by Tad Williams
“Run, manchild!” Yasammez’s face appeared from the haze above him, grimacing in agony as though she held the weight of all the world and could not put it down. “You can do nothing here. Even I can do no more than steal his time for a few more moments.” Something crashed against her, and she swayed back, vanishing for a moment in the clouds of her own gigantic essence. The face appeared again like the sun struggling to pierce thick clouds. “Go! Save those you can. I can give you nothing else ...”
Something struck her again, and she shuddered and fell away from him, the whole of her dark mass toppled like a collapsing tower. Her white blade lanced out as she fell, but the monstrous burning shape that was Zosim was too fast, too strong. He leaped atop her and yanked her back upright again, or at least that was what Barrick thought he saw—it was all too blurry, too strange, like a battle in the mud at the bottom of a deep lake. The god’s own golden blade hacked at the dark apparition like a great tongue of fire, and Barrick heard the terrible sound of Yasammez screaming in pain, a hideous, wrenching cry that seemed to shake the very stone from the cavern walls.
Someone was pulling at his arm. Barrick turned slowly, as if in a dream, to find Ferras Vansen standing behind him, bloodied and dirty.
“You cannot help her—she said so!” Vansen shouted, struggling to be heard above the sounds of god and demigoddess tearing at each other. “Help me get the others to safety.”
“There is no safety ...” Barrick said, then a great, flaming hand swung down from above and knocked him spinning through the air.
All over . . . at last . . . was all he had time to think, and then blackness burst inside him.
The work crew hurried to place the last of the blasting powder beetles along the base of an immense stone wall that ran the length of Brewer’s Store cavern—the “cold wall,” as the monks called it. The cavern—a place Beetledown the Bowman had never seen before, and obviously would never see again—stank of sulfur and other, less familiar things, and lay perhaps a hundred feet or more beneath the temple itself. Because it was cooler than most of the other caves, the monks aged their mossbrew in rootwood barrels there, but the precious brew had all been carried away days ago. As far as Beetledown could tell, the beetles—wedgeshaped iron objects the size of a big person’s shoe—were all meant to burst at the same time and take down the entire side of the cavern. How the Funderlings thought this would affect a battle taking place much farther below he could not guess.
Beetledown could not sit comfortably after his long time in the saddle, but instead walked back and forth across the raised slab of stone that served as Antimony’s writing table, waiting while the monk sent messages up the line to the other, smaller caverns that were receiving similar treatment, each of his hastily-scratched missives sealed with clay and the imprint of the Astion.
The presence of so much blasting powder was making Beetledown very fretful. Since war had come to Southmarch, he had seen what the stuff could do. The roof of Wolfstooth Spire, a sacred Rooftopper spot for as long as anyone could remember, had been blown to flinders by one of the southern cannons, and pieces of all the cardinal towers, including most of the top of the Tower of Winter, lay scattered across the inner keep like a child’s broken toys. Yes, the black powder frightened him—but the waiting was even worse.
“Cinnabar, un said that the need were hasty,” Beetledown called up to Antimony, who was bent over his plans, sweat beading on his forehead and dripping onto the little slabs of clay on which he wrote. “Un said that t’were almost too late ...”
“For the love of the Hot Lord, little man, please be silent!” Antimony wiped his face. “I know we need haste, I know Cinnabar and the rest said to hurry—I know, I know, I know! But if we have made an error ...”
Beetledown didn’t know for certain what was going to happen if the Funderling engineers had planned incorrectly, but it was clear it wouldn’t be good for anyone. “Tha pardon, Brother. My family always said I had too much to say ...” He caught Antimony’s look of exasperation and fell silent.
“That’s the last,” said Antimony a few moments later, pressing the Astion into the clay and passing the pile of messages to the waiting courier. “Take the rest to the other works, boy, but this to Brother Salt—he’ll check the sums and if they’re right, he’ll lay the train.” The young messenger sped off. With so many men at war, nearly every remaining male worker was either a child or an elder.
