by Tad Williams
“If the autarch’s army is so vast and so powerful, then how did Olin defeat him?”
“He didn’t, not truly,” Murroy had admitted. “The siege failed, but only because the walls of Hierosol are so strong. If the day comes when Hierosol falls to Xis—well, I hope I am not alive to see what happens to the rest of Eion.”
“They’re bringing back the fire!” bellowed Sledge Jasper as he pushed against Vansen’s belly, tumbling him backward. The cry was still echoing past the rest of the Funderling defenders as the advance guard tried to squeeze themselves back into the tunnel at the same time as the men with the fire shields were trying to push forward. “Hurry!” Jasper screeched.
The shield-troop got there only moments before the Xixian artillery dragged their fire-cannons into place, weird, octopuslike arrangements of bellows and plastered barrels and flexible piping that more closely resembled the instruments played by Settland hillmen than weapons of war. Still, it was only the swift erection of the Funderling fire wall, each re-curved shield nearly twice a Funderling’s height and covered with a fiber they called “rock wool,” that saved the lives of those behind them because the passage into which they had fallen back was too narrow to allow a swift retreat. The liquid Xixian fire, ignited as it leaped from the gunlike pipes, washed over the shields. Some drops got through and splattered on the troops cowering behind the shield bearers, causing men to scream in terrible pain; even several rows back from the front, the heat made Vansen’s hair and eyelashes crackle.
“Crossbows!” Vansen would have given everything he owned for a single company of Kertish longbowmen, but no one had given him one, so he was making do with the dozen or so old crossbows the warders had owned since King Ustin’s time. Still, he had to admit the warders had acquitted themselves well.
As the first casks of Xixian fire emptied and the flames reached their greatest strength then began to fall off, Vansen hurried his crossbowmen down the crowded passage and had them stand behind the protective shields. As the Xixians rushed to replace the spent casks with full ones the Funderling shield bearers lowered their great curved shields and crouched so that the archers could fire over their shoulders. Screams and a great gout of fire from a burst bladder on one of the fire-cannons gave Vansen the courage to call for a charge.
The Funderlings poured out of the narrow passage and into the cavern like rats out of a hole, their axes and hammers swinging as they shouted, “The Guild!” and “Earth Elders!” They fell on the dozen Xixian fire-makers and their guards in a moment and curses and shouts and the ring of steel on steel filled the small chamber. But the rest of the Xixians, hundreds of well-armed infantry—“the Naked”—surged forward.
“Grab that fire-cannon and fall back!” Vansen shouted.
As his men stumbled back into the passageway he made them drop the cannon in a heap of bent and scorched parts at the place where the passage opened to the main chamber. He found the matchlock and trigger for the fire-cannon and spiked the end of the smoldering match on a stray cross-bow bolt. He grabbed a bow from one of his retreating archers and then scrambled with them back up the passageway. When Vansen saw the Xixian infantry beginning to shove their way into the passage, he took careful aim and put the sparking match into one of the fire-cannon’s larger bladders.
The gust of hot wind and flame and the terrible screams of the Xixians drew cheers from the retreating Funderlings.
“Back to Pilgrim’s Reach,” Vansen called. “They won’t soon get past the Midsummer bonfire we’ve made for them here!”
“We haven’t even dug in,” said Jasper. “They struck so quickly they must have known we were here. But we should be able to hold them here for a long time.”
“We can’t afford to,” said Vansen. He pointed to the uppermost of Chert’s maps. “Look. If we choke off Pilgrim’s Reach here, then they will just go around us. They’ll likely find their way down by one of the spur tunnels. See, this laborer’s passage doesn’t even have a name, but it’s certainly wide enough for the Xixians to use.”
“Chert’s maps are more useful than I had thought,” said Cinnabar, breathing heavily as his son helped him take off his helmet. “I did not know there were so many unknown passages.”
“He studied the library in the temple, but he has also been down here himself, remember?” Vansen shuffled through the pile until he found the map of the level below them. “All the way to the island in the Sea in the Depths.”
