The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

  Simon was observing how the noon sun had set vertical columns of light among the tree trunks. “Have you ever traveled to the South?” he asked at last.

  “If by ‘South’ you mean south of Erkynland, my answering is: yes, once or twice. But please remember: among my people almost any leaving of Yiqanuc is ‘travel to the South.’”

  Simon was not paying very close attention. “Did you travel by yourself? Did…did…did Qantaqa go with you?”

  Binabik wrinkled another smile. “No. It was long ago, before my wolf-friend was born, when I was…”

  “How did you…how did you get this wolf?” Simon interrupted. Binabik gave an exasperated hiss.

  “It is a difficult thing answering questions when one is having continual interruptions with more questions’”

  Simon tried to look penitent, but he was feeling the spring as a bird feels wind in its feathers. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been told before…by a friend…that I ask too many questions.”

  “It is not ‘too many,’ ” Binabik said, using his stick to push a lowhanging branch away from their path, “—it is ‘piled on top of one and another.’ ” The troll barked a short laugh. “Now, which do you want for my answering?”

  “Oh, whichever you want. You decide,” Simon replied meekly, then jumped as the troll smacked him lightly on the wrist with his walking stick.

  “It would please me your not being obsequious. That is a trait of marketplace people who are selling shoddy goods. I am sure to prefer endless, stupid questions to that.”

  “Ob…obseek…?”

  “Obsequious. Flattering with oiliness. It is not liked by me. In Yiqanuc we say: ‘Send the man with the oily tongue to go and lick the snowshoes.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we do not like flatterers. Never mind, then!” Binabik threw back his head and laughed, black hair swinging, eyes nearly disappearing as his round cheeks rose toward his brows. “Never mind! We have wandered as far as the wandering of Lost Piqipeg—wandered in our conversing, I mean. No, do not ask anything. We will stop here for a rest, and I will be telling you now about how I met my friend Qantaqa.”

  They chose a huge stone, an outcropping of granite thrusting up from the forest floor like a speckled fist, its upper half painted by a swath of sunlight. The young man and the troll climbed up to perch on top. The forest was silent around them; the dust of their passage slowly settled. Binabik reached into his bag and produced a stick of dried meat and a goatskin of thin, sour wine. As Simon chewed, he kicked off his shoes and wiggled his sore toes in the warming sun. Binabik looked at the shoes critically.

  “We shall have to be finding something else.” He poked the tattered, blackened leather. “A man’s soul is in peril when his feet are hurting.”

  Simon grinned at this thought.

  They spent a while in silent contemplation of the surrounding forest, the living greenery of Oldheart. “Well,” said the troll at last, “the first thing that needs understanding is that my people do not shun the wolf—although we are not usually having friendships with them, either. Trolls and wolves have lived side by side for many thousands of years, and we are leaving each other alone most times.

  “Our neighbors, if so polite a term can be used, the hairy men of the Rimmersgard, think the wolf a dangerous animal of great treachery. You are familiar with the men of Rimmersgard?”

  “Oh, yes.” Simon was pleased to be in the know. “They were all about in the Hay—” he caught himself, “in Erchester. I have talked to many of them. They wear their beards long,” he added, demonstrating his familiarity.

  “Hmmm. Well, since we live in the high mountains, we Qanuc—we trolls—and we do not kill these wolves, the Rimmersmen think we are wolf-demons. In their frost-crazy, blood-feuding brains,” Binabik put on a look of comical disgust, “it is their thought that troll-folk are magical and evil. There have been bloody fights, very many many, between Rimmersmen—Croohok we call them—and my Qanuc-folk.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Simon, thinking guiltily of the admiration he had felt for old Duke Isgrimnur—who, on reflection, did not seem like the type to massacre innocent trolls, testy though he was reputed to be.

  “Sorry? You should not be. Now myself, I am thinking that men—and women—of Rimmersgard are clumsy, stupid, and suffer with excessive tallness—but I do not think they are then evil, or deserving of being made dead. Ahhh,” he sighed, shaking his head like a philosopher-priest in a dead-end tavern, “Rimmersmen are a puzzlement to me.”

