by Tad Williams
When I looked at my masters, Ineluki was grinning, though Hakatri was still impassive. Turning around in the bow, I saw that we had floated through not just a cavern, but a high, dark crevice carved into the rocky base of the mountain, its rough walls illuminated only by sunlight seeping through the waterfall behind us. We were on a river that flowed much more gently than the pair that crashed down the mountainside and joined to form the cataract that blocked the inlet from view. This hidden inlet flowed into Skyglass Lake so gently that no one would ever guess it lurked behind the violent, falling waters.
“Now you will see the Fernlight Passage,” said Vinaju.
As we moved away from the opening, the light grew less and less until we traveled in almost complete darkness, though somehow Vinaju never ran aground. For a long time I could see and hear nothing, but just when I began to feel truly ill-at-ease, wondering what kinds of creatures might be clinging to the rocks above me or swimming just beneath the surface of this isolated watercourse, the passage began to lighten again, and with that glow came the noise of splashing water.
“The first garden of the passage,” Vinaju announced. Daylight now beamed down through gaps in the stone above. Water flowed through many of those gaps, some in mere trickles, others in arching streams. These sluices of water seemed only slightly quieter than the great cataract, because we had traveled so long in near-silence. Now that light had returned, I could see the huge, nodding ferns and other leafy green things that grew all along the river’s edges. Vines grew among them, climbing the walls and sometimes even covering the entire ceiling of the passage.
We skimmed on against the sluggish current, passing through several more of these sunlit gardens and through other narrow places where curtains of water descended from above. At first Ineluki was much taken by the beauty of these unexpected gardens, and, admiring them, sang snatches of old songs. After a while he fell as silent as my master Hakatri, but with the air—or at least so I thought—of one who now wanted the journey to be over.
With Vinaju guiding our little boat, we emerged from the passage at last into a great underground cavern filled by a vast black lake. Here no light leaked down from the sky—we were deep beneath the mountain—but the water was illuminated in spots by a few of Vinaju’s people in small boats like ours, each with a lantern in the bow; far across the black lake a strange, glowing archway seemed to hover above the gently rippling waters, washing the cavern’s rough walls with a warm glow.
“This is Lake Starless,” Vinaju announced. “And the bright arch you see in the distance is the Old Gate. My grandfather once told me it is part of the hull of the Great Ship that founded Mezutu’a.”
So saying, she put down her pole at last and took up a paddle. The water was so calm that after only a few dips of the blade we slid away from the Fernlight Passage; soon after, we reached the glowing arch in the massive wall.
The wall itself was high and smooth, slanting upward and away in a very gentle curve until it disappeared far above our heads. I was stunned to think that I was seeing the remains of one of the Great Ships of legend. The huge, smooth structure seemed not merely to rest upon, but to grow out of the very stone of an island, although even with the glow from the archway it was hard to see where that island ended, and whether more of the lake lay beyond it. The Old Gate, as Vinaju named it, was marked out in crystal tiles that glowed rose-pink and warm amber. At the center of the arch stood a gate many times our height, made of what looked to be witchwood with hinges of metal.
Vinaju left us there, accepting my master’s thanks with a smile and a bow. However, it was not my master Hakatri she looked at longest as she turned to paddle back across the lake, but Ineluki, who stood staring up at the giant portal, unaware of her gaze. It was something I have often seen. Ineluki’s elegance and beauty have captured many hearts and will doubtless capture many more.
