by Tad Williams
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 w
ay 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 stood 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.
"Can you feel that, little cousin?" Zosim bellowed at Yasammez. "Can you feel your essence being boiled inside you? The salamandros is far beyond you. I would have burned your father to ash if he had fought me fairly…!"
From somewhere in the swirling, dark cloud Yasammez's face swam up, deformed like melting wax, full of rage and agony. "You are Liar by name and nature," she cried, her voice distant as a fading thunderstorm on the horizon. "If you had not struck from hiding… you would never have wounded him…"
"Wounded? Killed him! With my father's spear!" Zosim's fires blazed again, so that for a moment he became a pillar of white flame that seemed to stretch up through the roof of the great cavern. Hundreds of steps away, Vansen felt the hairs on his arms begin to smolder, his skin to dry and crack, until he stumbled and almost dropped the king's limp body. "Your ridiculous, limping father is finally dead," Zosim bellowed, "And in a moment, you will be, too."
"It… matters not…" Yasammez said, each word its own painful breath, each more faint than the one before. "I have… held you back… long enough…"
What does she mean? Vansen wondered. Long enough? What does she see-or has she lost her wits at the end? We are dying. We are utterly defeated…
The laughter of Zosim was so loud and so gleeful that this time Vansen did stumble. Overbalanced, he fell to the loose stones; Olin's body tumbled from his arms and rolled away. Vansen could barely see through the tears that filled his eyes, tears of pain and exhaustion and the endless, blistering hot winds that raged through the cavern.
Zosim's voice rattled Vansen's skull. "After you are dead, I will climb out of this stony tomb of my father's and up into the air. Everything that lives will serve me or die!" Again came the laughter, gusting and crashing, as flame licked the walls all around Zosim's head.
Vansen crawled as fast as he could across the loose stones, praying again not to be noticed. He could tell by the waxing of the fiery light all around him that Yasammez was fading. He reached Olin where he lay, still unmoving and lifeless, then wrapped his arms around the king's chest and began to drag him. He reached the boat and tugged Olin clumsily over the side so that he rolled into the bottom beside the senseless dark-haired girl. The huge craft was mired in the loose stones of the shore; Vansen knew he would not have been able to drag it himself even if he had not been bruised and battered to within an inch of his life. Where was Barrick?
At last, as the great golden blade ripped the dark cloud that was Yasammez into tatters once more, Vansen spotted the blue gleam of the prince's armor. Barrick was not moving. Vansen hobbled toward him as fast as he could.
To his great relief, he could feel the prince's chest moving steadily up and down, though his armor was burned and blackened and the prince's usually pale face was bright red as if he had been dragged through a Midsummer's Bonfire.
Midsummer midnight, Vansen thought. Who would have thought the world would end on such a day, in such a place… in such a manner? Yasammez was all but defeated, shrunk now to a shape less than half Zosim's size, her great aspect curling further back on itself with each passing moment as the god in her was overwhelmed. Soon nothing would remain but what was mortal, and Zosim the Trickster would make short work of that.
"Prince Barrick! Can you hear me?" Vansen shook him again, but the prince did not wake. He began to drag him toward the boat, Barrick's heels furrowing the stony ground. Halfway there, Vansen had to set him down, gasping in the hot air, never daring to look away for long from the pillar of fire at the center of the cavern as it steadily burned away the resistance of the woman who had been the greatest of all the Qar who ever lived.
As he finally reached the boat, something grabbed at the neck of his armor coat, yanking him backward so that he overbalanced and the prince fell from his arms. A long, curved Xixian blade fell across his neck as he lay on the ground, an edge so sharp that he could feel it cutting his skin merely by resting against his throat.
"Those are my prisoners, I think," said the Autarch of Xis, showing all his teeth. Even as he spoke, the pressure grew on Vansen's throat until he could feel blood trickling down his neck. "I will have them back, now, peasant."
"Please, my lady!" Chert pulled at Briony's sleeve again. He couldn't help thinking that in other circumstances people might have their heads cut off for less. "Please, Princess, you can do nothing good for anyone by this course…!"
Briony would not even slow. "Sir, I'm sure you are accounted a mighty warrior among your kind, but I am the princess of Southmarch and I am twice your size. If you tug at me again, I will throw you off this path!"
Chert withdrew his hand. He knew even better than she did what a long way down that would be. "But you will be killed!"
"No, everyone I know will be killed if I do nothing!"
With her determined stride and her manly armor, Briony had the look of something out of one of the ancient tapestries-Queen Lily riding at th
e front of her armies, perhaps, facing the Mantis and his mercenary legions. That the sweet-mannered girl who had run him down in the hills should have grown to this…! Chert could not help admiring her, which made him all the more reluctant to see her throw her life away.
And I'll throw my own life away, too, if I follow any farther…
"My lady, please! See sense! I told you what will happen…!"
"But it has not happened yet. Perhaps it never will-perhaps you have miscalculated, or your gunflour has got wet." She hurried down the path along the edge of the abyss, trotting when the way grew wide enough, slowing to a walk when it was narrow and the footing treacherous. "Then my family and my friends will need my help even more. No, you will not stop me, sir."
"Unshored, stubborn…!" he muttered, but Chert of all people knew stubborn women well. They did not change their ways simply because a man told them to.
I can go with her and die or turn back and perhaps live-if any live through this, that is-and hate myself because I deserted her. Earth Elders, why have you cursed me? Why can I never be master of my own life…?
As if in answer, Chert heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. He stopped. After another step or two, Briony also stopped, staring into the darkness before them, but as the sound grew louder, it became clear that whatever approached was behind them, coming down from the surface.
"Who…?" was all Briony had time to say when a young, dark-haired woman appeared in the circle of torch glow, running fast though she herself carried no light. She scarcely seemed to notice Chert or Briony as she dodged around them and hurried on; a moment later she had vanished into the darkness below them. For a few more moments they could hear her rapid footfalls, but then even those faded.