Antimony sat back and wiped away more sweat. The young monk’s hands, Beetledown could not help noticing, were trembling badly. “We’ll have to set fire to the train on the next level—that’s the place the powder trails join and can all be lit at the same time.” Antimony looked up as someone hurried toward them. “Mistress Opal? ” he said in surprise. “Why are you still here? Only the last few engineers remain.”
“He’s gone!” said Chert’s wife. “I can’t find him!”
“Your boy?” Now it was Antimony’s turn to look fearful. “Flint? Spite him for a rascal, where has he gotten to now? He knows this is your husband’s plan—Chert’s plan. It’s too dangerous for him to be wandering. By the Elders, what is he thinking?”
Beetledown walked to the edge of the slab. “Mistress Opal, I greet ’ee again, and have some happy news which had gone astray. I saw him, your son. It was un who saved both the leatherwing and your servant from yon hunting owl, and who bid me say all was well.”
Opal stared at him, eyes wide, then turned helplessly to Antimony. “What is he saying? A bird told him my son was well?”
It took no little time before the Funderlings understood Beetledown’s tale, but when he had finally gotten the gist of it across, Opal was a little relieved, though not particularly happy.
“Always, with that child, since the very first ...” she muttered as if to someone else.
“Go, then, Mistress,” said Antimony. “If the Elders will it, you, your brave husband, and your son will all be reunited. Make certain the camp is empty as you go—call out that it is time to make haste to higher ground.”
“Come with me, Antimony,” she said. “You don’t want to wait too long yourself.”
He shook his head, but Beetledown thought there was something strange in his face. “Not yet. Still I must wait on Salt Nitre and the last of our engineers and powder-trail men. You go, Mistress Opal. I will join you all presently.”
After she had gone, and the rest of the Funderlings in Antimony’s employ began to hurry past, Beetledown began to wonder if he shouldn’t move on himself. These depths disturbed him at the best of times—after all, he was not just beneath the ground here but several levels beneath Funderling Town itself—but now there was also the little matter of two hundredweight or more of blasting powder, primed and ready, so even a spark might set it off. The very idea made him shiver.
When he began to make his farewells, though, Brother Antimony asked him to wait. “The last of them will be gone in a few more moments,” said the monk. “Stay a little longer.”
Again he saw that strange expression on the Funderling’s face. Beetledown could not sit still, but did his best to pace calmly as the last few engineers hurried past and Antimony marked them off his list of workers. Last of all was Salt Nitre, nephew of Ash, who came down from the level above at a saunter, as if he were involved in something he did every day, which, from the way he talked to Antimony, might not have been too far from the truth.
“All set and primed,” he said. “That fuse is miserable short, though. You’ll have trouble getting far enough away. Why won’t you let me make you a longer one?”
“No time,” the monk told him. “If we use something that will burn for half a candle, it will be too late for those down below when it finally reaches the powder.” He shook his head. “Perhaps it’s too late already—it’s taken us a terrible time to finish.”
“That’s the fault of that snake Nickel, not to mention Chert’s idiot brother, the magister,” Salt said with an engineer’s traditional contempt
for authority. “If they hadn’t shut us down, we’d have been ready hours or more ago. It’s a miracle we had things as close as we did.”
“I know,” Antimony said. “You and the rest did well, Brother Salt.”
The older monk shrugged. “Well, lad, you’d better run like the wind as soon as the train’s been lit. It will be a horrid close thing. ...”
Antimony guided him to the crude steps leading upward toward Funderling Town. “I know, I know,” he told the old monk. “Haste, now.” As Salt Nitre hobbled up the stairway, Antimony turned toward Beetledown. “And you too, friend—it’s time to ...”
A clatter of footsteps made both Funderling and finger-high Rooftopper turn as Brother Nickel, the would-be abbot, appeared from the same stairwell, his face dark with anger. “By the Elders, Antimony, what madness is this? You have gone too far—I will see you driven from the Brotherhood for this!”
Antimony stared at him. “Why are you here, Brother? You and the rest have been ordered to clear the temple. ...”
