It would take about a week to sail to the Euxine’s northern coast, so Gontran made sure—good merchant that he was—to inventory the Paralos’s food stores, though he soon gave up after he realized that the supplies here could last months, seeing as how they had been lain in for a larger crew, one which the Latins had either killed or captured.
What if they’ve captured Alexios, too? Gontran thought. What if they killed Herakleia?
He pushed this painful notion out of his mind, focusing instead on how far the Paralos could sail with so many supplies. Soon enough he realized that they could travel almost forever, that it might take them away from all their troubles.
We could just sail on out of here…
Samonas later told him that there were many places to go. The Paralos might take them north, up the Dnieper River through the lands of Varangian Rus, trading silk for precious furs. There was even the possibility of putting the ship on rollers and dragging it from the Don to the Volga. Then they could sail down into the Hyrkanian Ocean, which led to Transoxiana, Khotan, the Taklamakan Desert, and lands beyond. Years had passed since Gontran had visited the Seres, and he longed to go back, anything to escape this place and all his troubles, his mood shifting with the wind. One moment he wanted to help Trebizond; the next he never wanted to see it again. In a way, that was why he was here to begin with, so far from his birthplace, in a time when few people ever ventured more than a few miles from home. Gontran loved to travel, to explore, and—most important of all—to make money. Here he checked the hundred and twenty golden nomismas which never left his pockets.
If the ship went west, on the other hand, the Danube would take them into the heart of France, to the vineyards and forests, the rolling wine country…
One way or the other, he could make a run for it, just like he always did. They could forget about the uprising. It was over. Gontran had been right about it all along—although of course no one had said so. The Latins had crushed it. That meant that nothing was dishonorable about running away, and any direction was fine. If Gontran went south, he could breeze past Konstantinopolis (and Abydos, where Maleïnos was always looking for him), sail into the Middle Sea all the way to France, and finally free his family from their feudal lords.
Yet he had so many responsibilities now. Alexios was probably still alive, and the same went for Herakleia. They had a chance. And lately Gontran almost never thought of his family back in Metz. He was too busy. When he had first decided to flee Lord Chlotar, he’d asked them to join him, and they—loving the sweet chains that tickled their wrists and ankles—refused. They were still getting something out of manor life, unbelievable as it seemed. Gontran, in contrast, got nothing.
Less than nothing.
Then there was the rest of the Paralos crew to consider. Diaresso would never abandon Tamar. And it was hard to imagine Samonas doing anything except working at his desk or dispensing advice. The absent-minded professor who still couldn’t remember his companions’ names after living and working alongside them for three continuous days would wither and die like a rose in the first winter frost without the open-air university that was Trebizond. A single day working on a farm would kill him. Then there was Talia, who might toss them all overboard if they gave up on finding her coal.
Gontran was selfish and greedy, it was true, but circumstance forced him to be better. He could never survive out here on his own, and the others would refuse to come with him to France.
So I’m stuck, Gontran thought. At least for now.
Following Samonas’s advice, Talia piloted the ship east. Within a day they found the coastline and turned north. Samonas told them that the Paralos should keep its distance from the shore.
“We ought to stay within sight of land,” he said. “But only barely. We must be certain that we don’t tempt any quaint fishermen into transforming, via the most mystical alchemy imaginable, into bloodthirsty pirates.”
“Do you fear that we shall not discover this floating city of which you have so often been quacking like an over-confident duck?” Diaresso said.
“Not in the slightest.” Samonas patted Diaresso’s back. “Don’t you worry, my good sir! If Kitezh truly lies in our future, we’ll find it.”
Diaresso crossed his arms. “You have quaffed too much of the ship’s wine.”
“Ah, yes, well, perhaps that is so,” Samonas said. “What of it?”
“The wine has only further muddled your already muddled mind.”
“Then it shall grow so impossibly muddled that it will take a sort of reverse-shortcut-inside-out path to wisdom!”
“You mean to say that you shall become so foolish that your foolishness will circle back to the knowledge of the most learned scholars?”
“Precisely.”
“I am no scholar, and yet something tells me that constantly drinking oneself into a stupor is not exactly the path to brilliance. It is far more like the path to destitution!”
“Yet I am a scholar, which means that since you are so uneducated and unqualified, you ought to listen to me, even if my words seem like balderdash to your uncultured and unrefined ears.”
