by Tad Williams
Ynnir raised his hand again. I know. And you will complete your task, child of men—but not this moment. We have waited so long that another hour will mean nothing. Go and wash the dust of the road from yourself.
The chamber beyond the door was not like anything Barrick had seen before, steamy and windowless but lit by glowing amber stones set into the wall. A stone tub full of water sat in the center of a floor of dark tile, and when he tested the water with his hand it was gloriously hot. He shucked off his ancient, tattered clothes for the first time in longer than he could remember and almost leaped in.
When he climbed out again some time later even his bones and blood seemed to glow with renewed warmth. He was startled to discover that his ruined clothes were gone and that other garments had been left in their place. How had that happened? Barrick was certain no one had come in or out of the room while he had bathed. He held up the new clothing to inspect it before putting it on—breeches and a long shirt of some silky pale material and slippers of soft leather, all beautiful but simply made.
As he left the bathing room he realized that if such fine things were freely available for strangers, the king’s own tattered raiment was even more inexplicable.
Ynnir still waited in the same place, his chin on his chest as if he slept. It was doubtless a trick of the place’s strange lights, but Barrick thought he saw a lavender glow flickering above the king’s head, faint as foxfire.
As Barrick approached Ynnir stirred and the glow vanished, if it had been there at all.
Come with me now, the king told Barrick, turning his blind face toward him. It is time to set our feet to the narrowing way, as my people say.
Ynnir rose from his chair. He was taller than Barrick had expected, taller than most men, but his obvious natural grace was inhibited by what Barrick realized after a moment must be age or weariness, because he swayed for a moment and had to reach out and steady himself on the back of his chair.
Somehow blind Ynnir knew what Barrick was seeing and what he was thinking. Yes, I am weary. I thought I had lost you in the Between, and I expended much strength helping you find your way here—strength I could ill afford. But none of that matters now. We have waited long enough. Now we must go to the Deathwatch Chamber.
As he walked with the tall king Barrick finally began to see some of the great castle’s other inhabitants. It was hard to make out anything for certain in the dark, dreamy halls—the figures moved too quickly, or were visible only for instants before fading back into obscurity again, and what little of them he saw was often more confusing than if he had seen only shadows—but it was clear now that the castle was occupied.
“How many of your people live here, Lord?” he asked.
Ynnir walked a few more slow paces before answering. He lifted a hand and brought fingers and thumbs together as though holding something small. Most have gone with Yasammez, but we were already far fewer than once lived here. A few stayed to serve me and to serve Qul-na-Qar itself, and some like the tenders of the Deep Library would never leave—could never leave. There are others like that, too—you saw Harsar’s sons . . .
“Sons? ” For a moment Barrick didn’t know what the blind king meant. Then he thought of the grotesque little monstrosities that had scampered around the servant’s feet. “Those things?”
The First Gift does not always yield helpful changes, said the king, explaining nothing. But all the children of the Gift are nurtured. He made another gesture that had the resignation of a sigh. All together I would suppose there are fewer than two thousand of my people left in all these many, many rooms . . .
Barrick was distracted by the view from the hallway’s high windows—his first clear view of what lay outside the halls. Qul-na-Qar stretched across the visible distance, a forest of towers in dozens of shades of shiny black stone that seemed to stretched on and on toward the horizon until the edges disappeared in mist. The spires themselves were a hundred different shapes and heights, but all seemed built to the same idea, simple shapes repeated over and over again until in aggregate they became somber starbursts of complex black and dark gray.
“Only a thousand or two . . . in all this?” Barrick was astonished—Tessis or Hierosol alone must be able to count a hundred times that number.
Most of them have gone to war, Ynnir told him. Against your people, to be precise. I doubt any of those will return. The bitterness of Yasammez is too old, too deep . . .
The name, and the sudden memory of the frightening, awesome woman in black, made Barrick stop and fumble in his shirt. “I have it . . . !” he said, trying to pull it free. “The mirror ...”
