II.
THE SINKING LAND
On an early spring evening months later, thirteen hundred miles north of the Gorgades, on the continent of Poseidonis, in the kingdom of Lorsk, in the capital city of Mneset, the king of Lorsk held council. A cold wind roared through the streets of Mneset, whipping tatters of scud across the pocked face of the moon and rattling the abutters of the houses. Inside the castle of King Zhabutir, the wind swayed the wall-hangings and made cressets flare and lamps flutter. Outside in the castle courtyard the pigs huddled together to keep warm.
In the king's council room the light of the central hearth-fire flickered upon the walls of massive cyclopean stonework and the ceiling of rough-hewn oaken beams. Four men, wrapped in cloaks against the drafts, sat around the council-table listening to a fifth: Söl the spy, a thickset common place-looking fellow with quick-shifting eyes.
As these eyes flickered across the table they first passed over, on the left, Ryn the magician, peering vaguely through watery eyes over a stained beard like an elderly and absent-minded billygoat. A hunched back added to the grotesqueness of his appearance. Next sat the king's elder son Kuros, square-jawed and broad-shouldered, nibbling on a wedge of cheese. Then came King Zhabutir himself, in the chair of pretence at the head of the table, looking with his high-bridged nose and flowing white beard like the serene embodiment of justice and wisdom, though his nickname of "the Indecisive" belied his looks. His golden crown glowed redly in the firelight, and little gleams from his uncut stones, polished by the black craftsmen of Tartaros, chased each other about the walls when he moved his head. A great shaggy wolfhound lay across his feet.
On the king's left sat his younger son Vakar, the twin (but not the identical twin) brother of Kuros, looking a bit vacuous (for age and experience had not yet stamped his features with character) and a bit foppish. The jewels on his fingers shone as he nervously cracked his knuckle- joints. He had a narrow hatchet-face which swept back from a long forward-jutting nose that had been straight until a fall from a horse had put a slight dog-leg in it. Instead of the normal Pusadian kilt he wore the checkered trews of the barbarians, and (another fad) copied the barbarian custom of shaving all the face but the upper lip. He was small for a Lorskan, a mere five-ten, with the swarthy skin and thick black hair of most Pusadians. Deepset dark eyes looked out of his narrow face from under heavy brow-ridges and thick black brows into those of Söl, who said:
"I couldn't get to the Gorgades myself, for their system of public messes serves to check all adult men, and they'd soon see through any disguise. Since the land lives by robbery, the ships of other nations have no peaceful occasion to touch there. I did however spend a month in Kernê and there learned that the Gorgons are preparing a great expedition somewhither."
Kuros said: "Pff. The Gorgons' ferocity has been exaggerated by distance and the envy of their neighbors. If we knew them at first hand we should find their intentions as peaceful as anybody's."
Prince Vakar shifted his gaze from the smoking wood-fire to the pocked face of the spy. His tight-drawn lips betrayed his inner tension as he spoke:
"Certainly their intentions are peaceful, like those of the lion for the lamb. The lion wishes only to be allowed to devour the lamb in peace. But, Master Söl, if the Gorgons have no peaceful contacts with other nations, how could such news reach Kernê?"
"The Gorgons' isolation isn't so perfect as they pretend. They carry on a small secret trade with certain merchants in Kernê for things they can neither make, grow, nor steal. Though the Keraeans hang or head any man they catch in this traffic, such are the profits that there's always someone to take the chance. A Kernean would brave the seven hells for a profit."
Ryn the wizard blew his nose on his robe and spoke: "Was there any indication of the Gorgons' direction?"
The wind blew a gout of smoke into Söl's face as if trying to stop him from replying. When the spy got over coughing and wiping his eyes he answered:
"Nothing definite, but the shadow of the echo of a whisper that said 'Lorsk.' "
"No more?"
"No more, sir. I had it from a harlot of the town who said she'd learned it from a sailor who worked for a trader who'd heard . . . and so on."
Kuros swallowed the last of his cheese, dusted the crumbs off his fingers, and said: "That's all, Söl."
Vakar wished to hear more, but before he could protest, Söl had glided out and Kuros said:
"Very interesting, but let's not work ourselves into a sweat over the shadow of an echo of a whisper—"
"In that so?" said Vakar sharply. "With due respect, my brother wishes us to take the attitude of the man in the story who went to sleep on the skerry thinking he had a spell that would hold back the tides. You remember:
"Shoreward they shouldered with crests ever-curling,
The waxing waves washed higher and higher—"
"For Lyr's sake don't start one of those!" said Kuros. Vakar shot a dagger-glance at his brother and continued: "Where there's shadow there's more often than not a substance to cast it. And the words of so reliable a spy as Master Söl should not lightly be thrown aside. The Gorgons—"
"You have Gorgons on the brain," said Kuros. "Suppose they did sail against us? They must pass Tartaros and Dzen, sail west through the Hesperides, land upon the coast of Zhysk, and march through that land to come to grips with us. We should have ample warning, and one Lorksan's worth three Gorgons—"
"As I was saying when the yapping of a mongrel interrupted me," said Vakar. "The Gorgons don't even fight fair. I've been reading—"
"As if any real man ever learned anything from marks on papyrus," put in Kuros.
