This Forsaken Earth Page 15

  “I fell a little in love with her, I think, and I was not the only one. She and Ardisan had a son, much younger than Amerie, named Michal. I say younger, but all these folk were of the blood of the Elder Race, and their lives are not counted like those of lesser men. Michal was older than I, but to all purposes he seemed a young man. He was a little wild, even then, and he dived into the intrigue and finery of the Bionese Court as though born to it. He garnered a name as a rake and a spend-thrift, and the younger nobles associated with him because of his capacity for raising hell. But there was more to him than that. He hungered after knowledge, of all kinds. He was a glutton for it. I taught him all I knew, which is precious little in the great scheme of things. He grew impatient with his father’s strictures and disciplines, and struck off on his own, leaving Bionar and his family, to hunt the world alone for answers to his questions. He stole two things from me when he left. My library, such as it was, and the name Magre had given me. An old Bionese name; perhaps he thought it would ease his way in the world.”

  “He’s dead,” Rol said. “Rowen and I killed him.”

  “I have heard this. Canker told me. There was bad blood in Michal Psellos, and I cannot think where it came from, for his parents were good people, untainted by the strain of the Fallen that infects so many folk of the Blood. In any case, you gave him the end he deserved.”

  Rol remembered a horrific night, eight years ago now, when he and Rowen and Canker had murdered Michal Psellos, pushing his grinning face into the coals of a fire while he kicked and screamed in their grasp. And yes, that death had been well deserved.

  “Bar Asfal took the throne, and Bar Hethrun, Amerie, Ardisan, and Emilia fled the country, taking ship for I know not where. That was more than thirty years ago now. They are all dead, those formidable people, and here I remain, holding only their memories. But their children have survived. Rowen, the image of her father, is here trying to make herself Queen. And now you are sat with me listening to this old man’s rambles as the sun rises over the mountains and winter lies white upon the world.”

  “What about after they left Bionar?” Rol demanded. “Do you know what happened to them then?”

  “I know only what is common knowledge—though it’s fast becoming legend. Amerie and Bar Hethrun took to the sea along with many of their followers, and lived as privateers, operating out of a hidden pirate city on the Ganesh coast. But a storm came one day, and their ship was wrecked. The ship’s company was scattered in small boats, separated by the whim of Ran. Amerie was lost for years, and when she returned she had a son, who sits here before me.”

  “Who were they, my grandparents?”

  “Nomads from the Goliad, the Birthplace of Man. That is all I know.”

  Rol’s wine was tepid now, but he drank it back without a thought.

  “Your family’s name was Orr-Diseyn,” Phrynius said gently. “In old Waric it is not a proper name, but merely a phrase meaning the folk of Orr. Do you know that name?”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Then you know that Cambrius Orr was the greatest of the Elder Race, and the land he named for himself is still reputed to exist, somewhere out in the unexplored regions of the world. There are those who think that the nomads of the Goliad are not truly Men at all, but are the last remnants of the people of Orr. The last of the Weren, who once knew the face of God.”

  “I thought Cambrius Orr’s people were all twisted monsters; it’s why he fled to Orr in the first place.”

  Phrynius opened his hands like a man releasing a bird. “I have heard that also. There are many legends and myths, and not all of them agree with one another. I will tell you this, for what it is worth: I have met Rowen, and now I have met you. The blood of Bion runs in your sister; it’s plain for any man to see—but in you there’s something else, something unfathomable. I don’t believe your parentage is what you think it to be.”

  Rol smiled. He stood up. “You never told Canker that.”

  “I am only sure of it now I have seen into your eyes.” Phrynius looked Rol up and down as though registering his features.

  “You have a strange name—your first name, that is. Your sister Rowen—”

  “I know. Psellos told me. In Waric her name means queen.”

  Phrynius cocked his head on one side. His eyes gleamed. “It could mean that, I suppose. It comes of two roots. Ro, signifying high, masterful, and wren, meaning woman.”

  “And my name means king.”

