Shadowrise

by Tad Williams

  Sulepis strode toward him, the carpet slaves hurrying to prepare the way, and then stopped a few yards from the steps leading up to the chair. Vash thought his master might become angry at being forced to stand beneath a less powerful monarch, but if he was, the autarch showed no sign of it. The Jellonian guards fidgeted nervously with their weapons, but their ruler held up a shaking hand.

  “So,” Hesper said hoarsely, “the much feared Emperor of the South. You are younger than I supposed, sir. What do you want?”

  “I am told you are not well,” Sulepis said in a simple and matter-of-fact tone. “It is kind of you to rouse yourself to meet me.”

  “Kind?” Hesper straightened up a little. “You threatened me with your warships if I would not see you. Do not be absurd.” His voice, which should have been forceful, had been robbed by his weakness of all but petulance. Still, Vash could see that he had once been a formidable man.

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Sulepis. “Perhaps we should put away our masks. I did not come only to give you gifts—although they are very fine gifts indeed.” He waved his golden fingers toward the slaves, who still held their baskets high on their shoulders, as though the floor of the throne room were too dirty a place to set such down valuable objects. “But also to tell you that I am displeased with you.”

  “Displeased with me?” Hesper shook his head irritably. Vash could not stop looking at the man. The king of Jellon was not even sixty years old—much younger than Pinimmon Vash himself—but looked like he had lived a hundred years or more, and hard years at that. “Am I a child that I should care about such things? I am displeased that you disturb my rest. Say your piece and be gone.”

  “You promised me something, Hesper.” The autarch spoke with the stern but loving tone of a disappointed father. “You had something I wanted—something I specifically asked you to acquire for me—but you sold it to someone else instead.”

  The courtiers began to murmur. Even without knowing what his master intended, Vash guessed they would have much more to wonder about before too long.

  “What are you babbling about?” Hesper demanded, but he had the look of a guilty man caught in a lie.

  “But you see,” Sulepis said, “I have obtained it despite you.” He clapped his hands and his guards pushed King Olin forward. The courtiers murmured more loudly, but it was clear most of them did not recognize the ruler of the March Kingdoms.

  “What . . . what . . . ? ” Hesper stuttered. “What foolishness is this . . . ?”

  “I think the one who promises something to me and then does not keep his bargain is the foolish one,” Sulepis said calmly. “I told you I wanted Olin of Southmarch. I gave you gold to show my goodwill. You kept my gold, Hesper, and then you sold Olin to Ludis of Hierosol. That is not the way to make me look kindly on you.”

  Vash was beginning to feel truly frightened. Hesper might be old and ill, and Sulepis might have warships outside the harbor, but at the moment the Xixians were surrounded by armed enemies and the harbor was a mile away. Why was Sulepis provoking a confrontation? Had he taken the idea of his own godhood too seriously? Did he honestly think that the Jellonians would not dare to touch him, let alone hack him to pieces where he stood? Perhaps the autarch believed that these northerners were like his own people, bred with a hundred generations of reverence for their god-king.

  “Well, King Olin?” Sulepis certainly appeared as comfortable as if he stood in his own throne room surrounded by worshipful subjects and his own Leopard guards. “Have you nothing to say to your betrayer now that you stand before him at last? This is the man who took you from your family and sold you like the merest beast.”

  Olin looked from Sulepis to Hesper, then cast his eyes down again. “I have nothing to say. I am a prisoner. I am not here of my own will.”

  Hesper tried to stand but could not, and subsided gasping into the huge chair. He pointed at the autarch. “Do you think to humiliate me in front of my own subjects? You may rule a million blacks, but here in Jellon you are nothing but a fool dressed like a golden peacock. You pushed yourself upon me. You are no guest and I owe you no safety.” He tried to say something else, but a long spasm of coughing prevented him. When he could again speak, his voice rasped like a loose cart wheel. “I do not know whether to ransom you or simply do away with you.”

  “All will proceed as heaven plans it,” the autarch said, smiling. “Olin, are you certain you have nothing else to say? I have given you a chance to confront your enemy.”

  Vash was feeling a terrible pressure in his bladder and his heart was beating so fast he feared he would swoon in front of all these foreigners.

  “Hesper has done me wrong,” said Olin, “but it is you who brought me here like one of your tribute baskets—something to show off your wealth and power. I will not play your game, Sulepis.”

  “Enough,” said Hesper, and coughed again. “I . . . I have . . .”

  “It is too bad you do not understand all I am doing for you, Olin,” said the autarch. “Lifting you from an ignoble fate to the most heroic end there could be. And this as well . . .” He turned back toward the throne. “Hesper, you have been ill a long time, I think—almost a year, I would guess. It began when you passed Olin to Ludis Drakava, did it not?”

  Hesper’s eyes bulged with pain and frustration as he tried to stop coughing. A little spray of red decorated his white robes. One of his servants stepped forward with a cup but Hesper waved him off. “Ill, yes,” Hesper said at last in a breathy whisper. “And deserted in my need by that whore I had smiled upon and lifted up from nothing. Betrayed me, she did—left me for that cur Enander!” He paused then and looked around, as confused as though he had just woken up. A moment later he blinked and wiped red spittle from his chin. “It matters not,” he said. “But I will live long enough to see you sent screaming down to hell, Xandian.”

