“I get it!” Simna blurted in sudden realization. “You weren’t really dead! You were faking it all along.”
Ehomba shook his head slowly. “No, my friend. I was dead. Well and truly dead. I know, because I spent time in the place where the dead go.”
“Tell me,” asked Hunkapa Aub seriously, “what is it like, the place where the dead go?”
“Slow,” the herdsman told him. Reaching out, he put a firm hand on the swordsman’s shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “I knew that I was going to die, Simna. It had been foretold. Not once, but three times. Once by a seductive seeress the memory of whose beauty and wisdom I will always treasure, once by a dog witch whose insight and affection I will always remember, and once even by a fog whose persistence I will never forget. ‘Continue on and die,’ they said—and so it had to be before we could triumph.” Turning, he gazed gravely at the still unmoving body of Hymneth the Possessed: warlock, sorcerer, eminent ruler of illustrious Ehl-Larimar.
“But that was as far as their predictions went. Nothing was said about what might happen after I died.” Raising his eyes, he smiled gratefully at the imposing, attentive, fraternal figure of Hunkapa Aub. “Nothing was said that would preclude my being resurrected.”
Simna gaped at him, struggling to digest the import of his friend’s serene words. Then—he grinned. The grin widened until it seemed to encompass the majority of his sweat-streaked face. And then he began to chuckle softly to himself. It never grew loud or boisterous like before, but it did not go away, either.
“Two sorcerers. All this time I’ve been traveling in the company of two sorcerers.” Turning, he confronted Hunkapa Aub, whose eyes had become suddenly wise as well as blue. “As many days and nights as I have spent in your company, as many evils and dangers as we fought side by side, and I never suspected. I never would have suspected.”
Hunkapa Aub’s smile widened slightly. “Not all wizards look alike, good swordsman. Not everything in life appears as one imagines it to be. And it is not required that one be human to be a master of the thaumaturgic arts.”
Simna could only stare and shake his head in lingering disbelief. “Why? Why the sham and the continuing charade? Why did you let the people of Netherbrae keep you in a cage and throw food at you and torment you with insults and curses?”
Clasping both immoderately hairy hands behind his back, the hulking wizard considered Simna’s flurry of questions. “You would not understand, good swordsman. Even a sorcerer needs to learn by experience. I was traveling through that part of the world when I was accosted by the simple, shallow folk of that otherwise charming mountain town. I could easily have avoided capture, or freed myself at any time. But I was, and am always, curious as to what would motivate otherwise apparently intelligent and compassionate people to act in such a shameful fashion toward another of their fellow beings who had done them no harm. One can learn much about one’s peers by spending time in a cage.
“Then you appeared in Netherbrae, and freed me. Finding you more interesting than anything else that tempted to engage me at that time, I chose to accompany you on your journey. It promised much of interest and elucidation. Suffice to say, I have not been disappointed.”
“But why the pantomime?” An unsatisfied Simna persisted. “Why didn’t you just tell us who and what you were from the beginning?”
Hunkapa Aub’s smile was as sage as the look in his eyes. “Wizards have this ‘effect’ on people, good swordsman. In the presence of one they become muted things and no longer act themselves. I wanted to study you as you are, not as you would have become had you known my true identity.”
Simna stammered angrily. “Study us? And what have you learned, maestro of a mumbling disguise, from the specimens you chose to keep so long in ignorance?”
“The best thing there is to learn about another. That you are good, all of you. Yea, even you, Simna ibn Sind, though you would argue long and hard to deny it. I know you well. You, and the great and noble cat.” Raising his gaze, he considered the lanky figure of Etjole Ehomba. “Your friend and guide I am still not entirely sure about.” Hirsute shoulders rose and fell in a prodigious shrug. “I think I will stay with you a while longer. I sense there is still more to learn from your company.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you turned out to be more than the untutored, shambling simpleton you seemed to be,” Simna declared, adding hastily, “I mean nothing untoward by that, master. Who would have thought you the more powerful sorcerer than Hymneth the Possessed?”
