by Tad Williams
Count Eolair shifted his disconcerted glance from Lluth’s daughter back to the dwarrows. “Can you tell me of this evil?”
Yis-fidri looked at him speculatively. “No,” he said at last. “I have not the right to share so much, for all you be noble persons among your kind. Mayhap when I have had a greater while to think, you will hear more. Content yourself.” He would say nothing further concerning the subject.
Silent now but for the quiet noise of footsteps, the odd procession crept on through the ancient city, lights bobbing like fireflies.
The Pattern Hall was a dome only slightly smaller in circumference than the Site of Witness, set low in the midst of a forest of towers, surrounded by a moat of rock sculpted to resemble the waves of a crashing sea. The dome itself was fluted like a sea shell, constructed of some fair stone that did not shine like the rose-crystal rods, but nevertheless seemed faintly radiant.
“The Ocean Indefinite and Eternal,” said Yis-fidri with a gesture at the spiky stone waves. “Our birth-home was an island in the sea that surrounds all. We Tinukeda’ya built those craft that took all the Gardenborn across that water. Ruyan Ve, the greatest of our folk, steered the ships and brought us here to this land, safe out of destruction.” A light came to the dwarrow’s saucerlike eyes, a note of triumph to his voice. He wagged his head firmly, as though to emphasize the importance of what he said. “Without us, no ships would have been. All, both masters and servants, would have passed into Unbeing.” After a moment he blinked and looked around, the fire abruptly gone. “Come, Hern-folk,” he said. “Hurry down to the Banipha-sha-zé—the Pattern Hall.”
His wife Yis-hadra beckoned, then led Maegwin and the count around the frozen gray ocean to the back of the dome, which sat off-center in the moat like the yoke of an egg. A ramp curled down into the shadowed depths.
“This is where my husband and I dwell,” Yis-hadra said. She spoke Hernystiri more haltingly than her husband, “We are keepers of this place.”
The inside of the Pattern Hall was dark, but as Yis-hadra entered before them, she drew her hands along the walls. Where her long fingers touched, stones began to glow with a pale light, yellower than that given off by the rods.
Maegwin saw Eolair’s sharp profile hovering beside her, spectral and dreamlike. She was beginning to feel the burden of her long, strenuous day; her knees were growing weak, her thoughts furry. How had Eolair ever let her do such a foolish thing, she wondered? He should have…have…have what? Knocked her senseless? Carried her kicking and screeching back to the surface? She would have hated him if he had. Maegwin ran her hands through her matted hair. If only none of these terrible things had ever happened, if only life at the Taig had gone on its small, foolish way, with her father and Gwythinn alive, with winter in its proper place…
“Maegwin!” The count took her elbow. “You almost hit your head against the doorway.”
She shook off his hand and bent to pass through. “I saw it.”
The room beyond slowly revealed itself as Yis-hadra touched more stones into radiant life. It was circular, the walls peeked every few paces by a low doorway. The doors themselves were carved of dressed stone and hinged with tarnished bronze. Their surfaces were covered with runic letters unlike anything Maegwin had seen, different even than the great gates that had led her to Mezutu’a in the first place.
“Seat yourself, if you please,” Yis-fidri said, gesturing to a row of granite stools, solid upcroppings that rose like mushrooms beside a low stone cable. “We will prepare food. Will you dine with us?”
Eolair looked at her, but Maegwin pretended to be looking in the other direction. She was desperately tired and confused, full of regret. The Sithi were not here. These bent, flawed creatures could be no help against the likes of Skali and King Elias. There was no earthly help coming.
“You are very kind, Yis-fidri,” the count said. “We will be pleased to share your table.”
A great show was made of lighting a tiny bed of coals in a trough set into the stone floor. Yis-fidri’s anxious care with them suggested that such fuel was hard to find, and used only for very special occasions.
