The Mask of the River King Read online

  “I’d pay you nothing,” the stranger said solidly. “It would only encourage more slave trading. No, I’ll take the boy and any other who wishes to leave this place.”

  “What’s this?” Kolya Malin choked incredulously.

  “What do you say, young men?” The stranger called up to the terrace, apparently having caught sight of Ashur’s face between the battlements. “Which of you is the boy from the well? Come forward, you and any other who would be free.”

  Frey swallowed hard and felt himself shake. He wanted to shout to the stranger, the words bursting in him, to declare to the world that he was the one called Frog, yet it would give away his location to Ashur. Worse, it might land him in more dire circumstances than digging for Kolya Malin.

  “He’s not here,” Kolya lied, his irritated growl loud enough for Frey to catch its hinted threat. “Now let’s have at the jingle in them pouches.”

  At the signal, Ashur leapt to his feet. Frey raised the hammer as he stepped out into the walkway, closing in on Ashur and the other two, drawing a deep breath at the last moment before he shouted, “I’m up here!”

  Ashur jerked at the sound and turned, stunned, as Frey dove towards the cart, sending it crashing sideways, the rocks battering his ribs in collision, the hammer slipping out of his hands and over the edge. Frey hit the parapet upside down and felt the retaining wall collapse with a sickening crunch. One of the other miners was already bearing down on him and Frey clutched at the arms that punched his sides, desperate not to fall. Scrambling back onto the ledge, Frey found himself being lifted roughly by the other two and brought to dangle over the dizzying drop beyond. He looked down helplessly at the stranger, who grimly met his gaze before slowly reaching for the black pouches that hung from his neck.

  Kolya Malin was already lumbering towards the stranger, club in one hand, the other with its palm raised in expectation of payment. The stranger hesitated, seeming reluctant to divulge the burden he carried, and Kolya drew back with his club as a means of persuasion.

  “Give it to me already,” Kolya barked and the savannah exploded with blinding light.

  Frey looked away and felt his attackers let go of him. Snatching at nothing, he started to plummet into the empty brightness below, into dazzling green brilliance, his arms and legs shooting out too late to catch himself. He toppled forwards and fell into a sudden blaze of indigo light so palpable it seemed the air had thickened around him. Frey lurched back, arms chopping wide circles, and righted himself. Leaping for the safety of the walkway, he found himself in the midst of Ashur and his thugs, who were rising cautiously, shielding their eyes from the fierce glare.

  Frey brought his hand up and squinted, seeing now that there were really two lights: the green one from the stranger and a beam of indigo, the light that had saved him, which was shining from a point not ten paces away beside him on the walkway.

  “You three stupid ones back off,” came a gruff voice from behind the indigo light, “or I’ll splatter you.”

  The overseers quickly complied, nearly toppling Frey a second time in their hasty retreat from the angry fire that was moving towards them. Frey, too, started to back away, yet already the indigo had dimmed, fading until it became a pulsing glow of embers that flickered between the fists of a squat, hairy creature whose outsized antlers were as long as its distinctive buckteeth.

  Frey blinked at the creature as it approached, violet sparks still arcing between the brown pads of its fingers. The thing’s cavernous nostrils glistened moistly in the ebbing light, twitching inquiringly at him.

  “Do you always smell like lizard fat?” the creature asked, continuing to scrutinize him. Frey frowned and then remembered the grease on his shirt.

  “It’s just a stain,” Frey explained. “No.”

  The creature stopped snuffling and stared up at him with an expression that Frey took to be regret.

  “What a pity,” it said and headed down into the mines, its gait a peculiarly bow-legged waddle. Frey watched the creature go, a halo of fiery illumination gliding ahead of it, and quickly followed. The purplish light vanished into the tunnels and Frey was surprised to find he had to hurry to keep up. Catching sight of the creature at last, he soon saw the reason why: instead of walking, the creature had chosen to slide down the worn floors on its padded backside, its gray fur proving quite sleek. Upon reaching ground level, the creature promptly dusted itself off and stalked towards the exit, then leaned out to give a piercing whistle. When Frey finally caught up, the creature inclined its horned head towards him with a look of grave annoyance.

  “I am Umsu,” it said.

  “Frey,” he replied. “But they call me Frog. I’m the one who came from the pond.”

  “I guessed that part already,” Umsu snorted, heading outside.

  Frey followed him and emerged in the middle of a standoff: Kolya Malin and several henchmen were backed against the wall, held at bay by brilliant green light radiating from the stranger’s hands. Another whistle from Umsu brought a speckled pony cantering around from behind the slagheap and Frey turned to watch it, by way of avoiding the baleful scowls of Kolya and his gang.

  The indigo fire in Umsu’s grasp crackled once more and was suddenly extinguished as the creature stuffed its hands into a pair of pouches much like those worn by the stranger. Then Umsu gave the pony’s saddle a jerk and a rope ladder unfurled, by which means the bandy-legged creature scurried up onto its mount. Frey took a step closer, wondering if he should get on the pony, but Umsu shook his head (Frey assumed it was a he by now) and pointed towards the stranger’s huge paleohippus, its bent back as tall as two Kolya Malins.

  “Climb aboard,” said the stranger, seeing the look of trepidation on Frey’s face. Turning towards the ruins, the man called out, “Who else will ride with me? Madoc is broad of back; he’ll support a small army. Come now, I’ll walk if I have to.”

  Frey glanced up at the slagheap expectantly, but the smudged faces that peered from its openings either looked away or retreated from view. Kolya Malin let out a guttural chuckle, his stubbled jowls broadening into a grin.

  “Seems you’re outnumbered,” said Kolya. “Now put down them pretty lights and fight.”

  The stranger rounded on him, about to answer, when a squeaking voice from the mines said, “I’ll go with you!”

  Frey beamed as Ratface came running to his side. They managed to seat themselves on the back of the paleohippus as the stranger continued to brandish emerald light between his outstretched fists, a captured sunbeam making sparks of the falling dust.

  “You lied to me once,” the stranger told Kolya. “If the stone’s not in Vinegia as you say, I’ll come back and tear this place apart brick by brick.”

  “Oh, it’ll be there all right,” Kolya taunted. “But good luck trying to get it. I forgot to mention that the one-eyed fellow I sold it to is also Raja of this whole province.”

  The stranger responded with a blast of radiance that engulfed the ruins in green flame for a moment. Then Frey saw him slip his hands back into the black pouches and the light went out as the paleohippus turned sharply and started off through piles of rubble. Behind them, Kolya Malin was shouting: “I know what you are, optifex! And there’s them that would pay to know!”

  Frey gripped the saddle tightly as they left the mines and headed into the open savannah. Soon the paleohippus was racing across the grassy plains, bounding over dead logs and swampy sumps, though it seemed the stranger was holding the animal back from going full speed, in order that Umsu and his pony might keep up. When Frey finally looked over his shoulder, the towering ruins seemed no more than an interesting rock formation far away. Turning his head some more, he saw Ratface grinning at him and smiled back, but didn’t let himself hope he was truly free just yet, not until even the crooked outline of the slagheap had fallen away.

  Looking towards the ruins again, he now caught sight of another rider charging at them, though the mounted figure wasn’t obese enough to be Kolya
Malin. Frey tapped the stranger on the back and felt the paleohippus slow. After what seemed ages, the approaching rider came into full view, the sight of him making Frey feel a twist in his stomach.

  “I’m taking your offer,” said Ashur, drawing alongside them. “You did say anyone.”

  Umsu snarled loudly and drove his pony between Ashur and the others. Frey exchanged a look with Ratface and both of them shook their heads forcefully at the stranger, trying to dissuade him. The stranger viewed them all in turn, seeming to consider the advice offered, and then fixed his gaze on Ashur.

  “I am a man of my word,” the stranger said warily. “I promised freedom and will give it, but only as far as the next world, no farther.”

  Ashur nodded curtly, his eyes scheming, but the stranger did not seem to notice and spurred the paleohippus onwards. Frey took hold of the saddle and gazed out at the rushing landscape ahead, trying to put Ashur out of his mind, as well as everything else associated with Kolya Malin. Yet his thoughts returned there with the same compulsion that drove him to visit the forbidden well. The elements of his past were at war with one another and would not settle: the stone that the stranger sought, the other child that was born with him, and the well itself that had brought him into the world out of its fathomless deep. Frey began to suspect that, no matter how far he traveled, in this world or the next one that the stranger spoke of, some part of him would be buried still in the mines of Kolya Malin.

  Chapter 2: Vinegia

  Niran Vyasa spurred his paleohippus across the marshlands, trying to cover ground before nightfall, though the terrain grew thicker and wilder with each stride. The two young ones perched quietly behind him on the beast’s wide back and made no cries of protest despite the sharp turns and hard landings that the landscape forced. Farther back, Niran saw, too, the older one who had affixed himself to their company, doubtlessly a spy for the loathsome Malin. Umsu had already marked that one as foul, Niran reflected, yet there was always a chance that the nexus would change him, as perhaps it had the boy from the well.

  Calloused and tremulous hands gripped Niran’s sides as the paleohippus bounded over yet another sinkhole. Smiling back at his young passengers, Niran saw that Frey’s face held a questioning look, a mixture of wonder and dread. Glancing a moment too long at the young man’s features, Niran wondered at the energies that had deformed them so drastically. The air of anxious uncertainty was contagious, he sensed; if only some sign would indicate that Frey was indeed the one looked for. Tests could be undertaken, he knew, but there was no time now, nor would there be soon. Even if there had been, there was little chance the boy would survive, not until the nexus had reshaped him. Perhaps the stone would determine, Niran hoped, if it could be found at all. Pushing the paleohippus still faster, he raced against what lay ahead as much as what was left behind.

  Soon they were picking their way through tangled darkness, the sound of thudding hooves and hissing grass giving way to the jitter of insects and, in the distance, the churning of a river. Niran cursed himself for not blasting a path through when they’d come by daylight, but then the world of Kulan had seemed as unpromising as all the others he had searched. Indeed, he reminded himself, the planet was geographically a dead end, linked only by a single nexus to the rest of the Great River Ninagal. Still, he dared to hope that this backwater globe might mark the end of his long quest for that which could save all the living worlds.

  “Umsu, we’ll need to borrow your eyes,” Niran called back, slowing the paleohippus to a walk. “Bring your nose as well.”

  As the pony trotted by, Umsu’s squinted eyes seemed to mushroom by starlight into immense black bulbs. “Sure, let the lowly Umuqu get eaten first. Is that your plan? Why don’t we just burn our way through?”

  “I was merely showing respect for the elderly,” said Niran, reaching for the pouches that hung from his neck. Sudden brilliance tore open the night, a streamer of blinding green arcing between his fists. Querulous groans and shrieks called after them in the humid gloom, followed by Umsu cursing saltily in his native tongue as his eyes adjusted.

  “These woods are thick with predators,” Niran pointed out, extinguishing the arc with a chuckle. “They would throw themselves at our lights like so many carnivorous moths. We cannot risk the safety of our young charges.”

  Umsu sniffed loudly in the fresh dark and pushed on, grumbling of briars and shabby treatment. Madoc the paleohippus fell in behind the shambling pony and Niran found himself slipping into reverie once more, his gaze crossing unfamiliar stars in the Kulan night sky. He wondered which of the suns shone on the planet Sudul, its light falling through the windows of the scriptorium to gild the pallid hair of his beloved Nundinae. The painful scene returned to mind now: a moment of explanation in the archives; why he could not, though home from the journey for mere days, stay.

  Another star caught his attention as they went on, a twisting barb of silver spark, and Niran wondered grimly how many of those worlds above were under the control of the enemy Dravikos and the Hidoi warriors he called allies. But finding the stone could change all that, he hoped. Clearing his throat, he decided to speak with the young ones somehow, to soothe their fears by teaching them of the far stars and the worlds that swung round them, and the various types of nexus by which one could travel between planets. Yet when he turned back again, he was met by a duet of soft snores and so rode on in silence.

  ---

  The rising of the swollen red star found them with their paleohippi knee-deep in swampland that lay in the shadow of a vast and knotted jungle. With the coming of daylight, Niran assumed the lead once more and the reckless pace of the evening before resumed. He was amused to see that Ashur made a point of keeping Niran between himself and Umsu, who growled at the older boy whenever he spoke, which wasn’t often.

  Focusing on the rough path ahead of them, Niran followed closely the weathered tiles of dull blue that sparkled in the mud. Frey leaned forwards and asked, “Is that a road? Those colored rocks?”

  “They were, once,” said Niran, surprised at the observation, “and more than blue: Royal Cerulean, hue of the Hegemonic Overunity, the color of true qmira.”

  “I thought qmira was sort of brown.”

  At this, Umsu barked out laughter. “The boy’s been holding out on us, Niran. Could’ve had a nip for the ride home.”

  Niran half-turned and gave a wry smile. “That’s just a name brewers give their local swill. The living waters, you see.”

  The young man obviously did not see, but asked: “So what’s the true qmira?”

  Niran shot a look at Ashur before speaking. “It’s not so much a what, as a how,” he said at last, the words measured and halting, not wishing to reveal too much. “True qmira is sort of like … when space gets turned inside out. It’s a kind of liquid mind that binds to water; what people used to call ‘time’.”

  Sensing the boy wanted to ask more, as did Ashur, Niran bent his head towards that of the paleohippus and sent the wind back to shush him. Yet Umsu managed to drive his pony alongside them and called out, “Let him have a look in the river, Niran. We’re close enough.”

  Seeing Niran on the point of refusing, Umsu added something more convincing in his own language, in reference to an impending personal event of great importance, and they soon turned towards the jungle.

  “The horses needed watering, anyway,” muttered Niran, leading them in under the dense, drooping canopy, the paleohippus working out a twisting path between the towering trees. The ground sloped down towards a river that could be heard rolling loudly over itself through the green thickets beyond. A little farther and Madoc crunched through the last matted barrier, bringing cool dampness to wash over them through the steaming haze. Niran admired the size of the river, so much power pouring gleaming and frothy over the rounded rocks. But more interesting were the icebergs that glided majestically downstream into the hazy jungle.

  “What are those islands of white glass?” Frey asked.


  “It’s ice, actually,” Niran corrected him. “When water gets too cold to move. There’s qmira in there, too, like I was telling you about. Otherwise, it couldn’t have crossed the nexus.”

  They stared at the glossy white nubs, the jagged peaks softening, the melting spars fringed with tropical birds looking to cool garish talons. Frey stepped haltingly towards the water’s edge and knelt, his hands catching at stray ice. “These came from another world?”

  “Fresh, too, must’ve just come through. It won’t be far now,” added Umsu, who, without warning, commenced his morning latrine.

  “Did you plan on feeding us?” Ashur said sulkily.

  Niran gave him a warning look and then strode slowly towards the paleohippus to retrieve from the saddle a leathery coil.

  “Cured snake meat,” said Niran, peeling off a chunk before passing around the rest. No one spoke for a long time, all of them gnawing at the tough jerky, watching as the icebergs began to split apart in the torrid heat, the river swallowing up the glistening castaways. Niran chewed slowly and studied the current for portents, the meanders of future flows doubling back. It was said that each droplet of the river Ninagal existed its own unique time, neighboring beads separated by epochs, while another theory held that the interplanetary stream consisted of a single droplet only, along with its past and potential images. Musing on this, Niran came to glimpse patterns on the dappled surface: a ship of frozen leaf spinning in a maelstrom; shadows that were like wings descending; hued streaks of day that contended like arcs of pure qmira, suggesting to Niran a death by the blade of a fellow optifex.

  “Incredible sight,” Umsu announced nearby, grunting laboriously. “Good for the appetite, too!”

  Niran nodded solemnly and hurled a chunk of serpent at visions of destiny.

  ---

  Soon enough (too soon, according to Umsu) Niran headed them back through the jungle and out into the open savannah under clouded skies, though they didn’t see the blue paving stones for a long time until, at a far end of the jungle, the familiar sparkle returned. The day was nearly half over when they reached a spread of grassy hillocks rising from the plains and then fences of crisscrossed timber and mossy rock that enclosed torpid herds of carabao and lactosaur. The river, too, emerged at last from under the jungle roof, meandering down from a cleft in the hills beyond. Then Niran pointed out the city of Vinegia that straddled the lower part of the ravine, with its weathered garrisons and walls stretching far up into the rocks above.