by Tad Williams
He looked startled. "Never my prisoner, Lady. Never. Do not even think such a terrible thing. Of course, you are free to go where you will… although, yes, I pray you will let me take you back to Tessis. We can clear your name of these offensive, baseless charges. It is the least I can do."
"But your stepmother, Ananka, hates me…"
For a moment Eneas' expression hardened. "She is not my stepmother. With the grace of the gods my father will soon end this unseemly relationship."
Briony doubted it would be so easy. "Still," she said, "Two people close to me were poisoned by someone trying to murder me."
"But you would be at my side," Eneas said. "Under my personal protection."
The idea of letting someone as kind and strong and competent as Eneas take charge of her was certainly tempting-Briony had been on her own a very long time. Her father was gone, both her brothers were gone, and it would be such a relief just to rest… "No," she said at last. "I thank you, Highness, but I can't go back to Tessis."
He did his best to smile. "So be it. Still, whatever refuge you choose, Princess, I hope you will let me escort you there safely. That is the least I owe you for your harsh treatment in my father's court."
"Then take me back to the players-your captain knows where they are. And tell me everything you've heard and seen since we last spoke," said Briony. "But I think no matter what I hear, I'll still want the same thing-to go back to Southmarch. My people are in sore need."
"If that is your choice," said Eneas solemnly, "then I will take you there, though the legions of black Zmeos himself block my way."
"Please, don't talk about the gods, especially the angry ones," Briony said in sudden alarm. "They are too much with us already."
When it happened, it happened quickly.
Many days had passed as the fishing boat on which Qinnitan was a prisoner followed the coast of Syan into lower Brenland and into the straits that separated Brenland from Connord and the many smaller, rocky islands surrounding it. As a young woman who had spent most of her life in the Hive or the Royal Seclusion Qinnitan would have known none of this, but she had discovered that during the morning hours after he had swallowed his potion or whatever it was, Daikonas Vo would now sometimes answer questions. Clearly, something of his iron control was slipping, but Qinnitan did her best to speak to him only sparingly for fear of this unlikely spring of knowledge suddenly drying up.
Qinnitan had known for a few days that Vo was taking his physick every night as well as in the morning: he became more and more agitated as the afternoons wore away until he quieted himself with the potion a short time after dark. She did not understand exactly what this meant but she was grateful for the slackening of his attention, which allowed her time to think and saw through her rope with an iron rail.
For some time all she could see on the coast sliding past had been stony headlands, cruel cliffs with waves beating at them like beggars pounding on a bolted door. But today, as Vo paced the deck and old Vilas plied the tiller, his sons sitting at his feet like stones, the fishing boat slid past a last bulwark of hills. The rocky front suddenly dropped away to reveal a great, flat expanse of wet sand dotted here and there with massive round stones like the dropped toys of giant children. Beyond this wet tidal flat the land rose into grassy hills spotted with groves of white-barked trees; beyond lay a forest lay spread like a dark green blanket on the knees of distant hills.
Tonight, she decided: if it was ever to happen, it must be tonight. Soon the coastline might be all rocky cliffs again as it had been for days, stones against which even a good swimmer would be crushed and drowned. It had to be tonight.
It wasn't hard to stay awake, but it was very hard to remain still. She forced herself to keep her eyes closed as much as she could, fighting the urge to make certain that the moon she had just looked at a few moments before was still as bright.
Vo was mumbling to himself, a good sign. When she had last dared to look at him he had been scratching his arms and neck with his fingernails as he paced, and rubbing his belly as though it pained him.
"… Waking up," he said, then let loose a string of curses in gutter Xixian that would have made the Qinnitan of a year earlier blush and grow dizzy. "Tricked!" he growled. "Not asleep at all. Both of them! They knew! Did it to me!"
He stopped pacing at last and Qinnitan lay as still as she could, doing her best not to breathe. She risked opening her eye just a slit. Vo had his back to her and was licking the needle that he used to take his potion. To her surprise, he dipped into the bottle again, then lifted the needle to his mouth.
