Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (25 page)

“Who are you?”

“Seekers of the truth,” I said. “Wanderers of the sea. Perhaps if you share some of your seafaring knowledge with us... most interesting benefits might come your way.”

“Such as,” Quatervals put in, “seeing the sun rise on the morrow.”

“What do you want to know?” The question was guarded. Lerma wasn’t quite broken.

“What lies east? What land? What’s it like? What are the landfalls? What are the people like? What about hostile cities? Is it civilized?”

“How’ll you know I’ll tell you... and if I do tell you, that it’ll be the truth?”

“Even without my friend there with the convincers,” I said, “all we need do, once we’ve finished with you, is put you in a nice quiet cabin and call your friends up here. If their answers differ from yours, well, we’ll be
very
disappointed. So disappointed, shall we say, that each lie will cost a finger, then a toe and then we’ll consider the possibilities when we’ve run out of digits.”

“Even if somehow you and your friend manage to connive at the same lie,” Janela put in, “
I
shall know. I am a wizard,” and she stretched out a hand toward Lerma, a gentle, caressing woman’s hand.

She ran her other hand over it and suddenly that woman’s hand became the green clawed talons of a demon. Lerma shrieked and tried to roll away. Then Janela’s hand was quite normal.

“Anything you want,” he stammered then. “I’ll not lie. I have charts, some charts anyway, in my cabin. I’ll show you. Anything you need, all you have to do is ask.”

I had Quatervals cut Lerma free and lift him to his feet. “There is no reason,” I said, “this discussion cannot be handled in a civilized manner. We’ll join you below.”

As Quatervals muscled Lerma to the companionway I had a question for Janela.

“How did you do
that?
The hand, I mean.
”

Janela smiled, a very mysterious, very superior smile.

“Don’t you remember what your sister wrote? That all magic is smoke and mirrors and fumadiddle?”

I nodded. “Very well, then.” And we went after Quatervals.

* * * *

By dusk we’d drained Lerma as thoroughly as a sailor drains his last wine skin. He knew much, which I’d thought likely since any pirate who’s successful must know not the ocean deeps, but the shorelines and inlets where he can hide or lurk and the people he must either avoid or can prey on.

The far shore was peopled, of course. We first asked Lerma about great civilizations. There weren’t any that he knew of, at least none that could put out coast patrols as feared as those from Vacaan, which was one reason he preferred to keep his villainy here in the east. The people living along the coast were fishermen, farmers and some small traders. He’d heard stories of fabulous cities, like any traveler does, but none of the tales had borne out.

Janela nodded. This was as it should be, as her stories had promised.

Next we asked about old ruins, tales of cities stricken by the gods. Lerma said the land was full of these, of how man had once been next to the gods but had fallen mightily for his sins.

“I put no store in those stories,” he said, “because if you’re a god who’s going to punish you for sinnin’? Other gods? Not a virgin’s chance at an orgy, since they’d be too busy dippin’ their own wicks an’ carryin’ on an’ stabbin’ their own sets of enemies’ backs to worry about you. The gods is gods, men is men. What we is, is what we is and what we’ve allus been.”

We ignored his theological lesson and asked specifically about ruins. There were many of these, Lerma said.

“But I never paid ’em mind, since old stone don’t spend real well in a tavern. We landed in a couple lookin’ for treasure but found nothin’. They’d been looted out clean long afore any of us come squallin’ out of our wombs.”

A memory came and he hunched his shoulders, as if a chill wind had blown through the cabin.

“There was one different,” he said. “We’d heard stories about it an’ one time me an’ some other cap’ns thought the tales might bear fruit. We got close enough to see, but somethin’ turned us away.”

“What? You were attacked? You saw ghosts? Demons?”

“No. Nothin’ even
that
real. Not even dreams. Just I knew an’ all of us knew at the same time, that if we went ashore where that great river met the sea we’d leave our bones.”

“Where is it?” Janela was most excited.

“My Lady,” Lerma said, “We weren’t dreamin’ nor afeared. What we felt was true. I knew it then, I know it now. I don’t wish that on you.”

“I asked a question.”

Lerma stared at her, shrugged and went to the table where his charts were laid out. Charts were perhaps the wrong word since that implies they were accurate navigational tools. They were sketchy, imprecise, with long blank areas, scribbles, question marks and obvious inexactitudes. Lerma muttered for a moment then his finger stabbed.

“’Bout here. It don’t show on the map but there’s a river runs inland. Big river, damned near a day’s sail across its mouth. Ain’t that navigable, bar’s blocking most of its mouth an’ it’s bad silted up. But here on the north bank there’s a stone statue. Sticks straight up like it’d been a lighthouse or something. Man... or demon-built. It’s just at the end of a mole. That’s where we was gonna sail into and anchor and see what was what.

“Never even got within a mile though, ’fore we knew we didn’t belong here. We sailed on without even sending a boat ashore and looked for other places for our pleasurin’.” He shivered at the memory.

I was about to speak but Janela shook her head, and told Quatervals to take Lerma out. Before he was led away she took a bit of his hair, a smear of blood from a small wound and a dab of saliva.

When Lerma was beyond earshot Janela got out her own chart.

“Look. Here. Somewhere still north of where we are, see this?”

I read her small writing: Jayotosha tribe shaman reported dreams. Far shore. River. City. Cursed. Old Ones. Dread of what lies upriver. Something great, beyond good, beyond evil.

“A river, a city,” I said. “Not the heart of the Kingdom but a port, perhaps? Like Marinduque is the port for Irayas. Maybe the Old Ones liked to live upriver, away from the storms and sea raiders? Could that have been their style? When they came across to what we call Vacaan now, did they deliberately look for a navigable river to base themselves on?”

