Shadowrise

by Tad Williams

  “Go on.”

  “I mean of course your relationship with Golden One, and your counseling him in the ways of the gods. I do not wish to interfere in such an important stewardship, and of course I cannot even understand all the ways of the living god on earth, let alone the immortal gods in heaven.”

  Panhyssir was half-amused. “Granted, granted. To what end may I lend you my . . . wisdom?”

  “I will be honest, old friend. That is how I show you my trust and good faith. We both know that there are many in our court who would seek to exploit any sign of weakness or doubt on the part of another minister—denounce him, perhaps, or simply seek to blackmail him.”

  “Terrible, these young ministers,” said Panhyssir gravely. “They know nothing of loyalty or service.”

  “Just so. But I trust you, with your years of wise service, to recognize the difference between questioning the autarch’s wisdom and a mere—and completely sensible—concern for his well-being.”

  Panhyssir was enjoying this. “You interest me, Vash. But then, in your zeal to serve, your thought always reaches far ahead of the rest of us.”

  Vash waved his hand, anxious to avoid a flattery contest, which in the Xixian court could last for hours. “I seek only the well-being of Xis and to do the will of the gods, especially mighty Nushash, who is king of all the heavens as the autarch is master of all the earth. But here we come to my question.” He stopped and took another sip of tea, and for the first time felt the seriousness of what he was doing—the risk he truly was taking. “Where are we going, good Panhyssir? What does the autarch plan? Why do we take such a small force of soldiers so far beyond the reach of our mighty army into a strange northern land?”

  Now that his doubt was spoken and could not be taken back, he swirled the tea in the bowl and watched the leaves eddy, the patterns as complex and beautiful as a poem rendered in fine script. For a moment Vash had a vision of a completely different life, one in which he had turned his back on power and wealth and had spent his time instead marking out in ink the delineations between earth and eternity, transcribing the words of the great poets and thinkers with no other goal than to make them as beautiful and evocative and true as they could possibly be.

  But that Vash, disowned by his parents, would have starved by now, he thought, so I would not be having this thought . . . He realized his mind had wandered, even at this crucial moment, and marveled. Truly, I am getting old.

  “Ah, yes, our journey north.” The high priest frowned, not in anger or indignation, but like someone considering an interesting challenge. “What has the Golden One told you?”

  Vash almost said “Nothing,” but checked himself. That had the sound of exclusion to it. “Only this and that. But I fear I cannot understand him sometimes, his speech is so exalted and my thought is so humble. I thought perhaps you could explain it more fully to me.”

  Panhyssir smiled and nodded. You self-satisfied toad, thought Vash. This is why you became a priest, isn’t it? To be able to lord it over the rest of us, to say that you alone know the gods’ wishes.

  “First of all,” the chief priest said, “you must understand that the Golden One is a scholar as well as a ruler. He has located and read books of old lore whose names few learned men even know. I can honestly say that he has gone farther in the study of the gods and their ways than even I, the chief priest of the greatest god, have done.”

  Vash did not doubt that was true: Panhyssir was by no means a stupid man, but his enjoyment of power far exceeded his love of scholarship. “And all this . . . study? Somehow it draws us north, to some freezing, rain-swept, savage land—but why?”

  “Because the Golden One has conceived a plan so audacious, so breathtaking, that even I can scarcely understand it.” The priest patted his broad middle. “And there is only one place in all of Xand or Eion that it can be implemented—a castle in the tiny nation called the March Kingdom. The pagan king Olin’s own country.”

  “But what plan, Panhyssir? What plan?”

  “The Master of the Great Tent, our blessed autarch, is going to wake the gods themselves from their long sleep.” The priest drained his tea and held out the bowl until the slave could come and take it from him. “And all it will cost is the northern king’s life. A trivial price to pay to bring heaven to our corrupted earth, dear Paramount Minister Vash, don’t you agree . . . ?”

