by Tad Williams
“Hello, Beetledown,” said Flint. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Beetledown could only stare at the familiar, unlikely face in astonishment. “But . . . Chert’s son, th’art. What dost tha here?”
“I had a feeling I should be here,” the boy said. “And I was right—the Trickster god guessed your task and sent the bird to stop you. But there is no time to talk now. You must be on your way—hurry! Brother Antimony is waiting.”
Beetledown couldn’t help wondering if he might in truth be lying somewhere stunned or even dead and dreaming this whole thing. “Can’t. I’ve no way for getting there. Yon owl has killed my mount.”
Flint lifted his other hand up into the glow of the coral lamp and uncurled his fingers to reveal the brown, furry shape of Muckle Brown. Startled, the bat tried to spread its wings to leap free, but Flint gently closed his fingers over it again. “No,” he said. “I caught her, too.”
Beetledown could not help himself—he whooped with laughter. “What miracle is this? Something the Lord of the Peak has done, as’s not happened since the old days?”
“Perhaps,” Flint said. “I’m not certain. But you’d better go.”
“The owl . . . ?”
“It’s gone. Once it knocked you out of the sky, it had done what it was set to do. It’s been released now. I don’t think you’ll see it again.”
“Then help me get back onto yon flittermouse. Perhaps someday, Chert’s boy, tha willst be good enough to explain this all to me.”
“Perhaps.” Flint nodded slowly. “But that’s something I can’t see.”
Muckle Brown was unmistakably weary, but with Beetledown back in the saddle and the owl gone, she seemed willing to try to fly again. “I’ll go better slow,” Beetledown said. “She’s barely able to scrape air.”
“Not too slow,” Flint said, getting ready to fling bat and rider into the air once more. “Many are waiting on you. And when you see Mama Opal, tell her not to wait for me—she has to go with everyone else. But promise her she’ll see me again.”
Before Beetledown had time to make sense of all that, he was spinning up into the darkness in a whirl and crack of leathery wings.
42
The Pale Blade
“... At last the mourners’ prayers reached Zoria, the most tenderhearted of all the goddesses. She appeared to the people of Tessis and asked them what they wished of her, and they told her of the Orphan and how he had given his life to bring back the sun ...”
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
MUCKLE BROWN WAS BARELY ABLE to keep flapping her wings when he finally brought her spiraling down on the makeshift table where the Funderling monk Brother Antimony sat staring at a series of plans scratched on slate. The bat landed heavily and pulled her wings in close, interested only in breathing, careless of what might happen next. Beetledown rolled out of the saddle and scrambled down onto the flat stone.
“By the Elders!” said Antimony, startled. “What is this . . . ?
“I am Beetledown the Bowman, Brother—we have met before.” He slipped off his pack and lifted out the Astion, his arms trembling at its weight. “This, from Cinnabar. Un says the stones must fall now—that the battle in the deeps be lost.”
“But . . . but ...” Antimony was clearly overwhelmed. “Lost? Is that true?”
“I was there but a short while. That’s what un told me.” The Astion passed on, Beetledown sagged. “Hast tha any water to drink? I will share it with my mount.”
“What? Ah, of course.” Antimony rose. “But first I must deliver this news. The men are waiting. They have been stalling so as not to tear everything down, hoping that Chert would succeed . . . !” He shook his head. “Elders! This is a terrible hour. But we must do what we promised . . . we must . . . !” The Funderling monk was still muttering to himself as he ran out to the main part of the cavern where the workers were gathered.
Beetledown crawled across the stone until he could lean against Muckle Brown, who still seemed interested only in regaining her breath. “Th’art good, leatherwing,” he told the creature. “Hast done well. Hast done nobly.” He patted her. “There be my good girl. And soon summat wet coming.”
Soon the end of the world, too, or so it seemed. But at least they would both get a drink of water first.
God of poets, thieves and drunkards.
God of fires.
God of lies.
The names and tales flared in Barrick’s mind like details picked out by lightning—Zosim the Trickster stealing the war chariot of Volios, Zosim covering himself in flowers so he could hide and watch Morna the goddess of winter bathe, after which he raped her. He had once disguised his voice to protect himself from the wrath of Perin Skylord, claiming to be Perin’s father Sveros returned from the void; now Zosim had disguised himself again, pretending to be Kernios to fool the Autarch of Xis into releasing him back into the world.
