by Tad Williams
Tolly laughed with genuine pleasure. “Of course we will. You Eddons, you talk of your sacred bond and the love of the people, but the world does not spin that way, however much you would like to believe it so. Your faithful subjects will forget you within months if not days. You see, someone will have to protect Anissa’s newborn child—the last heir. It is a boy, by the by. The midwife is with her even now. Poor Anissa is much confused by the night’s events, but I will explain them to her anon.” He smiled again, mockingly cheerful. “By then you will be dead at Shaso’s hand, a tragic echo of your brother’s fate, and Shaso will be dead by mine, or so everyone will hear. Then once we have found and killed that fat physician, there will be no other story except ours. The Tollys will reluctantly take the infant monarch under their protection. My brother will rule at Summerfield Court and I will rule here—although Caradon doesn’t know that yet.” He actually made a small bow, as though he had done her a service. “You see, that is the secret of history, little Briony—who tells the last story.”
Praise the gods, Chaven has escaped them, she thought. At least for the moment. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed to drive the air out of her lungs. It was little enough to hope for—that sometime after her death, someone at least would know the truth, that the Tollys’ story would not be the only tale of these days.
Hendon Tolly snapped his fingers. The three guards moved forward, pikes out, pushing her back toward Shaso In this last moment she could only think blindly of meaningless things—Barrick frowning over some petty irritation, Sister Utta drawing a careful circle on a scrap of parchment, the radiant smile of Zona in an old book—then a black shape flew past her shoulder and smashed into the face of the nearest guard, who pitched over backward, knocking down one of his fellows. A hand yanked Briony backward, then something bright as a broken sun flew across the room and bounced off the wall, spattering blazing light across the guards and Hendon Tolly, who shouted in pain and surprise as flames sprang up on his heavy black clothes.
Shaso was gasping like a dying man from the effort of throwing first his chain, then the brazier. As he pulled her toward the back of the stronghold,
Briony knew they had only postponed death. There was nowhere to go, and the surprise assault had not been enough: already Tolly and his two remaining guards were batting out the flames, although one of the soldiers was screeching in pain.
As she staggered backward, she looked in anguish at the empty rack where the pikes were usually kept, where on any other night but this odd combination of siege and festival some might have been found, then Shaso tugged her into the last cell and slammed the door behind them.
“Hold it closed,” the old man wheezed. “Just for . . . a moment.”
Their enemy was just outside the door, too cautious to force it open without knowing what Shaso might be planning. “I will be happy to roast you alive in there,” Hendon Tolly shouted. He sounded breathless and no longer quite so cheerful. Briony hoped his burns were agonizing. “It will suit our little tale just as well.”
Something creaked.”Help me!” Shaso whispered, voice ragged with pain.
Briony took a step, stumbled and fell to her knees. She found him by touch, found the heavy wooden thing in his bony hands.
“Lift!”
She did, grunting with the strain. A slowly widening triangle of light spilling across the straw-covered cell floor showed that Hendon Tolly and his guards had decided to risk the door and were cautiously opening it, but Briony and Shaso had managed to get the trapdoor in the bottom of the cell open as well. She was astounded to discover there was such a thing, but this was no time for questions. At Shaso’s mute gesture she slid into the trap and found the ladder, then stopped to hold it open so Shaso could clamber down above her without losing his balance, but she was not much heartened: the pit seemed as hopeless a hiding place as the cell, however deep it might go. Shaso let the door fall down behind them, covering them in blackness. She heard something scrape and realized he was slamming shut a hidden bolt. A moment later Tolly and his men were pounding on the trapdoor in a rage, the sounds echoing like thunder in the narrow pit.
“Crawl,” Shaso said when they reached the bottom of the shaft. “You will be able to stand soon.”
“By the gods—what is this?”
He shoved her hard. “Go! This is the stronghold of the castle, girl. The place of last resort in a siege. Don’t you think there would be some secret way out if the worst came to the worst?”
“It has come,” she said, then decided to save her breath for crawling.
In only a few moments Shaso’s promise was fulfilled: the narrow space widened until Briony couldn’t feel the walls or ceiling. “Where does this go?”
“It lets out by the Spring Tower’s water gate.”
“We must find Avin Brone We must alert the rest of the guards!”
“No!” He grabbed at her leg. In the darkness, it was as though she had been clutched by some root-fingered monster. Shaso’s words came slowly as he fought for breath. “I do not trust Brone. In any case, we do not know where he is. If Tolly’s men find us, they will kill you immediately. They can always explain later that I had taken you hostage, that your death was an accident.”
“No one will believe that!”
“Perhaps not, in the light of tomorrow’s day, but what good would that do you tonight? Or me, as I am hacked to death in front of an angry crowd? Curse it, Briony Eddon, there is no time for this! We must get out We must . . .” He paused to gasp for breath. It was terrifying to hear him so weak What if he died? What would she do then? “You can stand now,” he said at last. “Take my hand. There is a place we can go.”
“What is this tunnel? How did you know about it?”
