by Tad Williams
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As the days until Year-Dancing wore down, I pursued all the tasks my master had set for me, though I confess I performed my duties with a heavy heart.
No sailor who cared for his home at all wished to go on such a voyage as my master proposed, even though Hakatri was greatly loved. I only succeeded in my mission after invaluable help from Iyato the Mariner, the greatest and most venerable of Asu’a’s ship commanders. Though Ju’ujo Iyato was now long past his greatest days, he still knew the seafaring world better than any other of his race, and he found a small but worthy craft called Petrel’s Wing that would serve my master’s needs. She was an ancient but well-kept vessel, long and low and trim, with two masts rigged fore and aft. Masts and hull were made of sturdy, hammered witchwood, the rest of its appointments of hand-carved and lovingly polished silverwood, and its bow swept upward in a steep curve, like a seabird taking flight. With Iyato’s aid, I was also able to find enough brave or reckless souls from the docks of Asu’a to fill out the modest crew, but I could nowhere find a captain of sufficient skill. When the ceremony ushering out the old Great Year was only a short time away, I went to Iyato in despair.
“What can we do?” I asked him. “No Zida’ya will take the helm of Petrel’s Wing. And even if we could find a captain among the Hikeda’ya who could be trusted to protect my lord Hakatri, Nakkiga is too far away, as is their harbor at Black Cliffs on the coast.” I felt empty inside. Time had run out, and I had failed my master in his only remaining hope.
Iyato’s great age was beginning to show in the boniness of his features and his slowing movements, but his eyes were still bright and his wits sharp. “Then I will do it,” he said. “I will be the captain.”
I thought I had not heard him correctly, but when I asked, he said it again. “Lord Hakatri is the Sa’onsera’s firstborn, one of the worthiest of all our people,” he explained. “And even if his voyage is folly, what a glorious folly it will be to sail beyond the sunset!”
I never imagined this aged hero, whose record of deeds was already so lengthy, might decide to undertake such a perilous, ill-omened voyage. A part of me thought I should try to dissuade him, because if evil did befall the ship, the loss of Iyato would be almost as dire for the Zida’ya folk as the loss of my master. But at the same moment I was hard-pressed to have a ship ready for Hakatri, and no other captain could be found.
When I told my master of what the Mariner had said, he was grateful but troubled. “I desired a crew with no family,” he said. “The whole of Asu’a is Iyato’s family, and he would be fiercely missed.”
“Then it is for you to talk him out of it, my lord.”
He sighed. “Compromise is a very slow poison. I have already sipped from that cup too many times, and I cannot abide staying here any longer.”
“But why, Lord Hakatri? Why must we go at all?” It seemed to me as though we stood at the edge of some precipice, our only choices either to turn back or to leap into the unknown, but I still could not understand what had brought us there. “You are with your family now, surrounded by the folk who love you. The best healers in the world are here, and if they have not cured you of your suffering, neither has anyone else, mortal or immortal. Why would you leave it all behind for the hardships and dangers of a journey whose end no one can guess?”
Hakatri stared at me, then reached out his hand and put his fingers on my arm. It was so rare for me to feel my master’s touch since the dragon’s blood burned him that I held my breath, startled. “I do not know if I can explain, faithful Pamon,” he said. “In my waking thoughts these days everything is shadows and noise, but my dreams are even worse, full of dreadsome visions. I cannot bear the idea of existing like this any longer. If I do nothing, if nothing changes, one day I will end myself. If such a day should come, I do not want to be in the midst of my loved ones and all our folk. If I leave Asu’a now, then I will either find salvation or pass into history quietly, as a wayward, wounded spirit instead of an object of horror and pity.”
I wept. I dared not clutch his hand as he withdrew it—I had learned the lessons of the last year too well for that—but it was all I could do not to sink to my knees and beg him to change his mind. It was not my own fear of the voyage that made my heart go cold in my breast, though I truly did not want to go, did not want to turn my back on what my own small life might have become to follow my master on his terrible journey. It was my master himself I mourned, and all he might have been. But if there was even the smallest chance his future could be saved, how could I set my own happiness at an equal value?
