by Tad Williams
“Josua Lackhand.”
“Yes. But we think that is trickery, for she also said that this sword might be somehow vital against that same evil that had driven our tribesfolk out of Hikehikayo, and that the same evil soon might threaten all that walked above or below ground. How could the fate of any mortal man affect the squabblings of immortals?” The dwarrow’s voice quavered. “It is another trap, to play on our fear. She wishes us to seek her help, so we will fall into their clutch once more. Did you not hear her? ‘Come to us at Jao é-Tinukai’i.’ Was ever a trap more cold-bloodedly baited before the victim’s eyes?”
“So,” the count said at last, “somehow Josua’s survival is tied to this blade?”
Yis-fidri shot him a worried glance. “So she claimed. But how could she say his fate is tied to that of Minneyar when she did not even know it had been reforged? She said that none but us did know this thing, and that possibly many fates—perhaps the threads of all fate—were tied to three great swords, of which Minneyar was one.”
Yis-fidri stood, a haunted look upon his face. “And I will tell you a terrible, terrible thing,” he said miserably. “Even though we cannot trust our once-masters, we fear that they may be telling the truth. Mayhap a great doom has come into the world. If so, we dwarrows may have brought it on.”
Eolair looked around, struggling to make sense of what he had heard. “But why, Yis-fidri? Bright-Nail’s history might be a deep and dark secret, but you dwarrows did not tell it to anyone. When the Shard spoke to us, we said nothing of it, because we did not know the tale. No secrets have been told. What doom have you brought on?”
The dwarrow was deeply pained. “I ... did not tell you all. One last time before your arrival, the Shard called to us. It was the fearsome stranger from Hikehikayo asking again of the sword Minneyar—that cursed sword.” He slumped bonelessly back onto the stool. “This time there was only one of us at the Site of Witness—young Sho-vennae, who you have met. He was alone and the voice laid a great fear upon him. It threatened, then it promised, then threatened again.” Yis-fidri slapped his wide palm on the table. “You must understand, he was afraid! We are all afraid! We are not what we were.” He lowered his eyes as if shamed, then looked up to find his wife’s gaze. He seemed to gain courage. “At last, Sho-vennae’s terror did overwhelm him. He told the stranger the tale of Minneyar, of how it was reforged and became Bright-Nail.” Yis-fidri’s shook his great head. “Poor Sho-vennae. We should never have let him stand watch at the Shard alone. May the Garden forgive us. Do you see, you Hern’s folk, our former masters may have lied to us, but still we fear that no good can come out of the darkness in Hikehikayo. If the First Grandmother of the Sithi has told the truth, who knows what power we have given to evil?”
Maegwin hardly heard him. She was losing the thread of Yis-fidri’s speech, dully registering bits and pieces while her weary mind swirled with thoughts of her own failure. She had misunderstood the gods’ will. She needed to be free, to have time to herself, time to think.
Count Eolair sat thinking for a long while; the room was full of brooding silence. At last, Yis-fidri stood.
“You have shared our table,” he said. “Let us show you our prizes, then you may go back to the bright, airy surface.”
Eolair and Maegwin, still silent, let themselves be led across the round room and through one of the doors. They followed the dwarrows down a long, sloping hallway before coming at last to a deeper chamber whose outer walls were as complicated as a maze, angling in and out so that everywhere Maegwin looked there were surfaces covered with carved stone.
“In this chamber and others below it are the Patterns,” Yis-fidri said. “Long the dwarrows have delved, and widely. Every tunnel, every deep place we dug is there. This is the history of our folk, and we two are the keepers of it.” He waved his hand proudly. “Maps of bright Kementari, the labyrinth of Jhiná- T‘seneí, the tunnels beneath the mountains Rimmersmen call Vestivegg, and those that honeycomb the mountains above our heads—all here. The catacombs of Zae-y’miritha are long-buried and silent ... but here they live!”
Eolair turned slowly, looking from surface to surface. The interior of the great chamber was as intricate as a many-faceted stone; each facet, every angle and niche, was covered with delicate maps carved into the living stone. “And you said that you have maps of the tunnels that run here, throughout the Grianspog?” he asked slowly.
