Silent Hall

by NS Dolkart

  “What did he say to make them want to kill him?” Hunter asked. “I’ve never read any of his writings, but everyone knows he’s Tarphae’s most famous sage. Was he hated throughout his life?”

  “Just about,” Phaedra said. “After he died, the young king who had grown up in his presence undertook the project of redeeming his name. He kept Katinaras’ original writings in a vault, and had only the least objectionable portions copied and distributed. The rest of his writings took generations to filter out into the world, and they’re still considered radical by those who have read them. I think if my father had known what they were, he never would have collected them. But he thought, like you, that owning the full works of Tarphae’s greatest sage was more prestigious than subversive.”

  “All right,” Narky said, “now I’m curious. What’s so dangerous about these writings?”

  “Oh, lots of things,” Phaedra answered cheerfully. “He challenged nearly everything we believe about the Gods. He argued that Karassa is not Mayar’s daughter, but a former rival. He said that in the eastern islands and on the coast of the great continent, Karassa is the sole Goddess of the Sea, and that when our ancestors came to Tarphae and began dealing with the peoples of the western continent, there was a great struggle for supremacy. At that time, Atuna was not yet the great naval power it is now. As the continental cities grew in power and their influence spread into the westernmost islands, Mayar began to gain over Karassa as the God of the Sea and Karassa became a mere local Goddess. In the east, Her power is greater.”

  “So She’s not Mayar’s daughter?” Hunter asked.

  “Not according to Katinaras. In fact, the sage claims that the Gods have neither parents nor children, and that all familial ties between them were invented by men in order to explain allegiances and rivalries between cities. So Mayar and Magor are not really brothers, nor are Atun and Atel. They just have aspects in common, and their worshippers are usually allies in war.”

  Narky whistled. “That really is radical. Is any of it true?”

  Phaedra shrugged, but her eyes shone. “It’s hard to know, isn’t it? Do you see why all this fascinates me?”

  They nodded dumbly.

  “There’s more,” Phaedra said triumphantly, lowering her voice as if someone might be listening. “Katinaras claimed that the Gods are not male or female, They are creatures of pure magic. The sexual distinctions between God and Goddess were also invented by men. He writes that They have consented to these human notions of sex only because it makes it easier for us to pray to Them, and to believe in Them. It’s worth it for the power we give Them.”

  “I wonder what Psander thinks of that,” Hunter mused.

  “Me too,” said Phaedra. “One day, I’ll ask her.”

  “Sure you will,” Narky said, returning to his gloomy state. “When we reach the underworld. We’re not getting out of here alive.”

  “Bandu and Criton are out there,” Hunter reminded him. “They’ll come to break us out. We just have to be ready.”

  “Oh, really? Ready how?”

  “Well rested, for one thing,” Hunter answered, lying down on his back again. “I’ve been carrying people all day, and not all of them were little.”

  That quieted Narky down. They spent the next few minutes in silence. “The fairies can read minds,” Narky said at last. “Do you really think Bandu and Criton will be able to rescue us, against enemies like that?”

  “I know they’ll try.”

  Narky sighed. “You’re right. They’re going to get themselves killed.”

  “You can’t know that,” protested Phaedra. “They beat the fairies once.”

  “They ran for their lives,” said Narky. “The only way we beat the fairies was at the riddle game, so unless you think that’s going to come up again…”

  “Well,” Phaedra said, “is there any other way to get out of here?”

  They turned to look at the thorn bush, almost in unison. “There’s no way,” said Narky. “We have no armor and no protection.”

  Phaedra nodded and sighed. “We have to try, though.”

  Hunter swallowed. “I’ll go first,” he said.

  He stepped gingerly closer to the entryway, practically on tiptoe. When he was about four feet away, the plant started waving its thorny branches in his direction. This isn’t going to work, he thought. Still, he pressed on. He reached out toward the branches, hoping to catch a hold and keep the thorns out of his way. The branches waved and rustled sideways, away from his outstretched hands. He edged closer. With each step, the bush further contorted itself to avoid his grasp. Maybe it would let him through! Within a step or two he would reach a place where he might be able to leap through to the other side. He carefully lifted his foot, inched it forward…

  With a snap, the branches closed in on him from all directions, ready to tear the flesh from his bones. Hunter threw his whole body backward, covering his head with his arms. The thorns tore at his arms, legs, back and sides, ripping holes in his clothes and clawing at his flesh. Then he was out of their reach, lying on the ground and bleeding from a thousand scratches.

  “Oh, Gods!” cried Phaedra, hobbling over to him. “I’m sorry, Hunter, oh I’m so sorry! We should have known!”

  “We did know,” Hunter reminded her. “But I had to try anyway. It was worth the risk.”

  “If you say so,” said Narky. “Better you than me. Good thing you covered your face.”

  “Right,” said Hunter. “Phaedra, stop. There’s nothing you can do for me. I was already hurting all over anyway.”

  Phaedra shook her head, tears in her eyes. “You’re so brave. I shouldn’t have made you go.”

  “You didn’t,” Hunter told her. “I volunteered. It wasn’t a bad idea to try.”