That night I prayed to the Garden, as my mother had taught me to do when I was still very small.
Green sea, full of light
Green hills, pointing to the sky
White stars and white sands, each a world in itself
Each a fleck of the Great Dream
Hear us, the scatterlings from your sacred shores and shallows
Hear us, the fireflies in the long night
Watch over us for we are ever faithful
Faithful to your memory
O, Garden that birthed us, O, Sea that receives us
Hear us, for we are your children
Only in that very hour, near the end of a Great Year and after a lifetime of daily prayers, did I finally stop to wonder why I had been taught to pray in the Zida’ya tongue instead of the tongue of my own Tinukeda’ya folk. Had my mother or father learned and then lost our people’s speech, or had they never known it?
Did anything but my name belong to me and to me alone?
At the last sunset of the Wolf Moon, the fiery star known as the Year-Torch appeared in the sky, heralding the new Great Year.
That night, the courtyards, balconies, and rooftops of Asu’a were crowded as the Sa’onserei and the rest of the Zida’ya gathered to greet the arrival of the fiery star. Almost alone among his people, my master did not join the celebration. Hakatri spent the Days of the Torch by himself—or at least with only me for company. Even Ineluki and his silent Hikeda’ya shadow joined in the festivities. The people of Asu’a did not find Ommu’s presence any less disturbing than before, but they were hungry for the presence of Asu’a’s heirs, so they welcomed Ineluki back into their midst. My master’s younger brother drank much and deeply, but it did not seem to make him as moody as at other times. Instead, he showed the people a heedless, merry face. Although some might have wondered at it, they were grateful for the chance to forget tragedy and look toward a new and better day.
On the first of the nine nights of Year-Dancing, Lady Amerasu held the Invocation of the Garden, and the witchwood grove echoed to the sound of singing voices. I could hear them even in my chambers in the Servants Hall, where I was alone. When the Zida’ya gather for Year-Dancing their servants and mortal guests are not part of the celebration, but are free to make holiday in their own ways, but I was not in a festive mood. All I could think was that when the nine nights were finished, I would be leaving Asu’a behind me, and not just Asu’a but all the lands and people I knew. No more letters had reached me from Ravensperch, and although that saddened me, I had come to feel it was for the best. What if they begged me to come to them? What if pretty, clever Sholi sent some new token of affection, one that could not be courteously overlooked? It would have been a torture to me. I decided to write to them to explain that I was leaving with Hakatri on a voyage into the unknown west, and that they would likely not see me or hear from me again. Nobody was likely to ride out of the city during Year-Dancing, so I knew I would need someone to carry my message to Ravensperch after I had gone. When I finished writing, I folded it and slipped it into my tunic until I could find a trustworthy courier.
The Starry Crown, the Progress of Light, the Pledge of Root and Bough, each sunset brought a different part of the Year-Dancing ceremony. Beneath the strange, frosty gleam of
the Year-Torch, as the world hung each night in its net of stars, the voices of the Zida’ya floated up from the witchwood groves hidden in the caverns beneath Asu’a as if the earth itself sang, and I mourned the home I was about to lose. Full of restlessness, I hurried back and forth between the palace and the dock where the Petrel’s Wing was anchored, asking the same things over and over until the sailors begged me to leave them alone.
On the last night of those nine sacred days my master’s people gathered again to sing the Hymn to the Garden and the Songs of Renewal, invoking the names of Jakoya the Gatherer and the first Sa’onsera. My master, his preparations completed, finally joined his people that night and, as I learned later, was welcomed by them with relief and joy, since many had feared he would not be able to attend any of the ceremony. But I could barely stand to hear the singing, which seemed to follow me wherever I went. I walked through the palace until I could scarcely hear the celebration any longer, and the sound of my own footfalls echoed through empty halls.