  “But what about the wolves?” Simon asked, then silently chided himself for interrupting. This time Binabik did not seem to mind.

  “My people live on craggy Mintahoq, in the mountains called Trollfells by the Rimmersmen. We ride the shaggy, nimble-footed rams, raising them up from tiny lambkins until they have enough bigness to bear us through the mountain passes. There is nothing, Simon, that is in this world quite like being a ram-rider of Yiqanuq. To sit your steed, to be wending the pathways of the Roof of the World…to be leaping in a single bound of greatness across mountain chasms so very deep, so exquisitely deep that if a rock was dropped by you it would take half a day to strike bottom…”

  Binabik smiled and squinted in happy reverie. Simon, trying to visualize such heights, suddenly felt a little dizzy and put his palms flat on the reassuring stone. He looked down. This perch, at least, stood only a man’s height above the earth.

  “Qantaqa was a pup when she was found by me,” Binabik continued at last. “Her mother had been probably killed, or from starvation had died. She snarled at me when I discovered her, a ball of white far given away in the snow by black nose.” He smiled. “Yes, she is gray now. Wolves, like people are doing, often change their colors as they grow, I found myself…touched by her effort at defending. I brought her back with me. My master…” Binabik paused. The harsh cry of a jay filled the moment. “My master said if I would be taking her from the arms of Qinkipa the Snow Maiden, then I was assuming duties of a parent. My friends had thought that I was not being sensible. Aha! I said. I will teach this wolf to carry me just like a ram with horns. It was not believed—it was not a thing that had been done before. So many things are things not done before…”

  “Who is your master?” Below them Qantaqa, who had been napping in a splash of sun, rolled onto her back and kicked, the white fur of her belly thick as a king’s mantle.

  “That, Simon-friend, is another tale to tell: not today. To finish, though, I will say that I did teach Qantaqa to carry me. The teaching was a very…”—he wrinkled his upper lip—“diverting experience. But there is no regret in me for this. I travel often, farther than my tribesmen. A ram is a wonderful jumping animal, but their minds are very small. A wolf is clever-clever-clever, and they are faithful as a debt unpaid. When they take a mate, do you know, they are taking only one for their entire lives? Qantaqa is my friend, and I think her much preferable to any sheep. Yes, Qantaqa? Yes?”

  The great gray wolf sat up, her wide yellow eyes fixed on Binabik. She dipped her head and uttered a short bark.

  “You see?” the troll grinned. “Come now, Simon. I think we should be to marching while this sun stands high.” He slid down the rock, and the boy followed, hopping as he pulled on his ruined shoes.

  As the afternoon passed, and they tramped on through the crowding trees, Binabik answered questions about his travels, displaying an enviable familiarity with places Simon had trod only in daydreams. He spoke of the summer sun revealing the gleaming inner facets of icy Mintahoq like a jeweler’s deft hammer; of the northernmost regions of this same Aldheorte Forest, a world of white trees and silence and the tracks of strange animals; of the cold outer villages of Rimmersgard that had barely heard of the Court of Prester John, where wild-eyed, bearded men huddled-over fires in the shadows of high mountains, and even the bravest of them feared the shapes that walked the howling darkness above. He spun tales of the hidden gold mines of Hernystir, secret, serp
entine tunnels that wound down into the black earth among the bones of the Grainspog mountains, and he spoke of the Hernystiri themselves, artful, dreamy pagans whose gods inhabited the green fields and the sky and stones—the Hernystiri, who of all men had known the Sithi best.

  “And the Sithi are real…” Simon said quietly, with wonder and more than a little fear as he remembered. “The doctor was right.”

  Binabik cocked an eyebrow. “Of course Sithi are real. Do you suppose they sit here in the forest wondering if men are real? What a nonsense! Men are but a recentness compared to them—although a recentness that has terribly damaged them.”

  “It’s just that I had never seen one before!”

