Free Kingdoms of the Night (The Far Kingdoms) by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch Page B

next day I arose remarkably refreshed — cheery, even. In the faint light of dawn I’d held a trial, totted up the evidence and found myself guilty of being the worst parent in Orissan history. But what was done was done — and considering that I had reached the age where I had wasted more time than I had years left, I decided it was time to move on to the firm ground of action.
    I sent for Janela and when she joined me in the garden — and found a comfortable place beside me on the ancient carpet the servants had spread on the grass — I came directly to the point. All who know my smooth merchant ways know how much out of character that is. But I was through with wit dueling. I wanted plain answers to plain questions.
    “You’ve shown me Janos and I erred,” I said. Now tell me what makes you certain you know how to correct that mistake. How did we misread the fables of the Far Kingdoms?”
    Janela caught my brisk mood and after a wondering look at my sorrow-hollowed eyes struck directly for the heart of the matter.
    “You didn’t misread the myths at all, my Lord,” she said. “Unfortunately, as ancient as those tales were, they are striplings compared to the originals from which they sprang. As a researcher, you see, I had the advantage of following in my great grandfather’s footsteps. I learned that there are two sets of myths. The newest begin shortly after Irayas was founded and prospered. As you know, Irayas and the rest of Vacaan was built on the ruins of the Old Ones.”
    I nodded. Greycloak had sought the answers to the riddle of nature itself in the volumes of knowledge those mysterious people had left behind.
    “The other myths began during the days when the Age of Darkness first descended. When — as all schoolchildren are taught — the Old Ones were destroyed.”
    I, too, as a boy had reveled in adventures that were not my own, and my favorite stories were the myths of the Golden People who were said to have once ruled the land. We were children, less than savages compared to those wise folk, the tale-tellers claimed. All knowledge was theirs to command; all art, all song; in short, all that was beauty and made life worth living. A thousand years or more ago a great calamity struck and the Old Ones disappeared, leaving only their magnificent ruins to haunt us, humble us.
    “I found the first spoor of those old myths,” Janela continued, “while studying the origins of my own people. We were first nomads, driven from our ancestral lands by a now forgotten enemy. When we stumbled on the ruins of the Old Ones and their treasure stores of knowledge our future greatness was assured. We’d heard tales ourselves of the Far Kingdoms and a few even thought perhaps Vacaan was once that place.
    “Then people in other lands started thinking that we were the fabled folk and to suit our own purposes we encouraged those new myths. It made potential enemies fear us, allowed our rulers to seal us off from evil influences and — to be frank — it gave us a sense of vaulted superiority over others.”
    I knew that trait. One of the first things I’d noticed about Irayas was the people had little interest in the doings of others and thought there was nothing we barbarians could do they couldn’t better. One of my fellow voyagers — Sergeant Maen, I believe — said the people of Irayas walked around with their noses tilted so high that they were in danger of drowning whenever it rained.
    “The first difference I noted,” Janela said, “was in the old tales — before our coming — the fabled lands were said to lie on the other side of the eastern seas. And in those stories they were called ‘The Kingdoms Of the Night.’ As soon as I realized that, I searched for all legends that made reference to such a place. Everywhere I traveled I sought those myths. In dusty tomes, wizards’ vaults and even in the camps of nomads where stories have been handed down intact over scores of generations.
    Those myths