by Tad Williams
“To be fair, Man and Animal both live a similarly brief span of years in Osten Ard, and this is not true of Sithi and Man. If the Fair Folk are not actually deathless, they are certainly much longer-lived than any mortal man, even our nonagenarian king. It could be they do not die at all, except by choice or violence—perhaps if you are a Sitha, violence itself might be a choice…”
Morgenes trailed off. Simon was staring at him open-mouthed.
“Oh, shut that jaw, boy, you look like Inch. It’s my privilege to wander in thought a little bit. Would you rather go back and listen to the Mistress of Chambermaids?”
Simon’s mouth closed, and he resumed sweeping the soot off the wall. He had changed the original footprint shape to something resembling a sheep; he stopped from time to time to eye it appraisingly. An itch of boredom made itself known at the back of his neck: he liked the doctor, and would rather be here than anywhere else—but the old man did go on so! Maybe if he swept a little more of the top part away it would look like a dog…? His stomach growled quietly.
Morgenes went on to explain, in what Simon thought was perhaps unnecessary detail, about the era of peace between the subjects of the ageless Eri-king and those of the upstart human Imperators.
“…so, Sithi and Man found a sort of balance,” the old man said. “They even traded together a little…”
Simon’s stomach rumbled loudly. The doctor smiled a tiny smile and put back the last onion, which he had just lifted from the table.
“Men brought spices and dyes from the Southern Islands, or precious stones from the Grianspog Mountains in Hernystir; in return they received beautiful things from the Eri-king’s coffers, objects of cunning and mysterious workmanship.”
Simon’s patience was at an end. “But what about the shipmen, the Rimmersmen? What about the iron swords?” He looked about for something to gnaw on. The last onion? He sidled cautiously over. Morgenes was facing the window; while he gazed out at the gray noontide, Simon pocketed the papery brown thing and hurried back to the wall-spot. Much diminished in size, the splotch now looked like a serpent.
Morgenes continued without turning away from the window. “I suppose there has been quite a bit of peaceful-times-and-people in my history today.” He wagged his head, walking back to his seat. “Peace will soon give way—never fear.” He shook his head again, and a lock of thin hair settled across his wrinkled forehead. Simon gnawed furtively at his onion.
“Nabban’s golden age lasted a little over four centuries, until the earliest coming of the Rimmersmen to Osten Ard. The Nabbanai Imperium had begun to turn in on itself. Tiyagaris’ line had finally died out, and every new Imperator who seized power was another cast of the dice cup; some were good men who tried to hold the realm together. Others, like Crexis the Goat, were worse than any northern reavers. And some, like Enfortis, were just weak.
“During Enfortis’ reign the iron-wielders came. Nabban decided to withdraw from the north altogether. They fell back across the river Gleniwent so quickly that many of the northern frontier outposts found themselves entirely deserted, left behind to join the oncoming Rimmersmen or die.
“Hmmm…Am I boring you, boy?”
Simon, leaning against the wall, jerked himself upright to face Morgenes’ knowing smile.
“No, Doctor, no! I was just closing my eyes to listen better. Go on!”
Actually, all of these names, names, names were making him a bit drowsy…and he wished the doctor would hurry along to the parts with battles in them. But he did like to be the only one in the entire castle to whom Morgenes was speaking. The chambermaids didn’t know anything about these kind of things…men things. What did maids or serving girls know about armies, and flags, and swords…?
“Simon?”
“Oh! Yes? Go on!” He whirled to sweep off the last of the wallblot as the doctor resumed. The wall was clean. Had he finished without knowing?
“So I will try and make the story a little briefer, lad. As I was saying, Nabban withdrew its armies from the north, becoming for the first time purely a southern empire. It was just the beginning of the end, of course; as time passed, the Imperium folded itself up just like a blanket, smaller and smaller until today they are nothing more than a duchy—a peninsula with its few attendant islands. What in the name of Paldir’s Arrow are you doing?”
Simon was contorting himself like a hound trying to scratch a difficult spot. Yes, there was the last of the wall dirt: a snake-shaped smear across the back of his shirt. He had leaned against it. He turned sheepishly to Morgenes, but the doctor only laughed and continued.
