The Legend of Broken (24 page)

“There is nothing we can do, Veloc,” Keera replies. “Nothing, save this. The healers will not let me near Herwin and Baza, and likely cannot save either of my sons. And Effi will be safe—our parents can mind her, until we return.” Exhausted little Effi quietly objects to this notion, but Keera calms her.

“Listen to your sister, Veloc,” Heldo-Bah says, continuing to smile at the High Priestess. “This is our only hope—to fight the sorcery of the Tall with the Tall’s greatest sorcerer.”

Veloc has not quite conceded: “But the disease spreads so quickly. How long will we have to succeed, before our efforts become meaningless?”

“Only the Tall can answer that with any certainty, Veloc,” says the Father. “We believe they mean to attack, once the disease has weakened us sufficiently; what they have not counted upon is that our healers believe that they can, at least, control the disease’s spread, by separating the healthy from the ill, and above all by burning the dead. Hastily.” This last word causes Keera to wince; and, seeing as much, the Father continues: “I regret such blunt words, Keera. It is not an easy thought, I know, and I wish I could tell you that time will make it easier. But the only thing that can ease our suffering is precisely what Heldo-Bah says—we must fetch the greatest sorcerer that ever walked among the Tall, to undo the deadly work of the kingdom he once served.” The father sits, taking a sheet of parchment and scribbling on it with a quill. “There is no more specific order we can give you. Make what preparations you must, take whatever supplies you need. This—” he rolls his completed document, and holds it out to Heldo-Bah, “will give you full authority. You will want for nothing—but do not abuse the privilege, Heldo-Bah.”

“And, in the name of the Moon—” The Priestess, having conceded the point of who will go on this vital journey, feels the need to at least attempt to assert herself a final time: “Try to show greater faith than you have in the past. The life of the tribe may well depend upon it.”

Keera’s head snaps about, to give the Priestess a hateful glower. “Some of us, Divine One, have already learned that.”

It is yet another impertinence, and the Priestess thinks to protest. But a firm look from the Groba Father repeats the warning he must not voice aloud:
You have said enough—be still.
He turns again to the foragers.

“Go, now,” he says, “and take our heartfelt prayers with you.”

The same Elder who guided them into the Den now rises to escort the foragers back out. Veloc puts an arm around Keera and Effi, and gently tries again to ascertain, as they go through the passageway, whether or not Keera truly has the strength for this undertaking. This leaves Heldo-Bah to walk behind them with the Elder; and it is an awkward moment for the forager. He does not speak the language of polite Bane society, nor indeed of
any
polite society; and yet, for reasons he cannot precisely define, he wishes to express his respect and sympathy for the man. He waits until they pass through the antechamber and emerge into the day. The Elder comes to a halt just outside the cave’s mouth, and Heldo-Bah faces him.

“Thirty years,” he says awkwardly, scratching at his beard. “A long time, to be with one woman.” The Elder’s pain becomes apparent; but he also seems baffled. “Long time to be with
anyone,
really,” Heldo-Bah continues. But it is no use—he has no talent for saying what he wishes in a proper manner; and so he drops the guise, smiles, and says, “Don’t worry, old fellow—” Then he pulls his shirt sleeve over his hand and, inexplicably, rubs the top of the Elder’s bald pate. “We’re going to find that bloody sorcerer for you—and you’ll have your justice!”

“Stop that—Heldo-Bah!” The Elder takes hold of the forager’s arm, and pushes it away with surprising strength, staring at Heldo-Bah in shock; and yet, possibly because he understands that some small kernel of compassion lies at the heart of the forager’s bizarre behavior, he does not reproach him, other than to say, “At times I do believe you really are mad …”

But Heldo-Bah is already hurrying down the pathway to catch his friends, who have stopped to retrieve their sacks—no easy task, as Ashkatar is atop them, stealing some desperately needed and richly deserved snippets of sleep, while intermittently waking to ensure that the crowd of angry Bane does not gather again. He bolts upright when he hears the Elder call out:

“Yantek Ashkatar!”

Ashkatar gets himself righted, with help from Heldo-Bah and Veloc. “Elder?” he shouts.

“The Groba will see you now!”

Ashkatar has not gone half a dozen steps before he stops and turns back to Keera. “You have accepted the commission?”

Rocking Effi, who has fallen into sad slumber, Keera replies, “We have, Yantek.”

