Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (13 page)

Earth give of yourself

Give me desert sand

Give me desert wind

Earth reach out

Earth give

Help your sons

Help your daughter

Mother Earth listen

Hear the plea.

Between me and the demon a small tornado began, no more than a dust-devil I might’ve ridden past in the Wasteland beyond ruined Gomalalee, and then I could feel the bits of sand drive at me and sting my face as the wind grew and firmed and I could see it, gray, turning black.

The demon-wolf snarled and snapped at it, then yapped almost like some earthly creature as the bits of earth drove into him.

Still the wind grew and I dragged myself back, feeling it suck at me. The demon howled and the wind howled louder still until I could hear nothing else.

The cyclone reached from floor to ceiling and began to move, swaying, seductive, like the hips of a dancer and it closed on the demon and took him into its embrace.

The monster roared in agony, rose on its haunches and I could barely see it as the hard-driven grains of sand lashed at him, cutting him like millions and millions of razors and again I saw his green ichor spurt and I felt sticky spray across my face.

There came a final scream and the wind was gone, although it took me moments to realize what I was hearing was no more than the roaring of my ears.

The demon fell back on its front legs and its skin was gone, flayed away by the wind. Once more it bayed, a howl of rage and betrayal, as if this world and its puny peoples should have had no defense against it, then fell heavily and rolled to its side.

It still writhed and twitched in death spasms, but Quatervals paid no heed to its death agonies and raced in, his curved sword lifted high. He hewed once, twice and then Otavi was beside him, with his butcher’s ax and he struck, and the beast’s head rolled free from its body.

My hearing came back and the room was silent. I could hear the small crackle of the dying fires at either end of the room.

I picked myself up. Death being gone, at least for the moment, my body allowed itself the luxury of feeling the pain of the fall.

Janela was beside me. “I... wasn’t sure
that
one would work. I’ve only cast it once before and that was in a magus’s study.” No longer was her voice sure and certain but shaken and her face was as pale as the rest of ours were as we realized what we’d just faced.

I was about ask what boon I could grant for her saving my life when I heard a shouted oath from Quatervals.

Lying in the middle of the floor in a blot of blood where the demon’s head had been was the severed head of Lord Senac.

We rode away from Lord Senac’s estate at a gallop. Behind us the building roared into flames and firegongs began sounding alarms across the city. We’d deliberately fired the mansion as a cover for what had happened, although I sensed the night’s affair wouldn’t be cleansed as easily. We lit fires in several rooms and found other bodies, all members of Senac’s retinue, all butchered as gruesomely as the castelan. We did not venture upstairs — Janela said the place reeked of sorcery and was afraid watchguard spells still lingered. The orders were welcome — none of us had the slightest desire to explore a demon’s home, even after he was dead.

I myself torched the library and noted as the flames grew that the body was slowly changing from the wolfish form back into the human shape of Senac. Janela said she supposed that meant a most powerful enchantment had been cast for the creature, even in death, to retain an unnatural form.

We cut across open land as soon as we could and rode a circuitous course back to my villa. We went unobserved and unchallenged.

At the villa I roused two hostelers and bade them to take care of the horses. I led the rest to my study. It was just dawn and the kitchen staff was awake and the fires burning. But after Yakar’s death and the horror we’d seen, none of us had an appetite.

I took our party into my study, had wine and spices sent in with a pot and Janela mulled it over the fire. I added a dram of brandy to each tankard as I served it. My three servants appeared uncomfortable being served by their master, but said nothing.

I said a prayer for Yakar and said we would sacrifice to his memory in a day or so. He came from a village outside Orissa, but no one knew if he had a family there. I told the others I would find out and, if so, would see they were provided for.

When the three finished their mugs I told them to go to their quarters and get what sleep they could. I asked them to please try to refrain from telling of tonight’s events and they so vowed.

As the door closed behind them Quatervals said, “I remember my first battle and the first time I saw dark magic. I’ll vow most of them’ll spend the hours staring at nothing.”

“They’ll sleep,” Janela said. “I said words over the wine as I added the spices.”

Quatervals half-smiled and rose. “Then I’m for my own chamber, before the spell hits me and leaves me sprawled in the hall. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking I’m a simple drunkard.” He went out.

Janela sipped from her mug and looked at me curiously. “A question, no, two, Amalric. You could’ve asked me to cast a spell of silence over them. Or you could have offered them gold to keep their lips sealed. Why did you choose neither course?”

“I could have,” I agreed. “But gold’s more likely to cause talk than not. I’ll reward them in quieter ways in time. As for asking you to cast a spell of silence or forgetfulness, I don’t think anyone who commands has the right to force obedience with magic. Not if he is anything other than a tyrant.”

Janela nodded approval and changed the subject. “This is a very dark matter,” she said.

I managed a wry smile. “Somewhere in your travels you’ve learned to bring understatement to perfection. One of Orissa’s most respected magistrates is a murderous demon... yes, I’d perhaps call that dark. Or at least twilit around the edges.”

Janela laughed. “I meant that at no time did I sense Senac’s presence and demons most generally broadcast an aura even a non-magician might feel. Was he ever a man? And what was his purpose? I come fresh to Orissa so I’ve got no theories.”

“I’ll wager the one we called Senac was never a mortal. Think about the convenience of a poor family, living in a remote area, suddenly finding riches and being able to return in triumph to Orissa. That is the stuff of romance. I think this was an immense spell or series of spells cast over the years. When it began... I have no idea.
Why
is a better question and that is what frightens me.”

