by Tad Williams
“Of course,” Eneas said at last. The prince could not disguise the heaviness of his words. “ ’Of course I will give you time, my lady. You must be true to yourself.”
She should have slept like the dead that night, but instead she rolled and tossed through more nightmares of tunnels collapsing and dirt always beneath her fingers. This time there was no silvery shape to lead her, and the longer the dreams went on the farther down into choking darkness she went.
At last she found herself in a deep place, so deep that she understood somehow she had dug out on the other side of the world, that what lay beyond the small patch of ground on which she stood was the empty blackness of a sky with no stars, a blackness into which a single misstep could send her tumbling forever. And there, at the center of that dark otherness, she found her brother.
He was pale, senseless, as he had been before. He lay stretched before her as Kendrick had lain while the servants prepared him for burial, but Barrick was not dead. She did not know how she knew it, but she did.
The three shapes that crouched over him were no servants or funerary priests but something else entirely—dark, eyeless shadows singing wordless songs as they moved their hands above him. Then one of them lifted Barrick’s crippled arm up to the emptiness of its face and her brother began to fade.
Tears, one of the shapes whispered, and the echo was swallowed by the damp, dark earth all around.
Spittle, said another.
Blood, said a third.
She tried to call to her twin, to wake him and warn him about what these terrible specters were doing, but she could not. She felt the change spreading through Barrick like flame, a train of fire from his arm to his head and heart that was also a spreading, burning agony through her own body. She tried to throw herself forward, but some invisible hand held her back.
Barrick! Her cries seemed all but silent. Barrick! Come back! Don’t let them take you!
And at the last, just before the thing of cobweb shadows that had been her brother grew too dim to see, Barrick opened his eyes and looked at her. His stare was empty, utterly dead and empty.
She woke up choking on her own tears, feeling as though the most important part of her had been cut out with a dull knife. For long moments she could only lie on her bed sobbing helplessly. Barrick . . . Would she truly never see him again? The dream had felt so terrible, so final. Had something happened to him—something bad? Was he . . . ?
“Oh, gods, no . . . !” she moaned.
Briony dragged herself up. She could not even bear to think of the possibility. These dreams—the nightmares—they were stalking her as though she were their prey. Would she never sleep again without seeing some parade of horror? So tired that she could barely set one foot in front of the other, she stumbled to the chest she had brought with her from her time with the players, the locked box with the clothes she had worn and the few small objects she had picked up on her journey south.
Briony opened the lid and began digging through it, scattering the boy’s breeches she had worn and the pamphlets that had been handed to her, not even knowing what she sought until her fingers closed on it and she felt the fragile bird’s skull and the tiny dry flowers.
Lisiya’s charm in her hands, she crawled back across her dark chamber and into bed. She held the charm tightly to her breast and tried not to think of the dream-Barrick’s dead eyes. One of the maids whimpered a little in her sleep, and that was the last thing she remembered before the dark took her again.
She was in the forest once more, but this time she could see the thing she had been chasing so long. It was a fox, black on the underside but tipped all over its back with silver, and silver on its tail and sharp face as well. As it sped away it looked back at her, teeth bared in a grin that might have been fatigue but seemed more like mockery. Except for a thin ring of orange, the creature’s eyes were as black as its belly.
The fox leaped over the roots effortlessly, but even in her dream Briony could not move with such liquid ease. She must have stumbled, for she found herself falling forward, the trees suddenly turned into whirling torrents of black. For a moment she thought she was back in the terrible, crumbling earth, but then she passed through that spinning darkness into a forest glade. The silvery fox had stopped running and now crouched with its back to her in front of an ancient tumbled altar of stone.
Briony staggered up and fell to her knees. Things seemed curiously painful for a dream: she could feel twigs and rocks digging into her skin.
“Who . . . who are you?” she gasped.
The beast turned. This time there was no question: its grin was one of mockery and disgust. The fox shook its head. “I said it before and I’ll say it again—I fear for the breed.”
The little animal hopped lightly up onto the ruined altar and lowered its muzzle to sniff. Thunder rumbled distantly. “Look at this,” the fox said, and there was something familiar in the creature’s voice that cut through the fog of Briony’s dreaming thoughts. “Is this what people think of me, that my sacred places are left untended even here? Even in the dreamlands?”
“Lisiya?” Briony whispered. “Is that you?” But as soon as she said the name she knew it was true.
The fox turned; a moment later the black and silver beast had vanished and the old woman sat upon the altar, her gnarled bare feet dangling as if she were a child. “Lisiya Melana of the Silver Glade, do you mean?” she said with more than a trace of irritation. “Bad enough you summon a goddess and then fail to meet her, but to forget her name as well . . . !”
“But . . . but I did not summon you.”
“You most certainly did, child. Three nights running, although I could barely hear you the first few times. Weak as a newborn kitling’s, your voice was, but finally tonight I could hear you well enough to find you.” Thunder boomed again above the forest, as though mirroring Lisiya’s irritation.
Briony could not shake off the feeling that she was misunderstanding something. “I . . . I dreamed of you—or at least of chasing you. Through the forest. And through tunnels in the earth. But I did not see you before, only your . . . tail.”
