by Tad Williams
Binabik shook his head morosely. “That is what gives me the most worry. We did not go far before finding his horse—half of a league at the most. We have been twice that distantness now, and most of the way returning, but still no sign of Simon is there to see. ”
The Rimmersman squinted into the flurrying snow. “Come. If he’s fallen off, he’d probably make his way back down his own tracks ... while they lasted. Let’s drag the wolf a little farther, head back toward the abbey. All the way back this time. Maybe if she actually smells the boy close by, she will do better.” He urged his mount and the trailing packhorses forward. Binabik grimaced and whistled for Qantaqa. The wolf came reluctantly.
“I am not liking this storm that comes,” the troll called; only a short distance ahead, the Rimmersman had already become a bulky blur. “Not any bit. This is the outrider for the darkness we saw gathering in the north near Stormspike. It is coming down with great swiftness.”
“I know it,” Sludig shouted over his shoulder. “Soon we will have to look to our own safety, whether we find the boy or not.”
Binabik nodded, then thumped his hand sharply against his jacketed chest, once, twice, then a third time. Unless the gods of his people were watching, no one saw his anguished gesture.
The abbey, lately the scene of such wild horror, had become a quiet, snow-draped sepulcher. The mounds of drifting snow obscured most signs of what had become of Skodi and her young charges, but could not hide all. Qantaqa would not approach within an arrow’s flight of the silent walls; Binabik and Sludig themselves only crossed into the abbey’s dooryard long enough to make certain that Simon was not one of the still, white-shrouded forms, then left hurriedly.
When they had put a thousand paces between themselves and the abbey, they stopped and stood silently for a while, sharing long swallows from a bottle of kangkang as they listened to the mournful wind. Qantaqa, obviously happy to be heading away from that dire place once more, sniffed briefly at the air before curling up at Binabik’s feet.
“Holy Aedon, troll,” Sludig said at last, “what manner of witch was that girl Skodi, anyway? I have never seen anything to match it. Was she one of the Storm King’s followers?”
“Only in the way that those like her do what the Storm King wishes, whether they are knowing it or not. She had power, but she was hoping to become a Power—which, I am thinking, is very different. A little Norn Queen with her own little band of followers was what she was wishing to be. Times of war and strife are the arising times of new forces. The old order begins its changing, and those like Skodi appear, seeking to make a mark.”
“I only thank blessed God for wiping out the whole nest of them to the smallest pup.” Sludig shivered and scowled. “No good could have come from any of those witchlets surviving.”
Binabik looked at him curiously. “The innocent can be molded, as those children were, but sometimes luck is granting that they can be molded back. I have little belief in evil beyond redeeming, Sludig.”
“Oh?” The Rimmersman laughed harshly. “What about your Storm King? What good thing could you possibly say about such a black-hearted hellspawn as that?”
“Once he loved his people more than his own life,” Binabik said quietly.
The sun made a surprisingly swift crossing through the murky sky. By the time they halted again, early twilight was approaching. They had twice more covered the distance between the abbey and the spot in the deep woods that they had decided on as the outermost point. All their shouting and beating of bushes had been to no avail: Simon remained unfound, and now darkness and fresh storms were fast approaching.
“Aedon’s Blood,” Sludig said in disgust, then patted Simon’s gray mare, which was roped to the train of pack horses. “At least we did not lose the damnable sword as well.” He waved a hand at Thorn, but did not touch it. Where the black sword was visible through the loose swaddling, snowflakes lit upon its surface and slid away, leaving it free of the white that spattered everything else. “It makes our decision more difficult, though. If the lad and the sword were lost together, we would have no choice but to search.”
Binabik looked up with angry eyes. “What ‘decision’ do you speak about?”
“We can’t very well abandon everything for the stripling, troll. I’m fond of him, the good Lord knows, but we have our duty to Prince Josua. You and the other book-readers keep saying that Josua needs this blade or we are all doomed. Should we ignore that to hunt for a lost boy? Then we would be more foolish than the boy was for getting lost in the first place.”
