"Before", Chapter 1: Journey to the West

[Scott of Hyperborea]

"Before" or "Romance of the Three Duchies"
Chapter One: Journey to the West
Chapter One Soundtrack: "They say that there's a country where the streets are paved with gold"

They told me an Audente ship had docked in Musica last week. They asked me if I had a message for Airosamente, if I wanted to tell my story to the people I left behind. Yes, I thought. I would write my story.

That was eight months ago. The Audentes have long since sailed away. And here I sit, still writing and rewriting. For the next trade ship, for the historians, for my adoring worshippers, for the tecnomaezji, for the future, for myself.

My name is Loritis, daughter of Bassarijas. A long time ago, I was a lieutenant in the armies of Audentija, the great empire beyond the ocean, a rank I earned with the blood of the barbarians of Temoe. When I grew weary of killing, I led an expedition into the unexplored lands to the west, where I discovered the great inland sea that now bears the name of the king of kings. Though I was young, my fame grew, until I was renowned as a great ranger and explorer.

On that day long ago, the king of kings himself accorded me great honor, and invited me into his marble palace in Airosamente, the center of the universe. He congratulated me on my successful expeditions, and thanked me for the mighty sea that now bore his name. And he offered me a new task, one of new glories and difficulties.

Far to the north was the land of Treesia, itself so distant as to be almost a place of myth. And the Treesians spoke of a land across the western ocean at which even that wide-ranging race marveled, a continent of endless plains and rivers called Sxiro. There in Sxiro magic still held sway, and the gods and demons still walked the earth. In Sxiro were the inexhaustible gold mines that gave the Treesians their legendary wealth, and the Isles of the Blessed from which jewels and strange fruits originated. In Sxiro, said the Treesians, anything was possible, because it was really the edge of the world.

Thanks to my explorations, said the king of kings, Audentija had expanded its influence far to the west. Except for the swampy citadels of the Treesians in the north, and the uninhabitable steppes to the east the whole continent was ours. And so, he told me, maybe the next step was to add Sxiro and its endless riches to our domain.

And so he charged me to arrange an expedition to Sxiro, to map its coasts and cities and bring to its petty kingdoms the news of mighty Audentija. He lavished money and men and wealth on me, so that no need went unmet. And so on that day almost three decades ago, he sent me forth to discover new worlds to conquer.

Almost from the start, the expedition encountered bad luck. A cult centered around the venerable Lord Stone had decided to go into self-imposed exile after disagreements with the king of kings, and they had commandeered as many of Audentija's ships and boatyards as they could afford to build a great fleet that would take them into unknown lands. I decided to make a virtue out of necessity, and to contract with a rare Treesian galleon that had docked in Airosamente. They could take me as far as Treesia, where few Audentes had ever been before, and where the legend of Sxiro seemed most prominent.

Loaded with men, horses, weapons, supplies, and gifts, our Treesian galleon left Airosamente along the barbaric Temoejan coast. The winds were with us, and we navigated the pirate harbors of Pua Kalaunu, resupplied in Telsoun, and reached Whitlam, the edge of Audente civlization, less than a month after we had set out.

North of Whitlam, only the Treesians knew the maps and currents that navigated the heavily forested coasts between here and their home isle. Despite an increasing sense of foreboding as the black woods of Hyperion closed ever more tightly around the coasts, we put our trust in the Treesian sailors, and it proved well-founded when we docked at the tiny traders' town of Port Evermore, the last safe harbor before Treesia itself. From Evermore, it took another month to reach Failte, the capital of of the Treesians, where few Audentes had ever been before.

We showered Scarr, the Ard-Baron of the Treesians, with gifts of silks and swords and art from Airosamente, and he gave us his blessing to continue on our journey. So after enjoying the hospitality of Failte for only a short week, we found the captain of a trade fleet that ran the route from Failte to Sxiro, exchanging Treesian wines for the gold that had brought the western continent such fame.

