by Tad Williams
The playwright’s expression was unhappy. “Please don’t punish me for meddling in your family’s affairs, Highness. I only did what Lord Brone told me—I swear I would not have served him if I thought anything evil was intended!”
“I doubt he made the choice as easy as that,” Briony said with a sour grin. “I would guess he offered you payment for your troubles, but also threatened you if you would not consent.”
Teodoros nodded his head solemnly. “He said we would never have a license to play in Southmarch again.”
“Tell me what he wanted you to do.”
Teodoros took a kerchief from his sleeve and mopped his shining brow. He had lost a little weight since the Syannese had imprisoned him but he was still a stout man. “I delivered letters here to the royal court, as you know, but I have no idea what was in them. I was also told to leave a message for Dawet dan-Faar in a certain tavern, and I did. The message said we would be at The False Woman—that I had news for him from Southmarch. But I never had a chance to talk to him. I don’t know how he managed to get away from those soldiers . . .”
“I expect they let him go,” Briony said. “I was a bit distracted at the time, but the whole thing had the look of a . . .” she put her finger beside her nose, “ . . . a quiet understanding between Dawet and the guards.” She shook her head. Spycraft—it was a maddening, sticky swamp. “And what were you to tell Dawet if you had been able?”
“I was to say that . . . that a bargain could still be made, but not only would Drakava have to return Olin, but also send a troop of armed men with him to prevent treachery by the Tollys who were trying to usurp the throne.”
She felt a moment of shock. “A bargain with Drakava? Did he mean the hundred thousand gold dolphins or my hand in marriage? Was Brone offering me to Drakava—something my own father and brother had not done?”
Teodoros shrugged. “I have done errands for Avin Brone before now. He gives me only what I must have, usually a sealed letter. With dan-Faar he did not trust anything to be written down and told me no more than he needed to.”
Briony sat back, hot blood rushing to her face. “Is that so? Perhaps the Count of Landsend has some plans of his own—secrets, even.”
The playwright looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I . . . I . . . I do not know any more of what he wanted with the Tuani-man Dawet, I swear. Please do not be angry with me, Highness.”
Briony realized that she had frightened Teodoros, one of the few people who had treated her like a friend when he didn’t need to: the playwright was trembling and his forehead was beaded with sweat.
I truly am an Eddon again. Like my father, I often wish to be treated as if I were anything else but royal, but I forget that my temper can make others fear for their lives . . .
“Don’t worry, Finn.” She sat back. “You have done nothing to harm me or my family.”
Teodoros still looked decidedly unhappy, but managed to say, “Thank you, Highness.”
“But your service to Southmarch hasn’t ended—I have more for you to do. I need a secretary. I can’t trust any of the Syannese, but I need someone who can blend easily into the court—someone who has an ear . . . and a taste . . . for gossip.”
Finn Teodoros looked up, his expression a mix of relief and confusion. “You surely don’t mean me, do you, Highness?”
Briony laughed. “I was thinking of Feival, to be honest. He has played courtiers of both sexes, why should he not play one on my behalf? No, I have other plans for you, Finn. I want you and the rest of Makewell’s Men to be my ears here in Tessis. Find out everything the people think, especially about Southmarch, any news of the war there or of the usurping Tollys.” She stood. “I can’t make decisions without information. Without sources of my own, I will hear only what King Enander and his hangers-on want me to hear.”
“Of course, Princess—but how can I do your bidding? I am a prisoner!”
“Not for long. I will see to that. Be brave, friend Finn. You are my bondsman now and I will take care of you.”
Briony went to the door and threw it open. “Players! Oh, but I am glad to be shut of them!” She said it loud enough for the guards to hear. “Take him back to his cell! I have grown weary of the company of professional liars.”
He bowed as he entered. “Good morning, my lady. Will you kill me today?”
“Why, Kayyin? Did you have other plans?”
It had become their customary greeting. It was not entirely facetious.