"Those who can't read can't judge—"
King Zhabutir said: "Boys! Boys! I forbid this dreadful quarreling. Go on, Vakar."
"You know how we fight: in loose groups, each led by a lord or champion followed by his kinsmen and liegemen and friends. We usually start out with challenges to single combat from our champions to the foe's, and sometimes the whole day is occupied with such duels. Moreover our men go equipped as they like: with swords, spears, axes, halberds, berdiches, war-clubs, and so on."
"What other way of fighting is there?" said Kuros.
"The Gorgons equip all their men alike, with helmets, shields, and weapons of the same pattern. They align their men in a solid mass, every man having a fixed place despite rank or kinship. They waste no time in challenges, but at a signal all move upon the foe, every man keeping his place in the whole. Such a mass goes through an army like ours like a plow through sand."
"Fairy-tales," said Kuros. "No true warriors would submit to be so forced into a single rigid mold . . ."
As usual the argument went round and round, with Vakar (whose disposition it was to take a gloomy view of things) arguing against Kuros while the other two remained mute. Kuros began to press the king:
"You agree, don't you, Father?"
Zhabutir the Indecisive smiled weakly. "I know not . . . I cannot decide . . . What thinks Master Ryn?"
"Sir?" said the magician. "Before sending my opinions forth across the chasm of surmise, I prefer to wait until they're provided with a more solid bridge of fact. With your permission I'll call upon witch Gra for counsel."
"That old puzzel!" cried Kuros. "We should have hanged her . . ."
Ryn began his preparations. From his bag he produced a small bronze tripod which he unfolded and set over the guttering fire. The fire threw a streamer of smoke at him as if to keep him off, but at the mutter of a cantrip it drew in upon itself. At the first syllable the wolfhound jumped up, gave a faint howl, and trotted out with its tail between its legs, its claws clicking on the stone.
Ryn poked the fire and added sticks until it blazed up again. With a piece of charcoal he drew a circle around the hearth and added lines and glyphs whose meaning Vakar did not know. Ryn rose to his feet and prowled around the room extinguishing the wobbling flames in the little oil-lamps. His hunched shadow reminded Vakar of that of a great scuttling spider—for all that Vakar esteemed the man had tutored him as a boy. Ryn then went back to the hearth and into the miniature cauldron at the apex of the tripod he sprinkled powders whose smell made the others cough.
He resumed his stool facing the fire and spoke in a language so ancient that even the scholarly Vakar (who could read over a thousand pictographs) could not understand a word, all the while moving his hands in stiffly geometrical gestures.
Vakar told himself that it was mere illusion that the room became even darker. A plume of smoke arose from the cauldron, and although the wind still sent drafts whistling through the chamber, the air within the circle seemed quite still. For instead of diffusing and dispersing as it rose, the column of smoke held together and twined itself snake-like into knots at the top of the column. Vakar (who would have nourished magical ambitions himself but for his peculiar disability) held his breath, his heart pounding.
The smoke thickened and solidified and became a simulacrum of a tall heavy woman clad in a wolf-skin tied over one shoulder and belted around her thick waist with a thong. She was seated, half-turned so that she seemed to be looking past the four men without seeing them. In one hand she clutched a bone from which she was gnawing the meat. Vakar realized that it was not the woman herself, for the substance of which she was made was still smoky-gray in the semi-darkness and he could see the tripod and the fire beneath it through her massive legs and feet.
"Gra!" called Ryn.
The woman stopped gnawing and looked at the men. She tossed the bone aside, and as it left her hand it vanished. She wiped her fingers on the wolf-hide and scratched under her exposed breast. Her voice came in a far-off whisper:
"What wish the lords of Lorsk with me?"
Ryn said: "Word has come of threatening movements by the Gorgons. We are divided as to what to do. Advise us."
The witch stared at the ground in front of her so long that Kuros squirmed and muttered until Ryn hissed him to silence. At last Gra spoke:
"Send Prince Vakar to seek the thing the gods most fear."
"Is that all?"
"That is all."
