Revenge is one of the oldest and most primal of human motives, and in the fast-paced tale that follows, it drives a battle-scared warrior to the ends of the Dying Earth — and perhaps to the end of the Dying Earth itself!
Lucius Shepard was one of the most popular, influential, and prolific of the new writers of the ‘80s, and that decade and much of the decade that followed would see a steady stream of bizarre and powerfully compelling stories by Shepard, stories such as the landmark novella “R&R,” which won him a Nebula Award in 1987, “The Jaguar Hunter,” “Black Coral,” “A Spanish Lesson,” “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule,” “Shades,” “A Traveller’s Tale,” “Human History,” “How the Wind Spoke at Madaket,” “Beast of the Heartland,” “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter,” and “Barnacle Bill the Spacer,” which won him a Hugo Award in 1993. In 1988, he picked up a World Fantasy Award for his monumental short-story collection
In the mid to late ‘90s, Shepard’s production slowed dramatically, but in the new century he has returned to something like his startling prolificacy of old; by my count, Shepard published at least ten or eleven stories in 2003 alone, many of them novellas, including three almost-novel-length chapbooks,
Thiago grimaced to see such a pitiful display and turned his back on the window. He was a powerfully constructed man, his arms and chest and thighs strapped with muscle, yet he went with a light step and could move with startling agility. Though he presented a formidable (even a threatening) image, he had a kindly, forthright air that the less perceptive sometimes mistook for simple-mindedness. Salted with gray, his black hair came down in a peak over his forehead, receding sharply above the eyes — a family trait. Vanity had persuaded him to repair his cauliflower ears, but he had left the remainder of his features battered and lumped by long years in the fighting cage. Heavy scar tissue thickened his orbital ridges, and his nose, broken several times during his career, had acquired the look of a peculiar root vegetable; children were prone to pull on it and giggle.
He dressed in leather trousers and a forest green singlet, and went downstairs and out onto the Avenue of Dynasties, passing beneath several of the vast monuments that spanned it; a side street led him through a gate in the city wall. Swifts made curving flights over the River Chaing and a tall two-master ran with the tide, heading for the estuary. He walked briskly along the riverbank, stopping now and again to do stretching exercises; once his aches and pains had been mastered by the glow of physical exertion, he turned back toward the gate. The city’s eccentric spires — some capped by cupolas of gold and onyx, with decorative finials atop them; others by turrets of tinted glass patterned in swirls and stripes; and others yet by flames, mists, and blurred dimensional disturbances, each signaling the primary attribute of the magician who dwelled beneath — reduced the backdrop of lilac-colored clouds to insignificance.
In the Green Star common room of the Kampaw, a lamplit, dust-hung space all but empty at that early hour, with carved wainscoting, benches and boards, and painted-over windows depicting scenes of golden days and merrymaking through which the weak sun barely penetrated, Thiago breakfasted on griddlecakes and stridleberry conserve, and was contemplating an order of fried glace[1] to fill in the crevices, when the door swung open and four men in robes and intricately tiered caps crowded inside and hobbled toward his table. Magicians, he assumed, judging by the distinctive ornaments affixed to their headgear. Apart from their clothing, they were alike as beans, short and stringy, with pale, round faces, somber expressions and close- cropped black hair, varying in height no more than an inch or two. After an interval a fifth man entered, closed the door and leaned against it, a maneuver that struck Thiago as tactical and put him on the alert. This man differed from his fellows in that he walked without a limp, moving with the supple vigor of youth, and wore loose-fitting black trousers and a high-collared jacket; a rakish, wide-brimmed hat, also black, shadowed his features.
“Have I the pleasure of addressing Thiago Alves?” asked one of the magicians, a man whose eyes darted about with such an inconstancy of focus, they appeared on the verge of leaping out of his head.
“I am he,” Thiago said. “As to whether it will be a pleasure, much depends on the intent of your youthful associate. Does he mean to block my means of egress?”
“Certainly not!”
The magican made a shooing gesture and the youth stepped away from the door. Thiago caught sight of several knives belted to his hip and remained wary.
“I am Vasker,” the magician said. “And this worthy on my left is Disserl.” He indicated a gentleman whose hands roamed restlessly over his body, as if searching for his wallet. “Here is Archimbaust.” Archimbaust nodded, then busied himself with a furious scratching at his thigh. “And here Pelasias.” Pelasias emitted a humming noise that grew louder and louder until, by dint of considerable head-shaking and dry-swallowing, he managed to suppress it.
“If we may sit,” Vasker went on, “I believe we have a proposal that will profit you.”
“Sit if you like,” said Thiago. “I was preparing to order glace and perhaps a pot of mint tea. You have my ear for as long as it will take to consume them. But I am embarked upon a mission of some urgency and cannot listen to distractions, no matter how profitable.”
“And would it distract you to learn…” Archimbaust paused in his delivery to scratch at his elbow. “…that our proposal involves your cousin. The very one for whom you are searching?”
“Cugel?” Thiago wiped his mouth. “What of him?”
“You seek him, do you not?” asked Disserl. “As do we.”
“Yet we have an advantage,” said Vasker. “We have divined his whereabouts.” Thiago wiped his mouth with a napkin and glared at him. “Where is he?”
“Deep within the Great Erm. A village called Joko Anwar. We would travel there ourselves and secure him, but as you see we lack the physical resources for such a task. It requires a robust individual like yourself.”
The young man made a sound — of disgust, thought Thiago — and looked away.
“It is possible to dispatch you to the vicinity of Joko Anwar within minutes,” said Archimbaust. “Why risk a crossing of the Wild Waste and endure the discomfort and danger of a voyage across the Xardoon Sea?”
“Should you travel by conventional means, you may not achieve your goal,” Disserl said. “If Sylgarmo’s recent projections are correct, we might have as little as a handful of days before the sun quits the sky.”
The wizards began debating the merits of Sylgarmo’s Proclamation. Vasker adhered to the optimistic estimate of two and a half centuries, saying the implications of Sylgarmo’s equations were that there would soon be a solar event of some significance, yet not necessarily a terminal one. Archimbaust challenged Sylgarmo’s methods of divination, Disserl held to the pessimistic view, and Pelasias offered a vocabulary of dolorous hums and moans.
To silence them, Thiago banged on the table — this also had the effect of summoning the serving girl and, once he had given her his order, he asked the magicians why they sought Cugel.
