Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (28 page)

“I used to do this when I was a girl,” she said as she worked. “I had a set of children’s illustrations carved in wood. Fantastic things: fire-breathing lizards; people with enormous feet, who stood on one and shaded themselves with the other; wood sprites and fairy queens. You know, silly little stories for babes. When I became too old for them — or, wanted others to believe I was too old, at least — I made rubbings, just like this. Whenever I gave a gift I’d wrap it in one of the rubbings.”

I looked at her. There was a smear of charcoal on her cheek — and another on her nose.

“I made quite a mess in those days,” she said, chortling over a girlhood memory.

“Why, my Lady Greycloak,” I said in mock amazement. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”

She caught my tone. “It’s on my nose, isn’t it?” she said.”

“And your cheek, as well,” I said.

Janela sighed, resigned. “So much for wizardly dignity.” Then she peeled back the linen and held it up. It was a perfect replica — but in reverse.

“Exactly what we need,” I said.

Janela looked for herself and seemed satisfied. And she said, “Now, we must concentrate on living long enough to use it.”

* * * *

When we returned we found the men had made a low barricade out of the rubble in the corridor. The Cyralian brothers were waxing their bowstrings, Otavi running a soft stone over his ax blade while Pip and the others honed their weapons. A campfire had been lit and rations were bubbling in a pot slung over it. Mithraik still snored peacefully.

Outside night had closed in. The moon was in its first quarter and the light was weak. Fierce jungle noises echoed through the darkness and a swarm of fireflies winked on and off.

Pip was glooming and staring out. “Guess Quatervals ain’t chancin’ bein’ a hero an’ wadin’ through th’ muck despite y’r orders.”

“I told him when we left that if we encountered difficulty under no circumstances was he to try to reach us at night,” I said. “It would only be begging for ambush and disaster. Besides, we’re well forted up.”

Pip shook his head. “It’s on’y what I deserves fer volunteerin’,” he muttered to no one in particular. “I shoulda lissen’d to me dear muvver. Shoulda taken up a peaceful trade, like me Da’. Best purse-lifter in all a Cheapside.”

I ignored him and Janela and I slipped outside to learn more about our opponents. We examined the corpse of a particularly large brute who was sprawled near the entrance. Ignoring his bulk and the club still gripped in his massive paws, he did not look so fierce. He seemed pitiful, actually — eyes wide and staring in final surprise, lips grimacing in pain’s last visit. Other than the sloping brow, his face was remarkably human, vulnerable, almost childlike.

“Poor creature,” Janela said. “It almost makes one believe there might be some truth to the tales I heard.” She shivered. “If so... that’s what could happen to us.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“According to some legends,” she said, “this is what became of the people who once ruled this city.”

I was shocked but said nothing — waiting for her to explain.

“When the Old Ones abandoned the west,” she said, “this city became their first line of defense for their eastern empire. At least that is what the mythmakers said. I’m only conjecturing this was the harbor city the tales referred to. Its name has been lost over time. Regardless, a great battle ensued and a siege that lasted many years.”

The scars of battle we had seen bore out Janela’s guess this was that very city.

She continued: “Then betrayal from within led the walls to be breached. The inhabitants were massacred until only a few remained. All of them women or girls approaching womanhood.”

Janela gestured at the corpse. “It’s just possible that he is one of their descendants.”

“I don’t see how that could be,” I said, thinking of the graceful figures I’d seen in the frescoes on the way to the temple.

“It’s only a story,” Janela said. “So you could be right in doubting it. I’d feel more comfortable if you were. For the tale goes on to say the enemy king summoned foul beasts from the ethers and made the women mate with them. The children that resulted were half men, half creature, condemned to live here as brutes for all time.”

I looked at the beastman again, but with a mixture of pity and dread. If Janela’s tale was history, rather than myth, and if the enemy who doomed these folk was behind the mysterious maladies afflicting Orissa and Vacaan, then I was correct in suspecting our expedition was more important than an adventurer’s whim. Te-Date willing, the answer to that riddle might be found in the Kingdoms Of The Night.