  “You still do not understand, do you? ” Sulepis smiled. “You are dying, Hesper, because you have been poisoned—I reached out all the way from Xand to accomplish it.” He grinned, which only made him look more predatory. “You see, it is worse than you thought. Not only did Ananka leave you, she took my gold and poured death into your cup before she went.” The autarch ignored the gasps and cries of the Jellonian courtiers as he turned from the wheezing, pop-eyed king of Jellon back to Olin. “Now you see how you have been avenged,” he told his prisoner. “And King Hesper learns the price of betraying a living god.”

  Hesper recovered enough breath to flail his hand toward Sulepis and shout, “Guards!” but even as the first of the soldiers stepped forward—more hesitantly than Vash would have expected for men facing unarmed slaves—the autarch raised his hand high and they all stopped as though Sulepis were their king instead of blood-drooling Hesper.

  “But wait!” the autarch cried and then began to laugh, a sound so strange and unexpected that even the armored soldiers flinched. “You still have not seen the gifts I bring!” Sulepis flicked his fingers.

  The bearers lifted their baskets high above their heads and dashed them on the floor. Gold and jewels spilled out onto the tiles, but not only treasure: from each broken basket a cloud of black wasps rose like a moaning whirlwind, each wasp as big as a man’s thumb; a moment later, even as the screams began, hundreds of poisonous hood snakes crawled out of the ruined baskets as well. The snakes immediately slithered off in all directions, striking at anything that moved including many of the helpless bearer slaves. Already the great hall was a chaos of shrieking courtiers and servants struggling to escape. Many held their hands over their faces to defend against the wasps only to stumble into a tangle of serpents and fall screaming to the floor, where they thrashed helplessly until the creatures’ venom silenced them at last.

  Vash was too astounded to do anything but stare at the horror around him, but wasps were snapping past him like sling stones and the first of the angry snakes had almost reached the place where he cringed by the autarch’s side.

  “A’lat!�
� called Sulepis.

  The dark-skinned priest stepped forward and raised his rattling serpent-staff, then rapped it on the floor and shouted something Vash could not make out. A moment later the air around the priest seemed to grow as shimmery as a heat-mirage, then the strange blur stretched out and swallowed up the autarch and Vash and Olin Eddon and the guards as well.

  It was like being covered by fog: Vash could still see the jerking, staggering shapes of courtiers and soldiers but they had become remote and hard to make out, like shadow puppets held too far from the screen. Still, the priest’s spell, if that was what it was, had done nothing to diminish the sounds in the great hall, which only became worse as the gurgles and groans of the dying began to supplant the screams of the living still struggling to escape.

  “A’lat,” said the autarch, “I believe some smoke would add to the scene and make our exit even more impressive.” He spoke as calmly as if he were deciding what kind of trees should be planted in the gardens of the Orchard Palace. “Vash, it will be rather confusing when we go out—please remind the carpet slaves that they must pay close attention.”

  Vash could only watch, slack-jawed with amazement, as the dark priest A’lat lifted a round object the size of a small cannonball and rubbed it with his hands while singing a few quiet words until the ball began to billow persimmon-colored smoke. The priest rolled it across the floor toward the doorway leading out of the great hall, then the autarch and his carpet slaves stepped after it.

  The door to the courtyard was open and the garden itself was littered with bodies, some moaning and twitching, some silent. Some of the courtiers had even gone so far as to climb trees to escape the hood snakes, and could be seen clinging to branches with one hand while they tried to swat away angry wasps with the other, but their screams and the corpses lying at the base of some of the trees with shiny black insects still walking on their faces told a tale of futility, even through the blur of the priest’s spell. The magical fog seemed cover the autarch wherever he went, like the royal awning slaves held over him on particularly hot days. The Jellonian guards still trying to reach the throne room and protect their own monarch rushed past the little procession as though they could not see it.

  Vash had seen hood snakes before, although never in such numbers, but he had never seen anything like the huge wasps, creatures that seemed to have no other desire than to sting anything that moved and keep stinging it until motion ceased. Even in the midst of such madness and death he could not help wondering where they came from.

  When they reached the gate, Sulepis told the priest, “More smoke, I think. It will serve to distract the multitude.” The autarch then waited calmly as his guards winched open the massive portcullis and unbolted the outer door. A’lat rubbed another of his smoke-fruits into life and held it in his hand as he led Sulepis and the hustling carpet bearers out through the palace gate. The people who had lined the road before had lost all order and were now blocking the autarch’s passage.

  A’lat ignited a second smoke ball and held one high in each hand. The Jellonians shrank back, crying out in fear and amazement. Sulepis raised his hands.

  “The great god of fire has destroyed your wicked king!” he shouted and some in the crowd cried out, while others fell into murmuring, confused talk. “He has sent doom down on Hesper from heaven itself—stinging insects, fierce serpents, lions, and dragons! Run! Run and you may yet be saved!”