Ashkatar nods. “Some thought that you would refuse it—but I felt certain that you would not. And I want you to know—about your boys.” Ashkatar pulls at his whip. “Don’t fear that they will be forgotten, while you’re gone. My men and I shall watch over them as if they were our own—and I shall keep your parents ever informed of how it goes with them.”

Keera’s eyes fill with tears, but she is determined to control her grief and her worry until the journey she is faced with is done. “Thank you, Yantek,” she says, with deep respect. Then she begins to walk slowly toward her parents’ home, just south of the village center, still rocking Effi from side to side.

“And Veloc—” Ashkatar points his whip. “You and Heldo-Bah take care of her, eh? Especially in the southwestern Wood. Take care of yourselves, too—it’s hellish country, and all our hopes go with you.”

Veloc nods. “Aye,” he says, and then turns to catch his sister.

Heldo-Bah pauses, still grinning. “And how would you know what the country’s like down there?” he asks. Ashkatar flushes with angry embarrassment, at which Heldo-Bah laughs once and says: “But it was a noble sentiment, Ashkatar. I’m deeply touched …”

Before the commander of the Bane army can reply, Heldo-Bah runs off; nevertheless, Ashkatar shouts after him: “Damn you, Heldo-Bah—It’s
Yantek
Ashka—!” But then, out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of the Elder still waiting, and murmurs to himself, “Ah, the blazes with it …” Straightening his tunic, he watches the foragers disappear into the crowds of weeping, shouting, desperate Bane as he starts up the path.

“The Moon go with you three,” he murmurs softly.

Then he hurries inside the Den of Stone, to propose the scheme he believes will allow the infant and drastically outnumbered army of the Bane—a force as yet no more than two hundred strong—to defend Davon Wood against the mightiest military machine north of
Lumun-jan,
at least until such time as the foragers return.

“And what happens after
that,
” Ashkatar murmurs to himself as he catches up to the Elder, “I can’t even begin to guess at …”

Sunset at the High Temple brings strange and

wondrous visitors …

On making the Kafran faith the state religion of Broken—and of himself, a deity—Thedric, the patricidal son of the Mad King Oxmontrot, speaking through the first of the Grand Layzins, pledged to create great works in the name his “true father”: the golden god. He quickly completed the High Temple of Kafra (in which Oxmontrot had never shown more than a passing interest), and greatly increased its beauty of design; and through rituals conducted therein, the banishments that Oxmontrot had instituted as a pragmatic method of forging a united people who would be capable of not only creating an impregnable city, but of defending themselves in the field from the conquering hordes that the Mad King had fought during his years of service to
Lumun-jan
, became the unshakable pillars of the new kingdom’s faith. Soon thereafter, the Sacristy had been built, above the ground between the Temple’s western and the Inner City’s eastern walls; so, too, had been the Stadium, where once had stood a second, smaller headquarters for the northern watch of the Broken army; and finally, adjoining the Sacristy, was erected the House of the Wives of Kafra, the second story of which became the Grand Layzin’s official residence. A spacious veranda off the Layzin’s splendid bedchamber offered an excellent view of the Inner City’s Lake of a Dying Moon, as well as the upper stories of the royal palace, while a new, underground passage beneath the House of the Wives of Kafra connected the Temple, the Layzin, and the priestesses directly to the palace and the royal family. But these additions were merely practical, designed to make the secret lives of Broken’s rulers and the business of Kafran clerics easier; only the veranda and balcony outside the Layzin’s bedchamber had been designed purely as an indulgence, one intended to give Broken’s senior priest a view of the Inner City, that he might watch as the setting sun was reflected off the black waters of the Lake.

For the long succession of Grand Layzins, who had neither claim nor pretense to godhood, life within the House of the Wives proved a welcome respite from the often overwhelming responsibilities of giving voice to (and more often than not, creating) the edicts of the various God-Kings, whose removal from the world made their views upon mundane secular matters of somewhat limited utility. The Layzins’ burdens were eased, early in the new life of Broken, by the elevation of the head of the city’s Merchants’ Council to the position of First Advisor of the realm. The most onerous of the Layzin’s chores could finally be handed off to a worldly man more suited to dealing with them, and none too soon; for the rise of the savage tribes on every side of Broken, during the first generations of the kingdom’s existence, required some very
secular
responses.