“I am the master of arms.” He groaned in pain as he stood. “It is my task to know of such things Avin Brone knows, too. That is why he had me imprisoned in a different cell.”
“Then why weren’t Barrick and I told?”
Shaso sighed, a mixture of regret and clench-jawed pain. “You should have been. Take my hand.”
The journey seemed to last the better part of an hour, through damp stone corridors and treacherous narrows that seemed httle more than holes dug through hard dirt, before they reached a small stone room that smelled of tidal mud and bird droppings. It had a high, slit window that bled moonlight, and for the first time since they entered the trapdoor she could see Shaso dan-Heza s bony, weary face.
“We are in a storage room by the water gate,” he said, panting. She had actually heard him whimpering as he crawled, a sound so bizarrely unexpected that it had frightened her nearly as much as anything else she had experienced on this mad and dreadful night. Shaso showing pain, almost weeping! She could only imagine how dire his circumstances must truly be. “The Summerfield folk will be combing the castle. Others may be looking for you, too, but we can trust no one.”
“Surely. . .”
“Listen to me, girl! It is plain now how long and how carefully the Tollys have been preparing, waiting for a moment like this. Even if we reached Brone, even if he proves loyal, who can know whether his guards are the same? We must get you away from here.”
“Where? If there is so much danger, where can we go?”
“First things first, Briony.” He was shaking, trembling with the cold. “The only safe way to leave the castle is by water.”
“But the Twilight People are in the city just on the other side!”
He shook his head. “Then we will go another way. Across the bay and then southward down the coast. There are places in Helmingsea . . . I have prepared . . .”
“You . . . you thought something like this might happen?”
For the first time the old man laughed. It was a hard sound to hear, and quickly became a racking cough that was no more pleasant. “It is my task, Briony,” he said when he could speak again. “My sworn task. To think of anything that might happen—anything—and then prepare for it.”
Even with his body crippled and his life hanging by a thread, she thought she could hear a proud stubbornness in his words. It made her angry despite everything. “Shaso, why didn’t you tell me the truth about Kendrick?”
He shook his head. “Later. If we survive.” He got slowly and awkwardly to his feet and held out a hand. She shook it off and levered herself upright, conscious for the first time of how weary she was too, how badly all of her ached.
“Silent, now,” he said. “Stay in the shadows.”
The alleyway outside the storage room was empty, although they could hear sentries talking on top of the wall and a fire burned in the guardhouse beside the water gate. There had never been a night like this! Winter festival being celebrated in the castle while terrible enemies were encamped just across the water, her stepmother’s maid changing into a demon—it seemed that anything, absolutely any horrible, ghastly, impossible thing could happen tonight, and she wondered if she could entirely trust Shaso’s judgment. He was always so stiff-backed, so certain of his own Tightness, but who could judge properly on such a night? What if he was wrong? Should she give up her throne without a fight, run away just for fear of Hendon Tolly? If she called to the guards, wouldn’t they come to her in a heartbeat, their princess regent—wouldn’t they hunt down Tolly like the murdering dog that he was?
But what if, as Shaso feared, they did not? What if they were secretly Tolly’s men, already suborned with lies or gold?
Briony tried to imagine what her father would do, how he would think Stay alive, he would have told her, she knew that. If you are alive, you make all that Tolly say; a he. But if someone puts an arrow in you, then the people have no choice but to believe him, because Summerfield Court is the most powerful part of the kingdom outside Southmarch, and they have blood ties to the throne.
Shaso was leading her along the back rows near Skimmer’s Lagoon, she suddenly realized. She had hardly ever been to this part of the castle, its narrow streets full of ramshackle Skimmer houses, the quays jostling with the strangely shaped boats that seemed to house at least as many of the water folk as did the more conventional dwellings that loomed beside the docks. It seemed oddly quiet for Winter’s Eve, although she realized then that the hour must now be approaching midnight; the streets were almost deserted, some lights in high windows and a few snatches of faint music the only signs that people even lived here. She could hear the tied-up boats bumping against the piers and the occasional sleepily questioning call of a water bird.
“Where are we going?” she whispered as they waited in the shadows to cross one of the larger streets. The dwellings were crammed so close together and leaned so alarmingly overhead that it seemed more like a hornet’s nest than any human place. Shaso looked up and down, then waved for her to follow.
“Here,” he said. “This is the house of Turley, the headman.”
“Turley?” she whispered. It took her a moment to remember why the name was familiar. “I met him!”
Shaso did not reply, but knocked on the oval door; it was a strange pattern of sounds he made, too studied to be accidental. A few moments later the door opened just a slice and two wide eyes peered out. “I need to speak to your father,” Shaso said. “Now. Let us in.”
The girl stared as though she recognized him but hadn’t expected ever to see him at her door. “Cannot be done, Lord,” she said at last. “It is shoal-moot tonight.”
“I don’t care if it’s the end of the world, child,” the old man growled. “In fact, it is the end of the bloody world. Tell your father that Shaso dan-Heza is here on deadly urgent business.”
