To Die In Vasparkhan

by James Lecky

 

     It was upon the command of Marphet VII, the Grim Emperor of Vasparkhan, that I, Telton the Fool, left the service of my master, Baron Evestian, and journeyed to the south across desert, waste and sea.

     On the day that the summons arrived – carried by a royal herald dressed cap-a-pie in sombre grey as befitted his station – I had dallied a while in the Baron's gardens with his youngest wife, Anahid, sipping fine wine and whispering sweet words of love. As the Baron's Fool I had the right to whichever of his wives I chose – so long as she in turn was willing – and had grown more than fond of Anahid, she of the fiery hair and skin like milk.

     In truth, the Baron might have refused Marphet's order, since he owed no allegiance to the Grim Emperor, but the loss of his newest wife's affection after less than a year of marriage coloured his decision. Added to this, the reputation of Marphet VII for taking by force that which had been refused to him – as the severed heads of a hundred southern Kings attested – made him more than prepared to give away the services of his Fool.

     “You are to present yourself before the Grim Emperor no later than the tenth day of Winter,” he told me after his household guards had taken me from the garden and into his stately presence.

     “To what end, my lord?”

     “To make the Grim Emperor laugh, what other reason could there be?”

     “But, my lord, the Grim Emperor never laughs.”

     “Quite so,” he said. He raised one hand to his face and stroked his oiled beard. “Nevertheless, it is now your duty.” He rose from his onyx throne. “Preparations for your departure are already underway. You leave on the morrow.” With that he waved a dismissal and I left.

     I spent the rest of that day collecting those few possessions that were mine alone – the jester's stick with its Punchinello headball, two suits of bright motley trimmed with silver bells, an assortment of juggling balls and clubs and a small pouch of cantrips written in the Elder Script. Afterwards I wandered the corridors of the Baron's castle, hoping for the opportunity to say farewell to the Lady Anahid. None presented itself.

     And so at dawn the next day I took my leave of Castle Evestian, with a heart both heavy and full of dread but a wide smile painted upon my face. The Baron himself bade me farewell – jealous he may have been, but he nevertheless was saddened to lose such a fine Fool. For three weeks I journeyed by caravan across the Flint Wastes towards the port of Trazbon and the ship that would take me south across the Ekrabahn Sea.

     The journey, monotonous though it was, gave me ample time to ponder my predicament.

     Of all the kingdoms of Jendia, that great continent that is the very heart of the world, the only one that had never been touched by laughter was Vasparkhan. For her peoples there was only one art – that of war – one which they had long since perfected, the edge of their artistry kept keen by incessant expansion.

     The herald, a stern-faced, taciturn fellow by the name of Khoren, added a little to my knowledge, though he answered my questions as best as he was able.

     “Only the weak laugh,” he said. “Never the strong.”

     “If that is the case, why then should the Grim Emperor require a Fool, even one as skilled as I?”

      “It is our custom at Year's End that the Emperor prove his strength,” he said. “Many have tried to make his Highness laugh – none succeeded.”

     “And what became of them?”

     “The Royal Jackals feasted upon their innards.”

     “After they had been killed, of course?”

     “No.” He bared his teeth, not in a smile, but in a grimace that was wolfish, anticipatory, as though he could already hear the screams of fear, the crunching bones of yet another Fool who had tried and failed.

     That night, huddled under my blankets while razor winds howled across the Flint Wastes, I considered making a run for the north, stealing one of the camels and fleeing as fast as it would carry me. But no. The Grim Emperor had a long reach, as he had already proven, and I doubted that any kingdom would be brave or foolhardy enough to offer me succour. Instead I resolved to meet this challenge head on. After all, was I not Telton the Fool, master of japes and capers? Had I not wrought raucous laugher from the most mirthless of audiences, once even causing the High Priest of Harvelon to break his vow of silence and roar out 'Bravo!' at my antics?

     I offered up a plea to Kelos, God of Laughter, and slept fitfully, my dreams filled with howls and snarls.

 

*

 

     For the rest of our journey towards the sea, I spent my time honing my art – performing tricks and japes for my fellow passengers and the azalai who drove the camels. Great gusts of mirth threatened to drown out the howling winds and even Khoren once came close to a chuckle when I imitated his clipped tones and perpetual glower, although I think our rich food disagreed with the poor fellow and it may have simply been trapped wind.

     At Trazbon I bade a last fond farewell to my homeland, and Khoren and I embarked upon the merchant galley that would take us to Vasparkhan and the stony face of the Grim Emperor.