Sledge Jasper, who had all but appointed himself Vansen’s personal bodyguard, let out a low whistle. “That Blue Quartz fellow was on the island? With the Shining Man himself?” He shook his head. “Never would have thought it of him.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” said Cinnabar, drinking water from a moleskin bag. “Chert is a rare and clever fellow. I hear more good sense spoken at his and his wife’s table than I do in the Highwardens’ chambers, and I don’t care who hears me say it.”
“But where is he?” asked Sledge. “I thought he stayed back in the temple with the priests and the others who can’t fight . . . or won’t fight.” His face told what he thought about those who would not take up weapons for Funderling Town.
“Don’t underestimate our allies, either, friend Jasper.” Vansen told him. “We have an entire platoon of monks standing bravely with us even though they have little training for it. By the gods, man, most of them have no better weapon than hoes and hammers and walking sticks!”
“Sorry, Captain. I meant no insult. I just wondered why he wasn’t here.”
“I know, Jasper. Chert Blue Quartz has a plan—an idea of his own, a big and desperate one—and we’ve told him to make what he can of it. It won’t help us, but if we fail it might at least help to save the rest of Funderling Town.”
“What’s he doing, Captain?”
Vansen shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t speak any more about it. The Guild seal is on it—is that spoken aright, Cinnabar?”
The magister nodded and sighed. “That’s it, exactly. It’s Guild business now, mad as it is.”
“You sound as though you think it will fail,” said Jasper.
“I do.” Cinnabar, with his young son Calomel’s help, lowered his armored back end onto a rock. “But I agreed to it, promised I would help, and I’ve done so. Now enough of this. We can do nothing more to help Chert, so let us think about what we can do here.”
Vansen pulled the map around. “As everyone knows, we’ll give ground as slowly as we can manage, but we will have to give ground. From the Counting Room and on down the tunnels. We’ll hold them for a long time in the Cavern of Winds, I hope, but our real stand will be in the Maze, I think. We’ll make then earn every inch there.”
“But they have their own miners, not to mention those weird little creatures covered in tortoiseshell.” Malachite Copper had joined them after seeing to his men. “Surely the southerners can find other ways around us?”
“Eventually, no doubt,” Vansen agreed. “But whenever they seem frustrated, we’re going to give a little. We’ll keep sentries in the other tunnels, so we’ll know if they find any of those routes. But if we fight as hard as we can and seem to give back only when we have to, then the autarch will keep his patience, and we’ll draw him downward as nicely as can be.”
“But that way we’ll lead him right into the Mysteries!” protested Sledge Jasper.
“We can’t beat them, Sledge. I know it sounds mad, but the fairies swear that what the autarch wants is to be there on the night of Midsummer’s Day to perform some black magic. That’s what we have to stop.”
“Well, you’re right, Captain.” Sledge Jasper nodded. “It does sound mad. But you’ve led us right so far, even in the beginning when I thought you’d have us all killed. Me and my men will do what you say.”
Vansen smiled. “We couldn’t manage it without you.” He turned to the others present, Cinnabar and Copper and the other Funderlings, some of them hereditary leaders of their own troops, some selecte
d from the ranks of the warders by Vansen and Jasper. “This is a fight to the death . . . but it is also a dance. We must learn our partners’ movements and mood as well as we know our own.”
Jasper’s confidence disappeared in an instant. “A . . . dance? My men don’t dance, Captain.”
“Then think of it as a story being performed. Do you Funderlings have plays and players?”
Cinnabar frowned. “Of a sort. Some of the Metamorphic Brothers who conduct special rituals . . .” he hesitated for a moment,” . . . in the Mysteries, they are players of a sort.”