It was in the Garden of Songbirds, the hour well past middle-night, that my master found me.
“Pamon! Here you are.” Hakatri’s voice was strange, loud and full of cheer that seemed forced. He was limping a little, but otherwise did not show the pain he always carried, and he held a large and ornate cup in his hand. “I have been looking for you all through the palace.”
“Why have you left the grove, Master? Are you unwell?”
“I have had worse days,” he said. “But I have seen better, too.” He laughed. I did not like the sound of it.
“And why on your last night among your family and folk have you come looking for me, my lord?” It was an unusually blunt question, but I was deep in mourning for what I was about to lose and my master seemed more than a little drunk, the first time I had seen him so since before the dragon died. “Tell me and I will do my best to serve you.”
“Then drink this, loyal Pamon.” He held out the cup. “It is the least I can offer you.”
I did not particularly want to cloud my thoughts with wine, but another part of me suddenly welcomed the idea of drawing a curtain of drunkenness between the world and myself. I took the cup from him and lifted it but was made to pause by the strange scent that rose from the drink, dank moss, cloying spices, and an odd tang like hot metal. It was a combination I had smelled before, in Lord Enazashi’s grove on the night we stole the tree.
“It smells a little like a witchwood forest,” I said.
“Ha!” Now my master sounded more feverish than drunken. “Your nose is as wise as your heart is loyal, Pamon. It is my share of the Kei-t’si.” He gestured vigorously. “Go, drink. It is for you.”
This shocked and frightened me. Drinking the Kei-t’si—the blood of the witchwood—was the most sacred part of the Year-Dancing ceremony. The sublime liquor was made from the flower and fruits of the witchwood, things much rarer in these fallen days than gold or jewels. It lengthened the lives and strengthened the blood of all who drank it. Almost everything about it was kept secret from my kind, but I knew with certainty that Kei-t’si was meant only for the Zida’ya themselves and was forbidden to Tinukeda’ya like me. As far as I knew, no one of my kind had ever tasted it, and I did not want to be the first.
“I . . . I cannot take it, my lord.” I held out the cup. “Here. It is meant for you and your folk, not mine. Why do you not drink it yourself?”
He did not accept the cup but turned from me and took a staggering step or two, staring up into the sky at the dying glow of the Year-Torch. I finally realized that my master was not drunk from any wine or liquor. He was drunk with his pain, but he had forced himself out of his bed to attend the final night of Year-Dancing. “Why do I not drink it?” he asked, still staring upward. “If you were me, would you wish to add to your years of suffering? If we somehow find a cure for my torment in the unknown west, there will be more ceremonies, more Great Years, and I can again take the Kei-t’si. But if, as I expect, there is nothing out there for me but more disappointment, why prolong a ruined life?” He finally turned back toward me. “But you, Pamon—I could not bear to see you grow old beside me, a sacrifice to my misery. If you drink the blood of the trees and are made strong, you might even return here someday after I am gone, your life still to be lived.”
I was both touched and horrified. I had reconciled myself, or thought I had, to several score of years spent at my master’s side, of leaving all I knew or even hoped, to sail into mystery for the rest of my life in search of a cure for him. But ten times that? A hundred times? A life stretched far beyond what any but a tiny few of my kind had ever known, as long as that of the great Navigator himself? And always in service to someone else, even someone as kind and honorable as my master? Hakatri’s plan for me was meant as an act of kindness, I knew, an act of love and loyalty, but it seemed more like a curse.
I did not drink from the cup, though I will admit that not all my thoughts in that instant were against it. Who could contemplate a span as long as the lords of the Zida’ya and be completely indifferent? A small part of me was even excited by fleeting thoughts of the power and honor that would accompany such a far-stretching life, of the riches I could gather, the things I could see and do. But in the end, even those very real temptations were not enough to persuade me.
