The Far Kingdoms, page 48
“We weren’t shed of him,” Maeen said. “We hadn’t time. He disappeared that night, and no one has seen or heard from him since. And the tavern was ordered closed.”
“By whom?” I asked.
“He wouldn’t put his name to it,” Maeen said. “But everyone says it could be none other than Prince Raveline.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
OMERYE
Any renewed brooding over Janos and Raveline was cut short the next day when Beemus showed up at my palace. He said, in his whispered shadow-speak, the king was engaged in important business; but assured me it was only slightly more important, in Domas’s view, than the business he had with me. Barring unforeseen emergency, our trade agreement was next in line.
“Can you give me some hint which way the king is leaning?” I asked. He replied with a shrug, but accompanied the shrug with an upward tilt of one corner of his mouth; making, for Beemus, a grin of encouragement. “When will he decide? Can you guess?” Another shrug: the mouth line remained straight, meaning, he wasn’t sure. “Can you at least tell me this: will it be very long?” Beemus thought a moment, then shook his head: no, it would not be long.
After he had gone I faced the day with brighter hopes. I sent a message to Janos, thinking we could discuss our prospects. But when I saw Gatra’s familiar scrawl on the reply, I knew without reading that, once again, Janos was not available and had returned to Raveline’s side. This was not enough to spoil my cheer, so I called for my boat and set out for a lazy day viewing Irayas.
The water has always brought me peace; and I spent several enjoyable hours alone with my boatman that day, cruising the river. It was late afternoon when I came to a district I had never seen before: it was an older area, near the center of the city. The canals were narrower and heavily shaded in the arch of thick-branched trees; the water reflected trunks twisted into forms and faces long past maturity. The homes, although certainly not poor or common, were smaller and steered sharply away from sameness. I smelled fresh paint; the dust of newly cut stone; and woolen yarn, dampened to greet the loom. As we moved through the maze that tied the district together, I saw bright color in the windows of the homes. They were paintings, I realized, and lovely tapestries as well; all were art in the making, for I also saw limners and weavers at work. The boatman took me past one large open yard that held a delightful litter of sculptures in all of stages of development. We turned into a pleasant bywater and I eased back to enjoy the song of a bird piping from a tree not far away. Then I realized, with a cold pang, it wasn’t a bird making that music. The single note was followed by a gentle stream on the air. The delicate signature was unmistakable: it was Omerye’s. I hoarsed for the boatman to turn back, but he was so intent on the music himself he did not hear, and only drew harder on the oars. Then it seemed the pipes had caught my presence, for I recognized the same notes of sudden interest I’d heard in Domas’s chamber. More music followed: gentle sniffing all about me, then a joyous cry of familiarity. Low-dipping branches parted, revealing a small dock; and on that dock, feet dainty, bare and trailing in the water, sat Omerye. As the boat drew up she played a final note: it was one of glad greeting. Then she lowered the pipes and looked at me. Her red hair made a lustrous frame about her pale features; but in the light I saw it was not as close to mine as I thought: it was a deeper red, and softer. She was dressed in a white tunic cut short to midthigh, and it clung close to her lush figure. The smile she wore was shy, but it made me glow; and then that glow made me sad, for I knew I must leave.
“I knew you would come.” Her voice was as light and musical as her pipes. There was no artifice in it: she had known; and, somehow, so had I. She pointed the pipes at a white cottage with a slanted roof of weathered-blue: her home. “Please?”