  Even as the Jellonians stared, some drawing away but some starting forward in anger and distrust, the first swarm of wasps issued from the open gate of the palace, flew past the autarch and his party as if they were not even there, and fell upon the nearest of the people in the road like a cloud of death. The screeching of these victims set many of the others running, and a moment later a dozen huge snakes wriggled out of the gate into the sunlight and the crowd dissolved into mindless terror just as the courtiers inside had done. The autarch’s party walked down the road toward the harbor, the carpet slaves scuttling back and forth to keep the golden path always stretching before their master.

  “Lions and dragons?” Vash looked around worriedly.

  “The tale of what happened here will grow in the telling,” the autarch said. “I merely add a few details to make the eventual history richer.”

  Olin Eddon had the bloodless look of a man living a nightmare, and staggered a little as he walked. His guards moved closer to help keep him upright.

  “Is Hesper dead?” Vash asked.

  “Ah, I hope it is not so.” Sulepis shook his head. “I would like to think he will pass his last month or so before the poison kills him dwelling on what it means to cheat me and knowing that I will come back at my leisure and devour his little country like a sweetmeat.” He paused and turned to gaze back at Gremos Pitra, an expression of great serenity on his long face. “After this, the people of Jellon will crawl to me on the day I return. They will beg to become slaves of Xis.”

  “Not everyone in the north will beg to become slaves,” Olin said darkly. “You may find that many would rather die than bend their knees to you.”

  “That too can be arranged,” the autarch told him. “Now come, all of you—step lively. It has been a busy morning and your god-king is hungry.”

  Qinnitan was still reeling when the nameless man dragged her out into the sunlight and began to lead her across the docks. Poor Pigeon limped beside them, his hand dripping blood through the makeshift bandage, his little face emptied by the shock of what had happened.

  How could it be? How could all she had suffered and survived have given them only that few moments of freedom? Were the gods utterly evil?

  Spare us, great Nushash, she prayed. I was a priestess in your sacred Hive. I have only tried to do what was right. Heavenly bees, protect us!

  But there were no bees, only smoke and flecks of burning sail wafting on the wind. The ship that had brought them here was all but gone, only a bit of its burning forecastle still above water, the mast long since burned black and collapsed. Hundreds of people crowded the waterfront, shouting bits of the story to each other, staring as survivors were pulled from the water by men in small boats.

  Some of them were innocent sailors, she thought suddenly, like the men on Dorza’s ship. Some of them might have been good men. Dead because of me . . .

  It did no good to think about it—no good to think about anything. She was being taken to an unimaginable punishment at the hands of the autarch and her only hope of escape had proved futile. Even if she were to dive into the water, this nameless, relentless killer would only dive in and pull her back out again. Perhaps if she swallowed as much water as she could . . .

  But that would leave Pigeon alone, she realized. This monster would give him to the autarch to be tortured . . . killed . . .

  Suddenly a horrifying pain stabbed at Qinnitan’s arm. She shrieked and staggered a step or two, then fell to her knees. For a moment she thought her captor had grabbed her elbow and broken it, but he was on the other side, holding the other arm. He tried to yank her back upright, but her limbs were as limp and boneless as wet string.

  Blackness swam before her eyes and she hung her head, thinking she might vomit. The pain in her arm was growing fiercer, as if a sliver of the burning ship had been driven into her like a nail into soft wood, as if the joint in her arm were being carved with a sharp knife.

  “Gods! Stop this!” she cried, or thought she did, but she was tumbling down into blackness and could not be certain of anything any more.

  Shadows moved around her, eyeless things murmuring words she could barely hear.

  “Tears . . .” whispered one.

  “Spittle . . .” said another.

  “Blood . . .” quavered a third in a voice so low she could scarcely make it out.

  Her arm burned as if the bone had become a white-hot poker. The darkness swung around her in a wild dance, and for a moment she saw the face of the red-haired boy . . . Barrick! . . . but he clearly did not see her, although she
tried to call to him. Something covered him and kept her from him—a frozen waterfall, a cup of glass—and her words could not travel to him. Ice. Solid shadow. Separation . . .

  Then the world wheeled back into place around her, the cry of seagulls and the shouts of people on every side snapping into place like the last piece of a wooden puzzle. The hard, gray planks of the dock were beneath her hands and knees. Somebody was pulling her roughly to her feet, but she was not ready and almost fell again; only the strength of that powerful, iron-hard arm held her upright. The pain in her own arm was fading but she was still breathless with its memory.

  “What are you playing at?” her captor, the nameless man, shook her hard. He looked around as though someone might notice, but no one on the dock was near enough to hear, even if they would have cared. We must look like a father with two willful children, she thought. Behaving badly.

  Something struck her then—not more pain, but a realization: if she continued to walk this path there was no hope. She could feel it, feel things closing in, possibilities withering, so that only death stood at the end of the road—death and something more, something worse. It’s waiting, she realized, although she did not know what it was. Something hungry, that was all she knew for certain, and it was waiting for her in the darkness at the end of her journey.