  Pinimmon Vash did not know what to think. As he slowly climbed the steps from the high priest’s cabin to the upper deck, a wave of weariness rolled over him, heavy as the foaming sea itself. What could anyone do in the face of such folly, let alone one old man? Of course Panhyssir and his priests were perfectly satisfied with the autarch’s madness—he jumped at their vaporous ideas like a cat chasing a piece of string. Was this the cause of the relentless expansion into Eion that had drained so many of Xis’ assets and which left them with an army so large, hungry, and dangerous that it had to be kept constantly in the field to keep it from causing trouble at home? But if so, why then this sudden change of plan, first the costly attack on Hierosol and then this strange stab, like a conjuror’s sleight-of-hand, into the far reaches of the northern continent?

  Did the autarch and the priests truly believe the gods were waiting to be awakened at the northern king’s castle? Or did they seek something less unlikely—some object of great power or great worth? But what could someone like Sulepis want that much? He was already the mightiest man in the world. Would he bankrupt Xis on such whims, throw every adult man into battle, perhaps destroy an entire generation, just to buy himself the imperial equivalent of a shinier sword or a grander house?

  And my task—is it to aid this folly, or to try somehow to prevent it? But even if I decided to oppose the autarch, what could I do except die protesting? He is constantly guarded, even on this small ship, by tasters and servants and Leopard guards, and he is much younger and stronger than I am, even if I could by some chance get him alone. No, it was hopeless to think the paramount minister could do anything himself to harm the autarch, and any failed attempt would surely be punished by hideous torture before the inevitable execution. Vash thought of the fate of Jeddin, the autarch’s former Leopard captain, and shuddered.

  No, it would be senseless to rush into anything . . .

  He found the foreign king enjoying the cool but bright sunshine on the foredeck, sitting on a bench with his hat off and the hood of his cloak thrown back. A dozen guards lined the rails on either side of him, and two more stood above him at the walkway around the opening to the gun deck. What was strange, though, was the northerner’s apparent choice of companions: only a few steps from Olin Eddon sat the crippled scotarch Prusus, the curtain of his litter drawn back so he too could take the sun. The scotarch had been ill for the first days of the voyage, but even now that he was better he still looked on the verge of collapse, his head lolling and arms and legs twitching. Merely looking at Prusus irritated and frightened Vash. Choosing such a pathetic creature had been the first sign of the new autarch’s alarming, incomprehensible ideas.

  Vash turned back to the northern king. Whatever madness the Golden One had planned, it was clear it would mean Olin’s death, so all conversation had to be undertaken with that in mind. It was like stroking an animal before sacrificing it—one did it only to calm the creature, because there was no value in developing a sentimental attachment.

  Vash smiled. “Well, good day, King Olin. I trust you are enjoying the sun?”

  “How can I not enjoy it when each time it goes down might be the last I see it?”

  The paramount minister bowed his head in a good imitation of regret. “Do not despair, your Highness. It could be that the Golden One will spare you. He is changeable, our great lord.” Which he certainly was, but almost never to anyone’s good.

  Olin raised an eyebrow. “Ah, well, then. Why should I fear?” He turned back toward the horizon. He had gained color in these days aboard ship, his prisoner’s pallor slowly turning brown. Even the fai
nt reddish tones of his brown hair had begun to seem brighter and more fiery. Vash had to appreciate the irony. The closer he drew toward death, the more Olin Eddon began to look like a living man again.

  “Is there anything you require?” Vash asked him.

  “No. I am enjoying the wind on my skin, and for now that is enough. But you could answer a question for me.” He gestured toward Prusus in his shelter. “I asked him, but the . . . scotarch, I believe you call him . . . is not much of a conversationalist.”

  “No, Highness, you are correct.” He is a pitiful freak who should have been put down at birth. Only a woman as rich as his mother could have got away with keeping him. It was foolish to let it bother him, but having Prusus’ watery, wandering eyes on him always made Vash fretful. “I will tell you what you wish to know, if I can.”

  “Very well. What is a scotarch? I gather that this fellow is, in some way, the autarch’s heir.”

