The Door in Crow Wood
Chapter 28 The Heretics’ Pool
They had gotten that far. Unfortunately for Clay, however, Zendor was not available to consult. As they sailed on yet another galley up the Olympus River toward the Tirasite state of Thalschor, the Unknown King lay in a feverish sleep. Clay slumped in a chair nearby and fought a selfish desire to wake him. True, Zendor had slept already in the hired litter that brought them across Farja, and true, he had slept most of the time since they had boarded the Capricorn that morning. But that only showed how very ill he must be.
It was the afternoon of September second, and Clay himself had just awakened. Almost for the first time in the Fold, he was without guidance. He was as ignorant of the lands ahead as he had been of those behind; and he had no one to take over for Zendor, as Zendor had succeeded Jules. Furthermore, Zendor might be sick a long time. Zendor might die.
Clay gnawed a thumb nail. Why had he gone into the Midraeum and killed those Crumblies? What had he been thinking? Now the witches knew where he had been. Dark ships would follow him up this river, follow perhaps without the sure knowledge that he had fled this way, but knowing nevertheless that this was one of the ways he might have gone. And they would try every route away from Purgos, whether likely or unlikely. If he had just left well enough alone, he might have passed on up the Eleutheria unnoticed.
Still—it had been a glorious few minutes, that binge of Crumbly smashing. Maybe a few minutes like that in a fellow’s life made any repercussions worth it. But probably not. Not when he imagined the things the cult might do to him if they caught him. He shook Zendor.
The Unknown King woke fairly easily. “What? What is it?” he said irritably.
Clay was at a loss to answer. He had not wanted anything specific, just reassurance. Zendor propped himself against the cabin wall and gave Clay one of his withering looks. In the half-light he appeared almost healthy.
“Just—how are you?” Clay fumbled.
“Finished, thanks to you,” he said with deep bitterness.
“I’m sorry, Zendor. Look, you’ll be OK.” (He had taught Zendor ‘OK.’)
“No.” Zendor leaned forward. “Give me that thing you use to make light, and I’ll show you how I’ve wasted everything on you. It’s all gone, wasted on the laughable hope of putting a slave boy on the throne of the East. Curse Mald! I should have stayed in Quintusia.”
Clay brought out the flashlight and offered it to him.
“No, you fool, just light it and shine it on my arm. I did so hours ago when you were asleep.”
Clay flicked it on and held the beam near Zendor’s bare forearm. He was relieved to see no spots or rash.
“It looks OK.”
“Look again. What color would you call that?”
“It’s—a little blue.” Suddenly Clay knew. “Oh, Thoz.” He turned the light off and sat back, feeling sweaty and smothered. “I’m sorry, Zendor.”
“Sorry for what? That following your trail led me through the plague colony in Kulismos? That I felt compelled to speak to some of the victims, asking after you? Little good it did me: they didn’t know where you’d gone. And now I’m finished, my reign is over. Unknown Queen Prizca will rule Quintusia.”
Searching for something to say, Clay asked, “Who’s Prizca?”
“My wife.”
Zendor had never mentioned that he had a wife. Clay wondered if he also had children, but was too heartsick to ask.
“Is it painful?”
“No, not painful. When the initial fevers are over, I’ll be able to rise and go about.”
“Well, that’s not so bad then.”
Zendor slammed a palm down. “Not bad! I’d rather be crippled for life. Anyone who gets the Blue Plague loses the will to strive, sinks into lethargy, becomes—contemplative.” He sneered out the word syllable by syllable. “They become like living ghosts. Kroz! A clean death would have been better.” He shivered. “Get away from me. I hate the sight of you.”
Clay withdrew from the cabin.
For the next several days, Clay found other places to sleep, not because he was afraid of contagion but because Zendor was so bitter and furious. To occupy himself, he made friends with the crew; he watched anxiously any ship that overtook them; he carried food and drink to Zendor.
At dusk of the fifth day, he saw the river widen into a large lake, the Maigathal of the Pergs. The wide surface of the lake was roughened by waves and lit by moonlight. Other ships were visible from afar, the light sailboats of the Pergs. It was beautiful. Perhaps he would find safety after all. On the Long Island that lay ahead the Royal Interpreter ruled, and from the way the sailors talked, he did not sound so bad. Maybe he would let Clay just live there, away from the witches. Just live and not run anymore.
As Clay sat on deck on a coil of rope and thought of these things, someone touched his arm. Zendor was bowing over him.
“My apologies. It was not your fault.”
Clay leaped up grinning and grasped him by an arm. “Are you better? It’s really good to see you up.”
“I’m better,” Zendor answered, but his eyes glittered oddly.
“Do you know what to do now? What about the Royal Interpreter? Should we trust him? Can we land on his island?”
“I—I don’t know. Perhaps not.”
“But Zendor, if we don’t go there, where shall we go instead?”
“I don’t know, boy. I must give it some thought.” With a hand on Clay’s shoulder, Zendor stared out across the waves.
Clay realized that what Zendor had predicted was happening. The King had lost his vigor of mind, his combativeness. He was a ghost. And Clay was still alive, and alone.
