great Elna could have been reborn as nothing but a ragged beggar after all he had been and done – or that the lords of this world could have been the thieving paupers of the other?’

‘It is very likely.’

‘Yet that is to make a nothingness – less, a mockery even, of me and all men, and of all the works of man.’

‘Of course. Such is the point of the doctrine. It is a good lesson for a monarch to learn.’

‘And do you think to give me lessons on how to be a monarch?’

‘Oh, certainly not,’ he mocked.

‘Then why did you mention it?’

He sighed. ‘Because when I saw you for the first time, it was as if I had known you before. Yet we had never met: you will agree? So perhaps we knew each other, were friends even, in some former life. Do you not feel something akin to this?’

‘No, nor do I like the doctrine of this cult. There is but one death for each of us, and never any coming back: such a thing is only of stories or the dreams of the idle. When I die, I hope I leave behind only what I have done in this life. I would not want to return. How could I return as anything greater than I am now; and what would await me if I did return? It rings of hopelessness and defeat. I could never believe in such a thing.’

‘As for me,’ he said coldly, ‘I could never believe in anything.’

They walked down the stately shadowed avenues in silence. She tried to draw him in more conversation, but he remained moodily quiet. Then she saw Emsha at the end of the walk, and brightened.

‘What?’ he asked.

But she only smiled impudently. ‘Wait, and it will please you more.’

The young man approached her, escorted by a pair of slave-maidens; prostrated himself before where she stood by the shadows of the sculpted trees. At her word he rose and looked to one side, and beheld Ennius emerging from the shadows.

Immediately the young Gerso’s face paled. He stared at Allissál, words choking in his throat, sweat beading on his brow; then he swung his gaze back to Ennius.

The Gerso chuckled and stepped beside the youth, clapping his hand upon his shoulder. Unthinkingly the young man recoiled at the touch.

‘Well met, my young friend,’ Ennius said amusedly. ‘It has been too long since we last saw each other, in our native city of Gerso. My congratulations on having found me again.’

The youth, staring at Ennius, seemed incapable of speech.

Allissál was disappointed; this was hardly the joyous reunion she had anticipated. ‘What,’ she remonstrated, ‘have you no word of greeting for your countryman? Charan Kandi, whatever is the matter with him?’

The young man found his tongue. ‘Charan Kandi?’

‘Yes,’ she said, irritated by his lack of breeding. ‘Ennius Kandi, Charan in Elsvar of Gerso. Surely you do not pretend you do not know him?’

‘Perhaps,’ offered Ennius, ‘he knows me by some other name. Well, young friend, is that the case? Have you any other name to speak?’

The boy looked at him, terrified. The sweat dripping from his brow collected briefly on his upper lip and fell into his opened mouth.

‘Well if you think deeds surpass words you are probably right.’ Ennius shrugged. ‘How well I remember our last meeting: the sack of Gerso, the flames, the smoke – Ara-Karn. Your family was most horribly butchered, do you not remember? I even had to find you a horse so that you might make good your escape. It reminds me. I have been keeping this for you.’

He drew forth the jade dagger with the strange, ritualistic design he always wore, and presented it to the youth hilt first. ‘I give it to you now, confident you will know what use it would be best put to.’

The young man stepped back, looking at the dagger as if it were some venomous serpent. Then, neither prostrating himself nor begging her leave, he turned and fled the Gardens.

‘What an odd fellow,’ she remarked. ‘He seemed actually frightened of you. Have you known him long?’

Ennius was idly considering the dagger. Abruptly he returned it to its sheath. ‘All my life, I had thought. He should not have run away like that.’ He frowned.

‘Shall I send after him and have him brought back?’

‘No, let him go. If he is worthy of aught, he will return to me of his own will.’

They walked down the avenue. She knew there was some mystery concerning the young Gerso, but did not ask him about it, knowing he would not answer her. She determined to summon the youth and put her own questions to him in privacy; but later, when she inquired, she discovered that the young exile had saddled horse and fled Tarendahardil within an hour of the audience.

They passed a bush pruned to simulate a rearing bandar, and she remembered the Garden-party, when she had passed this way with Dornan Ural. ‘You know, Jade,’ she said, drawing him closer to the bush, ‘I once saw the eldest daughter of the Chara Fillaloial doing something here I think would interest you…’

He was looking up the lane. ‘You have a visitor,’ he said.

She glanced up. Paling, she looked away into the bushes. There had been a shape there, tall like a man, dark against the sky, strangely familiar, like a ghost to haunt her. She broke away from Ennius and took a step or two away; looked back, and saw the figure there still, approaching her. A sudden stab of light between the trees illuminated it, granting it substance and reality. She stopped, staring.

‘Ampeánor?’ she whispered. She began to walk toward him, hesitantly at first, then with quickening pace. He too began to hurry: they were running when they collided, swimming in each other’s embrace.

‘Ampeánor!’ she cried, tears starting to her eyes as she held him tightly so that, if he were a ghost, he should not escape.

The familiar face broke into a smile. ‘Allissál,’ he said in that voice so sweet to her and so dearly missed. ‘I am home.’

She did not know whether to cry or burst out laughing. Thus they stayed, for some time.

‘I knew not whether to come straight up or send a message,’ he was saying into her ear. ‘Then, coming off the ship, I saw the Citadel and knew I could not wait. Though in truth,’ he chuckled, ‘I am still filthy from the voyage!’

Only now, she was thinking, did she realize how much he meant to her, and how much his absence had wounded her. So was she like one who has lived so many months in pain he forgets what health is; and waking one pass to find the pain suddenly gone, feels for joy a very god. She was whole again.

‘Even covered with filth your face is sweet to me,’ she said, kissing him again. He crushed her fiercely to him, kissing her in return so savagely she feared her lips would be bruised. It was just as she had always known it would be. She held him at arm’s length, examining him. He was dressed in motley rags, some like a fightingman’s and others like those of a sailor; his hair was long, and his arms were scarred. There was a scar along his left cheekbone and another over his right brow. His flesh was leaner, darker, harder: but still was he the Charan of Rukor, every bit. She laughed suddenly, and demanded to know his tale.

‘Well, then,’ he began, but then paused, his smile fading, his glance cast questioningly beyond her.

‘Oh, forgive me!’ she exclaimed. ‘The sudden joy of seeing you again has unnerved me. This is Charan Ennius Kandi of Gerso; he came to us with the news of Carftain’s fall, and since then joined our cause.’ She looked across to Ennius and their eyes locked for a moment. She flushed, and looked away. She had remembered what they had been on the verge of when Ampeánor had appeared.

‘Charan Kandi,’ Ampeánor was saying distantly. ‘Your name strikes me familiarly from somewhere. Yes, the exiles spoke of you. Were you not the man who held drunken debauch when Carftain fell?’

Ennius bowed, his lips in a slight thin smile, his green eyes sparkling. ‘The very same, my lord. Perhaps some pass I may hold an equally impressive fête for you here, and fill these halls with goodly drink.’

‘Oh, Ampeánor was never a man for parties,’ she said teasingly, stroking the brown arm playfully. ‘Were you, Ampeánor?’

His lips twisted sourly. ‘I prefer swords to dining shears.’

‘Then perhaps we could dally in swordplay some pass,’ Ennius said, in such lazy tones as Arstomenes himself might have used.

Ampeánor barked a short laugh. ‘We have quite a complicated code for duels here in Tarendahardil, sir. I never knew a Gerso who mastered them.’

Ennius’s smile did not fade at the grimness of the words. ‘I have been in a few duels in my life, minor matters really. But I never knew of any rules for swordplay.’

‘Without rules, where is the honor of the thing?’

The Gerso’s dark eyes widened amusedly. ‘Oh – honor!’

‘Ampeánor is the finest swordsman in all the Empire,’ said Allissál, disliking the intensity in the Charan of Rukor’s voice, and glad that he took her hint and altered the subject.

‘You arrived in Carftain just before she fell, I understand.’

Ennius nodded. ‘Before that Ancha, Eliorite, and of course Gerso. Noble ladies all of them, now no better than drabs.’

‘It seems no city can stand once you join her defense,’ Ampeánor said shortly. ‘I only hope you have not brought your ill luck to Tarendahardil.’

‘Such is my hope as well, my lord. Also, that you did not yourself acquire a similar strain of luck in Tezmon. Did he not take her with admirable swiftness?’ He had used a construction that made it sound as if he referred to a woman who had been seduced. Well, she thought, and he does not fully know Bordo even still.

Ampeánor looked at him sourly, as if suspecting that he himself were the butt of the Gerso’s jest. ‘I admit it was my fault that the city fell,’ he said unflinchingly. ‘I had not realized how effective was this thing they call a bow. With it the barbarian seems nigh unconquerable. Yet if I had had a troop of Rukorian lances with me I would have sustained her honor even so.’

‘I hear so much of these Rukorian veterans,’ said Ennius, stifling a brief yawn, ‘that I can scarce believe even Ara-Karn could stand a chance against them.’

‘He is only a barbarian, after all,’ she said.

‘Ah, yes,’ said the Gerso, looking still at Ampeánor. ‘That is what we Gersos said. Also the Anchai, the Eliorital, the Tezmonians and the Mersalinals, I believe?’

The Charan of Rukor turned to the Queen, studiously ignoring Ennius’s words. ‘Once we have the bow there will be no doubts to the outcome of the wars, my queen. And we shall have it, as soon as I arrange to bring to Gen-Karn such gold as will persuade him.’

‘Gen-Karn!’

‘Yes,’ replied Ampeánor, turning back to the Gerso. ‘Such is the name of the barbarian chieftain who conquered Tezmon, and with whom I have arranged pacts of alliance against Ara-Karn. Why, do you know him, Charan?’

Ennius’s smile returned. ‘I know the name of him. He was the barbarians’ king before Ara-Karn – yet I thought Ara-Karn remained their Warlord.’

‘He does.’ Ampeánor looked back at Allissál. ‘I thought he was Ara-Karn when I first saw him. A giant with a face out of a child’s shudder-dream, and of appearance very like that of Ara-Karn. Yet he seems to detest Ara-Karn even more than the exiles from Carftain did, and had broken from the main force of the barbarians when he captured Tezmon. When he learned I was your envoy, my queen, he treated me with every dignity and courtesy. He flatters himself that he is a kingly man and as cultured as a civilized man. He fears this Ara-Karn as much as he hates him: it’s that fear we must allay. Then we may use Tezmon even as we had planned.’

‘No doubt,’ said the Gerso ironically. ‘Yet if I may be given leave, your majesty, perhaps I should leave you. You and the High Charan must have much to discuss without the presence of an outlander.’ She nodded, not attempting to dissuade him.

‘What do you know of this man?’ Ampeánor asked her when they were again alone.

She walked down the avenue and sat in a chair of sculpted white marble set deep against the thick spice-bushes. ‘Only that he is an impoverished noble from the mountains north of Gerso. I thought he would make an able and dedicated agent. Why do you ask?’

‘There is something about him,’ he said, frowning. ‘I visited Gerso in my youth. This man’s features are not right, and his accent is like no Gerso’s I have ever heard. And there is what the Carftainian exiles told me … I do not trust him.’

She almost smiled, feeling the warmth branching in the lower reaches of her belly, like green stalks swelling in the sun. ‘I do. My lord, I would trust him even with my own honor!’

‘You do not know him,’ he insisted. ‘Shall I tell you what tale the Carftainians told me then, of the fall of their city? They returned from the battle, where they had held advantage of the field under a trusted general, ragged, bloodied, and cut to a third of their former strength. They burned their crops, drove the cattle into the city, and sealed themselves behind the walls. Some weeks they remained so, never engaging the barbarians, intending a long siege. They had stores of food and untaintable sources of water to last them more than a year. And so it went until this Gerso came among them.

‘Oh, he counseled them with cheerful words: of how the barbarians knew nothing of siege-craft and could never stand the idleness of a long siege; and how petty tribal enmities and quarrels over gold and captive women would have them falling on each other long before the walls of Carftain could be broken. Happily they received this man who spoke such words of hope. He had somehow managed to spirit away a fortune from Gerso, with which he purchased the use of a large palace and bought up all the stores of wine and herb in Carftain. Thus he held a great fête for them in anticipation of the long siege; and they boasted him of their defenses, and went to chambers with his hired artful women, filled with wine-sureness at his words. And when they woke, the barbarians held the city. Is this a man you would trust – even admitting him so far into the circle of our agents, Allissál? Still, it is you we all serve. Just be wary of him, I beg you, until he has proven his abilities several times to your satisfaction.’

She smiled within herself, scarcely listening to his words. She was leaned back in the sculptured seat half into the shadows, a subtle red smile playing in the corners of her sensual mouth. She arched her back slightly, pressing her hips more firmly against the contours of warming stone. Her mind drifted idly, until once more its center was there between her thighs. She could feel herself, with a delicious reluctance, surrendering to feelings of sheer animal indulgence.

She gazed into Ampeánor’s earnest devoted face from between slitted, heavily lashed eyes, feeling an urge to laugh. And what would you say about him, dearest Ampeánor, if I told you the truth about him? That he is my lover – even he! – and that he has done such things with and to me as would bring a blush to a harlot’s cheek? Would you be too shocked? The desire to tell him took her, to fling the words into his face. Then with a start she realized what it was she was thinking, and sat bolt-upright on the chair, coloring a little and thankful for the shadows.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, her expression doubtful. ‘Yet Ampeánor, let us not quarrel now. This should be a time for rejoicing your deliverance.’

‘The task before us is more vital. We should meet with Qhelvin and the others as soon as possible, to fashion new plans now that the North is lost so early.’

‘So early … Ampeánor, does it not seem to you that the barbarians are more of a threat now than they were even in Elna’s time?’

‘Yes. But it is the bow that makes them so.’

‘And you really believe this weapon to be the solution to the wars?’

He nodded. ‘We can counter them to some extent, but in the end there will be no help but that we must either capture, buy or copy them. Had we only archers on the walls of Tezmon, she would be unconquered still; and perhaps poor Elnavis would also be alive. I grieve your loss, Allissál – all our loss. He was a godlike youth. I am sorry I was not present to comfort you after his last rites.’

‘You could not help it. How much gold does this Gen-Karn desire?’

‘As much as he can get: as much as all the wealthy men in the world possess: as much as is hid within the bowels of the earth. But he’ll settle for less, I think. If we can but inflame his hatred of Ara-Karn enough, he might even come to pay us. Allissál, when I was in Gerso I heard talk of the old prophecy that the barbarians might rise again. Yet there they said the barbarians were too divided, tribe against tribe, to attack in force: no tribe would allow a man from a rival tribe to rise to such prominence that he could unify the entire far North. Well, somehow Ara-Karn has done this thing; yet it must be a tenuous unity. If we can but get this Gen-Karn to war openly upon his fellows their whole alliance will dissolve. Still we have every chance to win the wars.’ He paused, looking at the dark earth beneath the trees, and frowned. ‘Yet this Gen-Karn is no more than a murderous savage, a man utterly devoid of honor,’ he mused. ‘I saw a scene there – I will not affront your majesty with the details… Can we join with such a one without ourselves sinking to his level?’

‘Of course we shall deal with him,’ she answered. ‘These are matters of grand design and policy, Ampeánor. Future generations will not ask how we came to conquer, so long as we do so. And to think of Dornan Ural so busy with his sewer-trials!’

She stood up, leading him down the avenue briskly. ‘It is an opportunity we cannot afford to pass by. Oh, Ampeánor, your presence has rekindled all my old ambitions! I had thought them dead with Elnavis, but they have returned. I am the last of Elna’s line – the last of the Monarchs in Tarendahardil – it is too great a trust to betray. Does Ara-Karn believe I have given over all ambition for mere pleasure? It shall not be so. We shall prove him wrong, Ampeánor, you and I, as it was before.’

She came to a halt upon the viewing platform at the far end of the Gardens, on the outer walls of the Citadel. Beneath her sandals the walls of the mountain, immeasurate, unclimbable, steep as man-made pinnacles fell away in breathless beauty. Distantly below was spread the lower, cloud-patched city, and the far-reaching triangle of the Citadel’s immense shadow. The chill of winter tinctured the air, and the few clouds about them were violet with that cold. The Queen shivered slightly and put her arm about Ampeánor’s waist.

‘Soon,’ she said confidently, ‘the barbarian will be forced by this weather to halt his bold advances. And when Spring comes, then he will see! We shall yet live to see the cloudbreak of an age of new glory for this City of ours, the savage hordes scattered to the snows of the far North, and Ara-Karn lying broken beneath us!’

* * *

Above them, in the upper reaches of the Palace, the Gerso entered his chambers. There his servant awaited him.

‘To ship, Kuln-Holn,’ he ordered simply. ‘There are fresh tidings of the wars. Gen-Karn openly defies the rule of Ara-Karn. Go thither, and learn all you may; then return with speed, for winter is fast approaching.’

Kuln-Holn bowed. ‘This should not have been, lord, had you followed our customs.’

‘Very likely. Now I have other things to occupy my mind.’

The servant gathered his belongings and, accepting a small pouch of coins, left the chambers. Within the hour he had found a merchantman, and was sailing for one of the few unconquered ports on the Vesquial coast.

The master did not turn when the servant took his leave. He was standing at the balcony looking down over the dark byways of the lower Gardens far below. There he could see the tiny, vulnerable shapes of two persons, a man in rags and a golden woman, as they stood upon the edge of the abyss. The master smiled, and leaned back against the pillar, so that his face fell once more into shadow.

X

‘Throned Eternity in Icy Halls’

WHEN WINTER CAME to Tarendahardil it brought the rains, like chill lances driven on the stormhorses of the north and dark horizons. The storms swept across Elna’s Sea, transforming the lesser roads into rivers of mud. Water ran in torrents through the empty streets of Tarendahardil; not a rooftop but echoed with the beating, driving, ceaseless, wretched rain. The Circus was closed, the marketplaces nearly empty. Most of the nobles had gone south, to Vapio where the rains never fell. The old, grizzled Guardsman shook the water from his whiskers and cloak like a great faithful dog, eyed the towers of the Palace above him with apprehension, and entered.

‘…Murdered, you say?’

He nodded stiffly. ‘They found the body in a gutter in the Thieves’ Quarter, your majesty. He was recognized by one of the guards, who had known him, and wept at the sight.’

‘Who could have done such a thing?’

He shrugged. ‘It was done in the Thieves’ Quarter. It must have been for gain.’

The Queen leaned back in the shadow of the high sweeping throne, wrapping herself the tighter in a cream-colored cloak. ‘Many were the times we warned him about venturing thither; but his was a soul reckless in its glory. Tell us how it was done.’

‘Your majesty … it was not very pretty…’

‘Your news alone is bad enough: do not censor it. Speak.’

‘His throat was cut. Also there were two deep gashes in his belly, made by a long knife or dagger. The murderer must have crept up behind him in the shadows and ripped him open before he was aware of it. First he cut open the belly – it had bled badly – then the throat, probably to silence the cries of the dying man. Few wounds are more painful than belly-wounds, your majesty.’

‘Yes, that will be enough, thank you. We shall want a full investigation of this, captain: let the Thieves’ Quarter feel our wrath. Give the body to the embalmers. Tell them to spare no art to make it appear presentable. Also send a slave to the Charan Ennius Kandi to request his presence.’

‘Yes, majesty.’

The dank chamber fell silent again, save for the never-ending sound of the rains falling without. Allissál drew the cloak closer about her, her feet drawn up under its hem, huddling. A tear started from her eye, and began to trace a wandering path down her cheek. Without, the sky was a shifting palette of gray and dingy green. The winds drew violent veils of mists and rain-flaws forming and rending around and through the perching Citadel. ‘Did you want me?’ said a low voice in her ear. She turned her head and found his mouth upon hers, hungry and forceful.

Gently she disengaged the embrace, not liking the wild lights in his eyes. ‘Now is no time for frivolities, Ennius. Qhelvin of Sorne has been murdered.’

‘How is that?’ he asked calmly, stepping over to stand at the opening, looking out into the maw of cloud. She began to tell him, her voice as controlled as she could manage.

‘This is ill luck,’ he said over his shoulder.

‘Worse than you think. Qhelvin was to ride to Belknule for a secret meeting with the rebels. It is too late to cancel the meeting now, and to send no one would be disastrous. The fear of Yorkjax has made these nobles superstitious as barbarians. You must go in his place, Jade.’

The Gerso shook his head. ‘No, not I. Can you not send the Charan of Rukor?’

‘Ampeánor must return to Rukor until the spring. He has many duties there he has been neglecting. And to send so prominent a man would set Yorkjax’s hackles high; any seen in his company would be suspect. Of the other agents, those not presently engaged are not trustworthy enough. We doubt not their loyalties, just their abilities. Qhelvin always spoke of you as above the others: now all his offices must fall to you. There is only you, Jade. Why did you not wish to go?’

‘I would not wish to miss Qhelvin’s funeral.’

‘We know what close friends you were. Yet there is no help for it.’

‘I repeat, I will not go – unless,’ he added, turning, ‘your majesty has sufficient to pay me for it.’

‘All our gold must go to buy the renegade barbarian.’ She smiled. ‘Yet we still have jewels.’

‘This is the only jewel I have a taste for.’

‘Well, taste it then… What is this on your belt, sir, a spot of blood? Whatever have you been doing?’

‘Deflowering a virgin – what else?’ he said lightly.

She laughed. ‘Was it very pretty?’

‘I enjoyed myself,’ he murmured, bending over her.

* * *

The Guardsmen brought Qhelvin’s body up to the Citadel shortly after the Gerso had left. They bore it in state, silently, as if he had been one of their own. They had felt themselves his friends, even those who had hardly known him: such had been the charm of the man. They laid it upon a slab in the hall of the embalmers, a dusty, ill-smelling abode buried deep beneath the level of the stone, ill-lighted by a few foul lamps. The shadowed walls about were lined with compartments filled with stoppered vials and webs and rusting instruments. The Queen followed them, attended by four of her maidens, their pale robes shining against the patchwork walls of green and gray and purpled rust.

She stood limned in the dark archway. Beside her an old man stood in grief: Qhelvin’s man, who had taught Qhelvin in Sorne when Qhelvin had been a boy. Now he offered her a small golden locket. Within it was a tiny painting of a few confident brushstrokes, obviously done out of memory. Yet even so the likeness of Ennius was skillfully wrought. ‘Had he finished this, he would have offered it to your majesty himself,’ the old man said in a cracked voice. Allissál nodded, and took it from his hands.

Below them the sad-eyed Guardsmen set the body out. The embalmers, wizened slaves in leather tunics whose faces were muffled against the effects of the chemicals of their trade, gathered about the body.

‘Stay,’ murmured the Queen. They bowed in silence, and receded into the lightless corners. She stepped forward, down the two steps, her little satin slippers darkened by the dampness of the subterranean floor. Hesitantly, she reached forth and with her pale beautiful hand laid aside the bloodied rags. The mutilated body was all but naked; only the ripped bloody shirt was left – all the rest had been stripped antlike by the thieves of the Quarter. She looked silently upon the pallid graying flesh, lips contorted in agony, silently beseeching eyes, and eloquent horrors of gutted throat and belly.

‘Dear friend,’ she whispered, in tones so low not even her maidens might hear, ‘did we not warn thee, that thy wanderings there could end in tragedy? Yet still thou couldst not stay away. What was it thou sought there, we wonder? Well, and hadst thou been anything other than what thou wert thou wouldst never have come to offer us thy services and do so much on our behalf. Peistros of Sorne drove thee hither, and all on account of that single love-intrigue – and was any woman’s pleasure worth so much, Qhelvin? Ah, we know that answer now. Sleep now, and forget her and us. Perhaps she will await thee there, beyond those hills her own sad folly drove her to. Well, and Elnavis is dead, and Qhelvin also. Yet before thou fliest, this I will swear to thee, upon the spirits of all my ancestors, upon the very altar of Goddess and this Citadel: that if I live I will see this act avenged.’

Then she leaned forward and tenderly kissed those cold contorted lips, careless that by doing so she bloodied all the bosom of her gown. She issued her instructions to the wordless embalmers, signed to her maidens, and followed the grizzled captain up out of the dampness below, to the greater dampness above.

* * *

The rains fell droning on the rooftops and towers of the Citadel, running down the slick stone sides, and forming arching white sprays below, where the drains from the cisterns’ overflow projected out of the cliffside. Down the spray fell in mists far below concealing the palace dump-heaps. Trade, travel and war were at a standstill. Entertainment was hard to come by, and unsatisfying even then. The nobles all were gone, to their estates or Vapio in the deeper South. Thither Ilal had gone, more the wanton than ever since Elnavis’s death. Only Allissál was confined to lifeless Tarendahardil, sitting miserable in the cold marble halls, with nothing in her ears but the melancholy echoes of water dripping from the vaulted ceilings and the endless droning voice of Dornan Ural.

He had expressed concern when he had first seen her expression. ‘I would be much improved with more freedom,’ she answered flatly.

‘Ah, little steps must go before leaps, your majesty,’ he uttered in banal cheerfulness, drawing yet another armful of scrolls from the bags his clerks bore and spreading them on the table before her. ‘Worry not – Tarendahardil is secure. Your majesty will see that I am right. Ara-Karn will never cross the Taril.’

She affixed the new Imperial Seal upon yet another document and thrust it aside. She did not bother to mock him now. Akrion and Orovil had fallen swiftly, along with the lesser cities; now the entire North was in the hand of Ara-Karn. During the winter he would secure the hinterlands, scouring the wild hills and wastelands to destroy the last ragged bands of resistors; then half the round world would be his.

Dornan Ural continued, as the documents came and went. The repairs to the sewers, the trials of the officials, the mood of the populace – which was only half so irritable as her own. She sat listening, hearing none of it, a sour look on her face. Dornan Ural signed to the clerk, who poured out another pouchful of scrolls.

The stores of grain were running below their accustomed levels due to the numbers of fugitives from the North, Dornan Ural said; and the Prophetess had predicted a long and severe winter. Fighting was reported in the Thieves’ Quarter, and several deaths, Dornan Ural reported: would it not be wiser to call off this fruitless quest for the Sorean’s assassin? There had been another sacrifice at the Brown Temple, Dornan Ural confided; the responses had not, however, been auspicious. An embassy from Pelthar awaited without, Dornan Ural revealed, returning the gifts sent to Orolo; had not he, Dornan Ural, said it was too great an extravagance? Now, the income from harbor-duties, due to the cessation of trade with the North—

‘Oh, to the Darklands with it all!’ she swore, sweeping the scrolls to the floor. She rose, throwing the mantle from her brow and shaking loose her hair. Trampling the parchment with her heels, she flung herself from the hall. Behind her an embarrassed, startled Dornan Ural looked after her, then knelt and began carefully to gather the torn and dirty scrolls into his bosom.

She strode through the empty corridors of the huge Palace like a prisoned wild beast. Qhelvin’s funeral had been a miserable, sodden affair, making her all too aware of her lack of real achievements up to now. The League was unformed and all hung in suspension, moveless and immovable – was she to be undone by nothing greater than a foul spate of weather? When the slave came timidly to announce the return of the Gerso Charan she did not even answer, but went straight to his chambers in the upper levels.

She found him wearied and mudspattered, but she did not allow him so much as a word. ‘None of your mission, the weather or politics,’ she warned him. ‘It clings to us like a dirtied cloak. Enough of this ceaseless rain! Let bring your gear below as it is: we travel hence. I will be free of it!’

That very waking they departed, journeying the Way of Fulmine toward the dark horizon. Allissál led them, urging on her fierce mare Kis Halá, setting a pace the attendants found difficult to maintain. They turned off the Imperial highway, going northward into the mountains that marched the Empire’s darkward borders, between northern Fulmine and southern Rukor. So in a few more passes of reckless riding she brought them into view of the palace of her childhood. Rising from the knees of ancient snowbound giants the towers of the palace seemed pink fingers against the silvery rocky walls, shining in splendor, eclipsed by neither rain nor cloud.

Allissál spurred on Kis Halá up past the sleepy little village and into the palace courtyard, snow bursting like clouds beneath her mare’s hooves. She came round in a sweeping turn, and the high walls and towers spun before her, and she laughed in little steamy clouds. Gone was her listlessness, gone her melancholy – gone, her pent-up rage.

She cast her eyes lovingly over the old courtyard as the others came clattering in behind her. ‘This was home to me once, Jade,’ she said, gesturing about her at the icy marble and charsonton. ‘Then I hated it and schemed only to escape. Now it is joyous to return; most especially now, in the deep of winter.’

Faintly he smiled. ‘It is your youth I see from your eyes,’ he said, as the servants went in to rouse the caretakers. ‘It is a thing given to few indeed, to return to youthful haunts and be a child again. It must be a wonderful feeling.’ The smile vanished from his lips, and a gloom fell over his lightless eyes.

But she laughed, and would not let him think of ruined Gerso. ‘No such moody musings hereabouts, my Charan,’ she chided. ‘By decree we forbid them – even though Dornan Ural has all the official parchments. Mark you the mountains above us. It was the fondest dream of my girlhood to scale their icy paths. Since then, though I have gone among them several times in the heat of summer, I have never ventured upon them in winter, when they are most majestic and dangerous. We shall go among them a-hunting, Jade, if you’ve a mind to.’

Thereat he raised his dark enigmatic face, and his eyes were sparkling. ‘And do you hunt, too? My Chara, if that be true, then I have found here all a man might wish for, in the deep of his hidden heart.’

The emerging caretakers greeted her with astonishment. Eagerly they helped her dismount and see to Kis Halá, Glory’s Lamp, a horse the color of an oil-flame. They entered musty halls to open shutters, sweep clean the webs, and set the kitchen fires roaring.

Alone in the great banquet hall the two of them ate and drank their fill, the Empress and her courtier, avid after long riding in the mountains’ airs. When the time of the shortsleep was upon them the dimchambers were not yet warmed: so, like old foot-troopers after forced stages, they lay together on bandarskins before the huge hearth carved of figures full of mythological import.

Within a pass, all preparations were complete, and men summoned from the village were assembling in the courtyard. Tall strong men they were, crafty in hunt or wood, and leading strong sly dogs on leathern leashes. Allissál emerged before them clad in hunting tunic of soft leather and fur warm against the frosty air. It had been the gift of her dear friend Lisalya, the Lady of Ul Raambar. Overhead, wintry clouds the color of dull venom-green slate were gathering; but Allissál only shook loose her foaming hair from the fur hood and laughed.

The huntsmen raised a cheer to see her standing there so brave and beautiful, and their dogs took up the cry barking, so that the din echoed from the walls of marble and charsanton. It was none of it like the somnolently buzzing summers she remembered. Then behind her Ennius appeared, to lift her lightly into her carmine and silver saddle. He swung up on his own mount, and presented her with the gilded horn of the hunt.

Kis Halá moved eagerly beneath her, as if sensing what was to come. She took up the horn in gloved hands slowly to her lips, relishing this moment. Cold against her warm soft mouth was the metal; and it tickled, so that she could not blow at first. Then of a sudden she gave three short blasts. The huntsmen roared, the dogs brayed, and the horses thundered out of the courtyard. The ice-clad stony paths clattered with the hooves as they rode up, upon the knees of mountainous giants.

* * *

Twelve passes they spent there, pursuing spoor of eklas and cornering mountain thorsas in their winter lairs. Their hoofbeats echoed off the steeps like the footsteps of titans, and their laughter was like brazen bells. For meals they ate the flesh of their kills, superbly cooked and seasoned by the skilled mountain men. When they tired they had simple tents set up on the ice by metal pegs driven into cracks in the stone.

Once they outdistanced the others and found themselves separated from them by the shadow-edge of one of the mountains. There they lost the spoor of the ekla, but found other game beneath the twisted pines, their bodies dark against the flaring, dying corona of Goddess on the far side and the ice melting and steaming underneath them. About them, the steeps of an icy desolation and the incessant winds; and no other life except for the pair of them – and one startled snow-thirsla that scampered at their sounds, its pink rump flashing. At this she laughed impudently at him, her eyes glinting in the shadow of her hair; and he chafed her.

In all, their party took five eklas and three monstrous mountain thorsas. Two of the thorsas Ennius dispatched, but the third, the largest and most fierce, she claimed for her own. Rushing in, her boots half-slipping on the snow-flecked ice, she thrust her silvered lance at the beast’s bowels, feeling the haft wrenched from her grasp. The thorsa bellow deafened her, she felt its fetid breath wash over her and the huge black curling claws raked her thigh, sprinkling blood on the snow. Fear surged in her, but she forced it back. She swept out her light hunting sword, fell, saw nothing but a rush of fur and animal sinew; rose and struck.

The thorsa screamed like a doomed and dying god, a cry echoed a hundredfold off the surrounding cliffs. Then sluggishly it fell on the lip of the precipice, its black, steaming blood spilling like heated wine upon the stained and melting purity of the snow.

The hounds drew round, maddened by the scent of the blood, but the whippers-in drove them back. She stood quivering in the darkly stained snow, bloodied sword still smoking in her gloved hand. Her mantle had been torn back and her hair fell disheveled over her brow and down her back. The golden hair caught up the light of the sun and threw it back shivering, almost too bright to bear. Her eyes were a frosty silver, color of the mountain ramparts about; her cheeks were the color of the maiden’s stain upon the marriage sheets; her breath emerged in little clouds of ice-flecked steam, quickly gathered by the winds. Standing so upon the edge of the infinite, the distant heroic mountains her backdrop, she seemed the very image of the primeval Huntress, Dhalki, consumed in ageless splendor.

The image was of but a moment; for then she stooped and with her own hand, and the sharp blue Raamba blade, severed the great head from the carcass. The attendants held it aloft dripping, all shaggy and black, its eyes and lips still frozen in the savage despair of its dying scream. They praised it as the finest they’d ever seen, not with the glib assurances of professional courtiers but with the rough familiarity of true comrades. She saw the face of Ennius smiling approvingly above the others, and every thought of Empire was driven from her mind. Gladly at that moment would she have forsaken all her power and ambition to remain thus, not wealthy or great, but the simple ruler of a small domain, so that she only had another with whom to share it.

Then a sudden consuming wave of weariness shook her and she fell, and had to be borne back to camp upon a litter of woven lances. Even so she did not pass from consciousness, but saw the cliffs wheeling about her, and heard the distant voices of the hunters speaking of her in tones of worship. Her mind still woke: it was but her body slept. Floating on that bier of lances she did not care. She felt only the fullness of her own happiness, and a childlike wonder.

Naked beneath a pile of thorsa- and bandar-skins in the soft brown gloom of her tent, she listened dreamily to the sounds of the men moving about outside in the camp. In the corners of her mind she was aware of exhaustion lurking like a shadow to carry her off; but she held it apart by force of will, waiting until he should come.

The flaps were suddenly sundered and silvery light illuminated the interior, blinding her. Then the darkness was renewed, and she felt his hand lightly stroking her brow. In her nostrils crept the aroma of something steaming and sweet. She opened her eyes.

His smile was gentle in the darkness. ‘Awake still? You’ve more of iron in you than many of the men I’ve hunted with. But there is no purpose in it now: drink this and sleep.’

She parted her lips slightly and accepted the hot spiced wine he had lifted to her mouth. ‘So the slaves would serve me when I was little and ill with fever.’ She sighed. ‘Only then I disliked it and, when they were gone, would pour it down a crack in the floor of my room by the wall. Emsha was furious when she found out. And are you reduced to the duties of a servant now, Jade?’

‘If you can become a child again, I can be a servant. Yours, anyway.’

‘That was only once I was really ill. I had the chills from the mountain air, because I had slipped away against their orders. But usually I was too protected. I was not suffered to be ill; it was not permitted me, like so many other things. They were the slaves, and I the Bordakasha – still, the slaves gave the orders, and the Divine One had to obey. I disobeyed them whenever I dared,’ she murmured, finding his mouth with her wine-warmed lips. ‘It seemed my only real pleasure, though I was often in the wrong and did very foolish things just for the joy of confounding them. Even to Emsha I was merciless at times.’

‘Often,’ he said, ‘men will sigh that they were not born to a throne. But they little know the loneliness of royal children, who can have no close kin, no friends, no playmates of their own station.’

‘Even so – but how do you, who were not so born, know it? Yet listen, and I shall tell you how I got the fever when I was young.’

‘Later.’

‘No, now. I am Princess and you only my servant, remember. So they all addressed me: it was “Princess” from this one, “Divine One” from that. They were only slaves about me, and the children of slaves. The gulf was too great for friendship. Only Emsha would I confide in, and even she was not told all.

‘In that castle below us I was held captive, while my parents and the court abided in Tarendahardil and progressed about the Empire. I had lessons in rhetoric at this hour, courtly etiquette the next; languages before eating and history afterward. History was the only subject I enjoyed: it brought me closer to Elna. Even then I dreamed of restoring my Empire to its former glory. Philosophy was that which I most loathed: the tutor was a dry old fool, not unlike Dornan Ural. I played such tricks upon him I am sure he despaired of my ever becoming civilized.

‘And when spring came I spent the hours gazing through the windows at these mountains, still in winter’s sway. I, of divine ancestry, the child of the mightiest house in the round world, was held captive, while the children of my servants roamed free and ragged in the woods, climbing the cliffs for gerlins’ nests and bathing naked in mountain pools. When the blossoms were open in the lowlands upon the spring of my fourteenth year, I resolved to go.

‘I planned it thoroughly, with all the excitement of forbidden schemes. I hid dried meats, figs and nuts about my chambers; with considerable ingenuity, I secured and hid a stout rope beneath my couch. And then, upon the outbreak of a fine warm spell of weather, I slipped down out of my dimchamber window to the roof of the stables far below. I can show you the very spot; the drop does not look much to me now, but then it drove my heart upon my very tongue.

‘Upon that roof I felt as free as I have ever felt in my life. Even now I believe that had things gone as I’d dreamed, I would have cast my kingdom aside for a handful of figs and led an adventurer’s life. The air was sultry with heat. Below me I could hear the horses moving in their stalls as Eno, the stablemaster’s son, went among them with the feed. Behind me, through the wall, I could hear some of the slave-women gossiping as they went about their duties. The castle continued as ever, but now I was beyond its reach, an airy spirit with strange powers at my command, and no ties with those toiling mortals bound with the stone.

‘I went to the end of the stables as stealthily as I could and gazed down. Another drop presented itself to me, yet now I had no rope: it was tied securely to an iron rod in the wall of my dimchamber. The distance to the ground seemed much farther than I had thought, and I all but turned back. But my spirit returned and I tossed my sack of provisions to the ground. Resolutely I hung suspended from the lip of the roof, my fingers slowly slipping as the sweat broke from my palms. I could not see the ground or let go the roof; nor had I the strength to pull myself back up. Then my grasp slipped and I fell. I hit the ground hard upon my heels and rolled in the dirt, the breath stricken from my lungs.

‘It occurred to me then what would have happened if anyone had heard the noise. “What is this, young Mistress?” they would ask, their foolish faces shocked. That was a humiliation I could not have borne. But none came except Eno. He poked his head out of the stable door and looked at me slowly rising to my feet, my rags in disarray and face smudged with dirt. He would never have known me had it not been for this hair of mine. He looked me in the eye a moment, smiled, and returned to the stables. I gathered up my sack and ran loping through the gardens to the low part of the walls before he could give the word. And then I had climbed the walls and come to the woods above the castle, deep and dark and wonderful.

‘Soon the ancient trees shut out every view of the castle and I danced through slanting shafts of sunlight, laughing and shouting as if my tutor’s fears for me had been correct after all. I was making for the high passes of the mountains, to reach their other side. I had never seen the shadowside of a mountain before – such a thing seemed utterly mysterious to me. There giants and mountain spirits dwelt, or so they used to tell me; and I had gotten the notion that the spirits of our voyaged ancestors somehow congregated on the dark sides of mountains when the year was young. There I would find the souls of heroes and maybe even of great Elna, though they might outwardly be no more than ragged thieves. Three passes I spent there, sleeping on beds of moss by mountain streams and climbing ever higher.’

She fell silent then, so that it was as if the lurking weariness had finally come and taken her away. But then ‘It ended miserably,’ she murmured. ‘The warm weather did not last, and a storm came out of the Darklands, the last of winter in the mountains; and I was green with death. Finally I crossed over the high passes, shivering already with fever, to find – nothing. In that gloom the air was colder and fogbound as I searched about. There were only a few stunted pines growing from shattered, rocky walls, and ice bound in frozen waterfalls. In the shadow and the silence, I was utterly alone. They needn’t have scolded me when they found me, not really; nor looked so concerned when they saw me shivering. What was the sickness of my body, when all their costly physicians could do nothing to heal the wound within my heart?’

She looked at him, but his face was a shadow: not even the flecks within his eyes were visible now. ‘Do you know what first attracted me to you?’ she asked. ‘I think it was when I first asked you whence you came, and you said, “From beyond the mountains.” From the far side of the mountains, just as in my girlhood dreams… Why do you look at me that way?’

His whispered reply was lost in the sudden keening of the wind without the tent, a wind so sharp and dank it pierced even that pile of furs. It was the beginning of winter snows so heavy that they soon drove the hunters back out of the mountains and into the shelter of the castle below.

* * *

So time passed in the snowbound Summer Palace. Occasionally they would have their horses saddled and go riding over the white landscape and there she would always surpass him, for Kis Halá could go like a bird. Other times they met in the armory, where around a large firepit he would instruct her in the art of swordplay. Already she knew something of these arts, having been privately tutored by Ampeánor. Yet, though the Gerso was not the master Ampeánor was, he still had much to teach her. One thing she disliked about Ennius’s methods was that he always mastered her – Ampeánor had had the grace to allow her to win a point or two, to encourage her; not so Ennius. It made her redouble all her efforts with a fury, aiming for his heart; yet he never let her touch him there.

Once, returned from riding, they found a visitor awaiting Ennius. The short, coarsely featured man had just beaten the snows that had forced them in, and was warming himself before the huge fire in the banquet hall.

‘Your servant!’ she exclaimed. ‘I wondered why you had not brought him. Such a clumsy-looking fellow, how can he serve you?’

‘His life is mine,’ he answered. ‘I will hear what he has to say and rejoin you later – if you so allow, Princess.’

‘As you wish.’ She smiled. ‘I will be ready for you when you come to me, Jade.’ She left the hall, attended by two servants, with an eager grace.

* * *

When she had gone the smile on the face of the Gerso remained, making him seem even young. He turned to his servant shivering before the high hearth.

‘And are you cold, Kuln-Holn?’ he asked jestingly. ‘Surely it is not so cold here as it gets in the far North.’

‘But it is high here, and far from the Ocean,’ answered the Pious One. ‘And we are close to the dark horizon.’

The Gerso barked a short laugh. ‘Well, but Kuln-Holn, I think it is rather you who have changed. Half I had forgotten you, here so far away from it all. What tidings from the North?’

Kuln-Holn shivered and drew closer to the leaping flames. Behind him the master stood before a large, unshuttered window through which draughts of wintry air entered unimpeded. ‘Lord, I entered their camp unknown, and went among them closely. When they do not quarrel over spoils they swill wine and carouse with the camp followers. And when they eat, they stuff their bellies two-handed. Between spilling blood and dining, they will not cleanse their hands, except to wipe them on the backs of the dogs. And the stink of the camp is a cloud that will not pass.’

‘What,’ asked the master sardonically: ‘and are they so changed as all that?’

‘I suppose they are as they ever were, lord. But they ought to be finer, now that they are kings in the North; and they seem only fouler.’

‘Rather conquerors than kings, Kuln-Holn.’ He had been looking through the window to the mountains above, their crowns concealed beneath the raging stormclouds. There had been a soft smile resting on his lips. Now he sighed, and turned his back to the window. ‘And Gen-Karn?’ he asked at length.

‘Lord, this much I learned. Soon after Carftain fell, Gen-Karn gathered his Orns and fled the camps, taking the road to Tezmon. With him he took the Buzrahs, whose feud with the Karghils had broken out anew; the Raznami, and the Jalijh clan of the Pes-Thos. With them also went scattered warriors of various tribes, who were discontented because of the ban upon open looting.

‘From Tezmon Gen-Karn has sent spies into the camp to demand the autumnal Assembly of the Tribes. These spies spread rumors against the name of Ara-Karn, saying that the Assembly has not been held only because Ara-Karn fears the challenge of Gen-Karn. So Gen-Karn’s support among the tribes is growing. The tribes grow restless and discontent; nor can all the chiefs silence them. Many grow homesick and weary of all the killing, which they say has not the joy now that they kill with bows instead of swords and spears. Gen-Karn is big upon their tongues; and yet it is said, that if Ara-Karn wars upon Tezmon, then the lesser chiefs will fear for their own liberty and will rebel.’

The master had come to the hearth, and squatted before the flames. With a gloved hand he reached forth and rearranged the burning logs, so that the blaze crackled and leapt up with such hot fury that Kuln-Holn was forced to give back several paces. But the master remained still, his flesh glowing orange with the heat. And Kuln-Holn was minded of what was said of vengeful God, that He loved all manner of destruction, and especially delighted in burning.

‘And what do they say there,’ the master asked, ‘concerning the Divine Queen?’

Kuln-Holn flushed dark, and averted his face. ‘Lord, you would not like how they speak of her there,’ he muttered.

The master smiled. But that smile the servant could not see for the darkness of his master’s face against the glare. ‘I shall not ask you, how things go with Ara-Karn. But what could you learn of how Gundoen fares?’

‘Lord, Gundoen was not in the camp when I was there. When the first rains of winter reached the North, then Gundoen sent messengers to the far North, to his wife Hertha-Toll, that she should come to him and share in all the wealth, and also prophesy to him of his future. Perhaps he wearied of the concubines he had taken – but some said he was greatly troubled in his dreams. When the messengers returned, it was with these words of Hertha-Toll the Wise: that it was there in that village she had been born, and there she would die, no matter how many wonders there were to be seen in the lands south of the Spine. At this word Gundoen grew angry, so that he swore he would wench as he pleased and leave Hertha-Toll to her old-woman’s foolishness. Yet later he thought better of it, and went north himself, with but a handful of men. Garin went with him: so I saw neither of them.’

‘Well. And what shall be your counsel now, Kuln-Holn? Shall we forsake the will-o’-the-wind we pursue here, and go back into the North where the fighting is and where, perhaps, we are more needed? Or shall we stay and sop up our pleasure and say, So much of a rest at least we have earned?’

‘Lord, I do not see what we do here, or what good comes of it. There in the North men fight and sweat and find harsh death; and here we live in great comfort. Are we forgetful, or spell-wrought? Or is this a thing commanded?’ The short, middle-aged man paused, and glanced furtively toward the portal through which the Queen had departed. ‘But still, to go back … I think I prefer the city, and peace, even if it is wrong.’

The black head before the fire nodded. ‘Ah, Kuln-Holn, you have changed indeed.’

‘Perhaps so, lord. Yet I am your man still.’

‘Remain so, Kuln-Holn, if you will die in peace. Well – then we will stay. Return to this Holy City of yours, and glean what pleasures and what peace you may. You too have earned them; and I think they will not last long. I am half-sure you have a secret lover there, the way you are always disappearing.’

‘Perhaps so, lord. Then I may leave?’

‘Go, and rest. Depart when you will.’

Still, the servant hesitated. The gleams of the firelight upon his features showed well his barbarian ancestry, so that in his rounded, gentle face, lines of hardship and cruelty were revealed, for a moment: then they were gone, and only the simple face of Kuln-Holn the Pious One remained. ‘Lord,’ he said, haltingly, as if daring a heavy risk, ‘you will not forget, in all that you have found and won here – you will not forget your mission?’

The Gerso lifted up a great blazing timber and let it fall back upon the pile, so that the sparks scattered and danced upon the charred stone floor. His face was averted, and his voice harsh, as ‘Kuln-Holn,’ he answered, ‘and have you not learned even now, that I will go my own way in this? Do not fear, but all our debts shall in the end be fully paid.’

Uncertainly the servant nodded, and left the hall. The master straightened, and walked again to the window. There light flakes of snow were floating in: they fell upon his flushed burning face and melted instantly, streaming from his black eyebrows. He looked, but could not see the mountains now, for the storms had descended to the lower passes. Then the face of him bore the stern look of a wooden idol. Abruptly he turned, shaking the snowflakes from his hair, and went in pursuit of the Empress of Tarendahardil.