“The only problem with Islam,” Diaresso said, glancing at the sky, “is that it has yet to sweep over this place. Were it to do as much, it would also sweep over you.”
“Oh? Is there no place among the merciless Sarakenoi for one such as myself?”
“We believe in hard work and practical knowledge, while you believe in laziness and abstruse trivia.”
“It’s the trivium, actually.”
“Therefore I would agree with you for once,” Diaresso said. “There is no place for you in the House of Islam—save the mines.”
Samonas crossed himself. “Then may God have mercy upon my soul.”
—
Even in the winter, the eastern coast of Pontos was mountainous, lush, and green, with snow-capped peaks descending to forests of pines so tall their tips sliced the clouds. It was sparsely populated, however, and the Paralos encountered no other ships. This was a consequence, Samonas explained, of the region’s proximity to the steppe.
“Great empires once ruled this part of the world,” Samonas told the crew, which was too bored to silence him. “For centuries the Khazars dominated the steppe from their great fortress capital of Atil, which lay along the northern Hyrkanian coastline, though now its apricot orchards are desiccated and fruitless, the honey from its apiaries is as hard and solid as Baltic amber electrum, its streets are quiet but for the murmurs of the wind, its towers are plagued with owls and spiders—”
“We get the picture,” Gontran said. “And please, I can’t stand spiders. I can’t even deal with people bringing them up.”
“Ah, well, nevertheless,” Samonas said.
Five days after fleeing Trebizond, Gontran spotted something on the horizon. Once the object emerged from the fog, he called the others up to the deck. It was morning, and Talia was still at the steering oars, having never relinquished them, her blue flame eyes burning.
Soon Diaresso and Samonas joined Gontran at the ship’s prow. In the distance was a boat of a size all of them would have thought impossible. It was comparable in its immensity to something called an “aircraft carrier” from the old world, only those ships were made of steel, while this one was made of wood. Just above the water was a line of oarlocks for hundreds of oars, and this was only on the side of the ship facing the Paralos. Above these oarlocks were all the buildings which could be found in a small city, including a keep, a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and many residences and storehouses, more than a few built of stone, all clustered beneath enormous white sails, their masts held in place by stays that were each as thick as a person. These huge ropes stretched around the buildings to fore and aft and port and starboard. From a distance, the architectural style seemed almost “proto-Russian” to Gontran’s old world self. The buildings were mostly square or rectangular and made of brick, but they rose into triangular rooftops and round cupolas that were straining to become the spectacular domes and towers with the rich layer cake colors and stripes that characterized later periods.
Gontran had trouble believing his eyes. How could something so big stay afloat? Wouldn’t a storm capsize it?
“Samonas, you are like unto a sorcerer,” Diaresso said. “You have conjured this vessel—this place—from the void.”
“Were it only so,” Samonas said. “I would conjure far more than mere Kitezh, if I could. I would conjure an entire army to save our friends…”
“I can’t believe I never heard of it,” Gontran said, staring at the vast boat in the distance.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I am afraid, my good sir, that there is much you do not know about the world,” Samonas said. “Though you may have traveled on your own two feet, I can move much faster with my eyes roving over the sentences scrawled in codes and codices. One moment I am in Byzantion, the next I am in Taprobanâ, then amongst the barbarians of Thoúlē a thousand years in the past, and then amongst the pagans in the future whilst the Last Judgment takes place.” He looked at Diaresso.
“Are these folk peaceful, Samonas?” Diaresso said. “Or are they warlike?”
“Like everything, my good sir, their mood depends upon the circumstance. Subtract all the food from the friendliest and most peaceable fellow you could possibly imagine, and within a day or so he will be transformed into a most angry and dangerous rogue, as thirsty for blood as a rabid beast.”
“That is not an answer,” Diaresso said.
As they drew nearer to Kitezh, a pair of Varangian longships raced out from behind the vessel’s far side and swung toward the Paralos. Their drums pounded as their crews oared the waves, singing Viking songs to the beat.
“Shall I continue on our present course?” Talia said.
Nobody answered; it was already too late. Diaresso armed his crossbow. Gontran found a sword inside a sheathe in the miniature armory belowdecks and belted this around Samonas’s waist.
“But I haven’t the faintest idea of how to utilize any weaponry,” Samonas said. “I am, as the old adage goes, a lover, not a fighter.”
“Well, then you can start loving to use a sword,” Gontran said.
