Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (30 page)

It was beautiful, if jungle can ever be said to be beautiful instead of what it actually is — cold, calm, neutral, waiting for you to make a single mistake before it kills you. And like any other jungle there were annoyances. It rained almost constantly and when it didn’t the air swarmed with flies, small creatures barely visible to the eye that crawled in everywhere and bit like tiny fire-reddened pokers. We’d brought a bale of thin muslin to make mosquito nets from and used these to form head coverings to keep from going quite insane with the buzzing, although eating without swallowing at least a dozen of the nasty little creatures was an accomplishment. Chons claimed he held the record of actually getting two mouthfuls up from his plate and under his netting without ingesting anything live, but no one believed him that skilled.

There were other creatures in this jungle, creatures nearly the size of half-grown hogs that looked like rats but swam like seals. We speared and butchered one and Maha stewed it with onions and potatoes. It was, shall I say, consumable? Once again I realized for most people good taste is more a matter of familiarity than an actual sensation since no one said we should kill another.

We saw apes in the trees that were fascinated by our passing, moving swiftly from tree to tree, their eyes always fastened on us as if they were taking notes for craft they too might build. They were prey for jungle cats, animals smaller than the apes but fiercer, who had mottled coats of dark ocher, maroon and tan, making them almost impossible to see until they sprang.

Somehow we must have offended the apes because they began launching missiles at us. This was of little account except when we got close to the banks. They begun by throwing fruit with amazing accuracy and range, then progressed to stones. Mithraik wanted to kill a few of them to dissuade the others but I said no. I put the Cyralian brothers in the bows with blunts, flat-tipped arrows used to knock down birds and rabbits and sailed close to shore for an hour or so.

Every now and then a bowstring would twang and an ape would howl and skitter away through the treetops. After that we had no more trouble with hidden snipers.

Now the wind became sporadic and we were forced to use the sweeps on occasion.

Late one evening, the river widened into a lagoon. There was a scattering of islets in the middle of it and we tied up to one for the night. There were some unwary ducks squawking on the lake and I sent Chons and some sailors out in a small boat with nets. The squawking became outraged and in a few moments we had our dinner. Maha roasted them with milk from nuts, chilies, onions and other sharp spices and the vegetable was green bananas cooked with salt pork.

I wandered to the bows, contentedly digesting and wondering if it was possible to go adventuring and gain weight as the twilight closed and the last of the hellish flies vanished. I was staring rather idly at the largest of the islands and I thought I saw something in the dying light. It appeared to be a small stone building, a villa perhaps. Certainly it looked far more sophisticated than any of the rude huts we’d seen beside the river. I wondered if the island was inhabited and if so, by whom?

A delicious scent crept into my nostrils. I’m not sure how to describe it now, nor did I then. It was not one single smell but many and all of them welcoming, desirable. There might have been the scent of a night-blooming flower that grew outside a summer home or the odor of an aromatic fire that blazes up to draw the winter hunter back to his camp. Perhaps there was the perfume of a loved one of long ago weaving through that, like mist fingers across an autumn meadow. And spiced apples, a fragrant punch, a garden that always calmed you after a harried day.

Then the scent was gone and I went back to studying the building, rapidly vanishing in the coming night. I wondered what lay there. Certainly something attractive, something worth seeing, something beautiful, or perhaps something important to our expedition. Not that there was any hurry, I thought drowsily.

We were already letting our lines go, I noted and seamen were readying the sweeps to row us over to that small lovely island where something beyond price awaited us.

I yawned once more and started down from the forecastle to help the men and Janela shouted.

“Stop it! There’s magic at work!”

I halted, frowning. How could she interrupt what I was about to do? It was important for me, for all of us to go to that island where something — or someone — waited.

Janela grabbed one of the sailors by the arm as he moved toward the rail with his sweep and sent him spinning away. Again she shouted, “Sorcery,” and I heard someone growl and then I came back to myself.

“Kele!” I shouted and I heard an answering cry from the quarterdeck. “Turn out the watch!”

Silence. And then Kele too began bellowing and the night’s soft welcome hesitated, retreated, as sleep retreats when you reach for it. Then something else came back at us.

It was still invisible but now it ordered, not seduced: The island. You must go to the island. There is someone who needs you. Go to the island.

I heard Janela chant:

We are wood

We are steel

We cut

We hold

We do not turn

We are firm

We do not hear

We do not smell

We hold true

We hold firm

The spell broke and lanterns flared on the ships’ quarterdecks and in the waists. Janela stood outlined by one of the lanterns beside our mainmast, holding an ordinary marlinspike above her head. All three ships had been cast loose and were drifting in the current before Janela had sensed danger.

We were ourselves once more and in seconds had the sweeps double-manned and were pulling across that lagoon, on up the river. We rowed all that night and into the next day before I chanced allowing a rest.

What was it? A sorcerer, a sorceress, trying to ensnare us? A demon? A sprite? A ghost? Possibly even no more than a lonely earth spirit intending no harm but longing for companionship? I do not know, but I should never linger again in a lagoon that offers peace and welcoming smells in that snake-curling river that leads up from the eastern sea, not if I were wise.

As the days passed I noted by the glass that the land rose, yet we never encountered a cascade or rapids. I began watching closely and saw yet again that strange shimmer that crossed the water and then we would rise to a slightly higher level. This was the same magic used to control the river from Marinduque up to Irayas.

I pointed the next magical lock out to Janela and we rejoiced. I wondered if the spell was so potent it was hanging on from the days of the Old Ones or more hopefully was constantly renewed, which would suggest we would not find empty ruins suited only for antiquarians.

Then the river broadened into huge swamps and the open waterways became narrower and smaller, twisting even more than in the delta. All we had to navigate by was our compass and those eerie beacons.