Licking the needle three times in a day! Was that good for her or bad? She thought for a moment and decided it could only be good. She found it even more difficult to wait now, but the gods were kind to her: after only a short while, Vo sagged down to sit on the deck.
Through half-shut eyes she watched until the moon had dropped behind the mainsail. Then, after taking a long breath and letting it out slowly, Qinnitan rolled over, snapped the last threads of rope, and crawled toward the shadowed figure leaning against the mast.
"Akar," she whispered, using the Xixian word for master. "Akar Vo, can you hear me?" She reached out and gave him a carefully measured shake. His head lolled. His mouth opened a little as though he might say something, which made her start back in alarm, but his eyes remained shut and no sound came.
She gave him another gentle shake and as she did she let her hand slide into his cloak. She searched until she found his purse and drew it out. It was heavier than she'd expected, made of heavily oiled leather. She shoved the bits of hard bread she had saved into it, then froze in terror for a moment as her captor stirred and mumbled. When he had once more gone still, she quickly tied the purse to the piece of cord she wore as a belt over her tattered, threadbare servant's dress from Hierosol. Her heart was beating very fast. Did she really dare to do this?
Of course she did. She could do nothing else. Now that Pigeon was gone she owed her life to no one. If she died trying to escape-well, that still would be better than what awaited her when she was given back to the autarch, of that Qinnitan had no doubt.
She reached into Vo's cloak again and found the bottle, pinching it carefully between finger and thumb to draw it out. For a moment she hesitated. If she drank it herself, all her problems would be over-at least all problems that troubled the living. The darkness inside the small glass container called to her, a sleep from which she would never have to awake-so tempting…! But the memory of the young man named Barrick, her dream-friend, tugged at her. Had he really turned his back on her? Or had something happened to him-did he need her help? If she ended her life she would never know.
Decided, Qinnitan pulled out the glass stopper, sent up a prayer to the golden bees of Nushash that she had tended for so long, then upended the bottle over Vo's mouth.
She was almost undone by the thickness of the physic, which did not splash out like water but rather oozed like pomegranate syrup: it had barely begun to drip when he started to struggle. Still, she managed to pour at least a small spoonful into the back of his throat before he came awake and broke free from her, coughing and sputtering. He knocked the bottle from her hands and it skittered down the deck, but Qinnitan did not care. She must have given him dozens of times his normal portion-surely that would be enough to kill him.
She did not wait to find out, of course. Vilas and his dull, cruel sons were on the boat, the older of the two boys minding the tiller while the other two slept. In a moment even that dullard would notice the struggle. She dashed to the low rail and threw herself over it on the landward side. When the first shock of the cold water had passed, she rose to the surface and began to swim as best she could toward the dark, distant shore. When she had gone a little way she turned to look back toward the boat. She saw something dark go over the side and make a pale splash in the moon-lit water. Her heart flopped in her chest. Was Vo coming after her? Could it be that even a mouthful of poison hadn't killed h
im?
Perhaps he stumbled and fell over the side, she told herself as she quickly started splashing toward the shore again. Maybe he's already drowned.
Only a long stone's throw from the fishing boat Qinnitan was already cold and exhausted-at times it even seemed the water was pushing her away from the shore, as though Efiyal, the wicked old god of the ocean, was doing his best to defeat her.
I won't… she thought, although she wasn't quite sure what she was resisting and she was finding it hard to think. Death? The gods? Daikonas Vo? I won't!
She fought on, struggling and thrashing so that she knew they must be able to see her from the boat, but the boat did not come after her. Did that mean Vo was dead? Or that they felt sure she was beyond rescue?
It didn't matter. She could do nothing but what she was doing.
