by Tad Williams
“And I will.”
The temple of Onir Plessos did not have enough beds for all the newcomers but the pilgrims were a sensible lot, happy enough just to find refuge from this year’s cold spring rains. The Master Templar told them they could spread their blankets in the common room after the evening meal.
“Will we not disturb your other guests, or the brothers?” asked the leader of the pilgrims, a heavyset fellow of obvious good nature for whom the conducting of religious seekers and penitents had become, after so many years, more a business than a religious calling. “You have always been generous to me, Master, and I would not wish to gain a bad name here.”
The Master Templar smiled. “You bring a respectable class of pilgrim, my good Theron. Without such travelers, our temple would be hard pressed to shelter and feed the truly needy.” He lowered his voice. “An example of the kind I like less well, do you see that fellow there? The cripple? He has stayed with us for several tennights.” He gestured toward a robed figure sitting in the sparse garden attended by a smaller figure, a boy of perhaps nine or ten summers. “I confess I had hoped that when the weather warmed he would move on—not only does he have a rank smell, he is strange and does not speak to us himself, but has the child speak for him . . . or at least pass along his words, which are usually full of doom and mystery.”
Theron looked interested. The lessened nature of his own faith, or at least of his zeal, had not made him any the less drawn to the strong faith of others—the reverse, if anything, since just such strong faith had now become his livelihood. “Perhaps he is an oracle, your cripple. Was not the blessed Zakkas unrecognized in his own lifetime?”
The Master Templar was not amused. “Do not seek to teach piety to a priest, Master Caravaner. This fellow does not talk of holy things, but of . . . well, it is hard to say without you hear him yourself—or hear what the child says for him.”
“I doubt we will have time,” said Theron shortly, smarting a little from the priest’s rebuke. “We must leave early tomorrow. There is at least one more snow coming to the Whitewood this year, and I would not be caught in it. The north has become strange enough these days without fighting the storms. I miss the warm springs we enjoyed here in Summerfield when the king was on his throne in Southmarch.”
“I miss many things about those days,” said the Master Templar, and on this safer ground the conversation continued for a while as the two men regained their old friendship.
The fire in the common room had burned low and most of the pilgrims had fallen asleep after a long, cold day’s walking. Theron was having a quiet conversation with his wagoneer when the holy man—or so Theron was already disposed to think of him—limped slowly into the room, leaning on a dirty, sullen, dark-skinned child. The boy helped him to sit down by the hearth, close to the embers, and then took a cup from the beggar’s hand and carried it off to fill it from the bucket.
Theron waved the wagoneer off to finish what he had to do before sleeping, then watched the frail holy man for a moment. It was hard to make out much of anything about him: his face was hidden by the long hood of his stained and tattered robe, his hands wrapped in dirty old bandages. The strange shape sat still as stone but for a faint trembling. As Theron stared at the beggar he felt not an apprehension of holiness but of sudden dread. It was not that the man himself seemed particularly threatening, but there was something about him that suddenly made Theron think of old stories—not those of holy pilgrims, but of unquiet spirits and dead men who cannot rest in their graves.
Theron ran his fingers through the swaying, clicking collection of religious ornaments around his neck, some he had gained himself on his travels as a younger man to various holy sites, others given to him as gifts (or sometimes as partial payment) by the pilgrims he conducted. His hand lingered for a moment on a wooden dove, one of his favorites and long-since polished to a deep sheen by handling. It had come from one of his earliest pilgrimages, to a famous Zorian shrine in Akaris, and he found it particularly soothing to think of the White Daughter when he was troubled.
Theron felt a presence at his shoulder and looked up. It was the Master Templar. Theron wondered at this, since it was not the older man’s habit to come down to the common room after evening prayers. “You do me an honor, Master,” he said. “Will you share a glass of wine with me?”
The master nodded. “I will. I wanted to ask you a question and you said you had to leave early in the morning.”
Theron was a little ashamed to be reminded of this, since he had said it in anger. He poured wine from his own jar into a cup and passed it to his friend. “Of course, Master. What can I tell you?”
“One of your travelers told me that King Olin’s daughter is in Tessis—that she has been found alive. Is it true?”
“It is, as far as I can say—she appeared just before we left, or so everyone said. It was the talk of Syan in our last days there.”
“And does anyone know what brings . . . what is her name? Buttercup? ”
“Briony. Princess Briony.”
“Of course—I shame myself. We do not hear much of doings at the court here and I grow forgetful in my age. Briony. Does anyone know why she is in Syan and what it means?”
Theron noticed that the hooded beggar near the fire had raised his head as if listening. He wondered if he should lower his voice, but then decided that was foolish: what he was saying was no secret, but news that would soon be on everyone’s lips. Still, it would not be a wise idea to name the Tollys here in their own dukedom. “Some claim she escaped from . . . her enemies . . . and fled Southmarch. Others say no, that she fled after she was thwarted in her own attempt to take the throne with the help of a southerner—a black soldier who was once Olin’s friend.”
The Master Templar shook his head in wonder. “It is like the old days—the bad days of the second Kellick, when there were spies and plots everywhere.”
