by Tad Williams
Barrick couldn’t help noticing the overture of comradeship. “Yes, that would be good, Skurn. Thank you.” He looked at the pitchy clouds of blacklight along the banks. “Find a place where the darkness is not so thick—an island, perhaps. Unused. Maybe wild.”
The black bird flapped upward in a spiral and then leveled out, flying toward the nearest bank.
“My stomach is empty,” Barrick said as he watched the raven disappear. “If we take a fish from this water will it poison us?”
Beck shook his head. “I don’t think so. But there is already food in the boat. I doubt anyone touched it after we brought my master home. With so many lost on our hunting trip and my master wounded we did not eat it all—a good deal of dried meat and road bread should be left.” He crawled forward and found a large waterproof sack folded underneath the foremost bench. “Yes, see!”
The food had a strange, musty taste, but Barrick was far too tired and hungy to mind. They shared a handful of dried meat and two pieces of bread as hard as boot-leather that reminded Barrick of the brown maslin loaves back home.
“And you are truly Prince Barrick!” Raemon Beck had recovered his spirits a bit. “I cannot believe I should see you again, my lord—and here of all places!”
“If you say so. I do not remember our first meeting.” In truth, Barrick didn’t much want to remember. It was nothing to do with the man in the ragged clothes. He had felt such relief at being separated from all that he had left behind—his past, his heritage, his pain—and he was in no hurry to bring any of it back.
Beck haltingly told him of how his caravan had been attacked by the Qar, he the lone survivor, and how after telling his story he had been summoned to a royal council and then had been sent back again to the same place along the Settland Road. The tale took a long while—Beck’s memory had been addled by so much time behind the Shadowline, a stay even longer than Barrick’s—and every name he recovered was a victory for him but gave Barrick only pain.
“And then your sister told the captain . . . what was his name? The tall one?”
“Vansen,” said Barrick flatly. The guardsman had fallen into blackness defending Barrick’s life after Barrick himself had cursed him many times. Was there to be no end to this parade of wretched, useless memories?
“Yes, your sister told him to take me back to where the caravan was attacked. But we never reached it—or I never did. I woke up in the night surrounded by mist. I was lost. I called and called but no one found me. Or at least none of the ones that I traveled with found me . . .” Raemon Beck broke off, shuddering, and would say no more about what had happened to him between that time and the time he was taken in by Qu’arus of Sleep. “He treated me well, did Master. Fed me. Didn’t beat me unless I deserved it. And now he’s dead . . .” Beck’s shoulders trembled. “But I do not think your sister, bless her—forgive me, Lord, I should say Princess Briony . . . I do not think she meant me any harm. She was angry, but I don’t think she was angry at me . . .”
“Enough, man. Leave it.” Barrick had heard as much as he could bear.
Beck lapsed into silence. Barrick sat hunched in the robe that had cushioned Qu’arus on his dying journey and took up the oars again, rowing just enough to keep them in the middle of the quiet, backwater stream while they waited for the raven’s return. The canal was narrow and the houses rose up on either side, scarcely distinguishable from the rough stony cliffs out of which they had been carved, only recognizable as dwellings by the occasional tiny window and the huge, gatelike doors in the walls above the waterline.
Doors, he thought. More doors in this city than I can count. And all I have to do is find the right one.
Skurn dropped down out of the dim sky and spread his wings to land on the boat’s tall stern. It was easy to forget how big the bird was, Barrick thought—its wingspan nearly matched the spread of a man’s arms. The raven did not speak at once, but picked and pruned at his feathers. It was clear Skurn wanted to be asked.
“Have you found us anything? A place to go?”
“Mought be. Then again, moughtn’t.”
Barrick sighed. Was it any wonder he was mostly alone in the world and preferred it that way? “Then please tell me,” he said with exaggerated courtesy. “Afterward, I will thank you fulsomely for your kind service.”
