Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (2 page)

But I must not ramble. This is not a journal of reflection like the first.

I write to warn, not to edify.

We are in great danger from forces I am just beginning to understand. Soon my enemies will come for me. And if I should fail in my last task, another
must
follow to pick up the fallen banner.

That is the purpose of this journal.

Although I must write in haste I will spare no detail so wiser eyes may see what I did not. Study these ink spatterings closely, my dear nephew. And seek the counsel of our bravest and most perceptive friends.

Tell them the end of history is rushing upon us. And if I die it is
they
who must stop that Mad Charioteer.

It began in the Month of Flowers. All around my villa blossoms were bursting through the earth, filling the air with their essence. Gentle winds played sweet music on the garden chimes and from my study window I could see two lovers strolling the grassy fields, birds bursting from cover in front of their wandering feet. Just beyond them was the meadow where there were colts at play. But all that beauty was lost to me.

I sat before an unseasonable fire, toasting my bones, a rug pulled over my skinny old man’s legs, nursing a cup of brandy and damning what little life I had left for a prison. I pined for Omerye — my life’s mate who made everything worth while. She’d been dead a year and in one corner of the garden I could see the small tomb with her flute-playing likeness carved into its face.

I’d never expected to outlive her. This doubled the shock of the quickness of her death. One moment she was my lively Omerye — full of laughter and music and wisdom the next a corpse. We made love the night before she died. I’m grateful of that. Despite our age our passion for one another was as deep as ever. She fell asleep in my arms.

That night I dreamed we were young again, wandering the wilderness together in search of new horizons.

The next morning I awoke early thinking I heard her pipes. The music had the dawn’s cheer to it, the refreshing chill of morning air.

But I found the Dark Seeker had come and gone. Omerye lay pale and cold beside me, her pipes nowhere in sight.

I’d known such tragedy before — I lost my first wife and daughter to the plague. But I was young then. There were days enough for hope to still live. As I sat in the study I thought of the treasures Greycloak and I found in the Far Kingdoms and all the marvels I brought back from those once-mythical shores. The greatest treasure of all was Omerye — court piper for King Domas himself. It was she who healed me — she who made my days worthwhile.

There is a land I know of, where it is not only acceptable but considered admirable to take one’s own life. There are priests who make an honorable profit assisting them at their task. They ply their customers with an elixir that brings on the happiest of memories. A basin of warm, perfumed liquid is provided and a spell cast so all pain is pleasure.

The sorrowing one — who sees clearly that his best course is lay down the burden and close the final door — takes up a sacred knife, summons the Seeker, then slits his veins.

I was considering this recourse when Quatervals came to collect me. Imagine what a morose, self-pitying sight I made. He groaned as if to say “Not
again
, my Lord!”

Quatervals was head of my household guard — tall, ruddy-cheeked and bursting with muscular good health. A former Frontier Scout recruited from one of the hill tribes outside Orissa; he was an able soldier who’d risen through the ranks to lieutenant. But troubles at home had forced him to desert, since his tribe believed blood feud the highest duty and justice. Unfortunately, when matters had been settled to his satisfaction, and his enemies interred, he had the moral rectitude to return to his unit.

He was headed for the executioner’s block when his plight came to my attention. I’d rescued him from that fate for motives I’ve occasionally regretted and he joined my service as chief of my guard. He was good at his job and the only complaint I had was he sometimes didn’t treat me with the respect a man of my position is occasionally fool enough and weak enough to believe he deserves.

When Quatervals saw me his face darkened, his brows arched and his bearded smile of greeting turned to a grimace.

“You’re not dressed, my Lord,” he admonished. “We have to hurry or we’ll be late for the ceremony.”

“I’m not going,” I said. “Send my apologies and tell them I’m ill.” I did my best to look wan — touching my forehead as if testing for fever, then sighing as if I’d confirmed my worst fears.