“Ordered?” Nickel shrieked. “Have you lost your mind? I saw that order—your order, a mere temple brother. What do you mean by all this? Who could possibly have given you the right to ...”
“Have the others gone, then?” Antimony interrupted. “Is the temple emptied? You great clod, you haven’t kept them there, have you?”
Nickel only stood in astonished rage, his mouth opening and shutting. At last he found his voice. “I will not only see you driven from the order, Antimony, I will see you dragged before the Judgment Chair of the Guild!”
Brother Antimony leaped forward, surprisingly quick for his size—he was the biggest Funderling Beetledown had ever seen—and grabbed Nickel by his collar, then slapped the older man across the face with the front of his hand and the back. “Answer me, fool! Is the temple emptied?”
“Yes, curse you!” Nickel was almost weeping with rage. “You and that meddling mole Chert Blue Quartz have undermined my authority so badly that no one would remain when the order came! I told them not to go, but even Chert’s brother, that coward Nodule, has fled back to Funderling Town.”
“All blessings on the Earth Elders!” Antimony shoved him away. Nickel took a few stumbling steps and fell backward to the stone of the cavern floor. “You would have doomed them all if you’d had your way, you fool! Now go, or you will die along with your temple.” Antimony grabbed his collar with one hand and lifted the struggling monk off the ground. “Don’t you understand? I am going now to put fire to the powder train. We have used a great deal of blasting powder, so if you are still here or even close when that happens, you will be obliterated—your flesh, your bones, even your name. You will become a tiny seam of ash in a pile of collapsed stone, nothing more. Is that what you wish? Then stay and continue with your noise.”
Antimony turned his back on Nickel and headed for the stairs. Nickel stared after him for a moment, eyes bulging with rage and fright, then hurried to catch up. After a moment, Beetledown nudged the bat into the air and followed them. They stepped out of the stairwell into another, smaller chamber. At the center, a star of blasting powder stretched its arms out in all directions, the trails of powder disappearing into various crevices and side passages.
Antimony crouched near the center of the star and pulled out his flint and steel. “Now keep going, Nickel, if you don’t want your rump singed,” he said. “And you might as well be on your way, too, good Beetledown.”
This time Brother Nickel did not need to be told twice. The monk raced up the stairs with clumsy haste, but managed to climb only a short way before he slipped and tumbled back down, landing badly at the base of the steps.
“My leg!” he wailed in terror. “I’ve broken my leg! Ah, by the Pit, it hurts!”
“Blood of the Elders!” swore Antimony. “I can do nothing for you, Nickel. I am staying to make certain the powder trails stay lit.”
“Nay, help un,” Beetledown told him. Nickel looked like a frightened child now. “Carry un to safety. If tha build’st a little fire for me, I will wait ’ee clear and then light the train.”
Antimony shook his head. “Someone must wait long enough to make certain the powder catches. Otherwise, all is lost. That’s my task.”
Finally Beetledown understood the monk’s strange expressions: he had not expected to make it out. “Thy task no more.” Beetledown petted Muckle Brown to calm her—the flittermouse was frightened of so much noise, of being on the ground for so long. “Un flies faster than you or any man can run—we’ll get out safe. Go now and save yon fellow, Brother. Time does be short.”
Antimony wanted to argue, but soon gave in and made a small fire. “Do not lose your life for Nickel,” he said quietly. The monk was still sitting on the floor but weeping now as well as moaning. “He isn’t worth it.”
“But tha dost be, friend monk,” Beetledown told him. “Fear not for Muckle Brown nor me. We’ll get well clear.”
Antimony lifted Nickel and tossed him over his shoulder. “Farewell, Beetledown!” he called at the last visible bend before the way curved up and out of sight. “Don’t wait too long!”
Beetledown waved, already wishing he had not done such a stupid, brave thing. And with no one even to see him! Pure foolishness.
But it be what my queen would want me to do, he thought. And nothing else am I if not her loyal Gutter-Scout.
