by Tad Williams
“I have been looking for you, Pamon,” whispered my master, Hakatri, who had appeared beside me as noiselessly as a shadow. “Where have you been?”
“Here, as Nali-Yun told me that you requested.”
Lord Hakatri shook his head in annoyance, then smiled. “I told that young rascal I would meet you outside the hall. I waited there no little time.”
“I am very sorry, my lord. If you wish, I will help you catch him and beat him. He is as feckless as a cricket, that one.”
“Ah,” said Iyu’unigato from his seat atop the daïs. “I see the last of our family has arrived. Hakatri, come and join us.”
“We will talk later, Pamon,” my master whispered, then wove his way through the gathered crowd to join the rest of his family. The mortal men watched him respectfully as he passed, which was no surprise: my master was known to many of them, at least by reputation. In person, he made an impressive figure, tall and graceful, more his mother’s child than his father’s. Ineluki, by contrast, looked much like his sire Iyu’unigato, with an expressive face and wide eyes that could seem innocent or mischievous. With Ineluki, though, neither expression could be completely trusted.
“I am glad you could join us, my son,” Amerasu said as my master took a seat near her. “The heralds tell us that the question these envoys bring is no small matter.”
“My apologies,” Hakatri said. “There was a confusion of messages.”
“We are all here now—but why?” asked his father Iyu’unigato. “We still do not know what these mortals want of us.”
“We crave your help, my lord,” answered the mortal prince. “We come on behalf of our people—Hern’s people—to whom you gave the lands that once belonged to Lady Azosha. And I fear we are the bearers of foul news.” He hesitated, as if he did not want to speak the next words. “One of the Great Worms has come down again from the north.”
At his words, many of those gathered in the hall looked at each other, disquieted.
“A Great Worm?” said Iyu’unigato. “Are you certain?”
“More likely it is some trifling spawn of the elder dragons,” said Ineluki with a dismissive gesture—small matters made too large. “Some slithering hatchling that has frightened mortals who have never seen anything like it before.”
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” said Cormach. “But though we are indeed short-lived compared to your folk, we Hernsmen are old in lore, much of which comes from the teachings of your own people. This is no mere hatchling. This is one of the Great Worms—one of the old blood. In truth, I have seen it with my own eyes. It is a cold-drake, black as a beetle’s shell, and if it is a handsbreadth less than two dozen paces from nose to tail-tip I will give away my sword and shield and become a priest. We say it is the beast you call Hidohebhi—the Blackworm.”
A whisper of surprise—yes, and apprehension, too—swept through the great hall at the description of such a large worm. The long conflict called the War with the Dragons had ended many Great Years before, though the struggle against the wormspawn still continues. None of the oldest, most terrible of the beasts had been seen south of the Snowfields since Aisoga the Tall and a hundred warriors from Asu’a and Anvi’janya had destroyed the mighty White Drake of the northern waste back in Senditu’s day.
“That is unlikely,” Ineluki declared. “That foul creature has not been seen in a hundred of your mortal years or more, and even then it never roamed south of the Snowfields. No, I doubt very much that Hidohebhi still lives.”
“I have seen the monster we call ‘Drochnathair’ in our tongue,” said Cormach, frowning, “and I cannot doubt it is Hidohebhi of legend in all particulars. Any other thought is even more fearful—may the gods forbid there should be more than one of such a beast!” He shook his head. “Several moons ago the dragon arrived and made its lair in a gorge along the Silver Way, at the eastern edge of our lands—our people now call the place Serpent’s Vale. The worm has emptied the nearby hills of life and ventures farther every day in search of prey. Our grazing animals, our precious cows and sheep, are vanishing even from high meadows leagues away from that cursed valley. All of our people have fled the lands around it, and they fear even to walk or ride on the Silver Way. The coming of this beast has cut our small kingdom in half. I fear that if nothing is done to kill or drive away the creature, it will destroy my people.”