     But the gods – and Kelos in particular – like nothing more than a good joke, for on our fourth day a-voyaging a storm arose and I was swept overboard by a wave as tall as the keep of Baron Evestian's castle. Saved from the tender ministrations of the Royal Jackals and sent instead into the less-tender jaws of the sea and all the snapping, biting, hungry things that dwell therein.

     Or so I believed at the time.

 

*

 

     The sound of gulls awoke me. There was wet sand beneath my cheek, and when I groaned a dribble of brine and bile escaped from between my lips. The abode of the dead was not filled with flame and brimstone after all, but with sea water and guano. The sun beat upon my back, and incessant waves dragged at my breeches. Determined not to face the afterlife with a bared arse, I stood and surveyed my surroundings.

     Before me, a long stretch of white sand leading to dense, green forest, behind me the ocean that had chosen to spit me out.

     Alive, then – for my aches and bruises could never have belonged to a dead man – I made my way from beach to forest, leaving a trail of wet footprints in my wake.

     The pouch with its collection of cantrips was still secured to my belt, although my other possessions – my Punchinello stick and various little tricks – had been claimed by the sea in payment for my life. The cantrips were small magics, suited best to securing wondrous oohs and aahs from bumpkins and those who had never seen the work of a real sorcerer, but they served to start a fire at which I dried my clothes, and to lure a few forest creatures of the edible kind with which I filled my grumbling belly.

     Suitably buoyed up, I took stock of my surroundings and situation.

     The island – for I soon determined that I had been cast upon an island – was no more than three leagues from from promontory to promontory, with a steep hill at its centre that rose like the tonsured head of an aged monk.

     With no better plan than to better know my new – and very private – kingdom, I made my way to the summit of the hill. The climb took most of the day and by the time I was halfway there night had already begun to fall.

     Somewhere in the depths of the forest behind me an animal snarled. I am a man utterly unused to the wilds and, in my imagination, I envisioned a great manticore prowling through the trees, slaver falling from its lips and the delicious smell of ripe Fool in its nostrils. Fear gave my fatigued limbs a burst of speed and good fortune took me to the mouth of a cave, large enough for a slim fellow such as myself to crawl into, yet small enough to keep any large beasts without.

     After a short while had passed, I finally realised that no beasts, large or otherwise, were pursing me and, since the cave was comparatively warm and comfortable, I elected to spend the night there.

     Another of my trusty cantrips provided enough illumination for me to study my surroundings.

     What I had believed to be no more than a small hollow in the hill turned out to be much more than that.

     A vault, huge as the Great Cathedral Of Bu, the roof so far above that the feeble light of my little trick could not begin to pierce it. No natural phenomenon this, the hand of its builders could been seen in every brick and tile, in every alabaster carving.

     But which path to take? The sloping thoroughfare of jet and lapis that led upward, or the one of emerald and mercury that led into the depths – or, indeed, the one of brick and rubble that led back the way I had come and into the jaws of not-so imaginary beasts.

     Yet, if there is one impulse that drives the life of a Fool it is curiosity – that impish desire to pull aside the curtain, to peek through the keyhole, to know another man's secrets that you might mock them.

     I chose the downward path – I had walked uphill enough that day – and descended into the depths.

     By my small I light I glimpsed horrors that swooped through the darkness – creatures that had never felt the touch of the sun, Huge as eagles, eyeless, with both scale and fur on their hides. Like the rays of the S'ren Sea, and as graceful in their own sinister way, they moved through the darkness with utter assurity.

     Downwards I went, leaving the blind, swooping things to their games, and came at last to the floor of the vault.

     And there the light of my cantrip was magnified a thousandfold or more, glittering from the gold and silver and precious jewels that decorated every surface. But my attention was not drawn by them, rather it was forcibly taken by the figures that lined the room, facing towards a throne of pure obsidian a hundred paces away.

      A thousand mummies, brittle as glass, paying respect to their mummified King.

     Human in shape, but unhuman in aspect, the face of each bore a wide rictus grin, but their dessicated eyes held no joy. If they had died laughing, then the jest had been a dark one indeed.

     As I drew closer to the throne, I could see the creature that sat there.

     Not a King. A Jester. A Fool like myself. No, not like me, for I had never been adored by so many.

     I approached with tremulous steps, expecting the creature to rise at any moment. But it did not, even when I reached out and touched the suit of motley it wore, not even when I took the stick from its hand.

     And a fine stick it was too, carved from ebony, its headball a grotesque, grinning skull, tasselled with silk and velvet, finished with half a dozen bells of purest palladium.