“Who said I was more powerful?” Hunkapa Aub’s smile faded. “I caught him unawares, after he had been tired and worn down by your friend Etjole. I did not defeat him. Ultimately, it demanded the combined efforts of both of us.”
“Hoy, however it was done, the important thing is that you were able to overcome him.” The swordsman glowered down at the recumbent, motionless figure from which ruined metal was sloughing like a second skin. As he did so, his eyes widened.
Exposed to the flicker of lamplight without his omnipresent armor, Hymneth the Possessed, lord of the central coast and absolute ruler of Ehl-Larimar the sublime, was after all had been said and done not all that he had appeared to be.
Curly black hair almost as thick as Hunkapa’s covered the barrel chest as well as the long, massive forearms. But beneath the bulky upper body were tapered hips and shockingly short, stunted legs. These too were intermittently overlaid with still more of the thick body curls.
Formerly strapped to and now detached from the undersized lower limbs and feet were a pair of whitened, dying legs that had been taken from a much taller man. Amputated from an unknown owner, these fleshy prostheses were dying before the onlookers’ eyes, the magic that had kept them attached to the warlock’s feet having been shattered along with the rest of his protective spells. Nothing less than stilts made of meat, they had covertly provided a good portion of the lord of Ehl-Larimar’s imposing height.
Atop a bull neck sat a massive head that seemed too large for the rest of the body. Thick, almost blubbery lips fronted a prognathic jawline. The ears were overlarge and set toward the rear of the skull. Most striking of all was the forehead, sloping well back from the thick, bony ridges that shaded the eyes. The raven hair atop the head had been trimmed short to eliminate the profusion of greasy curls to be found elsewhere on the squat body. It was a surpassingly ugly face, a visage that fluctuated uneasily between homely and repulsive. A face that was not quite human, though Ehomba knew what it was. Simna recalled a recent statement of Hunkapa Aub’s.
“It is not necessary for one to be human to be a master of the thaumaturgic arts.”
Hymneth the Possessed was a neander.
The partially paralyzed wizard was impotent to smash in the faces that were staring down at him or strike the pitying expressions from their countenances. Defeated, frustrated, revealed, naked, and exposed, he could only moan and howl helplessly.
“Go on; look, stare, gawk at me. My people wonder why I never appear among them unhelmeted or without armor. It’s because if they saw me like this, as I am, they would repudiate me despite all my power and no matter what threats I rained down upon them. My forebears are from the far north, from the frozen wastes that cap the roof of the world. There they huddle, miserable and cold, dying young and struggling to eke out an existence I would not bequeath to a bird. Driven there by the ‘healthy’ ones. By people like yourselves.” Unable to move more than his head, he glared defiantly up at a silently watching Ehomba.
“Only I was different. Only I devoured everything the wise ones muttered and mumbled, storing their knowledge within my heart as well as my head. I studied, and learned, and vowed to make a life different from theirs. A life of power and dominion over those who shunned and jeered the neanders.
“When I had learned enough, I found my way here, to Ehl-Larimar. The journey almost killed me, but I took the throne from the weakling who sat upon it and remade it in my own image. I extended my control to enco
mpass all of the central coast. I could have done more, could have conquered farther to the north and south, but I did not. Power I’d wanted, and power I’d gained.
“Having attained so much, still I was not satisfied. Having acquired power over the real world, I sought the same over the supernatural. I immersed myself in whatever necromantic lore I could find. But nowhere did I encounter a spell that would render me human. That would make me ‘normal.’ On learning that there was nothing I could do to alter my ugliness in the sight of people, I resolved angrily to surround myself with beauty.” Lifting his head, he nodded as well as he was able.
“The consequences of that obsession you see all around you. This castle, its furnishings, even the attendants and retainers who serve me within its walls; everything has been chosen as much for its attractiveness as for skill. It, and I, lacked only one thing: a consort. Someone to sit by my side, to be my queen. Feeling this great emptiness inside myself, I determined to seek out the most beautiful woman in the world. I found her, and took her from her lackeys and lickspittle suitors, and brought her here. A vain hope, perhaps, but I thought that given time and consideration and honor, she might come to at least tolerate, if not to love, me.”