“Simon is not foolish.” Binabik buried his face in the ruff of Qantaqa’s neck for a long moment. “And I am tired of being an oath-breaker. I swore for his protection.” The troll’s voice was muffled by the wolfs pelt, but the straining edge was unmistakable.
“We are forced to difficult choices, troll.”
Binabik looked up. His usually mild brown gaze had turned flinty. “Do not be speaking to me of choices. Do not go teaching me about difficulty. Take the sword. On my master’s grave I swore to protect Simon. To me, nothing else has more importance.”
“Then you are the most foolish of all,” Sludig growled. “We are down to two left while the world freezes around us. Would you send me alone with the sword that could save your people and mine? All so you need not be an oath-breaker to a dead master?”
Binabik straightened. His eyes brimmed with angry tears. “Do not dare speak to me of my oath,” he hissed. “I am taking no advice from a witless Croohok!”
Sludig raised a gloved fist as though to strike at the little man. The Rimmersman stared at his own trembling hand, then turned and stalked out of the clearing. Binabik did not look up to see him ago, but instead returned to stroking Qantaqa’s shaggy back. A tear ran down his cheek and vanished into the fur of his hood.
Minutes passed without even a bird’s cry.
“Troll?” Sludig stood at the edge of the glade, just beyond the horses. Binabik still would not look up. “Listen, man,” Sludig continued, “you must listen to me.” The Rimmersman still hung back, like an unexpected guest waiting to be invited indoors. “Once, soon after we first met, I told you that you knew nothing of honor. I wished to go and kill Storfot, Thane of Vestvennby, for his insults to Duke Isgrimnur. You said I should not go. You said that my lord Isgrimnur had given me a task to perform, and that putting that task’s fulfillment in jeopardy was neither brave or honorable, but foolish.”
The troll continued to rub distractedly along Qantaqa’s back.
“Binabik, I know you are honorable. You know I am the same. We have a bad choice to make, but it is not right that allies should fight and throw insults like stones at each other.”
The troll still did not reply, but his hands fell from the wolf and into his lap. He crouched unspeaking for long moments, chin on chest.
“I have been disgracing myself, Sludig,” he said at last. “You are right to be hurling my own words back into my face. I beg for your pardon, although I have done nothing for its deserving.” He turned an unhappy face up to the Rimmersman, who took a few steps back into the clearing.
“We cannot afford to search for Simon forever,” Sludig said quietly. “That is a truth separate from love and friendship.”
“You are not wrong,” Binabik said. He shook his head slowly. “Not wrong.” He stood and moved toward the bearded soldier, extending a small hand. “If you can show forgiving of my stupidity ...”
“There is nothing to forgive.” His broad palm clasped Binabik’s, engulfing it.
A weary smile flitted across the troll’s face. “Then one favor there is I will ask. Let us be making a fire here during tonight and tomorrow night, and we will call for Simon. If we are finding no trace of him, then the morning after tomorrow we will walk on toward the Stone of Farewell. Otherwise, I will feel as though I have deserted him without proper searching. ”
Sludig nodded gravely. “Fairly spoken. Now, we should gather wood. Night is coming on quic
kly.”
“The cold wind is not lessening, either,” Binabik said, frowning. “An unhappy thought for all who are out of doors without shelter.”
Brother Hengfisk, the king’s unpleasant cupbearer, gestured to the doorway. The monk’s grin was as derangedly fixed as ever, as though he struggled with some monstrous humor only barely held in check. The Earl of Utanyeat stepped through the door and silent Hengfisk scuttled away down the stairs, leaving the earl standing just inside the bell chamber.
Guthwulf took a moment to catch his breath. It was a very long climb up the tower steps and the earl had not been sleeping well lately.
“You called for me, Highness?” he said at last.
The king stood hunched over the sill of one of the high-arched windows, his heavy cloak glinting in the torchlight like a fly’s glass-green back. Although the afternoon was only half gone, the sky outside was evening-dark, purple and sullen gray. The curve of Elias’ shoulders made Guthwulf think of a vulture. The king wore the heavy gray sword scabbarded at his side; seeing it, the earl shivered uncontrollably.
