by Tad Williams
“It is said the southern king wishes to command a god ... but this Sulepis may not wield as much power as he thinks.” The Qar woman spoke quietly, but everyone at the fire strained to hear. “He may open a door that cannot be shut again. And there is nothing ... nothing ... to give us promise that the gods who come through will be awake and sane.” Saqri made an odd gesture, hands spread on either side of her face. “In any case, though, it is certain that if the way to the gods is opened, it is this world—our world—that will suffer.”
“Then we will help you, of course,” said Eneas. “Strange as it all still seems, I have seen much to convince me today. We must fight with you to keep the autarch from his goal.”
“Yes, you must fight with us,” Saqri said. “But not beside us, I think. Your knights are not best suited for the battle beneath the castle ...”
“Why this slander?” Lord Helkis demanded. “Our good men of Syan have held a wooden guard tower against a Xixian army ten times their number—you saw them on the field today! They fear nothing!”
“You misunderstand me.” Saqri held the Syannese noble’s stare for a moment until he dropped his head in a mixture of fury and shame. “I did not say they were not capable or brave, I said they were not best suited. Can they see in near-darkness like our Changing tribe? Can they make their own light in the depths like the Elementals? Can they break stone with their fingers like the Deep Ettins?” She extended her own hand, palm up. “Your men are brave, but the best of them are horsemen. In the steep black depths they would quickly become less than their best. Here beneath the sky, in Southmarch itself, they can make certain that Tolly the Protector does not throw in his forces on the side of the autarch.”
“Surely no northerner, no matter how corrupt, would do such a thing,” protested Eneas.
“But he already has.” She said it with such calm that Briony knew even Eneas would believe her. “Our luck was good, though, and the two of them fell out over something. But when a creature like Hendon Tolly sees how things are going, he will fight fiercely to preserve his own life. If he attacks us from behind, that alone could slow us enough to allow the autarch the time he needs ...”
“But how do you know so much about the plans and doings of mortals?” Briony asked. “About Tolly and the Xixians?”
“I know much about you, too, Briony Eddon,” said the fairy queen. “Do not forget, until this moment our peoples have been at war. You may know little of the Qar, but it does not follow that the Qar also know little of you. We have long had ...” She trailed off.
“Spies?” Briony demanded. “So—you, too? Is there anyone in this failing world who has not made my family’s business their own? And why should I trust you, madam, to decide how my own castle is to be defended?”
“Trust? I have told you nothing that you cannot see for yourself. Prince Eneas, your men are horsemen—they would be wasted in the dark, cramped tunnels. Go to the castle. Find Tolly and kill him or imprison him. If you can do that, then feel free to send help to us through the gate to Funderling Town.”
Briony turned to Eneas. “Don’t do it!” The look on his face made her want to shout. Surely he could not so easily trust these fairies, who only weeks before had tried to throw down Southmarch and had killed so many of its citizens!
“Wait, I begin to understand,” said the fairy queen. “It is your father, is it not, child? He is the true matter we discuss.” Saqri pinned her with her gaze, and this time Briony could not escape it. “You want to march with us into the depths because your father is there—because you hope to save him from the autarch’s clutches.”
“No!” Briony said, although the fairy woman was absolutely right. “You know nothing about him ...!”
“On the contrary—I know more about your father than I know of almost any other mortal. But that is not the point.” Saqri reached out and clutched her arm. Briony tried to shake herself free but felt suddenly weak as an infant. The fairy woman’s voice took on a harsher edge. “Look at me, child! Your family is at the center of many things, but I can tell you this—it is not held for you to save your father. I am not one of my people’s Gray Egrets—I cannot peer through the future’s veil—but I feel strongly and clearly enough how things must be to tell you that. Do not waste your warriors’ lives on a selfish gamble, Briony Eddon. It could be that we Qar will find him and free him, but his fate will come to him whether you are beside him or not.”