Water stung her eyes and threatened to fill her mouth. The moon hung above her like a giant eye, rippling as her head sunk beneath the water each time and then rose again. Her legs were like stone, dragging her down no matter how hard she kicked them against the grip of the ocean. And now the weariness seeping through her, which only a short while earlier had burned in her veins and lungs like fire, had begun to turn into something else-a killing cold that spread inch by inch until at last she could no longer feel her limbs, did not know up or down, living or drowning, whether it was the moon itself that hung above her or its reflection in the mirroring deeps…
Qinnitan's feet touched sand and smooth rocks, then lost them again. A few more jerking lunges and the shore was beneath her again, this time for good. Her feet touched the bottom and the water was only at her neck… then her breasts… then her waist.
When she could no longer feel the water Qinnitan dropped onto the wet stones of the beach and followed the moon up into darkness.
Qinnitan woke up shivering under a bone-white moon. She could see no sign of Vo or his boat, but she felt terribly exposed on the beach and the wind was cold and strong. She squeezed as much water as she could out of her sopping dress, then slowly began to make her way toward the hills, her bare feet so cold she scarcely noticed the sharp stones on which she trod.
Partway up the hill she found herself in a sea of long grasses that leaned this way and that in the wind, whispering like anxious children. Qinnitan was too tired to walk any farther. She got down on her knees and crawled a little, thinking in her exhausted, dreaming way that she was somehow tunneling to safety, that she would reach a place where no one could see her. Finally she let herself sink down into the deep, grassy murmur until she could no longer feel the burn of the wind and then the world escaped her again.
"I wish you had not cut off your hair, Princess," said Eneas as he helped her pull the mail shirt down over her head. "Although in truth such a mannish look will match more nearly with your current garb."
"People will do strange things when they are fleeing for their lives."
The prince colored. "Of course, my lady, I did not mean…"
Briony changed the subject. "This is very light-much lighter than I would have expected." In truth, the armor did not feel a great deal less comfortable than one of the formal dresses she had worn at court, let alone the stomacher and starched collar and layer upon layer of petticoats that she had been forced to wear beneath the dresses. The mail hung comfortably over a padded undershirt and dangled to almost her knees, but was slit on either side to make riding easier.
"Yes." The prince was pleased she had noticed. It was one of his more endearing qualities, Briony couldn't help feeling, that he was always happy when she showed interest in arms and armor-or at least more interest than other women would. "As I told you, it is modeled on the Tuani and Mihanni, fast desert riders like your teacher Shaso commanded. No longer can slow-moving knights trample an enemy at will. What the longbow made difficult during our grandfathers' day, guns will soon make impossible. Even the strongest armor can stop a rifle ball only from a distance, but it leaves its wearer ungainly on a horse, and helpless when he falls…" He colored again. "I am talking on and on. Let me help you with your surcoat." Eneas and his page slid the garment over her as she held out her arms, then Eneas stepped away, perhaps out of a sense of propriety, while the young page tied up the sides.
"There," said the prince. "Now you are a proper Temple Dog!"
Briony laughed. "And honored to be one, even if only for show. But is it truly necessary this soon?"
"Southmarch is a long way, Princess, and the north is unsettled and dangerous. Lawlessness has followed in the wake of the fairy army. Those bandits that Captain Linas and his men killed are by no means the only ones, and there are many others who do not love my father or Syan, even within our own borders."
"But surely no one will attack a troop this size!"
"I do not doubt you are right. But that does not mean someone might not fire on us from cover with a bow or a gun." He held out a helmet with a drape of mail at the neck. "And so you will wear this, too, Princess."
"May I at least wait to put it on until we leave the tent?"
He smiled at last. Briony had to acknowledge that Eneas was really quite good to look at, with his big open face and strong jaw. "Of course, my lady. But then you may not take it off again until we reach Southmarch. No, nor even then."
The prince had ordered his men to prepare for the journey north as he and Briony and his private guard rode back to where the players were still being held in uneasy custody by Syannese soldiers.
"Again we are rescued from a most unpleasant fate, thanks to you, Princess," said Finn Teodoros.
