by Tad Williams
“My father speaks of Amerasu and asks us to listen to her,” Jiriki whispered, translating. Simon was dubious. Shima’onari seemed to have spoken a very long time just to say that. He glanced around the Yásira at the somber, cat-eyed faces. Whatever Jiriki’s father was saying, he had the undivided and almost frighteningly complete attention of his people.
When Shima’onari concluded, Likimeya rose, and all eyes then turned to her. She, too, spoke for a long time in the language of the Zida’ya.
“She says Amerasu is very wise,” explained Jiriki. Simon frowned.
When Likimeya finished a great, gentle sigh arose, as though all assembled had released their breath at once. Simon let out his own quiet sigh, one of relief; as the incomprehensible babble of Sithi-tongue went on and on, he had been finding it harder and harder to concentrate. Even the butterflies were moving restlessly above, the colorful sun-patterns made by their wings swimming back and forth across the great chamber.
At last Amerasu stood She seemed much less frail than she had in her house. Simon had thought her then like a martyred saint, but now he saw in her a touch of the angelic, a power that smoldered low but which could burst out into pure white light. Her long hair moved in a breeze that might have come from the careful movement of a million wings.
“I see that the mortal child is here,” she said, “so I will speak in a way that he can understand, as much of what I say came from him. He has a right to hear.”
Several Sithi turned their heads to gaze impassively at Simon. Caught by surprise, he dropped his chin and looked down at his chest until they had turned away once more.
“In fact,” Amerasu continued, “strange as this may sound, it is possible that some of the things I must say are better suited to the languages of the Sudhoda’ya. The mortals have always lived beneath one kind of darkness or another. That is among the reasons we named them ‘sunset-children’ when they first came to Osten Ard.” She paused. “The manchildren, the mortals, have many ideas of what happens after they die and wrangle about who is right and who is wrong. These disagreements often come to bloodshed, as if they wished to dispatch messengers who could discover the answer to their dispute. Such messengers, as far as I know of mortal philosophy, never return to give their brethren the taste of truth they yearn for.
“But among the mortal peoples there are stories that say that some do return as bodiless spirits, although they bring no answers with them. These spirits, these ghosts, are mute reminders of that shadow of death. Those who encounter such unhomed spirits call themselves ‘haunted’. Amerasu took a breath, her immense composure seemed to slip. It was a moment before she resumed. “That is a word we Zida’ya do not have, but perhaps we should.”
The silence, but for the murmur of delicate wings, was absolute.
“We fled out of the Uttermost East, thinking to escape that Unbeing that overwhelmed our Garden-land. That story is known to all but the mortal boy—even those of our children born after the Flight from Asu’a take it in with their mother’s milk—and so it will not be told again here.
“When we reached this new land, we thought we had escaped that shadow. But a piece of it came with us. That stain, that shadow, is part of us—just as the mortal men and women of Osten Ard cannot escape the shadow of their own dying.
“We are an old people. We do not fight the unfightable. That is why we fled Venyha Do’sae, rather than be unmade in a fruitless struggle. But the curse of our race is not that we refuse to throw down our lives in purposeless defiance of the great shadow, but that we instead clasp the shadow to ourselves and hug it tightly, gleefully, nursing it as we would a child.
“We brought the shadow with us. Perhaps no living, reasoning thing can be without such shadow, but we Zida’ya—despite our lives, beside which the spans of mortals are like fireflies—still we cannot ignore that shadow that is death. We cannot ignore the knowledge of Unbeing. Instead, we carry it with us like a brooding secret.
“The mortals must die, and they are frightened by that. We who were once of the Garden must also die, although our span is vastly greater, but we each embrace our death from the moment we first open our eyes, making it an insoluble part of us. We yearn for its complete embrace, even as the centuries roll by, while around us the death-fearing mortals breed and drop like mice. We make our death the core of our being, our private and innermost friend, letting life spin past as we enjoy Unbeing’s grave company.