Tears filled Briony’s eyes; she blinked, then wiped them away. Saqri’s voice grew quieter now, almost kind. “I cannot say I feel sorry for you—not after what your family has done to mine—but I do know something of loss, and I also know something of confusion. For a long time I did not know whether to hate or forget. I have come now to believe hate is useless ... but so is forgetting. Those who forget too easily are the toys of fate.”
Briony’s tears threatened to overspill again. “But what should I do?” she asked, and was not even certain to whom she spoke.
“Live, Briony Eddon,” the fairy queen told her. “Live and remember. Remember and learn.”
The dark-haired girl was running from him now. No matter how he tried to call out to her, to calm her, she wouldn’t stop, as if he himself had become the thing she feared. He didn’t immediately know where they were—at first he was not certain it was a place—but as he pursued her, he began to recognize the walls and stone floors of Southmarch.
He was in the Portrait Hall now, in front of the picture of Queen Sanasu that had so often caught his attention. Now, as he looked into his ancestor’s dark eyes, he saw for the first time that her expression was not the distant, superior thing he had always thought, but a combination of many things—loss, fear, anger, and perhaps a little hope; even stranger, though, the portrait was moving, rippling as though something behind it was struggling to emerge.
He stretched out his hands toward the red-haired queen and began to scrape away what lay on the surface. It was not a picture at all, he realized—it was dirt, only dirt, but the more he scraped, the more dirt he found. He could still feel the movement just below his hands, so he doubled his effort, digging faster and faster until his fingers curled around something small and hard and cool to the touch. He pulled it out of the clinging earth and found he was holding a stone statue of the dark-haired girl, her face frozen in a look of terror. But even as he stared at it, the statue fell apart into a clump of shiny beetles that tumbled from his hands and began to crawl and fly away like a handful of spilled jewels. He cried out and tried to catch them, but within moments they had all vanished into the earth once more.
“Time grows short, Eneas Karallios,” the queen of the fairies said. The light of the burning ships made the shadows of those gathered jump and caper like demons. “Have you come to a decision?”
“Please, do not trust them so easily, Eneas!” Briony pleaded.
“I am sorry, Princess,” he said. “Truly sorry, you must believe me, but I must consider the safety of my own men first and, ultimately, my own country. That means I must also trust my own instincts, and those tell me that the fairy folk are right ...” He raised his voice. “We will do as you say, Queen Saqri.”
“Good. Then we have done all we can do here,” Saqri said. “The rest of the southerners are scattered through the hills. They will not come back soon.”
Briony did not trust herself to speak. They were going to leave her father’s fate to the fairies. For a moment she entertained several wild schemes of how she could search for him by herself, but Briony knew she couldn’t leave Eneas and his Syannese soldiers to free her home without her. Dull resignation set in.
“But when they see how small our numbers are, the Xixies now hiding in the hills will come back,” Eneas said to Saqri. “What then?”
“You will be across the water and beyond their reach,” the queen assured him. “Our allies will see to that ...”
“Allies?” Eneas asked. “What allies are those ...?”
Briony would have
sooner blinded herself than let the Qar woman see her fighting back tears of anger, but as she turned to leave this foolish, misbegotten council behind, she was distracted by a tall figure staggering up the beach from the Qar’s tiny settlement of tents, headed toward the bonfire. At first she thought from its stiff-legged movements that it must be one of the Qar, but as it came closer she saw that, other than the odd, hobbling gait, the slender figure looked quite human. Its hair seemed to have the reddish color of the fire itself.
How strange, she thought—so much like Barrick’s ...
She stood, thunderstruck, as her brother limped past her and made his way toward the fairy queen. Barrick wore loose-fitting clothes, shirt and breeches of white cloth only a little darker than his skin, which seemed paler than she remembered, and he was a full head taller than Barrick had been the last time she saw him. Still, there could be no doubt it was her brother.
