The Hand of Chaos

29

The elven ship, The Seven-Eyed Dragon, named after a legendary monster of elven folklore,[62] made a safe, if somewhat ponderous landing, in Paxaua. The ship was heavily loaded. Flying weather had not been good, with rain, wind, and fog the entire distance. They were a cycle late getting into port. The crew was edgy and ill-tempered, the passengers—muffled to the eyes against the cold—looked slightly green. The human galley slaves, whose muscles provided the energy that propelled the gigantic wings, slumped in their bonds, too exhausted to make the march to the prison house, where they were kept until the next voyage.

A customs official, looking bored, left his warm office on shore, strolled up the gangplank. Tripping on his heels in haste to get aboard ship was an overwrought Paxar merchant. He had invested a considerable fortune in a load of pua fruit, to be delivered fresh, and was positive that delay and damp had caused it to rot.

The ship’s captain strolled over to meet the customs official.

“Any contraband, Captain?” inquired the official languidly.

“Certainly not, Excellency,” answered the captain, with a smile and a bow.

“Will you examine the ship’s log?” He gestured to his cabin.

“Thank you, yes,” said the customs official stiffly. The two left the deck, entered the cabin. The door shut behind them.

“My fruit! I want my fruit!” gabbled the merchant, dashing excitedly about the deck, tangling himself in the ropes, and nearly tumbling headfirst down an open hatch.

A crew member took the merchant in tow, steered him to the lieutenant, who was accustomed to dealing with such matters.

“I want my fruit!” the merchant gasped.

“Sorry, sir,” answered the lieutenant, with a polite salute, “but we cannot off-load any cargo until we receive approval from customs.”

“How long will that take?” demanded the merchant, in agony. The lieutenant glanced at the captain’s cabin. About three glasses of wine, he could have said. “I can assure you, sir—” he began. The merchant sniffed. “I can smell it! The pua fruit. It’s gone bad!”

“That would be the galley slaves, sir,” said the lieutenant, keeping a straight face.

“Let me see it, at least,” begged the merchant, taking out a handkerchief and mopping his face.

The lieutenant, after some thought, agreed that this would be possible and led the way across the deck toward the stairs leading down to the hold. They walked past the passengers, who stood lining the rail, waving to friends and relatives who’d come to meet them. The passengers, too, would not be allowed to leave the ship until they had been questioned, their luggage inspected.

“The market price on pua fruit is the highest I’ve seen it,” said the merchant, floundering along in the lieutenant’s wake, tripping and stumbling over coils of rope, careening off casks of wine. “It’s due to the raiding, of course. This will be the first shipment of pua to reach Paxar safely in twelve cycles. I’ll make a killing. If it’s just not rotted—Holy Mother!” The alarmed merchant made a grab for the lieutenant, nearly sent the officer overboard.

“H-humans!” the merchant quavered. The lieutenant, seeing the merchant’s white face and popping eyes, reached for his sword and searched the skies for dragons, assuming that there must be an army of them, at the very least. Finding nothing more ominous than the dismal overcast, he regarded the merchant with a grim stare. The merchant continued to tremble and point. He had discovered humans—two of them. Two passengers, standing apart from all the others. The humans were clad in long black robes. They kept their hoods up over their heads; one in particular, the shorter of the two, had his pulled low over his face. Though the merchant could not see their features, he knew them for humans. No elf had such broad and well-muscled shoulders as the taller of the two robed men, and no one except a human would wear clothing made of such coarse cloth, in such an ill-omened and unlucky color as black. Everyone on board ship, including the human slaves, gave these two a wide berth.

The lieutenant, looking extremely annoyed, sheathed his sword.

“This way, sir,” he said to the merchant, urging the gaping elf along.

“But they... they’re wandering around loose!”

“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant. The elf, staring at the humans in horrible fascination, stumbled over the open hatch.

“Here we are, sir. Mind your step. We wouldn’t want you to fall and break your neck,” the lieutenant said, gazing heavenward, perhaps asking to be kept from temptation.

“Shouldn’t they be in irons? Chains or something?” the merchant demanded, as he began to gingerly descend the ladder.

“Probably, sir,” said the lieutenant, preparing to follow after. “But we’re not permitted.”

“Not permitted!” The merchant halted, looked indignant. “I never heard of such a thing. Who doesn’t permit it?”

“The Kenkari, sir,” said the lieutenant imperturbably, and had the satisfaction of seeing the merchant turn pale.