“We would not give Ruyan Ve’s children the secret of our near-immortality, though they were stock of the same tree. We denied eternal life to Ruyan’s folk, the Tinukeda’ya, even as we clasped Death tighter and tighter to our own bosoms. We are haunted, my children. The mortal word is the only correct one. We are haunted.”
He did not understand most of what First Grandmother said but Amerasu’s voice worked on Simon like the scolding of a loving parent. He felt small and unimportant, but reassured that the voice was there and that it spoke to him. The Sithi around him maintained their careful impassivity.
“Then the ship-men came,” Amerasu said, her voice deepening, “and were not content to live and die within the walls of Osten Ard as the mortal mice before them had been. They were not satisfied with the morsels we tossed to them. We Zida’ya could have stopped their depredations before they became great, but instead we grieved over the loss of beauty while secretly rejoicing. Our death was coming!—a glorious and final ending that would make the shadows real. My husband Iyu’unigato was one such. His gentle, poetic heart loved death more than it ever loved his wife or the sons of his loins.”
For the first time a quiet whisper began to travel through the assembly, an uneasy murmur scarcely louder than the rustle of the butterflies over-head. Amerasu smiled sadly.
“It is hard to hear such things,” she said, “but this is a time when truth must be spoken. Of all the Zida’ya, only one truly did not yearn for quiet oblivion. He was my son Ineluki, and he burned. I do not mean the manner of his dying—that may be seen as a cruel irony, or as a fated inevitability. No, Ineluki burned with life, and his light dispelled the shadows—at least some of them.
“All know what happened. All know that Ineluki slew his gentle father, that he was then unmade at the last, bringing Asu’a to destruction as he struggled to save himself and all his folk from oblivion. But his fires were so fierce that he could not go peacefully into the shadows beyond life. I curse him for what he did to my husband and his people and himself, but my mother’s heart is still proud. By the Ships that brought us, he burned then and he burns still! Ineluki will not die!”
Amerasu lifted a hand as a fresh spatter of whispering rolled through the Yásira “Peace children, peace!” she cried, “First Grandmother has not herself embraced that shadow. I do not praise him for what he is now, only for the fierce spirit that no other showed, when such a spirit was the only thing that could save us from ourselves. And he did save us, for his resistance and even his madness gave others the will to flee here, to the house of our exile.” She lowered her hand. “No, my son embraced hatred. It kept him from dying a true death, but it was a flame even hotter than his own, and it has consumed him. There is nothing left of the bright blaze that was my son.” Her eyes were hooded. “Almost nothing.”
When she did not speak for a while, Shima’onari rose as if to go to her, saying something quietly in the Sithi tongue. Amerasu shook her head. “No, grandson, let me speak.” A touch of anger entered her voice. “This is all I have left, but if I am not heard, a darkness will descend that will be unlike the loving death which we sing to in our dreams. It will be worse than the Unbeing that drove us out of our Garden beyond the sea.”
Shima’onari, looking curiously shaken, sat down beside stone-eyed Likimeya.
“Ineluki has changed,” Amerasu resumed. “He has become something the world has not seen before, a smoldering ember of despair and hatred, surviving only to redress those things which long ago were injustices and mistakes and tragic underestimations,
but now are simply facts. Like ourselves, Ineluki dwells in the realm of what was. But unlike his living kin, Ineluki is not content to wallow in memories of the past. He lives, or exists—here is a place the mortal language is too inexact—to see the present state of the world obliterated and the injustices made right, but his only window is anger. His justice will be cruel, his methods even more horrible.”
She moved to stand beside the object on the stone pedestal, letting her slim fingers rest gently on the disk’s rim. Simon feared that she would cut herself, and felt an abnormal horror at the idea of seeing blood on Amerasu’s thin, golden skin.
“I have long known that Ineluki had returned, as have all of you. Unlike some, though, I have not pushed it from my mind, or rolled it over and over in my thoughts only to enjoy the pain of it, as one prods a bruise or sore spot. I have wondered, I have thought, and I have spoken with those few who could help me, trying to understand what might be growing in the shadows of my son’s mind. The last of those who brought me knowledge was the mortal boy Seoman—although he did not realize, and still does not, half of what I gleaned from him.”
