The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

  “The Norns!” Binabik said, as if suddenly a bank of fog had been swept away before him.

  ’The Norns,” Jaraauga agreed. “I doubt that at first even the White Foxes knew what he had become, but soon his influence in Sturmrspeik was doubtless too great for anyone to say him nay. His Red Hand, too, has come back with him, although in no form seen before on this earth.”

  “And we had thought that the Loken worshiped by the Black Rimmersmen was only our own fire god, from heathen days,” said Isgrimnur, wondering. “If I had known how far they had strayed from the path of light…” He brushed his fingers against the Tree that hung upon his neck. “Usires!” he breathed softly.

  Prince Josua, who had been listening silently for a long while, leaned forward. “Buy why, if it is indeed this demon out of the past who is our truest enemy, does he not show himself? Why does he play at cat’s-paw with my brother Elias?”

  “Now we are coming to the place where my long years of study atop Tungoldyr cannot be helpful,” Jarnauga shrugged. “I watched, and I listened, and I watched, for that was what I was there to do—but what goes on in the mind of such as the Storm King is more than I can guess at.”

  Ethelferth of Tinsett stood and cleared his throat. Josua nodded for him to speak.

  “If all this is true…and my head is a-swimming with it all, I tell you…then maybe…I can guess at the last.” He looked around, as though expecting to be shouted down for his presumptuousness, but seeing in the faces around him only worry and confusion, he cleared his throat again and went on. “The Rimmersman,” he tilted his head toward old Jarnauga, “said that it was our own Ealhstan Fiskerne who was first a-noticing that this Storm King had come back. That was three hundred years after Fingil took the Hayholt—or whatever was its name then. It’s been nigh two hundred year since. It sounds to me as though this…demon, I suppose, has taken a long time to get strong again.

  “Now,” he continued, “we all know, we men that’ve held land in the midst of greedy neighbors,” he snuck a sly look over at Ordmaer, but the fat baron had gone quite pale some time before, and seemed insensible to innuendo, “that the best way to keep yourself safe, and purchase yourself time to grow strong, is to have your neighbors fight each other. Seems to me that’s what’s going on here. This Rimmersgard demon gives Elias a present, then gets him a-fighting with his barons and dukes and such.” Ethelferth looked around, hitched his tunic and sat down.

  “It’s not a ‘Rimmersgard demon,’” Einskaldir growled. “We’re shriven Aedonite men.”

  Josua ignored the northerner’s comment. “There is truth to what you say. Lord Ethelferth, but I think those who know Elias will agree that he also has designs of his own.”

  “He didn’t need any Sithi demon to steal my land,” Isgrimnur said bitterly.

  “Nevertheless,” Josua continued, “I find Jarnauga, and Binabik of Yiqanuc…and young Simon, who was Doctor Morgenes’ apprentice…all too uncomfortably trustworthy. I wish I could say I did not believe these tales, I am not sure yet what I believe, but neither can I discount them.” He turned to Jarnauga again, who was prodding at the nearest fire with an iron poker. “If these dire warnings you bring are true, then tell me one thing: what does Ineluki want?”

  The old man stared into the fire, then poked it again vigorously. “As I said. Prince Josua, my task was to be the League’s eyes. Both Morgenes’ and young Binabik’s master knew more than I of what might lurk in the mind of the Master of Stormspike.” He raised a hand as if to ward off more questions. “If I had to guess, it would be to say this: think of the hatred that kept Ineluki alive in the void, that brought him back from the fires of his own death…”

  “What Ineluki wants then,” Josua’s voice fell heavily in the dark, breathing hall, “is revenge?”

  Jarnauga only stared into the embers.