“Without the Imperial garrisons, Simon, the north was in chaos. The shipmen had captured the northernmost part of the Frostmarch, naming their new home Rimmersgard. Not content with that, the Rimmersmen were fanning out southward, sweeping all before them in a bloody advance. Put those folios in a stack against the wall, will you?
“They robbed and ruined other Men, making captives of many, but the Sithi they deemed evil creatures; with fire and cold iron they hunted the Fair Folk to their death everywhere…careful with that one, there’s a good lad.”
“Over here, Doctor?”
“Yes—but by the Bones of Anaxos, don’t drop them! Set them down! If you knew the terrible midnight hours I spent rolling dice in an Utanyeat graveyard to get my hands on them…! There! Much better.
“Now the people of Hernystir—a proud, fierce people whom even the Nabbanai Imperators never really conquered—were not at all willing to bend their necks to Rimmersgard. They were horrified by what the northerners were doing to the Sithi. The Hernystiri had been of all Men the closest to Fair Folk—there is still visible today the mark of an ancient trade road between this castle and the Taig at Hernysadharc. The lord of Hernystir and the Eri-king made a desperate compact, and for a while held the northern tide at bay.
“But even combined, their resistance could not last forever. Fingil, king of the Rimmersmen, swept down across the Frostmarch over the borders of the Eri-king’s territory…” Morgenes smiled sadly. “We’re coming to the end now, young Simon, never fear, coming to the end of it all…
“In the year 663 the two great hosts came to the plains of Ach Samrath, the Summerfield, north of the River Gleniwent. For five days of terrible, merciless carnage the Hernystiri and the Sithi held back the might of the Rimmersmen. On the sixth day, though, they were set on treacherously from their unprotected flank by an army of men from the Thrithings, who had long coveted the riches of Erkynland and the Sithi for their own. They made a fearful charge under cover of darkness. The defense was broken, the Hernystiri chariots smashed, the White Stag of the House of Hem trampled into the bloody dirt. It is said that ten thousand men of Hernystir died in the field that day. No one knows how many Sithi fell, but their losses were grievous, too. Those Hernystiri who survived fled back to the forest of their home. In Hernystir, Ach Samrath is today a name only for hatred and loss.”
“Ten thousand!” Simon whistled. His eyes shone with the terror and grandness of it all.
Morgenes noted the boy’s expression with a small grimace, but did not comment.
“That was the day that Sithi mastery in Osten Ard came to an end, even though it took three long years of siege before Asu’a fell to the victorious northerners.
“If not for strange, horrible magics worked by the Eri-king’s son, there would likely have been not a single Sithi to survive the fall of the Castle. Many did, however, fleeing to the forests, and south to the waters and…and elsewhere.”
Now Simon’s attention was fixed as though nailed. “And the Erl-king’s son? What was his name? What kind of magic did he do?”—a sudden thought—“How about Prester John? I thought you were going to tell me about the king—our king!”
“Another day, Simon.” Morgenes fanned his brow with a sheaf of whisper-thin parchments, although the chamber was quite cool. “There is much to tell about the dark ages after Asu’a fell, many stories. The Rimmersmen ruled here until t
he dragon came. In later years, while the dragon slept, other men held the castle. Many years and several kings in the Hayholt, many dark years and many deaths until John came…” He trailed off, passing a hand over his face as though to brush weariness away.
“But what about the king of the Sithi’s son?” Simon asked quietly. “What about the…the ‘terrible magic’?”
“About the Erl-king’s son…it is better to say nothing.”
“But why?”
“Enough questions, boy!” Morgenes growled, waving his hands. “I am tired of talking!”
Simon was offended. He had only been trying to hear the whole story; why were grown people so easily upset? However, it was best not to boil the hen who lays golden eggs.
“I’m sorry, Doctor.” He tried to look contrite, but the old scholar looked so funny with his pink, flushed monkey-face and his wispy hair sticking up! Simon felt his lip curling toward a smile. Morgenes saw it, but maintained his stem expression.
“Truly, I’m sorry.” No change. What to try next? “Thank you for telling me the story.”
“Not a ‘story’!” Morgenes roared. “History! Now be off with you! Come back tomorrow morning ready to work, for you have still barely begun today’s work!”