“The storm is almost upon us,” Elias said without turning. “Have you been this high in Green Angel Tower before?”
Guthwulf forced himself to speak casually. “I have been in the entry hall. Perhaps once to the chaplain’s rooms on the second floor. Never this high, sire.”
“It is a strange place,” the king said, his gaze still fixed on something beyond the northwestern window. “This place, Green Angel Tower, was once the center of the greatest kingdom Osten Ard has ever seen. Did you know that, Guthwulf?” Elias swung away from the window. His eyes were bright, but his face was drawn and lined as though his iron crown were cinched too tightly about his brow.
“Do you mean your father’s kingdom, Highness?” the earl asked, puzzled and more than a little fearful. He had felt only a kind of dread when he had received this latest summons. This man was no longer his old friend. At times the king seemed almost unchanged, but Guthwulf could not ignore the underlying reality: the Elias he had known might as well be dead. However, the gallows in Battle Square and the spikes atop the Nearulagh Gate were now crowded with the mortal remains of those who had upset this new Elias in some way or other. Guthwulf knew to keep his mouth well shut and do what he was told—at least for a while longer.
“Not my father’s, idiot. For the love of God, my hand stretches over a far realer kingdom than his ever did. My father had King Lluth on his very doorstep; now there are no other kings but me.” Elias’ moment of bad temper faded as he waved his arm expansively. “No, Guthwulf, there are more things in this world than such as you can even dream of. This was once the capital of a mighty empire—vaster than Fingil’s Greater Rimmersgard, older than the Nabban of the Imperators, stronger in lore than lost Khandia.” His voice sank so that it was almost lost in the call of the wind. “But with his help, I will make this castle the seat of an even greater kingdom. ”
“Whose help, Highness?” Guthwulf could not refrain from asking. He felt a surge of cold jealousy. “Pryrates?”
Elias looked at him oddly for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Pryrates! Guthwulf, you are artless as a child!”
The Earl of the Utanyeat bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the angry—and potentially fatal—words. He clenched and unclenched his scarred fists. “Yes, my king,” he said at last.
The king was once more staring out the window. Above his head, the great bells slept in dark clusters. Thunder muttered somewhere far away. “But the priest does keep secrets from me,” Elias said. “He knows my power is growing as my understanding increases, and so he tries to hide things from me. Do you see that, Guthwulf?” He pointed out the window. “Well, Fires of Hell, man, how can you see from there?” the king snarled. “Come closer! Do you fear the wind will freeze you?” He laughed strangely.
Guthwulf reluctantly stepped forward, thinking of what Elias had been like before this insanity had begun to creep in: quick-tempered, yes, but not inconstant as a spring breeze; fond of jokes, but with the bluff humor of a soldier, not this mocking and incomprehensible wit. It was growing harder and harder for Guthwulf to recall that other man, his friend. Ironically, it seemed that the madder Elias became, the more he grew to resemble his brother Josua.
“There.” The king gestured across the damp rooftops of the Hayholt toward the gray bulk of Hjeldin’s Tower, squatting along the Inner Bailey’s northern wall. “I gave that to Pryrates to use for his various endeavours—his investigations, if you will—and now he keeps it always locked; he will not even give a key to his king. For my safety, he says.” Elias glared across at the priest’s brooding tower, gray as the sky, upper windows of thick red glass. “He is growing very proud, the alchemist.”
“Banish him, Elias—or destroy him!” Guthwulf spoke without thinking, then decided to press on. “You know I have always spoken to you as a friend, blunt when it was needed. And you know I am no craven who whimpers when a little blood is spilled or a few bones are cracked. But that man is poisonous as a serpent and far more dangerous. He will stab you in the back. Only say the word and I will kill him.” When he finished he found that his heart was racing, as in the hour before battle.
The king stared for a moment, then laughed again. “Ah, there is the Wolf I knew. No, no, old friend, I told you once before: I need Pryrates, and I will use whatever I need to perform the grand task before me. Neither will he stab me in the back, for you see, he needs me, too. The alchemist uses me—or thinks he does.”