His fleet of ships was different from any we had seen before, because they were designed not for hugging the coast but for forays into the open ocean. With foreboding in our heart, our expedition boarded the strange vessels and we set off into the blue, where no Audente had ever gone before.

During that voyage, we were wracked by terrible storms. Two ships of the fleet sunk, and many members of our expedition lost their lives. But after several weeks of seasickness and terror and near-starvation, we finally sighted to starboard a rolling green coast. We had found the new world of which the legends spoke. We were in Sxiro.

The ship's captain told us that most trade ships went straight to the mightiest kingdom in Sxiro, the land of Goldenmoon, once a Treesian colony and now a center of trade and gold production. But our expedition had gotten lucky. In the search for a more competitive price for his wares, our captain was headed instead for the southern city of Musica, a city-state that straddled the mouth of Sxiro's mightiest river. Musica was at the very center of Sxiro, the meeting place of three great kingdoms, and the river Eluin upon which it sat was the gateway to all points inland. It would, we were assured, be the perfect starting point for our expedition.

Our sea voyage ended at a great delta, full of swampy islands and infested with colossal log-like reptiles with rows of sharp teeth, waiting to devour anyone who entered the water. Our ships navigated these islands with practiced precision until we came to the south bank of the delta, on which we found Musica, the great trade port of Sxiro.

How can I describe to my Audente readers the strangeness of this city? It was a mixture of architectural styles, the new built upon the ruins of the old upon the ruins of the older, all surrounded by toweringly high walls. In every alley there were stalls and pushcarts run by vendors hawking their wares. The people were almost all of races I had never seen before, some with olive-green skin, some dark, many with bright red-hair, and one whose skin was tinged with lavender.

There we found a man who spoke Audente, a Treesian sea-captain who had retired to Musica to live with his Sxirothe wife. With a combination of bribes and threats we enlisted his help as our guide and interpreter, and asked him to direct us to the ruler of Musica. This he did, and we found ourselves facing a man named Imetra Alasu, and calling himself the Duke. This surprised me upon hearing it, for Musica was a nation in its own right and Duke Alasu swore allegiance to no throne.

Our guide explained that in very ancient times, all of Sxiro had lain under the rule of an empire whose capital was in the southern islands now called So Sara. I had heard of these islands before. The sailors aboard our ships had spoken of them with superstitious fear, and refused to go near them for any amount of money. These accursed islands, the guide told us, had once ruled all of Sxiro, or all the important parts anyway, until they were destroyed by a terrible catastrophe. The Sxirothe, with characteristic superstitious fear, had refused to take for themselves the title of "king", terrified that such would risk the curse of the lost kings of So Sara. Indeed, only the three greatest kingdoms dared claim for their rulers the title of "duke". The rest were ruled by Barons, though in essence they were petty warlords.

This was also where I first heard the legend of the God-Emperor, the descendant of the gods and of the kings of So Sara who would someday unite all of Sxiro under his divinely ordained rule. It was the legend of the God-Emperor that was responsible for so much of the conflict in Sxiro - and, paradoxically, so much of the unity. Each of the petty kingdoms hoped to conquer the others to gain its ruler the magic title - but the shared prophecy created a sense, even among the peasants, that there was by rights an Empire of Sxiro, waiting in the shadows for the figure mighty enough to lead it.

The particular reason the Sxirothe were so excited at the time of my arrival was a secondary prophecy. No one knew exactly where this new prophecy had come from, or why it had surfaced at this particular time, but at least some of them seemed to believe it was spoken by a figure named Brrapa Lu Eraro, about whom I could find out nothing other than the impressive respect he wielded. This Brrapa Lu Eraro had said that on midday of a day about a year from now, the thirteenth of Agnifiero, the God-Emperor of Sxiro would reveal himself. He would appear before his worshippers on a hill in the city of Riverrun, the Hill of Destiny, a few hundred leagues south and west of Musica. He would be wielding the Landssword, the magical weapon that represented the lands of Sxiro. And when his enemies rose against him, the very air would take the form of those who loved him, and vanquish all evildoers.

