These pathetic shuffling figures were the cursed soldiers, civilians and court of Chanar Keep.
Still advancing, they clutched at the limbs and armour of Pon-lor’s guards to grapple with unbreakable grips or thrust or choke with fingers as strong as stone – for stone they were, flesh accursed to harden into petrification.
The dismissal, man! Think! How does it begin?
Pon-lor fell to his knees and covered his eyes to blot out the sight of his men falling before him, screaming and gagging, throats torn. Then he had it, the opening invocation, and it all flowed from there with ease, the sequence hammered into his mind through countless repetitions sitting legs crossed in the ritual centre, chanting from sunrise to sunset, sometimes all through the night until he slumped forward unconscious.
‘Magister …’ a guard breathed above him, awed.
He dared open his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.
Stone hands were reaching for him not an arm’s length away. Frozen now in the act of stretching. And as he watched an invisible wind gnawed at those fingers and the expressionless mask-like faces behind. Grain by grain the petrified flesh fell away like dust in a sandstorm. The clouds of dust swirled, wind-driven, obscuring the chamber. Even the bones of the hands disappeared, scoured away into blunt stubs, the arms following.
‘
What?
’ he heard Jak yell through the churning ashen clouds. ‘What is this?’
‘Who did you think lowered this curse upon Khun-Sen?’ Pon-lor shouted.
‘All know this as the work of the Demon-Queen!’
Pon-lor straightened to his feet. The invocation had centred him fully. Pain could not touch him now, nor could hunger nor fatigue,
until
he should ease out of the state, or eventually fall unconscious, or dead. He had closed off the bleeding. Clenched muscles and flesh against the wound. As he could now suppress any or all physical damage unless instantly fatal. ‘No, Jak,’ he began, his voice calm and strong. ‘An understandable assumption, but no. The Ruling Circle sent this curse against Khun-Sen – why I do not know. But it is our curse … and I am dismissing it now.’
‘I will see you dead!’ the young man howled.
‘He has run, Magister,’ a guard said, his gaze shaded against the swirling dust.
Metal clattered to the stone flagging as limbs cracked or hissed away into nothing. Faces had been gouged away into flat discs, bone and all. A head snapped off as the thinned neck gave way with a crack. Which of these, if any, was cursed Khun-Sen himself Pon-lor could not bring himself to care. One cursed figure, an elderly soldier, perhaps Khun-Sen, toppled over to burst into fragments.
‘Shall we pursue, m’lord?’ a guard asked, his tone now far more respectful.
‘No. They know this labyrinth. We’ll never track them. Let’s find the eastern path.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
The dense iron-grey cloud of dust was dissipating. Pon-lor could now see across the chamber. A good finger’s thickness covered every surface. He tilted his head to brush the fine powdered stone from his hair. Armour and weapons littered the floor, along with the corpses of his dead. As the last of the grit sifted away Pon-lor faced a mere four standing guards, all wrapped in shrouds of grey, like the ghosts of Chanar Keep themselves. The four stood blinking at one another through the smeared masks of pulverized stone as if shocked to find themselves alive.
‘Magister …’ murmured one, gesturing to his side.
Pon-lor peered down to see the bloodied, now dust-caked arrowhead and a good hand’s width of haft standing from his torso. He’d almost forgotten about it. ‘Break it off and pull it out,’ he told the guards.
They exchanged uneasy glances but nodded their acquiescence.
‘This will hurt, Magister …’ one told him, reaching for the haft.
Pon-lor took hold of the man’s sash to steady himself. ‘No, Melesh – it is Melesh? Yes? I quite assure you it will not.’
* * *
If any ships witnessed the storm that arose upon the great empty tract of ocean between Quon Tali and the shores of Jacuruku, none survived to tell the wonders of the sight. No natural tempest was this. The sea clashed as if driven to war against itself. Mountainous waves swelled as current surged against current. Deep troughs the size of valleys opened as if to reveal the infinite depths. The winds battled and slashed each other into shreds of cloud and sleet.