“But why do you bring the news to us here in Asu’a, so far away?” asked Iyu’unigato, frowning a little. “What of Lord Enazashi and his Silverhome Clan? Mezutu’a is only two day’s journey from where you say this creature has its lair. Enazashi is a great lord with thousands of his own folk. What of them?”
Cormach shook his head again. “Lord Enazashi will not see us. He and his kin have no love for mortals, especially my folk. He and his people are safe inside the mountain walls of the Silverhome and that is all he cares about.”
Iyu’unigato already seemed weary of the matter. My master’s reticent father has never much enjoyed the demands of governance, preferring to spend his days in contemplative retreat. “But what is all this to us?” he asked. “You still have not told us why you have come to Asu’a.”
“I think he has,” said Amerasu, but her words seemed to go unheard.
“Is it not plain to see, great Protector?” pleaded Cormach. “The lords of Asu’a, your sires, gifted us with those lands. Now we beg your help to defend them, because this threat is beyond us. Who among our mortal kind has ever killed or even survived a fight with one of the Great Worms?”
“We still have only the word of mortals that this is such a beast,” said Ineluki with a careless flick of his fingers. “Mortals who confess they know little of dragons, Great Worms or otherwise.”
The mortal prince turned to him. For a moment this Cormach seemed near to losing temper, but when he spoke his voice was even. “A man does not need to be stabbed, Lord Ineluki, to know that a knife is sharp.”
Iyu’unigato raised his hands in frustration. “This arguing is without point. Hakatri, my son, you have been silent through all this talk. What do you think?”
I guessed that my master had been silent because the conversation troubled him. He stood and said, “I think it is a question that requires thought, my lord. My grandparents did support the mortals’ claim to Lady Azosha’s old lands—none here can dispute that. More importantly, if this beast is truly Hidohebhi—or any of the Great Worms—then it is a risk to all people, not merely mortals. But it troubles me that Lord Enazashi wants nothing to do with the matter.”
“Enazashi is like one of those crabs who takes up a shell that others have discarded,” said Ineluki. “If he is protected, he cares for no one else’s safety.”
Amerasu gently reproved him. “The Lord of Silverhome has proved his bravery many times over, my son. He has slain giants by his own hand, with no weapon but a spear. The courage of Enazashi and his folk is not in question here. What remains to be decided is what responsibility Year-Dancing House bears to Hern’s mortal descendants in the lands my mother and father ceded to them.”
“If you say so, Lady.” Ineluki stood and bowed toward her. “But to me this argument over responsibility seems foolish. We are told a worm has come to the Westmarch and hides in the Seaswell Hills.” He spread his arms as if accepting an honor. “I will ride back with these mortals and dispatch the creature with my own hand. That seems a suitable task for a scion of the House of Year-Dancing.” He turned to Prince Cormach. “We will set out tomorrow, mortal men. I have a spear of my own, and though it has not yet brought me glory”—he looked briefly to his mother, as if her defense of Enazashi had annoyed him—“it seems a good time to test its mettle . . . and my own.”
“Sit down, Ineluki.” His father the Protector did not hide his frustration. “This is no time for heroic boasting.”
“It is not a boast if it is fulfilled.” Ineluki had been caught up by one of
his strange moods: his smile seemed little more than a show of teeth. “Do you not trust me, Father? Do you not think me capable of such a feat?”
“The very word you choose proves that you do not understand the matter.” Iyu’unigato had finally been roused to full attention. “Slaying a Great Worm is not like hunting a boar or even a giant. Now, seat yourself while I confer with your mother.”
My master’s younger brother sank back onto his chair, but it was plain to see that Iyu’unigato’s words had not cooled Ineluki’s indignation but rather stoked it. His handsome face was tight, jaw clenched and bright, golden eyes narrowed. He looked, I could not help thinking, as if a handful of tinder might burst into flame if it touched him. Beside him, my master appeared untroubled, but Hakatri was always better at hiding his feelings than his younger brother.
