And, never bothering to glance at the last public remains of what he thinks his old, failed family, Baster-kin strides from the Stadium, his mind fixed on the new future he believes he has finally constructed for himself.
FEBRUARY 4, 1791
London
And so, my dear Gibbon, it is neither entirely my revulsion at this story’s more lurid aspects, nor my impatience with your historical prurience, as you may think, but rather my concern for your gifts and legacy as a Great Intellect and a Great Author, an Historian whose work will prove not only popular but seminal, that compels me to return the manuscript you have “discovered,” and urge you to destroy it at once; or, if your pointed interest in such strange subject matter, and in the ultimately disturbing and distasteful conclusions toward which the tale propels itself, force you to keep it, at least conceal the thing in a place where it cannot be discovered, and above all do not publish it, certainly not in any form that can be connected to your good name.
And if you will make an honest attempt to apprehend my concerns, I will in turn confess to my own personal prejudices: First, against the irreligious Nature and Lessons of such tales, with their Obscure and Vulgar Vices and their effective glorification of a kind of barbarism, all of which have been made the more offensive by the manner in which vain but clever men such as M. Rousseau have popularized them; and, Second, against the ultimately unverifiable Nature of the tale, particularly the ambiguity concerning both the identity of the narrator and the time at which he composed the thing. It seems to me that if we follow the only “logical” (a gross torturing of the word) paths in trying to determine any such identity, we are left with absurd choices: Was he a lunatic prophet, raving in the manner of the founder of this “kingdom of Broken”? Was he an equally implausible and tormented memoirist, “recalling” details of which he could not possibly have been in possession? Or was he, as seems most likely, simply a fatuous contemporary swindler, someone who had you, personally, in mind as the victim of his scheming—a plan which evidently succeeded, given your purchase of the manuscript?
For these and still more reasons, I ask you finally to think, now, of your own life, and its Parallels to this tale you have unearthed: such shared themes as Competing Religions, young men’s difficult relations to strict and sometimes Cruel Fathers, and the manner in which a forcedly Solitary Life can agitate one’s interest in perverse hedonism. To most of your friends, and certainly to me, all these things make your attraction to this “legend of Broken” more than understandable; but these are the private circumstances of your life, which never should (and with wisdom never will) affect the Larger Publick’s conception of you as a Great Man of History, one who I remain proud to call colleague, nor of your masterwork, which, like your fame, will never be equaled or diminished—unless you yourself so detract from it, through such compromising fascinations as this.
—EDMUND BURKE TO EDWARD GIBBON
Still more discoveries await the Bane and their Guest, as they make for the Den of Stone …
THE JOURNEY TO OKOT of the party led by Yantek Ashkatar and Caliphestros (the latter traveling, as ever, atop Stasi), with Keera, Veloc, and Heldo-Bah close behind, had fast become a much more crowded procession than might have seemed necessary, once the column started south through the long, wide portion of Davon Wood that lay between the Cat’s Paw and the northernmost settlements of the Bane’s well-hidden central community. Word of the newcomers’ approach had spread among Ashkatar’s surprisingly numerous force; and it seemed that nearly every Bane officer or soldier wanted to get a look for her- or himself at the mutilated old man and the powerful beast atop whose back he rode, not as master, but as one half of a strange and mystical whole.
Not until the remainder of the night—or, more properly, of the earliest morning—of their first meeting has passed, does interest among the soldiers in the activities of the foraging party and Lord Caliphestros begin to wane; and this is only because the “sorcerer” continues to insist upon the peculiar practice of stopping every few hundred yards or so to dig (or rather, to have some few of Ashkatar’s soldiers dig) another in the series of holes in the Earth, in order to discover the nature of the ground or the rock beneath the surface of their route, and particularly of any and all signs of water. The old man still exhorts the digging parties not to make use of the small, clear underground pools and streams they find for drinking, or even for washing; and Heldo-Bah, of course—exempted from this labor by his part in finding and enlisting the aid of Caliphestros (although Keera and Veloc choose to assist in the effort)—cannot resist the opportunity to torment the toiling soldiers at every turn.
