Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) (34 page)

“Curses be curses,” he said. “Ain’t but one kind, several species. Gods, demons, all use th’ same cloth. Y’re cursed, y’ run but it’s never no use. Curse pro’lly caught up wi’ ’em when they slowed down an’ started to build anew. All dead now. No question.”

Someone managed a mild curse for that cheeriness — aimed at Pip.

Before dark, Quatervals came to me with an idea.

“Meaning no criticism of milord’s tactics but may I offer a suggestion? I think it’d be wiser if we put out sentries in the square, on land, rather than just huddle here with no way of gettin’ warnin’ if somethin’ comes out of those alleyways across. I’d suggest sentries there... there... and there,” he pointed.

“And if something does come?”

“We’ll pick those who’re known for bein’ fleet of foot and with good ears and tell ’em to sound the alarm and then scamper for the ships.”

I didn’t like the idea of setting anyone ashore here, even though there’d been nothing to see or fear and Janela still felt no threat. But...

“Very well,” I decided. “You pick the men. I’ll stand watch-on-watch-off with you from over there, by that dry fountain.”

Quatervals came closer and muttered, “
Lord
Antero, meaning no disrespect,
Lord,
but there are times
milord
when I think when Te-Date was feelin’ miserly when he put brains in your head. I’m supposed to be keepin’ you alive, not these other weasels, which means you’re supposed to keep your arse right here on this gods-damned deck and let me worry about the perimeter!”

“Thanks for your opinion and concern,
Citizen
Quatervals,” I said. “But my order stands. I’ll take first go. Relieve me at midnight.”

But Quatervals never made that relief.

The mate aboard the
Ibis
had just rung the midwatch, the ting of the bells resounding into the dead city and it came alive, as if that were a signal.

Suddenly there were people in the square, richly dressed, shouting, singing as we scrabbled our weapons out. One man, I had but a second to note was ostentatiously drunk, reeled toward me and as I tried to block him away with the flat of my sword walked
through
me and at the same moment I realized I heard no sounds of carnival.

The only noises were the cries of alarm from my ships and the sentries giving the alert.

This was a city of ghosts, ghosts that had come alive and no sooner did I realize that than the full sounds of a city in mad bacchanal swept over us. Janela, sword in hand, ran up to me.

“Amalric,” she said, “this came but seconds ago. I had barely time to sense these spirits and then they were here.”

“Can you tell their intents?”

“I cannot. But we must retire to the ships quickly. I fear the worst.”

Most of the sentries, following my standing orders, had already retreated to the ships. Quatervals was just coming down the gangplank of the
Ibis
with my rescuing party as we reached the dock. Backs to the ship, we retreated aboard and then marveled.

Now the buildings were as new, brightly painted and draped with banners and the dry fountain I’d been standing next to sent explosions of different-colored light up into the air and we heard many bands from many parts of the city playing loudly, as if competing for the ears of the city’s denizens.

The ghosts continued their revelry, paying us no mind.

“Should we cast off?” Kele wanted to know.

Janela shook her head. “Not yet. Not if we don’t have to. I don’t feel any malevolence directed toward us. But that could change as quickly as these spirits appeared.”

I agreed and told her to have all men in armor with their weapons ready, although I didn’t know what good temporal steel could do against wraiths.

Now we had time to look at the crowd and try to think as to what was going on. It was some sort of holiday I thought, because no one, not even the festival happy people of Irayas could celebrate so constantly, so frenetically. I could feel the tension aboard ship ebb as sailors looked across the square, identifying the celebrants:

“Look at her. Right naked.”

“Aye. Ought to be a law, someone as fat as that. Make ’er wear a tent.”

“By th’ gods, that ’un just drained a double-handed flagon an he’s still standin’... no... there he goes... taken aback... hung up in irons hard ashore... and dismasted,” someone said, seeing the ghost in question stagger in circles then collapse.

“Over there. Look at those two, havin’ at each other.”

“No harm, they’re both so drunk they can’t see... the hells! He just pulled a dagger! Te-Date, they’re both cuttin’... an now they’re both down an’ dyin’!”

“Damme, damme... I’ve never seen such chaos,” Kele muttered. “It’s as if this is the last day of the last celebration.”

Before I could respond horns blared over the music and all the ghosts in the square turned. Black-clad crossbowmen doubled into the square and took up positions, their weapons ready. The horns grew louder and then a wave of men and women poured into sight from a main street. Men, women and demons, I corrected myself, as I saw something with the body of a woman but the head of a jackal, something crawling behind it like a spider but with a man’s head protruding from its midsection. Some of these beings were clothed, some were naked.

They were beyond drunk, in an ecstasy I’d only seen in a few lands, primitive ceremonies aimed at waking the dark gods and demons. These beings coupled indiscriminately, man with man, woman with beast, beast with man. Others slashed at themselves with knives, roaring in glee as the blood flowed. All of them were bellowing, screaming, singing at the top of their lungs.

On deck I heard a sailor mutter a prayer and another one vomit.

I felt a black wave roll toward me, a sea of malevolence from these ghosts. I turned to Janela and saw her expression which must’ve matched mine.

Before either of us could speak something else strode into the square. I don’t quite know how to describe it. If it was a demon, it was one such as I’d never heard of. It appeared somewhat like a man in spite of its taloned claws, although Janela told me later she saw it as a woman. But it was constantly changing its shape and each time it changed it was more obscene, more evil. I don’t know why the thought came to me but I thought this... this presence reflected all of the evil in us all, reflected and held it. It was huge, towering far over the buildings.

