by Tad Williams
Tiamak thought of his mother, who had spent most of her life on her knees, tending the cookfire, grinding grain in the pestle, working everyday from the darkness before dawn until it was time to crawl into the hammock at night. He had little respect for the village elders, but now he felt a sudden fear that his mother’s spirit might be watching him. She would never understand her son turning his back on his people for the sake of strangers. She would want him to go to Nabban. Serve his own folk first, then take care of his personal honor, that was what his mother would say.
Thinking of her made it seem very clear. He was a Wrannaman first: nothing would change that. He must go to Nabban. Morgenes, that kind old man, would understand his reasons. Afterward, after he had finished his duties to his people, he would go back to Kwanitupul as his drylander friends had asked.
The decision lifted part of the load of worry from Tiamak’s shoulders. He decided he might as well stop soon and scare up something for a noon-meal. He reached down and tested his fishing line, tied to the back of the flatboat. It seemed light; as he pulled it up he saw to his disgust that the bait had been eaten again, but whatever had dined at his expense had not waited around to pay respects. At least the hook was still there. Metal hooks were painfully expensive items—he had paid for this one with an entire day of work as an interpreter in the market at Kwanitupul. The next month at market he had found the parchment with Nisses’ name on it, and had paid a full day’s wages for that as well. Two expensive purchases, but the fishhook had indeed proved much sturdier than the ones he whittled of bone, which usually broke on the first snag. The Nisses parchment—he patted protectively at the oilskin bag lying at his feet—if he was correct about its origins, was a gem beyond price. Not bad work for two days’ marketing.
Tiamak hauled in the line, wrapping it gently, then steered the boat over closer to the bank of mangroves. He poled along slowly, waiting until the mangrove roots gave way for a while to a short stretch of soggy dirt cluttered with waving reeds. Bringing the boat as close to the edge of the watercourse as he could, he pulled his knife from his belt and dug in the wet soil, at last turning up some spitfly roe. He wrapped the shiny things in his kerchief, saving one only to bait the hook. This done, he tossed the line back into the water to trail behind the boat. As he poled out into the middle of the stream once more, thunder grumbled in the distance. It seemed to be farther away than last time. He shook his head sadly. The storm was in no hurry.
It was late afternoon when he passed out of the overhanging thicket of mangroves and emerged into unshadowed sunlight once more. Here the waterway grew wider and deeper. A sea of reeds rolled out toward the horizon, all but motionless in the oppressive heat, crisscrossed with the shining tracks of other watercourses. The sky was gray with threatening clouds, but the sun burned brightly behind them. and Tiamak could not help but feel more lighthearted. An ibis rose, white wings flapping slowly, then settled down into the reeds a short distance away. To the south, past miles of marsh and swamp forest, he could see the dark line of the Nascadu Mountains. To the west, invisible beyond an endless prairie of cattails and mangroves, lay the sea.
Tiamak poled distractedly, momentarily caught up in a correction he had decided to make in his great work of scholarship, a revision of The Sovran Remedies of the Wranna Healers. He had suddenly realized that the shape of the cattail itself might have something to do with its use among the men of the Meadow Thrithings as a marital potion, and was planning the wording of a footnote that would delicately suggest this connection without seeming too clever, when he felt a strange vibration against his back. He turned, startled, and saw that his fishing line was pulled taut, humming like the plucked string of a lute.
For a moment he was sure it must be a snag—the pull was so strong that it had imparted some of its tension to the stern of the boat—but as he leaned over he saw some silver-gray thing rise briefly toward the surface, wriggling, then dive down into the brackish water again. A fish! As long as Tiamak’s arm! He gave a small cry of delight and began to pull on the line. The silver thing seemed to leap up at him. For a split instant one pale, shiny fin appeared above the water, then it vanished beneath the boat, stretching the line tight. Tiamak heaved and it gave a little, but not much. It was a strong fish. A sudden image of the line snapping and his next two days’ worth of meals swimming away filled Tiamak’s heart with sick horror. He lessened the tension on the fishing line. He would let the fish tire itself, then he could reel it in at his leisure. In the meantime, he would keep an eye open for a dry patch where he could build a fire. He could wrap the fish in minog leaves, and surely there would be wild quickweed growing somewhere nearby…In his thoughts he could already taste it. The heat, the recalcitrant thunderstorm, his betrayal of Morgenes (as he still saw it) and all else receded in the warm glow of the contemplated meal. He tested the line again, rejoicing at the firm, steady pull. He had not had fresh fish in weeks!
