“You are king of nothing,” Jarmon shouted scornfully.
The Despot laughed. “Well, I have something in common with Gwylliam, then. How repulsive. I am more king than he ever was, he who frightened the people with his visions, his predictions of cataclysm, and then left them, a king who abandoned his birthright to save his own hide. At least I stayed with my people—held my post. Unlike Gwylliam, I am not a coward.”
Jarmon’s expression blackened and he raised his bow sight to his eye.
“Give the word, Hector,” the old guard said angrily. “I want this one.”
“There is no time for your games, your foolishness,” Hector said tersely to the Despot, raising a cautionary hand to Jarmon.
“Then stop wasting what time you have left here,” the Despot said, his tone flattening. “Do you not know the origins of this place? What is there here worth saving?”
Before answering, Hector sized him up. He had always been told that the city beyond the gates was full of tricks, but the scrawny man before him had no weapons he could detect, and he saw no open doors or windows that might conceal bowmen. He could not be certain that Anais’s position was clear a block or so down.
“Them,” he said simply, gesturing into the dark streets and alleyways. “Anyone who did not have the chance to choose life; anyone who was condemned as an afterthought. One man. One woman. One child. Any and all that want to leave, whatever their crimes, whatever their innocence. In the name of Gwylliam, the king, I am here to offer them that chance. Now, move aside! We have no time for this! We stand on the threshold of death.”
The eyes of the Despot darkened as well, revealing a soulless depth.
“By all means, step over, then,” he said icily. “It’s rude to hover in doorways.”
“After you, Your Majesty,” Hector replied.
He dropped his hand.
Three bolts were unleashed simultaneously, piercing the ragged man in the eye, heart, and forehead, tearing through him as if he were parchment. The Despot fell back onto the broken cobblestones of the square with a thud, sending another bevy of pigeons skyward. The noise of his fall and their rise echoed through the empty streets, followed by a deafening silence.
“Anais, ring the bell thrice more,” Hector called over his shoulder.
The metallic crashing resumed, then ceased, dying away slowly.
“Now, come!” Hector shouted into the Outer Ring. “Come with us if you want to live!”
For a long moment nothing answered him. Then, at the outer edges of his sight in the dark alleyways, Hector saw the shadows thicken a bit, then move.
Slowly, one and two at a time, figures began to move into the light of the square, like ghosts in the haze of the sun, squinting as if in pain. Thin men, emaciated women, and a few tattered children came forward, hovering close to one another, their eyes hollow and downcast. Hector loosed his breath; until this moment, he could not have been certain that there was anyone in the dark city left to save.
“Sevirym,” he said to the young soldier, “lead these people to the pier and get them aboard the ship. Send Anais back when you pass through the gate; we will go quickly house to house, and into the Inner Ring.”
Sevirym nodded curtly at the mention of the dark interior of the Gated City, then turned and gestured excitedly to the two dozen or so human shadows wandering slowly toward the gates.
“Come,” he shouted. “Follow me to the ship—and to a chance at living another day.”
Street after street, building after mudbrick building revealed no one living, only broken remains. There were decidedly more bodies in the Gated City than they had found elsewhere in the westlands, too many to burn or even pray over.
As they ran from lintel to lintel, from post to pillar, they called into the empty corridors and banged on the walls and stairs to rouse anyone in the upper floors or lofts, but only managed to disturb nests of rats, roosting birds, and packs of feral cats ripping out what little they could scrounge from the charnel.
Finally Anais, who had clambered from rooftop to rooftop through much of the city, climbed down and stood in the middle of the street before an interior wall that ran perpendicular to the rest of the buildings, sealing the Outer Ring from the dark streets that lay beyond it. A black wrought-iron gate shaped like a giant keyhole was broken off its hinges, the metal twisted with a savage ferocity. Anais bent over at the waist, panting from exertion and frustration.
“The Inner Ring must begin here,” he said between breaths. “You are going to want to go in, aren’t you, Hector?”