Lisiya levered herself off the edge of the altar and dropped to the ground; Briony almost cringed, afraid the demigoddess’ bony old legs would snap like twigs. It was strange to feel so awake and yet to know she was dreaming! Other than a light-headed feeling such as came upon her when she had more wine than she should, she felt quite ordinary.
“Come along, child. I suppose it doesn’t matter why you summoned me. In your heart you must have known you needed my help.” Briony followed the demigoddess past the altar, out of the clearing, and into the trees. Thunder boomed again and a faint shimmer of lightning lit the sky overhead. “Restless,” Lisiya commented, but did not explain.
In many ways the journey through the forest was as dreamlike to Briony as the pursuit of Barrick through the crumbling earth, but it was maddeningly ordinary as well. She could feel every step, every breath, even a moment of discomfort when she scraped her arm against the trunk of an oak tree.
“Where are we?” she asked at last.
“At the moment? Or in some larger sense?” Lisiya was laboring along at a good pace and Briony had to hurry to keep up. “We are very close here to the lands of the dreaming gods—all the old gods that Crooked sent to sleep. Your kind call him Kupilas, of course. Even we didn’t always call him Crooked—that came after the three brothers and their clan tortured him. When Crooked was born he was named Brightshine—a son made by the dawn and the moonlight—you can guess why he was thought a beautiful child. No wonder he hated his uncles so much for what they did to him, let alone the tricks and cruelties and even murder they performed on the rest of his family.”
There was a brief pause as lightning whitewashed the sky for a moment, but before Briony could ask any more questions, Lisiya began again as though she had.
“We are not on Crooked’s roads here—a mortal cannot pass through them safely—but we are travelin
g in some of the lands that those roads traverse—do you see? Such roads belong to his great-grandmother Emptiness, of course, but she gave him safe conduct to travel them, and he made much of that freedom.”
Before Briony could ask Lisiya to start over because she hadn’t understood a word, the demigoddess abruptly stopped.
“So here we are,” Lisiya said. “Now you can tell me what you need.”
They stood before a small, rough house made of unfinished logs, its roof thatched with leafy branches. A crash of thunder shook the air and for a moment turned the house as flat and pale as one of Makewell’s Men’s painted backgrounds. Shoots of green grass grew between the dead leaves on the ground, but the house itself looked old and long deserted.
“Don’t just stand there gawking, child. Follow me.” Lisiya bent and clambered through the low door.
The rain was coming down now like arrows, but the hut was dry and surprisingly warm inside. Briony settled onto a fur rug, one of many that covered the dirt floor. Still, though, for all its homely comforts, it did not quite seem natural: every time Briony stared at anything very long it seemed to grow farther away in a way that made her feel a bit dizzy. She jumped as the thunder crashed again, rattling the walls.
“Not just restless,” Lisiya said with a disapproving frown. “More like a sleeping bear smelling spring. Quick, girl, we may not have much time. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
Briony told her of the dreams, first those of her brother Barrick, especially the most recent and most frightening one. She still could not remember the way his eyes had looked without a chill on her heart.
“I can give you scant help there, I fear,” Lisiya said after a long moment’s silent thought. “Your brother is hidden to me—whether because of where he is or the company he keeps, I cannot say. Still, something tells me he is not dead.”
“Praise the gods! As long as he is alive, there’s hope,” Briony said—and meant it. Her heart already felt lighter. “Thank you.”
“You thank a goddess with a sacrifice,” Lisiya said. “Honey would be nice—clover or apple blossom make my favorites—but a pretty stone will also do. You can leave it on one of my altars . . .” She looked up, suddenly distracted.
Briony did not want to tell the demigoddess that she had never heard of an actual altar to Lisiya—not in the waking world, anyway. “I will. May I ask you another question?”
Lisiya slowly returned her attention to Briony. “I suppose. But swiftly, child. The weather is growing strange.”
Briony quickly told her of the dilemma—how her kindly feelings toward Eneas seemed likely to destroy her plan to enlist his aid. “He’s a good man! A truly good man. How can I do such a thing to him? Even for a good cause?”
The demigoddess cocked a draggled eyebrow. “But he is a man, for all the things you say—a grown man and a prince. He will make his own choices—to be with you or not, to do what you wish or not. Have you promised him, ‘Help me and I will marry you’—or even, ‘Help me and I will take you to my bed’?”
“Of course not!”
Lisiya laughed sourly. “You needn’t act so disturbed, child. You are a woman in all but name now, I see, and if it were so terrible an act I think there would be a parcel fewer of mortals in the world.”
“No, I didn’t mean . . . well, I did, but . . . in any case, I am a virgin!”
“It’s a common enough condition, child. Nothing to brag about.”
“But that’s . . .” Briony took a breath as a flash of lightning made light burst in through every crack in the hut walls and ceiling. A few moments later thunder boomed again, so close it seemed right overhead. “That’s not what I mean! I mean that I would give anything, even my maidenhood, if it would save my family. I would even give it falsely! But I don’t want to give it falsely to . . . to a man who is truly kind. Whom in other circumstances I could truly care for.” She shook her head. “Is there any kind of sense to that at all?”