     There is a story that is told, whenever and wherever Fools gather together, of the god that existed before Kelos, an altogether darker and fiercer god that men named Yuckla. It is said that, in the time before man rose to his feet, the Elder Races warred upon each other, howling with laughter as they did so, to establish the supremacy of one god or the other.

     In the end Kelos reigned supreme and reduced his brother-god to mortal status – a joke which Kelos alone found amusing.

     Kelos is a god to make men smile and giggle, to chortle, guffaw and piss their breeches with laughter. His jests are often cruel, for the gods find laughter in the suffering of men, but what darker jests, we wonder, might Yuckla have bestowed upon the world?

     It was the jester's stick of that ancient, all-but-forgotten god that I held in my hand.

     I dared not shake it, for fear of the dreadful music it might produce, but instead wrapped it in the tatters of my tunic and left that place as quickly as I was able. Better to face the beasts on the mountainside than those frozen, gleeful yet mirthless faces.

     Outside, by the clear, cold light of the moon, I unwrapped the stick and examined it once again. The grinning face did not seem so terrifying now, its expression no worse than some of those I applied to my own features. Yet the light in its eyes – two chips of emerald – was baleful, as though the face mocked its own smile.

     A noise from the surrounding trees startled me, and I turned to see a beast in the undergrowth. Not the manticore of my imagination, but a rodent – a rat large as a wolf, lips drawn back from vicious, yellow fangs, hunger written on its face.

     It sprang and I lashed out with the only weapon I had to hand, the jester's stick of the doomed god Yuckla.

     The blow did not connect; it did not need to. The first tinkle of those palladium bells was enough to set the rat to its heels – a note so melancholy that it might have been the underscore to a suicide.

     And with it, the words of the First Great Cosmic Joke.

     “Laugh, laugh, for the gods themselves are mad and care not for the affairs of men.”

     I laughed until I farted.

     The First Great Cosmic Joke.

     And it was awful.

         

*

     Of my time on that island I need say little more. The beasts kept their distance, or perhaps there had been only that one, too afraid to approach my camp. It was a safe, if somewhat monotonous week that passed before I saw a ship on the horizon.

     She flew the red and silver standard of Vasparkhan, and her single passenger was none other than my old travelling companion Khoren, come to seek me out at the command of His Highness Marphet VII.

     “Years End will be upon us soon,” he said by way of greeting. “And you are to come to Vasparkhan.”

     “It is good to see you and your splendid ship,” I said. “But alas I am unable to obey the Grim Emperor's edict at this time.”

     “You would be unwise to do so, Telton.” He made no threat, but the tone of his voice was redolent of pincers on flesh, of fire and the rack.

     “The tools of my trade have been lost,” I said. “How can I hope to amuse His Majesty when I have no tricks to astound him?” I saw no need to mention Yuckla's stick, nor indeed the vault that glittered with gold and silver. Such things would only have served as distraction.

     “The items you require will be provided,” Khoren said. “Those whom the Jackals took have no need of them now.”

     I shook my head with mock severity “Tsk, tsk, friend Khoren, don't you know that it is impolite to juggle with a dead man's balls?”

     Not even the merest flicker disturbed his stoic features.

     “Come,” he said. “The Grim Emperor awaits.”

*

     The road to Vasparkhan was lined with crosses. And to each was lashed and nailed a man, for the Grim Emperor dealt harshly with those who displeased him.

     Carrion birds took to the air as our little convoy passed by – the iron shod wheels of the coach clattering and crunching along a highway cobbled with human skulls – but they were fat, ungainly things hardly capable of maintaining flight for more than a moment of two before returning to their grisly banquet.

     The city itself was nothing to behold. Vasparkhan had no need of walls – the spears of her warriors are barrier enough – and her architecture was plain to the point of monotony. Only the Grim Emperor's palace had any hint of individuality, though Castle Evestian was a hundred times more splendid.

     I was given food and lodging – both functional rather than expansive – and allowed to close new tricks and motley.

     The next day, I was brought before the Grim Emperor himself.

*

     He was not a tall man, the Grim Emperor, nor did he exude grace and breeding as some monarchs do. The clothes he wore were of plain, unbleached linen and the crown upon his head was no more than a crude circle of beaten gold. Yet this man had the blood of thousands upon his hands, and his adherence to the gruesome customs of his land was absolute.

     Looking upon his face, so without motion that it might have been carved from ironwood, I found it all too easy to believe that this man had never smiled – let alone laughed – even once in his life.

     “Make me laugh, Fool,” he said. No more than that.

     And so I did as I was bid.

