Back to The Book of Ninety and Nine Doomed Cities
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There are many books in the libraries of the Changed Ones in Merafigund-of-Many-Pillars, books that are never seen by the common scholars of that place; books that are for the most part held in little regard by the Changed Ones themselves, and left to rot in their storerooms. Small as I am, I have been lucky enough to obtain one of those books. I will not tell you how I obtained it, for the one who brought it for me still lives, and there is great peril for him in the telling. The book is the journal of a man of Edalagund, an administrator and a diplomat, who lived when the anistam trees of that place had been planted within living memory. Then there was room within Edalagund for great estates covered with every kind of flower, and farms, and racetracks, and quarries and plantings of wood-trees, not only the crowded dwellings of men that are there today. It was a new city, bursting with life, and eager for its name to be heard in distant lands. The journal treats with the travels made by this man of Edalagund, whose name is not recorded, to some of those distant lands. He travelled away to the south, through the lands where today runs the Maligan road, staying always within sight of the great mountains at the edge of Dhomin. He was misled by his guides, and robbed by hradar, and was nearly dead from thirst when he lead to a secret spring by luck alone, by the wilful mercy of blind Tyche. After the greater part of a year he came to the banks of the river they name Hezreel, whose red waters the Progenitors had crossed on their long road to Dhomin. This was the land to which he had been sent as emissary, the land watered every year by the swelling of the Hezreel, but he found it much diminished from the tales that were told of it. Where were the rich farms, the mighty herds of groek and silkcattle, the market towns of copper-coloured brick, the tents of silk and gold in which the chiefs of the herders dwelt? Along the Hezreel the traveller found no tilled field and no standing dwelling, only broken canals and burned villages, the people scattered and hidden. After some days of travelling he was captured by a war band of the Nessuch, one of the two great factions into which the people of that land were divided. He was taken in bonds to the city of Thun, where his eloquence was such that the Kaagn of that place ordered him released, and given apartments in which to dwell. The emissary of Edalagund wrote of all these things in his journal, with many discourses on the inscrutable ways of Tyche, and the folly of those savage lands where men do not heed the will of Meru. His health had been broken by the rigours of his voyage, which darkened his mood, and he found little to love in Thun or in its people.
This is the record he left of the constitution of Thun, and of its destruction. The beginnings of Thun are lost in darkness; no annals are left from the many thousands of years in which it endured; and it is now long ended, with no trace remaining, save this fragment.
“Thun is built on the broad plain of the Hezreel, where each year’s flood brings fresh soil for the farms of the Kiranes. But when the flood is great, so that the waters will not bear the town entirely away, it has been built up year after year, so that it sits atop a considerable hill of earth. This has been done, I suppose, since the time of the Progenitors, who met with Kiranes dwelling along the Hezreel. There is a shapeless mound a third or a quarter the size of Thun, which lies not many miles distant from it, which may be the remains of an older city. The mound-hill of Thun is about an hour’s ride around, larger than Edalagund, but within, what a lamentable aspect it shows! The greater part is empty space, with here and there a broken wall of mud-brick. All the dwellings of the city are of this same brick, which soon decays, and there is not one tree within it to give shade during the long months of the summer. Each family dwells in its own compound, surrounded by heavy walls of earth, and the men of the Kiranes go about on the streets ever armed, in garments of stiff leather as for war. The women, as far as I could tell, hardly go out at all, unless to the houses of relations, or to make sacrifices to the idols of Thun. As each one spends so much time within their own compounds, the streets are very empty. It is a horror, a city that must live under the full strength of the sun, open to every dust-bearing wind. It is no wonder that a race so weak in magic as the Kiranes is failing and passing away at last. The place could easily hold ten times as many inhabitants, or even twenty, if so many could be found; but the lands subject to the Kaagn have been so despoiled by war, and burnt by drought, that I fear there would be far less even if all his subjects were to be gathered together. Trahs was burned everywhere in that place, as free as seed oil in Edalagund, and every house I entered stank of it, until the scent became hateful to me.