Through these howling squalls a single vessel did push south by southwest. Long and low it was, of black wood lacquered in countless layers. It possessed no masts. Its deck was fully enclosed but for a single small hatch. Single banks of twenty oars to a side fought the contrary winds and slam of waves in a steady inhumanly powerful stroke.
As if in defiance of the storm a woman stood open to the elements upon the deck. Her clothes hung from her, utterly soaked. Water ran in rivulets from her hacked short hair and slid wind-driven across her face. She stood with arms crossed beneath her outer robes, her gaze slit against the cutting sleet. Twice a day another woman emerged from the small hatch. This one wore light leather armour, belted and studded. A pale mask hid half her face. Though the deck was featureless polished wood and the wind raged in gusting contrary blows her footing was sure as she crossed to the first woman. Here she offered a meagre ball of food or a skin of water that the first always refused, and then she would withdraw, bowing.
Who would it be?
T’riss, the Enchantress, Queen of Dreams, and one-time companion to Anomandaris, wondered.
Which of them shall be first?
She sensed them all far to the west, all gathered for the potential transfiguration.
And who shall it be, and into which state? And will they be pleased with the results?
Too many futures now beckoned for any to see the clear path. Even she.
And it is the mortals who will choose
.
There it was. The unwelcome truth – her forte. As ash-dry in her mouth as in anyone’s.
After all these ages … the choice was no longer hers. Indeed, she saw now that it never was. That what she had taken as control, the subtle manipulation, all the light plucking of such diverse threads, had been no more than the kicking of stones down a hill. They do end up at the bottom where you want them, but how they got there … well … one can hardly take the credit.
And speaking of tumbling stones … she sensed them, then, her first visitors.
Get of the Errant. The vindictive two-faced Twins
.
It was the Lad who faced her. The rain slashed through his wavering translucent image. His pointed ferret face twitched in something resembling a wink.
‘What do you want?’ she said and he heard her though the raging winds annihilated her words.
He took on an expression of anxious concern. ‘I have come to warn you.’
‘Warn me of what?’
He wavered closer as if to impart some secret news. ‘Have you not seen there is a strong chance that this gambit of yours will bring you to your end?’
I have seen that and infinitely more than you can conceive of, you capering fool
. ‘Yes.’
The Lady swung round from her rear. The wind did not touch her long brushed hair. Her pale face pulled down in a sad moue. She sighed: ‘How desperately you must have loved him from afar …’
For a moment T’riss lost her footing and stumbled backwards. She righted herself, her brows crimped in puzzlement. ‘What nonsense is this?’
The Lady sighed once more, as if in empathy. But malice glittered in her black eyes. ‘Unrequited love is the cruellest, they say. And now he is gone.’
The Queen of Dreams’ brows rose as understanding came. ‘No …’
The Twins circled her now. ‘Do not throw your life away in some mad plan,’ the Lad urged.
‘You were as nothing to him, in any case,’ the Lady said with a flick of her hand.
Why do they seek to dissuade me? I wonder which of all the possible outcomes it is that they fear. And how could I ever know for certain?
She offered an easy shrug. ‘You presume too much.’
The Lady stopped before her. Her mouth tightened into a cruel knowing slash. ‘
She
will destroy you.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘She has barred you from her lands,’ said the Lad.
‘So she has.’
‘She’s tried to kill you already,’ the Lady added.
T’riss stood deathly still for a time. When she spoke her voice was frigid: ‘You presume
far
too much … That is enough from you.’
The Twins bowed – yet mockingly. ‘No,’ said the Lady, ‘that is enough from you …’
‘… as there shall be no more from you,’ finished the Lad.
And the two faded from sight leaving the glistening black deck empty, rain-slashed and awash in spray.
T’riss sensed the approach of her Seguleh bodyguard, Ina. The woman stopped next to her. She was crouched, her bent legs leaning with the drunken yaw and pitch of the deck. In the tilt of her masked head T’riss read a question.