Thunder pealed again in the distance as Elias stepped away from the window and laid his hand on Guthwulf’s arm. The earl could feel the radiating cold right through his heavy sleeve. “But I do not want Pryrates to kill you,” the king said, “—and kill you he would, make no mistake. His courier arrived today from Nabban. The letter tells me that negotiations with the lector are going very well, and that Pryrates will be back in a few days. That is why it was a happy thought to send you out to the High Thrithings at the head of my knights. Young Fengbald was pressing for the command, but you have always been of great service to me, and—more importantly—you will then be out of the red priest’s path until he has done what I need.”
“I am grateful for the chance to serve, my king,” Guthwulf said slowly, several kinds of anger and fear swelling venomously within him. To think that the Earl of Utanyeat had come to such sneaking and bowing!
What if he were to grab Elias, he thought suddenly, wildly—just grab the king and then fling himself over the window’s low railing, both of them plunging down over a hundred cubits to smash like eggs. Usires the Ransomer, what a relief it would be to end this festering brain-sickness that had crept all through the Hayholt and through Guthwulf himself! His mind reeled. Aloud, he only said: “Are you sure that these rumors of your brother are not just that? Rumors only, the imaginings of complaining peasants? I find it hard to believe that anything could have survived ... could have survived Naglimund.” One step, he thought, just one, then the two of them would be gliding down through the heavy air. It would all be over in moments and the long dark sleep would begin....
Elias moved away from the window, breaking the spell. Guthwulf felt chill sweat beading on his forehead. “I do not heed ‘rumors,’ my dear Utanyeat. I am Elias the High King, and I know.” He stalked to a window on the tower’s far side, one that faced southeast, into the teeth of the wind. His hair swirled, black as a crow’s wing. “There.” He pointed out across the choppy, leaden-hued Kynslagh into the murky distance. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the deep wells of his eyes. “Josua lives, indeed, and he is somewhere ... out ... there. I have received word from a trusted source.” Thunder came, chasing the lightning. “Pryrates tells me my energies could be better spent. He tells me not to worry about my brother. If I had not seen a thousand kinds of proof of Pryrates’ black and empty heart, I would think he felt sorry for Josua, so strongly does he argue against this mission. But I will do as I please. I am the k
ing and I want Josua dead.” Another lightning flare etched his face, which was twisted like a ritual mask. The king’s voice strained; for a moment it seemed that only his white-knuckled grasp upon the stone sill kept him from toppling. “And I want my daughter back. Back. I want Miriamele back. She has disobeyed her father, joining with his enemies ... with my enemies. She must be punished.”
Guthwulf could think of nothing to say. He nodded his head, trying to dispel the terrible thoughts that now surged within him like a well filling with black water. The king and his cursed sword! Even now, Guthwulf felt the blade’s presence sickening him. He would go to the Thrithings and hunt for Josua, if that was what Elias wished. At least he would be out of this horrible castle with its night sounds, its fearful servants and mad, mourning king. He would be able to think again. The earl would breathe unsullied air and keep the company of soldiers once more, men with whose thoughts and conversation he was comfortable.
Thunder rang through the chamber, setting the bells to humming. “I will do as you say, my king,” he said.
“Of course,” Elias nodded, calm again. “Of course.”
Scowling Guthwulf had gone away, but the king stayed for some time, staring out into the cloudy sky, listening to the wind as carefully as if he understood its mournful tongue. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, was beginning to feel very uncomfortable in her cramped hiding place. Still, she had learned what she needed to know. Her mind was full of ideas quite beyond her usual concerns: lately, Rachel the Dragon had found herself thinking thoughts she had never dreamed possible.
Wrinkling her nose against the harsh but familiar scent of polishing grease, she peeked out of the crack between the stone doorframe and the warped wooden door. The king was still as a statue, gazing off into nothingness. Rachel was again filled with horror at her own transgression. Spying like the most slatternly, brought-in-just-for-the-holy-days servant girl! And on the High King! Elias was the son of her beloved King John—even if he couldn’t hope to match up to his father—and Rachel, the Hayholt’s last bastion of rectitude, was spying on him.