A splash impinged on his reverie. Tiamak looked up to see a rainbow of ripples spreading beside the shoreline, a couple of long stone-throws away. There was something else as well: a moment later he picked out a row of low bumps like tiny islands moving smoothly through the water toward his boat.
Crocodile! Tiamak’s heart quailed. His wonderful dinner! He tugged hard at the line, but the fish was still beneath the flatboat and resisting fiercely; the line burned his palms as he struggled unsuccessfully to wrestle the fish to the surface- The crocodile was a dark blur just below the surface, the motion of its powerful tail sending eddies across the still water. Its craggy back breached for just a moment, a hundred cubits from where Tiamak sat, then it was gone—diving toward his fish!
There was no time to think, no time at all. His dinner, his fishing hook, his line, all would be lost if he waited a moment longer. Tiamak felt a black rage flare into life in his empty stomach and a band of pain tighten itself around his temples. His mother, had she lived to see him at this moment, would hardly have recognized her shy, clumsy son. If she had seen what he did next, she would have stumbled to the shrine of She Who Birthed Mankind at the back wall of the family hut, then fainted dead away.
Tiamak looped the cord tied to his knife-hilt around his wrist, then flung himself over the stern of the boat. Mumbling inarticulately with anger and despair, he barely sucked in a hasty breath and closed his mouth before the green, cloudy water closed over his head.
Flailing, he opened his eyes. The sunlight filtered down through the watercourse, passing through plumes of drifting silt as through clouds. He darted a glance up at the rectangular darkness that was the bottom of his boat and saw a glittering shape hanging there. Despite his wild, heart-thumping panic, he felt a moment of satisfaction at the size of the fish lying torpid at the end of his line. Even his father Tugumak would have had to admit it was a splendid catch!
As he stroked upward, reaching toward his prize, the shimmering thing darted along the boat-bottom and slipped out of sight along the craft’s far side, rising up out of Tiamak’s view. The line pulled taut against the wooden hull. The Wrannaman snatched at it wildly, but it now hugged the boat so tightly that his fingers could find no purchase- He gave a little cough of dread, sending bubbles dancing outward. Hurry, he must hurry! The crocodile would be upon him in a moment!
His heartbeat boomed in the watery silence of his ears. His scrabbling fingers could not grip the line. The fish remained out of sight and out of reach, as if perversely determined that it should not suffer alone, and panic was making Tiamak clumsy. He finally gave up and pushed himself away from the bottom of the boat, kicking to bring himself upright. The fish was lost. He had to save himself.
Too late!
A dark shape slid past him and angled upward, slipping in and out of the shadow of his boat. The crocodile was not the largest he had ever seen, but it was certainly the largest he had ever been beneath. Its white belly passed over him, the tail a diminishing stripe buffeting him with its wake.
His breath was pressing on
his lungs, burning to escape and fill the murky water with bubbles. He kicked and turned, his eyes feeling as though they would push from his head, and saw the blunt arrow-shape of the crocodile skimming toward him. Its jaws parted. There was a glimpse of red-shadowed darkness and an infinity of teeth. He whirled, swinging his arm, and watched the horrifyingly slow movement of the knife as he pushed it against the wall of water. The reptile thumped against his ribs, rasping him with its horny hide as he struggled out of its way. His knife bit shallowly into its flank, dragging along the armored skin for a moment before bouncing off. A thin brown-black cloud trailed the crocodile as it swam on, circling the boat once more.
Tiamak’s lungs felt as though they had grown impossibly large within his chest, straining at his ribs until spots of blackness began to appear before his eyes. Why had he been such a fool? He didn’t want to die like this, drowned and eaten!