Lisiya’s expression softened. “Yes, child. But I do not think you tell me all the truth.”
“I did . . . !”
“I think you already care for him. What is his name?”
“Eneas, the prince of Syan. But . . . but it is really another that I care for. At least I did—I am no longer certain.” Briony started to laugh, then suddenly felt like weeping, but the laugh bubbled out anyway. “He and Eneas could not be more different, except that they are both kind men. He has no connections, no expectations—he is a commoner! And I do not even think he still lives. He went away a long time ago and almost everyone who went with him is dead.”
“Your problem is like an apple on a high, thin branch,” the demigoddess said, “—a branch that is too high to reach from the ground, but too thin to climb out on to reach the apple. But sometimes such an apple can be plucked anyway—with help. You can climb up to stand on the base of the branch, and thus lower the apple enough that someone on the ground can jump up and pluck it . . .”
Briony was about to ask her what in the name of Zoria’s mercy she was talking about with all this apples and branches nonsense when the brightest blaze of lightning yet burst in through the cracks, accompanied almost simultaneously by a peal of thunder so loud that Briony and Lisiya bounced like dried peas in a bowl.
Except it wasn’t thunder, Briony realized in terror as she rolled on the floor, trying to regain her balance: what she heard was a voice, too loud and low to understand, raging and bellowing as if a giant stood just above the house, shouting from the depths of the biggest lungs in the world.
“Get out, child!” shouted Lisiya. “Now!” She grabbed at Briony’s arm and yanked her toward the door. Now the dream turned completely nightmarish: no matter how Briony struggled and stumbled forward, the door that should only have been a step or two away remained out of her reach. Lisiya had vanished and the hut had become an immense black space cracked like a broken pot, lit only by flashes of jagged light.
“Lisiya, where are you?” Briony screamed.
“Here! Here!”
And then she could feel the old woman’s hand again, the calloused skin wrapped tight around hers. She was yanked forward, a tumble into dark space through sudden winds, then out into light and the rain-lashed forest. The sky above was frantic with lightning, burst after burst blanketing the sky and turning the trees into snapping, dancing silhouettes. The thundering voice, still unintelligible and still terrifyingly close, pressed in on Briony from all sides until she thought the very weight of it would crush her skull like an egg.
“What is it?” she shrieked, holding her hands over her ears, an action that helped nothing.
“He is starting to wake!” Lisiya’s faint voice was all but blotted out by the deep, wordless roar. “Run!”
“Who is?” Briony screamed, the force of the wind and thundering voice making her sway and almost fall.
“Run!” shouted Lisiya. “It is later than I imagined! I should have told you . . .”
“Told me what?”
“Too late. You must go to the Stone People . . . they must take you to you their ancient drum . . . their stone drum . . . !”
And then the demigoddess was gone. The air was full of whirling leaves and branches stripped from forest trees, all smacking at her like angry hands, scratching her, making her all but blind. In the momentary bright smears of lightning, though, she could see one thing, a huge dark shape looming high overhead, far above the trees, blotting out the sky.
Briony covered her head with her hands and ran and ran and ran, through falling trees and hurtling branches, through air that tightened and boomed with the roar of rumbling laughter.
She woke up without screaming this time, but covered in sweat, her heart beating so fast her chest hurt. She lay clutching Lisiya’s talisman to her chest, praying for her brother and herself and all she loved. Briony was so tired that she felt older and frailer than the ancient demigoddess herself, but even after her heartbeat had slowed to its ordinary pace she could not ge
t back to sleep until dawn had almost arrived.
20
Bridge of Thorns
“It is claimed most ettins now live in the underground city of First Deep, far behind the Shadowline in what once was West Vutland, but before the days of the Great Plague they are said to have lived at least as far south as the Eliuin Mountains of Syan, and in the Settish and Perikalese mountains as well.”
—from “A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand”
I AM THE WORST SPY THE GODSEVER MADE,Matt Tinwright had to admit. The first time someone asks me what I’m doing here I shall scream like a little girl and swoon.
He had never been in this part of the royal residence as far as he knew; with its unfamiliar, echoing halls and ancient floor-to-ceiling tapestries full of staring beasts it might as well have been an ogre’s cave in the deep forest, carpeted in the bones of unwary travelers. Doom seemed to lurk around every corner.
The gods curse you, Avin Brone, he thought for perhaps the hundredth time. You are a monster, not a man.
Tinwright had only risked a venture into this frightening territory because most of the household were out on the castle walls looking at some devilry the fairies had begun across the water. He had wanted to go and see for himself, of course, but knew he could not afford to miss this opportunity. So far Brone had scorned all information Tinwright had brought him, dismissing a list of mirrors to be found around the residence as “blithering nonsense” and threatening to have the poet skinned and made into a hat. While even Tinwright did not believe he was likely to wind up in a milliner’s workroom, he had no doubt that the Count of Landsend was losing his patience: every word of the man’s last shouting denunciation had shivered him to the very center of his bones.