There was only one answer I could give, but when I forced it out, it turned on its head and I heard myself say: “Yes. I would like that very much.” I clambered onto the dock, trembling when her hand touched my shoulder to help steady me. We stood together, close; almost touching. She was tall and I found her eyes with no trouble: they were blue; then her chin tilted up and they were green; the chin tilted higher still, and now they were gray. Her lips were slightly bruised in color, and swollen from her piping. They would be so easy to kiss, I thought. She stepped away and took my hand, and led me to the cottage. Behind me, I heard the boatman chuckle and the scrape of wood as he pushed off, and I almost turned to urge him to wait, for I would not be more than a moment. I heard the splash of oars as he pulled away, and I entered the cottage. It was dim and hung with old, thin tapestries of artful design. The main room was spread with pillows of muted color. They made a circular pattern about a small stool. Omerye sat on the stool and patted one of the nearest pillows. I sank down, so full of questions and confusion I only had strength for silence.
It was broken by her musical voice: “Do you understand what this is about?” I shook my head, no. She raised the pipes. “You are the one I play for,” she said. I still did not understand. She raised the pipes higher, until they nearly touched her lips. “Since the first moment I played,” she said, “I saw a person in my mind. And it is that person I make my music for.” She stopped, the pipes drooping lower, and shook her head. “No. That isn’t right.” She pressed the pipes tight against her breasts. “I make music for me.” The pipes came up again. “But I play the music for... you. You are that person in my mind.” The pipes were closing on her lips again. She said: “And you have been there, since... since... Well, always.”
She commenced to play. In my mind the music formed the image of a small, pale child; she was silent and serious and given to dreams. When I write that I saw her, imagine my ears were my eyes, and the notes created form and color better than any light. The child loved all sound, whether shrill bird cries, or the knock of dry wood against a dock. I saw her make sounds of her own, using common things to produce uncommon notes. I saw her form those notes into a first whole song. She always played to a mirror, and in the mirror I saw an image I couldn’t quite make out. The vision blurred, then I found the child grown into a girl with swelling buds for breasts and hips flaring into womanhood. She sat before the mirror, red hair spilling downward as her head bent over new pipes. She made a lovely song, but you could tell by her hesitation she was testing new ground. I saw her glance into the mirror, as if seeking approval. At first I thought I saw her own reflection there: but the red hair that shone back was of a slightly different color; and the features smiling approval were not hers, but mine. The music carried me onward: I saw the girl become a woman; saw her music lift above all heights; saw that woman play before important and approving people. But always there was one person whose approval Omerye was really seeking; and that person was me.
The song ended and I opened my eyes to see tears in her own; but there was gladness in the tears. “Now, here is the first song I ever heard in my head,” she said. “But, I could never play it... until now.” She lifted the pipes once again and melody swirled about me. Each note was one I had never heard before, but the refrain haunted close, oddly familiar. The song found secret places, and each place was happy to be revealed. Omerye’s pipes swept me away and she and I were discovering new things together: fresh vistas of mountains and rivers and rolling seas. The pipes stopped, and as the last notes drained from the air, I realized the song had been made only for me.
“Now, do you understand?” she asked, trembling, anxious.
As I began to answer a black pit opened and she became a small, distant figure across the wide gulf. Bitter memories of Deoce and little Emilie flooded out, washing over me. Grief struck and became hard, dry sobs rattling in my chest. I was locked in mourning, and as I mourned I knew I would soon suffer another great loss. For how could I ask Omerye to live with such specters?
Halab heard me and took pity. I felt his presence; and his whisper rustled in my ear: “You will find them there,” he said, “if you will only look.” I did; and when I raised my head the pit had vanished. Omerye’s face was close, and I looked into her eyes and saw Deoce and Emilie reborn. Omerye’s love joined theirs and became the whole. “Do you understand?” she asked again.
“Yes,” I said. “I understand.” I swept her from the stool and she came into my arms with a cry of delight. We fell into the pillows, aching for want of the other; all hot hands and twining limbs. My fingers opened her tunic with ease, as if from much practice. They caressed softness that was at once mysterious and familiar. I heard myself say: “I love you, Omerye.” I heard her whisper back: “I have always loved you, Amalric.” And then, except to repeat those words, we did not speak for many hours. We made love until dawn, and in the chill morning Omerye played that song once more. She played and I listened, and we were complete.
