Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This is another in a series from the second book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Divine Queen.
© 1982 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
Gen-Karn, Mighty King
EMPTY AND DEAD was Tezmon’s great harbor now. Only a few masts, like branchless gaunt trees, emerged at drunken angles from the slick water. The storehouses beyond the docks were no more than charred ruins: a few pillars of stone and blackened walls of brick rising from heaps of wind-blown ash and rubble. All of wood had burned away; but not the fiercest fires could crack the huge stone blocks of the inner quays. Slowly and skillfully the Rukorian captain rode the heavy ship up to her berth. A few of the sailors, silent as they rarely were, leapt to the dock to loop the thick rope cables over the sooty brass rings. A solitary gull flapped against the sky, and perched atop a tall, broken pillar. From beyond it a sluggish wind breathed, full-odored with the corruption and ruin of the city.
Ampeánor had his men form lines amidships. In addition to the crew, he had brought a troop of Rukorian lancers, thirty battle-hardened souls led by no less than Ferrakador, the finest captain in the Empire. The rattle of their lances and body-concealing oval shields echoed dismally off the broken walls. Their helm plumes waved slightly in the breeze as they gazed through the openings in their shields upon the stained docks. There was no sign the city was inhabited. Tezmon was silent as a necropolis, mound-city of tombs and unvoiced ghosts.
Elpharaka behind him murmured something about the warships. Three Rukorian warships, the fastest of their class, had followed them at a distance from Tarendahardil, wary of the barbarians’ ships. But no other sails had been sighted. Softly Ampeánor bade Elpharaka tell the topmen signal the warships to wait at anchor outside the harbor, lest they find themselves penned in there. The captain nodded, and went to issue the necessary orders.
A shadow crossed Ampeánor’s back, cold and dark. The Gerso charan was descending from the afterdeck, opulent in robes of the latest fashion, scarlet, gold and azure, with a yellow braided wig after the style of the Vapionil.
‘Greetings, my lord,’ he said amiably. ‘And does your luck still hold?’ His eyes roved the stiff backs of the guardsmen, and he chuckled. At that sound the lancemen shifted in their places uneasily, the way a line of tethered noble horses will move when the disquieting scent of a predator is borne unto their wide nostrils. To laugh before battle, it was held in Rukor, was to invite the hostility of dark God.
Ampeánor eyed the Gerso sharply. ‘Surely you do not intend to go so attired before Gen-Karn?’
The Gerso smiled lazily. ‘Such is the purpose for which I had my servant purchase it.’
‘I thought you knew these barbarians. They judge by clothes, not character. All they will see of you will be a set of fancy robes passing before them.’
‘Well, my lord, it grieves me so to displease you, but it would seem too late to change my fashion now.’
A rustling had begun to issue from the ruins. Far up, at the ends of the broken streets, shapes were approaching the wharves. Gradually they gathered and crept forward, until it could be perceived that they wore the shape of men.
Unkempt hair hung over knotted shoulders, white teeth glinted out of ragged beards. They gathered on the stone wharf, eying the ship sullenly. Their dirty limbs were clad in motley bits of looted armor and rags. Ugly weapons were in their fists. Coarse muttering rose from them toward the men aboard the ship, with now and then a shout. More of them came, and more, like rats in the cloaca collecting about the legs of the workman with his lantern, their sharp eyes red with delight. They swarmed the dock, leaping up and down, surging back and forth, their voices rising, shouting at and insulting the lancemen. The tumult grew oppressive in the still heavy air. Arrows were shot at the masts. One arrow struck into the railing, right between a sailor’s fingers – he leapt back, cursing his surprise. At this a laughing cheer burst from those hundreds of bestial throats and the men swarmed nearer, chanting and gibbering, their voices rising in a frenzy Ampeánor knew would end in an assault on the ship. He glanced at the white sails of the warships, so far away.
‘Shall we force them back, lord?’ asked Ferrakador, bristling under the effort to hold in his wrath.
‘Something has happened,’ muttered Elpharaka. ‘Gen-Karn is not here. It might be wise to drop out to harbor somewhat, my lord, before any fighting breaks out.’ He spoke loudly, to be heard over the din.
Ampeánor shook his head. ‘We can show no fear before such as these. If Gen-Karn does watch, he means this as a test. Yet they will attack soon.’ He gripped his lance tightly, unsure what to do.
The din mounted. Suddenly the Gerso stepped forward above the beast-men, raising his hand. ‘We bring you greetings,’ he shouted in the barbarian tongue, ‘in the name of great Elna!’
Whether it was something in his voice, or eye, or the name of Elna, his words gave them a pause. The din died down, and the crowds fell back uncertainly, muttering and growling.
Just then a new sound echoed from the shadowed ruins, shrill as of horns. New barbarians appeared, taller, sleeker, men in fine armor. They beat back the motley beast-men, forcing a way down to the ship. The beast-men gave way grudgingly, fear and sullen hatred in their wild eyes.
Again the horns: and down the street came a formation of marching men. Behind them rode a black-maned giant of a man astride a demon warhorse.
Ampeánor relaxed. ‘Gen-Karn,’ he informed his companions.
The formation neared the ship and a low chant arose to greet it: ‘Gen-Karn, Gen-Karn, Gen-Karn!’ The newcomers raised the chant, pride in their harsh voices; but the others on the docks were silent.
Gen-Karn reached the ship, so tall upon his great stallion that his eyes were almost at a level with those aboard. His eyes swept the deck, lighting upon Ampeánor. ‘Greetings, my friend,’ he roared. ‘So you have returned! You have the gold?’
‘We have the gold, King Gen-Karn.’
‘Karn-Gen-Karn!’ The barbarian laughed. ‘It is good you deal with a man and not a madman, eh? With Karn and not Kaan – a king and not a god, eh, my friend? The barge-robber would have held treachery close; but Karn-Gen-Karn greets you with open arms!’