  “Yes, I can see how that might seem strange to you.” Vash’s legs were beginning to ache from standing so long. He moved to the opposite end of the bench from the northerner and sat down. “They say that it goes back to the old days of our people, when we lived in the desert and traveled in nomad clans. We would draw together once in a year around the xawadis, the place where the water never completely disappeared, a very holy spot, and we would choose a chieftain of all the clans—a Great Falcon. But we also chose a Kite, the high-flying vulture of the desert. This was usually an older clansman, responsible and wise and thought to be without ambition. He would go with the Falcon’s clan and he would become Falcon if anything happened to the chief of the clans.

  “Over the centuries, as we moved into the cities, the relationship became more subtle and more complex, and sometimes the Falcon and the Kite, now called Autarch and Scotarch, were almost at war with each other, each with his own adherents, clans, and armies. After the first Xixian empire collapsed, the surviving clan leaders came together in the place where the city of Xis now stands and made the Laws of Shakh Xis. The most important of these set out the roles of the autarch and scotarch. Or am I telling you things you already know, Highness?” he finished amiably.

  “Oh, no, please continue.”

  “Good. So, the Laws of Shakh Xis set forth that the autarch shall always choose a scotarch, and that scotarch will never rule the Xixians unless the autarch dies, and then only until a council of the noble families can come together and approve the next autarch, who is almost always the heir of the autarch who just died.”

  “That doesn’t seem too unusual,” said Olin. “We have similar laws in some of the March Kingdoms.”

  “Ah, but it is when things are the other way around that the interesting part begins,” explained Vash. He glanced quickly at Prusus, but the scotarch seemed to have fallen asleep; a thin line of drool connected his lower lip and his collar. “If the scotarch dies, the autarch also must step aside until the nobles can gather and decide whether he is fit to continue his rule. During that time, he no longer has the gods’ protection. He may be deposed and executed by the nobles. It has happened more than a few times.”

  Olin raised an eyebrow. “If the scotarch dies, the autarch can be deposed? Why on earth would that be?”

  Vash shrugged. “It was a way to make sure none of the jealous clans could grab at power. There is no point being a scotarch if you only seek power, because when the autarch dies, you rule only until a new autarch is chosen. And there is no point murdering an autarch, especially if you are an impatient heir, because the scotarch will step in and you may not rise to the throne.”

  “And each autarch chooses a new scotarch,” said Olin, looking over to Prusus, who was snoring now but still quivered gently even in his sleep, hands waggling like poppies in a strong breeze. “But if the autarch is always at least temporarily deposed when his scotarch dies, would it not make sense to choose the youngest, healthiest scotarch you could find?”

  “Of course, Highness,” said Vash, nodding. “And in the past, autarchs have held great ceremonial games of wrestling and running and martial feats simply to find the healthiest, strongest candidates from among the noble families.”

  “But this autarch did not, obviously.”

  Vash shook his head. “The Golden One is unlike his predecessors in many ways, may his life be long.” He lowered his voice a little so the guards couldn’t hear him. “At the ceremony where Prusus received the Kite Crown, his great majesty Sulepis said to us, ‘Let any who doubt me watch whom the gods take first—this man Prusus, or my enemies.’ ” Vash sat up again. “So far many of the Golden One’s enemies have left the earth, but Prusus still lives and breathes.” He lifted himself off the bench, not without effort. He felt better now. Telling the story to the foreigner had clarified his earlier thoughts and worries. Surely it was the gods’ duty to decide whether Sulepis was to be stopped, not Pinimmon Vash’s. If heaven wanted the Golden One struck down or even just hindered, the gods had only to snap the slender reed that was the cripple Prusus’ life. For the gods that should be no more difficult than swatting a fly.

  “One more question, please,” Olin said.

  “Of course, Highness.”

  “If somebody—may the gods forbid—simply pushed Scotarch Prusus over the side, would the autarch then lose power?”

  Vash nodded. “Others have had that thought. And it is possible.”

  “Possible? I thought it was the law of your country.”

  “Yes, but it is also well known that Sulepis is a law unto himself. Also, there is another reason no one has dared to try it, I suspect.”

  “And that is?”