“With certainty, Count Eolair,” Yis-fidri said. Being among the Patterns seemed to have restored life to his sagging frame. “Those and more.
“If we could have those, it would be a great help to us in our own struggle. ”
Maegwin turned on the count, irritation finally bubbling to the surface. “What, shall we carry a thousandweight of stone up to our caves? Or climb down here to this lost place every time we must choose a fork in the path?”
“No,” said Eolair, “but like the Aedonite monks, we could copy them onto parchment, and so have them where we need them.” His eyes shone. “There must be tunnels we never dreamed of! Our raids on Skali’s camps will truly seem like magic! See, Maegwin, you have brought great assistance to your people after all—a help greater than swords and spears!” He turned to Yis-fidri. “Would you allow us to do such a thing?”
Worried, the dwarrow turned to his wife. As the sound of their conversation chimed back and forth, Maegwin watched the count. Eolair was walking from wall to wall, squinting up at the angled walls and their beetle-busy carvings. She fought a rising tide of anger. Did he think he was doing her a kindness when he complimented her on this “discovery?” She had been looking for help from the shining, legendary Sithi, not a gaggle of scarecrows with their dusty tunnel-maps. Tunnels! Maegwin had been the one who had rediscovered the tunnels in the first place! How dare he try and placate her?
As she felt herself caught between fury and loneliness and loss, a sudden realization cut through her confused thoughts like a knife.
Eolair must go away.
She could have no peace, she could never understand what the gods meant her to do, as long as he was around. His presence turned her into a child, a whining, moody thing unfit to lead her people out of these dangerous straits.
Yis-fidri turned at last. “My wife and I must speak with our people before anything can be decided. This would be a new thing, and could not be done lightly.”
“Of course,” said Eolair. His voice was calm, but Maegwin could hear the suppressed excitement. “Of course, whatever may be best for your people. We will go away now and come back to you in a day or two, or whenever you say. But tell them that it will perhaps save Hern’s folk, whom the dwarrows often helped before. The Hernystiri have never thought anything but good of you.”
Maegwin had another thought. “Are there tunnels near the Hayholt?”
Yis-hadra nodded. “Yes. Asu’a, as we call it, was delved deep as well as built high. Now its bones lie beneath the castle of mortal kings, but the earth underneath that castle is still alive with our diggings.”
“And are those maps here, too?”
“Of course,” the dwarrow replied proudly.
With a satisfied nod, Maegwin turned on the Count of Nad Mullach. “There,” she said. “That is the final answer I sought. A course lies open before us: we would be traitors to our own folk not to take it.” She lapsed into grave silence.
Eolair rose to the bait. “What do you mean, Princess?”
“You must find Josua, Count Eolair,” she said abruptly. She was pleased at the calm authority in her voice. “You heard what Yis-fidri said at the table. This matter of the sword is of utmost importance. I was already thinking that Prince Josua must be informed, in case there is a chance this knowledge can be used to defeat Elias. You and I know that as long as the High King prospers, Skali Sharp-nose will remain at our necks like a knife. Go find Josua and tell him the secret of the sword. That will be the deed that saves our people.”
In truth, Maegwin did not quite remember all
the details of the dwarrow’s tale—she had been occupied with her own dire thoughts—but she remembered that it had something to do with Josua and his father’s sword.
Eolair was astonished. “Go to Josua?! What do you say, Lady? We have no idea where he is, or if he even lives. Do you ask me to leave our people in their need to go rabbiting off on such a fool’s mission?”
“You claimed you heard that he was alive,” she responded coldly. “Only a short while ago you were lecturing me on the chance of his survival. Can we afford to assume he is dead?”
It was hard to tell from his practiced expression what he was thinking. Maegwin took a breath before beginning again. “In any case, Count Eolair, you fail to see the full importance of what these folk have told us. Maps of our tunnels are important, yes—but we can now send to Josua maps of Elias’ stronghold, and of the secret entrances that could be the High King’s undoing.” Listening to herself, it did suddenly seem like a good plan. “You know that Skali will never loosen his grip on our land as long as Elias rules at his back in the Hayholt. ”
Eolair shook his head. “To many questions, my lady, too many questions. There is merit in what you say, certainly. Let us think about it. It will take us days to make semblances of all these maps. Surely it will be better if we consider it carefully, if we talk with Criobhan and the other knights.”