“You know,” he says at one hole in which Bane warriors dig, his mock earnestness particularly infuriating, “you people really should consider yourselves lucky. Fighting the soldiers of the Tall, or digging a hole for this ancient madman? I, personally, would take the latter, upon every possible occasion. As to what he looks for, why bother asking? He does not look to see your guts spilled upon Lord Baster-kin’s Plain, which should be reason enough, in itself, for obedience. And so, dig—dig, and be happy in your digging!”
As the work goes on, and early evening descends upon the forest, the northernmost huts of Okot begin to take shape in the scant, glowing light of the rising Moon. Ashkatar—curious about the digging from the start, but unprepared to question Caliphestros’s orders—finally forces his own uneasiness down his gullet, and approaches the white panther and the grey-bearded man who sits upon her shoulders, the latter patiently and carefully studying the work of one group of soldiers in the newest hole before him.
“My lord Caliphestros?” Ashkatar asks, as he goes down on one knee before the panther.
“Hmm?” Caliphestros replies, drawing himself out of some deep reverie and turning slowly. “Oh. Please—Yantek Ashkatar, do not feel the need to bow before me, nor before Stasi. I know, and she knew long before I did, that you are not a lesser tribe of men and women—quite the contrary. I pray you, then, speak freely, and as an equal.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Ashkatar replies, standing and assuming his far more characteristic position of proud command. “I only wished to know if you might be willing to share with me the purpose of all this activity concerning the water. For we are consuming much time, and my men were prepared for a fight, when you happened upon us: as I am sure you know, it is difficult to keep troops, particularly inexperienced troops, in a state of such readiness under any circumstances; and this obscure labor is sapping them of it. The goal behind all your searching, then, must be vital, indeed—” But Ashkatar is interrupted, at that moment, by two or three diggers in the newest pit, who make up one of several alternating crews that have by now become conversant with the ag sorcerer who directs them. The interruption comes, at first, in the form of a whistle and then a low moan, at which Veloc shoots his filthy face and head up and over the lip of the hole. “There it is again, Lord Caliphestros—that occasional smell that reminds us of the fecal pits that the Groba fathers and the healers in the Lenthess-steyn have us dig and then slowly bury with lime outside Okot—” Veloc instantly silences himself when he suddenly notices his commander standing next to Caliphestros. “Ah! My apologies, Yantek Ashkatar—I did not see—”
“Veloc,” Ashkatar says sternly, “do you really think that it is appropriate to speak about fecal pits to Lord Caliphestros, whether I am present or not?”
Caliphestros himself steps in to settle the problem, as, on a rock some distance away, Heldo-Bah roars with triumphant, almost childlike laughter. “Please, Yantek,” the old man says, “it was I who told these diligent men and women—including my old friend Veloc—that they must be free with their language when addressing me, as it will be the quickest way of determining just what we are dealing with, in these waters that flow beneath Davon Wood.”
“I see,” Ashkatar replies; but, not yet settled in his mind, he cracks his whip once hard and shouts, “And you can stop your idiot’s laughing, Heldo-Bah, a
t once! I grow sick to death of it.”
“My apologies, Yantek,” comes Heldo-Bah’s only slightly less giddy response. “But, truly, I have not observed so comical a scene since—well, I cannot recall the last time I did!”
“Doubtless it was the last time you attempted to fornicate with a woman who was not blind!” Ashkatar shouts, forgetting his own decorum in the presence of Lord Caliphestros. The whip, too, snaps again, but this second time is one too many for Stasi, who begins to growl uneasily, making such moves as she would if preparing to spring upon some one of these little men. Seeing her unrest, and then watching Caliphestros almost magically calm her, Yantek Ashkatar takes a deep breath, turning to his guest. “I am—appalled, my lord, by my own behavior. Please find it in you to pardon me.”
