Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (29 page)

Janela shouted something in a strange language and the net descended. It settled down and down, falling over the heads and shoulders of our enemies. They howled in agony, flailing helplessly and sinking to the ground to shudder and die.

Few escaped the flaming net and those who did either scattered into the darkness or were slain by us at the barricade.

Janela clapped her hands... and the net vanished... leaving a great harvest of gray corpses for the Dark Seeker.

We collapsed the barricade, exhausted.

But there was no time to rest that night, much less mourn our fallen friends or praise Janela’s quick-thinking and powerful sorcery.

We wanted to make haste to reach the shore before the beastmen could regroup and so we had to chance that most dangerous of all retreats — by night and through a jungle. If we hurried and were not ambushed we would just meet Quatervals when he landed with the rescue party at dawn. As we retraced our steps along the wall, however, I did ponder that in many ways Janela
was
Greycloak’s equal at sorcery. And even if she wasn’t she had his same strange turn of mind that would see a magical, death-dealing net in something so small and innocent as a firefly.

Then we were running down the stairwell and out on the muddy shore. The new sun was gleaming on the shields of our comrades from the fleet. Quatervals loomed at their head and when he saw me relief flooded his features.

He rushed over, but instead of the expected: exclamation of: “Thank Te-Date, you’re safe,” he said, “You must make speed, my Lord. The lookouts have spotted an approaching fleet!”

* * * *

Aboard the
Ibis
, Kele was issuing orders in a violent stream, making sure everything was ready in case the ships were unfriendly.

“What flag do they fly?” I asked, although I suspected I already knew the answer.

She shook her head. “Not close enough to make out as yet, my Lord,” she said.

“How swift’s your pinnace?” I asked.

“It wins its races.”

“Your best oarsmen... and stand by to lower,” I ordered, then took Janela aside.

“If this is who we fear we’ll be trapped in this harbor before we can make our way upriver,” I said. “A delaying action is what we need.”

Janela nodded. I told her what I hoped her magic could provide.

She frowned. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “There’s already a very powerful spell in place. It was created to guard against all the storms that have blown against these shores.” She sighed. “I don’t think much of my chances... but we don’t have a lot of alternatives, do we?”

“One other thing,” I said. “Can you make it happen on command?”

She snorted. “You don’t want much,” she said.

Janela hurried forward, shouting for the ship’s carpenter and in a few moments she returned, carrying a small balk of wood.

The crew was already standing by their oars. We clambered over the gunwales, Kele shouted orders and the crew sent our boat dropping into the harbor waters.

The coxswain raised a small spritsail and the oarsmen set to, sending us skimming across the water, tacking alongside the mole with the prevailing east wind until we reached its end where the monolith stood.

As we sailed, Janela carved on that balk of wood with a small golden scythe. I noted the wood seemed to have suffered from dry rot. Every now and then she swore and I heard her mutter once she was gods-damned if this looked
anything
like it was supposed to.

We pulled up to the mole and scrambled onto the ancient cobbles. Janela ran straight to the statue’s base and began her spell.

I went on to the end of the jetty and peered out and saw the ships. It was the same ten Orissan ships I’d seen before in my vision. Except now they flew two banners above our city’s flag — the blue coiled serpent set on a golden sunburst that was the emblem of Vacaan and below that the red and black that were the colors of the Warders.

The ships were close enough now for me to see the quarterdeck of the flagship. Once again I saw Cligus, but somehow the blow was greater in person. Worse still, beside him stood Lord Modin. My son was hunting me down and he’d made an ally of a powerful black wizard — a wizard with men and designs of his own.

I imagined I saw my son spot me and lift his eyes in surprise. The distance was too great for such small detail, but he did point in my direction and Modin turned his head to look. Instantly he threw up his arms and sorcerous lightning forked from the heavens, barely missing the mole and making the seas hiss with the fury of its blast. I smelt the reek of ozone.

I heard a cry from Janela and turned to see her slip back into the pinnace. I ran to join her and we pulled hard for the
Ibis
. I looked at Janela, who was waiting for my order and holding that bit of rotten wood in both hands. I saw that it was a crude model of the monolith.

“Now!” I said.

And Janela snapped the model.

Fire sprayed up from the base of the statue, sheeting above the ghastly head itself. An explosion like a volcano roused from its sleep ripped out, powdering the base of the statue and showering us with stinging small debris.

Slowly, the statue toppled — hesitating a moment in mid-fall — then plunged over, sending up a mass of water that lifted the pinnace high above the distant trees of the jungle as the wave passed under.

Then we were coming down and I saw the fallen monolith had blocked the entrance. Beyond I saw the sails of our pursuers plunging about on the other side like sea dragons raging to get at their prey.

We didn’t give them a second look but were clambering aboard the
Ibis
and my three ships were speeding down the channel into the river’s mouth.

Within an hour we were sailing up the river that Janela’s map said would lead us to our goal. Except, now it wasn’t a gateway — it was our only means of escape.

I had no doubt Cligus and his forces would soon find a way to clear the blocked channel so it was imperative we travel fast. I’d had just two hopes — first, Cligus wouldn’t continue the pursuit beyond Irayas and second, that if he did he’d be handicapped by not having an Evocator as skilled as Janela. Those hopes were dashed when I saw him off the ruined city with Modin.

Our weapons were our wits and our ships. Our shallow-draft sweep-equipped vessels would have an easier time on the river than Cligus’ hastily-converted merchantmen. They needed deep water under their keels to keep from running aground. Cligus would also be dependent on the wind’s vagaries which could only blow from a few points of the compass.

At the moment, however, the wind seemed to prefer one direction — directly upriver toward those distant mountains, perfect to fill the sails of Cligus’ wallowing ships. I was beginning to regret my prayers for winds blowing constantly east. My seamen naturally didn’t share this feeling. They knew that soon enough we’d be unlashing the sweeps from where they were fixed below the railings and the real work would begin.