Three days into the morass and we were lost. The demon/woman markers vanished or else we lost a turning somewhere. Worse, the winds were fickle, either blowing from the wrong direction, no more than zephyrs or else dying, leaving us in a dead calm with no sound but the lap of the waves against our hull, the rattle of the sails as they hung limp, the buzz of mosquitoes and then the shouts of the masters’ mates to turn out the watch and man the sweeps.

We’d enter an inviting passage only to find it choked with weeds, turn due west or else see it peter out into marshland or dead end against a soggy mass barely worth calling an island. Sometimes we’d find the channel blocked with a fallen tree, send work parties in boats to cut away the vegetation or, worse yet, to wade waist deep in the brown murk, not wanting to think what could be swimming, hidden, next to you. All too often we’d exhaust ourselves hacking at these monstrous logs and then have our way blocked around the next bend.

Then we’d have to reverse our course and work our way back to attempt another channel. We went up and down and back and forth, until we doubted our compass. When the rank vegetation allowed we caught the occasional glimpse from the masthead of the always-receding mountains that seemed no closer now than when we first saw them. No one said anything but all of us were worried that while we wandered in this labyrinth Cligus and his forces would catch up. There would be no place to fight other than from ship to ship and in these narrow waterways no place for cunning or trickery.

It was if we were caught in a nightmare, running from some awful, nameless monster through quicksand pulling at our thighs, holding us, afraid to look back, waiting for the talons to sink into our backs.

Not only were we frequently lost, although lost is not the proper word since it implies there was a correct way through this maze, but we also ran aground at least once or twice a day. Our hulls remained undamaged and running aground was hardly dramatic, just a slowing of the ship as it nosed into a hidden mud bank. We’d try to use the sweeps to pole off or the boats to tow us free but frequently we had to kedge off.

This was an especially exhausting task. The boats would be launched carrying one of our anchors and the crew would row to the full length of the chain. Then the anchor would be dropped and hopefully hold fast. The capstan would be manned and we’d strain against the bars, hearing nothing, feeling the veins bulge on our foreheads and blood roar in our ears, then a CLINK as we won a foot and the capstan pawl locked us fast. Then… CLINK... another foot gained... then CLINK, CLINK, CLINK coming faster as we pulled ourselves free again. We’d raise the anchor and sail on until the next grounding.

These days were especially hard on the crew of the
Ibis
. Since we were smaller, handier and shallower-drafted, it was our duty to take the lead and explore ahead before the hoys would waddle after us.

There were times when all three ships became trapped and all of us had to kedge our way back to what we were calling a main channel, even though it didn’t appear much different than the one we’d just gotten stuck in.

The crews’ complaints rose to fever pitch, which didn’t worry me. It was when they would become quiet I’d start fretting. Things as yet weren’t all that bad — at least we hadn’t been stricken with any of the fevers or malaise’s most tropic rivers carry and there’d been no serious injuries or deaths. One common lament was what good was magic doing — here we had the great granddaughter of the Janos Greycloak himself, capable of casting spells that destroyed demons and calmed storms — and she couldn’t even manage to summon some kind of creature that’d be our guide or perhaps send herself in spirit high above and direct our progress.

I’d asked Janela about that and her reply had worried me a bit — she said she’d tried half a dozen times, but none of the spells worked. She said she hadn’t lost her powers but rather there was some sort of preventive spell over the area.

“It’s as if,” she said, “whoever laid it meant this area to be a trap. Perhaps the absence of those markers was deliberate. Maybe this was a trap set by the Old Ones meant to lure enemies aside, like sugar syrup can distract flies from a table. Or maybe the spell is more recent. I can’t tell.”

Still worse, she said, is that every time she attempted to cast a spell she once more felt that looming presence from ahead and its increasing malevolence. Rather than tell the crew this, which I knew
would
terrify them, I merely said we were still worried about being discovered by Modin and the killing magic he might send. This silenced the criticism.

One day we had some good luck — the channel we were following held a true course to the east, was deep enough so we hadn’t grounded and best of all, we chanced on a small solid island in late afternoon. It was little more than a hummock really, but at least it would let the men sleep ashore for a change. They wanted to clean up and even though the mucky river would probably make them muddier than before at least it would wash off the sweat.

I told Quatervals to put out sentries watching both the water and the land and told the crews to go ahead. The men, without waiting, stripped off their clothes and tumbled into the river. I smiled, then noticed our women standing in a disconsolate knot. I was about to order Quatervals to detail four more guards and suggest the women swim on the other side of the islet when Janela found a simpler and better solution.

She’d been wearing nothing but sandals, a pair of tough canvas trousers the sailmaker had made for almost all of us that were almost guaranteed tear proof and a ragged tunic. Without ado, she pulled off the tunic, stepped out of her trousers, ran to the edge of the river and flat-dove in.

There were shouts of glee from the swimming men who were delighted to see their Evocator gamboling about like any normal maid. The women looked at each other and Kele was the first to doff her own clothes.

Janela swam a few yards, then came back to shore. She went to her clothes, picked them up and came to me.

Suddenly I remembered an embarrassment from my youth. It was in my eleventh summer of life and several of my friends and I had visited a favorite swimming spot and were sporting about when a group of girls came by. Evidently this was also their special bathing area. They conferred and then to our immense surprise they disrobed and joined us.

The first thing was that all of us gaped incredulously for half a lifetime. I’m not sure why — there were more than enough nude statues in Orissa so no one could have any doubts as to the shape of the female form. Nearly all of us had sneaked into one of the neighborhoods set aside for courtesans, some of whom felt dressing and undressing a waste of time when it came to quantity business. And some of us even claimed to have been seduced by older cousins, playmates or by one of the household’s servants. One or two may even have been telling the truth.