They say time passes swiftly for new lovers; and as if in a dream. Only the last was true for us: we spent the following weeks in a trance, drunk with one another; but each week seemed more like years and heaped together they made a lifetime. There was much to know, but there was also much known; and before very long there it was understood that any future the gods allowed, would be lived in the other’s company. The only question, was where, and that was settled the first time I broached it. “Shall I speak to the king?” I asked. “And ask to become one of his subjects so I can remain here with you?”
“Only if it pleases you,” Omerye said. “But don’t make the mistake of doing it to please me.”
“Wouldn’t you rather remain with your own people?” I asked, thinking of Deoce, and wondering if fate would have cast different dice if we had returned to her tribe. “You are much admired here. I fear your art would suffer in Orissa.”
“Admiration has never been my goal,” Omerye said. “Only freedom to make any music I choose.”
“You would have that in Orissa,” I said. “And admiration as well. But I do not think art is as great a treasure as it is in Vacaan.”
Omerye’s face darkened. “It is not so wonderful as you have been led to believe,” she said. “The king may say all is encouraged for art’s sake, but in practice it is another thing. In Vacaan there are unspoken boundaries that limit all the arts. If you go beyond it, certain... things... happen. The least of which is you are suddenly without patrons, or audience of any kind.”
“But how can that be?” I asked. “Why, in Vacaan, artists are paid the greatest of all compliments. When their work is complete, a spell is cast so no one can duplicate it in any manner. And each is preserved, so the work remains in all ways unique.”
“Uniquely tame... and therefore not unique at all,” Omerye replied. “When you have been here longer, you will see nothing is allowed that stirs public questioning or debate. An artist can only dare with form, or color, or tone. But we can never challenge authority. Much is made of our system, because authority goes to great trouble to sniff out our talents when we are young. Then we are given the best of training. But along with that training a very subtle message is imparted: do this, and no more.”
“What happens to those who don’t listen?” I asked.
She shivered. “One day,” she said, low, “they simply fail to appear.” The twin of the chill that had touched her, touched me; and I thought of the missing tavern keeper... and Raveline. “We all know better than to ask what happened to them,” Omerye continued. “And we take great care we never mention their names again.” She nestled deeper into my arms for comfort, sighing. “At least I had you,” she said. “That alone is what kept me content.”
It was decided she would return to Orissa with me. The decision tumbled me out of love’s trance, and I became anxious to complete my business. Omerye moved into my palace, and I resumed skirmishing with the king’s officials. Along with awareness came fresh worries about Raveline and Janos. The old nightmare of the ruined city returned to haunt my sleep; but this time I had Omerye’s sweet music and love to lessen the torment. The gentle balsam she spread made it easier to think. Ideas leaped up, and became theories that only needed testing to become solutions. Finally, I sent Janos a firm message I must see him. A day or so passed before I received a reply: Greycloak agreed to meet with me... immediately.
I found him hard at work, deep in the bowels of an old building that smelled of parchment dust and the stale sulfur of ancient spells. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw me, and I knew our meeting had been forgotten. “Amalric, my friend,” he shouted, jumping up from a writing table, and spilling old scrolls on the floor. “What a happy coincidence. I was just thinking of you.” His clothes were in absent disarray and he was covered with so much dust it fell in clouds when he bounded over to me, and made him sneeze.
“You look like one of my old tutors,” I laughed, “and sound like him too. He was always going about with a snuffling nose and absent air. It was a pity my father had to let him go. The old fellow never knew what I was up to.”
Janos smacked his forehead. “How stupid of me,” he said. “That’s right, I invited you, didn’t I?”
“If you insist on being absent minded,” I teased, “I suggest you form some other habit of abasement. A few more knocks on your pate, and you’ll be permanently addled.”
“You’re right,” Janos said. Still lost in his studies, he raised his palm to give his head another knock. His wits returned as the hand reached eye level. He stared at it a moment, then laughed: “You are right, twice!”