“Yes.”
Anais sighed. “Of course. A waste of valuable air to have asked in the first place. Be so good as to allow me a moment to catch my breath. I am growing too old for this nonsense.”
Hector said nothing.What I would give if only you had the chance to grow old, Anais, he thought.
“Sun’s descending,” Cantha said, shading her eyes with her long-fingered hand and staring into the all-but-impenetrable mist. “Two hours and ’twill be beyond the horizon.”
“Right; thirty minutes’ more search at most, then,” Hector said, nodding his head at Jarmon to pull the twisted portal open. “And let us stay together in here. This was, in its day, a largely evil enclave, the closest place to the Vault of the Underworld that existed on this Island; we don’t want to make a misstep.”
Quickly they pulled themselves through the portal, avoiding the jagged metal, and stepped for the first time in any of their lives into the streets of the Inner Ring.
It was stunning in its dullness.
The buildings in what had once been one of the darkest corners of the world were no different than they had been in the Outer Ring, or even in the more populated parts of the westlands, for that matter. The streets here were, if possible, even quieter than they had been in the outside world, even more devoid of anything valuable left behind. The buildings stood, unmolested, appearing for all the world as pedestrian as the buildings of Kingston’s residential area. The only discernible difference was the proximity of them; they crowded each other for space, squeezing next to each other on narrow streets. Ropes hung intermittently from windows, tying the streets closely together in the air above the ground as well.
Hector pulled aside a half door that hung from only one hinge and peered into the recesses of a dilapidated shop.
“My father walked these streets many times,” he mused aloud. “He said there was a darkness that hung over the place, that was present in the very air itself. It must have been extant in the nefarious population that lived here; it appears they took it with them when they left.”
“Good,” Jarmon muttered. “Perhaps it obscured their path on the sea and they sank without a trace.”
They combed each street, each alley, calling rotely as they had in the Outer Ring, but within this smaller, closer section of the Gated City their words were swallowed in the devouring silence that reigned here.
At one street corner halfway in, Cantha stopped and turned down the thoroughfare; the others followed her past a stand of dark buildings to a place where one appeared to be missing. A gray hole of cold ash held its place amid the otherwise unscathed structures, like a missing tooth in a dull smile.
The Kith woman inclined her head into the wind and inhaled.
“The Poisoner’s,” she said. It was the only building in the Inner Ring that had been razed.
“They took their secrets with them as well,” said Anais.
“There’s no one here, Hector,” Jarmon called impatiently from farther up the street, his voice muted. “Can we quit this place now? We have searched as well as God, the One, the All, could possibly ask; let us be out of here before we set off a trap or discover some other sign of contempt left behind for the forces of His Majesty.”
Hector glanced around at the desolate streets, the hollow buildings, silent witnesses to acts that would have defied description even if their stones could talk.Another trove of mystery enters the annals of Time, he thought bemuse
dly, then turned back to the others who watched him intently from farther up the street.
“Yes,” he said at last. “We’ve searched enough. Let’s be off.”
The second longboat was preparing to depart when Hector and the others returned to the pier in Kingston’s harbor.
Sevirym waved for the boatswain to wait and jogged back up the dock, looking behind his friends in the mist.
“Anyone else?”
“No one,” Hector said flatly. “The City is empty.”
The captain of theStormrider came forward hastily out of the fog.
“We are not even two-fifths laden with this boatload,” he said somberly. “Surely this is not all?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“Hardly worth the risk, the effort,” Petaris Flynt muttered. “A score of ragged human rats—for this we chanced boiling and splitting?”
Hector’s brow darkened in the dimming light of the setting sun.
“If you rescue but one soul, it will have been worth the effort,” he said bitterly. “Would that I had the chance to do so. Take to your ship, captain, and set sail. Hurry home to whomever you love, bearing your human cargo. Quit this place while you can.”