Ynnir held up a thin hand. I know. I can feel it like a burning brand. And that is what we are going to do—use it to restore the heat of the Fireflower. But do not give it to me yet.
Thoughts were cascading through Barrick’s mind, the newest dislodging the previous ones before he had a chance to examine them. “Why are we . . . why are you . . . ?” He paused, confused: for a moment, he had forgotten who he was—even what he was. “Why are the Qar at war with Southmarch? ”
Because your family destroyed my family, the king answered with no discernible malice. Although it could also be said that our family is destroying itself. Now please be silent, child. We have reached the antechamber.
Before Barrick could even begin to make sense of what the tattered king had just said, he found himself stepping out of the dim but almost ordinary light of the passage and into a room that seemed carved from raw stone, with long streamers of pale rock stretching between ceiling and floor like cobwebs—this despite the fact that they were in the midst of the great palace. “What is this place?” he asked.
The king raised a hand. No questions for now, child of men. I must go ahead of you and tend to the rituals alone—the Celebrants especially do not much like mortals. In any case, you are not yet ready to see such things—not with your own eyes and thoughts. Stay here and I will come back for you.
The king stepped into a dark place along the wall and was gone. Barrick took a few steps forward to examine the spot Ynnir had disappeared. Was it a doorway? It looked like nothing but a shadow.
He waited in the stony chamber for what seemed like a terribly long time, listening to the quiet, empty voices that were everywhere in this place. The king had all but called him a murderer, or at least called his family murderers, yet he had treated Barrick like a welcome guest. How could that be? And the mirror that he had carried so far and through so many dangers—why hadn’t the king simply taken it from him? If humans were Ynnir’s enemies, why did he continue to trust Barrick with a prize for which the warrior Gyir had sacrificed his life?
Confusion and boredom at last overcame patience. Barrick went back to the place the king had disappeared and stood, listening, but heard nothing: if it was an open doorway then only silence was on the other side. He put out his arm and felt it go chill for a moment, but nothing impeded it, so he stepped forward himself into the cold shadow.
For an instant—just an instant—it was like falling into the doorway at Crooked’s Hall again and he was terrified that he had done something fatally stupid. Then the light warmed to swirling gray and he could make out a white shape, fluttering and ragged, surrounded by a whirl of shadows like a man beset by angry birds. The white figure was Ynnir, who had his hands raised in the air and his mouth open, as though he were calling for help, or . . . or singing. The black shapes whirled and darted. Barrick caught a snatch of the wailing, otherworldly melody before he realized some of the flitting shadows had left the king and were moving toward him instead. Heart hammering, he stepped back into the cold darkness once more, retreating into the empty stone chamber; by the time he had reached it he was shivering and covered with clammy sweat.
You must bow to Zsan-san-sis, Ynnir told him when he returned. If he had noticed Barrick’s intrusion he had not mentioned it. He is much older than me, at least in one sense, and his loyalty to the Fireflower is unquestioned. The king
laid a cold hand on Barrick’s shoulder and guided him toward the dark door.
The room on the far side seemed different this time, not a confusion of grays but a shadowy depth, the only source of light a yellow-green glow on the far side of the chamber. As the king led him forward Barrick realized with a shock that the glow came from inside the hood of a dark, robed figure waiting there like a statue. Then the hooded head lifted and for a moment Barrick caught a glimpse of stark, silvery features—a mask, Barrick thought, it must be some kind of mask—that leaked green light from nostrils, eyes, and mouth. The thing raised its arm toward them as if in greeting, and for a moment a six-pointed green star of light bloomed at the end of its sleeve.
“This is Zsan-san-sis,” said Ynnir, needlessly.
Barrick bowed as low as he could. It was much preferable to having to look again into that weird, sickly gleam.
Words were spoken, or at least Barrick thought he heard whispers, not words but hisses and quiet bubblings. Then the glowing, hooded thing seemed to fold up into itself and disappear. The walls dissolved around them, then the king led him forward once more into a place whose walls and floor and ceiling were covered with faint but constantly moving specks of colored light, so that the darkness seemed lit by a thousand minute candles.