* * *

She had fulfilled her promise, and let a small canopy be set up on the flat roof of the tower. There they lay together briefly as the snow fell deep upon all sides. She wrapped her nakedness in a heavy bandarskin and pointed out to him the way she had escaped as a girl, to seek the giants over the mountains. He, already dressed, leaned over the narrow icy parapet and looked at the stone courtyard far below. Yet it seemed to Allissál that he listened with but a part of himself, and that the rest was far away where she might never reach it; and she remonstrated him, and asked if he might be more attentive if she spoke of Ara-Karn.

But he asked in return, ‘Why have you so deep a curiosity about the barbarian? Whenever some new exiles come to Tarendahardil claiming to have seen the man, you are ever quick to give them audience.’

‘His destiny is part of Tarendahardil’s,’ she replied. ‘The barbarians must rise, to be put down again. So it is written. Yet for all these tales I hear, I learn no more of him. Each belies the others; and I can little trust men whose bread depends on how I take their tales. Tell me truly what you think of him, Jade – you have seen him often. Is he truly choked with hate? He cannot be a man, not to be sickened even yet with all the death and ruin he has caused. Rather, he must be some wild beast, a savage no better than a Madpriest.’

‘A wild beast,’ he repeated. ‘A savage no better than a Madpriest. No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I know him no more than you.’ He stepped upon the parapet, idly pacing above her.

‘Be careful, Jade,’ she said. ‘It is a far drop to the courtyard or to the stable roof.’

He laughed scornfully, and leaped up in a sudden flip in the air, turning his body about over the rooftop fourteen fathoms below. Her heart leapt up her throat: he landed, his boots but half clinging to the icy ledge. She shouted, but he laughed again, and bowed low upon one leg, the other stretched out behind him over the void, with all the grace of a performer reared in Vapio.

Then she grew angry, but he only shrugged carelessly, and did not leave the edge. ‘I knew I would not fall,’ he said. ‘Some of us are cursed by misfortune, and others by luck: but we are all of us cursed. Thereby each of us shall know his fate. If he is to die later, a man cannot die now. My doom is yet to be – therefore, until I reach it, I am an immortal. Even if I jumped I would survive it.’

‘Oh?’ she asked, thinking him to be acting a madcap for her entertainment. ‘And where does your doom lie, may I ask?’

‘Well, for that,’ he said with a smile, ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘Ah – and are you God now as well?’ He looked at her, and there was no humor in him.

‘When was I not?’

‘You speak madness,’ she said, angry and alarmed. ‘What is human will then, if all is predestined?’

‘Will is that which creates our destinies in the first instance.’

‘What then of Gerso?’ she asked sharply; and rued it instantly.

Now his face was cold and sharp as the ice along the gutters as he answered, ‘Gerso he destroyed.’

She threw off the bandarskin and stooped to enter the canopy, as flakes of snow left small chill bites upon her skin. There she donned her robes, sorry for how she had hurt him and eager to remedy it. When she came forth again he stood still on the edge of the parapet with his back to her and his gaze directed down that dizzying drop. His hands hung casually at his sides, one hooked in his belt, the other toying with his jade dagger. It was as if he, the monarch, had dismissed her. Angrily she left the rooftop in silence.

Yet later, in the middle of the longsleep, he came to her bed, speaking tales of lands and peoples she had never heard of; and he took her violently, so that she could scarcely breathe for pleasure.

* * *

Before the time of that sleep was ended, a soft knocking sounded at the doors to her chamber, and the voice of one of the servants informed her there was a messenger just ridden in from the great City, with an urgent message to be delivered only into her hands. She rose gently, careful not to wake Ennius, swiftly robed herself, and went to receive the messenger.

He wore the trappings of a Rukorian lancer, and he was wet and white with snow. He saluted her in the military fashion, and kissed her hand.

‘Surely we know you,’ she said. ‘Are you not that man who came to us with the High Charan of Rukor’s message, before he was to leave for Tezmon?’

‘Your majesty, I am that one. And the message I bear your majesty now is also from my lord.’

She took the brass cylinder and unfurled the scroll. Her face altered instantly. ‘This is well,’ she said. ‘Will you tell the caretakers, please, to ready our departure? We will return with you to the capital.’ He nodded and saluted her again: backed to the door, and left.

Slowly she walked before the hearth, where the ember-bed still cast up waves of warmth and light. She leaned against the warm stones of the wall, watching with half-closed eyes the way the rising airs waved the unfurled scroll to and fro. Images flickered up before her in the glow: of Tarendahardil as she had first seen it when the lords and soldiers had brought her, scarcely out of girlhood, down from this very castle Goddess-ward, to be a Queen in the City Over the World. Then her reverie burst, and she started up as if unable to be still any longer. She read the message again on her way back to her chambers:

To her Imperial Majesty Allissál, Divine Queen in Tarendahardil, from her man Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor, greetings and obeisances.

My Queen, you must return to Tarendahardil as quickly as you can. The foreign ambassadors have returned, begging to meet with you and resume in the formation of the League of Elna. Even Dornan Ural is frightened at the news, and has promised us a free hand.

Ara-Karn has crossed the Taril. Even now Postio, the first of the cities of the South, is under attack.

XI

Of Comedy and Kings

THE TWIN BLADES FLASHED brilliantly in the light of Goddess, kissing each other and dancing away under expert mastery. For a moment, the only sounds in the great hall were the rasp of blades and the whisper of sandals on the stone floor. Then with a flourish the Rukorian sword-dancer ended his exercise, to the appreciative applause of the guests.

‘Truly a beautiful performance.’ Arstomenes of Vapio sighed, returning his winecup to the serving table that the servants might bear it away. ‘Was it of your devising, my lord?’

‘The sword-dance is an ancient custom of Rukor,’ Ampeánor answered. ‘It is intended to better breathing and coordination and allow a man to sense his weapons as if they were mere appendages of his limbs. Thus he may know even in darkness just where the blades end.’

‘In the time of my father, every noble was taught the sword-dance,’ grumbled Farnese, High Charan of the Eglands. ‘It gave them discipline. Now I daresay Ampeánor is the only member of his generation to know the art.’

‘I know not of discipline,’ lazed Arstomenes, glancing over the weapons arrayed about the walls above their heads. ‘I was considering how alluring a lady would be engaged in such routines.’

‘Indeed, my lord, her majesty knows the swords,’ offered the Chara Ilal.

Arstomenes held her look; then insolently turned his eyes to the Queen. ‘Indeed, your majesty? Is what her ladyship says true?’

‘Only in part,’ the Queen answered shortly. ‘We do not know the dance.’

‘Oh, your majesty is too modest,’ dismissed the Charan of Vapio. ‘My lady Ilal, it seems you must serve in her majesty’s stead. Do you think you could learn the dance?’

‘I am certain I could, my lord. Yet one thing doubts me: you would not have me dressed so scantily?’ The Rukorian had worn only a length of linen wrapped about his loins to give his limbs the greatest freedom.

‘Oh, far more so.’ Arstomenes smiled. ‘Such loveliness as yours, Chara, belongs to all men.’

‘I think the Charan of Rukor would prefer her majesty in such a role,’ offered the Gerso Charan. Ampeánor, who had been regarding the Queen in secret, looked at him sharply, coloring.

‘I am sure we all would that’ – laughed Arstomenes – ‘meaning no slight upon your sweet charms, Chara. Chara Fillaloial, what would the ladies of your time have said to such a proposition?’

‘It would have depended on whether it were a public or a private one, my lord,’ replied that lady graciously, yet not without a flash of warning in her eyes.

‘Well, my lord? Which would you have proposed?’

Farnese regarded him as a gerlin would a serpent’s skin. ‘We did not make idle jests of our loves then, as the present generation sees fit to do.’ Stiffly he rose, with a cough raked up from his chest. ‘Ampeánor, your majesty, if you will forgive me, I should leave now.’

‘Of course.’ Ampeánor nodded, rising. ‘You need not have stayed even so long, my lord.’

‘I fear I too must depart,’ said Arstomenes, arising gracefully from his couch. ‘I have an appointment with the daughters of the Chara Fillaloial. It seems they owe me some gaming-debts.’ He flashed his gaze to the Chara Ilal, then lightly away.

‘You have our leave,’ said the Queen.

‘They were poor fools to fall in debt to you, my lord,’ said Ilal sweetly. ‘Be sure I would never make such an error.’

‘I much fear that if ever I set my dice against yours, Chara, it would be I who would end in debt.’

Ilal smiled, and rose as if to leave with him.

‘I must be going,’ Dornan Ural broke in awkwardly. ‘I must examine the tax-receipts before the sleep. Then upon the waking I must see the petitioners, and—’

‘If you would stay to give us the list of all your duties, High Regent, I fear none of us would ever depart.’ Arstomenes laughed. Theatrically he kissed the Queen’s hand. Several of the others likewise presented themselves, after which Ampeánor saw them to the door. There they exited into the gardened courtyard, where their litters awaited. The last to depart was Dornan Ural, following the overly grateful Lornof of Fulmine. The High Regent begged that Ampeánor would soon confer with him upon the taxes. ‘Things will shortly be in a sorry state. So far, I have been able to leave the reserves in the Citadel intact, yet that grows ever more difficult. And of all the other regents only you, my lord, seem to appreciate all I do, and are willing to share the labors.’

‘Certainly,’ Ampeánor agreed. ‘But I would rather speak of the wars. You promised us a free hand.’

‘And it shall be yours, my lord, within the limits of our present difficulties. I was glad to hear the case is hardly so desperate as at first glance it appeared. Postio has now beaten the barbarian back into the desert; I have heard the defeat was all but complete. So long as Rukorian warships control the Sea of Elna, Ara-Karn has no lines to his bases in the North. It should not be so difficult a matter to hold him in the wastes of the Taril, and there let him bake away. Ara-Karn will never reach so far as Tarendahardil.’

‘Not if we prevent it,’ Ampeánor replied. ‘The reports I have had from Postio were not so hopeful as the ones you seem to have received.’ The High Regent nodded absently, glancing out into the courtyard, and took his leave.

Ampeánor watched the last of his departing guests clambering into their sheltered litters in silence. What vain idle fools they were! He wondered that Farnese could bear them. He wondered that he himself could have suffered them through an entire meal. Gossip, love-intrigues, and scandal were all they cared for. The barbarians seemed so superior to them. Their vices at least were honest ones, and did not comprise the whole of their lives; nor did they seek to refine lechery and drunkenness into forms of art.

He turned away, holding the risen fury tight within himself. Instructing the servants that he and his remaining guests were not to be disturbed, he returned to the dining hall attended by a pair of trusted Rukorian lancers.

* * *

Through the bronze outer doors of the courtyard of the Hall of Rukor, the litters departed one by one. Dornan Ural, stepping down into the warm sunlit courtyard, hesitantly approached the Chara Ilal before she had stepped into her litter.

‘My lady,’ he said abruptly, ‘you enjoyed the feast?’

She looked at him piercingly, her long dark-lashed eyes sparkling with the slow fire of fine wine. ‘Wonderfully,’ she answered. ‘We had no such entertainment in provincial Vapio. After all, a sweating soldier doing his training exercises is not for the aesthetically indiscriminate.’

‘My lady, I wish you had not spoken so freely to the Charan of Vapio. It might damage your reputation.’

‘Oh?’ She laughed, her soft, painted breasts moving excitingly beneath the transparent gauze of her upper gown. ‘And what is my reputation to you, sir?’

‘It is just – just,’ he stammered, blushing; then stopped. ‘Would you – would you mind if I walked beside your litter?’

‘Why not? The streets are free enough, so long as you do not intend to join me within. I do not think my men could bear both our weights.’

‘Your pardon, my lady, but that is not just what I meant,’ he muttered, looking at the courtstones beneath her sandaled, jeweled toes. ‘It is just, that I thought – rather, I had hoped – that is, in the Gardens, once, you – and I—’

She burst out laughing. He looked up sharply, blushing. ‘Oh, Dornan Ural!’ She laughed helplessly. ‘Am I to be cursed with your devotions until the barbarians lay waste the city? Hearken then my champion, and learn: what I did, and said, in the Imperial Gardens last autumn, I was under strict commandment to perform. Her majesty ordered me to it as a punishment of my insolence, though I begged her choose some other task. Little did I dream that I should still be suffering under it half a year later! Henceforth, if you must continue to pay your addresses, give them to her majesty. She was behind it all.’ She slipped quickly into her litter and let fall the silk hanging to cut short the last of his stammered entreaties. The litter of the Charan of Vapio had long since departed. Swiftly her slaves lifted her and bore her from the yard.

Dornan Ural stood still, looking after her. Then he turned, and gazed up at the stone walls of the Hall of Rukor. He wrapped a corner of his cloak about his fist, turned and strode hurriedly out of the courtyard. Behind him the silent servants closed and barred the tall bronze doors.

* * *

‘Well,’ said Fentan Efling dourly, ‘that was a fine dinner. But I’m at a loss to see what we have to celebrate.’

In the great central dining hall, the few remaining guests awaited their host’s return. In the time of Ampeánor’s father, this ancient hall had been the setting for scenes of the most unbridled indulgence, and had been festooned with vile tapestries, brutish mosaics, and the now-infamous frescoes of Jarili Melstath. Now those things were gone: and in their place was fixed a collection of weapons of hunt and war, knives, swords, lances, clubs, shields, throw-stones, helms and more, reputed to be the finest in the South – which is to say, the world.

‘It would have been merrier had Qhelvin been here,’ muttered Bistro. ‘How can you wonder all our work is stultified, now that he is dead?’

‘The petty principalities headed by Pelthar will never join us now,’ agreed Tersimio. ‘Delba is ours, but what good? Those cities are so near the fighting now, they are more likely to ask aid than provide it.’

‘And where does it all lead?’ swore Bistro. ‘Now that his highness is no more, all our labors will go for nothing unless the High Regent admits the threat of Ara-Karn. Can no one convince him?’

‘Perhaps he is convinced now,’ replied Fentan Efling. ‘Yet I will credit that only when he acts, and assigns to her majesty or the Charan of Rukor full war-making powers.’

‘For myself, I doubt any of our labors will mean anything now,’ said Kornoth. ‘The Pelthari ambassador has told me that the war is over, and Ara-Karn as good as slain.’

‘He will return,’ said the Queen, in such a tone that none would dare argue.

‘There has been no news from Postio since the tale they threw the barbarian back into the Taril; and that was too long ago,’ Bistro said. ‘And my lords, we were better to speak of Belknule here. What did the messenger say? “His Supremacy Yorkjax announces the death by impalement of several treasonous lords, who had been plotting with a foreign court to overthrow the rightful rulers of the sovereign state of Belknule.” And think not he failed to inform other cities of Tarendahardil’s part in it! That alone has set us behind where we were at the beginning!’

‘Something foul has been passing among the foreign ambassadors as well,’ said Fentan Efling. ‘Early autumn they were all smiles and openness; now they are just civil enough to see me, and regard my every word with distrust. Yet at winter’s end they were all in a panic over the news of Postio. At least when Qhelvin was alive he had them all tamed to his hand.’

‘Oh, enough of Qhelvin!’ snapped the Queen. ‘Can you not leave his spirit in peace?’

From the corner the Gerso, Ennius Kandi, laughed recklessly. ‘Well, for my part I thought it a most amusing party.’ The Queen gave him a fiery look, which he blandly returned; the others fell into an uncomfortable silence. It was in the face of this silence the Charan of Rukor and his attendants returned.

‘It’s clear what you have been discussing,’ he said. ‘Well, we must begin anew. If these intrigues, which ever seemed doubtful to me, promise poor harvest, we must look to the military side. There at least I have good news: Dornan Ural has just now confirmed to me that he is prepared to sign the documents naming me her majesty’s General. And my messengers have returned from Tezmon. Gen-Karn still holds the city, and has agreed to deal with us. In another month, we shall have the bow!’

The agents were unanimous in their congratulations upon this success; all but the Queen, who stood silent. Even Fentan Efling came near to a smile. After some further conversation a round of wine was drunk, and one poured for the blessing of dark God. Then they departed, each with some word of praise to Ampeánor. The last to go was the Gerso, who merely smiled ingenuously at the Rukorian’s hints, and went on looking at the weapons.

‘My lord, if you will excuse us,’ Ampeánor said at last, ‘her majesty and I—’

‘What, more secrets?’ asked the Gerso, his brow arched. ‘Or did your lordship have something other than business in mind?’

‘These are private matters,’ replied the High Charan, flushing to the neck. ‘Your majesty, will you not—’

‘Let him stay if he will, Ampeánor,’ she said shortly.

He sighed. ‘Very well. We only need arrange transferring the gold from the Citadel to the ship. Then I’ll sail for Tezmon.’

‘Why must it be you who goes?’ she asked.

‘My Queen, the barbarian will trust no one else. They are a moody, superstitious people. And I gave him my word. I cannot break it, even to such as him.’

‘Oh, certainly not,’ said the Gerso slyly.

‘My lord, I do not like your tone.’

‘Well, I like your parties,’ Ennius lazed in return. ‘I found the sword-dance especially enjoyable. I had the honor of instructing her majesty some small measure in those matters during the weeks we were together this past winter. I found her an extremely able and willing student.’

‘Cease this, both of you,’ Allissál ordered sharply. She walked back to the sunlit end of the hall, shivering a bit at the chill in the stones, feeling the long skirts brush uncomfortably against her legs. She had been more at ease in the soft leather hunting breeks. Riding down off the snow-clad roof of the world, she had found the lowlands already bursting with spring. Yet somehow it had only dismayed her. Even intermitted with sea-breezes, the heat oppressed her. The heavy scents of the innumerable blossoms of the Imperial Gardens only cloyed and sickened. Ennius had changed, becoming wilder, more reckless and savage. She sighed bitterly. Nothing had been right since her return.

‘My Queen,’ said Ampeánor softly beside her, ‘this is the chance for which we have waited so long. With Gen-Karn occupying her, Tezmon is more secure than either Armand or I could have made her. If Ara-Karn did not attack the city during the winter, it was because he dares not. It would mean the end of his grand alliance. It is his only weakness. I should depart as soon as possible.’

She turned from him, seeking another corner.

‘Allissál, will you not give me leave to depart?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

What was it, she wondered, that set her so on edge? Why did she ask such questions when she knew the answer full well?

‘My Queen, can you not see I must go?’ She glanced back. Ennius stood examining the weapons at the far dark end of the hall. She relented a bit. ‘Why must it be you who goes? You will be needed here, when Dornan Ural confirms your appointment as our General Extraordinary. Tezmon is a clouded city. I do not want to lose you again, Ampeánor. Cannot Ferrakador go in your stead? Surely he can be trusted.’

‘My Queen, I have given my word.’

‘Let him go,’ said the Gerso. ‘Can your majesty not see he is set upon his little jaunt? All little boys have their dreams of glory. My lord, do not fear her majesty will be bored while you are away; perhaps I may have the pleasure to instruct her in more variations on the art of swords. In the meantime, I am sure you will have your fun – what was it you told us of these nude slave-girls Gen-Karn keeps about him?’

Ampeánor swung on his heel and strode the length of the hall, bristling. ‘My lord, I think you were best to watch your filthy tongue,’ he said in tones of ice. ‘Qhelvin is no longer here to champion your cause.’

‘That reminds me,’ said the Gerso. ‘I have a gift for you.’

‘For me?’ Ampeánor asked, startled.

‘Yes, I left it with your servants when I arrived. If you would be so good to call them…’

The summoned servants bore in a long package and leaned it against a wall. The Gerso, with the same faint smile, approached it, and removed its black wrappings.

‘My portrait!’ Allissál exclaimed.

It was indeed that painting over which Qhelvin of Sorne had labored so long. The woman in the portrait, imperial, ideal, infinitely desirable, shone like a splash of gold against the gray stone of the walls. Ampeánor regarded it wordlessly, dazzled.

‘How did you come by it?’ she asked. ‘We thought it had been lost.’

‘It was my secret,’ Ennius replied easily. ‘Qhelvin gave it to me just before he died.’

‘But it is unfinished.’

He smiled into her eyes. ‘Perhaps he had a premonition of his death.’

Ampeánor still stood before it in silence, hearing none of their words.

‘Well, my lord, how does it please you?’ murmured the Gerso in his ear. ‘Is she not exquisite? I thought Qhelvin inspired so to leave just the one shoulder bare to view, enticing us with a maddening desire to see what other glories must lie beneath the gown. Perhaps you can take it with you on this heroic voyage of merchantry. I felt I could spare you the painting, possessing the woman in the flesh.’

Ampeánor broke his stare at the painting, looked up and struck him on the mouth.

The Gerso shrugged, smiling still, and gestured to the weapons on the wall. ‘Well, my lord, if you insist…’

‘Cease this, both of you!’ Allissál commanded. She had not heard what words Ennius had poured into Ampeánor’s ears, but had seen his manner. ‘We forbid this petty quarreling. Have you both forgotten the larger affair we are engaged in? Was Qhelvin’s death not enough of a setback? We cannot afford so much as a wound between you. Are you both mad?’

‘There was no reason to fear a wound here,’ Ampeánor said, his face pale as dried grass. ‘This Gerso is too much in the habit of running from battles.’

‘Charan, did you not hear us?’ she said icily. She walked to the couches and wearily sat down. ‘Well, if you cannot be dissuaded, we will permit you to go to Tezmon once again, though it displeases us greatly. Yet we insist that you bring enough men to protect you against any possible treachery on this barbarian’s part.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What if I take our Gerso along with me?’

Ennius’s dark flashing eyes widened. ‘I, my lord?’

The charan barked a harsh, short laugh. ‘I believe it would be prudent. Gerso, you are not afraid to meet the barbarian face to face, are you? It is not treachery from Gen-Karn I fear, but from a rather closer source.’

‘What is this of treason?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Ampeánor, explain yourself.’

‘Very well. I had meant to speak of this in private, lest I offend any of our loyal friends, who have left. At the end of last summer, the formation of the League was a thing assured by the end of winter latest. Now all our work has come undone. Orolo, the ambassadors, now Belknule. Why?’

‘Because Elnavis died, and I myself broke the negotiations in my grief,’ she said flatly. ‘And later Qhelvin was murdered by thieves in the lower quarters. Ampeánor, I do not like this talk of treason.’

‘I would hear from our friend here on the matter,’ he said. ‘Surely so clever a man has likewise perceived this?’

Ennius smiled lazily, and resumed his examination of the weapons on the walls. ‘You have a fine collection here, my lord,’ he said amiably. ‘This, for example, looks interesting. Are you aware of what it is?’ In his hands he held a murderous broad knife of polished black stone, honed and chipped to the sharpness of a silk-cutter’s knife.

‘It is supposed to be the sacrificial dagger of the Madpriests. That is what they plunge into the breasts of their naked female victims in the Death-Rite of Conjugation; the Book of Skhel has all the details. It is very old and valuable: be careful what you do with it. You have not answered me, Charan Ennius Kandi of Elsvar in Gerso. What think you of this traitor?’

‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘I am sure that if there is a traitor among us, the Charan of Rukor will find him out in time. Yet, my lord, beware, lest he should find you first.’

‘And will you be so brave as to go with me to Tezmon?’

‘I will come,’ the Gerso answered carelessly, snapping the blade back into its scabbard on the wall.

The Queen sighed her relief. ‘Now let us have some wine, to pray for success,’ she said.

Ennius looked at her oddly. ‘Whose?’ he asked.

* * *

At length Dornan Ural arrived at his hall, which sat upon the edge of High Town, atop a steep slope too precipitous for building, overlooking the lower quarters of the great City. It was his office and his home.

He opened a little door set into the stone wall and entered the little garden in the rear courtyard. It was his refuge away from the court, the officials, his labors and his troubles. His eyes wandered over the neat dirt rows of the plantings he had made this spring, of his vegetables and home-spices. One row had sprouted weeds – he stooped, and plucked them up. The weeds were already in flower, their purple and golden-streaked petals things of beauty. But they stole the virtue of the soil, and one could not eat blossoms. Dornan Ural wiped his coarse fingers upon the hem of his robes and went upon the stoa, whose cool recesses were striped with the shadows of the many pillars.

There he stopped. His wife had emerged, dressed in a bright green lora.

‘Greetings, Khilivirn,’ he said.

She eyed him in return. ‘Greetings. I had not expected you so soon. How went Ampeánor’s feast to welcome back her majesty?’

‘Were you going out?’

‘Yes, there is to be a tragedy performed at the Tarinx theater, with Baring Ghyl in the lead. My head feels better now.’

‘And where are my sons?’

‘Where but the gaming-dens of the Vapionil? Or if not there, they will be at Rina’s house with the rest of their cup companions.’

Dornan Ural nodded. Rina’s was his sons’ favorite couching house. He could well imagine the bills that would later be presented to him. Dornan Ural watched his wife as she entered the litter the slaves had brought forth. Fifteen years he had been married to the Chara Khilivirn now: since the first year of his term as High Regent. She had been the daughter of an impoverished charan of Fulmine; he had been wealthy, and wished a wife to oversee his sons. Her blood and standing in the old court were to have won Dornan Ural’s acceptance among the charanti of Tarendahardil.

Within the house, his clerks attended him, their wax pads and styli at the ready. Others held the parchments-racks filled with the tax lists of this year. But Dornan Ural shook his head, dismissing them. ‘I cannot attend to work now,’ he said wearily. Surprise and concern were large in their eyes as the clerks departed.

Dornan Ural passed on silently through the house. He came to the forward section and stood in an archway opening on a great hall, its floor dirty from the tread of thousands of poorly shod feet. Once, in the time before Dornan Ural, this had been the banqueting hall of an idle aristocracy who had spent their creditors’ last denas in brutish festivities before drinking venomed wine. Now it served as Dornan Ural’s hall of audience. Here he saw the petitioners, ambassadors, dignitaries and many officials of the huge Empire he administered. There, might have stood poor men in patched cloaks, complaining of the injustices of great lords; there, the insolent nobles in their litters, protesting that the High Regent’s men had again intruded upon the prerogatives of the highborn. Along the walls Imperial Guardsmen would be positioned, ready to keep order and enforce the will of Dornan Ural. All eyes would be upon him as he made his entrance, and all hands out-reached to him. And he, tireless and vigilant, would sit before them and hearken to the petitions one after another, with a hundred wearying decisions great and petty to be adjudicated and enacted.

When Dornan Ural had assumed the Regency, the state had been in debt some three hundred and seventy thousand silver denas, and there had been jests upon all men’s tongues about the corruptness of the Seven Ranks of Imperial officials. Now in the treasure in the depths of the Citadel were a hundred thousand denas of gold; and twelve new laws had been enacted to curb the excesses of the Imperial tax-gatherers. The pestilential swamps of Faliaril in Fulmine had been drained, and replaced with fertile farmland. Seven thousand fastces of new roads, three new dockyards, and twenty-five new public buildings had been designed and constructed, at costs less than anyone but Dornan Ural had expected. He had traveled the roads of the provinces a dozen times. He had labored while others slept, heard petitions while others ate, and regarded the public good as if it had been his best-beloved son. In all those years, he had received nothing in return, not even so much as a word of thanks; while in the meantime all men spoke with wonder and desire of the Divine Queen’s beautiful hair, and Elnavis grew to become the people’s darling. What were you then, Dornan Ural, what have you ever been, but a servant? O Dornan Ural, was your father granted his freedom so that his son should become a slave?

Slowly, with the heavy weary movements of an old man, Dornan Ural emerged from the shadow of the archway. At the far end of the hall a chair stood upon a dais of marble. Beside the chair was a low desk strewn with a bundle of furled parchments and one unfurled. The chair was a plain and simple wooden chair, not half so large or ornate as the seats in the hall of the Council of Regents. It was the modest chair of a man whose authority needed no imposing props. It was the chair of Dornan Ural, High Regent of Tarendahardil in the name of her majesty Allissál nal Bordakasha.

The first time Dornan Ural had beheld the Queen, he had stood upon the altar before the Hall of Kings. Before him had been the High Priestess of Tarendahardil, and around him had stood all the noble houses, and below him all the populace and the foreign dignitaries gathered in the square. The High Priestess held the holy symbols, and looked him sternly in the eyes. It was the finest moment of his life. He was to speak the Oath before Goddess, undertaking to uphold the good of Tarendahardil and the interests of the last member of the Imperial house, Goddess incarnate, the daughter of the man his father had loved and worshiped, who had granted his father his freedom. And thinking this, Dornan Ural had stolen a brief glance at his charge, the mysterious princess raised in seclusion, about whom there was such speculation. None else could see her then: she was to be revealed when the Oath had been uttered. She smiled at Dornan Ural, lovely beyond telling for one so young: then thrust out her tongue and made a face. It had so unnerved him he had thrice stammered the Oath before he could repeat it properly, a thing some took as an unpropitious omen, but most took as the occasion of many a jest and sarcastic reference. Never had Dornan Ural forgotten that moment, or the shame that had burned within him throughout all the subsequent ceremonies.

He burned even now as he stepped closer to the dais. From without, sounds of revelry distantly entered the huge, barren hall, part of the welcoming festivities he had ordered for the Queen.

Ever since that first meeting, Dornan Ural had thought of her as a mere child, wayward and spirited, but harmless in her play. He had not minded her jests and malice, for children would have their games, and must be smiled upon and guarded from their follies. Now, this very waking, he had learned she was a woman after all, and could wound with a woman’s strength. And now – Dornan Ural cast his eyes up and over the high ceiling of the hall; and at length his eyes came to rest again upon the little chair, as if it were a charm upon them.

‘And now,’ he murmured very softly and gently, as a single dark tear gathered in the corner of his eye, ‘and now, I must resign my office. Someone else must be High Regent of Tarendahardil.’

There was a silence in that hall upon the speaking of those words. Was as if all the assembled multitudes of petitioners who stood behind the bowed back of Dornan Ural, but existed only in his memory, had been utterly taken aback.

‘It is clear enough they never wanted me to hold it,’ he continued. ‘I did not even desire it myself. The great lords all clamored for it, but not I. And the dying Emperor chose me, because he knew my worth and had loved my father; but also because he distrusted the ambitions and the loyalties of all those great ones. While there would never be any danger that Dornan Ural, the son of one of the Emperor’s lowly freedmen, would attempt to usurp Imperial power. Oh, no! And the gracious and noble charanti, after bickering with and checking one another, finally assented for the same cause: I, with the blood of slaves in my veins, would never pose any threat to their own interests. Ask them now, why don’t you, if Dornan Ural would not hesitate to oppose them in the name of justice! Ask her divine majesty, if there is not a head on the shoulders of Dornan Ural, or if he merely carries out the foolhardy schemes of her girlish fancies!

‘No,’ he said, his voice ringing loudly off the stones of the hall, ‘I shall not resign! And if she loses a bit of her precious Empire, then let it not be said that wanton monarchs may disport without cost. Will they have their pleasures and their jests? Then let her and her noble lover laugh at this jest of mine.’

Dornan Ural turned, and faced the hall, and with the greatest dignity took the wooden arms firmly in his hands and seated himself in the chair. By now, that little chair had come to know well the shape of Dornan Ural. Upon the desk at his right hand were the bundle of furled parchments and the one lying open.

Thereon it was granted the High Charan of Rukor the office of General Extraordinary in the Queen’s name, with all war-making powers to raise and arm troops, and order them in the field.

The High Council had agreed to it, and all the forms were properly observed. Now that scrip of parchment required only the seal of Dornan Ural as High Regent and Administrator of the Seven Ranks, and the Empire nal Bordakasha should be at war with Ara-Karn.

Dornan Ural took up the parchment in his coarse hands, and slowly tore it down the middle.

XII

Gen-Karn, Mighty King

EMPTY AND DEAD was Tezmon’s great harbor now. Only a few masts, like branchless gaunt trees, emerged at drunken angles from the slick water. The storehouses beyond the docks were no more than charred ruins: a few pillars of stone and blackened walls of brick rising from heaps of wind-blown ash and rubble. All of wood had burned away; but not the fiercest fires could crack the huge stone blocks of the inner quays. Slowly and skillfully the Rukorian captain rode the heavy ship up to her berth. A few of the sailors, silent as they rarely were, leapt to the dock to loop the thick rope cables over the sooty brass rings. A solitary gull flapped against the sky, and perched atop a tall, broken pillar. From beyond it a sluggish wind breathed, full-odored with the corruption and ruin of the city.

Ampeánor had his men form lines amidships. In addition to the crew, he had brought a troop of Rukorian lancers, thirty battle-hardened souls led by no less than Ferrakador, the finest captain in the Empire. The rattle of their lances and body-concealing oval shields echoed dismally off the broken walls. Their helm plumes waved slightly in the breeze as they gazed through the openings in their shields upon the stained docks. There was no sign the city was inhabited. Tezmon was silent as a necropolis, mound-city of tombs and unvoiced ghosts.

Elpharaka behind him murmured something about the warships. Three Rukorian warships, the fastest of their class, had followed them at a distance from Tarendahardil, wary of the barbarians’ ships. But no other sails had been sighted. Softly Ampeánor bade Elpharaka tell the topmen signal the warships to wait at anchor outside the harbor, lest they find themselves penned in there. The captain nodded, and went to issue the necessary orders.

A shadow crossed Ampeánor’s back, cold and dark. The Gerso charan was descending from the afterdeck, opulent in robes of the latest fashion, scarlet, gold and azure, with a yellow braided wig after the style of the Vapionil.

‘Greetings, my lord,’ he said amiably. ‘And does your luck still hold?’ His eyes roved the stiff backs of the guardsmen, and he chuckled. At that sound the lancemen shifted in their places uneasily, the way a line of tethered noble horses will move when the disquieting scent of a predator is borne unto their wide nostrils. To laugh before battle, it was held in Rukor, was to invite the hostility of dark God.

Ampeánor eyed the Gerso sharply. ‘Surely you do not intend to go so attired before Gen-Karn?’

The Gerso smiled lazily. ‘Such is the purpose for which I had my servant purchase it.’

‘I thought you knew these barbarians. They judge by clothes, not character. All they will see of you will be a set of fancy robes passing before them.’

‘Well, my lord, it grieves me so to displease you, but it would seem too late to change my fashion now.’

A rustling had begun to issue from the ruins. Far up, at the ends of the broken streets, shapes were approaching the wharves. Gradually they gathered and crept forward, until it could be perceived that they wore the shape of men.

Unkempt hair hung over knotted shoulders, white teeth glinted out of ragged beards. They gathered on the stone wharf, eying the ship sullenly. Their dirty limbs were clad in motley bits of looted armor and rags. Ugly weapons were in their fists. Coarse muttering rose from them toward the men aboard the ship, with now and then a shout. More of them came, and more, like rats in the cloaca collecting about the legs of the workman with his lantern, their sharp eyes red with delight. They swarmed the dock, leaping up and down, surging back and forth, their voices rising, shouting at and insulting the lancemen. The tumult grew oppressive in the still heavy air. Arrows were shot at the masts. One arrow struck into the railing, right between a sailor’s fingers – he leapt back, cursing his surprise. At this a laughing cheer burst from those hundreds of bestial throats and the men swarmed nearer, chanting and gibbering, their voices rising in a frenzy Ampeánor knew would end in an assault on the ship. He glanced at the white sails of the warships, so far away.

‘Shall we force them back, lord?’ asked Ferrakador, bristling under the effort to hold in his wrath.

‘Something has happened,’ muttered Elpharaka. ‘Gen-Karn is not here. It might be wise to drop out to harbor somewhat, my lord, before any fighting breaks out.’ He spoke loudly, to be heard over the din.

Ampeánor shook his head. ‘We can show no fear before such as these. If Gen-Karn does watch, he means this as a test. Yet they will attack soon.’ He gripped his lance tightly, unsure what to do.

The din mounted. Suddenly the Gerso stepped forward above the beast-men, raising his hand. ‘We bring you greetings,’ he shouted in the barbarian tongue, ‘in the name of great Elna!’

Whether it was something in his voice, or eye, or the name of Elna, his words gave them a pause. The din died down, and the crowds fell back uncertainly, muttering and growling.

Just then a new sound echoed from the shadowed ruins, shrill as of horns. New barbarians appeared, taller, sleeker, men in fine armor. They beat back the motley beast-men, forcing a way down to the ship. The beast-men gave way grudgingly, fear and sullen hatred in their wild eyes.

Again the horns: and down the street came a formation of marching men. Behind them rode a black-maned giant of a man astride a demon warhorse.

Ampeánor relaxed. ‘Gen-Karn,’ he informed his companions.

The formation neared the ship and a low chant arose to greet it: ‘Gen-Karn, Gen-Karn, Gen-Karn!’ The newcomers raised the chant, pride in their harsh voices; but the others on the docks were silent.

Gen-Karn reached the ship, so tall upon his great stallion that his eyes were almost at a level with those aboard. His eyes swept the deck, lighting upon Ampeánor. ‘Greetings, my friend,’ he roared. ‘So you have returned! You have the gold?’

‘We have the gold, King Gen-Karn.’

‘Karn-Gen-Karn!’ The barbarian laughed. ‘It is good you deal with a man and not a madman, eh? With Karn and not Kaan – a king and not a god, eh, my friend? The barge-robber would have held treachery close; but Karn-Gen-Karn greets you with open arms!’

‘Her majesty, the Divine Queen in Tarendahardil, sends her warm regards,’ responded Ampeánor. ‘Together she is sure we shall gain a great victory.’

‘Ha! A true word! Have your men put back their lances, lord. The rabble will give you no trouble. My men can control the dogs.’

‘Are they not also your men, O king?’

‘Nay! They are but Buzrahs and Raznami and like filth. They followed snapping at my heels like dogs at a hunter’s feet; but like the dogs they have their uses. Order your men to begin unloading the gold; mine will bear it up to my palace. Later, when you have feasted and rested with me as honored guests, I will fill your holds with as many bows and death-birds as you can stomach!’

The Gerso murmured in Ampeánor’s ear, ‘My lord, are you sure you can trust such a man? Demand some surety of him first, before we begin unloading the gold.’

‘I know him better, Charan Kandi. He fancies himself civilized; but if we show distrust, he might storm the ship and take the gold by force. No: trust him we must, so trust him we shall. There are no gains without gambles. We must trust to Goddess and our luck. Captain, detail your men to begin unshipping the gold.’

The captain nodded dubiously, and gave the orders. The seamen swung down the planks, and Ampeánor, the Gerso, Ferrakador, and ten of the lancemen went down before Gen-Karn upon his steed. To the king Ampeánor introduced his companions. Ferrakador nodded shortly, raising his fist in military salute; the Gerso bowed low as a courtier, the curls of his wig falling toward the stone. Gen-Karn nodded to the lanceman, gave a short, contemptuous look at the still-bowing Gerso, and turned his back.

‘This is my sunward man,’ he said, indicating a tall, evil-looking barbarian. ‘Sol-Dat will see to the handling of the gold. Kings do not bother with such trifles, eh? Come!’ he cried, wheeling the great horse about. ‘Let us go to my palace and feast our alliance!’

He led them up streets strewn with filth, through the deserted marketplace and past gutted buildings, out of whose charred walls stared the poor surviving Tezmonians. Gen-Karn roared at the Tezmonians, laughing to see them dart timidly back into their holes. ‘Mind you none of this,’ he shouted to Ampeánor. ‘My men are warriors, not sweepslaves. But return in a year, and this will shine forth like the Tarendahardil of the North!’

Behind him, Ampeánor thanked the Gerso for his timely intervention at the dock. ‘How did you know how to stop the attack of those rabble?’

‘I didn’t,’ smiled the Gerso. ‘It was just a trick of luck.’

‘I wish you had had greater fortune with Gen-Karn. A civilized man must act aloof to these barbarians, else they will feel contempt for him. Now Gen-Karn will think you a pretty fop and scarcely notice you; and his contempt will also touch us.’

‘Then, my lord, I shall have to think of some way to regain his respect.’

In the banquet hall of the mayor’s mansion they gathered anew, and filled the low benches before the long tables in the fashion of barbarians. Against the far wall the gold was piling, glimmering in sun and lamplight like the hair of the Queen herself. Ampeánor sat upon the right hand of Gen-Karn, with Ferrakador upon his right. The Gerso had been seated well down the side table among the barbarians in motley armor, those few who were not Orns who had been admitted: an insult he did not seem to take to heart. He sat among the ragged bestial men in all his opulent fineries, holding converse with them in their own tongue. Over the din, Ampeánor could not hear what words the Gerso used, but noticed they were received with some weight by the barbarians.

As they ate they were entertained with sword-fights and a combat between a huge-chested, naked barbarian and a great yellow and black bear, the kind called by the barbarians a king bear. The barbarian slapped the enraged beast about, playfully; then slipped behind to gain a clever hold and flexed his great thews. There was a loud, ugly crack, and the beast slumped to the bloodied straw upon the floor.

‘Hail Ura-Dat!’ Gen-Karn bellowed, pounding the table with his winecup. ‘Not Gundoen in his prime might have bettered it!’

Other cheers rose from the tables as the wrestler held aloft his heavy, sweat- and blood-streaked arms, drinking in the praise. Even Ampeánor found himself caught up in the excitement of the bloody spectacle. But he noticed that the Gerso, sitting among the sullenly silent lesser barbarians, acted bored and disdainful.

Then Gen-Karn stood, and all the boisterous men were stilled. ‘Now, my lord,’ he addressed Ampeánor, ‘please to accept this of me.’ From his great hairy fist hung an object, the cruelly curving tooth of some monstrous beast, greater than a man’s outstretched hand. ‘A Darkbeast-tooth,’ Gen-Karn boasted. ‘Few enough have seen such a thing; rarer still he who has the right to wear one. Two-score warriors accompanied me beyond the Dusky Border where the light of Goddess never ventures: and we slew our Darkbeast, but only seventeen made the journey back sitting astride their ponies. Wear it with pride, my lord, that your illustrious sovereign, the Golden Woman of the South, may see it and know the bravery of Karn-Gen-Karn!’

A silence fell deep athwart the hall as Ampeánor accepted the token. There was surprise upon the stern faces of the Orns; anger upon those of the lower men. Ennius Kandi pointed, and spoke to his neighbors low words, at which they nodded. Then one man stood and said angrily, ‘O Chief, will you give this to an outlander and a Southron lord? What has he done, that he should have council-rights among us?’

Gen-Karn’s brows fell, and anger bubbled through the scarred countenance. But then Sol-Dat rose to his feet with a full winecup and said, ‘Ren-Gora, take some other time to boast of all your doings: if you think you have a right to wear one, go northward and get your own Darkbeast-tooth! What chieftain have we ever known who has shown such generosity and kingliness? This is our true Warlord! You wenches, bring forth more barrels and clay jugs, that we may rightly hail our king!’ And the promise of more wine cheered them, so that their roar filled the ribbed hall, drowning out the protests of Ren-Gora, chieftain of the Raznami tribe.

* * *

After the feast, they met in the council chambers behind the banquet hall: Gen-Karn, Sol-Dat and some Orn guards upon one side, and Ampeánor, Ennius Kandi and Ferrakador with two lancemen on the other. There they argued policy.

Gen-Karn told of how his spies sowed dissent among the greater tribes in the camp of Ara-Karn in the South: and how, before the year’s end, there would be wholesale defections to him and his standard.

‘For mark you,’ he said, setting down the heavy winecup chased with gold, ‘mark you, my lord, the tribes are not wild for this unending warfare. It is Ara-Karn whose madness drives them on, and his lackey Gundoen’s commands. Yet I have sent word among them of peace: not to trust in dice or God’s pleasure to sustain us forever, but rather sign pacts with all the cities of the South and have naught to do with lands below the Taril. And the warriors, who have wealth and women now, like this word of mine. They know me, and remember my years as Warlord – better than these!’ So he barked to his evil lieutenant’s avid approval, and gulped another mouthful of wine.

‘Yet why then do you hesitate?’ Ampeánor asked. ‘Ara-Karn and the others are now sundered from the North by the Taril. You have heard the latest reports we have had out of Postio, of how Ara-Karn’s forces were thrown back, with heavy losses. My Rukorian warships control the Sea of Elna. Think not that your fellow tribesmen will dare essay the sands of the Taril during High Summer, especially afflicted as they must be – rather they will have to wait until winter comes again. Until then, you alone, Gen-Karn, have power here in the North. Deliver the other cities: chop off the legs of Ara-Karn!’

A light gleamed for a moment in the barbarian’s black eyes; then he frowned and shook his thick beard. ‘Nay,’ he rumbled, ‘nay. Go not so fast, Southron! You do not understand. Gundoen dared not attack me here last winter, though he had men enough and time to make a try for us, because he knew the other chiefs would grow uneasy and come to my standard. They like not overlords. If I did as you now say, then all the other tribes would hold to Ara-Karn’s tent until they drowned in their own fellows’ blood. Will you have me throw away all I have won?’

‘Yet if you think your men not sufficient, your majesty, we will be glad to lend you the use of Rukorian lancers. The Queen, I know, would be glad to serve you so.’

‘Would she? Has she said so? Ah, if I could but meet with her! But nay, it will not do. Am I to war upon my fellow tribesmen with Southrons at my side? That is the way of the barge-robber, not Karn-Gen-Karn!’ And so saying he looked sideways at his guards, noting their looks, which before had been uneasy, and now were fully approving. But Ampeánor had seen the glint of fear in Gen-Karn’s eyes when he had spoken of Ara-Karn.

‘What do you mean, your majesty?’ he asked.

Gen-Karn wiped at his lips. ‘Why, that the barge-robber has swollen his ranks with mercenary Southrons,’ he said with a shrug.

‘Renegades? Are you certain of this?’

‘Gen-Karn does not lie, Southron,’ Sol-Dat said.

‘Southrons always were willing to betray their own for gold,’ Gen-Karn said. ‘Such rabble are beneath the notice of kings and great men such as ourselves. It is mostly these, with older and halting tribesmen, which make up the garrisons in the cities of the North; and doubtless it was mostly such that fell heaviest at Postio.’

‘And do you know any of their numbers, my lord?’

Gen-Karn shrugged. ‘My spies have given them me. Here,’ he stabbed a wine-stained forefinger on the map before the Gerso. ‘Write as I direct, man, and you shall hear the knowledge of the King of Tezmon as token of his good faith!’ So upon his fingers he toted the numbers of Ara-Karn’s men abiding in the fallen cities of the North, as he swallowed more wine; and the silent Gerso noted them down.

‘And yet,’ Ampeánor said slowly, regarding the barbarian’s face, ‘it is a shame, your majesty, that with all your brave warriors here you dare not take these cities for your own.’

Gen-Karn snorted, the way a bull will when it lifts its dripping muzzle from the water. He ran his forefinger down the crevice of the long scar. ‘Is this the mark of a fearful man, think you? And yet with all his tricks, the barge-robber could not rive me of life! My luck was too strong, or his heart too faint for that: nor think the tribes forget that. Give the fallen to the sightless worms: so the law says. Else is the old Warlord Warlord still: and that is me! It is but my men, my lord. These Buzrahs and the filth that followed me – even men among my own Orns – think of this barge-robber as the face and fist of God. Oh, Gundoen is clever, and the Pious One did his work well: but not all of that will outlast another Assembly. Then I will carve him daintily, chop by joint!’

Gen-Karn gulped down the slopping wine. Thick and harsh were his words now, and his eyes blazed like pyres. When Ampeánor told him they meant to leave after the longsleep if all went well, Gen-Karn flew into a fury, overturning the heavy oaken table with one arm and striking a cowering slave-maiden senseless to the floor. He swayed then, upon heavy legs, and fell crashing beside her.

Then the Orn guards came forward and lifted him in their arms. They bore him out into the empty banquet hall, and laid him upon the table before his great throne, where he had sat to eat. At the far end of the hall, the high stacks of gold glittered in the light of fire and Goddess.

‘Will he be well?’ Ampeánor asked.

Sol-Dat grunted. ‘It is ever the way with him now, to fall asleep with wine; yet in Orn, in the far North, he ever scorned the old men and their beer. Two ship’s jugs he has had: look at it sloshing in his fat belly! He fattens as a Southron; and loves his dancing wenches better than blades or battle now.’