“Holy Mother,” the elf said again, but this time with more reverence. “What’s the reason?” he asked in a whisper. “If it’s not secret, of course.”

“No, no. These two are what the humans call ‘death monks.’ They come to the cathedral on holy pilgrimage and have safe passage granted here and back, so long as they don’t speak to anyone.”

“Death monks. Well, I never,” said the merchant, descending into the hold, where he found his fruit perfectly sound and only slightly bruised after its rough passage.

The customs official emerged from the captain’s cabin, wiping his lips, his cheeks a brighter shade of pink than when he’d entered. There was a noticeable bulge in the vicinity of his breast pocket that had not been there earlier, a look of satisfaction had replaced the look of boredom with which he bad boarded. The customs official turned his attention to the passengers, who were eagerly awaiting permission to go ashore. His expression darkened. “Kir monks, eh?”

“Yes, Excellency,” replied the captain. “Came aboard at Sunthas.”

“Caused any trouble?”

“No, Excellency. They had a cabin to themselves. This is the first time they’ve left it. The Kenkari have decreed that we should give the monks safe passage,” the captain reminded the official, who was still frowning. “Their personages are sacred.”

“Yes, and so is your profit,” added the official dryly. “You undoubtedly charged them six times the price of the run.”

The captain shrugged. “A man has to earn a living, Excellency,” he said vaguely.

The official shrugged. After all, he had his share.

“I suppose I’ll have to ask them a few questions.” The official grimaced in disgust at the thought, removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “I am permitted to question them?” he added dubiously. “The Kenkari won’t take offense?”

“Quite all right, Excellency. And it would look well to the other passengers.” The official, relieved to know that he wasn’t about to commit some terrible breach of etiquette, decided to get the unpleasant task behind him as quickly as possible. He walked over to the two monks, who remained standing apart. They bowed in silence to him as he approached. He halted at arm’s length from them, the handkerchief held over his nose and mouth.

“Where you from?” the official demanded, speaking pidgin elven. The monk bowed again, but did not reply. The official frowned at this, but the captain, hastening forward, whispered, “They’re forbidden to speak.”

“Ah, yes.” The official thought a moment. “You talk me,” he said, slapping himself on the chest. “Me chief.”

“We are from Pitrin’s Exile, Excellency,” the taller of the two monks answered, with another bow.

“Where you go?” the official asked, pretending not to notice that the human had spoken excellent elven.

“We are making a holy pilgrimage to the Cathedral of the Albedo, Excellency,” answered the same monk.

“What in sack?” The official cast a scathing glance at the crude scrips each monk carried.

“Items our brethren requested we bring them, herbs and potions and suchlike. Would you like to inspect them?” the monk asked humbly and opened his sack. A foul odor of decay wafted from it. The official could only imagine what was in there. He gagged, clamped the handkerchief more firmly over his mouth, and shook his head.

“Shut the damn thing! You’ll poison us all. Your friend, there, why doesn’t he say something?”

“He has no lips, Excellency, and has lost a portion of his tongue. A terrible accident. Would you like to see—”

The official recoiled in horror. He noticed now that the other monk’s hands were covered by black gloves and that the fingers appeared to be crooked and deformed. “Certainly not. You humans are ugly enough,” he muttered, but he said the last beneath his breath. It would not do to offend the Kenkari, who—for some strange reason—had formed a bond with these ghouls.

“Be off with you then. You have five cycles to make your pilgrimage. Pick up your papers at the port authority, in that house, to your left.”

“Yes, Excellency. Thank you, Excellency,” said the monk, with still another bow.

The Kir lifted both scripts, slung them over his shoulder, then assisted the other monk to walk. His steps were slow and shuffling, his back bent. Together, the two made their way down the gangplank, passengers, crew, and human slaves all taking care to keep as far from the Kir as possible. The official shivered. “They make my skin crawl,” he said to the captain.

“I’ll bet you’re glad to be rid of them.”

“I am, indeed, Excellency,” said the captain.

Hugh and Iridal had no difficulty obtaining the papers that would permit them to stay in the realm of Paxaria[63] for a period of five cycles, at which time they must leave or face arrest. Even the Kenkari could not protect their brother monks if they overstayed their allotted time.