Lady Yasammez’s eyes were closed. Her thoughts had ranged far and had only now returned to her in this foreign place, this Sunlander city beside the ocean—the same ocean as the black, sunless sea that beat against the rocks below Qul-na-Qar, but so different in aspect and feeling. Yes, the Mantle had changed things in only a few hundred short years, the great shroud that Crooked had taught them to keep them safe—but was it only the Mantle that had made things different? Hadn’t something grown in the hearts of the people themselves—her people—that no longer loved the sun? She reflected on Kayyin as he stood before her with his strange, sad smile. Who of the Qar ever looked that way, wore that expression of fear and guilt and resignation that only a mortal could manufacture? They are not so different from us as you might think—Kayyin himself had said that to her once. At the time she had dismissed it as another way in which he was trying to enrage her, trying to force her to kill him and end this unnatural half-life of his. Then, later, she had come to brood on it. What if it were true?
Now, suddenly, as she thought about the dark surf rolling ceaselessly outside Qul-na-Qar, another thought came to her: what if the Sunlanders, the mortal insects who she had longed for years to crush, on whose swords she would gladly die if she had taken a great enough toll of her enemies f irst . . . what if the mortals were not merely like her people, but better? How long could a creature walk bent-backed before it could no longer straighten up? How long did cave animals continue to live as though one day they would return to the light before their eyes finally wasted away and their skins turned white as corpse flesh? How long could you live the life of an inferior beast before you became an inferior beast?
“You haven’t yet made war, my lady,” Kayyin said at last, breaking the silence.
“War?”
“You swore only days ago that you would destroy the mortal city before us. Do you remember? It was when you took those two women from Southmarch captive. You were most impressive, my lady, most frightsome. ‘It will be a joy to hear the screams of your people,’ you told them. But I cannot help but notice that here you sit, and the screams have still not begun. Could it be you have thought twice about this unreasoning hatred of yours?”
“Unreasoning?” She turned toward him, nettled. The fact of her annoyance was itself annoying—he lived only to goad her and she hated to satisfy him. But what he said now seemed odd, almost malicious. “It is only the persistence of reason that keeps them alive. Only a fool does not hesitate to do that which cannot be undone—and the plans I have for the mortals are of that sort. When the god is dead, the mortals will also die.” She looked at him, allowed herself to blink once and once only, a signal of faint surprise. “Do you truly want me to attack them today, Kayyin? Do you want to hurry their end? I thought you had grown close to them.”
“I want you to know your own mind, Lady. Much, I feel, will hinge on that.”
“What nonsense are you talking?”
“Nonsense that was breathed in my ear before I knew myself again.” Kayyin paused for a moment as if searching for words. “It matters not. But although you may not believe it, I fear for our people, O my Mother. I fear your decisions. I suppose that is why I ask you. Like a misbehaving child who waits for a parent to come home, I fear the punishment less than I fear the waiting.”
“That is because you are a child, Kayyin, compared to me. When I decide to strike it will be swift and harsh and final. I will bring a power against this place that will kill everything that lives, even the birds in the tr
ees and the moles in the ground.”
For the first time he looked surprised, his face suddenly full of something like fear. “What? What would you do to them?”
“That is not for you to know, little turncoat. But because that destruction will be so complete, I will not begin until I am certain.”
“So you admit you have doubts?”
“Doubts? Hah.” She took Whitefire from where it lay in her lap and stood, stretching her long legs, then set the sword on her council table. The great hall that had once been the town’s seat of goverment was empty even of ghosts. Her guards waited outside. Like Kayyin, they would be fitful and impatient at this long pause after their war had seemed all but won. Unlike him, they were soldiers, and would have the discipline to keep it to themselves. “Shall I tell you a story?”
“A true one?”
“You annoy me less than you think, but still more than is polite. Your father would have been ashamed—he was a creature of intense grace.”
“Is that the story you would tell me? Of my father?”
