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.
The Hall of Justice Again
SLOWLY AND RELUCTANTLY, Allissál returned to health. It had been the second real illness of her life, and in a way she was sorry now to see it end. Life in the gloomy chamber, attended by her maidens, sheltered from all worldly concerns, had come to seem an altered and superior existence. It was calm and quiet there, and she could hear the recited legends of the past whenever she wished. Whenever she slept, it was as if she went away to some distant and unheralded bourne; yet when she woke she could recall none of the happy times she had spent there.
She woke at length, and knew that she must resume the burdens of her life. Yet at the first her waking was so unfamiliar it might itself have been a dream. Beside her head, half tangled in the strands of her hair, she found a ribboned parchment sealed with Ampeánor’s personal device. Taking it up she read it, and so learned what he had been driven to.
So he had gone away to danger once again, and this the most perilous of his travels. How very unfair and selfish of him, she thought; then knew her shame and was sorry. There was, after all, no use in being annoyed. Some vast, pervasive, malignant fate seemed to oversee and undo all that they attempted – had she been superstitious, she might have been tempted to give credence to the fantastical rumors of Ara-Karn.
She had chosen as she knew she must: there was no other path for her. She could not work with Dornan Ural. The barbarian drew ever closer. The Empire needed a ruler with real power. She could not have wed Ennius – he was a foreigner, and had no base of power among either the highborn or the officials. Moreover, the foreign courts, which knew him not, would not have trusted in his leadership – she herself knew nothing of his ability to general armies in the field. And, finally, to have chosen him would have wounded and alienated Ampeánor. No, Ampeánor had been her only choice; nor could she have wed him with Ennius’s child pushing out her belly.
She felt upon the verge of tears. She had given in to her passions only twice in her life, while Ilal and the other charai of her court danced with lovers by the score. Yet both her small affairs had brought her nothing but misery. It was all so unfair. She should have truly run away when she was a girl, and never returned. Even couch-slaves must lead better lives than hers.
There was also, it seemed, a note from Ennius. It was brief, and perhaps no harsher than she deserved. ‘Always I knew we were alike,’ he ended, ‘but never so alike.’
Its formality and its utter refusal to show even the least bit of warmth hurt her deeply. Had she not vowed a sacred oath to him, and did he not realize how much that had cost her? She was relieved Ampeánor had sent him abroad to Ul Raambar before he had left. It would be long ere Ennius would return. Perhaps by then she might be better able to face him. Even so, she could not help feeling that it was very likely she had now lost both of them. Still weak from the poison and feeling very childlike in the gloom, she gave way to her tears, and drenched the pillows of her bed.
§
HIGH SUMMER burned to an end, and Tarendahardil emerged sluggishly from her labored rest. The winds turned back a little, cool with the sea, cool with the darkness beyond. It was quiet in the city, even in the Thieves’ Quarter – grim, it might even have been said.
A minor festival was declared to celebrate the Divine Queen’s return to health. She presided over a session at the Circus, looking very thin and pale, and yet somehow – or so those courtiers nearest her box claimed – for all that, she was more lovely and more desirable than ever. It put one in mind of the poetess who had died for her passion, and called love bittersweet. There was something deep within the Queen’s countenance inviting at once danger, intrigue, and desire. She moved listlessly, and smiled but politely at the merriments of Arstomenes, but in her shoulders, and the way she moved her legs, there seemed a waiting fierceness none had before noted in her. The court poets worked upon their homages to this new evidence of her beauty, helpless to turn their minds from it, though they greatly doubted how their words might be received. Of course, no conversation might end without some speculation concerning the whereabouts of the High Charan of Rukor, who should have sat beside her and held her hand when the crystals were strewn; but the answer, known to but her majesty, remained unspoken.
It was a few passes after the closing of the festival that she first essayed to resume her duties. Minor petitions and addresses, which required her presence under law, had mounted grievously in the durance of her illness. Long had Dornan Ural sent messages requesting that she suffer to hear some of these petitions, but the very length of the lists he had sent in had daunted her – or rather, stiffened her stubborn wish to defy him even now. At last, however, she consented.
Ironically, it was this that finally brought about her consent: Bistro of Eliorite had quit her service. ‘We are accomplishing nothing here,’ he had complained to her. ‘While in the meantime the barbarian draws even ever nearer! I cannot stand it any longer, your majesty – I must go and kill me some of them!’ She had not attempted to dissuade him, but had loaded him with gifts and seen him off with honor, knowing she bade farewell to a dead man. Well, but she thought bitterly, were they not all of them here dead to a man? Only Ara-Karn was alive in the world, in the eyes of the gods.