The Trickster had returned and the Fireflower voices inside Barrick were horrified: in the old days only the greater powers of the other gods had held Zosim back and thwarted his cruelest whims. Now he was alone in the world, the last of the gods. He was unstoppable.
Only the autarch and the last of his select Leopard troops still stood before the terrifying menace of Zosim Salamandros unbound. Most of the autarch’s ordinary soldiers had already fled in panic, many of them trying to wade through the silvery blood of Kupilas to escape the island, only to find themselves caught in its strangely viscous grip and pulled down. Zosim had picked out others for even harsher treatment: as he pointed at them they burst into flames with a noise like a muted thunder-clap, their dying shrieks lost in the god’s loud merriment.
On the far side of the silver sea, the remaining Qar and Vansen’s Funderlings were also in full retreat. The Xixians they had been fighting only moments before ran with them, no longer interested in anything but saving their own lives. Men and fairies were already struggling with each other for the dangling climbing-ropes, desperate to get back up to the Maze and the tunnels beyond.
Barrick’s strength was finally returning. He twisted until he could stretch his bonds as tightly as possible; after a few painful moments, the ropes snapped. The Fireflower ancestors, still stunned by the appearance of the Trickster god, were little more than a muddle of confused noise in his head. He found his sword where one of the panicked guards had dropped it and used it to cut Ferras Vansen’s bonds, then carefully did the same for the motionless black-haired girl.
Vansen rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet. The girl did not.
“Qinnitan.” Barrick knelt beside her, put his face so close he could smell the delicate saltiness of her skin. “Can you hear? Qinnitan, don’t leave me!” But it was useless: if she still breathed he could not detect it. The god forcing his way through into the world had burned in Barrick’s own thoughts like a glowing ember—how much worse must it have been for her, specially prepared to be a vessel of that god? He blinked rapidly, unable to look at her slack features any longer. Fate could not be so cruel—or could it?
Of course it could. It always has been.
He turned then to the other figure that lay beside her. His father’s beard had far more gray than he remembered, but otherwise it was the face he knew so well, one he had loved and hated in almost equal measure. Olin, too, seemed dead, but Barrick could sense a tiny pulse still throbbing beneath his ear. Was there anything left of him inside this near-corpse, or had the god burned it away while he occupied him? Was anything left besides barely breathing meat . . . ?
A tremendous splash startled him from his confusion. The monstrous, beautiful youth had waded into the middle of the silver sea to snatch up a handful of Xixian soldiers who had been trying to swim to safety. The god held the tiny, thrashing figures close to his beaming face.
“DO YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF HEAVENLY BLOOD?” Zosim boomed. “IT IS A HEADY NECTAR FOR MORTALS. DO YOU HOPE IT WILL CHANGE YOU? LET
US SEE!”
Even as he spoke, the shrieks of the terrified Xixians altered as they began to stretch and lose their human forms. Barbs of the silvery blood, stretching and growing inside them like thornbushes, began to pierce their flesh. Their eyes bulged with terror and their limbs flailed, but they could not escape what was already inside them. Tendrils of twining silver sprung out of them like vines, lifting them up into the air until they dangled on thorns of their own solidified and shiny blood, like the larder of a butcher bird.
Vansen stared helplessly at the dying Xixians as if he would never move again.
“You must get Qinnitan and my father away from here,” Barrick told him. “Take the boat and cross. Lie still. Hope the god doesn’t see you.”
Now Ferras Vansen turned to look at him, his face pale, his eyes full of the horrors he had seen. “What will you do, Prince Barrick?”
“Whatever I must.” He could not help laughing at the idiocy of his own words—what on earth could he do against a god? “Take the girl first—I’ll protect my father. Go. Hurry!”
As Vansen staggered off with Qinnitan’s limp body in his arms, a huge shadow passed over Barrick’s head. He turned, raising his sword, but it was only the god stepping back onto the island. The Trickster was headed toward the autarch and his remaining men, who had just reached the makeshift camp where they had first come up onto the island.