“I would tell you of the Battle of Shivering Plain. Your father was unborn, but one of your ancesters, your great-great-great-grandfather Ayyam, was there. It was one of the last battles between the clans of Breeze and Moisture and their mortal allies. We fought for Whitef ire against the treachery of his three half-brothers, the ones these idiot mortals worship.
“I was one of King Numannyn’s three generals—Numannyn the Cautious as he came to be called. We had fought long in support of the great god Whitefire, battling for days against both demigods and armies of mortals, and our forces were tired. Night was almost upon us and the troops wanted nothing but to make camp before dark came. Whitefire’s brother Moonlord had been killed and the moon had turned red and almost faded from the sky—the gods could fight without light, but it was harder for us. Numannyn, though, had a seer with him, and she told the king that under the cover of darkness a single man was escaping the field with a guard of several hundred mortal soldiers.
“ ‘It must be someone important,’ Numannyn said. ‘One of the kings of the mortals, fleeing the battle, or perhaps a messenger from the mortals to the gods of Xandos. We must capture him.’
“ ‘Your soldiers are weary,’ one of the other generals told him. I did not dare speak then against the king’s wishes, but I was also troubled. My warriors had been asked to give much already, and the next day threatened to be the bloodiest yet. Even the fiercest of our folk must rest sometimes.
“ ‘Something about this speaks to me of ill omens,’ the third general said. ‘Can we not send a flight of Elementals to observe this refugee more closely? I smell a trap.’
“ ‘If none of my generals will undertake this for me,’ said Numannyn in anger, ‘then I will take a company and go myself.’
“We were all shamed. As I was the youngest and the only one who had not voiced an objection, I felt bound to this service. I took my companions, the Makers of Tears, and we climbed onto our mounts and set out.
“We encountered the enemy crossing over the river Silvertrail at the base of the hills that ringed the great, icy meadow. As the seer had said, perhaps a hundred mortal soldiers were riding hard. They were strong and well-armed, but they seemed to have no other purpose except to protect a single litter carried by half-naked slaves. When we called to them to surrender they turned and fought, of course—we had expected no less. If the person in their custody was rich enough or important enough for such a large bodyguard we knew they would not give him up lightly. But for all their warlike strength and training they were only mortal soldiers and they had little more than us in sheer numbers. For us, it was like fighting strong but clumsy children.
“When we had beaten down the soldiers the slaves dropped the litter and fled. The mortal man who staggered out of it was small and dark-haired. I did not know his face, although something about him seemed familiar.
“ ‘Do not harm me,’ he said in a frightened voice. ‘Let me go and I will make you all rich.’
“ ‘What could you give us?’ shouted my men, laughing. ‘Gold? Cattle? We are the People—the true People. There is nothing you can give us that we did not give to you stone apes in the first place!’
“ ‘Our king wants you, and so you will come!’ others jeered. ‘There is nothing else to say.’ And they threw the prisoner roughly onto the back of a horse, his hands bound behind him.
“When we brought him before the king the prisoner spoke again, and although he still spoke pleadingly, there was something strange in his voice. ‘Please, O Numannyn King, Master of the Qar, Lord of Winds and Thought, let me go and I will give you gifts. I do not wish trouble for myself or for you.’
“The king smiled coldly—it frightened me to see it, although I did not know why, but I had the sense that one has when a great stone begins to shift and tilt downslope. Something was happening, though I did not know what, and in a moment it would be too late to stop it.
“ ‘You can offer me nothing except what you know,’ Numannyn said. ‘And that you will give to me whether you want to or not. You belong to me now. Who are you and where were you bound?’
“The mortal looked down for a long moment as if ashamed or terrified, but when he looked up neither of these things were on his face. His eyes were bright and his smile was as cold and hard as Numannyn’s.
