by Tad Williams
-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"
Barrick Eddon scarcely heard Aesi'uah's questions as they walked back through the Raven's Gate and into the outer keep. The guards in the gatehouse carefully looked the other way as the small procession passed, though Barrick could see both curiosity and fear in their postures. It might have been worse, but Barrick had chosen only the most manlike of the Qar to accompany him.
"Are you angry with us or your other people, Barrick Eddon?" the eremite asked him.
They stole Sanasu-she who was to have the Fireflower, the Fireflower voices reminded him-as if he needed reminding. They killed her brother who would have been her husband.
"It doesn't matter." He had no answers, and he had more pressing things in his head just now. When he had reached out to lay the offering on his father's coffin, he had felt a sharp stab of pain in his hand-pain he had not felt for so long he had forgotten how bad it was. It had receded again, but he could not stop thinking about it. Why now, after all this time, should he feel it again?
Barrick and the Qar continued across the outer keep in silence and into the shade of the harbor wall between the West Lagoon and the new walls. The gates to Funderling Town were guarded by more of Vansen's men, but Barrick's onetime companion had prepared the soldiers carefully, and they only saluted respectfully as the Qar passed. For a half a moment, Barrick even wondered if it might be possible for his two peoples to live in harmony again, as they had once centuries ago, but the looks of suspicion and even outright fear that he saw when he looked back at the guards' faces showed what a foolish dream that was.
Barrick flexed his aching fingers and thought about Briony.
The pain had returned to his left hand, and even the muscles themselves seemed to have shrunk again to the way they used to be, tightening like a drying hide so that his hand pulled into a tight clench. It had begun when he touched his father's coff in… no, it had happened a moment after that, as a memory of his father lifting him high in the air to show him the ocean from the top of the Tower of Summer. With the memory had come a wash of sadness, of missing the man he had spent so much time cursing. And with the memory had come the pain.
He did his best to uncurl his hand. Why should it happen again? Was it just the discomfort of being back among the people of Southmarch? Or of having to argue with his sister, who wanted so much more from him than he had to give… But she had always done that, always demanded his love even when he was too weary of life to give it.
The pain struck him so quickly and so suddenly that he dropped to his knees with a gasp.
She is your past, the Fireflower voices told him, but they seemed almost fearful. Forget her. Forget this place. Be strong for your new people…
Barrick sat on the stony floor and rubbed his aching hand.
The Sleepers took something from me in order to heal me, didn't they?
Saqri's sleeping face showed nothing-she was beyond that now, nearly as lifeless as Qinnitan-but he felt her words in his thoughts, thin as a breeze. Everything has its price-life, love, even death. You know that. You know that better than almost any of your kind.
But the price was my family! My love for my sister! He understood that now, although his feelings for Briony remained curiously distant. They took it from me without asking!
They did not take it. Her thoughts already grew faint again. They used it. As a river dammed by stones will rise and flood in other directions, they only changed its flow. Love is a thing that cannot be destroyed, you see, only altered…
Barrick knew he could not wait much longer. The queen of the Fay's strength was failing very swiftly now. He pushed the Sleepers' gift from his thoughts and knelt by her bed and took her hand. Sunset Pearl and the other healers stood back, doing their best to seem as if they did not disapprove of the strange thing he planned to do.
Enough of these other matters," he said. It is time for me to make that journey we spoke of, he told her. To try to save what we can… if you will let me.
He felt a faint sensation of amusement. Why should I not, dear manchild…?
Two pale warriors of the Unforgiven tribe carried Qinnitan's bed into the rock chamber and set it beside Saqri's. The dark-haired girl seemed even smaller than before, as if with every passing hour she shrank farther in on herself, like something being slowly burned away. Her skin was as cold as if her spirit had already fled.
Leave us alone, he told them.
No questions, no argument-the Qar immediately left the chamber, leaving only Barrick, the two motionless women, and the unsteady candlelight.
He thought carefully about what Saqri had taught him back in Qul-na-Qar, as well as what Ynnir had said: "The Fireflower is more than the knowledge of those who went before. It is the map of their journeys, the book of their rituals. But you cannot simply consult it as if it were a dusty scroll in a forgotten niche. You must make it a part of you."
Barrick fell back into the darkness inside himself; for a long span he simply floated in that emptiness. When he felt he was ready, he thought about Crooked, who had found a way to travel through so many different kinds of darkness, and then thought of himself and the blood they shared, however distantly.
I am a great-grandchild of Sanasu, he announced. I travel where I wish in the lands beyond, the dreamlands of the sleeping gods. My blood is my safe-conduct. There would be many in the darkness, though, who had no respect for such rituals.
A faint light kindled and began to form the void into recognizable shapes-into here and there, up and down. The light was his own, the gleam of the Fireflower on his brow. His feet touched the grassy ground, although he could see little of what was beneath him-two feet, no, four, his weight carried on hard hooves and powerful legs. As Ynnir here in these dreaming lands wore the form of a stag, and Saqri a swan, Barrick found himself in the semblance of a horse-a pale stallion. Overwhelmed by the new sensations, he began to trot, then to gallop.
