This Forsaken Earth Read online

  “How is the wine?” he asked, and yawned.

  “Wet. Pour yourself a cup. Pull up a chair. Make yourself at home, Cortishane.”

  “The boy has grown,” a strange voice said. “Why, he’s become quite a man, after all.”

  Fleam was out of her scabbard and whining in the air before Rol had even registered the action. In a darkened corner of the room, a shadow sat upon a three-legged stool. Rol sensed amusement there. “Ah, I see at least some memory of your training has survived. That’s good.” The shadow stood up, became a burly man of medium height wrapped in a cloak. Eyes black as those of a snake, and yellow teeth split in a crooked grin.

  “Come, Rol; has it been so long?”

  Rol collected himself, the white cold of the shock leaving him. He lowered his scimitar, though Fleam quivered urgently in his fist, the point trying to come up again.

  “Canker. It has been…a long time.”

  “Eight years, my boy, and much water under many bridges.”

  Once Canker had been King of Thieves in Ascari, on Gascar of the Seven Isles. He was a figure from Rol’s boyhood, a figment of a half-remembered dream. It did not seem possible that he should be standing here in Ganesh Ka.

  Artimion set a wine-cup in Rol’s free hand. “Have a drink, Cortishane. You look as though you need it.”

  Rol sipped without tasting. Thick, thrush-brown wine from Oronthir, the vintage Artimion saved for special occasions. He relaxed minutely, though Fleam remained naked and gleaming in his hand. Canker’s face unlocked a hail of memories that pelted past his mind’s eye. Almost all of them bad. He had raped Rowen. He had murdered with Rowen. Now he served Rowen, or so Rol had been told.

  The Thief-King watched him closely, that slot-smile hovering on his mouth. There was no reason why they should be enemies—once they had even been allies, of a sort—but something in Rol knew instinctively that Canker’s presence in the Ka was not a good thing. The world had changed since last they had looked upon each other.

  “Is this betrayal, Artimion?” Rol asked lightly.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You told me once before that this man had offered you a fortune for news of my whereabouts. Did you think to wonder why?”

  Creed and Gallico rose to their feet. “What is this?” Gallico asked, a warning growl rasping the edge of his voice.

  “Nothing you need worry about, Gallico. There is no treachery here, I swear.” Artimion turned to Rol. “You were friends once, you and Canker.”

  “We were of use to each other. Not the same thing.” A heartbeat throbbed in the blue length of Fleam’s marvelous steel. The sword’s voice crawled along Rol’s brain, warning, nagging. “Why are you here?” he asked Canker.

  “To visit our new ally, for one thing. Artimion has thrown Ganesh Ka’s lot in with us, and from what I hear, he—and you—have been doing a fine job of whittling down the Bionese navy this last half year and more. While we have been fighting in the mountains, you have been guarding our flank. You have our gratitude, and that may be worth a great deal one day, when this war is over. Diplomacy requires my presence here, Rol—and if you wish to flatter yourself, then, yes, I am also here because of you. Because of who you are.”

  “I’m a captain of privateers, no more.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that. I’ll tell you about it, if you like. Sit down, Rol, for pity’s sake, and put away that blade. We are all here on the same side.”

  Tension sizzled in the room. Miriam, Gallico, Creed, even Artimion, watched the two men transfixed, like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise.

  Rol sheathed the scimitar, and felt her rage needle up from the hilt to jolt his arm. He drank more wine, the good warmth of it easing the chill of his innards, and strode over to the fire, feeling Canker’s black gaze crawling up his back. The wine-cup clinked as he set it on the hot stone of the mantel. “I’ll stand, thank you. Say your piece.”

  Canker remained in the shadows, where, Rol thought, he had always been most comfortable.

  “Come now, boy, I’m not your enemy. Last time we met we were brothers-in-arms, as I recall, fighting side by side.” He had not changed at all. In eight years not a single extra line had been added to his face.

  “Time has been kind to you,” Rol said sourly, remembering the last days of Ascari, the mobs running wild in the streets.

  “I’ve been well looked after. Indulged even.”