Because the petitioners were so numerous, it was the opinion of Dornan Ural that the audience was best held in the old Hall of Justice, where they might all come at once. The Empress sat in a high antique throne of gold and rubies in the King’s Light, and the highborn clustered with their retinues in the upper galleries. All the courtiers and the petitioners were outfitted in their grandest, most handsome styles to catch the Queen’s eye and favor. Despite the orders of the High Regent and the inclination of the Queen, the affair had become a grand one, reminiscent of the time of the old Emperor, Allissál’s father. Nothing that occurred or was granted in this session seemed likely to be forgotten.
Yet, even so, things went unwell from the very start. Never had Dornan Ural seemed so pompous, so insistent upon all formalities and points of law. As for her majesty, she seemed to be not in the best of spirits, and interposed interruptions and delays of her own, to the growing exasperation of the High Regent. Like cat and dog they were, that cannot meet for quarreling. The repeated urgings and outraged coughs of the High Regent only served to prick the malice of the Queen the more. The petitioners, seeing this, chose between them, appealing to the one the decision of the other. Few things were accomplished; the session dragged on and on, even to beyond the third meal.
The truth was, that immediately she had been seated by her maidens in the old throne, so full of the presence of her ancestors, Allissál had been struck by the realization that hers was, after all, a paper empire; as fat old Dornan Ural, bustling in with his carrying-racks of parchments, made more clear. The one love of her life she had broken and betrayed – the life growing within her she had poisoned – herself she had condemned to a marriage of state with a man she once had loved, and now despised – and had all of it been for this? This was naught, and less than naught. She looked out through narrowed lids upon the throngs vying for her attention and favor; and she cursed them in the sight of Her. She had seen her duty, and in great pain fulfilled it; and by that had freed herself. Had Ennius entered that hall then, as he had so long ago, when she had first set eyes upon him and been outraged by his impudent looks, she would have gone away with him and left them all to their separate dooms. Bored and disgusted, she protracted the session only to make them all share in her misery. Would they force her to undergo this farce? Very well – but she had her own ways and manners of compliance.
It made for a break of relief when the slave announced the appearance of two refugees with word of Ara-Karn. ‘Ara-Karn?’
‘Yes, Divine One. They claim not to be merely the bearers of some new rumor, but actually to have known and spoken with the barbarian.’ He pointed them out among the crowds: men in tunics and trappings of the merchant class, in the fashion of the northern cities.
Dornan Ural groaned aloud, beside himself despite decorum. ‘Can this not wait? Does not every exile tell a like tale? Paranin, did they speak truthfully?’
‘Perhaps,’ she said softly, ‘we would prefer to examine the veracity of these men ourselves, High Regent.’ They were speaking almost privately now, and the crowds, intent upon catching what it was they spoke of, were hushed and attentive.
‘Your majesty,’ Dornan Ural said impatiently, ‘I was but attempting – it is well known your majesty sees anyone claiming knowledge of Ara-Karn; and it has opened the door to many who only hope to gain some silver for their lies. Yet we have six-and-thirty items remaining on the schedule even after all this time!’
‘All hail his August Majesty, Dornan Ural nal Servant’s-Chambers,’ she said aloud. ‘Or should it rather be Dornan the Mage, who knows these fellows to be liars without ever having heard them? But it were better for your vaunted glory, my lord, if you saw more to these important details of rule yourself, instead of pestering us with them and fobbing them off upon your overburdened subordinates.’
Dornan Ural’s face went bone-pale, then darkened to the color of a deep flowering bruise. In the quiet, her words had reached or were passed along to the farthest corners of the hall. All eyes were now upon him. He opened his mouth, but all that emerged was a little, stammered, high-pitched squeak.
It was an unfortunate sound. The slave-maidens had all they could do to restrain their smiles. From above came the open laughter of Arstomenes and Ilal and the ladies they had to join their frolic: a drunken, mocking laughter.
Dornan Ural closed his mouth. He nodded very slowly to her majesty. Still was his face dark as Postio wine, or the face of a seducer in Rukor strangled on the steps of the judges’ hall. In a whisper, he asked, ‘And does your Divine Majesty permit, that this lowly one be granted leave to depart the Presence?’ He used such a construction as the lowest of slaves might.
‘We may Goddess thank, that your regency is soon to be ended,’ she replied coldly. ‘Yes, you may depart now until that time when we call upon you to submit the articles of your office to our lord, your new Emperor. And after that, we hope to see you when you have learned somewhat of grace and wit – in short, never.’