“Let those gathered here now disperse,” Iyu’unigato announced. “Take these mortals to the Visitors Court and make them comfortable there. The Sa’onsera and I will take this up again tomorrow and render a decision then.”
* * *
• • •
After the audience ended, I found Hakatri talking with Tariki Clearsight, a friend of his own generation who was closer to my master than any other except his brother Ineluki.
“As you know, Pamon, we leave on a hunt of our own tomorrow,” Hakatri said as I joined them. “A family of giants have descended into the Limberlight and are haunting the forest on the far side of Shi’iki’s Wood. Are my horses ready?”
“Yes, my lord. Seafoam was a little lame yesterday, but I think it was only a rock in her hoof. Still, I think you should ride Frostmane instead.”
“I wish my armiger was as conscientious as yours,” said Tariki with a laugh, and I confess to feeling pride at hearing that. “Perhaps I should have a Tinukeda’ya of my own.”
Hakatri clapped his hand on my shoulder. “There is only one Pamon Kes,” he said, “and he is mine. First of his race to be granted an armiger’s banner.”
As I basked in this praise, my master’s small, fierce child Likimeya ran toward us, swinging a stick like a sword as she chased a bird. My master caught her up and pressed his face against her cheek even as she struggled cheerfully to escape so she could chase birds again. His wife Briseyu of the Silver Braids arrived and took the prisoner from him, then she and Hakatri touched fingertips. Outside of Asu’a, Briseyu is famed mostly for her great beauty, but she is in all ways a good match for her husband, both in her wisdom and her even-handed manner.
“Perhaps you should put off your hunt, husband,” she said. “At least for a few days until this embassy from the mortals is answered. Your brother seems much upset, and I will confess I fear the rumors of this worm myself.”
My master’s friend Tariki excused himself to leave them to their private talk. I could not leave so easily without my lord’s permission, and I failed to catch his attention.
“Beloved,” he told Briseyu, “if I had to put off my duties every time Ineluki conceived some strange fancy, I would never accomplish anything. We both know my brother will fret and seethe for a while at being corrected by my parents, but he will cool soon enough. He always does.”
Briseyu shook her head—not quite in disagreement, I thought, but disquiet. “I hope you are right, but that is not why I ask you to wait. I do not have your mother’s gift of foresight, but Ineluki’s talk about the worm gave me a pang such as I have not felt before.” She allowed little Likimeya to climb down from her arms. The child crouched at her father’s feet and began playing with the cords of his boots.
“A pang?” he asked.
“A moment of fear, but as real as anything that happened today. I almost dropped our child, it froze my blood so.”
“And what do you fear?”
“I do not know precisely, husband—I am no prophet. But I fear for your brother, and I fear this worm.”
Hakatri tried to smile. “You fear for Ineluki? That is a change. Usually your forebodings are for me.”
She shook her head. “Do you not understand how strong this pang was? And how could anything that happened to your brother not touch you too—and me, and our child?”
I felt like an eavesdropper, but there was nothing I could do about it. I watched as my master took her hand in his. “Do you think I would let something happen to him, beloved? And do you think I would stand by and let something happen to you or our daughter?”
“Not by choice.”
“Then quiet your fears if you can and have a little trust in your husband . . . and in my parents. They will make no rash decisions. And a worm is only a worm, no matter how fearsome. Our people have fought many.”
She shook her head yet again, and this time it seemed to speak of resignation. “I do not fear the dragon itself. I fear what may come of it.”
“You have lost me,” he said, looking around the room. “You will have to explain this riddle of your fear more clearly. But speaking of lost . . . where is our daughter now?”
Briseyu looked up. “There she is, at the top of the stairs.” She let out a sigh. “If I do not fetch her back, she will be down splashing in the Pool of Three Depths in moments. But we should speak more of this.”
“Of course.” He watched her leave in pursuit of their child, her movements graceful as windblown mist. “I think my beloved has forgotten that we journey only as far as the Limberlight,” he said to me a moment later, but his gaze never left Briseyu’s retreating form. “We will be home within two or three days at the latest.”