Even as he tried to struggle upward toward the surface, he felt a crushing pressure enfold his leg; in the next instant, he was jerked down-ward. His knife spilled loose from his hand, and his arms and free leg kicked wildly as he was pulled toward the darkness of the river bottom. A belch of bubbles escaped his lips. The faces of the elders of his tribe, Mogahib and Roahog the Potter and others, seemed to press down on his dimming sight, their expressions full of weary disgust at his idiocy.
His knife-cord still looped his wrist; as he whirled down into river-darkness he struggled to find the hilt. His hands coiled against it and he summoned his strength, then leaned forward against the bottomward pull, finding the hard, rough jaws that clutched his leg. Clinging with one hand so that he could feel the crooked teeth beneath his fingers, he set the knifepoint against the leathery eyelid and pushed. The head jerked beneath his hands as the crocodile convulsed and bit down harder, which sent a bolt of scalding pain up his leg and into his heart. Another clutch of precious bubbles sprang from Tiamak’s mouth. He pushed the blade in as hard as he could, his thoughts a swirling black blur of faces and nonsensical words. As he twisted at the handle in mad agony, the crocodile loosened its jaws. He pulled at its upper jaw with desperate strength, forcing it up just far enough to jerk his leg free before it snapped shut again. The water was clouding with blood. Tiamak could feel nothing beneath his knee at all, nothing above it but the fiery pain of his bursting lungs. Somewhere below him the crocodile was tying itself in dark knots on the river bottom, swimming in ever-narrowing circles. Tiamak tried to claw upward toward the remembered sun, even as he felt the spark within him dying.
He passed through many darknesses, coming at last into the light.
The daystar was in the gray sky; the cattails stood windless and silent along the edge of the water. He gasped in a lifetime’s worth of hot marsh air, opening his entire body to it, then almost sank beneath the water again as it rushed into his lungs like a river shattering its dam and spilling down into a parched valley. Light of every hue gleamed before his eyes, until he felt as though he had discovered some ultimate secret. A moment later, as he saw his boat bobbing on the unsettled water a short distance away, the sense of revelation evaporated. He felt a sick, debilitating blackness again come crawling up his spine into his skull. He struggled toward the boat, his body curiously painless, as though he were nothing but a head floating upon the watercourse. He reached the side of the flatboat and clung, breathing deeply as he summoned his strength. By sheer will he pulled himself over into safety, scraping his cheek raw on the thwart, not caring in the least. The blackness overcame him at last. He stopped struggling and sank beneath its surface.
He awakened to a sky red as blood. A hot wind swept across the marshland. The blazing sky seemed inside his head as well, for he burned like a fired pot fresh from the kiln With fingers that felt awkward as pieces of wood, he scrabbled his spare breechclout from the bottom of the boat and tied it tightly around the red ruin of his lower leg, unable to think much about the bleeding runnels that had been gouged from knee to heel. Struggling against the oblivion that was reaching out for him, he wondered absently if he would be able to walk again, then dragged himself to the edge of the boat and pulled at the fishing line which still hung over the side, trailing into green depths. With his failing strength he managed to wrestle the silver fish over the stern, letting it slide wriggling down next to him in the boat’s shallow belly. The fish’s eye was open; its mouth, too, as though it were trying to ask Death a question.
He rolled onto his back, staring up into the violet sky. There was are sounding crack and rumble from above. A flurry of raindrops danced on his fevered skin. Tiamak smiled as he once more fell away into darkness.
Isgrimnur got up from the bench and strode to the fireplace, turning to present his rump to the blaze. He would be off to bed in a short while, so he might as well soak up all the warmth he could before he had to return to that be-damned, arse-freezing cell.
He listened to the muted sounds of conversation that filled the commonroom, marveling at the diversity of accents and languages. The Sancellan Aedonitis was like a little world of its own, even more so than the Hayholt, but varied as the talk had been all evening, he was not an inch closer to solving any of his problems.