The next morning of September tenth brought their ship to harbor at the Long Island, which meant inspection by the Interpreter’s officials. The Capricorn’s captain was made to admit that he had two passengers, travelers not welcome in a land where even traders are looked on with suspicion.
Rough handed guardsmen dragged Clay and Zendor out of the ship and up a narrow street to the basilica of the Harbor Master, Kroz Jerem. Soon they were in a wide, shadowy hall, the near end of which was used as a market. Passing the stalls, they were brought to stand before a throne of judgement where Jerem slumped—bored, bejeweled, and surrounded by spearmen.
The interview was brief.
“Who are you?”
Clay looked to Zendor, who in his new mental state answered with disastrous truthfulness.
“I’m Zendor, Unknown King of Quintusia, and my young friend is Clay Gareth, rather probably a descendant of Lila, thus making him Emperor of the Fold.”
Jerem did not blink. “A pretender? You’d think these imposters would know better by now.” He raised his bronze scepter and pronounced instant judgment. “The law assigns death by drowning to all pretenders. Take him to the heretics’ pool and drown him at once.” Before Clay could realize what was happening, he found his wrists tied behind him. “As for the other, send him to the Royal Interpreter. Mozez likes to deal with these Unknown Kings himself. He’s amused by madmen.”
“But we had no chance to speak!” Clay objected desperately, but already the soldiers were pulling him away, and Jerem had left his throne to chat with some well-dressed bystanders.
Zendor was left behind as they yanked Clay back through the market and higher up the streets of the harbor town, under the oddly tilted eaves of the houses and shops, and past staring Pergs with their hooded robes and full beards. Some of the citizens fell in after them, so that a hubbub rose behind Clay. Before him, and higher than he would have thought possible, loomed a palace: towers and temples and walls, and a great gilded dome shining in the sunlight.
They entered a large, low building at the base of the palatial hill and were met by yet more officials, each man bearded, richly dressed, and wearing a gold signet around his neck. As the crowd filed in, eager for the show, Clay saw a mosaic floor surroundi
ng a pool rather like an indoor swimming pool. The blue water caught a ray of sun from a window and sparkled dazzlingly. So beautiful.
Clay remembered how he had gasped out his Psalm in the cemetery at home when he had thought he was going to die. This time he could not speak. He looked on stupidly as they brought him to the side of the pool, where stood a large iron weight with a ring in the top. This would drown him. A short length of chain was hastily passed through this ring, and shackle cuffs such as were used on rowers’ ankles were passed through the last link of each end of the chain. The guards forced Clay down on his knees, untied his hands from behind him, brought them around in front of him, and closed the cuffs on his wrists. He might draw the chain back and forth through the ring, but his cuffed hands kept it from passing all the way through.
“Pretender!” bawled a tall man, one of the signet wearers. Then he read from a wax tablet that had been sent up from the Harbor Master’s courtroom. “Self-confessed. Penalty: death by drowning. No appeal in such cases. Signed by the officers of the court.” He turned and in a different voice said, “Throw him in.”
Two burly men gripped handles on the sides of the anvil-like weight and lifted it with effort. Clay hastily tore his tunic open and fumbled with the belt that he wore inside it, his belt from home.
No one needed to touch Clay, for where the weight went he necessarily followed.
In a room nearby Zendor was just sitting down before one of the Royal Interpreter’s scribes, prior to more questioning. They heard a splash, a confused shouting as at an athletic event, and then silence.
“Another poor devil gone for a dive,” was the scribe’s muttered comment. He smoothed a wax tablet with a flat stick. “What’s the date today?”
Before the weight hit bottom, ten feet down, Clay was at work on one of the locks; but he handled the pick more surely after he was able to plant his feet against the bottom and steady himself. The gulp of air he had taken was lasting, and he was amazingly calm. When the cuff popped open after some twenty seconds, he was free to draw the chain through the ring, but he decided to see if he could open the other cuff too. Though seriously uncomfortable by the time the second opened, he was determined to finish this with flair, so he took an extra two seconds to snap both cuffs shut again on the chain ends. (Let them figure that out.) Then he pushed off and shot to the surface.
As he gasped in air and began to swim the few strokes to the pool’s edge, the crowd of onlookers turned, stared, and exploded into a confusion of shouts and gestures. He pulled himself onto the floor and stood. They backed away from him. Again and again, he heard the word ‘miracle’ pass among them, and one man said to those around him, “A pretender! Well, maybe this is the Emperor the easterners look for.”
“I saw an angel in the water with him,” said another. “It was dressed all in white.”
Clay coughed and pulled his wet, torn tunic across him to hide the belt with the picks. In a moment, an order was given, and he was whisked off to a cell; thinking to himself that he had never opened one shackle in so little time, let alone two and under water. This was incredible luck—again. He knew what Bekah would say, or Sharalda. And now he felt compelled to say it himself. A pattern of such lucky events pointed toward a Planner, toward the supernatural.
Grandest of all thrones in the Fold was the throne of Tiras Mozez. The back like a spreading leaf was full eight feet high and inlaid with glass and colored stones, the arms were carved lions’ heads, the feet claws; and every inch of it that was not inlaid was covered with gold. Sitting empty at the top of twelve marble steps, it was simply the most impressive sight in the palace. For this very reason Tiras seldom sat on it. Even in his royal robes he was unhandsome, so why block the people’s view of the Golden Throne in its lone glory?