‘Her majesty, the Divine Queen in Tarendahardil, sends her warm regards,’ responded Ampeánor. ‘Together she is sure we shall gain a great victory.’
‘Ha! A true word! Have your men put back their lances, lord. The rabble will give you no trouble. My men can control the dogs.’
‘Are they not also your men, O king?’
‘Nay! They are but Buzrahs and Raznami and like filth. They followed snapping at my heels like dogs at a hunter’s feet; but like the dogs they have their uses. Order your men to begin unloading the gold; mine will bear it up to my palace. Later, when you have feasted and rested with me as honored guests, I will fill your holds with as many bows and death-birds as you can stomach!’
The Gerso murmured in Ampeánor’s ear, ‘My lord, are you sure you can trust such a man? Demand some surety of him first, before we begin unloading the gold.’
‘I know him better, Charan Kandi. He fancies himself civilized; but if we show distrust, he might storm the ship and take the gold by force. No: trust him we must, so trust him we shall. There are no gains without gambles. We must trust to Goddess and our luck. Captain, detail your men to begin unshipping the gold.’
The captain nodded dubiously, and gave the orders. The seamen swung down the planks, and Ampeánor, the Gerso, Ferrakador, and ten of the lancemen went down before Gen-Karn upon his steed. To the king Ampeánor introduced his companions. Ferrakador nodded shortly, raising his fist in military salute; the Gerso bowed low as a courtier, the curls of his wig falling toward the stone. Gen-Karn nodded to the lanceman, gave a short, contemptuous look at the still-bowing Gerso, and turned his back.
‘This is my sunward man,’ he said, indicating a tall, evil-looking barbarian. ‘Sol-Dat will see to the handling of the gold. Kings do not bother with such trifles, eh? Come!’ he cried, wheeling the great horse about. ‘Let us go to my palace and feast our alliance!’
He led them up streets strewn with filth, through the deserted marketplace and past gutted buildings, out of whose charred walls stared the poor surviving Tezmonians. Gen-Karn roared at the Tezmonians, laughing to see them dart timidly back into their holes. ‘Mind you none of this,’ he shouted to Ampeánor. ‘My men are warriors, not sweepslaves. But return in a year, and this will shine forth like the Tarendahardil of the North!’
Behind him, Ampeánor thanked the Gerso for his timely intervention at the dock. ‘How did you know how to stop the attack of those rabble?’
‘I didn’t,’ smiled the Gerso. ‘It was just a trick of luck.’
‘I wish you had had greater fortune with Gen-Karn. A civilized man must act aloof to these barbarians, else they will feel contempt for him. Now Gen-Karn will think you a pretty fop and scarcely notice you; and his contempt will also touch us.’
‘Then, my lord, I shall have to think of some way to regain his respect.’
In the banquet hall of the mayor’s mansion they gathered anew, and filled the low benches before the long tables in the fashion of barbarians. Against the far wall the gold was piling, glimmering in sun and lamplight like the hair of the Queen herself. Ampeánor sat upon the right hand of Gen-Karn, with Ferrakador upon his right. The Gerso had been seated well down the side table among the barbarians in motley armor, those few who were not Orns who had been admitted: an insult he did not seem to take to heart. He sat among the ragged bestial men in all his opulent fineries, holding converse with them in their own tongue. Over the din, Ampeánor could not hear what words the Gerso used, but noticed they were received with some weight by the barbarians.
As they ate they were entertained with sword-fights and a combat between a huge-chested, naked barbarian and a great yellow and black bear, the kind called by the barbarians a king bear. The barbarian slapped the enraged beast about, playfully; then slipped behind to gain a clever hold and flexed his great thews. There was a loud, ugly crack, and the beast slumped to the bloodied straw upon the floor.
‘Hail Ura-Dat!’ Gen-Karn bellowed, pounding the table with his winecup. ‘Not Gundoen in his prime might have bettered it!’
Other cheers rose from the tables as the wrestler held aloft his heavy, sweat- and blood-streaked arms, drinking in the praise. Even Ampeánor found himself caught up in the excitement of the bloody spectacle. But he noticed that the Gerso, sitting among the sullenly silent lesser barbarians, acted bored and disdainful.
Then Gen-Karn stood, and all the boisterous men were stilled. ‘Now, my lord,’ he addressed Ampeánor, ‘please to accept this of me.’ From his great hairy fist hung an object, the cruelly curving tooth of some monstrous beast, greater than a man’s outstretched hand. ‘A Darkbeast-tooth,’ Gen-Karn boasted. ‘Few enough have seen such a thing; rarer still he who has the right to wear one. Two-score warriors accompanied me beyond the Dusky Border where the light of Goddess never ventures: and we slew our Darkbeast, but only seventeen made the journey back sitting astride their ponies. Wear it with pride, my lord, that your illustrious sovereign, the Golden Woman of the South, may see it and know the bravery of Karn-Gen-Karn!’
A silence fell deep athwart the hall as Ampeánor accepted the token. There was surprise upon the stern faces of the Orns; anger upon those of the lower men. Ennius Kandi pointed, and spoke to his neighbors low words, at which they nodded. Then one man stood and said angrily, ‘O Chief, will you give this to an outlander and a Southron lord? What has he done, that he should have council-rights among us?’
Gen-Karn’s brows fell, and anger bubbled through the scarred countenance. But then Sol-Dat rose to his feet with a full winecup and said, ‘Ren-Gora, take some other time to boast of all your doings: if you think you have a right to wear one, go northward and get your own Darkbeast-tooth! What chieftain have we ever known who has shown such generosity and kingliness? This is our true Warlord! You wenches, bring forth more barrels and clay jugs, that we may rightly hail our king!’ And the promise of more wine cheered them, so that their roar filled the ribbed hall, drowning out the protests of Ren-Gora, chieftain of the Raznami tribe.