This all had led to a bit of a scramble to control the city of Riverrun, and another scramble to find the long-lost Landssword. Our host, the good Duke Imetra Alasu, wanted to know whether the Landssword, which had hitherto resisted all efforts to locate it, might not be in our homeland across the ocean.

"No," I told him. "There are no magic swords in Audentija. No magic at all, in fact."

After this, Duke Imetra Alasu lost interest in Audentija - until I showed him some of our weapons. These were of much finer manufacture than the weapons that could be produced in Sxiro, or certainly in Musica, and he told us to name our price for them, which we happily did. A scribe was sent to draw up terms for a permanent trade agreement between our two nations, and we were offered all the hospitality the city-state of Musica had to give. For, it seemed, Musica would soon be on the march to the south and west, where they would capture the city of Riverrun and Duke Alasu (having, hopefully, located the inconvenient Landssword) would claim his rightful place as the God-Emperor of Sxiro.

Being not without diplomatic sense, I agreed that Duke Alasu was surely fated for this magnificent destiny, which seemed to please him quite well. Having ingratiated myself, I asked for his assistance in bringing my expedition upriver and into the heart of the continent.

This, Duke Alasu told me, would spell certain death. Instead, I should direct my attentions to the coast, either north or south of Musica. To the north lay the fabulous land of Goldenmoon, mightiest and richest of all the kingdoms of Sxiro. And to the south was Riverrun, Goldenmoon's only true rival, where the stones and plains still hummed with the power of ancient So Sara, and where according to legend the God-Emperor was soon to reveal himself.

But I was foolish, or under an ill star, and I wanted to explore the heartlands of the mighty Eluin River, whose fantastic size put even the Antya to shame. I was an explorer by vocation, and it seemed not even the Sxirothe themselves knew what lay far upriver. All the Duke of Musica would tell me was that there was magic, and demons, and the accursed black city of Cerce-upon-Dolor from which all evil came.

But this only made me the more eager to explore the source of the Eluin, because it was the tales of demons and magic that most struck my fancy and seized my interest. And I may have stretched the truth a little, and told the Duke that the King of Kings would send him weapons and allies if and only if he gave me aid. And so after much hand-wringing, he admitted that he owed a visit to his vassal in the town of Llexandretha a hundred leagues upriver. He would escort me this far, he said, but further than that no force on Micras could bring him.

So after the usual arrangements we set off on the personal ship of the Duke of Musica. We left behind the wide, lazy delta until we came to a land of grassy plains, with only the rarest of small villages to break the monotony. These were the Musican hinterlands, a place of wheat and orchards and wild horses, and despite all of the terrible warnings we had received, they were not unpleasant.

The morning on which my real story begins, we had stopped at a small village on the southern side of the river to take on supplies and collect tribute from the villagers. We had just finished receiving the Duke's annual taxes, paid in gold from the mines in the north, when a villager ran up to us with the most fantastic story. A dragon - a real, live dragon - had been in the farms to the north. It had burnt down his family's barn, and was heading toward the village now. Couldn't the Baron and his men do something about it?

The feudalism of Sxiro was complicated in its legalities by starkly simple in the obligations it entailed. If vassals were getting killed, it was the responsibility of the Duke and his men to protect them. And I myself, enthralled by the thought of seeing a dragon, urged the Duke on.

So myself, the Duke, several Audentes, and several of the Duke's strongest warriors left the village by a path along the riverbank and walked for what must have been two leagues. We were just beginning to wonder whether the whole thing might not have been some elaborate joke when one of the warriors spotted something strange - a tree a few meters off the path with writing carved into its trunk.

So we left the open path into the thick forest and came to the writing in question. It had been written crudely on a wooden board, and not being able to read Sxirothe myself, I would never have known what it said if the Duke had not chanced to read it aloud.

It said: "Duke Imetra Alasu dies under this tree."

An arrow whizzed through the air and hit Duke Alasu right through the neck, and he fell over dead before any of us could even react.

