by Tad Williams
The Queen’s Huntsman calmly looked over his strange congregation, then picked his snarling, dog-faced helm from the ground.
“Too long have you been roaming free,” he hissed, “harrying the forest fringes, stealing babies like kennel cubs, running down foolish travelers for the joy of the chase. Now your master has come back. Now you must do what you were bred to do.” The milky eyes followed him as he moved to his horse, which waited with supernatural patience beneath the hemlock. “But this time I will lead, not you. It is a strange chase, and Ingen alone has been taught the scent.” He pulled himself up into the saddle. “Run silently.” He lowered the helmet onto his head, so that hound looked at hounds. “We take death to the Queen’s enemies.”
A low growling rose from the dogs as they rose and came together, sliding against one another, snapping at each other’s faces and tails in fierce anticipation. Ingen spurred his horse forward, then turned. “Follow!” he cried. “Follow to death and blood!”
He passed swiftly from the clearing. The pack ran after, voiceless now, silent and white as snowfall.
Huddled deep in his cloak, Isgrimnur sat in the bow of the small boat and watched stubby Sinetris rowing and sniffling. The duke wore a fixed expression of grim preoccupation, in part because he found the boatman’s company extremely unrewarding, but mostly because he himself hated boats, especially small boats like the one on which he was now trapped. Sinetris had spoken truthfully about one thing, anyway: this was no time to be on the water. A great storm was flailing the entire length of the coast. The choppy water of Firannos Bay constantly threatened to swamp them, and Sinetris had not stopped moaning since their hull had first touched the water a week before, some thirty leagues northward.
The duke had to admit that Sinetris was a talented boatman, if only in the defense of his own life. The Nabban-man had handled his craft well under terrible conditions. If only he would stop sniveling! Isgrimnur was no happier about the conditions for their journey than Sinetris was, but he would be damned to the blackest circle of Hell before he made a fool out of himself by showing it.
“How far to Kwanitupul?” he shouted over the noise of wind and waves.
“Half a day, master monk,” Sinetris called back, eyes red and streaming. “We will stop soon to sleep, then we can be there by midday tomorrow. ”
“Sleep!” Sigrimnur roared. “Are you mad!? It is not even dark yet! Besides, you will only try to sneak away again, and this time I will not be so merciful. If you cease your self-pitying nonsense and work, you can sleep in a bed tonight!”
“Please, holy brother!” Sinetris almost shrieked. “Do not force me to row in darkness! We will run onto the rocks. Our only beds will be down among the kilpa!”
“Don’t hand that superstitious nonsense to me. I’m paying you well and I am in a hurry. If you are too weak or sore, let me take those paddles for a while.”
The oarsman, wet and cold, still managed a convincing look of wounded pride. “You! You would have us under the water in a moment! No, you cruel monk, if Sinetris must die, let it be with his oars in his hand, as befits a Firannos boatman. If Sinetris must be torn from his home and the bosom of his family and sacrificed to the whims of a monster in the robes of a priest, if he must die ... let it be as a guild-man!”
Isgrimnur groaned. “Let it be with his mouth closed, for a change. And keep paddling.”
“Rowing,” Sinetris replied frostily, then burst into tears once more.
It was past midnight when the first stilt-houses of Kwanitupul came into view. Sinetris, whose complaining had faded at last to a low, self-pitying murmur, nosed the boat into the great network of canals. Isgrimnur, who had briefly fallen asleep, rubbed his eyes and craned his head, looking around. Kwanitupul’s ramshackle warehouses and inns were all dusted with a thin coating of snow.
If I doubted that the world had gone topsy-turvy, Isgrimnur thought bemusedly, here is all the proof I need: a Rimmersman taking a leaky boat to sea in a storm, and snow in the southland—in high summer. Can any doubt the world has run mad?
Madness. He remembered the hideous death of the lector and felt his stomach gurgle. Madness—or something else? It was a strange coincidence that Pryrates and Benigaris should both be in the house of Mother Church on such a dreadful night. Only a stroke of rare luck had brought Isgrimnur to Dinivan in time to hear the priest’s last words, and perhaps to salvage something from this grim pass.