§
AFTER THE FEAST, they met in the council chambers behind the banquet hall: Gen-Karn, Sol-Dat and some Orn guards upon one side, and Ampeánor, Ennius Kandi and Ferrakador with two lancemen on the other. There they argued policy.
Gen-Karn told of how his spies sowed dissent among the greater tribes in the camp of Ara-Karn in the South: and how, before the year’s end, there would be wholesale defections to him and his standard.
‘For mark you,’ he said, setting down the heavy winecup chased with gold, ‘mark you, my lord, the tribes are not wild for this unending warfare. It is Ara-Karn whose madness drives them on, and his lackey Gundoen’s commands. Yet I have sent word among them of peace: not to trust in dice or God’s pleasure to sustain us forever, but rather sign pacts with all the cities of the South and have naught to do with lands below the Taril. And the warriors, who have wealth and women now, like this word of mine. They know me, and remember my years as Warlord – better than these!’ So he barked to his evil lieutenant’s avid approval, and gulped another mouthful of wine.
‘Yet why then do you hesitate?’ Ampeánor asked. ‘Ara-Karn and the others are now sundered from the North by the Taril. You have heard the latest reports we have had out of Postio, of how Ara-Karn’s forces were thrown back, with heavy losses. My Rukorian warships control the Sea of Elna. Think not that your fellow tribesmen will dare essay the sands of the Taril during High Summer, especially afflicted as they must be – rather they will have to wait until winter comes again. Until then, you alone, Gen-Karn, have power here in the North. Deliver the other cities: chop off the legs of Ara-Karn!’
A light gleamed for a moment in the barbarian’s black eyes; then he frowned and shook his thick beard. ‘Nay,’ he rumbled, ‘nay. Go not so fast, Southron! You do not understand. Gundoen dared not attack me here last winter, though he had men enough and time to make a try for us, because he knew the other chiefs would grow uneasy and come to my standard. They like not overlords. If I did as you now say, then all the other tribes would hold to Ara-Karn’s tent until they drowned in their own fellows’ blood. Will you have me throw away all I have won?’
‘Yet if you think your men not sufficient, your majesty, we will be glad to lend you the use of Rukorian lancers. The Queen, I know, would be glad to serve you so.’
‘Would she? Has she said so? Ah, if I could but meet with her! But nay, it will not do. Am I to war upon my fellow tribesmen with Southrons at my side? That is the way of the barge-robber, not Karn-Gen-Karn!’ And so saying he looked sideways at his guards, noting their looks, which before had been uneasy, and now were fully approving. But Ampeánor had seen the glint of fear in Gen-Karn’s eyes when he had spoken of Ara-Karn.
‘What do you mean, your majesty?’ he asked.
Gen-Karn wiped at his lips. ‘Why, that the barge-robber has swollen his ranks with mercenary Southrons,’ he said with a shrug.
‘Renegades? Are you certain of this?’
‘Gen-Karn does not lie, Southron,’ Sol-Dat said.
‘Southrons always were willing to betray their own for gold,’ Gen-Karn said. ‘Such rabble are beneath the notice of kings and great men such as ourselves. It is mostly these, with older and halting tribesmen, which make up the garrisons in the cities of the North; and doubtless it was mostly such that fell heaviest at Postio.’
‘And do you know any of their numbers, my lord?’
Gen-Karn shrugged. ‘My spies have given them me. Here,’ he stabbed a wine-stained forefinger on the map before the Gerso. ‘Write as I direct, man, and you shall hear the knowledge of the King of Tezmon as token of his good faith!’ So upon his fingers he toted the numbers of Ara-Karn’s men abiding in the fallen cities of the North, as he swallowed more wine; and the silent Gerso noted them down.
‘And yet,’ Ampeánor said slowly, regarding the barbarian’s face, ‘it is a shame, your majesty, that with all your brave warriors here you dare not take these cities for your own.’
Gen-Karn snorted, the way a bull will when it lifts its dripping muzzle from the water. He ran his forefinger down the crevice of the long scar. ‘Is this the mark of a fearful man, think you? And yet with all his tricks, the barge-robber could not rive me of life! My luck was too strong, or his heart too faint for that: nor think the tribes forget that. Give the fallen to the sightless worms: so the law says. Else is the old Warlord Warlord still: and that is me! It is but my men, my lord. These Buzrahs and the filth that followed me – even men among my own Orns – think of this barge-robber as the face and fist of God. Oh, Gundoen is clever, and the Pious One did his work well: but not all of that will outlast another Assembly. Then I will carve him daintily, chop by joint!’
Gen-Karn gulped down the slopping wine. Thick and harsh were his words now, and his eyes blazed like pyres. When Ampeánor told him they meant to leave after the longsleep if all went well, Gen-Karn flew into a fury, overturning the heavy oaken table with one arm and striking a cowering slave-maiden senseless to the floor. He swayed then, upon heavy legs, and fell crashing beside her.
Then the Orn guards came forward and lifted him in their arms. They bore him out into the empty banquet hall, and laid him upon the table before his great throne, where he had sat to eat. At the far end of the hall, the high stacks of gold glittered in the light of fire and Goddess.
‘Will he be well?’ Ampeánor asked.
Sol-Dat grunted. ‘It is ever the way with him now, to fall asleep with wine; yet in Orn, in the far North, he ever scorned the old men and their beer. Two ship’s jugs he has had: look at it sloshing in his fat belly! He fattens as a Southron; and loves his dancing wenches better than blades or battle now.’
Ampeánor looked from the outstretched body of the giant to the face of the lieutenant, and it seemed to him he had seen such a look of sly, ambitious scorn before, upon the faces of Vapionil herb-sellers.