  “Whatever else happened, the murderer of a scotarch would be punished, and the punishment is a very cruel one—throwing a man’s guts into a lion’s cage while he is still alive and attached to them, if I remember correctly. Thus, no one ever murdered a scotarch even before Sulepis came to the throne.”

  “Thank you,” said Olin. “You’ve given me much to think about, Minister Vash.”

  “I am pleased to have served you, Highness,” he said, and bowed before turning back to his cabin. After an unexpectedly busy morning and the depressing company of a doomed man, Vash suddenly felt the need of a little food and sweet wine.

  The man who never smiled stood in the doorway of the cabin. Pigeon, who in almost any other situation would have thrown himself in front of Qinnitan like a loyal dog, retreated behind her making little wordless noises of terror. Qinnitan did her best not to show that she felt much the same. “What do you want?” she demanded.

  The unsmiling man glanced at her only briefly before letting his eyes roam around the small cabin, swelteringly hot despite the cool weather because its shutters had been nailed closed, foul with the smell of their unwashed bodies and the chamber pot, which was only emptied once a day.

  “I am going into the town,” he said at last. “Do not think to play any tricks while I am gone.”

  “What town?” That might at least give her some idea of where they were, how far they had sailed. She knew from the changes in the ship’s motion and noises that they had dropped anchor and had been terrified for the past several hours that they had caught up with the autarch’s ship. Perhaps something else was going on, though. She tried not to let hope get too strong a hold.

  He didn’t answer her question, but only took a last look around. “If I am not back by sunset, you will be given your meal by one of the crew. I have told them they may not kill you, girl, but if you play up or try any tricks they should feel free to torture the boy.” He turned his pale, dead eyes on Pigeon. “That is why he is here. To make sure you do what you are told. Do you understand?”

  Qinnitan swallowed. “Yes.” He turned back to her. His eyes were as empty as those of the red and silver fish in the Seclusion’s pools. “I would like to have a bath,” she said. “To bathe myself. Surely even you don’t plan to hand me over to the autarch stinking like this.”

  He turned away and stepped to the door. “
Perhaps.”

  “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

  “Because the dead need no names,” he said, letting the door fall shut behind him. She heard the latch fall heavily into place.

  Somebody was talking to him in the passageway outside. It sounded like the captain—one of the autarch’s best, from what Qinnitan had gathered from the few crewmen she’d been able to overhear. She had also gathered the captain wasn’t happy taking orders from their kidnapper, whoever and whatever he was. She untangled herself from Pigeon and moved quietly to the door so she could put her ear against the crack.

  “ . . . But it cannot be helped,” the captain was telling the nameless man. “Do not fear. We are a faster ship—we will catch the autarch’s fleet within a few days.”

  “If it must be, it must be,” their captor said at last after a long silence. A little emotion had crept into his voice—impatience, maybe even anger. “I will be back by nightfall. See that we are ready to cast off then.”

  Now it was the captain who could not keep the irritation from his voice. “A new rudder cannot always be fitted on the instant, even in a port town like Agamid. I can only do my best. The gods will always have their way.”

  “Not true,” said their captor shortly. “If we fail to catch up to the autarch, even the gods will not be able to save you. That I promise you, Captain.”

  Qinnitan walked on her tiptoes back to the bed and climbed in next to Pigeon. The sheets were damp and the boy’s skin was sweaty. Could he be catching some fever? She almost hoped so. It would be a good joke on the murderer who had stolen them if they both died of some workaday illness before he could deliver them to their fate.

  “Sh,” she whispered to the shivering child. “We will be well, my chick. All will be well ...” But her mind was racing along like a cart rolling downhill. They were in Agamid the captain had said, and by the grace of the sacred bees of the Hive she recognized the name, a city on the southeastern coast of Eion, just north of Devonis. One of the girls in the Citadel’s washroom had been from Agamid. Qinnitan turned her memory upside down now, but couldn’t remember anything else the girl had said except that the port city had been claimed by both Devonis and Jael so long that the population spoke several languages. That did not help her. What she needed was a way to get off the ship while their enemy was away. If only she could think of a diversion . . .