  “There is much to think on,” the master of Naglimund said, “and no decisions to be lightly made.” He stood up, tall and pale, slender face a mask before his hidden thoughts. “We shall return here tomorrow sunset.” He went out, with a gray-cloaked guard on either side. In the hall men turned to look at each other, then rose, clustering in small silent groups. Simon saw Miriamele, who had never had her chance to speak, go out between Einskaldir and the limping Duke Isgrimnur. “Come, Simon,” Binabik said, tugging at his sleeve. “I think I will be letting Qantaqa run, now the rains have gentled some. Of such things we must take advantage. At this point I have still not been robbed of my liking for thinking as I walk with wind in my face…and there is much that I should be thinking.”

  “Binabik,” Simon said at last, the shocking wearying day sitting heavily upon him. “Do you remember the dream I had…we all had…in Geloë’s house? Stormspike…and that book?”

  “Yes,” said the little man gravely. “That is one of the things I am worrying with. The words, the words you saw, they catch at me. I am fearing there is a dreadfully important riddle in them.”

  “Du…Du Swar…” Simon struggled with his muddled memories. “Du…”

  “Du Svardenvyrd, it was,” Binabik sighed. “The Weird of the Swords.

  The hot air beat painfully on Pryrates’ hairless and unprotected face, but he would allow no discomfort to show on his features. As he strode across the foundry floor, robes flapping, he was gratified to see the workmen, themselves masked and heavily cloaked, stare and flinch at his passing. Buoyant in the pulsing forge light, he chuckled as he briefly fancied himself an arch-demon striding the tiles of Hell, petty underdevils scattering before him.

  A moment later the mood fell away, and he scowled. Something had happened to that little wretch of a wizard’s boy—Pryrates knew it. He had felt it as clearly as if someone had jabbed him with some sharp thing. There was some strange, tenuous bond still between them from Stoning Night; it bit at him, and gnawed at his concentration. That night’s business had been too important, too dangerous to bear any kind of interference. Now the boy was thinking of that night again, probably telling all he knew to Lluth, or Josua, or someone. Something serious needed to be done about that nasty, prying boy.

  He stopped before the great crucible and drew himself up, arms folded upon his chest. He stood that way for no little while, already angry, growing angrier at the wait. At last one of the foundrymen hurried up and clumsily bent a thick-breeched knee before him.

  “How can we serve you. Master Pryrates?” the man said, voice muffled by the damp cloth wrapped across his lower face.

  The priest stared silently long enough to change the man’s partially-revealed expression from discomfort to real fear.

  “Where is your overseer?” he hissed.

  “There, Father.” The man pointed to one of the dark openings in the foundry-cavern wall. “One of the crank wheels be gone on the winch…your Eminence.”

  Which was gratuitous, since he was still officially no more than a priest, but the sound of it was not inharmonious.

  “Well…?” Pryrates asked. The man did not respond, and Pryrates kicked him hard on his leather-clad shin. “Get him, then!” he shrilled.

  With a head-wagging bow the man limped off, moving like a toddling child in the padded clothes. Pryrates was aware of the beads of sweat forming on his brow, and of the furnace-spewed air that seemed to bake his lungs from the inside, but nevertheless a brief grin stretched his spare features. He had felt worse things: God…or Whoever…knew he had faced worse.

  At last the overseer came, huge and deliberate. His height, when he finally shambled to a halt and stood looming over Pryrates, was almost enough in itself to be regarded as an insult.

  “I suppose you know why I’ve come?” the priest said, black eyes glittering, mouth taut with displeasure.

  “About the engines,” the other replied, voice quiet but childishly petulant.

  “Yes about the siege engines!” Pryrates snapped. “Take off that damned mask, Inch, so I can see you when I speak to you.”

  The overseer reached up a bristle
-haired paw and peeled back the cloth. His ruined face, rippled with burn scars around the empty right eye socket, reinforced the priest’s sensation that he stood in one of the anterooms of the Great Inferno.

  “The engines are not finished,” Inch said stubbornly. “Lost three men when the big one collapsed Drorsday-last. Slow going.”

  “I know they’re not finished. Get more men. Aedon knows there are enough slagging about the Hayholt. We’ll put some of the nobles to work, let them get a few blisters on their fine hands. But the king wants them finished. Now. He’s going into the field in ten days. Ten days, damn you!”