Sol-Dat spat upon the floor. ‘Shortly he will wake moody, sullen and fearful. It is not a good thing to be about when he wakes: ask the slaves that! Let him wake with his gold, Southron. The slaves will clean the mess.’
The Rukorians returned to their chambers in the upper story. Now it was the first hour of the longsleep: Ampeánor set the watches with Ferrakador and heard messages from Elpharaka at the ship. All the gold had been unshipped, the messages went, and the bundles of bows, barrels of arrows, and supplies were being taken aboard. The crew would work through the sleep to ensure that all would be ready for the tide’s change.
The lancemen had drawn heavy hangings across the opening to the balcony, steeping the room in soft gloom. Those whose watch was not yet begun, laid themselves upon couches and the floor to sleep. Ferrakador stood without the door with the watch, wary of any treacheries. Ampeánor took up the copper tube with the map, and stepped out upon the balcony. Below him were the gardens of the inner courtyard and the great outer doors of the banquet hall.
He thought of Allissál then, and of her anger with him when he had departed. Then he had thought she but cursed Dornan Ural for his foolish obstinacy in refusing to confirm him as General Extraordinary; but now he knew some of it had been meant for him. Yet what else could he have done? Surely he was not responsible for Dornan Ural’s every oddity? He remembered the vows he had sworn in the prison of this city: vows as yet unfulfilled. The period of mourning for Elnavis, which would last a year, had delayed him; but when that was over, he would go to her and declare his love. Once again he swore it, his fist a tight ball touching his brow after the manner of suppliants before the statue of Goddess in the Temple.
The hangings behind him parted to reveal the Gerso. ‘My lord,’ he said quietly, ‘I will wish you fair sleep now, and retreat to my dimchamber.’
‘Did you find the voyage wearying, Charan Kandi?’
‘No, my lord: I was glad to be at sea again. I was born at sea, you know.’
‘Gerso is a long way from the sea, charan.’
‘I reached Gerso eventually.’
Ampeánor looked at the man closely, feeling his curiosity stirred. Surely Qhelvin could not have been so mistaken about him. ‘Tell me something of yourself, charan. As a youth I traveled to Gerso. It is part of the pilgrimage of the Imperial highborn to go on what we call the Route of Elna, beginning in Bollakarvil and ending at the great Gates of Gerso. But, of course, as a Gerso yourself, you knew that.’
‘Of course.’
‘I made good friends there – perhaps we have some in common. One man in particular, I recall, Charan Fallchio, a highborn merchant, than whom there was no more honorable man in the world.’
‘My lord, I cannot say I ever knew the man. I was never one for the company of honorable men. In fact, I never met one. But if you recall any of the more notable brothelkeepers – Orand dal Epharlen, or Kiva Haril?’
‘Of them I know nothing,’ Ampeánor replied brusquely. He drew out the rolled map and examined it, aware of the Gerso’s strange eyes upon him. Casually he asked the Gerso what he had thought of Gen-Karn.
The Gerso smiled. ‘I thought he would make you a worthy ally.’
‘And are you not curious as to how he got such a hideous scar?’
‘I assumed it was in combat with his betters.’
‘It was in a duel with Ara-Karn he received that scar, when Ara-Karn wrested from him the rule of all the tribes of the far North. And it is that scar, which he must bear openly before the sight of all men, which so inflames his hatred of Ara-Karn. Whenever he beholds his own image, it reminds him how his foe humiliated him: it is why he allows no mirrors about him. He hates Ara-Karn even more than we, with a hatred as great as the chest of a man can withhold.’
The Gerso nodded, and looked below them. Beneath the balcony were the oval gardens and fountain that once had been Armand’s. Goddess sent down Her shafts among the verdure, and the blossoms opened to greet Her.
‘You were very quiet when we were before the barbarian,’ Ampeánor noted. ‘I hope that your hatred against these, for all they took from you, does not blind you to the advantages of dealing with this one barbarian. He did not lead them into Gerso, Charan Kandi – that was another. And Gen-Karn will help us against your larger enemy, Ara-Karn.’
The Gerso nodded, but did not speak right away. Still he looked down the ornately carved wall of the mansion, studying the quiet peace of the garden. At length, ‘I understand you, my lord,’ he said. ‘But are these bows so vital to your interests?’
‘You have seen what they can do, and ask that? Why, they alter the very nature of combat. A pauper could down a king with one. Even so brave a man as yourself, if you had a bow and knew its use, could slay the awesome Ara-Karn, all by yourself!’
The Gerso smiled palely at that. ‘You may be sure, my lord, that I will do my best. Now it is late, and the tide will turn before the second meal.’
‘Of course. Go to your dimchamber and sleep. I confess that the spectacle of that feast, and all the prospects of our gains here, will not let me sleep. With these bows, and the alliance of Tezmon, we have won a great victory here, greater even than you know.’
The Gerso rose, but did not leave just then. ‘My lord,’ he asked, ‘would you answer me a question? I know why her majesty is so eager to war upon the barbarians. Yet you, alone of all the regents, support her in it. Why?’
Ampeánor smiled. ‘The menace of the barbarians is rightly the concern of us all, Ennius. Yet beyond that, I have a debt to settle with Ara-Karn: a debt of vengeance.
‘My ancestor Torval, who fought at the side of great Elna all the way to Urnostardil, once went against one of the barbarian kings, whose name was Born-Karn. There is an ancient Rukorian ballad about it: the ballad tells that Torval was defeated, and forced to step down from Urnostardil to save his life, in the final battle against the few remaining barbarians, when even Elna was forced to give back and forego his strong vows. It is this dishonor I must avenge upon Ara-Karn.’
‘Then pray to dark God,’ suggested the Gerso. ‘Is it not said that He hears all such prayers of vengeance?’ He did not await an answer, but stepped into the chamber and drew the hangings behind him.