The door opened and the girl stepped out of the way. Briony realized she had seen this one before—the girl who, with her lover, saw the mysterious boat come into the lagoon the night before Kendricks’ death. Now she thought she knew what that boat had been carrying, and to whom.
Selia’s cursed witch-stone. If I had only paid more attention to what the Skimmers said . . .
The Skimmer girl recognized Briony and made a movement that was a sort of unschooled courtesy. “Highness,” she said, but although interested, she did not look overawed. Briony couldn’t remember the girl’s name, so she only nodded back.
The narrow passageway creaked like ships’ timbers as they walked down it. It smelled strongly, almost overpoweringly, of fish and salt and other less identifiable scents. The girl went ahead of them to open the door at the end of the hall. The room beyond was small and cold and the fire was tiny, as though meant more for light than heat. A few candles burned in the room as well, but it still wasn’t bright enough for Briony to be sure how many people sat crammed into the little space. She counted a dozen gleaming bald heads before giving up, but more shapes were crouched in the shadows against the walls. They all seemed to be men and they all turned to look at her with roundly shining, blinking eyes, like frogs on a lily pond.
“Headman Turley,” said Shaso. “I need your help. I need a boatman.The life of the princess is in danger.”
A room’s worth of wide, wet stares grew even wider.
The one called Turley muttered to his fellows for a moment before standing. “Honored, Shaso-na,” he said at last in his slow, strangely-accented way, “we are honored, but we are all here sworn to a shoal-moot. We may none of us leave until the night ends or else it be blasphemy. Even were one of us to die, his body would here remain until the sun’s rise.”
“Is blasphemy worse than the death of the Princess of Southmarch, Olin’s daughter? Do you forget what you owe him?”
Turley winced a little, but his smooth face quickly became impassive again. “Still, even so, great Shaso-ma.”
Briony realized that the master of arms had encountered someone as stubborn as Shaso himself and wished the situation allowed her to enjoy the spectacle. “Can’t we wait until dawn?” she asked.
“We dare not try to leave by boat in daylight. And Hendon Tolly will not wait, but will find out soon where the passage we used gives out, and from there it will be short work to think of searching along Skimmer’s Lagoon. Brone, too, if he thinks he is acting to save you, will not hesitate to send men house-to-house.”
“But we want Brone to find us!”
“Perhaps. But again, if only one man be disloyal, an accident could happen—an arrow let fly at me that hits you by mistake, let us say . . .” The old Tuani warrior shook his head. Briony thought he looked as though he was having trouble standing so long. “Headman, can you not send us to someone else—someone you trust? We need a boatman.”
“I will be their boatman,” announced the Skimmer girl. Briony had not noticed her waiting and listening in the doorway behind them, the voice made her jump. The gathered men seemed to have missed her as well and they muttered in distress and surprise.
“You, Ena?” said her father.
“Me. I am as able with the boat as most men. This is Olin s daughter, after all—we dare not send her away. Who would give her shelter, who would take her where she needs to go? Calkin? Sawney Wander-Eye? There is a reason they are not here at the shoal-moot. No, I will take her.”
Her father hesitated, listening to the discontented murmurs of his fellows as he considered. His skin mottled and his throat-apple bulged as though he would puff out some monstrous sack and give a froggy belch of anger, but instead he swallowed again and shook his head in disgust. Briony knew that gesture, had seen her own father make it many times.
“Yes, Daughter. I see no other choice. You take them. But be you careful, ever so careful!”
“I will. She is Olin’s daughter and Shaso-Ma is a shoal-friend.”
“Yes, but also careful for your own sake, you nasty little pickerel.” He opened his arms to her and she stepped to him and gave him a quick, practical hug. “Will you accept this, Shaso-mi?” Turley asked.
“Of course,” said the old man hoarsely.
Ena looked at Shaso carefully for the first time, up and down. “You need some healing, those cuts and burns seen to. But first a
tub of good seawater, to take the stink off you.” She turned her heavy-lidded gaze on Briony. The nakedness of her eyebrows made the girl’s eyes seem mysterious and distant, like those of someone who had lived a long time in illness. “You, too, Mistress. Highness, I mean.You will never get that great ragged skirt in the boat, so we must find you something of mine to wear, begging your pardon. But we must be quick about it all. The moon is swimming, but soon she will dive.”
*
Ferras Vansen caught up to his quarry in the lower reaches of the hills, or at least that was where he thought he was, but he could not be sure. Only a few months ago this had been the border of the Shadowline, an eerie but otherwise ordinary place, but now the hills were shrouded in mist and nearly invisible and all the land down to the bay had become alien.
“Prince Barrick!” The rider didn’t turn but glided on through the streaming mist. For long moments Vansen thought he might be mistaken, that perhaps he was calling to some phantom thrown up by the Shadowline, but as he drew closer and eventually pulled abreast of the black horse he could see the boy’s pale, distracted face. “Barrick! Prince Barrick, it’s me, Vansen. Stop!”