The captain nodded sharply. “Very well. Climb aboard, then, Sir Hector, and we’ll be off for the Icefields.”
Five pairs of eyes stared at him stonily through the mist.
“You misunderstand,” Anais said finally after a long and awkward moment. “We are not leaving.”
“I am sworn to stay here,” Hector interrupted, waving Anais into silence. “By command of my king and lord, I am to remain to keep order in the last days, and hold the line of succession.”
“Madness!” puffed Flynt. “The king is gone, Sir Hector; the exodus has passed, and passed successfully. There is nothing left to guard. Surely your king did not mean for you to remain to your death, now that your duty is fully discharged! Come aboard.”
“I thank you, but I cannot.”
“By the king’s command?”
“By the king’s command, yes.”
“Then your king was a fool,” said the sea captain contemptuously. “If there is nothing left to guard, to what end does a sovereign condemn good men to certain death standing watch overnothing ? What sort of man, what sort of king, would do that?”
“My king,” growled Jarmon, his eyes blazing in fury as he elbowed his way between Anais and Hector, stopping a hairsbreadth from the captain’s face. “Our king. And you would be well advised not to gainsay him again, if you do not wish to face certain death yourself.”
“Think of your family, man,” the captain said desperately, ignoring the old guard and turning to Hector once more.
Hector leaned closer. “I do, with each breath,” he said, gently pulling Jarmon back. “But I am sworn to my king, and they”—he nodded at the other four—“are sworn to me. I thank you for your concern, Captain Flynt, and for your heroic efforts on behalf of the remaining population of this land. But only one of us will be going with you.”
The captain blinked; the tension that had run in the air like steel bands a moment before vanished, replaced with shock as the four others looked askance at each other, bewilderment on their faces.
Hector turned and signaled to his companions, nodding down the pier. Together they walked halfway back to the dock, shaking their heads, exchanging glances of confusion, until Hector stopped out of earshot of the captain, and pointed through the mist to shore, where the dark mountain of sandbags loomed.
“Cantha, Jarmon, walk on,” he said softly. “You too, Anais.”
“Me?”Sevirym shouted, too overwrought to catch the words before they exploded from his lips. “You are sendingme away? No, Hector. I’ll not leave.”
Hector signaled again to his puzzled friends, urging them away from the pier.
“Yes, Sevirym,” he said quietly, laying a hand on Sevirym’s arm. The young soldier shrugged it off angrily. “Yes, you will.”
“Why? Has my loyalty to you been any less than theirs? Have I dishonored you, failed you—”
“Never,” Hector interrupted him, taking his arm again. “Hear me, Sevirym; time is short and words should be used sparingly, so that their meaning is undiluted. No man could have asked for a more loyal companion and a better friend than you have been to me, to the others—to this dying land. But I need you to go with the captain now, to guard the refugees, and to make certain they are not combative.” Involuntarily he winced at the sight of the pain on his friend’s face.
“I want to remain here, Hector.”
Hector sighed. “Well, that makes one of us, Sevirym. I do not—but what I want is not at issue. Nor is what you want. We are both prisoners of what needs to be done, as decided by the one who commands us.” His tone softened. “You are fulfilling the same order of the king that the rest of us are—’keep my people safe in the last days.’ These ragged refugees—they are the king’s subjects as much as you or I. They need our protection. Get them out of here, Sevirym. Take them to safety.”
Sevirym dropped his eyes, unable to maintain a calm mien anymore.
“You are commanding me to do this, against my will and my vow?” he said, his voice choked with anguish.
“Only if you force me to,” Hector replied gently. “Rather, I am asking you to do this for me, as my friend and brother. You swore to stand by me, to help me in this task that was commanded of me. In leaving with the ship, you are helping me far more than by staying.”
For a long moment, Sevirym continued to stare at the rotting planks of the pier, listening to the splash of the waves beneath the mist. Then finally he nodded.