Pleased, the raven fluffed himself and stood straighter. “Happens that this is what Skurn has found—a skerry off the great canal, midstream. Trees and such, and only ruins. Us didn’t see sign of naught on two legs.”
“Good,” said Barrick. “And I do thank you. Which direction?”
“Follow us.” The raven flapped up again.
As Barrick paddled after the slow-flapping shape, Raemon Beck suddenly said, “Not all the animals here talk. And sometimes even with the ones that do, you’re better off not to listen.” He shook himself like a wet dog, beset by some evil memory. “Especially when they invite you back to their houses. It’s not like one of those children’s tales, you know.”
“I’ll do my best to remember that.”
The island was much as Skurn had described, a small, overgrown knot of stone in the middle of one of the large canals, far enough from the darklights that it basked in a pool of twilit gray. Some immense structure had once stood among the dark pines, taking up most of the small island, but little remained of it now except a few crumbling walls and the circular ruins of what might have been a tower.
There was no beach to be found, and nothing left of the dock that had once served the island except a few bleached piers that looked enough like great ribs to make Barrick think uneasily of the Sleepers and their bone mountain. They moored the boat to the closest of these and waded to the rocky shore through water up to their chests; Beck and Barrick were both shivering by the time they reached dry ground and crawled into the shelter of the pines.
“We need a fire,” Barrick said. “I don’t care if anyone sees it or not.” He got up and led Beck through the thick growth until they reached the remains of the stone tower. “This will at least hide the light of the flames,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about the smoke.”
“Use these,” said Beck, bending to pick deadfall from the ground. “It’s a good wood and they’ll put off less smoke than green branches.”
Barrick nodded. So the man wasn’t useless after all.
With a small fire burning, Barrick finally settled back to warm his hands and realized that Skurn was gone. Before he had too much chance to think about it the bird came back, flapping down through the upper branches before hopping the rest of the way from limb to tangled limb. Something dangled in his beak, a dark bundle that he dropped with great ceremony.
“Us thought you would be hungry, like,” the raven announced.
Barrick examined the almost eyeless corpse, a creature like a large mole but with longer and more delicate, fingered paws. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it: he was painfully hungry. Except for the few morsels he had shared with Raemon Beck he hadn’t eaten in what seemed like days.
“I’ll do for that,” Beck said. “Have you a knife?”
With some reluctance, Barrick produced Qu’arus’ short sword. Beck examined it for a moment and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The merchant bent to the task of skinning and gutting the creature while Barrick stoked the fire, and he gave the entrails and hide to Skurn without asking. The raven gulped them down, then hopped onto a stone and began to groom himself.
“So what do you know of this city?” Barrick asked as their dinner roasted on a pine-skewer over the open flame. The smell was most distracting, musky but appetizing. “Where are we? How is the place shaped?”
Beck wrinkled his dirty face in thought. “I know little, to be truthful. The only time my master took me out before the hunting trip was on a ceremonial visit to the Duke of Spidersilk. He brought several of his mortal servants—just to put out the duke, or so it seemed.” A sad little smile flickered on Raemon Beck’s lips. “We had to go far i
nto the city, and he pointed things out to me along the way. Let me think.” He picked up a pine twig and began to draw with it in the dark, damp soil. “It has a shape like this, I think.” He scratched an awkward spiral. “K’ze-shehaoui—the River Fade—that is what they call the great canal,” he said, tracing this main line. “But there are other waterways crossing it all the way in.” He drew other lines across the main line. The shape began to look like one of the halved chamber shells the priests of Erivor wore upon their breasts as an emblem of their god.
“But where are we?” Barrick asked.
Raemon Beck rubbed his face for a moment. “I think the house of Qu’arus must be somewhere here,” he said, jabbing with his stick about halfway along the outermost spiral. “Master was always proud that he lived outside the heart of the city, separate from the other wealthy, important families. And this spot is probably somewhere near here.” He poked again, scratching a larger mark on the second and third spirals. “I couldn’t guess how far we’ve come exactly, but I know that part is full of islands.”