Today however, since a special prisoner required his judgment, he sat down, took his scepter from an attendant, placed one foot on the golden replica of a book placed before him, and disciplined his face to sternness. Near the bottom of the twelve steps stood his High Judge, looking unhappy, his fingers flexing into the fringe of his long, gray beard. Beyond him was the prisoner, surrounded by what Mozez thought to be an inordinate number of guards. He was a young nobleman from the West, so his dress spoke, but one who had seen hard times.
The High Judge bowed low to Mozez. “O Keeper of the Book of the House, we have here a confessed pretender to the Empire. This morning he was sentenced to drowning by the Harbor Master and in fact actually chained to a great weight and dropped into the Heretics’ Pool. No one has ever—”
“The man is standing here,” Mozez said stingingly. “What do you mean?”
The judge forced a quick nod and smiled humbly. “Yes, O Keeper, that’s the reason we troubled you. He came up out of the water, you see. He was no longer shackled.”
“He was not shackled correctly to begin with,” Mozez concluded quickly. “The locks were not closed.”
The judge hesitated with his tongue between his teeth. “Of course, that must have been the case, O Keeper. However—”
“However, what?”
“I only note that the guards and officials present all believe the shackles were secure. The captain swears he both saw and heard them snap shut. In addition—”
“And have the shackles been inspected?”
“Speedily, you may be sure. The weight was drawn up out of the pool and the shackles inspected. To be sure.”
“And?”
“They were found in excellent condition. But also they were still closed and locked.”
At this, Mozez’s courtiers and officials murmured. Most of them had already heard the story, for it had flown through the palace—but to hear it from the High Judge!
“I tested the shackles with my own hands,” he went on, “and could not open them.”
Mozez was delighted. He could not remember when a case so odd and fascinating had been brought before him. Usually, it was just some nobleman wanting relief from his taxes. He waved the prisoner forward. Now he could see the youth’s face better: clear eyes, good teeth, obviously educated.
The guards forced the boy to his knees, and one of Mozez’s protocol experts whispered to him brief instructions on how to address the throne. Meanwhile, someone supplied Mozez with the name.
“Well, Clay Gareth, how did you escape drowning?”
The boy seemed unwilling to answer. “It looks like a miracle,” he said slowly, and added, “O Keeper!” after receiving a sharp nudge from the protocol expert.
“Was it a miracle?”
The boy met his eyes. “Yes, O Keeper.”
Mozez leaned back and was reminded of another reason he disliked sitting on the Golden Throne: it was devilishly uncomfortable.
“Why? Why would Thoz grant a miracle to you? Clay Gareth, who are you?”
He looked frightened, but not of Mozez. “I’m the Lila-me. I’m the Emperor. I came from the Old World. Everyone in the West is trying to kill me. O Keeper!”
Mozez found himself not laughing. If he had laughed, everyone else would have, too. But he looked interested, and they looked interested.
“The Great Prophet Tiras who wrote the Book of the House,” he said, “founded the Tirasite states more than fifteen hundred years ago. He was the chosen descendant of Quintus and fulfiller of the word that a Descendant would cross the water, return, and establish a Land of Freedom and Paradise. So Tiras, though he never called himself Emperor, was indeed the Emperor, and so are those of his line who sit the Golden Throne. I, boy, am the Emperor. As for you, you may be a descendant of Quintus for all I know, but you are no Tirasite and do not share in our blessings. We are the children of Thoz, and all others are damned.”
The courtiers raised their voices in support.
“However, I do not doubt that Thoz chooses leaders for the lost nations just as He determines all else. He uses filthy heretics without touching
them, without defilement of His holy hand. You might be such a defiled instrument of his unsearchable wisdom. The question is—how do we know? This seeming miracle does not convince me.”
He stood up, he hoped impressively, for his back could endure no more of the Golden Throne. “The prisoner must be tried by some contest to determine whether Thoz truly favors him. He shall live or die by the result. What is the wisdom of my counselors? How shall he be tried?”
The elders who stood by whispered among themselves for some time. At last, one asked, “O Keeper, we will answer when we know one thing. Who shall our champion be?”
Mozez almost winced. He had been having a good time creating a way to be rid of this prisoner while leaving no lingering doubts among the courtiers as to the emptiness of his absurd claims. But now he must be extraordinarily careful. This unexplainable survival of the drowning pool had already caught the court’s imagination. Give the lad the slightest chance of winning, and suppose his luck to hold, and then the speculations about him must increase a hundredfold. Unfortunately, he could count on only one person when extreme care was required.
“I myself will be the champion,” he said.
The elders raised eyebrows and conferred again. In a few minutes, their speaker said, “O Keeper, since you will test the prisoner, we recommend that the matter be contested in the Court of Chess.”
Mozez nodded and turned to Clay. “I suppose you play?”
He did. Mozez began to turn away from him, but something about the boys’ face drew him back. The boy was smiling. Now what did that mean?