Simon got up, trying to keep his smile in check, but as he turned to go it broke loose and wriggled across his face like a ribbon-snake. As the door closed behind him he heard Morgenes cursing whatever eldritch demons had hidden his jug of porter.
Afternoon sunlight was knifing down through chinks in the heavy clouds as Simon made his way back to the Inner Bailey. On the face of it he seemed to dawdle and gape, a tall, awkward, red-haired boy in dust caked clothes. Inside he was aswarm with strange thoughts, a hive of buzzing, murmuring desires.
Look at this castle, he thought—old and dead, stone pressed upon lifeless stone, a pile of rocks inhabited by small-minded creatures. But it had been different once. Great things had happened here. Horns had blown, swords had glittered, great armies had crashed against each other and rebounded like the waves of the Kynslagh battering the Seagate wall. Hundreds of years had passed, but it seemed to Simon it was happening just now only for him, while the slow, witless folk who shared the castle with him crawled past, thinking of nothing but the next meal, and a nap directly afterward.
Idiots.
As he came through the postern gate a glimmer of light caught his eye, drawing it up to the distant walkway that ringed Hjeldin’s Tower. A girl stood there, bright and small as a piece of jewelry, her green dress and golden hair embracing the ray of sunlight as if it had arrowed down from the sky for her alone. Simon could not see her face, but he was somehow certain she was beautiful—beautiful and forgiving as the image of the Immaculate Elysia that stood in the chapel.
For a moment that flash of green and gold kindled him like a spark on dry timber. He felt all the bother and resentment that he had carried disappear, burned away in a hasty second. He was as light and buoyant as swansdown, prey to any breeze that might carry him away, might waft him up to that golden gleam.
Then he looked away from the wonderful faceless girl, down at his own ragged garments. Rachel was waiting, and his dinner had gotten cold. A certain indefinable weight climbed back into its accustomed seat, bending his neck and slumping his shoulders as he trudged toward the servants’ quarters.
5
The Tower Window
Novander was sputtering out in wind and delicate snow; Decander waited patiently, year’s-end in its train.
King John Presbyter had been taken ill after calling his two sons back to the Hayholt, and had returned to his shadowed room, again to be surrounded by leeches, learned doctors, and scolding, fretting body servants. Bishop Domitis swept in from Saint Sutrin’s, Erchester’s great church, and set up shop at John’s bedside, shaking the king awake at all hours to inspect the texture and heft of the royal soul. The old man, continuing to weaken, bore both pain and priest with gallant stoicism.
In the tiny chamber next to the king’s own that Towser had occupied for forty years the sword Bright-Nail lay, oiled and scabbarded, wrapped in fine linens at the bottom of the jester’s oaken chest.
Far and wide across the broad face of Osten Ard the word flew: Prester John was dying. Hernystir in the west and northern Rimmersgard immediately dispatched delegations to the bedside of stricken Erkynland. Old Duke Isgrimnur, John’s left-hand companion at the Great Table, brought fifty Rimmersmen from Elvritshalla and Naarved, the whole company wrapped head to foot in furs and leather for the winter crossing of the Frostmarch. Only twenty Hernystiri accompanied King Lluth’s son Gwythinn, but the bright gold and silver they wore flashed bravely, outshining the poor cloth of their garments.
The castle began to come alive with the music of languages long unheard, Rimmerspakk and Perdruinese and Harcha-tongue. Naraxi’s rolling island speech floated in the gateyard, and the stables echoed to the singsong cadences of the Thrithings-men—the grasslanders, as always, most comfortable around horses. Over these and all others hung the droning speech of Nabban, the busy tongue of Mother Church and her Aedonite priests, taking charge as always of the comings and goings of men and their souls.
In the tall Hayholt and Erchester below these small armies of foreigners came together and flowed apart, for the most part without incident. Although many of these peoples had been ancient enemies, nearly four score years beneath the High King’s Ward had healed many wounds. More gills of ale were bought than harsh words traded.