  Narky snorted. “It was a terrible idea.”

  They did not try again.

  The elves came back a few hours later, bringing eight tired and battered children with them. Miserable as the children looked, Hunter was glad at least to see that they had all returned, and with every limb intact. As far as he was concerned, that had hardly been a foregone conclusion.

  “Sleep now,” Raider Eleven recommended. “We will rouse you early tomorrow morning for your first full day of the games. Tonight was only a taste.”

  The children did not even complain. Instead, they simply lay down on the moss and closed their eyes. The raiders left again.

  “No dinner?” asked Narky. Their stomachs had been grumbling for at least an hour now.

  “No dinner,” repeated Hunter. “You don’t think those green mushrooms are edible, do you?”

  “I’m almost willing to try,” said Phaedra. “If they’re not growing out of corpses, that’s good enough for me.”

  “Maybe we should wait ’til tomorrow and ask the elves,” Hunter suggested.

  “Maybe,” said Phaedra, looking hungrily at the floor. “No, you’re right.”

  But the fairies woke them so early the next morning that nobody had the wherewithal to ask. By the time Hunter even noticed his empty stomach, the elves had already marched off in two lines with the children huddled between them.

  Phaedra splashed her face with water from the pool, then drank some. “Oh Gods,” she said. “It’s awful here.”

  Narky’s stomach growled so loudly Hunter could hear it. “That’s it,” he said. “I don’t care if they’re poisoned, I’m having mushrooms for breakfast. At least I won’t die with an empty stomach.”

  With that, Narky picked a small green mushroom off the ground by the pool and ate it. Hunter and Phaedra watched as he chewed the mushroom, swallowed it, stood for a moment in careful consideration, and then reached for another. So far, he seemed completely unharmed. And he was eating.

  With their stomachs feeling the way they did, there was no more room for caution. Soon all three of them were plucking mushrooms from the ground by the handful and unceremoniously stuffing themselves with glowing fungi. Within minutes they were lying on
the ground, clutching their abdomens and wondering if they’d been poisoned after all.

  “Why are they so filling?” asked Narky miserably. “I feel like I just ate half a cow.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Hunter. He thought his stomach might burst. How many mushrooms had he actually eaten, though? Ten? Twelve?

  Phaedra rolled over with a groan. “It’s the magic,” she said. “It feels like the mushrooms are expanding in my stomach. Ugh. This whole world is unbearably magical.”

  “Unbearably magical,” Narky repeated, his words interrupted by a sudden loud belch. “You’ve got that right.”

  “We shouldn’t have more than a couple each for lunch,” Hunter said.

  “Don’t even talk about lunch,” Phaedra advised. “I think I might skip dinner.”

  They almost did skip dinner. The children returned just when Hunter was starting to consider eating again, and their arrival put off all thought of edible mushrooms. As soon as the fairies left them alone, Delika suddenly turned and shoved Tellos to the ground.

  “I should have won today!” she shouted, jumping on top of him and beating at him with her little fists. She was crying. “You killed me, you killed me!”

  Hunter quickly pulled her off the boy, but he could see that the damage was done. The children were enemies now; the fairies had seen to that.

  “Stop, Delika,” he said, holding both her wrists in one hand while warding the boy’s sister off with the other. “Stop, all of you!”

  Phaedra had reached them by now, and helped him by pulling the twins away toward the other side of the room. The others looked sullenly from one side to the other, wary of every little rival.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Phaedra said. “We’re all humans! Who cares what twisted games those monsters are putting you through? We have to stick together, don’t you see that?”

  “They’ll eat the weak one!” Delika shrieked. “You’re the weak one! You’re the weak one!”

  “That’s it!” Narky shouted, standing up. The startled children went silent immediately. They hadn’t heard Narky speak since he had lost his eye.

  “If I see you fighting again,” he said, gazing down at the little ones with his one good eye, “I’ll strangle you all and let the fairies decide which one’s a dead servant and which one’s a meal.”

  The children’s eyes widened fearfully. They believed him.

  “There’s a chance,” Hunter said, trying to de-escalate, “that we’ll all make it out of here alive. But we have to be ready. We can’t fight with each other. If our friends come to get us, we’ll have to be healthy, and strong, and ready to run in whatever direction they tell us to run. You need to help each other whenever you can, so that we’ll all be strong. Do you think you can do that?”

  They all nodded, still looking at Narky. “We won’t fight,” Tella said meekly.

  “Good,” said Phaedra. “Now, did they feed you out there? Are you hungry?”

  The children nodded again, more vigorously this time. “They gave us some,” Breaker said, “but they only had four plates.”

  So the elves were making the children fight over scraps of food, without ever telling them that parts of their prison were edible. If only Hunter still had his sword…

  “I might have thought something like that,” said Phaedra. “It’s all right, though, you can eat here. These mushrooms are very filling, so you may each have one.”