"A fate that wouldn't have threatened you were it not for me," she said. "I'll do what I can to make it up to you all. How do the others fare?"
"As you would guess," Finn told her. "Mourning Dowan Birch's death, of course. We all loved him, but I think Estir loved him more than the rest of us realized."
Briony sighed. "Poor Dowan. He was always so kind to me. If I ever have my throne again I will build a theater and name it in his honor."
"That would be kind, but I would not mention it yet, while the wound is so new." Finn shook his head. "I cannot tell you how my heart sank when they took you away, Highness-yet here you are! There is something epic in your adventures, I cannot help feeling, and I suspect I have only heard half of them from you."
"Teodoros may praise you to the heavens," said a voice behind her, "but don't expect it from me."
Briony turned to find Estir Makewell staring up at her, eyes red and hair draggled.
"Estir, I am so sorry…"
"Are you?" The woman seemed sunk into herself, but taut, like an animal poised to spring. "Truly? Then why didn't you ask to pay your respects to Dowan when you first came back?"
"I meant to…"
"Of course." Estir grabbed Briony's arm hard enough that it felt like a kind of assault. "Come, then. Come and see him."
"Estir…" said Finn Teodoros in a warning tone.
"No, I'll go," Briony told him. "Of course I'll go."
She allowed the woman to drag her across the road and back a few steps toward the beginnings of the forest where they had been waylaid. The tall man's body lay on the ground, his face and chest covered in one of the bright costume cloaks he had worn as the god Volios.
"Here," said Estir. "This is what I have left of him." She twitched back the covering, revealing Dowan's long face, fish-belly pale. She had closed his eyes and tied his jaw shut with a length of cloth, but despite the soothing words people always said, the kind giant did not look anything like he was sleeping. He looked like a mere object now, broken and useless.
Like poor Kendrick, she thought. One moment the blood was making a blush in his cheeks, the next moment it was only a drying splash on the floor. We are nothing when the life is gone from us. Our bodies are nothing.
"Are you weeping? " Estir demanded. "Are you weeping for my Dowan? You have some nerve, princess or not. You have the pride of the gods if you can weep for him when it was you who brought this on hi
m." She pointed at the giant's awful, empty face. "Look at him! Look! He was all I had! He was going to marry me when we had a little money! Now he's… he's only…" She swayed and then sank down to her knees, hitching and sobbing. "Kernios lead you s-safely and take you in, dear D-D-Dowan…"
Briony reached down to touch her shoulder; Estir knocked her hand away. "Don't! The others can fawn over you but this was your fault! You never cared for us at all."
"Estir," said Finn as he hurried to Briony's side, "you're being foolish. The princess had nothing to do with this…"
"She had everything to do with this," Estir Makewell snapped. "But no one else will say anything to her because she's a gods-cursed royal! What do I care? My lover is dead-the last chance I had! The last…" She fell forward again, sobbing as she lay her head on the corpse's chest. "Dowan…!"
"Come away, Princess," said Finn. "None of the rest blame you."
But Briony could not help noticing that none of the others had come to welcome her back, either-that Nevin Hewney and Pedder Makewell and the rest had watched from a distance, as though a spell had transformed her into something new and a little frightening.
"I will see that he has a good burial in Layandros," she told Finn. Briony looked to where Prince Eneas waited with his men, deliberately staying at a distance so that she could have this reunion with what he supposed-what she herself had supposed-were her friends. "That's the least I can do."
"I say again, do not blame yourself, Princess. The roads are bad these days and we have spent much of our lives traveling. This might have happened whether we journeyed with you or not."
"But you were traveling with me, Finn, and I didn't give you any choice about it. Without me, Dowan could have stayed behind-could have gone off to tend a farm with Estir."
"And caught the plague, or been gored by his own bull. I'm not certain I believe in the gods, but Fate is something else." Finn shook his head. "Our deaths will find us, Princess-mine, yours, Estir Makewell's-whether we hide from them or not. Dowan's found him here, that's all."