Dornan Ural bowed low and abased himself almost, yet not quite, as a slave would. As he rose he kept his eyes fixed upon her majesty. In an utter stillness, the High Regent of Tarendahardil backed out of the chamber. The crowds parted to let him pass. Through the high uncovered opening the light of Goddess beamed in, a fall of quiet and kindness upon the figure of the Queen. She rose and left the hall; behind her was a growing turmoil. The slaves, displaying greater presence of mind than the courtiers there, made the announcement that the audience was at an end.
In the upper galleries, highborn lords and ladies arched their painted bewigged heads together, exchanging many an artful glance and clever remark. Such stuff as this more than compensated them for having to endure the hot, dull weeks of her majesty’s illness, during which all public shows and entertainments had been suspended. While the audiences had been going on, there had even been some wagers exchanged, as to who should prevail, her majesty or the High Regent. Now it was agreed that the portly High Regent had never been more entertaining; though there were regrets expressed that he had proved of such poor stamina, and had ended the show so abruptly. Somewhat more of detail might have gone into the climax. These and other comments were abated when Arstomenes invited them all to join him at his palatial estates in Vapio, for a garden party that, though it could not equal in dignity the notable one her majesty had arranged the previous year, would more than supply the lack with merriments of a more varied cuisine. Lightly and graciously applauding the suggestion, the charai and their male attendants led the way out of the galleries into the light of Goddess, where they formed a procession, colorful and splendid. Again the conversation reverted to the High Regent; and some of the younger nobles proposed an expedition, to beard him in his den and offer him their condolences upon the remarkable ill-temper of the Queen, to see how he might take it.
§
ALLISSÁL had repaired to the shadowed walkways of the lower gardens, and there would have ridden off her anger on Kis Halá, save that Emsha protested such strenuous activity should come too soon upon her recovery; to which Allissál in the end had to agree. It was then close on the time of the shortsleep; still she had no will to rest. As for the High Regent, while she would have admitted that her words had been ill-chosen and indecorous, she was not sorry that she had said them. So much for him: she thought no more on the matter. More to relieve her boredom with some little amusement than anything else, she sent for the two talebearers whose appearance had been the cause of so much unpleasantness and merriment.
With tolerable form the two men prostrated themselves before the Queen, adding to their thanks to her for seeing them the prayer that their tale might provide her with some slight value in the coming war. The one was tall, of late middle age, with a dark beard and a sourly humorous turn of lip; the other was younger, clean shaven, and more refined. From their features and voices she knew them for merchants from ruined Gerso. They confirmed her in this, adding that until recently they had abided in the trading-cities of the lower Delba, going from thence to Bollakarvil to view the shrines there. When Bollakarvil was besieged they had journeyed to Tarendahardil.
‘And the barbarian, gentlemen,’ she reminded them. ‘Have you truly spoken with him?’
‘Your majesty, not only have we spoken with him: we were present at that ruinous Pass when first he made appearance in the far North, rising ragged and wild from his own death-barge, out of the frenzied seas of the Ocean of the Dead. All his early history among the barbarians is known to us; before that, no living man has knowledge. For know that I who speak am Zelatar Bonvis, called, though it is an overstatement, the prince of merchants of our city that was; and this is Mergo Donato, my apprentice. We were first of all civilized men to hear the name of Ara-Karn, first to behold his face, and first to view his first bloody acts of madness.’
At least these men were up to a performance worthy of her generosity. Rather amused, and much relaxed, she signed him to continue.
‘That springtime before Gerso fell, we chanced to be among a tribe of the barbarians. This tribe dwelt farthest from our city, being situated in a far corner of the far North, upon a bay of the Ocean of the Dead. Thither had we gone to negotiate for whatever bandar pelts the tribe should gain in the coming Hunt: for they were among the most skillful and bravest of hunters in the far North. A man named Gundoen was their chief: a strong ruler and a proud, who unfortunately allowed his wrath and prejudices to sway him overmuch. Yet perhaps now he is a grown man, being the general of all the armies of the tribes.’
‘And is not this Ara-Karn their general?’ she interposed.
‘Your majesty, pardon: Ara-Karn is their king, or Warlord, as they would style him – but Gundoen leads the warriors. This we have learned in our long travels since our homes were burned and all our fellows slaughtered. Often since then, we have escaped a city mere hours before it fell; and every time the leader of the barbarians outside the walls was Gundoen.