The duke had paced the near-endless halls all morning and afternoon, keeping an eye open for a suspicious pair of monks or anything else that might ease his predicament. His search had been fruitless, except to remind him of the size and power of Mother Church. He had become so frustrated by his inability to discover whether Miriamele was here or not that as the afternoon waned he had left the Sancellan Aedonitis entirely.
He took his supper in an inn partway down the Sancelline Hill, then walked quietly in the Hall of Fountains, something he had not done for many years. He and Gutrun had visited the fountains shortly before their marriage, when they had come to Nabban on a nuptial pilgrimage traditional in Isgrimnur’s family. The glistening play of water and its continual music had filled him with a kind of pleasant melancholy; although his longing and worry for his wife were great, for the first time in weeks he had been able to think of her without being overwhelmed by pain. She must be safe—and Isorn, too. He would just believe it, for what else could he do? The rest of the family, his other son and two daughters, were in the capable hands of old Thane Tonnrud in Skoggey. Sometimes, when all was uncertain, a man just had to trust in the goodness of God.
After his walk, Isgrimnur had returned to the Sancellan, his mind calmed and ready to turn to his task once more. His companions from the morning meal had come in for a while but had left early, old Septes explaining that they kept “country hours.” The duke had sat and listened long to the talk of others, but to no avail.
Much of the gossip, although couched in careful terms, seemed to be about whether Lector Ranessin would legitimize Benigaris’ succession to Nabban’s ducal seat. Not that anything Lector Ranessin might say would actually lift Benigaris’ hind end from the throne, but the Benidrivine House and Mother Church had long ago reached a delicate balance concerning Nabban’s governance. There was much worry that the lector would do something rash, like denounce Benigaris on the basis of the rumors that the new duke had betrayed his father, or had not defended him properly in the battle before Naglimund, but most of the Nabbanai priests—the Sancellan’s home-grown men—were quick to assure their foreign brethren that Ranessin was an honorable and diplomatic man. The lector, they promised, would certainly do the right thing.
Duke Isgrimnur flapped the hem of his cassock, trying to force a little warm air up beneath the garment. If only the lector’s honor and diplomacy could solve everybody’s problems…
Of course! That’s it! Damn my ignorant eyes/or not seeing it before! Isgrimnur smacked a broad hand on his thigh and chuckled fruitily. I’ll talk to the lector. Whatever he thinks, my secret will be safe with him. I’m sure Miriamele’s will, too. If anyone has the authority to find her here without raising a fuss, it’s His Sacredness.
The duke felt much better after this solution had presented itself.
He turned and rubbed his hands before the flames a few more times, then setout across the polished wooden floor of the common room.
A small crowd at one of the arched doorways caught his attention. Several monks were standing in the open door; several others stood on the balcony outside, cold air bleeding in past them. Many of the commonroom’s other inhabitants were protesting, or had already given up and moved nearer the fire. Isgrimnur wandered over, his hands tucked up in his voluminous sleeves as he peered over the shoulder of the hindmost monk.
“What is it?” he asked. He could see a couple of dozen men milling in the courtyard below, half of them on horseback. It seemed nothing un-usual: the figures moved calmly and unhurriedly, those on foot apparently the Sancellan’s guards, greeting new arrivals.
“It’s the High King’s counselor,” the monk standing before him said. “That Pryrates fellow. He used to be here once—in the Sancellan Aedonitis, I mean. They say he’s a clever one.”
Isgrimnur clenched his teeth, choking down a shout of anger and surprise. He felt a hot breath of fury moving within him and stood up on his toes to see. There indeed was the priest’s tiny, hairless head bobbing atop a scarlet cloak that looked orange in the gateyard torchlight. The duke found himself wondering how he could get close enough to stick a knife into the sneaking traitor. Ah, sweet God, but that would be satisfying!
But what good would it do, fool, besides the admitted good of removing Pryrates from this earth? It would not find Miriamele, and I would never escape to search for her after the deed was done. Not to mention what would happen if Pryrates did not die—p’raps he has some sorcerous shield.