Maegwin could not help noticing the strangely graceful way that the dwarrows moved as they fetched the ingredients of their meal. Despite their awkward, stiff-limbed gaits, they stepped in and out of the two doors at the room’s opposite end and slid around obstacles with an odd, dancing fluidity, and seemed almost to caress each other in passing with their tuneful, pattering speech. She knew she watched a pair of ancient lovers, both enfeebled, but so accustomed to each other that they had become two limbs of the same body. Now that the strangeness of the dwarrows’ owl-eyed appearance had worn away, Maegwin observed their quiet interactions and felt certain that they were just what they seemed—a couple who might have seen terror and sorrow, but whose happiness with each other spanned centuries.
“Come now.” Yis-fidri said at last, pouring something from a stoneewer into bowls for Maegwin and the count. “Drink.”
“What is it?” Maegwin asked quietly. She sniffed the liquid, but could discern nothing unusual in its smell.
“Water, Hern-child,” Yis-fidri said, puzzlement plain his voice. “Do your folk no longer drink water?”
“We do,” Maegwin smiled, lifting the bowl to her lips. She had forgotten how long it had been since she had last sipped from her water skin, but it must have been hours. The water ran down her throat in gulps, cold and sweet as iced honey. It had a taste she could not identify, something stony but clean. If it were a color, she decided, it would have been the blue of new evening.
“Wonderful!” She let Yis-fidri pour her another bowl.
The dwarrows next produced a dish piled high with pieces of white, faintly luminous fungus, and other bowls with things in them that Maegwin was sinkingly sure were some kind of many-legged bugs. These had been wrapped in leaves and roasted over the coals. The spell cast by the draught of delicious water abruptly vanished and Maegwin found herself tottering once more on the edge of a terrible homesickness.
Eolair manfully took a few bites of fungus—it was not by chance that he was deemed the best court envoy in Osten Ard—and ostentatiously chewed and swallowed one of the leggy morsels, then settled down to rearranging his supper in a way that resembled eating. If Maegwin had needed any additional proof, the expression on his chewing face was enough to keep the contents of her own bowl far from her mouth.
“So, Yis-fidri, why is your house called the Pattern Hall?” the Count of Nad Mullach asked. He quietly let a few blackened grubs fall from his fingertips and down into the hem of his cloak.
“We shall show that to you when eating is finished,” Yis-hadra said proudly.
“Then, if it is not impolite, may I ask you of some other things? Our time here is growing short.” Eolair shrugged. “I must return this lady to our people in the caverns above.”
Maegwin bit back a sneering remark. Return this lady, indeed!
“Ask, Hern’s child.”
“You spoke of a mortal, one we know as Josua Lackhand. And the voice from the stone said something about Great Swords. What are these swords, and what do they have to do with Josua?”
Yis-fidri scraped with his spoon-shaped fingers at a fragment of fungus on his chin. “I must begin before the beginning, as we say.” He looked from Eolair to Maegwin and back. “In days agone, our folk made for a king of the northern men a sword. That king betrayed his bargain. When the time came to pay, the mortal king instead argued, then slew the leader of our folk. That king hight Elvrit, first master of Rimmersgard. The sword dwarrow-forged for him, he named Minneyar.”
“I have heard this legend,” Eolair said.
Yis-fidri held up a spidery hand “You have not heard all. Count Eolair, if I have recalled your name aright. Bitter was our curse on that blade, and closely did we watch it, though it was far from us. Such is dwarrow-work, that nothing we have forged is ever far from our hearts or our sight. Minneyar brought much sadness to
Fingil and his tribe, for all it was a mighty weapon.”
He took a swallow of water to clear his throat. Yis-hadra tenderly watched his face, her hand atop his. “We told to you that our Witnesses have stood unused for centuries of silence. Then, little more than one year ago, the Shard spoke to us—or rather, something spoke to us through the Shard, as in the elder days.
“That which spoke was someone or something who we knew not, something that used the Speakfire in the old dwarrow-home of Hikehikayo, something that talked to us in gentle and persuasive words. Strange enough was it to hear Shard and Speakfire talking as of old, but we also remembered the evil that had driven our fellows from their home—an evil of which you mortals need not hear, for it would throw you into great fear—so we trusted this stranger not. Also, as long as it had been since we had last used the Witnesses, still some for us remembered the elder days and what it felt like when the Ziday’a did speak to us then.
