The Warrior Returns: Far Kingdoms #4 (The Far Kingdoms) Read online

  This time I’ve dispensed with scribes. They are a prickly, short-sighted breed who drive me mad with their romantic ravings. The first fellow is long dead and I have no intention of breaking another into my ways. Besides, I like to think I might have improved after more than fifty years. My words may not be pearls but they aren’t rodent droppings either.

  Be forewarned - this book is not for the gentle-hearted. And if you are offended by my same-sex inclinations turn away now. Love is as much a part of this tale as the dire warnings it contains.

  You would be advised, however, to appoint someone in your household to read these words and inform the rest of the warnings they contain.

  For I speak for Maranonia.

  And the goddess commands that all listen.

  Ignore her - and me - at your peril.

  I sailed for many a day on those southern seas but made scant forward progress. I dodged squalls, bumped through great ice fields and once sailed for half a week maneuvering around an iceberg the size of a large island. It was pink, striated with blue and when I dropped chips of its ice into my wine cup they bubbled and frothed and made a delicious brew.

  Although I had far to go - five thousand leagues or more - it was good I was delayed those first days. It was still summer at the bottom of the world, where all seasons are the opposite of Orissa. There are only two seasons, actually, winter and summer. And those are contained in one interminably long day.

  For six cycles of the moon the sun never rises and it is always night with unimaginably fierce storms that roar down from the mountains and gouge the rocks and ice into nightmare shapes. The cold is so bitter few creatures could survive. And those who make their homes there are the hardiest and most stubborn on earth.

  The other six moon cycles are day and the sun never sets during that time. The storms are less frequent, although they still pack winds that could drive a loose spike through heavy armor. The cold is also easier to bear. When you spit it still freezes before it reaches the snow, but it doesn’t explode with a loud retort like molten beads of iron falling into a smithy’s tempering pot.

  I used the first days of my journey home to shake off the effects of my long sleep. I’d been a woman nearing her fourth decade of life when I entered that tomb with Salimar. In the outside world fifty years had passed. In Salimar’s kingdom five decades is equal to five months, so I was still several years shy of forty summers old when I emerged.

  My body was stiff, my actions hesitant and for some time I lost my grip too easily when hauling on the ropes to shift the sails. I also worried my soldier’s skills might be rusty as well and I dared not wait for an unknown enemy’s sudden appearance to test them.

  Whenever I could I’d follow a dolphin pack to a large flat iceberg, where schools of succulent fish gathered to tempt my whistling friends.

  I’d clamber onto the burg with a sack of my heaviest battle gear. I’d don the gear and trot back and forth and around and around until I was gasping like an old sea lioness in heat. When I could take no more I’d strip naked, rub my body with snow and dance about like a madwoman. I must’ve made a wondrous entertainment for all those seals and penguins who gathered to see the pink-fleshed thing that hooted and hollered with every jounce of her flab.

  It was well worth it. Each day in my mirror I saw muscle swell. My skin glowed with health and I kept it plucked smooth, treating myself to frequent massages with warm sweet oil that I coaxed into the pores. I’d let my hair grow long to please Salimar, who said she loved to stroke the waves it made on my pillow and called them her golden fields of delight.

  Long hair may be good for a lover but an enemy has reason to praise it as well. It gives him something substantial to grip when he slits your throat. So I used a bowl to razor my hair short enough to fit under a helmet.

  I suppose it made me look boyish, although no one had ever been fool enough to mistake my figure as such. And with my pirate’s eyepatch, scarred cheek and golden hand, not many would have the nerve to test my mettle if I wandered into a tavern in a man’s tunic and cloak.

  When I got my sea legs back and could more easily weave about the pitching deck, ducking swinging booms and leaping over coiled rope to do my work, I tackled the next part of my self-training.

  Out came my weapons - sword and bow and dagger and ax.

  Polillo had been the great mistress of the ax. She’d been big, although with the form of a maid, if you can imagine a seven-foot beauty who could lift a castle’s keystone with ease. I’d seen my friend charge a line of shields, burst them apart with her ax and then pulp the men in their armor.

  By the gods, I thought, if I had Polillo with me the job would be much easier. But she’s dead.

  It took a mighty wizard to do it - the last Archon of Lycanth.

  I mourned her as I honed my ax and set up a target - a spare hatch cover about the size of a man. My first throw went wide, chipping the rail and nearly going over the side. I tied a long leather thong to the handle, looping the other about my wrist so I wouldn’t lose the ax if I missed again. My second throw hit the hatch but the ax had tumbled too much and struck the wood with its butt instead of the blade.

  I considered the many errors I’d made in only two attempts. I thought about Polillo and how she’d trained our green troops in the art of ax throwing.

  “What do I have to do to get your attention?” she’d snarl at an errant recruit. “Get your tit out of your ear and listen. See yon target?” The frightened recruit would nod. “How far is it?” The recruit’s bobbing head would now swerve side to side.