‘While we were but newly arrived at Gundoen’s village there came into the chief’s hall a tribesman whom they had named “the Pious One,” because of his fanatical religious beliefs – rather a cracked-pate, but useful to them because he fashioned the barges for their dead and saw to certain of the rites. He had come to the chief’s hall to summon Gundoen, for as chief of the tribe it was Gundoen’s duty to see off all corpses in their barges. Yet reminded of his forgetfulness before all his proud warriors, Gundoen grew angry, and refused to see the man off.’
‘Bravo Gundoen,’ she murmured.
‘Your majesty may jest at this, as should we all, who are risen above such superstition. Yet to the rude barbarians, this was a grave offense on the chief’s part. The Pious One in particular forecast evil of it; and shortly thereafter, as if in response to his words, a terrible storm wracked the coastlines, and all were sure it was Goddess’s rebuking of Gundoen’s blasphemy.
‘Great was the damage wrought of this storm on their village; and no sooner did it end but there came by coincidence an eclipse of Goddess, which they hold to herald monstrous events. According to their custom they hastened to the beach to cry prayers to Goddess not to forsake them, and recall Her to Her duties, that She not be seduced by the rough violence of God and pass away with Him, to be His couch-mate in His palace of black beyond the dark horizon, where only His Madpriests live to do Him hateful worship, such as is writ down in the Book of Skhel. Well. I mention all this, great Queen, only that your majesty may yourself perceive the atmosphere of terror and awe into which the stranger, thereafter known only as Ara-Karn, stepped.
‘For even in the midst of the eclipse, a solitary black death-barge was washed into the bay and driven up ashore. A strange barge of curious workmanship it was, certainly like nothing ever wrought of barbarian hands. Somehow it seemed ancient beyond telling. And there within that barge lay the corpse of one that looked like a great king of some long-vanished age. Yet it was no corpse, for it rose, and stepped from the barge upon the pebbles of the shore, in rags of ancient finery, and wearing upon its brow a golden circlet, of an art rare beyond any I have seen. Such, your majesty, was the first appearance known among men, of him they call Ara-Karn – which is to signify in their tongue, “the Former King.” ’
She frowned. This was not the story of some posturer. It was too improbable to be a fable. ‘What do you mean, sir? Do you not mean that this was his first arrival at that particular village?’
‘That village, the far North and, for all I know, the entire extent of the lands where men dwell, your majesty. Ara-Karn did not spring from the loins of any barbarian, man or woman; nor was he native to any land I have ever visited, or my father before me. When first he stood there, he knew no word of the barbarians’ tongue – or, for that matter, any tongue I know. Gundoen bade us question him, but he remained dumb to all our attempts, finally speaking only in a language utterly alien and grating to our ears.’
‘What land, then, formed his origin?’
‘Alas, your majesty, that I cannot even guess, unless it be the Darklands of the Madpriests. He must have been lost at sea, somehow, after stealing the strange barge; but Arpane on the Sea is the only city of the Ocean of the Dead, and we have been there, but found no clue to the origin of the madman. Yet even at the earliest it was clear he was a desperate character, driven half-mad by deprivation in the weeks he had been at sea; it is in some ways a miracle he survived at all.’
‘What then of his strange weapon, the bow?’ she asked.
‘Why, it was with him in the strange death-barge, your majesty, along with much wealth of gold and jewels; but all the wealth he threw back into the sea as if it had been accurst; and kept only the bow and arrows, and a jade dagger he had. Even his rags he threw away, going naked among them until the Pious One, who exalted him the instrument of Goddess, clothed him after the manner of the tribe. Shortly after, the hunters went upon the great Hunt for bandar; Ara-Karn went with them, and we saw him little after that. With the many pelts we returned to Gerso.
‘There rumors reached us, of a great restlessness in the far North, of war brewed between Gundoen’s tribe and the Orns, another powerful tribe ruled over by Gen-Karn, who was then the Warlord of the far North. Then that winter, all the tribes were still again, and no war broke out among them. We knew not what to make of it, save to be thankful that the violence had been put off a further year, so that our trade for bandar pelts should not yet be interrupted. In the weeks between that winter and the following spring the barbarians fell upon our city, burnt her and broke her and left only her ashes upon the desecrated ground. And that, your majesty, was the start of all these bitter doings.’
Allissál heard him out with a deepening sense of unease – unease, because she feared she must believe him after all. From the beginning, the leaders of the civilized cities had planned and acted upon the belief that this Ara-Karn was no other than some armed, ferocious brigand, a pillager after spoil. It was no wonder that he had so outgeneraled them.
‘Yet you have overlooked the most important matter,’ she said at length: ‘for if Ara-Karn is not of the barbarian race, what then does he look like?’