The bond between the two religious sects, whose races have been enemies almost since the beginning of Aristagon, can be traced back to Krenka-Anris, the Kenkari elf who discovered the secret magic of trapping the souls of the dead. At that time, shortly after the mensch were removed from the High Realm, humans still lived on Aristagon, and though the relationship between the races was rapidly worsening, a few maintained friendships and contact. Among these was a human magus who had been known to Krenka-Anris for many years. The humans had heard about the new elven magic that was capable of saving the souls of their dead, but were unable to discover the secret. The Kenkari kept it as a sacred trust. One day this magus, who was a kind and scholarly man, came to Krenka-Anris, begging her help. His wife was dying, he said. He could not bear to lose her. Would the Kenkari please save her soul, if they could not save the body.

Krenka-Anris took pity on her friend. She returned with him and attempted to catch the soul of the dying woman. But Kenkari magic would not work with humans. The woman died, her soul escaped. Her husband, despondent with grief, became obsessed with attempting to catch human souls. He traveled the isles of Aristagon and eventually all the inhabited portion of the Mid Realm, visiting every deathbed, going among the plague-ridden, standing on the sidelines of every battle, trying various magics to catch the souls of the dying, all without success.

He acquired followers during his travels, and these humans carried on his work after the magus himself died and his own soul had slipped away, despite his followers’ best efforts to keep hold of it. The followers, who called themselves “Kir,”[64] wanted to continue their search for the magic, but, due to their habit of arriving at households side by side with death, they were becoming increasingly unpopular among the populace. It was whispered that they brought death with them and they were often physically attacked, driven away from their homes and villages.

The Kir banded together for their own protection, dwelt in isolated parts of the Mid Realm. Their search for the means to capture souls took a darker path. Having had no luck with the living, the Kir began to study the dead, hoping to find out what happened to the soul after it left the body. Now they searched for corpses, particularly corpses abandoned by the living.

The Kir continued to keep to themselves, avoiding contact with outsiders as much as possible, taking far more interest in the dead than in the living. Though still viewed with loathing, they were no longer viewed with fear. They became accepted and even welcome members of society. They eventually gave up the search for the soul-trapping magic, began instead—perhaps naturally enough—to worship death.

And though, over the centuries, their views on death and life had grown divergent and were now far apart, the Kir monks and the Kenkari elves never forgot that the two trees had sprung from the same seed. The Kenkari were among the few outsiders ever permitted to enter a Kir monastery and the Kir were the only humans able to obtain safe passage in elven lands. Hugh, having been raised by the Kir monks, knew about this bond, knew that this disguise would provide the only safe means of entering elven lands. He’d used it before, with success, and he’d taken the precaution of procuring two black robes before he’d left the monastery, one robe for himself and one for Iridal.

No women being allowed in the order, it was necessary for Iridal to keep her hands and face covered and to refrain from speaking. This was not a great difficulty, since elven law prohibited the Kir from talking to any elf. Nor was any elf likely to break the prohibition. The elves viewed the Kir with loathing and superstitious dread that would make it quite easy for Hugh and Iridal to travel without interference.

The official at the port authority rushed them through with insulting haste, threw their papers at them from a safe distance.

“How do we find the Cathedral of the Albedo?” Hugh asked in fluent elven.

“No understand.” The elf shook his head.

Hugh persisted. “What’s the best route into the mountains, then?”

“No speak human,” the elf said, turned his back, and walked off. Hugh glowered, but said nothing, made no further argument. He took their papers, thrust them into the rope belt girdling his waist, and walked back out into the streets of the bustling port town of Paxaua.

From the depths of her cowl, Iridal gazed in awe and despair at the row after row of buildings, the winding streets, the crowds of people. The largest city in Volkaran could have fit easily into Paxaua’s market district.

“I never imagined anyplace so vast or one filled with so many people!” she whispered to Hugh, taking hold of his arm and crowding close. “Have you ever been here before?”

“My business has never brought me this deep into elven territory,” Hugh answered, with a grim smile.

Iridal looked at the numerous, converging, winding, twisting city streets in dismay. “How will we ever find our way? Don’t you have a map?”

“Only of the Imperanon itself. All I know is that the cathedral’s located somewhere in those mountains,” said Hugh, indicating a range of mountains on the distant horizon. “The streets of this rat’s warren have never been mapped, to my knowledge. Most of them don’t have names, or if they do, only the inhabitants know them. We’ll ask directions. Keep moving.” They followed the flow of the crowd, began walking up what appeared to be a main street.

“Asking directions is going to be rather difficult,” Iridal remarked in a low voice, after a few moments’ walking. “No one comes near us! They just... stare...”

“There are ways. Don’t be afraid. They don’t dare harm us.” They continued along the street, their black robes standing out like two dark holes torn from the gaily colored, living tapestry formed by the throngs of elves going about their daily lives. Everywhere the dark figures walked, daily life came to a halt.