  All at once, the desire to hear news of Rowen flamed up in Rol’s heart. The pain of that last day reared up all raw and glistening again. He was a boy once more, a brokenhearted assassin watching the only thing he loved in the world walk away from him. But his face never changed. Psellos’s training had been good enough for that, at least.

  He turned to Artimion, who sat like a man watching a horse-race on which he has bet a fortune. “Why did you let him come here? You’ve thrown away the location of this Hidden City of yours. Do you even know who he is?”

  Artimion shrugged. “As to his presence here, I had no say in it. He found this place of his own accord. And yes, I know him. I told you once before, we were Feathermen together in our youth, Canker and I.”

  “So there is honor amongst thieves, after all.”

  “Honor, and mutual need,” Canker broke in. “I’ve been three months on the road, wandering the damned mountains and forests of this part of the world like a vagabond, worming my way here on a web of rumor and legend. I am alone, Rol. You could kill me out of hand.”

  “Do not think I would not, Canker. Do not make that mistake.”

  Canker did not flinch; the black eyes sized Rol up and down, missing nothing. “I believe you would.” He threw aside his cloak. Rol moved in a blur; he was ten feet from the fireplace before any of their hearts had beat. Miriam’s mouth gaped in astonishment.

  Under the cloak, Canker wore a threadbare tunic and breeches out at both knees. He was weaponless. “I left my killing things at home.”

  Artimion raised a hand. “Enough. Cortishane, I make the decisions here; it is I who’ll decide what is best for Ganesh Ka. At least hear the man out.”

  Perhaps Artimion was right. But Rol knew only that the shadow that had dogged his life had caught up with him once more. If the doom of Ganesh Ka had come closer with his own arrival, then surely it was now finally upon them, in ragged breeches and wearing a yellow-toothed grin.

  He bowed, face wiped of all expression. “Forgive me, gentlemen. Canker, proceed.”

  The King of Thieves smiled. “Rowen sent me,” he said.

  Four

  BAR HETHRUN’S CHILDREN

  “THE CONTINENT OF BION HOUSES THE MOST ANCIENT of the Kingdoms of Men,” Canker said. If he did not relish their rapt faces, he was disguising it well. “The legends are well known. In the Goliad, the navel of the world, men woke from their sleep under stone and wandered the green plains while the angels watched.” He grinned, and caught Rol’s eye. “Angels, demons, Weres—they have many names, but we all know what they mean. Those who were here before us. Those who built the city in which we sit.

  “Bion was the first chieftain of these men. The ancient city of Golgos was still inhabited then, and he went there to be instructed by the Ancients in all manner of disciplines and lore. It is even said he bedded the daughter of one of their lords in secret. In any case, he was quite a fellow, this Bion. He organized the scattered tribes of his people, and ruled them with a stern but kindly hand.” Canker flapped his own black-nailed appendage. “You all know the legends.”

  “Then why are we listening to them twice-baked?” Elias Creed asked quietly.

  “Because there is a new chapter being written,” Canker retorted, all geniality vanished.

  “Go on, Canker,” Artimion said.

  The King of Thieves collected himself. “It got to be that Bion’s son Golias resented his father’s stern but kindly hand, and decided to bring forward his own accession to the throne, as it were. Some would have it th
at this Golias had the blood of the Ancients in his veins, and was the result of Bion’s dallying with the Weren princess. The tribes split in civil war, but Golias won, in the end, and Bion fled north with a large host of refugees, across the Myconians. Other, smaller bands trekked west across the Golorons, or took to the Inner Reach in their canoes. Golias ruled the Goliad, hence the name, and Bion set up Bionar across the mountains. His second son, Mycos, who succeeded him, established Myconn itself, and later on the Bionari—or Bionese, as they are variously called—founded others of the great cities of the world. Phidon and Urbonetto, Arbion and Gallitras. Those who had fled the civil war set up other princedoms and cities across the continent. Perilar and Oronthir date from this time. Thus the world we know was set in train.

