by Tad Williams
“Know this,” Uammannaq read.
“…That I am Ookequk, Singing Man of Mintahoq, of Chugik, Tutusik. Rinsenatuq, Sikkihoq and Namyet, and all other mountains of Yiqanuc.”
The Herder read slowly, with long, squint-eyed pauses as he puzzled out the sense of the blackened runes.
“I go on a long journey, and in such times that I cannot know I will come back. So, I lay my death-song on this hide, that it can be my voice when I am gone.”
“Clever, clever, Sisqi,” Binabik said quietly as her father’s voice droned, “it is you who should have been Ookequk’s student, not me! How could you know!?”
She waved a hand to quiet him. “I am a daughter of Chidsik ub Lingit, where all the petitions for judgment come from all the mountains. Do you think I would not recognize the knot used on a death testament?”
“I must warn those who remain after me,”
Uammannaq continued with Ookequk’s words,
“…That I have seen the coming of a great cold darkness, the like of which my people have never seen. It is a dreadful winter that will come from the shadow of Vihyuyaq, the mountain of the immortal Cloud Children. It will blast the lands of Yiqanuc like a black wind from the Lands of the Dead ,cracking the very stone of our mountains in cruel fingers…”
As the Herder read these words, several of the listening trolls cried out, hoarse voices echoing down the night-shrouded mountainside. Others swayed, so that the torchlight flickered.
“My student, Binbiniqegabenik, I will bring with me on my journey. In the time that remains I will instruct him in the small things and long stories that may help our people in this foul time. There are other ones beyond Yiqanuc who have prepared lamps against this coming darkness. I go to add my light to theirs, small as it may shine against the storm that threatens. If I cannot return, young Binbiniqegabenik will come in my stead. I ask you to honor him as you would me, for he is eager in his learning. One day he may grow to be a greater Singing Man than I.
Now I end my death song. I give my farewell to mountain and sky. It has been good to be alive. It has been good to be one of the Children of Lingit, and to live my life on the beautiful mountain Mintahoq.”
Uammannaq lowered the scroll, blinking. A low wail bubbled up among the watchers in response to the Singing Man Ookequk’s final song.
“He did not have enough time.” Binabik murmured. Tears welled in his eyes. “He was taken away too quickly and told me nothing—or at least not enough. Oh, Ookequk, how we will miss you! How could you have left your people with no wall between them and the Storm King but an untrained weanling like Binabik!” He dropped to his knees and touched his forehead to the snow.
An awkward silence fell, pierced only by the lamenting wind.
“Bring the lowlanders,” Nunuuika said to the spearmen, then turned a stiff, painful glance on her daughter. “We will all go to the House of the Ancestor. There is much to think about.”
Simon awakened slowly, and stared at the inconstant shadows on the craggy ceiling of Chidsik ub Lingit for a long time while he tried to remember where he was. He felt a little better now, more clearheaded, but the scar on his cheek stung like fire.
He sat up. Sludig and Haestan were leaning against the wall a short distance away, sharing a skin of some drink and a muttered conversation. Simon untangled himself from his cloak and looked around for Binabik His friend was near the center of the room, squatting before the Herder and Huntress as if in supplication. For a moment Simon was fearful, but others squatted there too, Sisqinanamook among them. As he listened to the rise and fall of guttural voices, he decided it seemed more a council than a judgment. Other small groups of trolls were discernible here and there in the deep shadows, crouched in little circles throughout the vast stone room. A few scattered lamps burned like bright stars in a sky full of thunderheads.
Simon curled up again, wriggling to find a smooth place on the floor. How terribly strange, to be in this place! Would he ever have a home again, a place where he would wake up every morning in the same bed, unsurprised to find himself there?
He drifted slowly back into half-sleep, into a dream of cold mountain passes and red eyes.
“Simon-friend!” It was Binabik, gently shaking him. The troll looked drawn, the circles under his eyes visible even in the half-light, but he was smiling. “It is time for waking.”
“Binabik,” Simon said groggily, “what is happening?”