“This was not the same. Whatever stood before the Speakfire in the north seemed more like a cold breath of Unbeing than a living creature, for all its kindly words.”
Yis-hadra moaned softly beside him. Maegwin, caught up in the dwarrow’s story despite herself, felt a chill travel through her.
“That which spoke,” Yis-fidri continued, “wished to know of the sword Minneyar. It knew we had been the blade’s makers and it knew that we dwarrows are bound to our work even after it has gone from us, as one who has lost a hand often feels it still at the end of his arm. The thing that spoke to us from Witness to Witness asked if the northern king Fingil had indeed taken the sword Minneyar into Asu’a when he conquered that great place, and was it there still.”
“Asu’a,” Eolair breathed. “Of course—the Hayholt.”
“That is its mortal name,” Yis-fidri nodded. “We were frightened by this strange and fearful voice. You must understand, we have been as castaways for more years than your people can dream. It was obvious that some new power had arisen in the world, but one that nevertheless did command the old Arts. But we do not wish any of our old masters to find us and take us back, so at first we made no answer.”
The dwarrow leaned forward on his padded elbows. “Then, a short time ago—a few of the Moon-woman’s changes, as you would reckon it beneath the sky—the Shard spoke again. This time it did speak with the voice of the eldest of the Sithi, the voice you heard. She also asked us of Minneyar. With her, also, we were silent.”
“Because you fear they will make you their servants again.”
“Yes, Hern’s man. Unless you have ever fled from bondage, you will not understand that terror. Our masters are ageless. We are not. They retain the old lore. We dimmish.” Yis-fidri rocked back and forth on his stool, the ancient leather of his garments rubbing and squeaking like crickets.
“But we knew something neither of our questioners did,” he said finally, there was a gleam in his round eye unlike anything the surface-dwellers had yet seen. “Do you see, our masters think the sword Minneyar never left Asu’a, and that is true. But the one who found the sword there beneath the castle, the one you call King John Prester, had it reforged and made new. Under the name of Bright-Nail, he carried it all across the world and back.”
The Count of Nad Mullach whistled, a low, surprised mil. “So Bright-Nail was the old Scourge of the North, Fingil’s Minneyar. Strange! What other secrets did Prester John take to his grave above the Kynslagh, I wonder?” He paused. “But, Yis-fidri, still we do not understand.
“Patience.” The dwarrow showed a wintry smile. “You could never tend and harvest balky stone as we do, you quick-blooded Children. Patience.” He took a breath. “The mistress of the Zida’ya told us that this sword, one of the Great Swords, was somehow much concerned with events now transpiring, and with the fate of the mortal prince named Handless Josua…”
“Josua Lackhand.”
“Yes. But we think that is trickery, for she also said that this sword might be somehow vital against that same evil that had driven our tribesfolk out of Hikehikayo, and that the same evil soon might threaten all that walked above or below ground. How could the fate of any mortal man affect the squabblings of immortals?” The dwarrow’s voice quavered “It is another trap, to play on our fear. She wishes us to seek her help, so we will fall into their clutch once more. Did you not hear her? ‘Come to us at Jao é-Tinukai’i.’ Was ever a trap more cold-bloodedly baited before the victim’s eyes?”
“So,” the count said at last, “somehow Josua’s survival is tied to this blade?”
Yis-fidri shot him a worried glance. “So she claimed. But how could she say his fate is tied to that of Minneyar when she did not even know it had been reforged? She said that none but us did know this thing, and that possibly many fates—perhaps the threads of all fate—were tied to three great swords, of which Minneyar was one.”
Yis-fidri stood, a haunted look upon his face. “And I will tell you a terrible, terrible thing,” he said miserably. “Even though we cannot trust our once-masters, we fear that they may be telling the truth. Mayhap a great doom has come into the world. If so, we dwarrows may have brought it on.”
Eolair looked around, struggling to make sense of what he had heard. “But why, Yis-fidri? Bright-Nail’s history might be a deep and dark secret, but you dwarrows did not tell it to anyone. When the Shard spoke to us, we said nothing of it, because we did not know the tale. No secrets have been told. What doom have you brought on?”