If we had not entered this gigantic river from the sea it would have been easy to believe we were on but one of many smaller rivers. The waters of the delta were like fingers; twisting, crossing, meeting or joining into others and then, quite suddenly, we would be traveling on a current so vast the further shores couldn’t be glimpsed. An hour later we’d be forcing our way down a waterway so narrow our ships had to travel in a single line.

We knew we were on the right course though, because regularly we saw, set either on islands or driven directly into the riverbed, pillars topped with the same awful double-faced head as the monolith that marked the river’s entrance.

This river
was
the highway to the Kingdoms of the Night.

To confuse our pursuers, I considered landing men to topple the monoliths on land or use a cable from ship to ship to rip the ones in the water away to confuse. I dismissed the notion when I realized it would take too long. Also, something inside me was bothered by destroying monuments this old, especially ones used to help travelers find their way through the wilderness.

The river was alive. Schools of fish frothed on the surface hunted by unknown enemies below. We kept lines out and frequently had to cut them loose as a fisherman would hook something that seemed more intent on catching
him.
Pip was once nearly pulled overside by a sudden strike, only saved by Otavi grabbing him around the waist and bellowing for the stubborn little fool to let go the blessed line.

After that my diminutive complainer forswore piscatorial pleasures — “I don’t have no truckle wi’ anything more innarested in eatin’ me than I him.”

Once I saw a motion in the water and looked out to see a wedge-shaped creature swimming toward us. I thought it might be a mink or otter but then the wedge lifted on a long snake-like neck, became a head and looked at me curiously. I swear there was at least as much intelligence in its gaze as in any of the awestricken men and women who stared at it. Then it was gone and the water swirled from the great creature’s passing.

We spotted another strange animal crossing the river just in front of us. All we could see was a gross head, looking, as Pip said, “uglier nor a fishwife in Cheapside, e’en wi’out th’ gold teeth.”

Mithraik told the men around him it was as ugly out of water with its bulk exposed as it was in. “Great and fat, sir, just like yer fishwife. And movin’ as fast when it minds as any peddler seein’ someone in the till. Never get ’tween one when he’s grazin’ ashore and the river, sir, ’less yuz like bein’ used as a gangplank.

“Uster hunt ’em from canoes. ’Twas a rare sport. Used harpoons and make the lines fast to the thwart. Give us a tow, sir, faster’n a matched pair a’ horses. Unless they turned on yuz.” He grimaced. “Saw one of ’em take a canoe and bust it like a paper boat and then take a man and crunch him like a sweet. But we paid him back in kind, sir, by killin’ him and havin’ him fer supper.”

“Were they good eating?” Otavi wondered.

“Fattish,” Mithraik said. “Had to parbroil ’em then grill ’em. Even then, tasted like whale blubber.”

“Ne’er could see th’ point of huntin’ somethin,” said Maha, my kitchen apprentice turned cook. She was someone I’d suspected before of doing a little sedate poaching on some of my neighbor’s estates, “that isn’t tryin’ to eat you, that you can eat or sell th’ furs for profit.”

“Th’ hide makes decent whips,” Mithraik said. “And wet, tied around somethin’’, it’ll dry like iron.”

“I’ll still,” Otavi put in, “let it swim its way and I’ll go mine.”

There was other life in this delta. Not infrequently I had the feeling we were being watched. Not by sorcerous means but by things hidden on the banks. Several times we saw crude canoes pulled up on the riverside and once village huts far back in the brush.

Janela chanced casting a few spells since our presence was already known by Cligus, trying to determine what progress he was making. I thought they were cleverly laid, being sent out as gently and finely, she said, as a net for bait minnows. Even so, we caught nothing in their strands. Janela said she felt only Modin somewhere behind us, so she knew the wizard had laid counterspells. She could not tell if our pursuers were still struggling with the monolith or were moving. However, she did know they hadn’t given up. I wondered to myself how Cligus had managed to rationalize
this —
a murderous pursuit to the ends of the world, now companied by an sorcerer with his own nefarious plans.

Janela and I talked about what Modin could be intending. “I doubt,” she said dryly, “that it’s just fascination with my fair white form or even whatever kind of sexmagic he wants to perform. I could only make two guesses. Possibly King Gayyath was brought down by the riots or else forced to find a sacrificial lamb for the evils of his regime and chose Modin and his Wardens, which I doubt.

“My best thought, and again, this is truly a guess, is he thinks there could be some benefit to be gained by following us to the Kingdoms of the Night.”

“Perhaps they’re hostile and Modin’s made some sort of pact with them,” I said. “I keep remembering that demon and his rose in the dancer’s scene.”

Janela nodded. “That too is a possibility. Fortunately we don’t have the choice of being cowards or sensible folk and abandoning our journey.”

“Not,” I said, “that you’d consider giving up anyway.”

“Not I,” she said with a smile. “Nor you, either.”

She was right.

The delta came to an end and now there were but half a dozen courses. We were traveling through thickly jungled terrain but unlike any jungle I’d ever seen before. There were high trees reaching up over two hundred feet that arched out over the water but I’d never seen trees with trunks of a deep crimson and three-fingered leaves as big as a man’s hand that were bright red. Green and even blue vines crawled around these trees, stark colors clashing.

There were other enormous trees that seemed to consist only of monstrous trunks with many divisions, like knotted ropes, that were as thick as our ship’s breadth. Bright red bee-eating birds swarmed the trees and once, at dusk, a four-winged nightbird dipped and fluttered just in front of me as if in greeting. I saw tulips nearly as big as a man’s head and Mithraik said they could be cut and sucked for their honey.