He had escaped from the Sancellan Aedonitis only moments before Benigaris, Duke of Nabban, had ordered his guardsmen to bar all doors. Isgrimnur could not have afforded capture—even if he had not been immediately recognized, his story would not have held up long. Hlafmansa Eve, the night of the lector’s murder, had been a bad night to be an unfamiliar guest at the Sancellan.
“Do you know of a place here called Pelippa’s Bowl?” he asked aloud. “I think it is an inn or a hostel.”
“I have never heard of the place, master monk,” Sinetris said gravely. “It sounds like a low establishment, one in which Sinetris would not be seen.” Now that they had reached the relatively still waters of the canals, the boatman had reassumed much of his dignity. Isgrimnur decided he liked him better when he sniveled.
“By the Tree, we will never find it at night. Take me to some inn you know, then. I must get something under my belt.”
Sinetris steered the little craft down a series of crisscrossing canals to the city’s tavern district. Things seemed quite lively here despite the late hour, the boardwalks lined with garish cloth lanterns that swung in the wind, the alleyways full of drunken revelers.
“This is a fine inn, holy brother,” Sinetris said as they glided to a stop at the dock stairs of a well-lit establishment. “There is wine to be had, and food.” Sinetris, feeling bold now that their journey had ended safely, gave Isgrimnur a chummy, gap-toothed smile. “And women, too.” His smile grew uncertain as he surveyed Isgrimnur’s face. “—Or boys, if that is more to your liking.”
The duke forced a great hiss of air between his teeth. He reached into his cloak and pulled out a gold Imperator, then placed it gently on the rowing bench beside Sinetris’ skinny leg. Isgrimnur next moved to the bottommost stair. “There is your thievish payment, as I promised. Now, I have a suggestion for how you might spend your evening.”
Sinetris looked up warily. “Yes?”
Isgrimnur drew down his eyebrows in a horrible frown. “Spend it doing your very best to make sure that I do not see you again. Because if I do,” he lifted his hairy fist, “I will roll your eyeballs around in your pointy head. Understood?”
Sinetris dropped his oar-blades and backed water hastily, so that Isgrimnur had to quickly swing his other foot up onto the stairs. “So this is how you monks treat Sinetris after all his favors!?” the boatman said indignantly, puffing up his thin chest like a courting pigeon. “No wonder the church is in bad repute! You ... bearded barbarian!” He splashed off into the darkened canal.
Isgrimnur laughed harshly, then stumped up the stairs to the inn.
After several fitful nights in the grasslands—nights in which he had been forced to keep a careful watch on the treacherous Sinetris, who had several times tried to slip away and leave Isgrimnur standed on the bleak, windswept coast of Firannos Bay—the Duke of Elvirtshalla took his sleep in full measure. He remained in bed until the sun was high in the sky, then broke his fast with a manly portion of bread and honey accompanied by a stoup of ale. It was nearly noontide before he obtained directions to Pelippa’s Bowl from the innkeeper and was out on the rainy canals once more. His boatman this time was a Wrannaman, who despite the bitter wind wore only a loincloth and a broad-brimmed hat with a red, drizzle-soaked feather drooping from the band. The boatman’s sullen silence was a pleasant change from the ceaseless carping of Sinetris. Isgrimnur settled back to fondle his new-sprouted beard and enjoy the sodden sights of Kwanitupul, a city he had not visited for many years.
The storm had obviously cast a pall over the
trading city. Unless things had changed greatly since his last sojourn, there should be many more boats out on the water at midday, many more folk wandering Kwanitupul’s exotic byways. Those who were about seemed to be hurrying to their destinations. Even the ritual cries of greeting and challenge that rang between canal boats seemed unusually muted. Like insects, the residents seemed chilled almost to immobility by the snow that melted in patches on their wooden walkways, and the wind-borne sleet that stung exposed limbs and filled the canals with circular ripples.