The successive Lords of the Merchants’ Council proved, thankfully, dedicated men. Indeed, they were so effective (especially when supported, as they usually were, by those peerlessly loyal men who attained the supreme rank of yantek in the Broken army) that the Layzins had time to focus the greater part of their energies on elaborating precise ways in which the sublime quests for physical perfection and the attainment of wealth should govern the daily lives of the people of the kingdom. And no single spot on Kafra’s own Earth, these men have ever believed, was or is more suited to such ruminations than the veranda above the House of the Wives of Kafra, where their lofty thoughts have ever been fed by views enveloped in the powerful scent of the wild roses that ascend the walls of the gardens that surround the building.

The man now called Grand Layzin has taken particular delight in the simple pleasures offered by the secluded veranda since first taking office; and this evening—as he reclines on a sofa of expertly worked calves’ leather that is scattered with down cushions covered in the very softest lamb’s wool and silk, and which is so positioned as to give him a wondrous view of both the Celestial Way to the south and the Inner City to the west—his thoughts turn to the gloriously serene early years of his service. They had been full of seemingly unlimited opportunities to guarantee the sustained youth and vitality—indeed, the
immortality
—of his beloved young God-King, Saylal; had been full, in fact, of the promise that not only
his
sacred beauty and strength but those same qualities among his priests and priestesses could be made safe forever from corruption and death, if the natures of all these qualities and processes could be but better understood and opposed. All this had seemed within reach—
once
 …

But now, as the Layzin’s mind inevitably turns to thoughts of the departure, earlier, of five hundred of the city’s finest young men to attend to a problem that the Layzin himself knows to transcend that of the Bane, the exhausted high priest finds himself rising to close one set of the gossamer drapes that hang on the veranda; finds himself, strangely,
obscuring
his view of the Inner City and the Lake of a Dying Moon, and then taking his seat again, to stare at the long avenue down which those five hundred nearly perfect men—commanded by an officer of, if not perfect breeding, at least perfect loyalty—marched on their way out of the city.

And, thinking of all these things, the Layzin sighs …

He is still dressed in his ceremonial robes, which are of the softest white cotton available to Broken traders; and he sips the sweet white wine made from grapes native to the valley of the Meloderna. Below him, he can hear the frequent laughter of the Wives and the other priestesses, which should be a perfect accompaniment to the beautiful spring evening. But then, as he looks to the right of the Celestial Way and at the gates to the Inner City (the walls of which enclose no fewer than forty
ackars
†
), he spies detachments of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard changing their watch; and the pleasure of the roses and the laughter fades.
Yet all is being done that can be done, that is certain
, he tries to tell himself; and then the nagging doubt:
But will it prove enough …?

To his right, the gossamer drapes catch the sharpening golden light of the setting spring sun: that same light that entranced so many Layzins before him. The drapes diffuse the glare, in much the same way that the wine begins to calm the Layzin’s soul; and a light breeze buffets the fabric ever so slightly, then does the same to similar hangings that cover the arched doorway to his bedchamber. Suddenly, through these last drapes, the Layzin sees the silhouette of a graceful servant approaching. He silently prays for the servant to bring no new reports, no new rumblings of still more troubles in the farthest reaches of the kingdom, and, above all, no word of still more poisonings—indeed, the Layzin would be pleased with no message at all.

But he knows that it cannot be so: not at this moment in the life of the kingdom. Thus he is unsurprised when the youth—some seventeen years of age, with a powerful body plainly visible through his own very sheer white robes—delicately steps out onto the veranda, made timid by the thought of disturbing his master.

“It’s all right, Entenne,” the Layzin says softly. “I am not sleeping.”

“Thank you, master,” the youth Entenne says. “Her blessedness, the First Wife of Kafra, has returned from Davon Wood.”

“Ah.” The Layzin sets down his goblet, believing his prayers for good news to have been answered. “Excellent.”

The youth wrings his hands in distress. “Apparently there was an—an
encounter
, master. Of which she can best tell you, I am certain.”

The Layzin appears pained. “All right. Then let her enter.”

The youth slips from the veranda as silently as he entered it; and in moments a young woman with a long, striking sweep of black hair and brilliant green eyes enters. She wears a robe of black edged in silver, and moves with confident strides toward the Layzin, her remarkably fit legs appearing through long slits in the robe. Kneeling, she takes the Layzin’s ring hand when it is offered, and kisses the pale blue stone, which appears all the paler under the brilliance of her green eyes. She kisses the stone a second, then a third time, after which she holds the hand tightly to her neck.

“Master. I have succeeded. In the name of the God-King, and for his sake. The animal is within the palace. The children are outside.”

The Layzin leans down to her. “And this ‘encounter,’ Alandra
†
 …?”