  “Are you telling me you’ve been tossing that damned thing all day and you don’t know how far you’re throwing it?” There’d be a shamed nod of yes. “Well, step it off, then.” The recruit would pace the distance then trot back to tell Polillo the result. “Twenty paces, you say? Very good. Now, watch closely.”

  Polillo would haul back, talking as she moved. “Think of your throwing arm as a bar of iron. Completely straight. Don’t bend your elbow. And for Te Date’s sake, do not... I repeat, do not bend your wrist. Now the leg. The one on the same side as your throwing arm. Think of it as the extension of your arm - that iron bar arm.

  “Next, when you throw take a step forward with your opposite foot. Not quite a full pace. Keep the whole side of your body stiff. Don’t use just the strength of your arm and shoulder. Your throw will be as weak as a lad who tends the tavern piss pots. Use all the power of your body as you come forward... and release the ax... like this!”

  And she’d let the ax go. It would turn once in a long slow tumble, then thunk into the target dead on - burying its head so deep only Polillo had the strength to draw it out.

  “You saw how many turns it made?” she’d ask. The recruit would nod, yes, and hold up a single finger. “That’s right, once. So properly thrown this particular ax will turn once in twenty paces. If it’s forty, it’ll turn twice. Ten, half a turn. Thirty, a turn and a half. Got it?”

  Much eager nodding would commence for now the recruit had learned the secret she’d be anxious to test it. If she followed Polillo’s direction, she’d rarely fail again.

  I remembered Polillo’s barked instructions as I made my third try. How far? Ten paces. Half a turn, then. Iron bar arm. Welded to the leg. No elbow bending. No wrist bending. Step forward with the opposite foot. Throw.

  The ax bit deeply into the hatch.

  An ax has never been my weapon of choice and it should only be thrown as a last resort. But it can come in handy when pressed by large numbers and there are few things that can tone you up faster than repeatedly hurling it, switching hands frequently to give all parts of the body a heavy working.

  My left hand, the false one, is very strong. So I have to be careful that the right gets full attention, although it can never be the equal for not only is my sinister hand metal - gold-plated steel - but it’s enchanted metal created from a substance I stole from Novari. I call it my etherhand.

  It can withstand
intense heat and cold. It has a grip that can crush stone. More remarkably with my mind I can command it to behave exactly as a living hand would behave, flexing the fingers, rotating the thumb - anything but cracking the knuckles.

  My etherhand is a wondrous thing indeed. But I missed its warm, weaker sister. She’d been a good hand to me and ghostly nerves ached to have her back.

  I kept at it until the misses were minimal. It took getting used to because with only one eye it’s sometimes difficult to judge distance accurately.

  This infirmity is lessened because the golden eyepatch I wear is made of the same material as my hand. With it I can see into the Otherworlds at will and with no spell casting. I call it my ethereye.

  Next came sword practice.

  With my strength growing daily I had to concentrate on being nimble. The sword has always been my favorite and I do not boast when I say I’ve never met a man or woman who could best me with the blade. Naturally such a person does exist somewhere. That is the nature of all human abilities. No matter how good you are there’s always someone who is your equal, or better.

  In my tavern-brawling youth I used to dream of meeting that person so I could really test my talent. Which only goes to prove that you don’t have to be a man whose bravado is commanded by his balls to consider such folly.

  While I grunted and strained with the physical, it was most important that I didn’t forget my Otherworldly self. So I got out my wizard’s chest and unpacked the scrolls and unguents and powders and other Evocator’s devices.

  I conjured up small things first - a glass bead, a fiery scrap of parchment, a drop of perfume so powerful it filled the cabin with its odor; a large beetle with wings of green and black who made a song as sweet as a bird’s as it flew around looking for a way out. Then I turned the beetle into a glittering jeweled scarab that would make music and scent. I’d give it to Salimar when I returned. If that day ever arrived.

  I came to the Evocator’s craft late in life and with much reluctance. Dire circumstances and a blind master wizard forced me to overcome that reluctance. I eventually realized my abilities were a gift from my mother. And that it is from her side of the family some Anteros inherited the talent for sorcery. I’d used it to destroy the Archons of Lycanth and end that ancient threat to Orissa.

  Amalric was not magically blessed - or cursed, depending how you looked at it - but his presence seemed to act as a magnifier when he was in the company of the two Greycloaks: first Janos and then Janela. With Janos he found the Far Kingdoms, at that time the greatest feat in our people’s history. With Janela he’d topped even that accomplishment by traveling to the Kingdoms Of The Night and joining with the Old Ones to defeat the demon king, Ba’land, who’d plunged humankind into a thousand years of darkness and ignorance. As a parting gift to all he helped Janela Greycloak discover the principle that unifies all physical forces with the magical.

  He’d made his final, most difficult expedition as an old man. The dangers he’d faced awakened me enough to see his troubles in a vision. It was the only time in my fifty years of blissful sleep that I’d been so disturbed. At first I’d seen no means to help him.