Simon again felt eyes upon him, but his own were helplessly fixed to Amerasu’s luminous face, framed in the great white cloud other hair.
“That is just as well,” she said. “The manchild has been fate-battered and chance-led in many curious ways, but he is no spell-wielder or great hero. He has fulfilled his responsibilities admirably, but needs no more heaped upon his young shoulders. But what I learned from him has, I think, taught me the true shape of Ineluki’s plan.” She took a deep breath, summoning strength. “It is terrible. I could tell you, but words may not suffice. I am the eldest of this tribe; I am Amerasu the Ship-Born. Still there would be some who would secretly doubt, and others who would continue to turn their faces away. Many of you would prefer to live with the beauty of imagined shadows instead of the ugly blackness at the core of this shadow—of the shadow that my son spreads over us all.
“So I will show you what I have seen, then you will see, too. If we can still turn our heads away, my children, at least we cannot continue to pretend. We may keep out the winter for a while, but at last it will engulf us, too.” Her voice suddenly rose, plaintive but powerful. “If we are running joyfully into the arms of death, let us at least admit that is what we do! Let us for this once see ourselves plainly, even at the ending of things.”
Amerasu let her gaze drop, as though great weariness or sorrow had overtaken her. There was a moment of silence, then just as a few quiet conversations had begun, she lifted her face to them once more and placed her hand on the pale moon-disk.
“This is the Mist Lamp, brought by my mother Senditu out of Tumet'ai as the creeping hoarfrost swallowed that city. As with the scales of the Greater Worm, as with the Speakfire, the singing Shard, and the Pool in great Asu’a, it is a door to the Road of Dreams. It has shown me many things. Now it is time to share those visions.”
Amerasu reached down, lightly touching the bowl before the stone disk. A blue-white flame sprang up and hovered wickless above the bowl’s pale rim. The disk began to gleam with a secretive light. Then, even as it grew brighter, the entire chamber of the Yásira started to darken, until it seemed to Simon that the afternoon had truly withered away and the moon had fallen from the sky to hang there before him.
“These days, the dream-lands have drawn nearer to our own,” Amerasu said, “just as Ineluki’s winter has surrounded and worn away the summer.” Her voice, though clear, seemed but a whisper. “The dream-lands are troubled, and there will be moments when it is difficult to stay upon the road, so please lend me your thoughts and quiet assistance. The day is long passed when the daughters of Jenjiyana could speak as effortlessly through the Witnesses as from ear to ear.” She waved a hand over the disk and the room grew darker still. The tender scraping of butterfly wings increased, as though the creatures felt change in the air.
The disk glowed. A bluish stain like fog crept across its face; when it passed, the Mist Lamp had turned black. In that blackness a scattering of icy stars appeared and a pale shape began to grow, sprouting up from the base of the Lamp’s disk. It was a mountain, white and sharp as a tusk, bleak as bone.
“Nakkiga,” Amerasu said from the darkness. “The mountain the mortals call Stormspike. The home of Utuk’ku, who hides her agedness behind a silver mask, unwilling to admit that the shadow of death can touch her, too. She fears Unbeing more than any other of our race, though she is the eldest who still lives—the last of the Gardenborn.” Amerasu laughed quietly. “Yes, my great-grandmother is very vain.” For a moment there was a flash of metal, but the Mist Lamp blurred and the mountain reappeared. “I can feel her,” Amerasu said. “Like a spider, she waits. No fire of justice burns within her as it burns in Ineluki, however mad he has become. She wishes only to destroy all who remember how she was humbled in the dim, dim past when our peoples broke asunder. She gave my son’s raging spirit a home; together they have fed each other’s hatred. Now they are ready to do what they have plotted for so many centuries. Look!”
The Mist Lamp throbbed. The white mountain loomed closer, steaming beneath the cold black skies. Then, suddenly, it began to fade back into darkness. A few moments later it was gone, leaving only sable emptiness.