Barrick frowned. He pulled the meat from the fire, then set it on a clean rock and began to cut it into two portions, an awkward process with a blade so big and a meal so small. He left Beck’s on the rock and began to eat his own share with his fingers. “I need to know more. I have been set a task.”
“What kind of task?” Beck asked.
Even the unfamiliar human company and the comfort of a hot meal was not enough to induce Barrick to share all his secrets with someone who was after all nearly a stranger. “Never mind that. I need to find a certain door, as I said, but I have no idea where it might be except for the name Crooked’s Hall. What else can you tell me? If you don’t know Crooked’s Hall, is there a famous door somewhere in Sleep? An important gate? Something guarded?”
“Everything is guarded,” Beck said grimly. “What is not watched by the skrikers is in the houses of the Dreamless, clutched tight.”
“You mentioned some fellow your master took you to see—the Duke of Spiderwebs, was it?”
“Spidersilk. He is tremendously old. My master said he was one of the oldest in the city, second only to the members of the Laughing Council.”
Despite himself, Barrick blinked. “What sort of name is that?”
“I don’t know, my lord. Master hated them. He said someone should suck the last of the juices from them and then we could all begin again. He also said that laughter should have a sound, but I do not know what he meant.”
Barrick was growing impatient with all the history. “This Spidersilk— where is he? Could we reach him? Could we make him tell us what we want to know?”
Raemon Beck stared in abject horror. “The duke? No! We cannot go near him. He would destroy us without lifting a finger!”
“But where did he live? Can you at least tell me that?”
“I’m not certain. Somewhere near the heart of the city. I remember because we passed many of the oldest places as we reached the middle of Sleep, some of them burned and others fallen down into ruins, some of them so surrounded with darklight that I could not see them even from a short distance. My master pointed out many things—such strange names!—the Garden of Hands was one, and a place called Five Red Stones, the Library of Painful Music—no, Pitiful Music . . .” He took a breath. “So many names! Syu’maa’s Tower, Traitor’s Gate, the Field of the First Waking ...”
“Hold,” said Barrick, suddenly intent. “Traitor’s Gate? What was that?”
“I . . . I don’t remember ...”
Barrick reached out and grabbed Beck’s arm with his left hand, and only realized that he was hurting him when he heard him whimper. He let go. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I must know. Think, man! What was it, this Traitor’s Gate?”
“Please, Lord, it was . . . it was one of the places so dark I could not see it. But Master said something ...” Beck squinted his eyes, clearly trying hard to remember, all the while rubbing the arm Barrick had squeezed. “He said it was a hole.”
“A hole?” Barrick had to restrain the impulse to grab the small, dirty man again and shake him this time. “Is that all?”
“I know it sounds strange, but he called it a hole . . . what did he say? A hole that even the gods could not . . . could not ...” His face brightened. “That even the gods could not close.”
Barrick’s heart was beating fast. He had heard enough talk of Crooked’s roads to know this was something he could not ignore. “Show me how to find it.”
Beck’s look of satisfaction evaporated. “What? But . . . my lord, it’s in the heart of Sleep—in the district of Silence where only those who are called may go. Even my master would not have set foot there without being summoned by Spidersilk ...” He jumped at a loud clacking noise, but it was only Skurn cracking a snail shell against a rock.
“My master was very clever,” Beck said. “If he wouldn’t go there by himself, neither should we. You do not know these creatures, Prince Barrick—they’ve no souls, no kindness at all! They will skin us just to amuse themselves, with less concern than I gave to this coney!”
“I will not force you to go with me, but I cannot let the chance pass.” Barrick wiped his hands on his ragged clothes and began smoothing out a place to lie down. “I must see this place, Beck. I must find out if this . . . hole that even the gods can’t close is what I’m looking for. I have a task, as I said.” He reached into his shirt to touch the mirror in its bag. “You are free to do what you want.”