“Saqri!” he cried as he reached the queen, “Saqri, I understand now!” He noticed the others staring at him, although he had not yet seen Briony, and made a gesture she did not recognize. “Pardon.” He turned back to the queen. “Qinnitan! The girl named Qinnitan—she is here! She is here, and I think she must be under the castle! I forgot her for the longest time—but how could that be? How could I forget someone so important?”
Saqri did not have a chance to respond before Briony pushed through the strange creatures ranged on the Qar side of the fire and stepped in front of him. “Barrick? Is that really you?” But it was—there could be no mistake. She threw herself at him, arms wide. “Barrick!”
To her astonishment, he did not respond at all; it was as though she embraced a stone oracle in a temple. “Who is this?” he asked, stepping back and pushing her arms away.
She stared at him in amazement. It was without doubt the face she had looked into like a mirror all her life—her brother, her twin. “Barrick, it’s me, Briony! Your sister! Don’t you recognize me?” She was stunned. Had she changed so much?
And then something came into his eyes ... but it was not what she had expected, not at all. She saw a gleam of memory, but also mistrust and even irritation. “Ah. Of course—Briony. And have you been well, sister? It has been a very long time.”
“Well?” She stepped back as though he had slapped her. “Barrick Eddon, what’s happened to you? Why do you treat me this way? I have feared for you and suffered for your sake every day since we were separated. Do you tell me you have not thought of me at all?”
Instead of answering, he turned to the queen of the Fay with a helpless look on his face, as though asking for aid.
“Much has happened since you saw each other last,” Saqri said. “Doubtless, you will find much to talk to your sister about when all this is over, Barrick Eddon. But now our time is short.”
Barrick nodded as though that summed everything up perfectly. “I wish you well, Briony,” he said, then nodded in Eneas’ direction as well. “And of course our other mortal allies, too. Saqri, I must speak to you when you return. I can feel Qinnitan’s presence. She is here—I’m certain the autarch has her.” He paused as if he might say more, then turned and limped back down the beach toward the Qar camp.
Briony stared after him, aching inside as though she had swallowed a handful of freezing stones. Within a few moments her brother had vanished into the dark once more.
27
Full of the Stuff
“Old Aristas was too feeble to accompany him now, so Adis set out on a white horse the villagers gave to him, with only a servant named Moros for companionship.”
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
THE GOBLINS WERE BUSY DISMANTLING Yasammez’s tent, but when the Elementals shivered into view they hopped out of the way, nimble as crickets, before returning to their chores. Neither Yasammez’s chief eremite Aesi’uah or any of the others paid them any further attention. Goblins, especially those who labored in the larger houses, were legendarily discreet.
Only a few dozen other creatures remained in the large cavern known as Sandsilver’s Dancing Room, most of them engaged like the goblins in removing all remnants of the camp that wouldn’t dissolve or disappear on their own. The chamber was full of unusual scents and sounds; some of the rendering powders smelled like burning flowers; some of the laborers sang or rubbed their wings instead of speaking.
The newly arrived Elementals stood before Yasammez. “Hail, Great Lady,” said Stone of the Unwilling, courteously diffusing the glare of his presence. “You called, we came.”
“Is that true?” The dark lady pitched her voice in the tone that the Elementals could see as a cold blue light. “Because there are other times I have called you but did not receive such a swift answer. In fact, I received no answer at all.”
Stone of the Unwilling shifted, flickered. “My lady?”
“You have always been faithful to your people’s old promises,” Yasammez said, “both to me and to the Fireflower.”
“Of course, Lady. And I am still faithful.”
“Perhaps. But I would have hoped you would have brought me a clanswoman who would be as faithful in friendship and courage as you are . . . instead of this one.”
The smaller Elemental’s glow jittered a bilious yellow for a moment before she spoke. “Mistress, do you doubt my loyalty to the People?”
“I make no accusations, Shadow’s Cauldron, but I do ask why you have not responded to my call. Three times I summoned you, and three times the void in which your people swim like fishes sent me back no word of you.”
Yellow-green flashed again. “And does that make me a traitor, Mistress?”