By the time we had walked up the stony beach to the great Old Gate, a smaller door opened and a company of Silverhome warriors came out to meet us. My masters were recognized and treated with all due honor, although with a little obvious discomfort at their unexpected arrival. These guards led us up into the city proper, sending messengers ahead. We rode through Mezutu’a’s broad, cobbled streets, which were lit at every crossing with rose and amber crystals like those around the gate, so that the entire city gleamed softly, like a dawn sky, though we were deep in the bowels of the stony earth. We saw many Silverhome Clan-folk in the streets. Most gave us courteous greeting, though some were too busy with singing or conversation to notice us. We were led to the Site of Witness and ushered quietly through the doors, then we stopped to wait in the shadowy outer reaches of the great circular chamber. The walls of the Site of Witness are covered in intricate carvings, sweeping, stylized sculptures that portray Mezutu’a’s long history. Hundreds of stone benches ring the center of the chamber, but when I first entered all I could make out was the Master Witness itself, a great irregular spike of shining crystal called the Shard. Its clouded, milky glow painted the faces of those at the center of the wide, bowl-shaped chamber. Roughly a score of these Zida’ya nobles were gathered around a stone chair and the one seated upon it, who could only be Enazashi. The Lord of Silverhome was tall and solemn as an eagle on a branch, his face lean and coldly stern. He was one of the oldest of my master’s people. Only deathless Utuk’ku, Amerasu Ship-Born, and a handful of others had seen more years of life than he had.
One other figure sat at the center of the Site of Witness with Enazashi, on a bench only a few paces behind his stone chair. To my surprise and confusion, I could see that this small, hunched person was not Zida’ya but one of my own Tinukeda’ya folk. Those of our changeling people who have been longest among the Zida’ya look much like them, as I do, and as this bent figure did, though I never saw any Zida’ya look so fragile and so defeated.
“Who is that?” I whispered to my master.
“Kai-Unyu, Silverhome’s other ruler,” he told me. “But be silent now, Pamon. I fear this will not be a happy audience for any of us.”
Enazashi’s celebrant-herald called for my master and his brother to come forward into the light of the Shard. Hakatri and Ineluki began the Six Songs of Respectful Request, Ineluki with his shoulders squared and head thrown back, my master in a more ordinary posture, but Enazashi curtly gestured them to silence. The Tinukeda’ya Kai-Unyu barely seemed to be listening, his eyes fixed on his own clasped hands. If this unprepossessing figure was truly Enazashi’s co-ruler, he seemed content to let the Zida’ya lord lead the dance.
“I will not ask you what brings you here.” Enazashi’s voice sounded more sour than courtesy would usually dictate. “I think I know. Vinadarta and her lake folk have no doubt complained to the House of Year-Dancing about something I have done so you have been sent here to chide me as though I were an errant child instead of a master in my own house.”
“Not at all, S’hue Enazashi,” my master said quickly. “Mortal men from M’yin Azoshai came to Asu’a because a dragon has killed many of their animals and some of their people as well. Yesterday it attacked those of us who came from Asu’a to look on it, killing several of our company and wounding more.”
Enazashi might have been expected to show surprise or utter some words of comfort or sorrow. He did not. “So you come not on behalf of your parents, but as advocates for mortal men? I suppose that is no surprise. Shall I tell you what those mortals said when they first came to me with their demands?”
Hakatri looked surprised at the abruptness of this but only nodded his head. “Of course, Lord Enazashi.”
“When my messenger told them I would not send an army of our folk to face this swamp-worm, they replied to my servant, ‘Then we will go to Asu’a and hope to find a kinder reception from the king and queen of your folk.’ ” Enazashi leaned toward my master, eyes bright and shoulders hunched so that he looked more than ever like a bird of prey. “Is that how y
our parents style themselves now, young Hakatri? As king and queen of the Zida’ya?”
“You know that is not so, my lord. It is merely a misunderstanding between the mortal tongue and our own—nothing to do with Asu’a or my sires.”
Enazashi straightened, pressing his back against the stone chair. “So, then, what brings you to me if it is not to demand I bend my knee to Asu’a and its rulers?”
“We came seeking your help, my lord. My brother—” Hakatri hesitated for a moment. “My brother and I rode to Serpent’s Vale with a small company of hunters, not to fight the worm but merely to see it and learn more about it. But it set upon us by surprise in the marshy valley. Now we know beyond doubt that this creature is truly one of the Great Worms, deadly Hidohebhi, too huge and fierce for our small hunting party. We hope, with your help, to prevent it from taking more lives.” He wove his fingers together in a ritual gesture of kinship I had not often seen.