  “But what of Golias? Well, it turns out that after his brief flash of ambition he was an indolent sort of fellow, after all. He created no cities, carved out no kingdoms. He and his people were content to be pastoral nomads roaming the wide plains of the Goliad, taking instruction from the dwindling Weres in Golgos, and generally living a quiet life. Until, that is, the Bionari decided that they must take back their ancestral homeland, and so began the series of invasions that reduced the Goliad to the parched desert it has become. The people of Golias were decimated, and became a hunted remnant, but even then the other kingdoms of the continent decided that they, too, had a right to the Goliad, and so made war across it—for if one is to attack Bionar by land, the only passes through the Myconians great enough to admit the passage of armies are in the northwest of the Goliad. And so for this reason also, the Goliad, that ancient paradise, became the battleground of the world.”

  Canker paused. He sipped wine. “What is this to do with the present? I see you all wonder. I was once told by a wise man that we lay the bricks of our lives upon the bones of the dead, even if we know it not.

  “Over thirty years ago now, the heir to the throne of Bionar was a fine, upstanding man named Bar Hethrun. He had a half brother, Bar Asfal. Their father, Bar Haddon, was a bookish sort who was fascinated by the legends surrounding the Goliad, and the Weren relics of Golgos and other places. It is said he led armies there simply to potter about the ruins. In any case, unlike his forebears, he held the scattered nomads of the Goliad in respect, and collected their stories and myths and oral histories as other men collect butterflies, or coins. He took one of these nomad women as a concubine and companion in scholarship, and Bar Hethrun was their issue. Haddon loved the boy, but the King of Bionar must needs have a consort more distinguished than some desert nomad, and so he made a political marriage, taking to wife a princess of Armidia, Bionar’s great rival for the sea-lanes of the Inner Reach. Their son was Bar Asfal, and he took after his mother—a conniving bitch, by all accounts. Nevertheless, Bar Hethrun was the official heir to the throne, though there were many of the Bionese nobility who muttered against it. He joined his father on the old King’s archaeological and military expeditions to the Goliad, and there he met a woman called Amerie, a raven-haired sorceress of remarkable wit and beauty, with the Blood strong in her. He took her to wife.

  “The old King’s health failed, and he died. Bar Asfal seized the throne, usurping his elder half brother’s claim with the approval of most of the court. Bar Hethrun and Amerie took to the high seas with a band of followers, and came…here. Amerie brought her husband to this secret place, and in the ruined Weren city of Ganesh Ka they established a refuge, a word-of-mouth sanctuary for those fleeing the excesses of Bionar. But they did not stay here. They took to the sea again, and after many adventures and mishaps, they were finally hunted down by agents of the Bionese Crown, and murdered.” Once again Canker paused. His eyes were bead-bright and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Beyond the windows night had come upon the world. The lamps had burned dry and the only light in the room now was provided by the fitful flare of the fire.

  “Before they died, Bar Hethrun and Amerie had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl is my mistress, Rowen Bar Hethrun, now fighting to reclaim the throne that is rightfully hers.” Canker licked his lips. “The boy was named Rol.”

  His words produced a stunned silence. Rol stood at the mantel with the firelight below him, his shadow streaming out long and black across the room. He was remembering another evening such as this, similar words. Michal Psellos telling him of what might have been his heritage. Rowen knew better; she had not told Canker the whole truth.

  “Why Cortishane?” Artimion asked. He was staring at Rol, his eyes full of the firelight, like two hellish little windows.

  “It was my grandfather’s name,” Rol said mildly. Orr-Diseyn, Prince of Demons.

  The fire spat and cracked to itself. Faint and far away the sea rushed and roared on the sea-cliffs of the Ka, in that clear, dark world beyond the windows. At last Gallico spoke up. “Rol, you knew all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to think we’ve pissed in the same pot!” Rol glanced up at the grinning halftroll, and in that moment he loved him. Creed’s eyes said the same thing. What of it? We are shipmates.

  Rol spoke to Canker. “You’ve loosed your little broadside. Now, what’s the upshot of it all?”

  “Your sister needs you, Rol.”

  “Sincerity sits ill on your face, Canker. Why not be honest? You might find the change refreshing.”

  “You must go to her. This war approaches a climax, and she would have her brother by her side to share in the final victory.”