Ampeánor looked from the outstretched body of the giant to the face of the lieutenant, and it seemed to him he had seen such a look of sly, ambitious scorn before, upon the faces of Vapionil herb-sellers.

Sol-Dat spat upon the floor. ‘Shortly he will wake moody, sullen and fearful. It is not a good thing to be about when he wakes: ask the slaves that! Let him wake with his gold, Southron. The slaves will clean the mess.’

The Rukorians returned to their chambers in the upper story. Now it was the first hour of the longsleep: Ampeánor set the watches with Ferrakador and heard messages from Elpharaka at the ship. All the gold had been unshipped, the messages went, and the bundles of bows, barrels of arrows, and supplies were being taken aboard. The crew would work through the sleep to ensure that all would be ready for the tide’s change.

The lancemen had drawn heavy hangings across the opening to the balcony, steeping the room in soft gloom. Those whose watch was not yet begun, laid themselves upon couches and the floor to sleep. Ferrakador stood without the door with the watch, wary of any treacheries. Ampeánor took up the copper tube with the map, and stepped out upon the balcony. Below him were the gardens of the inner courtyard and the great outer doors of the banquet hall.

He thought of Allissál then, and of her anger with him when he had departed. Then he had thought she but cursed Dornan Ural for his foolish obstinacy in refusing to confirm him as General Extraordinary; but now he knew some of it had been meant for him. Yet what else could he have done? Surely he was not responsible for Dornan Ural’s every oddity? He remembered the vows he had sworn in the prison of this city: vows as yet unfulfilled. The period of mourning for Elnavis, which would last a year, had delayed him; but when that was over, he would go to her and declare his love. Once again he swore it, his fist a tight ball touching his brow after the manner of suppliants before the statue of Goddess in the Temple.

The hangings behind him parted to reveal the Gerso. ‘My lord,’ he said quietly, ‘I will wish you fair sleep now, and retreat to my dimchamber.’

‘Did you find the voyage wearying, Charan Kandi?’

‘No, my lord: I was glad to be at sea again. I was born at sea, you know.’

‘Gerso is a long way from the sea, charan.’

‘I reached Gerso eventually.’

Ampeánor looked at the man closely, feeling his curiosity stirred. Surely Qhelvin could not have been so mistaken about him. ‘Tell me something of yourself, charan. As a youth I traveled to Gerso. It is part of the pilgrimage of the Imperial highborn to go on what we call the Route of Elna, beginning in Bollakarvil and ending at the great Gates of Gerso. But, of course, as a Gerso yourself, you knew that.’

‘Of course.’

‘I made good friends there – perhaps we have some in common. One man in particular, I recall, Charan Fallchio, a highborn merchant, than whom there was no more honorable man in the world.’

‘My lord, I cannot say I ever knew the man. I was never one for the company of honorable men. In fact, I never met one. But if you recall any of the more notable brothelkeepers – Orand dal Epharlen, or Kiva Haril?’

‘Of them I know nothing,’ Ampeánor replied brusquely. He drew out the rolled map and examined it, aware of the Gerso’s strange eyes upon him. Casually he asked the Gerso what he had thought of Gen-Karn.

The Gerso smiled. ‘I thought he would make you a worthy ally.’

‘And are you not curious as to how he got such a hideous scar?’

‘I assumed it was in combat with his betters.’

‘It was in a duel with Ara-Karn he received that scar, when Ara-Karn wrested from him the rule of all the tribes of the far North. And it is that scar, which he must bear openly before the sight of all men, which so inflames his hatred of Ara-Karn. Whenever he beholds his own image, it reminds him how his foe humiliated him: it is why he allows no mirrors about him. He hates Ara-Karn even more than we, with a hatred as great as the chest of a man can withhold.’

The Gerso nodded, and looked below them. Beneath the balcony were the oval gardens and fountain that once had been Armand’s. Goddess sent down Her shafts among the verdure, and the blossoms opened to greet Her.

‘You were very quiet when we were before the barbarian,’ Ampeánor noted. ‘I hope that your hatred against these, for all they took from you, does not blind you to the advantages of dealing with this one barbarian. He did not lead them into Gerso, Charan Kandi – that was another. And Gen-Karn will help us against your larger enemy, Ara-Karn.’

The Gerso nodded, but did not speak right away. Still he looked down the ornately carved wall of the mansion, studying the quiet peace of the garden. At length, ‘I understand you, my lord,’ he said. ‘But are these bows so vital to your interests?’

‘You have seen what they can do, and ask that? Why, they alter the very nature of combat. A pauper could down a king with one. Even so brave a man as yourself, if you had a bow and knew its use, could slay the awesome Ara-Karn, all by yourself!’

The Gerso smiled palely at that. ‘You may be sure, my lord, that I will do my best. Now it is late, and the tide will turn before the second meal.’

‘Of course. Go to your dimchamber and sleep. I confess that the spectacle of that feast, and all the prospects of our gains here, will not let me sleep. With these bows, and the alliance of Tezmon, we have won a great victory here, greater even than you know.’

The Gerso rose, but did not leave just then. ‘My lord,’ he asked, ‘would you answer me a question? I know why her majesty is so eager to war upon the barbarians. Yet you, alone of all the regents, support her in it. Why?’

Ampeánor smiled. ‘The menace of the barbarians is rightly the concern of us all, Ennius. Yet beyond that, I have a debt to settle with Ara-Karn: a debt of vengeance.

‘My ancestor Torval, who fought at the side of great Elna all the way to Urnostardil, once went against one of the barbarian kings, whose name was Born-Karn. There is an ancient Rukorian ballad about it: the ballad tells that Torval was defeated, and forced to step down from Urnostardil to save his life, in the final battle against the few remaining barbarians, when even Elna was forced to give back and forego his strong vows. It is this dishonor I must avenge upon Ara-Karn.’

‘Then pray to dark God,’ suggested the Gerso. ‘Is it not said that He hears all such prayers of vengeance?’ He did not await an answer, but stepped into the chamber and drew the hangings behind him.

Slowly the High Charan of Rukor shook his head, wondering about the man. He opened the map and read the marks the Gerso had put down there, deciphering with difficulty the man’s odd style of script. So many barbarians were in Eliorite with so many renegades; so many in Mersaline. He compared the figures with what he recalled Gen-Karn had said; apparently the Gerso had put it all down correctly.

He shook his head, filled with images of that barbaric feast. Still he could not sleep. Being here, among these barbarians, woke strange feelings in him, dangerous longings. He grew impatient at the delays of Dornan Ural, when all he really wanted was to meet the barbarians on the field of battle.

He drew forth and held the Darkbeast-tooth in the returning sunlight. He had thought it ugly at first, yet now he found it strangely, cruelly beautiful. He thought of Ara-Karn. Perhaps, before all was done, he would have the fortune to meet the man and challenge him in combat. The image of it swam before his eyes, like the final reward of all his lifetime’s training and abstinence. And in that contemplation he fell at last into slumber, warmed by Goddess on the balcony.

So was he unaware of the soft sounds that came from farther down the wall. There two hands and a head emerged from the narrow opening of a dimchamber window: and they were the head and hands of Ennius Kandi. He looked where Ampeánor slept, and smiled. Carefully he emerged from the window.

The walls of the mansion of Armand the Fat were beautiful with designs carved deeply into the stone. With strong fingers the Gerso gripped these decorations, and crawled down the wall. There was but the slightest of sound to mark his descent, a sound a passing wind from the dark horizon might have made. Above him on the balcony, the High Charan of Rukor dreamed on.

The Gerso straightened his gaudy robes. Before him rose the doors of the banquet hall – behind him the overgrown garden. Quietly he opened the wide, lovely doors and closed them behind him.

Some flames still hissed within the hearth; but aside from this, there was no sound within the long, high chamber. Along the wall beside the doors, the accumulated gold gleamed smilingly under the slanting light of Goddess-sun. The long tables were yet half-strewn with food and vessels. A gray rat moved silently among the platters, sampling the many offerings. Only one other sound accompanied the hissing of the flames: Gen-Karn lay upon his back on the high table before his seat, and snored and wheezed. The heavy black beard, so horribly cut away along the side Ara-Karn’s blade had fallen, moved faintly with the muttering movements of his lips.

Over the sleeping man, he shook a small silver plate, so that the three embers he had gathered from the fire over-leapt the rim and fell upon the broad, sighing belly of Gen-Karn. There they settled, thin ribbons of dark smoke rising from them. Eagerly they ate into the blackening linen tunic.

Gen-Karn snorted as if he smelled the reek of the burning; then growled sharply and swept his belly clean, sitting bolt-upright. For a moment, his great dark eyes were liquid with drink and incomprehension; then he blinked, and growled without meaning at the shape that stood before him.

Ennius Kandi nodded, and threw the yellow braided Vapionil wig to the floor. ‘Now do you know me, Northling?’

The mouth of Gen-Karn fell open all the way.

Again the Gerso nodded. ‘I see you do. What has become, I wonder, of all the fine brave words you spoke when Gerso burned? Gone with the palaces of that city, I suppose.’ He reached to the table with his sword, and struck it with a little ringing sound against Gen-Karn’s blade. ‘And now,’ he muttered, ‘I think it is time that Gen-Karn was rewarded for all his crimes and blasphemies. Don’t you?’

* * *

Ferrakador woke Ampeánor before the sleep was over with word that the ship’s hold was fully stocked with food and bows, and that they need hasten to catch the tide. When they had eaten, they descended in order to take leave of Gen-Karn. But the doors of the banquet hall were still barred and guarded by three Orns. Sol-Dat only shrugged to their questions and demands.

‘He’s in there alone, his head bursting with wine. He usually comes around thus. He woke in the sleep and called for wine – he must have been mad with it: the guards heard him later, roaring and upsetting all the benches. No man has dared enter there yet. But if you want to wake him just to tell him you’re leaving, and like as not get a sword in your soft guts for your pains, go on.’

So they descended again the haunted streets of ruined Tezmon, surrounded by ash and the poor of the city, and the motley beast-men glaring. Captain Elpharaka greeted Ampeánor, greatly relieved to see him safe, and gave orders to unship the oars and push the ship out of the empty harbor on the wings of the tide.

‘The ragged barbarians tried to storm the ship once,’ the captain told Ampeánor. ‘But the lancemen and the Orns left to guard us had no difficulty with them. All the supplies are good: I had every barrel and sack examined to make sure. Also I had the Orns show us that the weapons were usable. Gen-Karn seems to have kept his word. Now if only we are not attacked by the barbarians of Ara-Karn on the way out. For he must be watching this city.’

Yet they swept past the awe-inspiring barriers of white stone and met with the warships without incident, and alone, in a triangular formation with the merchantman in the center, they sailed south across the undulating sea.

Seven passes they sailed, and saw no sight of any ship of Ara-Karn’s. Ampeánor could not resist opening one of the bundles of bows and having his lancemen practice the use of them amidships. But on the eighth pass Elpharaka came to Ampeánor, and there was a dour expression on his grizzled face.

‘My lord, a storm is coming, and a bad one. I do not worry for this ship – she has weathered worse storms than this one bodes to be. The warships concern me, with their low lines.’

‘How can you be sure a storm broods?’ Ampeánor asked.

‘I know, my lord. Look to those clouds on the dark horizon, and see how they pile and threaten. Trust an old seahorse for this. I like it very little. The warships will have a hard time of it.’

‘How far are we from Rukor?’

‘Had the winds stayed at our backs, we had come within sight of the Isles in another three passes. Do you remember the campaigns against the pirates we fought among these Isles, lord? Be sure, they will never be so bold again!’

‘I remember,’ said Ampeánor fondly. ‘Signal the warships to row with all speed for Torvalinal. We are far enough from the danger of any barbarian, I think. We will follow with what speed we may.’

‘That is well, my Charan.’

The storm came upon them shortly after the last of the warships had disappeared over the lip of the sea. Winds gusting and cold drove violet-green clouds across the sky. The ship fell into darkness deeper than the dusky border. God was lost from sight, and Goddess dimmed to no more than a vague glow upon one end of the vault of heaven; then the clouds piled higher and fell lower, and even She was obscured. The winds turned and twisted, driving the ship over high swells. Vague ominous thunderings came from behind the winds, and the sailors muttered among themselves, recalling old sea-songs of ships driven over the dark horizon, to be swallowed by monstrous reptilian fishes. Yet the Gerso, wandering the decks, only laughed at their unease; whereat the sailors made the Sign of Goddess to ward off his evil influence.

With a clap the rains came, pouring out of heaven as if the whole bowl of the sea had been inverted. The ship’s decks were awash with rain and sea, she was torn to port, to starboard, she ascended mountainous swells and pitched headlong down their farther sides. The crewmen swarmed over the decks, reefing the sails, lashing the coverings of the holds, passing buckets down to bail the holds. The Gerso laughed again, in such tones that even Ampeánor shuddered to hear him. ‘And does your luck still hold, my lord?’ the Gerso asked.

Like a mountain aspen’s leaf, torn by the boiling storm from its mother-branch and spun with swirling gusts over valleys unseen beneath the deep-falling rains, the ship was hurled across the blackened sea. Lightnings flashed to every side, illuminating the harsh, heaving, sunless seascape. In the captain’s cabin Elpharaka pored over a curling map beneath the yellowed light of a swinging lamp, vainly striving to discern where they might be. The waves beat drums against the side of the ship. Yet even so the hull held, and developed no great leaks; and the bailing of the lancemen and the crew kept the ship up in the water.

So a pass fled, or perhaps two; and there was no rest for the hollow-eyed men.

Then, as the men fought on to hold the ship back from her running course, a sound came dully to their watery ears, one more ominous than all the others they had heard, so that at first their hearts denied it. But again it sounded, so that there could be no doubt. It was the booming of a great surf. Again the yellow-green lightning cracked – and there was revealed to them reefs of darkly shining rocks awaiting them. Elpharaka came on deck and looked forth, and his craggy, sodden countenance fell. ‘If the lines do not hold, and if the rowers cannot force the ship against the waves, we will be driven aground,’ he said.

He bawled out commands, holding fast to the railing by the helm. Long since the golden awnings had been snatched up in the winds’ jaws. The helmsman lashed to the post of the tiller strove with all the muscles in his back and legs to bring the ship about; below, the lancemen crowded in with the crew upon the low wooden benches, pulling desperately at the limber oars battling the currents of that black sea and the breath of that monstrous wind.

The wind howled, and the sound of those evil breakers grew. Ampeánor gripped the slick railing angrily, lifting his face into the pelting rain. Then of a sudden, the wind fell off a bit and the rowers gained heart, and strove the fiercer. And they began to make gradual headway against the sea. The beater raised his call in a cheer, and even the weary captain relaxed somewhat.

Then it was that a strange and dismal cry arose from below decks. ‘A leak!’ came the voice. ‘There is a leak in the hold, and the sea is pouring in!’

‘Impossible!’ shouted Elpharaka. ‘Her hull is stronger than that!’

‘Perhaps we struck a submerged reef,’ shouted the helmsman. ‘How large a leak?’ he roared. ‘Can you not stopper it?’

‘Lost, lost!’ came the frantic cry from below. ‘There are two leaks, each as big as a harlot’s thigh!’

‘Can you not bail it?’ Ampeánor demanded of the captain.

‘Not if the men are rowing,’ shouted the captain back. ‘Already we’ve lost a forearm’s length to the sea! As we go down, she responds less and less to the oars! My lord, this ship is done for!’ He shouted orders: straightway a dozen men leaped from the rowing-benches and went to the shoreboat, loading it with two barrels of arrows and bundles of bows; but the aft-rearing ship rammed suddenly into a reef with a sickening sound, pitching violently to one side.

The shoreboat swung out over the abyss and the lines supporting it – they must have been rotten from the storm – snapped. The shoreboat plunged into the waves. The swells took the ship and hurled her against the reef again, and the sound of rending planks and beams rose above the thunder of the surf.

Again the captain and Ampeánor gave orders, that the barrels be lashed together and thrown shoreward. Valiantly on the pitching, lowering ship, Ferrakador’s lancemen sought to obey the commands, while the seamen strove with oars and boat-hooks to stave off the rocks from the ship’s wounded side; yet the deck’s wild movements took all sureness from the men’s legs. The ship lurched heavily against the rocks, and the oars were wrenched from the seamen’s grips.

By the helm, Elpharaka turned to Ampeánor. ‘There is no more to be done in the time we have, my lord,’ he said. ‘Shall I let the men go?’

Desperately Ampeánor shook his head. ‘No – no – we cannot lose those bows!’

‘Then we shall be lost with them,’ the captain said sadly.

Ampeánor leapt down, falling on the slick and slanting deck. He rose, and tried to help the lancers salvage the precious cargo; but in such confusion not even such troops might work well. Another swell swung the ship and ground her against the rocks; a gush of black water boiled up through the forward hatch, and the men were sent sprawling. A flood caught Ampeánor and he felt himself washed swiftly toward the side – he flailed his arms, caught a secured length of rope and held to it with all his strength.

From his position on the afterdeck, Elpharaka now at last gave the signal, releasing the men. The sailors went first, and then the lancers, casting aside their armor before they leapt. Ampeánor, gasping and choking on seawater as he held to the rope, was almost alone upon the main deck now. The cover of the afterhold broke its hinges, and several of the last barrels of arrows leapt out and danced upon the heaving deck, as if maddened by spirits – then smashed through the railings and were gone overboard.

The ship rolled back more evenly, and the Gerso suddenly appeared in the gleam of a burst of lightning, drenched to the bone, a wild light in his glowing eyes, and his naked arms dirtied as from the bilge of the holds.

‘I’ve been below!’ he shouted in Ampeánor’s ear above the rending of the ship’s hull. ‘We’re done for now, come and swim for it!’ He began to drag Ampeánor toward the broken railing.

‘But the bows!’ cried Ampeánor, holding fast to the rope. ‘We cannot abandon them!’

‘Cannot your Gen-Karn fashion you more bows? Yet I’ll not argue with you!’ He caught up Ampeánor bodily as if he were a child, and aided by a sudden rocking of the ship, hurled him over into the water.

Ampeánor was buried in the coldness of the water, turned over and about by the ferocious currents; he was slammed against the mossy side of the hull, and thrown back against the rocks, which caught at his legs with avid jaws, tearing into his flesh. Down he was pulled, below the ship; the air escaped his mouth, and he tasted salt in his lungs; and a sound as of a hideous mocking laughter filled his ears.

He broke from the surface, gasping and forlorn. His long hair covered his eyes; with a toss of his head he threw it back. He looked about: the sky was lightening but gloom-ridden still. Above him he could see the black mass of the foundering ship, and above it, a figure convulsing like an image torn from a madman’s dream, the Gerso Ennius Kandi, sole possessor now of the lost Rukorian merchantman. Another wave buried Ampeánor, he fought back to the surface, slipping out of his sodden, heavy tunic. By the sound of the surf he knew the direction of the shore and struck out for it.

He fought in darkness against cold waves, sharp rocks and bubbling foam. Now each time he brought his head above the level of the waves and drank in sweet air it was a victory. His leg throbbed where the reef had bitten it; the water filled his roaring ears. His despair broke from him in the fury of his actions. He fought a primeval battle as old as man and the sea; and he, Ampeánor of the house of Torval, exulted in it. No longer was he the man who had withheld himself by the calm mountain pool beholding the nakedness of his queen; he was a man as old as the Empire itself, as bold as Elna: Torval reborn, whose brawny arms and shoulders beat back even the waves of the storm-driven sea. His arms thrashed, his legs kicked and found the bottom; and weighted with the water streaming from his back he rose above the level of the sea, and slogged clumsily past the rocks.

He looked back through the lightening gloom, searching for the ship; but already the sea had claimed her. She upon whom he had relied had been torn back into the abyss. Even from this distance he could hear the rending of her last planks and the forlorn drowning cries of her seamen hurled upon the jagged, evil rocks. The hold had long since burst open, and now her contents, the precious bales of arrows and bows, were being scattered about on the vast floor of Elna’s Sea.

Dizziness swam over his head, and his knees trembled with weariness. Naked he dragged himself up the beach a ways and fell upon the sand asleep.

* * *

He woke with the summer sun burning his back, and the raucous cries of sea-birds in his ears. He sat up slowly on the hot, dry sand, blinking against the shimmering sunlight off the sand and sea. Save for a few high fleecy clouds the sky was clear, but the sea still heaved from the effects of the storm. All along the beach were scattered bits of wreckage and the bodies of dead sailors, washing to and fro in shallow salt pools.

‘Good-waking,’ said a cheerful voice.

He looked behind him. Sitting astride a low rock and swinging one leg, the Gerso brightly regarded him.

‘How many others?’ were Ampeánor’s first words.

Ennius Kandi shook his head. ‘Only we two. The others must have all been dragged down by the currents and slain upon the sharp rocks. Some of your lancemen even look as if their throats have been cut. Oh, those rocks must be sharp as daggers.’

‘But Elpharaka, who was an excellent swimmer?’

‘Dead.’

‘Ferrakador, my greatest captain?’

‘Dead.’

‘And the arrows and bows, for which we paid and lost so much?’

‘Lost.’

The pain burned in his leg. Through the wavering lines of his vision he beheld the wound, an oozing black mess speckled with salt and sand.

‘Can you walk, my lord? There is a freshwater stream beyond that headland. There you can drink and cleanse your wounds. Are you hungry? I have some shellfish here.’

Ampeánor shook his head. ‘I have no need for food or drink now, Gerso.’ He groaned. With great effort, he rose on his knees and fell forward. His salt-ragged hair fell across his face. Painfully he dug his knuckles into the hard sand. Perhaps, if he had had all his senses about him, Ampeánor would have thought it odd that the Gerso, a man from an inland city, should have survived when all the seamen had perished; yet now there was only pain and grief within his heart.

He thought only that he, the leader of the expedition, still lived when his men had been killed – that he had survived, who had slain his friends and failed his Queen. Hot bitter tears forced their painful way into his eyes. His stomach turned, and for a moment he wanted only to shut out all light and life, and expire.

With his hand held like a claw, he raked away the muck upon his leg’s wound, feeling the pain strike him shatteringly, like the blow of a well-cast lance. The raucous cries of the birds filled his ears like a scream, and he fell forward on the strand.

Above him, Ennius Kandi looked out to sea to the remnants of the wreck. With a slight wry smile he tossed the shellfish about on the sand, and watched for some moments as the avid birds descended to feast upon his careless bounty.

* * *

Ampeánor lay for some time in the wide bed in the gloom, midway between sleep and wakefulness, aware of the place yet not of time. He lay upon his right side. Then he turned back, inward toward the river of the mattress, and saw where Allissál lay, her form a soft pattern of shade and vague outlines. The light in the corner of her eye showed she waked and regarded him pensively. He could just make out her smile when she beheld him: she reached up and tenderly stroked his hair away from his damp forehead. He wanted to speak to her, but all he could think to say was in reference to their political ambitions.

We have done much together, you know, he said, in spite of all our setbacks.

I know, she answered softly. I know, my love.

* * *

Again, the scream of sea-birds assaulted his ears. Ampeánor awoke to the bright light beyond the doorway. He smelled the salt and the freshness of the air. Uncertainly he rose, and dragged himself out of the half-ruined hut. The Gerso was sitting outside, gutting a large blue fish.

‘How long?’ Ampeánor asked.

‘Three passes. We are not far from the wreck – I found this old fisher’s hut. I clothed you in some of the sailors’ garb, yet they fit poorly, I am afraid.’

Ampeánor sat on the rock beside him. He examined his wound, which the Gerso had cleaned and dressed well. It was healing, but it had been a deep cut, and would not be wholly healed for a long time. The wind pushed through his hair, and the memory of the dream returned. And now it seemed to him as though it were the wreck and the deaths that were dream and unreality.

He said, in the tone of a man uttering for the first time a truth he has only just discovered, ‘All is not lost, you know. Allissál loves me.’

The Gerso cut deeper into the tough, squirming flesh of the fish, holding the hilt of his jade dagger like a murderer. ‘Of course she does, my lord,’ he said quietly. ‘I see it in her eyes each time she beholds you. I can still recall the joy with which she greeted you when you last returned from Tezmon. You would have to do something very terrible for her to lose such a love.’

‘And had I died now, upon this task for her, she would have always mourned me,’ Ampeánor added. This truth amazed and delighted him. He was decided: the next time he saw her, he would tell Allissál of his love. Why had he waited so long?

He looked about him, up and down the strand. ‘How sweet a thing life is,’ he said. ‘Gerso, are you certain none of the bows escaped the storm? Why, I know this place. We are not far from Torvalinal, the seat of my charanship in Rukor. Beyond those hills is a town where we may get food, clothing and mounts to bear us to my estates by the city.’

‘And are those the famous Rukorian Isles there on the horizon?’ asked the Gerso, pointing. ‘I have heard much of them, my lord, and of the pirates over whom you gained so great a victory.’

‘There are still a few pirates thereabouts. Charan, you have saved my life when I would have died. Now I owe you a debt of deep honor, despite anything you may have done to me in the past. You gave me insults once, but no matter your words or character: I owe you now a life. Come to me and claim it when you will, I will not deny you.’ He uttered these words solemnly, raising his fist before both God and Goddess.

‘Ah, my lord,’ the Gerso said softly, ‘and can you now give life like the very gods?’

‘And put this disaster from your mind, as I have done from mine,’ Ampeánor went on. ‘We still live, do we not? – and still may hope to meet Ara-Karn in battle and avenge our wrongs upon the little godling.’

He stood, his leg scarcely in his mind, and swept his brown arms against the dark line of the sea. ‘Soon enough the League will be formed – and Gen-Karn can fashion us new bows, as many as we lost here. Then indeed we will have the barbarian leader caught in an unbreakable trap!’

* * *

But the new bows never came. The weeks of high Summer passed, but the ship Ampeánor had sent to Tezmon never returned to the docks of Torvalinal. Another ship was sent, a stout warship filled with men; it, too, vanished forever. Finally a fleet of seven warships, urged to speed by the desperation of Dornan Ural, gathering armies to meet the barbarian and save Tarendahardil, raced across the sea to Tezmon. But when they returned they could only tell a tale of the long white arms of the harbor smashed and sunken, and of haunted ruins in the city, utterly devoid of men.

For the motley beast-men and lesser Orns had risen in revolt at last, slaughtering all the Orns Sol-Dat vainly tried to rally; and the ruins of Tezmon were put to the torch again, and the crumbled ruins joined to the empire of Ara-Karn, when the victorious beast-men bought back his patronage with the gleaming piles of Imperial Gold. And the barbarian tribes were united once again.

And after this the fear that the name of Ara-Karn engendered was even greater than it had been before. They no longer grumbled or held back in the ranks of the warriors of the tribes of the far North – instead, they fought like devils flown from the dark horizon, inspired by hatred, lust and superstitious awe alike.

For the waking after Ampeánor had departed Tezmon, the servants of the king had at last forced entry into the silent banquet hall and discovered Gen-Karn’s body on the marble floor by the gold, steeped in its own blood. A grim smile was etched upon those hideously stiffened lips; one hand held the bloodied black blade; and the other trailed a grotesquely scrawled message across the floor.

Gen-Karn, it seemed, had cut his own throat. The blood must have gushed over his beard and chest as he had fallen – and then, after he had fallen, after he must have been already dead, the hand that did not hold the blade must have moved of its own accord. Those fingers must have dipped themselves in the gaping wound at the base of the throat – that arm must have moved in jerks, forming those oddly angled characters to write that message in Gen-Karn’s own smoking blood. That message, which his servants read with the utmost horror, went:

DA ELGA KAAN.

‘Commanded by the will of God.’

(But others said the letters had been smeared, and what it really said was, DA ELGA KARN.)

And that the deed could not have been done by any of those sullen bestial men of the lesser tribes, was shown by the blade that had done it, which was unknown to any of those who discovered the body. For it was fashioned all of black stone, very old, and its broad black blade had been chipped and honed to the sharpness of a silk-cutter’s knife.

So ended the rebellion, life and dreams of Gen-Karn Mighty King, who had once been Warlord of all the tribes of the far North. He had journeyed as a youth over high and perilous ways, and returned to Orn with words of the great loot to be had. But another took the tribes south, and Gen-Karn died in a foreign land and was left mutilated and abused for the rats in the smashed ruins of his great banquet hall, unvoyaged.

Surely such an end is reserved for none beneath the state of Kings.

XIII

A Draught More Dangerous than She Knew

IN THE STRONG-WALLED CITY of Torvalinal beneath the mountains, Ampeánor showed his rescuer all courtesy. Gifts of weapons and clothing he gave him, and the use of a twenty-oared galley. So the Gerso charan toured the many Isles of Rukor, cool and peaceful and beautiful at that time of the year, while physicians tended to Ampeánor’s leg, and he himself saw to affairs of state within his province. But in the meantime the woman they both wanted abode in Tarendahardil, and when she woke she woke early and alone.

Prisoned within the saffron canopy pulled close to keep out biting flies she opened her eyes, which were the color of still pools below a cloudy sky. She drew a slender forearm across her eyes, as if to recapture the sweet unrest of her dreams, but sleep remained apart. Wearily she rose, and stood before the canopy in her satin couch-shift, languorous, elegant, bitterly desirable.

Listlessly she ascended the steep stone steps. Just beneath the arched and painted ceiling, she arranged herself before the narrow window. Despite the chill of the great stone chamber, the weather without was fine and warm: distantly she could see the harbor far away, and the narrow purple band that was the sea. She leaned forward somewhat into the window, wondering what ships would ride to harbor this waking. So she sighed. Messengers had come from Ampeánor about the failure of his mission. She felt the coldness of the stone between her legs, and thought of Ennius. She had not realized how much she had come to depend upon him.

Far below her Emsha entered, a rounded shape in a well of shadow.

‘We are bored, Emsha.’ She sighed down into the chamber. ‘Have any of our agents returned yet?’

‘No, majesty.’

‘Well, we must have something to occupy us. Are there any performances scheduled at the theaters? What of that troupe of musicians arrived from Vapio? We would even enjoy the spectacle of the arena now.’

‘Majesty … the theaters and the Circus are closed, by order of the High Regent. I sent the musicians away.’

She frowned. ‘What is this? Is there some news of which we are unaware?’

‘Majesty, could you have forgotten? It is the very pass! The High Regent has ordered all to be mourning – they would have been celebrating had it not been for the envy of Him who should not be named! This was the very pass of his birth. Had he lived, Elnavis would even now be preparing to ride in procession to the Hall of Kings, to take up the Ivory Scepter.’

She leaned against the cold stones. ‘It is true,’ she murmured at last. ‘How could I ever have forgotten?’

‘There has been much on your mind, majesty. The work of the Empire, the negotiations… It is not easy to remain a mere woman when you are the Divine Queen…’

‘Be still, Emsha.’

So she was bathed not in luxuriant heated waters, but cold rainwater from the palace cisterns. No paint was applied to her face, and no perfume sprinkled in her golden hair. In robes of simple black linen, barefoot, she went without state into the summer-scented sea of the Gardens. There she knelt in the dirt and gathered with royal hands armfuls of black chorjai flowers. Herself she worked them into wreaths of mourning, mindful of the funeral rites of her son. And the memory of the pleasures she had drunk in the arms of a foreign adventurer, when the ka of her son was not even departed from the city, made her feel only the more wretched and guiltful.

She passed by the stables on naked feet, not even turning at the hopeful whinny of Kis Halá. Past the black-draped statues, out of the double gates of the Citadel she went; under the soaring Pillar of Victory, not even glancing up. She did not see through her tear-streaked eyes the attendants following her, nor the bystanders kneeling along the great Way of Kings. In the great crowded square an avenue opened silently before her, through which long hush she passed unknowing.

Beyond the tomb of her parents stood that of her son, still glittering as if new-mortared. She held the wreaths in her arms, not feeling the scratches of the thorns on her flesh. The blossoms in her arms were damp with her tears. Gracefully she knelt and placed them before the sealed doors of stone.

She made sacrifice then, aided by the holy virgin priestesses, and saw for the first time the milling crowds below. They had come uncommanded by the crown. They, the common people, had remembered the prince, while she had forgotten the son.

* * *

Among them, unnoticed in the midst of those multitudes of faces peering up, was the barbarian servant of Ennius Kandi.

He had come down into the city, but found it hushed and darkened. Whenever his master did not require him or was gone to foreign lands upon a mission for the Divine Queen, Kuln-Holn would leave the Citadel and go down into the city. He did not go there to meet some secret lover, as his master had suspected; he did not go to hire the services of the painted languorous women, or game or drink wine in the dens, or to see horse racing or mock battles in the Circus. But he went into the city.

When he had come into Tarendahardil for the first time, the time his master bore the news of Carftain’s fall, Kuln-Holn had been fearful of it all. More than once he had found himself lost in the labyrinthine streets, more helpless than he had been in any forest in the far North. He had been awed by the monumental statues overlooking the Way of Kings, and their painted carved eyes unblinking, like those of deathless, wakeful sentinels. But in the end he had come to love her as only an outlander who neither belongs nor understands can love.

It had happened to others before this one, that they were smitten by the wonders of Tarendahardil, a land unto herself ever-fresh with surprises, a place beyond other places, the greatest legacy of Elna’s genius. Some she took with the revel of colors, opulence and odors of her bazaars, awash with vendors’ cries, bickering between buyers and stallkeepers, and slaves trotting between the tables and silken litters from whose curtains soft imperious hands would issue, beringed and dark-nailed. And some she took with the twisting alleys of the Thieves’ Quarter, where nothing was forbidden one well-stocked with coin. And others still she took with her great harbor where the standards of many cities waved, and captains dickered with merchants in many tongues over ladings heavy in the deep-bellied ships, and the smell of fish and salt and fortune was a reek intoxicating. But most of all she took with the naked splendors of her High Town, that high plateau of palaces and fanes; and so it was with this one. All the quarters enchanted and disturbed Kuln-Holn; but High Town left his mouth dry.

And now he stood with all the others in the huge square of the Way of Kings, and peered up at the mourning Queen where she made sacrifice, aided and surrounded by the holy virgins. And he felt the grief of the many thousands pressing round him, and their deep-wrought, implacable hatred for Ara-Karn. With them he followed the Queen as she went unseeing across the Way of Kings into the Brown Temple and abased herself before Goddess.

Kuln-Holn stood in the forefront then, driven there by destiny or the chance of the crowd’s tides. He gazed long upon the forlorn figure of the Queen as she knelt and laid her body forward, her naked, scratched arms outstretched. She did not hold her hands in fists before her brow in the manner of a suppliant, but rather lay them open and yielding upon the stones before the altar of the inextinguishable fire. Surely the heat must have been great upon her body there, swathed in the harsh black linens. Little globes of sweat grew upon her long arms, and darkened the long hair where it flowed like a cascade to conceal her face and shoulders.

At last she lifted her face and gazed up at the serene countenance of Goddess above the fire. Kuln-Holn looked from her face to the mysterious face of the carved idol – and save for the tears staining the one, and the shuddering heat veiling the other, those two aspects were the same. Others at the forefront of the crowds saw this too; and the awed whisper of it fled rustling back among the multitudes. The face of Kuln-Holn darkened then, as if with shame at what he felt; and he struggled backward until he vanished down the steps into the thick of the crowds like a drowned man dragged down by unseen things into the deep.

* * *

When Allissál finally rose, her hips and knees were stiff with pain. A young maiden stood beside her, regarding her with awestruck eyes. The steps and street without were clear. Long since the last of the crowd had departed.

‘O Divine One,’ the maid whispered timidly, ‘I bear greetings from the High Priestess. Will your majesty deign to visit her?’

‘Your face is unfamiliar to us. How are you called?’

‘Divine One, they call me Alsa here. In the old tongue, the tongue of the rituals, it means “the Pointed Brightness.” ’

‘You are young to be a priestess, Alsa. How many summers have you, child?’

‘Oh – fourteen, Divine One. My parents were too poor to support both me and my brother, so they dedicated me to Her service.’ It was the age Allissál had been when she had come to Tarendahardil the first time, with Elnavis growing within her. How long ago that seemed!

At the end of a long corridor of stone was the cell of the High Priestess, a small, low chamber half-buried in the ground. The wall toward Goddess was broken in a long row of openings above a small humble garden. The High Priestess sat in a small chair. She had been High Priestess when Allissál’s father had been born. The ancient woman rose to a bent stance, leaning heavily on the staff of her office, in token of abasement.

‘We have made the sacrifices and auguries concerning your son, majesty. Shall we then commence the process of granting his divinity?’

Allissál sat wearily upon another chair. ‘Elnavis, a god?’

‘Truly he was godlike in his life. The people loved him dearly. It would cheer their hearts to see his shade exalted.’

She shook her head. ‘It is too soon. Would it really be so simple? Give us time to think.’

‘As pleases your majesty.’ The old woman looked about her at the low, sun-filled cell. ‘Here I have spent my life, since before I came into womanhood. My mother before me, whom I can scarce remember, dedicated me. But I can still recall the first time I gave my vows to Goddess: vows of love, chastity and obedience.’

‘And you have kept them? You have never known a man’s love?’

The wrinkled face smiled at her wonder. ‘I will not say it was easy. But it was my duty to remain chaste, even as it is your majesty’s to produce sons. We all have our duties to observe. When I was first brought here, I hated this chamber. Then I saw only how small it was. Now I wonder at how large it is. This is my city, majesty. I knew your illustrious father well. We consulted often together on the business of state.’

‘Then you are more fortunate than I. He had me raised at the Summer Palace,’ Allissál said flatly. ‘I saw very little of him.’

‘Nor did I know my parents. They say my mother was a woman of the couch. Your father was a man who knew his duty well. Whenever he saw where his duty lay, he did not pause or complain, but acted. Did you ever learn the reason he had you raised apart from the court? I myself gave him some counsel on it. He had ever been sorrowful he was no Elna, to reverse the fading fortunes of his realm. Yet he realized that none brought up in luxury among the courtiers would ever be a man of great will or ambitions. So, after you were anointed in the Temple in Bollakarvil, he sent you away to that hidden rustic castle, to shelter you from the vices of the court.’

‘We were lonely there and bored. And we missed our parents.’

‘Think you they did not miss you? You were the darling of your father’s eye; your mother adored you more than life itself. It was the hardest act of her life to let you go.’ The little cell was quiet for a while, until the Priestess spoke again.

‘So it is said, that Elna gained his first victory over the barbarians with the aid of women. All the armies of the League he had gathered in secret: nor were they, callow youths and herders, eager to do the barbarians battle. It happened that the barbarians were then guesting in the city of Vapio, and feasted there and did outrages upon the inhabitants, but for fear none opposed them.

‘Elna went before the many kings and captains of the barbarians where they sat at table: and he went in the guise of a pander and took with him fifty women. These women were all young and exceedingly beautiful – also every one had lost sister, brother, husband or father to the barbarians.

‘They were found pleasing by the barbarians, who seated them on the benches, one woman for every man. Then the women smiled and poured the men wine, while Elna went into a nearby cavern outside the city where his armies were hidden. The barbarians grew drunken, whereat, a certain signal being given, each woman drew from her robes a broochpin and thrust it deep into the shoulder of her man. The barbarians, seeing the women begin to unclothe themselves, took these pricks in good humor, as though they had been rough love-games; yet soon a mist darkened their eyes and they fell writhing on the tables. For each of those pins had been dipped three times in the most venomous of poisons.

‘The bodyguards of the kings beheld their lords dying on the floor and, immediately guessing what had occurred, drew their swords and slew the women. Then the palace resounded with the death-screams of the women, whereat Elna called his men to the attack and drove the barbarians out of Vapio. And thenceforth, though they battled fiercely, the barbarians never again had the victory, unless the dismal survival of the last handful of them at Urnostardil be termed one.

‘The bodies of the women were treated with all honor: they were the first Fifty. It is from them we take our names when we are dedicated upon the altar. So it may well be said, your majesty, that from their blood and courage the Empire nal Bordakasha was begun. Yet it is an old tale, one surely well known to your majesty.’

‘You need not lecture us, reverence. Did we not raise Elnavis with all our heart? What then would you have us do?’

‘My daughter, it ill becomes you to use anger with an old shell of a woman. I am but a woman humbled in Her service, while you bear Her blood in your veins. Do but consider the claims of that blood, the last on earth partaking of the spirit of Elna: and consider too that you are a Queen who has no child.’

Allissál rose, and looked out the little window-openings. In the full light of Goddess, the small cell was warm as an oven. ‘You wish us to marry and bear another son.’

‘Is it not past time? It had been your parents’ plan to bring you to court when you had attained your sixteenth year, and a suitable match arranged for you. Chief among potential suitors was the young heir of Rukor, a dashing youth fresh from his triumphs over the pirates of the Isles. But your father refused to arrange a match without your full consent. There at last he erred: for had you been betrothed at the traditional age of twelve, the tragedy of your parents’ deaths would have had less meaning.

‘Of your youthful weakness I will not speak. Goddess Herself is most sorely tried at times by Her need for Him who is not to be named. Yet She is ever called back by Her love for us who worship and depend on Her. Well, some said your child should not live; that it should perish in your womb by the herbal potions some good-wives know of. But I held out against this, for the child had royal blood and divine, no matter who its father might have been. Then others said you should be swiftly allied to the most likely candidate, and a story spread that he had visited you in the Summer Palace and you had fallen in love there. This was the course I favored.

‘But Dornan Ural stood clean against it, saying it would be a fraud. And Farnese said such a marriage would be ignoble, having begun with a lie. So I relented; and it cost the realm dearly. And in the end they trumped up this tale of your ritual seduction, though it was one I detested in my heart. Still it was tolerable so long as Elnavis lived.

‘Now that purpose is done. The realm requires an Emperor before the barbarian draws too near. In that which he knows, Dornan Ural is a wise and loyal counselor; yet he knows nothing of warfare. The people will understand; I will answer for the rituals. Your majesty is still young enough to bear many children: your hips are broad and strong; and late birthings are no more troublous than early ones.’

The old woman’s words were potent in the small cell. Almost against her will, Allissál recalled how lonely she had been during her first years in Tarendahardil. Even in the midst of the splendors of the court, even with Ilal and her other ladies, even with the spectacles and the many entertainments of the courtiers, she had felt alone at times. Then she would come here to the Brown Temple, and sit and talk with the High Priestess, and lose for a time that loneliness. There were so many matters of policy upon which this woman had advised her. Since she had embarked upon the secret and illegal negotiations with the other cities, however, Allissál had avoided the Brown Temple, lest the High Priestess should find out the truth of what she was doing. It had been long since they had talked like this.

She looked back, and saw how the old woman was regarding her. ‘Whom would you suggest?’ she asked at last.

The old priestess smiled. ‘No doubt your majesty has already made your choice, as you did before. You were ever a willful girl. Yet I think I may say that to choose as your parents would have speaks highly of both their wisdom and yours. The High Charan is certainly more of a man than any other noble of this age.’

‘And now, Your Reverence, have you said all to us you wished?’

‘Yes, child, if you will promise to consider my words with your queenly, and not your willful side.’

‘I will consider them.’ Thereupon she left the confinement of the cell, and rejoined her attendants in the outer vestibule.

Allissál went riding on Kis Halá that pass, garbed even in her mourning robes. She allowed none of the court or her attendants to accompany her. Across the martialing field, round the city’s outskirts and up into the hills to the bright horizon she rode, where the land fell like a pitched stone into the froth of Elna’s Sea. The mare, overjoyed to be freed after so long a confinement, galloped like a filly.

She reached at length the hill of the necropolis, upon whose barren slopes were set all the city’s dead. In the cool woods at the summit of the hill, she stopped to allow Kis Halá to breathe. Kis Halá munched on the fresh clover, while Allissál wandered barefoot over paths of soft clay. She sat upon a rock at the fringe of the wood and looked to the dark horizon, shading her eyes with a bough of aromatic laol leaves.

Sparkling and silent beneath the sun’s embrace, Tarendahardil spread across the land, subtly smudged by the haze of early summer. Kis Halá sidled up to her, and thrust her muzzle over Allissál’s shoulder. Allissál leaned against her, pressing her cheek against that of the heated mare, and kissed her. Kis Halá snorted happily, sniffed at the laol leaves, and daintily deigned to nibble at one. A breeze arose, cool and swelling with the lush greenness of the season and the sea’s freedom. But from the slopes below, it seemed the shades gathered and swarmed like angry bees.

* * *

Not long after Ampeánor returned to Tarendahardil, he summoned the other regents to the Council Hall in the Palace, their first meeting since the first weeks of spring. The five men met round the crescent table for some hours; but little came of it. Arstomenes wore an intoxicated glaze over his eyes, Farnese coughed bitterly and argued all points, and Lornof wore a tunic with a hole in it, laughed too often in too high a voice, and rubbed his hollowed, darkened eyes. Dornan Ural filled the hall with details of taxation and the problems the many refugees had brought to the city. In vain did Ampeánor, alone, try to speak of the menace of the barbarians.

The sixth chair, which was the Queen’s, stood empty in the King’s Light, and taunted Ampeánor who sat beside it. He had seen Allissál only once in the brief time since his return, a meeting that had confused and dismayed him, so that once again he had been constrained to delay his declarations to her of his love. She had promised to attend this meeting, but at the last had sent him word by one of her slaves, that she was indisposed and would keep to her chambers.

* * *

She was there while the five men quarreled round the table: standing in the small arched corner room off her dimchamber that she sometimes used for the first meal. Still was she robed in black, but it was not coarse linen she wore. Her face was beautifully painted, and gold gleamed from her throat and wrists, and her hair was bound with ruby clasps. Above the two dining-couches behind her, lamps of brass and gold burned aromatically, dispelling the larger chamber’s gloom with a light changeable, warm and inviting. At the far end of the chamber, the slave-maiden abased herself and departed through the whispering hangings into the maidens’ chambers.

The man the maiden had conveyed thither walked across the lower floor and up the few steps into the small, raised chamber. She held out her cupped hands before her and presented him with a small pink shell formed with a beautiful symmetry, tiny and delicately curled.

‘From the deeps of Elna’s Sea,’ she said: ‘cast up by a wave.’

He said nothing, but took her in his arms and kissed her yielding mouth so hungrily that she was borne back against the high edge of one of the couches.

When at length the kiss was broken, she whispered to him, ‘Wait.’ Then she drew from her finger her signet ring, and from his neck the slender silver chain supporting a small ring bearing in ivory her likeness, which was the secret device identifying the agents of the Queen. She took the two rings and placed them in a small box in a niche in the wall. Then she turned to him and smiled: a woman’s-smile, fraught with mystery and danger.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘we are free.’

They dined then in the little arched room, reclining in opposite directions upon the couches. The maidens brought the courses from below. There was little talk, but many glances, exchanged between them; it was as if they needed no words. Then they laughed, and went beneath the saffron hangings of her bed.

* * *

The bed was warm and close when she awoke. He was already wakeful, leaning against a cushion and gazing upon her with a look of strange intensity, so that she was minded of Emsha’s words. With a seeming sleepiness she asked him, ‘What other women have you had, Jade?’

‘There was only one other of any importance.’

‘And who was she?’

‘You.’

‘We do not play at swords now, Ennius.’ She sighed happily, and stretched. ‘No doubt you have had many women in your brief exile – one in every city you fled to, perhaps. Met, couched, and lost when the city fell. Perhaps they now serve as slaves in the barbarian’s camp. I know not, nor care. I love you. Promise me now, and vow it before Goddess, that you will not leave me when this city falls.’

He took her hand in one of his, and laid the other upon her breast. ‘Before this Goddess, I vow it.’ But his tones were light and bantering, as hers had been.

‘By how you fulfill this oath, I will know whether you love me. But that is a chance that, Goddess willing, will never come about. Can you not say the words now, as I have done?’

He looked away. ‘Once I loved you, long ago.’

‘And now?’

He leaned over her, and kissed each of her eyes, the end of her nose, and her lips. ‘Now,’ he murmured, ‘you have more of me than I have ever given any other.’

She took his hand, laying her other over his chest to imitate his gesture. ‘Before Elna, I vow none but you will ever be foremost in my love, Jade, no matter what my deeds may be.’

‘But what will your other lovers say to that?’