“You don’t look sick to me,” he said. He glanced at the brandy, then at the half-empty crystal carafe. “Feelin’ sorry for yourself again, are you my Lord? Te-Date knows what you’ve got to complain about. You’re richer than any man has a right to be. Prince of the greatest merchant empire in Orissa’s history. Beloved and honored by all. Well, almost all. There’s some that’s got sense enough to see you’re as common a mortal as the rest of us.”

“Meaning you?” I said.

“Meaning me, my Lord,” he replied. “Who else would care enough about such a cranky old man to keep an assassin from doing us all a good turn?”

“Don’t be impertinent,” I snapped. “I know when I’m sick or not.”

He said: “My Lord — if you wanted a polite liar for chief of your guards you shouldn’t have hired the likes of me.”

Despite my foul mood, I had to bury a smile. Quatervals’ fellow tribesmen were a fierce, independent lot noted for always speaking the unvarnished truth. They wouldn’t lie for any reason — even when polite society demanded. A woman asking Quatervals’ opinion of a new hair style or a dinner host wondering over the quality of the meal he served had better be certain of both. For if one is ugly and the other tasteless Quatervals could be counted on to point out those unpleasant facts.

“The only thing that ails you, my Lord,” he went on, “is a bad case of the mopes. You need fresh air, sunlight and the company of others. So, stir your stumps, Lord Antero, because that’s exactly what awaits you.”

“So now you’re a skilled physician, as well as a swordsman,” I said. “I want to be left alone, dammit! I’m
old
. I have the
right
.”

“Sorry, my Lord,” Quatervals replied. “But I’ve got a grandmother twenty years your senior and she’s been up four hours by now chasin’ the goats in for their milking. You’re not feeble. But you will be soon if you don’t quit acting like it.”

I was getting angry, still clutching my specialness — my sorrow — to my bosom. But Quatervals beat my bad temper to the finish.

“Besides, this is a ship launching, my Lord,” he prodded. “Your family and employees have been planning the ceremony for weeks. You not only agreed to attend but promised you’d do the honors of blessing the ship.”

“I changed my mind,” I said.

Quatervals grimaced. “That’d not only be rude, my Lord, but bad luck as well. What if something happened to that ship later on? Jumped by pirates or sunk by storm? It’d practically be your fault for givin’ it a bad start.”

“You don’t actually believe that superstitious nonsense,” I growled.

Quatervals shrugged his hefty shoulders. “I’m a landsman, not a sailor,” he said. “But whenever I’ve been to sea I got down on my knees fast as any old salt when the winds blew fierce. That’s when the gods
really
make themselves known.”

He laughed. “But you’d know more about that than the likes of me, sir,” he said. “You’re the famous Lord Amalric Antero. Slayer of demons. Rescuer of maidens. The greatest adventurer the world has known.”

Then his look turned mournful. “What a pity,” he said. “That such a man should dry up like dust and blow away.’

“Oh, very well,” I said. “I’ll go... if only to shut you up. But it’ll be on your head if I catch a chill and die.”

“I’ll chance it, my Lord,” he laughed. “Now stir your bones so your man can get you dressed.”

With that he exited.

I drained my brandy and slammed the cup down. That son of a poxed whore! I’d teach him! But as my blood boiled I realized that once again I’d fallen prey to his game. The famous Lord Antero, indeed! Quatervals ought to apply to the Evocators’ Guild for a license. Look how he’d turned self-pity into anger and anger into a renewed interest in life — if only to contemplate how pleasant it would be to toast his bones.

I laughed and called for my man servant. I had to hurry or I’d miss the launching.

I looked out my window and saw the lovers had disappeared. My eyes were still keen enough, however, to make out the place where the tall grass shadowed into a fragrant bed. I saw the grass moving in a steady rhythm.

Perhaps it would be a lucky day after all.