Ryn spoke again in his archaic speech, and the phantom of the witch turned to mere smoke which wafted about making the spectators sneeze. Ryn took a burning stick from the fire and relighted the lamps.
Vakar viewed Gra's message with mixed feelings. If the very gods feared the thing that she had spoken of, what business had a mere mortal pursuing it? On the other hand he had never been to the mainland and had long wished to travel. While Lorsk was a fine rich land, the real centers of culture and wisdom lay eastward: Sederado with its philosophers, Torrutseish with its wizards, and who knew what other ancient cities?
Kuros said sourly: "If we were fools enough to believe that harridan—"
Vakar interrupted: "Brother, since you always seem so eager to discredit warnings against the Gorgons, could you have a motive other than simple skepticism?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Such as—let's say a little present from King Zeluud?"
Kuros jumped up, reaching for his knife. "Are you calling me traitor?" he yelled. "I'll carve the word on your liver . . ."
Ryn the magician reached up to seize Kuros's arms while King Zhabutir laid a hand on Vakar's shoulder as the latter, too, started to rise. When they had pacified the furious Kuros he sat down, snarling:
"All that effeminate bastard does is to stir up trouble and enmity amongst us. He hates me because he knows if the gods hadn't fumbled, I should be heir and not he. If we followed the sensible mainland custom of primogeniture . . ."
Before Vakar could think of a crushing reply, Ryn spoke: "My lords, let's sink our present differences until the matter of the foreign threat be resolved. Whatever you think of Gra or Söl, I've had confirmation of their tale."
"What?" said the king.
"Last night I dreamt I stood before the gods of Poseidonis: Lyr and Tandyla and Okma and the rest. As usual I asked if they had advice for Lorsk."
"What did they say?" asked Kuros.
"Nothing; but it was the manner of their saying it. They turned away their eyes and faces as if ashamed of their silence. And I recalled where I'd seen that expression. Many decades ago, when I was a young fellow studying magic in mighty Torrutseish—"
"Gods, he's off on another of those!" muttered Kuros.
"—and one of my friends, an Ogugian youth named Joathio, got excited at a bullfight and made indiscreet remarks about the city prefect. Next day (though the remarks had been nothing dreadful) he disappeared. I asked after him at the headquarters of the municipal troop, and those tough soldiers turned away from me with that same expression. Later I found Joathio's head on a spoke over the main gate. Not a pretty sight for one still young and soft of soul, heh-heh.
"I therefore infer something's impending in the world of the gods, unfavorable to us, against which our own gods are for some reason forbidden to warn us. In view of Söl's news it could well be a Gorgonian invasion. Therefore let's send Prince Vakar on his quest. If he fails—"
"Which he will," put in Kuros.
"—no harm will be done, whereas if he succeeds he may save us from an unknown doom."
King Zhabutir said: "But the gods—how can we oppose them?"
Vakar said: "It were cowardly to give up before the first has even begun, merely because we might face odds. If the gods fear something they can't be all-powerful."
"Atheist!" sneered Kuros. "When do you go? While I can't understand sending Vakar Zhu on a supernatural quest, Gra did name you and not me."
"Tomorrow."
"As soon as that? You'll miss the games of the vernal equinox, but that'll be small loss as you've never won a prize."
"Anything to get away from your brags and boasts," said Vakar.
Kuros had always boasted his superiority in sport: He could out-run, out-jump, and out-wrestle his brother. He had also annoyed Vakar by stressing the sobriquet "Zhu" which meant, not exactly "fool" or "deaf one," but "one who lacks supernatural perceptions." For Vakar had the unenviable distinction of completely lacking normal powers of telepathy, prescience, or spirit communication. Not even did the gods visit him in dreams.
"When you return," said Kuros, "you'll have thought up such a fine assortment of lies about your adventures that I, who must depend upon my known accomplishments, shall be quite outclassed."
"Am I a dog, that you call me a liar?" began Vakar with heat, but his father interrupted.
"Now, boys," said King Zhabutir in his vague way, then to Ryn: "Are you sure she meant Vakar? It does seem a challenge to the gods to send the heir to the throne on a wild chase for who-knows-what."
Ryn said: "There's no doubt. Say your farewells and sharpen your bronze tonight, Prince."
"Whither am I bound?" asked Vakar. "Your lady consultant was as vague in her directions as my brother is about the paternity of his wives' children."
"You—" began Kuros, but Ryn interrupted the outburst:
"I know of nothing in Poseidonis answering Gra's description. I advise you to go to lordly Torrutseish, where the greatest wizards of the world make their dwelling."
"Do you know any of these wizards?" inquired Vakar. "I haven't been there for decades, but I recall that Sarra and Nichok and Vrilya and Kurtevan were preeminent.