Despite the dazzle of it all, Barrick’s eye was drawn immediately to the figure at the center of the small, low-ceilinged room, a woman stretched on an oval bed as if asleep. At first he thought by her paleness and stillness that she was a statue, but as the king led him nearer Barrick’s heart grew heavy and cold. She must be dead, this dark-haired woman with her strangely angular features, and his own arrival too late after all. The figure was a corpse, a beautiful, stern corpse, a queen lying in state.
“I am so sorry, Lord ...” He took the mirror from its leather bag and held it out to the blind king.
She still lives. The king’s thoughts were soft as snowfall. His long fingers closed on the mirror and he held it up before his face as though he examined it with his blind eyes through the strip of cloth that covered them. A small frown crossed his face.
Something is wrong, he said quietly. Something is missing.
Barrick’s insides went cold. “My lord?”
The king sighed. I expected more, manchild, even with the Artificer so close to his ending. Still, it does not matter. This age of the world comes down to what we hold here, whatever essence he has given us. We have no other choice but to use it and pray the flaw is not too great.
The blind king breathed on the mirror and then laid it against the queen’s breast.
For a stretching moment nothing seemed to change. The chamber’s inconstant light flickered silently; the very air seemed drawn tight like a held breath. Then the queen’s face contorted in what seemed a grimace of pain and she gasped as she pulled in air. Her eyes—black eyes, startlingly dark and deep—sprang open for a moment and her gaze slid from Barrick to Ynnir, where it rested. Then, like a drowning swimmer who has come to the surface for one last breath before surrendering forever, she seemed to fall back. Her eyes fluttered and slid closed once more; her hand, which had moved toward her breast as if to touch the mirror, fell back on the bed.
Barrick felt as if he might weep, but the pain was too cold, too stony for tears. He had failed. Why had he or anyone else thought it might end differently?
The king bowed his head and for long moments knelt in silence beside the queen. Then he reached out a hand that shook only a little and lifted the mirror from her bosom. He held it up as if to examine it, then, shockingly, tossed away the thing that first Gyir, then Barrick had carried for so long. As it clattered across the room the walls erupted into movement, and for the first time Barrick saw that the gleaming scales that covered walls and ceiling were shimmering beetles, each wingcase flashing rainbows like a puddle of oil.
It has given her a few more hours, perhaps days, but there was not enough of our ancestor in the mirror to wake her, Ynnir said heavily. There is only one way left to me. Come, child of men. I must tell you of true and terrible things, then you must make a decision no creature of your race has ever been asked to make.
Whether the gods were always here, or whether they came to these lands from somewhere else entirely, we cannot know. Even Ynnir’s thoughts came slowly, as if with great effort.
The two of them had returned to the room where Barrick had slept, and Barrick realized for the first time that with all these miles of castle to choose from, the humble little chamber was the king’s own retiring room.
They say they always existed. Ynnir paused to drink from a cup of water, a strangely ordinary thing to do. None of us were alive so we cannot dispute what they say . . .
“The gods say they always existed?” Barrick was not sure that he had understood Ynnir.
That is what they told our ancestors. In fact, that is what Crooked himself, the father of my line, told the first generation of the Fireflower, although even Crooked could not have known for certain. He was born here, of course, during the Godwar.
Born here? What did the king mean, Barrick wondered. And why was Ynnir bothering to tell him all this if the mirror had failed—if Barrick himself had failed?
But whatever their birth, their source, the king went on, the gods were already here when the Firstborn arrived.
“The Firstborn—is that what you call your ancestors?”
And yours, child. Because once we were all the same people—the Firstborn. But one part of that race had the First Gift—the Changing, as some called it. The part that would become our people came from a trick of nature and our blood that allowed us many different shapes, many ways of living and being, while the rest of our Firstborn fellows—those were your people—were immutable in their bones and skin. So as time passed the two tribes began to grow apart until they were quite separate, my people and yours, and in some cases did not even remember their shared root. But shared it was, and is—that is why some of us, especially of my family, look so much like your kind. We have changed, but mostly on the inside. On the outside we have kept much of our original seeming.