‘I have had no others, Jade – you know that. Only one there was before you: no charan or courtier, but only Eno, the stablemaster’s son. I beguiled him in anger when I recovered from the sickness that took me in the mountains when I ran away. Eno had kept my secret, but he smiled at me, and that angered me. We met in the stables, where he would lay out cloaks upon the fresh straw. There was earth-scent, horse-scent and mare’s-breath there; my stain was loosed upon the straw of their bedding. So I held him between my legs, but there was no love for him within me; nor did I know his seed had taken root within me until later, when the guardsmen had conducted me here to rule in Tarendahardil. Such was the fine father of godlike Elnavis, who promised fair to be such an Emperor as has not been known for ten generations.’

‘And what has become of Eno?’

‘I granted him a goodly living, but never saw him more. He dwells in his native Eglands now, and has a fat wife and a dozen strong sons, all fine trainers of horses. And still he keeps my secret. But you may be easy, Jade: for I will not treat you so.’

‘That is as well,’ he answered. ‘For did you, then I could not warrant the stillness of my tongue.’

She laughed, a laugh he silenced with his mouth.

It was silent in the hollow chamber afterward, save for the bustle of ever-moving Tarendahardil drifting through the high, narrow window, and the muffled rhythmic rasp of Ennius’s sleep. She arose silently and slithered through the canopy. Through the narrow parting behind her she could see a part of his lean, dark body where it lay, as perfect as a corpse.

In the little arch-room she opened the box and resumed her signet ring. In the niche behind the box was a squat small decanter of brown glass stoppered with a brass draught-cup. Naked but for the heavy ring, her hair in tangles, her long flanks quivering sweetly, she lifted up that vessel. Her perfumed breasts stirred with the rising of her breath. Lichenous and syrupy stirred the herbal potion she had had Emsha mix, to destroy the infant growing in her womb. She unstopped it and drank deep, and the brown glass tumbled tinkling on the floor. She shuddered a bit when the venom took its first bite within her; but after that she was well enough. She wrapped her nakedness in a satin robe and glided out of the room.

* * *

When that fruitless, bitter meeting at last ended, Ampeánor hastened up the steps of the White Tower to learn what it had been that had kept Allissál absent. Yet her women informed him she lay yet abed and could not see him.

Troubled and confused, he returned to the Hall of Rukor, where he gazed again on the portrait of her, which Qhelvin of Sorne had left unfinished, and which the Gerso had presented, for his own strange reasons, to Ampeánor. By now, he had spent so many hours staring into the depths of her painted eyes, it was as if this vision of her had been dyed indelibly into the fabric of his mind. He felt taken by it and emptied, and sickened by a longing at once perilous and dear. This dead and perfect image was now Allissál to him; yet what Allissál was he scarcely knew any longer. Qhelvin of Sorne had succeeded better than he knew, when he put those elusive lights in her eyes, and modeled that mocking, bared shoulder. But had he known to what end his labor would be put, he would have chosen instead to burn the board to ashes and curse his own talent.

Ampeánor looked away from the painting, unable any longer to bear its brilliance; and saw before him Allissál herself, or another representation of her. Then (despite his earlier vow) he felt his head grow heavy, and his voice choked in his throat so that he might not even offer her a salutation.

She upon her part smiled, with a faint sourness about her lips. It was much the same smile she wore before the dissolute members of her court when out of duty and policy she felt constrained to flatter them for their vices. She was pale, and her face was drawn. Listlessly she reclined upon a couch. She held her head up strangely, as if even so simple a thing required great effort.

‘I come not to speak of politics or plans, Ampeánor,’ she said, ‘but rather of you and me. Long have I felt it, but it was unseemly to speak of it before the secondary rites for Elnavis were complete. Now, driven and helpless, I come before you. Will you not have me and rule at my side as my consort?’

Astonished at this miraculous stroke of fortune, Ampeánor was at first unable to answer.

* * *

Upon the second pass following, the Charan Ennius Kandi departed from Tarendahardil and rode toward the bright horizon, on a secret mission for the Queen, to meet her allies in Ernthio and gather intelligence on the barbarian’s strength and disposition; for no news had reached them in Tarendahardil of Postio’s defense for some weeks, and it was not even known for sure whether that city stood still or was fallen.

With the next waking the gates to the temples were opened and bells rung over the length of Tarendahardil to celebrate and announce the betrothal of the Empress Allissál nal Bordakasha to Ampeánor nal Torvalen, High Charan of Rukor.

And the people cheered.

XIV

‘The Wandering Outlaw of His Own Dark Mind’

FOR MANY PASSES after Ennius Kandi had departed Tarendahardil, the Gerso’s servant abode alone in his master’s chambers. At the times for the five meals, he would descend below to the eating halls of the Palace slaves. But otherwise he only paced before the deep blue hangings that concealed his master’s few belongings. Deep concerns wrote themselves upon his simple features as he paced. Finally, upon the second waking of the thirteenth pass, he put upon his head a cap such as sailors wore, and went out from the Palace.

Kuln-Holn went down from the Citadel into the city. He walked the wide Way of Kings, beneath the monumental statues, among slaves and merchants and carters and the litters of the highborn. When he reached the steps leading up to the Brown Temple of Goddess he came to a stop and leaned against a pedestal. Against the sky the aged building loomed, its high beacon terrible with the coruscation of Goddess.

‘How goes it with you, voyager?’

Before him on the first step above the level of the street, a little, frail, wrinkled old woman stood, and regarded him from out of the deep wells of her eyes.

‘Oh, lady, call me not by that name,’ Kuln-Holn moaned. Troubled were his brow and lips.

She smiled, and drew back the mantle overshading her face. Goddess caught up the fine sparse hairs upon her sharply rounded skull, and danced along the gleams. ‘Why do you not enter, then? Or is it that you wait for one to come down from sacrifices to lead you again – your master, perhaps?’ But Kuln-Holn shook his head warily. Now he wished he had not come hither.

‘Tell me then,’ she spoke, ‘if a child of yours took your gold and spent it on vile things, yet then repented, would you wish him hang about outside your house in misery, or enter and ask pardon? Do you not think your love could find forgiveness? Do you not think your master has goodness enough for that? How then could you deem Her love any the less, She who forsook the bed of Her own love so that we whom She guards might have light and life?’ But still, Kuln-Holn shook his head.

‘Well, then. You will not enter. But will you help me a little? For I am old, and these steps loom larger than long ago.’ Kuln-Holn, ashamed, took the old woman’s arm and helped her up to the Temple. ‘Nay,’ she said then, ‘only a little ways farther.’

‘But I cannot enter,’ he groaned.

‘Because you are a poor man, and have not golden vessels to offer for your prayers? Why came you hither, then?’

‘But I have done – oh, I thought I did well, and served Her – but a fear has come over me as if I walked along the dusky border, and I know not – I know not what.’

‘Have you no gifts to offer Her? For She is still a woman, and women like well those men who bring them gifts.’

He said, ‘I have only this.’ From his pouch he drew out a little figure fashioned of bronze, of a fish caught in a net. There was a round hole in the fish’s mouth, where once, perhaps, a pearl had been set; but that was gone long since. ‘I bought it in the marketplace,’ Kuln-Holn said, ‘but it is a wretched thing.’

‘Does it hold some meaning for you?’ the old lady asked, handing it back.

‘Nay, it is but a trinket,’ he mumbled, and looked away.

‘Yet a thing born of the heart is finer than all wealth, to a woman. Surely you have known this before? Now you must come within the Temple and offer it Her. For know, all offerings brought upon the grounds of the Temple are Hers by right even before they touch the altar; and he who takes back such a gift, no matter how worthless it is, he is called a thief of Goddess, and plagues overtake him.’

Kuln-Holn’s eyes widened. ‘That I had not known,’ he muttered.

They went forward a little, and all at once Kuln-Holn stood within the Brown Temple of Goddess where he had never thought to be permitted.

Above him the stones towered, ancient beyond memory. Vinelike carvings rose in all the corners of figures and scenes wondrous and strange beyond his understanding. At the upper reaches of the chamber, so far overhead, the walls were sheathed with beaten gold kept scrupulously clean, which dazzlingly reflected the light from the beacon above. Before Kuln-Holn was the raised stone vessel in which the sacred fire was kept burning, pungent with the sacrificial incense. The idol beyond the flames seemed to look down upon Her suppliants with eyes compassionate and unhuman. In the centers of Her carved eyes were gems of cut yellow crystal, changeable with the flames below, and seemingly alive.

Small and weak at the bottom of that high huge chamber, Kuln-Holn felt a stillness within the tiny room of his body, a quelling of all desire, pain, action, and hope. An immense kindliness encompassed him. Slowly he lowered himself to the floor.

The stones beneath his knees and elbows were worn smooth and slightly hollow. Thousands upon thousands had been there before him, and at the thought of all those voyaged multitudes and all their many prayers, his mind quailed. How had he ever dared to think such big thoughts of himself and appoint himself so highly?

The old woman took from his hands his little offering, and placed it upon the stone before the fire. A bell sounded from within the temple. ‘It is the time of the third burning,’ she told him: ‘a propitious time for offerings. Wait you here and make prayer, and I will seek out the priestesses.’

‘Do you know any of the priestesses?’ Kuln-Holn asked – for she had been garbed in a lora, and he remained ignorant of her identity.

‘All of them, I should think,’ she answered with a smile. At that she left him, alone with the image of Goddess.

Thereat he made prayers, such as his untutored heart could fashion. As he gazed upon the carved image of the idol, he was again reminded of its likeness to that of the Empress. For a moment he saw her before him in two pictures: as he had first beheld her, emerging in proud glory among the nobles of her Council, when Kuln-Holn had stood beside his master when first they had arrived at Tarendahardil; and then as he had last glimpsed her, forlorn and abased here upon these very stones that now touched his own body. Then it was a great weariness, greater than he had ever felt in his life before, swept over him, and he slept as if a stone had felled him there.

* * *

When the High Priestess convened the virgins in the chamber they found him curled before the altar like a faithful old dog lying upon the hearthstones of his master’s hall. They smiled, and exchanged gentle jests at his coarse and ungraceful body; but the High Priestess, once again in her ceremonial robes, suffered him to remain so even as they invoked the ceremony of the third burning – though that was perhaps not strictly lawful. In truth, though she could not have told why, the aged maiden had quite taken this forlorn foreigner into her heart. They understood and knew each other, it may be, upon some level beyond all the bird’s-scratchings of poets. So might two lonely mountains of the gods regard each other from far ends of a valley, weathered and humbled by the usages of the skies and years piling round them.

The priestesses took Kuln-Holn in among themselves and let him sleep and eat in a little chamber removed from theirs. They allowed him to enter all the chambers of the Temple save one: that one was beneath the altar, and they did not speak of it. They asked him no questions, but found his manhood and his simplicity delightful. He told them stories of his tribe, and of fishing upon the Ocean of the Dead. Many passes he stayed among them; it tore at his heart to accept their many kindnesses, yet at the same time he could not bring himself to leave. There were no wars here, and no commandments: but the spirit of Goddess was all around him, to be breathed in with the incense of the altars.

And even so, his stay there was not entirely untroubled. Some of his sleeps were unquiet with a smiling dark countenance and scenes from the fall of Gerso he would as soon have forgotten. There at the side of him was where Kuln-Holn’s duty lay, no matter how pleasing were these hours of calm. But surely, he would say to himself, putting it off, surely his master could not have returned so soon.

At length he knew he must return. Now the thought of the city and the multitudes without the Temple walls was ominous to him. But he steeled himself, and making his last offering and prayer before Her, he left the quietude and the incense and upon grudging legs wandered down the many steps of the Temple unto the Way of Kings. But when he came among the crowds and noise this time, he found that all of it had changed. Fear had come among them, and the shadow of Ara-Karn.

* * *

Postio had fallen after many harsh assaults. Now naught but smoky rubble buried the once-fair vineyards that had married Goddess with the sea. Ernthio had been betrayed and taken. The fierce nomads of the Desert had allied themselves with the barbarians and hailed Ara-Karn as their Prophet and their king, and together they made a lesser desert of the upper Delba. The withering heat of high Summer laid the Southland and all her peoples still, but Ara-Karn moved on: and now it was rumored by the tales of the refugees that the barbarian god-king made his way toward the walls of Bollakarvil, the brightmost fastness of the Empire and the very birthplace of Elna. Even as Kuln-Holn stood trying to follow the rapid words, a score of delegations crowded up the steps of the Temple, laden with offerings and leading sacrificial beasts.

Kuln-Holn wandered in the square among the mustering soldiers and the merchants. The heat of Goddess smote against his back, and dust clung to his wet tunic. With difficulty he made his way through the crowds up the slope of the Way of Kings, to the Citadel.

There at least was some calm, and some relief from the heat in the mountain’s winds. Kuln-Holn felt the coolness of the thick stone walls about him, and sighed. Yet at the door of his master’s chambers he hesitated uncertainly. He raised his hand, which still smelled faintly of the altar’s incense, and struck upon the door. A low word answered from within, of a voice he did not recognize. Softly he opened the door and passed within. From the parapet of the balcony at the far end of the chamber his master raised his head, and regarded his servant from out of darkened eyes.

* * *

For a space no words, not even of greeting, passed between them. There were lines upon the face of Ennius Kandi where heat and winds and the sunlight of the Desert had marked him – belike, too, there was something of the horrors of those newfallen cities mirrored in his eyes. His lips were so dark and stiff it was as if they had been stained wood rudely carved. His hands, dark brown and fleshless, toyed idly with his jade-handled dagger. He reclined upon the parapet carelessly, one leg thrown over the edge of the stone, the mountain’s cooling breezes playing with the dark curls of his hair.

‘So, Kuln-Holn,’ he said at length, ‘you are back now? Where have you been – visiting with your whore in the city? You will not see her again unless I give you leave. Or did you think we have come hither for mere dalliance while others died in the dust for our cause?’

Silently Kuln-Holn crossed the chamber and knelt upon a carpet before his master. Gently, miserably, he let bow his head.

‘Lord,’ he said, ‘let us leave this place.’

‘Have you had your fill of her then, or did she cast you out when you ran short of coin? Eh, Kuln-Holn?’ His every utterance was an insult. Kuln-Holn closed his eyes. He might have wept then – but tears had saved none of the others.

‘Lord, let us leave this place. Have we not done enough here? Surely this city shall be left in peace. It is a holy city, lord. She dwells here. They say below that she is the descendant of Goddess, and that God has taken her for His consort. They call her the living incarnation of Goddess upon the face of the world – I saw her in the temple, lord, and – and I think that they are right. She is beautiful and noble beyond earthly things, and not to be defiled by such as we.’

‘She’s a whore.’

For a few moments, Kuln-Holn could neither speak nor believe his ears had heard aright. Even then, all he could find to say was, ‘Lord, she is the body of Goddess.’

‘Does she think I do not know what she has done?’ Ennius Kandi asked of the winds, ignoring his servant. ‘How could I have dreamt she might be the one, returned to me at last? Even now, she does not know me. And how might that be, unless she be some treacherous disguiser?’

In the tones of his voice Kuln-Holn thought he heard tears – or perhaps the screams of burning Gerso. Never before had he beheld his master so wild and reckless. And was this the same one who had faced death so coolly so many times past?

‘Lord, lord, let us leave this place!’

‘No.’

The word was a sneer upon the dark lips, yet at its speaking something of recognition entered the eyes of the master, as if he were reminded of where and who he was. He drew his hand over his face, as if thereby he might have taken grasp of his soul again.

‘Kuln-Holn,’ he said with a trace of weariness, ‘and when we met in the hall of that castle in the snowy mountains, who was it who reminded me of the cause of sacred vengeance? Now I remind you. I said then that I would follow my own path through this. Do you think now I will allow the cant of priestesses or the weakness of your will, to lay a wall across that path? Nay, O Pious One. What is your Goddess to me, or I to Her? Will you be happy with your dreams, Kuln-Holn? – then sleep you on; but bother not me, who have wakened. How dare you wish to be content when I am not?

‘I tell you, this city will be spared by no divine favor. Its temples too shall be razed – its priestesses too shall be raped! Where were your fine deities when Gerso fell, or any of the others? Why should this city live on, when so many others have been crushed? The armies come near, O Dreamer – and why should I lift my hand to stop them? For her sake? Let her husband do that task for her, if the fool know how! But let him not look behind him at the one he strives so gallantly to protect, if he will not see such blood as would send even him across the knife-edged border!’

He stood, and the dusty-stained traveling garb he wore spread the smell of him into the room, an acrid, unpleasant odor. Kuln-Holn dared not look up from the dampened carpet. Calm again as if by fits, the master stepped over Kuln-Holn and walked to the door.

‘O Kuln-Holn,’ he said, ‘I go now upon a mission to do her Divine Majesty’s bidding. Herself, the August One was indisposed; but her husband gave the message to me well enough. I go now to the realms along the dark horizon to deliver messages and wedding invitations for the coming festivities. Do you await me here, for at my return I will have tasks for you. Fear not, Kuln-Holn: the armies of Ara-Karn will not reach Tarendahardil before next year. First they go to the shores of the Southern Ocean, and then darkward. The City Over the World shall be the last attacked. And Kuln-Holn, forsake all thoughts of your whore. Whores are treacherous, Kuln-Holn, when you have run dry of what they fancy.’

Kuln-Holn, abased upon the carpet, still did not look back, as he heard the closing of the door.

* * *

Against the surging currents of the throngs in the streets of the City Over the World, the Charan Ennius Kandi rode quietly and little-noticed; but that was the quiet of a poison-jade low cloud, after whose passing shepherds will sing thankful prayers to Goddess that it did not loose its fury on their heads. Once again the Gerso left the city and went abroad upon a sending of the Divine Queen, and once again he rode alone the long Imperial highways. But now he traveled toward the dark horizon.

And he took the road northward, and passed through Rukor first.

XV

The Tent of Ara-Karn

ALONG CRAGGY SHELVES of mountains near the Empire’s brightward marches, three companies of veteran Rukorian lancemen had made their camp. Their many sailcloth tents, secured by lines of withy Delba cord, billowed in the buffeting winds. There was in the breath of those winds the very stink and tang of the faroff Desert, driving up hot and arid from the jagged defiles below, spilling dust into the tents of the soldiers.

They took it all blithely. They had served their lord, the High Charan, on rocking ships along the dusky border, where Elna’s Sea spilled down out of the light; they had seen duty during blistering high Summer in Vapio, grand-dame of all cities and vices; they had marched the hills of Fulmine overlooking Belknule. Now they had been led by their Captain Haspeth unto this high wilderness. Off duty, they gathered round the sheltered cook-fires and gossiped of the latest rumors of the wars. Mostly their talk went wheelwise back on the same old stuff of women and home and past tours of duty. Little enough of news reached their ears there in that forgotten place, save what they might glean from the few pitiful refugees fleeing besieged Bollakarvil.

Once two evil-looking, ragged, dirty-faced adventurers rode into the base camp and demanded words in private with the captain. The riders were so foul and ill-smelling that they might well have been thieves or renegades or even barbarians. The men on duty derided their impudence, and would have swatted their broken jades down the steep path at race speed for a jest’s sake. It happened, however, that Captain Haspeth emerged from his tent just then and, giving the newcomers two glances, promptly granted their request. He was tented with them for most of a watch before he let them go their way with many respectful words, as if these hounds had been noblemen whose tunics bulged with commissions. The soldiers wondered at this unusual manner of their captain’s, but they would have marveled had they seen what went on in the tent, and stood gape-jawed had they known the identities of their captain’s ragged guests.

In the tent, the three men had stood over a great parchment map that Haspeth had flung wide over his table so that it took up most of the room of the little tent. Captain Haspeth was a short man of strong build. His hair was dark and his cheeks clean shaven, and he held himself always as if he were a part of a triumphal march with all the eyes of the populace upon him. With his dagger on the map, he pointed out all that his men had accomplished along the defiles they guarded.

‘Mostly it goes well,’ he admitted. ‘Mark you, along here I have had the men pile up stones, and lay traps in the ground below. Not even death-birds could reach where my men will be positioned. Even were Ara-Karn the Demoniac Mage they call him, he could not pass this way without the loss of half his armies. Still, it seems to me all our work here will go unheralded. Ara-Karn will not pass this way. He does not mean to go for Tarendahardil yet – had he done, he would have followed the course of the Delba to Elna’s sea, and made for Tarendahardil by the sea road. Yet instead he goes on to the deeper South, and besieges Bollakarvil. It was an odd move – not what I should have done. Perhaps he has some fear of us after all.

‘Here,’ he continued, sweeping the knife in a wide half circle around the lines of the Empire etched upon the parchment. ‘There are as I deem it, but five good roads that will take an army of the size of the barbarian’s to Tarendahardil. First is Elna’s Sea, well guarded by Rukorian warships and ramming galleys. Besides which, the barbarians have no fame as seamen. So they will not come at us from that quarter. Second is the sea road along the coastline, the Way of the Delba – that he has passed by. Third is this road below us, which runs between Bollakarvil and Tarendahardil – and now, it is secure. Fourth, here to the dark horizon, is the corridor connecting Fulmine and Belknule, which the men call Yorkjax’s Gullet. If Ara-Karn can come through there, it will only be after he had conquered all the South but the Empire. Here to the south is the fifth, and most dangerous. This was the ancient trade route between Vapio and the deepmost South, from whose building the ancient Kings in Vapio gained their power and their wealth. There are a hundred fastces of open plain here, and no way to oppose the enemy save by open conflict: and so it goes all the way through Vapio, Fulmine and the Eglands to Tarendahardil herself. We would need great forces indeed, and need to make him pay heavy tolls at every resting-post with blood and iron, when once Ara-Karn gains the Way of Vapio.

‘But heed my words, and we need never come to such straits,’ Haspeth said, passion thickening his voice. ‘Bollakarvil need not fall. Her walls are strong – her position is secure. Let me and my men give over our useless digging and carting here, and go to defend the city of Elna! My men are as eager for it as I. Believe me, a good captain could hold that fastness for a month or a season or a year, opposed by bows or not! Will you not reconsider, sir, and let me at least try for the glory of it? For it seems to me the greatest of shame and dishonor upon us, if we let that city be cut down without even venturing to aid her. Trust me for it, sir, even as you would have trusted Ferrakador; I can lead men in war as well as he could. Let me prove my boast, and gain for Rukorian lancers the great honor and glory of at last saying no to Ara-Karn!’

The taller of the filthy, ragged men smiled grimly, but he shook his head. ‘You know if the thing lay in my hands, Captain, you would be in Bollakarvil now – not with a mere three companies, but a score or more. It was not my decision, but the High Regent’s, that Bollakarvil should be forsaken. And for now, while the other lords are in their provinces, the law sits firmly on the side of Dornan Ural. Hold these defiles now until you have gained sure intelligence of Ara-Karn, that he has gone southward from Bollakarvil; then leave two companies here against all doubt, and return with the third to Tarendahardil. Belike the Queen will have her uses for you. I will give you a letter to deliver to her. In the meanwhile fear not, for there will be more than enough of glory and honor in this for all. And it may well be you will have word of me before you think.’

‘But, my lord,’ Haspeth said doubtfully, ‘still you have not explained to me – what do you here, and why are you garbed so disreputably?’

Ampeánor set down the silver winecup and pulled his stained and torn traveling-cloak more closely about his shoulders. There was little mistaking the quality of him even in so simple an act. He smiled faintly, almost boyishly, as he answered his captain, ‘I mean to go with Jakgron here unto the siege of Bollakarvil, enter the camp of the barbarians, and assassinate Ara-Karn.’

* * *

In the midst of Tarendahardil’s celebrations for the announcement of the Queen’s betrothal, a lovely, teary-eyed slave had come to Ampeánor in the Hall of Rukor. Allissál’s illness had returned with redoubled evil, so that she was unable to rise from her bed. Ampeánor hastened to the White Tower, shaken with fear and foreboding. The physicians he met there looked very grave. For two passes the Queen had eaten and drunk nothing. Such fevers as this, they warned him, were most greatly to be feared during this season of Goddess.

Ampeánor entered her dimchamber silently, through the hangings from the slaves’ chambers. In the aureate shadow of the filmy saffron canopy her arms and streaming hair suggested rather than bespoke her features. He saw her then in the image that never left him, of the dead and perfect image of Qhelvin’s painting. Gently he brought the small, crumpled hand to his lips and kissed it. Never had she seemed more desirable to him as now, so fragile and helpless. That she was now (it shook him to think on it) within his power, a portion of his domain, as much his as that painted panel, only strengthened his desperate wish to shelter and guard her. That wish ran like a fire in his brain as he thought fleetingly of the yielding body buried beneath the many coverlets.

Why, he wondered, had he waited so many years to approach her? What good now were his sentiments and delicacies and honor, when she lay still as a voyager in her barge? He was unworthy of her. Goddess, he prayed mutely, do but grant that she shall live, and I will grant you anything, even my life. Underneath his tunic as he sighed, he felt a thing scratch against his chest. It was the Darkbeast-tooth he had had of Gen-Karn, and it reminded him of the dream that had come to him in Tezmon, of battling Ara-Karn lance to lance. That too was a wish that harried him peacelessly.

The weeks passed, and Allissál was little better. News of Ara-Karn’s victories reached Ampeánor’s ears, making him restive. It had seemed for a long moment that Ara-Karn had come too far and landed in dire waters, trapped between the armies of Jalzir of Ernthio and Druonil, the general of the armies of the city-states of the upper Delba. But then the Desert-dwellers joined the invaders and Ara-Karn triumphed yet again, utterly and at little cost. Even the battle of Elna’s Sea had taken an ill turn, for the pirates of the Isles had risen in strength anew, manning ships the barbarians sent them from the conquered ports of the North.

Ampeánor tried to work with the agents and continue the negotiations, but the subtleties and patience required seemed beyond him. This side of things he had ever left for Allissál. And now the foreign ambassadors seemed reluctant to go forward, when the one with whom they had dealt might soon be voyaged and powerless. He tried to convince Dornan Ural again, to confirm him in the offices of General Extraordinary; but the old fool regarded him but coldly, and spoke cryptically of jests and games.

When the word came that Ara-Karn marched on Bollakarvil, Ampeánor felt he could bear no more. Even though Allissál still lingered upon the shore of death and seemed to have no will to recover, Ampeánor knew that he must go.

He had been toying with the idea ever since he had learned that renegades had joined the ranks of Ara-Karn. He had seen the way of the barbarians when Tezmon fell. All was chaos, each man running to slay and steal as he might. With Ara-Karn’s death, the barbarians would be thrown into confusion. There would be quarrels between the chieftains, and perhaps they would even fall to fighting among themselves. All their pride and superstitious glory were wrapped in the cloak of their mysterious god-king. Ara-Karn, therefore, must die.

He lingered at the fragrant bedside some passes more, delaying; but she got no better and there was nothing he could do for her here. It tore at him that he must go without being able even to tell her. Still, surely, she of all people would have told him to follow his duty even before his love for her. And by this deed he would prove himself worthy of her love, and make up for all the years he had made her wait for him. It would be his wedding gift to her, the death of Ara-Karn and the salvation of Bollakarvil. It was a hard gamble, he knew, but his man Jakgron, whom he had sent into the camp of the barbarians, and who had gone freely among them several times, had conceded it might be done – that is, if Ampeánor had read his spy’s carefully worded reports aright. Better communications might not pass between them, for secrecy. Not even Allissál had known of Jakgron.

At last, impatient to leave these hushed walls and seek the fighting, he readied his strongest horse and secretly, leaving false rumors behind him to confound the spies he feared, rode to his meeting with Jakgron on the Way of Bollakarvil.

* * *

Now the paved Imperial highway stretched and turned before him, pale in the shadows of the high cliffs, desolate and lonely. No merchants led trains of fat ponies with bronze-armored guards here now – no pilgrims journeyed to seek blessings at the shrines. A few wretched refugees passed Ampeánor and Jakgron, the last trickle of a drying stream, and regarded these seeming renegades hostilely. As it had been with Tezmon, so it should prove of Bollakarvil: the rich and fearful fled, the poor and brave-hearted remained.

The dusty, hot winds coated the two riders with filth, completing their transformation. In a few removes they emerged from the long defiles and came upon a sloping, stone-strewn field. Above them as they rode, the mountains turned to face them, revealing upon the upper slopes the city of Bollakarvil, the Obdurate Mount.

They came to a halt where the Imperial highway turned up unto the city’s closed gates. Bollakarvil rose above them in perfect aureate walls and towers of yellow ivory, the gifts and offerings of tens of thousands of pilgrims in memory of and tribute to the first of the Bordakasha. Elna had been born here, into the midst of goatherds and robbers. No one remembered his parentage: all the world knew his deeds.

When Ampeánor had first beheld this city, he had not yet been old enough to sit a horse alone; but already he had known of Elna. Later, one of his tutors had asked him what was meant by the word, holy – and without pause he had answered, ‘Bollakarvil.’

On the iron plain below Arvenil’s skirts the skin tents of the barbarian hordes were strewn. The many thousands of them overran the plain. Dingy smoke, rising from thousands of cook-fires, was spread out in an ugly haze over the plain, for the winds were somewhat abated. The odor of it was apparent even at this distance. Broad avenues and lanes ran throughout the camp in haphazard, weblike patterns. Around the limits of the huge, sprawling camp barricades had been erected around which, at regular intervals, groups of sentries were riding three abreast.

The jade gates of Bollakarvil were as yet unbroken and unscarred. The walls of the city were lovely as yellow roses, or the naked golden shoulder of Allissál. Ampeánor felt all at once that he could go no farther down this road he had chosen, but must turn and ride back to Haspeth and lead his three companies to defend the city. They would not be enough, and would in the end be taken and slain, but what of that? The greatest glory and honor of the Empire and the South would be theirs.

Beside him, Jakgron shifted in the saddle, hawked the dust up from his gorge and spat noisily. ‘Well, sir, there you have it,’ he said, and laughed. ‘And now, will it prove your lordship’s pleasure to enter, and have a cut at the beard of Ara-Karn?’

The High Charan of Rukor shook his head, as a weary, foaming stallion will when he seeks to free his mane. He had remembered why he had come. ‘Lead on,’ he said, the dirt in his throat making a growl of his words.

They rode their wearied steeds down the dusty road roundward of the great camp, to the northernmost gate. There a giant of a barbarian, with coarse yellow hair showing at the base of his helmet, accosted them suspiciously.

‘You’ve been long gone, Jakgron,’ he grumbled, in a mixture of coarse northern dialect and slave-Bordo. ‘I thought you’d deserted. And who’s your friend?’

‘Not so long as the pickings are good,’ the Rukorian replied blithely. ‘No, as I’ve told you, I’ve a sweetheart in these parts. This is a fellow Rukorian. Torval’s his name. Good fightingman. We were comrades yonder, before the captain’s wife took too great a liking for me. He wants to join the fighting.’

‘Another one? By the Warlord’s beard, you Southrons are all slaves, sheep and traitors. Care to sell your sweetheart to me, Jakgron? What of you? Got any lovers with soft thighs you’d care to bargain over?’

‘How is the Warlord, since you swear by his beard?’ asked Jakgron casually. ‘Is Ara-Karn back in camp yet?’

The smile vanished off the face of the barbarian. With a great-thewed arm he leveled a lance and pricked Jakgron roughly in the chest. ‘Better watch that tongue, Southron, or you’ll soon be able to carry it about in your belt for safekeeping.’ Again he swept at them with the lance, rudely shoving at them to go in; and they, like sheepish, humble renegades, obeyed the urging of the barbarian conqueror.

So the future Emperor-Consort of Tarendahardil entered the camp of Ara-Karn.

They rode up the broad lane. Everywhere was activity; everywhere, the signs of past victories. A dirty, iron-armed barbarian polished a golden breastplate from Carftain; two slave-girls with the marks of a Postio brothel passed; a slatternly wench emptied a silver-inlaid chamber pot from Mersaline. Beyond open tent flaps ancient crests of noble lines gleamed, and begemmed drinking goblets, casks full of coins, jewels, gold, silver. They rode on and on through the splendor and the squalor of the vast camp. Ampeánor was reminded of the Thieves’ Quarter in Tarendahardil.

‘Here’s our tent,’ Jakgron said. By comparison with most of the barbarians’, the simple skin tent was small and nondescript. Before it an elderly woman, stooped and white-headed, tended a small stew simmering over a low fire.

Jakgron dismounted and tapped the woman on her shoulder. She started and turned around. ‘Eat,’ said Jakgron slowly, pointing his fingers at his open mouth.

‘Ug.’ The woman nodded. ‘Uh. Ah.’ She scurried into the tent and returned, bearing two small brass bowls.

‘She tends my needs here,’ Jakgron said, holding the flap wide for Ampeánor. The inside of the tent was close but neat. ‘A good cook, she works for little. She’s deaf and can only mumble incoherently; story is she was once a beautiful slave whose mistress had her tongue cut out and needles thrust in her ears, to punish her for gossiping. She keeps my secrets well enough.’

Ampeánor nodded. They set down to eat at a wooden plank. The sounds of the camp pierced the skin walls, buzzing in his ears. He was among the barbarians.

After the meal, Jakgron took him round the grounds. ‘Did you wonder that there are no lines arrayed round the city, nor any siege-machines?’ he asked. ‘They use none. Like enough they have not even assaulted Bollakarvil yet. They are crude tacticians at best – but for fighters seem more than mortal. They will camp outside a city so until it suits their general to attack; then in a frenzied surge of battle assault and take the city in a waking. Meanwhile, those within the city grow nervous and fearful, waiting and wondering when it will come and how many will die. I’m told that some cities in the North surrendered before even the first assault. And those cities Ara-Karn spared, that others should take the example.’

‘That will not be Bollakarvil’s way,’ said Ampeánor grimly, not without sadness.

‘Where we tent is one of the many foreign quarters, where all the mercenaries and renegades stay,’ Jakgron continued. ‘They are closely watched by the barbarians.’

‘Is there one against the outer barricades?’

‘No, they are too clever for that. We are always put in the midst of the camp. Do not think of trying to bring in Haspeth and his men disguised as renegades and staging a revolt; they’d see through it in an instant. We are allowed the honor of forming the first line of battle, however, with barbarians with bows on our tails to ensure that we don’t bolt.’

They were in an area more slovenly than the rest, with smaller tents and few horses. Women bustled about in droves; sidled up to the Rukorians lasciviously, their streaked eyes wide as those of amorous cows. Jakgron cursed them with an easy humor and kicked them off.

‘Camp-followers,’ he said. ‘Whores from the cities – peasants from the farms. They’ll do anything for gold, and everything for more gold. Most of them are poor as dirt, but the lovelier ones with favor among the greater barbarians are rich as princesses.’

Ampeánor looked at them with disgust.

In the very center of the camp was a large, square clearing, in which rose the outlines of a single, enormous tent. More palace than tent it seemed, made of cloth-of-gold, purple silks dyed in Tezmon, and the rarest, finest skins. The roof was constructed entirely of lush green bandarskins. Above it hung a standard, a field of black covered by a ring of long curving reptile teeth; and round it strode sentries marching three abreast.

‘The tent of Ara-Karn,’ said Jakgron.

Ampeánor regarded it. ‘Who else lives there?’

The fightingman shrugged his calloused shoulders. ‘No one. It is reserved only for their god-king. None else would abide there. He has no servants – not even any women, if the reports be true. Now is he in heaven, or wherever gods disappear to. Yet still the sentries march.’

Ampeánor grunted. ‘And when will he return?’

‘Ah,’ Jakgron hesitated. ‘Well, sir, the the truth is, no one knows. You saw how the guard at the gate regarded me when I spoke of Ara-Karn. On the whole, they treat us well enough; yet mention that name and they turn foul. It hasn’t been easy, gaining intelligence on their mysterious god-king. I have not even seen him – he has not even been in the camp since last year; and that is the whole of what I’ve been able to learn.’

Ampeánor frowned. ‘Yet in your letters, you said it would be an easy trick to kill him. Why did you not tell me this before? What slyness is this, Jakgron?’

‘I did not know the whole of this myself, before your message came to meet you. As for your plan – please, sir, lower your voice on that – I admit that, before, it seemed possible to me; but then I thought you but asked a scholar’s question, and not that you meant to risk your head here alongside this poor one of mine.’

‘Well, and have you even learned what the man’s looks are?’

‘Ask six men and you’ll get six answers. The only ones who could say for sure are the chiefs, or the men of his native tribe. They will not speak of him with such as us. All swear to his godhead, however. What else could explain their endless victories?

‘Their real leader is Gundoen. He is Ara-Karn’s chief man, and is said to be his father – so if you want an idea of Ara-Karn’s features, study Gundoen’s. Many of the renegades swear that Ara-Karn does not exist: that he is a myth or was killed long ago, and Gundoen only uses the mystique to forge the tribes together. And one man when in his cups whispered to me that Ara-Karn lay ill within his tent, addicted to dream-herbs like a babe to the nipple. True enough, it is a curiosity why they should carry about this tent in thirty wagons, and set it up for a game. Mark me a fool if there is not some mystery in that tent, sir. But it was Gundoen led them across the Taril.’

Ampeánor shook his head. Jakgron acted ashamed, yet there was some slyness behind his words. Now, he wondered, had it been right of him to place such a burden on such a man? Jakgron had lived and thrived as a thief many years before; then he had been caught one time too many, and sentenced to be strangled. Ampeánor had spared his life, to send him as a spy into the councils of the pirates of the Isles. He had distinguished himself then, and easily earned his life; but now Jakgron was years older; and these barbarians were not mere pirates. It might prove more than his base but likable nature could bear – yet at the same time, no good soldier could have been able to sustain such a masquerade for even so long.

He thought of Allissál, his queen, his wife, lying so near death. More and more this seemed the errand of a fool; yet now he was here he must stick it out, for a little longer, anyway. He had seen the fire in the eyes of Gen-Karn when the barbarian had spoken of Ara-Karn. Somewhere, man or demon, he lived. Why then were they so jealous of his secrets? ‘And where,’ he mused, ‘could such a one have gone?’

‘Ask Gundoen.’ Jakgron shrugged. ‘If any know, it is he. Some weeks ago he rode out with a company of picked men and was gone some time. That was before Ernthio was betrayed – just before the Desert nomads joined as Ara-Karn’s allies. Some whispered he went to meet secretly with Ara-Karn. But if that is true, he returned without him.’

They started back toward their quarter. A barbarian rode by, magnificently mounted with a wildly beautiful woman bedecked with gold, laughing. The slaves and doxies of the barbarians swirled around them on their chores. They came to a less-crowded lane; then Jakgron stopped and tugged at Ampeánor’s arm.

‘See you that man there?’

Ampeánor saw a giant of a man riding slowly toward them. He was not so much tall, as immense. A simple leather tunic and harness was stretched over his bronze-solid frame. A brown cloak hung from one massive shoulder, and a plain iron broadsword swung against the barrellike thigh. In a pouch by the saddle was a great black bow. The barbarians passing him saluted and greeted him; he rode on unmindful, as if the lane were empty. His head was hung low, his gaze upon the trodden earth. His beard and sandy hair were cropped close about his rotund, solid skull, and the flesh of his face and neck was crossed with livid and reddened scars of his many battles. As he rode past the two Rukorian renegades, he accorded them not even a glance.

Ampeánor read a great sadness writ across that downturned visage. There seemed to reside within that countenance, with its brow and ugly scarred nose, all the harshness, the cold, the misery and travail of the bitter wildness of the far North, with its deep-snowed winters, its raging storms, and its untrodden forests thick with fearsome beasts.

Slowly the giant passed up the lane, the leather of his harness creaking faintly like an echo from a great distance.

‘By all the gods,’ Ampeánor swore softly, ‘there went a man!’

‘That is Gundoen,’ said Jakgron.

‘But he has no guards.’

‘Sometimes – often of late – he leaves them behind. That is a strange, moody man. At times he is filled with such revelry you would think him a god of wine. In battle he is a madman worth a company by himself. They love him but fear his sudden bursts of uncontrollable rage. And when he rules, his hand is leaden.’

‘He seemed saddened.’

‘And no one knows the reason for it, not even his closest drinking-comrades. Oftentimes he will rise in the midst of counsel or sleep or feast, order horse and ride alone over the hills about the camps. There are so many wildmen following the horde and living off the pickings and leavings of the conquered, burned-out cities, it is a miracle he has not been slain long ago. He forbids his guards to follow, and is gone as long as a pass at a time.’

‘A woman,’ Ampeánor said decisively.

‘Those I’ve talked with swear it isn’t.’ Jakgron shrugged. ‘They’ll speak freely of Gundoen, he being no more than a man. Once I followed him carefully at a distance. He rode about the barren hills, stopping at high rocks to sit and gaze idly out over heaven and earth. He met with no one, and in time returned reluctantly to the camp. The next waking we stormed one of the city-states of the upper Delba, and he led us like a madman, and killed twenty foemen with his own hands.’

* * *

In the relative quiet of the longsleep, the three sentinels’ tread sounded solemnly, as they marched round the tent of Ara-Karn. When they were gone from sight Ampeánor rose from his concealment and approached the tent. With a pull of his knife he slit the tent wall, down at the ground where it would not be seen, as Jakgron had taught him. He knelt and rolled in; the tent wall fell to and was stilled; and the sentinels came round again and passed, all unawares.

Ampeánor came to his feet in the darkness. Silently he removed sandals and swordbelts, and prowled through the chambers of the great tent. In truth, it was no simple warrior’s shelter, but a portable palace fit even for a member of the Imperial family. The openings at the uppermost folds of fabric designed to allow light and air in had all been closed, leaving the interior silent, dark, and close. After some difficulty, he found a small lamp and lighted it.

Some chambers apparently functioned as waiting- or counseling-alcoves; others were given to the storage of maps or weapons. One was filled with rare pieces of small sculpture, all of excellent taste, hardly likely to appeal to a barbarian reared in the wild. A large chamber held only two great chests; opening one, he saw that it was filled with enough rubies, emeralds and other gems to buy a goodly throne.

The centermost chamber was given to main audiences; it was the largest of all, and bare save for some cushions, two braziers, now cold, and a wooden dais surmounted by a great carven throne. Everything about was kept with the greatest neatness and readiness – as if its owner were expected to return shortly, he thought.

Behind the throne was a silken hanging controlled by a sash, concealing a small counsel-chamber. In this was a table spread with a single, large map. At the wall was a rack filled with tubes for other maps and charts. He opened some of these, seeing that those of Rukor and Tarendahardil were well-thumbed – especially that depicting the island haunts of the pirates off Rukor’s coastline.

The map upon the table was a diagram, skillfully fashioned and quite accurate, of the Black Citadel of Elna.

The outlines were precisely done, and the notations, written in strange, oddly angled characters, quite accurate. How could such a thing have found its way here? he wondered. Such details were not known to many. Even the crypts of the archives were inked in. He drew the lamp closer, scrutinizing the outlines of the Gardens; then relaxed. The secret corridor that was the sole vulnerable point of the Citadel, known only to three living persons, was not drawn in or mentioned.

He took and folded the chart. He was on the point of thrusting it beneath his tunic when he changed his mind and instead held it over the flame of his lamp, burning it over the iron bowl of one of the braziers. As the parchment blackened and the characters turned white before they crumbled, Ampeánor suddenly recognized them.

He remembered the sleepless sleep in Tezmon, and the antechamber filled with sleeping lancemen; and he saw again the map of the North, on which the Gerso had inscribed the information Gen-Karn had given them. He pulled the map from the brazier, trying to stifle the flames. But it was too late. The last scraps of parchment crumbled in his burnt fingers.

And it struck him now, that it had been no storm that had wrecked the merchantman, nor rocks that had shattered those many bows, nor slain Elpharaka, Ferrakador or his men.

A sound in the chambers beyond startled him. Quickly, he snuffed the lamp and fell behind a chest in the audience chamber.

Faintly from without he could hear words exchanged. A clank of iron followed, and a sudden unbearable light glaring in from the antechamber. The flaps fell to again, plunging the tent into gloom; and a lone, dark figure entered the chamber.

He did not dare raise his head at first. He heard the man’s footsteps. They were heavy and slow, those of a man saddened or wearied from a long journey. The man stood still for a space, and sighed. He had lighted as yet no lamp, apparently being familiar enough with these chambers to need none. The steps began again, nearing; they sounded hollowly on the raised wooden dais, and stopped. The great carven throne creaked, as a heavy body settled in it.

Ampeánor cursed under his breath. Was Goddess so kind as to send him his enemy so nicely, then, and was he to greet the opportunity weaponless? All his weapons he had left behind where he had entered, to ensure the utmost silence. Now he had only his hands. Carefully he unlaced the front of his leather tunic, withdrawing the long cord lacing. He wrapped it tight about both fists. The public executioners of Rukor sometimes strangled the condemned; and as their High Charan, he had seen their work many times. It would be a fitting death for this one now.

Cautiously he wormed his way forward. The man, if he were Ara-Karn, God-King and Damned, would be wearied from his ride. His movements would be slow. But perhaps he would not sleep just yet; perhaps he had already summoned guards or men to attend him. It was a chance not to be missed. It was a Rukorian proverb never to cast a shadow on the gifts of Goddess. He inched himself forward. As he did so, the Darkbeast-tooth within his opened tunic dragged across the edge of the dais, raising a soft, scraping sound.

‘Who is there?’ cried the man on the throne.

XVI

The Hall of Justice Again

SLOWLY AND RELUCTANTLY, Allissál returned to health. It had been the second real illness of her life, and in a way she was sorry now to see it end. Life in the gloomy chamber, attended by her maidens, sheltered from all worldly concerns, had come to seem an altered and superior existence. It was calm and quiet there, and she could hear the recited legends of the past whenever she wished. Whenever she slept, it was as if she went away to some distant and unheralded bourne; yet when she woke she could recall none of the happy times she had spent there.

She woke at length, and knew that she must resume the burdens of her life. Yet at the first her waking was so unfamiliar it might itself have been a dream. Beside her head, half tangled in the strands of her hair, she found a ribboned parchment sealed with Ampeánor’s personal device. Taking it up she read it, and so learned what he had been driven to.

So he had gone away to danger once again, and this the most perilous of his travels. How very unfair and selfish of him, she thought; then knew her shame and was sorry. There was, after all, no use in being annoyed. Some vast, pervasive, malignant fate seemed to oversee and undo all that they attempted – had she been superstitious, she might have been tempted to give credence to the fantastical rumors of Ara-Karn.

She had chosen as she knew she must: there was no other path for her. She could not work with Dornan Ural. The barbarian drew ever closer. The Empire needed a ruler with real power. She could not have wed Ennius – he was a foreigner, and had no base of power among either the highborn or the officials. Moreover, the foreign courts, which knew him not, would not have trusted in his leadership – she herself knew nothing of his ability to general armies in the field. And, finally, to have chosen him would have wounded and alienated Ampeánor. No, Ampeánor had been her only choice; nor could she have wed him with Ennius’s child pushing out her belly.

She felt upon the verge of tears. She had given in to her passions only twice in her life, while Ilal and the other charai of her court danced with lovers by the score. Yet both her small affairs had brought her nothing but misery. It was all so unfair. She should have truly run away when she was a girl, and never returned. Even couch-slaves must lead better lives than hers.

There was also, it seemed, a note from Ennius. It was brief, and perhaps no harsher than she deserved. ‘Always I knew we were alike,’ he ended, ‘but never so alike.’

Its formality and its utter refusal to show even the least bit of warmth hurt her deeply. Had she not vowed a sacred oath to him, and did he not realize how much that had cost her? She was relieved Ampeánor had sent him abroad to Ul Raambar before he had left. It would be long ere Ennius would return. Perhaps by then she might be better able to face him. Even so, she could not help feeling that it was very likely she had now lost both of them. Still weak from the poison and feeling very childlike in the gloom, she gave way to her tears, and drenched the pillows of her bed.

* * *

High Summer burned to an end, and Tarendahardil emerged sluggishly from her labored rest. The winds turned back a little, cool with the sea, cool with the darkness beyond. It was quiet in the city, even in the Thieves’ Quarter – grim, it might even have been said.

