Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence(1).pdf - Lawrence Watt - Evans - margozap

The Book of Silence

Book Four of the Lords of Dûs

CHAPTER ONE

The last caravan had departed ten days before, and the next was not expected

for at least a fortnight. Skelleth's market lay still and almost empty in the

watery sunlight of early spring. No merchants or farmers disturbed its

silence, though a few loafers and strolling pedestrians were in sight. On the

east side of the square, the door of the new Baron's house was closed,

indicating that its occupants were not to be disturbed. Garth, one of only two

overmen still in Skelleth, sat in the King's Inn, staring out the window at

the lifeless market, with nothing to distract him from his own sour mood and

gloomy thoughts.

No news had come down from the Northern Waste since the last snows had

melted. That meant that Garth had received no word of his family, nor a report

about his latest petition to the City Council of Ordunin, asking that his

sentence of banishment from the Waste be revoked. He was still an exile from

his homeland, stranded in Skelleth for lack of anywhere better to go.

From the overman's point of view, Skelleth was not a particularly

pleasant place to dwell, but it did have certain advantages. First, it was on

the border, the closest human habitation to his native city of Ordunin;

therefore, his family could visit him more easily here than elsewhere, and his

petitions and letters to the Council could be delivered more quickly.

Second, he was on good terms with the local rulers. Saram, Baron of

Skelleth, before being elevated to his present position, had been the closest

thing Garth had to a human friend. The Baroness Frima was the only other

person who might possibly be considered for that title; Garth had brought her

to Skelleth himself, after rescuing her from a sacrificial altar in her native

city of Dûsarra. It was he who had introduced Frima to her husband.

Furthermore, the Treasurer and Minister of Trade was the former master

trader, Galt of Ordunin, the only other overman still in Skelleth. Garth had

brought him down from the Waste to aid in opening trade between Skelleth and

Ordunin. That trade was flourishing now, despite the fact that Galt, like

Garth, was under sentence of exile.

Third, although the local populace did not, in general, like or trust

Garth, it had learned to accept his presence. The people of other human towns

might not be so accommodating. Three centuries had passed since the Racial

Wars between human and overman had dwindled away to nothing, but hatred, Garth

knew, could linger long after its cause was forgotten.

Fourth, at least at the moment, Skelleth was at peace-and that was an

increasingly rare distinction. Although the news from the lands to the south

and east and west tended to be muddled and sometimes contradictory, Garth knew

well that most of the world was at war. No one, including the Eramman barons

themselves, seemed to have a clear idea which side any given baron was on in

any given war; yet by all accounts, that uncertainty had not impeded the

fighting one whit. The greater wars provided the excuse for settling old

border squabbles or for simple raiding and looting. The civil war in Eramma,

begun almost three years earlier when the Baron of Sland rebelled against the

High King at Kholis and declared him to be a false king and foul usurper, had

settled down into an apathetic lack of cooperation after Sland had been

defeated in a long and messy battle. The war between Eramma and Orun, which

had been launched by the opportunistic King of Orun in hopes of taking

advantage of Eramma's seeming dissolution, appeared to have reached a bloody

stalemate along a front somewhere to the southeast of Skelleth. Despite the

justification of an ancient border dispute, the war was not popular in Orun

and had created such discontent that there were now rumors of impending civil

war in that land as well.

Vague reports came in of wars in the western realm of Nekutta, though no

one seemed to know who was fighting whom, and no word at all reached Skelleth

from Mara, Amag, Tadumuri, Yesh, or the other lands of the far south.

A possible fifth reason for Garth to stay was a result of the fact that

Skelleth was peaceful and in a far happier state under Saram than it had ever

been under his predecessor. With so many of the world's trade routes disrupted

by war and insurrection, Skelleth's very worthlessness had helped to make it a

center of commerce. No conqueror in his right mind would bother with so

desolate a piece of land, so far from all the traditional caravan roads; that

left Saram and his patchwork government free to pursue untraditional trade

wholeheartedly and unhindered. The merchants of Skelleth, with their lord's

active encouragement, dealt impartially with the men of Eramma, the overmen of

the Northern Waste, and the mixed society of the Yprian Coast. With no assets

but peace, a willingness to trade, and a manageable location, the town had

grown prosperous for the first time in mortal memory.

It had also, in Garth's opinion, grown placid and boring.