Kneeling beside him, the Visioness Themaryl took up the refrain. “He stole me away from my home and my family. My anger was boundless as the sea and the land I was carried across. I would neither converse, nor dine, nor sit with him.
“Then in the very late of one evening, when I thought the castle asleep, I stole downstairs in my endless search for a means or route of escape, and caught him slumped over his table, drunk—and unhelmeted. At first I was repulsed. But my constitution is not frail. I approached, and looked into his face that was half unconscious, and I saw the pain there.” She sighed deeply, remembering.
“After that, it was different. I was cautious, and I believe that he was afraid to chance too much, but in time we came to know one another. All my life I have been courted, and promised, and drawn back from a chorus of suitors and swains that sometimes seemed to stretch from my home to the moon itself. I found them all much alike: vain, unambitious, conceited, too much in love with themselves to love another.” She rested a hand on the exposed, thickly bearded chest. “Here I found something—different. If your journey homeward should take you back through Laconda, please assure my family that I am well, and content with my lot.”
Simna finally stopped laughing. Shaking his head at the irony of it all, he gave his tall companion a friendly slap on the back. “Well, that’s that, I suppose. All this way to rescue a princess who doesn’t want to be rescued. Let’s have a look around for the treasure and then I suppose we’ll be off. There’s nothing to hold us here any longer.” He started past the herdsman, heading for the main entrance to the audience chamber.
For the second time that remarkable night, Etjole Ehomba said, quietly but firmly, “No.”
“No?” A querulous Simna turned. “No what?” He gestured toward the toppled Hymneth and his angelic attendant. “You heard what she said. She wants to stay here.”
“Nothing has changed, Simna. You heard what I told him. It does not matter.” Walking over to where he had earlier dropped his spear, Ehomba recovered the weapon. Returning to the prone form of the Possessed, he brooded aloud over his lack of options.
“I vowed to Tarin Beckwith, a man of noble mien and honorable intention, on the occasion of his last breath, that I would return the Visioness Themaryl to her family. Though I have come a great distance and been too long away from home and friends, I intend to do this thing.”
Her exquisite face upturned to him, Themaryl gaped in disbelief. “But I want to stay! It is as your friend says. I have cast my lot with this person. I will not go with you. Do not ask it of me.”
“I will not,” Ehomba replied. So saying, he bent down and slipped a slender but muscular arm around her waist. Lifting her up, he slung her over his shoulder, a position that found her stunned and outraged.
“Let me go! Put me down this instant! I, Themaryl, command you!”
“Only one woman commands me, and she is not here.” Holding the kicking, flailing form firmly against his shoulder, he turned to the stupefied Simna. “Tie her hands before she thinks to try and draw my remaining sword, or to go fumbling in my pack. Quick now, Simna!”
“What? Yes, bruther. Hold her.”
The swordsman was a master of blades, not knots, but he bound the wrists and legs of the Visioness securely enough with cord drawn from the richly brocaded curtains that framed one entryway. Unable to raise himself up or move more than his head and neck, Hymneth the Possessed raved and ranted at the meddling interlopers, vowing all manner of punishment and torture if they did not release her at once.
Seeing his master’s distress, Peregriff was about to call out to the castle guard for assistance, only to find himself instantaneously confronted by a sleek black feline shape.
“I’d hold my tongue if I were you,” Ahlitah warned the senior soldier. “Or I will.” Prudent as always, Peregriff held his peace.
They left the general hovering over his master and calling not for armed soldiers but for medical assistance. No crawling along damp, filthy storm drains for them this time; they strode boldly out the main entrance to the fortress. The startled twilight guards scrambled to react, only to shy away from the presence of the long-striding Hunkapa Aub and the triumphantly snarling black litah.