An errant firefly floated up between Janela and I, its intermittent light somehow easing my cares. Her hand shot out and she caught it, cupping it delicately between her palms. She made a little opening between her thumbs and I saw light blink. Janela’s brow furrowed, then cleared as an idea struck.

“I need to find something to put my little sister in,” she said, and started back for the corridor, with me at her hells.

Mithraik was awake and crouched by the fire spooning up food from the pot, so I hoisted up a flask of wine and perched near him on a comfortable stone slab.

“Here’s the drink I promised,” I said, passing him the flask. “I’ll trade it for the details of who you are, and how you came to be here.”

Mithraik grasped the flask, rumbling laughter. “Don’t need payment fer talkin’, sir. Ever’body allas sez, ole Mithraik loves nothin’ better’n jawin’ — ’specially ’bout himself’.” He looked at the flask, that wide smile of his flashing white. “’Course, there’s nothin’ like a drop t’ oil me pipes, sir. And I thankee very much.”

He gurgled down a large quantity and passed the flask back. I drank and handed it on to Janela, who’d joined us. I saw her put a tiny box in her boot, guessing it was the firefly’s new home. But her full attention was on Mithraik, whose measure she was taking.

She saw the rogue in him and said: “Is this one of those stories that begins with: ‘I fell into bad company’?”

Mithraik guffawed and slapped his knee. “Jus’ what I was goin’ to say, m’ Lady,” he said. “Yuz got ole Mithraik hammered wi’ the first swing a th’ mallet.”

He drank, then grew serious, and said to me: “But that be the truth, sir. More’s the pity. Me family’s been merchantin’ these seas since they was nothin’ more’n a tear in some god’s eye. Honest sailors, sir, doin’ honest trade. Was me father’s pride, sir, and me mother’s as well. Rose to cap’n, I did, and there was a time when it looked like I’d end up ownin’ me own ship. Play the owner’s pipes, sir, ’n buy the first round at the inn.”

The other men had gathered near. They grinned and shook their heads, empathizing with Mithraik’s goals. I saw they were passing their weapons to Janela, who was sprinkling a few drops of magical oil on each of them and handing them back. Pip stood watch while this was going on but his large ears pricked to catch our visitor’s tale.

Mithraik gulped hugely and passed the flask to the men. He continued: “All that mighta come to be, sir, but I was cursed with a wild nature and a quarrelsome tongue. I was al’ays tellin’ the owners their business, thinkin’ I knew best.”

I understood the type. I had captains just like him in my employ. So what he said next was no surprise: “I got fewer berths every year, sir, and poor ones at that. I took to cuttin’ corners, if yuz knows what I mean.”

I did indeed. Certain cargo items would be stolen, the thefts covered by declaring the goods damaged or lost in a storm. Sometimes the ship might be involved in even more illicit goings on.

“I even went a-piratin’, much to me shame, sir,” Mithraik said. “Used the owners’ ship, ’n a hand-picked crew of lads I knew was bent. But me masters weren’t stupid men, sir. They soon caught on and ’afore I knew it I was runnin’ to keep me head on me shoulders, ’n me arms from bein’ stubbed. It was only a matter of time, sir, that I joined the real pirates. ’N I been a rogue ever since.”

“Why the sudden remorse?” I asked. “You sound as if you have seen the error of your ways, and want to repent.

Mithraik nodded, solemn. “That I have, sir,” he said. “That I have. Yuz see, I was marooned here by me mates many months ago. They ’ccused me a holdin’ out on ’em, sir. Said I was keepin more’n me share. And that was a bloody lie!” His glare was fierce, as if he meant to prove the truth of his words by its heat. I gave him the flask, and he sighed deeply, and calmed himself with a drink.