The dwarrow was deeply pained “I…did not tell you all. One last time before your arrival, the Shard called to us. It was the fearsome stranger from Hikehikayo asking again of the sword Minneyar—that cursed sword.” He slumped bonelessly back onto the stool. “This time there was only one of us at the Site of Witness—young Sho-vennae, who you have met. He was alone and the voice laid a great fear upon him. It threatened, then it promised, then threatened again.” Yis-fidri slapped his wide palm on the table. “You must understand, he was afraid! We are all afraid! We are not what we were.” He lowered his eyes as if shamed, then looked up to find his wife’s gaze. He seemed to gain courage. “At last, Sho-vennae’s terror did overwhelm him. He told the stranger the tale of Minneyar, of how it was reforged and became Bright-Nail.” Yis-fidri’s shook his great head. “Poor Sho-vennae. We should never have let him stand watch at the Shard alone. May the Garden forgive us. Do you see, you Hern’s folk, our former masters may have lied to us, but still we fear that no good can come out of the darkness in Hikehikayo. If the First Grandmother of the Sithi has told the truth, who knows what power we have given to evil?”
Maegwin hardly heard him. She was losing the thread of Yis-fidri’s speech, dully registering bits and pieces while her weary mind swirled with thoughts of her own failure. She had misunderstood the gods’ will. She needed to be free, to have time to herself, time to think.
Count Eolair sat thinking for a long while, the room was full of brooding silence. At last, Yis-fidri stood.
“You have shared our table,” he said. “Let us show you our prizes, then you may go back to the bright, airy surface.”
Eolair and Maegwin, still silent, let themselves be led across the round room and through one of the doors. They followed the dwarrows down along, sloping hallway before coming at last to a deeper chamber whose outer walls were as complicated as a maze, angling in and out so that everywhere Maegwin looked there were surfaces covered with carved stone.
“In this chamber and others below it are the Patterns,” Yis-fidri said. “Long the dwarrows have delved, and widely. Every tunnel, every deep place we dug is there. This is the history of our folk, and we two are the keepers of it.” He waved his hand proudly. “Maps of bright Kementari, the labyrinth of Jhiná-T’seneí, the tunnels beneath the mountains Rimmersmen call Vestivegg, and those that honeycomb the mountains above our heads—all here. The catacombs of Zae-y’miritha are long-buried and silent…but here they live!”
Eolair turned slowly, looking from surface to surface. The in
terior of the great chamber was as intricate as a many-faceted stone, each facet, every angle and niche, was covered with delicate maps carved into the living stone. “And you said that you have maps of the tunnels that run here, throughout the Grianspog?” he asked slowly.
“With certainty. Count Eolair,” Yis-fidri said. Being among the Patterns seemed to have restored life to his sagging frame. “Those and more.
“If we could have those, it would be a great help to us in our own struggle.”
Maegwin turned on the count, irritation finally bubbling to the surface. “What, shall we carry a thousandweight of stone up to our caves? Or climb down here to this lost place every time we must choose a fork in the path?”
“No,” said Eolair, “but like the Aedonite monks, we could copy them onto parchment, and so have them where we need them.” His eyes shone. “There must be tunnels we never dreamed of! Our raids on Skali’s camps will truly seem like magic! See, Maegwin. you have brought great assistance to your people after all—a help greater than swords and spears!” He turned to Yis-fidri. “Would you allow us to do such a thing?”
Worried, the dwarrow turned to his wife. As the sound of their conversation chimed back and forth, Maegwin watched the count. Eolair was walking from wall to wall, squinting up at the angled walls and their beetle-busy carvings- She fought a rising tide of anger. Did he think he was doing her a kindness when he complimented her on this “discovery?” She had been looking for help from the shining, legendary Sithi, not a gaggle of scarecrows with their dusty tunnel-maps. Tunnels! Maegwin had been the one who had rediscovered the tunnels in the first place! How dare he try and placate her?
As she felt herself caught between fury and loneliness and loss, a sudden realization cut through her confused thoughts like a knife. Eolair must go away.
She could have no peace, she could never understand what the gods meant her to do, as long as he was around. His presence turned her into a child, a whining, moody thing unfit to lead her people out of these dangerous straits.