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

while stared down vacuously from behind the screen of stars in the night sky and did and said nothing; for even they could not defy the one who had given Vardabates the message and even they dreaded to hear it.

      They knew it would reach them eventually.

      At the very last, Vardabates poured out all his own memories, all his loves and hates, all he had ever treasured or feared, even that moment on the hot stones before the nurse scolded him for being dirty.

      A single tear formed and streamed slowly down the king’s cheek.

      And in the black tower, at the top of the stairs, the player who had held his piece amid a pause for so long (whether Time or Death, none can say) made a sudden move and cried out, “Ha! The victory is mine!”

      THE HERO SPOKE

      We regret our lies most of all.

      —The Book of Mirrors

      So he spoke, opening up the hoard of his words. They flowed forth, like spilled gold.

      “Lies,” he said, “all lies.”

      He was a young man, I could tell, under the grime and the scars. When he took off his helmet and placed it in his lap, I saw a smooth face, barely able to sustain a beard.

      Weeping, he denied everything.

      “None of it is true,” he said. “I am not the one you think I am. I didn’t do the things I myself have claimed to have done. This helmet is not mine. It belongs to another, who will surely come to claim it and his vengeance.”

      The helmet was of tarnished bronze, with a T-shaped split for the eyes and nose, a huge black, horsehair crest on top. Indeed, the helmet of a champion. It gleamed dully in the firelight.

      We two sat in the dark, beneath the brilliant stars, at a crossroads.

      “Tell the story then, as a story, as a lie.”

      He wept, and spoke:

      “It’s not true,” he said, “that I journeyed in the company of a genuine hero, whose name is immortal, though I am unworthy to repeat it. Call him my Master, then.”

      “Hypothetically,” I said, “part of the lie.”

      “Yes.”

      “We sat around a campfire, much like this one. Imagine that much. In the dark and cold. The great man hunched by the fire, while I tended to what needed to be tended to. And his words, like thunder in my mind. Of course you will sing my praises, boy, he said. He spoke without any boastfulness, merely stating a fact as obvious as the weather. Of course I would sing his praises, though he shouldn’t have called me a boy. Anyone who has spent five summers fighting alongside one such as he has the right to be called a man, but heroes have no time for such details. It is the way of things.

      “So we paused to rest beneath the strange, faint stars—not the stars of Earth at all, but those stars which rise out of the mist as you descend the final slope toward the river, on the border of the Land of the Dead. Wizards have names for those stars. I do not.

      “We had come through the country of the centaurs. We had battled dragons, men, and winged demons. We had cut down countless foes, trampling thousands into the mud and dust. Now, here, on the last night, beneath those stars, high up the bank above the Dark River, he seemed to recede into his helmet and his armor, to become all the less a man, more a purely heroic force, the crest of his helmet giving him the appearance of a fierce and predatory bird, an avenger of the gods. It was the supreme honor of my life to be with him that night, as he recounted the story thus far, numbering our deeds that they might be more easily remembered.

      “I was to be the first to remember them, the first to put them into the form of telling, into words which would be improved upon by others. Let me begin the process that would continue on even as I myself would be forgotten, like a vast river flowing from an unknown source.

      “We sharpened our weapons, and then we slept. Before I faded away completely I tried to compose a few heroic lines, but the music did not come to me. Never mind. I, like my Master, was beyond all such things now. Let others, who did not witness, refine the telling.

      “After a time, we awoke, in the dark, for the sun did not rise here. Beneath those scant stars, we made our way down the bank.

      “I heard water flowing gently nearby. The River. Our goal. Did I truly hear it, or dream it? Were we transported in our dreams at the very end, or did we rise up and walk the final distance?

      “There, at the very lip of the waters, we slew our horses, in final sacrifice, as was required of us, and we poured out the blood on the barren earth, and we saw, clearly before us, as if a curtain had parted, the great River of the Dead and the Land of the Dead beyond it. We walked along that penultimate shore, pouring out libations of blood from our cupped hands, and it seemed that the spirits rose up around us like cold mist, whispering in our ears, pleas, curses, sometimes just names.

      “We accosted the Ferryman, where his boat was tied up at a little dock. We held out our hands and let him lick the blood off them like a dog. This was sufficient payment for our passage, though I could tell from his hungry eyes, from the way his shrunken face swayed lustfully, that he greatly desired the living blood within our veins.

      “But he would not have that. My Master drew his sword and as if to whack the vile creature’s head clean off. He pointed to the boat and to the further shore, and the Ferryman laughed, like the wind wheezing through rattling bones.

      “So we set forth, until the nearer shore was lost behind us in darkness and the hills on the far side loomed huge and black, blotting out even those few stars of the Deathlands. No one spoke. The Ferryman strained at his oar.

      “I heard the angry voice of a rival I had once slain in a duel, buzzing in my ear like an insect, then fading away to a remembrance, then gone.

      “On the further shore, as we disembarked, the Ferryman groveled before us, both pleading and demanding at the same time, as we had known he would. At a signal from my Master, I drew my sword and he his, and we struck off the Ferryman’s head and broke his bones, and ground him into the dust of the Deathlands, lest he raise the alarm at our coming.

      “Then we pressed on, against the black wind, against the impenetrable night which would have devoured us. We leaned into our shields, while the Deathlands, alarm or no, threw up against us every terror, every danger and pain and dread we had ever known. All our slain foes fought us once again, and yet my great and perfect Master did not waver, and when once I stumbled, he bore me up.

      “I worshipped him then. He, truly, more than any other, deserved to be celebrated in epic and song, my own humble efforts at first, then those of the great bards to come after.

      “Yet I cannot speak his name.”

      * * * * * * *

      The teller stopped telling the tale, holding his tear-streaked face in his hands, perhaps to add verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing pack of lies, for heroes do not weep, but liars often do.

      Idly, I picked up his helmet out of his lap to examine it. I even made to try it on.

      But he screamed, and snatched it back, leaping to his feet and drawing his battered sword. I myself did not rise. I saw only madness in his eyes, gleaming there in the firelight. I think he would have cut my head off in another second, but I bade, him, in a soothing voice, to sit down again and continue telling lies, and I promised not to believe a word of it.

      * * * * * * *

      “It’s all a muddle,” he said. “It makes no sense. How then was I ever supposed to tell the story, and why did my Master command me to rehearse the tale of our deeds? Why did I struggle toward the composition of heroic lines, if I was never supposed to return from the mission, if he intended to betray me? Heroes do not commit treachery. It is impossible. I can’t go on—”

      “I believe you can,” I said, “though I believe nothing else.”

      * * * * * * *