  “You had never seen me or my people, either,” Binabik replied. “You have never seen Perdruin or Nabban or the Meadow Thrithing…is this, then, meaning that they do not have existence? What a fund of superstitious silliness is owned by you Erkynlanders! A man whose wisdom is true does not sit in waiting for the world to come at him piece by piece for proving its existence!” The troll stared straight ahead, eyebrows knotted; Simon was afraid he might have offended him.

  “Well, what does a wise man do, then?” he asked, a little defiantly.

  “The wise man is not waiting for the realness of the world to prove itself to him. How can one be an authority before the experiencing of this realness? My master taught me—and to me it seems chash, meaning correct—that you must not defend against the entering of knowledge.”

  “I’m sorry, Binabik,” Simon kicked at an oak boll and sent it tumbling, “but I’m just a scullion—a kitchen boy. That kind of talk makes no sense to me.”

  “Aha!” Quick as a snake, Binabik leaned over and whacked Simon on the ankle with his stick. “That is being an example, exactly! Aha!” The troll shook his small fist. Qantaqa, thinking herself summoned, came galloping back to dart in circles around the pair, until they had to halt to avoid tripping over the frisking wolf.

  “Hinik, Qantaqa!” Binabik hissed. She bounded off, tail bobbing like any tame castle hound. “Now, friend Simon,” the troll said, “please forgive my squeaking, but you have made my point.” He held his hand up to stall Simon’s question. The youth felt a smile twitching his lips at the sight of the little troll so rapt and serious. “First,” said Binabik, “scullion boys are not from fish spawned, or chicken eggs hatched. They can be thinking like the wisest wise folk, if only they do not fight entering knowledge: if they do not say ‘can’t’ or ‘won’t.’ Now, it was explaining that I was going to do about this—do you mind?”

  Simon was amused. He didn’t even mind being struck on the ankle—it hadn’t really hurt, anyway. “Please, explain to me.”

  “Then, let us be considering knowledge like a river of water. If you are a piece of cloth, how are you finding out more about this water—if someone dips in your comer and then pulls it out again, or if you are having yourself thrown in without resistance, so that this water is flowing all through you, around you, and you are becoming soaking wet? Well, then?”

  The thought of being flung into a cold river made Simon shiver a littleThe sunlight had begun to take a sideways angle: the afternoon was dwindling. “I suppose…I suppose getting soaked might make you know more about water.”

  “With exactness!” Binabik was pleased. “With exactness! Thus, you are seeing my lesson-point.” The troll resumed walking.

  In truth, Simon had forgotten the original question, but he cared little. There was something quite charming about this little person—an earnestness beneath the good humor. Simon felt himself to be in good, although small, hands.

  It was hard not to notice that they were now headed in a westerly direction; as they tramped along the slanting rays of the sun were nearly full in their eyes. Sometimes a dazzling bolt would find its way through a chink in the trees and Simon would stumble for a moment, the forest air suddenly full of glittering pinpricks of light. He asked Binabik about their westward turn.

  “Oh, yes,” the troll replied, “we are heading ourselves toward the Knock. We shall not get there today, though. Soon we will stop to make some camp and eat.”

  Simon was glad to hear this, but could not forgo asking another question—it was, after all, his adventure too. “What is the Knock?”

  “Oh, it is not a dangerous thing, Simon. It is the point at which the southern foothills of Wealdhelm dip down with a saddle-like air, and one can easily be leaving the thick and not-too-safe forest and cross to the Wealdhelm Road

  . As I was saying, though, we shall not reach it this day. Let us cast around for a camp.”

  Within a few furlongs they found a site that looked promising: a cluster of large rocks on a gently sloping bank beside a forest stream. The water splashed quietly along a course of round, dove-colored stones, eddying noisily around the twisted branches that had tumbled into the stream, disappearing at last into a thicket a few yards below. A stand of aspens, green coins for leaves, rattled softly in the beginnings of an evening breeze.

  The pair quickly built a fire circle with dry stones found by the watercourse. Qantaqa seemed fascinated by their project, darting close at intervals to growl and lightly snap at the rocks as they were carried laboriously into place. A short while later the troll had a campfire flickering, pale and spectral in the last potent sunbeams of the fading afternoon.