  “No. It does not. Properly speaking, your name is Ro-uil. You have the same ro-element, but in Waric the root -uil has been added, meaning…” He trailed off and dropped his gaze. “It signifies a spirit, a thing not of this world. In its very earliest forms it denoted a thing akin to God.”

  Rol smiled. “I am a god, then? Your brains are addled, Phrynius. You’ve been breathing the dust of the past for too long.”

  “Not a god, but something connected to the One God, the Creator who forsook this world. Or something sent by Him.”

  Rol shrugged. “What’s in a name, after all?”

  “There is power in a name. In the Elder times they were not given lightly.” Phrynius raised his head. The genial old scholar had disappeared, and his face seemed that of a younger man with certainty shining out of his eyes.

  “Below the Turmian Library in Myconn there are caves, deep under the rock of the foundations. That place was a shrine once, back in the times when men toiled with flint and did not yet know the names of any gods. In that darkness, the early men painted pictures upon the stone of the cave walls. One of those pictures would, I think, be worth your seeing.”

  “Why?”

  “It is of you.”

  PART TWO

  KING of THIEVES

  Eleven

  COLDER THAN KEUTTA

  THEY LED BETTER THAN FIVE THOUSAND MEN OUT OF Gallitras, and pointed them south across the bitter snowbound countryside toward the siege-lines about Myconn, almost two hundred miles away. Their campfires were left burning, the tents left standing, and the army sidled out of its lines along the river in the dead hours of the night, the hooves of the horses wrapped in sacking and the wagons manhandled inch by creaking inch through frost-sharp snow that cracked and shattered under the metal-rimmed wheels. Canker was leaving a skeleton garrison to man the Ruthe crossings, gambling that the costly failed assault of days before would keep the loyalists in camp for a while. That, and the increasingly bitter weather.

  Five thousand men, most of them infantry, trudging in column of fours along the broken stones of the Myconn Road. Along with the wagons of the baggage train, they formed a column over a mile long. Rol rode near the head of the army, beside Canker. Gallico was still confined to a wagon by his wounds, and Giffon and Creed had chosen to keep him company rather than chance the back of a horse again.

  The Council of War the night before had not deserved the name. Canker gave orders, and they were obeyed. Moerus, governor of Gallitras, had raised a few murmuring objections to being stripped of half his command, but all in all it would seem that the Thief-King’s word was not to be gainsaid in this part of the world. Rol had still not become accustomed to Canker’s lofty status. He remembered the derelict filth of the Guildhouse in Ascari which had been Canker’s headquarters when last he knew him, and could not equate it with this current man of power, this politician, this general who marshaled armies and gave orders to thousands on a whim.

  “What is it?” Rol asked his companion. “Chamberlain or chancellor? I have heard you called both.”

  “That is because I am both,” Canker told him gaily. The sun was breaking through gaps in the sullen slate cloud overhead, lighting up the morning snow on the fields around them, and spreading a little cheer along the thousands who sweated upon the road. Once again, the Thief-King had changed his wardrobe. His leather cuirass was now swamped by a scarlet cloak, and a feather protruded jauntily from his headgear.

  “The chamberlain is the master of the Queen’s Co
urt, and the chancellor is the keeper of the Treasury—such as it is—and the Queen’s right hand, as it were, in any capacity she sees fit for him to undertake. I am a jack-of-all-trades, Rol, always have been.” And Canker laughed. It was mid-morning by now, and they were five miles out of Gallitras, leaving behind them the scorched and bloody battlefield of the Ruthe crossings. The Thief-King seemed glad to be on the move again, and so was Rol. Never in his life had he been so far from the sea. He felt that he was remote from his natural element, and the changing horizons of a journey made that knowledge easier to bear, left him less time to dwell on things.

  I am sick of dwelling on things, Rol thought. Give me back my Revenant and my ship’s company, and I would be well content.

  It was not entirely true, but he would not bring himself to admit it.

  “You met Phrynius,” Canker said casually.

  “He met me first. Did you tell him to seek me out?”

  “Yes. He was interested, of course, but it took a prod to get him away from his damn books. I’m glad. He’s a good man, though not long for this world. I don’t suppose you thought to…” Canker hesitated, an odd thing for him. “No, I suppose not.”