Maegwin wanted to set the hook now, while Eolair was hesitating. She feared that more time would mean time for the count to think of another solution, and for her to sink back into her inclarity of purpose. Being near him made her heart heavy as stone. She needed him to go away—she felt it now as a deep longing. She wanted him gone, so the pain and confusion would stop. How was it he could cloud her wits this way?
She made her face cold. “I do not like your resistance, Count. In fact, you seem to be doing precious little here, if you have time to follow me down holes in the ground. You might be better employed on a task that has some chance of saving us from our current situation.” Maegwin smiled, purposefully mocking. She was proud of how well she hid her true feelings, but this cruelty, however necessary, filled her with horror.
What kind of creature am I becoming? she wondered even as she carefully watched Eolair’s reaction. Is this statecraft? She felt a moment of panic. Am I being a fool? No, it is better he goes away—but if this is how kings and queens must see their wills accomplished, Bagba’s Herd, what a terrible thing!
Aloud, she added, “Besides, Count, you are pledged to my father’s house—just in case you had forgotten. If you wish to flaunt the first request Lluth’s daughter has made of you, I cannot prevent you, but the gods will know and judge.” Eolair started to speak. Maegwin lifted a hand to stop him—a very dirty hand, she could not help noticing. “I will not argue with you, Count Eolair. Do as you are told, or do not. That is all. ”
Eolair’s eyes narrowed, as though he saw her truly for the first time and did not like what he now saw. His contemptuous expression leaned against her heart like an impossibly heavy stone, but there was no turning back.
The count waited a long time before answering. “Very well, Lady,” he said quietly, “I will do as you command. I do not know where this sudden fancy—fancy! It seems a kind of madness!—has come from. If you had asked my counsel in this thing and treated me as your family’s friend instead of a vassal, I would have heeded your wish happily. Instead you will have my obedience, but there will be little love with it. You thought to act the queen, but instead you have proved yourself only a callow child after all.”
“Be silent,” she said hoarsely.
The dwarrows stared at Eolair and Maegwin curiously, as if they performed a quaint but inscrutable pantomime. The lights of the Pattern Hall dimmed for a moment, and shadows grew monstrously tall among the labyrinthine walls of stone. A moment later the pale light flared once more, illuminating the darker corners, but a certain shadow had taken up residence in Maegwin’s heart and would not be dismissed.
The Eadne Cloud’s crew did not handle Miriamele and Cadrach gently as they routed the pair from the hold, but neither were they especially brutal. The sailors seemed more than a little amused by such an unexpected couple of stowaways. As the captives appeared beneath the lightening sky, the crewmen jeered mockingly, speculating on the vices of monks who took young women as companions, and on the virtue of young women who allowed themselves to be so taken.
Miriamele stared back defiantly, undaunted by their rough manners. Despite the well-known sailor’s custom of going bearded, many of the Cloud’s crew were smooth-cheeked, not yet old enough to grow whiskers: she herself had seen more in a year, she felt sure, than these youths had seen in their whole lives.
Still, it was clear the Eadne Cloud was no plodding merchantman, no carrack bobbing like a washing tub as it carefully hugged the coastline, but a lithe ocean-rider. A child of river-fronted and sea-wrapped Meremund, Miriamele could tell the ship’s quality just by the spritely way the deck rolled beneath her feet and by the sound of the white sails crackling overhead as they drank deeply of the daybreak wind.
An hour earlier, Miriamele had despaired. Now she found herself taking great breaths, her heart rising once more. Even a whipping from the captain would be bearable. She was alive and upon the open sea. The sun was rising into the morning sky, a beacon of continuing hope.
A glance at the standard snapping on the mainmast confirmed that Cadrach had been correct. The Prevan osprey flew there, ocher and black. If only she had found more time to talk to Dinivan, to find out more news of the Nabbanai court and where the Prevan house and others stood....