“You do not drink, Pamon,” my master said.
“I must consider your gift carefully,” I told him, because I did not want to refuse him outright.
His wild mood seemed to subside. “You are keeping something from me, Pamon,” he said. “After all this time in each other’s company, that feels strange.”
It felt strange to me too, but in all the days since he was struck down by the dragon’s blood, I had told him almost nothing of my own thoughts, my own worries and fears, let alone my feeble imaginings of having a life of my own. I had not wanted to trouble him with any of it, and I still did not. As I hesitated, I could hear the last singing voices in the distant grove bidding the old Great Year farewell and welcoming in the new one. “It is nothing, Master,” I said.
But Hakatri had lost the feverish excitement that had brought him to me. I saw him wincing in pain once more, which he usually hid when he could. “Tell me what troubles you, loyal servant. Tonight of all nights, our last in Asu’a, you must not hide anything from me.”
But I could not tell him, of course. He had suffered so much. I told him another small untruth—not for my own comfort this time, but for his. “Nothing troubles me, Lord Hakatri. I am content.”
For a while after that we stood in silence. “Time for you to take a little sleep,” he said at last. “Tomorrow will be a hard day for both of us.”
“Will you be well here, Master, if I leave?”
“I will. Go to your bed, Armiger Pamon. You have always been more than a servant to me.”
“Tomorrow is not far away, my lord. What time should I come?”
“Petrel’s Wing is docked beneath Greenwatch Tower. Meet me there in the last hour of the dark.” He reached out a hand and briefly, carefully, touched my arm. “I will never forget your kindness to me during these terrible times.”
“Nor will I forget yours to me, my lord.” But it felt as if some nearly invisible fracture had weakened our bond, the strongest attachment of my life. Without it, what was left to me? I felt dizzied. If I did not serve my master, did I even exist?
Thus we parted, my master to wander the gardens a little longer, saying his farewells to the home he had known for so many years, but knew he might never see again. I did not do the same. Exhaustion and dismay had fallen on me like a heavy cloak, and I could barely stay upright. When Hakatri was not looking, I set the cup down in the grass, the wine of immortality still untasted, and went off to my bed.
This night my life changes forever, I thought. The stars looked down. I could not imagine they cared one way or the other what might become of me. I must go forw
ard from this homely, familiar place to a future I cannot guess. May the Garden wait for me.
I made my way down to the water in the hour before dawn, to the slip where Petrel’s Wing floated on the unseasonably calm waters of Landfall Bay. I did not realize as I climbed the gangplank that the letter I had sat up so late writing to Ona and Sholi—my letter of farewell and apology—was still tucked in my tunic. Overwhelmed by all that was happening, I had forgotten to leave it in the post-riders’ guardroom. In truth, so many thoughts were racing through my head in that hour that I scarcely acknowledged the sailors as I made my way to my master’s cabin and set down my things. To my surprise, Hakatri was lying in the narrow bunk as if he had slept there.
“Are you unwell, my lord?” I asked him.
He opened his eyes and gave me a wan smile. “It was a bad night, Pamon.”
“Your wounds? The burning?”
He shook his head. “Saying farewell to my wife and child. My little daughter would not even let me put my arms around her. ‘No, you’ll burn me.’ That was what Likimeya said, though she must have known it wasn’t true.”
He was unhappy enough; I did not tell him what his little daughter had said about him not being her real father. “I am sorry, my lord.”
“It cannot be helped.” He closed his eyes again. “I cannot do anything for them. I cannot live with their helpless love. I will find aid somewhere—a cure, perhaps, or at least something to dull this cursed, unending pain and the madness of my dreams. One day I will return and make things right for them—for my family and all the folk I have disappointed.” That sounded more like a fading dream than something he truly believed, and my heart ached for him. I ached for myself, too, but that was not something I could afford to think about until we had left Asu’a far behind.