“ ‘Very well, little king. I hoped only to leave this place and this incessant fighting, for which I am nowise fit, and return to my home atop Xandos. But you would stop me and interrogate me. You would make me a prisoner. Very well.’ He lifted his hands. The guards nearest him drew their blades but the stranger made no other move. ‘You wish to know my name? My servants call me Zosim, but you know me better as the first and greatest Trickster.’
“And it was indeed the god himself, wearing the form of a mortal man—even as he spoke he began to take on the true semblance of his godhood. He grew bigger and bigger. His eyes flashed and lightning played about his head. I was young and not as strong as I am now—I could not even bear to look straight at him as he revealed himself, so terrible was his aspect. And he was one of the least warlike gods! We had caught him trying to sneak away from the battle! But now he would fight. Now he would punish.
“His skin turned black as a raven’s wing, his eyes red like coals. His armor, of a metal that was both red and blue, grew over him like moss on a stone until he was covered from head to foot. All of us, the king’s servitors, stood gaping like birds entranced by a snake. One of his hands reached up and there was a whip of fire in it. The other reached out and caught up a rod of crystal. He began then to strike out—even the song he sang was terrible. You have never seen a god, Kayyin. A god in his battle array is the most frightening thing you can imagine. I hope my own long life will end before I ever see such a thing again. In fact, with a god like Trickster, a lord of moods and mysteries, his appearance itself was part of what made him so fearsome—our own terror made him greater.
“But do not misunderstand—his power was all too real. Some may say that the gods come from the same stock as we do—that they came at first from the same seed and bone, but what was different about them is what they could be, what they could control. Others say that they are another family of beings entirely. I do not know, Kayyin. I am only a soldier, and although I am old, the gods were old before I came into this world. But whether they are somehow our cousins, our fathers, our ancestors, never make the mistake of believing they are like us, because they are not.
“King Numannyn was among the first to die, split by Trickster’s humming staff like a piece of wood chopped for kindling. The other two generals died defending him, as did many dozen of their soldiers, wailing like the callowest of mortals. If Trickster’s own guards had not run shrieking in terror when he revealed himself they could have destroyed half our army, so terrible was the damage the angry god caused. But he had told the truth—he did not like war. When the first heat of his anger had cooled Trickster turn
ed and walked away, shrinking as he did so like parchment in a candleflame until only his mortal disguise remained. None of the survivors made a move toward him. I doubt any of them even considered it.
“I had been beaten down in the first moments, my shield broken into flaming shards by Trickster’s whip, my body flung away across the field by a chance blow from his gauntleted hand. I lay insensible for a long time and only awakened when your great-great-great-grandfather, Ayyam, was carrying me back to my troops. He was a warrior-servant to one of the other generals and had been wounded trying to save his master. He was loyal, and perhaps he went after me because he felt he had failed his general and his king.
“In any case, we became friends and in later days more than friends. We never spoke of the night we had met, though. It lay across both our thoughts like the scars of a bad burn . . .”
She paused then as if in a moment she might say more, but some time passed and she remained silent.
“So why do you tell me this tale?” Kayyin asked at last. “Am I supposed to take some instruction from my ancestor’s loyalty?”
She looked up slowly, as though she had forgotten he was there. “No, no. You asked me why I do not destroy the mortals when I have told all the world I will. My beloved servant Gyir has died and the Pact of the Glass has come to nothing, as I feared it would. And so I will take down the mortals’ castle, stone by stone if I have to, to get what I need. But that does not mean I will rush in, despite your impatience . . . and even despite mine.”
He tipped his head, waiting to hear.
“Because the thing that dreams and suffers in uneasy sleep beneath that castle is a god, you foolish child. He is also my father, but that is of importance only to me.” Yasammez’s face was as pale and dreadful as a sky awaiting a thunderstorm. “Did you not understand anything of the story I told you? The gods are not like us—they are as far beyond us as we are beyond ladybugs clustering on a leaf. Only a fool rushes to disturb something that he cannot understand and cannot control. Do you understand me now? This will be our people’s dying song. I wish to make sure that however it ends, we at least sing the tune we choose.”