“Then we will still ride out tomorrow?” I asked.
He nodded. “Even if there is a new and dangerous worm in the Westfold, we still must teach the giants not to wander into our lands. Meet me at the stables in the hour before dawn, as we planned. See that all is ready. We will need our boar-spears.”
“And your brother, my lord?” I asked. “Will he accompany you and the others on your giant hunt?”
Hakatri looked across the room. His younger brother was showing no obvious signs of dismay at having been chided by his father. He had gathered a group of his friends and was amusing them with playful demonstrations of his dragon-fighting prowess. But I thought Ineluki’s eyes seemed over-bright, his laughter forced. My master shook his head. “Seeing how much of that spiced black wine he has already downed—and with the sun still a long march from noon!—I rather doubt it. But my brother is headstrong and always changeable, as you know. It would not go amiss to suggest Yohe should have Bronze ready for him, just in case.”
I bowed then and left. I had much to do if my lord was to go giant hunting with the rising sun.
It is hard to speak of my master Hakatri without also speaking of his younger brother Ineluki. In many ways they seemed like two halves of a single thing. They were nearly inseparable during their youth and understood each other’s thoughts so well that sometimes I saw an entire conversation take place between them in a single exchanged glance. As youths, they would race their horses side by side out of Asu’a’s gates, laughing as their steeds matched each other’s pace, the riders’ pale hair unbound and their cloaks billowing behind them. Seeing them, the people of Year-Dancing House would call out, “There go the Brothers of the Wind!” And indeed, at such moments they did seem like creatures far beyond the rest of us, even to their own kin.
But as close as they were, they were also very different. Lord Ineluki, the younger, was as changeable as the wind. His angers were sometimes so immediate and powerful that they seem to threaten all those around him; his moments of high amusement were only slightly less alarming. Ineluki was a creature of sudden fancies and strong passions, lively as a flame, and his shifting moods could set everything around him ablaze, either for good or ill. My master’s humors, though, were like the embers of some sacred, eternal fire, their glow often hidden but never extinguished.
Hakatri was broader in his face and limbs than
his brother, and though many admired my master’s face and form, no one in Asu’a would have called him the fairer of the two. But it is Hakatri’s eyes I always think of first, especially the touch of earthy brown in the gold that deepened their color and gave weight to even his briefest glances. I must also speak of his kindness. He was always generous to me beyond his obligations, but his greatest gift was that of his time and his attention, though few of his folk thought my people to be worth such generosity. He always treated me well and never broke a promise. Most of all, he taught me the meaning of honor.
In truth, it sometimes seemed to me that my master’s entire family was haunted by their sense of honor—a strange word to use, but apt. My master Hakatri wore his like a heavy crown, but without complaints. His father Iyu’unigato leaned upon his like a staff, and it was hard to tell sometimes which one was supporting the other. Ineluki could be almost mad with it at times, ready to ride at once to prove true to its charge, but then the wind would change and he would scoff at it and make outrageous jests, as if honor were only a fable for children. And Amerasu Ship-Born, the mother of my master and his brother, the heart of her great clan, was so composed of honor that she could tell only the truth, letting neither courtesy nor tradition silence her when she felt something must be said. Amerasu saw truth even when no one else could recognize it.
So I felt then, and so I feel now, but how much can one of the long-overlooked Tinukeda’ya—a mere changeling, as some would call me—truly understand about his ageless masters?
Before dawn the next morning, with the sky purple-dark and the star called Night-Heart still floating above the horizon, my master appeared at the stables with his friend Tariki. I was surprised to see Hakatri so early but glad for him to find me already there, looking after Seafoam’s hoof, which had healed with gratifying swiftness.
“Have you seen my brother?” Hakatri asked me, and the way he said it immediately plunged my heart down into my belly. I hurried across the stable to the stall where Ineluki’s horse Bronze was kept and saw that it was empty. The bad feeling in my middle grew colder and heavier.