  “What?”

  “As I said, he’s not long for this world. A few swallows of your blood would have given him another five or ten years of being a bookworm.” And Canker laughed unpleasantly.

  Rol stared at the backs of the troops ahead, their breath and heat misting up the frigid air above them. “It never occurred to me.”

  “I thought as much. It may become more important when we reach Myconn. It is the ultimate in incentives, you might say; the best bribe in the world.”

  “It’s how Rowen first gained support, isn’t it?”

  “Partly, yes. She bleeds herself each week, and it goes out to all the brave, the loyal, the best of the army. A man will do much for an extra decade or two of life. Look at me!”

  Rol did. “It had struck me that you’ve changed little with the years.” He felt a growing disgust, but kept it out of his face. Canker knew, though.

  “I got my first taste in Ascari, as you should remember. A gift from Psellos,” Canker said. His voice was not so jovial now. “If a loyalist bullet does not find me before my time, I’ll see out a century with ease. Now, there’s power for you, Rol—the ability to give that to a man. Not all the gold in the world can match it.”

  “And yet Bar Asfal is bribing your cities away from you.”

  A small puncture in the balloon of Canker’s smugness.

  “Not everyone can have it for the asking; they must prove themselves worthy first. Some are too impatient to wait, and some fools reject the whole idea, preferring to keep their blood their own. And besides,” he added irritably, “there’s not enough of the damn stuff to go around.”

  Rol smiled. “Is that why I’m here, Canker, another cow to be milked dry?”

  Canker tugged at the brim of his hat. He looked annoyed with himself. “That’s certainly part of it, yes. Don’t look so outraged, boy! This is the way the world works.”

  Rol did not look outraged; he was perfectly composed. “It’s a smaller world than we give it credit for, it’s true. You and I, Phrynius, Psellos, Rowen. I sometimes wonder if there is more than chance to all these many meetings.”

  “If there were still a God to direct the world, perhaps there might be. But it’s more likely to be humdrum coincidence.” Canker cocked his head at Rol. The brim of his extravagant headgear cast one bright eye in shadow. “Then again, we live in interesting times. Phrynius certainly thinks there’s more to the tale of your life than meets the eye.”

  “He’s lived too long with books for his only company. He reads things between the lines that are not there.”

  “Well. Well, we shall see, I suppose. Rowen has become something of a reader lately also—hardly surprising when she has the greatest library in the world within her grasp.”

  “Let me guess; she has secrets to tell me. You need a new line of patter, Canker.”

  The Thief-King, chamberlain and chancellor of Eastern Bionar, guffawed. He doffed his feathered hat to Rol with elaborate courtesy. “You may be right at that.”

  The column made four leagues that day, slowed by the grinding progress of the baggage train. So pitted and frost-broken were the roads that a whole regiment of infantry had to be assigned to keeping the heavy-axled wagons on the move.

  The Embrun River was on their right, hidden in a line of snow-clad trees scarcely a mile away. On their left the Myconians glowered, their peaks hidden in cloud. Still a hundred miles away, the mountains dominated the horizon all the same, like sullen titans brought to earth. Their lower slopes were tinted pink as the sun set in the west and kindled the gray waters of the Embrun into a glorious few minutes of molten light. Tentless and fireless—for campfires were forbidden this close to Gallitras—the men of the army rolled themselves in their blankets and lay in the snow as the sun died in a glowing bar of flame-limned cloud. As darkness fell the sky cleared, and above them the welkin blazed with frost-bright constellations, and shooting stars streaked in showers. Five thousand men lying silent in that starlit desolation, their weapons beside them under the blankets to keep them from the frost, the patient horses standing in hobbled lines with their heads drooping. The cold night air tightened the rims of the wagon-wheels so that the vehicles creaked and groaned like tired beasts all night long.

  Gallico, Creed, and Giffon had found themselves a quiet hollow on the fringe of the camp, and huddled together there like a mother hen and her chicks. The halftroll was coughing: loud, savage barks that rent the quiet clarity of the night and set nearby horses to neighing.