  “Now, Simon,” he said, elbowing the intrusive Qantaqa into an unwilling crouch, “we find it hunting time. Let us discover some suitable supper-bird and I will show you clever tricks.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “But how will we catch them?” Simon looked at the White Arrow clutched in his own sweat-grimed paw. “Will we have to throw this at them?”

  Binabik chortled, slapping his hide-suited knee. “You have some funniness for a scullion boy! No, no, I said I will show you clever tricks. Do you see, where I live there is only a short season for the hunting of birds. In the cold winter there are not any birds at all, except for the cloud-high-flying snow geese who pass our mountain home on their way to the Northeastern Wastes. But in some of the southern lands I have traveled, they are hunting and eating only birds. There I learned some cleverness. I will show you!”

  Binabik picked up his walking staff and signed for Simon to follow. Qantaqa leaped up, but the troll waved her off.

  “Hinik aia, old friend,” he told her kindly. Her ears twitched, and her gray brow furrowed. “We are going on a mission of stealthiness, and your big paws will not be a help.” The wolf turned and slouched back to stretch by the campfire. “Not that she cannot be deadly quiet,” the troll told Simon, “but it is when she wants to only.”

  They crossed the stream and waded into the underbrush. Within a short time they were into deep woods again; the noise of the water behind them had faded to a murmur. Binabik squatted down, inviting Simon to join him.

  “Now we are going to work,” he said. He gave his walking stick a quick twist; to Simon’s surprise it separated into two segments. The short one, he now saw, was the handle of a knife whose blade had been concealed within the hollow length of the longer section. The troll up-ended the longer segment and shook it, and a leather pouch slid out onto the ground. He then removed a small piece from the other end; the long segment was now a hollow tube. Simon laughed with pure delight.

  “That’s wonderful!” he exclaimed. “Like a conjuring trick.”

  Binabik nodded sagely. “Surprises in small packages—the Qanuc credo, that is!” He took the knife up by its cylindrical bone handle and poked for a moment in the hollow tube. Another bone tube slid partway out, and he finished the removal with his fingers. When he held it up for inspection, Simon could see that this tube had a row of holes along one side.

  “A…flute?”

  “A flute, yes. Of what good is supper without music following?” Binabik put the instrument aside and poked the leather pouch with the knife tip. Unfolded, it revealed a pressed clump of carded wool and yet one more slim tube, this one no longer than a fin
ger.

  “Smaller and smaller we go, yes?” The troll twisted this open to show Simon the contents, tiny needles of bone or ivory, packed close together. Simon reached out a hand to touch one of the delicate slivers, but Binabik hastily pulled the container away.

  “Please, no,” he said. “Be observing.” He plucked one of the needles out with thumb and arched forefinger, holding it up to catch the dying afternoon light; the dart’s sharp tip was smeared with some black and sticky substance.

  “Poison?” breathed Simon. Binabik nodded seriously, but his eyes showed a certain excitement.

  “Of course,” he said. “Not all are so poisoned—it is not a necessity for the killing of small birds, and it has an unpleasant tending to ruin the meat—but one cannot stop a bear or other large, angered creature with only a tiny dart.” He slid the envenomed needle down among its fellows and selected another, unstained dart.

  “You’ve killed a bear with one?” Simon asked, extremely impressed.

  “Yes, I have done it—but the wise troll does not stay in the area while waiting for the bear to know he is dead. The poison is not finishing its work immediately, you see. Very big are bears.”

  While talking, Binabik had torn off a piece of the coarse wool and unraveled the fibers with the point of his knife, fingers working as quickly and competently as Sarah the upstairs maid going at the mending. Before this homely memory could summon any companions, Simon’s attention was captured again as Binabik began wrapping the threads rapidly around the base of the dart, weaving them over one another until the butt end was a soft globe of wool. When it was finished he pushed the whole thing, needle and wad, into one end of the hollow walking stick. He wrapped the other needles in their pouch, tucked it in his belt, and handed the rest of the dismantled staff to Simon.