     I am not a man given to bluster or hyperbole, so when I tell you that I am the finest Fool on the Four Continents you may believe me. Oh, perhaps there are those who are nearly my equal – Holjon of Lifpal, for one, or Ruskin of Cabbaren for another – but such men are few and far between, and it is my proud boast that I can wring laughter from a rock.

     But the Grim Emperor was not a rock. He was harder than that.

     My finest capers, my deftest feats of legerdemain, my warmly vicious lampoons of other monarchs did not move him in any way. I saw him begin to drum his fingers upon the arm of his plain oak throne and, although he gave me his fullest attention, nothing I did or said brought any other response from him.

     From the courtyard outside I could hear the sound of hungry dogs and the scrape, scrape, scrape of a blade being sharpened upon a grinding stone – all the better to gut a Fool.

     I renewed my efforts, but to no avail. The jokes and anecdotes that had reduced the Baron's household to helpless tears did nothing to stir the Grim Emperor. I might have elicited a chuckle from a corpse with greater success.

     A cold breeze, keen as a razor's edge, blew across the back of my neck. Icy sweat dripped from beneath my tasselled cap and the tinkling of the bells upon my breeches was a cacophony without beat or meter.

     “Are you done, Fool?” the Grim Emperor asked.

     “I fear that I may be, Your Highness.”

     He rose from his throne and for the first time I sensed the power in the man, and the sadness. Such monsters as Marphet VII should not have the luxury of remorse or the soothing pain of guilt, yet they were there in him. Yes, it was that which gave the Grim Emperor his title.

     And his strength.

     It takes a strong man to live his life with horror, knowing that each day he must stain his soul a little more and climb down another rung into Hell.

     “Have you no more tricks, Fool?” he said, and there was rust in his iron voice. “No stories to amuse me?”

     “There may be one, Your Highness,” I told him and drew the Jester God's stick from my tunic. In my pride, I had never thought to use it, for what use is such an old, terrible, joke and if my own skill and talent could not make the Grim Emperor laugh, then what kind of Fool could I claim to be?

     I was a Fool who did not want to be fed to the Royal Jackals, screaming and crying and shitting myself.

     And so I shook the stick.

     Gently, at first, allowing the notes – and the joke – to build.

     “Laugh... laugh... for... the... gods... themselves... are... mad... and... care... not... for... the... affairs... of... men...”

     Then, faster and faster until the jest filled every corner of the room.

     “Laugh, laugh, for the gods themselves are mad and care not for the affairs of men.”

     The perfect joke to complement a life of murder and sorrow.

     The Grim Emperor did not laugh, but a single tear ran from his eye and down his cheek.

     “It is a good joke, Fool.”

     “And yet His Highness does not laugh.”

     “No. He does not.”

     “Yet He weeps.”

     The Grim Emperor raised one hand to his cheek and felt the wetness of his own tear. How much remorse did that single drop of salt water contain? More, certainly, than any man has a right to experience in one lifetime.

     “I never thought...”, he said.

     And then he began to laugh.

     But there was no joy in that laughter, rather it was the laugh of a man who has accepted who and what he is – what he has allowed himself to become. Like the scrape of knife on bone, or the song of a sword as it cuts through innocent flesh.

     The utterly mirthless hilarity of a sadist.

     “You may leave, Fool,” he said through great bellows of chilling laughter. “I have no further need of you.”

     I ran from the palace, past startled guards and confused courtiers who listened with blank faces to the unaccustomed sound of the Grim Emperor's joy. And each one that I passed began to chuckle in that same grisly fashion.

     It was the most terrible sound I have ever heard.

     It followed me as I fled the city, grew louder with every step as it was taken up by a hundred thousand throats.

     “Laugh, laugh, for the gods themselves are mad and care nothing for the affairs of men.”

*

     Six months of wandering took me back to the environs of Castle Evestian and the less than warm welcome of my master the Baron.

     Along the way I threw the Jester God's stick into the deepest part of the Ekrabahn Sea, for I could no longer bear to have it about me. Some jests should remain unsaid.

     Oh, I can still make a room shake with hilarity, but I take no pleasure in it, for in each note I hear the laughter of Marphet VII, last of the Grim Emperors.

     Khoren had been right when he told me that the strong do not laugh, for how can a man hold a spear when his whole body shakes with cachinnation, or raise a shield when he is racked with mirth?

     The enemies of Vasparkhan – and they were legion – rose up and ground her into dust.

     It is said that Marphet roared with laughter as they nailed him to his cross.

     For what else could he do?

 

The End