Janela sat waiting. I told her about the dread that’d been haunting me for the past few weeks and how long it’d taken before I’d identified it as that sense of being watched I’d known so long ago in Janos’ time.

Janela muttered a curse. “I, too, have felt such an odd sensation,” she admitted. “But for several months now. I’d never felt it before and so never had anything to compare it to and identify. I thought it might’ve been no more than the currents that accompany anyone who uses sorcery.”

“So both of us are being watched.”

“Are we? Do you still feel the sensation?”

I fought off the sensations that filled me — the fatigue, the sorrow for Yakar’s death, the terror of the demon and the battle, the worry for the future and tried to “listen.” I shuddered. I did, but very faint, very distant.

Janela caught my expression. “I do, as well.”

“So Senac was not the linchpin. He has... had a master.”

“Perhaps,” Janela wondered, “someone from the Kingdoms of the Night. Or someone... something... from the other worlds. It matters not, at least not yet. But we already have a great enemy and our quest’s not mounted.”

“We have only one choice,” I said, knowing she was right. “We must move more rapidly. Sooner or later there’ll be another Lord Senac, or a host of them.”

Janela smiled, oddly. “Now I see why my great-grandfather knew you were the companion for his search. You never think of turning back.”

I made no response but drained my mug.

“Three weeks,” I decided. “We sail then with what we have.”

* * * *

It had been some time since I’d personally overseen the mounting of an expedition and thought I’d be rusty at the craft, especially since this journey would be as hazardous as any I’d set out on, from the day of its departure until wherever it ended, either with our bones scattered on some desolate heath or even at the Kingdoms of the Night. I also felt my problems would be compounded by the haste we must take and more immediately by the problem of my successor occupying most of my attention.

It was, however, surprisingly easy and took less than a week and a half. I’d estimated I’d need about seventy five men between the three ships. The two hoys already had crews on board of about fifteen men each so that lessened the number I’d need to find.

We never posted broadsides or sent criers around announcing the expedition. But somehow the word spread to those who wanted to hear. There would be a knock at my door and a man I hadn’t seen for ten years would be there, hat in hand. He’d stammer and say well, he’d heard Lord Antero might be mounting some sort of a trading expedition again, and he’d heard this one would be sort of special and perhaps the Lord would remember him, back when we made the first contact with the swamp-dwellers of Bufde’ana, right terrible time it was too and well, he was more than willing to go, seems that Orissa just couldn’t hold him like it used to and...

... And another one was signed on.

So it went. He would have a friend or perhaps three of my former fellow-adventurers would send a representative. Or sometimes it was a man from much time past, too broken by his years or the wounds he’d incurred in my service who sent a son or cousin or nephew.

Other men I sought myself, not only men who’d been with me on other expeditions but sometimes competitors, small traders who’d made notable voyages of their own to strange shores.

Some of these men came from my own household. Otavi came to me and said if I wished he and the three others who’d companied me to Lord Senac’s wouldn’t mind going along.

“Since we was in at the start, I’m supposin’,” he said, “I’d like to see the outcome. Besides, it’d keep Da from sayin’ on an’ on there ain’t no men like there was in his an’ Granda’s days.”

That pleased me no end, especially when I realized Maha, the kitchen apprentice, was ready to be promoted to beginning cook. I’ve noted more expeditions wreck themselves on the shoals of indigestion than enemy spears and had no intent of following their lead. As Quatervals put it, “
any
fool can be miserable if he wants, without even tryin’ at it.”

I told Kele the details of our expedition and asked her if she wished to be the admiral of this tiny fleet. Kele grinned and said she’d been getting worried, not having been asked and would’ve either killed herself or me if she hadn’t. She was also able to put the word out through the waterfront dives and collect enough experienced seamen for the
Ibis
and to fill out the crews of the two hoys.

Quatervals himself brought twelve men, all ex-Frontier Scouts. It seemed that not all of the soldiers in the regiment chose to return home after their retirement or leaving the service. Others stayed in Orissa doing, as Quatervals said, “whatever comes up that seems right.”

They were a hard-looking bunch of hellions, some young, some old and I gladly welcomed them. From their ranks I’d most likely choose my subofficers.

As an aside, there might be those who think that men who go on journeys into the heart of danger such as the one I proposed are of a special breed. They are, but not as those who listen to the epics might imagine. They probably envision a young man, fair of hair, keen of expression, muscles like iron bands, silent, determined, trained in arcane skills from nomadic languages to killing with no other weapon but those the gods gave him. A man who wishes for nothing more than to throw himself into the lion’s den, a smile on his lips and a song in his heart.

I’ve been looking for such a stalwart for years and intend, once I find him, to require Orissa to reinstate slavery just to keep this man perpetually in my service.

Let me contrast the epic hero with one of my
real
valiants, Pip. When Pip stands erect, which is seldom, he’s a full inch short of five feet. He won’t off balance a hundredweight on the scales, so skinny Quatervals once said he’s got to lean thrice to make a shadow. Pip comes from Cheapside and until I signed him for a journey nearly twenty years ago had never been outside the city and thought anything green was probably dyed that way.

Pip is my best scout. The cunning that kept him alive in the alleys of Orissa served equally well beyond Laosia and in the wastelands west of the Rift. Pip cannot finish a sentence without a curse and when a journey is over can spend a full day whining that he’s not sure he hasn’t been cheated out of his fair share of the gold. I would no more set out without him than I would without my sword or Quatervals.

So let me briefly give the qualities I seek in an adventurer, Hermias my heir, for the time you come in search of my remains.