“I will pardon it readily,” Caliphestros replies, with a gracious and respectful nod. “But do be careful with that whip of yours, in Stasi’s presence, Yantek. Memories in panthers—as in most animals, every bit as much as in humans—remain most vivid when they are associated with tragedy and loss; and when she hears that particular sound, especially when it comes amid other noises and sights of armed men, she is reminded of just so tragic a loss—that of her children.”
“ ‘Children’?” Ashkatar repeats, somewhat confused.
“Yes. For they were as much her children as human offspring are to those that have them. And Stasi lost all of hers—three to death, one to capture. It was, so far as I know, the last great panther hunt conducted by those you call the Tall in Davon Wood—that of the young man who would one day become, and yet remains, Lord Baster-kin. A story, I am sure, with which the Bane are only too well acquainted.”
“Baster-kin?” Heldo-Bah shouts, all amusement gone, as he suddenly jumps down from his rock and joins Caliphestros and Ashkatar. “That bloodthirsty pig? You did not tell us, old man, that it was he who caused your friend such heartache!” And both Keera and Veloc, along with Ashkatar and Caliphestros himself, are surprised when the gap-toothed Bane—whose strange mix of odors Stasi has by now begun to identify as his in particular—approaches the panther quietly, and gently strokes the fur of her neck, murmuring into her large, pointed ear, and causing the small black tuft atop it to twitch, as if she, too, understands the oddity of the moment: “So it was the great Lord Baster-kin who put that terrible song into your soul,” the forager says, remembering the sound Stasi made when she stood on the mountainside, just after the Bane’s first departure from Caliphestros’s cave. “Well, then, great panther, you shall join the ranks of those who will have vengeance upon the rulers of that foul city—and if I have anything to say about it, you in particular shall make him pay for his savagery!”
The great beast’s brilliant green eyes narrow, her throat begins to purr deeply, and then she turns to take two light swipes at Heldo-Bah’s hand with her rough, moist tongue. The most infamous forager appears quite shocked by this undeniably affectionate and tender action; yet he steps away only a little, letting his hand linger on Stasi’s neck just a moment longer.
“Baster-kin,” he says again, even more softly, but no less fiercely. “Imagine it. As if his list of crimes was not long enough …”
Caliphestros is also pleased by Heldo-Bah’s sudden display of sympathy and affection for his companion; but he is only allowed a moment to consider it, before Ashkatar speaks again: “As I was saying, my lord, this constant digging of holes and inspecting of wells and springs—we need to return to the Groba as quickly as we can, and if I could but know why we slow our passage, what intelligence you mean to present to them, I might be able to assist you in forming a plan as to how best to do so.”
“Did you not just hear, Yantek?” Caliphestros answers, pointing at the diggers in the hole. “Another spot at which the water that flows underground does not have the scent it should—that any water should, if one hopes to use it safely. And yet, at still other locations, apparently inoffensive water can be found. I am marking the courses of all these various natural pathways”—Caliphestros pats one of his bags, from which he removes a bound set of parchment sheets—“in this, because I seek to remember all we learn about the causes of your plague, in order to place such knowledge alongside those theories I have concerning a like illness that Keera and I have determined has now erupted in Broken.”
“In Broken?” Ashkatar echoes, astounded. “And yet, it was our opinion that the Tall brought the plague upon us deliberately.”
“And their opinion, no doubt—or at least, the opinion of many of them—that you brought it upon them,” Lord Caliphestros replies; and then he holds another demonstrative hand out to the hole in the Earth before him. “And to provide the answers to all such questions, water is the key. Or water which carries fever. Now, then—would I be correct in assuming that, as a general practice, the north and south sides of the town do not draw their water from the same sources?”
Ashkatar looks perplexed. “Aye, my lord. The southern parts of Okot take water from wells and streams fed by the mountain to the south—while the north—” And suddenly, in many faces at once, there is a look of comprehension.
“Yes,” Caliphestros says with a smile. “I thought it might be so.”
He looks to Keera, finding in her face, as he had hoped he might, the first real look of hope that she has yet manifested: not hope for her people, or any such expansively noble feeling, of which the old man knows the tracker to be capable, but personal hope, for the fates of her own children.