“I have brought for you a bowl of tea and some tidings. It appears I am no longer bound for an unfortunate plunging,” the troll grinned. “No longer are Sludig and myself to be thrown into Ogohak Chasm.”
“But that’s wonderful!” Simon gasped. He felt his heart ache inside him, a fierce wrench of released tension. He leaped to embrace the small man and his sudden lunge toppled the troll. The tea puddled on the stone.
“You have been too long in the company of Qantaqa,” Binabik laughed, extricating himself. He looked pleased. “You have gained her liking for the giving of exuberant greetings.”
Other heads in the room turned to watch this strange spectacle. Many Qanuc tongues muttered in amazement at the mad and lanky lowlander who hugged trolls as if he were a clansman. Simon saw the stares and ducked his head in embarrassment. “What have they said?” he asked. “Can we go?”
“Put with simpleness: yes, we can go.” Binabik sat down beside him. He was carrying his bone walking stick, recovered from Ookequk’s cave. He proceeded to examine it as he spoke, frowning at the numerous toothmarks Qantaqa had added. “But much there is to be decided. Ookequk’s scroll has convinced the Herder and Huntress on the truth of my tellings.”
“But what is there to decide?”
“Many things. If I go with you to take Thorn back to Josua, then my people are again without a Singing Man. But I am thinking I must accompany you. If Naglimund has fallen truly, then we should be following the words of Geloë. She may be the last one of great wisdom that remains. Besides, it is seeming more certain that our only hope is in the getting of the other two swords, Minneyar and Sorrow. Not for nothing should your gallantry on the dragon-mountain be.”
Binabik gestured at Thorn, which stood against the wall near where Haestan and Sludig sat. “If the Storm King’s rising is unchecked,” he said, “then no use there will be my staying on Mintahoq, since none of the craft Ookequk taught me will keep away the winter we fear.” The little manmade a broad gesture. “So, ‘when the snow-slide takes your house,’ as we troll folk say, ‘do not stay to hunt for potshards.’ I have told my people they should be moving down-mountain, to the spring hunting grounds—even though there will be no spring there, and small hunting.”
He stood, tugging down the hem of his thick jacket. “I wanted you to know that there was no danger now to Sludig and myself.” He smirked. “A bad joke. We are all, it is obvious, in terrible danger. But the danger is not from my own people any longer.” He laid a small hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Sleep again, if you can. We will likely leave at dawn. I will go and speak to Haestan and Sludig, then there is much planning still ahead this night.” He turned and walked across the cave. Simon watched his small form pass in and out of the shadows.
A great deal of planning has been done already, he thought grumpily, and I have not been invited to much of it. Someone always has a plan, and I always wind up walking along while someone else decides where to go. I feel like a wagon—an old, falling-apart wagon at that. When do I get to decide things for myself?
He thought about this as he waited for sleep.
As it turned out, the sun had risen high in the gray sky before the final arrangements were finished—a span of time Simon was more than happy to spend sleeping.
Simon, his companions, and a large number of trolls trooped out onto the byways of Mintahoq, following the Herder and Huntress in the strangest parade Simon had ever seen. As they wound in and out through Mintahoq’s most populous sections, hundreds of trolls stopped on the swinging bridges or came dashin
g out of their caves to watch the company pass, standing amazed beneath the swirling smokes of their cookingfires. Many clambered down the thong ladders and joined the procession.
Much of the journey was uphill, and the vast crowd strung out along the narrow track made the going slow. It seemed quite a long while before they made their way around to the northern face. As they trudged on, Simon found himself slipping into a kind of numbed dreaminess. Snow flurried in the gray void beyond the pathway; Yiqanuc’s other peaks stood up along the valley’s far side like teeth.
The march stopped at last on a long stone porch atop a promontory that stood out above the northern part of Yiqanuc’s valley. Another path hugged the mountainside below them, then the rock walls of Mintahoq fell sharply away, down into white obscurity touched with patches of bright sunsplash. Staring down, Simon was stuck by a memory of dream, of a dim white tower lapped by flames. He turned away from the unsettling view to find the rocky ledge on which he stood dominated by the tall, egg-shaped snow-building he had seen his first day out of the cave. Closer this time, he could clearly see the marvelous care with which the triangular blocks of snow had been cut and fitted together, the bold carvings that seemed to slice down into the blocks themselves, so that the Ice House was as multifaceted as a cut diamond, its walls alive with hidden interior angles, prisms that reflected cyan and pink.