‘Your majesty, that indeed is the hardest question for me to answer. We saw him but a handful of times, and of course, our memories are clouded by later events. He was not short, and not unhandsome, and he was not like any barbarian.’
‘It is well,’ she replied shortly. ‘Now, having told us what he is not, perhaps you will be so good as to tell us what he is.’
‘Divine One, forgiveness. His hair and flesh were dark, he wore a short beard, he was slender but of hard lean sinews, and refined, even noble, features. Yet I beg your majesty’s pardon, for that is all I can remember of him.’
‘Your majesty, I remember something else,’ said the younger merchant. ‘It was an odd thing, but I have never forgotten it. It was – his eyes.’
‘What of his eyes?’
‘Great Queen, they were – strange. Unlike any other eyes I have ever seen. They flashed like greenish lightning sometimes, and other times were dark and dead as dried fruit pits. Whenever he looked at me, it was as if to burn me, so fierce was his gaze. Not another man in a hundred thousand could have such eyes. He had beheld monstrous things, and when he gazed at me, I saw those things as well. They are all I can recall of him: but those eyes of his I have seen in a score of ill dreams since I last saw them in the flesh. Your majesty, they were eyes such as only Madpriests are said to possess.’
She spoke not for a while, so that they feared she had not heard or understood. Mergo wondered in what way his description had been deficient, and was casting about for some better words, when she turned from them and reaching deep into the bosom of her ivory-colored lora, drew forth a miniature, upon which some painter had drawn a face with a few hasty, inspired strokes.
‘You are of Gerso, you tell me,’ she uttered; ‘tell me then, if this be a face you know.’
Mergo took it; showed it to Zelatar. They stared at it strangely, with deepening alarm in their northern eyes.
‘Your majesty, this man wears no beard; and it is a hasty likeness, though remarkably skillful; and it is years now since we saw him,’ Zelatar Bonvis, prince of merchants, began awkwardly. ‘Yet even so, for all that, it is unmistakable. I would swear it before all of Goddess’s shrines, your majesty: this is a likeness of Ara-Karn.’
‘Truly, truly – Ara-Karn,’ Mergo Donato echoed in a whisper.
§
ENNIUS KANDI was Ara-Karn.
Shall I now, she wondered, alone once more – shall I now count up all his many deeds while in my service, so that I may appreciate them fully for the first time?
He had frightened Orolo of Pelthar from signing the pacts she had sent, and thereby put off all the other little princes who had looked to Orolo for their example. He had murdered Qhelvin of Sorne in a most brutal fashion – perhaps Qhelvin had learned something, or had some suspicions of him. Thereafter he had sold the heads of the rebellious Belknulean lords to Yorkjax. He had spread poisoned words among the foreign dignitaries residing at her court, so that their reports gave the lie to all her agents’ efforts at diplomacy.
He had gone with Ampeánor to Tezmon, and wrecked the ship and destroyed all the bows they had bought at such great price. It had been he, doubtless, who had met with the Rukorian pirates and roused them to their old thieveries.
He had gone Goddess-ward to gather intelligence, and as a pastime betrayed Ernthio and shattered the cities of the upper Delba. And now he had gone toward the dark horizon to her dear friends and allies Ankhan and Lisalya of Ul Raambar, among others, there to wreak who knew what new acts of savagery and depredation.
Because of him, Elnavis now lay dead and rotten on some nameless field near Mersaline.
And all the while, he had used her for his private pleasure as a common whore, and laughed heartily at her dreams of glory, her plans and intrigues, unraveling them as easily and as frequently as he had unlaced her undergarments. No better than some savage beast of prey she had named him to his face in her ignorance, but she had been overgenerous in her words. Oh, she had played at the game of kings; but it was he who had proved the master, with lessons yet to offer her. Still, she was learning at his hand now, which was the best. Ampeánor was a poor foolish novice, compared to the pair of them.
§
THE SUMMER MONTHS came to an end in Tarendahardil the Most Holy, as the progress of the barbarians was reported in the halls of the officials. Bollakarvil had fallen, and Ara-Karn marched on Ilkas. Among the palaces of High Town it was quiet and dull, for the greater part of the highborn abided yet at Vapio, enjoying the multitudinous diversions the High Charan Arstomenes offered them. But the people of the lower city armed themselves, and awaited the onslaught of the invaders, as they had known they must, ever since the funeral of Elnavis.
And among the courtiers and poets who remained, or had returned early from Vapio, it was noted that the fierceness within her majesty had grown, and was now a thing more of danger than desire.
So they burned their laudatory poems, not daring to let word of them reach her ears.