No one else seemed to share his feeling. Galt was too busy buying and

selling, planning new routes and new methods, or setting prices and taxes and

tariffs to be bored. He had become far wealthier than any other overman since

the Racial Wars, yet he appeared interested only in expanding trade, enriching

the treasury, and acquiring still greater wealth.

Saram seemed content to enjoy the rewards of his new position as Baron

while others did the work. He held elaborate feasts to greet every new envoy

or caravan master, dressing himself in fine furs and embroidery-overman work,

imported from Ordunin-and growing steadily plumper, thus losing the trim

fighting form he had had when he served as a lieutenant in the guard under the

last hereditary Baron of Skelleth.

Frima didn't appear to mind her husband's added weight. She had arrived

in Skelleth with nothing; even the clothes on her back had been borrowed from

Garth. She had been no one of importance, a tinker's daughter who worshipped

the nightgoddess Tema and was kidnapped by the rival cult of Sai, goddess of

pain. Garth had rescued her and brought her to Skelleth against her will,

leaving Dûsarra, long the greatest city of Nekutta, devastated by fire and

plague. He had not wanted the inconvenience of caring for her and had turned

her over to Saram. That had led to their marriage, and thus to her present

position as Baroness. She seemed far more grateful to Saram, who had taken her

in, than to Garth, who had saved her life. Though she still treated Garth as a

friend, her primary interests in life now were pleasing Saram and enjoying

their sudden wealth. Despite certain disappointments-her only child so far, a

son, had been born dead-she was happy. She did not find her new station at all

tedious or boring.

The other humans of the village might have been bored, but Garth ignored

them entirely. They, in turn, avoided him for the most part. They could not

forget that it was Garth who had murdered the old Baron some thirty months

earlier, Garth who had led a company of overmen in the sacking and burning of

the village. Men, women, and children had died. All the Baron's guardsmen had

perished except the disgraced Saram, who had been removed from the guard for

refusing to kill Garth in a previous confrontation. It had been this

elimination of all other candidates, rather than any real qualifications for

the job, that had made Saram the new Baron of Skelleth.

Galt had gradually been accepted and forgiven; his part in the battle

had been small, and his trader's expertise had so benefited the village since

its reconstruction that he was now something of a hero. Garth, however,

remained an outcast.

At first there had been others among the surviving overmen who had

chosen to stay in Skelleth after its destruction, and even after the

rebuilding had been completed, but they had gradually drifted away with the

passing months. Some had returned home to the Northern Waste and been pardoned

for their part in the attack, though the Council steadfastly refused to pardon

Galt and Garth, the two supposed leaders. A few had gone to explore the Yprian

Coast and had not returned. One had been sent a special envoy to the court of

the High King at Kholis, whom Skelleth's government still recognized as the

rightful lord of all Eramma.

At one point there had been talk of using the overmen as the nucleus of

a new company of guardsmen, but nothing had come of it; Skelleth had no

military at all at present, save for the handful of warbeasts that the overmen

had brought. The great animals were now tended by a special contingent of the

Baron's staff, an entirely human contingent. Garth believed this to be the

first time in history that warbeasts had been under human care.

He had considered demanding that he be put in charge of the creatures,

on the grounds that it was not fitting for warbeasts to be tended by mere men

and women, but he had never actually done so. He had feared that he would be

turned down, as he had been turned down for every other duty in Skelleth. To

be refused a position as a keeper of beasts would be too much for his pride;

he preferred not to risk it. There had been enough blows to his self-esteem

already.

The aversion to his presence that the townspeople displayed did not

bother him; he was accustomed to it, could understand it, and furthermore

cared very little for the opinions of most humans. There were, however, other

matters.

His three wives, one by one, had come to Skelleth to see him, once the

City Council had revoked his chief wife Kyrith's house arrest, imposed for her

part in the sacking of Skelleth. Each had come, but each had refused to give

up her home in Ordunin to join him in exile.

His children had visited as well, accompanying trading caravans, but he

had not even troubled himself to ask them to stay; they were old enough to

fend for themselves and make their own homes without his meddling.

Overmen did not have the strong family ties that humans had, but the

triple rejection by his wives, and the failure of any of his five offspring to

volunteer to settle in Skelleth, still hurt.