Here and there among the sparse crowds Isgrimnur saw small gatherings of Fire Dancers, the religious maniacs who had gained their notoriety by self-immolation. They had become a familiar sight to the duke since he had first reached Nabban. These wild-eyed penitents, uncaring of the cold, stood on the walkways near busy canal intersections and shouted the praises of their dark master, the Storm King. Isgrimnur wondered where they had heard that name. He had never heard it spoken south of the Frostmarch before, even in a children’s bogey-story. It was no coincidence, he knew, but he could not help musing on whether these robed lunatics were the pawns of someone like Pryrates or true visionaries. If the latter was the case, then the end they foresaw might be real.
Isgrimnur shuddered at this thought and made the sign of the Tree on his breast. Black times, these were. For all their shouting, though, the Fire Dancers did not seem to be engaging in their familiar trick of setting themselves aflame. The duke smiled sourly. Perhaps it was a little too damp today.
The boatman stopped at last before an unprepossessing structure in the warehouse district, far from the centers of commerce. When Isgrimnur had paid him, the little dark man reached up with his gaff hook and pulled down the rope ladder from the dock. The duke was scarcely halfway up the swinging ladder before the boatman had turned around and was coasting out of sight down a side-canal.
Huffing and cursing his fat belly, Isgrimnur at last made his way up onto the more trustworthy footing of the dock. He rapped at the weather-worn door, then waited a long time in the freezing rain without answer, growing increasingly cross. At last the door swung open, revealing a frowning woman of middle age.
“I don’t know where the half-wit is,” she told Isgrimnur as though he had asked. “It’s not enough that I have to do every other lick of work here, but now I have to answer the door as well.”
For a moment the duke was so taken aback that he almost apologized. He struggled with his impulse toward chivalry. “I want a room,” he said at last.
“Well, come in, then,” the woman said doubtfully, opening the door wider. Beyond lay a makeshift boathouse that stank of tar and old fish. A couple of hulls were laid out like casualties of battle. In the corner, a brown arm protruded from a huddle of blankets. For a moment Isgrimnur thought it was a corpse that had been carelessly thrown into the doorway; when the arm moved, pulling the blankets closer, he realized that it was only someone sleeping. He had a sudden premonition that he might not find the accommodations here up to the best standards, but he forced the thought down.
You’re getting fussy, old man, he chided himself. On the battlefield, you’ve slept in mud and blood and the nests of biting flies.
He had a mission, he reminded himself. His own comfort was secondary.
“By the way,” he called after the innkeeper, whose brisk steps had taken her almost the entire length of the dooryard, “I’m looking for someone.” Suddenly he could not recall the name Dinivan had told him. He stopped, running his fingers through his damp beard, then remembered. “Tiamak. I’m looking for Tiamak.”
When the woman turned, her sour expression had been supplanted by a look of greedy pleasure. “You?” she said. “You’re the one with the gold?” She opened her arms wide as though to embrace him. Despite the dozen cubits that separated them, the duke took a step backward, repelled. The bundle of blankets in the corner began to wiggle like a nest of piglets, then fell away. A small and very thin Wrannaman sat up, eyes still half-closed from sleep.
“I am Tiamak,” he said, trying to stifle a yawn. As he surveyed Isgrimnur, the marsh-man’s face seemed to show disappointment, as though he had expected something better. The duke felt his annoyance returning. Were all these people mad? Who did they think he was, or expect him to be?
“I bring you tidings,” Isgrimnur said stiffly, uncertain of how to proceed. “But we should talk in private.”
“I will show you to your room,” the woman said hastily, “the finest in the house, and the little brown gentleman—another honored guest—can join you there.”
Isgrimnur had just turned back to Tiamak, who seemed to be dressing awkwardly beneath the blankets, when the inside door of the inn thumped open and a horde of children barged through, whooping like Thrithings-men at war. They were pursued by a tall, white-haired old man, who grinned from ear to ear as he pretended to stalk them. They fled him with shrieks of delight, and crashed through the door leading out to the dock. Before he could pursue them any further the landlady stepped before him, fists on hips.
“Damn you for a simple ass, Ceallio, you are here to answer the door!” The old man, though considerably taller, cowered before her as though expecting a blow. “I know you are addled-pated, but you are not deaf! Did you not hear someone knocking at the door?”