  Inch’s one eyebrow slowly rose, like a drawbridge. “Naglimund. He’s going to Naglimund, isn’t he?” There was a hungry light in his eye.

  “That’s not for such as you to worry about, you scarred ape,” Pryrates said contemptuously. “Just have them finished! You know why you were given this loftier place—but we can take it back…”

  Pryrates could feel Inch’s stare on him as he walked away, could feel the man’s stonelike presence in the smoky, nickering light. He wondered again whether it had been wise to let the brute live, and if not, whether he should rectify the error.

  The priest had reached one of the broad stairheads, with hallways leading left and right, and the next flight of steps ahead, when a dark figure abruptly slid from the shadows.

  “Pryrates?”

  The priest, whose nerves were such that he might not have cried out if struck with an axe, nevertheless felt his heart quicken.

  “Your majesty,” he said evenly.

  Elias, in unintended mockery of the foundrymen below, wore his black cloak-hood pulled close around his face. He went that way always these days, at least when he left his chambers—just as he always wore the scabbarded sword. The gaining of that blade had brought the king power such as few mortals had ever had, but it had not come without a price. The red priest was wise enough to know that the reckoning of such bargains was a very subtle science.

  “I…I cannot sleep, Pryrates.”

  “Understandable, my king. There are many burdens on your shoulders.”

  “You help me…with many. Have you been seeing to the siege engines?”

  Pryrates nodded, then realized the hooded Elias might not see it in the dark stairwell. “Yes, sire. I would like to roast Inch, that pig of an overseer, over one of his own fires. But we will have them, sire, somehow.”

  The king was silent for a long while, stroking the hilt of the sword. “Naglimund must be crushed,” Elias said at last. “Josua defies me.”

  “He is no longer your brother, sire, he is only your enemy,” Pryrates said.

  “No, no…” Elias said slowly, thinking deeply. “He is my brother. That is why he cannot be allowed to defy me. That seems obvious to me. Is it not obvious, Pryrates?”

  “Of course, your Majesty.”

  The king pulled his cloak tighter around him, as though to keep out a cold wind, but the air that billowed up from below was thick with the heat of the forges.

  “Have you found my daughter yet, Pryrates?” Elias asked suddenly, looking up. The priest could faintly see the eye-gleam and shadow of the king’s face in the cavern of his hood.

  “As I told you, sire, if she is not gone to Nabban, to her mother’s family there—and our spies do not think so—then she is at Naglimund with Josua.”

  “Miriamele.” The exhaled name drifted down the stone stairwell. “I must have her back. I must!” The king extended an open hand, slowly closing it into a fist before him. “She is the one piece of good flesh I shall save from the broken shell of my brother’s house. The rest I shall tread into dust.”

  “You have the strength now, my king,” Pryrates said. “And you have powerful friends.”

  “Yes.” The High King nodded slowly. “Yes, that is true. And what of the huntsman Ingen Jegger? He has not found my daughter, but neither has he returned. Where is he?”

  “He still hunts the wizard’s boy, Majesty. It has become something of a…grudge,” Pryrates waved his hand, as though trying to banish the uncomfortable memory of the Black Rimmersman.

  “A great deal of effort, it seems to me, has been spent trying to find this boy who you say knows a few of our secrets.” The king frowned and spoke harshly. “I wish as much trouble had been expended on my own flesh and blood. I am not pleased.” For a moment his shadowed eyes glinted angrily. He turned to go, then stopped.

  “Pryrates?” The king’s voice had changed again.

  “Yes, sire?”

  “Do you think I shall sleep better…when Naglimund is thrown down, and I have my daughter back?”

  “I am sure, my king.”

  “Good. I shall enjoy it even more, knowing that.”

  Elias slipped away, up the shadowed corridor. Pryrates did not move, but listened as the king’s retreating footsteps blended with the hammers of Erkynland, whose clangor sounded monotonously in the deeps below.