The City Council had refused petition after petition, so that he could

not rejoin his wives in Ordunin. The councilors had, in truth, not even taken

the time to consider his requests; they were too busy trying to deal with the

worsening depredations of human pirates along their coasts and could spare no

time from that obsession to discuss clemency for a troublesome renegade

prince. Garth had tried to argue, by proxy, that he had fought pirates before

and could be of sufficient value in fighting them again to make his pardon a

real public benefit, but the Council had continued to ignore him nonetheless.

Things had started to go wrong when he found the so-called Sword of

Bheleu in Dûsarra. Until then, his word had been good and his actions his

own-but at his first sight of the weapon, he had begun to lose control. He had

taken it from the altar of Bheleu, god of destruction, without any conscious

decision to do so, and thereafter had been seized every so often by fits of

what appeared to be a form of bloodthirsty madness. He had gradually come to

realize, though, that some external power was possessing him, using the sword

as a conduit. Even knowing that, he had been unable to free himself.

As the power had gained in influence and clarity, it had declared itself

to him, claiming to be Bheleu himself, come to assert his dominance over the

dawning Fourteenth Age, the Age of Destruction, through his chosen mortal

host.

Garth had declined to serve willingly as host to the god, if god it

truly was. His refusal had done little good; the god had controlled him

anyway, and he had been unable to put down the sword.

While under the sway of the god and his sword, Garth had slain the

previous Baron of Skelleth and destroyed much of the village.

In the days that had followed, as he became more aware of the sword's

nature and seemingly limitless magical power, his companions had grown to

trust him less and less. That had been the period when Skelleth's new

government had taken shape, and Garth had been excluded on the basis of the

madness the weapon had induced. He had not argued with that decision; he had

been conscious of his own erratic behavior and therefore had been far more

concerned with freeing himself of Bheleu's control than with village politics.

The sword was a magnificent weapon, a great two-handed broadsword with

an immense red gem in its pommel. It was supernaturally indestructible, able

to cut through stone or metal with ease, and could control the elements,

summon or disperse storms, even shake the very earth. It gloried in fire and

could burn in a hundred strange ways without being consumed. Had it not been

under the evil aegis of Bheleu, dedicated to wanton destruction, Garth would

have been proud to be the chosen wielder of such a thing.

As it was, though, he had wanted nothing but to free himself and he had

at last done so. He no longer had the sword. The sword alone had been

responsible for his madness, so that with its loss he was himself again; for

these two years and several months past, he had been as sane and trustworthy

as ever in his life, yet he was still not allowed to hold any post in

Skelleth's little bureaucracy for fear he would again turn berserk. He

resented this exclusion.

Perhaps the deepest hurt to his pride and self-esteem, however, was a

personal matter, one closely tied to the malevolent power of the Sword of

Bheleu and to his freedom from that power. The voice of the professed god of

destruction had told him that he, Garth, had been born to serve Bheleu;

indeed, he alone had been able to wield the sword, and on his own he had been

utterly unable to resist its hold.

He had not freed himself alone.

Just to the north of its market square, Skelleth had an ancient tavern

called the King's Inn, and in this tavern dwelt an old man who called himself

the Forgotten King. It was the presence of this individual that, more then

anything else, made Skelleth a center for important events.

Garth was not entirely sure whether, on balance, the King's presence was

good or bad.

He had originally come to Skelleth seeking the King, because an oracle

had told him that only the Forgotten King could grant him the eternal fame he

had, at that time, thought he wanted. He had returned to Skelleth a second

time, after getting over that particular aberration of desire, because the

King had pointed out the possibility of trade. He had gone to Dûsarra at the

behest of the mysterious old man and had brought back Frima, now the Baroness,

as well as the Sword of Bheleu and the knowledge of trading prospects on the

Yprian Coast. His life, and the influence he had upon Skelleth, seemed to have

been inextricably linked to the old man since Garth first left Ordunin.

In Dûsarra he had learned something of the King's history; the old man

was apparently the one true high priest of the god of death, the chosen of The

God Whose Name Is Not Spoken, just as Garth was the chosen of Bheleu. As such,

the King could not die; he had lived through several ages and now desired

nothing but the death that was denied him.

In pursuit of his own destruction, the Forgotten King had sent Garth on

several errands. He sought to perform some great suicidal magic; from various

clues, Garth had tentatively decided that the old man hoped to manifest the

Death-God himself in the mortal world, so that the King might renounce the

bargain made so long ago. The problem was that the proposed magic, whether

Garth had correctly determined its nature or not, would involve many deaths,

by the King's own admission. Garth did not care to contribute to unnecessary

deaths and had therefore refused to aid the King further.

