by Tad Williams
They were all leaving the Flower Meadow, the biggest marketplace in Tessis, and Briony was quite overwhelmed. The sheer size of the market was boggling—there seemed to be more folk here today, filing past the rows of stalls and blankets, than lived in all of the March Kingdoms, and the fabulous variety of goods on offer made Briony feel not just poor but ignorant: she hadn’t heard of half the things for sale or half the places the things came from.
“Interesting . . . ?” she repeated slowly, turning to watch an oxcart piled high with gold-painted shrines. Greater Zosimia was only a few weeks away, a popular festival celebrating the end of winter. Back home it was mostly an excuse to drape vines and sprinkle dried flowers on the statues of the gods, but apparently the celebration here in Syan was much more elaborate. “I’m worried that if I see any more interesting things my head will swell up and pop like a bubble . . . but I suppose we could. Will our guards mind?”
Ivgenia looked at the four soldiers in blue tabards and rolled her eyes. “They’re here to spy on you, not tell us where to go,” she said. “They’ll follow where we lead them.”
Briony leaned closer to her friend. “Do you think that’s true?” she asked in a low voice.
“What? That they’ll follow, or that they’re here to spy on you?” Ivgenia made a face. “All of them may not be spies, your Highness, but I can assure you that at least one of them is going back to the king’s favorite and telling her where you went today. Might as well give them something to tell.”
Her skirts held up so they would not drag in the muddy road, the dark-haired girl led Briony, the ladies-in-waiting, and the soldiers away from the market, but instead of heading back toward the palace they crossed wide, bustling Lantern Broad near Devona Fountain Square and turned down what looked to Briony like an ordinary narrow street, although judging by the line of rooftops it was higher than the streets on either side. Only when they had pushed their way through the eddying crowd did Briony see that the high street was actually a bridge across the river, lined on both sides with shops and houses.
“Over there,” Ivgenia said. “On the far side of the Ester. They call it Underbridge.”
“Who calls it that?”
“You’ll see. Come on!” Ivgenia led Briony, the stoic soldiers, and the anxious girls into the flow of human traffic on the bridge. It was still cold, windy Dimene, less than two months since the beginning of the year, so where did all these people come from? Briony couldn’t help wondering what the place would be like in Hexamene when the sun was warm and fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers filled the market.
Still, the wonder of this daunting place made her miss her own home—humble Market Square (although she had seldom thought of it as humble before) and even Market Row, which seemed now to be a mere alleyway compared to most of the main roads of Tessis, let alone when placed beside the Lantern Broad, which was wide as a tilting yard, a street with great stone walkways in its middle so people could find a place to stand that was safe from the heavy wagons crowding the thoroughfare. In places people had even crammed small houses onto these raised walkways! Briony could scarcely believe her eyes—a road big enough to have houses in the middle of it!
But it wasn’t home, of course. And more important, they didn’t need her here, or even particularly want her.
On the far side of the bridge Ivgenia made the soldiers stop. She promised she and Briony wouldn’t go out of sight and left the maids to entertain them—a task the girls preferred anyway, since they seemed to regard these Kallikans, whatever they were, as something faintly unsavory. Then Ivgenia led Briony down into a neighborhood of houses and shops so small that at first Briony thought it was something constructed for a royal child—an entire doll’s street instead of just a single dollhouse. The tops of the doors scarcely came to her shoulders.
As Briony stood staring up and down the miniature road, wishing she could get on a stepstool to look into the windows on the upper floors, a woman less than half her size walked out of a house a few doors away to toss out a pan of slops, trailed by a pair of tiny children. The children saw Briony and Ivgenia instantly, and stared at them with unabashed interest, but it was only after the woman had finished shaking out the pan that she discovered she was being watched. Eyes wide, she stared back at the noblewomen for long moments, motionless as a startled mouse, then grabbed her children and scuttled back through her doorway and closed it behind her.
“If we’d been men, or had the soldiers with us, somebody would have rung the bell there.” Ivgenia pointed to a temple tower, half-sized like everything else. “Then likely nobody would have come out at all. The whole street’s full of folk just like her. Dozens and dozens.”