The elves stopped talking, stopped bartering, stopped laughing or arguing. They stopped running, stopped walking, seemed to stop living, except for their eyes, which followed the black-robed pair until they had moved on to the next street, where it happened all over again. Iridal began to think that she carried silence in her hand, was draping its heavy folds over every person, every object they passed.

Iridal looked into the eyes, saw hatred—not for what she was, which surprised her, but for what she brought—death. A reminder of mortality. Long-lived though the elves are, they can’t live forever.

She and Hugh kept walking, aimlessly, it seemed to Iridal, though they traveled in the same direction, presumably moving toward the mountains, though she could no longer see them, hidden by the tall buildings.

At length, she came to realize that Hugh was searching for something. She saw his hooded head turn from one side of the narrow street to the other, looking at the shops and the signs over the shops. He would leave a street, for no apparent reason, draw her into a street running along parallel. He would pause, study diverging streets, choose one, and head that direction. Iridal knew better than to ask him, certain she would receive no reply. But she began to use her eyes, studied the shops and the signs as he was studying them. Paxaua’s marketplace was divided into districts. Cloth sellers had their street next to the weavers. Swordsmiths were up a block or two from the tinker, the fruit vendors seemed to stretch for a mile. Hugh led her into a street lined with perfumers; the fumes from their aromatic shops left Iridal breathless. A left-angle turn brought them to the herbalists. Hugh appeared to be nearing his goal, for he moved faster, casting only the briefest glances at the signs hanging above the shops. They soon left the larger herb shops behind, continued on down the street, heading into the central part of Paxaua. Here the shops were smaller and dirtier. The crowds were smaller, as well, for which Iridal was thankful, and appeared to be of a poorer class.

Hugh glanced to his right, leaned near Iridal.

“You’re feeling faint,” he whispered.

Iridal stumbled, clutched at him obligingly, swayed on her feet. Hugh grasped hold of her, looked around.

“Water!” he called sternly. “I ask for water for my companion. He is not well.”

The few elves who had been in the street vanished. Iridal let her body go heavy, sagged in Hugh’s arms. He half carried, half dragged her over to a stoop, under a shabby, swinging sign that marked yet another herb shop.

“Rest here,” he told her in a loud voice. “I will go inside and ask for water. Keep a watch out,” he muttered beneath his breath before he left her. Iridal nodded silently, drew her hood well over her face, though she still made certain she could see. She sat limply where Hugh left her, darting alarmed glances up and down the street. It had not occurred to her until now that they were being followed. Such a thing seemed ludicrous, when every elf in Paxaua must know by now of their presence and probably where they were bound, for they had certainly made no secret of it.

Hugh entered the shop door, left it open behind him. Out of the corner of her eye, Iridal watched him walk over to a counter. Behind it, long rows of shelving were lined with bottles of every shape, color, and size, containing an astonishing variety of plants, powders, and potions.

Elven magic tends to be mechanical in nature (dealing with machines) or spiritual (the Kenkari). Elves don’t believe in mixing a pinch of this herb with a scoop of that powder, except for use in healing. And healing potions weren’t considered magical, merely practical. The elf behind the counter was an herbalist. He could dispense ointments to treat boils and blisters and diaper rash, provide liquids to cure coughs and insomnia and fainting spells. And perhaps a love charm or two, delivered under the counter. Iridal couldn’t imagine what Hugh was after. She was reasonably certain it wasn’t water.

The elf behind the counter didn’t seem at all pleased to see him.

“No like your kind. You go way,” said the elf, waving his hand. Hugh raised his right hand, palm out, as if in greeting. “My companion is feeling faint. I want a cup of water. And we are lost, we need directions. In the name of the Kenkari, you cannot refuse.”

The elf regarded him in silence, cast a sharp and furtive glance at the door.

“You, monk. You no sit there. Bad for business,” he called to Iridal, loudly and irritably. “Come in. Come in.”

Hugh returned to assist Iridal to her feet, led her into the shop. The elf slammed shut the door. Turning to the Hand, he said in a low voice, “What do you need, Brother? Be, quick. We don’t have much time.”

“Directions on the fastest route to the Cathedral of the Albedo.”

“Where?” the elf asked, astonished.

Hugh repeated himself.

“Very well.” The elf was perplexed, but cooperative. “Go back to Swordsmith Street, turn onto Silversmith Row and follow it to the end. It will merge with a large highway known as King’s Way. It winds about some, but it will take you into the mountains. The mountain pass is heavily guarded, but you shouldn’t have any trouble. Those disguises—a clever idea. They won’t get you inside the Imperanon, though. I presume that’s your real destination.”