“But there was no talkin’ to ’em, sir,” he continued. “’N they put me down here, ’mongst the beasts. ’N I been runnin’ and dodgin’ ’em ever since. They ain’t that smart, yuz know. ’Specially if’n yer on’y one feller, like me. Yuz can keep low, confuse ’em if they spot yuz ’n gets back to yer hidey hole afore they knows what’s what. So that’s what I been doin’, sir, since me mates played me false. ’N the truth is, sir, for the first months I swore if I ever got outter this port I’d do ’em right proper. Gets me revenge. ’N after that, why I’d become the greatest pirate ever lived, sir. The scourge o’ the seas. But the more time passed, sir, the more I dwelled on me dear family ’n how I shamed ’em — honest folk one ’n all.”

He lifted his head and looked at me with big, cow brown eyes. “So, what do yer say, sir? Will yuz take ole Mithraik off this horrid place? Give him a chance to set things right?”

I nodded. “Fight beside us,” I said, “and if we live you can join us.” Mithraik brightened considerably. So I thought it only fair to warn him, saying, “You should know, however, that it’s no merchant trip we’re on. It’s more of an expedition... to find new markets.”

“Will you be goin’ mostly by water, sir?” Mithraik said.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll be sailing up yon river as soon as I get back to my fleet.”

“I know the river,” Mithraik said. “Even been up it a few leagues. It’s a bit tricky but it shouldn’t be much trouble, seein’s how yer shallow drafted.”

My hackles prickled. But before I could speak, Janela said, sharply: “How did you know the design of our ships? Were you watching when we came in?”

Mithraik looked puzzled then smote his head a meaty blow. “Why no I didn’t, me Lady. So, I ask meself how’d ole Mithraik know they was shallow drafted? ’N I gots no answer. It just came to me. Popped inta me head. Like somebody whispered it inta me ear.”

He looked around the temple corridor and shivered. “I gotter get outta this port, sir. The ghosts ’re drivin’ me barmy.”

Then Pip shouted a warning and those strange, hooting war cries shattered the night.

We leaped to the barricade and saw a gray mass of beastmen charging out of the darkness. They came from all sides and behind them were a host of others, shambling forward to take the places of those who would fall.

The Cyralian brothers volleyed arrows anointed with Janela’s sorcery. They exploded just before they reached their marks and I heard all-too human shrieks of agony. But it made no differences to those who lived and the shaggy wave of gray rolled on, absorbing shock after shock as the brothers rained death into their ranks.

Just before they overran us, Janela pulled the little box from her boot. She opened it, muttered some words of a spell to the firefly and cast her “little sister” into the air. Then her sword scraped out and she joined us in the hand-to-hand fight.

Our magically-aided weapons made it butcher’s work, cleaving skulls, splitting torsos, with blood spraying everywhere — and those of us who lived would be cursed with violent dreams from that day on.

I killed until I was gasping, my arms leaden, my legs like stone; and then I killed more. Mithraik proved his mettle in the first wave. One of the beastmen hurdled the barricade before we could tighten our line. But Mithraik wrested the club from his hand and broke his head. Then he fought like a wild thing — a borrowed sword in one hand, the stone-headed club in the other. He jumped in wherever he was needed, filling gaps caused by the press of the fight, stabbing over Pip’s head in one instance to spear an oncoming beast through the throat.

But there was no relenting. The creatures fought on. Some died just to drag one stone away from the barricade. Others died by deliberately offering their bodies to our swords so a comrade would have time to get us before the sword could be withdrawn. One of the ex-Scouts was killed this way, Otavi avenging him by beheading his slayer. Another was mortally wounded early in the battle but continued fighting as relentlessly as our enemy — his own blood pooling at his feet. Then he slumped over the barricade, sword jutting from his dead hand as if to help stave off the gray horde.

Finally there came a time I realized we wouldn’t last another hour, much less the night.

A dry wind blew up and I heard a rustling sound above the din.

I heard Janela shout: “Come little sister!” I looked up to see a black cloud settling over the battlefield — living cloud — and it was from there that that the dry blew and made the noise of countless insect wings, a chitinous scratching at the ether itself.

The night turned to golden day as the cloud lit up, making a small sun above us.

It was so bewildering — this magical firefly mass — I nearly forgot the battle and dodged just in time as a club hammered the space where my head had been. As I cut my attacker down the glorious cloud spread out like an enormous net drawn up from fiery, tropical seas.