“Funderlings?”
“Kallikans, silly! You wanted to see them.”
“Back home we call them Funderlings. I didn’t know you had them here.” Briony shook her head: it all seemed quite dreamlike. “Isn’t that strange—even a different name! Ours live in a big city of their own under Southmarch Castle. They made the place out of solid rock, with a very famous roof that looks like leaves and birds and . . .”
“The king and all, they made ours build here, up where everyone could see them,” said Ivgenia. “They can be mischievous, you know. They steal.”
Briony hadn’t heard that said about the Funderlings back home—it was the Skimmers who were supposed to be unreliable, with their strange looks and strange language. “Do you have Skimmers too?” she asked.
But Ivgenia was already off, beckoning Briony to follow her down the narrow, winding street, deeper into the Kallikan neighborhood. Now the anxious guards came hurrying after them and Briony heard upstairs windows slamming shut, shutters rattling into place, as the little people made their secrets safe from the Big Folk.
By the time they got back to Broadhall they had missed supper in the great banquet hall. Ivgenia went in search of something to eat but Briony was tired. She was still hungry, though, so after a while she sent Talia, her youngest maid, down to the kitchens to ask for a bowl of soup and some bread while her other ladies helped unlace the tight jacket she had worn out to the market and remove her shoes and hose. The fire was roaring in the fireplace and she wanted nothing more than to sit in front of it and warm her chilled toes.
She had settled in, and might even have drowsed a bit, when a horrible clatter in the passageway outside made her jump. One of the maids ran to the door and peered out, then screamed.
Briony shoved past the terrified girl and discovered little Talia facedown in the hall in a puddle of spilled soup and broken crockery. When she turned the girl over her face was dark blue, her eyes staring as if in horror. Briony jumped up, fighting the urge to be sick. The little maid was obviously dead.
“Poison!” Briony’s legs were trembling so badly she had to lean against the wall. The maids and other ladies stood huddled, wide-eyed, in the doorway. “Poor thing, she must have drunk a little of the soup on the way back. She said she was hungry. Oh, merciful Zoria—that was meant for me.”
6
Broken Teeth
“The Book of Regret is a fairy chronicle which is claimed to contain the history of everything that has ever happened and of everything yet to come. According to Rhantys every page is of hammered gold and it is bound in pure adamant. Some old stories suggest the Theomachy, or Godwar, was fought over the theft of this book rather than the kidnapping of Zoria.”
—from “A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand”
BARRICK HAD OFTEN CRITICIZED his sister Briony for her slovenly habits. She let dogs sleep in her bed even on warm nights, dropped her shoes wherever she took them off, and would cradle the muddiest, most disgusting creature in the world to her breast as long as it was a baby—whether puppy, foal, kitten, lamb, or chick. However, despite all the times Briony had driven her more fastidious brother into a rage, his strongest wish now was that he could speak to her again and apologize for saying that she was the most untidy thing that had ever lived . . .
because now he knew better. No creature, not even some blind worm living in the very privies of Kernios, could be more disgusting than the raven Skurn, with his meals of frogspawn and festering mouse carcasses, his verminous, patchy feathers, and his constant smell of blood, rot, and ordure.
The big dark bird ate constantly, head bobbing up and down over some horror or other with the infuriating regularity of a waterwheel in a strong current. And Skurn ate anything and everything—bugs out of the air, droppings of other birds off the trees, slugs, and snails and anything else too slow to avoid his horny black beak. Nor was he a tidy eater: his breast was always covered with a drying crust of whatever he’d eaten last, often with some bits still faintly twitching. And his other habits were even more dreadful. Skurn was not careful about where he defecated at the best of times, but when he was startled he gave up all discretion: wayward droppings might splash on Barrick’s shoulder or even into his hair.
“But us doesn’t shit on you a-purpose,” Skurn pointed out after one such accident when he was startled by a falling branch. “And as must be said, so far us’s kept you clear of the silkins.”