“I should have seen it,” Keera says, gazing at the ground with purpose; and even Caliphestros is forced to admire her new determination. She then lifts her gaze to cast it upon Ashkatar again, and continues, “It is, indeed, the water, Yantek. The northern parts of Okot are fed, at least in part, by those waters that drain from the Cat’s Paw. But we never would have conceived, as Lord Caliphestros’s mind has been expansive enough to do, that an entire river might become—contaminated …”
Ashkatar, in the meantime, his mind fixed on the statements that Keera has made, is suddenly startled, as are all those around him, by a cry of what seems discovery from one of his soldiers digging inside the nearby hole: “My lord!” the dirty-faced warrior then shouts coherently. “Yantek! See what we have come upon!” And in an instant, the warrior is up and out of the hole, several small objects in one hand.
“Be careful, there!” Caliphestros calls, producing a piece of rag and handing it along a chain of hands to the warrior, so intent on this task that he only now notes that the dirt-smudged courier is no youth, but an athletic, powerful young female warrior. “Wash those hands with lye, girl, when you have finished, and even burn your tunic, if you have in your hand what I fear!” The warrior takes Caliphestros’s bit of rag, wraps the objects in it, and walks determinedly to the old man, who, before he has even viewed what she carries, pronounces, “Although I may be able to tell you what most, if not all, of them are, Yantek.” He then turns again to his traveling companion. “As can Keera, I perceive.”
Keera is already nodding her head. “Aye, lord. Bones,” she murmurs. “Or rather, at this point, bits of bone. And, it may even surprise you, Lord Caliphestros, if I say that I doubt they are only the bones of the animals we saw dead and dying at the pool upriver—there may be some small fragments of human bone, as well. But they are all diseased, this much we know, and truly, they must be handled more cautiously even than the water in which they were transported.”
“But—” The young female discoverer twists her features in confusion. “Are they the cause of the plague, then? Or are they part of some curse that has been worked by the priests and priestesses of the Tall, during their visits to the Wood to commit their many strange and evil acts—”
Caliphestros makes a small, slightly chastising sound. “We must all make one agreement, before we reach Okot,” he says, less with the berating of a pedant than with sympathy and warning. “Keera, what was it that I told you, when we discussed this very subject of curses and priests?”
Keera pauses to recall the words precisely: “That the only true ‘magic’ is madness,” she repeats by rote, but with intent and understanding. “Just as the only real ‘sorcery’ is science. My lord.” She moves through the crowd to gain a look at the objects that the warrior holds.
And they are just what both the tracker and Caliphestros had feared and predicted: The bones, Keera knows in her heart, of the smallest parts of children.
Taking in this look of comprehension in his young friend’s features, Caliphestros says: “So—you saw them, too, eh?”
Keera looks up at Caliphestros. “Yes, lord. As we left the pool. They were trapped in the outlet stream. But I admit that I did not think that you had seen them.”
“I was waiting for just this sort of moment to discuss the matter,” Caliphestros replies. “To see whether or not you would make true sense of the sight, as indeed you have.”
Veloc steps forward to put a proud and comforting arm about his sister. “If I am not mistaken—” Veloc says, turning his handsome features to face Caliphestros, “we not only may, but must obey Yantek Ashkatar’s imperative immediately, and return swiftly to Okot—but even before that, we must send runners ahead, must we not, Lord Caliphestros? To warn that no one in Okot take water from the questionable sources on the northern slope of the town?”
“You share your sister’s blood, Veloc, that much is evident,” Caliphestros replies, not quite so enthusiastically as the historian would have wished, as the old scholar replaces his various possessions in the small bags about his neck. He then looks to Ashkatar. “For now, however, Yantek—the tirelessness and diligence of your troops have made possible the answers to all immediate questions: anything that is left to explain should be discussed, I submit, in the place your tribe calls the ‘Den of Stone.’ And so, if you will alert your troops, as Veloc says, to send runners—”