by G.C. Dillon

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep,
Hesparus entreats thy light,
Goddess, excellent and bright.

Ben Jonson, 1609.

There is a tall tale told in every harbor of the land of dreams; it is repeated by swaggering seamen, sweating stevedores, and the odd harbormaster or two. It is said that if a man were ever to see the lofty spires of Shandaloor from the banks of Censwadd, the Great Southern Lake, he may then die a happy man. Perhaps it is true of women as well. One need only ask Z'Harizaam.

If one could.

Where the long Eastern canals empty into the Censwadd, and the great engineering feat of the Western Locks begin the long, meandering journey to the Inland Sea, the city of Shandaloor hosts its grand bazaar. Shandaloor was an ancient city surrounded by crumbling walls -- walls built not by men, nor by the other creatures that today made it their home. And it was many a being that slept within these aged castellations. From the cat-like M'rrr, to the tall and slender Elvish folk or many of humanity's ethnic clans, all worked, hoped, and lived their dreams in the harbor-city.

Khym Te Yung, a visitor to Shandaloor and a merchant sailor from the fabled Eastern lands, sat in a silk covered kiosk. A long ponytail hung down his back and carefully trimmed mustachios fell about his chin. He wore a black jerkin, jodhpurs and a green vest. He dripped drops of yellowed beeswax onto the folds of parchments, and then placed his hoary father's signet ring into the wax. After sealing the papers with his sign, he sat back in the kiosk. Khym called over an elderly brewster and bought from the old woman one of the city's rich pumpkin ales. He sipped the piquant drink happily. The parchment contained the manifest for his ship, Dawn Breaker. She would be sailing home bloated with numerous crates of trillium.

His kiosk faced the afternoon sun and the locks, but Khym could hear the braying of the dracols in the canals. These large, green-hided reptiles were used to pull the barges of precious goods to the Censwadd. Gold, silver, and jasmine petals flowed down the canals from the great cities of Kurin, Lusnyr and Sassenach. There was another sound as well. It was the sound of chanting. Khym recognized the language. It was the ancient tongue of Northern barbarians who plundered Shandaloor a thousand years ago. They pillaged and then they stayed, supplanting the local magistrates, generals and even the priests. Or in this case the acolytes of a hundred different temples in the city. These acolytes stopped flagellating themselves only long enough to intrude into Khym's kiosk. The sun was eclipsed by the coarse, brown robes of these holy men.

"Our mistress wishes to have a word with you."

"So many messengers for one word. I grant her entry to these humble environs."

"High Priestess Shamma wishes to speak with you at the Temple of Murluk."

A High Priestess, mused Khym. The words of a high priestess could bring him gold or at the least silver.

Khym rose and strapped a leather baldric across his chest. Khym took his falchion from his cushion and hung it from the strap, arranging the curved sword about his waist. He followed the acolytes. The temple and the fortress lay at the two ends of the city. The harbor and its bazaar rested between. The rich merchants built their mansions on the sloping hills. The M'rrr built their homes in the lowland, downwind of the canals and the musky stench of dracols and worse.

The acolytes paused when they reached the main boulevard. The satrap's army was on parade. Khym studied the soldiers, lancers, he noted. These men wore great helms and heavy cuirasses. Broad, short bladed gladius swords hung from their armored waists. At the head of the column, a man rode a roan war-horse. The beast was draped in chain mail. The rider carried his plumed helmet under his left arm. His hair was blond and a neat moustache and goatee ringed his lips.

Khym stared at the warrior. He was the perfect scion of his Northern barbarian forebears. A bastard sword with a gilded hilt hung from his leather belt.

A sedan chair followed the lancers. Temple eunuchs hauled at the long poles of the chair. A black-robed figure sat satiated upon the chair. The warrior wheeled upon his stallion and rode toward the chair. The figure, a woman, rose and extended her hand to the warrior. He took her hand and kissed it gently. She drew back her hand. The warrior then drew forth the long sword and held it up to the crowds about them. Sunlight beamed off the glistening weapon. The figure sat back on the chair and continued down the boulevard. Khym looked to his acolyte guides. They pressed forward, following the procession.