Then, though, the Sword of Bheleu had possessed him, and there was no

power Garth could find that could free him from it, save the power of the

strange old man. Of all the Lords of Dûs, the dark gods, only the god of death

was more powerful than the god of destruction; thus only the chosen of the

Final God, in his own right perhaps the most powerful wizard who had ever

lived, could break the link between Bheleu and his chosen one.

To free himself, therefore, Garth had sworn to aid the Forgotten King.

He had promised to fetch for him the final item needed to complete his magic,

an object of great arcane power that he called the Book of Silence. Garth had

sworn that oath knowing he had no intention of keeping it, and the suppressed

knowledge that he was an oathbreaker, a being devoid of honor, in thought if

not yet in deed, had gnawed upon him ever since.

As an injured man would probe at an open wound, fascinated by the pain,

Garth found himself haunting the King's Inn and watching the Forgotten King

for hours on end. The King had told him, when first he swore his oath, that he

was free to roam, as long as he checked back every so often. The old man had

not yet told him where the mysterious Book of Silence might be found; he said

that he had left it somewhere, centuries ago, and was trying to recall where.

When he did remember, Garth would be sent to retrieve it. Until the memory

returned, Garth could do as he pleased.

There was nothing else, however, that he felt any need to do, and so he

stayed in Skelleth, alternately wandering aimlessly through the streets and

sitting silently somewhere, glowering at the village, as he now sat in the

King's Inn and glowered at the quiet marketplace.

The Forgotten King was there as well, seated at his usual table. His

presence there, at almost any time the tavern was open for business, was so

reliable that he was thought, of by the villagers not so much as a regular

patron, but as a permanent fixture, like the dark wooden paneling of the walls

or the heavy oaken tables. Day after day the old man sat alone, unmoving and

silent, in the back corner beneath the stairs, wrapped in his ragged yellow

mantle, his face hidden by his tattered cowl.

As he had a hundred times before, Garth turned away from the window and

its view of the square and stared instead at the ancient human.

The King gave no sign that he was aware of the overman's scrutiny, but

Garth had no doubt that he knew he was being watched.

Half a dozen more ordinary humans were in the tavern and they had all

certainly noticed the overman's presence. Most had seen him turn away from the

window as well. Overmen were unmistakable, and highly distinctive in Skelleth.

Garth's size, quite aside from any other details, marked him as something

different from the common run of humanity; he stood almost seven feet in

height, but was so heavily muscled as to look almost squat. He dwarfed the

chair he sat upon and seemed out of proportion with the entire taproom, though

in truth he was of only average size among his own species. His eyes were

large and red, the oversized irises bright blood-red, though his pupils were

as round and black as any human's. Unlike human eyes, no white showed, only

black pupil and red iris.

His hair was dead straight, dead black, coarse, and thick; it reached

his shoulders and no farther, though he had never cut it. Sparse black fur

covered his entire body, save his hands and feet and face. Where no hair or

fur hid it, his skin was leathery brown hide, like that of no other species

that ever existed and certainly unlike anything human.

His face was as beardless as a woman's; overmen grew no facial hair, and

his body fur stopped well short of his chin. His cheeks were sunken by human

standards, normal to his own kind. He had no nose, but two close-set slit

nostrils. To human eyes, a healthy overman bore an unsettling resemblance to a

human skull; the hollow cheeks, missing nose, great red eyes, high forehead,

and hairless jaw all contributed.

Garth's hands, too, were unlike a human's. Rather than having a single

thumb at one side, his hands had both the first and fifth fingers opposable,

making possible acts of manipulation that humans had trouble even imagining.

It was hardly surprising that men and women feared overmen, as they

feared anything that seemed monstrous and strange. Nor was it startling,

therefore, that the other patrons of the King's Inn should glance occasionally

in Garth's direction, wary of what he might do. Garth in particular, of all

overmen, they feared; the possibility of a new berserk rage such as those

brought on by the Sword of Bheleu was always at the back of the villagers'

minds.

When he turned away from the window, therefore, to look across the

taproom at the yellow-clad figure at the back table, what little conversation

Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence(1).pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: