The Emperor of the Ancient Word and Other Fantastic Stories. Darrell Schweitzer

when he had climbed over the wall, and spoken the message he had been given (by Time or Death, one or the other, he knew not which) the borderers fell in behind him and became his honor guard. Thus King Vardabates returned to the world of men, by moonlight, beneath a dark sky and brilliant stars. In the moonlight he was barely visible, like a gleam off polished metal glimpsed through the corner of the eye. His footsteps were silent, yet he stirred the dust of the roads along which he marched. There were still ghosts around him, like swirling sand stirred up by the tread of an army. In the night, in the moonlight, the ghosts spoke with voices like the distant tinkle and clanging of metal, before the wind which drove them toward the wall, the dark slope, and the open door of the black tower swept them away and on their way.

      And the ghosts cried out to him, “Remember...remember me....”

      From this apparition, as it passed, prophets prophesied doom or the return of glorious things, depending on their nature and wont; and the king remembered, not the names of the many ghosts, but some things, the name Andrathemne, whom he had loved, and Urcilak, whom he did not.

      He felt the road beneath him now, and the night air, and when the procession reached the river Arrax, he heard the waters laughing. He heard too, the shouts and songs of the boatmen on the river, and he felt the dreams of men drifting there, like mist among the ghosts.

      A ferryman, terrified, carried them all to the other side in a barge. They passed through villages and towns. People saw them and cried out, or turned away, or were troubled in their dreams if they were asleep. When the sun rose, and throughout the day, the shape of the king was no more than a wisp of dust hung in the air by a trick of the wind, but still it was there, like something glimpsed dimly out of the corner of the eye; and the borderers could not quite remember why they had deserted their posts or where they were bound, and they milled about in confusion. Then evening came, and the moon rose, and King Vardabates was among them, a mighty figure in gleaming armor and splendid raiment, grown stronger from the touch of the earth and the mist from the river and the passing dreams of living men (which he had troubled). Now the shore of the Merimdean Sea was before them, and the risen moon gleamed upon the waters, making a road of light. King Vardabates and his entourage (including many ghosts, and witches and wizards, who had joined him as their souls roamed abroad, like leaves drawn along by a strong current of wind) crossed the sea in a mighty war galley, ablaze with lights, and when they had come to Bersion, and to the immense palace of the great kings of Bersion (many towered it was, and gleaming, carven, so men said, all out of a single piece of white marble, around which the whole world was formed even as silt gathered around a boulder in a stream). Now the gate of that palace opened up, and the galley sailed into a harbor within. Above, higher and higher until they blended with the stars, the battlements and towers of Bersion and lighted windows gleamed in the night, until even King Vardabates and his entourage and the thousands of richly-robed and plumed courtiers who had come to greet him seemed as mites of some kind, insects crawling on the floor of a vast cavern.

      Dragons, curled and resting in the battlements, gazed down on the scene with lazy indifference, though it was a splendid sight.

      One last time the voice touched the king’s ear, saying, “Vardabates, I have summoned thee.”

      The king answered, “I have come.”

      Then he and the borderers and others of his entourage, and the thousand courtiers who had come to greet him, accompanied by drummers drumming and trumpeters blaring away, strode into the palace which has once been his. All of them flowed like a river, like a tide, the storm-wind which is the breath of Fate (or Time, or of the gods), and memories poured back into the king’s mind, and he knew all his past glories, all his conquests and triumphs, all the treasures he had amassed; and it seemed, as he ascended to his golden throne, and put on again his gorgeous robe of state, and sat upon his throne with scepter in one hand and the globe of kingship (which represents the world of men) in the other, that the golden age had again returned, that the mightiest king of all had returned to his glory, that Death itself had been defeated, and the trumpeters might blast the news of this to the stars, into the very ears of the gods.

      The dragons, disturbed in their rest among the rooftops, fluttered off into the night.

      * * * * * * *

      But it was not to be. Vardabates, though he had been a harsh man when living, though he has spilled whole seas of blood in the course of his conquests and the amassing of his treasure, though he had been an awesome and terrible figure to his enemies, as dreadful as the lightning, did have a certain sense of honor, of duty, of the fulfillment of promises.

      Therefore he delivered the message which had been given to him to deliver.

      He opened his mouth, and there poured out something like impossibly ethereal black dust, which no man could touch or smell or wipe off the surface of a glass, but which dimmed the blazing lights and muted the trumpets.

      He spoke in the language of the dead, addressing first his queen, who was not named Ardathemne and whom he did not love; for Queen Buran was cold-hearted women who loved only power and schemed against all. It was she who had conspired with Urcilak, the sorcerer, to poison the king by means of a tiny, silver serpent that wriggled into his ear as he slept and which troubled his dreams, speaking of his wife’s unfaithfulness as it gnawed away at his brain.

      To the Queen, first, Vardabates spoke, and at once her beauty and majesty left her, and she went away to live for many years, alone in a cell of her own choosing, until she was but a withered husk, unable to recall her name or her crimes, yet finding no release.

      As the king spoke, the dust which was his breath spread to blot out the brilliant stars and the moon.

      Vardabates spoke to Urcilak, whose scheme had been first to murder the king, then call him back and capture his soul in a bottle that he might wield power over all the lands forever. But no, the King said, conveying the message of the one who has whispered to him (whether Time or Death), this was folly, and before Urcilak went completely mad, but long before his death, he should direct that his own soul be captured in a bottle, the bottle sealed, and hurled into the sea. Not that there was any release for him, either.

      And the ghosts and witches and demons which had accompanied the king this far now scattered in fright.

      Then the king spoke to his beloved Ardathemne, who was his daughter, whom Queen Buran had given to an evil courtier, who had raped and defiled her, murdered her children for sorcery and locked her up in a tomb. His words passed through the air like dust and found her in her tomb, and whispered, Comfort, child, for my master will find you soon, meaning either that Death would claim her, or that Time, sowing years upon her from out of his bag of seed, would soon take away her pain.

      As the king spoke of the greatness of the realm, and the glory of conquest, of the riches he amassed, then the black dust which issued from his mouth (and covered the moon and shut out the stars) now settled upon the fields of the land, killing cattle and smothering the firstborn of every household. Still the message (from Death or Time, one or the other) was incomplete, and still the king spoke, until the rivers silted up with dust and even the Merimdean Sea withdrew far from Bersion; until each courtier saw that his own splendid robes were as moldy cerements, that all their ambitions would be worn away by Time as the wind polishes a carven stone face smooth again. To poets, he spoke of silence, to the prophets (according to their inclination and wont) either of the doom of all things or of the ending of days.

      Still his message was not complete, as the darkness poured out of him and the souls of the dead streamed away from the king and his throne, pouring, swirling out of the palace, down steps and out of windows, from off the battlements; streaming across the empty lands to froth like a tide over the wall which guards the frontier of the world; thence down, down the black slope and through the door of the black tower, swirling again around the ankles of the two who sat at the table engrossed in their game before plunging, at last, screaming, howling, their voices fading to a susurrus of wind as they descended the black, twisting stairway up which none by King Vardabates had ever returned.

      And the king spoke until the great palace in which he sat was wiped smooth, then made craggy again, like a mountain, and the Varadbates sat on his throne in the heart of that mountain,