Slowly the High Charan of Rukor shook his head, wondering about the man. He opened the map and read the marks the Gerso had put down there, deciphering with difficulty the man’s odd style of script. So many barbarians were in Eliorite with so many renegades; so many in Mersaline. He compared the figures with what he recalled Gen-Karn had said; apparently the Gerso had put it all down correctly.
He shook his head, filled with images of that barbaric feast. Still he could not sleep. Being here, among these barbarians, woke strange feelings in him, dangerous longings. He grew impatient at the delays of Dornan Ural, when all he really wanted was to meet the barbarians on the field of battle.
He drew forth and held the Darkbeast-tooth in the returning sunlight. He had thought it ugly at first, yet now he found it strangely, cruelly beautiful. He thought of Ara-Karn. Perhaps, before all was done, he would have the fortune to meet the man and challenge him in combat. The image of it swam before his eyes, like the final reward of all his lifetime’s training and abstinence. And in that contemplation he fell at last into slumber, warmed by Goddess on the balcony.
So was he unaware of the soft sounds that came from farther down the wall. There two hands and a head emerged from the narrow opening of a dimchamber window: and they were the head and hands of Ennius Kandi. He looked where Ampeánor slept, and smiled. Carefully he emerged from the window.
The walls of the mansion of Armand the Fat were beautiful with designs carved deeply into the stone. With strong fingers the Gerso gripped these decorations, and crawled down the wall. There was but the slightest of sound to mark his descent, a sound a passing wind from the dark horizon might have made. Above him on the balcony, the High Charan of Rukor dreamed on.
The Gerso straightened his gaudy robes. Before him rose the doors of the banquet hall – behind him the overgrown garden. Quietly he opened the wide, lovely doors and closed them behind him.
Some flames still hissed within the hearth; but aside from this, there was no sound within the long, high chamber. Along the wall beside the doors, the accumulated gold gleamed smilingly under the slanting light of Goddess-sun. The long tables were yet half-strewn with food and vessels. A gray rat moved silently among the platters, sampling the many offerings. Only one other sound accompanied the hissing of the flames: Gen-Karn lay upon his back on the high table before his seat, and snored and wheezed. The heavy black beard, so horribly cut away along the side Ara-Karn’s blade had fallen, moved faintly with the muttering movements of his lips.
Over the sleeping man, he shook a small silver plate, so that the three embers he had gathered from the fire over-leapt the rim and fell upon the broad, sighing belly of Gen-Karn. There they settled, thin ribbons of dark smoke rising from them. Eagerly they ate into the blackening linen tunic.
Gen-Karn snorted as if he smelled the reek of the burning; then growled sharply and swept his belly clean, sitting bolt-upright. For a moment, his great dark eyes were liquid with drink and incomprehension; then he blinked, and growled without meaning at the shape that stood before him.
Ennius Kandi nodded, and threw the yellow braided Vapionil wig to the floor. ‘Now do you know me, Northling?’
The mouth of Gen-Karn fell open all the way.
Again the Gerso nodded. ‘I see you do. What has become, I wonder, of all the fine brave words you spoke when Gerso burned? Gone with the palaces of that city, I suppose.’ He reached to the table with his sword, and struck it with a little ringing sound against Gen-Karn’s blade. ‘And now,’ he muttered, ‘I think it is time that Gen-Karn was rewarded for all his crimes and blasphemies. Don’t you?’
§
FERRAKADOR woke Ampeánor before the sleep was over with word that the ship’s hold was fully stocked with food and bows, and that they need hasten to catch the tide. When they had eaten, they descended in order to take leave of Gen-Karn. But the doors of the banquet hall were still barred and guarded by three Orns. Sol-Dat only shrugged to their questions and demands.
‘He’s in there alone, his head bursting with wine. He usually comes around thus. He woke in the sleep and called for wine – he must have been mad with it: the guards heard him later, roaring and upsetting all the benches. No man has dared enter there yet. But if you want to wake him just to tell him you’re leaving, and like as not get a sword in your soft guts for your pains, go on.’
So they descended again the haunted streets of ruined Tezmon, surrounded by ash and the poor of the city, and the motley beast-men glaring. Captain Elpharaka greeted Ampeánor, greatly relieved to see him safe, and gave orders to unship the oars and push the ship out of the empty harbor on the wings of the tide.
‘The ragged barbarians tried to storm the ship once,’ the captain told Ampeánor. ‘But the lancemen and the Orns left to guard us had no difficulty with them. All the supplies are good: I had every barrel and sack examined to make sure. Also I had the Orns show us that the weapons were usable. Gen-Karn seems to have kept his word. Now if only we are not attacked by the barbarians of Ara-Karn on the way out. For he must be watching this city.’
Yet they swept past the awe-inspiring barriers of white stone and met with the warships without incident, and alone, in a triangular formation with the merchantman in the center, they sailed south across the undulating sea.
Seven passes they sailed, and saw no sight of any ship of Ara-Karn’s. Ampeánor could not resist opening one of the bundles of bows and having his lancemen practice the use of them amidships. But on the eighth pass Elpharaka came to Ampeánor, and there was a dour expression on his grizzled face.
‘My lord, a storm is coming, and a bad one. I do not worry for this ship – she has weathered worse storms than this one bodes to be. The warships concern me, with their low lines.’
‘How can you be sure a storm broods?’ Ampeánor asked.
‘I know, my lord. Look to those clouds on the dark horizon, and see how they pile and threaten. Trust an old seahorse for this. I like it very little. The warships will have a hard time of it.’
‘How far are we from Rukor?’
‘Had the winds stayed at our backs, we had come within sight of the Isles in another three passes. Do you remember the campaigns against the pirates we fought among these Isles, lord? Be sure, they will never be so bold again!’