The great buildings of Thun are the temples, which are very large, and impress the soul much as the Kirane themselves do, by their bulk, and their solidity, and their gracelessness. They have broad plazas around them, and rise on many steps, and like the other buildings they are of brick, which the Kaagn has not the funds to maintain. There are three chief gods of the Hezreel folk, and three chief temples; Thiru in the south, Baharu in the east, and Kashalu in the west. Those who serve at the temple of Thiru are maidens, selected for their comeliness - though those I saw seemed no more comely than feral irstwhyells, with spare tawny hair, bony haunches and thin faces - but then I saw mostly the ones that had served there very many years. Young men of the Kiranes serve at the temple of Baharu, until they are of an age to bear weapons; and those who would stay there afterward, to watch the stars that are adored of Baharu and perform the sacrifices to that lying daemon, must be gelded. The only men of any learning that I met in Thun were priest of Baharu, and this is one more cause of the weakness of the Kiranes, that their cleverest young men, who wish to enquire into the nature of things, are kept from begetting children. The temple of Kashalu is much the finest, though also the smallest, and faced in many places with carved work in black stone, showing the goddess hunting, passing judgement, or giving suck to her young. The workmanship of the carvings is indifferent, but outshines by far any work I saw of the Kiranes in recent ages. Those who serve at the temple of Kashalu are Parthanes, and their young women are as pleasing to the eye as those of the Kiranes are uncomely, sleek-haired and smooth-limbed with round breasts and sharp eyes.
Besides the temples there is the palace of the Kaagn, which is larger than the palaces of Edalagund, but so ruinous and polluted that the beggars of our city would scorn to live there. Numberless dark rooms, dusty courtyard after dusty courtyard, halls with roofs half fallen in, others where one part in six of the paving bricks are missing, so that no Kirane may walk across without risking a broken leg. There are statues everywhere, of departed Kaagn, and Prophets and Gods of the Kiranes, and in the chambers that are occupied there are still fine curtains of silk and gold, and rugs worked with trees and flowers and fabulous birds, with borders of black and white asqon fur. The guards of the Kaagn also recall what greatness Thun must have had, with their starmetal spears and their shiny black armour of flaigar leather, patterned with golden arabesques. They are Parthanes, for the most part, large for their kind, and wear the signs of the Kaagn shaved into their fur.
The very oldest part of the palace is that where the ancient signs of the Kaagns’s lordship are kept, a domed house of black stone in the midst of a maze of shabby courtyards. It looked very old to me, but such is the general decay of Thun that it may be no older than the Guildhalls of Edalgund. The signs of the Kaagn are said to be three: a cloak woven of a kind of blackwire no longer found on this side of the Great Mountains, but as fine as silk; an orb of black stone in which lives the light of the three Tshaan; and a thing about which such tales are whispered in the kitchens and galleries of the palace that there is no thing I can imagine it being like; it is called the Varahin, and it is spoken of in tones of wonder. The other notable things in Thun are all of that kind; strange, and said to be ancient, and of no certain purpose. There is a tall stone, as tall as the Guild Hall of Artificers, all cut through with circular holes, to no apparent sense or plan, that is called the Iramahin. There is a pillar of imperishable iron, that is called the Staff of Urochanith.And there is a building all of green stone that is a single small round room - a large Kirane can almost touch opposite ends, standing in the centre - with walls twice as thick as a man’s body is long, and carved on every finger’s breadth of the wall with writing in an unknown language.
The two main factions in Thun were the Nessuch and the Charruch, and their quarrel was an ancient one. Each was confined to no one part of the city, nor to Kiranes only, and each drew its adherents from every part of the Kaagn’s dominions. They were not at open war, having wearied of it some seasons before I arrived, and all the efforts of the Kaagn were directed towards making a permanent peace between the two factions. Chief of the Nessuch in Thun was a man named Uragit, a Kirane of unusual size and strength, with a greyish-green pelt. It was said that he had several times run foot-races with rivals who thought they could match him, each time enduring until his challenger had died of exhaustion. There were dark rumours of the dealings he had made with certain of the Kaagn’s household, and darker ones of how he had dealt with villages of the north that had refused his law, stories of burnings and tortures and rapes under the pale sun of winter. Uragit’s banner was green like nephrite, and marked with the figure of a thaigar. The greatest of the Charruch in Thun was Tumun, another Kirane. Of advanced age, Tumun had once held great wealth in land and trahs, and many wives and children. These he had lost, chiefly through the persecution of his quarrels, but also because of his devotion to Baharu - for certain grasping priests of that daemon had led him into gross follies. Though he still had many loyal followers in Thun, Tumun’s lands were laid waste, his trahs expended, and his wives and children scattered or slain. His banner was of a false hormigant, on a white field, but it was the custom of the Charruch to carry instead a hormigant of brass at the head of their processions. It was half the size of a man, and I could not have pushed it along the ground, but the young men of the Charruch vied with each other to bear it, and seemed to carry it with ease on their broad shoulders.