“Do you remember that?” asked Theron, mildly surprised.
“Fool!” The Templar laughed. “A century and a half? Do I look so old?”
Theron laughed too, shamed by his own bad memory. The doings of kings and history had never been his strength. “My book learning is mostly forgotten . . .”
He was started by a figure at his shoulder and turned to find the hooded beggar looming there like the shadow of Death itself. For all that his back and legs seemed bent, he still stood as tall as Theron and must have been a powerful man once. The bandaged hands came up and a dry, scraping rustle issued from the darkness of the hood. Theron recoiled in fear, but for long moments the hooded man only stood silently.
“Where is the boy? ” asked the Templar irritably. “Ah, there. Boy, come here and tell us what your master wants.”
The boy, who had apparently been cadging food in the temple kitchen, duly appeared, still chewing on a lump of dough. Now that Theron looked at the child with more attention he noticed that not all the darkness of the black-haired boy’s face was because of dirt or sun, that he had somewhat the look of a southerner himself, a color of skin usually only seen on the waterfronts of Oscastle or Landers Port. Yes, Theron thought, that was it: he had the look of one of those street urchins who lived like a harbor rat, by his wits and quickness.
“What is the cripple saying?” the Master Templar demanded.
The boy put his head close to the hood. It was impossible to hear any of the beggar’s words above the crackling of the fire, but the boy stood up at last.
“He says that Death has turned loose of her for now.”
The master shook his head in irritation. “Loose of whom? The princess? Tell him to go and find his bed and not disturb the talk of his betters.” A moment later his expression changed. “No, that is unkind of me. The gods and oniri would not have us treat the afflicted so.”
The boy was leaning close to the dark hood again. “He says that he knows death—that he dwelt for a while in Death’s own house. But then he was let go again.”
“What? He
is saying that he lived in the house of Kernios?” The Master Templar clearly did not like this blasphemous turn the conversation had taken.
The boy leaned close to the hooded figure again. “And he says that since Briony has escaped he must find her.”
“What nonsense!” said the house’s master. “Take this beggar out to the stable, boy. I will not send the poor fool out into the cold but he must find someplace else to sleep tonight where he will not plague our guests.” The priest waited, but although the boy apparently whispered these words to him the beggar did not respond. Theron was both interested and disturbed. “You are taking advantage of our charity,” the Templar chief warned. This still produced no movement. “Very well, I will get some of the brothers to help me escort him to sleep with the horses and donkeys,” he said, and strode briskly off across the common room.
The beggar was whispering to his young helper again.
“He wants to know if you are going north,” the boy said to Theron.
The leader of the pilgrimage was confused: why should the old cripple want to know such a thing? “We go north through Marrinswalk, yes. This pilgrimage began in Blueshore and that is where we are returning.”
The beggar pulled the boy toward him as if his next words could not wait.
“He wishes to go with you,” the child said when the murmuring had finished.
Theron rolled his eyes. “I mean no disrepect to one whom the gods have already burdened,” he said, “but the only members of our pilgrimage who walk are those who are young and fit—we travel fast. I have seen this man move. He could not keep up and we could not afford to wait for him.”
The boy looked at him in puzzlement, although Theron thought what he’d said made perfect sense. Then the young beggar turned to look at his hooded master, who suddenly reached out toward Theron with his bandaged hand. Theron started back, unnerved, then saw something glinting there on the dirty linen. A gold coin.
“He will pay you for a place on one of the horses,” the boy said after the hooded beggar had whispered to him.
“That . . . that is a dolphin!” said Theron, astonished. “An entire dolphin!” It was ten times as much as he had earned in fees from the whole of his caravan of pilgrims. The boy turned as the hooded one plucked at his sleeve, whispered to him again.
“He says to take it. The dead have no need of gold.”
She was lost in the forest, but not frightened—not too frightened, anyway. The trees swayed but she felt no wind. As she passed they bent toward her, reaching with brushy fingers, but never touched her. The world was night-dark but she could see: a light moved with her, illuminating her path and surroundings.
Something scuttled across the track ahead of her, something silvery and swift, moving close to the ground. She changed direction, following it, and the path moved with her.
I’m dreaming, Briony realized.
The swift thing flickered before her again. It was both real and a shadow—she could feel it somehow watching her even as it ran before her. She knew it was trying to lead her somewhere important, that she needed to keep it in sight, but already she was falling behind. The trees grew thicker around her, the path harder to see. The silvery shape shimmered one last time, distant now, and then it was gone.
Briony woke with a sense of failure and loss far beyond the usual residue of dreams, but she could not stop to fret because she had missed something important. Her ladies were already bustling around her, urging her to hurry and get out of bed. Briony had an assignation to keep.
Dawet was wearing his usual black garb, but with a subtle difference: his clothes this time seemed more suited for courtly entertainment than going unnoticed in dark alleys and low places. His sleeves were slashed with brilliant red, the lining of his cloak the same bloody color, and his hose had also been picked out with vertical stripes of red and white.
“A new meeting place?” he asked her, looking around the Fountain Court.
“It is a little noisier here. Less likely anyone could overhear us.” Briony eyed his attire. “You look less furtive than usual, Master dan-Faar.”