“We’re going to the cathedral. Where is it?”

The elf shook his head. “Take my advice, Brother. You don’t want to go there. The Kenkari will know you’re imposters. You don’t want to cross the Kenkari.” Hugh made no reply, waited patiently.

The elf shrugged. “It’s your soul, Brother. The Imperanon is built on the mountain side. The cathedral is in front, on a large, level plateau. The structure is a huge crystal dome standing in the center of a large round courtyard. You can see it for menka. Believe me, you won’t have any trouble finding it, though why you’d want to go there is beyond me. Still, that’s your business. Anything else I can do for you?”

“We heard a rumor that the Kenkari have stopped accepting souls. Is it true?” The elf raised his eyebrows. This question was certainly not one he’d expected. He glanced out the window, to the empty street, then at the door, to make sure it was shut, and still took the precaution of lowering his voice.

“It is true, Brother. The word is all over town. When you reach the cathedral, you’ll find the doors closed.”

“Thank you for the help, Brother,” said Hugh. “We’ll take our leave. We don’t want to cause you any trouble. The walls moved.”[65]

Iridal looked at Hugh, wondering what he meant. The elf seemed to know, however.

He nodded. “Of course. Don’t fret. The Unseen are not watching you so much as they are watching us, their own people. Who you talk to, where you stop.”

“I trust we haven’t brought trouble on you.”

“Who am I?” The elf shrugged. “Nobody. I take care to be nobody. If I were somebody—rich, powerful—yes, then you could bring trouble to me.” Hugh and Iridal prepared to go.

“Here, drink this.” The elf handed Iridal a cup of water. She accepted it thankfully. “You took as if you could use it. You’re certain I can’t do anything else for you, Brother? Poisons? I have some excellent snake venom in stock. Perfect for adding a little bite to your dagger’s tooth—”

“Thank you, no,” said Hugh.

“So be it,” the elf said cheerfully. He threw open the door. His expression altered to a scowl. “And stay out, you dog of a human! And you tell the Kenkari, they owe me a blessing!”

He shoved Hugh and Iridal roughly over the stoop, slammed the door shut after them. The two stood in the street, looking—Iridal trusted—as forlorn and weary and dispirited as she felt.

“We’ve come the wrong way apparently,” said Hugh, speaking human, for the benefit, Iridal presumed, of the Unseen.

So it was the elite elven guard who were following them. She stared around, saw nothing, nobody. She didn’t even see the walls move, wondered how Hugh knew.

“We must retrace our steps,” he told her.

Iridal accepted the arm Hugh offered for her support, leaned on him, thinking wearily of the long distance they had still to travel. “I had no idea your work was so strenuous,” she whispered.

He looked down at her with a smile, a rare thing for him. “It’s quite a distance into the mountains, I’m afraid. And we don’t dare stop again.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“You must be missing your magic, about now,” he said to her, patting her hand, still smiling at her.

“And you must be missing your pipe.” Her hand tightened over his. They walked for long moments in companionable silence.

“You were looking for that shop, weren’t you?”

“Not that one in particular,” Hugh responded. “One with a certain sign in the window.”

Iridal couldn’t at first recall a sign; the shop had been so poor and shabby. Nothing hung over the door. Then she remembered that there had been a sign propped up inside the window. Crudely painted, now that she thought of it—the image was of a hand.

The Brotherhood advertised openly in the streets, it seemed. Elf and human—strangers, mortal enemies—yet they risked their lives to help each other, bound by a bond of blood, of death. Evil, to be sure, but might this not offer a hope of good to come? Wasn’t this an indication that the two races were not natural enemies, as some on both sides claimed?

The chance for peace rests with us, Iridal thought. We must succeed. Yet, now that she was in this alien land, this alien culture, her hopes for finding her son and freeing him were growing dim.

“Hugh,” she said, “I know I’m not supposed to ask questions, but what the elf said is true. The Kenkari will know we are imposters. Still you talk as if you truly plan to go to them. I don’t understand. What will you say to them? How can you hope—”

“You’re right, Lady,” said Hugh, cutting her short. His smile had vanished. His tone was grim. “You’re not supposed to ask questions. Here, this is the right road.”

They entered onto a broad avenue, marked with the royal crest of the King of Paxaria. The two were once again surrounded by crowds, once again surrounded by silence.

In silence, they continued on.