Pthothor the Bald, King of Necremnos, was wiser than his subjects suspected. He knew of the weird of llkazar, and had divined that the Fates would strike during his reign.
Varthlokkur spoke with that King concerning the death of empires.
At Shemerkhan he found a ruined city, strongly occupied, starving as its people turned all their effort toward meeting the demands of llkazar. Varthlokkur spoke with the King, then rode to Gog-Ahlan.
He found another conquered city, worse than the last. For resisting too long, all honor had been raped away. Her once proud men were permitted no income save what their women could earn serving the lusts of occupying soldiers. Again Varthlokkur spoke with a fallen King, then rode on.
He crossed the passes west of Gog-Ahlan and turned south into Jebal al Alf Dhulquarneni, a black region, subject to no King. Eventually he reached the valley Sebil el Selib, Path of the Cross, where the first King-Emperor of Ilkazar had trapped and crucified a thousand rebellious nobles. There he, made camp and his preparations.
A few days later, he entered the city that had given him life, and so much pain. At the gate he was met by wizards awaiting the annual message, which he refused to hand over to anyone but the King. It demanded the death by burning of Vilis and seven times seven of Ilkazar’s wizards as atonement for the crime against Smyrena. The demand was refused, as expected. The message ended with promises of famine and pestilence, earthquakes and signs in the sky, the appearance of enemies countless as the stars, and was sealed 13.
The seal remained cryptic for a time. Once the mystic number was noted, however, the wizards concluded that their enemy had been among them. They searched the city, but he was gone. They searched the Empire and still found nothing. Fear haunted their councils. Yet nothing happened. Or so it seemed for a time.
The fall of Ilkazar, as recorded in The Wizards of Ilkazar, a dubious and doubtless exaggerated epic of King Vilis’ end, which opens:
How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow she has become that was great among the nations!
Barbarians harried the borders of the Empire. Unrest grumbled through the tributary states. The armies were decimated and demoralized by a strange plague. A star exploded and died. From Ilkazar itself a dragon was seen crossing the full moon. An unseasonable storm wrecked shipping in the Sea of Kotsum. Trolledyngjan pirates raided the western coasts.
And the song says:
She weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks,
among all her lovers she has none to comfort her,
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they have become her enemies.
Tributary states rebelled. Entire armies were surprised and overwhelmed. Ilkazar’s moneylenders grumbled because loans to the Empire were not being repaid. Those who dealt in booty murmured because there were no new conquests. The people muttered as supplies grew short.
The King, in the traditional manner of politicians, tried to stem gloom’s tide with speeches. He promised impossible things that he apparently believed himself...
But he couldn’t put the rebels down. They were too numerous, in too many places, and their numbers daily grew-and ill fortune invariably dogged armies sent against them: floods, spoiled rations, disease. And with each rebel victory, more conquered peoples rose.
A whisper, dark, disturbing, ran through llkazar. The city would be spared no agony when the foreign soldiers came. The people fled-until the King declared emigration a capital offense. Fool. He should have rid himself of their hunger.
There was no native crop that year. Rust, worms, weevils, and locusts destroyed everything. The only food available was that in storage and a dwindling trickle of tribute.
Though in dread of the wizards of llkazar, the rebel Kings, and barbarians after spoil, gathered and united against the Empire.
Says the poet:
Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger, who pined away, stricken by the want of the fruits of the field. The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food in the destruction of her people.
There were armies before llkazar, well-fed armies high with the destruction of Imperial legions. They flaunted their fat herds before the watchers on the walls. Within the city, rats found dead sold for a silver shekel each, rats taken alive brought two. People feared the dead ones. They presaged plague.
The dogs and cats were gone, as were the horses of the King’s cavalry and the animals of the Royal Zoo. Rumors fogged the air. Children had disappeared. Men in good health were fearful they would be accused of cannibalism.
Sometimes those who had fallen to disease were found with flesh torn away, perhaps by rats, perhaps not.
The siege progressed. One day a horseman came from the encircling camps, a grim young man, frightened of the city and the sorceries within-sorceries held at bay solely by the skill of one lone man trained by the mysterious Tervola and Princes Thaumaturge of Shinsan. He delivered a scroll. Someone observed that it came on the date of anniversary for previous messages. It restated Varthlokkur’s prior demands, with one significant addition: appended was a list of names of persons to be sent out of the city, and before whom the King was to abase himself.
Vilis had become more amenable. Five days later there was activity on the city walls. The Kings and generals of the rebels, dressed in black, on black horses, with black banners flying, advanced upon the city, stopped just beyond bowshot.
As the sun reached zenith, seven groups of seven tall poles were raised atop the wall. To each was bound, soaked in naptha, a Master Wizard. The King himself bore the torches that lighted the fires. There was a long period of silence. No cloud marked the sky. All things of earth seemed poised, waiting, uncertain. Then smoke wisped toward the watchers. The stench of burning flesh distressed their horses.
The Silent One betrayed no emotion. His victory was not yet complete.
Once the fires finished their work, the gate opened, and emaciated, wretched people stumbled out. In full view, the King knelt and kissed their dusty feet as they passed. They were few, all who remained of those who once had lent aid to, or had given kindness to, an unhappy orphan. One was a man in tattered executioner’s black, another was an aged sergeant. There were priests, a handful of minor sorcerers, and a few withered prostitutes who had once provided a little mothering.
The gates closed. Varthlokkur waited. The sun moved west. He sent a rider. “Where is the third penance?” the rider demanded.
“You’ve taken all I can give,” King Vilis replied. “My power and my Empire are dust. That is cruelty enough!” He seized a bow, shot at the messenger, missed.
“Then all Ilkazar will die!” The rider fled.
Varthlokkur sat silently for a long time, considering. He had made promises he had hoped needn’t be kept. He didn’t want anyone but Vilis. But there were Kings accompanying him who depended on his word.
Those Kings waited. The city waited. Varthlokkur reached his decision. He raised his right arm, his left, and invoked that which he had kept in waiting, the power no accidental sorcerer ever had mastered. So imperceptibly that only the horses noticed at first, the earth began shaking. The Kings were awed by Varthlokkur’s Power. An earth-marid, a King of earth-elementals, reputedly unmanageable save by supreme masters of the eastern sorcery, was answering his summons.
The trembling grew to an earthquake. The city gates collapsed. The poles with wizards toppled from the walls. Spires and minarets shuddered. And the shaking grew. Great buildings fell. The thick wall, Ilkazar’s most solid construction, began to crumble. Varthlokkur’s arms ached with the effort of holding them upward, motionless, and with the Power flowing through them. Yet he held them high. If they fell prematurely, the earth-marid would abandon work as yet incomplete, and Ilkazar would retain sufficient might to make the assault terribly costly. Fires appeared and spread. Dust from falling buildings joined their smoke, darkened the sky. A great governm
ent building slid into the Aeos (which entered Ilkazar through a huge, unbreachable grill), damming it, flooding part of the city.
Varthlokkur eventually, was satisfied and allowed the earthquake to die. He loosed his human hounds. The warriors met little opposition. He himself led the Kings to the Palace.
They found Vilis seated amidst the ruins of his citadel, rocking and drooling. He clutched a crown to his chest and sang a childhood song. Soldiers hastily cleared rubble from a corner of Execution Square. They recovered a carven stake, set it up, and bound the King to it. Brands arrived. Varthlokkur stood before Vilis, torch in hand.
His followers expected him to laugh, or brag about this fulfillment of vengeance, but he did not. They expected he would now speak, for the first time in decades, and say something like, “Remember my mother in Hell,” but he did not. When at last he broke the long silence, he said only, “You have made me lonely, Royal Ilkazar,” and cast the torch aside. Head bowed, he turned and walked from the city slowly, leaving mercy or its lack to his followers.
The poet, hardly impartial, ends with a bitter curse upon Ilkazar, damning her for all eternity. But, before he finishes, he does, briefly, indicate that he understands why Varthlokkur cast the torch aside. No one else then present, and few scholars since, did so. The destruction of Ilkazar and its King meant Varthlokkur had lost his only true companion of fourteen years’ purpose. Behind the mask of victory had lain a defeat.
FIVE: By Every Hand Betrayed
Night in Iwa Skolovda, at the end of a savage storm-probably the last of winter. The Kratchnodian Mountains and the valley of the Silverbind were buried by sparkling snow, and temperatures were barely above melting. The Silverbind was high in the flatlands, a foot below flood outside the east wall. Ice jammed the river a few miles down, backing the flow. The wind sang a lonely dirge around the Tower of the Moon. It was a night for earthshaking events, a night for the Wind of Fate.
Nepanthe had slept better since the arrival of the fat man. He hadn’t been able to banish the demons of her mind, but he had tamed them a bit. That night, however, she paced, though not from old terror. A premonition rode the wind whispering through the windows and curtains. Apprehension forbid all sleep. Occasionally the future touched her lightly, though seldom clearly. Something was terribly wrong in Iwa Skolovda. She had felt it for hours, yet could not discover what.
Glancing out the window facing north, she finally found a visible wrongness. The sky glowed away toward the north wall. The glow steadily brightened. She knew what it was. Fire. But what flames they must be! To cause such a widespread glow, the fire must be beyond all control. Her apprehension increased. She turned to the clothing set out for the morning.
She had just finished dressing-and was cursing a broken fingernail-when the knocker at her door sounded.
“Enter!” she called, certain she sounded terrified.
Rolf came in, face grim.
“Well?”
“Bad news, Milady.”
“I’ve seen the fires. What’s happening?”
“An attack. Hillmen bandits have crossed the wall. There must be a thousand of them, killing, plundering.”
Nepanthe frowned. What the devil?
Rolf continued, “The troops are fighting well, under the circumstances.”
“Rolf, I don’t want to call you a liar, but... well, we both know none of the hill tribes are that big. Hardly any could muster a hundred warriors, counting cripples, old men, and boys. Fighting well under what circumstances?”
“Perhaps I exaggerate, but I’ll swear there’re more than five hundred. I saw at least a dozen tribal totems. They’ve got some kind of overall warchief.
“The circumstances are these: your enemies here have joined the bandits. They’re attacking us from behind. Our partisans are attacking them. It’s absolute chaos. I can’t keep civil order and defend the city both.”
“When did it start?”
“Three hours ago, Milady.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“There seemed no need at first. Then I didn’t have time.”
Faintly, the roars of fighting and fire reached Nepanthe’s ears. Furtive shadows raced through the streets below her window, some away from, some toward, the stricken quarter. “The hillman warchief, did you see him? What did he look like?” Unreasonably, she was certain what Rolf’s answer would be.
“Tall, thin, dark of skin, face like a hawk’s, eyes that look like you can see Hell’s fires burning through them. He’s not a hillman, northman, or Iwa Skolovdan, nor a westerner. A southerner, I’d guess. From the deserts. I heard his name, but can’t remember it. They called him wizard.”
“Varthlokkur!” Nepanthe spat, freighting the name with anger and fear.
“Milady?” Rolf frowned. He had heard the name before. Where? Ah. The old chanson, The Wizards of Ilkazar. But that made no sense. That Varthlokkur had lived hundreds of years ago.
“For years I’ve dreaded that name, Rolf.” Her spirits sagged. She became a lost, frightened little girl, “What can I do? Why did Turran leave me alone? He’d know what to do.” She wept. It had been a long time since she had. Then she grew hysterical, began raving.
Awed, distressed, and uncertain how he should react, Rolf ran to Saltimbanco’s apartment.
The fat man wakened with a long-winded, flowery curse in which Rolf’s hopefully illegitimate children were damned for generations.
“Mocker, shut your goddamned mouth and listen!” He drew back, ready to slap the fat man.
Saltimbanco considered the grim face above him, and the name that had been spoken. “What happens?”