***

Khym looked about the Temple of Murluk. The waxiform hieroglyphics he beheld informed him this temple was far older than Murluk, the upstart Northern deity. These symbols were ancient urtext when his own people first began to draw clumsy pictographs. Khym stared transfixed by these strange sigils, and then he knew this was a temple sanctified to the one nameless goddess of the moon whom one may only cry out to but twice -- once as one is born and again as one dies.

Khym was led into a small room off the vestibule of the temple. The High Priestess Shamma came into the room. She was the woman he had seen in the courtyard. Khym knew that mere appearance did not convey age, but his eyes still traced her features for some clue. He looked to her vermilion eyes so like a rabbit's orbs, and crow's feet and aquiline nose. Mostly, he noticed the stark white hair, as white as the ice flows of the hardest winter, and skin as pale as a ripe onion set upon a banquet table. He would not hazard a guess whether she stood as the High Priestess when the Northern barbarians stormed the castled city walls or if she has known less than twenty summers.

An acolyte brought in an terra cotta pot of burnt bark tea. Raised in his father's house, Khym had grown up learning the punctilio tea ceremonies of this people. Though ages ago, Khym was able to provide a facile facsimile. Shamma leaned back in her chair and took her tea in silence.

Only after her cup was emptied did she speak: "I have a cargo I wish you to carry."

"I prefer not to trade in icons or relics. They wreck havoc with the goodwill spells and blessings on Dawn Breaker. I do so hope you understand."

"Not relics, nor icons. A person. I want you to transport a young woman, a temple concubine in this very congregation."

"Am I to be a proselytizer in some great mission to save the sinners? I fear that I may be foremost amongst that population." Khym smiled his widest smile. "I trust there will not be testimony on my poop deck. It might disturb my sailors."

"I wish you to remove her. She is tainted and an abomination to Murluk."

"Tainted. In what way? In her thoughts or theology?"

"She is tainted in her blood and in her heart."

"Pity that it is nothing so sublime as heresy. So Murluk must be a jealous deity to find her so tainted. And this God has spoken onto you about travel arrangements. I have never been so honored before."

"Or so flippant."

"Debatable. One need only ask my father. But I will carry your tainted one, most virulent spawn of evil, but only of her own volition. Khym Te Yung is no slaver to be carrying persons like common chattel."

"She will wish to go, I assure you."

"And who is she?"

"Z'Harizaam."

* * *

Khym met Z'Harizaam in the Old City. It was in the main bazaar not too distant from Khym's own kiosk. The Old City rested next to the poor and crowded Clowders of the M'rrr. Khym knew the feline creatures well. He also knew their slashing weapons, great halberds with wide curving, scythe-like blades. He had stood many times before their tawny and sibilant assaults with only his father's finest archers at his back.

Z'Harizaam had hair black as a starless night and eyes of midnight shade that hovered above her silken veil. She dressed in dark and somber robes with a vivid sash much like the garments sold amongst the Elves. The sash curved about her body, giving secret promises to what was underneath and hidden. Khym had not seen such a striking woman in a long time. Decades perhaps. Or centuries. He dismissed this errant thought with a casual wave of his hand.

"I am Khym Te Yung of Dawn Breaker. Am I correct to take it that you are Z'Harizaam, concubine in the temple consecrated to Murluk, most mighty God of the North?"

"I am she."

Khym smiled. "It is Shamma, your very own High Priestess, who has sent me to you."

Khym paused, awaiting her reaction.

"And she wishes you to do what once you have found me?"

"Shamma wishes me to take you on as a passenger and take you away from this most holy of cities."

Her dark eyes flashed. "Why?"

"Ask her," answered Khym. "Or ask Murluk. I am told He finds you tainted. By action, thought or nature, I know not."

"It is not about religion. It is about a man."

"I don't care if it is about a woman. I pilot a ship upon the seas. That is all. I care more for pirates than politics, reefs than religion. I have a cabin by the quartermaster's, which is dry and safe."