‘I remember,’ said Ampeánor fondly. ‘Signal the warships to row with all speed for Torvalinal. We are far enough from the danger of any barbarian, I think. We will follow with what speed we may.’
‘That is well, my Charan.’
The storm came upon them shortly after the last of the warships had disappeared over the lip of the sea. Winds gusting and cold drove violet-green clouds across the sky. The ship fell into darkness deeper than the dusky border. God was lost from sight, and Goddess dimmed to no more than a vague glow upon one end of the vault of heaven; then the clouds piled higher and fell lower, and even She was obscured. The winds turned and twisted, driving the ship over high swells. Vague ominous thunderings came from behind the winds, and the sailors muttered among themselves, recalling old sea-songs of ships driven over the dark horizon, to be swallowed by monstrous reptilian fishes. Yet the Gerso, wandering the decks, only laughed at their unease; whereat the sailors made the Sign of Goddess to ward off his evil influence.
With a clap the rains came, pouring out of heaven as if the whole bowl of the sea had been inverted. The ship’s decks were awash with rain and sea, she was torn to port, to starboard, she ascended mountainous swells and pitched headlong down their farther sides. The crewmen swarmed over the decks, reefing the sails, lashing the coverings of the holds, passing buckets down to bail the holds. The Gerso laughed again, in such tones that even Ampeánor shuddered to hear him. ‘And does your luck still hold, my lord?’ the Gerso asked.
Like a mountain aspen’s leaf, torn by the boiling storm from its mother-branch and spun with swirling gusts over valleys unseen beneath the deep-falling rains, the ship was hurled across the blackened sea. Lightnings flashed to every side, illuminating the harsh, heaving, sunless seascape. In the captain’s cabin Elpharaka pored over a curling map beneath the yellowed light of a swinging lamp, vainly striving to discern where they might be. The waves beat drums against the side of the ship. Yet even so the hull held, and developed no great leaks; and the bailing of the lancemen and the crew kept the ship up in the water.
So a pass fled, or perhaps two; and there was no rest for the hollow-eyed men.
Then, as the men fought on to hold the ship back from her running course, a sound came dully to their watery ears, one more ominous than all the others they had heard, so that at first their hearts denied it. But again it sounded, so that there could be no doubt. It was the booming of a great surf. Again the yellow-green lightning cracked – and there was revealed to them reefs of darkly shining rocks awaiting them. Elpharaka came on deck and looked forth, and his craggy, sodden countenance fell. ‘If the lines do not hold, and if the rowers cannot force the ship against the waves, we will be driven aground,’ he said.
He bawled out commands, holding fast to the railing by the helm. Long since the golden awnings had been snatched up in the winds’ jaws. The helmsman lashed to the post of the tiller strove with all the muscles in his back and legs to bring the ship about; below, the lancemen crowded in with the crew upon the low wooden benches, pulling desperately at the limber oars battling the currents of that black sea and the breath of that monstrous wind.
The wind howled, and the sound of those evil breakers grew. Ampeánor gripped the slick railing angrily, lifting his face into the pelting rain. Then of a sudden, the wind fell off a bit and the rowers gained heart, and strove the fiercer. And they began to make gradual headway against the sea. The beater raised his call in a cheer, and even the weary captain relaxed somewhat.
Then it was that a strange and dismal cry arose from below decks. ‘A leak!’ came the voice. ‘There is a leak in the hold, and the sea is pouring in!’
‘Impossible!’ shouted Elpharaka. ‘Her hull is stronger than that!’
‘Perhaps we struck a submerged reef,’ shouted the helmsman. ‘How large a leak?’ he roared. ‘Can you not stopper it?’
‘Lost, lost!’ came the frantic cry from below. ‘There are two leaks, each as big as a harlot’s thigh!’
‘Can you not bail it?’ Ampeánor demanded of the captain.
‘Not if the men are rowing,’ shouted the captain back. ‘Already we’ve lost a forearm’s length to the sea! As we go down, she responds less and less to the oars! My lord, this ship is done for!’ He shouted orders: straightway a dozen men leaped from the rowing-benches and went to the shoreboat, loading it with two barrels of arrows and bundles of bows; but the aft-rearing ship rammed suddenly into a reef with a sickening sound, pitching violently to one side.
The shoreboat swung out over the abyss and the lines supporting it – they must have been rotten from the storm – snapped. The shoreboat plunged into the waves. The swells took the ship and hurled her against the reef again, and the sound of rending planks and beams rose above the thunder of the surf.
Again the captain and Ampeánor gave orders, that the barrels be lashed together and thrown shoreward. Valiantly on the pitching, lowering ship, Ferrakador’s lancemen sought to obey the commands, while the seamen strove with oars and boat-hooks to stave off the rocks from the ship’s wounded side; yet the deck’s wild movements took all sureness from the men’s legs. The ship lurched heavily against the rocks, and the oars were wrenched from the seamen’s grips.
By the helm, Elpharaka turned to Ampeánor. ‘There is no more to be done in the time we have, my lord,’ he said. ‘Shall I let the men go?’
Desperately Ampeánor shook his head. ‘No – no – we cannot lose those bows!’
‘Then we shall be lost with them,’ the captain said sadly.
Ampeánor leapt down, falling on the slick and slanting deck. He rose, and tried to help the lancers salvage the precious cargo; but in such confusion not even such troops might work well. Another swell swung the ship and ground her against the rocks; a gush of black water boiled up through the forward hatch, and the men were sent sprawling. A flood caught Ampeánor and he felt himself washed swiftly toward the side – he flailed his arms, caught a secured length of rope and held to it with all his strength.
From his position on the afterdeck, Elpharaka now at last gave the signal, releasing the men. The sailors went first, and then the lancers, casting aside their armor before they leapt. Ampeánor, gasping and choking on seawater as he held to the rope, was almost alone upon the main deck now. The cover of the afterhold broke its hinges, and several of the last barrels of arrows leapt out and danced upon the heaving deck, as if maddened by spirits – then smashed through the railings and were gone overboard.