The row of armed trolls who guarded the Ice House stood respectfully to one side as Nunuuika and Uammannaq moved past them to stand between the pillars of tight-packed snow that framed the door. Simon could see nothing of the Ice House’s interior but a blue- gray hole beyond the doorway. Binabik and Sisqi took places on the icy step below, mittened hands clasped. Qangolik the Spirit Caller clambered up beside them.
Though Qangolik’s face was hidden by his ram-skull mask, Simon thought the muscular troll seemed rather subdued. The Spirit Caller, who had pranced like a courting bird before the judgment in Chidsik ub Lingit. now stumped like a weary harvest hand.
As the Herder lifted his crook-spear and spoke, Binabik translated for his lowlander companions.
“Strange days are upon us.” Uammannaq’s eyes were deep-shadowed. “We have known that something was wrong. We live too closely with the mountain, which is of the bones of the earth, not to sense the unease in the lands around us. The Ice House is still here. It has not melted.” The wind rose, whistling, as if to underscore his words. “Winter will not leave. At first we blamed Binabik. The Singing Man or his apprentice has always sung the Rite of Quickening; Summer has always come. But now we are told that it is not failure to perform the Rite that keeps Summer hidden. Strange days. Things are different.” He shook his head heavily, his beard wagging.
“We must break with tradition,” Nunuuika the Huntress added. “The word of the wise should be law to those of less wisdom. Ookequk has spoken as if he were here among us. Now we know more of the thing that we feared, but could not name. My husband speaks truly: strange days are upon us. Tradition served us, but now it shackles us. Thus, Huntress and Herder declare that Binbiniqegabenik is free from his punishment. We would be fools to kill one who has been striving to protect us from the storm of which Ookequk spoke. We would be worse than fools, it is now clear, to kill the only one who knew Ookequk’s heart.”
Nunuuika paused, waiting for Binabik to complete his reinterpretation, then continued, passing her hand across her forehead in some ritual gesture. “The Rimmersman Sludig is an even stranger problem. He is no Qanuc, so he was not guilty of oath-breaking, as we declared Binabik .But he is of an enemy people, and if the tales of our farthest-ranging hunters are true, Rimmersmen in the east have grown even more savage than before. However, Binabik assures us that this Sludig is different, that he fights the same fight as Ookequk. We are not sure, but in these days of madness we cannot say it is not so. Thus, Sludig is also declared freed from punishment and may leave Yiqanuc as he wishes—the first Croohok so pardoned since the Battle of Huhinka Valley in my great-grandmother’s day, when the snows ran red with blood. We call on the spirits of high places, pale Sedda and Qinkipa of the Snows, Morag Eyeless, bold Chukku, and all the rest, to protect the people if our judgment is faulty.”
When the Huntress had finished, Uammannaq stood beside her and made a broad gesture, as though to break something in two and cast it away. The watching trolls chanted one sharp syllable, then lapsed into excited whispering. Simon turned and clasped Sludig’s hand. The northerner smiled tightly, jaw set behind his yellow beard. “The little people speak rightly,” he said. “Strange times indeed.”
Uammannaq raised his hand to still the murmur of conversation. “The lowlanders shall now leave. Binbiniqegabenik, who if he returns will be our next Singing Man, may go with them to take this strange, magical object—” he pointed to Thorn, which Haestan held propped on the ground before him, “—to the lowlanders, who he says can use it to frighten away the winter.
“We shall send with them a party of hunters, led by our daughter Sisqinanamook, who shall be their escort until they leave the lands of the Qanuc. The hunters will then go to the spring city by Blue Mud Lake and prepare for the coming of the rest of our clans.” Uammannaq made a gesture and one of the other trolls stepped forward with a skin bag that had been covered nearly completely in delicate tracings of colored embroidery. “We have gifts we wish to give you.”