“Well and good,” said Vansen. “Think of it that way, then. It is up to us to put on a good show of resistance, but the only way we can do that is to fight and perhaps lose. And then, even if we manage to hold off a much greater force, when they begin to tire, we must give ground, however weary we are ourselves, and however good the position we must abandon.” Ferras Vansen spread his hands to show that he had nothing else to give. “That is our task, gentlemen. Perhaps the most difficult thing fighting men could be asked to do, and we must work this miracle with untrained troops and many new commanders. Could the odds be longer?” He turned to Jasper. “So don’t fear, friend Sledge. We may die in obscurity but there are many worse ways to do it—and many worse reasons.”
“It will be an honor to break my spade in obscurity with you, Captain.” Jasper sounded as though he was ready to run out and throw himself on a Xixian spear this very moment.
“Just the same,” Vansen said, “it is an honor I would have been happy to turn down.”
Pinimmon Vash was terrified by how much stone now lay above his head, of how far beneath the sky—and even beneath the sea!—he had come. It was all that he could do not to leap out of his litter this moment and force his way back past the soldiers in their strung-out camps until he had fought his way back to the surface. It wasn’t the knowledge of the permanent and fatal humiliation that would bring that kept him in place. Even the idea of losing face wasn’t enough to overcome the horror of these miles of stone weighing down upon his thoughts and feelings. Instead it was the face of the autarch himself, staring at him across the smoke of the ceremonial brazier, that kept Vash seated and smiling vapidly when he felt as though any moment his skin might yank itself free from his bones and run away without him.
Sulepis could go nowhere without the brazier, because it represented the fire of his godly ancestor, Nushash. It was the kind of thing Vash himself approved of: ancient, orderly, ceremonial, respectable—and exactly the sort of things his young master was emphatically not.
“Your face seems sour to me, Paramount Minister,” said Sulepis. “Has your keen eye spotted some weak spot in our assault?”
He hated it when the autarch made light of him in front of the soldiers, but even the polemarchs knew better than to show too much amusement. Whatever they might think of him in private, they all knew that Pinimmon Vash’s reach was second only to the Golden One’s. More officers than were gathered here today had incurred the paramount minister’s ire, and all of them were gone now, the luckiest in ignoble retirement.
Vash did his best to smile. “Sour, Golden One? How could anyone be sour in the midst of such a splendid adventure? I but reflected on worries of my own.”
“Ah, did you? How selfish you are, old man. All those concerns and you would not share a single one?” Sulepis turned to his prisoner. “Come, Olin, wouldn’t you like to hear what is worrying my good servant?”
To Vash’s eyes the northern king looked even paler than usual. His brow was damp, as if a fever were coming upon him. “I beg pardon,” Olin said. “I did not hear.”
“Never mind. Tell us why you are worried, Minster Vash.”
Vash took a breath, held it a moment. “I worry about you, O Golden One, that is all. I fear for your safety so far below the ground, in such a dark and treacherous place, and with such uncanny enemies.”
“But you told me only yesterday that I would triumph against any odds—that Heaven had ordained my victory, so how can you doubt me today? Do you doubt me, Minister?” The autarch was smiling, but the yellow lights of his eyes seemed as deep as the vast fires in the temple of Nushash.
He’s angry about something, Vash suddenly realized. Not me, but I was fool enough to let him notice an expression on my face. “I am sorry, Golden One. I try never to doubt your victory, but your enemies are so treacherous, so wicked . . . !”
Olin turned with a look of clammy disbelief on his face. “What? My poor people, wicked? Is it not enough to kill innocents without slandering them, too?”
“He does not mean them, Olin,” said the autarch, his mobile face suddenly full of noble feeling. “Although nobody who allows that Tolly creature to rule them can be truly innocent. Old Vash refers to my real enemies—the gods. And, yes, they are strong and cruel, but they do not have what I have . . . the blood of humanity flowing in my veins!”
The northern king, who unlike Vash himself seemed to have no reason to fear aggravating the autarch, asked, “What do you mean, humanity? It’s the blood of gods you’re always talking about—the blood that supposedly runs in my veins.”
