Echoes of the Great Song Page 8

  Relieved, he rode across the bridge and made his slow way home. All might have been well—save for his cousin Oris. Sadau made the mistake of telling him what had occurred. Naturally he swore him to secrecy. Unfortunately Oris told his wife, swearing her to secrecy also. By the end of the day every member of the village knew—though they were all sworn to secrecy. The last person to hear was the sergeant of the watch, who reported the tale to his captain.

  Four of the king’s soldiers, dressed in red robes edged with gold thread and carrying long swords and wicker shields, arrived at Sadau’s home at dawn the following morning and the little potter was dragged from his bed and hauled to the palace.

  Sadau had never been inside the palace, and had only ever glimpsed the king from afar, riding the Swan Boat along the Luan at the time of the spring floods.

  The soldiers said nothing as they walked. Sadau trudged along beside them, glancing up, every now and again, into the stern faces of his guards. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. But they did not respond.

  The Red Palace loomed before him. High columns of fluted sandstone skirted the building, which had been constructed of mud-bricks from the red clay of the upper Luan. There were no statues around the palace, though it was said that Ammon had commissioned two likenesses of himself from the city of Egaru and these had been covered with gold. Sadau was not thinking of statues, however, as the soldiers paused before the huge double doors of the main entrance.

  Two of the king’s guards marched down the steps to take charge of the little potter. They were burly men, dressed in tunics of black silk, over which they wore breastplates of bronze. Upon their heads were long, black conical caps of lacquered silk, emblazoned with a silver star.

  Sadau was led up the steps and through the doors. Inside there were lanterns set in bronze brackets on the painted walls, and scores of servants moved purposefully around the great hall. Nobles lounged on couches, or sat on cushions, and the floor was covered with delicately fashioned rugs. At the far end of the hall was a golden throne flanked by two life-size golden statues, showing Ammon standing, arms folded across his chest, a stern expression on his androgynous face.

  The royal guards pulled Sadau towards the empty throne then pushed him to his knees. He gazed up at the faces of the statues, seeking some sign of gentleness in the features.

  A slim young man moved across the hall and sat down upon the throne. Sadau blinked and flicked his gaze back to the statues and then to the young man. There was no mistaking the resemblance. Sadau looked deep into the man’s face. It was strangely beautiful. The eyelashes were darkened with lines of black ochre, the eyelids dusted with gold. The young man’s hair was dark and long, the temples shaved close and stained with gold.

  “You have a message for me?” he asked, his voice light. Sadau looked into his violet eyes and felt a shiver of fear.

  “I was too frightened to deliver it, lord,” he said, his voice breaking.

  “Deliver it now.”

  Sadau closed his eyes. “The Avatar said to tell you not to raid his lands again.”

  “His exact words, potter. I require his exact words.”

  Sadau felt a hot flush in his stomach and sickness rising in his throat. He swallowed hard. “He said that if you raided his lands again he would ride into … into …”

  “Go on.”

  “… the hovel you call a palace and would rip out your entrails and make you eat them.”

  To Sadau’s surprise the king laughed, the sound rich and vibrant. He opened his eyes and blinked. The king rose from the throne and walked to where the potter was kneeling. “And my brother’s head?” he asked.

  “I threw it into the Luan.”

  “And what do you think should be your punishment, little man?” asked the king. He was so close now that Sadau could smell the jasmine perfume he wore.

  “Please don’t impale me, lord,” wailed Sadau. “Kill me cleanly. I did not mean to cause offense.”

  “Would you consider it justice if I removed your head and threw it into the Luan?” asked the king.

  Sadau nodded dumbly. Anything was better than being impaled. “Send for the headsman,” ordered the king. They did not have long to wait and a huge man strode down the hall to stand alongside the potter. Sadau glanced round and saw that the man carried a huge cleaver with a curved edge. The potter began to tremble. “Never delay a message to a king,” said Ammon. “It is well known that kings have terrible tempers, and a great lust for blood. Now bend your neck.”