  Her brother. “I’ll write her a letter. Dear sister, have fun running the world. Will that suffice?”

  Canker’s face darkened. “You damn fool; do you know what it has cost me to get here?”

  “What’s wrong, Canker, the war effort tripping up a little? What need has Rowen of me when she can command armies?”

  “She needs leaders, men she can trust. Do you think a woman like her—”

  “Like what, Canker?” Rol advanced on the Thief-King, and as he left the hearth the light in his eyes quickened. His voice grew loud, ugly. “A woman who has prostituted herself to all and sundry—who fucks and murders her way through the world, whose carcass has been pimped out a thousand times. A woman like that? I can do without her favors—or her goodwill.”

  Canker looked up at him calmly. “You love her,” he said.

  Rol backed away as if he had been struck. Fleam leaped out of her scabbard and was in his fist like a flash of sea-lightning. The scimitar swept through the stool on which Canker had been sitting, cutting it in two and striking sparks from the stone floor below. The Thief-King had thrown himself aside almost as quickly as Rol’s arm had moved. He rolled across the floor like a ball. Gallico and Creed stepped over him. “Rol, no!”

  It was there—he was on the cusp of it, so easy now. Gods in heaven, how good it would feel to let go of it.

  The others in the room watched, horrified, as a vile brightness spilled out of Rol’s eyes. He seemed to rise up off the floor, and a clutch of luminous spears grew at his back, like the unfurling of great wings. The scimitar in his hand grew into a bar of unbearable bright light.

  Gallico’s fist punched back Rol’s head, bursting open the lips on his maniac leer. The halftroll launched himself bodily at Rol and bore him against the far wall, crushing the air out of him.

  For a moment Rol struggled. Fleam shrieked in his head, a woman’s voice that clawed across his brain. Gallico’s weight lay upon him like a hill, but the strength was in him to toss it aside, to rise up like…like…

  And some form of sanity whispered in his ear, like the drunk’s sodden realization of what lies in wait for the morning. He threw the scimitar away, and the blade scored a long, smoking furrow in the solid basalt of the floor.

  “Hold him down!” Artimion was yelling, and Miriam was clicking back the hammer on her musket. Creed clapped his hand across the lock and wrenched free the flint, scattered the powder in the pan. The two of them fought over the weapon like children with a favorite toy.

>   Gallico’s eyes, inhuman and yet compassionate, staring at him from six inches away. Rol fought for breath. The tears were trickling helplessly down the sides of his face, liquid fire. Within him, the white flame guttered, struggling against his will. For a moment, he thought he could see clear to the heart of it, and the room about him vanished, to be replaced by a fearsome landscape from another world. But it died before he could make sense of it.

  His ribs creaked under Gallico’s bulk. “Get off me, you big green bastard.”

  “That’s better.” The halftroll’s weight lifted fractionally.

  “It’s all right, Gallico. I’m all right.”

  Gallico stared at him a few seconds more, studying his eyes, then he nodded and got to his feet. Rol clutched his bruised ribs, blood pouring down his chin. It was Canker, of all people, who finally helped him up.

  “You are full of surprises, Master Cortishane,” Artimion said.

  “You have no idea,” Rol gasped, spattering blood. He saw Fleam lying on the floor and bent to retrieve her, but Elias Creed set a hand on his arm.

  “Maybe it’s as better not,” he murmured.

  “It’s a sword, Elias.”

  “No. There’s more to it than that.”

  Rol bent regardless, and set Fleam back in her scabbard. The steel was dead and cold.

  “This has happened before,” Artimion said, looking at Gallico. The halftroll hesitated a second, then nodded.

  Rol wiped blood from his chin and smiled bleakly. “My secret is out, it seems.”

  “Remind me not to goad you again, Cortishane,” said Canker. Strangely, he seemed unfazed. In fact, he seemed more like a man satisfied with his work.

  “You had some idea about this,” Rol accused him.

  The Thief-King seemed about to deny it, then shrugged.

  “What plots are you and Rowen hatching, Canker? I want no part of them, but if you persist, I’ll make it my business to put an end to them.”