“Taking more lives? It has not harmed any of my Silverhome people.” Enazashi spoke calmly, but I could hear anger in his voice. “They are all safe here within the mountain. We have other ways in and out beside the Silver Way—you came by one yourselves, I am told—so we have no fear of this baleworm or anything else.”
“Then you are a rare leader indeed, my lord,” Ineluki said sharply. “To be so certain of his subjects and their safety that he does not mind having a dragon in his dooryard.”
Hakatri gave his brother a swift warning glance before turning back to the master of Mezutu’a. “A Great Worm is an enemy to all living things, Lord Enazashi,” he said. “Surely we can find common cause in destroying a creature that cares nothing about clans—or even whether its victims are mortal or immortal.”
Enazashi’s face now seemed to become, if anything, colder and more remote. “Common cause. A noble sentiment.” He turned suddenly to the silent Tinukeda’ya on the stone bench. “Do you hear, Lord Kai? What do you think of that?”
For a moment Kai-Unyu raised his eyes to Enazashi’s, then looked down again, waving his hand in a gesture I did not recognize.
“Lord Kai agrees with me,” Enazashi says. “Yes, your ‘common cause’ is a very noble sentiment indeed—if sparing in how it has been applied in the past by the House of Year-Dancing.”
“Insults,” muttered Ineluki. “That is all this ancient tyrant will give us. We are wasting our time, brother.”
“I do not understand you, my lord,” Hakatri said quickly and loudly, perhaps to distract from his younger brother’s whispering. “How have the rulers of Asu’a failed you? When has any call for aid from Silverhome ever gone unanswered?”
Enazashi gripped both arms of his chair as if to keep himself from leaping up. “When? Why, when the lands of M’yin Azoshai were given to the very mortals you came here to assist. Of course the creatures called ‘men’ went to Asu’a to beg help. Because it was your own grandsires who made them a present of those lands in the first place—lands which rightfully belonged to the Silverhome Clan.”
At last I understood, though I am certain my master already knew the source of Lord Enazashi’s bitterness. Long, long before I was born, one of the first and greatest of the Zida’ya, Lady Azosha, had made her home on the hill Enazashi apparently coveted. She was of Enazashi’s clan, but there had never been much love between them; when the Great Ship came to rest in the place where Mezutu’a would later be built, she had left the rest of her kinsfolk behind to make her own way in the new world. Perhaps because of this, when she reached her final days, Azosha bequeathed her lands to the mortal folk of Hern the Hunter. When the Silverhome Clan disputed her right to do so, the matter came at last to my master’s grandmother Senditu, who was the Sa’onsera in Asu’a at that time, to make the decision. Senditu held that because Azosha had made her home there before Silverhome was built atop the bones of the Great Ship that had brought them all, Enazashi’s clan had no right to claim Azosha’s land.
This dispute was already centuries old and I felt sure there was nothing my master or his brother could do to soothe Enazashi’s bitterness. But a moment later a happier thought came to me. It would be useless for us to try to kill the Great Worm with so small a company, as my master himself had said. Since Enazashi clearly would not help, we would have no choice but to return to Asu’a.
One of the other Zida’ya near the lord’s chair was speaking now. He was young, at least by the standards of the Zida’ya, but he spoke strongly. “Father, surely this old feud should not be allowed to affect a situation of real need. The worm is an enemy to all of us—”
“Silence, Yizashi,” said his sire. “You are not the lord of this place yet, and if you would be so craven as to give up your birthright for nothing, you may never be lord of anything. I have made up my mind. We will treat these visitors from Asu’a with courtesy—our shared blood demands it—but I will not risk a single warrior in the pursuit of this monster. If it threatens the mortals who have usurped our lands, Lord Hakatri, then let those mortals help you warriors of Clan Sa’onserei to kill it.” And with that he flattened his hands before him, signaling that the audience was over.
“What about Lord Kai?” my master asked. “He has not spoken.”