The ship rolled back more evenly, and the Gerso suddenly appeared in the gleam of a burst of lightning, drenched to the bone, a wild light in his glowing eyes, and his naked arms dirtied as from the bilge of the holds.
‘I’ve been below!’ he shouted in Ampeánor’s ear above the rending of the ship’s hull. ‘We’re done for now, come and swim for it!’ He began to drag Ampeánor toward the broken railing.
‘But the bows!’ cried Ampeánor, holding fast to the rope. ‘We cannot abandon them!’
‘Cannot your Gen-Karn fashion you more bows? Yet I’ll not argue with you!’ He caught up Ampeánor bodily as if he were a child, and aided by a sudden rocking of the ship, hurled him over into the water.
Ampeánor was buried in the coldness of the water, turned over and about by the ferocious currents; he was slammed against the mossy side of the hull, and thrown back against the rocks, which caught at his legs with avid jaws, tearing into his flesh. Down he was pulled, below the ship; the air escaped his mouth, and he tasted salt in his lungs; and a sound as of a hideous mocking laughter filled his ears.
He broke from the surface, gasping and forlorn. His long hair covered his eyes; with a toss of his head he threw it back. He looked about: the sky was lightening but gloom-ridden still. Above him he could see the black mass of the foundering ship, and above it, a figure convulsing like an image torn from a madman’s dream, the Gerso Ennius Kandi, sole possessor now of the lost Rukorian merchantman. Another wave buried Ampeánor, he fought back to the surface, slipping out of his sodden, heavy tunic. By the sound of the surf he knew the direction of the shore and struck out for it.
He fought in darkness against cold waves, sharp rocks and bubbling foam. Now each time he brought his head above the level of the waves and drank in sweet air it was a victory. His leg throbbed where the reef had bitten it; the water filled his roaring ears. His despair broke from him in the fury of his actions. He fought a primeval battle as old as man and the sea; and he, Ampeánor of the house of Torval, exulted in it. No longer was he the man who had withheld himself by the calm mountain pool beholding the nakedness of his queen; he was a man as old as the Empire itself, as bold as Elna: Torval reborn, whose brawny arms and shoulders beat back even the waves of the storm-driven sea. His arms thrashed, his legs kicked and found the bottom; and weighted with the water streaming from his back he rose above the level of the sea, and slogged clumsily past the rocks.
He looked back through the lightening gloom, searching for the ship; but already the sea had claimed her. She upon whom he had relied had been torn back into the abyss. Even from this distance he could hear the rending of her last planks and the forlorn drowning cries of her seamen hurled upon the jagged, evil rocks. The hold had long since burst open, and now her contents, the precious bales of arrows and bows, were being scattered about on the vast floor of Elna’s Sea.
Dizziness swam over his head, and his knees trembled with weariness. Naked he dragged himself up the beach a ways and fell upon the sand asleep.
§
HE WOKE with the summer sun burning his back, and the raucous cries of sea-birds in his ears. He sat up slowly on the hot, dry sand, blinking against the shimmering sunlight off the sand and sea. Save for a few high fleecy clouds the sky was clear, but the sea still heaved from the effects of the storm. All along the beach were scattered bits of wreckage and the bodies of dead sailors, washing to and fro in shallow salt pools.
‘Good-waking,’ said a cheerful voice.
He looked behind him. Sitting astride a low rock and swinging one leg, the Gerso brightly regarded him.
‘How many others?’ were Ampeánor’s first words.
Ennius Kandi shook his head. ‘Only we two. The others must have all been dragged down by the currents and slain upon the sharp rocks. Some of your lancemen even look as if their throats have been cut. Oh, those rocks must be sharp as daggers.’
‘But Elpharaka, who was an excellent swimmer?’
‘Dead.’
‘Ferrakador, my greatest captain?’
‘Dead.’
‘And the arrows and bows, for which we paid and lost so much?’
‘Lost.’
The pain burned in his leg. Through the wavering lines of his vision he beheld the wound, an oozing black mess speckled with salt and sand.
‘Can you walk, my lord? There is a freshwater stream beyond that headland. There you can drink and cleanse your wounds. Are you hungry? I have some shellfish here.’
Ampeánor shook his head. ‘I have no need for food or drink now, Gerso.’ He groaned. With great effort, he rose on his knees and fell forward. His salt-ragged hair fell across his face. Painfully he dug his knuckles into the hard sand. Perhaps, if he had had all his senses about him, Ampeánor would have thought it odd that the Gerso, a man from an inland city, should have survived when all the seamen had perished; yet now there was only pain and grief within his heart.
He thought only that he, the leader of the expedition, still lived when his men had been killed – that he had survived, who had slain his friends and failed his Queen. Hot bitter tears forced their painful way into his eyes. His stomach turned, and for a moment he wanted only to shut out all light and life, and expire.
With his hand held like a claw, he raked away the muck upon his leg’s wound, feeling the pain strike him shatteringly, like the blow of a well-cast lance. The raucous cries of the birds filled his ears like a scream, and he fell forward on the strand.
Above him, Ennius Kandi looked out to sea to the remnants of the wreck. With a slight wry smile he tossed the shellfish about on the sand, and watched for some moments as the avid birds descended to feast upon his careless bounty.
§
AMPEÁNOR lay for some time in the wide bed in the gloom, midway between sleep and wakefulness, aware of the place yet not of time. He lay upon his right side. Then he turned back, inward toward the river of the mattress, and saw where Allissál lay, her form a soft pattern of shade and vague outlines. The light in the corner of her eye showed she waked and regarded him pensively. He could just make out her smile when she beheld him: she reached up and tenderly stroked his hair away from his damp forehead. He wanted to speak to her, but all he could think to say was in reference to their political ambitions.