That at least was true. Since Skurn had returned, he had helped Barrick through Silky Wood with little contact from the creatures after whom it was named. A pair of silent stalkers had followed them for a while a few sleeps back, but had come no closer than the lower branches. Perhaps, Barrick thought with a touch of pride, word had spread of how he had dealt with their kin. (More likely, though, he recognized, was that they were simply waiting until more of them had gathered.)
He hadn’t seen a sign of them at all yesterday or today, and had actually managed a few hours of sleep while the raven Skurn played sentry—or claimed he had, anyway: not only was Skurn self-serving, he was old. Once Barrick had actually seen him doze off midflight, lose control of his wings, and crack his head against a tree trunk, spinning to the ground like a clump of black leaves. As he hurried toward him, Barrick had been sure the raven had broken his neck.
Is it a heresy, Barrick couldn’t help wondering, to pray to gods whose existence you are confused about and whose kindness you certainly doubt, begging for the safety of a brute of a bird you do not even like?
“I don’t believe you know where you’re going at all,” he shouted at the bird. “We’re going in circles!”
“No circles,” protested Skurn. “All looks the same, this, ’cause un goes on and on.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Between the mist, the thick trees, and the eternal twilight, Barrick had never been able to get a real idea of where he was or what this part of the shadowlands looked like, but they had been trooping through endless, indistinguishable forest so long that he was becoming desperate to see something of where he was. Thus, despite Skurn’s strong disapproval, he began to climb uphill toward what he hoped would be a break in the trees and some kind of view.
“Stay away from high ground and low,” said Skurn, fluttering nervously as he struggled to avoid the branches bending close overhead. “That’s sense! Everybody knows of that.”
“I don’t.” Barrick didn’t want to talk: his arm was already aching and he wanted to save the breath he had for climbing.
Muttering darkly, the raven fluttered ahead up the slope but soon returned.
“Us thinks us knows this place, now. Tine Fay be here. They nest all hereabouts.”
“Tine Fay? Nest?” Barrick shook his head. “Are they worse than the silkins?”
The raven lowered his head into his feathered shoulders, a corvine shrug. “Don’t think so. In fact, they be somewhat slurpsome if un can separate ’em from they weapons . . .”
“So let me be, then.”
“Not worse than them silkies, p’raps,” the raven grumbled. “But us didn’t say nice, either.”
What might have been an hour later he was still toiling uphill, ignoring an arm that burned like fire as he dragged himself over fallen trees and through clinging undergrowth—worst of all the creeper whose vines were covered with tiny thorns and whose velvety black flowers bobbed at the ends of the largest stalks, big as cabbages. These creepers seemed to colonize entire hillsides and choke out everything else, even the smaller trees, growing so thick that he would have needed a scythe to cut through them, although even then it would have been hard, sweaty work. Wherever Barrick found the blackflower vines—and they were all over these hills—he could only turn and make his way around them. Still, one advantage of the eternal twilight was that just as full light never came, neither did full darkness. At least he did not have to fear night finding him exposed on the hillside.
But where did this twilight come from? Barrick understood that clouds and fog could cover the land and keep out the sun, but how could they hold light in the world after the sun had gone down for the day? While they were keeping the shadowlands in twilight did they soak up the sun’s rays like a dry rag in a puddle of water, so that light continued to leak into the sky long after the actual sun was gone?
What does it matter? It’s more fairy magic. But it made him wonder about the gods, who from all he had heard seemed little different from men, at least in the ways they lived their lives. Perhaps Perin and Kernios and the others had not become the masters of mankind because they were gods—perhaps they were gods only because they had been powerful enough to make themselves masters of mankind . . .
Skurn dropped out of the sky and landed on his shoulder, making Barrick jump and curse out loud. “Quiet, now,” the bird hissed in his ear. “Somewhat be moving in the trees ahead.”
Heart beating fast, Barrick pulled his broken spear from his belt, then took a deep breath and stepped forward, pushing aside a branch to reveal a small clearing, a relatively bare patch on the hillside. There was indeed much movement in the trees and rustling among the branches, but the creatures swarming there were smaller than Barrick’s smallest finger.
“They’re . . . little people!” he said. “Like in the stories!”