  “I heal slower in the cold,” he explained to Rol. “Damned air gets in the chest and lies there like a chilled knife.”

  “Giffon?” Rol asked.

  The boy’s face was pallid and blue-lipped. He spoke through shivers. “His wounds are closed already, but there’s an infection in the lung, or else the lung has cleaved to a rib as it healed. I’ve seen it before, only I’ve never seen the process work so quick.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Gallico grated. He was breathing in harsh, shallow pants and his eyes glittered dangerously. “I’ve lived through worse.”

  “Can anything be done?” Rol asked Giffon.

  “He needs to be in the warm, and out of this snow.”

  “Don’t we all,” Elias Creed muttered. The dark man’s beard was white with frost and he had a doubled blanket wrapped about his shoulders like a shawl. “It reminds me of nights in the damned stone-quarries, but at least there it warmed up during the day, and the ground under my arse was dry.”

  Rol looked at him quickly. It was the most information Elias had ever volunteered about his years in Keutta.

  “Canker says that we should reach the lines about Myconn in less than a fortnight. And tomorrow night we can light fires again.”

  “What are you now, Canker’s errand-boy?” Gallico asked. When Rol glared at him, the halftroll smiled, two long fangs poking from his lower lip. “The more I see of Canker and his war, Rol, the more I think you are merely here to be used in some way.”

  “Fuck Canker and his Queen and their bloody empire,” Elias growled. “I’m with Gallico. Let’s take off for the coast and get back to the ship. We don’t belong here; we’re just little cogs in their machine.”

  “What is this?” Rol asked softly. “A mutiny?”

  Giffon stared at him wide-eyed as a startled rabbit.

  “This is your friends telling you not to walk blindfolded into trouble,” Elias snapped. He rubbed a hand over his crackling beard. “We’re with you to the end—you know that. But the end may not be what you think. Be careful, Rol. Canker is not a good man.”

  “We are none of us good men, Elias. We agreed on that once before.”

  “We’ve done our share of killing, I grant you, but we’ve not made an industry out of it. Will Bionar be a better place with Canker and this Queen
in charge? The ordinary folk will have a new landlord, is all.”

  “I don’t care who rules Bionar either, but it may be that with Canker and Rowen in power, Ganesh Ka will be left alone at last, whereas with Bar Asfal on the throne, Bionese ships will never stop hunting us. We’re in it together now, all of us, whether we like it or not. You can thank Artimion’s politicking for that. If Rowen wins, we secure the Ka’s future, and are the ally of a great power. There’s one thing at least that will be for the better.”

  “You may be right,” Gallico conceded. The four of them sat in silence for a while, and the starlight silvered the snow about them and raised a billion lesser stars from its crisp carpet. Rol felt a helpless sense of loss. Something was fraying among them, some kind of brotherhood. These three were the people he loved best in all the world (Rowen, his heart added, cackling), and he realized he was losing them.

  No, he was drawing away.

  Gallico’s helpless coughing broke the quiet at last. They had sewn four blankets together and he hitched these higher over his shoulders. “I should feel at home here anyway,” he puffed. “I was born in the mountains, the Northern Golorons. My people were herders in the high pastures of Perilar, but it’s been a century or more since I was last this far from the sea.”

  The sea. At once, Rol had an overwhelming desire to gaze once more upon it, to feel salt in the air and taste it in his mouth, to hear the hiss of the waves moving in his head. The sea was freedom, refuge. The sea was home.

  “You’ll stand upon a ship’s deck again, Gallico, that I swear. We all will.”

  But looking at his friends’ faces as they turned toward him in the night, Rol could see that they did not believe him.

  They passed through the town of Corbie five days later, though it was little more than a tattered, teeming encampment in the midst of a wilderness of rubble. They picked up three batteries of artillery there, appropriated by Canker with his usual aplomb. Eighteen heavy culverins drawn by long teams of bad-tempered mules, the three hundred–odd men who crewed them looking as though they would rather have been left where they were. Apart from soldiers and the teamsters and muleteers and others who serviced the needs of the army, the countryside seemed deserted of all ordinary, unregimented humanity.