“The cannon, curse you!” Sulepis shouted at his minions. “Kill that thing!”
“OH, YES, SHOW ME WHAT MEN HAVE LEARNED TO DO WHILE I SLEPT!” cried the god, laughing again. “CROOKED THE ARTIFICER SEEMS TO HAVE TAUGHT YOU CREATURES WELL!”
But even though the autarch’s men tried to do as he ordered, their cannon had never been meant to fire so high in the air. At its greatest elevation it still did not point higher than the god’s knee. Zosim had now grown taller than the famous statues of the Three Brothers in the center of the great Trigonate temple in Syan. The cannon roared, but because the god was moving, the great cannonball hissed past and crashed against the far cavern wall, sending a shower of stone down onto the fleeing Xixians, killing many of them.
The autarch and his guards ran toward the tunnel that led back from the island to the Maze, but before they could reach it, the gigantic Zosim stepped past them and snatched up the cannon that had just been fired. He crushed the great bronze gun into a shapeless mass and then shoved it into the crevice like a bung into a barrel, leaving the autarch and his soldiers with nowhere to go.
“SCATTER, ANTS!” Zosim called down to them, laughing, then began plucking up the nearest of the soldiers, deforming them into ghastly, inhuman shapes even as they screeched and wept in his hands.
Barrick raced across the rocky crest of the island toward the huge figure, his fairy sword gripped tightly in his hand. Vansen was shouting behind him, but he knew the god must be stopped here. In a short time, Zosim would run out of victims, and his thoughts would turn to the castle above.
“Just take my father and the girl!” Barrick called to Vansen. “There is nothing else you can do here.”
“I can’t leave you!”
“For the love of the gods, man, why not?”
“Your sister told me not to do it! And I promised!”
Vansen’s words kindled something in Barrick, a small train of thoughts that nevertheless stopped him in mid-stride. It’s true . . . I am both. Qar and man. The blood in me ... it is her blood, too. Briony. I remember . . . !
His walk became a run, as though he could really make a difference—as if he, a mortal, could actually fight against a god.
A pair of unnatural shapes dropped from Zosim’s gigantic hand and landed on the stony ground before him—two Xixian soldiers who had been squeezed by the god until they looked like crabs made of melted brown candle wax. They scuttled toward him. Most horrible of all were the helpless, miserable expressions Barrick could still see on their warped faces.
“AND WHERE ARE YOU, LITTLE AUTARCH?” crooned the god, sifting with his immense fingers through the pile of squirming, screaming Leopards and priests he had made. Zosim picked one up and examined it, but shook his massive, fiery head. The thrashing creature in his hand puffed into flames and began to melt and run through the god’s fingers like warm grease. He picked up a particularly fat figure—it might have been the Xixian high priest—and popped it like a grape, then licked his blazing fingertips, grinning. “SPLENDID! IT TASTES LIKE WORSHIP!”
“Face one who is not afraid of you!” Barrick scrambled up the slope toward the monstrous being crouched beside a pile of shrieking captives. “Turn, Trickster. My ancestor defeated you and his blood still runs strong!”
But before Barrick could even swing his sword, Zosim darted out a hand like baking-hot marble and snatched him up. The pain was so fierce that it was all Barrick could do not to scream like a terrified child, but his skin didn’t seem to burn: Zosim clearly did not want to lose this entertaining moment so quickly. Zosim lifted Barrick closer, his face as big as a house. “ANCESTOR, YOU SAY? AND WHO WAS THAT? SOME MORTAL WHO PISSED IN THE CORNER OF ONE OF MY TEMPLES? SOME VILLAGE LOUT WHO USED MY NAME AS A CURSE, THEN COWERED THE REST OF HIS LIFE IN TERROR I MIGHT HEAR OF IT?”
“No,” Barrick said, struggling in the creature’s grip. “No, you piece of filth. Kupilas was my ancestor—Crooked, who beat you and bound you!”
“TRULY?” Zosim seemed pleased. He lifted Barrick closer, took a deep sniff of him, each nostril as wide as an arrow port. “AH, YOU DO STINK OF HIM. HOW AMUSING! SO HIS BLOOD STILL CREEPS AND CRAWLS THE EARTH IN MORTAL FLESH! BUT CROOKED IS DEAD, AND I AM FREE. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT, LITTLE ANT?”