  Sadau began to weep, but he leaned forward, exposing the nape of his neck to the headsman. The king gestured and the cleaver swept up. Sadau could see its shadow stretching out before him.

  The blade swept down. Sadau squeezed shut his eyes. The cleaver flashed through the air, but the headsman halted the blade at the last moment, allowing the cold metal to lightly touch the back of Sadau’s neck. The potter fainted and fell forward.

  “Carry him back to his home,” said the young king, “and when he wakes tell him to beware of secrets in the future. Secrets are like grain seeds. You can bury them deep, but they always seek the light.”

  The first of the guards bowed low. “As you command, lord. But might I ask a question?”

  The king nodded. The guard cleared his throat. “Why do you let him live?”

  “Because I have the power,” said the king. “You have other questions?”

  “No, lord.”

  “Good. When you have returned the potter to his home fetch Anwar. Bring him to my apartments.”

  The soldier bowed. Then he and his comrade lifted the unconscious Sadau and carried him from the palace.

  Chapter Eight

  Anwar was teaching when the soldiers came. His six senior students were engaged in a complex building problem concerning weight and stress. Anwar had shown them designs for a building and they were working together to decide whether it was structurally sound. He knew they would decide it was not. It was at this point he would tell them it was a copy of the Museum building in Egaru. They would then have to recalculate their findings.

  He enjoyed teaching and loved to see the minds of his students expand. The young were a constant wonder to him, with a seemingly limitless ability to make instinctive leaps of imagination. Their minds were not yet enclosed by the walls of tradition.

  When the soldiers came Anwar felt a moment of irritation. Instructing the students to continue in his absence and write their conclusions upon their slates, he left the class. Throwing a cloak of red felt about his scrawny shoulders he walked ahead of the two soldiers and out into the sunlight beyond. The bright light made his old eyes weep. Squinting against the sunshine he moved on, away from the new university building. A chariot and driver awaited him. He clambered onto the platform. “Not too fast,” he warned the driver. The man grinned, and flicked his whip above the heads of the two ponies.

  The ride was mercifully short, and Anwar felt enormous relief as he stepped down before the mud-brick palace. He glanced up at it feeling, as always, a sense of distaste. It was clumsily constructed, ugly and square. The architects had shown little imagination.

  A royal guard took him through to Ammon’s apartments. The king was lying face down on a table, his naked body being massaged by a young slave. Anwar stood silently in the doorway. Ammon raised himself on one elbow and grinned boyishly.

  “Good to see you, my teacher,” he said.

  “Always a privilege to be invited to your home, lord,” replied Anwar. Ammon dismissed the slave boy, draped a cloak of heavy blue silk about his slender shoulders and walked out into the gardens beyond. Flowering trees filled the air with a heady scent. The king stretched himself out on the grass, beckoning Anwar to join him.

  “How is life at the university?” asked Ammon.

  “It will be better next year,” answered Anwar. “And the year after. Some of my pupils are now more expert than the teachers. I shall appoint some of them to the university staff.”


  “Good. Knowledge is the key to the future,” said Ammon. “I remember you taught me that.”

  “You were a fine student, lord. Perhaps the best I ever knew.”

  “Perhaps?” queried Ammon with a wide smile. “One never uses the word perhaps to a king. You are not a diplomat, Anwar.”

  “I fear not, lord.”

  Ammon glanced round, caught the eye of a waiting servant and summoned him. “Fetch cool drinks for myself and my guest,” he said. The man bowed low and ran back into the palace. The king lay back on the grass, the sunlight bringing a gleam to his oiled skin. “One raiding party was wiped out by the Avatars,” he said.

  “As you predicted, sire. I take it your brother is no longer a thorn in the flesh.”

  “No. Sadly he died. What was interesting, however, is that the enemy sent only a small group of Vagars led by a single Avatar.”