He made a mock bow. “Milady is too kind. As it happens, I have a . . . meeting after ours.”
“With a woman?” Briony didn’t know why she should care, but it did rankle a bit.
Dawet’s smile was, for once, neither knowing nor mocking. “I am your friend, I hope, Princess. Nothing more, perhaps, but certainly nothing less. For instance, I am not your servant. My trysts are my own.”
Briony swallowed a retort, touching the Zorian vesicle hanging around her neck to remind herself of what was important. He spoke the truth: she had no right, and more than that, she had no sensible reason to take an interest in what Dawet did, and with whom, except where her own safety was concerned. “As long as we are friends,” she said. “As long as I can trust you, Dawet. I mean this truly—I need someone I can trust.”
He gave her an odd look. “You seem frightened, Princess.”
“Not frightened. But I am engaged in . . . difficult matters. I am embarking on a journey. Once it begins I cannot turn and swim back to shore.” She reached up again and cupped the vesicle in her hand, traced its oval shape and thought of the virgin goddess’ own journey. “Will you help me?”
“What do you need, Princess?”
She told him. “Can you do that?” she asked when she had finished. The look he gave her now contained both surprise and a hint of admiration. “Nothing easier. But . . .” He shrugged. “It will take payment. Such men as you want do not work for charity.”
She laughed. It even sounded harsh in her own ears. This was difficult. It felt as though she truly was stepping out into the unknown. “I have money. Prince Eneas was kind enough to give me some—until my own affairs should be settled, he said.”
“A prince indeed.”
“Will this be enough?”
Dawet looked at the gold, hesitated a moment. The splashing of the fountain rose up to fill the silence. “More than enough,” he said at last. “I will bring you back what remains.” He stood. “I should go. There is time for me to put this matter in motion before . . . before my other business.”
“Thank you, Dawet.” She held out her hand. After a moment he took it and lifted it to his lips, but his eyes never left hers. “Why do you look at me so?” she asked.
“I had not thought to see this side of you, Princess Briony—not yet, at any rate.”
She felt herself flush a little, but it would be hidden by the darkening evening. “So the Zorian dove now shows herself to be soiled, eh? Is that a disappointment?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Not soiled, no. Willing to protect herself, yes. Even the most pacific of Nature’s children will do that.” His face grew serious. “I had wrongly thought that old Shaso and his teachings had driven all the good sense from you.”
“Yes, well, Shaso dan-Heza is dead.”
The public attack on Jenkin Crowel, the envoy from Southmarch, a cruel beating at the hands of three unknown bravos, was the talk of all the court at Tessis the next day. Crowel had been surprised coming out of a favorite tavern by what had seemed at first merely a trio of unpleasant drunkards, but before more than a few words had been exchanged his two guards had been disarmed and beaten, then the assault had begun.
The attack itself was strange enough, although not incomprehensible, since Crowel was already known in Tessis for his love of gambling and his unpleasant temper. But what made it a subject of rapt speculation—for a short time, anyway, since the Tessian nobility never lacked for things to talk about—was what one of the battered guards witnessed as he lay on the ground.
Just before the attackers fled, one of the criminals had crouched beside the bloody, whimpering Jenkin Crowel, but the only words the wounded guard had been able to make out were, “ . . . learn to keep your lies to yourself.”
By the end of the week, though, when Crowel had proved remarkably close-mouthed on the subject, hiding his bruises and
scars in his chambers and shunning all company, the denizens of Broadhall Palace moved on to newer and more interesting outrages.
16
In the Fungus Garden
“According to the Vuttish bards, the Qar themselves distrusted the creatures of Ruottashemm, even though they had kinship to them, and were in constant struggle with the Cold Fairies’ queen, Jittsammes.”
—from “A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand”
“ARE YOU SURE YOU’LL BE WELL?” Opal was twisting the hem of her cloak in her hands. She hated to be parted from them, of course, but she and Chert both knew it was the right thing for her to do. “You’ll keep a close eye on the boy?”
“Do not fret so, my only love. It’s but a few days.” He put his arms around her and held her close. For a moment she fought against it. Opal did not like being confined, even by her husband—perhaps especially by her husband. Her father, Sand Leekstone, had once confessed that he found the women in his family a complete bafflement. “Your Opal and her mother have been telling me what to do for so many years, I don’t know what I’d do if I ever got my own way in anything—likely fall down dead.” Chert, never having expected anything when he married Opal except what he’d gotten, namely a wife who both loved him and argued with him equally fiercely, had only nodded and smiled.
“Few days?” she said now. “If you listen to the folk around here, the world might come to an end in a day or two—do you think that makes me any less worried?” But she was only protesting by rote—they had argued it all through and agreed; in fact, this trip had been mostly Opal’s idea. Now that it was clear the threat of war was real, men were being mustered in Funderling Town and Opal had decided the women should also do their part: she was going back to enlist Vermilion Cinnabar and some of the other important women of the town to make sure the men called to fight would have what they needed, and to fill in for those called away from important jobs in the town. Chert was proud of her and knew she would do well. When Opal set her mind to something, it always got done.