In turn Hector nodded to the three standing on the docks and turned to walk with Sevirym back to the end of the pier. Anais raised his hand; Sevirym lifted his halfheartedly in return. Jarmon bowed his head, then turned away. Only Cantha remained still, her eyes staring sharply through the fog, her face expressionless.
“I am abandoning them, and you,” Sevirym muttered as they walked back to where the longboats and the ship’s captain waited. “I may live, but you are sentencing me to life as a coward.”
Hector stopped suddenly, dragging Sevirym to a harsh halt by the arm.
“Damn your tongue if it utters such a thing again,” he said sharply. “And damn your mind if it believes it. What I ask of you requires more bravery than staying behind, Sevirym; I am asking you to live. Dying is easy; any fool can do it—it’s living that requires courage. Now get on that damned ship and do your duty to the king, to me, and to yourself.”
After a moment Sevirym lifted his eyes and met Hector’s. “Why me?” he asked softly. “I go, Hector, but I just want to know why you chose me, and not Anais, or Jarmon, or Cantha.”
Hector exhaled. “Because you have never really believed that you were going to die, Sevirym. Unlike the rest of us, you kept hoping that the Island could be spared, that death was not inevitable—and perhaps that is a sign from God, the One, the All, that for you it is not.”
Sevirym continued to stare at him for a long time, then finally nodded, acceptance in his eyes.
“I will find Talthea and your children, Hector, and guard them until my last breath.”
Hector embraced him. “Thank you, my friend. Tell Talthea that they were in my thoughts until the last, and what happened here. Everything, Sevirym, tell her everything; do not spare her. She is stronger than any of us.” His grip tightened. “I will say this to you, Sevirym, and it is something I have not said, nor will I say, to any other living soul.” He leaned closer and whispered into his friend’s ear.
“None of us should have had to stay.”
Sevirym, unable to form words, nodded again.
They walked to the end of the pier, swathed in impenetrable vapor. The shade of the captain was waiting still. Hector watched as the boatswain lifted the lamp from the prow of the longboat to light Sevirym’s way aboard, then raised a hand in final salute.
In the misty glow of
the longboat’s lantern, Sevirym held up his hand in return.
Hector stared, trying to keep his eyes focused until the shadow had slipped away into the sea mist, then turned to the captain again.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Is that all, then?” Petaris Flynt said regretfully. “I cannot change your mind, Sir Hector?”
“That is all,” Hector answered. “Can you take some of the horses from the livery? Those mounts served the king with their lives as well; if you have room for them, it would gladden my heart to see you spare them.”
Flynt nodded dully. “Such a waste,” he muttered. “A handful of human rats, some skeletal horses, and one soldier, while good men stay behind to their doom. Proffer my apologies for my insult to your elderly friend, Sir Hector; any king who inspires so much loyalty and devotion in such obviously true men must have been a very great king indeed.”
Hector exhaled evenly. “He was our king,” he said simply.
“I understand,” said Flynt. He glanced toward the setting sun. “Have your companions round up those animals and get them into the longboats—we can only make one last trip back to the ship before we sail.” The captain prepared to descend into the closest of the five remaining longboats.
Hector stopped him. “I have found that each life I spare saves my own a little bit,” he said, shaking the man’s hand. “Thank you for helping me in this way, Captain Flynt.”
The captain nodded. “I’m sorry I won’t have the chance to know you longer, Sir Hector,” he said. Then he stepped into the longboat, shouted orders to the crew, and disappeared into the devouring fog.
As the sun slipped below the horizon, the four remaining companions stood atop the ramparts of sandbags, watching the dark masts of theStormrider become part of the twilight beyond the heavy mist, listening to the crashing of the waves and the howling of the sea wind.
“That be it, then,” said Jarmon finally when night took hold, casting the last of the light from the sky.
The others said nothing. Anais climbed down from the sandbag wall, handed Jarmon the firebrand, and jogged to the end of the pier, letting the fog swallow him. When he reached the edge he peered out into the blackness but saw nothing.