I looked about the big room: from floor to vaulted ceiling, and from wall to distant wall, it was filled with scrolls of every shape and size. On Janos’s desk I saw one scroll held open by small weights. The writing was not in any language I knew, but was colorfully illuminated by geometric patterns painted in the margins. “These are the archives of the Old Ones,” Janos explained. “As far as I can tell, it is a complete record of all their spells — all the way back to their beginnings.”
“You must have made an even greater impression on the Prince than I thought,” I said, dryly. “For him to trust you with such ancient secrets.”
“Yes. Yes, I have,” Janos said, so lost in his studies he did not note my mocking tone. “Although I am not certain he sees real value in these archives.” He sank back into his seat, picking up a scroll and studying the inscriptions. “For the wizards of Vacaan,” he said, “these are much picked-over leavings. But they were a treasure of immeasurable value when the king’s ancestors first settled here... on the very bones of the Old Ones.”
I eyed the long walls of knowledge. “It is a pity we were not so blessed in Orissa,” I said.
Janos slapped the scroll down, excited. “You have it exactly,” he said. “Domas’s people came here as ignorant as any barbarian. Raveline admits it himself. All they have accomplished are refinements of what was once a great art.”
“I see you have not yet met the smart fellows.”
Janos glowered. “Not a damned one. I am coming to believe there are no smart fellows. Not anywhere.”
“Not even your mentor, Prince Raveline?”
“Oh, he thinks he is,” Janos said. “But I’m learning more looking over his shoulder than listening. What I get from a thing, and what he says is happening, are often opposites.”
I indicated the scrolls. “What about the Old Ones? Were there any smart fellows among them?”
Janos sighed. “I know you’ll think I’m a boaster,” he said. “But I must answer honestly. No. There were not.
“Did any of them stumble on the trail you are now following?”
“A few might have. But for some reason, they never continued.” Janos snorted. “I suspect those were the wizards the Old Ones honored on the Holy Mountain.” Another snort. “Although what they were honoring remains a mystery I doubt is worth unraveling.”
“So that leaves only you,” I said.
Janos gave me an odd look, whose meaning I could not decipher. Then he said, firm: “Yes... Only me.”
“But only because the others have been blind, or abdicated,” I said.
“Whatever the reason... No one has even come close to what I see. All of them kept going in greater and greater circles, from one generation to the next. They were doomed for never asking a single question: why?”
“Do you know the answer?” I asked.
Janos gave his head a mighty shake. “No. But I am close, dammit! Close. I already see things no one has even dreamt of looking for.” Janos’s excitement intensified. “You remember when I told you about the trick with the scorpion and the mouse? How I put the scorpion away in one place, and took the mouse from another?” I nodded that I did. “Well, now I know the how and why of it. There are many worlds, my friend, that exist alongside our own. Each world follows its own rules. A demon has his. We have ours. When we summon the demon, we also summon the rules of his own existence, and with knowledge we can manipulate those rules to our ends. Just as he can manipulate ours if he is the superior in the bargain.”
“Like Mortacious?” I asked.
Janos’s face darkened. “Yes. Like Mortacious.”
“How does one assure himself he will always be the superior?” I asked.
“By knowing that no matter how different those worlds appear; no matter how different the rules seem; there is really only one law that commands everything. The differences that so confuse us are merely many manifestations of that single law.”
“Do you know that law yet?” I asked.
Janos’s eyes glowed with the passion of his hunt. “No. But, as I said, I am close, my friend. Very close.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Now, listen to me, Greycloak. All is not as it seems in Vacaan. It can be a dangerous place if we tarry much longer. I think all of us should leave as soon as I complete my business with the king.”
“Leave?” Janos said, astounded. “I couldn’t leave now. I told you... I am very close.”
“The terms of my bargain should keep much of that knowledge coming,” I said. “And I have a plan that can offer much more, besides.”