“This!” said Barrick, and used both hands to thrust his sword as deep into the monster’s hand as he could. With a rumble of surprise and discomfort, Zosim shook Barrick free and let him fall. The landing knocked the breath from him and for a moment Barrick could only lie on the stones, gasping, but he had the small satisfaction of knowing he had annoyed his gigantic enemy.
“THAT WAS A NASTY TRICK, LITTLE ANT. YES, THIS IS A REAL BODY MADE FROM THE DUST AND CLAY OF THIS WORLD. I CAN FEEL THINGS—AND I FELT THAT, YOU LITTLE MORTAL MOUSE TURD.” Zosim lifted his foot, ready to crush him. Helpless, Barrick could only look up at the shadowy shape, big as boat being winched up into dry dock. “BUT SOON THE REST OF MY ESSENCE WILL HAVE CROSSED THE VOID AND FILLED THIS BODY,” the god rumbled, swaying a little as he waited to bring his foot down. “WHEN THAT HAS HAPPENED, EVEN WHITEFIRE, THE SUN LORD HIMSELF, COULD NOT HURT ME ...”
“I am not the sun god,” a new voice cried; loud as a trumpet’s call. “But I carry his sword. Come and taste its edge!”
As Zosim turned in surprise, Barrick rolled out from beneath the shadow of the god’s great heel and dragged himself as far away as he could. Yasammez stood at the edge of the Sea in the Depths, her face the only clear thing in the murk of her black armor and cloak; her blade, a clean slice of white light, was in her hand.
“YOU WILL DIE, OLD WOMAN.” The god sounded pleased, as though he had finally discovered something in this mortal world that interested him. “EVEN WITH UNCLE WHITEFIRE’S PALE PIG-STICKER, YOU CANNOT HOPE TO INCONVENIENCE ME!”
“Perhaps not,” said Yasammez. “But perhaps as you said, that body is more vulnerable than you wish anyone to know, little earthbound god.”
Laughing, Zosim threw back his beautiful head and the flames leaped higher, so that the stones of the cavern gleamed with yellow light far above him. “This weakness is a nice idea, old woman—but untrue. Come! Show me your mettle!” He held out his hand and a great golden sword appeared there.
Yasammez stepped into the underground sea. The thick, shining liquid flowed away from her like a retreating tide, but even as she neared the center of the Sea in the Depths Yasammez did not sink between the hovering waves; instead she appeared to be growing, so that by the time she reached the far side she was almost half Zosim’s size. A cold breeze knifed through the sweltering cavern as she passed
, so that Barrick, who had been trying to rise, fell shivering back to his hands and knees.
By the time she had reached the Trickster god, Yasammez was as tall as he was, but where he appeared as solid as stone, the fairy woman was thinner and less substantial, as though she had stretched herself far beyond what was ordinarily possible. Barrick could see almost nothing of her true shape—she seemed as ill-defined as smoke. Only the great, white blade had retained its brilliance and density. It gleamed through the dark lady’s own essence like a slice of the full moon.
Barrick finally struggled back onto his feet as the two great swords clashed for the first time, meeting with a sound like a monstrous bell that made the entire cavern throb. He could hear the autarch shrieking somewhere on the island, demanding that his terrified men help him attack Zosim again. Barrick doubted he would find many volunteers. Above his head, the heavenly blades rose and clashed again, over and over until the ringing deafened him. Barrick hobbled toward the gigantic pair. The combatants now resembled some fantastic illusion at the center of the island, cloud-shapes whirling above a troubled sea, blades sweeping before them like the wisps of a growing storm. Zosim’s bright flames rippled and stretched, but as if in answer Yasammez only grew darker, more contained.
Barrick dodged through the murk until he saw the great moving wall of Zosim’s heel and limped toward it. He stabbed at it as hard as he could, shoving his sword into the weirdly liquid flesh to the hilt, but although he heard a dim rumble of discomfort, as he watched in dismay, the sword itself seemed to melt and vanish, so that only the hilt fell to the ground like the blossom of a broken flower. The vast foot moved suddenly and knocked him flying.