The Kaagn had invited these two notables Uragit and Tumun, together with their boon companions and the leaders of the lesser factions of the city, to a great entertainment as his guests. The larders of the palace were scoured to provide a feast as might have been held in Thun of old, and this feast was laid out on long tables in one of the greatest halls of the palace. The hall was hung with silks of green and white and blue, and strewn with carpets until it seemed more like the bed of a prince of giants than a dining hall, and lit with many lamps of trahs. The pale witch stones that give light by magic had also been brought from the hoards of the Kaagn, more than anyone present had seen before, and hung from the ceiling in cages of ambersteel. The manservants and maidservants of the Kaagn danced to entertain the company, a whirl of silk and golden bells, and handed out scarves and honeybirds marked with the Kaagn’s seal to all who were there. All devoured the Kaagn’s feast; the roast tariyakin, the spiced millet-bread made into fantastic shapes of Gods and beasts and men, the candied fruits and bitter melons. And men who were enemies spoke to each others as friends, as trahs smoke and the music of maidenhorns filled the great hall.
The magic of the Kaagn was a subtle magic, and though the great men of the Nessuch and the Charruch affected to scorn it, it was never far from the minds of those who followed them, those who bore on their backs the spoils of looted villages and risked their lives for little honour in the battles of that foolish kin-war. It is not entirely certain what happened that night, but I will write what I saw, The Kaagn saw both Tumun and Uragit privately, and gave them gifts from his hoard, matched cups of crown jasper and horns worked with starmetal that had been made for twin Kaagn-sons of his grandfather’s generation. First Tumun returned from his audience with the Kaagn, clutching his gifts, and everyone watched him, to hear if he should speak. Then Uragit returned, and again every eye turned to him, and watched his progress until he took his place at the table. I had no great desire to gaze upon him, for I did not care what he might say; my head pained me, and the clamour and the stink of trahs were becoming unbearable. I did not watch the progress of Uragit, and that is why I alone saw the face of one of the lieutenants of Uragit, a great-armed Kirane of Bezel (that was the name of a town already overwhelmed and ruined in the kin-war). His face was like that of a man who is sick he looked upon the face of his captain, and his arm shook, and went to clutch a stone he wore around his neck, of the Goddess Thiru as a babe. He rose without speaking, and left the party.
I too left early, having no appetite for dried melons or millet-bread, nor the leathery ash-filmed flesh of the tariyakin. I lay in my stifling chamber for some hours while my pains ebbed. After a time, as I floated between waking and sleeping, I heard a loud shout from without, and then the clamour of many voices, and the clash of weapons, and cries of pain. I ran to see what was happening, behind a fortuitous brace of the Kaagn’s guards, and found a battle in progress but a few courtyards distant. From the look of the faces and pelts I had seen before, it was of Nessuch against Nessuch, with no quarter given or received. I climbed to a raised terrace overlooking the courtyard, where I could see and not be seen, and listened to the furious words rising up from the battle. When more of the Kaagn’s men arrived, they moved in on the fray, and it broke in two, with one party of Nessuch taking flight as best they could. They retreated through the dark maze of the palace, while the others were restrained from pursuit by the men of the Kaagn. From the words that came to me as the leaders of this group were questioned, I learned that Uragit had been met here as he left the feast by a few of his men, and stabbed below the heart by the great-armed Kirane of Bezel, with such force that the hilt of the knife was entirely buried in gore. Despite this wound, Uragit had fought fiercely in the last instants of his life, knocking out the brains of his murderer with his forehooves, and slitting the throat of one of his confederates. Some others of Uragit’s guard and of the Bezelman’s band had also been slain in the battle I had heard, and their bodies were scattered about the courtyard. The survivors of Uragit’s party would not be restrained by the Kaagn’s men, when they would not join them in their revenge, but left with angry words and drawn weapons. I thought it was in their minds that the Churrach were to blame for this treason, but that they mistrusted also the Kaagn, for it was the custom of Thun that the palace was a place to put away all quarrels, and they could not imagine this custom being set aside unless at the word of the Kaagn himself.