When he had counted all his toes and fingers ten times slowly, Beetledown slid out from Muckle Brown’s saddle and lifted a bit of wood from the small fire Antimony had left for him. He took the small torch and set it squarely in the middle of the star, then, when the powder began to fizz and burn, he scrambled up into his saddle and urged the flittermouse into the air. They skimmed across the chamber and into the stairwell, and would have been gone to the upper levels, but Beetledown remembered his promise and turned back to make certain the powder train was burning.
Five of the trails had burned perfectly well, but the one that led back to Brewer’s Store and the cold wall had sputtered out just halfway across the cavern. He guided Muckle Brown down and took another burning twig to relight it. He watched as it caught and began smoldering forward once more, but he could also see that the other trains had vanished from sight on their way to the other caverns. Then the Brewer’s Store train went out again.
Un’s got damp, he thought, his heart beating very fast. He could no longer see the other trains and had no idea how long they would burn before reaching the blasting powder. Did he dare to leave? What if the failure of one would mean the failure of all? Or worse, what if it changed the destruction in some way that would make it worse, perhaps even threatening the castle itself and the home of Beetledown’s own people . . . ?
He hurried to pick a longer piece of burning stick. “Come, tha,” he said to Muckle Brown, then steered her down toward the cavern below.
The trail of powder reached all the way across the floor of Brewer’s Store. He chose a spot near the center of the cavern floor and touched it with the lit brand. It sparked, then caught and began to burn its way toward the powder-beetles packed along the cool wall, but even as he goaded the bat into the air once more the fire abruptly raced forward along the train, many times as fast as it had before.
Uphill, was all he had time to realize, un burns faster uphill!
He and Muckle Brown shot across the chamber and into the stairwell. He clung to the beast’s back, his fingers wrapped so tightly in its fur that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t coming loose in his hands. The powerful wings beat and the muscles pulled beneath him, beat and beat again as they rushed up through empty darkness. All Beetledown could hear was a sliver of the creature’s impossibly shrill voice as it sang for an open way home. Then hot air suddenly surrounded him, squeezing him like a brutal fist, and Beetledown the Bowman and Muckle Brown disappeared into noiseless red light.
43
Fever Egg
“When great Immon had turned away, abashed, Zoria entered the gate. Soon she st
ood before Kernios himself on his throne of black basalt, the Lord of the Dead, stern of face and cold of eye ...”
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
PLEASE, GODS, do not let him notice me. Do not let him notice me! It was foolish, Ferras Vansen knew, praying to absent gods to protect him from a god who was all too definitely present, but old habits died hard and he had never been so terrified in his life.
At Prince Barrick’s shouted order, he had carried the black-haired girl to the nearest of the reed boats drawn up on the beach, and now he struggled with the even more daunting burden of King Olin’s limp body. Madness and chaos were all around. Men who had been burned to death on their feet stood in brittle postures like scorched scarecrows; other corpses lay in smoking piles or bobbed facedown in the Silver only yards from the charred boats they would never reach. A few still lived, but in such horrible condition that Vansen could only pray their whimpering lives ended soon: not even their Xixian enemies deserved such deaths.
Vansen was a soldier. He had often risked his life in combat with other men. In the past year he had fought both the legendary Qar and the autarch’s vast armies. He had stood before the monstrous Deep Ettins and even the demigod Jikuyin, the one-eyed giant. Each of them had been fearful, and Vansen had lost track of how many times he had given himself up for dead. This, though . . . this was different. Because what had stepped through into this cavern from somewhere else—someplace Vansen could not even imagine—was an actual god.
A mad god, he thought in rising panic. And he is going to kill everything I know.
The cavern was ablaze with Zosim’s fiery light. It echoed to his booming, exulting voice. The beautiful, giant youth still struggled with Yasammez, but now with every passing moment he tore away and burned great pieces of the black stuff that made her, and with each attack, she grew a little smaller, a little less tangible. Vansen was astounded that she had fought so long and so fiercely—as terrifying as he had always found her, he would never have guessed she had such power. She truly was the daughter of a god, that was indisputable. But she was matched against another god, and this one was too strong for her.