Thus did the four visitors and one unwilling other depart the temperate and accommodating land of fabled Ehl-Larimar. As they did so it was hard to tell who was making the most noise: the enraged and disbelieving Visioness Themaryl, or the master of blades Simna ibn Sind, with his ceaseless grumbling about their failure to even look for, much less obtain, any treasure. Only Ehomba’s promises of riches to come kept the seriously aggravated swordsman from remaining behind. The herdsman mollified his sorely disgruntled companion somewhat by placing him in charge of the Visioness and her security.
For the first time in recent memory, a determined Ehomba found himself heading deliberately and purposefully east.
XXIV
As if to confirm that their luck had changed, by dint of a hard march and fortuitous timing, they reached distant Doroune just as the Grömsketter was concluding the return leg of its tour of the trading towns and cities to the south. A joyous reunion there was, with Stanager Rose and all her crew astounded yet pleased to encounter their former passengers once again.
No one was disappointed that their eastward crossing of the Semordria was less eventful than before. Following Captain Rose’s instructions, they allowed themselves to be put ashore well to the southwest of Hamacassar and its twitchy time guardians. By traveling south and then east from the point of disembarkation, they also avoided Laconda North, where because of the difficulties arising from their previous visit they would have been less than courteously received, and reentered Laconda itself from the west.
Simna was concerned that they might have difficulty approaching the capital quietly if the citizens of that prosperous province recognized their long-absent Visioness, but he needn’t have concerned himself. After the long and tiring journey, her aspect was less than regal, and they arrived in the city without incident.
Disclosure of the Visioness’s presence among them occasioned scenes of riotous joy among the populace, and the travelers were conveyed without delay into the presence of the Duke and his family.
All Themaryl’s relations had gathered to salute her return: father and mother, doddering grandparents, gabby aunts and uncles and innumerable cousins. Haggard and drawn, she was forced to endure embrace upon embrace.
“Oh my delight,” one uncle declared upon looking at her, “you do look like you’ve had a time of it!”
“I am not the same person I was when I was taken from here, Bennrik,” she replied stiffly. “Things changed, and I changed with them.”
“But you are home, back in the bosom of your family and your people, and that is
all that matters.” Duke Lewyth rose from his modest seat of power to gesture grandly at the outlandish quartet of foreigners who stood together and formed an exotic island in the midst of the rejoicing throng of aristocrats and courtiers. “And for that we have these stalwart, brave strangers to thank!” Smiling graciously, he nodded at Ehomba.
“Have you anything to say to the people of Laconda on this joyous occasion, sir? Any words you might care to speak will be received with gratitude and appreciation.”
It was Simna who spoke up, raising his voice above the general clamor. “You have to understand, noble sir, that my friend here is no orator. It is more in his nature to…” He halted as, to his considerable surprise, Ehomba not only stepped forward but mounted the royal dais to stand opposite the Duke and next to the Visioness Themaryl. He did not bother to raise his hand to quiet the crowd, but instead simply began speaking in his usual calm, measured tone.
“I vowed to the dying Tarin Beckwith of Laconda North to return this woman to her home and family. This I have done.” As he spoke, he ignored the Visioness’s sullen, unyielding scowl. “My obligation to him is at last fulfilled.” Turning to her he asked simply, directly, and utterly unexpectedly, “Now that I am free of any responsibility in this matter, I would like to know what it is that you want.”
She gaped at him. For an instant she thought that the tall, singular southerner was taunting her, making fun of her condition. But in spite of herself she had come in the course of the long journey back to Laconda to know him at least as well as any of his odd clutch of companions. In all that time, she had never seen him taunt, or ridicule, or mock anyone. Was it possible that the query was an honest one?
She did not have to meditate on a reply. Nor did she hesitate. “I want to go back to Ehl-Larimar.”
Ehomba nodded. Below, surrounded by celebrating, unwitting Lacondans, a dreadful realization was dawning on a profoundly confounded Simna ibn Sind. Hand on sword hilt, he began backing toward the nearest door.