A minor festival was declared to celebrate the Divine Queen’s return to health. She presided over a session at the Circus, looking very thin and pale, and yet somehow – or so those courtiers nearest her box claimed – for all that, she was more lovely and more desirable than ever. It put one in mind of the poetess who had died for her passion, and called love bittersweet. There was something deep within the Queen’s countenance inviting at once danger, intrigue, and desire. She moved listlessly, and smiled but politely at the merriments of Arstomenes, but in her shoulders, and the way she moved her legs, there seemed a waiting fierceness none had before noted in her. The court poets worked upon their homages to this new evidence of her beauty, helpless to turn their minds from it, though they greatly doubted how their words might be received. Of course, no conversation might end without some speculation concerning the whereabouts of the High Charan of Rukor, who should have sat beside her and held her hand when the crystals were strewn; but the answer, known to but her majesty, remained unspoken.

It was a few passes after the closing of the festival that she first essayed to resume her duties. Minor petitions and addresses, which required her presence under law, had mounted grievously in the durance of her illness. Long had Dornan Ural sent messages requesting that she suffer to hear some of these petitions, but the very length of the lists he had sent in had daunted her – or rather, stiffened her stubborn wish to defy him even now. At last, however, she consented.

Ironically, it was this that finally brought about her consent: Bistro of Eliorite had quit her service. ‘We are accomplishing nothing here,’ he had complained to her. ‘While in the meantime the barbarian draws even ever nearer! I cannot stand it any longer, your majesty – I must go and kill me some of them!’ She had not attempted to dissuade him, but had loaded him with gifts and seen him off with honor, knowing she bade farewell to a dead man. Well, but she thought bitterly, were they not all of them here dead to a man? Only Ara-Karn was alive in the world, in the eyes of the gods.

Because the petitioners were so numerous, it was the opinion of Dornan Ural that the audience was best held in the old Hall of Justice, where they might all come at once. The Empress sat in a high antique throne of gold and rubies in the King’s Light, and the highborn clustered with their retinues in the upper galleries. All the courtiers and the petitioners were outfitted in their grandest, most handsome styles to catch the Queen’s eye and favor. Despite the orders of the High Regent and the inclination of the Queen, the affair had become a grand one, reminiscent of the time of the old Emperor, Allissál’s father. Nothing that occurred or was granted in this session seemed likely to be forgotten.

Yet, even so, things went unwell from the very start. Never had Dornan Ural seemed so pompous, so insistent upon all formalities and points of law. As for her majesty, she seemed to be not in the best of spirits, and interposed interruptions and delays of her own, to the growing exasperation of the High Regent. Like cat and dog they were, that cannot meet for quarreling. The repeated urgings and outraged coughs of the High Regent only served to prick the malice of the Queen the more. The petitioners, seeing this, chose between them, appealing to the one the decision of the other. Few things were accomplished; the session dragged on and on, even to beyond the third meal.

The truth was, that immediately she had been seated by her maidens in the old throne, so full of the presence of her ancestors, Allissál had been struck by the realization that hers was, after all, a paper empire; as fat old Dornan Ural, bustling in with his carrying-racks of parchments, made more clear. The one love of her life she had broken and betrayed – the life growing within her she had poisoned – herself she had condemned to a marriage of state with a man she once had loved, and now despised – and had all of it been for this? This was naught, and less than naught. She looked out through narrowed lids upon the throngs vying for her attention and favor; and she cursed them in the sight of Her. She had seen her duty, and in great pain fulfilled it; and by that had freed herself. Had Ennius entered that hall then, as he had so long ago, when she had first set eyes upon him and been outraged by his impudent looks, she would have gone away with him and left them all to their separate dooms. Bored and disgusted, she protracted the session only to make them all share in her misery. Would they force her to undergo this farce? Very well – but she had her own ways and manners of compliance.

It made for a break of relief when the slave announced the appearance of two refugees with word of Ara-Karn. ‘Ara-Karn?’

‘Yes, Divine One. They claim not to be merely the bearers of some new rumor, but actually to have known and spoken with the barbarian.’ He pointed them out among the crowds: men in tunics and trappings of the merchant class, in the fashion of the northern cities.

Dornan Ural groaned aloud, beside himself despite decorum. ‘Can this not wait? Does not every exile tell a like tale? Paranin, did they speak truthfully?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said softly, ‘we would prefer to examine the veracity of these men ourselves, High Regent.’ They were speaking almost privately now, and the crowds, intent upon catching what it was they spoke of, were hushed and attentive.

‘Your majesty,’ Dornan Ural said impatiently, ‘I was but attempting – it is well known your majesty sees anyone claiming knowledge of Ara-Karn; and it has opened the door to many who only hope to gain some silver for their lies. Yet we have six-and-thirty items remaining on the schedule even after all this time!’

‘All hail his August Majesty, Dornan Ural nal Servant’s-Chambers,’ she said aloud. ‘Or should it rather be Dornan the Mage, who knows these fellows to be liars without ever having heard them? But it were better for your vaunted glory, my lord, if you saw more to these important details of rule yourself, instead of pestering us with them and fobbing them off upon your overburdened subordinates.’

Dornan Ural’s face went bone-pale, then darkened to the color of a deep flowering bruise. In the quiet, her words had reached or were passed along to the farthest corners of the hall. All eyes were now upon him. He opened his mouth, but all that emerged was a little, stammered, high-pitched squeak.

It was an unfortunate sound. The slave-maidens had all they could do to restrain their smiles. From above came the open laughter of Arstomenes and Ilal and the ladies they had to join their frolic: a drunken, mocking laughter.

Dornan Ural closed his mouth. He nodded very slowly to her majesty. Still was his face dark as Postio wine, or the face of a seducer in Rukor strangled on the steps of the judges’ hall. In a whisper, he asked, ‘And does your Divine Majesty permit, that this lowly one be granted leave to depart the Presence?’ He used such a construction as the lowest of slaves might.

‘We may Goddess thank, that your regency is soon to be ended,’ she replied coldly. ‘Yes, you may depart now until that time when we call upon you to submit the articles of your office to our lord, your new Emperor. And after that, we hope to see you when you have learned somewhat of grace and wit – in short, never.’

Dornan Ural bowed low and abased himself almost, yet not quite, as a slave would. As he rose he kept his eyes fixed upon her majesty. In an utter stillness, the High Regent of Tarendahardil backed out of the chamber. The crowds parted to let him pass. Through the high uncovered opening the light of Goddess beamed in, a fall of quiet and kindness upon the figure of the Queen. She rose and left the hall; behind her was a growing turmoil. The slaves, displaying greater presence of mind than the courtiers there, made the announcement that the audience was at an end.

In the upper galleries, highborn lords and ladies arched their painted bewigged heads together, exchanging many an artful glance and clever remark. Such stuff as this more than compensated them for having to endure the hot, dull weeks of her majesty’s illness, during which all public shows and entertainments had been suspended. While the audiences had been going on, there had even been some wagers exchanged, as to who should prevail, her majesty or the High Regent. Now it was agreed that the portly High Regent had never been more entertaining; though there were regrets expressed that he had proved of such poor stamina, and had ended the show so abruptly. Somewhat more of detail might have gone into the climax. These and other comments were abated when Arstomenes invited them all to join him at his palatial estates in Vapio, for a garden party that, though it could not equal in dignity the notable one her majesty had arranged the previous year, would more than supply the lack with merriments of a more varied cuisine. Lightly and graciously applauding the suggestion, the charai and their male attendants led the way out of the galleries into the light of Goddess, where they formed a procession, colorful and splendid. Again the conversation reverted to the High Regent; and some of the younger nobles proposed an expedition, to beard him in his den and offer him their condolences upon the remarkable ill-temper of the Queen, to see how he might take it.

* * *

Allissál had repaired to the shadowed walkways of the lower gardens, and there would have ridden off her anger on Kis Halá, save that Emsha protested such strenuous activity should come too soon upon her recovery; to which Allissál in the end had to agree. It was then close on the time of the shortsleep; still she had no will to rest. As for the High Regent, while she would have admitted that her words had been ill-chosen and indecorous, she was not sorry that she had said them. So much for him: she thought no more on the matter. More to relieve her boredom with some little amusement than anything else, she sent for the two talebearers whose appearance had been the cause of so much unpleasantness and merriment.

With tolerable form the two men prostrated themselves before the Queen, adding to their thanks to her for seeing them the prayer that their tale might provide her with some slight value in the coming war. The one was tall, of late middle age, with a dark beard and a sourly humorous turn of lip; the other was younger, clean shaven, and more refined. From their features and voices she knew them for merchants from ruined Gerso. They confirmed her in this, adding that until recently they had abided in the trading-cities of the lower Delba, going from thence to Bollakarvil to view the shrines there. When Bollakarvil was besieged they had journeyed to Tarendahardil.

‘And the barbarian, gentlemen,’ she reminded them. ‘Have you truly spoken with him?’

‘Your majesty, not only have we spoken with him: we were present at that ruinous Pass when first he made appearance in the far North, rising ragged and wild from his own death-barge, out of the frenzied seas of the Ocean of the Dead. All his early history among the barbarians is known to us; before that, no living man has knowledge. For know that I who speak am Zelatar Bonvis, called, though it is an overstatement, the prince of merchants of our city that was; and this is Mergo Donato, my apprentice. We were first of all civilized men to hear the name of Ara-Karn, first to behold his face, and first to view his first bloody acts of madness.’

At least these men were up to a performance worthy of her generosity. Rather amused, and much relaxed, she signed him to continue.

‘That springtime before Gerso fell, we chanced to be among a tribe of the barbarians. This tribe dwelt farthest from our city, being situated in a far corner of the far North, upon a bay of the Ocean of the Dead. Thither had we gone to negotiate for whatever bandar pelts the tribe should gain in the coming Hunt: for they were among the most skillful and bravest of hunters in the far North. A man named Gundoen was their chief: a strong ruler and a proud, who unfortunately allowed his wrath and prejudices to sway him overmuch. Yet perhaps now he is a grown man, being the general of all the armies of the tribes.’

‘And is not this Ara-Karn their general?’ she interposed.

‘Your majesty, pardon: Ara-Karn is their king, or Warlord, as they would style him – but Gundoen leads the warriors. This we have learned in our long travels since our homes were burned and all our fellows slaughtered. Often since then, we have escaped a city mere hours before it fell; and every time the leader of the barbarians outside the walls was Gundoen.

‘While we were but newly arrived at Gundoen’s village there came into the chief’s hall a tribesman whom they had named “the Pious One,” because of his fanatical religious beliefs – rather a cracked-pate, but useful to them because he fashioned the barges for their dead and saw to certain of the rites. He had come to the chief’s hall to summon Gundoen, for as chief of the tribe it was Gundoen’s duty to see off all corpses in their barges. Yet reminded of his forgetfulness before all his proud warriors, Gundoen grew angry, and refused to see the man off.’

‘Bravo Gundoen,’ she murmured.

‘Your majesty may jest at this, as should we all, who are risen above such superstition. Yet to the rude barbarians, this was a grave offense on the chief’s part. The Pious One in particular forecast evil of it; and shortly thereafter, as if in response to his words, a terrible storm wracked the coastlines, and all were sure it was Goddess’s rebuking of Gundoen’s blasphemy.

‘Great was the damage wrought of this storm on their village; and no sooner did it end but there came by coincidence an eclipse of Goddess, which they hold to herald monstrous events. According to their custom they hastened to the beach to cry prayers to Goddess not to forsake them, and recall Her to Her duties, that She not be seduced by the rough violence of God and pass away with Him, to be His couch-mate in His palace of black beyond the dark horizon, where only His Madpriests live to do Him hateful worship, such as is writ down in the Book of Skhel. Well. I mention all this, great Queen, only that your majesty may yourself perceive the atmosphere of terror and awe into which the stranger, thereafter known only as Ara-Karn, stepped.

‘For even in the midst of the eclipse, a solitary black death-barge was washed into the bay and driven up ashore. A strange barge of curious workmanship it was, certainly like nothing ever wrought of barbarian hands. Somehow it seemed ancient beyond telling. And there within that barge lay the corpse of one that looked like a great king of some long-vanished age. Yet it was no corpse, for it rose, and stepped from the barge upon the pebbles of the shore, in rags of ancient finery, and wearing upon its brow a golden circlet, of an art rare beyond any I have seen. Such, your majesty, was the first appearance known among men, of him they call Ara-Karn – which is to signify in their tongue, “the Former King.” ’

She frowned. This was not the story of some posturer. It was too improbable to be a fable. ‘What do you mean, sir? Do you not mean that this was his first arrival at that particular village?’

‘That village, the far North and, for all I know, the entire extent of the lands where men dwell, your majesty. Ara-Karn did not spring from the loins of any barbarian, man or woman; nor was he native to any land I have ever visited, or my father before me. When first he stood there, he knew no word of the barbarians’ tongue – or, for that matter, any tongue I know. Gundoen bade us question him, but he remained dumb to all our attempts, finally speaking only in a language utterly alien and grating to our ears.’

‘What land, then, formed his origin?’

‘Alas, your majesty, that I cannot even guess, unless it be the Darklands of the Madpriests. He must have been lost at sea, somehow, after stealing the strange barge; but Arpane on the Sea is the only city of the Ocean of the Dead, and we have been there, but found no clue to the origin of the madman. Yet even at the earliest it was clear he was a desperate character, driven half-mad by deprivation in the weeks he had been at sea; it is in some ways a miracle he survived at all.’

‘What then of his strange weapon, the bow?’ she asked.

‘Why, it was with him in the strange death-barge, your majesty, along with much wealth of gold and jewels; but all the wealth he threw back into the sea as if it had been accurst; and kept only the bow and arrows, and a jade dagger he had. Even his rags he threw away, going naked among them until the Pious One, who exalted him the instrument of Goddess, clothed him after the manner of the tribe. Shortly after, the hunters went upon the great Hunt for bandar; Ara-Karn went with them, and we saw him little after that. With the many pelts we returned to Gerso.

‘There rumors reached us, of a great restlessness in the far North, of war brewed between Gundoen’s tribe and the Orns, another powerful tribe ruled over by Gen-Karn, who was then the Warlord of the far North. Then that winter, all the tribes were still again, and no war broke out among them. We knew not what to make of it, save to be thankful that the violence had been put off a further year, so that our trade for bandar pelts should not yet be interrupted. In the weeks between that winter and the following spring the barbarians fell upon our city, burnt her and broke her and left only her ashes upon the desecrated ground. And that, your majesty, was the start of all these bitter doings.’

Allissál heard him out with a deepening sense of unease – unease, because she feared she must believe him after all. From the beginning, the leaders of the civilized cities had planned and acted upon the belief that this Ara-Karn was no other than some armed, ferocious brigand, a pillager after spoil. It was no wonder that he had so outgeneraled them.

‘Yet you have overlooked the most important matter,’ she said at length: ‘for if Ara-Karn is not of the barbarian race, what then does he look like?’

‘Your majesty, that indeed is the hardest question for me to answer. We saw him but a handful of times, and of course, our memories are clouded by later events. He was not short, and not unhandsome, and he was not like any barbarian.’

‘It is well,’ she replied shortly. ‘Now, having told us what he is not, perhaps you will be so good as to tell us what he is.’

‘Divine One, forgiveness. His hair and flesh were dark, he wore a short beard, he was slender but of hard lean sinews, and refined, even noble, features. Yet I beg your majesty’s pardon, for that is all I can remember of him.’

‘Your majesty, I remember something else,’ said the younger merchant. ‘It was an odd thing, but I have never forgotten it. It was – his eyes.’

‘What of his eyes?’

‘Great Queen, they were – strange. Unlike any other eyes I have ever seen. They flashed like greenish lightning sometimes, and other times were dark and dead as dried fruit pits. Whenever he looked at me, it was as if to burn me, so fierce was his gaze. Not another man in a hundred thousand could have such eyes. He had beheld monstrous things, and when he gazed at me, I saw those things as well. They are all I can recall of him: but those eyes of his I have seen in a score of ill dreams since I last saw them in the flesh. Your majesty, they were eyes such as only Madpriests are said to possess.’

She spoke not for a while, so that they feared she had not heard or understood. Mergo wondered in what way his description had been deficient, and was casting about for some better words, when she turned from them and reaching deep into the bosom of her ivory-colored lora, drew forth a miniature, upon which some painter had drawn a face with a few hasty, inspired strokes.

‘You are of Gerso, you tell me,’ she uttered; ‘tell me then, if this be a face you know.’

Mergo took it; showed it to Zelatar. They stared at it strangely, with deepening alarm in their northern eyes.

‘Your majesty, this man wears no beard; and it is a hasty likeness, though remarkably skillful; and it is years now since we saw him,’ Zelatar Bonvis, prince of merchants, began awkwardly. ‘Yet even so, for all that, it is unmistakable. I would swear it before all of Goddess’s shrines, your majesty: this is a likeness of Ara-Karn.’

‘Truly, truly – Ara-Karn,’ Mergo Donato echoed in a whisper.

* * *

Ennius Kandi was Ara-Karn.

Shall I now, she wondered, alone once more – shall I now count up all his many deeds while in my service, so that I may appreciate them fully for the first time?

He had frightened Orolo of Pelthar from signing the pacts she had sent, and thereby put off all the other little princes who had looked to Orolo for their example. He had murdered Qhelvin of Sorne in a most brutal fashion – perhaps Qhelvin had learned something, or had some suspicions of him. Thereafter he had sold the heads of the rebellious Belknulean lords to Yorkjax. He had spread poisoned words among the foreign dignitaries residing at her court, so that their reports gave the lie to all her agents’ efforts at diplomacy.

He had gone with Ampeánor to Tezmon, and wrecked the ship and destroyed all the bows they had bought at such great price. It had been he, doubtless, who had met with the Rukorian pirates and roused them to their old thieveries.

He had gone Goddess-ward to gather intelligence, and as a pastime betrayed Ernthio and shattered the cities of the upper Delba. And now he had gone toward the dark horizon to her dear friends and allies Ankhan and Lisalya of Ul Raambar, among others, there to wreak who knew what new acts of savagery and depredation.

Because of him, Elnavis now lay dead and rotten on some nameless field near Mersaline.

And all the while, he had used her for his private pleasure as a common whore, and laughed heartily at her dreams of glory, her plans and intrigues, unraveling them as easily and as frequently as he had unlaced her undergarments. No better than some savage beast of prey she had named him to his face in her ignorance, but she had been overgenerous in her words. Oh, she had played at the game of kings; but it was he who had proved the master, with lessons yet to offer her. Still, she was learning at his hand now, which was the best. Ampeánor was a poor foolish novice, compared to the pair of them.

* * *

The summer months came to an end in Tarendahardil the Most Holy, as the progress of the barbarians was reported in the halls of the officials. Bollakarvil had fallen, and Ara-Karn marched on Ilkas. Among the palaces of High Town it was quiet and dull, for the greater part of the highborn abided yet at Vapio, enjoying the multitudinous diversions the High Charan Arstomenes offered them. But the people of the lower city armed themselves, and awaited the onslaught of the invaders, as they had known they must, ever since the funeral of Elnavis.

And among the courtiers and poets who remained, or had returned early from Vapio, it was noted that the fierceness within her majesty had grown, and was now a thing more of danger than desire.

So they burned their laudatory poems, not daring to let word of them reach her ears.

XVII

‘The Lone Chieftain, Who Majestic Stalks’

WHEN THAT HARSH CRY, uttered in the guttural tongue of the far North, pierced the stillness of the great tent, Ampeánor leapt instantly to his feet; but there he hesitated. That surprise that had formerly been upon his side was now turned against him. The barbarian, sensing the movement in the gloom, had also risen. Surely, Ampeánor thought, he had seen the outlines of this man before. There could not be two men of such massive girth. The man standing before him, who had entered so proprietarily this tent of Ara-Karn, was none other than the barbarian general Gundoen.

His thoughts took on wings in those fleeting moments. All his former assurances fell away. Could Ara-Karn be a myth; or might he have fallen long before, as some rumored, and the chiefs concealed the falling to hold secure their own positions? Had Gen-Karn perhaps meant Gundoen when he had spoken of the ‘barge-robber?’ Was this man all that stood between him and victory?

The massy-thewed general did not seem in the least alarmed at the presence of an unknown intruder in the tent. Rather, he stood poised wavering, as though uncertain in his own mind what he should do – as if he might have expected some arrival at any time. Again he repeated his question, moving warily to a lamp.

Ampeánor did not move. He knew escape was impossible; and that he would stand no chance of overcoming that enormous frame of wood-knotted muscle. Convulsively, cursing with all bitterness, he unwound the cord biting into the flesh of his bunched fists.

Using an ember from one of the covered braziers, the barbarian lighted the lamp. In its flaring light, he surveyed intently the man he had caught. No trace of alarm touched the broad, war-scarred features. He was either supremely confident or indifferent.

‘Who are you?’ he asked roughly. ‘I had hoped – What do you do in the tent of Ara-Karn? Step closer to the light that I may see you better. Ah – a Southron. I should have expected it. Not a one of you has any honor. Come to see what you could steal?’

Anger flared in Ampeánor. Never before had any man spoken thus to the High Charan of Rukor. But he remembered this man held his life; and that Allissál his beloved was in deadly danger from the treachery of the Gerso. He shrugged.

‘I wanted to see the tent,’ he said evenly. ‘A lot has been said of your king, and I was curious.’

‘He’s your king, too, Southron. When you leave here you will be searched. In the coffers of this tent is more wealth than you’ve probably ever seen in your life. I suppose that did not tempt you?’

‘Not much. How could I have borne it past the guards?’

‘How did you get in?’

‘I cut a slit in the tent wall at back. My weapons are still there.’

‘If any of the guards are involved I’ll have their heads. Their patrols must be changed to see this cannot occur again. Well, Southron, have you seen enough? A better dwelling than you’ve ever been in in your dog’s life, eh?’

‘Fit for better than any barbarian,’ he replied angrily.

Unexpectedly, the general chuckled. ‘You’re honest at least. That’s more than I can say for most of your lot.’

‘Is this your tent?’

The barbarian’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is the tent of Ara-Karn.’

‘Who is Ara-Karn?’

Gundoen laughed. ‘Oh, no, you would not want to know, Southron! Perhaps if the gods dislike you, they will introduce him to you.’

‘I trust in no gods, barbarian. Only myself.’

The barbarian regarded him awhile in silence. Then, casually, ‘You civilized men are a blasphemous lot. That is why you are conquered. Ara-Karn is the scourge of God; Goddess sent him to punish your disbelief. So our prophets say.’

‘I do not believe it. What does Gundoen say?’

‘You know who I am?’

‘Who does not?’

He frowned. ‘Who are you?’

‘Torval. A Rukorian fightingman. I joined only recently.’

‘You sound an educated man. You have heard philosophers?’

‘Some.’

‘And what do they teach you of religion?’

‘Not much. There are many rituals, which we leave to the priestesses whose business it is. Certainly we do not exalt a man because he is the most brutal of us, and call him god.’

‘What are your emperors, then?’

‘That is superstition. Also good politics. But for me every emperor must prove his worth before I give him my loyalty. Bad emperors are as much demons as good ones are gods.’

‘And what,’ the barbarian asked slowly, ‘say they concerning prophecy?’

Ampeánor considered. The question seemed to refer directly to the carven words of the Prophetess, deep in the crypts of the Palace. Only agents chosen personally by the Empress had ever seen those words. The hand of the Gerso again.

‘I have heard of some women, mostly peasants and mountain-maids, who are said to have that gift,’ he said guardedly. ‘But I have seen only one. And if it is true, why do they not gain great wealth or power? But it is said the Prophetess of Elna had the power.’

The barbarian did not seem to recognize the name. ‘Were her prophecies true?’

‘Some were. Some have yet to come to pass.’

The huge man sat in the throne again. ‘It does not help me,’ he muttered. ‘Is there no way to tell a true prophecy from a false?’

‘Who finds such a way will be the most powerful man in the world. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘your Ara-Karn has found it.’

‘I wish he were here,’ the barbarian murmured. ‘He should not spend so much time away. And what does he accomplish there?’

‘And when will he return?’ asked Torval softly.

‘Who can say? He comes and goes according to his own purposes. Perhaps the next sleep; perhaps not until we stand outside the limits of Tarendahardil.’

Why Tarendahardil? ‘Where is he now?’

The barbarian came to himself with a start. ‘For a thief your tongue is busy, Southron. Get you gone. Guards!’ he bawled, and they appeared, evincing astonishment at the sight of Ampeánor. ‘Search this man well. If he has one thing he should not, cut off his hand. If he has two things he should not, cut off his head. And beat him soundly for a spy, and mark his features well. Summon the chiefs also. With the next rising of dark God, we will attack this mountain fastness. I grow bored.’

Strong hands were clapped upon Ampeánor and he was dragged into the light. The guards, shamed in their failure before the general, took out all their anger upon their prisoner. Never before had Ampeánor’s person been subjected to such gross affronts. Anger flamed up in him such as he had never known; and yet for all that, he held himself to hand, and never answered their calumnies and brutalities but humbly. So it is said that there, alone and unknown, the High Charan of Rukor had his sternest testing at the hands of two wrathful barbarian warriors and the painted camp-followers who had gathered at the edges of the clearing to watch the show.

When they discovered the Darkbeast-tooth, the two men showed surprise, and were assured he must have stolen it: ‘For only our bravest warriors have won the right to wear such things; and how then might a thieving Southron hound acquire it?’

But he put them off with a fable of having won it off a barbarian gaming; and they, as fools, accepted the tale. Or perhaps it was only that they wished not to be shown ignorant before Gundoen should the tale prove true. So he lost not his hand; but they beat him all the more fiercely for it. In a bloody mist, Ampeánor took the blows, and kept his spirit busy with the memory of all those barbarians he had slain in Tezmon upon the temple steps. In the end the blows drove the spirit from his body; he woke uneasily and in great pain in Jakgron’s tent, ministered with care by the tongueless old woman.

* * *

Generaled by Gundoen, the massed armies of Ara-Karn, warriors of the tribes of the far North and mercenaries and brigands of the civilized races, moved slowly up the slopes toward the mountain fastness of Bollakarvil, birthplace of Elna. Smoothly the interlocked long lines moved forward. The light did not reflect much off their dingy, battered armor, well-worn leather tunics and the plain cord grips of their well-sharpened blades. The gaudy finery, brilliant banners, and golden armor were left behind in the camps below. Such things were pretty: they marked a man’s status: but this was business.

They approached the iron gates of Bollakarvil, dust rising sluggishly from beneath their many-thousanded feet. The renegades stood to the fore, with the barbarian bowmen just behind them. No excitement showed on their bearded, metal-shadowed faces. There were no chants or savage cries. They came to a halt in accord to the shouts of their leaders.

Vague yells sounded from the battlements of the steep city. Faces appeared above the walls and as quickly vanished. Rocks and boulders began to rain down from the heights. The veteran barbarians expertly dodged, reforming lines after the missiles passed. The lines edged closer to the walls. Bows were raised, arrows loosed. Men died on the walls, crushed beneath the weight of the very stones they had been about to hurl. A few harsh laughs rose from the masses below the walls.

The renegades brought up two ramming-machines, great frameworks of wood and iron drawn by many oxen. Beneath leather awnings the rams swung to and fro, ponderously, iron-shod, suspended on heavy chains. The renegades under barbarian taskmasters strained against the rams. Above them men appeared with cauldrons of flaming oil, but the death-birds were loosed and the fire spilled upon the inner courtyard. Black smoke flowered over the gates with the screams of the dying. The rams played their music on the iron of the gates like thunder: throom-ah, throom-ah, throom-ah, dhroomb! The metal groaned, shrieked, gave. The bars snapped with a screech and the gates sprang inward, orange flames and black billows welcoming the armies of Ara-Karn.

They swarmed in, choking rude chants. ‘Ara-Karn!’ they rumbled, ‘Ka-Ara-Karn!’ The name roused the fury of the barbarians behind. The renegades were shoved forward, trampling and slaying the few remaining Imperial guardsmen. Swords rose and fell, spraying red. The corpses were kicked aside. The invaders burst coughing past the smoke, rapidly filling the courtyard.

Ampeánor hung back as much as he could manage, sick at the stench and blood and ease with which the city fell. Between them, and the savage soreness of his battered, blackened body, it seemed to him almost as though he had been sped to some other, horrible life; as though he had been consumed by the soul of some Madpriest, in an assault on Ul Raambar. As much as he was able, he kept barbarians or renegades between himself and the defenders. It was all he could do not to join them, to defend this holy place. The currents of battle swept him forward, up the cobbled streets of ancient Bollakarvil.

Before him the renegades ran, to sack and rape before Gundoen and the veterans should restore order. They ran laughing and shouting. A young soldier came against him, a Rukorian by accent, bright-eyed and smooth-cheeked.

‘Try some combat with me, renegade!’ the boy shouted. Ampeánor took the cut on his shield and shoved the boy back.

‘Listen,’ he said lowly, ‘I do not want to fight you. Go back, flee to the mountains! There are no leaders to snatch victory out of this. No charan or chara will save Bollakarvil – they are gone! Go to Haspeth, save your life and flee to Tarendahardil!’

The boy laughed gloriously. ‘Are you a coward, then? So you would save me? But who will save you?’ He lunged viciously, and Torval had much to parry it. In earnest he began to defend himself against the boy, who was no mean swordsman. Yet the inevitable opening came, and he took it. There was no other choice – yet he tried, as he killed the boy, to give him as little pain as possible. The black blood sprayed from the falling body, spattering a shrine of Elna by the side of the street.

Ampeánor withdrew the black smoking blade, feeling the steaming blood run over his hard knuckles. His head ached with the excitement. He wiped the blade on the hair of the nameless dead man, feeling almost that he had rather been the fallen one himself. Then he went into an alleyway by the side of the street, and did no more fighting that pass. Jakgron discovered him when the din of victory had fallen, and aided him down the steep rocky slope to the quiet shelter of the tent again.

Bollakarvil had been conquered as utterly as if it had been the commandment of dark God. All who resisted were put to the sword, but those who surrendered were allowed to purchase their lives. The weapons of the defenders were collected and the bodies of the slain given proper rites. Gundoen occupied the palace of the Porekan and set a garrison force to hold the city, consisting mainly of older or wounded barbarians and some mercenaries. The city treasury was spilled on the stones of the central square, before the ransacked Temple where the Emperors of Tarendahardil had once been anointed. The chieftains divided the spoils according to the rank and deeds of their tribes. All the many statues of godlike Elna were torn down and defaced, to the accompaniment of wine-slurred laughter and the squeals of yielding women.

Most of the looting was done by the mercenaries, supposedly the more civilized of the invaders. The barbarians had held themselves in check, having been disciplined by Gundoen and content with their rightful shares of conquest. They took no delight in rapine, having had their fill of it in the many cities already fallen.

Not two passes after the conquest, all the houses and palaces were still standing, and the inhabitants of the city walked the streets with little fear. Some of the shops in the marketplace were even open for business.

XVIII

‘Death Hath But Left Him Little to Destroy’

AT THE FAR END of the lands where men dwell, the reek of the foundries of Ul Raambar the Unassailable mounted into the blue-black sky like a feather. Ul Raambar was a small city and of little wealth, not at all the equal of great Tarendahardil; yet she sat nestled in the mountains alone and unafraid upon the very knife-edged border, and guarded the high passes against the Madpriests. Ul Raambar faced distant Goddess where She sat, less than a fist above the bright horizon; but at the back of Ul Raambar, the mountains’ slopes fell away into the Darklands, where the light of Goddess never shone. There in the midst of sunless black seas jade God made His home, returning to it at the end of each pass after another futile attempt to beguile Goddess into following Him upon His road.

In all the years of her existence, Ul Raambar had produced neither art nor song: but her warriors and proud ladies were her art, and their blue-edged weaponry her songs. Four centuries and more of ceaseless warfare with the Madpriests had made of these Raambas the most skillful and disciplined fighters in the world, whose swords were legendary. Each waking, companies of their lancers might be seen issuing from the green-worked gates of Ul Raambar, to patrol upon their hardy mountain-bred war-ponies the paths of the mountains of the knife-edged border, ever-wary of the marauding Madpriests.

Then a man came riding to Ul Raambar from the north, leading behind his weary horse a sturdy pack-pony burdened with two large and curious barrels, of the sort seamen use for valued cargoes. His face was masked by the dark green hooded hunting-cloak from Gerso that he wore, fastened with a blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg.

Fording the shallow stream that farther northward became the river Kabdary and spilled into Elna’s Sea, the rider led his two beasts up the turning path to the gates of the fastness. There he was challenged by the legendary guardians of the gates, whose mountain-trained eyes could see vast distances across the Marches spread below. It was no easy feat for a spy or enemy to gain entrance to the halls of Ul Raambar. But this man looked upon the guards with their long beards combed and bristling and their limbs encased in iron out of lined eyes, respectfully but without fear, and answered them,

‘Ennius Kandi of Gerso, sent hither by the Divine Queen.’

‘It is our custom to demand proofs of strangers who would enter here,’ they told him.

Smiling bitterly, the man showed them his token, which they recognized well, often having received the envoys of the Empress of Tarendahardil. So the green-worked gates of copper and brass were opened before him, and Ara-Karn entered Ul Raambar.

He had been long in getting there from Tarendahardil, for he had passed through Rukor first, and delivered his other messages before coming to Ul Raambar last of all. Even then, as he passed through the green-worked gates, his armies were departing fallen Bollakarvil and marching on Ilkas. But of this the guardians of the gates knew nothing.

In the royal palace, set high on the unyielding rocks, the palace warriors conducted him through long halls, past armories and training-halls where the light of Goddess, stained a faint crimson, slanted obliquely through the broad stone windows. Some stories up they showed him into a small set of chambers facing the distant, moveless sun. The rooms were of clean-swept stone, low and unadorned.

‘Our lord asks that you pardon these rooms,’ the guardsmen said. ‘He knows they are scarcely suitable for one who has known the luxuries of Tarendahardil. Yet these are the finest we can offer. Even the High Charan of Rukor, our lord’s great friend, receives no better when he guests here. Do you refresh yourself after your arduous journey, my lord. If you wish a thing, ask it of the man posted without your door. Our lord asks that you attend him at the greatfeast.’

The Imperial envoy nodded absently. The guardsmen carefully set down the curious barrels in the chamber’s storage niche, saluted and withdrew.

In a basin the stranger washed the dust of the road from his lean brown limbs. Naked, his dripping body glittering in the dull stone cell, he came to behold his image in the polished silver of the mirror. The black and green-flecked eyes stared enigmatically back. Through the windows the mountain air, cool here even in the hottest season, billowed into the chamber like a cloud, at once intoxicating and wearisome. After a long time, the Queen’s envoy turned abruptly and entered the small, curtained dimchamber.

* * *

There were no high-sounding titles among the people of Ul Raambar. Even Ankhan, their king, disdained them, preferring the address of a simple charan. He was a tall man, whose high brow and broad straight nose bespoke both his intelligence and courage. His dark blue eyes flashed like lightnings in the dark sky beyond the mountains of his brows, with merriment or rage according to his mood. His glossy, chestnut hair he braided down his back in war and hunt, but here in his own hall his lady combed it free, so that it burst from his skull like a mountain thorsa’s mane. His chin he shaved clean, but a tremendous reddish mustache sprouted from his lip. He would twist it vigorously whenever he would make a point or seek to restrain his anger.

He was known, and loved, as Ankhan of the Strong Heart. Not yet a man, he had led companies on raids into the Darklands; not yet bearded, he had slain his first man, a Madpriest chieftain named the Black Fist, or Verin Falx. When he was but eighteen winters, the age most Raamba youths were just allowed to go on their first raid, Ankhan had seen his father slain in a fierce assault on one of the hunting fastnesses farther down the mountains. Ankhan had not stayed even to see the body of Garkhan set into a death-barge on a river in the lowlands, but had organized a force of ten companies and led them deeper into the darkness than any other had ever dared go before: they went so far they were in danger of losing their way, as the mocking Madpriests led them on. But Ankhan had moved suddenly and trapped the trappers, destroying several villages and personally killing Urgo Hirx, the chief who had led the raid that had slain Garkhan.

Such had been his first act as king of Ul Raambar; and it had sealed him the love of all the warriors as well as gaining him the heart of many-wooed Lisalya, whose stone-fisted father Dilyardin had captained one of the companies following Ankhan into the darkness.

Now that same Lisalya sat at the side of her lord as queen of Ul Raambar, a superb woman, the equal of many a warrior. Three sons she had borne Ankhan, who promised to be all the warrior-lords their father was. Ankhan held her hand lovingly in his, from time to time leaning to her to whisper a jest or caress her mane of curling hair the color of red gold.

Below them upon the long, unadorned benches, their warriors and ladies raised their cups to the rafters of the Charan Ankhan’s feast hall, loud in their merriment and tales. Then a silence fell athwart the hall, as the palace warriors ushered in the stranger.

Chara Lisalya was the first to rise to greet him, filling the guest-cup with foaming wine and presenting it to him with her own hands.

‘We welcome you, Charan Kandi,’ she announced, ‘because of your lineage and because of the losses you have suffered at the barbarian’s hand, and not least because you come serving the Empress Allissál, our own dear friend and ally.’

He bowed solemnly to her, and drank of the wine. The wine of Ul Raambar was dark, with a deep flavor not found in the pallid delicacies of Tarendahardil: a red wine to go coursing down the throat like hot blood.

‘Good wine,’ said the Gerso. ‘Yet not half so fine as the beauty of its server, which is outshone by that of only one other, and that only because she is divine.’

‘In truth, a courtier!’ Ankhan laughed. ‘We have few enough of those in Ul Raambar, Charan Kandi: welcome, and be your news good!’

So Ara-Karn, the stranger, was seated in the chair of honor opposite the warrior-king and his lady, as he had sat across from the Empress of the South in the famed Imperial banquet hall, and across from Gen-Karn in the ruined halls of Tezmon, and across from Kuln-Holn in a wretched little hut over the shore of a deepwater bay in a corner of the wild far North. Yet here he seemed to belong as he had never done in any of those other places, like a wanderer come at last to a homeland he can but dimly remember.

‘As to your business here,’ said the king, ‘unless it be of surpassing urgency, we would put it off some passes, to entertain you as our guest. We get few indeed of your quality, Charan Kandi. Do you enjoy the hunt?’

‘If it please you, my lord, call me by the familiar, Ennius,’ the Gerso replied smoothly. ‘As for hunting, it was the chief occupation and love of my youth.’

‘So be it – Ennius, these hills about our mountains are filled even at this season with beasts as fierce and proud as the fightingmen of Ul Raambar herself! What say you, Ennius of Gerso? Shall we hunt? and seek out noble game to bring us down?’

The envoy of the Queen courteously inclined his head. ‘My lord, I aim at nothing less.’

* * *

So with the next waking they rode out of the fastness through paths cut deep along the pine-mantled lower hills. Ankhan rode foremost, with stone-fisted Dilyardin beside him; behind them their guest rode alongside the Lady Lisalya. A company of lancers in full armor rode behind them, their eyes alert to the shadows. As they rode low branches of green stretched and caught at their caps and helms.

The Gerso raised his voice, asking the king about the lancers. ‘Is the game so dangerous, lord? These men seem of too high a quality to serve as beaters of the bush.’

Ankhan laughed, the long braids of his hair dancing. ‘And you witnessed the fall of your Gerso, and must ask me this? These men are in case of an attack by Madpriests.’

‘I have heard many stories about them, and have read the book of Skhel. Yet what are those Madpriests really like, my lord?’

‘Ah – trust not in all the book of Skhel, Ennius. Inozelstus was a prophet and a scholar, but he never lost sight of Goddess in all his life. Mostly, the book is what others told him; and tales are seldom accurate concerning the Madpriests.’

‘Yet how is it any man can live his life in total darkness? What can they eat in those wastes but each other?’

‘It is not so dark there as most suppose, Ennius. God rides the heavens like a great jade eye, much brighter than He ever appears here. And there are other things, small winking points of light that some say never alter their patterns, and by whose light the Madpriests are said to be able to journey about without ever losing their way. But of that, I am not convinced.

‘For food, many other things live in or get trapped by the darkness, beasts and strange fish in black pools. And there are wood and iron there as well. The men are terrible warriors; the women treacherous and vile. They would as soon die as live, and their greatest joy is to die in the mindless fury of battle. There is not a one of them but would gladly give his life, if by that act he might slay two or three of his enemies. They roam in bands along the bordering mountains, hunting game and robbing men.’

‘I thought the Pass was the only way over the mountains.’

‘So it is, of any size or ease. Yet there are other ways, secret, narrow and dangerous, and known only to the Madpriests. Perhaps we shall encounter some – then, Ennius, you may see for yourself.’

‘Perhaps we might even capture one?’ the Gerso suggested.

Dilyardin laughed. ‘As soon bring down a Darkbeast single-handed as capture a Madpriest alive, Charan!’

‘Enough!’ cried Lisalya. ‘Can we find nothing better to speak of than those doomed wretched spirits?’ She was dressed in a hunting tunic not unlike that Allissál had worn that past winter. It suited her wild beauty well. ‘Charan Ennius, lighten our mood instead, and speak of life in the great court. It is several winters now since we resided there in the company of the Empress, and bathed in the sacred Baths. And tell us also, how is the Charan of Rukor?’

‘Ha!’ shouted Ankhan, playfully swatting at the rump of his lady’s mare. ‘Now we have come to it! My Chara in truth is rather overly fond of the Charan of Rukor, Ennius. As a youth he spent several years among us: and it broke my poor Lisalya’s heart to bid him farewell.’

‘Nay, now,’ said the lady, her cheeks coloring a little. ‘Ampeánor is your friend and companion too, my lord. And I asked not only after him, but the rest of the court as well.’

‘Well, then,’ said the king, sighing and shrugging his shoulders grandiloquently, ‘my Chara will not let you rest until you have satisfied her curiosity, Ennius. It were best to spill it now, and give it up for lost.’

‘The High Charan of Rukor is well,’ said the Gerso, quietly, ‘if somewhat changed over the past months. The tale is that he is the Empress’s secret lover.’

‘Old tales,’ dismissed Ankhan. ‘The two were made for each other, and that’s plain enough to all. My chara requires fresh grist.’

‘Well, then, my lady, here is a new thing. It was to be a part of my message to you both, and if you will forbear to hear business: they are to be wed before the end of summer.’

‘Married?’ cried Lisalya, and Ankhan laughed.

‘My bed is secure at last,’ he joked. The chara turned her head, and stared sullenly at the stony ground. ‘Come, my love, it was but a jest,’ he said soothingly; but she refused to be reconciled. So they rode in silence for a while, hearing only the clank of the lances behind them.

The Gerso broke the silence. ‘I hope this was not too sudden, but she charged me tell it you, and invite you to the ceremonies. And it is a truth that Ampeánor will make a good Emperor. Many have said that the Empress needs a strong man to curb her excesses.’

‘Say no words against the Empress, or you’ll risk our displeasure.’ Ankhan frowned. ‘As for Ampeánor, my spirit soars for him. He will be the best Emperor for many a generation. If any can turn back this barbarian, it will be the High Charan of Rukor.’

‘Does my lord favor the League then?’ asked the stranger sadly.

‘Favor it! Why, it was partly of my own imaginings. You may be certain of one thing if of nothing else, Ennius: Raamba lancers will ride to hold the center against the barbarians.’

‘Yet you cannot spare many, surely,’ insisted the Gerso, ‘not with these Madpriests threatening you at your own back door?’

‘We’ll be gone and back before they see the light of it. For Allissál, I will give nothing less than all that is mine – my life, even, and that of my chara, if it comes to that.’

‘Gladly,’ seconded Lisalya.

‘Yet,’ persisted Ennius, ‘will you come yourself, to play the lackey to Ampeánor Emperor? Surely a man of such high honor as yourself would have too great a pride for that.’

‘Pride is for moralists and playwrights,’ said Ankhan. ‘The Charan of Rukor was my friend the first year I bore arms, when we were both beardless youths; and he remains my friend yet. Like leaf and branch are we: for one without the other would not survive. Yet even if it came to an argument over the battle, I would cede to his authority like a peasant to his charan: for he is the better man, and I acknowledge it freely to all. If the Empress sent you to feel out our loyalty, you may tell her, Ennius, that it remains as unshaken as Goddess in the sky. We’ll not forsake her as those several others have done, promising to aid the League and then suddenly withdrawing out of fear or greed or envy. No more of this. Let us hunt, and put our minds to the game.’

‘If such is your unshakable will, my lord, then I am glad to hear of it,’ said the Gerso dully. He was silent and thoughtful thereafter as he rode among them, and his eyes bore a pensive, distant look.

The game was indeed plentiful that time of year; and that the king and his lady devoted much of their spare time to the pleasures of the hunt was shown both by their woodsmanship and the clean strokes with which they brought down their beasts. Nor did Lisalya draw back when the game was forced forth, but rushed in bravely with the others. With her own lance she slew two large beasts, evincing a skill as great as her courage.

They made camp in clearings they surrounded with stout walls of bramble and branch. Charan Dilyardin posted the lancers to guard against any attacks by the Madpriests, while Ankhan, Lisalya and their guest roasted the flesh of their kills over roaring fires. Ankhan and his lady reclined together against the mossy root of a high towering tree. Their faces were flushed in the firelight, and the dappled light of Goddess fell across their extended limbs. Somewhat across the clearing from them, the stranger regarded them silently from where he sat. And now there was no trace of the flashing green flecks in his darkened eyes. The lancers nudged one another: already, it was clear, the stranger had fallen under their lord and lady’s spell.

‘Do they not make a wonderful pair?’ asked Dilyardin, sitting at the Gerso’s side. ‘Why, the great Empress herself, lying in the arms of her lover, could not match them for happiness, or love, or the sheer matching of spirit to kindred soul. Though I am her sire, I must say it: Lisalya was born a fit match for even the greatest of earthly monarchs.’

The Gerso was silent, offering none of the courtly compliments the old warfarer had desired. The royal couple bade them all good-resting, and retired to the privacy of their tent. Then others of the lancers joined them at the fire, completing a circle, and began to tell tales before they slept. For a while the Gerso said nothing, but only looked upon the royal tent, idly uprooting stalks of grass with his fingers.

‘I have a tale for you,’ he said at length. ‘It happened far from here, and long ago, that beyond the shores of the endless Desert a city was built round a spring. Long before, a group of homeless exiles had wandered in the Desert blindly, until at last they found this oasis, a thing no man had seen before. They built their city round it, naming her Khoraunlwin, which meant Water’s Haven in their speech. It was the way of them never to deny entrance to their city to any wayfarer who asked it of them. Goddess and the Spirit of the spring had granted them haven, they believed, and so considered it their duty to offer like shelter to all others. It became the main pillar of their fame, and along the shores of the Desert it was a saying of any generous man, that he was like a Khoraunlwany.

‘One pass there appeared at the gates of the city a solitary man wrapped brow to toe in dark brown linen. Not even his eyes in the shadow of his headdress could the watchers on the gates see. His name, he said, was Reaver, and he asked them for shelter. Nor would he blame them much if they refused to open the gates to him, he said, for there was a curse laid upon him, and no city yet had taken him in, but it had been sore afflicted.

‘The gatesmen had not even considered denying him entrance. They had built walls about their city to keep the sands of the Desert out, not men. So they opened and let Reaver into Khoraunlwin. Straightway he went to the well of the spring, did off his wrappings, and bathed himself. As soon as he put off his garb a noisome stench mounted from him, and those near the well said that the sight of his unclad body was a loathsome thing.

‘Thereafter it fell out that a sickness spread among the folk of Khoraunlwin, and people died young and old, and the beasts of the city lay dead upon the streets. At length only an old man, Ishbar, and his young wife Alanin survived. With cloaks held tightly over their mouths, they went to the stranger to demand of him why he had done this thing to their city. But when Ishbar touched it, Reaver’s body fell open, and maggots and horrid flies sprang out of it with an odor of corruption that was unbearable.

‘Therewith Ishbar and Alanin burdened the last surviving pony with figs and skins of wine and departed Khoraunlwin, leaving the gates open behind them so that the Desert blew in freely, and took possession of the silent city. But when at last Ishbar and Alanin, nearly perishing of thirst, reached the nearest city and told their tale, they were reviled, and none would succor them. Weeping piteously, Ishbar and Alanin returned into the Desert, lay down in each other’s arms, and died. Carrion ate their flesh, and the sands wore away their bones.’