The woman looks up at him, smiling yet momentarily concerned. “A party of Bane foragers, Eminence. Before their Horn had sounded. No harm was done—I believe they suspected sorcery.”

The Layzin cups the woman’s chin, admiring its perfect angle and size. “And would they have been so very wrong? I sometimes wonder …” He stands. “The animal is for tonight. Saylal is most anxious. And the children—their parents agreed?”

“Yes, Eminence. It was only a matter of money.”

“And what are the ages?”

“Twelve years the boy, eleven the girl.”

“Ideal. We must prepare them at once. The others …” The Layzin looks at the guards before the Inner City gates once more: “The others are dying more quickly than we can dispose of them … And it grows harder to greet those who replace them, knowing …” He rouses himself. “But it must be done—and so bring them to me, Alandra …”

The woman departs; and for several disconcerting moments, the Layzin tries, with every ounce of strength, to continue looking out over the city; anywhere, save west, at—

The woman reappears, this time accompanied by two children, who wear clothes of a rough fabric. They are fair-haired, with light young eyes that peer out from pale faces in wonder and fear. Guided by the woman, they approach the Layzin, who smiles gently at them.

“Do you know why you are here, children?” he says. Both the boy and the girl shake their heads, and the Layzin laughs quietly. “Your family has given you in service to the God-King Saylal. What that means is very simple—” The Layzin glances up when he hears the musical rattle of glass, and sees the woman Alandra within the bedchamber, preparing two deep blue glasses with lemon water, the new granulated crystals known as
sukkar
†
(for a taste of which nearly all children, and many an adult, will do almost anything), and finally a third ingredient, contained in a glass vial. The Layzin looks at the children again. “Whatever you are told to do, you must obey, with pleasure when you can, but above all without question—to doubt is to risk your souls, and those of your families. Kafra rejoices in the prosperity of the God-King, and the God-King delights in the obedience of his servants. Here—drink this …”

The Layzin takes the two glasses from Alandra, and hands one to each child. They drink cautiously, at first, then eagerly, when they taste the sweet liquid. “Good,” the Layzin pronounces. “Very good. Now—” Tenderly, the Layzin kisses each child on the forehead. “Go along with your mistress,” he whispers. “And remember—obey, always.”

Looking more confused than they did on entering—but also undisturbed, now, by that confusion—the children follow the First Wife of Kafra out of the room.

“Entenne?” the Layzin calls softly; and the youthful servant reappears. “Run to the home of Lord Baster-kin. Say to him that I am unwell, after the exertions of the day, and will not be able to attend his dinner. Express my apologies.”

Entenne nods, and goes down on one knee. “Of course, Eminence,” he says, kissing his master’s ring and departing quickly.

The Layzin then reclines upon one of his sofas, grimly determined to enjoy the remainder of the sunset. He has suddenly realized that much of his disquiet, this evening, has been most immediately caused by Lord Baster-kin’s characteristically relentless insistence that the matter of Sentek Arnem’s son entering the sacred service be pressed upon the great soldier’s wife at once.
If you feel so strongly about the matter
, the Layzin had finally replied to Baster-kin earlier in the evening,
why not tend to it yourself
?

He might have known it would be just the sort of commission that would delight the Merchant Lord …

Several additional moments of similarly irritating ruminations continue to give the Layzin scant relief; and his mood does not truly improve until he catches sight of the youth Entenne departing the House of the Wives and moving onto the near-empty Celestial Way. The pleasant image of his favorite servant setting off at a run, southeast into the wealthiest residential section of the First District, prompts the Layzin to marvel, as he so often has, at the power and grace of Entenne’s long, muscular legs; and all thoughts of Lord Baster-kin’s aggressively pious preoccupations (which are no doubt patriotic and faithful, at heart, the Layzin eventually decides) dissipate, as the herald vanishes from view. His Eminence then allows himself to recline more fully and rest more completely, as the dusty golden light that fills the city at this peaceful, divine hour slowly begins to give way to equally serene nightfall; and he allows himself to hope—even to believe—that all in Broken will yet be well, despite the shrouded ills that beset the entirety of the kingdom, from the depths of the seemingly serene Lake of a Dying Moon behind the Inner City walls to the farthest towns and villages in the Meloderna Valley, into which the loyal soldiers of the God-King are even now making their way.
All shall be well, all shall be well,
the Layzin muses; until he finds that, in his desperate desire to believe the statement, he is whispering it aloud …