We have done much together, you know, he said, in spite of all our setbacks.
I know, she answered softly. I know, my love.
§
AGAIN, the scream of sea-birds assaulted his ears. Ampeánor awoke to the bright light beyond the doorway. He smelled the salt and the freshness of the air. Uncertainly he rose, and dragged himself out of the half-ruined hut. The Gerso was sitting outside, gutting a large blue fish.
‘How long?’ Ampeánor asked.
‘Three passes. We are not far from the wreck – I found this old fisher’s hut. I clothed you in some of the sailors’ garb, yet they fit poorly, I am afraid.’
Ampeánor sat on the rock beside him. He examined his wound, which the Gerso had cleaned and dressed well. It was healing, but it had been a deep cut, and would not be wholly healed for a long time. The wind pushed through his hair, and the memory of the dream returned. And now it seemed to him as though it were the wreck and the deaths that were dream and unreality.
He said, in the tone of a man uttering for the first time a truth he has only just discovered, ‘All is not lost, you know. Allissál loves me.’
The Gerso cut deeper into the tough, squirming flesh of the fish, holding the hilt of his jade dagger like a murderer. ‘Of course she does, my lord,’ he said quietly. ‘I see it in her eyes each time she beholds you. I can still recall the joy with which she greeted you when you last returned from Tezmon. You would have to do something very terrible for her to lose such a love.’
‘And had I died now, upon this task for her, she would have always mourned me,’ Ampeánor added. This truth amazed and delighted him. He was decided: the next time he saw her, he would tell Allissál of his love. Why had he waited so long?
He looked about him, up and down the strand. ‘How sweet a thing life is,’ he said. ‘Gerso, are you certain none of the bows escaped the storm? Why, I know this place. We are not far from Torvalinal, the seat of my charanship in Rukor. Beyond those hills is a town where we may get food, clothing and mounts to bear us to my estates by the city.’
‘And are those the famous Rukorian Isles there on the horizon?’ asked the Gerso, pointing. ‘I have heard much of them, my lord, and of the pirates over whom you gained so great a victory.’
‘There are still a few pirates thereabouts. Charan, you have saved my life when I would have died. Now I owe you a debt of deep honor, despite anything you may have done to me in the past. You gave me insults once, but no matter your words or character: I owe you now a life. Come to me and claim it when you will, I will not deny you.’ He uttered these words solemnly, raising his fist before both God and Goddess.
‘Ah, my lord,’ the Gerso said softly, ‘and can you now give life like the very gods?’
‘And put this disaster from your mind, as I have done from mine,’ Ampeánor went on. ‘We still live, do we not? – and still may hope to meet Ara-Karn in battle and avenge our wrongs upon the little godling.’
He stood, his leg scarcely in his mind, and swept his brown arms against the dark line of the sea. ‘Soon enough the League will be formed – and Gen-Karn can fashion us new bows, as many as we lost here. Then indeed we will have the barbarian leader caught in an unbreakable trap!’
§
BUT THE NEW BOWS never came. The weeks of high Summer passed, but the ship Ampeánor had sent to Tezmon never returned to the docks of Torvalinal. Another ship was sent, a stout warship filled with men; it, too, vanished forever. Finally a fleet of seven warships, urged to speed by the desperation of Dornan Ural, gathering armies to meet the barbarian and save Tarendahardil, raced across the sea to Tezmon. But when they returned they could only tell a tale of the long white arms of the harbor smashed and sunken, and of haunted ruins in the city, utterly devoid of men.
For the motley beast-men and lesser Orns had risen in revolt at last, slaughtering all the Orns Sol-Dat vainly tried to rally; and the ruins of Tezmon were put to the torch again, and the crumbled ruins joined to the empire of Ara-Karn, when the victorious beast-men bought back his patronage with the gleaming piles of Imperial Gold. And the barbarian tribes were united once again.
And after this the fear that the name of Ara-Karn engendered was even greater than it had been before. They no longer grumbled or held back in the ranks of the warriors of the tribes of the far North – instead, they fought like devils flown from the dark horizon, inspired by hatred, lust and superstitious awe alike.
For the waking after Ampeánor had departed Tezmon, the servants of the king had at last forced entry into the silent banquet hall and discovered Gen-Karn’s body on the marble floor by the gold, steeped in its own blood. A grim smile was etched upon those hideously stiffened lips; one hand held the bloodied black blade; and the other trailed a grotesquely scrawled message across the floor.
Gen-Karn, it seemed, had cut his own throat. The blood must have gushed over his beard and chest as he had fallen – and then, after he had fallen, after he must have been already dead, the hand that did not hold the blade must have moved of its own accord. Those fingers must have dipped themselves in the gaping wound at the base of the throat – that arm must have moved in jerks, forming those oddly angled characters to write that message in Gen-Karn’s own smoking blood. That message, which his servants read with the utmost horror, went:
DA ELGA KAAN.
‘Commanded by the will of God.’
(But others said the letters had been smeared, and what it really said was, DA ELGA KARN.)
And that the deed could not have been done by any of those sullen bestial men of the lesser tribes, was shown by the blade that had done it, which was unknown to any of those who discovered the body. For it was fashioned all of black stone, very old, and its broad black blade had been chipped and honed to the sharpness of a silk-cutter’s knife.
So ended the rebellion, life and dreams of Gen-Karn Mighty King, who had once been Warlord of all the tribes of the far North. He had journeyed as a youth over high and perilous ways, and returned to Orn with words of the great loot to be had. But another took the tribes south, and Gen-Karn died in a foreign land and was left mutilated and abused for the rats in the smashed ruins of his great banquet hall, unvoyaged.
Surely such an end is reserved for none beneath the state of Kings.