The lancemen frowned and shook their heads. They had not liked the Gerso’s story much. Putting back the meat he had not eaten, one of them muttered, ‘They should have refused that man entrance and rather slain him in the Desert than let him enter to spread poison in their well.’

But Dilyardin, though he also frowned, disagreed. ‘That was not their way,’ he said. ‘Should they have ceased being what they were? Then they must have lived in fear and suspicion of all strangers, and been no happier. Besides, it is said Fate is a hall with a hundred doors. It was the doom of Goddess that this man die in their city.’

‘Yet others tell the tale differently,’ the Gerso said. ‘They say that this Reaver carried the illness, but could not himself die of it – and that Ishbar and Alanin were but a fable. They say Reaver departed Khoraunlwin when he had finished the last of the dead people’s food, and went to the city on the Desert’s shore. And when those people heard what Reaver had to say, then they stoned him from their walls and burned his body downwind of the city. And they live there still and prosper; but Khoraunlwin is nought but a rumor of fear, never after visited.’

‘I know not what I should make of this tale of yours now,’ Dilyardin muttered, pulling at his beard.

‘Make nothing of it, if that please you,’ the Gerso said, rising. ‘Say it was only the campside pleasantry of a poor wanderer who has himself seen the deaths of many cities.’

He squatted by the coals and thrust at them with his dagger. The embers fell apart hissing and the fire sent forth its last convulsive waves of heat into the stranger’s flushed red face. But the lancers felt a shudder of cold enter their hearts, though they were all the bravest of men.

* * *

On the second waking afterward the royal hunting party pursued the spoor of a large elbuck, and were strung out along the narrow path. Ankhan and Lisalya were in the fore, surging on in their lover’s rivalry; the Gerso rode some ways behind them. They flew through the dappled dim light of these woods on the hills at the edge of the world. Far behind them and lost from sight, Dilyardin tried to keep up the pace with the weighted lancers.

Suddenly a cry sounded from the surrounding brush – black shapes swarmed over the bright figure of the king – others leaped upon the queen. There were the rasp of steel upon steel and the cry of the Chara Lisalya: ‘Father, to our aid!’

The Gerso spurred his mount forward, sword swinging over both sides of the saddle. The blade bit deep through flesh and bone; then it caught upon a length of bone or metal it could not sever and stuck fast. Hard fingers grappled with him and he was torn from the saddle. Still he did not lose his grip upon the sword, but kicked out against the body that held it and tore it free. He swung out to make room, rolled upon the soft moss and fought his way to his feet. His attackers fell back for a moment, surprised by the ferocity of his blows. With a hollow laugh, he took the sword two-fisted and whirled it over his head, forcing them back.

Several paces from him, Lisalya was struggling with four opponents, her eyes flashing angrily. She fought to gain the room to wield her sword, which she clutched in her gloved hand despite all her enemies’ efforts to wrest it from her. Paces beyond her, on the far side of a large bush, Ankhan was on his feet hacking at six foes, desperately trying to reach the side of his lady. All of this flashed before the Gerso’s eyes; then his own foes closed darkly about him.

He fought them with the sword in one hand and a hunting-knife in the other. He disemboweled one with an upward thrust of the sword, ducked the blow of another turning and swept the blade about in a wet wide arc, parrying with the knife. The unprotected throat below a pallid, fierce face opened to form a nether mouth, wide and redly slobbering; the Gerso twisted about, bringing his shoulder up, and with a stab of the hunting-knife planted a red flower in the breast of the last of his attackers. He leaped to Lisalya’s aid.

Before they were even aware of his presence, two Madpriests lay dying on the moss at the Gerso’s feet. But as the second one fell, he caught the Gerso’s blade between his ribs, and the strained steel snapped; so that Kandi faced the other two with only the hunting-knife.

They swept in, unbelievably agile fighters, dodging his blows this way and that, closing to deliver the deathstroke with curved and curious short, black blades. And so swift were they that they would have surely spilled the Gerso’s blood onto the soft earth then and there, had not Lisalya risen to his aid.

They had made no attempt to slay her outright, either because of the contempt with which all their race held women, or because they had desired to debase and abuse her in the face of her lord so as to make his strong heart quail before they slew him. Now she had the room to wield her sword and the skill to revenge herself for their affronts. One she slew with such a tremendous stroke that the bright Raamba blade sheared crunchingly through all the bones of his back. The other she struck a murderous blow on the back of the neck just as the Gerso stabbed him in the belly; so that he fell dead at both their hands.

‘So may all such receive their due reward,’ she panted, throwing the red-gold hair from her eyes. ‘But what of my charan?’

They turned. Ankhan was exchanging blows with a Madpriest at the side of the Shansith brush. The king was bleeding from a dozen wounds; but now that he saw his chara safe, he was laughing as he fought; and not all the blood splashed upon his tunic was his own. The five other Madpriests who had faced him lay beyond his dancing feet now, stone dead.

A thunder of hooves sounded from behind them: Dilyardin and the lancers burst upon the scene. The Madpriest the king was fighting gave a glance at those grim armored men, and forcing the king back with a sudden rush, dove into the underbrush and disappeared.

‘My king, are you hurt?’ cried Dilyardin.

‘Father-in-law, you grow slow in your old age,’ the king panted huskily. ‘You had almost made a widow of your daughter. Shall we need to fashion bronze wings for your horses henceforth?’

The old man fell to his knees at Ankhan’s feet. ‘Sire, I am ashamed.’ He held forth his sword hilt first. ‘Take back this unworthy life.’

Ankhan of the Strong Heart laughed, and took his lady into his bloodied arms. ‘Old friend and comrade, do not take it so to heart. It was all great sport – love, did they harm you?’

‘Nay,’ she said. ‘Yet you are hurt, and should be bandaged with haste. Yet it might have gone the worse for me, had it not been for the aid of our guest. My lord, we owe him thanks.’

‘More than mere words, lady,’ responded the king. ‘He has spared both our lives, for know you, if you had been slain I would not have been long in following, wherever you had gone. No gift shall be deemed too great for the savior of Ul Raambar. Ennius friend, stand you forth!’

But when the lancers parted, looking around the scene, the Gerso was not to be found. He too had disappeared.

He was beyond them in the depths of the forest, straining his legs in a desperate race. His lungs heaved, his long hair streamed from behind his head, and his arms darted forward to brush the many low branches from his path, as he chased the last Madpriest.

Ahead of him, that one also strained. He did not stop to look behind him: he only heard the pounding of racing feet, and believed that all the lancers were on his trail. So he ran like the wind, with the sure feet of a man who has passed his life in darkness. Rapidly he pulled away from the Gerso.

They broke into a long glade, green below the crimsoned tops of the towering trees. A thirsla saw them and dashed into the green. The long grass whipped at their feet. The Gerso pulled from his belt the long leather cord used to tie the feet of game together; opening the loop, he flung it forward. The loop caught about the ankle of the Madpriest; the Gerso gripped the cord and drew it back.

The Madpriest fell heavily on the soft ground, rolling to take the force of the blow away; but before he could rise the Gerso had fallen on him and struck him a savage blow on the side of his head. A grunt escaped the lips of the Madpriest as he lost all sight of the green glen.

The victor trussed the fallen man securely. Panting, he raked back the ragged hair about his brow, and smiled. Heaving the burden to his shoulders, he started wearily back to the scene of the ambush.

They were overjoyed to see him; yet even greater than their joy was their amazement when they saw what he was carrying. He shrugged, and let the burden fall to the ground like an offering at the feet of the royal couple.

‘Truly I had underestimated your great worth,’ exclaimed the king. ‘You are a man of many talents, indeed, and a worthy agent for the Divine Queen! Ennius, if ever you should wish for other employment, be sure you would find it here! To save my chara and capture a living Madpriest in a moment’s work! Take my hand, Ennius, and with it all my heart. You have the love and gratitude of Ankhan, who does not bestow such things lightly.’

Reluctantly, the Gerso took the proffered hand. Then Chara Lisalya stepped forward.

‘Some say that the female heart is made of inconstancy,’ she declared. ‘If that be true, then know you, Ennius, that I was formed unique: a woman with a man’s heart. No matter how many lives are mine, I shall not forget what you have done for us this pass. Come to me whenever you will in the future and ask me whatever you will, and it shall be yours.’ So saying she embraced him and kissed him lovingly upon either cheek and brow.

Below them the Madpriest stirred, groaning as he rolled on the blood-stained grass.

‘Great game, indeed, and Ennius Kandi of Gerso the hunter!’ exclaimed Ankhan. ‘Loose him, Dilyardin, and let us see what he will do.’

The stout old warrior cut the bonds to the Madpriest’s ankles, leaving his wrists still tightly bound. Then he signaled the lancers to stand closely about the prisoner with ready weapons. He had made one error, and not for Dilyardin a second.

The captive struggled to his feet. From the pallid face beneath the ragged shock of black hair, his deep-set eyes glared at them, red with madness and hate. He was clad in skins and cloth scraps poorly sewn together, and a few ornaments of fine workmanship doubtless stolen from hapless victims long since dead. His face and arms were covered with a dark black filth, probably, as the king remarked, to conceal himself in darkness.

‘He must be thirsty,’ said Lisalya. ‘We have refreshed ourselves, my lords, but he has had nothing. Fellow, do you wish to drink?’

The Madpriest spat upon her tunic. ‘There’s all the water you want,’ he growled. ‘Do I wish drink? Give me your heart’s blood, then, and I’ll be content.’

Dilyardin clubbed the savage to the ground with the butt of his lance. ‘Mind your tongue, dog. Do you not know it is the Chara Lisalya to whom you speak?’

‘I know you Raambas are so cowardly you must let your women do your fighting for you.’

‘And that you savages are so weak,’ rejoined Ankhan, ‘that two of your numbers were slain by this mere woman. Come, friend Ennius,’ he said, turning his back, ‘enough of this. Did you understand the dog’s tongue?’

‘Yes, lord,’ responded the Gerso absently. ‘It is much like that of the barbarians of the far North.’

‘Then you have heard. There is nothing to be gained here. I have dealt with enough of them to know that nothing will get them to betray their chiefs. It is not for nothing they are called mad. Let us kill him and have done.’

‘You think you’ve won!’ screamed the Madpriest as if he had understood the king’s words. ‘You with all your fine bodyguards and your whore. You’ve invaded our sacred lands and you’ll die for it, Ankhan the Damned! You’ll die slowly and horrible so that you’ll think you’ve died a score of times – he’ll see to that! Not all your men or all your walls will protect you from him!’

‘From whom?’ asked Dilyardin fiercely.

The savage curled his lips contemptuously. His reddened eyes came alive in hateful glee as he answered, ‘Him! Him! Estar Kane!’

‘And who is Estar Kane?’ asked the Gerso.

The Madpriest shook his head and laughed. ‘You’ll not see his face, small-eyes, until you come face to face with your own dark death!’

‘He is a great war-chief of the Darklands,’ explained Ankhan. ‘They always speak of him thus, as if he were some god to them. It is said he has vowed to lead them into the Goddess-lit lands to pillage and slay to their hearts’ content. Yet never have any of my patrols come across him. Doubtless he is but another of their myths. The name means “the Death’s Lord.” ’

‘So torture me like the pigs you are,’ cried the captive. ‘He will avenge me! He will see you all dead and dying some pass soon! And you, too, outlander!’ he spat at Ennius Kandi.

‘Pay him no heed,’ said Lisalya. ‘We do no torture here. That is more the work of a Madpriest or foul barbarian than of any who would claim to be civilized folk. We shall kill him cleanly and simply.’

But the Gerso stayed her hand. ‘Your majesty, perhaps we may yet learn something from this man. Or, if not, then I could take him to Tarendahardil as a gift for the Divine Queen. She has expressed desires to know more of these folk and their strange ways of life. Chara, you have but recently offered me my choice of favors. Deliver this man into my hands, and I shall be well paid.’

‘It will be more your boon to us than ours to you if you take this burden from our shoulders, friend Ennius,’ said Ankhan. ‘Have him then as you please. Yet we must warn you that it will do you no good. These savages are beyond redemption, from living out their lives in darkness. He will tell you no more than nonsense.’

‘Perhaps,’ mused the Gerso, ‘he will tell me more of Estar Kane.’

* * *

The royal hunting-party returned to Ul Raambar with more game than they had thought to bring. In the chambers of the palace the Gerso delivered himself of the business the Empress had charged him with, and spoke at length of the progress of the League. And when this was done he bowed, and said he must not tarry but must return immediately.

The lord and lady of Ul Raambar would not hear of his departure, however, until they had held a grand feast to see their dear friend and savior off. Throughout the city, a festival was declared, and the captive Madpriest put on display in a cage before the palace.

The Gerso was granted land about Ul Raambar, and declared thenceforth to be Ennius, Charan of Danel, and one of the king’s cup-companions. ‘Let these lands we give you now compensate for that which was robbed of you by your enemy Ara-Karn,’ Ankhan said, ‘and may that which was robbed be returned to you under the leadership of the High Charan of Rukor. Goddess, be it so.’

‘Be it so soon,’ echoed the Chara Lisalya. ‘And dear Ennius, consider this land we give you to be a true home to visit often. Remember in your travels, whenever your thoughts turn to friendship or rest, you have but to set your feet to the dark horizon, and seek out Ul Raambar, the Unassailable.’

The Charan of Danel bowed before them both, and the assembled warriors and their proud ladies raised a cheer.

Then the Queen raised her hand, upon whose lovely fingers sparkled several rings of rare size and beauty, for she was dressed in state. ‘Nay, you need not speak, Ennius: well can we understand your noble feelings and how they might whelm the tongue. If your throat be still, yet can your eyes speak eloquently of the love you bear us. And for that love, and the services you have rendered us these brief passes, in both sweet companionship and danger, we thank you, Charan of Danel. This ring upon my finger was placed there years ago by Ankhan, my beloved, and never since has it been removed. Behold! it has come off now. And I give it you as the most precious of all my possessions.’

She handed him the ring, a golden band set with a single large ruby of the likeness of a human heart. Ankhan also stood, and took from his neck a golden chain. ‘Take this too, my friend,’ he said. Upon the end of the chain was suspended a delicate miniature that had been fashioned after the likeness of Lisalya during their stay at Tarendahardil. And all the warriors knew that this was the only likeness of his lady Ankhan had ever had.

‘And more,’ he exclaimed to the astounded crowd, ‘since dear Ennius lost his sword in the service of our lives, I will replace it with my own, of the finest workmanship of the master smiths of Ul Raambar.’ The lamplight shone from off the dark blue blade, and the silver and steel hilt worked with gold and fire-opal in the device of the kings of Ul Raambar. With his own hands, the king bound the blade about the waist of the stranger.

Then the crowds cheered indeed, so that the very palace shook from it. The Gerso bowed, rather too stiffly and coldly in the minds of many, waiting for the tumult to fall. When it had done so, he bowed once more, and addressed these words to the noble couple:

‘My lord and gracious lady, believe me when I say that the time I have spent among you has brought back such memories to me as I had thought long buried and forgotten in the dim, dead past. It makes my heart sick to think of all that I have lost; and even more ill to think of what might have been mine but never was, and dark God knows never will be now. My youth is gone forever; nor will the youth I was ever return. My home, my heart and my love were stolen by my enemies, upon whom I have sworn unending vengeance, though it consume me utterly. And now I have no future such as you might have to look forward to; yet, if I ever dared allow myself to dream of some future happiness, I could dream of no finer or more blissful a one than that here, which you two possess now: not great riches nor mighty domains, nor pomp nor power nor even a place carven in history, but a small kingdom of noble souls, and my heart’s desire seated again beside me.

‘These gifts you offer me are dearer to me than you could dream. And yet I must decline them: for they would so gnaw at me with their tempting promises that I might put aside my oaths, and thereby be undone. Yet the sword that your majesty has offered me I will gladly keep.’ So he handed them back the ruby ring and the delicate miniature, which they took back with grateful faces; but his was sad, like that of a man who has offered up his last hope of happiness.

‘Think then not of my own unhappiness,’ he went on, ‘for such is unworthy of your nobility: but think upon all that is yours, and treasure it well. Enjoy it to the fullest, two-handed and with desperation, as if it might vanish with the next rising of the Jade Orb. For you have such enemies about you that, were I able to speak from my heart alone, I would counsel you to strike them utterly to death lest they survive to treacherously raise your doom. But no man of purpose is free to follow his heart. So let the wave of Fate lead us where she will!’

They marveled at his words, for since the capturing of the Madpriest he had spoken so little they had taken him for a taciturn, moody man, and had forgotten that courtier’s glibness with which he had first greeted them. Now he spoke with such terrible sincerity and intensity, as from the shadows of his hidden heart, that they knew it was no mere courtesy, but a part of the man’s very soul that none before them had even glimpsed. And there was not a warrior or lady about that vast hall but heard the words with a sudden thought of their homes or loved ones, and treasured all that they had as if it had been a new-won and endangered gift. And they thought of what the barbarians had done to this man’s home and kin in far-off ruined Gerso; and they rejoiced that the barbarians were many borders away from their own Ul Raambar.

His words remained with them still, as they rode in joyous procession down the windswept streets of their city: only now not with that secret dread, but only sweet contentment. Ten full companies of lancers in dress armor and banners flying on high followed the noble couple and their guest, with the Madpriest bound sullenly on a steed behind them. Such was the departure out of Ul Raambar of Ara-Karn, now Charan of Danel, whom the city had taken to her breast. Nor would they content themselves merely with seeing him off at the gates of the city. They escorted him down the paths into the foothills and even beyond, to the crossroads in the Marches below the city. There they reached the border-posts marking the extent of Ankhan’s rule; and only there would they halt.

The king and queen embraced their friend one final time, with dear tears flowing in their eyes. They gave him gifts for their friends in Tarendahardil, and with broken words bade him farewell and all happiness. The only brightness the chara could find in the parting was that they all would meet again at the wedding. But the Gerso had no reply to that.

He took the leads of the Madpriest’s steed and the pack-pony burdened with the two heavy barrels that the Raambas had guarded in his absence most jealously, not knowing that they contained thirty strong bows and three hundred deadly arrows, salvaged and hidden from the wreckage of Captain Elpharaka’s ship. Therewith he left them, a lone figure on the flat, green wilderness of the Marches. They had offered him the company of a troop of lancers to help in the burdensome task of guarding his captive, but he had declined this signal honor. So Ankhan of the Strong Heart turned back, taking the warmth of his lady’s hand in his. They led their companies of lancemen up again to home, to Ul Raambar. Together they then re-entered the city gates, dreaming dearly of each other.

* * *

Far, far below them, out of sight now of even the sharp mountain-bred eyes of the watchers of the gates, the Gerso and his captive came to another crossing of the roads. Once more he wore his dark green hooded hunting-cloak from Gerso, fastened with a blood-red opal brooch-pin cut in the likeness of a serpent’s egg.

Behind them the road led back up to Ul Raambar, shining faintly like a red jewel against the dull backdrop of the mountainsides. Before them the road branched, one entering onto the broad stones of the Imperial Highway, leading to Tarendahardil and her beautiful queen; and the other turning into a tortuous dirt track meandering toward the dark horizon.

The hooded man did not pause at the crossroads. He turned off to his right, and silently rode upon the path leading up to the dark hills. He rode swayingly, with bent head, like a man intoxicated or asleep.

Those eyes alive with hate darted to the back of the Gerso, then to the road, and the sweet dark hills ahead. A secret gloating entered the eyes of the Madpriest, as if he could not believe his fortune; and he tensed his muscles, preparing to break away from this dreaming outlander. But then the fist that gripped the lead reins, as if sensing the determination in the breast of the captive follower, clenched more tightly, forcing the horse’s head down with an iron grip.

‘Fool! This way leads to my lands, where my chief rules – Estar Kane!’

‘Be silent, eater-of-dung. Think you I do not know the difference between darkness and light?’

* * *

When the procession passed out of windswept Ul Raambar, all the populace laughed and shouted their fierce joy. But there was one among them, a stranger, who did not cheer. He was a young man with a hunted look about his sleepless eyes. The cloak about his shoulders was worn and tattered as if by many months of travel. His restless manner was that of the exiled. By his looks, he seemed once to have been a native of the city of Gerso.

He saw Ankhan of the Strong Heart pass, and the Chara Lisalya, and he seemed cheered; but when the Gerso came by, his face was turned to ash. The Charan of Danel, acknowledging faintly the exclamations of the crowds, found for a moment the young man’s eye, but he rode on by without any sign of recognition.

The procession passed from Ul Raambar, and the youth went straight to his inn. There, giving no replies to the landlord’s questions, he paid his bill, gathered his few belongings, and saddled his horse. He rode down out of Ul Raambar, avoiding the procession, and took the path to the deeper South – always, always, farther South. He kept his eyes to the road beneath him, never looking up, never looking back. The light of Goddess, stained a faint crimson, fell upon his right side; and behind him the smoky plume of the foundries of Ul Raambar fell unnoticed behind the grim gray mountainsides.

It had been in Gerso, in the fiery ruins of his beloved city, that he had first known Ara-Karn, and tried to kill him. But Ara-Karn had survived the attack and granted him freedom – freedom! It was a dreadful word. In a dozen cities in the North he had sought peace; but Ara-Karn was ever close behind. Then he had gone on to Tarendahardil. Surely, he had thought, there would be a respite there. But he had found Ara-Karn even there, smiling at the Empress’s side. Even here to Ul Raambar the demon followed him. Would he never escape? He looked back over his shoulder; but the road was empty, as far as he could see.

He rode on a little faster nevertheless, and a little faster still: but still could not escape those words tolling in his brain like warning bells over palaces of red stone in Gerso where first he had heard them, those words that never left him now:

‘Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn! Ara-Karn!’

XIX

The Woman in the Wood

THE LATE SUMMER VEGETABLES were coming along nicely, Dornan Ural thought. He rested for a moment in the shade and wiped his gleaming bald head with a towel. He took pleasure in the ordered rows of green in his little garden. It was the last pleasure he had left in his life.

Upon that waking, he had presided over the examinations of ten new officials and elevated another seven from the Fourth to the Third rank. It was such a duty that had ever delighted him before; yet now in this as in all his other dealings with men, he saw but mockery in the eyes of those below him and heard but impudence in their voices. The terrible insult of the Queen hung over every interview. From poorborn to the charanti, they had taken her mockery for their example, knowing the term of Dornan Ural’s regency was fast approaching. He had perhaps never been a popular administrator, but he had been respected and obeyed. Now he was a laughingstock.

Clapping the dirt from his broad workman’s palms, Dornan Ural entered the cool halls of his office and mounted the stairway to the rooftop. So situated was the place, upon the northernmost edge of High Town, that from its roof he could see almost the whole of the lower city spread in timeless splendor below him. Pensively, he stood in the hot sun, a vertical mass set against the horizon of rooftops, dark about his feet where a shadow fell, but gleaming from the top of his skull.

More than ever he wished for one to whom he might confide his deepest troubles – but there was none. The Chara Khilivirn, his wife, was lovely and elegant; but she remained a noble, and he the son of one of the old Emperor’s freedmen, and not all their years together had served to alter that. As for his sons, he had given them everything he himself had lacked as a boy; now that they were men, they were totally unlike him. They looked, smelled, gamed, couched and spent like nobles. His latest news of them was that they had gone to the pleasure-gardens of Vapio to share the revels of the Charan Arstomenes's endless entertainments. As usual, the messenger who had conveyed the greetings of his sons to him had carried bills of debt as well. No, Dornan Ural had no family; and Tarendahardil had been his only mistress. Now he was old and he was weary beneath this hot sun, and he might not rest.

Centuries before, Elna alone had ruled here, and dispensed powers and distant dominions to his captains. It was the descendants of those scarred, blood-stained men who had become the charanti, sharing power with the Emperors. Wealthy and lovely the highborn had grown: also idle, vain, and careless. Their scribes and slaves were made to undertake the burdensome responsibilities of the realm, that the lovely charai and charanti might themselves more earnestly toil in the pastimes and pursuits of pleasure. Years passed, and from those lowly clerks and slaves, the Seven Ranks of officialdom had evolved: so was it proved a truth, that the comrade of responsibility is power.

It was we, the descendants of slaves, who had run the Empire for the last two hundred years: we who had overseen the building of roads, the distributions to the populace, the erection of public buildings, the maintenance of the waterways, taxes, licenses, public order and public good. It was we who interpreted, studied and revised the countless laws and regulations that had grown up like a maze around them, as dense and twisting as the Thieves’ Quarter, a city unto itself.

Into this city-within-a-city Dornan Ural had been born. His father had been a master of it; the son had outdone the sire. All his life and the greater portion of his love he had lavished upon it, and from its center presided over it. Now it was passing. He could feel it dying all around him. It moaned to him, piteous in its death-throes. Tarendahardil sighed – Tarendahardil cried – Tarendahardil sang for him.

Goddess smote down through the still air upon the head of Dornan Ural, and of a sudden he could not breathe. Darkness opened like blossoms before his eyes. All the sky had died away. A dreadful noise rose distantly in his ears – there were crowds in the streets – the earth shuddered – the lower city was in flames. Huge horsemen rode the Way of Kings, clad in dusty armor, curious, deadly weapons raised on high. Death and panic ran before them. Desperately, Dornan Ural tried to signal the crowds below and rally them; but the strength left his knees and his fingers clutched at the parapet in vain, and he fell.

As swiftly as it came, the vision ended. Sky returned, and the dire echoes faded. Miserably, the old man lifted himself to his knees and looked out over the parapet. All was as normal in the great city. Dornan Ural shuddered, and drew his hands across his face. When at length, after much effort, he managed to stand, his breathing was labored. His arms shook as he leaned upon the tiles of the parapet, and his face beneath the marks of dirt was the leaden hue of the unpainted dead. In those indeterminate moments, long years seemed to have piled up on the High Regent of Tarendahardil.

He had done nothing when the barbarians marched on Bollakarvil. In part, that was by advice he had had from captains who said Bollakarvil was too far away to be defended, and the Imperial forces were too few and scattered just then to risk an open conflict with the barbarians.

But also he had let that city fall, because its loss would hurt the Queen’s pride more than it would hurt Dornan Ural. So, too, to wound her he had refused to confirm Ampeánor in the office of her General Extraordinary; yet at the same time he had feared for his own power and prestige: for Ampeánor, had he been General Extraordinary, would have had the power to suspend all laws and rule the realm as if he had been an Emperor until the terms of his charter were complete. And now, for Dornan Ural’s own personal pride and malice, Tarendahardil herself was gravely threatened. How could he have let the barbarians draw so near?

The image of the city overrun by the barbarians would not leave him. And what might he do about it? He was no general; even if he were, no men now would obey him. They laughed at him now. The very bonds of law and social order were loosening, in the growing dread of the barbarian’s approach. Gladly now he would have handed all power to Ampeánor; yet the High Charan of Rukor was mysteriously vanished, and no one but the Queen seemed to know whither he had gone. Dornan Ural could not – he could not – go to beg at her hand now.

Who else? There were the other members of the High Council: Farnese of the Eglands, Lornof of Fulmine, and Arstomenes of Vapio. At last report, they had each been in their several provinces. Arstomenes’s wealth was legendary; Lornof’s father had left him arms enough to equip the three full armies; Farnese had, in his younger days, been acclaimed as the greatest general of the age. Surely, where Dornan Ural might fail alone, they all together must succeed. And they were the legal body charged with the Empire’s rule. Burning with this inspiration, Dornan Ural staggered into the cool shadows below, and ordered his clerks to his side.

Later that pass, following the fourth meal, the High Regent of Tarendahardil departed his city in a covered chariot, attended by a half score of mounted Imperial lancers, through the Archway of the Eglands.

Ironically, this time – this of all times – he had not even considered resigning.

* * *

Within ten passes of her conquest, Bollakarvil had returned almost to normal. The goatherds were allowed to take their herds down to feed again on the brown plains. The shops were all reopened, dealing now with pilgrims and barbarians alike. Commerce was resumed with those other cities in Ara-Karn’s grip. All was as it had ever been: save that now instead of a Porekan in the name of the Bordakasha, the city was ruled by a garrison of barbarians in the name of Ara-Karn.

In the plain below, the army prepared to move on. It was a hard trek to Ilkas, the city next in line to the vast Southern Ocean, and Gundoen seemed to hope to traverse it in no more than a score of marches. Fighting-men, slaves and camp-followers packed tents, kettles, chests and loot onto the many wagons, and started down the mountain road. The vast army crawled like a broad, meandering river over the face of the world, disturbing billowing clouds of dust into the winds. The weather was fine and clear, and Goddess upon Her throne of Golden Fire a blaze in the heavens. The riding barbarians did not look back upon this conquered city as they passed. To them it had been but one more city, not the first, not the best, not the last.

Yet there was one among them who rode with the renegades, who looked back upon the city. And in the distance, Bollakarvil shone back lovely in the changeless light, as if all things were one.

Some leagues down the road they came to the shrine where Elna had slain the barbarian lord Gorjils when he was but a boy. The barbarians rode past it in ignorance, not knowing that it had been upon that spot Elna had first vowed himself to the destruction of all the marauders.

Ampeánor knelt by the shrine as the innumerable wagons creaked past behind him. His lips moved in a silent prayer. The shrine was undamaged; but the eyes of Ampeánor saw black blood spattered across the small marble altar. His face hardened as he prayed, becoming like that of a rude wooden statue. He rose, kissing his knuckles to the shrine. He said, ‘For your final descendant let it be done. Surely, you would not fail her.’

Then he took on his great sword and shield, drew heavy gloves over calloused hands, and set helm upon head. Without a backward glance, he mounted horse and rode through the dusty, acrid clouds of the road. The columns wended their way through the narrow, mountainous defiles, to Ilkas. And Ampeánor rode close to the head of them, and ever kept his gaze woodenly fixed upon the barbarian general and father of Ara-Karn.

Upon the third and twelfth marches, the armies were attacked by wild men with bows, who came over a rise of a sudden and stormed a length of the strung-out and straggling lines. Shouts were raised and the barbarian outriders hastened back to beat off this harrying, but the raiders had vanished as swiftly as they appeared each time. Upon the first instance, they killed twenty-five barbarians and twelve of the slaves among the camp-followers; the second attack twelve barbarians and fifteen renegades were slain or badly wounded. No warriors were sent after the raiders in pursuit. A fearful rumoring ran up the columns after these instances: the barbarians, their usually fearless faces betraying unease, glancing nervously into the hills and muttering, ‘The demons! The demons!’ The dread and confusion among the barbarians seemed even greater than that of the renegades or folk of the supply-trains.

Ampeánor questioned Jakgron, who shrugged, perhaps to hide his ignorance. Such harryings were common, he said, while the armies were on the march; none of them knew who the raiders might be. They had wreaked great damage, especially among the supply trains; yet not one of them had been slain or captured. They used bows well, and were dressed even more vilely than the renegades; none knew more of them than that. Save, he added, that they were held in an almost superstitious fear by the barbarians; some of whom were fearful that these might prove to be the restless spirits of the dead Gundoen had left unvoyaged behind, in the bitter, deadly journey across the Taril.

* * *

There was no battle when the hordes of Ara-Karn came to Ilkas. That city, cowed by the news of Bollakarvil’s ruin, sent ambassadors to the army bearing yellow flags and the earth and water of the city in token of submission. They sued for peace, and peace Gundoen gave them. He was content with the arms of the city, a detachment of veterans to swell his ranks, and half the contents of the city treasury. The renegades cursed this unfortunate turn of events, for now there would be no chance for loot; and the only women they could enjoy would have to be well paid. And Ampeánor by Jakgron’s side cursed also; for Ilkas had once been a part of the Empire, and he had visited here on his Pilgrimage long ago. He had expected better of her. Still, he was relieved that he should not be put through the agonies of another assault. There was still no token of when Ara-Karn might rejoin his followers; yet of that Ampeánor scarcely thought. He had devised an alternate strategy.

The army took camp outside the city walls while Gundoen and the barbarian chieftains established a garrison and commandeered the city supplies. Of the rest, only small numbers were allowed to enter the city at any one time, lest riots break out. Gundoen flatly forbade all looting and insisted all the warriors pay for all their goods.

When it came time for his visit to the city, Ampeánor did not bother with the brothels, gaming-dens or wineshops his fellows eagerly crowded. Instead, he went to the acropolis of the city and requested an audience with Gundoen.

The barbarian was busy with choosing who should form the garrison, and kept Ampeánor waiting some hours. When he finally did admit him, he could not refrain from referring to Ampeánor as ‘his thief from Rukor.’

The barbarians with him laughed. Ampeánor cast his eyes over them. The old one beside Gundoen was Nam-Rog, chief of the Durbar tribe, second in power, and Gundoen’s closest friend. That broad-chested man was Kul-Dro, who had been a wrestling-mate with Gundoen; he was also the father of Garin, the son-in-law of Ara-Karn’s chief prophet. There were others there, chieftains high in repute among the barbarians.

‘Warlord,’ he replied, ‘I did not come here to serve as the butt of your jokes, but to offer you service. When last you saw me, in the tent of Ara-Karn, you questioned me regarding prophecies. There is a woman who lives in the hills hereabouts famous for her visions: I could take you to her.’

The barbarian turned to where the officials of the city were clustered awaiting his pleasure. Through his translators, renegades who had proven themselves, Gundoen asked the officials if what Ampeánor said was true.

‘Yes, lord,’ they answered. ‘Melkarth, for such is the name she chooses to be called, has great fame among the common people. She accepts no payment and speaks only to a few of the many who seek her. Most, in fact, are sent away without a glimpse of her; yet a few are kept with her for several passes, until all her vision is clear.’

‘Would she see me?’ asked the barbarian.

‘Who knows, lord?’ Ampeánor asked. ‘But be assured that if she sees you, it will be by her whim and none other’s. Not all your men could force her talents. Others have tried: they were ever found later, evil having befallen them.’

‘Could she tell me the truth of prophecies already revealed to me?’

‘What she sees, she will tell,’ answered the renegade. ‘In my youth, I went to see her and she saw me; but I could not make sense of her words. Others have risked fortunes upon a hint from her, and profited greatly. Yet to gain her truth you must go to her: she never stirs from her ancient haunts. I will guide you, if you wish. Yet you must bring no other men. We two must be alone. The sight of a large band would alarm her, and she would go to earth like a hunted wild thing, and we would see not even her tracks.’

‘That is a different matter,’ the barbarian said sourly. ‘How could I trust such a dog as you, who have sold your country and your race for gold?’

‘If you wish to consult this woman there is no other way,’ Ampeánor stated flatly. ‘Ask these men if what I say is not truth.’ And he turned to them, shameless old charanti who had commanded the city when he had visited here as a youth. But not a one of them recognized the High Charan of Rukor in the dirty fightingman before them.

‘What this fellow says is true,’ they told the translator. ‘There are many strange legends told of the Melkarth.’

‘You see, lord,’ said Ampeánor.

The barbarian gave him a cold, hard stare, then relaxed with contempt upon his bearded lips. ‘And how much will you take for your services, Southron?’

Ampeánor smiled with a faint irony. ‘Everything you will give to me, my lord.’

* * *

They rode forth from the city, their brightly burning war-gear concealed beneath voluminous traveling cloaks. Slowly and easily, the two riders ascended the road up into the foothills of the mountains. Almost from the start thick woods, and later the rises and many turns of the road, cut off their view of the city. The road narrowed, and the orchards, woods and summer sheep pastures gave way soon to a stony wilderness; and still they mounted higher.

They came at length to the bald top of a high hill; there Gundoen reined in his pony and looked about him.

‘We have come far,’ he muttered. ‘Where is the woman’s hut?’

Ampeánor pointed ahead. ‘Your pardon, General, but it is a ways farther yet.’

‘You go on too slowly, Southron.’

‘Your pardon, lord, but it is many a year since I have visited the seeress. Too, it is not easy to ride swiftly with a beaten back.’

So they plunged down the hill, following along the steep-falling slope. The hills were higher here, a fit abode for wolves and thorsas. The two men ate the second meal in silence, mounted and went on.

They reached a part of the trail that ran like a skirt-pleat up and round a cliffside. They were leaving the hills then, and nearly among the mountains. Gundoen again reined in his steed and looked about warily, as a beast will that has ventured too far from the familiar grounds of its lair.

‘We have come far,’ he growled, ‘farther than I would like. You did not tell me it was so distant, my thief. Point out to me this woman’s hut.’

But Ampeánor pointed yet ahead. ‘Your pardon, General, but it is a ways farther yet.’

‘I grow saddle-angry.’ The barbarian leaned and spat. ‘But lead you on, renegade. It had better be near.’

They rode up the skirt-pleat. Not even wolves might love this terrain. Great birds wheeled in the cold winds over their heads, eying them and floating on. The trail came up round the cliffside and led them over a vast tableland, soil-less and dead.

The air was thin and brittle, for they were very high. All about them the heads of the mountains rose above the edges of the table; and beyond and between the peaks the distant lowlands spread away, pallid and blanched through the misty clouds. The winds whipped their traveling-cloaks ahead of them, round their ponies’ heads. They passed a few heaps of stones blackened with the soot of cook-fires – they might have burned a waking, or three lifetimes before. The third meal they ate in the saddle, and the thirsty wind drank the spilling drops of their waterskins. They did not pause for the shortsleep. They reached the end of the table, and Ampeánor led the way down the shadowside. Before and below them the trail led precipitously down into a hilly, well-wooded terrain, beyond which a limitless, ageless Wood stretched far and green away. It looked so great, even from so high above it, that it might easily have been imagined that Wood had never known the touch of an axe. There were trees in those shaded depths so great they might have been ancient before Elna’s first breath.

Again, Gundoen reined in, so sharply now his pony all but stumbled and cast him to his doom; but Ampeánor’s hand steadied the affrighted beast.

‘What sort of game do you play, renegade? Will you lead me to the dark horizon now? If you know not where this witch-woman lives, tell me so and begone. I warn you, O my thief, that I carry no gold or jewels, or anything bright save the blade of my sword – and that you may have at your pleasure.’

For answer Ampeánor merely gestured below them. There where the snakelike road wound back upon itself, a little stone hut sat nestled in a crag of the cliffside. ‘Your pardon, General, but yonder sits her hut.’

The barbarian growled something, but followed as Ampeánor rode swaying down the trail. The trail dipped down, so that it came upon the hut with an upward slope. There were short trees and thick grasses hereabouts, but in that ceaseless shadow no great relief from the chill of the heights. The riders stopped their ponies, and gazed upon the silent ruinous hut. It looked as though no human hand had touched it in an age.

‘Melkarth does not live as we do, nor does she encourage visitors,’ Ampeánor said. ‘But there she lives: I swear it to you upon all my honor.’

‘Your honor,’ sneered the barbarian. ‘Go on, and summon her forth.’

‘Pardon, General, but it should be better if you, the petitioner, did that.’

Gundoen’s swordpoint pressed against Ampeánor’s back through the heavy woolen cloak. ‘Did you hear what I said, my thief? Do it.’

Ampeánor dismounted with a seeming reluctance and stepped to the hut’s wooden door. Pounding upon it with the heel of his hand, he spoke some loud words of Bordo; a low voice answered something from within. Ampeánor, relieved, glanced back. ‘She is at home, and will hear you. Do you speak her tongue? Then will I be your translator. Only sheathe your sword, or else she will little like the look of you. An armed man will offend her; she will refuse your questions, and lay a weird upon you.’

‘You were not such a believer before,’ Gundoen muttered, thrusting his sword into its scabbard.

‘These places strip away what a man would wear,’ Ampeánor replied, pushing the door open and standing to one side.

Gundoen, his body bulking large against the little opening, peered blinking within. In that gloomy interior might be faintly perceived a dust-ridden, low chamber, broken hearth, and a short, squat figure covered with a hooded cloak sitting with her back to the door.

Gundoen took another step. ‘Pardon, old woman,’ he muttered awkwardly; ‘but of late I have been troubled by dreams. And I have come to you concerning certain foresayings of my wife, that have greatly troubled me all this year. She saw—’

Ampeánor cast the heavy Delba cord about the barbarian’s shoulders, drawing it fast so that the man could neither fight nor draw sword. Like a knife-stabbed thorsa, the barbarian bellowed out his rage, turning on his betrayer. Inside the hut the squat figure rose and cast off her shawls, and it was Jakgron with a stout staff in his fists. He stepped out and swung the staff down hard against Gundoen’s skull, whereat the barbarian roared again.

Jakgron drew back the staff; Ampeánor looped the rope around a crag of rock and drew Gundoen fast against it. The barbarian’s muscles swelled beneath the armor and cloak; Jakgron struck again, bursting open the skull. Blood ran into the barbarian’s eyes, but only served to enrage him more: he heaved, and the rope burst against the rock. Again Jakgron swung; and thereat, at last, the barbarian bent and fell.

‘Well done,’ commended Ampeánor, after a moment. ‘Have you left the fresh horses in the glade below?’

‘Aye, lord, where you bade me, by the spring. But what a man this was! It took more blows just to bring him down, than would have slain an ox! Look you how the very staff was broken on his head!’

‘I see. Give me a hand, then, and we’ll bind him on one of the horses. Was there no sign of the witch-woman when you arrived?’

‘None, lord. Not even the wolves might choose this place to hide.’

Below the hut a gladsome spring flowed from the ground. There they hung the barbarian’s heavy body across one of the horses as if he had been some beast they had brought down with nets and lances. An angry shout sounded in the midst of their work, startling them: they looked up through the branches and saw a band of barbarians riding hastily down the trail.

Ampeánor swore a vile oath in the barbarian tongue. ‘He must have bidden them follow us; or else they did it on their own. Hurry, and finish with these cords.’

The riders above came round the turn in the path and rode whooping down across the grasses, blades and lances brandished fiercely. An arrow struck the ground near Jakgron's feet. Ampeánor leapt upon the saddle of his horse; Jakgron was somewhat slow behind him. They rode down into the wood, ducking low beneath the raking branches.

Thickly closed the trees about them, and the pungent odor of the leaves. They were forced from the trail they had meant to follow; massive tree-trunks and thick hedges came between them. Ampeánor rode leading the horse on which the barbarian was bound. Instinctively he, who had hunted so often and so well in the forests of Rukor, knew the proper turnings in these wild ways.

The ululations of the barbarians sounded ever more faintly in his ears, and at length were gone.

Not then did he slow but, finding a shallow stream leading in the way he wished to go, he entered on it, and rode splashing into the thick, oppressive depths of the Wood, where the light of Goddess reached but faintly.

Jakgron too urged his steed on; but he was not the equal of his lord in such craft. A great elbowed branch came unheeded into his way, knocking him from horseback to the mossy ground.

There he lay, rolling breathlessly, while the barbarian warriors surrounded him.

They prodded him mercilessly with their honed lances, raining oaths and questions on him. Old Nam-Rog was their leader, chieftain of the Durbar tribe; with him were two other Durbars and a fist of men from Gundoen’s own tribe.

At a distance, they had followed Gundoen over the mountains, but even so had come too late. Roiling and terrible was their anger at this defeat, and there were shouts raised calling from the death of Jakgron then and there. Nam-Rog, however, seeing the pallor of the renegade’s face, put questions to him – and such was Jakgron’s great terror at the prospect of the torments they might put him to, that it was not long before the entire tale was known to the barbarians, of just who had entered their camp and dwelled among them, and whither he now would take his captive.

‘Ampeánor, High Charan of Rukor, took him!’ he screamed. ‘He took him to the City Over the World – to Tarendahardil!’ And his eyes rolled back in his head, and he moaned and slumped senseless back upon the moss.

Nam-Rog nodded. ‘Did I not warn Gundoen many times that these lonesome wanderings would in time turn out ill? Well: Foriger and Tar-Drin, see you this one is bound securely, and we will take him back unto the camp. You others, you trackers of Gundoen’s tribe: will you now follow after this great lord and free your chieftain?’

‘Aye, that we will,’ they cried. ‘Hunt him, hound and harry him. Look for us in no more than two weeks’ time, to return to the camp with Gundoen free and this Southron tied like a taken bird. Garin, you are the finest tracker of us – the finest in all the tribes of the far North. Will you not be our leader?’

The one addressed was a young man mounted on a fine milk-white steed. Disdainfully he looked on them, and shook his head. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘My heart does not turn on such things now.’ Some thought him overproud, that he had wived the only daughter of Kuln-Holn the Pious One, who was the chief prophet of Ara-Karn.

The trackers stripped off their gear, and in the light summer tunics of their tribe took up the trail of Ampeánor and his prisoner. The others, led by Nam-Rog, rode back over the mountains and came to Ilkas and the camp below. Old Nam-Rog did not wait, but called for a council of the chiefs immediately, in the open clearing before the wide, dark, empty tents of Ara-Karn.

For a full waking, they argued and questioned the captive spy; then, while the renegades in the camp and the folk of the city sought sleepily their dim places, Nam-Rog called an assembly of all the tribes in the field beside the river. There Nam-Rog addressed them.

Behind him sat Garin and Kul-Dro and the chieftains in a half-circle. A heavy wooden post had been driven into the green earth behind the chiefs; upon it Jakgron was bound, wide-eyed with terror.

Nam-Rog spoke long. Some said they had not known the old man had such fires left unburnt within him. And when he had done with them, then Nam-Rog asked them his question. As with one voice those ten thousand throats and savage hearts gave him answer, even as Garin gave the signal to those warriors behind him, whereat they drove their barbed lances deep into the soft guts of Jakgron the spy. Loudly thunderous was the shout of the ten thousand, so that it rebounded from off the hills and entered the walls of the defeated city and woke with dread the timorous Ilkars.

‘What city now shall be our goal?’ Nam-Rog asked them.

And in that shout they answered him, ‘Tarendahardil!’

XX

The League of Elna

THE HIGH REGENT of Tarendahardil returned with his attendants to the city through the Vapio Archway, and mounted to High Town on the Way of Kings. Before the steps of the Palace he emerged weakly from the covered chariot and sought audience with the Divine Queen. Astonishment was evident upon the palace slaves’ faces at the old man’s appearance, as, gravely, they led him round into the Imperial Gardens.

A light, mistlike rain was falling, unusually chilly for summer. The leaves of the trees shed mournful tears in the Gardens’ lower levels. Restlessly upon her favorite mare the Queen rode the horse-tracks, up and down, not unlike the half-starved beasts kept in cages below the Circus just before the Games.

She rode the course twice before she noticed him. When she did, she rode over and whispered Kis Halá to a stop a pace or two from him. He abased himself in the wet grasses, and the cold dampness seeped into his legs. She bade him rise, but herself remained astride the high horse. She studied him for a moment before asking his business.

‘Your majesty,’ he said in a faint, reedy voice, ‘Ilkas and Kixza have fallen, and Rochnora is now beset. Ara-Karn nears the Way of Vapio, the ancient trade route leading to the deep South. When once he gains that, there will only be the broad highways running through the provinces between him and Tarendahardil.’

She smiled, a dangerous upturning of those painted lips. ‘You are perceptive, good Regent. Why do you not schedule a meeting of the High Council and draft a letter to the barbarian, informing him of your displeasure?’

She was dressed in a dark brown lora, with a wide hooded cloak of the same color to shelter her from the rain. Even so, the mists had kissed the curls about her brow, darkening them slightly and drawing them down in slight, sweet disorder. Her lashes were thick and dark, as if she had wept. She was unspeakably lovely, this woman who was the highest born noble in the world. It occurred to Dornan Ural vaguely, as a side thought, how much he hated her.

‘I have already sought the other regents,’ he replied, and all his weariness was manifest in his voice. ‘Old Farnese, who was in his youth named the greatest general of our age, lies sickly and near death in a tent in the horse-fields of the Eglands, and follows the wild herds. He cares nothing that the barbarian approaches, but rather relishes the prospect that none of us will long outlive him. Lornof of Fulmine’s father’s famous palace is empty and forsaken, and all his armories there are hollow. His gambling debts have beggared his entire estate; what he left, the moneylenders took. Now he has gone into hiding somewhere, too cowardly even to take his own life. Arstomenes wallows in wine and lechery in his gardens, and says he will not end his revelries until Ara-Karn has been a guest there. The most of the nobility are there as well, drunken and debauched…’

Too weak to go on, he stopped. Chara Ilal had been in those gardens of Vapio, along with his own sons. They had not returned with him. What else he had beheld there, unutterable and vile, he would never forget.