The two approaching longships swung around to either side of the Paralos, then deployed their sails as they drew up almost close enough to touch. An enormous armored man standing on the deck of the longship to starboard addressed them, his muscled arms akimbo as his vessel surged along the waves. To Gontran he somehow looked Turkish and Varangian at the same time.
A Turkish Varangian. Or a Varangian Turk. Samonas said something like that earlier, didn’t he?
The Khazari wore the white head covering beneath an onion-shaped iron helmet which was typical of Turks, but his braided hair and beard were orange, and his blue eyes flashed like amethysts. Turks came in all shapes, sizes, and colors—it was more a lifestyle and a language than a race—but it was uncommon to see one who looked so Varangian.
“Greek ship, what be thy business here?” The Varangian Turk spoke with an indeterminate accent and an absurdly antiquated formality, as if he had learned his Greek from reading the old literary Attic dialect of Aeschylos, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
Gontran glanced back and forth. The entire Paralos crew was watching. Shrugging, he stepped forward and was about to answer when Samonas shuffled in front of him.
“Greetings, my good sir!” Samonas said. “We hail from the noble city of Trebizond, mistress of the world!”
Gontran covered his face with his hand.
“We have come to your beautiful—er—homeland, I suppose you could call it—or homewater, rather, homelandwater—to seek asylum from the wars that do so miserably plague our dear, dear Romanía,” Samonas continued.
“Kitezh be not a sanctuary,” the Varangian Turk said. “It be not a brothel for entertainment. We takest no sides in the world’s infighting.”
“But you would never turn away guests seeking a respite from their troubles?” Samonas said. “Would that not go against the rules of hospitality?”
“That be barbaric behavior, it be true,” the Varangian Turk said.
“Will you then allow us to come aboard, my good sir? All of us will readily swear to abide by your laws, whatever they may be.”
If you step on a flower, the sentence is death, Gontran thought.
“Be thy purpose only asylum?”
“Ah, but if only that were the case,” Samonas said. “You see, we wish to speak with your lord—your khagan or árchōn or despótēs, whichever is the proper term.” He bowed.
“Benjamin Khagan doth not simply speak with any whelps amongst the commoners,” the Varangian Turk said.
What’s he saying? Gontran thought. I can barely understand him…
“Er, no one at all?” Samonas said.
“What be thy business with him?” the Varangian Turk said.
Samonas glanced at Gontran and Diaresso. “The people of Trebizond wish to forge an alliance with Kitezh against Rome.”
“Art thou serious?”
Samonas nodded. “I am always deeply serious, my good sir.”
The Varangian Turk laughed. One of his men asked something in what was presumably the Khazar language. He answered in what seemed to be the same language, and then all the men on both boats roared with laughter.
“Is it really so absurd?” Samonas said to Diaresso and Gontran.
“Kitezh be a place for trade, not war,” the Varangian Turk said, when the laughter had died down. “We seekest money, not blood.”
“I find they’re one and the same, more often than not,” Samonas murmured.
“What didst thou utter?” the Varangian Turk said.
“Oh, merely that the twain could not be more different, and that yours is a most commendable pursuit.” Samonas nodded.
“Thou mayest entertain Benjamin Khagan,” the Varangian Turk said. “Perhaps as fools. Follow us now to Great Kitezh. Follow Sparhawk.”
“Very well, thank you, we would be only too happy to oblige,” Samonas said.
The drumming rhythm accelerated, and the two ships—one of which was evidently called the Sparhawk—pulled ahead of the Paralos.
“This may be our final chance to turn back,” Diaresso said.
“As I think about it,” Samonas said, “I can’t be certain of the reasons for our coming here in the first place. Why, that rascal laughed at me when I was being totally honest with him!”
“They said no to our alliance,” Gontran murmured. “At least Armored Shakespeare did. So maybe there’s no point. Maybe we should turn back—”
A flaming arrow shot out from the Sparhawk and dove into the sea mere inches from the Paralos.
“Follow now!” the Varangian Turk cried. “Or thou shalt sink with all aboard at our hands!”
Samonas waved his arms. “Very well, my good sir! We’ll be right along, then!” He grimaced at Gontran and Diaresso, then turned back to Talia. “What’s the matter with you? Why haven’t you—oh, what’s the nautical term I’m looking for—come about?”
Talia was silent and still. Gontran narrowed his eyebrows and approached her.
“Talia?” he said.