  34

  Forgotten Swords

  Vorzheva was angry. The brush trembled in her hand, and the red line trailed onto her chin.

  “See what I have done!” she said, irritation thickening her heavy Thrithings accent. “You are cruel to rush me.” She blotted her mouth with a kerchief and began again.

  “By the Aedon, woman, there are more important matters afoot than your lip-painting.” Josua stood up and resumed his pacing.

  “Do not speak so to me, sir! And do not walk like that behind me…” she waved her hand, searching for words, “…to and fro, to and fro. If you must throw me out into the corridor like a camp follower, at least I will first make myself ready.”

  The prince picked up a fire iron, then stooped to poke at the coals. “You are not being ‘thrown into the corridor,’ my lady.”

  “If I am your lady,” Vorzheva scowled, “then why may I not stay? You are ashamed of me.”

  “Because we will speak of things that are not your concern. If you have not noticed, we are preparing for war, I’m sorry if that inconveniences you.” He grunted and stood, laying the poker carefully back against the hearth. “Go speak with the other ladies. Be glad you do not have to carry my burdens.”

  Vorzheva spun to face him. “The other ladies hate me!” she said, eyes narrowed, a lock of black hair dangling loose across her cheek. “I hear them whispering about Prince Josua’s slut from the grasslands. And I hate them—the northern cows! In my father’s marchland they would be whipped for such…such…” she struggled with the still unfamiliar tongue, “…such disrespect!” She took a breath to still her trembling.

  “Why are you so cold to me, sir?” she asked at last. “And why did you bring me here, to this cold country?”

  The prince looked up, and for a moment his stern face softened.

  “I sometimes wonder.” He slowly shook his head. “Please, if you despise the company of the other court ladies, then go and have the harper sing for you. Please. I will not have an argument tonight.”

  “Nor any night,” Vorzheva snapped. “You do not seem to want me at all—but old things, yes, yes, those you are interested in! You and your old books!”

  Josua’s patience was wearing thin. “The events we will speak of tonight are old, yes, but their importance is to our current struggle. Damnation, woman, I am a prince of the realm, and cannot evade my responsibilities!”

  “You do better at that than you think, Prince Josua,” she replied frostily, throwing her cape about her shoulders.

  When she reached the doorway, she turned. “I hate the way you think only of the past—old books, old battles, old history…” her lip curled, “old loves.” The door swung closed behind her.

  “Thanks to you, Prince, for admitting us to your chambers,” Binabik said. His round face was troubled. “I would not have been making such a request had I not thought this important.”

  “Of course, Binabik,” the prince said. “I, too, prefer to talk in more quiet surroundings.”

  The troll and
old Jarnauga had pulled up hard wooden stools to sit beside Josua at his table. Father Strangyeard, who had accompanied them, was walking quietly around the room looking at the tapestries. In all his years at Naglimund it was the first time he had been in the prince’s private chambers.

  “I am still reeling from the things I heard last night,” Josua said, then gestured at the sheets of parchment Binabik had strewn before him. “Now you say there is even more I must know?” The prince gave a small, rueful smile. “God must be chastising me, taking my nightmare of having to command a castle at siege and then complicating it with all this.”

  Jarnauga leaned forward. “As long as you remember. Prince Josua, that it is no nightmare we speak of, but a dark reality. We cannot any of us afford the luxury of thinking this a fantasy.”

  “Father Strangyeard and I have been at days of searching in the castle archives,” Binabik said, “since first I came, trying to find the meaning of the Weird of the Swords.”

  “The dream, you mean, that you told me of?” Josua asked, idly thumbing through the pages of writing on the table. ‘The one that you and the boy had in the witch woman’s house?”

  “And not them alone,” Jarnauga declared, his eyes sharp as chips of blue ice. “The nights before I left Tungoldyr I, too, dreamt of a great book. Du Svardenvyrd was written upon it in letters of fire.”