  Then I’d cast a spell that made Amalric grow younger as he traveled until he had the strength and stamina of a man in his prime. My brother never realized I was the cause of this but he questioned the effect so little that I sometimes wonder if deep inside he knew.

  I’d thought when he’d found his peace and I had returned to mine that all would be the best it could in the world we’d both abandoned. What should have commenced was an age of great challenge and enlightenment.

  As I trained myself to face whatever task lay ahead I hammered my skull for some hint of what could have gone wrong.

  Then I remembered Amalric’s parting words. As he’d written them in his journal his thoughts had been so powerful that they’d echoed across the vast distances separating us. I’d heard them in my ice chamber as clear as if he’d been sitting next to me speaking aloud:

  “... I have made a pact with King Solaros. All the knowledge Janela gained will be shared with Orissa. A company of wizards will depart soon and I beg you to make them welcome in Orissa. They bring truth two Greycloaks stole from the gods. If that truth is freely and generously bestowed to all then we will at last be free of our masters who so jealously guarded it. There will be nothing you will fear to dare. But if it is kept locked away in a miser’s treasure house there will come the fated day when all will curse the ones who slew Ba’land, and call his lashes a father’s stern kindness.”

  My brother’s warning had been quite clear. But had it been ignored? Was this the source of the troubles now threatening Orissa? Was this why my sisters of the Guard were in grave peril? The reason all the Anteros had been slain save my little niece Emilie?

  Maranonia hadn’t said. I felt my ire stir anew when I thought of the goddess. Why couldn’t she have been plain? Why had she kept all a mystery, other than telling me my task in the vaguest of terms?

  I polished my casting bones with angry vigor. The gods are such a maddening lot, I thought. They sit in their heavenly palaces, posing and deposing; judging this, punishing that, bidding and forbidding all the live long day. And it’s up to us poor mortals to dash about trying to make sense of it all.

  Well, she’d been plain about three things at least:

  I had one year to set things straight.

  Failure would result in a great disaster.

  And the Lyre Bird was behind it all.

  Novari.

  The beautiful and powerful succubus who’d nearly destroyed me once. I’d lost an eye and hand in that war.

  If Novari was my foe I’d need more wits and tricks than even the last Archon of Lycanth had required.

  I went back to my training, doubling all my efforts. The key to Novari, I thought, must lie in all the events that led to our first meeting.

  I cast my mind back...

  Remembering.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AMALRIC

  There are few alive today who knew my brother. He’s a man remembered mostly in books. Some of the treasures from his travels are displayed in our museums and his likeness can be seen in portraits, busts and statues that gather bird droppings in the parks. He has no tomb - no grand sepulcher - to mark an Orissan of such renown for his ashes were mixed with Janela Greycloak’s. As both wished those ashes were sprinkled on the waters of the river he loved that flows past our city to the sea.

  I doubt his name is spoken much by the average man or woman, many of whom are the children and the grandchildren of the slaves he set free.

  Oh, you’ll hear it now and then in phrases that’ve fallen into the language. “Lucky as Amalric Antero,” is one. And if you say “You have my Amalric on that,” it means a gilt-edged assurance or IOU. Most people probably don’t even know the origin of such sayings. One of my favorite sarcasms is, “Thinks he knows more’n Amalric Antero.” My brother would’ve seen double irony in that phrase. Amalric, more than any I’ve known, enjoyed irony.

  He’d put his eyes on more places and things than any other. He’d faced and overcome the greatest of obstacles and dangers. He’d experienced much sadness in his life, including betrayal by his greatest friend, the deaths of two wives; and, late in his years, more betrayal by his only living child. But he’d also known love and known it deeply.

  Amalric used to say Janos Greycloak was the wisest man he’d ever met because the learned Greycloak knew how ignorant he really was. This was doubly true of my brother, who in the end knew more than even Janos.

  So I’m sister to a legend. Amalric Antero, the greatest adventurer and discoverer, merchant prince - and some say even scholar - in our history.

  To me he’ll always be the boy with fiery hair and skin so fair it showed his every emotion. He was a mischief as a child, a wastrel as a youth and I think the kindest person I ever knew.

  As a boy he’d do small favors for scullery servants and young lords al
ike but in such a way that the other person would never know a favor was done and chalk it up to good fortune. When he grew older, overcoming all the temptations of wealthy sloth, he ventured all for friendship. He was betrayed by Janos Greycloak in an act so sinister that in my view Janos’ name should be a curse to describe traitorous friendships. Yet my brother was Greycloak’s greatest defender. He strove his whole later life to understand Janos’ action and in the end forgave him, concluding that the good outweighed the evil.

  Despite the several years that separated us, Amalric and I were the closest of friends and confidants. As a child he thought of me as a hero and I must say when I was a raw recruit it made me feel good to see the pride shine in his young eyes. I’d be on leave after weeks of drill sergeants blistering my ears with curses at my clumsiness and he’d come shyly to my rooms to beg me to show him a new sword trick.