A long interval passed. Simon, who had been hanging on the Sitha woman’s every word, felt suddenly adrift. The crackling tension in the air was back, stronger than ever.
“Oh!” Amerasu gasped, startled.
All around Simon the Sithi were shifting, murmuring, as questioning turned to uneasiness and the seeds of fear began to grow inside them. Agleam of silver appeared in the center of the Mist Lamp, then spread outward like oil on a pond, filling the darkened silhouette. The silver smeared and ran until it became a face, a woman’s face, unmoving but for pale eyes that peered from the darkened slits.
Simon watched the silver mask helplessly, his eyes smarting as they filled with frightened tears. He could not look away. She was so old and strong…so strong…
“It has been many turns of the year, Amerasu no’e-Sa’onserei.” The Norn Queen’s voice was surprisingly melodious, but the sweetness could not entirely hide the vast corruption beneath. “It has been long, granddaughter. Are you ashamed of your northern kin, that you have not invited us back among you before?”
“You mock me, Utuk’ku Seyt-Hamakha.” There was a quaver in Amerasu’s voice, a frightening note of dismay. “All know the reasons for your exile and the separation of our families.”
“You always loved righteousness, little Amerasu.” The scorn in the Norn Queen’s voice made Simon feel as though a fever ran through him. “But the righteous soon become meddlers, and so it has always been with your Song-reaching clan. You would not scourge the mortals from the Land, which might have saved all. And even after they have destroyed the Gardenborn, you cannot leave the mortals be.” Utuk’ku’s breath hissed in and out. “Ah. I see, there is one among you even now!”
Simon’s heart seemed to grow, pushing up into his throat until he could scarcely breathe. Those terrible eyes staring at him—why didn’t Amerasu make her go away?! He wanted to shout, to run, but could not. The Sithi-folk around him seemed equally nerveless, struck to stone.
“You oversimplify, grandmother,” Amerasu said at last. “When do you not simply lie.”
Utuk’ku laughed, and the sound was something that could set stones to weeping.
“Fool!” she cried. “I oversimplify? You have overreached. You have long concerned yourself with the doings of mortals, but you have missed the most important things. That will prove your death!”
“I know what you plan!” Amerasu said. “You may have taken from me what remains of my son, but even through death, I have discerned his mind. I have seen…”
“Enough!” Utuk’ku’s angry cry blew through the Yásira, a chill gust of wind that bent the grass and set the butterflies to panicky fluttering. “Enough. You have spoken your last and c
ondemned yourself. It is death!”
Terrifyingly, Amerasu began to quiver in the dim light, struggling against some invisible restraint, her eyes wide, her mouth moving without sound.
“And you will not interfere further—any of you!” The Norn Queen’s voice was rising to a dreadful pitch. “The false peace is over! Over! Nakkiga renounces you all!”
All around the Yásira the Sithi were shouting with amazement and anger. Likimeya rushed forward to the darkened figure of Amerasu, even as Utuk’ku’s face shimmered and vanished from the Mist Lamp. The Witness fell dark for a moment, but only a moment. A tiny spot of red kindled in the Lamp’s center, a small spark which grew steadily until it was a rippling blaze that outlined the startled features of Jiriki’s parents and mute Amerasu with scarlet light. Two dark holes opened in the flame, lightless eyes in the face of fire. Simon felt himself seized in a grip of frozen horror, clutched so tight by it that his muscles quivered. Chill dread beat outward from that wavering face, as heat would rise from an ordinary fire. Amerasu stopped struggling, becoming as still as if she had turned to stone.
Another blackness gaped in the billowing flame, beneath the empty eyes. Bloodless laughter issued forth. Sickened, Simon struggled desperately to get away—he had seen this horror-mask before.
The Red Hand! He meant it to be a shout, but fear choked his words into helpless, whistling breath.
Likimeya stepped forward, her husband beside her, helping to shield Amerasu. She raised her arms before the Mist Lamp and the fiery thing that surged within it. A kind of silvery glow surrounded her. “Go back to your shriveled mistress and dead master. Corrupted One,” she cried. “You are not one of us any more.”