‘So,’ the Queen mused, softly and mercilessly, ‘now there are but the two of us.’

He bowed his head, that she might not behold his eyes.

‘What then are your plans, O Master of Tarendahardil?’

He took a deep breath to gather strength, and spoke to her of his hopes, of the only plans he had managed to fashion in his long, wearying, jolting journeys. ‘The first object must be to prevent the barbarians from reaching Tarendahardil. Without walls, the great city cannot withstand a single assault. We must, therefore, muster forces. The latest reports put the barbarian’s forces in the fields at no more than forty thousand, many of whom are renegades whose loyalties cannot be unshakable. If the Empire could but join in alliances with other unconquered nations, we might raise a force three times the size of the barbarian’s. There are arms enough in the vaults of the Citadel, I know, to equip many more men than they had presently.’

‘You have not visited the armory recently,’ the Queen said. ‘Those arms are gone. We sent them with Ampeánor to Tezmon long ago.’

‘But how, and why? You had no right to do that without consulting the Council!’

‘We had thoughts of using Tezmon as a wedge into the North – but never mind. As for your Council, we had asked, save that we knew we would be denied. Tell us the rest of your scheme.’

He continued, the sickness growing in his heart. ‘There are still weapons-makers in the city, and fine weapons might be had abroad, from Ul Raambar. More than enough weapons can be purchased with the reserves of gold in the Imperial Treasury. I am thankful now that I withstood all the strong temptations of the past two years, and left those reserves intact.’

‘You have not visited the Treasury recently, either,’ she said, her smile unabating. ‘That gold too is gone, to buy bows and an alliance with the rebel chieftain in Tezmon. Ampeánor was convinced – but enough. What else?’

It was a dreadful blow. He was glad now of the rain, for it concealed the tears he wept. She sat upon her horse high above him with neither pity nor concern. Then he remembered, and asked her, ‘Where is Ampeánor? Still we might have hopes, if we can find a general brilliant and esteemed.’

She shook her head. ‘Count not strongly upon the Lord of Rukor. He went away into peril, alone, before Bollakarvil fell. We have not had word from him since.’

‘Is it hopeless, then?’ he cried, openly weeping. ‘Is Tarendahardil doomed?’

‘Doomed, indeed, and quite lacking in hope,’ she answered, the smile withering upon her lips like a crushed blossom. A light shone in her eyes, unlike any he had seen there before. ‘And that shall be our greatest spur to victory.’

She leapt lightly from the mare’s back and, summoning the grooms in attendance, let Kis Halá be led back to the stables. She touched Dornan Ural’s shoulder, and bade him rise.

‘Now,’ she uttered sternly, ‘Dornan Ural, are you now but an old man fit for memories and tears, or have you labor yet in you?

‘Listen to our words, then. We have not been idle in these weeks. Did you think we would let Ara-Karn enjoy his little jests, and sweep upon us unprepared? We have been in contact with the other unconquered nations ever since the word reached us of Gerso’s fall. Such an alliance as you have suggested has long been in our mind. Yet the lesser nations were shy at first, and hesitated. Now, fearing perhaps even as you fear – for how may they stand after we have fallen? – they prove more tractable. We have entered into pacts with several of them, and your name will gain others.

‘Yes, it was illegal for us to propose alliances without informing you: what of that? Even now they raise forces to send on to us here. For the center of our forces we have the firm commitment of Ankhan, the lord of Ul Raambar, to come with all his famous, unconquerable warriors. For our general we have Ghezbal Daan, the mercenary captain once of Ul Raambar. A man steely, fearless, and with a cleverness for victory, Ghezbal Daan has in his career won or secured kingdoms for a dozen princes throughout the South and North. Yet never once has he turned on his employer and taken kingship for himself, though his chances have been numerous: he has confessed to us, he prefers the solitary captain’s role. There is not a soldier in a land who would hesitate to hazard his life under the leadership of Ghezbal Daan: not a prince who would be jealous of the ascendancy of this man who lives in a lonely tower overlooking the wide Marches, a willing exile from his own city. He has sent us a dozen assurances. This he views as his greatest challenge.’

She smiled prettily at the stupefied look upon the old man’s face and took his hand, the wise elder leading the child back to his studies. ‘Much has been done, but much remains. There are details to be overseen, such as how we shall feed these armies while they camp here. Our agents will assist you and inform you of the details of the alliance. We have few left, unfortunately; Fentan Efling and one or two others. Fentan is clever, however, and skeptical – you will get on well together. Come, then, Dornan Ural, for there is work for us to do.’

* * *

Even as she had said, so it fell to pass. All the same, there were matters of details she had overlooked, problems of supplies and administration that might have undone all the rest; but Dornan Ural drew upon all his skills and all his years and solved them.

His hall became a bustling place again. He worked on, scarcely resting, though the burden of it all was a thing he could hardly bear. An early difficulty, and one he found in the end beyond all his powers, was what way the lesser princes should send their armies to Tarendahardil, where they were all to gather. There was too much danger to send them southward past the mountains and up the Way of Vapio; not enough time to send them northward to the Sea of Elna and bring them round by ship. There was but a single road, and that led through the heart of Belknule into Fulmine; and Yorkjax, the tyrant of Belknule, flatly forbade them to cross his domains.

In the end, it had been the Queen who had cut this knot: massing Imperial troops under the leadership of Haspeth along the Belknulean marches, she sent word to the princes’ armies to come and dare Yorkjax in his den. He, faced with war or compliance, then relented, and let them pass in peace. Doubtless it was his secret wish that the armies of the League and Ara-Karn would destroy each other and leave him, Yorkjax, the strongest man in the South.

The armies marched through Belknule unhindered, and gathered at Tarendahardil. The martialing field south and brightward of the city grew big with tents and horsemen and the companies of foot-soldiers. Even Dornan Ural’s spirit was upborne at the sight.

Now the news came to them of Ara-Karn’s gaining of the Way of Vapio after a foredoomed battle with the Vapio charioteers, and of his sweeping upon Vapio like a desert wind. And the armies of the League grew restless, consuming the last of the food Dornan Ural and his clerks had allotted for the armies’ brief stay there. Eighty thousand men was their strength, of a dozen lands, assembled and waiting; and all they lacked were a center and a general. No word had reached them in Tarendahardil of either Ghezbal Daan or the warriors of Ankhan of Ul Raambar. The swiftest messengers had been dispatched toward the dark horizon, but they did not return.

Vapio, the oldest city known to men, fell to the barbarians, and the pleasure-gardens of Arstomenes and all his revelers were trodden under the hooves of the war-horses of Ara-Karn. In the banquet hall of the Imperial Palace, the Queen banqueted the principal lords and captains of the armies of the League. There it was agreed they could wait no longer, but the armies must depart with the next waking. The captains and princes conferred with the Queen and chose the Charan Fronaril Thibbold, a Peshtrian, to be their general.

‘And where do you think you will meet the foe, Charan?’ the Queen asked him. ‘In the fields of the Eglands?’

He nodded. ‘It is the best place for our horse, which must surely be superior to that of the barbarians. We shall await him, your majesty, on Egland Downs.’

‘May Goddess ride at your side,’ she said.

‘And so,’ cried one of the captains, raising high his winecup, ‘let us drink a measure to those who stayed behind hiding in their homes, and to the mighty Ghezbal Daan, who had better things to do. And then let us drink seriously, to dark God for victory.’

They drank, and hailed the Queen. She presided over them like the Goddess she was said to be, arrayed in a blazing white lora, with gold upon her arms and brow and pearls about her throat and breasts. Her eyes burned like sky, more blue than Dornan Ural had ever seen before. She was as terrible as a wounded thorsa, and Dornan Ural did not wonder that their allies, who before had hesitated, had now not dared deny her, but were swept up by her grim determination. These captains felt it, too. With the blessing of such a one, surely more than a mere mortal woman, they had no doubts but victory must be theirs. Yet possibly it was only that they had all drunk somewhat overmuch of this sweetly bitter Postio wine. Even Dornan Ural’s worn and ghostly cheeks burned as if they had some color in them by the end of that feast, and his hollowed eyes a spark.

One by one, in the order their ambassadors had agreed upon, the captains and charanti took their leave and rode with the kisses of the Divine Queen still hot upon their brows, out of the city to the martialing field. Haspeth, who had command of the Imperial forces, the Queen bade linger.

‘Captain,’ she told him, ‘it is our wish you choose one of your fellows to lead our contingents in the center. You shall take your own company apart and go northward to your homeland, Rukor. There have been reports of further outrages committed by the pirates of the Isles, who have become the barbarians’ allies.’

‘Your majesty, choose some other for this errand,’ he pleaded, angry and hurt at her command. ‘But do not, I beg you, cause me to miss this battle, which should prove the most glorious and slaughterous conflict we will know in our lives. Does your majesty doubt my loyalty or ability, that you should so insult me? Or is it a harsh fate that leaves me always behind?’

‘We have no doubts to your ability, Captain – it is the reason we chose you. As for your loyalty, that you may prove by going north. There are other good reasons besides, why we would have you, our finest soldier, and no other, perform this duty. Go to Rukor – raise an army from the countryside, and await our calling of you. We may yet have great need of you, in circumstances which it would prove ill-omened to speak of now.’

And he, though he argued further and seemed angry almost to the point of rebellion, at last agreed to obey the command of his sovereign, and took his leave.

Dornan Ural had looked on this scene with some confusion. ‘Why, is there something else to attend to?’ he asked. ‘Is there something I don’t know?’

‘It is a thing of small importance,’ she replied. ‘A detail we would not wish to burden you with. You have worked hard on our behalf, Dornan Ural, and earned our gratitude.’

‘It was not for you we worked,’ he answered, somewhat sullenly. ‘We worked for our city and our home.’ Then his mood brightened as he thought of the great army he had gathered without the city. ‘How long, do you think, before the news comes?’

‘Not long. Thibbold will be defeated quickly enough. Then we must be ready here.’

‘Defeated! Why, how do you foresee that? The barbarians have but half our numbers!’

‘Numbers signify nothing. Generals signify everything. Ara-Karn and his chieftains have been outnumbered and surrounded on every step of their long, blood-weltered journey. With Ankhan and his Raambas, and the generalship of Ghezbal Daan, we might have held them off. But Charan Thibbold, though the best we have, is not the equal of Ara-Karn.’

‘You speak, your majesty, almost as if you knew this Ara-Karn intimately – as if you admired him,’ he added cruelly.

Yet the insolence did not seem to trouble her. ‘Perhaps I do,’ she said softly, letting her gaze roam about the high hall.

‘Yet you were not in all matters so prophetic,’ he said. ‘For I seem to recall other words of yours, when you swore before all the heavens that Ankhan of Ul Raambar would not forsake us; and where is he now with all his famous soldiers?’

‘Had Ankhan of the Strong Heart received our messages and been able to reach us, he would be here. You are wearied, Dornan Ural, and drunken, and it has not improved your manners. Go back to your hall and rest. You have done well, but for now our part is over with, and all we may do is wait and pray to Goddess.’

He bowed and left her. Anger and annoyance at her calm certainty burned in him all the way to his mansion; but upon reaching the stillness of his gardens he fell upon a couch, exhausted and dazed. He slept briefly, woke and slept again. Now an old, enfeebled man, he had driven himself upon his city’s behalf unstintingly, far beyond the limits of his strength. Out of love and shame, he had offered up his own health in sacrifice and expiation for all his earlier errors and failings of foresight. Now even in the sleep of wine his limbs shook.

Standing over him was his wife, an elegant woman dressed darkly even as her husband in mourning for his two sons, who had perished with all the other happy guests of Arstomenes. Behind her, a young man leaned against a pillar of the stoa. He was dressed in the latest fashions, and his looks could only be called beautiful.

‘Look at him lying there, twitching and slobbering,’ the young man said. ‘How have you borne it so long, to share the couch of such a toad?’

‘Be silent, Relanistir,’ she said, looking still upon her husband’s form. ‘I have told you before, he and I have not touched each other for years. Nor were you so disdainful of the gifts this man’s money bought you.’

‘Well, at least it is over,’ he said sulkily. ‘Come away now, Khilivirn, can you not? The bearers are waiting. Or is there something you have forgotten?’

‘No, nothing.’

He laughed slyly, caught her in his arms and kissed her skillfully in the shadows of the colonnade, so that despite herself Khilivirn laughed.

Dornan Ural, roused partway from sleep by their voices, looked out through dark-weaving eyes to behold his garden. It had been shamefully neglected these weeks, he thought dimly. Weeds choked the rows, and the vegetables were rotten and insect-ridden. He must attend to it when he was better.

* * *

Even then, at that selfsame moment under heaven, Ampeánor rode down into a broad shallow stream in the midst of the forest. Behind him he led the horse on which he had bound his barbarian captive. The pebbly currents washed and bubbled about the legs of the weary horses, which lowered their heads and drank, grateful for the respite. Far over their heads, a gap gleamed in the thick walls of green and purple leaves, where the sky meandered like a broken stream of blue and jade.

Ampeánor dug his knuckles into his sore neck, softly cursing the forest, the flies, and his own folly. Still they were lost here in these trackless woods where no men ever came save for thieves and runaway slaves. Wandering almost aimlessly, taking turns at hazard to evade the barbarians close on their trail, Ampeánor knew not even in what quarter of the sky the bright horizon was, or in what gross direction Tarendahardil lay.

Behind him Gundoen, his thick arms bound about the breast of his horse and his massive legs secured beneath the belly, bent up his head and regarded his captor with a malicious eye.

‘Not long now, Southron,’ he said. ‘Those are men of my own tribe who track us – I know them by the calls they make. My tribe’s trackers are the finest in the far North. And they are drawing nearer. You have been clever so far, more clever than I would have expected; but it won’t be enough in the end. Not long now, until you stop to rest a moment, even as now, and – phh-t! – a death-bird will find your gorge, and there will be an end to you.’

By now Ampeánor knew better than to respond to the barbarian’s taunts. Slapping at a fly, he took the reins and urged his steed on, following the currents of the stream. From all sides the pungent odors and furtive, echoing cries of the immense forest surrounded close upon them.

By now, Ampeánor thought gloomily, Allissál will have regained her strength. The image of Qhelvin’s painting swam through his limbs with a pain and desire and loneliness, like some great wriggling eel. By now he might have been her consort and commanded all the armies of the League of Elna. Goddess, he wondered, why have I been so hasty and reckless? This seeking had been folly from the first. It is as if a spell has been put upon me, he thought bitterly, the spell of that damned painting.

When the streambed turned treacherous, Ampeánor rode up the far bank, where he vanished with his prisoner amid horse-high ferns and writhing tree-roots as large as chimneys.

Far behind them, the several barbarian trackers rode into the stream and examined the signs along the bands. Dividing into two bands, they followed the stream in both its directions with the steady, confident pace of those whose quarry cannot escape. About them, too, the odor and distant bruit of the forest closed like a curtain drawn across an alcove withdrawing it, for a time, from view.

* * *

From the Palace rooftop, Allissál watched the departing masses of men waving in the distant field like some sea of iron wheat beneath Goddess’s broad face. She watched them go with no great hope or fear, but only resignation. She had done all she could, knowing well it would prove in the end useless. At least, in Haspeth and his men in Rukor, she had kept some small reserve, which might be used either for a shelter or a counterattack. She felt like the chara in some old romance awaiting her far-flung suitors, who must journey perilous ways to attend her father’s feast. Ampeánor from the bright horizon, and Ennius – Ara-Karn – from the dark: impatiently now she awaited their returns. What Ampeánor might have done in the barbarian camp was not apparent at so great a distance; Ennius’s accomplishments were loudly told, in the silence emanating from Ul Raambar.

She kept even now his secret. It was not a thing she relished, that all men should know what a fool he had played her for; and she wished the vengeance that struck him should come from her alone. The two Gerso merchants had long ago departed Tarendahardil without ever learning whence that portrait had come. The earliest messages she had sent to Ul Raambar and the other cities along the dark horizon had but asked that the Gerso charan be placed under guard and escorted back to Tarendahardil. Those first messengers had returned with only the news that Ennius had departed Ul Raambar with great honor and celebration, and had not been seen since. She knew his presence, though; felt it in all the events around her, a darkness as of a storm-cloud’s brooding, baleful shadow. Out there somewhere in the world he was, regarding her and waiting. It had surprised her little when Ghezbal Daan had not responded to her call; not at all when the distant fastness of Ul Raambar fell silent and unheard-from, as though it had never been.

XXI

The Voyaged One

THE MANY ARMIES of the League of Elna never returned to the city that had so grandly welcomed them. Only a few soldiers came back – their words were not understood, but the look about their ghastly eyes was talebearer enough. It had been defeat, unadorned and dreadful. The Eglands were lost, and the barbarians moved to the dark horizon on Fulmine.

No response was issued from the hall of the High Regent. Dornan Ural, in a state of collapse, had been borne up into the Citadel for his safety from the anger of the populace. The Seven Ranks of the city’s administration had lost all semblance of order or authority in his absence. But messengers descended from the Black Citadel, and the Queen herself rode the Way of Kings to the harbor and back in a silver chariot: and the sight of her did much to cheer the throngs. The priestesses made prayer and sacrifice to turn back the barbarians, and said the signs were auspicious; but the peoples of the lower city sharpened knives and swords and axes.

They would not cower in the face of the barbarian. Their City was the loveliest, the richest and the best in all the round world, but it would not remain so for long. Ever had Tarendahardil, Queen of cities, disdained the use of walls. When the last of the wounded was dead, when the last of the fires was quenched, when the last of the blood was expunged, then even in victory, this City would be little more than a ruin. The tales the refugees told eloquently bespoke the evil dream to come.

They abandoned the outer fringes of the city. Tarendahardil's only defensible lines lay above the sweeping slopes underpinning High Town. Tens of thousands from the lower quarters took their belongings by the cartload into the crowded streets of the upper city. Weapons were gathered in great quantities; more were repaired or forged. The smiths worked unceasingly, the clangor of their iron hammers the only sounds in the desolation of the lower city. The Hall of Rukor was emptied of its fine collection. A man might get a sack of gold for a blue Raamba blade. The axes of butchers were readied to dismember human flesh, the adzes of carpenters to make planks of human limbs, cooks’ knives to carve living hearts.

And when the armies of the barbarian were sighted on the southern cornfields, the peoples of the City scarcely stopped in their preparations for an hour to see the tents put up on the martialing fields across the rift, the metal riders ranging the city, and the ships of the pirates like a hedgerow round the harbor, hemming them in at last. Scarcely an hour they stopped; then shrugged, and went back to their labor.

* * *

Kuln-Holn the Pious One wandered the lower levels of the Palace like a shadow, and scarce knew what to feel.

Long ago, he had made a friend of one of the Palace slaves. Berrin was a kitchen slave, and it had been he who had taught Kuln-Holn the language of the Southrons. Now Kuln-Holn slept in Berrin’s corner of the sleeping hall below the Palace, where the stones were ever-warm from the ceaseless fires of the cooking hearths. Kuln-Holn had not returned to his master’s chambers since his master had departed for the dark horizon; nor had he dared return to the Brown Temple.

At first, Berrin’s wife had looked unkindly upon Kuln-Holn, fearing that her husband in his kindness to this uncouth man should bring grief upon himself. Yet as time passed and none asked after the missing servant, she had come to pity Kuln-Holn, for his sufferings were apparent. She brought him scraps of choice food, and Kuln-Holn would feel her swelling belly and prophesy for her as to the fate of her coming child, telling her only happy things, whereat she would laugh and clap her hands. But Kuln-Holn did not laugh. He put no trust in visions seen in smoke and hearth-ash and dusky clouds. Such things were now but a bitterness in his mouth.

While the others were at their labors, Kuln-Holn would wander the mazelike corridors and undercourtyards that were thick with pillars like some shadowed, leafless wood. It happened once that he strayed above, and found himself before the doors of the Hall of Justice. He had never dared enter it before, but it seemed empty, and the temptation was too strong. At the far end of the Hall a vision appeared to him, of a lovely woman in a high throne set in a well of Goddess-light. She did not move, or seem to notice him. It was a scene weirdly beautiful. Kuln-Holn walked toward the vision, crossing slowly the field of the huge tile floor between the immense pillars. But when he was quite near the clack of his sandals reached the ears of the vision, and he saw that she was alive, and that she lifted her head and put her eyes on him.

He stopped deathly still, fear and confusion welling in him. It was the Queen herself – and she knew him. At the anger he saw in her he would have fled, but that he could not. Never, not even at his master’s side, had he been so very near to her. He flung himself before her and cried out,

‘Forgive me, forgive me!’

‘Kuln-Holn, Pious One,’ she answered in his own language, ‘what do you here? Did you not go with your master – or has he now returned?’

Suddenly he knew his master’s secret was no longer hidden from her. His confusion grew.

‘Your majesty,’ he uttered miserably, ‘I did not go with him. I thought he was another, but now he has become drunk on all his victories, the deaths and the blood, so that he has forsaken his mission. Does he not realize that She will cut him down for this affront?’

The Queen was silent for a space. Then she bade him rise – fearfully, he did so. Now he saw a bitterness in her eyes that marred her beauty. There were lines beneath her eyes, and she was very thin from the illness that had all but killed her. Kuln-Holn knew who it was who had wrought this change in her.

At that moment, had Ara-Karn stood near, Kuln-Holn would gladly have taken his master’s dagger and slain him in a frenzy.

The Queen, regarding him sharply, signed him nearer.

He stepped onto the dais and stood before the throne, so that his shadow crept up across the lora of yellow ivory she wore. She put out her hand, weighted by the heavy ring of her seal. ‘Take it,’ she commanded.

At the touch of that cool softness in his own coarse, great-fingered hand, he felt his heart leap. The fragrance of her perfumes was dizzying.

She said, holding fast his gaze, ‘And do you swear, Kuln-Holn, before Goddess and all you hold sacred, that you will serve us faithfully and never work our harm?’

‘I – I swear it,’ he answered.

All at once, it was as though a heavy weight had been struck off of his shoulders. He knew not why, but he felt almost happy.

‘And are you sure, Kuln-Holn, that you have put him behind you? They are your people outside the city, and you loved that man. Can you now serve us and be an enemy to them?’

‘Majesty, truly, Ara-Karn is now but a dead thing in my heart. He has spurned the path of Goddess: now may his falling be a hard one.’ So he said; yet whether he truly felt so, not even he might have said.

‘That is well,’ she said. ‘So you may now prove it to be a truth by ascending to the rooftops of the Palace and looking with us out upon your fellow tribesmen, who have come this pass to test the courtesy of Tarendahardil.’ At that word, Kuln-Holn’s heart quailed; but he could not deny her. So they went up, and looked across the waiting city to the tents set up on the martialing field.

* * *

‘What is it?’ Kuln-Holn asked nervously.

The distant clangor from the city had slackened into silence. The Queen pointed in silence to the cause. Kuln-Holn shaded his eyes from the glare of Goddess, and at length saw them: a band of several hundred wild horsemen riding furiously toward the abandoned outskirts of the city.

‘Is this the attack, then?’

‘No,’ she replied, drawing the cowl forward over her brow, deepening the shadows about her brows. ‘They are too few. Yet they ride hard for a delegation, almost as if they sought to escape from their fellows. Renegades, perhaps, with a change of heart? Yet the camp beyond remains still, and none follows.’

From the stables of the Citadel, shouts and laughter rose to them, as if the guardsmen were glad to see the wait ended. Kuln-Holn leaned warily over the parapet. Far, far below, a company of Imperial guardsmen was riding through the double gates, to meet and challenge the barbarians. Swiftly they made their way through the crowds, down to the empty lower streets. Their armor glinted like laughter. They met the invaders at the edge of the city, but it was too distant for Kuln-Holn to see well what went on there.

‘Come, Kuln-Holn,’ the Queen said. ‘Let us go down to await this news. Perhaps it is a meeting they seek – perhaps, after all, your master hesitates to assault us here. In the meantime, you will tell us of the past, and how it was you came to serve so bloody a king. Some little already we know: the rest you will tell us.’

They passed below, beneath the walls of cool stone. Half a score of the most beautiful maidens Kuln-Holn had ever seen attended her majesty. It being the time of the second meal, platters of nuts and meats and fruits were brought forth; yet Kuln-Holn could eat none of it. He felt some uneasiness in his belly, as of a premonition. He knew too well the crooked turns of his master’s dark humor – who knew but that he might himself have ridden into the city?

It was not long before the Captain of the Guards was announced and let enter. A tall, young man with curling chestnut hair and long mustaches, he was strong and handsome in his dusty armor. His was a tracker’s build, so that Kuln-Holn was put in mind of his daughter’s fine husband, Garin. But the murmured comments of the maidens compared him with the Lord of Rukor.

The Queen asked him his news. ‘Your majesty,’ he answered, with some confusion in his manner, ‘the barbarians were led by a man who claimed to be your majesty’s ally. Though a battle was all but joined, he beat back his ragged men and, turning to me, demanded to be conducted into the presence.’

The Queen leaned forward in her high throne, her brows pensive. ‘Did you recognize him, Captain?’

‘He spoke to me very familiarly, your majesty. He called me by vile names, so that at first I denied him; but in the end, I reconsidered. He looked at me strangely, with a haunted look – and yet at the same time he seemed amused by it all, as if death held no terror for him. Yet I know few even about here. I was summoned from Rukor by Haspeth – he who now holds all Rukor. He who held this post before me did not return from Egland Downs, and so I took command.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we remember now.’ She gave her goblet to one of the maidens and summoned the fruit. The maiden took a little silver knife and cut a slice of barsilia, profferring it to her majesty on a cloth of silk. She took it up thoughtfully in her slender, pale fingers, and placed it between her lips.

‘Do not admit him, majesty,’ Kuln-Holn pleaded softly in the tongue of his tribe, so that none other would understand. ‘Send him away.’

She smiled into his eyes, as if she knew well what he feared. ‘And have you forgotten your oaths already, Kuln-Holn? But we are curious.’ In Bordo, she said, ‘Captain, bid them let him enter.’

The captain saluted, and went to fetch the stranger. From beyond the doors came the sound of orders briskly given, and the doors opened again.

The man at the doorway between the guardsmen was dressed in a dark military tunic stained from travel, and black leather armor strengthened here and there by chipped, rusting iron plates. A short, torn, filthy traveling-cloak hung from his shoulders. His arms, naked and scarred above the heavy black iron wristbands, were bronze from wind and Goddess. One hand played idly about the empty scabbard, as if missing that sword the guardsmen had taken. He regarded them all in a single sweeping glance. His eyes were bright and hard, and his lips smiling and disdainful.

‘But this is not Ara-Karn!’ Kuln-Holn could not help muttering.

None had heard him but the Queen. ‘No,’ she said, in a voice so low it seemed a mere murmur of horror. ‘It is Elnavis. My son has come back from the dead.’

An awed murmur, irresistible even upon tongues as well-trained as theirs, flitted about the circle of maidens and then fell to silence.

The man at the doorway stepped into the chamber with the unconscious swagger of a warrior who has boasted many killings; yet it could not hide from Kuln-Holn’s eyes the slight limp, nor that one leg was twisted below the knee. The man picked up a fruit. As if from habit he wiped the barsilia on the back of his begrimed arm. He bit into it noisily. The juice trickled over his beard, and with the back of his hand he wiped it up.

‘Greetings, Mother,’ he said through the fruit in his mouth.

He smiled strangely at the expressions of those about him, even as Kuln-Holn had seen Ara-Karn smile upon the fiery ruins of fallen Gerso. ‘So. Did you have the goodness to attend to my barge? So thoughtful; I wish I might have been there to see. And now none of you knew me. Do you know me now? Who rules here? Where is the old fool Dornan Ural? Where is Ampeánor of Rukor, and why has he ordered the lower quarters abandoned?’

The young captain lowered himself awkwardly, ‘My apologies, your highness. May it please your highness, I am now Captain of the Guard. The High Charan is gone,’ he added, glancing uncertainly toward the Queen. ‘He has disappeared, and is thought dead. Just as you should be!’

The prince laughed scornfully. ‘Does this look like I’m dead, you idiot?’

Kuln-Holn had seen the prince only once before; yet even so, merely from the expressions on the faces of the guards and slaves here, he could tell how much that boy had changed in becoming this man.

‘Your highness, I must humbly beg—’ the captain began.

‘Oh, enough! Get back to your post, if post you have – and take your hounds off my men! Where is the famous hospitality? By the breasts of Goddess, we’ll feast before we sleep! Where is Ilal, by the way – well, another will do as well. I’ll be here if you need me, but give us a rest first! Killing those dogs out yonder is tiring work. Especially if you’ve been at it as long as we have.’

The Rukorian saluted rigidly and backed from the chamber, preceded by his men. The Queen said, in a voice distant and hard, ‘That was a good man you but now made your enemy, my son. That was not the way of a wise ruler.’

‘Oh, Mother, as I said to that fool: enough! I’m old enough now to be crowned Emperor, if I’ve a mind to proceed with such a farce. It was the occasion to which we both looked with such fondness, was it not? – when I should take the Ivory Scepter? Only, Mother, when it came, who was to be Emperor, I – or you?’

She looked at him as if it were the first time she saw him. ‘You have changed in this year. Where have you been?’

‘Why, I was fighting the barbarians. That was your plan, was it not? Well, Mother, I return to inform you that it has succeeded better even than you wished! Oh, I have gained experience, such as you could not imagine. Shall I tell you what it is, to awaken buried beneath a dead horse and a heap of corpses, and be uncovered by a greedy monster of a man, only because he wants to loot your dead body?’

‘Tell us, then.’ In her voice, for an instant, Kuln-Holn thought he had heard a tremor of deep emotions. ‘Why did you not return long ago? They told us you were dead.’

‘For all they knew, I was. It was Warcloud that was struck, not I. The corpses piled up over me, and the thunder of the attack was like a sea in my ears, and then there was nothing. I was not crushed, only because Warcloud’s body lay over me and shielded me. Yet when I woke, Mersaline was long fallen.

‘At first, looking over that blackened field, I knew not what to do. A wild fancy took me for a moment, to enter the city and kill as many barbarians as I could until I was no more; but my leg had been twisted in the fall, and I knew, weakened as I was, I should prove little menace.

‘So I went into the brown hills above the city, and there found others, men of the Companions, Mersalinals, and others. They flocked to me, and I agreed to lead them. Upon my sword I made them give oaths terrible as Elna’s, to follow me always and never cease warring upon the barbarians.

‘Winter came over us, harsh and frozen there; but we left it behind us when we followed the barbarians’ trail-marks into the dusty Taril. We came on the ones they had left behind to die; we took their gear and finished the work. We had grown, then: for every fallen city was a breeding ground for our cause.

‘Whenever I judged we might harry the barbarians, slay and steal and be away before they might strike back, I let them feel our hate. We stole bows and arrows from their baggage trains, and learned the use of them. Should I have returned a failed, broken boy with a limp, to shame you and all your proud ancestors with my lowly defeat? Nay: but now I have returned as you see me. I knew the barbarians would reach Tarendahardil in the end. Not even the armies of your beloved League could have stopped them, and I knew it.

‘So, here we are! My men and I are feared now even by the barbarians. They did not dare oppose us when we broke through their lines here. Just gave back crying, “The demons! The demons!” We did not need to seek cover after all. And now, Mother,’ he concluded, ‘I will show you my command. They are down in the old Hall of Justice. We should do it now: they’re brave lads, all of them, but once they get drink in their bellies they are no better than randy hounds sniffing bitches’ tails!’ He offered her his arm formally. ‘Come now, your majesty.’

The Queen rose, signing the maidens away. She took the proffered arm in silence, and like a ghost walked with her son out of the chamber. Kuln-Holn followed after. He did not trust this foul-mouthed man, royal blood or no.

The prince led his mother upon the dais into the King’s Light. Himself he fell into the throne, leaving her standing impassively and alone before the crowds of ragged, dirty, coarse-mannered men. The air was pungent with the odor of their bodies. They raised a loud, rude cheer at the sight of her, the Divine Queen of Tarendahardil; whereat Kuln-Holn blushed furiously. Never had he, a barbarian born, seen a fouler, more villainous-looking band of men.

‘Now,’ said the prince, ‘Mother, that first one is called Gabrak the Gutslitter. He’s seen more intestines than a professional embalmer! Go on, Gabrak, shyness in you? Kiss her hand, you dog!’

And when those hundreds of murderous men had all, to the last and lowest of them, stepped before her, and grinned impudently at her, and left a bit of their own grime upon her hand and her arm and her skirts (for some of them must feel of this fabric, of a finer weave than they had ever laid their hands on before), then the Empress turned back to her son where he slouched in the King’s Light. Her shoulders quivered slightly, and her breasts rose and fell hurriedly, and in the depths of her eyes was a reflection as of the terror of a shy, wild beast beset by fire. But elsewise her control was perfect.

‘And will you accept the crown of your forebears?’ she asked him.

He grinned at her even as his men had, and scratched his beard. ‘It is mine by right, is it not? Is it not the Crown of Elna?’

She nodded, and left the Hall. Behind her as she left the men muttered crude comments and appreciative oaths, and his highness laughed.

Kuln-Holn fled the hall.

At first he could not find her; but after asking many of the slaves he found her at the dark side of the Palace, standing in an open balcony that was set out from the outer wall. The mountain winds ruffled her soiled lora, and shook into disorder her golden hair. Against the brilliance of the city spread far below, she seemed a shadow, unreadable and yet pitiable. Kuln-Holn stood in the corridor, and knew not what he might say or do.

After a while, a burly slave approached and abased himself before her majesty. In his arms he held a large, flat object covered by moldy velvet. The Queen nodded, and took it from him. She raised it on high, over her head, a dark rectangle against the bright sky. For a moment the winds opened the velvet, and Kuln-Holn saw that it was a tablet of stone, covered with dense inscrutable characters. Then she opened her hands and it was gone.

It plummeted down the sea of air, to reach in a little while and be shattered on the Palace dumpheaps, over a hundred fathoms below.

* * *

In the banquet-hall of the Palace, the prince’s band held carouse, eagerly and laughingly disdaining all proprieties. Elnavis presided over them, by his presence prohibiting any possible protest the outraged slaves might make. The dirty men fell upon the exquisite couches, slopped wine upon their brazen thighs, and put their arms up the soft white skirts of the pretty serving-maidens.

Into the midst of the bruit the Chara Fillaloial appeared. Despite her years, the chara was a lovely, graceful woman. She wore the robes of mourning, and about her throat a pendant that the Charan Farnese had presented her more than two-score years earlier. Warily, but with great dignity, she led her attendants round the outskirts of the hall to the dais on which the royal couch was raised. There she lowered herself before the prince, murmuring in a hoarse voice scarcely audible against the roars, her gratitude to Goddess that She had spared the prince through so many perils.

But when she upraised her head, the aged chara revealed eyes reddened, darkened and enlarged from unstinted weeping. ‘Please, Elnavis, my dear child,’ she prayed, ‘can you tell me anything of my daughters? They went to Vapio, to Arstomenes’s festival, and now I do not even know – Elnavis, you are the last of us to have passed that way – have you any news of them you might relate to me? Even the sureness that they are dead would be preferable to me; then at least I might order ceremonies for their spirits in the Temple, and so send them finally to peace…’

‘What should I know of those sluts you spawned?’ Elnavis asked irritably. ‘You should know their shameless hearts better than anyone else – no doubt now they are the treasured couch-mates of some score or more of the damned barbarians, and are satisfied at last. Now be off with you – has no one here any better to do than plague me with all these piddling trifles?’

The Chara Fillaloial bent forward her head, stood, and returned to the door of the hall. There by a ceiling-post she swayed a little on her legs and might have fallen, save that her attendants caught her up and helped her away.

That next waking Elnavis let himself be crowned as the last Emperor in Tarendahardil. He went first to the Hall of Kings, where he knelt before the shrine of Elna while his chosen attendants received the Ivory Scepter.

Therewith they went across the square to the Brown Temple. There the attendants lay the ancient relic upon the stone bench before the carven image of Goddess. Elnavis knelt before the fire as the priestesses ranged round him, clad in the dark robes and golden masks of the higher rites. That was the moment when the High Priestess should have sent aloft the welcoming-chant, and presented him with the Ivory Scepter. But the moments passed, and she was silent and still.

‘Well, old woman, what is it?’ Elnavis growled. ‘Have you forgotten the words, or what?’

Her eyes behind the mask disturbed him, he knew not why. ‘This is a thing that should not be,’ she uttered in a reedy, frail voice. ‘The rites have been enacted for you. Already Goddess has accepted you into Her bosom. How have you dared return? Yet, if you truly wish to help your kingdom, there is another way, an older way, a way requiring courage and great dedication. Yet, truly, it is your only pathway now.’

‘Old hag, I have had trouble enough with this folly already. Don’t you know we may be attacked at any hour? There are matters I must attend to. Cease babbling, wipe the drool from your chin and begin the chant. This is not a posture I prefer.’

But still she shook her head – whereat with an angry oath he leaped to his feet, grabbed the Scepter, and flung himself from the hall. There the rumor of his unheralded return had brought the crowds thick in the great square.

Bathed and arrayed in ceremonial robes, Elnavis was known to them at once; and the sight of them cooled somewhat his burning anger. When he leaped upon the broad back of his dark stallion, it seemed to them, his adoring, disbelieving people, like some ancient fable from the earliest age of the city. Their accolades rose into the sky so that, for a moment, all sorrow was forgotten, and none asked why it was that the Divine Queen was nowhere to be seen. They remembered only this, that this was Tarendahardil, the City Over the World. Victory would not be denied.

Vainly buoyed by the cheers and the hands reaching for his touch, the blessing touch of one who had surmounted even death, the young Emperor smiled, and waved aloft the Ivory Scepter.

It was during the following celebrations that the barbarians attacked.

XXII

The Battle of the Lower Quarters

‘BUT I DO NOT WISH to go there,’ Kuln-Holn complained.

Berrin laughed at his friend’s reluctance and dragged him on. ‘Do you still fear to encounter your master, in the midst of all this?’ he asked. ‘Be assured, however much you may have erred, he will have larger things on his mind than giving you a beating.’ So Kuln-Holn went with the other slaves to the Palace rooftops, there to behold the hordes of Ara-Karn as they issued from their camp.

Thick and swarming like iron and bronze beetles upon warm sand, they entered the city by the Archways of Vapio and the Eglands. Thousands and thousands of them there were, barbarians, mercenaries, renegades, troops ordered from the conquered cities. They were, perhaps, less than half the numbers of the great armies of the League of Elna; yet even so, it had not been Fronaril of Peshtria that had returned from England Downs. Like a tidal surge they rode the empty, narrow streets of the forsaken lower quarters.

Down to meet them went the defenders, bands of picked men. The Captain of the Guard led a company of guardsmen; Elnavis led his followers; groups of professional robbers and killers from the Thieves’ Quarter flitted shadow-like among the open, dark doorways. Most went riding, but some were on foot, garbed in light robes and tunics for speed.

The leaders of the defenders cut among the approaching barbarians, cutting their horses from between their knees – then turned swiftly back among the twisting alleyways, out of sight of the bows. Some of the Emperor’s men were posted on rooftops along the major ways, and rained down arrows on the barbarians from above – little they liked this taste of death they had so often doled out themselves. The men of the Thieves’ Quarter darted out from doorways and behind statues, to duck and rip gaping wounds in the bellies of the barbarians’ horses before slipping back out of sight. The ways quickly became choked with the carcasses, so that the barbarians in their impatience spread out in ever-lessening companies, seeking to reach High Town now by all the devious, twisty ways of the side streets. Women from the Thieves’ Quarter emerged from doorways there to greet them, in seductive poses and casting saucy glances at the barbarians. They would cry, ‘Spare me, and I will serve you well!’ When an incautious barbarian would seek to hoist one to his side for a kiss, he would find that her hand held steel eager to caress his throat. Then she would laugh mockingly and be gone. Others of them cast bundles of nettles on the horses’ rumps, so that they kicked and bucked and cast their riders clattering to the ground. The many engagements spread like a rising wave in the labyrinth of the lower city.

Surely, the barbarians knew the burden of that long pass toiling approach! A band of them, wrathfully pursuing a handful of mounted guardsmen, would turn a corner, only to find the way blocked by a fallen building – another building would topple behind them, trapping them close in a narrow way – blocks of masonry would rain upon them from balconies and rooftops above, hurled by unseen hands – howling like tormented beasts, the barbarians would fall and die. Spears and stones were hurled at the passing columns from off forsaken rooftops. There was little room in those side-ways for so great a force of men. The barbarians were ill-used to such warfare, who had ever before been confronted by city walls or armies large upon open plains. Gundoen was not there to command them; Ara-Karn was not there to cut this knot. Nam-Rog only led the main force – they had entered the Archway of the Eglands, and by now had won through to the Way of Kings, which even littered with rubble and filth and broken shards of pottery ran like a riverbed before them. But the rest of the forces, commanded by other chieftains, were scattered and confounded among the hovels and workhouses of the sprawling lower city: and even so had come so far that they would have long since reached the far gates of a lesser city. It was the size of her, and her very lack of walls, that were proving Tarendahardil’s greatest strength.

The Emperor Elnavis was everywhere, rallying the guardsmen, leading his brutal followers into blood. It had proven not for nothing that he had spent the years of his youth racing courses in these streets with his highborn friends, clean against all laws and the rebukes of Dornan Ural. Now he knew these streets as another man would have known the furnishings of his own room. He laughed, and killed men. The barbarians knew him and his men, and feared at first even to shoot at them with their bows.

At last the tribesmen led by Nam-Rog reached the base of the slopes leading up unto High Town. They found the Way of Kings uprooted before them, with blocks and stones like a landfall to impede the legs of horse and man. Far above, at the crowning rim, they saw the barricades, behind which the many, many thousands of the city, soldiers, laborers, women and slaves, were waiting.

The barbarians paused, resting their horses. So far they had won, as though that alone had been a victory: and here lay the main battle before them. They looked about them, eying with suspicion and loathing the forest of gaping dwellings that had charged them so dearly for their passage.

From side-ways other barbarians emerged, silent, haggard, and much-harried. The air about them was sluggish and heavy, and Goddess made ovens of the heavy armor. The Emperor and his men, along with the other defenders, had given back silently and suddenly, seeking by secret ways the plateau of High Town, when they had seen the signals that the barbarians had come below the barricades. Now, warily, the barbarians gathered along the Way of Kings. They drank heavily from water-skins, and let the sweet chill of the liquid gush down their beards and seep beneath the hot iron about their chests. A few muttered oaths vile even for such battle-hardened men as these. The rest were silent.

They eyed the barricades above and (though it was a marvel to the defenders) seemed to hesitate. It was as if for that moment they had forgotten why they had come. Then Nam-Rog rode before them. He would have been an old man ill-suited to the work of arms in the South; but he was a tribesman of the far North, where a strengthless man is left in the winter snow unless his grandsons will defend him.

Nam-Rog pointed up before them. ‘So far have we come from the fires on Urnostardil,’ he called out to them, his voice thick and cracking. ‘Gundoen lies prisoned somewhere there – and the descendants of Elna sip their wines in the halls of that dark fastness. Too, the bazaars are there. Tell me now, is there not a man of you who will ride up and ask concerning the price of bandar-skins?’ He had learned his lessons well of Gundoen, who had studied at the elbow of Ara-Karn himself.

They smiled ghastly now to hear his words. Thereat the weariness and weight seemed to fall from their backs and arms. So many battles they had fought and won: what was this but one more? They lifted their bows and lances in their dirty hands; and they rode up, straining to keep the saddle amid the debris: they rode up and found the barricades, and hated Elna’s folk waiting.

* * *

Kuln-Holn turned away from the parapet. He could watch no longer. In Carftain he had watched, and in Eliorite and Ancha. In all, the outcome had been the same. Gundoen, his chieftain, had led the warriors to victory. And perhaps now Ara-Karn himself rode by his side, as he had to Gerso.

Kuln-Holn went below into the Palace. His master’s chambers were nearby. He had not entered them since he had last seen his master – when Ara-Karn had sworn the utter destruction and defilement of this City and her Queen. Now, as if helpless to evade it, Kuln-Holn set his hand to the door’s opening.

It was quiet within, shadowed and cool. Through the balcony, Kuln-Holn could see the darkward quarters of the city. There had been no battles in those quarters: those had no ways up into High Town. From so high, it might not even be perceived that they had been abandoned.

The few belongings of his master were piled in the storage niche in the same way he remembered. The familiar smells of the chamber and his master’s garments assailed Kuln-Holn’s nostrils like a hostile spirit seeking entry to his body. He stepped to the hangings before the dimchamber and peered within. There before him lay his master’s couch, covered with a dark cloth adorned with pale embroidery. Over the couch a transparent web had been hung, to hold away biting flies from the sleeper’s easeful rest. Beside the couch a painted bowl had been set, filled with water strewn with crushed dried blossoms of the most fragrant flower of the Imperial Gardens. By now the water had all dried away, leaving only colored dust clinging to the bowl’s sides. Kuln-Holn was reminded he had not slept since the shortsleep after the Queen had seen her son return. Kuln-Holn had not seen her since; no one had, but the highest of her maidens.

He was weary, weary with that heavy, irresistible weariness of great confusion and little toil. What have I done, he wondered bitterly, that I should be so often wearied in my life? He drew off his garments and laid himself down upon his master’s couch. Even before his head touched the carven ivory headrest, he was asleep.

Again, Kuln-Holn found himself in Gerso, whither so many of his ill-dreams had conveyed him. Again, flame and yellow fury, thunder and destruction. To one side Ara-Karn bestrode his dark steed, and to the other the captured priestess swung from her bonds, her curses and prayers lost in the groan of devastation. And the others had refused, and the eyes of the Warlord fixed themselves upon Kuln-Holn again, where he sat trembling on his pony.

And softly he spoke, but that voice was even greater than the flames: ‘Kuln-Holn,’ he said, ‘Kuln-Holn my child, cut me down that wrinkled hag.’

But Kuln-Holn looked away. And Ara-Karn did not grow angry; not even scornfully did he regard his prophet, as he had his general. He seemed merely amused; yet beneath that amusement was a coldness no kinder than a winter on the barren plateaus beyond the Forest of Bandars.

‘Do it, Kuln-Holn,’ he said with a smile. ‘You would not disobey me, and take up blasphemy at this late stage in your life?’

‘Lord … I…’

‘Do it, or I shall have you take her place.’

For a moment that seemed a better fate to Kuln-Holn; but then his son-in-law Garin rode between them, brown-haired Garin, the finest tracker in the far North.

‘I will do it,’ he said. Kuln-Holn could not see his face, but heard his voice quavering, as if barely held in the grip of some fierce emotions. He leaned over and snatched the Warlord’s own blade, that unbloodied shone wickedly in the flamelight. And he it was, swung down from his horse and stepped up to the priestess… When he returned the sword did not shine; with outstretched hand he presented it to Ara-Karn. But Ara-Karn only smiled distantly, and would not take the blade.

Then Garin was looking into the face of his father-in-law; but Kuln-Holn could only look back with the starkest of horrors frozen on his face. Garin stared at him accusingly. ‘Is this the thanks I get,’ he muttered, and threw the blade to the ground.

From behind came again that low sardonic voice. ‘Pick up my sword, Kuln-Holn.’

Dully he obeyed. Ara-Karn accepted it of him and wiped it clean upon the priestess’s rags. Tears burned into Kuln-Holn’s cheeks. This had not been the way it had truly happened: it was Ara-Karn who had killed the priestess, and Garin had not even been nearby.

Ara-Karn laughed and entered the tent of Gundoen. The high flames of the cook-fires burned Kuln-Holn, and he led the horses a few paces away. Around them the vast camp seethed with activity; beyond the empty dark tent of his master, Kuln-Holn saw the open gate of the city of Carftain. That city Kuln-Holn and his master had entered alone and betrayed, even as they had Ancha and Eliorite. In Ancha, Ara-Karn had set fire to an oil-seller’s shop near the city’s outer wall; in Eliorite, he had set the mayor against the captain of the guard in a blood-feud. And now Ara-Karn would go yet farther afield. From the tent Gundoen’s voice rose in protest of this latest madness of Ara-Karn; but the master’s voice was cold.