Then all descended into chaos as we desperately searched for any sign of the ambushers. Two more arrows cut through the black forest and hit two of my Audente friends. I myself, and most of Duke Alasu's men, ran out of the trees to the path and began retreating towards the village.

Then we reached a clearing in the trees, and I saw the village. It was on fire. So were the Duke's ships, the ships that had all of my money and supplies and gifts and all my friends. One of them sank as I watched, and I heard screams in Audente as my men sank to a watery grave.

There were five of us there, in that clearing, four Musicans and myself, when our attackers came out of the forest and confronted us in plain sight. There were only six attackers, and I considered those damn good odds, even after I saw two of the Musicans fall almost immediately.

See, I'm good with the sword. Really good. It's my job. In the fights with the Temoejans, I would leave behind a pile of bodies taller than I was. I'm not proud of killing, but I'll do it when I have to. And I reckoned these Sxirothe didn't know Audente swordfighting techniques, and I reckoned they wouldn't expect a woman to be much of a swordfighter.

The first of them to come at me paid with his life. So far, so good. Unfortunately, by the time I'd taken care of him, all the Musicans had gone down. It wasn't that they were so bad. It was that these guys were really, really good. And there were now five of them against one of me.

"Audentija!" I shouted, and attacked, briefly catching two of the ambushers off balance. They both compensated nicely, and shot out a quick riposte that could have skewered me if I hadn't been expecting it. Two others joined the fight, and with some precision, they began cornering me against the riverbank.

The people in this part all spoke a language called Praeta Sxirothes. I'd been studying it the past few months, and I wasn't fluent or anything, but I could get my point across. I figured I had one chance with these guys, and that was that they were stupid.

"I challenge your leader to single combat," I said.

One of them nodded. "I am Red," he said. "I am the leader. You kill me, the others will let you pass. Otherwise, you die."

"My name Loritis Bassarijas. I serve the Emperor of Airosamente, the king of kings beyond the eastern ocean. I take your life in his name."

"I like you, girl," said Red, and then he attacked.

I mentioned that I fancied myself at an advantage because these barbarians wouldn't know Audente swordfighting. I hadn't considered the other side of that coin - that I was totally unfamiliar with the tactics of Sxiro. Both Red and I managed to surprise each other. Red fought with a style I'd never really seen before - and he was obviously a master. Maybe even a grand master.

On the other hand, so was I.

Oh, that was a battle. There was no piling up of bodies, no exhausting slash and hack work, just pure art. As I adapted to the cuts of Sxiro, so he analyzed Audente tactics with a keen intellect that was frankly baffling in a bandit leader like himself and adjusted accordingly. It could have gone on forever if I hadn't timed a single cut wrong. Red took the advantage, seized it, gave a great slash, and forced me off my balance and onto the ground. Then he lifted up his sword to kill me.

"Stop," said one of the other Sxirothe.

I noticed for the first time that this other was old, maybe even in his fifties, much older than any of the other five in that ambush party. He even looked, and I realize this sounds completely out of place, wise.

"I said I was going to kill her," said Red, "and I keep my promises."

"Sent is dead," said the old man. "She killed him. Now we are five. Five is not enough. She is strong. All of us can see that she almost beat you, came closer than anyone has done before. She will replace Sent. She will join our band."

"Like Piyaretja I will!" I said. "If it's between death and servitude to a bunch of barbarian bandits, then death it will be, and may Sid have mercy on my soul."

"You came in search of wonders," said the old man, and this time he was talking to me. "Join us, and you will encounter wonders beyond anything you ever imagined."

That wasn't what clinched it. What clinched it was that he was talking in Audente. Whoever these people were, they were no slack-jawed idiot mercenaries. This was only the second Audente-speaker I had met in this whole continent, and against everything I found myself admiring Red.

"Very well," Red told the old man. "What do you say, girl? Help us cross the Downs, and your life is your own. Refuse, and it returns to Mors who gave it."

"I'll help you," I told them.

And that begins the story of how I came to Sxiro, and what strange things befell me there, and why even now I am the humble servant of the God-Emperor whose tale I now tell.