The look Enazashi gave him was bitter, but a smile played across his lips. “Ah, of course. Jenjiyana’s blessed legacy—my co-ruler.” He turned to Kai-Unyu, who seemed to shrink before his gaze like a piece of meat on hot stone. “Do you agree, Lord Kai? Does my decision meet with your satisfaction?”
For a long moment the Tinukeda’ya did not look up or meet his eye. At last, in a voice so quiet that only those of us near the Shard could hear him, he said, “Yes, Lord Enazashi.” His words might have been the rustle of blowing leaves.
“There. Are you satisfied now, young Hakatri?” Enazashi demanded. “All has been done just as your ancestors of Year-Dancing House intended. The rulers of Mezutu’a are in perfect harmony.” He rose then, and though he swayed a little at first, he waved away his son’s help. “I still have a few Great Years left in me,” he said. “I do not need to be propped up, nor do I need to take lessons from my own child.” Enazashi clutched his robes around him and made his way slowly across the Site of Witness, his courtiers following behind him. His long legs and halting gait made me think of a shore bird stepping through the surf. The lord of Mezutu’a held his proud head high until he had passed out of the great chamber and we could see him no longer. A few moments later two Zida’ya guards mounted the daïs and led the one called Kai-Unyu out of the Site of Witness as well. With a guard holding each elbow, I thought he looked more like a prisoner than a monarch.
* * *
• • •
“What was the meaning of all that?” I asked my master later. “I understand that Enazashi is angry with your parents over the mortals, but who is Kai-Unyu?”
“I wish you would not ask me, Pamon,” he said. “It shames me to have to talk about it. And we are awaited at the table.” Hakatri and his brother were being hosted in one of the great houses of Silverhome for the night—not all the nobles of that city were as sour toward the Year-Dancing Clan as their lord. The master of this particular house, Lord Gondo, had sent splendid suits of clothes for my master and Ineluki, though not for me.
At another time I might have given way to my lord’s reluctance, but the strange spectacle I had seen take place before the Shard had confused and disturbed me. “Please, master. Explain to me.”
He sighed. “You know of the Parting, where Utuk’ku’s Hikeda’ya and our Zida’ya separated themselves from each other.”
“Of course, my lord,” I said, although as with many bits of Zida’ya history, I knew it because of what others had said, not because I had studied it myself.
“At that time Jenjiyana, my great-great-grandmother, gave your Tinukeda’ya people mastery over three of the Nine Cities—”
My astonishment was so great that I actually int
errupted him. “My people, my lord? The Nightingale herself gave the rule to my folk?” I had never heard this, had never even dreamed that my people might have once been set so high in the world.
Hakatri nodded. “Yes. It was agreed at the Parting that they would rule over Mezutu’a, Hikehikayo in the north, and the island city of Jhiná-T’seneí. But Jenjiyana’s decree—well, things did not go as she had hoped.”
Jhiná-T’seneí, the City of the Column, had vanished beneath the southern seas long before I was born, thrown down in the great earth-shake that had also demolished fabled Kementari, but the other two cities still existed—we were in one of them. “What happened, Master?”
He was clearly reluctant to go on. “It is a sad and, to me, shameful story, Pamon. In Hikehikayo the Tinukeda’ya were opposed from the first by Hikeda’ya loyal to Utuk’ku, already styling herself a queen. Their attempt to throw down the Tinukeda’ya leaders failed—barely—and most of the Hikeda’ya left for Nakkiga, Utuk’ku’s throne city. Today there are only a few of our folk left there, and the city is much diminished from its heights.”
“But the other two?”
“Jhiná-T’seneí did better, and the Tinukeda’ya there ruled with the cooperation and help of both the Hikeda’ya and Zida’ya. Then the great calamity befell them and the city was lost.”
“You have not told of Mezutu’a yet,” I said.
“Because that is the hardest, most unpleasant tale,” he said. “To put it as simply as possible, the Zida’ya here in Silverhome never fully accepted Jenjiyana’s ruling, and when Enazashi inherited rule of his clan from his father, he seized power back from the Tinukeda’ya.”