‘It was nothing, Ina. Just a chance encounter.’
CHAPTER VI
I am amused by the attitude of these people of Jakal Uku towards antiques and the possessions of any deceased person generally. Childishly, they absolutely do not wish to possess such objects and have no desire for them. I once noted a wonderful pugal (a carved low sitting table) left in an abandoned hut. ‘What a fine piece of the woodcarver’s art!’ I exclaimed to my local friend. ‘Why is it thrown aside?’
‘I would not touch it,’ he answered. ‘I would think of the persons who sat at it before me and whether their lives were happy and if they are happy now watching me sit where they once did.’
Whelhen Mariner
Narrative of a Shipwreck and Captivity
within a Mythical Land
OLD MAN MOON
made all the preparations. Through the heat of the day Saeng sat in the hut on its tall poles. She fanned Hanu, all the while feeling rather like a bird in a cage. She watched Moon coming and going from the surrounding jungle. In the clear light of day he appeared no more than a tattooed old man. A village elder, priest, or monk. He laid up a great pile of firewood, set the fire, then set to grinding various ingredients in a mortar: charcoal, some kind of red dirt or clay, and plant roots. The mortar was no more than a slab of basalt bearing a depression in its top that he pushed a stone across. He then set a number of pointed sticks on a slab of wood together with a row of grey earthenware pots. Last, he unrolled a long sheet of woven rattan matting.
The boy Ripan, meanwhile, had been tasked with watching the fire. This he pursued only in the most negligent manner, heaving
loud
aggrieved sighs, and raising a palm leaf fan over the fire in a desultory wave.
One time when Moon had gone off into the woods, the lad drew out his flute. He blew a series of descending hauntingly sad notes, and sang: ‘Woe to whoever would reach for the Moon … they fail to see the cliff before their feet …’ and he sent her a sharp-toothed grin.
Towards evening Old Man Moon’s wrinkled tattooed face appeared at the hut’s entrance. ‘Things are nearly ready.’
‘Perhaps,’ called Ripan from the fire, ‘you should wait for the Night of our Ancestors, or the Festival of Cleansing. Those would be far more propitious …’
‘You forget whom you speak to,’ the old man snapped in his first betrayal of any temper in front of Saeng. He smiled up reassuringly. ‘I am Old Man Moon! I decide what times are propitious, and which are not. Now come, we will begin.’
‘And my brother?’
He raised a placating hand. ‘Later. After your payment.’
Saeng did not move. ‘Payment usually follows services.’
‘I always receive my due first. But, if it makes you feel any better, I assure you that what you provide for me will not be binding or efficacious unless I pay for it. It’s all part of the exchange.’
Saeng was not completely convinced, but there appeared to be nothing she could hold the man to. Her mouth tight with misgiving, she climbed down the ladder, assisted by Moon.
‘Very good!’ he exclaimed. ‘Play for us, Ripan.’
The youth rolled his eyes to the purpling, half-overcast sky.
‘There, now.’ Moon stood next to the rattan matting. He set to rolling up his waistcloth wrap and exposed a loincloth that was no more than a strip running vertically between his flat wrinkled flanks.
Not only was Saeng horrified to be presented with the old man’s withered buttocks, but she saw that each was entirely pristine.
Oh, my ancestors, no! Not this
.
He lay on his stomach and rested his head on his folded arms. He sighed contentedly. ‘Very good.’
Saeng cleared her throat. ‘So. I’m to tattoo your …’ She couldn’t think of any way to say it.
‘As you can see, I’m running out of options. I could turn over. Would you prefer that?’
‘
No!
No thank you. This is fine.’
‘I thought as much. Ripan – you’re not playing.’
‘It’s not time yet,’ the lad answered resentfully.
Moon raised his head to peer up at the trees and the gathering evening. ‘Ah! You are right. I’ve got ahead of myself, I am so eager.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘I apologize. I haven’t been myself since I had something of an accident recently. But tonight should go a long way to remedying that.’