  They ate gratefully, and there were no more fights. Later, Hunter even saw Delika patting Tellos on the arm, though he never heard her apologize. Between the hope of escape and fear of the one-eyed Narky, the children made no more trouble. They passed the next evening in peace, and then the next. Hunter was relieved not to have to break up any more fights, but the passage of time worried him. It was hard to be completely sure how much time was passing, but he counted a new day each time the fairies brought the children back from the games. Four such days passed, and five, and six, and Bandu and Criton still made no appearance. Had they been captured? Hunter could not believe that they would have abandoned him and the others. It was not like them. Where could they be?

  On the eighth day, he really started to worry. On the ninth and tenth he was sick with fear. On the eleventh day, the islanders fasted and prayed to every God they could think of, even though they knew that no God was listening.

  39

  Bandu

  She was not glad to have her memories back. She had held them mostly at bay throughout their escape, but in the forest the horrors of her childhood sprang upon her all at once, clawing for her attention. It made her wish she had never opened the box.

  She had been alone and starving when the fairies captured her and brought her to their castle. She had fought for her food harder than the other children had fought for their lives; in the end only she had emerged with both. They had made all the children attend the first feast, but after that, they had been allowed to stay away until their own times came – all except for her. As the winner she had been forced to go to every feast, to serve the queen her wine and amuse her with forced smiles and graceless dancing. The elves took a particular delight in the weaknesses of human children. It assured them that the Gods had made a mistake.

  The cruel memories flooded Bandu’s mind, vision after vision and sound after horrifying sound. This time as before, Goodweather was her anchor. She thought of the great den that had whispered to her in the dark, and her strength returned. It was Goodweather who had told her of the Gods’ abandonment, Goodweather who had taught her how to speak to the world and how to listen. And it was Goodweather who had opened the gate for her, and told her when to run.

  Bandu opened her eyes.

  “Bandu!” Criton cried. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  She shook her head. “I am here now. They are gone?”

  “I think so. Should I climb a tree and check?”

  She nodded, and soon heard what she already believed: the fairies had gone. They had taken the children and the other islanders and marched them off to Illweather. Criton wanted to follow them, but Bandu stopped him. They had eleven days before the fairies could slaughter their friends. It was time they might need to learn how to open the gate.

  Criton was studying Bandu’s face as they walked back toward the ruins of Gateway. “What happened when you were here before? When you were a girl?”

  Bandu did not answer for a time. Where could she even begin? “My father takes me to trees,” she said, “and he leaves me there. I tell you before. The Kind Folk catch me then, when I am alone. They take us to Goodweather, and make us do… I don’t know how to say. I live, but they make me work and they say I am wicked. Only Goodweather is kind to me. Goodweather opens gate and says run, so I run. After I go through the gate, I hear the wind’s voice for the first time. It is kind too, and it tells me how to get home. It brings me to the sea, it tells me which water leaf to hide in. But I don’t go back to father. I go to trees and live there.”

  They arrived at the ruins, where they found Hunter’s sword and armor lying on the ground, not far from Narky’s spear. “Who is Goodweather?” Criton asked. “Why do you want to name the – our… child that?”

  Bandu sat down on a stone and put her feet up on another. “I’m tired,” she said. “Goodweather is not a man, he is a big den where Kind Folk live. Very big, and old.”

  “A den? Do you mean like Hession’s cavern?”

  She shook her head. “Like Silent Hall. But bigger, very bigger, and old and alive. I don’t know how to say. But he talks to me, and teaches me, and tells me when to run. So now I live, and I want to name the young Goodweather.”

  Criton sighed. “I guess we can talk about that later,” he said. “But if we’re staying here instead of following them, what exactly do you think we should do?”

  She was about to answer, but he stopped her before she could. “No,” he said. “I know you want us to find a way to open the Gateway again. But how? Where do we sta
rt?”

  “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I stay here and try things. You look inside. Maybe animal skins help, if you can find and read.”

  “Oh,” said Criton. “All right. Good thinking.”

  He wandered off to pick through the ruins while Bandu scratched her head and tried to decide how to begin. She had never witnessed the sky in between the worlds being opened – Goodweather had done it for her somehow, but she had not seen it, and the fairies had been on this side while she was on the other. All she knew was that the fairies’ nets dissolved when the gate closed, and she thought that must be because the nets and the gate were the same thing. If she could only pull a net or two from the air, the gate would open.

  She reached out her hand and tried to feel for a break in the sky-mesh, a place to slip in a finger and pull. There was nothing. She closed her eyes and tried again, but she already knew it was useless. If it were that easy, the elves would do it more often. They loved the taste of children.

  The elves liked to speak in poetry before they did anything big. Would Bandu have to do the same? She didn’t think she could. It was hard enough for her to speak without rhyme or rhythm. She did not have that word-music in her. What could she do then, besides keep trying and hope that Criton would find a way to help her?

  Goodweather. Somehow, she would have to ask Goodweather. Was there a way to do that without the elves catching her?

  Maybe she could ask another tree to take a message – an old tree, with roots deep enough to touch the roots of the world. It was worth trying.

  Back out to the woods she went, leaving Criton where he was, consumed with his search. The plants around Gateway were all too young, but the deeper into the woods she went, the older the trees became. She wondered if any of them remembered her, from when she had been here as a girl.