The old man moaned wordlessly. The landlady turned from him in disgust. “He’s as stupid as a stone,” she began, then broke off, staring, as Isgrimnur dropped to his knees.
The duke felt the world tilt, as though giant hands had lifted it. It took long moments before he could speak, moments in which the landlady, the little Wrannaman, and the old doorkeeper looked at him with varying degrees of uneasy fascination. When Isgrimnur spoke, it was to the old man.
“My lord Camaris,” he said, and felt his voice catch in his throat. The world had gone mad: now the dead lived again. “Merciful Elysia, Camaris, do you not remember me? I am Isgrimnur! We fought for Prester John together—we were friends! Ah, God, you live! How can that be?”
He reached his hand out to the old man, who took it as a child might take something shiny or colorful offered by a stranger. The old man’s grip was callused, with a great strength that could be felt even as his hand lay flaccidly in Isgrimnur’s own. His handsome face showed only smiling incomprehension.
“What are you saying?” the landlady said crossly. “That’s old Ceallio, the doorkeeper. Been here for years. He’s a simpleton.”
“Camaris ...” Isgrimnur breathed as he pressed the old man’s hand to his cheek, wetting it with tears. He could scarcely speak, “Oh, my good lord, you live.”
28
Sparks
Despite the unceasing loveliness of Jao é-Tunukai’i, or perhaps because of it, Simon was bored. He was also unutterably lonely.
His imprisonment was a strange thing: the Sithi did not hinder him, but other than Jiriki and Aditu, they continued to show no interest in him, either. Like a queen’s lapdog, he was well fed and well cared for, allowed to roam wherever he could go, but only because the outside world was beyond his reach. Like a prize pet, he amused his masters, but was not taken seriously. When he spoke to them, they responded politely in Simon’s own Westerling speech, but among themselves they spoke the liquid Sithi tongue. Only a few recognizable words ever reached his ear, but whole rivers of incomprehensible talk flowed around him. The suspicion that they might be discussing him in their private conversations infuriated him. The possibility that they might not, that they might never think of him except when in his presence, was somehow even worse: it made him feel insubstantial as a ghost.
Since his interview with Amerasu, the days had begun to flit past even more rapidly. As he lay in his blankets one night, he realized he could no longer say for certain how long he had been among the Sithi. Aditu, when asked, claimed not to remember. Simon took the same question to Jiriki, who fixed him with a look of great pity and asked whether he truly wished to count the days. Chilled by the implication, Simon demanded the tru
th. Jiriki told him that a little over a month had passed.
That had been some days ago.
The nights were the most difficult. In his nest of blankets in Jiriki’s house, or roaming the soft, damp grass beneath strange stars, Simon tormented himself with impossible plans for escape, plans that even he knew were as impractical as they were desperate. He became more and more morose. He knew Jiriki was worried for him, and even Aditu’s quicksilver laugh seemed forced. Simon knew that he was speaking constantly of his misery, but could not hide it—moreover, he did not want to hide it. Whose fault was it that he was trapped here?
They had saved his life, of course. Would it truly have been better to die by freezing or slow starvation, he chided himself, rather than living as a pampered, if restricted, guest in the most wonderful city in Osten Ard? But even though such ingratitude might be shameful, he still could not reconcile himself to his blissful prison.
Every day was much the same. He wandered through the forest alone, or threw stones into the countless streams and rivers, and thought of his friends. In the sheltering summer of Jao é-Tinukai’i, it was hard to imagine how they must all be suffering in the dreadful winter outside. Where was Binabik? Miriamele? Prince Josua? Did they even live? Had they fallen beneath the black storm, or did they still struggle?
Growing ever more frantic, he begged Jiriki to let him speak to Amerasu again, to plead for her help in setting him free, but Jiriki declined.
“It is not my place to instruct First Grandmother. She will act in her own time, when she has thought carefully. I am sorry, Seoman, but these matters are too important to hurry.”
“Hurry!” Simon raged. “By the time anyone does anything in this place, I will be dead!”