“Clanswoman!” It was easy to see that Stone of the Unwilling was agitated; his light jiggled like wind-whipped fire beneath his wrappings. “That is no way to speak to the Daughter.”
“Not even a demigoddess can call me traitor.”
Watching this bizarre confrontation, the councillor Aesi’uah felt a shadow of superstitious terror fall over her. The Elementals were the last and fiercest of the races to join in the confederation of the People; some said they wielded powers that even the Fireflower dynasty feared. Stone of the Unwilling’s people would make terrible enemies.
“Why so much anger, Shadow’s Cauldron?” the eremite asked aloud, framing her hands in a carefully chosen gesture of supplication. “That does not seem best for people surrounded by enemies, as we are.”
“But we begin to wonder whether it is Lady Yasammez herself who is no longer as firmly in service to her people as she would have us believe,” said the smaller Elemental.
“Clanswoman, I do not understand you,” said Stone of the Unwilling. “Clearly, we must go somewhere where the winds and lights of our words can play unhindered, so you can explain this outrageous behavior to me.” He turned to Yasammez, his robes billowing in his discontent. “Forgive us, Mistress. Forgive my clanswoman.”
The lights glared from Shadow’s Cauldron’s hood, and her arms stretched as though she might reach all the way to the high ceiling of the cavern, but she was only reshaping herself; when she had finished, she made herself into a strange replica of Yasammez, but she had let slip the ribbons covering her face and what hung before them was a terrible, empty glare. “Why did you give up the Seal of War?” she said. “Tell us why, Lady.”
“It is hardly your place to demand answers.” Her thoughts were as cold as stinging sleet. “I did what was best for the People.”
“You gave both your blessing and your army to Saqri, wife and sister of the mortals’ greatest friend in Qul-na-Qar, that traitor Ynnir!” Shadow’s Cauldron’s thoughts were sharp and comfortless. “If you needed any more proof, she has already brought a mortal into our midst and all but shares her power with him! A mortal! Together, they will throw away lives by the handful, when there is only one weapon we need to destroy this southern upstart and his plans.” She flourished her gloved hand and the gleaming sphere that was the Fever Egg appeared t
here. “Do not try to take it from me,” she warned. “It is an image, no more. But it has been given to the Elementals and we will make certain it is well-used.”
“This goes too far ...” began Stone of the Unwilling.
“It is powerfully close to the very treachery you deny,” said Aesi’uah.
“Who are you, eremite?” spat Shadow’s Cauldron. “A creature of bones and mud. Not to mention one of the Dreamless—an entire country of traitors . . . !”
“Enough.” The voice of Yasammez was like a whipcrack in all their thoughts. Though she made no audible sound, the goblins carrying her tent across the other side of the cavern fell to the floor, clutching their heads in terror. “Silence—all of you. Do you know to whom you speak, woman of the Elementals? Has no one told you?” Yasammez took a step forward, and although the movement was slight, the Elementals’ robes billowed as though a great wind had come. “I am Yasammez of the Wanderwind Mountains, the daughter of Crooked himself! You dare to hold your judgment up to mine?”
“You have given up the Seal of War . . . !”
“I have given the Seal of War to Saqri, the last in my family’s line—the hearth of the Fireflower! It was she and her husband-brother who gave the Seal to me in the first place.” She closed her outstretched hand and the image of the Fever Egg was suddenly gone from Shadow’s Cauldron’s hand. “Now I will tell you what will happen. You will listen and understand. If you do not obey me, the void will not recognize you and the wind will not carry you nor the darkness hide you.”
“Since we swore our loyalty to the Fireflower, we have always been its strongest and most determined allies,” declared a fretful, flickering Stone of the Unwilling. “This is only a small dispute, Mistress—a confusion created by the fires and shadows of war.”
Yasammez gave him a cold look and went on as though he had not spoken. “I do not know what will happen in these final days. I do not know what my own role will be. I do know what yours will be, Shadow’s Cauldron. You will keep the Fever Egg safe and unbroken until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”