"I don't know why she bothers." Z'Harizaam began to walk, her robes swishing about her. Khym followed slowly. "Vydassion is a captain in the satrap's personal guard; he could never care for a crone like her."

Khym saw again in his mind the meeting of Shamma with the blond warrior. Vydassion, he thought.

"People do strange things when they are in love."

"What do you know of love?" she asked scornfully.

"I was in love once when the world was young and the mountains had not yet begun to rise. She was a princess in our land and I loved her with all my heart, and all my mind, and all of my soul that I could control. I trekked all across my father's han to bring her the sweetest fruits, the choicest game and the softest silks. I brought them all to her father's fortress in a magnificent attempt to woo her. I rode into the keep, my stallion dressed in ostrich feathers, and a hundred llamas bearing my gifts."

"Did she love you?"

"You cannot make someone love you with gifts, not even the singular gift of sincere kindness. So no, she did not love me in return. She loved only one of the lesser gods who lived on the newly forming crags. One day she left her village never to return. Up, up she climbed up to an eagle's aerie, and from there she cried out to our beautiful, young god. Was it months or merely a day that she did call out so? I cannot say; however she cried out for so long that her cry was all that was left of her. I still hear her voice in the mountains."

"That's an echo."

"That is my princess!" Khym smiled.

"Is that the truth?" Z'Harizaam asked skeptically.

"Oftentimes a good lie is more honest than the truth," Khym replied. "My offer of the cabin stands. Let us meet on the banks of the canal at the crest of the evening."

* * *

Khym returned to his kiosk to await the night's coming. He spoke an inhuman 'word' to the two small gargoyles that guarded the entry. Dismissed, they took wing and flew back to Dawn Breaker.

The brewster stood before the kiosk. Her hair was as grey as an old goose, but her eyebrows were as black as on her twenty-first year, whenever that day had been. A woolen shawl hung from her shoulders and her long skirt ended in tattered strips at her bare feet. The woman held more of the pumpkin ale Khym was glad to see.

"You are brave to truck with Shamma and Z'Harizaam both. A brave man to meet both in a day's span." She held out the ale to Khym. "I thought only Vydassion to be so fearless."

He fumbled in his purse for a few coppers. She stopped him. "No need. It is gratis for so valiant a man - or perhaps that is foolish."

Khym took the offered stein. "I am Khym Te Yung of Dawn Breaker. And you?"

"I was called Jiada when I wore a younger woman's face."

Khym settled himself onto a cushion. He mused into the light brown drink a moment, then spoke. "And you are acquainted with the doings of this city. Know you facts or merely rumors?"

Jiada laughed, exposing a blackened toothless gap. "Facts travel on the good baker's cart, but flavorful rumors fly like his bread's aroma. I sate my belly with both. Which morsel are you seeking? The smell or the crust?"

"I would seek knowledge. The knowledge of Vydassion and Shamma. The knowledge of Vydassion and Z'Harizaam." Khym paused, twisting his mustachios about his little finger a moment. "Z'Harizaam fears Shamma's love for Vydassion, it seems. Or vice versa. And I find myself trapped within their triangle."

"Shamma seeks love like a door-mouse; yet she seeks power like a lioness. And jealousy is the serpent at her throat. She fears her influence is slipping down a cataract. A cataract that is a concubine in her own temple. Z'Harizaam's fear is more visceral. It is a young woman's fancy. A thought tied too much to an ambitious man."

"A lodestone has two poles; by which does Vydassion sail?"

"That is a question Shamma and Z'Harizaam must settle. After speaking with you, Z'Harizaam did not return to the temple. And Shamma has not been seen at the mid-day supplications."

"In this city, words such as you have spoken are worthy of the axeman's block or the inquisitor's rack at the least."

"I have told you my news. Have you anything to share with an old woman?" She drew her shawl about her head. "I do love the tales of Chu the Great Pirate. Do you know any I haven't heard?"

"I would know the stories of Admiral Chu you have heard?" asked Khym.

"You strike me as one such as the pirate, and thusly would know of more recent adventures."