* * * *

In my youth it had been a pleasant if lengthy trip from my villa to Orissa. I was always invigorated by the ride through the countryside, past sleepy farms, through cool woods and across musical brooks. But the city has burst its old limits and tumbled to within a mile or so of my door. Only a few of the farms remain and the woods have been gouged for timber to construct the homes and buildings that line the crowded streets.

As much as I love our city, I am not so blind as to call her a thing of beauty. It’s grown in a haphazard fashion from the age when the first Orissan judged the best place to build his fishing hovel was upwind from where he gutted his catch to the present, where any bare spot that you can cram a stick and brick into is considered a prime building location. Land was so scarce that in some places towering tenements had been hurled up to such heights that they leaned crazily over the street, casting everything into shadow.

The buildings reminded me of the crowded squalor of old Lycanth — the city that had been our arch enemy for generations until my sister, Rali, slew the evil Archons who ruled it and reduced it to rubble and ashes.

My bleak mood crept dangerously close again when I thought of Rali. Now there was a hero we’d never see the likes of again. I’d admired my older sister since I was a toddler. If truth be told, my exploits were puny things beside hers. She’d been a warrior’s warrior. Commander of the all woman Maranon Guard. Rali had pursued the last Archon of Lycanth to very ends of the earth in what had to be the greatest voyage in history. She’d caught and killed him and rescued Orissa from destruction.

Rali had also been blessed — or cursed by some lights — with magical talents that rivaled our best Evocators.

She’d gone missing on an expedition twenty years before. Every day since I’d awakened half-expecting news of her return. Then the ugly truth would dawn and I’d realize once again that she must be dead.

It seemed all my contemporaries were gone. I’d outlived friends and enemies alike. Perhaps that’s why I felt so useless. It seemed long past the hour for me to shuffle off and leave the world for the next generation to do with as they pleased.

The carriage jolted as it hit a rut, shaking me out of my joust with villainous Regret. I’d long complained to the Council of Magistrates the roads were falling into disrepair. Their condition was not only uncomfortable and dangerous but an eater of profits as well. Goods and wagons were damaged daily while the Magistrates fought their private wars for more prestigious offices and who would get the best seats at public ceremonies.

“It’s not us but the Evocators,” the Chief Magistrate said. “We paid good city coin for spells to protect our streets from wear. The last they cast they vowed was good for ten years or more. But that was less than a year ago and just look at the state of our roads!”

The Chief Evocator replied it was the Magistrates’ fault for building with materials so poor not a spell in history could preserve them. This earned a bitter retort from the Chief Magistrate, who retaliated in kind and back and forth it went with nothing being done while the roads and bridges crumbled around us.

So far the Magistrates held the upper hand in the blaming game. For although few trust a Magistrate,
everyone
is wary of a wizard.

Adding to the poor public view of the Evocators was a rash of apparent failures in the past year. The gift of magical knowledge I’d brought back from Irayas had blossomed mightily. We commanded the weather that nurtured our crops, the purity of the streams, woods and fields that gave us fish, flesh and fowl and even the great plagues that once ravaged us at will, plagues that had killed my own Deoce and Emilie.

But in recent months cracks had appeared in the protective walls. There’d been sick cattle in the countryside. The last grain harvest had been afflicted with a voracious beetle. And in the marketplace the witches had been treating a mysterious outbreak of skin infections. In my own household an entire storeroom of meat had to be destroyed because somehow it had spoiled. Even in the old days the most common spell cast by the Evocator assigned to the Butchers’ Guild would have prevented such a thing.

Naturally the Evocators were given the direwolf’s share of the blame. There had been much public discussion at how lazy, greedy and thieving our wizards had become. Although I didn’t think on it much — the incidents, after all, were fairly minor — when I heard such talk I quickly put the rumor monger straight. In my youth the Evocators were the sworn enemies of the Anteros. Their graft was enormous, their secrecy impenetrable and some of them had even plotted with Prince Raveline of Irayas against our city. My own brother, Halab, was a victim of their evil.