  “Viruk?”

  “The very same. Such a small response to our provocation. What does this mean?”

  “They are weaker than they appear, lord.”

  “Indeed so. And yet I do not believe this is the time to strike at them directly.”

  “Might I inquire as to your reasoning, lord?”

  The servant returned with golden goblets brimming with the juice of several fruits. Ammon thanked him and sat up. “Whoever strikes first—even if he wins—will be weakened. My army could—possibly—overrun the five cities. We would suffer enormous losses. How then would we counter an attack from our tribal enemies?”

  “I find your reasoning sound, lord,” said Anwar. “It would therefore be advantageous if our own enemies made the first attack.”

  “Precisely. And by a happy coincidence that it is what Judon of the Patiakes is planning.”

  “How can I be of assistance, lord?”

  Ammon sipped his drink. “Our people in the cities must do nothing to aid Judon once the battle starts. Quite the opposite, in fact. They must assist the Avatars in every way.”

  “I will get a message to them. One of my agents is leaving today, with gold to finance the Pajists. But I fear they will not react well to the order. Their hatred of the Avatars blinds them to more far-sighted objectives.”

  “You have the names of all the Pajists?”

  “All the leaders, lord.”

  “They will see the destruction of the Avatars, and my promises kept. Then they must die.”

  “Indeed they shall, lord.”

  A cloud obscured the sun. The king shivered. “Let us go inside. I am hungry.”

  Questor General Rael was not often surprised. In his eight hundred years he had experienced all that human life could offer and, like many of the older Questors, found himself living in a constant circle of previously experienced events. He had known friendship and betrayal, love and hate, and all the misty maneuvring that swam between them. In the course of his eight centuries friends had become enemies, loved ones had sought to harm him, and bitter enemies had become brothers of the blood. There was little new to experience. So when surprise touched him he treated it like a gift. Even when it was a gift tarnished by pain.

  He stood now on the wall above the eastern gate of Egaru, staring out over the rich farmlands spreading out on both sides of the Luan River. Like all Avatars he was ageless, seemingly no more than thirty, his blue hair close-cropped, his lean body clad in a white shirt-tunic of heavy silk, embroidered with gold thread at the high collar and the cuffs. His long legs were encased in leggings of the finest leather, and he wore knee-length riding boots crafted from crocodile skin. Rael carried no weapons, and boasted no jewelry. No rings glittered upon his fingers, no circlet of gold gleamed upon his brow.

  The sun was bright and hot in a clear blue sky above the city and Rael gratefully accepted the cool drink his aide Cation proffered to him. Cation was not yet seventy, one of the few Avatars not to have been born when the world fell. Like all the younger men, he eschewed the full head of blue hair, but followed the fashion set by Viruk of having the temples dyed. Cation was of Rael’s line—the great-grandson of Rael’s third great-grandson. Rael liked the lad. “What have we discovered about Judon’s plans?” he asked.

  “The tribal leaders have been called to a gathering to discuss territorial matters,” said Cation. “The Mud People refuse to attend, but all others have accepted. It is to be held in five days at Ren-el-gan, which the tribes believe was once the Well of Life. It has always been a meeting place and is considered holy ground.”

  “What reason did the Erek-jhip-zhonad give for their refusal to attend?”

  “The king told them the date was inauspicious, as it coincided with a religious festival.”

  Rael smiled. “He wasn’t asked to joint-lead the Gathering?”

  “No, sir. Judon of the Patiakes is acting alone.”

  “What do we know of Judon?” asked Rael. He already knew the answer, but wished to see how much study the younger man had given to the current crisis.

  “He has been Lord of the Patiakes for seventeen years, taking the mantle following the death of his father. He has more than twelve thousand warriors from a tribe numbering almost forty thousand. They are nomadic by nature, and exist in sub-clans. These number almost three hundred.”