“But if you leave me, I will be caught! A runaway servant—and a Sunlander!” The man’s eyes filled with tears. “They will do terrible things to me!”
Some of the coldness had returned to his heart: Barrick was suddenly tired and did not want to listen to this weak fellow’s weeping—he could almost feel himself hardening like clay becoming brick. He lay back in the hollow between two pine roots and rolled the hood of Qu’arus’ cloak behind his head as a cushion. “I cannot make your decisions for you, trader. I have responsibilities beyond shepherding one man.” He closed his eyes.
It should not have been easy to fall asleep with Beck sobbing quietly only an arm’s length away, but Barrick had scarcely slept in the house of the Dreamless—would not have said he slept at all, but for the memories of that strange lizard-dream. The world quickly slipped away.
In his dream he stood on a hilltop, an oddly featureless place the color of ancient ivory. A crowd of people had gathered on the slope below him, their staring faces like a garden bed of unusual flowers. He could recognize some of them instantly—his father the king, Shaso, his brother Kendrick—but some of them were less familiar. One might be Ferras Vansen he realized after a moment, but at the same time it was an older man with a gray-shot beard and thinning hair—a Vansen who could never exist because the guard captain had died in Greatdeeps, falling into endless darkness. Most of the rest were strangers, some in antique-looking dress, others as weird and misshapen as any of the creatures he had met in the demigod Jikuyin’s slave cells: the only things the strange assembly seemed to share were their silence and attention.
Barrick tried to speak, to ask them what they wanted of him, but his mouth would not form the words. His face felt numb, and although the muscles of his jaw and tongue twitched, something kept them from moving freely. He reached his hand to his lips. To his horror, he felt nothing there but skin, stiff as old leather. His mouth was gone.
Barrick? Is that you?
Someone spoke from behind him, the achingly familiar voice of the dark-haired girl—Qinnitan, that was her name—but he could not answer her no matter how he tried. He struggled to turn toward her but could not move, either—his body had become as numb and hard as his face.
Why won’t you talk to me? she asked. I can see you! I have wanted to talk to you so long! What have I done to anger you?
Barrick strained until his vision swirled, trying to make his stony muscles move, but it was useless. He might as well have been a statue. The expectant face
s still gazed up at him but some of them began to change, showing impatience and confusion. He stood looking down as the sky darkened and rain began to fall, cold drops that he barely felt, as though the very flesh of his body had become something thick and stiff as tree bark. He heard Qinnitan’s voice again but it grew fainter and fainter until at last it was gone. The crowd began to disperse, some clearly enraged by his inaction, others merely puzzled, until he stood by himself on the bare hilltop, dripping with rain that he could not wipe away.
“Prince Barrick, if you truly . . . ah!” Raemon Beck, who had only shaken Barrick once, was startled to feel Qu’arus’ blade pressing against his neck.
“What is it?”
Beck swallowed carefully. “Could you . . . could you please not kill me, my lord?”
Barrick withdrew the blade and slipped it back into its scabbard. “How long did I sleep?”
Beck rubbed his throat. “It’s always hard to tell here, but the quarter bell rang a short time ago. We do not have long before Repose is over and the Dreamless are out on the canals again.” Pale and with dark circles under his eyes, the young merchant looked as though he had not managed to sleep at all. “If you truly mean to look for this place, we should go.”
“We? Does that mean you are going with me?”
Beck nodded miserably. “What choice do I have, my lord? They’ll kill me either way.” His mouth pursed as he struggled with his composure. “For the first time in a long while I was thinking of my children and my wife . . . thinking of how I will likely never see them again ...”
“Enough. That does neither of us any good.” Barrick sat up, stretched. “How much longer will this Repose last?”
Beck shrugged miserably. “I told you, the quarter bell rang. That means three-quarters of it is gone. I do not even know how to judge time anymore, Prince Barrick. An hour? Two hours? That is all we have.”
“Then we must try to find the center of the city before then. What of these skrikers? Will they interfere with us on the river?”