Sulepis smiled with pleasure. “Ah, but that is just the point. The blood of the gods has grown thin and tired, but it is still the key that will unlock the door I need to open . . . and when the door is open, power will come through it. That power—the might of Heaven itself—will be mine. But my blood may be entirely mortal, or if Nushash is indeed my ancestor, it may have become an even thinner soup over the years than your own. What’s important about me is that I have the blood of human conquerors running in my veins—hard, silent men of the desert who seized what they wanted and held it by wits and bravery and nothing more. Who else would even think to snatch Heaven’s power? I am the closest thing this world has to a god, and it is exactly because of my mortal ancestors that the circle will be closed and I will inherit the greatest power imaginable.”
Olin looked at him for a long time. “Every time I think I have plumbed the uttermost depths of your madness, Sulepis, you surprise me yet again.”
“Excellent news!” The autarch was pleased. “Now come with me while I inspect the troops, Olin. They do not like this sunless place, and who can blame them? But I am their sun and I must shine upon them a little.”
“But I don’t shine,” Olin said quietly. “I only burn.”
“Ah.” Sulepis peered at him. “That is right, my friend, you suffer as you grow closer to your old home, do you not? Bad dreams, a racing heart, a pounding head? What an irony is there!” The autarch shook his head in dignified disapproval, like a grandfather watching the carryings-on of disrespectful youth. Vash could not help wondering how his master had managed to become even stranger than usual: Sulepis seemed to be trying on different ways of being, as though character could be changed like a priest’s ritual mask. “Is your suffering great?”
The look Olin gave him should have immediately set the young autarch aflame. “I persist. I survive.”
“Which is, after all, the highest to which most mortals can aspire, is it not?” The autarch laughed and stood. Half a dozen body servants rushed forward to unroll the sacred blue Bishakh carpet in whatever direction he chose to walk: Sulepis was still under the stricture of the priests not to touch the ground. Vash thought it strange that a man who was willing to kill kings and rob the gods themselves should be so scrupulous about religious ritual. “Now come along,” the autarch told his captive. “You will keep me company while I bring the sun’s brightness to my languishing soldiers.”
As his guards helped the northerner to his feet, Olin stumbled and took a lurching step toward Vash, then caught at the older man’s robes to keep from falling—or so it seemed; but as his sudden grab bent the paramount minister almost double, Olin leaned close to Vash’s ear.
“I know you are no fool,” the king whispered quickly. “If you wish to survive, go to Prusus. You will find him a good listener.”
For a mom
ent Vash thought his own command of Eion’s common tongue had failed him—that Olin had muttered a curse and he had misheard it in a ludicrous, impossible way. But the quick look of significance the northerner gave him before allowing himself to be led away made the old minister’s heart, already beating swiftly, begin to rattle like a festival noisemaker.
Is he mad? Does he think for a moment I would betray the autarch?
But a second, guiltier thought followed quickly. What did he see in me? Is it in my face? Can everyone see my doubts?
A moment later came the third and most horrifying idea of all: Olin must have heard something. He’s telling me that the Golden One already plans to have me removed and executed. Sulepis only toys with me, like a cat with a granary rat.
Vash watched as the autarch was carried across the great stone chamber, bobbing on his litter with lanterns hung at each corner, and suddenly felt his treacherous thoughts must be leaking out like blood through a bandage, or like the fever-sweat on Olin’s face. Perhaps everyone knew!
Badly frightened by the words of a condemned foreign enemy, the Paramount Minister of Xis hurried to his tent, seeking shadows and a chance to think.
“I can scarcely see anything,” Vansen whispered to the young warder Dolomite as he stared out into the blackness of the vast, low chamber. He had been told there was enough light from glowing fungus on the walls in most parts of the Mysteries for the Funderlings to see at least a bit, but Ferras Vansen thought he might as well have a bucket over his head. “I’m blind here!”
“That’s because you are an upgrounder, Captain Vansen.”
“Fortunately for us, then, Warder, so are our enemies.”