  “The man, Cation. Tell me about the man.”

  “He is a harsh ruler, and claims to be descended from the prophet who discovered the Well of Life.” Cation fell silent for a moment. “I am sorry, sir. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “You could tell me that he is fat and weighs more than any three men in your section, which implies he is a greedy man. You could add that he has forty wives and more than fifty concubines, which suggests he lusts after more than he can sustain. This prophet you speak of promised that the tribes would one day own the world. He predicted the coming of a warlord from his line. Judon, in claiming to be his descendant, is trying on the mantle of that warlord. These things alone would suggest he has great ambitions. This Gathering has not been called to discuss minor territorial disagreement between the tribes. It is to declare Judon as the warlord, and will mean an army of close to fifty thousand will attack the five cities before the autumn.”

  “We will not be able to stop them, sir,” said Cation.

  “Not once they march,” agreed the General. “Now, what progress has been made in tracking down those responsible for the killing of Questor Baliel?”

  “We are still gathering information, sir. But there has been much talk in Egaru concerning a group calling themselves Pajists, which in the old Vagar tongue means—”

  “I know what it means. Assassins.”

  “Indeed, sir. We have many informers, and they have all been instructed to gather information about the group. However, though there is much talk, there is little evidence so far.”

  “I have read the reports,” said Rael. “Two of your best informers have died recently. Is that not so?”

  “Yes, sir. What is your point? Both were accidents. Several witnesses saw the first leaving a tavern drunk. He fell from the wharf and drowned. The second was a blacksmith. He was kicked in the head by a horse. Witnesses observed the accident.”

  “Bring in the witnesses and question them under duress,” ordered Rael.

  “For what purpose, sir?”

  “Cation, you are a blood relative, and I love you dearly. But you do not think. The drunk would have had to walk two miles to the docks in order to fall into the sea. His home was in the opposite direction. Even assuming he had staggered for two miles do you not think he would have sobered sufficiently to avoid such a fall? And what was he doing at the docks at midnight? The gates are locked. Are you suggesting the drunken man walked two miles out of his way, then climbed a gate, with the express purpose of hurling himself into the sea? As to the blacksmith, the back of his skull was caved in. How many blacksmiths do you know who would approach a horse backwards?”

  “I see, sir. I am sorry. I have been remiss.”

  “Indeed you have. Both men were
murdered. First bring in the witnesses to the blacksmith’s death. When you have questioned them for several hours, keeping them from sleep, send for me. I will conclude the examinations.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dismissing Cation he walked back along the wall, down a circular stairwell and out into the compound. Soldiers were training here under the watchful eyes of their Avatar officers. As he passed, the Vagar soldiers saluted.

  Questor General Rael entered the officers’ section, passed through the empty halls and climbed to his study on the third floor. Once there he sat at his desk, swinging the chair so that he could look out of the window and see the distant mountains.

  Today there had been two surprises, one curious, one joyful.

  For the moment he concentrated on the joyful. One of Questor Anu’s acolytes had brought him news of the success of the southern expedition. They had replenished four chests and were on their way home. They should arrive within two weeks.

  Rael had expressed his thanks and his best wishes to Anu. The acolyte bowed.

  “You may express your thanks in person, my lord, for Questor Anu asked me to invite you to his home. At noon, if it is convenient.”

  This was the second surprise. Anu, the Holy One, had withdrawn from public life more than thirty years before. It was, he said, his intention to age and die. He had given his crystals to Rael and retired to his home on the hill above the bay. His decision affected his popularity among the Avatar. He was the Savior, the one Avatar to predict the fall of the world. He had convinced more than 200 people to join him on a trek to the north, leading them over rugged plains and barren mountains, across deserts and valleys, arriving at last at the gates of Pagaru, the first of the five cities. There were only sixty other Avatars this far north, and they greeted the arriving column with cold courtesy.

  The following day the earth had tilted and the sun had risen in the west.