But it was more than just an aspect — this creature was material. There was a line of children, chained together with neckbands and the monster reached down, howling laughter and picked them up by the chain and I could hear the screams as they strangled and died. The being cast them aside like a child abandons a flower-chain, reached down and found a woman, lifted her and then smashed her down, her body shattering against the cobbles of the square.

Cages on wheels were rolled into the square, cages full of men, women, children, who saw the demon and screamed for mercy but would find none as the beast lifted one cage, tore the roof away and took the captives in one hand and squeezed and once more screams resounded.

I came back to alertness and was shouting to cut the lines and cast off when all at once the demon, the presence, became aware of us. As he did, so too did all of the ghastly celebrants in the square. The howls of celebration became shouts of anger and someone picked up a cobblestone and hurled it at us. Now those ghosts had become real, because the cobblestone crashed solidly against the deck, barely missing Maha. Just behind it thrummed a crossbow bolt that buried itself in a bulwark beside me.

Kele and the other ship captains were shouting commands and axes thudded and lines fell away. Janela looked upstream, pointed, screamed and I turned.

A huge wave that stretched from wall to wall of the gorge was rushing down on us and its roar was now louder than the crowd. The wall of water was enormous, reaching almost to the plateau above, taller than the city’s buildings or even the demon, who saw doom coming at him and screamed again, but this scream was of fear and rage.

Other screams came from the ghosts and were echoed by our seamen as doom closed upon us. There was no time nor would there have been any point in trying to turn the ship’s bows upstream to somehow take the blow.

I knew the Dark Seeker rode that wave and death had finally come to Amalric Antero, but was damned if I would give in. I seized Janela and pulled her down, my other arm wrapping around the foremast, a forlorn hope that somehow we might survive the crushing blow. The wavesound grew louder, louder, filling the world and it towered over us, over the city and my eyes were closed and the wave broke, crashing and the screams were buried in the noise of destruction and I sucked in a deep breath, my last, but I would hold it as long as I could.

But no water poured over us, although it took many seconds for me to realize it. I opened my eyes and the night was peaceful, silent, overcast. I sat up in time to see the last of that wave rush across the city, burying the obscene horrors and smashing the buildings as it went and then the wave was gone and I was staring out at an abandoned, moonlit city that appeared damaged by what I’d thought to be a storm, but now knew differently.

Janela lifted her head, looked about. My sailors were coming to their feet. Stunned silence lay heavy and then murmurs began as we realized we yet lived.

We were still gaping at the ruins left long ago by that great wave when Janela, quicker than the rest of us, said sharply, “What we just saw happened years and centuries ago. But it was not a dream. Captain Kele, we must set sail at once. The Old Ones, the gods, I don’t know, destroyed this city, but the doom still hangs close.”

We knew she was right and moving numbly, as if in a dream, we shook out sails, manned the sweeps and put men in the chains with torches to watch for rocks. No one cared much about whether or not we might wreck ourselves on unseen obstacles.

It was enough that we lived. None of us would ever forget the horror of that dark carnival, nor of its destruction.

As we rounded a bend and the city fell away downriver, I thought I heard something.

I listened closely.

Music came from behind us and I saw lights flicker against the overcast.

* * * *

We heard the roaring long before we came to it. All of us jumped at the sound, fearing another giant wave’s assault and this one could be real instead of a ghost. Our nerves were on edge now, even though, thank Te-Date, we’d taken few casualties. But there’d been too many horrors which only those far away might term marvels, too much danger, too much blood. Even the gorge’s dawn-and-evening beauty was beginning to wear. We needed to see open land, open water, where we might have time to prepare for enemies before they came on us.

Sailing became harder as the current increased and the winds changed direction more often. Again and again we had to use the sweeps and even then made little headway.

The river angled and our way was blocked.

A wide pool, actually a small lake opened and above it boiled the greatest waterfall I’d ever seen. Unimaginable tons of water crashed down into the lake, sending waves washing out across its surface. Mist rolled up almost to the plateau’s edge and all was a deadly maelstrom of rocks and water. There was not a break, not a pause where this river fell free hundreds of feet from the plateau down into the gorge.

I ground my teeth in surprise and dismay. Now we’d have to abandon the ships. Worse, I scanned the rocky sides of the gorge for stairs, tunnels that would lead upward, but saw nothing but green-stained dripping rock.

Kele came up, swearing. “E’en somebody wi’ their trenails not knocked flush’d know better’n to do this,” she said. “A pox on these Old Ones. Maybe they just grew wings an’ flew on home carryin’ bales an’ cargo under their wings?”

“Hardly,” Janela said. She closed her eyes and her head swiveled, nostrils flared like a hunting beast. “No,” she said. “We can go on.”

“Straight up?”

“Look. Over there,” she said. “Dead center through the mist.” I peered, and thought I saw something, something dark through the water-veil. “Captain,” Janela said, “set your course for the heart of that cataract.”

Kele’s mouth opened, shut, then she barked commands. I heard protests, but as always the crew obeyed. There were questions shouted from the
Firefly
and
Glowworm
and Kele shouted back to follow her. I could have sworn the hoys showed reluctance as they fell into line. Tacking back and forth in short reaches, we closed on the falls and the waterbellow grew louder and louder and the mist boiled and took us in its embrace and I waited for the shock of the water to cascade on our deck.

Some did. Perhaps a dozen bucketsful and then we were through the portal where Janela’s eyes and other-worldly senses had seen the way, through where the water fell but lightly and in an enormous cavern, behind the waterfall.

There was no way to talk here with the roaring of the falls behind and beside us but only to signal, as if we were in a storm at sea. We rowed on across the cavern, toward its far end. I’d thought it would grow darker and darker but it stayed an even twilight. I don’t know if there were cunning portals to let in the sun or magical illumination but saw no signs of either.