She neither answered nor moved. Mindful of how she had knocked him down when they first met, Gontran hesitantly reached out and touched her. This time there was no reaction. Her metal skin was like ice, and no steam was pouring from the gaps in her segments. The fires in her eyes had gone out.
“Come now!” the Varangian Turk shouted. “Follow now!”
Gontran opened Talia’s belly and saw that her furnace had extinguished its fuel. Diaresso and Samonas joined him.
“What the devil is the matter with her?” Samonas said.
“Ran out of gas,” Gontran said. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Inshallah, we shall find the coal which Talia’s heart so earnestly desires in this Kitezh.” Diaresso eyed the city-ship in the distance.
“Come on,” Gontran said. “Help me move her away from the steering oars. Looks like we’re going to have to pilot the ship ourselves.”
“Oh, bother,” Samonas said. “I had rather gotten used to having her handle everything for us.”
“Samonas, when was the last time you lifted a finger for anyone except yourself on this ship?” Gontran said.
“Why, have you already forgotten how I single-handedly oared us out of the Isle of Creation to our salvation?”
“My memory is different,” Diaresso said.
Samonas continued. “And did you not just witness a display of my raw charisma as I negotiated our safe passage to our destination?”
“That guy only let us in because you cracked him up,” Gontran said. “That reminds me—I’ll do the talking next time.”
“Only in your dreams, my good sir.”
Together, the three men lifted Talia from the steering oars, though she was so heavy they could only push her a little to the side. Then, just as the Khazar ships were about to turn around, Gontran and Diaresso took the steering oars and guided the Paralos toward Kitezh. By some miracle the Khazars had yet to notice Talia.
“That be better!” the Varangian Turk cried.
As they approached Kitezh, they found a floating wooden dock attached to the enormous vessel’s stern. The crews of the approaching longships threw out ropes which men on the docks tied to mooring posts. The Paralos followed. Gontran and Diaresso climbed the masts to take in the sails, and by the time they had returned to the deck the Varangian Turk was already aboard. He was alone, although he was so large in his chainmail and armor that he looked like he could easily overpower the three men.
“Welcome to Kitezh,” he said. “My name be Baghatur Tarkhan. Thou shalt follow.”
“Very well, my good sir,” Samonas said. “Lead on.”
Tarkhan was about to climb back onto the dock, but Talia caught his eye.
“What be that?” he said.
“Oh,” Samonas said. “A statue. We were hoping to have her fitted to the prow, but we, er, ran out of time, as it were.”
Tarkhan approached Talia and examined her. “She be of a pretty beauty indeed.” He looked at Samonas. “Wilt thou tradest her for divers items of interest?”
“She’s not for sale, unfortunately,” Samonas said. “She has a great deal of sentimental value, you know.”
“Namest thou thy price,” Tarkhan said. “We have in their hundreds and thousands beaver and marten pelts here in Great Kitezh. The price they fetch in Miklagarðr makes God himself jealous as cuckold.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure of it,” Samonas said. “In spite of this rather blasphemous claim of yours. And yet I am forced once more to inform you that—”
“Bah!” Tarkhan waved his enormous muscular arm. Then he jumped over the side of the ship and landed on the deck so loudly it almost sounded like he had split the timbers and crashed through to the sea.
Gontran and Diaresso looked at each other, then followed. After they landed, they turned to catch Samonas—fearful that he would fall into the water and drown—but he managed to climb over the side of the Paralos and stumble onto the dock.
Tarkhan led them through a stone gate—which was even guarded by a tower of the same material—and into the city. Unbelievably, they found themselves walking on a dirt street in a trading settlement. They saw a carriage pulled by two horses, a blacksmith hammering sparks from the glowing sword he was pressing to his anvil, and even a chorus of monks singing inside a small white church, which had a golden cupola built above the entrance. The buildings and walls rose up around the Paralos crew so that they were unable to see the water, yet everything here was swaying with the tide, and the white sails above the rooftop were fluttering in the wind.
“Subhanallah,” Diaresso said, awed by his surroundings.
“How is any of this possible?” Gontran said. “Isn’t it all too heavy?”
“We have met with one instance of devilry on this voyage after another,” Diaresso said. “Perhaps we have already died, and we have been cast into hell, and yet we are kept in ignorance of this our lamentable fate.”
“How can you call this place hell?” Samonas said. “This isn’t hell. This is heaven!”