"I am but a humble merchant with a falchion about my person. Admiral Chu was a great warrior armed with a long katana in one hand and slender sai in the other. Chu sailed the Inland Sea a century ago. Surely he is dead or at least a wizened, old man sitting in his moon-gazing tower each night, a green tea or rice wine beside him."

"Mayhap a warrior owes more to cunning than sharpened steel, good merchant," Jiada said. "There are many who claim Chu to be the Emperor's only son."

"Many make claim to the missing heir. Such claims are as seashells washed up by the morning's tide. You can hear many lies if you hold them up to your ear."

"You speak with such decisiveness. Do you know the Eastern Empire's court?"

"I have an ending to a tale you have not heard."

"That I believe," Jiada said.

* * *

The sun hung tired and orange in the sky as it set down for the night's approach and the canal water blackened quickly as the darkness drew its first breath from great lake's mist. The canal gurgled like a drowning man as it emptied into the lake. Dracols cried out pitilessly to the moon, already majestic in the sky. Their voices seemed to spew sounds like a sleeping child to Khym's ears. His skiff sliced though the water effortlessly.

Khym pulled the boat onto the bank of the canal. Moonlight cast a luminous curtain upon the leaves of the surrounding trees. Z'Harizaam stood on the rocks lining the canal.

"I must say that I am surprised by your presence. From our earlier conversation, I feared I would have a solitary journey back to Dawn Breaker."

Z'Harizaam glanced about the wooded landscape. "I have decided to stay in Shandaloor."

"Then you have come all this way to inform me of this! Has your city no messengers, no street urchins who can carry a word?"

"I have come to reveal the truth." Her voice was loud, louder than needed to carry over the dracol's noise.

"Reveal it to whom?" asked Khym.

Z'Harizaam paused, looking expectantly to the woods. There was movement in the bushes. A figure came out of the darkness.

"Vydassion will not be coming." It was Shamma.

"What have you done to him," screamed Z'Harizaam, lunging for Shamma. Khym grabbed her arms, as she tried to claw the other woman's eyes.

"Nothing", replied Shamma. "Or nothing much. Just a simple sleeping potion."

Z'Harizaam broke free of Khym's grasp. "Vydassion will know the truth." Turning back to Khym, she commanded: "You will tell him. You will tell him Shamma's plans, what she hired you to do."

"Your assignment will no longer be required," she told Khym and to Z'Harizaam she said "I tried to be merciful and give you a chance for exile, but by your efforts to poison the captain against me, I am taking actions myself."

Shamma raised her arms. Upon her flesh were painted gyres and hieroglyphs: secret sigils. Z'Harizaam stepped back. Shamma chanted in a low voice. Z'Harizaam began speaking the protective spells of Murluk's order.

Khym drew his crescent blade. "Whatever you plan, stop it now," he ordered and stepped forward to enforce his command. He felt the air change about him as he moved. He felt the eldritch forces rise, like the wind before a thunderstorm. He stopped, held beyond the bubble of magick as a fish is trapped in the Censwadd, unable to walk the streets of Shandaloor. Bound so, Khym could only watch the enfolding tableau of the two women.

Zephyr breezes jostled Z'Harizaam's hair and rays of the rhadamanthine moon suddenly shone like spears on the ground about her. Z'Harizaam slowly began to move in her own St. Vitas dance, swinging in rhythm with the waxing moon. Undulating, spiraling and wild, she danced. Khym could smell the heat from her body. Her arms flailed about. Her black hair whirled in the still air. Beads of salty sweat swept across her flesh. Shamma stepped closer, chanting louder, louder, nearly shouting her imprecations above the silence.

As Z'Harizaam danced faster and faster, Shamma looked more drained. Her face became flush and her movements were labored and slow. Suddenly it was over: Shamma fainted and Z'Harizaam fell to the ground, standing upon her four paws -- a large black tiger transformed. The beast sniffed at the fallen form of her foe. Shamma lay still, her breathing shallow and pained. And then that also ceased.

The cat looked up to the luminous moon and roared on the banks of the Censwadd, in sight of the lofty spires of Shandaloor. Z'Harizaam turned and trod toward the Clowders of the M'rrr.

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