Where am I? he wondered. Are these Crooked's roads through the void, or is it the land of dreams where the gods still live? The country of the dead? Or some other place entirely…?
Barrick Eddon did not understand enough of the Fireflower heritage to know the answers, but he knew he was doing what he needed to do. He pushed his fears aside and kept moving, racing from shadow to shadow, through tangles of darkness so thick he thought he would never unmire himself, out into moments of blinding light that dazzled and confused him. Other shadows haunted that place, too-other beings like him, perhaps, or older, stranger things-but he dared not speak to them. It was too easy for a traveler to become lost here, to stray from the path, and although those that flitted around him now might mean no harm, there were others here that fed on solitude and suffering-he could hear them whispering to him as they followed, like the scrabbling of rats behind wooden walls: Barrick Eddon, you owe the People nothing. We will give you the strength to do anything. Raise the girl from the dead. Command the allegiance of every creature you meet. Make yourself the greatest king that ever walked the earth! All will be yours… Just wait on the path for us. Let us join you…!
He hoped the Fireflower's light would be enough to keep them at bay.
Barrick grew weary, but still the shadows seemed never-ending. He had encountered many sights he did not understand-doorways into nothing, moaning shapes like ghosts caught in their own dreadful dreams, even things that looked to be the ruins of ancient temples, monstrous slabs of tumbled stone as old as the stars. Once a great shape passed over his head, obscured by ragged vertical shadows that might have been trees. He looked up and thought he saw a ship far above him, half-hidden by silvery clouds, with a skeletal crew and only one passenger, a woman as perfectly pale as a full moon, sitting in a high throne upon the deck, but he could study it for only a few instants before it faded away again into the murky skies.
He traveled on until his weariness threatened to overwhelm him. The voices waiting in the shadows became louder, pr
omising more but also demanding more, as though they scented his growing weakness.
You are nothing to me, he declared, and showed them the sign of White Walls, the inner swallowing the outer. They fell back, abashed but furious.
We will find you again, they promised, and he knew they spoke the truth: the things that lived in these places were like forgotten prisoners, with nothing to do but brood on escape. We will find you when you are too weary for such wards. What then, manchild…?
He had traveled much farther now than he had ever gone with Saqri, but although he was not exactly certain what he sought, he knew he had not found it yet.
You have gone too far beyond the light, the shadows mocked him. We will not just feed on you when you fall at last-we will make a doorway of you, so that we can feed on everything that lives. We will spread ourselves across the night, live in the owl's cry, hide in a baby's sudden stillness. We shall leap from this place in our countless numbers like bats flooding from their nests as the dark swallows the dusk.
He knew that at least one thing the shadows told him was all too true: he no longer had the strength to turn back. If he failed in this gamble, every fearsome thing that hid in the darkness beyond sleep and life would fall on him and that would be the end; there was no one left who could save him.
As he stumbled ever more slowly through the outer reaches of dream, followed by a growing crowd of hungry shadows, he finally saw something that brought him hope: a pale, heather-colored glow in the distance (if such a word as "distance" could be used in this place) gave weight and solidity to the dreamscape: where that light lay upon it, the land had substance. A grassy hill now loomed before him, crowded with angular shapes, each with a crown of antlers as wide as a man's arms.
Barrick made his way toward the twilit hill. The creatures of the shadow-herd turned to look at him as he neared, and though recognition gleamed in some of those dark eyes, many of the other deer scarcely noticed him. Only one-the largest of the stags, or perhaps merely the closest-regarded Barrick as if he knew him. A cloud of lavender light hung above the beast's brow like an immeasurably distant star.
Manchild. You are a long way from what you know. Has your breath stopped so soon?
He knelt before the great beast. Ynnir-my lord. I am sorry I must trouble you…
Trouble? The mighty head dipped. I am beyond that, child. Soon I will be beyond this as well.
For a moment the mystery of it all drove his other thoughts from his mind. Where will you go, Lord? What is next?
It is not known until it is known, Ynnir said. And even those who know cannot say. Why are you here, manchild? You have gone far beyond what you may safely encompass.
I know. But I have a terrible need. He told the lordly beast of his fear and his hope. When he had finished, the stag waited silently for a moment.
If I do this I will not be able to remain here, it told him at last. I will give my last strength and be forced to move on to whatever waits beyond-perhaps oblivion. And still it may not be enough…
I can only ask you, Lord-for the sake of your sister and for the sake of the Fireflower.
The stag turned and walked away from him.
For a moment, Barrick was stunned, terrified that he had been rejected and would be left helpless in these bleak spaces, waiting for the hungry shadows to move in. But he saw that the great stag was moving through the herd. Each one of his fellows that he approached bowed its head as he came, then they stood together, antlers intertwined. Each time Ynnir stepped away, his own flame had grown a little wider and burned a little more brightly.
One by one, the members of the herd added their glow to Ynnir's until at last a great ball of cold violet blazed above his brow as he returned to the place where Barrick waited. Ynnir seemed fainter now-Barrick thought he could see the dark hills through his body.
Here, the stag told him. The last of the kings by the river give their blessings, though it costs us all dearly. Bow to me and we will give you this last gift.