‘You will lead them well enough, my friend – better than you think. Enough. I have made up my mind on this. I grow weary of this role. There were rumors in Carftain, that the Empire thinks of entering the wars, and I have a certain hankering to behold this great and beauteous Queen of whom they speak so much.’

Kuln-Holn tended the horses shipboard, and gazed into the waters of Elna’s Sea, intent upon the strange fishes he saw there. He fell overboard without a splash, drowned and dreamed still. He had an old fisherman’s confidence in the sea. Down he fell in the blue-green purplish waters, until Goddess above winked out, and Kuln-Holn was come to a land of darkness, vile and cold and unforgiving, and he knew he was in the Darklands beyond the dark horizon.

Golden hair lay in thick foaming sheafs before him – it was the Queen’s; but where was she? All about him he felt the presence of a great and hostile dead, and bodies left for wolves and worms. A terrible battle had been fought here.

In the wind he heard a name moaned, ‘Estar Kane!’ He took a step, and the mud oozed round his legs, obscenely cold and gaping to devour him, and he woke.

He rose trembling in his master’s dimchamber. He knew not how much time had passed. He wiped at the sweat on his brow, drew on his tunic and went below.

In the courtyards, men ran to and fro. A wounded guardsman sat on his horse and drank dark wine from a long-necked jug. The wine streamed over his smooth chin, darkening his wounds. So great of neck and body was this man that he reminded Kuln-Holn of Gundoen in his prime.

He was speaking, and a crowd of servants and courtiers around him hung on his every word.

‘Not even the wars against the Pirates, of which the oldsters like to speak overmuch, could have seen its like. Some even threw potsherds in their faces when their swords were shattered. My old father had been proud to see the waste-clay used so well.’

‘And the Emperor?’ one maiden asked.

The guardsman laughed. ‘Oh, where wasn’t he? What didn’t he do?’

‘What do you think of it all?’ a voice asked in Kuln-Holn’s ear. He looked about, and saw the smiling face of Berrin.

‘What does it mean?’ he asked. ‘What has happened?’

‘Do you not know? Why, where have you been? Will you tell me you have slept these three whole passes away? Twice now the barbarians of Ara-Karn have attacked – and twice we have driven them off. Not once have they won even a foothold on High Town, for all their accursed bows!’

Kuln-Holn could scarcely believe it. The Rukorian Captain of the Guards appeared then, and was hailed by his lieutenant, the guardsman on horseback. ‘What had her majesty to say of our bravery, Captain? What estates and honors has she promised?’

The captain shook his head. ‘Only this, Berowne: she has forbidden us to leave the Citadel. We are all to wait and make ready for a siege here. Already she has commanded the engineers to begin the destruction of the bridge-way to the double gates.’

‘But what folly is this?’ the lieutenant cried. ‘Twice now we have beaten them off – the third will be the very breaking of their strength!’

But the captain only sighed, and shook his head. Save for slight scratches, he was unwounded; yet long sleeplessness had marked his face like a tragedian’s.

Leaving Berrin behind, Kuln-Holn went up into the White Tower. At first the maidens would not take his messages to the Queen. He pleaded with them, however, and at length they relented, knowing a little how their mistress regarded him. They led him out upon the rooftop of the Palace. The windswept roof was empty now, save for one small figure huddled at the edge. Respectfully, Kuln-Holn approached. Goddess was strong in the heavens, and despite the winds, the roof-stones were burning beneath his sandals.

She was all in black – there was even a black mantle draped over her head. She was kneeling before the parapet, her head and shoulders bent low. The folds of the mantle concealed all her face, so that all he could see of her was her hands. Gently within the cup of her palms, sheltered from the winds, she held a withered flower.

‘I loved him once, Kuln-Holn,’ she said softly. ‘All my life and dreams were to have been his. He was the final hope of our faded House.’ Idly, she rent the petals from the flower. The winds took them instantly, and one by one they were no more. ‘Now the Bordakasha, the House of Elna, the World Rulers, is no more than this gray stalk. Yet once, Kuln-Holn, I held a garden party down there of an autumn, and ruled that all the court should wear spring vestments. And they all obeyed my whim. Then I was proud, and believed I could turn back seasons and ages at my will. I cannot blame Elnavis. I raised him as I wished: now the fault is mine, not his. Can you read dreams, Kuln-Holn?’

Lowly he answered, ‘Once I thought I could, majesty.’

‘I had dreams once. They were true dreams, and came to me often. Yes, I was warned; and had I heeded, all might be altered now. But for the better or the worse? This has been a hard road, but there were pleasures in it for me, and the memory of them does not shame me now. Kuln-Holn, when your master takes this city, will you return to him?’

‘Your majesty, I have forsworn him. And when he accepted my service, he told me it would mean my death if I ever forsook him. And yet, I think, if he came to me again – I would serve him.’

‘They say women are weak, and ruled by our hearts and livers; yet I am cursed with strength. Were he to come to me as a penitent or as full of love as a shepherd boy, I would spurn him. Kuln-Holn, I wonder which of us is the less fortunate, you for your weakness, or I for my strength?’

Kuln-Holn saw tears falling like springtime raindrops onto her hands. ‘Your majesty, I think he is the most unfortunate of us all.’

‘Do you?’ Her concealed head rose as she looked out over the city. ‘I think that he among us who lives longest will suffer most, Kuln-Holn. Kuln-Holn, remember to die swiftly.’

‘Majesty, I crave a boon.’

‘Well, what would you have, Kuln-Holn?’

‘Majesty, just a sword, but not one so long or heavy I could not use it.’

‘It is no more than I expected. So, Kuln-Holn would join them on the barricades?’

‘Majesty, I must.’

‘But what skills of war do you know?’

‘Majesty, I cannot stay here. When the war-parties of my tribe went to burn the Korlas, I stayed behind and slept – and when Ara-Karn wrestled Gundoen in the sand of our village, and when he fought Gen-Karn before the fires on Urnostardil. Ever I have stood by and watched and done nothing. Yet it was I who prophesied, I who drew ashore the death-barge. It is because of me they fight below.’

‘Very well, Kuln-Holn.’ She bade him bring her parchment and ink, and in a few beautiful, graceful strokes wrote out an order for him to give to the guardsmen’s armorer.

Before she let him go, she kissed him lightly on his mouth. The sweet scent of her lips entering his nostrils, Kuln-Holn felt dizzy as if he had drunk unmixed spice-wine. ‘Farewell, my little champion,’ she murmured.

In the barracks of the guardsmen, Kuln-Holn showed his order to the armorer. Amid the friendly jests and laughter of the resting soldiers, Kuln-Holn was fitted with a breastplate after the guardsmen’s own fashion, a helmet to match, and a short blade of blue steel. He went out into the broad stone courtyard set between the twin sets of gates of the Citadel. Without, the Imperial engineers had already set their slaves to the task of tearing down the stoneway that bridged the gap between the gates of the Citadel and the square below, from which Elna’s Pillar of Victory leapt aloft into the sky.

Beyond the toiling men, the walls and spires of High Town shone in Goddess’s light, as if to greet Kuln-Holn again, one last time.

XXIII

‘War, Even to the Knife!’

KULN-HOLN THOUGHT he heard his name called, and looked back. To his amazement, he saw Berrin standing on the stones by the gates, a huge kitchen-knife thrust in his belt, and the round, iron-rimmed lid of a butter-keg in his hand.

‘Do you think you’re the only one with a little murder in his heart?’ he asked, brandishing the knife. ‘Oh, to make soup-bits of the barbarians!’

‘But your wife,’ Kuln-Holn said.

‘Hst! She doesn’t know I’ve gone as yet. When I saw you enter the armorer’s, I guessed what was afoot and ran to get these. Salizh will understand. I left her a note – we must be gone before she reads it. What fun we’ll have! We’ll spit them and roast them, boil them and baste them, broil them and taste them!’

Kuln-Holn almost laughed for joy. Unable to think of the words, he gripped his friend’s hand fiercely.

‘What is this, little ones?’ Behind them the Rukorian Captain of the Guards, dressed in clean armor, was mounted on a fresh warhorse. ‘Will you see for yourself the ways of the barbarians?’

‘Surely, my Captain,’ Berrin answered. ‘Can a man do less?’

The captain smiled. ‘No more, no less. I think you have no leave of your masters for this, but fear not: I am breaking orders, too. Perhaps we will see each other down yonder.’ He saluted them lightly and rode down into the square. There he turned his horse about and shouted farewell to his strong-bodied lieutenant, who answered him blithely from the summit of the battlements. The captain turned and rode on.

Kuln-Holn and Berrin followed after him. The great square was thick with the poor and the aged of the city, those whose hearts were not stout enough for fighting. The two friends made their way through paths between makeshift tents and heaps of wretched belongings, and went down into High Town. When they were abreast of the Brown Temple, Kuln-Holn looked up, but saw none of the priestesses among the throngs upon the steps. He smelled the incense of their rites, however, and was heartened. He made the Sign of Goddess, and recited a prayer they had taught him.

Folk were everywhere in the streets. They were huddled together in doorways and alleyways and on the steps of public buildings. Ragged bands of thieving, starving children roamed the streets. In the corner of a theater, a pile of wounded men slept among the props of plays, rolls of scenery and the plaster heads of gods. Many seemed already corpses, but those slumbering atop them seemed not to mind. Young women, the remnants of whose robes proclaimed them once to have been the elite hetairai of the city, walked about the streets restlessly, their eyes hunted and haunted. Rumors had reached the Palace already, Berrin explained, of the way the Emperor’s followers treated women who had the misfortune to catch their fancy.

And here, there, everywhere, on hips, in hands, in rags, slung over shoulders and held between teeth, were the weapons. The streets seemed to have come alive with bronze and iron.

And yet, strangely, what struck Kuln-Holn the most, and the most ominously, was the absence of the statues. Once these streets had been shadowed with them; yet now all those many pedestals were empty. Not even Berrin could explain it.

Nearer the barricades, the activity was more hurried. Strong-armed men came and went, bearing loads of stones to build up the barricades yet higher. Kuln-Holn and Berrin followed them, bits of wreckage on a tide drawing swiftlier toward the shore. Rounding a corner of the sloping street, they came in sight at last of what they sought; and Kuln-Holn learned what had become of the statues.

The many limbs and torsos rose in tangled, intricate growths. A score of smashed Elnas, a hill of voluptuous nymphs, Emperors, generals, philosophers, courtesans of noble rank, the mythic warriors, lost heroes, and the defenders of the realm – they were all here. They rose in a great, massed hedge of stone, beneath broken carts and wheels, blocks of masonry, couches and pot-shards.

They had built the barricades out of the statues of their past.

Even now, more carts drew near, loaded with their stone burdens.

‘You, there! You look fit enough – give them a hand! Yes, you, Guardsman!’

Berrin nudged Kuln-Holn’s elbow, and he looked about. Regarding him was a tall, filthy man with a torn red cloak wrapped round his waist. Kuln-Holn knew him for one of the Emperor’s followers.

‘Well?’ the man asked, raising his brow.

‘Come, Kuln-Holn,’ Berrin muttered. They went to help unload one of the carts. Kuln-Holn wished suddenly he were back in the far North, with only his little daughter Turin Tim to care for, hungry and cold, but spared all of this.

‘Don’t mind them, friends,’ said one of the men in the cart. ‘They may be foul beasts without the manners of men, but wait until the next attack comes: you’ll be glad enough of them then.’

‘When will it come?’ Berrin asked.

‘Who knows?’

‘The first attack was terrible, worse than any of us had dreamed,’ said another man. ‘The second was three times as long and a hundredfold hard. I thought my arms would drop off – and I was a porter. This next one will be the worst. And from what they say, the last. If we can only throw them back one last time, they’ll be broken. We’ll have a chance to rest a bit then, before we follow after and finish the job. Then the city will be ours again.’

‘Say rather it’ll be his,’ said the first, a carter. ‘To think of what we used to dream of when he might take up the Ivory Scepter! Now look at him; he’ll never be all he was before.’

‘Will any of us?’ asked the porter.

They were allowed to rest a bit, and eat some of the food Berrin had brought from the Palace kitchens in a leather sack. They talked a bit more, telling stories of the first two attacks. Then they settled themselves as comfortably as they could in the shadows to rest; but Kuln-Holn could not sleep. Bells sounded from the high buildings. The porter and the carter started to their feet, clapping on ill-fitting bits of leather armor.

‘Come along, friends,’ they said, toeing Berrin in his round belly. ‘More work for us to do.’

They sought the barricades. The defenders milled about, faces grim, hands gripping and releasing the hafts of their lances.

The Emperor’s men rode the lines, cursing at the men perched on the rubble. ‘Hold fast there, you mongrels! Down by the fountain there, you six! Hold your lances in readiness, damn you!’

Behind their backs the porter spat. ‘And if his majesty does not banish those men after peace comes, there will be riots for sure.’

The bells ceased.

Berrin’s stomach growled, and he smiled and patted its sleek girth. ‘Hush, child,’ he murmured. ‘We must feed on other things than food this pass.’

Kuln-Holn clambered higher, clutching the twisted limbs of polished marble precariously, and peered through a great broken wheel. The first of the warriors below were yet in shadow. But they were his people there – perhaps even fellow-tribesmen. He clambered yet higher, to see if he could make out any he might know.

‘You there!’ a voice behind him bellowed. ‘What do you think you’re playing at? Get down before they cut you down!’ It was another of the Emperor’s men, a heavyset fellow with bristling red hair. Abashed, Kuln-Holn slid back down.

‘He was right,’ said the carter. ‘Do you want to die? Look, there go the archers!’

From cleverly fashioned holes in the tops of the walls and from windows and balconies in the upper levels of the ruined palaces behind them, men appeared, bending back great rag-wrapped bows. The strings thrummed, once, twice, thrice – some of the distant shapes fell; the rest scattered. Almost at the instant, an answering hail of death-birds raked the mound-walls. The sharpened iron beaks rattled off the stone.

‘Come,’ said the porter, scrambling for the crest: ‘Gather what arrows you can and pass them along to the archers. But careful, lest you gather one in your throat.’ He balanced himself, half-reclining forward: reached through two legs of a chair and, scooping up three arrows, slid back to pass them down to the archers.

For the next several minutes the game continued: volleys exchanged between the archers of both sides, and then the desperate, wild scrambling to retrieve the arrows of the enemy. Yet the archers behind the barricades were few, with all too few arrows of their own; and soon it was that all the arrows that had fallen were beyond safe reach; and, then, save for occasional shots from down the square, the volleys ceased.

‘Such for skirmishing,’ said the porter, drawing his sword and testing its edge against his deformed, horny-scabbed thumb.

Kuln-Holn, following the example, drew out his own blade. The blue steel gleamed like a flame, tingling with life and eagerness for the purple-red wine.

The carter whistled. ‘Friend, a right good blade have you there. Raamba-fashioned or I’m a panderer's son.’

Below, the barbarians resumed their advance with greater boldness. They formed ranks in the wide square, shield to shield, battered helms glinting evilly, swords, axes, dagger, lances ready. From every throat the battle-ululations soared. They stepped forward, a hundred legs, advancing, gripping the torn rubble-strewn square, bringing up a second hundred legs. They knew better now, than to trust affrighted horses up that treacherous way. The wall of metal, leather, blades and gleaming eyes surged steadily forward. With well-practiced pace it gathered speed. Behind it poured the others, a tide of dark shapes spilling up the several streets. They began to work their way upward, with steady, accelerating step. They reached the peak of the mounds almost at a run, powerful legs churning, hoarse throats yelling.

Yet those who manned those barricades had held them twice before. They knew the task and were ready. They fought in the shadow of their own beloved city streets, with but a single alternative: to turn that fierce assault, and conquer – or die. They too wielded gleaming blades; they too held stout shields. Swords met in clangor and curses, blood flew in the air, and death-cries rose such as to empty a man’s soul with despair.

Again the dark figures stormed up the barricades, almost winning hold; then fell back screaming in pain and rage. And again they were repulsed, yet at a frightful cost. There were bodies all along the heights: stripped of gear by the defenders, they were hurled forth to add to the height of the mounds. The barbarians were forced to clamber over the corpses of their own fellows now: yet not for that would any of them hesitate. The stroke of sword on shield was like a thunder over the ocean in the sudden breaking heat of high Summer.

Kuln-Holn fell back, forgotten in the turmoil. Never, not even in the fires of Gerso, had he known such a tumult. What was he doing there? He was no warrior – it was even as the Queen had said. He watched his three friends above him, their dark arms waving and bending against the pale sky. The carter and the porter, even rotund Berrin, were doing well: giving stroke for stroke, laughing, cursing: wet with sweat and blood. Side by side they fought like comrades, who had before been strangers, even rivals in their trades.

Then four warriors came against them, great-limbed fellows with the trappings of the River’s-Bend tribe upon their breasts: a cry sounded, and the porter fell back dead. His body rolled down the slope of the mound, bumping against Kuln-Holn’s foot in passing.

He gripped his blade fast and scampered up the mound, filling the gap between Berrin and the carter. ‘A friend to take his place,’ he cried, thrusting the sword blindly forward.

The Raamba steel seemed to have eyes of its own – a mind to move of its own accord – a will to know its target. Swiftly it struck a Karghil in his unprotected neck, drinking brown-black blood; then slid back to the ready. The man fell, clutching at air, tumbling back down the litter of the mound.

‘Well-aimed, Kuln-Holn!’ Berrin laughed.

Kuln-Holn stood looking at the rolling corpse. It was the first man he had ever killed.

Another Karghil stood before him, sword leaping out. Desperately Kuln-Holn brought the little shield about, feeling it jar under the blow. Out of balance he fell back, tumbling down the face of the mound-wall, his helmet clanging like a bell upon the stones and litter.

He was dazed for a moment. But the shield had taken all the blow, and he had not lost hold of the Raamba blade. Gripping it firmly, he set his helmet on straight, and ascended the barricades anew.

Again the Karghil faced him, breaking with the carter; but now it was Kuln-Holn who struck. ‘Eater-of-dung!’ he shouted, and the Karghil paused, startled to hear his own tongue spoken here so far into the South. The Raamba blade found the seam between his armor and buried itself in his bowels; and the Karghil screamed. Kuln-Holn laughed, and kicked the man in his shoulder.

‘Now who laughs?’ he yelled, watching the body roll.

‘Beware!’ screamed Berrin. Kuln-Holn slipped in turning, thereby falling below the sweeping blade. He rolled forward, striking low; above him, Berrin put his sword full into the man’s breast; but on his other side another, a Durbar by his looks, swung his axe lustily, severing Berrin’s arm at the shoulder. A savage laugh echoed in Kuln-Holn’s ears as he saw his friend fall forward.

‘Guard me!’ he shouted, clutching at Berrin’s leg and dragging him back. He half-dragged, half-rolled the rotund body down the slope, to where a worn carpet had been spread. Berrin’s eyes rolled about, the lids flickering like bird’s-wings. It was as if he knew not where or how he was.

‘How is it with you, Berrin?’ Kuln-Holn asked foolishly. ‘Is your pain great?’

‘Pain? No pain,’ the blanched lips mumbled. ‘Thirsty. Bring water.’

Kuln-Holn ran back to the fountain some paces behind the walls. He dipped his helmet into the dark waters, filling it. Hastily, he returned, slopping water on his legs: the coolness brought back memories of autumn in the far North, in the quiet time when the harvests were in and the warriors departed on the long trek for Urnostardil, for the yearly Assembly of the Tribes.

When he returned, he found the carter sitting on the worn carpet, wiping his brow.

‘Water, is it?’ he asked, running his lips along the back of his arm. ‘Good. Truly, I’m too weary now to fight them off at the fountains, too! Don’t worry about the barbarians: they’ve fallen back for the moment to drink, cart off the dead, and regroup. We’ll do the same. It’ll be a few moments of peace anyway.’ He extended his hand for the dripping helmet, which Kuln-Holn dumbly surrendered.

Bent in a ball at his feet Berrin lay dead.

* * *

They rested awhile, side by side, yet somewhat apart to let the air cool their burning limbs. Not ten paces away lay the body of the porter. Some weary worn men, urged to their tasks by two of the Emperor’s men, came by with a cart: they took away the bodies of Berrin and the porter.

* * *

‘Think of other things.’ The carter sighed wearily. ‘Man, whence have you sprung, not to know battle’s cost by now? Shed no tears over my corpse when I am dead: rather, hurl it into the barbarians’ path, so that even in death I may defend my city! He, poor fellow, would doubtless have said the same when he lived. Friend, if I could only hold Ara-Karn’s neck between my hands, I’d give all our lives!’

Kuln-Holn lay back panting, too weary to reply. Beneath the carpet he could feel the shards of broken pottery and marble digging into his flesh. Yet at the moment that dusty, blood-smeared carpet seemed more comfortable even than the couches of the Palace. He wondered what Salizh would do when she heard of Berrin’s death. He felt a sharpness in his belly, and found himself wishing they hadn’t taken away the leather sack along with the corpses.

* * *

When next they came, the barbarians offered neither shout nor charge. Silently and grimly, they marched across the square and climbed the mounds; stolidly and workmanlike they brought their weapons to bear. And in like manner the defenders gave answer. Arms waved, blades fell, blood burst, dead fell, bodies were trampled, wounded, staggered down.

Kuln-Holn fought at the carter’s side. When he had been a young man, his father had tried to teach him some of the ways of the sword, for even a fisherman must defend himself in the wild far North; and in the cruel far North, when the catches do not come, another man’s goods can mean your life.

And now even after so many years, Kuln-Holn found that his body recalled those lessons – how to stand and how to hold, how to cut and thrust, how to feint and deceive the foe, how to watch not just the other’s blade but also his eyes and shoulders to see where his blade would go. And though his arms grew as heavy as iron weights, Kuln-Holn fought on with a greater vigor than those about him: for buried in his body was still the strength he had harvested as a young man hauling sodden full nets up out of the depths of the darkened sea.

Beside him the carter fought, using the weight and great strength of his burly arms and shoulders to great advantage – so that the two of them formed a knotty point of resistance, to which other defenders flocked, coming to replace the many dead.

The carter swung his sword against a bronze-plated Buzrah warrior, and the wearied blade shivered into a dozen pieces, leaving the carter defenseless; and the Buzrah roared. But Kuln-Holn leaped before him, catching the blow upon the strong breastplate, and slashing back so fiercely that both the Buzrah’s kneecaps burst and broke, and he tumbled backward like a straw toy in the wind. The carter laughed, and snatched up a heavy battle-axe.

‘Now let them come!’ he roared. The next man he faced fell back down the mound, one half to the right and the other to the left; and the carter wiped at the blood that had drenched his face beneath his helmet.

‘A good blow!’ shouted Kuln-Holn in a roaring voice he scarcely recognized as his own. ‘But watch now a better one!’ And in his exultation he leaped forward at two barbarians, kicking one in the belly so that he fell tumbling back, and taking the other in one sweeping blow that fell just below the helm, so that the man’s head flew and turned.

A shout praised him: Kuln-Holn looked back, saw the Rukorian captain. Bloodied helm to toe he was, and his lance rested in his palm as though it were the lengthening of his arm. He smiled at Kuln-Holn, and rode on, and vanished into the thick of men, lance waving, dipping but to kill.

Kuln-Holn fell back by the carter’s side, shivering with strange, fiery delight. ‘And who would have thought that I’d become a warrior at my time of life?’ Fire danced in his veins like beer, like mead, like purple Postio wine. The battle-madness of his ancestors of the Last Stand had claimed him, the desperate violence of the far North. Not Gundoen, not Hertha-Toll, not Turin Tim herself would have recognized him now. He knew now how it had been among those upon Urnostardil. It was no wonder that all of Elna’s men and captains had been unable to defeat them.

He took his sword two-fisted, a conqueror atop those mounds of broken statuary. And those fierce savage warriors before him fell back at the light of madness darting from his eyes.

‘Come up, you dogs,’ he croaked, amazed that they should retreat before him. ‘Will you give me battle or not? By the gods, I forced Ara-Karn upon you, but now I throw you back in spite of him!’

Then one below, an Archero, shouted, ‘A renegade! A tribesman fighting against the King!’

‘His very prophet!’ shouted Kuln-Holn back. ‘I gave you one god, there in the snows upon Urnostardil; now here’s another! Come on and die!’

Then one of them in his sudden great fear took out his bow, and swiftly nocking an arrow bent it back to his chin, aiming full at Kuln-Holn’s breast. Kuln-Holn saw it all, but did not duck or lift his shield: threw out his chest instead, daring the man. Truly, the madness was like a drunkenness in him that moment, for he believed that nothing could harm him, not swords nor fists nor even the death-birds of Ara-Karn himself.

The man below hesitated in awe seeing this; then one of his fellows knocked against him, and he released the arrow.

It occurred with such suddenness that Kuln-Holn did not take it in when it happened: only later did he work it out in his mind as to how it all must have occurred. The assault was faltering, especially here where the defenders had gathered about the two deathless figures. The sounds of battle were dying out. The barbarians had paused, so that many defenders now found themselves without foes to face. Such a one was the carter, who, seeing the death meant for Kuln-Holn beside him, suddenly and without thought threw his own body in the arrow’s path. The shaft struck him in his belly, with such force that it drove clean through the leather. He fell dead at Kuln-Holn’s feet.

And then Kuln-Holn, who had seemed fierce, went truly mad. He bent down, scooped up the corpse in his arms, and lifted it – aye, though the man had been taller than Kuln-Holn and a stoutly muscled man – lifted it armor and arrow and all, and hurled it down at his foes with all the force of frenzied wrath. Four it bore down beneath its weight; and two of the four cracked open their skulls on the stones far below.

The other barbarians paused, looking doubtfully at the bloodied apparition before and above them. They shook their weapons in their dirty, sweating hands, as doubt robbed them of strength and will. Grudgingly, they gave back; the others along the lines did also. The square below emptied, and the noise of the battle fell away. A second lull had come.

The defenders also fell back, grateful of whatever rest and refreshments they could glean. God was rising from the bright horizon. Two sleeps and five meals’ time had passed now since the tolling of the bells. Up and down the lines went women with carts of bread, throwing the loaves out to eager hands. But the women offered no bread to the Emperor or his followers.

Last of all to leave the mound-wall was Kuln-Holn, who stood glaring from side to side with the ferocity of a thorsa of the dark wood, as if the swaying of his body might bring forth some new enemy. But even in the fullness of his fury he could feel the power failing him. Now not a god he felt, nor conqueror, nor warrior: hardly even a child, so great was the sudden weakness that engulfed him. With his last strength, he sheathed the blade and fell down the side of the barricade like one dead.

* * *

Again the barbarians came; again the defenders mounted to their places along the girdling mound-walls. Now there were scarce enough men to cover the extent of the barricades: and of those yet moving, not one was but notched and mottled with wounds, many minor, but some near fatal. They had come to resemble their own broken high statues: for, missing ears, fingers, eyes, hands, feet, teeth, they firmed what remained of their bodies and fought on regardless, to the last, to the end, to the death.

They grieved their dead and exulted over fallen foe no longer. It had gone on too long for that. It was merely work and labor now, for a cruel, demanding taskmaster. Not even victory seemed to be a thing desired, but only rest. To many it was as if it had been their grandfathers who had gone down to repulse the first attack. Forgotten were Elna, history, the City Herself: there were only these walls, which they must defend, they knew not why.

Overhead, clouds were gathering, great formless dark things like a veil drawn by Goddess across this most unpalatable thing, this ugly, noisy scar, which once had been Her favored City.

The walls were in shambles, with corpses, broken weapons, spaces everywhere. A concerted effort would have gained victory for the fighters of either side; but it was exactly a concerted effort that was impossible. They could but wearily toil on, their faces lined as with great age, the unenthusiastic din of battle echoing beneath their helmets. They recked not; fought on.

Behind them, from time to time, rode the young Emperor cursing, at times dismounting or even riding up the mounds to beat his own men to a great vigor. The superior vitality of the barbarians was beginning to tell the victory: those arms that had been bred to trade and simple toil could not, in the end, hope to equal those others, bred to the cold, cruel travail of the far North where Elna had long ago penned them.

More than once sections of the walls had been turned save that the Emperor or some of his men had mounted the heights and beat back the assault; more than once the defenders would have fled, save that the fear of Elnavis had given them pause. They came to hate their Emperor who would not let them rest: to hate him more than they did the barbarians who were their foes. But more than hating they feared him – and so obeyed, long after they in their minds had been assured that they could no more. It was that very mixture of hatred and fear that gave them their strength. Wearily and yet again they toiled on, their faces lined as with great age, the unrelenting din of battle echoing beneath their helmets.

* * *

In the end, it was the noise of it that awakened Kuln-Holn.

They had thrown him with the corpses, thinking him dead, so utter was that dreamless sleep that claimed him, so thickly covered with the blood of enemies were his armor and his flesh. Yet at last the noise roused him, and he stirred like a stiff dead tree in a light summer’s breeze.

He stood swaying on his feet. What! he thought. Do they still fight? Why will they come on? Are their numbers endless? Despair, and a desperate hatred, welled in him. Those dark forms were no longer his tribesmen or his people. They were only the enemy.

He staggered up the mound, forcing his way into his accustomed place. And there, disdaining shield or friend to guard his back, he began to give battle – not indeed to Durbars, Buzrahs, Karghils, or Foruns, but only to the enemy.

He fought uncomprehendingly. It was as if his mind returned to the realm of sleep, and only his body still waked to do battle. His eyes were glazed like those of the dead; but his arms were quick as a tracker’s in his prime. Again and again, men fell before him; yet Kuln-Holn heeded not. For it was in the midst of that final battle, that the visions returned to Kuln-Holn: yet now visions only of the past. Happy now those times seemed, happier than when he’d lived them.

He saw again his father; beheld the great bowl of the glaring sea that first time he had gone alone to fish; recalled his first sweetheart and the scent of the pine needles as he took her; remembered the words of his wife when she’d given birth to Turin Tim, apologizing that it had been but a girl; saw again that red, wet babe healthy with fat, and felt again his stab of joy, that it should be his and alive.

He remembered the words Hertha-Toll, Gundoen’s wife, had said to him once: ‘Do not trust in your visions overmuch, Kuln-Holn,’ she had said. ‘And remember, that no prophet has ever seen his own death. That is a thing She mercifully shields from those whom it most affects. But the deaths of our dear ones we can see – and that is curse enough.’

Then, those times had seemed hard enough; yet now they were tinctured with a sort of calm: the calm of a simple man who knew what his life was for, and had no doubts of it.

‘Hey, fellow, are you mad?’ It was the red-bearded man who had shouted. Kuln-Holn blinked. Behind him a gentle hand lay upon his shoulder, and he heard happy words of praise. Before him were no blades or men. The relentless din beneath his helmet had ceased. The enemy was gone. The broad square, the several twisting streets, were empty.

‘Where?’ he asked stupidly.

‘It’s over, friend,’ said the man behind him. ‘We’ve beaten them back!’

Kuln-Holn sighed, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes. ‘How long?’

‘Man, do you not see? Look across the square! Listen to the city! It’s victory!’

* * *

Others had claimed the worn carpet, so Kuln-Holn lay upon the bare, jagged stones, scarcely feeling the pain. The women came again with their carts, dispensing loaves of hard black bread and cups of water. It felt good to eat again. Kuln-Holn could not even find in his mind how long it had been since the four of them had shared the contents of Berrin’s pilfered sack. Now he alone of them still lived.

Gratefully, he closed his eyes. It was good to lie peacefully in the shade of the clouds, feeling the cool breezes rising up from the harbor. Kuln-Holn thought he could even smell the sweet salt tang of the sea. He would sleep soon; for now, resting was too sweet a thing to lose.

‘Victory!’ fluttered the vague, joyous shouts.

‘What does the Emperor say?’

‘Hold back, rest for now. He mistrusts them.’

‘Haven’t we won?’

‘Victory!’

‘Didn’t I say it: if we threw them back the third time it would be the end?’

‘Even if they do come back, we can hold them! We’ve held these walls so long, we can defend them forever!’

Again Kuln-Holn inhaled, rejoicing in that sweet salt tang. But now he was aware of a subtle difference. He knew that smell. But from where? A suspicion, horrible as it was certain, darted into his mind. He remembered what they’d told him of the last raid upon the village of the Korlas; he remembered Gerso.

He heaved himself up the side of the mound. He looked down and saw what he had feared.

‘They have left us a parting gift,’ he croaked over his shoulder, silencing the chatter below. ‘They’ve set fire to the lower quarters.’

He remembered something Ara-Karn had once said long ago, before the warriors of the tribe had departed to avenge the Korlas’s raid: ‘What cannot be ruled can still be destroyed.’

All along the circling length of the barricades the defenders stood in silence, watching their triumph turn to bitter ashes in the wind. With a lazy, mocking slowness, the north winds gathered the columns of black smoke and wafted them forward up the hills. Behind the smoke were the bright yellow fires, leaping hungrily from wall to wall. So wearied in themselves that their very bones had cried for mercy, leaning upon cudgels and swords, or sunk exhausted to their knees, those valiant men must watch, as their City, that had conquered, was destroyed.

The fires spread throughout the quarters: the Thieves’ Quarter was in flames in a hundred-count; the dockyards were already more of smoke and ash than flame. The leading edge of the flames, driven with great speed by the quickening winds, swept upward toward the heights of the defended city. Flames were caught in the winds, hurled upward to alight on buildings streets away. The storehouse of a lamp-oil seller suddenly exploded with a thunderclap, flinging flaming bits of oil for hundreds of paces about.

The men upon the mound-walls, already coughing for the dense, sweeping smoke, took off their helmets and threw them bitterly down, great grimy tears welling in their eyes. Oh, it was true that they were tired: but this was a thing too monstrous for them to bear. No barbarian had broken their fierce spirit; but now it was as shattered as those poor bits of statuary underfoot.

The fires strode forward toward the barricade. Smoke grew thicker, driving men choking back into the lee of the walls.

Last to descend were the Emperor’s men. ‘Wait until the flames come this side of the wall, then we’ll let you douse them,’ he shouted over the roar. ‘But let not a man of you cross those barricades!’

The fires slowed and the winds died a bit, as if to gather strength – then with a single bound leaped over the barricades and fell roaring among the buildings of High Town.

Staggering, the men rose to their feet. Without a word they gathered helmets and sought the fountains, the cistern-pumps, and the wells. They were city-dwellers: knew how to form the lines. The slopping water went in the helmets, hand to hand to hand. Kuln-Holn found himself in a line, awkwardly mimicking the movements of the others. The dense smoke gathered blindingly, filling his eyes with greater tears. To Kuln-Holn, the buildings were now only monstrous shapes of brown and dark gray relieved by flashes of lemon brilliance. It was some evil dream, endlessly passing those helmets. It did no good. He heard a man say behind him, ‘If only that storm would break—’ He remembered the clouds: yes, they had been stormclouds. But no rain would fall this pass. Goddess had turned Her back upon Tarendahardil.

The heat thickened about him. The leather jerkins and metal plates had become unbearable. With weary curses the men discarded their armor and their weapons. In breeks or simple loincloths, many of them naked, they toiled on. Cinders and wind-borne flames were everywhere. Faces were charred. Tongues stuck in mouths filled with ashes. To the already frightful stench was added the hateful odor of burning human flesh.

Then in a moment a thunderclap broke the roar of the flames, and the rain was falling, not in droplets but in sheets, as if from upturned buckets. The men foundered about as if they were underwater. The water fell steaming on the burning buildings, and the steam, the rain, the smoke and the clouds blotted Goddess out, and the city streets were dark as the lands of the Madpriests.

Men howled for the joy of it. Even Kuln-Holn took up the helmet full of water and flung it into the air, laughing, drinking in rain as if it had been air; feeling it wash blood and sweat and dirt from him. Yet not for long could the storm maintain so fierce a downpour: soon the sheets became lances, and the lances droplets, pattering in the many muddy pools. Among those muddy streams and pools the defenders laughed and danced, all their faith restored, only to be dashed again.

Behind them sounded a terrible, foreign laugh.

Appearing on the crest of the mound-walls, dark against the pale-gray sky, were horsemen, huge and fierce and many. The tails of their war-stallions lashed, and down the hither slope of the barricades, rode the first of the returning barbarians.

A few of the defenders ran to gather what weapons they could find, but the greater number of them, cursing or weeping, fled the scene. Half-clad, weaponless and dispirited, they were easy prey for the mounted invaders. The barricades were passed, and fallen Tarendahardil was no more.

The barbarians rode laughing up the slopes of the barricades, exultant in hate. While these Southrons had watched their city destroyed, the barbarians had taken their ease in their tents, bathed and fed and comforted by their women. Then the rain had come: Nam-Rog had let the heralds give the signal: and the warriors rode refreshed and eager up the familiar, steaming Way of Kings. Steam and smoke and rain had concealed their way unto the very peak of the barricades. Now they rode these streets unopposed, their swords rising and falling like the scythes of summer. The last of the defenders fled before them, running to the final refuge of the Black Citadel.

There, upon the wide roof’s edge, the Empress Allissál knelt still. Her black linen robes were sodden from the downpour, and her fair face darkly masked with streaks of muddy ash. She heard the cries upborne on the winds, and lowered her face. She had expected no better: still, it was hard to bid farewell to this city and all it was to her. She did not think of the loss of her own powers, but rather of the loss of Elna’s greatest achievement. At length, with great effort, she rose to her feet. Now, she thought, hardening her heart: now the choral dances were over, and it was the moment of the actors.

She went to the doors of the White Tower, and passed within.

* * *

Upon the steps of the Brown Temple a last knot of defenders were trying to hold, urged on by the priestesses, who loudly prayed Goddess to come to their aid. At the sight, the barbarians laughed, burst through the defenders and rode on up the high steps. The priestesses took fright and fled, all but the ancient High Priestess. She, whether because too decrepit or defiant, stood her ground. The lead rider, a magnificent black-appareled fellow on a milk-white steed, spurred on his horse. The stallion would have shied away, as if even this dumb brute could sense her holiness; but the rider held him firmly. That massive, straining body rammed into the frail figure, and like a doll the priestess was flung aside. Her body slammed against one of the pillars, backbone and skull shattering at once. The rider, laughing still, careered about and thundered down the steps.

Kuln-Holn was there, and saw. He had fled in the confusion, but not out of fear. Fear was a thing stamped out of him now. He wrenched a bloody lance from a corpse and ran after the rider, and in fury drove the lance deep into the rider’s back so that it plunged through armor and body and started forth from the other side. The rider fell to the street, and his armor clashed about him, and his helmet was struck from his head.

‘Laugh now, why don’t you?’ vaunted Kuln-Holn. Yet in his fury he had not noted the man’s trappings, else he would have known them for those of his own tribe. Only now he saw them, as he looked upon the contorted, accusing, familiar face of the man he had slain: Garin.

Spasms wracked the body of Kuln-Holn’s son-in-law. Ironclad hands gripped Kuln-Holn’s, so hard it was like to break his bones; and he felt the death-throes of Turin Tim’s husband.

He remained thus, his hands still fiercely gripped, for some time. The battle passed by, and he was left in peace.

With difficulty, Kuln-Holn extricated his sore hands, and dragged the body up the steps of the Temple Garin had so defiled. There he laid the corpse out as only the practiced hands of the Pious One could.

‘There is no river here, and the sea leads only to darkness,’ he muttered through his tears. ‘But maybe they will find you here and do you honor, Garin. O Turin Tim, forgive your father his many, many foolishnesses!’ And he said a prayer to Goddess for the safety of the ka of Garin, who had been the finest tracker in Gundoen’s tribe – perhaps even in all the far North.

* * *

Now only the Emperor and his followers still gave the enemy battle. They fought like trapped wolves. From his own history, Elnavis knew defeat might seem complete, but yet a man might arise reborn to cut down foes anew. But their opponents now were numberless, horsed and rested, and Elnavis knew that not together could he and his men gain the safety of his Citadel.

‘Watch for an opening,’ he counseled them. ‘When I tell you, attack fiercely – then part and run. Severally we may still gain the Citadel. Nor will we be trapped there, come what may. There is a secret way in and out; did not my own dear mother once show me the way, and have I not used it to bring in charai out of the eyes of the watchful guard? Obey me, and we shall yet teach these beasts to fear us!’

They obeyed, more in awe of him than hope; and giving the foe a sudden rush, gained ground and scattered. Elnavis plunged into a doorway, running through charred, smoky passages to the far side. Yet that street too swarmed with barbarians. He went from street to street, staying in the side-ways, making his way back to the Way of Kings. Yet ever the enemy rode between him and the Citadel. By now those barbarians had guessed whither all flights must lead, and were closing off the ways.

Exhausted, his twisted leg throbbing, Elnavis paused in an alleyway. Scarcely might he recognize most of the buildings around him, burnt and broken. Yet there to the right the high, sheltering walls of the Brown Temple rose toward heaven. The fire had not touched it. He wondered, would it be a safe refuge? From its doors he might, in a pass or two, make his way across the great square on the other side of the Temple to the Hall of Kings. It was in the Hall of Kings that the secret passageway from the Citadel emerged into the city.

Like a shadow he crossed the narrow back street and reached the Temple’s porter’s-doors. He descended warily the damp steps and slipped within. The doors, he found, had been left unfastened. Grateful for the rest, the last Emperor of Tarendahardil closed the doors and sank to his knees in the gloomy passageway. Yet he knew he must not let sleep overwhelm him – not now, after he had held it off for so many wakings.

A soft sound, as of furtive breathing, startled him. He put his hand on the hilt of his old friend.

‘Who is there?’ he whispered. There was no reply. His nostrils caught a faint scent in the air, a woman’s scent. A priestess? ‘Do not fear,’ he coaxed. ‘I am your Emperor – Elnavis nal Bordakasha. I can shield you. If we can but hide here safely for a while, then I will be able to conduct you to the Citadel.’

There was no answer; but a hand, cool and soft, touched him. Again he smelled her, and despite himself was aroused.

‘Come,’ she murmured. ‘We will hide you.’

They went up the passageway and down another, reaching at length the altar room. The holy fire burned still, but the floor was strewn with refuse and the walls had been ransacked of offerings. Upon the low marble dais before the idol the broken, bloodied body of the reverend High Priestess had been laid and administered with care. She had seen three generations of his House come and go, Elnavis thought; it seemed scarcely credible that she would sing the rites no more.

His guide was a pretty young girl, whose robes were those of an attendant of the second ring. She lifted up a door in the floor behind the idol, and pointed within. ‘It is there the others are concealed,’ she said. ‘Now I must resume my place.’ He nodded, and entered.

As he descended, the darkness of the steps gave way to a glowing brilliance nothing like the glow of torches or lamps. There was a round, drumlike chamber vaulted overhead with ponderous, ancient stones. From the sides of the ceiling a ring of opening admitted the light, which must have come from the Temple’s rooftop mirrors: for that was Goddess-light.

In the center of the chamber, where the light was brightest, the priestesses stood about a waist-high altar awaiting him. Filthy and bloody and terrible he must have seemed, he thought; yet these maidens regarded him with nor fright nor surprise. They parted before him and gestured to the altar. The light seemed soothing and yet wearisome. He stepped among them, leaning on the altar. Still, they spoke no word. The scene was so strange to him after the tumult he had undergone these last long months, that the mantle of the war-hardened, embittered, ruthless man fell for a moment from his shoulders. Something of the boy-prince returned, wan and trembling.

A cup of dark drink was pressed into his hand. The liquid was sweet like wine, syrupy, with a vague taste of root and dream-herb about it. His battered, stained armor was gently removed from his body by hesitant, unsure hands. They laid him on the altar.

Now the light converged on his face, bright as a cloudless summer yet heatless, so that his senses were confused. The dark drink coursed through his veins, he fluttered closed his eyelids, then opened them once more.

The priestesses were around him in a circle. Now they wore the black robes of the high ceremonies. Their faces were concealed by golden masks upon which had been worked, by the most antique of techniques, the stylized visage of Goddess. There was no bit of their bodies visible save for their hands.

‘Go on, Alsa; it is the task for which you were prepared, though it is true, we never thought you should perform it. Not in long centuries has the rite been enacted: not since Elna.’

The words sounded strangely in Elnavis’ ears – then he realized they had been spoken not in Bordo but in some other, more ancient tongue, which he understood only because it was so like the tongue of the barbarians. He opened his mouth, but no sound came forth – nor might he lift his arms, or command any portion of his body save his head and eyes.

One of them leaned over him, chanting rhymes he could not fathom. Then she spoke loudly, so that the drumlike chamber beat with the rhythms of her voice in strange acoustics; and she said:

‘In the name of Her whom we all serve, I begin the ceremony. I call upon Her to see with Her eyes, all that we do here: to see it and know it for good, and grant that all may follow as was promised. The kingdom is fallen, and Her Wrath stands over us like a flame. The ancient rites of the Voyage have been desecrated. One whom we had ferried forth has returned, to defile the kingdom with his touch. An offering of atonement has been demanded: the Offering of the King.

‘So with his blood he enriches his fields – so with his heart he gives back courage to his people – so with his death he renews the life of his kingdom. Goddess, take you now my hand. This is none of my doing but only yours, to whom all loyalties are due.’

She put forth her hand, which clasped a black knife of chipped, honed stone, sharp as a silk-cutter’s knife. Elnavis beheld it with a sudden slight gurgling of horror.

She cut the throat first, that the vessels might be filled: then in several sure strokes opened the chest and cut free all the stubborn root-veins of the heart.

Of what occurred afterward, it is not lawful to tell.

* * *

Aimlessly, Kuln-Holn wandered the streets of High Town. All about him the tide of death surged up full, but he was unmolested. The gods were unkind to Kuln-Holn upon this pass: they allowed him to live on.

All his life he had been a little man, with no great strength, no great skill to hunt or fish or fight, no great knowledge, no great wit. He had sought little for himself, save, at first, to feed his wife and infant daughter, and later to see his dreams fulfilled. He had only dreamed of ease from toil, and peace from the unending blood-feuds, and full bellies for the hungry people of his tribe. Then Ara-Karn had come; and now this was what Kuln-Holn received as the fruit of all his prayers and his preachings.

Kuln-Holn wandered on, taking now this turning, now that. To him, it seemed he was alone in the City – alone of all her lost defenders. Down streets he saw metal riders flashing past, bows and swords and axes bloodily upraised.

It was left to him, an alien, to see this ancient City at her end. She had been beautiful, Tarendahardil. There had been all of culture in her, from the best to the worst. Her streets had been lined with statues of brass and iron, jade, silver, topaz, and unveined marble; her harbors had traded with the world; her temples had attracted the faithful from all the Hundred cities. City Over the World, Most Holy, the seat of the Empire of the Bordakasha, cultural and mercantile hub of the world, Tarendahardil had seemed a deathless Queen among cities, as much beyond her sisters as Goddess is beyond mortal women. Kuln-Holn wept, to see now the full proof of the vanity and falseness of that former assurance; and he wandered on.

It was not he, so it must have been some other, who guided his way safely between the hundreds of horsed barbarians and led him up again unto the Black Citadel of Elna.

* * *

The heavy-armored barbarians rode the streets of High Town, and spared none they chanced upon. This city, the city of thrice-damned Elna, had resisted their efforts too long, and at too great a price. For that, it must be made to pay the penalty of Ara-Karn. Tarendahardil they disdained even to loot: to destroy and murder was now the only wish of their ensavaged hearts. Not even the sorely wounded were spared the bite of the merciless, steel-shod horses. They rode in patrolling arcs round the entrances to the square below the Black Citadel; and in the abeyance of the rain the fires smoldered to new life; and the city streets became like some abominable Hell of torment and death.

Few more gained the safety of the Citadel. Of the Emperor’s brutal followers, those who escaped the lances and arrows of the barbarians were denied entrance at the double gates. Stones were hurled down on their heads, or they were hoisted aloft only to have their lives cut loose from the body by the guardsmen, and their corpses hurled below, into the rocky coomb between the rising rock of the Citadel and the square out of whose center Elna’s Pillar of Victory still leapt into the smoky sky.