“Haroun’s here. Early. He’s outnumbered, but I’ve confused things so much he can’t help but win.”
“Self, assume this is plan.”
“Yes. But when I reported the attack and described Haroun, the woman got hysterical, started raving about Varthlokkurs, Fangdreds, El Kabars. You better quiet her down, or she’ll blow the whole operation...”
“Self, am acknowledged master of hysterics-soothing. Am also one distressed by naming of secret names. Mocker is dead...”
Moments later, Saltimbanco burst into Nepanthe’s apartment, seated himself with her in his ample lap, began comforting. He tried to discover what lay behind her collapse, but failed. She had regained control.
“Self,” he declared suddenly, rising abruptly, catching her just before she hit the floor, “will brave barbed shafts of barbarian hordes to speechify rallyment to stouthearted troops!” He vanished before she could protest.
Nepanthe, while seated where Saltimbanco had deposited her, regained her Storm King turn of mind. Coolly, she shouted, “Rolf! Send a man to Ravenkrak with news of what’s happened, and the name ‘Varthlokkur.’ Turran’ll know what I mean. Oh, ask for reinforcements. Then muster my guard and horses. Secure a path of retreat. And see if you can catch Saltimbanco before he gets himself killed.”
Asking reinforcement, she knew, was futile. The battle would be lost or won before Turran received her message. But he might bring enough men to retake the city.
Fast, faster than his bulk portended possible, Saltimbanco hurried to the north quarter. Here and there he demoralized the troops with stout patriotic speeches, promises of imminent victory, and exhortations to counterattack mightily. His perfect record for selecting the wrong convinced the men they were already defeated.
The fighting slopped over into the east quarter, which was populated primarily by small merchants and artisans-the bulk of them furriers whose products were internationally renowned-who were Nepanthe’s ardent supporters. The attack bogged down as those supporters defended their homes vigorously. It was a pity there were no fresh formations available to take advantage of the situation.
Saltimbanco suddenly appeared near the North Gate, at the command post of the invaders. Shrieking loudly, he alerted his accomplice before hillmen could spit him with spears. The man called Haroun hustled him into a captured house.
> Saltimbanco faced the raider across a splintered oak table. “Self, am thinking Great General strikes early-though boldly, with success.”
The thin dark man opposite him remained silent for a long moment before hissing, “I’ve got a talent. Its buyer paid well. I give value for money.”
“Self, am doing same.” Saltimbanco was disturbed.
Haroun was cold, remote. Had something gone sour? Then he sighed. The man was always this way at the crisis point in his cameo guerrilla wars. He had to be. Total detachment was necessary. “Is great operation, plan-perfect. Mad-blind, Storm Kings.” He chuckled, thinking of the pot of gold at the end of this particular bloody rainbow. “Gold-lined old man, what of him?”
“Nothing. Not a word since last fall. I don’t like it. Paid a few people to keep an eye on him. He’s recruiting hire-swords in the Lesser Kingdoms.”
“Self, am student philosophic of mighty mental thews, yet am unable to reason to end of twisty old man’s twisty plan. Am not liking darkness. Am fearful, here, here, here.” He smote himself on forehead, heart, purse.
“For the pay, I’ll tolerate the mysteriousness. Look, I’ve got a battle to run. I haven’t got time to chat, and nothing to tell. Give Rolf my congratulations. He’s learning. Might make a full partner someday. And give my regards to Bragi and Elana. Now go away. We can talk after Ravenkrak falls.”
“Hurry-hurry. Always hurry. Self, being keen of eye and keener of keeping head attached, spotted interesting list and copied same. Spies working for Valther. Same might prove handy.”
Irritably, bin Yousif grabbed the list. He gestured at the door.
At sunrise Rolf’s patrols found Saltimbanco wandering aimlessly near the South Gate. Vainly, the sun strove to drive its rays through the smoke over the city. The fat man, apparently in shock, was unceremoniously tied into a saddle and drafted into Nepanthe’s retreat.