Barrick lowered his head. The violet light seemed to surround him, warming everything he looked at, although the darkness still stood close on all sides. He could feel the glow inside him as well, strengthening him where moments before he had been as weary as death, lending him hope when he had been empty of all but need. The blessed strength ran through his veins like molten metal, like honey, like the song of a thousand birds. He blinked, and for an instant the dark hills were as bright as if the full summer sun beat down on them. The things in the shadows, panicky in their surprise, fled back into their hiding-holes.
Then the light faded, and Barrick found himself alone on the dark hillside where grass waved in an unfelt wind. Because the kings had made a sacrifice he did not fully understand, he now had the strength to grab at his last chance.
May the gods or whoever else watches you speed your journey, great kings, he prayed. May you find shelter from the storms. May you find green grass and clear water.
The Fireflower only touches something in us that is already there, Barrick thought, and it seemed like a great understanding. Hatred alone can't take someone as far as I have traveled this journey. He thought of Zosim waiting for centuries in the darkness of the nightmare lands. Lust and greed aren't enough, either. In the end only duty, or the love from which duty springs, can provide strength for such a journey.
He had left the hill behind him and traveled through another sort of dark land now, one where trees crowded thickly and the shadows were once more beginning to fill with watching eyes. Somehow he had left his four-legged form behind; he seemed to wear a man's body and move at a man's pace.
Exhaustion slowed him until it was all he could do to pick his feet up off the ground, but he persevered, and at last heard the sound he had been listening for for so long-a whisper at first, then a murmur that grew louder and louder until it seemed he was hearing the breath of everything. It was a river… no, it was the river, he knew, although he did not entirely understand. More than a passageway to whatever lay beyond death, it was an idea of what the darkness itself could become.
But most importantly for Barrick at that moment, it was the river. The last boundary before the lands of death.
He found her as he had thought he might, standing thigh-deep in the shallows and groping like a blind woman, as though she could not understand where she was. He went a little way toward her but stopped before he entered the river. He knew that would be a mistake, even here where it seemed so shallow.
"Qinnitan." He spoke quietly, knowing she would be dizzied, fearful. "I am here. Go no farther." Even these quiet words startled her. She took a teetering step backward and the opaque waters slithered and lapped at her slender hips. She was so young! How could it be that she had suffered so much, seen so much? "How little you deserved any of this," he said, half to himself.
She stirred. "Who… who's there?"
"Qinnitan, it's me. It's Barrick." But as he said the name, he suddenly didn't know what it meant-was it a mortal's name, or that of a half-blood mongrel of the Qar royal house? A man driven by love, or a man in whom nothing so soft remained? "Come with me, Qinnitan."
She still didn't move, and when she spoke, it was as if repeating a word she didn't understand. "Barrick…?"
He slowly extended his hand and saw a little of the violet glow kindle on his fingertips. She leaned away but went no deeper into the water. When he touched her, she gave a little shiver but let herself be led toward the grassy shore.
Once her feet touch the earth you cannot look at her. The chorus of the Fireflower had returned as though awakening from a short sleep.
It is the Orphan's curse. The gods love their tricks, and dreaming gods are the most whimsical of all…
Hold her hand, but do not open your eyes.
We will sing you the path.
A part of Barrick feared it was only errant nonsense-sometimes the Fireflower voices seemed more like ideas than actual intelligences, fleeting phantoms without the coherence of a
living person. Still, he knew he could not save her by himself-she was too close to death. He shut his eyes tight, took her hand, and let the voices guide him.
There were times as they walked away from the river that she seemed so insubstantial Barrick could not even be certain he still held her, but he knew he dared not look-that if he did, even the small chance they had would be lost.
Ignore all other voices, the Fireflower told him.
Even those that seem sweet. Keep your back to the river. Trust what you feel.
He let himself open to the darkness and the moving air, the damp air above the slow but powerful black river. He did his best to keep it behind him.
"Qinnitan? I'm here. Can you hear me?"
She did not reply, so he spoke to her again. At last, and from much farther away than should have been possible with her hand still clutched in his, he heard her say, "Who is calling? I'm frightened."
Words were little use-only her hand in his was real; he knew that as long as he held it she was still there.
They walked back across the dark lands for what seemed like years. At times, he saw and heard things that made him think they had almost found their way out, but the Fireflower voices warned him not to trust these phantoms, that it was only the lonely, bitter things that lived in this place laying snares for him. At last, Qinnitan became restive and began to fight him. He struggled with her for what seemed hours, trying to calm her but unable to do so. At last, overwhelmed by her terror and pain, he admitted to himself that he could not impel her any farther.
The Fireflower voices urged him not to give up, insisted that he keep fighting.
"No." He said it for them much as for her. "I will no longer force you. Why are you frightened, Qinnitan? I am trying to help you back toward the light. Why do you fight against me?"
But she couldn't hear him, or if she could she didn't understand, and only went on struggling like a frightened child. Barrick feared that if he continued against her will, he might lose her-might even destroy what little remained of her. He could think of nothing else to do, though it terrified him, so he let go of her hand.