Barrick thought he understood, at least enough to nod—but what astounding sacrilege the Trigonate church back home would name it!
Forgive me for sending this all to you on the wings of thought, Ynnir said, but it tires me less than speaking the way your kind does. He sighed. By the time that the Moonlord and Pale Daughter ran away together to his great house, beginning the Godwar, our two peoples were no longer separated simply by the First Gift. Most of your ancestors were in the southern continent, living near Mount Xandos, worshipping Thunderer and his brothers. Most of my people had settled here in the north around Moonlord’s stronghold, and as a result, when Moonlord and his kin were besieged by the Thunderer’s clan, we took the side of Moonlord and Whitefire . . .
“Moonlord, Pale Daughter . . . I . . . I don’t know who these people are, Lord ...” Barrick said.
Not people—gods. And you know them well, just not by our names. Call them Khors and Zoria, then, and Zoria’s father Perin the Thunderer, who angrily laid siege to the lovers’ moon-castle. So Khors called for help from his brother and sister, Zmeos and Zuriyal, who came to his defense. My people cast their lot with them, and even those of my ancestors who were far away came to join them here.
For a long moment, as Ynnir sat gathering his thoughts, Barrick did not understand the meaning of what he had heard. “Hold, please, my lord. Your ancestors came . . . here?”
Yes, this place is far older than my people, Ynnir said. The castle in which you sit, or rather the castle that lies beneath and behind the castle in which you sit, was once the domain of the god of the moon himself, Khors Silvergleam. When next you see the walls and the tall, proud towers, look not to the black stone we have built with, but look for the gleam of the moonstone beneath. A careful eye will see it.
Barrick could only stare around him. This strange castle—was it truly Everfrost, the dark fortress of all the stor
ies?
Even the most ignorant of your people knows how that battle ended, although they do not know all the reasons, Ynnir continued. Khors was killed, his brother and sister banished from the earth. His wife—Perin’s daughter, Zoria—escaped and wandered lost until at last she was found by Perin’s brother Kernios, the dark master of the earth. He took her into his house and made her his wife—whether she wished it or not.
But she had a child during the war, of course—clever Kupilas, fathered by the Moonlord—and as he grew his gift for making things was such that although they mocked him and treated him brutally, Perin and the other Xandian gods took Kupilas back with them so they could have his skills at their service. He made many wonderful things for them ...
“Like Earthstar, the spear of Kernios,” said Barrick, remembering Skurn’s tale.
Yes, and that particular weapon was both Crooked’s glory and his doom, Ynnir said. But we do not speak of that yet. Still, the doom of the Fireflower—that which overwhelms us even now—was built in the ruins of the Godwar. Crooked escaped his captors at last. He traveled the world, teaching both your people and mine, learning more than any other man or god ever learned about the art of making things. And during those years he also learned how to walk the roads of the Void.
Barrick nodded, remembering another of the raven’s strange stories. “His great-grandmother’s roads.”
Yes. And so he came at last and lived for a while among my people, here in the ruins of the moon-castle, and while he lived among us he fell in love with one of my ancestors, the maiden Summu. Those were days when gods and mortals shared the earth, and even had children together. But unlike most of his kind, Crooked—Kupilas—did not leave his offspring with only tales as a legacy. Summu had three children, two girls and one boy, and all of them were born with the gift we call the Fireflower. When Kupilas had gone on to fulfill his great and terrible destiny, it was discovered that his offspring were not as others of their tribe—life ran stronger in them. One of those children was Yasammez, the great dark lady you have met, who has lived all the ages since then, a life almost as long as that granted the gods themselves. Her brother and sister, Ayann and Yasudra, used the gift in a different way, although they did not at first know they had any gift to give. Although they lived no longer than those of our families usually do, a span that can be counted in a few centuries, their gift was not granted to them, but to their offspring.