An instant after he finished speaking a shrill horn call sounded from the greenery near him and a shower of sharp little objects came flitting down all around. Two or three stuck into the back of Barrick’s hand; he cried out in pain and tried to shake the tiny arrows out of his skin but another shower of miniature barbs followed, stinging his face and scalp like horseflies.
“Stop it!” he shouted and turned again, but every direction he chose seemed to be full of prickling darts. At last he put his arm across his face and ran forward until he reached the first branch he had seen. As the tiny men scattered Barrick had a brief glimpse of chitinous armor like beetles’ shells. He caught the branch before any but a few had escaped and shook it until little bodies were falling all around him. He caught as many as he could, perhaps half a dozen, and lifted the squirming but largely undamaged mass above his head as a shield. He heard shrill squeals in the trees above and the storm of miniature arrows suddenly stopped. “Yes, tell them to stop shooting at us, Skurn!” he shouted. “Tell them we mean no harm!”
“Us said to stay off high places,” Skurn reminded him sourly, but after a moment Barrick heard the bird say something in a loud rush of trills and clicks. After a pause, Skurn spoke again—Barrick guessed that the voice of whoever was speaking for the tiny people was too quiet for him to hear. The raven’s voice and the seeming silence alternated for long moments.
“Us thinks Tine Fay mought give us safe passage if you let loose those in your hand. Us told them you wouldn’t keep more than two or three to eat.”
“Three to eat? Three of what . . . ?” Barrick suddenly understood. “The gods curse you, you foul bird! We’re not going to eat them!”
“Not for you,” Skurn said, hurt. “Knowed you wouldn’t. More like they were for me . . .”
“Listen to your foulness! These are people . . . of a sort, anyway. More than can be said for you.” Barrick looked down. One of the tiny bark-clad men was struggling to cling to his sleeve, legs kicking above what must have been a terrif
ying fall. The little fellow’s bird-skull helmet had tumbled off and his eyes bulged with terror. “For the love of the Three Brothers, they’re even wearing armor!” While still keeping his head protected, Barrick moved his arm closer to his body so that the little fellow could gain the security of his tattered jacket.
“They armor shucks off easy enough,” said Skurn. “And them is proper toothsome underneath. ’Specially they young ones . . .”
“Oh, be quiet. You are disgusting, bird. Not to mention that while you’re talking like that up a tree, I’m the one who’s going to get an arrow in my eye if anything goes wrong. Tell them I’m going to put them all down, if that’s what they want, and not to let fly at me. Tell them that I’m going to let them all go, or by the gods, Skurn, I’m going to pull your tail feathers out.”
While the raven relayed these words to the Tine Fay, Barrick slowly lowered his hands from his head and down to the ground. The little people, who from terror or pragmatism had stropped struggling, carefully slid to safety. He hoped he had not killed any, not because it shamed him—they had been shooting arrows at him, after all—but because it would make things more difficult now. That was a lesson of his father’s: “Don’t rub your enemy’s face in the dirt when you have him down,” Olin had often said, “not if you intend to let him up again afterward. Insults take longer to heal than wounds.” It had never made much sense to him before, since Barrick felt he was usually the one whose face was being rubbed in the dirt, but now he was beginning to understand it. Going through life was perhaps a bit like going through this horrible forest: the fewer things behind you that hated you, the less strength you had to use watching your back and the better you could worry about what was coming.
When the prisoners were all safe the rest of the Tine Fay slowly made their way down from the trees and from underneath the bushes in the clearing—perhaps a hundred in all. It was not only their minute size that separated them from true men, Barrick decided: their features were longer and stranger, especially their pointed noses and chins, and their limbs seemed in some cases as thin as spiders’ legs. In most other respects, though, they were not much different than people many times their size. Their armor had been ingeniously constructed from bark, nutshells, and insect cases, and their spears were skewers of what looked like whittled bone. The looks on their faces were even those of a full-sized army in uneasy truce: as Barrick crawled toward them they all watched with fear and distrust, clearly ready to bolt back into the undergrowth if he showed any hint of treachery.