There was one worrisome exception to this rule of harmony—one difficult to miss or misunderstand. Everywhere they met, under Hayholt’s broad gates or in the narrow alleyways of Erchester, Prince Elias’ green-liveried soldiers and Prince Josua’s gray-shirted retainers jostled and argued, mirroring in public the private division of the king’s sons. Prester John’s Erkynguard were called upon to break up several ugly brawls. At last, one of Josua’s supporters was stabbed by a young Meremund noble, an intimate of the heir-apparent. Luckily, Josua’s man took no fatal harm—the blow was a drunken one, and poorly aimed—and the partisans were forced to heed the rebukes of the older courtiers. The troops of the two princes returned to cold stares and disdainful sneers; open bloodshed was averted.
These were strange days in Erkynland, and in all of Osten Ard, days freighted with equal measures of sorrow and excitement. The king was not dead, but it seemed he soon would be. The whole world was changing—how could anything remain the same once Prester John no longer sat the Dragonbone Chair?
“…Udunsday: dream…Drorsday: better…Frayday: best…Satrinsday: market day…Sunday—rest!”
Down the creaking stairs two at a clip, Simon sang the old rhyme at the top of his voice. He almost knocked over Sophrona the Linen Mistress as she led a squadron of blanket-burdened maids in at the Pine Garden door. She threw herself back against the doorjamb with a little shriek as Simon pounded by. then waved a skinny fist at his fast-departing back.
“I’ll tell Rachel!” she shouted. Her charges stifled laughter.
Who cared for Sophrona? Today was Satrinsday—market day—and Judith the cook had given Simon two pennies to buy some things for her, and a fithing piece—glorious Satrinsday!—to spend on himself. The coins made a lovely, suggestive clink in his leather purse as he spiraled out through the castle’s acres of long, circular courtyards, out the Inner Bailey gate to Middle Bailey, nearly empty now since its residents, the soldiers and the artisans, were mostly on duty or at market.
In Outer Bailey animals milled in the commons yard, bumping miserably together in the cold, guarded by herders who looked scarcely more cheerful. Simon bustled along the rows of low houses, storage rooms, and animal sheds, many of them so old and overgrown with winter-naked ivy that they seemed only warty growths on the High Keep’s inner walls.
The sun was glinting through the clouds on the carvings that swarmed the mighty chalcedony face of the Nearulagh Gate. As he slowed to a puddle-dodging trot, staring open-mout
hed at the intricate depictions of King John’s victory over Ardrivis—the battle that had brought Nabban at last under the royal hand—Simon heard the tumult of swift hooves and the shrill squeak of cart wheels. He looked up in horror to find himself faced with the white, rolling eyes of a horse, mud gouting from beneath its hooves as it plunged through the Nearulagh Gate. Simon flung himself out of the way and felt wind on his face as the horse thundered by, the cart drawn behind it pitching wildly. He had a brief glimpse of the driver, dressed in a dark hooded cloak lined with scarlet. The man’s eyes raked him as the cart hurtled past—they were black and shiny, like the cruel button-orbs of a shark; although the contact was fleeting, Simon felt almost that the driver’s gaze burned him. He reeled back, clutching at the stone facing of the gate, and watched as the cart disappeared around the track of Outer Bailey. Chickens squawked and flapped in its wake, except for those that lay crushed and bloody in the wagon’s ruts. Muddied feathers drifted to the ground.
“Here, boy, not hurt are you?” One of the gatewarders peeled Simon’s trembling hand from the carvings and set him back upright. “Get on with you, then.”
Snow swirled in the air and stuck melting to his cheeks as he walked down the long hill toward Erchester. The chink of the coins in his pocket now played to a slower, wobbly-kneed rhythm.
“That priest is mad as the moon,” Simon heard the warder say to his gate companion. “Were he not Prince Elias’ man…”
Three little children following their toiling mother up the damp hillpath pointed at long-legged Simon as he passed, laughing at the expression on his pale face.
Main Row was roofed all over with stitched skins that stretched across the wide thoroughfare from building to building. At each waycrossing were set great stone fire-cairns, most—but certainly not all—of their smokes billowing up through holes in the roof-tenting. Snow fluttering down through the chimney holes sizzled and hissed in the hot air. Warming themselves by the flames or strolling and talking—all the while surreptitiously examining the goods displayed on every side—Erchester and Hayholt folk mixed with those of the outer fiefs, eddying together in and out of the wide central row which ran two full leagues from the Nearulagh Gate to Battle Square