Janela shook her head. “I don’t know. But we have one piece of a puzzle that matches another piece of another puzzle very closely.”

“And the spell,” I said, “assuming Lerma’s telling the truth, would be something that could be left hanging over such a ruined city.”

“Perhaps. But if there is one it will hardly be worth concerning ourselves over. It’ll be easy to cast a counterspell so we won’t even notice such a warning.”

Janela paced the deck, barely able to contain her excitement. Then she burst out: “Do we have it, Lord Antero?”

I smiled — I’d been hard pressed to keep from letting out a whoop like I was fifty years younger and managed to maintain some degree of stuffiness. That broke and I too did a small dance on the deck.

“After due consideration I think we have it, Lady Greycloak.”

Our hands met over the small dot on the chart.

* * * *

By full dark, we sailed on, having taken measures to ensure our piratical friends would be harmless, at least for awhile. After questioning them we’d taken blood, hair, sputum samples from both Feather and the helmswoman. The woman knew nothing about this city, it had been before she joined them. Feather knew well and confirmed Lerma’ tale.

We assembled the three and showed them the samples. Janela said if the tales were false or if they’d forgotten to tell us of some hazard, before the demons took us down she’d have more than enough time to cast a spell that would hunt the seas of the world for the three of them. They swore honesty, fidelity and truth, having to scrabble about in their minds for something to swear on that wouldn’t make us chortle in complete disbelief.

We let the pirates out of the hold and bade them watch what we were doing. We sank all of the raiding boats save three which might be needed for lifeboats if their hulk sank. All of the weapons were tossed overside except for four daggers. Those four Quatervals put point-first between deck planking and snapped off the points, so they were no longer weapons but sailors’ tools. All of the wine, all of the brandy went overboard.

A single set of sails was all I left, enough for them to return to whatever port they called home. There was a low moan when the pirates saw their tiny treasure transferred to our ships. I cared little for such gold, but I wanted these rogues humiliated and broken.

Finally we had each of them pass down a line of armed men. As with their leaders, a bit of hair and blood was taken from each and put in one of our empty windbags. A few of the corsairs tried to fight but they were quickly clubbed into submission.

That was all. We boarded our own ships. I stood at the rail of the
Ibis
and told the pirates they were in my thrall. I was true to my word and had not only granted them quarter but now their freedom. They were to go and find honest trades. If they did not... I waved the bag full of bloodstained tufts above my head. There were mutters and moans. I paid no heed but turned away and ordered Kele to set a course east-northeast.

We watched the
Searipper
until it was a dot on the horizon.

“Y’think,” Otavi said and I started, since the burly man seldom spoke unless asked a direct question, “
all
of ’em’ll take up work, or just some? Figurin’ you’ll hold true to your oath an’ spellbind ’em?”

Janela and I began laughing. She picked up the bag holding the pirate’s locks, and cast it overside.

Otavi watched it bob away in our wake, then he too grinned.

“I guess, followin’ you around, Lord Antero, I’d best not spend much time tryin’ to convince myself people’re any better’n they are or ever will be, eh?”

* * * *

Thirteen days crawled leadenly past.

The wind held true, blowing into the east and the seas were fairly calm. But still our voyage seemed to be taking forever. It grew hot, muggy and I thought I could smell the dark, heavy scent of the jungle. Janela, as promised, did cast a guardian spell over our men to prevent needless worry.

On the fourteenth dawn I awoke to the cry: “Land! Land ho! Land firm dead ahead!”

I pulled on clothing and dashed on deck but even in my haste was still among the last to reach it. Janela wore no more than a wrap, I thought perhaps her bedspread, but neither she, I nor anyone else paid mind to her near-nakedness.

Beyond our bows was a river’s mouth, so vast I could not see but one shore to our north. The land ahead was green, tropical, jungled.

Far in the distance, so far it was but a blue presence on the horizon, lifted a monstrous mountain range.

I could make out no details at all, let alone crags that might be the Fist of the Gods.

Closer, though, standing out from the shoaling ocean, was the white finger of the monolith.

As we neared the monolith an ice storm of recognition blew out of my past. It was an immense statue of a woman warrior. She was remarkably beautiful, even though time’s blight had pocked the stone that made her. In her hand she held aloft the stub of a broken sword.

Beside me I heard Janela ask Kele: “Do you suppose it was once a lighthouse?”

The captain made some response but I wasn’t listening. Instead I was remembering when I’d first seen that image. It had been in moonlight and I’d been in a carriage, instead aboard a ship. I had been summoned to Prince Raveline’s palace and as I approached that black wizard’s abode I was suddenly confronted with two stone guardians whose visages were so cold and pitiless that they struck dread instead of wonder at their other-worldly beauty. It had been long ago and Raveline was dead but when I viewed the statue at the harbor’s entrance once again I felt fear buzz a viper’s warning in my breast.

We sailed past the monolith, the mole beside us and I heard the others gasp when they saw the statue’s opposite side. I turned, although I didn’t need to look to know what they had seen. Like Raveline’s guardians the woman had a second face, looking to the rear, and that face was a leering, fanged demon. And like that long ago night when conspiracy and betrayal stirred in dank winds I wondered if the artist who carved the original had worked from imagination — or real life.

I shook off the web of an old man’s memory and took stock. The river mouth we were sailing into was truly immense — I saw something in the distance that might have been the blur of the other bank. The channel was honeycombed with sandbars that had built up over the ages, making navigation difficult. I speculated that the original inhabitants had posted guards at the statue so anyone attempting to sail upstream would have had to pay whatever toll those who held it demanded. Some of the bars were so large that the river had long ago given up the fight to breach them and they’d become small islands dotted with clumps of trees and brush.