"How many shall I take with me? A troop of soldiery and—let's say—a mere dozen or so of servants?"
A faint smile played about the corners of Ryn's old mouth. "You shall take one—possibly two persons with you. One body-servant, let's say, and one interpreter—"
"I have the interpreter for him," chuckled Kuros. "A fellow named Sret with the most marvelous gift of tongues—"
"What?" cried Vakar in honest amazement. "No bodyguard? No women? By Tandyla's third eye!"
"Not one. For your kind of search you'll go farther and faster without a private army."
"Who'll know my rank?"
"Nobody, unless you tell them, and usually you'd better not. Princes have been known to fetch fine ransoms."
Kuros threw back his head and laughed loudly while the king looked ineffectually anxious. Vakar glared from one to the other, his knuckles itching for a good smash into his brother's fine teeth. Then he pulled himself together and smiled wryly, saying:
"If the hero Vrir in the epic can run all over the world alone, I can do likewise. I go to procure a beggar's rags, suitably verminous. Think kindly of me when I'm gone."
"I always think kindly of you when you're gone," said Kuros. "Only you're not gone enough."
"It's time we were in bed," said King Zhabutir, rising.
The others bid their respects to the king and departed, Vakar towards his chambers where his mistress Bili awaited him. He dreaded telling her of his plan, for he disliked her scenes. He would not be altogether displeased to be leaving her, for not only was she ten years his senior and fast fattening, but also her late husband had with good reason referred to her as "Bili the Bird-brained." Moreover he would have to take a wife or two one of these days when matches with the daughters of rich and powerful Pusadian lords could be organized, and such matters were more easily arranged without the complication of a concubine already at home.
He shouted: "Get out!" and kicked at one of the royal goats who had somehow wandered into the castle.
"Prince Vakar!" said a low voice from the shadows.
Vakar whirled, clapping a hand to his hip where his sword-hilt would have been had he been armed. It was Söl the spy.
"Well?" said Vakar.
"I—I couldn't speak out in council-meeting, but I must tell you that . .
"That what?"
"You guarantee my safety?"
"You shall be safe though you tell me I'm the son of a sow and a sea-demon."
"Your brother is in league with the Gorgons—"
"Are you mad?"
"By no means. There's proof. Go ask—urk!"
Söl jerked as if he had been stung. The man half-turned and Vakar saw something sticking in his back. Söl gasped:
"They—he—I die! Go tell . . ."
He folded up upon the stone flooring, joint by joint. Before Vakar could have counted ten the spy was huddled motionless at his feet.
Vakar stooped and pulled the dagger from Söl's back. A quick examination showed the spy to be dead, and also that the dagger had been thrown so that the point had stuck in the muscle covering the man's right shoulder-blade: a mere flesh-wound. Holding the dagger, Vakar moved quickly down the corridor in the direction from which the weapon had come, his moccasins making no sound. He neither saw nor heard anyone and presently turned back, cursing himself for not having run after the assassin the instant Söl fell.
He returned to the victim whose eyes now stared sightlessly up, reflecting tiny highlights from the nearest lamp. Vakar held the dagger close to the lamp and saw that the bronzen blade was overlain with a coating of some black gummy substance, covering the pointward half of the blade. This stuff was in turn coated by a faint film of blood for a half-inch from the point.
Vakar, his blood freezing, pondered his predicament. Could Kuros be playing so deadly a double game? Somebody had shut Söl's mouth just as he had been about to reveal matters of moment. If Söl were right, what could Vakar do? Accuse Kuros publicly? His woolly-headed father would scoff and his brother would ask whether he, Vakar, hadn't murdered Söl and then invented this wild tale to cover the fact. Whatever the proof Söl had spoken of, Vakar had no access to it now.
At last Vakar wiped the dagger-point—lightly, so as not to remove the substance under the blood—on the edge of Söl's kilt and tiptoed away. As he entered his outer chamber he heard Bili's voice:
"Is that you, my lord and love?"
"Aye. Don't get up."
He picked up the lighted lamp from the table and held it close to the row of daggers and axes and swords that hung upon the wall. He took down one of the daggers and tried the murder-weapon in the sheath. He had to go through most of the collection to find a sheath that fitted.
"What are you doing?" came the voice of Bili, whose curiosity must have been aroused by the snick of blades in their sheaths.
"Nothing. I shall be along presently."
"Well, come to bed! I'm tired of waiting."
Vakar sighed, wondering how often he had heard that. Much as he esteemed Bili's lectual accomplishments, he sometimes wished she would occasionally think of something else. He replaced the dagger-sheaths on their racks, hid in a chest the dagger in whose sheath he had placed the murder weapon, and went into the bedchamber.