She turned to whisper a warning to Cadrach about the need for secrecy, but was brought up sharply before a wooden stairway by the sailor at her side, who even in the stiff breeze smelled excessively of salt-pork.
The man on the quarterdeck turned to look down upon them. Miriamele, startled, sucked in a sharply audible breath of air. His was not a face she knew, nor did he seem to recognize her. He was, however, very, very handsome. Dressed in black breeches, jacket, and boots, each minutely wrought with gilt piping, with a brilliant cloth-of-gold cape swirling around him and the wind blowing his golden-blond hair, this strange nobleman seemed a sun god out of ancient legends.
“Kneel down, you louts,” one of the sailors hissed. Cadrach dropped immediately. Miriamele, nonplussed, complied more slowly. She was unable to take her eyes off the golden man’s face.
“These are they, Lord,” the sailor said. “The ones the Niskie found. As you see, one’s a girl.”
“As I see,” the man replied dryly. “You two remain kneeling,” he directed Miriamele and Cadrach. “You men, go. We need more sail if we are to make Grenamman tonight.”
“Yes, Lord.”
As the sailors moved off hurriedly, the one they called lord turned to finish his conversation with a burly, bearded man that Miriamele guessed was the captain. The nobleman glanced at the prisoners once more before making his leonine way off the quarterdeck. Miriamele thought his eyes might have lingered on her longer than curiosity alone would dictate, and felt an unfamiliar tingle run through her—half fear, half excitement—as she turned to watch him go. A pair of manservants scurried after him, trying to keep his wind-whipped cloak from snagging on anything. Then, for a brief instant, the golden-haired man looked back. Catching her eye, he smiled.
The burly captain stared down at Cadrach and Miriamele with poorly hidden disgust. “Earl says he’ll decide what to do with you after his morning meal,” he growled, then spat expertly with the wind. “Women and monks—what could be worse luck, and especially in these times? I’d throw you over if the master didn’t happen to be aboard.”
“Who ... who is the master of this ship?” Miriamele asked quietly.
“You don’t recognize the crest, doxy? You didn’t recognize milord when he was standing in front of you? Aspitis Preves, Earl of Drina and Eadne is master of this ship—and you’d better hope he takes a liking to you or you’ll find
yourself sleeping in kilpa beds.” He spat more gray citril juice.
Cadrach, already pale, looked ill at the captain’s words, but Miriamele barely heard. She was thinking of Aspitis’ golden hair and bold eyes, and wondering how in the midst of such danger she could suddenly feel so unexpectedly fascinated.
20
A Thousand Steps
“There. Now you have witnessed for yourself.” Binabik gestured at Qantaqa with helpless disgust. The wolf sat on her haunches, ears flattened and hackles raised, her gray pelt starred with snowflakes. “Qinkipa’s Eyes!” the troll swore, “if I could be making her do it, have assurance that I would. She will walk back toward the abbey, but only to stay at my side and no more.” He turned to his mount again. “Qantaqa! Simon mosoq! Ummu!” He shook his head. “She will not.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Sludig kicked at the ground, lifting a cloud of snow into the biting wind. “Every hour we do not find him the trail grows fainter. And if the boy is hurt, every hour leaves him nearer to death. ”
“Daughter of the Mountains, Rimmersman,” Binabik shouted, “every hour of every day is leaving all of us nearer to death.” He blinked his reddened eyes. “Of course we have need for haste. Do you think I do not care for Simon? Why have we been at trudging here and there since sunup? If I could exchange Qantaqa’s nose for mine, I would with certainty! But she was badly frightened by the horror at Skodi’s abbey, I am thinking—see! It is only with reluctance she is even following!”
Qantaqa had again balked. As Binabik looked back, she dipped her massive head and whined, barely audible against the rising wind.
Sludig slapped his leather-clad hands on his legs with a wet smack. “Damn me, troll, I know! But we need her nose! We don’t even know where the boy went, or why he won’t answer us. We have been shouting for hours!”