Binabik brought his friends forward. The Huntress presented Simon with a sheath of supple hide, the leather subtly tooled and studded with stone beads the color of a spring moon. The Herder then gave him a knife to put in it, a beautiful pale blade made from a single piece of bone. The handle was wrought with smoothed carvings of birds.
“A magical lowlander sword is very good for fighting snow-worms,” Nunuuika told him, “but a humble Qanuc knife is easier to hide and easier to use in close quarters.”
Simon thanked them politely and stepped aside. Haestan was given a capacious drinking skin decorated with ribbons and stitchery, filled to the stopper with Qanuc liquor. The guardsman, who had drunk enough of the sour stuff during the previous evening to finally develop a bit of taste for it, bowed, mumbled some words of gratitude, then withdrew.
Sludig, who had come to Yiqanuc as a prisoner but was now leaving more or less as a guest, received a spear with a viciously sharp head hewn from shiny black stone. The haft was uncarved, since it had been hurriedly constructed—the trolls did not use spears of a length that would have been appropriate—but it was nicely balanced and could double as a walking stave.
“We hope you also appreciate the gift of your life,” Uammannaq said, “and will remember that the justice of the Qanuc is stern but not cruel.”
Sludig amazed them by dropping quickly to a knee. “I will remember,” was all he said.
“Binbiniqegabenik,” Nunuuika began, “you have already received the greatest gift it is in our capacity to bestow. If she will still have you, we renew our permission for you to marry our youngest daughter. When the Rite of Quickening can be performed next year, you will be joined.”
Binabik and Sisqi clasped hands and bowed on the step before the Herder and Huntress as words of blessing were said. The ram-faced Spirit Caller came forward. He chanted and sang as he daubed their foreheads with oil, but with what Simon thought was a very dissatisfied air. When Qangolik finished and stalked grumpily back down the steps of the Ice House, the betrothal had been reinstated.
The Huntress and Herder said a brief personal farewell to the company, Binabik interpreting. Though she smiled and touched his hand with her small, strong fingers, Nunuuika still seemed cold and hard as stone to Simon, sharp and dangerous as her own spearhead. He had to force himself to smile back and retreat slowly when she had finished.
Qantaqa was waiting for them, curled in a nest of snow outside of Chidsik ub Lingit. The noon sun had disappeared behind a spreading fog; the wind set Simon’s teeth to chattering.
“Down the mountain we must now go, friend,” Binabik said to him. “I am wishing
you and Haestan and Sludig were not so large, but there are no rams strong enough for your riding. It will make our going slower than I would wish.”
“But where are we going?” Simon asked. “Where is this Stone of Farewell?”
“All things in their season,” the troll replied. “I will look at my scrolls when we stop tonight, but we should leave now as soon as we can. The mountain passes will be treacherous. I smell more snow upon the wind.”
“More snow,” Simon repeated, shouldering his pack. More snow.
6
The Nameless Dead
“…So Drukhi found her,”
Maegwin sang,
“Beloved Nenais’u, wind-footed dancer,
Stretched on the green grass, as silent as stone
Her dark eye sky-watching,
Only her shining blood gave him answer,
Her head lay uncradled, her black hair undone.”
Maegwin drew her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the stinging wind, then leaned forward to rearrange the flowers on her father’s cairn. Already the wind had scattered the violets across the stones; only a few dried petals remained on Gwythinn’s grave nearby. Where had the treacherous summer gone? And when would the flowers bloom again, so she could tend her loved ones’ resting places as they deserved?
As the wind rattled the skeletal birch trees, she sang again.
“Long time he held her,
Through gray-shadowed evening, beneath shamefaced night,
Matching the hours she had lain there alone.
His bright eyes unblinking,
Drukhi sang songs of the East’s timeless light.
He whispered to her they would wait for the sun.
“Dawn, golden-handed,
Caressed but could not warm the nightingale’s child
Nenais’u’s swift spirit had fled unhomed
Close Drukhi clutched her,