The palace that night became even as the city of Thun without had been, a place roamed by bands of armed men, each willing to shed the blood of any who might stop its progress. I sought out the Kaagn, for he was my protector, and if there was to be order again in Thun, I thought it could only be at his hands. His guards forbade me to see him, but bade me wait in a forecourt. There was an easy place for humans to climb to the roof there, so again I climbed; I had heard as I passed some servants that a fire had been lit in one part of the palace, and desired to see where it was and how great. It was at no great distance, and of no great size; but as I waited I saw other fires blossom in the city beyond, compounds of the Thun-folk being put to the torch. It seemed that the whole city was in the grip of madness, and that it might be better to flee myself at once, rather than hope on the Kaagn, whose power seemed to be vanishing like a cobweb cast into a furnace. A messenger of the Kaagn’s household came, and told the guards I stood in sight of that Tumun also had been slain, thrown from an upper story by men of his own faction. The Kaagn’s men had reached the body before the Churrach, the messenger said, and had borne it to a hidden place. Why they did this the guards did not ask, so I do not know.
Word came that the Kaagn would see me. I smoothed my robes and went in, calm and proud so as not to shame my city. I was shocked to see how ill he looked, and how weary: his face was grey and flecked with pinkish spittle, and he shook when he talked, like a shelter built of reeds when a cart goes by on the road. The black-haired Parthane guards of the Kaagn stood close around him on every side, their eyes flat and murderous. When the Kaagn spoke to me, he spoke of inconsequential things, of the ways and customs of my homeland, and the practice of magic there - which last I knew little, having no skill in such arts. There was a suffocating thickness of trahs smoke in the Kaagn’s chamber, and it made my head ache anew, and dulled my wits. I told the Kaagn all that I wished was to stay near to him until order was restored, for I knew the Nessuch had little love for me, and that this granted I would not trouble him, but he bid me stay, speaking on and asking many more questions of Edalagund, such as we had spoken of before. This seemed to cheer his heart. At length I asked how he intended to stop the disorder in his city, for I thought it very great foolishness to spend such an hour talking with an emissary of a land many seasons journey distant, with no armed men and no weapons of power to aid him in his trouble.
‘The day has come,’ said the Kaagn, and seemed almost about to laugh. ‘I fear Thun will be gone by dawn. But you will remain alive, and I will grant you safe passage out, and a guard, until you reach your people. Come, kiss me, and we will seal the bargain.’ Then, though it was odious to me, I kissed the old Kirane on the lips, and as I did so a dizziness overcame me, and I feel dead to T’sai. When I awoke I was sure that some trickery had been worked on me, but I had no time to think, for four of the Kaagn’s Parthanes, dressed in road-armour rather than court livery with with me. They had my things readied, and escorted me rapidly from the palace. I heard as we went that the Churrach had broken into the relic house of black stone and made off with the sacred things of the Kaagn. We five passed swiftly and in silence, and went over the walls by climbing ropes, for a party of rebels held the gate, searching all who tried to flee and slaying many. From the top of the wall I could see scores of fires burning in the city. A thick dark smoke poured up from the palace, obscuring the stars. Outside, dim figures like hormigants were scattered across the plain, each moving away from the city, each a dweller of Thun abandoning it. I only looked for a moment, but forever will I remember that last sight of Thun afire, and the dreadful night that preceded it. I climbed down the outer wall with my four guards, and by dawn was many miles distant. ‘
The traveller left few notes of his journey homeward, but it is noted in the journal in another hand that he did not long survive his return, being taken by a sudden illness. Unfortunate it is, that an early death is often the only reward of those whose sufferings enrich our annals with knowledge of distant lands.
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